Your Patient’s Low Libido Isn't a Hormone Problem. It's an Energetic Problem.
Many of my patients, particularly women, report having little to no interest in sex. Doctors typically respond with hormone tests and prescriptions, including testosterone prescriptions or herbs that are meant to stimulate libido. The real question is:
Why do some women respond beautifully to hormone therapy while others see zero improvement, even with perfect lab numbers?
Last month, I had three different patients with identical hormone profiles. One was having the best sex of her life. One felt completely numb. One was interested in theory but couldn't seem to get her body to participate.
The difference wasn't in their bloodwork—it was in their energetic field.
“Sarah” was my patient who felt numb. When her third round of hormone optimization failed to restore any feeling, she sat across from me with a question I hear constantly:
"If my hormones are fine, why do I feel like a stranger in my own body?"
I responded with, "When was the last time you felt genuinely angry about something?"
She looked puzzled. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"You’d be surprised."
She thought for a moment. “I don't really get angry. I’m a positive person. I work hard to stay optimistic."
That response explained more than any lab test could.
The Surprising Energetic Connection Between Emotions and Sex Drive
After treating hundreds of women for hormonal imbalance, I've discovered something that revolutionized my practice: many libido problems aren't about hormones. They're about energy flow.
In Chinese medicine, sexual energy is considered our life force energy, and it is carried in our meridians. If the energy in our meridians isn’t flowing freely, our sexual energy becomes blocked or stagnant.
What blocks our meridians? Certainly, lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, and physical injuries can play into meridian imbalance, but the big one is our EMOTIONS. The big 4 emotions that I see jam up our sexual energy and life force?
Anger
Grief
Fear
Shame
Think about it: when you're genuinely turned on, excited about life, passionate about something, what does that feel like in your body? There's heat, there's movement, there's aliveness. That's your qi flowing freely.
Now think about when you've suppressed grief or anger for months or years—stuffed down resentment, swallowed frustration, kept quiet when you wanted to scream. What happens to that energy? Where does it go?
It doesn't disappear. It gets stuck. And when your grief, anger, or shame energy stagnates, your sexual energy stagnates with it.
Why Hormone Therapy Often Fails
Western medicine approaches libido like a chemistry equation: low testosterone equals low desire, so we add more testosterone. But hormones are messengers, not the message itself.
You can flood the system with hormones, but if the energetic pathways are blocked—if there's no life force flowing through those meridians—those hormones have nowhere to go. It's like trying to water a garden through a kinked hose.
I see this constantly. Women come to me after months of hormone treatments that "should" have worked. Their labs look perfect on paper, but they still feel nothing. That's because we're treating the chemistry while ignoring the energy.
In Chinese medicine, we understand that sexual vitality requires more than just the right hormone levels. It requires:
Free-flowing liver qi (no suppressed emotions blocking the system)
Strong kidney essence (your core vitality)
Open heart energy (emotional connection and joy)
Clear channels between all three
When any of these are compromised, desire disappears—regardless of what your hormone panels say.
My Own Liberation
I understand this intimately because I lived it. For years after my first child was born, my libido vanished. I tried everything my medical training suggested: hormone testing, supplements, lifestyle changes. Nothing worked.
I told myself it was normal—new motherhood, exhaustion, hormonal changes. But deep down, I knew something else was happening. I felt disconnected not just from sex, but from my own aliveness.
It wasn't until I began addressing my own suppressed anger (and behind it came grief and shame) seriously that everything shifted. I had years of unexpressed rage because of broken trust in the masculine and violated boundaries early in my life.
The process wasn't pretty. I had to learn how to safely feel rage without destroying my relationships. Behind the rage came feelings of shame, fear, disgust, and loss. It was incredibly uncomfortable to feel all these feelings in my body, but I remembered what one of my teachers said:
“If you can feel it, you can heal it.”
I had to practice expressing needs I'd been taught were selfish. I had to reclaim parts of myself I'd been gradually giving away for decades.
But as the stuck emotions started moving, something miraculous happened. My libido didn't just return—it came back stronger than ever. My periods regulated. My energy soared. I was finally showing up as my whole self.
The Anger-Libido Connection
Women who have "lost" their libido haven't actually lost anything. They've buried their life force under layers of unexpressed emotion.
Anger and sexual desire are both expressions of life force energy. They're both about wanting, about moving toward something, about having needs and expressing them powerfully. They are both passionate. When we systematically shut down one, we inevitably shut down the other. I think of anger like a cork that holds in other emotions - for me, the feelings of grief and shame were deeper layers that moved after I gave myself permission to rage safely.
Our culture teaches women to be accommodating, to avoid conflict, to prioritize harmony over authenticity. We learn to smile when we want to scream, to say "it's fine" when everything is falling apart, to manage everyone else's emotions while ignoring our own.
The result is that we become very good at suppressing our anger. And in the process, we suppress our aliveness.
What This Looks Like in the Body
In Chinese medicine, qi stagnation has specific signs:
Tight jaw and shoulders (holding back words we want to say)
Digestive issues (inability to "stomach" what's happening in our lives)
Irregular periods and PMS (reproductive energy stuck and backing up)
Sleep issues, especially waking between 1-3 AM (liver meridian time)
Feeling stuck in life, unable to make decisions or changes
Cold hands and feet (low Kidney Qi)
And yes, complete loss of sexual desire
When I see these patterns, I know we're not necessarily dealing with a hormone deficiency. We're dealing with an energetic traffic jam.
Moving Beyond Symptom Management
The solution isn't more hormone therapy or another supplement. It's learning to move the stuck energy.
This might look like:
Physical release practices:
Vigorous exercise that allows emotional expression
Breathwork specifically designed to move liver qi
Safe spaces for vocal expression (yes, screaming into pillows counts)
Practices like martial arts or dancing that combine movement with emotional release
Emotional honesty work:
Learning to identify and express anger in healthy ways
Setting energetic boundaries that protect your energy
Saying no without guilt or elaborate justifications
Expressing needs directly instead of hoping others will guess
Energetic clearing:
Acupuncture to unblock stagnant meridians
Qi Gong practices for moving liver qi
Working with practitioners who understand the emotional-physical connection
The Ripple Effect
When women reclaim their right to safely feel and express anger, something beautiful happens. They don't become rage-filled monsters. They become more alive, more authentic, more present in their own lives.
Their libido returns not as something they have to schedule or work at, but as a natural expression of their vitality. Their relationships improve because they're finally showing up as whole people instead of people-pleasers. Their health improves because energy is flowing freely through their system again.
A Different Kind of Medicine
I'm not suggesting we abandon everything Western medicine knows about reproductive health. I am suggesting we expand our understanding of what creates and destroys sexual vitality.
Your libido isn't just about hormone levels. It's about life force. It's about your willingness to want things, to feel things, to express the full spectrum of human emotion.
When a patient presents with low libido, unexplained fatigue, or chronic digestive issues alongside perfect lab work, we have an opportunity to ask about suppressed anger, violated boundaries, and disconnection from authentic self-expression.
Patients are hungry for this level of care. They're seeking practitioners who understand that healing sometimes requires not just fixing what's broken, but uncovering what's been buried.
If you've exhausted your best protocols and your patient is still struggling, consider this:
Maybe the problem isn't that she needs more hormones. Maybe she needs to FEEL more. Feel anger, feel grief, and so on. Not the destructive emotions that damage relationships, but the life-giving kind that says, "I matter. My needs matter. I deserve to feel alive in my own body."
Her libido isn't broken. It's just buried under years of being told that part of her wasn't acceptable.
What would happen if we gave our patients permission to uncover it?
Originally published on LinkedIn on September 19, 2025.
Dr. Laura Chan is a licensed Naturopathic Doctor, Acupuncturist, and certified Qi Gong instructor specializing in empath empowerment, emotional-energetic hygiene, and feminine life force awakening. With two decades of study under Qi Gong masters and energy healers, she shares high-functioning empath strategies at https://highfunctioningempath.com.
