232. Our Failure of Imagination with Non-Monogamy with Shai

[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 Shai join us for a conversation about expanding the capacity of our cultural generation. Together we talk about the spectrum of non-monogamy, the Olympics of relationships, and how to support yourself and others through the expansion process. 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 Dr. Nicole. I am a sex and relationship psychotherapist providing psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, author of the Psychedelic Jealousy Guide and founder of the Pleasure Practice supporting Individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships.

Dear listener, our failure of imagination, it's very, very true as an anarchist, right? It is our job to be confident in the truth that another world is possible, for example, right? What would a world look like where we didn't use money? If you try and imagine it for a moment, honestly, when I try to imagine it, my mind like shutters at the thought, like how could we, what?

What would we exchange? Would we go back to bartering? What would this look like? What would it look like? Right? And it almost, my brain falters. And it's hard to imagine a world outside of capitalism, outside the use of money, right? And so when I think back to my journey with coming into non-monogamy, I truly had a very similar reaction.

I had no capacity to imagine anything else. And that's why I'm so grateful to be in this space. Dear listener, to tell you another story. There's another way I'm living proof of that. The guests on this show are living proof of that. And so are you, 'cause you're tuning in. Which means I know you're here, so hell yes to that.

Okay? There's so much liberation work to do, and so we have to have compassion for ourselves, right? The failure of imagination. It's not our fault. We are the fish in water, right? And some of us wake up to realize that, and then we gotta clean up that water, right? It's not gonna be easy. There is no point in the journey where unlearning systems of oppression is easy, okay?

So you gotta get comfortable with that, and then step into more communities. I'm so glad you're here in this community learning and growing and expanding and finding people in your life that you can learn and grow and expand with. That is the secret that is the medicine. And I hope, hope, hope, hope for you, that you find those people and that you build those communities, because that's the politics right there.

That's how we're gonna make waves and change the society, and I'm so, so, so grateful that you're a part of that movement. Dear listener.

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 my Patreon supporters, you are supporting the long-term sustainability of the podcast, keeping this content free and accessible to all people.

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 Sack. 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 kind of connection that makes real. Formation 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.

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

[00:06:06] Shai: I would introduce myself as someone who's had such a rich lived experience transitioning from monogamy to the spectrum of consensual non-monogamy. That created such inspiration that I built community, I broadened top experts in education and developed this really, I think, impactful process to help others.

So, uh, it's become my life's work. It's become my mission. It's what I wake up feeling really juicy about. Mm-hmm. To be in service to help people with those, um, that journey.

[00:06:53] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Well, I'm excited to have you today and get to unpack all of that.

[00:06:58] Shai: Yeah. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

[00:07:02] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. So take me back to when you first heard of polyamory. What was your, yeah. You're already smiling. What was your reaction, your reception? I'm curious.

[00:07:14] Shai: Oh my gosh. A little blurry, like, yeah. I knew that something was felt off for so many years, right? Like I was traditional monogamy, the house, the two kids, right?

You know, we were just missing the white picket fence, but we had everything, right? Yeah. I joked that we had like two of us and privileged, so privileged, you know, two horses, two dogs, two chickens, two cars, everything came in twos, right? Two kids. Um, and then we, um, but I, something was always missing for me, right?

Like, the perfect life was not so perfect. I couldn't explain why, because I always, my heart just wanted to love more. It always wanted to love more and felt so contracted in like, not being able to express my desire, my affinity towards other women in my case. And when I, I think I wanna say the show, big Love on HBO, which was, um, about polygamy.

Was like, whoa, what? That's a thing. But you know, in the back of my mind, it's more of a religious construct, not really my thing. Something didn't resonate with like, it only being, you know, like one directional with a, a man who had like, I think it was three or four wives, and then the show show on Showtime called Polyamory Married and dating with Kamala Devy was just like, aha, that's it.

And then I have to admit, not a huge book reader, but all of a sudden I became one. I read a book called, somehow I ended up with reading, uh, shameless, uh, I think Pamela Matson wrote that And then Mating in Captivity. Yeah, Esther Perel, myth of Monogamy and then Sex at Dawn. So I like went through these books, like in such a, i just a voracious appetite to read all of a sudden.

Yep. Because the subject was just like so resonant for me. I was just like, my gosh. And yeah, it was, it was like, this makes sense, this makes sense, this makes sense. I still didn't have it all pieced together like I did years later. Sure. I'll share about that another time. But when I, when I heard about it, I was just like so thrilled.

Uh, it's a different story in terms of like what my, my wife thought about it.

[00:09:35] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. You wanna share?

[00:09:37] Shai: Uh, yeah. She was like, at first like, oh, interesting. But then when she saw how serious I was, she was like, hell to the, no, that's not for me. Like, do you want a freaking divorce? Like, what do you want? And I was like, no, no, no, no, no divorce.

No divorce. Just, oh, okay, let's stuff, let me stuff this down, you know? 'cause I don't want to break up a happy home. Right. But for some reason the conversation kept popping up. It kept festering, like it just wouldn't release. And it ended up being like a three-year conversation. Mm-hmm. This we're going back like 15 years ago.

And inside of that, I was able to dip my toes into the non-monogamy waters by getting exclusions for sensual massages. Mm. Sure. I try to find tantrikas so I could learn a little bit, so it could be educational, learn about tantra, learn about my body. Um, and had those experiences for three years and that felt almost like putting a bandaid on my ultimate strategy of wanting to be polyamorous.

And yeah, it was a good bandaid for three years until it was just like, I really can't just do the physical, I need the emotional also. But, um, yeah. I'd love to hear about you. Like how did you feel when you first heard about, about, how did you hear about it?

[00:10:59] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, I think I had, I had shared with you before we started the recording that I came from purity culture, right?

So the first time that I had had sex with anybody outside of marriage, I cried, cried. I had been given, um, have you heard of the paper test?

[00:11:16] Shai: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:18] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. So I went to a Christian high school and so my, uh, sex education, I kid you not was truly a man getting up on stage with a pink paper and a blue piece of paper and then gluing them together and saying, this is what happens when you have sex.

You have two people that come together and they're bonded. And then when you, uh, try to break away from that person, they ripped the papers in half and said, you leave parts of yourself with the other person. And who would want the shredded up piece of paper? So that was hands down my sex education was you have sex with one person for the rest of your life, or you're damaged, which, you know, as a psychotherapist now, I think about just the pain of people who had experienced, you know, sure, great sex, pleasurable sex, and now felt like they were being told they were broken and damaged, let alone people who had experienced assault and were be told, being told that they were broken into.

I mean, the, the messaging is so problematic, but I believed it for so long, and so when I had sex outside of marriage, I was sobbing. I just felt like no one would ever love me.

[00:12:27] Shai: Oh,

[00:12:29] Dr. Nicole: truly.

[00:12:30] Shai: Oh my gosh.

[00:12:31] Dr. Nicole: Right. Well, why would you have a shredded up piece of paper? Who wants this? Right? That's what I was, so the idea of having sex with a second person in my life.

Wild. The idea of having sex with two people at the same time separately, let alone orgies and other wild. So every bit of this journey has been a stretch of my imagination of what is possible. And so the first time I heard about polyamory, it was someone that I had just started dating and he, there was a lot of problems with this relationship, but he had mentioned it and I looked at him and I said, if you loved me, it would only be me and me forever.

I would never do this.

[00:13:14] Shai: Wow.

[00:13:15] Dr. Nicole: So that's where I started, was absolutely not, are you kidding me? Which I think when you look in my cultural context, that makes sense. Right? And so it, it took a little bit of time to realize that, oh, actually. I do have feelings for lots of people. The, the unique context of the experience was that an ex-boyfriend had reached back out to me, um, while I was dating that person.

So then I simultaneously started dating both, and then had this moment where I was like, oh shit, am I not also doing this as I'm re-dating my ex dating this new person? And then I had that sort of light bulb moment of what if this is possible? And then all of the books, all of the podcast, all the things, a dissertation on relationship anarchy, hundreds of conversations on a podcast.

And now here we are, you know? But I think it's funny 'cause people like ask me, oh, were you always Polly? And I think it's very important to say, no, not at all. This was never even something I would've fathomed doing. And so people, when I'm, when I talk to my mom who's still Mormon, she's like, I could never, I would feel such guilt and shame.

And I'm always telling her, well, I wanna honor that. And also talk about your cultural positionality, right? Because that's also how I felt for so long.

[00:14:33] Shai: So many people are not like born into this love style. They're not like, oh, I knew this since I was 12 years old. I was always like this. We were just like chugging along, going along to get along with society and others and never knowing.

And then once, you know, oof, it's like things start to line up. They start to make sense and um, yeah.

[00:14:58] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, I mean, I think that. There's a lot of question about identity versus a practice of cultural, and I don't think we have to pin it too hard and one can't. But if I were to have to make a guess, I would say it's cultural practice.

Think about even just the research on bodies that we find attractive, right? If I ask someone, do you find this body attractive? They would say. Yes, this is my innate sense of attraction and who I am and what I'm attracted to. And then when you take that into a global perspective, you see how it changes based on the cultural location of each person.

And so I think that that's something that needs to be talked about. The ways we're, say, people say internally, no, I could never have multiple partners that feel so innately wrong. And what does it mean to honor that, that yeah, that body isn't attractive to you. And also we are the products of our environment and that is so deep within our subconscious that we can't even recognize often at times.

[00:15:55] Shai: Hmm. No, no. Yeah. And may not, for some people, they just may not recognize it for their entire lifetime. Right. It just, it's so, it's so ingrained and it's hard to, to, um, to shift. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, if you want me to continue my story, I'd be happy to.

[00:16:15] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Tell me more about kind of, yeah, where it went from that first initial point.

I mean, if your wife wasn't on board, I also, I guess I wanted to respond to about the Tantrika experience. There's so much power in. Getting to have a controlled container. I think a lot of people panic about polyamory and opening up and the sense that everything that they've built, the foundation of their relationship is just gonna crumble.

Right. And so to have that controlled container with aika, with a surrogate partner, with a sexological body worker, all these people that fill that sort of role where it's a very controlled, a pro dom, right? A very controlled space. I think it's often a, a door opener to sexual freedom. And then the rest kind of follow suit, as you're saying.

[00:17:05] Shai: Yeah. Uh, so interesting. Remind me to tell you later on, I'm just gonna track it here in my notes, that, uh, as part of our growing program, I'm going to possibly have our first experience with a poly surrogate.

[00:17:20] Dr. Nicole: Cool.

[00:17:21] Shai: So it's, uh, literally bringing in. One of our practitioners, uh, who is a tanika and super educated on all the things, you know, all the intimacy, like a sex educator who's actually going to join into a relationship with a couple, but professionally, yeah.

So there's gonna be authentic intimacy perhaps, uh, because it'll be organic. Mm-hmm. Um, but it'll also be in the context of a professional engagement where they're paying for the service for on a monthly retainer. Uh, but it'll allow them to have kind of like the poly surrogacy experience where it feels just, it feels real, but, but there's that like exit of that.

This is a professional arrangement. A contract can end at any time. It's not as scary and open-ended as it has more predictability to it. So yeah. I'll let you know how it goes. Sure. We end up having this engagement, but we've, we're creating new things for our clients and this is one of them. Hmm. So, um, oh gosh, so many chapters to my story, but I'll try to be efficient here.

So after there was, um, three years of discussion about, I'm gonna say 20 September 20, maybe August, 2013, somebody gave me a clue and they said, actually it was a Tanika who said to me, Hey, you know, if you really want your, your wife to open up her mind if, if you're really stuck, how help her have her fo her experience first.

Mm. I'm like, okay, do you know anyone? She's like, yeah. Almost like a poly surrogate type situation. I know, I know. A, a DACA in Sedona. And, um, I'm like, okay, thank you for the lead. I reach out, I sponsor the trip for her to go out to Sedona a couple of times, and then she ends up going to Chicago and ends up almost like falling in love with this daca, like they were like on an actual date in Chicago.

Mm-hmm. And then she comes home. I'll never forget. It was around August, September of 2013, and she says, well, if you can't beat 'em, join them. I think I understand what you've been saying for three years. I feel this love and I feel love for you. Let's write down some rules. Mm-hmm. We write down like three rules.

Not knowing that DIYing, this whole thing is, is, is risky. None of the support that we now give our clients, none of the education, none of the attachment informed, you know, poly secure was not out, you know, we were just like, yeah, wear a condom and, uh, don't, don't use our marital bed. Like, that's the extent of, of our knowledge of what, how to prepare.

So within two months she goes into a full on relationship, like another primary partner. Within four months I do the same. And within seven months she asked me for a divorce.

[00:20:10] Dr. Nicole: Wow.

[00:20:11] Shai: After 80, what? 18 years together. And to be honest. Parts of me were prepared for that risk. Yeah. I was hurt. But the hardest part was sitting down our five and 10-year-old kids and saying, mom and dad are divorcing.

And them crying like, what? You guys love each other? We're a family. Like, 'cause they didn't know any Right. They assumed we were fine. I assumed we were fine. Right, right. So I joke that I did the next logical thing. I didn't want a broken home. So I said to my wife, Hey, I'm gonna invite your boyfriend to move in with us and I'm gonna invite my girlfriend to move in with us.

And everyone said yes. And all of a sudden, eight of us are living together. Wow. Four adults, four kids. We did it for three years and we really got along. Again, I'm naming privilege. I was able, I had a beautiful property at the time. Don't have it now, but it was a beautiful property that had plenty of space.

So we weren't living in like a two bedroom apartment. It was mm-hmm. Eight of us. And we made it work. We got along, we learned a lot. She wanted to finalize the divorce. Three years in, she moved out with her boyfriend. Two years later. They broke up right before COVID and I'm like, just move back in. I don't wanna do this.

Like dropping the kids off back and forth. It's better for everyone. Yeah. The hard part was that I now have trans had transitioned to full on Polly and I was living with two of my partners, Leah and Chrissy for about, that lasted about six years. So I was living with, you know, communal Polly in a way.

Sure. And brought in my ex-wife came back in and we actually did great. I mean, there was so many sweet moments with the three of them holding space for each other, supporting each other. Um, so we moved through COVID and then as relationships would, would have, I transitioned with Chrissy and then eventually with Leah, and now I with my ex-wife.

We decided to downsize, get a smaller place, and I lived with my ex-wife. We've been living together for a year and a half, and my kids who were five and 10 when we started are now 15 and 20. Mm-hmm. So the, it's like, you know, almost living with like three other adults. Mm-hmm. And tons of love, flexibility.

We've even taken a, a trip together, you know, as a family, so Very sweet. Uh, and I'm continuing my, my dance with relationships, you know? Mm-hmm. Did some solo poly for a while now, now I'm deepening, but there's also some other connections and like you said, and, and old, and uh, just so many things that are still so rich in my life.

But, um, yeah, that's my journey. That's my personal journey. There's obviously many, many, many chapters in that story, but, um, gosh, I, uh, I've grown so much. I'm, I'm not, you wouldn't recognize me, you know, 10 years ago. Yeah. Um. Yeah, it's been neat.

[00:23:19] Dr. Nicole: Good. Yeah. Change is the only inevitable, right? So we hope it continues to keep coming for for the better, right?

That we continue to evolve and we grow in relationships. And so what a expansion process, truly, right? What a journey and yeah. As a feminist and someone that studies sex and relationships, there's just so much to say about your wife's journey and women, right? I think that, um. Women's sexuality is in a very clearly defined box, right?

The Madonna and the whore, right? These are your two options. And living in our cultural context, what we were talking about earlier about, you know, just even physical attraction, let alone attraction to multiple people. And the way that culture influences that so many women are locked in a box of this is what it means to be a good woman.

This is how you live your life. You love one person, this is it. And I think that. As someone who's walked out of that paradigm, the amount of times that despite my desire to walk outta that paradigm, I've had such desire, uh, such shame, such guilt, such unconscious shit from all the societal messaging. And so it's so hard, I think, for women to see out another world.

And yet there's also such a big movement right now of women leading poly, of women actually bringing the emotionality into the relationships in this whole space, let alone, you know, I know we're not monkeys. I always, you know, say that, uh, but just the research on, um, I was reading it in Untrue by Wednesday, Martin, just the research on monkeys and how.

When they created a more expansive cage for the mon the monkeys, which reminds me a lot of my research was psychedelics and drug use in Rat Park. When you expanded the cage for the monkeys to have more room, the women were actually more pursuing of sexuality. But they found that after a certain amount of time, the women monkeys would get bored with sex.

And so the researchers thought, well, what if we bring in new monkeys into the space? And the second they brought in new monkeys, the women's sexuality perked up again. Right? But of course, we're not monkeys. There are human beings in this world right now that are not having sex for the three letter word of God, right?

Like there are humans who make a vow and say, I'm going to be celibate for God. Right? And so we're not monkeys to be very clear, however. Whoa. When you think about the implications of that, and when I think about the drop of sexuality that happens, particularly for women in long-term relationships, when I think about the diagnostic statistical Manual of Disorders of Psychological Disorders, the DSM, it says that upwards of 42% of women are gonna struggle with female orgasm disorder, which I hate that pathological lens, but we're talking about half, almost half of women.

I'm just curious how many of us are in a box, because I was certainly in a box, and I find myself in long-term relationships struggling with desire that does not happen in novelty and new situations. Right? And so I think that there's just so much to expand here. And so your wife having that experience, it allowed her to kind of.

Understand what you were feeling, which, you know, in the privilege as a man, there's so much more cultural narratives about access to this desire. Like, as a man, you're told this is normal for you to want more, to want these other people. As a woman, that's not what I'm told. Right. And so I think that there's so much more for us to stretch to, um, and access to these things.

[00:27:06] Shai: Wow. I'm gonna go ahead and, and, and be a bit more vulnerable and open about an, uh, my current dynamic. Um, yeah. Dating someone who is so interesting. They've danced the dance of open and closed, and maybe you can help me Yeah. And sort this out. But there's like, they've, they've been able, instead of one box, which is monogamy, at least they have two boxes.

One box says, I can be your lover. I can be in lover ship with you, and you can do whatever you want. Because we are lovers and it's all good. And. Do you And I do me, and there's no quote unquote, commitment to each other. And I honor your freedom. And then there's my desire to be, to build a family. Mm-hmm.

And then that box, I'm looking for monogamy. I'm looking for simplicity. I'm looking for somebody who wants to settle down. And you know, we need to choose between these two boxes. Like, because when it comes to building a family, there's meaning that's been made. That openness is not designed for that. It's like the antithesis of a family openness is, is, doesn't make sense.

So it's interesting that there's an open-mindedness. And having been in a relationship with a man who was married, having been in a relationship with a man who was solo poly in a way, like having those experience, but having a primary partner you wanna build a life with is a non, almost, it feels like a non-starter.

Mm-hmm. And I'm trying to help without sounding too like. I hate to say this, but like over convincing mm-hmm. Over efforting selling it. Like how can we bring these two worlds together? And when you spoke about unconscious shame and guilt, maybe that's, that's, that's what's happening. It's like coming from a traditional family where, you know, in that culture she's seen aran like arranged marriage energy Sure.

In the lineage, right. So like what, what, how do you traverse that these, these conversations without sounding like you've got a horse in a race and you just want them to blend these worlds and, and, and see that it's possible to have a family and be open.

[00:29:18] Dr. Nicole: Right. Yeah. I think yeah, supporting people in their desires and asking deep questions.

I think the first thing that was coming to mind for me is. What about the exclusivity gives you security? Like what is that vision that you're seeing when you think about a family dynamic and the need for monogamy? What is that that that's giving to you? And I think this is where we can talk about a failure of imagination at certain points, which I fucking,

[00:29:49] Shai: I like that phrase.

I get that.

[00:29:52] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, I fucking get that. I think in a lot of our societies, let's think about larger systems of power, right? Even thinking about a world outside of this massive, you know, money gap where 49% of the world's worth, the 49% of the world's wealth is owned by 1% of the people. When we try to think about a world beyond that, I can't even fathom what our society would look like.

And so we have a failure of imagination to even see that other world. So we say, no, I don't want that other paradigm. I don't, I don't even know what that looks like. So I would wanna be asking that person, okay. When you see exclusivity, what is that giving for you? Is it, is it security? Is it control? Is it a sense of, there's a clear path of what's going to happen?

Because I think this is where my paradigm as a relationship, anarchist starts to be really important and interesting because no matter what you do, we all have multiple relationships. I hate to break that to people, and I think, you know, I have a relationship to my friends. I have a relationship to my mother.

I have a relationship to blank, blank, blank, blank. We all have multiple relationships. So if we imagined another world, say you're in that exclusivity, right, where it's all sort of calm and peaceful and you have everything in that you want, you are still going to have other friends. What if you also introduced sex into those dynamics and it stayed almost relatively the same.

Right? I think that that's where people start to panic. Would it? I don't know. Could it stay the same? Right. I think that people automatically assume that introducing sexual dynamics is means that someone's gonna leave you, especially if they've experienced that in the past. Things are

[00:31:36] Shai: so, there's a failure, a failure of the imagination that if you, if you do introduce sex sometime somehow it's complicated, it's messy, it's not simple, and it, it will introduce, uh, problems and sex makes it all different.

It's not just like other friends.

[00:31:50] Dr. Nicole: Right. Which I think is a reflective of a certain paradigm around sexuality and purity culture. Right? Because in past, past consciousnesses of myself, I couldn't even fathom having sex that was play. And I don't mean in the sense of friends with benefits. I don't talk to this person.

We just fuck and goodbye. I mean, people that I actually love.

[00:32:14] Shai: You just wanna play with?

[00:32:15] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Once a month. And I wouldn't even say just play like it is play and love and intentionality. Yeah. But it is not full life merging. This is not someone that I am talking to every day. This is not someone I'm seeing every, this is someone that I see once a month, or these people I see once a year, or these people I see every couple of weeks.

I, I think it's just the, what do you want in that security of the exclusivity. Right. And what is it that you're seeing and what is this other world that could be possible? And also if someone wants exclusivity, honoring that, right? Like, what does it mean to also honor that, if that feels like a narrative of importance and significance, right?

As much as I respect the person who chooses to be celibate for God, right? These are all important meaning makings and narratives. Um, and I, it wouldn't be ethical for me to come and kind, uh, try and deconstruct someone's concept of the three letter word God. Yeah. You know what I mean? Where you're just like, Hey, I, I hear you.

And that's important, you know?

[00:33:13] Shai: Yeah. So I think I'm, what I'm hearing you say is that, um, okay, first starting with the baseline, like, is the person open-minded to have the conversation, or is it just like, I'm looking for monogamy, I'm into the God stuff, and that's me. That's who I'm, but if the person is like having conversations and is open-minded, you're, you're naming a failure of imagination.

And the failure of imagination is essentially like. You have a, a projection, a meaning making into the future that if I introduce sex with other, with friendship, with other people, where I might see them once a month or once every two weeks or whatever that is, but it is not this like big love relationship that I want with you as an example that you can't imagine anything but complexity and you're failing to imagine serenity, joy and peace.

You're just leaning into the imagination of, I call it an omen, by the way, with my clients. Mm-hmm. Um, the anatomy of conflict. The anatomy of like meaning making, like what is the, it's made up of OMEN. You're making an observation, you're generating a meaning, which is followed by an emotion often tied to younger wounded parts, and then a perception that, um, a core human need won't get met.

Sure. So in this case. The failure of imagination might be to just be like, oh, well I'm seeing this idea that you wanna be open. Okay. That's the observation. The meaning is I don't like it. The emotion is unsafe, but what, what other younger wounded parts or meanings that you've attached yourself to are driving the meaning into this is untenable, right?

This won't work. I'm not safe, I'm not seen, I'm not loved. My core human needs will not get met. And there's a failure of imagination to say, what are some other observations, other potential meanings? Mm-hmm. Could it be that nothing is really wrong and that my partner has this variety, but I'm still the focal point for raising a family?

Prioritize in terms of time and resources. Mm-hmm. Is it possible? Let me imagine that possibility and, and that's the challenge, is helping people imagine. A different projection into the future.

[00:35:35] Dr. Nicole: Which is so hard to do because where do I get models of this? You know? And I think that's one of the big shifts for me is stepping into a community where this is a lot of what people do.

Where I see nesting partners that are living together, that are raising kids in a polyamory dynamic, and also have these other partners and are doing it in a way that is honoring people. They're not having veto powers. They're not just blanketly. You know, like I'm, I'm in a backyard at a baby shower with a poly couple.

There's another, their partners there, their other partners there. We're all in the backyard. And there's a respect for this couple that is having the child. And also the other couples are there, the other partners are there. We're all in the backyard like it is. Great. And there's a sense of, because I think there's a lot of dynamics about hierarchy, right?

And I, and I understand the critiques on hierarchy in terms of the ways that people are, um, blatantly hurt in dynamics where someone will veto and then it's absolutely over. Or just using the power of couple privilege to completely demolish the respect for another human being. However, when you live into this reality, we have limited time and energy.

So no matter what I do, I cannot build deep, significant relationships with an abundance of people. Love is abundant, but time and energy is not okay. And so when I'm thinking about how I wanna build this life, there is a much smaller net of the people that are close to me. And if you wanna do that in a throuple dynamic where you live in, all right, that's one world where you all live together, there's another world, or maybe you're nesting with one person having kids.

Right. And then building deep respectful dynamics with other people that aren't as frequency of, of orbits of seeing that person. 'cause you're not living with that person and I don't think that that means you're doing hierarchy in a shitty way. Think about how we do that with friendships in general.

Often people will have a best friend and that doesn't mean. That we are shitty to the rest of our friends in our dynamics, but it means there might be someone that you see a lot, you spend the majority of your time to, and you connect with that person, right? Mm-hmm. So I think that there are ways where when someone really, and I'm certainly there, really craves a deep partnership with one person and other people.

Both are possible, but it's really hard to see that world until I'm in the back of a baby yard, until I'm in the backyard of a baby shower with a poly couple that's doing this and has all their other partners that orbit at less frequencies than that main couple in the backyard. All loving and supportive.

And then I say, wow, I could also do this.

[00:38:16] Shai: So you have the models where other people don't. It's Yeah. You know, other planetary for them, this does not exist. And they hear all the stories. Yep. They see all their, like, like this, this person I'm referring to has experienced dating couples or dating somebody who's solo poll and hearing about the other woman's struggle.

Right. Like, I don't want to be that other woman. Mm-hmm. Like, why would I wanna sign up for that in my primary relationship? I want simplicity. And so they don't, they don't get to hear this kind of statistics that maybe Elizabeth Chef puts out about in, in her book, the, the polyamorous next door or you living this and actually having, would you say, a lot of serenity in your life?

[00:39:00] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. I feel like I have, I think that's the tricky thing is I have so much more security. Because I know what the rates of infidelity are.

[00:39:10] Shai: What are, what are the rates of infidelity, by the way, I, I heard Esther Perel say 26 to 75%, depending on Right, depending on what you call infidelity. I'm like, what is that statistic?

[00:39:20] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Right. I think that's exactly, I've heard her all the way up to 70, which, okay, let's just give her that. 25 to 70. Let's ballpark somewhere in the middle of 40 to 50. Are you fucking kidding me? How do you feel secure in that? How can you possibly feel secure in 40 to 50% that your partner is gonna let

[00:39:40] Shai: Well, one in two chance?

Well, what,

[00:39:43] Dr. Nicole: let alone the world that, uh, when you are a monogamy, do you know how many books think about mating and captivity? Think about, um, Emily NGO's new book come together, right? The amount of books that talk about bed death, the struggles of erotic desire. How the hell are you supposed to feel secure in a 40 to 50% chance of infidelity and the other world of eroticism dying?

You know what feels really secure? That my partner talks to me when they have erotic desire for another person, and that we communicate on such a deep level, and that our relationship is so secure that I'm not worried about them leaving me. And if they do it is under the context that they have found someone or myself.

'cause I think women particularly fall into this category of, my partner will never leave me or they will leave me. Don't forget that you can leave that person too, my friend. Yeah. You know, in the world of them or myself leaving and no longer wanting this connection, it is only under the paradigm of finding such deep pleasure with another person that I have to move or they have to move.

And if I really love them, what world would it be to say, wow, you found this other person that you're really connected with

[00:41:02] Shai: Now I'm gonna kill you. Yeah,

yeah. And I'm taking your, and I'm taking your kids away from you and is cut love. Let's go to, let's go to war. No, it's not love. Yeah. Another, another like way that I describe it is, you know, we we're spending $50 billion on an industry. That brings us together in front of all of our friends and family to make these wedding vows of, uh, forsaking all, all others, you know, uh, happily ever after.

And you, you look at that $50 billion industry and the wedding vows that we make, and then there's a $50 billion divorce industry, right? And then, so let's just, I think the last statistic I heard was say around 56% of, of, of, of adults will divorce, but then you have to layer on 10 to 15%, give or take of people that don't divorce but practiced infidelity.

Right? Right. So there's the carrying. Even if they never find out, their partner never finds out, you're carrying the shame and the guilt of lying to your best friend to your life partner. Alright, fine. Then you've got people who stay together, don't cheat. Another 10 to 15% will do that, but they're sexless or loveless right in the relationship.

Right. What, like 80 to 90% and you're spending an average of $26,000 on a wedding in America, are spending $26,000, are they not aware that the odds of them breaking these vows, that they're not going to be together for, uh, forsaking all others happily ever after? Just like, would you, if your kid came to you and said, I found this amazing college.

I can't wait to do it. I wanna have a, I wanna go to this school. And guess what, they have like an 80, 90% failure rate. Most of the kids will drop out 80 to 90% in the first year, but it's, it's 26 grand, right? As a parent, would you say? Yeah. Go to that. Go to that college. Uh, I love the statistics. 80 to 90%.

Yeah, let's do that. Right. Oh, and by the way, I forgot to mention that if I, if, if, if I do end up, you know, dropping out of the school, there's a fee. Of about $20,000 legal bills. Right, right. There's a fee that you have to pay after to drop, to leave the school. Mm-hmm. Totally. And it's just like, and that's safety.

Wow. And failure of imagination to understand where security really comes from. Wow.

[00:43:34] Dr. Nicole: I think that's where I feel secure. But here's the thing though, is you can know all of this cognitively, which is what I reached too, of looking at the stats, looking at the research, looking at all of this, and the first time your partner kisses another person, losing my.

Shit.

[00:43:52] Shai: Yeah.

[00:43:52] Dr. Nicole: And just having a full trauma reaction and

[00:43:55] Shai: And all the data goes out the window. Yeah. And you're like, no, no, no, no. I've got a 5% chance. I've got a 10% chance I'm gonna go with that.

[00:44:04] Dr. Nicole: I know. And so I think that's where it's like, okay, now we can talk about somatic work. We can talk about exposure therapy.

And I think, again, talking about the paradigms, we can't blame ourselves for having a failure of imagination because that's the reality of the water we're swimming in. Right. When I am working with clients who are in domestic abuse and situations like that, they can't even imagine a situation of security, of love, of something that is way better and so often.

You know, there is stagnation and staying in that place for alar, uh, so many different reasons of safety and complexity and resources, but the imagining of another world of security and love is not possible, let alone it can be frightening, right? Talk about all the people that have been in abusive dynamics, complex dynamics, and then get into a secure dynamic and it feels boring, right?

There is so much here about our paradigm of relationships where we can be in this one space, but imagining the other feels so impossible until you take the baby steps of feeling into this world. And so that couple that I was talking about that had the baby shower, they also got married recently, which was an interesting thing, right?

As someone who has deconstructed so much of that world, but their vows. Included their other partners, their other partners were a part of the ceremony. And at one point in the vows, in one point in the vows, they specifically looked to all of us in the ceremony and said, and we also believe in the power of community to support this family that is being built.

And so will all of you in the crowd take a vow with us? And in context, this is a couple that I had dated in my own past, like, but because they're such beautiful people, we have stayed in connection from a sexual erotic into a platonic world. And I'm still friends with these people. And so I'm just in such a different paradigm of people where when eroticism changes, you maintain the relationship.

You stay in deep community, you navigate those complexities and previous consciousness of self couldn't even fathom that world.

[00:46:14] Shai: Wow. Um, yeah. This is all. Really such a great exchange, and thank you for the sort of the advice of like, okay, a failure of imagination. What else can we, can we imagine into the future?

What can we vision into the future that's possible? How, how can we take some baby steps to see? Because you don't know what you don't know, you just have the projection. You've never even experienced an open primary relationship ever. So what could that look like? Could it be safer than these statistics of breakup slash divorces, uh, that breakup, you know, homes with kids in them mm-hmm.

The infidelity piece and, and the eventual potential boredom. Mm-hmm. That, that can, that can come for either of us. Mm-hmm. You know, we're gonna change in the next three years. So, um, yeah. You mentioned, um. The first time your partner kisses somebody else, the trauma response is like, what in the world do we do with that?

[00:47:17] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. I, I have so much to say.

[00:47:19] Shai: What's, what's, yeah. What's the solu, what's the solution for that?

[00:47:23] Dr. Nicole: Well, I think first about, let's go back to what I had said about me and purity culture, right? So the narratives of all of that, you know, when I was on the floor crying, thinking that no one would ever want me, that was a trauma response, right?

The narratives of what I had been sold and told about God and all of that was hitting my body. And I was crying to such a level that I was definitely,

[00:47:46] Shai: you were, you were going to hell. You were going to hell,

[00:47:48] Dr. Nicole: yeah. And no one would ever want me. So of course I was having a significant reaction in my body of just this deep, I just remember crying from my gut, like, whoa.

Right. And so when I am moving through all of these different paradigms, I've always held onto that of, wow, okay. The narratives of what I was told were so deep in me. What narratives am I being told now? Right. But I think that can be hard to hold onto. 'cause even when we did all the math, we did all the research, I can see this clear path, but Right.

I am so. Scared. And so what I always talk about is working first from the body. Because what happens when you're in a trauma response is you've moved away from your prefrontal cortex, your executive thinking into your amygdala. And now we are not in the rational part of our brain. And so you have to first work with that before trying to find a solution cognitively.

So I created, you know, an acronym called calm, right? Can you center yourself with a deep breath? Can you assess your body right? And can you take the time to be able to, to move that energy out, to be able to locate you know, where it is in the body? And once you've done that work, now we're in a calm state.

Now we're back in the prefrontal cortex. Now we can unpack, which is where I wrote about, um, my psychedelic jealousy guide. So I do a lot of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy work, and people always wanna have a good trip, right? People wanna have a great trip on the psychedelic. Okay. You know what makes a good trip, a good set and setting.

So then that's where I start to help people unpack the set and setting. What are the narratives around security, the narratives around love? What are the setting that you're in? What's this relationship? 'cause if this person is giving you breadcrumbs, like a psychedelic, which is a non-specific amplifier, the second you have that person kiss, someone else, you're gonna be in.

Rage because all of those moments of frustration will be amplified. So much so that you're gonna feel all of it, right? And so sometimes it's not even you. Sometimes it is the relationship that you're in. Um, or even, I think one of the biggest things for me, in terms of setting, was the other relationships I had around me when I was first stepping into polyamory and I only had one person that was really doing this.

It was so hard to fathom sharing that person because that was my one source of love and connection as I've built multiple around me. Do you know how much easier it is to share water when you have multiple flowing sources rather than a very thin trickle of water and you're thirsty in a dry desert of affection?

Of course. I'm not gonna share that love. Are you kidding me? Right. To feeling abundance and overflow to being like, yeah, go for it. I'm fine. You know, that's a whole different paradigm.

[00:50:38] Shai: Hmm.

[00:50:38] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:50:39] Shai: Wow. Oh God. When I hear you talk, I get chills because here we are, we barely know each other, right? Yeah. And you might even be further ahead than me, but with all these, uh, acronyms and these models that you're working with, I'd love to share a little bit about secure open protocol.

Sure. Because it's so similar to what you just shared. Yeah. You and I can be on like, no contact with each other and we're developing the same con, a similar model. Sure. Uh, it's so neat. Isn, you gotta love that, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, uh, they're really quick. So, uh, five pillars, five key ingredients to the, to the, to the SOP, the secure open protocol.

Mm-hmm. And they all work in symbiosis with each other. Right. Uh, the first is communication. And I joke that polyamory like the Olympics of relationships and that you can't bring college or high school level communication skills to the Olympics. So what does that look like? And like your description? I, I, I use my hands.

Uh, I know your listeners might not be able to see it, but like, here's our prefrontal cortex, right? One partner is going into dysregulation. They flip their lid. They're not in their prefrontal cortex, they're in lizard brain. In their amygdala world, their trauma is stored. The partner comes in and they're like, with all the good intentions, they're like, Hey, I'm logical.

So the logical brain, the lizard brain don't get along and they start to listen, to fix, to respond, to defend themselves. It's like such a, a pattern of communication that we've all been taught, right? You know, like we're, we're bringing in the skills of past generations who have mostly practiced monogamy and trying to apply it here.

So this person's got their, their lid flipped, and this person keeps trying this. They don't get along. They're on two different frequencies. This person gets dysregulated enough that they say something mean enough that flips this lid. Mm-hmm. Now you got two lizard brains, two crocodiles in the swamp. Oh, fun.

That's the best. The best kind. So we teach you how to emotionally attune. I mentioned omen earlier, understanding the anatomy of conflict, observations. Mm-hmm. Meetings, emotions, and needs. And the spark method that I created is a specific communication platform or a blueprint that walks them through the space, holding, asking for consent to even talk, asking for presence, doing the breath work like you and I did.

Right. Affirming your love and then naming the subject in a neutral way. And then going into like detective mode instead of listening to respond, fix and defend yourself. You're listening to listen. You're slowing everything down, you're being tantric in your communication, and you're just taking on the role of the space holder for your partner to express what they're seeing, thinking, feeling, and needing.

And now you're building. Deep, deep into me. You see Right. Intimacy with your partner. You have a rupture. We're all gonna have disagreements, but are you repairing well, that's where the gold is. Mm-hmm. Can you repair in a way where you don't have to defend yourself? You can take 10, 15 whole minutes. Sure.

And just reflectively listen and slow everything down. And I do this for a living and I sometimes can't do that. And I need to in, it's not easy, but we need these patterns of communication to change for us to play at these levels of, of relating. So that's pillar one, but pillar two, you started speaking about it.

You know, we've got 30 practitioners now who specialize in trauma healing and a nervous system regulation, uh, modality, uh, we have on our team is PSIP, psychedelic Somatic Interaction Psychotherapy. Now clients are being abso, like they're using the struggle of open to go and do the most transformative.

Healing on themselves, and all of a sudden the relationship gets better, the open struggles are lessened. Well, duh. The relationship is only gonna be as good as the wellbeing of the individuals. So, you know, we throw everything at it, like, whatever, different strokes for different folks, right? Like IFS, brain working, versive therapy, psychedelic assisted therapy, microdosing education, sexual trauma, healing with, with, uh, you know, intimacy and Sure.

Sexual, sexual healers, like whatever we, we've turned over all the rocks and brought together the team. So pillar two is that deep dive into yourself. Where pillar one is, is like the outer work. Mm-hmm. Pillar two is the inner work. Sure. And you have to go and excavate, you have to go in deep, otherwise you can communicate great, but you're still trying to climb Mount Everest without the right gear and without the right training.

Mm-hmm. And then you come to pillar three, which is the strategy. The problem is that most people come to us, I'm sure they're like, help us write agreements. Give us the strategies, give us the best practices, and they're missing the point that you're gonna, and it'd be in a spin cycle if you try to solve things from that place.

Let's put those two horses before that cart. Mm-hmm. Let's level up our communication and then, uh, heal deeply as individuals. And then when we show up for that strategy conversation of our intentions and agreements, well now we're so much more resourced. Everything becomes, every conversation is infinitely easier, right?

All those deal breakers and non-starters are not so deal breaking and non-starter ery. Right? Like all of a sudden you're like, you know, I just Yeah. Go have an overnight. I'm good. You know, like things really can shift. And then, um, and then we bring in the, you know, the, the cherries on top, which is a. A hundred exclusive workshops with people like Jessica Fern and Elizabeth Shef, all these experts, and then the 9,000 member community where people can go in and get peer support from a, you know, a poly secure kind of group that, uh, embraces jealousy and insecurity and, and, uh, anxiety for, for the, the polyx anxious crowd, right?

So that, that's the, having a 9,000 member community that isn't going to judge you for not feeling compersion, isn't gonna judge you for having insecurities. You know, in some groups they'll tell you, why are you doing this? Go back to being monogamous. And that's like really hurtful. It's like

[00:57:01] Dr. Nicole: some therapists will say that to their clients.

I've seen that one. Let me tell you.

[00:57:09] Shai: That's so damaging, right? Because you're in love with this human being. You don't wanna leave this human being, and then you're thrown in there. The idea that well just get out. Oh yeah, I can just get out. I've got three kids with this person. I've got a life. I still love them.

Just get out. Easy for you to stay like, yeah. Divorce is fucking easy. I'm gonna sink my whole fleet of ships. My, my friendship with them, my parental, well, I'm getting chills talking about this. Yeah. Sorry for being so passionate, but like, I'm gonna sink Fair. My allyship, my parental ship. My asset ship. All because the lover ship wants to sail in a little bit of a different direction.

You're telling me I have to go sink this? Thanks for the advice.

[00:57:48] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:57:49] Shai: That's damaging.

[00:57:50] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Right. And you sit in a positionality. I sit in a positionality where if a therapist said that to us, we'd say, uh, no, you're wrong. But do you know how many people don't? Previously, before I was in this world of becoming a therapist, you look to a psychologist and therapists like the gods, almost like they have all the insight into the human psyche, and you should trust every single word that they say.

And so when a therapist comes in and says, yeah, well, why don't you leave? This is just clearly not working for you, that will impact someone significantly.

[00:58:25] Shai: Yeah. That's like the, that's like, uh, well that's a person that knows their shit. They understand psychology. Right? They went to school and that sticks there like, well, I got that advice.

You know, like, wow, what, what a. What a wrench to throw into the machine. Right?

[00:58:41] Dr. Nicole: Totally. It runs me of a story. I, I don't name names, but, uh, when I was training in school, there was someone who's like a main person of emotion focused therapy and, uh, she had this whole paradigm on couples work and couples work and couples work, and me being the rebel that I am in class, I'm just, you know, raising my hand.

I'm like, Hey, doctor, blah, blah, blah. Like, I'm curious about if this could be adapted to polyamorous relationships out of just a couple diad. To which she says, you know, in my clinical work that actually never works, every single couple, I know every single couple that does that. It's one that wants it and the other one that doesn't.

So I've never seen it work, to which I stood up and said, you know what? That's actually not what I've seen in the community. I've seen couples that thrive in this for decades. The reality is you don't have them in your office. Because they don't need your help.

[00:59:34] Shai: But the fact, oh my God, what a point. My God.

Like how, how could a somebody who's like a scientist who says they do clinical studies of stuff, ignore the, the bias that they Their own bias.

[00:59:46] Dr. Nicole: Totally. And the fact that then she's a power dynamic, right? She's in front of a classroom as the professor. There's a whole room of students who have now just been told that, let alone, it was really fascinating to read some research recently that, um, it was interesting.

It broke down monogamy versus non-monogamy, but then in the non-monogamy world, it broke it down between open swinging and poly. And so it was interesting. Open dynamics had less relationship satisfaction than monogamy. Which I found very interesting. Swinging was the swinging was the same, and then polyamory was more relationship satisfaction than monogamy.

And then sexually, uh, open relationships were the same as monogamy. Swinging was higher. Then Polly was higher than monogamy. So Polly got higher on both. Right. And essentially what I found from that research is shit, all of our studies that are trying to look at it between this binary of monogamy and non monogamy are telling us kind of nothing.

Because when you get into non monogamy, there's a very big camp of polyamory swinging open, and they all have very different rates of satisfaction you can imagine communication skills, maybe, et cetera, et cetera. And so even all the research we have right now, which often puts that non-monogamy, has more sexual satisfaction than monogamy.

Even that, we gotta take a big question mark to that, because non-monogamy is way too big of an umbrella to be just saying, here we go. We have to get into, let alone, I've never seen a study on relationship anarchist, my dear community. Right. Um, we have no data on any of this to really know, and what we do know is that the different types of nom monogamy have very different rates of satisfaction.

[01:01:33] Shai: Yeah. Oh, and then there's so much then you can take the data and, and parse it even more. Right. Because you can, you can take those categories, but what about overlaying the, the skills gap in communication? I always say it's not about monogamy versus non-monogamy, it's about who are you doing it with, right?

Are they, you know, skilled communicators? Have they, uh, addressed their traumatology that they're bringing into this relationship, whether it's mono open, swingy, or poly? Like, are you carrying tons of abandonment, rejection, right. And neglect trauma. Right. That you're bringing into these different styles.

And, and, and that's a huge factor if you Right. You gotta control for that if you're doing a real study. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. What's, what's, what's the skills gap? What's the healing gap? Is this a conscious relationship because. All the toxicity of monogamy can easily transfer with certain people to non-monogamy.

So how do we control for those variables,

[01:02:31] Dr. Nicole: right? Yeah. I think that's why I come back to that psychedelic metaphor. It's not like psychedelics are going to heal you. I wanna be very clear. Psychedelics are a tool that in the right set and setting with the right community, you can find healing non-monogamy will not fix all of your relationship problems.

In fact, like a psychedelic, it's probably gonna amplify them and you're gonna have to look at them a lot harder, right? And so just because you take a psychedelic does not mean that you are more emotionally aware, more enlightened. In fact, you find extremist groups that take psychedelics and feel more in.

You know, enraged to feel like completely enforce that paradigm of their reality. And so it's not non-monogamy, it's not the psychedelic it, like we're saying, it's the community. Do you have the community that is practicing these skills? Like that couple that I was talking about where I dated them and we transitioned into friends and you know what?

That couple somatic therapist, ah, the amount of therapist and poly coup. Oh, it is all around me.

[01:03:37] Shai: Is it true that because, uh, it's funny, just today I, I spoke to someone who's like, oh, don't, uh, do poly with a psychologist. They're the work that,

[01:03:44] Dr. Nicole: Hey man, I don't know what, what,

[01:03:47] Shai: what, what, what are you seeing?

Are you seeing a ton of therapists and Yeah. That are making it work? Yeah.

[01:03:53] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Well, I mean, think about under systems of capitalism and the way that. My 40 hours a week is spent communicating about emotions and even dealing with difficult clients that activate me in significant ways that I have to learn how to say, okay, I'm gonna take a deep breath.

I'm gonna separate your projections from my projections and communicate. So under the system of capitalism, if that is your job, you are literally training in skills. And there's a lot of therapists and, and psychologists that also suck. Let's be real. But for, you know, for the most part, you're treat, let's be real.

[01:04:30] Shai: You know, I, how you really feel. Don't hold back.

[01:04:33] Dr. Nicole: There's a lot of them that, you know, there's a lot of coaches that are way more informed than a psychologist that I've seen. I'll just say that. You know, it's a system. But in general, if under capitalism, right? So if you are a healer, a coach, a therapist, and you are spending all of your time in a paradigm of communication, body awareness, healing, you are actively working on the skills that we're talking about, which are needed to deconstruct the internalized system.

The internalization of mono normativity. It's not for the faint of heart in this current day and age, but you know what? Future generations, oh, they're gonna be running in liberation. We can't even fathom, you know, Sims the game.

[01:05:11] Shai: No,

[01:05:13] Dr. Nicole: you know, you like play with little people. Yeah, I haven't heard of it.

[01:05:15] Shai: Yeah,

[01:05:15] Dr. Nicole: they're the newest edition has polyamory in it.

So tell me what, yes. So tell me, as a kid, you're playing that as a kid. Oh, right. Okay. I'm in middle school. Oh, my People can have multiple people. Oh, okay. They're gonna hit an age. I love that. And never even doubt the And, and I think, just to be clear, we've also seen a lot of that with the queer mo movement.

Right? How many people in their older age can't even fathom the idea of queerness because of such large systems that younger kids are coming out queer from the gate saying, of course. I love all these different people in ways that we can't even fathom, depending on your generational like location. Yeah.

Yeah.

[01:05:56] Shai: Wow. What a great conversation.

[01:05:58] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. I'm very passionate about it. Is it, you know, I, I don't wanna put it in the frame, but my own trauma response, right? Coming from purity culture, there's been such an itch to get out of such a restrictive frame and so, such a fervor to get out. And so we run with that passion for sure.

[01:06:16] Shai: Amen. Yeah, we do, we do. Yeah. Uh, yeah. So, um, yeah, I, I think that the only thing I can add before we land this beautiful plane that we're on mm-hmm. Um, is that, um, these five critical questions that I, that are part of the strategy, strategy pillar are really good questions for I think your listeners to consider.

Mm-hmm. Uh, the first is to have a deeper conversation around why you're choosing this. Yeah. Like if you're just doing it without the clarity of why you don't have your North Stars. So I often will use Tony Robbins six core human needs. Let's look at your needs. Can you articulate to me in more certain ways how this will make you feel safer?

And what you said earlier about, you know, this like failure of imagination of what safety can look like when the statistics are so clear, well, fuck this. Just safer. It makes sense scientifically. All right, fine. What about this need to feel more significant? Well, shit, if you have multiple people sharing you with significance, you are feeling more significant, right?

Love is the third core need variety, growth service, these six core human needs. Now I understand after doing this for 15 years, that all my jars get filled and I want my clients. To have that conversation with themselves and with each other, with my guidance. So that's the first question. Why are you doing it?

Second question is, who are you doing it with, right? Like, can we understand our younger wounded parts? Are we doing the big healing work? Are we just showing up with these younger wounded parts completely unresolved and throwing caution to the wind and expecting that like, yeah, we're just gonna talk things out and everything will be fine.

No, these young wounded parts will come out of shadow, grab the wheel of your bus and swerve away and it'll become a very dysfunctional situation if you ignore it. The third question that to your point earlier, you know, love is infinite and time is finite, right? Right. The nervous system has but so much, you know, flexibility.

What else is happening in your life? Are you, do you have aging parents? Are you having health issues? Are you raising kids? Are you starting a business? Like, like, be realistic. And then based on the answers to the first three questions. One plus two, plus three. It's like a formula equals number four. Which style of non-monogamy do you choose?

Right? There's like 20 styles we talk about. And then how do you even customize that style to fit your current situation? It's a custom job. It's not a, oh, well, I guess we're swingers. That's all we're gonna talk about. No, like within swinging, what exactly are your intentions and agreements? Mm-hmm. Then, um, the last question is, you know, how do you thrive?

Who are you choosing, Nicole or shy as, as your guides, as the experts to give you the right mindsets, to be trauma informed, to give you a protocol or whatever it is to really not go and try and DIY this thing, I haven't seen the study, but have you ever Googled, uh, open marriage failure rates? No. The answer is 92%.

Mm. I, I haven't seen the study. I don't trust it, but I can see how it's high.

[01:09:30] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:09:31] Shai: Because if you just willy-nilly, DIY this thing for many people, and that's why we have clients, it's hard. Right? It's really, really hard. Absolutely. Um, getting support. I love clients that come to me in the beginning before they, they

[01:09:45] Dr. Nicole: right.

[01:09:45] Shai: Fall into the, into the, um. Into the pitfalls,

[01:09:49] Dr. Nicole: right? Yeah. We come to prepare for the psychedelic journey. There's obviously, you could do integration after a bad trip. Yes. But in all ideal circumstances, you're coming to that person beforehand to prepare, like you're saying, to set your intention. Because there are definitely gonna be points where you say, what is reality anymore?

This is a very new land that I have never traversed before in my entire life. Right? Where is my grounding? Where is my person? And I think through a lot of my work with this, I wanna invite all of the listeners who are on this journey to celebrate themselves forever. They're at, oh, so many of my clients are, I want compersion, I want this, I want this, I want that.

I still have so much to go. I still have so much to go. We are gonna be living our lives till the end. Still unpacking purity culture. Poor phobia, all of these systems right to the end of our lives. So in that journey, what does it mean to look back and see how far you've come, see all the journey? Because we're so often looking to the future, forgetting all the, you know, moments that we've already grown through.

And so maintaining that balance. And I do think that there is a way to do this that is desire and pleasure focused, right? What is the desire out of this? What is the pleasure that you will experience through this? And then how can we exposure therapy microdose this? Okay? We don't need to do the big psychedelic dose where you lose your face and have no idea what reality is.

What's the small staff been there? What's the small staff? Where you still feel tethered to reality and grounded. And then at that point you establish a trust with the medicine. This is how we work with clients, right? And then you do a little bit higher if you want to, or maybe you find that sweet dose where it feels so good right there.

And you're content. You can look at the other people that are tripping super high and say, Hey, that's fine. So happy right here. Yeah, right. But there's a way to do this that is pleasure based. And I think that part of that pleasure based reality is also that growth is uncomfortable. If you think that you're gonna step into polyamory and there's not gonna be moments of discomfort, you're never gonna get anywhere, and that's not how life works.

You wanna run a marathon. You know, that first mile, it sucks. It sucks. That first time you try to cook that dish had too much salt. The first time you try to touch your toes, you're so far away. Right? And so I think that people have to understand that there is an edge of pushing and staying regulated, but still pushing yourself and pushing and having joy in that challenge.

Right. So it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Big dose. And just getting there, how can you take the smaller doses? Mm-hmm. The doses of pleasure with a little bit of push pleasure, push pleasure, push and staying regulated. It's, it's possible.

[01:12:43] Shai: Wow. You are brilliant by the way. Thank you. It's such a pleasure talking to you.

Wow. Um, ah, yeah. So many synergies. So yeah. Thank you. Thank you for Of course, having me. Thank you for this. Really rich conversation. I hope to, uh, stay in touch Totally. See if it's collaborations in the future, but this was really enjoyable. Thank you. Yeah.

[01:13:08] Dr. Nicole: Such a joy. Well, as we close out our time together, I'll take a deep breath with you again, and then I'll just check in to see if there's anything else that you wanted to share with the listeners.

Otherwise, I can guide us towards a closing question.

[01:13:25] Shai: Yeah, no, I'm feeling pretty complete.

[01:13:27] Dr. Nicole: Good. Okay, great.

[01:13:29] Shai: Yeah.

[01:13:30] Dr. Nicole: So then the one question that I ask everyone on the show is, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

[01:13:39] Shai: It's a tough question. Mm-hmm. I don't know why it's tough. I mean, I guess that, you know, like, like what I experienced though, like having multiple heat loving humans, you know, more than two living in the household with kids, that it's normal, like.

There aren't sex parties. There aren't like, kids aren't being damaged. It's very normal. It's just like, just like a nuclear family. Just more support for the kids, right? Mm-hmm. More support for the system. When one person gets sick from COVID, you know, one person isn't bearing the brunt of the household by themselves.

There's other humans to support, you know, one to drive the kid to practice and the other run to the pharmacy and get the medication like normal should, right. You know, like Right. That's one thing I think people should know that it can actually be you even better than normal.

[01:14:35] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm thinking about sex at Dawn.

I'm thinking about the book, how Love Conquered Marriage. If you go back historically. This was normal. Right. And I think we forget that sometimes it's just before all of the agricultural revolution, um, before the plow, before all of the building a private property, we were in a very different community landscape.

That reflects more of what you're saying right now.

[01:15:04] Shai: Yeah. That's what I, I've, I always called it like, I want to build a modern day hunter gatherer tribe. Right. We still have to go to work and drive our cars and all these things, but why not bring in the essence of, of these old, beautiful, communal systems that we come from.

Mm-hmm. You know, that we still see in indigenous tribes that have, have been un untouched, you know, mostly untouched by, by, by us, by modern society, you know? Right. Right.

[01:15:34] Dr. Nicole: I remember talking to someone about this, this paradigm. They were a researcher, a biologist of some sort, and they were like, you're right.

I guess maybe we could raise kids in a poly world. And I just had to pause and I was like, we just have to pause and talk about the lack of cultural awareness in this moment here, because there are actively cultures that do this. It's not a question of could we, there are actively cultures around the world that do this and have for centuries.

Oh my God. Right. So it's just, it's, it's expanding out from our white Western perspective to see more of what is possible and just, yeah. So much of our conversation speaks to the vulnerability of that journey and the need for community, the need for support. But I am just so excited for future generations that are gonna grow up in a world that is so different than this.

[01:16:23] Shai: Uh, just don't even get me started on like, ugh. Like the rates of, of, of suicide and depression and anxiety and how we've gone from the tribe to the extended big family on the farm to the nuclear family to Right. Epidemic of single dom of single parents. Right. Like something like 40 plus percent of women in America will deliver a child as a single parent.

Like what in the actual that Right. Like we've, we're so far removed from our origins and our nature, um, and yeah. You know, I think that poly can be the glue that binds us together. Mm-hmm. It brings, it brings a different dynamic. It this in specifically KTP, specifically KTP, is. So beautiful. My gosh. Yeah.

It is. It, it can lead us back to our roots, right?

[01:17:13] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, well it's such a joy to have you on the podcast today. Such a pleasure. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[01:17:22] Shai: For having me. Mm-hmm. I'm so grateful. Mm-hmm.

[01:17:25] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. And before I let you go, I wanna make sure I hold some space for you to plug all of your resources for the listener who has connected with you and your work.

Where can they find you?

[01:17:35] Shai: Aw, well, yeah. Uh, leveled up love is everywhere. Leveled up love.com. On there, you can even add a slash and put in a webinar. We have got a free webinar for you. Uh, that's on the website, on all the socials, like Instagram and TikTok. You can find leveled up love. Then we've got our beautiful 9,000 member community on Facebook, a private group called Leveled Up Love.

So that's the best ways to find us. Thank you for letting me share about that.

[01:18:05] Dr. Nicole: Of course. Yeah. I'll have all of that linked in the show notes below so people can find you and your communities. And yeah, thank you again for coming onto the show. Mm.

[01:18:14] Shai: Thank you for having me.

[01:18:16] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. 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.