Ep #14: Bully-Free Zone

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women Podcast, episode 14.

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. How are you today? I hope you’re doing really well. I’m excited to have you here on the podcast listening to me. I just want to talk to you about an experience that I recently had. So I did a recent consultation with a woman and she told me that her husband was planning on buying the Own Your Sexuality Now course for her so that she could get fixed. Fixed. I had no words. And that’s pretty unusual for me. But I was kind of appalled. I was like, fixed, even to use that word.

Let me be clear, my work is not about forcing anyone to do anything that they don’t want to do. And nobody, absolutely nobody needs to be fixed, especially not you. This, this right here, this is a bully-free zone. If you’re content with your sexuality just as it is then there’s nothing wrong. You don’t have to fix anything. You don’t have to fix you. No one, no one has the right to coerce you into doing something that you don’t want to do. It’s your sexuality and you get to choose how to express your sexuality.

As long as you’re not hurting yourself or hurting somebody else, and as long as consent is involved, that’s on you, this is your sexuality. You get to express it the way you want to or you get to choose not to express your sexuality. Each of us is responsible for our own thoughts, and feelings, and actions.

In this case this woman’s husband is not happy with the sexual intimacy in the relationship. He thinks it should be different and that’s his thought and he gets to keep that. He gets to think that if he wants to. He’s responsible for his own thoughts, his own feelings and his own actions and he gets to keep those thoughts. But, there’s always a but, but it might be interesting if he looked at the environment within his marriage that he was creating with these thoughts. He’s probably coming from a place of frustration and feeling rejected himself.

But now in addition to any sexual difficulties in the relationship the situation may actually have become worse because the environment may not feel safe for his partner. In order to improve sexual intimacy and sexual difficulties, people need to feel safe, safe enough to be vulnerable. And if her thoughts are focused on her husband’s words, and if she’s feeling judged in the relationship she is less likely to get vulnerable and she is less likely to want to fix the situation.

Having done the sex coaching for a while I’ve found that feeling emotionally safe is very important to anyone who’s dealing with sexual difficulties. You need to feel safe. You need to feel safe in order to get vulnerable. When judgment, shame, guilt, blame are introduced into any situation then the safety is sacrificed. Judgment, shame, blame, guilt, they’re really not useful. These emotions in particular create a bullying situation. It causes individuals to become defensive and to retreat into themselves.

And this is exactly how this woman showed up for our consultation. She was angry, she was defensive, she was resentful and she did not, not want to be fixed. She felt bullied and she came to the consultation looking for a fight. I can’t stress this enough, do not sign up for my sex coaching services because somebody else wants you to get fixed. This work is all about you, it’s for you, it’s about you. The amazing gift of sexual intimacy is for you.

So sign up for my Own Your Sexuality Now group or my private coaching because you want to explore your sexuality and because you want to create the sexual intimacy of your dreams. It’s not about making somebody else feel better, it’s just not. This is all about you. And before I go any further I have to talk about this. If you are in a physically or verbally abusive situation you need to prioritize your safety and consider leaving that situation. If you’re not certain if it’s an abusive situation, then reach out and get some help.

We’re going to put the information in the show notes about the National Domestic Violence Hotline and that is at www.thehotline.org. And then we’ll also put a telephone number in the show notes for you.

Now, now that I said that, if you’re generally in a loving and supporting relationship or if you’re solo partnered and you decide that you want to work on your sexuality then let’s talk. Let’s talk about this.

To me your sexuality, it’s like a beautiful flower, the more you nurture it with self-love, compassion and attention the more it’s going to flourish and bloom. But your blossoming flower of sexuality is going to wither and die if it’s exposed to the emotional bullies that we mentioned previously. These bullies like guilt, and shame, and blame, and judgment, they’re like weeds that block out the sun and choke that beautiful blossoming sexual flower to death, just choke it, it’s gone, it’s withered, it’s gone.

Now, going back to the example of the woman that came to me for a consultation because her husband wanted her fixed, this woman was feeling pressured from her partner. Some people would label that the husband is the bully. And I would agree that he’s not a gem. But most of the bullying that I see that my Diamonds and women come to me, and what they experience, it’s self-imposed. It’s an inside job.

Ladies, let me just tell you, you are your own worst bullies, that judgment, that shame, that guilt, those are the best libido killers that I have ever seen, the libido just tanks in a second. Who wants to be thinking about sex and engaging in sex when you’re feeling bad, when you’re feeling shame about something? When you’re blaming somebody or somebody’s blaming you, these are things that are not going to be conducive for sexual intimacy. So my job as your sex coach is to help you separate the emotional bullies from the sexual situation.

Eventually we work on neutralizing the thoughts that are creating these emotional bullies. No matter what the sexual situation, it’s important for you to see it as a neutral situation. I gave talked a little bit about this, like when I talked about your starting point, your starting situation. We need to look at this and come at this from a place of neutrality, take all those emotional bullies out of the situation.

For example, if we’re talking about infrequent sex, so many women come to me because they are saying they’re not having enough sex in their relationship and they want to do something about it. The interesting thing is that some of the women come to me and they say they have not had sex in years. And other women come to me and they say they have had sex two or three times a week but they’re all thinking the same thing, that they’re not having enough sex. So you can see from the data points that there’s not an absolute number that defines sexual infrequency.

The number is not the problem. As I said it’s a neutral starting place. It’s the thoughts around the number which is leading to the sexual difficulties. They’re all feeling such shame, and blame, and guilt about the number that they can’t even begin to address the issue. They have so many thoughts and feelings about the frequency. But if we break it down it’s just a number. It could be 12 times a week, 12 times a month, 12 times a year, or zero, but it’s all just a number. And then there’s all the rest of it that goes with that number.

So what I first do is I work with women to realize that the number is neutral, the situation is neutral. And then we look at the thoughts and the feelings about that situation and we start to improve the sexual difficulties. So when there’s a lot of shame and guilt surrounding the situation it’s really hard to look at the situation. If you feel bad about something you don’t really want to look at it. You’re in avoidance mode, you’re like, “Yeah, that’s over there, but I think I’ll go over here.” They think it’s time for some stamp booking or something like that.

So we first have to get to a place of neutrality just by focusing on data points. And then we start to shift things. We start to come from a place of non-judgment and then hopefully self-compassion and self-love.

So, Diamonds it’s really time to give up the bullying and to focus on the healing. Yes, I admit that there may be a problem and you admit it too. But you are not the problem. I want to be very clear about that. Yes, there may be a sexual difficulty issue going on but you are not wrong, you are not the issue. There’s a situation, there’s thoughts about that situation and there’s feelings about that situation and those are what’s causing the difficulties.

And you know what’s interesting about this? Is that I know that you’re not the only one that’s dealing with these issues. And this is why I love to work with women all together in a group around the issue of sexual difficulties because women need to realize that they’re not alone. Isolation is so much of the problem here.

So, so many women are dealing with the same sexual difficulty but dealing with the issue in isolation. And isolation makes us feel worse. It kind of brings on the shame and we’re just sitting with our thoughts and our feelings, and they’re kind of going around, and around, and around in our mind. And we can’t break the cycle, but if we’re in a group, if we see other people are dealing with the same difficulties, it can have a big impact.

There is so much healing that comes from shared experiences and sharing concerns in a group setting. The emotional bullies, they lose their grip on you when you’re not isolated. So we come together in Own Your Sexuality Now and we build a safe place to work on all these issues. And you know what? That’s what group coaching is all about.

Group coaching often gives women the confidence they need to acknowledge what’s going on in the situation. It allows them to say, “Such and such is dealing with this issue too. Okay, maybe I can deal with it. Maybe I can look at it.” They start to acknowledge what’s going on in the situation and they start to have the conversations with themselves, and eventually with their partners about the situation. The beginning of the conversation, the seeds of the conversation, starts within the group experience.

And then that communication extends outside the group and often into the relationship. The communication is so important because it’s what restores the emotional connection and the trust which is necessary for the sexual intimacy to flourish in the relationship. I spoke about it before. You need to feel safe in order to get vulnerable. You get to feel safe by having the communication there, by having the emotional connection there, and definitely by having the trust there, it is so important.

So let’s go back to that woman that I spoke to at the beginning of this episode. Maybe she came to me because her husband forced her to come, but I’m hoping that she stays with me because of herself, because of the gift that she wants to give herself, because the fact that she’s worth it, because of the fact that whatever happened she can have a better situation around this. The most important part of the work is the work that women do for themselves. I am here for you. I love your partners but I’m really here for you.

So, Diamonds, you know what? It’s time to get rid of those emotional bullies, shame, judgment, blame, guilt, they’re not helpful. They really are not helpful. Go ahead and replace them with self-compassion and self-love and see what you can accomplish from those places. If we consider shame, and guilt, and judgment, emotional bullies, then self-compassion, non-judgment, self-love, those are like emotional allies and that’s where we want to start from.

Allow yourself to explore your thoughts around sexuality and what kind of sexuality and sexual intimacy that you want to have in your relationship. But explore it from a place of self-compassion and non-judgment. Realize that you’re not broken, realize that you’re not wrong and you’re not bad. And if you realize that I bet you’re going to be more willing to explore whatever issue it is that you’re dealing with.

So once again, remove the emotional bullies, and focus on what you want to do to improve your sexual intimacy, focus on what you want to think, focus on what you want to feel. And remember, Diamonds, this, this, this is a bully-free zone.

Okay Diamonds, that’s all I have for you this week. You know I love you. If you want to work with me privately then reach out and book a consultation with me. And if you’re interested in my group, Own Your Sexuality Now, enrolment is going to open again at the end of January. I’m looking forward to working with you.

To celebrate the launch of the Midlife Sex Coach for Women Podcast I’m going to be giving away a $50 Amazon gift card to five lucky listeners who subscribe, rate and review the show on Apple Podcast. It doesn’t have to be a five star review, although I would really love it if it were a five star review. But more importantly, I want your honest feedback so I can create an amazing show that provides tons of value.

Visit www.soniawrightmd.com/podcastlaunch to learn more about the contest and how you can enter. I’ll be announcing the winners on the show in an upcoming episode.

Okay, that’s all for now, see you next time Diamonds.

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.