256. Radical Relating with Mel Cassidy

[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 Mel join us for a conversation about building anarcho queer communities. Together we talk about. Having an orgy with the universe, joy as a form of resistance and releasing demons, one orgasm at a time. 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 The Pleasure Practice, where I support individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships. Dear listener, Mel, what a guest on the podcast.

Y'all, Mel and I just run, we run this episode. There's so much shared alignment and values and vision, and you can feel that in this conversation. Honestly, so many of my guests, we often talk about just the different areas in relationships where you align and you have similar understanding and truly the depth of conversation that you can go in those spaces.

And this feels like one of those episodes. And so I'm confident you're gonna feel it too because Mel Cassidy and our episode about relationship anarchy versus relationship libertarianism, that was one of the most played episodes of this show along with the Dean Spade episode. And so, yeah, like of course y'all are gonna love this.

I'm bringing back one of your favorite speakers, and this episode is just such a reminder of the power of community. We know that our liberation is braided together. And that together we are more powerful than any system, okay? The more of us that we can bring into the movement, the more powerful we are, and that really means we gotta get better at conflict skills.

This is something that has been coming again and again in the episodes that I am exploring with different speakers of what it means to really build community. Okay? And so I'm really excited to be sharing this episode with you because Mel is such a important guest who has so much wisdom in this area in terms of building community and building relationship anarchy networks, and I am so delighted to be sharing it with you today.

Dear listener. 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 subscribers. You are supporting the long-term sustainability of the podcast, keeping this content free and accessible to all people.

So thank you. And as a reminder, dear listener, my queering psychedelics. Set setting and sacred joy in queer community. Free workshop is coming up. It is coming up on April 11th. I'm having it on Zoom so that all of you from around the world can come to this experience. It's from 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM Central Standard Time.

I have the link in the show notes below, and thank you to all of you who have already signed up. I know we have 300 tickets space for so many of you to come through, and I am. So delighted that so many of you have already signed up with the link below to join. If you are queer and you are doing drugs and exploring psychedelics, this is the space for you.

We're gonna be stepping into how to have more pleasurable queer psychedelic experiences. So link in the show notes below. 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 the kind of connection that makes real. 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 the first question that I ask every guest on the show is How would you introduce yourself to the listeners?

[00:06:03] Mel: My name's Mel. I am a somatic coach. I am a queer solo polyamorous relationship Anarchist. Badass.

[00:06:16] Dr. Nicole: Hell yes. Yes.

[00:06:20] Mel: Um, I am a published author.

[00:06:24] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:06:25] Mel: And, uh, I'm really excited to be here.

[00:06:30] Dr. Nicole: Amazing. I'm so excited to have you back on the show. Be, I have to say, your episode is one of the most played episodes.

[00:06:40] Mel: Oh, that's so wonderful.

[00:06:41] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:42] Mel: Cool. Well, maybe this one will join it and

[00:06:44] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. It's a resonance

[00:06:47] Mel: being well listened to. Yeah,

[00:06:48] Dr. Nicole: yeah, yeah. The anarchist community and the ideas and the concepts, so it all comes together.

[00:06:54] Mel: Well, and I, I've noticed, and, and we'll probably get into this more, but I've noticed through the years, there's so many of us who are like, yes, anarchy, this sounds great. Like I am on board with these ideas and these principles. And then we go, oh, but how do we actually do that?

[00:07:11] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:07:11] Mel: You know, we live in this world that really is not friendly towards some of these ideas and we are so we are swimming in the soup of heteronormativity and late stage capitalism and oligarchy's and everything else now, like, you know, rising more, increasing fascism.

Yeah. And how do we actually do that work? Because it's not just about shifting external structures, it's changing the internal way that we relate to them and that we relate to each other.

[00:07:45] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Absolutely. Timely conversation.

[00:07:51] Mel: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:07:54] Dr. Nicole: Before we get into it, and your book and everything that has changed since you've been on the show, I'm curious if you wanna share a little bit more about your personal journey to this space.

All of the listeners who have never heard you before, how would you tell your story of getting to this space? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:12] Mel: I, so I am a second generation third culture kid. I, you know, a third culture kid is someone who was born in one culture, grew up in another culture, and now lives in a third and. And that was my mom.

And then now that's me, uh, as well. And so I think the gift of that and the challenge of that is never knowing what's true in a given space, right? There's a lot of cultural code switching that you learn to do when you move between different cultures and even, you know, between different cultures at home, between your different parents.

And, uh, I think that gave me always this innate curiosity and never willing to accept the status quo because I could be told something is one way in one place, and then I go to another country and it's like, well, no, it's a different way here. And it just brought up this curiosity for me all the time of what is true.

I have this curiosity about what is true and is it, is it one thing or is it the other? And so that deep questioning was always with me. Even so I had a lot of pressure around, and I think it was pressure I put on myself to conform and fit in.

[00:09:29] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, of course.

[00:09:29] Mel: And I did what so many of us feel like we have to do, which was, I fell in love with someone and I decided, well, I, to prove that my, I'm a successful grownup.

I better get married to this person.

[00:09:43] Dr. Nicole: Right, right.

[00:09:44] Mel: And I was 22 and I got married. So, so precious, so young. Yeah, so young and I, I'd never really had a chance to explore my queerness. I knew that I had attraction to multiple people. I think I had an, a sense that maybe I was slightly kinky, but I didn't really know what that meant.

[00:10:04] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[00:10:05] Mel: And you know, we, we worked on being married for seven years and it did not work. I compromised so much of myself. I made myself so small for the comfort of others. And when I ended the marriage, I really did so with the intention of, I need to not be small anymore. I need to take up space in my own life again.

Yeah. And that was the journey into polyamory for me, that was a journey into my queerness, into my gender experience, into my kink.

[00:10:41] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:10:41] Mel: Into everything else. And it, I think that the beginning part of that journey was very much a, and I do talk about this in the book, it was so much happening. It was like a blasting open of my world.

[00:10:55] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:10:56] Mel: And then, uh, a lot of like picking up pieces.

[00:10:59] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:02] Mel: And, and thankfully a lot of good support in picking up the pieces.

[00:11:05] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:06] Mel: Um, and you know, uh, I started describing myself as being in a primary relationship with myself. Yeah. And having an orgy with the universe.

[00:11:18] Dr. Nicole: Amazing. Please tell me more. Yes.

[00:11:22] Mel: And, and so that, that was like the seed for me of this is how I want to relate, because I knew I had, I had done the relationship escalator. Yeah. I knew what it was like to achieve success on that, and I knew that it gave me no joy.

[00:11:37] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:11:37] Mel: And I really, really dearly wanted something different. I didn't know what that different was, but I knew that it had to start with me.

[00:11:47] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:47] Mel: And then over time, you know, I was writing a blog about my experiences called Poly Sing English. And over time I started to hear about relationship anarchy. And then I was like, oh, this really, really resonates for me. And that started me down that path of, you know, it's like the rabbit holes. Yeah.

It's like it leads you to one thing and then the other and then the other.

[00:12:11] Dr. Nicole: Yes.

[00:12:12] Mel: You know, going deep into, oh, what is feminism actually like? Yeah, I thought I knew what feminism was, but there's more to it. And what is, uh, what does it mean to be anti-racist? What is this white supremacy culture and how is that showing up in my relationships?

And the same time as I was doing that inquiry, I was really feeling confronted in polyamorous spaces.

[00:12:36] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:12:36] Mel: By what felt like internalized white supremacy culture. It felt like, you know, and we don't see this so much today, which I think is so interesting, but certainly 10, 12 years ago, a lot of people were very adamant about the term ethical non-monogamy.

[00:12:55] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:12:56] Mel: I would always go, but whose ethics are they? Yeah. This is the, the third culture kid in me speaking. Right? Mm-hmm. Whose ethics, what's ethical in one culture is considered unethical in another.

[00:13:08] Dr. Nicole: Right. Exactly.

[00:13:09] Mel: And, and we can use ethics to justify shitty behavior if we want to like really loop it things around in our brains.

So. I, I was like, there's, there's something missing. There's something missing in the way that we're practicing non-monogamy. It felt like it wasn't informed by that like sociopolitical awareness. It felt like it was missing a lot of trauma sensitivity, and as people started coming to me and asking for support on their relationships, and I made the decision to go back to school and train to do that, I was like, I really wanna lean into that.

I wanna look for what are the things that we're missing? There are so many ways that people have explored doing open relationships that I think are harmful and avoidable harm.

[00:13:59] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:14:03] Mel: And so that, that's kind of what led me here.

[00:14:07] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. So grateful to have you here. When you were talking about the rabbit hole, I've literally warned clients, you know, who are like, I'm curious about it.

I'm like, just be prepared. Once you start reading the books, there is no going back. Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. 'cause your consciousness starts to shift. You see the world in such a different way, and there is no going back to that smaller consciousness as much as the times where you're scared and dealing with jealousy and you wish, maybe I could go back to that smaller consciousness, but you're here now, baby.

You know, you're,

[00:14:43] Mel: yeah.

[00:14:43] Dr. Nicole: You're in it.

[00:14:45] Mel: You cannot unsee this stuff. Once you see it. You see it everywhere. Yeah.

[00:14:49] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, yeah. And so you're positioning, right, to be able to see how strong culture influences what we can consider to be normal, even desires. The desires that we have, whether it's for food or sexual attraction, a lifestyle, it's so deeply connected to the cultures that we live in.

And so that lens is essential as well as the historical lens in terms of where. Been as a species, all of that. Wow. I think if someone could have presented that to me as they did in your new book, which is required reading for my pleasure, liberation groups. Right. Wow. Huge.

[00:15:34] Mel: Yeah.

[00:15:34] Dr. Nicole: Huge shift.

[00:15:36] Mel: Yeah. And there's so many layers to unpack, like even as you mentioned, like.

Who are we attracted to? Yeah. What do we find attractive in other people and how much that is influenced by the media we consume, the messages we, we are raised with the gender assumptions we are given, and, you know, through the ages, what we consider beautiful and attractive has changed.

[00:16:00] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[00:16:01] Mel: It is so subjective and, uh, for me, I think one of the most transformational processes in my journey with that was actually giving myself permission to really seek out erotic imagery of diverse bodies and diverse gender expressions and going, oh, what is, what is happening in me?

Like if I feel. An aversion, what's that about? What am I judging here?

[00:16:30] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[00:16:30] Mel: If I feel curiosity, what? What is it I'm feeling curious about? If I am feeling attraction and then creating a fantasy, where is that fantasy coming from? What's feeding that? Mm-hmm. And holding that with intense curiosity and a willingness to, I think, be introspective and challenge the things that are not me, but that I've internalized and mistakenly thought of as me.

[00:17:00] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Because there's such a bend towards sexual and relational desires where we say, this is my innate desire. This is what I have. And I think it lacks, it's a yes and right, where of course, yes, it's you and as you said. What is attractive across cultures. We, there's research lit literally on this concept of how body size, other things, right?

It's very specific to cultures. And when you think about even pornography, how many fem bodies do I see with hair out there? Armpits? Yeah. Or hair on their pussy. Like, oh my God. One of the most natural things is just hair. And we don't even have that. And I know past versions of myself would've scoffed at a disgust to see even like a hairy armpit on a fem, right?

Yeah. And it's just funny 'cause when you think biologically, that's just very natural. But why do I have this aversion, right? Like, it's because the society, at least where I'm at, that is not okay. That is judged. We have these strict gender expectations of what it's meant to look like if you're a femme, right?

And so,

[00:18:09] Mel: yeah.

[00:18:10] Dr. Nicole: It's hard to kind of create that space for folks when they're trying to, you know, our society represses so much of our sexuality and relating so to really claim that as like, these are my innate cravings, but also to create space where we can have a little bit of curiosity as you mentioned, and critical reflection.

I think we forget that, you know, there's so many systems of oppression and it's really uncomfortable to do the work of unlearning those. I don't know who's waiting for that to be comfortable 'cause that's not gonna happen. You know what I mean? Uh, and so you have to understand that your sex life and relationships is no different.

There's a lot of stuff for us to clean up in there, and it's not gonna be easy.

[00:18:51] Mel: And this is why I love doing somatic work because, you know, one of the principles of somatics is that we are slowing down to pay more attention. I think that our more impulsive response when something is uncomfortable is we push through, we hurry up, we kind of narrow our vision in, and in so doing, we might skip the really important stuff.

And so one of the things that somatic practices do, which is, you know, it's all about bringing together mind, body, heart, and spirit, is it opens us up to more capacity. It helps us slow down the process and it actually helps us to notice more of the nuances of how these things are showing up and helps us to discharge the anxiety and tension and frustration when we're like, ah.

What is going on because I mm-hmm. I think this is one of the problems we have in our modern culture. We're, we're, you know, 70 something years deep into this nuclear family paradigm and our relational skills have atrophied.

[00:20:02] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:20:02] Mel: Through that we've forgotten how to be in conflict in healthy ways. We've forgotten how to relate with people who hold different values than we do.

Yeah. We've forgotten how to be able to engage with deep honoring through those differences, and I think that is crucial, especially with what we see happening in the world today.

[00:20:26] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Exactly, exactly. I'm afraid to know what will be happening when we release this in, in many more months. You know, like it doesn't feel positive, but I try to be the person to hold on the positivity, but damn dude.

Uh, and so part of the, the work, right? The political work is doing this in our lives. I know when I think about the world, I immediately go into the trauma reactions, right? Of fight flight, freezer, fawn. And where I find some grounding is knowing that I am doing political work every day. And the people that I encounter, whether it's at a store, out at a park, my clients, my friends, my lovers, that is political.

And so that is within my control, right? And so these skills are, so, yeah, go ahead.

[00:21:12] Mel: Well, and I think one of the things that the systems of dominance want to do is to create that separation between us. Mm-hmm. So anytime that we are engaging in our relationships, that's an active rebellion.

[00:21:23] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:24] Mel: These systems also draw power from us feeling powerless,

[00:21:29] Dr. Nicole: right.

[00:21:29] Mel: From us feeling ashamed of ourselves and from us making ourselves small. Which is why I talk so much about self relationship and self partnership, because that's the antithesis, that's how we push back against that. You know, if you have a well cultivated self relationship, you know how to take up space.

[00:21:49] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:21:50] Mel: Right. That's, that's the wise fight response is I am taking up space just as the wise flight response is. I am stepping away from this because that's how I'm gonna take care of my needs. You know, when we have that, those wise responses going on, when we're in that deep self relationship, the systems of dominance cannot control us.

They might be able to control what's around us, but they cannot control us.

[00:22:16] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And we're more powerful together.

[00:22:21] Mel: We are. Yes.

[00:22:24] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I hold onto that other world and I see that other world and it is powerful and I'm so grateful that you talk about the body. This is an essential piece to relating.

And

[00:22:39] Mel: yeah,

[00:22:40] Dr. Nicole: when I went through my doctorate, there's so much pain in knowing that I didn't have a single course on working with clients in the body. It is not okay in my opinion, but there's a long list of things I could put under that lens of clinical psychology problems. But, uh, you know, so we'll, we'll pause there for that other podcast, but, uh, doing my psychedelic work, that was essential, right?

Because there's so much that comes up in the body for somatics on a psychedelic session. And as I was writing my dissertation. Some of the folks I interviewed would say how they would go to coaches and other sorts of people because they were way more informed on this. Yeah. And so you've always been someone that I hold in my mind is that who's way more informed on this than any sort of therapist I could find on this topic?

'cause I don't fucking include the body and I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing? You know what I mean?

[00:23:32] Mel: Well, and And I think that's like white supremacy culture at work. Yeah. White supremacy culture wants us to separate from our bodies, wants us to just be talking heads and so that gets perpetuated in Western psychology.

Yes

[00:23:44] Dr. Nicole: it does.

[00:23:45] Mel: You know, I come from a background of being a body worker. I'm a second generation body worker. You know, I, up until when I got long COVID a few years ago, I was dancing every week. Mm-hmm. I am someone who loves being in my body and part of why I love being in my body. Is that it helps me manage the impacts of trauma.

You know, I come from a family that has a intergenerational trauma.

[00:24:11] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:24:11] Mel: Uh, to the max. You know, we are genocide survivors. We are eugenic survivors, and there's a, you know, there's a carry through impact of that through generations. Mm-hmm. So to be in my body is an act of resilience and an act of resistance.

And to, and to me, I find a lot of somatic discourse will often be like, oh, it's mind, body and heart. Or it's, um, mind, body, and spirit. They'll like leave one of them out. And the way that I learned to engage in somatics was that you have all four. And I find that, you know, when we're overwhelmed, when we're scared, when we're under-resourced, those four move out of relationship with each other.

You know, I, I think many of us like to be nerdy. We will go into our intellect. Oh

[00:25:04] Dr. Nicole: yeah.

[00:25:05] Mel: Because it's such a safe place to be. Wow. I can create terms and I can draw out maps, and that can be great to help us orient to new experiences that we have no context to understand. But if we forget about our body, then it's like, oh, I've been, I've been on my computer for hours and I forgot to eat.

[00:25:24] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:25:24] Mel: Which is something I'm definitely guilty of doing.

[00:25:26] Dr. Nicole: Oh yeah. I feel you.

[00:25:28] Mel: Or we get so in our head that when someone comes to us to share something that's deeply emotional, instead of responding with empathy, we're responding with trying to fix. Or we respond with spiritual bypassing, right? We can dissociate into any of these parts.

We can dissociate into spirit. And, and I'm sure that you have probably seen some of the similar things that I have in terms of people being like, it's all gonna be fine. Just think positive and Yeah.

[00:26:00] Dr. Nicole: Yep. Yep.

[00:26:03] Mel: And, and there's a lot to be said for like, you know, your mindset shifting the way that you're able to engage in something, right?

[00:26:10] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:12] Mel: And doing that without integration of the other parts is only gonna get you so far.

[00:26:17] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:19] Mel: And we can also sometimes dissociate into our bodies. You know, I, I think of the times when I'm like, I just need to move my body because it's too difficult to feel my feelings. Yeah. There was a time in my life where I was going obsessively to the gym.

[00:26:38] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:26:38] Mel: When I was going through a lot of anger, and I think it was helpful. Helpful. Great. Yeah.

[00:26:42] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. That's awesome.

[00:26:43] Mel: Was really cathartic and I was very conscious that, oh, at some point I'm gonna need to actually stop and feel the things that are going on inside.

[00:26:54] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:55] Mel: So, recognizing these dissociative responses, and I think also recognizing, you know, fight, flight, freeze, and fong as responses that in the short term are incredibly wise and incredibly helpful when we're navigating things that don't feel safe or that are feeling overwhelming, which happens so much when we're exploring new ways of relating that no one's ever given us a map for.

[00:27:20] Dr. Nicole: Woo.

[00:27:23] Mel: But what's important is bringing them back together.

[00:27:26] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:28] Mel: Bringing ourselves back into relationship with ourselves.

[00:27:33] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. '

[00:27:33] Mel: cause again, that's how we resist the systems of oppression.

[00:27:37] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I hear this as a deep embrace of the embodiment of anarchy, right? Yeah. In many ways.

And, uh, there, there's probably people who have spoken to this, but I'm feeling that come through now of what are the power structures that impact our embodiment? And I always speak about how, you know, it's not all about orgasms, of course, but if you really wanna experience orgasms, you gotta be able to take up the space.

You gotta be able to cry because there's such a deep connection between the pain and the pleasure. You don't get to pick and choose which emotions you feel. So if you're really a pleasure activist, you're really going to feel all of that joy in your erotic life. You're gonna be crying too.

[00:28:26] Mel: Yeah.

[00:28:26] Dr. Nicole: And I hate to break it to you, right?

Yeah. But that is, that is just what life is. You're gonna feel all of it.

[00:28:32] Mel: Well, when you look at where that experience comes from in our nervous system, right? The, the deepest experiences of pleasure are about being connected to your ventral vagal system, which is your relational part of your, your nervous system.

It's the front part of your nervous system. It's the part of the nervous system that invigorates your facial expressions, your breathing, your digestion. And I, I think of it as like my care bear stare of like, okay, here I am, I'm showing up with this. And we cultivate more capacity the more we give ourselves permission to experience pleasure and joy.

And when we're holding back from that in any shape or form, like if I'm holding back from that emotionally. I'm gonna end up holding back from that erotically, I'm gonna end up holding back from that socially, because the nervous system is just gonna be like, oh, nope, don't wanna put energy here. And, and at the same time, one can be the doorway into the other.

[00:29:39] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:39] Mel: So for some people, they find they can access more erotic depth through, first of all, feeling that emotional relationality. Some people find that they can access more erotic depth by, first of all, feeling like, oh, we can live and breathe the same values together. Yeah. That allows me to deepen into my, my experience of pleasure and eroticism.

[00:30:03] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And there's so much to step into with the body and feeling that pleasure and feeling the safety of it with the systems we have. 'cause the world is what the world is right now. So it's hard to tap into a play space and a safety space. And also the systems of relating that in my own life, I've felt, you know, all of my lovers are supportive of what I'm doing with multiple connections and also this level of.

Guilt and shame that has made it hard to really feel that pleasure when you're engaging erotically. It's almost easier in the more like romantic, platonic ways of relating with my lovers. But when we step into that sexual space, the amount of cultural messages that are just oh, so deep in my body. And so every time I orgasm with a lover, I'm like, Ugh, I'm releasing demons.

I am releasing demons. Because when I've had group experiences with all of them together, it's like,

[00:31:04] Mel: yeah,

[00:31:04] Dr. Nicole: there's so much like shame going on where I'm like, is this okay? And they're like, yes, Nicole, we love you. We're all supportive. This is great. And just the cracking open in my body that has occurred and group experiences is.

Spiritual and transcendent and deeply political

[00:31:22] Mel: and it, it's that group attachment experience. Right. I, I strongly feel like we need to really reexamine how we understand attachment.

[00:31:34] Dr. Nicole: Yes. '

[00:31:35] Mel: cause the original attachment studies were done at the same time as the nuclear family propaganda. And they're highly biased towards that.

And as human beings, we did not evolve in nuclear families. We evolved in villages, we evolved with tribes, we evolved with extended families and many cultures that are, you know, have resisted colonialism or that are non-Western still have, you know, you have that experience of extended family networks and kinship networks and.

You know, for us as people who are living in Western culture, I think that part of the craving for exploring non-monogamy does tie to this hunger for a wider network of connections. Yeah. And sex doesn't have to be the only way we create those.

[00:32:28] Dr. Nicole: Of course.

[00:32:28] Mel: I think sex just happens to be, you know, a really fun way to celebrate that.

[00:32:33] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:32:33] Mel: If everybody's into that. Um, but what's happening in our nervous system is when we're allowing ourselves to deeply relate and build those experiences of consistent compassion care, kindness, affection, love, intimacy. We're creating a wider web of attachment. And that's the ecosystem that we have.

We're not on that escalator that the nuclear family encourages that you're, you know, here's your one person and it's your ride or die until the end.

[00:33:13] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:33:14] Mel: It's, you have this wider ecosystem and in the midst of all the changes that the world is going through in the midst of the rights that governments are trying to take away from people, the wider your ecosystem, the more resources you're gonna have to be able to pivot and shift and still feel supported.

Because you're not resting everything on a single pivot, on a, on a single anchor point.

[00:33:43] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. We're stronger together.

[00:33:47] Mel: We are stronger together.

[00:33:49] Dr. Nicole: Yes. Yes, absolutely. And it's so true. If we look at this very short period of time with the nuclear family, very, very, very, very, very small. It's, it's difficult because of course we're in our bodies right now.

Anyone who's listening to this, you're in your body right now. We, we max live what about a hundred years if we're lucky, you know? And so we get so locked into our own perspective, and so that's why I love history. When you just draw it out a little bit and you look at the actual historical timeline, you're like, oh, wow.

This is just a blip on the, the history of humanity. Then the additional layer that there are ongoing cultures around the world who do not live like we do in nuclear families. There's lots of diversity, right? And so the white Western field of psychology, when they look at anything other than that.

Problematic, underdeveloped or whatever. Mm-hmm. Other nasty words, they're gonna use some problematic shit. And so yeah, updating the field of attachment is so necessary. Um, I have an email that I send out for my pleasure activist listserv about this specifically because the. Concepts of attachment often are so static, right?

Yeah. Where I'll hear clients tell me, oh, I'm anxious avoidant, or I'm avoidant, or this, and the understanding of multiplicity with relationships and expansive relating. You'll see how that client, myself and all of my friends, right. We'll have one way of relating here and we're avoidant, and then this other one over here where we're completely anxious all at the same time.

We're that same person. Yeah. But the field is so monogamous that it only looks through that one lens. The second you add multiple, you're like, well, that's not okay. This is, this is more of like a quantum understanding of the systems and the things that are going on that are impacting all of that.

[00:35:41] Mel: Yeah, and Jessica Fern talks about this on, in her book, Polly Secure, that, you know, the way that we experience attachment is gonna be different depending on how that partner shows up for us.

Yeah. And. And I would add to that, that the way we show up for ourselves, right? Bringing that integration of all of our parts is also part of how we're creating that internal experience of secure attachment.

[00:36:06] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:07] Mel: And, and that's that experience of resilience, our ability to trust that we can bounce back.

And then what that also does is it gives us more capacity to be present to the here and now, rather than feeling stuck in the past or trying to be like, I wanna be like it was before, or getting stuck in future thinking and fantasizing about what could be one day. And so to, you know, bring it all together and be super present to the here and now.

We're more present to our partners, we're more present to our loved ones. Mm-hmm. We're more present to what's happening in the world around us.

[00:36:45] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:46] Mel: Like, there are so many benefits to being able to do that.

[00:36:51] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely. And so I think that's where that observer's mindset, a bit of mindfulness to be able to see all the thoughts that are going on and take that step back right to ground in the body as we spoke.

Right. And when you, you see all of those narratives going on of who you are and what you're doing, when you can take a step back and have the curiosity of who sold me this narrative? Mm-hmm. Who profits off of this narrative, right? Yes. Yes. And then say, what new narrative do I want to write? That is a really empowered space when you have that level of awareness to your life.

And it's a skill, right? That's what I'm always telling my clients, right, is how. If you have not been practicing that, it's like trying to learn any new skill, riding a bike, whatever it is, right? Running the marathon, you don't just wake up the first day and run the 32 miles, right? You, you, at least for me, you run a quarter of a mile and you say, damn, I do not have the lung capacity of the muscles for this.

Uh, and then you gotta keep working at it, right? These are new neuronal pathways. And so these radical ways of relating, we don't have roadmaps for that. We don't have these neural pathways. And so the more you flex that muscle of the neural pathway, the more it gets myelinated, the faster it fires, right?

And so you have to have compassion for yourself when you're in that process of unlearning all of the systems, which is a lifelong practice. Let's be clear. But at the beginning it is a lot. It's a pretty intense come up. Like any other psychedelic trip, when you drop down the rabbit hole, it's all. A lot coming up.

[00:38:33] Mel: Well, and that's why I, I find it helpful to, you know, create a map for what we're doing. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So, I talk about this in the book, this idea that this relationship landscape has quadrants. Mm-hmm. That there are, you know, we have erotic relationships, we have emotional relationships, we have practical relationships, we have social relationships.

And within each of these quadrants, we have different layers of relating. These layers represent the depth of trust, the safety, the intimacy we feel. And so once we have a framework where we can start to situate ourselves within, or situate our individual experiences within, I think it becomes a little less overwhelming.

Mm-hmm. Like it's a little easier to wrap our heads around and conceptualize mm-hmm. When we go, oh. Okay. I am not doing that linear trajectory. Right? It's not just, you know, from A to B2C. This is three dimensional. And I just need a map for the three dimensions to understand what it is and where I am. And from there maybe we have a little more capacity

[00:39:42] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:39:42] Mel: To, uh, step forward and, and more consciously engage in it rather than I think. What happens for a lot of people is we get into a space where we're like, ah, it's too much. And it feels like

[00:39:53] Dr. Nicole: right.

[00:39:54] Mel: It's it's leading us rather than us being the agent of it.

[00:39:59] Dr. Nicole: Uhhuh Uhhuh, absolutely. I've been there, I've been there.

Uh, yeah. I feel like in my career there's two goals I really wanna work towards and devote myself to, which is to end rape culture. I'm gonna do my best to do that, and also to invite the world to understand that we all have multiple relationships. We were talking about that, of language, of opening doors for people and what resonates, right?

I feel like that's starting point is very based in relationship anarchy of, rather than these are my partners and these are my friends. In this dichotomy, what if we under, which are great labels if you wanna use them, I, I do use them, but to understand that we all have. Multiple relationships.

[00:40:42] Mel: Yeah.

[00:40:42] Dr. Nicole: I think that's a powerful place to start and really create this frame

[00:40:47] Mel: and that we are, we are bound together in an ecosystem.

Yeah. That what happens to you impacts me. And, and this was one of the pieces of rhetoric that has always frustrated me in polyamory spaces where they're like, just don't take on anyone else's shit.

[00:41:06] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:41:07] Mel: And I'm like, it's, it's not that easy because we, we are in an shared experience and it is important that I allow myself to feel what I feel, even if what I feel doesn't make logical sense.

Yeah, yeah. Emotions are not always logical and that's okay.

[00:41:27] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:41:28] Mel: And to actually feel it, because. The feelings are a doorway into something else.

The emotions we have are clues into our own humanity, and when we shut down from how other people's actions impact us,

[00:41:49] Dr. Nicole: yeah.

[00:41:50] Mel: We're shutting down from relationship.

[00:41:52] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:41:53] Mel: We're shutting down from connection. Mm-hmm. And then we're playing into that western hyper individualism, which is not healthy self relationship.

[00:42:03] Dr. Nicole: Right, right, right, right.

[00:42:05] Mel: Healthy self relationship gives you more capacity for relationality with others.

[00:42:11] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Deeper interconnection.

Right. Interdependence. Yeah. Rather than hyper individualism or codependence, it's about interdependence with the whole community.

[00:42:23] Mel: Yeah, yeah.

[00:42:24] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Which I think is tricky when it comes to. Words like rules, commitments, boundaries, stuff like that. Preferences. Uh, for example, the deeper I get into this, the more caution I have to relating to folks who are newer to this.

And I know that's a common experience. Um, not to say that. I don't do it, but it is something that I do with a lot of caution because of how significant, as much as when I have a new client who's never done a psychedelic before Yeah. In my office.

[00:42:57] Mel: Yeah.

[00:42:57] Dr. Nicole: I have more caution to that, what that can be for them

[00:43:00] Mel: of, of course you do

[00:43:02] Dr. Nicole: responsible.

Right. Uh, and so in my relating life, when someone's newer to it, I hold that not as a judgment, but as an important piece of information. And so with my partners, you know, I've, I've, I'm like, ah, like it would be great if you could find other connections that are also experienced here. Right. And I've gotten some feedback from my lovers of like, well, you were once new and you know, it's my choice.

And it's like, yes, it is your choice. And also that choice that you make does impact me, right? Yeah. Because we all do kitchen table dynamic, and so that means that person is going to be in the spaces. And if that person is in a really tight, constricted nervous system Yeah. And they look at me in a certain way that is really tough to deal with.

And so I keep just saying it's my preference, not a requirement, not a rule, but a preference. And then stepping into that deeper space of trusting my partners to discern, like have discernment around that. But it's really tricky.

[00:44:01] Mel: It is tricky. And I would say there are even people who've been doing non-monogamy for years who do not.

That awareness of like the interrelationality, there are people who have done non-monogamy for 20 years or more, who are deeply codependent. Their codependency just functions with more people. Yeah. And, and you know, I think I, I've experienced this in my own life mm-hmm. Of having challenges come up because the people I'm engaging with seem to be really experienced in non-monogamy, but their approach.

Lacks the intersectionality lens that I take. Their approach maybe misses the nuances that I have around attachment and unpacking internalized narratives around expectations and labels and everything. Yeah. And you know, sometimes I've had an easier time dating someone who's maybe not brand new, but like has come to it later when there's more of this conversation has been out there.

Mm-hmm. Um, and yeah, it, I think for me, I've learned to just go with each individual. Like, it doesn't matter how long you've been doing this

[00:45:18] Dr. Nicole: right.

[00:45:18] Mel: I, I took to polyamory like a duck to water. Like I very quickly had a sense of what I wanted and what I didn't want.

[00:45:25] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:26] Mel: My biggest challenge was then explaining that to people who were so used to it being one particular thing.

[00:45:33] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There's so much variety, right? It breaks my heart when I see the research that is very, um, like this bi verification of monogamy versus non-monogamy as the research and those being the two variables. It, it like literally makes me shudder because mm-hmm. It's like, uh, like there's so much more under that label and each one is very nuanced, as you're saying, of how intersectionality is a part of that or how they go through that.

And then the tricky thing is someone can use a label. And, and end up practicing it very differently than what you think that label means.

[00:46:11] Mel: Well, and we see that with how people use the term relationship anarchy. There's, uh, you know, for me, relationship anarchy is about how do I deconstruct the default systems of hierarchy of relationships.

[00:46:26] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[00:46:26] Mel: Whereas for some people, what they're practicing is more of like a relationship libertarianism. Yeah. And it's a little more individualistic and perhaps chaotic and perhaps callous about the emotional state of others and the impact that they have. Um, and so, you know, there, there's a lot of fuck boys out there basically calling themselves and I say, fuck boys.

It can be any gender.

[00:46:51] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:46:51] Mel: But like, calling themselves relationship anarchists. And I'm like, I, I don't think that means what you think it means. Mm-hmm. Let's talk about what, what does that look like for you? Mm-hmm. Um. And so to, you know, for me, part of my process has been about like, how do I get clear about what this means for me?

And there's a lot of people who will be like, yeah, I'm on board with the relationship anarchy, but I don't know about the other aspects of anarchy. And I'm like, can you actually separate them? I used to think that you could. And now I think like, no, no. It's, it, they are, they're deeply bound together because the systems we're fighting against the systems that we are pushing back against and dismantling in our practice of relationship anarchy are political systems.

They are systems of cis heteronormativity, they're systems of patriarch and misogyny. They're systems of colonialism. They are systems of capitalism that feed on the nuclear family.

[00:47:50] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:47:51] Mel: You know that they are deeply, deeply political in nature.

[00:47:55] Dr. Nicole: Yes. The starting point, right? Is that the personal, is the political,

[00:48:01] Mel: yeah.

[00:48:02] Dr. Nicole: And if we start there, then yeah. There is no way to remove yourself from the politics of the practice. Yeah. And I think that is essential. I'd love to hear more about how you see that deeply connected for me and all of the listeners to really step into the power of your consciousness.

[00:48:19] Mel: Mm-hmm. I was very aware as I was writing the book, which was, you know, in the run up to the 2024 elections in the United States.

I live in Canada.

[00:48:29] Dr. Nicole: I know. I was gonna say, I remember I thought you were safe, you lucky.

[00:48:33] Mel: But what you know, again, we are in an ecosystem. We are, what happens in the United States affects everybody. True 'cause of the power, the economic power that the United States has held. And I was very aware of. You know, everything I'm writing is the antithesis of Project 2025.

[00:48:52] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[00:48:52] Mel: You know, it's the antithesis of this. They're wanting to return to the nuclear family. They're wanting to go back to this imagined golden age of women being in the home and all of this absolute bullshit.

[00:49:07] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[00:49:08] Mel: And I'm like, everything I'm writing is the complete opposite of that. And writing it that way, I was like, I also need to make sure I'm talking about how this is actually more resourcing and safer for us.

[00:49:22] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[00:49:23] Mel: And um, I have a whole chapter about queerness and anarchy and really looking at the two of them side by side, I was like, they feel like one and the same. You know, queerness as a modern concept is all about how we question our sexuality, our gender, the ways that we relate. Anarchy is all about how we question the systems that we are told that we have to, uh, subscribe to.

So they're, they're interlinked. And I think that to, to become an Arco queerer is to reimagine the whole system and structure of how we relate. We're looking at is it about gender? Is it about sexuality? Is it about the number of partners I have, it, does it matter whether I have sex with these people or not?

You know, I love using the term anarchy and I throw that out out there into the world because to me, IL just didn't cut it. Mm-hmm.

[00:50:20] Dr. Nicole: Because

[00:50:21] Mel: it felt like it created separation.

[00:50:23] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:50:23] Mel: With the friends who I just adore.

[00:50:27] Dr. Nicole: Yes, absolutely.

[00:50:27] Mel: And my friends are my, my secure attachment network. Right. My friends are my support system.

[00:50:34] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:50:36] Mel: They are, I think, even more important to me these days than the people I'm dating. So that then becomes the priority. That's how I'm queering up the way that I do my non-monogamy even.

[00:50:49] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:50] Mel: And so, yeah, going back to this idea of like becoming a narco queerer, we get to leave the relationship escalator, all the hangovers from mono normative stories, the nuclear family, all of the systems behind, and we kind of rewild

[00:51:10] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:51:11] Mel: The relationship landscape. We get to rewild the ways that we are relating with each other. And that's what I mean when it's about going to into a post monogamous world. It's. There could still be, you know, ous pair bonds within this world. It's not saying that monogamy isn't gonna be there, it's saying that monogamy is no longer the default.

That we hold openness and curiosity from moment to moment about what feels like the best path forward in our relationships.

[00:51:45] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yes, yes. Yep. That's something I've spoken to on the podcast of for folks who are relationship anarchists and want to have sexual fidelity, maybe we use that word rather than monogamy, which has a very complex history and lineage of thought.

So it's like if you wanna have sex with one person, Hey, I am a relationship anarchist who practices sexual fidelity. What a way to get outside of that label that has so much, and also even that label, if we really just sit with it for a second of monogamy. Right. Historically, let's be clear, that label meant one sexual partner for a life.

And so historically, women, people were killed if you didn't practice that, right? Yep. And so we practice serial monogamy now as a culture, right? Often of one partner at a time. And even that could be put with a big asterisk when we look at the rates of infidelity, right? So it's like,

[00:52:44] Mel: well, and, and you get into the questions of what are we including as infidelity,

[00:52:49] Dr. Nicole: right?

[00:52:50] Mel: Is it infidelity? If you're having an emotional affair, is it infidelity? If you're cuddling with somebody, but you're not having intercourse with 'em,

[00:52:58] Dr. Nicole: ugh.

[00:52:59] Mel: Yeah. You know, the definitions get tricky and nuanced. And I, I am all for, as part of my own anarchy, uh, process, is can I describe what I'm doing without relying on a single label?

[00:53:14] Dr. Nicole: Sure. Yeah.

[00:53:15] Mel: Because I think that's so much more useful. Like I think labels are helpful when they are descriptive, but we make assumptions of labels like your, your version of monogamy could be different from my version of monogamy. And if we think we're in a monogamous relationship, are we on the same page?

Let's talk about what that means. Again, that's where it's helpful to talk about emotional. Practical, social erotic in these ways of like, okay, what's exclusive, what's not?

[00:53:44] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:45] Mel: What depth are we going to, where is the capacity for us to grow?

[00:53:49] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:50] Mel: Where are the places where we're not gonna grow well together because of different needs and different desires and different boundaries.

So that is, I think, a lot more helpful in the long term than having these singular labels that we lean on.

[00:54:07] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Getting more into the nuance of what does that look like for you when you're connecting with new people. Sure. They use that label, but that follow up question can be so powerful.

What does that look like in practice? How do you navigate multiple connections? What are the values that are important to you? I'll learn way more, way more about someone than just the label. Right. Um, and that even goes for myself too, in the labels that I might have a little bit more aversion to. At times I've noticed I have some like non-monogamous labels when I'm connecting with people, I'm a little bit like, Ooh, spooky, scared.

Like, what are the, what does that mean? You know? And then sometimes you get to meet them in practice. You're like, oh, okay. There is more emotional depth here than I thought. But, you know, uh, so there's just so much more in the actual practice of it. And when I think about the anarchy of our, our connections, yes, it's the full community and mm-hmm.

I like to ask the listeners, you know, this question with relationship anarchy of. How much diversity do you see in your community?

[00:55:11] Mel: Yeah.

[00:55:11] Dr. Nicole: You know, how much diversity of race, class, age, spiritual relation, like religious or the whole thing? Ability. Right. And if your friend group is aimed towards a specific, specific narrow pathway.

[00:55:28] Mel: Yep.

[00:55:29] Dr. Nicole: What does that say? Right. Even the therapists who, like all of our, you know, a lot of therapists are working with people in, I, I spent a whole year doing community mental health, low, SES, Medicaid year. Wow. Of my life.

[00:55:44] Mel: Yeah.

[00:55:45] Dr. Nicole: How many people in my community do I have as friends? That are in a similar state as that.

[00:55:51] Mel: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:55:51] Dr. Nicole: And why is it harder to relate with people? Yeah. I think that's a real thing that I even experience, right? It's harder to relate to people in that space, but what does that mean politically if we sit at that and say, well, we just don't have a similar lifestyle. I just have this money and they don't, so I can't relate to.

Right. Do you see how fast

[00:56:11] Mel: Yeah.

[00:56:11] Dr. Nicole: We've built this system where we, we we're really not relating across these, these lines.

[00:56:16] Mel: Well, and we start to other people.

[00:56:18] Dr. Nicole: Yes.

[00:56:19] Mel: And I, I, I deeply believe that is, it is the systems of dominance that have sewed some of those divisions.

[00:56:26] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:56:26] Mel: You know, it's the whole, like left eating its own tail kind of thing is deliberate to prevent us from being able to continue building these deep relationships and to form a united front against

[00:56:40] Dr. Nicole: mm-hmm.

[00:56:41] Mel: Fascist forces.

[00:56:42] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:56:42] Mel: So. You know, when, when we, uh, when we exclude people, when we other them from us, we're hurting ourselves. And it's been, it's been an interesting journey for me, you know, going through, uh, going through the, the height of the pandemic as someone who knew they were gonna be high risk and taking a lot of precautions and having a lot of people in who I considered to be part of my community, not taking it so seriously.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and even going some very different directions with it. And then to then develop long COVID after having COVID

[00:57:22] Dr. Nicole: oof

[00:57:23] Mel: and, and feel like I don't have the capacity and grieving that in myself. Mm-hmm. Grieving that I didn't have the capacity because I now have this chronic illness that reduced my capacity.

And then working with that grief. And, and, you know, processing through it to slowly move into a space of, well, where can I find the capacity to still engage? How do I make sure that I'm not caught up in that self confirming bubble? Like I think between the way that algorithms feed us content on social media and, um, the ways that we've kind of gotten used to like, well, I disagree with them, I, they're cut out of my life in non-Western context, that is horrific to do because you're removing somebody potentially who was part of your ecosystem.

And even weeds have a function to play in an ecosystem. Maybe you don't wanna get overrun with weeds, maybe you wanna make sure you don't have too many weeds, but when you are weeding your relationship landscape. How are you making those choices and where can you transplant relationships to, and again, this is where I find this idea of the layers of relating is really helpful because maybe, maybe in my like nervousness and uncertainty about a new relationship, I like leaned into much.

Mm. And I brought them into like a deep space of vulnerability and intimacy with me. And then I'm like, oh my God, we have very different political views. I could just be like, Nope, you're done.

[00:59:04] Dr. Nicole: Yeah,

[00:59:04] Mel: you're out. Or I could go, what's the distance? This is from P Hempel. What is the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously?

Maybe it's less time with them. Maybe it's taking some space, but making sure that they're still somewhere in that ecosystem. You know, I have, I have a play partner who is very politically moderate and it's so fascinating to me to have conversations with this person because they have, I think, you know, at the core they are, they're a left-leaning moderate who has a lot of the same aspirations and values as I do.

You know, they're, they're, but they're kind of like, oh, I, why do we have to get so bound up in the labels that feels like it makes everybody feel more different? Why can't we all just get along and I see where they're coming from? And then we get to have the conversation about like, well, why it does matter for people.

And we get to unpack privilege and Yeah. And there's something really, um, beautiful in being able to hold space for those conversations. Now, I don't think I could do that with someone who was like right wing.

[01:00:19] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:00:19] Mel: I will own that.

[01:00:20] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:00:21] Mel: Because I am very left leaning. Um, but I wanna be able to create that space for people who are more moderate to at least hold curiosity and at least develop an understanding.

'cause I think what I've, what I've found is that folks who are kind of hanging out in that more moderate space, they're very scared of losing connection if they go too far either way. And. People who go really far. Either way, we're kind of not so scared of losing connection. We kind of just trust we're gonna find lots of connection when we get there.

And I feel like, yeah, we need to do more to like have that interrelationship and keep those communication open. The shutting down of, of relationality is a nervous system response to overwhelm. And you know, I look at what's happening in the world today with like, you know, people moving towards more like fascist extremism.

And I look at what's happening in the states, which is so, so incredibly heartbreaking. And what I see in a lot of people who are being hoodwinked by those fascist messages, it's very similar to what happened in in Germany under Hitler, is people are scared, people are under resourced and they're being given a story.

And even if the story isn't true, believing in the story makes them feel safer. So, you know, if we wanna like really address that, we have to go, okay, well what is the core nervous system need here? How do we engage with that core nervous system? Need to do that, we have to be relational. And to be relational, we have to do that work in ourselves so that we can actually show up and we can't show up as individuals for that relationality 'cause that's not safe.

We have to show up together. We have to do that work together as our communities, as our anarch, as our collectives. It's work we have to do together.

[01:02:28] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. And it's a skill. It's such a skill to be able to know, as you were speaking to the, um, the quote of the distance where I can love myself and love you simultaneously, or I've used some of the metaphors of the sun, right?

There's a space where the earth is too close and we would burn and too far away where it'd be too cold, right? So where is that space where you can do that? It's hard because the society that we live in, this capitalistic society. Profits off of us lacking emotional insight and skills. Yeah, you're a much better cog in the machine if you don't have all of these skills and you cannot band together.

So the more we don't teach that in school and just push you into a pipeline of working into the system, the easier it is to maintain power and control. Right? And so when you see something that's different than you, you have that reaction. The body of fear othering, no, I don't like this. This is foreign. I don't know what this is.

No, no, no, no, no. Shut down. Right? Or if someone's too close and you don't like how they related to you, it can also be that quick shutdown of, I just didn't get a good vibe from that person. Goodbye. I didn't like them. Right. Goodbye. Um, or even the field of psychology itself often pushes this narrative of just, yeah, just separate from your parents.

Just yeah. Leave them behind. Yeah. They're not treating you. They don't have the emotional availability that you need, which. Generationally, there's been such an increase in, uh, emotional awareness, I think with the internet and resources and stuff like that. Yeah. The previous generations did not have, so it's a complex space that I think a lot of younger people are navigating with their parents, and so all of that, right.

That's the water we're living in. And so then to find the skills when your body is flaring up and you feel uncomfortable with this person mm-hmm. With this strange view that you've never heard of before or unsure of, and your body's going into that panic mode, right. To be able to regulate and then have the language to name, hey.

I would like to see you this amount of time. Yeah. With this amount of spaciousness, which is saying a no. Yeah. That so many people freak the fuck out about saying a no. They're like, oh my God, I must say yes. I must have pleased this person. Right? Yeah. So the ability to say like, this is how close I wanna orbit to you, there's so many skills to first, uh, regulate, identify what you need, state it, and then practice it.

And then even find out if maybe it needs to be adjusted. 'cause consent is ongoing. So maybe you said you wanted this amount of relating and that actually feels like too much and now you wanna take a step back and now there's a lot of emotions. That for both parties. Yeah. And it is tricky.

[01:05:09] Mel: And it is, it is so tricky to not make a story about the experience.

Yeah.

[01:05:13] Dr. Nicole: Oh yeah.

[01:05:15] Mel: You know, I think the story making part Oh yeah. Is is such a wonderful part of our brains. Yeah.

[01:05:20] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:05:21] Mel: And it also can sabotage us and I, one of the practices I love is embracing what if this is so meaningless?

[01:05:30] Dr. Nicole: Mm. Mm-hmm.

[01:05:31] Mel: You know, not in a way of like, I'm gonna behave recklessly, but what if it's just okay that sometimes there's friction and I don't have to pretzel myself around that I can continue to show up and take up space and trust that I'm not taking away space from someone else.

I can continue to show up and maybe pull back a little bit because it doesn't feel good for me to show up with more than that. Yeah. In that particular relationship and. It doesn't have to be a commentary. I mean, I see this happen so much in, um, long-term couples when they're like, oh, the sex has changed.

[01:06:10] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, of course.

[01:06:11] Mel: And there's the story we make about that of like, we're not having the same kind of sex anymore. The sex is different. It's not exciting like it was at the beginning, oh, that must mean something is wrong, or that must mean I have to break up with this person. Yeah. And it's, I mean, for one thing, our bodies change.

Our nervous system go through shifts. Our hormones are not consistent. There is always going to be change and your libido and the kind of sex you're having with people that you do have sex with. And it's okay. It doesn't have to mean anything. It's just a different way of exploring. And I think when sex changes in a relationship, it's, it's an invitation to explore other ways of relating.

[01:06:58] Dr. Nicole: Yep. And I love the word win. Not if

[01:07:01] Mel: Yeah,

[01:07:01] Dr. Nicole: yeah. But to win. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[01:07:05] Mel: Like, let, let's stop fantasizing that what is now is always going to be, let's get real. The only constant in the universe is change.

[01:07:14] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yep. So bring that into your sex life and, and hopefully more and more expansion in it.

At least my, my chest opens up more and more as I go through that process, you know? Um, and so I'm, I'm hearing the importance of the narratives that we're telling ourselves, right? Which again, comes from the society that we live in, right? So. If I haven't seen models of this, it's hard to imagine that other world.

It's hard to imagine a world without money. Yeah. What does that look like? My body's like what? You know, but it's possible. Yeah. We existed before. Yeah. Um, and so we need more narratives of what is possible and when we are writing those narratives, which like, thank God for books. Thank you. The podcast space.

Right. Narratives. Here we go. Um, those narratives, we want them to be thick. This comes from, um. Narrative therapy, right? Yeah. We really want them to be thick rather than these thin narratives. Yeah. And so the thin narrative is when you go in conflict, uh, and you say, well, that guy's an asshole. He's a piece of shit.

He's actually a narcissist. I'm gonna walk away What a thin narrative. Yeah. That the field of psychology perpetuates. Hello. Yeah. Um, and so like we need much more of a. Thicker narrative of what are the context of this person? Yeah. What is the lineage that they come from? What is the ecosystem that they're around that is creating this?

And that's not to say that you have to relate with that person. We can still take a big, big, big step back, but that narrative is way too thin. And I think cr like creating these boundaries and these lines that are ultimately hurting us when so many people just go into that space over, they're an asshole.

They're a piece of shit. Like just all the slew of bad words rather than the context and compassion.

[01:08:58] Mel: What I love, uh, holding as a question is what if everything we do is somehow a strategy for safety?

[01:09:07] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:09:08] Mel: And so when someone was doing something there,

[01:09:11] Dr. Nicole: I was like, yeah, obviously yes.

[01:09:14] Mel: When someone is doing something that doesn't make sense to me, and I notice that voice of judgment, that like thin narrative coming in.

I try to pause and go, okay, how is this for them, a strategy for safety? Maybe it's because it's familiar to them, and so even if it, it's chaotic, familiar chaos feels safer than unfamiliar, calm, what if it's, you know, this is their strategy for taking up more space. What if this is their strategy for running away?

What if this is their strategy for asserting their needs? What if this is the only strategy they've been given? This is the strategy that worked for them when they were eight years old and they've stuck with it and it doesn't work so much now that they're 48 years old.

[01:10:05] Dr. Nicole: Yep, exactly.

[01:10:06] Mel: But that I find is such a fantastic way to open into what is the depth of what's going on in us.

Because for us as individuals too, to go and look at what we do and go, how is this my strategy for safety? You know, like you're saying like that kind of pop psychology wants to label everything narcissism. And I'm like, okay, well, like yes. I think that there is a lot of narcissistic behaviors that are encouraged in our society.

[01:10:34] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:10:35] Mel: And also where's that coming from in the nervous system? It's coming from the same place as our fight response. And I, I think of that now as it's the self-assertion response. It is. I've learned I have to take up space in a big way. In order to not be annihilated, in order for selfhood to not be removed.

And how many of us have had that experience of feeling like our selfhood is being threatened to, uh, with annihilation? That is what white supremacy does. That is what patriarchy does. Mm-hmm. It threatens you with annihilation unless you take up an inordinate amount of space. And so for many narcissism has become the survival strategy in this system.

[01:11:18] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:11:19] Mel: And conversely, your survival strategy for that threat of annihilation of self might be to make yourself small. It might be to go into self-sacrificing, right? It might be to become a rescuer.

[01:11:33] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:11:33] Mel: Because then you learn, oh, I have purpose and I am useful, and as long as I'm useful, I will somehow be safe.

And I think, so this is, I mean I could probably talk for hours about this, but this is going into those nuances of like, how do we, through understanding the nervous system, through understanding the nervous system impulses and reframing them, I think in less judgmental ways, how do we get to that deeper narrative of what's actually going on inside of ourselves and inside of our loved ones?

[01:12:05] Dr. Nicole: Yes, absolutely. 'cause that's the compassionate narrative, right? Is this is someone trying to stay safe. And so when you see that. Again, that does not mean that you have to be close to that person. And we could get into what it means to heal as a collective and not push everyone into the capitalistic structure of society.

So that's like a whole other podcast too, right? Of like, what does that mean? Collective healing. But, um, you can still hold that nuance with compassion to understand that's how someone is trying to keep themselves safe. And I almost spit out my tea when you said it, because when I went through the field, I did have a feminist mentor who trained me in feminist psychology.

And relational cultural theory specifically talks about this as the, the lens. And so. You can imagine when I was in my, uh, internship for the last year of my doctorate, I was teaching psychiatry residents who had no foundation of psychology at all. But that was my job to like teach them. And so I was like, people are doing things for survival of wanting to be connected.

And they looked at me with these like dumb flat faces of like, what? Like no bipolar, bipolar, bipolar, like, just like so many things. And I was just like trying to like start that, that worldview that you're saying here, which I think is so essential. And thank God for the feminists in the seventies who came through to say, Hey, this is actually what causes suffering is lack of connection.

We know that from day one that babies need to be seen. We know the still face experiment for the listener. When the baby doesn't have a caregiver that responds in attunement to them, they start to scream and panic because we need that, right? We go, we, we lose our concepts of reality when we're not connected to people.

If you're on an island by yourself. Right? So we are deeply relational beings and it's so survival based for us to need connection. And so they would always talk about the relational paradox. That moment where there's some part of yourself that you wanna bring into the relationship, that if you do, there's a fear that you could lose connection with the other person.

However, if you do not honor the uniqueness of that part of yourself that you have, you lose connection with yourself.

[01:14:18] Mel: Mm-hmm.

[01:14:19] Dr. Nicole: And there's the paradox right there. Yeah. And they would quite literally from that extrapolate all mental suffering in the dsm. Right. In terms of that being the heart of it, of ways that we go through that and try to keep ourselves safe.

[01:14:33] Mel: Yeah. Yeah. And again, we're kind of going back to the like, how useful are the labels?

[01:14:39] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:14:39] Mel: It is much more useful and practical to describe what's going on internally. What is it that the nervous system needs? What is it that your body wants? What is it that your heart wants? What is it that your mind wants?

What is it that your spirit yearns for? This is the information that's gonna tell us what we're doing and where we need to go.

[01:15:05] Dr. Nicole: And which you spoke to at the beginning in terms of feeling that call towards anarchy and just eating it up and being like, yes. You know, it's something I felt too when I first read about it.

I was like, whoa. I remember skipping through the streets full of joy and life force, and it's something that I've seen in the, in my dissertation and in the people that come onto the podcast for the relationship anarchy series. Right. There's something that is very somatically felt Yeah. Of alignment there when we heard these words,

[01:15:37] Mel: and I, I think there's the liberation of realizing, oh, I have permission to stop pretzeling myself.

[01:15:46] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:15:46] Mel: I do not have to make myself small for the sake of social status quo. I have permission to be deeply true to myself. And I think that is both exciting and terrifying because then we have to go, well, what does it mean to be deeply true to myself? Maybe I don't know what that is yet. Mm-hmm. And. Also, sometimes we might overreach and like take up so much space of being true to ourselves that we push away other people.

Woo. So it's still, it's still a journey of, of unpacking. And, you know, I, I think this is one thing where, um, within anarchist spaces we need more. I was, one of the book promotion events I did was at, uh, an anarchist book fair in Victoria, which was a really wonderful, wonderful event. And there were so many beautiful connections that I got to share with people there.

And something that I noticed was that the environment in there, like there was something in the air that felt really grumpy.

[01:16:51] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[01:16:51] Mel: Like people were smiling and laughing and, and, but like there was a kind of grumpiness and I'm like, I think this is actually in a lot of anarchist spaces.

[01:17:00] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:17:01] Mel: We can get mired down.

With our own frustration or feeling like I'm different, no one else is gonna understand me.

[01:17:11] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[01:17:12] Mel: It's me against the system. It's us against the world. And that can feel like really overwhelming.

[01:17:17] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:17:18] Mel: And I really, really want to invite those in the anarchist space in the world to just like, the more joy we cultivate, the more resilience we have.

And, and this isn't just me saying this, I feel like this comes from all of our like anarchist queer elders. You know, I think of, you know, people who were leading in the Black Panthers, like they, they talked so much about like self-care, like people like Angela Davis and Erica Huggins. It's like that is our resistance.

That is, you know, joy bringing through, celebrating what we have defies the systems that say we're not allowed to feel joy. And, and the more we can grow that Oh, like what's gonna become possible?

[01:18:09] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. My inner voice right now is saying, that's really hard to do in the States right now. I'm like, what?

How, how, how, how, how?

[01:18:21] Mel: Well, and this is where building community is so important, right. You know, one of, one of the best books I've read in recent years is Mia Birdsong, how We Show Up.

[01:18:31] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[01:18:32] Mel: And she went through different communities in the states exploring like, well, how did you actually become a community?

[01:18:39] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:18:39] Mel: Because, and, and I, I love this question because I think we often mistake scenes for communities. People talk about the polyamorous community and I'm like, is it, or is it a scene? Is it a kink community or is it a kink scene? Like what makes a community a community?

[01:18:55] Dr. Nicole: Great question.

[01:18:56] Mel: And, you know, we've, we've gotten so into these like, siloed nuclear families.

You don't know your neighbors, all of this kind of stuff that it, again, that takes away our resilience. It takes away from our connection.

[01:19:08] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:19:09] Mel: And what Birdsong found was that one of the most common ways that people built community was just sharing meals.

[01:19:16] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[01:19:18] Mel: The power of making food and inviting everyone in the neighborhood to just show up.

[01:19:23] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:19:25] Mel: And the organic conversations that happen and the ways that people learn about each other. And then the, the mutual aid that springs up and, you know, these are all things that the states is now like trying to outlaw, which is like wild. It's insane. I, I don't wanna sound ableist about it, but it is the definition of insanity to try and outlaw compassion, to outlaw care, to outlaw empathy.

That's how deeply psychotic the fascist, uh, condition has become. And so anything we can do to resist that. Makes a difference. So having meals with our people, sharing resources, staying soft in ourselves, keeping that warmth and that compassion open every morning. I, I do work to like, bring energy into my ventral vagal system before I look at my phone.

'cause I know if I, it's hard,

[01:20:29] Dr. Nicole: gosh,

[01:20:29] Mel: I know if the first thing I do is look at my phone, my nervous system is gonna spend the day in fight.

[01:20:34] Dr. Nicole: Oh yeah. Yeah.

[01:20:35] Mel: But you know, just touching my face, rubbing my eyes, rubbing across my chest and my belly breathing, humming. You know, all these things that bring that energy into the ventral vagal so that I'm waking up with capacity.

I'm not waking up and then going straight into blah. That's

[01:20:53] Dr. Nicole: the world is on

[01:20:54] Mel: fires.

[01:20:55] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:20:57] Mel: Because even if all you're doing is microdosing that capacity, as you know, micro doses can have a really powerful effect over time, and sometimes the micro doses are even more effective than the macro doses.

[01:21:10] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

One of my teachers said, just be outside of your mind for one second. Yeah. Not one minute. One second, Nicole. Yeah. And I was like, ah, you know, I was like, one second, two second three, goddammit. You know? Yeah. Because I think I'm in big flight mode right now where I'm like, um, create, create, create, create, create more content, more something.

Yeah. Like how do I help the world? Right. How do I get going so fast? But I can see how much some of that is, is just from a trauma reaction to everything happening. 'cause it's like, when do I have time for the joy? When this is what's happening? When do I have time?

[01:21:46] Mel: We have, we have a fix it response. Like in addition to Fawn, there is a fix it response.

And that fix it response I think is very, very strong for a lot of people right now. Yeah. And, and I think again, it's come, it comes back to like, how do we make sure that we are in a resource space? Yeah. You cannot actually do anything if you're not in that resource space. Like, you're gonna have a limit.

If you're coming into the work fawning, you're gonna fawn, you're, you're gonna miss what's true.

[01:22:18] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:22:19] Mel: And so the more we take care of our, our, our systems and the systems of our loved ones collectively, that that's the ecosystem healing. Right? Yeah. And I always go back to these ecosystem analogies. 'cause I think of how like, you know, you plant mycelium here and you plant the same mycelium over here.

They reach each other.

[01:22:40] Dr. Nicole: Yes, they do.

[01:22:41] Mel: They find each other. And so we really wanna, you have to nurture and cultivate the mycelium in your own ecosystem and trust that it will come together. It is moving towards something. And then as you do that, when emergency shows up, when there's an immediate threat right in front of you, you'll have the capacity to engage with it.

You will have the ability to go, yeah, here's the line, here's what we're doing. And you'll know from an embodied space, not from a panic space. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:23:17] Dr. Nicole: Such a beautiful invitation to myself and to all of the listeners today. Truly, truly. One second at a time. You know what I mean? One second at a time,

[01:23:27] Mel: and who knows what's gonna be happening by the time this

[01:23:30] Dr. Nicole: this comes up podcast is released.

Yeah. May it be a better world, let's say that as a prayer may be a better world when it does. Yeah.

[01:23:37] Mel: May

[01:23:38] Dr. Nicole: it will be.

[01:23:38] Mel: Yeah.

[01:23:40] Dr. Nicole: Well, Mel, it's clear that I could talk to you for hours Of course. And so as we're coming towards the end of our time, I wanna check in and see if there's anything else that you wanna share with the listeners today.

[01:23:54] Mel: I think it's that, that commitment to cultivating hope.

[01:23:59] Dr. Nicole: Mm, yes.

[01:24:02] Mel: You know, I, at the end of the book, I wrote something that I call a Prayer for the Radicals, and it's really about. Leaving the reader or the listener if they're listening to the audio book, well, with this experience, that there is a better future out there.

All things pass, all things change, and we can live through terrible things. And that those terrible things don't have to define who we are. You know, I, I always think of my grandmother. My grandmother survived, uh, was an infant survivor of a horrific genocide in which all the men in her family were killed.

And she grew up in a refugee camp in northern Greece. And, you know, this was a really, really rough life. She was sterilized when my mom was born by Nazis, she was put on medications that created a psychosis for her. You know, she, she went through. And yet, by the time I was born and she had started practicing yoga, she, she'd come into a spiritual practice.

She was the embodiment of joy.

[01:25:25] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:25:27] Mel: And she lived every day that I knew her with joy.

[01:25:33] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[01:25:34] Mel: And even when things were difficult or things weren't how she wanted it to be, she would find a way to come back to joy.

[01:25:40] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:25:41] Mel: And I always think back to her of like, yeah, these things that she went through did not define her.

I think for a while in her life, they did define her.

[01:25:50] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[01:25:51] Mel: But she found a way to define herself beyond those things that, and I think that is, to me, that's been the most powerful lesson to go. I don't have to be defined by the pain that I experience. I don't have to be defined by the systems that I fight against.

I. I can be defined by my joy. Yeah, by my capacity for pleasure. And that is the most radical form of saying, no one gets to control me. No one has that victory over me because no matter what, I am free Internally, we get so obsessed with this like external freedom, we forget about the internal sense of

[01:26:29] Dr. Nicole: Oh, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Where there's so much more empowerment and choice.

[01:26:35] Mel: Yeah.

[01:26:38] Dr. Nicole: Well, I always do a deep breath at the end, and so really holding that as a moment of pleasure together.

Well, Mel, the last question that I have for you today is a question that I ask everyone on the podcast, and that is, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

[01:27:05] Mel: Hmm. It's normal to feel scared. Yeah. Feeling scared. Feeling fear is a normal response to not knowing, not having enough information, being unsure, not feeling safe.

And I think so often we push that aside. We've been taught to push it aside and not complain. And I think developing a relationship with it that's really loving is, is, uh, a wonderful thing to do.

[01:27:38] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Absolutely. It reminds me of that quote. Um, it's no sign of health to be well adjusted to a sick society.

[01:27:46] Mel: Yes.

[01:27:47] Dr. Nicole: Right. So like fear makes a lot of sense right now, right? Yeah. And when the, um, when we have plants and a plant, you know, say it dies, we don't go to the plant and say, what's wrong with the plant? We say, what's wrong with the soil that it was in? Yeah.

[01:28:04] Mel: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:28:06] Dr. Nicole: So, yeah. Yeah. Right now makes sense to be afraid and all of that.

Right. Look at the soil that we're in right now in this culture. Yeah. Yeah. And also, I really appreciate your invitation to really embody pleasure as a radical act, right? A political act. I really do believe in that, and that's why so much of my work, even though I went into the field wanting to work with sexual trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma, there was a point in my career where I realized, wow, the pleasure side is actually the full healing there.

Yeah. And so the same thing with all of these systems, so much trauma, but the pleasure holding that as true resilience under these systems. I really, really appreciate you bringing that to the listeners today as an invitation.

[01:28:51] Mel: Yeah. Thank you. Of course.

[01:28:54] Dr. Nicole: Yes. Such a joy to have you on the show again. Such a joy.

And it won't be the last, it certainly won't be the last. Yeah. Well, Mel, I'm sure everyone is wanting to know where can they find your book? Where can they connect with you, learn more about you and all of your work.

[01:29:10] Mel: So you can order the book anywhere you'd like to order your books. It's radical Relating A Queer and Polyamory Informed Guide to Love Beyond the Myth of Monogamy.

Um, and if you're not sure where to get it, you can go onto my website, radical relating.ca/book. Um, and there's also the audio book, which I narrate.

[01:29:32] Dr. Nicole: Ah, so cool.

[01:29:33] Mel: And, um, I'll also add in within the book, there's some illustrations that Joan Trife, a Vancouver artist did, and, uh, she's turned some of these into coloring pages, which I also now have as a downloadable.

You can pay, uh, on my website as a link to that too.

[01:29:50] Dr. Nicole: Amazing.

[01:29:52] Mel: So there's lots of ways to like, engage and integrate the work that's in the book. Um, but for the rest of things, go to radical relating.ca. Uh, you can follow me on socials, on Instagram, Facebook substack and insight timer at Radical Relating.

And, uh, on substack and insight timer, I often, well on Substack, I'll add in narration and include some somatic practices on insight timer. I'm adding more somatic meditations on there, um, as each month goes by. Mm-hmm. And, um, yeah, and if people are interested in doing coaching work or doing any of my courses, all the information is there on my website.

[01:30:31] Dr. Nicole: So good. And I'll have all of that linked in the show notes below, dear Listener. So you can just go to the show notes and find all of those links there. Again, thank you Mel, for coming onto the show today.

[01:30:43] Mel: Thank you for having me. Yeah. It's always so nice to just like dive deep into the anarchy pieces.

[01:30:49] Dr. Nicole: Oh, yes, yes, yes.

It's what the people want, you know? Oh, so good. Amazing. Amazing. Dear listener, thank you so much for tuning into Modern Anarchy. Thank you for sharing this episode with your friends, with your lovers, with your community. Truly, it means so much to me and I am so grateful that you are here. If you are wanting to release jealousy in your nonmonogamous dynamics and step into a compersion and pleasure filled connection, you can read my book.

The psychedelic jealousy guide for free on my website. There you'll also find so many other free resources, including worksheets on how to clearly communicate and set commitments and boundaries within your non-monogamous dynamics and other ways to practice clear communication about your sexual desires so that you can step into your most pleasure filled sex and relationships.

So head on over to modern Anarchy podcast.com to find all of those free resources, and I look forward to seeing you next week.