Menopause and Intimacy: How Nutrition and Emotional Connection Can Transform Your Midlife Experience

Have you ever felt that intimacy and desire take a backseat during menopause? You're not alone. Join host Heather Carey in this enlightening episode of Real Food Stories as she welcomes Lori Davis, a board-certified family nurse practitioner and certified sex counselor, to explore the often-taboo topic of intimacy during menopause and midlife. Together, they dive deep into the emotional and physical challenges women face during this significant life transition, moving beyond hot flashes and weight gain to uncover the complexities of connection, sexuality, and self-acceptance.

Lori emphasizes that intimacy is not just about sex; it’s about fostering emotional connections and authentic sharing between partners. They discuss how stress, hormonal changes, and body image can impact intimacy, as well as the cultural pressures that often complicate women's sexuality. This conversation is a powerful reminder that women can reclaim their desires and navigate changing relationships with openness and curiosity.

As a culinary nutritionist, Heather shares valuable nutrition advice and healthy eating tips that can enhance your well-being during menopause. The episode highlights the significance of nourishing your body and mind, encouraging women to embrace their experiences and redefine intimacy in ways that feel authentic and fulfilling. With insights into midlife nutrition and the importance of self-acceptance, Heather and Lori inspire listeners to prioritize pleasure and intimacy, even as life changes.

Are you ready to explore how menopause can be a time of empowerment rather than limitation? Tune in to discover how to navigate your personal food journey with mindful eating practices and healthy lifestyle choices that resonate with your unique experience. From sustainable eating to the Mediterranean diet insights, this episode is packed with nutritionist insights that will help you embrace the beauty of midlife.

Whether you're seeking to understand the role of hormonal changes in intimacy or want to learn how to cultivate midlife body positivity, this episode of Real Food Stories is a must-listen. Join us as we empower women to take charge of their health, redefine their relationships, and celebrate the journey of menopause with confidence and joy.

Reach out to Lori, click HERE 

Transcript

Why Midlife Intimacy Gets Ignored

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Real Food Stories podcast. Today we're talking about something that honestly does not get talked about enough in the menopause in midlife conversation. We spend a lot of time ruminating over hot flashes, weight gain, sleep, hormones, brain fog, all the physical symptoms of this transition. What doesn't get talked about a lot is intimacy during this time of our lives. What about feeling disconnected from your body or your partner or even yourself? And I really wanted this conversation today to go beyond the typical just low libido headlines we see online because this is about so much more than sex. I think we have to factor in stress and exhaustion and hormones and body image and so much, even lifestyle and nutrition. So joining me today is Lori Davis. So let me give you a little bit of a background about Lori. She is a board-certified family nurse practitioner, a certified sex counselor, and one of the few practitioners who bridges the medical, emotional, relational, and somatic sides of sexual health and intimacy. Lori specializes in helping individuals and couples navigate mismatched desire, disconnection, and the feeling that intimacy has somehow disappeared in midlife and long-term relationships. So I think this conversation is going to help a lot of women feel seen and understood. And honestly, I think less alone. Lori, welcome to the show. I am so happy to have you on today. I know that when I first started my podcast a couple of years ago, a big part of it, a big part of my goal was to shine light on those things that were not getting talked about. And back then, this is just like four or five years ago, menopause was the big thing. No one was talking about it. It was a big secret. And I was like, I'm going to talk about it because it needs to be, it needs to get out into the open. Hormones, hormone replacement, the whole thing. And now, you know, fast forward, it seems like everyone and their mother is a menopause expert online. But the one thing that I do not see around this menopause in midlife topic is really about sexuality. I don't see a lot of it online. And I'm always looking for like the next big trend. It just seems like it's still really taboo. I mean, you see quotes for like testosterone got my libido back. And but what is even testosterone? You know, like that seems like a mystery. And so I'm I'm excited to have you answer all of my questions. And you know, I have a lot, as we talked about it earlier. Um, so I think it'll really help women and my audience who are listening today. So thanks for coming on.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Yeah, and I'm so happy to be here. I um I agree with so much of what you're saying, and I'm really excited about um answering your questions and just providing a lot more information about this topic that you're right doesn't get talked about enough. Great.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Okay, so why don't we just jump in and start with my first question? Just this topic of intimacy and desire. I feel like these words get tossed around a lot. And a lot of women just automatically think that this equals sex. And then a lot of women are like, oh no, I'm done with that. Like, you know, so can you define what intimacy is for you and like what you know, what you think about it?

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Yeah. Yeah. I love that's such a great question to start with. I'm so excited that we're we're jumping in right here. Um, it's funny because one of the favorite conversations I'll have with people and my couples is I'll say, what is intimacy? What how do you know when you're intimate?

What Intimacy Actually Means

SPEAKER_00 4:07

You know, what do people say, they come to say, see me and they say, I want more connection. I want more intimacy. And I'll tell me about the last time you actually felt connected. What does intimate feel like? How do you know? Where do you feel it in your body? What is the, you know, and so then we'll go through that and some examples. You know, this one person might tell me that I feel most intimate when we're sitting by a creek and my foot is dragging through the water and no one was saying anything, you know? And another person will say, I feel most intimate when we're having a heart-to-heart discussion and we're, you know, you're listening to what I'm saying and I hear you and we're really resonating. And a third might say, you know, insects. And so really thinking about like what do you mean by these words, I think is an excellent place to start a conversation like this. What is what is intimacy to you? You know, when do you feel it? It's a feeling. It's a feeling in our heart, it's a feeling in our head, it's a feeling in our stomachs, right? It's a it's a knowing. Um, and that knowing is very individual. But when we talk to our partners and say, I want more intimacy, no one is getting into any of this kind of knowing. For me, what is intimacy? It doesn't equal sex, you know, that can be a version of intimacy, or it can be the exact opposite of intimacy, depending on what's going on, right? I feel like intimacy is the capacity to stand on my own feet and share, know what's happening inside of me and to share that with you. And then to be able to tolerate your what's inside of you and how that comes into me, right? So it's a it's uh two people sharing what's inside and being able to handle what's happening on the other side without getting kind of knocked off course. And it doesn't mean that it's all agreeing, you know, um, but it's something that is like authentic sharing. And I also love the one of just like sharing time and silence. You know, there's can be something so deeply intimate about being able to share silence with another person. So I would say it's different for everybody, but the most important conversation around is what do you mean? Right. I think it also applies to sex. What do you mean by that? And that conversation, I think, can be one of the best ways to open up and and make more flexibility and choice available within this whole domain. You know, what do these words mean? Language matters in all of this. It would be my take-home message.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Yeah. Well, I love your definition because it makes intimacy, the definition of intimacy seem so multifaceted rather than I think a lot of women just think, oh no, intimacy, I'm done with that. You know, like I I I've I've had sex with my husband for the last 30 years. Like, I mean, that's what I hear a lot. That that's like a lot of the, you know, the buzz. And, you know, it's kind of wild that after, you know, now we're like a lot of my audiences in midlife menopause and stuff, and you know, been maybe been married in relationships for years. And you would think that intimacy might become stronger. But yeah, I don't think that, I think that I love your just your definition because I think a lot of women think intimacy equals sex, and I'm not doing that anymore.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

You know, sex equals penis and vagina and orgasm. And I think what's happening in menopause is that women start to get, they can come out, they they feel like there's a an opportunity to come out from underneath a um, they they have permission to come out of an obligatory model of sexual contact. And if if you get to menopause and think, oh, thank God I don't have to do that anymore, you know, to me that's like, well, huh, you've had a model of sexual experience with your partner based on obligation and pressure and a have to, and it just sort of breaks my heart that that is, you

Leaving Obligation Behind

SPEAKER_00 7:59

know, that's the way it has had to be. And that's not your fault, it's not your partner's fault. This is major cultural um knowings about what sex are. Um yeah. So, and and I do feel the relief, and like I'm not arguing with, I see women with the same kind of viewpoint. Like, oh, thank God, I don't have to do this anymore. Um, and I think that's a really empowered position to hit. And the question is, what are you gonna do next? You know, we hit the empowered position. We're able to like state what we want, which is by saying no. Um, and and then the question is how to what's the what's the next move after that? And I would hope that pleasure, authentic pleasure and authentic intimacy that feels good to you would still be possible and valued, no matter what you define that as, you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yeah. That's a really interesting take. I never considered that that this could be, you know, like I've had no more sex or I've had enough of it is like is empowering. And I guess you're right, it is. I mean, it's like kind of taking the stand because if you have been in a long-term relationship for years and like you just culturally, this is what you just expected of you, then you're like, I've had enough. But I think what I hear you saying is that we still need to cultivate intimacy and pleasure.

unknown 9:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

We don't want to just eliminate like all of it, right? We we want to, and and that it come, it can come in different ways and be defined differently.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Yeah, absolutely. And that's not an easy question to ask or a sort of experimental, curious attitude to take in a long-term relationship can be hard to find. But that's what I'm that's the alternate reality I'm wanting to kind of breathe some life into as a possibility here. Um, I do think that saying no at this point, which is some women's option, is a very empowered and individually empowered thing. And that's great. And then the question becomes, well, I'm still in a relationship. You know, how can I be like relationally empowered in a way that maybe I never was before? Now that starts to really sing of, you know, the next possibility.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

And that must be, I I I imagine, challenging for you if if you have mismatched desire, right? If there's one partner who still wants to be physically intimate and be having sex, and one that doesn't, that's your that's where your expertise comes in.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It is so hard. And a lot of what has happened is, you know, we we're talking about the specific kind of case, but um, so many people are facing this mismatched desire problem. You know, whether or not they get to menopause and think, I don't want to do this anymore. Mismatch desire in long-term relationships is gonna only gonna get magnified through menopause. Um and what I would say about that is um mismatched desire is normal. Some person is gonna want it more, some person's gonna want it less, they're gonna want it on Wednesday, not on Thursday, they're gonna want it in the morning, not at night. So the mismatch is normal. We have mismatched desire about everything. The question becomes why is it

When Desire Mismatches Turn Toxic

SPEAKER_00 11:10

so toxic and painful for some people? Why does it lead to a place where a menopausal woman might say, I'm done, I'm not doing this anymore at all? Like that kind of it suggests to me that mismatched desire got poorly managed for a long time. Not because people didn't love each other, not because people weren't trying, but just because we don't really have the tools to even have this conversation. Where would you find them? You know? Um, so yeah, mismatched desire, I would say it's really it's relative. I really like to um say that it's very contextual and that having mismatched desire itself will make mismatched desire worse. You know, it's like we might start out a little bit different, but someone starts to chase one person a little or pursue or initiate or bring it up or make a joke or pressure or grab your butt and you're trying to make spaghetti or whatever it is. And then the other person is feeling lower and lower desire. And then the other person is feeling anxious and more desire, quote unquote. You know, and so we develop this like worsening cyclical thing uh of where it's really harder and harder to find each other. Um, and that can really come to a head at menopause, which is what I think we're sort of talking about with this original example.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah. So, okay, so we have mismatched desire sometimes and just desire in general, right? This in this probably, I imagine for you starts to, I mean, it just seems like a thing that comes up during menopause in midlife. We're evaluating so much of our lives. I mean, like, right, reevaluating what we want in life and everything. But what about just hormone changes and our stress and just being exhausted? And, you know, do you know, how do you feel like those things factor into low libido or or intimacy? And you know, sometimes I I don't like the word libido. I don't know. It feels so male-dominated. It just feels like something, like we're supposed to have it, and if we don't, we're failing. And so maybe you could define that too, like what libido even means. And and then how our hormones maybe factor in to it. Because sometimes I I hear women like they're super interested in sex, like in their 30s and 40s, and then it's just dawn for them. And is it hormones? You know, is it is there a physical component to it?

SPEAKER_00 13:31

There certainly can be. And I really appreciate how you're trying to ask these questions

Hormones Desire And Testosterone Truths

SPEAKER_00 13:36

and you're like libido, low desire, intimacy. You know, we're we stumble on the words, and I do think that's part of the problem. Um, because what are we talking about? You know, um, what's in what's desire? What's libido? And I feel the same like stuck place in myself trying to like speak about all this stuff without using those words because they can be so limiting. But I think the kind of conversation we're trying to have here about hormones and desire libido, to me, I from a somatic position, I'm just like, oh, you don't have that like feeling in your groin that feels like some sort of urgent desire to rub against another person, you know? It's a feeling, right? And I don't have that feeling kind of out of nowhere, out of the blue, in the way I used to have it, or I don't get that feeling pretty quickly into being into, you know, getting near my partner, you know? So it's like a somatic feeling that I lose. And that somatic feeling is what we feel like is the reason to engage in sex. So it's important. Desire is important. This thing we're calling desire, this physical sensation. Um, it's not the be-all end all of sexuality, um, but it matters. We want to feel that way. We want to feel that kind of turned on, aroused desire kind of feeling. And that can be harder to access as we lose certain sort, certain hormones. Estrogen and progesterone are relevant to desire in uh people assigned female at birth. Um, and um, they are not the primary drivers of sexuality. Um, they can be related, but not the primary driver. The primary driver from a hormonal standpoint, if we're looking at sex story hormones, is testosterone. So women have a tenth amount of testosterone in their bodies that men do. Testosterone doesn't fall because of menopause, it just falls because of aging. So it's a normal fall. Not every woman's sexuality is related to testosterone levels. So if you can imagine there are a hundred things that are driving whether or not I wanna, if I'm getting that feeling and wanting to have sex, for one person, testosterone might be number one out of a hundred. And for another person, it might be number 100 out of 100. So irrelevant in a way. And so you can't tell based on what the testosterone level is, whether or not this is relevant to a person's low desire. The only way to know is to say, oh, you have low desire and you have a low normal testosterone. Perhaps a trial of testosterone supplementation just to increase your levels to high normal would let us know the answer to that question. It's both diagnostic and therapeutic. So these sorts of trials of testosterone and primarily postmenopausal women, because there's a risk to taking it pre-menopausally for in case there's pregnancy. So we just have to have a conversation about that. There's really good data to support that. So the classic example for me would be someone who said, like you said, I used to, it used to feel this way to me. And then there was a point where it stopped feeling that way to me. It seems like black and white, kind of pretty clear, on off kind of switch in terms of how that experience felt on the inside. And another like ding ding-ding factor might be, uh, and my orgasm is different. Doesn't have to be that, but it's like, and and it's like it takes me forever to get to orgasm. And then I get there and I'm kind of like, meh, you know, yeah, you know, what it was that, you know. So those two things together really start to point toward testosterone for me. And again, the the data on that would say that it's um safe, uh effective in some women, and that a trial makes sense. And that's data coming out of the Indocon Society, Heather. It's not sideways integrative medicine, which is not, you know, not to uh poo-poo those, but just to say this is very standard Western conservative medicine um for testosterone. The other things you're saying, though, too, is it's not just that hormone, you know, cortisol, the hormone of stress. Um, when our when we're stressed and cortisol is high, that's gonna eat away at our capacity to produce these sorts of hormones. And that's only one way in which stress is gonna inhibit our ability to be um sexual. I mean, for me, it's like stress and all of that kind of like heady, ruminative, anxious kind of experiences or depression, you know, whatever the version is, they're gonna, I like to think about it as like, are we in a pleasure receptive state? What is the pleasure receptive state of our nervous system? Being in sympathetic nervous system, right, was what we're talking about here, is not a pleasure receptive state. You know, being in uh for polyvagal theory, people who like that, dorsal vagal or being depressed, it's not a pleasure receptive state. We've got to be somewhere else. And cultivating a body or a system that can like make a transition into a pleasure receptive state is what I'm would sort of like to reframe the conversation as being able to be in a pleasure receptive state might be something about testosterone, might be something about thyroid hormones, might be something about stress, and probably as a combination of all three and other and ten other things, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

I know you say like pleasure receptive state, and and I think part in the back of my head, I'm like, well, I have a lot of things to think about, you know, like that are like my kids who are like just in their 20s, my aging mother, who I'm you know, getting more and more worried about, my career, my like I mean, there's you know, I think this is a really this age is just it throws in a lot, you know, at one time. And so I but I this is a great reminder to work on the pleasure receptive state and not get yourself so caught up in the habit, I think, of just being in daily stress and having and and yeah, you mentioned cortisol, you know, that the chronic stress, our cortisol levels are like here, you know, like up to here, like all the time, and don't have an opportunity to come down.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

And well, that is a that hor that hormone is directly related, if you look at the hormone cascade to the production of other sex steroid hormones. So from a biological kind of hormonal, you know, chem, you know, molecule kind of aspect that's affecting our ability to get turned on and get involved, get interested in pleasure and be receptive to pleasure, you know, um, because when we're being chased by a lion, it's not a good time to be receptive to pleasure. Um I think what you're saying there about the the this the squeeze that's happening at menopause, I just like to think about the fact that like menopause is a very existentially rich state. You know, we are beginning or we're changing and beginning to notice that like, oh, life doesn't go forever. It's not a continuous improvement to, you know, perfection is like, nope, you know, we are moving into a different phase of life. So being able to like come to some kind of terms with that, that's gonna affect whether or not I want to be sexual. Do I feel sexy? Do I feel like interested in slowing down? Or maybe I have a lot of fears that have been unprocessed about that future, you know, or maybe I think also the big thing that comes up for um

Stress Cortisol And Pleasure Receptivity

SPEAKER_00 20:38

folks is the past. You know, so we have really good research to suggest that women who have a history of trauma have worse menopause. And that's not just about anxiety and depression, it's about hot flashes and vulvo vaginal symptoms. So that's like showing the clear mind-body connection. So having a history of life and all the difficulties we might have faced, we might have gone through them, we might have worked with them, we might not have. We might have defense mechanisms about all of those things in various kinds of ways. Uh, someone I worked with once told me that our defense mechanisms start to wear out about right now, you know. And I think that's a perfect way of saying it. It's like, um, oh yeah, I had a bunch of defense mechanisms. They were work really hard, B type A, do more, caretake everybody else, da-da-da-da. And then I get to this kind of crunch moment that's hormonal, that's just a life stage transition, and those defense mechanisms don't work anymore. So a lot of times our past is also asking to be reprocessed. You know, I think about that metaphor of like turning the wheel. You know, I might have turned the wheel on this, the iterative thing of metabolizing my past and the pains and the traumas. Um, and we have to might have to do it again. Well, that's a big, that's a big lift. The future, the past, this moment, you, me, my mom, my dad, my kid, you know, so it makes it makes a lot of sense that the pleasure receptive state is hard to find. Um, that we start. A lot of time in to-do mode. When I think about the mode we're in, we're just in to-do mode. And to do mode doesn't want you to be in other any other kind of mode. You know, we think about how our brains work. It's just like, do more of that. Don't stop. And you can do that in our culture, or you can collapse and exhaustion. These are the two options. And I'm trying to open up this third space to call attention to this third way of being, which includes the erotic, slowing down, being rather than doing, going out in nature, being creative, feeling alive, feeling grateful. I don't know what it does, you know, but all of that stuff is what I mean by a different way of being, right? That includes that capacity, I think, at its core of being pleasure receptive. And this state of being is not what we need to cultivate at menopause is perhaps new bridges from one to the other. Because it used to be the bridge was, I'm so turned on, I can't even, you know, or whatever it was, you know, or I'm gonna do this obligingly. Well, suddenly none of that's working for me anymore. So I need to learn new bridges from one state of consciousness to another. And learning how to do that is like part of the magic that's also present in menopause.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Yeah, that's a lot right to have to take on. But I think if you are open to it and and you said something like life is short, right? I mean, this is like our time, like now, like we don't have infinite amount of time. And so what do you want now? You know, and yeah. And in a way, it's I was thinking, like as you're as you're talking that, you know, back in like my 30s and 40s, I was busy. I mean, three kids at home, my career, my social life, my I don't know, thing I kind of got like energized out of being busy. And now it's like, I mean, I have these things, but they're not physically keeping me busy. It's just more like in my in my head, like my mother, my kids, you know, my kids don't live with me anymore, but I think I still am like connected and and you know, it's just my husband and me at home. And so like it just gives you like a little like some more like time and space. And yeah, that can feel a little stressful. It's like, okay, now what I now I gotta like fill that. So it's yeah, it's complicated.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

I mean, it it's you have a challenge on your hands. Yeah. So we can both be uh max out to our wits' end, is a lot of what our experience is. And then on your noting on the other side, and now, but in some other ways and sometimes space is opening up, and that and it's that can feel uncomfortable, you know. Right now, the kids are gone. What am I gonna do with my partner? You know, this and that can be another thing that uh is new, you know. I don't want people to feel pressured by the vision of this other way of being and the importance of that, I call it a third space or um an erotic space. And I mean the erotic very widely in this pleasure receptive state. I just hope that it's like um inspiring, you know, that it inspires imagination, a twinkling. You know, it's not meant to be added to your to-do list because that's not gonna work. And I hope that it also comes across as like really wide, you know, that that, but that just to remember that maybe that's a home rather than this, rather than the to-do consciousness. Maybe this other kind of way of being yourself is a different kind of home base that maybe we can come back to, you know, that we knew as kids or, you know, whatever it might be, or we can create for the first time, even. And that feels like um hopeful work without it feeling like pressure to get something else right, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Exactly. I mean, yeah, I I like to think of it more as like an opportunity. I mean, because like right now for for me, like I do have more time and space. I do have more time with my partner. And what are we doing with it? You know, what are we gonna do with it? Are we gonna just keep going as is, or are we gonna, yeah, make the most of it? And yeah, you know, and so good good things to think about. But I yeah, but I think rather than feeling pressured about it, you could look at it as a as a kind of an opportunity or door opening possibility.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

And with that possibility comes fear, um, grief about what might have come before, um, awkwardness, my favorite, you know, awkwardness will rob you of your life, you know. Um, and um I appreciate awkwardness. I have a whole bunch of them myself, but I tell people that awkwardness is like the price of admission to the new possibility, you know. It's not to do things that you can't do, but to to know that you gotta go through the door of awkward and that it never killed anybody, you know, and that it's like a treasure chest away, maybe me winning on the other side. If for no other reason that it's more knowing, you know, it's more curiosity, it's more possibility, you know.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah, great point. I love that. Yeah, that you have to be you have to be kind of awkward, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:33

And take a chance and get past fears and maybe it won't go well.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Right. And that's okay. Right. And that's okay. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

I love it. Um, so I want to just pivot a little bit for a second and talk about food and nutrition, and it's because that's my field. And um and I'm always talking about food as information in your body or for your body. Um, I my philosophy is, I mean, food affects a lot of how you feel physically, emotionally, mentally. So what do you think about that? Just like your nutrition, you know, as far as you know, a lot of the women who I see who are in midlife have been dieting, they have been chronically dieting their entire lives. You know, they're

Food Body Image And Acceptance

SPEAKER_01 28:25

on diets, off diets, they're which just leads to I don't know, I I think also feelings about their bodies, you know, and um but there's you know there's under eating. I mean, we're s we are obsessed right now with getting really skinny, you know, with all the GLP ones and all the, you know, all the just all the the um talk about that going on in the internet. So how do you feel about that just affecting your libido and intimacy and you know everything we've talked about?

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Yeah. So many strands there. Um, I would say that uh menopause is gonna bring in new challenges around all of this, and aging, you know, will bring in new challenges around this because your metabolic rate's gonna change. And that and your your collagen levels are gonna change, and your hair texture is gonna change, you know, everybody's experiencing some variety of a bodily change. That is the definition of aging, you know, and so whatever we're bringing to the table as we hit this, it's it's gonna push on our beliefs about beauty, our beliefs about aging, our beliefs about the value of women as they age, um, and our own like sense of our own body image. So uh it's all it again, we're coming back to this opportunity thing where it's like an opportunity, though, too, you know, where we can um actively work to make choice new choices around what we're gonna value. Um, and that's not easy, you know. Um, I think um one of the things that happens at menopause, I'm just always aware of is how weight gain changes to be something more midline, you know, and the tummy starts to do something different, and maybe the butt starts to do a little something different. And for for reasons in our culture, that is a particularly treacherous place as a as a woman often to have weight gain. That the the the focus on the belly as a um as as the problem, uh I just feel like, man, we'd probably kill cure cancer and like have a you know outpost on Mars to if women could take the brain cells that they took to focus their awareness on our bellies. You know, just think of it every time you've ever like, and I'm outing myself here, like put the pillow across my belly as I'm sitting down or, you know, puffed my shirt out just to like not, you know. Um, and so this sort of managing of that, it's gonna come back in uh as a question of what am I gonna do with this? Um uh I think that um there's some that sometimes I think about it being something kind of cool because when that weight, sometimes if I feel into that, I can just feel that I'm like more solid, you know. You know, we think about grounding in our butt. I don't know if like your listeners know about like grounding, you know, like notice your butt and notice the sense of gravity and know that that you're held and being supported, and that that weight can help us feel more grounded, which is just an an antidote imagination uh, you know, exploration to the antidote of, oh no, I feel a pooch here. And so I think getting somatic with it is kind of an interesting thing to play with. Um I think when you talked about eating, I my mind still goes to that other way of being. When we're in to-do mode, I I my mode is I've got to be skinnier, I've got to do this, I gotta eat this, I'm I'm eating to do, uh I'm eating, you know, fast food in between this and that because I can't get to it. Or it's a very, it's a certain kind of quality of being with the world and being with myself. It's to go, go, go, perform, you know, and being able to transition in moments into this other space, I think is about food too. Because in this other space, perhaps I'm, I don't really use the words intuitive eating because I'm not I don't like really versed in that methodology, but just the idea that like maybe I'm paying more attention to what feels good, maybe I'm paying more attention to what it's how my body feels when I take in certain kinds of things. And I think this state of being has different beliefs and feelings about food too, you know, um, which I think that it's cyclical, right? I eat a little differently and that opens up new possibility for being able to feel a little different about myself and the world around me, and vice versa, you know. Um, so I think that that state of being also has something to say about food. I do know that a lot of people work uh deal with undereating. I do want to, you know, mention that that there's some data, and again, data around nutrition is always a little wily, but to suggest that it's really important during menopause to to deal with under-eating maybe a little bit differently because it's gonna help um set you up for a better transition to kind of have enough nutrients on board. I mean, that's always true, but like it might have an extra um value during this time. Increasing protein has got a lot of energy around it right now. I don't know where that'll play out. You know, we have phases in nutritional work. Um, but the idea that menopause is a biological transition, a neurobiological, neurophysiological transition. And if that's the case, uh it's like we're butterflies going into a chrysalis. You know, as much as you changed from childhood through puberty is is imagine what's trying to happen now. And um that's a neurochemical, biological, spiritual process. And you just want to be able to set yourself up with enough building blocks, right? To to be able to support yourself through that is the way I would think about it.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

Yeah. Yeah. Food is complicated, I think, during menopause because it's it's what you used to be able to get away with when in your 30s and 40s, you can't really get away with you have to, you have to shift your focus. And all that chronic dieting sometimes is not gonna do it. And and I think, I mean, speaking of this opportunity, right, we could think of this time of women's lives as as learning how to find not just the pleasure in like physical intimacy, but like the pleasure in food, tasting your food, you know, and uh, and that's a I promote that a lot in my practice. You know, it's like your food, you should be enjoying what you're eating, not always on a diet. Not not ever on a diet, actually. I mean, I just am so anti-diet. I mean, you know, like we should just really be paying attention, but we should really be enjoying what we're eating.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Enjoying what we're eating and noticing what happens next. Exactly. And what happens in my epigastric region and in my bowel, you know, like we're sort of seeing the whole flow. I do think that menopause is a lot about acceptance, is what I would hope the message uh comes through. The universe is saying, accept, accept, accept, because you can diet till the sh, you know, and exercise till the cows come home, and this might not shift. You know, you might gain five to ten extra pounds, which is the normal amount women gain through the menopause transition, and that might just be true, you know? And what's it like to accept that along with everything else that's a part of this transition? Um, yeah, well, it's it's very difficult for a lot of women.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

Because yeah, it's not easy.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

But just to I like to just sort of imagine that kind of clarion call in the ether, you know. It's not easy, but just you know, we just sort of hear it, you know, and then just wonder how it might come in for our particular lives and our particular histories over time, you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Yeah, acceptance is a is a great word and the probably the best first step to start with.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

It's true around sex too. Yes. I accept where I'm at. It hurts it hurts to have sex right now. We haven't really talked about that. Uh my desire's different, my orgasm's different. Um this is where I'm starting. You know, and where do I want to go next? You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Um, so I think maybe a little offshoot of of food and and things like that. There's I know out on the internet, the amount of supplements I mean, it's you know, the supplement industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, and they are certainly going to take advantage of anything that seems like a little probably menopause is just ripe for supplements and you know, things that can help save you and you're broken and take this. And so, you know, supplements for libido, supplements for cortisol, um you know, like things to like help your hormones, um, hormone balancing. Um

Supplements Influencers And Simple Choices

SPEAKER_01 37:21

what what does that concern you that people you know that like women are sort of like gravitating towards like these wellness influencers online and buying stuff and peptides and I mean it's just out of control.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

You know, I I get on Instagram myself and I'm like, I don't think there's any data about this, but this person is recommending it, and they just keep popping up. So maybe I should buy it. Yeah, we're just so susceptible to that kind of stuff. And like I don't, you know, I don't begrudge anyone the the the anxiety and the motivations to want to, you know, get something else that might be able to help me. Um that being and and so I really appreciate that that's just gonna probably be part of the process, you know. And I think that it does concern me that people are um to the extent that people online are taking advantage of those anxieties that that are you know inherent to this experience, um, and the things that we want to avoid, whether it be health or beauty changes or whatever it is that we're worried about, you know. Um and I would say that there's just that the data around any of these supplements is gonna be meager, you know, that's sad. Um and I've herbal training and I've done other things, and you know, I understand like I really want to feel open to the idea that I could drink this and feel better. That, you know, I could have a cup of tea and it would side and it would feel better for me. It would heal me, you know. And I think a lot of that is what we're we're we're playing with, you know, to take in something that that helps me. And I like that motion and and I want to work with that as like kind of me in the universe kind of stuff, you know. But it's more of a ritual, it's more of a um uh yeah, it's more like a ritual kind of experience than like I know for certain that the amount of camba meal in this tea is gonna change, you know, my capacity to deal with this emotional situation, it's gonna change my GI to blah, blah, blah, and my digestive so-and-so. Um, it's just more of like um a sweetness to being able to take something and that might be a friend. And so I think if you're kind of thinking of it in that way and slowing down with it, then you know, play with that experience, but just know that the data's not so great. Yeah, the data's not so great for almost every side. There's really nothing in menopause that's proven to do anything. Yeah. The only one that might have some decent like workaround is Vitex or Chasevery. That's for women in pre- or perimenopausal or pre-menopausal. That's got some that does seem to work for um things, but there's nothing that's rising up to really have significant impact.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Yeah. And it it it doubly annoys me when I see medical doctors on the internet promoting supplements. Collagen, that seems to be the new hot one. Collagen, turmeric, I mean, it fiber, like fiber, just eat eat food. You don't have to pay for you don't have to pay a gynecologist to get your fiber in a powder form. It it just, yeah, it really it's it's it takes up a lot of my time now to debunk, you know, a lot of these wellness hacks.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

And it's just, yeah, it's it's I think simple is the key, you know, that there's that's kind of a message across all of this, you know. Yeah. Simplifying the pleasure receptive place is a simplifying kind of place. It's um simplifying food, uh simplifying to pay attention to the inner moment by moment kind of sensations that I'm experiencing, and simplifying my um hungry desire to want to fix it with something outside of myself, you know. Ah, I really wish that was true. Can I take a breath? Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

You know, right. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you're saying that there's nothing that's gonna fix your libido with a pill. Testosterone would be the word. Or does I mean right, testosterone, besides that? Maybe. And that's a maybe, right? But it really comes from right, this inner inner work that we need to do. Yeah. More than anything. I think that's I that's what I'm hearing you say. I believe that's true. Yeah. So going along with that, I mean, I know you, you know, you use the word somatic. Um, can you just define what that means just for my listeners? Um, I I know that because I I see that word pop up a lot too in the wellness world, you know, like somatic therapy, somatic body work, somatic. What does it actually mean? And and why does that why do you you use it? And, you know, especially for helping to heal desire.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Yeah. Yeah. I know it can feel very like woo, you know, it's like in the woo sphere to talk about somatic. Um, I think it is simplest. It just means paying attention to what you're feeling in your body and paying attention to what you're feeling in your body right now. That that we

Somatic Awareness For Better Sex

SPEAKER_00 42:33

think about solving problems with our prefrontal cortex, with our brain, it's a thought that's gonna change this. It's a kind of rational pursuit or a super anxious pursuit of like problem solving. Um, and I think that we as a culture have just lost access to like anything happening below the brain. And our bodies are just full of so much information, right? That they that um turning our awareness down to the body and what's happening in the body and noticing, like, oh, I've got this pain in my shoulder. I'm kind of with that sensation, it's sort of like miraculous things can happen, you know. Oh, what if that pain? So it's kind of questions in a more like curious, open-minded sense of like, if this pain could talk to me, what would it be saying? What, you know, if this sensation could speak, well, how big is it? What color is it? Like, it can seem a little esoteric to begin with, but I think that fundamentally the idea that there are sensations in my body which are connected to emotions, which are connected to our history, which are connected to core beliefs, and all that stuff it is just wanting to be, wanting you to be with it and to be metabolized. And that that is a pathway that can open up stuff that never gets opened if I just keep thinking with my brain and dot dot dot dot dot dot, you know? So that's what I mean by somatic, just what's what I'm feeling in my body. And the the belief, I think, in the somatic community um is that's really valuable because it's it's doing. Doing something different, you know, that it's a way in which the rest of our brain is and our bodies communicating, and that if we can be with that in compassion, we will heal it. It's so important when it comes to sex because, well, shoot, that's we're having sex with our bodies, you know. So much of what I think is happening in sex when it goes wrong is that we're dissociated, meaning we're not connected to our bodies at all. You know, I'm I'm connected to, I can feel it enough, and there's an orgasm and whatnot, but there's some qualities of which I'm just I imagine a lot of sex happening with eyes closed and head kind of turned. You know, we're we're we're there and we're not there. Um and being able to tune in to what I feel in my body and know that that matters throughout the process of like negotiating sex. How do I feel when you approach me? What does it feel like when you touch my your hand to my shoulder? I notice that I would draw and feel the startle reaction. I bristle or I, you know, what makes me want to lean towards and what makes me want to lean away? All of that is a physical sensation in my body. And knowing what I want is a physical sensation in my body, you know? And so if we can't incorporate some of that, what we call somatic, which is just like feelings in the body, I think we're gonna be like hobbled, you know, we're gonna be like not fully armed and resourced as we go to do this kind of work.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Yeah, as you were saying that I'm thinking about just how I talk to some of my clients about food, you know, and eating and being, and I rather than using somatic, I use just being mindful, mindfulness, mindful eating, and noticing, right? Paying attention to what you're before you even pay attention with your eyes, with your nose, you know, smell things like here, and and do it without judgment. And I think that you're would probably add that in too, right? It's like your husband comes up and touches you on the shoulder, just notice. Just notice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Without having an opinion about it to necessarily or you know, look at it with kindness. And I think the I think non-judgmental awareness and mindfulness is the foundation of the somatic. Um, and I think the the um the the question of and what happens next, and sort of like feeling into the like, and then this memory came in, this thought came in, this, you know, and then this next sensation followed, like that kind of like linear, not linear, but that kind of like flow through time. If we can be with that, like that, I think that is what opens up more doors too.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

I think, right. So what we've been talking about is is very multifaceted, right? It's not just about hormones, it's not just about taking testosterone, it's not just about uh saying like snap out of it, get, you know, like it's life is short, you know. Like, I mean, there's a lot to really consider when it comes to our desire and intimacy. So last question for the woman who's listening right now and who feels like this part of her life is over, or okay, that happened. Now, you know, now I'm kind of doomed. What would you just want her to hear today? What what would be your last takeaway for this? Is there hope? I

Hope Choice And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 47:22

mean, you know, I because it and it and that does sound very hopeful to me. I mean, I I loved everything that we have talked about, but what's the final takeaway?

SPEAKER_00 47:31

Yeah. I would say that what's possible here is your choice. And if if you're finding that that had been limited in some ways, um, that your ability to choose and say no and say yes and say maybe is something that I think is the gift of menopause in a new way. So many and so many people report that as being the experience of menopause. Um, so you have choice. And if your choice is I don't want to do this anymore, great, you know. Um, and what does that mean? What does this mean? What do you not want to do? You know, that pla just to know that pleasure is important for us as animals, as human animals on the planet, it is healthy for us, it is nourishing for us. Um, so is intimacy because we are we are um communal relational creatures, you know, and how will you, what would be right for you to let in around pleasure and intimacy? Um, and what what do you need? What context do you need for that? You know, it might not look anything at all like anything anyone else ever told you they were doing, or anything at all around something that you've done before or what your partner wants, but the ability to know, you know, just the knowing that like a softening and a leaning into this um kind of more open space is something that I think can be really valuable. And we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Great takeaway. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Okay. So how do people get in touch with you and how would how would they work with you?

SPEAKER_00 49:06

Yeah. So I see people throughout the country, throughout the world for coaching around intimacy and relational care. I see individuals and couples for that. In the state of New York and Vermont, I can also see people for medical concerns and directly help with menopausal um medical care. Um, for those of either way, you can look on my website. It's drlaurydavis.com, but it's dr-l-o-r-i, d-a-v-i-s.com. All of the information is on that website. And you can sign right up for a free consult and we can get on a Zoom call and talk to each other about whether working together would be a good fit. Okay, perfect.

SPEAKER_01 49:39

Well, I will put those links in my show notes so everyone can have those easily. And Lori, thank you so much. This has been an amazing conversation, and I know my listeners are gonna get so much out of it because it this is a topic that is not talked about a lot, and we're talking about it. We sure are. Yep. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you.