Opening Your Relationship the Right Way with Ally Iseman (Pt. 1)

Is jealousy actually good for your relationship? Foster and Cesar sit down with relationship coach and non-monogamy educator Ally Iseman, for a candid conversation about opening their relationship and the practice of ethical non-monogamy (ENM) or consensual non-monogamy (CNM) – wait, what’s the difference?? Turns out there’s a skill set behind building conscious partnerships. Ally offers a compassionate framework that challenges the inherited scripts most of us never questioned. Whether you're polyamorous, monogamous, or simply curious about what healthy relationships can look like, this conversation is a masterclass in emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and the courage it takes to truly know yourself.

In this episode they explore: 

• Is jealousy actually good for your relationship?
• The one question to ask before you open your relationship
• How to stay emotionally connected to your partner while exploring non-monogamy
• The four types of jealousy and what each one is trying to tell you

Ally Iseman, CRC: 

• What is your relationship style? Take the quiz! 
• Passport 2 Pleasure
• IG: @allyiseman or @passport2pleasure

If this episode spoke to you, you will love Curiosity Over Conflict: How to Heal Relationships with JJ Brake (Pt. 1) where an expert couples therapist helps with common relationship conflicts. You can also watch the episodes on YouTube.

If you enjoyed this episode, take a moment to follow Beauty in the Break on your favorite podcast app and leave a review—it really helps!

Reach out to the show—send an email or voice note to beautyinthebreakpod@gmail.com and be sure to follow on Instagram and TikTok. 

Cesar Cardona:

• Receive his newsletter Insights That Matter
• Get guided meditation from Cesar on his website 
• Listen to music from Cesar + The Clew on Apple Music and Spotify

Foster Wilson:

• Buy her poetry book Afternoon Abundance
• Learn about her postpartum services
• Receive her newsletter Foster’s Village

Created & Hosted by: Cesar Cardona and Foster Wilson

Executive Producer: Glenn Milley

Editor: Bessie Fong

Special Guest: Ally Iseman, CRC

This episode is brought to you by Arlene Thornton & Associates

Transcript

Jealousy is the single most misunderstood and underutilized emotional experience to deepen intimacy and develop trust in our relationships.
Oh shit, we just tried that. It's awful. I feel terrible.
I'm extremely jealous right now. That was not pleasant in any way.
And I need these kinds of support and affirmation from you. Are you available for that right now?
Boundaries aren't walls. Boundaries are just the edges of our comfort zone.
They're actually designed to be pushed consensually and in a safe container in order to grow.
Welcome to Beauty in the Break.
Here we explore stories of how barriers are broken, both within ourselves and within the world.
I'm Foster Wilson.
And I'm Cesar Cardona.
This is a home for you, questioning the rules you inherited and choosing your own path forward.
We are here with you on this messy and courageous journey. Let's dive in.
Welcome to Beauty in the Break. It is my pleasure to introduce our guest today, Ally Iseman.
She is a relationship coach, a writer, a speaker, and a founder of the inclusive relationship education platform, Passport 2 Pleasure.
And most importantly for our conversation today, Ally, Ally is a non-monogamy educator, which, girl, this is what we need today.
Okay, this is what we have, why we have you on the show. So welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. I'm here for it. Let's go.
Let's go. I want to tell our beloved listeners that we have a real treat today because what Ally has agreed to do for us is a two-part series.
So today's episode is going to be the three of us chatting with all of our burning questions, some of your burning questions about polyamory, non-monogamy, all of the things, all of the questions.
And then next week she is going to stay with us and she's going to do a coaching session with Cesar and I.
She works with couples and she's going to coach us through these parts of opening our relationship that may have become sticky, that we want to work on, and show us really what it's like to work with a coach like Ally.
So thank you for your generosity.
Oh my God, thank you for the invitation because I just want to say I really appreciate it that we're getting to talk about and look at both sides because I think it's so easy to go, oh, well, I listened to a podcast, now I know what this is.
Right, exactly.
And jump right in, right?
And it's a little messy and it can be and there's a lot of questions that people have if this is something they're exploring or even if they're not and they're just curious about it.
Listen to the whole episode today, of course, and then also come back next week and listen to part two because I'm sure it's going to be very juicy.
So we're so glad you're here.
And can you just start us off with telling us what's beautiful in your world today?
Oh, I love that.
I love that.
Yeah, I think we get into these like very by rote, memorized, you know, oh, hi, how are you?
How are you?
And we don't even listen to or really register that question.
So I love what's beautiful in my world.
I would say I'm really loving the opportunities that have been presenting themselves.
I'm a writer by trade in a number of ways.
I've been a screenwriter and also do a lot of written content, journalism, things like that.
And I'm now actually stepping into writing my first book.
And I have just gotten to be like nerding out in the incredible relationships and opportunities and introductions that have just come in through saying, yes, I'm starting this.
It's an overused word, but I am so grateful.
I have been blown away.
I am in true awe and appreciation for just the wonderful people in my life and the gift that I even get to be able to do this now.
So I'm delighted in the beauty of that experience.
That is beautiful.
I love that.
Congratulations.
I have actually been wondering and all of the listening I have done and knowing you and studying you, I've been like, where's her book?
So I'm excited that's coming.
Start us off here with a couple of like definition terms.
Give us some terminology here.
So I want to just ask you, what is monogamy?
Fantastic question.
We think we know the answer, but I think you should give us the answer.
Your answer.
Well, and I love inviting definitions because I think that's the root of so much conflict that I see, especially in couples.
They're saying the same words, so they think they're saying the same thing.
And they actually have two completely different definitions of it, and they've never talked about it.
That's a good point.
So I love that we're starting here, and I love that we're starting with defining monogamy because I think that's also a really easy one because it's the socially accepted script, right?
So, well, I know what that is.
I've seen it on TV.
People talk about it.
We don't have to have any discussions about what that means to you.
But monogamy itself has even changed how we define it culturally, socially.
It has completely changed.
Monogamy used to mean one romantic sexual partner for life.
Now it means at a time.
So that is a different definition.
So it has changed.
I love the fact that constantly, like all things in this society, change.
They evolve.
Words change.
Collective societies change.
Concepts change.
It all has changed.
We hold on to the one little thing that we happen to be born in, and we think it's got to be the way.
When it changes, we get all upset about it.
But it changed from where you were before you got here, you know?
Well, it's uncomfortable, right?
It's new.
And we have a whole society built around avoiding discomfort.
So change is innately uncomfortable because change evokes the potential for growth.
Growth is inherently uncomfortable.
They're not called growing pleasures.
Like, right?
It's a little awkward.
So, yeah.
Important to recognize.
Okay.
So with one person at a time.
At a time.
Okay.
Got it.
So then how would you define commitment?
Commitment would be what do you show up for in integrity regularly?
So consistency, for example.
I think a lot of folks confuse commitment with exclusivity as a synonym, which is not necessarily
the case.
Unless you are committed to exclusivity, and that's what you have agreed to in the context
of your relationship.
You can commit to that.
But it's what are the things that you're showing up for in integrity consistently over
time?
You think that needs to be defined between two people?
One hundred million percent.
What does commitment look like to you?
Yes.
What are you committed to?
What relationship are you available for?
Because we're in relationship.
I'm in relationship with you guys here right now in this conversation.
I'm in relationship with your listeners.
Like, we're always in relationship.
And we give this weight to like, we're in a relationship.
Oh, my God.
I'm not ready for a relationship.
Fun fact, you're in one.
So what types of commitment or relating are you available for right now?
Yeah.
It makes me think like when we first started dating, there is a commitment to each other.
And then there was this other component of like, I come with two children and I wasn't necessarily
asking my partner to be committed to my children.
But then over time, that's something he kept expressing he wanted to commit to.
I want to be there for them in these ways.
And that doesn't look like cohabitating for us, but it looks like him showing up in other
ways.
And that has been something I think we have been defining and redefining as the relationships
have grown.
Constantly.
I would also say in addition to that is that very often if people's common definition of
commitment or monogamy is so different, the real work is finding out how to get in accord
with each other, how to get on track with each other to find the common ground, even though
we won't ever see it exactly the same.
Going hand in hand, driving the same car, but still being in different seats nonetheless.
So the view is different, obviously.
But the goal is still to go that direction.
Which is why I think you talk a lot about staying curious.
Yeah.
The metaphor too of the car is really, really great because I call it a relation trip.
We treat a relationship like a destination.
We got the relationship.
We're together now.
Like we did it.
We're there.
We're done.
Like that's the beginning of the relationship.
You're in that car or whatever vehicle of choice, you know?
Yeah.
And it's an ongoing conversation.
And ideally, to your point, yeah, you stay curious in there.
I see the downfall of so many relationships of like, oh, I know my partner inside and out.
This is like a marker of pride.
I know what they're going to say.
We finish each other's sentences.
That's just called interrupting.
You actually will never, ever know your partner front to back, top to bottom, inside and out
because they're constantly changing.
They are constantly investigating who they are.
What a beautiful gift to be unfolding with each other for however long you're together.
There's a part of us that I find that we want to do as humans.
We constantly want to get a full understanding of a thing and put our hands around it and
hope it doesn't change.
As a Buddhist, we're taught that the opposite is what happens in life.
Everything consistently changes.
Why do we want that so much?
Why do we want to know so much about our partner that we can put our hands on our hips and put
our chest out and say, I know them forward and backward?
I'll come from a neurological perspective.
Our brain's whole job is finding patterns and creating safety, right?
Looking for threats, associating them, figuring out what, you know, how we need to show up
to protect ourselves, et cetera.
So the known feels a lot safer than the unknown.
Yeah.
It's just a pure biological fact of evolution.
Our body physiologically doesn't know the difference, for example, between like being trapped in a
cage with a hungry lion or, you know, getting up and doing your TED talk.
Same feeling.
So that sense of known, right?
If I have this known entity, I don't have to constantly be monitoring it as a threat and
checking in.
It feels safe.
But it's mistaking.
It's mistaking that sense of known or maybe like controlling the scenario or the person or whatever
it is as safety.
Just because something is unknown or elicits that curiosity, creating agreements around it
called the relationship is actually what creates that sense of safety.
The relationship container ideally is a safe space to be uncomfortable in, to go, hey, I've learned
this about myself.
I want to talk to you about it.
And I don't even know how I feel, let alone how you're going to react.
And that's really scary.
But we've created a relationship with agreements that say we show up and we ask questions and
we come from compassion or whatever that looks like for you.
Yeah.
Does that make sense?
Is that answer your question?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And that has nothing to do with monogamy, non-monogamy.
Exactly.
Like it's just relationship.
Yeah.
And in general, even outside of a romantic relationship, it does beg the question for me in this context
of the conversation we're having, how quickly we want to have the familiarity of this person.
And in no way do we want to even imagine, quote unquote, sharing that individual.
Just something simple as why are you looking at that girl that way?
Why or why is that guy flirting with it?
Does she like it?
The constant worry of I'm going to lose this individual.
Yeah.
Multiple times I've told people about fostering our relationship, our consensual non-monogamous
relationship.
And I've heard a handful of times we say, I couldn't imagine my partner being with somebody
else.
I wouldn't be able to handle my partner.
There is a thing of that she is with me, but I don't own her.
That part.
That my partner is where the difference comes in.
And I think this industrialized society has kind of put this nuclear family in this way
and it's kind of helped us get to this point.
But this break that we're seeing right now, pun intended for the name of the show, is finding
itself in this society.
And then because of social media, everyone's talking about it a whole lot more.
And it's shaking things up.
Yes.
And yes, thank God to that too.
Yeah.
I think what you're speaking to is speaking of definitions of monogamy and relationship
structures.
So we're still coming out of the monogamy we were given marriage as an example, right?
We look at marriage now as this romantic, beautiful thing.
It has nothing to do with romance.
A marriage is a contract that has to do with assets, lineage, ownership.
Because marriage used to be ownership, transferring the ownership of a woman from her father to
her husband.
It had nothing to do with love.
Sex was for procreation in that context.
It was very common and normal for the man to have lovers.
Don't get me started on women's expectations being different.
But it comes from ownership.
So of course, we still have that built in.
Of course, there's that sense.
But what we have now as a society where all genders are able to access credit cards, buy
a house, all the things on, I won't say equal playing field, but the availability is there.
Right.
We are now able to build our own assets as women, have our own autonomy because of that.
Our own banks.
Our own bank accounts.
Our 70s.
Yeah.
So the social structure has changed.
It no longer supports the relational structures that we were given.
And this is where you come in, in this category, in this capacity, as the person who, or a person
who can help usher this new understanding of the changing of times and culture.
Yeah.
And it's modern relationship design, right?
It's not about monogamy bad, whatever version of non-monogamy good.
It's about understanding that relationship is a skill set, which means whatever you're interested
in, whatever structure supports you best, that skill set you can get better at.
So we can do this better.
Yeah, we can do it better.
Yeah.
So that brings into the conversation what I would like you to define in any order, however
you like, ethical non-monogamy, consensual non-monogamy, which are kind of two different
terms, but you'll let us know the difference.
And then polyamory.
And I'm truly curious, like I'm the definition of the difference between those three.
Sure.
Sure.
So I love that you already right out the gate are ethical non-monogamy or ENM and consensual
non-monogamy, CNM.
You'll see them kind of used interchangeably.
And to a degree, they basically mean the same thing.
It's a family of relationship styles.
What is inferred when you call it ethical non-monogamy, if it needs that precursor ethical,
it infers that non-monogamy is essentially unethical otherwise, like the base is unethical,
but you can have ethical or unethical monogamy.
And also who's getting to define what's ethical and what's not.
Ethics change over time again as well.
So consensual is more on target with that's what it's about.
Consensual non-monogamy is having some sort of relationship with multiple people simultaneously
with the full knowledge and informed consent of everyone involved.
That's such a better title.
I like it.
I think it's more on point.
Yeah.
Again, like you said, ethics change over time.
But consensual is saying that the people that are involved in this are in agreement and aware.
So no matter where you are in time of whatever the culture is saying is the way, quote unquote,
whichever way it is, the people involved have agreed to it.
Yeah.
Because I would wager, I would offer that the majority of folks who identify currently as monogamous
are most likely in some version of non-consensual monogamy where, just think about it,
in order to give consent, you have to actually, A, understand that there's options so that
you have an actual choice, and B, understand the actual thing you're agreeing to.
And if we're not ever talking about, hey, here's my expectations in monogamy, this is what
it means to me, et cetera, et cetera, we're just assuming that we have the same definitions
and understandings.
And we're getting into this non-consensually, because again, we haven't talked about what this
agreement is.
And then we get started on, you know, unethical non-monogamy, which is what a majority of people
are actually in, in the monogamy space.
Exactly.
So this is bringing into the Megan the stallion of it all lately, which is, right.
Clay Thompson turning the idea of cheating on his partner into, actually, I'm just non-monogamous,
but it wasn't consensual with the parties involved.
And so therefore, she drew that boundary real hard.
I fully support her decision.
Yeah.
I guess.
Let it be known.
That's what we'll say.
So can you just say, though, for us how polyamory is different or similar to those concepts?
Absolutely.
So think about ENM or CNM, whichever you prefer to use, as sort of equivalent to the word sandwich.
And then within sandwich, you can have hoagies, you can have tuna melts.
There's a lot of different kinds of sandwiches, right?
But they're all sandwiches.
Ethical non-monogamy, consensual non-monogamy.
It's like an umbrella term for a lot of different types of relationship structures, polyamory being one of them.
So polyamory is basically the definition I just gave you, having multiple sexual and or romantic relationships with different, multiple people, excuse me,
simultaneously with the full knowledge and informed consent of everyone involved.
Polyamory can be hierarchical or non-hierarchical.
You can have, you know, your primary relationship or your primary partner, partners, and then secondary, tertiary.
We can get into the weeds if you want.
But it really just comes down to structures and how you identify.
Polyamory breaks down, like, literal translation to poly-many-amory loves.
So many loves.
The ability to love more than one person simultaneously.
Do you think consensual non-monogamy talks about the sex of it all, whereas polyamory talks about the love of it all?
Or is that not the right way to think about it?
I would say more non-monogamy, whichever, you know, precursor you use, is structure.
Polyamory is one of those structures.
Open relationships is another one.
Monogamish is a term that Dan Savage popularized.
Relationship anarchy is a term you'll hear, too.
That's not really structure so much as, like, a relational philosophy where it, you know, says, why do we covet romantic relationships or sexual relationships?
That's so much more important than our friendships and our family.
We're like, why do we have that hierarchy?
And it says, I don't do that.
I apply the principles of anarchy to how I relate, wherein everyone has the same weight, et cetera, et cetera.
So that's, like, a bigger overview.
But if you think of it as, like, again, non-monogamy is the umbrella.
Polyamory is one of the styles of relating within non-monogamy.
And I think when we start to talk about consensual non-monogamy, it's to your point of so many people are in non-monogamous relationships without their consent.
Cheating is what we call it.
Yeah, that's the word.
But there's also, you know, popularized on TV by one of Caesar's favorite shows, The Sopranos, like, you know, and every other show, there is also, like, these understandings that he has people on the side and we don't talk about that.
And there's, like, you know, there's all kinds of, and that's happened throughout history, too, of, like, where men in particular are allowed, like we were talking about before, to have multiple partners.
And that, because they have the power, that's the way it goes.
And the women in a cis partnership do not have that.
That's non-consensual.
That is non-consensual.
Exactly.
It's more coercive.
There's, like, a gray area for that.
Because she, take example, the show, and I've seen this happen in real life as well, the woman knows the information but doesn't want to think about it, doesn't want to discuss it, doesn't want to see it.
And where there hasn't been a full conversation about it, it's just something she's aware of and, like, everyone does.
But it's not that they haven't had a container to sit down and go, well, these are the terms of our non-monogamous relationship.
Well, of course they haven't.
They have a very, very unequal distribution of power in that relationship.
Because inherently what it all breaks down to is power dynamics, right?
We're always in a power conversation, right?
So I'm sitting here on your show.
There's a power dynamic here, right?
There's a power dynamic between you two and your relationship.
Power dynamic here.
Two women, not a woman.
Like, so there's always power dynamics at play.
There's nothing wrong with power dynamics.
It's about not having the ability for whatever reason, whether socially, financially, what have you, or physical safety, depending what's going on in the relationship, to assert that autonomy.
Now in society, again, like we spoke about earlier, women have a good bit more autonomy because we have access to assets, social status.
We can claim our own property, et cetera, et cetera.
So we have the ability now to show up at the table in a different way.
Yeah.
Without that power being acknowledged and distributed differently, it's a totally different conversation if there even is one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is the high rate of adultery in this society a signal that more people should be polyamorous?
I want to be very delicate when I answer that question.
So I want to be very clear that infidelity has nothing, has far less to do with sleeping with or dating other people than it has to do with truth telling and honesty.
It says a lot more about our lack of relationship skill and learning how to build a relationship mutually as a container where, A, are you a partner that is safe enough for your partner to come to and say, I'm finding myself attracted to other people without you blowing up and making it mean a bunch of other things?
Are you a confident enough partner in your relationship to say, I acknowledge, I recognize that I haven't been as attracted to you and I want to work on that?
Or whatever million conversations that people aren't having and need to.
And instead, it feels for whatever reason like it might be easier to just go on the side, just not deal with it.
I got to tell you, working with couples, you know, trying to come back from infidelity, things like that, it is a lot more work that is also draining you of your integrity and other things going on to manage that whole side life extra, whatever's happening, than to do the uncomfortable immediate thing of, I'm scared.
I don't know what this is going to be like, I don't know what this is going to mean for us, but we need to talk about it.
Yeah, that is very uncomfortable too, but I guarantee it's a lot less work ongoingly and it will allow you to develop your sense of self and your own confidence and knowing of self.
And that's really, you know, to speak earlier about change, the only thing in some degree that doesn't change is your one life partner is you.
You are your only life partner there from the beginning to the end.
That is a constant.
If you are not constantly developing that relationship, it's very easy to start doing things that just chip away at that, like infidelity.
Yeah.
Short-term pain, long-term gain.
Exactly.
Have a conversation now.
At immediate pleasure, right?
At what cost?
Yeah.
So let's say there is a couple who is currently consensually monogamous, but they're interested in opening up their relationship for a number of reasons, curiosities or anything like that.
What would be the first step you would say to them?
How would you guide them to begin this conversation?
Well, I want to make sure I'm hearing the question right because you said they, so it sounds like they're both already interested.
Two people already interested.
Great.
Yes.
Because it's a slightly different answer than if one of them is interested and wants to talk about that.
Well, let's go two people equally interested.
Honestly, it is still similar.
Okay.
Because the initial step is get curious.
So I think it's very easy to go like, okay, we both want to try this thing and this thing, you know, opening up our relationship, whatever it is.
Again, it means whatever it means to us.
And we're just going to, so we're going to go to a sex party tomorrow or we're going to like get on Tinder or whatever field or, you know, and look for that third person.
And we're just going to set that up.
You have no idea what's available, how to build it in a sustainable way.
You're going to bring up everything that hasn't been addressed in your relationship.
So I would want to know why they want to open up.
Super key is are they moving towards something that's going to add to their relationship or are they trying to move away from something and avoid something that's actually going on in the relationship?
Because those are two very different conversations, which is why regardless, the first step is learn.
Listen to some podcasts.
You know, there's so much content now more than ever before.
And just, just learn, soak it up as much as you can.
The more questions you can find within yourself at this stage, the better.
Foster, how do you think we did on that when that came up?
On the learning part?
On the, yeah, on the process from where we started from when the first conversation, weird, funny, silly conversation came up till today.
How do you think we charted along that way?
Did we skip some, some healthier steps?
I think we were, I definitely think we were working without a blueprint.
Yeah.
And I, I think that I probably, not rushed, but I probably relaxed about certain things and didn't ask enough questions and just sort of said, yeah, sure.
Why not?
Let's try it.
I think that we missed a few things there.
I think so too.
And I also want to say that you and I both had the really good intention of waiting a month or so until we, maybe longer until we started like even making an app or anything.
Cause we just talked a lot.
It started off as a joke and then we would just check in on each other a little bit.
And like, I remember at some point I was like, okay, hang on girl.
What are you actually saying here?
Is this something that we want to take a step forward?
And, and we didn't have a blueprint, but I had been in two open relationships before.
And I had pieces of what worked and pieces that didn't work, that I know didn't work.
And so I kind of came in with that, but it, there was, it was not a blueprint.
It was cut pieces of a blueprint.
I'm like, oh, this maybe is a window.
Perhaps this is a front door.
I think this is what I know is what I got.
And I think we did that sort of well with the minimal amount of information that we had.
Usually praise, sorry, long winded here, but praise goes to you because you like leaped in and found like a book and a website and all this stuff.
And you came back to me with all these phrases and I'm like, yo, I'm just trying to like, you know, stick my dick into something.
I don't understand this thing, you know.
You're going to learn a whole new language?
My gosh.
But it's, it was super beneficial in that way.
I also think what, what did work for us was that we looked together, like we made a field account together and we looked at people together.
And that was our big curiosity of like, we had, we had some initial boundaries about, actually about gender and sort of gender expression for each of us.
And then we looked at people together and we got really curious of like, what do you find attractive?
What do you find attractive?
It was great.
And it's, and it's so different because he was, we were looking at men for him and women for me.
I should say inclusive of trans, trans women for you as well.
And it was such a different thing because I don't, I only know your exes and I know some of the men that you've been with, but like, I don't, I don't know what is attractive to you about who.
And I got to like say, oh, why this?
Oh, that's so interesting.
That's so different from me.
If I may say it was phenomenal.
It was phenomenal.
I in particular have a high sex drive and my attraction is very, very broad, but still with like these deep specifics.
And so Foster came from the other side of sexual lifestyle and everything.
So it was hard for me to, I knew to not just jump everything on her.
And so I would kind of check in with her.
How's this feel for you?
How's that feel for you?
But when I would get her expressions of her excitement, what's the phrase?
Compersion.
When I would get that from her, I felt like the most seen version of myself.
It was, it was, it was great.
It was really great from, from my perspective.
And I had been spending the last year and a half kind of holding that shit to myself.
And I've been happy to be completely monogamous to you.
And I, if you ever want to go back to it, I'm like, great, let's do that.
But there's still that part of me that's like, I just got to hold on to it for the remainder
of my life perhaps and verbalize it.
And I found other ways to get it out.
But can you tell us a little bit about compersion?
Yes.
Because that's a, that's an unknown vocabulary word for a lot of people.
Well, and I also, I want to preface.
So, you know, you may hear a handful of very new words.
It may feel like it's all like too much when you're first exploring this space, or maybe
you're just listening to this podcast and going like, oh, like, I don't want to learn
a new language.
I just want to get my dick wet, you know, whatever it is.
And first of all, all words are made up.
Every single one that you use.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Sorry to cut you off.
Sorry.
Can I just take a moment to talk about how it's all made up?
Literally.
Grammar.
I'm a huge fan of words.
I love vocabulary.
And let's stop being grammar police because words evolve.
It is so true.
I'm a word nerd.
The more language I get, but this is so great.
I have new tools to communicate to you with because language is still rather limiting when
we're talking about labels like polyamory, open relationship, monogamous, stuff like that.
Those are labels, not identities.
So it's a conversation starter, not the end of the sentence, right?
Oh, you're non-monogamous.
Okay, great.
What does that mean to you?
Are you currently partnered?
Are you like, where are you at?
What are you available for?
It's a conversation starter.
Yeah.
Not the end of the sentence.
So to your point, words, compersion.
Yeah.
I love this one.
It's basically empathetic joy.
So the pleasure or joy you experience from your partner experiencing joy or pleasure with
someone else.
It is so wonderful.
And it is something, I get the question a lot of like, you know, like I should be good
at that or like I should, like if I'm not experiencing compersion, am I bad at poly or like
something like, no, there's no required emotion.
Think the shoulds out.
Yeah.
Stop shitting on yourself.
Yeah.
And like you can, like anything, it is something you can develop.
You can build.
Some people are just naturally tend to it more so than others, just like any, you know, emotional
experience in relationships.
So it's something that can be cultivated.
It's something that can be platonic or sexual.
It's something that can be erotic or not.
But it's just, it's that feeling of empathetic joy.
The comedian, Nikki Glaser.
Yeah.
It's just recently, there was a whole thing that came out.
She's dope.
She's so dope.
She's so dope.
Praise queen.
She's like funny, hilarious, focused, hot.
Oh yeah, I'm a cuck queen.
Smoking hot.
Oh my God.
Yes.
And then on top of all of that, she, and please correct me, but what I've read was that she
has the attraction of knowing that women want her husband.
And so she allows her husband to go and be with these women.
She doesn't.
Yes.
I hate the word allow and share.
Thank you.
We'll get all into that, but I know what you're saying.
No, please.
Actually, if you can just correct me right here, please.
So people listening can know.
They have an agreement, a very clear conversation that they've had and continue to have because
she has identified a turn on for herself, which is the term, you know, cuckold or queen.
She really likes either watching or knowing about her partner with somebody else.
And that can range so much from like fantasy of like, let's role play this dynamic in our
minds or let's, you know, I want to watch you watch porn or let's, you know, scroll through
an app and you just tell me who you're attracted to, or I want to watch you flirt with people
at a bar.
There's so many versions of this.
It doesn't have to equal, I'm going to watch you have sex with somebody else or, you know,
go on a date and come back.
There's so many ways to play with that turn on, but they've decided this is the current
agreement that works for them to explore that.
And she is so open about it.
And I just like, girl, thank you.
I don't know where the camera, girl, thank you.
It's so beautiful.
She's so empowered in it.
It's, it's at least from the outside seems like a really beautiful, like confident example
of what relationship or relation trip is in the modern context.
Yeah.
If compersion and that empathetic joy is something that you want, how would you cultivate more
of that?
Was that your question?
Okay.
How would someone do that?
Like, I love that.
I want that.
I want that for my relationship.
And like, I don't, I feel, I feel jealous or how do I get to the compersion part?
Well, then I would have a couple questions of, is it the thing you want to feel just that
compersion or do you want to be turned on by whatever happens for you?
Because you'll hear like compersion is the opposite of jealousy.
This is like, I understand why people say that as someone who has experienced compersion
and jealousy literally simultaneously in a moment, I don't feel that opposite is the right descriptor.
You can feel both.
One is not better or worse.
The easiest way to break it down.
Think of a, you know, two planes, right?
You have from compersion to jealousy, emotional plane.
Compersion feels really good emotionally.
Jealousy feels really not so good emotionally.
The other plane is arousal.
It can be completely unarousing, have nothing to do with sexuality or eroticism at all, or
it can be totally arousing.
Both compersion and jealousy have the potential to be physically arousing.
It's still emotionally yummy as compersion or emotionally not so yummy as jealousy.
And it can turn you on.
Does that make sense?
It does make sense.
And for the people who are just listening, what you were doing was you were showing a
line from say left to right.
Yeah.
Plane A.
Yeah.
Plane A.
And then people, and then there was a line from X, Y, X, precisely people who are lower
and higher, but not in a hierarchical sense.
No, no, no.
Just in an explaining.
Okay.
Yeah.
I want to be really clear that the planes exist as a gradient, not as like a hierarchy.
It's not like better to be compersive or jealous or aroused or not.
It's just what your capacity is.
And so your question, how to practice it.
So first I'd want to understand what actually are they looking for?
Is this something that they want to take into their erotic practice?
Or is this just like an emotional experience they're looking to cultivate?
Because it's same, same, but different.
And the real key is what is the foundation?
Are you in a secure place in yourself and in a secure place in your relationship?
Do you have a relationship where you can go, oh shit, we just tried that.
It's awful.
I feel terrible.
I'm extremely jealous right now.
That was not pleasant in any way.
And I need these kinds of support and affirmation from you.
Are you available for that right now?
That is security.
That is, holy shit, I'm spiraling.
But I know our container is good.
So I can ask for what I need.
And my partner knows that they can give or not give whatever their capacity is at that moment.
That is a secure relationship.
That doesn't mean you never fight or, you know, like you can get uncomfortable in your relationship
because you're asking to grow.
So innately, no matter what tactics you're using, you're going to get uncomfortable in this process.
Yeah.
You might hit jealousy, whatever else it is.
And it's practicing cultivating that ability to hold discomfort.
Yeah.
So if there's somebody that is noticing, hey, I experienced jealousy in this context, I'd like to practice experiencing compersion.
I would try to find other areas that are less high stakes than sex, for example, to experience that way.
That's a good thought.
I want you to go and have a coffee with, I don't know, fill in the blank of what feels safe, depending on where you're at in your relationship, your ex, your friend.
It's something that's like slightly triggering, but non-sexual, like those are clear with all parties involved.
It's just a coffee.
Having a conversation.
Then I want you to come home and tell me everything about it and tell me how it felt.
I want you to describe your emotional experience.
And of course, this is agreed to with both partners.
The person being invited to a coffee doesn't need to know the nitty gritty details of what you're going to be talking about, but it's just a coffee.
We're just catching up.
Like everyone needs to understand, like this is not opening a door if it's an ex, for example, or something like that.
Ideally, you already have some sort of friendship with this person.
This is just an example, right?
There's lower stakes ways to practice this.
I love that.
Lower the stakes on whatever it is that's happening.
And that's not, we're going to a play party so I can practice compersion.
No, no, no, no.
Right, exactly.
Lower the stakes.
Keep it in a safe container for you, but still something that might be a little out of your comfort zone and experience what it's like.
I think the fear sometimes is so much bigger than the actual experience of it.
So if you can go through that and listen to your partner, this is what their coffee was like, it sort of demystifies a little bit sometimes what that, our fear brain takes over.
When we go, oh no, they're going to go have coffee with their ex.
And they're going to sleep together and leave me.
And yeah, there's no space in between.
All the way to the end of the fear.
Our brain is a monster finding machine.
Like that's what it is.
It's a meaning making machine.
That's all it does.
And it's going to find the worst case scenario possible because it's constantly trying to protect us.
And then prepare for that.
Yeah.
No matter how real or not it is.
And we're here because our ancestors were really good at that.
And now we don't have those big monsters.
Yeah.
We thank them.
And also those big monsters are not really here most of the day.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was going to say, you know, when you were talking about something happened and now I'm
actually jealous instead of having compersion, like totally the opposite of what I thought.
And now I need to have like affirmation.
And there's something I feel like we didn't do that great on.
Do you remember?
Say more.
When I started to have, you started a relationship and I started to have some feelings of jealousy,
but I don't even know if jealousy was the most accurate word, but I had discomfort about moments
of it.
And I turned inward and was like, well, it's not fair of me to say that I'm uncomfortable
now because I agreed to it.
Like, what?
He's not doing anything wrong.
Cool girl syndrome.
What is it?
Cool girl syndrome.
That's pretty good archetype.
Yeah.
Right.
And so, and that was, that was a broad point of contention for us for a while.
I think also your experience was like, wait, she's changing the narrative.
Like she wanted this thing and now I'm in something and now she doesn't want it anymore.
I'm so confused.
Do you want to speak to your feelings at that time?
That's a good amount of what it felt like.
I started from the very beginning.
This was a conversation that was brought up and nurtured by you.
This entire relationship that we've kind of evolved into.
And so for me, when we got to that stage where you started feeling those levels of jealousy
and you weren't speaking about it, but I could see it in your body language.
I could hear it in your tone of voice.
When we would text, if I would, we were talking consistently, but if I mentioned that person,
you would just answer less and I can pick up on that.
You know, you're my partner.
I can like, I can tell when the, when the wind's blown a certain way or not for the most part.
And it made me feel duped.
It made me feel deceived is what it made me feel like.
Because we've been walking this line together and all of a sudden I'm like, okay, cool.
We're going to do this.
Yeah.
Cool.
Yes, yes, yes.
And then it wasn't.
I was like, well, shit, what the hell do I do here?
Where do I go?
What do I do?
Have I, have I gone down this, this forest here and we've lost our breadcrumbs?
Yeah.
And my experience felt equally shitty because I was like, I thought I was going to enjoy this.
And there's parts of it I do and parts of it that I don't.
And I agreed to the whole thing.
So I've made some mistake now.
So I'll just sit with it and not make it my partner's problem necessarily.
But it obviously affected him too.
Yeah.
I was just saying there's a fine line between making it my partner's problem and bringing
it to my partner to discuss and look at together.
Yeah.
That's what I see a lot of is to avoid our own discomfort.
We throw it at our partner and go, instead of, hey, I'm not okay.
We're okay.
But I'm not okay.
It's, we're not okay because you.
And then we've dispersed that discomfort rather than address it and hold it ourselves onto the
other person.
Now, now you're uncomfortable.
So I don't have to deal with my stuff.
Yeah.
And it's like, actually, I'm uncomfortable.
We're fine.
We're okay.
We're in the agreement here.
We're learning things.
This discomfort is teaching me something I want to talk to you about.
I want to look at it with you.
Right.
I had this conversation this morning about there's often people who will say,
things like, oh, only positive energy, push out the negative energy.
And I don't subscribe to that way of thinking.
I think that we should be amalgamating these things to understand what's going on.
And the more you amalgamate the negative side, the more you can find out, oh, there's something
that's to be learned from here.
There's a, there's a gold out of the shadow to quote Jung.
Is that safe?
Is it safe to say that then having jealousy is okay and maybe even appreciated if it's felt?
There's a couple of things I want to speak to in that.
I am, I'm with you on that.
The, the massive eye roll and sigh with like only good, only good vibes.
Good and bad.
Assigning good and bad to emotions is such a waste of time.
It's an emotional range that we get to experience.
There's the whole, I'm not a, you know, I'm too much, I'm a jealous person or I'm not a,
you, there's no such thing.
You are a person who has the capacity to whatever degree of experiencing emotions, including jealousy.
Like that's it.
Um, so yeah.
And to, to answer your question directly that there is the good or bad of jealousy has nothing
to do with the emotion itself.
It's how do you process and how do you use it or not is more indicative.
Right.
And it's, it's not good, bad, very unuseful measures.
Is it productive?
Is it useful?
Is it nurturing?
Is there value in it that you've gained for yourself or the relationship or ideally both?
Like jealousy is a data point.
It is simply information.
It is showing you what's important to you.
It's showing you maybe some needs that haven't been met in the relationship and it's showing
you your values.
It's really important information and we're all trying to avoid it.
And it's, this is my thesis of, of my first book I'll share here called for the love of
jealousy right now.
Jealousy is the single most misunderstood and underutilized emotional experience to deepen
intimacy and develop trust in our relationships.
Wow.
We are completely missing the boat.
What does one learn from jealousy or how do you see when you work with couples, how do
you help them utilize that jealousy to grow and unearth something?
Yeah.
So we, we look at first of all, what are the triggers?
Of course, like we need to see where it's showing up and then we determine if this is like
a personal experience or a relational experience.
So I like to break down jealousy into four main types of romantic jealousy.
So you have insecurity.
I'm noticing it's bringing it up an insecurity about myself.
You're in comparison or competition with whomever the other party or parties is.
There's fear of abandonment, which is a really deep childhood wound.
And then there's distrust, which if you think about it more like the, an insecurity in the
relationship.
So maybe there's a history of infidelity with one or both partners or in that relationship
even, or what have you.
So identifying again, is it, is it personal?
Is this an insecurity that's coming up for me?
So I need to kind of look at, does this mean, okay, if I'm in comparison with this person
they went on a date with, I've decided they have a better body than me or whatever it is.
Maybe that's bringing it up an insecurity.
I don't feel in shape right now.
I don't feel strong.
I'll use my personal experience.
So I had a lot of health challenges last year and it prevented me from going to the gym
the way that I used to be.
I was emotionally eating a little bit more and I was feeling really not fit, strong, not
good in my body.
And so those were, those were some very real insecurities that were coming up for me.
Is anyone wrong here?
No.
First of all, I've made up a story that very well, no one else agrees with, but it's telling
me, Hey, I really miss going to the gym.
I want to eat better and take better care of myself.
I miss feeling strong.
I miss feeling embodied.
And that enabled me to start making the changes I needed to for myself, because I can assure you,
my partner did not agree with me because I talked to him about it, of course.
And this is not his thing to fix.
It's just like, Hey, I'm noticing this.
So as I'm, as I'm going to be working on these things for myself, I'd love some extra like
verbal affirmation or whatever that is.
Are you available for that?
Great.
Yeah.
Does that make it not like uncomfortable?
No, it's horribly uncomfortable.
The jealousy doesn't stop being uncomfortable.
You just expand your capacity to hold discomfort.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
I could not agree more.
The abandonment part is a big one from my side, which I think we could talk about a lot later.
Ever since this, we started having this relationship, I started having dreams of her being like, I'm done here.
You're way too much.
You're too, you're too weird.
You're too whatever.
I'm done.
I have multiple dreams.
Yeah.
Constantly.
And I'm like, Oh, I had none of those damn dreams again.
Here we are.
And you take the place of the woman in my life when I was growing up who also left.
Yeah.
And the things that she used to do in the dream to me, now Foster does to me.
Yeah.
We superimpose.
And it just keeps doing it.
What data can I find to support this story I've been telling myself?
That's how I know it's the trick.
Like, Oh, you're a trickster archetype.
You're wearing a different mask, but you're the same trickster.
In A Beautiful Mind, when the movie is about the guy who's a mathematician, John Nash, the famous mathematician who also has schizophrenia.
And he can't make the determination on who he's seeing is real and who he is seeing is not real.
And then he finally finds the clue because 10 years have gone by, maybe even longer.
And one of the figments of his psychosis never got older.
She was 10 the entire time.
And so he recognized the trick.
And he said, Oh, that's the trick that's in there.
That was my way into realizing, Oh, this is the trick because you're just showing up in different faces.
Script hasn't changed.
Got it.
Welcome again.
Okay.
Got it.
Got it.
Got it.
You got a little of a, you know, clown makeup on my shirt here from grabbing me all the time.
But no, no, no, no, no.
We're not, we're not falling for that again.
That abandonment's a huge thing for me, which I think we'll talk about later.
I have a question about when you're opening up a relationship, right?
Okay.
And you're at the beginning stages and there's an agreement that's made and both people are
going forward, dating other people and maybe bringing some of that information back or not.
How do you stay connected to your primary partner and feel cherished and supported in that relationship
when all this newness is happening?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a common one, right?
We get sucked into what's called NRE, new relationship energy.
It's very exciting.
It's novel.
We're discovering a new person and maybe new parts of ourself.
And then if we're the partner, we're watching our partner open up in this way and it's not
with us.
So that can be very confronting.
So it's A, you know, understanding what's going on for sure.
And I think something that's very important and very supportive is what I call reconnection
rituals.
Okay.
So, okay.
So you're going on a date, first date, whatever thing is, we're going to do a thing before
that.
And we have a thing after, and that can be sex.
That can be like, whatever is connective for you.
Because again, it's reconnection.
We're connecting.
You're going to bring whatever that energy is now also into our relationship in whatever,
again, ritual we've created.
It can be a shared bath.
It can be going for a long walk, watching the sunset.
You get to decide what that is together is what makes you feel vulnerable and connected
with each other in that.
And so you're sort of bookending these experiences.
We have a touch point before, touch point after.
It's also a tool, you know, this is sort of a yes and to your question, but people who
are exploring maybe erotic spaces with their partner, whether they're meeting other people
or not, you have anchor behaviors is what I call them.
Very, very similar to reconnection rituals.
So we have an agreement that, you know, a wink or a whatever specific thing, no matter
where we are in the space or what we're going to periodically check in, or we're always going
to meet back by the water and check in with it.
Something that we've agreed to that just anchors us back into our connection.
We're connected.
We're going to put our foreheads together and just breathe for three minutes, whatever that
is, right?
Get creative.
Try different ones each time until you find what really hits.
But that ritual, and it's again, it's a ritual.
It's not a habit.
It's not a routine.
It's not something you can check out about.
And okay, we did the thing.
No, this is something you are in.
It's ritualized.
It's ceremonial.
And again, you can make anything that can be a walk, you know?
So, or you can really go all in and have crystals and the whole thing, like have at it.
But defining that ritual, that reconnection ritual for yourself really can help support that
consistency.
I love that so much.
I feel calmer in my body hearing you say that because I'm thinking of like, this is about
if you have a primary partner and like you're exploring, it's still about us expanding our
capacity for love, which is what I do believe that is available to us in this kind of exploration
is to expand our definition of love, expand our capacity for it, and to also come back together
and be like, it started here.
This is how I got safe enough to be able to explore.
And, and reminding each other that that, that is still incredibly valuable.
And I still want this relationship.
And I still, I'm so grateful to be in this partnership that allows us to do this sort of
exploration.
And it applies whether you're hierarchical or non-hierarchical because it's, you can reconnect
and ideally you're reconnecting with each of your partners at any given time, right?
It's, it's that intentionality because the Esther Perel, I'm going to butcher one of her
more famous quotes, but that idea that love needs that consistency, that known that we were
talking about earlier, but desire needs distance, the unknown, the novelty.
So how to maintain that long-term is having a little bit of both.
And I'm not saying the only way to experience novelty in a long-term relationship is open up
your relationship.
There's a lot of, there's a lot of space between that, but it's, it's yeah.
Understanding that ritual connection ritualized is such a supportive practice.
It gives you that structure, especially when you're opening up into this new territory.
That can very easily to your nervous system feel like anything's possible, which often a
lot of people do, unfortunately, they've not created any agreements.
They're just like, well, we're open so we can do anything.
Right.
That's horrifying for your nervous system.
That is really, really intense.
And it doesn't need to be like that.
Right.
Yeah.
I would say, interestingly enough, having those parameters of those quote unquote limitations
actually makes you feel more free.
And my perspective, because Foster's asked me, sleep with men, sleep with trans women, please
no cis women.
Okay.
Great.
Understandable.
Got it.
Unless it's with us together.
Okay.
But on my own, no.
And it has freed me up in such a way that I feel so much more clear.
And then to go back to your point about the desires part of it, not because she's a cis
woman, but because when I'm going out there, I am still committing to the agreement that
her and I have seen eye to eye on.
I still feel like I'm honoring and cherishing her.
And then when I turn to her and I see her again, I'm like, oh, I missed her so much because
she's home, because she's mine.
Not mine, my possession, but like, because she's like, you know, aside from-
She's choosing to be here with me.
Yeah.
And that brings me a lot of joy.
Thank you for the correction.
Yeah.
And my familiarity, my safer space, the little kid in me who can feel very safe in her hands,
that realization got me there deeper than ever.
My previous relationship before, if I was being open, it was always a sort of like, we
would just drift apart a little bit.
And I was worried that this might happen at some point, but instead following the same
guidelines on which we agree has made me feel more free than I've ever felt before.
Boundaries give us freedom.
They're not limitations.
If they're agreements.
So the easiest way I break down the difference between boundaries, rules, and agreements.
Boundaries are about me.
Rules are about you.
Agreements are about we.
Like a shared boundary for the relationship that we, you know what?
Because there's a difference between you're not allowed to date cis women and, hey, I'm
noticing I feel a lot less comfortable with this.
How do you feel about that?
You know what?
I can honor that as a boundary.
Totally.
Great.
No.
If you're going into opening up with, I don't want any rule, whatever terminology you're
using.
I don't want any rules.
I just want to be able to, you know, go with the flow and see whatever.
Then you're not interested in opening up your relationship.
You're interested in being single and exploring other forms of relating.
Opening up a relationship is creating boundaries, agreements for the relationship to sustain it
in this growth phase.
That is very, very different than I want to explore polyamory or what have you on my own, regardless of how my partner feels.
Very, very, very different.
Yeah.
Neither is like good or bad, but just call a spade a spade.
Yeah, exactly.
I have a listener question.
So this one says, within the last few years, I got divorced and also came out as queer.
In my time being single, I realized that polyamory is something I desire and I believe in for myself.
Queer sex is new to me and I want to have a lot of experiences.
However, I have recently started dating someone seriously.
And whenever the conversation about polyamory comes up, I get flooded with jealousy at just the idea of this person being on a date with anyone else.
It completely overwhelms me like I want to throw up.
And it makes me think maybe polyamory isn't for me.
What do I do with all these feelings?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, gosh.
That's so common.
Like, oh, I couldn't do poly because I get jealous.
Polyamorous folks experience jealousy.
It's just another emotion.
So first of all, good on you for knowing that's what's happening.
You've already identified where it is in your body.
It makes me nauseous.
I want to puke.
There's a process I've created that I currently call nerd out on jealousy.
It's N-E-R-D-O-U-T.
It's a process to learn how to use jealousy as the data that it is.
And it's really an extrapolation on a mindfulness technique called RAIN.
But it's really just bringing you into your body because you're in a lot of story, right?
That's where the flooding is happening.
You're assigning all this meaning.
Your nervous system is activated.
It's a massive threat.
Again, hungry lion in a cage.
Doesn't know the difference.
And identifying where is it in my body?
What is the sensation?
Is it good, bad, neutral?
Does it have any qualities?
Spicy, tangy, sharp, bubbly?
Like, what does it really get into the physical lived experience of it, which it sounds like
this person already is doing?
You're now getting into that presence with that discomfort, right?
Now we can start investigating what are the stories I'm telling associated with this?
You know, this is a very abridged version.
But you can really start separating the clown, you know, the archetypes that we're bringing
up.
And what is it keying into?
Which type of jealousy am I dealing with?
Am I in insecurities?
Am I bringing up my insecurities?
Fear of abandonment?
What is that?
Do the work with your jealousy first.
And know that if you are building relationship with somebody, ideally, it's a container where
you can bring this to that person of like, hey, I've identified this.
This is what's happening for me.
Like, we're okay, but I'm not feeling okay.
I would like these types of, you know, extra affirmation.
Again, whatever that is for you.
Can we try that while I'm managing this?
Are you available for that?
Practicing it is what creates the relationship with both the jealousy and deepens.
This is why I say it's such an unused, untapped resource for building trust and intimacy.
There is nothing more vulnerable than being like, I am like, yeah, yeah, and the person
being like, okay, and just being there with you in that, not trying to fix anything, not
trying to like, oh, you need more verbal affirmation.
I'm totally available for that.
I will make sure there's anything specific that makes you feel really good.
Do you want more back rubs?
Do you want more some physical affection as well?
Really getting curious about it together rather than A, trying to avoid it for yourself
or pushing the discomfort onto your other partner.
Now you're in the practice of jealousy.
And I will tell you, if you start showing up like that for yourself, you're deepening
your own capacity for discomfort, which extends your capacity for growth.
You're deepening that trust in the relationship.
Oh, I brought my person, this mess that I've considered myself.
Yeah.
And they're still here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's how you build trust.
That's awesome.
You don't build trust by saying, I don't like how I feel when you do that, so you can't
do that.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Control does not build trust.
It erodes trust actively.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My follow-up question is, this person said that their relationship is new.
And does that play a factor in whether or not now is the right time for them to open up?
Or do they need to be more stable and secure in that relationship first?
Just a couple angles I want to address on that.
So I get this question a lot too.
Like, when do I bring up that I'm interested in this thing?
If I'm already aware I'm interested in it?
Like, date one.
Yeah.
Like, you talk about like, why would you, you can't build a foundation on, if you're not
revealing the whole landscape.
Sure.
You know what I mean?
It's not going to be a secure foundation.
And that's a very easy way to figure out who your people are or not, because people are
going to react completely differently.
It has nothing to do with you as long as that's your truth and where you're at.
It enables you to align much more effectively and efficiently with your people.
But in regards to like, new, too soon, it depends on the quality of relationship you want to
build.
Is this very important to you?
There's different ways to bring it up and manners to bring it up based on how long you've
been together and stuff as well.
But if this is real and like personal for the person, and they want to build this into their
foundation, again, opening up can mean a thousand different things.
Right.
It doesn't mean, you know, anarchy.
It's what are you interested in exploring?
I want to be able to talk about it right now.
I just want to be able to talk about it.
I just want to be able to have that conversation, get curious, see how we feel.
Is it a turn on or not?
Is it bringing up stuff that's useful for us to work on independently and with ourselves?
Like finding your edge.
We talked about it a little bit.
Our boundaries are what give us freedom because boundaries aren't walls.
Boundaries are just the edges of our comfort zone.
They're actually designed to be pushed consensually and in a safe container in order to grow.
Now you get to decide what level and I wouldn't advise pushing all of them at the same time.
That's why I find, you know what?
I notice jealousy when I think about you as somebody else.
Can we like talk about that?
Can we play with like fantasy around that?
Can we do a little role play?
So many options, right?
That is why I really believe in that.
And there's something that's always been in the back of my head that I don't know if I ever said to you,
which is that I think the boundaries around the gender for us have just been my initial boundaries.
In order to tiptoe into the world where I feel like I'm not comparing myself to the man you're sleeping with.
I have so much anatomy that's different.
I can take this slowly.
But I don't know that never women for you or never men for me, that would be your boundary,
but like is off the table.
It's just where I'm at right now.
Right now is a very useful term when you're in relationship of any kind with anyone.
Amen to that.
Thank you for setting that part.
Yes.
You haven't shared that with me.
You've definitely not told me that part.
And our session begins.
I have more questions.
Hold on.
Oh, wait.
Okay.
So we'll get to it.
We'll get to it.
Okay.
I love your giggle.
It was so good just now.
All right.
So for the person listening who's like ethical non-monogamy, consensual non-monogamy, however
you want to phrase it, polyamory, it's not for me.
But I'm in a consensually monogamous relationship and I want to know what the ideas about polyamory
and non-monogamy can do for my relationship.
How does knowing about this help me?
Maybe the terminology is triggering, right?
So let's remove, you know, what can polyamory teach me?
What can relationship design?
Modern relationship design.
Because think about it.
We design everything in our lives.
Our wardrobe, our workout plan, our office layout, our living room.
Everything has a design except the single most important or important relationships or relationship
in our lives.
It's the biggest indicator for our health and longevity.
It's a massive financial decision.
And we treat it with no design intention whatsoever.
Yeah.
It just should work.
That's crazy.
And we keep doing the same thing over and over and over again, expecting a different result.
Actually crazy.
The definition of insanity.
Literally the definition of insanity.
So good news, relationship is a skill set.
You can get better at it.
But treating it like a skill set.
So whatever structure you want that supports your relationship style, say it's consensual monogamy
in this instance, all of the skills are the same.
Expanding that capacity for discomfort.
I assure you, monogamous structure does not prevent accidental injury, emotional injury to each
other.
It does not prevent discomfort.
It's easier to kind of slide that stuff under the rug and not address it because it's the
socially prescribed norm.
Anytime there's like a sort of script that's given to us, it's very easy to quite frankly
get lazy.
Like, I'm not going to, I'm just, I don't have to bring that up.
I don't want to rock the boat.
I don't want to, no, rock the boat.
That's how you learn how to sail.
Like you've got to find those edges and make sure that you are in constant, in constant
conversation as it is a relation trip.
You haven't arrived anywhere.
So things like, first of all, stop blaming yourself if jealousy comes up.
It's, it's just, would you blame yourself for confusion or anger or joy or any other of
the myriad wonderful kaleidoscope of emotions that we have access to?
It's just an emotion.
It's just data.
Yeah.
Learn how to use jealousy as data.
And again, as a tool for deeper intimacy and trust.
Um, that's a big one, understanding yourself, like your actual needs and additionally knowing
how to speak to them.
Yeah.
So knowing what you need and want in a relationship, sexually, emotionally, financially, um, all
the things that go into building whatever type of relationship you want, know what you
need and know how to speak to it.
The biggest one for me is being with your discomfort.
If there's nothing else that you can take away, learning to manage discomfort will improve
your entire life.
Not just your romantic relationships, just learning to practice that it's, it's so key.
And I think another one too, is, is, is change is okay.
And that doesn't mean the structure of your relationship necessarily, but allow your partner
to surprise you.
You don't know them.
You will never know all of them.
That's wonderful.
Yeah.
Allow them to surprise you.
That's part of what, you know, can keep that novelty available.
Try new things together.
Understand that, that your relationship takes active nurturing.
If you want something to work for you, you need to work for it.
That doesn't mean like a full-time job.
You set systems in place that bring greater ease to this thing called relationship.
It's just a skillset.
Yeah.
That's beautiful.
How does, how would I know what fits for me?
If I'm having thoughts, if I'm a single person, I'm having these thoughts, or if I'm in a relationship,
these thoughts come up for me of maybe wanting to open the relationship up or seek somebody
who feels that way.
But then there's that other version of me that feels like, wait, no, that feels too complicated.
It feels like it's too much to carry, too much to juggle.
How do I find what fits for me?
Funny, you should ask.
I've created a free quiz called My Relationship Style Quiz.
So you can go to MyRelationshipStyle.com.
And it helps people very, you know, I would say easy but confronting 10 questions.
And it's designed to help you understand where you fall on, again, my two plane.
I love a four quadrant expression of something.
Yeah, it's great.
It just breaks it down really easy.
Or I should say with ease, maybe not easy.
But so if you think of your emotional needs and your sexual needs, because we quite often
conflate the two, but there are actually two different sets of needs.
And you could have a different need emotionally for exclusivity as you do for sexual needs,
right?
So if you think of one plane as the emotional needs and the other plane as your sexual needs,
and the variant is exclusivity, that will break it down into four quadrants of exclusivity,
high or low, and, you know, within that, of sexual and emotional.
And so I've designed this quiz to help you understand where you fall in one of those four
relationship styles.
You'll get your very comprehensive pleasure-led relationship profile after you take the quiz.
And that will show you what relationship structures could support this style,
what the common roadblocks are if you're, you know, dating or you're looking to transition
a relationship into a new structure, the way to have this conversation if you are partnered,
and really, really important tips like that.
And again, MyRelationshipStyle.com, but I hope you're asking these questions because one size
does not fit all.
Quite frankly, we're seeing it fits not very many.
Not very many, exactly.
Which again, I want to be really specific.
Monogamy, consensual, informed monogamy can serve people.
Yes.
What we're doing right now and calling monogamy is not serving most people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well said.
Thank you so much.
If anyone wants to reach out to you, what's the best place to find you?
I'm pretty easy to find.
I'm on all the platforms.
My website is passport2pleasure.com, and it's the number 2.
And that's my handle everywhere.
You can also find me personally on Instagram @AllyIseman.
But yeah, my website has all the goods.
Perfect.
So everyone stay tuned for next week when we go into our coaching session with Ally.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you very much.
If this episode spoke to you, take a moment and send it to someone else who might need it.
That's the best way to spread these conversations to the people who need them the most.
And if you want to keep exploring with us, make sure to follow Beauty in the Break wherever you get your podcasts.
We'll see you next time.
Beauty in the Break is created and hosted by Foster Wilson and Cesar Cardona.
Our executive producer is Glenn Milley.
Original music by Cesar + the Clew.