Ep #246: Relationship Assessment, Part 1: Is Your Intimate Life Working for You?

Dr. Sonia (00:42)
You are listening to the Midlife Sex Coach for Women podcast, episode 246. What so amazing! Hello, hello, hello, Diamonds. So good to see you. Okay. I am recording my podcast in Georgia. I am here for my coach’s mastermind retreat. And I wanted to make sure to get this podcast out. I got here a day early, so

This is my work day today, so I’m getting a couple of podcasts done. And if you were seeing this video in YouTube, just know, yeah, I’m in my hotel room. I am chillaxing, I am here for you, and I want to talk to you about something kind of cool today because I think it’s something that is very important. I would like to talk about an audit. Yes, today we are doing an audit, and I know the word audit.

Doesn’t exactly make anybody say, ooh, that sounds like so much fun. But before you get nervous, before your nervous system goes off, let me reassure you, the IRS is not involved in any way. Nobody needs receipts and nobody is getting a grade. This is a relationship and intimacy audit. And I wanted to do this episode because I think auditing is something that’s so important in our lives, and we do need to audit different areas in our lives.

We look at our finances, we have performance reviews at work, we go to see the doctor. That’s a form of editing our health. Yeah? But when was the last time you sat down and intentionally looked at your intimate life? Not because there’s a crisis, not because your partner’s complaining, but because your intimate life matters. And anything that matters, we have to look at periodically and evaluate. And here’s what I want to make clear from the very beginning.

That we’re not fixing anything today. So often we jump into trying to fix things. Not that’s not what this is about. I’m not gonna be giving you a plan. We’re simply going to be looking. Because sometimes we we’ve been living with something for so long and we didn’t even notice it anymore. And it just becomes part of life. And in midlife, it’s actually a beautiful time to stop and to say, wait a minute.

Is this still working for me? That’s what I want all of you to ask yourself as we do this audit. Is this still working for me? Okay, so let’s get started. I intentionally wanted to begin this audit with you, not with your partner, not with whether you’re having sex, not with any of those things, but with you. Because you are the only person.

Who is present right now, and who is present in every intimate relationship that you have. So whether you’re married, partnered, dating, divorced, widowed, or even single, we do this audit because it’s important. So let’s start with a special question. How connected are you to yourself? Do you know what you want? Do you know what you enjoy?

Do you regular make space for any of those things? And this is where we don’t immediately jump to judgment and say, I’m not doing that, I’m not doing it right, or whatever. I think women can become incredibly skilled at knowing what everybody else wants because society has made us people pleasers, but we don’t know what we want. You know what your kids want, you know what your partner wants, you know what you need to do.

And to make it happen at work. But sometimes you you even sometimes like know what the dog wants. And then when somebody asks you, what would you like? You’re like, well, and that’s because we haven’t been practicing this question. So this isn’t about criticizing yourself, it’s about noticing whether you are still present in your own life.

So let’s talk about your relationship with your body. Yeah. I’m not asking you whether you like every inch of your body. I’m asking you, what is it like to live in your body right now? Right now. Can you experience pleasure in your body? Do you experience pleasure in your body? Can you receive touch without immediately thinking how your body looks, what other people’s concepts are about your body? Can you be present?

in your body without evaluating.

Because let’s be real, midlife bodies change. They look maybe different than they looked previously. And we could spend a lot of time being frustrated about that, or we can appreciate the body that we are in right now.

Sometimes we’re so busy evaluating the changes that we stop actually inhabiting our body. We’re looking at from the outside instead of experiencing it from the inside. We might be thinking, this needs to be smaller, this needs to be tighter.

Meanwhile, your body is like, hello, I’m still here. I’m I’m in and this is me. I am still here. So part of the audit that we’re gonna be doing is simply noticing the relationship we’re currently having with our body. Not the one that we you wish that you had, but the one you actually had. And this is so much fun because this morning I got up and I looked in the mirror and I was like, Am I looking a little jowly? And then then I smiled.

And then I saw my beautiful smile and I was like, does it really matter if I look jowly or not? That’s bullshit. Can I appreciate the smile, this beautiful smile that was given to me by my mother? Like, can I appreciate that? Can I be thankful for that? Or am I gonna sit and look at a jowl? What exactly is a jowl? Like, get over it, Sonia. Like, I want to look in the mirror and see me right now at 60, not

me at 25 not comparing that and being like my body looked different then than it looks now the fun thing about me is I’ve looked back over the years and my body essentially has looked the same for a long time now and that gets to be okay like I get to love it and to be in pictures and to enjoy life and you do too right okay now let’s do some more auditing. What’s happening with your libido? What’s happening with desire?

How’s your libido? How’s your desire? Not how you think it should be, but what is actually happening at this moment. Maybe desire is present but different. I like to talk about neutral desire because I think that’s where a lot of women come from. And I think neutral desire sounds better than like responsive desire or all these other types of things. Neutral desire is just neutral, right? But let’s look at what’s happening.

Maybe this desire is showing up differently than it did previously. Maybe it shows up once intimacy begins, which the I call neutral, some people call responsive desire. Or maybe desire has been so quiet lately that you’re wondering whether it’s left town without telling you. It’s like, did it go on vacation and not let me know? Right? All of these possibilities give us information. I think it’s important because women often reduce their conversations to my libido is low.

It’s non-existent. And then they just leave it at that. Like it’s all over. You know, it’s done. But what does that actually mean to you? Maybe you’re really thinking about sex, but once you begin to connect with your partner or yourself, you start to enjoy yourself.

And that might be different from not wanting to be touched at all. So we do have to kind of figure out what’s going on with the libido. How do we feel about the libido? And like really do an audit of our libido.

And then we need to understand what might be behind this libido, right? If you have discomfort because of hormone issues, dryness in your vagina, vulva area, and the thought of sex, then pops up this concept, my goodness, I’m gonna have discomfort. That’s a whole different thing that’s impacting your libido. So we need to understand the distinction, what’s impacting the libido, what’s happening with our libido, what’s happening with our desire, right?

And once again, we’re not trying to explain anything. We’re just looking at it. We’re not trying to fix anything. We’re just noticing what is my current experience of desire? What does it look like right now?

If you happen to be partnered, let’s do a quick audit of the relationship. So let’s look at relationships, right? If you’re single, stay with me because

We’re gonna broaden this conversation in a second. And if you’re partnered, ask yourself, how connected do I actually feel with my partner? Do we enjoy each other? Do we feel emotionally close?

Do I even feel like we’re still a couple? Just because you love somebody tremendously doesn’t necessarily mean that you feel connected to them. So this is where the audit comes in. How are you feeling? And disconnection can happen, especially after years of together, after life starts lifeing, after children come, after careers get complicated, after there’s a lot of responsibility, it’s easy to disconnect.

And you may be an incredibly effective functioning team together, doing all the things that need to be done. You run the household. Maybe everyone, you’re focused on taking everybody where they need to go. Bills are being paid, groceries appear. I like to talk about that as a grocery genie. a lot of women actually end up being the grocery genie, right? But somewhere along the way, maybe the couple.

Has disappeared into an incorporation, like into something that’s well, like a well-oiled machine, but not necessarily with the connection. And maybe nobody’s necessarily noticed that something’s gone wrong. Maybe it just happened slowly. So this audience isn’t asking, is this a good relationship or a bad relationship? It’s asking, how do I actually feel inside of this relationship?

So that’s the audit question for the relationship. And if you’re single

Your intimate life definitely deserves an audit. Your relationships definitely deserve an audit. And I don’t want women believing that intimacy begins when someone else shows up and it ends when they leave or when you’re by yourself. Like intimacy starts with you. It will always start with you. So ask yourself, how connected I am I to myself and to the people who matter to me?

How much emotional intimacy exists in my life overall?

Have I unconsciously put certain parts of my life on hold? That last question matters a lot because when we separate and box out parts of our lives, we don’t show up as the person we want to show up as. Because we’re so busy using the energy to suppress different parts of our lives or boxing them up and separating them out, right? But when you ask yourself, have I unconsciously

put certain parts of my life on hold, you’re asking a bigger question, which is, am I integrated? Am I showing up as the whole person? Right? That is important.

Sometimes we tell ourselves, when I meet somebody, then I’ll travel. When I meet somebody, then I’ll do romantic things. When I meet somebody, then I’ll explore this part of myself. I need you to understand that that somebody that you’re gonna meet is you. You’ve already met her. Say hi to her. She wants to know you, right? Understand that your life is happening right now and your relationship status when it comes to romantic relationships does not determine

Whether you get to experience connection, sensuality, or pleasure, because that always is gonna start with you. Okay. Let’s talk about communication. So we’re gonna audit communication now, especially communication around intimacy. Can you talk about what’s happening to you? Can you say when something isn’t working? Can you talk about what you would like?

I find that working with women for years, that this is one of the most important things. We can’t even articulate what we would want. And before we articulate and say what we want, we have to do a process in our brain of asking, do you know what you want? Right. So all these things need to happen before we get to the conversation, right? And for some couples, these conversations happen relatively easily. And for others, the subject of sexual intimacy

Enters the room and suddenly everybody wants to discuss literally anything else. Suddenly you want to talk about how the oil needs to be changed in your car instead of how the oil needs to be changed in your pussy. Let’s talk about this. Maybe you want to start talking about property taxes, right? Because talking about intimacy can feel very, very vulnerable. Maybe you’ve been together for like 25 years.

And you never actually had a detailed conversation about pleasure. That is worth noticing. Not fixing, not judging, just noticing. Yeah. Okay, let’s do an evaluation and an audit on affection and touch. So let’s look at touch. I like to separate affectionate touch from sexual touch because so often we think that all touch.

is sexual, especially when we’re not engaging sexual intimacy and our partner touches us, then we’re like, maybe they’re gonna want sex instead of being like, this person loves me. this person cares about me, right? So let’s separate affectionate touch from sexual touch. How much affection is exists in your life? Are you hugging? Are you kissing? Are you touching simply because you’re enjoying being close?

Because sometimes couples slowly lose that touch, that connection, that physical connection, and everything gets interpreted as sexual touch. And that’s not the case. If you’re losing that touch, then we need to look at that. Especially if one person begins to believe that every affectionate touch will become a request for sexual intimacy. Suddenly a hug is not a hug anymore. And it doesn’t help if

you know, if our partner is a ass grabber, right? Then we’re just like, nope, no, thank you. I can’t do it, right? But every touch is not sexual touch. But when we’re worried about that, then the touch starts to disappear. So part of this work is is there still affectionate touch or has that left the room as well?

Maybe women are thinking, if I don’t want everything that might potentially come after the hug, maybe I’m gonna stop with initiating the hug or initiating the touch, right? Overall, affection can disappear right along with sexual intimacy. So notice what role does affectionate touch currently play in your life? Is there affectionate touch? Is that going well? Or are we losing that affectionate touch? Another good question.

Okay, now we’re gonna talk about sexual intimacy. Diamonds, we can’t have a relationship and an intimacy audit without eventually getting here. And of course, I’m a sex coach, so we’re gonna talk about it, right? How do you feel about your sexual life? Not how often are you having sex when taught not talking about frequency. We’re talking about, I wanna know whether the sexual intimacy

you’re having or not having is actually working for you. We’re talking quality, not quantity.

So you could be having sex like once a month and be completely satisfied, and I’m gonna celebrate with you. And you could be having sex three times a week and absolutely hate it. And that is not what I want for you. So frequency alone does not tell us much about the quality of the sexual intimacy in your life.

So ask yourself, am I satisfied with my sexual life? Does it feel pleasurable? Does it feel chosen? Is this what you would choose for yourself?

And then sit with whatever answer comes up for you. Maybe you’re very satisfied and I’m celebrating. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Woo! This audit isn’t designed to manufacture problems that don’t exist. But maybe you realize actually, no, I’m not that satisfied. And you don’t have to do anything with that information today. Just tell yourself the truth. When we do this audit,

It’s just all about the truth. We just need to know, are you satisfied with the sexual intimacy you’re currently having? And if we’re gonna ask that question, we’re also going to audit pleasure because that is right in there. Usually if you’re not satisfied with the sexual intimacy, the pleasure is not there the way that you want it to be. So let’s audit pleasure.

How much pleasure are you having overall in your life? Not only sexual pleasure. I’m talking about experience and enjoying pleasure. Like enjoying being alive, enjoying having your feet in the grass. I think that’s one of my favorite things. So I’m always gonna go back to that, right? What was the last time you did something simply because you loved doing it? When was the last time you allowed yourself to receive something enjoyable?

without feeling like you had to earn it first, without feeling guilty, but just being in it and enjoying, right? When was the last time you prioritize your pleasure without immediately feeling guilty? I think this is particularly important for women in midlife because we spend decades doing and producing and taking care of people. And pleasure can somehow become the thing we’ve allowed to kind of let go by the wayside, right?

It’s what we’re allowed to have when everything else is done. But diamonds, I am here to tell you everything else is never done. It’s never gonna be done, right? So there’s always gonna be another email. There’s always gonna be something else that needs your attention, but pleasure needs your attention right now. Yes, yes, yes. So part of this intimacy audit is simply to ask, is there enough pleasure in my life for me?

Right now. So good. Okay, so finally we’re gonna step back and look. I want you to mentally step back from everything that we talked about. Your connection with yourself, your relationships, your intimate and sexual life. What did you notice? And here’s something important.

Look at everything, evaluate everything, not only looking at what’s wrong, but what’s right too, what’s working well for you. Many relationships have tremendous emotional connection. Maybe you’re more comfortable with your body than you’ve ever been. Maybe your sexual relationship has actually gotten better over time. Notice all that too. This audit is not just like an indictment, but maybe it’s helped you discover something else.

Maybe there’s an area where you’ve been settling. So we get to celebrate the areas that are going well. And we also get to notice, is there an area where you have been settling? Maybe there’s something you’ve been quietly unhappy about. Maybe something came up today that you’ve actually known for years. And if that’s the case, I don’t want you to immediately jump into action for today. Just sit with the information.

Just look at it. Cause we’re like we are in September now. So we’ve got like one quarter left of this year. And then we’re going to start 27. That to me is incredible. If there’s something that you’re noticing that is not right for you, like yeah, this is the time to acknowledge it. This is the time to acknowledge it.

Acknowledge it but don’t necessarily jump into action. For today, I just want you to sit with the information. Because there’s another part of this conversation that we don’t talk much about. And sometimes we know something is not working and we still don’t address it. And the question is why? What are we afraid is gonna happen if we actually acknowledge that problem? Right? What do we think is gonna happen?

I have a more important question actually for you, which is what happens if we don’t? And that’s exactly where we’re gonna go in part two. So as I said, this is a two-part. The first part is the audit, the second part is focusing a little bit more on the price that we pay if we’re looking away, right? Right? Let’s let’s work on that. Okay. so good to see you.

Doctor Sonia out.

If this intimacy and relationship audit has helped you recognize that there’s a gap between intimacy and your intimate life that you currently have and the intimate one that you want.

I want you to know that this is exactly the kind of work that I help women with. This podcast can help you start asking the questions, but learning how to work through what you’ve uncovered deserves more than a podcast episode. And that is why I have created the Reignite program. Reignite is where we take all the time to do the deep work together. 90 days, 12, 13 weeks. We get together weekly.

On Sunday evening, 6 p.m. Central Time, and things are recorded. We do the work together. You don’t have to figure this out today, and you don’t have to figure this out alone. Today, all I’m doing is simply telling you to stop and pay attention because your intimate life matters and your relationship with yourself and with any potential partners, they matter as well. And your time matters. So tell yourself the truth about where you are.

And then give yourself the opportunity to decide what you want to do with that truth. I’m going to be leading a master class on creating amazing intimacy in midlife. And I will be introducing the Reg Night program at that point in time. So click on the show notes and register for the masterclass. That is on September 28th. And the Reg Night program starts on October 4th. And we are going to go through this last quarter.

We are going to address the issues together and I’m really excited to work with you. Okay, Doctor Sonia out.