Ep #5: Nurturing Your Thought Garden

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women Podcast, episode 5.

Female Announcer: 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. Once again it’s 5:00am and it’s just you and me and this cold Minnesota weather. So Minnesota, because we’re out more the northern hemisphere we have these beautiful long summer days. And in the winter we have really short winter days. That being the case, since our winter days are shorter, now that we’re in the fall it’s pitch black outside.

Normally around this time, it’s kind of bright in the summertime but now it’s kind of pitch black. And some people might be feeling sad about the changing seasons and the lack of the light outside, but actually for me it makes me pretty happy.

Happy for two reasons, one, because I’m a radiologist and I just like the dark, it makes me feel happy, and comforted, and warm. And some people even think I’m part vampire. But the other reason I like it is because we’re going into the winter. Winter is coming, for those of you that are Game of Throne fans, if you survive that finale. But we won’t even go there. But for those of you that are Game of Throne fans, winter is coming. And actually winter is one of my favorite times of introspection and transformation.

Winter is when I get the opportunity to go inside myself and work on my inner realm. It’s what I call my inner realm. It’s when I identify new thoughts and beliefs that I want to work on. I think of these thoughts as kind of like little seeds. During the winter I work on the garden where I want to plant these little seeds. And then in the springtime new creation and transformation occurs. I prepare to plant the dormant seeds so that they can bring forth transformation in the spring.

So today’s topic is all about this inner work, that inner realm that I like to do during the wintertime. So it’s about tending to my thought garden and nurturing the little seed beliefs that I want to grow into amazing beliefs later on.

So last week we talked about belief, we talked about envisioning your future and making that future a reality by believing. We go into the future, mentally we go into the future and we start feeling what it’s like to live that new reality.

For example, if we are going to look at improving your sexual intimacy in your life the first thing we have to do is spend some time thinking about what we want this new sexual intimacy to look like, what we want that to be in terms of an experience. We would go into the future of what our new sexual intimacy looks like. And we would hear the sounds, and the touches, and the feelings, how we would feel, especially the feelings. So what is the version of yourself who would be experiencing this new intimacy feeling? What is the new version of yourself in the future feeling?

It’s important to work on being in that feeling and that new sexual intimacy. Maybe the future you is feeling joy, maybe they’re feeling sensual, maybe they’re feeling pleasure and wholeness. Whatever it is, you feel that way now and then you begin to identify the thought that will put you in alignment with this feeling.

So we go to the future, we figure out what it’s like in the future, we figure out how we feel when we’re having that new sexual intimacy. Then we pop into our present time with that same feeling. And at that point we’re trying to think of what type of thoughts we would need to think that would align us with this feeling that we’re feeling. So what are the new thoughts that you would have to think in order to create this new sexual intimacy in your life?

So take some time to list out about five thoughts that might be in alignment with that feeling that you have with that new sexual intimacy. Those five thoughts that will get you closer to this new sexual intimacy, thoughts can be like I’m a sexual badass. Or maybe I create my own level of sexual intimacy. Maybe it’s I deserve, yeah, I love this one, I deserve this new sexual intimacy. I could have amazing sexual intimacy in my life. That’s another thought that I like, I can have amazing sexual intimacy in my life.

Now, choose one of the beliefs that really resonates with you and will ultimately get you to this new level of sexual intimacy. So you look at your five different thoughts and then you figure out which one really resonates with you and really is something that you would think and that would allow you to have that feeling. And that feeling is that same feeling that you would have if you were in your future badass sexual intimacy that you really want. So then what is it that’s in alignment that would really resonate with you?

Okay, now that you have that one belief, your one powerful belief, maybe the belief is I can have amazing sexual intimacy in my life. Now the question is how do you nurture that belief? And that’s what I want to talk to you about today. How do you create that thought environment to nurture that belief? And what exactly is a thought environment? What is this thought environment that must be in place to allow you to believe, and grow, and ultimately create the sexual intimacy of your dreams?

Let’s use a metaphor here, let’s think of the thought environment as a garden and your new belief as a seed, a sprouting seed. So you’re going to need to have a thought environment that’s conducive for nurturing the sprouting belief. Think of a thought environment as a combination of the soil, the sun, the water, the nutrients of a garden.

And think of the sprouting belief as the seed, like a beautiful audacious sunflower seed that will eventually grow into your amazing new thought. I can have amazing sexual intimacy in my life. That’s the thought that we decided that we’re going to focus on right now. Or at least that’s the thought I decided we are going to focus on right now. So each component of your thought environment or your garden is necessary for the growth of your sprouting belief. I call these individual components of your thought garden, or your thought environment, pre beliefs.

So pre beliefs are the equivalent of the individual components of a garden. So the sun is a pre belief, the water would be a pre belief, the soil, and the nutrients are part of your garden, they’re individual pre beliefs that come together to make your thought environment. So several of these pre beliefs come together to create your thought environment which then in turn will allow your sprouting belief to grow and become your amazing new sexual intimacy belief, which sprouts into that beautiful sunflower.

So let’s take some time to look at pre beliefs. Here are some examples of sexual intimacy pre beliefs that have helped me and my clients. Some might also say that these are foundational beliefs about sexual intimacy. They’re at least beliefs that I like to believe, and you might like to believe them too. So here are some suggestions about pre beliefs when it comes to sexual intimacy.

One, sexual intimacy is a healthy normal part of a relationship with myself and/or with others. Two, expressing and enjoying sexual intimacy is a basic human right. Three, I’m a sexual being. Four, sexuality is a normal part of my life. Five, sometimes sexual difficulties happen and that is okay. Six, sexual difficulties can be improved and even resolved. Seven, I’m exactly where I should be, nothing has gone wrong. Eight, sexual intimacy acts can change over time and that’s okay.

Nine, the focus of sexual intimacy is connection, satisfaction and pleasure. Ten, shame, blame and isolation detract from sexual intimacy. And I added in a bonus one because I’m all about the bonus. Eleven, communication and general intimacy are important for a thriving sexual intimacy.

So those are my pre beliefs or pre beliefs that I often work with, with my clients to make a foundation. That thought environment, or that thought garden in which I can plant that new belief that we want to work on to get to that new level of sexual intimacy.

So when you are thinking about your own pre beliefs you might want to use some of these pre beliefs that I mentioned before. But you might also have your own pre beliefs about sexual intimacy. And you might want to cultivate some new pre beliefs before you plant your sprouting seed. So that being the case here are some questions that you might ask yourself to establish your own pre beliefs. That question might be what pre beliefs do you currently have which will be helpful in creating this new sexual intimacy of your dreams?

And another question, kind of the opposite one, but an important one, what pre beliefs do you currently have which will not be helpful in creating this new sexual intimacy of your dreams? Now, these non-helpful pre beliefs may be something like the sexual intimacy in my life is never going to change. It’s never going to get better. I’m not a sexual being. I can’t express myself sexually.

Or maybe it’s some really early pre beliefs, some really deep ones like sex is bad, or girls that engage in sex are naughty girls, and not in the fun kind of naughty, but are bad girls. Or maybe there are some negative words or connotations that you have associated with sex and sexual intimacy. Those would be pre beliefs that are not necessarily going to help you. Those would be pre beliefs that if they remain in your garden could poison your seed. Those could be weeds that will grow and choke out your new belief.

So you’d want to look at these pre beliefs that you had that would not necessarily nurture your seed, or your sprouting seed of new belief, your new thought. It’s not necessarily going to nurture your new thought. So some of your pre beliefs might need to go, you might have to say goodbye to some of these pre beliefs.

And then the last question is what pre beliefs will you need to create and plant, or put in your garden to make part of your garden so that you can plant your sprouting belief and grow it? So you basically have pre beliefs that you already have, that are nurturing, and kind, and good for your sexual intimacy and you would keep those. You have pre beliefs in your garden which are more like weeds, or even poison and are not helpful. And those ones you’re going to have to get rid of.

And then you’re going to ask yourself, what new pre beliefs do I need to put in there? And maybe you’ll go back to my original list of pre beliefs that I suggested. And maybe you might adopt some of those pre beliefs and make that part of your garden. So what do you have that you want to keep? What do you have that you want to get rid of? And what would you like to add to your garden? So put those pre beliefs all together.

So now that you’ve pondered your pre beliefs, let’s spend the next week cultivating your garden, your thought environment. We’re just going to spend the next week looking at your garden, not necessarily planting your new thought yet, your new belief yet.

We’re just going to get your garden ready. We’re going to make sure it has the nutrients in it. We’re going to fertilize it. We’re going to do the – I don’t know, I’m not a gardener, so the hoeing to aerate it. We need to aerate your garden. We need to make sure that there’s a good water source there. We need to plant your garden in a place where there’s good sunshine. So we’re going to get your garden ready basically.

So let’s spend the next week cultivating your garden, your thought environment. We’re going to identify the new pre beliefs and incorporate them into your current beliefs to create your foundational thought environment. Your thought environment is your garden in which you will plant and grow that one sprouting belief to create the amazing sexual intimacy of your dreams.

So why don’t you list out all the pre beliefs that you want to incorporate into your thought environment, into that garden. Just list them out now, take a look at them and spend time with this list over the week. Read your list of pre beliefs to yourself over the next week. And when your week is up, it’s time to plant that amazing belief. It’s time to plant that in your garden and start focusing on that one powerful belief. It’s time to water that belief. It’s time to give it nutrients. It’s time to give it the sunshine.

And the water, the nutrients, the sunshine, those are all your pre beliefs that will surround that sprouting belief and allow it to grow into that amazing sexual intimacy.

So we’ve talked a lot about all the different steps. Let’s put it all together now. So we are talking about belief. We talked about it last week. And we’re going a little deeper into it this week. So we’re getting ready to believe and getting ready to believe requires us to look at our sexual starting point and evaluate what we like and don’t like. Then we go to our future and we think about our amazing new sexual intimacy. What would it feel like to have this new sexual intimacy? What would we experience if we were having that amazing sexual intimacy?

Then it’s a matter of starting to align your present situation where we are right now with our sexual intimacy to your new sexual intimacy that you want to create, by creating new thoughts or new beliefs. You might want to write down five new thoughts, new beliefs. And then identify that one thought that you would like to think, that one thought that’s going to be pivotal in creating your new sexual intimacy. That is going to be your sprouting belief. Congratulation, you now have your sprouting belief.

Now, let’s create that thought environment, that garden that you’re going to plant your sprouting belief and allow it to flourish. So let’s fill up that thought environment with lots of healthy pre beliefs about sexual intimacy. Let’s spend some time getting to know our new thought environment. Let’s spend some time identifying our pre beliefs that we want to keep, the pre beliefs we don’t want to keep, and the new pre beliefs that we want to put there. So we’re going to put all these pre beliefs together and we’re going to create our garden.

And then we’re going to spend the next week looking at this garden, looking at our pre beliefs, and solidifying that, making that the foundation. Making that what we need in order to grow our new belief, our sprouting belief.  And when you’re week is up, it’s time to plant that new belief, that sprouting belief, and it’s time to nurture it. And it’s time to support it in your new thought environment. Pay attention to your new belief. Practice believing this new sprouting belief. Appreciate the feeling that is generated through thinking this new belief.

And finally, lean into the work that must be done in order to create your ultimate result, which is your new sexual intimacy.

Okay Diamonds, there we have it. What you can do for belief, and pre belief, and creating your thought environment and planting that new belief that’s going to lead you on your journey to your new sexual intimacy. That’s all for this week, Diamonds. I will see you next week. Dr. Sonia out.

And to celebrate the launch of the Midlife Sex Coach for Women Podcast I’m going to be giving away a $50 Amazon gift card to five lucky listeners who subscribe, rate and review the show on Apple Podcast. It doesn’t have to be a five star review, although I would really love it if it were a five star review. But more importantly, I want your honest feedback so I can create an amazing show that provides tons of value.

Visit www.soniawrightmd.com/podcastlaunch to learn more about the contest and how you can enter. I’ll be announcing the winners on the show in an upcoming episode. Okay, that’s all for now, see you next time Diamonds.

Female Announcer: Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of the Midlife Sex Coach for Women Podcast. If you enjoy Dr. Sonia’s fun and caring approach to sexual intimacy, head to soniawrightmd.com to learn more.