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Healing Trauma and Embracing Sexual Pleasure · Libido Lounge

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  Welcome to the libido lounge where we focus on all things love, lust, and libido.
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  We believe that fabulous sex is important to health as exercise and good Hey everybody,
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  Doctor.
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  Diane, your libido doc here.
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  Welcome back to another episode of the lounge.
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  Today, we're talking about a really important topic, shame and libido.
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  I wanna talk about this today because I actually posted a YouTube video on this topic
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  about a year ago, and I got a lot of comments.
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  I got a lot of people reaching out to me on this topic, so I figured it would be a good one
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  to dive in even further.
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  I wanna remind you all that before we get started, you could always go take my libido
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  quiz at libidoquiz.com.
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  That's where you can have a free quiz that will help you understand and diagnose the likely
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  root causes of your libido imbalances.
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  So the first part is a research based quiz.
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  The second part is something that I developed with a programmer after years and years of
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  study.
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  So really good practical information.
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  You'll get to ideas on the root cause of your libido imbalances, as well as solutions and
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  strategies and tips to follow that are specifically designed for your quiz answers.
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  So moving on to today's topic, shame and libido.
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  This is a really important topic because there's so much sexual and intimacy type of
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  shame that happens in our society for so many different reasons.
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  So I wanna just, before we go deeper, take a moment to say shame and libido issues sometimes
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  come from things like trauma, assault, abuse.
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  So if any of that has happened and you don't feel like you have processed that, definitely
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  consider turning this off, going and talking with a mental health therapist, and really
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  getting support for that.
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  There's many different reasons why we have shame with with libido, shame with intimacy.
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  This can go from anything from sexual trauma to body image issues, to things that have been
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  told to us through religion and society and parents and teachers and friends and colleagues
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  and lovers over the years.
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  You know, so many women, for example, have shame around their own genitals, their own
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  vulva and vagina because they've been told they it should look different.
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  It should smell different.
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  We have all of these things that are constantly being blasted to us as women or women around
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  how it should look, douching for how it should smell, which I do not recommend.
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  It really destroys those good bacteria that actually help the vagina stay healthy, prevent
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  it against disease, and actually helps so much with that vaginal tone and well-being.
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  So stay away from those chemical types of douches.
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  They're definitely very, very, very dangerous.
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  But the point is we get the the shame from so many different ways.
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  Sometimes it can be a lover telling us something in bed that was harmful for us.
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  Sometimes it's just a lover saying something in bed that they meant something that was kind,
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  and we took it the wrong way.
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  We got triggered.
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  I know for me, I actually am a survivor of sexual assault.
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  And for me, I had a lot of shame around my body, and my anatomy, and my vulva, and vagina
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  because for so long, I had this strange and this horrible association from that trauma.
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  So there's so many different reasons we get shame in our body.
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  Now one of the things that came up when I had posted this information on YouTube, somebody
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  had responded in a comment and said something along the lines of that that shame actually had
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  a purpose.
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  And they were saying, hey.
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  We shouldn't get rid of shame because shame has a purpose.
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  So I wanna take a moment and address that because, really, when it comes down to
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  feelings, feelings are in many ways flags of something going on.
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  So if I say something mean to somebody, for example, and I feel ashamed of what I said
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  afterwards, that is information that is telling me that, oh, that's not very nice to say
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  something mean.
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  It doesn't feel good.
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  I don't wanna hurt others.
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  So from that standpoint, some of that shame feeling could be looked at in that scenario's
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  information and feedback of a behavior that I did that I don't wanna repeat.
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  That's not the shame I'm talking about here.
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  Right?
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  The shame I'm talking about here is shame because of something that happened in our lives
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  that is making us feel unnecessarily bad and unnecessarily guilty and unnecessarily wrong
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  about who we are as human beings and about our sexuality.
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  And that's the biggest thing.
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  And and there's so many things from a subconscious level.
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  Like, I love working on the subconscious, and there's so many things on a subconscious level
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  that can be related to shame.
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  Right?
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  It can be related to what we were told as a child about self pleasure.
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  Right?
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  It could be could be because of what a friend said to us about the fact that maybe we were
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  more promiscuous than them.
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  Right?
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  It could be the fact that we were a virgin until we got married and we got made fun of for
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  that.
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  Right?
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  There could be so many different reasons for people making fun of us or people giving us a
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  hard time about our choices, and that leading to a sense of shame even on a subconscious
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  level.
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  Because one of the things that can happen is when we have trauma, and the shame I'm talking
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  about oftentimes creates these microtraumas.
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  Microtraumas have been studied a decent amount in in children and in looking at how some of
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  these microtraumas actually play out long term in depression and anxiety and mental health
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  disorders.
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  And it's very, very clear these microtraumas that so many of us have.
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  In fact, pretty much all of us have microtraumas, and they they impact us.
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  Right?
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  And they get into us on a subconscious level because these micro microtraumas, what will
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  happen is let's say we had some sort of reason why we got shamed around our sexuality.
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  And if we got shamed around our sexuality, our nervous system actually holds that memory.
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  Right?
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  And so if anything is said even at later years, like, how these microtraumas work, they're like
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  PTSD on a on a way.
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  So it's like if anything gets said to us later on, that on a subconscious level kind of brings
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  that feeling of shame, kind of brings that feeling of guilt, kind of brings that feeling
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  like we're doing something wrong, it can actually trigger those microtraumas that come
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  up.
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  And when it's coming you know, when it comes to intimacy, when it comes to deeply connecting
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  with our partner in the bedroom, right, when it comes to these moments, when it comes to the
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  ability to experience pleasure, when it comes to self pleasure, when it comes to all these
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  things regarding our sexuality, one of the things that can happen is these microtraumas
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  wind up getting in our nervous system, our subconscious.
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  And if somebody says something similar that from a subconscious level is reminding us even
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  in the tiniest way of that event we felt shame around, we might actually cut off blood flow.
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  We might cut off nervous system connection.
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  This is where sometimes people dissociate during sex.
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  So I talk a lot about on this podcast when you listen to other episodes about the ability of
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  the woman's brain to multitask.
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  So it's not unusual, right, for a woman's brain because of all the ways the blood flows to the
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  different, you know, craters of the brain.
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  It's not unusual for women to have moments where they're leaving the present moment with
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  their lover and their mind goes someplace else, Right?
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  To the list or to the kids or those sorts of things.
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  That that's fairly normal from a standpoint of how the female brain is set up and we have to
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  practice bringing it to the moment.
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  However, one thing that that you should be aware of and one thing to watch out for is
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  almost like a dissociation where you're you're so unpresent from the moment every time you are
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  engaged intimately.
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  And sometimes if they're you're feeling like you're dissociating, your mind is constantly
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  wandering.
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  I'm not talking about these small wandering, but if it's like, wow, this is just really hard
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  to focus on being here with my partner, that can be a huge sign of subconscious microtrauma
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  happening and perhaps shame.
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  Right?
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  And so we always want to, again, I'm gonna emphasize this again because this is, you know,
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  not a I am not a clinical therapist.
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  This is not also the place for clinical therapy, even if I was.
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  This is education.
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  Right?
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  So I wanna always emphasize that, hey, if you're exploring these microtraumas, make sure
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  you have a therapist.
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  Make sure you have somebody that you can really deeply work with.
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  But one of the things that I've seen to really help to repair microtraumas in these, you know,
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  scenarios, especially when we are talking about microtraumas, we're not talking about major
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  assaults and those sorts of things, right, is to begin to do more exploratory work around how
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  do we actually feel about sex?
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  Like, if I ask you right now, how do you feel about sex?
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  How do you feel about, you know, confidence with sex?
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  How do you feel when you're you're touched?
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  Does it feel good?
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  How do you feel about pleasure?
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  If I ask you, like, how do you feel?
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  Do you feel like it's safe?
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  Do you feel like it's bad?
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  Do you feel, like, guilty around pleasure?
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  Do you feel like it's against some sort of belief?
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  And what we're doing with exercises like this, we're really working to say, hey.
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  Are there any sort of mental, emotional types of blocks that are actually limiting you from
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  enjoying the depths of your sexuality, the depths of pleasure?
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  You know, I truly believe that pleasure is this gift that we have as humans because human life
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  is hard.
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  Right?
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  Human life has stressors.
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  Nobody gets out of that.
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  Everybody has good days and bad days, and sometimes we have bad day after bad day after
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  bad day.
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  And it just feels like, gosh, we're just getting hit over the head.
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  Pleasure is one of the things that I personally believe as humans that we are given as a gift
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  to actually help us counteract and stay balanced through those hard times.
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  Right?
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  And so the idea of being able to deeply connect more and more to our pleasure body is about
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  staying balanced.
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  It's about releasing chemicals that are actually helping us to stay healthy and happy
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  and reduce stress while we go through the craziness of the ups and downs of life because
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  we never know every day.
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  Every day is a mystery.
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  Right?
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  And we get up, and sometimes it's like we think it's a good day, and it's gonna be a really
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  hard day.
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  And pleasure's one of the ways we stay balanced during those challenging times.
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  And so what we're doing with some of these exercises and saying, like, how do you feel
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  innately about pleasure?
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  Do you feel guilty about the concept of pleasure?
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  I know a lot of people that do, and there's so much charge around this stuff oftentimes.
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  So what we're doing here is we're starting to unwind and starting to try to get into the
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  subconscious to say, how do you really deeply feel about the concept of pleasure, about the
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  concept of of sex, about the concept of, you know, of really deeply connecting physically,
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  intimately with your partner, with yourself.
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  And so once we begin to entangle that, once you begin to, you know, to see that, oftentimes
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  then we can see, like, you know, a question to ask yourself is, do you actually feel like you
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  have any shame around the concept of sex?
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  Do you feel like you have any shame around the concept of intimacy?
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  And have a journal and really write this out because it's amazing sometimes what comes up.
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  And then once you do that, the reason we're doing this is because we're trying to get down
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  to those subconscious things that are connecting to emotions, that are preventing you
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  from deeply connecting to yourself, deeply connecting to your partner, and deeply
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  experiencing the pleasure that we get to have as human beings.
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  So in how to do this, once you begin to understand some of these ways that perhaps your
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  mind and your subconscious are working And like I said, definitely recommend doing this through
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  through, you know, introspection, journal activities, set some time aside from this.
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  Then the question to really ask is, okay.
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  Well, if my subconscious has the story from childhood that sex is something to be shamed
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  about or self pleasure something to have shame about, do I really actually believe that as an
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  adult?
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  And do you really?
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  And if you really do, it might be a good thing to go get therapeutic, you know, some
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  therapeutic work done, so you or EMDR.
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  There's a lot of different types of programs that help us process those things.
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  But sometimes when we do these exercises, one of the hue huge things that I find is that we
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  can actually see that for many people, we can change that shame because as an adult, it's
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  almost like we're running this, like, this program, these stories, this subconscious thing
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  from a childhood or from, you know, teenage years from old stuff, old patterns.
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  And, actually, the thing that happens as an adult is we start to realize, like, well, I
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  don't actually even believe that anymore, but somehow I still have that story that's running
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  in my subconscious.
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  So we can ask ourselves, like, do we actually believe that sex is something to be shamed, you
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  know, feel shameful around?
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  And if we don't, then it's like, what do we actually want to believe?
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  What do we actually do believe about sex, about pleasure, about intimacy?
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  And then what we wanna do is we wanna start to rewrite those old neural programs.
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  And we do this through visualization.
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  We do this through meditation.
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  We also do this through the experience of pleasure.
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  And even simple things like experiencing pleasure with a partner, with ourselves, and
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  throughout that experience or even throughout or that orgasm, that moment of orgasm.
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  But if, you know, if you don't get to orgasm, it doesn't matter.
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  You can still do this just by experiencing pleasure.
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  And almost like, you know, looking into your partner's eyes or touching yourself lovingly
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  and repeating something that is more like a healthy thing to say around like, wow.
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  I am worthy of this pleasure.
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  I deserve this pleasure.
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  This pleasure keeps me balanced.
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  I'm so grateful to, you know, whatever you believe in, you know, God, spirit, universe,
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  like, whatever whatever you believe in.
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  I'm so grateful for the ability to bring myself into balance by experiencing this pleasure.
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  And if we say that while we're in the heart and the height of that pleasure experience and
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  combining those things, oftentimes will help the nervous system reprogram so that over time,
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  then we don't have those childhood stories around shame.
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  And instead, we have these new programs around, oh, yeah.
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  Pleasure is this gift that is given to me that I deeply get to enjoy as a human being.
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  And not only do I get deeply get to enjoy, pleasure is this gift that I get to use to
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  balance my stress, to raise my happy hormones, to help me sleep better, to enjoy life and
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  community and my partner better, to be able to show up to my work from a more passionate
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  place.
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  Right?
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  That's what we get out of pleasure.
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  So I hope this was helpful.
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  I do wanna I'm gonna put in the show notes for you guys too.
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  I have a very low price program called Hack Your Mind.
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  Hack your mind, we go through in how to reprogram thoughts, beliefs, emotions.
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  I have a thirty day challenge in there with it.
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  So it's a very small activity you do for five minutes a day for thirty days.
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  And I've seen some really good results with this over a decade and a half of work around
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  helping people reprogram some of those subconscious beliefs.
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  So it's a step by step guide plus this thirty day challenge.
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  It does not take you much time to really get you on a program to help you repattern this.
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  So I'm gonna put that in the show notes as well for you guys so you have that.
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  Alright, everybody.
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  It's been a pleasure.
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  Been a pleasure.
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  Been a pleasure talking to you about this very important information.
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  This is doctor Diane, your libido doc, reminding you to always stay classy, always
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  stay sexy, and always remember to be a little badassy.
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  Thank you for listening to the libido lounge.
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  Please don't keep me a secret.
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  Please share this with your friends.
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  You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram, as well as how to work with me at mylibidodoc.com.