761: Finding Your Way Back to Pleasure and Feeling Fully Alive with Gabriella Espinosa

Have you ever looked around at your life and wondered: "When did I stop feeling like myself?"

Maybe you're checking all the boxes, taking care of everyone else, managing your career, your family, your home, and your health—but somewhere along the way, joy, curiosity, desire, and pleasure started to disappear.

In this powerful conversation, Dr. Mariza sits down with Gabriella Espinosa, women's wellness expert, host of the Pleasure in the Pause podcast, and advocate for redefining pleasure and connection in midlife.

Gabriella shares her own journey through perimenopause, where anxiety, overwhelm, brain fog, low libido, and feeling disconnected from herself led her to explore the missing conversation around pleasure, body awareness, intimacy, and nervous system safety.

Together, they discuss why so many women lose connection with their bodies after years of caregiving, striving, and putting everyone else first—and why pleasure isn't a luxury, but an essential part of feeling alive, energized, and connected.

They also explore how changing hormones, stress, and survival mode impact desire, why intimacy can be rebuilt at any age, and how simple daily moments of joy and sensation can help women reconnect with themselves.

If you've been feeling like the version of you who felt vibrant, playful, confident, or deeply connected has disappeared, this conversation will remind you that she isn't gone—and it's never too late to rediscover her.

GABRIELLA ESPINOSA

Gabriella Espinosa is a women's wellness and pleasure advocate, yoga and breathwork teacher, host of the Pleasure in the Pause podcast, and executive producer of the upcoming documentary Hot. Through her work, she helps women reconnect with their bodies, redefine pleasure, and navigate midlife with greater confidence, connection, and vitality.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why so many women feel disconnected from themselves during midlife

How perimenopause can impact desire, intimacy, and confidence

Why pleasure is an important signal of safety, vitality, and wellbeing

How chronic stress and survival mode affect connection with your body

The importance of learning the language of your own needs and desires

Why intimacy and pleasure can be rebuilt at any age

Simple practices to reconnect with your body through sensation

How to advocate for your pleasure, health, and relationships

QUOTES

“Pleasure has no age limit or expiration date.”

“Pleasure is actually information.”

“Perimenopause doesn't mean the end of pleasure. It can be the beginning of a new exciting chapter.”

“What feels good in my body?”

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Use code DRMARIZA and get 10% off on your Womeness Order

https://www.womaness.com/DRMARIZA

Stop surviving and start thriving, join Midlife on Fire Collective now

https://drmariza.com/firecollective

Pleasure in the Pause Podcast

Get the 7-Day Pleasure Body Journal

Pleasure in the Pause Website

Gabriella Espinosa Website

Gabriella Espinosa Instagram

Gabriella Espinosa Youtube

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