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 (https://carinrockind.com/episode22) 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 iTunesand 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 Instagramand Facebook, and click hereto receive my newsletter.

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

Bye for now!

Whether we’re conscious of it our not, our ancestry has played a role in shaping our own lives. In today’s episode you’ll learn more about, and work with, your own ancestry, so that you can heal and grow and increase your wellbeing. I’m joined by my very special guest, Carolin Hauser-Carson, a naturopath doctor, humanistic psychotherapist, and family constellations facilitator. She’s the author of Blossom: Your Seven Step Journey to Healing Childhood Sexual Abuse and Creating Your Dream Life, which is available at Amazon.

Carolin starts out telling us her own personal journey dealing with a severe eating disorder and dropping out of high school, having a brush with death, and getting her life back on track and studying and training to become a naturopathic doctor. We discuss family constellations work and how Carolin benefitted greatly from it, and why she now facilitates it herself. We also discuss the idea of soul agreements as it pertains to the challenges we face in our lives.

Carolin discusses her new project, the Pleasure IQ, which is a measure of someone’s ability to allow pleasure in all areas of their lives. Mots of us have a very low Pleasure IQ and an underdeveloped pleasure intelligence, and Carolin has created a system to help people develop a higher Pleasure IQ, which involves releasing shame and guilt, integrating the feminine and masculine, connecting to and healing your core sexual energy, and how to create a high vibrational state. To learn more about your own Pleasure IQ, go to Carolin’s website, WomenInTheflow.com, where you can take a test and learn steps you can take to improve your own Pleasure IQ.

It would really mean a lot to me if you would go to iTunesand 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 Instagramand Facebook, and click hereto receive my newsletter.

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

Bye for now!