Ep #71: Amazing Intimacy Goals Workshop 2022: Part 2

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women™ Podcast episode 71.

Welcome to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women™ Podcast, the only show that combines a fun personality, medical knowledge, sexual counseling, and life coaching together. To create unique sex coaching that helps busy women awaken their libidos, address intimacy issues, and learn how to express their sexuality for the rest of their days. Here is your host, certified life coach and sexual counselor, Dr. Sonia Wright.

Hello, Diamonds. I can’t believe that we are more than halfway through January. This is amazing. We are in the year 2022. And I have a question for you. How are your impossible goals going? Have you identified your impossible goals? Would you like some more help on figuring out your impossible goals? Well, this week we have the second half of the amazing impossible goals workshop that I did for you. And so I’m sharing the second half with you, enjoy it.

But if you realize that you would like some additional help with your impossible goals, intimacy goals, whatever it is that you’d like to work on, I just want you to know that Own Your Sexuality Now program is starting this week and there’s still time for you to join. You can click on the link in the show notes and come join me. This is a fabulous session because it’s Own Your Sexuality Now, the intimate edition. And it’s a much smaller group. And we’re definitely going to be doing the work together. I am so excited to do this class with you and to do this group with you.

It’s just going to be phenomenal, the women that have joined so far are all amazing women that are so committed. So if you are committed to changing the intimacy in your life, not just for this year but for the next 30 or 40 years of your life then come join us. We would love, love, love to have you. As I said, the link is in the show notes, so just click on that and you can go over and just get some more information on the program and see if it’s something that you’d like to do.

And just as a side note I have not raised the price of this program in a number of years. And the price will be going up the next time that I offer it. So this is the last time to get it at this price. Okay, I’m looking forward to getting to know some of you in the intimate group. And for all of you, here is the second half of the impossible goals workshop. Enjoy yourselves, love you a lot, Diamonds.

                                                                                                                   

Okay, so I am recently separated and curious about being with new partners. How do I set goals around intimacy when I’m going to explore new partners and feel a lot of guilt around pursuing my desires? Yeah, so you’re feeling guilt right now around pursuing your desires. It would be important to look at what the thought is that’s generating the guilt because there’s some sort of thought that’s blocking you from pursuing and to enjoying the pursuit of your intimacy that you want and the new experiences.

So the first thing I would look at is what thoughts are coming up for you that’s leading to this guilt and being okay because this is part of your brain coming up with reasons why this is not going to work. And so we don’t sit there saying, “Oh, this is never going to work.” We just look at what our brain is telling us. Our brain is always trying to keep us safe. So your brain is coming up with a thought that’s leading to guilt, that’s trying to keep you safe. So what is the thought? So that’s the important question. What is the thought?

So let’s see, your goal is to explore sexual relations with new people safely for my own pleasure without guilt that I’m leaving my husband behind for someone else. So your thought is I’m leaving my husband behind for someone else. And it’s interesting that your thought is about your husband and not about yourself. And this is what we do often. We’re so focused on protecting other people and trying to make other people happy that we’re not focused on what it is that we actually want.

So the first part is you’d like to explore sexual relations with new people for your own pleasure. So that is about you. But then the guilt that you’re feeling is because you’re leaving your husband behind for someone else. You’re leaving your husband behind, you need to protect your husband. Yeah, so you get to decide what you want to think about this thought that I’m leaving my husband behind for someone else. Are you actually leaving your husband behind? Alright, this is a good question to ask yourself and is that thought helpful for you?

It’s my fault that we are separating and I’m responsible for my husband’s sexual happiness. Yeah, so that thought is in there that it’s my fault and I’m responsible for my husband’s sexual happiness. Your husband’s a separate human being. You’re not responsible for his sexual happiness and he’s not responsible for your sexual happiness. You get to decide how you two want to be. I mean that’s not the only reason probably for you two separating. So there’s a lot of things there and it doesn’t necessarily have to be your fault or the other person’s fault.

I know our society talks a lot about it’s somebody’s fault when people separate. Sometimes it’s just people grow apart so you get to decide how you want to think about this whole process. And she says, I’m afraid that I’ll make a mistake and mess it all up. You’re going to make a mistake so yeah, there is going to be some sort of mistake. Or you don’t have to look at it as a mistake, but you’re going to make a choice and then you may not like the result of that choice. And all you have to do is make a different choice.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be that place where you make a choice and you don’t like the result, that it means that you’re to blame and it’s your fault, and it’s your problem. Sometimes things like this just happen. So when you’re talking about your new goals, so what do you do with these thoughts? Yeah, so that’s a good question. So what do you want to do with these thoughts? Sometimes we want to jump over to the new thought. We want to get to the place where we feel comfortable. That’s okay.

We actually stay with these thoughts and we explore these thoughts. And this is for everybody that’s on the call. If you’re feeling uncomfortable with a thought, if you’re feeling guilty about something, write it down and look at it. Ask yourself, is this true, ask yourself, what do you want to do with these thoughts. Ask yourself, are these thoughts serving you. That’s a very important question, are these thoughts serving you.

For anyone that is going for a goal for this year, that emotional bully is going to come up that I mentioned, the judgment, the criticism, the shame, the guilt. Those are all what I call emotional bullies. They’re all going to come out and they’re all linked to a certain thought. If you’re feeling guilty like this person is feeling guilty, it’s because she feels that she’s responsible for her partner or her husband’s happiness, sexual happiness. And that she’s leaving him behind.

So this thought is making her feel guilty. It’s okay to have the thought, just look at it and ask if this thought is serving you and do the work around the thought. That’s all you have to do, okay, does that make sense? Ask more questions if you’d like to. Alright, and I want to make sure that I’m answering everybody.

Okay, here’s another person that’s saying, their intimacy goal for 2022 is initiating sex and being proactive. I love that, asking for what I want, speaking up and being able to discuss sex more with my husband. So that’s your goal, great. And you can call yourself intimacy girl if you want to or something like that so I know who you are. But I’m going to ask you some questions. So you want to initiate sex and you want to be proactive. Are you willing to have some failures in there? Are you willing to make mistakes?

This is the question, if you look in the workbook it talks about epic fails. Having 25 epic fails a quarter. Are you willing to have some epic fails? Are you willing to be like, “Well, that worked, and it didn’t work, it didn’t work well. I tried that and it didn’t work well.” Is that okay for you? If it’s not okay then do the work on that. What comes up when you try to initiate sex and you get a no? Because sometimes your partner may not be in the mood for sex.

What comes up when you ask for what you want but it’s not clear as to what you want, or your partner’s not able to give you what you want? What happens when you want to discuss sex but you get a little embarrassed and you don’t know what to think? So these things will happen.

Okay, so I’m hesitant because my hubby is critical. Thank you very much intimacy girl for saying that. This is very helpful. So your hubby is critical. So you have in your mind, thoughts around your hubby being critical. So let’s look at a situation. So the situation is I want to initiate. Initiating sexual intimacy with a husband that says things. He may be critical, he may be not. But we’re trying to make it as basic as possible. So you’re initiating sexual intimacy and husband has a response.

And so then you have a thought about that. And your thought right now is, I’m hesitant because my husband is critical. I’m hesitant because I’m going to say something and he might criticize me. And so that feeling is that you feel hesitant, maybe you feel scared or afraid. And then look at what actions you’re going to take from feeling hesitant or afraid. It’s likely that you’re going to not initiate as much as you want and you’re not necessarily going to end up with the goal that you want.

So you’re in a situation where you have a husband that’s critical. You can’t change your husband, he tends to be a critical person, it may be because he’s got underlying anxiety or something else going on. We don’t know. But he may criticize you. So the question becomes, how can you in the context if you have a husband that’s critical, how can you still go for your dreams and your goals? You get to decide if your husband’s words are going to affect you negatively or not.

So you get to decide, if you’re in this situation, you’d like to have intimacy, there’s a couple of things. Part of it is you can have conversations with your husband about this, but you also have to be in a place where you get to choose how you want to react to your husband’s criticism. You get to decide if hubby just gets to show up as hubby, because we can’t change hubby, but you want something different in your life. So how is it you can go for your goals, and go for that intimacy, and initiate, and be proactive, if you have a partner that tends to be more critical?

So this is what becomes a good question to ask as you do this work. How can I meet my goal? And your brain is going to say, “This is impossible, I have a critical husband, it’s never going to get better. I’m never going to be able to meet my goals because my husband’s critical.” I’m saying that you ask yourself, how do I meet my goals when I have a critical husband? So you get to decide, one, do you want to be in this situation? Do you want to engage in sexual intimacy in this situation where you have a critical husband?

If that’s the case then how do you do this? Because you’re not going to change your husband. So how do you do this work and get to a place where you get to achieve your goals in this situation? So those are some of the questions that you ask yourself. Because you don’t have control over your husband or the words that your husband says. You have control over how you want to respond to the words your husband say and what you want to do in that instance. So, intimacy girl, if you want to ask more questions or get more coaching, then just go ahead and ask about that as well.

I’m going to check out some more chat that we had here with more questions in it. Okay, this person’s goal is, I want to have my man touch me and want to have sex. But in the bedroom he won’t move. His knee hurts, his shoulder, I feel like I can’t relax, my mind is always going like I am going to get upset so it kind of bums up my mood. Okay, so you have a husband that – or a partner that has some limited mobility issues. So just like I was saying with intimacy girl, this is your reality. You have a partner that has these intimacy – excuse me, that has mobility issues and it limits things.

And so you would like to be touched more. You want to have more sex. And then the question becomes, how do we do this when we have somebody that has mobility issues? So your mind right now is telling you, I’m going to get upset. And this is not going to work out. I’m not going to be able to get the kind of sex that I want. These are the thoughts that are probably going through your mind. So the question becomes, okay, you have a partner that has knee problems and shoulder problems and you want a certain type of intimacy.

So how do you have to feel to do this work? Right now your mind is telling you it’s not going to work and you get bummed out. So your mood is that you get sad. So your mind is telling you something like I’m going to get upset. And so you get upset, you get sad. And then from that place of being sad, what happens? What happens? You probably don’t continue to take action and try and see how that works. So you get to decide how you actually want to think while you’re doing this work. We can’t change the fact that your partner has shoulder and knee issues.

But you still have a need and you still want the sexual intimacy. And you have a goal that you want to be touched a certain way. And you want to have sex. So this is a situation, how do we approach this, of this situation? That is the question. This is the question. Right now you’re approaching it from this place of saying, it’s not going to work, you’re getting bummed out. And then maybe you’re not even trying. But your goal is so important and you are allowed to have a goal, and you deserve to have this goal, and you deserve to work on it.

You are going to realize that there are going to be some trial and errors in this. This is where I’m talking about the trial and error comes in. And this is what becomes really important, the trial and error is going to happen here. Sometimes you’re going to try to have sex with this person and their shoulder’s going to bother them. And sometimes you’re going to try to have sex with this person and their knee’s going to bother them. And your mind, it’s going to say, “This is not working and I should give up.”

But if you don’t give up and you figure out how to accommodate the fact that the knee doesn’t work and the shoulder doesn’t work. And maybe it’s different positions, maybe it’s you on top, maybe if there’s an exploration, maybe there is conversation that goes on. How do you need to feel in order to approach this from a different perspective? That’s my question for you.

Okay, she’s saying, I would like to have sexual intimacy because we have been together for 15 years and he is an over the road truck driver, so I only have a small window of opportunity. Don’t know how to get to the point of relaxation and communicating with me. The last thing is, if he tries to pleasure me with a finger in me I cannot have a climax. Okay, so I guess one of my questions would be, there’s different ways to pleasure. So the finger’s not working. Is he able to have an erection with the mobility issues?

What other options are available to you? Are you two able to, or interested in using toys, and dildos, and different things like that? Because that can open up quite a bit of fun, and entertainment, and as much of a concern in terms of the mobility issue. So I guess, I would like to know, to what extent are you interested in toys? And to what extent are you interested in different positions? And then the original question which I had for you, which is how do you have to think about this to do this work?

Because this is the most important question is, how do you have to think to approach it? So that is a question that I would ask you.

Okay, let me see. Going back to ileostomy girl, she had something to say. I think my anxiousness also is from the words that a guy said to me when I told him about my pouch. He said in a text to me, “Nobody is going to want to have sex with an old bag lady.” I dumped him immediately. Yeah, I just realized that this comment is at the back of my mind still to this day. Yeah, you need to dump that comment along with that person. Whether you have an ileostomy or not, this person’s a jerk.

It’s just you’re lucky, you should be thanking your ileostomy because you might have stayed around with this person a little bit longer. And it might have taken you a little bit longer to find out that they’re a jerk. But because you have your ileostomy you’re probably going to attract more people that are caring, and kind, and nurturing, and more open and accepting. So your ileostomy might actually end up being the best thing to weed out assholes and jerks like this. But you get to decide if this is a comment that you want to keep in the back of your mind.

Is this comment helping you? Nobody’s going to want to have sex with an old bag lady. Well, first of all people have had sex with you before. So this comment is not even true. So you get to decide, is this thought serving you. And this is for everyone on the call, when these intrusive thoughts get into your mind, ask yourself, is this thought serving me? Is this going to help me find the partner that I want? So ileostomy girl, is this thought going to help you in any way? Is this a thought that you want to keep? Is this a thought you want to keep for 2022 or is there something else that you’d like to have instead?

So you get to choose if you want to keep that thought. If you don’t want to keep that thought, what’s a new thought that you could have?

Okay, so we have the truck driver and girl, the girl truck driver partner. So the questions that I would be asking you are, what is it that you need to think in order to do this work? So that’s a good question, in order to be willing to explore this, to have conversations. What exactly are your thoughts around toys? Because there’s a lot of ways to have fun with sexual intimacy especially when we’re talking about mobility issues. Then we get to figure out different ways to do this.

There’s different positions, maybe being on the side might be a better position. You do the spooning position, where you’re on your side and that might work better. So there’s different ways to look at it. But whatever actions you’re going to take, they are going to be based on what you’re thinking at the time. And if you’re thinking at the time, this is not going to work, I’m not going to get pleasure. The odds are your actions are going to reflect that and not necessarily lead to more intimacy.

Then also the thought that you only have a small window of opportunity. I would look at that thought also because it might be causing some anxiety as well. So those are the things to do.

Okay, we have a couple more. Let’s see. I want to meet someone who wants to know the real me first, get past the impression phase of the relationship and discover physical touch intimacy without going into immediate sexual encounter. So this person’s goal is that they want to meet somebody that wants to get to know them and wants to focus on the relationship and discover physical touch without going to a sexual encounter.

Yeah, so juicy fruit, you get to want whatever it is that you want. And you get to determine your boundaries and what are important for you. And you get to be clear. So in order to do this work and get this goal that you want which is to stay in the discovery phase, and the touch phase and stay there. What do you need to think and feel in order to stay in that place where you have the boundaries and you have your own back? If somebody’s like, “Okay, I touch for five minutes and now I’d like penetrative sex.” Or “Now I’d like to go and do something else.”

You get to be in a position to explain what it is that you want and what your boundaries are and what’s important to you. So how do you need to feel and think in order to do that work?

Right, okay, so a person that says, I’ve been married for 25 years and my husband was diabetic so we didn’t have sex for seven years. Now I’m in a new relationship so my goal is to just have sex again. I feel rusty so my goal is to confidently have sex. And she says, I’m not sure because I’ve become lazy I think. I’m excited but I have become complacent with not having to perform, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. I mean anything that you haven’t done for seven years and you’re starting something new, you have to kind of get back in the game.

So I see some thoughts that you had that you’ve become lazy and complacent because you haven’t had to perform. So look at those thoughts first of all and decide if those thoughts are serving you. I don’t know if you’re lazy as much as, you know, it’s something new that you’re going to have to try. And you’re not exactly certain how you want to go about doing that and that’s okay. It’s normal when you’re trying something you haven’t tried in seven years to come from a place where you have to kind of get back on the bike.

And there’s going to be some thoughts that your brain is going to come up with in terms of getting back to this place where you get to engage in sexual intimacy. So spend some time writing down what those thoughts are and figuring out for you what is it that you might need to focus on. Take your time, there’s no rush about this. You get to decide and for you this is important, this zone of sexual safety. What is it that you need so that you will have the zone of sexual safety? So that you will feel comfortable if you’re going to feel vulnerable.

Because there’s always a vulnerability component with sex. So what is it that you will need in order to feel safe so that you can do this work so you can get back on the bike? Get back on the horse and ride a little bit more, and that’s okay that it may take time to adjust. Decide what it is that you want.

Another person on this call is like, I want to spend some time touching and connecting with a person before I go straight to penetrative sex. You get to decide on your pace. So you get to decide your boundaries and what makes you feel comfortable. You can have discussions about this if you want to. So you get to decide what works for you and what makes you feel safe so that you can explore sexual intimacy.

And for all of you on the call, sexual intimacy, you get to decide what that means for you. For a lot of people it means penetrative sex but it doesn’t have to, it can be all different flavors of fun. It could be cuddling, it could be making out, it could be mutual masturbation. There’s so many different ways to express and to think of sexual intimacy. So some people think they have to jump straight to penetrative sex. You don’t have to. You can spend as much time as you want. It’s seven years, you have to get back into the game.

You can decide how fast you want to get back into the game. But you don’t have to judge yourself. I think there’s a little bit of an emotional bully going on here calling yourself lazy. I might be incorrect but I would look at that and decide if you’re actually lazy or if it’s just you just need to feel comfortable enough to do this work. And what thoughts and how do you want to feel in order to feel comfortable?

Okay, let’s see. In my first marriage I was really focused immediately on sex. It was all based on his pleasure, never mine. Yeah, I want to find out where the man’s head is towards giving me pleasure as well. Yeah, so it’s important to know what your partner is interested in terms of giving you pleasure as well. But I want you to recognize that it’s going to be equally important to find out where your head is towards making sure that you get the pleasure that you want because in your younger days with your first marriage, you were taught.

And society teaches women in general that we are sexual objects. We are here for the pleasure of other people. And so what you’ve discovered is that you want to be here for your pleasure. And that’s a 100% great. But there is where your partner’s mind is about sex, but you also have to recognize where your own mind is about sex. And at one point in your life you thought that it was all about their pleasure and not necessarily about your own pleasure. And now you’re at this place where you’re realizing it’s about your own pleasure.

And so yeah, take the time, take the time to do what is comfortable for you. Take the time and the boundaries so that you determine how to keep the focus on your pleasure. But ultimately you are responsible for your own pleasure and not necessarily your partner. And you’re definitely responsible for making sure you get your own pleasure. So this is definitely part of this whole thing.

Okay, well, we have been doing a really lot. I think that we have gotten everybody’s goal that’s on this call. Let’s see. Intimacy girl says, my hubby thinks that because I don’t initiate sex that I’m not interested and don’t desire him. He has a high libido and a lot more sexual experience than me. So he’s real specific about what he wants. I think I spend more time worrying about what he wants and his criticism. This could be why I don’t initiate more. He will speak up and I don’t. He wants me to talk more about sex with him.

Should I let him know that his criticism makes me hesitant to initiate sex? Is this the way to help me start discussing more sex with him? There’s a lot of different things that are going on here. You think that in some ways because your partner has more experience, that they might know more about sex and maybe their voice is stronger in this thing. So you get to focus on you.

So before you go and have a conversation with your partner, I suggest deciding what it is that you want. Maybe journaling and writing a little bit to find out what your wants are, what your needs are, what exactly. And then also to do some exploration of his criticism. And what are the exact words that he’s using that you find critical? I would look at that. And how you’re reacting to his criticism. Because he gets to say whatever he wants.

But if your ultimate goal is that you’d want to initiate more and you want to have more sexual pleasure. We need to focus on you and focus on how you’re responding to this criticism. And how you want to respond to this in the future. Yes, you can have a conversation with your partner about how that criticism makes you feel hesitant towards sex. But I think it’s more important to have that conversation with yourself as to what you’re making his criticism mean in your life. Because he can criticize as much as he wants and you can also choose to make that a deterrent.

Or come from a place where he’s going to say what he’s going to say, let me stop all the noise that’s around me and focus on what I want. And focus on what’s important to me. And when you become clear about what your boundaries are, what’s important to you. And honestly, I would spend more time with self-pleasure to learn what it is, how your body likes to be stimulated. And this is for everybody on the call, how your body wants to be stimulated is important as well because you learn a lot about yourself.

And then when somebody’s coming with criticism or whatever, it doesn’t matter as much because you’re not questioning yourself. You’re not questioning what you want and what you need because you know how your body responds and you know what you like. And then also it’ll be interesting, what you perceive as criticism as to, you can have a discussion with him in terms of the words that he says. If you just say criticism versus, you said this sentence.

But recognize that you’re responsible for how you react to whatever they do. So it’s not because he says something he makes it such that I don’t want sex anymore. It’s more like because he says a certain thing then you interpret it a certain way and then you are making a decision whether or not you want to have sex. But you are the one that’s in control of how you respond to the way he thinks. You’re the one that is in control in how you want to feel. And you’re the one that’s in control of if you want to be in this situation and you want to engage in sexual intimacy with this person.

So we don’t come from a place where we’re going to specifically change our partner’s criticism or whatever it is that they’re saying. But we do come from a place of how do we empower ourselves? So, intimacy girl, how do you empower yourself in order to do the things that you want to do in this world, whether or not he has something to say? And yeah, you can have that discussion with him but don’t make that the main focus being that his criticism is making me hesitant to initiate sex. That’s not the main focus.

The main focus is how do you empower yourself so that you get the sexual pleasure that you deserve.

Okay, I think that we’ve got most things here. So ileostomy girl is saying, thank you for saying that I need to look at my ileostomy as a positive. That will weed out the bad guys and show me the good guys who are sensitive and accepting of those of us who are a little different. That has really helped me tonight on this call.

Alright, everybody, it is so good having you on this call. This is the type of work that I do. And I just want to take a minute to tell you that Own Your Sexuality Now course, the Own Your Sexuality Now course, the intimate edition is open at this time. I’m enrolling at this point. And we start on January 19^th. I love Own Your Sexuality Now, the group, the intimate group is great because it’s a smaller group. And we do more one-on-one coaching. We do coaching in the group setting.

And just like we just did with this, everybody learns from each other. So when you come to the group, I love it because so much is learned from just seeing what is happening to other people and what they’re experiencing. And also recognizing that you’re not alone. So on January 19^th we start the group.

And we take you through this whole plan, so from the beginning of where you are right now sexually, so what you’re dealing with right now in terms of sexual intimacy, all the way through having a pleasure plan and a way to get through and to get to accomplish your goals that you want to accomplish in this next year. So for those of you that have goals, I am here for you. I would love to work with you and it’s a small group that we’re going to be going through sections.

We start from where you are right now, in terms of how you are as a sexual being and your identity as a sexual being. We look at low libido. We look at anatomy. We focus on pleasure. We look at body image, all of these different things that I have seen impacting women when they’re trying to do this work to achieve their sexual intimacy goals. We go and we look at prioritizing yourself and prioritizing your pleasure as well.

We get into the section called the sexual smorgasbord where we talk about all the different ways to create and define sexual intimacy for you. It’s really two pages full of all different activities that are possible. And we spend time looking at that. We talk about the toys. You can’t see it but I am surrounded by all different vibrators, and dildos, and all sorts of fun things. And so we talk about all the different toys.

And then we work on your plan. We work on scheduling sex. We work on prioritizing you. We’re working on figuring it all out so that by the end of the 12 weeks, the three months you have a plan in place and you have worked on this plan, and you’ve tweaked this plan. And you’re able to go through this process. And failure is not necessarily a problem. Yeah, so this is the work that I do. I would love to work with you. I’d love to make 2022 your year. So thank you all for coming to this.

And if you have any more questions feel free to reach out and it’s really been a pleasure having you. And I look forward to being with you doing this work throughout the year. Alright, have a great 2022 and take care everybody.

                                                                                                                   

Diamonds, have you wanted to work with me in a small intimate group? Well, this is your last chance, at least for probably a year or so. We’re finishing up enrollment for Own Your Sexuality Now Intimate Edition and orientation starts today. But it’s not too late. If you’d like to join us in the OYSN Intimate Edition which is a small group of committed women that want to work on their sexuality and dive deep into whatever intimacy issues are going on in their lives, then this is the program for you and I am the sex coach for you of course.

Come join me, Dr. Sonia, as we do the work together for the next 90 days. Click on the link in the show notes and look and see if this is a right fit for you. We start orientation this week, we would love to have you join us. The women in this group are amazing and I’m just so excited about the work that we’re going to be doing over the next 90 days. Come on, join us, we would love to have you. Diamonds, Dr. Sonia out.