Why Your Trauma Is Blocking Your Desire (And How to Write It Away)

Dr. Diane Mueller: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Libido Lounge. I’m so excited to introduce you to Kayla MacDonald. I had the pleasure of chatting with her, and I’m just blown away by her approach to bringing libido back, bringing pleasure back. An amazing component we haven’t talked about on the show yet is using storytelling. So I brought Kayla on today to introduce you all to her and talk about that. This might ruffle some feathers, make some of you curious, or maybe cautious—there might be some emotions happening here. So I think we’ll jump right in and bring Kayla up. Kayla, welcome! Introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your story—how you got into using storytelling to embody yourself and experience more pleasure.

Kayla MacDonald: Thank you so much for having me. I started in the health coaching industry in 2015 and was so excited—I thought I’d landed my dream job and left my struggles with binge and emotional eating behind. Only they resurfaced with a vengeance. I struggled off and on the entire time I worked at the personal training studio. At the same time, I was in a misaligned relationship with no pleasure, no spark—the thing every couple wants. I thought something was wrong with me that I needed to fix. Turns out it was more of a mismatched libido thing, which we can definitely talk about. Over that time, one of the only places I found solace, comfort, and a way to access pleasure was through writing stories.

Dr. Diane Mueller: Really interesting. You actually manifested your now-husband through storytelling—which is still one of the wildest things ever.

Kayla MacDonald: Yeah, he was actually a client of mine. I was trying to repress feelings on multiple levels: he was a client, so unprofessional; I was in another relationship and value loyalty; and he was grieving his late wife. Layers of “this is not okay.” Come 2020, I was about to marry my previous partner—there was a big libido mismatch, mine high, theirs not. That left one of us less satisfied. During the pandemic, I canceled the wedding and emailed a sex and relationship coach I’d met at a women’s event. I asked her to help me manufacture desire for my current partner and shut down feelings for the other one. She wisely said, “We can work together, but the outcome might not be what you expect.” Stuck at home, being a writer, I decided to write a fictional book to process my feelings for my now-husband. One’s a were-shark, but the dynamic was similar. I wrote it in April-May 2020, and by October we were dating—the relationship mirrored what I’d written.

Dr. Diane Mueller: Beautiful. It sounds like you tuned into those energetics and processed old stuff. When you talk about fanfiction helping you heal, is it the writing or the reading?

Kayla MacDonald: More the writing itself. Writing and imagination are powerful tools in relationships, health, everything—our imagination creates turn-on and lets us see the life we want before it happens. Many things I wrote came true, literally or as healing.

Healing Sexual Trauma and Desire Through Storytelling

Dr. Diane Mueller: Let’s break this down actionably. For people with little-t traumas—like body shame or sex shame from a comment that stuck—how do they use fanfiction or writing? Journaling? What does it look like?

Kayla MacDonald: Multiple ways. If you’re a fiction writer, write the stories you want to live—a different reality from the one that created the trauma. With clients in my method, we use divine masculine archetypes (they don’t have to be masculine). Take old painful moments—little-t or big-t if you’re ready after therapy—and rewrite the scenes with these archetypes. It reclaims health, vitality, confidence, and lets you show up differently with your partner.

Dr. Diane Mueller: What about the line between processing and escapism? How do you ensure it’s healing, not bypassing pain?

Kayla MacDonald: Great question—I’m always cautious. The purpose is never escape; it’s processing while creating new narratives. Example from my own: as a kid, I experienced something, my mom broke down after, and a friend’s comment in therapy made six-year-old me think it was my fault. In rewrite work, I don’t pretend it didn’t happen. I let my inner child feel the sadness, shame, guilt—cry, move through with dance alchemy. Then write archetypes bursting in: one fiery telling off the friend (“this isn’t her fault”), one gentle hugging and explaining. You rewrite giving yourself what you needed—not erasing, but reclaiming.

Trauma-Informed Intimacy and Healing Sexual Shame

Dr. Diane Mueller: It’s like inner child work—using storytelling to feel emotions and rewrite where you or an archetype shows up protectively.

Kayla MacDonald: Exactly.

Dr. Diane Mueller: Shame comes up so often around sex—internal, external, media, politics. Do people need to know the “why” of their shame to rewrite? Or can you work without knowing the source?

Kayla MacDonald: Powerful point. Often we try to figure unwanted emotions in our head, but some things—dormant memories, even ancestral—our thinking mind can’t process. Better to go through the body: dance alchemy (people cry without knowing why—bodies release when given practice), tapping, somatic tools. Less about exact meaning, more intention to feel differently in the bedroom, then body-based practice for healing.

Dr. Diane Mueller: So it’s somatic—writing the story but feeling it in real time in the body, exploring emotions safely. That’s where healing happens.

Kayla MacDonald: Yes. If you’re just writing from the head, you risk staying cerebral. Bring stories and new meanings into the body and daily actions—that shifts your baseline to safer, more confident, changing relationships forward.

Somatic Desire Healing, Nervous System Regulation and Pleasure

Dr. Diane Mueller: This has been amazing for part one. Part two we’ll cover adding eroticism for long-term couples with storytelling, spicing up monogamy, using imagination to heal wounds. Before we wrap, tell listeners how to find you—your Power Portal, deals.

Kayla MacDonald: Find everything at embodiedwritingwarrior.com, including my podcast at the intersection of pleasure, food freedom, creativity. The Power Portal is my two-part experience for high-performing type-A women to break blocks with food, eating, body image—subconscious rewiring and dance alchemy. Normally $97, but free at embodiedwritingwarrior.com/gift.

Dr. Diane Mueller: We’ll have all that in the show notes, plus how to work with Kayla and part two. Any final words?

Kayla MacDonald: Can’t think of any.

Dr. Diane Mueller: Thank you so much for being here, everybody. Please remember to like, subscribe. We’ll see you all next time. Ciao for now.

You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram, and check out our Modern Libido Club for so much more!