September 30, 2025 • 45 mins
For years, Dr. Danielle Armour looked like she had it all together—successful, driven, high-achieving. But under the surface, she felt shut down, disconnected, and out of sync with her own body. That breaking point? It wasn’t the end. It was the beginning of her becoming.Dr. Danielle Armour is a clinical sexologist, trauma-informed therapist, and author of the new book Awaken Your Body, Awaken Your Desire—a science-backed guide to healing stress, restoring vitality, and reconnecting with your pleasure. For nearly 20 years, Danielle has helped high-achieving women who feel shut down, numb, or burned out reclaim intimacy and desire. Her work blends neuroscience, somatic therapy, and nervous system healing—rooted in deep personal transformation. Her breakthrough didn’t happen in a therapy office. It happened in her body. Through movement, breathwork, and embodied practices, she found her way back to herself—and now she helps others do the same. Because desire isn’t just about sex—it’s about aliveness.This book isn’t just about sex. It’s about what happens when you finally feel safe enough to want again. Awaken Your Body, Awaken Your Desire is a must-read for any woman ready to come home to herself.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to The Rewrite, a podcast about divorce, choice and
new beginnings. I'm your host, Wendy Sloan, former TV producer,
mom of two and one sweet golden retriever. This is
a space for real talk about the moments that break us,
the choices that define us, and the power we have
to begin again. You'll hear personal stories, heartfelt insights, and
(00:22):
honest conversations about healing relationships and reclaiming your life one
choice at a time. I'll be joined by experts in divorce, finance,
mental health, wellness and more and everything you need to
support your next chapter. The most powerful chapters might be
the ones you write next. Let's begin your rewrite together.
This episode is brought to in part by the Needle
(00:44):
Kuda Law Firm guidance that moves lives forward. Welcome back
to the Rewrite. My guest today a clinical sexologist, psychotherapist
and nervous system expert helping women and couples restore balance,
resilience and connection. Also the author of Awaken Your Body,
Awaken Your Desire. I can't wait to dive deep into that.
(01:06):
She's a teacher, mom, and someone who deeply believes that
pleasure is not a luxury. It's vital right, how much
do I love that that you said that? And I
and ever since I read that, I'm like, you know what,
You're so right, You're going to want to take notes
on this interview because what if the very stress that
you carry every day is shutting down your energy, your vitality,
(01:29):
and your connection. I am so excited. Welcome to my show,
Daniel Armar, Thank you, Thank you so much. I'm really
excited to be with you so much to dive into.
I was like going through the pages of your book,
and we're going to get to your amazing book, which
I'm it's the whole the whole cover of the book,
(01:49):
which I will I will put up on social kind
of just awakens your body and awaken your desire. It's
just it kind of pops out at you. The colors. Yeah,
I don't know who designed your book, but it's it's beautiful. Yeah, well,
thank you. That's exactly what I wanted. I wanted it
to be that sort of eye catching, but like make
you feel the warmth right the rays of the sun.
It absolutely did that. So and I'm not just saying
(02:12):
I really did. All right, So let's get into First
of all, let's begin with your own personal journey. You
were married for almost seven years, went through a paintball,
but you said ultimately transformative divorce, and tell us about
that and the internal pressure surrounding all that that you
went through. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So you know, I'll start
(02:34):
by saying, there's no villain in my story, right, there
wasn't a betrayal or an infidelity or even something dramatic.
You know. Over there's so many, so much to say, Wendy,
I'm like, where should I even start? I think the
thing is is that you know, as girls and women
(02:56):
were socialized from really young ages to believe in the
fairy tale, right, to believe in like you are going
to meet Prince Charming, and that is what's going to
make your life right, like we are told from such
a young age. You know, here are the steps that
you need to take in order to live a successful
life as a woman, right, And the major one is
(03:19):
meete a man, made a partner, have children and be
a mom, and just have this incredible life right. And
so for me, I have always been what do I
want to say here? I have always been called bossy, right,
I've always been a high achiever. I've always known what
I wanted in my life, and I'm not afraid to
(03:41):
ask for it. I'm not afraid to do what I
need to do right. People like to say you're aggressive, right,
but really it's just when women are assertive, people don't
like that. And so I think that initially my ex
husband really loved those qualities about me that you know,
he he wanted sort of an independent, alpha woman in
(04:04):
a lot of ways. But yet his own cultural messaging
over time really started to show up, right, like, Okay,
now you're married, Now you're you know, your wife shouldn't
want to work and have a career and have this growth,
take care of the children exactly, exactly right, all the things,
(04:24):
all the things right, the very stereotypical gender norms of Okay,
well now we're in this you know marriage, this traditional marriage,
this is what is to be expected. And so, you know,
I think for me, I picked the path initially that
was I think told by so many people I should
(04:46):
be on that path, right. You know, I went to college,
I was in graduate school. I had a four year
relationship with a person I thought I was going to
be engaged to. We broke up and I was like,
oh no, you know, now, looking back, I was twenty
five years old, and I'm like, I have to start over, right,
like start over twenty five. It's so ridiculous to think
(05:07):
about that now, But you know, meeting another person who
just adored me, loved me so much, cared so much
about me, and as we dive into my book, right,
cared about my pleasure and my body and just wanted
to make me feel good. Right. I was sort of
enamored by his adoration for me, right, And I think
(05:28):
I made all those choices. I did the thing. We
got married, we had the babies, and I just kept
shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, and all of the aspirations
and dreams that I had for myself were gone. Right.
I always wanted to get my PhD. I always wanted
to have a private practice, right. I always wanted to teach.
(05:49):
I wanted to have a wellness center. Right, And it
was like, well, we should have another child, and we
should do this, and we should do that. And I think, again,
not a villain, those are his dreams. But I watched
my dreams get smaller and smaller and smaller, to the
point where I was a shell of myself, and I
(06:09):
think a lot of us do that as women, because
again we're brought up with the story, the narrative of
it's actually your husband and your kids that are going
to make your life, not all of the other things
that you do. It's, you know, I think because we
were I think it's changing now a great I mean,
(06:30):
more women are in the workforce, you know, sometimes men
are staying home, and you know, everyone's making it work.
So it's I think it's totally different getting different now.
But you're right, I mean we watched we watch all
those you know, Cinderella stories, and we dream of that
as little kids. Right, But you said, I can you
(06:51):
know you you were shrinking inside? Mm hm. So then
what happened? So you know, I it was a culmination
of events, right. I had my first daughter, and then
very quickly, you know, in this I think is a
lot of people's story. I you know, got pregnant very
(07:14):
quickly with my second. They're only seventeen and a half
months apart, and I was working full time from home
as a geriatric care manager. At the time. I had
temporarily left private practice. Well I'm sorry, I was in
community mental health. I was a psychotherapist, not yet in
private practice. I left community mental health, was working as
(07:34):
a care manager, and when I had my second baby,
my employer at the time was like, you know, we
really don't think that you can handle, you know, working
from home with two children. So again sort of buying
into that narrative of like, okay, now my these it
was a practice of women, first of all, which was
very disheartening. I already had had help set up so
(07:58):
that I could both work and take care of my kids.
And my baby was three months old and I was
laid off and it was like, okay, now you have
to figure out what to do. And so, you know,
even though like I said, I had child care set up,
I wasn't expecting to be without work. But I was
also three months postpartum and did have two very young children,
(08:22):
and so you know, I just want to be clear here.
I adore my daughters everything that I am saying here,
and I know you get this as a mom. You know,
I never want my girls to listen to a podcast
and be like, what, but are you saying you didn't
want to have kids? No, I am never saying that.
I truly truly believe that they were meant for me.
(08:43):
I don't know if you've ever read many lives, many masters,
of course I have many times. Yes, so we are connected.
I knew their souls long before they were mine, right,
And I really think my ex husband was, you know,
he was the connection to find these souls. But that's
another story for another day. But so I lost my
(09:07):
job and I was confronted with this this you know,
dilemma of Okay, I guess I'm going to be a
stay at home mom. That was never really part of
my plan. I always wanted to have my hands and
a little bit of everything. But I guess I'm going
to stay home and do this right. And it was
just not the right fit for me. I was very depressed.
(09:28):
I was becoming this sort of, like I said earlier,
this shell of myself. And my ex husband, again very
well meaning, was just like, you know, I maybe this
really isn't the right fit for you, right, He said
really hurtful things like you know, I just don't think
that you can handle this, and talking about being a mom.
(09:50):
And it wasn't the being the mom that was the problem, right,
It was that I was doing everything right. He was
coming home and yeah, there was dishes in the same
and there was laundry to be done. We had very
little babies. But I will never forget. He said to me,
you know, I think you're an incompetent mother. And I
(10:10):
was like, excuse me, excuse me. And that totally changed
the course of everything. Right, I just did what I
needed to do. I found a job, I started working
on the weekends. I started to build this inner world
of I have the resilience, I have the capacity, I
(10:31):
have the ability to do what I need to do
for myself and for my daughters. And I will start
doing that silently and feel really safe and really comfortable
being able to leave eventually. And it took time. That
happened in about two thousand and fifteen, and I didn't
ask for a divorce until twenty seventeen. But I did
(10:54):
what I knew I was capable of doing, of building
a career for myself. And I was working in many
different places with my you know, psychotherapy knowledge. But I
was in a hospital, I worked for home care agencies,
I worked for hospice. Then I started working for a
group private practice, which just expanded everything for me. But
(11:17):
the story is I lost myself and then I said,
oh no, no, no, no, I got brought into your dream.
Now I need to remember my own so that I
can feel confident leaving this relationship. Okay, I want to say,
when I said earlier in my intro, people need to
take notes. You need to take notes because what you said,
and I'm going to backtrack just a tiny bit, is
(11:37):
that you started doing for yourself and for your children
what you needed to do. So you didn't like, I'm done,
I'm getting divorced, and that's it. You built a life
that you knew that you could carry on, and you
made yourself safe and full and complete, and then you
walked out of your marriage. And I admire you for
(11:58):
doing that because I mean, there was no scandal in
my divorce either, and I'm grateful for every day of
my life because I have my two kids, and my
kids are twelve and a half months apart. They're grown,
they're twenty four and twenty five. But with that said,
I didn't have a plan. I just was like, oh,
I'm done, I'm getting divorced. Yeah. I love. I love
what you did. Yeah, And that was to protect yourself
(12:21):
and to protect your children and to protect your well
being because you were a shell of yourself. You were
disconnected and you were trying you like you were like
you know that I can do more than just be
a stay at home mom, which is a job in
itself too. But yeah, but we could do it all.
And yeah, I'm gonna and then we're gonna get into more.
We're gonna take a very quick break for one of
(12:41):
our sponsors and we'll be brought up with the rewrite.
Talking to doctor Danielle Armar and I'm going to ask
you your healing didn't beget in doctor's office or self
help books, but it began in your body. And I'm
so curious to hear about that. And she's also the
author of her book, which we're going to get into,
also Awaken your Body, Awaken your desire, using science to
heal your stress and find your sexual vitality. I love
(13:05):
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with doctor Daniel Armar and her book is Awaken your Body,
(14:31):
Awaken your Desire. You're using science to heal your stress
and find your your sexual vitality. So you said your
healing didn't begin in doctor's office or self help books,
but in your body. Tell us about that. Yeah, yes, yeah,
And I just have to say I spent my whole
life never telling people how to say my last name
(14:52):
growing up, and so it's armor like armor, Armor. I'm sorry, Armor, Okay, No,
that's okay. I just signed to know. My maiden name
was also confusing, and so I just that's again, that's
one of those those conditions of you know, don't correct people,
don't say things right, don't please correct me. Yeah, my
(15:14):
celebrity radio show, I said some of the biggest celebrity
names wrong, So please correct me. Thank you. Yeah. So
the reason why I talk about healing starting in your
body is you know, to talk to go back to
what you were saying earlier about feeling disconnected. Right, so
many of us are wearing so many hats all the time. Right,
(15:36):
we're going through the motions. We are taking care of
everyone else and putting ourselves in the back burner, right,
we're deprioritizing our own needs. And so for me and
for so many women that I treat, we're so disconnected
from our bodies that we're not tuning into the signs
(15:56):
of like, Okay, you're really stressed, Right, you need to
slow your self down, even if it's for five minutes
to take a deep breath to lower that cortisol and adrenaline.
That's racing. Excuse me, you're racing through you as you're
jumping from one task to the next to the next. Right,
And what I know now is that disregulation that over
(16:23):
you know, stimulation that happens for us as moms, as
business women, as partners. Right, it creates this total disregulation
not only in what we we feel externally but internally. Right,
we totally rewire our HPA access, which which is our
(16:44):
hypothalmis pituitary adrenal system, right, which tells our body when
we're when we're safe and when we're not safe. Right,
And so essentially it has to start with the body.
And I know I'm going in a few different directions
here because this is just my passion and I love it,
and I want to tell you as much as I can.
You know, what happens is is our stress response. It
(17:06):
just overwhelms us and we're stuck in a chronic state
of stress. Right, So when you go to bed at night,
you're not relaxing, right, Like your mind is racing. Some
people have insomnia. Some people are using wine just so
that they can go to sleep. Right. We start to
develop these coping strategies because we're so stressed out all
of the time that are really maladaptive. So we need
(17:29):
to connect to the body. Right. How often are we
walking around holding our breath because we're feeling stressed and
we really need to take a deep breath. So connecting
to the body is as simple as am I bracing
and holding my breath rather than breathing and taking a
few minutes to slow myself down. I love that. As
(17:51):
easy as that, As simple as that. It's actually as
simple as that. And you know, because you've looked at
my book right there, there's more to it about connecting
to the body. But initially it's just realizing, Okay, I'm
feeling stressed not only because of all of these roles
and all of these expectations, but also because I'm not
(18:11):
tuning in to what I need, and what we often
need is is living in our body. It's telling us,
it's sending us signals. Right. So many of us are
wearing our our shoulders as earrings, right, Like we can
simply take note. We can say, okay, what am I
feeling in my body?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I need to drop my shoulders, right, I need to
just really do I'm breathing as you're doing this, right, right,
give a little movement to my shoulders, you know, moving
your neck around, doing some head circles. Right. We carry
that stress in such a way that simply stopping and
tuning in and taking that connection to the body, seriously,
(18:55):
it changes everything. It changes how we move through the world, right,
It changes how are all of our interactions go with
ourself with others. So it really is about that attunement
to the self, which doesn't have to be deep. It
doesn't always have to be emotionally deep. Does it need
to be at some point? Yeah, but start with what
is your body telling you? Okay, so I got it
(19:18):
back up a little bit. And then I want to
get into your work as a clinical sexologist and psychotherapist
and how it all started and what you do but
I didn't get I didn't finished with the last part,
so you ask for a divorce. Oh yes, and then
life like how long ago? In life now? And what happened?
And we didn't finish. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so
(19:43):
so much. There is so much, There is so much.
You know, really, what happened was in this This is
gonna sound funny. What happened was I you know now
we're calling. I can tell you that this was the
moment that I started to shift and change everything and
(20:03):
start building for myself and setting myself up for the safety. Right.
But then I didn't realize that, right, what I started
doing was going to yoga for myself. Right. What I
started to do was say, hey, I'm going to go
take this yoga class. I'll be back in an hour
and fifteen minutes, right, And I went enough that I
(20:26):
was really connecting to myself, to my body, getting in
my body and acknowledging that I couldn't continue doing what
I was doing. Right, And so my joke is that
a yoga class, right, laying in shravasna and having the
tears come down my face, right and saying, wow, I'm
(20:46):
I'm I can't do this anymore. I have to go
home and tell him that I can't do this anymore. Right,
And that's exactly what I did. I went home after
yoga class on a Saturday morning and said, I am
not the person that I want to be. I'm not
the person that I know myself to be, right, I
can't do this. And that was in twenty seventeen. And
(21:10):
you know, it was a very emotional and difficult conversation,
but I had a brave conversation. Yes, yes, he heard
me and he listened, and it wasn't complicated in the beginning, Wendy, Right,
it was like, okay, well I don't I don't want
you to stay in this marriage if this is not
what you want, right. And so we started making the plans,
(21:34):
and you know, I rented myself an apartment you know
that was right down the street, so we could co
parent really well, had plenty of space for my girls.
You know, we started the exit plan. Our divorce itself
was very amicable. We filed and were divorced a month later.
Because of the state that we lived in, it was
very easy. Now, mind you, I knew that I wanted out,
(21:58):
so I gave up a lot, right, I gave up
the home that I put a lot of energy and
money into and the dream of what that house would be.
I walked away from a lot because I knew that
was the safest and the healthiest choice for us. But
it was a very intentional, thoughtful, you know, method on
(22:22):
what's that word? I can't I can't think of it
right now, but very wise beyond your years. Yeah, listening
to how listening to how you handled everything, Yeah is
like I said, take notes. People should take notes. Yeah,
because not everyone does that. Yeah, matter of fact less
(22:43):
people do what you did. Yeah, so brave, courageous I
say all those things to you. Yeah, well, thank you.
I appreciate that, and I appreciate that. And I haven't
also said that he heard you, that you came home
from the yoga class and he heard you. Yeah, says
a lot about him too. Yeah, it does, it does.
(23:04):
And you know, it's it's like I said, it wasn't dramatic,
but it was really painful and really hard. And because
it's it's an end, it's a death. I mean, divorce
is a death in a sense absolutely of the dream
of what you thought it was, of what you thought
your life was going to be Yeah, So then how
was life? I mean, life was wonderful in so many ways.
(23:29):
So I had I was fully working for a group
practice that was owned by someone else at the time
when this transition all happened, and so my focus at
the time was really on perinatal mood and anxiety disorders,
and so I don't even like to use the term disorder.
(23:50):
You probably saw that I write that in my book,
But at the time, I really wanted to help women
find themselves after having a baby and having all of
these expectations of what that meant for them, because of
my story, but also just because of what we know
to be true about the postpartum depression rates right so
(24:11):
much that women struggle with And so for me, I
was invigorated, right. I was getting to live the life
I wanted. I had a beautiful little home in a
beautiful little town that was five minutes away from my practice.
You know, I had great child care. I had family
around to help me. You know, I felt like, wow, Okay,
(24:32):
I can really do this and I can thrive here,
and that passion of like now I can help other people, right,
women and men, couples, you know, couples that need to
maybe consciously uncouple. Right, thank you Gwyneth Paltrow for that
term years ago, but right to have this really intentional
(24:53):
way to say I can take back my life, I
can reclaim what I need for myself. I was living
it at the time, and I I felt so empowered
to help people do that for themselves. And it's not
always about divorce, right, Sometimes it's about a career change,
sometimes spress right, setting boundaries, advocating for yourself, you know,
(25:13):
leaving family situations that are now for some reason you
got disconnected in your in your marriage and your relationship
whatever it was, right exactly. So life was wonderful because
I felt like I could focus on how I wanted
to show up in the world, not how I was
told I was supposed to show up in the world
right from really young ages. And it's not you know,
(25:37):
it's just that cultural societal pressure, expectations. And you're right
what you said earlier. It absolutely has changed. But the
one thing that I do worry hasn't changed is we
as women often give the power, especially sexually a way
to our partners, right, specifically in heteronormative situation. Right, there's
(26:01):
we don't always own our pleasure in the way that
we can and should and deserve to, as you mentioned,
when we first started. And so life for me started
post divorce, looking at that those early family experiences and
you know, the postpartum period and helping couples heal after
(26:25):
having maybe traumatic birth experiences or traumatic experiences when they
were first bringing kids into the world. But what I
started to see was this total loss of sexual identity,
which only became a focal point because you know, there's
this expectation of after a certain amount of time, you
should be ready to be sexual again with your partner, right.
(26:48):
But it gave women this chance to start talking about
how maybe they never felt connected to their own sexual
interests right, or their own you know, pleasure, or what
felt good in their bodies, or really understanding how to
get the most pleasure. So, you know, that period of
time exactly when I had left my ex husband, I
(27:09):
moved into my own place, I started training in sex, sexuality,
and gender. I went to my very first program at
Harvard Medical School that was all about sex and sexuality,
and that was in very early twenty seventeen, and I
was like, oh my god, this is for me, this
is my niche I'm not afraid to talk about sex.
(27:30):
I want people to really ownn erotic identity, and for women,
that's not something that we're raised to really talk about.
You know, you might whisper about it with your girlfriends,
but you know, just to bridge into talking about my practice,
it was like, I am made to do this work.
I have no shame talking about this or that or
(27:53):
the other thing. Right, I love diving into that work.
And so bridging motherhood and identity into sexuality was really natural, right, Like,
what does it mean to be sexual? What does it
mean to have feminine energy? What does it mean to
have pleasure, right, to receive pleasure, to own our bodies
(28:13):
rather than be in this state of shame or frustration
or at war with our bodies? Right, it just was
this beautiful segue into you know, becoming a clinical sexologist.
So what does that actually mean all that? Yeah, this
is clinical psyxologist. What does that mean? Yeah? Okay, So
(28:34):
what it means is it's essentially I want you to
think about understanding sexual health. Sex education, right, sort of
the awareness of relationships and the intersection of psychosexual health, right,
And so clinical sexology is being trained in all of
(28:59):
the different you know ways that not only our bodies,
our anatomy, right, our pleasure centers. Just knowing about our
sexual health, about hormones, about STIs right, Like it really
encompasses sexual health and it helps to bridge the lack
(29:20):
of comprehensive sex education that we receive. You know, in
this country, we really don't get great sex education. So
for clinicians, it is a degree can teach this in school.
I don't know, it's all abstinuente. It's like, right, my
mom and dad, God rest their souls, never talk to
me about the birds and the bees.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I mean, you know, it's yeah, to tell us about
how our body based tools for emotional wellness and the pleasure,
the pressure to perform.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
In your love life in bed and it's all of that.
Talk to us a little bit about that, because I
want to dive into your book as well. Oh yeah, sure, yeah,
so you know body based tools right when I say that,
I in the book, we use breath work. We use
movements which most people will recognize as yoga poses, right
(30:17):
atinas because that's accessible, right, I wanted to use somatic
movements that people could google how do I get into
this pose? If they needed to there's so many different
somatic movements, and somach just means the body, right, so
it's really getting into the body. And somatic psychology is
about using the body to release stored emotions, right, emotions
(30:41):
that are trapped inside of us. So much talk on
this podcast lightly somatic, healing, somatic, all somatic somatic has
come up again and again and again. It's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And so in the interest of time, because I know
we don't have much. The reason why that's really important
is the bridge into sec vitual health is that women
(31:02):
are not taught about their anatomy. Women are not taught
about what will bring them pleasure. Most women don't really
understand how to orgasm until it happens by accident or
one of their girlfriends says, hey, you should get a vibrator. Right,
there's that we don't have that education about how to
have the most pleasure. Right. The education we receive is
(31:26):
a penis goes into a vagina and boom, it should
be magic for you, right, And that's just not true.
That's not true. Some people do have a lot of
pleasure from penis and vagina sex, right, but most of
us need literal stimulation. So the reason why the breath work,
(31:47):
the somatic movements right, the meditation, why that's important is
again tuning into your body so that you can learn
what your body needs. Now, doing a yoga clothes isn't
going to increase, you know, your ability to orgasm on
its own, but it does increase your ability to tune
into the sensations in your body that could be building
(32:10):
you up towards something right. And so there's there's so
much to tell you about about how this all intersects
and works together. But I think ultimately the fact is
is that we need information. We need to understand our anatomy.
We need to understand what we need for our own pleasure,
(32:33):
and then we need to find that attunement, that connection
to the body. Right. And so I in my book
I talk about anatomy. I talk about making sure you understand,
you know what your body needs to have the most pleasure,
but then bringing in that attunement to the self with
you know, we need to get blood flow to the
(32:54):
pelvic region, right, We need to teach your body when
to push and when to pods. Right. We need to
teach you outside of the bedroom how to know the
difference between discomfort and pain. Right, we need to teach
you the difference between this feels good and this feels tolerable. Right.
We don't want things being done to our bodies that
(33:16):
are tolerable, because that's where desire shrinks. Right, when we're
not showing up for what we want or what feels
good for us, Why would you want to be sexual?
Why would you want to have any intimacy if it's
painful or simply just tolerable. Right, So, my book is
teaching you how to tune into your body and to
get these signals in a non sexual way to bridge
(33:40):
into Okay, I can start learning about when I can
can advocate for something different, or when I need to move,
or if I'm feeling this versus that. So this book,
this book is not a fix your sex life in
five steps kind of book. It's a bold body based
guide women who feel disconnected from pleasure, burdened by stress,
(34:03):
or shut down by pain. Awaken your body, Awaken your desire. Okay,
I have I loved you? Know? There's so much in
this book. Chapter eight Stress. Here's the truth. Stress doesn't
only live in your thoughts. It lives in your nervous
system and inside your body, and there's this powerful command
center that decides what matters most in any given moment.
(34:25):
It's not trying to ruin your sex life. It's trying
to keep you alive. Let's talk about it. So much
good information, and I love the I loved every chapter,
but chapter nine beyond talk the science of somatic healing.
Like I said, mindfulness, more mindfulness, more breathing again and
again we're focused on that on this podcast too, So
(34:48):
this chapter really hit home with me a lot. And
then again chapter fourteen, breathe more than just it's more
than just air. Yeah, breathing, mindfulness. I mean, what's your
favorite chapter? There's so many, there's so much in this book.
You know, that's an unfair question to me, right, so,
(35:13):
I don't even know how you did this. My favorite Yeah,
my favorite chapter is it's really what is called the
Somatic Toolkit. I'm also going through right now to try
to remember which one, which chapter that is. But I
love the Somatic Toolkit chapter because it has all of
(35:34):
the different breathwork practices. There are thirteen different breathwork practices
in my book, right, you can try them all figure
out what's your favorite or if you do have one
of the concerns in part of the fourteen healing plans
that are included, you can just follow along your healing plan.
But what I wanted to do was make an accessible
(35:56):
resource for women to pick up and say, Wow, I'm
feeling really stressed, I'm feeling really anxious, I'm feeling really disconnected. Right,
I'm going to try one of these breathwork practices, or
I'm going to put my body in this somatic movement
right with this yoga pose. You know, I'm gonna lay
down and I'm going to put my legs up the wall. Right.
I wanted the Somatic Toolkit to be Okay, I can
(36:16):
open this book and just pick something to try, right,
and then I really pay attention to how I feel after.
You know, there's journaling prompts, there's body based prompts. Right,
It's this concept of like what is my body doing? Right?
We live in our mind. We're over intellectualizing everything, and
(36:37):
that does help us absolutely, But we have to get
into our bodies, our tissues. We have to connect to
what's going on inside, otherwise we're intellectualizing our symptoms away. Right. Oh,
my chest feels tight because this happened, and this happened,
and I had too much coffee, right, rather than can
I breathe into my chest? Can I give myself some here?
(37:00):
Can I sit down and allow myself to rest? Right?
Where is the permission for women to take a rest? Oh?
My gosh. A couple of years ago, when I moved
to my like happy ever after place, I started to
give myself. I raised my kids alone, like by myself
pretty much, and they're off, they're flying, they're flourishing, they're working,
(37:24):
they're grown, and I'm like, sometimes I need to sit down. Yeah,
whatever it is, like, I give myself permission. Now. I
wish it didn't take me this long to give myself
permission that I'm okay to sit down for a minute. Yeah,
and you're right. Your chapter one says it right off
the bat. It's the truth. The body is the way back. Yeah,
(37:46):
that was like so perfectly said the whole book. I
encourage everyone, Awaken your body, awaken your desire. It is
like a guidebook. I read it, but I have to
go back and reread and then I will pick my
chat that I will go back to often. Yea, So
it's so thoughtful it's so well thought out this book.
(38:07):
Thank you. So wait so okay, doctor Daniel Armor armor armor, Yeah, sexologists, psychotherapist,
nervous system nerd. I love how you said that. Fifteen
years of experience working with women and couples, your new book.
Like I said it twelve times, Awaken your body, Awaken
your desire, tell us your rewrite. Yeah, my rewrt is
(38:33):
you can have the life you want, but you have
to be willing to not only do the work, but
to show up for yourself, to have the hard conversations,
to sit in your discomfort. And that that's my rewrite.
I did all of those things. I took the risks.
I lived in a state of stress because I knew
(38:56):
there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Right,
I allowed my self to be in the thick of
it rather than avoiding it, Right, rather than you know,
washing it away with that glass of wine. Right, I
turned inwards and I said, what do I want? Right?
And once I started, I was able to listen to
(39:17):
that what I wanted. All of the steps happened, one
after another after another. Right. Tuning in is the way
your body is the way? How did you I want
to take us back to that part where you were
like you you were, you lost your job, you had
the young kids at home, Yeah, and you knew this
(39:39):
wasn't for you. And then you started doing stuff. You
started like building a life. Yes, you were like, I'm
gonna go take that yoga class. A lot of a
lot of women won't walk out the door and say
I'm leaving right, whether it's to the grocery store, whether
but no, less a yoga something for yourself, like a
(40:00):
yoga class. Yeah, you did that, and you started like
like did you know that you were like starting to
work because you were going to build this life and
you were going to one day like that whole that
whole part of you. You were so like you were
young still and you had yet just that that fact
that that happened, right, Yeah, I didn't I think that.
(40:24):
What I thought, and of course we're going backwards here,
but what I thought was I was going to make
that life accessible to me by bringing things into it.
Right before I went to yoga, I had a garden
and I was out there in the dirt, you know,
doing things. It It really was the physical ability to
be in my body that started to help me to
(40:47):
heal all of that frustration and that tension and to
connect to myself because it gave me the space to
just be with myself, right. And so I think initially
my thought was, Okay, I'm going to start I'm going
to start doing yoga more regularly. Right, I'm going to
start focusing on, you know, taking jobs that I really
want to take for myself. And if they have to
(41:08):
be in the weekends, and if they have to be
in the evening, then they will be right because my
daughters can either be with their grandparents or when their
dad gets home. And that's what I did, is that
initially I was working the weekends as you know, a
per diem at a hospital for social work, right, and
he would be home with them. And so initially it
(41:29):
was just what can I do to make sure I'm
using my brain and the way that I want to
in addition to taking care of my kids. But the
more that I showed up for myself, the more that
I went to those yoga classes, the more that I
was giving myself the space to rest, to not compare
myself to other moms that felt like they were keeping
(41:49):
it all together, right, That's when I started to realize
that it was the relationship that was wrong for me,
and you were a better mom for all of it. Yeah, yes,
what one hundred more complete, full person, Oh totally. And
so life today, life today is amazing. I you know,
(42:11):
earlier you said the world is changing because now more
guys are staying home and I am remarried and I
have an incredible husband who is what we jokingly call
a house spouse, right, a stay at home dad, and he,
you know, is my biggest supporter and cheerleader. You know,
he put his work in. He retired from the military
(42:33):
a couple of years ago. He did you know, over
twenty years and when the time came, he said, I
want to support your career, right, I want you to
do what you want to do. And he is. This
summer I had I'm a co founder of a retreats
business and the retreats are for women and couples, and
(42:56):
so we had our first round of women's retreats where
we did all of this work, where we were you know,
helping women to feel empowered and their bodies and their
sexuality and rewriting their story. And so he was like, yes,
go do this. Have I have it all right, I
have it all together here, and so I just want
(43:17):
to say that life now is amazing because I followed
my heart. I followed what I needed for myself and
it all worked out. Where did you meet him and
how did you have the time I met him? Other
yoga class? Of course we did. It all began with
that yoga class. It all began. I'm going out for
an hour and fifteen minutes. Then you came back and
(43:39):
you're like, I'm out here. But we were friends, we
were both going through divorces, and it just again another
soul I was supposed to meet. Truly, I knew it
the first time we went out to lunch as friends.
I sat across from him and I was like, Wow,
I'm going to marry this man. And it happened. It happened. Codient,
(44:00):
you radiant joy like you are all joy. Even telling
you your story when you were in the thick of it,
you were still smiling, joy happy. Oh my gosh, everyone
should get her book. Awaken your Body, Awaken your desire,
using science to heal your stress and find your sexual vitality.
Come back every single day. Please kind again. I loved
(44:24):
your story. I'm so happy that you reached out and
it was such a pleasure to meet you, and you're
going to be an inspiration to everyone that's going to
be listening to this podcast. So thank you well, thank
you Wendy, thank you for having me. It was great.
Thanks so much. Nito Kuda Divorce and Family Laws attorneys
have guided Connecticut and New York families through complex divorce actions,
(44:48):
contested child custody, and alimony disputes for over thirty years.
Their Connecticut and New York attorneys have extensive experience in
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(45:08):
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(45:30):
zero zero
Welcome to The Rewrite, a podcast about divorce, choice and
new beginnings. I'm your host, Wendy Sloan, former TV producer,
mom of two and one sweet golden retriever. This is
a space for real talk about the moments that break us,
the choices that define us, and the power we have
to begin again. You'll hear personal stories, heartfelt insights, and
(00:22):
honest conversations about healing relationships and reclaiming your life one
choice at a time. I'll be joined by experts in divorce, finance,
mental health, wellness and more and everything you need to
support your next chapter. The most powerful chapters might be
the ones you write next. Let's begin your rewrite together.
This episode is brought to in part by the Needle
(00:44):
Kuda Law Firm guidance that moves lives forward. Welcome back
to the Rewrite. My guest today a clinical sexologist, psychotherapist
and nervous system expert helping women and couples restore balance,
resilience and connection. Also the author of Awaken Your Body,
Awaken Your Desire. I can't wait to dive deep into that.
(01:06):
She's a teacher, mom, and someone who deeply believes that
pleasure is not a luxury. It's vital right, how much
do I love that that you said that? And I
and ever since I read that, I'm like, you know what,
You're so right, You're going to want to take notes
on this interview because what if the very stress that
you carry every day is shutting down your energy, your vitality,
(01:29):
and your connection. I am so excited. Welcome to my show,
Daniel Armar, Thank you, Thank you so much. I'm really
excited to be with you so much to dive into.
I was like going through the pages of your book,
and we're going to get to your amazing book, which
I'm it's the whole the whole cover of the book,
(01:49):
which I will I will put up on social kind
of just awakens your body and awaken your desire. It's
just it kind of pops out at you. The colors. Yeah,
I don't know who designed your book, but it's it's beautiful. Yeah, well,
thank you. That's exactly what I wanted. I wanted it
to be that sort of eye catching, but like make
you feel the warmth right the rays of the sun.
It absolutely did that. So and I'm not just saying
(02:12):
I really did. All right, So let's get into First
of all, let's begin with your own personal journey. You
were married for almost seven years, went through a paintball,
but you said ultimately transformative divorce, and tell us about
that and the internal pressure surrounding all that that you
went through. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So you know, I'll start
(02:34):
by saying, there's no villain in my story, right, there
wasn't a betrayal or an infidelity or even something dramatic.
You know. Over there's so many, so much to say, Wendy,
I'm like, where should I even start? I think the
thing is is that you know, as girls and women
(02:56):
were socialized from really young ages to believe in the
fairy tale, right, to believe in like you are going
to meet Prince Charming, and that is what's going to
make your life right, like we are told from such
a young age. You know, here are the steps that
you need to take in order to live a successful
life as a woman, right, And the major one is
(03:19):
meete a man, made a partner, have children and be
a mom, and just have this incredible life right. And
so for me, I have always been what do I
want to say here? I have always been called bossy, right,
I've always been a high achiever. I've always known what
I wanted in my life, and I'm not afraid to
(03:41):
ask for it. I'm not afraid to do what I
need to do right. People like to say you're aggressive, right,
but really it's just when women are assertive, people don't
like that. And so I think that initially my ex
husband really loved those qualities about me that you know,
he he wanted sort of an independent, alpha woman in
(04:04):
a lot of ways. But yet his own cultural messaging
over time really started to show up, right, like, Okay,
now you're married, Now you're you know, your wife shouldn't
want to work and have a career and have this growth,
take care of the children exactly, exactly right, all the things,
(04:24):
all the things right, the very stereotypical gender norms of Okay,
well now we're in this you know marriage, this traditional marriage,
this is what is to be expected. And so, you know,
I think for me, I picked the path initially that
was I think told by so many people I should
(04:46):
be on that path, right. You know, I went to college,
I was in graduate school. I had a four year
relationship with a person I thought I was going to
be engaged to. We broke up and I was like,
oh no, you know, now, looking back, I was twenty
five years old, and I'm like, I have to start over, right,
like start over twenty five. It's so ridiculous to think
(05:07):
about that now, But you know, meeting another person who
just adored me, loved me so much, cared so much
about me, and as we dive into my book, right,
cared about my pleasure and my body and just wanted
to make me feel good. Right. I was sort of
enamored by his adoration for me, right, And I think
(05:28):
I made all those choices. I did the thing. We
got married, we had the babies, and I just kept
shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, and all of the aspirations
and dreams that I had for myself were gone. Right.
I always wanted to get my PhD. I always wanted
to have a private practice, right. I always wanted to teach.
(05:49):
I wanted to have a wellness center. Right, And it
was like, well, we should have another child, and we
should do this, and we should do that. And I think, again,
not a villain, those are his dreams. But I watched
my dreams get smaller and smaller and smaller, to the
point where I was a shell of myself, and I
(06:09):
think a lot of us do that as women, because
again we're brought up with the story, the narrative of
it's actually your husband and your kids that are going
to make your life, not all of the other things
that you do. It's, you know, I think because we
were I think it's changing now a great I mean,
(06:30):
more women are in the workforce, you know, sometimes men
are staying home, and you know, everyone's making it work.
So it's I think it's totally different getting different now.
But you're right, I mean we watched we watch all
those you know, Cinderella stories, and we dream of that
as little kids. Right, But you said, I can you
(06:51):
know you you were shrinking inside? Mm hm. So then
what happened? So you know, I it was a culmination
of events, right. I had my first daughter, and then
very quickly, you know, in this I think is a
lot of people's story. I you know, got pregnant very
(07:14):
quickly with my second. They're only seventeen and a half
months apart, and I was working full time from home
as a geriatric care manager. At the time. I had
temporarily left private practice. Well I'm sorry, I was in
community mental health. I was a psychotherapist, not yet in
private practice. I left community mental health, was working as
(07:34):
a care manager, and when I had my second baby,
my employer at the time was like, you know, we
really don't think that you can handle, you know, working
from home with two children. So again sort of buying
into that narrative of like, okay, now my these it
was a practice of women, first of all, which was
very disheartening. I already had had help set up so
(07:58):
that I could both work and take care of my kids.
And my baby was three months old and I was
laid off and it was like, okay, now you have
to figure out what to do. And so, you know,
even though like I said, I had child care set up,
I wasn't expecting to be without work. But I was
also three months postpartum and did have two very young children,
(08:22):
and so you know, I just want to be clear here.
I adore my daughters everything that I am saying here,
and I know you get this as a mom. You know,
I never want my girls to listen to a podcast
and be like, what, but are you saying you didn't
want to have kids? No, I am never saying that.
I truly truly believe that they were meant for me.
(08:43):
I don't know if you've ever read many lives, many masters,
of course I have many times. Yes, so we are connected.
I knew their souls long before they were mine, right,
And I really think my ex husband was, you know,
he was the connection to find these souls. But that's
another story for another day. But so I lost my
(09:07):
job and I was confronted with this this you know,
dilemma of Okay, I guess I'm going to be a
stay at home mom. That was never really part of
my plan. I always wanted to have my hands and
a little bit of everything. But I guess I'm going
to stay home and do this right. And it was
just not the right fit for me. I was very depressed.
(09:28):
I was becoming this sort of, like I said earlier,
this shell of myself. And my ex husband, again very
well meaning, was just like, you know, I maybe this
really isn't the right fit for you, right, He said
really hurtful things like you know, I just don't think
that you can handle this, and talking about being a mom.
(09:50):
And it wasn't the being the mom that was the problem, right,
It was that I was doing everything right. He was
coming home and yeah, there was dishes in the same
and there was laundry to be done. We had very
little babies. But I will never forget. He said to me,
you know, I think you're an incompetent mother. And I
(10:10):
was like, excuse me, excuse me. And that totally changed
the course of everything. Right, I just did what I
needed to do. I found a job, I started working
on the weekends. I started to build this inner world
of I have the resilience, I have the capacity, I
(10:31):
have the ability to do what I need to do
for myself and for my daughters. And I will start
doing that silently and feel really safe and really comfortable
being able to leave eventually. And it took time. That
happened in about two thousand and fifteen, and I didn't
ask for a divorce until twenty seventeen. But I did
(10:54):
what I knew I was capable of doing, of building
a career for myself. And I was working in many
different places with my you know, psychotherapy knowledge. But I
was in a hospital, I worked for home care agencies,
I worked for hospice. Then I started working for a
group private practice, which just expanded everything for me. But
(11:17):
the story is I lost myself and then I said,
oh no, no, no, no, I got brought into your dream.
Now I need to remember my own so that I
can feel confident leaving this relationship. Okay, I want to say,
when I said earlier in my intro, people need to
take notes. You need to take notes because what you said,
and I'm going to backtrack just a tiny bit, is
(11:37):
that you started doing for yourself and for your children
what you needed to do. So you didn't like, I'm done,
I'm getting divorced, and that's it. You built a life
that you knew that you could carry on, and you
made yourself safe and full and complete, and then you
walked out of your marriage. And I admire you for
(11:58):
doing that because I mean, there was no scandal in
my divorce either, and I'm grateful for every day of
my life because I have my two kids, and my
kids are twelve and a half months apart. They're grown,
they're twenty four and twenty five. But with that said,
I didn't have a plan. I just was like, oh,
I'm done, I'm getting divorced. Yeah. I love. I love
what you did. Yeah, And that was to protect yourself
(12:21):
and to protect your children and to protect your well
being because you were a shell of yourself. You were
disconnected and you were trying you like you were like
you know that I can do more than just be
a stay at home mom, which is a job in
itself too. But yeah, but we could do it all.
And yeah, I'm gonna and then we're gonna get into more.
We're gonna take a very quick break for one of
(12:41):
our sponsors and we'll be brought up with the rewrite.
Talking to doctor Danielle Armar and I'm going to ask
you your healing didn't beget in doctor's office or self
help books, but it began in your body. And I'm
so curious to hear about that. And she's also the
author of her book, which we're going to get into,
also Awaken your Body, Awaken your desire, using science to
heal your stress and find your sexual vitality. I love
(13:05):
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with doctor Daniel Armar and her book is Awaken your Body,
(14:31):
Awaken your Desire. You're using science to heal your stress
and find your your sexual vitality. So you said your
healing didn't begin in doctor's office or self help books,
but in your body. Tell us about that. Yeah, yes, yeah,
And I just have to say I spent my whole
life never telling people how to say my last name
(14:52):
growing up, and so it's armor like armor, Armor. I'm sorry, Armor, Okay, No,
that's okay. I just signed to know. My maiden name
was also confusing, and so I just that's again, that's
one of those those conditions of you know, don't correct people,
don't say things right, don't please correct me. Yeah, my
(15:14):
celebrity radio show, I said some of the biggest celebrity
names wrong, So please correct me. Thank you. Yeah. So
the reason why I talk about healing starting in your
body is you know, to talk to go back to
what you were saying earlier about feeling disconnected. Right, so
many of us are wearing so many hats all the time. Right,
(15:36):
we're going through the motions. We are taking care of
everyone else and putting ourselves in the back burner, right,
we're deprioritizing our own needs. And so for me and
for so many women that I treat, we're so disconnected
from our bodies that we're not tuning into the signs
(15:56):
of like, Okay, you're really stressed, Right, you need to
slow your self down, even if it's for five minutes
to take a deep breath to lower that cortisol and adrenaline.
That's racing. Excuse me, you're racing through you as you're
jumping from one task to the next to the next. Right,
And what I know now is that disregulation that over
(16:23):
you know, stimulation that happens for us as moms, as
business women, as partners. Right, it creates this total disregulation
not only in what we we feel externally but internally. Right,
we totally rewire our HPA access, which which is our
(16:44):
hypothalmis pituitary adrenal system, right, which tells our body when
we're when we're safe and when we're not safe. Right,
And so essentially it has to start with the body.
And I know I'm going in a few different directions
here because this is just my passion and I love it,
and I want to tell you as much as I can.
You know, what happens is is our stress response. It
(17:06):
just overwhelms us and we're stuck in a chronic state
of stress. Right, So when you go to bed at night,
you're not relaxing, right, Like your mind is racing. Some
people have insomnia. Some people are using wine just so
that they can go to sleep. Right. We start to
develop these coping strategies because we're so stressed out all
of the time that are really maladaptive. So we need
(17:29):
to connect to the body. Right. How often are we
walking around holding our breath because we're feeling stressed and
we really need to take a deep breath. So connecting
to the body is as simple as am I bracing
and holding my breath rather than breathing and taking a
few minutes to slow myself down. I love that. As
(17:51):
easy as that, As simple as that. It's actually as
simple as that. And you know, because you've looked at
my book right there, there's more to it about connecting
to the body. But initially it's just realizing, Okay, I'm
feeling stressed not only because of all of these roles
and all of these expectations, but also because I'm not
(18:11):
tuning in to what I need, and what we often
need is is living in our body. It's telling us,
it's sending us signals. Right. So many of us are
wearing our our shoulders as earrings, right, Like we can
simply take note. We can say, okay, what am I
feeling in my body?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I need to drop my shoulders, right, I need to
just really do I'm breathing as you're doing this, right, right,
give a little movement to my shoulders, you know, moving
your neck around, doing some head circles. Right. We carry
that stress in such a way that simply stopping and
tuning in and taking that connection to the body, seriously,
(18:55):
it changes everything. It changes how we move through the world, right,
It changes how are all of our interactions go with
ourself with others. So it really is about that attunement
to the self, which doesn't have to be deep. It
doesn't always have to be emotionally deep. Does it need
to be at some point? Yeah, but start with what
is your body telling you? Okay, so I got it
(19:18):
back up a little bit. And then I want to
get into your work as a clinical sexologist and psychotherapist
and how it all started and what you do but
I didn't get I didn't finished with the last part,
so you ask for a divorce. Oh yes, and then
life like how long ago? In life now? And what happened?
And we didn't finish. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so
(19:43):
so much. There is so much, There is so much.
You know, really, what happened was in this This is
gonna sound funny. What happened was I you know now
we're calling. I can tell you that this was the
moment that I started to shift and change everything and
(20:03):
start building for myself and setting myself up for the safety. Right.
But then I didn't realize that, right, what I started
doing was going to yoga for myself. Right. What I
started to do was say, hey, I'm going to go
take this yoga class. I'll be back in an hour
and fifteen minutes, right, And I went enough that I
(20:26):
was really connecting to myself, to my body, getting in
my body and acknowledging that I couldn't continue doing what
I was doing. Right, And so my joke is that
a yoga class, right, laying in shravasna and having the
tears come down my face, right and saying, wow, I'm
(20:46):
I'm I can't do this anymore. I have to go
home and tell him that I can't do this anymore. Right,
And that's exactly what I did. I went home after
yoga class on a Saturday morning and said, I am
not the person that I want to be. I'm not
the person that I know myself to be, right, I
can't do this. And that was in twenty seventeen. And
(21:10):
you know, it was a very emotional and difficult conversation,
but I had a brave conversation. Yes, yes, he heard
me and he listened, and it wasn't complicated in the beginning, Wendy, Right,
it was like, okay, well I don't I don't want
you to stay in this marriage if this is not
what you want, right. And so we started making the plans,
(21:34):
and you know, I rented myself an apartment you know
that was right down the street, so we could co
parent really well, had plenty of space for my girls.
You know, we started the exit plan. Our divorce itself
was very amicable. We filed and were divorced a month later.
Because of the state that we lived in, it was
very easy. Now, mind you, I knew that I wanted out,
(21:58):
so I gave up a lot, right, I gave up
the home that I put a lot of energy and
money into and the dream of what that house would be.
I walked away from a lot because I knew that
was the safest and the healthiest choice for us. But
it was a very intentional, thoughtful, you know, method on
(22:22):
what's that word? I can't I can't think of it
right now, but very wise beyond your years. Yeah, listening
to how listening to how you handled everything, Yeah is
like I said, take notes. People should take notes. Yeah,
because not everyone does that. Yeah, matter of fact less
(22:43):
people do what you did. Yeah, so brave, courageous I
say all those things to you. Yeah, well, thank you.
I appreciate that, and I appreciate that. And I haven't
also said that he heard you, that you came home
from the yoga class and he heard you. Yeah, says
a lot about him too. Yeah, it does, it does.
(23:04):
And you know, it's it's like I said, it wasn't dramatic,
but it was really painful and really hard. And because
it's it's an end, it's a death. I mean, divorce
is a death in a sense absolutely of the dream
of what you thought it was, of what you thought
your life was going to be Yeah, So then how
was life? I mean, life was wonderful in so many ways.
(23:29):
So I had I was fully working for a group
practice that was owned by someone else at the time
when this transition all happened, and so my focus at
the time was really on perinatal mood and anxiety disorders,
and so I don't even like to use the term disorder.
(23:50):
You probably saw that I write that in my book,
But at the time, I really wanted to help women
find themselves after having a baby and having all of
these expectations of what that meant for them, because of
my story, but also just because of what we know
to be true about the postpartum depression rates right so
(24:11):
much that women struggle with And so for me, I
was invigorated, right. I was getting to live the life
I wanted. I had a beautiful little home in a
beautiful little town that was five minutes away from my practice.
You know, I had great child care. I had family
around to help me. You know, I felt like, wow, Okay,
(24:32):
I can really do this and I can thrive here,
and that passion of like now I can help other people, right,
women and men, couples, you know, couples that need to
maybe consciously uncouple. Right, thank you Gwyneth Paltrow for that
term years ago, but right to have this really intentional
(24:53):
way to say I can take back my life, I
can reclaim what I need for myself. I was living
it at the time, and I I felt so empowered
to help people do that for themselves. And it's not
always about divorce, right, Sometimes it's about a career change,
sometimes spress right, setting boundaries, advocating for yourself, you know,
(25:13):
leaving family situations that are now for some reason you
got disconnected in your in your marriage and your relationship
whatever it was, right exactly. So life was wonderful because
I felt like I could focus on how I wanted
to show up in the world, not how I was
told I was supposed to show up in the world
right from really young ages. And it's not you know,
(25:37):
it's just that cultural societal pressure, expectations. And you're right
what you said earlier. It absolutely has changed. But the
one thing that I do worry hasn't changed is we
as women often give the power, especially sexually a way
to our partners, right, specifically in heteronormative situation. Right, there's
(26:01):
we don't always own our pleasure in the way that
we can and should and deserve to, as you mentioned,
when we first started. And so life for me started
post divorce, looking at that those early family experiences and
you know, the postpartum period and helping couples heal after
(26:25):
having maybe traumatic birth experiences or traumatic experiences when they
were first bringing kids into the world. But what I
started to see was this total loss of sexual identity,
which only became a focal point because you know, there's
this expectation of after a certain amount of time, you
should be ready to be sexual again with your partner, right.
(26:48):
But it gave women this chance to start talking about
how maybe they never felt connected to their own sexual
interests right, or their own you know, pleasure, or what
felt good in their bodies, or really understanding how to
get the most pleasure. So, you know, that period of
time exactly when I had left my ex husband, I
(27:09):
moved into my own place, I started training in sex, sexuality,
and gender. I went to my very first program at
Harvard Medical School that was all about sex and sexuality,
and that was in very early twenty seventeen, and I
was like, oh my god, this is for me, this
is my niche I'm not afraid to talk about sex.
(27:30):
I want people to really ownn erotic identity, and for women,
that's not something that we're raised to really talk about.
You know, you might whisper about it with your girlfriends,
but you know, just to bridge into talking about my practice,
it was like, I am made to do this work.
I have no shame talking about this or that or
(27:53):
the other thing. Right, I love diving into that work.
And so bridging motherhood and identity into sexuality was really natural, right, Like,
what does it mean to be sexual? What does it
mean to have feminine energy? What does it mean to
have pleasure, right, to receive pleasure, to own our bodies
(28:13):
rather than be in this state of shame or frustration
or at war with our bodies? Right, it just was
this beautiful segue into you know, becoming a clinical sexologist.
So what does that actually mean all that? Yeah, this
is clinical psyxologist. What does that mean? Yeah? Okay, So
(28:34):
what it means is it's essentially I want you to
think about understanding sexual health. Sex education, right, sort of
the awareness of relationships and the intersection of psychosexual health, right,
And so clinical sexology is being trained in all of
(28:59):
the different you know ways that not only our bodies,
our anatomy, right, our pleasure centers. Just knowing about our
sexual health, about hormones, about STIs right, Like it really
encompasses sexual health and it helps to bridge the lack
(29:20):
of comprehensive sex education that we receive. You know, in
this country, we really don't get great sex education. So
for clinicians, it is a degree can teach this in school.
I don't know, it's all abstinuente. It's like, right, my
mom and dad, God rest their souls, never talk to
me about the birds and the bees.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I mean, you know, it's yeah, to tell us about
how our body based tools for emotional wellness and the pleasure,
the pressure to perform.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
In your love life in bed and it's all of that.
Talk to us a little bit about that, because I
want to dive into your book as well. Oh yeah, sure, yeah,
so you know body based tools right when I say that,
I in the book, we use breath work. We use
movements which most people will recognize as yoga poses, right
(30:17):
atinas because that's accessible, right, I wanted to use somatic
movements that people could google how do I get into
this pose? If they needed to there's so many different
somatic movements, and somach just means the body, right, so
it's really getting into the body. And somatic psychology is
about using the body to release stored emotions, right, emotions
(30:41):
that are trapped inside of us. So much talk on
this podcast lightly somatic, healing, somatic, all somatic somatic has
come up again and again and again. It's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And so in the interest of time, because I know
we don't have much. The reason why that's really important
is the bridge into sec vitual health is that women
(31:02):
are not taught about their anatomy. Women are not taught
about what will bring them pleasure. Most women don't really
understand how to orgasm until it happens by accident or
one of their girlfriends says, hey, you should get a vibrator. Right,
there's that we don't have that education about how to
have the most pleasure. Right. The education we receive is
(31:26):
a penis goes into a vagina and boom, it should
be magic for you, right, And that's just not true.
That's not true. Some people do have a lot of
pleasure from penis and vagina sex, right, but most of
us need literal stimulation. So the reason why the breath work,
(31:47):
the somatic movements right, the meditation, why that's important is
again tuning into your body so that you can learn
what your body needs. Now, doing a yoga clothes isn't
going to increase, you know, your ability to orgasm on
its own, but it does increase your ability to tune
into the sensations in your body that could be building
(32:10):
you up towards something right. And so there's there's so
much to tell you about about how this all intersects
and works together. But I think ultimately the fact is
is that we need information. We need to understand our anatomy.
We need to understand what we need for our own pleasure,
(32:33):
and then we need to find that attunement, that connection
to the body. Right. And so I in my book
I talk about anatomy. I talk about making sure you understand,
you know what your body needs to have the most pleasure,
but then bringing in that attunement to the self with
you know, we need to get blood flow to the
(32:54):
pelvic region, right, We need to teach your body when
to push and when to pods. Right. We need to
teach you outside of the bedroom how to know the
difference between discomfort and pain. Right, we need to teach
you the difference between this feels good and this feels tolerable. Right.
We don't want things being done to our bodies that
(33:16):
are tolerable, because that's where desire shrinks. Right, when we're
not showing up for what we want or what feels
good for us, Why would you want to be sexual?
Why would you want to have any intimacy if it's
painful or simply just tolerable. Right, So, my book is
teaching you how to tune into your body and to
get these signals in a non sexual way to bridge
(33:40):
into Okay, I can start learning about when I can
can advocate for something different, or when I need to move,
or if I'm feeling this versus that. So this book,
this book is not a fix your sex life in
five steps kind of book. It's a bold body based
guide women who feel disconnected from pleasure, burdened by stress,
(34:03):
or shut down by pain. Awaken your body, Awaken your desire. Okay,
I have I loved you? Know? There's so much in
this book. Chapter eight Stress. Here's the truth. Stress doesn't
only live in your thoughts. It lives in your nervous
system and inside your body, and there's this powerful command
center that decides what matters most in any given moment.
(34:25):
It's not trying to ruin your sex life. It's trying
to keep you alive. Let's talk about it. So much
good information, and I love the I loved every chapter,
but chapter nine beyond talk the science of somatic healing.
Like I said, mindfulness, more mindfulness, more breathing again and
again we're focused on that on this podcast too, So
(34:48):
this chapter really hit home with me a lot. And
then again chapter fourteen, breathe more than just it's more
than just air. Yeah, breathing, mindfulness. I mean, what's your
favorite chapter? There's so many, there's so much in this book.
You know, that's an unfair question to me, right, so,
(35:13):
I don't even know how you did this. My favorite Yeah,
my favorite chapter is it's really what is called the
Somatic Toolkit. I'm also going through right now to try
to remember which one, which chapter that is. But I
love the Somatic Toolkit chapter because it has all of
(35:34):
the different breathwork practices. There are thirteen different breathwork practices
in my book, right, you can try them all figure
out what's your favorite or if you do have one
of the concerns in part of the fourteen healing plans
that are included, you can just follow along your healing plan.
But what I wanted to do was make an accessible
(35:56):
resource for women to pick up and say, Wow, I'm
feeling really stressed, I'm feeling really anxious, I'm feeling really disconnected. Right,
I'm going to try one of these breathwork practices, or
I'm going to put my body in this somatic movement
right with this yoga pose. You know, I'm gonna lay
down and I'm going to put my legs up the wall. Right.
I wanted the Somatic Toolkit to be Okay, I can
(36:16):
open this book and just pick something to try, right,
and then I really pay attention to how I feel after.
You know, there's journaling prompts, there's body based prompts. Right,
It's this concept of like what is my body doing? Right?
We live in our mind. We're over intellectualizing everything, and
(36:37):
that does help us absolutely, But we have to get
into our bodies, our tissues. We have to connect to
what's going on inside, otherwise we're intellectualizing our symptoms away. Right. Oh,
my chest feels tight because this happened, and this happened,
and I had too much coffee, right, rather than can
I breathe into my chest? Can I give myself some here?
(37:00):
Can I sit down and allow myself to rest? Right?
Where is the permission for women to take a rest? Oh?
My gosh. A couple of years ago, when I moved
to my like happy ever after place, I started to
give myself. I raised my kids alone, like by myself
pretty much, and they're off, they're flying, they're flourishing, they're working,
(37:24):
they're grown, and I'm like, sometimes I need to sit down. Yeah,
whatever it is, like, I give myself permission. Now. I
wish it didn't take me this long to give myself
permission that I'm okay to sit down for a minute. Yeah,
and you're right. Your chapter one says it right off
the bat. It's the truth. The body is the way back. Yeah,
(37:46):
that was like so perfectly said the whole book. I
encourage everyone, Awaken your body, awaken your desire. It is
like a guidebook. I read it, but I have to
go back and reread and then I will pick my
chat that I will go back to often. Yea, So
it's so thoughtful it's so well thought out this book.
(38:07):
Thank you. So wait so okay, doctor Daniel Armor armor armor, Yeah, sexologists, psychotherapist,
nervous system nerd. I love how you said that. Fifteen
years of experience working with women and couples, your new book.
Like I said it twelve times, Awaken your body, Awaken
your desire, tell us your rewrite. Yeah, my rewrt is
(38:33):
you can have the life you want, but you have
to be willing to not only do the work, but
to show up for yourself, to have the hard conversations,
to sit in your discomfort. And that that's my rewrite.
I did all of those things. I took the risks.
I lived in a state of stress because I knew
(38:56):
there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Right,
I allowed my self to be in the thick of
it rather than avoiding it, Right, rather than you know,
washing it away with that glass of wine. Right, I
turned inwards and I said, what do I want? Right?
And once I started, I was able to listen to
(39:17):
that what I wanted. All of the steps happened, one
after another after another. Right. Tuning in is the way
your body is the way? How did you I want
to take us back to that part where you were
like you you were, you lost your job, you had
the young kids at home, Yeah, and you knew this
(39:39):
wasn't for you. And then you started doing stuff. You
started like building a life. Yes, you were like, I'm
gonna go take that yoga class. A lot of a
lot of women won't walk out the door and say
I'm leaving right, whether it's to the grocery store, whether
but no, less a yoga something for yourself, like a
(40:00):
yoga class. Yeah, you did that, and you started like
like did you know that you were like starting to
work because you were going to build this life and
you were going to one day like that whole that
whole part of you. You were so like you were
young still and you had yet just that that fact
that that happened, right, Yeah, I didn't I think that.
(40:24):
What I thought, and of course we're going backwards here,
but what I thought was I was going to make
that life accessible to me by bringing things into it.
Right before I went to yoga, I had a garden
and I was out there in the dirt, you know,
doing things. It It really was the physical ability to
be in my body that started to help me to
(40:47):
heal all of that frustration and that tension and to
connect to myself because it gave me the space to
just be with myself, right. And so I think initially
my thought was, Okay, I'm going to start I'm going
to start doing yoga more regularly. Right, I'm going to
start focusing on, you know, taking jobs that I really
want to take for myself. And if they have to
(41:08):
be in the weekends, and if they have to be
in the evening, then they will be right because my
daughters can either be with their grandparents or when their
dad gets home. And that's what I did, is that
initially I was working the weekends as you know, a
per diem at a hospital for social work, right, and
he would be home with them. And so initially it
(41:29):
was just what can I do to make sure I'm
using my brain and the way that I want to
in addition to taking care of my kids. But the
more that I showed up for myself, the more that
I went to those yoga classes, the more that I
was giving myself the space to rest, to not compare
myself to other moms that felt like they were keeping
(41:49):
it all together, right, That's when I started to realize
that it was the relationship that was wrong for me,
and you were a better mom for all of it. Yeah, yes,
what one hundred more complete, full person, Oh totally. And
so life today, life today is amazing. I you know,
(42:11):
earlier you said the world is changing because now more
guys are staying home and I am remarried and I
have an incredible husband who is what we jokingly call
a house spouse, right, a stay at home dad, and he,
you know, is my biggest supporter and cheerleader. You know,
he put his work in. He retired from the military
(42:33):
a couple of years ago. He did you know, over
twenty years and when the time came, he said, I
want to support your career, right, I want you to
do what you want to do. And he is. This
summer I had I'm a co founder of a retreats
business and the retreats are for women and couples, and
(42:56):
so we had our first round of women's retreats where
we did all of this work, where we were you know,
helping women to feel empowered and their bodies and their
sexuality and rewriting their story. And so he was like, yes,
go do this. Have I have it all right, I
have it all together here, and so I just want
(43:17):
to say that life now is amazing because I followed
my heart. I followed what I needed for myself and
it all worked out. Where did you meet him and
how did you have the time I met him? Other
yoga class? Of course we did. It all began with
that yoga class. It all began. I'm going out for
an hour and fifteen minutes. Then you came back and
(43:39):
you're like, I'm out here. But we were friends, we
were both going through divorces, and it just again another
soul I was supposed to meet. Truly, I knew it
the first time we went out to lunch as friends.
I sat across from him and I was like, Wow,
I'm going to marry this man. And it happened. It happened. Codient,
(44:00):
you radiant joy like you are all joy. Even telling
you your story when you were in the thick of it,
you were still smiling, joy happy. Oh my gosh, everyone
should get her book. Awaken your Body, Awaken your desire,
using science to heal your stress and find your sexual vitality.
Come back every single day. Please kind again. I loved
(44:24):
your story. I'm so happy that you reached out and
it was such a pleasure to meet you, and you're
going to be an inspiration to everyone that's going to
be listening to this podcast. So thank you well, thank
you Wendy, thank you for having me. It was great.
Thanks so much. Nito Kuda Divorce and Family Laws attorneys
have guided Connecticut and New York families through complex divorce actions,
(44:48):
contested child custody, and alimony disputes for over thirty years.
Their Connecticut and New York attorneys have extensive experience in
family matters involving substance abuse, domestic violence, mental illness, and
many other X factors that can complicate a divorce. Their
attorneys adeptly manage privacy and reputation concerns inherit to public
(45:08):
divorce proceedings and the related exposure for their ultra high
net worth clients. Find your new path forward, define your
post divorce family, and secure an enforcable agreement to protect
your future with Needlekuda Act. Now put the strength of
their team behind you. Visit them at Needlecuda dot com
or call two O three five five seven nine five
(45:30):
zero zero
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