Ep #232: Not Tonight Part 2: Conversations with Marriage and Family Therapist, Dr. Kimmery Newsom

Dr. Sonia (00:42)
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, my beautiful diamonds.

You are listening to the Midlife Sex Coach for Women podcast, episode 232.

So good to have you here. I am super excited about the conversation that we are going to be having today. So, first I should start with my introduction. You are listening to the Midlife Sex Coach for Women podcast, episode 232. A ⁓ and it’s gonna get better and better and better. Okay, so tonight super excited because.

I have my special guest and my partner here tonight, Dr. Kimmery Newsome. And I brought her on because she is a marriage and family therapist of over 20 years. And I have some questions. I want to talk about the not tonight. Like this started with, I think it was a TikTok post that I did, and somebody responded to my not tonight, my theory of what I think is so great about you know being honest and saying not tonight. And ⁓ and he was like, hey, but

if not tonight turns into not this century? Like what’s happening here? Like what should I do? Should I just give up? And so ⁓ I I couple of podcasts back I talked about my concept around that. But I also wanted to bring in the person that’s got twenty plus years dealing with not tonight. ⁓ not just with me, but with her clients too. And like what does she do when

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (02:07)
Mm.

Dr. Sonia (02:11)
A couple shows up and they’ve been dealing with this and it has ⁓ really impacted the relationship. So I’m gonna have Doctor Kimmery Newsom introduce herself and then we’re gonna have a conversation about not tonight.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (02:23)
Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Sonia. It’s really good to be here with you today. And I yes, I am a marriage and family therapist. I have been working with couples and individuals for over 20 years. And it’s just really interesting to see just kind of the iterations and the changes ⁓ over time, how couples kind of manifest themselves in their communication and things of that. And it’s just so I’m really excited to get into that conversation, but a little bit about me.

⁓ I am the founder and CEO of Kimmery Newsom Consulting and ⁓ I am an equity strategist as well, and so a lot of the work that I do is along the lines of repair. ⁓ in addition to that work, I’m also a program director for the marriage and family therapy program at a university ⁓ here. And ⁓ I supervise students in their practicum as well as helping guide them and lead them into the next

generation of of clinicians. So that’s a part of the work that I do. I’ve also been in academia for about twenty years. So I’ve I’ve I’ve had a really long career in two two areas simultaneously. So I’m really excited to talk to you about these things.

Dr. Sonia (03:33)
Cool. So I’m super excited to have you here. Okay. So when you have a couple that comes to you, okay, I’m gonna actually start a little bit back. There’s a couple, right? And the woman generally is like not tonight and not interested. And what I said on my last podcast is basically there’s a lot that’s going on here and it kinda needs to be un unpackaged or whatever. Like my concept is when somebody says not tonight, they’re saving the relationship because they’re choosing not to like

⁓ have sex intimacy when they don’t want to. And like that’s kinda going through the moves. That’s not when you’re particularly into it. You’re just like, okay, I just gotta get this over with. And you just kinda go through the motions and get it done as soon as possible. But that’s not quality intimacy. You’re not like looking into each other’s eyes. Your mind is thinking about what do I have on my list to take care of tomorrow? You know, if I could just get this over quickly, you’re like

Are you done yet? You know, like that like your mind is somewhere else. It’s not in the game. It’s not in having the fun. But it’s like, I gotta get to sleep. I got a busy day tomorrow. All those things. So for all those reasons I was like, you know, not tonight. But there’s a lot going on here. We don’t know

what’s on the person’s mind, you know, why they’re saying not tonight. It might be an exhaustion thing. It might be that they need connection that starts earlier in the day. It may be that the that connection has been lost a long time ago and there since you do repair, there needs to be some repair of that work. But there’s like a lot of different meanings behind not tonight. But when it continues on and it be feels like it’s not the century, I also recognize that the partner has a lot of issues around

rejection as well. Like they’re just trying to connect with their partner, have some sexual intimacy, and instead they’re dealing what they perceive to be rejection quite a bit of the time. ⁓ it’s not necessarily about them, but it may be who you know. So when a couple comes to you and they’ve been dealing with a lot of this ⁓ not necessarily engaging in sexual intimacy at risk for having a sexless relationship and there’s a lot of not tonight going on.

How do you approach that?

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (05:47)
Well, I think the first thing is you you you find the ⁓ kind of the root cause, right? And so ⁓ we use this term in cognitive behavioral therapy is where you drill down and you’re drilling down to the kind of the core idea behind why not tonight exists. Right. So every now and again not tonight is a thing that that can happen. But if you’re if you’re hearing it consistently over and over again, then you kinda gotta get down to the core. You you were talking about that just a little bit,

in your in your opening. And so I think the the main thing is really getting to the idea behind why not tonight has become so comfortable.

the main

Dr. Sonia (06:25)
It’s interesting

’cause I don’t know if it’s comfortable. Like ⁓ like for the person that’s saying not tonight, maybe it feels comfortable, but a lot of times it’s associated with a lot of guilt and shame and regret. So but I guess it would be more comfortable to choose not tonight than to address the underlying issue. Okay.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (06:43)
That’s exactly

right. ⁓ instead of having a conversation with your partner and saying, you know, we’ve been disconnected and I don’t really want to connect physically. It’s easier to say when your partner makes advances, Yeah, I’m not feeling it tonight. That’s not what I want to do tonight. And that doesn’t get to the issue. It actually helps things build, because it doesn’t provide a space for there to be a conversation even, ⁓ with a partner trying to

You know, say, well well, why not? There’s usually that’s just kind of a shutdown point. There’s not a point a place of of really being able to explore a little bit more. And so that’s what I mean by comfort. It’s like it’s comfortable because nobody is being challenged in that in that moment to to go deeper.

Dr. Sonia (07:26)
Okay, so nobody’s being challenged in the moment to go deeper. So how do you ’cause I talk a lot about consent and safety and vulnerability concepts and ideas. How do you make it such that when you’re talking with clients that they feel safe enough to actually unpack like the knot tonight?

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (07:45)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, the first thing you have to do is create an environment where communication is is essential. Right. And so sometimes people come into couples therapy and they have an expectation they’ll continue the same types of things that they do at home. No the the stonewalling or the shutting down or ⁓ you know, saying the trigger word that gets the partner upset and then the conversation shuts down, right? But in the therapy room, you have to establish that there will be rules around communication.

And some of those ways, you know, there’s there’s a a long time ago when I was in therapy school, ⁓ you know, over 20 years ago, I learned about this pl this ⁓ concept called the floor. And so you can have like a a stapler in your office and you hand it to the person. The person who has the stapler is the person who’s talking. And the one who does not have the stapler, their responsibility is to reflect back what they heard from the person, not verbatim, but the underlying message that they heard.

And then the person who had the stapler who was talking, it’s their job, once the reflection has happened, to say, yes, that was exactly what I’m talking about, or no, that’s not quite it. And then the other person is asking clarifying questions to get to what they were trying to convey. Then the roles get reversed. The person who was not the speaker

now has the stapler and the person who was the speaker formerly now is the listener. So it’s a speaker listener technique. And what that does is it creates a space where they’re starting to practice the back and forth of what it’s like to have these conversations that can go efficiently, which makes it a little bit easier once we start to talk about the real issue of you know, why is not tonight a thing, then it makes it easier to have that conversation because they’re used to doing the rules of the speaker listener technique.

And it’s also something you can bring them back to when they get off track, because they will. When they fall into old patterns. You can bring them back to the speaker listener technique. And so usually you try some benign stuff first, nothing real, you know, ⁓ loaded. first, you know, something about like what’d you do at work today? You know, and how did something at work make you feel today? That sort of thing, right? ⁓ and so so really getting them used to the concept of having these conversations and the ways in which you can have effective communication.

Dr. Sonia (09:54)
And so ⁓ like that’s one of the first things that you’ve learned or you learned during ⁓ therapy school and stuff like that. And so how often do you find that that works? Like

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (10:06)
it

works probably about ninety five percent of the time, seriously. Because you’re establishing the kind of a code of conduct ⁓ in in the ways that communication needs to take place. And often we have couples carry it through at home too, where they use like a can of beans or something as the instead of a stapler. and whoever has the beans is the one who’s speaking and who doesn’t have the beans is listening and and you know, enacting the the parts that they have to in that role.

Dr. Sonia (10:34)
So the can of beans, person with the can of beans holds all the cards.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (10:36)
Hold all the cards.

Dr. Sonia (10:42)
Talk about beans. You burnt the beans today, but okay, we’re gonna say about that.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (10:45)
Hey, why you gotta bring that into the podcast though? Like

Dr. Sonia (10:50)
Cause that is gonna be real.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (10:51)
I

gotta be like that. I said I’m sorry. I know, I know. I walked right into that.

Dr. Sonia (10:58)
Okay, so get back to that was too funny not to. I just could not I was like, why didn’t you talk to

me about the beans? Suddenly you didn’t message or mention anything about that beans I left on the stove within strict instructions for you to follow.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (11:20)
You know,

okay, I had stuff I was doing too. And I got distracted. Sorry.

Dr. Sonia (11:24)
It’s true. It’s true. It’s true. And so I will give

you a can of beans later on and we will have a discussion about the burnt beans.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (11:36)
Let me be the speaker first though. And then you gotta be the listener.

Dr. Sonia (11:38)
Okay, okay, okay, okay, that’s fine.

I I gotta listen. ⁓ Okay. So getting back to So okay. what happens when people are not following the code of conduct in the room or outside of the room? You know, that so much has gone on and they feel really defensive or like they can’t like they gotta get their words in and and they like the only thing they have left in their arsenal is like

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (11:44)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Sonia (12:07)
digs that they have for each other. Is it like is the relationship done at this point? Is can there be repair?

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (12:13)
Well, I mean, I think there can be repair. Each each person has to be willing to engage in the process of repair in order for it to happen, right? But I I think at that point that’s when you you really kinda have to keep drilling down into why are you holding on to this? What is the what is the core idea behind why you need to continue to communicate this way when we’ve made efforts to try and change our communication styles and the ways in which we we ⁓ convey information and messages to one another. Because there’s gotta be a reason.

Dr. Sonia (12:27)
Mm.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (12:42)
Why you holding on to digs, right?

Dr. Sonia (12:44)
Well, I think it’s like they’re just so hurt, you know, they just feel so much ⁓ like they don’t wanna feel vulnerable with this person and that like the only thing they have left is maybe the the digs to like harm them in some way ’cause they’ve been harmed in such a way, you know. ⁓ I’m not making I’m not saying that it’s correct and what should be done. I’m just, you know, when people get to that place

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (13:00)
Right.

Dr. Sonia (13:07)
Where you’re like, ooh damn, you know, like I’m not sure if this is gonna work or not, you know. Or when people are desperate, like that person that’s like, it’s not this century, right? It’s sounded like there was a lot of pain underneath the surface of the joke, you know? And ⁓ a lot of having to deal with rejection in there, you know. And ⁓ like to be vulnerable again.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (13:17)
Yeah.

For sure.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Sonia (13:35)
in a different kind of way in a office ⁓ with you know like your partner but also a stranger that like that now you have to talk about your feelings of rejection or whatever else is going on there. Like how can like how can it be safe? How can it be safe for them to have these conversations and to kind of hope again that something might actually change.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (13:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, and and I hear you on that. And you know, there’s no predictability of that, honestly. You you take a risk being in a relationship in general and you take a risk loving someone. And the risk is that they will hurt you. That’s the risk. And so it doesn’t mean that people are out here just trying to hurt people. There are people who do that. but it it means that, you know, you you run the risk and the the possibility that someone will cause you some pain emotionally.

And that is hard. It’s not an easy place to be. And especially if the pain that you’ve been caused emotionally is causing you to d withdraw from sexual activity. and you know, The withdrawal from the sexual activity is a symptom of a larger problem. And the problem doesn’t necessarily even have to be within the relationship itself. It could be, as you talk about all the time, It could be you know, with with some physiology that the person who is saying not tonight is dealing with, right?

And so in order to get to the the core of what’s happening, we have to create this space where the conversation can be effective and people are listening and reflecting back and being heard. And so, you know, you practice that and you practice that until you know you get to a place where people are feeling comfortable enough to enact that on their own outside of sessions. and and it just takes time, especially if there’s a history of hurt.

It takes time. But there’s no way to get to that history. There’s no way to get to the core idea without the communication. You can’t.

Dr. Sonia (15:32)
Yeah.

So like ⁓ I always say that like intimacy, sexual intimacy is based on a foundation of overall intimacy, which is based on the foundation of communication. And as you’re talking, I’m realizing it that communication is built on a foundation of trust. And when that trust has been eroded, because of the little digs or like people being hurt and back and forth and stuff like that. then it gets to that place where like you have to

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (15:49)
Yes.

Dr. Sonia (16:01)
Do you can you repair the trust by the communication? Like will that go back and repair the trust? It the foundation is that trust overall. And you build you’re building the communication on that. Can you retro retroactively, retrograde, retro whatever, get down to healing the ⁓ the trust side of thing? Or is how does that how does that get healed?

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (16:09)
Mm-hmm.

It often it’s a it’s a process, right? And and some people do what we call wiping the slate clean. Right? They get to a certain point and they’re like, I just need to wipe the slate clean. I need to I need to clean we need a fresh start in our relationship. But before we do that, we need to deal with what has caused the pain and consternation previously, right? ⁓ but we can’t get to a clean slate without addressing it. And a lot of times partners agree, yes, yes, let’s do this clean slate.

but then they they realize that there’s a lot of work that goes into it. They have to actually look at what has caused the pain, what has caused the the stuckness and and be willing to move through it and to process through it and talk through it. So it’s not a an overnight process. It’s not an easy process either by any means. ⁓ but there are people who get through it because they choose to to do the work. And there’s some people who start the work and they don’t necessarily finish it because it gets really hard. And the level of vulnerability that you have to display in that

is astronomically large. I don’t know how else to say it. It’s big, right? Like you have to have big vulnerability in order to to to be willing to look at things that have caused you pain, right? Maybe they’ve never said to that person that your little digs are what make me say not tonight, every night. Because you always got something to say, right? And I ain’t even trying to deal with that. I ain’t trying to deal with the ramifications of that.

Dr. Sonia (17:27)
Yeah.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (17:49)
You know, and I’d rather deal with you being mad at me and not talking to me because I said not tonight than deal with the little digs that you give me on a daily basis. Maybe they’ve never said that out loud. And so if if you get to a process where you’re having to drill down to the core belief and idea about you and your relationship, that’s hard. It’s a hard place to be. Is it worth it? Absolutely. If you worth you know, working on your relationship, absolutely. ⁓ but it’s it’s not an easy thing. It’s not.

Dr. Sonia (18:17)
No,

it’s not an easy thing. And and it’s interesting that when you said ⁓ like working on wiping the slate clean, like something in my very soul was like, Hell no. Like what kind of bullshit is not not to you specifically, but just like everything in my

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (18:29)
Yes.

That makes sense, Dr.

Sonia. Backtracks.

Dr. Sonia (18:37)
I like I didn’t

remember everything so I don’t repeat this. Like it so it doesn’t happen again. So I don’t let my guard down and and I’ll be like, like, why the you know, so you’re probably the only person I would consider wiping this slate clean with. Most of the time I’d be like, Mm mm, no, you fool me once, but you ain’t gonna do it twice, right?

But that trust is there and as if has been established, right? So, ⁓ it I think that that’s that’s a really hard thing to be like, let’s wipe the slate clean. Wow. Like I think that that I’m trying to think, is there anything harder to do than to wipe that slate clean? You know, I can do forgiveness if I ain’t gotta see you again, right?

I’m just I’m just I’m keeping it real here

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (19:28)
‘Cause you said but forgiveness does not equal reconciliation, okay?

Like that is not what we’re doing around here. Yeah.

Dr. Sonia (19:35)
I can love you from afar, right? But

I to have you up in my face and I gotta be like ⁓ when like something comes to my mind as to what a person’s done and then I gotta be like, I’m wiping it clean. But you’re right, you like you don’t just wipe it clean, you have this conversation, you have the you’d be like, hey, look, this, this, this, and this happened, bitch. And we’re not not to you. But this is all hypothetical. I would never call you that. ⁓

And then like have to process and get through everything. Like to get to that place where and that’s where maybe the staple or the can comes in. See, my thought is like give me the can, I’m hucking it at your head. ⁓

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (20:18)
yeah, see Okay, we’re gonna give you a sheet of paper. You know, like give you a a sheet of paper, you know. Like, come on. You hold it.

Dr. Sonia (20:28)
What do I do with the sheet of paper? so I can’t I

can’t okay. I can’t have a ⁓ see my rights to bean, a can of beans have been taken away. I’ve already lost my rights. All right, okay, all right, fine. So no can of beans, no stapler for me. I got a piece of paper that I can fold into a little airplane and then I’ll do the little front there and I’ll like huck it at somebody. No, no.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (20:37)
Gone.

Done.

No. Nope.

Ha

Dr. Sonia (20:55)
Okay, anyway, so ⁓ this must be helpful for my diamonds, but diamonds, ⁓ it’s been a long day. I’m recording this at night, and so my filter is on low. ⁓ I should always record early in the morning where I’m like, it’s Dr. Sonia. I’m in my studio. It’s 5 a.m. Let’s talk about not tonight. But instead, it’s 7 p.m. at night. The filter’s gone. ⁓

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (21:24)
Yeah.

Dr. Sonia (21:24)
And and and we’re still gonna continue this conversation because I think it’s an important conversation. Okay. So trust has to be there, communication, the ability to process and talk and get to a place of reconciliation and forgiveness if that works for you. And recognizing that like I guess for like my brain would have to know what would the benefit be of ripe of wiping that slate clean.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (21:30)
Definitely.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Sonia (21:51)
Like have an understanding that okay, I wanna preserve the relationship, I wanna have that reconnection with my partner, and the price to be paid for this is conversation and wiping the slate clean after that conversation. And then that could lead to ⁓ possible like reconnection. But then of course, you know, ⁓ there is other we as you say you do have to drill down and get to that place where you’re like, What exactly is going on? What is it?

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (21:51)
Right.

Yeah.

Yes.

Dr. Sonia (22:20)
You know, is it resentment? Is it a physical thing? You know, because ⁓ perimenopause, menopause, postmenopause, like there’s hormones going on, there’s like hormone regulation that’s happening, physiological changes, there could be pain, there could be irritation with the vulva, there could be a lot of stuff. It there could be the fact that orgasms have shifted completely. They’re not as strong as they would, or maybe like there’s some women unfortunately that don’t have an orgasm after

they go through menopause and ⁓ and then our bodies change too. So like there’s so many different reasons that we might be like, yeah, no, I don’t really want somebody to touch me, you know, because a lot of those things are happening. So part of it is that trust and that communication around whatever issue happens to be. And then, you know, getting it back together where you’re reintroducing the touch, where you’re reintroducing the pleasure.

that’s something that becomes something that’s important as well. And there’s things like sensate focus and stuff like that. But how do you deal with like reintroducing the sex into a relationship?

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (23:27)
Well, it it’s a it’s a process, right? And I’ve said that about everything that you’ve asked me about. ‘Cause it is, right? It’s not something you’d be like, okay, now go home and touch, you know, like I ain’t touched, I ain’t touched her in weeks, you know. I ain’t touched them in weeks. What I look like going home and touching today. Like, you know, so no, like that’s not i it’s a process, right? And usually what I’ve done in the past with couples who have had issues that are related to sexual intimacy and and touch

Dr. Sonia (23:31)
Yes. Let’s get it on. ⁓

Yeah.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (23:56)
Is that you know we start with something very simple, you know, something just sit across from one another and just look at each other.

Five minutes. Right? And then the next thing you do, the next day, or maybe the next week, you come back and you report how that went. And then the next step is if it went well, the next step after that would be okay, now we sit in front of one another and you take off one article of clothing, usually like a top. And so each of you is is shirtless with the woman if she wears a bra with her bra on.

or the or the female presenting person if they wear a bra bra on and ⁓ and then they sit and they can have a conversation or they can look at one another, right? So you go through each article of clothing until there’s no clothes, still not touching, being able to sit and admire one another, right?

But this is a process because sometimes people come back after the first one and they’re like, Yeah, that went well. We could be able to sit, we had our clothes on, we were able to have that conversation, or we able to just look at one another and you know, for that time and it was good. They c they go and try s session number two, which is taking their tops off and they’re like, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. Right? And so then you j you go from there. So you don’t rush through the progression. That’s why I’m saying it’s a process. The end goal is to get to a place where you can actually, you know, cuddle and touch one another.

⁓ without there being any type of discomfort, right? Even no sex involved. But being able to get to that place. And if sex does come into the play after that, after you’ve walked through all those processes, that’s great. If it doesn’t, that’s okay too. But the p the purpose is to get the reconnection and to get the physical reconnection, whatever that might look like. in the most consensual and and helpful way for everyone.

Dr. Sonia (25:38)
I hear.

Okay, that makes sense. Okay. So ⁓ we’re we’ve had the conversation, we’ve had the meeting of the minds, we’re reestablishing the trust, where they’re having the conversation with respect. we’re reflecting it back again you know, to each other, and then we’re bringing back in the touch, we’re bringing back in the physical aspect of things. not that we need like a timeline for this, but on average, how long do you think that this whole process usually takes?

For the average couple.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (26:15)
I’ve run through this process with folks in about two months.

Dr. Sonia (26:19)
Okay. Alrighty. Okay.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (26:21)
You know,

two months. Where they’re doing these each of these iterations once a week. And they’re coming in the following week, right? So they go home and they have their homework and they do it and then they come back the following week ’cause they’re seeing me weekly and and then they move on to the next one. We process through what it was like to do it, you know, ⁓ any any of the the discomfort that they experienced, ⁓ you know, the things that work things that were comfortable about it and just kinda, you know, really doing the speaker listener type of ⁓ type of

Dr. Sonia (26:25)
Once a week.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (26:51)
situation again so that they can have an opportunity to really hear and re and be reflected back to and to reflect back what they heard and and and you know create a collective understanding and then moving on to the next part. So

Dr. Sonia (27:04)
Okay. So when they’re doing this process, like do you have the communication and the talking comes first and then you go to the physical? Or is that still continuing to hap happen while the physical is being reintroduced?

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (27:18)
It’s both. Because you have to have a streamline of communication throughout the process. Because sometimes it’s a situation where they’re they’re they don’t have any physical issues. They just don’t like how they how they’re being touched and they want to be touched differently. Right. And so they need to be able to have that through line of communication so that they can say, you know, when you did this last time, I really liked that, but this one I didn’t really like so much, right? And so getting comfort level and the person who’s being told how to touch differently.

Dr. Sonia (27:32)
Mm right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (27:47)
getting the the the comfort level of being told that they they need to do something differently and they’re not doing it wrong. They just need to do something differently, right? So you have to have that through line of communication in the in this process in order for it to be e effective.

Dr. Sonia (28:02)
So good. So I think that we will end our conversation now. We will have to have a personal conversation about the beans. That’s still gonna happen. But I think I need you to come back to talk about like what is it like for women to ask for what they want? What is it like for partners to hear you know, the different requests? And how does that go? Because I think that that’s a whole other conversation that I would love to get your expertise on.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (28:11)
I’m not saying it.

Dr. Sonia (28:30)
So, just so that everybody knows, Dr. Kimmery does not take private clients at all, but she is in my ⁓ Diamond Intimacy Collective, and she does do relationship coaching in there, and she comes in as a special guest. So if you’re at all interested, please come and join us in the Diamond Intimacy Collective. Okay, that is all for this call today. And it’s so good to have you. Dr. Kimmery, thank you so much for ⁓ agreeing to be a guest. And even though I spilled the beans,

Okay.

I did. As I say, it’s late. My brain has gone offline. That filter is completely gone. And so and I think that it’s important for my diamonds to see all different sides of me. That so that they wouldn’t just think like I I’ve got it all together every minute of every day. Most of the time I’m just mischievous and fun. ⁓ But at five in the morning I have like ⁓ the most amount of ⁓

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (29:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Yes. That’s very true.

Dr. Sonia (29:33)
mental bandwidth. I don’t know what you call it. Like, cause I’m just waking up and I’m like, ⁓ let’s talk about what’s been on my mind. Okay. So Diamonds, it’s been a pleasure, Dr. Kimmery. It’s always a pleasure. And we will see you next week. Okay, Dr. Sonia and Dr. Kimmery out. Take it.

Dr. Kimmery Newsom (29:35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Sonia (29:53)
If you’ve been listening to this conversation and realizing that stress, overwhelm, anxiety, or disconnection are showing up in your relationships, your family, or even your connection with yourself,

It may be time to start with your nervous system. That’s why I’m so excited to partner with Dr. Ali Novinsky and her Family Reset program. This program is designed to help regulate the nervous system, not just for individuals, but for couples, families, and even extended family members. Because when our nervous systems are more regulated, communication improves, relationships become healthier, and intimacy has that space, it needs to grow and flourish.

In many ways, nervous system regulation is the foundation upon which intimacy is built. And because I believe so strongly in Dr. Alley’s work, when you join the Family Reset program through my affiliate link, you’ll also receive a year’s worth of time inside the Diamond Intimacy Collective. This is a complete bonus added on top of everything that you’ll get in Dr. Ali’s program because I believe so much in the foundation.

Of regulating your nervous system in order to do intimacy work. That’s how much I believe in combining the nervous system regulation with intimacy coaching and how that can create a lasting transformation. So if you’ve been ready to create more connection, more calm, and more intimacy in your life, click the link in the show notes to learn more. Until next time, remember you’re not broken, you’re not too late, and your next chapter of intimacy.

Can be your very best one yet. Okay, Dr. Sonia out.