Ep #86: Celebrating Two Years of OYSN

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women™ Podcast episode 86.

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, hello, hello Diamonds. How are you? I’m so excited to talk to you today and I’m so excited for this episode. Actually, what I’m doing is focusing on an episode that I did a year ago when I was talking about what I had learned over the course of doing Own Your Sexuality Now, the online sex coaching class or a group session that I had. And it was the year anniversary last year. We’re coming up to two years anniversary this year.

And I wanted to replay and revisit this podcast episode because Own Your Sexuality Now is going to be enrolling in May and I want to make sure people are aware of that. And also, just because I’m so excited about this course, about offering it. We’ve actually changed it a little bit where it’s an Own Your Sexuality Now intimate edition. And this edition is more personal and more focused. It’s a smaller group size. It’s in a meeting style so some things that you hear on the podcast will be a little bit different. I don’t do it webinar style. I do it meeting style now.

But I just finished my January cohort of group and I’m just getting so much great feedback that I wanted to actually share some of that feedback with you before we got into this episode. So, I was asking, what do you most appreciate about OYSN and these are some of the responses that I got back. I appreciate the focus on self-empowerment and self-pleasure, i.e., not leaving it up to somebody else to make me feel what I want to feel.

I also asked, what changed about your sexuality? And Captivating said, “Better communication between my husband and I and much less resentment over the past, and a focus on the future. The ability to look forward and anticipate.” I love that. That is so exciting when I hear the feedback from the people in my group.

Another person, Spicy said, “I so appreciated the non-judgmental, open, and uplifting, and fun atmosphere, also the wise and thoughtful coaching. Dr. Sonia, you are a gem.” Thank you so much, Spicy, I appreciate that. Spicy also said, “I know it’s up to me to own my sexuality now and make changes. I have had some difficult conversations with my partner and I am initiating intimacy more frequently.” So great, Spicy, I love that.

Also, Magnificent said, “The coaching and understanding that I am not alone.” And when asked what changed about her intimacy and sexuality she said she changed up her partner. So, she chose to change her partner. But also knowing Magnificent, I know she changed a lot about, she decided to own her sexuality and to empower herself. And in that empowerment then she made a decision to switch her partner. And she says, “I’m dating someone new and taking charge of my desires.” That is so good, I love that taking charge of your desires, so good. Just wonderful feedback.

And finally, Terrific says that they really love the smorgasbord. I have something called the sexual smorgasbord. And Terrific says, “It’s so helpful in finding other ways to be intimate with my spouse as we go through some harder health issues.” And also, what has changed about her sexuality intimacy, Terrific says, “I’m much more open with my spouse and I haven’t even finished the course yet.” And that’s the fun thing, if for some reason they don’t necessarily finish the course they have the option to come back and do another round which is what I love.

Because sometimes we need to go deeper into the material that we’re doing, so, so many different ways. I love the women that I work with. And I love seeing them get the results and take ownership of the sexuality and the intimacy in their life and change, seriously, change their intimacy, change their life and knowing that women out there have taken control. And that for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years they have changed the intimacy in their life and are getting the pleasure that they deserve.

So here is the episode that I talk about what I’ve learned in coaching an online sex coaching program over the course of the year. And as we celebrate Own Your Sexuality Now as it gets into its second year, I’m so excited about that. And also, it’s going to be open for enrollment starting in May and we would love to have any woman that wants to change what’s happening right now in terms of sexuality and intimacy in her life, take control of it and really just chart a new direction for her future. I am here for you and so without further ado here is the episode. Okay, I love you so much.

                                                                                                                   

Hello, Diamonds. It’s so good to talk to you today. I am in such a good mood because I am celebrating the one year anniversary of my online anonymous sex group coaching program called Own Your Sexuality Now. I guess I have a couple of names for it. I can call it OYSN or just Own. But the full name is actually Own Your Sexuality Now. And we just had an alumni call on Tuesday which was so much fun, it was so good to get to talk to people that have gone through my course and to see what a difference it has made in their lives.

And I just love talking to people and checking in with them. And one of my clients was saying how it’s had a profound effect on her and her life is so much better and her sexuality is so much improved over the last year, that she doesn’t even recognize it. And another one of my clients was saying that they quote me all the time and that they hear my voice in their head when they’re beating themselves up or not being kind to themselves around sex and sexuality. So those are some of the fun testimonials that I like to hear about the work that I’m doing and the impact that I’m having.

And May, the entire month of May is my month that I’m going to be celebrating the one year anniversary or Own. And I’m going to be having different events during the month. And I’m definitely going to be celebrating it on the podcast. In fact, we’re going to be having a podcast guest in celebration of Own turning a year old so look out for that and she is so much fun. You’re just going to love her just the way that I love her too. So, May is all about celebrating Own Your Sexuality Now.

And I thought to myself, you know what? I want to just talk about what I have learned over the last year of doing this program online. Just some points that have come up to me and have stuck with me in terms of what are the top 10 things that I learned about doing an anonymous online sex group coach program, so much fun.

But first I wanted to talk a little bit more about OYSN. So, what exactly is OYSN? So, it’s my 90 day program and it’s online. It’s anonymous. And it’s kind of like a kick start program to get your sexual intimacy back in gear the way you want it with yourself or with your partner, however you express your sexuality, or if you’re not really expressing your sexuality, how to jumpstart that so you get to express your sexuality.

It has 12 modules in the program which are a range on topics around libido, anatomy, kind of evaluating your current situation, pleasure, prioritizing yourself. Women do not prioritize themselves. Also, about the sexual smorgasbord where we go through this list of all the fun sexual activities that you can do that can count as sexual intimacy. And it’s not necessarily all about penetrative sex.

And then ultimately we work on creating a pleasure plan for you, for you, for yourself partnered or for you if you have an additional partner. I believe that everybody is solo partnered. So, if you’re solo partnered or you’re solo partnered plus you have an additional partner then we create this pleasure plan around that dynamic as well.

And I actually expanded the program. So, it’s a 90 day program where we jumpstart your sexual intimacy. And then I added on another three months of weekly sex coaching to give you what you need for support. As you’re in the process of creating your plan and after you’ve created your plan, just as you’re living your life to make sure that you’re able to implement that plan and you’re able to get all your questions, and coaching, everything that you need to make this a success.

So, the program now is a full six month program with three months being the – or 90 days being the initial focused area, and then the additional three months of support. So that is what OYSN or Own Your Sexuality Now is all about.

And now I want to kind of switch gears a little bit in terms of talking about what I’ve learned over the year of running this program and not necessarily in any specific order but these are just things that have come up for me and things that I’ve realized are pretty important.

So, number one, anonymity is key in order to have women talk about their sexual problems. My goal with my program is to see that every woman is able to feel comfortable talking about whatever is going on in her life, personally going on in her life around sexuality, sexual intimacy, sexual difficulties. And I find that having an anonymous coaching program is the best way to do that.

So how do I make it anonymous? Well, when you come into the – we do it online on Zoom. So, when you come into the Zoom meeting, it’s actually a webinar style. When you come in your name is changed. You can change it yourself when you enter or if you don’t have the ability to change it yourself then we change it for you. And you just come up with whatever fun sexy name that you’d like to use, or we will choose it for you. And let me tell you we have a lot of fun in choosing the names.

So, I find that anonymity is a key factor to make sure everybody feels comfortable and relaxed. They can ask whatever questions they need to ask and they don’t have to worry about anything getting back to somebody else, not that that would happen in our group because definitely confidentiality is something that’s important as well. But there’s another layer because we have that anonymity in there.

And I find that that just allows women to sit back and relax, and ask whatever questions they need to ask, whatever questions that they’ve wanted to ask their whole life and just didn’t know who to ask. It also allows them to just be free, to just be themselves without having to worry about anybody judging them. So, the first thing that I’ve noticed is that anonymity is key in my group.

The second thing that I notice is that women have to be able to access the coaching in whatever way they want to access the coaching. So, in my group you can get coaching any way that works for you. You can do it by video. You can come on the video camera if you want to, you can turn on. When you come into the Zoom meeting your video’s not on, your audio’s not on, it’s like a webinar style.

But if you want to get coached you can raise your hand and you can get coached by audio only so your face is not showing and your name isn’t showing because we already changed your name. Or you can get coached by video if you choose to. Or you can get coached in the chat. And I know this sounds a little different but I do a lot of my coaching in the chat. And women just ask me their questions, what they need coaching on and we coach in the chat. And then they can just respond to my questions and we coach back and forth.

And I can actually coach quite a few women at the same time but it works out well. So that’s how we make sure that women can access the coaching any way that works for them. And so, it’s like another layer. You have the anonymity and then you have the next layer which is just whatever way is the most comfortable way for you to get coached and for you to get the information that you like. Then we make sure that that happens.

And the third thing that I realized is that even though it seems counterintuitive, having a group to talk about your sex problems is one of the best ways that you can do this work. I know most people think that it’s so private I just want to do it one-on-one and a group setting is not going to work for me, but it does work for me. I think it works because there is those layers of anonymity and the layer there of getting coached any way that works for you including the chat.

But being in the group setting is so comforting because you realize you’re not alone. You’re not the only one that’s dealing with this situation and whatever is coming up for somebody. And so often when somebody is being coached, I’m seeing in the chat, people are saying, “This is me, this is my problem. Oh, my goodness, I didn’t know that I had this issue. I didn’t realize I was thinking these thoughts.” But they see it mirrored in somebody else and then they realize, wow, yeah, I’m dealing with the same situation and I didn’t see it.

And sometimes it’s so easy to see when somebody else is going through it, it’s easy to see that somebody else is not prioritizing their needs but it may be hard for you to see it. So, when you see somebody else being coached around it then you start going, “Oh, she has a right to prioritize her needs. I have a right to prioritize my needs as well.”

And so many of my Diamonds realize, and recognize that other women are going through the same exact things that they’re going through, a busy demanding job, juggling partners and kids, being exhausted at home and work. The second shift is real. You go to work and you’re dealing with whatever’s going on in the day. And then you come home and you start – many women start their second shift of juggling families, and partners, and the home. And you don’t get a break and so you’re exhausted.

So, it’s often so much easier to see it when other women express what’s going on in their lives. And we get the gambit, we get it all. We get women that are exhausted, women that are not wanting to engage in sex. We have single women, and divorced women, and women are just trying to get their groove back on. We have women that have not had sex in years. We have women that have sex every week but are not enjoying themselves.

We have women that are in pain while they’re having sex and somehow they’re just ignoring that and they’re not recognizing that it’s a problem. They think it’s just what has to happen. Whatever’s going on we find that the women in the group are finding common ground and they’re relaxing knowing that they’re not alone.

And they can start to deal with the problem because they’re not as focused on covering up the issue or not being able to discuss it, they can just relax and see that okay there’s a lot of other people that are dealing with issues too, so, actually being in the group setting works out really well.

Okay, the fourth thing that I have learned is that mismatched libido is alive and well. Although the majority of the women that come into my program are doing it because they have low libido or they’re not as interested in sex and they feel like they should increase their interest in sex. I actually have about 10-20% of the women that come to me because they have a higher libido than their partner.

Or their partner is having sexual difficulties and they’re trying to deal with that. How do these women get their needs met when they have a partner that is not interested in engaging in sex or maybe is dealing with erectile dysfunction or something else is going on with their partner?

Or maybe their partner has never been that interested in sex their entire marriage. They’re a great person and they love them very much but they can’t figure out what exactly to do and they’re so frustrated. And this frustration, they feel frustration, they feel rejection, they feel deep, deep pain. These women are feeling so much pain. And then they are feeling ashamed because they’re in this situation. They may be feeling ashamed because they feel that their libido is higher and women are not supposed to have a high libido.

Maybe they’re blaming themselves because of their partner’s sexual dysfunction or sexual difficulty problems. Whatever it is I find that this group of women are in the most pain. And that’s why I’m here; I’m here to help them figure out to look at this pain, to look at the emotions that’s going on, to figure out a plan for them. A pleasure plan is about you, it’s about figuring out what your needs are and how to get those needs met. And we do that work and we talk it through.

And sometimes it’s hard coaching that we’re doing. But at the same time, it alleviates that pain, that stress, that feeling of being alone and ashamed. And so yeah, mismatched libido is alive and well.

I do have to say that a lot of women do come to me because their partners are requesting sex quite a bit and they’re not as interested. And we work on that as well. If you have a partner that wants sex every single day and you would like sex once a week that does not mean that you increase the amount of sex you’re having to meet your partner. You two come together and figure out something that’s going to work for both of you.

So, the fifth thing that I have noticed when doing this work is that emotional bullies run rampant and wreak havoc when it comes to sexual difficulties. So many women are judging themselves, they’re blaming themselves. They’re feeling guilty. They’re feeling so much shame. And all these emotions are kind of piling on top of them and they can’t figure out their sexual difficulties. They can’t get it sorted out.

If you’re in a place of deep shame or feeling so guilty you don’t want to address the issue. So, the first thing we do is we deal with those emotional bullies. We make sure that this is a safe environment for you. So, Own Your Sexuality Now is a safe environment. You’re not allowed to bully yourself.

I will point that out, if you’re bullying yourself, and feeling shame and guilt, and judging yourself, judging is one of those things. It’s one of the worst things. Then we talk it through, we coach on that and we get you to this place where you can alleviate that intense feeling so that you can start to work on things.

And I’m realizing that one of my main jobs is to help my Diamonds release, release all those emotional bullies and get to a place of allowing. Because when you get to a place of allowing, allowing the situation, exactly what’s happening right now, allowing all your feelings then you can kind of shift through it. And then you can get to the place where you’re actually working on whatever it is that you have to work on.

The sixth thing that I have discovered in doing this work is that laughter is healing especially when it comes to sexual difficulties. And when I say laughter, I’m not saying laughing at somebody but laughing at the situation. Laughing about our thoughts and just not taking ourselves too seriously. I do have a quirky sense of humor and it does come through in my coaching. But when you’re laughing, you’re breathing, you’re relaxing you can kind of see it have a perspective when you look at your issues. So, for me laughter is something that’s important.

We do the work and we feel the emotions, we sense what’s going on, sometimes it’s the hard work that has to be done. But we can sprinkle in some laughter there. And I find that that tends to be my gift to my Diamonds. So, I use my quirky sense of humor to get my message across to you so that you understand and so that you’re not using those emotional bullies. And that even though we’re in the middle of whatever situation that we’re dealing with, that we can kind of laugh at it a little bit. And that laughter heals, it really does.

The seventh thing that I’ve realized is that women can be having sex for 20, 30 years and still be intellectually like a sexual virgin. What exactly do I mean by an intellectual sexual virgin? It’s when it comes to understanding your own wants, and needs, and emotions, and physical needs, everything around sexuality it may not be focused on them. So much of it may be focused on meeting the needs of your partner and recognizing what your partner’s needs are, that you have absolutely no idea what your own needs are emotionally or physically.

And so, I do spend time working with women because women have been taught to be selfless. They have to be selfless, they cannot be selfish. And also, because in our society we’re not really able to own our sexuality, that combination of that is that we don’t know what we want sexually. We have no idea what we want. And then we’re afraid to even express it if we do know what we want. So, my job is also to work with my Diamonds to help them to identify what their wants and needs are emotionally, and physically, and sexually, and to prioritize themselves.

And I’m amazed at the fact that women have been in relationships, have been having sex for 20 years and putting the focus so much on their partner to the point that they have no idea what they want. So, this work is about you figuring out what you want, giving yourself permission and also recognizing, okay, if you’re in your 40s and your 50s, you have 30, 40 more years of sexual intimacy ahead of you. Could we make the second half of your sexual intimacy about you? Please, can we just do this?

Could we make it about you and what you need, and what you want? Because ultimately if you get your needs met and you’re in a relationship with yourself or in a relationship with somebody else, you’re going to be happier. And the relationship is going to thrive and it’s going to do much better. So, I know that we have been taught to be selfless but it’s time for us to recognize that it’s important when it comes to sexuality.

Because if you are getting your needs met and if you are having pleasure you’re going to want to engage in sex more often which is so much fun and definitely meant to be enjoyable. And on a side note, really our sexuality taps into our creativity and it also taps into our ability to connect with ourselves and with other people. So, you benefit in so many different ways to tap into your sexuality, to find that pleasure for you and to experience it. And then share it with others and it just, it enhances your life in so many different ways.

Alright, we are going to number eight. There is a large percentage of women out there that believe that they are doing this sex thing wrong or that they’re broken in some way. In their minds they’re like something’s not right with me. I haven’t figured this thing out. I’m taking too long to have an orgasm. And my body doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. My sexuality doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. My libido doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. My sexual orientation is not the way it’s supposed to be.

There’s so many different things and so I’m realizing that a lot of my work is to recognize and to help women to recognize that there’s nothing wrong with them. Yeah, if your libido is low, that’s okay, we can work with that, we can figure that out. If you’re worried you’re not doing it right and maybe your partner’s last lover did it better, or you’re taking too long to have an orgasm, or whatever it is in the bedroom. Then that goes under performance anxiety. And we can work on that as well to release that.

And I find that there’s a lot of women that think that there’s something wrong with themselves because they are not able to have an orgasm with penetrative sex. Let me tell you, only about 15-20% of women can have orgasms with penetrative sex alone. The majority of us need some sort of stimulation to our vulva. So, while we are sitting there listening to what society says as the ultimate sexual experience, which is penetrative sex we need to recognize that that does not apply to almost half of the population.

And so, there’s nothing wrong with you if we’re talking about 40, 50% of the population needs some stimulation to their vulva in order to have an enjoyable sexual experience. So, there’s nothing wrong with you. Society is the one that’s got it wrong basically. So, we release the performance anxiety, we release the judgment. We release these thoughts that there’s something wrong with us. And we work on getting new thoughts and figuring this out.

And as a continuation to the last thought, so number nine is that society has gotten it all wrong when it comes to women, women’s sexuality and just sexuality in general. Overall sex should be fun. And sexual intimacy is about filling your own emotional and physical bucket. And it’s also about helping others fill their own emotional and physical bucket, sexual bucket if you want to call it that but never from a place of duty, responsibility. We are not responsible for our partner’s pleasure. We are responsible for our own pleasure and our partner’s responsible for their own pleasure.

And when you come into the situation and you’re meeting from a place of I am responsible for my own pleasure, my partner is not the one that’s supposed to give me an orgasm. I’m the one that’s supposed to give myself an orgasm. Then you actually start empowering yourself. And you start figuring out what exactly that you need in order to get to that place where you’re having that pleasure. And you give your partner also; they also have the opportunity to become empowered, to figure out what their needs are.

And if you’re self-pleasured or solo-partnered, then we are talking about you meeting your own needs definitely. And the importance of meeting your own needs. So, this works out really well. We don’t have to listen to society that says we need a partner. That says we’re responsible for our partner’s pleasure. That says our partner is responsible for our pleasure. We don’t need to listen to any of that. We get to make it up ourselves. So, it is more coming from a place of being equal partners and coming together for enjoyment and for fun.

If you require bringing a vibrator to your bed for vulva stimulation it does not mean anything at all about your partner. It just means your body works the way your body works and you get to have the pleasure that you need. Period. Period. You get to enjoy yourself in whatever way that turns you on as long as there’s consent and that you’re not hurting yourself or hurting others. So, if you need to read some erotica to get yourself going before you go and have some sex, then go ahead and do that, if you need to engage in some sex texting or sexting throughout the day then that’s okay.

If you enjoy chore play ahead of time where you have your partner doing the dishes or cleaning up the house, or whatever, putting the kids to bed early, then request what you need. You get to define your sexuality and you get to do it any way that you want to. So don’t let anybody else dictate how you get your pleasure.

And then number 10, let me just say that this is the best job in the world. This is really what I’ve learned, that this is the best job in the world hands down. I would not want to be doing anything else. I get to help women every day improve their sex lives. I get to help women create the sex lives of their dreams. I don’t know any other work that is more worthwhile, at least for me. So, I just want to say that it is an honor doing this work with all of you, Diamonds.

And I just want to say that I just love working with you in whatever capacity. If it’s in my group, if it’s private coaching, or if it’s with my podcast, whatever it is, I am the most honored person to be doing this work with you. So, I thank you so much Diamonds.

Alright, so that is basically all for this episode. I just want you to know that my program is for every woman, it doesn’t matter about your age or your background, if you’re partnered or if you’re solo partnered, I have all different types of women in Own Your Sexuality Now. My clients range in age from 23 to 73. So, if you consider yourself a Diamond you are a Diamond, do not worry about it. What they do have in common is the desire for a deeper connection with themselves, with their sexuality. And they also have a desire to create the sex lives of their dreams.

Alright Diamonds, if you’re interested in enrolling in Own Your Sexuality Now at any time it is open for enrolment at any time. I’ll put the link in the show notes and you can sign up at any time and you can come join me. We have so much fun in Own Your Sexuality Now. Alright Diamonds, have a great week. I’ll talk to you later.

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, especially for women. 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 program, the intimate edition. We just finished the January cohort and it was on fire. Women of all ages from 35 to 65 were learning about their bodies and expressing their sexuality and doing it on their own terms.

Couples who had not had sex in years found a new level of sexual fun and established a new intimacy, others learned about their bodies and tapped into their pleasure zone. Another one learned to set boundaries and focus on her pleasure for the first time in the 30 year relationship. Another Diamond got the independence she needed to change up her whole life. She’s starting fresh. Amazing.

OYSN is not just about sex, it’s about empowerment, and of course, pleasure. And right now I’m enrolling a new group. Orientation starts on May 18^th. Come join an intimate group of women for the next 12 weeks and literally change your life. Let’s create that amazing satisfying intimacy that you so deserve. If you’re in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s or even 70s, this is the place for you. You potentially have 30 to 40, even 50 more years of intimacy ahead of you. What do you want that to look like?

Let’s get real and let’s talk about what’s going on with your body, your libido and see what we can do to kickstart this intimacy. This program is for you whether you have a partner or not. If you’re a woman or a person who identifies as a woman, and who wants to enjoy all aspects of her life then this is your program. It finally gets to be your time. It’s about time, right? So, click on the link below in the show notes or on my website at soniawrightmd.com to join me in Own Your Sexuality Now, the intimate edition. I can’t wait to see you. Talk to you soon, Diamonds. I love you.