219. Exploring the Set + Setting of Your Relational Ecosystem with Kate

Nicole: [00:00:00] Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast, exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host Nicole.

On today's episode we have Kate join us for a conversation about embracing the interconnectedness of our pleasure. Together we talk about tuning into the wisdom of the body, the ego death psychedelic trip of non-monogamy. And the power of intentionality. Hello, a dear listener and welcome back to Modern Anarchy.

I am so delighted to have all of you pleasure activists from around the world tuning in for another episode each Wednesday. My name is Nicole. I am a sex and relationship psychotherapist with training in psychedelic integration therapy, [00:01:00] and I am also the founder of the Pleasure Practice supporting individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships.

Dear listener. Uh, dear listener, I am so excited to be sharing this episode with you, the set and setting of your relational ecosystem. I know you have heard me talk about this again and again on the podcast, right? What is the set and setting of your sexuality, your psychedelic trip, or your relationship in non-monogamy?

I get into this in my ebook, the Psychedelic Jealousy Guide, which is available for free on my website. I see so many of you listeners downloading it, and I'm getting such positive feedback and I'm just so honored to see that it is, uh, rippling through the community and that you're enjoying it. And because I was recording these episodes a year ago when I was writing the book, these ideas and concepts were so [00:02:00] prevalent in my mind that.

You're gonna start to see it across multiple episodes, and I hope I can invite you to get curious about your own relational ecosystem. Remembering that the set is referring to your mindset, which is all about your own. Mental experiences and the narratives that you have as an individual, all the things that are internal regarding your experience, and then the setting referring to the external, anything that is outside of yourself.

And all of you listeners know that I always talk about how the self is formed in relationship, right? So then that muddies the water completely because all of the mindset is a reflection of your setting really, right? But we don't gotta get too complicated deconstructing the ideas. There's still really helpful ideas to think about the individual and then the context that you're in.

And so applying that to your sex life, applying that to your relationships, applying that to your psychedelic journeys, oh, this is the heart of modern anarchy. These [00:03:00] conversations that really traverse so many different areas because, dear listener, you know, I am so passionate about ending rape culture. So passionate.

And we do that through conversations like this. We do that through embodied liberation and pleasure, liberation. And of course, that is a lifelong practice. And so I'm committed to being in this space with you to continue these powerful conversations. And I'm, I'm so grateful for guests on the show like Kate, who come and bring their vulnerability.

And together we can really share with you, dear listener, you know, the humanness of this journey, the real, raw, authentic, and messy and oh, so beautiful human journey of expansion. Ah. Alright, dear listener, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can explore my offerings and [00:04:00] resources@modernanarchypodcast.com linked in the show notes below.

And I wanna say the biggest thank you to all of my Patreon supporters and we have a new Patreon member. Courtney. Hello. Hello, hello, hello. Thank you for supporting the show. I was so excited to write you my handwritten letter and send you the photo of me and Fat Cat and some stickers and it's just a joy to be able to connect with you, Courtney, and I'm so grateful that you and all the other Patreon supporters.

You are supporting the long-term sustainability of the podcast, keeping this content free and accessible to all people. So thank you. Get exclusive access into my research and personal exploration. Then you can add on over to patreon.com/modern Anarchy podcast, also linked in the show notes below. And with that dear listener, please know that I'm sending [00:05:00] you all my love and let's tune in to today's episode.

Alright, so the first question I ask every guest is, how would you introduce yourself to the listeners?

Kate: This is an interesting question for me because how I would introduce myself has changed so much over the course of the last, you know, three to five years as I've really dove more deeply into the psychedelic work.

I am a. Underground facilitator. I'm a space holder. I'm a ceremonialist. I am a cisgendered, polyamorous woman. I'm a mother. I'm a wife. I have been quite the world traveler in the last three years through my studies, and I'm a former entrepreneur. Mm-hmm. So that's, uh, was a big part of my identity that mm-hmm.

Has kind of crashed and burned in the last, uh, five years, [00:06:00] which has been interesting and challenging all at the same time.

Nicole: Sure. Mm-hmm. Well, I'm so happy to have you in this space and get to talk to you about your journey and the service that you're doing and, and diving deeper into your community and your work.

Kate: Thank you for having me.

Nicole: Yeah. So I'm curious, your story, how did you get into this space? Tell me a little bit more about your journey.

Kate: Yeah, so I think like many of the healers in this world, whether you know, we're psychedelic healers or any other kind of medicine people, it was through my own healing.

I've always used psychedelics, so like I used to spin around a lot as a kid. Like altered states of consciousness has always been, I've always been into it, you know, I liked swinging, I liked spinning when I was little, when I realized that you could get a buzz from smoking cigarettes when I was, you know, 12.

I started to do that and then, you know, that moved into cannabis and then I was like really into, um, [00:07:00] jam bands in high school, you know, MDMA, mushrooms, LSD. That was always like in my practice for my life. And it's interesting 'cause I think retrospectively about my childhood and those high school, those formative years, and I recognized that it was always ceremony.

Mm-hmm. Like. You know, I, I used to criticize myself like, oh, I did a lot of drugs in high school, but, you know, we were taking psychedelics. The shows were the ceremony, the community was, it was the community element. The, the music, talking about it all was, was huge. The dancing was the integration. Like we were always talking about our experiences.

And then I kind of took a long break and did my, like, business life, um, as a adult until I had a miscarriage. Mm. And then I didn't relate that to, I didn't immediately relate it to, um, this really intense physical pain mm-hmm. Um, that I started to [00:08:00] experience. So I was having chronic pain and this was the second bout of chronic pain that I'd had in my life.

Mm-hmm. Um, the first, I did a lot of healing through alternative medicine, you know, with chiropractics and yoga and, um, things like that. But this second bout, I really found. Very, very rapid and very magical healing. When I started working with psychedelics in an intentional and ceremonial context, and it all started, I was at a party and I was taking, I was on MDMA and we did a little ketamine and then we, I had the DMT vape pen and Beyonce was on and it was karaoke.

And I was like dancing at this party, uhhuh. And all of a sudden I saw, and you know, I had been in so much pain. Mm-hmm. And so like all of a sudden I saw inside of myself, it was like this green smoke and I could see that that was the pain and that I could expel it, that I could shake it out. So I'm on the dance floor, the house [00:09:00] party in Wicker Park, you know?

Yeah. Shaking. And my friend comes over to me and she's like, um. Are you okay? And I was like, oh shit, you know, I, I can't do this here. Oh. But what I recognized in that moment was that I had found a pathway to healing. And so I started to have these, what we called spirit circles. And I'd have my sisters and my best friends over and we'd, we would create ceremony.

And I didn't know at that time about psychedelic therapy. I didn't know about ceremonial practices. I didn't know about indigenous practices. I didn't know about ceremonial community work. Like I didn't know about circle work. I didn't know about sisterhood. You know, like none of this was my purview. But I started to stumble through it and every month I would invite the girls over and we would.

Create intention and we would take medicine and we would heal. And I watched my community change and I watched my body heal. Sure. And ceremony started [00:10:00] to become something that I follow the path to.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Kate: So I would say, yeah, my, like my interest and work with psychedelics has been lifelong, but in the last seven years it has really become all about the ceremonial and conscious use of psychedelics.

And my whole life has. Completely shifted, changed, crumbled, died. Yeah. You know, falling apart.

Nicole: Sure. Rebirth, rebirth, rebirth. Back together again today again. Right. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing your story and, and to be so vulnerable about the pain that you were experiencing and the ways that you found healing, both in community and through the use of intentional drugs.

Right. I mean, I appreciate you sharing that. Um, you were talking about the intentionality and the ceremony. I'd love to hear more about what those words mean to you.

Kate: Yeah, thank you for that question. I [00:11:00] think a lot of what ceremony is, is a, a community, you know, choosing the people, uh, that really can see you and can hold space for you.

I think a lot about therapy and I. I didn't have a therapist for years, and every time I, everybody's like therapy, therapy, therapy, therapy, therapy. Mm. And every time I get a therapist, I'm like, this is not as helpful as an hour on the phone with one of my best friends who really knows me and who's known me for 20 years.

Like it's not. And I fought a little bit in the beginning of my relationship with my partner because they are a therapist and they're very, you know, and, and therapist has healed them. The, I mean, therapy has healed, not therapists. And I keep coming back to like ceremony and community and that that is the healing space for me.

Mm-hmm. That someone who really knows you, accepts you and loves you, [00:12:00] and that you're not paying to accept you and love you. Like there's a realness to that that's very, very powerful.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Kate: And that's very important for my life.

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think there's definitely an anarchist view of deconstructing the field of psychology and therapy and yeah, the capitalization of relationships and healing and care and unconditional positive regard and, and love.

Absolutely. I think, yeah, definitely in my own journey, I'm really thankful I had it part, particularly because I think my, um, family background wa lacked such amount of emotional maturity that no one would've wanted to have been friends with me. Do you know what I mean? Where I'm at now, because I was so chaotic and didn't really understand that where I did, I did have people, but I, I see now how the therapeutic relationship was such a, a paradigm of something else that helped me get there.

And now that I'm here, I'm like, oh yeah, my community, my people, you know? So it's interesting when I think about that of like, [00:13:00] okay, yeah, when you've. But, but you're right. Like on a bigger scale, how do we deconstruct all of this to actually get back into community connection? Because the field of psychology has only been around for what, like a hundred years.

Like what did we do before then? People we didn't pay. You know, we had spiritual healers, we had community, we had the person that would sit and share food with, you know, so, yes.

Kate: And I think a lot of that, you know, comes down to like comfort with authenticity. Mm. Mm-hmm. Can I be myself in the community that I'm in?

Yeah. You know, and oftentimes we are, I don't know, uh, indoctrinated into these communities that are part of our upbringing. Right. I was raised on the north shore of Chicago. Mm. There's a lot of, you know, judgment masking, you know, masking. Oh, everything's perfect. I'm perfect. Like I look perfect. I drive the perfect car.

I wear all the cool clothes, you know, and [00:14:00] everybody is not. We are all living this life. We are all on our path. We are all fucked up in our own magical, special way. You know? And I've heard you talk in your, in your podcast a lot about growing up Christian and like how all the shame and all of the expectations and the things that are in that community.

Yeah. Right. These are the communities that we're kind of born into. It's like our family, you know, you don't choose, you just are raised here. And then you have to look at it and say, you know, is this a community that I wanna be part of? And if I do wanna be a part of it, how can I show up with the most, most authenticity

Nicole: mm-hmm.

Kate: So that I can draw out of everyone else around me their truest self. Yeah. Just by showing up as my truest self. And that is how we create community. And that is how we, and that's really where integration happens with the psychedelic work is when you can sit on the couch and drink tea with somebody and tell them about.

Like have them really listen about the shit that came up.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. [00:15:00] Absolutely. Yeah. I always think about our interconnectedness, how our sense of self is always interconnected, so Right. Growing up Christian, or growing up in the North Shore, right? Your identity at that time was so deeply influenced by the community spaces, and it can be.

Quite literally, uh, feel impossible to be authentic because it might, you know, what happened to you at the party? Are you okay? You're dancing weird. You know, like, like that you're, you're fitting outside of the box. What's going on here? Hopefully that was just like a nice check-in, right? I'm not of like, you can't dance here.

Right.

Kate: But I mean, no, I think, but, but you're right. You know?

But in, but like at my neighbor's party, it might not be the same. Totally place, you know, over at yeah. Whatever.

Yeah. Marnie's house down the street.

Nicole: Yeah. I remember my friend, uh, Julia Barrett, who had came on the podcast for like a conversation about relationship anarchy, and they were talking about their upbringing in Baptist culture.

Right. The, you [00:16:00] can't dance culture. So imagine trying to have your psychedelic experience, you know, like there's Yeah. You can't, right? And so then that's gonna impact our sense of self and our sense of wellbeing, right? At bare minimum, like the, the tense, the tightness to which you have to clench and hold yourself because you can't be authentic causes long-term harm.

Harm, both like physically and psychologically for ourselves,

Kate: right? Well, and in the, and the psychological harm. Whether you realize that the psychological harm is there or not, I believe is what causes the physical harm. You know? So it's like our emotional and spiritual and psychological bodies aren't tangible.

So the only place for the pain that's in those bodies to actually show up, to light, up, to say, look at me. I need you to, I need you to look at me, is in our physical form, you know? And then as that manifests in us as fibromyalgia, colitis, [00:17:00] cystic acne, right? Like these ways that we, that people are experiencing chronic pain, chronic health issues.

And the only way that our, that our culture looks at them is to say, well, the doctor says everything looks normal. Like, everything looks fine. Everything looks normal. You know, they're just looking at your body. They're not looking at your bodies.

Nicole: Right. Exactly. Yeah. The body keeps the score. I think there's some level of movement in the healing world to understand that that is a crucial part of the experience.

I will say in my five years of doctoral training, I didn't have a single class on the body. We definitely had classes on neuropsychology, and so I learned all that I, I learned about how adrenaline moves through the body. I learned about how cortisol moves through the body, so it is. Absolutely. So, I mean, dumbfounding to me and wild that there wasn't a single course then about Oh, if we know that, how do we help our clients work with that?

Like that is just, [00:18:00] oh, see, you know, there's so many ways that the field of psychology is just lacking in the full collective feeling of, of the body, which is also where a lot of my training with Sauna Healing Collective came in. Oh yeah. We're working with psychedelics. A huge part of that is going to be the somatic response, and so, you know, working with clients and watching them take the medicine and then have quite literally intense somatic reactions of releasing tension in the body.

Yeah, of course we're gonna be talking about this.

Kate: Yeah. That's so interesting that none of your classes touched on that, and I would imagine nothing that if you were a medical doctor. Going through training that probably there's not many classes on the spiritual connection of the like mind, body, and soul and spirit, right?

Nicole: Yeah. Yep. Now we're seeing the problem here, right? This like, you got this box, I got this box, go. You know, like, right. Damn.

Kate: Which brings me to the, you know, to the importance of this bridge, like [00:19:00] between, you know, with people like the folks at Sauna, the folks at Modern Compassionate Care, you know, really being open and looking at the, these are the above ground medical professionals, but they really are being open to the underground, I don't know, wisdom.

Mm-hmm. That exists outside of the Western medical paradigm was really special.

Nicole: Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot to unlearn in that paradigm. A lot to unlearn a lot of power problems.

Kate: And for both of us too. Like for me, you know, because so much of my training and. I, I heard you making a, a quip in one of your podcasts about like, the medicine is my teacher.

Mm. Like very important to have like, actual teachers and to also know that the medicine is your teacher. That they're both, that they're both important, you know, ceremonial work, learning from indigenous communities, learning from the medicine itself, learning from [00:20:00] working in a community and ceremonial setting.

And when I come and I bring my work to Beth and Katie, I recognize that there's a lot for me to unlearn. Mm-hmm. Because there's a whole western perspective about how people show up to therapy. Sure. You know, and that, like, this is a two-way street. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, I, a lot of my. Work has been from my own experience with the medicine, I have had probably thousands of my own psychedelic experiences.

I do a pretty amazing protocol work that I do, I do with people in a ritual bathing setting. Mm. So I get people into a bath and we work with ketamine. Mm-hmm. And it's a very somatic, a very like body and spirit connected type of [00:21:00] experience. I watch people and, you know, I, I, I don't watch people, I support people

Nicole: mm-hmm.

Kate: Going through what can sometimes look like a rebirth. Sure. Very often it is this sort of deep blend of the physical experience in the bathtub with the temperatures and the water and like a deeply spiritual. Mystical emotional, and it's all kind of blending together in one, in this ceremonial container, very tight, tightly held ceremonial container.

Mm-hmm. And I think it's a healing process. Very healing process.

Nicole: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. The somatic piece is often, again, another part that is so dropped off of it. You know, I, I hope that we can all hold hands together in this exploration of these healing medicines and, and learn from each other and learn from our different every, what's the saying?

Like, everyone is my teacher, right? Everyone can be my teacher. You know, we all have different experiences to [00:22:00] it. And so yeah, this sematic work is so, so powerful and often what I see on the other side is people who wanna come in and just do the cognitive. What's, what's the body? I don't check in with my body.

No. It's all the thought stuff help me heal the thought stuff. It's like, what? Right. So, you know, or I've seen, um, spaces where we've had, you know, or even just generally most therapeutic psychedelic work is one-on-one. It's not in a community, it's not in a circle. Maybe we should unpack that thought that, hey, I need one-on-one training.

I need one-on-one time. I don't wanna share my experience 'cause I need to do individual heal. Whoa. Maybe we should unpack what healing means, you know?

Kate: Yeah. Well, and I, my strong belief is that we are sick because we are disconnected. Yes. We are sick because we are disconnected with Mother Earth, with the cycles of nature.

We're sick because we're [00:23:00] disconnected with our communities. Right. With our families. You know, that we are like, we're 18, you're out of the house. Peace. You're on your own. Right? Like these ideas. Oh. Oh. And not to mention, oh, you're a tiny baby. Cry it out. You know? Yeah. This push towards individualism, independence, that it's not safe to need your family or your parents.

It's, it's all capital. It's all capitalism. Like that's all this capitalistic mm-hmm. Idea that like, you don't work as the cog andar machine. If you're connected to other people, that's messy. Mm-hmm. We have to plug you in to, to this and all of that disconnection. It's such a big mess. Yes. That's why we're sick.

Mm-hmm. So we have to get to the root of why we're sick.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Kate: And then start to weave together those little threads, you know, and we're not gonna [00:24:00] dismantle capitalism like right now. Not for lack of trying. Yeah.

Nicole: Right.

Kate: Um, but there are ways that we can make our ecosystem of our lives more healthy. And I believe that psychedelics are here for that and are, have their own intelligence and are here, are spreading in the way that they're spreading in the moment that they're spreading because it is time for that.

Nicole: Right, right, right. Yeah. I'm sure you know about the zombie ants. The zombie ants. Yeah, the mushrooms that has the type of fungus that it like goes into the ants and it, have you heard of this? I have not. There's, uh, man, I don't actually know the term for the specific, uh, mushroom, but it's a fungus that gets onto the ants and goes into their brains and then it causes them to climb to the top of this like leaf.

And then from there it's, it's graphic. It shoots out from their brain and spreads the fungus onto [00:25:00] the rest of them. So it's a way to like perpetuate. I just always find it fascinating 'cause I'm like, wow, the mushroom is doing what? And you know, we're all taking those and I'm like, what's its goal? I don't, you know, like maybe it has one that we just don't, you know, you know.

Kate: Oh, it definitely does. It definitely does. And well, and even just thinking about like this idea that like, okay, here we are as humans and we fucked up the earth so royally by creating all plastic, right? And it's like everything's covered in plastic. Well, what's gonna happen? The mushrooms are going to learn how to eat plastic.

Like the earth is going to figure this out. Mm-hmm. I don't know that we'll survive through it and I don't really care, but like it will.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it has a lot of power. And then I always talk about, like you're saying earlier, the importance of community, right? Because we see the people who take the mushrooms, take any of the psychedelics and say, how do we capitalize on this and create this in business with this amount of profit margins and here we go.

Right? So it's like some level of [00:26:00] recognizing that it's not just the medicine itself. It's not just the drug, it's also the community and then how you interpret the experience. That being said, I mean from my own experiences and other people, I feel like there is a deep humbling that comes when you are.

Feeling the medicine and whatever amount of stiffness that you've had in the past makes you tap into your inner child, your crying on the floor, that thing that you thought I could totally get over, that comes to you in a wave, and you feel all of it in that intense moment. There's some deep humbling that comes from these experiences that I hope when you're in the right community, makes you look at other people and go, okay, you know, we're all going through something.

Maybe I could actually have a little bit more compassion for you and myself.

Kate: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I definitely see that, uh, you know, that's, that is, that's mechanism of it, right? And like I've watched, I have witnessed my own relationships, like my relationship with [00:27:00] my mother, which mm-hmm. Has always, like, we've always been very close.

But it's also always been very challenging. We have different perspectives, we have different worldviews, we have different value systems, and we've had a hard time seeing eye to eye. And I have watched as the humility that the medicines have brought. And you know, ayahuasca is really my main teacher. I don't serve it to others, but it's my, like my most powerful teacher that's that's out there.

And I've watched her show me compassion over and over and over again. And our relationship is vastly different. Mm-hmm. You know, and that's not just because of my work, you know, she's gone through her own process. But yeah, as we work with these medicines and we see ourselves get knocked, get knocked down, my overinflated sense of self was com was fucking destroyed.

Hmm. [00:28:00] And like my training. It was ripped apart. It crashed and burned. Yeah. And it's something that I've had to, um, you reinflate, you know, because ultimately we do want to have a strong sense of self. Look, I was born with it and then I destroyed it, and then mm-hmm. Now I'm back to trying to rebuild it in a way that is conscious.

Yeah. Yeah. You know? Mm-hmm. But yeah, the humbling element of some of this deeper psych psychedelic work can be destructive. And if you don't have the community, the money for the therapy.

Nicole: Sure.

Kate: To integrate it all. It can be really, really challenging.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And right, the integration, the space, you know, the experience itself is powerful, but it's then how do you understand it moving forward?

[00:29:00] Right? That was just a moment in time. It is how you now make sense of that moment That is the long change, the long experience, and what you take afterwards. And so holding some space even for your experiences with Ayahuasca and some relational integration here. Right. I'd be curious, you had said, you know, compassion.

What about that experience particularly, you know, with your mom and what was coming up for you? How did compassion come through for you in that moment?

Kate: There's been so many moments with it.

Nicole: Yeah.

Kate: With her and her, with my mom, and with Ayahuasca and my mom. Yeah. Um, you know, for me a lot of it is tapping into gratitude.

I luckily had a very safe. Upbringing. And I know I've always known that I've had, that. I had a very safe upbringing, but I was able to, in a really expansive way, look at some of the challenges of my childhood. You know, my parents getting divorced when I was seven, like whatever [00:30:00] smaller traumas were comparison to I know, I know we're not supposed to compare trauma, but Right.

I hear you. I hear you. Perspective. But I had this very safe upbringing and yet at the same time, I still had resentment for my mother, resentment for my lineage, resentment for the culture, like I said about with the North Shore, about the way that I was raised, you know, the way that, that the world kind of is here.

Mm-hmm. And through these lenses of really like, you know, crying on the floor, I was able to really see how well loved I always was and how well taken care of I always was, even when it was. Hard or bad. And they were confused. Yeah. They were fucking confused. Oh, sure. You know, my parents were confused. They didn't know what they were doing.

They didn't know how to navigate a divorce, but they held me right during it. Yeah. And that, you know, that brings me to that [00:31:00] compassion and that love for, for them. Mm-hmm. And, and, and for my whole lineage, everybody is doing the best they can with what they have in the moment. You know? And somehow oftentimes I think that's something that medicine really shows us,

Nicole: yeah. A little bit of perspective to see the humanness, to see, ah, they're, they're doing the best that they could with the tools and the resources that they had at their time. You know? So I, I hear you having that compassion for your family, for your mom. Yeah. I think about my grandmother on my.

My dad's side, had my aunt at 14, then my dad at 16. I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine kids for me now, let alone 14. What kind of world did that impact my dad, who then came? So do I get mad at my dad? Do I get mad at my grandmother? Do I get mad at my great? Who do I Or do we go, wow, okay, there's a lot of hurt here.

How do I have compassion for these people? Of course, the boundaries, right? So that's the [00:32:00] complicated space of what does that look like? But I feel I, I personally feel lighter moving through the world when I think about people who are causing harm and hurt and judgment to remember that that's a space of insecurity and pain in themselves.

Mm-hmm. And I sleep a little bit lighter at night. I don't know about you. You know? Yeah.

Kate: I mean, that is, that's it. Like the people who are hurting people are hurt people.

Nicole: Right.

Kate: And so, you know, we have to. Have open hearts and compassion for those people and for the ways that they were abused. Mm-hmm. And know that like we, the world cycles back and, you know, our healing is to shift a little bit, you know, and, and I'm going through this experience right now with my daughter.

She's five. I'm seeing how I could repeat everything that ever happened to me. Like could be, I could be barreling towards repeating it right now, but instead of. [00:33:00] Getting divorced, I decided that like I'm never getting divorced. I am committed to my partner or my life. And there are ways in which I've learned in this point in my life that he doesn't see me.

And because of that, that I needed to bring in another partner. And in bringing in another partner into my life and showing my daughter, love is real, love is forever. Love comes in all colors of the rainbow. And we will not, we will not do what was done before. Mm-hmm. My parents were divorced, my grandparents were divorced.

Who knows how shitty the relationships were before then. Right. You know? Right, right. And you know, and even the idea of a nuclear family is a new idea. Like this is an experiment in our world. That's not how family. I know it was forever. Right, right. Yeah. And so, and it's not gonna be how it's gonna [00:34:00] be. And as we're seeing, you know, actually Yeah.

Like you're really seeing in, in where you stand in your kind of queer relationship. Anarchist Yes. Place in the world, right? Yes. That like, we are changing the way that family looks. And I really believe in that. And I believe that there is, and like it, so your podcast is so beautiful because there's intersection between psychedelic exploration and expansion and the expansion of all parts of our lives in the way that we, I.

Live and engage.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I see those things being interconnected, right? Let alone the power dynamics of the war on drugs and all of that that needs to be talked about, right? But at minimum, the community is medicine. The integration, all of these pieces, the way that the medicine helped to give more perspective and, and really expand your love and the ways that, yeah.

And your dynamic with your daughter, you're not going to repeat it. You're creating a whole new psychedelic [00:35:00] paradigm shift is what I call it, right? Mm-hmm. Of a new way of being in love and in community and the longevity of that. I mean, I think there's so much work that, you know, in a lot of what I see, um, and the ways that the psychedelic experience really.

Parallels the kind of paradigm shift that is similar to getting out of these systems of oppression. It's uncomfortable. Things are happening, the walls are crumbling. Who can I talk to about this? Where is the safe space to integrate this and what is coming up in my body? You know, like I see a lot of the, the set and setting of non-monogamy and polyamory.

You get a metamor who is judging you and hating you, and suddenly the jealousy and sharing space gets really complicated because your setting is no longer great. Just as much as if you take the psychedelic drug and try to take a walk outside in the city, it's not always the best setting, you know, as compared to in, in a bath at home with a community, you know?

So like all of these things I see as like, um. Like microcosms [00:36:00] within it. Microcosms, like the dandelion, you know, has the same little thing like, oh, like there's nuggets and pieces of all of this that you can kind of see that parallel through. So I think there's a lot of threads and why these conversations often, even though we're talking about psychedelics and started there, now we're talking about community and expansively.

It's just, it's all connected in that way.

Kate: That was really beautiful. So there was something that you said that I wanna ask you to mm-hmm. Go deeper into. Sure. You were talking about when a metamore, what did you say? This is recent.

Nicole: This is recent. Let's talk about it.

Kate: What, uh, for you? For you or for me? For me.

This is like literally this week, so here we go. Well, and me, so, um, oh, fun. So I'd like to hear, I'd just like to hear you expand on what you just said and what that looks like and what is, oh man, the solution. Like when that happens, you know, do we say, okay, the container's no longer safe, we need to shift into a different container, you know, or like, what, what do we do?[00:37:00] 

Tell me, tell me, tell me everything.

Nicole: Of course. Well, I think the first thing is recognizing that there's no answer that's universal, right? I think we're all gonna know that, is that there's no universal. Like this is what you do, this is how you do it. So my experience will be different than yours and anybody else's.

Um. Well, so for a little bit of context, this was someone that my partner, so the hinge in between the two of us had dated in the past, transitioned to platonic and then wanted to date again. So there's a little bit of history that this person is already in the community. I think it's even a little different if this is something that you just met, you know, a novel connection.

This was someone that had a little bit more history and then they were, uh, interested in dating our shared human, the person that we both care about. And then they met me at a party for about, I, I can't even, we talked in a circle with some people for about a [00:38:00] minute, two minutes. The next day she called him and said, I don't wanna date you anymore.

'cause I don't think I could get along with Nicole. She's a relationship anarchist. I'm not really about those types of people that conceptualize their relationships like that. And so I'm not interested. So of course when our hinge told me that he still wants to build the connection with her and date her, I didn't feel particularly safe.

This is the person, and then, but you don't want to put, you know, boundaries on love. You don't wanna control your partner. They, they're seeing a whole different world. But also you're choosing to build this with someone who has animosity towards me, and she asked him specifically more recently, is it important to you that I like Nicole and Kate?

That question just sent me for a whirlwind because I was thinking about it. Could you imagine if any of my partner's friends came to him and said, platonic [00:39:00] friends? Right. Is it important that I like Nicole? You'd be like, why is this even a question? Of course, you should like this meaningful person in my life.

You should have some level of respect and care. This isn't, shouldn't be. Why are you even asking? So that there's, I'm just so dumbfounded that in a world of romance and sexuality that someone could ask that isn't important, that I like her, like someone who's trying to build a dating relationship is important that I like my meta more.

So in my head, what I've been thinking about is just that at bare minimum, when we're working in a platonic community, we should have respect and care for another person. That doesn't mean you have to wanna spend every day. That doesn't mean we have to wanna do kitchen table and be best friends. That is my ideal space.

I like having close relationships with my metamours, but at bare minimum respect and care, that is what you would expect of any family member and platonic person, let alone someone that we're trying to do more complex sharing of time and energy. Mm-hmm. And so, no, I didn't feel particularly safe. And so the agenda, the plan, which when this [00:40:00] episode gets released a year later, I'll be curious where I'm at.

But the plan is for us to meet platonic and to have like a, um, amending and kind of go from there. There's a lot of time to explore this world. I'm not gonna say no to someone, my partner's ability to explore this love, but at, at minimum, like, I just wanna feel like this is someone who respects me and cares for me.

Kate: Yeah, it's interesting 'cause this person, this other, um, it's another, it's a woman, right? Yes. Yes. Um, not to use overly, I know just for the sake of

Nicole: the other woman,

Kate: but sometimes, but like, just for the sake of clarity, right? Like sometimes Yes. A little bit easier. Yeah. Um, does she have the same amount of like, experience with polyamory?

Like, is

Nicole: what a great, what a great question, Kate. What would you think? Uh, I would think maybe not. Yep. Good, good read. Yes. That is, that is a no. And I think that's where it gets easier for me, where I'm like, okay. I can see how [00:41:00] this is coming from a space of fear and insecurity. Like I would understand if she had spent 30 minutes with me, 40 minutes with me and been like, I don't think I could fit with Nicole, but to have spent like literally a minute in a circle and then to be like, I don't wanna date with you.

I don't wanna date you because of Nicole. Right. Oof. That is some significant projection. Yes.

Kate: Yeah. So it could be really intimidating for, you know, you to exist, to do all the things that you do to be so out. Yeah. With how you're out. And then, you know, we are, as a society, we are conditioned towards jealousy and discomfort and possessiveness, you know, and I know I have parts of myself that are like that.

But they're, but they're the parts of self that I recognize as highly conditioned, young trapped, yep. You know, like I know that this po I have a, a possessive, possessive part that I call 22. [00:42:00] Sure. And she's, um, and she's trapped. Like that's part of that, of the persona of that part. And she's trapped in conditioning and I see her come out all like scorpion.

Yeah. You know, scared. Gets really scared of having the people taken away or that we're gonna lose. Right. Totally. But I also recognize that there are higher parts, older parts, wiser parts. Yep. That. Can hold the space for her Sure. And say it's okay that you feel that way. Yeah. You know, and I respect that that's there for you.

Mm-hmm. And we're not going to, and, and we're not going to let that be the driving part of who we are and how we show up in relationship. And so it's almost like with this person, you know, that you are about to perhaps be in relationship, like in the ecosystem [00:43:00] of your relationship with mm-hmm. That like, you know, you and and your partner are kind of the, so we like you're just saying with the dandelion, right?

Like it's a microcosm Yeah. Like our internal family system is a microcosm of our external family system. Mm-hmm. So here's a person that is, you know, maybe just not enlightened or, you know, awakened enough yet and needs the love and the space held for her. To get there. She obviously doesn't not like you.

She doesn't fucking know you.

Nicole: Oh,

Kate: right.

Nicole: That was at least the part of like my own tenderness of hearing this, of like, you know, there's obviously insecure parts of me that I'm like, do I suck? You know, like, and so then you have that moment. But it was at least very validated to be like, we spent 30 seconds together in a community talking about where she was from and how we both were from California.

Like what a concept like. Yeah, she doesn't. Right, right. So then to come from a space of like, okay, that's a level of like fear, you're right, [00:44:00] or insecurity. It makes it a little bit easier for me to go, okay, this is someone that I can have love and, 'cause that's, if I'm being honest, this is the kind of world that I wanna live in.

Like I want to love all people. I understand that's a hard ask. I understand that's hard. But I think when you come back from the concepts of hurt people, hurt people, then I'm like, okay, love, love. Maybe it's, as a therapist, particularly training at Sauna, I was taught from the very beginning that when I'm doing client work and I feel a reaction in myself, a judge, judgment or disdain, how can I check what that's bringing up in myself?

And so that is where I try to go. And so for me, when I, I'm having this reaction, I try to come from a space of love. So to hear that someone was coming from a space of not knowing me and then immediately writing me off from that, that that's a lack of. Insight into the, to the process of un unpacking our bias at minimum, to just judge me as a relationship.

Anarchist, I mean, like I told my shared partner, if she would've come to you and said, Hey, I'm noticing that I'm having [00:45:00] these judgments against Nicole because she's a relationship anarchist. I wanna unpack this with you and her 'cause I think this is problematic. I would've been like, hot. What a hot person to connect with.

That is great. You know? And so I think that's like really that difference is, can we see that? And then I think the subsequent, what does it say about the shared person in the middle? Who doesn't find that concerning, who didn't equally look at that and be like, this is kind of problematic and still wanted to date that person.

So I think that's an interesting part of this world of nom monogamy and, and polyamory and just relationships in general. Right? Because we could even take this to a platonic space. Like what would it mean if she was just a friend saying that and that he still wanted to be friends with her? Often I think that kind of taps into someone who might similarly have levels of judgment towards people so that it doesn't actually ring as a red flag like it did for you of like, oh, she must be new, and this, that person was like, oh no, this is actually a reasonable response to Nicole where you and I go, this is not a reasonable response.

So then you have to kind of look at [00:46:00] your shared partner and also be like, interesting. And so just the amount of data

Kate: Yeah.

Nicole: That comes from that, right?

Kate: Yeah. And, and there's also like, I think coming back to compassion, you know, like, um, your shared partner, there might be something that's like not super comfortable.

Like what's not comfortable for them? And then how can you create the space to create comfort for them? Like do, do they need some time to like be in relationship with you and be in relationship with her and learn who they like, who this is. One of the things that I'm really learning in my own three right now is like I am a different person in my two different, and I'm, I'm in two, yes.

I'm in a polyamory. I don't even actually, you can probably explain to me better what I am in. Like, I am in two relationships. I'm not interested in being any, in any more relationship. Sure, sure, sure. You know, but like, I wouldn't really analyzing is who am I in my relationship with my [00:47:00] husband, and who am I in my relationship with, my other partner?

And they're very, very different. Mm-hmm. And there's a, right now, you know, we're sort of in a place where we're, they're a little bit separate where I am learning this balance. This is who I am over here and this is who I am over here. And eventually. Do I desire to, you know, they're, they know each other.

They're, they're like friendly. It's a wonderful, like, we have a nice going great. Good. But like, I would like it to be there to even be more fluidity and like for the US to all be, you know, kind of even closer. Sure. But I think sometimes there's a, a moment of, you know, you have to separate things out to really get to know, to get to know them.

Yeah. And maybe that is something that, like your common partner right now is like, okay, I would like to get to know this new person. See how that relationship works. Doesn't mean I wanna break up with you, but like Yeah. You know, let's like, as maybe I can assess and then we can bring it back together.

Sure.

Nicole: [00:48:00] A little complicated. 'cause he is known her for about a year now, so it's not new.

Kate: Right, right.

Nicole: Yeah. But I think that. In terms of what you were sharing, like you're in the relationship structure that it is for you. I can't define that. You know, the word that sticks out for you is the word that is important and I think I I, when we were talking about the interconnectedness of our sense of self, yeah, it makes sense that when you hang out with your parents.

Different parts of yourself are gonna come through when you hang out with one friend versus another. Different parts of yourself are gonna come through. So then also, yes, when we have these romantic and sexual connections, different parts of ourselves are going to be highlighted. So, and I think what's particularly interesting is often watching the different ways that we attach, right?

Because in some dynamics, you might be the more anxious leaning forward, Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. And in the other dynamic, you might be more of the, no, this isn't that important, you know? Mm-hmm. And so just to even watch how your attachments and the ways that you show up [00:49:00] energetically can shift from person to person.

I think it comes back again to the ways that I'm particularly frustrated with the field of psychology, of attachment theory and relationships and saying, this is who you are and this is how you show up. It's like, no, this is how you show up within this container, within this relationship. You are not inherently anxious or avoidant.

What is going on with your set? Setting. Right. Here's the paradigm of psychedelic, right? Again, you can take a psychedelic anywhere and it can be the worst experience of your life from one of the most healing or somewhere in between. And yes. And you know what I mean? It is all about the set and setting.

And I think we even see that with things like sexuality as well, right? When you feel safe, when you feel supported, when you feel seen, those are the best orgasms of your life compared to the other spaces, it's always about the set and setting. And so these ways that the field of psychology is often trying to diagnose the individual, the individual this, the individual that I'm like, you guys are blind, the larger contacts that is [00:50:00] impacting all of this, and it drives me wild, like, yeah.

Kate: Yeah. Everything that you said was so right on. There's this metaphor that I always like to kind of bring in when I think about polyamory is like the sun only shines on half of the earth at a time. Mm-hmm. You know, we. Are not constantly rotating in our, you know, in a relationship because you connect with somebody in a certain way.

It's like a, right, there's like a magnet. There's still other polarity. There's other ends to the, mm-hmm. To the magnet that aren't in connection.

Nicole: Yeah.

Kate: The sun only shines on half of the earth at a time. And if there are parts of yourself that aren't seen or aren't witnessed in your primary, or in your primary relationship, then like you.

Will not, those parts will not grow. Yeah. They won't change. They won't get wild, you know? Right. Those won't come outta them, and once you start taking psychedelics and looking at yourself and your life more deeply, it's very, very [00:51:00] hard to continue to ignore those parts that aren't being witnessed.

Nicole: Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that no matter what you do, there is no world where one person will see all aspects of you and all aspects of your parts. There is no world in which your sexual fantasies will be the exact same as the person sitting across from you. Whether you choose to live in a life of compromise where you don't explore those is up to each person.

Right. But what I'm telling you is definitively that that person sitting across from you is gonna have sexual fantasies that you have that are different, that you don't have. And vice versa, right? So you get to choose where you wanna navigate with that, and then all parts of ourselves are always gonna be highlighted in different relationships.

I just want a space where we can have a little bit more fluidity to kiss the people and hug them goodbye. Like what a wild concept. Or to use my body to explore pleasure in the ways that feel good. I feel like I've had [00:52:00] a radical time trying to learn that though. Like just to learn, even like getting into the kink community and learn that like.

You know, oh, like maybe I would want to play with this person is seen, but not kiss them. Like, maybe I wanna do this. But not that, like I've had to unlearn so many ways of scripts, of ways of intimacy and connection. But the more that I unpack it, the better I feel, the more freedom I see. And I think that, yeah, the paradigm of, uh, psychedelics often, uh, brings in some level of questioning to the system.

If that's at bare minimum from the fact that this drug is illegal. And then we go, what the fuck is up with this? 'cause this is really helpful to me. Why is this illegal? And you start asking some deeper questions, or if it's innate to the medicine itself, I don't know. But it certainly brings out a lot of, maybe we've been lying to, and maybe we need to re-look at the situation.

Kate: So as a person who's, uh, who's right now very deep in the institutional institutionalized system mm-hmm. Of psychotherapy, [00:53:00] right. You're in your, you're in the thick of it.

Nicole: Yeah.

Kate: How do you see psychedelics impacting the field?

Nicole: Yeah. I would hope that the understanding a little bit of what I had said earlier about the ways that.

The psychedelic alone is not the answer. Right. The psychedelic. And I know the field of psychology is still, and particularly psychiatry is still trying to find that one out. Can we like isolate the hallucinogenic part of the mushroom and get it out and still find healing? Good luck. I, you know, so I would hope that this understanding that like, wow, we should reflect on the set and setting of how this experience is, is being created.

We should reflect on the integration and community. We should let. Reflect on the historical roots of indigenous cultures and have a deeper interconnectedness to all of this. I think that we'd see a very different world of the field of psychology in terms of community, in terms of examining the set and setting in terms of respect and [00:54:00] honoring of traditions and lineages, and ideally more expansive cultural understanding, I would hope.

Is that what's gonna happen? I have no idea. You know what I mean? Like we've got a lot of stuff going on and I would hope that it would also amplify the somatic pieces, right? I would hope that I wanna be able to, I mean, I do do work with couples and be like, okay, take some mushrooms and go on a date with each other.

This is gonna be a new way of seeing each other, and that is the research that was going on in the sixties with couples therapy and this stuff, right? Like. Uh, yeah, I just hope there's more pleasure and play. I hope there's more pleasure and play in the world, and I hope that, um, psychedelics can help people.

You know, of course when you're first working on trauma, that's, there's probably gonna be a, there is a lot that comes up in those experiences with psychedelics. It's often not pretty and it's often really dark and it's often very scary. But in that healing arc towards, uh, play, which is the full healing arc from trauma, I do think that it helps people loosen up.

I think it helps someone like you dance at the party and feel [00:55:00] that, right. So I, I hope that we get to more of that space, but I also have no idea it waits to be unseen and to unfold. Right?

Kate: Yeah. Um, yeah. I like, I love your focus on like, pleasure and play. One of the things that I always say, I work with M-D-M-A-A lot, um, with my clients and I work with MDMA in, in, uh, ceremonial settings and community settings.

Yeah. And one of the things I always say is. Healing doesn't have to be that hard. Everything doesn't have to be that hard. That's a patriarchal martyr concept that's come from monotheism capitalism through this idea of the, you know, bootstraps and all this bullshit. Yeah. Like fun is healing, feeling good is healing.

Laughter is healing. Like our, and I love working with MDMA and ketamine because it's not always that hard, you know, and I love ayahuasca, don't get me wrong. And I just did a very, very intense three day iboga initiation, [00:56:00] three days and three nights, you know, covered in ants on a dirt floor. And I'm like,

Nicole: yeah,

Kate: you know, letting go burning heat with no water.

So I believe in all of it, but I love serving those medicines together because it feels good. Not to say that there's not challenging moments, but there, for the, for the most art, it can feel so good and that. Changes everything.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. When the set and setting is right. Yeah, absolutely. In the right community.

I've definitely talked about, on the podcast, trying to have my first threesome experience with MDMA. Wow. What a trip. And again, the experience of the actual, like sexual erotic space was really great. But the beginnings of it had been at a concert space and it was the first time that I had seen not really the, uh, pretty much the first time that I had seen.

Um, and it was two of my partners, um, that started to [00:57:00] interact with each other while on the medicine. And talk about a stimulant, talk about an intense body reaction. If we talk about it, you know, these medicines as non-specific amplifiers, which is complicated, but I felt all of the tightness in my chest amplified to a level of intensity that I was hoping would be the opposite.

Giving everything we had talked about in terms of research with working with trauma, you know, and this drug, ah, you know, so I was like, cool, it's gonna make me feel interconnected and great. And it amplified everything. Granted, I don't know what it would've been like to have done it in a completely sober context, but, um, to have done that for my first experience, again, this sex part, super great.

The second I saw him holding hands with her the second I saw them dancing together, oh my god, like lost my shit. And so I do like to name that these drugs also amplify. What your current experience is and your set and setting. And so as much as [00:58:00] it's fun and play, if you are depressed, it can take you deeper into that, which is often the beauty of the work, right?

Then it's like, okay, what come up? What came up? Here's the container where you can talk about it. Right? Um, and so that is what I had to do with my partners afterwards, you know, for a couple of days of like, I'm still feeling this in my chest, like, we gotta talk about this, you know? Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's complex and that's where I always come back to the like set and setting and the community and the integration to these things.

And hence where the Metamore conversation comes in. Do you know how uncomfortable I feel now about the fact that this person has judged me? I don't feel super great. I now feel that in my chest. I now feel scared about what this person is gonna do to the dynamics of everything. The set and setting is super off,

Kate: right?

How many partners do you have?

Nicole: That's a great question. I've been, that word is, I think about that often. I've been using it for people that [00:59:00] I kiss and explore. Anything beyond that, I, I do feel like I have, you know, it's the relationship anarchist in me that's like, do I deconstruct a language? Yeah.

Currently, how many people do I kiss and explore erotic connection with? And then where do we define that? Uh, four people in my life that I crossover, play with and, um, enjoy in that space. You know, my, my dream, my dream world, Kate, is really to have all of my community be, not all of it, right, because actually the full community is much wider.

But to have my inner circle be all people that are super comfortable with erotic play and fluidity through this, and I've at least found. You know, three that are, have way more experience with this. And so we can have play together and scenes together. And I literally just had like a beach day with all of us and we're all like, it is pretty radical in ways I couldn't have even imagined.

And so like finding more people who are on that wavelength has changed the game compared to the dynamic that I'm [01:00:00] encountering in this other space. And part of that I think comes with newness to polyamory. 'cause that other person, the fourth person, is very new and then you're seeing it.

Kate: Do you think, um, that if you were to really, I mean, not to say that you're not deeply in love with many of, with all the people that you're in, but like, is there a world in which you get so enamored with one partner that like the, the concept, the ecosystem of the relationship anarchy like is compromised because of how much attention you want to give one person?

Nicole: So this is where I think about orbits. So I try to think about my community like, so again, if we think about it in Friendship Land you, we are always gonna have multiple friendships. Some friends I see once a week, some friends I see once a year, some friends I see every five years. Why can't I also love kiss, [01:01:00] have sex with all of those.

And in that world, it's not about hierarchy, it's just about frequency of the time and energy. So yes, if I have this one person that say, I want to do some of the more traditional things of, you know, live together, spend the most orbiting time together, I'm seeing this person every day. I'm seeing this person every, you know, every day we're talking, right?

That still means I'm gonna have a wider circle of people. And if I've built enough love and trust over the years, I am finding still, still wanting to explore eroticism with those people. Sometimes we don't. Sometimes we do. But I really love this fluid world that I know that when I do hang out with this person once a week, we can explore that.

Maybe we don't, but we can. And so that kind of fluidity, I don't really see a world where that level of depth of connection would change my desire to also, at minimum, kiss and hug and. Snuggle and let alone be a part of the scenes that my community are making at our, you know, kink spaces. So, yeah, so I just think that, I think both are [01:02:00] possible.

I, I really do talk about the ways that, because time and energy is limited, I do want a handful of like, close, close, close connections that I really run as much depth with because, you know, one of my partners would say that you can get all your needs from community. You don't need to like really invest in one person.

You can just really get all that met. And I've, I've argued with him and I'd say no, I really, I see the beauty of community and I also see the beauty of even a dyadic two person connection and what kind of love you can spend when there's limited time energy in that. I'm just not gonna put that person over other people.

And then also I wanna have the connection, the freedom to play and be around the others too in that. So I, I feel like a deep yes and of world of possibility.

Kate: Thank you for answering my question about that. I, um, you know, there's a lot of like, openness in the marriages and in the partnerships in my community.

Mm-hmm. Um, [01:03:00] but my, my lover, my other partner mm-hmm. When they, when they came into my life, I, like, my mind was kind of blown. I was like, I'm sorry, how many partners? There were like seven or something, actually. Sure. And I didn't get it. I was like, the word partner to me is the person that I have a child with, that I have a retirement.

Right. You know, fund with, like, right. There were these things that, like the word partner said to me and they, like, they met me. They were like, you're my partner. And I was like, I am not right. And now of course I've quite attached to them totally. But like I am, and, and I've seen how our orbit has gotten so strong and I watched them struggle because they, mm-hmm.

Believe in relationship anarchy. They believe in all, you know, they believe in like what you're talking about. And it's confusing to see like how intensely attracted our planets are. Mm-hmm. To one [01:04:00] another, and how overwhelmingly encompassing that is. Mm-hmm. And so I had just this curiosity, you know, and I've been at my, my marriage was monogamous for 12 years and not on purpose.

Like I always identified as a lesbian. Sure. I identified as queer. Like, I was shocked that I wound up with a cis male. It was very surprising to everybody who knew me. But over the years, we had such a good time together that we, I shut down, you know, that part of myself that, you know, more wild, open, queer part and, you know, very, and, and a very interesting part of myself, I think actually.

Yeah. Not on purpose. But, so yeah. So now like that, I'm looking at like, what's the future mm-hmm. Of me as a polyamorous person. Like what is the future of this marriage? What's the future of this, you know, equally important and very different relationship [01:05:00] and what do they need Yeah. To feel whole, right?

Right. Like, I've got this whole life happening over here and they've got their whole life happening over there, but like, there's going to come a point where they're going to, you know, where like they need different things than, mm-hmm. I don't know. I, I'm, I'm listening train of thought.

Nicole: I'm, I'm hearing you in the, the complexities of it all of.

You know, I think that's why. What does a partner mean? When you asked me, I was like, oh, we gotta get into this. What does a partner mean? For me, it means exploring sexuality and right now, right? That's what I mean by it, right? So to you it meant the full complexities of the other pieces. And what I find really fascinating is when this is inevitable, right?

That like you and I are having a conversation, we're sharing words, but you're interpreting on your side. I'm interpreting on my side. So even if I sit across from someone, we're like, we're both partners. Cool. We gotta go. Well, what does that mean to you? Yeah. What does that mean to me? And then to even find out the ways where, you know, people will use [01:06:00] different language to describe our same relationship, or in someone's world, one of my connections, I might be a closer orbiting to them.

Than they are in my world, right? And so I think that some of this all starts to get really complex and scary. And then usually what I try to always drop into is the idea of platonic connection as a relationship. Anarchist, right? I'm like, okay, how do we do this with platonic people, right? It's like, oh, okay, we might have friends.

Often we use the word like best friend, right? Some people have one best friend, some people have two best friends. Some people like when all two of those best friends hang out, you know, there's your throuple, right? Or there's your poly separate partners, or there's your, your anchor partner and then you have all these other connections, right?

So I really do see that there's ways in which this is already laid out for us. Yeah. In terms of the complexities of, uh, connection and time and energy, and often in friendships, it naturally falls into [01:07:00] these worlds of fitting into things. But I think the biggest difference is that in friendship and. So I'll caveat this.

When you do meet someone who is looking for a friend and they don't have any other friends, they will cling very tightly and be like, Hey, be friends with me. Why aren't you? And it's often really difficult. Yeah. Many of us are coming from a space where, because of the culture that we've been in, the ideas of sex and romance are very finite resources.

So when you do find another one, it's like, ah, give me all of it. If you had lots of different one of those, you know how when you meet a friend who has lots of different friends and they're like, cool, we can hang out. And then naturally things kind of fold together. Maybe they don't. Maybe they do, right?

Like we're just all kind of coming from a space where none of us have had this. So then it's really complex now that we're getting into, well, I want all the, you know, and of course when you do have friends that like you more than you like them, that is difficult. Yeah. This is difficult. You're right. That is difficult.

And what do we do? But I, I think I try to put it back into that [01:08:00] paradigm because the, the whole sex thing we get really complicated about as a culture, and it often is connected to like living together, having kids writing the escalators. But if we kind of deconstruct that, and then now we're just talking about relationships, which we all have multiple of, and like, how do we navigate these things?

It's a little bit clear I think once you've deconstructed the, the weight of the other pieces to it, if that's what you wanna do. Right. Not everyone wants to do that. And that's also Okay.

Kate: Well, and, and, and not everybody means to do it. Right. Like, sometimes it, it crashes into you. Like my, my husband, you know, I needed another partner.

Mm-hmm. Like that was something that became very clear to me. Yeah. I needed another partner and that was became something I had to look for. I had to make a effort towards it. And luckily I have like the most, he's like the most easygoing person on the planet, you know? Sure. But. He kind of got pulled into this whole thing and then it got complicated and then he had another partner, you know, then like we had a little bit of a situation like you were talking about.

Sure. The partner that came in [01:09:00] and then it got like a little, got a little weird around here. Yeah. Um, you know, so, and he's come along quite beautifully, like, on this ride, you know, and we've, we have chosen it together of course. But yeah, like it's such an interesting, it's so good to hear you, to listen to you talk 'cause I actually haven't done that much research really.

Mm-hmm. Like, I haven't read that much about it. I'm kind of busy, you know, I've Sure. And I am navigating it in my own world and in my own way. But I see like in talking to you, how kind of helpful the theory, some of the theory and, you know, the theory around it is very helpful in kind of n navigating it and that maybe I have some work to do in.

Learning more from a theoretical standpoint, not just in a lived experience standpoint. I'm a very like, lived experience, you know, but sometimes I forget that there [01:10:00] is a lot of wisdom in the uh. In the, in the research and in and in the books that the experts wrote, experts for a reason. You know?

Nicole: Yeah.

There's not enough books on this one yet. You know? There's not enough books, but when you do take the medicine, you do it in community. So then what a whole different world is too, is if all of your community are relationship anarchist and poly folks, you suddenly start to learn through experience of hearing stories and all of this.

Right. So there is some of that too that maybe could be part of it. I just, I think some of the biggest things that have helped me are to deconstruct the narratives of. Romance and sexuality to read books that, like you were saying at the beginning, that go into much of the deeper history of all of this.

And I think that's why when I think about the threesome situation, the sex part was easier because I had done so much deconstruction of like, it makes sense that we'd have more desires for more than one person. Like historically, this makes sense. Biologically this like this, all of this makes sense. So I'm not [01:11:00] necessarily as threatened about the pieces of this person exploring sexuality.

It's the romance which is deeper connected to care and tenderness and the feelings. And so all of that brought up so much fear about the time and the energy and who I am right to this person. And so all of that I think is more of the pieces that were harder for me. And I think then, yeah, trying to step into a world of friendship of how do we do that makes a little bit clearer, but it's still so much to, uh, to live into, you know, it's definitely gotten a lot easier multiple years into this.

Kate: Do you find that it's more challenging when the person on the opposite end of this paradigm, right? Like the Metamore or the other person is of the same gender identity and maybe like age group and it's like more similar to you than if it's a person of a different gender identity that that it can be easier?

Nicole: Yeah, I think it's amplifying that narrative [01:12:00] of why am I not enough, right? Like if, why am I not enough for you? There's someone else over here, right? They're so similar to me. Why don't you get enough from me here versus, and I think that's sometimes where like the ideas of the penis PO one penis policy come from, right?

The problematic nature that like, I should be enough of this, but sure you can do whatever you want with women, you know? So I think that yes, that is definitely a part of the narrative that gets amplified, right? And it comes from that narrative of one man, one woman, why would you need another ma? You have one Ma, why would you.

You know, so, so yeah. And I think that, like you were saying too with parts work, I think that's an really important part to this too, is that just don't, whatever you do, folks, don't beat yourself up when you see the problem when, because that would happen for me, right? Where I'd be like, cool, like sure my male partner go have sex with other men, but another woman, you know?

And so then I'm like, okay, you're right. This is coming from a narrative of scarcity. It is much easier when it's another [01:13:00] male. 'cause it's not so much of a threat of the place that I hold within this person's life. Okay. I recognize that I'm not gonna beat myself up about it. Let's get curious and unpack it.

'cause that, that's like all, that's like all of what we do is systems of oppression. Wow. I realize I have that bias. Okay, let me unpack that and not, you know, beat myself up. Now that I've recognized it, that's like the enlightenment moment where we get to be like, okay, what do we wanna do about this?

Kate: And is there a point where we get to be like.

You know what? I'm not ready for that. Right. Like, I don't want to unpack it or I, I, or I've unpacked it to the best of my ability in this moment. And like, I don't, I'm not comfortable with you having another partner that looks a lot like me.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Kate: And then we have to deal with our own. Okay. I'm not fucking awakened as much as I think I am.

Right.

Nicole: Well, maybe we don't have to have that judgment. Right. Like do, do we have to force the person to take the psychedelic? Right. Do you have to force the person to [01:14:00] take the large dose, heroic dose, psychedelic,

Kate: we definitely don't do that.

Nicole: Right. You know? Yeah. Do I think we'd learn a lot if we continue went into that dark space?

Yeah. Are you gonna have a good life without ever doing that? Hell, yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I just, I don't think we have to go into the space of like enlightenment or non enlightenment, you know what I mean? As much as you, there are people who do not monogamy in the worst ways possible. Just like there are people who do psychedelics and then try to capitalize on it.

Right? Like, it's not like doing, this is a state of enlightenment, but if you want to unpack stuff, what a journey. Yeah. What a journey. And I just don't think we should force people into any of it if they don't want to.

Kate: Right. Well, and to create the space, um, to be able to unpack it in this, in the container of the relationship and like, do you like this other chick enough to wanna unpack it with her?

You know? I don't know. She might not like you enough to wanna unpack it with you.

Nicole: Yeah. And I'm, I'm willing to have a conversation with her. I'm willing to sit down with her [01:15:00] Yeah. And talk about it. But yeah. Maybe she doesn't wanna take the psychedelic.

Kate: Yeah. Well, and sometimes it's a lot of work, you know?

Oh, yeah. Like to, because the, in these relationships, like in a relationship dynamic, there's, there's always, there's naturally a healing component as we grow with somebody and as we're seen by somebody, and again, back to my metaphor of the sun shining on the, on the earth, right? Like, I'm the earth. My partner is the sun.

They're witnessing of me, helps me to grow. That is, I think that's why we get into relationship. They're witnessing me, helps me to be seen and to grow.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Kate: But when you're in a poly, you know, a partnership, a triad, you know, you also like that partner that comes in. For example, this girl that you were in the circle with, she might need to grow.

Do you have, like, do you have the space? Do you like her enough? Do you have the time and the energy to [01:16:00] say. Yeah, role number two, like, I wanna see you heal because I love my partner and he loves you, and I actually think I could love you, you know? And so I wanna create the space for you. But what if you don't have, but like you have to have that.

You have to have the capacity for that.

Nicole: Yeah, and I will say in this moment that I feel like I do, I guess I just. Of course, you know, when we were coming back to, let's talk about it in maybe even a different paradigm with, you know, parents and all these other complexities of family, if your family is outright hurting you repeatedly, you have to set expectations and boundaries.

So I'm absolutely willing to sit down with this woman and say, Hey, the things that I heard really hurt me. I want us to grow together. This person in between us is very meaningful, and I want all of you to explore this. I want me to feel safe. How can we do that? Of course, like in any relationship, if this person continually comes back, [01:17:00] continually causes chaos, continually causes harm, right?

That's a very different world of how do we respond, but I'm not there and so I don't know. And so I think that. To expect everyone to be into a certain level of, of reality and love is not realistic, and that's not how we're gonna bring the revolution of community and love. Right. But of course, you're not gonna let yourself also be harm or not, you're not gonna let yourself be harmed.

Yeah. We can be hurt, but I'm not gonna let myself be harmed. And so if there's continual Right.

Kate: That's not only you, but it can harm your community. Right? Yeah. Like if somebody, and if you're trying and trying and trying with someone, yet it's not working. And I, this is something I experienced with my husband and another partner and things.

Mm-hmm. But like, I wanted to be what she needed in order to grow and to be in our community. Right. But ultimately, I learned from [01:18:00] self-inquiry that I didn't have the capacity for it. Mm-hmm. I only have the capacity for the number of partners that I have right now, you know? Mm-hmm. And like that didn't. It wasn't working.

And I had to be honest, you know, with myself about that. Mm-hmm. And I, and so with my husband, you know, I was like, I don't, I'm not gonna tell you, you can't be with somebody like you're gonna Right. You have to make that decision. But he looked at me and he thought to him, and he, and he said to himself, you are my priority and your safety and your health and your happiness.

That has to be my number one priority with kid. Together we have life together. And like, it was heart wrenching for him to wanna go. You know? It was so hard. And yet there was a haws eye view of how it was, that relationship was impacting the ecosystem of our life. That it was not working. It's hard.

Nicole: It's this hard work.

Kate: It's, it's not easy.

Nicole: No. No. So I hope you celebrate yourself and that insight to know that because Yeah, it's not. Always the right time or the [01:19:00] right space, right. To be able to explore these things. There's different things going on in our lives. There's different times and periods and seasons and yeah. If this person is bringing a chaotic set and setting to the ecosystem that has been established for a year mm-hmm.

You have to make collaborative decisions between you and that ecosystem of what that looks like. I think this is where we can come back to the beginning of that answer of like, what do you do? Is it, it's different and unique for every situation. Yeah. Uh, and the situation I'm, I'm in right now, there has my, our shared person out of respect is not going to pursue further romantic and sexual connection until we have a platonic connection established.

Right. So that feels safe to me. Let's start there down the line. But you're right, it wasn't just a completely like, yeah, just keep doing whatever you want. I'm totally fine. Like, I'm gonna love her. It's gonna be cool. Like. Yeah, there was pieces of, okay, we're, this is a container. How do we make everyone feel safe?

And then go from [01:20:00] there, right? So there absolutely. I think it's in this world, it's not like we can just, like in this world you, we have freedom, but every single step you take in that freedom needs to be. Like needs to be grounded in the reality that you are interconnected. Mm-hmm. And so when you bring someone into the ecosystem, it impacts everybody.

Are you respecting the other people in that? Is this a thriving ecosystem? And like continually evaluating that and making decisions that care for the people is messy and nuanced, but absolutely possible. And we do do that with our platonic family and connections. And it's messy there too, but we do do it.

So I, I just know that it's, it's possible to find the right people and it pieces together. I don't know about you, but like mine has like pieced together over the years to find these right people. This has not been a overnight couple of months on an app thing. This has been years of meeting people through the community and seeing, wow, these puzzle [01:21:00] pieces fit here and this fits here and this feels really good.

Kate: Yeah. I definitely am seeing, you know, my, um. My partner and I have, we're coming on a year of being together, and it's been an amazing, it's been an amazing journey, you know, and they have their other, they're not, not seven anymore. Yeah. But as they're getting, there's creeping up there again though, I gotta say.

Sure. But yeah, like, I've learned so much and as we like and establish comfort with the partner and time. Yeah. Oh, totally. You know, and like, that's been what, part of what's been challenging too for me, is like this other relationship I've been in for 13 years to really, really, really, really, really long time.

Yeah. You really know somebody in the way that you know them. You know, there are ways that we don't know each other, of course, that we don't wanna know, that we don't wanna know each other probably. Which is why we don't, you know, and then, um, and then to infuse another person in, like, it takes [01:22:00] so much.

Yeah. You know, and that like, I feel really proud of. The relationship. Like I feel really proud of what like I am creating. I want to be able to be proud of it. Yeah, and that's another interesting kind of concept is like what we're doing is so different. I live on, you know, I live on the North Shore, right?

Like all that judgment, all that shit that's like programmed in me. Like how do I, I'm getting like my second coming out or something. Mm. Beautiful. So it's such an interesting way to live and I really do believe that like you're onto something that the psychedelics and the kink and the poly and the community and aspects and like all of these things are deeply interconnected.

Nicole: Yeah, yeah. Connection, care, respect, community. Right, right. Just like these basic foundational things that I think we've really gotten a lot of cultural messages that have really made it difficult. And I think [01:23:00] what I. We both know is that future generations who see your daughter, she is not gonna struggle in the way that you and I are right now because she is already seen a world of this possibility.

So she's not gonna be as scared as we are going, is this even real? Can we even do this? Does this ever even work? And so for her to start with that level of consciousness, oh, I'm excited to read the books that she writes. Mm-hmm. I don't wanna read the books that she writes, you know what I mean? Like they're gonna be writing so much more, but they'll be like, she's gonna look up to me and be like, why were you struggling mom?

And have to be like, honey, you didn't understand Back then it was not as cool as this. It was not as cool. Yeah. You know? So I have a lot of hope in that. Yeah. So I know we've had such a beautiful conversation that has ranged to so many different topics and really centered around this focus on community [01:24:00] and connection and care.

But before we come to the end of our time, I just wanna check in with you and take a deep breath

and see if there's anything else that you'd like to share with the listeners. Otherwise I can guide us towards our closing question.

Kate: No, it's been such an honor to, um, to witness you and be witnessed by you. Thank you so much for having me on. I am so excited to just like listen to your podcast endlessly.

Nicole: So good. Oh, well thank you for joining. Thank you for being a part of the movement and the show. Yeah. Alright, so the one question that I ask everybody on the show is. What is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

Kate: Ooh, telling the truth.

Nicole: Mm.

Kate: Authenticity. Like letting yourself just say [01:25:00] who you are and what you think and what you feel, and letting that like.

Be welcome instead of making people feel, making people feel uncomfortable with the transparency and honesty.

Nicole: That would be it for me. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the, the feeling in the body when you can really reach that space when you have, you know, that community where you can be all of yourself, where you can speak freely and also to be seen in that.

Right. There's a lot of spaces where I go where I don't feel like people understand any of the things that we talked about. Right. And so to have the spaces we were also Yeah. Able to tell that truth and be seen in it. It, it begets even more of that authentic dance, I feel like in that authentic pleasure.

Yeah.

Kate: Mm-hmm.

Nicole: Well, thank you for joining me in that dance today, and thank you for being a part of this conversation and for inspiring so many of the listeners to step deeper into that authenticity.[01:26:00] 

If you enjoy today's episode, then leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast, and head on over to modernanarchypodcast.com to get resources and learn more about all the things we talked about on today's episode. I wanna thank you for tuning in, and I will see you all next week.