Aliveness at Every Age: Tantra and Midlife Desire with Dr. Elsbeth Meuth

Podcast Introduction and Guest Welcome 0:00

Welcome to Hotness, the podcast that brings you practical tools to balance your hormones and rekindle connection, confidence, and desire in midlife and beyond. I'm your host, Dr. Liz Lister. Hotiness is a safe space for honest conversations about menopause, sex, identity, love, loss, reinvention,and desire, because you can embrace your hotness at every age. Welcome to Hotness, the podcast where hormones, confidence, and desire come back online. My guest today is one of my most beloved teachers, Dr.

Elisabeth Moit. She holds a doctorate in education. and she co-founded the Tantra Nova Institute with her beloved husband, who you will get to meet another time. Today, Elizabeth and I talk about all sorts of topics relating to how do we really experience our aliveness and our vitality in midlife and own love relationship with ourselves. It was absolutely an incredible conversation. It went a little bit longer than I normally go because it's, she's just so beautiful and delightful. If you can watch the video, you will see how incredibly beautiful she is because she reveals her age, as do I.

I talk about that. Anyway, She's absolutely amazing, even to the point of inspiring me to tears at the very end, which was totally unexpected. It was just a beautiful conversation. Please enjoy learning about sacred sexuality, what is tantra, and how does it affect us in midlife as well as at every other stage of life. Please enjoy. Welcome to Hotness. I am so delighted to have you, Dr. Elspeth Moit on this podcast. So I've known you for several years now and just can't wait to get into our juicy conversation, which is all that you and I ever have.

That's true. Well, let's jump in.

What Tantra Means and Why Energy Matters 2:34

Yes, please. Yeah. So thank you so much for having me on. And I look so forward to conversing with you to share your and my contributions to women. Yes, absolutely. I've learned so much working with you directly with your Tantra Nova Institute that you co-founded a long time ago. And so I'd like to turn things over to you first and share with us your little bit of your definition of tantra. Obviously, we could talk about that just the entire time, but just your brief definition of Tantra and specifically how you think it applies to women in midlife.

Thank you. So Tentra is the original yoga of the energetic body. Here in the West, we are all familiar with yoga as the yoga for the physical body, like Hatha yoga. Tantra yoga is where we tune with our innate energies. What I mean by that is that when we are conceived, life force energy comes into us. And this life-force energy stays with us for our entire life until we leave this planet. So while we did not get educated in that life for energy, I mean, did you have a course in high school or college on human energy and biology class?

I didn't. Just the physical body. just the matter of, yeah, I mean, medically perhaps, you know, so biologically, which is great, however, there's a dimension that can take us to whole new places when we tap into those dimensions. And that is really what Tantra is about. It originated like five to six thousand years ago in the East. And as you mentioned, Tantra Nova, so it's the new tantra where we integrate Eastern traditions with Western technologies. and blended. So the word turned the name Tantra Nova.

And I just want to go further by explaining what Tandra is in terms of energy, because it's so elusive. We cannot see energy. You know, like, we cannot See the vibrations that run from my vocal cords to your eardrums, to you eards and everybody who is listening, but we can hear the vibrations. Like we cannot hear sound of the sun rays. We can see the light, the sound. Because we don't see it doesn't mean it does exist. We cannot perceive those levels of hurts that are either too low or too high in terms of, you know, the sunlight.

So I want to show you something. I brought my energy ball because it illustrates so beautifully. Yeah. You remember? Oh yeah. Oh, I know exactly where mine is in my den. So the energy ball is, there are two metal pieces, and it's like, you can think of it like the light switch on and off, like plus and minus, electrically speaking. So when I connected myself with these metal piece, the ball lights up and makes a sound. When I disconnect, it interrupts. So each of us has a circuit within ourselves that's the life force energy that emanates from the base of the spine all the way up, moves up in a serpentine way like a DNA to the top of head and then moves down again.

It runs through us all the time. Most of us are not aware of it. And energy, life force energy goes hand in hand. They are one with the breath. When we don't breathe, we die. And I am really starting the conversation here with all of that so that each of us who is listening has a context for tantra,

Elizabeth's Midlife Awakening and Tantra Journey 7:10

the yoga of the energetic body. And that life force energy is both sexual pleasure energy and creative energy. It brings forth life and we can create our life with accessing, tapping into that energy And then let's look together, Liz, what implications may that have for women in midlife? Yes. And I know you have your own story because you've been doing tantra through the whole process. Is that right? Do I have that, right, of entering menopause and going through all of those changes when you were already familiar with tantra.

So can you share a little of your own story of how those connected with each other? Yeah, it's curious that you say menopus. When I started my tantric practice, when I took on tantras as like a discipline, where you delve into something, not just reading a book here or there, And I had hit 50. I was a management consultant at the time.I was good at management consulting, I traveled the world. However,I had intimacy and love in my life, but with men who were not available. And while that was quite exciting at times, most of the time I was alone and it hit me like really brutally this awareness when you look at your life and the trajectory that it may take if you don't make any changes.

For me, it would have meant that I would've ended up without lasting intimacy and love in my life before I'm just going to leave this planet and I wasn't willing to settle for that. That brought me to Tantra and, of course, around 50, 51, 52. That was the onset of menopause for me. But that was not the guide. It was really this desperation, this despair about my inability to create and sustain lasting intimacy and love. And it really altered my life. I decided to leave the consulting firm because what opened up through the Tantric Healing was that I got to see it's a somatic practice that involves our energies, our physical body, What I got to see was that I had held distrust towards men.

I was not aware of that, I have no clue, because I didn't run around like a distrusting bitch. No, i was charming. i Was inviting. But underneath in the subconscious, that got accessed through this sexual healing practice and it got released. That distressed got And what opened up was that six months later, my beloved came into my life. who had grown up in a Tundrik household, was eager to come with me, got certified himself to become a tundra teacher. And we created Tantra Nova, the institute that is headquarters in Chicago together, and we teach together.

We are business partners, we are life partners and beloveds. That is how all of that unfolded. Yeah, that is so amazing. That is really amazing and I went into menopause when I was only 43 and so that was very interesting. I've always been personally totally fascinated with the hormonal impact, the hormone changes and how that affects our ability to bond with others and all that sort of thing. So I talk about that on other episodes. But let me ask you a little bit more about the work that you do.

I know you've worked with thousands and thousands of couples. You worked me and my late husband, my beloved Michael. That was amazing. As well as myself. And when I went and did just your workshop for women, which was beautiful. What is happening in midlife? What's the most common thing that kills intimacy for people. And I want to focus on midlife, okay, because I think that's when we're really paying attention to these things, right? When we were in our 20s, we just like sort of going through it more unconsciously.

But I also want ask you, do you think it's more on women to address these challenges? So I asked you two questions. What's the biggest intimacy killer for relationships? Yeah, there are probably several, but given that we are talking about the woman here and the women who are listening, is that the opportunity to be guided through, usually when there's a breakdown, we wake up.

Hormones, Menopause, and Restoring Vitality 12:24

if things just moving, you know. So through that menopause, early menopus, pre-menopus and then on, I'm now 77, and I never thought that I would be so erotically alive. at that age, you know. Yes. I'm sure people will be shocked. They'll have like a moment. So I am just going to take a little second and just acknowledge that because obviously you're beautiful inside and out, but you are a walking illustration of what aliveness looks like at every age which is my whole message. And, thank you, and Liz, there was a time which was for me more in my early 60s when my body had gone to sleep and I was not available for sex with my beloved and it was difficult for him.

It was also a good time for us to look further at the relationship and go deeper, you know. And all my tantric practice, you know, so I said I started around 50. So I was very much into the practice myself, teaching it, assisting other women in finding themselves in terms of their own life force, creative energy, love energy sexual energy feeling it erotic energy. One thing I was confronted with was at that time that my body just didn't cooperate. I could care less, you know, also energy-wise. I was working hard.

And I also was exhausted. That is when I started hormonal replacement therapy to a friend of mine. She recommended a doctor here in Chicago who I still see to this day. And that altered a great deal. So I really want to bring this together, that this hormonal support, attention, wisdom that you bring, Liz, and the tantric practice, like the hormonial part is the chemical part. When our chemistry is not harmonized, our bodies are. I bring the energetic harmonic part that I want to tune with my sexual, with love and heart self, my mental self like the conversations that run in my head or the negative assessments about my body I may have or I'm too old now or nothing is cooperating, all that chatter that actually then has me feel awful and not desirable, not attractive.

The fourth dimension is the spiritual or cosmic dimension. All of that, I continue to further integrate, to connect with so that I can be in flow. So the Tantric practice allows us to come into our flow energetically speaking, The hormones have been helping me to come into my flow biochemically speaking. And I don't know if you want to say something there. Well, that's my entire reason for being. That's the whole nature of what I do because I've experienced that personally. I was lucky to know all the things I know about the safety of bioidentical hormones and using the right types of hormones.

And women in the last couple of decades have been afraid. So that has really been a huge disservice. But thank goodness now things are changing and doctors are learning the information. They think it's new information, but it is not. It's been around. People weren't looking at the right kinds of analysis of the data. So luckily for women and also for men and relationships, right, for many, many years referred to hormones as the chemistry of our emotions. So, that's worth a whole nother episode. If I haven't already, I'll make sure I talk about estrogen and being happy and progesterone and feeling calm and testosterone and feelings confident.

So I will make if I have not already to elaborate more on that. I'm with you 100%. And that is what I've also done in the last almost 20 years since I went into menopause. Now that I am 61. And then it's all about feeling alive. We are alive as long as we are in this body. It can be either alive, it can either feel alive or dwindling. And I want to talk about the relationship with myself further, like with oneself, because that is where pleasure, joy, arousal, You know, exuberance resides. Like I always say, I cannot be intimate with Freddie if I don't feel intimately connected with myself.

And that is where like, you know that we support our bodies through the hormonal dimension and then Where can we take our lusciousness, or even connecting with the lusscious, how are we listening to our body, to yoni, which is the sexual center of the woman. And yoni means sacred space, translated from Sanskrit into English. And a sacred place is something I honor, I respect, and I love. If I had been introduced to my yonis that way when I was a teenager, then I believe my trajectory regarding the sexual may have gone differently.

Self-Connection, Yoni, and Emotional Healing 18:38

More at ease, more at peace, something that I can connect with. I learned more like, stay away from it, wait until you're married, as if it was dependent on another. No, it's my energy. And to connect with that energy, to explore. You know, Liz, in the beginning, when I worked with women, We don't go right to the sexual, be it with myself and self-love or with a partner, you know, making love. We explore first the subtle energy, that subtle-energy level, so we can learn how that channel that I described earlier of that life was energy.

how that moves through me and how it moves with the different energy centers that are like a chain along that channel so that I can open that channels so my energy can flow because when I'm constricted, be it in my heart where I may hold prolonged sadness from a loss, from betrayal. or anger because I feel injustice, you know. The emotions that get lodged in the body and cause dis-ease. Right, right. And then of course our sexual center where there may be so much memory stored on the cellular level.

Our first experience of intercourse that may not have been pleasant or perhaps uncomfortable or painful like for me. or a woman that got abused sexually as a child or as teenager, or gynecological intervention that may have stirred things up and never had the opportunity to heal in the sense of perhaps physically healing. But emotionally, you know, like that visceral level healing that didn't happen. And childbirth as well. Oh, yeah. A lot of women have stored trauma after that experience, regardless of how it turned out.

Yes. Or, not feeling heard and listened to in my sexual self by a partner and not being able to communicate or to share because something may be locked up that I don't even have access to speaking about. So all of that, you know, wants to be whatever might be there that's in the background. yet not visible to the conscious mind. We want to bring that up because as long as it's there, it is in the way of my fullest pleasure, joy, aliveness and, more and more now for me, my erotic self that wants to express herself even more than ever before because there's more consciousness now.

and I can create it now more consciously instead just falling into it and then, oh, you know, breakdowns in a relationship or, so. Yes, from not looking at it from a conscious place. And I want to reiterate something that you've said several times, but especially with what you're talking about now, that it doesn't rely on there being another person there, right? We're not talking between men and women or between women and woman. That's not the issue. The issue is the energy and the relationship that each of us has to ourselves.

And I think it's especially important for women. We'll have to explore that another time. I want to ask you a couple of other things with our time today, but well, I We'll do a whole other interview talking about differences between men and women. I also wanted to say that the very first time that I worked with you, I went with Michael and we did your introductory couples workshop. And we didn't go directly to sex. People think about tantra and sex, but really it was a focus on the energy, like you're talking.

But I want to ask you about a phrase that you use, which is sacred sexuality. Can you just tell us just a little bit of what that means just in plain talk? And what does that look like in real life, right? Not just when we can take an entire weekend and go to Chicago. So sacred sexuality has to do with the possibility of integrating or reintegrating our sexual, spiritual self. Traditionally, historically, religiously, they are considered separate. And I'm not saying now to bring the bedroom into the church or synagogue or mosque.

That's not the point here. It is this temple that I am. Because my earthly and heavenly self always are coexisting simultaneously. However, if I live with a view of that down there it's either sinful or bad or something is constricted there, I am actually impeded in my energy, life force energy flow. Life force is aliveness and the connection to my spiritual self, whatever you want to call it, cosmic self universal self. You know, connection to source, however people talk about it. Yes. So that they are present within me simultaneously and they have a different frequency.

How about in sacred sexuality, we have our creative pleasure energy inform our spiritual being. and let the spiritual being inform our sexual being. That doesn't mean to diminish pleasure, that doesn' mean diminish erotic experience, That can include kinky experiences. It's the spirit we come with to our engagement with ourselves in self-love or with another. And so it's an integration that the sexual, spiritual, the sacred sexuality has very much to do with what I described earlier, connecting, integrating of sex, heart, mind, and spirit.

And they flow together. It goes up and it goes down. And that is where sense of wholeness arises. That is a sense where ease shows up in myself, in my body, and my relationships, because it's not just for the beloved. with our clients, you know, with family, friends, because it's the easeness within me, the aliveness, to flow. Did I answer your question? Absolutely.

Sacred Sexuality and Integrating Sex, Heart, Mind, and Spirit 26:08

You're mapping onto my experience. So, ease in the body and joy in spirit. And people perceive that. Not just in our relationships with others or romantic relationships, but all of our Yes, it's wherever I show up. Because I want to say one more thing that you alluded to with the question earlier, is that relationship with oneself. So, however I am over here energetically speaking, that is reflected in my environment. So, like with the energy ball, that is circulating. Right. Because my inner circuit also has a connection to my beloved.

Yes, absolutely. And kiss in a circuit, we have that, so if we were here together, you would hold one of the metal pieces, I would the other metal piece, and then we would holds hands. Yes. The ball would tune and light up. I love that. So there is a circle amongst people, everyone. Not just our beloved. Right. Anyone that you're around, yes. So what energy I'm over here, am I angry energy? Am I in love energy, Am in pain, physical pain energy. That actually is being transmuted into like a reverberation.

And because there is an electromagnetic field around each person, we cannot see it. It's like arm's length out. Yes. And that touches another's electromagnetic field. Of course. That is why it's so essential to do that energetic work, because whatever I send out, so to speak, comes back. So if I want to have love, I wanna be loved. If I want to be desired, I wanna be desire, not only desire of another. The desire is here because all what I feel lives over here. It doesn't live with Freddie, my partner.

Now that doesn' mean that I may not feel a certain way in his presence. But where it's felt is over here. So this is why I want to work with this temple energetically, emotionally, mentally, because the conversations I have create my emotions. I can either feel like shit or I feel inspired. And so this like that self and whatever I will feel will affect others. We know this. Right. We know this. If people want to learn more, because I know I'm interrupting you a little bit, but in you and I could just really talk for hours and we have.

But if people what to actually work with you or learn I don't think they necessarily have to come to Chicago. I recommend that because those are beautiful, amazing experiences with you and Freddie and sometimes with, you in the women's class and men have the class just with Freddie, but also online. So please tell us if someone listening wants to learn more or even work with. What's the best way to reach you. Yeah, the best way to reach me is Elspeth at TantraNova.com. E-L-S-B-E-T-H, you can see it on the screen, my first name, Elspreth, at tantranova.

com, T-A-N- T R- A- N-O-V- E, tantranova, com. That's my email address, obviously. I'll make sure all that's in the show notes. Great, great for sure. And then in terms of the workshop you've been speaking about, the feminine essence workshop, yes, I work with women in groups and the next workshop is coming up in November. So if that is something you would like to explore, you know, just drop me an email. We can set up a complimentary conversation and explore. If that is the right next step for you on your journey, I also work with women privately.

All can be done over Zoom, both the workshop and the private work. Of course, also if you are looking for deepening the connection, intimate connection with your husband, with you partner. You know, we have a COVID workshop that actually Liz mentioned a little earlier where she came with her late husband. All of that is available at TantraNova.com. T-A-N-T-R- A- N-O-V-E- a dot com. That's our website. There's a lot. page, see the books we wrote, the courses. And when you go to programs, they are all the different offers we have.

Also, I have a gift for you because I thought out of the conversation here with you, Liz, that You know, the listener that you was listening would like to,

How to Work with Tantra Nova and Closing Reflections 31:28

or are wondering, so how am I going to learn that? What are the practices? So Freddie and I, we created an introduction to sexual enlightenment. No, it's called sexual meditation, which leads us to sexually. And that video class will be available via a link that lists what I will include for sure in the show notes. Thank you so much for that wonderful, generous gift. I love that. That's amazing. Which is what is one thing that you personally do to connect to your own hotness? Oh, so I have regular self-love sessions.

I would say that the other that they are interconnected is like taking care of myself. Enjoy myself, seeing myself in the mirror. Like it's like, oh, I want to make love to her. You know, like I love myself in that way. And as practice, self-love practice. But this is a practice that is not going for the carrot. Like, you know when we try to, I just want to calm more, which has its place. However, when I say self love, I love myself, I listen to my breasts, to nipples, listen my body, my yoni, what she wants, and often I don't come to a climax at all.

I may come close, but then I breathe it up and let it circulate, then a day later I come back to it. And by not climaxing, There is a heightened awareness. It's like a suspension that makes us even more desiring. Desiring for myself, for that, you know, blissful feeling. And sometimes I do this over several days and I to this regularly. What I mean by regularly, it may be once a month, maybe once week. It depends on what life brings up for me and that is in your body and listening to what it needs and is asking for.

Yeah so this is not about performance this isn't about how often can you do it. Right. This is about the connecting, the feeling bliss within myself. Like I am with myself, so bliss can arise while shooting for bliss. Yes. I mean, instead of shooting. Cultivating. Without the goal, cultivating presence is a way that I described that as well. So I actually brought a tear to my eye when you were describing It's so important for each of us, especially as women, I think somehow men have easier access to this.

I'd want to talk about that with you another time. But I thing for women especially by the time we get to midlife, there's a lot of roles we have filled and our connection to ourself has gotten pushed down. And when we access that, it's absolutely incredible and I am Wasn't expecting this. Very grateful to you for helping me do that. So I love you very much and thank you As a gift for listening, go to drlizmd.com forward slash hotness for your free midlife guide filled with powerful support for you mind, body and soul because you can embrace your hotnes at every age.