Transcript

(Please note, this transcript was created by AI technology, and has not been corrected by a sentient human.)

00:00 Bree Welcome to pause to go the podcast that's all about making the most of life's transitions from middle school through menopause. I'm your host, Bree Luck, joining you as we embark on a journey of self discovery and questionable decisions. Get ready for heartfelt conversations, expert insights and personal stories that will have you laughing, crying and saying, thank goodness, I'm not alone. If you've lost your midlife crisis survival kit, we've got you covered. So join me, won't you? And together we can pause to go. Today, I'm going to take you into my bedroom. We're going to talk about desire. And actually, it's not going to be all that salacious at this point, but I have been reading a book in my bedroom and it's Elise Lunen's new book on our best behavior. The seven deadly sins and the price women pay to be good. It is so good. It's affirming. It's disturbing. It's looking at the toxic cultural programming around sloth, envy, pride, gluttony, greed, lust, anger, looking at all of those and showing us how these sins are also our virtues. That these things that we've been conditioned to believe were bad can actually be assets for us. Really intriguing, beautiful book. And it brings me right to today's conversation, which is looking at the relationship of desire to empowerment. In today's episode, I am talking with Wendy Lee. And Wendy Lee is a sex and relationship coach. She's the founder of Centered Sexuality. She's a former nonprofit executive who has spent the last 30 years helping people increase their self-awareness and get in touch with their needs and their desires. And after her divorce, as she'll talk about in this episode, she really zeroed in on sexuality as a vehicle for powerful personal development. And she created the Centered Sexuality approach. And recently she joined forces with another friend of mine, Jessica Childs. You may remember from season one, I'm going to link Jessica's episode in the show notes too, because I think you'd really enjoy hearing her episode as well. It was called, How Can I Do Me Better? Anyway, Wendy joined forces with Jessica and they have a new summer camp. A summer camp. SEGS camp is what they call it. S-E-G-G-S-C-A-M-P, which we're going to talk about in this episode as well. Wendy shows us how we can get deeply comfortable with our sexual and sensual selves. How we can tap into our deep desires to find greater self-awareness and empowerment. So I really enjoyed meeting her and talking with her. And I think you will too. Also, I want you to listen until the end because there is a special promo for SEGS camp that if any of you are interested, you can get a special discount on that. But listen to the end to find out more about that. I also want to warn you if you have anybody around who is offended by profanity, sexuality, body talk, any of those things, you might want to use headphones if you are offended. Wait until next week. We'll return to other discussions next week. And also, neither Wendy nor I are medical professionals. So we encourage you to reach out to your medical practitioner if you are having side effects of paraminopause that need extra concern. And now here's Wendy Lee. Hi, Wendy. Hi, Bree. You are popping my podcast cherry today. It's very exciting for me. Thank you for giving me that honor. What an honor it is. I'm really honored as well. I'm so glad to have you on. And Wendy, before we start talking about what we're going to talk about today, which is a lot of sex and intimacy. So for any audience members who feel like it might be too much to hear about sex and intimacy, you can join in next week. Before we do that, Wendy, how old are you and where are you in your menopause journey?

05:31 Wendy I'll round up. I'm 54 and a half. For some reason, that half is still important to me. But I'll be honest, I'm not really sure. I've been on my marina for about 15 years. I have 15 year old twins. They're almost 16. So I've been on a marina that whole time. I never really had a strong period before that. So I think it faded away and I might have missed that obvious sign. But I went through a while where there was a lot of night sweating and probably anybody in my world would tell you there's crankiness here and there.

05:58 Bree But yeah, so I'm not entirely sure. I haven't. I'm delinquent in some blood work too that I think would confirm levels and stuff. So I don't know. You're not alone there. I think there are a number of people who have marina as an IUD. And it has a tiny amount of hormone in it. Is that right? Does it?

06:14 Wendy Yes, that's one of the ones that has the hormones. So a lot of people who have the IUD, which seems like for people it works for, it just seems amazing. I could not have an IUD, but I always envy people who do. Yeah, I'll say I'm a fan when they have to switch them about every five years. And that is not a pleasant experience. And I have a pretty high threshold for pain. And maybe it's my anatomy that's complicated, but that's not an appointment I look forward to. But she said when she inserted this last one, she said, yeah, this will be her last IUD. And I was like, Seth, why is that? Will I age out or is it can you only have so many? I don't know what the criteria is or do they not insert them after the 54 and a half? I don't know.

06:59 Bree I think the average age of menopause, which is one year post the final menstruation, 51 is around the average. So it's like between 50 and 55. I'm 49 and I'm mostly like clockwork and I'm like, come on, give them a break. And I joke about that really. I feel very lucky to have that because I know that it's probably good for me to have a regular period for as long as I can have one. But also how nice it must be to not have to worry about it at all with the IUD as well.

07:39 Wendy Yeah, I've been lucky like that. And when I was on the pill, same thing, my period just went away. So I feel fortunate that I didn't have crippling cramps and things. I have family members who get really knocked out in parts of their cycle. And fortunately, that hadn't been my experience.

07:54 Bree Thank you so much for telling me where you are. That's the way I like to begin these episodes that are really looking at paraminopause, menopause and midlife issues and destigmatizing the range of all that we come to this age with. So thank you for that. And I love that you claim you're half year because you earned that half year. Well, yes. What you do talking about destigmatizing issues, you are a sex educator and an intimacy coach. I am. Thank you for doing that. It's fun. I love my job. Can you tell me a little more? Like, what does that mean? What does that mean for you?

08:40 Wendy I'll back up a little bit. In a previous life, I worked in nonprofit realm. I was vice president leadership development. So I did a lot of staff development and work with our volunteers and strategic planning. And a lot of that work has been about increasing self-awareness and aligning resources with goals. And that's always that's, as I reflect, like that's been a scene kind of in all my roles and all the things I enjoy doing. And fast forward to my divorce. And I went on a sexuality retreat as a gift to me in that journey and was able to reclaim a lot of that part of myself and the parts of myself that really that I really loved, like the parts of myself that were my favorite. And I was being my favorite me. And I just found the work so powerful that I wanted to be a part of it. So I shifted my leadership development work into using this sexuality lens. So I still feel like what I do is help people increase their self-awareness and align resources with goals. But it's in like this other area of their life that has been a taboo and a lightning rod. And everybody's up until was it 1986? Everybody got here because somebody had sex. Like that's how that's how we all happened. And it's just so striking to me that it's like the one thing we don't talk about or the thing we're very careful about talking about on the whole. I travel in circles where people are more free about their life and their interests and their sex positivity and kinks and fetish like all of it. So it's been important to me to use my skills for good, cracks that open and provide space for that dialogue too. So do you feel like you were always pretty open about sexuality, about sex and intimacy? Or do you feel like that workshop unlocked something for you? Or both? It's funny if I go way, way back to like fourth or fifth grade when the girls and the boys are separated, we got to talk. I remember being very excited to order the kit that had all the different pads and all the stuff. And then I took it upon myself to like tell all my neighbor friends who were younger than me, the girls anyway, about what they could look forward to. So I guess you could say I've been sexist for 40 something years. But I think, you know, I think what that retreat really did for me was allowed me to integrate all of these dimensions of my life. I feel like a much more balanced and whole person. Like I think there were pockets of my life that did different things for me. And, you know, this was in a box over here and this one's in a box over here. But now I feel like I can, you know, line up all the boxes or surround all the boxes and open them all up and like own them all. I don't have to, you know, I'm not going to tell them what to do. It's not the right place. You know, that kind of thing. Not that I'm done on that journey. I'm located in northern New Jersey and I travel into the city a lot. I have a lot of, you know, I have a community of folks in Brooklyn and a lot of them are sex educators too. And sometimes I feel a little bit like fish out of water here in the suburbs with like the country club set and the folks that work in finance and stuff. And I feel like I feel like if they only knew. And I also feel like when I can get folks one on one that I have knowledge and experience that you might not associate with me if you just bumped into me. At the PTA meeting. At the PTA meeting. Exactly what I was going to say. Like, you know, I can pass. I can do the dance out here and maybe bring some folks like, hey, there's really cool stuff happening here.

12:26 Bree I can connect you with this thing that you sound really interested in. I hear that the I could pass is so interesting as just as a concept because it really shows the level of taboo that we still have around sexuality and sensuality in our generation. Really, I'm about the same age as you are. And it's funny, I years ago I was in an arm wrestling. A women's arm wrestling. And I played a character named Stiletto Southpaw. And she had dominatrix vibes, right? I would, but it was. It's even now I'm justifying it right. Like it was a women's it was called Claw Charlottesville Lady Arm Wrestlers. And we would have these tournaments to raise money for women's initiative projects. Really cool, so great. And so every month I would dress up as Stiletto Southpaw and go and arm wrestle. And I would leave my kids, they were young at the time. They were, I don't know, like three and seven maybe. And I would leave them with a babysitter. And I remember feeling like I had to say to her, I'm not, I promise you, I'm going to do something for charity right now. And now I don't know that I would do that now. I think I would just be like, whatever. This is who I am. But it is interesting that we still have so many, there's so much judgment around being sexual beings, being open with our sensuality or kink or whatever it is. So I can see how it would be interesting to go between Brooklyn and suburbia and navigate those two different places. And that really seems like a lot of what we're doing in some ways, it ties so neatly into the midlife experience where we are shifting so much. You talked about adolescence before. You're sharing your box of… I remember that box. I remember that box of goodies with the neighborhood kids. And we're also at that precipice in midlife where we are redefining ourselves in many ways. Who are we as our bodies are shifting, as our relationships to our children are changing, as our romantic relationships are changing, and we're no longer necessarily looking for a partner who will be a parent. That's them being very generalist here. But in general, it's very different when we are looking at our sexual relationships from the perspective of someone who is not in a place to have children anymore, among other things, and maybe isn't seen by society in that same way.

15:36 Wendy I think you're exactly right. It's about you're the quarterback. You get to make the decisions that you just want to make. You're not striving for some role as a parent or with a certain provider or caregiver. You get to be in charge. You just get to do what you want. Damn it. That's awesome. And it's so empowering. It's so empowering. And I know society doesn't tell us that it is empowering.

16:05 Bree But in the corner, we're not going to talk about that. So you work a lot with people in midlife. I do.

16:13 Wendy What is the biggest question that you get from people at that midlife stage who come to you? I think it's some version of is this normal and or am I OK? Often that's wrapped up in whatever's happening in the dynamics of the relationship with their spouse, their partner. And maybe that's baggage from making the decision on different criteria earlier. And sometimes it's just, I don't want to have sex with my husband. Is that OK? Am I the only one that feels this way? What should I do about it? What do you want to do about it? Does it bother you that you don't want to have sex with your husband? I'm not going to hang a judgment on that. There's no shoulds here. It's what can you own about how you're showing up and where do you want to take that? If it's something that's providing you with issues and concerns and you don't want it to be this way, then let's dig into that. Let's see if there's something medical going on, something hormonal going on. If there's you have some itch that isn't getting scratched, what's the path back to the connection that you're seeking with your partner or just yourself before you even bring anybody into it?

17:30 Bree I like to start with where are you at because you can't show up in a relationship until you know what you're bringing to the cable. And that's something I'm thinking particularly for and I am going to go gendered here a little bit. I try to avoid it, but I do think particularly for women, our sexuality develops so much in relationship to the partner we are pleasing and in heteronormative relationships, that's a guy, a dude. Dude. And so do you have, do you see for some people that it's the first time they've really put themselves first? Because I can imagine that it would be for me.

18:18 Wendy It's hard to unlearn, yeah, 100%. And I think it's also scary to be like, I'm going to plant my feet in the ground and here I am. And that's really scary. Like we don't have a lot of, we didn't grow up with a lot of modeling of what that looks like or how to do that well or what are the skills you need to be successful in showing up in that kind of aware and empowered way. And we can't do anything about that. I'm sorry there weren't more people like that on TV in the 80s or whatever. But what can we do about that now? There's a lot out there now. There's a lot of community and empowerment and support available to taking those steps and trying those new ways. There's the things that I think a woman in that role might have felt shunned about, like being divorced, for example. When I think about a divorced woman in the 70s, I think of a, I have an image of a tall, thin brunette with her hair in an updo in a fat knee column dress in like a nightclub. Like I have a whole image of what that looked like. But I didn't grow up seeing that woman around. I think I had one friend whose parents were divorced, but that wasn't like in the mainstream. And we didn't talk about her. We're not going to highlight that. It's so different now. There's the Facebook groups for divorced women are a dime a dozen. There's community out there. There's the normalizing of it. And yeah, it's a thing. A lot of people get divorced. A lot of people are single, suddenly single. And that's OK, too. And I think we also have more grace around like the journey that you're not one thing. You're not stuck in one label, divorced woman, that kind of. I know there's just more there's just there's more available. The landscape's bigger. Yeah, it feels bigger. It feels bigger.

20:13 Bree That's I hope that's an improvement for people. I think that any time we can find role models or examples to help us feel less alienated and alone in our experience, I see that as a really positive thing. And taking away the stigma around being in midlife and single and still a sexual creature, too, is really important. One one question that I have for you is let's say you have someone like me who's coming to you and is like, oh, my body is changing. My libido is really low. And I don't want that. I want to feel engaged with my body. I want to be intimate with my partner. But right now, I just can't imagine it. What would be one step that you would have that person do? One small thing, one baby step to feel a little more empowered, a little more confident.

21:29 Wendy I think that's so common. And I think that we do or you can use me as the person. I think we get you know, we grew up with a lot of these societal messages and conditioning and a lot of that is around an intimate experience or a sexual experience looks this way. Kiss me, hug me, take off the clothes. You go down to me. I'll go down on you. Then can I say fuck? Then we fuck. You can. If we're lucky, you'll come first. Then he'll come. Then we're done. That's the script. And I think we should throw that out. And try and inhabit our bodies and enjoy the journey, which I know sounds really like woo woo. I'm all for the woo woo. But to take that linear thing out of it and just shift, if we can shift to the exploration. Like, how can you touch my arm in a way that gives me goosebumps? You know, or do you like something that's all so smacky? Do you like something a little more physical? Do you like something a little more smacky? Do you like something a little lighter? I like right now, one of the things that's turned out so much is like, how lightly can you touch me and still get like the tingles to that little feeling? Which like that's it doesn't sound like that's exciting or it feels good, but oh, so good. So I could just do that all day. That's just being in that yummy space is like just as yummy as the other scenario I just described. That's or more or more and being able to ask for that and to give your partner the feedback that you're enjoying that and that you appreciate that. And whatever else they want to hear from you. That's a game changer. That's just ships the other thing on its head. Because if you read one and you read the other, doesn't look like much happens in the arm scenario. But there's a connection there. There's an exploration there. There's a how are we where are we connected? It's the it's like this micro, so little micro moment. It says like macro thing that is clunky like it can be clunky. Not that the other script can be hot, too. But we're conditioned to think that the other is not important and it's at least as important or it can be at least as important.

23:52 Bree And and we don't always allow space for that. So I've been with my husband since I was 19 years old. We just celebrated 30 years together, which is congratulations. Nuts nuts. To other 19 year olds, spend some time on your own. I don't regret a bit of it.

24:12 Wendy But but if I have any 19 year olds listening, I can't. I got married really young, too.

24:18 Bree And yeah, yeah. But it does make me think about when I was in high school and college and even middle school, that feeling of being so close to someone and feeling the electricity. Oh, my gosh. And there's something really liberating about saying, hey, we don't have to light up the whole house. Let's just see if we can play with a little bit of that electricity here. Yeah. And taking the pressure off of trying to light up every light bulb.

24:52 Wendy Yeah. And it's also important to let your partner know that's all this needs to be right now, because I think if it can happen, that if there's not like a container put around that there may be an expectation, like if I do this for you for 20 minutes, then we'll get to do the other script. Get to do the usual. And Tuesday night special. Hey, just for kicks, let's just try this. Let's just take 20 minutes and you can do this for me and my arm, my leg. Just that. Then I can do you or whatever. Whatever. But to put some boundaries on it, just so that there aren't other there aren't other bad feelings popping up from this as an experiment. Good to frame it as an exploration and not I want to I want to start on the right tonight and start the left. It's not just it's not just it's not just a tweak. It's like it's a different thing. It's a different and maybe this makes it onto the menu to have the Tuesday night special, but let's just play with this for today and see what happens.

25:50 Bree I love that and thank you for pointing that out because it's hard when we have years and years of expectations and the weight of those expectations to to give ourselves the grace to give ourselves the freedom. To operate outside of those rules completely. And speaking of that, like that's something I can really see in partnership with someone. Do you have any suggestions for people who are not in partnership?

26:20 Wendy Yes. I think the first suggestion is to acknowledge that you're important to like you are worth the care and the effort and the attention that you might spend on a partner or they might spend on you. And there's no shame in that. There's no lacking in that. I think we all whatever your status or situation is need to choose ourselves like we all need to choose ourselves sometimes. And with a sexuality lens, there's there are things for our body. There are things with touch. There are things with music like I love music. I have playlists for all kinds of things. One of my favorite things is my I'll just call it an embodiment playlist and it's a list of songs that's that I can't help but dance to like I can't help but pop my head or whatever. And if I'm in the car, I usually sing along really loud, but there are songs that get me in my body. And I think that was one of the one of the things that shifted when I went on this retreat during my divorce journey was just the connection with myself. It's very easy and it's rather celebrated in our culture. Intellectual prowess is highly prized and often I think that's at the at the expense of our body. So bringing those in alignment like really a symbol as a playlist of the songs that get you going. And it doesn't have to be let's get it on like one of my don't stop me now. That's not really like the sex soundtrack, but it's like it gets me like so jazzed up for whatever when I need to get pumped up for a meeting or something like that's my it's like I go soundtrack. And I have other there's I don't know there's probably 40 songs on that list now. There's no no toys involved. That's a really innocuous way to explain yourself.

28:11 Bree I love that because I do think that toys can be intimidating for a lot of people. But that idea of using music to give yourself over to the music and let your body take over a little bit just for a little while. All it has to be is for one song.

28:32 Wendy There's something I like. I also I like when my underwear matches. It doesn't have to be a whole set, but I like when it's coordinated and I'm worth it. Even if no one else is going to see that on a given day, I feel more present when I feel put together. And that's that that's just for me. Those are the things we can do just for ourselves. And back on toys or anything. Anything the sex toy if you're brave enough.

28:59 Bree There's there's that ad is floating around in the sex positive circle. Yeah, and there are so many more ways to have access to toys now. It doesn't have to feel it doesn't have to feel it's not dirty.

29:18 Wendy Yeah, that's a good word. Yeah, the adult stores from from years ago. Yeah, they were like connected to strip clubs and they were in the city part of town and they had no windows.

29:29 Bree Yeah, not a place to go to feel empowered. No, I certainly grew up with porn and toys and everything was very like male centric. It was definitely and my sexuality and sensuality was seen through the male gaze. And so I love that whether it's wearing matching underwear or getting a really delicious smelling body oil. I'm a very scent oriented person. So that's a really big thing for me.

30:02 Wendy I don't ever wear matching underwear, but it looks beautiful. There's so there's I'm not that great on Instagram, but I have some for some reason in my feed are some like really gorgeous lingerie companies and just like what all the things. And what a beautiful thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I have you reminded me I have a blog post about pleasure and I it's a tour through the five senses and different ways to engage each of those.

30:28 Bree Oh, great. Maybe you can send me that link and I can add it to the show notes. So we talked a little bit about some of the things that you would recommend. How do you usually work with people? Is it individual? Is it in group? Are you getting in the bedroom? What's what are you doing?

30:44 Wendy I'm not getting in the bedroom as part of my practice. No, but I work with individuals. Sometimes I'll do presentations to groups and I have we have something I'm in a collaboration with the group offer will add to that I think later. But yeah, but yeah, I work with individual clients often on Zoom. I do see some clients in person and we just see what's going on with them. I do have my my centered sexuality approach and that's my template for looking at the different aspects of someone's life and how they might be interacting with each other. Some obstacles might be popping. It was just a way to sort through through stuff. And then we just deal with the stuff. Is it is it a matter of needing some education or is there something that someone wants to explore and don't know how to approach it?

31:35 Bree I really do that that metaphor of being a quarterback and helping helping someone get the lay of the land. Now mixing metaphors. So I am not a sports ball person. I am. Yeah, I'm married to a former football player, but I don't think I've ever watched a football game from beginning to end. Can you tell me what the quarterback reference means to you?

31:58 Wendy What is the quarterback? Sure. In American football, the quarterback is the player on the offense that that gets the ball and kind of decides what happens to the ball. So they need to be informed about what's happening on the field, which players are in position to receive or to throw the ball, or is it going to be better to hand the ball off to someone? So basically they need to give or took a Red Cross training. Survey the scene was something I remember from lots of my like first aid and CPR classes. But survey the scene and what's what's the situation? How do I want to proceed? Am I prepared to proceed? And then, you know, what happens when I proceed? And it's maybe one of the things that's that I like about this metaphor is you get it no matter what happens. There are four downs, four downs to move 10 yards. You get to try again and you take turns being the team stake during the offense and defense. And I don't need to go too far down that giving and receiving. I think what I would jump. Why that resonates with me is because they have the skills, they have the tools and they decide how to employ them. So it's going to be a pass, a run. Sometimes they'll run with the ball. They'll just decide that no one else is in a good position and I need to take matters into my own hands. And maybe that's maybe that can circle back to our little combo on self care.

33:28 Bree Yeah.

33:29 Wendy So it's it's a fun metaphor. And I like it too, because most Americans understand American football. You just happen to get the one who was like, what is that? The other thing people say about being an armchair quarterback. I could have made that I could have done that. Get on the field. Exactly. Whatever your mouth is, stood up and get in the game. I love it. I love it.

33:52 Bree Monday morning quarterbacking. Yeah, it goes on and on. So you have a new program coming up. Why don't you tell us about that new program and how people can work with you?

34:01 Wendy Yes, I am super excited about this collaboration with with Jessica Childs and I. Our little brain child is called the SEGS camp S E G G S camp. And it's a virtual series of workshops and panels and Q&A sessions. We're going to have some social things sprinkled in there that all support one's sexuality. So the summer is it's a six week season. The summer is divided into two week blocks, Flickr, Flame and Bonfire. They're going to build upon each other. Got some some of the like kind of basics and and refreshers and a lot of people. I was in a networking group thing with other women. And I said something about working with people who don't know the difference between their vulva and their vagina. And the person I was talking with said, wait, what is the difference? OK, here's where we're going to start. I don't think she even knew that she didn't know the difference. People people may not know. And that's OK. We did not grow up with the interwebs and all of this knowledge at our fingertips. So all that is to say, we're going to offer a lot of foundational workshops in the beginning about arousal and anatomy and things like that. So that's Flickr. Flame is a little bit more about a sexual experience. What happens when your your partner ways to make that hotter and sexier and spicier and that kind of stuff. And then Bonfire is a little bit more exploratory. We're going to touch on some kinks things, some BDSM things. It's really it's going to be fun. And Jessica and I are both based here in Amity Jersey. She's in New York. And part of what this grew out of is we see a lot of our colleagues on the West Coast have so much going on and so many offers out there and stuff that happens in person. And we had some FOMO. I'm going to be honest. We were our feelings were feeling bad because there's just not that much traction as much traction here as they seem to have in San Francisco. I know it feels like I will never reach the freedom they have in San Francisco. But we're like, hey, East Coast got game two. And we reached out to about 10 of our colleagues that are all on the East Coast. And everybody was a hell yes. Everyone we spoke to wanted to be part of. Thanks camp. So all of the workshops are offered by different practitioners. The panels are different, different groups of them on certain topics. We're going to we have one panel on bodywork like touch people that do maybe work with the couples in the bedroom or individually with a client and do touch. And what's that about is that I'm not talking about happy ending massage. I'm talking about like legit trained people who know how to support people in their somatic sex education. It's really cool. And I'm so excited about it. It's been hard to rein it in and just keep it to the six weeks because we have so many ideas and there's so many other folks that now we're talking with our colleagues. Really? I want to. Are you going to do it again? Yes, I think we'll do something more with this, but I'm very excited. It's all virtual and everything's going to be recorded.

37:12 Bree So if someone can't make it at a certain class, they can watch it on their time or they can download it and keep her forever. Wonderful. It sounds like a really fun and affirming way to spend the summer. Honestly, it just sounds great. Sex camp. I think you're going to have a link, a special discount link for listeners of Pause to Go. So check the show notes for that, y'all. And thank you so much for coming on and for telling us some of your story. And I am really looking forward to trying out that touch, just playing with touch and going to my husband and saying, Hey, let's just give each other this little moment now. So if anybody else tries it, let us know. We want to know. How does that work for you? What are you into? Wendy, thank you so much. One last thing. If you had one wish for people who are in midlife who really want to feel more empowered and in their bodies, what would your wish for them be?

38:24 Wendy Can I grant them a wish like with a wand? Yeah, sure. I'm going to grant them trust that they can trust their bodies enough to be present in them and trust that they have the skills or the resources to handle what might come up. I think we avoid being in our bodies because there's fear there, there's triggers and things from our life that we slept with us, even though it's okay to put them down. Trust that their body is an okay place and trust that they can find the resources to handle things that maybe don't feel handleable on their own.

39:00 Bree Really beautiful. I have a good friend, Beatrix Ost, who says her motto is, In your body is a good place to be. And what you just said reminds me of that. It's such a lovely. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me today and good luck this summer. Thank you so much. It's been my pleasure. I really appreciate it. You were so gentle with me as you popped my cherry. Here's my call to action for this episode. That's what they call it when I'm trying to get you to do something. I want you to do something, and that is to share your story. So if you would like to share an experience of your midlife delights, agony, or just plain humor, you can leave me a voice memo on my new website, Pausetogo Podcast dot com. There's a tab on the right side of the website that says something like, Leave me a voice memo. And you can. You can just record a voice memo for me right there and I'll get it. And if you feel comfortable having me share your voice on the pod, then I can share that with everyone. It's so nice to hear other people's voices. But if you don't feel comfortable having me share your voice, I can just anonymously share your story. It'll be great to have your stories on the Pausetogo Podcast. All right. Stay curious, y'all. Here are my key takeaways from this conversation with Wendy Lee. When it comes to the question, am I normal or is this OK? The real question is, is this working for you? There are no shoulds here. Number two, intimacy begins with getting in touch with yourself. What are the ways that you can use your senses to really get to know your own desires? Wendy likes a great playlist and matching lingerie. I'm still figuring out what I like. Number three, be the quarterback when it comes to sexuality. And that means you get to survey the scene, stay informed, throw the ball, receive the ball, and whatever you do, stay in the game. This conversation is making me think about sports ball in a whole other way. Having a supportive community can be instrumental for feeling more comfortable to explore taboo topics like sexuality. Wendy has created a special code for listeners of the Pausetogo Podcast. To join their camp, you can enter Pausetogo in the code and you'll get a discount. Check out the show notes for more information. Thank you for listening to the Pausetogo Podcast. Special thanks to Codebase Coworking and WTJU Radio for their support. This has been an Awkward Sage production.