Ep #20: The Wealthy Happy Sexy Soul: Dr. Tangie Interviews Dr. Sonia

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women Podcast, episode 20.

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 everybody. I am actually not Dr. Sonia. I’m Dr. Tangie and I will be your hostess for this week’s episode. Dr. Sonia and I are actually really good friends and we both have podcasts. And we were discussing our podcast and she had mentioned to me that she wanted to start having guests on her podcast. And she was trying to pick my brain to see who I thought might be a good guest for her.

And my idea was that she is actually the best guest because I feel like she offers this podcast to so many of us and gives of her knowledge and her time but I know all you all want to be as blessed as I am and know a little bit more about Dr. Sonia. And so I decided that I was going to interview her today on her very own podcast. So, welcome Dr. Sonia to your own podcast.

                                                                                                                   

Dr. Sonia: This is the most fun experience ever. I’m being welcomed to my own podcast. Well, hello, thank you Dr. Tangie. Thank you for having me on my own podcast. I think it’s kind of going to be silly. So hello, Diamonds, it’s Dr. Sonia and I am here with my BFF Tangie, Dr. Tangie. Dr. Latanja Watkins. And tell us what your podcast is called and what you do?

Dr. Tangie: Yeah. So I am Dr. Tangie and my podcast is The Wealthy Happy Soul Podcast. And I help people have both happiness and success in their lives. And now back to Dr. Sonia.

Dr. Sonia: Yeah. So Dr. Tangie gets happiness and success and I get sex. So we each try to get you something special in your life to make it better.

Dr. Tangie: So remember when we were playing around the other week and we were like, “We’ll do an episode and call it The Wealthy Happy Sexy Soul.” So I guess this is it.

Dr. Sonia: This is kind of it with a little bit more of the emphasis on the sexy side. And then we’ll come back and we’ll do – I will interview you on your podcast and this is going to be so much fun, yes, okay. So I’m ready to be interviewed, yeah, it’ll be interesting to see what you ask me and let’s go from there, or I should say that we know each other. We trained at the Life Coach School in terms of our life coach training and then we were in Mastermind together and that’s where we met.

And that was at the beginning of 2019 and since that time we’ve been kind of inseparable.

Dr. Tangie: I wasn’t expecting to get such a great friend from coach training and things of that nature but it’s been a really beautiful experience and I’m very grateful to have you in my life. So I’m not going to get mushy, I’m just going to start interviewing you.

Dr. Sonia: Okay, alright, sounds good.

Dr. Tangie: So, Dr. Sonia, what actually inspired you to become a life coach?

Dr. Sonia: That’s a good question. So, well, most people know that I’m a doctor, a medical doctor, a pediatric radiologist. And in my late 40s I was kind of going to this phase where you’re heading into your 50s and I know you’re not there yet. But when you start heading towards your 50s you really start thinking, okay, I’m definitely halfway through my life and what is it that I want to contribute? What is it that I want to give back? And I started thinking that I wanted to contribute in a different way.

Obviously as a doctor I am helping a lot of people in the community but I wanted to do more. And being a physician is not an easy job. And I have been mentoring a lot of pre med students and I wanted to get additional skills to help them get through medical school. But also have them thrive on the other side of medical school and residency when they are physicians.

So I decided that I was going to go and get additional training as a life coach. And I had been doing life coaching since 2016. But this was my way of giving back to students that were coming into the profession and people that were already doctors. We have some of the highest suicide rates and substance abuse rates of any profession. And so I wanted to give back to my community in a different way. And so I chose to do it as life coaching. I had worked with a life coach myself and it had made such a difference in my life that I wanted to go and train and to become a life coach.

Dr. Tangie: Yeah. I think that’s really fascinating because I feel like I started getting into life coaching around that same time and I had never heard of it. And even in medicine, I think life coaching is just now beginning to be a popular thing. But I just think back when you say 2016, you actually started training to become a life coach back in 2016. And there were probably two other doctor life coaches in 2016. And it just has grown exponentially which is a wonderful thing in my opinion.

Dr. Sonia: Yeah, I just have to mention for a moment that I actually was introduced to life coaching back in 2006 I would say when I was in my residency for radiology. And I had a fabulous life coach and she was a nun. And she impacted my life so positively that I just kept that experience with me and I just knew that this is something that I wanted to do in the future.

Dr. Tangie: So how did you get into sex and why in particular midlife sex?

Dr. Sonia: Yeah. So I’ll start with why midlife, obviously because I’m in midlife. But also because that’s the time where women really get to define themselves, their reproductive years are kind of ending. And there isn’t as much – what is the word? Society has an idea and a role as to what women should do and how they should be. But it seems to take us through our reproductive years. And then when we’re on the other side of that it’s like they don’t really have rules as to how we should be.

We get to define ourselves, we always get to define ourselves but I think that when we get to midlife is when we really start taking stock of everything and being like, “Hey, okay, the kids are good. The partner’s good. My career is good. What exactly do I want?” And often we ask ourselves is this all there is? I did everything that I was supposed to do. I went and got the education and I got the marriage. I got the kids. I did what I was supposed to do, or I focused on my career. Whatever it is that was the main focus of your 20s and 30s and into your 40s.

And then you get to that place where you’re like is this all? And I don’t necessarily feel like I’ve attained. And you know this with the Wealthy Happy Soul, this is something that you work where you’re successful in one area. But you still don’t feel like you have done all that there is for you to do. And so midlife I love it because we get to define ourselves, we get to decide what it is that we want to work on next.

And a lot of the things that we put our energy towards earlier in our lives and our career are kind of in a good place that we can actually start looking at ourselves and making sure that we are taking care of our own needs and prioritizing ourselves.

Dr. Tangie: Yeah. I think it’s such a blessing because it’s like you have this perfect person or you, in the sense that this is your passion and your mission. And then it’s also conjoined with perfect timing because when I think about the generation before me and then my grandmother’s generation, their idea of midlife. I think even just growing up when I would hear the word ‘midlife’, up until recent years I would just think of some deserted land tumbleweed blowing in the wind. And so no wonder women are scared as heck to get there.

But now to me I just find it so refreshing that I can look forward to having great sex when I’m 50, 60, 70 years old.

Dr. Sonia: Yeah. And I want to be the one to let you know that this is possible. You can totally enjoy yourself. You can totally have a good time with it. And then you’re asking me, “Why sex? Why sex specifically?” And this is interesting because I was talking to another one of my friends and she just assumed that I’ve always had a good sex life and it’s always been fun and interesting. And that’s actually not the case for the majority of my adult life. I either had libido issues, or I was stressed out, or I was worrying about performance.

I had a lot going on and such that I had kind of a lack of intimacy for an extended period of time in my relationships and I have to say that this, I take complete responsibility for this. And I don’t put it on my partners in any way. I definitely take complete responsibility for this. And my partners have been wonderful people. It’s just stuff that I had to work through, right?

Dr. Tangie: Yeah. So let me ask you, have you always been, because I know you on a personal level and I just see you as so open, and confident, and I don’t know. You’re like this bright shining star. You just light up everywhere you go. You’re just so charismatic. So I would assume you’re the same way in your sex life. And I was just wondering aside from libido problems, has it always been an open experience for you?

Dr. Sonia: It’s kind of like a wave. So in my 20s I was pretty open I would say. And then I started having some sexual difficulties and I kind of shifted my focus. It was easy to take your focus off of something that needs to be dealt with but you don’t know exactly how to deal with it. So I took my focus off of that and I put it on pre med work. And pre med and med school that’ll take everything and it’ll take all your energy so that’s kind of where I focused.

And then because I shifted the focus over to my pre med and getting into med school and stuff like that I kind of was doing what I call buffering, where I get away from the issue, the problems that I was having with sexual intimacy. So in my 20s it was pretty good, in my 30s I started having some issues. And then I kind of shifted my gear and I just kind of not conveniently forgot about it but I didn’t put the attention on it. And I didn’t do the work that I needed to do. And unfortunately that relationship ended and I take full responsibility.

And I went into another relationship and then the sex and intimacy got better. And then it actually ended up having more difficulties again and it got to this place where there was not much sexual intimacy but I just kept thinking, by this time I was a doctor. I was like, “I should be able to figure this out.” But they don’t teach us about sex and sexual intimacy in medical school, do they?

Dr. Tangie: No, not at all.

Dr. Sonia: No. But I kept thinking I should be able to figure this out. I’m a doctor; people come to me with issues. So I should be able to figure it out. But we’re not really trained. We don’t really know exactly what to do. So after an extended period of time of not dealing with the issue and not talking about it, but crying and being upset about it. And feeling so isolated and like something was wrong with me. I finally went and started working with a sexual therapist and working on the issue and exploring what was going on.

So this was really fabulous for me to work with her and so much so that by the time I finished working with her I was like, “You know what?” And it was about the same time that I was doing my life coaching by this point in time. And so more of my clients were having their own intimacy issues and I was like, “I need to get additional training.” So I went and I trained as a sexual counselor and kind of then brought it all together. Yeah, so my journey started because it was my own personal issue.

So yeah, even though I love talking about sex now and everything like that, even when I was feeling comfortable with my sexuality and I had gone on this journey then menopause hit. And then I had to relearn how to be a sexual being all over again. So it’s just these phases where it kind of comes and goes and you just work with it.

Dr. Tangie: Yeah. I love how even just like how you were just talking right now. I’m just like that’s my friend, because you are such an expert, you have the medical training. You have the sexual counselor training. You have the life coach training. And I’m sure people know this about you already, you even worked in a sex store.

Dr. Sonia: A sex toy store, can we put the toy [crosstalk]?

Dr. Tangie: Yes, a sex toy store. You are such a badass, I love it. I love it so much. So with all of that you developed your own program, so you do your private coaching and you have your own program called Own Your Sexuality Now. So how did you come up with the idea of Own Your Sexuality Now?

Dr. Sonia: Yeah. So I’ve been doing this sex coaching for a couple of years now. And I started with private clients and I still have private clients. I love my private clients. But I felt that if I was just going to stay with private clients then I would not impact the number of women that I wanted to impact to help improve. And I have this audacious goal to positively impact the sex lives of over a million women. And then after I do that I’m going to go on to ten million and then a 100 million across the United States and the world.

But I was like if I have to do one at a time it might take me a little while. So that was part of the reason that I developed my program, Own Your Sexuality Now. And then I also wanted to make sure that I had services available at different price points. My private clients, it’s more of an exclusive in terms of price. But I wanted to make sure that I could get the information out there and give people a choice as to how they would like to work with me. So that’s the main reason behind developing Own Your Sexuality Now.

Dr. Tangie: Yeah. When I think of what you’re trying to do and – not trying, what you are doing and what you’re creating and putting out in the world, I just see it as a movement. I’m sure you can see it too because you’re doing it. But I wish I could just kind of share the vision of what I have in my head on this projector screen because I just think it’s going to be so amazing.

Dr. Sonia: That would be pretty fantastic; it’s your own form of fantasy for me, thank you. Yeah, I want this. I think that when you go through an experience like I went through in terms of going from not really having much sexual intimacy at all in your life to improving, drastically improving the sexual intimacy in your life. And all the joy that that brings but also how you open up the creativity in your life and how it positively impacts so many different aspects of your life.

Then you want that for other women and you see that other women are not necessarily able to tap into that. But you want that for them and that being the case that I’m there. I’m there for them, especially for women in midlife, as we get to define ourselves. And I like to make sure that women understand that hey, you don’t stop being sexual in your 40s and 50s. Your sexuality, it continues and you get to express your sexuality into your 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, till the day you drop off. And I’m on this journey. I’m continuing to learn as I go.

I don’t have all the answers but what I do know and what I have experience, that I want to share that with people as we continue along this process. And recognize that your sexuality is going to change over time, how you express that, how you experience it, but you still get to be a sexual being, yeah.

Dr. Tangie: Yes. And so I love that message that you put out there. And so I have two questions, two more questions that I want to ask you. And the first one is, what is your number one tip that anybody could use to start having better sex today?

Dr. Sonia: Well, I’m a life coach, so I’m a sexual counselor and I’m a life coach and so I bring them together. And so I have to say the number one tip would be about your thoughts around sex and sexuality, that’s the number one thing. And in conjunction with that is take the pressure off of yourself. It doesn’t have to be a certain way. Nothing has to be a certain way. You get to create the sex life that you want, you get to explore whatever you want to do as long as there’s consent and nobody’s harming anybody.

You get to have fun. Come at sex from a fun perspective. And I talk about emotional bullies. Leave the emotional bullies behind, the shame, the guilt, the judgment, leave those things behind. And just focus on the fun, the connection, the pleasure with yourself and with your partner if you have a partner. But you get to express your sexuality and you get to be creative. And as I mentioned with the thoughts, you get to think whatever it is that you want to think.

So often about sexuality the thoughts were kind of planted in our head from a young age, they’re not necessarily our own thoughts, or they could be negative thoughts that have developed over a time. But at any time you get to weed your thought garden, you get to look at your thoughts and decide, are they serving me, do I want to keep these thoughts? And how do I want to experience sexuality? This is my life, I get to lead it. So your thoughts will ultimately lead to the quality and the enjoyment that you have in your sexuality.

Dr. Tangie: Yes, so many of our thoughts about life, about sex are not our own thoughts. And so as you were saying that I just had this other question that I’m going to tweak a little bit. So you mentioned people who don’t have partners. And I know based off of what you just said, so many of our thoughts are not our own thoughts, I know it applies to most women but especially single women. And when it comes to having a great sex life as a single woman, who doesn’t have a partner and who may not want to participate in casual sex. So what do you say to those women?

Dr. Sonia: I say you can have an amazing – amazing sex life, I mean because your number one best lover is always going to be yourself. And I’d say your number one thing to learn in life is to love yourself, and to love yourself unconditionally and to be good to yourself. And that also involves you being your authentic self and getting to express all of you, which includes your sexuality. So some people have this thought that I don’t have a partner so therefore I’m not going to engage in sexuality. You get to be your own partner. You get to do dinner dates with yourself.

There is so many fun toys that are out there, yes, I worked at a toy store. I love the toys. So you get to bring the toys and you don’t have to, you can just do it manually and that’s fine. But we’re talking about self-pleasure and you get to explore with all the different toys that are out there. And there’s some really amazing toys that are on the market now. So you get to explore with all of that and you get to have fun and you get to give yourself permission to have a healthy and happy sex life whether you are partnered or not because you are always, at least solo partnered.

Dr. Tangie: Yes. And I think that’s really important for people to recognize because I think a lot of times people come across your work and they’re like well, I’m not in a relationship or I’m not married, so they may automatically assume that a sex coach doesn’t apply to them. But I think everybody needs a sex coach.

Dr. Sonia: Yeah. I think it may apply even more to them because we have so much thoughts around masturbation, things that were planted a long time ago. We need to weed those out, we need to get rid of them and we need to learn how to be a sexual being without a partner. So all those things are important so yeah, definitely, you get to explore, you get to be sexual, you get to enjoy yourself, yeah.

Dr. Tangie: Yeah. And just re-own your power and take the expectation away that it takes somebody else for you to feel pleasure, I think that’s brilliant.

Dr. Sonia: Yeah. And the fun thing is when I work with my clients around the issues of low libido and finding pleasure, we always start with ourselves and start with self-pleasure, because whether or not you have a partner you have to learn what your body likes and how to pleasure yourself and what areas to touch and things like that. So if you do happen to have a partner in the future you can share that with your partner because your partner is not responsible for your pleasure. And I say this quite a bit. It is your responsibility.

So whether you’re partnered or not you need to learn about your body and you need to take ownership of your body and your sexuality. And that’s why I call the course Own Your Sexuality Now because so many women don’t own their sexuality, they expect somebody else to give them and to provide them the pleasure, and to give them the permission to be a sexual being. But once you decide that you’re going to own your sexuality you can do anything, you can do anything.

Dr. Tangie: Yes. Sexual sovereignty I am here for it.

Dr. Sonia: I like that, sexual sovereignty.

Dr. Tangie: I love it, yeah. You’re welcome.

Dr. Sonia: Maybe that’ll be my next course.

Dr. Tangie: Maybe. So that’s all the questions that I have. Is there anything else that you would like for the Diamonds to know?

Dr. Sonia: Well, I guess many people can visit my website and they can see the information about the course. But just like to give you a quick overview of the course. So, Own Your Sexuality Now, it has 12 core modules and in those core modules we kind of take you on this journey. And it kind of mirrors the journey that I had to go through to own my sexuality. And this is kind of why I called it Own Your Sexuality, because I want that for my Diamonds. But it’s also my experience, so looking at my sexual situation, what was going on in my life at the beginning.

And then determining that I am a sexual being, which is, basically giving myself permission to be a sexual being and then looking at my libido and saying, “Okay, what is it that I need to understand about libido? And the spontaneous versus the responsive type of libido that I have spoken about?” And then anatomy, this is another area as a doctor we don’t spend a lot of time looking at the women’s vulva, we just don’t. And I had the 3D model of the clitoris and we are not taught anything about the clitoris and so we don’t actually know the structure of the clitoris.

So I want to make sure that everybody’s on the same page, I remember I’ve had some private clients in the past that didn’t exactly know where their clitoris was. So I don’t want to make any assumptions because depending on your background you may not have gotten this information ever. So it’s important that everybody is on the same level and has the same understanding of what the anatomy looks like. So looking at anatomy is something that’s important.

And then talking about pleasure, women kind of defer pleasure and in all aspects of their life they take care of so many other people, so talking about pleasure is important.

And then body image because that so much plays into our thoughts about our body, also play into our thoughts and feelings about our body and sexuality, so talking about body image. And I definitely had to go through a journey myself to get to a place of really loving my body, my 4’11 round body and being like, “You know what? This is a fantastic body. It works so well, it gives me pleasure, it’s amazing.” But I had to go on that journey to love my body and that’s a journey that I want to help other women as well.

And then prioritizing, we don’t prioritize ourselves and so putting the focus on prioritizing. So there’s all that before I really start talking about the sex. And then I start talking about the smorgasbord of sex of all the different fun things that you can put together in terms of sexual acts and sexual intimacy acts. And it doesn’t always have to be penetrative sex. And then we start looking at the toys because I love the toys. And toys are not the end all and be all but they are kind of a fun enhancement.

And I focus on the fact that 70% of women require some sort of stimulation to their clitoris, 70% or more actually, actually up to 85% of women need some sort of stimulation to their clitoris in order to have an orgasm or to experience a lot of pleasure. Well, then let’s bring the toys in, let’s do that. And then starting to work on a sexual protocol like a plan, so, we put it into action and then we tweak that plan and then we kind of wrap it up.

So those are the core modules that’s in Own Your Sexuality Now, and kind of switching Own Your Sexuality up a little bit, I’m extending it so that we have the core modules but then we also have monthly topics as well that we’re introducing monthly. And then I’m extending the course to a full six months because I really want my Diamonds to have the opportunities to really become comfortable with being a sexual being. So that’s the Own Your Sexuality Now course.

And I’m really proud of what it’s done and the impact that it’s had on a lot of women in their relationships as well and it’s opened up their minds and helped them to enjoy sex, yeah.

Dr. Tangie: Wonderful. I’m sure your Diamonds will appreciate those extra six months because can I just say that you make learning about sex so much fun. And whatever you’re teaching you just make it fun. And I’ll never forget the first time I saw you pull out your clitoris puppet, it was so hilarious. So even though you’re talking about anatomy, it’s not like going back to college and having this anatomy course or whatever. It’s number one, you have a gift of making things really fun. And number two, it directly relates back to you and how you can use it in your life. So I love that.

And I’m so happy for you, we’ve been friends since the beginning of each other’s journey, and I just want to say that.

Dr. Sonia: Yeah. Well, I can’t think of anybody else that I would love to have as a guest host on my podcast. Of course, Dr. Tangie you would be the first one. And so we’re going to put in the show notes how people can actually check you out and how they can reach you as well. And I’m going to be doing a podcast where I get to interview you some more, so we’ll definitely keep this going.

And I just want to thank you for coming up with the idea of interviewing me and letting me talk about my journey and talk about my Own Your Sexuality Now course, which is actually opening at the end of January for enrolment. And so we’re going to put it in the show notes how you can actually join Own Your Sexuality Now, so great.

Dr. Tangie: Yes. I love it. Okay, until next time Diamonds.

Dr. Sonia: Until next time Diamonds, Dr. Sonia and Dr. Tangie, we are out.

Dr. Tangie: We are out.

Dr. Sonia: We are out.

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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.