Love and Life with Dr. Karin and Pastor Elliott

Last week I did an Instagram live with Laura Behnke of Life Actually. Laura and I align on so many levels—she also found love later than she’d hoped to and therefore dealt with “single shaming” along the way. Laura’s been there, felt that and learned to embrace her life actually! Join us for a lively conversation discussing: How to increase your self worth (spoiler alert:  science says there’s only ONE way!) Managing the fear of, “What if I never find my person?” How to use “psychological flexibility” to embrace your life actually and live life on YOUR terms! (“psychological flexibility” comes from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy—see episode 65 with Dr. Steven C. Hayes, creator of ACT) How to fall in love with being by yourself. The myth of being “too independent” to find love and why your independence makes you BETTER prepared for partnership! How being with a partner because you WANT each other—as opposed to NEED each other—protects us from infidelity. How to move from operating from a place of fear to empowered decision making! Laura and I had so much to talk about, I decided to break up our convo into two parts.  Enjoy part one, and sit tight for part two which we’ll roll out later this week. Dr. Karin Website: http://loveandlifemedia.com Instagram: @dr.karin

Many of you resonated with our recent conversation on the father wound (ep. 125) and asked if we’d speak to the mother wound, too. So, psychotherapist and pastor Elliott Anderson is back to discuss how mother wounds affect our dating and relationships. Join us to learn: How the mother wound differs from the father wound. Common mother wounds children experience. Enmeshment with mothers and how this impacts our ability to form healthy romantic attachments. Recognizing when we’re “using” a romantic connection to “escape” dynamics from our family of origin. Dating a man with a mother wound. In recognizing our mother wounded, we’re able to bring it to the surface, process it, and move through it—toward emotional relief, intrapersonal wholeness, and relational wellness. Dr. Karin Website: http://www.loveandlifemedia.com/ Instagram: @dr.karin

Fear is a powerful force—it permeates all realms of love and life but it seems particularly impactful when it comes to dating. We fear meeting someone new—because we’ve been rejected before. We fear trusting—because our trust has been broken in the past. We fear committing—because commitments never seem to last. At the same time, we fear not dating, trusting, and committing because we fear being alone and worry we’ll be single forever. Psychologist Dr. Stephanie Spielmann’s work examines this specific concern—the fear of being single forever. Join me as I discuss the findings from several Spielmann studies elucidating the influence of fear on our dating lives, but more importantly—what we can do to overcome this fear and date from a place of hope and empowerment! Dr. Karin Website: http://loveandlifemedia.com Instagram: @dr.karin

If you’ve ever wondered if you have “daddy issues” or been curious as to how your relationship with your father influences the men you choose and the dynamics you experience in relationships, this episode is for you!  Psychotherapist Elliott Anderson and I take a deep dive into how father wounds show up in our romantic relationships—and most importantly, how we can heal these wounds so as to avoid repeating painful patterns.  Elliott and I discuss: The two main ways father wounds play out with the couples Elliott counsels. How psychotherapy can heal a father wound in unique and profound ways. The importance of forgiving our fathers. The tension between being drawn to someone who’s good for us vs. feeling like we’re settling. Why dating a “fixer upper” never works! Elliott also talks about his new book, Simon Says:  Principles and Perspectives from Dr. Simon V. Anderson.  Simon Says shares the abundant wisdom of our father and the profound and enduring impact he had on his children and community. __________________________________ Elliott Anderson Purchase Simon Says: https://amzn.to/3sYdQFK  Dr. Karin Website: www.loveandlifemedia.com  Instagram: @dr.karin

You loved episode 92 in which Dr. Welch taught us what it means to date as a “high status” woman. Several of you had follow up questions about this concept, so when Dr. Welch joined me this week on the podcast (ep. 123), I asked her if she’d be willing to stick around and record a bonus episode to address your concerns. She agreed and here we are!  As for the questions: Taryn wants to know how women can present ourselves as “high status” if we don’t fit society’s typical standards of beauty.  Mindy wonders about getting physical—how can we approach this element of dating from a “high status” perspective?  Join us to hear Dr. Welch’s answers to these “high status” hot topics! Dr. Welch Website: http://lovefactually.co/ Dr. Karin Website: http://loveandlifemedia.com/ Instagram: @dr.karin

Love & Life fan favorite, Dr. Duana Welch is back!  In this episode, Dr. Welch shares the psych research on breaking up and moving on.  Join us as we discuss how to: Choose healing and peace even after the most devastating breakup. Guarantee you’ll never get emotionally abused. Convey your needs in relationships—even early on! Recognize our attachment style and work with it as we heal. Manage the clichés you’ll hear about heartbreak recovery and getting back “out there.” Figure out if you’re “too picky.” Stop worrying about being alone forever. Dr. Welch merges relationship  science with her personal journey of dating, marriage, and divorce. Join us to learn how to “love factually!” Dr. Welch Website: http://lovefactually.co/  Dr. Karin Website: http://loveandlifemedia.com/  Instagram: @dr.karin

“More than one in four women take medication to treat a mental health condition” (Medco Health Solutions). Are 25% of us actually clinically depressed and anxious? Or, might diagnostic inflation be at work? Psychologist Dr. Steven C. Hayes speaks to this and more in his new book, Beyond the DSM: Toward a Process-Based Alternative for Diagnosis and Mental Health Treatment. Join us for a conversation about: ·        The excessive biomedicalization of the human condition. ·        How a DSM diagnosis may make us more passive and less responsible for our own emotional well-being. ·        The notion of “having” a psychiatric illness vs. assessing the things we “do” and the feelings that show up for us. ·        Debunking the “science” of mental illness. ·        Why genes are NOT deterministic of our emotional and psychological functioning (spoiler alert: epigenetics). ·        How meditation impacts our emotional state and our genes! If you’ve ever wondered why it seems everyone “has” some sort of disorder nowadays, this episode is for you!  We explore ways we can ALL move beyond the DSM and toward a more empowered approach to emotional and psychological health! https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-mental-health-gender-gap-women-far-exceed-men-in-their-use-of-psychotropic-medications-as-utilization-increases-among-both-sexes-143297886.html Dr. Karin Website: loveandlifemedia.com Instagram: @dr.karin

I get asked about hope a lot: ·   How can I stay hopeful when the dating scene is so bleak? ·   How can I maintain a hopeful attitude after being ghosted yet again? ·   How can I hold onto hope? All the good ones are taken! Maintaining a happy, hopeful, positive attitude when you’ve been dating for a long time—way longer than you expected or wanted to—isn’t easy at all. I’ve been there, felt that. Over my 27 years of dating (from 15 until age 42 when I got married), there were definitely times when I thought it would be so much easier to just give up and resign myself to being single forever. But I never gave up hope.  And, I don’t want you to, either! Research in psychology confirms hope makes a huge difference in our emotional—and even physical!—well-being. Furthermore, hope is within our control! By practicing research-based strategies, we can cultivate and sustain a hopeful attitude despite the disappointments we are bound to experience. Join me to learn the science of hope and the practices we can implement in order to enjoy its psychological benefits! Citations: Connors, C. (2017, June 1). The science of hope:  World renowned psychologists explain its power. Medium. https://medium.com/the-mission/the-science-of-hope-world-renowned-psychologists-explain-its-power-b914dd0da631 Hardy, B. (2020, July 27). 8 Science backed ways to increase your hope. Forge. https://forge.medium.com/10-science-based-ways-to-increase-your-hope-430892caacb2 Dr. Karin Website: loveandlifemedia.com

Ella has a history of dating bad boys, but she’s trying to turn this around!  She listened to episode 63 with Ken Page, LCSW, bought his book, Deeper Dating, and is working on cultivating what Ken calls Attractions of Inspiration, as opposed to Attractions of Deprivation. But when she dates nice guys, she’s just not into them. She tries to give them a chance, but finds she’s bored and uninterested. In this mini Love & Life episode, I discuss how we can determine if we’re bored because we’re addicted to dysfunctional dynamics, or if we just haven’t met the right person yet! Dr. Karin Website: loveandlifemedia.com

Mandy struggles with something so many of us can relate to—the guys she doesn’t care for are into her, while the guys she wants don’t seem to be interested.  In this mini Love & Life episode, I share the science of flirting from Dr. Duana Welch’s book, Love Factually for Single Parents and Those Dating Them. Learn 6 research-based ways to signal your interest in a guy, while remaining, what Dr. Welch calls, “high status.”