I LOVE receiving emails from listeners all over the globe who tell me they listen, they share the podcast with their moms or girlfriends or sisters, and that my message really connected with them, that it helped them through a tough time, that they felt that someone gets what they’re going through. Sometimes I get questions from listeners, and I love this, too! In today’s episode I want you to know that your comments, your thoughts, your questions all matter to me, and I’m going to take the entire episode to answer questions from my listeners. And if you have a question for me, please email me at carin@carinrockind.com, and I’ll try to answer yours in an upcoming episode.

In today’s episode I answer the following questions from listeners:

• Are you always happy?
• How do I help someone else to be happier?
• How do I set boundaries when people in my life are very negative?
• What do I do if I hate my job but I can’t leave?
• I thought my life would be different. I’m just unhappy and I don’t know where to start.
• I can’t get my mind to quiet.
• I know what I want to do but I don’t have the courage to take the leap.
• Where can I learn more of the stuff you teach?

In the answer to one question I mention a book by Marilee Adams, Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, which you can get at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2NvGOMj

I also mention the CAPP (Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology) program, which you can learn about here (http://getcertifiedinpp.com), and if you sign up for CAPP, use the code carinr27 and receive a $150 discount.

It would really mean a lot to me if you would go to iTunes and leave me a review (hopefully a great one!), leave a 5 star rating, subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode, and download the episodes! And please spread the word and help our community grow!

Thank you so much spending your time with me! And if you aren’t following me already, you can find me on Instagram and Facebook, and click here to receive my newsletter.

May you live purposefully, may you love yourself, and may you love life.

Bye for now!

I’m the youngest of three, and when I was a little girl my parents used to tell me that they got it right the third time, that I was the perfect child. They meant well, but this set me up to strive for perfection and to fear failure because it would mean others would find out that I wasn’t, in fact, perfect. I’ve spent a lot of time working through this, and on today’s episode I have the “perfect” guest to discuss issues around perfectionism and how to combat it. Petra Kolber is a leading happiness, movement, and fitness expert, and her new book is called The Perfection Detox: Tame Your Inner Critic, Live Bravely, and Unleash Your Joy, (available at Amazon).

When I was younger, perfectionism was all about being the perfect daughter; for Petra it was about being perfect on the outside so she could hide the chaos of her family life that was inside of her. Petra talks about how she came to understand her own perfectionism and recognize that, instead of making her a better person, it was actually holding her back and making her world smaller.

Petra discusses “enoughness” and how this leads to so many doubts, and to the fear that we’re going to be discovered as a fraud. These doubts hold us back, they push us into waiting versus doing, or watching instead of taking an active role in our own life. And it’s important to realize that fear and anxiety can sometimes be a sign that you’re about to do something very meaningful to you. What’s important is recognizing what’s under the fear and then figuring out what action we need to take to address the source of the fear.

Petra’s book is full of practical techniques for eliminating the harmful effects of perfectionism, and one of the earlier things she teaches is how to notice the “noise,” the critiques we say to ourselves frequently, and then she gives practical strategies for addressing these thoughts. The most frequent self-critiques are often tied to the same root belief; for Petra they tended to be around her sense of “enoughness,” that she wasn’t smart enough. More recently it tends to be around, “Am I young enough?” But being able to recognize this allows her to work with and eventually dismiss the impact of these thoughts. There are no quick fixes here – this takes work – but Petra shows us how we can actually do this successfully.

By being kinder and more loving to ourselves, we’re better able to be kind to other women because we’re less competitive and making fewer comparisons with them. It strengthens our sense of community with other women, we can talk more openly with other women about our struggles, and we’re better able to help and support other women, and in return they’ll be able to support us when we need it.

Perfection doesn’t allow for spontaneity, for creativity, for curiosity, for failure, so how can we live bravely perfectly? We can’t. Perfection doesn't allow us to live bravely. And Petra’s book is a wonderful tool for combatting perfectionism and the limitations it brings, and for living a braver, more fulfilling life.

To learn more about Petra Kolber and her book, please go to

http://www.petrakolber.com

http://www.perfectiondetox.com

And near the end of the episode, Petra mentions The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, which you can find at Amazon.

It would really mean a lot to me if you would go to iTunes and leave me a review (hopefully a great one!), leave a 5 star rating, subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode, and download the episodes! And please spread the word and help our community grow!

Thank you so much spending your time with me! And if you aren’t following me already, you can find me on Instagram and Facebook, and click here to receive my newsletter.

May you live purposefully, may you love yourself, and may you love life.

Bye for now!

I don’t think of myself as old. I’m not old. And yet, I’ve had to deal with the impact of my age on my own fertility. In recent years I’ve wanted to become pregnant, have a health baby, and be a mom, and twice in the last two years I’ve experienced the intense heartbreak of a miscarriage. Despite the fact that I teach others about happiness and life satisfaction, I have my own struggles and I’ve always been very open about my struggles. It’s so important that we be real about what we’re going through so we can normalize it for others, which allows us to support each other when we’re in need. By hiding our struggles and only posting the happiest snapshots of our lives on social media, we deny the reality that we’re all experiencing and we make it harder to support each other, which is what we all need.

After dealing with my own grief around my miscarriages, and my struggles with depression, I began researching the many reasons why women are statistically more depressed than men, and I realized that there are ways to address each of these. There really are things we can do. And out of this research and my soul-searching about what I am here to birth, came the idea for an event to combat women’s depression: Women’s Global Happiness Day! To learn more about it, go to http://www.womenshappy.com, or email me (carin@carinrockind.com).

I also explore the idea of the mid-life crisis, how it manifests differently in men and women, and how I’m grappling with my own age and what it means to be in my mid-forties. I end with Purpose Power Tools around our age and how we feel about it.

It would really mean a lot to me if you would go to iTunes and leave me a review (hopefully a great one!), leave a 5 star rating, subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode, and download the episodes! And please spread the word and help our community grow!

Thank you so much spending your time with me! And if you aren’t following me already, you can find me on Instagram and Facebook, and click here to receive my newsletter.

May you live purposefully, may you love yourself, and may you love life.

Bye for now!

For years I’ve been supporting women to be happier and to live more fulfilling lives, and I’ve only recently come to understand just how important sex and sensuality is to living a truly happy and complete life, and to being our true selves.

To discuss the importance of sex and sensuality and how we can embrace it in our lives, I am joined by Beth Liebling, luxury boutique owner, host of the radio show Love and Laughter with Beth on ESPN Houston, and the author of Love and Laughter: Sexy, Meaningful Fun For Everyone (which you can get at Amazon here).

The subtitle of her book is a nod to the importance of being able to laugh about and find humor in sex and sexuality. Sometimes sex is intense and grandiose love-making, heartfelt in every way, slow and tender. Sometimes it’s raunchy and “dirty” and hard and fast. In the middle is where we recognize the significance, the meaning, the joy, the pleasure, the intimacy, and the humor, and this approaches a truly divine connection with another person. Sometimes we want these other extremes, and that’s perfectly fine, but we should be able to experience a wide variety, shifting from one to another according to our needs and desires.

Sadly, many women don’t enjoy a healthy, pleasurable sex life, and according to Beth, this commonly stems from their childhood. Women often see two paths before them when they’re young: They can be a good girl, or they can be a slut. In addition, they’re told to love, and that women should be loving, but that this should really only be from their heart and not from their bodies, because once they start enjoying love with their bodies they’re labeled sluts.

When Beth works with women she emphasizes the distinction between sensuality and sexuality, and she stresses the importance of getting in touch with one’s own sensuality before working on their sexuality. She also addresses the sensitive topic of how parents can talk to their children about touching themselves.

We hire coaches for our golf game but we don’t think about hiring coaches for intimacy and sexuality, and many of us would truly benefit from exactly that kind of coaching! There’s so much more to sex than anatomy and biology, and we have a lot to learn, and this learning can be very pleasurable. Part of this learning is learning about our own needs. Sometimes women engage in sex when what they’re really craving is emotional intimacy, and getting in touch with what we truly need and desire is an important part of a fulfilling life of sexuality and sensuality.

Beth explains why she prefers the term “romantic props” to “sex toys,” and what each phrase implies about our sex lives. Her mission with her store, Darling Way, is to put fun and laughter and beauty back in sex and intimacy. She fosters a sense of community with her customers, and encourages conversation and connection.

You can learn more about Beth and her boutique at https://darlingway.com, and about her online course, From Good Girl to Sexy Siren: The Secrets to Being a Great Lover here.

It would really mean a lot to me if you would go to iTunes and leave me a review (hopefully a great one!), leave a 5 star rating, subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode, and download the episodes! And please spread the word and help our community grow!

Thank you so much spending your time with me! And if you aren’t following me already, you can find me on Instagram and Facebook, and click here to receive my newsletter.

May you live purposefully, may you love yourself, and may you love life.

Bye for now!

Women play a huge role in our society and our economy as a whole, and in our families as well. In many ways, women in a traditional heterosexual couple and family dynamic are the leaders of the family. And yet, too many women suffer from low self-confidence. On average, this is an issue that tends to adversely affect women more than women.

Why would women who have every reason to be confident still feel so insecure? We all pick up things from a wide variety of sources –- our parents, our families, our peers, the media, and elsewhere -– and some of this can be very harmful, although that may not have been the intention. Some women learn that if they appear too confident they’ll be perceived as arrogant, whereas many men don’t seem to have this limiting belief. A KPMG study showed that 86% of women recalled being taught to be nice to others when they were growing up, while only 34% recall being taught to share their point of view. Taken too far, this can lead to being overly concerned with others to our own detriment, valuing the wellbeing and success of others above ourselves. As it turns out, these “soft skills” of compassion and empathy are turning out to be more and more in demand in leaders as it’s becoming better understood that they’re important qualities in successful leaders. And so as women, we should really embrace our own kindness and compassion and empathy and recognize them as critical strengths; we don’t need to be aggressive and arrogant and hard in order to be successful.

In Episode 22 I talked all about fear, where it comes from, and what we can do about it. Some of our lack of confidence stems from a fear that developed growing up, that, in order to be loved and accepted by our family or our peer group, we need to do things in ways in which others approve. Listening to this fear made us comfortable as a young child, but now it holds us back. We need to question fears like these and learn to listen to our own inner wisdom instead of that old fear voice.

Richard Petty, a researcher at Ohio State, conducted a massive study of 150,000 people and he found that as confidence increases, so does income. Petty defines confidence as “the stuff that turns thoughts into actions.” He also showed a fascinating link between our physical actions and postures, and our own confidence.

To broaden our understanding I discuss the definitions of self-confidence and self-esteem. I also discuss several studies that have shown that women in medical school and in nursing showed significantly lower confidence than their male counterparts despite having comparable levels of competence. A study conducted by HP showed that men were willing to apply for jobs for which they were qualified for 60% of the requirements, whereas women would only apply if they were qualified for 100% of the requirements. All of this is to say that confidence, not competence, is the issue for many women. The best way to build your confidence in your competence is to get out there and start doing, start taking actions. They don’t have to be huge actions, but start somewhere, start where you are, start with some small actions, recognize and value and celebrate your actions, and build on that.

I end with several Purpose Power Tips to help you start building your self-confidence today. In one of them I refer to a TED talk by Amy Cuddy, which, if you haven’t watched it, I strongly suggest you do so. In another I talk about a tool – the VIA, Values in Action – that  you can use to learn more about your own strengths. (To take the VIA for free, go to http://www.viacharacter.org.) I also announce the first annual Women’s Global Happiness Day, held on October 18, 2018, which, at the time of the recording of this podcast, will be held in over twenty cities around the world! For more information on this, please go to https://carinrockind.com/wghd!

It would really mean a lot to me if you would go to iTunes and leave me a review (hopefully a great one!), leave a 5 star rating, subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode, and download the episodes! And please spread the word and help our community grow!

Thank you so much spending your time with me! And if you aren’t following me already, you can find me on Instagram and Facebook, and click here to receive my newsletter.

May you live purposefully, may you love yourself, and may you love life.

Bye for now!