Ep #64: Stepping Into Your Sexual Power: Implementation

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women™ Podcast episode 64.

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, hello, hello Diamonds. How are you all doing today? We are going to be continuing our series on stepping out in our sexual power. But first before we get started I just want to take a moment to do two things. First of all, I just got off the phone with my dad and I just need to give a shout out to him. So, dad, this is your shout out. I love you so much. And honestly, Diamonds, it’s a little freaky to be talking about sex and knowing that your dad is listening to you.

I mean, yes, I am the Midlife Sex Coach for Women. But at the same time I’m like, “Oh my goodness, my daddy is listening to my conversations about sex.” But he says that he’s so proud of me and he’s doing what he wished that he had the opportunity to do. So it’s fun, it’s kind of going full circle. So as I sit here imagining my dad in Maine listening to my podcast, I’m going to try not to be self-conscious as I sit and talk about sex. But anyway, daddy, this is your shout out. I love you very much. And thank you for all the love and support that you have given me.

And yeah, I’m going to continue to do my work and your work too, love you so much. Alright, and the second thing that I want to do is just to say how thankful to each and every one of my Diamonds. As I sit here celebrating thanksgiving with my family and friends, I’m really reminded of all the blessings in my life. I’m actually living the life of my dreams right now. And there’s so many things for me to be thankful for during this time, my children, my family, my partner, my titty bangs.

But really I want to say thank you to all of you for allowing me to be in your lives and trusting me to help you embrace your sexuality. I’ve really been blessed to connect with so many of my Diamonds over the last year. And all of this is possible because of you. So thank you so much. And I love my Diamonds so much and I love connecting with you and I was thinking, what could I give my Diamonds in this holiday season that would last throughout 2022. How could I help them with their sexual goals?

And my mind jumped to my Own Your Sexuality Now program which I called OYSN. So my OYSN is my 12 week program where we take a deep dive into our sexuality. Whether you’re partnered or single, I help you get unstuck by guiding you through the steps from wherever your starting point is all the way through to creating a pleasure plan for you. I just like saying that, a pleasure plan for you. And you get to consistently tap into your sexual power. This is what this is all about is creating this pleasure plan for you so that you get to consistently tap into your sexual pleasure.

It just doesn’t get better than that. And honestly, it’s been about a year since I opened enrolment in my Own Your Sexuality Now program. It’s helped hundreds of women embrace their sexuality with this program. And I’m going to open up for enrolment again for the January 2022 cohort. I’m going to open it up starting now. And I’m going to open enrolment through the month of December. And then at the beginning of January we’re going to start. But this time I’m going to do things a little different. I’m actually going to do it very different from my prior programs.

Usually OYSN is kind of webinar style without about 40 or 50 women in each cohort. But this time I want it to be an intimate group. I want it to be much smaller. And I want to make this group a small group for only about 20 women. Yeah, we’re going to still use anonymous names. But I’d like to foster a closer bond between myself and the Diamonds in the program, and also between each member of this cohort. And I’ve found that women connecting with other women is the best part of my groups.

My Diamonds realize that they’re not alone in the sexual awakening journey. And I promise to create a safe place where we can all relax and laugh together, and explore what sexuality and pleasure is about for us. We’re also going to be reading, Becoming Cliterate by Dr. Laurie Mintz. She’s just fabulous. And I love this book. And I wanted an intimate setting where I could read this book with my clients. And so over the 12 weeks we’re also going to be doing that as part of the book study.

And of course, Coach Donna Jennings who you’ve been hearing talking, me and she talking back and forth in the empowering conversations. And also Coach Monet Marcia, she is also in my Own Your Sexuality program and in my YES program. And you’re going to be seeing more of her. I’m actually going to have her on the podcast pretty soon so that you get to know her as well. So both Coach Donna and Coach Monet are in my program and they do my general life coaching and also some sex coaching as well.

And not to mention, Evelyn Resh who is amazing. And she comes into the program. And she handles all your sexual health questions. So this program, Own Your Sexuality Now, the January cohort is going to be just an amazing special group of women. And because it’s only going to be 20 of us it’s really going to be as close as you’re going to get to be working with me week, after week, after week and not specifically being a private client of mine. And the best part of the January 222 cohort is that it is going to be at the 2021 price.

So this is the last group that’s going to get this program at the price of 1,997. So it’s a more intimate group. You’re going to really have a special time with me. It’s going to be 1,997 because starting in 2022 I’m actually going to be increasing the price to 2,997. But for this cohort that starts in January that I’m selling at this point in time, it’s 1,997. And so that’s the lowest price that it’s ever going to be. And yes, payment plans are available. As far as I’m concerned being financially accessible in a program is very important to me.

Also for every 10 women that sign up for this course, I’m also offering one woman a scholarship for the January 2022 cohort. So this scholarship is named after my amazing niece, Paige, who is like a bright light that left this world way too soon. And actually her birthday is this week. So she’s definitely on my mind. And I’ve had two past recipients of the Paige Huck scholarship program and I’d love two more in the January 2022 cohort. So I’m looking for my biggest fans.

If you’re my biggest fans and you want to work with me in an intimate group setting then this is your opportunity. I want to connect with you. I want to spend 12 weeks getting to know you, and helping you, and guiding you on your sexual journey. So come let’s do this together, join me in the January 2022 cohort. And let’s start you on your sexuality and this year just make it an amazing year in 2022.

Okay, Diamonds, enough about Own Your Sexuality Now, you’re going to definitely be hearing about it a little bit more. But I’m going to switch into what we’re going to be talking about this time around. So we are talking about stepping into your power. And we talked about asking and initiating. Now I want to talk about implementing. So I want to talk about implementing because it’s come to my attention that when people finish asking and initiating then they kind of ask themselves, what now, what do we do now?

They kind of slide back into their old ways that they don’t know exactly what the next step is and how it is supposed to look. So I’m like, you know what? It’s time to talk to you a little bit about the implementation step. So what exactly is implementation? Implementation is a process of putting a plan or decision into effect. It’s the execution part of it. And this is really I think the main part of stepping into your own sexual power is having this understanding that you can make a decision, you can plan it out.

You can shape your sexual intimacy life. You can make it anything that you want and you get to implement it. And so we’re going to be talking about the implementation process. But first off, I am a life coach. I am always going to be a life coach. So I’m going to talk to you about your thoughts and your feelings. So how do you want to feel when you start this process? Also when you’re thinking about how you want to feel, think about the fact that you have to keep in mind that any success is going to be built on a pile of attempts.

Some of these attempts are going to be successful and others of these attempts are not going to be quite as successful. You could call it a failure or you could just say not as successful. So how do you want to feel as you’re starting this process of implementation? And how do you want to think about this implementation journey? When I ask this question, I feel like I’m putting on an invisible thinking cap.

So for implementation we’re all going to be putting up all the tools that we’ve used before and all the tools that we’ve learned on prior podcasts. We’re going to be putting it all together. And I’m just going to talk you through a couple of these things.

So first off, I know you know this, I know you know you know this. But I’m still going to say it to you. Allow the process to take as long as it’s going to take. So this goes back to allowing. Allowing everything doesn’t have to be perfect. Allowing the fact that it’s going to take as long as it’s going to take, allowing the fact that it’s not going to perfect. And it actually is going to be perfect at the same time. It’s perfect in its imperfection. And as I said before, allowing you get back to that mindfulness. You get back to that place where you just kind breathe and allow.

You don’t have to control every situation. You just get to see what unfolds. Yes, you can make choices but if it doesn’t turn out exactly the way you think it’s going to turn out don’t worry about it. Just recognize you can make another decision at that point. And you can allow the process to be whatever process it’s going to be and take whatever time that it’s going to take.

The next thought that I have about implementation, small progress is good. It does not have to be leaps and bounds. I know when you start this process you’re like, “This is it. We’re going into 2022, this is going to be the year of my sexual intimacy journey. This is going to be amazing. I’m all in. I’m pushing forward.” And then here comes Dr. Sonia with a sign that says, stop, small progress is good. I’m not trying to hear that but I’m still going to say it. You don’t have to listen, that’s okay, but I’m still going to say.

Sometimes you do make leaps and bounds and sometimes it’s small progress and it’s all good. If you’re in the case where you’re dealing with anxiety, performance anxiety, and you’re thinking, I’m taking too long to have an orgasm, maybe a small step is just noticing the thought. It’s not, I have to fix this thought right now. Just notice whenever you have that thought and recognize it. And maybe the next time when you notice that you’re having the thought then you’ll slide back into your body instead of being in your mind.

And maybe you’ll allow your performance to be whatever it’s meant to be. And maybe then you focus on yourself and your pleasure. And it may take lots of little steps. So small progress is still progress and it still leads you towards where you want to go. So please do not berate yourself and do not berate the process. And do not insult the process is really what I’m trying to say. It gets to be whatever process and journey that it’s meant to be. So this is also going back to allow the process to take as long as it’s going to take and then small progress is good.

And small progress is usually more lasting than something that happens really quickly. So there’s nothing wrong with small progress.

Okay, the third thing, expect it to go forward and backward. Some progress is forward, some progress not so much and that’s okay as well. No progress is always in one direction, just forward. I know that you’re like, “What exactly is she saying?” This is basically all success is built on a pile of failure. There’s going to be some things that work and there’s going to be other things that don’t work.

And how we figure that out is basically observing, trying something, seeing if it works, if it doesn’t work trying something else. But recognize, sometimes you’re going to go forward and sometimes it’s not going to be successful and you’re going to go back. Or sometimes you’re going to try something new and then you’re going to slide back into your old ways.

Maybe you’re going to say, “Okay, we’re going to engage in sexual intimacy and we’re going to do this, this, this and this.” And then you find yourself kind of avoiding going into the bedroom, avoiding having the fun that you scheduled. And then you want to start beating yourself up. That’s not going to happen on my watch. So understand that nothing is perfect.

There is going to be some things where you’re moving forward and then there’s going to be other things where you feel like it’s not working the way you want it to and that you’re kind of sliding backwards a little bit. Do not worry about that. As always focus on the fact that you’re responsible for your own sexuality and your own pleasures. So keep that in mind. No matter what is going on, you are responsible for your own sexuality and for your own pleasure.

So when you want to get into somebody else’s mind and think of somebody else, what they should be doing, or feel guilty that you’re not meeting somebody else’s needs, or you’re not focused on somebody else’s pleasure. Remind yourself that they get to focus on that pleasure and you get to focus on yourself. And all these things that I’m saying is for a person that is partnered or not partnered. If you’re partnered with yourself, you know how I like to say that everybody is solo partnered.

So if you’re partnered with yourself you still have a responsibility for your own sexuality. You’re meant to be a sexual person. So if you’re solo partnered you get to do this exploration for yourself. And this is also your responsibility is to get to know your body and to recognize the pleasure comes from you. It’s not you waiting to see if you’re going to get a partner or not. But it’s you exploring your body and enjoying yourself right now. It’s that time and it’s your responsibility to have that date night with yourself.

It’s your responsibility to treat yourself right. It’s your responsibility to have the bath with the candle lights, whatever it is that you need to get in the mood. It’s your responsibility to go and check out OMGyes and to look into masturbation. It’s your responsibility not in a bad way and I don’t mean to get anybody worked up here. But you get to have fun with this. So whether you’re partnered or not, this still is about your sexuality and your journey and this gets to be fun. You don’t have to be too worked up about this but you get to have fun along this process.

Okay, here’s one of my favorite ones, conversations, especially those hard conversations. You’re going to have to continue to have conversations. It’s not that one and done that everybody thinks that, oh, thank goodness, I’m going to talk to them about sex and it’s going to be done. Or it’s all going to work out exactly how I want them to do whatever it is I want them to do and we’ll never have to have this conversation again.

Let me just tell you, if I can say anything, I’m going to tell you that when you start working on your sexuality it never ends. And this is a good thing. Your body’s always changing, your lifestyle is changing. Things are different. That being the case your conversations are going to continue around sex and sexuality. And the good thing is that you’re going to get more comfortable talking about sex. You’re going to get more comfortable figuring out how to be a sexual being well into your 80s, 90s and beyond that.

Whether things are working or they’re not working, you still get to figure this out for you so that the touch is still there, the pleasure is still there, the connection is still there. These are the important things. And these are the things that are going to continue and it’s going to require that conversation.

Now, you know what I always say about conversations. When we’re busy not wanting to have a conversation because we don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings, or because it’s going to be awkward, or whatever it is that comes to mind. And this is where you get to put your thinking cap on again. What is it that your mind is telling you in terms of what you would like to have a conversation about and the reason why you’re not having that conversation with your partner or with yourself? Sometimes you need to have a conversation with yourself and you don’t want to deal with reality.

What is it that is making you start from having that conversation? Write it down. And then spend some time looking, seeing where you are right now. And you’ll find that the discomfort that you’re in right now is equal to the discomfort that you will feel by having the conversation. But the difference between these two discomforts is that you can actually progress and do something with the sexual intimacy and improve the sexual intimacy in your life if you actually go ahead and have these conversations as opposed to avoiding them.

And then also recognizing that it’s not going to be one and done. You’re probably going to have more than one conversation. And it’s okay to have this conversation because in the end you two will get closer or you will get closer to yourself and you’re going to enjoy sexual intimacy more. At the beginning it’s always hard to have these conversations. But if you recognize, if you’re partnered and you recognize that you two are working towards this as a team it gets easier all the time to have this conversation.

And if you’re solo partnered it also gets easier to have this conversation. You get to ask yourself, Diamond, what is it that I want here? What is it that I want my life to look like? So these are important questions to ask yourself.

Okay, here it is, I’m always going to tell you to be kind to yourself throughout this process. No emotional bullies. We just aren’t allowing these emotional bullies. So self-compassion, self-love is going to be very important. And you know I talk about this with the zone of sexual safety. How can you create the zone of sexual safety for yourself while you’re in the process of implementing change to improve the sexual intimacy in your life? These are important questions to ask yourself.

Get rid of the emotional bullies, those emotional bullies are shame, and guilt, blaming yourself about things, these are not helpful especially shame comes in many different forms. Just look for it. Look at how you’re feeling about things. And then you’ll have a better idea. Whatever is going on, do not judge yourself and come with self-compassion. That becomes one of the most important things on this journey. So implementation, self-compassion is always going to be the key here.

Now, we’ve talked about self-compassion for you. I’m going to ask you for self-compassion for your partner. Now, we talk about something called a manual. And a manual is like a set of expectations or a book where you write down how you want your partner to show up, what you want them to do, how they should act in response to you. Anything where you have an expectation as how your partner needs to feel, act or think. These go under the category of a manual. And it’s time to get rid of this manual.

While you’re on this journey of implementation you’re actually on a journey of discovery for yourself but also a journey of discovery about your partner, if you allow the partner to show up just the way they are. To let them show up if they don’t want to do it exactly how you want it to be done, let them show up in whatever way possible. If they want to be crabby and they don’t want to do your sexual intimacy practice, or journal, or something like that, it’s okay. They get to show up whatever way they want to show up.

Hold space for them and love them however way they show up. And also hold space for yourself and allow yourself to show up whatever way you show up as well.

Okay, let’s talk about a sexual smorgasbord plan. It’s one of my favorite things to do. And this is what I actually help people do in Own Your Sexuality Now is to come up with this concept of a sexual smorgasbord. There’s a lot of different ways that you can have sexual intimacy. And you get to define that for you. Our society says that sexual intimacy is penetrative sex but we also get to this place in our lives where it may not be the top of the list all the time. But we want something. We want some connection still with our partner.

So you get to create what that looks like for you. So start making a list of things that you enjoy doing together with your partner or if you’re solo partnered, what you enjoy doing for yourself to make sure you get that touch. Make sure you have a connection. Make sure you have satisfaction. Make sure you have pleasure. So this smorgasbord, I call it the sexual smorgasbord, you get to determine what sexual intimacy is for yourself. And so sometimes it may be penetrative sex and sometimes it may not but you get to determine what you want your sexual intimacy to look like.

Let’s talk a little about spontaneity. Spontaneity, and I think I’m going to do a whole podcast on spontaneity because I don’t know how many times I coach people around this concept that sex has to be spontaneous. I don’t know why people think it should be spontaneous. Somehow spontaneity is better, it’s more preferred. I don’t know if we get that concept from movies, or from erotica, or romance magazines. But we have this concept somehow that sex should be spontaneous. No, no.

When people are busy trying to make sex spontaneous they somehow never find time in their schedule for sex. So there’s nothing specifically wrong with planning out sex. In fact when we didn’t live with somebody, when we weren’t partnered, or married, or whatever, not cohabitating, when we lived separately it was called a date night. And you planned a date night. But no, now, now everything has to be spontaneous and just happen like magic or something like that. Yeah, it’s not necessarily going to happen.

Sometimes it may be spontaneous but it would be kind of great if we could allow a little space in our lives for lack of spontaneity and a little bit of planning as well. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a little bit of planning. So yes, I’m going to do a whole podcast on spontaneity because this is driving me crazy. I don’t know why society says it has to be this way but it doesn’t.

Okay, note about toys, I want to talk to you a little bit about toys as well. I love the toys, I love bringing the toys into the bedroom. I’m all about the pleasure in whatever form you can get it for yourself, for your partner. There’s lots of toys out there that conform to every type of genitalia. And you get to just enjoy yourself. Now, toys, what I want to say is that sometimes you’re going to love the first toy you buy and sometimes you’re not going to.

Yes, it may be an investment, but just because it’s an investment doesn’t mean that sometimes it’s not going to be the right choice for you. So it’s okay if you buy a toy and it doesn’t do it for you. Try a different toy, yeah, it’s just like buying shoes or something. You always have your favorite pair of shoes, then you’ll have the pair of shoes that you wear for an hour but it kind of hurts your feet but it look so nice. But you don’t wear that very long and it’s the same thing with toys. There’s going to be a toy that might be fun for a little while but it’s not your mainstay.

But you’re going to have to go through a couple of different toys in order to find the one that is a perfect match for you. So it’s okay if you have to buy more than one toy. One toy doesn’t do it all and that’s okay. You can have a variety of toys for a variety of fun as well.

Okay, alright, those are the main things that I want to talk to you about, while you’re doing the implementation remember, allow the process to take as long as it’s going to. Small progress is good. Expect that there’ll be some success and some failure and that’s not a problem. Focus again on the fact that you’re responsible for your own pleasure, continue to have those conversations that’s going to move everything forward. Remember it’s not one and done. Be kind to yourself throughout this process.

Get rid of those manuals for your partner and let your partner show up whatever way they want to. And of course you get to show up in whatever way you want to as well. Make sure there’s some self-compassion there for you. Look at your definition of sexual intimacy. What do you want that definition to encompass? I love to talk about making sure the touch is there, making sure the connection is there, making sure the satisfaction is there, the pleasure is there. Those are the main things, connection, pleasure, satisfaction, touch.

If those things are there that gets defined as sexual intimacy. So go at it, you get to have fun. Don’t worry about the spontaneity part of things. You can have some things that are spontaneous and other things that are not. There’s no problem with that. Enjoy your toys, it’s okay if something’s not a perfect match. You can try it again. Alright, those are the main things that I wanted to talk to you about. And when we’re doing implementation, implementation takes a little while but you know what? You have the rest of your life to make this incredible sexual intimacy.

And as I like to say, it’s not one and done, it’s always going to be changing. But why don’t you start now so you can make that incredible sexual intimacy that you want. Okay, Diamonds, that’s all for this session.  Alright, Dr. Sonia out. Have a great week.

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.