Carin Rockind used to dream of being a cheerleader. Growing up in Detroit, she’d travel with her family to University of Michigan football games, where she found the cheerleaders’ energy inspiring.

All these years later, a cheerleader is just what Rockind has become. Not so much the pompoms kind–after all she says she was never so adept at cartwheels–but, rather, a professional cheerleader for people, specifically women, to help them discover their own sense of happiness and unique purpose.

For Rockind personally, it has proved a long and sometimes painful road, but she says today she’s living out her joy and purpose–at last.

Rockind, who is Jewish and currently resides in Philadelphia, will speak at the JUF Young Women’s City Council 2016 Spring Outreach Event on Thursday, May 19, at the Center on Halsted in Chicago.

Soon after Rockind graduated college, she “had it all”-a rising corporate marketing career, a tall, dark, and handsome lawyer, a manicured home, and even a golden retriever. She was living the life she’d dreamed of as a little girl-all by the time she was 24.

Yet she was miserable. Her soul longed for more energy, passion, and freedom. So she divorced her husband and sought out the higher joy and purpose she knew she was meant for.

Around that time, she stumbled upon an opportunity to advise the same BBYO group that she’d been active in as a teenager. Rockind loved helping the girls in the chapter empower themselves and conquer their insecurities, but she couldn’t figure out a way to parlay her passions and gifts as an advisor into a career. Frustrated, she fell into a depression.

Her journey reached a frightening turning point when she was robbed at gunpoint outside her apartment. She pledged to God that if she made it out alive, she’d find a way to live out her life’s purpose of helping others live their joy.

Rockind survived the drama, and transformed her horror story into something productive and beautiful. Today, she spends her days helping women find what “lights them up,” coaching them in how to reclaim their happiness. Happily remarried, she has discovered a career as a happiness expert, a media personality, and the creator of PurposeGirl, a movement to empower purpose-driven living.

Happiness, says Rockind, isn’t about short-lived moments of pleasure. Rather, true happiness goes deeper. It’s an ongoing internal feeling that you know you’re alive, secure, loved, in good relationships, know what’s meaningful in your life, and you’re comfortable in your skin. And, it’s an ability to cope with the struggles that come your way, to be resilient in the face of challenge.

Joy, she says, stems from discovering your life’s purpose. “Purpose in life is this simple: It is ‘to shine your unique light.’ Think about a light bulb. You’re inherently radiating and therefore are lighting up others in the world in some way,” Rockind said. “No one else has your exact strengths or strength of character. No one has your same set of talents, passions…and sum of experiences.”

Positive Psychology–the study of how human beings prosper in the face of adversity–has exploded over the last couple of decades. The field, led by psychologists Martin E.P. Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, focuses on personal growth and wellness rather than pathology. Back in 1998, when the new psychology field was born, many Americans were prospering financially, and yet depression was growing to epidemic levels. It seems traditional western wisdom that money and success would lead to happiness, according to Rockind, was wrong.

After all, external motivations for happiness are usually fleeting, she said. “Whenever I place my happiness in anything external, other people’s approval, how many Facebook likes I have, doubling my income-inevitably I will become stressed, anxious, and probably depressed,” Rockind said. “It’s a numbing and [doesn’t allow] people to really examine their deep, internal stuff.”

Positive psychologists agree that there are six core elements of psychological well-being and happiness: Having more positive emotions than negative emotions on a regular basis; engagement in one’s own life; healthy, nourishing relationships; living a purpose-filled life; experiencing a sense of achievement and pride in who one is and what they’ve accomplished; and physical and mental vitality.

While some of our sense of happiness is something we are born with, a lot of it–more than 40 percent, according to Rockind–is within our control. Rockind says that even if the circumstances you were born into weren’t ideal, you can still change the wiring in our brain–through a process called neuroplasticity. Just as physical exercise isn’t something you can just do occasionally to see results, the ability to change one’s brain takes regular practice too.

So you’re ready to live your joy, but where do you begin? Rockind says the best place to start is by looking within and asking a few targeted questions: When do you most love being you? When are the times you feel happiest, or most at peace? What are your strengths and passions? What lights you up?

And next, shift your mindset: Even if life is serving you lemons at the moment, how can you shift your perspective to see the gifts–even through the bad times.

As a collective, the Jewish people–who value many of the contributing factors to happiness like connection and loving relationships–are not too shabby at seeking out the joy in life, even in the face of adversity. With a long and persecuted history, our people have always managed to rebound and maintain a healthy sense of perspective. Rockind’s late grandparents were living proof of that resiliency. “I’m the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and I’ve always worn that as a badge of honor and understood that we can survive anything,” Rockind said. “My grandparents were the happiest, most loving, and generous people. They could have been bitter at the world, but they never were. I think that’s inherent in our blood.”

The JUF Young Women’s City Council 2016 Spring Outreach Event, on May 19, will be co-chaired by Lauren Bernstein and Molly Stock. For more information or to register, contact Jordyn Harris at (312) 357-4879 or e-mail [email protected] .