Rekindling Libido and Intimacy

By Kaz Waters, The Mindset Medic

Let me tell you what my libido looked like a couple of years ago.

It was scorched earth. Not even a wisp of smoke. My partner and I had started off hot and heavy the way new relationships do, and then work stress crept in, then a workplace assault, then I took on a Director of Nursing role that turned out to be kerosene on a fire that was already consuming me. Whatever ember had been kept alive for my partner, the one he might have gently fanned if I’d let him near it, was gone. The fuel had exhausted itself completely, and there was nothing left.

I know I’m not alone in that feeling.

Perimenopause has a way of quietly relocating your desire. The hormonal shifts are real: falling oestrogen affects lubrication and sensitivity, fluctuating progesterone impacts mood and sleep, and a nervous system that’s been running on fumes for years doesn’t exactly light up in response to a warm look from the person who loves you. It’s not a character flaw. It’s physiology meeting an overstretched life.

But here’s what I didn’t expect: writing Chapter 7 of Stress-Free Perimenopause with EFT Tapping saved my sex life.

Researching each topic meant tapping through the very issues I was writing about. Clearing the unresolved stress, the exhaustion, the shame about not being available to my partner, the grief about a part of myself that felt gone, created space I hadn’t had in years. And as that space opened up, something started to shift between us. Not overnight. More like scorched ground after good autumn rain, when you’re not even sure anything’s going to come through, and then one morning there are tiny green shoots everywhere.

I also started eating to support my hormones, whether I was still in a cycle or it had been a few months. Coaxing oestrogen out like a mouse with cheese, making sure my body had what it needed when those levels were meant to be around. Comforting progesterone with sweet potato and warming foods. It sounds simple but there’s something about treating your own body like it deserves to be nourished rather than just managed that changes your relationship with it entirely.

My partner did his own work too. He sat with his fears about what it meant if this was just how things were now, processed his own emotions rather than pressing or panicking, and that willingness on both parts is what I think made the difference. When both people are committed to working through life’s changes together rather than against each other, intimacy deepens in ways that go well beyond the physical.

We also found practical things that helped. He found a Japanese seaweed powder lubricant you mix with water that worked extraordinarily well (a little goes a very long way, just quietly), and we rarely need it anymore, if you know what I mean.

But the biggest shift was in how I understood intimacy itself. It’s not just about sex. It’s about allowing yourself to be seen, open, and received, and being in a place where you can genuinely see, hear, and hold the other person. Libido and intimacy are a dance, an energy, a trust. Perimenopause doesn’t have to end that dance. We don’t have to buy into the narrative that it does.

What EFT gave me was a way back to my own body first, clearing the stress responses and the unresolved emotional charge that had made intimacy feel impossible, so that desire had somewhere safe to return to.

With a little curiosity and willingness, it can return for you too.

Chapter 7 of Stress-Free Perimenopause with EFT Tapping goes much deeper into the physiology of desire during perimenopause, the emotional layers underneath libido changes, and the EFT approaches that help. If any of this landed for you, the book is coming soon and I’d love you to be first to know.

Join the waitlist here and grab your free 5 minute Perimenopause Reset Or if you’re wanting to go deeper into your tapping practice please visit me at  www.kazwaters.com.au