Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Embracing the Power of Sisterhood With Carin Rockind
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:02] PF: Welcome to Episode 353 of Live Happy Now. This week, we’re celebrating women in a big way. I’m your host, Paula Felps. Today, I’m being joined by women’s happiness and life purpose expert, Carin Rockind, who many of you know from the PurposeGirl Podcast and courses. This year, she has once again put together an incredible online event for International Women’s Day, and she’s going to tell us more about why this day is so important, what her free live event is all about and what she hopes we all learn from it. It’s a lot to take in. So sit back and get ready to get excited.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:00:37] CR: Carin, welcome back to Live Happy Now.
[00:00:40] CR: Thank you. I’m so happy to be here, Paula. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:44] PF: Well, it’s been about a year since we talked, and we had a great reason for talking last year. We have an equally great, perhaps an even greater reason this year. You’ve got the second year of – okay, you tell me about it. Don’t let me introduce it. You introduce it because I might screw it up.
[00:01:02] CR: Well, we are gearing up for this second annual, The Women’s Day event. This is, as far as I know, the world’s largest event for International Women’s Day. We put it together – I was sitting there last year, 2021, after that year that everyone had had with the pandemic, and everyone was on lockdown last year no matter where they were in the world. People were – so many people lost jobs, women were disproportionately negatively impacted in terms of the majority of jobs lost were by women or women were taking on the majority of kind of the homeschooling duality that was happening.
I was sitting there last January like, “I got to do something.” I thought, “I’m going to throw the world’s largest event for International Women’s Day.”
[00:01:54] PF: It’s important to know that your timing, you had just had a baby. The timing wise, it’s not like you had all this spare time where you’re like, “Hey, I’ve got nothing else going on.”
[00:02:05] CR: Right. I have my own women’s empowerment business, speaking, coaching podcasting, the whole thing and just thought, I want to do something, do something meaningful. And at the time, I think he was seven or eight months old. Actually, January, he would have been six months old by the time we did the event on March 8. And as far as I know, Paula, with your help and support at Live Happy Now and Live Happy in general, we had the world’s largest event. We had 2,500 women registered for the event, 25 speakers. We went from 8:00 AM in the morning until 8:00 PM live all day. What was so fun and women said, “Oh! I thought I would just come on for this one speaker. I thought I would just come on for my lunch break and I stayed all day, because it was just so incredible.”
We’re gearing up for the second annual, either because I’m crazy. I might, you know, like what is wrong with my head? Or really, it’s because I am all about purposes, you know, right? My business is called PurposeGirl, and I’m all about my purpose, inspiring other women to live their purpose. And this is our time, I’m just feeling this huge shift right now to each and every one of us stepping into our own leadership, really getting clear on what is our legend to leave to the world? How do we live our own purpose? Knowing that that makes us such a more satisfied, resilient, optimistic, happy life. I’m like, “We’re doing it again, and we’re just going to do it as big or bigger.” The lineup of speakers is like, insane. When your listeners are listening to this, I’m hoping that you’re all listening for two things. One, obviously, we want you to attend. It’s free. It’s 12 hours. We’re going to go through everything.
[00:03:51] PF: There’s no reason not to.
[00:03:53] CR: There’s no reason not to, because you can join for a half hour of one keynote speaker. You could join for three hours. You could come in and out. Like my mom was in and out all day, last year. I want everyone listening to this to know that when you have a full body, yes, you get an idea, you have a dream. It’s like, “I would love to do that.” Maybe for someone, that’s singing on a stage or for someone else that’s writing a book or whatever it is. When you have the full body, yes, like I had around creating this event, I want you to know that it’s possible, and to just go do it.
[00:04:25] PF: Oh, that’s fantastic. I think this event is so great, because all these women are doing it, and they’re doing so many different things. So really, it’s like going to this great buffet table where it’s like. Okay, well, that’s not for me, but oh my gosh, I can load up on this and this and this. Let’s talk about some of the speakers that you have and some of the things that are going to happen throughout this day.
[00:04:50] CR: Yeah, I would love to. So yeah, I’m a huge fan and believe that like, the happy woman is the whole woman. It’s like every single aspect of ourselves, and the lineup is insane. So again, we are bringing you more than 25 speakers. We’re still getting a couple of yeses, and so figuring out who the last couple are. But what we do throughout the day, we have these power talks and power talk is like a keynote, but I’m interviewing someone like we’re doing here on a particular topic, right? My keynotes, I’m so excited, drumroll please, we can announce that one of the power talks is going to be by Regina Thomashauer. If you don’t know Regina Thomashauer, many people call her Mama Gena, aka Mama Gena. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Pussy: A Reclamation.
Yes, I said the word pussy on the airwaves. A lot of us, like the first time I heard that word I went, “Ugh!” Like it just got me into the bones, like that’s a negative word. But her whole thing, and listen, it’s a New York Times bestselling book. Because she’s talking about women reclaiming their feminine power. Taking back a word that has been trashed and made into something weak and saying no. Instead, we’re going to own our bodies, we’re going to own our femininity, we’re going to own our power and we’re going to own that the deepest part of ourselves knows our truth.
She herself is the survivor of abuse, of sexual abuse. She herself has been through a number of different traumas and talks about how she felt like she lost her power along the way in this book. She teaches, she has now taught tens of thousands, maybe – I’m going to take it back. Millions of women, because when I think about the classes that I’ve taken with her, I was in a classroom with 900 other women taking this class over three, four, five months, something like that. The way that she teaches you to own your whole body, and to come back into your power is unlike anything I have ever experienced. Because it’s not power like, “Err!”, what we’ve been taught how we’re supposed to be powerful in the world, but it’s power from within, and truly what are my desires.
She teaches women to celebrate themselves. She teaches women to emote, right? She calls it ADA keys that we are allowed our full expression of emotion. Instead of sucking down when you’re angry, or you’re sad. She says the way that we can really heal and the way that we can be in our power is to own and then alchemize all of our emotions. She teaches you what to do with anger, what to do with grief and it’s so powerful. She’s a New York Times bestselling author for a reason. Thousands and thousands, millions of women have learned so much from her about your own sensuality, taking back your power and all parts of your body. She’s one of the power talks.
Another power talk is another New York Times bestselling author, Kristine Carlson. Kris Carlson’s late husband, Richard wrote, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. When I was first getting into self-help, and all of that, that book was all the rage, right?
[00:07:57] PF: Right.
[00:07:58] CR: Do you know that book?
[00:07:59] PF: That was like the door opener. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:08:00] CR: Yeah, it was. It was, don’t sweat the small stuff. And by the way, it’s all small stuff. Right? He wrote this book, and then together, they went on to write. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff for Couples. She wrote, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff for Women. They made a whole line kind of like Chicken Soup. They made a whole line of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. Then he tragically passed away, and she was left with this enormous grief, this enormous hole in her heart. What do I do now? Through her own healing process, and being what she calls broken open. she came to really create a whole new line of healing and empowerment with women around healing from grief.
I specifically approached her. I actually approached her first to be the first speaker at the Women’s Day event. Because after what we’ve all been through for the last two years, we’re struck with grief, right? There’s so much anxiety, you and I have talked about this.
[00:09:00] PF: Oh my gosh, yeah. It’s a huge topic. Everybody is dealing with grief and loss on some level.
[00:09:07] CR: On some level and probably multiple levels, right? You yourself have been sick. You have loved ones who have passed, being isolated in your home not being with loved ones for the holidays. She was the first person I approached to be a speaker at the Women’s Day event because I feel like we’re all healing from grief right now and we all want to.
[00:09:27] PF: That is wise. Yeah, that’s fantastic.
[00:09:30] CR: Yeah. She’s going to be doing a power talk specifically on how do we heal now, what do we do with grief now, how do we become whole again after feeling like we’ve been broken open. And what based on that is our purpose what do we do? She’s incredible.
Another keynote speaker or power talk is from someone who I know you have had on your show before, Valorie Burton.
[00:09:54] PF: She is amazing. She is so fantastic.
[00:09:58] CR: Ah! Is she ever. Valorie Burton, if you haven’t listened to the episode of Paula, go back and listen to it. She’s incredible. She has written I think 12 books. She had nearly a million copies of her books in circulation all around women’s happiness and women’s success. She has her master’s degree in positive psychology, the science of happiness, human flourishing, like I do, that’s where I met her. She is now sought after by the today’s show, to be like a frequent life coach for them and on a number of different shows. Her most recent book is about guilt. She and I are going to dive in during her power talk all around guilt and how we’ve been hanging on. Find me a woman that has not been experiencing or has experienced in the past guilt.
[00:10:43] PF: Oh my gosh! Yeah.
[00:10:45] CR: I just had this last night. My dad went into the hospital, my whole family is in Michigan, and I’m here in Pennsylvania and my sister was visiting. The whole family was there when he went into the hospital last night, and here I am in Pennsylvania. And just feeling guilty that I’m not there, I can’t help. I call my mom, “What can I do?” And it’s like, well, what can I do? I’m here. I’m not there. Feeling that amount of guilt. The same time, everything you just said, I do throw the world’s largest event for International Women’s Day. I do have my own podcast that you’re going to be on and running this whole business for women to be in their power and live their purpose and I have a baby. So I’ll have so many moments of guilt. Should I be with my child instead of working? When I’m with my child, should I be working because I’ve got clients who are counting on me? In the Women’s Day event, she’s going to help us navigate guilt. How do we let go of the guilt?
[00:11:41] PF: Yeah. Because I think everyone deals with that, and we steal from ourselves. Because when we’re with our children, we’re thinking, “Oh my gosh! I’ve got to work on this, this and this, so we’re not giving them that full attention.” And then when we’re working too much, we’re thinking about what we should be giving the children. We’re not giving our work the kind of attention that would get it done quicker, and let us get back to what we need to be doing. It’s such a hamster wheel.
[00:12:06] CR: Such a hamster wheel. That’s so well said, Paula. If we would just be doing the thing that were present for the thing that we actually need to be doing, we wouldn’t be –
[00:12:16] PF: But it’s hard.
[00:12:17] CR: It is very hard. Her most recent book is on that, on letting go of guilt. Of course, I’m like, “Val, please, please, please.” She’s so incredible. She already was speaking somewhere else on International Women’s Day. She’s like, “Oh my God! I would love to do this for you, Carin, but I can’t, because I’m already speaking.” I think I just had to ask her three different ways and find a creative way to do it. I’m like, “I’m not letting this go. You’re my gal.” Because it’s so – I run this event for free, which is just out of my pocket. I pay for extra staff and for all the work that needs to go into it. But I want to put on the best event possible, because it’s my purpose, right?
These are the power talks. I have one more power talk that’s going to be coming on by someone who you totally need to have on your show, but she’s fairly new into this whole world, and so you probably haven’t heard of her yet. Her name is Jenni Rochelle, and she’s all about intimacy and connection.
[00:13:17] PF: Oh, nice.
[00:13:18] CR: Because we have been disconnected.
[00:13:22] PF: We are so disconnected and we can’t – I’ve talked with people who are struggling to reconnect. They actually have anxiety about trying to connect with people, because we’ve gotten so bad at it from being locked in our homes.
[00:13:34] CR: Yes. Before being locked in our homes, we were locked on our phone.
[00:13:39] PF: Yeah, true.
[00:13:41] CR: It’s like we didn’t even realize the precious commodity that we had in connection before. I was talking to her about what happens when we aren’t in intimacy, when we aren’t allowing that. She was saying, “We end up in resentment. We end up in anxiety. We end up in a place of holding grudges and of feeling alone.” So she and I, during her power talk are going to go really deep into intimacy and how do we create it. Because I was sharing with her one of the things that I’ve experienced. I was in an abusive relationship when I was 17. My very first love physically abused me. That was 30 years ago. I still hang on to some trust issues.
[00:14:30] PF: Sure. That goes with it.
[00:14:34] CR: It goes with it. John Gottman’s work around – who’s the world’s leading researcher, and in healthy marriages and healthy relationships. The work on leaning in, and I find myself really being scared to lean in. I still find it even though I’m married to a wonderful man. And when I was going through all this last night with my dad, I was starting to think, “Why isn’t my partner being more loving to me right?” And instead, it was like, “Wait! This is a moment to create intimacy and say, “Hon, I need a hug. Can we connect? Can you go get me froyo?” Which is what I actually did and he, “We have a big snowstorm, am I cleaning off the car?” there’s this opportunity and this need to connect and to find intimacy, even in the midst of a pandemic. She’s going to be coming on and she’s absolutely incredible. We’re covering intimacy and connection. We’re covering the mom guilt, the daughter guilt and we’re covering sexuality. Then beyond that, I have panels.
[00:15:34] PF: But wait, there’s more.
[00:15:34] CR: But wait, there’s more.
[BREAK]
[00:15:38] PF: I’m going to be right back with more of my conversation with Carin, but I wanted to pause for just a moment and talk about how you can make your world a safer place. The online world as we all know, can be an unpredictable one. And even though we’d like to think we’re always safe, that’s not always the case. As we spend more of our lives online, we find ourselves thinking twice before, say, clicking on a link or opening an email. Or we might be worried about getting scammed, hacked or fall in prey to malware or identity theft. The good news is, there’s great real time protection available for you and your family. When you use the browser extension, Guardio, you can do your thing online with complete confidence that every click is safe.
You can run a free security scan right now to see what threats are on your browser. And then if you’re interested in their protection, you can get 20% off your plan when you sign up at guard.io/livehappynow. That’s guard.io/livehappynow. Now, let’s get back to my conversation with Carin and learn more about her upcoming International Women’s Day event and find out how you can be a part of it.
[00:16:45] CR: Other aspects, there is an incredible panel on leadership. What does it mean to be a feminine leader? Yeah. Because when I know that your audience is a mix of gender identities, and obviously here, we’re talking about people who are female identified. But I’m going to make a case for feminine leadership, no matter your gender identity. That is, that feminine leadership isn’t – the word feminine has been truncated to mean, petal pink and smell like baby powder. No, no, no, that’s not what I’m talking about.
[00:17:22] PF: Baby soft. Remember that?
[00:17:23] CR: Exactly, right. Like the feminine care products that are in your drugstore, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is, the sides of leadership that are all about connection and humanity, compassion, the emotional intelligence, the trust, right? The creating a loving environment for those that you lead, the lack of hierarchy that it’s not that any one person is better than the other or higher than the other, but that we’re all in this together as a team. That’s what I’m talking about when we’re talking about feminine leadership. It’s the parts of ourselves that have been called the kind of soft skills. We just don’t want to call it soft skills, because those are like the actual hard skills.
[00:18:08] PF: Exactly, yeah.
[00:18:11] CR: Those are the harder skills to learn, to navigate. In all of us, some people might like the words masculine, feminine, some people might not. We replace it with whatever word you want, but the idea of us leading from love. There’s a panel coming together on how do we lead from a totally different place. The women that I’ve lined up to speak on really leading from the middle of the pack, as opposed to it needing to be this hierarchy. Because we’ve seen so many people abuse their power when they think of leadership in this power over way. We’re going to have a discussion about leadership. That’s internal leadership first, and then how do we lead from the middle of the pack, the back of the pack, the side of the pack and it’s going to be incredible.
That panel, counter to that or not even counter but complementary to that. We have a beautiful parenting panel.
[00:19:05] PF: Oh, nice!
[00:19:07] CR: Right. Now is the time. In fact, one of the women on the parenting panel, she’s an expert in teaching your kids how to study. Because we may go back down into lockdown and we may – people are dealing with different situations with their kids, and studying and homeschooling, and all of that, that none of us would have even thought was a thing two years ago. So she’s going to be teaching that. There’s going to be a parenting panel on how do we support our girls, our children in speaking up, speaking their voice. How do we navigate all of that? There’s going to be a life coaching panel, just me and three other coaches really diving into how do you go after your goals, how do you create what you want in life, how do you tenfold it. Everything that we know from life coaching. As well as throughout the day, we start off the day with a yoga class. That’s like a combination of yoga and movement. It’s called the feminine fire method.
[00:20:04] PF: Oh, nice. It’s so incredible. It’s with this woman, Allison Verna Thompson. She combines yoga, Pilates, dance, salsa, so that you begin low and slow like meditating. And by the end, you are up on your feet, you are dancing, you are alive. There’s also going to be yoga with Shayla Stonechild toward the end of the day. She is the only indigenous woman to have ever been on the cover of Yoga Journal. She is going to be leading a yoga class. I mean, we have packed the day in this incredible, beautiful way. I’m going to be doing a keynote about purpose. How do you know what your purpose is? What is your purpose? What is the legend that you’re here to live? What are the steps to actually figure out, discover your purpose? How do you get the courage to go after it? How do you create, let’s say, someone wants to create their own example of the Women’s Day event or something like that? Or a podcast like you do, Paula? How do they do that? That’s going to be a big theme. In fact, the overarching theme is, Say it Sister.
[00:21:08] PF: I love that.
[00:21:10] CR: Because we’re at a point, I think in the world where it’s our time to speak, and to speak up, and speak up for the rights of all, speak up for your own vision, speak up for being paid the same. The UN has themed this year’s International Women’s Day as break the barrier. So we absolutely want to break the bounds, we want to break the barrier. I believe the way that we do that is to speak up, and to say it loudly and say it proudly.
[00:21:41] PF: One thing I love about this event is, it encompasses all ages. Wherever you’re at, all the stages as well.
[00:21:49] CR: Yes.
[00:21:50] PF: It doesn’t matter if you are just starting out and trying to navigate your way through this world. Or if you’re a little bit farther along and you’re kind of like, “Ugh! Maybe your kids are grown and now you’re trying to figure out what do I do now?” That’s what I love about this. It doesn’t matter where you are, you can jump in and gain something from it.
[00:22:06] CR: Yes. In fact, I love that you said that. There is a separate sensuality panel all around sensuality, intimacy. One of the women on that panel, Ken Wizner, she calls herself the menopause madam. Last year, I had a sensuality panel and I will be honest, racially diverse group, but age all around the same age. I said to Kim, “I need you on the panel next year because I want all women no matter where they are at their age and stage of life to know.” And on the life coaching panel, one of the women on it with me, her name is Amanda Hanson, and her whole thing is revolutionizing midlife.
[00:22:43] PF: Love that.
[00:22:44] CR: We don’t need midlife to look like it. We thought it looked on our mothers or our grandmothers. We get to define midlife as the best time in our life. I feel better at midlife at 47 than I ever have in my life.
[00:22:57] PF: Absolutely.
[00:22:59] CR: It does encompass this whole range. We are such diverse women, even just within ourselves. The intersectionality, we’re not just any one thing. I’m 47, I’m going through perimenopause, and I’m postpartum, because I got a baby. We are all all of the above and we get to cover that. In fact, the event is free, it’s 100% free for anyone to attend. But I wanted to have a giveback component. We do make the recordings available for sale, and before the event, you can get all 12 hours of the recordings, the yoga classes, the movement classes, all the speakers, all the panels, all of it for only $97.
What I’m doing with a portion of proceeds is donating it. I want us to be able to come together and to give back. I’ve chosen two different nonprofits. One that specifically goes to girls and speaking up and girls’ leadership. And one that is all about supporting women and their families all over the world, and that’s Women’s Campaign International. That creates training for women in Afghanistan, women in the Sudan, women in countries all over to teach these women how to have economic independence, how to create their own, you know, wealth and worth for their families. It’s really, like when we come together, there’s our own individual learning, and then there’s coming together for something greater. I’m so thrilled that the founder and chair of Women’s Campaign International, Marjorie Margolies, who is a former US House of Representatives, as well as a former news correspondent anchor for the Today’s Show, and NBC and a number of different outlets. As well as, she’s Chelsea Clinton’s mother-in-law. She’s going to be speaking at the event about Women’s Campaign International and the work that when we all come together, we can do for women all over the world. We really are covering the gamut here.
[00:25:03] PF: You really are. It’s such a terrific day, it’s so much to take in. I’m so glad that you’re making it available after the fact. But what is it? Now you’re in your second year, you’ve got the little hindsight, and you put one of these together? What is it that you really hope at the end of the day, literally the end of the day, that people are walking away from this event feeling?
[00:25:25] CR: Hmm, such a great question. I want every human that participates in the event to say, “I can do it too.” Whatever you see in any one speaker, panelist, the panel as a total or the event as a total. I really believe that this is our time to rise, and that the world has been waiting for us at this moment. That the things that we have been experiencing are very real. The challenges of a pandemic, and of the politics, and of racial justice and all that we as American society and the world have been experiencing and cocreating. All of that can leave us feeling just down, depressed, anxious, go back to bed, have as much ice cream.
[00:26:22] PF: Or froyo.
[00:26:23] CR: Froyo, right? And then there’s this opportunity for every single one of us to say, “And what’s my part?” That each one of us was born with superhero powers, with strengths, with talents, with gifts. Each one of us has different passions, each one of us has a different way that we can change the world, that we can contribute, whether that is within our family, within our neighborhood, the world at large. That’s how we’re going to really – the world is going to change when every single one of us steps into that piece. What’s my part?
Tara Davina is an incredible singer, she sings about rising up. She’s going to be singing during the event, like I want every single person who attends to see themselves in one of these incredible, incredible speakers, panelists, singers, and to say, “I can do that too.” Because we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for, right? Like no one’s coming along on a white horse. We’re the ones who can make ourselves our happiest, our most purposeful, our most alive, our most radiant self. The reason I’m obsessed with purpose is we know from all the research that when you live your purpose, you have high life satisfaction. You are resilient, you feel optimistic and you feel so proud of yourself and it’s an inner radiance. I want every single person who experiences this event to feel that and to have the tools, and the inspiration and the motivation to go do it.
[00:27:58] PF: That is so excellent. I’m really excited for this to take place, and we’re going to tell them on the landing page, we’ll tell the listeners how to sign up, where they can go, give them all the details, make it super easy.
[00:28:08] CR: And it is easy. It’s thewomensdayevent.com. Super, super, super easy. I love doing it in partnership with you Paula and with Live Happy. You have been such a great partner to us. We love telling everybody about Live Happy Now and your podcast because it’s incredible.
[00:28:27] PF: We thank you for that.
[00:28:28] CR: Absolutely, absolutely. We love telling everyone about your podcast. We have your logo all over our event, because it’s a great partnership.
[00:28:36] PF: Yeah, it’s a such a great fit and I’m really glad that we were able to connect again and make this happen.
[00:28:41] CR: Me too. Thank you, Paula.
[00:28:43] PF: Looking forward to the event.
[00:28:45] CR: Me too. Thank you so much, sister.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:28:52] PF: That was Carin Rockind talking about her upcoming International Women’s Day event. If you’d like to learn more about this free event, sign up for it or learn more about Carin and the work she’s doing. Just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We’ll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. And until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one.
