Ep #226: The Messy Side of Quantum Leaping and Why It Matters for Intimacy

Hello, hello, hello, Diamonds. You are listening to the Midlife Sex Coach for Women podcast, episode 226, OMG 226. I’m super excited to be here. So happy to see you all. So let’s start. Welcome back.

You’ve had a couple of podcast episodes where I had guests and then I came back and even more is happening now. So what is today’s conversation going to be about? That is a good question. Let me just start by saying today’s conversation is not polished. It’s not tied up in a pretty bow. I can tell you it’s not tied up in a pretty bow. It’s real. It’s happening right now. And I knew I had to bring it to you because I’m in the middle of a massive quantum league.

And we’ve been talking about this before about quantum leaps and how they’re wonderful and amazing and part of midlife. Like midlife is all about quantum leaps because this is when you’re really questioning what you’ve done in the past, what you want to do in the future, who you are as a person and all of those things I love and.

As I am coaching intimacy around midlife, I’m also in midlife, right? And I’m also at this point where I am making these leaps right along with you. So let’s get into this. So let me tell you something that people don’t talk about enough. It is the quantum leap, but what they don’t mention is that it’s messy. Like we’d like to be like.

flower gardens and leaping into the next level. So wonderful. And in all actuality, it’s usually messy, very messy, not pretty. And that is okay. I think sometimes we imagine growth as elegant, as graceful transition. Like one day you’re here and the next day you’ve arrived over there. Confident, clear, aligned, glowing.

Sorry But that’s not what really happens. That’s not where that what it’s really like at least not for me and probably not for you and Definitely not right now. So I just got back from a social media conference Where I made a decision that if I truly wanted to serve my diamonds at the highest level then I am going to need to create a movement around midlife intimacy

I’m going to have to get out there. can’t just sit in my little studio, all perfect and nice, you know, telling you things. I have to be willing to get out there.

I have to be willing to be seen differently. And let’s be honest, I’m Gen X. I’m a total Gen Xer, right? And we are very, very good at flying under the radar. So we are amazing at doing work quietly, at not necessarily putting ourselves out there. Like we lived our whole life, we were told in the summer, like, just go outside and don’t come home till the lights are going down, right?

Nobody knew what we did during that period of time. You sometimes we were in old abandoned buildings that we should not have been in. Sometimes we were deep in the woods walking and doing things. I remember finding like ⁓ a whole container of old World War II badges and things like that out in the middle of nowhere, right? But every day was kind of an adventure, but it was also adventure you never told anybody about because your parents would be like, what? You’re out in the middle of the

the forest like two miles deep into the woods. They wouldn’t have been happy with it. But at the same time, they just wanted to believe that we were, I don’t know, next door at our friend’s house. But we’re having fabulous adventures under the radar. And I’m so happy that at that time, things were not caught on social media the way it is now. And at the same time, in order to do this journey, this grand adventure, it does need to be seen on social media. So what is next level?

It requires visibility. It requires showing up on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. I used to say to my daughters who are teenagers, you know that tiki tiki tuck thing, And now I’m like, okay, I gotta post on TikTok and Instagram. And in ways that feels unfamiliar to me, in ways that are not perfect, ways where I show up, you know, maybe not with makeup, not with my hair done, not with everything being perfect.

But just showing up authentically, that is something that’s definitely a good thing, right? And it may be in ways that feel a little uncomfortable ⁓ and in ways that if I am being completely honest, feels messy. And because my mind right now, it’s spinning. It’s spinning with ideas and possibility, with new ways to connect with you, with my diamonds, with new ways to serve you. And at the same time,

I actually have a cold and I’ve had this cold for the last two weeks, but it’s kind of, luckily it’s getting better. And my partner had surgery a couple of weeks ago and my son had a bad cold, which he subsequently gave me. So, and I was working, right? So all those things and I was coming back from a trip. So.

And my suitcase is not unpacked. We just just unpacked it. But for two weeks it was not unpacked. And my house, let’s just say it looks like internal expansion was happening externally. Everything was everywhere. So sometimes it is messy. Sometimes it’s not perfect. Sometimes it is going to look a kind of way. Right. And this is what quantum leaping actually looks like. It doesn’t look perfect. It doesn’t look controlled.

It doesn’t look like you have everything figured out. ⁓ It looks like a movement, expansion, disruption. And sometimes it looks like everything happening at once. Like, whew. And here’s where I want to share this with you, because this doesn’t just apply to business, my business in particular. This also applies directly to intimacy. So, so many women in midlife were waiting.

We’re waiting until things feel settled. We’re waiting until timing feels right. We’re waiting until our bodies feel different or tell us, yes, this is what I’m interested in. We’re waiting for that old type of libido to kick in, not this neutral libido that we’re talking about. We’re waiting until ⁓ relationships feel easier. We’re waiting until we feel ready.

But what if this next level of intimacy for all of us is just going to feel messy? While we’re doing it, it’s going to feel messy. At the end, we’ll see the quantum leap. But while we’re in the middle of it, it is just going to feel messy. And I know I’ve done a podcast maybe 100 episodes back on the messy middle. Yeah, it does get to be messy. So what if connecting with your body doesn’t feel graceful at first? Maybe it feels awkward because you have not self-pleasured in a long time.

Or maybe you have to get used to this new vulva, this new body, and you’re like, ⁓ this used to always work, but now it doesn’t, right? What if it was allowed to feel awkward? And what if prioritizing your pleasure, it was okay for it to feel unfamiliar or even uncomfortable while you’re getting used to it? Like these are the questions that we get to ask, at least I get to ask, right? It’s my podcast, right? So I can ask and I can,

Suggest this concept that it’s not going to be perfect because let me tell you it’s not going to be I do Private coaching as well as group coaching and my clients it’s some a lot of times. It’s two steps forward one step back, right? I’ll talk to them. They’re like we had an amazing week. We had great intimacy Everything is fine and perfect. I don’t think I need your services anymore. Dr. Sonia I’m like, okay Well, let’s just check in next weekend and we’ll see how things are going

And next week it’s like, we had a fight, we’re disconnected. I’d never ever want sex again. And that’s okay. But we do also acknowledge the great time that happened before that and what happened that made it work out well for you. What happened so it felt comfortable, you know? And also recognize that it’s not going to be perfect at all, right? Midlife intimacy is not about perfection. It’s about permission.

You know, I love that permission, permission to begin, permission to begin again if you need to. So even when you don’t have it all figured out, it’s permission to explore. Even when it feels a little clumsy, it’s permission to reconnect with yourself. Even when life feels full and busy and yes, messy, it gets to be exactly how it gets to be. I was actually supposed to have this podcast recorded yesterday and I had the whole week, I had all these great plans.

to be recording my podcast ahead of schedule. and then my cold reflared and then that was that. Like I was down and out. And so I’m recording it this morning ⁓ with a stuffy nose with probably my voice sounding a little different than it normally does. And that’s okay, right? It’s messy. It’s not perfect. I’m like, ⁓ MG. I have my ⁓ podcast team asking for where’s the recording and ⁓

Yeah, it’s a little messy this morning for me and that is okay. It gets to be a little messy for you as well. So

Let’s go back to my visibility. So in the same way that I’m stepping into a new level of visibility, you’re also being invited to step into a new level of intimacy.

Let me tell you something important. When you quantum leap in intimacy, it doesn’t start with fireworks. It starts with awareness and sometimes awkwardness. So awareness of, that was fun, awkward, okay, that was pretty awkward. Getting back to awareness, awareness of what you’ve been tolerating, what you’ve been avoiding, what you’ve been telling yourself.

about your intimacy or about your body, what you have been believing about your libido, about desire.

First we have to have the awareness, we need to know what’s going on. And then from there it starts to shift. But it’s not a straight line, let me tell you. It’s just not gonna be a straight line. Some days you’ll feel connected, some days you don’t feel connected, some days you’re gonna feel curious, and some days you’re gonna feel completely neutral. Some days you’re gonna think, yes, this is working, and then other days you’re gonna be like, ⁓ what am I even doing?

And that that is the work that is the work that’s required with this so quantum leap is not about skipping steps when we’re leaping It’s not about doing it as fast as we can right. It’s about being at one level and Leaping to another level sometimes it can be really quick Sometimes it can be awkward sometimes we can try a leap and fall on our ass and get back up and leap and fall again And then we make a leap, right?

So there’s so many different ways to do this. It is about becoming a woman who’s willing to stay in the process, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s awkward, even when it’s unclear, even when it’s messy. Because what is on the other side? It’s not just different circumstances, it’s a different relationship with yourself.

This is so fabulous, right? The fact that I’m allowing things to be messy, I’m such a perfectionist, but I realized that I was also making myself miserable. So what’s on the other side of me releasing my perfectionist tendencies is ⁓ a freedom, a lightness, an ease. And you get to have this relationship with your body, with yourself, where you trust yourself.

You listen to your body. You listen to your intuition. You allow desire, your libido, to unfold instead of forcing it. And you prioritize your pleasure without guilt. And yes, this version of you, she’s not perfect. And that’s okay. But she is present. She’s connected to her body. She’s not all up in her mind. She’s connected with her body. She’s alive in that body.

So if you’re in a season right now where things feel a little chaotic, where your life doesn’t look perfectly curated, where you feel like you’re in between who you were and who you’re going to be, who you’re becoming, that’s okay. Let me tell you that that is okay. So I want you to hear this clearly. You’re not off track. You’re in the middle of a quantum leap.

And that includes your intimacy because your body doesn’t require perfection to begin reconnecting. Your desire doesn’t require anything to be just right, just perfect to start awakening. It just requires a willingness to show up exactly as you are.

So today I want to leave you with a question. On this quantum leap, where are you allowing things to be messy? If you hear nothing else in this podcast, where are you allowing things to be messy in this world of your quantum leap, right? And more importantly, where are you still waiting for things to be perfect before you begin?

Like this is the area that you get to work on where you get to allow things to be a little bit messy because your next level of intimacy, your next level of connection, your next level of you And it’s not actually found in perfection. What it is, it’s it’s waiting for your permission, right? It’s waiting for you to

Be okay with the messy. And beautiful diamonds, you can give yourself that permission right now. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to wait for the perfect time to give yourself that

and my beautiful diamonds, give yourself that permission, give yourself that gift and let it be messy. So before we close today, I want to go one layer deeper because there’s something else that I’ve been seeing for so many women in midlife, especially the women I work with, especially the women in this community. And that is that they’re exhausted and not just physically there. Yes, it is physically, but it’s also mentally and emotionally and energetically.

And when we’re in the middle of a quantum leap, we might really be feeling that exhaustion. And that’s okay. And it could be exhaustion from years of holding everything together and taking care of everyone else and being reliable for everyone, being the strong one, being the one who’s figured it out. And somewhere along the way, without even realizing it, you have become the woman who put herself last.

And here’s where this connects to quantum leaping, because one of the biggest quantum leaps that you will ever take is not in your schedule, it’s not in relationship, it’s not in your body, it’s in your identity. So as we do this work with quantum leaping, we have to let go of the exhaustion, let go of whatever we’re telling ourselves that makes an identity.

that allows us to be exhausted. And that identity is probably tied to perfection. And that perfection is tied to not making your messy quantum leap. Do you see like we do the identity, we release that identity, we’re open to whatever happens, we’re open for our quantum leap to be messy and boom, we go. So instead of I’ll get myself, I’ll get to myself later.

Part of this work, this identity is saying, I choose myself now. And I really want you to feel that. Because this shift is not small. This is part of the quantum leap. Whenever you’re making a quantum leap, it’s not just in the actions you do, it is the person that you’re becoming at the same time. So if you’ve been putting yourself last, and if you’re exhausted, and your identity is wrapped around being the model, wonderful, perfect,

woman and at the same time you’re miserable, we get to release that identity. Take on this messy identity if you need to while you’re transitioning into whatever quantum leap identity that you get to have. But it’s not acceptable to be in that place of exhaustion all the time. And doing a quantum leap from a place of exhaustion is a hard place to do a quantum leap. So choose yourself. When you’re used to choosing everybody else,

It’s time to learn to choose yourself and it may feel uncomfortable. It may bring about guilt. Yeah, it’ll bring about guilt. You know, that’s okay. The guilt is like the thing that is used in the patriarchy to get women to do so many things. If you are able to tolerate guilt, life is like pretty good, right? It can bring up thoughts like, is this selfish? Now we have like an internal cop in our brain, basically the internal critic.

Right? That is like it doesn’t even need to be somebody else saying trying to make you feel guilty. You’re so good at making yourself feel guilty. That is what we need to release. Right? So if something’s saying, is this selfish? Shouldn’t I be doing something more productive? Why does this feel so hard? Understand that those thoughts get to be there and you still get to be there for yourself and you still get to do this quantum leap.

Just remember your nervous system has been trained to prioritize everything and everybody else first. So it’s going to be like, hey, hey, wait a minute. I thought that I always had to put everybody else first in order to feel safe, in order to be a good woman, a good wife, a good mother, a good everything, a good daughter, right? ⁓ But we’re talking about a quantum shift. Everybody is doing okay and they can honestly take care of

So when you start to shift that, of course it feels different. It feels unfamiliar, but unfamiliar doesn’t feel wrong. It just means you’re expanding. And here’s what I want you to understand, exhaustion and desire, they just don’t coexist. When you’re depleted, when you’re run down and empty, your entire system is focusing on getting through the day. The last thing on is pleasure.

orgasms, connection. It’s just like in survival mode, right? So your body’s not thinking, how can I access pleasure? It’s thinking, how do I survive this? If you’ve been telling yourself, I just don’t have desire anymore, I want you to gently offer this as a reframe. Maybe it’s not that your desire is gone. Maybe your body is asking for something first. And maybe that ask is rest.

attention, care, and space. Getting back to this podcast being late because I had this cold, I had to rest yesterday. I had to like be in a place of like, okay, the podcast is going to get done. And my body’s telling me right now that I need to rest. And I knew I need to rest because I was crying all over the place.

You know? And so I was like, okay, Sonia, I think you’re at this place of exhaustion. Go get in the bed and sleep, right? So maybe your body is saying choose me, just like mine was saying choose me. And it was also saying if you don’t choose me, then other people are probably gonna choose me too, which actually ended up happening because my partner was like, you just need to go lie down because you got tired of me.

And my dramatic self and she’s like just go lie down and take care of yourself So sometimes people around us that love us will remind us of what we need to do and at other times we have to be that loving kind person to ourselves and So this is where your next quantum leap begins not by forcing yourself to feel something and not by trying to fix your libido But by shifting into a woman who includes herself

in her own life includes and I’m going to say prioritizes right a woman who asks what do I need right now yesterday I needed sleep what do you need

Ask that question, what do I need right now? And then stop and listen. And then respond. Even if it’s small, even if it’s imperfect, even if it’s messy, even those small connections, they begin to rebuild new connections. And those new connections, neural connections, lead to you having an identity shift. And those identity shifts can also help you

make those quantum leaps messy or not messy because we’re all in transition in one way or another. But understand, choosing yourself, shifting your identity, taking different actions leads to this quantum leap. It does not have to be perfect. It gets to be messy. And then you will be like, wow, I’m at a new level. I’m at a different level, right? So you do that same thing. You have different actions.

You’re connected to yourself. You’re connected to your body. And from that place of connection, you will realize that your libido, your desire begins to emerge again in a different way. So not forced, not pressured, but invited. And invited from a place of neutrality. I am going to say this, that we spend so much time thinking something’s wrong with our libido, but what if we were just like, OK.

Part of my new identity includes having a neutral libido, where I just start from a place of like net zero. Like I’m not necessarily interested in sex and my libido’s not kicked in, but I’m not necessarily uninterested in sex. And then you get to go, what would I do or think or whatever? What would be helpful for me to be more interested in sex? I’m not advocating having sex when you’re not interested. I am advocating shifting into that.

person that becomes inquisitive enough to recognize I can turn on my libido, how do I go about turning that on? So.

Now I want you to take this a step further because this season of life, this midlife, it’s not about a time to shrink. It’s about a time to dream again. And dreaming may feel unfamiliar to you and it’s still something that we get to do. It may have been a long time since you’ve been dreaming and it’s still something we get to do.

but not those dreams of our youth, those happy ever after dreams, but dreams that come from a place of wisdom, of who we want to be in the next level, what we want to make our life about in this next level, right? So imagine, allow yourself to imagine. And.

you get to imagine what you actually want. Not what’s practical, not what is expected, not what fits into everybody else’s life, but what you want, what you desire in your body, in your relationships, in pleasure, in your life overall.

What if midlife, I want you to hear this, what if midlife is not about managing decline or slowing down decline? What if it’s about creating expansion? And I’m talking about big, big, big expansion. What if that’s what it’s about? Like what if this is the chapter where you design your intimacy on your own terms, where you create a life that actually includes you and not based on somebody else’s dreams, but your dreams.

What if your pleasure were not an afterthought, but a priority? Like something that gets to be at the center of you and the center of your partner too, if they would like to be involved in this. This is what a quantum leap is all about.

just like everything else we’ve talked about today, it does not have to look perfect, but it does get to be real. And I want to leave you with this. If you allowed yourself to dream again, what would that next level of intimacy actually look like? And are you willing to begin to create it, even if it’s messy?

Alright, Diamonds, until next time, stay connected and remember, you don’t have to have it all figured out. Midlife is where you get to begin to figure this out.

And if you’re listening, if you’re still listening right now, there’s something inside of you saying, this is me. I’m in this messy middle. I know there’s more than I want you to hear this. You don’t have to navigate this leap alone because this, is exactly the work that we do inside the Diamond Intimacy Collective. And this is where midlife women come together,

because everything is perfect, but because they’re ready to choose themselves anyway. Inside the collective, you’re not just listening to concepts. You’re actually living the transformation. You’re learning how to reconnect with your body, how to shift out of exhaustion and into energy. You’re learning to rediscover your desire without pressure. And you’re also learning to create.

intimacy that actually reflects who you are now and the intimacy that you’re going to be creating over the next 30 years.

And you know what I love most? You get to do this in a way that feels supportive and not overwhelming.

because I’m in the middle of shifting and up-leveling the Collective, the Diamond Intimacy Collective. We are creating structured curriculum within structured modules so that you can do it at your own pace so you have a step-by-step way of creating this new identity and a step-to-step way of creating this new intimacy. Come join us in the Collective.

Join us for a full year and you know why I say a full year? Because this is not something you can do for a week or two. This is something that requires commitment, but it’s a quick commitment that is going to expand and grow with you, a connection and a community that’s gonna be there for you. And we’re creating the next 30 years, right? Are you willing to commit a year’s worth in order to step into that next version of yourself, right?

Actually, you’ll step into multiple versions of yourself over that period of time that we are working together. So come, come to the collective and let’s do this work together. Okay. Diamonds love you so much. Take care. Dr. Sonia out.