We Got Coached on Air: Navigating Our Open Relationship with Ally Iseman (Pt. 2)

An inside look: a LIVE on-air coaching session. Foster and Cesar built a relationship on their own terms, and now they spill all the sticky parts of opening their relationship with the help of relationship coach and non-monogamy educator Ally Iseman. This is a rare, real-time look at what navigating consensual non-monogamy actually feels like from the inside. Ally guides them through the emotional terrain of being in an open relationship, giving practical tools and anchor behaviors along the way. For anyone in a non-monogamous OR monogamous relationship, this episode is a masterclass in conscious partnership and emotional intelligence. 

In this episode they explore: 

• What happens when one partner is sexually active outside the relationship, and the other isn't?
• Foster’s deep fear of disappointing Cesar
• The difference between equality and equity in a relationship — and why it matters
• A new practice that Foster and Cesar put to use right away

Ally Iseman, CRC: 

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

Listen to Part 1 of our conversation with Ally Iseman here: Opening Your Relationship the Right Way with Ally Iseman (Pt. 1). 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 Jamaal Pittman. You can donate to his scholarship at WheelerScholarship.com, supporting college enrollment.

Transcript

It hurts a little bit, but it's not disappointing.
Hurt might be worse.
Having hurt and being hurt by someone, not necessarily the same thing.
So now I would love a little context if you can share.
How did we get here?
Welcome to Beauty and 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 back to Beauty and the Break.
We are back for our part two with our series, the lovely Ally Iseman.
She is a relationship coach and founder of Passport 2 Pleasure.
And we've had an amazing conversation with her already.
So if you haven't listened to our previous episode, please go back and listen to that.
But today, Ally is going to coach Cesar and I because we have opened up our relationship.
And this is one of her specialties, which is non-monogamy.
And she's going to help us get a little more, I'm hoping for like maybe a little more clarity,
sharing with the listeners like what a process, really the process of opening up your relationship,
creating new agreements and how that might change over time and the feelings that might come up.
So all of that kind of stuff, we are all yours, Ally.
Welcome and welcome back.
Thank you.
Very excited for this.
So I'll start by saying, obviously, this is not a traditional coaching container because
normally I'm holding the space for you guys, but I'm in your space here on your podcast.
So I'm going to do my best to sort of meet you in that.
Where I would like to start rather than context necessarily right now is what does success look
like to you?
I think you spoke to it a little bit right there with kind of what you were hoping for this
episode, but what does success for today's session look like to each of you and feel like?
I think success looks like pulling out into the open, into conversation, things that we didn't
know we weren't talking about.
Gaining more clarity and understanding of each other's perspectives and maybe of each other's
feelings, what has been coming up for us, I guess, throughout this.
Beautiful.
Okay.
Yeah.
I would like to be able to take at least one new thing that can help us kind of move along.
I already wrote down what you said previously, but anchor behaviors.
I love that idea.
If there's something that I can take that's for me, from me, to me, to learn and to evolve,
and then something that I can take to always go to for us together, that would be great.
And then thirdly, I want to be an example of what this could look like to be a healthier
relationship for anybody listening.
Great.
So I'm hearing illumination, you know, pulling some things out that maybe you didn't know,
you didn't know, some more clarity, right?
I'm hearing very specific context of wanting some skills, tools, knowledge, both for yourself
but also for the relationship.
Does that sound good for both of you?
Oh, yeah.
That sounds great.
Okay.
So now I would love a little context if you can share independently, and I'd love to start
actually with Cesar for this one.
How did we get here?
We got here in full context.
One day we were driving in the car and we were having a conversation about what places
we'd want to live in the city for like six months at a time.
And I mentioned a place that she was like, what?
There's no way that's ever, I wouldn't ever live there.
You're going to have to find yourself a boyfriend to live with you there.
And it was such a humorous thing to say.
And then her and I being yes-enders, we started yes-ending on, well, then what kind of girlfriend
would she have wherever she lived?
And we started describing each other's respective person we think we'd be attracted to.
And then that joke just kept coming up.
And then Foster at some point mentioned how attractive it is to her to think that I used
to be with men.
I've been in relationships with men.
I've slept with men and it had turned her on.
And so over time, we started talking more about that.
And then over time, we started having more and more dialogue about maybe actually going
out somewhere and meeting a guy and she would watch me kiss him.
And then from there, the snowball kind of became more about, well, what would you like?
I have been in a very explored sexual lifestyle very much since I was a teenager and forward.
And it was brought to me from her that she wanted to have more of a conversation and more
of an action of watching me with another guy.
And I wanted for her to explore any sexual urges she might have had with a woman of the same
sex.
Where are you at right now in that exploration?
Right now, we are in the space of I am much more sexually active outside of us.
She's not at all, but she's looking.
You're experiencing dates and other types of connections.
Yeah, I would say, I guess there are sort of like soft dates, play dates.
Yeah.
Okay, beautiful.
Thank you.
Foster, what's been your experience to get us here today?
Yes.
So that I agree with all of that.
That's what we had the conversation.
We started joking about it.
It is a very big turn on to me.
And then I have bisexuality curiosities.
I know in my heart that I'm queer and I have not had any sexual experiences with another
woman.
I also don't have great desire either in that regard.
I would probably, I have described myself as demisexual and that I really require a great
deal of connection with someone in order to be intimate.
And so that has just never crossed my plate.
It has never been available.
And so that is something that I have been curious to explore within this dynamic.
And also I feel like my curiosity and my desire is very low.
And my bandwidth with my time and my life is very low, minimal.
I have only so much space for that with the fact that I parent my two children as well.
So we got to a place where we did have a, you called it cut queen, right?
Is that correct?
A watching experience.
We've had that experience where I did not participate, but I did watch.
Something we discovered in the process was that the sexuality was one piece of it, but
actually the romance of him with another man was very attractive, was more attractive to
me than, than even the sexuality part.
And that opened up a relationship with him and another man.
That relationship lasted a few months.
There was friendship between the other person and I.
There was not like, not intimacy.
And there was also not like any kind of watching.
There was just a telling of the experience to me.
And now we're in a place where typically Caesar is playing with other men and I am sometimes
exploring on apps, texting, and that's about as far as I've gotten.
And then I kind of like shut down and go, I'm done.
I can't, I'm too tired.
I can't.
So there hasn't been anything in that regard on my side of it.
Clarity, men for me and trans women as well.
So I'm hearing the beginnings, there's a lot of play, a lot of humor coming from a lot
of curiosity and then sort of taking that one step further into more conversations, not
steamrolling ahead, just really kind of testing where, where we're at right now.
What feels manageable, doable.
Am I hearing that right?
That's been the container.
And I would say also, I wanted to say we started with, we only play together.
Our accounts were together.
Everything's very open, of course.
And also that initially everything was together, us together playing with someone else.
And then that shifted.
We talked about it, opening up to him having experiences without me there.
And then, and that was okay with me that like that boundary changed.
I noticed this, this body language, right?
So every time you said together, bringing these two fingers together, I'm curious the relationship
of, of the concept of together.
And maybe is there a relationship with this, this motion?
That I was doing that physically with my fingers together, us being together.
Yeah.
It feels like side by side, like we're, we are exploring this side by side.
And we're always like looking to each other to like invite someone in, whereas it feels very
different because now his experiences are without me present.
And my desire to have compersion to like my experience of compersion to say our definition,
right?
To experience his joy of it.
I'm less interested in hearing the details nowadays and less aroused by it at all, which
I think, I don't know.
That is just what's changed for me too.
So I'm hearing together as a physical experience together.
Yes.
So where you guys are at right now in your exploration and where you're, you know, hopeful
to go, curious to go, what you'd like to see evolve.
What's in that space between where we are now and the vision you each have and your shared
vision as well?
It's always changing, of course, but what I would see and what it would be really fun
for me would be one, having Foster find out what her experiences are with a woman.
Cause from my perspective, I can see her like stepping in, stepping out, stepping in, stepping
out.
And there's a part of me that wants her to at the very least find out not my thing or say,
yeah, my thing.
I want that for her in that capacity with or without me.
But if I would paint a picture of what it would seem like, it would be great to have Foster
have a partner, a female partner that the three of us get along.
The three of us, they would play, but the three of us could as well.
I would also still be organizing or governing the side of me that is playing on my own, but
I want Foster to watch again.
I want her to take the attraction that she had before.
Right now, me doing it on my own is great.
Okay, cool.
I feel really fucking lucky, if I may say, to have this woman be like, yeah, of course,
you know, whatever.
But it was so much more fulfilling when she was like in it with me, when she was this with
me.
So I would want that as well.
It's a good question because I hadn't really thought about it.
I sort of like, I'm like looking at where we are and then like if the next thing comes
up, I'm like, well, maybe that, maybe we could explore that.
I enjoyed the kitchen table polyamory of this other person that was with us for a while,
which is to say that like there was very much a deep friendship, a deep care about that person.
When it became a specific person, I was like, oh, I have, I feel the expansion of love within
my heart.
Even though the sexual experience and the relationship was sort of between the two of
them, I got something out of that too.
When I hear you describe like, oh, another partner for me and that the three of us would be close
and friends.
I like that idea.
I, I like the, I love people.
Like I love community and I love building community.
And I, you know, this other person that we've had in our lives will always be a part of our,
our like close family, you know?
So that person is still very deeply special to both of us.
And so I like that idea.
And I also maybe in some version, if I have, I have to think past, like when I have children
at home, because it makes everything very different.
But when I think in like the broader sense that there being like a lot of freedom and a
lot of flexibility to have maybe multiple play partners and a lot of deep connection between
the two of us and a lot more community around all of it.
So what I'm hearing is a sense of, of loss of some, you know, eroticism or togetherness
to bring, to bring that back in your experience.
And, and I'm hearing a different version of that for yourself.
So I want to understand where you guys are at now and that, that vision you each have
in the future.
What, what's in the way of that?
What do you feel like is in the way of that right now?
Time, my absolute like energetics of the effort that it takes to start a relationship with
someone to keep up friendships and life and partner, partner and children.
Like the workload of life feels like time is very difficult.
I don't want to have a, a one night stand with someone.
Like I want to develop partnership.
And I find, I also don't know my sexuality fully.
And I, and so I have a fear of like, I'm going to get into a situation and I'm going to be
embarrassed because I'm, maybe I'm, maybe I'm not attracted to this person or maybe I'm not
attracted to women at all.
And like, I'm going to have duped myself into thinking that I am.
And so there's a fear of like, oh, I'm just, I'm just gonna, it's going to not be a thing.
And then I will know that like, that's not a thing.
And then maybe there won't be any openness on my side.
Maybe that's the deeper fear that if it's not women, then maybe it's nothing.
And it's, it's just open on your side.
How about for you?
What's the block from where we are to what my, my desires are?
There is, it's that time for sure.
And then the trouble of me wanting to bring up stuff because it hasn't been met anymore.
What I like and what I like to do.
And in addition to what I described as well, like I also want to throw sex parties as well.
I want to do those things and I want to be able to verbalize it and express it.
And I can, I totally can, but it doesn't feel like it's met from the other side.
And so there's a part of me that's like, well, don't move that much forward so quickly.
I am a little more aware of my own sexuality and my desires and even my hangups as well.
If I spend, if I give myself the freedom, I'm going to, I'll be on that app all day.
And I know myself enough to start gauging and say, no, no, no.
Get back to what we're doing here and the bigger picture of your life.
But there's a momentum that I can see myself getting to that I want her included as well.
And at this moment, it doesn't feel like it's included.
I will abide by every single thing that she asks me to meet her with because she means the fucking world to me.
While still charting along what I enjoy for myself.
I'll keep doing that.
That's easy.
But what I really want is that level of vitality that sex, sexual connection, sexuality, all of that gives me.
I wish that she could have her version of that and meet me there.
And right now, it doesn't feel like that's there.
The context of this session is a little bit different because we do have the component of observers.
So I want to speak to coaching, mentorship, and education are three different contexts.
I am available for all three.
Right now, this is a coaching container.
I can bring education into this and I can bring mentorship, which means, you know, referencing anecdotal personal experience as well.
Are you comfortable with either or neither?
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
So what I'm hearing is a very lived experience of what I like to lovingly and jokingly, but seriously say, if you're in a couple, you're already in a threesome.
There's you, there's your partner, and there's the relationship.
You're having these experiences in your journey, but you've agreed to have a shared journey as well.
And so I'm hearing kind of that friction point from both of you in different ways of the personal journey bumping up against the shared experience that you had committed to and expressed interest in.
Am I hearing that correctly?
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
So I'd like to investigate, what does it mean, to use your words, there won't be any openness on my side?
That I wouldn't be exploring other relationships.
What would that mean?
I worry that I would have resentment, I think, that they would feel the sense of like something is not fair about this, even though my desires are not like at the level that his are, which is to say, I feel like my desires are made.
Like my desires are met by this partnership.
It might be curious for a moment about like exploring with other men.
For me, I also know that like still issues of time, still the issues of like connection and all of that, that may not be it.
My desires are met in this relationship.
And so I want him to have his desires met too.
And I sort of feel like if we go down this path and it ends up being not open on my side, right?
Because maybe women are not for me.
It just feels like I won't, like it will be some dynamic that will feel uneven, I guess, or unequal.
And I have to say also just like it calls out this like very historical dynamic of past history of like the patriarchy where men did have multiple partners and women did not.
And there's like that idea, that perception is like looming on me a little bit.
Because even in this moment, you have partners and I do not.
And that still like is a picture in my head that I'm like, oh, what did I allow to have happen?
But that's not like a predominant thought.
It's just something that does pop up like, oh, man.
Yeah, I'm hearing the association with maybe past versions of this coming up in you and not wanting to be associated with that, not wanting to think of yourself like that or appear that way.
Yeah.
Right.
So I'd like to hear from you.
What does it mean to not be met?
It feels a lot of things.
But the main three things, one, it feels a little isolating.
It feels a little, I can't think of what that word means, but do you know the image, Samson?
Samson, the image Samson in the Bible or in the Old Testament or the, I also think it's in the Torah as well, if I remember correctly.
Haven't read it recently, but we'll add it.
I'm pretty sure it's Old Testament, I think.
But he gets his hair cut, he loses his strength, whatever.
But he's tied to these pillars and he's like pushing these pillars here.
And he's kind of just spread completely of his strength of using both sides of himself.
It feels like that also.
Because I recognize the things that she's saying, I can see it in her demeanor and she expresses it to me.
And I feel like I'm like here and here.
And I'm like trying to really hold these spaces.
It feels like that.
And then, like I said, isolation.
And then it feels like a discord between us.
It doesn't feel threatening, the discord.
But it feels like, for me, an unnecessary discord.
The information she asks of me now is, feels like a need to know.
Like, I want to know this because of A, B, and C.
Instead of like, I'd love to hear.
And so that feels out of step with each other.
Okay.
It seemed really interesting.
We had sort of this body language.
And now we're having this, right?
And this isolation, this discord.
We spoke a bit about the difference between boundaries, rules, and agreements in the previous episode, which everyone should tune in and listen to.
So the word equal, I heard you say that a number of times.
And I want to know if you're familiar with the word equity versus equality.
What does that mean to you?
I don't know the difference between the two.
Great.
So this is an education moment, not a coaching moment.
Equality.
Everyone gets the same thing, regardless of their needs, right?
If we're open, I see people, you see people.
You know, we're getting the same amount of food, regardless of our caloric need, same amount of protein, whatever context.
We get the same stuff, regardless of our actual needs.
That's equality.
Equal.
Everyone gets the same.
Equity is everyone gets what they need.
So your needs are different.
You're different people.
Your relationship has its own needs, and you individually have your own needs.
Yeah.
So equality doesn't actually serve relational balance in the way that we are kind of taught to use that word.
Having your needs met doesn't mean you're experiencing the same things as each other.
Yeah.
Right?
You have different needs.
It's the journey that I'm hearing that you both want to go on and have been on is understanding those needs.
So I'm hearing from you this fear.
What does it mean about you or what does it mean about your relationship if it's not a thing?
What does it mean to me if being open is not a thing for me?
You had used it in the context of, you know, if I go on these dates with women or just non-man, non-male identifying, and it's just not connective for me.
It's not, you know, I don't have the drive or the curiosity I thought I had.
It's not a thing.
What does that mean for you, for your relationship?
I don't really think it means much of anything.
I don't have a strong attachment to that, to even to the exploration of it.
Honestly, sometimes I feel like he wants it more than I do.
I don't even feel like if I never kiss a woman, like, I won't have lived.
Like, it can happen.
I'm open to that happening.
I'm open to that happening in my lifetime.
I don't feel any kind of, like, real pull or urge to have that on any timeline, I guess.
So it doesn't mean much, but I feel like I'm, I feel like I'm disappointing him in the fact that I'm no longer, that may not be something that I end up wanting.
And that also that I'm not able to, that I don't have as much interest in the, like, sexual detailing that I had before.
And I feel just, like, generally like I'm disappointing you.
There's no part of me that is disappointed, at least none that I can find.
Well, like I said originally in the beginning of this episode, the fact that for you it shows up and goes away, shows up and goes away.
Like, there's a part of me that wants you to, like, find the thing, even if it's not.
That's, that's what I really, like, search for.
At this moment now, there's somebody you're slowly talking to.
And it sounds fantastic.
Great.
There isn't a part of me in there that's, like, wanting to go one way or the other.
There's a part of me that's like, okay, great.
Where are we going with that?
How is it feeling?
I want to find, I want you to find that for you.
And then there's a disappointment that I am aware of from my side in your lack of, or I guess the, the, the release of the enjoyment that you had from before.
It, it hurts a little bit, but it's not disappointing.
And this is my definition.
Disappointing feels like I expected this of you and then it wasn't done.
And that feels more authoritative parent kind of thing.
That's not it for me.
It's more of, it's like, I'm locking your door.
I'm like, do you want to go play today?
And you're like, no, I can't today.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
And it just hurts because I'm like, oh, like my best friend can't come outside today.
It feels like that.
That's what it feels like.
Your feelings are your feelings.
I know how you feel is valid and it's yours.
But if, if I can ever say this out loud to you so it can be played in response to those feelings, I would say that's not a disappointment.
It, it, it just feels like a misstep and it hurts a little bit.
It hurts.
Yeah.
It looks like that little kid looks like he's disappointed, but also hurt might be worse to be honest.
So I'm like, I feel like I'm, I'm actively hurting you.
Then if that's how you feel.
Having hurt and being hurt by someone, not necessarily the same thing.
Yeah.
It's mine to carry.
I don't, I do whatever I can to make sure that when I'm feeling that it's mine to process through.
None of this is going to change my deep adoration for you and how I feel about you and I.
And two nights ago, I was brushing my teeth and you were half asleep.
And I said, Foster, this has been the best two years of my life.
And I just wanted to say that.
And I just dropped it there.
And I'll, I'll never not feel that way.
Any of this stuff that happens, whatever takes place.
At any point, I am always going to adore you with every bit of me.
Even if I'm hurt, it's nothing compared to my love for you.
Thank you.
Very beautiful, very honest, open-hearted shares.
And it can be really understandably very easy for us to project, well, if they, then I must.
Right?
Because all things being equal, they're not.
You get to go on your timeline.
She gets to go on her timeline.
He gets to go on his timeline.
And why I kind of brought up boundaries earlier in the difference, right?
We conflate the boundary and the rule around this sort of thing, especially of, you know, you are or are not allowed to see other people of whatever gender, whatever categories you want to create.
Is different than I am okay.
I know myself enough on this journey right now that I am okay being with a partner who does or does not see other people.
That's the boundary.
I will engage in relationship with someone who does or does not or either or both.
Versus, well, if you are, I must.
Or if I'm not, you can't.
Right?
So the journey is more about where am I interested in exploring.
And you both actually spoke to using other words about capacity, right, in relationship to time, energy, you know, what's available.
Time is our only real finite resource.
And it is very real, right, and finite.
So that is the thing that is a very real part of the negotiation within ourselves, within our relationship, our capacity, and our time.
And that changes, right, over time.
At different points in our lives, we have different things that are pulling us in different directions, requiring more or less capacity.
That's why our relationships can also fluctuate because they might need more or less or different things at different times.
What I would ask is if you're noticing that sense that I got from you is you're feeling you don't have the time.
The word time kept coming up a number of times.
And my question to you then would be if time is to a degree a measure of our values, right, we spend our time on the things that ideally are important to us.
And that can be anywhere on Maslow's hierarchy, right?
It's important that I can put food on the table so I show up for work.
That sort of a thing.
So when you're interested in something, and this is a question for both of you, that's new, a new skill set.
I want to learn how to swim or what have you.
How is your relationship with time and that thing?
If it's something new that I'm interested in, I would like have to carve some time out probably to learn about it.
And I want to invite too that I'm not trying to take you anywhere.
I'm seeing that I value other things more than this exploration is what I'm seeing.
What you're saying just like brought that up for me.
It was like I feel like there are all of these things that I want to explore.
And we've talked about this a lot lately within my own like free time independence and my own spiritual journey and my own healing journey and my children.
And like all of these things that they just take much more priority for me over the desire to connect with another woman potentially sexually.
I have more desire to be like, oh, I need to go see that friend that I haven't seen who lives 30 minutes away and I haven't had coffee with him in six months.
Like that feels more urgent to me and a desire to me than to like begin a conversation with someone to see if we maybe potentially could ever be attracted to it.
It feels so like daunting and like a bit uninteresting.
I'm trying, but it feels a bit uninteresting at this moment because of all the other things that I have interest in.
The question you're asked is in this capacity, but also in any capacity, if I'm trying to learn a new thing or whatever, I'm pretty good time management.
I recognize the finality of time.
I recognize that in the day there's only so much that can be done.
And I give myself a lot of space to be kind to myself and not give myself guff if I'm putting something away because I want to do something else.
There's work involved and I'm like, this work needs to be done.
Totally understandable.
I really want to read this book right now.
I'm going to sit and read this book.
And it might not be for the hour that I want.
Maybe I'll set a timer for 15 minutes, but I'll do that.
Because I value that stuff for me.
And I also know that it's going to serve the work that I'm putting out in the world anyway, my creativity.
From that category, it's that.
And the same applies with sexuality and the meeting of people.
It sounds like sex only, but it's not.
It's something that's elsewhere.
Me being this version of myself now, I can feel it in forming another level of freeness within my own self and confidence within my own self.
And so that goes into if I want to read a book, if I want to sit and meditate, if I want to stand in the sun, which I do quite often, they don't feel that different to me, even though they may seem different on the outside.
So I make the time as much as I possibly can.
And if I can't do it soon, then it gets to the front of the list for when I have availability.
I don't sacrifice my peace for that.
So I'm hearing a couple of different qualities come up in each of you and how you relate with time.
I'm a whore for a metaphor.
So stay with me.
You're in the right room.
Fantastic.
Fantastic.
So imagine you're running.
Okay.
You have 40 seconds to run.
That's all you know right now.
You have 40 seconds to run.
You have 40 seconds to run to your best friend.
They're waiting with open arms.
40 seconds to get to them.
Give them a big hug.
Or you have 40 seconds to run away from that really hungry lion that's just about there.
You got to get away from that lion.
40 seconds.
You're still running.
Right?
Both scenarios.
One, you're running towards something.
One, you are running away from something.
Same activity.
Totally different intention.
Did you notice any different felt experience when you applied either of those scenarios?
Yeah.
Yeah.
In our bodies.
Yeah.
For sure.
Yeah.
Can you describe, and either one of you is welcome to start, what the sensations felt like
in each scenario?
Running towards my best friend feels joyful.
I felt like I could see smiles.
My arms were big.
And there was like big steps.
And then the other away from the lion feels terrifying looking back over my shoulder, heart racing,
tight and tense and dark also.
Yeah.
I didn't feel anything in my body.
I intellectualized it pretty quickly.
Mm-hmm.
And I immediately was thinking about the running to the friend.
Mm-hmm.
It was running to foster.
And when I thought about running from the lion, because I already chose the other side of
running to the friend, that just felt like hyperbole didn't do much for me.
And my body didn't feel anything.
At least that I noticed.
So it's a more palpable differentiation.
I could have been more clear with the description.
When we have a full session, there's more time.
But it's to take your, they're unrelated scenarios.
So you're running, you reset to that like amorphous blob, you know, black hole space,
whatever.
It's palpable because it's the difference between, you know, like joy and something we
definitely want to move to and like fear and like actual risk to life versus our body experiences
discomfort, safe, but uncomfortable in the exact same way as unsafe, right?
That discomfort neurologically, physiologically is the same system in our body getting activated.
So it's much easier to move towards something.
If there's any sense of discomfort, your body's registering it as that lion.
But like we talked about earlier, discomfort's a requirement for growth.
If growth is something you are actively interested in doing it.
So I just offer that as a, as a sensory experience to maybe play with a little bit more when you're
deciding where your time goes and what you're moving towards or away from.
Are you saying like to acknowledge whether or not there's discomfort in something that maybe
I'm not making time for something because there is some discomfort and I'm running from it?
Potentially?
Potentially.
Okay.
I'm, I can't sit here and tell you, you know, what to do.
I can invite ideas, questions.
My job as a coach is to ask questions, to reflect really for you.
There's no guidance per se, you know, anything like that.
So I would simply offer that noticing things like your body language when you were talking
about, you know, the, the lion and things like that.
Very tight was a word that you used and you physically like showed us that too.
Right.
And your description of how you use your time is very much moving towards the things you
want to do.
You kept it in an intellectual space rather than a felt one.
So I'd invite maybe the exercise of just feeling that sensory experience, taking it out of
the head, putting it into the body and just noticing what the difference feels like.
This has been a lifelong work for me that I don't understand sometimes.
And I don't mean it in the way of seeking pity.
Is there something that's out of step with me that I don't feel things in my body?
Because I've worked at this for years.
So I'm, I'm not, I'm not a therapist.
I'm not here to diagnose or give prognosis or anything, anything of that sort.
But it can be something to investigate as someone who identifies and understands myself as neurodiverse.
And that can mean a number of different things.
There's a whole beautiful kaleidoscope of diversity within how our brain works and functions
and processes information.
There are folks who cannot, literally cannot tell, answer the question, how are you feeling
right now?
They can't identify their emotional or felt experience in the moment.
They need time to kind of step away from it, reflect on it, and then they can tell you how
they were feeling.
That feels more familiar.
Yeah.
So that might be how you process information.
There's no time limit on, on this exercise, right?
It also can be just an element of if you've been practicing it, maybe there's different ways
or there's new ways to do this.
So it's, it's the definition of insanity, right?
We talked about all the time, we want a different result, but if we keep practicing the same
thing, I can't speak to your journey in that specifically.
I don't know where you've been with that, but it's not uncommon, especially if it's your
safe space is to intellectualize and understand things up here.
It can feel very threatening and unsafe to drop it down into everything else.
And you've built a version of yourself that's really good at taking care of yourself in that
way.
You're more right than you know.
I'm moving my hunch.
But I want to make sure that we stay sort of on target.
What you said, each of you said some, a version of some clarity, some, some, a new tool, a
new understanding of knowing things that we didn't know we didn't know, tools that we can
take away to apply.
So we talked a little bit about anchor behaviors earlier.
So the different environments that you're exploring together.
So it sounds like right now your journeys have been very, your individual exploration and
you're kind of trying to find your way back to that shared journey as well, right?
Yes.
So what environments have you been exploring physically together?
And it doesn't mean sexually.
Just what are you physically together in what sort of environments?
That can potentially include?
It can.
Yeah.
Okay.
It just doesn't have to be limited to.
Okay.
Could you say more?
I don't know that I understand the question.
Is most of your shared time together more routine?
You go grocery shopping, you get the thing, et cetera.
Or is there intentional time?
And that can look a million different ways.
Yeah.
We are in routine either here or sometimes at my place.
We go to like events at the kids' school.
We go to, we travel to the mountains quite frequently.
We have traveled with the kids.
We have traveled without the kids.
We host events, not play parties, but we host like community events and community building
events, I guess.
Either here or sometimes we're in spaces where he is speaking or engaged in guiding people
with meditation, things like that.
So we go to those kinds of events together.
We go, I would say we go to a fair amount of spiritual events and things like that together.
Yeah.
Is any of this time for the relationship specifically or is it just sort of shared space, shared time?
It adds to it because I like putting our minds together in events and I like being in
that space with her.
She's definitely a safe space for me in public places.
I am an introvert.
Ultimately, my recharge is like get out of here as soon as possible to go lay on this
couch or whatever.
When I'm with her, that's the closest I feel safe rather than being by myself.
So if I'm out somewhere with her, it feels like a connection in that way.
But to answer your question more specifically, I've wanted more of just present connection
here.
Not thinking about what needs to be done, what has to be, what doesn't.
I want more of it here and now.
I haven't felt like it's been present, lack of a better term.
How about for you?
What's your question about?
You listed a number of sort of activities and places like physical spaces you go together.
Are any of those intentionally to enrich the relationship or is it mostly just routine
sharing space?
I don't think we intend to enrich the relationship necessarily also.
But I do think going to events together feels out of routine and therefore we do always
like have experiences together that we then come home and talk about or we meet new people
or when we and...
It's definitely a byproduct of everything that we do.
We put in a system.
Put in a...
And the byproduct has came of that.
Yeah.
100% to that.
I think it...
I don't think we say it out loud, but I do think going to things together feels like
it's enriching our relationship.
Yeah.
I also think going to even events that have to do with the kids bonds us and enriches our
relationship because we are experiencing that together.
So in light of what you each shared of like what success means to you in this container,
this is more of a educator role I'll take on right now.
But I'm hearing the same desires, different timelines and assigned to sort of what that
looks like a little differently.
And I'll extrapolate if you need me to.
Please.
Sure.
So the fear of disappointment, of what if it's not a thing, you know, what that means to him.
I'd like to invite you to what that means to you, to yourself.
You don't have to answer that right now, but I'd invite that inquiry and this desire of
not feeling that connection that you were because you don't feel like you can share.
I mean, you can share, but it doesn't feel as met right by her.
Correct.
She's on her timeline with that exploration and you're on your timeline.
And sometimes our timelines don't sync up, even if we're in relationship with each other.
And without that ritualization of reconnection and finding ways to connect that might look
different than they did before doesn't mean it's less or more just different so that we
can synchronize in that regard, even if we're at maybe a different step.
And I don't want to...
Timeline's risky because it's not linear.
And I think we often think of time as linear.
Think of time as a circle, spiral.
Different ways of that ritualized connection.
So I heard from you.
And this is an idea, right?
This isn't an assignment.
It can be if you want it to be.
But I hear a desire to share these experiences you're having in your other relationships,
your other connections, but knowing that's not being met in the way that brings for joy in
the way that it may have in the past.
And I'm hearing, you know, perhaps a different drive or desire than maybe you started with
for connecting with other people and that impacting your ability to meet in that place.
Am I hearing that correctly?
Mm-hmm.
I think so.
Yeah.
Make any sense?
You're not experiencing disappointment.
That was that fear.
So what would it feel like if there was a journal, maybe you find a journal that you gift to him
where you get to write about all of the experiences you're having, full amount of detail,
whatever you want, and you're putting it there, it's addressed to her, it's her journal, it's yours.
You don't have to read it ever, but you could dabble and you can put it down after a page
or whatever that is.
And that's the little container or massive container that holds that piece of connective tissue
where you're still getting to express all of these things.
And she can integrate it at a pace and titrate that, you know, exposure to her varying degree.
And you can set all kinds of parameters around that.
You know, for the next month, we're going to try this.
Don't need to touch it, but I'd love for us to meet.
Like, that's the beauty of understanding boundaries.
This is where I am right now.
And in a month, in six weeks, in whatever, I'd like to talk about where we are now and see
if anything's changed.
And now we have this tool that we could potentially introduce that we've been building together
as just as an idea.
How does that feel for each of you?
Yeah, I actually would one-up you and make it a little more our own because I love that idea.
And I would say to make it more about us, like more unique to us is voice notes.
Because as how we started our relationship was leaving like very long voice notes for each other
about our ideas.
And I still love that as a modality that we don't use it so much anymore.
But it was really helpful the other day when we had a conflict that we didn't have time
or space because of work constraints to discuss in that moment.
But there was something very clearly going on between us.
I just took the tool and like 20 minutes later, we left a voice note for him to listen to when
he wanted to.
And it like cleared the whole air.
And we got through that like little blip really quickly because I could have a container to express
it.
And when you say all of this, it actually brings up for me that the times in which I think the timing
of which the sharing of the experience is coming at me isn't always the ideal timing for me to
receive it.
It sometimes comes in like a recap of a day or we're doing something else or my mind is
on something else.
And so to transition from an like analytical, I also have neurodivergence.
So to transition from an analytical like I am sorting through all of the must-dos of the day
or the work or the projected project or whatever to one of like arousal or even like curiosity
and interest, I have to like fully set all of that other stuff aside.
In the Emily Nagoski, Come As You Are book, right?
She talks about brakes and gas pedals.
And it's like one of my brakes is if I've got a cluttered mind, I cannot get aroused.
And so knowing that there's like a safe container for you to express all of what you need to express and a safe time for me to be able to be like, yes, I can receive this now.
Could be voice note, could be journal, could be like carving that time out one-on-one.
But that actually could unlock something for me to be able to receive from you.
I'm 100% down to do that.
Easy.
Full stop.
He needs very little explanation.
He's like, won't we try?
Yes, we will try it.
Of course.
Happy to.
This whole life should be one big exploration of trying stuff out constantly.
And if something's not hitting the way you want it to, then try something that doesn't seem like it would.
And just see what happens.
At the very least, you know it's not your thing.
And I want to try it out.
So, of course.
So I can do that now.
I think it's a very easy thing to conflate ourselves with our relationships.
Right?
Of like, well, you know, we said this, so I need to be.
What you just described is something actually very personal for me as well.
It's something I had to understand about myself is I get hyper-focused.
So I need to close that.
Yeah.
Shift my whole nervous system now.
Exactly.
Has to be here.
I now know that about myself.
You know that about yourself.
So what do I need?
What tools do I need to communicate that to my partner that I need that?
You know what?
I really want to hear this from you.
I would love to be able to receive this.
Can't do that right now.
Can we touch base in like an hour?
And I'd love to have that conversation then.
Right?
That's not a no, I don't want to hear this.
It's a not right now, but I definitely do.
That's another version.
But having that container to practice, whether it's a journal or a voice note journal, whatever
version you guys create for yourself that feels authentic for you, that's another way of creating
those, exactly like you said, right?
Those, that break in that gas pedal, creating those defined boundaries around that shared
experience.
Because you're not always going to be at the exact same moment, but you can actually want
the same thing.
So it's finding that connector that enables you to meet in that space.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
It does.
And Foster, you, you do want to hear those things?
I think that I feel sort of neutral about them sometimes.
And I don't know if I'm going to feel excited or aroused by it.
I am totally fine not hearing about it.
And I also want to, I want you to be able to express what you, what experience you have,
because it means something to you.
So I want to hear that because I want to hear it from, I want to hear you express it.
Okay.
For me, it feels like if I'm expressing it and just for the sake of me expressing it,
then I could just keep it to myself.
It feels like I can just, or I can just share with, in a way that shows capacity that somebody
or something will, it'll feel reciprocated or it'll land.
I appreciate that you would feel like I want you to express it because you want to express
it.
But if it doesn't link or bond in that way, and I'm saying it and it's not being served
back or not bouncing back, it won't feel like spending my thoughts and desires and energy
towards that if it's not being volleyed back.
Does it need to be volleyed back with arousal or could it be volleyed back with, oh, that's cool.
Like, cause we tell each other about our days every day and like, it's not all like.
It doesn't have to be arousal.
It doesn't have to be arousal, but I never going to tell you what to say, but just saying
that's cool feels similar to a neutralness.
And I don't think that it's a dichotomy.
There's somewhere in between that, that it could be an intellectual questioning as well.
It could be a, how does it feel for you kind of thing.
I don't think that it's a dichotomy though.
I don't, I know that you're not aroused by that right now.
I'm not going to go and expect that from me.
That's how disappointment happens, you know?
But if I get something that's like, oh, cool.
That's nice.
That's cool.
It still feels like it's just landing flat.
And then it makes me think, well, then what did I share?
And not, I'm sorry, not in a spiteful, like I won't share then.
It's like, well, I was hoping to get it back, you know?
And if I don't, then all right, well, I'll just hit it off a wall instead.
Well, I think that there's, there's, I'm not suggesting being like, that's cool and flat.
Like actually engaging with curiosity about like, what did you like about that?
That's like, tell me more.
Like maybe it's not my, maybe the, you have a deep interest in, in sexuality.
You have a deep interest in sex and it's not necessarily an interest of mine, but I can
still be engaged with your experience.
Just like another topic that you may want to talk about to me that you're excited to tell
me about.
That's not maybe my interest directly, but I care about you and I want to know what's going
on in, in your mind and in your life and what's exciting to you.
When I make those bids for connection sometimes, they're not really met.
There's a, oh, I don't know.
I can't, I can't look at that.
Okay.
And then there's just a moving on.
There was a conversation and outside of the example I gave was a conversation of, I was
talking to somebody and I was, I'm attracted to them and I was, we were being a little
more sexually charged and I had mentioned to you like my desires for that person and we
were in the middle of doing something else.
You heard it and said, okay.
And then we're right back to it.
I'm suggesting that I do something different.
And part of it is that I need to, I need to have the right container for it.
And part of it is that I'm now making this like active decision to treat that less as
like, that's your thing.
I don't really want to hear about it, which I acknowledge that that's, that's sort of what
I've been doing and more treated as this is, this is your life and this is your experiences.
I want you to share these experiences with me.
Just like you would say, I'm learning this new song and, or I'm giving this talk.
Like I want to, I want to share with you like what I'm thinking about that.
You know, like I can turn, I can turn to with the right space and the right container.
I can turn to active listening, engaged partnership.
I have, I haven't been doing that for whatever reason, but I can turn into that and, and give
that to you.
We're also both.
My intention is you're both going to be trying something new and different, right?
It's not just about, you're going to try something new.
You're also inviting that part of something new is, is you don't know how it's going to
show up for you, for your partner.
You don't know.
All you know is what's transpired up to this point.
And it's very, very easy for our minds to revert back to, well, different means worse because
that's how we protect ourselves.
We don't want different.
We're opening up, as you said, you don't want to hold attachment to an expectation because
that's what sets up disappointment.
She's never going to be the person she was six months ago, just like you aren't, but that
doesn't mean it can't work just as, or even better in a new incarnation.
But the process of newness is uncomfortable because it's not knowing.
That's it.
You don't know.
It's not going to feel the same.
It might be even better.
It's an uncomfortable process to get there.
And I'm hearing a willingness from two people to really find those points, right?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I will willpower myself for you any fucking time, dude.
You're in my whole fucking universe.
Normally, I would let that breathe for a lot more.
Yeah.
I also want to invite what I noticed in her body language when we brought this, just an
idea, right?
And you already, yes, and it.
You took it to the beautiful.
That's the creative process.
Made an offer.
She bid.
She added to it.
Her entire body language changed.
That tightness that's kind of been there every time we kind of touched on this point.
She was up in the chair.
She was forward.
Her whole face was brighter and more open, turned towards you.
Her entire body language shifted.
And I hear you maybe holding on, perhaps, to how you experienced her receiving that in
the past, which is understandable.
It's all you know.
Look for the new ways she's meeting you.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Does this feel like a place that maybe we've taken some new tools and shine some light on
some things we didn't know?
It has been great.
Very helpful.
Thank you, Ali.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for inviting me to do my favorite thing.
This is so great.
It's so, you could feel the energy, the sound quality and everything has shifted from the
last episode.
It's so interesting to be, like, on this side of it, right?
To shift, like, it's not a power, it is a power dynamic, and to shift that.
But thank you.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to, like, open all of that up here and for our
listeners to be able to understand, like, really, gosh, how nuanced these little things
are.
How uniquely specific it is to each individual and to each couple what comes up for one person.
Even just in our dynamic, what's coming up for me is different than what's coming up for him.
And so thank you for so gently and delicately reflecting and helping us pull that apart.
That was really special.
I'm very appreciative of you inviting this context for this because, you know, we've talked about
some TV shows that maybe do something similar.
And I think there's a power because, especially in this topic, right?
Did we talk about opening up your relationship and exactly how you're going to do that?
No.
The sessions aren't about, you know, I'll get people reaching out.
Help me convince my partner to open up our relationship.
That is 1,000% not what we do in this space.
Yeah.
He has questions.
My job is to be as clear as possible, a reflection, and in a sense, an avatar for your relationship
because you're only ever a reflection for each other.
And you're also going to be operating from the...
I just heard this beautiful concept of, you know, when we get triggered as adults, we can
sound like a little kid because we're operating from the age of where that trauma or that trigger
was created, right?
So when you have that third party observer, you know, the body language, right?
I'm noticing that because I don't have all the lived context of your relationship.
I'm a clear as possible, clear as possible surface.
So part of that service is like, I want to reflect for you that thing that you may have
missed and may be valuable.
I can't tell you that, but I'm going to reflect it.
Does that make sense?
Absolutely.
And that's the value of working with any version of a helping professional.
The differences between therapy and coaching, the way I summarize that is, and this is very
much a summary, therapy is really looking at the past.
You know, we talked about how I want to stay out of diagnostic territory.
I'm not looking for pathology.
That's not what I do as a coach.
That's very, very useful practice in therapy.
Coaching is less about the past and how we got here.
We looked at it a little bit, right?
Like, how did we get here?
Give me that context.
And now we're going to look at where you are versus where you want to be.
And we're going to identify the distance between the two and make real time changes.
And it's not, it's not, you know, we push that button, boom.
Now everything's exactly the way you want it to.
Fast forward.
No, we try things and we see how those different things interact.
We create that action plan in real time to get you now on track towards that vision of
the future that you're both interested in.
And that's the main difference.
You know, therapy, really looking at the past coaching, really looking at the present and
in comparison to the future.
I really love that.
I really love the visual of having a defined potential future, a vision for the future,
which is just bizarre that I never thought to have that conversation together.
I do it with my clients all the time.
What do you want your postpartum experience to look like?
But I didn't really do it here.
I was like flying by the seat of my pants and in the present moment.
And it's so helpful to hold that vision in mind to be able to get us through stickier
things or things that are maybe more uncomfortable and sit with that discomfort for the sake of
the greater picture that now is a visual.
And now I have that to look at in my mind.
So thank you so much.
Give us, again, the best way someone could reach you if they wanted to like reach out for support in this way.
Absolutely.
So my website, passport2pleasure.com, and that's the number 2, passport2pleasure.com.
It's on all the platforms as well.
And you can also find me on Instagram at @allyiseman.
Yeah.
And everything will be in the show notes as well.
Thank you, Ally.
Thank you so much.
You're amazing at what you do.
We're so lucky we got to spend so much time with you.
Thank you for trusting me.
And as always, please be kind to yourself.
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.