247: The Skills of Rupture and Repair with Lux Gypsum

[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 Lux join us for a conversation all about somatics and conflict transformation work. Together we talk about updating attachment theory, expanding our narratives of connection. And regulating our nervous systems in community. 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'm a sex and relationship psychotherapist providing psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, author of the Psychedelic Jealousy Guide and founder of Lap Pleasure Practice, where I support individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships.

Dear listener. The skills of rupture and repair, it is inevitable that in all of our human relationships there is going to be conflict. It's a part of what it means to be human. I, I really can't take the relationships. We're like, we never have conflicts. Like, are you living? Are you living inside your dynamics?

We're human beings. We're gonna have days where we get past our zones of regulation. There are gonna be days where we're frustrated. There are gonna be days where we're completely upset with the people in our lives. And rather than trying to ignore that, we need to look at it straight and really build the skills to be in that complex space.

How can we be with our bodies, our nervous systems? How can we be with the bodies and nervous systems of people around us in our circles? 'cause we certainly don't do this work. Alone. And this episode reminded me a lot of one of my letters that I wrote for the Pleasure Activist newsletter that I send out each week.

Dear listener, if you haven't joined the educational newsletter, you can head on over to Modern Anarchy. At the bottom of each page, you can enter your email address and I send some of my deepest educational resource backed emails out to folks, including reflection prompts, somatic practices, things to do in your partnerships.

And one of my favorite letters that I wrote is. Why chaos feels so sexy, and I just wanna share this here with you. Dear listener, if you haven't read the letter already, you need to know that these chaotic relationships where you get into conflict again and again, these are relationships that really hit into the neurochemical patterns that are super addictive, right?

It's like when you go gambling and when you pull the levy on a slot machine, for example, you don't know if you're gonna get it right. You pull, you pull, you pull, and then you get that moment, you hit the jackpot and it's like, whoa. All the dopamine, all of the good hormones, right? Our most chaotic relationships do the same thing.

It's called an intermittent reward system. So if you're in unstable dynamics where there's a lot of conflict, and then these really high hot times, you're having sex, you're coming back together, it feels so good, but then afterwards it feels devastating and chaotic. Hey. That is your intermittent reward system fully activated, and it was one of the most addicting pathways.

We see it with drugs, we see it with gambling, and we also see it in relationships. And so I just wanna invite that as a conversation to have a bit more compassion for yourself. If you wanna read the full letter again, subscribe to the newsletter. I have it all on my website, and I hope that this gives you some compassion so you can move with yourself and get out of these chaotic patterns and step into more stable relationships where you can go through conflict as Lux and I talk about in today's episode, with more stability for your nervous system, with more stability for your community.

And just please, please know that that nervous system attunement is absolutely possible and that we'll continue to process and learn and grow together in this space every week. Every Wednesday.

Alright, 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 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.

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

[00:06:27] Lux: Um, yeah. I love that It's such an honor to be here. My name is Luxe Gypsum and I am a multifaceted, visionary and healer. And a lot of how that work currently happens for me is through somatics and through conflict transformation work.

So I'm just really passionate about relationship and where we rub up against each other, how we embody our values in hard moments, both interpersonally and personally. And I've found, you know, through conflict work, somatics is just that cutting edge, like how we actually work with the trauma underneath our reactions.

So that's really my biggest passion is how. We can engage our personal healing and our relational healing as a part of culture change. That, you know, if we wanna see a world living and embodying different values, it starts here with us and in how we talk to each other and how we respond when we're activated.

And it doesn't have to be perfect, but there's a lot of room for growth that I see. Myself and those around me and in our movements for social change in our leftists progressive communities. And I really think that like focusing inwards, uh, and being who we want to be and embodying what we wanna see in the world is how we're gonna see the transformation that we want on bigger scales is building that at home.

Mm-hmm. And so that's really like the heart of my work is like, how do we actually do that? You know, we say that we value these things and then we're tearing each other down when someone says like, the wrong thing or something. Right. And so I'm just really passionate about actually like bringing that level of, of integrity and inner awareness and community values, um, holding each other like lovingly to our shared values and figuring out how we embody them together.

[00:08:23] Dr. Nicole: Beautiful. How exciting. Uh, I'm excited to dive into all of that, so thank you for joining us today. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious for you, before we dive into all of this insight and wisdom, what has your pleasure, liberation journey looked like?

[00:08:43] Lux: Hmm. Yeah, that's been like a big focus for me, honestly, is just giving myself the permission to slow down and be in pleasure and follow that.

I think it's natural when the container is set. You know, when I am on a trip or like with a friend where we're dropping in together or with a lover where, you know, pleasure is a focus, but honestly the harder thing for me is just being with myself in that space of pleasure. And that's been a big growth edge that Somatics has really helped me.

Find that, um, self connection and spaciousness with myself. 'cause I just tend to be a very doing, like, focused person and I think a lot of pleasure happens more in a space of being. Mm-hmm. And you know, there's so many gifts I have from being like productive and like driven and all of these wonderful qualities that have like, sent me on my path and allowed me to pursue the work I do and build all these skills.

But the time to just be in a space of pleasure and the, um, also the natural creativity and other beautiful things that arise when we can like, relax the need to produce or do anything that it's, it's like counterintuitive where by just being and being spacious and being present and being in the body and like slowing down and listening to our desire.

Like the way that we wanna create and play just shifts and the, like, the field shifts entirely. And I think there's a lot of, um, beauty that I'm even yet to like unlock Sure. In, in that practice. Right. Um, because it's, yeah. It's so countercultural in a way, you know, we're so set up to focus on like our productivity and see that as our worth.

Right. And pleasure is not productive, you know? Right. It's inherently just, um, enjoyable and it can even be something that people feel like guilty about given the world that we're in. And so it really has been the last few years that I've been centering pleasure more intentionally in my life. And yeah, that can look like just.

Taking the pressure off myself in all the ways of, you know, everything that I could possibly do this week and just doing the things that I really need to do and leaving the space in between for inspiration. Sure. Um, for other forms of play. For other forms of creation. And yeah. Spending time, like making myself a really nice meal.

[00:11:26] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:26] Lux: Sitting outside. Yeah. In between client sessions and just like having more time. Unfocusing specifically is like a word I like. It's like, not, not even that I have to be like, doing yoga or like doing something like Sure. Super, like prime self-care, but just that I can be with myself without an agenda and.

Relax into that space and roll around and eat good fruit and see what emerges.

[00:11:54] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I mean, pleasure is so embodied, right? And so if you're up here in the cognitive running, running, running, running, running, running, you're not slowing down to actually taste the pleasure, right? Yeah. Um, I'm sure you're probably familiar with the, um, mindfulness, uh, raisin practice, or like for the listeners not familiar, it was something I had done where they, they give you a raisin and then they ask you to like, feel the raisin, feel the wrinkles, like squish it in your fingers.

What sort of sound do you hear when you do that? Right? And then when you do put it on your tongue to not just swallow it immediately, but to like, let it sit there. Um mm-hmm. You know, if you get a fine piece of chocolate and you just swallow it back. You're not gonna taste it. Right. And so our life being very similar, right.

If we're just next, next, next, next, next, next. We don't ever like integrate Totally. We don't ever slow down actually feel that moment. Right. And so I hear you with the, the pleasure of slowing down, especially in a world that's asking us to like pick up the pace. Right. To really like slow down and come back to your body.

And, and I hear what you're saying too, of that being a lifelong practice. Yes. I feel like I'm just at the beginning of that journey Yeah. Of actually feeling my toes as I walk around spaces and feeling my skin, you know, like when wind is touching it, you know? Mm-hmm. When I'm out on a bike ride or something.

Right. These moments where like I could just be up in my head and up in my head, especially as like a theoretical person that I am, you know? Yeah. Um, so I hear you. It's definitely being like that, that moving meditation, right?

[00:13:22] Lux: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that. And like, pleasure happens in the body. Yeah. We have to be here to experience it.

Mm-hmm. And yeah, I haven't done the Raisin, but I've done that meditation with a strawberry and it's,

[00:13:34] Dr. Nicole: oh, cool.

[00:13:35] Lux: Such a beautiful practice to take something that we can, we can be so con consumerist, you know? It's another way, I think it's like, how do we embody our values? If we're anti consumerist? How do we not just consume our life or consume every experience?

Even if it's not just about, like, consumerism isn't just buying products, it's also treating ourselves as a product. Um, treating everything we're doing as oriented towards production. Mm-hmm. And so divesting from that in our lives is also de commodifying, like our experiences and being, being present with them rather than just like checking them off.

Like, it's like eat dinner, check, like Right. You know, do yoga check like that. We're actually there in the moment. Relaxing, taking some breath. Feeling gratitude for the gift of the food we're going to eat and Yeah. Yeah. Being in presence with it all.

[00:14:27] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I'm curious, applying that to your relationships, what has that looked like to be present with your relationships as well?

[00:14:37] Lux: Mm. Yeah, I mean, I think part of the reason that I have struggled in some sense to do this with myself is that it's so much easier for me to do in relationship. Sure. Because being present with another is so like, so captivating, um, and so easeful to me, I think, um, this is true for anyone who might fall more on the anxious side of the attachment spectrum, um, that, you know, we're really oriented towards connection.

It's easy to be present for connection. It's juicy. We love it. And so pleasure in connection just comes so naturally to me. I think that was when I started realizing that I think it was like a few, I don't know, five or six years ago when I wasn't in. As many partnerships at the time and more in a solo poly phase where I wasn't having a lot of, um, intimate connection and just noticing the like hole that that left in my life mm-hmm.

Was partly because those are the moments I would slow down mm-hmm. And be in my body is with a lover. Mm-hmm. Um, with someone else who's helping me feel good and feel pleasure. Yeah. And so I think for me that's, that's so easy and it's so, it has this strong like, appeal, you know, when there is love in my life, I think we've all experienced that, you know, draw and magnetism that can come with new connection where you just wanna like be in it all the time 'cause it's like so juicy and ful.

Yeah. Um, and so that feels like it's been a really. Consistently supportive part of my life. When there is connection, that's just an easy way to drop into pleasure together. And I get so excited to share with people. Like even if I'm having a really nice meal and I'm alone, there's this feeling of like, man, someone else should try this though.

This is so good. I just, there's so much joy I have in sharing which. It also naturally carries over to being relationship anarchist. Non-monogamous is like, oh, if I love this thing, if I love this person. Like, I want other people to get to experience how amazing they are and to get to share, um, the beauty of that connection or, you know, just that person and who they are in the world.

For that to be like expansive and open to other people to get to experience too. Mm-hmm.

[00:16:58] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. There's joy in community, right? If you love something, it's, there's also a joy in seeing other people love that thing. Whether it's a food, a partner, a place, right? That can community sharing moment.

Yeah, and I resonate with what you had said about always like outsourcing the pleasure to relationships, right? There are so many times in my life where, yeah. I like even something simple, right? Like going to go get breakfast, I'd be like, well, I'll do that. If a partner was here right then I'd go get that donut or whatever it is.

Mm-hmm. Right. But since I'm by myself, I won't, and it was such a paradigm shift for myself to start prioritizing my own pleasure, even in my own relationships and not just outsourcing that to when I'm with a lover. And I, there was a lot of like, large things in my life I wasn't doing. 'cause I was like, I need a partner to do this activity with me.

Yeah. Which is so sad, you know? Mm-hmm. So, so I, I resonate with you in that journey of having to like unlock what it means to, uh, enjoy your own pleasure by yourself as well. Mm-hmm.

[00:17:59] Lux: Yeah. Yeah. Mm.

[00:18:02] Dr. Nicole: And of course the social conditioning of that one too, right? There's a lot of social conditioning, um, depending on your gender orientation of what you know, what you're supposed to be doing in life, whether you're supposed to be other oriented or self-oriented, right?

And so depending on where you're growing up, what sort of scripts, what sort of cultural messaging that can also add an additional layer to this. And then also, like, as we, we said we were gonna get into conflict, I was thinking about, you know, the examples that have been in your family line, right? Like my mother, right?

Like just completely negating self often again and again and again, right? And so I have these. Scripts growing up as a child, right? Of this is what it looks like to be a good person. This is what it looks like to be a good blank. Right? And so mm-hmm. I, I always am trying to get curious with clients to reflect on the conditioning of their circle and what are the people around you do they prioritize their pleasure, right?

All that being like juicy roots to kind of figuring out, um, our current context and relationship to self and others.

[00:19:02] Lux: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. It, it's so much like you said, there's like this social cultural conditioning aspect of it, um, that's, you know, contextual even to the, whether you're on the west coast or the east coast Yes.

Or, you know, in the US or growing up in a different country. Um, and also, yeah, gender and all, you know, all these different subcultures that we are raised into. But the thing that I really. Think about a lot is like trauma and attachment too, and how those, like you said, like looking at, you know, the parental figures around you and how, how they modeled, you know, appropriate behavior and also what, what kind of care you received and how you learned at a young age.

Whether it's safe to lean into connection and to bring your needs to connection or whether you've learned that, like relying on others doesn't really work out. And then, you know, I think there's a lot of people across different identities who've, um, learned avoidant attachment because they as a young, like even like an infant, you know, would cry for help and it was just not there.

Or the kind of attunement that they needed wasn't there. Or they were getting overwhelmed by like someone who was way in their face, right. And they had to learn to like recoil into themselves. Right? And so all of these different. Un attuned kinds of lack of presence or over engagement can lead to people pulling away.

And then the gift of avoidance is you are more self-focused generally, where there's a more of a sense of like, oh, I'm overwhelmed in conflict. I need space because I know by myself I'm okay. And I think that's the thing that those of us who lean more anxious have to learn that gi, that other side, that gift to be like, oh, by myself, I'm okay, like by myself.

I can actually still like regulate and like move through my emotions. I don't need this other person to fix it for me. Even though there might be more of a tendency to like lean into the connection, lean into the conflict when we have that more anxious pattern. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think, I think there's a lot of, you know, Instagram click bait about attachment styles that just like reduces it all and doesn't hold the complexity of it because it really is.

Yeah, it's relational too, you know? Yeah. That it's not like you have a fixed style. You might be generally really anxious and then you start dating someone who's like texting you all the time and you start to notice, I don't really want to text them back right away. Like, this is a lot. Right. And so the way that we, um, we relate to someone else is totally based on how they're relating to us too.

Right, right. And um, I love Jessica Fern, who I'm sure you know, wrote Poly Secure and Poly Wise. Yeah. She came on the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. She is so awesome. And, um, she was a guest teacher in a class I took on attachment and Cool. Something that she says in the book, and she talked about in the class was how.

It's like seeing, uh, connection and autonomy as two reins on a horse.

[00:22:05] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:06] Lux: And, and so the anxious person tends to lean towards connection where the avoidant person towards tends to lean towards, uh, autonomy. Mm-hmm. And they both matter and they actually need to be balanced. Like mm-hmm. If you pull on that side of autonomy too much, then the anxious person is gonna like, be like, wait, but you're leaving our connection.

And if you pull on the side of like, connection too much, the, at like a avoidant person is gonna be like, okay, whoa, we need some space and some more autonomy here. And so there's this almost cosmic balance that's trying to happen in relationships where, um, if you're hyper anxious, someone avoidant, we'll try to like balance that out.

Mm-hmm. And we experience it as conflict.

[00:22:46] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:46] Lux: Because we don't realize we're like riding the same horse and we're go trying to go the same direction. Right. Um, and that, that need that the other person is holding down. That might be less familiar to us or feel less comfortable to us, is also a need that we share.

We also need autonomy. It's just hard when someone tries to take autonomy from us, and that sets us up as like co competing with each other where my need for connection and your need for autonomy are like almost mutually exclusive versus honoring. We both want connection. That's why we're here in relationship, right?

We want connection with each other and we need autonomy to some degree to have a healthy connection where we're not like codependent.

[00:23:24] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:25] Lux: And that balance and finding that. Ultimately, like inner security, which I love that Jessica Fern talks so much about building secure attachment with self.

Because if you're not securely attached to yourself, you're not gonna be comfortable being autonomous. Mm-hmm. Um, within a connection. Right. And so building that self security allows us to know that both of these qualities matter, and how do we create relationships or, I love the word relations shape. Mm.

That's one of my, like, I have a bunch of little words I like to use and just Sure, sure. Yeah. Creating the relat shape that works for us. You know, that might change at different times, but Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't have to look like the way that we were patterned in childhood and we get to. Evolve that template and build new possibilities.

Mm-hmm.

[00:24:13] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And always remembering that the self is in relationship. Right? So this, uh, the nuance of what you're saying here, right? When, when people are saying like, oh, you need to love yourself. You need to love yourself. I sometimes feel like people, this is the like Yeah. Instagram, whatever, sort of mm-hmm.

You know? Um, whereas just like, I'm gonna like. Take time to be by myself and be alone and learn how to love myself. Okay. The reality is, we're never alone. Right. Yeah. I feel like often that paradigm is like this monogamous, mono normative view of like not having a romantic partner to outsource that. Yeah.

Which like, I respect that. I hear that. But the reality is that we have a full community of relationships regardless of what sexual practices you do. Right. And so you're never really alone. And the reality is to get that self-love. Is that like unique mix of internal work? Yes. Absolutely. What is the narrative you were telling about yourself and then also understanding that that narrative is formed by all the mirrors of your relationships, and so if you have mm-hmm.

Really negative. Bad people around you that are like, are not bad. Everyone's hurt. The hurt person is hurting. But if you're around these mirrors that are, I often talk about it as like a fun house mirror, right? So if you're looking into that oof, like of course your self concept is gonna be negative. So this like delicate dance of when you're trying to love yourself of the internal work and also being conscious of your community because they're always interconnected and, mm.

I appreciated what you said about the dynamicness of attachment. I think that's something that the field of psychology really needs too. Mm-hmm. Update, you know, um, I, I definitely feel that someone with multiple dynamic, intimate relationships, and I'm sure you have too, where in one partnership you are, if I were to categorize myself more avoidant and then in this other one mm-hmm.

I'm more anxious and that's happening at the same. Time. Yes. And that's where I was like, oh, wow, polyamory is a trip. Wow, this is really cool. That wasn't in the textbooks of attachment. Right? Totally. And so I think there's so much more updating that we need. And I, I've talked about how, uh, my minor in my undergrad was in chemistry, so I have like, ah, chemistry elements, right?

And I always thought about like mm-hmm. Hydrogen, right? Like this like crucial element that can make. Water something we need. Mm-hmm. Or a hydrogen bomb, something that can destroy life. It's the same element, right? It's about the pairing that is made to it. Mm-hmm. Right? And so thinking about ourselves in a similar way, like there are core structures, right?

There's one single carbon with, you know, right. With hydrogen. But like, depending on what it attaches to, it can be radically different. And so Totally. Um, trying to get people to see that, of course, that's not to negate our self responsibility of our own relationships, our own care, our own healing. And also to take a reflection at like who is in your community, whether it's past lovers, past family, that is still in our consciousness mm-hmm.

In our body and our nervous system. Ooh. 'cause that is deep. And often we don't see it until we do. And then we go, damn. You know? Yeah. All the healing process.

[00:27:32] Lux: Yeah. Yeah, the number of times like I'm dating a new person and I, you know, have a lot of like self-awareness about the patterns I have that can be challenging.

Like I'm very specific about things, um, kind of particular and um, yeah, and I've like said things already just like, you should wait till you meet my dad though. You know, like, where do you think I get this from? I'm like, I am so toned down compared to some of the people that I have raised me. Mm-hmm. To be this way.

Mm-hmm. I think I just also love Yeah. Being able to see that there, like there's a gift and a. Dark side to all of these patterns, right? That there's always a reason that they're happening in the first place. That is usually adaptive. It's a survival response of some kind, or it's serving us in some way.

And then just noticing like that, that pattern might not even be a problem with this one relationship where it is not like there's anything inherently wrong with. Us for how we are, right? Mm-hmm. Like I, maybe it's that you are a very thorough communicator and that's how you feel secure. But then in another partnership like that freaks this person out and they're like overwhelmed easily.

And so it's not that, oh, my communication style is bad or wrong or too much, which we can often feel that way once it doesn't work for someone that it brings up shame for us and insecurity. But it's like, no, nothing about us is inherently wrong or bad. It's just figuring out is it working in this relationship?

And if it's not, can we change and adapt in some way to find like a better pairing or match where, okay, I'm used to communicating this much, but what would work better for you is having a check-in like once a week where we share all of our plans rather than every time I have an idea about something we could do, I send you a text and it's in the middle of your workday.

You know, there's, so how do we address those things with systems too? So. You know, it could be like, oh, let's have a shared note where I write down all my things when they come up because I need somewhere to put it, right? Or, uh, you could just turn your phone on do not disturb so that you're not getting interrupted by when I text you, there's like so many options that, you know, help accommodate.

Like, I get to be the way I am, and you get to be the way you are. And we get to figure out like how that works together best. That's not, um, bringing up or like falling into these, uh, pitholes of shame where it's someone starts to feel like, oh, I'm bad and wrong for being this way and then. There's not a lot that can happen from that.

We get stuck in that place. Or we do, you know, when shame comes up, if we're uncomfortable feeling that shame, then we can push it back onto the other person as blame.

[00:30:07] Dr. Nicole: Sure. Yep.

[00:30:07] Lux: Well, you really should work on getting more comfortable with direct communication because it's an important thing and the fact that you don't wanna receive my text means you're super avoidant.

Right. Um, so we either can like blame it back on them or we dissolve into shame and we're like, I'm so bad. You're right. I, you know, I'm so much no one loves me. And then you have to come like comfort me and tho there's just. It's so common that people fall into these, these traps. I would say these pitfalls of communication because we haven't built these skills of collaborative conflict and, um, communication.

Yeah. And we also haven't built, like beyond the just skills is self-awareness of our nervous systems. Yeah. To notice, Ooh, I'm feeling that familiar, like sinking pit in my stomach, collapse energy. Ooh, I'm having shame come up right now. Okay. What do I need to tend to this? That might not actually be like texting the person back in this moment or trying to solve the problem because I'm overwhelmed and in this place I can't see a way through.

I just wanna retreat from the relationship and end it right now. So just noticing, catching ourselves before we make these kind of extreme moves that then have consequences that then is more cleanup we have to do later. And it takes a lot of awareness and practice to build, build that, because literally a different part of our brain is operating when we're in those Yeah.

Um, activated states. And it can be hard to even bring back that like, oh wait. This isn't how I usually feel. Uh, maybe I should like, take care of myself before I make big decisions about my life.

[00:31:47] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, especially in romantic relationships, it's like, go with your passion. Follow the passion.

Yeah. Oh my God. You know what I mean? So it's not like we don't see in the movies like, Hey, take a deep breath. Take a walk around the lap. Walk around the neighborhood, come back, we'll talk like, who wants that movie? I do. And maybe you do. Yeah. And our communities do. But the, you know, Hollywood, you know, so, and the reality is I I, I feel like if we were all that embodying and present and aware, the system wouldn't run like it does right now.

Exactly. It thrives off of so many of us not having these skills. 'cause then we're separated. We're not coming together. We don't have the skills to come together. Yeah. And the less skills you have, the more that you're able to be a cog in the machine. Right. And, and just knowing in America that like, I believe it's 40% of Americans have an undergraduate degree.

Right. So even going back to like, the majority of Americans are really like. So many of these skills, like so many of the jobs Right, are functioning off of people not having these skills. Yes. Right. And so that is a whole part of this that I, I, I hope people can understand is it's, you know, again, we have the responsibility to work on this.

We have the responsibility to care for the people in our communities around this. And also acknowledging the systems are making this incredibly difficult, right? Yes. You get off of your multiple jobs and you're exhausted. You have two kids, whatever the picture is, you don't have time to be reading nonviolent communication.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Um, so this is why we make resources here We are folks. Yeah. And so. Um, trying to remember that, like you said, like it's highly adaptive. Anything that we've learned is it, it can become hurtful and we use the words like maladaptive, right. But, um, thinking about our beginning as humans, we are so vulnerable for the early years of our life, so incredibly vulnerable.

Mm-hmm. Right? We literally cannot function and get food on our own. Some mammals come out and they're walking and can like, do much more than us as baby humans. Mm-hmm. And so we at a young age have to be very attuned to our caregivers. Right. And so, depending on what that situation looked like, you might've, like you said, if they were too intrusive or too far away Right.

That can create these sort of patterns that are keeping you. Safe. Yeah. Like step one is that deep compassion for whatever is going on, honoring that that part of you is trying to keep yourself safe, right? Mm-hmm. So I feel like starting there, 'cause if you get to that spiral of I'm so annoying, I'm so this, I'm so that, that is just gonna keep going deeper and deeper and deeper into a dark space.

We need to acknowledge that like anything you're doing is because it's keeping yourself safe, right? Yeah. And from there we can start to have more of the conversations about where we wanna go with that. And I appreciate the invitation to come back to the body because I think mm-hmm. That. In conflict. So many people, myself included, when we get activated right, we forget, oh, where's my breath?

Like, where's my breath? Right. Usually like when we're scared, you know, again, adaptively like we, we, it used to be a lion or a bear. Yeah. You know? And so inside your run, you know, so like, we're feeling that now maybe when your boss calls you into the office Yeah. Or when your partner is having this moment of conflict with you.

Right. And like you said, like now we've moved into the amygdala. We're no longer in our prefrontal cortex where we mm-hmm. Make executive functioning skills. And so that's not the best space to be in, but it can be hard to really embody that when you're in conflict again, because our society really, especially in romantic relationships, this is like the passion.

Follow the passion. Yeah. You know, and, and, and even. The movies you look at from like the nineties Earliers, like, you know, they would, I'm thinking about the notebook even like, there's a moment where she slaps him and we're like, oh wow. They're so romantically in love that they just get to these spaces where they're so passionate.

[00:35:44] Lux: Yeah.

[00:35:45] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. I think nowadays we're like gay,

[00:35:48] Lux: but that's toxic template.

[00:35:49] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. But that's our society and our culture is like, if you're really passionate, you'd be yelling and then it's hard if, if you've had that sort of paradigm, whether it's with a past lover or a parent. Right. I've had clients who then say like, well, they're not responding, they're not getting activated, so I don't even know if you love me.

And then that's when someone can start to push, push, push, push, push, push, push to have the bomb reaction. 'cause then they're like, okay, now that you're upset, I know you love me.

[00:36:17] Lux: Cool. Yeah. There's like this addictive quality, I think, to all of that, that. Yeah. And that's the same quality of like, keeping us in a state of fear and activation, that, like you said, it's like that's what the government and the systems use to keep people like easy to control.

Yes. And like through media, through the news that it's like, let's spark headlines that like, make people really feel that something intense is happening rather than like give a kind of more like balanced, um, you know, neutral. We're not really sure yet, but it seems like this might be a thing. You know, like that you don't get headlines that are nuanced, right?

Mm-hmm. That's the whole point. They're supposed to grab your attention. And so in an economy that like thrives off of like grabbing attention, the way that that's often done is through like hijacking the nervous system Yeah. And getting us activated in some kind of way. And like you said, like the, the movies that, you know, just show.

Show like unhealthy relationship patterns playing out. And I honestly think a lot of people would be pretty entertained by seeing healthy relationships, patterns, patterns playing out. 'cause it would be new, it would be interesting. And I don't think that we wouldn't be entertained by that. I think we would just feel actually more empowered and more capable of having the relationships we want.

Which would, like you said, once we're more empowered and more capable, we're less easily able to be controlled. And so there's this sense where like the media and people producing films. One, they probably just don't even have the awareness to know that there's other templates sometimes. But even if they did, it's like not in their best interest to teach people or uplift people to be able to have healthy, healthier relationships with each other, with themselves.

Um, because when people feel satisfied, then they don't buy as much stuff, you know? Mm-hmm. They don't, they, they won't be as willing to like work jobs that are unfulfilling and the system. Like totally relies on us, you know, not feeling happy and feeling powerless and having to give away our power and our time and our energy to things that are underpaying us and just staying in this state of struggle.

Which that statistic you brought in is this, you know, so much of our country is working class or Yeah. Just not even able to imagine or access possibilities outside of what they see around them and the town that they grew up in. Mm-hmm. I think with the internet and, um, all of the, we do get in little bubbles on the internet, right?

But there's the possibility of like popping those bubbles and searching for something and finding that there are other queer people out there actually living, thriving lives on the west coast or whatever, you know? Mm-hmm. That you can start to carve a new path for yourself. Um, but I think something that I'm really curious about is like, how do we.

Meet that gap, that like education gap, like yeah, there's free resources like this, but also on a bigger scale, like what could we do to onboard people essentially into new cultural values when we, we know we're all holding this conditioning and these templates and these wounds and old stories from society, from our parents, and um, that those are often getting in the way of us, like being the kind of people that we want to be.

Or even, you know, someone comes into a new community and isn't familiar with the new lexicon of like how we address people with gender identities and then they get like ostracized or attacked or shamed and there's. Like this inability to just acknowledge, hey, people are coming in from different social locations, different backgrounds with different levels of awareness, and that's not their fault.

Like there's this quote that I love, um, from Kazu Haga. Yeah. Healing Resistance is the name of his book where he says this. That's, we have to have compassion for people's ignorance.

[00:40:22] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:22] Lux: And I think so many people would even be triggered by that statement. Yeah. To some degree that it, but I believe it that like, we have to understand that not everyone thinks and sees things the way we do.

And there was a point where we didn't even Right. Have the understanding. You know, we had to learn from someone that, oh, when you say that word, it's kind of exclusive. Um, and ableist and these kind of communities might feel like not welcome when you use that language. And it's like, oh, okay, well I do want those people to feel welcome.

So I'm gonna try to use, you know, the language that I am being shown. And I think we have to have more room for like. Not everyone's gonna get on board with our social justice agenda and that they might still share a lot of our values and just not live them in this exact same way, and they might not be the right person.

To hold a space that's gonna be inclusive to all of these marginalized identities. And maybe that that's okay. Maybe it's okay that they're holding a space that's just for men. Because if, you know, if we don't hold spaces that are for men, then they're gonna go find spaces that are catering to them. And that's a big thing that I think has gotten us into some of this mess politically, is like all the people that we're leaving out, you know, because they don't talk right, they don't look right, they don't, um, they're not queer enough.

They're not, um, the idea of what we wanna see in the progressive, liberated world we're moving towards. And I think that we have to have a vision that we're truly everyone belongs. Like even the people who want a heterosexual like normative, um, nuclear family, you know that those people still get to belong.

And how can we invite them into a world where that. Nuclear family can be within a web of community within more mutual aid and resource sharing. And that all of the things that we wanna see in the world can benefit people who might not look like us or think like us. And that there's like value in diversity, actually.

Mm-hmm. And um, the more that we're exposed to people that are different from us, the more, um, like there's this permaculture principle about edges, right? Mm-hmm. That there's. Um, more diversity that comes up in edge zones like the, the estuary where the fresh water and the salt water meet. You know, there's new life that comes up there that can't thrive anywhere else.

Sure. And that we have a lot less of those spaces nowadays because we're stuck in spaces that reflect our own values. Yep. And I think something that on the left in social justice spaces, we have a lot of, is like a, a value for, uh, identity-based diversity, but not a value for diversity of perspective. Hmm.

And that, that has to be a part of, you know, we might have to have boundaries, like Okay, diversity of perspective as long as you don't go harming people. Right. But that diversity of perspective is also a kind of diversity that if we don't include it, we're gonna be pushing away like those, like half the country that hasn't been exposed to the same like media that we have and therefore just isn't quite.

Like onboarded to the new culture that, you know, I really think is gonna carry us all forward, that we do need this transformation. And I love the progressive communities that, you know, we're a part of. Like relationship anarchy is a growing phrase, but I would say still probably. I don't know, 5% of the population has heard it or less, less 1%.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, we're in a bubble and yes, I love this little bubble, but I don't believe that that's like the only way to be.

[00:43:53] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, of course not. Of course not. And it's so wild how intense the left can get that it's, it, it can become vitriolic to such a degree that it like horseshoes to the other side, like both sides being like that.

[00:44:08] Lux: Yeah.

[00:44:09] Dr. Nicole: And, and I have sympathy for like that experience of especially when you've been, when you are a marginalized identity to like keep yourself safe and also the amount of time and energy that you've spent having to protect yourself to get to the space where now you look at that other patients and with anger, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so when we're imagining another world, right, of restorative justice, we don't do that then, you know, we don't have corporal punishment and these other like, um, um, just throwing people away mm-hmm. That we often do to protect. So I. Oh, if I had the answer to that, you know what I mean? Yeah.

Oh, if I had the answer to that million dollar question, billion dollar question on a global scale, right. What I do think about is, is holding it in community knowing that, um, those relationships that we do wanna foster with people, you know, keeping yourself safe. Obviously I don't want someone to be repeatedly going into a ha.

Harm situation, right? Yeah. That's, we have to have some boundaries here and that will get murkier of what that looks like. So then how do we hold people when they are enacting ha harm and not having the prison industrial complex that is making money up, right? So like, I, I'm gonna stick within my lane of, of expertise here.

I'm not going too far down the rabbit hole, you know? So when, when we're balancing out those relationships, I would hope that we're doing it in community, right? Yeah. That you have, uh, a lot of people that support you and maybe a challenging relationship that is a different perspective, right? Mm-hmm. And how can you hold all of that with the support of your other community?

Yes. Um, 'cause I think that, yes, especially in our modern age, whether it's in the digital. Space of the algorithms or in the physical space? We're very isolated in our little groups. Yeah. Where our third spaces, third spaces, rarely exist. Right. And so mm-hmm. Um, yeah. We're not having that mixing. We're not having that holding.

And so without that, we're not learning these skills of, of nuance and disagreement and conflict and holding space for people to grow. And so I think that, uh, at times, the queer community, which is not perfect, and it's not a monolith, and there's a lot to that, but at times mm-hmm. The queer community has to go through that, um, without choice because it's so small.

Right. You're dating totally, totally so small that you're like. Well, okay, this person has dated all of my other partners I was with in the past and they're currently dating this. Okay, well I guess we're gonna go through conflict. Right? And so,

[00:46:27] Lux: yeah,

[00:46:27] Dr. Nicole: I'm grateful for the force of that to like force us to have these skills and to grow this knowledge here that we might not otherwise if we were a part of the, the majority culture.

Mm-hmm. And so it is interesting 'cause I think these skills are so valuable, um, to be applying to our relationships of, of holding space for people to grow. I, I definitely have talked about on the podcast how I came from like conservative purity culture and was condemning homosexuals and I, yeah. Wow.

Until you find out you're queer much later. Oops. You I know. And I knew, I, I knew, this is the sad part, is I knew, I remember watching Jennifer's body and just being like, so turned on by the Makeout scene. I was like losing my shit. But I'm like, in what? Fifth grade? And so I have no cognitive framework for this other than like sin, you know?

And so then yeah. Mm-hmm. We get this identity complex of attacking other people and Yeah. Unpacking that. Right? Totally. And so like, who's responsible for that harm that I was causing, right? Like, I need to take accountability for that. And also the product of my environment stuff. And so that, yeah. Nuance stance of Yes.

And to that Uhhuh I think is really here. It's not an either or. It is that. Yes. And of how can we hold both? Um, yeah. Yeah. What a journey.

[00:47:40] Lux: Totally. Yeah. Mm. I'm thinking about what you were saying before too, about like the tendency that sometimes we have to like. I don't know, the individualist culture, that's like when you don't like something, you can just push it away from you, right?

Yeah. And that, I think there's this need to just understand like we, if we really want to live in a, a world of more like mutualism and community, we have to accept like we're all interconnected. And, and that doesn't mean we can't have boundaries, but boundaries are not the same as walls. And I think there's a lot of that.

Yeah. Instagram, um, therapist stuff that's like, cut them out, you know, cancel that bad behavior. Don't let that person into your life. And I think there's a yes and to that too, that it's like, okay, yeah, maybe if you're noticing like the partner you're having is really not treating you well, like don't be partners with them.

Right? But that doesn't mean you have to tell everyone else that they are a bad person or, you know, like, like take some kind of big action about it or, um, yeah, and it. It's nuance. There's cases where like you might need to block someone if they're like continually crossing your boundaries or whatever, but that doesn't have to mean that you believe that they are evil, right?

Mm-hmm. That it's just like, wow, their trauma is really gnarly and I don't have space to keep receiving these messages. And so as much as I don't want to like put up a wall, this is a necessary protection for the time being until things deescalate. Mm-hmm. And I think that's. I have thought a lot about abolitionism and like, you know, through studying and listening to people with more experience and expertise in those fields.

And, um, I just think, yeah, knowing that like harm has to stop first in order for repair to eventually happen is just important to acknowledge. Like, yeah, if there's, if there's boundary crossings happening, if there's harm happening, we do need to separate people sometimes, but that doesn't mean one person has to be locked up.

It's just these people need to be away from each other because a lot of these, I don't know the statistic, but you know, a, a large percentage of violence is intimate partner violence. Right. A lot of these patterns are happening because of attachment wounding. Mm-hmm. And trauma, and they're relationally contextual in that that person who's having that strong reaction and boundary crossing behavior with their ex-partner isn't gonna go do that.

With their neighbor. Like, you don't have to go tell everybody that they're a scary, evil person. The way that they're being in this context is scary and not safe emotionally. But that doesn't mean that that's all of who they are and that that's gonna show up in every interaction they have with someone.

And I think just holding that, like teasing these things apart and building our capacity to, um, acknowledge like the complexity of other people and also validate our need for safety and our need for space when that's there and that, you know, there is this, um. This quote I love from apprentice Hemphill boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.

Right? Which is so beautiful because it reframes boundaries as like, it's not about creating space between us, though. There can be distance. It's about allowing love to flow. And when you're this close to me, I hate you. Right? Or like when, you know, or when the, the queer person is getting, like, having to face the ignorance of someone whose, whose beliefs are invalidating their very identity.

That's too close. Maybe we could exist, uh, together in a garden, like, or as part of a wider community, you know, organizing for some, like doing a river cleanup. Maybe we can exist in some space together, but we can't exist in like, in an intimate community together. Mm-hmm. When your beliefs invalidate my identity or something like that.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, and that just ability to know that, oh, I don't have to, maybe I don't have to cut this friend out of my life. Maybe I just need to deescalate the friendship and how I'm thinking about how close we are. Because we used to be really close and now their lack of availability and avoidant patterns are making me feel sad and distant, and part of me wants to be like, well then you're not my friend anymore.

But actually, do I have to do that or can I just self-assess like, oh, well for my close friends I need a certain amount of communication and a certain amount of being prioritized and they're not showing me that. So though they were my close friend, I can now think of them differently and maybe there's a check-in we need to have about that relational shift that's happening.

Mm-hmm. You know, even friendships can escalate or deescalate. Right? Right. And that doesn't have to mean that they're gone or we have to close our heart to them entirely. It's like, oh, maybe we can have this really beautiful friendship where we see each other once a season and go on an adventure together and we don't text every day like we used to.

And that's okay. It's that that relationship needs to change because the conditions of our lives have changed, our values have changed, and I no longer feel quite as resonant. But we don't need to like try to hold someone accountable to. Who they were in the past or who we wanna be in the future. You know, there is just space for each of us to be who we are and find that mutual place where I can be like, wow, I love you from this assistance, right?

Mm-hmm. Like, I can appreciate you and how you show up when I'm not trying to make you something that you aren't to me, or try to get you to be exactly the way I am. And mm-hmm. I think that there is this natural thing that like we, we wanna be closer to people that are more like us. You know? Like that we share values and we, we don't have to explain ourselves and we gotta just like have these conversations that are inspiring and within the same Yeah, general frameworks, right?

And so I think that's beautiful and important to honor that, but that doesn't mean that there aren't like so many concentric circles around that, that very close circle that we share so much with. And all those other circles are still a part of this whole ecosystem of relationships.

[00:53:49] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. If I could do one thing with my career, it would be to help to end rape culture. Yes. And also to help people see that they all have multiple relationships, every single one of us, right? Yes. The people that you're at work with, the people that you do your sport or hobby or whatever, garden, whatever it is.

Like look at the web there. Yeah. And can we take the level of intentional crafting that we do with often our romantic partners and apply that to all of our relationships? This is a different world. This is a very different world. So different.

[00:54:23] Lux: Yeah.

[00:54:24] Dr. Nicole: And like you said, like consent is ongoing, so we wanna make sure that we're always showing up in those relationships, um, with an ongoing discussion of what the dynamics are and not holding us to past versions or to some future projected version.

And I, I can hear all of the like relationship anarchy, energy, right? Of like deconstructing the scripts to be able to create relationships and, uh, again, without these skills. And without the narratives, because we are social beings that look to narratives. And so again, I don't see these great examples on media of how to do all of this.

Often we, we are in relationship. We notice something is wrong once it's passed our point of comfort, once we're crying, once we're angry, once, whatever that emotion is, that's when we go. Mm-hmm. And it's like, okay, we gotta get clear on that. Ah. And often I find that it's because we're projecting some level of internalized value onto the other person, right?

Mm-hmm. I. Would show up like this. Yeah. And you are not, and therefore you don't love me. This is how I show up when I love people. And since you're not doing that Uhhuh, right? And so it's hard to really, again, because of our systems, it's hard to slow down enough to realize, okay, I am crying, my body is reacting because.

Attachment needs are just as essential as any other sort of, um, need in our life. Food, water, love. Right? Yeah. Like this is a non-negotiable that we need, we need community or you will lose your, your sense of self and mm-hmm. Ability to thrive as a human being. We are social creatures. Right. And so it makes sense that when we don't have the skills, we would try to protect it with so much force and often violence that we see, right?

And so being able to slow down and have that emotional reaction, ground yourself, hopefully with the support of whoever you're around, your community mm-hmm. Your lovers, your partner. And then also trying to identify what sort of assumptions or, uh, ruptures have there been, and can we have a collaborative conversation with this now about our ongoing consent of this relational dynamic?

Yes. Oh, that is a lot of skills. And then to try and do that with multiple people and set different expectations across all of them, that is its own PhD in relation like relationships.

[00:56:42] Lux: It really is. Yeah. Yeah. Also something you said like, uh, it's just so real that we like expect people to be exactly how we are and then we're like, why are you not doing it the way that I do it?

[00:56:57] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:56:59] Lux: Yeah, yeah. Like, why are you not doing it the way that I would do it? And yeah, it's just so easy to. To treat people that way. Like why are you not doing it the way that I would do it? And I almost think like we've been conditioned to think that way and to act that way. Like the, the golden rule, you know, which most of us heard is treat people the way you want to be treated, which is like, wait, no.

Treat people the way they wanna be treated and find out what that is, you know, because it might actually not be the way you wanna be treated. And I do think there's value in being like, yeah. Don't do something to someone that you wouldn't want done to you. Right. Right. But if they want to, a different kind of communication or they are different than you, if they want something different, don't just give them what you want and expect them to give you what you want back without you naming it.

Like there's mm-hmm. I think a lot of people, just such a common thing I see in relationship, um, that causes conflict is all of the unnamed expectations. Right. All of the assumptions, like you said, that we have going into a relationship where it's like, well, obviously anyone knows that if you don't text someone back within 24 hours, you don't care about them.

Right. Obviously, or whatever the thing is, if you and, and that there's this like, rule that we've self ascribed, um, I've had a friend be like, oh, well you're not supposed to send voice messages that are longer than six minutes without consent, you know, or something like that. And I'm like, that's like fairly reasonable.

I, I can see why you would. Feel that way. And like that isn't something that everyone has bought into. And so you can communicate that with people like, Hey, thanks for sending me this 10 minute voice message, like in the future. Um, right. I, I can't necessarily like handle voice messages that long. I usually am Okay if they're like less than six minutes.

But if you wanna send something longer, maybe check in. Like that's your responsibility to share that with people if that's your boundary. Mm-hmm. And that's your, um, yeah, that's specific. It's yours. There might be people who love sending like 10 minute voice messages back and forth. Right. And so just that, yeah.

It's so easy to just assume, you know, subconsciously that our way of operating is like the correct way. And other people, like, if they don't know that there's a certain level of annoyance we have that they're not already there. Right. Rather than just taking responsibility for like, oh, okay. I guess what's intuitive to me isn't intuitive to them.

So now I have to let them know that this is what my preference is, or I'm going to continue experiencing something that's crossing my boundaries and then later I'll be resentful. Right. Which so many people will also go down that track where they notice something happening and they're like, that's weird.

I don't like that. And then they don't even say anything and then it happens again. And then they get to that level of activation that's so intense that they're self-righteous and and resentful because they've been experiencing something for so long that was like not okay with them. Right? But there's this level of personal responsibility.

I believe that we have to be like self-accountable for our own consent and when we are doing something or like, you know, just passively going along with something that we don't like, there's a degree of responsibility we have to. Communicate that so that the other person knows. Yeah. And I think this is super nuanced because, you know, there's times where we might be phoning and in a trauma response because we don't feel safe voicing our truth to someone who has more, um, identity based or like whatever form of power than we do.

Mm-hmm. And so they're crossing our boundaries without knowing, or maybe they're even crossing our boundaries like subtly. But like there is a level of like a collaborative or um, or a shared responsibility. I like to say like that communication is a shared responsibility and, and power complicates that.

Mm-hmm. And it's important to be aware of our power and then to have. Some degree of extra responsibility when we know, oh, in this relationship, I definitely hold more power because of these factors, because this person's really insecure and comes from this different background. And because I hold more power, I wanna be really good about like checking in and being the one that's like initiating check-ins and seeing how they're feeling and taking it slow.

And that I can hold that responsibility with awareness of my power a little extra. But that's not all my responsibility. If, if I ask them, Hey, how are you feeling about this? And they're lying to me. And because of fawning, but like that there's some degree of shared responsibility in the other person being able to do some of their own healing work.

To be able to be honest and to be able to say like, that actually isn't working for me. Can we try something different? And I actually got into, like the work I do, um, through conflict and, um, somatics, I originally was, um, I originally was a consent educator in facilitating workshops. That's very much related, right?

But more in the proactive realm of like how do we build the skills and the culture to um, be on the same page with each other essentially. And that dynamic of like acknowledging power and there's so much, so many sub skills that we can build when we know how to. Empower other people with our language and the questions that we ask.

And I think there's a lot of false or like ineffective consent check-ins happening out there. Like, and I'm not just talking sexually, I'm just even saying like, Hey, is everyone cool with me turning the music up? And it's like kind of hard to be like, actually no, my ears are hurting. You know? You have to have a certain level of self-empowerment to say no to someone versus some kind of check-in that's like, is anyone opposed to me turning the music up?

Like, or how's the volume right now? Is it good? And then seeing like, oh no. Like, okay, put your thumb up if you want it louder and thumb down if it's too loud. Like just giving options. And these are like facilitator skills. And this example is like. Somewhat silly. I mean, it is an accessibility thing for some people.

I don't wanna negate that, but it's like the consequences of having the music too loud are like lower than other forms of harm that might be happening based on like messy communication. And I do think there's a lot to be learned in the realms of like, how do we ask questions in ways that make it easy for people to say no or to ask for something else, where the question isn't just like, Hey, is this cool with you?

Or. Is this okay? Or can I do this? Um, which then involves them having to say no to you in order to like get that out versus like, do you wanna connect in this way or is there another way you wanna connect or, yeah, I would like to connect with you more. Like how would, what would feel good to you? Is that something you're open to?

Like leaving it more open-ended, giving more agency back to the other person rather than leading with our desires, which is also a really beautiful skill to cultivate. It's just like situational. Like if we have a high amount of trust, we can be more directive and more owning of our desires and move towards connection led by our desires, which is powerful because our desires hold like so much.

Potential of realizing really potent connection. Right? But if we don't have a lot of trust and we're still getting to know someone, putting it more in the court of like, what are your desires and how do I like, make myself available, but not pressure or direct anything onto you so that you're more likely to stay in a place where you're comfortable and where we're in like a realm of mutual consent.

Um, because if I wanna connect with someone, there's so many ways to connect. And that's what I think is really beautiful about relationship anarchy and these other like, relationship philosophies is being able to. See that diversity of possibility and not need things to go in a certain direction. I think people even in the poly world could learn, like, learn more about this.

I think there can be an overemphasis on sex as like, because we have that freedom as poly people, that that's like the agenda versus like. Wait. The reason I'm Polly a relationship anarchist is 'cause I love connection. And connection comes in so many forms and play is like one of my favorite forms of connection.

Yeah. And I think that's often how my relationships with people start is through playful interaction or banter or Yeah, just other forms of engagement that don't have to do with sex and aren't even leading towards sex. Mm-hmm. And I think that a lot of of harm could be like mitigated and avoided by like spending a lot more time building connection before we start putting like high levels of intimacy that involve higher levels of risk on the table.

And that then there's like trust enough through the connection that has been built that people know they can say no to us and people feel comfortable like speaking up for what they want because this isn't the first time we've hung out and now we're doing this extremely intimate thing in a realm where a lot of people have embodied trauma.

Yeah. There's so much. More that's possible that I think we are like not seeing when we hyper fixate on whatever our desire or agenda is in the relationship, and that's another way that like society has encouraged that, right? Society has told us, well, if you like someone, then you should try to do this.

And instead of like, well, friendship is a beautiful dynamic and safe way to connect and maybe start there. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[01:06:31] Dr. Nicole: Yes. As you were saying, all of this, what was coming to mind for me was this like invitation to the sweet, sweet listener that is tuning in and my previous self to say, this is why we are extremely careful.

With new relationship energy. Mm-hmm. Do you know how much nuance and complexity is in what you just talked about? Yeah. And you cannot know if someone has those skills until time has unfolded them. Yeah. My previous self, you know, like so optimistic, and then you get into this, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Okay. A year in. Yeah, I'm learning some stuff. Cool, cool. Glad we didn't live together.

[01:07:18] Lux: Yeah. Oh, and it's kind of confusing and jarring when we like discover those, like lack of alignment or you know, those moments where it's like, wait, I thought you, based on what I knew about you, you would've shown up differently.

But we need to actually get to know people just 'cause there's like a strong resonance or attraction doesn't mean that they automatically like, share all of our skills and values. It's, it feels nice, but that's usually not actually the case. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[01:07:46] Dr. Nicole: Another level of unlearning, right? Because there's so much.

You and I, I'll make this assumption here that we, we talk about tuning into the body, the body, the body, the body. Trust your body, trust your body and also, and our read, you know how good it feels, this like new novel thing going on. Yeah. My body is happy, my body is obsessed, my body is so there. And also that's a moment where maybe we should step a bit into the cognitive and know that there are so many relational skills that it takes time to come out.

Right? Yeah. And so, um, you can have that person fawning to you repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, and then not even know deep into it that all of that was happening. And so it's an invitation, I think, to have more curiosity about all of our relationships, certainly. Mm-hmm. Yeah, just an invitation to take that psychedelic with care, right?

Yes. A new, new relationship. It's a whole new, uh, world. And we didn't even get into narrative, which I think is like such an important piece of this, uh, that reminder that we're, we're always telling ourselves a narrative of who we are. And that narrative is shaped by our cultural context, which we have gotten into today in our conversation about our relational context with family, uh, past lovers, friends work, as well as the cultural context that yeah, that saying of, um, treat other people how you would like to be treated.

It doesn't really have cultural humility, which would Yeah. Understand that actually there are different cultural practices around the world that might be very uncomfortable with the things that I do. And, you know,

[01:09:20] Lux: yes, totally. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah. I just wanna echo one piece you said about like NRE that Yeah, go for it.

I think there's more awareness that when we're feeling triggered in a negative way, like if you're feeling really angry or feeling like. Really intense and reactive that like, okay, maybe that's a good moment to pause even if you know that you might not do it. But I think that is something probably people would agree to, right?

Yeah. Like if you're feeling really hot and like you wanna like hurt someone, like maybe let yourself come down from that spike before you make a decision. And I think that same ethos can be applied to like when you're feeling really passionate, even in a good way. Yeah. Like just giving yourself those breaks, you know, that it can be easy to think like, well I wanna see this person every night, obviously.

And then actually even forcibly, I've done this where I'm like, I'm only going to see them. Twice this week because we just met. Yes. And I wanna give the time to like unwind. 'cause I'll, we'll have like a sweet night together and then I'll think about it all the next day. And then the day after that I'm back in my life.

Like there to some degree, like for me it's just like, there's this arc of intensity that if I just give it a little more space, I start to like come back down to reality. And then I, I start, I see them more as a whole person. And I'm not just like, wrapped up in this energy and like all these hormones, I'm, I'm letting that rise and then I'm letting it fall and then I'm coming back to baseline and then I'm going back in for another cycle.

So the same way that we might do that with like, activation that's, um, reactive or, or I intense or you know, negative maybe where we feel activated by something someone said. And we're like, okay, cool. I'm gonna take a break from this conversation. Come back, Ooh, now I'm activated again. We're gonna ride that wave.

And like then see how this lands and, and have another conversation in a couple days. That same ethos can be applied to positive things because yes, anytime our system's getting overwhelmed or flooded with hormones or yeah, we're, we're just not in the same, we're brain state that we might be when I would say we're like sober.

Right? And that this is just another form of addiction or energetic like. Hijacking that we experienced. That's not substance induced. Um, but it is a real way that our brains are changing states and finding that ability to be self-aware and to come back to baseline is just so healthy and so helpful to build conscious relationships that are rooted in reality.

[01:11:52] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. And hot. Yeah, totally. Let's tease it out. Please. Please, yes. Tease it out so wet. Oh, yes. Uh, yeah. I'm curious, you know, we've covered so much terrain. I know there's always more, and I'm sure we could, we could go for hours, but I'm curious for yourself, if you were to take a deep breath and connect with a younger version of yourself, wherever that might be in the journey, I'm curious what words of wisdom perspective you would share with them.

[01:12:22] Lux: Hmm. Yeah, just. Take your time. Mm. You know, and, um, I make stickers and one of my stickers says, normalize making mistakes. So that, that as well just like, take your time, normalize making mistakes. Not everything is as serious as you think it is. Uh, just like, yeah. Being a little less intense. I think I've grown in my skills and awareness obviously, um, in, in over the years.

And I think I've actually like decreased in my righteousness and like intensity. Um, even though I have more capacity and I'm more actually capable and educated in the, the spaces where I work, I have a deeper sense of like spaciousness and humility with the process. And I would just love to like gift that to my younger self to be like, take your time.

Yeah. You're in the right place. Normalize making mistakes. And yeah, everything is a lesson. Mm-hmm. And also if it, if it isn't a lesson, that's also fine. I think sometimes. Yeah, exactly

[01:13:29] Dr. Nicole: right. Go.

[01:13:29] Lux: Like, if it's like, what's the, what's the universe teaching me right now? Like,

[01:13:33] Dr. Nicole: oh yeah. Every time

[01:13:35] Lux: it's fine. If there's no lesson, like just.

Let it happen and, and move on and just Mm. Yeah. Being able to take things a little less seriously.

[01:13:45] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Wise words of wisdom. Right. Wise words of wisdom and taking that deep breath, if it all like, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then the joy too, knowing that we'll get, you know, even to older ages, and they, they talk about that spiral, right?

Like you learn those same lessons again. Yes. Again, but you go deeper and deeper and deeper. And so hopefully we will continue to grow these skills and also more capacity for like our mistakes and what we do. Right. I would hope that we get to the end of our lives still going, damn. There was always more to learn like I wasn't done.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like definitely, uh, that beginner's mindset and like a humble, humble perspective to the journey. For sure.

[01:14:30] Lux: Yeah. Yeah, definitely agree with that. Yeah.

[01:14:34] Dr. Nicole: Well, as we're coming towards the end of our time, I'll take a deep breath with you.

Yeah. And I'll check in and see if there's anything else that you wanna share with the listeners. Otherwise I have a closing question that I can bring us towards.

[01:14:51] Lux: Hmm. I think just coming back to where I started with my introduction, another one of my quotes that I come back to for myself is that revolution happens at the level of relationship.

This is a belief I have. It might not be yours. Right. But, um, another one of my stickers says, my life is my activism.

[01:15:12] Dr. Nicole: Hmm.

[01:15:13] Lux: I really believe that. Spending time, energy, money on becoming the best version of yourself and your relationships and sharing your skills, sharing, um, what you're learning with those around you, and showing up in integrity and humility with that, that is one of the best things that we can do for the world, and it matters.

Um, and it's easy to focus on what's out there and think that like we don't matter as an individual, um, but crafting ourselves and our skill sets and our, and healing ourselves has the potential to ripple far and wide. Right. Um, because when we. Uh, when we heal, we also gain capacity and inspiration and the kind of things that you might offer the world and put out there.

You know, they're gonna grow and evolve. And I also believe that everyone has something unique to offer. And so whether you do work a nine to five or not, like really feeling into what your gifts are and what your passions are, and if there's like a topic that you just love to talk about and, you know, want more people to know about, how can you share that with the world?

It doesn't have to be social media, but finding that like way of reaching people and sharing, um, sharing your gifts, sharing your skills, it really is gonna take us forward. And yeah, through also healing yourself and, you know, all of the, all of the limiting beliefs and stuck things that are in the way of us putting ourselves out there.

I know it took me years of just, you know, wallowing in my own self-doubt before I started like. Started my own business and started doing the work I do more officially. Uh, so I really believe that everyone has a lot of creative capacity and our souls long to fulfill that. And so I just wanna encourage everyone to follow that thread.

You know, no matter what your identity is, your gifts are needed and there's a, a space for you where the only you can fill. So I really wanna encourage everyone to find that and give that gift to the world and do the necessary healing and investment in yourself in order to be able to get there. Because yeah, your life is, your activism revolution happens at the level of relationship.

Like we're, we are changing the world and it starts within,

[01:17:35] Dr. Nicole: yeah. Absolutely. Yes. Yes, yes. Uh, the saying, the personal is the political, right? Yeah. It's, it's right there. Right? That revolution is in your relationships and like you said, trusting and the ripples of that when so much of, uh, these systems is outside of our control.

What is within your control is how you show up, right? And then that love that you can give towards other people and, and trusting that that is a political revolutionary act, and there will be ripples to that. Mm-hmm. That will change through generations, you know? And so I appreciate that invitation for everyone to like, feel into that, to trust into that.

And I'm so, so grateful that you shared your wisdom with all of these people, right. In terms of these skills. And it's a joy to be able to create like free educational content like this, like yeah. Getting into the nitty gritty of this. Like, oh, like, it just feels so good to, to be doing something that is making a difference like this.

[01:18:30] Lux: Yeah. Thank you so much for offering this. It's such a joy to get to share in this way and I'm excited to see how it lands with people as people tune in and listen to our conversation. Yeah.

[01:18:42] Dr. Nicole: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Alright, well the closing question, the last question that I ask every guest on the show is, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

[01:18:57] Lux: One thing that I wish other people would view as more normal.

[01:19:01] Dr. Nicole: I'm gonna try and every time I say this I'm like, damn, I feel like I'm singing it. 'cause I've said it over 200 times at this point. And I don't know how to say it like a normal human being anymore. Um, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

[01:19:21] Lux: Mm-hmm. Mm, letting the body be weird. Um, as a somatic practitioner, there's a lot that we, I am aware that the body wants to do to complete our nervous system responses to express, like fight, um, flee, and, you know, freeze responses. Like there's, there's these codes we have in our body of how we're. Supposed to evolutionarily engage with threat.

And then there's all of these social codes that we've downloaded as human beings that prevents us from allowing these responses to, um, happen in our bodies and, you know, in our moral codes that like, well, I wanna be different. And just giving ourselves permission to honor and not shame the needs of our bodies is huge.

And I think it's really transformative. And, um, and through doing that, it's like this weird irony that I think when we suppress those needs Oh yeah. In, in service of being who we think we wanna be. Those things come out sideways anyways. Yes. And it's when we acknowledge and validate, like. Ooh, I'm having like a fight response to this and I'm not gonna punch that person in the face, but I am going to take some space separate and like dance to this song and like punch the air around me and create like a sense of boundary ness and push away that behavior that I'm not comfortable with.

Um, and validate that need within my body to fight. Uh, even though I don't wanna fight that person, I wanna fight that behavior. I wanna fight that system. And so I also just wanna encourage us to separate individuals and, and specific people from behaviors and systems. And a lot of times what we're upset with are behaviors and systems and behaviors are related to trauma and they have root causes.

Um, and so that's why. Healing is political, right? Because when we heal, we're healing the roots of trauma that are often gonna come out as harm. Mm-hmm. And if we're, we're trying to create is a world where we're not relying on systems of punishment to keep us safe, then, you know, being able to address harm at the roots is a critical part of that.

And so, yeah, I just want people to know like, whatever the weird things your body wants to do are valid and you should create more spaces to allow that to happen. And yeah. Yeah. Just be. It'd be a little weirdo, even if it has to be in private. Like yeah. That, that is so important. And there's a lot of transformation that can come through, um, listening to our bodies and allowing them to express themselves through their language, which is often non-verbal, right.

Um, through movement, through sounds, through even like throwing a tantrum sometimes, um, the needs of your body are valid and it's nothing to be ashamed of. And not everyone will understand that 'cause it's like counter-cultural. Um, but the freedom to be in your body however you want is one of your innate freedoms that mm-hmm.

You know, I know we have different ability and there, you know, not everyone has the freedom that they, that we want in our own bodies. Um, but there is a sense of your body is yours and no one can take that away from you, no matter what. Governance no matter what like, um, limitations are put on your body, like there is a primordial ownership you have of your own body.

And, um, and so with that, it's your responsibility to like listen to your body and make space for your body to express itself and mm-hmm. Just wanna encourage people to explore that more.

[01:22:54] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. We are animals after all. Right? Yes, we are. With everything going on in the world right now, it makes so much sense that our bodies would have lots of energy to dispel.

Definitely. Right. The opposite is numbing, right? Quieting the self. Exactly. So in these current systems saying dance, cry, run, whatever that is, right? Like honoring that within the body. And it's often a lot of what I see in my psychedelic work, right? Is when those defenses are down, people do shake or mm-hmm.

You know, and they're like, what's going on with my body? I'm like, well, there's probably been some tension that is releasing itself. Right. Like, it knows how to, do we see a deer, you know, after it almost gets hit. Yeah. Like, shake it off. Right? That's what we do, Uhhuh. And so yeah, with everything going on in the world, I hope that people can really validate how much they're feeling in their bodies and find, you know.

Spaces to be able to release that. And so I'm, I'm so grateful. Yeah. For all the wisdom that you shared with me and the listeners today, and I'm, I'm sure people are wanting to know like, where can they find you? Where can they connect with you? So please plug all of your connections for people to be able to reach out.

[01:24:04] Lux: Yeah. Well, my name again is Lux Gypsum, and my business name is Healing Rising and I'm on Instagram. That's a great way to connect with me at Healing Rising. Um, my website is still getting fully built, built out, but I have my page up on Somatic Coaching. I'm a somatic experiencing practitioner, and I also offer, um, conflict mediation.

So if you wanna work with me in a one-on-one capacity, either as a somatic coach, um, to support you within conflict and communication skill building, I have a discovery call link up and you can find it through my page on Somatic Coaching. So healing rising.com/somatic-coaching. That's my webpage on somatics.

Um. And yeah, I really want people to know more about this work. You know, it somatics is up and coming, but I really think that, um, yeah, it's, it's where a lot of powerful transformation can happen. I've had new clients say they've received more in one session with somatic approaches than they have in years of talk therapy.

Sure. And so I just wanna encourage people, you know, to, to seek that work, whether it's through me or someone else. But that's the main way to connect with me on my Instagram. I also have links too. Free talks I've given on transforming our conflict culture. I have a free resource folks can download on. Um, it's a somatic resourcing practice, so it's just a 13 minute guided practice where I'm guiding you through connecting with your body and just kind of like connecting with the environment, building a sense of embodied safety.

So, mm-hmm. You can download that, get on my newsletter if you wanna stay updated with everything. But really check out my Instagram at Healing Rising for all that information and all the links are in my bio. So yeah, it's easy to explore and find different ways to connect.

[01:26:00] Dr. Nicole: Great. And I'll have that linked in the show notes too, so people can just go to this episode, show notes and find all that link below.

Amazing. Yeah. Well, thank you again for coming onto the show and joining me and all of the listeners today. Yes. It's been a pleasure. Such a pleasure. 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.