LIFE IS BETTER WITH SISTERS

Welcome, Sister! We’re real-life sisters psychotherapist Abby Rodman and leadership and life coach (and former beauty executive) Julie Howard. Like most women, we've been through some of life's highs and lows, having had our share of blessings and heartaches.

We've laughed and cried our way through the challenges of parenting, empty nests, aging and body image concerns, caring for elderly parents, and menopause. We've faced divorce and second marriage, career transition and reinvention, depression, anxiety, and the frustrations and heartbreak of dealing with family members with mental health and addiction issues.

But, through it all, we've held each other up when everything else seemed to be falling down around us.

We feel extraordinarily lucky to have one another. That's why we created Sisters Cracking Up. We believe everyone needs a sister (biological or otherwise) to share in our joys and successes -- and to help right our ships (or, frankly, our shit) when storms hit.

Our podcast is a labor of love, sisterhood, and curiosity. In it, we look for answers to the questions and issues we face in midlife and beyond -- and know you do, too.

We interview really smart, engaging, and funny people and we offer our decades of expertise in psychology, relationships, beauty, and well-being to the mix as well. With every episode, our goal is to listen, learn, share, laugh, and connect without judgment or expectation -- as any good sister would.

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Abby is a psychotherapist, speaker, and author of the Amazon bestseller Without This Ring: A Woman’s Guide To Successfully Living Through And Beyond Midlife Divorce. She has appeared on the Today Show, HuffPost Live, and is regularly sought out by media outlets for her expertise on relationship and parenting issues. A featured contributor to the Huffington Post, her work has also appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine. Abby is the mom of three sons, two stepsons, and her rescue doggie, Desi. She also lives too far away from her sister, Julie.

Abby Rodman



Julie Howard is a Business Consultant and Coach with more than 25 years building teams, products, and brands for some of the world’s most beloved beauty companies; Clinique, Estee Lauder, MAC, Bath and Body Works, and more. She is also the author of two YA / middle-grade novels, The Third Coin and Rob Starr. A lifelong advocate for the healthy development and empowerment of girls, Julie often incorporates those themes into her writing.

Julie lives outside New York City with her husband. She has two daughters, as well as two very energetic German Shorthaired Pointers.

Julie Howard


Latest Episode

Sisters, if you've ever wondered if you might be a perfectionist, chances are you may be. And, according to author Katherine Morgan Schafler, that's more than okay.

Schafler, author of The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control: A Path ot Peace and Power, encourages us to look at perfectionism in a more positive light and to discard the pathologizing of it. You can be a perfectionist and, yes, you can be happy!

Schafler explains there isn't just one way to be a perfectionist and identifies 5 different types: Intense, Classic, Parisian, Procrastinator, and Messy. (Both Abby and Julie admit to being the Messy Type!)

In Schafler's own words, "Perfectionism invites a deep, unending exploration of who you are and what you most desire from this life." We couldn't agree more.

S5: E8 What Kind of Perfectionist are you? with Katherine Morgan Shafler

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