Can Love Wait til After the Chaggim?
In Israel this time of year, all anyone hears is that if you want something done, you have to wait until “acharei ha-chag”, or after the holidays. It’s as though all of life stands still until after the chaggim are over. A whole whopping month, knocked out of action!
The thing is there are some things you can’t put on hold, like finding or being in love.
Just this morning, I was on the way to meetings and had a million things to do, because after all Rosh Hashanna is just around the corner. My husband called to say he was in agony as he fell off his bike and landed on his right hand.
Suddenly, it felt like the world stopped. I had to make sure my husband was ok… so I ran to meet him at Terem (Jerusalem’s version of A&E) to be with him at his time of need.
Point is, as inconvenient as it was to put my life on hold at the craziest time of the year, being with him at his time of need trumped everything, because I love him…
Love isn’t always convenient. Many will tell you they found love when they were at the height of being crazy busy with things like work or exams, or when they really weren’t up for it. One client shared with me that she met her husband when she broke her leg on a ski trip (yep, he was the orthopedic surgeon).
The trick for all of us – those already in a relationship and those looking for love – is to be open enough to recognize when love is staring us in the face, so we don’t miss it.
While putting your dating or love life on hold until after the chaggim makes sense, it’s also a terrible idea. Because love is one of those emotions we just don’t have control over. Like when we choose to take our car in for a service, or collecting our check books from the bank, or returning our books to the library, or visiting a sick friend.
As it happens, especially if you’re in Israel, there are so many opportunities to meet new people. Meals, shul, parties, communal events are all great meeting places, that putting your search for love on hold at this time would be a missed opportunity.
Leaving some things to after the chag makes good sense, for example, a new project at work, a new hobby, even a New Year’s resolution, but not your search for love.
If you would like to make sure that this time next year, you are sitting beside the love of your life (but hopefully not in A&E), contact me so that I can help you overcome your relationship barriers and get your love life on track.
Is Your Marriage Strong Enough to Build a Physical Home in Israel?
Is your marriage strong enough to withstand building a physical home in Israel?
Hope and Healing: From Warsaw to Jerusalem
Sitting in a café in Jerusalem on Yom Yerushalayim, my home for the past 8 years, it’s hard to believe that just last week I was in Warsaw, visiting all the sites that represent how Jews used to live and thrive in a country that largely accepted them and that they called home for centuries, and how that was all taken away during the Shoah in 1939-1945. In addition to Warsaw we visited Mezerich, Majdanek, and Lublin. We visited the cemetery in Mezerich to find the remains of my husband’s relatives only to discover that most of the tombstones had been removed, likely used by the Nazis as paving stones as we saw in Majdanek. It was gut wrenching to see this first-hand.
The primary purpose of my trip, wasn’t a heritage trip, but rather a medical conference for practitioners and sufferers of MRKH syndrome (a syndrome that renders a woman incapable of having babies naturally and that makes sex painful as she is born without a womb and a partially developed vaginal canal). I was invited to speak on the topic of hope and healing.
MRKH affects 1 in 10,000 women around the world. It isn’t unique to any specific culture or race. Little is known about why some women have it. Most women discover they have MRKH between ages 13-15 (some even later), when they either experience painful sex or discover that their period hasn’t begun, despite the fact that they have produce female hormones and eggs.
Speaking on the topic of hope to a group of medical professionals just hours after taking a walking tour with my husband and baby through the streets of Jewish Warsaw was surreal. It was as though I was being handed a reminder of how my own people’s entire existence was a result of the hope they held dear throughout the many pogroms and the Shoah.
And there I was standing in front of medical professionals, some who were young students, about to embark upon their careers, and other seasoned professionals who’ve had the misfortune of sharing bad news of their patient’s MRKH diagnosis as they sob in their offices…feeling complete despair at this new life changing information. Believing that they were, for all intents and purposes women like any other, but then in an instant robbed of the belief that they will be able to have children as easily and effortlessly as other women.
When I was first asked to speak at the conference, I questioned my ability to talk about hope. After all, I am by no means a world leading expert on the subject. Sure I work with couples, on trying to resurrect the hope they once had about being together forever and rekindling their feelings. I also worked with 100’s of single men and women who feel hopeless about finding love and work with them to overcome barriers and traumas so that they feel more hopeful and find love. But to then teach how to convey hopefulness to other professionals and to women born without a womb…and in Warsaw of all places…the task felt overwhelming.
Through researching the subject of hope, I revisited my own struggles that challenged my hope and drew upon what helped me during those times.
(For the rest of this blog post check out: www.gethelpisrael.com)
Get Your Emotional S#!% Together to Avoid a PLAYER…
A Player will say things to try and make you feel good, because he has his focus set on one thing, and I’m sorry but it isn’t winning your heart!
Why Relationship Therapy When Things are Good is Great!!!
“My relationship is rock solid, what would relationship therapy do for me?”
This is something I hear a lot in my line of work.
Most people believe they should only go to therapy when their relationship is on the rocks. Months and years after trying to sort things out on their own.
Let’s consider how that works. You feel angry at your partner for something they did. You try and tell them, and they don’t respond the way you want them too. So you keep trying all sorts of different ways. You still don’t get the response you want. By this point, you no longer feel angry. You’ve now reached FLAMINGLY FURIOUS!!!!
So now what? Who’s feeling motivated to work on a relationship now? The Answer: “NO ONE!”
Nobody feels motivated to work on a relationship after so much water has schlept under the bridge. And for those of us with poor relationship models and few tools and skills, we’re at a loss. Even for those of us with great skills if only one of us has them, where are we? And throw in the fact that our emotions are all over the place and wreaking havoc, it’s like staring right into the eye of a tornado… Not a pretty sight!
So when is the best time for marriage therapy? It’s when you’re feeling pretty optimistic. This helps in a few ways. First, it ensures that both of you feel motivated to really invest in the relationship. When you’re in giving mode, your both gonna put in your all to make sure your relationship stays on track. Second, people who feel good and secure in their relationship are more receptive and open to ways of maintaining and protecting their relationship. This is the time when marriage and relationship therapy is most potent! Not when you can’t even remember why you chose to marry each other because your so damn angry!
Make a list of all the things you most want to protect about your relationship…I’d love to hear about it!!!! Send them my way: [email protected]
When your relationship is over..is it really?
Often when couples come for therapy or coaching, they feel desperate about their situation. They fear that their relationship is over… beyond repair. What unfortunately brings couples to therapy is the threat from one of the pair that if they don’t come to therapy with the intention of doing something drastically different, then the relationship is OVER.
This threat can often be read as a plea for help. The person threatening to leave the relationship can be suggesting a few different things:
”I feel that I have been putting a lot of work into this relationship, and I don’t see that you have been putting in as much as I have.”
” I’m bored…I need more stimulation.”
“My feelings have changed…I need to remember what brought us together in the first place.”
Everyone has a role to play in their couple relationship. All relationships struggle to find the right balance at different times. When one person ends up doing the bulk of the emotional work, this can leave them to feel as though they are carrying a heavy load.
In order for a healthy relationship to flourish, the couple needs to understand that every relationship is dynamic. When one part of the couple makes one move it usually results in the other part needing to make a move as well. Positivity breeds positivity and negativity breeds negativity. By focusing on the positive things our partner does and appreciating them for it we are modeling for our partner how to treat us well. This concept works in reverse as well.
By talking through the parameters of the relationship,in the presence of an objective observer couples have the power to turn around an unsuccessful relationship… and make it sensational. While talking through all of the details of a relationship may sound a little unromantic, when put into practice each part of the couple begins to feel clearer about their roles and feels like an equal player. By feeling like they have a role in the relationship people begin to feel empowered. This makes them feel better about themselves and inspires them to see a brighter future. Once the positive feelings begin to flow couples then begin to feel more affectionate towards one another, and the romance then has the opportunity to flourish.
How do you deal with your feelings about your relationship when they are at low tide? Drop me a line: [email protected]
Finding Love with Serendipity…
Most of us would prefer to find love with help from serendipity! No one really likes to be “fixed up.”. Even the very expression belies the negativity of the whole event. Cars and old tv’s get “fixed up.” That’s because they are broken down. To fix up a person with someone else somehow implies that he/she is not working right and needs some work done to them. The average person would much rather find their true soulmate on their own and not through a third party… no matter how reliable the friend. While girls are probably more likely to admit it, even guys, if pressed, would prefer the “romantic” way of meeting someone.
Maybe it’s the novels we read or the movies we watch. Those portray the exceptional romantic encounter that leads to true love… the goal most of us aspire in forging a relationship.
Perhaps there is something to the notion of serendipity. That discovery that happens when we’re least expecting it. So many important discoveries and inventions just happen while the scientist was really looking for something else. A surprising number of the conveniences of modern life were invented when someone stumbled upon a discovery or capitalized on an accident: the microwave oven, safety glass, smoke detectors, artificial sweeteners, X-ray imaging. Many blockbuster drugs of the 20th century emerged because a lab worker picked up on the “wrong” information.
No one knows what elements go into the creative process of making such discoveries by chance, but if we did, my, what great inventions could be found! In the same sense, this “mystery” that we call “falling in love” could be explored, quantified, bottled, and produced so that more, better and longer lasting relationships could be produced, leading to a profound change in society itself.
Alas, such a pursuit in discovering this serendipitous mystery is itself self-defeating. For like so many of the important things in life it does take much knowledge, skill, work, and effort to achieve success, but there is always the X-factor that makes for a real break-through. Some will call it fate. Others call it G-d. Scientists might call it serendipity. From my limited experience, it is when one is least expecting it, that great things can result.
So when it comes to great discoveries in science as well as matters of the heart, it is probably best to “leave a little to G-d”.
Where would you most appreciate the love of your life showing up? How do you imagine you will recognize it? Email me: [email protected]
Great Date Expectations- What’s Allowed?
Everyone is looking for “THE ONE”. Looking for “THE ONE” means that you’re probably carrying around a list of what you expect from your dream partner. Someone good looking, smart, kind and of course some one who makes us laugh. Some of us have subconscious expectations that are getting in the way of making our relationship dreams a reality…
From the minute we enter this world we start creating a subconscious laundry list of partner expectations. Our list is influenced by the way we grow up. Watching Disney movies, fairy tales, and even witnessing our parent’s relationship, all influences how we think our partners should be. What most of us don’t realise is that there are so many subconscious, hidden expectations of our potential spouse, that we aren’t even aware of what they might exactly be.
When it comes to dating, making sure that we date someone who really matches our expectation level, in a realistic way, means being super clear with ourselves about how we want a relationship to look.
We need to be realistic about what we have to offer. We can’t expect to marry a super model when we look like Hulk’s brother. We need our expectations to be grounded in some form of reality. Is it a fair expectation for your dates to always be happy, if we occasionally feel down? Can we really expect our dates to always have interesting things to say? Do we always have interesting things to say? Can we expect our dates to have completely secure jobs? What field in this day and age is completely secure and without the potential for a down turn?
On the other hand just because we have a great career, doesn’t mean we can’t be with someone who’s less educated but has other interests and who has a great sense of self and lots of presence to offer a relationship. How many times have the very people who would never have been a suitable partner, turned out to be ‘THE ONE’, because they offer the complimentary attributes that complete the other person.
Being too overly focused on expectations whether you are in a relationship or wanting to be in a relationship, can make being in a relationship or getting into one feel like too much hard work. It takes the magic out of being with the ‘other’ who can teach you new aspects about life and yourself, that you’d never have if you only dated according to your strict expectations.
I advise my clients to manage their expectations. Work on their confidence and their ability to be there for themselves. So that they can bring their whole selves to their dates with clear expectations of what they want in the relationship. And to always date with an openness to moving beyond their expectations into the reality of who the other person is, which may be just what they need.
Want to find out if your expectations are realistic? Email me: [email protected].
How Excessive Relationship Expectations Can Kill Your Marriage…
“I can’t believe my husband forgot our anniversary again,” lamented a client recently. “We have been married for nearly 12 years and he never remembers.” I asked her how she knew he didn’t remember it. Exasperated she related how there was no gift, no dinner reservation, not even a trifling text to acknowledge their special day. Her relationship expectation that he would remember and celebrate their anniversary was not met and she was livid with frustrated rage.
How many times does this happen to us in our relationships. You expected her to be on time for dinner with your parents, and not um and ah over what shoes matches her new leather jacket. He was meant to take out the garbage, not leave it out for the cats to brawl over in the garden. We all carry conscious or unconscious expectations from our partner, and when these aren’t met we are inevitably disappointed, frustrated and fuming for a name calling fight.
How many times have important dates which should have been celebrated been turned into a nuclear cold war. Instead of giggling over a glass of bubbly, you find yourself in separate rooms trying to cool off from the rage of being overlooked, forgotten and feeling unimportant to your partner. Whilst they are often bewildered, confused and in turn angry at your ‘disproportionate’ reaction to their not celebrating your birthday.
The question we have to ask ourselves before we get cross with our partners is, ‘Is this a fair expectation to have. Did we communicate our expectation so that they could fulfil it?’ This could mean deciding that your birthday celebration is important to you, which means you need to express this to your partner. Don’t just tell them it’s important but outline exactly what you expect with all its requisite specifics. A birthday card, a romantic candlelit dinner and a present that you shop for together. And remind, remind, remind your partner so that it will be done!
I can just see you rolling your eyes. They should know this on their own. If they loved me they’d naturally know how to read my mind and do exactly what I want. However is this true? Do you magically know exactly what your partner wants? A relationship is about being fair and realistic, not about magically getting what we want.
We need to turn around to our partner with love and compassion and help them join us in meeting our expectations. Teach them to treat us how we want to be treated, with kindness and encouragement, rather than judgement and frustration. We readily acknowledge that we are doing the best we can in our relationship. We need to extend this to our partners who are also doing the best they can.
Tips for managing expectations in your marriage
- Be Aware of Your Expectations – Be honest with yourself about your expectations from your partner. If you’re upset that they didn’t cut the roast beef, it’s because you forgot to tell them. If something is important, spell it out, don’t play guessing games in your relationship.
- Communicate Your Expectation – If you don’t tell your partner what you want from them, they won’t know. The more specific you are the easier it is for them to come to the party and fulfil your wants. So don’t just say – fetch the dry cleaning, get specific- tell them which dry cleaner, which item, when, and to make sure the item was cleaned.
- Lower Your Expectations – When you lower your expectations you will be surprised when they do what you love, like organize a fun night out. This is better than stewing over their shortcomings.
- Take the Pressure Off – If an expectation has become a continual wild dog fight, step back, and take the pressure off. Forget the anniversary if it’s ruining your relationship. Give your partner the space to decide for themselves what they want to do. This will encourage them to do what you want.
- Model what is Important to You – Buy yourself flowers so your partner knows what you love. Go out with your mates to that concert you’re dying to go to.
It’s your partner’s choice to join you in living the way you want. Show them you’re not waiting for them. You’re going to live your best life right now!
What relationship expectations are you not prepared to let go of? Email me: [email protected]