How to Glow: The Jewish Woman's Marriage Boost

In the second half of my interview with Jamie Geller, we moved beyond cooking to some other major areas where she's been an inspiration to those around her. As the head of the largest kosher food network, Jamie Geller has a lot to teach us about entrepreneurship. In this episode, she shares a bit about her background as a successful producer at HBO and the transition to building her own business....

WE GOT JAMIE GELLER!!! Can you tell I'm excited?!  Jamie Geller, today the head of the largest kosher network in the world, has been an inspiration to me from the time I was a newlywed and stumbled upon her first cookbook, Quick and Kosher. Reading about her transition from successful single professional to what-am-I-supposed-to-do-with-this-oven made me feel so validated in my total lack of...

Last week we talked about finding your inner guru, the voice of calm that you can call upon when your brain feels like it’s spinning out of control. This week I want to introduce you to the idea of finding an external guru. The concept is simple. Find an area where you struggle, whether practically or emotionally. And instead of troubleshooting, look for the person for whom this is natural, satisf...

In this week’s episode, I’m going to teach you a fun, easy tool that you can use to access the “wise” part of your brain when your thoughts feel out of control. When we get caught up in anxiety, insecurity, resentment, or other strong emotions, especially if we are also newly-married and those emotions can be super intense, it can feel like our thoughts are spinning out of control. We get caught u...

The best thing about working on your marriage is that you get exposed to patterns of thinking that have existed for years--maybe even your entire life--and never really surfaced until it affects you in this relationship.  What looks like a big problem is actually an amazing opportunity to improve your own self-mastery in a way you never could before. Anxiety and resentment both come from an e...

Sometimes we get so caught up in "fixing" things that we lose sight of what we are actually aiming for. But what does marriage look like with *true* connection? What can we achieve when we allow ourselves to drop our agenda and truly experience our spouse? Disney may have given us one image of what "Happily Ever After" looks like. Design your own dream. Let's aim high.

In this week's episode, we're diving into what happens in your brain when someone gives you a compliment and why never manages to improve our self image in the long term. It's a brain-nerdy one, so I know you'll love it :)  Think about who you could be when you could generate your OWN confidence and self-esteem, whenever you need it. I'm going to tell you how. First Year Married Online Course...

What do you get when you put two marriage coaches on a Zoom call? A fun, loving deep dive into the world of making marriages better.  Maggie Reyes recently came out with a (now best-selling) book, Questions for Couples Journal and I thought this was the perfect chance to invite Maggie on to share with the FYM audience! I get so many questions about how to make date nights more meaningful and...

It amazes me how much more comfortable we are talking about working on our parenting, but nobody wants to mention that they're working on their marriage. Somehow, we can grow in parenting and it's noble, but if we need to grow in our marriage, it speaks of some deep failure in us. But let's take a step back and consider... What is actually going to make the biggest impact on your child's life? Ano...

Whether it's you or your husband, because of COVID-19 or you simply haven't landed the right job yet, unemployment can cause huge stress--particularly for newlyweds.  In this episode, I'm diving into some of the neuroscience that explains why our reaction might be more intense than logic dictates, what to do about it, and how to use this (or any) challenge as a way of building and supporting...

Are there some things you just shouldn't think in a marriage? What does it mean if I'm annoyed by my husband? Do happy couples ever think like this? This week we're going to dive into something that's been coming up a lot in my coaching-- worry and panic and fear about certain thoughts. Put another way, your thoughts ABOUT your thoughts are causing more trouble than the thoughts themselves! How do...

It's been a crazy few weeks for us all! I'm sorry I haven't been here in a little bit but I needed to step back for a few weeks. Hopefully you had a chance to catch up on some older episodes during the break. ;)  There's no possible way for a podcast episode to address the range of experiences and emotions that COVID-19 is bringing up for us. For some, it's the frustration of being stuck insi...

In this week’s podcast, I’m answering questions that have come in about being irritated with a husband who is wasting his time during lockdown. This is a pretty common challenge (a LOT of you commented on this one!) so know you’re not alone--but I wanted to share a few ideas to help you understand this differently and hopefully experience less frustration. He seems like an extension of us when we...

* Coronavirus Update: After hearing from several of you, Noah and I talked extensively about how to best support you all during this situation. We've decided to make a temporary pay-what-you-can pricing on the First Year Married online course. Please share with your friends and let's support each other as much as we can. This doesn't have to be hard on your marriage--it could actually be amazing....

Many of you have listened to and adopted Zero Based Scheduling (from Episode 2: Why You Don't Have Enough Time and Episode 6: Zero Based Scheduling Update ). But now, thanks to work-from-homes, school closures and, for some of you, kids at home (gasp!) that beautiful zero-based schedule has gone right out the window. Never fear! Zero-Based scheduling can be done on the fly. And it's still awesome....

We are celebrating a holiday in the Jewish world... one that isn't quite as famous as Yom Kippur or Passover... today is Purim! What happens on Purim? Among many other things, like donating money to charity, hearing the story of Purim read in synagogue, dressing up and bringing gifts to friends… men drink. Sometimes women drink, too, but generally it’s the men. And with that often comes behaviors...

This week I’m answering a listener question and I think it’s a topic that will be so fun to dive into. Let me start by reading what she wrote: Could you discuss “the importance of self-esteem: how both poor and healthy self-esteem can influence our relationships, and how to strengthen it. I realise that this is absolutely a backbone of all your material, but maybe it's worth revisiting a basic.” S...

In this week's episode, inspired by my husband's recent business trip, I lead you through an exercise to re-evaluate your self-care. Many women drop their self-care (especially the most basic things, like sleeping and eating) when we get married or get into a long-term relationship. These are all areas that we generally took responsibility for (even if we were lagging, we certainly weren't blaming...

My business coach Stacey Boehman was giving this analogy about entrepreneurs and their new businesses and even though I’ve heard her say it before suddenly it totally clicked that this is such a fantastic perspective shift for newlyweds as well! Ok so here’s the analogy: Your business is a baby. Your marriage isn’t here to make you happy. (Sorry!) Just like if you had a brand new baby or a brand n...

For many newlyweds, they are feeling a lot of shame about negative emotions about their marriage. It's important to know that there is a known physiological high that comes at the beginning of a relationship. For many women, there is also the wedding high. And just like ANYTHING new you begin, there’s a back-to-reality moment. I want you to know that that’s totally fine. Being a newlywed is, on an...

We're talking this week about the three main parts of staying in our lane: Emotionally, Physically, and in How You Show Up. Instead of feeling good because of what he’s been doing or not doing and what you made that mean, let’s feel good because you are taking care of your own emotional wellbeing. For some of you, especially if you’re new (and there are so many new people so welcome!!) I know that...

This week I'm taking your questions about sharing your FEELINGS with your husband! Question #1: HOW do I share my feelings with my husband, and how do I create a relationship where we can do that? Answer: First of all, STOP and be absolutely sure that you aren't sharing your feelings in an effort to change him! We always want to be responsible for our OWN feelings, so you must stop and do some tho...

I was working with a client and she was stuck on the idea of being authentic with our feelings while at the same time taking responsibility for them and choosing what I call “helpful thoughts.” So this week we're going to talk about the difference between processing our feelings and holding onto our feelings. The easiest way is to think of it as sensations vs words. Thoughts are words (sentences,...

Welcome to the episode where I bonk you on the head my friends! So many of you are rocking the intellectual game with this thought work.  You see it in your friends and family. You know your recurring thoughts. You are even seeing some changes in how you show up. But you have NOT taken out a pen and paper and actually done the heavy lifting! I get it... until you've done it, it doesn't seem t...

2019 was the year of the podcast at First Year Married (we passed 40k!!!). I’ve been honored to meet you, to have your sisters and friends get hooked, to introduce this work I’m so passionate about. Thank you everyone!!  2020 is going to be the year of group coaching. It’s time to take this work and really dive deep and apply it. Improving our marriages improves every area of our life, and it...