How to Dismantle the Stories Keeping You Small: A Guide from an Online Intimacy Coach for Women
There comes a moment in life when something breaks and a woman starts to question the stories she’s been handed down about her body, her worth, her sexuality, her power …
Sometimes that moment is quiet. A gentle awakening. A little bit of discomfort that whispers, something here is not true.
And sometimes it arrives suddenly (and violently) a divorce, an illness, losing a job…
For me, that moment came when I discovered my husband was gay
Overnight, I lost my identity as wife and the dreams of growing old together. With it, I started to recognise the shame I’d be carrying around that I was too much, that I needed to be more pleasing and less me... If you’ve also been accused of wanting too much/being too much this article is for you.
As an online intimacy coach and online sex coach for women, this story comes up so often with my clients. That threshold where a woman realises she has been living inside stories that keep her disconnected from her body, her pleasure, her truth and her worth.
What Are Unsupportive Narratives? How Cultural Conditioning Shapes Women’s Intimacy
Unsupportive narratives are the internalised stories that dull our aliveness and full potential.
They sound like:
Femininity is weakness.
Desire is dangerous.
You are less valuable as you age.
Motherhood is your ultimate purpose.
Women owe men sex.
Love is earned through self sacrifice.
Women who enjoy sex are sluts.
Women make babies, men have sex.
These stories are lies we’ve inherited as truth. These cultural inheritances are passed down through religion, family systems, education, media, and unspoken generational trauma.
They live in the nervous system long before we have language to question, them let alone resolve them.
I see this constantly in my work as an online women’s intimacy coach. Women arrive thinking they are broken, when in reality they have internalised stories that were designed to keep them small, compliant, obedient and easy.
Where These Stories Begin: Early Conditioning and the Roots of Sexual Shame
I often say I lived two childhoods in one lifetime.
The first was expansive, embodied, and deeply connected to the body.
I was raised in Steiner education in my early years. A world that treasured the human experience. We learnt through movement, nature, creativity, storytelling. The body was never something to fear, it was something to inhabit, honour and find pleasure in.
I lived on seven acres of land outside Geelong in Australia. My childhood was wild, earthy, free.
I was the girl leading initiations before I even knew that word existed.
From the age of five, I would take my friends on elaborate adventures through the land. We crawled through caves where fox skeletons lay. Balanced across fallen trees over dried creek beds. Tracked animals through bush tracks. There were wasp nests, barbed wire fences, imaginary trolls that would “get you” if you fell or made a wrong turn.
If you completed the journey, you were initiated into the wild.
I did this for ten years.
I trusted my body. I trusted my instincts. I felt powerful in my girlhood.
And I could not wait to become a woman.
I remember running to the bathroom constantly, checking if my period had arrived yet. That is how excited I was to cross the threshold into womanhood.
But everything changed just before puberty.
From Embodied Girlhood to Body Shame: How Patriarchal Messaging Disrupts Female Identity
My parents found fundamental Christianity, and overnight my body went from sacred to sinful.
The messages were immediate and absolute.
Men were the head of the household.
Women were to be submissive.
A woman’s body was dangerous.
Her sexuality could cause men to stumble.
Her purity determined her worth (her virginity was essential)
I began to see the hierarchy everywhere.
. No female authority figures in church leadership. There were no female authors. Men held the power. Women were to respect them and children must obey them.
I went from feeling celebrated in my female body to feeling disadvantaged by it and it didn’t take long for me to register that I had been born into the lesser body.
Internalising Inferiority: Why So Many Women Disconnect from Their Bodies
As I entered my teenage years, two beliefs crystallised my sense of self:
Being female made me inferior.
And I did not feel beautiful enough to compensate for it.
In the world I was raised in, a woman’s worth was deeply tied to her attractiveness. Beauty was the ULTIMATE currency. And I didn’t feel beautiful, my sister was, but not me.
So I clung to the one place I felt powerful. My intellect.
I became the smart girl. The high achiever. The academic.
The more I poured value into my intellect, the further I moved from my body, my heart, and the wild girl who once led initiations through the bush.
This is something I now see constantly as an online women’s sex coach.
Women who are hyper competent in life yet completely disconnected from their sensual selves.
Brilliant minds living in starved bodies.
Why Women Like Me Grew Up Wanting to Be Men: Cultural Narratives and Gender Power Imprints
This belief followed me well into adulthood.
All the way into my thirties, I would ask male friends:
Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be a woman for a day?
Not once did a man say yes.
But when I asked women if they would want to experience being a man for a day, every single one said yes.
Without hesitation.
That contrast reveals everything.
We are conditioned to believe it is safer, freer, more powerful to be male and burdensome to be female.
Of course women feel this way when every system around them reinforces it.
How These Stories Show Up in Intimacy: What I See as an Online Intimacy Coach for Women
By the time women arrive in my space as an online intimacy coach, these narratives are already embodied.
They look like:
Struggling to receive pleasure without guilt
Feeling numb during intimacy
Performing sex instead of experiencing it
Staying silent about discomfort or pain
Feeling disconnected from desire
Equating worth with attractiveness
Feeling ashamed of their bodies being seen
Unable to speak up about what they like (and often not evening knowing what they want)
Feeling unspeakable shame (sometimes coming to me if the first time they’ve ever spoken about it).
Grief over what could have been.
These are not personal failures. They are cultural conditioning.
The Process of Reclaiming Your Truth: Healing with an Online Sex Coach
Dismantling these stories requires both intellectual and embodied work.
Here is where we begin inside my work as an online sex coach for women.
1. Notice the Story
Whose voice is this? Is it yours?
2. Trace the Origin
Religion? Family? Culture? Media?
3. Hold It with Compassion
You believed it to belong. To stay safe.
4. Choose a New Story
Pleasure is safe.
My body is wise.
Desire is sacred.
5. Embody the Rewrite
Rest when your body asks.
Start practicing you authentic “YES” and “NO”.
Say no without apology.
Be ok with the discomfort that comes with honouring yourself.
It gets easier with time.
My Personal Reclamation Story: From Sexual Shame to Embodied Sovereignty
My reclamation did not happen overnight. It happened through women’s circle (I share my story here), through studying my menstrual cycle (and realising just how bloody powerful we women really are!). Through learning pleasure anatomy. Through somatic work. Through training as an intimacy and sex coach. Through slowly coming home to a body I had spent twenty years wishing I could escape and starting the long journey of regaining her trust (yes- my body didn’t trust me).
I know that sounds crazy, but when you’ve lived so much of your life from your head, without connection to your heart or intuition, and most of your 20s drinking (a lot), I’ve done a lot of things that made my body feel unsafe in the world and so, I’ve been forming a relationship with her - with my whole self - body, heart, mind and soul.
Why I Speak About This as a Sex Coach Today
I want you to know very clearly that this story is mine and that I'm still overcoming the conditioning and stories that have tried to keep me small. It will always be part of my story, but it no longer shadows the way I live my life or affects my sense of worth or my connection to my body or my sexuality. I have a few blogs on this topic I Spent 20 Year Wishing I Wasn’t A Woman… and Why Women’s Circles Matter It's something I'm super, super passionate about and I'd love to be able to support you if you would like to work on this with someone who's been there before.
Your Invitation: Online Intimacy Coaching and Sex Coaching for Women
If you feel called to dismantle the stories that have kept you small and reconnect with your body, your desire, and your truth, there are a few ways to begin.
You can explore working with me as an online sex & intimacy coach, where we gently and powerfully unravel the narratives shaping your relationship to your body and sexuality.
You can also begin through my writing, embodiment practices, and women’s circles- The Wonderfully Wilde Women’s Collective.
Or you can start simply. Light a candle. Place a hand on your body. Ask yourself what story you are ready to release.
Let your body respond. Whatever comes up, trust that it is the exact message for you.
With wild tenderness,
Sabina Wilde xx
