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!