Ep #235: REIGNITE: The New Rules of Intimacy After Menopause

Sonia (00:43)
You are listening to the Midlife Sex Code for Women Podcast, episode 235. OMG. I know every single week I’m excited about this podcast number, but you need to understand there is a time where I wasn’t even sure if I was gonna continue to do the podcast. And a lot of you know that I stopped the podcast for over a year, and then I realized I still have work to do. So every time I record another podcast episode,

And I start my podcast at 200. So when I’m sitting here looking at 235 and realizing that I’m already almost a year into my new podcast episode, season two, podcast 35, I’m super excited about that. So you are listening to the Mid Life Sex Coach for Women podcast, episode 235. Hello, hello, hello, Diamonds. So good to be here. All right.

This is not necessarily going to have the video portion of it available on YouTube. And why is that? I will tell you why, I am recording this episode from Ohio, where I’m visiting my daughter’s new college. It’s orientation week, and this is how a sex coach and a mom lives.

College orientation sessions in the daytime with her daughter and podcast recording in the hotel bathroom in the evening. You gotta love it. You gotta love my life. And I have to say I do, and I’m so thankful. So if you hear noises in the background, if you hear people walking above me or any of those things, just know that I am in the bathroom recording this podcast. Okay, so today I wanna talk to you about something that’s been going on.

And something that’s been in my heart for a really long time. Women come to me every single day asking some version of the same question. How do I get my libido back? How do I want sex again? How do I become the woman I used to be? For years I answered those questions by talking about hormones, responsive desire, communication, body image, pleasure, and intimacy. And all of those things matter. They really do.

But over the last several years, after coaching hundreds and hundreds of women in midlife, I’ve realized something. Many of us are asking the wrong question. Because the goal isn’t to become the woman we were at 35 years of age. Please know. If I think of the woman I was at 35 years of age, I was more like a child. I did not know. I thought I knew and I thought I understood, right?

But there’s so much that I did not know and that I did not understand. And I really started growing and learning, becoming the person I am now in my 40s. And then of course my 50s are amazing. And I’m about to head into my 60s. So when I think that a lot of us are trying to go back to what our libido and our sexual intimacy looked like in our 30s, no, that is not what the goal should be.

The goal is about becoming the woman you are meant to be at 55, at 65, and beyond, right? Intimacy you want isn’t waiting for your younger body. It’s not waiting for you in the past. It isn’t waiting for your hormones to magically cooperate. It isn’t waiting until life becomes less messy or less busy. It’s waiting for a new version of you. Today I want to explain what I mean by this.

Okay, so we spend so much time looking backwards. One of the most common things that I hear is I just want my old sex life back again. And I understand that feeling. I really do. When we remember our younger years, we often remember the excitement, the spontaneity, the ease of it all, but memory is also selective.

Let me tell you, many women also remember being exhausted while raising really young children, feeling touched out, having sex not because they thought that’s what they wanted to do, but because they thought that’s what they should do. Not understanding about their own pleasure and never asking for what they actually wanted, really ignoring their own needs. So when we say we want to go back.

What exactly are we trying to recreate? That’s my question for you. What are we trying to recreate? Because I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to go backwards. I want to go forwards, forwards with wisdom, with excitement, with a vision. I want to go forward in midlife and understand that there is an invitation that is happening in midlife for us to be here now. So

Yeah, menopause changes our body, it changes our hormones, it changes our priorities. And none of these changes mean intimacy has to disappear. In fact, I believe midlife offers something that youth often cannot. And I like to call that intentional intimacy. Instead of intimacy just happening by accident, you get to create it on purpose.

You get to decide what pleasure means for you. You get to decide what kind of pleasure, how you would like it, how long you would like it, if you want just the wings, or if you want the whole platter, if you want just the just the dessert, or do you want the entire buffet? Like those are things that you get to ask and and choose, right? You get to decide what pleasure means for you. You get to decide about connections.

You get to decide about what sexuality means, not based on what everyone else told you, but based on the woman you are today. And that to me, I think that is super freeing. That’s that’s what I want. Like, I want to be the woman I am right now. I don’t want to be who I was in the past because I’m really proud and excited about the woman I am now. So

When I think about I want my intimacy to look like when I was 35, that’s not recognizing what is happening right here in my life. And that’s wanting to go back to a time that you really can’t go back to. So why waste any time going back to that? Why don’t we just go forward, right? So over the years I’ve really also spent a lot of time talking about technique. And I think technique is important.

So over the years I’ve taught communication skills and I still do because I still think communications are key. I’ve taught about scheduling intimacy, creating pleasure plans, expanding your sexual menu, learning about responsive desire versus spontaneous desire. All of those things are really valuable and very, very important. But here’s what I have also discovered.

Two women can receive exactly the same set of skills and tools that I teach. One transforms her relationship, and the other one never uses them, doesn’t transform her relationship, and nothing changes. And when I look at why, it’s usually because I can’t tap into their mind to help them see that something else gets to be different here. Because technique

Doesn’t create transformation. What creates transformation? That’s a good question. Identity. Identity creates transformation. So if deep down inside you still believe your needs don’t matter, if deep down inside you still believe that nothing is gonna change, if deep down inside you still believe you had to focus on your partner, you’re not getting the message here. And this is not to blame you in any way, but this is to help you understand.

This is about shifting your belief system and your identity. If you believe that pleasure is selfish, if you believe that good girls always put everybody else first, you may be in the body of a 55 year old, but you’re still acting like a 25 year old or a 35 year old. You’re still conforming to social norms that you don’t need to conform to. You never needed to conform to. But there is so much that was taught to us about being a

good girl, a good wife, a good daughter, a good mother, a good, all the different goods out there and all of those things put somebody else first. And I’m here to tell you your identity needs to shift such that you recognize that you are valuable enough to put yourself first. No amount of communication techniques will change things. That will not make everlasting change. Eventually you’re going to fall back into the person you always have been.

Unless you change who you are and your identity changes. So real transformation begins when your identity shifts, when your identity changes, right? Like I like to think about it in terms of you know who Sonia was before and who Sonia is now, right? A shift had to occur for her to become the midlife sex coach for women, right? If you think about it, that’s kind of radiologist to midlife sex coach, yes. And

Of course, right? That was part of my transformation journey so I can make a difference in my life and in other people’s lives. And this work is going to require that you make a difference in your life and you make a complete identity shift. So who are you? Who do you have to become? It’s time to become the woman who creates intimacy. So imagine waking up every morning believing my pleasure matters.

My voice matters. I am a priority. My relationship matters. I deserve connection. Imagine if those were your thoughts upon waking up. Imagine if you’re like, I deserve joy. I deserve intimacy that feels authentic. Now imagine making decisions from that place. This is why we talk about identity first. Make the decisions from

That place of that identity and everything flows. You begin saying yes differently. You begin saying no differently. You focus on what are my needs. You ask for what you need. See, you ask yourself first and then you ask, you communicate and you ask for what you need. You become curious instead of critical. When everything has to be so perfect, then we’re critical all the time.

If instead we’re sitting there going, what do I need? If I get to be curious, and you know, intimate curiosity, I’m definitely into that. If you begin to become curious instead of critical, that is a shift in your identity as well. Maybe you stop performing around intimacy and you start experiencing it. That’s an entirely different woman. And that woman creates an entirely different relationship with herself.

and any other partners or any people that she chooses to share her body, her sexuality, her experiences with. So I want to talk to you about something that’s really important and something that I feel is like the culmination of the work that I’ve been doing. I want to introduce you to the reignite method.

So over the last several years I’ve realized that every client transformation follows a similar pattern and it wasn’t random. And there was a sequence of events, kind of like a roadmap, and that roadmap

Is what I have come to call the reignite method. So the reignite method isn’t simply about improving your sex life. I mean, of course, who wouldn’t want that? But it’s so much more. It’s about creating the woman who naturally creates the intimacy she wants. So instead of

Focusing on creating the sex part of the sexual intimacy, we are creating the woman who then naturally creates the sexual intimacy that she wants. So here’s what the journey looks like. If we look at reignite, our release the shame. So we begin by letting go of the messages that we’ve carried for decades. Some of us have carried these messages so long and we never needed to. We get to release them. The beliefs that told us that we’re old, that we’re too busy, that we’re too much.

That we’re not enough, that we good girls don’t do this, and bad girls do all that stuff. Shame has no place in an intimate life. You were given a beautiful body, you’re allowed to tack and tap into your sexuality, you are allowed to tap into pleasure. You don’t have to come from a place of shame. So that is the R part. The E is educate yourself. Understand about menopause, understand about your hormones, understand about GSM,

Genital urinary syndrome and menopause. I’m always talking about that. Understand about desire libido. Understand about your changing body. You have to educate yourself. Knowledge is power, and knowledge replaces fear. So education is something that’s very important. The I, invest in yourself, prioritize yourself. So many women have spent decades investing in everybody else. And this is the reason that they’re not.

moving forward becoming the person they want to this is your season remember we were talking about that you know spring to summer to fall we’re heading into fall fall is a rich time of your life this gets to be your season and you get to invest in yourself no matter what’s going on g the g and reignite get curious

Curiosity changes everything. I love curiosity. You know, I love intimate curiosity. I love curiosity. So instead of asking what’s wrong with me, we ask what might be possible in the situation that I’m dealing with now. What can I do? What do I need to shift in my hormones? What is possible for my sexual intimacy? So curiosity opens doors that

Ja shame and judgment slam shut. So keep things open with a curiosity. Get curious, that G. So reignite the N is nurture desire. Desire, libido, doesn’t usually appear because you’re waited for it. It grows because you’re intentional about creating the desire that you want. you are intentional about creating conditions in which

your desire your libido can flourish and bloom we talk about that with the curiosity aspects what do I need in order to be more interested in sexual intimacy nurture your desire okay reignite the eye is intentionally connect connection is not built only in the bedroom it’s built in conversations touch kindness laughter shared experience daily choices

So that’s something to understand that you need to intentionally connect. Something so important here. Communication, right? This one and reignite to the T. Trust the process. Transformation is never linear. There’s going to be setbacks, there’s going to be some victories. There’s an like almost if there’s a victory, then the next week there’s something that kind of shifts back.

I don’t know if that’s an upper limit type of thing, but I do know that that happens. So we trust the process and know that it’s two steps forward, maybe one to one and a half steps back, but we keep moving forward and we understand that it’s not perfect, it’s not linear, there will be setbacks. Things will go well for a season, and then there might be something that reshifts. But we understand that both things, victories and setbacks, are together in this process and they both belong.

The E and reignite, expand your pleasure. Expand your pleasure. You’re going to need to know and understand many different ways to tap into pleasure because your body’s changing, your life is changing, your partner’s body might be changing as well too. It definitely is, right? So there’s a lot that’s happening at the same time. You need multiple ways to tap into that pleasure.

Okay, so pleasure isn’t just about sex, it’s about becoming fully alive, laughing more, moving more, playing more, having orgasms more, and overall pleasure. I’m definitely gonna include that in there. Receiving more, giving more, living more. So when you do all of those things together, you don’t simply improve intimacy, you become someone new. So think about that whole reignite framework.

This is the path that I have seen work again and again. So we have to ask, what about your next 30 years? One of the questions I ask women is this: if you live to be 90, how many years do you have left? And most women realize something that they’re not nearing the end. You’re not nearing the end. Like even me, I’m celebrating turning 60 this year. I’m probably gonna live into my 90s, right?

That’s a really long time. It’s definitely if I were to choose to give up on pleasure and intimacy, that would be a really long time without it. So we don’t choose that. We revolutionize it. We reignite it. We reignite it. We shift it. We change it. Right? It we’re not nearing the end. We’re somewhere around the you know, middle, a little past the middle, but we certainly got a lot of years left in us. What does the next 30 years become?

What if the next 30 years become the most emotionally connected years of your life? What if you are the most connected to your body? What if you’re the most connected to pleasure and sexuality and all those things? What if intimacy becomes deeper, richer instead of disappearing? What if confidence replaced fear? What if curiosity replaced shame? What if pleasure became something you intentionally cultivate?

The future is full of so much possibility. And it’s your future. But also the possibility is there, not because your circumstances magically change, but because you do something about them to make them change. So I hope today’s episode planted a seed for you. You don’t need to become the woman you used to be when you were 35.

You get to become the woman that you’re becoming right now and over the next 30 years. So I think she’s gonna surprise you. I think she’s amazing. I think she’s beautiful. I think she’s wiser. I think she taps into her sexuality. I think she loves all different aspects of herself. I think she’s more intentional and more compassionate and more confident.

And she’s really ready to create intimacy that actually fits this season of her life. And that’s what reignite is all about. So good. Okay. Before we wrap up, I have something really exciting to share with you. Over the next month.

The next month of July, you’re going to notice some big changes happening in the Diamond Intimacy Collective. It’s going to be transforming into the Reignite Intimacy Collective. So I spent the last several years coaching incredible women and refining what truly creates that lasting transformation. And the results is the reignite framework, the reignite method. And I’m so excited because now I’m weaving that entire framework into the heart.

Of the Reignite Intimacy Collective. Yes, the Diamond Intimacy Collective is shifting into the Reignite Intimacy Collective. So over the month of July, I’ll be redesigning and updating the Diamond Intimacy Collective to include the 12 modules based on the Reignite framework that we are just talking about. And I’ll be introducing each step of the Reignite journey through teaching, coaching, worksheets, community conversations.

And new resources. And my vision is for the Diamond Intimacy Collective to become the place where women don’t just learn about intimacy, they experience a true transformation and how they think about themselves, the relationships, their future. So the Reignite Intimacy Collective will include the Diamond Intimacy Collective community on the school platform, which is optional. You don’t have to join it right away if you don’t want to, but it is part of the entire Reignite Intimacy Collective.

Then there’s it is also going to include the live QA calls, the pajama parties, and the book clubs, and the special speakers and experts that we are going to have come into the community. And more importantly, like I need a drum roll here. Starting in September, I will be starting 12 live weekly group coaching calls from September through December on the Reignite framework. So

Included in everything is going to be 12 weekly class sessions with me, and we are going to be tapping into each little section on the Reagnite framework. And we’re going to be like, I’m super excited about this. I have not done 12 weeks live in a row since I think it was like 2023 when I was doing the Own Your Sexuality program, but I am bringing that back.

I love the Reignite program. I love the Reignite Intimacy Collective. And we will be doing 12 live coaching calls weekly starting in September and going into December. So if you’re thinking about joining, now is the perfect time. Right now, you have the opportunity to become a founding member of the Reignite Intimacy Collective. So founding members get to access everything that’s happening in the coming months at

The original Diamond Intimacy Collective investment price of $355 for the entire year. So the Reignite Intimacy Collective will be priced at $997 because we’re doing 12 live sessions in there, plus everything else that you normally get in the Diamond Intimacy Collective. So remember, there is going to be a founder’s code available for you. And if you put that in, you will get the original Diamond Intimacy Collective.

price investment of 355. So once the Regnite framework is integrated into the program, which is going to be happening in the month of July, then it’s going to become the Regnite Intimacy Collective and that beginning begins on August 1st, 2026. And with that new framework, the investment will increase to 997. So beginning in August, the investment will increase to reflect everything that’s going on in the Regnite Intimacy Collective.

As it continues to grow. But if you join in the month of July, you only have to pay and vest the $355, which is the original price of the Diamond Intimacy Collective. That’s a difference of $642. This is available to you because you are my founder. You have been with me through it all, and I want you to benefit for all that is about to come your way. So if you’ve been waiting for a sign, this is the sign.

Remember the founder’s code and it’s active from now until August 1st. That is founder 355. The code is founder F-O-U-N-D-E-R 355, capital letters. So click on the link in the show notes and the founder’s price will automatically be applied. And if you need to, if you don’t click on the show notes, then just put in the founder code.

of founder F-O-U-N-D-E-R 355 Capital Letters into the checkout page for the Diamond Intimacy Collective and join us for a full year. So I would love to walk alongside you for the next year as you create your next 30 years of intimacy, connection, pleasure, and joy.

So thank you for spending this time with me today. And until next time, remember intimacy isn’t something you find. It’s something you intentionally create. I will see you next week, Dr. Sonia. Out.