Latest / The Midlife Rebel Podcast / Why So Many Women Feel Numb in Midlife | Jordin Wiggins

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Why So Many Women Feel Numb in Midlife | Jordin Wiggins · The Midlife Rebel Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: The control of women and their access to care.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I just I find it enraging, and sometimes I feel like I'm screaming into a void.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Midlife Rebel Podcast.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to rewrite the midlife story for women who refuse to be put in a box.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because maybe midlife isn't a crisis.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's an awakening.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about the work you do and pleasure.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because this is- I know because it's like well, this is definitely it's well, not really.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's two, it's different sides of the same coin.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: And women's pleasure, because this is kind of why I ended up doing what I'm doing.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I had hormone issues and in high school, and I kept getting cysts in my vagina.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Two separate but sort of related things.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I had to have surgery in high school before I'd ever even had sex with stitches in my vagina.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: So it's kind of like an appeasiotomy before I'd even had sex.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, and then I had pelvic pain, but I just felt very um dismissed by the healthcare system.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't get adequate, like birth control and I did not work together.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: I had my period for three weeks every month on birth control.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that went on for a year and a half while the doctors just said, oh, try this one, try this one.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was iron deficient and depressed and a whole, yeah, it was just awful.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I never wanted anyone to feel like I felt, which was alone, dismissed with my pelvic pain when I had MRIs and I was sent to a few specialists.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't realize it was pelvic pain at the time.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: I just had this pain that would take my breath away.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it felt like somebody was shoving a knife into my pelvic floor.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then when the doctor specialists couldn't really figure out what was wrong, the result was, oh, why don't we try some like antipsychotic medication?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: It might, it must be in your head.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that's I went to school and then I became a naturopathic doctor because at first I thought, okay, I'm gonna be a gynecologist and I'm gonna help women, but I didn't like the confines that I had to play in with that.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: We need gynecologists and OBs, and they are amazing.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: So, but it's it's a both and situation, right?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: When it comes to prescribing hormones and like the holistic functional medicine model just fit a lot better with me.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: So it was sort of from that difficult, those difficult life situations at a young age that I started my career as a naturopathic doctor and had a women's health clinic.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then that's sort of what led me into my second business endeavor and help helping women with a pleasure problem.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I just kept seeing patient after patient after patient that they weren't happy.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't quite miss meet the functional criteria for major depressive disorder.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's interesting because that's it's how I felt when I was going through those health issues and I didn't feel heard or seen or validated.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: I felt really like I was sort of going through the motions, you know.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: So it was women, you know, from their 20s to 50s, 60s that were my patients.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of them were just saying, like, I've got a lot to be grateful for.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just not happy.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Which anhedonia is the medical term for inability to feel pleasure and joy.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: And that was just on repeat over and over, and that really coincided with their desire and their libido.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: And 50% of women globally have sexual dysfunction.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's underreported.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: But issues with arousal, like getting aroused, staying aroused, just the desire to even want to be intimate.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because my patients were saying, like, I don't care if I ever had sex ever again.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: But they wanted to want it because their partners wanted them to want it.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, pain with sex.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, like the pelvic pain, like I had, difficulty with orgasms.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess when you have like issues with your own vagina, and then you have the ability to prescribe hormones and stuff, you sort of become the go-to person for sexual dysfunction.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um but then I was doing everything that I was trained to do as far as like testing hormones were dialed, like everything was diet was good.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: So we were checking all those boxes, and a lot of things wouldn't prove they, you know, their energy was better, mood was better, but no desire for sex, and you know, they weren't maybe snapping at people or crying alone in the bathroom.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but they were like they they just they couldn't feel joy, they couldn't feel pleasure.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that is like the last seven eight years of my career is helping fix what I call the pleasure problem.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Very good.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: You've answered my first question that I had, and how and that was how can uh neitropathy and the and pleasure, how are they connected?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: But you've kind of described that, I think.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one thing on that okay is I look at like libido, desire as well as pleasure.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: Because in I it to me, it's it's one and the same, right?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: If we are overjoyed, ecstatic, it well, okay.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: It also depends on the relationship, too.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes we can have immense pleasure and joy in certain areas of our life, but it's not translating into our relationship, but it's not an us problem, it's a relationship system problem.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to make that one clear because the high-achieving women that I work with, they like to constantly blame themselves for things where it's something that they have to fix or there's something wrong with them.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: But a lot of the time I'm saying, like, nope, this one, this one isn't you.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing you can do to fix it.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: But I look at ability to feel pleasure and joy and desire.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it and it can just be this, it doesn't have to necessarily be sexual desire, but this aliveness.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you can hear it called Eros, but that like desire to create things and do really feeling alive and connected.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: If we don't have that, that's a warning sign for future health problems.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like something is off.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why I wrote my first book, The Pink Canary.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: And the canary in the coal mine is the lack of pleasure.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a few bits going on, and so many different directions we could go in.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: But so what I'm understanding is there's um women come to you and they might have other health problems, autoimmune disease.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that's how it, that's how this also women were coming to me on the health side.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and so breast cancer, autoimmune diseases, which women are like 30% more likely than men to get diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um then once you have one autoimmune disease, your risk of getting a second and a third exponentially increases.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, women were coming to me because of the health issues.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: We were fixing the health issues, and then we still had the pleasure problem.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So the pleasure, so the pleasure problem wasn't like fixing the pleasure problem.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: How does that relate to making someone well compared to fixing all of the other things?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: The sort of the natural uh I didn't even realize that for a while there I was stumped because doing everything that I'd been trained clinically to do, and then I couldn't, I couldn't help with joy and fulfillment and sexual desire.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I had to sort of look at it completely differently.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I started with small groups of my patients, and we would meet at my clinic after hours, and I'd get like little snacks, sparkling wine, and we would sit and chat.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um when loneliness, feeling lonely, feeling um anhedonic, and the research is on loneliness, but I cut I extrapolate it to the pleasure problem to not feeling joy, not feeling fulfilled.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, loneliness is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: So, and a lot of people, we don't think we're lonely, especially high-achieving women, right?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: We are surrounded by people that need us all the time.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Little humans, staff or people we manage, like in and out of the home, right?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's a it's a partner that we are really overfunctioning for.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it's kind of like having an extra child.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we're surrounded by people and we are so overwhelmed that not once would my client or patients say, I'm I'm lonely.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: But she was, she was lonely, um, felt very alone, very unsupported in many areas of her life.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it's actually damaging your health, decreasing your life expectancy to feel that way, to not feel fulfilled.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think we clearly correlate that enough, right?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: We're going through the motions, we're getting things done every day or putting out fires.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes it's like we're waiting through molasses for years, like just, you know, kind of just getting through.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then you wake up and all of a sudden it's 10 years later, but you felt unfulfilled, you've lost yourself for that long.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then usually in that time, you're seeing these diagnoses, the autoimmune disease.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: So to me, I look at that lack of pleasure, that lack of fulfillment, if you're not, you know, having full belly laughs or dancing, or if the things that used to make you happy don't make you happy anymore, if like that's that warning sign, that's the pink and area that we need to intervene now because otherwise it's like you're smoking 15 cigarettes a day for years.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then of course you're gonna have an adverse health outcome.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned a couple of um areas of um joy, pleasure in our everyday lives.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what other examples do you have?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you mentioned laughter, dancing.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like how do you these are individual?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: How do we tap back into those things?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: How do we like figure out, especially after say 10 years of doing all of the things for all of the other people, you know, ticking all the boxes with family career?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um how do we know what's ours and what's oh okay.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, those are two different things.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, those are two different things, but I I will answer both.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um I do have a guide of 50 ideas for pleasure practices that I can send the link so there will be plenty of examples.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but the key is actually tapping back into things that feel pleasurable because oftentimes I will talk to patients and clients and they're like, Well, I'm like, I go to yoga and I get a massage once a month, and but they don't, they're not actually feeling joy or pleasure from those activities, right?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: They're racing there, they're exactly they just and that's that's and it's they're doing that outside of the bedroom, they're ticking boxes in the bedroom too.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's just that life, right?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really these micro shifts, I find, and also trying to tell high-achieving women that manage so much and accomplish so much during the day that they need to like slow down and make these little shifts in their day, they look at you like you have two heads.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: But the reason is when we and I explain this in detail in my book and on my podcast, but the pleasure centers in your brain are turned off.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: So when we are in that overwhelm, lonely fight or flight, fawn, freeze, wherever we are dysregulated in our nervous system, the pleasure centers in our brain are off.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: And they have studied this with MRIs.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we know that this is true.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: We need to be in like a relaxed, safe, grounded state to fully feel pleasure.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it doesn't mean that you couldn't have, you know, a really busy day, head into a yoga class and like truly drop in and get there, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: And we know how we feel after when we're leaving.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: Or, you know, we're stressed out, our partner tries to touch us, and we kind of like get the ick we want to pull away from them because the pleasure centers in our brain are off.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: But it doesn't mean that if we took a bath, read a book, maybe a little erotic novel or something, that we wouldn't get into that state required for desire and arousal.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: So we need to turn the pleasure centers in our brain back on.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: And when I wrote the pink canary, I thought it was as simple as that.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: We cracked the code, yeah.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, which is why I'm I'm currently working on the sequel right now.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: And the but the pin canary is the step one, right?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like pleasure principles, my podcast.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's like we need to be doing these things.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: We need to turn the pleasure centers in our brain back on.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then there are impacts of that, some lovely and some um sometimes a little like turbulent, right?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: So if you've been ignoring your needs, putting yourself last, um, not taking up any space in your relationship, often as we are conditioned as women, especially in heterosexual relationships, um that we serve men's needs and we walk on eggshells about their feelings, and our kids have to be happy.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like everyone around us, you know, we're taking the temperature of the room.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: Is everybody good?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: Does everybody have what they need?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then, oh, okay, like I can ask for something now, or I have time for me now, right?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: We're always our pleasure and our desire and fulfillment is always seems to be the last thing on the to-do list.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: So when we start taking up space and prioritizing our joy and pleasure, sometimes it's a little rocky for the people around us who we've made their lives very cushy and easy by overfunctioning.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: So can you give some examples of that?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, how's how someone might like what how someone might be switching from one thing to another, like putting everyone first and then going, I'm not making dinner tonight?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is it as simple as that?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Or like so sometimes it is, and this is where and everyone goes, um, what do you mean?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: How are we gonna eat?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, oh, exactly.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: So there's varying degrees of this, and this is why I recommend like our pleasure practices that have to do with us solo that don't require anyone else first, right?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like we just need to start working that pleasure muscle, and then um we really have to learn how to tolerate other people's uncomfortability because it's that I think part of it's societal, I think some of it a little bit is biology, where we are wired to caregive, but I'll give a couple examples um of sometimes things going wrong.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I can give some examples of things going amazingly well to know.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: But so for example, I have um this client loved her, but I talk about this often.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: So her son, I think was 12 or 13 and refused to tie his shoes.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: So and I I guess it gets to a point that shoes that are like velcro or slip-ons, like are kind of they're sort of ugly or something.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well they grow out.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think they make them grow over.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like he wanted the the style of shoes, but he didn't want to learn how to tie his shoes.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: So she would literally tie his shoes every morning.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what I call the definition of overfunctioning is when you are doing something for someone else that they can do themselves.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: But then we have all these excuses of like, oh, well, he'll get upset or anyway.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: So she was so overwhelmed, she was so exhausted, she didn't have time for pleasure practices or to do things for her, right?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: But when you look at what she was doing during the day, probably 40% of the time was spent over functioning.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: So now though, um her son ties his own shoes.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: They've the kids have even gotten part-time jobs.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: She's renovated the house the way she wants it.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like once it clicked for this woman, she everything's and you know what?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: When she learned to center her pleasure, the whole family was happier because she was fulfilled.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then when you're giving from a full cup, it feels a lot different than giving from an empty one.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um what else?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um There's things of like letting, letting, even my wording, see, that's my patriarchal conditioning coming out.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um having partners take on more of the household labor or the emotional labor.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: So there was an issue of a husband supposed to take care of carpool for the kids' school, and one of the children got forgotten.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: Or and one, actually, there was an issue with the flights booked, and their son ended up stranded in an airport for a bit.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: So these are more a little more extreme situations.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because the woman was like over to you kind of thing.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: And we don't do it because we're worried about what the reaction will be.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: But that's it's costing us 15 cigarettes a day to not take care of this, just as a, you know, it's not like, oh, I can't make them feel bad, so I'll just do it because I can.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's costing you your health and life expectancy to continue that way.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, and then so so balls will get dropped.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: And when it comes, I feel like the only people that we are inherently like overly responsible for should be our children.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: And we want to make sure that they are safe at all times.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: But in those situations, nobody died, everybody's good.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then also the husbands got a good taste of ooh, like I really need to step up here.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: I am not pulling my weight.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then how they showed up after, it's a little different.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: So sometimes there are some interim turbulence as because when systems function because of your overfunctioning, and then you stop overfunctioning, of course people are gonna throw a little tantrum or something.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, but that shouldn't be the reason that you continue to kill yourself in slow motion because of it.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: So, and we don't have to shift everything all at once.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like I have kind of guidelines for how we should go about doing this so that it's not disruptive.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: But it really comes from having the awareness, right?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: Of, oh my goodness, I've put myself last.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: My joy is like my pleasure centers are so turned off, I don't even know what I want or need.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then once I start asking for it, how do I how am I actually able to receive it?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: How am I actually able to see that part through?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: So this reconnecting with joy in our everyday lives, then is a mirror of our reconnecting with our sexual desire.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: I like the way you put that.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: How do you how does that all pan out?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's one thing to to well, is this a you were talking about the you have some steps, so obviously uh there's some lifestyle stuff and and like yeah, reconnecting with what brings us joy.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: How does that then transfer over into changing our patterns when it comes to sex or no sex?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and how important is that as part of the entire system working?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh it's it's yeah, the layers, layers, layers.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um usually I'm on on twice because they're on podcast twice because they're just so much.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: But it depends, it's so it's uh it's dependent on the individual.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because people will say, like, you know, how much should we have sex?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because my husband wants to have it five days a week.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: I want to have it zero, but we kind of like default to what he wants, or people are they're in sexless marriages and they have been, and sexless, a sexless marriage is is um 10 times or less a year.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: So you're kind of like okay, once a month, a little more than once a month is considered a sexless marriage.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but when you talk to a lot of people, a lot of people are in that category, like once a month category.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: And there's no there's no right or wrong about this.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: I always want people to have like pleasure-centered sex and a pleasure-centered life.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: So personally, I think that quality sex is more important than quantity because if you have really great sex and then you're sort of feeling that and having that connection and maybe texting about it or giving each other that kind of look, you know, um, for days after that, I would take that once a week, once a month, over the robotic checkbox sex three times a week any day.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of women specifically, so we've been taught male-centered sex.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: There's tons, right?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like as far as sex education goes, we look at sex as penis in vagina, right?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: If I say sex, that's what most people think is they think penetration, that's how they define sex.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: But only one third of women reliably orgasm from penetration alone.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: So it's very interesting that we define sex as the part that men think is the most pleasurable.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's like if it wasn't penis and vagina and mutual orgasm, then it didn't count.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I think a lot of the reason why there's so much sexual dysfunction is because women in heterosexual relationships, this isn't true in same-sex partnerships.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: But women in heterosexual relationships don't want to have sex because they're not enjoying the sex they're having.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: But they've never explored that.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: They've never given permission to explore it.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um so just like we're doing pleasure practices like outside of the bedroom, there's pleasure practices in the bedroom as well, where she gets to determine like, what do I like?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Or what would feel good, what does turn me on, what's a no for me?
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but when we're in that, like first we kiss, then there's some oral sex, and then there's penetration and we move on, kind of thing, like no wonder she doesn't want that.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: And for men, and I say this often because I don't I don't mind, like if men feel shame a little bit because they need it, right?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: They need to realize that the script we've all been given for sex is for their pleasure.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: And if he wants his wife to want it and like want him, he's gotta change up the game a little bit.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like he's gotta shift too, you know.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, anyways, that's that's that's patriarchy once again, and these beliefs of you know, if however many times the man wants it, we kind of default to him, or you know, oh, I can't I can't tell him that I've never had an orgasm because it will hurt his feelings.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like it it's not it's not intimacy, and the patriarchy hasn't done anyone any favors with how we learn about sex, how we talk about sex, how we actually have it.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: So where do you stand on that?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think that's happened?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's been a long time, hasn't it?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Of like being oppressed.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: I yeah, I think because and when we look at sex, like the history of sex um and how people had sex in different colonies, like ancient societies, it was very different, right?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: That we weren't even necessarily bonded, like it was we were in communities, it wasn't husband and wife.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: So there was more orgies, there was more sharing.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: There were it was a more polyamorous situation, and it wasn't until there was like ownership of land and ownership of women and their bodies and stuff that it sort of seemed where women's sexuality was really repressed and controlled, I guess.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is kind of a little bit on a tangent, and I'll come back, I'll come back again.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm all for a tangent.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I've kind of like I've spoken to other guests, and there's this um, you know, there's this sense of the tides turning, and this there's talk of, you know, women being oppressed and the patriarchy and yeah, things changing.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned, you know, the rage of all of these things that are kind of coming to the surface at the moment in politics and the way that the governments are trying to control things.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: But with the work that you do, where you're kind of getting women to reconnect with their sexuality, as it's almost like a wisdom.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I'd love to hear.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's our most innate wisdom.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd love to hear it.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it's our most because when we're in touch with our bodies, then we are in touch with our intuition and this sort of knowing that I feel like we've also been conditioned away from as women.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um and we're also connected to this power, this sense of self, this um, and they they research it a little bit, like higher self-esteem, higher self-worth when you have healthy sexuality libido, right?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: Or if you're you know suppressed and kind of disconnected from that part of yourself and that part of what makes you human, um it's like worse mental health markers.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: But and there was a book that was written and it had a lot of factual inaccuracies, so it's it was really popular, and then it's kind of like don't talk about that book because there was a lot of inaccuracies, but she had some great points um about having power over women and power over because that's how we create life, yeah, right.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: And we forget that we forget that we like we literally build bones and heart tissue like in our wombs and yeah birth humans, right?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: So when it comes to controlling women's sexuality, it's kind of like it's controlling our like our reproductive health, our life force, our our power.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: And in this book, they mention um she mentions about how when there's war, one of the things that they do to destroy societies is to the this this is blunt, but it's the truth.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: They pardon, they use sex, yeah, and penalize it.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: And the invading people will rape women and children.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: So like that's how a part of the eroding, and and we can kinda we can see this going on globally, and it has been for years, decades, what centuries.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um so when women are in touch with their sexuality and that life force, in whatever that looks like, right?
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like this does not need to look like a partnered heterosexual relationship.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: This could be self-pleasure or joy in whatever capacity feels good for her.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: But when she connects to that, no one can say no to a turned-on woman.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: And that makes her so powerful.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I do really feel like the patriarchy is scared of that.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why they want to control us having children, they want to control our wombs, and they want to control our power because when we are exhausted, when we are doing the invisible labor, when we are sick, we're controllable.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: So it really serves the patriarchy to make us feel shame about our sexuality and disconnect us from that.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because then we're sick and weak and overwhelmed.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned, um, well, you have mentioned social conditioning and on our part, but you also mentioned that this isn't like about necessarily, and when we talk about the patriarchy, we're not necessarily, we don't have it in for our partners, right?
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, okay.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: Let me be clear here.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a kind of a bit of a there's a sense of like the right on feminists, and I think we need that, but it's like we don't want it to be at the expense of the other half.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: They've gone through their own social conditioning as well to create the patriarchy has harmed them just as much as it has harmed us, but the issue is that it benefits them and disenfranchises us.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, and I do um, yeah, and it's even I I have to remember that I have to say this repeatedly, like that I don't hate men, I hate the patriarchy, the system of but I I do men that are unwilling to look at the benefits that it's given them and unwilling to have conversations around, you know, like if men, if a man is trying, yeah, and if they're trying to talk about, you know, policy about women's health body, women's bodies and women's health and abortion rights, and it's like you don't have a uterus, you don't have a say in this conversation, you know, like if we were trying to make law around their reproductive rights to control them, like, oh, all men need to have a vasectomy until they're proven not an abuser pedophile, like whatever, like they would lose their mind if the situation was reversed.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I just I the patriarchy as a system, but even the fact that we have to qualify that and say, like, but I don't hate men, it's like it's like it makes you want to make you're reassuring them that yeah.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: If there's if we're being overridden by the masculine, we have a problem, but if we're being overridden by the feminine, we're also gonna have a problem.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm glad you say that because a lot of my training was in traditional Chinese medicine.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: It was a part of what I learned.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I so yin and yang and the imbalance between the two creates disease.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I used to talk about masculine and feminine and energies all the time.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: But the grifters and the red pill content that's out there, they have sort of destroyed these terms, in my opinion.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because it's like, is it masculine and feminine energy as in its like essence in traditional Chinese medicine, or is it masculine and feminine energy as tricky ways to manipulate through gender roles and evade accountability, which I absolutely hate?
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: But one of the things about Chinese medicine that I love the most is like one can't exist without the other.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: And they're as far as masculine and feminine are yin and yang, and they are equally um like they're different, yeah, but that's okay because they're they're balancing each other.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I tattooed it like the bigram on my wrist, yeah, of yin and yang for how you diagnose in Chinese medicine.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, because I was very yang and I didn't have any yin back then.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's an interesting um thing as well.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: The yang, like how women are often in their yang.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm an astrologer, so I kind of can see it like we we kind of some of us are born with more yang than yin, you know.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but oh we have I want to have you on my show to you to do my chart because apparently I'm like a triple fire something.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, are you?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I don't know.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: But anyone in the astrology world always looks at my chart and goes, oh, okay.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, we and but again, I think it's part of the patriarchy that we are in that yang masculine get it done kind of thing.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: And we devalue the feminine.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: But and I but I look at it as as yin, right?
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: Which is like downward energy, slow, nourishing.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's so but when we say feminine, especially like in Western culture, it's like feminist, crazy, or yeah, oh yeah, or good maybe yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: Or feminist, like she's a man-hating bitch, as opposed to yeah, and that's I just I've been explaining a lot to people in my personal life as well, because as I said with the rage, like I've been on one.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: So, but feminism or like a matriarchy, it's not the opposite of patriarchy, like it's a totally different fundamental set of principles.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: So it doesn't just mean like so.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of men having power and control over women, it doesn't feminism doesn't mean women have power and control over men, like that will also fail.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's yeah, it's this kind of theory about you know, some of the women that now, you know, we do like the women that you work with who are in positions of you know, CEOs, they're high achieving in their work and and life.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I feel like with this sort of shift that we sense happening, It's almost like practice, like because we will still, if there is a um a matriarchy, you know, in in the future.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: When there is a matriarchy, when there is a matriarchy, when we are a more matriarchal society, like elephants, um, led by women, we still will need the strength and power that uh women have.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so maybe this is kind of like practice.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of take the bits that we've learned, you know, there's that there was the rise of feminism and equality where women wanted equal rights in the workplace, and we've just realized that actually we're just doing more things, like we have to have right, then we're still doing all the things.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's not necessarily the right answer, but it's but it's yeah, it's allowed women to be able to leave.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, it's reconnecting with that sort of the feminine wisdom um in the work that you're doing through the, you know, that yeah, the trying things out and learning what learning what works and what doesn't.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're just going through this process.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's leading.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we can definitely learn from where we've been and what hasn't worked.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're getting close to the end of our hour.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you're right, we probably should do another episode because so many things we haven't spoken about yet.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this might be a big question to sort of um end on, so apologies.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm really curious about the psychological because we're talking about pleasure, and it it feels like pleasure, there's especially sexual pleasure.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's there is a psychological as well as a physical thing going on, isn't there?
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm just curious about that whole thing.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and that's why I had two businesses, right?
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like the medical clinic to deal with the physical, because you know, we're gonna we're gonna have postpartum, we're gonna have perimenopause, like there's going to be a need for vaginal estrogen prescriptions for so it's just um like there's always the physical component to this, the cellular health component, hormonal component.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: And there's always the the mindset part.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: And to try to put it simply, and when I think of yin and yang, and I think of arousal and desire with yin and its downward movement, it's head, heart, vagina, pelvic floor.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and for yang, like that's rising.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: So literally penis, heart, head.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um so the there, but for women, even especially, but it's a part of our conditioning too.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: But the mind, the psychology piece of all of it is so, so important because that's where it starts.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: Context, safety, that is the most important part for women.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: As simple as I can put it.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: But I could write a whole book on that.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, please do.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: Even when um we you were talking about desire right near the beginning of our conversation, you're saying it's a chemical, you know, there's a chemical reaction in it in our brain.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and we know that so many things that happen in our body are because of our psychology, right?
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the things, yeah, the chemical reactions that are going in our brain.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: And meditation is proof that that that can change our, we can change our physiology.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: Change, yeah, that our state.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: And we can do it with orgasms too.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm not a great meditator, but I'm a good orgasmic meditator.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a great note to end on, and and a hot tip from the pro.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so I've loved our conversation.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's gone kind of um just meandered in a few different directions, but I think that the the general message is very clear.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey there, Rebel.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Midlife Rebel Podcast.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to support the show, you can buy me a coffee by going to Buy Mea Coffee forward slash Midlife Rebel Podcast.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.