After leaving a career in corporate healthcare in 2016, Sarah set out to find work that better aligned with her passion and purpose. As co-owner of Black Pearl Coaching and Consulting, she served as a consultant to small businesses and nonprofits. Through this work, she accepted a position as the inaugural Executive Director with Lead(h)er, a nonprofit that connects women with mentors to fuel career and community engagement - a position she still holds to this day. In 2018, Sarah launched The Beautifull Project, an entrepreneurial effort that combined her past professional experience with her commitment to pursuing purposeful work. Using the power of collective storytelling, The Project invites women back to their bodies, encouraging, and supporting them as they learn to use their voice and take up space. When Sarah is not thinking up big ideas for The Project, she is shamelessly momming 3 teens, writing, reading, teaching yoga, and leaning as far as possible into an honest, authentic life.
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Recently I’ve spoken out about the crucial importance of cultivating emotional intelligence in young men.
The official definition of emotional intelligence is: the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.
Historically, men have not been raised to be emotionally intelligent, emotionally capable or emotionally available.
Historically, we have largely failed to raise men who can handle interpersonal relationships or relationships with their larger communities judiciously and empathetically.
Historically, we have taught men to stuff feelings, dismiss feelings, ignore feelings, and deny feelings. And the consequences are proving to be dire.
There are so many horrific outcomes when we have multiple generations of men who are unable to identify their feelings, express their feelings, and relate to other peoples’ feelings.
The result of generations of poor emotional intelligence among men is rape culture, diet culture, racism, sexism, men policing women’s bodies, rampant struggles with mental health, the addiction epidemic and so much more that we won’t see the full impact of for years to come.
This is disturbing and distressing to say the least.
Add to that the numbers and data we’re seeing around mass shootings - largely executed by young, white men - young white men who with known mental health struggles and/or dangerously radical views stemming from a lack of empathy and compassion for others. This is an emotional intelligence crisis.
The responsibility of raising an emotionally intelligent young man (a young white man, in my case) in our current landscape is a critical task that cannot be taken lightly. A number of you have asked me how we can do our very best in raising emotionally intelligent young men - and just how I’m facing this responsibility head-on.
In this episode, I’ll share the 8 things I’m doing to raise an emotionally intelligent, emotionally capable son. By no means do I think I’m doing it perfectly. But I think I’m getting a few things right and it’s all worth sharing if it helps any of our young men.
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Darcy Lockman is a journalist turned clinical psychologist and the author of All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership (Harper Collins). Her writing has appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post, among others. Her first book, Brooklyn Zoo, chronicled the year she spent working on the psychiatric ward of a city hospital. She currently practices in New York City, where she lives with her husband and daughters.
I have invested a lot of time learning about building equitable relationships in the last year. As someone who likes to take on all. the. things., I know what it’s like to be the doer and the know-er and the gatekeeper of everything in the family. It’s an exhausting, unfair, and unnecessary burden that we can improve - drastically. I couldn’t be more excited to invite you into this conversation with Darcy and me.
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The path to anywhere worth going will be marked with unexpected twists and turns. There will be highs and lows that you can’t imagine - that will push you and pull you and quite possibly bring you to your knees.
Because that is the journey of the hero, the warrior, the survivor, the fighter.
The journey to anywhere worth going will take strength and tenacity and patience and persistence you didn’t know you had.
You will question yourself, your strength, your skills, and your values.
You will want to scream. You will want to cry. You will want to quit.
But you won’t.
You will persist.
Because you will remember where you’re going and why it’s imperative you get there.
You will remember that when the going gets tough, you do not sit. You PERSIST.
Listen in to hear how to build persistence in order to step into your power.
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Carol Gavhane is co-founder of Asha Blooms, a handcrafted purposeful jewelry company dedicated to inspiring and uplifting people.
Born out of her walk with secondary infertility, she and her husband created this business once it dawned on them that words and intentions really do matter. Each piece of jewelry is tied to a specific intention, and it’s their vision that others see themselves for who they already are – whole, loved, complete, courageous and renewed.
Everything about their first child was fairly typical, but trying to add to the family afterwards was incredibly difficult. During those years, they tried everything under the sun to get or sustain pregnancy - clean eating, support groups, fertility yoga, acupuncture, meditation, negotiations with God, many visits to the fertility clinic, and so on. These services absolutely helped as they provided comfort or bits of positivity, but there were many dark days thrown in the mix.
During this journey, Carol found a fertility bracelet that became a beacon of hope, a daily wearable reminder to continue on, which she did for nearly three years. Looking back, Carol credits science, hope, and intention with the creation of baby Henry.
I had the opportunity to meet Carol a couple months ago through a colleague and our connection was instant and deep. I relate to so much of her story. I know a lot of other mamas out there are with Carol and me, as well.
Listen in to hear Carol share:
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Are you ready for some truth-telling???
It’s time to take off your armor.
You deserve to embrace and appreciate all parts of yourself and your story, not just the pretty parts.
You deserve to reframe and reset your mindset around the struggles in your life, not settle for constant self-doubt and negative self-talk.
You deserve to get curious about who you are and where you want to go in life, not stay the course that is no longer lighting you up.
You deserve to grow and expand and become a more positive, powerful, purposeful version of yourself, not shrink in frustration and worry that you'll never get all the things you want.
Not only do you deserve all this - you are TRULY CAPABLE of all this.
You are capable of embracing all of you and all of your story.
You are capable of reframing and resetting your mindset so you can shut down that negative self-talk.
You are capable of getting curious about where you want to go in the next 3, 6, 12 months and actually starting to take steps to get yourself there.
You are capable of growing and expanding into a more positive, powerful and purposeful version of yourself starting right now.
If you're struggling with your identity - who you are, where you've come from, where you want to go - you are not alone. And it's time to take off your armor. The armor that you think is protecting you is actually holding you back from taking action, building momentum, and realizing what you're truly capable of.
Here’s what your armor might look like:
Tune into learn 7 steps to take off your armor and put on your cape.
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Chrissy King is a writer, speaker, strength coach, and self-proclaimed truth-teller with a passion for intersectional feminism and creating a diverse and inclusive wellness industry. She has been featured in SELF, SHAPE, BuzzFeed, Muscle and Fitness, and Livestrong, among others.
She empowers individuals to stop shrinking, start taking up space and use their energy to create their specific magic in the world. When she’s not serving her clients by empowering them to create stress-free and sustainable lifestyles and feel confident and empowered in their skin, she spends her time lifting all the weights, reading, traveling, and hanging with friends and family.
I have wanted to have Chrissy come on the show for some time. I’ve followed her for years online and her messaging always resonates with me. I think this conversation is especially timely given the Monday’s episode about Beyonce’s recent messaging around body image. While I recorded this interview before the Beyonce episode, there are a lot of the same themes and reinforced messaging around the power in protecting and elevating women of all backgrounds, shapes, sizes, orientations.
Listen in to hear Chrissy share:
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Facebook: Chrissy King Fitness
Instagram: I Am Chrissy King
Twitter: I Am Chrissy King
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Last week I called out Beyonce in a social media post. A lot of really interesting lessons and insights came from the ensuing comments and conversation. I thought it was worth dedicating an entire episode to the results of that one social media post because it brought to light:
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