Ep #223: The Truth About Your Nervous System and Midlife Intimacy with Leah Davidson

Sonia Wright (00:43)
Hello, hello, hello, my diamonds. Welcome back to the Midlife Sex Coach for Women podcast, where we talk about all things related to intimacy, pleasure, and reclaiming your sexuality in midlife. Today’s episode is such an important one. my goodness, because we’re going deeper than just techniques, deeper than communication, and even deeper than desire. Today, we’re talking about your nervous system, because here’s the truth.

You cannot access pleasure. You cannot access connection. You cannot access intimacy if your body doesn’t feel safe. And so many of us, especially in midlife, have been living in bodies that have feeling tired, overwhelmed, or on high alert, in vigilance mode all the time. Or maybe completely shut down, not because anything is wrong with us, but because our nervous systems have been

trying to protect us. And when our nervous system is dysregulated, intimacy becomes really, really difficult. That’s why I’m so excited for today’s conversation. I’m joined by the incredible Leah Davison, who is a nervous system resilience coach with over 26 years of experience, helping people understand the connection between their brain and their body. And in this episode, we talk about what nervous system regulation

actually means, how trauma and life experience shape your responses, why midlife can feel especially intense, and how creating safety in your body changes everything, including your intimacy. This is one of those episodes that will help you understand yourself on a completely different level. So take a breath, settle in, and let’s dive in.

Dr. Sonia (02:38)
I have a fabulous guest here today. I’m so excited to bring her to you because she’s just what we need. She’s gonna talk all about nervous system regulation but first I want to introduce her because she is fabulous. So let me go ahead and introduce her. So Leah Davidson is a speech language pathologist and nervous system resilience coach. Love her already.

With over 26 years of experience working in brain and nervous system health. She is a host of the Build Resilience podcast, something we definitely need, and the founder of Resilient Brilliance, ⁓ a stationary brand focused on emotional well-being and nervous system regulation and care. Leah teaches nervous system and foreign approaches to stress, resilience and chronic symptoms through programs, retreat and advanced training. She lives in Toronto with her husband and they have a

blended family of five growing children. So fabulous and amazing. We are going to be just having such a great time today. And Leah, I will let you introduce yourself or anything else that you’d like to add. And then we’re gonna just start talking and asking questions.

Leah (03:52)
I am just so excited to be here. I don’t think there’s anything else to add. I love talking all about the nervous system. So it is my passion in my personal life, my professional life, even my kids. They’re like, can you get through a conversation without mentioning the nervous system? And the answer is not really. It’s your most valuable resource. It’s the most important thing you got. So why would I not be talking about it all the time?

Dr. Sonia (04:18)
Exactly like if you

have a regulated nervous system, the world is yours It like opens the world for you anything that you can do so that’s why I’m so happy that you’re here talking with our diamonds about this topic because Like we do the work of sexual intimacy here at the midlife sex coach for women podcast, right? but if your nervous system is not regulated you cannot do this work and I talk about this zone of sexual safety and and

Leah (04:24)
All right.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Sonia (04:48)
Part of the reason I talk about the zone of sexual safety is so that you can feel safe, so that you can regulate your nervous system, get it down regulated so you can breathe and relax, and then you can go into this work of improving your intimacy. But if you can’t feel safe, if you can’t get to that place of being vulnerable because your nervous system is not de-escalated, it’s not in a good, healthy place, then it’s hard to do any

this work. So I wanted to start by asking you some basic questions just so that we’re all on the same page. When I hear nervous system regulation, what does it actually mean in simple terms? How do you describe that? How do you explain it?

Leah (05:25)
Yeah.

Yeah, because I think the word regulation kind of implies that you’re going to be calm all the time and everything’s going to be smooth sailing. Well, the nervous system is how the brain and the body communicate with each other, first of all. And so there’s lots of signals going back and forth between brain to body and body to brain. And I think that’s a really important piece because we talk a lot in the world about the signals from the brain to the body, but the body to the

brain is where a lot, not more, well, we know through the vagus nerve, a lot of the action is happening. So with nervous system regulation, although we love to be calmer because then we have more access to so many of our other skills, that’s not really the goal. Because the goal is for your nervous system, it is designed to respond

to whatever is happening in its world. So there are times when it’s perfectly appropriate that it moves up into an energetic or an activated state to deal with if it is confronted with a threat. It requires energy to ⁓ focus, to perform, like you and I both here.

We can’t be perfectly calm to have this great conversation. We gotta have some energy. So my nervous system is like, let’s let some energy in the system. And then at other times, we wanna be coming down to rest. We wanna be able to down-regulate ourselves. So a healthy nervous system is really one that can respond to whatever is required, adapt, go up and down, up and down, and be able to return to baseline.

The problem happens when we are responding to things that aren’t really things we need to respond to. So we’re responding to threats that aren’t really threats and we get stuck there and we don’t have the ability to come back down. So there may be a threat we respond to that’s not really something dangerous. We respond to it, we get stuck in that pattern.

and then there’s no way out of that pattern to come back down. So regulation is really, that’s why I call it more resilience, because it’s that up and down, the bouncing forward, bouncing back, returning, remembering. It’s very, very fluid and flexible.

Dr. Sonia (08:10)
that

because it makes me realize like when we talk about our bodies being healthy like an exercise and things like that it is so that we can handle whatever stressors or whatever come our way and so what you’re mentioning or what you’re saying I interpreted that it’s like so this is so that our nervous system can handle whatever comes our way but we’re not all starting at the same place some people have come from a background of trauma or where their nervous system has

Leah (08:21)
Right? Yeah.

Dr. Sonia (08:39)
to be upregulated all the time because they need to kind of be aware of what’s going on around them, right? And so when we come from a place where we have trauma in our childhood or whatever, and then we’re coming, we’re in our adulthood and we’re trying to connect with people, but our nervous system is saying, wait a minute, this is not safe. What do we do to work on that side of things?

Leah (08:47)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And that’s such a good point because our nervous system has been developing, you know, since in utero. So yes, we’ve got genetic components and then there’s intergenerational stuff. We’re very much influenced by our mother’s nervous system and then all the way through these imprints. So we have to our nervous system. But for many of us, ⁓ you know, some of these have

caused us to adapt in ways that are kind of brilliant ways when we’re younger. You know, we figure like, I love to call it your brilliant little self figured out along the way in order for me to survive in whatever, whatever environment I have. And, and there’s different, you know, trauma not to get too much into it, but

everybody has some degree and then other people are going to have experienced a lot more. So our nervous system is shaped by everything. But we brilliantly adapt and we learn, ⁓ I need to do this to survive. And we continue along way without kind of realizing that sometimes that’s not the healthiest pattern or I don’t need to do that anymore because I’m no longer in that environment.

but my nervous system, we almost think it’s like, well, this is just who I am or this is my personality or there’s no way to change it. We don’t realize, no, this is an adaptation you had for your survival. And then as we become more consciously aware, as our situations change, as we grow into…

who we were always meant to be, that’s when we can stop and look and say, okay, I want to evaluate what my adaptations have been. Do they serve me? Why are they there? And doing it without judgment. I love learning about the nervous system because I think it just removes the shame that there’s no, you you are the way you are because you brilliantly adapted to traumas.

Dr. Sonia (11:03)
Yeah.

Leah (11:11)
to your environment, to the caregivers, to intergenerational things, to systemic things. We don’t necessarily love all those things, but you brilliantly adapted. Like that’s how incredible our nervous systems are. And I can’t remember what your question was. I went off the subject.

Dr. Sonia (11:28)
⁓ Don’t worry about that because

you answered it. It was about childhood trauma and like this is how your system works. But I love how you brought in like all the different things that contribute to your overall nervous system, right? So that I think is key and important. So now you show up and you’re a midlife and you’ve gone through all this bullshit.

Leah (11:45)
Yeah.

Dr. Sonia (11:53)
And you’re like, you’re tired and exhausted from having to be up at such a high level of vigilance.

Leah (11:53)
Yeah.

Dr. Sonia (12:00)
you know, because of stuff that might have happened 20 years ago, or maybe stuff that’s happening right now. But what happens to a woman’s nervous system in midlife? And what should we be focused on when we’re in our 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond? Like, what is the important thing to understand and to know about our nervous system in our midlife for women?

Leah (12:01)
Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah. Well, aren’t we lucky as women that there’s so many things we have been carrying a load for a long time. Now, whether this is a visible load or we know that there’s a lot of an invisible emotional load that women have been carrying. And again, our nervous system has adapted. ⁓ We sort of shape ourselves around whatever our demands are.

I always had this illusion that as I got older, the stressors in my life would reduce because I have, you know, five children and I thought like, well, that’s once they’re 18, we’re done. Like I’m Scott free without having that realization. Oh no, know, dynamics change. They’re still challenging. They’re different, but they’re still challenges. But then what happens is we start to add on things like aging parents.

Dr. Sonia (13:01)
Yeah.

Yes.

Leah (13:18)
or relationships changing because now all of a sudden we’re empty nesters. And so then we have a different amount of time to dedicate to careers and our roles. And all at the same time, our hormones decide like, this is the perfect time to make all the changes. And so we start experiencing sleep disruption and then even just all the changes in estrogen and progesterone.

And cortisol, like this is, our whole system is thrown out of whack. We no longer have the same buffering from the hormones that we did previously. So it’s almost like the stress load is increasing in different areas. It’s changing. And our capacity is dropping because we have this hormonal changes, we’ve got sleep changes. ⁓ And then, of course, as women,

We try to figure things out and there’s a tendency to be like, well, it must be me. There must be something wrong with me. I know.

Dr. Sonia (14:19)
always blame ourselves, you know, no matter what it is,

we are the one that blame ourselves and, and I’m not going to blame ourselves because we’re blaming ourselves. I’m going to say that society kind of makes it this way. Like it’s so easy if we can just blame half the population and they get to take it on and nothing changes, right? Because they’re busy in this place of shame and dysregulation.

Leah (14:30)
That’s right.

That’s it.

Yes!

Yes.

Dr. Sonia (14:47)
know, a lot can change and shift in this world. So yes, yeah.

Leah (14:48)
Exactly.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah. And I think that the whole conversation now in sort of our generation, these past few years even, we’re just starting to acknowledge what happens in midlife, starting to acknowledge menopause and ⁓ the very of how we change, our bodies change and

that it’s not this midlife crisis and breakdown and unraveling. It truly is. We need to recalibrate. We need to recalibrate to the newness of what our bodies are giving us hormonally. We have to get the support that we need ⁓ and looking to support each other, the changing roles. And midlife, I think, is a

another brilliant time that we can just step into and feel completely empowered as opposed to feeling like, I hit midlife and it’s all downhill from here. Like I wanna be, I hit midlife, let’s go. Like this is, yes.

Dr. Sonia (16:00)
Let’s do this, right? So this is the, yes, I

mean, I’m not gonna lie, there’s some things that are challenging and you have to advocate for yourself like you have never advocated for yourself in your life before. And it’s at the same time where all your hormones are shifting, your body is shifting, there’s symptoms you never thought that you’d experience and you don’t know what they’re gonna be the next day like you wake up and something new.

Leah (16:24)
They’re wild. Yes,

Dr. Sonia (16:27)
At the same time, it’s an incredibly

Leah (16:27)
yes, yes, absolutely.

Dr. Sonia (16:29)
wonderful time in our life if we let it. But if we have a fixed idea of what our life should look like, what our body should look like, what our nervous system should be like, and we don’t adapt and we don’t shift and change and understand, like we get to welcome this time, and while we’re going through it, it might not seem perfect and wonderful, but you know.

Leah (16:40)
Yeah.

Dr. Sonia (16:52)
The person that you become on the other side is just a badass, you know?

Leah (16:57)
Yeah, yeah,

⁓ I totally, totally agree. I’m excited for the ongoing changes and the, and you know, part of it is that we’ve got the wisdom. I look now, I was having a conversation with a friend. You know, if you go into social media, there’s certain influencers and people who are so popular. I’m like, why aren’t they all middle-aged women? Because that, think, you you got the wisdom. ⁓

and you’ve got like the road in front of you, the idea is we don’t care about things like we used to care about in the good way. Like we still, we’re very passionate and care about important things. But some of the things that we probably all got hung up on 20 years ago, we’re like, I don’t care about that now. I’m stepping into my own,

Dr. Sonia (17:45)
there’s a lot of reasons why the influencers may not all be like at our age where they should be. But part of it is we are also a generation that is used to getting out there and doing things, not necessarily sitting on our phones. I think that’s part of it. And then I think part of it is that our society is skewed towards the young. And so I think that that is part of it as well. I think that there’s a complex situation that goes in here. But part of us is

Leah (18:02)
Yes.

Yes.

Dr. Sonia (18:15)
like I don’t have time to be on my phone for 30 hours out of the day or whatever. I got stuff to do and I’m getting it done, right? So ⁓ yeah, I think there’s a number of different reasons, but I think that that is definitely one of them. I have a question for you. It’s a basic question, but I think it’s important. So.

Leah (18:23)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Sonia (18:36)
What are some common signs that a woman’s nervous system is dysregulated? What would that look like? So like sometimes we’re in it all the time. We don’t even recognize that it’s dysregulated. Could you help me with that?

Leah (18:47)
We don’t even know. Yeah,

yeah, yeah, for sure. It’s like you’re a fish swimming in water and you don’t realize that you’re in water. And it also is, this is the kind of the importance of getting to know your own nervous system. We all have different ones. There’s a tendency, so when our nervous system senses a threat, the first go-to is going to be adding energy to the system. So sort of this mobilization.

And if that doesn’t work, then we will often drop down into more of a state of conservation, they’re protective states. So the mobilization, some of the typical things is that there’s a feeling of being on the go all the time and busy, busy. There can be a lot of anxiety, a lot of worry, a lot of overthinking. There can be some anger and irritation. ⁓

some defensiveness, that’s all flavored with energy. And I like to remind people like your physiology changes when you get dysregulated, but that also impacts your stories, your feelings, your actions. So you may find yourself having thoughts and emotions that are flavored with more of the urgency of the press, the anxiety, the fear.

So that is that flavor. So for a lot of people, ⁓ may have been running on that for a good amount of time, but there’s a little bit of an amplification of it as well. ⁓ And then for others, they may go the opposite route, where they feel a lot more helpless and hopeless or just slower, or the feeling of I just don’t have the energy anymore.

conserving, wanting to sleep more. And then the beautiful thing is there’s also a mix where you’re tired and wired. So there’s a lot of symptoms and I think what happens is we’ve just normalized these symptoms. We’ve normalized I am feels numb and flat and disconnected, which is sort of on that lower side of protection in that clap state. Or I’m just somebody who’s

anxious or fearful or worry and that can be true that you have adapted that way but it kind of gets amplified and What I find in midlife we start to it’s almost like we’ve been borrowing from our nervous system and the loan shark is calling in the loan and and so

Dr. Sonia (21:26)
⁓ I’m sorry. You have to repeat that again. You have to repeat that. We

have been borrowing from our nervous system all this time and it’s time to pay the piper. Tell me more about that. Well, how does that show up?

Leah (21:37)
Yes. It’s time. Yeah.

It shows up in a lot of physical symptoms for people. So our systems, like we talked about before, it’s designed to be flexible, to go up and come down and go up and come down. But when it goes up and it gets stuck,

then it’s sort of running on overdrive and this is your body can only run on overdrive for so long. So people will often start to notice not only the hormonal changes that come along with the menopause, but they’ll start to notice, I’ve got some more gut issues, digestive challenges. All of a sudden I have this weird pain and it is a little bit hard to tease it all apart because we know that the hormonal changes and menopause you get these aches and pains too. But I start seeing people

really realizing a lot of my chronic symptoms or a lot of the things that are showing up now that I’m like out of the blue. I woke up and I messed a slept funny. I hurt my shoulder. I hurt my neck or I’ve developed this weird rash or I no longer can tolerate this food or I have this muscle tension or this chronic fatigue. A lot of the time it’s your nervous system that was like listen, hon, I was trying to warn you for the past 20 years.

that you need to take a break, you didn’t listen. So I’m slamming you down now with all these symptoms that you are now going to be forced to because your system can no longer go on.

Dr. Sonia (23:07)
And so how do people deal with this? Like how do you teach them to deal with it?

Leah (23:13)
Well, one of the beautiful things is when we have this understanding, we know that, okay, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with me now. We always want to go check out all our symptoms. I never want to put it out there like just assume that everything is nervous system or assume that everything’s menopause. Go talk to your health care provider. You know, I’m not going to advocate for that, for not doing that.

But often what happens is the root of it is a dysregulated nervous system. So our goal then becomes how can I learn about my own nervous system, where it’s been functioning, where I’ve been paying the price over and over, and how do I create a way in my life

to create more safety is what it actually comes down to. Now, I know that sounds, you know, I’m sure your listeners understand that, but it really is, how do I create a lifestyle that supports good nervous system health, which will mean adequate rest, which will mean healthy boundaries, movement, nutrition, connection with people? expression of emotions, how do I…

create my lifestyle so that I can have my own back, so that I can be able to do what I need to do and come back to myself at the end of the day because I’m important.

Dr. Sonia (24:50)
So good. I just love that. Rest, boundaries, connection, focusing on movement. ⁓ I just love that. Now, this is the Midlife Sex Coach for Women podcast. So we’re gonna talk about how dysregulation, the nervous system, intimacy, sex, how that kind of all works. Now, my first thing is, in the work that you do with women in midlife, is that coming up for you? Like, are you hearing them talking about that or not necessarily?

Leah (25:20)
It definitely comes up and I think it comes up in, again, like we have this fun trying to divide it out, hormonal stuff, menopause stuff, nervous system stuff. And, you know, I do kind of look at it think, do we really need to parse it all together? I think we need to be taking care of both. And when you take care of your nervous system, then we’re able to be able to help, you know, figure out and take care of all the symptoms that come up, menopausal. But I also think

Like there’s so many things in midlife that’s going to affect your intimacy, just your changing roles. ⁓ How you feel about, I had a girlfriend the other day, you know, her kids are getting ready to leave the nest and she’s like, I’m a mess, I can’t stop crying, so when you think of something like that where a woman is feeling like, where’s my role, where’s my place, where’s my, that’s going to impact

everything and then at the end of the night after you’ve been having this I don’t know where I place anymore my kids are leaving and hormones are all the place and then you know the end of the night I do not want to be intimate with my partner want to go

Dr. Sonia (26:32)
So good

that you bring this up. Yeah. And I definitely agree. There’s like so much going on. My perspective is, of course, I come from, I mean, I do the coaching side of stuff. I’m a doctor. I’m like a pediatric radiologist. But I do know enough about the hormone side of things that I focus on getting that in a good place so that that can get sorted out. You talk to your primary care doctor or your, you know, in terms of is hormone replacement

Leah (26:53)
Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Sonia (27:01)
therapy right for you or just localized estrogen and is your role for testosterone. There’s so many questions that need to be answered. If those get into play, then it’s like, okay, what are we dealing with now? Right? Like, can we…

parts out and I do think that so often we try to separate out parts of a woman, right? As opposed to taking her as a whole. I kind of think of it as just different layers that are going on. Let’s look at the hormonal layer and see what we can do with that. Okay, that is in a place. Now let’s see what is happening with the nervous system and how can we figure out that in the context of the person’s life, right? So in the context like, yeah, you have kids leaving home

Leah (27:29)
Yes, beautiful.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Sonia (27:47)
And then it’s so funny because one woman might be worked up because kids are leaving home. Another woman is like, these won’t leave home. ⁓ exactly. I thought. ⁓

Leah (27:54)
Woohoo!

why it’s

so individual. That is why it is so individual, right? Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Sonia (28:01)
It is so true, right?

And so I love how you say having your own back, like be that person that, and we really do need to advocate for ourself in this regard because if we could advocate for ourselves the way we advocate for our children and our partners.

Leah (28:18)
⁓

yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Sonia (28:19)
If we could just step

there and be there for ourself and be like, okay, let’s deal with the hormonal stuff. That’s great. Now, what do I need to create this incredible life that I want to create?

My nervous system has been jacked up to the sky for the last 20, 30 years and I keep thinking it’s gonna get better, it’s gonna get better. And it’s not gonna get better unless I listen to Leah. And try to figure out what is it that I need? Like we can’t even identify it. So that’s why I was like, tell me what are the things that I need to look out for? ⁓ I don’t have to feel like this all the time. I don’t have to be on guard every minute. ⁓

Leah (28:34)
That’s it.

That’s right.

Yeah.

Dr. Sonia (29:00)
talked about the different things. And then how do we get to that place where we build this resilience of our nervous system? Is it something that happens overnight? Can we get it done in two weeks? You know how we are always like, can we get this sorted out today? Do you have a crash course? How?

Leah (29:14)
We do a crash course, a crash course. I

do have a crash course. In my crash course, one of the things that I love to look at as we are deciding to join a new sport, the nervous system team, and we’re learning how to do that.

Dr. Sonia (29:21)
Yes.

Leah (29:34)
And if you think about joining any sports team, there are sort of different phases. The first thing is you need to have some of your basics before you even enroll in a sport. You need to have nutrition. You need to have sleep. You need to be getting your sunlight. So nervous system team, I need to have some of these foundationals. Good nutrition, want to look at. Sleep, sunlight. These are the foundational. Now, I need to go to practice.

And I go to practice usually every day and the practice is so that I can build my capacity. If you think of a sport, you’re going and you’re learning, you’re doing like air endurance and then you are learning some specific skills. Then you may even start learning what are some of the set plays that we’re gonna do when we’re in the game. So practice becomes something that not only am I going to be

working on foundational things, but I’m going to be learning tools to use when I’m in the game. Then when I’m in the game, you know, we, think we sometimes assume that we should know what to do. But if you think of a sports, they’re not like running around randomly, you know, they know that this person’s going to take this shot and this person’s going to take that. And if a foul is called, this is happening. They know what to do in the moment. So,

I look at it these three kind of phases of the nervous system team. The one we’ve got our foundational stuff. And for some people, their foundational stuff is pretty out of whack. And we’re just gonna start there. And we may start with like, let’s look at our sleep. Let’s look at our nutrition. Let’s look at, you getting some daily movement? Are you getting sunlight? But we don’t have to wait until that’s perfect.

before we move to the practice. And within the practice, I may be like, hey, you know what? Movement is pretty important here and connections also pretty important. So I wanna spend more time ⁓ connecting with friends and then creativity. What are ways that I can be creative? I may introduce like paying attention to my breath.

So I might introduce some breath work, some meditation. So starting to build up some daily habits that I can practice to create a lifestyle of nervous system then when I’m in my game, I have to have practiced certain things in my daily life so that when I am in a more crisis situation,

Dr. Sonia (32:05)
Okay, then. ⁓

Leah (32:18)
I have the tools to go to. I know what works for me. So I think that sometimes I will hear people say to me like, ⁓ breath work doesn’t work for me. And I’m like, when did you, first of all, breath work, it’s not a general one kind of breath for everybody. Whatever breath work you use is gonna be dependent on your own system. But then it’s also, is your system familiar enough?

through all the practice that when you’re in a crisis, it becomes the natural go-to as opposed to, what was that breath work thing? Does somebody have the manual? Okay, it doesn’t work. And really it’s gotta become that you’re practicing it so much that it’s second nature to you. And then when you’re in the crisis moment, you use it and then you come back to practice and you’re evaluating how did that work and you keep doing different things.

So it really is almost like a whole ecosystem we’re trying to create for our nervous system, all the way from foundational daily practice in the moment.

Dr. Sonia (33:26)
So good. And I’m to take that and layer on the intimacy because I think that that is so great. Right. So you have that place where you’re getting the foundations. Right. And the foundations are actually the same when I talk about intimacy. So the foundation, make sure you get enough sleep and rest. I don’t know how many women come to me saying their partners want them to have more sex. And so they just want to pile on more sex where they don’t have sleep. Their body’s not getting the nutrition that they need. They’re not taking care of themselves. There’s no

time for themselves and they’re sitting there going I need to have sex three more or four more times a month and I’m like but your foundations are not there so now you’re piling it on top of a tired body that doesn’t really want to do this and it’s already an unnervous system that’s already agitated in up here because you’re trying to please other people and not necessarily you’re pleasing yourself so I think our foundations are exactly the same which I love and then you get to that point of practice right and so this is where you’re building up

Leah (34:21)
⁓ yeah.

Mm.

Dr. Sonia (34:26)
the tools and of course I definitely believe you need to know and understand your body. need to connect with your body. You need to have pleasure in your body. You need to know how it works, how it responds and you get to do the practice. So the practice side of things I talk about is the self-pleasure side of things and also with your partner. Like you get to practice this and you can even call it practice. It does not have to be perfect in any way but you are developing those tools that you need so that you

Leah (34:32)
Yes.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Sonia (34:55)
can engage and feel confident and have a lot of things in your tool chest. And I can add toys in there too. And then like then we get to be it’s game time, right? It’s go time. Let’s do this. Let’s do this sexual intimacy. And you focus on the things that you’ve already learned about your body and the connection to actually be in the moment. If any crisis comes up around the intimacy, you can reach back to your toolkit like when

Leah (35:02)
Yeah.

That’s

right.

Dr. Sonia (35:25)
You

have that anxiety in your mind. Like you’re thinking, well, is this going to go well? know, something’s not going to be right. Maybe my partner thinks I’m too fat, which your partner is never thinking you’re too fat. It’s you thinking that. like, that’s so beautiful. have the foundations, the practice, being in the game.

Leah (35:37)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And I mean, we want to be working on all those things. Maybe I shouldn’t use the word working, because that implies like so much pressure. We want to be immersed, experiencing all those things, because our system needs to feel safe. Because if it doesn’t feel safe, if it doesn’t have these moments, and every time you practice, it’s

Dr. Sonia (36:06)
Yes.

Leah (36:12)
an investment in safety. Every time you focus on the foundation is investment in safety. Because if it doesn’t, then it’s scanning for danger. It’s going to find danger. And when you are in danger, who wants to be intimate? Like who wants, you can’t do anything when you’re in danger. It becomes like the lowest, lowest thing on our priority list because I’m scanning for danger. I got to conserve. I got to solve problems. I got to do those things. Intimacy with my partner.

Intimacy for myself goes out the window. It’s not a priority. So that’s why we want to immerse ourselves in trying to create as safe as possible. And safe doesn’t mean boring or nothing happens or safe means safe enough that I know I have my own back. I’ve got some tools. I have some people I can reach out to. I’ve got some resources that can bring me back to grounded.

that safety becomes the springboard where we can do everything else including intimacy.

Dr. Sonia (37:16)
So good, I just love that. Okay, so we’re gonna wrap this up. I have a question for you. If you could give midlife women one message of hope about their nervous system and their ability to heal and to regulate, what would that be?

Leah (37:36)
It is not that your system is broken and it’s not that you’re getting old. Like this is not we have our body falling apart. We are recalibrating. We are coming back to what I believe who we have always, always been, divinely been. We are a return to ourselves and along the way we wanna get to know our nervous system because

we can still make, even though we’ve had like traumas in our life and we’ve had, you know, so many things and there’s ongoing things too, we have the capacity to learn, to change, to grow. So I think there is so much hope for us. There’s so much ahead of us for us to be able to just step into who we have always been and reclaim who we’ve always been.

Dr. Sonia (38:32)
So good. Thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. You’re just so amazing. Where can my diamonds find you? How can they reach out? How can they connect?

Leah (38:45)
So one of the main places is on my podcast. It’s called Building Resilience and I talk all about this. In fact, this episode I’m gonna bring right over there because I think it’s exactly what my audience needs to hear as well and would really love hearing. So you can find me there. ⁓ And then Leah Davidson Life Coaching is my Instagram handle, my Facebook, my website and so forth.

And I do have, as you mentioned earlier, I have some guided journals that are available on Amazon, but I have ⁓ one in particular that talks about sort of my whole framework of foundations and practice and game day and some real tangible practical tools that you can use to get to know your nervous system and befriend it so that you can lead that life that we really want to be leading in the second half.

Dr. Sonia (39:41)
So wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. You are incredible and you have just enriched our lives. Thank you so much.

Leah (39:50)
Thank you for having me.

Sonia Wright (39:57)
All right, diamonds, this conversation was so powerful. my goodness. And here’s what I really want you to take away from it. That your nervous system is not working against you. It’s been working for you this entire time. Even if it kept you on high alert, even if it made intimacy feel difficult, even if you’ve been feeling exhausted or disconnected, your system adapted in a really brilliant ways to help you survive. And now you get to decide.

I’m going to say that again. And now you get to guide it into something new. You get to create safety in your body. You get to build resilience and you get to open yourself up to a deeper connection, more pleasure and intimacy. Because this work, this nervous system work, it’s not separate from intimacy. It is the foundation of intimacy. And this isn’t about being calm all the time. It’s about becoming

flexible, supported, and safe enough in your body to actually experience your life, to actually experience pleasure. If you love this episode, make sure you connect with Leah Davison. Her work is absolutely incredible. And if you’re ready to take that, I’m gonna repeat that. And if you’re ready to take this deeper, if you’re ready to apply this to your own intimacy,

then come join me inside the Diamond Intimacy Collective. This is where we do this work together in a safe, supportive, and powerful place. Because you don’t have to figure this out alone. Just come with us, figure it out with us. Be supported. All right, my diamond, until next time, stay curious, stay connected, and remember, your pleasure matters. Dr. Sonia out.