Reclaiming Pleasure & Sexual Confidence in Midlife with Mangala Holland

Hello everyone and welcome back. We are continuing our series on sexual and pelvic health this season and today I have an amazing guest you are going to love. ⁓ Welcome, Mangala Holland.

Mangala Holland (00:15)

Thanks for having me, delighted to be here.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (00:18)

I’m so glad that you’re taking the time out of your day and with the time change and everything, it took us a little bit of acrobatics to get everything scheduled, but I’m just really grateful for that. So I want to tell ⁓ all of you a little bit about Mangala. She is a somatic sex educator, trainer, and facilitator with over 13 years of experience. She’s worked with

Thousands of Women Worldwide is the author of the Amazon number one bestseller, Orgasms Made Easy. I love the title. I love that cover. Do you have a copy of it so people who are watching can see it? That is, I love that cover. It’s a strawberry, it’s pink and has a strawberry on the cover. I’m like, ⁓ that’s just fantastic. ⁓ Her work has been featured on UK Daytime TV and in Vogue, Grazia UK.

Mangala Holland (00:52)

Yeah. There you go.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (01:08)

Marie Claire, The Daily Telegraph, Metro, Daily Mail, Mail and Line. She specializes in midlife sexuality, orgasmic confidence, and trauma-informed embodiment. She believes that we have built a world that trains women to override their bodies, then wonder why they burn out, leave leadership, and lose their sense of aliveness. Pleasure isn’t a reward, it’s the operating system for sustainable success. Welcome, Mangala

Mangala Holland (01:38)

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m super excited to be here.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (01:43)

I love that last quote. I want to read it again. Pleasure isn’t a reward. It’s the operating system for sustainable success. So how, for someone who’s new to your work, because ⁓ many people don’t know what that is, or they’re just listening because they’re like, ⁓ you know, I want things to be better. And here they are, they’re listening to you. So for everyone who’s new to your work, how would you describe what you do?

Mangala Holland (01:46)

No.

Yeah, so people have all kinds of weird and wonderful perceptions of what my work might be and what it might not be. And yeah, the way I work with clients, whether it’s in a group program or whether it’s one-to-one, my work is really focused on helping women and people with vulvas to come back to themselves, to find their confidence and to connect in with their bodies.

And that might mean dismantling a lot of the conditioning that maybe we’ve grown up with or that we’ve inherited from past partners or previous experiences and really giving people tools to rediscover their power. ⁓ And yes, my work is about pleasure and orgasms, but when we get into it, it’s a whole kind of life transformation. But the way I do that is very, very gently.

And so I have a roadmap that I take people through called the orgasmic confidence roadmap. And I’ll say this till I’m blue in the face, but everybody wants the tips and the tricks and how can I have this amazing orgasm? How can I have a G-spot orgasm? All these kinds of things. And that’s all well and good. But if you don’t feel safe enough to be in your body and safe enough to stay there, it doesn’t matter what the tips and tricks you have.

it’s not going to work. So it’s really about giving people the tools to discover their confidence and doing that in a way that is body based. So not just, not just head-based, not just coaching, although that is a, you know, a large component of my work, but just giving people gentle practices and exercises to help regulate the nervous system and to start deeply listening to what’s going on in your body. Even if that’s, my goodness, I’m really tired or

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (04:03)

Mm.

Mangala Holland (04:06)

I didn’t realize the deep level of exhaustion I’ve been holding and carrying and the weight of the mental load I might have been carrying and all of the other things. And a lot of my work is bite size. So simple practices you can do for five or 10 minutes that help you reconnect with your body and then moving from there at the rate that your body and your nervous system can handle.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (04:26)

That’s…

That’s a really good point too because I many of many times, ⁓ and I say this all the time to my patients when I am in clinic practicing, that what I wish we had is kind of ⁓ is a basic kind of you get your car maintained, you change the oil, you do all the things, but when we are we call it high school over here, but when you’re in high school over here you get nothing like that.

You get a personal finance class, you might know how to do a little bit of your taxes, but you know nothing about how to feel embodied, you know, in your own body to actually embrace that somatic experience. And then people wonder why they feel the way they do, especially as they get to midlife. So when you’re saying that when you said the thing about to ⁓ understand what your body and your nervous system is feeling, I think that’s the part that’s left out because we’re not taught that.

We’re not taught anything about, and we don’t need to know a great deal about anatomy or physiology. You don’t have to have a doctorate in that or anything. But if we just had that knowledge, that somatic knowledge, which is what you’re providing, ⁓ that would be amazing. So I’m super excited that you’re here to talk about it. And what I’m curious about is, how did you find your way into this work?

Mangala Holland (05:52)

Yeah, great question. So that was through my own journey. So up until my late thirties, I was working in corporate. I was working for stock brokers and I was traveling around the UK, delivering software rollouts to stiff white dudes in suits, basically, who didn’t really want to be trained. And I was also DJing in bars and nightclubs and I was a massive party animal and I was leading this real…

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (06:20)

wow.

Mangala Holland (06:21)

this real like double life. And it got to the point where I just couldn’t maintain it anymore. I hit burnout. And as I hit burnout, I realized just how deeply unhappy and dissatisfied I had been with my life for a long time. And that’s partly why I was partying so hard. you know, I was so disconnected from my pleasure. I was so disconnected from my body. I was seeking validation in all of the wrong places with

⁓ with men and I just, you know, something’s got, something’s got to give here. ⁓ so it was quite drastic. I quit my corporate job and I decided to take a year off to go and travel. And I left the UK and landed in India and went on this, this classic find myself journey and started exploring yoga and meditation. And through that journey, I discovered, ⁓ tantra and the world of kind of sexual

awakening and I realized that the core of my stuff was this deep disconnect. I hated my body, I didn’t love myself and so much of it was tied up with sexual shame. So that was the start of me unraveling and pulling this stuff apart and going on this deep healing journey. Yeah, it was a wild

experience. I ended up being overseas for 12 years in the end. I didn’t go home. And I started to, I went really deep into this stuff and I once I had a cervical orgasm for the first time and it was so incredibly life-changing and healing and profound and felt like cosmic. I felt like I was at one with the universe. It was like, want everyone to know that this is possible for them.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (07:51)

Gosh, wow.

Mangala Holland (08:15)

if I can experience this with all the stuff I’ve been through, it’s possible for anyone. And so that led me down this road of learning more about it, discovering it. And unfortunately, the environment I was in was very unsafe. It was very manipulative. There was a lot of abuse of women. I came out of that environment and I was so passionate about helping women find their power in this through their pleasure and also how to do it safely as possible.

So that has become my mission and that’s what got me onto this path.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (08:52)

And we all get to benefit from that, from your path, from the hard things that you went through too, because there’s a lot of trauma in that. And what a story of kind of overcoming and turning that ⁓ pain and hardship and difficulty into something, a creative expression. I believe Susan Cain said something like that.

whatever pain you cannot get rid of, ⁓ make it your creative offering.

Mangala Holland (09:25)

⁓ Yeah.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (09:27)

And that’s a pretty powerful thing when someone’s able to do that and you’ve clearly more than done that in your work. ⁓ And your story is so many other women’s stories too, unfortunately. ⁓ We wish that our hardships and trauma that we’ve been through as women were, you know, unicorn stories, but they’re not, unfortunately. So you talk a lot about women being trained to override their bodies.

Mangala Holland (09:35)

haha

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (09:57)

What does that look like in real life?

Mangala Holland (10:00)

Yeah. Brilliant question. And I’d like to just dial back a couple of steps, because you were talking earlier about, you know, high school and we’re not taught about embodiment. We’re also really, I know things have moved on a bit from, from when I was at school, but we weren’t given any, any framing around consent. What does a no feel like, how to express a no. So many of us got taught from a very young age to people please, to

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (10:20)

Mmm.

Mangala Holland (10:30)

tend to everybody else’s needs to keep the peace, to be a nice, quiet, good girl at all costs. And we see now we get to midlife and we’re paying the price for that. And we’ve had perhaps years of overriding our bodies because default society has taught us to put our partner’s needs first, that a lot of women have a fear around

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (10:30)

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Mangala Holland (10:59)

asking for what they want in the bedroom for fear of being judged or shamed and fear of if I don’t give my partner sex, he’s going to leave me. That is a narrative I hear a lot. so that means often many of us have just not had the frameworks and the languaging to discover what empowered sexuality really is. it’s really important that we can

start to explore, what actually does a no feel like in my body? And to check in before intimacy, before penetration, before self-pleasure, like what is it I actually want right now? What do I truly desire? And how can I start to find the courage to explore that?

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (11:35)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

That’s a powerful ⁓ question. And I think that kind of leads us into the next, like the heart of what you do and so much of what trauma-informed therapies, mental health, pelvic health, etc. use the word somatic. But, you know, what does that mean in the context of sexuality?

Mangala Holland (12:12)

Mm-hmm.

Mm. Yeah. I mean, to me, it’s so fundamental because, you know, it’s so important that we’re able to feel what’s happening in our bodies, but not just genitalia. And that’s where I start with my clients. We start with movement just in the body as a whole, because it’s really important that we learn, wow, this is where my limits are. This is where I’ve pushed myself too hard today or, ⁓ you know what? I’ve just been…

working away on my computer and actually I’ve needed a pee for the last half hour and I’ve just totally ignored that. I’m sure we’ve all done that. We’re pushing through hungry even when we could take a break. It’s just, I’ll just get this thing done. I’ll just finish this thing because we get so stuck in this productive goal driven, we’ve got to get stuff done. We’ve got to have that output. Yeah.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (12:51)

you

Ouch, yeah. That I’m sure hits

home for a lot of people listening right now. It does me.

Mangala Holland (13:15)

Yeah

Yeah, and there’s so many ways all through the day that we are subtly not listening to our bodies because we just have to get stuff done and that’s fair enough. But from a somatic lens, when it comes to sexuality, what we’re really talking about here is starting to pay attention to sensations and what we can feel. And so that might be knowing what does desire feel like in my body? What does… ⁓

Yeah, this moving towards what does a yes feel like? What does pleasure feel like in my body? that pleasure is such a huge concept. And when we have this idea of like it being a narrowly defined genital construct and that sex is just penetration of penis and vagina, it doesn’t leave much space for what else is possible. And

Over the years, what a lot of us have trained ourselves to do is to become aroused or to experience orgasm in a very narrow way. It’s like, okay, I do this and then this thing’s happened. And then perhaps my partner does this and then maybe that happens. And if all the stars aligned, then maybe we’ll get a result and I’ll experience an orgasm. So it becomes this very narrow definition which is entangled

in our nervous system, it’s our arousal pattern, it’s happening in lots of things physiologically. And I’m sure you must see this a lot with your pelvic floor tension and things like that, and there’s this tightening or pulling up and all of these things. And a lot of my work is about helping people expand beyond that and slowing down and tuning into subtleties of sensation and start to get really curious. What happens if I stay still?

and I soften my belly and I breathe and I bring my focus and my awareness. Can I stay with this awareness or, ⁓ I’m exploring this place internally and it feels a bit numb. And that’s something I work a lot with the clients. Well, numbness is information, it’s data, it’s a sensation in and of itself, it’s telling us something. So what’s the quality of that numbness?

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (15:27)

Hmm.

Mangala Holland (15:38)

Can you, you know, does it have a shape? Does it have a flavor? As you explore that area, is there something else going on in your body? Has your temperature changed? Have you tightened up anywhere else? And so by doing this exploration, we can really start to tease things apart in a gentle way. And at the same time that is helping to dismantle some of the old conditioning of I’m not good enough. What’s the point? I’m never going to get there.

There’s no point. I’m never going to experience an orgasm or whatever it is.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (16:06)

Yeah.

Yeah, I think ⁓ that concept of bracing is so important and you’re right. I do see that a lot clinically and I think the body, whether it’s trauma or it could have been surgery or it could have been birth, that’s a big one. ⁓ It could be all three of those things and for many women it is. Maybe they had a surgical birth that was traumatic but if at least one in three women have also experienced violence or assault,

Mangala Holland (16:25)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (16:40)

⁓ Sexually, that’s a whole lot of trauma piled on top of it. No wonder everyone is walking around bracing everything at all times. And I think that’s one of most common things that I see in pelvic health. Plus, you remember, it wasn’t too many decades ago where everyone was taught to suck it in and hold it up tight and pull their belly in and all of the fitness advice now that we… It’s polar opposite of what we actually need to do.

Mangala Holland (17:09)

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (17:10)

So when a woman stops bracing, because I hear somatically that, you know, that’s a big part of what you work on. So what happens? What happens when a woman stops bracing and, you know, starts listening to her body?

Mangala Holland (17:23)

Oh, this is where the softening and the relaxing starts to happen. And this is, you know, what I hear from people all the time is, I just want to be able to let go, relax, receive and enjoy myself in the bedroom. And this is it. And I love that you brought in that about sucking it in, because this is something that was so deeply ingrained in me growing up as a teenager in the eighties. It was everywhere. and this is

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (17:48)

Mm-hmm.

Mangala Holland (17:51)

One of the simple practices I do with my clients is an embodiment practice is preferably on hands and knees, if you can, so that you’ve got more range of movement in your spine and your hips and your pelvis, but just to move with your head dropped on your hands and knees and just moving and exploring what you can feel. as when we look at animals, they don’t suck it in. You look at cats or dogs, their bellies flop.

And they are instinctual and they’re close to the ground and they’re in touch with everything. as humans on two legs, we brace ourselves because of all the input we have coming towards us from the world. And, you know, it’s a protection, quite rightly so. But when we can have these moments of softening, of relaxing, of letting that go, of letting the belly flop where we can and untraining ourselves.

in that way. This is where the magic happens because tension blocks pleasure. Pleasure can’t flow when we’re tense and we’re gripping and we’re tight.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (19:02)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mangala Holland (19:03)

And it’s

one of the things I hear all the time is I’m stuck in my head. And that’s a lot of the work is helping people get back down into the body, into the belly, into the pelvis and feeling what’s going on and feeling what’s there to be felt.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (19:08)

Oof.

Yeah. I hope everybody is feeling more relaxed just by listening so far and talking about that softening. ⁓ Because we’re taught, everything that we’re taught has been pretty much historically the opposite of holding things rigidly, of sucking things in, of holding on tightly to things, of leaning in, pushing forward, pushing past what we think we’re capable of, of trying to do.

everything while like people pleasing and you know and wearing ⁓ constricting clothes and wearing heels that then adds another layer of tension in the pelvic floor and a lot of stress on the hips and stuff like that biomechanically. So all those are like signs kind of that I would see like biomechanical signs but I’m sure you see different signs ⁓ when someone has become disconnected

Mangala Holland (19:58)

Yeah.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (20:17)

from their body or pleasure. What does that look like? What do you see?

Mangala Holland (20:20)

Mm.

Yeah, sometimes I have clients and they’re like, you know, I don’t know what it is that I like. I don’t know what I enjoy. And I’m not just talking in the bedroom. I’m talking in life as well. Sometimes when I ask somebody, what brings you joy? Oh, oh, I don’t know. I’m not sure. You know, and that is a really good starting point is to start orienting to pleasure in general daily life as well. So that can be how it shows up. It can be.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (20:31)

yeah.

Yeah.

Mangala Holland (20:50)

Yeah, not knowing what turns them on or how to stay with sensations that do feel good in their body. And it can also be, we all have like a capacity, a window of how much we can feel and receive when it comes to pleasure. And the good news is we can expand that. We can expand that gently with curiosity without pushing yourself over any edges, without throwing yourself into

a crazy experience that then you can’t integrate and that fries your nervous system, but just kind of getting curious. And that is where that repair starts to happen. But often I see the way the disconnect will often show up is like women will be self-pleasuring or they’ll be with a partner and things might be going well for a bit. And then suddenly they’ve gone into their head and they’re like, okay, I’ve shut down or I just don’t know how to come back from that.

or it feels like they’re on the outside looking in. I’m worried about how my body looks rather than just being able to relax and stay with it and enjoy the freedom that great intimacy can bring.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (21:47)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

That is, I mean, the limitations, like being stuck in your head and overthinking things are the exact same thing that’s done us in every other area of our life. So it shows up in the same way, like stress and burnout. ⁓ When they show up ⁓ in sensuality, desire, pelvic well-being, ⁓ does that take on some unique forms? Like, can you think of some specific…

Mangala Holland (22:17)

Yeah.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (22:35)

examples of how that stress and burnout really tend to show up when it comes to sensuality and desire and just well-being.

Mangala Holland (22:42)

Oh,

absolutely. And I get asked this a lot and I work with a lot of women who are, things like they’re working in the tech industry or they’re scientists and engineers and very cognitive, know, really capable, amazing women. And because there is so much focus on production and output and having to be on the go all the time and

often having to manage everything at home as well and holding that mental load, that it keeps it stuck in the head. it’s such a, this is why pleasure is such an amazing antidote to stress and burnout, because it is the medicine. But for so many people, it’s one of the first things that drops away is libido, because the energy is just not there. And if we’re leaving, sometimes I’ll talk to my clients and they’re like,

I know some movement would be really nourishing for me or it’d be really good to spend some time exploring myself. But when you leave it to the end of the day and you’ve got nothing left in the tank, it’s often the last thing that you feel like doing. But the stress and the burnout is so deeply entangled in, you we get stuck in the sympathetic nervous system response. We’re stuck in that fight flight.

And this is also where we end up with those tension patterns in the body as well. So yes, the pelvic floor, but also the jaw, the shoulders, the forehead, all of this gets pulled up and it’s tight. And we’re just stuck in this, this mode all the time. And if we’re not finding ways to discharge that regularly and come back into some kind of regulation, then this is where.

balance gets tipped and can be really, really challenging for people. And so I really see that and you know, that will show up then it’s like, ⁓ I’m too exhausted for sex and then my partner feels rejected or I’m just not getting turned on like I used to, or I’m struggling to orgasm. And then when you get to midlife and the hormone levels are changing and we can’t rely on

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (25:02)

Mm-hmm.

Mangala Holland (25:04)

perhaps the levels of estrogen that we had in the past, or we’re going back to overriding. Like when I was in my twenties, if I was feeling shut down or disconnected, I’d override with alcohol. But my body doesn’t want that. As a 53 year old woman, alcohol is absolutely not a good thing for me. And if you’re experiencing vaginal dryness, you can’t just override and

think, to hell with it. I’ll just get on with this, this experience because your body won’t let you. And there’s all of these signals here. It’s just such an opportunity to hit the reset button.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (25:39)

Right.

It is, and I am looking forward to talking about that next, because if we don’t do that, if we don’t learn where the reset button is and how to press it and when to revisit it, then you end up moving beyond just stress and burnout and loss of libido towards feeling numb and shut down. And then that’s an urgent call for reconnection. You know, I think a lot of women are probably there.

Mangala Holland (26:14)

Yeah.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (26:17)

And people in general are probably there where they are beyond just stress and burnout. They are shut down, libido gone, feeling numb. Where do you start with making that reconnection?

Mangala Holland (26:31)

Yeah, great question. I will say I’ve got clients even in their mid seventies, so it’s never too late. And I’ve got clients having their first G-spot and cervical orgasms in their mid seventies. some of them have been through just like huge shutdown in their lives. Like one client I worked with had had this emotional block for 40 years about being feeling unlovable.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (26:44)

No.

I love it.

Mangala Holland (27:00)

You know, so it really is never too late. ⁓ And as you say, it can be an urgent, it is an urgent call for reconnection. sometimes it’s like, like we use the car analogy earlier on, like sometimes it’s when the warning lights come on, something’s happened in the body or something’s happened in life. Maybe it’s divorce or bereavement or one of the other things, surgery and things like that.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (27:01)

Wow.

Mangala Holland (27:28)

something, it gets to a point where it’s like, okay, something needs to shift. And sometimes it’s a major catalyst or sometimes it’s a slow burn. And when we get to midlife and they’re like, I thought I would be more happy than I am. Like something’s missing and I don’t know what that is or where to find it. And that can be some of the things. So the way I start with this, as I say, is super, super gently.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (27:39)

Hmm.

Mangala Holland (27:59)

And so I start from the outside in. So sometimes, you know, people come to me because they’re, as I said earlier, they want the orgasms or they’re sick of feeling numb. And so we start to pull things apart a little bit, gentle, simple somatic practices to start to redress that balance, to start to make that reconnect the body with the mind. And so that we’re not just living up in the head.

And starting to look at where the over-giving has happened, what needs shifting, what’s wrong in your work-life balance, what are the things that are happening in all of the other areas of your life, because it’s so deeply connected, all of it is. And I see it time and time again, like what’s happening in the bedroom is often reflected in the rest of the lives as well.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (28:55)

Yeah. How do you see… Embodiment is one of my favorite words. I love that word. ⁓ But it sometimes seems a bit of an enigma. ⁓ Like, what does it really mean, especially when it comes to sexuality? So how do you see embodiment and sexual confidence relating to each other?

Mangala Holland (29:07)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So I like to break embodiment down into, in my world, we talk a lot about three keys, three golden keys, which are breath, sound, and movement. Yeah. And by engaging with those, they are really great gateways in, and our senses are also really amazing gateways into feeling more pleasure and more sensual energy and just feeling this deeper connection.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (29:29)

I love that.

Mangala Holland (29:47)

And so when we’re by exploring and it can be as simple as just bringing touch to yourself. Really simply, I will guide clients into a simple practice of just bringing touch to themselves, to the hands, to the arms in a non-sexual way, but just exploring what kind of touch do I want to receive right now.

and exploring giving that kind of touch to yourself. So it could be firm squeezes of your arms, or it could be really light strokes of your hand, but just getting curious and playful, like, what is it that I want right now? And when we start to do this and we start to explore giving it to ourselves and start to explore giving ourselves touch and intimate touch and exploring self-pleasure intimately, I started to really get clear on what works for us.

what lights is up, what turns us on, being able to orient to, oh, this feels pleasurable. I’m going to stay with this sensation and see where it takes me. Then it becomes much easier to communicate that to a partner. So much easier. And as we know, given this is the vocal pelvic floor, we know that there is such a connection between the voice.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (31:08)

you

Mangala Holland (31:11)

and our pelvic floor between our voice and our genitals. When we are relaxed and we’re confident and we’re in touch with ourselves, we’re able to articulate and speak up for ourselves. We’re able to communicate what it is we want. We can express healthy boundaries. It’s easier to say yes, it’s easier to say no. This is how we let go of shame and start to really stand in our power.

And that’s true sexual confidence. So for me, sexual confidence isn’t strutting down the street being sexy or looking a certain way. It’s got nothing to do with how much you weigh, what your age is, or any of these other superficial external factors. It’s how you feel inside and how connected you are to your sense of self and your sense of pleasure. That is true sexual confidence.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (32:05)

Hmm.

That’s beautiful definition ⁓ and connecting point. And of course, you touched on one of my favorite things, which is the voice to pelvic floor connection. And that link between a woman’s voice, her ability to self-express, and her pelvic floor quite literally is powerful. And you see big shifts.

For example, this morning I was just in the clinic before this doing an imaging study, ultrasound imaging study, and was working on pelvic floor connection to the core because they kind of need to be plugged into each other to prevent things like hip pain, back pain. And ⁓ the woman was voicing. I was having her voice and it was specifically overcoming her pelvic floor in a negative way, actually negatively impacting her pelvic floor’s ability to function.

Mangala Holland (32:58)

Hmm.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (33:03)

So even if you think about the literal connections like that, and then the figurative somatic connections you’re talking about, it makes midlife and kind of this whole sexual discovery, rediscovery even more important because you hear the funny things about women going through menopause and ⁓ there’s funny memes all over the internet of…

finding your voice or realizing, ⁓ your tolerance for the BS is much lower and you speak up and you know your value and you know your worth. ⁓ So what is it then that you see about midlife that makes it such a powerful time for this sexual rediscovery?

Mangala Holland (33:33)

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. really see this. There’s so much of this. I often refer to it as reverse puberty when we’re in perimenopause. It often seems like there’s so many things that we haven’t processed seem to come up for re-examination. Whether that’s healing, whether it’s trauma, whether it’s relationships with our parents.

There’s something that happens in midlife where it’s on an existential level almost. It’s like, have to re-examine, all right, as I’m losing the buffer that I used to have with the outside world, or I don’t have the coping mechanisms that I used to have, or I feel more sensitive to everything, or I’ve got more exhaustion, whatever it is, that there is this…

re-examining of what am I taking through into the rest of my life and what needs to be dropped and left behind. It’s like this burning away. Sometimes people will talk about hot flashes in terms of this, it’s burning away. It’s these power surges. Sometimes people will refer to them as on this deeper level, which can be really cool to experience. But a lot of the clients I work with, they’ve got this unexpressed rage that’s been…

kept this lid on for so many years because this hasn’t been a space for it, because it’s not been appropriate. They haven’t had a healthy outlet for it. And then, so it gets to midlife and yeah, our tolerance for BS is so much lower. I know from my own experience, the loss of the progesterone has been huge for me. It’s just more than the estrogen. It’s just like,

I really miss it and I can feel it in my system. And I’ve had to really learn how to renegotiate certain aspects of life. And so that deeply ties into pleasure because if we don’t have the bandwidth, then of course we have an impact on our libido. And a lot of people have very real issues with

drop in libido with estrogen levels, with ⁓ genitourinary symptom, menopause and all of these things. There’s so much intertwined in this. But I really am a firm believer that midlife is not the end of your pleasure. know, it can be this, sometimes people get to the point where it’s like, is this it? Do I just give up? Do I throw in the towel and just put that that side of my life is over? I’m here to say, no, this can be the start of your pleasure.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (36:08)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mangala Holland (36:29)

but there’s an opportunity here to re-engage with it in a different way. And that requires often slowing down, tuning in more, getting really honest about what works and what doesn’t and exploring things in a more subtle way that perhaps we’ve never been able to do before. And that’s where the flourishing and the, that’s where it can really help support your parasympathetic nervous system as well in really giving you

Yeah, more juice, more creativity can help facilitate rest and all of these things that we so deeply need.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (37:09)

Yeah, I think that’s probably one of the biggest myths that you just busted about women’s sexuality in midlife is that there isn’t any, right? And then it just declines or you have to give up. And that is like, I love what you said. I could hear myself saying the same thing to my patients in clinic is absolutely not. It doesn’t have to look that way at all. In fact, it can be better because you know more about your body. You have the opportunity to appreciate

Mangala Holland (37:18)

Yeah.

Exactly.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (37:37)

the nuances, the smaller things. You’ve worked through things like ⁓ back pain or whatever it may be, or you’ve given birth, or you’ve realized that you’ve been disconnected. Instead of the 20s, 30s, and even 40s being a kind of leaning into youth and not really appreciating your body. In midlife, you do appreciate what it can do. You know what you’re capable of. You know what your limitations are. And I think you’re also blessed like the…

Mangala Holland (37:56)

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (38:05)

urgency of time passing can be a gift because you realize, I don’t want to waste any of this. This is what time I have left. I’m going to fully live. And I think that helps women kind of process the grief from the past and say, OK, all right, I was a little disconnected in the past. I had overridden those signals and people please and all that in the past. now, which is I think a

Mangala Holland (38:12)

Exactly. Exactly.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (38:31)

kind of a self-trauma-informed practice for women to just say, I realize it, I grieve what happened, now I’m moving forward. ⁓ How can someone, so this is describing like the woman, they’re listening, or anyone, right? Listening, and they’ve decided, they’ve done that work, and they’ve decided, okay, I’m ready to embrace all that I can with sexuality.

Mangala Holland (38:34)

That’s it.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (38:58)

How does someone then explore pleasure without turning it into another thing on their to-do list or another thing to get right?

Mangala Holland (39:04)

I’m so glad you asked that.

That’s one things I love to say about midlife is not only do we know our bodies better, but hopefully we know ourselves better. I would not want to be in my 20s again. I feel like my 20s were wasted on me because I didn’t have the wisdom and the understanding that I do about myself. And I like myself more at this age.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (39:21)

Thank

Yeah.

Mangala Holland (39:32)

⁓ which I think is really important. And you know, yes, we might’ve arrived at this point with some baggage, but this is an opportunity to be super compassionate with ourselves. Like we can’t change the past, but we can move forward and we don’t need to guilt trip ourselves. We don’t need to beat ourselves up. Now, one of the things that I have to really, ⁓ reiterate with my clients when I’m working with them is to not treat your pleasure practice as another thing that has to go on your to-do list.

Because if it’s coming from a should, it’s not going to stick. And we want this to be something that you integrate into the whole of your life so that it becomes second nature and you live from pleasure rather than pleasure being another thing you have to do or achieve because that’s staying stuck in that goal oriented approach. And when we take a goal oriented approach to sexuality, it strangulates it.

Like that’s kind of how society is in default way of like this goal of orgasm. The magic happens when we take the goal off the table and just explore and be playful and get curious, which is so important. So when it comes to your to-do list and taking that off, simple things that this is why I love to work with my clients on simple bite-sized things that take five minutes or 10 minutes a day that are achievable. So for example, just

sticking on one song and having a bit of a dance around the kitchen while you’re making your tea or coffee in the morning. Like that’s something anybody can do. It’s not going to take any more time, but you’re just utilizing the time that you’ve got there. Or just doing the things. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (41:10)

Yeah.

I just did that last night during dinner. was dancing,

singing, making dinner. Singing is pelvic floor exercise. So yeah, I love that. I love that.

Mangala Holland (41:26)

Absolutely. Yeah,

absolutely. So this is wonderful. And also just to talk about earlier, like what brings you joy? Like think of the top five things that bring you joy and actively make those a priority. So for, you know, going out in nature or enjoying the exercise that makes you feel strong and powerful or calling an old friend and having a

a good old heart to heart or watching some comedy or playing with your pets or whatever it is, like doing the things that bring you joy. And then the other thing that can be really helpful here is to just engage the senses in the things that you’re already doing. you know, eating your food mindfully rather than like, this is something I have to keep reminding myself, I’m terrible for eating my food really fast, rather than slowing down and savoring it, you know, or enjoying.

the senses, the smells, the taste. Like what can you hear when you go out for a walk and there’s birds song or all of these different things. Like these are gateways to pleasure that we have access to. And we can either go through life mechanically from the head up, or we can engage more of our body and our senses as we go through our daily life.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (42:44)

That’s powerful. Yeah. So for listeners who maybe they know they want to work on this and they haven’t quite gotten there and they’re carrying shame, trauma, pain or dissociation, what might be a gentle first step for them?

Mangala Holland (43:03)

Okay, a great first step. mean, this is where I can give a plug for my book, Orgasms Made Easy, would be a really good starting point. And to have a look and see, you know, whether it’s workshops in your area or have a look to see who are the good educators that are out there who are teaching about female pleasure and sexuality in ways that really make sense to you, that when you hear it, you’re like, yes.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (43:09)

Yeah.

Mangala Holland (43:31)

this makes sense and this feels good to me. I will say this with a caveat that, you know, the sexuality world is largely unregulated and the coaching world is unregulated. And so there is the good, the bad and the ugly out there. So I would recommend doing your due diligence to find somebody who, whether it’s, it might be that you need to work with a therapist before you work with a coach or before you step into like a group,

group program. You will know your own history and you will know, hey, I’ve had this stuff and I’ve worked through it and I’m at the point now where I’m ready to do something else. Or it might be, hey, this still feels like it’s fresh and I need to work with someone in a more therapeutic role. So really starting to explore that for yourself. There is a world of amazing resources out there that can be super beneficial.

I will just say this as somebody who has been in this field a long time and experienced my own trauma with some of the teachers out there, it’s not a bad idea to start with a female teacher. Be wary of some of the dudes out there is all I’ll say on this. I’m not saying they’re all bad, but there is a lot of harm in certain corners of this industry. I don’t want to make sure people feel safe and protected and listen to your gut. If something feels off,

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (44:42)

Yeah.

Right.

true.

Mangala Holland (44:59)

It probably is, or it’s just that that teacher isn’t for you. So trust that. Really listen to that.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (45:04)

Yeah,

smart and practical advice because we’d have to do that in the regular world, the way we move through the world as females anyway. ⁓ We have to think about safety in a way that the other half of this guy doesn’t. And that just, it’s just the fact. ⁓ And that makes me circle back to your book too, because we need resources like that because of the lack of, you know,

Mangala Holland (45:12)

Yeah. Yeah.

You

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (45:32)

overarching regulation. There are some things we have ASECT here. Is that international or is that in the United States? Is that international? That’s more in the US. We have ASECT here. So you can look for ASECT certified ⁓ counselors in the US. But again, ⁓ your point is so well taken, which is why we need these resources like the ones you have with your book. ⁓ Orgasm is made easy. I have a question that’s probably like, this is probably a hot

Mangala Holland (45:37)

Mm-hmm. It’s more in the US. Yeah, yeah, but yeah. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (46:02)

burning topic for every woman, which is what do you think women most often misunderstand about orgasm?

Mangala Holland (46:11)

⁓

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (46:12)

I know we need another hour.

Mangala Holland (46:14)

you

I think one of the things I hear a lot is, I must be wired differently. It’s all right for everybody else. It must just be something wrong with me. Therefore, I’m not going to pursue this. Nobody’s wired differently. It is possible for everybody. And I think there is a misunderstanding as well. The other thing I hear is, yeah, I’m good.

But when I dig into that deeper and we talk about that, it’s like, yes, we can talk about orgasm. It’s not like a binary experience. Yes, we have clitoral orgasms, but there’s this whole world internally of different areas in the vaginal canal that can facilitate amazing orgasms that can be very, very different to the clitoral experience. if you are stimulating internally,

The area known as the G-spot, which is kind of part of the internal workings of the clitoris, but on the inside, there’s a whole engorgement that happens there, that can facilitate a very different kind of orgasm that can go on and on and on and can be very profound and feel much more emotionally fulfilling. And also cervical orgasms, which probably is a whole other hour in and of itself, that through stimulation of the cervix,

there is a different kind of orgasm, again, can go on for a very long time and can be incredibly fulfilling and profound. so to limit ourselves to just the clitoris is doing ourselves a huge disservice. And I think for a lot of us, like I didn’t know about this stuff till I was nearly 40. And I was just like, why is nobody teaching this stuff? How come I’ve not heard about this?

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (48:10)

Yeah.

Mangala Holland (48:13)

Yeah, and

that’s why I’ve a mission to educate and provide space for people to learn about this stuff.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (48:21)

Well, I think that you’ve already pointed out something that’s incredibly ⁓ vital, critical, important, and that’s most women don’t even think about the different types of orgasms, which needs its own hour in itself. ⁓

Mangala Holland (48:34)

Hehe.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (48:37)

And that to me is part of what, because when I was just looking at your background and your book and everything, there’s a phrase orgasmic confidence. I was like, that’s what part of that would be, understanding the anatomy, the physiology, what happens, what happens with change, know, with age, also understanding the types, you know, orgasms itself. But from my, again, to go back to this whole somatic experiencing, ⁓

Mangala Holland (48:52)

Yeah.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (49:09)

thing, okay, for lack of a better word, what does orgasmic confidence mean to you? For me, I come at it as more of like biomechanical pelvic health, but that’s why I was so excited to talk about this with you because I know you have a broad wealth of knowledge in that area. So what do you think of as orgasmic confidence?

Mangala Holland (49:12)

you

I think it’s, it’s the getting to a place in your life and with yourself where you know yourself well enough to know that you are capable of amazing orgasmic states, that you’re able to take yourself there. You’re able to give yourself that full permission that hell yes, I deserve this.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (49:58)

Hmm.

Mangala Holland (49:58)

It’s okay for me to take up space. It’s okay for me to take as long as it takes. There’s no such thing as, I take too long or I’m worried my partner’s going to get bored and all of that other kind of stuff. hear a lot that actually, yes, I know what an orgasmic state feels like in my body. I give myself full permission to experience that, to take up space in the world, to live my life.

to the best of my ability to feel free and to explore what liberation feels like in my body. I’m getting quite emotional because that’s what I want for everybody is to feel liberated. That this is how we change society and we change the world. It’s not just fixing what’s been broken, but it’s like moving towards what is possible, what is expansive, what’s next.

that creativity of visioning whatever we can do in the world, collaborating with others, supporting our networks, supporting our families, our friends and living our best lives. To me, that’s what orgasmic confidence is. It’s not just a nice feeling in the genitals.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (51:13)

I love that so much. ⁓ It reminds me, it’s a very good like ending right here. It’s like you just kept it all off, cherry on top, beautiful. It reminds me too of when you look at the deeper definitions of vagal tone, because the upper vaginal canal innervated by the vagus nerve, which allows women with spinal cord injuries to still orgasm, which that blew my mind when I read that research.

Mangala Holland (51:21)

you

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yep. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (51:43)

So we know that it’s coming from neurologically different circuits. But one of the things that everyone can feel is like, what is beautiful to your eyes? Like maybe for some people it’s visiting the ocean, visiting the seaside, the beach in the summer, and they’re standing and they’re looking out over that vast ocean and they get kind of ⁓ that sense of awe, right? Or maybe it’s a mountain range.

or a beautiful lake, there’s that sense of awe. And some people get like a dopamine kind of surge of, know, chills, right? Because they feel that sense of awe. And I think that could be wrapped up into part of that orgasmic confidence because you just, that’s a beautiful thing that you’re seeing. You’re really appreciating what’s around you. You have slowed down enough to feel the nuance. That’s exactly, you know, where sexual health takes you ⁓ on a good day.

Mangala Holland (52:37)

Yeah,

and that’s like being present, isn’t it? It’s being present, yeah.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (52:42)

Yes, so, so, so, so present in that Vegas Nerva. ⁓ But I love that

phrase orgasmic confidence. so for everyone listening, I know you want to learn more. ⁓ Do please pick up a copy of Mangala’s book, Orgasms Made Easy. It is fantastic. It is practical. It’s…

functional, is grounding, it is all of those amazing things that help you have that move beyond, so far beyond like suppressing expression. Because when you do that, you suppress that expression, you suppress sensation and your ability to give and receive. ⁓ So tell us more about where can people find you, where are you in terms of like Instagram, website, anything else that you have available?

Mangala Holland (53:26)

Bye.

Yeah, sure. And I will say if you’re looking for my book on Amazon, sometimes it’s easier to find it if you go to the books section first, but we’ll give you the direct link for the book. My website is mangalaholland.com and I’ve got a free three-part video series called From Shutdown to Essential Satisfaction that’s available from my website. And that’s just a really nice, simple jumping in point.

of some very simple bite-sized movement practices to help you get out of your head and connect in with your body in a non-confronting way. And yeah, I’m on Instagram. You’ll find me at Mangala Holland. I’m also quite active on Facebook as well and LinkedIn a little bit more these days as well.

Dr. Ginger Garner PT, DPT (54:24)

Fantastic, and we will put all of those links in the show notes. Everyone, Mangala thank you so much, ⁓ like, Times Infinity for taking the time out to come on and talk about this really important topic because I want to end with where we began, which is talking about ⁓ pleasure not being just some reward or some luxury or something that we get when it’s a good day.

that it is truly the operating system for sustainable success. And I wish everyone could take that view. And I hope that more and more will after ⁓ listening to you today. Thank you so much for joining me.

Mangala Holland (55:05)

Thank you so much. I’ve loved this conversation.