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Episode 19: Libido - A new way to think about it , challenging cultural messaging & more
44 Plays1 year ago
This is Lisette Ostrander, and this is the My Kind of Pleasure Podcast, where we will explore topics of sex, pleasure, desire, mindset, and emotions and use the information learned to live the life we want and have the sex we want.
In this episode
- I will present a potentially new way to think about libido
- Briefly talk about what our culture says libido should be
- Talk about low libido and what message that might be giving us
- Touch upon libido and menopause journey…specifically post menopause
- And end with some thoughts about ways to explore our libido.
***I am going to start adding transcripts of episodes to my website!! Stay tuned
Photo Credit: Audra Miller https://millerstudios.net/
Resources I mentioned:
🍒 October 19th Perimenopause/Menopause Symposium “Let’s Change the Conversation”. Register and get access to the replay (no cost to register). Six speakers! Once you register I will email the session schedule & topics the week of October 9th. Register here 👇 https://lisetteostrander.myflodesk.com/menopausesymposium
🍒 Sheri Winston, author of Women’s Anatomy of Arousal
https://intimateartscenter.com/about/sheri-winston/
🍒 Keep in touch & follow me on IG: lisette.ostrander
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Objectives
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi friends, this is Lisa Ostrander and this is my kind of pleasure podcast where we will explore topics of sex, pleasure, desire, mindset, and emotions and use the information learned to live the life we want and have the sex we want. My hope is that what you learn will expand and challenge the way that you think about sex, your body's desire and aging so that you can bring more pleasure and aliveness into your life.
00:00:28
Speaker
How are all of you? It's been a moment.
Community Building and Menopause Symposium
00:00:31
Speaker
I am finding my way with different projects, building my kind of pleasure community on a new platform and reopening doors end of October. I am hosting a Perry menopause and menopause symposium on October 19th. I'm continuing to practice with my life coaching.
New Coaching Programs and Menopause Awareness
00:00:51
Speaker
I just recently got certified.
00:00:53
Speaker
And I'm starting a sex, love and intimacy coaching certification program. All of these things I'm super excited about and just, you know, excited to keep moving forward and bringing all of these projects and passions together. October is menopause awareness month, and I'm looking forward to the October 19th Perry menopause menopause symposium I'm hosting.
00:01:20
Speaker
They have a great lineup of speakers. There's six speakers. Check that out below. It's free to register and it's from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific. And you can register. It's a webinar. You can hop on and off at any time. This week, I'll post the schedule, the lineup of speakers, and the topics so you can see where you want to hop on.
00:01:44
Speaker
It's going to be an interactive webinar, so each speaker will have 25 minutes, 15 minutes of content, and 10 minutes of Q&A. Once you register, I'll send you more details and give you an opportunity to submit a question ahead of time. So even if you can't attend, we can make sure your question gets answered, and then you'll be able to access the replays.
Key Concerns During Menopause: Libido and Desire
00:02:08
Speaker
So a few months ago, I posted a survey to learn more about what's going on in people's mind when they think about perimenopause and the menopause journey. And some of the top questions and concerns were about libido, desire, and potential sexual challenges during the menopause journey.
00:02:26
Speaker
So libido and desire are definitely big interests of mine in the context of the menopause journey and also outside of it. I look forward to continuing exploring what I'm learning and share with all of you, especially as I dive deeper into my own sex, love, and intimacy coaching practice. Today, I'm going to share with you some ideas about libido and desire and potentially offer new ways to think about it and also relate it to the menopause journey.
00:02:57
Speaker
However, even if you're not on this journey and never will be, I still think the information is helpful. So in this episode, I will present potentially a new way to think about libido. I will briefly talk about what our culture says about libido and what it should be. I will talk about low libido and what message that might be giving us.
00:03:18
Speaker
I will touch upon libido in the menopause journey, specifically post-menopause, and I'll end with some thoughts about ways to explore our libido. And this is just the beginning of the conversation. There's so much to talk about here.
00:03:34
Speaker
I recently took a course with Sherri Winston, and she's the author of Women's Anatomy of Arousal, an amazing book. Sherri's work is fantastic, and I highly recommend her and her classes and her books, and I'll link some of that below.
Reimagining Libido: Beyond Cultural Norms
00:03:52
Speaker
So the information I'm sharing today is what I learned from one of her classes. So first, what is libido?
00:04:01
Speaker
According to Sherri Winston, most define libido as our sex drive, and she feels that's an okay definition, but a limited definition. She defines libido as a manifestation of our life force that moves through our sexual energy. It is also about yearning for pleasure and erotic connection, and it has a lot of components of desire.
00:04:29
Speaker
I love Sherri Winston's work because of her focus on energy and sexual energy. And I think that this is something that maybe can feel.
00:04:38
Speaker
really tangible to some people, but also very elusive to others. And I really think that's because we don't talk about it enough there. I think we're talking and starting to talk more about it now, but there isn't this focus there. Well, there is just this focus on like the mechanics of sex, I think, and like quantifying it, like really, like how hard, how much, how long, how many, but this energy is, is elusive and
00:05:06
Speaker
This energy is where the magic is at. And it truly isn't even about penetration or sex itself. It again, it is where the magic's at. And I will for sure continue to explore this on future episodes in the podcast, but bringing it back to Sherry Winston and libido,
Libido as Life Force Energy
00:05:28
Speaker
right? So according to Sherry Winston,
00:05:30
Speaker
One aspect of our libido is our life force energy and it is expressed as sexual energy. And life force energy is the energy that keeps us alive and maintains all of our physical functions. So according to Sherry, libido is more than the drive to have sex. It is about this energy within us, within us. It's about cultivating and moving this energy within us.
00:05:59
Speaker
And side note, sexual energy is our creative energy, our pleasure energy. And it doesn't have to be just about sex or the act of having sex. But again, we will explore that in future episodes.
00:06:14
Speaker
So in our culture, we receive a lot of messaging and we have a lot of ideas of what libido should be. So think about the messaging you have received. And I'm sure when you think about it, most of us don't compare to quote unquote, what it should be.
00:06:34
Speaker
So some of the messages that we receive is we believe libido, like it should always be ready to go. Like our desire, our libido, our drive to have sex should be easily turned on. We see this in the movies that they, you know, immediately see someone and that their desire kicks in or they start kissing and they get turned on without much effort. And they're so turned on that they can orgasm easily, right? That's what we see.
00:07:04
Speaker
We also see the messaging in our culture is that it is healthy and normal to have a high libido, to always have a high libido, right? Probably more so for men, but we also expect this of women as well. Sorry to be so binary, but just to what our culture messages give us.
00:07:25
Speaker
You know, we have this like our libido should be high, but I'm sure for women they should be high, but maybe we shouldn't really show it or say it is or lots of mixed messages. Another message we receive is that if our libido changes, then something is wrong and something's wrong with us.
00:07:45
Speaker
So what we need to realize is that the reality is that our libido changes and it fluctuates over our lifetime and throughout our lifetime. And that doesn't mean that something's wrong with us. Also, it doesn't mean that something is wrong with us when our sex drive isn't fully turned on or in high gear.
Impact of Stress on Sexual Energy
00:08:05
Speaker
So when we think about Sherry Winston's definition of libido and especially thinking about how she says,
00:08:12
Speaker
part of that. Like libido is the manifestation of life force energy into sexual energy.
00:08:20
Speaker
Sexual energy is extra energy. We don't need it to survive, right? And if you think about your life force energy, the energy you use to survive and maintain your physical functions, think about where that energy is going for you, your life force energy, and think about if we don't have extra energy, our libido is one area that will be impacted.
00:08:45
Speaker
So our life force will not be expressed in sexual energy. That energy will go somewhere else to help us survive. Hope this is making sense, right? So for example, where does that life force energy get used up, right? When we think about, I mean, just life, right? Stress at work, at home, health problems, the news, the world, taking care of aging parents, taking care of children, having a new child, a baby,
00:09:15
Speaker
our diets, our diets, our lack of sleep, trying to meet deadlines, paying rent, building a business. Our life force energy is going to all of this. It's going to our brain and our body to keep us going, to be able to kind of withstand and maybe that's not the right word withstand, but to be able to survive and to carry out all these tasks I just mentioned.
00:09:45
Speaker
And sexual energy, like I said, is extra energy and we don't need it to survive. So of course, our life force energy won't be going to our libido if we're having all of these stressors and potentially not sleeping and not eating well.
00:10:02
Speaker
So this is natural and normal, and your body is doing what it is designed to do. So it is okay to have low libido. It is nature's way of preserving our vitality. So if it's going to other things, like all those things I just mentioned that's happening in our life, it's not going to go to our sex drive. And that is natural.
Exploring Post-Menopausal Libido Changes
00:10:28
Speaker
Sherri Winston says that low libido can also be a message about what is going on in our bodies or in a relationship. Relationship with ourselves and also with others. So, she recommends, like, it's important to look at low libido and get compassionate and curious and ask yourself, you know, and the low libido, right, what are you trying to tell me and what might
00:10:57
Speaker
What might I need to change? Do I need to eat differently, get more rest? Again, not to judge ourselves or feel like something's wrong. Again, as I am going to emphasize, this is nature's way of preserving your vitality when all this is going on. It's preserving your life force for what you need to survive.
00:11:19
Speaker
Sherri Winston says, it is a message your body is giving you. And also maybe a message you don't need to do anything with, right? Just listening, asking yourself what is the message? And it might be normal for you at this point in your life and what's happening in your life. And again, remember the range of normal is really wide.
00:11:43
Speaker
in relation to the menopause journey, specifically post-menopause, so that's one year after not having your period for 12 months. Sherry Winston says that potentially the change in hormones might contribute to changes in the sex drive, but she also asked the question, is it really about the hormones?
00:12:06
Speaker
Or again, is this more messaging we receive from society because like we're expecting this to happen. We're expecting ourselves to have like a decrease in a sex drive post menopause. So she asks, is this really about the hormones or is this related to other factors in our life? And as I mentioned above, like when you think about the life force energy and how it's being used for different purposes, where is your,
00:12:33
Speaker
life force energy going to? And is there any extra available for this sexual energy in libido at any time of your life, but especially when you think about post-menopause? So this is something we will definitely continue to
Staying Sexually Active Post-Menopause
00:12:49
Speaker
explore. I hope we explore this in our menopause symposium. I'm going to check on my speakers and their topics. And for sure, we'll talk about libido and desire and the menopause journey more on this podcast.
00:13:01
Speaker
But for now, I will end this episode with two insights that Sherri Winston learned from women who are in post-menopausal who say that they're juicy and, or she calls them juicy and sexy crones that have a very active sex life after menopause. So she asked these women what, you know, what they thought contributed to their juiciness and high sex drive.
00:13:28
Speaker
And she wanted to find out what they had in common. And she found that I think her aunt, their answers were interesting, right? So one of the two main reasons that these women said that they were still able to stay juicy and have a, have a high sex drive post menopause was a lot of them mentioned that they had new partners and boom, right? This added to their sex drive and their sex drive was back again. All the pleasure hormones were being released with the novelty.
00:13:56
Speaker
And also, too, the women who stayed juicy, they kept being sexual. They kept running their sexual energy throughout, right? Period menopause, menopause, post-menopause.
00:14:13
Speaker
So what does this mean? First, it doesn't mean that you have to go get a new partner, that having a new partner or novelty or having a new partner is what's gonna kick in your sex drive. But it does bring up this idea of like, how can we find ways to fall in love or re-fall in love with ourselves, with life, and with our partner at any stage in life, no matter how long we've been with our partner?
Maintaining and Cultivating Sexual Energy
00:14:39
Speaker
Right? Finding ways to have novelty in our life with ourselves, with our partner, and really get those pleasure hormones, the endorphins and the oxytocin released to kick in our sex drive. So I think this applies at any time, not just post menopause.
00:14:57
Speaker
Also, the second idea of keeping our sexual energy running, sexual energy, as I mentioned, is extra energy. And when life gets hard, that's not where our life force energy is going to focus on, right? It's not going to focus on our libido. It's going to focus on what we need to do to survive. So again, something we'll get more into when we talk more about sexual energy, but
00:15:25
Speaker
There's also this idea like the longer we go without tapping into this sexual energy, right? Because maybe life, well, we all know how life is, but the longer we go without tapping into this energy and circulating it, the more effort it takes to turn, to then turn our life force energy into the sexual energy. And Sherry Winston compares it to a pot of water that has turned ice cold.
00:15:52
Speaker
And in order to get it boiling, you need a lot of fire and it takes a lot of time. But if we keep running our sexual energy often, if it's always staying warm, it's much easier to tap into. And so the women she interviewed, whether they were aware of this or not, they were always keeping this sexual energy running, always keeping this pot warm. So this doesn't mean we need to have sex or even have a partner to do this.
00:16:22
Speaker
In fact, I think it's something that really kind of keeping this energy warm and starting the circulation of the sexual energy really starts with ourselves and our relationships with ourselves. But really to start thinking about how do we tap into the sexual energy and keep it running?
00:16:42
Speaker
Again, parts of this are sexual and about sex, but again, it doesn't have to be about sex. And I mentioned before that this energy is also our creative and pleasure energy. And just really thinking about how we can connect to it and it's how this energy is connected to so many aspects of our lives that have nothing to do with sex. So again, just for us to start thinking about how can we tap into this energy and cultivate it daily.
00:17:12
Speaker
So I'm going to end here. This episode turned into something I didn't quite expect. I thought my focus would be more on the menopause journey and libido, but it definitely became more than that. I hope that I planted the seed of different ways to think about libido. And I also encourage you to think about these ideas and questions. So one, what are your thoughts about your libido and desire?
00:17:40
Speaker
And do you judge yourself or feel shame? Or do you not think about it at all? Two, think about this life force energy. And even if that feels a bit woo woo for you, like when you think about your energy in your life to survive, where is your energy going? And what do you do to replenish it, like in terms of food and sleep and just other things that make you feel replenished? And just think about it like it makes sense
00:18:10
Speaker
that potentially that the energy in your life is going to survive and not to your libido and the sexual energy and just to get curious about it.
Reflecting on Libido and Energy Management
00:18:21
Speaker
And three, I would also love for you to start thinking about what is something you can do to start cultivating and moving into and tapping into your sexual creative and pleasure energy.
00:18:36
Speaker
You know, I think a lot of us, again, what the media tells us, we expect it to be natural and just something that's there and just should be ready to be turned on. But it is something we need to cultivate and really be intentional with. And if that is something you're interested in, think about things that you can do for five, 10 minutes a day that can start cultivating this energy. And again, it doesn't have to be sexual or with a partner.
Invitation to Menopause Symposium
00:19:04
Speaker
We will for sure talk more about this soon and I will offer different pleasure practices to get that energy moving. But for now, I welcome you to think about this and please reach out if you have any questions. Thank you and I'm looking forward to connecting soon and also seeing you at my October 19th
00:19:24
Speaker
perimenopause, menopause symposium, or again, register to catch the replay and have the opportunity to submit a question. And I thank you and wow, this is almost 20 minutes long. Have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you soon.