Giveaway has ended, but enjoy the author interview! Are you happy, girlfriend? Why the heck not? Are you letting the little things get in the way? According to a new book, women tend to let their momentary mistakes overshadow  their episodes of excellence, until self-doubt shakes the foundation of even the happiest life. Unfortunately, this is the way many women think about everything—their love lives, their friendships, their bank accounts, their family life, their career, and their body image.

Lucy Danziger, editor in chief of Self, and Catherine Birndorf, a psychiatrist and expert on women’s mental health issues, teamed up to write The Nine Rooms of Happiness: Loving Yourself, Finding Your Purpose, and Getting Over Life’s Little Imperfections. (Voice; March 2, 2010; $24.99). In it, they use the simple metaphor of a house to illustrate the central problem: when women should be grateful for what they have in their lives in the room at hand, they are either seeing the room’s imperfections or, worse, worrying about another room.  The book takes women through different parts of their lives (homes), helps them understand their patterns, and gives them new ways of thinking to solve their own problems. You can find out much more about the book, the authors, and the nine rooms at www.ninerooms.com

And guess what? One whole room (chapter) is devoted to women’s friendships! So, of course, we had to find out more, because who doesn’t want to be happier? Here’s our exclusive Q&A with the authors. Scroll to the end to find out how you can win a FREE copy of the book.
Q. Let’s talk about friendship. Why is friendship The Living Room? How is it connected to the other emotional rooms?

A. The living room is where all your socializing takes place. It’s where you interact with your neighbors, your friends, where you entertain and throw parties, and where you end up comparing yourself to other women, for better or worse.

How you behave in the living room is not exactly how you behave in other emotional areas of your life…you’re typically on “good” behavior, trying to look and act your best and put forward your social self…but this doesn’t always equate with how you feel on the inside. Many women feel insecure in this social arena, and it can come from feeling like a nerd as a high-schooler (these memories are stored in the basement) or being more concerned about how you look in your jeans instead of who you are talking to (body image belongs in the bathroom).

Q. Why is female friendship so important?

A. We know from extensive research that strong social ties can make you healthier and happier. The more connected you are to your community, and the happier you are, the healthier you are. The two are connected. So keep those friendships intact, for their sake and yours!

Q. What are some of the most common problems or issues women have with friendship?

A. From the women we spoke to for our book, and we interviewed hundreds, we found that saying “no” was a major struggle. Women seem hard-wired to help, to give and to do it at their own expense. This is where our key process:  too much of a good thing is a bad thing… So the takeaway message here, or “pearl” is: you have to know your limits.

Having limits and sticking to them is essential. Women can feel selfish when they say “No, sorry, can’t help out today,” or I have to cancel because I am totally worn out, but in fact, we tell women in the book that this isn’t selfish, it’s self preservation. You simply have to take care of yourself…because only then can you be healthy and happy and giving to those around you, including being a good friend. BTW, this is why we sometimes call the living room, the “giving room”.

Q. How can we be happier in regard to friendship?

A. Many women believe that a happy friendship is one without conflict. We hear lots of women say they don’t like to disagree with their friends. They believe that really close friendships should always run smoothly. But this may be because you are smoothing over differences or issues that actually need to be discussed. If you don’t figure out how to disagree or tolerate a difference of opinion, you can end up with lots issues getting swept under the rug. And then the rug or the atmosphere in the living room becomes problematic, bumpy,  or messy, since always avoiding conflict leads to a whole new problem!

One of our favorite key processes in the book is: “It’s not Either/or, .. instead think Both/and”… which means that you can be both best friends and disagree on something. In other words, conflict is okay. (We love our siblings and often disagree with them… sometimes our gal pals become surrogate sisters, but the fights are uncomfortable because unlike the family room, where everyone has to love each other no matter what, girlfriends can choose to break up or move apart, and that often happens because there’s a breakdown in communication. You have to tell each other when you’re upset. (For friends who are different and disagree, but love each other through thick and thin, think of the great movie and TV rolls where the conflict is played out in dialogue, like in Sex and the City or Friends!) But you may have to learn to live with a little discomfort in the name of a healthier and ultimately happier friendship!

Q. What is your favorite thing to do with girlfriends?

CB: Almost anything that involves talking…especially sharing a cup of tea or taking a long walk.

LD: I talk with my best friends too, but usually it’s either while we exercise or while we eat! I do different things with different people, so it’s often their call.

Lucy Danziger has been editor-in-chief of Self magazine for over eight years. Catherine Birndorf, M.D., is a psychiatrist and the founding director of the Payne Whitney Women’s Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Both women live in New York City.

And now for the giveaway

You have TWO chances to win a free copy of The Nine Rooms of Happiness, courtesy of Hyperion Voice.

1. Simply leave a comment on this post, telling why you are interested in the book.

2. Click on over to the wonderful Friendship Blog and read Irene Levine’s review of the book. Then, you can enter her contest as well.

EXTRA ENTRIES: Tweet the following:

“I’ve entered to win a copy of #NineRooms of Happiness, courtesy of @irenelevine, @girlfriendceleb and @hyperionvoice! http://bit.ly/9QDMV8″

You may tweet one extra entry each day.

Winners will be selected at random from all entries received by 11:59 PM on Tuesday, March 23, 2010. U.S. shipping addresses only, please. Good luck, girlfriends!

Winners have been notified. Check your email! Ah, motherhood. So rewarding, so challenging, so…hilarious? Mother’s Day is just around the corner, girlfriends, and it’s not too early to start thinking about your mom and all she means to you…and Mother’s Day gifts, of course! We’ve got just the antidote to those sappy Mother’s Day cards and gifts. Have you visited the website PostcardsFromYoMomma? It’s a hilarious collection of emails from people’s moms. Started by two girlfriends, Doree Shafrir and Jessica Grose, PostcardsFromYoMomma became an online sensation just days after launching. Now, these smart ladies are bringing us an alternative to mushy Mother’s Day items with Love, Mom: Poignant, Goofy, Brilliant Messages from Home(248 pages, 2009, Hyperion). This little hardcover is filled with laugh-out-loud moments. Warning: It’s hard to put down! Doree and Jessica were kind enough to answer a few questions just for GirlfriendCelebrations.com. Read on for the interview. Then, see the end of this post to find out how you can win one of FIVE free copies of the book. It makes a great, giggle-inducing gift for anyone who is a mom or just has a mom!

Q. How did this project get started?

Jessica: My mother sent me a particularly ridiculous email, and I thought it was so funny I sent it to Doree. Her immediate reaction was, OMG, my mom sends me emails just like this! It was during the work day, and Doree went out to get some ice cream—upon her return she said, let’s put these up on a website. So we started the site and sent out an email to our closest friends asking for submissions. After only a few days, we realized we had stumbled on something that people really related to.

Q. Were you girlfriends before this project? How has working together affected your friendship? (or vice versa?) 

Doree: We were friendly before the project started but we didn’t know each other very well—we mostly IMed during the day but we hadn’t hung out that much one-on-one. One of the nicest parts of doing this project together was that we became much closer friends. We also (fortunately!) discovered that we work really well together.

Q. What have you learned about moms or about motherhood from doing this project?

Doree/Jessica: We realized that no matter what a mother is saying—whether she’s nagging you about writing thank-you notes, gabbing about her latest shoe purchase, or just saying hi—she’s doing it from a place of love and concern. Even though we sometimes roll our eyes at our moms’ emails, doing this gave us a greater appreciation for just how much they want the best for us.

Q. What advice can you give to moms trying to communicate with their grown kids?

Doree/Jessica: Moms have to tread a fine line between staying in touch with their adult kids and not being overbearing. Kids, no matter what age they are, still want that love and affection from their parents, even if they sometimes pretend they don’t. So moms need to show that they’re interested in their kids’ lives without treating their adult kids like they’re still in high school. (Frantic emailing/texts if they don’t hear from their kids within three hours counts as being overbearing.) Moms are starting to venture onto Facebook and Twitter, and this is another potential minefield—if a kid posts photos of herself drunk on spring break on Facebook, should mom comment on them? (Answer: no.)

Q. What is your favorite thing to do with girlfriends?
Doree: I like to travel with girlfriends—there are certain trips that my boyfriend just doesn’t want to go on. At home, I’ve grown to value just carving out the time to be able to catch up with my girlfriends over dinner or a glass of wine—everyone is always so busy, myself included, that it’s really nice to have a chance to relax and have a long conversation without any other distractions. I also have a group of girlfriends from graduate school with whom I get together once a month or so–I usually don’t see them outside of our monthly gatherings, and we’ll usually do something like go to a play or a museum and then grab a bite to eat. It’s a nice way to get out and do something cultural in the city.

Jessica: I like to go out to dinner with friends one on one, especially in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. Many of my friends are buddies I’ve had since college or high school, and my favorite thing to do after work is meet one or another of them for a good meal and a catch-up conversation. I also like to spend time doing active things with friends, whether it be walking in the park or doing something more athletic. Doree and I have a standing date for a Monday night spin class that we look forward to every week! 

Jessica Grose is an editor at Jezebel.com, Gawker Media’s website for women.

Photo by Brad Walsh

And now for the giveaway: We are giving away FIVE copies of Love, Mom, courtesy of Hyperion (Thanks!). What do you have to do to win? There are three ways to enter:

1. Leave a comment telling us why you want this book OR the funniest thing your mom ever said (or emailed) to you OR the funniest thing you ever said (or emailed) to your kids.

2. Become a new email subscriber by clicking here and leave a comment letting us know.

3. Tweet or blog about this contest and leave a comment and link letting us know.

Contest will remain open until 11:59 P.M. CST on Wednesday, April 8, 2009. Five winners will be chosen at random from the qualifying entries. Winners will be notified by email and will have 48 hours to respond with a mailing address or a new winner will be chosen. Only U.S. shipping addresses are eligible to win (no P.O. boxes, please.) Good luck, girlfriends!

[Giveaway winners have been notified. Check your email!] Are you divorced, widowed, on an extended break from dating? Are you “of a certain age” and thinking about dipping your toe back into the dating pool? We know that many of you are dating “the second time around.” So, we jumped at the opportunity to interview Judith Sills, PhD, author of the brand-new Getting Naked Again: Dating, Romance, Sex, and Love When You’ve Been Divorced, Widowed, Dumped, or Distracted—especially after reading her views on female friendship! In this 288-page guide, clinical psychologist and New York Times bestselling author Sills leads readers through each stage of the “re-entry” process. It’s an honest, witty, and sophisticated look at midlife dating, and definitely “not your daughter’s dating guide.” Here’s a woman who really knows relationships—and, she’s funny—so we were thrilled that she took some time to answer some questions especially for GirlfriendCelebrations.com.  Read on for our interview—and all the details on how to win one of FIVE FREE COPIES of the book! 

Q. Why did you write this book? A. I wrote Getting Naked Again to stretch out a hand to every woman who — possibly unexpectedly, maybe deliberately — finds herself standing alone at mid-life. She’s out of a marriage, or widowed, or she’s been occupied with her kids and her career. Now she’d like to add a little romance to her life, with a date, a companion, a lover or maybe even a husband. But it’s been a while and she doesn’t know what to expect. She’s not sure these days where to meet men, how to signal her interest, who pays, who kisses, what to reveal about herself or not. And she often doesn’t have many single girlfriends with whom to talk this over. That woman sometimes feels invisible, but she’s on my mind all the time. I feel she often gets silly, unrealistic advice, which can make the awkwardness of dating harder.  I wrote Getting Naked Again to make that woman smarter and more successful in love. 

Q. Who is your target audience? A. She’s had her kids; they may be out of the house by now or on their way. She’s dating now to suit herself, rather than to find a suitable partner with whom to start a family. She’s more confident these days, less concerned with what others think. At the same time, she’s really uncertain about what she does or does not want from a man these days — marriage? Dates? Money? Time? She’s an interesting mix of self-assurance and insecurity about her appeal to men. She is finding her way and I wanted to write a book that would help her find it.

Q. How does being newly single affect female friendships? Should you expect to lose some girlfriends as a result of your divorce/breakup/loss? A.Throughout life, every change of relationship status affects female friendships. Just as marriage sometimes distances us from our still-single girlfriends, becoming single can create a distance with our still-married friends. Some of that distance is the sudden absence of common interests; some is the sudden sense of sexual threat that you may pose. Getting Naked Again includes a chapter describing how to navigate the intricacies of these changes.

Q. Your number-one piece of advice for reentering the dating scene is “Solidify your female friendships.” Why is that so important? A. When a woman is single after years of a marriage, or finally living alone because the kids have left home, she is out of some harbor and on the open seas. That open sea is scary, exhilarating, fun and hurtful. Girlfriends are our enduring emotional harbor and we need them even more when we are open to all the romantic elements. They are our emotional safety net. 

Q. Any advice on how to do that (solidify female friendships)? A. Female friendships are strengthened as all relationships are: by liberal amounts of time, attention and shared experience. And, especially when you become single, you need to be sensitive to the sudden marital anxieties you stir in your friends.

Q. What is your favorite thing to do with girlfriends? A. My favorite thing to do with my girlfriends is the same as everyone’s: TALK.

Judith Sills, PhD, is a regular contributor and relationship expert on The Today Show, and was a columnist for Family Circle for many years. She is the author of many bestselling relationship books, including Excess Baggage: Getting Out of Your Own Way, A Fine Romance, and The Comfort Trap.  She has a Philadelphia-based private practice. You can learn more by visiting her website at www.judithsills.com

Great news, girlfriends! GirlfriendCelebrations.com is giving away FIVE copies of Getting Naked Again: Dating, Romance, Sex, and Love When You’ve Been Divorced, Widowed, Dumped, or Distracted, courtesy of Hachette Book Group. There are three ways to enter:

1. Leave a comment telling us why you need this book. 
   
2. Subscribe to our weekly emails and leave a comment telling us you did so (new subscribers only).
   
3. Tweet or blog about this contest and leave a comment telling us you did so.
   

Do one or all three. Good luck! Contest will remain open until 11:59 P.M. CST Monday, February 2. Then, five winners will be chosen at random from the infamous pink hat. Winners will be contacted by email and have 48 hours to respond before another winner is chosen. Only residents of the U.S. or Canada are eligible to win. No P.O. boxes, please.