September 1, 2024 • 33 mins
In this episode of "Out of the Box with Christine," host Christine Blosdale engages in an inspiring conversation with renowned author Robin Norwood. Known for her bestselling book "Women Who Love Too Much," Robin shares her journey into podcasting with her new show "Sensationally Silver" and discusses her mission to provide inspiration and validation to those over 60. Robin highlights the importance of gratitude and how starting each day with a thankful heart can transform one's perspective on life. She also delves into the positive aspects of aging, sharing wisdom on embracing freedom and self-acceptance as we grow older.
The conversation also touches on Robin's successful hair care line, Sensationally Silver, which serves as a platform for discussing aging gracefully.
Don't miss this episode filled with life lessons, the significance of self-care, and the power of gratitude. Tune in to discover how Robin Norwood continues to inspire through her new ventures and timeless wisdom! LINKS MENTIONED: Robin Norwood's Podcast 'Sensationally Silver' - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sensationally-silver-a-state-of-mind/id1752919010 Robin's book, "Women Who Love Too Much" - https://amzn.to/3ANoyHI Robin's Haircare - https://www.sensationallysilver.com Christine's Website - https://www.ChristineBlosdale.com
Book a FREE Consultation with Christine - http://www.ChatWithChristineB.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
For me, I think the most valuable attitude is gratitude in my own life.
Always paying attention to the things that I have to be grateful for.
And I start every day off with a prayer that includes saying thank you for three
(00:20):
things that I've not said thank you for before.
And what that does is it keeps me tuned in to the good things in my life.
And that means because whatever we pay attention
to we get more of those good things fill my
life and when it's the day's over i've had a good day because i've been paying
attention to the things i have to be grateful for i i think it's just an easy
(00:44):
and wonderful sort of philosophy of life to carry forward don't pay attention
to the bad pay attention to the good.
Music.
(01:13):
Welcome back to out of the box with christine i am your host christine blosdale
i'm an expert authority business coach.
I help entrepreneurs of all ages get their message out to the world through
podcasting, through video, through writing, all that good stuff.
And today is no exception. It's actually a wonderful client of mine who I've
(01:34):
been so fortunate to meet.
And I am so proud of the work that she's been doing.
Not only is my guest today, a world renowned author, very famous author of Women
Who Love Too Much, When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change.
And also, I'm happy to say, a brand new podcaster as well. She's got a podcast
(01:56):
show called Sensationally Silver.
And on top of that, she happens to be a shampoo maven.
And who am I talking about? Of course, the wonderful Robin Norwood.
Robin, welcome back to Out of the Box with Christine.
Thank you so much, Christine. And we are indeed one of your clients.
You've helped us so much to put that podcast together. So thank you.
(02:17):
And, and it's, it's so wonderful because it's a whole new generation too,
that actually also gets to hear from people who have, who have experienced life.
And, and, and I want to talk to you about the reason why you,
you, you created a podcast.
I mean, you know, a lot of, a lot of people right now are thinking about getting
(02:37):
the word out on their legacy on maybe works that they're doing,
but what was your purpose?
What What was your reason for creating the podcast?
I want to speak to persons of age, such as myself,
people who are over 60, who have got some miles on them, and I want the podcast to be,
(03:01):
and my guests to be, a source of inspiration and information and maybe especially validation,
because we don't get a lot of validation from younger people when we get older.
And you know I'm not blaming I we didn't do it when we were younger either we
(03:22):
were not paying attention to older people it's just part of life but in order
to feel good about ourselves and know that we still have a place in the world
we kind of have to do that for ourselves so I want to be part of that.
And and the guests you bring on I know one of your incredible guests is a dear
friend of ours the wonderful Julia Loggins who is a gut health expert and an angel of human being.
(03:46):
So it's so wonderful to also see you introduce people like Julia to a brand new audience as well.
And so how do you find the whole experience of being a podcaster?
I'm loving it. I am absolutely loving it because I learn with every guest who comes on.
I learn so much and I get to feel so good about the fact that I'm part of carrying
(04:11):
this message to other people. Julia is a perfect example.
She's going to be on my show again and she's going to be talking about issues
of health for older people, how that connects with what you eat and your supplements
and all that sort of thing because we have some concerns.
You know, the body doesn't work quite as well as we get older and it needs a
(04:35):
lot of help and she is so good about talking about that and helping people find their way.
And when I think of a guest like Julia, too, I think of the first word is vitality and the energy.
And isn't it funny because as society,
we think that people that are in their 60s or 70s, you know,
(04:58):
it used to be, well, just shuffle them off to the, you know,
the farm, you know, and Julia is the epitome and yourself as well.
You're both the epitome of of vitality. And for those that are listening, what's your secret?
What's your secret, Robin, to vitality and energy?
(05:19):
Well, I've got to admit that I don't have all the physical energy that I used to.
There's no question about that. But for me, I think the most valuable attitude
is is gratitude in my own life.
Always paying attention to the things that I have to be grateful for.
(05:41):
And I start every day off with a prayer that includes.
Saying thank you for three things that I've not said thank you for before.
And what that does is it keeps me tuned into the good things in my life.
And that means, because whatever we pay attention to, we get more of,
those good things fill my life.
(06:02):
And when the day's over, I've had a good day because I've been paying attention
to the things I have to be grateful for.
I think it's It's just an easy and wonderful sort of philosophy of life to carry forward.
Don't pay attention to the bad. Pay attention to the good and be grateful for it.
(06:22):
And isn't it we as human beings tend to focus on the negative?
You know, isn't it interesting?
We could be living like such a, you know, I think about it too.
We're so blessed, you know, we're so lucky, you know, to have a roof over our
heads and and good food to eat and clean water to drink.
(06:43):
And yet sometimes we get up in the morning, the first thing we think of are
the negative things, right? Those things that we don't have.
And I thank you for reminding us that there is so much to be grateful for.
And one thing I know you are very also grateful for is your amazing daughter.
Oh, my wonderful daughter. She's my producer on the podcast and I absolutely
(07:07):
couldn't do any of it without her, because I am so ignorant when it comes to
all this new technology. I can't do it.
It's embarrassing to admit this, but I really can't operate a cell phone.
I've lived for almost 30 years in a place that doesn't get cell reception. Oh, my gosh. Wow.
(07:28):
And actually, that's good for me because I have that electronic field sensitivity,
so I didn't even know I had it because I was protected.
Yeah. And when we had to hook up with things to do the podcast,
I learned that that is a problem for me.
So I have to be very limited in my exposure to that.
And besides, I've never learned it because I wasn't practicing like everybody else.
(07:52):
And all those four-year-olds that just were born pressing buttons and you can
ask them anything and they can tell you how it works.
So Piper does that for me. And besides being just a magnificent person,
she is such a help in this new venture of mine.
She's absolutely lovely. And I'll say also, as your coach, you and Piper's coach,
(08:16):
I'm very proud of the work she does too.
She's gotten it and grasped onto technology that was new for her,
you know, and in a comfortable space a little bit for her, she's really come through.
And the podcast too, we'll make sure to, for folks that are interested,
we'll make sure that we have a link to the podcast, the Apple podcast link.
(08:38):
For people to check it out because, and I do, I really encourage people to check
it out and subscribe to it, comment, make sure you rate and review as well,
because that also helps get that out there a little bit more when people rate and review the show.
So I encourage people to do that. And we'll have a link in the show notes for that.
Now, another thing too, I mean, because I, right before the interview,
(09:01):
you know, I went to look up because I needed to know what the subtitle of women
who love too much was because women who love too much is, it is like,
it is something that has been around for many years.
You published this. What, when did you publish this back in?
Well, I was 40. It came out when I was 40 years old, which was in 1985.
And as you mentioned at the beginning of this, we just have a new edition coming
(09:23):
out right now, brand new edition that's available.
It's been in print continuously all over the world since then.
And when the USSR began to break up, all those individual countries,
one by one by one, they've all been publishing Women Who Love Too Much.
Wow. Because I did. I saw it in a few different languages. I saw it in Spanish.
(09:49):
And just the legacy of that, you know, is amazing.
And for those who are not familiar with the book, and the full title is Women
Who Love Too Much, When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change,
tell our listeners just a little bit about that book.
What made you write that book?
Well, I think I'll answer that from a kind of funny angle.
(10:13):
I remember being, I did a lot of touring with the book and I was interviewed
on a lot of television programs and they would ask me,
they would want tips to offer their viewers on how to avoid these men.
And what I would say to them is, no, no, no, you don't understand.
Women who are like me, we line up for those men. So looking for them.
(10:38):
And it's because women like me, we want, see, it's just like doing the podcast.
I want to be of service. I want to be of help.
And I would bring that to emotional relationships.
So I'd look for somebody who needed me because I knew how to fit into that position.
I could apply for that job. And if I didn't have that job, I felt a little out of work.
(11:03):
I couldn't quite get in there and know what to do. But if I was trying to fix somebody, I was good.
And you know, I'm not talking about people who are asking for me to fix them.
My poor dear first husband, I really thought I should rescue him from his family.
He didn't want to be rescued from his family. He liked his family just fine.
(11:24):
But there were problems in the family and I thought he'd do much better away from them.
So I took that on as my job. And that kind of thing, that...
Not waiting for the question, just deciding what someone needs,
getting them there and trying to fix them, and being attracted to people with
problems. That's kind of the essence of it.
(11:46):
And then thinking that you can get them to think and behave in a different way.
It doesn't work, and it makes for a lot of resentment.
And often, we who try to do it become quite, quite sick in the process.
If we weren't sick already, we get there with all that frustration and anger and all the rest.
(12:09):
I hope that makes sense. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Yes.
And it's the same, you know, I've done several, I've done a series of interviews too with narcissists.
This one is a master narcissist.
And if you need content for another book, you could write another book about
narcissists because they're completely different animals.
(12:31):
Animals, the sad thing is that they are very much attracted to empaths, to empathic,
and a lot of times it's mostly men who are the narcissists, but there's women
as well. There's mothers who are narcissists.
And so there's a feeding frenzy that happens.
(12:52):
Because they actually lack empathy, there's no concern over your emotional distress.
But there is a charge, there's an energy, I equate it to being an energy vampire,
that when you are frustrated, stressed.
(13:13):
Sad, depressed from actions of the narcissist, it gives them a little bit of,
you know, a little bit of a, of a bolt, a little bit of a, you know,
a little bit of sugar, right?
And you can't, and you can't change them.
Well, it's, it's a lock and fit, you know, that's, that's what's important to remember.
(13:37):
It isn't all on one side or the other where the problem is. is it's this coming
together of different shaped parts, but that fit together so perfectly.
In Women Who Love Too Much, I talk about the dance, and boy, those steps.
When you dance with somebody, you're stepping forward, they're stepping back,
and just the opposite, but it's in tandem all the time.
(14:00):
So that feeling of fitting is such a familiar feeling,
and I talk about this a lot in the book, that it does come from,
very often, a family where that was the role that the person played,
trying to fix, trying to make things better, trying to make up for whatever,
(14:20):
always, always, out of fear, out of fear.
So much of that helping behavior is motivated by fear that if we ever stop trying
and we just let go, which is what we learn to do if we are in recovery,
that everything will crash and the results will be just dire.
(14:43):
Not really. Not really. What we get to do when we step back and let go is take
care of ourselves, which is often something we don't know anything about doing.
We have to have somebody else to fix because we don't know how to take care of ourselves.
That's deep. Yeah, that's deep and necessary to hear as well.
Well, in addition to of the book being relaunched.
(15:08):
And we'll make sure we have a link to that as well in the podcast notes for
people if they want to check out the book.
But in addition to that, I mean, my goodness, so you're a bestselling author,
you're a fabulous new podcaster, and you're a shampoo maven.
And for those of you that are listening to this on one of your preferred podcast
(15:31):
platforms, that's wonderful.
But if you catch this interview on YouTube, you'll see, first of all,
how gorgeous my guest is, Robin, but also how insanely amazing her hair is.
I know you get stopped on the streets about your hair, but talk about your hair
care line. I think it's brilliant.
Well, just to add to what you said, I never got stopped on the street when my hair was brown.
(15:56):
Never. Nobody ever stopped and said, oh my God, you have such gorgeous hair.
But they do with the gray hair, with the white hair. And that's been going on
for a long time. I started turning gray when I was 17.
That was when I first saw the gray hairs happening.
And I fought it for a long time. And I let it become gray when I was 40.
(16:17):
And I've never looked back. I love my gray hair.
And, you know, the title for Women Who Love Too Much just came to me one day
when I was driving to work and I thought, oh my gosh, I know the book that goes with that title.
Well, the name of my shampoo came the same way. It just came into my head and
I heard sensationally silver and I thought, wow, that is the perfect name for
(16:40):
hair care products for people with naturally gray hair.
And so I started a shampoo company. What I forgot for quite a few years,
actually, was the reason I wanted to do this was to talk about aging.
I wanted to have an excuse to talk about getting older and all the positive
(17:01):
aspects of getting older and the ways that we can validate ourselves and make
the most of our lives in this chapter.
So, I spent a lot of time trying to sell the shampoo, COVID happened,
all that stuff happened, oh my God.
And finally, after some years went by, I remembered what I'm really trying to
(17:22):
do is carry a message, and that shampoo is a vehicle for that.
So we've got a wonderful trio of products, they're great, and they are my excuse
for talking about getting older.
And that's what I'm really enjoying these days, is talking about that.
You know, you said earlier, Christine, about not complaining,
(17:44):
paying attention to the good.
One of the things older people do, and we used to listen to it and just hate
it. I know. Are you going?
Yeah. Well, then we talk about our declining health, and we sort of compare stories.
Because everybody wants that support, you know, from other people who are their peers.
And it's important to do that. It's important to listen to one another.
(18:07):
And it's not boring for people who are older because they're dealing with many of the same things.
But it is important to not make that the total focus or even most of the focus.
Because the other side of being older, for most of us, is an enormous amount of freedom.
Huge freedom that we've never known before. If we've had families,
(18:29):
we're not raising them anymore. If we've had jobs, we don't have to get up early
in the morning and rush off to work anymore.
So we get to choose so much about how we live now and really sometimes pursue
things that have been lifelong dreams that we haven't had the time for.
So it's a magical time in many, many ways. it is
(18:50):
and it's also what i've what i've noticed just in my
aging process is you
know because oh man we had the tweens uncomfortable
going into junior high feeling horrible about myself and my i had like acne
and i didn't fit in and it was that comparison thing of like you know all the
(19:10):
there's the popular girls you know and then boys and then ah and all that stuff growing up and then
even in your 20s, trying to be as beautiful as you can be,
you know, and the way that we were also told what was beautiful, right?
What was considered beautiful or important. And so all of that and all the angst
(19:35):
and all the stress when, you know, now I'm almost 60 myself, I'll be 60 in November.
And I'm like, I'm very happy with myself.
I, you know, I, I, I, I feel good about myself, but also I know,
I know what I want and I know what I don't want.
(19:56):
Yeah. And I can immediately go. Yeah. Now, you know, if it's if it's an event
that I'm supposed to go to and I get an icky feeling about it, I'm not I'm not going.
Right. Or if there's a person that comes into my life and I go,
oh, no, no, but you I don't have to to make. I don't have to pretend.
It's that beautiful freedom of really being able to say, you know,
(20:17):
to say yes to certain things and to say no to other things.
And there's no guilt at all. Well put. Have you experienced that?
You don't know. Oh, yeah.
You know, I like to say that I'm so much more comfortable in my own skin these days.
But I also say that it's probably because it's much looser than it used to be.
But we are. We're so much more comfortable. And what you were saying to me,
(20:40):
Christine, just says we've gotten to know ourselves better. And that takes time.
We've gotten to know ourselves better. And we've come to accept our quirks,
the things that maybe don't hit the standard that we We were taught, existed.
But the other thing I like to say is by the time we're this age,
we know we're not going to the Olympics.
(21:01):
We know we're not going to be Miss America or whatever.
And the contest is over. We don't have to start trying to prove something again and again and again.
That's not an issue anymore. Now it's just, again, as you were saying,
find what fits for us and saying, no, thank you.
We don't have to justify it but just saying no thank you to the things that.
(21:25):
Don't need to be part of our life yeah what a freedom it is a big freedom and
as someone who was really also you know raised by my grandmother see i'm i was
i was surrounded by that elder wisdom too and and and that person who's like.
Things i would say like water off
(21:46):
of a duck's back right so if something happened what
i noticed about my grandmother was that she was able just to
go ah you know i could come
in i could have like you know my eyeball bleeding and she'd go ah that thing
where she touches you know puts her finger in her mouth and it's like okay you
(22:07):
know that generation four yeah yeah I had a wonderful neighbor when I lived in Solvang,
and she was 80, and she had had 10 children.
And we had a family down the way, and the little boy was really odd.
And they had quite a few children, too. And I remember her saying, he'll get over that.
(22:28):
She said his brother was just like that. He'll get over that.
And she'd been around so long.
She'd had children at knee for 30 years. You know, she knew a few things and
she was so calm, just as you're saying, so calm, so reassuring.
She'd been through it all and
she really helped me because I was a rather nervous person in those days.
(22:53):
And I think, okay, Momo says it's going to be all right. It's going to be all right.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's something about that generation, too.
And they survived, you know, World War II and Vietnam and civil rights movement,
all that stuff that was happening.
And I think it was one of the most resilient generations, you know,
(23:14):
that we've had because I don't know. Well, we've been through COVID.
We and the rest of the world all together. That's got to have a little PTSD in it.
Oh, gosh. Gosh, yeah, it's been hard on people. But I think in my lifetime,
the degree of change in attitudes and values is beyond colossal.
(23:42):
I mean, it's so big.
The things that used to be such taboos are now accepted and celebrated.
And it's just an amazing thing. I remember when I was up at the station,
I worked at a television station here in Santa Barbara, and a woman had just been fired.
(24:02):
And they told her she was fired. They said this. They said, you're too old.
And too ugly. Oh, my gosh. Oh, I know. I know. And she turned around and sued
them. She did not win the lawsuit.
But like many of these things that go to court, the publicity made such a difference in attitudes.
(24:27):
No one would dare to say that today.
But that's what, and this was the early 80s. I mean, that's when she was up there.
But she was brave enough to take it on and take it to court. Good for her.
Yeah, good for her, and she made a difference, you know, and so many times,
again and again in my lifetime, it's been somebody speaking out,
(24:49):
taking a stand, taking some punishment in one way or another,
and being willing to do that, and then the consciousness gets raised,
that magical change of viewpoint.
It doesn't come by nothing happening.
It comes by somebody taking a stand. And I'm not a particularly,
(25:10):
I'm not a big fan of fighting, you know, but I remember when we were,
feminism was coming into its own in the 70s. I was in graduate school.
It was such an exciting time for women. We were really, really beginning to
stand up for ourselves. ourselves, all the jokes and just the ways that we were put down.
(25:32):
And one of the things I had to recognize was that I had participated in that. I'd gone along with it.
And not doing that anymore was really a freedom.
Made me proud of myself. Yeah. Yeah. Because it was in our life.
That was in my lifetime where women were expected to stay home and not have
a career, not have not have wishes for a future.
(25:54):
You're you're supposed to take care of the kids and the house and take care of your husband.
Because if you're a woman, you had to have a husband.
And now look at today.
I'm married to a woman. We're living in Australia.
I don't have to cook. I do, but I don't have to.
(26:15):
Yeah, it is. It's a really wonderful time to be around and to see what happens
and to see what changes we can make. Because you're right.
And it does take people standing up, you know, and sometimes being in the front
line and getting those shots fired at them first.
(26:35):
Those verbal shots, a dear friend of mine, Victoria Valentino,
who was one of the first women to speak out about Bill Cosby,
she was a victim of his, one of many.
And she did so at a time too where people were saying, how can you speak bad
(26:58):
about this man who's is supposed to be like everybody's father.
And he's, you know, he's got, he's so wealthy and he's so well-known and how dare you?
And lo and behold, because of her bravery, her courage, more women came out
and more women. And now it's like, you know.
(27:21):
But it took that, the initial assault, the initial wound was reopened again
by her speaking out. But she said, I have to.
And knowing that she wasn't going to be believed, that people were not only
not going to believe her, but revile her for saying something about this person
(27:41):
who is really beloved. I mean, I remember he was on the cover of everything.
Yeah. Yeah. We don't like our idols to fall that way. And that takes so much courage.
So much courage. And now, you know, I think one of the things that is sadly
true is that all the freedoms that we gain,
(28:01):
any of us, because women have been a minority too for so long, so many minorities,
those freedoms aren't forever.
We have to keep cherishing them and nurturing them and supporting them and sometimes
still fighting for them because they can be eroded too.
(28:22):
And the younger generations, younger than I am, they don't know that because
they've come up in a time when those freedoms are in place.
So it's easy to take them for granted, but we can't. We can't take anything
for granted that is as precious as any kind of freedom.
So, yeah, sorry, a little soapboxy, but no, no, girl, I know exactly what you're talking about.
(28:46):
And, you know, let's let's not, you know, let's let's not let's not go back.
Let's not go back in time. And for women's rights, for self-determination of our own bodies,
for people living with their loved ones, there should not be any of that going backward.
(29:15):
We need to move forward. And to protect those rights, we need to speak up.
And they're not a given. We have to keep fighting for them. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, my goodness, Robin Norwood, you're just amazing.
And I'm so glad that you're in my life. And before I before we wrap this up,
I have to tell you, it's so funny because I asked him, I asked you what your
(29:36):
greatest superpower was. us.
And your answer is very funny because I thought my father was the only person
on the world who would be able to wake up at any time without an alarm clock.
And you are the second person that I can do it. If I say to myself, I don't know.
(29:59):
I don't know. I have a few other things I can do that. I don't know how they
work, but that one is so cute because I can say, They, you know,
wake up at 345 and boing, I'll wake up, turn the light on. There's the clock saying 345.
So if you have a flight, you got to catch it LAX at, you don't,
you don't set an alarm clock.
No, I know I'm going to wake up. Oh my gosh.
(30:21):
And I've, you know, it's been going on for enough years. I mean,
look how old I am that I know it will work. Yeah.
It amazes me too, but I think it's really cute.
It's awesome. Awesome. I must have a clock in here that just goes tick,
tick, tick. And I don't know. I don't know how it knows.
My dad. Huh? What was that? Any, I can do it in any time zone. Oh, okay. So you can be.
(30:46):
It'll work. If I need to wake up at three 45 in New York, I can do it. I don't know.
You need to bottle that stuff up. You need to bottle that bottle up and sell it.
I'll admit, I look at the clock before I, you know, settle down to go to sleep.
I mean, I look at the time, but then something, something works. So, yeah.
(31:09):
That is magic. You're magic. I didn't. Yeah.
I don't know how he, I used to go, dad, why don't you have an alarm clock?
And he's like, cause I can wake up whenever I want to wake up.
And I go, even if having a big bender, you can just get up and just, and he did.
He was able to do it. And I thought that was a unique superpower.
(31:31):
And now I've met you and you have that same superpower.
So if we ever need to save the world by getting up at any time,
day or night, well, we know who to call. All of them.
Thank you so much. I'm so, so happy that you got to join me today.
And I'm also very happy that, my listeners and viewers on YouTube get to experience you.
(31:54):
And folks, if you want to learn more about my wonderful guest,
Robin Norwood, you can go to sensationallysilver.com.
We'll have a link there for you in the show notes.
You can find out about the incredible hair care products that Robin has created.
You can also, I'll have a link for the podcast show, subscribe to it,
(32:16):
it, listen to it and share it with others that you feel inspired,
that you will be inspired by it as well.
And pick up your brand new copy of Women Who Love Too Much. We'll have a link
in the show notes for that too.
Robin, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, Christine. So, so very much.
And thank you, wonderful listeners, for joining me today.
(32:39):
If you want more information about the work that I do, you can go to christineblasdale.com.
It has the links to the the different podcasts that I have, as well as my books
that I've created in the last year.
And you can check all that stuff out at christineblosdale.com.
Until next time, as I always say, remember to think outside of that damn box.
(33:00):
Music.
For me, I think the most valuable attitude is gratitude in my own life.
Always paying attention to the things that I have to be grateful for.
And I start every day off with a prayer that includes saying thank you for three
(00:20):
things that I've not said thank you for before.
And what that does is it keeps me tuned in to the good things in my life.
And that means because whatever we pay attention
to we get more of those good things fill my
life and when it's the day's over i've had a good day because i've been paying
attention to the things i have to be grateful for i i think it's just an easy
(00:44):
and wonderful sort of philosophy of life to carry forward don't pay attention
to the bad pay attention to the good.
Music.
(01:13):
Welcome back to out of the box with christine i am your host christine blosdale
i'm an expert authority business coach.
I help entrepreneurs of all ages get their message out to the world through
podcasting, through video, through writing, all that good stuff.
And today is no exception. It's actually a wonderful client of mine who I've
(01:34):
been so fortunate to meet.
And I am so proud of the work that she's been doing.
Not only is my guest today, a world renowned author, very famous author of Women
Who Love Too Much, When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change.
And also, I'm happy to say, a brand new podcaster as well. She's got a podcast
(01:56):
show called Sensationally Silver.
And on top of that, she happens to be a shampoo maven.
And who am I talking about? Of course, the wonderful Robin Norwood.
Robin, welcome back to Out of the Box with Christine.
Thank you so much, Christine. And we are indeed one of your clients.
You've helped us so much to put that podcast together. So thank you.
(02:17):
And, and it's, it's so wonderful because it's a whole new generation too,
that actually also gets to hear from people who have, who have experienced life.
And, and, and I want to talk to you about the reason why you,
you, you created a podcast.
I mean, you know, a lot of, a lot of people right now are thinking about getting
(02:37):
the word out on their legacy on maybe works that they're doing,
but what was your purpose?
What What was your reason for creating the podcast?
I want to speak to persons of age, such as myself,
people who are over 60, who have got some miles on them, and I want the podcast to be,
(03:01):
and my guests to be, a source of inspiration and information and maybe especially validation,
because we don't get a lot of validation from younger people when we get older.
And you know I'm not blaming I we didn't do it when we were younger either we
(03:22):
were not paying attention to older people it's just part of life but in order
to feel good about ourselves and know that we still have a place in the world
we kind of have to do that for ourselves so I want to be part of that.
And and the guests you bring on I know one of your incredible guests is a dear
friend of ours the wonderful Julia Loggins who is a gut health expert and an angel of human being.
(03:46):
So it's so wonderful to also see you introduce people like Julia to a brand new audience as well.
And so how do you find the whole experience of being a podcaster?
I'm loving it. I am absolutely loving it because I learn with every guest who comes on.
I learn so much and I get to feel so good about the fact that I'm part of carrying
(04:11):
this message to other people. Julia is a perfect example.
She's going to be on my show again and she's going to be talking about issues
of health for older people, how that connects with what you eat and your supplements
and all that sort of thing because we have some concerns.
You know, the body doesn't work quite as well as we get older and it needs a
(04:35):
lot of help and she is so good about talking about that and helping people find their way.
And when I think of a guest like Julia, too, I think of the first word is vitality and the energy.
And isn't it funny because as society,
we think that people that are in their 60s or 70s, you know,
(04:58):
it used to be, well, just shuffle them off to the, you know,
the farm, you know, and Julia is the epitome and yourself as well.
You're both the epitome of of vitality. And for those that are listening, what's your secret?
What's your secret, Robin, to vitality and energy?
(05:19):
Well, I've got to admit that I don't have all the physical energy that I used to.
There's no question about that. But for me, I think the most valuable attitude
is is gratitude in my own life.
Always paying attention to the things that I have to be grateful for.
(05:41):
And I start every day off with a prayer that includes.
Saying thank you for three things that I've not said thank you for before.
And what that does is it keeps me tuned into the good things in my life.
And that means, because whatever we pay attention to, we get more of,
those good things fill my life.
(06:02):
And when the day's over, I've had a good day because I've been paying attention
to the things I have to be grateful for.
I think it's It's just an easy and wonderful sort of philosophy of life to carry forward.
Don't pay attention to the bad. Pay attention to the good and be grateful for it.
(06:22):
And isn't it we as human beings tend to focus on the negative?
You know, isn't it interesting?
We could be living like such a, you know, I think about it too.
We're so blessed, you know, we're so lucky, you know, to have a roof over our
heads and and good food to eat and clean water to drink.
(06:43):
And yet sometimes we get up in the morning, the first thing we think of are
the negative things, right? Those things that we don't have.
And I thank you for reminding us that there is so much to be grateful for.
And one thing I know you are very also grateful for is your amazing daughter.
Oh, my wonderful daughter. She's my producer on the podcast and I absolutely
(07:07):
couldn't do any of it without her, because I am so ignorant when it comes to
all this new technology. I can't do it.
It's embarrassing to admit this, but I really can't operate a cell phone.
I've lived for almost 30 years in a place that doesn't get cell reception. Oh, my gosh. Wow.
(07:28):
And actually, that's good for me because I have that electronic field sensitivity,
so I didn't even know I had it because I was protected.
Yeah. And when we had to hook up with things to do the podcast,
I learned that that is a problem for me.
So I have to be very limited in my exposure to that.
And besides, I've never learned it because I wasn't practicing like everybody else.
(07:52):
And all those four-year-olds that just were born pressing buttons and you can
ask them anything and they can tell you how it works.
So Piper does that for me. And besides being just a magnificent person,
she is such a help in this new venture of mine.
She's absolutely lovely. And I'll say also, as your coach, you and Piper's coach,
(08:16):
I'm very proud of the work she does too.
She's gotten it and grasped onto technology that was new for her,
you know, and in a comfortable space a little bit for her, she's really come through.
And the podcast too, we'll make sure to, for folks that are interested,
we'll make sure that we have a link to the podcast, the Apple podcast link.
(08:38):
For people to check it out because, and I do, I really encourage people to check
it out and subscribe to it, comment, make sure you rate and review as well,
because that also helps get that out there a little bit more when people rate and review the show.
So I encourage people to do that. And we'll have a link in the show notes for that.
Now, another thing too, I mean, because I, right before the interview,
(09:01):
you know, I went to look up because I needed to know what the subtitle of women
who love too much was because women who love too much is, it is like,
it is something that has been around for many years.
You published this. What, when did you publish this back in?
Well, I was 40. It came out when I was 40 years old, which was in 1985.
And as you mentioned at the beginning of this, we just have a new edition coming
(09:23):
out right now, brand new edition that's available.
It's been in print continuously all over the world since then.
And when the USSR began to break up, all those individual countries,
one by one by one, they've all been publishing Women Who Love Too Much.
Wow. Because I did. I saw it in a few different languages. I saw it in Spanish.
(09:49):
And just the legacy of that, you know, is amazing.
And for those who are not familiar with the book, and the full title is Women
Who Love Too Much, When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change,
tell our listeners just a little bit about that book.
What made you write that book?
Well, I think I'll answer that from a kind of funny angle.
(10:13):
I remember being, I did a lot of touring with the book and I was interviewed
on a lot of television programs and they would ask me,
they would want tips to offer their viewers on how to avoid these men.
And what I would say to them is, no, no, no, you don't understand.
Women who are like me, we line up for those men. So looking for them.
(10:38):
And it's because women like me, we want, see, it's just like doing the podcast.
I want to be of service. I want to be of help.
And I would bring that to emotional relationships.
So I'd look for somebody who needed me because I knew how to fit into that position.
I could apply for that job. And if I didn't have that job, I felt a little out of work.
(11:03):
I couldn't quite get in there and know what to do. But if I was trying to fix somebody, I was good.
And you know, I'm not talking about people who are asking for me to fix them.
My poor dear first husband, I really thought I should rescue him from his family.
He didn't want to be rescued from his family. He liked his family just fine.
(11:24):
But there were problems in the family and I thought he'd do much better away from them.
So I took that on as my job. And that kind of thing, that...
Not waiting for the question, just deciding what someone needs,
getting them there and trying to fix them, and being attracted to people with
problems. That's kind of the essence of it.
(11:46):
And then thinking that you can get them to think and behave in a different way.
It doesn't work, and it makes for a lot of resentment.
And often, we who try to do it become quite, quite sick in the process.
If we weren't sick already, we get there with all that frustration and anger and all the rest.
(12:09):
I hope that makes sense. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Yes.
And it's the same, you know, I've done several, I've done a series of interviews too with narcissists.
This one is a master narcissist.
And if you need content for another book, you could write another book about
narcissists because they're completely different animals.
(12:31):
Animals, the sad thing is that they are very much attracted to empaths, to empathic,
and a lot of times it's mostly men who are the narcissists, but there's women
as well. There's mothers who are narcissists.
And so there's a feeding frenzy that happens.
(12:52):
Because they actually lack empathy, there's no concern over your emotional distress.
But there is a charge, there's an energy, I equate it to being an energy vampire,
that when you are frustrated, stressed.
(13:13):
Sad, depressed from actions of the narcissist, it gives them a little bit of,
you know, a little bit of a, of a bolt, a little bit of a, you know,
a little bit of sugar, right?
And you can't, and you can't change them.
Well, it's, it's a lock and fit, you know, that's, that's what's important to remember.
(13:37):
It isn't all on one side or the other where the problem is. is it's this coming
together of different shaped parts, but that fit together so perfectly.
In Women Who Love Too Much, I talk about the dance, and boy, those steps.
When you dance with somebody, you're stepping forward, they're stepping back,
and just the opposite, but it's in tandem all the time.
(14:00):
So that feeling of fitting is such a familiar feeling,
and I talk about this a lot in the book, that it does come from,
very often, a family where that was the role that the person played,
trying to fix, trying to make things better, trying to make up for whatever,
(14:20):
always, always, out of fear, out of fear.
So much of that helping behavior is motivated by fear that if we ever stop trying
and we just let go, which is what we learn to do if we are in recovery,
that everything will crash and the results will be just dire.
(14:43):
Not really. Not really. What we get to do when we step back and let go is take
care of ourselves, which is often something we don't know anything about doing.
We have to have somebody else to fix because we don't know how to take care of ourselves.
That's deep. Yeah, that's deep and necessary to hear as well.
Well, in addition to of the book being relaunched.
(15:08):
And we'll make sure we have a link to that as well in the podcast notes for
people if they want to check out the book.
But in addition to that, I mean, my goodness, so you're a bestselling author,
you're a fabulous new podcaster, and you're a shampoo maven.
And for those of you that are listening to this on one of your preferred podcast
(15:31):
platforms, that's wonderful.
But if you catch this interview on YouTube, you'll see, first of all,
how gorgeous my guest is, Robin, but also how insanely amazing her hair is.
I know you get stopped on the streets about your hair, but talk about your hair
care line. I think it's brilliant.
Well, just to add to what you said, I never got stopped on the street when my hair was brown.
(15:56):
Never. Nobody ever stopped and said, oh my God, you have such gorgeous hair.
But they do with the gray hair, with the white hair. And that's been going on
for a long time. I started turning gray when I was 17.
That was when I first saw the gray hairs happening.
And I fought it for a long time. And I let it become gray when I was 40.
(16:17):
And I've never looked back. I love my gray hair.
And, you know, the title for Women Who Love Too Much just came to me one day
when I was driving to work and I thought, oh my gosh, I know the book that goes with that title.
Well, the name of my shampoo came the same way. It just came into my head and
I heard sensationally silver and I thought, wow, that is the perfect name for
(16:40):
hair care products for people with naturally gray hair.
And so I started a shampoo company. What I forgot for quite a few years,
actually, was the reason I wanted to do this was to talk about aging.
I wanted to have an excuse to talk about getting older and all the positive
(17:01):
aspects of getting older and the ways that we can validate ourselves and make
the most of our lives in this chapter.
So, I spent a lot of time trying to sell the shampoo, COVID happened,
all that stuff happened, oh my God.
And finally, after some years went by, I remembered what I'm really trying to
(17:22):
do is carry a message, and that shampoo is a vehicle for that.
So we've got a wonderful trio of products, they're great, and they are my excuse
for talking about getting older.
And that's what I'm really enjoying these days, is talking about that.
You know, you said earlier, Christine, about not complaining,
(17:44):
paying attention to the good.
One of the things older people do, and we used to listen to it and just hate
it. I know. Are you going?
Yeah. Well, then we talk about our declining health, and we sort of compare stories.
Because everybody wants that support, you know, from other people who are their peers.
And it's important to do that. It's important to listen to one another.
(18:07):
And it's not boring for people who are older because they're dealing with many of the same things.
But it is important to not make that the total focus or even most of the focus.
Because the other side of being older, for most of us, is an enormous amount of freedom.
Huge freedom that we've never known before. If we've had families,
(18:29):
we're not raising them anymore. If we've had jobs, we don't have to get up early
in the morning and rush off to work anymore.
So we get to choose so much about how we live now and really sometimes pursue
things that have been lifelong dreams that we haven't had the time for.
So it's a magical time in many, many ways. it is
(18:50):
and it's also what i've what i've noticed just in my
aging process is you
know because oh man we had the tweens uncomfortable
going into junior high feeling horrible about myself and my i had like acne
and i didn't fit in and it was that comparison thing of like you know all the
(19:10):
there's the popular girls you know and then boys and then ah and all that stuff growing up and then
even in your 20s, trying to be as beautiful as you can be,
you know, and the way that we were also told what was beautiful, right?
What was considered beautiful or important. And so all of that and all the angst
(19:35):
and all the stress when, you know, now I'm almost 60 myself, I'll be 60 in November.
And I'm like, I'm very happy with myself.
I, you know, I, I, I, I feel good about myself, but also I know,
I know what I want and I know what I don't want.
(19:56):
Yeah. And I can immediately go. Yeah. Now, you know, if it's if it's an event
that I'm supposed to go to and I get an icky feeling about it, I'm not I'm not going.
Right. Or if there's a person that comes into my life and I go,
oh, no, no, but you I don't have to to make. I don't have to pretend.
It's that beautiful freedom of really being able to say, you know,
(20:17):
to say yes to certain things and to say no to other things.
And there's no guilt at all. Well put. Have you experienced that?
You don't know. Oh, yeah.
You know, I like to say that I'm so much more comfortable in my own skin these days.
But I also say that it's probably because it's much looser than it used to be.
But we are. We're so much more comfortable. And what you were saying to me,
(20:40):
Christine, just says we've gotten to know ourselves better. And that takes time.
We've gotten to know ourselves better. And we've come to accept our quirks,
the things that maybe don't hit the standard that we We were taught, existed.
But the other thing I like to say is by the time we're this age,
we know we're not going to the Olympics.
(21:01):
We know we're not going to be Miss America or whatever.
And the contest is over. We don't have to start trying to prove something again and again and again.
That's not an issue anymore. Now it's just, again, as you were saying,
find what fits for us and saying, no, thank you.
We don't have to justify it but just saying no thank you to the things that.
(21:25):
Don't need to be part of our life yeah what a freedom it is a big freedom and
as someone who was really also you know raised by my grandmother see i'm i was
i was surrounded by that elder wisdom too and and and that person who's like.
Things i would say like water off
(21:46):
of a duck's back right so if something happened what
i noticed about my grandmother was that she was able just to
go ah you know i could come
in i could have like you know my eyeball bleeding and she'd go ah that thing
where she touches you know puts her finger in her mouth and it's like okay you
(22:07):
know that generation four yeah yeah I had a wonderful neighbor when I lived in Solvang,
and she was 80, and she had had 10 children.
And we had a family down the way, and the little boy was really odd.
And they had quite a few children, too. And I remember her saying, he'll get over that.
(22:28):
She said his brother was just like that. He'll get over that.
And she'd been around so long.
She'd had children at knee for 30 years. You know, she knew a few things and
she was so calm, just as you're saying, so calm, so reassuring.
She'd been through it all and
she really helped me because I was a rather nervous person in those days.
(22:53):
And I think, okay, Momo says it's going to be all right. It's going to be all right.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's something about that generation, too.
And they survived, you know, World War II and Vietnam and civil rights movement,
all that stuff that was happening.
And I think it was one of the most resilient generations, you know,
(23:14):
that we've had because I don't know. Well, we've been through COVID.
We and the rest of the world all together. That's got to have a little PTSD in it.
Oh, gosh. Gosh, yeah, it's been hard on people. But I think in my lifetime,
the degree of change in attitudes and values is beyond colossal.
(23:42):
I mean, it's so big.
The things that used to be such taboos are now accepted and celebrated.
And it's just an amazing thing. I remember when I was up at the station,
I worked at a television station here in Santa Barbara, and a woman had just been fired.
(24:02):
And they told her she was fired. They said this. They said, you're too old.
And too ugly. Oh, my gosh. Oh, I know. I know. And she turned around and sued
them. She did not win the lawsuit.
But like many of these things that go to court, the publicity made such a difference in attitudes.
(24:27):
No one would dare to say that today.
But that's what, and this was the early 80s. I mean, that's when she was up there.
But she was brave enough to take it on and take it to court. Good for her.
Yeah, good for her, and she made a difference, you know, and so many times,
again and again in my lifetime, it's been somebody speaking out,
(24:49):
taking a stand, taking some punishment in one way or another,
and being willing to do that, and then the consciousness gets raised,
that magical change of viewpoint.
It doesn't come by nothing happening.
It comes by somebody taking a stand. And I'm not a particularly,
(25:10):
I'm not a big fan of fighting, you know, but I remember when we were,
feminism was coming into its own in the 70s. I was in graduate school.
It was such an exciting time for women. We were really, really beginning to
stand up for ourselves. ourselves, all the jokes and just the ways that we were put down.
(25:32):
And one of the things I had to recognize was that I had participated in that. I'd gone along with it.
And not doing that anymore was really a freedom.
Made me proud of myself. Yeah. Yeah. Because it was in our life.
That was in my lifetime where women were expected to stay home and not have
a career, not have not have wishes for a future.
(25:54):
You're you're supposed to take care of the kids and the house and take care of your husband.
Because if you're a woman, you had to have a husband.
And now look at today.
I'm married to a woman. We're living in Australia.
I don't have to cook. I do, but I don't have to.
(26:15):
Yeah, it is. It's a really wonderful time to be around and to see what happens
and to see what changes we can make. Because you're right.
And it does take people standing up, you know, and sometimes being in the front
line and getting those shots fired at them first.
(26:35):
Those verbal shots, a dear friend of mine, Victoria Valentino,
who was one of the first women to speak out about Bill Cosby,
she was a victim of his, one of many.
And she did so at a time too where people were saying, how can you speak bad
(26:58):
about this man who's is supposed to be like everybody's father.
And he's, you know, he's got, he's so wealthy and he's so well-known and how dare you?
And lo and behold, because of her bravery, her courage, more women came out
and more women. And now it's like, you know.
(27:21):
But it took that, the initial assault, the initial wound was reopened again
by her speaking out. But she said, I have to.
And knowing that she wasn't going to be believed, that people were not only
not going to believe her, but revile her for saying something about this person
(27:41):
who is really beloved. I mean, I remember he was on the cover of everything.
Yeah. Yeah. We don't like our idols to fall that way. And that takes so much courage.
So much courage. And now, you know, I think one of the things that is sadly
true is that all the freedoms that we gain,
(28:01):
any of us, because women have been a minority too for so long, so many minorities,
those freedoms aren't forever.
We have to keep cherishing them and nurturing them and supporting them and sometimes
still fighting for them because they can be eroded too.
(28:22):
And the younger generations, younger than I am, they don't know that because
they've come up in a time when those freedoms are in place.
So it's easy to take them for granted, but we can't. We can't take anything
for granted that is as precious as any kind of freedom.
So, yeah, sorry, a little soapboxy, but no, no, girl, I know exactly what you're talking about.
(28:46):
And, you know, let's let's not, you know, let's let's not let's not go back.
Let's not go back in time. And for women's rights, for self-determination of our own bodies,
for people living with their loved ones, there should not be any of that going backward.
(29:15):
We need to move forward. And to protect those rights, we need to speak up.
And they're not a given. We have to keep fighting for them. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, my goodness, Robin Norwood, you're just amazing.
And I'm so glad that you're in my life. And before I before we wrap this up,
I have to tell you, it's so funny because I asked him, I asked you what your
(29:36):
greatest superpower was. us.
And your answer is very funny because I thought my father was the only person
on the world who would be able to wake up at any time without an alarm clock.
And you are the second person that I can do it. If I say to myself, I don't know.
(29:59):
I don't know. I have a few other things I can do that. I don't know how they
work, but that one is so cute because I can say, They, you know,
wake up at 345 and boing, I'll wake up, turn the light on. There's the clock saying 345.
So if you have a flight, you got to catch it LAX at, you don't,
you don't set an alarm clock.
No, I know I'm going to wake up. Oh my gosh.
(30:21):
And I've, you know, it's been going on for enough years. I mean,
look how old I am that I know it will work. Yeah.
It amazes me too, but I think it's really cute.
It's awesome. Awesome. I must have a clock in here that just goes tick,
tick, tick. And I don't know. I don't know how it knows.
My dad. Huh? What was that? Any, I can do it in any time zone. Oh, okay. So you can be.
(30:46):
It'll work. If I need to wake up at three 45 in New York, I can do it. I don't know.
You need to bottle that stuff up. You need to bottle that bottle up and sell it.
I'll admit, I look at the clock before I, you know, settle down to go to sleep.
I mean, I look at the time, but then something, something works. So, yeah.
(31:09):
That is magic. You're magic. I didn't. Yeah.
I don't know how he, I used to go, dad, why don't you have an alarm clock?
And he's like, cause I can wake up whenever I want to wake up.
And I go, even if having a big bender, you can just get up and just, and he did.
He was able to do it. And I thought that was a unique superpower.
(31:31):
And now I've met you and you have that same superpower.
So if we ever need to save the world by getting up at any time,
day or night, well, we know who to call. All of them.
Thank you so much. I'm so, so happy that you got to join me today.
And I'm also very happy that, my listeners and viewers on YouTube get to experience you.
(31:54):
And folks, if you want to learn more about my wonderful guest,
Robin Norwood, you can go to sensationallysilver.com.
We'll have a link there for you in the show notes.
You can find out about the incredible hair care products that Robin has created.
You can also, I'll have a link for the podcast show, subscribe to it,
(32:16):
it, listen to it and share it with others that you feel inspired,
that you will be inspired by it as well.
And pick up your brand new copy of Women Who Love Too Much. We'll have a link
in the show notes for that too.
Robin, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, Christine. So, so very much.
And thank you, wonderful listeners, for joining me today.
(32:39):
If you want more information about the work that I do, you can go to christineblasdale.com.
It has the links to the the different podcasts that I have, as well as my books
that I've created in the last year.
And you can check all that stuff out at christineblosdale.com.
Until next time, as I always say, remember to think outside of that damn box.
(33:00):
Music.
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