October 18, 2023 • 63 mins
Are you in a non-monogamous relationship and looking for ways to enhance your emotional intelligence? Look no further! Join me, Ellecia Paine, as I interview Jessica Fern and David Cooley on the importance of emotional intelligence in non-monogamous dynamics. Dive into their personal experiences, learn how they overcame challenges, and discover practical tools for emotional growth.
From journaling and meditation to embracing conflict as an opportunity for intimacy, this episode offers valuable insights for individuals in non-monogamous relationships.
Don't miss out on this enlightening discussion that will empower you to build stronger and more fulfilling relationships!
We're all human, and emotional intelligence plays a key role in how we interact with others. Jessica and David unpack the importance of knowing how to communicate your feelings and needs, especially when they become overwhelming. You'll learn the markers of drama triangle involvement, and strategies to enhance emotional and relational intelligence. This isn't just about relationships, it's about nurturing growth. We discuss practices to cultivate intimacy, the importance of curiosity in conflict resolution, and innovative techniques such as breathwork and restorative justice circles to help us stay present in difficult conversations.
Writing a book is a herculean task. Writing a book together? Even more so. Jessica and David share their journey of co-writing, discussing how they unpacked and developed ideas, managed critiques, and the crucial role of accountability in their creative endeavor. We also delve into the complexities of identity and relationship choice when it comes to polyamory and non-monogamy, exploring the power of frames and metaphors in public decision-making. From discussing the importance of living out one's orientation, to the best strategies for fostering intimacy, it's a conversation you don't want to miss. Tune in and let's navigate jealousy, autonomy, and the struggles of becoming ethically non-monogamous together.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ellecia (00:07):
Hey, I'm Ellecia, your non-monogamous relationship
coach.
Welcome to the podcast where myfriends and I chat about our
relationships, enthusiasticnon-monogamy polyamory, swinging
kink and our lives.
You'll get a candid peek intowhat makes it worth it to live
life outside the box.
And in case you're stillwondering, nope, we're not
monogamous.
(00:35):
Welcome back to another excitingepisode of Nope we're Not
Monogamous, and I'm superexcited about today's
conversation.
It promises to be nothing shortof enlightening and
transformative.
Today we're joined by twoextraordinary guests, jessica
Fern and David Cooley, whosejourney through polyamory and
their groundbreaking work in thefield have inspired so many.
(00:57):
Jessica, you might recognizethis name, jessica Fern, the
author of Polysecure.
She brought us a profoundunderstanding of attachment
theory in the context ofnon-monogamous relationships and
more recently, alongside herco-author and partner, david
Cooley, they wrote Poly Wise,providing even more insights
(01:17):
into the world of ethical,non-monogamy polyamory,
essential non-monogamy.
You know non-monogamy, but thisepisode's more than just about
books.
It's about the stories, theexperiences, the challenges and
the triumphs that lie behind thepages.
It's about diving deep into thepsyche of relationships,
emotional intelligence andnavigating the intricate world
(01:40):
of polyamory.
So buckle up for a fascinatingride.
You're going to enjoy this, Iam sure of it.
And real quick.
Before we dive in, I want toshare something special with you
.
If you're enjoying the podcastand you want to be a more
integral part of our community,why not consider becoming a
(02:00):
member of the exclusive Patreonfamily for Nope we're Not
Monogamous at patreoncom slashnot monogamous.
By joining the Patreoncommunity, you're not only
keeping the show running, butyou gain access to behind the
scenes content, exclusive perks,and your support means the
world to me and it's what keepsthe podcast going strong.
(02:23):
Enjoy, that's what we want.
Amazing, awesome.
Okay, jessica and David,welcome to Nope, we're Not
Monogamous.
I am so so, so, so Thank you.
You're welcome.
I thank you.
I'm so excited to chat with youguys.
I've been a big fan ofJessica's work for a few years
(02:45):
now.
It was really cool.
When I read PolySecure I waslike it was so validating.
I was like, oh my God, this iswhat I've been doing, Converting
all this monogamous stuff tonon-monogamy.
And now and now, readingPolyWise, I'm like, yes, so good
.
I'm excited to.
(03:05):
I've already started puttingsome of your restorative justice
framework into action with someof my clients, which I'm very
excited about.
So, anyways, welcome.
David (03:17):
Cool.
Ellecia (03:19):
That's great.
Yeah, yeah, I am really, reallyOkay.
So here's the deal.
Nope, we're Not.
Monogamous is not aneducational podcast, it's a
here's what I was doing.
I was running into all of thisinformation that was, like you
know, poly 101, non-monogamy 101.
(03:39):
And I was like, yeah, but likehow did you figure that out?
Like I wanted to know whatpeople were actually doing
before they gave you the advice.
That was really good, but theydidn't necessarily follow
themselves, and so I just loveto chat with people about their
experiences and their lives andhow they come to be giving this
(04:01):
great information and advice.
Right?
So I would love to hear, yeah,Thank you I would just love to
hear.
It's like there's so much goodinformation, but like what'd you
really do, right, right.
So I would love to hear aboutyour guys's what non-monogamy
(04:26):
means to you, your relationshipphilosophies, or what do you got
going on.
David (04:35):
Once you start, Jess.
Jessica (04:36):
Oh, okay, we're both pointing at each other as in
like what do we have going on inthis moment?
Ellecia (04:43):
Yeah, yeah, you give a little bit in your book.
I love that.
You give a little bit of yourrelationship history.
But yeah, like, like what.
Where are you at now and how'dyou get there?
Jessica (04:53):
Yeah, yeah, well, I'll answer that as us together,
right, and it's been a 21 yearjourney being in each other's
lives.
Yeah, and we've taken manyforms for each other.
We met as classmates at aresidential massage program.
(05:13):
We had a little romantic thinginitially, and then we were
really good friends for a while,for several years.
We then got married, we had ason, we opened up, we were
polyamorous together, we gotdivorced, we lived apart.
We now live together and we areso right now, in this iteration
(05:39):
, we live together, we are lifepartners, we're creative
partners with this project.
Being co-authors, we kind oflive in this house.
We have a few acres, so we runa property together as well.
Yeah, and it's a sweet spot andwe have, you know, from we
would be like polyintimates, andeach of us have partners that
(06:02):
live outside of the house thatyou know we have relationships
with, that, we all haverelationships with.
So it's it's a pretty nicemoment for us and there's been a
lot of ups and downs not easymoments, you know in between.
Ellecia (06:18):
Yeah, oh, that is I love.
This is so fascinating.
You know, I we're kind of toldthat, like every, relationships
are kind of all or nothing.
Right, Like that's that's whatour culture is.
Like all or nothing.
Like you can't be friends withyour ex or you can't be business
partners, or you can't, or ifyou get back together, it's it's
(06:38):
now forever, Like there's soeverything's so black and white
and I love this like flow youguys have had and that you're
sharing.
Jessica (06:48):
Yeah, I think it's taken work for us to realize,
like, why throw the baby outwith the bathwater?
There's a lot of beauty in ourconnection and our relationship
and our compatibility, and justbecause some things don't work,
why do we have to throw all ofit out?
Yeah, and we just, we started.
David (07:06):
We started with a semi non-conventional approach.
You know, even when we weretalking about getting the
possibility of being married.
You know, a big part of thatconversation was recognizing
that there were elements ofconventional marriage that
didn't work for us.
Right, and so we wanted.
We were focused on a lot ofthings like gender equality and
(07:27):
what does that mean?
Like, how do we deconstructsort of some of the fixed gender
roles that are typical?
We also talked about therecognition that getting married
for us wasn't necessarily aforever thing and that that felt
good, actually, right, thatthere, you know, some of that
was my avoidant stuff for sure.
(07:47):
But there was also a component,I think, that wisely knew that
we would and we, I think weframed it this way in moments of
we may grow to the point wherebeing together in this marriage
doesn't make sense anymore, andcan that be okay?
And that scene is sort of afatal thing.
Jessica (08:04):
Or a failure, a failure Right.
David (08:07):
Exactly so those elements were there from the beginning.
I think we both had a lot offortune to have been exposed to
thoughts and ideas that haveallowed us to have kind of a
semi non-conventional approach,and that's become more and more
non-conventional as we've goneon, but when we met there was a
lot of that possibility.
Ellecia (08:27):
Well, I love that, thank you.
I love that my husband and Ihave been together 10 years and
we've never been monogamousbecause we were both married
previously, right and went.
Well, that's not what we wantto do again, and so this that
the idea of like, intentionallybuilding a relationship that
allows for growth and change andevolution is amazing, yeah.
David (08:49):
I think the way we're framing it makes it sound as if
we set ourselves up for thisreally smooth ride and in some
ways we didn't, but in otherways we definitely didn't.
We hit a lot of walls that manyconventional relationships or
marriages do hit and that reallygot exposed when we opened.
Ellecia (09:10):
Yeah, yeah.
What would you say was whatwere the biggest challenges when
you opened up?
David (09:19):
Yeah, I would say our kind of becoming face to face
with some of the deeply rootedcodependent patterns that we had
that we had never really seenas codependent or were framing
as codependent.
It was kind of just like, holyshit, we've been doing that, wow
, you know.
And so there was two.
There's two layers of that,well, actually three major
(09:41):
layers.
One was, yeah, I've beendealing with a relatively severe
form of autoimmunity since Iwas 19,.
Right, and so I've had tocompromise health, our whole
relationship, and you knowthat's come and gone in
different levels of intensity.
And we had our son was born.
(10:02):
He's now eight, right after hewas born, which, you know,
that's a gauntlet to go through.
That's a total initiation forany relationship, right.
You know, it's like the kind ofeven if you are monogamous, to
go through.
Having your first child is justsuch a process that can rock
the foundation of anyrelationship.
(10:22):
But then, right as that washappening, I got really, really
sick, like almost died kind ofsick, and that really put just
insane amounts of pressure onour relationship, you know, and
on Jessica in particular, yeah,on each of us for different
reasons obviously, and that tooka toll.
And so going through being newparents me almost dying and
(10:46):
having to figure that out reallyleft some significant scars.
And then those things neverreally got integrated and
repaired.
And then we opened and it wasjust like all that shit.
You know, even things beforeour son and before that issue
with my health all came out oncewe opened.
Ellecia (11:11):
You know, I always tell people, like, treat yourself
like a toddler, like, have youeaten?
Have you had enough food?
Do you need cuddles?
Right.
But like, sometimes lifedoesn't allow for that, right.
Like when you're not feeling,while you're grumpy, and then,
like, you start layering thingson top like a simplified way of
saying that.
David (11:34):
Absolutely, and we've been people that have always
like taken on really big things,like multiple big challenges at
once.
I'm not sure why we've donethat so consistently, but we've
really done that a lot.
It seems like our MO.
Jessica (11:46):
We can do it.
Yeah, I'll start graduateschool and move across the world
.
Deal, it's fine.
Ellecia (11:54):
Yeah, I'm curious.
I'm curious.
What is the question I'm askingyou?
What is emotional intelligence?
(12:15):
Is the words that came to mind,right?
So how does that play a part inthe evolution, the creation of
your relationship as it movesright, like as it grows?
How did, or how do you buildemotional intelligence to get to
(12:40):
the point where you'rereconciling all these things?
Great, question.
That makes sense, COVID brain.
David (12:49):
No, that's great.
That's a great question, Jess.
I feel like I've been talking alot.
Jessica (12:53):
Yeah, I'm not sure I get the question, though.
Right.
The emotional intelligencepiece seems like of course.
I mean, how do we do anyrelationships without emotional
intelligence?
And I think that's what I seein my relationships with my
clients and their relationships,like if the importance and
(13:15):
significance of our emotionalintelligence right, it matters
right, there's usually verylittle repair if there's low
emotional intelligence.
If there's low emotionalintelligence, there's a lot of
reactivity and defensiveness.
David (13:29):
Well, I was almost hearing.
I want to see if this was partof the question.
It was almost like what's someof the origins of our own
process around developingemotional intelligence?
Ellecia (13:38):
Yeah, yeah, I love what you said about with low
emotional intelligence, it'shard to make repair, and that's
where I think a lot of peopleget stuck right Is like okay,
these things happen, well, let'ssay sorry and move on right,
pretend they didn't happen.
Like, how do you develop theability to recognize what needs
(14:01):
to be repaired and then repairit and then keep moving forward?
Jessica (14:05):
Yeah, I was someone who would like things would really
pressure in relationship.
Like I remember my firstsignificant relationship in
college and it just like I wasletting things build and build.
All these things that werebothering me that he was doing,
that were dynamics, build andbuild, and build, and build and
(14:26):
build.
And then one day I was just, itjust blew the top and I was
done, but he didn't know any ofthose things that were building
and building and building.
So he had no opportunity torepair because by the time I hit
my thresholds I was done, right, and that was a huge wake up
for me.
Actually, I was like, wow,right, because my emotional
(14:49):
intelligence was pretty low inthat relationship where it was
like I didn't know how tocommunicate things that were
bothering me, I didn't know howto speak up for the things that
I was needing, and then by thetime all of that came to the
surface, there was no repairingit.
Those patterns were too long,like it was too much.
And then I could see for him hewas just shocked, right, he was
(15:11):
like whoa, what can't we fixthese things?
And it's like they're notfixable.
Right, I'm done, you know, likeI can't deal with this anymore.
And so I really vowed to myselffirst I don't want to do this,
I don't want to experience thatand I don't want to do this to
someone else right to like breaksomeone's heart in this way.
You know where they thought likewe're good, we're in this
(15:32):
amazing relationship and I'mactually not happy at all.
And so it was initially thisvery mechanical agreement I made
.
If I think of a like, ifsomething bothers me once, okay,
I can still keep it internallyand I'll try to work with it
Like is this really an issue?
How can I see this differently?
What can I maybe change?
(15:53):
And if I think about it twice,maybe I'll speak it up.
But if it happens a third timein my mind, I have to speak up
about it.
It was so simple and just like.
That's the agreement.
You know, if I've thought aboutit three times, even if it
seems petty and like silly orlike I'm worried that I'm too
(16:13):
needy so that's a big part ofemotional intelligence too is
like our relationship with theinner critic.
You know that says we're toomuch, we're not enough and keeps
us from being expressive inrelationship.
Ellecia (16:27):
Yes, that's brilliant, cause I do.
I have a lot, of a lot ofpeople will come and say, well,
I'm just, I'm trying to, I'mtrying to be cool Like I'm.
I'm, I don't want to make a bigdeal out of things.
They're, that's a my problem,it's not their problem.
Or or I just, you know then,just holding things in, holding
things in and there's like thisnon congruence, right, like like
they're.
(16:47):
They think they're being chilland cool about things, but
really internally they'rethey've got this struggle
happening and that energy isthere.
David (16:55):
Yeah.
Jessica (16:56):
Exactly Go ahead, Dave.
David (16:58):
Well, yeah, I think there's something interesting
about that, like why do peoplewant to come off as chill?
Why do people want to come offas quote unquote, not needy,
like this is so prevalent andit's something that I see with
clients across the boardrecognize my own version of it.
It was the way that we'resocialized.
You know a lot of what the workthat Jess and I wanted to do
(17:19):
with the book is to really kindof zoom out to some of the macro
causes of why people havechallenges in their
relationships.
What are the socializedinfluences that we bring to our
individual relationships?
And for me, there's this realdisconnect between our lived
experience, ie our feelings,needs and wants, right in the
(17:43):
capacity to own those andcommunicate those in
relationship.
And for me, this is this ishuge, it's massive.
How many people are strugglingwith this?
And the stigma that existsaround sort of naming your needs
and wants and relationship inthe way that we're really quick
either internally for ourselvesto downplay those or dismiss
those, or right that thepartners are sort of giving a
(18:07):
shit for it and sort of treatingour in treaties as problematic.
Ellecia (18:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's this idea that, like,if you're having any emotional
reaction other than like joy orhappiness, then you have to be
justified in it, right, likesomeone has to have harmed you
in order to be upset, and soit's like we automatically look
for well, what did you?
You know I'm having these bigfeelings.
(18:34):
What did you do wrong?
You're bad, you made me feelthese right, and even if we can
like logically go, well, that'snot really what happened.
It's almost like like we haveto come up with this
justification and then, and thenyou're fighting, and then you
fight.
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
David (18:52):
Yeah.
Jessica (18:56):
So that feels like a big piece, too of emotional
intelligence is are we on thedrama triangle, you know, which
is that model of a trianglefacing down with the perpetrator
, the rescuer on the top twopoints and the victim on the
bottom right, and that's oftenhow we conduct our relationships
, where there's a good guy,there's a bad guy, there's right
, there's wrong, there's thisblame, back and forth, you know,
(19:19):
or this enabling throughrescuing, and so that would be a
good like if you're on thedrama triangle, often we all get
on it, yeah, and so that's myemotional.
But the emotional intelligencepiece is oh, can I catch that?
I'm on it and do I have a wayoff it?
Right, can I communicate moreabout my feelings and needs, or
communicate in ways that aren'tjudging and blaming?
David (19:44):
Yeah, and I love that curious that question of you.
Know, what is it that reallyspurs people on to develop
emotional intelligence?
And I would say you knowrelational intelligence as well.
I think those are two differentthings that both really serve
each other, but what is it thatallows people to want to develop
(20:06):
those things?
You know, and I think that'sone of the things that's really
cool about non monogamy is thatI feel like it's really in part
inspiration and in part bynecessity.
It's a process throughrelationally, through which
people are really pushed todevelop emotional and relational
(20:26):
intelligence.
I think that's one of thecoolest things about it for me
is that it's an invitation.
It's a very powerful invitationto grow at that level.
Ellecia (20:37):
Yes, absolutely, I completely agree.
That's, that's one of myfavorite things is the necessity
to keep growing.
Yeah, amazing, amazing.
So I'm I'm curious about what.
(20:59):
What would you say are some ofthe best strategies or practices
for, for nurturing that kind ofgrowth in a relationship, in a
person?
I don't know.
David (21:23):
I guess you want to start that one.
Jessica (21:25):
Sure, I think I'm trying to think just what's my
own answer right, instead of thelike academic type of answer.
Yeah, for me I mean having theregular practice it's not always
a daily practice, but havingregular practice of just
(21:45):
stopping and tuning in.
You know so, sometimes thatlooks like journaling, sometimes
that's meditation, sometimesthat's whatever.
But this intentional pausing totune in and to like check in
with my parts and ask what'sgoing on here, yeah, that feels
like one of the most importantthings is sort of caring for the
(22:09):
interior, basically.
David (22:15):
Yeah, and for me I think it's you know, so much of my
process is revolves aroundconflict.
You know it's the work that I'mdoing with clients, as I'm
focused on how to teach peopleto approach and handle conflict
differently, and so for me,conflict has really become
central in terms of how toreally cultivate intimacy.
(22:36):
Like I really see it as one ofthe single best ways to develop
deeper levels of intimacy.
And I think the deeper I gointo exploring conflict and how
to operate within its realmdifferently, I'm seeing like,
wow, this is the single best wayinto levels of intimacy.
I don't know if we can get anyother way.
And so I'm really curious aboutwhat helps us do intimacy well
(23:01):
Excuse me conflict well, likewhat allows us to step in and
lean into conflict instead ofsort of away from it and see it
as something threatening.
And for me it's really likewhat allows us to stay curious
when we're triggered Like for methat's been this really big
sort of divide line in terms ofskill level is like what
(23:24):
actually, in the moment oftrigger feeling your nervous
system be activated allows youto stay present and engage with
the person with whom you're inthat trigger dance.
And for me that's a really bigthing.
And so the things that allow meto do that curiosity, to stay
curious with someone that I feeltriggered by is sort of
(23:46):
recognizing okay, what about mynervous system needs to get sued
or tended to right sort ofgoing back to that question of
needs and wants, like what do Ineed which is really a self
awareness thing in the moment tostay feeling safe that I can
give to myself and often it's areally simple thing, kind of
(24:06):
sort of what you're alluding to,jesse, and it's just like
tuning in and taking a breathand sort of calming my own sense
of agitation or threat response, like yeah, I'm okay, I'm good,
this is not a problem, this isuncomfortable, this sucks, this
is bringing up a lot internally,but I'm actually good and I'm
(24:27):
really curious about what'sgoing on for the other person
here, and so doing that innerwork to reduce my own threat
response to sort of thesituation at hand, so that I'm
able to stay engaged in a placeof curiosity about what's
happening for the other personinstead of making assumptions or
just attacking or shutting downcompletely, has been really
(24:49):
some of the most important workfor me.
Ellecia (24:52):
That's beautiful.
I love that, and it totallydoes go back to what Jessica
said and like checking in withyour parts and noticing what's
happening internally, which Ithink is a real, like huge
struggle for a lot of people isjust to even know that their
body has anything to say.
That's right.
Adrenaline hits.
I'm done Absolutely Exactly.
Jessica (25:13):
Yeah.
David (25:13):
Absolutely.
Jessica (25:15):
Yeah, I spent a very intensive period doing a lot of
like EMDR therapy and liketrigger work, like working on
all of those reactive triggers,and I think that's what really
created a shift in my whole life.
But you know, obviously in myrelationships where it's just
there wasn't as muchdefensiveness and reactivity and
(25:38):
like flashbacks, yeah.
Ellecia (25:41):
Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.
I love that.
For me it's breathwork, likedaily breathwork keeps me like
grounded, noticing what'shappening, noticing, you know,
like the little my hair standingup on the back of my neck.
I can like start soothingbefore I've like gone over the
cliff into fighting.
David (25:59):
Yeah, yeah, you mentioned , you know, kind of an interest
in restorative sort of frameworkthat's introduced in the book
and for me that was one of thebiggest initiations was doing
restorative justice work and sositting in restorative justice
circles or conferences withpeople that are really, really
(26:20):
charged.
You know, often these arepeople are not, these are
strangers, so they don't evenhave the incentive of being
family, necessarily right, oreven friends, and the stakes can
be very, very high in thosecircumstances.
And so, time after time,sitting in these tension filled
circles, it was really a greatopportunity for me to start
really observing my own nervoussystem in response to other
(26:42):
people's tension Right, and insome of those circles people are
rubs Like I've had clientsscream at my face Right and it's
like I have the clarity thatit's not about me.
They're activated becausewhat's happening in the space?
But it's really this amazingopportunity like, okay,
interesting, this is happeningright now.
What's my default sort ofinstinctual response and how
(27:04):
much power do I have tonegotiate that and do something
different?
That's potentiallycounterintuitive in this moment.
So that really was a massiveeye opener in terms of what's
possible for regulation in atension filled space and it
makes me think about martialartists or something, and it's
like you learn how to reallydeal with your body's
(27:26):
instinctive or fight or flightresponses.
One of my favorite quotes isfrom I don't remember who said
it, but I think somebody talkingabout Mike Tyson.
Right, it's like you can stepinto the ring with a plan, but
all that goes to like what yourplan looks like after you get
punched in the face is a wholedifferent game, right, and I
love that idea, that image, yeah.
Ellecia (27:49):
Yeah, now your nervous system is taking over instincts,
totally yeah.
Jessica (27:59):
And then extending that to our partners or the people
we're in relationship with.
Right, like remembering it'seasy to forget like, oh right,
they have a nervous system, theyhave a threat response to right
and that's getting activated.
They have parts that arewounded, they have parts that
are afraid, even if they lookpretty gnarly on the surface.
(28:21):
So that feels like a relationalintelligence piece as well of
what's going on in the interiorof my loved one that doesn't
look very loving towards meright now.
Yeah, yeah.
David (28:37):
Yeah, that's that curiosity piece.
Jessica (28:39):
Yeah.
David (28:40):
One of the things that you said, jess, in another
conversation we were having withsomeone else that's really
stuck with me is because I'vebeen thinking about ways when
introducing internal familysystems to clients.
People ask well, how do youknow when you're really in,
grounded or connected to yourmature adult self, versus really
being blended with a part?
(29:01):
And I think that's a reallyimportant thing that
practitioners should be offeringclients is what's your litmus
test for knowing whether or notyou're blended with a part or
not?
And I remember you saying, jess, if you can be curious, then
you've still got access, thenyou're still connected to your
mature adult self.
In that moment I'm like that'sabsolutely right.
I think that is sort of thesingle best piece of reflection
(29:26):
that someone could have to knowwhether or not they're really
where they are in themselves inany given situation, especially
attention-filled one.
Ellecia (29:35):
Yeah, that's really good.
That's really good, fantastic.
Okay, there's all these thingsthat have happened right, life
things.
How was it writing a booktogether?
Jessica (29:54):
That's a great question .
I don't know if it's, like youknow, giving birth or off, like
my birth, that I gave to birth,that I gave to my son.
The birth that I had wasextremely painful because of all
of the oxytocin, like youforget afterwards, right, like
it's conceptually.
I can't remember how painful itwas, so I don't know if there's
(30:17):
any of that happening likeafter the fact, you know, but I
do think overall it was fun.
Of course there's moments whereit's just hard to like.
You know there's deadlines andall of that kind of stuff, but I
think we really enjoyed thecreative and intellectual
process of flushing out and, youknow, unpacking things together
(30:40):
and we have a good groove oflike what our strengths are.
So usually like I'm writingahead and then Dave's coming in
and maybe refining or editing oradding, yeah, and then for his
chapter we had to flip which.
That was different.
David (31:02):
Yeah, I think it's one of the places where we have kind
of a strong connection, likekind of one of the places where
our connection has really stayedsort of the way it's always
been is just we love tostimulate each other
intellectually and so there's away in which just talking on a
(31:22):
daily basis is very fulfilling,and so to be able to do that on
paper was a lot of fun, you know, in terms of the exchange of
ideas, and I think we've gottento a really good place where it
just feels easy to lean intoeach other's advice or critiques
.
You know, I remember we've doneprojects in the past writing
projects and there were sort ofsome starts and fits and bumping
(31:46):
of egos, not so much but to acertain degree Whereas with this
book it feels like we've gottento a really cool place and I
just never felt that, you know,I never felt like we were ever
tussling over anything.
I remember some, you know,moments where we're having to
debate whether or not somethingthat's been written needs to get
cut or augmented or changed,and it just felt, you know,
(32:08):
there's so much trust forJessica's sensibility,
creatively and intellectually.
It's just like, yeah, okay,true that, like the way that
you're explaining that andcontextualizing that.
That makes sense.
Okay, yeah, let's cut it.
You know, instead of feelinglike, no, that's my baby, you
know, I think it probably alsohelps that you wrote an
incredibly successful book onyour own already, but there's
(32:31):
definitely credence to give.
But I think in general, even ifthat wasn't the case, I think,
you know, just trusting eachother's sensibility creatively
is really huge.
Jessica (32:42):
Yeah, I think it would be more minor things Like
there's certainly words that Ioveruse or Dave overuses, and
it's rather the other one crazyto see that word one more
fricking time.
You know.
Like really, yeah, just itwould be more funny stuff like
that.
Ellecia (32:58):
Yeah, I love that.
It's so fun to listen to.
I really, I really I skimmedthrough the PDF and I was
telling, I was telling Dave,before we hit record.
I skimmed over the PDF and nowI'm listening to the audio book
and I just love hearing the likelike here's Jessica Ferns voice
, who I've been listening to fora couple of years, right, and
(33:21):
then hi, it's David here.
He pops in with his very, like,very vulnerable moments that I
so, so, so appreciate, Likegoing back and going OK, I can
look back now and go here's whathappened.
And now I can look at it and go, oh, oh, I see it.
Just, I love that because it'sI want everyone to read it,
(33:45):
because I'm like, look, I cansee my clients and I can see my
partners in so many of thesethings.
I'm like, oh, look, this guydid this.
And like, they, they, they,they look back and go this is
what I should have done.
Yeah, I love it.
David (34:01):
Yeah, and that was really intentional for a lot of
reasons, but I think, you know,there was the, the sense that
you know, not that all of thesethings that we mentioned, these
dynamics, could happen couldn'thappen to anybody but I think
there was sort of a sense that,like in terms of therapy, in
(34:22):
terms of process work, there is,I think, a disproportionate
amount of women coming to thework and really being the
initiators in relationship, andwe really wanted to set an
example for men to lean in rightand really see a masculine
voice taking accountability andacknowledging some of these
(34:44):
things that can be really hardto do.
This level of vulnerability thatI think is hard for a lot of
men for a lot of reasons.
You know, particularly thesocialization of what it.
You know what it means to be aman or masculine these days, and
so it felt important to do thatand to make my kind of.
You know, I become the fall guyin some ways, but I think it
(35:08):
was important to do and it'sauthentic in terms of you know,
the stories that were recounting.
Yeah, it's really beautiful.
Jessica (35:16):
I think that was maybe an yeah, something we didn't
maybe think about beforehand.
But there were moments inwriting the book where, because
we were telling our story andeven though it was maybe a story
that we knew, it's so differentto write it out and moments
where I think we both got evenmore healing about our past than
(35:38):
, like, I maybe didn't eventhink, oh, I need this.
But in the process of uswriting or then talking through,
or there might have been one ortwo moments where we're like I
don't think it happened that wayand we had to, like hash it out
and realize what, what is thecoherent narrative here?
That there was like a deeperhealing around our past too.
David (35:57):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely I think there were.
I had several male clientsrecently say to me after
listening to the book, orreading the book you know,
especially in the in the lastchapter, there's a very open and
descriptive expose on just thechallenges that I faced, like
(36:20):
how hard some of the momentsbecame for me and how low it got
for me, kind of my dark nightof the soul with opening the
relationship, and they're likethem talking about feeling seen
in a way that was so healing,was really validating for me and
really moving.
(36:41):
And I remember, you know, onworking on that piece, like I
was crying, like while writingthat, like openly weeping,
reliving some of that and it wasso good it was.
I didn't, I was.
I was actually surprised bythat and have never had that
experience in writing something.
Usually it's a much morecerebral experience and so
(37:03):
there's something sort of veryhealing for me to be able to
connect that much somatic andemotional experience into
writing, and so I love that.
I really feel grateful for that.
Ellecia (37:17):
Yeah, beautiful, that's .
That's exactly exactly what itit.
That's the idea that I got fromit right Was like oh, here's,
here's this vulnerability piecethat isn't like oh, look at me,
look at all the work I did, butjust like this is what happened
and this is how I felt Right,and it's like it's just really
(37:39):
vulnerable and it's just so real.
I love it.
What?
And that's my listeners, youmust go read the book.
It makes all our work easier.
Jessica (37:52):
Yeah.
David (37:53):
Hopefully, yeah.
Jessica (37:56):
And I like that about this book is, you know, we kind
of go back and forth of story,more personal story, or even
little mini anecdotes in thebeginning of this chapter to you
know, like theory and all ofthat stuff and practice.
So yeah, I like that it hasmore of the narrative piece in
there.
Ellecia (38:18):
Totally, totally.
I love that.
Okay, I have a question for youthat I ask everyone that comes
on Polyamory or nonmonogamy isthis an identity or a
relationship choice?
Are we born polyamorous ormonogamous, or do we choose it?
Jessica (38:45):
You want me to answer, or you, dave.
David (38:48):
You know, you've got the kind of got the lockdown on your
, your model, so go for it.
Jessica (38:54):
I say both, and what I see is that some people, it's
absolutely their orientation.
Well, it can be an identity,whether it's a choice or you're
born with it.
So I think many people take iton as their identity, or claim
it as their identity, and thenthey might feel, though, that
it's a choice or that it's moreof their orientation.
(39:18):
And, yeah, what I see is thatit's, it's both.
It's not one or the other isthat many people truly feel this
to be how they're oriented, andthere's a lot of negative
consequences to not living outthat orientation.
Same thing on the other end ofthe spectrum people feel more
wired for monogamy, and thatfeels like an orientation to
(39:40):
them, and I think it's importantthat we allow that right, that
that's valid, and then for manypeople it is it's a choice that
they can go in and out of.
They choose.
Sometimes.
They don't choose other times,or they wouldn't have chosen it
all, unless they're.
It was only because theirpartner wanted to open up, or
(40:00):
their partner felt that theywere orientation, and then they
step into it as a lifestyle andthey're like okay, I can, I can
do this, even if it's not easysometimes.
Yeah, but I think this has itslarger roots, this question and
sort of this debate that ouridentities aren't valid unless
(40:21):
they are not a choice.
And it's like why is that thecase, right?
Like why can't my identity becompletely valid and even
legally valid, right, even ifit's twice, right, right?
Ellecia (40:37):
Yeah, yeah, especially since a lot of us identify with
our careers.
Right, that are choices.
Jessica (40:44):
Right, right.
David (40:48):
And in so many ways I think, actually identity is a
choice.
It's just.
It's often we don't realizethat.
You know, and so much of humanlife is set by default.
You know just by where we'reborn, the particular
circumstances into which we'reborn, and yet that doesn't mean,
then, that you are notcontinuing to choose that
(41:12):
identity for yourself.
We inherit it, the structure,the infrastructure of the
identity, from where we're from,but then that at some point
there is the opportunity tochange all that.
I think one of the mostfascinating things about this
question for me is, even alongthis spectrum that we're naming
you can change A person, aperson who was identifying as I
(41:35):
am.
Polybiorientation can switch.
I've seen it right For years.
They're like this is my reality, I was born this way, and then
that's changed.
And then on the other side,I've seen the other flip, where
someone was like drug kickingand screaming into polyamory
because of a partner, and thennow they're like this is who I
(41:55):
am.
It could not be another way.
Ellecia (41:58):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, totally relatable, because I
spent most of my life monogamous.
But fine, right, but like Icould never go back now ever, I
mean, I guess, unless I justdidn't have the spoons to deal
with multiple people, right, butI think I would still identify
(42:21):
as polyamorous.
Jessica (42:23):
Yeah, and that's what's so interesting about behaviors
versus identity, right?
Because, like, yeah, I identifyas polyamorous, but sometimes I
might only have one partner.
That doesn't not make mepolyamorous, right?
Or many people identify asmonogamous and they're cheating
all over the place.
(42:43):
They're far from monogamous,right.
I mean, statistically, that'swhat we would say is most people
espouse monogamy and don'tactually practice it, right?
Or many people say that they'restraight and their behaviors
are far from straight behaviors.
Yeah, yeah, that is so real.
Yeah.
So what's our actual behaviors?
(43:04):
What is our actual livedexperience?
And then, how do we identifyand how congruent or not are
those things?
Ellecia (43:13):
Oh, I love that.
That's fantastic, amazing.
What is one thing that anyonecan do for free to have
healthier or betterrelationships?
David (43:36):
That's a good question.
Jessica (43:38):
I was thinking of you saying breathwork.
I was like just breathe,breathe and pause, slow down.
Everyone can do that for free.
Yeah, yeah.
Ellecia (43:52):
Oh good.
David (43:55):
Yeah, I would say really looking at the origins of your
conflict templates.
What are the?
What have you learned?
What have you internalizedabout conflict from where you
come from, Like based on whatyou saw growing up, what is your
(44:18):
template and how does thatpredispose you to make conflict
better or worse?
Ellecia (44:29):
The thing that comes to mind for me when you say that
is I wonder how much people areaware that conflict can happen
other ways.
David (44:39):
Exactly yeah.
Ellecia (44:41):
So like that's not the only way to fight Right.
David (44:48):
One of my, one of my favorite thinkers is a guy named
George Lachoff and he was likehe was a I mean, he still is.
He's a political writer and hetalks about the power of frames
to really determine.
He was a linguistic specialistin particular, but he used that
(45:08):
in the context of politics andhelping people understand the
ways that metaphors and languageare used to really control sort
of the movement of publicdecision, and so one of the
things that I really loved wasthe ways in which he helped
people understand that themetaphors that they're using to
describe a situation are reallysetting a template by which
(45:31):
action then sort of naturallyflows as a consequence.
And, by extension, one of thethings that I do with clients is
really try to get people tounderstand that there's a
literal nervous systemconsequence of the metaphors
that you use, and so if we thinkof something as a battle and we
(45:52):
start using a battle or a fight, conflict, sort of metaphor for
what's happening, your nervoussystem is going to respond and
set itself up for that kind ofexperience, right, and so it was
interesting to think about sortof and he was sort of comparing
sort of classic definitions orways of thinking about life like
(46:12):
in the West versus the East.
Right, I'm using those termsvery, very generally, but East
and West but in the West is likewe love combat narratives right
, everything's hard,everything's a challenge,
everything you're fightingagainst.
Right, the hero's journeyyou're conquering some evil.
Right, there's that good andevil binary that really is
embedded in so much of ourmythology in the West.
(46:32):
And so he's talking about older.
He's talking about oldersocieties like India, where
they're sort of move beyond thatkind of binary in terms of good
and bad.
And there's more.
You hear people talking aboutlife as a dance and just think
about, like, what does that feellike to think about life as a
battle versus a dance?
(46:53):
What does it mean to show up toa battle versus a dance?
And how does your nervoussystem, literally, what's your
somatic experience inrelationship to those metaphors?
And so I think, yeah, what is Ilike to say?
Conflict?
Conflict is an invitation.
It's not a battle, it's aninvitation to deeper intimacy.
Ellecia (47:13):
That is so good.
I use a lot of metaphors and itnever occurred to me that the
metaphors you use set up, set upthe reaction your nervous
system is going to have.
Yesterday I had a client ask mewhat's the recipe?
How do I do this?
Right?
I'm like well, okay, like it'snot baking, it's not a science,
it's not, you know, it's notchemical reactions where you
(47:34):
have to have the exactingredients.
It's more like making stonesoup, where all the partners
bring whatever they have on handand you all throw it in a pot
and see what you get, and thensomebody maybe add some salt and
some.
You know you get a littlecoaching or therapy and that's a
little basil, like you justkind of see what you need after
you throw everything in the pot,but the cooking metaphor feels
(47:57):
really nice.
David (48:00):
Totally.
I love that Exactly.
Jessica (48:05):
That's funny, the cooking metaphor too, yeah.
Ellecia (48:10):
I'm always trying to find metaphors because it's like
how do you just make everythingaccessible and understandable
in a way that, like you don'tfeel like you're reading a
textbook or you know it, likemakes sense in like my everyday
life.
Because so much of what peopleare doing, especially moving
from, you know, a monogamousparadigm to a non-monogamous
(48:32):
paradigm, is like just makesyour brain kind of boil, Like
trying to figure out a mathequation Like what am I doing?
What am I supposed to do?
What's the right answer?
David (48:47):
Yeah, absolutely.
Ellecia (48:50):
Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you
want to share with listeners orwith me?
Yeah, so great.
Thank you, thank you so much.
David (49:04):
No one's ever asked that.
Jessica (49:09):
We're stumped, it's like so many things, and no,
we're good, this is great.
David (49:15):
Yeah, I think my default is always questions Like.
What I would default to isstart asking you questions you
know kind of curious about yourexperience and your exploration
of this, and I love that.
Ellecia (49:27):
I love conversations.
David (49:33):
Wait was that a question.
I think it's sort of yeah, it'spotentially.
The question is like theprelude to a question, I guess.
Yeah, I mean, you know for you,I'm curious to know what's been
one of the biggest challengesfor you and your non monogamous
journey.
Ellecia (49:49):
Jealousy.
How do you?
Jessica (49:53):
work with it.
Ellecia (49:57):
Yeah, yeah, I love that .
So so I I like, like I said, Iwas married monogamously for 13
years, very, very romantic, verybig, you know, lots of like,
possessiveness and your mind,just way of being in love, right
.
And then when I got divorced, Iwas like, well, I'm really
(50:19):
horny and really slutty and so Iwant to have sex with lots of
people.
I guess I'll just go do thatand be honest, because that
seems like the right thing to do.
I didn't know anyone who isethically non monogamous.
That just wasn't a thing.
And then, a few months later, Imet my second husband and fell
in love and and he was likeyou're the one.
And I was like, no, I'm not.
(50:39):
He's like no, no, no, also, I'm, I'm polyamorous, I'm dating
this couple, I have this longterm partner.
And I was like, wait, what?
Hmm, how do I do this?
So I was like here's what Iwanted, right, to go and go and
be free and and have autonomyand adventure.
But also I knew that I was veryjealous and possessive and like
(51:01):
those traits didn't serve me inany positive way.
So I knew I was going to haveto tackle those.
So there was like this realstruggle between like, here's
what I want.
I can see where I want to be,like the other side of that
river, and yet here I am, like,constantly falling in the water,
trying to step across withjealousy.
And so it took a lot of, youknow, healing attachment wounds,
(51:27):
healing past relationshipwounds.
Lots of breathwork, lots ofmasturbation, you know, self
love and just really, I thinkthe most important thing for me
was holding on to my the NorthStar, like my vision, like what
it was that I wanted, where itwas, I wanted to be, even though
(51:48):
my body was like, no, you'redying and everybody is out to
get you and nobody loves you andeverybody hates you.
It was like, but I know thatit's possible to get there, so
I'm just going to keep doing,you know, just going to keep
journaling and keep doingbreathwork and keep loving
myself.
And it took a couple of years,you know, and we were very
actively non monogamous alongthe way, but, like, I have a
(52:12):
couple of blog posts where Italk about how I cried every day
for a year, like, likeliterally, because it was really
hard but also so worth it.
But, yeah, jealousy.
Short answer.
David (52:25):
What was that?
What was that North Star?
Can you define what that wasthat you were holding on to?
Ellecia (52:35):
What was?
It was a little bit etherealbecause it wasn't an exact
desire, but it was the oppositeof what I had had before, right,
like it was autonomy andfreedom and, and it's so easy to
(52:58):
fall into, like reallycodependent patterns and lots of
people pleasing and lots ofabandoning my own needs and my
own desires and like justtripping over my own boundaries
and, like you know, basicallynot having any for love.
And so it was really reallyimportant to me to to maintain
my, my own desires and autonomyand and sense of self in
(53:25):
relationships.
So, was that like North Star?
David (53:30):
So it's almost like in what tell me if this is right
for your lived experience.
I'm so curious.
I love this For you.
That like this is what I wantfor myself, and so for me to be
able to get this in the contextof polyamory, I have to be able
to allow this, and so, in orderto allow this, I have to endure
(53:54):
this because I want this.
Ellecia (53:57):
Yep, yep, that is exactly.
And actually that's funny thatyou say that, because I started
out like I'm not polyamorous,like I'm so in love with my
husband, but like not anybodyelse and I still want to have
sex with other people and he'svery polite.
I'm I now identify aspolyamorous, but at the time,
the first few years, I was like,nah, I don't think that's real,
(54:18):
I can't fall in love withmultiple people.
But he was very polyamorous, hewas.
I mean, I went through him, himgoing through NRE multiple,
multiple times, him goingthrough breakups, like all of
that, and I was just like, oh,that seems like too much until I
and so like I wouldn't go andlike date, I would have sex with
people, but I didn't have likeemotional dating with people
(54:41):
because I couldn't, I don't,don't, didn't feel like I had
the, the energetic output or theenergy available to me to
manage my emotions around whathe was doing, around feeling
jealous and insecure, and alsomanage my feelings of like guilt
.
(55:01):
And am I doing something wrongor am I not being loving if I'm
going out and falling in lovewith people?
Right, like I couldn't do bothof those at the same time.
I had to deal with one at atime, and so it was probably
four years that we had beentogether and open, five years,
six years before I actually likewent and fell in love and had
(55:25):
another relationship.
And then he was on the otherside now dealing with something
new for him of me beingpolyamorous fully in in in what
I was actually doing, ratherthan just in name.
So so, yeah, it was very muchlike here's what I want.
I have to.
(55:45):
I have to figure out how to beokay with you having it so that
I can then have it, yeah.
Jessica (55:54):
Fun, right.
I think there's a wisdom inthat.
There's like love, polyamorousphysics or something.
I see this a lot where it'sstaggered, you know, and there's
something, and there'ssomething that allows, yeah,
your nervous systems to pace andactually stay in it.
Ellecia (56:12):
when it is staggered like this, you know, yeah,
versus everything crumblingbecause it's all happening at
once, the analogy that I usedwhen I started dating and then
he was having big feelings whichweren't the same, you know,
they weren't the same as thefeelings I was having, but they
were big feelings was being arock in the center of a river.
(56:33):
Right, I was like, okay, here'swhere I'm at here.
This is within our agreements,this is, you know, like we're
good here, but I'm gonna stayright here and let you have your
feelings, his feelings beingthis raging river all around me
working their way through.
And I was like I'm just gonnastay right here until it calms
down before I make any moves orchanges or go and do something
(56:53):
else.
Right, it was like I'm a rock,we've agreed that everything
here is good and you're havingall of your feelings, and I'd
let him work those out before Imoved on to the next.
Okay, now I'm going on anotherdate or any progression of a
relationship.
Right, it was like, okay, let'swork this out first, but you
have your feelings, because Iknow how they feel.
David (57:14):
Do you feel like that's gonna say, did you feel like you
were able to do that because of, kind, of the initiation around
your own process of jealousy?
Ellecia (57:25):
Yeah, yeah, and prior I would have gone oh, you're
having big feelings, I'll stopdoing what I'm doing.
I don't ever want to cause youbad feelings but because I went
through it, I was like okay, Iknow you're having big feelings
and I'm gonna give you lots oftime to integrate, to settle
back, to feel like we're good.
Right, because that's what Ihad needed.
(57:46):
It was time to integrate, timeto feel calm again.
David (57:51):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I mean, that's something thatI'm.
What you're describing withthat rock image is really
something that I'm wanting toteach clients right, which is,
again, I love that sort of endpiece that you added on to it
(58:12):
previously.
Without the experience of goingthrough your own work, you
would have just okay, you'rehurt, this is hurting you, I'm
out, right.
It's kind of the two extremesthat I see is like people either
do that, they cave in and likemy needs, I'll just negate them
and let them go so you don'thurt, or they're like sorry, I'm
doing me, and you're just gonnahave to kind of figure this out
(58:32):
as we get dragged through themud together right Versus
integration.
What you're talking about isintegration, and that's one of
my favorite words around thesekinds of experiences with new
partners is can we slow down,let our partners feel what they
need to feel, have what theyneed to have and integrate and
(58:55):
how just that facilitates movingforward in a different way?
Ellecia (59:00):
Yeah, yeah, and then and do that while also
experiencing NRE and like tryingnot to feel resentful that you
aren't moving as fast as maybeyour partner did before.
Right, like there's so manypieces and I was able to go.
But I know that on the otherside of this, it's worth moving
slow, it's worth maintainingstability, and if I am
(59:24):
experiencing NRE with someonewho can't tolerate me moving
slowly, then we're notcompatible.
David (59:32):
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Yeah, I'm so appreciating yousharing this, this much of your
process.
It's really satisfying.
Jessica (59:42):
Thanks?
Yeah, I think so, and that'swhat maybe we could have learned
if we were to ever do somethinglike redo something from the
past.
Or what I want so many of myclients to see is like, if you
go slower and integrate like thestory you're sharing, it's like
you actually can build out tohold so much more and get
(01:00:03):
exactly where you want to right.
But with all of this strengthit just won't be as fricking
fast right, but it will be solid, you know, and it will be there
, and how much relationshipdestruction happens from going
too fast.
David (01:00:19):
Especially when there's a set that sense kind of like you
named, like when there's sortof imbalances from the past,
like oh, it's time for you tofeel I was hurt this way
previously, it's your turn nowto go through this.
Yeah right and it'sunderstandable.
From one level, it's actuallylike, yeah, there's some justice
in that, but what's the goal?
(01:00:39):
And it's like we have to likerecalibrate, then what is the
goal?
And so that's what I was reallyasking about what's that North
Star, what's the goal?
You know, and that clarity, Ithink, is really powerful.
Ellecia (01:00:54):
Yeah, yeah, so good, it's so good.
It's like you know, movingslowly allows you to expand your
capacity for holding all thethings, for being compassionate
for your partner, for holdingmultiple relationships, or it
(01:01:14):
just expands your capacity alsofor like your nervous system
right, so that conflict doesn'tfeel as fighty.
David (01:01:23):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely Beautiful.
Ellecia (01:01:28):
Thank you, I'm glad you asked.
Amazing.
I again, like I said, I adoreyour book, both books and the
workbook.
I recommend you constantly.
I would say it's actually funny.
My assistant was like tellJessica that her book,
(01:01:50):
polysecure, is the number onerecommended book on your podcast
.
You've mentioned it in almostevery episode.
Thank you, thank you, yeah, soI've been really excited for
this and I am loving PolyWise.
It's so good, so good.
Thank you, If people want tofind you, how can they find you?
David (01:02:18):
They can find me at restorativerelationshipcom.
That's my website.
Jessica (01:02:23):
I'm saying they can find me at jesscalferncom, my
website, beautiful, and thenoccasionally I'll be on.
Ellecia (01:02:28):
Instagram.
Sometimes I go over there,sometimes I look Right.
I'll put those in the shownotes.
I appreciate the heck out ofyou guys.
Thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you Thanks for having us.
David (01:02:43):
It's great to meet you, yeah.
Ellecia (01:02:44):
You too.
Hey, I'm Ellecia, your non-monogamous relationship
coach.
Welcome to the podcast where myfriends and I chat about our
relationships, enthusiasticnon-monogamy polyamory, swinging
kink and our lives.
You'll get a candid peek intowhat makes it worth it to live
life outside the box.
And in case you're stillwondering, nope, we're not
monogamous.
(00:35):
Welcome back to another excitingepisode of Nope we're Not
Monogamous, and I'm superexcited about today's
conversation.
It promises to be nothing shortof enlightening and
transformative.
Today we're joined by twoextraordinary guests, jessica
Fern and David Cooley, whosejourney through polyamory and
their groundbreaking work in thefield have inspired so many.
(00:57):
Jessica, you might recognizethis name, jessica Fern, the
author of Polysecure.
She brought us a profoundunderstanding of attachment
theory in the context ofnon-monogamous relationships and
more recently, alongside herco-author and partner, david
Cooley, they wrote Poly Wise,providing even more insights
(01:17):
into the world of ethical,non-monogamy polyamory,
essential non-monogamy.
You know non-monogamy, but thisepisode's more than just about
books.
It's about the stories, theexperiences, the challenges and
the triumphs that lie behind thepages.
It's about diving deep into thepsyche of relationships,
emotional intelligence andnavigating the intricate world
(01:40):
of polyamory.
So buckle up for a fascinatingride.
You're going to enjoy this, Iam sure of it.
And real quick.
Before we dive in, I want toshare something special with you
.
If you're enjoying the podcastand you want to be a more
integral part of our community,why not consider becoming a
(02:00):
member of the exclusive Patreonfamily for Nope we're Not
Monogamous at patreoncom slashnot monogamous.
By joining the Patreoncommunity, you're not only
keeping the show running, butyou gain access to behind the
scenes content, exclusive perks,and your support means the
world to me and it's what keepsthe podcast going strong.
(02:23):
Enjoy, that's what we want.
Amazing, awesome.
Okay, jessica and David,welcome to Nope, we're Not
Monogamous.
I am so so, so, so Thank you.
You're welcome.
I thank you.
I'm so excited to chat with youguys.
I've been a big fan ofJessica's work for a few years
(02:45):
now.
It was really cool.
When I read PolySecure I waslike it was so validating.
I was like, oh my God, this iswhat I've been doing, Converting
all this monogamous stuff tonon-monogamy.
And now and now, readingPolyWise, I'm like, yes, so good
.
I'm excited to.
(03:05):
I've already started puttingsome of your restorative justice
framework into action with someof my clients, which I'm very
excited about.
So, anyways, welcome.
David (03:17):
Cool.
Ellecia (03:19):
That's great.
Yeah, yeah, I am really, reallyOkay.
So here's the deal.
Nope, we're Not.
Monogamous is not aneducational podcast, it's a
here's what I was doing.
I was running into all of thisinformation that was, like you
know, poly 101, non-monogamy 101.
(03:39):
And I was like, yeah, but likehow did you figure that out?
Like I wanted to know whatpeople were actually doing
before they gave you the advice.
That was really good, but theydidn't necessarily follow
themselves, and so I just loveto chat with people about their
experiences and their lives andhow they come to be giving this
(04:01):
great information and advice.
Right?
So I would love to hear, yeah,Thank you I would just love to
hear.
It's like there's so much goodinformation, but like what'd you
really do, right, right.
So I would love to hear aboutyour guys's what non-monogamy
(04:26):
means to you, your relationshipphilosophies, or what do you got
going on.
David (04:35):
Once you start, Jess.
Jessica (04:36):
Oh, okay, we're both pointing at each other as in
like what do we have going on inthis moment?
Ellecia (04:43):
Yeah, yeah, you give a little bit in your book.
I love that.
You give a little bit of yourrelationship history.
But yeah, like, like what.
Where are you at now and how'dyou get there?
Jessica (04:53):
Yeah, yeah, well, I'll answer that as us together,
right, and it's been a 21 yearjourney being in each other's
lives.
Yeah, and we've taken manyforms for each other.
We met as classmates at aresidential massage program.
(05:13):
We had a little romantic thinginitially, and then we were
really good friends for a while,for several years.
We then got married, we had ason, we opened up, we were
polyamorous together, we gotdivorced, we lived apart.
We now live together and we areso right now, in this iteration
(05:39):
, we live together, we are lifepartners, we're creative
partners with this project.
Being co-authors, we kind oflive in this house.
We have a few acres, so we runa property together as well.
Yeah, and it's a sweet spot andwe have, you know, from we
would be like polyintimates, andeach of us have partners that
(06:02):
live outside of the house thatyou know we have relationships
with, that, we all haverelationships with.
So it's it's a pretty nicemoment for us and there's been a
lot of ups and downs not easymoments, you know in between.
Ellecia (06:18):
Yeah, oh, that is I love.
This is so fascinating.
You know, I we're kind of toldthat, like every, relationships
are kind of all or nothing.
Right, Like that's that's whatour culture is.
Like all or nothing.
Like you can't be friends withyour ex or you can't be business
partners, or you can't, or ifyou get back together, it's it's
(06:38):
now forever, Like there's soeverything's so black and white
and I love this like flow youguys have had and that you're
sharing.
Jessica (06:48):
Yeah, I think it's taken work for us to realize,
like, why throw the baby outwith the bathwater?
There's a lot of beauty in ourconnection and our relationship
and our compatibility, and justbecause some things don't work,
why do we have to throw all ofit out?
Yeah, and we just, we started.
David (07:06):
We started with a semi non-conventional approach.
You know, even when we weretalking about getting the
possibility of being married.
You know, a big part of thatconversation was recognizing
that there were elements ofconventional marriage that
didn't work for us.
Right, and so we wanted.
We were focused on a lot ofthings like gender equality and
(07:27):
what does that mean?
Like, how do we deconstructsort of some of the fixed gender
roles that are typical?
We also talked about therecognition that getting married
for us wasn't necessarily aforever thing and that that felt
good, actually, right, thatthere, you know, some of that
was my avoidant stuff for sure.
(07:47):
But there was also a component,I think, that wisely knew that
we would and we, I think weframed it this way in moments of
we may grow to the point wherebeing together in this marriage
doesn't make sense anymore, andcan that be okay?
And that scene is sort of afatal thing.
Jessica (08:04):
Or a failure, a failure Right.
David (08:07):
Exactly so those elements were there from the beginning.
I think we both had a lot offortune to have been exposed to
thoughts and ideas that haveallowed us to have kind of a
semi non-conventional approach,and that's become more and more
non-conventional as we've goneon, but when we met there was a
lot of that possibility.
Ellecia (08:27):
Well, I love that, thank you.
I love that my husband and Ihave been together 10 years and
we've never been monogamousbecause we were both married
previously, right and went.
Well, that's not what we wantto do again, and so this that
the idea of like, intentionallybuilding a relationship that
allows for growth and change andevolution is amazing, yeah.
David (08:49):
I think the way we're framing it makes it sound as if
we set ourselves up for thisreally smooth ride and in some
ways we didn't, but in otherways we definitely didn't.
We hit a lot of walls that manyconventional relationships or
marriages do hit and that reallygot exposed when we opened.
Ellecia (09:10):
Yeah, yeah.
What would you say was whatwere the biggest challenges when
you opened up?
David (09:19):
Yeah, I would say our kind of becoming face to face
with some of the deeply rootedcodependent patterns that we had
that we had never really seenas codependent or were framing
as codependent.
It was kind of just like, holyshit, we've been doing that, wow
, you know.
And so there was two.
There's two layers of that,well, actually three major
(09:41):
layers.
One was, yeah, I've beendealing with a relatively severe
form of autoimmunity since Iwas 19,.
Right, and so I've had tocompromise health, our whole
relationship, and you knowthat's come and gone in
different levels of intensity.
And we had our son was born.
(10:02):
He's now eight, right after hewas born, which, you know,
that's a gauntlet to go through.
That's a total initiation forany relationship, right.
You know, it's like the kind ofeven if you are monogamous, to
go through.
Having your first child is justsuch a process that can rock
the foundation of anyrelationship.
(10:22):
But then, right as that washappening, I got really, really
sick, like almost died kind ofsick, and that really put just
insane amounts of pressure onour relationship, you know, and
on Jessica in particular, yeah,on each of us for different
reasons obviously, and that tooka toll.
And so going through being newparents me almost dying and
(10:46):
having to figure that out reallyleft some significant scars.
And then those things neverreally got integrated and
repaired.
And then we opened and it wasjust like all that shit.
You know, even things beforeour son and before that issue
with my health all came out oncewe opened.
Ellecia (11:11):
You know, I always tell people, like, treat yourself
like a toddler, like, have youeaten?
Have you had enough food?
Do you need cuddles?
Right.
But like, sometimes lifedoesn't allow for that, right.
Like when you're not feeling,while you're grumpy, and then,
like, you start layering thingson top like a simplified way of
saying that.
David (11:34):
Absolutely, and we've been people that have always
like taken on really big things,like multiple big challenges at
once.
I'm not sure why we've donethat so consistently, but we've
really done that a lot.
It seems like our MO.
Jessica (11:46):
We can do it.
Yeah, I'll start graduateschool and move across the world
.
Deal, it's fine.
Ellecia (11:54):
Yeah, I'm curious.
I'm curious.
What is the question I'm askingyou?
What is emotional intelligence?
(12:15):
Is the words that came to mind,right?
So how does that play a part inthe evolution, the creation of
your relationship as it movesright, like as it grows?
How did, or how do you buildemotional intelligence to get to
(12:40):
the point where you'rereconciling all these things?
Great, question.
That makes sense, COVID brain.
David (12:49):
No, that's great.
That's a great question, Jess.
I feel like I've been talking alot.
Jessica (12:53):
Yeah, I'm not sure I get the question, though.
Right.
The emotional intelligencepiece seems like of course.
I mean, how do we do anyrelationships without emotional
intelligence?
And I think that's what I seein my relationships with my
clients and their relationships,like if the importance and
(13:15):
significance of our emotionalintelligence right, it matters
right, there's usually verylittle repair if there's low
emotional intelligence.
If there's low emotionalintelligence, there's a lot of
reactivity and defensiveness.
David (13:29):
Well, I was almost hearing.
I want to see if this was partof the question.
It was almost like what's someof the origins of our own
process around developingemotional intelligence?
Ellecia (13:38):
Yeah, yeah, I love what you said about with low
emotional intelligence, it'shard to make repair, and that's
where I think a lot of peopleget stuck right Is like okay,
these things happen, well, let'ssay sorry and move on right,
pretend they didn't happen.
Like, how do you develop theability to recognize what needs
(14:01):
to be repaired and then repairit and then keep moving forward?
Jessica (14:05):
Yeah, I was someone who would like things would really
pressure in relationship.
Like I remember my firstsignificant relationship in
college and it just like I wasletting things build and build.
All these things that werebothering me that he was doing,
that were dynamics, build andbuild, and build, and build and
(14:26):
build.
And then one day I was just, itjust blew the top and I was
done, but he didn't know any ofthose things that were building
and building and building.
So he had no opportunity torepair because by the time I hit
my thresholds I was done, right, and that was a huge wake up
for me.
Actually, I was like, wow,right, because my emotional
(14:49):
intelligence was pretty low inthat relationship where it was
like I didn't know how tocommunicate things that were
bothering me, I didn't know howto speak up for the things that
I was needing, and then by thetime all of that came to the
surface, there was no repairingit.
Those patterns were too long,like it was too much.
And then I could see for him hewas just shocked, right, he was
(15:11):
like whoa, what can't we fixthese things?
And it's like they're notfixable.
Right, I'm done, you know, likeI can't deal with this anymore.
And so I really vowed to myselffirst I don't want to do this,
I don't want to experience thatand I don't want to do this to
someone else right to like breaksomeone's heart in this way.
You know where they thought likewe're good, we're in this
(15:32):
amazing relationship and I'mactually not happy at all.
And so it was initially thisvery mechanical agreement I made
.
If I think of a like, ifsomething bothers me once, okay,
I can still keep it internallyand I'll try to work with it
Like is this really an issue?
How can I see this differently?
What can I maybe change?
(15:53):
And if I think about it twice,maybe I'll speak it up.
But if it happens a third timein my mind, I have to speak up
about it.
It was so simple and just like.
That's the agreement.
You know, if I've thought aboutit three times, even if it
seems petty and like silly orlike I'm worried that I'm too
(16:13):
needy so that's a big part ofemotional intelligence too is
like our relationship with theinner critic.
You know that says we're toomuch, we're not enough and keeps
us from being expressive inrelationship.
Ellecia (16:27):
Yes, that's brilliant, cause I do.
I have a lot, of a lot ofpeople will come and say, well,
I'm just, I'm trying to, I'mtrying to be cool Like I'm.
I'm, I don't want to make a bigdeal out of things.
They're, that's a my problem,it's not their problem.
Or or I just, you know then,just holding things in, holding
things in and there's like thisnon congruence, right, like like
they're.
(16:47):
They think they're being chilland cool about things, but
really internally they'rethey've got this struggle
happening and that energy isthere.
David (16:55):
Yeah.
Jessica (16:56):
Exactly Go ahead, Dave.
David (16:58):
Well, yeah, I think there's something interesting
about that, like why do peoplewant to come off as chill?
Why do people want to come offas quote unquote, not needy,
like this is so prevalent andit's something that I see with
clients across the boardrecognize my own version of it.
It was the way that we'resocialized.
You know a lot of what the workthat Jess and I wanted to do
(17:19):
with the book is to really kindof zoom out to some of the macro
causes of why people havechallenges in their
relationships.
What are the socializedinfluences that we bring to our
individual relationships?
And for me, there's this realdisconnect between our lived
experience, ie our feelings,needs and wants, right in the
(17:43):
capacity to own those andcommunicate those in
relationship.
And for me, this is this ishuge, it's massive.
How many people are strugglingwith this?
And the stigma that existsaround sort of naming your needs
and wants and relationship inthe way that we're really quick
either internally for ourselvesto downplay those or dismiss
those, or right that thepartners are sort of giving a
(18:07):
shit for it and sort of treatingour in treaties as problematic.
Ellecia (18:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's this idea that, like,if you're having any emotional
reaction other than like joy orhappiness, then you have to be
justified in it, right, likesomeone has to have harmed you
in order to be upset, and soit's like we automatically look
for well, what did you?
You know I'm having these bigfeelings.
(18:34):
What did you do wrong?
You're bad, you made me feelthese right, and even if we can
like logically go, well, that'snot really what happened.
It's almost like like we haveto come up with this
justification and then, and thenyou're fighting, and then you
fight.
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
David (18:52):
Yeah.
Jessica (18:56):
So that feels like a big piece, too of emotional
intelligence is are we on thedrama triangle, you know, which
is that model of a trianglefacing down with the perpetrator
, the rescuer on the top twopoints and the victim on the
bottom right, and that's oftenhow we conduct our relationships
, where there's a good guy,there's a bad guy, there's right
, there's wrong, there's thisblame, back and forth, you know,
(19:19):
or this enabling throughrescuing, and so that would be a
good like if you're on thedrama triangle, often we all get
on it, yeah, and so that's myemotional.
But the emotional intelligencepiece is oh, can I catch that?
I'm on it and do I have a wayoff it?
Right, can I communicate moreabout my feelings and needs, or
communicate in ways that aren'tjudging and blaming?
David (19:44):
Yeah, and I love that curious that question of you.
Know, what is it that reallyspurs people on to develop
emotional intelligence?
And I would say you knowrelational intelligence as well.
I think those are two differentthings that both really serve
each other, but what is it thatallows people to want to develop
(20:06):
those things?
You know, and I think that'sone of the things that's really
cool about non monogamy is thatI feel like it's really in part
inspiration and in part bynecessity.
It's a process throughrelationally, through which
people are really pushed todevelop emotional and relational
(20:26):
intelligence.
I think that's one of thecoolest things about it for me
is that it's an invitation.
It's a very powerful invitationto grow at that level.
Ellecia (20:37):
Yes, absolutely, I completely agree.
That's, that's one of myfavorite things is the necessity
to keep growing.
Yeah, amazing, amazing.
So I'm I'm curious about what.
(20:59):
What would you say are some ofthe best strategies or practices
for, for nurturing that kind ofgrowth in a relationship, in a
person?
I don't know.
David (21:23):
I guess you want to start that one.
Jessica (21:25):
Sure, I think I'm trying to think just what's my
own answer right, instead of thelike academic type of answer.
Yeah, for me I mean having theregular practice it's not always
a daily practice, but havingregular practice of just
(21:45):
stopping and tuning in.
You know so, sometimes thatlooks like journaling, sometimes
that's meditation, sometimesthat's whatever.
But this intentional pausing totune in and to like check in
with my parts and ask what'sgoing on here, yeah, that feels
like one of the most importantthings is sort of caring for the
(22:09):
interior, basically.
David (22:15):
Yeah, and for me I think it's you know, so much of my
process is revolves aroundconflict.
You know it's the work that I'mdoing with clients, as I'm
focused on how to teach peopleto approach and handle conflict
differently, and so for me,conflict has really become
central in terms of how toreally cultivate intimacy.
(22:36):
Like I really see it as one ofthe single best ways to develop
deeper levels of intimacy.
And I think the deeper I gointo exploring conflict and how
to operate within its realmdifferently, I'm seeing like,
wow, this is the single best wayinto levels of intimacy.
I don't know if we can get anyother way.
And so I'm really curious aboutwhat helps us do intimacy well
(23:01):
Excuse me conflict well, likewhat allows us to step in and
lean into conflict instead ofsort of away from it and see it
as something threatening.
And for me it's really likewhat allows us to stay curious
when we're triggered Like for methat's been this really big
sort of divide line in terms ofskill level is like what
(23:24):
actually, in the moment oftrigger feeling your nervous
system be activated allows youto stay present and engage with
the person with whom you're inthat trigger dance.
And for me that's a really bigthing.
And so the things that allow meto do that curiosity, to stay
curious with someone that I feeltriggered by is sort of
(23:46):
recognizing okay, what about mynervous system needs to get sued
or tended to right sort ofgoing back to that question of
needs and wants, like what do Ineed which is really a self
awareness thing in the moment tostay feeling safe that I can
give to myself and often it's areally simple thing, kind of
(24:06):
sort of what you're alluding to,jesse, and it's just like
tuning in and taking a breathand sort of calming my own sense
of agitation or threat response, like yeah, I'm okay, I'm good,
this is not a problem, this isuncomfortable, this sucks, this
is bringing up a lot internally,but I'm actually good and I'm
(24:27):
really curious about what'sgoing on for the other person
here, and so doing that innerwork to reduce my own threat
response to sort of thesituation at hand, so that I'm
able to stay engaged in a placeof curiosity about what's
happening for the other personinstead of making assumptions or
just attacking or shutting downcompletely, has been really
(24:49):
some of the most important workfor me.
Ellecia (24:52):
That's beautiful.
I love that, and it totallydoes go back to what Jessica
said and like checking in withyour parts and noticing what's
happening internally, which Ithink is a real, like huge
struggle for a lot of people isjust to even know that their
body has anything to say.
That's right.
Adrenaline hits.
I'm done Absolutely Exactly.
Jessica (25:13):
Yeah.
David (25:13):
Absolutely.
Jessica (25:15):
Yeah, I spent a very intensive period doing a lot of
like EMDR therapy and liketrigger work, like working on
all of those reactive triggers,and I think that's what really
created a shift in my whole life.
But you know, obviously in myrelationships where it's just
there wasn't as muchdefensiveness and reactivity and
(25:38):
like flashbacks, yeah.
Ellecia (25:41):
Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.
I love that.
For me it's breathwork, likedaily breathwork keeps me like
grounded, noticing what'shappening, noticing, you know,
like the little my hair standingup on the back of my neck.
I can like start soothingbefore I've like gone over the
cliff into fighting.
David (25:59):
Yeah, yeah, you mentioned , you know, kind of an interest
in restorative sort of frameworkthat's introduced in the book
and for me that was one of thebiggest initiations was doing
restorative justice work and sositting in restorative justice
circles or conferences withpeople that are really, really
(26:20):
charged.
You know, often these arepeople are not, these are
strangers, so they don't evenhave the incentive of being
family, necessarily right, oreven friends, and the stakes can
be very, very high in thosecircumstances.
And so, time after time,sitting in these tension filled
circles, it was really a greatopportunity for me to start
really observing my own nervoussystem in response to other
(26:42):
people's tension Right, and insome of those circles people are
rubs Like I've had clientsscream at my face Right and it's
like I have the clarity thatit's not about me.
They're activated becausewhat's happening in the space?
But it's really this amazingopportunity like, okay,
interesting, this is happeningright now.
What's my default sort ofinstinctual response and how
(27:04):
much power do I have tonegotiate that and do something
different?
That's potentiallycounterintuitive in this moment.
So that really was a massiveeye opener in terms of what's
possible for regulation in atension filled space and it
makes me think about martialartists or something, and it's
like you learn how to reallydeal with your body's
(27:26):
instinctive or fight or flightresponses.
One of my favorite quotes isfrom I don't remember who said
it, but I think somebody talkingabout Mike Tyson.
Right, it's like you can stepinto the ring with a plan, but
all that goes to like what yourplan looks like after you get
punched in the face is a wholedifferent game, right, and I
love that idea, that image, yeah.
Ellecia (27:49):
Yeah, now your nervous system is taking over instincts,
totally yeah.
Jessica (27:59):
And then extending that to our partners or the people
we're in relationship with.
Right, like remembering it'seasy to forget like, oh right,
they have a nervous system, theyhave a threat response to right
and that's getting activated.
They have parts that arewounded, they have parts that
are afraid, even if they lookpretty gnarly on the surface.
(28:21):
So that feels like a relationalintelligence piece as well of
what's going on in the interiorof my loved one that doesn't
look very loving towards meright now.
Yeah, yeah.
David (28:37):
Yeah, that's that curiosity piece.
Jessica (28:39):
Yeah.
David (28:40):
One of the things that you said, jess, in another
conversation we were having withsomeone else that's really
stuck with me is because I'vebeen thinking about ways when
introducing internal familysystems to clients.
People ask well, how do youknow when you're really in,
grounded or connected to yourmature adult self, versus really
being blended with a part?
(29:01):
And I think that's a reallyimportant thing that
practitioners should be offeringclients is what's your litmus
test for knowing whether or notyou're blended with a part or
not?
And I remember you saying, jess, if you can be curious, then
you've still got access, thenyou're still connected to your
mature adult self.
In that moment I'm like that'sabsolutely right.
I think that is sort of thesingle best piece of reflection
(29:26):
that someone could have to knowwhether or not they're really
where they are in themselves inany given situation, especially
attention-filled one.
Ellecia (29:35):
Yeah, that's really good.
That's really good, fantastic.
Okay, there's all these thingsthat have happened right, life
things.
How was it writing a booktogether?
Jessica (29:54):
That's a great question .
I don't know if it's, like youknow, giving birth or off, like
my birth, that I gave to birth,that I gave to my son.
The birth that I had wasextremely painful because of all
of the oxytocin, like youforget afterwards, right, like
it's conceptually.
I can't remember how painful itwas, so I don't know if there's
(30:17):
any of that happening likeafter the fact, you know, but I
do think overall it was fun.
Of course there's moments whereit's just hard to like.
You know there's deadlines andall of that kind of stuff, but I
think we really enjoyed thecreative and intellectual
process of flushing out and, youknow, unpacking things together
(30:40):
and we have a good groove oflike what our strengths are.
So usually like I'm writingahead and then Dave's coming in
and maybe refining or editing oradding, yeah, and then for his
chapter we had to flip which.
That was different.
David (31:02):
Yeah, I think it's one of the places where we have kind
of a strong connection, likekind of one of the places where
our connection has really stayedsort of the way it's always
been is just we love tostimulate each other
intellectually and so there's away in which just talking on a
(31:22):
daily basis is very fulfilling,and so to be able to do that on
paper was a lot of fun, you know, in terms of the exchange of
ideas, and I think we've gottento a really good place where it
just feels easy to lean intoeach other's advice or critiques
.
You know, I remember we've doneprojects in the past writing
projects and there were sort ofsome starts and fits and bumping
(31:46):
of egos, not so much but to acertain degree Whereas with this
book it feels like we've gottento a really cool place and I
just never felt that, you know,I never felt like we were ever
tussling over anything.
I remember some, you know,moments where we're having to
debate whether or not somethingthat's been written needs to get
cut or augmented or changed,and it just felt, you know,
(32:08):
there's so much trust forJessica's sensibility,
creatively and intellectually.
It's just like, yeah, okay,true that, like the way that
you're explaining that andcontextualizing that.
That makes sense.
Okay, yeah, let's cut it.
You know, instead of feelinglike, no, that's my baby, you
know, I think it probably alsohelps that you wrote an
incredibly successful book onyour own already, but there's
(32:31):
definitely credence to give.
But I think in general, even ifthat wasn't the case, I think,
you know, just trusting eachother's sensibility creatively
is really huge.
Jessica (32:42):
Yeah, I think it would be more minor things Like
there's certainly words that Ioveruse or Dave overuses, and
it's rather the other one crazyto see that word one more
fricking time.
You know.
Like really, yeah, just itwould be more funny stuff like
that.
Ellecia (32:58):
Yeah, I love that.
It's so fun to listen to.
I really, I really I skimmedthrough the PDF and I was
telling, I was telling Dave,before we hit record.
I skimmed over the PDF and nowI'm listening to the audio book
and I just love hearing the likelike here's Jessica Ferns voice
, who I've been listening to fora couple of years, right, and
(33:21):
then hi, it's David here.
He pops in with his very, like,very vulnerable moments that I
so, so, so appreciate, Likegoing back and going OK, I can
look back now and go here's whathappened.
And now I can look at it and go, oh, oh, I see it.
Just, I love that because it'sI want everyone to read it,
(33:45):
because I'm like, look, I cansee my clients and I can see my
partners in so many of thesethings.
I'm like, oh, look, this guydid this.
And like, they, they, they,they look back and go this is
what I should have done.
Yeah, I love it.
David (34:01):
Yeah, and that was really intentional for a lot of
reasons, but I think, you know,there was the, the sense that
you know, not that all of thesethings that we mentioned, these
dynamics, could happen couldn'thappen to anybody but I think
there was sort of a sense that,like in terms of therapy, in
(34:22):
terms of process work, there is,I think, a disproportionate
amount of women coming to thework and really being the
initiators in relationship, andwe really wanted to set an
example for men to lean in rightand really see a masculine
voice taking accountability andacknowledging some of these
(34:44):
things that can be really hardto do.
This level of vulnerability thatI think is hard for a lot of
men for a lot of reasons.
You know, particularly thesocialization of what it.
You know what it means to be aman or masculine these days, and
so it felt important to do thatand to make my kind of.
You know, I become the fall guyin some ways, but I think it
(35:08):
was important to do and it'sauthentic in terms of you know,
the stories that were recounting.
Yeah, it's really beautiful.
Jessica (35:16):
I think that was maybe an yeah, something we didn't
maybe think about beforehand.
But there were moments inwriting the book where, because
we were telling our story andeven though it was maybe a story
that we knew, it's so differentto write it out and moments
where I think we both got evenmore healing about our past than
(35:38):
, like, I maybe didn't eventhink, oh, I need this.
But in the process of uswriting or then talking through,
or there might have been one ortwo moments where we're like I
don't think it happened that wayand we had to, like hash it out
and realize what, what is thecoherent narrative here?
That there was like a deeperhealing around our past too.
David (35:57):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely I think there were.
I had several male clientsrecently say to me after
listening to the book, orreading the book you know,
especially in the in the lastchapter, there's a very open and
descriptive expose on just thechallenges that I faced, like
(36:20):
how hard some of the momentsbecame for me and how low it got
for me, kind of my dark nightof the soul with opening the
relationship, and they're likethem talking about feeling seen
in a way that was so healing,was really validating for me and
really moving.
(36:41):
And I remember, you know, onworking on that piece, like I
was crying, like while writingthat, like openly weeping,
reliving some of that and it wasso good it was.
I didn't, I was.
I was actually surprised bythat and have never had that
experience in writing something.
Usually it's a much morecerebral experience and so
(37:03):
there's something sort of veryhealing for me to be able to
connect that much somatic andemotional experience into
writing, and so I love that.
I really feel grateful for that.
Ellecia (37:17):
Yeah, beautiful, that's .
That's exactly exactly what itit.
That's the idea that I got fromit right Was like oh, here's,
here's this vulnerability piecethat isn't like oh, look at me,
look at all the work I did, butjust like this is what happened
and this is how I felt Right,and it's like it's just really
(37:39):
vulnerable and it's just so real.
I love it.
What?
And that's my listeners, youmust go read the book.
It makes all our work easier.
Jessica (37:52):
Yeah.
David (37:53):
Hopefully, yeah.
Jessica (37:56):
And I like that about this book is, you know, we kind
of go back and forth of story,more personal story, or even
little mini anecdotes in thebeginning of this chapter to you
know, like theory and all ofthat stuff and practice.
So yeah, I like that it hasmore of the narrative piece in
there.
Ellecia (38:18):
Totally, totally.
I love that.
Okay, I have a question for youthat I ask everyone that comes
on Polyamory or nonmonogamy isthis an identity or a
relationship choice?
Are we born polyamorous ormonogamous, or do we choose it?
Jessica (38:45):
You want me to answer, or you, dave.
David (38:48):
You know, you've got the kind of got the lockdown on your
, your model, so go for it.
Jessica (38:54):
I say both, and what I see is that some people, it's
absolutely their orientation.
Well, it can be an identity,whether it's a choice or you're
born with it.
So I think many people take iton as their identity, or claim
it as their identity, and thenthey might feel, though, that
it's a choice or that it's moreof their orientation.
(39:18):
And, yeah, what I see is thatit's, it's both.
It's not one or the other isthat many people truly feel this
to be how they're oriented, andthere's a lot of negative
consequences to not living outthat orientation.
Same thing on the other end ofthe spectrum people feel more
wired for monogamy, and thatfeels like an orientation to
(39:40):
them, and I think it's importantthat we allow that right, that
that's valid, and then for manypeople it is it's a choice that
they can go in and out of.
They choose.
Sometimes.
They don't choose other times,or they wouldn't have chosen it
all, unless they're.
It was only because theirpartner wanted to open up, or
(40:00):
their partner felt that theywere orientation, and then they
step into it as a lifestyle andthey're like okay, I can, I can
do this, even if it's not easysometimes.
Yeah, but I think this has itslarger roots, this question and
sort of this debate that ouridentities aren't valid unless
(40:21):
they are not a choice.
And it's like why is that thecase, right?
Like why can't my identity becompletely valid and even
legally valid, right, even ifit's twice, right, right?
Ellecia (40:37):
Yeah, yeah, especially since a lot of us identify with
our careers.
Right, that are choices.
Jessica (40:44):
Right, right.
David (40:48):
And in so many ways I think, actually identity is a
choice.
It's just.
It's often we don't realizethat.
You know, and so much of humanlife is set by default.
You know just by where we'reborn, the particular
circumstances into which we'reborn, and yet that doesn't mean,
then, that you are notcontinuing to choose that
(41:12):
identity for yourself.
We inherit it, the structure,the infrastructure of the
identity, from where we're from,but then that at some point
there is the opportunity tochange all that.
I think one of the mostfascinating things about this
question for me is, even alongthis spectrum that we're naming
you can change A person, aperson who was identifying as I
(41:35):
am.
Polybiorientation can switch.
I've seen it right For years.
They're like this is my reality, I was born this way, and then
that's changed.
And then on the other side,I've seen the other flip, where
someone was like drug kickingand screaming into polyamory
because of a partner, and thennow they're like this is who I
(41:55):
am.
It could not be another way.
Ellecia (41:58):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, totally relatable, because I
spent most of my life monogamous.
But fine, right, but like Icould never go back now ever, I
mean, I guess, unless I justdidn't have the spoons to deal
with multiple people, right, butI think I would still identify
(42:21):
as polyamorous.
Jessica (42:23):
Yeah, and that's what's so interesting about behaviors
versus identity, right?
Because, like, yeah, I identifyas polyamorous, but sometimes I
might only have one partner.
That doesn't not make mepolyamorous, right?
Or many people identify asmonogamous and they're cheating
all over the place.
(42:43):
They're far from monogamous,right.
I mean, statistically, that'swhat we would say is most people
espouse monogamy and don'tactually practice it, right?
Or many people say that they'restraight and their behaviors
are far from straight behaviors.
Yeah, yeah, that is so real.
Yeah.
So what's our actual behaviors?
(43:04):
What is our actual livedexperience?
And then, how do we identifyand how congruent or not are
those things?
Ellecia (43:13):
Oh, I love that.
That's fantastic, amazing.
What is one thing that anyonecan do for free to have
healthier or betterrelationships?
David (43:36):
That's a good question.
Jessica (43:38):
I was thinking of you saying breathwork.
I was like just breathe,breathe and pause, slow down.
Everyone can do that for free.
Yeah, yeah.
Ellecia (43:52):
Oh good.
David (43:55):
Yeah, I would say really looking at the origins of your
conflict templates.
What are the?
What have you learned?
What have you internalizedabout conflict from where you
come from, Like based on whatyou saw growing up, what is your
(44:18):
template and how does thatpredispose you to make conflict
better or worse?
Ellecia (44:29):
The thing that comes to mind for me when you say that
is I wonder how much people areaware that conflict can happen
other ways.
David (44:39):
Exactly yeah.
Ellecia (44:41):
So like that's not the only way to fight Right.
David (44:48):
One of my, one of my favorite thinkers is a guy named
George Lachoff and he was likehe was a I mean, he still is.
He's a political writer and hetalks about the power of frames
to really determine.
He was a linguistic specialistin particular, but he used that
(45:08):
in the context of politics andhelping people understand the
ways that metaphors and languageare used to really control sort
of the movement of publicdecision, and so one of the
things that I really loved wasthe ways in which he helped
people understand that themetaphors that they're using to
describe a situation are reallysetting a template by which
(45:31):
action then sort of naturallyflows as a consequence.
And, by extension, one of thethings that I do with clients is
really try to get people tounderstand that there's a
literal nervous systemconsequence of the metaphors
that you use, and so if we thinkof something as a battle and we
(45:52):
start using a battle or a fight, conflict, sort of metaphor for
what's happening, your nervoussystem is going to respond and
set itself up for that kind ofexperience, right, and so it was
interesting to think about sortof and he was sort of comparing
sort of classic definitions orways of thinking about life like
(46:12):
in the West versus the East.
Right, I'm using those termsvery, very generally, but East
and West but in the West is likewe love combat narratives right
, everything's hard,everything's a challenge,
everything you're fightingagainst.
Right, the hero's journeyyou're conquering some evil.
Right, there's that good andevil binary that really is
embedded in so much of ourmythology in the West.
(46:32):
And so he's talking about older.
He's talking about oldersocieties like India, where
they're sort of move beyond thatkind of binary in terms of good
and bad.
And there's more.
You hear people talking aboutlife as a dance and just think
about, like, what does that feellike to think about life as a
battle versus a dance?
(46:53):
What does it mean to show up toa battle versus a dance?
And how does your nervoussystem, literally, what's your
somatic experience inrelationship to those metaphors?
And so I think, yeah, what is Ilike to say?
Conflict?
Conflict is an invitation.
It's not a battle, it's aninvitation to deeper intimacy.
Ellecia (47:13):
That is so good.
I use a lot of metaphors and itnever occurred to me that the
metaphors you use set up, set upthe reaction your nervous
system is going to have.
Yesterday I had a client ask mewhat's the recipe?
How do I do this?
Right?
I'm like well, okay, like it'snot baking, it's not a science,
it's not, you know, it's notchemical reactions where you
(47:34):
have to have the exactingredients.
It's more like making stonesoup, where all the partners
bring whatever they have on handand you all throw it in a pot
and see what you get, and thensomebody maybe add some salt and
some.
You know you get a littlecoaching or therapy and that's a
little basil, like you justkind of see what you need after
you throw everything in the pot,but the cooking metaphor feels
(47:57):
really nice.
David (48:00):
Totally.
I love that Exactly.
Jessica (48:05):
That's funny, the cooking metaphor too, yeah.
Ellecia (48:10):
I'm always trying to find metaphors because it's like
how do you just make everythingaccessible and understandable
in a way that, like you don'tfeel like you're reading a
textbook or you know it, likemakes sense in like my everyday
life.
Because so much of what peopleare doing, especially moving
from, you know, a monogamousparadigm to a non-monogamous
(48:32):
paradigm, is like just makesyour brain kind of boil, Like
trying to figure out a mathequation Like what am I doing?
What am I supposed to do?
What's the right answer?
David (48:47):
Yeah, absolutely.
Ellecia (48:50):
Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you
want to share with listeners orwith me?
Yeah, so great.
Thank you, thank you so much.
David (49:04):
No one's ever asked that.
Jessica (49:09):
We're stumped, it's like so many things, and no,
we're good, this is great.
David (49:15):
Yeah, I think my default is always questions Like.
What I would default to isstart asking you questions you
know kind of curious about yourexperience and your exploration
of this, and I love that.
Ellecia (49:27):
I love conversations.
David (49:33):
Wait was that a question.
I think it's sort of yeah, it'spotentially.
The question is like theprelude to a question, I guess.
Yeah, I mean, you know for you,I'm curious to know what's been
one of the biggest challengesfor you and your non monogamous
journey.
Ellecia (49:49):
Jealousy.
How do you?
Jessica (49:53):
work with it.
Ellecia (49:57):
Yeah, yeah, I love that .
So so I I like, like I said, Iwas married monogamously for 13
years, very, very romantic, verybig, you know, lots of like,
possessiveness and your mind,just way of being in love, right
.
And then when I got divorced, Iwas like, well, I'm really
(50:19):
horny and really slutty and so Iwant to have sex with lots of
people.
I guess I'll just go do thatand be honest, because that
seems like the right thing to do.
I didn't know anyone who isethically non monogamous.
That just wasn't a thing.
And then, a few months later, Imet my second husband and fell
in love and and he was likeyou're the one.
And I was like, no, I'm not.
(50:39):
He's like no, no, no, also, I'm, I'm polyamorous, I'm dating
this couple, I have this longterm partner.
And I was like, wait, what?
Hmm, how do I do this?
So I was like here's what Iwanted, right, to go and go and
be free and and have autonomyand adventure.
But also I knew that I was veryjealous and possessive and like
(51:01):
those traits didn't serve me inany positive way.
So I knew I was going to haveto tackle those.
So there was like this realstruggle between like, here's
what I want.
I can see where I want to be,like the other side of that
river, and yet here I am, like,constantly falling in the water,
trying to step across withjealousy.
And so it took a lot of, youknow, healing attachment wounds,
(51:27):
healing past relationshipwounds.
Lots of breathwork, lots ofmasturbation, you know, self
love and just really, I thinkthe most important thing for me
was holding on to my the NorthStar, like my vision, like what
it was that I wanted, where itwas, I wanted to be, even though
(51:48):
my body was like, no, you'redying and everybody is out to
get you and nobody loves you andeverybody hates you.
It was like, but I know thatit's possible to get there, so
I'm just going to keep doing,you know, just going to keep
journaling and keep doingbreathwork and keep loving
myself.
And it took a couple of years,you know, and we were very
actively non monogamous alongthe way, but, like, I have a
(52:12):
couple of blog posts where Italk about how I cried every day
for a year, like, likeliterally, because it was really
hard but also so worth it.
But, yeah, jealousy.
Short answer.
David (52:25):
What was that?
What was that North Star?
Can you define what that wasthat you were holding on to?
Ellecia (52:35):
What was?
It was a little bit etherealbecause it wasn't an exact
desire, but it was the oppositeof what I had had before, right,
like it was autonomy andfreedom and, and it's so easy to
(52:58):
fall into, like reallycodependent patterns and lots of
people pleasing and lots ofabandoning my own needs and my
own desires and like justtripping over my own boundaries
and, like you know, basicallynot having any for love.
And so it was really reallyimportant to me to to maintain
my, my own desires and autonomyand and sense of self in
(53:25):
relationships.
So, was that like North Star?
David (53:30):
So it's almost like in what tell me if this is right
for your lived experience.
I'm so curious.
I love this For you.
That like this is what I wantfor myself, and so for me to be
able to get this in the contextof polyamory, I have to be able
to allow this, and so, in orderto allow this, I have to endure
(53:54):
this because I want this.
Ellecia (53:57):
Yep, yep, that is exactly.
And actually that's funny thatyou say that, because I started
out like I'm not polyamorous,like I'm so in love with my
husband, but like not anybodyelse and I still want to have
sex with other people and he'svery polite.
I'm I now identify aspolyamorous, but at the time,
the first few years, I was like,nah, I don't think that's real,
(54:18):
I can't fall in love withmultiple people.
But he was very polyamorous, hewas.
I mean, I went through him, himgoing through NRE multiple,
multiple times, him goingthrough breakups, like all of
that, and I was just like, oh,that seems like too much until I
and so like I wouldn't go andlike date, I would have sex with
people, but I didn't have likeemotional dating with people
(54:41):
because I couldn't, I don't,don't, didn't feel like I had
the, the energetic output or theenergy available to me to
manage my emotions around whathe was doing, around feeling
jealous and insecure, and alsomanage my feelings of like guilt
.
(55:01):
And am I doing something wrongor am I not being loving if I'm
going out and falling in lovewith people?
Right, like I couldn't do bothof those at the same time.
I had to deal with one at atime, and so it was probably
four years that we had beentogether and open, five years,
six years before I actually likewent and fell in love and had
(55:25):
another relationship.
And then he was on the otherside now dealing with something
new for him of me beingpolyamorous fully in in in what
I was actually doing, ratherthan just in name.
So so, yeah, it was very muchlike here's what I want.
I have to.
(55:45):
I have to figure out how to beokay with you having it so that
I can then have it, yeah.
Jessica (55:54):
Fun, right.
I think there's a wisdom inthat.
There's like love, polyamorousphysics or something.
I see this a lot where it'sstaggered, you know, and there's
something, and there'ssomething that allows, yeah,
your nervous systems to pace andactually stay in it.
Ellecia (56:12):
when it is staggered like this, you know, yeah,
versus everything crumblingbecause it's all happening at
once, the analogy that I usedwhen I started dating and then
he was having big feelings whichweren't the same, you know,
they weren't the same as thefeelings I was having, but they
were big feelings was being arock in the center of a river.
(56:33):
Right, I was like, okay, here'swhere I'm at here.
This is within our agreements,this is, you know, like we're
good here, but I'm gonna stayright here and let you have your
feelings, his feelings beingthis raging river all around me
working their way through.
And I was like I'm just gonnastay right here until it calms
down before I make any moves orchanges or go and do something
(56:53):
else.
Right, it was like I'm a rock,we've agreed that everything
here is good and you're havingall of your feelings, and I'd
let him work those out before Imoved on to the next.
Okay, now I'm going on anotherdate or any progression of a
relationship.
Right, it was like, okay, let'swork this out first, but you
have your feelings, because Iknow how they feel.
David (57:14):
Do you feel like that's gonna say, did you feel like you
were able to do that because of, kind, of the initiation around
your own process of jealousy?
Ellecia (57:25):
Yeah, yeah, and prior I would have gone oh, you're
having big feelings, I'll stopdoing what I'm doing.
I don't ever want to cause youbad feelings but because I went
through it, I was like okay, Iknow you're having big feelings
and I'm gonna give you lots oftime to integrate, to settle
back, to feel like we're good.
Right, because that's what Ihad needed.
(57:46):
It was time to integrate, timeto feel calm again.
David (57:51):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I mean, that's something thatI'm.
What you're describing withthat rock image is really
something that I'm wanting toteach clients right, which is,
again, I love that sort of endpiece that you added on to it
(58:12):
previously.
Without the experience of goingthrough your own work, you
would have just okay, you'rehurt, this is hurting you, I'm
out, right.
It's kind of the two extremesthat I see is like people either
do that, they cave in and likemy needs, I'll just negate them
and let them go so you don'thurt, or they're like sorry, I'm
doing me, and you're just gonnahave to kind of figure this out
(58:32):
as we get dragged through themud together right Versus
integration.
What you're talking about isintegration, and that's one of
my favorite words around thesekinds of experiences with new
partners is can we slow down,let our partners feel what they
need to feel, have what theyneed to have and integrate and
(58:55):
how just that facilitates movingforward in a different way?
Ellecia (59:00):
Yeah, yeah, and then and do that while also
experiencing NRE and like tryingnot to feel resentful that you
aren't moving as fast as maybeyour partner did before.
Right, like there's so manypieces and I was able to go.
But I know that on the otherside of this, it's worth moving
slow, it's worth maintainingstability, and if I am
(59:24):
experiencing NRE with someonewho can't tolerate me moving
slowly, then we're notcompatible.
David (59:32):
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Yeah, I'm so appreciating yousharing this, this much of your
process.
It's really satisfying.
Jessica (59:42):
Thanks?
Yeah, I think so, and that'swhat maybe we could have learned
if we were to ever do somethinglike redo something from the
past.
Or what I want so many of myclients to see is like, if you
go slower and integrate like thestory you're sharing, it's like
you actually can build out tohold so much more and get
(01:00:03):
exactly where you want to right.
But with all of this strengthit just won't be as fricking
fast right, but it will be solid, you know, and it will be there
, and how much relationshipdestruction happens from going
too fast.
David (01:00:19):
Especially when there's a set that sense kind of like you
named, like when there's sortof imbalances from the past,
like oh, it's time for you tofeel I was hurt this way
previously, it's your turn nowto go through this.
Yeah right and it'sunderstandable.
From one level, it's actuallylike, yeah, there's some justice
in that, but what's the goal?
(01:00:39):
And it's like we have to likerecalibrate, then what is the
goal?
And so that's what I was reallyasking about what's that North
Star, what's the goal?
You know, and that clarity, Ithink, is really powerful.
Ellecia (01:00:54):
Yeah, yeah, so good, it's so good.
It's like you know, movingslowly allows you to expand your
capacity for holding all thethings, for being compassionate
for your partner, for holdingmultiple relationships, or it
(01:01:14):
just expands your capacity alsofor like your nervous system
right, so that conflict doesn'tfeel as fighty.
David (01:01:23):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely Beautiful.
Ellecia (01:01:28):
Thank you, I'm glad you asked.
Amazing.
I again, like I said, I adoreyour book, both books and the
workbook.
I recommend you constantly.
I would say it's actually funny.
My assistant was like tellJessica that her book,
(01:01:50):
polysecure, is the number onerecommended book on your podcast
.
You've mentioned it in almostevery episode.
Thank you, thank you, yeah, soI've been really excited for
this and I am loving PolyWise.
It's so good, so good.
Thank you, If people want tofind you, how can they find you?
David (01:02:18):
They can find me at restorativerelationshipcom.
That's my website.
Jessica (01:02:23):
I'm saying they can find me at jesscalferncom, my
website, beautiful, and thenoccasionally I'll be on.
Ellecia (01:02:28):
Instagram.
Sometimes I go over there,sometimes I look Right.
I'll put those in the shownotes.
I appreciate the heck out ofyou guys.
Thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you Thanks for having us.
David (01:02:43):
It's great to meet you, yeah.
Ellecia (01:02:44):
You too.
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