Ep #22: All In

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women Podcast, episode 22.

Female Announcer: Welcome to the Midlife Sex Coach for Women Podcast, the only show that combines a fun personality, medical knowledge, sexual counseling and life coaching together to create unique sex coaching that helps busy women awaken their libidos, address intimacy issues and learn how to express their sexuality for the rest of their days. Here is your host, certified life coach and sexual counselor, Dr. Sonia Wright.

Hello Diamonds. It’s time to announce the winner of our podcast review giveaway. I really want to thank everyone for rating the podcast and putting all your comments and reviews on the podcast. I really appreciate it. And it definitely helps me to make a better podcast. So I’m going to take a moment to read some of these great reviews. And in order to claim your prize which is one of the $50 Amazon gift cards, all you have to do is email me at podcast@soniawrightmd.com and we will be able to send you off that card.

Okay, let’s get to these reviews they are so great. They’re inspiring me. I’m like ooh. Okay, so the first one is from FL Blondie Doc and it says, “After being diagnosed with primary ovarian insufficiency in my 30s and hitting full menopause in my 40s this podcast came just in time. I learn something with every episode. With your encouragement I’ve had the difficult conversation with my partner and it went well. I wish I had done it sooner. I’ve been reading all the resources that you’ve recommended and our sex life and life in general is so much better. Keep up the great work. I can’t wait to hear more.”

Thank you so much for this review. I love how my work on the podcast can impact people’s lives. And thank you so much for the reminder to keep doing this work, thank you.

Coffee Lover 13 also says, “I absolutely love, love, love this podcast. Thank you so much for explaining things in an easy to understand manner. It’s relieving to know that many women think and feel the same way that I sometimes feel. I’m soaking up every morsel of knowledge that you throw our way and I’m learning so much. PS I’ve even tuned my husband onto this podcast. We aren’t able to listen to you together but it does give us things to talk about later.”

Thanks so much. I love the fact that you listen with your partner or both of you listen separately and then come back together and talk about it. This to me is why I do this work, so that I can positively impact the sex lives of over a million women. You know my audacious goal. But also so that it makes a difference in your lives. So thank you so much for that review. I really appreciate it.

Here’s another review from Abduballas and she says, “Working with Dr. Sonia has brought so much insight and improvement into my life. This podcast is a great brief overview of important concepts with action items to help out in just 15-20 minutes at a time. I highly recommend listening as a great way to invest in yourself without that much of a time requirement.”

Yeah, for me it’s important that it’s not a long podcast. Each section is not very long. Each episode is not too long so that you can digest it and get the information. And it’s kind of like a place to start and then you think on this information yourself. And if you ever have any questions you can always reach out and email me. But that’s what I love about this podcast, I want to give you brief information and then you take it and apply it to your own life.

Here’s one from BLKATZ. She says, “Dr. Sonia gives wonderful advice using the thought model form The Life Coach School. It’s accessible to everyone and in an engaging way. Highly recommend.” Alright, thank you.

And let’s see, the last one is, “I’m so excited to learn all I can about creating and increasing physical intimacy in my marriage. And Dr. Sonia has so many great insights. I love her coaching style and great examples, keep it going.” And that’s from Beth OPKS.

Alright, thank you so much for everybody that submitted a review. And I’m going to keep doing this work. And thank you for the opportunity to help you in this way, thank you. This is the reason I decided to start this podcast, because I wanted to reach out to more women and make a difference in your life, so thank you for allowing me to have that opportunity to make a difference in your life.

Okay, let’s get started. Let’s dive into today’s message. Today is about being all in and commitment. So six months ago on, actually on August 3^rd, 2020 to be exact I wrote a blog post about being all in. I had this vision for myself of who I wanted to be on the other side of the pandemic. I had given myself six months to step into this new version of myself.

Naively I thought that the pandemic would be over, at least we would be on the other side of it for the most part. Unfortunately I couldn’t fathom at that time that we would have higher infection rates going on now and unfortunately higher deaths in the month of January. But back in 2020 in August I had decided that I would be the one. I had decided that I would be the one to define my future self and to define how I showed up during this pandemic and after the pandemic. I decided that it was going to be me. I’ve made my decisions, not the pandemic.

And I was determined not to come out on the other side of the pandemic unhealthy and having put on the Covid-19 pounds, that’s just not what I wanted. So I decided I was going to undergo a transformation. I was going to be all in and to up-level into the next version of myself.

So looking back at my blog I wrote, “It’s August 3^rd, 2020 and I’m in the middle of a transformation. Today I have decided to go all in on myself. I’ve set a couple of big goals related to my health, losing weight and growing my business. I’ve decided to go all in on myself and my life. I have committed to feeling all the feelings and not blocking them out with food. I have committed to exercising daily and not mailing in or half-assing my workouts.

But most importantly I have decided to go all in on my feelings, all in on feeling the discomfort and allowing failures in order to grow and become the best person and coach that I can be.” Well, yeah, I have to say over the last six months that I have undergone a transformation. And for me a transformation is to find a metamorphosis, a dramatic change in your form or your appearance. And I laugh because there has been an amazing transformation but I laugh also because it’s not exactly in the way that I expected and the plans that I had.

But even though I know that plans that when you make a goal and you set that goal and you have the plan the way that it’s going to happen it never happens that way. But it’s almost like I forget about that. For those of you that’s given birth it’s kind of like you go through the pain, you have the baby and you think well, I’m not doing that again. And then before you know it you’re right back at it, the baby’s so cute, it’s so beautiful, and you’re like, “I could do this again.” You forgot that, the pain that you endured to get it the first time.

And it’s the same way with a goal or a transformation. So as is usually the case with any big goal that you set, or any big declaration, or something that you’re planning to do to change your life. And when you commit to the up-level, the universe tests your level of commitment. The universe sends obstacles and problems to test you. And yeah, it was the same way for me.

So a month into my amazing transformation I was like I’m eating right, I’m exercising. My obstacle came in the form of my right knee. I injured my knee and I was on and off crutches for the next four months. Sometimes I was in excruciating pain and unable to walk, let alone to exercise, so my concept of exercising every day and up-leveling. That did not exactly happen I have to say, so much for my perfect plans for exercising daily. I did exercise but I was exercising to learn how to walk again.

I was exercising to do basic little things, not to get the massive thighs that I had envisioned that I would be getting. So I’m speaking to you about transformation and being all in because for those of you that have set an impossible goal about your sexual intimacy, I don’t want you to be shocked and amazed when obstacles start coming your way.

Let’s say that you decided that you’re going to be all in and that you’re going to have better communication with your partner. Don’t be shocked if suddenly you two start having more arguments. Maybe you’ve decided that you’re going to initiate sex more often with your partner in 2021. Well, don’t be shocked if you get turned down again and again, this is just the obstacles, just the universe trying to test you.

And if you decided that you’re going to have 20 intimacy dates with yourself, don’t be shocked if suddenly your schedule gets really busy and you can’t seem to find any time at all for these intimacy dates with yourself, that’s just the way it goes. It’s simply the universe testing you, testing your level of commitment, testing to see if you’re really all in. And also giving yourself the opportunity to prove that there’s something that you are willing to work at, that you are willing to fight for, something that really matters for you to change who and what you do and to make the difference for yourself.

So getting back to my experience I did manage to lose 20 pounds so let’s celebrate. And in the meantime I decided that I wanted to be more in alignment with my true self. So there were some bonus things that came out of it. So I lost the weight, I got healthy but I also stopped dying my hair. And for me I went grey in my 30s. So I have been dying my hair for 20 years. But I got to this point where I was like is this me, is this in alignment with who I am?

I wanted to show up as my authentic self. And to show up as my authentic self it required that my inside and my outside were in alignment and reflected who I really was. So I stopped dying my hair and I even cut it all off. And if you look at some of the earlier pictures I had hair past my shoulders. And it was like this beautiful auburn blonde color, I really loved it. But I was like I’d look in the mirror and I was like, no, it’s not me. And so I cut it off and switched to like a little pixie cut. And I’ll be updating my images, I’ve gotten new head shots to kind of be in alignment with things.

Yeah, so I drastically changed the way that I appeared on the outside because I wanted it to match who I was in my authentic self on the inside. So there will also be some bonuses to this transformation which is good. And so the external transformation definitely occurred. But what I found even more interesting was the internal transformation that occurred over the last six months. And this internal transformation, this bigger transformation, it required that I was all in on myself. First of all I discovered that it was hard to be all in on yourself a 100% of the time and to be committed to the goal all the time.

Some days I did buffer with food, some days my English breakfast tea and my little shortbread, they were my best friends. And you know what? That’s okay, it’s not necessarily perfect. It doesn’t have to be pretty all the time. But it did require me to evaluate what was really important in my life was that English breakfast tea and that shortbread cookie was that what was going to be the thing that was important in my life.

And I should say that sugar and my English breakfast tea, even though I love it, it causes inflammation in my body. So it’s something that I need to give up, it’s my comfort food but it was time for it to go. It’s not always gone, but for the most part it is gone. So it required me to evaluate what was really important in my life. Or is it going to be the food or was it going to be my goal of being healthy? And I recognize that the choice is mine. It’s a choice that I was making for me. It was something that nobody else could make.

And sometimes it was not going to be perfect. And you know what? That’s okay. The important part was, was I going to get back up? Would I do the hard work consistently? I was starting again and recommitting when things didn’t go exactly how I planned it to go. I had to ask myself the hard questions about my level of commitment. And what were my important values?

And you know what? You’re going to have to ask yourself the same hard questions too. What does it look like to be all in on your sexuality goal this year? What would it take for you to be fully committed to doing this work? What is your big why? This is so important. I can’t emphasize this enough; you need to have a big why. And you know what? It’s not necessarily just one big why, it could be several big whys. For me it was for my health, to reduce the inflammation in my body.

But it was also because I am 54 and I have an eight year old daughter and I wanted to be there for her at her wedding and when she had her kids. Whatever it was, I wanted to be there into my 90s so that I know that my baby girl was going to have a parent. So that was my big why. My big why was also my son, as you can tell my kids are definitely my big why. But also my big why is because I wanted to live my life in alignment. I wanted to do everything that I want to do with my life. And I knew that it required that my body stays strong and healthy.

So what are your big whys? And make it more than one thing because sometimes that big why is not going to be enough to stop you from avoiding doing things that are uncomfortable. Sometimes you’re going to choose the easy way out and you’re not going to initiate sex. Sometimes you’re going to decide that you’re not going to have that hard conversation.

Sometimes you’re going to decide that you’d rather go watch Netflix than to deal with whatever is going on. And that’s okay, but if you have a big why and if you have more than one why you can look at your list of whys and you can figure out the reason why. So what is the reason that you’re doing this? Is it because you want to be more comfortable with your sexuality? Do you want to own your sexuality? Do you want to be able to express your sexuality for the next 40 years? Are those part of your big why?

Maybe it’s to have a closer relationship with yourself and with your partner. Is it to explore and to really understand your body sexually? Really only you know what your big why is. But make it important and make sure you have several big whys. Make it something that’s going to inspire you to take the actions that you need to take. Make it something that’s going to inspire you to get back up when things don’t go the way you want to. So what is driving you to completely commit to your sexual intimacy goals? What’s driving you to be all in?

And what would you be willing to feel in order to be all in and fix whatever sexual intimacy issues you’re dealing with? What is going to allow you to be willing to feel and to be all in, in order to change the course of the sexual intimacy in your life right now? There is going to be emotional discomfort in this process sister, let me tell you, there is going to be emotional discomfort. So are you willing to feel the discomfort as you head towards your goal? Remind yourself that the worst thing that can happen is usually a feeling. Are you ready to feel that feeling?

Maybe you’re going to feel that shame and guilt and judgment. Yeah, it’s going to happen, the emotional bullies are going to rear their ugly heads. I can guarantee you that the emotional bullies are going to come up and that you are going to be a big bully in your life, if you choose to. So this is where you have a choice. You can choose if you fall or if you falter, you can choose if you’re going to beat yourself up or if you’re just going to say, “This is part of the process”, and get back up and try it again.

And yes, there may be some discomfort but you will be okay, it’s only a feeling and you can handle it. Also remember how we said that we are going to do this with self-compassion and mindfulness. So remember to be kind to yourself throughout this process. Just remember Diamonds, you are worthy, you’re a 100% worthy. You deserve to experience the sexual intimacy of your dreams. You deserve to be committed. You deserve to be all in on yourself. Let me tell you that you’ve got this.

And let me also tell you that I am here to help you along this path. You don’t have to be all in and committed by yourself. Yes, there is the internal component but then you get to do this journey with other people. You can do this journey with me, with your partner, with your friends, you don’t have to do this alone but you can choose what works for you. But I want to let you know that I am here for you along this journey. I am Dr. Sonia Wright. I am your sex coach so let’s do this together. I’m all in. Are you all in, Diamond?

Okay, that’s all I have for today’s episode. Take care. Dr. Sonia out.

Female Announcer: Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of the Midlife Sex Coach for Women Podcast. If you enjoy Dr. Sonia’s fun and caring approach to sexual intimacy, head to soniawrightmd.com to learn more.