Ep #225: Intimate Curiosity: Relearning Desire, Pleasure, and Your Body in Midlife

Hello, hello, hello, Diamonds. It is so good to be here. I just realized I have not recorded a podcast in about a month because I had so many interviews and I also had the book club replay. And so I have not been here in a little while. First, I should say you are listening to the Midlife Sex Coach for Women podcast, episode 225. See?

That is how long I have not been around that I don’t even know that I’m supposed to do my introduction first. And you know what? Here at the Midlife Sex Coach for Women, we do what we want. ay, ay, ay. So good to have you here. Alrighty, let’s do this. Hello, hello, hello, my beautiful diamonds. Welcome back to the Midlife Sex Coach for Women podcast. And today we’re talking about something that has been quietly transforming the way I coach.

the way my clients experience intimacy, and honestly, the way I think about desire and libido entirely. This concept is intimate curiosity. What? What is that? So good that you asked, right? This might sound simple. It may even sound like, ⁓ curiosity, okay, that’s nice, whatever, Sonia, Dr. Sonia. But diamonds, hear me when I say this. This is not a small shift.

This is a foundational shift because what I’ve come to understand is that most women are not disconnected from intimacy because something is wrong. They’re disconnected because they have never been taught how to be with themselves in a curious way. They never taught how to be kind to themselves while they’re exploring and figuring out intimacy. They keep saying things like, have to do this faster or better or stronger, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Instead of being kind and just curious. All right, let’s talk a little bit more about this.

Let’s start with something that I see all the time. And I want you to just notice if this feels familiar. You’re in an intimate moment, maybe with a partner, maybe with yourself, and your brain starts doing this quiet commentary in the background. Is this working? Should I be more into this? Why don’t I feel anything yet?

This is taking too long. This used to be easier. My libido has shifted. My body is not doing what it used to. Like your brain is just constantly going, but let me tell you, if you’re up in your brain, you’re not down in your body and that’s part of the problem. So we need to calm this brain down, right? We need to get out of what I call the evaluation mode. The evaluation mode is sneaky.

because it feels productive. It feels like you’re headed towards something, but in all actuality, all you’re kind of doing is commentary and evaluation and critiquing. It feels productive, but it’s not. It feels like you’re trying to understand what’s happening, but what actually is happening is that it’s pulling you out of your body and into your head. And that takes you further and further away from intimacy.

Here’s the truth that most people don’t realize. You can’t feel deeply and connect to your body while you are evaluating the experience. Because feeling requires presence. And evaluation, that requires distance. So feeling requires you to be in your body. Evaluation requires you to be disconnected from your body and in your mind. So the more you try to figure it out,

Figure out your desire, your libido, the further away you get from actually experiencing it.

And this is where so many women get stuck. think, if I just understand this better, I’ll fix it. But intimacy doesn’t respond to analysis. Analysis paralysis is real. You cannot have an orgasm when you’re analyzing everything. It responds to weirdness, to touch, to pleasure, right? So what if instead of evaluating, you became curious?

Did you see that? I’m kind of curious about being curious. So what if, right? What if you became curious, not curious in a performative way, not curious like, let me do this the right way. Let me do this right. But truly curious, open, gentle, non-judgmental. Curiosity sounds like, what am I feeling right now? That’s interesting. I didn’t expect that.

I wonder what would happen if I stayed here a little longer. Do you feel the difference between that? There’s space. There’s breath. There’s no urgency for all of this.

So why is this so hard for midlife women? Let’s talk about why this is especially important in midlife. Because your body has changed, your hormones have shifted, your life is fuller, it’s busier, it’s more complex, and what used to work, maybe that does not work anymore. But instead of getting curious, many women go straight to, something’s wrong with me, I’ve lost it.

this part of my life is over and my diamonds that believe that shuts everything down. As soon as you start thinking this part of my life is over, there’s something wrong with me. You can’t progress. You can’t connect with your body because you’re up in your mind being so critical. Everything shuts down. So let me offer you a different perspective. libido your desire. It didn’t disappear.

Maybe it changed languages, right? Maybe you need a different interpretation now. If you’re still listening to the old language, maybe you’ve missed the new language, the new way of being. Curiosity is how you learn the new way. That’s so good.

This is one of the most important concepts that I teach. So many women say, I feel nothing.

I’m not feeling libido, I’m feeling nothing. But when we slow it down, we actually realize that we’re neutral.

And there’s nothing wrong with this neutral, this neutrality, this place of neutrality. It’s okay. But it’s being mislabeled as failure. Being neutral is not failure. Neutral is the entryway. It’s like a doorway. Neutral is where curiosity begins. So you, instead of saying something’s wrong, you just say, okay, it’s kind of neutral. And then when you’re neutral, you can either decide if you’re gonna open that door with curiosity.

or close it with judgment. This is your choice. So let me give you a real life example. Let’s say you’re lying next to your partner and your partner and you are thinking, I’m not really in the mood. Evaluation mode says, this isn’t going to be good. This should feel different. Let’s just avoid it. Curiosity says, okay, I’m not necessarily in the mood, but what am I feeling right now?

Is there a part of me that is a little bit more interested in this, that feels a little bit open to exploring this? What would feel good right now?

not amazing, what would feel good? You just are just focusing on the curiosity, the interest, see if that grows. Obviously, if you’re not in the mood and you don’t want anything, then then that’s fine. That gets to be okay. But if you’re coming from a neutral place, and you’re like, I’m not feeling my libido like I did five years ago, that obviously something’s wrong, you don’t have to come from that place. You can come from

I’m not feeling the libido like I was feeling before, but what am I feeling? Get curious.

So when you ask things like, what would feel good? Just putting that interest up a little bit more. What would I be a little bit more interested in experiencing? And you can talk to your partner and say, hey, I don’t know how interested I am, but I’m okay with fooling around for a couple of minutes and seeing where that goes. It’s better than like, hell no, just get away.

Because that your partner takes as just rejection, right? But if you explain and say I’m not sure how I’m feeling right now Are you open to just seeing what happens for like 10 minutes, right and then don’t critique or judge yourself, right? Let the curiosity happen. So let’s take this deeper Your body is always scanning for safety when it senses pressure expectation Criticism or judgment it’s gonna contract

It’s gonna tighten up. It’s gonna feel like it’s doing something wrong. We don’t want that. Curiosity, that leaves things open. It’s a signal for safety. It’s like telling your body, you don’t have to perform here. You don’t have to rush. You can take your time and explore. And that’s when your body begins to open up again. So let’s look at this. We’re gonna do something and slow it down. So I want to walk you through an exercise.

because this is where transformation happens. Before anything, just pause, just take a breath and ask yourself, where am I right now? And let the answer be honest. Like let it be, I might be a little interested or I’m really neutral and not really feeling anything or hell no, please no, not tonight, not now. Okay, notice, bring this awareness to your body.

not your thoughts, your body. We’re always trying to connect to our body. What are the sensations in your body? What’s the temperature like? Is there tension? Is there relaxation? Is there a place for pleasure to come in? You don’t have to change anything at this moment. Just be aware. Maybe you’ll name it. Like my body feels like there’s a lot of tension in it right now. It feels kind of neutral. It feels like it’s kind of maybe a little interested in something.

Then get curious. What is interesting here? What would make me a little bit more interested in this process? What would I like to explore? If something feels slightly good, then stay with it, expand it, look at it, see what’s happening, right? And when your brain jumps in, because your brain’s gonna wanna jump in, you get to say, thank you, and I’m going back into my body.

You get to gently come back to your body again and again without criticism, without saying you’re not doing it the right way. This is not a performance. This is more like practice.

And I want to say this clearly, you don’t have to do this perfectly. You really don’t. That is not the goal. Because the moment you try to do curiosity right, then we’re back to performance and we’re not doing performance anymore. Okay, maybe every once in a while you can. But for the most part, stay with your body and find out what it wants, right? The goal is to keep returning to your body and noticing, just noticing sensations, noticing.

interest, right? So this is where everything changes. You stop being the woman who’s trying to fix herself and you become the woman who is curious, who’s connected to her body, who’s present in her body and aware of pleasure, of feelings, of neutrality, of all the things. And that woman, she experiences intimacy in a completely new way without the pressure, without the performance.

She just gets to experience her body and figure it out as she goes. So here’s your invitation today, not to change everything, not to force desire, but simply to ask, what am I curious about? What about intimacy is kind of interesting? What would I like to explore more? What would I like in this situation? What feels good for me? Just begin exploring.

And just know that there’s a deeper space where you can open up and explore this as well in the Diamond Intimacy Collective, where these concepts are being taught in a more structured, supportive way, where guided lessons are there that you can return to. There’s live Q &A calls. There’s an optional community space. And let me just tell you that the Diamond Intimacy Collective is evolving.

It’s actually going to be more of a course with the option of the community if you want, or if you prefer the course-like structure and just come to the Q &A’s and the pajama party and not necessarily be active in the community, that is okay. You have that choice now. So I’m giving people different ways to interact and be in community and different ways to enjoy the Diamond Intimacy Collective. So it’s going to be changing and growing.

and things are gonna be shifting between now and the beginning of June. All right, my beautiful diamonds, until next time, stay curious, stay open, and most importantly, stay connected to yourself. Okay, Dr. Sonia out. Love you.