You might never have thought this, but a healthy libido is necessary for success in your business...
Perimenopausal women have many factors that affect their libido, and in this episode we talk about those root causes, what your libido & business have in common and how a healthy libido will benefit your business.
If you would love to learn more about your libido and how to identify and address the root cause, you can join my Libido Bootcamp here, I'd love to have you!
Transcript:
Hi there, and welcome back to the perimenopause podcast.
I’m excited to have you here again this week and to talk about this topic, which I must admit, feels like I’m putting myself out there.
Intimacy and libido is a very private topic for most women, and therefore we don’t talk about it or get educated around the topic.
It’s something that I hold very sacredly, as I believe it’s a gift that God has given men and women to enjoy in marriage and therefore I don’t take this topic lightly.
And although I find it challenging at times to talk about this, I so strongly believe that women need help with this.
I hear what they talk about, and I feel obliged to provide help and support. And that’s why I created my brand new libido bootcamp which will start in 2 weeks.
But for today’s episode, let’s look at why a healthy libido is important for your business and what these 2 things have in common.
You might think I’m crazy, but bear with me.
As entrepreneurs, we have our hands and days full, trust me I get it.
I too, just like you, juggle my business, school runs for one child, home schooling for the other, exercise, friends, marriage, hobbies, all those things that are really important to us. And that can often lead to thoughts like:
“Intimacy is too time consuming”
“I’m too exhausted at the end of the day to even think about that, let alone get myself in that frame of mind and prepare my body for that”
“My mind is too consumed with all of the things that I need to do to be able to switch that off and focus on this now”
And often because we struggle to switch life off and tune into our husband and spending intimate time with him, we don’t enjoy intimacy, we don’t necessarily like our bodies and the changes that come with perimenopause and so we lose our confidence, all of these things. And so we end up doing everything that we can to just avoid it.
And then of course comes the guilt and shame and stress related to the expectation and need that your husband has.
So to kick this off, first of all, let’s look at what your business and libido have in common:
First of all, both of them are influenced by your overall health and wellbeing.
When you don’t practise good self care, both of these things will suffer greatly. You libido is a good reflection of your overall health, so if libido is low, it will also reflect in your ability to focus, mental clarity, energy levels, sleep, feeling anxious or depressed, weight gain, possible headaches and migraines.
So you can see how, if your libido has been low, it’ll reflect overall health, which will have a direct impact on your business productivity and ultimately your bottom line.
Secondly, both your libido and your business require you to be motivated and engaged.
You know that if you don’t show up every day and stay engaged in your business, you’re likely to not hit the goals that you’ve set for yourself. You need to show up every day, and put in the hard work. It’s something that you need to be very intentional about. Same with libido. There are several root causes that can lead to a low libido and that’s what we’ll be talking about in the libido bootcamp. From hormonal imbalance, past painful experiences, not enjoying intercourse after having babies etc, etc. This does not mean however, that you need invasive intervention or that this is the end of the road for you. With your business, if something is not working well and you ignore it, you are NOT doing yourself or your business a favour. Same with libido. If you ignore it, you’re ignoring a bigger problem that needs to be addressed.
So start paying attention to the underlying feelings that you have when it comes to intimacy and be very intentional and curious about your experiences and feelings.
Thirdly, both your business and libido are greatly affected by stress.
And this is a big deal. Stress means that you’re producing high levels of cortisol all of the time, and that leads to your body suppressing progesterone production. So again, something we need to be very intentional about, is down regulating that cortisol production. And there are quite a few misconceptions about stress too. We tend to think of stress as the stress about money, or family relationships, or business or whatever. But there are 2 forms of stress, physiological and psychological. Psychological stress is the worry about all the things that I just mentioned. But physiological stress is the stress that we put on our bodies every day. We have diaries that are jam packed without including some breathing space in there, not feeding yourself nutritious food, overexercising, tending to all the home chores without any help, not sleeping enough. All of those lead to physiological stress, which increases cortisol production and reduces progesterone production. And the symptoms of that are low libido, inability to concentrate, poor sleep, headaches, feeling overwhelmed, short menstrual cycles, spotting before your periods, underlying fluttering or anxious feeling, unable to fall asleep, constant fatigue. And all of that will have a significant impact on your business.
Fourthly, both your business and your libido require you to take risks.
If you wanna success in business, you need to have a healthy appetite for risks. You need to put yourself out there, trial and test new things, be open to constructive feedback. And the same is true for your libido. Stepping outside of your comfort zone if you need help is crucial for you to grow in your health and intimacy. You need to be brave enough to reach out for help but also discuss your experiences with your husband. You have to move through the tough growth phase to get to the thriving fun phase. It’s part of the process. And you won’t make any progress on this if you keep pushing it to the back. It’s important, and I wanna encourage you to make a big effort to prioritise this.
So why do I think it is important for your business that you have a healthy libido? Well a healthy level of intimacy in your marriage can increase your quality of life, sense of connection, your confidence and overall health, and all of this will benefit your business.
Let’s look at a few benefits that will translate directly into your business:
First of all, obviously it will lead to increased intimacy in your relationship, leading to a sense of closeness and connection. And any women that is secure in a relationship like this, will have more to give in her business, parenting and other relationships and all other aspects of life.
Secondly, it’s scientifically proven that sex reduces stress. It’s a great way of increasing endorphins and reducing cortisol production. And this will all benefit your mental health, moods and overall health as your body will have to deal with less stress hormones.
Thirdly, you’ll have a boosted self-esteem, which will lead to more confidence not just in your body, but in how you show up in your business. And this will have a huge impact on your bottom line.
Fourthly, sex is proven to improve sleep, because of the fact that it lowers cortisol levels. And with improved sleep, we again reduce cortisol levels, but you also provide your body with the opportunity to produce more progesterone, which will set off that healthy cycle of higher production of sex hormones, which will lead to better overall health. During perimenopause, low production of sex hormones is one of the main culprits of all of our symptoms, and so you have to be very intentional about breaking that cycle. And having more intimacy is a great way of doing just that.
At number five, we also know that an increase in intimacy reduces the risk for disease, like heart disease, stroke and cancer and boosts your immune system. And the reality is, if you run your own business, you’ll have a higher risk for all of those conditions as you are likely more exposed to stress.
And then finally, research shows that sex increases happiness and wellbeing.
So as you can see, prioritising your libido is not just beneficial for your husband and your marriage, but I can guarantee that it will affect all aspects of your life, including productivity in your business and making more money.
Now you may be wondering, where to from here…
Well, i think the first thing you should do is be honest with yourself about this.
What do you think is the root cause of your low desire for intimacy.
If it’s unexplainable, it’s very likely hormonal imbalance.
But it could be poor pelvic health, traumatic past experiences, or a few other things.
So start there and be honest with yourself.
I also wanna encourage you to talk this through with your husband.,
Tell him that you’re embarking on this journey of discovery and that you’re committed to figure this out and you might need his help over the next few months as you work through this.
But for something practical to start with, we need to reduce those cortisol levels.
And a good place to start for that is to look at your morning routine.
When you wake up, there are 4 things that I want you to do over the next few weeks and note what a difference it’ll make to a wide range of things for you. So you need to be really mindful of your body to be able to notice all the change.
But the 4 things that I want you to do is this.
Number 1: Get some morning sun on your eyeballs as soon as you can after waking
Number 2: Eat breakfast within an hour of waking up
Number 3: Swop your morning coffee for a herbal tea or green smoothie. You can have your coffee later in the day with a meal
Number 4: Get some movement first thing in the morning. That can literally be 15 minutes of walking, stretching or other strengthening exercises.
And then finally, enrolments are still open for my libido course, which is a 5-day masterclass series and we’ll dig deep into the root causes of low libido and how to change that. You’ll not only hear from me about hormonal imbalance, but I’ll have dr Kassie Dewitt there to talk about the link between poor pelvic health and intimacy and also Monica Tanner from the Secrets Of Happily Ever After Podcast to share about how to we stay deeply connected in our marriages to foster intimacy.
I would absolutely love to have you there and you can go over to www.vandghie.com/libido to join today.
Be encouraged friend. Your libido and how your body feels during intimacy is important enough to pay attention to and to address. And I would love to come alongside you to do that.
Now if you’ve loved this episode, please rate and review my podcast wherever you listen to this episode. This will help more women to find my podcast and find the solutions that they need.
Until next time
Bye for now.