Ep #111: Celebrating Menopause: Empowered Living

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women^TM Podcast, episode 111.

Welcome to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women^TM 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, hello, hello Diamonds. It’s Dr. Sonia, so excited to be here with you, really I am. This is actually one of my favorite times, I just get to sit and talk to you. And it just makes me happy, so thank you, thank you for being you and thank you for allowing me to come into your lives on a weekly basis and talk about some fun things. Well, today we’re continuing our discussion about celebrating menopause. I know so much negativity has been said around menopause and I really want to set the record straight.

At 56 years of age there have been challenges around menopause, I’m not going to lie, but at the same time I really feel like it set me free. And it set a lot of other women free. And so, this month is World Menopause Month in the month of October. And I just want to celebrate menopause. And as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve learned so much from the women of OYSN. And for those of you that are not familiar, OYSN is my signature program that I run once a year in January, it’s a 12 week program and we talk about everything related to sex and sexual intimacy.

But it seems to go beyond that, of course we talk about sexuality, and we redefine it for ourselves. But we also end up redefining our entire lives and it’s really an amazing thing to watch these women come to a place of empowerment. And I wanted to share with you the number of lessons that I’ve learned in my life and I’ve also learned by having the honor to host Own Your Sexuality Now.

And I am reframing it in the context of menopause but really the women in the group generally range in age from mid-30s to late 60s. And menopause is kind of a defining line but usually it’s perimenopause, menopause and post menopause that the majority of women are dealing with in some way. And I don’t think it’s too early to start talking about this. If you’re not menopausal at this point in time I really want to add to the discussion and add a positive bend to the thing because there’s so much negativity around menopause.

But I really want people to understand the amazing aspects of perimenopause, menopause and post-menopausal time in a woman’s life. And I really believe it’s a time that’s meant to be celebrated. So, I came up with my top 10 reasons in no particular order that we should celebrate menopause. So, Diamonds, here it is, and enjoy yourself. And at the end of this podcast stay tuned for more information on how you too can join OYSN which starts in January. Alright, let’s do this, let’s talk about the joys around menopause.

Okay, the first one that came to my mind was all the money you can save by not having to buy tampons or pads. Just that alone, I think is reason for celebration. But decide right now when you no longer have to buy those things that you’re going to take that money and treat yourself monthly or yearly if you want to save it up, but you’re going to treat yourself in some way to celebrate this aspect of your life. It’s not so much of a loss as it is an ability to tap into your freedom. This is just like I can’t even tell you. I never have to have a tampon in my pocket.

My daughter is getting to the age where I may need to start putting it in there just in case she forgets. But I don’t have to have a tampon or a pad, or worry about any of those things. And there’s so much freedom in that. So, I say, look to the future, not to the past. Of course, I am that kind of mother that is going to have a ceremony when my daughter has her period for the first time. I’m going to do candles, and chanting, and just have so much fun with the whole thing. She’s going to be totally embarrassed and be like, “Why, why?”

But I do remember when I was a little kid I got my period at 10 and nobody talked about it, like it was a shameful thing, almost like there was a mourning, like a shroud over the lives, like Sonia’s childhood had ended and now she’s going to have to deal with this problem. But I remember, I had this one aunty that said to me, how wonderful it was. And the look in her eye, she was so excited, and pleased, and proud, that that was something that I kept with me.

And as my daughter goes through this process where eventually she will have her period somewhere in the next couple of years I am going to celebrate that with her. But also on the other side, I kind of imagine that same aunty looking at me with pride and excitement when the menopausal time comes, when you go that 12 months without a period and you’re post-menopausal. And I want to be that aunty for you or that friend for you. And I want to celebrate with you and be there to say, “This is only the beginning, the best is yet to come.”

And so, part of all of this is a celebration, really a celebration, if you want a ceremony, if you want to get your friends together and come up with a ceremony. Maybe it’s a pad or a tampon burning ceremony, whatever it is. I’m totally 100% down with ceremonies and really to understand that this is just the beginning. So, I’ll be doing a ceremony for my daughter and you know what? Maybe I’ll do a ceremony for myself. It’s just a wonderful time in a woman’s life.

Number two. You always get to be hot no matter what. Okay, it might be in the form of a hot flush, but also I want you to know that hot is a mindset. You are beautiful, and amazing, and sexy all the time if you decide that’s the case. And you get to define your self-concept, at this point on society might like to tell us that our self-concept should be one of sadness, or transition, or something going wrong, and lack of vitality. That’s all bullshit, I’m just going to tell you right now.

This is the time to celebrate and to really create your self-concept, your post-menopausal self-concept. Who are you? Who do you want to be? For me I’m a badass. I’m a beautiful, amazing, sexy badass. And that’s what it’s going to be. Yeah, not every day. I don’t wake up every day going, “Damn, you’re sexy”, but I do. I do quite a bit of the time. And that is part of my self-concept and this is something you 100% get to decide, who are you going to be from this moment on? Who and what is your self-concept? You get to determine it. You get to decide.

Just realize that it’s a choice that you have, you get to decide how you want to think of yourself in this post-menopausal part of your life. So please be very intentional about your self-concept. Don’t borrow it from anybody else. A self-concept comes from you, self, internal, don’t borrow somebody else’s ideas about what a post-menopausal woman is supposed to be. You get to create it and decide it for yourself.

Three. I really like this one. You get to give up being a perfectionist. So much about our lives as women is that we have to be perfect. We have to look perfect, we have to act perfect, we have to be selfless, we have to be the perfect mother, the perfect whatever in your job, the perfect partner. There’s so much perfect and there’s so much pressure and you get to give it all up. And you know what I like, is when you’re in the perimenopausal time and heading into post-menopausal time you will realize your memory is not the way it was before.

And you’ll be like, “Oh my God, what has happened with your brain?” But with your brain shifting and you needing to write lists and figure out different ways to remember things, you also kind of have this letting go that happens. At the beginning it’s frustrating, and then you get to this place where you’re like, “Wait, my brain doesn’t work exactly the way it worked before.” And let me tell you, it gets better, it comes back. I don’t have to write tons of lists like I used to but there is a period of time where you feel like you’re losing your mind.

And with that losing of the mind I also think you might as well just get rid of the perfectionist tendencies at the same time which is pretty cool. So, you get to give yourself permission to not be perfect, not to remember everything, to need the help of lists, to not do this the way society says that it has to be done. And you get to give yourself instead, love and kindness, compassion. A sense of humor always helps in these situations, I have to say. My sense of humor helps me all the time but you don’t have to be hard on yourself anymore. You can actually just live your life and give up this perfectionist tendency.

Four. The government and anybody else in society, whatever, no longer has control over your body, they don’t fucking care anymore. You get complete control over your body. You get to decide what you want to do with it, what you don’t want to do with it, nobody is telling you what has to be done. When you’re post-menopausal it’s like it’s not defined. In some ways it is kind of like you’re invisible but that’s okay. Invisibility also allows you to define yourself.

And you get to decide that hell no, you’re not invisible in any way and it’s also good. But you get to make complete choices without anybody else having sovereignty over your body. And do you know how good that is? Do you know how good that feels to not have some person with some political agenda down the road having control over your choices in life? That’s a beautiful thing.

And along those lines, if you haven’t done so already you get to make peace with your body. So that’s number five. You get to make peace with your body. You get to really love it. You get to appreciate it exactly as it is right now. It’s going to be with you for the next 50 years on this journey, you might as well come to a place of peace, loving, understanding with your body and definitely appreciation. You no longer have to listen to society that says you have to be a size four. You get to be exactly who you are and how you want to be, and how you want to show up in this world.

And you can stop the struggle. You can really, really, really start loving your body. You can start loving your tummy, your belly, you can start loving your thighs, you can start loving your hips. Do you notice the place that we focus so much on that we don’t like are areas that really are what set us apart as a woman, our hips, our tummy, our thighs. We spend so much time not liking them. Our breasts, our breasts are not big enough, our breasts are not small enough, blah, blah, blah. All that gets to end.

You get to just love your body the way it is right now, treat it well, be kind to it. Give it massages. You get to do all the things you’ve ever wanted to do and be kind and loving towards your body.

Okay, six. You finally get to do you. You get to create the rest of your life, whatever you want that to be, you get to make that decision and create it now. You get to give yourself permission to do it all, anything you’ve ever dreamed of now is the time, you get to do it. You are young and healthy, now is the time. You finally get to be in the driver’s seat and you get to be in the driver’s seat for the next 50 years. You get to decide what’s important to you and you get to go after that.

This is the point in time where you can ask yourself, what is it that I want to do? What is important to me? And you get to make that decision to go for it. It does not matter, if you want to get another degree, go head and get another degree. If you want to go hike some trail, go hike the trail. If you want to eat bonbons every week, go ahead and eat your bonbons. Make sure you’re staying on a healthy path. But honestly, what this is about is you get to decide you. You get to decide what you want to do and you get to go after it. This is it, this is the turning point where you get to focus on you.

Okay, number seven. You get to demand all the pleasure that you want in life. Okay, I said this one is about life and last week was about sex and sexuality. But I had to put that in there. So, you get to demand all the pleasure that you want. You get to focus on your sexuality, but this is more than sexual pleasure. You get to demand all the pleasure that you want in life in whatever way you want it. You get to enjoy yourself. Give yourself permission in whatever way you want. I’m here for it. And it gets to be a good thing.

Number eight. You don’t have to give a fuck anymore. You will get to that place where you have no more fucks to give. You stop trying to control others, you stop trying to control situations, you may even give up being right all the time. And you just allow life to unfold. You become more the observer and let people live their life and you live your own. It is so much freedom in just allowing people to be who they are and not trying to control. Well, let me just say, you can’t control another person anyway.

You’re just ending up being in a pretty frustrated place but you get to let that all go. And you get to just allow people to be themselves and to do whatever it is that they’re going to do. And when you release them you also release yourself. And you allow yourself to do whatever it is that you actually want to do. For me, I love the concept of the Crone, the wise woman who lives her life for her. So, if you want to dye your hair purple, go on that trip and do all those things that helps to make you feel alive, then do it. Live that no regrets life.

My ultimate goal when I think of a no regrets life is when I’m on my deathbed, I don’t want to be regretting anything. I don’t want to be sitting there saying, “I should have done something.” My plan in my 90s is to be in a rocking chair somewhere, periodically because I don’t have plans to slow down. But periodically I’m going to sit in a rocking chair and I’m going to giggle to myself over all the naughty things I’ve done in my life, on all the risks that I’ve taken in my life and all the times people told me I couldn’t do it and I did it anyway.

There’s so many times where people were like, “Yeah, no, you can’t do that Sonia, that’s not what you do.” And I may have had trepidation, and I may have beaten myself up emotionally but ultimately I always went back to this, I don’t want a regretful life. It’s a no regrets living. So, if it’s starting medical school at 32, or having a baby in my second year of medical school, or deciding that I’m going to become a sexual counsellor, and go the path of a life coach when I’m a medical doctor.

All the times in my life where I’ve done something where people are like, “I don’t think you want to do that.” But it has ended up enriching my life so much and making me more the person I was meant to always be. I love who I am now and that’s because I’ve made choices and I’ve taken some risks and I’ve done things that people said, “You can’t do, or you shouldn’t do.” So obviously I’m not telling you to break any laws. I am not telling you that. There is a disclaimer here.

Please do not break any laws, but also please live your life. And what is it that you would like to do so that you have a no regrets life? This is the time. This is what I love. This is when you get to be like, “Okay, okay, I’m going to live my life now.”

Number nine. You get to create all the relationships the way you would like them. And you don’t have to wait on anyone to have the good relationship that you want. You get to decide now. Is there a relationship that you would like to heal? Then now is the time. Accept where the relationship is right now and do the work to heal your heart, to come to terms with where you are. Ask yourself coming from a place of love, what is the best thing for you around this relationship? And coming from a place of love, what is the best thing for them?

What you want may not be what is best for either of you, so recognize that. You can choose to have difficult conversations with people or you may decide that you don’t need to go there for that conversation. You know what’s best but you can heal a relationship at least in your mind and come to a place of acceptance. And if you feel that there is a relationship that you would like to improve and the other person would also like to improve that relationship then go ahead and have those difficult conversations and do the work.

Ten. You get to focus on your legacy. You were put on this Earth for a reason, it’s not just to slog through life and then die at the end. There’s something that you’re meant to contribute to this world in some way and you get to decide what that is. But spend some time looking at what your legacy is and what you want your legacy to be about. Doing this work, this is part of my legacy. This podcast will live on after I’m gone, who knows who’s going to listen to it, it might just be my greatgrandchildren. I’m going to tell them hello right now and that I love you all, and I’m so proud of you.

But it is going to continue on, that’s part of a legacy. What is it that you want to give the next generation and the generation after that to make this world a better place? It doesn’t have to be something that’s amazing. But it does have to be something that’s impactful, and maybe it’s just raising that one person with a sense of love so that they give that to the next generation, and the next generation, and the next generation. In my family history there’s a lot of trauma but I am very thankful to my parents that they chose not to hand that type of trauma, violence down to the next generation.

So, I thank them very much and they may not see that but that is part of their legacy. Also, part of their legacy is making decisions at 17 and 19 to leave their country of origin to make a better future for themselves and ultimately for their children. They didn’t know what their future was going to be but they made a decision and that has a legacy to it. So, what legacy that you would like to leave to future generations, how would you like to make this world a better place than when you came in? Now is the time to start thinking about that and to create the legacy that you want.

And I’m going to give you a bonus one. Women in midlife, hear me when I say this is all about empowerment. You may have been afraid to claim your power in the past but now you’re stepping into your empowerment. Diamonds, listen to me, you’re very powerful women, every last one of you. You get to claim that power, you get to choose the course of your life, and it can impact yourself and many other people. Choose wisely but do make a choice. Don’t flounder in life.

Embrace the power that is yours and create the life that you want for yourself, and for generations to come, include the people you love and the people you want to have an impact on, make that no regrets life. Choose the empowerment and recognize that it’s a really good place to be. You don’t have to be afraid. You’re not a victim. You get to choose the life that you want and you get to fight for that life. All you have to do is give up all the crap that we’ve been taught and we’ve been told about happy ever after.

There is kind of a happy ever after but it doesn’t come from somebody else choosing you, it comes from you choosing you and choosing the life that you want. And this is what menopause, and post-menopausal time, and perimenopausal time is about, as we make that transition where we’re thinking other people are going to make us happy. And we make that time of transition till we realize that we are empowered and we are the ones that are going to make ourselves happy. We are the ones that make the choices to create the life that we want.

This is the power of menopause. This is the celebration and this is why I’m choosing to do this podcast today.

Okay, Diamonds, that’s all I have for you. Go out there and celebrate your perimenopausal time, your menopausal time, your post-menopausal time, wherever you are on this journey, celebrate it. And know that’s exactly where you’re supposed to be and you get to create the future that you want. Okay, Dr. Sonia out, I love you all, Diamonds.

This is a public service announcement. OYSN is starting in January of 2023, Diamonds. And for you that may not be familiar. OYSN stands for Own Your Sexuality Now. It is my signature program for women and I’m only offering OYSN once a year. I love this group and I want you to be in this group with me. Enrollment opens for a short time at the end of November and into the beginning of December. So, let’s start the new year with a new empowered sexual you.

And as always, I like to ask questions so here is a question for you Diamonds. How is your sex life? No, really, on a scale of one to ten, how is your sex life? You know I’m all about the intimacy in midlife. If you rated the intimacy in your life as less than an eight then we need to talk. I’m personally inviting you to check out my Own Your Sexuality Now intimate edition. The last group that went through this, they were on fire. Women of all ages from 35 to 65 were learning about their bodies, expressing their sexuality, empowering their lives and doing it on their terms.

Couples who had not had sex in years found a new level of sexual fun and established new intimacy. Other women learned about their bodies and tapped into their pleasure zone. Another one learned about setting boundaries and focusing on her pleasure for the first time in her life. Another Diamond got the independence she needed to change her whole life. Amazing.

OYSN is not just about sex, it’s about empowerment, and it’s about pleasure. And the new class is starting in January of 2023. So come join an intimate group of women for 12 weeks and literally change your life. Let’s create that amazing sexual intimacy that you deserve. If you are in your 30s, or 40s, or 50s, or even older, this is your time and this is the place for you. You potentially have 30 to 50 more years of sexual intimacy ahead of you. What do you want that intimacy to look like?

Let’s get real and let’s talk about what’s going on with your body, your libido, your life, let’s see what we can do to kickstart that intimacy. This program is for you whether or not you have a partner, this is about you and sexual intimacy with yourself first and then with anybody else that you choose. So, if you’re a woman who wants to enjoy all aspects of her life then this is the program for you, it finally gets to be your time.

So, click on the link in the show notes or on my website soniawrightmd.com and grab a copy of my Busy Woman’s Guide to Enhanced Intimacy. And get on the waitlist for Own Your Sexuality Now, the intimate edition. I can’t wait to see you. Talk to you soon, Diamonds. Dr. Sonia out.