Simplify Your Life

You may know Carmen Electra best from her MTV reality show, 'TiI Death Do Us Part: Carmen & Dave, which documented her marriage to multiply tattooed and pierced rock guitarist Dave Navarro. Or maybe it's her best-selling Aerobic Striptease workout DVDs that stick out in your mind. And of course, who could forget the whole Dennis Rodman debacle? But behind Electra's racy, party-girl facade, you'll find a strong, slightly shy woman whose life has been largely defined not by her coverage in the tabloids or her size-C breast implants, but by two back-to­back tragedies that nearly destroyed her. On August 8, 1998, her seemingly perfectly healthy 40-year-old sister, Debbie, died of a heart attack in her sleep. Ten days later, her mother died of a brain tumor. "I went from really caring about myself to not caring about anything," says Electra, 34. "I had no idea how to deal, so I tried not to."

While others turn to drugs or alcohol to numb their pain, Electra turned to drama. Three months after the deaths, she married Rodman, the volatile former Chicago Bulls forward, in an impulsive, grief-inspired ceremony at an all-night chapel in Las Vegas. "I just tried to keep big things constantly happening, so I didn't have to focus on what was really going on," she says. "I surrounded myself with people- I didn't really care what kind, so long as they distracted me. I couldn't be by myself for one second."

But these days, Electra is a wholly different person-or maybe it's simply that she's whole again. During her dark days, the former MTV host and Prince protege kept her TV on 24/7. "I even slept with it on," she admits. One day, about a year into her perpetual-motion antimourning period, she heard a boob tube psychologist say, "You have to feel to heal." However pat, it resonated with Electra, who decided to change her ways. "I was sick of being sad," she says. "I did a complete life change. I had friends to let go of, a marriage [to Rodman] I needed to get strong enough to walk away from. I moved. I changed my number. I really tried to get my focus back, do some healing and let myself cry. I needed to be alone and I needed to feel."

In her newly reclaimed quiet time, she learned to find joy in different sorts of activities (no clubbing), and though eight years have passed since her mother's and sister's deaths, she still relies on these simple pleasures to keep her heart happy and her mind healthy. "Working out is great, because it gives you a little high," she says. Yes, she sometimes pops in her own Striptease videos, but she's currently going through "a yoga phase," she says. Not only does it help her body stay limber, but the discipline also keeps her mind light. "I'm constantly overanalyzing myself, and yoga turns off my head and helps me relax."

When she's not doing Downward Dogs, she's walking her pups, Kiko, a Maltipoo, and Daisy, a Yorkshire terrier, in the Hollywood Hills, a changeup from her usual focused workouts. Lightening up also means indulging in so-called guilty pleasures, only without that pesky guilt part. "I'm the first one to go out and pick up all the tabloids. It's not that I'm looking for myself. I just enjoy them," she says. "I'm also really into their crossword puzzles. The National Enquirer has a good one, because they mark the vowels for you. I'm addicted." Another obsession: sweets. Electra drinks up to 10 cans of Coke (regular, not Diet) every day and includes bakery hopping among her hobbies. "It's not good to have that much sugar, but I love it. I don't smoke, I only occasionally drink, so it's my treat." Does she worry about packing on extra pounds? Not really. "Whenever I notice my body gaining weight, then I try to crack down and work out more.

"Sometimes you can get so caught up in dieting and stuff that you're not really living," she says, and for Electra, that's not an option. "I'm the most secure in myself now, so that makes me feel happy," she says. "I've felt bad long enough, and I'm over it. Now I always like everything to be fun."

Electra's Happiness Secret: Hobbies
Flow is a psychological state in which you're so absorbed in an activity that you barely notice time passing. According to research, the more flow you have in your life, the happier you are. Here's where Electra finds hers.

SHE PAINTS "Dave [her husband] recently took a paint store, where we bought canvases, paints and brushes." says Electra, who is too shy to display any of her works. ("I just put them away.") She attending a performing arts school, where she studied dance, voice and drama. "I never had an art class, and painting was the one thing I loved more than anything else as a girl. I'm not very good at it, but it's fun."

SHE PLAYS DRUMS "When I was 4 years old I had a kids' paper drum set, and now I have my own adult-sized kit. David and I jam together. We play Led Zeppelin."

SHE SEWS "My mom was an amazing seamstress, and she taught me how to sew by hand. I'll sketch out an idea for a garment, go to the store, buy fabric and start all these little projects," she says. Her specialty? Lingerie, of course.

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