Chany Rosengarten on Self Love

Today’s Guest Expert is Chany Rosengarten, creator of “Wife, Heal Your Life” workshops. It’s time to hear how a woman can ensure that she truly is treating herself with love…and not simply by going to get her nails done! Let’s listen in…

Self Love Is To Love Who I Am

Leah: What are self-love and self-care?
Chany: Self-love is important. We were created inside of our own bodies and this is the person we should love. There are things about us that we want to change and that we find hard to accept, and self love is to love who I am. I’m precious, I’m worthwhile, and I’m worth the time and love to create the life I want.

Leah: Does this get confused with narcissism and selfishness?
Chany: When we don’t have self-love, meaning we don’t respect ourselves and we don’t feel deserving to take care of our needs, then we expect others to do it for us. For instance, if we have children, then we will try to turn them into something that we need them to be so that they can fulfill our emptiness. When we have self love, we’re the most powerful we can be and it overflows to others.

The First Piece of Self Love is Compassion

Leah: When I look at myself and see that I’m not where I want to be, how can I love myself?
Chany: The first piece of self-love is compassion. Honoring your vulnerability is important.

Leah: Can you share life situations, which you helped people with?
Chany: Let’s talk about weight loss. I want to accept myself, even though I do want to lose weight. Losing weight is a constant battle. When we don’t accept ourselves, we cheat ourselves. We’re really just a human being who wants to lose weight. It’s OK. The battle over the issue stops being a battle when we take the chaos out of it. Accept that this is just a struggle. When we take the drama away, we could move forward much faster.

Leah: What would the internal dialogue be from not accepting yourself to accepting yourself?
Chany: First place to begin is to not shame yourself. Look at your struggle and see yourself as a human, as a heart, a mind, a soul, a body. Talk to yourself and say this is so hard and this is just not happening for you. You need to honor yourself. Think back to when you first felt this struggle. Ask yourself why you want this and why this is so difficult. Understand yourself and respect yourself in this struggle.

Leah: This sounds amazing! I also tell my viewers that a person needs to think, “What is G-d seeing in me?” You had willpower last week, but not this week. However, G-d sees a person who is working on herself trying to do the right thing and doing acts of kindness. In G-d’s eyes, you’re normal, even though you may have some work to do. That vision should help you to remove your negative thoughts about yourself.
Chany: Let’s expand. I had times in my life when I felt it was so painful, and I didn’t know how I could live with and accept myself. We’re not bodies that have a soul. We’re souls that have a human experience. Lacking willpower by eating too much ice cream is so small compared to our greatness and our influence and our being able to create worlds! We’re so much greater than the challenges that we have. For me, when I dealt with shame and failure, I focused on the prayer that my soul is pure. That gave me the information that while it’s true that I’m struggling with a pint of ice cream, that has nothing on me since I am a soul.

Leah: In your teachings you speak of “LAND”. Please explain what that means?
Chany: When you’re standing on the beach and the waves are crashing onto the sand and land, you know that the waves, no matter how big they get won’t be able to overflow the land. The waves just want to be more, and if they could, they would flood the entire world since water permeates every living thing. Water just wants to be more and expand, just like human beings. The water is crashing onto the land, which doesn’t do anything. The land is not moving and it doesn’t allow the water to overflow. When we’re in a relationship and one person is “crashing waves on you,” the boundary is “LAND.” All you have to do is “be.” We’re the land. Hold your ground while the water is crashing around you. It doesn’t have to be complicated. The more we are who we are and know who we are, the more we are the boundary.

L = Love yourself.
A = Authority – Know who you are and operate from your place of power
N = Negotiation – How you communicate
D = Direction – Know what you want in life and how to get there

Leah: How would “LAND” help a person with the following question: “I feel spiritually disconnected. I look the part. How do I create a life of alignment?”
Chany: When we feel disconnected, we have farmed out our reality and spirituality to other people’s ideas. “I think I have to make a potato kugel for Shabbos, because that’s the only way I know I’m worth it and lovable”. However, what do you want? Sometimes it’s about the potato kugel because it’s beautiful for Shabbos, but know what you need to feel spiritually connected. Know yourself. Respect what is meaningful to you. Honoring who you are gives you permission to connect and the ability to feel spiritual.

Self Love Is Honoring Your Needs & Giving To Yourself

Leah: What is self-love all about? Let’s address LAND in more depth.
Chany: Love yourself – Self-love is honoring your needs and giving to yourself, allowing yourself to be your most fullest.
Many women say they’re depressed, exhausted, and depleted and they say they cannot do an act of self-love. It doesn’t feel good to not be feeling good. The more we can be compassionate to ourselves during a hard day, the faster we could get out of that pain. When we could accept ourselves unconditionally, we’re free! When I first came to the idea that loving myself was actually my sacred duty, I started doing my nails, which meant many things to me. My nails were about going out and doing an act of self-care and it felt good! After about two years, I realized that my nails were thinning and I honestly didn’t like the feel of my cuticles being touched and cut. At some point, this had been self-care, but I realized that I didn’t enjoy this anymore. I then found other ways to be taken care of. My needs are what I want to honor.

Authority: Realizing that we have a tremendous amount of power over ourselves and we don’t have power over someone else. There is a lot of authority that I have in my life. What am I OK with? What am I not comfortable with? Do I deserve what I really want and can I go after that?

The LAND method is about creating boundaries in relationships. When you’re the LAND, things can happen to you, but you stay who you are. How? Firstly by loving yourself and respecting your needs. Next is knowing what you have authority over what choices you can make. I have authority over me. What do I want to do? Can you give yourself permission to do it in a small way? You have many values and what will you act on? Say no to what you don’t want and say yes to what you do want.

Negotiation is how do we communicate with others? I love you and I love me; this is how I will love both of us. Asking for our needs can be difficult. Honor your needs. It takes courage to openly talk about who you are!

Direction: What do you want? What direction do you want to go in? What calls you? Many of us are afraid of our desires. Our desires are our soul calling us to the next level. Who am I? What is my calling? Where do I want to go? Go after who you were created to be!

Leah: A woman wrote in that as a mother, she feels passionless, lethargic, and bored. How would she take care of herself?
Chany: Being a mother requires focus and being present for other people. Doing this continually, can zap us of our energy. There’s no need to stop what you’re doing, you just need to connect to yourself. What is your passion? There’s so much that we can do inside of what we’re doing that gives us life. Some women love to cook, some love to create a beautiful home environment, some like to have conversations, some like a hobby or a side business. Whatever it is, it’s asking ourselves, “What about me?” We give so much, but who is giving? You are giving, and you need to connect with yourself. Getting to know yourself more can be a thrill.

Leah: A woman asked, “I was ready to be the wife I was taught to be, but my husband was not anything that I thought he would be. It’s hard to get over the disappointment of my marriage.”
Chany: That is hard and also common. A lot of women are dealing with these kind of painful realities in their marital relationships.

A Wife Can Create Her Husband By Appreciating Him and Loving Him Unconditionally

Leah: In a marriage, the husband can either be fantastic or not so great, and there’s a range. The wife totally determines which range of her husband’s potential he could be at. The more the wife is disappointed in her husband, the more he will sink down to be the lowest level he could be at. A wife can create her husband by appreciating him and by loving him unconditionally. That kind of effort is G-d’s favorite kind of effort, and G-d will surely help you if you put in that effort! For this wife, she should make her husband into who she thought he would be, without controlling him. Learn our Jewish tradition, watch more ladiestalkshows, read Marriage Secrets, learn how to create your husband to be the best he could possibly be. Learn how to communicate with your husband to bring out the best in him! For the woman who feels disappointed in her husband, she’s wallowing in it. If the wife thinks she is a victim and has no control, if she wants him to grow in certain ways, make it a good experience. She could grow her husband more to what she prefers him to be. He could also be thinking the same about her! Not to diminish this wife’s issue, but there’s always something the wife can improve upon.
Chany: Women have tremendous power in our relationships. We have so much authority to influence and to negotiate. A lot of women live with difficult relationships, such as men who suffer from mental illness, addiction, https://neurofitnessfoundation.org/xanax-alprazolam/ husbands who are not committed to the same lifestyle as they are, and other deep marital disappointments. A wife is not at fault for who her husband is. She didn’t create his dysfunction and pain. The wife is here now and she’s dealing with this marital challenge as a human being. Human beings are complex. While we’re dating, we think one-dimensionally, that he will fit all the criteria of what I want on my list, but life doesn’t work that way. Husbands may be amazing in one way and not amazing in another, and that’s OK. We too are wonderful and we have things about ourselves which we find hard to accept. When we learn to accept ourselves, we could learn to accept our husbands as who he is. Your husband may have difficult things about him and he’s also wonderful.

Leah: Tell us about the workshops you offer.
Chany: My course is called, “Wife, Heal Your Life.” It teaches a woman how to heal with her life by giving herself love to create the life she desires together with her husband. There are exercises to do. After 8 weeks of doing these exercises, a woman will become a different person and she can approach her husband from a different angle of loving herself. Things change. It’s an easy and joyful process, and a husband will respond positively.

Leah: Is there a final point you can leave us with?
Chany: Women should recognize “You are valuable and are loved by your Creator! You are bigger than everything going on around you!”

Homework for the week: Pick a quality about yourself that you love and grow that love.