Behind the scenes, my obsession these past few years has been feeling more.

I had noticed during the pandemic, that most of the left side of my body had become numb and there were other parts that were inaccessible when I tried to put my attention on them.

The parts that I could feel, where wrought with tension.

Each breath was empty of its full promise and left a gaping craving for more air.

As my throat and chest, choked me, from the inside.

The pressure ‘to make it’

I was daydreaming recently, as I do

I was dancing in my room

Getting my groove on

Feeling joyous

I started to imagine that I was a DJ

Playing my favourite tunes, guiding everyone to ecstasy with the beat

On Maturing

I watched a cheesy Netflix rom com on Saturday night, called ‘Love at First Sight’.

In it, two young people fall in love after meeting at an airport.

I used to watch these movies relating to the young woman on the cusp of love.

This time though, I wasn’t intrigued by this archetype.

I’ve been there, done that.

Unconsciously blocking progress

I haven’t been jogging in three weeks, after having a peak week.

I ran the furthest I had ran in years.

Each jog was a joy and I could feel the possibilities of this practice expand ahead of me.

Then nothing.

Some desires take years to come

This isn’t failure, it’s reality

Community Action for Climate Change

Last year I had an awakening of sorts.

I was reading posts by @sarahmagdalene where she was calling out the coaching industry for pushing an agenda of consumerism, whilst ignoring climate change; and I realised that I fit squarely into her descriptions.

This was not a comfortable realisation.

I thought back to my teenage years, when I was passionate about the environment, a member of the eco committee in school and I represented Ireland at a green flag conference in China. Or the years in my twenties working for Lush, a brand who’s DNA is pro-sustainability and actively taking part in their campaigns.

So I’ve wanted to go jogging for years. If you’ve been following me a while, you may even remember some Facebook Lives I did about it back in the day. Honestly, I’ve struggled to do it consistently and I’ve mostly given it up.

Fast forward to this week where I went for a jog using the Couch to 5K app. I’ve heard about this app for years from friends but I always ignored it. Mainly because I thought it would be better if I figured out jogging by myself.

Do you hate online dating?

I was talking with a client recently and she shared how she finds online dating tough because there was no way to know before a date, if the guy would show up looking like his pictures or if they would have a connection.

Can you relate to this experience?

One way I’ve found to minimise resentment in my relationships is to say when I’m full.

Full meaning I’m done, at capacity, have no more room in the inn for whatever’s happening.

This was terrifying at first. It felt so brutal, so cold. To tell someone mid-way through a conversation, that actually I don’t have any more capacity for this to continue. Or half way through an experience, that I needed to leave.

I felt so selfish. And how would the other person cope without me in that moment?

Why do women do this? I was thinking about my experience of faking and there were a few driving factors

The cultural sex scripts I had picked up from TV etc, taught me that sex meant quick penetration, a focus on male ejaculation and that women, without much clitoral stimulation get off on that. I faked orgasms to fit into that script.

I believed the narrative that women don’t derive as much pleasure from sex as men and it’s something to get over and done with ‘for them’

I felt greedy to need clitoral stimulation for more than 5 minutes, because that took longer than what a man needed to become aroused

Sex as something women do for men

Growing up, I received messages from the media that sex was something women did for men.

That Men were the ones with the insatiable desires.

Women were the ones for whom sex was unsatisfactory, something initially desired at the start of the relationship because of lust

But that this slowly dwindled over time, where sex was perfunctory

An item on the to-do list to keep the man happy

Years ago, one of the biggest things that I wanted to change about my sex life was my ability to have an orgasm with a partner. For years, I found it hard to relax and enjoy myself and I would get stressed about how long it took me to climax. I thought there was something wrong with me or that I was just someone who didn’t find it easy to have an orgasm with a partner.

I wanted to change this, so I began to study about female pleasure and orgasm. And not too long into that journey, my ability to have an orgasm with a partner radically shifted where it became easy for me.

I went through a phase when I was younger. To chase after musicians, writers & dj’s.

I believed that if I was chosen by them, that it meant I was special, that I was cool.

That I would brag in later years when they would be invariably famous, that I slept with that dude.

I idolised their talent and saw the brightest futures ahead of them.

I wasn’t giving much thought to my talents back then.

I was a mess of anxiety and heavy drinking.

Panic attacks and going to therapy.

Feeling like I had potential but no power to express it.

I have hit on hundreds of people in my life

I started off as a 15 year old teenager in Dublin. I was restless and hungry to party, to discover new things and I was boy OBSESSED.

I had a fake ID, friends who also had fake ID’s and we hit the town hard. We trawled the pubs of Dublin looking for live music and hot guys.

As soon as a band kicked off with a song that we liked, we marched onto the dance floor and threw ourselves around it with wild abandon.

All the while eyeing up the guys around us.

I had a few approaches back then.

One was the fairly classic, look over at them and start to move around them until you are dancing together and then snogging. WIN.

And the other approach was to walk straight over to a guy I found attractive. Hold out my hand to him to shake it and say ‘Hi, I’m Caoilfhionn. What’s your name?’

My logic with this approach was that it was better to talk to them and find out if we’re into each other instead of spending the whole night thinking ‘what if’ and also I figured, most guys wouldn’t turn down a woman hitting on them.

This turned out to be pretty solid thinking on my part.

Most men were a yes.

The other approach was to go to the smoking area and ask hot guys for a smoke or a lighter.

For a non-smoker, I smoked a lot over those years

One of the ways to expand the pleasure you feel is to look at all of the places where you block it

I was on the phone to a good friend yesterday, a coach and I was sharing about something that I was unhappy about. I was having a bit of a whinge.

I listed out all of the things that were annoying me, feeling aggrieved and sorry for myself.

Now she’s a smart woman and listened patiently.

When I was done speaking, she reminded me of all the positive things that had happened too, wonderful happenings that I had brushed over and dismissed in my story.

One of the ways that I expand my capacity of pleasure is my paying attention to all of the lovely moments interspersed throughout the day. Below is a list of some from yesterday. Hit reply to this email and share with me yours!

✨the sight of Autumn Leaves 🍂 in The Chilterns with the crunch of them underfoot

✨melted Irish butter over new potatoes with wholegrain mustard mashed in

✨Matt crying and wheezing with laughter over a funny observation I made about him

✨connecting with an old client and feeling my heart expand with joy

✨heat and steam in the sauna and my rosy cheeks as I emerged from it

I’ve been on a trip with my libido.

It’s fluctuated wildly at different points in my life.

I’ve had periods of intense desire and longing for s/ex

And other periods when that’s been shut down.

Closed. Focussed on pain that I’m experiencing or some emotional turmoil.

I was a horny teenager growing up.

Devouring Mills & Boons and fiction where women had lots of s/ex.

I couldn’t wait to have sex and masturbated all the time.

I had this vision of it being this ecstatic, transcendental experience.

When I started to have sex though, I remember feeling profoundly disappointed.

Where was the ecstasy and pleasure that I imagined penetration would be?

Matt and I were out walking yesterday and I was talking him through some of the content for my new program, The Pleasure Upgrade.

And we naturally progressed to talking about our s/ex life.

Even though we’ve had many of these conversations, I still felt a little nervousness.

Thoughts that floated through my mind were

‘What if I say something that he misinterprets?’

Or ‘what if he says something that hurts my feelings?’

What happened instead was totally different.

Years ago I was in a relationship. With a good man.

We started off with lots of attraction and things in common.

The future felt bright.

Slowly over time though, the relationship started to feel disconnected and the attraction began to wane.

Looking back I can see why that happened.