What happens to intimacy when life, health, and relationships change?

In this episode of Hose Water, Hot Flashes & Bad Decisions, Paula and Karen talk with psychotherapist Carrie Cohen about desire, emotional safety, and staying connected to a partner through midlife.

Carrie explains why two people can experience desire differently, how the nervous system can affect closeness, and why menopause or fibromyalgia doesn’t have to end a couple’s love life.

It’s a candid conversation about the misunderstandings that can grow between partners, and the possibility of finding your way back to each other.

Connect with Carrie Cohen:
Website: https://www.carriecohencoaching.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carriecohencoaching/
Contact Carrie: https://www.carriecohencoaching.com/contact

Follow the hosts:
Karen: https://www.instagram.com/midlife_health_coach/
Paula: https://www.instagram.com/everydaywellnesscoaching/

Have a question or an idea for the show? Email us at hosewaterthepodcast@gmail.com.

#GenX #Perimenopause #Menopause #MidlifeRelationships #Menopause #Intimacy #Fibromyalgia

This week Karen and Paula cover a little bit of everything when it comes to fitness, from the gym to the bedroom to the playground.

Grab a glass of wine (no judgment here!) as we kick things off with the wild ride that is women's fitness: leg warmers, aerobics tapes, diet culture, all of it.

Karen and Paula get real about what they were doing (and wearing) through every era of it. From there we get into why a good workout buddy can make or break your consistency, then make the case for lifting heavy weights (yes, heavier than you're currently doing) and why strength training matters more than ever for women in perimenopause and menopause.

Paula shares her nighttime routine, and how she uses her wearables to track it all.

Then we take a nostalgic detour through peak 80s gym fashion (leg warmers and leotards included) before wrapping up with a hot take on why Gen Alpha needs dodgeball back in their lives. The evolution of women's fitness, workout buddies, heavy weights, better sleep, questionable fashion choices, and a little bit of chaos for the kids.

This one has it all.

What was your fitness evolution? Let's hear it!

New episode out now.

Subscribe and follow along for more Hose Water, Hot Flashes & Bad Decisions.

Tell us what you want us to talk about!

Connect with us: Karen Instagram: @midlife_health_coach midlifehealthcoach.com

Paula Instagram: @everydaywellnesscoaching ewcoach.com

Want to be a guest on the show? Email the podcast: hosewaterthepodcast@gmail.com

In Episode 3 of Hose Water, Hot Flashes & Bad Decisions, Karen and Paula sit down with mother-daughter relationship coach Erica Thomas for an honest conversation about one of the most meaningful, and sometimes most complicated, relationships in a woman’s life.

Mothers and daughters can love each other deeply and still struggle to communicate, understand one another, or move beyond old patterns.

Erica shares insight into why these relationships can feel so emotionally charged and what it takes to create healthier communication, stronger boundaries, and a more connected relationship.

Whether you’re a mother, a daughter, or both, this conversation may help you look at your relationship from a new perspective, and remind you that even deeply rooted dynamics can change.

Join us for plenty of insight, relatable moments, and the kind of honest conversation women are often having behind closed doors.

This week, Karen and Paula are joined by Lauren Tetenbaum, author of Millennial Menopause, for a funny and nostalgic conversation about the fashion, television, and cultural trends that shaped our generations, and the ones somehow finding their way back into our lives today.

From jelly shoes and the styles we once swore we would never wear again to the television shows that had everyone talking the next morning, we look at how trends disappear, return, and sometimes make us question whether they should have stayed in the past.

Lauren also shares insights from Millennial Menopause as we compare generational experiences, explore the strange cycle of nostalgia, and talk about what happens when younger generations discover the things we already lived through.

It’s a lively trip through pop culture, questionable fashion choices, and the trends that prove everything eventually comes back around, whether we’re ready for it or not.

Life rarely follows the career plan we thought we had. In the first episode of Hose Water, Hot Flashes, & Bad Decisions, Karen and Paula share the career pivots that have shaped their lives over the years, the challenges that came with changing direction, and the lessons they’re still learning. Along the way, they reflect on what they wish they’d known and what they would tell their younger selves. It’s an honest conversation about starting over, taking chances, and figuring out your next chapter, even when you thought you’d have it all figured out by now.

Remember when we drank from the hose, stayed out until the streetlights came on, and somehow survived fashion choices that should probably never make a comeback?

In this episode, Paula and Karen take a hilarious trip through GenX nostalgia before turning their attention to something a little more serious: what it actually means to hit midlife when nobody really prepared us for it.

We put our generational knowledge to the test with a round of Generationally Speaking, talk about the trends we lived through (and the ones younger generations have inexplicably brought back), and get into money, aging, changing priorities, and those midlife moments that make you go "Hmmmmm..."

It's funny, nostalgic, a little ridiculous, and very real because we may have figured out how to survive childhood without helmets, but apparently there was a whole lot nobody taught us about surviving midlife.

In this episode:

• Gen X nostalgia and the things we can't believe we survived
• Generationally Speaking: How well do we actually know other generations?
• Fashion trends that disappeared — and somehow came back
• The money lessons many of us never learned
• How our ideas about aging have changed
• The unexpected realities of midlife
• Why every generation seems convinced the others are doing it wrong

Chapters

00:00 — Nostalgic Reflections
06:37 — Generationally Speaking
21:06 — Midlife Realizations
25:41 — Midlife Revelations
44:17 — Generational Fashion Trends