Beautiful Work Beautiful Life

Laurel Holland and Laurel Boivin explore how inner strength is cultivated through our relationship with difficult emotions. Rather than avoiding or numbing hard feelings, they discuss how learning to sit with them builds emotional resilience and deep inner power.

Through personal reflection and practical insights, the conversation highlights the idea of the “feeling muscle,” the importance of observing emotions without identifying as them, and why inner strength is an inside-out experience. This episode invites listeners to develop the awareness and fortitude needed to navigate life’s challenges with greater presence, health, and confidence.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• What it really means to manifest inner strength through emotional awareness rather than avoidance

• How building the “feeling muscle” allows you to sit with and outlast hard emotions

• Why numbing, distracting, or suppressing feelings can weaken us over time

• Simple practices for observing emotions without becoming them

• The difference between inner strength and external power

• How emotional resilience supports your ability to navigate life’s biggest challenges

Journaling prompts suggested to further your exploration. 

1. When a difficult feeling shows up, what do I usually do?

2. What emotions do I tend to avoid or push away?

3. How do I typically respond to myself when I’m experiencing a difficult emotion?

4. What do I reach for when I don’t want to feel what I’m feeling?

5. What patterns do I notice in how I handle uncomfortable feelings?

Links/Books mentioned

The Feeling Muscle: How to Sit With and Outlast Hard Feelings, by Jen Drummond Rapkin

Death, by Sadhguru

The email to send questions to Laurel Boivin is [email protected] and for Laurel Holland - [email protected]

Host/Cohost/Guest Info

Guiding others to become effective leaders of their own lives, Laurel Holland has been on a journey of awakening and transformation throughout her life. Writing about inner work, Laurel has authored four books, including Crossroads and Love’s 8 Laws. Her books, Live Your Inner Power, the Journal, and Courageous Woman, introduce, share, and explore the eight foundational practices for creating transformation from the inside out. Through her books, programs, and innovative talks, Laurel’s great desire is to lift others up and courageously step into the life they came here to live. You can learn more about Laurel, her books, and work she does at www.liveyourinnerpower.com.

Laurel Boivin is a leadership coach, speaker, and workshop facilitator. Founder of Flux+Flow Professional Coaching, Laurel works with high-performing professionals and mission-driven organizations to shift from achievement to alignment — helping them connect deeply to purpose, lead with confidence, and create environments where people thrive. A Reiki master and yoga practitioner, collector of sea glass and antiques, she lives in New Hampshire and summers in Maine. You can learn more about Laurel and the work she does at www.fluxflowcoaching.com.

In this episode of Beautiful Work Beautiful Life, host Laurel Holland sits down with naturopathic doctor and author Jenn Rapkin for a deeply human conversation about emotions, embodiment, and resilience. Jenn shares the inspiration behind her new book, The Feeling Muscle, and invites listeners to rethink their relationship with emotions—especially the hard ones we often try to avoid.

Drawing from her personal journey with OCD, her clinical work, and body-based healing practices, Jenn explains why our thoughts don’t always have our best interests at heart—and how reconnecting with the body can help us feel safer, steadier, and more grounded. This episode is a powerful reminder that feeling deeply is a strength , not a weakness. And when we build our “feeling muscle,” we expand our capacity to live more fully, authentically, and courageously.

Highlights include: 

• Why our thoughts don’t always have our back—and how to stop letting them run the show

• How emotional resilience is something we can practice and strengthen

• How embodiment and mindfulness help interrupt anxiety, OCD, and intrusive thought patterns

• Understanding body armor—how we physically hold down emotions and how to release them gently

• The importance of going slowly in healing and honoring your own timeline

• How naming emotions and describing their physical sensations builds emotional intelligence

• Why avoiding hard feelings actually limits our lives—and how learning to feel them creates freedom

• The often-overlooked practice of receiving positive emotions and compliments

• How compassion neutralizes and softens the inner critic to build self-trust

Journaling prompts are suggested to further your exploration to gently support deepening your emotional awareness and resilience.

Links/Books mentioned: The Feeling Muscle by Dr Jenn Rapkin

The email to send questions to Laurel Boivin is [email protected] and for Laurel Holland - [email protected]

Host/Cohost/Guest Info

Guiding others to become effective leaders of their own lives, Laurel Holland has been on a journey of awakening and transformation throughout her life. Writing about inner work, Laurel has authored four books, including Crossroads and Love’s 8 Laws. Her books, Live Your Inner Power, the Journal, and Courageous Woman, introduce, share, and explore the eight foundational practices for creating transformation from the inside out. Through her books, programs, and innovative talks, Laurel’s great desire is to lift others up and courageously step into the life they came here to live. You can learn more about Laurel, her books, and work she does at www.liveyourinnerpower.com.

Laurel Boivin, life coach and founder of Flux+Flow Professional Coaching, helps high-performing professionals overcome overwhelm and disillusionment by increasing self-awareness and shifting perspective to improve performance, increase personal contribution, and experience a greater sense of fulfillment and purpose. Laurel began coaching after a 30-year corporate career.  A Reiki master and yoga practitioner, collector of sea glass and antiques, she lives in New Hampshire and summers in Maine.  You can learn more about Laurel and the work she does at www.fluxflowcoaching.com.

Dr. Jenn Rapkin is a naturopathic physician, bodyworker, former dancer, and Frequent Feeler with more than 25 years of experience in mind-body and body-centered therapies. Her new book The Feeling Muscle chronicles her personal and professional transformation from physician to a shepherd of “feelings.” In her clinical practice, her bodywork table is a place to hold space for, validate, and give voice to her patients’ inner felt emotion. She has had the good fortune in her life to balance deep and meaningful inner reflection with rich and interesting life experiences – from growing up on Nantucket Island, go-go dancing in the Guggenheim Museum, and living as an expat in Barcelona to raising two amazingly soulful and spirited children in Connecticut.

What if your emotions weren’t problems to fix, but messengers inviting you into deeper self-awareness and resilience?

In this episode of Beautiful Work Beautiful Life, Laurel Boivin explores what it means to befriend your emotions—a practice many of us were never taught but deeply need. Rather than treating emotions as obstacles to control or avoid, she invites listeners to see them as valuable messengers offering insight into our inner world.

In this thoughtful conversation, Laurel shares how turning toward our emotions with curiosity instead of resistance expands our capacity to feel, process life’s experiences more fully, and build resilience from the inside out.

In This Episode:

• The hidden costs of suppressing or avoiding feelings

• How emotions function as messengers and sources of information

• A simple four-step practice for befriending and processing emotions

• Healthy ways to release emotional energy and build inner resilience

Journaling prompts are suggested to further your exploration. 

1. What feeling do I most often avoid?

2. What do I tend to do instead of feeling that emotion?

3. What healthy release practices are available to me when strong emotions arise?

4. When have I experienced a difficult emotion and discovered that I could outlast it?

5. What might change in my life if I approached my emotions with curiosity rather than judgment?

Host/Cohost/Guest Info

Guiding others to become effective leaders of their own lives, Laurel Holland has been on a journey of awakening and transformation throughout her life. Writing about inner work, Laurel has authored four books, including Crossroads and Love’s 8 Laws. Her books, Live Your Inner Power, the Journal, and Courageous Woman, introduce, share, and explore the eight foundational practices for creating transformation from the inside out. Through her books, programs, and innovative talks, Laurel’s great desire is to lift others up and courageously step into the life they came here to live. You can learn more about Laurel, her books, and work she does at www.liveyourinnerpower.com.

Laurel Boivin is a leadership coach, speaker, and workshop facilitator. Founder of Flux+Flow Professional Coaching, Laurel works with high-performing professionals and mission-driven organizations to shift from achievement to alignment — helping them connect deeply to purpose, lead with confidence, and create environments where people thrive.  A Reiki master and yoga practitioner, collector of sea glass and antiques, she lives in New Hampshire and summers in Maine.  You can learn more about Laurel and the work she does at www.fluxflowcoaching.com.

The email to send questions to Laurel Boivin is ⁠[email protected]⁠ and for Laurel Holland - ⁠[email protected]⁠

In this meditation, intended for first thing in the morning, we greet the day with a clear intention to move through the day with kindness and love. This meditation is also useful if you find yourself being hard on yourself. Using gentle words, checking in with the physical body, and using encouragement to stay mindful of thoughts as they arise, we decide to set the tone for positivity and kindness. Beginning with a brief body check in and breathwork, and ending with the same, you will feel ready to step into your day with a mind focused on kindness.

Music by Chris Collins accompanies this meditation.

In On the Other Side of Pain, Laurel Boivin explores pain as an inevitable part of the human experience—and a powerful catalyst for transformation when it is met with honesty, care, and time. Rather than bypassing or minimizing pain, this episode invites listeners to slow down, feel what needs to be felt, and trust the nonlinear process of healing.

Laurel reflects on how pain lives in the body, why we are not meant to carry it alone, and what it means to be truly resourced while healing. From honoring grief and loss to choosing whether pain hardens or softens us, this conversation gently guides listeners toward the awareness, perspective, and compassion that often emerge on the other side of pain.

This conversation focuses on: 

• Why dismissing pain—or rushing to meaning—can slow healing rather than support it

• The importance of allowing grief, loss, anger, and disappointment to be felt and honored

• What it means to be “well resourced” while processing pain, and why support matters

• How pain can shape who we become without defining or diminishing us

• The choice pain presents: hardening for protection or softening with awareness and compassion

Journaling prompts are suggested to further your exploration. 

1. Who am I now, on the other side—or in the midst—of this experience?

2. How has this experience changed my path, my priorities, or the way I see my life?

3. What did I learn about myself during the healing and processing, not just from what happened?

4. What knowledge, wisdom, or insight do I now carry that I didn’t have before?

5. Who might benefit from what I know now, and how might I share it in a human, grounded way?

6. Where do I notice pain living in my body, and what might help me release or soften it?

7. In what ways has pain clarified what truly matters to me?

8. When I think about this experience, do I notice myself hardening or softening—and what choice feels most supportive right now?

9. What beliefs, faith, or inner trust help me remember that my life is still unfolding?

10. What feels different in me today, even if I don’t feel “better”—and how can I honor that shift?

Host/Cohost/Guest Info

Guiding others to become effective leaders of their own lives, Laurel Holland has been on a journey of awakening and transformation throughout her life. Writing about inner work, Laurel has authored four books, including Crossroads and Love’s 8 Laws. Her books, Live Your Inner Power, the Journal, and Courageous Woman, introduce, share, and explore the eight foundational practices for creating transformation from the inside out. Through her books, programs, and innovative talks, Laurel’s great desire is to lift others up and courageously step into the life they came here to live. You can learn more about Laurel, her books, and work she does at www.liveyourinnerpower.com.

Laurel Boivin is a leadership coach, speaker, and workshop facilitator. Founder of Flux+Flow Professional Coaching, Laurel works with high-performing professionals and mission-driven organizations to shift from achievement to alignment — helping them connect deeply to purpose, lead with confidence, and create environments where people thrive.  A Reiki master and yoga practitioner, collector of sea glass and antiques, she lives in New Hampshire and summers in Maine.  You can learn more about Laurel and the work she does at www.fluxflowcoaching.com.
The email to send questions to Laurel Boivin is [email protected] and for Laurel Holland - [email protected]

In this episode of Beautiful Work Beautiful Life, Laurel Boivin and Laurel Holland explore the deeply human—and often painful—habit of comparing ourselves to others. Together, they unpack how comparison is a mental activity rooted in storytelling, beliefs, and self-awareness, and how it can quietly shape our emotions, confidence, and life choices.

Rather than treating comparison as something to eliminate entirely, the Laurels invite listeners to transform it, from a source of self-doubt to a pathway toward clarity, purpose, and self-trust. Through reflection, curiosity, and intentional inner work, comparison becomes information rather than judgment, and an invitation to create a life that truly fits you.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why comparison creates emotional pain and how it subtly shapes our inner world

• How the stories and beliefs beneath comparison reinforce self-doubt

• What self-awareness makes possible when you notice comparison patterns

• How to shift comparison from judgment into clarity, choice, and purpose

Journaling prompts suggested to further your exploration: 

1. When do I most notice myself comparing to others, and what seems to trigger it?

2. What story am I telling myself when I’m in comparison—and what belief might be underneath that story?

3. Is comparison bringing me closer to the life I want, or getting in the way? How do I know?

4. What do I think I want when I compare myself to someone else—and why do I want it?

5. How might I meet the deeper feeling or need I’m seeking without needing the “thing” I’m comparing myself to?

The email to send questions to Laurel Boivin is [email protected] and for Laurel Holland - [email protected]

Host/Cohost/Guest Info

Guiding others to become effective leaders of their own lives, Laurel Holland has been on a journey of awakening and transformation throughout her life. Writing about inner work, Laurel has authored four books, including Crossroads and Love’s 8 Laws. Her books, Live Your Inner Power, the Journal, and Courageous Woman, introduce, share, and explore the eight foundational practices for creating transformation from the inside out. Through her books, programs, and innovative talks, Laurel’s great desire is to lift others up and courageously step into the life they came here to live. You can learn more about Laurel, her books, and work she does at www.liveyourinnerpower.com.

Laurel Boivin is a leadership coach, speaker, and workshop facilitator. Founder of Flux+Flow Professional Coaching, Laurel works with high-performing professionals and mission-driven organizations to shift from achievement to alignment — helping them connect deeply to purpose, lead with confidence, and create environments where people thrive.  A Reiki master and yoga practitioner, collector of sea glass and antiques, she lives in New Hampshire and summers in Maine.  You can learn more about Laurel and the work she does at www.fluxflowcoaching.com.

In this deeply moving and honest conversation, Laurel Boivin sits down with Angela Whitten, a Maine mom who tragically lost her 18-year-old son, Trent, to suicide in June 2022. 

Angela, executive director and co-founder of Stay; for Life, a Maine-based nonprofit supporting mental health awareness and suicide prevention, shares her journey of inner work, resilience, and purpose after the loss of her son.

This episode offers both heartfelt storytelling and practical guidance, including how to start hard conversations about mental health, why warning signs aren’t always visible, and how small acts of connection can remind people they are not alone.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

*  What a “beautiful life” means when it’s grounded in authenticity, nourishment, and relationship

* How inner work and therapy helped Angela walk alongside depression, anxiety, and grief

* The difference between reacting and responding—and why it matters in relationships

* How Stay: For Life was born from loss and now supports mental health and suicide prevention

* Why men’s mental health needs intentional space, support, and community

* Practical ways to start conversations when you’re worried about someone

* A powerful reminder that even in the darkest moments, light and purpose are still possible

This episode includes discussion of suicide, grief, and mental health struggles. Please care for yourself as you listen. If you or someone you love needs support, call or text 988 (in the U.S.).

Links/Books mentioned www.stayforlife.org

The email to send questions to Laurel Boivin is [email protected] and for Laurel Holland - [email protected]

Host/Cohost/Guest Info

Guiding others to become effective leaders of their own lives, Laurel Holland has been on a journey of awakening and transformation throughout her life. Writing about inner work, Laurel has authored four books, including Crossroads and Love’s 8 Laws. Her books, Live Your Inner Power, the Journal, and Courageous Woman, introduce, share, and explore the eight foundational practices for creating transformation from the inside out. Through her books, programs, and innovative talks, Laurel’s great desire is to lift others up and courageously step into the life they came here to live. You can learn more about Laurel, her books, and work she does at www.liveyourinnerpower.com.

Laurel Boivin is a leadership coach, speaker, and workshop facilitator. Founder of Flux+Flow Professional Coaching, Laurel works with high-performing professionals and mission-driven organizations to shift from achievement to alignment — helping them connect deeply to purpose, lead with confidence, and create environments where people thrive. A Reiki master and yoga practitioner, collector of sea glass and antiques, she lives in New Hampshire and summers in Maine. You can learn more about Laurel and the work she does at www.fluxflowcoaching.com.

Angela Whitten, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Stay; For Life, is a mother from Wells, Maine, who tragically lost her 18-year-old son, Trent, to suicide in June 2022. In response, she co-founded Stay; For Life, a 501c(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to save lives by advocating for men's mental health and suicide prevention. Angela brings a deeply personal and unique perspective on the critical importance of supporting the mental well-being of our communities. In her work, she shares practical tools and resources that can help individuals navigate mental health challenges, both for themselves and when supporting others. You can learn more about Angela and Stay; For Life at www.stayforlife.org. You can follow Stay; For Life at https://www.instagram.com/stayforlife2022/.

In this episode of Beautiful Work Beautiful Life, host Laurel Boivin explores what it means for pain to become a portal—not because pain is good or required for growth, but because when we meet it with presence and support, it can open us to deeper awareness.

Against the backdrop of collective uncertainty and emotional heaviness in the world, Laurel reflects on how personal and collective pain intersect. She names the many ways pain shows up—physically, emotionally, psychologically, relationally, and spiritually—and offers a compassionate reframe: sensitivity is not weakness, it’s intelligence.

Rather than numbing, fixing, or rushing to make meaning, Laurel invites listeners to pause. To listen. To shift their relationship with pain. Because when we meet pain with presence instead of pressure, we may discover it carries important information about what needs tending, what’s out of alignment, and what matters most.

This episode is a gentle reminder that you don’t have to carry pain alone—and that support, boundaries, and self-compassion are powerful acts especially in uncertain times.

Journaling prompts are suggested to further your exploration. 

1. Where is pain showing up in your life right now?

2. How have you learned to relate to pain?

3. What happens if you meet pain with presence instead of pressure?

4. What does your pain seem to be asking of you?

5. What would it feel like to stop carrying pain alone?

Host/Cohost/Guest Info

Guiding others to become effective leaders of their own lives, Laurel Holland has been on a journey of awakening and transformation throughout her life. Writing about inner work, Laurel has authored four books, including Crossroads and Love’s 8 Laws. Her books, Live Your Inner Power, the Journal, and Courageous Woman, introduce, share, and explore the eight foundational practices for creating transformation from the inside out. Through her books, programs, and innovative talks, Laurel’s great desire is to lift others up and courageously step into the life they came here to live. You can learn more about Laurel, her books, and work she does at www.liveyourinnerpower.com.

Laurel Boivin is a leadership coach, speaker, and workshop facilitator. Founder of Flux+Flow Professional Coaching, Laurel works with high-performing professionals and mission-driven organizations to shift from achievement to alignment — helping them connect deeply to purpose, lead with confidence, and create environments where people thrive.  A Reiki master and yoga practitioner, collector of sea glass and antiques, she lives in New Hampshire and summers in Maine.  You can learn more about Laurel and the work she does at www.fluxflowcoaching.com.

The email to send questions to Laurel Boivin is ⁠[email protected]⁠ and for Laurel Holland - ⁠[email protected]

In this Beautiful Work Beautiful Life episode, host Laurel Boivin invites listeners to pause and check in with how the first month of the new year has actually felt. While fresh starts often bring motivation and momentum, they can also create pressure to push harder, do more, and stay productive.

This episode offers a gentle reframe: ease isn’t something we earn after working harder or reaching a future milestone. It begins with awareness, self-support, and compassion. Rather than forcing progress, noticing what drains or supports us can create more sustainable energy, clarity, and connection.

Laurel invites listeners to consider a different way forward—one where ease exists alongside ambition, responsibility, and meaningful goals.

Listeners will hear:

• Why the pressure of a new year can drain energy instead of creating momentum

• The difference between discipline-driven effort and living with more ease

• How constant over-efforting disconnects us from ourselves and what matters most

• Why ease begins with awareness, not action or fixing

• How ease can coexist with ambition, responsibility, and meaningful goals

Journaling prompts are suggested to further your exploration. 

1. What comes up for you when you think about the word ease?

2. Does ease feel possible in your life right now? Why or why not?

3. In what ways do you believe you need to earn ease?

4. Where in your life are you pushing harder than you need to?

5. What feels harder than it needs to be right now?

6. Where in your life does ease already exist?

7. With whom do you feel the most ease?

8. Which people, places, or commitments require extra effort or force from you?

9. What currently drains your energy, and what fills it?

10. What would bring more ease into your life right now?

11. What would it look like to let ease exist alongside your ambition and responsibility?

12. How might you pursue your goals without forcing or over-efforting?

The email to send questions to Laurel Boivin is [email protected] and for Laurel Holland - [email protected]

Host/Cohost/Guest Info

Guiding others to become effective leaders of their own lives, Laurel Holland has been on a journey of awakening and transformation throughout her life. Writing about inner work, Laurel has authored four books, including Crossroads and Love’s 8 Laws. Her books, Live Your Inner Power, the Journal, and Courageous Woman, introduce, share, and explore the eight foundational practices for creating transformation from the inside out. Through her books, programs, and innovative talks, Laurel’s great desire is to lift others up and courageously step into the life they came here to live. You can learn more about Laurel, her books, and work she does at www.liveyourinnerpower.com.

Laurel Boivin is a leadership coach, speaker, and workshop facilitator. Founder of Flux+Flow Professional Coaching, Laurel works with high-performing professionals and mission-driven organizations to shift from achievement to alignment — helping them connect deeply to purpose, lead with confidence, and create environments where people thrive.  A Reiki master and yoga practitioner, collector of sea glass and antiques, she lives in New Hampshire and summers in Maine.  You can learn more about Laurel and the work she does at www.fluxflowcoaching.com.

In this episode of Beautiful Work Beautiful Life, Laurel Holland and Laurel Boivin invite listeners into a quieter, more contemplative kind of inner work—one that begins not with fixing or forcing, but with noticing. Through a thoughtful exploration of how our outer environments reflect our inner landscapes, they offer a powerful truth: what surrounds us is often a living mirror of what’s happening within us.

Rather than approaching our homes as projects to complete, this conversation reframes them as teachers. Each room, object, and surface becomes an invitation to reflect on relationship, energy, intention, and care for ourselves and for others. The Laurels explore how spaces can support connection or solitude, giving or receiving, nourishment or depletion, and how small, intentional changes can gently shift the way we live and relate.

With stories drawn from family life, leadership, grief, memory, and meaning, this episode encourages listeners to slow down and listen to what their surroundings are quietly saying. It’s a reminder that transformation doesn’t require dramatic overhauls—only honesty, presence, and a willingness to tend to what truly matters.

This is an invitation to create space, inside and out, for more clarity, connection, and beauty to emerge.

In this episode:

• How your outer environment can mirror your inner world

• The connection between home, energy, and relationships

• Giving vs. receiving relationships—and how space supports both

• Why small, intentional changes create lasting transformation

Journaling prompts are suggested to further your exploration. 

1. What do my surroundings tell me about my inner state of being?

2. Where does my environment feel aligned with who I am right now?

3. What in my space feels heavy, unresolved, or unfinished?

4. Where do I feel most nourished or restored in my surroundings?

5. What is one small change that would bring more ease or clarity?

Links/Books mentioned

The email to send questions to Laurel Boivin is [email protected] and for Laurel Holland - [email protected]

Host/Cohost/Guest Info

Guiding others to become effective leaders of their own lives, Laurel Holland has been on a journey of awakening and transformation throughout her life. Writing about inner work, Laurel has authored four books, including Crossroads and Love’s 8 Laws. Her books, Live Your Inner Power, the Journal, and Courageous Woman, introduce, share, and explore the eight foundational practices for creating transformation from the inside out. Through her books, programs, and innovative talks, Laurel’s great desire is to lift others up and courageously step into the life they came here to live. You can learn more about Laurel, her books, and work she does at www.liveyourinnerpower.com.

Laurel Boivin, life coach and founder of Flux+Flow Professional Coaching, helps high-performing professionals overcome overwhelm and disillusionment by increasing self-awareness and shifting perspective to improve performance, increase personal contribution, and experience a greater sense of fulfillment and purpose. Laurel began coaching after a 30-year corporate career.  A Reiki master and yoga practitioner, collector of sea glass and antiques, she lives in New Hampshire and summers in Maine.  You can learn more about Laurel and the work she does at www.fluxflowcoaching.com.