Welcome to 2017!

Curl up with a blanket and a journal because I have a treat for you.

As I was sitting down yesterday to do my annual New Year's ritual, I knew that I wanted to share it with you. So, I made the attached meditation recording for you!

This meditation is all about awakening your body, awakening your spirit, and awakening your soul to all that you desire for 2017. It will allow you to realize what you actually want in 2017 – not just to lose weight or be successful – but deeper than that… how you want to feel, what you want to do, and the truth of who you are. It will also help you let go of the old stories, patterns, disappointments, and pain from last year that no longer serve you – thus making room for your fresh new hopes to come in.

And if you're not a meditator, no worries. I guide you through the whole thing to make it easy to follow. You just need 20 minutes of quiet time – and love, you deserve that.

So, grab a pen and paper, or your journal, and click on the link below. After you listen, I'd love to hear your insights! Email them to me – or better yet, join our Sisterhood on Facebook and share your hopes, dreams, and truth there so we can support one another! (Click here to join).

May you have a fulfilling, purposeful 2017, filled with light and love.

With so much love,
Carin

PS – If you have friends or family who are ready for a beautiful new year, share this with them.

I hope you're enjoying the holidays! Josh and I have been rejuvenating and reconnecting on a Caribbean cruise, and though I'm sad for it to end, I'm excited to be home to start the New Year.

We can start fresh 365 days a year, but New Year's offers a unique opportunity to be super intentional… intentional about what's working in your life, what isn't, what you want in the year to come, and what actions you're willing to take to get there.

So what is working for you? What isn't? What do you want in the upcoming year? What might hold you back? And how might you overcome those obstacles?

I'm hoping for a lot in 2017 – empowering 1 million women, getting a book deal, speaking on a LOT more stages, giving birth to a healthy baby, and taking you on incredible retreats around the world!

But I can't bring in the new until I clear out the old. It's like your t-shirt drawer – you can't fit new ones in if it's already overstuffed. You can't bring in new hopes if you haven't released the old grudges and pain.

You have to intentionally release the old shit. And intentionally call in the new. That's why I do an annual New Year's ritual.

Amazing things can happen in one year – but you have to be intentional with your time, your energy, your money, your love, and your life to manifest them.

Intention makes the difference between life running you or you running life.
Intention is OWNING your POWER.
Intention sets you on PURPOSE.
Intention will make you HAPPIER.

So I wanted to share my annual New Year's ritual with you in the hopes that it brings you the same clarity, peace, hope, and energy it brings me. Now that I'm home from the cruise and have written to you, I'm about to curl up by the fire with a cup of tea to do this ritual myself, so we'll be doing it together! Enjoy!

• Carve out 1 hour for this exercise where you can have quiet time to reflect.
• Begin your quiet time taking 3 deep belly breaths – inhaling through your nostrils to a count of 5 and then exhaling slowly out of your mouth to 5. Let your body relax.
• With your eyes closed, reflect on all that was REALLY GOOD in 2016. Begin with January, then February and March, etc. Be sure to write every moment of joy, good health, accolade, tenderness,  and inspiration, with gratitude for the moment. Feel that goodness in your heart, your smile, and your body.
• Now close your eyes again, and think about the LESSONS you have learned this year. These lessons may have occurred through trial, trauma, or triumph. The cause isn’t as important to this exercise as the lesson itself. Write these down in your journal. Remember to have GRATITUDE for the lesson so that you remember it going forward.
• Then, on a separate piece of paper, write every OLD PATTERN that held you back in 2016. The ones you are READY TO LEAVE BEHIND. For instance, I realize that I've been holding on to some old grudges this year and it's taken so much energy that would have been better spent on you, my clients, my community, my family, my life. So good riddance to those grudges. That victim mentality is not helping me any more. Now take the paper outside and light a match to it! Yep, good riddance!
• Now, in your journal, write your intentions and desires for 2017. Don't write a typical “resolution” like, Lose weight, or, Go to the gym every day. Unfortunately 90% of those fail. Be clear and specific about what you really, really, really, really want – and why. For instance – to be so healthy that you can run easily with your children, to love your work so much that you feel alive and excited when you wake up, or to love with such abandon that you want to scream it from a rooftop.

SEE it. Visualize what you want, even act it out. (I act out picking up my baby and rocking her every single day.)
FEEL it. Feel the joy, love, or peace in every cell as if it's already happening.
BELIEVE it. Make a mantra of it in the present like, “I'm a healthy runner.”
ACT. Agree to one small step this weekend, knowing that every step toward the right dream matters.

And listen, love, you may fall down 100 times in 2017 working toward these goals. The key is to get back up one more time than you fall. That's why most resolutions fail. You go off your diet and say “See, I knew I couldn't do it” and then you give up. Burn that belief up tonight!

I fall down, cry, scream, regress, take 2 steps back, stay in bed because of self-doubt, scare myself out of even trying, and downright fail ALL THE TIME. It's a struggle, but when I remember why I'm doing this, and then allow myself support to get back on track, everything is possible. That's why we have each other. That's why we have this community.

THANK YOU FOR BEING PART OF THIS SISTERHOOD in 2016. Here's to an amazing 2017 for each of us separately, and TOGETHER!
With so much love,
Carin

I'm sorry to be silent for so long. I've been in intensive Self-Compassion training at the most beautiful place on earth, Esalen, and while that may sound really warm and lovely, it was hard. Really hard.

In order to learn Self-Compassion… you have to look at all of the harsh, ugly places where you AREN'T compassionate with yourself.

And most of us don't want to do this work. Yet we need to. The voices are abusive and killing our spirits. They're certainly killing our dreams. And we deserve better. You deserve better. So do I.

That means that I spent last week with my innermost demons. The ones that call me names. The ones that tell me I'm no good. The dark, ugly, monsters that hide in corners of my heart just waiting for me to screw up so that they can pounce on me with hatred.

What do your demons say to you? Call you fat? Ugly? Tell you you don't belong? That you're no good? What do they say when you lay awake tossing at night? Or in the mirror after you shower?

The only way to heal is to peel back the onion and learn to love your core.

Inside of you is a little You – the one who thought she had to be perfect to be loved. The one who was told that if she talked to much in class, boys wouldn't like her. The one who believed she was too tall, too short, too big, too skinny, too wild, or too tame to be lovable.

Little You CREATED the inner critic. My inner 8 year old perfectionist created the voice that tells me I'm a loser so that I perform better in the future.  One of my EMPOWERED clients has always told herself to “Shut up! Stop showing off! People won't like you!” in order to be lovable. So she stopped speaking up at work, stopped asking for promotions, and she even gained a bunch of weight so that others didn't have to “see” her.

She's not alone and neither are you and neither am I. We're in this together.

We become EMPOWERED by learning to LOVE the little selves inside. To love her so much that you treat her with tender kindness, as you would an actual crying, hurting 8 year old. To love her so much that you forgive her for being imperfect – for being real. To love her so much that you listen to her dreams and desires without dismissing them as “silly,” “stupid,” “irrational,” or “irresponsible.” To love her so much that you practice, practice, practice self-compassion.

That's what I'm trying to do. After 5 years of doing this work, I STILL go there sometimes. That's why I went to training. I have to invest in myself to grow. So we'll do it together. I taped this video for you on my last day of the training for you to begin becoming more compassionate with yourself.

ALSO, A HOLIDAY BONUS FOR YOU TO BECOME EMPOWERED IN 2017!

In just 8 days, we begin my most POWERFUL coaching program, EMPOWERED, for you to become the confident, clear, powerful woman you were born to be – and there's still time to join us!
EMPOWERED is a 4 month Mentorship and Sistherhood to come ALIVE and be FREE! From January 1 through the end of April, I will personally coach you through a journey to discover yourself, define your life vision, and create a path to follow it. You'll join a small group of incredible like-minded women who will be your support, This program is about taking charge of your life. After this program, women have:

• Started businesses
• Gone back to school
• Spoken up at work and to their partners
• Left abusive relationships
• Started loving relationships
• Created boundaries with family
• Become confident in asking for what they want
• Made best friends in their Sisters
• LEARNED to LOVE themselves

(Click here for info!)

In this program, you get more than 40 hours of coaching with me, more than 100 pages of “PurposeBook” (workbook) to clarify dreams and cut through obstacles, 14 guided meditations, 2 incredible retreats, a Big Sister who has been through the program before, a loving, supportive sisterhood, a private community for support, and so much more.

AND AS A BONUS…
EVERY WOMAN WHO JOINS EMPOWERED WILL ALSO GET 6 MONTHS OF FREE MEMBERSHIP IN THE F*MIDLIFE CLUB!!! This is the club to take charge of your health, your sex life, and get your adventurous side in action! An added $300 value – totally free!

But, Josh and I are going on vacation on Monday, so the doors to EMPOWERED are closing! You must sign up for EMPOWERED by Christmas Day, December 25 in order to ensure that you totally take charge of your life in 2017! This program will change your life.

(Click here to join EMPOWERED )

 

As Wendy from Atlanta said, “This program can be literally life changing.  It was for me.  I was stuck and on autopilot – doing and acting as the world expected.  Carin’s program was all about finding out what it is that I expect and what I want out of this life.  It continues to blow my mind – often.  I am unpacking and reworking 40 years of stories.  I am finding out who I am at 40 and how to fill me up in every way, and I am continuing to connect and grow friendships, with my sister soulmates, a group of women like no other that I’ve ever met.  As we frequently say to each other – we just “get it.”  If you’re ready for it, and even if you’re not, Carin’s group will pay you back in a zillion ways you never even knew were possible.”

If you want the results that Wendy and these women have had… if you're ready to commit to yourself…  and you're ready to join me in making 2017 FREAKING FANTASTIC, then join me in EMPOWERED. We only have a couple of spots left. It will change your life!

Click here to register and join us!

With so much love!
Carin

PS – Remember, we go on vacation on Monday, so you only have until December 25, Sunday, to register for EMPOWERED!  Contact me if you want more information, to have a call to see if EMPOWERED is for you, or to join us. Time is running out!

What will 2017 be for YOU?

I spend a lot of time lately thinking about 2017. It’s just 3 weeks away… 21 days… A matter of moments… and I want it to be great. Meaningful. Exciting. Fulfilling.

What do you want 2017 to be for you?

I asked this question on SiriusXM this week and received incredible emails afterwards.

One woman wrote “I want to find my purpose.”
Another said, “I want my goals and dreams to come true.”
Another shared that she’s tired of feeling so much pain and anger from her divorce and she’s so tired of feeling tired, that she just wants to be happy again.
I can totally relate. At this time last year, I was still in horrible pain from my miscarriage. I woke up every day hoping the nightmare would end. I begged G-d to just take the pain away. Panic attack after panic attack, all I wanted for 2016 was to feel JOY again.

So I began working with a coach to heal and figure out what I wanted again in my life. I hired a fertility coach who has helped prepare my body. I started monthly massage and weekly acupuncture, and I re-connected with a Sisterhood of women to support, encourage, and celebrate me.

Joshua, I came alive again! Now, my heart is so open, my body so juiced, I’m so excited to make big dreams happen for this year!

My dreams: EMPOWER you to take charge of your life? Yes. Take you on retreat to Paris? Yes. Get my book proposal done? Yes. Have a baby? Yes. Yes. Yes!

So what about you?

What do you really want in 2017? Think of these 4 categories:

• How do you want to FEEL in 2017? Really feel in your heart and soul. Do you want to feel fulfilled? Vibrant? Healthy? Alive? Excited? At peace?
• What do you want to HAVE? A new job that lights you up and feels purposeful? Self-love? Inner peace? An awesome fast car? Hot passionate sex? A Sisterhood of friends that you can tell anything to?
• What do you want to DO next year? Come to Paris with me? Come to Italy with me? Go on your own? Write your novel? Start your Etsy store? Lose weight? Find your purpose and get moving toward it?
• Who do you hope to BE? Confident? Independent? Feminine? A leader?

Now here’s the important question: What are you going to DO to make this happen?

90% of all new years resolutions fail because we WANT to do a lot… but:

• You don’t plan. You can’t expect to workout every day starting Jan. 1 when you don’t even have a gym membership. You have to plan ahead and even plan for failure!
• You make goals out of frustration. You feel fat so you want to lose weight. You hate your job so you want out. But if you don’t know what you do want, it’s useless. You have to get clear on what you DO want. Goals set in the positive are more achieved.
• You don’t have support. You can’t do it alone. You’ve tried. I’ve tried. And it doesn’t work. You need support from an expert who's been there.
• When you fail once, you quit. This is super common. We will all fail at our goals. The key is to get back up one more time than you fail. You have to prepare to fail, be resilient through it, have support to get back up and begin again.
• You're not really, truly, 100%, totally committed.

So how committed are you? How much do you want what you want? Are you willing to do the work? To get support? To get back up after failure?

For my 2017 goals, I'm 100% totally and completely committed and I want you to join me in making this kind of commitment to yourself. I’m not doing fertility on my own. I have a coach that specializes in getting pregnant naturally in your 40’s. I’m not doing my book on my own. I’m hiring a book coach who has published 5 times. I'm working with a business consultant on creating a business plan that increases my staff and changes my product mix so that I have more time in my schedule. I'm going to professional training on Sunday, and I'm doubling down on my Sisterhoods by having my own that I connect with every other week, and by creating my own that I lead.

In other words, I'm putting my money and time where my heart is. What will you do to make your 2017 dreams come true?
If you are ready to commit to yourself, I want to help you. For weeks, I've told you about EMPOWERED (formerly #ThisIs40 FabFierceFeminine), the coaching program to take charge of your life, uncover your purpose, and create a path forward. (Click here for info)

Through this program:
One woman realized her dream of being a health coach and just 2 years later, she has clients all over North America. Another got her first big speaking engagement and TV appearance within 8 months. Another realized her dream of being a yoga instructor and months later is signed up for teacher training. Another finally admitted to her husband that she wanted a divorce and now lives on her own. Another left an abusive relationship. Another found lasting love.

Because under career, romance, and family, you must get to KNOW, LOVE, and EXPRESS yourself! You must become strong, confident, and reclaim your POWER.

Through EMPOWERED, EVERY woman became EMPOWERED to live her truth. To leave an unhealthy relationship. To start a healthy one. To speak up to her boss. To accept and love herself as is.

This program will change your life. (Click here for information about EMPOWERED )

In 4 short months of EMPOWERED, you will gain clarity about your dreams and confidence to follow them. From January 1 through the end of April, I will personally coach you through a journey to discover yourself, define your life vision, and create a path to follow it. You'll join a small group of incredible like-minded women who will be your support, your cheerleaders, and your Sisters. You will feel more supported than you ever have, and more ready than you ever have to live, life on your terms.

 

As Eileen from Atlanta said, “Carin Rockind = Worth Every Penny! This program was Transformational for me. I was actually very nervous to join a group of women I didn't know. I reached out to Carin because I was READY to make changes to my life. Carin has a Gift, she asks the Right Questions. In only a few short months, I've made shifts to my life that have set me on a pretty amazing path. Our sisterhood of women has become a tight knit group beyond my wildest dreams. We are each others' support system that lifts each other up and I'm sure we will all remain sisters for years to come. I'm beyond Thrilled!”

If you want the results these women have had… if you're ready to commit to yourself…  and you're ready to join me in making 2017 FREAKING FANTASTIC, then join me in EMPOWERED. We only have a couple of spots left. It will change your life!

Click here to register and join us!

With so much love!
Carin

PS – We get started January 1, so make sure you contact me if you want more information, to have a call to see if EMPOWERED is for you, or to join us. Time is running out!

I just finished doing a workshop for AAA and it got me thinking… What makes you happy? Really, REALLY happy?

Like warm-fuzzy-in-your-heart-happy or jump-up-and-down-in-excitement-happy… or deep-in-your-soul-fulfilled-happy?

And now, get super honest with yourself – how often are you doing these things?

A client – we'll call her “Heather” – came to me depressed and wanting purpose. I asked her these simple questions to get started. “I love hiking and singing, but I can't hike because I have no one to hike with. I can't sing because I don't belong to a church.” Someone today told me that she loves cooking and writing, but doesn't have time to start her blog. In my F*Midlife Club, one woman has wanted to start doing yoga, but said she didn't have time with the kids. Another has always wanted to have a business, but has been afraid to start.

What are you not making time for? What are you making excuses about? Why are you holding yourself back from happiness?

If you're like most people, you feel guilty taking time off of family or work. Or you feel undeserving when you have so many responsibilities. Or you're afraid to fail.

I get it. It's so normal… and you can change.

A couple of years ago, I was speaking at a women's law conference about this very thing when a woman in the front row started tearing up and raised her hand. “I was bathing my daughter the other night,” she explained, “and staring at my phone the whole time.”

My heart broke. The room fell silent. Each of us knew exactly how she felt because we've all done it too.

But this season, I'm trying to do it differently. I'm taking my own medicine and forcing myself to do, say, and savor what makes me happy. I'm calling it #25DaysofHAPPY and every day I'm posting what makes me happy on Facebook.

Guess what? It's working! (Duh.) Forcing myself to make time for happy is making me happier. And pausing to savor and share it is making me even happier. 🙂

I know this may seem simplistic, but sometimes we need the reminder. As one woman said to me at the end of the workshop today, “I knew half of what you said, but I'm not DOING it.”

Here are a few things so far…. One thing that makes me over-the-moon-excited is speaking and I got to do that today – thank you AAA! PLUS, as I shared with you last week, I moved past my excuses and did a segment for TV (read the blog here)! It aired on Sunday and you can watch it HERE! And finally, I've felt lonely in our new neighborhood, for months I thought of hosting a block party, and I finally did it on Sunday! We threw it together in 4 days – I mean, how hard is wine and cheese? About 50 people came! So fun.

So what will you DO this week to make yourself HAPPY?

XO,
Carin

PS – If you don't know what makes you happy and need help, email me. We'll set up a 30 minute discovery call to explore and see how you can move forward!

PPS – If you're for big change to make your happiness happen, there are a few spots left in my my proven 4 month Sisterhood and Coaching Program, EMPOWERED. You will gain clarity on who you are and what you want. You will identify your heart's desires and take action on them. You will finally shed the old layers of guilt, shame and fear that have held you back. And you'll do it all in Sisterhood – the best way to ensure that you move forward on your dreams! Join us!! Email me for more info, or click here to join us now. Payment plans that make this around $250/month are available. Only a few spots left! XOX