230. Polyamory for Dummies with Dr. Jaime Grant

[00:00:00] Dr. Nicole: Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast, exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host, Dr. Nicole. On today's episode, we have Dr. Jamie Grant. Join us for a conversation about the lifelong practice of liberated love. Together we talk about the freedom of being disowned, re-imagining exclusivity, and the pleasure of embodiment without shame. Hello, 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 Dr. Nicole. I am a sex and relationship psychotherapist for providing psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, and I am also the founder of the Pleasure Practice supporting individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships.

Dear listener, polyamory for Dummies. Oh my goodness. When I saw that Dr. Jane Grant was writing a Polyamory for Dummies book with that series, the Four Dummies Book series, I first laughed pretty hard and then was so excited that it's becoming more and more available. Wow, what a dream. What a dream. It's so exciting to hear how Jamie felt called to the path and then continued to practice her liberation with sexuality and the space that she's in now and can speak from and help others.

And I really appreciate the nuance of, uh, the freedom of being disowned as a queer person. I definitely understand that one. And it's true. This is a very common experience for queers and it's unfortunate. It is extremely unfortunate that some of the people, we should expect to love us unconditionally.

Our biological families really can't show up for that, right? And so I wanna honor that as something that is very common within the queer community, especially within the non-monogamy community as well. And if you're both of those things, hello, I feel you. And, uh, there's also a really special empowerment with that, right?

Once you blow up all the other expectations, there's a lot of freedom. There's a lot of freedom, and I think that's where the power of queer joy comes in. That freedom feels really good. Really good, dear listener. And so I'm excited to be sharing this episode with you today, all about that queer joy and freedom.

Ah. All right, dear listener, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can explore my offerings and free resources@modernanarchypodcast.com, linked in the show notes below. And I wanna say the biggest thank you to all of my Patreon supporters. You are supporting the long-term sustainability of the podcast.

Keeping this content free and accessible. So thank you. And with that dear listener, please know that I'm sending you all my love and let's tune in to today's episode.

Dear listener, there's a space already waiting for you where you are invited to let go of every old script about sex and relationships, and begin living a life rooted in your pleasure, empowerment. And deep alignment. I'm Dr. Nicole, and this is your invitation to the Pleasure Liberation Groups, a transformative, educational, and deeply immersive experience designed for visionary individuals like you.

Together we'll gather in community to explore desire, expand relational wisdom, and embody the lives we're here to lead. Each session is woven with practices, teachings, and the kind of connection that makes real transformation possible. And I'll be right there with you guiding the process with an embodied curriculum that supports both personal and collective liberation.

This is your invitation into the next chapter of your erotic evolution. Say yes to your pleasure and visit modern anarchy podcast.com/. Pleasure practice to apply.

So the first question I like to ask each guest is, how would you introduce yourself to the listeners?

[00:05:18] Dr. Jaime Grant: Hmm. It's a good one. Of course, you know, this changes all the time, but, uh, now I would say I'm a, we're feminist writer activist. Been active in L-G-B-T-Q and Racial Justice liberation movements for about 35 years.

And, um, that's how I come at this work. Uh, sexual liberation work. And I'm just excited to be here and talk about it.

[00:05:50] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. I'm excited to have you here. What an honor. So thank you for joining. Yeah. I know before we started, we had talked a little bit about how some of our journeys mirror each other, and I'd love to take some space for you to share your story both with me and the listeners that are tuning in today.

Sure.

[00:06:12] Dr. Jaime Grant: Well, I really got into looking at gender and sexuality because I was disowned in my family as a young person in the mid eighties for coming out as a lesbian. I had grown up in a very strict Boston Irish Catholic first gen enclave. Had a very tight family, a million cousins. Um, and you know, my, honestly, my poor parents, I have an enormous amount of love and respect and, um.

Empathy for them, uh, about the, you know, the religious, uh, structure they found themselves in, and that there was really no understanding of queer life beyond that. It was like a, you know, a pariah status that made no sense to them. So, you know, being cast out of my family was just so incredibly hard on me.

[00:07:10] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:11] Dr. Jaime Grant: I'd had a problem with alcoholism as alcoholism all over my family, but my addiction really escalated and yeah, so I, I ended up getting a master's in women's gender and sexuality studies to try to make some sense of, and eventually PhD, but to try to make some sense of, you know, why would it be so important to me to.

You know, to construct this identity, to claim it, to take up space with it at such a great cost in my life. Right. Um, and I think really, I, we're gonna be talking a lot about polyamory today. I think so many people coming out poly today are coming out in environments where they also risk. Um, like I've been fired several times for being queer or feminist or whatever, too political over my lifetime.

I think a lot of people who are considering polyamory are worried about job security, their place in their families, just the whole Yep. Structure that they've been sold around. What a, a good and reasonable life that's gonna make sense in their families of origin is. So, um, as I'm writing Polyamory for Dummies, which I'm very excited to talk about today, I really am going back and thinking about myself in that era.

[00:08:29] Dr. Nicole: Yeah,

[00:08:30] Dr. Jaime Grant: and what I needed and how tender and vulnerable a time that was so that I can relate to the reader, right? Mm-hmm. Which are mostly people who are picking up this book are gonna be really trying to figure out, you know, does this matter? Do I really want this? Why do I want this? Why does this keep coming up?

Why is X, y, Z not working?

[00:08:52] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:08:52] Dr. Jaime Grant: Um, yeah. Mm-hmm. So long answer. I'll get a lot of long answers.

[00:08:57] Dr. Nicole: I love long answers. The context is important, so thank you for sharing and Sure. Yeah. What a journey, right? What a journey. I, I work with psychedelic medicines and I'm always like, what a psychedelic paradigm shift coming from that space to expansive relationships and liberating.

Whoa. Yep. Yeah. When I think about my own journey and upbringing, um, I got the paper test. Did you, do you, have you heard of this?

[00:09:29] Dr. Jaime Grant: No

[00:09:30] Dr. Nicole: man, I really wanna go back to my high school and do sex ed, but I don't think I'd be allowed to. Um, they, for my sex ed, this is all I got. I was put into a chapel with a full, everyone was in one room together and someone got up on stage and said, okay, when you have sex, it's like bringing these two pieces of paper together with blue and they mushed them together.

And then they said, when you stop having sex with that person, and then they ripped the paper apart and said, see, you lose parts of yourself when you have sex with one person and then don't stay with them. And who would want this piece of paper? Yep. And I was in the crowd, a virgin at the time, going, yeah, of course.

Yeah. Forget it. Right. Totally. Like, oh my God. Like just even any level of trauma informed nature now. Yes. Thinking about that, let alone

[00:10:27] Dr. Jaime Grant: No, my mother tell me that sex was not what it was cracked up to be, which I was like, Hmm, I don't think she's having a good time. Aw. Yeah. Um, and b, she'd snap my spine if I had sex, which it's very Irish.

I just wanna say Irish parents always threaten bodily harm. Wow. So it's very common to hear bodily harm threats all the time. But my spine has really stayed, shoot, shoot. Um, not much you can do after that. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. No, and it's interesting, you know, I taught at a Midwestern college.

In the s in the mid aughts or about 2010. And so many of the young women who grew up in a abstinence only state mm-hmm. Exit state, it's 2010, told me about carrying around bricks in a backpack, a a backpack put to the front of their bodies. Right. And then loaded with bricks. And I thought first it was the baby that they were carrying, but it was the shame.

It was the shame. And this is like, some of this was public schools. Oh. It wasn't even like, you know, and, and they all came in. I was running a women's research center and activism center and, um, and they had no sex education. So I just started doing my thing on campus, uh, because so many of the, you know, it was a regional school and drew so many Michiganders and they had nothing in 2010.

You know, so it's still really hard out there to just define ourselves apart from the traditions we grew up in. Yeah. Ways we are going to Right. Our gender, our sexuality, our sexual practices, our desire, the ways we wanna form our families. What I tell people is when I finally came out to my mother, I'd already had a relationship for over a year.

It was such a relief because it threw the whole albatross off of me. Right. She was no longer gonna comment on my hair, my clothing, my boyfriends, my comport at work, my job where I was living. I was a lesbian. I was beyond the pale. And in some ways it was just enormously freeing. Yeah. Right. It's like, well, I'm disowned.

I can just make this shit up now, man. And that's exactly what I've done. And I mean, people will say to me, it's like, wow, you've just had such an unusual life and um. I, and, and I did, you know, reconcile, you know, that's a longer part of the story we'll get to, but Sure. Uh, but you know, as hard as it was, as painful as it was, it was so painful for my parents.

It was a gift to me in some way around freeing me from all those expectations. And, and it was, you know, it was like 1984, like the women's movement was exploding.

[00:13:19] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:20] Dr. Jaime Grant: There were so many things happening. I mean, women of color, feminisms, all the big books were coming out. The first books, this bridge called My Back, which like changed the world.

[00:13:31] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:13:31] Dr. Jaime Grant: And I was fully there to receive

[00:13:34] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:13:34] Dr. Jaime Grant: All these people's ideas about how we could really change the world through thinking about our sex and sexuality and our genders.

[00:13:43] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:13:44] Dr. Jaime Grant: Um, so. Sorry, mom.

[00:13:50] Dr. Nicole: I definitely resonate with that though. I've gotten a lot of questions from people who say like, how does your family take the whole polyamory, the whole psychedelic thing?

And I'm like, well, everyone, I really, you know, they felt like they lost me after I was queer. Once I came out as queer. They're like, oh, well she is gone. Right? So it's like, okay, let's throw the poly, let's throw the dr. Like let's throw the whole thing on. You. Just throw it all in there. Right? Right. Why not?

Yes. So I feel a lot of resonance with that of like, once you're there, you're there and then, but that has been a gift, right? Where you're like, okay, I'm already alright, so I'm gonna do whatever at this point and live into it and live into my pleasure. And so the, the freedom that that has, of course the pain we, you know, but also the freedom that it did give us to be able to like play and explore.

[00:14:40] Dr. Jaime Grant: I mean, that's the joy of a queer life to me. Yeah. People are always talking about all our health disparities and, you know, the oppression, which is true. Yep. But man, you know, when I look at my peers, you know, when I go back for reunions or whatever, you know, I'm so happy. I've, I've just feel so blessed to have had my queer life and to have had, you know, and to have come of age during such an explosion of, of movement, activity and thinking and creativity.

Uh, it was just an incredible time to form myself and, uh, and polyamory, you know, figuring out that monogamy was not, I mean, I, I just knew that so early on, one of my favorite stories is, you know, I was lovers with one of the guys on the football team in college.

[00:15:24] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:15:24] Dr. Jaime Grant: And you know, he was a very, he was two years older than me and very handsome.

Irish, of course, you know. Um, and my parents loved him, of course. Um. But, uh, it, it, when we first got together, it was like really early in my freshman year. And, um, he said, um, oh, well, you know, we'll just be monogamous. And I looked at him and I thought, this guy is gonna be having so much sex all over campus.

There's just no fucking way. Right. The, uh, every, every party we go to, the women are just like, and I was like, yeah, Brad, that's not gonna work out for me. Yeah. You know, I'm, I'm not gonna be monogamous. And he's like, what? You know, this is a small campus. You can't do that here. And I was like, really? Because I think you're doing that here and, um, you seem to be fine.

Um, and he, he was just like, adamant. And I just said, well, you know, like, take it or leave it. I believe you're gonna do what you want when we're not together 24 7. And I also am gonna do what I want. And that also just kind of branded me very early. In my social circles, this was before I came out as queer.

As queer in a way, right? Mm-hmm. It's like, you know, um, being unwilling to, uh, play by the rules that a girl in 1980, you know, 79, 80, 81, should be playing by. And, uh, you know, I'm not Irish for nothing, as my mother used to say. I mean, I, I, you know, I could read what was happening in the room and there was just no way I was gonna live with that kind of double standard, and I think a very unusual stance in my era again.

Yeah. But one, I just, you know, I do think it's so interesting, you know, being cast out of that community, I took so many of their values with me. Sure. You know what I mean? I took, I mean, you, you must feel this sometimes too, right? Is like, there are some incredibly deep, uh, abiding things about, you know, my own history of Irish resistance and, uh, displacement and coming here.

How communities survive. And I think that is in people's poly stories a lot. It's one of the things I'm looking at in the book is for people to think about how, even though their family of origin is telling this is a terrible idea, that there are threads in our stories that are coming through. I mean, all of our threads are poly.

If you go back far enough. I mean certainly with, I mean Mormons, you have poly everywhere, but a certain kind of poly. Right, right. A certain kind. But you know, I mean, I Irish people were poly before the Catholics came in. You know, everybody, so many, you know, indigenous and traditional religions and cultures, you know, they were all poly.

Yeah. Um, you know, there was land and stuff to pass down. Right. So I just feel like so much of my not taking bullshit and deciding to have the kind of life I want, it's very Irish. Yeah. So that's a, a place I think people can really explore as they're thinking about why certain relation con ship configurations are important to them or, or why they're resisting certain traditional ideas.

Mm-hmm. That this culture has fed us. Is this culture, even your culture, like why do you care who's in position of family forms is this and what matters to you? So there's a lot of exercises in the book that are gonna help people start to. Think critically about what just has been pushed on us and given to us and what's actually ours and what do we wanna create.

[00:19:01] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Because it's so deep. I mean, so, so much celebration and respect to your younger self. Who knew this, who stood tall for that? Hell yeah. I mean, I can't believe it. Yes. I love her. You know, and, um, it's so deep within us though, when I think about unpacking internalized homophobia, right? And the ways that I would feel judgment and shame towards myself.

Internalized mono normativity, right? These moments where I feel judgment and shame towards anything other than that, even though I want to be here, like I see my value systems of expansive love and then also have this deep judgment at the same time. And it's wild because when I look back on my journey, I would always have like multiple crushes on people.

I'd be talking to multiple people, but then. When it was, I'm putting this in quotes, serious, right? I would pick one and it would always be one, and then I would hit this erotic libido drop off of like, of course I love this person, but wow, things are starting to feel a little like, hmm. Like I love this person, but whoa.

Yeah. Um, and then I remember the first time that I met someone who was polyamorous and they introduced it to me and I looked at them, Jamie, and I said, if you really loved me, it would be me and only me. I can't do this. And I walked away. So I'm really impressed by you because that is not where I came from.

And so then getting to this space of living in this sort of polyamorous, expansive dynamics has been such a radical journey of unpacking so many cultural messages. And I think that there are a lot of specific cultural messages around romance. And you know, the one person living with this one person till you die.

What all that means. But there's also a very specific avenue that I feel like doesn't get talked about enough, which is the sexual pieces of it. We can talk all about attachment styles, all about relationships, all of that. But also you gotta unpack that you're about to be having sex with multiple people if that's what you want.

Right? Right. And that in and of itself, when you've come from purity culture or puritanical roots in America. Oh my God, that's a lot. Yeah.

[00:21:22] Dr. Jaime Grant: No, and especially for women. I mean, and, and fem and, and women identified people. I mean, our capital is in our. In our refusal to have anybody have access to our bodies.

Right. It's like your, your number. And I remember telling this person in college my number, how many people had slept with a, it was like, oh my God, never tell these mother, mother, this guy's your number. You know? Uh, because it, it's never good. Yeah. Say it's never good. But yeah. I mean, you know, if we don't buy into that, I mean, we're talking about just pushing back on such monumental ideas about our worth, you know?

I mean, that we can say, you know, I've slept with XT people and I, I feel great about it. And, you know, some of them were terrible, some of them were great. I'm so glad I have more experience and I know more about my body and I know what I like, and I have figured out how to ask for what I like, but, oh my God, as you're, as you're coming into your sexuality, I mean, even, you know, I'm this 25-year-old son and the 17-year-old daughter, and mm-hmm.

Just watching them. I mean, it's certainly better, it's better 'cause they have a mother who will speak to them and assumes their sexual beings and everything. But, you know, the, the pressures and the ideas about what they can have and what they can't have, they're still pretty terrible. Yeah. Even though we live in a very, um, queer positive community, so, you know, there's, there's lots of, you know, queers in and out of here, and people comfortable with their identity.

But I would say the, the counting still around how many people you sleep with and whether, you know you're a worthy person by that number, it's still extremely gendered. Yep. And it's still, you know, even in, you know, even in queer communities among men, I mean, even though everybody has many partners maybe, or is having a lot of sex with different people, there's still judgment about it.

There's still, I mean, I see it in my, my own community. I mean, it's like, you know, what business is it of yours? What you know. How I'm living in my body and pursuing my pleasure. Yeah. It's none of the business. Yeah. You know, what is our business, of course, when we have multiple partners is to be taking care of ourselves and to be taking care of them.

And the more shame we have about the number, I mean, it's like the less likely we are to be taking care of that.

[00:23:48] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:49] Dr. Jaime Grant: Uh, because you know, that kind of denial or that shame about going after what you want, it just complicates the conversation. Right. I mean, a lot of people just not even have it. Right.

Yeah. So, sorry, keep going on and on.

[00:24:03] Dr. Nicole: No, it's great. This is all good. This is so good. I'm, I'm thinking about the ways Yeah. In my own journey from the paper test and I cried the first time I had sex before marriage, and the second time I slept with someone ever in my lifetime, I felt like I was so broken to the space.

Oh yeah. It was, it was bad to the space where I'm at now where I'm like, oh God, I hope you're having sex with multiple people because sex is an art. It is a dance, a skill, and you know what makes you really good at that? Love it. Having lots of people that you practice with because you learn, oh, these are the ways this body or this body, and you get more practice with dancing with a language.

You need to practice the language to be, you need to practice driving the car. You know, like it's just so wild to me. So I'm in a very different space. But you're right, like that whole journey psychologically to get to that and to, to stop keeping track, to stop being ashamed, to actually being proud and look for that in other people.

Someone who has more experience. That's a lot of psychological leaps through different paradigms and cultures.

[00:25:12] Dr. Jaime Grant: Yeah. And what you said about, you know, like. I knew since Brad was not gonna be monogamous, I was definitely not gonna be monogamous. But that desire to be the only one, let's talk about that for a second.

It's such a massive indoctrination in this culture, right? That you know, the only way you're special, the only way you really have any kind of worth is for one person to pick you as their one person for life. And, you know, preferably in your twenties. So you have enough time to build all the things maybe in your thirties, mid thirties, but then it's getting panicky.

I mean, you know. Wow. Um, I mean, what a system. Mm-hmm. You know, uh, I didn't even get clean until I was 30, you know what I mean? Like, my own healing journey, you know, by the time I was 35, was like in pretty good shape. And I had my first son, you know, on my own solo. I, I left a partner who I didn't feel like.

I really wanted to parent, or was written to parent and had 'em in my village and, you know, because I knew the clock was ticking, like I really needed to get my shit together if I actually wanted to parent. And I did know that I wanted to do that. But I think, you know, as I'm writing this book, I'm thinking so much of just the heterosexual paradigm and the clock and the whole construction of your timeline to find the one, and then all the things that the one has to provide and that you have to provide.

It's like best friend, best lover, you know, provider, uh, you know, uh, intellectual peer, uh, you know, the person you wanna watch all your movies with. You know, I mean, it's like what we are demanding of that one. And only the timeframe is first of all, you know, double or triple what it was when monogamy really started to be established, our lifespan, right?

And. Our options in the world and what we can, I mean, there, there wasn't any real travel, for instance, when monogamy was really, you know, established. Right. So it's like, I mean it's, you know, it's, it's a nutty, nutty system. Mm-hmm. And that feeling like, and especially I think for myself, having been cast out by my family, that feeling of someone choosing me as the one Yes.

Was very, I mean, it just, even when I had poly relationships, as long as I felt like I was the one for one of my partners, you know what I mean? It's like Oh, totally, really held onto this idea of being the most, being, you know, whatever. And, you know, I think that's fine if people, I, I, you know, I, I, I myself am more of a relationship anarchist, but I really wanna be clear in the book that like all kinds of.

Forms work for people around poly.

[00:28:06] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Right.

[00:28:06] Dr. Jaime Grant: If you want a, a primary nesting and home base and a primary partner, that's totally fine. You know what I mean? So it's not, again, it's not my business. It's like, figure out the form that you need for you, for me, moving out of having a romantic partner decide I'm the one and moving into a relational system where my friends and my lovers all have the same import in my life and they all kind of adore me.

Hell yeah. And then, and they all have other things. Some of them have primary partners, some of them, you know, they all have a million things. But I will say this form for me, I have never felt so adored Yeah. To do right now in my early sixties. Um, it's kind of amazing. Yep. And just constantly like reinforced and supported and loved in this population.

So I have, you know, it's taken me a long time, but I have figured out my. Yeah. And I hope that the book of a lot just got a lot of reflection exercises, a lot of activities, a lot of, and also just this incredible group of activists, writers, scholars, amazing sex educators who I've known for somewhere between 10 and 30 years who are giving their stories to the book.

[00:29:26] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:26] Dr. Jaime Grant: So just full of the voices of all these people I've met in my activism all over the world for the last, you know, many years. But I've been doing sex liberation workshops for about 15 years, um, specifically in activist spaces all over. And, and those folks have joined me as faculty, as peers, as storytellers, and they're.

In this book, which is really exciting.

[00:29:52] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:52] Dr. Jaime Grant: The power of community. Yeah. Yeah. And the more than one voice, you know? Right. I mean, I just knew, you know, my story's great, but it's just my story. There's so many incredible stories here. And, you know, the sexual liberation space or the, in the US the sexual freedom space tends to be white dominated.

Right. And the faculty that I've created for this is, is a bipoc dominated queer and trans, you know, all kinds of sexual orientations, all kinds of genders. So the, the voices in this book are going to be different from

[00:30:25] Dr. Nicole: mm-hmm.

[00:30:26] Dr. Jaime Grant: Those in many of the other, um. Poly, you know, uh, books and I'm, I'm just super excited about it because the illumination of so many different practices and how they've come out of different cultures, I think is mm-hmm.

Gonna be an important contribution to the conversation.

[00:30:42] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. To get people thinking some of the pieces that would've been so helpful at the beginning of your journey. My journey. Right. To just have these thoughts out there. Oh, like what a life changer and Yeah. The concept of the one is so deep. It is so deep within the psyche.

Again, it's something to unpack, like it is internalized, that narrative of mono tivity every single rom com I've ever watched. Right. My God. It's a story again and again, and again and again. And what I come back to is rather than exclusivity of actions Right. And, and being the only one that we do this action with.

Which is like, just even in, in other cultures, it's important to remember that in certain cultures, hugging someone of a different gender is actually forbidden. Right. So I try to put people into that context of like, Hey, like look at, this is our culture here where it's like sex with one other cultures are like hugging with only one.

Right? And just, just a little bit of context, but then if you finding that desire to be the one I think can still be found in the fact that I am Nicole. Yeah. I'm the only one. I am the only one. There is no other me. That's great. Yeah. So that's what I come back to. I'm like, Hey, go find, I'd love to meet her.

[00:32:01] Dr. Jaime Grant: Like please find another. That's so incredible. You know, again, I, I remember this so clearly when I was a freshman and I was talking to another woman on my hall about the fact that I was not gonna be monogamous and Brad was not be there and she said, well, what He's gonna be with other people. I said, well, none of them are me.

Right? And I mean, honest to God, I'm like 19 years old. Who is that person? I mean, I really remember this conversation, but you know, what happened to that person was, you know, I got assaulted for my brazenness. You know, I got fired. You know, I feel like, you know, in inside of this very patriarchal culture around women taking up this kind of space and deciding, you know, my story in the eighties was people were really ready to make me pay for it.

Sure. And you know, we still live in a really violent culture around sex. And I hope all of the things we're putting into the world, all these books, all these reflections, all the teachings and the stories we we're able to put on the table are helping people like my daughter really understand the framework they're coming into with their sexuality and how to.

You know, how to take care of themselves and how to notice things that I couldn't notice when I was young about people who didn't have my best interests. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I'm the only Jamie, you know, you are the only, you know, so it's like, it's like, let's, let's go. Um, yes. And, and we can have that unique and only connection with any of our partners.

Right. And it's sacred. I mean, that's the other thing that I really just hate about people. Think about people who have sex with lots of people. I mean, some of the sex I have, you know, is not very memorable and you know, it's fleeting and whatever. Sure. But in any time I decide to have sex with someone, I'm opening my body and my spirit to them.

Uh, they are doing the same to me. I consider it for me for. Like a sacred offering. It's a, it's a, you know, I am gonna be a hundred percent there while we're there and treat the other person's humanity as though it matters to me.

[00:34:18] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:19] Dr. Jaime Grant: To me, that is the biggest assault prevention tip I can give to anyone, which is someone who really is just there for themselves and isn't interested in you and, and doesn't show that they really have respect for your humanity.

And you can tell, it's like, just get out of the room. You'll be able to find someone else who does. You know, it's like even sex where I don't know your name can offer respect and show that I'm here to enlarge my spirit and enlarge yours.

[00:34:51] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:34:51] Dr. Jaime Grant: Uh, and so for me, that number, you know, says I was able to do that.

All those different times with all those different people. It's, and it's completely changed my life and what I think is possible. Mm-hmm. And it's changed my vision for the world. It's not just changed my vision around my sexuality, it's changed my vision about what I think justice is, about, what I think I should get from my government.

It's changed, you know, um, what I think I should get in my workplace. Yeah. Uh, because I, I'm feeding myself right. And I'm feeding my own system of value. Mm-hmm. And it's making me bolder. It's, it's giving me, it's fortifying me for the different kinds of struggles

[00:35:40] Dr. Nicole: mm-hmm.

[00:35:40] Dr. Jaime Grant: That we're up against.

[00:35:42] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, absolutely.

It's all encompassing, holistic, and I feel that, and I think that going back to my own experience with assault, there was such a lack of understanding. I know we talked before the recording about purity culture and how that like groomed and just prepared us in ways or unprepared. Right. And so there wasn't for me any sense of what sort of intentionality and connection could be possible.

So even when you're saying get out of the room, like I had no sense. Like I was like, this is normal. This is the amount of attention I should gut. Like had no idea. So I think this is where community is so powerful. 'cause once you start healing through intentional relationships, whether it's a therapist, a coach, any sort of healer you meet, ideally someone who looks at you and says, I'm here, I'm present, I'm listening to you.

And then the power of that and hopefully finding more community, playing with more people who give you that level of presence. So much so that the other feels like ice cold water. But until you've felt that new temperature, it feels normal. And that's the heartbreak of the years of generational trauma.

And depending on what sort of like context you grew up in, you might not even notice it until you get out and you look back and I think, yeah. What is so tricky about this is like respecting obviously the people who practice monogamy and find joy in it. And at the same time, when I look back on my own journey and that practice the complexities of a world where you are the only source of sexual fulfillment for that other person, we have to talk about the level of pressure that that puts on you and that dynamic.

And that is something again, like temperature checks. Once I got out and I said, oh, you wanna do that sex act? That's not for me. Go do it with somebody else. And I don't have to feel like this. Oh my God, I am keeping my partner from this one act that they wanna explore. 'cause I'm the only person that they can do it with.

Oh my God. The level of pressure that that puts on you.

[00:37:54] Dr. Jaime Grant: Yes. And also. Like, uh, I think so many people have sex. They don't wanna be having Yes. Inside of, you know, closed systems of sex because they feel responsible for their partner. And for me as a survivor, it's like, number one rule is I never have sex. I don't wanna have Yes.

Ever. And, um, like you said, I, I think one of the, um, the things that I, you know, I coach people, uh, a lot. I do one-on-one coaching.

Mm-hmm. And it's very common to have people come and as a couple and one person say, well, I am non-monogamous and I wanna do this, and my partner's monogamous and, and you know, they don't want to.

And so it's like, how do you deal with asymmetric. Sure. Um, desire and asymmetric needs around what your relationship configuration is and what, you know, I always say there's a third way I talk about this a lot in the book, there's a third way, uh, if, if the relationship is your number one priority to keep it, you're gonna have to find a third way.

And, and both sides aren't gonna get exactly what they want, but you, you can find it. But if, you know, if staying monogamous or pursuing mono, uh, non-monogamy in this one way you must pursue it is the thing, then, then the relationship isn't your priority and you should break up. Right. So it's, it's, it's simpler than it seems.

But what I often find is that the person who says I'm monogamous and I don't wanna open up actually wants the relief of not being responsible for their partner's, you know, desires that they can't possibly fulfill. Right? They, like, um, one person that I saw, you know, they just had a baby. And first, you know, she was like, I'm so, you know, I'm so, I can't believe he wants to, you know, go have sex.

Well, I just had this baby. But the other part of her was like, can he please just freaking go? 'cause I really don't wanna deal with him. I don't wanna deal with that. Look on his face. I don't wanna deal with the fact that he can't get what he needs. I'm really taken up in this job right now. Yeah. And I don't wanna be thinking about him.

And I think at other points in relationships, besides this particular one, which has a, a, a very specific kind of intensity, you know, partners are like, you know, this part is not for me, so can she just go get this from someone else and leave me, you know, to myself and, and gimme some peace. And I think people who are so terrified by that, we must be the one, we must be the one.

It's hard for them to hear that voice inside their head that is telling them that actually it would be kind of a relief to not have. All of this other person's sexual needs at my doorstep. When I really, in terms of who I am and how I'm built, and what practices I wanna pursue, I can only really get to about, you know, a two thirds of those, or a third, or, you know, right.

Whatever. And the same around some, you know, I've also worked with people who, one, one person wants to stay monogamous and the other person wants to be poly. And, and that also can work. Yeah. People act like it's impossibility and it's like, no, actually, you know, what's the, you know, symmetrical pleasure that can happen here, even though your desires are asymmetrical.

And for the monogamous person, it's like, well, I wanna go away with my friends twice a year on a trip. And it's like a non-monogamous partner. Make that happen for your partner. And, you know, and, and the door opens, right? It's like, let's figure out how to have. To bring up the level of our pleasure and our embodiment of our real selves and our pursuit of the things that we value the most, so that we have a relatively even playing field.

[00:41:43] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:43] Dr. Jaime Grant: And then the things that are in that playing field, they don't have to be the same. Right. Like it's that thing about equity and equality, you know, like, you know, equal is like doing all the same things and expecting all, and equity is, you know, we get the same level of support and pleasure and to pursue ourselves at the same velocity and the same intensity and with, with the same level of joy.

Like if, and I think that that's something many people, you know, they come to me without any sense that that could be. Mm-hmm. And that, you know, there are creative ways to think about that, that can really serve a couple that wants to stay together with asymmetric. And ideas.

[00:42:29] Dr. Nicole: Sure, absolutely. Because you can have your relationship and the structure and beauty and sacredness of that and then have different hobbies.

Yes. Different friends. Right. It doesn't have to inherently, completely. What does have to be rewritten is the narratives. Yep. Which said, oh, I'm the only one, and this is how we have scare, uh, right, right. All of that does have to be broken down and rewritten. But the actual connection that you have there in the relationship, you don't have to have the same hobbies, you don't have to have all the same friends, and you can choose to spend your time in different ways.

Right. Yep. And I think this is where I really also enjoy parts work, sort of therapy of thinking about how we all have different parts up in our head. And so that one person that you mentioned who said like, I don't want my person to go with other people, but also I want him to go and fulfill this. Like we have, we have two different parts.

The amount of times I, I've had experiences where I'm like, I don't wanna share. I don't wanna do this. I'm out. And then the other part of me being like, well, Nicole, you do want this for yourself. You do want your partners to experience all the love that is possible. And then you have to kind of like take different moments of life and realize like, which part is screaming louder?

Mm-hmm. Can I try and listen to the other part? Take a step back from both. And I think that's where mindfulness really comes into this. And like, man, if you can't practice mindfulness, I don't know how you do any of this stuff. Because you have to be able to go, wow, I am having this reaction.

[00:44:01] Dr. Jaime Grant: Yes. And this reaction.

I, yeah. I need to just step back and take a breath. I a lot of the book though, I think it's part two, the book is I look at communication styles, attachment three, boundaries and Trauma. Sure. And those four chapters together, it's like get a sense of what your relational capacity is right now. Right. How do you understand when you get activated or when you get into.

Fight, flight or freeze, you know? Mm-hmm. Do you have language for it? What happens for you when you, you know, are in, uh, distress with your partner? What's your communication style now? Like, what's the field you're starting with?

[00:44:41] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:44:41] Dr. Jaime Grant: As you're starting to think about exploring polyamory, and I think the book does a really good job of helping people sort of take their temperature and really a lot of what you can sort of figure out is what are your friendships Like, you know, uh, what, what's, what's your, what's your relationships like with your family of origin?

Like, do you have good boundaries with intrusive family of origin members, or are you all over the place with them? Then it's likely, if you're gonna get into polyamory, you're also gonna have a really hard time sustaining your boundaries. Right. What happens for you when various, you know, triggers happen around past abuses or past shitty partners, or past whatever?

When you're in an argument with your partner, are you able to go, oh, I'm in that space. I'm gonna take a breath and sit down and come back in five minutes. Or are you someone who just escalates? Right. And or do you not have a deescalation between you, you know, what's your dynamic and wherever you are right now, if you're gonna start to try to have a polyamory conversation, that's, that's what you got.

So, you know, a big piece is looking at how can you start to build capacity. And what you've said before, which I think is so important, is community. Yeah. It, it's like until you have other people who are practicing differently, who have gone through some of the things that you've gone through who don't have an agenda for you.

Right, right. You know, parental agendas, religious agendas, or you know, you know, your bestie from high school, who just wishes you'd settle down. You know, if you don't have the people in your. World of friends type people, socializing, people who can really see you, support you. Right. And also extend your conversation, you know, like you want to have some people in your world who are pulling you forward because they're ahead of you in some of these explorations.

It doesn't have to even be the same kind of exploration. It's just that they've taken risks and gotten to a new place for themselves, and you can see that they're growing. Mm-hmm. Right? You need to have that in your mix if you're gonna be taking on, you know, a big risk yourself. Yep, absolutely. In exploring yourself.

[00:47:01] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. 'cause until then you don't think it's possible. But once you get into a community, see other people doing it, you're like, oh yes, right. This is possible. And when you come to that person, you're saying, wow, I'm experiencing jealousy and having a pretty intense somatic reaction. They say, oh, well this is how I work with that.

Do you think that could be helpful for you versus, well, polyamory never works. This is a mess. So of course you're feeling like those are two radically different. Responses, and I so absolutely, deeply appreciate you talking about the body. That is one of the things that in all of my clinical training, I got no discussion in the academic portion in my work with psychedelics of, I know, right?

You're like, how I got, I got stuff on neurobio. Oh, adrenaline, cortisol that's flowing through the body, but not a single fricking class on, hey, well when that adrenaline and cortisol is running through the body, what do we do with it? You know, so you're just like, oh man, the dinosaurs in the field of psychology, but it's fine.

Um, in my training with psychedelics, of course, when you're in a psychedelic head space, everything is amplified. So that somatic reaction that you're feeling is intense. And so I got so much training in somatics, and so when I'm working with clients who are experiencing literally anything but a.

Especially NoMy and polyamory like you're saying, to be able to come back to the body first because we can start ruminating. Ruminating. And we have now, now gone into our fight, uh, fight, flight, freeze fawn. Yep. And people are like, oh, is it a trauma response? I have been crying on the floor, feeling so dysregulated from my body after hearing details of a partner with someone else.

It is a trauma response from living in a patriarchal society. Okay. Yeah. Like it is real. And so I, uh, I created the acronym like, calm, like if we can center, take a couple of deep breaths with the c. Have a moment to assess our surroundings. I like the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Like five things you see? Four things you can hear.

Yep. Three things you can touch, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste. And then letting go of the thoughts by taking some deep breaths. I like to count my breath with like, the inhale is one. Ex exhale it as two, do some like pre, um, progressive muscle relaxation, find some songs I can sing to let go of that tension.

And then the m like, move your body because man, we could spend hours in our mind going, how's this gonna work? Where's it gonna go? Yes. Come back to the body first. Yep. So now when I'm with partners, you know, and uh, again, I think it's important to name too, the things that made me scared at the beginning are not the same things that freak me out now.

That's right. Right, right. But when I do get a reaction and my partner asks me like, oh, how's that landing? I'm like, okay, I'm noticing a tightness in the chest. I'm noticing a little feeling in the stomach rather than even getting into the stories of the narrative. It is body first, right? Yeah.

[00:49:58] Dr. Jaime Grant: Yeah. I did a lot of work on my activation three or four years ago.

I did some family therapy with my kids. Cool. 'cause you know, they were. Leaping out in different ways, and I would get activated just around my own childhood story. Sure. So the therapist gave this thing where whenever I would start to get activated, she'd say, well, well, how do you feel? And I'd say, I just feel so alone.

I feel terrified for them, and I feel alone. And she said to the kids, when you can see your mother starting to get there, you should say to her, are you okay? Hmm. And I have to say, it was the most beautiful intervention in my life.

[00:50:35] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:50:36] Dr. Jaime Grant: It was just incredible. I mean, uh, it just stepped me down. Yes. Right away.

It's like, oh, they're here. You know? And then they got even better at, at it. Sometimes when I would start to go up, my son would say, oh, I think you're afraid. And honestly, you know, as someone who, again, like, you know, my parents are already out of the picture Yeah. At, at the age that he's talking to me.

Right. I mean, the kind of healing. To have them. And you know, they didn't have to take responsibility for me in a big way. Right. They could help and then the whole thing would go better. Right? Then it was like, oh, I'm getting activated. I am afraid. Let me just breathe, figure out what I'm afraid about and then I can talk to them about what I'm afraid about.

[00:51:22] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:51:23] Dr. Jaime Grant: And, you know, I'd been in therapy for like, I don't know, over, you know, I mean, again, this was in my, my late fifties that I did this family therapy with them and I've had a million therapists and this was the first one who really helped me look at what was happening in my body and how it got me off track.

It pulled me off track around what conversation I actually really did wanna have with the kids,

[00:51:47] Dr. Nicole: right.

[00:51:47] Dr. Jaime Grant: And it was a game changer. So I think we're really lucky to be in an era where somatics are so, you know, emerging. I just went to Apprentice Hemphill's new book signing, uh, here in DC and it was incredible.

I forget the name of the book, sorry, apprentice, but I am referring to them in my book. Um, I mean, there's just a whole world of Yeah, movement people, people who come out these are so apprentice, was in BLM, you know, and I mean, with so many people on the street being, you know, beaten up by police and working in that community to heal so that we can stay in these struggles for the long haul.

So again, I, I feel so lucky to, I mean, when I, again, when I got to DC in the nineties and I felt very alone, the AIDS movement was just leaping off, right? And so to build the community that I needed, so many people were in the street fighting for our lives. And then being able to have that conversation about what kind of life I wanted, and I feel like.

That's a really big piece for all of us. It's like that was the conversation I needed. I had to find my people. Who are your people?

[00:52:57] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:52:58] Dr. Jaime Grant: You know, every person who is trying to figure this out for themselves does have a lane, you know, of people who are going to be particularly resonant for them because of their experiences and the kind of world they're trying to create.

And if you can wrap yourself around those people so that your conversation gets richer and bigger than just your relationship, bigger than just you. Right. I think that is kind of the next level around being able to really explore why this matters.

[00:53:34] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:53:35] Dr. Jaime Grant: And what kind of life you wanna build for yourself.

[00:53:38] Dr. Nicole: So, so true. Yeah. I'm so touched by the, uh, family therapy moment, right? It's, it's being seen like a moment to be seen. And it reminds me of, you know, when you, there's uh, videos of younger, like little babies and they'll do experiments with, um, the caregiver where, you know, they start to cry and then the caregiver responds in, in like, and is moved by that reaction and the baby will calm down, right?

And then they'll try other experiments where the baby starts to panic, and then the caregiver has a flat face. And you know what happens? The baby starts screaming, shaking, which is really funny when you think about the history of psychology and the blank slate, Tablo rasa. Whoa, that was problematic. Like, okay, you guys, like we therapists need to be moved by their clients, by their clients.

Um, but you know, like that similar thing happens in all of our lives as adults, right? It's bids for attention and um, connection, right? And so when you are having that moment to be seen, oh, are you okay? And I think one of my favorite things to do with partners is like, when we name new experiences, particularly in non-monogamy and polyamory, expansive relating to share, uh, of course you check in first to make sure that this is an okay time to drop things because it might not be the right time to talk about these things.

Right? And when you do have the time, the space, the emotional energy to share, and then before ending ask. How is that landing for you? And that has been such a powerful conversation tool because even when I feel great, it still creates space for me to name that. And when I don't, it creates space for me to name that rather than, oh shit, I gotta have this all together.

I gotta figure this out. Like, I must be grounded. No, like my partner is asking me, how are, like how are you? How is this landing? And then from there we keep talking. And so that simple question, right? Are you okay? How is this landing? It is creating so much space to be seen. And again, when we think about the baby, the second you're seen, rather than, okay, I'm in connection.

[00:55:53] Dr. Jaime Grant: Yep. Oof. It's beautiful. Right? Are you okay? Very simple. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:56:05] Dr. Nicole: And then I think the other part of it too is like. Discomfort. Right? I, I often, I'm a rock climber, so that's where my metaphors come through, right? I also teach yoga, so that's where a lot of my metaphors come through of when you stretch, it's uncomfortable.

You know, when I get up to that wall, it is scary. And so what does it mean knowing that we live in this paradigm where there is a very specific message of how to do love, how to be in relationship, how can we get more comfortable with discomfort? Because it is not going to be smooth and easy. If you are waiting for the day that this feels easy and calm, you're gonna have to wait a couple of generations, okay?

Because we are not there yet. And so until that time, it is going to be an act of discomfort. And so where is that stretch of the muscle where you're not? Tearing the muscle. We don't want you to be in pain, but where is that stretch? How can you be so connected to your body that you notice the activation and don't go past into dysregulation, but you notice the activation, you pause, you ground, and you keep climbing.

Yep.

[00:57:14] Dr. Jaime Grant: Yeah. And I will say, you know, again, in my sixties, it's a lot easier to be poly now. It really is. I mean, it is practice, practice, practice. Right. I mean, I really, and again, you know, I've done my own internal work. Yep. Therapy certainly helped me with my, my poly relationships. Right? Yes. Um, because I was more aware.

But gosh, it's so much simpler. I mean, that's another thing I talk about in the book is that, and I mean, you talked a little about this in the beginning, that everybody wants to talk about like the. How do you figure out your thing? How do you make your agreements? How do you, blah, blah, how do you da da And nobody wants to talk about the sex.

Right. Which is a big part of this, right? Having, having, you know, pleasure with multiple partners is a pretty freaking amazing, like, life expanding, mind blowing thing. It's, it's just brought me so much of my life and more and more the part of figuring out how we're gonna do it and how everybody's gonna be okay, and how people are gonna get their needs met.

It's a much shorter conversation than it used to be.

[00:58:17] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:18] Dr. Jaime Grant: Because I, I, I know myself better and my boundaries better. I know what I can offer and what I can't offer. I don't back up because I'm. Afraid of how somebody else feels in a way that I did when I was younger. I mean, things are just clearer.

I've had a lot of great partners, so, you know, their love has had such an effect on me and my ability to have faith in myself. Right. So, yeah. And also there's still stretches what you were saying, right? It's like, you know, now I'm 63, my libido's really different things that I wanted in my forties and fifties.

Now I want something a little different. How am I gonna go get those? I still have discovery, I still have exploration, and it's so thrilling to be this age and to feel myself and know I have the capability to go get what I want.

[00:59:08] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:09] Dr. Jaime Grant: And that it, it probably won't be full of drama, you know, because I just have, I just figured some fundamental things out about myself and it's just not that conflictual anymore to.

Find appropriate partners and, and do the things I wanna do.

[00:59:25] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:27] Dr. Jaime Grant: So it's lovely. I hope people gain that capacity earlier than I did. I had a lot of, a lot of hard work on the way, but, you know, gosh, that work is so worth it. I just wanna say, and it's worth it for everything. It's worth it for being a better coworker.

It's worth it for being a better friend, a better parent, uh, you know, a better neighbor. All the things that you work on to be a better poly partner.

[00:59:52] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:59:52] Dr. Jaime Grant: Make you better in all those other spaces too.

[00:59:55] Dr. Nicole: Right, because we're talking about emotional insight, understanding your response, understanding your somatic reaction, understanding the thoughts, being able to communicate that, have the empathy for the other person and what they're going through to see the world through their response.

And then to do that for a meta more, for all the, those are skills of empathy, communication, and emotional insight that are revolutionary, let alone the liberation of pleasure and the revolution that,

[01:00:28] Dr. Jaime Grant: that is, right. I mean, they're revolutionary for our society, right? I mean, that is, that is the promise for me about, you know, thinking about this as having a bigger impact.

It's like, if we have these capacities, what does it mean to us as we're confronting so much violence and in a, in an inequality, right? If we can think about equity in these really creative ways. And work this out with multiple partners. We're just gonna bring so much to the table, right? Mm-hmm. And confronting some really big things that are coming.

I think about that with my kids, you know? Right. Just their generations just are gonna have a lot of things, right? Yeah. To sustain life.

[01:01:09] Dr. Nicole: Right? Right. Relationship anarchy, like the political nature of all of this, right? To know that another world is possible, to know a world of mutual aid and interconnectedness is possible.

I mean, what a different world of looking at love, which is one of the biggest things that we structure our lives under capitalism around, right? Who are you living with? What are you doing? Who are you vacationing? All of that stuff, right? And to see it in a world of, rather than, I'm gonna compete for this one person and no one else is gonna be up here with me.

To be like, no, we are in community together. I love this person. You love this person. And in all ideal worlds, I love you too. Yep. Whoa. Just thinking about the ripples of that for the politics rather than competition, uh, it is a community focus and so you,

[01:02:05] Dr. Jaime Grant: yeah. You're responding. There's one wonderful story in, um, I can't even remember what chapter this is in, but this wonderful activist, a Red v Asad, who runs the field.

Project. And Avy said they had a partner l I'll say, who was very excited about a new lover. And so they were both, you know, very excited like that this could work. Mm-hmm. And l kept coming back from dates and they were like, this is amazing. And then onm, like the fourth or fifth date, the person l was seeing said, you know, I have some healing to do.

Um, this is just bringing up all my stuff. I have to take a step back. I can't do this anymore. Um, I've gotta go do some work and I care about you. And so l was just so, just bummed. And I already thought, what if our communities we're just ready to embrace this person? And, you know, l could say, you know, my new lover really needs more comfort, support needs this kind of help with X, y, Z issue.

And that. Our poly communities would just be ready to embrace this person and say, we're just, we're just gonna help you prioritize your healing in this. And, you know, without an agenda, without whether you get back with EL or not. But we are here for you and, and already said this is, this is why I'm doing this.

This is the, this is the world I'm making in my poly life. That's the community I am aiming for. And I was just, wow.

[01:03:34] Dr. Nicole: Yes. Yes. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. The power of love and transformation. And when you say that story, like my lens as a psychedelic therapist starts to speak to me where, you know, you, you have experiences where people take a psychedelic and it brings up all of your trauma, right?

We call psychedelics non-specific amplifiers, and I very much so look at non-monogamy in the same way, right? It is a non-specific amplifier. You're gonna feel your amplified feelings of attachment, your amplified feelings of your own self relationship, your purpose in life, like it is, woo. It's all gonna come up.

Right. And so when we have someone with a lot of trauma, like being able to have that therapeutic holding space where, hey, you're on the psychedelic and you have these people around you. And then to get even outside of the lens of psychology and remember that historically these medicines have been used in community, right?

This has not been a one-on-one therapeutic weird world that we live in with, you know, I, I do see benefits to a dyadic healing relationship, but we heal in community. Right? Right. So then seeing that sort of lens of yeah, when you take that difficult psychedelic, you know, whether it's non monogamy or the actual drug itself, what does it mean to be held in loving community as you go through those waves and as you go through that, um, come up.

Truly. And I think it's so important what you had said about your lived experience of where you're at in your age right now. Because I think so many people, myself included, were looking for people who have done this, who have lived into this for years. What I have the ethical sled and Janet and Dossey, right?

But like who else? And you just feel like, is this even possible? You know? So for you to be able to speak to that of like, yes, I have lived this for this many years and it does get better, which is reminding me a lot of the queer narrative that we would hear a lot, right? Like, Hey, it does get better. I mean, what another cultural revolution, like time point for us as as a collective.

[01:05:40] Dr. Jaime Grant: Well, and it does get better if you commit to yourself, right? It really doesn't get better if you're just gonna hop from one thing to the next and kind of. Have some wishful thinking about it. It's like wherever you've left off around, you know how conflictual things are about how you, you know, you ne you know, a lot of people come into thinking about poly because they're monogamous relationships.

They're so full of conflict and so cyclical and you know, they're just doing serial monogamy. They're breaking up. But you can do the same thing in poly land. And again, I feel like, in a way, being disowned so early, I really knew I had to have a handle on my mental health, or I wasn't gonna make it. I didn't have a net right?

So I just went after it. I mean, I went after every therapeutic resource I could find as a young person. And if you're a young person listening to this, if you're in your twenties, the best money you can spend, the best time you can spend, find all your resources. I, you know, I feel so grateful I found Na Narcotics Anonymous.

Sure. When I came to DC in 1990, I could go to five, seven meetings a week. Listen to people talk about what they were doing to take care of themselves and grow. And honestly, I did tons of paid talk therapy and lots and lots of other things, but that space, which was free and there are many, many free communal Yeah.

Storytelling. And, and they, these, these are ancient ways of healing, you know what I'm saying? You know, and again, I, you know, for me, na, the God stuff is not my stuff. Right. Right. But the, the great thing about it is if it's not your stuff, it's, you don't have to, it's just, you know, there's nothing mandatory about it.

Right. I make, I made my own God stuff up about it, which is really about the power of love and community for me. Right. So those spaces and those people, that's another place where I found the conversation I needed to have. I wasn't everybody in the room, but I could pick out two or three people. And, you know, many of the meetings I went in and they've been, they've been on my journey now for almost 40 years.

[01:07:37] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Right.

[01:07:38] Dr. Jaime Grant: I have such a, a strong commitment to. Keeping growing. I come out of alcoholism, depression.

[01:07:48] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:07:48] Dr. Jaime Grant: Um, you know, my mother was electroshock against her will after my brother was born. And I didn't even learn that until after she died, which is another Irish thing, you know? Mm. Keep the story, don't tell the story.

Story shameful. And all of a sudden, my entire childhood and even what happened to me around the disownment made so much sense to me. You know, my poor mother. Yes. So it's like figuring out what those legacies are and committing to yourself is just, you know, that's gonna get you the relationships you want.

Whatever form you want. Right. You know, and we can do a lot of that in community. We can do it in alternative ways. You, if you know, the 50 minute paid therapist hour isn't for you, there's other ways. If the na, you know, free group isn't for you, there are other ways. It's like, find your ways, but not committing.

Everything just piles up. You know, whatever form you're gonna pick there, there's no escaping. You know, the lack of capacity we have ourselves for. Dealing with our own histories and how they impact how we communicate and how we attach.

[01:08:53] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. Community is medicine. That is the saying of, uh, sauna Healing Collective, where I've done all of my psychedelic training and clinical work, right?

Community is medicine. And again, hearing so many parallels, I published a, a guide on jealousy and combining all of the psychedelic therapy work. And, and even that, I published it on my website for free. And a lot of that was influenced from the psychedelic community of publishing things for free, right?

Oh, that's sharing our resources and the knowledge here. And one of the things I talked about was integration, right? We think that psychedelics are gonna heal everything and they're not, you know, it's gonna heal. Community and integrating those experiences with your community, talking about them. Because you could take a psychedelic every day, every weekend, and never actually process any of the things that are coming up in it.

And you could do non-monogamy the same way we particularly see that with non-ethical, not, you know, non-consensual, non-monogamy of people and the rates of that, right. So it's not like this, the psychedelic or the non-monogamy is going to heal all of it. It's doing it in a very specific community with very intentional reflection and integration of the lessons, whether it's from the past traumas, the current quote, like political, cultural context.

It's all navigating all of that in community. That is the medicine.

[01:10:19] Dr. Jaime Grant: Yes, yes. And really, you know, I'm really a big person. And finding out what you don't know in your family story. Yeah. Yeah. The, you know, I mean, really find, you know, I was on my way to, you know, rehab when I found out my mother had had like against her will.

So it was like, oh, this is why she was so mean. She was trying not to go back to the hospital all the time. Right. She was trying to just put, I mean, she was never on any medication all those years. She had a few friends who were her, you know, ride or die buddies, but she was very isolated. She had so many demands.

You know, uh, I am a huge rest person now, and I, you know, when I look back at my Irish story, that's the pictures behind me. Oh, sure. My homeland. Cool. And, um, whenever I take a nap, I am taking a nap for women, eight generations back. You know? I feel it. I feel it. And, and partly I feel it because I did go back.

To the place we were displaced from. Mm-hmm. And found where we lived for like, literally thousands of years. It seems like. And I could really understand that my family in Boston was a displaced family, which I never had. I just thought about Boston as home and they had such a intense Boston identity, but so many things didn't fit right.

So many things were off. And going back to Ireland and standing on that land was the last day I took a depression. Wow. And that was like six years ago.

[01:11:52] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:11:53] Dr. Jaime Grant: And I, you know, as someone who has struggled with major depression my whole life, you have to just keep moving on your modalities, you know? And, uh, for me, being on the land, the land is also medicine and the land.

I, this is one of my favorite indigenous scholars, Joseph Pierce says, the land remembers you.

[01:12:13] Dr. Nicole: Hmm.

[01:12:13] Dr. Jaime Grant: And I felt remembered. In that space and, you know, all my cousins who are still there having been, you know, had the estrangement, which again, was better when both of my parents died. But having all of the Irish folks embrace me, uh, has also been, you know, like a mm-hmm.

So it is like, you know, get your medicine, get your medicine. 'cause you really wanna be able to step up and love the people you wanna love. You really wanna be present for them. And, you know, inside these histories that are difficult. There's so much beauty and so much resilience and so many things you wanna keep.

Um, and you don't know what those are until you can sort of sort this stuff out. So yeah. Community medicine, friends are medicine. The land is medicine. Yeah. You know, find, find your deeper story so that you have the, you know, the tools you need Yeah. To step up to your life.

[01:13:13] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely. Yeah. I'm always scared to talk about the research with epigenetics because of the narrative, it can create a feeling powerless.

Right? Uh, there was some research that had, uh, mice where they had clash. They had classically conditioned them to be afraid of the cherry blossom smell. Yes. And then they had those mice have children, and it was up to four generations later without any classical conditioning that those generations were afraid of cherry blossoms upon birth.

Right. So I'm always, yeah. Oh yeah, you wanna respond. Well, here's

[01:13:49] Dr. Jaime Grant: the other side of that though. This picture of this pagan well, where my great grand grandmother, Annie Doty grew up. Annie Daughty, had eight kids at the height of a genocidal famine, and they all lived. Into adulthood. I mean, maybe she had 11 and only eight lived, but I know because I've done the work about the eight kids, so you know, I've been fired like four times for being queer, whatever, da da da.

And it's like every time someone comes after me, I say they don't know that I am Annie Doherty's great, great granddaughter, rah. Like you're like an amateur dude. Like, I can eat, I have a home. You, you, you know, you're having whatever you're having about my vision for a better world. I'm gonna go somewhere else and keep doing my work.

Because you know what Annie? And you know, I'm sure like, you know, definitely the alcoholism came down with Annie, but that's not the only thing that came down. Yeah. And it's not until you know the story, the epigenetics also brings the other shit through. Right. So go back and find out what's there. I mean, when I stood on that beach.

It was just like my whole life.

[01:15:02] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:15:02] Dr. Jaime Grant: Um, and now I have a community of people there that I see periodically, actual people, you know? Um, and, you know, they're not all my best friends or anything, you know, they, our lives have been totally different, but connecting with them, it's just been meaningful.

They're loving people. Mm-hmm. Even if they don't get my life, they're, you know, and we have this connection of our families having survived this genocidal famine. And, you know, we, and, and also the destruction of all the records. Like, that's another really interesting thing we've been able to do, is to piece together what we know in the face of Colonial Sure.

Dismemberment of your community. And so many people in the US have that. They're, they're, they have had colonial dismemberment of their communities and their histories, and that's how they got here. Yeah, whatever. There's so many tools now to try to piece together our stories and do. You know, speculative history, you know, it's like I have pieces and I can put together what I think I see here.

[01:16:08] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:16:09] Dr. Jaime Grant: That's meaningful to my mental health and my ability to connect with other beings. Right. Absolutely. So, yeah.

[01:16:17] Dr. Nicole: Yes. Yes. The resilience. Yeah. Knowing your story, going back enough to know the narrative, right? Yes. And know where you come from and to learn the history before colonization. Yes. Yes. That will set you free.

And so every time that I orgasm and roar and the pleasure of what is possible in this body, it is for all the women, all the queers, all the people who didn't have that chance.

[01:16:45] Dr. Jaime Grant: Right. That's right. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And you know, who knows how much pleasure our ancestors had. So much of the history's been, but you know, I can see the hardship in the history.

Yeah. So, yeah, I do feel like I'm having pleasure for everyone. I feel, you know, I feel like they couldn't have even imagined a life like this for me life. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna have it to the max.

[01:17:08] Dr. Nicole: Yeah,

[01:17:09] Dr. Jaime Grant: absolutely.

[01:17:12] Dr. Nicole: So given everything that we've talked about, and as we come towards the end of our time, I'd like to ask two questions.

And the first being, if you could go back to earlier parts in your journey, I'm curious what wisdom you would share with your younger self. Hmm.

[01:17:34] Dr. Jaime Grant: Well, you know, I, I, I grew up with my sister who was only 13 months younger than me, Irish twins as we called it back then. And, um, we sort of. Kept a united front against a very dysfunctional system.

And so we were always looking at each other and saying, they're wrong. You're right. Like this is fucked up. We're okay. And I think, uh, you know, going out into the world without, you know, my sister and I then had our paths went to different cities and towns. I mean, we're still close. I mean, I thank God, I don't know, I don't know how I would've survived my childhood without my sister Stephanie.

I really don't. And I, I feel like she saved my imagination too, right? Because we had a, a foundation with each other. But, you know, while you are resisting so many things, I mean, coming out on the job in 1983, losing my family in 1984, you know, all these things, you just question yourself all the way along.

Like people are really trying to tell you that you are really sick. You're really fucked up. You're really the wrong kind of girl. You know? Um, you're, you're gonna die. I mean, really, you know, and I think so many people, you know, in the path of a lot of the kinds of things, I was in the path of die young.

[01:18:49] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:18:50] Dr. Jaime Grant: Uh, because they didn't have a Stephanie. But I think having that voice inside my head that would've been saying, you know, just, just, you know, I did keep going, but you are right to just like, trust yourself and that you're building a life for yourself and nobody else has to like it. You know, you're, you're on the right path.

I think that would've helped me more. And I, I think maybe knowing that my mother was gonna talk to me again before she died,

I think, I think knowing that, knowing like I really, for so much of my early recovery, after I got sober, so many of my friends were having all these reconciliations with their families and I was like, why is everybody getting their parents back but me?

[01:19:30] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:19:30] Dr. Jaime Grant: You know, that was just a very hard decade for me. And I think knowing. That we would've been able to say the things we needed to say for each other and show our love for each other before I lost my mother in my early thirties. Um, I think that helped me a lot.

[01:19:49] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely feel emotional, just like hearing that, taking that to heart.

You know, and it's funny, my sister's name is also Stephanie, but she is still Mormon, so I didn't have that same level of ness in it, but I feel it with you. Right. There's That's right. So many beautiful people around us, chosen family around us that can have that sort of support. And so really pulling that into your heart that like you're on the right path, you can trust yourself.

[01:20:19] Dr. Jaime Grant: Yep.

[01:20:20] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[01:20:21] Dr. Jaime Grant: I think that

[01:20:22] Dr. Nicole: for sure. Well, if it feels good to you, I'm gonna take a deep breath and guide us towards our closing question. Okay.

Alright, so the last question that I ask everyone on the podcast is, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

[01:20:48] Dr. Jaime Grant: That's funny. You know, I'm not really big on normal because you're an anarchist. Check, check, check. I mean, I mean, I dunno how many people answer this way. Like, we just don't give a shit about normal. I, I, I think, I think there is no normal. Yes. Um, I think the more we can just stop thinking about normal and try to tune in, love each other, uh, and build the lives that we want and, and not just individually, but collectively, right.

Think about the lives we wanna build together. Yeah, I think normal is the, you know, it's, it's the tamping down of everything that's ever mattered to me. You know, and, and the devaluation of every person who's ever mattered to me. Let's be our strange selves. Hell yeah. Let's strange. That is one thing Prentice and Bill said in their recent talk at the library here was, what do you think somebody said, what do you think we're gonna need to get through this really intense, dark period?

Sure. And I said, you think we're gonna really need to be a little strange? We're just gonna have to really lean into the strange, because we need new experiments, we need new ways of being. We are gonna have to fight for the survival of the planet in very different ways. So, you know, I'm all about strange.

I'm like, well, you know, I'm finally, you know, finally in the right, right era because I have done strange my whole life. And I think that's right. The norms have kind of destroyed everything, you know, everything good. In my view, the norms have have, you know, I mean the world's on fire as my kids constantly tell me, it's like, oh mom, I'm so glad you were thinking about gender and sexuality, but could you have been thinking about the planet the whole time?

There's always a criticism when you're a parent. Totally. So, but I have been thinking about the planet just differently than you're thinking about it, but Right. But yes, let's be strange and let's go get. You know, a better way to all live together and love together than what would happen. I'm, I'm up for it.

I'm just getting started.

[01:23:00] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely. I love that energy. Yeah. There's that, uh, quote, it's no sign of health to be well adjusted to a sick society. Right, right. And, and a world where love is so restricted, where vulnerability is seen as weakness. Of course, I want you to be abnormal. Right. And then I've always joked on the podcast that whenever someone answers that question with deconstructing it and saying no, that they passed the implicit anarchist test, if there ever was one, to say, no, I won't play by these rules.

I'm like, check, check, check. You have passed. Yeah.

[01:23:36] Dr. Jaime Grant: Well, it's been a delight to be passing this time with you and to pass the test.

[01:23:41] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. It's such a joy to have you on the podcast and get to learn from your wisdom and all of your experience. I'm definitely, um, holding that one in my heart today. So thank you.

Sure. Yeah. And I wanna hold some space too, for you to talk about your book. Where can people find it? Where can they connect with you and all of your offerings?

[01:24:02] Dr. Jaime Grant: Yeah, so amazingly, you know, polyamory for Dummies is part of the Dummies series, so it's everywhere. That's so cool. It's gonna be in the big box stores.

It's gonna be in all the big, you know, bookstores and your, you know, little local indies. Uh, buy it where you like to buy your books. I also, I mean, when this comes out, I'm gonna be doing a national tour and coming all over and sitting and talking with really interesting people about their, and, and a lot of the contributors of the book.

I'm gonna have lots of con, you know, conversations with people whose insights are featured in the book. I also wanna be, um. Doing, uh, classes, you know, women's gender and sexuality studies classes, uh, and toxic colleges. So if you're hearing this, just invite me. So beautiful. Gonna be a lot of fun.

[01:24:51] Dr. Nicole: Hell yeah.

Hell yeah. Thank you for your work and all that you're doing for the movement, and thank you for joining me on the podcast today,

[01:24:59] Dr. Jaime Grant: so much for having me this blast.

[01:25:03] Dr. Nicole: If you enjoy today's episode, then leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast, and head on over to modern anarchy podcast.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.