Are you a woman struggling with a low libido? If you can relate, then this episode is for you! First of all, nothing is wrong with you. You are not broken. This can be so normal, but IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE YOUR NORM! This episode peels back the layers of a topic that's often shrouded in silence and misunderstanding: low libido in women. By the end of this episode, you'll understand ten common reasons why your libido may be low.
I am also inviting all the women I know to come join me for my upcoming workshop, Ignite Your Desire. This will be a safe place to explore some of the things in today's episode along with practical ways to increase your desire naturally. Hope to see you there. You can get your spot right here.
Let's Connect.
Free guide: 5 ways to find Calm: Get the guide here
Come find me on Instagram: @findherwildcoaching
Check out my website and my offerings here
Are you a woman struggling with a low libido? If you can relate, then this episode is for you! First of all, nothing is wrong with you. You are not broken. This can be so normal, but IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE YOUR NORM! This episode peels back the layers of a topic that's often shrouded in silence and misunderstanding: low libido in women. By the end of this episode, you'll understand ten common reasons why your libido may be low.
I am also inviting all the women I know to come join me for my upcoming workshop, Ignite Your Desire. This will be a safe place to explore some of the things in today's episode along with practical ways to increase your desire naturally. Hope to see you there. You can get your spot right here.
Let's Connect.
Free guide: 5 ways to find Calm: Get the guide here
Come find me on Instagram: @findherwildcoaching
Check out my website and my offerings here
Hi, my name is Bridget and this is my podcast, wake Up and Thrive. My intention for this space is to help women around the world live more awake, aligned and truly alive. I believe wholeheartedly that we are designed to live, feel and experience the full range that life has to offer, and in doing so, we can live fully turned on in all areas. My story began with sobriety and has since been an initiation into rediscovering parts of myself that I forgot about or had abandoned. Learning to reclaim all of who I am has been the greatest gift of living awake, and together we will go on a journey of helping you to do the same. You can expect to learn practical tools to help you connect deeper to yourself, your purpose and those in your life. All you need is an open heart and an open mind. So if you're ready, it's time. It's time to wake up and thrive. Hello, good morning and happy Monday. I want to say a special shout out to my mom I know she's listening and I want to tell you put your earmuffs on, because today we're going to be talking about sex. No, I'm just joking. In fact, I'm actually the one that should be putting the earmuffs on. That's what I've done my entire life and we just have this inside joke that the reason I got pregnant so young those that don't know I got pregnant with my oldest son at 18. And the joke is it was because I refused to let my mom give me the talk. So it's funny to me. I hope she finds it funny that this is the topic I'm talking on today and, if you guys haven't seen, I'm leading a workshop. It is going to be my last workshop for 2023. It's been a while since I've hosted a workshop. Those that have come to workshops in the past you know how much energy I'm going to be bringing, and especially on this topic. So I will share more about the workshop at the end.
Speaker 1:But I'm talking all about what prevents us from wanting to be physical with our partners, what prevents us from prioritizing pleasure in our life and what is the real reason we don't have a desire. Because I think you know I've worked in women's health for over six years now, as a registered nurse as well, and I'm telling you guys, along with that, along with all of the clients that I have coached privately and in group sessions, every single one of them experiences an issue when it comes to physical intimacy. Almost always, it's the woman with the lower drive, but that's not always the case. I do just want to throw that out there. Absolutely can be situations, in fact, one of my clients shared recently you know that it was her that had most of the drive. But for the most part, I'm speaking to the women that feel like they just don't have any sexual drive at all. Their libido is just completely shot, and I want to give you some insight into what else could be going on besides what the current narrative is out in the medical world. So if that sounds fun to you, plug in the earphones. If you don't want your kids to know what we're talking about, let's get started.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, in no particular order, we are going to go through 10 of the most common reasons why your libido is low, why you are not prioritizing pleasure, why you do not have a strong sexual desire, and again, I'm listing this. This is based on my own journey and my years and years of experience of working with women and working with the body, so this is not something I found in a scientific journal or this is not something that you will find anywhere else. This is really like my own compilation of what I've witnessed and what I don't think is being talked about. So grab a piece of paper and, again, this is not in a way to like criticize or shame or judge. If you resonate with any of these reasons, this is just because the very first step is just to become aware, to bring insight into why your desire is lacking, because I think oftentimes we live in a society where we're just we're conditioned to look outside of ourselves and then we end up trying to do this and trying to do that and trying to check this box and that box and we never end up actually getting what it is that we want. So, all right, let's dive in.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the first reason you might find a lack of desire or low libido is what I consider one of the most obvious ones. I think it's the one that's talked about the most. I think it's the one women feel the most comfortable, sort of like latching onto, because it gives validation, it almost gives this outside reason, if you will, even though it's occurring inside. It gives like a name to what's going on, versus. So I think the reason I think women latch onto this so much is because it allows them to sort of separate from identifying with it and identifying with being broken or something being wrong and really being able to be like oh no, no, no, no, no, like I have this thing. I have this thing and this thing can be fixed. And so that thing is a chemical and a hormonal imbalance. That's the number one reason I think most women search out. Right, that's where we start.
Speaker 1:When we have a lack of libido, we go to the doctor and we say, since I had a baby, since I turned this this age, since I've entered this season in my cycle or my journey or whatever in women's health, this is what's going on. This is the biggest symptom that we notice, because it's also the biggest symptom that our partners will notice, right, and what I want to say is that this is real. It 100%, it plays a role and plays a factor in creating your libido, creating your sexual desire, especially for my mamas that have had babies and your breastfeeding, like your estrogen levels just tank, and that does play a role in it. Okay, so, again, just really highlighting that this is absolutely a true experience, a real experience. This is out of your control, so there are absolutely things to just pay attention to where you are age-wise, season-wise, like you know. Did you just have a child? Are you breastfeeding, like all sorts of stuff like that. And I love that we have physicians and medical doctors that are leaning more towards natural supplements, natural ways to boost your estrogen. I think that's amazing because this leads to my second one.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes, some of the at least chemical imbalances that we can experience, like particularly, I'm thinking postpartum depression, or even just like generalized anxiety, a lot of those medications that are geared towards sort of like rebalancing you, rebalancing the chemicals inside of you and the hormones inside of you. The goal is to feel better, but what it's actually doing is it's numbing certain receptors in our body and that can absolutely play a role in your own sexual desire and your libido. So you know that's the like double-edged sword, because it's like on the one end, you do want to feel better and that should be a priority, but at what expense? So, just again, paying attention to all the supplements you're taking, all of the medications even prior to you know, maybe you've been on it for years and years and years and all of a sudden you're experiencing this that can still play a role because of the accumulation of the medication in your system. So, just being on top of it and communicating with your doctor.
Speaker 1:So number three is going to be experiencing trauma in the body and trigger warning. This can absolutely be in response to a big T, right like sexual trauma. 100% plays a role in our ability to open, our ability to desire being physical. And the invitation here is, first of all, to make sure that you are getting the support and I cannot stress this enough If you are listening and you can relate to this trauma, please, please, please, work with a body-based therapist who can actually help you move that trauma through the body. And the good news is you actually don't have to relive it. You don't have to go back and talk about it and experience it in your mind. You get to experience it in a safe place in your body and really release what's holding you back, because that can be huge in so many areas in your life, but specifically when we're talking about if you're in a healthy partnership right now and just really wanting to increase that, that libido. So pay attention to that.
Speaker 1:Even if you've had a trauma that you think you're over, you've, you've already gone to therapy, you've already quote-unquote healed from it Subconsciously, if your body, if your reproductive area. If your pelvic area doesn't feel safe enough to open, you will experience pain, you will experience low lubrication, like you will experience a lot of physical manifestations, all related to the trauma. The other trauma I want to just mention here because I know a lot of women that listen are moms understand that the birthing process, especially the way that we facilitate the birthing process in the United States, can be incredibly traumatic, not just for babies, but it can be so traumatic for moms. There can be tears, there can be prolapses, there can be, you know, the baby gets stuck and they have to use outside or external tools to help sort of facilitate that. And so, if you experienced a difficult birth, understand that what your body does is the same thing that it does in big trauma. It will, it will close, it will constrict, it will numb those parts because, in other words, just think about, like, when you have a back pain, when you have back pain, what is it that we do? We will do anything to get rid of the pain, so we reach for something to numb it Right. That's what we're trained to do. That's also what your body is trained to do if you have felt Pain or disease in a certain area of your body, your, your body is going to look to sort of turn that off, to sort of numb it and, yeah, just sort of mute that area which can play a huge role in your libido and your desire, because desires all about feeling good and if you have experienced trauma or pain down there, you're not gonna feel good, and if you don't feel good you're not gonna prioritize it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so Number four. Number four is many of us are in go-go-go mode all day long at work with the kids, managing the house, managing bills, all the things, and we hear this a lot like this is the term I've used. You need to learn to get out of your head, right, but I sort of want to break that down for you. What it means is when you're in organization and planning mode again, not bad, it's not bad or wrong, but our bodies are machines. Our bodies have this innate ability To sort of redistribute energy to where it's needed. So meaning, if we see a bear right Like our, our life is literally being threatened. Our energy will be redistributed away from the thinking faculties and to the extremities so that we can run away to be. It'll be Distributed away from our gut, right away from our core area Out, so that we can get the hell out of there. That's what our bodies are designed to do. It's an amazing mechanism.
Speaker 1:So same thing when we're in our head and we're in planning mode and we're go-go-go, do-do, do, our energy is being redirected to the head, to the brain, and Again, not bad. We need that, because if we're not, if we don't have the energy in the blood flow running up there, like we can't actually Engage the faculties in the way that are needed. So it's a good thing. What, where the problem becomes, is that there's not a balance. We forget to sort of engage and redistribute the energies from the neck below and so, just like when you go to the gym and you working out certain muscles, certain areas of your body, if you do, if you neglect other areas of your body, it becomes weak over time. The receptors, the sensory input becomes weaker, it becomes numb, if we are not Intentionally moving that energy both ways. So that's just something to keep in mind.
Speaker 1:That's a big part of what I'm gonna be talking about in my upcoming workshop, because I think it's so, so important and I'll be completely honest, that is where I have found the biggest impact in Mom earmuffs, in my own, libido has been learning to get into my body, which again just means sort of redistributing the energy from my neck below. Okay, I don't even know what number we're on. Let's see, we are on one, two, three, four. Okay, so number five, we are touched out, right, and again, I'm not just talking about if you have kids, I think, as women in general, we, you know, we live in a society. We are conditioned where think of others before yourself, be selfless, or you're being selfless by taking care of other people's needs, put yourself last. And so I either would.
Speaker 1:Again, whatever role you're in, whether you're a mom or a business owner, or just you know you work full-time in somebody else's business, you are most likely attending to everyone else's needs, putting out fires left and right. And so, again, night time comes around, and what do we want to do? We don't want to be touched, we don't want to be needed, we don't want to Meet anybody else's needs, right, and so, again, a lot of us, a lot of you, listening, see and view sex as one more thing you have to do for someone else. And so, if this is you, all I'm gonna say is you have to come to my workshop. You have to come to it. It's being held at the end of the month. I'll talk a little bit more about it at the end, but the science alone that I'm gonna share is gonna blow your mind and help you really, really reshift this, because I I know that this is a big one.
Speaker 1:This is absolutely one that many women relate to. That sex is just for him and, yeah, like I get it. I get it. If that's the way you view it at the end, it makes a lot of sense why that's the last thing on your mind. Okay, so number six.
Speaker 1:So, again, this is another obvious one, but it's not necessarily related to, like, physical imbalance. It's this emotional imbalance. So many women, we can all agree we need a slow burn right, meaning we don't just like get aroused like men do, and we're not just ready to go right. We need not only do we need time physically to become aroused, but emotionally we need to feel that connection before we are even open to physical intimacy. And I think, again, this is the most obvious. This is one of the most obvious ones besides the physical imbalance.
Speaker 1:Many women like to cling to this and then they just stay here and again, it's because, as long as the biggest reason for why your libido is low is because of something outside of yourself, so in this case it's because of something your partners are doing wrong. Right, they're not present enough, you never talk to them during the day, they're not romantic, they're not spontaneous, like the list goes on and on and on. As long as they aren't, whatever, it is all this stuff present, supportive, vulnerable we don't actually have to look inside and look at our own emotional imbalances. Look at what we are lacking within ourselves. So again, I want to validate this experience because it was mine for a really long time, and you guys have heard me talk about this Learning the dynamics of polarity has been huge in helping me to really get my needs met in this area.
Speaker 1:But I should say and if my focus continued to just stay on him, I would again have missed a huge aspect, because just think about in your own life, how many times have you told your husband if you do this, like then I'll be more in the mood, and then he does that. Are you still in the mood? Because almost always the answer is no. Okay, so kind of moving on from that again, just recognize if you really related to that last reason, it's not wrong. It doesn't mean you just need to drop what it is that you want from your partner. But you have to really understand that that's only part of the picture. As long as the focus becomes on him, you're still not addressing the actual desire inside of you. Like that's the part. If you could come to the table with a full desire and still want your husband to be present, like now we're talking now, now we can go somewhere. But most of the women come to the table with a lack of desire and say it's because of his lack of presence, and it actually should be both. It should be like I really really desire this, I really want you and this is what I need from you. Would you be willing to do that? So I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Okay, so another huge libido killer is resentment. Right, we resent him I hear this all the time Like he's so good at just walking in from work and seeing me with a kid on my hip and a pot in my hand, and you know I'm running around like a chicken cut off and he just says, oh, I got to go upstairs and shower or I got to go take a 20 minute poop or whatever it is. He's really good at taking care of his needs and instead of seeing this as an invitation into, oh, like that's something that's really triggering me, maybe that's something that I really desire, maybe I really want to be more proactive and taking care of my own needs, instead we use this resentment to drive a wedge between us. He's selfish, he's, he's like clueless, he doesn't get it, he's a child. I've just I've heard all of this stuff and a lot of, to be completely honest, so many of those stories were my stories for years and years and years. But again, again, again desires inside my body. So, as long as I'm looking outside of myself, I'm still not addressing the whole picture. But all I want to say is resentment is not sexy y'all.
Speaker 1:Number seven number seven is insecurity of our own bodies, and many of us think this is because of how we look right, maybe after you've had a child, or maybe you're entering into perimenopause or menopause, and you know, when that happens, like the, the fat inside of our body, it gets redistributed and our bodies do change. This is by design, this is beautiful, but we live in a society that that doesn't really support that, and so what I want us to say here again, we're focused on how we look. Like if I would just lose some, lose 10 pounds, if I would just get more tone, then maybe I'll be in the mood more. But really, what we have to understand is desires of feeling. So it's it's not about how we look, it's about how we feel, and I know many women who come to me who quote unquote you know they look amazing but they still don't feel desirable because they don't feel oh, I'm sorry, let me say that again they still don't feel desire for other people, like sexual desire, because they don't feel desirable inside. And so this can be something that you can really work on and nurture without even changing your body, which is really really cool. But yeah, and then you won't need to wait until you lose those 10 pounds or get more tone to feel sexy. So again, not invalidating this experience, because it does play a part like our bodies do change, and I think the more that we can embrace that, the more that you will see like, first of all, our partners don't care. Almost always they don't care, which is so amazing. It's it's us. It's us really shifting, like what does this mean that my body has changed outside. What does this mean for me internally?
Speaker 1:Okay, the second to last reason we you might experience a little libido is you tell yourself you don't have time. And the truth is you do have time. You have time for whatever it is that you prioritize and value, and and I've said this before, but I'll say it again you actually don't need more time. You need to make more decision about how to spend your time. Right? So you're your need to just prioritizing pleasure in general, not just in the bedroom, but like in life. Can we slow things down enough and enjoy the, the pleasure and the juiciness that's all around us all the time, right, ken? And if you don't know how to do this, again, this is something I'm gonna help you guys create your own pleasure practice, and I'm really, really excited about this because this is something that I was first introduced to from my mentor and it really changed the game for me. So, yeah, again, I'm not just talking about sexually, I'm talking about in general. If you're not prioritizing pleasure, you are not going to pray. If you're not prioritizing pleasure outside of the bedroom, you are not going to prioritize it inside the bedroom.
Speaker 1:We are conditioned, we live in a society, no matter where you are in the world, tuning in our society as a collective responds and glamorizes pressure Over pleasure, get things done quickly, over taking your time, taking your time and really really enjoying the fruits of what your whatever your it is that you're doing. So Just sort of shifting this in in small areas of your life can make a huge, huge impact For you and your partnership and your libido. Okay, and so the last one, and Also, like again, these are not in any particular order, but I think this is a huge one. This is a really common reason. But again, we, we, we feel more comfortable blaming Something out of our control, right? So something like whether it's our Environment and the season we're in and we just don't have time and we're busy, whether it's our husband, he's doing this, he's doing that, maybe it's, you know, maybe, even though it is inside of us, it's sort of out of our control. Maybe it is this chemical or hormonal imbalance. We, we like to live there.
Speaker 1:It's a lot safer to live in blame than it is to really look at the shame. They call this the blame shame cycle. If you find yourself in any situation Moving to blame, just understand that on the other side of that coin is almost always shame inside of you. And so I know for me in my journey. I was raised Catholic, raised in the church, went to Catholic school and again, not like coming hard down hard on the church, but but there is a ton of shame around being sexual, feeling sexual, dressing sexual, like all the things. I remember this was so funny I was not allowed to wear we used to call them noodle shirts when I was a kid spaghetti strap shirts with my bra showing again because of the Well, I'm sure my mom is listening and there might have been a different reason, but the, the perspective I had was that you know, it gives off this, this innuendo to, to the, the boys that I'm around, or whatever.
Speaker 1:And again, that's just one small example when shame can come up. I mean, you heard me talk in the beginning like I had so much shame around this topic for so many years and it's just so funny because it's now one of my favorite topics to talk about, because it's like our bodies are created for pleasure. They are, they are designed this way and you know, I remember for me, four and a half years ago I was well, yeah, four and a half years ago I was at a small group at my church and it was an overnight like kind of retreat, and so I was staying with two girls that I had been in this small group with. We'd become friends, but, oh my gosh, we became so close when we stayed in this hotel. Because it's just one of them in particular.
Speaker 1:I just adore her because she completely just like busted through my shame. She started talking about all this stuff that, like you know, I had thought about, I had questions about, I would have loved to talk to somebody about it, but I had so much shame about bringing this up, especially with people who are Christians, who are in the church, and she was so open about all of this stuff and it was just. It made me laugh first of all. It made it just made me feel so safe to talk about my own insecurities, my own questions, like how do we get our questions answered if we're not talking about it? So that's part of like what my big goal is is. I know that so many women have a lot of shame around their own sexual desire or lack thereof, but also, just how do we improve that, how do we increase that. How do we ignite our desire again? And that is something I'm so passionate about because it's so aligned with what I do at find her wild coaching Helping women feel wildly turned on about life while your turn on occurs in the body, right, and so helping women just feel alive again.
Speaker 1:It plays a huge impact in feeling less shame, right? Yeah, I don't know, I could probably do a whole podcast just on this topic. I did record two parts related to shame and how to sort of move through that. So I think if you went back and listened, that would that would really be applicable to this situation. But I just want to sit there and say that the shame that you're feeling, it's not your fault. It's not that you did anything wrong, it's not that your parents did anything wrong. It is the world we live in, unfortunately, I think, because there has been so much trauma around sex that we just naturally as a society move to shutting it down, not talking about it, making people like we say it's important but yet we hide. We hide these talks, these conversations with our kids, with you know, like this should. This is about our bodies. This is normal and our bodies are created to feel good, both men and women. So it's just an interesting topic. That, again, I would love to dive into more around here.
Speaker 1:But, as always, what I think I want to do first is just give you a quick overview again of the reasons you might be having a low libido. So here's your Cliff Note version, and then I'm going to end with a special invitation. So again, number one is a chemical hormonal imbalance. Number two is the medications you are taking to remedy those imbalances. Number three trauma big T or little T trauma. Number four being in go go go mode all the time. Number five just feeling touched out, feeling like sex is another thing on your to-do list. Number six lack of emotional intimacy with our partners, resentment, insecurity of our own bodies, not prioritizing it, not making time for it. And then the last one is shame.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I hope that those were helpful to you. I hope it's sort of maybe you will spark some conversations between you and your partner, maybe it'll spark some conversations between you and your therapist or your own coach or, you know, your girlfriends. Like, let's start to sort of shift the narrative to it being about other people, and again those play a role in it. But let's also, if we're going to do that. Let's also talk about some of the internal reasons that we might have as well for this lack of desire. So and this leads to my offer, I am hosting a virtual workshop. It's been a while since I've hosted a workshop, and it's going to be on November 20th at 730 pm Eastern Standard Time. Of course, showing up live is way more fun, but you will get the recording and I just really really believe that the timing is perfect and that this workshop is needed right now.
Speaker 1:We are about to come into holiday season, which is a very stressful time for many people, so why wouldn't you prioritize this? Why wouldn't you start to call back all of the things that have lowered your libido in the past and let's learn about it, let's talk about it, let's break through shame and let's ignite that desire again. It's going to be a safe place. It's just going to be women. I'm keeping it really small and intimate, where you can come and you can share your struggles, because, first of all, I want you to understand that it's not just you. That's part of the reason we live in shame is because we're not talking about it. So come talk about it. Understand that the same things you're experiencing at home with your partner are the same things women across the country, across the world, are experiencing. I'm going to teach you tangible ways to increase your pleasure, sexually and non sexually, so that it becomes just this natural part of your day, this natural part of your life. We are created for pleasure.
Speaker 1:I've said this before, and I want to show you how to ignite your desire naturally, away from supplements, away from chemicals. It's going to be a really, really powerful class. I feel that deeply, and I also feel this is an interesting workshop I've led because I've had the most interest in it, and yet it's been a little hard to get people to say yes to it. And again, I'm trusting this. I'm really trusting that the women that come into this are the women that need to be there. And I'm also like my gut is that there's still a lot of shame around this topic and it's embarrassing.
Speaker 1:I don't want to share my story, like you know. I don't want to share what it is that I truly desire. Well, this is the place. This is the place to come and do it. So I want to encourage and invite you guys to register today. Again, I'm keeping the spots limited, so don't wait. If you feel called to learn more how you can ignite your desire, naturally Come and join us. Okay, I hope you guys have a great week and I will talk to you guys next Monday.