Ep #47: Your Sacred Journey

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women™ Podcast, episode 47.

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.

Good morning Diamonds. And I do mean morning because I am recording this podcast at 3:00am in the morning. I can’t sleep right now. I’m still dealing with my jetlag stuff and oh well, well I decided I would be productive since I couldn’t sleep. I figured I would at least work on my podcast and connect with you all. And so here I am at 3:00am talking to you. And apparently at 3:00am is when I become very philosophical. I’m reflecting back on my trip to Hawaii and realizing it was really a metaphor for life in general.

As I mentioned before I wanted to go to Hawaii to see what it would be like to run my business from there. So, living in Minnesota the winters, I don’t have to even tell you this but the winters can get really hard and very cold and periodically I need a break. Usually around January, beginning of February you have to go somewhere else for a week to the see the sunshine and to feel a little warm and get that warmth kind of soaking back into your bones a little.

So, I decided what better place than retreating to Hawaii to figure out if I could run my business from there. So that I would be ready in January when the time to came to escape from Minnesota basically. So, I took a three week work vacation period of time in Hawaii to see if it would be feasible to do it later on.

Well, the trip to Hawaii was far from perfect, let me just tell you. The Wi-Fi system did not work properly for my meetings and my private client sessions, even my backup system because I was smart enough to get a hotspot and even my backup system failed initially. I did get that sorted out but it did have to be replaced. Also, I had a few health challenges while I was there as well as a family emergency. And I even broke up with my partner while I was there as well. So, it was not exactly how I had planned it to be. It was not the trip in paradise that I expected.

And I honestly needed a vacation from my vacation by the time I got back. And as a result of this trip, I made some key decisions about my health, about my business and about relationships in general. And as a result of that I’m healthier than I’ve been in years. My business is doing great. My family ties are stronger than ever.

And I’ve developed a new amazing and deeper relationship with myself as I focus on prioritizing on my own needs above other people’s needs which is of course what I tell you all to do, Diamonds. So, I’m listening to some of my own advice. So, when I look at the results of the Hawaii trip I’m amazed.

In a three week period of time so much was accomplished and so many things were clarified in my life. But when I was in the middle of the trip it felt like it was a complete disaster. Each couple of days I felt like a new emergency had developed that I had to deal with. I felt like I was constantly putting out fires. But when I reflect back upon the trip I see how the events were perfectly aligned for me to be able to make the right choices in all different areas of my life.

And I can see how the journey was not what I expected it to be but it was exactly as it was meant to be. So many issues were resolved and the events of the trip seemed to all align to line up for my highest good. There seemed to be a synchronicity to the events. And the overall trip was sacred and aligned with my highest needs.

Of course, the trip started me thinking about other sacred journeys in my life and sacred journeys in most people’s lives. When I look at each of my own past sacred journeys, the events of the journeys, they always seem perfectly aligned. I didn’t have control over the events but they all worked out exactly as they were meant to work out in the end. So, this term, sacrednicity came to mind.

And I don’t know if I exactly is the first one to coin it but sacrednicity for me is this concept that events happen not necessarily as you would like them to happen. But more so in alignment with your higher needs. And then the fact that the overall process is a sacred journey. But if you were to look at events in your life you would probably discover this sacrednicity too. And there is sacrednicity in our sexual journey as well. I know, I know but just bear with me on this one, just hang in there.

And let’s start by identifying the breaking point in your life, the point where you said no more, that something had to change, that you were no longer going to tolerate this type of sexual intimacy in your life any longer. Look at that point. You’re at a different place in your journey now from that breaking point. But look back to that breaking point and then let’s actually go further back even before that breaking point moment. Let’s go back to the months or maybe in the years where you were tolerating the dissatisfaction that you were having with your sexual intimacy.

Let’s go back to the time when you were living with the sexual intimacy that was kind of draining away or dying. Maybe there is a series of events that disconnected you from your body or from your partner. Maybe events like a new job responsibility, new babies, lack of communication between you and your partner, maybe an affair actually happened. Possibly a health crisis or maybe a divorce. Whatever the event or the events were, reflect back on them but not necessarily with a negative perspective or from a place of resisting the event, but more so from a place of acceptance.

What would it take to view this event as neutral, as a neutral event, or maybe even, let’s say even a blessing in your life? So, if we just look at the events in isolation we might tell ourselves that event should not have happened, for example, if a partner had an affair. You might say this is not supposed to happen but it did in fact happen. So, when we spend our time approaching the situation with anger, frustration, resentment, denial, that’s our choice.

Or we could look at the overall picture and recognize that this event is going to play a major role in our life, in our sacred journey and how we develop. Maybe the affair would force us to see the sexual intimacy issues and the disconnection from our partner that nobody in the relationship was talking about. Or maybe the affair would force you to confront your belief that sex was not really a priority in your life and could wait for another time.

Maybe the affair would force you to look at the belief that you were no longer sexy or reveal some underlying thoughts that you had about your body image. Whatever the event or the chain of events first know that it was meant to happen this way. And we know it was meant to happen this way because it did happen this way. And ultimately it happened for your own good and to put you on the sacred journey.

So, let’s talk about the sacred journey for a second. One thing I do know about a sacred journey is that it’s usually a journey that no one really wants to go on. There’s not too many people that are sitting there going, “Me, me, me, I want to go through hardship, and pain, and growth, or whatever. I want to do this.” Sometimes you can get to that point in your life with a lot of mind work but usually at the beginning it doesn’t go that way.

If you’re given the choice most people would opt out of the journey. We would say, “No, I’m good, I’m alright over here, situation’s not too bad. I think I can wait a while before doing anything about this. I’ll just wait and see what happens, it’ll be okay.” We kind of look down that journey path and we see emotional pain, we see growth, we see hard work. It just does not look like that’s where we want to go. And we say, “I’ll just stay over here.”

This is why the sacred journeys often start with some sort of emergency situations. There might have been signs previously but we kind of ignored those signs because we knew that it was going to be some hard work that we’d have to do. We’d have to have some hard conversations. We’d have to feel some difficult emotions. So, we put it off as long as we can until it gets to an emergency situation. And then that emergency situation kind of forces us to go down the path that we did not want to go down.

We get to that place where we generally don’t have a choice if we’re going on this journey or not. So first know that the sacred journey usually cannot be opted out of. And the longer we delay going down the path the more urgent the situation gets. Whether we want to or not there’s a lesson that is meant to be learned. And one way or another we are going to learn it.

So, once we start down this path of our sacred journey then we’re in the middle of the emotional muck. And it’s really difficult to believe that things are going to get any better. When you’re in the middle of it maybe your heart is breaking. You’re just in it. If I go back to that example of the affair then part of the journey is encountering our thoughts. And it’s also encountering and feeling the feelings. So, there might be thoughts like this is not supposed to happen his way.

There might be thoughts all about the things you could have done or you should have done. But also remember in the middle of this that we can’t control any other person’s actions or decisions. So, the fact that a partner had an affair, we can’t actually control that situation. And then there’s other thoughts about the relationship and how it has to end since an affair has happened. And that’s also a choice that you get to choose about. So, there’s lots of relationships that continue and that actually even thrive after an affair so it’s not necessarily a dead end.

But sometimes society says if your partner has an affair then it’s time to leave your partner and it’s time to end the relationship but you get to choose that. But when you’re right in the middle of the sacred journey it’s okay, it’s okay. And there’s going to be feelings. You’re going to have to confront or feel those feelings. So maybe the feelings are anger and frustration, a feeling of betrayal, maybe shame and embarrassment if other people know about it. These are usually uncomfortable feelings and uncomfortable thoughts.

And it’s best if we write down the thoughts so we can evaluate them. And it’s important to just feel all the feelings and stay in the muck. I know, it does not feel comfortable or good to be in the muck. But the muck is exactly where you’re supposed to be. If we decide to buffer at this point because the emotions feel too raw, or there’s too much discomfort then we’re basically authorizing a longer sacred journey. And also, when we’re in a state of denying our feelings or buffering then we’re also not processing our emotions.

And these emotions don’t magically disappear if we’re not feeling them. They are trapped in our body somewhere. And they often manifest as stress and illness, and if they stay trapped in our body long enough, possibly disease. And usually at some point the sacred journey requires a release of these emotions, a processing of these emotions, an acknowledgement of these emotions to get back to the healing process.

So, another thing to note if we’re talking about the sacred journey, it’s all about the lesson that’s meant to be learned along the way. It’s not about the length of the time of the journey. It’s what we are learning during this journey. So, you get to decide if it’s going to be quick and that you’re going to rip off the band-aid and feel all the emotions and deal with all the thoughts. And ripping off the band-aid and doing this journey quicker may look like staying in all your feelings and journaling and doing all the thought work.

It may look like raging if you have to and crying when you need to. But I do want to remind you that it does not look like beating yourself up with shame, or blame, or any emotional bullying. So, you can choose for a quick journey or you can choose for a longer one. So, your sacred journey can take longer if you decide to sprinkle in a dose of buffering.

You know buffering, it’s that Netflix binging, that doughnut eating, that Facebook scrolling, that online shopping land. It looks so wonderful over there. Everybody looks like they’re having so much fun over in the buffering zone. But when they’re over in that buffering zone, you’re just seeing the fun on the outside. You’re not seeing the turmoil on the inside and the fact that they’re trying to avoid feeling the emotions.

It’s kind of like the detour stop on the sacred journey. And this detour stop, you kind of get waylaid. It’s where we get a temporary dopamine hit. And you know what? It’s not always the worst place to be sometimes. We don’t always have to rip off the band-aid so fast. Sometimes it’s okay to go to buffering land for a little while. Sometimes a little rest in the buffering zone is what’s needed. But at some point you’re going to have to get up again and start back down that sacred path.

So, a final thing to note about the journey is if this lesson is not learned then you’re destined to repeat it again and again. You don’t get to avoid this journey. It’s kind of like before you came into this world you made a decision that you wanted to learn something in this life, that you had a purpose and that there is lessons that you wanted to learn in this life.

And this life is going to give you the circumstances to allow you to go down that sacred journey to learn that lesson. But if you choose not to do it at this time you will be choosing it in a different way. So, it’s important to understand that you don’t get to avoid this journey. This lesson that you’ve chosen or maybe you didn’t choose it, but the lesson that you need to learn is necessary because it will help you evolve to your next level, your next self.

So usually, you evolve to your 1.5 level version of your future self during the middle of the journey, when you’re in the middle of the muck. And as you reflect and process on your journey and the lessons that you learned on the journey then you kind of up-level to your 2.0 version of yourself. And your next level version of you is the one that’s necessary in order for you to accomplish the next phase of your life.

So, if you don’t go through the muck, if you don’t learn the lesson, if you don’t evolve to this next version of yourself then you can’t take that person on their next journey, or the next phase of the life, or the next success or accomplish that you want to do in your life. So, you are always meant to go on this journey because it’s the only way to up-level to your next super self. So, let’s get back to that point where you’re in the middle of it all.

So right now, you’re in the middle of the sacred sexual journey, whatever events that have brought you to this place are exactly as they’re supposed to be. Any emotions that you’re feeling that you’re grappling with are what you are supposed to be feeling. You get to decide what’s the next best step for you on this journey. You might want to look at the end result that you want to manifest in your life and choose the thoughts that are going to get you closer to that end result. This is your journey, it does not matter on the circumstance.

You get to decide and create the results that you want based upon your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions. And we know, those are the only things that we can control in this journey. So, you’re in the middle of your sacred journey. Who do you want to be on the other side? What do you want to create on the other side. What is the lesson that you might need to learn during this journey? Remember everything that happened was meant to happen and it is all perfectly aligned.

Your sacred journey was created just for you to learn your life lessons. So, accept the journey, honor your sacred journey, honor your sacred sexual journey. Honor the path that you’re on right now, it’s okay to be stuck in the middle in the muck, you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. Make that choice, walk down that path and create the amazing sexual intimacy that you deserve.

Okay Diamonds, that’s all for this week. Lots of love. Take care. Dr. Sonia out.

Diamonds, how is your sex life? No, really, how is your sex life? On a scale of one to ten how would you rate it? You know I’m all about the intimacy for women in midlife. If you rated the passion in your life as less than an eight then we need to talk, sister. I’m personally inviting you to check out my new program, Your Empowered Sexuality 30 day kick starter. I am so excited about this program. Most of you know that I have an impossible goal to positively impact the sex lives of over a million women. And I am just getting started.

Come work with me for 30 days to kick start that intimacy in your life. Let’s create that amazing, satisfying, intimacy that you deserve. Let’s face it, if you’re in your 40s, 50s or 60s, you could have 30 to 50 more years of intimacy ahead of you. What do you want that intimacy to look like? Let’s get real and talk about what’s going on with your body, your libido, let’s see what we can do to kickstart this intimacy. This program is for you whether or not you have a partner.

If you are a woman who wants to enjoy all aspects of her life then this is the program for you. It finally gets to be your time. So, click on the link in the show notes or on my website at soniawrightmd.com and come join me for Your Empowered Sexuality aka YES, Your Empowered Sexuality 30 day kick starter. I cannot wait to see you Diamond, talk to you soon. Take care.