The Midlife Pleasure Toolbox

Jan 27

Hot Takes From My Conversation With Gabriella Espinosa

It’s time to dig deep into our midlife pleasure toolbox. I’m going to share some hot takes with you from my conversation with Gabriella Espinosa. She is the founder of Women's Body Wisdom, and she is an embodied female pleasure coach and menopause mentor. She’s a yoga and somatic movement teacher, a trained nutritional therapist, and a women's health writer.

Gabriella has been working internationally with women for over fifteen years, guiding them to reconnect to their innate wisdom and discover their pleasure, power, and purpose in midlife. She is also the founder of My Menopause Story, a community platform on Instagram born out of her belief that everyone's menopause journey is unique, and that each and every one of our stories matters.

So get your golden shit shovels ready because Gabriella is sharing some very special tools, practices, and teachings on how to access our deepest desires so that we feel more, connect more, and own our pleasure. Female embodiment in your midlife remix is the gold we’re serving today.

**What the F*ck is Embodiment?**

I love the woo-woo stuff but what does it mean? How do we find embodiment for ourselves, especially with so many changes in midlife? Gabriella explains that embodiment is “reconnecting to your body.” She goes on to say that “it means having a felt sense of everything that makes you uniquely you… your physical, your mental, your emotional, your energetic, your spiritual…” So often we ignore what our body is telling us and all the pieces of ourselves are scattered all over the place. This puts us further and further away from our pleasure, power, and purpose. Embodiment can help us find the way back.

So what is embodiment?

It’s an invitation. Gabriella shares that day-to-day embodiment is “an invitation to befriend your body and attend to your body's cues… just like you do with a big fuzzy sweater or slippers when you’re cold. You attend to your body's cues for resourcing and regulating with food.” It’s the day-to-day listening to what you need, what you feel, and taking those cues seriously…even if you’re busy.

It’s about building intimacy with yourself. It’s a deeply intimate journey that builds with time. Gabriella says that it “requires constant tracking, and distinguishing what's right to give you greater access to the parts of yourself that long to be acknowledged and expressed.”

How do I know when I’m embodied?

According to Gabriella, “You just feel good in your skin. That sense of feeling good in your skin…it's a very felt sense and everyone's journey to embodiment is different. And it changes on a daily basis.”

Pleasure Basics

It makes sense when you start to think about pleasure, that embodiment is the key component. I mean…how can we really be connected with our own sense of pleasure if we’re not fully embodied? Gabriella says that pleasure is already deep within us, we simply need to attend to it. Think of pleasure, in its simplest form, as vitality or life force energy. As we move through adulthood, especially womanhood and menopause, we can disconnect from that life force energy. We need to start by recovering a sense of joy and wonder in life that we had as children.

How To Connect To More Pleasure

Give yourself permission to love your body right now. So many women go through the changes of menopause and they feel disconnected from themselves because they’re still identified with what their body was like before. They resent the hot flashes, weight gain, and wrinkles. But what if this body is worthy of love just as it is right now? It’s fine to want to better your body, but are you doing it out of love or out of resentment?

Drop the “shoulds” from your body and your life. Gabriella shares, “You know, a lot of the women that I talk to, they come and they say, “I just don't feel like myself anymore. I don't feel good in my skin.” And a lot of it is based on their perceptions of what their body should look like…their inability to accept that our bodies are changing and that we need to do things a little bit differently, that what worked before may not work now.”

Remember, pleasure is not always sexual. Gabriella says, “I think it's really helpful to expand the concept of pleasure… look for what brings you joy, what lights you up, puts a spring in your step and a smile on your face. And again, the question that I always ask is, “What makes you feel alive and vibrant?” So it's about bringing more mindfulness to the things that give you pleasure, so we can consciously cultivate more of it, focusing on the things that bring you joy, and making them a priority with full awareness and noticing what happens in your body when you savor those pleasurable things.”

Female Embodied Pleasure

Gabriella has developed a body of work called “Embodied Female Pleasure.” This is a practice that helps women connect with their bodies by building a deeper awareness of sensations in their bodies. According to Gabriella, Embodied Female Pleasure helps you access the pleasure that's already deep within you. It allows you to awaken sexual energy, to become more sexually confident, to have better orgasms, and awakens full-body pleasure.

Pleasure Practice Tools

Start with nervous system regulation. Regulating your nervous system helps you get a sense of what is actually going on within, and then you can start to welcome sensations in the body through different practices such as touch, movements, breath, and slowly starting to bring the energy from your mind space from this thinking doings face, down to the lower body.

Work those hips. Gabriella shares practices that help bring sensual, sexual energy down to your lower body. She recommends things like hip movements, breathing into your pelvic diaphragm, and engaging in breath practices that allow you to make a sound.

Take your time and don’t be goal-oriented. Women tend to have better orgasms when there is a slow, consistent build-up in sensation. Goal-oriented behavior like rushing to get to the “finish line” is not helpful for anyone and it can take us out of our bodies and into our minds.

Share this work with people who feel safe and skilled. There can be a lot of shame and trauma that comes up from deep bodywork. Engaging with skilled practitioners like Gabriella is key. If you’re doing this work with your partner, make sure that they fully understand boundaries and that communication is clear and respectful.

I hope this juicy midlife pleasure toolbox has got you feeling inspired and ready to connect more deeply with your body and your pleasure…just as you are right now. As women who have given so much to others, it’s time to stop moving the goal post for ourselves. No more, “I’ll feel pleasure when I lose weight,” or “I’ll have better sex once my house is clean.” Start right where you are with the beautiful body that’s done so much and gotten you so far. Your midlife remix doesn’t require a perfect body, a perfect marriage, or a perfectly clean house…just put your imagination, care, and attention on you.