279. Loving People by Not Controlling Them - Laura Mae Northrup

[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 Laura. Join us for a conversation all about the continued practice of being your aliveness. Together we talk about orgasms as prayer, playing on psychedelics, and the liberatory practice of learning to apologize. Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Modern Anarchy. I am so delighted that you are joining pleasure activists from around the world to tune into 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 the first study on relationship anarchy, and I teach students from around the world how to craft pleasurable sex lives and non-monogamous relationships.

Dear listener

Oh my goodness. What a joy to have Laura on the show for a round two, dear listener. What a joy. You put two podcasters on an episode, you know it's gonna be a party. And there's just so much alignment with Laura that you're gonna just feel flow through this episode. And I'm really grateful that we just really followed all of our callings from reading poetry to pulling cards, to talking about everything under the sun.

This is a powerful episode. We get into orgasm as a form of prayer. I mean, come on. What a episode, and I'm so grateful for you to be able to hear Laura and hear all about the work that they are doing. Such powerful work with sexual trauma, and they also have an amazing podcast as well that is all linked in the show notes below.

And yeah, we get into examining the politics of desire, a, a conversation I don't think I'll ever tire of talking about just 'cause there's so much here. So dear listener, I'm excited for you to enjoy this episode with the amazing Laura, and for you to learn so much about what it means to live in a world where we practice more care and mutual aid in our communities and with our sexual desires.

All right, dear listener, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, I have so many free worksheets waiting for you on my website. I have my Pleasure Wheel worksheet to get more language about your sexual desires, my Relationship Reflection practice to build more joy and pleasure, positive psychology time into your relationships, as well as my Compass of Consent to get really clear on your commitments within non-monogamy.

You can also find my Psychedelic Jealousy guide, my dissertation, all of that for free at modernanarchypodcast.com. That's also where you will learn more about my Pleasure Liberation groups, my psychedelic queer therapy groups, and so, so much more. So head on down to the show links below at modernanarchypodcast.com to find all of that free content.

And thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you to my amazing Patreon community. I just wanna say thank you for supporting me the last five years, hello , to make this amazing educational content and show. I could not do it without you. So thank you for supporting me. And with that, dear listener, please know that I'm sending you all my love.

And let's tune in to today's episode

First question that I love to ask each guest on the show is how would you introduce yourself to the listeners?

[00:03:58] Laura: Ooh. Today I might introduce myself as, uh, somebody who is really fascinated by, uh, peak experiences and also experiences that help us to maybe feel into our spirituality more. I'm reading a book right now, um, called After.

I feel like I'm a little late in the game 'cause it was a really popular book a couple years ago. Mm. But, um, it's all about n- uh, near-death experiences.

[00:04:22] Dr. Nicole: Wow.

[00:04:22] Laura: And I'm just finding it so riveting. Um, I love thinking about big questions like what was it like to be alive before any machines had been created?

[00:04:31] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:04:33] Laura: Or like what does happen when we die? Yeah. Does consciousness continue? You know? So I, I would say that's a probably one of the more honest introductions of myself. I'm also a psychotherapist. I'm like, but that's the boring part.

[00:04:44] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, the credentials. I hear you. I hear you. Well, it's such a joy to have you on the podcast today.

Thank you for joining me.

[00:04:53] Laura: Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy to be here. I'll also say I'm based in Oakland, California. I'm, uh, yeah, another thing about me, very West Coast. And, you know, my work centers a lot around psychedelics, sexuality, s- uh, especially around sexual violence, and those are some im- important other pieces to who I am and sort of what I do in the world.

But yeah, I'm also interested- Yeah ... in big questions.

[00:05:14] Dr. Nicole: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And this is your second time on the show, so all the listeners can go check out that old episode that we have where we talked a lot about intimacy and AI. It was just at its beginning, and we were processing some of that. So I'm curious, have there been any big changes in your relationship to pleasure since we last checked in that you'd wanna share with me, listeners?

[00:05:37] Laura: You know, I do actually think there's been one really big shift in my life, which is that, um, I am actually really trying very hard... and this doesn't sound very profound, but to, to be more restful.

[00:05:47] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:05:48] Laura: I'm a person who does a lot. Um-

[00:05:50] Dr. Nicole: Same.

[00:05:51] Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like a lot of us do a lot, you know? I mean, I think some people do a lot because they're constantly trying to find things to do, and other people just do a lot because life is just demanding a lot of us.

Right. I think I'm doing both of those things. Um, and I am really actively trying to work at doing less, and it's an interesting process to, to try to do that because in a lot of ways, especially I think sort of in, in the US, there's a lot of emphasis on pleasure being sort of these experiences that you seek out.

You know? It's like plan a vacation or go to an event or sort of fill your life with entertainment or luxury at whatever level that you can. Um, but a lot of that's actually not very restful, and sometimes it's also not very pleasurable. Like lately I've just been, when I've been meditating, I've been thinking, "Wow, it feels incredible to breathe."

[00:06:38] Dr. Nicole: Mm. Yes. It's just incredible. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's a free form of pleasure, right? In that sense, like we can all access that one.

[00:06:48] Laura: Yeah. We really can. Yeah. And I mean, certainly sometimes at different points in people's lives breathing is not as simple. It's harder. Yeah. It's harder to breathe. Right. It is a pretty, pretty...

You know, if you're on the earth and you're a human being and you're, you can hear this- Yeah ... you're definitely... We're all breathing. It's like- Yeah, exactly. ... it really unites us. Um, yeah, I'm just, like, trying to dive into rest. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Is that... Are you, are you on that train?

[00:07:13] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. I mean, all my partners reflect it back to me.

They're like, "Hey, Nicole, what you doing? You relaxing?" No. No. Well, 'cause I love what I do. Like, I love what I do so much that I could really run for miles in it, right? But at some point you have to take a break and just be. Um, and so yeah, I am working on just allowing that, 'cause if I'm not creating or with a client or doing something else, I'm then reading a book on sexuality, 'cause that's my quote unquote rest time, you know?

But it's still working.

[00:07:44] Laura: Well, and, and that... I, I have like two... My brain goes in two directions- Yeah ... with that. You know, one thing is, like, I think for people who do a lot, there can be kind of a like, "Hey, you're a workaholic. Slow down." But, but sometimes we do a lot because we're also really enjoying it. Yes.

And I think it is... Like, you gotta find that balance between, like, not giving up who you are and your excitement and passion for life, and also kind of including rest. But the other thing it makes me think about is this question of what is rest. Mm. Because again, people are like, "Rest is a bubble bath. Rest is going to get a massage.

Rest is planning a really expensive, like-

[00:08:17] Dr. Nicole: Yeah ...

[00:08:18] Laura: involved travel time."

[00:08:19] Dr. Nicole: Right. Right.

[00:08:21] Laura: I'm like, you know, rest might be breathing. Rest- Totally ... or like for example, you know, as a therapist, I mean, I, I don't know if you've gone down the rabbit hole of researching what sitting does to your body- Mm ... and how bad sitting is for you.

Yeah. But it's terrible to sit all day for, for your health. And so for me as a therapist, sitting all day- Rest is getting up. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like I'm taking a rest from sitting by getting up. Yes. Yeah. And, and going for a long walk, you know? Like a, we gotta like take care of ourselves. Yeah. So I think rest is also sometimes just like, um, uh, it's a process of doing something different, or maybe like you could be even taking a rest from like lack of stimulation by- Yeah

increasing stimulation. So-

[00:09:02] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm ...

[00:09:03] Laura: I don't know that sometimes the way, you know, we get into talking about self-care and stuff can be so, um, kind of a narrow or flat-

[00:09:10] Dr. Nicole: Right ...

[00:09:10] Laura: or, I don't know, the story just gets really small compared to the complex nuance of what it is to be alive and function.

[00:09:17] Dr. Nicole: Right. Right.

The positionality that we all hold and what would be rest for us can differ depending on our lives. And yeah, I feel like the biggest thing I've noticed is as much as I love all the work, it's all very intellectual and sitting, right? And so then, yeah, if I am doing so much work that I stop fucking, that's when I'm like, "Girl."

Like, like, like, like I'm like, "Hold on a sec." Of course I can. If I don't wanna fuck, that's fine. But like, oh wait, what happened?

[00:09:43] Laura: This is actually really critical. Like I am actually very curious about that statement you just made because- Go for it ... you know, I, I, I'm like, I mean, I think a lot. I train people to be therapists, you know.

Mm-hmm. I think a lot about- Mm-hmm ... sort of like what, what isn't good about this job? I mean, I, I've had these conversations at different points with cl- other clinicians where we sit and wonder to ourselves, "If there was no money involved, if there was no you have to do this for money, how many people would you be working with?

How many of these sessions would you do a week?"

[00:10:12] Dr. Nicole: Totally.

[00:10:12] Laura: And I think everyone answers less because, I mean, a- and that's doesn't, that's not just therapists. You know, I think- Most people would do less of, of whatever. But as therapists, there's these sort of, you know, we use ourselves as our instruments.

We're exposing ourselves to, uh, just all different kinds of violence, um, pain, suffering, also joy.

[00:10:32] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. And

[00:10:32] Laura: there's this question of, like, how does it affect you, and what do you find yourself doing? You know? Are, are you, like, getting off session and just, like, binging candy because you gotta numb out? Like, are you getting off session and feeling like you, you need a break a- and you have to kind of like harm yourself where it's, like, actually bad for your health?

But I'm curious, do you wanna say more about not fucking? Like-

[00:10:53] Dr. Nicole: Mm. '

[00:10:53] Laura: Cause y- because of your job. It's- Yeah ... a lot of people... I mean, this, a lot of people don't fuck because they're stressed out. Right. They're overwhelmed.

[00:11:01] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:11:01] Laura: They're tired from work. Yeah. This is an important element, like, when you're not fucking because of work, and I'm just curious if you wanna say more.

[00:11:07] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, 'cause I always wanna hold this space for myself and anybody if it just floats away, and that's not the season of life that you wanna do, and you're feeling so energized by other things. Like, beautiful. Awesome. What I realized for myself is that I spend so much time in the cognitive that I almost forget the body, right?

I also notice the depletion of the time that I do in, in pleasurable movement or working out or other stuff. So I just notice generally my focus tends to go towards the cognition space. And so then when I'm not in my body, I'm not feeling turned on, I'm not feeling these other moments. And I also had started a practice where, gosh, when this comes out, about like two and a half years ago, before every intro, you know, not right now, not as we meet right now, but I record an intro before every episode, right?

And I decided to start masturbating before every intro and come, and right as I come, go over to the mic and record with that vibration of my voice. Yes. And so at some point when you do that for a year and a half, it does shift your classical conditioning around pleasure and sex in a beautiful, like, sex magic ways.

You're thinking about, like, where I wanna go as I come and what I wanna do and create and build. And, uh, I still would do this without the money shifts, I think, but I would just wanna keep it scalable, you know? It's, uh, really when you talk about that money shift of how many clients would you take, like, I still would do it, but in different scales like groups.

I'm tending towards groups in that way, I think, because of that, you know, the finiteness of your time and energy. But yeah, when you're masturbating before the intro of every episode, you are classically conditioning yourself to think about, like, "Oh, wow, I wanna save that orgasm for when I'm working, for when I'm creating and I'm putting the episode together."

And so that had been a dangerous pathway. And I recorded with one dom, Empress Wu, who was like- You recreated sex for procreation. And I was like, "Fuck." Mm-hmm.

[00:12:57] Laura: Yeah.

[00:12:59] Dr. Nicole: Here I am where I'm like, "I only fuck myself when I'm creating." And I'm like, "Oh, no, I did it, I did it again. Oh, no." So, like, yeah, after that I was like, "I'm just gonna masturbate for just my own pleasure.

Not gonna make an episode." So yeah, so I'm, I'm learning how to find some play still or, like, I'm going out this weekend with my queer lover and I, I wanna work 'cause I love it, but it's like, no, like you- just go play, just go play, you know?

[00:13:26] Laura: It... Yeah. That when you, when you're a doer and a creator it is, yeah, it's like, uh, it- every moment feeds the creativity- Yeah

and, like, some moments it's just like you gotta set down the thinking about the creativity. Mm-hmm. I mean, I, I, I feel that way too. Yeah. I'm talking about going to a poetry, um-

[00:13:42] Dr. Nicole: Mm ...

[00:13:42] Laura: workshop, and every time I go to poetry workshops or any time I go and, uh, like take a class of any kind of- Mm-hmm ... a- anything that's about writing, I never write anything good.

It's all- Sure.

[00:13:52] Dr. Nicole: Okay ...

[00:13:53] Laura: and it's because the creation has to be not... The, the creation has to organically emerge for it to, I feel, really be s- good, at least in my own opinion, in my own work. Sure.

[00:14:03] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:14:04] Laura: Um, and, uh, yeah, I mean, there's like that delicate bance- balance of letting something organically emerge versus, like, the, the forcing of and then the way that that sort of, um, am I trying to say about how that impacts the pleasure or the freedom of it?

It's like- Organic emergence is really different than sort of, like, forced creativity or forced emergence.

[00:14:26] Dr. Nicole: Sure. Sure. Absolutely. Yeah, a little bit of responsive versus spontaneous desire sort of moment here in that sort of creative frame, right? In that way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, when I think about these things, I think about just creating space for the unfolding of what does feel aligned in that moment.

There's so much of our journey where you have to be just, um, pleasure is that ongoing consent with self. There are things that I once did that were so pleasurable that just evolve. And so in that dance, right, maybe it's a season I don't and I'm deep in the creativity of my, what I'm making for my community.

Or maybe I go back to, like, lots of fucking. The balance that I hope to find is that when you're speaking about a topic, you can't just do it from this removed way. Like, there is an embodied version of it. So if I wanna speak about sexuality, if I wanna speak about polyamory, I can't just go so hard into creation that I don't actually have my partners and my metamours and my commu- Like, like, wait.

Like, like, like, w- you know, you have to keep living. So I'm sure in the poet, right? Like, you have to keep living. You can't just- You do ... always try to force it. You have to actually live the moments that you then write about, right?

[00:15:34] Laura: You're like, "Bye everybody. I, I'm actually-" "... I'm retiring from non-monogamy so I can actually just go create about it."

But-

[00:15:41] Dr. Nicole: I

[00:15:41] Laura: totally, totally. All of you enjoy your life. Yeah. Okay. So when you sent me, y- your listeners, I don't know if they know this, but you sent me, like, a little thing about sort of, yeah, topics and things- Yep ... that I'm curious about. Mm-hmm. I sent you. I should've sent it months ago, but last night- That's okay.

I sent, I sent you, I sent you something I'm interested in. I wanna ask you about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm

[00:15:58] Dr. Nicole: curious what you

[00:15:58] Laura: think about it. Um, I'm very interested in spirituality, sexuality, um, the combination of these things. And so, okay, I've heard prayer-

[00:16:09] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm ...

[00:16:09] Laura: described and, uh, you know, content warning for people who have religious trauma.

I'm not gonna talk about- That's me. ... prayer in any particular, you know, um, in a, what's the word? I'm not talking about prayer in, like, a dogmatic way or, or attached to any religion. Right. But, like, I've heard the concept that prayer is a form of surrender. Like, you are surrendering to whatever is divine, whatever is magic, whatever is, uh, sort of the unknown mystery.

And orgasm, also a surrender. And I'm curious about this idea of orgasm as a form of prayer. Hmm. Uh, as a means to be connecting to the mystery. And I'm just curious if you have thoughts on that.

[00:16:51] Dr. Nicole: It's so interesting 'cause I almost took it in the, uh, related but opposite direction. Because when I sometimes think about prayer, I do think about it as a request rather than a surrender.

Hmm. So when, you know, when I was growing up in conservative Christian culture, there was this, uh, view of prayer of you should be praying to release your sinful desires that you can be subject to the divine authority of the, of God, right? And at some times I would ask for specific things. Like, right, if someone's sick, like, "Please heal them, please heal them.

And also if you can't, I guess I surrender to what it is." So there was a lot of prayer that was directed in terms of what I wanted, so it wasn't always that surrender. Um, and then when I think about what I had just shared about my creation process and orgasm being a part of that, when I am orgasming, I am surrendering to the pleasure of my body that is absolutely overtaking me, and trying to be with it as long as possible so that I can really stretch out my ability to sense and feel it.

Which has been a growing journey to not just, like, collapse at the intensity of it, but really, like, let it, like, simmer and ripple through your body. Um, but in those moments I've visualized things that I want.

[00:18:05] Laura: Hmm.

[00:18:06] Dr. Nicole: Like straight up. Like, I wanna create this, or I wanna do that, or I wanna build this with my life, and I see that at the peak moment of orgasm.

Which is almost the opposite of surrender in that way, 'cause I actually want something. Mm-hmm. And I'm so much more so aligning my body with that. And to, like, when you really think about what you want as you come, and you fucking let go of all the shame and the doubt Mm-hmm. So that's, like, the opposite of surrender though, right?

[00:18:36] Laura: Is it? 'Cause it kind of sounds like surrendering to your own desire.

[00:18:39] Dr. Nicole: Hmm. Okay. Hot reframe. I, I'm here for that. Tell me more. I'm, I'm there for that. Well,

[00:18:45] Laura: yeah. I mean, I guess I... It makes me wonder, you know, um, can we want while we r- while we surrender?

[00:18:50] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:51] Laura: Like, there's a lot of d- you know, there's a lot of different contexts and reasons that we might surrender.

But when I think about the concept of surrendering to pleasure, um, I guess this also, there's a question of, like, is that pleasure something that you imagine, that you want, that you desire? Or, uh, like, are you, are you surrendering to something you, ego you, want? Or are you surrendering to, like, what is your purpose?

[00:19:18] Dr. Nicole: Hmm.

[00:19:19] Laura: What is sort of- Mm-hmm ... w- what is emerging from you that is essential to, to sort of, like, be in service of?

[00:19:26] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, I know one of those times I orgasmed at the thought of my whole community being, like, in much more liberated, erotic connection. Like, truly just feeling able to be safe with everybody and connect with everybody, and that feels much more of a community vision.

And yeah, when I think about what I wanna do, I think about wanting to end rape culture and, like, seeing people in much more freedom and liberation of their bodies and their pleasure. So that feels much more non-egoic. You know, as much as I try to check where that is, you know, 'cause it's always the unconscious somewhere.

But it feels much more non-egoic in terms of a service-orient, uh, bend. This reminds me of your book you had sent me many years ago, too, of, like, service-oriented pathways under capitalism and all of that. So yeah, I guess the vision is very, a very service community bend in that way. I

[00:20:16] Laura: hope I didn't traumatize you with my prayer

[00:20:18] Dr. Nicole: question.

Oh, no. You're- No, you're okay. Oh, no. You're... I mean, yeah, I'm good. I'm good. At this point, I've come a long ways with that one. Yeah.

[00:20:26] Laura: Um, I have another question. Yeah. Would you be into pulling an archetype card at some point- Sure, yeah ... and, like, riffing on the archetype?

[00:20:31] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[00:20:32] Laura: Let me go grab my archetype deck real quick.

[00:20:34] Dr. Nicole: Okay. Yeah, yeah,

[00:20:35] Laura: yeah, yeah. I'm, like, trying to get us to light candles, like, '

[00:20:38] Dr. Nicole: cause- Ah! Yeah, let's go. Let's do it. What's the deck? I know each deck is different. Do you know this one? Uh-uh, I don't

[00:20:45] Laura: see it. By Kim Krans.

[00:20:46] Dr. Nicole: No.

[00:20:46] Laura: Oh my God, I love this deck.

[00:20:48] Dr. Nicole: Okay.

[00:20:49] Laura: Okay. I'm obsessed with this deck.

[00:20:50] Dr. Nicole: Cool.

[00:20:51] Laura: It's very beautiful.

There's a little diamond inside here.

[00:20:54] Dr. Nicole: Ooh, wow.

[00:20:55] Laura: Yeah. Pretty. There's a pearl in there. Oh,

[00:20:56] Dr. Nicole: wow.

[00:20:57] Laura: All right, let's do it. Yeah. Do you wanna tell me when to pause? Do you wanna, like, be the one who-

[00:21:02] Dr. Nicole: Okay, I'll take a really hot, long, deep breath, and when I'm at the end, I'll tell you when, okay?

[00:21:07] Laura: It sounds perfect.

Start with

[00:21:07] Dr. Nicole: breath, right? It's pleasurable. Let's go.

[00:21:09] Laura: Oh my God. We're feeling amazing right now breathing.

[00:21:12] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I'll do it now.

Okay. Right there.

[00:21:24] Laura: All right, we got one. We got one. For people who are familiar, this is Kim Krans' archetype guideboo- Ooh ... ar- archetype deck. Oh my God, this one is so good. Okay. You can see it. Nicole can see it. Amazing.

[00:21:37] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, lots of spiral circles.

[00:21:40] Laura: Yeah. It's, um, the, the card is the seed, and the card looks like, um, many, many, many, many circles that are inside of each other, and at the very center is a little pearl.

[00:21:51] Dr. Nicole: Hmm.

[00:21:51] Laura: Or maybe it's a seed, but it, it looks like a little pearl.

[00:21:54] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:21:55] Laura: Let's read what Kim Krans has to say.

[00:21:57] Dr. Nicole: Yes, please. Do tell.

[00:22:00] Laura: I love this book. She's, she's like a poet and, uh, just she's so great. Okay. The seed. The beginning, the origin, the pearl. Beginnings come in many forms. They are not always a beautiful seed placed intentionally in nourishing soil.

Origin stories, like any birth story, are complex, surprising, multi-layered, and usually reveal a central image or detail that represents the fully formed being. Simply stated, the end is present in the beginning, or the entire oak tree resides within the acorn. Whether you follow this imaginal theory or not, know that when this card appears, there is potent, generative energy all around.

It stirs your very insides and usually results in an antsy, impatient feeling. Pay particular attention to what agitates you, as it is a sure sign of growth to come. You are bumping up against a growth edge. It is from the grit that the pearl eventually comes to be.

[00:23:06] Dr. Nicole: Hmm.

[00:23:06] Laura: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:09] Dr. Nicole: Hmm. Beautiful.

[00:23:11] Laura: It's making me think about our conversation, um, before we started recording about sort of like origins- Hmm

around non-monogamy or sort of origins- Yeah ... around interest and pleasure. But is it making you think of anything?

[00:23:24] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, it was making me think about all of those pieces. I'm... I'd love to hold space for that, for you, for me to share, see where our similarities and divergence goes. Yeah, I was thinking about my growth edges and my current relationships of softening.

I, I, I guess so, yeah. And in that, my current growth edge is softening in a lot of ways- Mm-hmm ... 'cause I get very, um... I want things done in a certain way. There's a certain level of, like, kitchen table dynamics and communication, and, like, you know, things that I want in this caring, loving community. And I think my dogmatic-ness came from having to defend myself for so long.

Because you come from such a restricted environment that then you have to shove people off of you to, like, "Get this restrictive shit out. I'm going this way, and I'm gonna g- fucking go that way, and don't anyone get in the way of my pleasure and my liberation." And then you have to get to a point you realize, like, "Oh, okay, I actually can soften now I'm in safe, loving community, and I can really attune to the different people around me.

I don't have to keep shoving these pe- no one's trying to restrict me at this point." Like, you know, like, "I've got lovers. No one's trying to restrict me. I just need to soften," you know? So that's what makes me think about, like, the, the healing arc and the pendulum that we go from when you're, you're from a really restricted space into, um, no longer having to be that, you know, aggressive about your liberation, and kinda coming back into the middle

[00:24:51] Laura: Yeah, that's interesting what you're saying about, like, kitchen table poly or sort of like...

I mean, if people can get, people can kind of take the rigidity of monogamy into non-monogamy- Yeah ... and sort of get super rigid about what non-monogamy has to be as well. You know, we all have to be able to sit down at the kitchen table and talk- ... versus you can't even have a friend of a different gender, you know?

Right, right, right. I mean, it's like you're just kinda, you know, as they say, you can't, you can't... Uh, the quote about the master's tools in the master's house. Yeah.

[00:25:18] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:25:19] Laura: But, um, yeah. Yeah, you know, when I think about this card, The Seed, and I- Mm-hmm ... I think about my origin stuff- Yeah ... and, and really just, like, my kind of eternal path in life, I just think about how I, I don't feel like I've ever really been a person who...

I, I've never been the conformer. Mm. I feel like even when I was really little, like, I was not, you know, I, I was just somehow always not. Yeah. I was always being weird and, and- Totally ... so I don't totally relate to, like... I know that some people, their story is like, you know, "I did everything like I was supposed to and then I just was like, I gotta break free."

Mm-hmm. My story is more like I've never done it the way I'm supposed to. Yeah. And, and, um, yeah, and, and, and, um, can, can that sort of, uh, ability to question what we say is, uh, the way something is supposed to be, can that continue on throughout life? You know, and I think at every life stage we have really different pressures.

I mean, at my... I'm middle-aged now. I'm in my mid-40s. Like, the pressure to conform in a very particular way is very different than when I was 20 years old. Sure. Um, and, and it's like, it's like you, it's not like you just don't conform and then that's done. It's like there's always more pressure to keep- Yeah

you know, uh, to keep trying to conform, um, even within sort of non-monogamy space. But yeah, so I think about, like, just kind of that origin and, like, carrying it forward, just trying to live... Not, not even trying to live an alternative life just to live it, but just to break free from bullshit and just- Mm-hmm

live an authentic way.

[00:26:54] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. So when you first hear about non-monogamy, are you on board fully living in it? How young are you? Like, where are you at in that journey?

[00:27:05] Laura: You know, my first, like, uh, experiences of, uh- I, so I think because of how I grew up, like just kind of in this very punk, uh, sort of, yeah, it was like the '90s, very punk.

Th- there's a way that my community was kinda just doing things that- Mm-hmm ... now we have a lot of labels for.

[00:27:25] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[00:27:25] Laura: So, like for example, like a great example of this is like when I was in high school, there were plenty of people who were not necessarily calling themselves trans, but- Mm-hmm ... but were just like using a different name.

We n- we weren't necessarily using different pronouns, but we were just like understanding people to be a certain way.

[00:27:44] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:44] Laura: And I mean, and back then people would use the term gender queer. But even before using that term, it just felt like there was kind of this way of just being. Yeah. And then we're all understanding that to mean something without having to necessarily label it.

[00:27:57] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:58] Laura: And I think we were doing that with non-monogamy too. Mm-hmm. I mean, I think w- when did The Ethical Slut get published? Was

[00:28:05] Dr. Nicole: that in '99? The '90s. Yeah. Yeah. The '90s, somewhere in there.

[00:28:07] Laura: So I do remember that The Ethical Slut like came out at some point, but of course, you know, to somebody in high school when, or in, or early 20s, that book just seemed like, okay, y'all have been married for 20 years and now you're trying to, you know, fuck your friends.

Like, it just wasn't resonating. Mm. And, um, so it's, it's funny that I like specialize in working with non-monogamous couples, and I've read very few non-monogamy books. People will be like, "What's your favorite book?" I'm like, I, I, it's just like you're, I don't really read the books about myself. Like- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I read some of them and, you know, and I, I, I brush up on new, new lingo and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, it's funny, sometimes people come and see me and they'll be like, "Uh, I'm gonna use this special word in the monogamy..." And I'm like, "I don't know what that is." We don't, uh, I was doing that before we had a special word for it.

Okay.

[00:28:55] Dr. Nicole: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

[00:28:55] Laura: Now, now there's that word. Okay, cool. Yeah. And the words are great, like I appreciate that we're putting language to things, but- Mm-hmm ... but yeah, so that was kind of my origin. Um, you know, I think in a lot of ways just like, but why? W- what is monogamy? What is the point of it? That doesn't mean that it's easy to break free of it, but it is interesting this kind of idea that you're gonna commit your entire life to, to basically not exploring yoursel- yourself, and you're gonna ask somebody else to not explore themself.

And I don't, it's, and I wanna say, 'cause I also, I'm actually really pro-monogamy if people want it. Like, I, I, I don't, I'm not against... I know some people are against monogamy. I'm not against monogamy at all, and I think there is a lot of interesting exploring that can happen when you create a very sort of, um, tight container.

[00:29:41] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:41] Laura: So maybe all that exploring is really just about two people exploring each other. Mm-hmm. Um, but- uh, the concept of monogamy as a, as a sort of a limiting force, I don't agree with that. Um, and I just kinda never have.

[00:29:57] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I hear you. I think for me I was, my come up into non-monogamy was also paired with me writing my dissertation on relationship anarchy and training in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

'Cause y- so you can imagine, like, as all of my paradigms are changing, I'm also studying this paradigm-changing substance and the work with that. And so I wrote the psychedelic jealousy guide, and what I had put in there was that- Which is available for free on my website, 'cause free resources are important, dear listener.

Um, what I had wrote in there was that it's like a psychedelic experience. Are there people who never do psychedelics in their entire life and have a great fucking life? Yeah. There's no, like, no requirement to do a psychedelic to live more. Now, when you do a psychedelic, does it absolu- like, lutely change your paradigm and how you see the world and yourself?

Yes. Does it make you a better person? No. Does it evangelize some people who then become really problematic about it? Like, absolutely, right? And so it's, I just look at it that way where if someone comes to me and says, "I'm afraid to try a psychedelic because it's going to melt my brain," I have a really hard time with that, 'cause it's not going to melt your brain.

If you're afraid to do non-monogamy 'cause you think it will never work or you'd be too jealous, that's a bit of a limiting belief. Dun, dun, dun. But if you come to me and you're like, "Yeah, I looked at it. I don't know, it just doesn't resonate with what I wanna do. I don't wanna do acid. Ah, da, da, da." Okay, like, great.

Like, that's totally cool. But yeah, when it comes back to that, like, limited lack of awareness, restricted concept of self, that's when I feel a little bit like, okay, we talk about freedom as choice, right? And, and I don't know how free that choice is when you look at the other thing as immoral, problematic, or impossible.

That's not really a free choice.

[00:31:47] Laura: Yeah, you know, I get asked a lot, like, "Does non-monogamy really work?" Yeah. And I mean, every, every time someone asks that I'm like, "Do you think monogamy works?" Yeah. Like, my God, let's get honest here. You know? I mean, that also might be a reason that I was open to that idea as a young person.

Yes. Because, like, my parents were divorced, and like-

[00:32:03] Dr. Nicole: Yes ...

[00:32:04] Laura: I'm just like, you know, Tha- does that really work? I don't know. Yeah. Um, yeah. And I also ha- I also had taken, um, uh, a psychedelic, like, you know, ear- early enough that these things are coinciding for me. So it is possible that was, you know, a part of my journey as well.

[00:32:20] Dr. Nicole: I, yeah, I just read a research study that was talking about higher rates of prevalence of polyamory and non-monogamy in psychedelic communities. That's not shocking, though. I feel like you exist in the community and you're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." But it's nice to see in a research study and be like, "Oh, okay, there is a correlation.

Cool." You know?

[00:32:33] Laura: Yeah. That doesn't surprise me at all.

[00:32:35] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, no, it doesn't.

[00:32:37] Laura: In, um, in this book I'm reading- Yeah ... uh, the near-death experience book That one, yeah ... the, one of the th- big things is that a lot of people, research shows that a lot of people- Mm-hmm ... who have near-death experiences are, A, not as afraid to die later.

[00:32:51] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:32:52] Laura: B, they're not as afraid to, like, live their life more fully.

[00:32:55] Dr. Nicole: Good.

[00:32:56] Laura: And C, one of the most important things in, in being alive is love.

[00:33:01] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:33:01] Laura: Is, like, being- Yeah ... you know, a, a lot of them are basically like, "I, I, in my near-death experience, I saw a light or a source," or some people call it God And they come back and they're like, "The most important thing, the reason we are here, is about love."

And they're like ... They're also left and right just like, "There's no words to describe what I really mean." Mm-hmm. But, like, love is a, a limited term in some ways. But, you know, and I, I think about not non-monogamy, uh, uh, and, um, and s- consciousness expanding, um, substances as being sort of like l- love in the most, um, kinda classical sense.

But, but love in the sense of, like, l- loving in a way that allows and accepts that other people, uh, need to be able to be self-expressed, including yourself. Uh, so like, not just like, "Oh, I wanna love, like, 10 people," but like, "I wanna love them by not controlling them."

[00:33:56] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. "I

[00:33:57] Laura: wanna love them by allowing them to have whatever experience they wanna have in their life."

[00:34:02] Dr. Nicole: Right. Right.

[00:34:03] Laura: I feel like so much of what we're working through when it comes to non-monogamy really is just, like, conditioning that's around, like, I'm not safe. I'm not safe because I don't love myself enough, and I'm worried you're gonna leave. I'm not safe because we live in a world that does not take care of people.

I mean, so much of relationships are also just frankly about finances.

[00:34:22] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:23] Laura: And just trying to secure yourself in the world.

[00:34:25] Dr. Nicole: Money. Yep. Yep.

[00:34:26] Laura: Yeah. And so, um, y- yeah. I mean, like, with, with ... when we s- all of that I think gets, uh, not in the way of, but it's all a part of being able to be self-expressed, is like- Oh Am I gonna be cared for, wanted, accepted, appreciated?

I don't know. I'm scared. We live in a world that doesn't do those things. Now I'm scared of non-monogamy.

[00:34:48] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. I mean, that's an evolutionary drive to be able to be safe. You need to be accepted by people. And so if there's a risk of losing it through your partners exploring with other people and/or societal judgment about what you do, that's huge.

Uh, I was, um... I recorded with Dr. Shef two episodes before this one will come out, and she had talked about how, yeah, the more financial freedom women have, the more likely they are to pursue polyamory. And so the less educated, less financially free, it's very common to see, um, polygamy, you know, across the world in that way.

So the more educated and financially free a woman is, the more we start to see polyamory. Which, uh, and even the b- the book Untrue by Wednesday Martin had talked about the research on how women started to cheat more in the '70s, which happens to coincide when women also get access to credit cards and the ability to have your own bank account in your own name, right?

So there's a lot here in terms of, yeah, the possibilities of stretching and the politics of freedom and privilege and all of that. And also, when you, when you say that about the fear, what we have to understand, and from my own lived experience, and even in these current moments. Because man, you can practice polyamory for years and still get scared at different moments.

You know, like one of my partners has been in grad school for a year, and so he has not moved into other dynamics, and so I've gotten habituated to that. And now as he starts to explore, I'm like, "Fuck. Oh, okay." Yep. Okay. Okay. Oh, yeah. Here we go again. You know? It's like... So like yeah, I trust myself a little bit more to ride that this time, but it's still there, right?

So that's really important. Like, and when you feel that in your body, it is fucking terrifying. Terrifying. But we know historically that monogamy has not been what human beings have practiced forever. This is a much smaller... Like factually, we know this is a much smaller experience of human culture. We know that most mammals do not practice mo- monogamy.

Like, we know these things. And then that's where it gets into this, I think, n- n- um- nuanced space of how do we honor what our body authentically craves and desires while also being critical about it, right? 'Cause in that moment when I feel that fear, my body does not fucking wanna expand. I mean, great, sure, like me having multiple partners, cool, totally fine.

I can absolutely do that, right? But my part- no, not them, no. You know? And I think those are moments where, like, uh, the romance myth always says listen to your body and your cravings, and that's what you mean. If you really love that person, go. You know, like honor all of that. It's like, so you're feeling that in your body, and based on that you would maybe say, "No, this doesn't work for me."

But then I have to hold that context of how deep the society impacts us. Like, for example, we know across research how different body sizes are attractive and can be a sign of health, right? In certain countries where maybe there's more, um, disease and, like, death, killing diseases where the body goes into malnutrition, a thicker, larger body is super attractive 'cause it has wealth, right?

And, and prosperity and health. Where in America, the '90s, we have the, you know, we want the thigh gap and whatever the fuck that, like, other cultures look at as, like, truly, like, are you sick, you know? And those desires and cravings that we have, the attraction's all real. You know, back in the day they'd be attracted to ankles 'cause that was erotic.

Or in some cultures boobs are truly not a sexual thing 'cause they're, you know, in that culture just freely shown every day. Where in America, you know, you show tits and someone's like, "Oh my God." And that's how I authentically feel. And so it's like how do you honor the authenticity of that attraction, that desire that you feel, while also holding a bit of critical context of the politics of desire?

[00:38:29] Laura: Yeah. I mean, life's work is a life's work. Yeah. You know, it makes me think also about, um, well, two things. One is just, like, that that vulnerability can change a lot over time.

[00:38:40] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:38:40] Laura: Like, you know, as we age, as we get sick, that that can change our relationship to our partners and to partners having other partners and things like that.

[00:38:49] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:38:49] Laura: Um, and, and there's s- all these other sort of layers and layers of social conditioning around each of those phases. Like, layers of social conditioning around illness, around disability, around a- uh, aging. It also makes me think about how at least, you know, speaking as a person who's been socialized in the US, that we just do not have enough, um, skills at grieving.

[00:39:10] Dr. Nicole: No.

[00:39:10] Laura: At, like, accepting loss.

[00:39:12] Dr. Nicole: No.

[00:39:13] Laura: Like, loss happens. Loss is a normal part of life, and we grieve. And, you know, I think about how h- that we- we're so culturally oriented towards not losing, and not losing, not losing in general. Like, not losing in a game, but also, like, not losing anything, like, um, material, uh, or emotional.

And so that can lead to sort of, like, cl- clinging to something being a certain way as opposed to being like, "Oh, okay. You're gonna spend Friday nights with that person. What could happen on my Friday nights now? What else could be my life be about?" You know? Yes, of course I'm sad at the loss, but can I open up to all the possibility that comes in change, change which is, like, the only constant.

[00:39:56] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:56] Laura: And instead we, we, you know... I mean, and it's not like I'm saying, like... I, I mean, I'm in there, too. I cling. We cling. We're clinging- Yeah ... to what we know as opposed to opening up to what else there is, and clinging to not having uncomfortable feelings. But in the end, I mean, we can't control these things.

Mm-hmm. I think that's one of the... There's a sort of, like, intersection there of, like, accepting impermanence, accepting lack of control, and opening yourself up to not even necessarily non-monogamy as a, um, as a, like- Hard pr- hard practice where, but like even just having that mindset, even if it's not in action, I think in some ways is liberatory a- and is more honest about what is really happening in life with loss and grief.

[00:40:40] Dr. Nicole: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Uh, you're so right that we don't have many of those skills at all, and we don't have rituals and cultural practices often, you know, 'cause you gotta wake up for your job, right? Keep going. The, the things that are happening in the world in that sense. And so yeah, with my lovers, I've talked to them about loving each other across proximity and distance, the different variations of the ways that we might be in connection.

Maybe that means one, you know, year we're completely in orbit and talking every single day. Maybe there is a year where we don't talk, you know, and we talk once every couple. And I feel like I, I find that really grounding. You know, I had said that to my lover this morning, um, of just like, "You know, I'm committed to you.

Like, I'm absolutely committed to you in this relationship." And like, "Do you mean that?" I was like, "Yeah, absolutely." I mean, who knows where we'll go? Who knows where you will go, where I will go? But we're both really committed to interdependence, community, and the freedom and autonomy. I mean, yeah, I don't know what that's gonna look like, but like you're gonna be in the circle.

Like ... And that, that feels to me so free and secure

[00:41:54] Laura: Yeah. You know, that makes me think about just sort of, uh, in the classical sort of like way we think about relationships, it's like when the relationship ends, there's... We, we, we don't continue the connection.

[00:42:06] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:42:06] Laura: It's a special, a special thing. I mean, I, I think in the queer community we do often.

Right, right. But it's a, it's a special thing. It's kind of like, oh, oh, oh, are you gonna be able to be friends? And certainly sometimes people do things in relationships that really suck, and I totally- Right ... value the, the process of not being friends and not- Right ... being connected. Right. And I think that's just honoring whatever pain is there.

Mm-hmm. But in addition to grief and loss, we also, and this sort of, uh, the US does not have a lot of sort of culturally, um, sound examples of apologizing- Mm ... taking responsibility for ourselves. Um, and I think that is a really big part of transitioning relationships through time, either, either maintaining one...

I mean, I see this a lot as a couples therapist, just like- Sure ... say you're freaking sorry.

[00:42:48] Dr. Nicole: No.

[00:42:50] Laura: Just say you're sorry. I shouldn't have. It's

[00:42:52] Dr. Nicole: like- I am right.

[00:42:53] Laura: Just listen to what your partner's saying and this relationship might last. Like, you got- Yeah ... and they're, and they're saying they don't like the behavior you've got.

Like, and, and it's okay. Like, just, you're nothing wrong here. Just gotta say you're sorry and- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... make sure it's not that behavior. Yeah. Um, uh, you know, whatever. It gets so complicated. I

[00:43:11] Dr. Nicole: laugh 'cause I've been there, you know?

[00:43:13] Laura: Yeah. Oh, oh, oh. Like, as the client. We've all been there.

[00:43:15] Dr. Nicole: As the client, not just the therapist.

[00:43:17] Laura: I've been on every side. I've been, "I won't apologize." I've been, "I need to apologize." Right. I've been- Right, right ... "Someone else has to apologize to me," and I've been the therapist seeing it all too.

[00:43:25] Dr. Nicole: Yep. So. Human, check.

[00:43:27] Laura: Yes, it is. Got it. Do it all. But yeah, like, when I think about, you know, this, there's this whole movement right now around, like, everybody can open up and we can all explore and we can try non-monogamy and la, la, la.

And I would love to see as large of a movement that's like apologizing and taking responsibility for your behavior. Because I think that if we... You know, in terms of liberation, right? Like, collective liberation requires that we have healthy relationships. Yep. And that also requires that we work on having longstanding relationships.

And longstanding relationships can only happen if we can freaking apologize and accept apologies. Yeah. I mean, to some degree also we need to be working on our behavior, healing so that we're not harming people so much that even- Right ... apology doesn't work. But I think that's a really important part of being able to transition around throughout your lifetime with someone.

Maybe they're a lover, then they're a friend. They're a comrade, they're a project partner, and maybe they're back to a lover. You know? Maybe they're... Yeah. Just all the things. Like- Mm-hmm ... we need more relational skills essentially is what I'm getting at. Okay. Jumping off the soapbox, but-

[00:44:30] Dr. Nicole: No, it's great. This is, this is, this is juicy.

It's so alive. I feel like when I have a hard time apologizing, it usually comes from that space of the, "Well, I didn't mean it that way." That wasn't my intention. And it's almost like apologizing is succumbing and agreeing to someone else's interpretation of how they read that when that wasn't your own.

And I feel like, you know, in my grounded state with you right now, I can see that of course. In my activated state where I'm maybe in my amygdala, it's much harder to come to this. But when you apologize, you are acknowledging the world of that human, the universe, their whole experience of what just happened for them.

And sure, maybe that wasn't what you intended, but that's how it landed and impacted them. And both things are accurate. When I'm activated, that's not true. You know, it's like- Totally ... "I'm right," you know? But in my grounded state right now, it's like, yes, like I could also not have meant that, and how do I first attune to my partner or lover or friend or client even if you make a comment that can land poorly, right?

And be there with them first and attune, and then maybe we can open up the discussion of intentions with the words or the frameworks or whatever. But how do you first attune to the person that has been harmed, right? Rather than ego of yourself.

[00:45:46] Laura: Well, and I think this requires two things. Mm. And one is that it requires you to be able to validate your own experience enough that you can hear someone else's version of what happened.

[00:45:56] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:45:57] Laura: Like, to be like, "I know inside of myself that I really didn't mean that to be offensive."

[00:46:02] Dr. Nicole: Right. "

[00:46:03] Laura: But it hurt you." And so then next step, maybe the reason I don't want to apologize is 'cause maybe some part of me, maybe you're a little bit right. Maybe some part of me kinda did want that to hurt. Mm-hmm.

And I don't want to acknowledge that. Mm-hmm. So I think, like, owning our own, you know, just our own aggression. Owning our own aggression and also being able to validate ourselves and our own experience enough that we don't need somebody else to, uh, 100% validate it for us before we can sort of see their side.

But then this also leads to another thing, which is that receiving an apology is a skill.

[00:46:34] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:46:34] Laura: Like, being like, okay, yeah, human beings make mistakes.

[00:46:37] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:46:38] Laura: Human beings are aggressive sometimes. Yeah. Human beings have flaws. Mm-hmm. You know, maybe your flaws are such that I don't feel comfortable having any type of connection to you, that's one thing.

[00:46:46] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[00:46:47] Laura: But if somebody's trying to apologize, I think there is something about being able to be like, "Okay," like, in your world that didn't mean that thing. And s- 'cause it really, it's like- I mean, again, I love to talk about the kinda US dominant culture and kind of what it's doing to us. But- Yeah ... we get into these sort of, like, perpetrator/victim dynamics, and I do think sometimes that is the case.

Sometimes there is a very clear perpetrator, and sometimes there is a very clear victim. But oftentimes in, in dynamics that are of a healthier nature, there's really just a lot more complexity going on. You know, and I think about this, again, a lot as a couples therapist, like, okay, you did a behavior that sucks.

Like, you definitely hurt your partner. What is going on? What are you expressing? Why did you do that thing? That doesn't mean what you did is okay. Right. Let's say that you cheated on your partner. That doesn't mean it's okay that you lied to them or you broke a boundary or whatever. You know, you can cheat in non-monogamy, too.

But was that to express your own sense of will? Was that to express, uh, fear? Is that because you are over-agreeing to things that you shouldn't be? Like, is that 'cause you don't feel like your opinion is valid in this relationship? Mm-hmm. Like, what the hell else? And that doesn't mean for that other person, oh, you're responsible for your partner cheating.

You're not responsible for their behavior. But it does mean, like, you might be doing something contributing to an environment where this person is getting into their worst behavior. And, and not that you're responsible to change that, but you are responsible to change the environment together.

[00:48:20] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Yeah, that fundamental premise that relationships are co-created.

[00:48:27] Laura: Yes

[00:48:27] Dr. Nicole: Right ...

[00:48:27] Laura: it takes two, three, four, five people to tango.

[00:48:30] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:32] Laura: It takes an entire group of people to have a rave.

[00:48:34] Dr. Nicole: Exactly. Exactly. So often you'll have a client who comes in, "I'm here to fix my, have you fix my partner, therapist. Please fix them."

And then, yeah, one of the biggest things you can start with is how relationships are co-created. And so there is a dynamic here that is you, right? As well, as much as many of us don't wanna see that again, 'cause the ego is so protected. No, it's them, it's them, it's them. It's like, oh, actually, how am I contributing to this, right?

And I think, yeah, when you decide to take on multiple... We all have multiple relationships, so starting there. When you decide to bring more intentionality and complexity into that, AKA adding romance or sexuality, and those don't, things don't inherently have to be more complex, but in our world they are, 'cause we don't have the skills for them.

Yeah, you're having to do this on a, like, master level scale ideally. Ideally. Because now you have so many humans, emotions, people to attend to. And so, yeah, the, the almost the, um, the psychological development of coming into non-monogamy in our current culture, if we were to have, like, a developmental, you know, what do we call those?

Like, paradigm growth patterns. Um, it, it's never linear, but, like, there's some real skills here that get learned in terms of attuning across multiple people's realities. So yeah, maybe you made, uh, you know, a plan with a partner, and the other partner's heard about it. He's like, "No, but we agreed," and this or that, all this sort of stuff.

You have to really, like, set that ego back and start thinking about how many more people that you're connected to. And I think just in my own journey and the work I see with clients, when you get deep into that, you start having more of, like, an ecological community-based perspective. You're like, "Right, if I do this, then it has this ripple through," or, "If I do that, then it has this ripple through."

And I, I do find that to be an essential part of the liberation of our communities, is quite literally, like, thinking on that level of not just me. Not just me and one other person, but actually, like, a whole ecosystem of people, and how do all these changes and decisions I make start rippling through, and then holding the conflict and repair skills that we're s- that is Whoo, a lifelong journey, but the orgasms are good on the other side.

But like a lifelong journey You know, like

[00:50:46] Laura: Yeah, I mean, it, it also just makes me think about how one of the, one of the things it's liberating us from is liberating us from individualism. Right. And that that, you know, that is a lonely, isolating path that I don't, I personally don't wanna be on. I also think just financially that we're moving deeper and deeper into a place, y- you know, i- in like this country and the world where, like, that just doesn't make any sense.

But I should speak- Mm-hmm ... s- this country is so, like, hellbent on being individuals. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, you know, I think about just, like, being able to think about the collective, being able to be in the collective and be, be supported by it, but also to support it, to really think about how your behavior impacts lots of people.

Which is hard. I mean, it's hard, right? Like, I also work with severe trauma, you know. It's just ... It- a lot of what we're talking about requires such a, a particular level of wellbeing, um, in order to, uh, like, consistently do it, you know? Like, if you have experiences of relational trauma, it can be really hard to trust, it can be really hard to extend an apology, or really hard to re- receive one.

Wanting to just name that for listeners who are like, "Uh, this is really hard for me." Like, yes, it's- Yeah ... it's v- it's very hard. It's not just not con- like, unconditioning yourself, it's also, like, uh, healing, uh, if you've experienced, like, relational violence.

[00:52:05] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And when I think about that, I think about the nervous system so much so.

I, again, like the, the- I don't know what kind of training you got in the field of psychology, but my training was all cognitive, all cognitive. Not a single class about the body and how to work with the body with clients. You know, I'd be in a neuropsychology class and they'd be like, "Yeah, so here is cortisol, here's adrenaline, here's what it does," blah, blah, blah, blah.

But never like a therapeutic, "Okay, how do we actually work with the cortisol, adrenaline in the body," and all that sort of stuff. Luckily, my psychedelic training, right, that definitely brought that in because in a, in the psychedelic experience it's amplifies everything, including the somatic experiences.

So it's such an essential piece to be thinking about. But for so much of the field of psychology, it just doesn't even talk about the body. I know somatic therapy is here and it's so great. Just like as someone who just recently got out of that system, like it's not in the mainstream curriculum of the APA, you know?

I just gotta name that. It's one of those things you get afterwards, you know?

[00:53:05] Laura: Yeah. And

[00:53:06] Dr. Nicole: I think it's so essential in any sort of relational field, especially conflict, right? Because when we get scared and, and you can feel that energy rise and the tone of voice and the, the way that you're relating with somebody, it first activates the body before anything else, and then we're in that state where we're not even using the prefrontal cortex.

And so when I think about expanding into more complicated forms of relationship and community care, I just think the body is such an essential place to really focus on, um, 'cause the more you can be calm and grounded, the more critical that you can get in unpacking these narratives that are, um, limited, right?

Like you said, victim, perpetrator, like that's a limited narrative rather than like a contextual systemic view of each person and what's going on.

[00:53:52] Laura: Yeah. It's so funny that you talk about this 'cause... So I have a master's in somatic psychology. Ah, thank God. My whole, my whole, my whole jam is, it's from, you know, uh, I had to like get the other stuff later.

Like, I was like, "Wait a minute, what about transference, y'all?"

[00:54:05] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:54:07] Laura: So, and I have a, um- That's

[00:54:09] Dr. Nicole: fair ...

[00:54:09] Laura: trained in sensory motor psychotherapy and- Cool ... definitely, like, the body is a huge, um, s- a, a focus point for me. Good. Um, but it's also interesting what you're saying because in my new series, for people who don't know, I made this audio series called Inside Eyes.

It's a, a series that's interviewing, um, survivors of sexual violence about their experiences using psychedelics and entheogens in healing. And I released a bunch of episodes like six years ago. It's like a, a little series. Mm-hmm. And I've been just, you know, pounding away on the keyboard. Yes. And I've spent the last four years writing, and I have- Amazing

a new series coming out. Um, actually, when this is released, it'll already have come out. So it's called Inside Eyes. But one of the things I'm talking ab- about in that series... So in the first series, you know, I talk about liberation. I, I, I talk about my sort of political and spiritual views on sexual violence.

Um, I, I, one of my things is I talk about sexual violence as a form of spiritual abuse. Mm-hmm.

[00:55:04] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:55:05] Laura: In the new series, I'm like going even harder on it 'cause I'm basically- Yeah ... just like nobody can extr- Like I feel like people kind of like try to ignore that stuff. They'll be like, "Yeah. Okay, Laura," but, you know, they'll kind of be like, "I don't wanna talk about the politics."

And now I'm like, "You cannot stop me from..." 'Cause it's just- Yes ... I'm like we gotta, we gotta talk about politics. So, um, but you know one of the things I'm talking about in this series, which is not new. Every, a lot of other people are talking about this too, but basically that embodiment is an essential part of collective liberation.

[00:55:34] Dr. Nicole: Yes.

[00:55:35] Laura: We have to be in our bodies because our bodies, yes, as you were saying, that is where the information is. The body is the mind. I mean, I think the mind might be totally separate from us completely 'cause I think consciousness is separate from our bodies and not even in our brains. But- For the sake of being alive in the world

[00:55:54] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, I hear you

[00:55:55] Laura: the, the body is the mind, and- Mm-hmm ... it has all of these important, uh, signals about whether or not we feel something is true or whether or not something is s- grounded or something is what we believe in. Uh, you know, I feel like the body is what tells me, like, do I feel good about my behavior or not? The mind does a lot of stuff after the body.

The body has a little... The body's like, "Ugh, what the hell was that?" Uh-huh. What do you believe stuff in? And then the mind does more, uh, you know, makes stories, et cetera. Yeah. Thinks through h- maybe how to behave, uh, or, or act in the world. But yeah, like, even just with the apology thing, you know. You know the feeling of a gut feeling or a guilt feeling.

It's, it's a very physical experience. So I think the embodiment piece is huge, and I love that... I, I also really believe that somatic work, uh, is... it goes very well pairing with psychedelic work, and in a lot of ways psychedelic work is just somatic work. Yeah. So many people enter into expanded states of consciousness, and they, they cannot escape their bodies.

I mean, it's like they're just right in there. I also wanna just do a little shout-out that lots of people can't access psychedelics because of medical conditions and, and psychiat- or mental health stuff, you know? So just wanting to say meditation is also very psychedelic. It's also a very embodied process.

It's also very good for collective liberation. So if you're one of those people, I, I usually am like, yeah, just go the slow route of the thing we were talking about earlier, finding out about that breath. You

[00:57:24] Dr. Nicole: know, just breathing. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I've done scans, and it shows similar states of existence to psychedelics, right?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I'm so glad that you got a background in the body because that's so, so, so important. I remember when I was going through my training, I was in a group psychology class, and we were all in a circle. And I don't remember the exact prompt, but someone had told someone, like, "Oh, well, what are you noticing in your body?"

And this is a, you know, psychologist-to-be in class with me, and she was like, "I don't know what you mean when you say that." And, like, there's a part of my heart that just aches. Like, what do you mean you don't understand when I say, "Where are you at in your body?" Like, that's, uh, you know, and I guess that's also a moment of excitement, flip side, shadow and light.

I'm like, wow, look, you have such a road to go on. This is so exciting. Like, there's actually so much space for you to start something, you know? But also at the same, I'm like, wow. Like- Yeah ... oh God. Yeah. There's so much there for you.

[00:58:16] Laura: Sometimes when people first come to see me for therapy, I'll be like, "All right.

Let's slow down. Where do you feel that in your body? What's happening?" And they're like, "Yeah, it's fine in there," and they move on. I'm like, "All right. All right." We're gonna try that again next week, and I'm gonna get 10 more seconds out of you.

[00:58:32] Dr. Nicole: Uh-huh.

[00:58:33] Laura: We gotta... I'm like, you, I, I think what I heard is that you're not that interested in feeling your body, 'cause it's hard.

Mm-hmm. You know, it's scary. Yeah. The body's also the site of much violence. Like, it's hard to be in the body. And I think there's, you know, there's a lot of ways to be kind of with your body without having to go inside of it as like a, you know, like a, a classic one is just even noticing h- what breathing feels like on the outside.

Like, just like what's it feel like to inhale in your nose? You know? Yeah. That's usually pretty safe for most people. Um, but even if that's not, not okay, just even noticing what you hear with your body, with your ears, is like a little entryway. But yeah, people are really disconnected. I mean, we're living, we're living in a world that's so impacted by, you know, hundreds and hundreds of generations of just extreme violence that has made us...

It's, it's a miracle we're still breathing and alive. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. After some of the bullshit that our ancestors have perpetrated and/or experienced, um, that has led us to this place where we just use our heads and kind of ignore the rest of what, well, this whole thing that we're moving around in the world with.

[00:59:42] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I always say my motto is we cry hard and we come hard.

[00:59:49] Laura: Yeah.

[00:59:49] Dr. Nicole: Right?

[00:59:52] Laura: I love that. I love

[00:59:53] Dr. Nicole: that. Right? Yeah. There's something there, right? Yeah. 'Cause we can't pick or choose. Like, you- if you wanna open yourself up to feeling, you know, so many people come in with like, "I want better sex."

Like- Mm ... oh, and I love that draw in because then I'm like, "Okay, great. Are you ready to cry?"

[01:00:09] Laura: Mm.

[01:00:10] Dr. Nicole: You know? Like, if you wanna feel, you don't get to pick and choose what you feel. You are going to feel and amplify all of it, right? And the reality is if you want this, like, golden nugget of the, the orgasm, the sex, which, like, we should absolutely be, like, embracing the pleasure of everything else first off, but so many people want that, right?

And the reality is if you want that truly, like you wanna be having the most ecstatic, amazing sex, you're gonna need to start coming into the body at all points of being. It's not like you just get to drop into the bedroom, the dungeon, you know, nature, wherever the hell you are, and just be like, "And now is the time I'm gonna feel.

The rest of the day I was in the cognitive mode. Right now..." Because you won't have the neuronal pathways to fire- Mm ... in those areas, right? You won't have all of the myelination that makes that electrical current fire so much faster into sensation. And so you can't just, you know, it's like trying to do something you're, you're just don't have the muscle for, right?

And so I think that, yeah, when you come back into feeling pleasure in the current moment, which often for a lot of us means feeling pain, suffering, trauma, numbness, disconnection, all of that, right? But you, when you really sit with it, that's what's gonna open up the doorways to pleasure. And then being able to sit with other people, their pain, their suffering, all of that, oof.

Now we're talking about sharing relational fields and nervous system fields. Oh my God, you know? Um, but the more that you open yourself up to that to be moved by other people, I think it awak- ideally it awakens you to the collective suffering that we have 'cause then you start to notice and feel all of that.

You're seeing the things on, you know, Instagram or the news or whatever the fuck, and then you start to actually cry from that because it's actually feeling that much in the body, you know? 'Cause if you numb to that, you're gonna numb to other things, too.

[01:01:56] Laura: Yeah. I mean, and it's, it- we're in a world where numbing, numbing makes sense, and yeah.

Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a practice to stay awake. It's a practice to be in your aliveness, for sure. I'm curious, um, just on the topic of sex and expanded- Mm-hmm ... states and psychedelics. Yeah. What are you, um, what... I'm curious what you're seeing or what you're thinking about people who are, um, utilizing an entheogen or a psychedelic along with their sexual experiences.

So people who are, like, taking them and actually, like, in tandem with being sexual.

[01:02:28] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've done a lot of that in my own personal life and worked with many clients who do. I mean, I think we can do the, the blanket statement of like, "Yeah, test your drugs. Be in a safe environment. Make sure you're set and sight."

Like, if we have all of those contextual factors, then I think about my conversation with Britta Love of thinking about consent as multi-layered, right? Where, you know, if I have a client who's opening up their relationship for the first time and they wanna play with this other couple, and this is the first time they're playing with this other couple, first time they've ever done any sort of non-monogamy, first time they're also gonna do molly together, and all of that, that's multi-layered levels of consent to get curious about how much of a load we're putting onto this relational field and trust that everyone has the ability to communicate.

So I, I think about those pieces of wanting to get really clear of thinking about the drug as another variable to weigh in. Um, if you're doing an intense kink scene or something that you've never done before, there's another variable, right? Are you doing it in a different setting? All of that sort of stuff.

Um, beyond all of those safety things that I think about and the power dynamics, um, I think it's a really big heart opener in that way. Um, it can be again, right? It can also be, I'm sure as you know, a, you know, psychedelics are opening up you into a, um, amplified state of being. And so when you're that sensitive, if you go into a harmful experience, it can really harm you on a deeper level because you are so sensitive and open.

And vice versa. There can also be so much healing. Um, I think about- Um, yeah, different experiences I've had with my partners where it helps me to open up int- out of the default mode network into more playful ways of being. Um, experiences where it helps me feel so much more in my actual skin, whether that's, like, breath orgasms that I've had home alone in eroticism or many years ago, the first, like, yoni massage I ever had, which was a wild story.

But I, I came into that space and said like, "Hey, I wanna use cannabis and do this." And so, like, that first experience I had with a complete stranger of, like, really opening my body open to feel touch, like, that was done on a psychedelic. I think, I think the future's gonna be there of combining the two. Is that gonna be in a therapeutic modality?

Probably not because of all of the complexities and the legal systems and the power dynamics and all of that. But are people absolutely doing that at home? Are couples having transformative experiences where they see sex in a brand new light, see their pers- their partner in a n- a wh- yeah, of course. And so I think usually as a therapist I'm thinking about how do I, like, support people in doing that from a harm reduction framework, you know, testing your drugs, the consent, all of those pieces, as well as pleasure enhancement.

Yeah, how do we get to enjoy even more pleasure on these substances? But it's, I, I, I don't even know. I know I don't have to explain this to you of the, like, nuance of the safety and the risk to that. Um, but I do think since there are so many people tuning in and we don't know where they're at, to, like, also name that too very directly.

[01:05:26] Laura: Yeah, for sure. In my new series I have a whole, um... This is, it's not about my... So my series is very specifically about healing sexual violence. Mm. Mm-hmm. Um, so just to, for, so people know if you go and check it out, I'm not talking about having sex on psychedelics.

[01:05:39] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:05:39] Laura: But I do have a whole, uh, a whole, uh, episode that's about solo journeys that goes really deep into drug testing and really deep into kind of, like, s- creating space for yourself.

And I agree. I mean, it, it, it's very essential. I also have a little bit that I'm talking about in this series. I, I touch on it maybe twice in the whole- Mm ... in the whole series. But about kind of... You know, it feels complicated 'cause to be straight up, like, I'm constantly like, "Yeah, you gotta have this really safe environment, this really safe container," and then I look back on what the hell I was up to-

and I'm like, like, "Okay. Yeah. You know, you can also do that."

[01:06:14] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[01:06:15] Laura: Um, and when you're like, "Yeah, I had this amazing experience with a total stranger," um, of course it doesn't always sort of... W- what I say in my series is, like, if you're trying to heal from sexual violence, please do not just, like, be like, "I'm gonna take MDMA at a party and, like- No

try and heal." No. Like, like, really give yourself every chance to have it go well.

[01:06:33] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:06:33] Laura: Um, and, like, I also don't wanna, um, I don't wanna participate in the sanitizing- I

[01:06:41] Dr. Nicole: was just gonna say that word. Yep ...

[01:06:43] Laura: yeah, of the use of drugs, basically. That, like, it's okay to be spontaneous. It's okay to explore your life.

Um- And oh my God, please test drugs. Yeah. Like, you know, please have fent- uh, uh, uh, naloxone on hand. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like, please, um, you know, plea- please be really careful. Yep. I mean, I think it's like we're... I wanna advocate for play, and I also wanna advocate for intentionality. Mm-hmm. And yeah. And, and these things are both very important.

Safety is, is critical, especially when you're talking about something, a substance that you could potentially die from if it's not what you think it is, uh, or if you haven't, like, researched, you know, your medical conditions in relationship to it, et cetera.

[01:07:24] Dr. Nicole: Right. Right. Absolutely. And so that's where, again, when we're in that amplified state of heightened sensation, heightened cognition, right, the possibility for harm and healing is both immense, and so the safety of those contextual fal- factors should be held.

And I think, yeah, when we're thinking about adding something like sex, forget the drugs for a moment. Some people will struggle just to say no in a completely sober interaction. And we have- Absolutely. Right. And so, like, thinking about adding the contextual factors that so many of us in our society struggle to have language to be able to communicate that, to communicate our pleasures or desires to, um, the things we actually wanna say yes to.

I know the no is hard too, but some people really struggle to say like, "Hey, put more lube on that dick, please." Like, like, that can be really hard. So when we're adding that onto an amplified state, there is so much more at play, at risk here. And also, yeah, healing. And so I appreciate that we can hold that nuanced perspective to it that really, uh, you know, doesn't sanitize it, 'cause I think that's a lot of what happens in the therapist container is like, "Uh, no.

Absolutely do not do that. Unsafe. Do not. Can't," you know?

[01:08:37] Laura: Yeah.

[01:08:38] Dr. Nicole: That's not real. Our clients are having sex on psychedelics. And we're having sex on psyche- like, come on. Come on.

[01:08:46] Laura: Legit. Legit.

[01:08:48] Dr. Nicole: Uh...

[01:08:50] Laura: Yeah. That piece about, you know, um, not being able to even say no, like when you're, um, when you're sober. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people don't even know, you know? Right. I mean, I know I've related to that a lot at times- Same ... where I, I don't know if it's my trauma history or that I'm a Libra, but sometimes I just don't know.

Yeah. I don't know what I want. And it can be, you know, it can be hard to, um, to even be able to say that. I think also with psychedelics, um, and sex sometimes, um, there can be a lot of emphasis on, like, we're gonna have sex. Mm. Like, if you're, if you're in a relationship of some kind and you're kinda saying, "Okay, you know, we're gonna take these mushrooms and then we're gonna have sex," that it can be hard to be like, "Actually, I'm going on a totally different journey right now and no sex can happen.

Yeah. And, like, sorry to you, person who's really ready for it. Totally. It can be hard to, to like, yeah, be... I mean, I think people can feel like they're the, they're the downer or whatever and... But, um, eh, yes. Anyway. More of what we're saying.

[01:09:47] Dr. Nicole: Totally. Totally. Right. So yeah, it's, it's absolutely okay to shift, you know, ch, say no, and shift away from the plans that you had maybe when you set up that container of sex and psychedelics.

And also, it can be fun to get more creative, right? I think about a time where, um, me and two of my partners had gone to a dungeon play party, and both of them had penises, or they still do have penises that I love. And, uh, we had all taken some molly, right? And you know, very natural experience. You're smiling, right?

There's the experience of molly dick where it can be a soft penis. And I think- Yeah. ... they were both really excited to spit roast me and then that happened.

I was like- I was like, "You guys, this is creative. Let's get... You know, soft cocks are great, too," you know? And, and I still came and had a great orgasm, you know. I was able to get fingered and all of that. But like- But like, their vision of what they had planned and wanted, and all of us had wanted, was, was complicated in that.

But I think it opened up a world of like, great, okay, so how do we play with our bodies right here, right now and surrender, as you named, rather than being like, "I need the hard cock to do this." Like, how can we surrender to more, like, querying of sex rather than the traditional hard cock PV expectations that we have?

[01:11:00] Laura: Yeah. Yep, yep. Yeah, in many ways it's just about going with, going with the flow. And then it's also interesting you mention that, because I think a lot of people who are new to psychedelics don't necessarily know that, that sometimes... 'Cause people- I've done so many, like, interviews and things where people are like, "Sex and psychedelics," you know?

"I wanna... I wa- we wanna have sex on psychedelics." Lots of, lots of straight people, you know, "We wanna-" Yeah. And it's like, "Yeah. Well, let's see how things are working once you're high." Yeah, exactly. Let's see what's possible. You're probably gonna stare into each other's eyes.

[01:11:29] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:11:29] Laura: Apologize for things you've done in the past.

You love each other. Give each other massages. Yeah.

[01:11:35] Dr. Nicole: Exactly. I mean,

[01:11:36] Laura: there might be some sex, too, but.

[01:11:37] Dr. Nicole: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So I love that it gets people out of the boxes, but whether they wanted that or not, that's the beauty of the surrender to it. You're like, "Oh, shit. Okay. Okay." And every lesson, you know, it, it's in there.

Every journey has that lesson, whether it's what you wanted or didn't, right? There is always something in there. And it's also okay to not have a lesson. That's important, too, right? Sure.

[01:11:57] Laura: Sometimes you're just having an experience.

[01:11:58] Dr. Nicole: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But yeah, I do think that- I dream of a world where, you know, I, I live in Chicago now, and it's beautiful that I can go walk to buy cannabis legally.

Like, I dream of a world where we do get to have our drugs in, um, pure senses of, like, truly the drug itself pure, 'cause with that MDMA, how much, what, what do we got in there? You know what I mean? Like, we can test for the fentanyl, but what else? You know, like, all of that. I dream of a day where we are able to access that, um, and have therefore safer, or not safe, but safer containers to be able to explore this with more, um, a bit more control in that way to kinda know what you're getting into, to get a certain amount of a dose, to have more education.

And so I think as therapists, you know, you're, like, riding that line of, again, like, the harm reduction to pleasure enhancement, um, spectrum. And that's something we see a lot in the field of psychology at times, where it's always the harm reduction. You know, so much of my goal of coming into the field was to work with trauma survivors of sex.

That was always my focus. And when I got in there, there was barely talk about that. It was a whole other thing. But even then, what I did talk about was how to deal with trauma. There was never a discussion of, how do you take clients all the way to the other side of, like, having amazing orgasms, feeling really good in your body- Mm-hmm

getting creative with play, right? So a lot of our field is so on the harm reduction, which I get and is essential, but the whole healing continuum does not stop there. Mm-hmm. So yeah, we're healing with psychedelics. Also, how do we play with psychedelics? Mm-hmm. That's a, a huge part.

[01:13:27] Laura: Yeah. Have you heard of...

Do you know Dee Dee Goldpaugh and their new book- Mm-hmm ... um, Embrace Pleasure? Mm-hmm. It's about... They, they're such an interesting- Yeah, I haven't ... um, uh, uh, thinker, and, and something that Dee Dee talks about is, um, basically, like, you know, we're so focused on, like, heal the trauma. Heal the trauma. Yeah. And then it's like you heal, heal up more, and it's like, "Well, what are we up to now?"

Like, what comes next? And yeah, and, um, their work focuses a lot on talking about that, on- Mm ... the pleasure, the joy, uh, the, the other things that you can be doing once you're not just basically, like, managing dysregulation all the time, uh, which is something, yeah, that we don't, we don't necessarily get all the way into as much.

[01:14:07] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[01:14:08] Laura: And they're also a, I don't know if I said this, they're also talking about psychedelics-

[01:14:11] Dr. Nicole: Yeah ...

[01:14:12] Laura: in that book and in general. Cool. They're a big advocate of use of psychedelics in that whole process.

[01:14:17] Dr. Nicole: Very cool. Very cool. So what are you exploring with your erotic pleasure in the here and the now?

Where are your... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where are you at?

[01:14:27] Laura: Well, let's see. I talked about rest. Um, you know, I'm, uh... This is one of those questions where I'm probably gonna dodge it a little bit- Yeah ... because I am the kind of therapist- Yeah, yeah ... that doesn't talk too much about my personal life. Mm-hmm. But I would be down to read you a poem.

[01:14:40] Dr. Nicole: Yes, please do.

[01:14:40] Laura: I would, I would read you a poem. Um, and, um, uh, again, just, like, trying to be the Libra charmer here. I've, I've selected a poem that is, um, it's a sexy poem. It's an erotic poem, but it's also, it kind of weaves in all the things. It's all- Mm ... it's got, it's got death in there, too.

[01:14:56] Dr. Nicole: Good.

[01:14:56] Laura: Um, so here we go.

[01:14:58] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:14:58] Laura: This poem is called I Don't Want to Live Small.

[01:15:01] Dr. Nicole: Hmm.

[01:15:03] Laura: I don't want to live small to not die, fashioning comfort out of starvation, turning my heart into a suburb, erasing thrill, promising myself longevity by laying down and never standing back up. I want to chance risk, see the neon oaks, front seated for the wild skies, a different sermon every night.

Kiss up lust and hear the ear-splitting blare of leather dykes with Hitachis on full blast.

[01:15:31] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:15:32] Laura: Watch the sunrise, dancing to the DJ sounds of a fag who goes by Father Figure more than mine ever was. Pray to whatever is and keep all the lovers close. Bless up this body, pockets full of time, scissoring art, scissoring me.

[01:15:47] Dr. Nicole: Hmm. Beautiful

[01:15:53] Laura: Thank you.

[01:15:55] Dr. Nicole: My therapist brain. What does it mean to you, that poem?

[01:16:01] Laura: It means you gotta live. Yeah. We gotta live. We gotta explore. Oh, yeah. It's like you gotta just be all the way. You gotta be all the way. I wrote that poem after, um, going to this music festival. Uh, I shouldn't even call it a festival. It's like a gathering- Mm ... um, called Hon- Hon- Honcho. Mm-hmm. It's like a queer- Cool

um, electronic music thing. And, um, just... And I saw a DJ there called Fa- whose name is Father Figure, who just- Mm ... blew me away. What an incredible DJ. Um- Yeah ... and, uh, yeah, and, like, being there, I just was like, "Man, th- this..." It was an... It's an environment where everyone is so self-expressed, and I just love spaces like that.

It just makes me feel like, yeah, I wanna live. I wanna live. Mm-hmm. And I don't just mean I wanna be alive and breathing. I mean I wanna live, you know?

[01:16:48] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I loved the leather dykes, the high vibration. Yeah. Like, the image of that, I was like, "Yeah." I feel that. I feel that high vibe. It's hot.

[01:17:00] Laura: Yeah.

Yeah. Totally. Holding it down, man. Yeah. There's so many different ways to live a life.

[01:17:05] Dr. Nicole: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's, that's the joy of it all, you know, that we get to be creators in that way. And, and of course, the systems are always trying to limit the narratives that we have, but we have communities that are resisting.

And when we step into those communities, you can feel... And of course, no community is perfect. There's m- lots of mess in it all. But, like, you can feel that, um, I wanna say frequency. That sounds cheesy and woo-woo, but I feel like you can actually feel that frequency of how people are moving their bodies.

And quite literally, even, um, the way that they move and they dance, they feel free, right? Or even someone's tone of voice and the way that they feel free and able to play. Like, the, the magic of queer spaces is, is truly something that I, I feel like I feel every time I step into a circle of one.

[01:17:53] Laura: Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah.

We make a lot... Queer, queer spaces are magic. We make a lot of magic. I mean, we have to to survive, but also there's just something very... There's something about being queer, especially being queer in the kind of world that we're in, where it's like you either gotta get magic or- Magic ... like, you, you, you just gotta get magic.

Yeah.

[01:18:13] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:18:14] Laura: The only way we're doing it, you know? It's like in order to claim, claim your sexuality, I talk about this in my new series. Mm-hmm. In order to claim your sexuality in a world that's telling you that it's wrong, you have to heal around it. And I think every ti- everybody, no matter, it doesn't... You don't have to be queer to do this.

But if you're healing around your sexuality, you're stepping into the magic of it, the play of it.

[01:18:33] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[01:18:33] Laura: The, the authenticity of it, and the mystery of it. Mm. I mean, going back to my question, is an orgasm a prayer, you know?

[01:18:40] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:18:40] Laura: You're, you're going back to the, um... Oh my gosh, I wish I could remember the quote by Audre Lorde.

Um, I think she says the erotic is the, uh, I can't rem- I would have to look it up. But- I love her, uh, essay, um, uh, the, uh, it's... Oh my God. On the use of the R? The Erotic as Power.

[01:18:59] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:19:00] Laura: Yeah, yeah. Um, I'm not probably... I, I have a very bad memory for how words get strung together. Yeah, yeah. But anyways, but, um, yeah, I think my point's been made.

I don't have to

[01:19:10] Dr. Nicole: write that. Totally. No, I hear you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember the, the piece talking about eroticism being, um, just as present with the sun on your skin as much as, like, making out with a lover, right? And like really, like, feeling that connection, um, quite literally to nature and the universe or a human being and really feeling the eroticism of all of that.

And I, I love, um, I'm... By the time this comes out, yeah, I will have completely taught my Pleasure Liberation Sexuality group program. And as I've been creating the curriculum for that, like, just thinking about queer sex and the ways that we get off the scripts of the intimacy escalator and words like foreplay and the ways that we burn that shit and just completely go in novel and new ways of con- I mean, like, that, that is revolutionary.

I really do hope that more people can be in their bodies and have the freedom to quite literally create their lives. And again, so there's so many scripts of ways to show up in our sex life, uh, especially one that is like, oh, it's, quote-unquote, not spiritual, right? There's a lot of pain around that one, um, because of the Christian mythology- Sure

and all that sort of bullshit. But, like, yeah, just to create more space for people to be able to design their sex lives with more freedom, I mean, that's, that's a world where people, you know, like really if you're in your sexual pleasure, that's a world where... And, and consensual sexual pleasure, right? Like, you're in a world where people are looking at each other in the eyes Attuning.

Like good sex is about attuning to people and feeling where their body's... Like, there is a certain level of community building that I think comes with that, that I really do trust in, um, when we're, when we're really focusing on consensual collective pleasure.

[01:20:55] Laura: Mm-hmm. You know, what you're talking about is also making me think when, uh, you know, this question earlier about sort of the non-monogamy origin story.

[01:21:02] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:21:02] Laura: I mean, I also was queer. I was like, I was queer. Mm. And queer people have been doing non-monogamy for a really long time, a really long time. Yes. Um, and, and maybe, and not, not calling it necessarily that.

[01:21:15] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:21:15] Laura: You know? Mm-hmm. Just like- Mm-hmm ... whatever, just doing something. Um, so I think that's also a huge element to my...

That's probably, when I say like, "I don't know, even- ever since I was a child, I was weird," that's pr- Mm. What I mean is probably that I was gay. Like, that was- That might... I'm like, there was something- Oh ... about me that didn't fit in with other people. It's like, okay, it's because you look like a little tomboy.

Like, what was... Totally.

[01:21:36] Dr. Nicole: Totally.

[01:21:36] Laura: Anyway, yeah. So I think, I think when you're not conforming to things, um, and/or, and/or the world doesn't allow you to conform because the world doesn't have a space for who you are, it definitely, it's like, all right, well, nothing to lose here by- Right ... trying non-monogamy.

[01:21:51] Dr. Nicole: Let's just throw it. Yeah, totally.

[01:21:52] Laura: Throw it all out.

[01:21:53] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, which did happen in my dissertation, right? It was, um, relationship anarchist, and everyone that I enrolled in that study was gender queer, sexually queer, and that was part of the big findings of my research study is like, right, once you crack open one box, it's very common to crack open in another.

So I had to put in my limitations, I was like, "Well, this is a limitation. I had no cis heterosexual people," which is not the- Mm-hmm ... normal limitation of a research study. But I was like, "Eh." Um, I remember my first time cracking open the queer container of consciousness before I really had any frameworks for it, but I was, I was in elementary school and I saw, um, Jennifer's Body.

Do you remember that film? So Megan, Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, vampires

[01:22:37] Laura: I'm actually thinking of, um, uh, that line in, um, Live Through This- Mm-hmm ... uh, the whole album.

[01:22:43] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[01:22:44] Laura: Something like, "He says I'm Jennifer's body." Anyway.

[01:22:47] Dr. Nicole: Oh.

[01:22:48] Laura: But, uh, okay, that movie. Mm-hmm. Yes.

[01:22:50] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, I mean, there's just a make out ser- like, moment.

There's just a kiss moment, and I think I, I don't know, I was in, like, fourth grade. I don't know, so- It's a gay moment. Oh, yeah, they make out, like, for just a second- Mm ... and then Amanda's like, "No, we can't do this." And that was it. That was it. That was it, Laura. I was just like "Oh, my God." But I was so Christian, I had no frameworks.

But, like, when I think about beginnings of, like, truly knowing some- I mean, I probably had crushes on all the Disney princesses without any frameworks for that too, but, like, that moment, I was like, you know, elementary school, I was like, "Why is my body reacting? What is this? What's-"

[01:23:22] Laura: This is your little gay origin story.

[01:23:24] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. What's yours? You know- Yeah.

[01:23:25] Laura: Well, with the way... You know, it's interesting. With the way that we are socialized, uh, the way that female socialization works- Yeah ... as children, there is something so weirdly gay- Mm ... which is like, it's like, be obsessed with how any other girl looks. You have to look so close at what they're wearing.

You need to look at their makeup. It's like, you need to be thinking about yourself. There's su- there's this kind of intense, like, scrutiny that, you know, in some ways I think is, like, really, um, toxic and, uh- Yeah ... and leads to a lot of sort of tox- so toxic sol- socialization. Mm-hmm. But there is also something about, like-

how much you're encouraged to sort of look very closely and appreciate and wanna look like or wanna sort of emulate or get excited about what different girls or other women look like that is weirdly homoerotic.

[01:24:17] Dr. Nicole: Oh, yeah, for sure. Thank you, society. I, you know, like- ... there's a lot of problems with it, but, like, thank you, I love that.

Yeah.

[01:24:24] Laura: I know. I'm like, that's so awful and, I mean, you know, sometimes it's nice to give a little reframe. Yeah.

[01:24:29] Dr. Nicole: Totally. Totally. Totally. Yeah. And queerness was a huge reason in the non-monogamy thing for me, you know? There was the divorce rates, the sexual habituation in long-term relationships, but yeah, also the queerness.

Like- I'm gonna cut myself off. What am I-

[01:24:42] Laura: Yes. Yes. Yeah, I think for people who are bisexual, pansexual, queer, queer in the way where they're, um, having sexual and loving relationships with all different kinds of genders of people, that it is like, okay, you're gonna just choose one. Yeah. So I feel like a lot of people open their relationships, a lot of people who get kind of start out with the monogamy are like, "All right.

Okay, we've done... We've had sex for 15 years." "I'm ready for a change." But the change they're ready for is they're like, "I'm more complex than this. I wanna- Yeah ... experience other kinds of bodies and other kinds of genders."

[01:25:18] Dr. Nicole: And it's absolutely possible, and it's possible to be stable with it- Yeah ... and boring.

I love to say that. Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, you can get to a stage where your polyamory is boring, folks. It's not always crisis, you know? It can get just like, yeah, this is a normal Tuesday, you know?

[01:25:33] Laura: Yeah. No, that's so funny. I know, I know. I help a lot of people, a lot of people come to me in, um, couples therapy because they wanna open their relationship.

[01:25:40] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:25:40] Laura: Um, and yeah, and it's like, it's alwa- you know, the first, they'll, they'll start going on dates, and everything is so intense, and I totally understand. I totally relate, and I feel like... But then yeah, I'm just like, you just, you wait until you really don't care about that.

[01:25:52] Dr. Nicole: Yeah,

[01:25:52] Laura: yeah. Until you're like, "Ugh, I'm so glad you're going on a date tonight- Yeah, please

because I, like, ha- I have this book I wanna read." Yes. You know? And like you just don't care. You're like, "Oh yeah, you're gonna

[01:26:02] Dr. Nicole: go fuck that person. Okay, cool." Exactly. Exactly. Have fun. Tell me about it later if that's consensual. Yeah. Curiosity.

[01:26:06] Laura: Yeah, totally. Yeah, or you're like, "Oh, okay, cool. You're all's relationship, oh, I know you guys are really going through it."

It's like-

[01:26:13] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, yeah, yeah ... you know? Like, it's not- Yeah, exactly.

[01:26:15] Laura: This is the other thing. People are always fantasizing. They're like, "And then they're on this date. It's like the best time they ever had." And it's like they're like, "Whoa, dating sucks." It's like a lot of boring dates.

[01:26:23] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. The grass isn't always greener on the other side.

No. Yeah. Well, it's clear I could talk to you for hours truly. Yes. It's such a joy to connect with you. Yeah. Same, same. Um, I wanna ask two questions for you. Well, the closing question, but before that I wanna ask if you connect with your younger self and were to see them, what words of wisdom and advice would you impart with your younger self?

[01:26:50] Laura: Oh, wow.

[01:26:51] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. I

[01:26:52] Laura: mean, that's actually kind of a deep question. Yeah. I think I would tell my younger self to just, like, be less afraid.

[01:26:59] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[01:26:59] Laura: Just be less afraid, and ask for help.

[01:27:02] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:27:03] Laura: Like, all the stirrings in me when I was younger that were like, "I wanna do this or that," you know, even like writing a book or...

And now I've basically written two books, like-

[01:27:12] Dr. Nicole: Hell yeah ...

[01:27:12] Laura: or, you know, different, different stuff, even becoming a therapist. I actually wrote about this in my book, Radical Healership. I wrote about that I knew I wanted to be a therapist and that I, you know, I, I felt really insecure, like- Mm ... "Ooh, I'm not allowed to do that."

And I think just... I, I, I don't, I don't wanna take back any of my path, you know, but I definitely look back, especially when I was in my 20s, and just, I'm like, "Just, it's okay." Yeah. Like, screw up, mess up, try. Mm. Everyone else around you is doing it, and you're, you're holding back on, you're holding back on yourself and you're holding back on giving the world something.

So that's probably the advice I'd give. Would I have taken it? No, I was scared.

[01:27:49] Dr. Nicole: Mm. Mm.

[01:27:51] Laura: Mm. But, but, but yeah, if I could go back. Sometimes I wanna make a podcast. This is, like, a little, the, a little secret thing I wanna do. I wanna make a podcast that's just for young people-

[01:27:59] Dr. Nicole: Yeah ...

[01:28:00] Laura: where I wanna explain, like, "Look, some things are gonna happen in your 20s that, like, here's, here's how to deal with that."

[01:28:05] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:28:06] Laura: And, um, and, you know, some wisdom, but I feel like they would just be like, "You are old-" And don't- "... and

[01:28:11] Dr. Nicole: we don't

[01:28:11] Laura: want your advice."

[01:28:12] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, we don't, you don't get it. You're not here.

[01:28:14] Laura: Yeah, yeah. You don't exist. I'm like, "I do, and I was you, and I have really good advice." Anyway.

[01:28:21] Dr. Nicole: I hear you, I hear you. I mean, it sounds like that poem that you wrote could be really applicable to your younger self.

[01:28:26] Laura: Yeah, for sure. For

[01:28:27] Dr. Nicole: sure. Mm. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah. What's

[01:28:30] Laura: question two?

[01:28:32] Dr. Nicole: Question two is, do you have anything else that you wanna share with the listeners? Otherwise, the final closing question, I guess, wow, that's three questions. A little trick for you there.

[01:28:43] Laura: Anything else to share? Oh, man, just, like, you know, I know this episode's coming out in a few months, and I don't know where the world's gonna be at.

I know,

[01:28:50] Dr. Nicole: right? But

[01:28:51] Laura: I just wanna say, like, we, we gotta take care of each other. Yeah. We need to be moving more and more, and I know in the US this is, this is hard for a lot of people. I know that as a white person it's hard for white people. Like, we need to be moving toward collective empowerment and toward mutual care.

Like, we are, we are all we have, and even if that's, you know, a tiny little deconditioning around individualism today, even if that's just hanging out with your friends and talking about, "Hey, what would we do? What are we doing?" Mm-hmm. "What have we already gone through, but what would we do in a, in a situation where we need each other?"

Just having those conversations and, and diving deeper into mutual care, for sure.

[01:29:29] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Absolutely. Such an important invitation.

Let that one sink in for everybody, myself included. I have this, um, this photo from an artist, and it had the, all the little small fish being eaten by this big fish, and then it says, "Do not panic. Organize." And then it has all the little tiny fish forming this much bigger fish than the big fish that was eating them, and I love to just, like, hold that because we do have so much power when we hold hands and come together, and I think sometimes we forget that.

And so yeah, thinking about the people in your community and stretching that even wider, like, we do actually have a lot of-

[01:30:10] Laura: Yeah ...

[01:30:10] Dr. Nicole: power.

[01:30:11] Laura: We do, and I mean, you know, for people listening, we're recording at a time when things are really, really not okay in Minneapolis. And I just wanna say, like, I know a lot of people are not having hope.

Yeah. And what people are doing there, and the way they are coming together, that is the hope, and that is- Yeah ... what we need to be doing.

[01:30:27] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:30:28] Laura: So I don't know what's gonna be happening when this episode comes out. I know.

[01:30:31] Dr. Nicole: But

[01:30:31] Laura: we need to maintain hope. It's okay to feel despair. You know, it's okay to be honest about where you're at.

It's okay to, to go to breakdown and fucking cry.

[01:30:40] Dr. Nicole: Totally.

[01:30:40] Laura: And we need to be connecting to each other and maintaining that sense of hope because that is the only thing that's gonna take us through.

[01:30:47] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah, another world is possible.

Okay. A closing question that I ask everyone on this show, Laura, is what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

[01:31:06] Laura: Ooh, gosh. Okay, hold on. Let me think. You know what? Uh, Fear of Death.

[01:31:09] Dr. Nicole: Mm. Yeah, the book. It's... Yeah.

[01:31:12] Laura: I think a lot of people are afraid of dying. I think it cha- Yeah I think a lot of people are afraid of dying, and it really affects how we live.

[01:31:19] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:31:20] Laura: I think so many psychological issues that I look at when I, like, go, "Okay, let's get deeper, let's get deeper, let's get deeper," it's I'm afraid to die.

[01:31:26] Dr. Nicole: Mm. Mm.

[01:31:27] Laura: Or I'm afraid of suffering.

[01:31:28] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:31:28] Laura: And I think that's really normal. It's normal, and we have to heal around it.

[01:31:34] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Are you afraid to die?

[01:31:36] Laura: You know, I have been really afraid to die, but I actually- Yeah

um, I think one of the most important things you can do in your life is prepare to die.

[01:31:43] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:31:43] Laura: Um, and I've read books about it and done different, like, you know, meditations and work around it, and I've done a lot of work around that in my, um, psychedelic, personal psychedelic work. Of course. And I just feel more and more I'm not afraid to die.

[01:31:56] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:31:57] Laura: I, I feel really strongly consciousness is not something that exists only inside of our bodies, and actually that it's much more expansive, and that it gets very narrow in order to be in a body, but that it expands again when we leave our bodies. And I, um, I think, yeah, I just feel, like, kinda open to whatever that's gonna be.

And I'm gonna work hard not to die, but- Yeah. Working hard not to die. Yeah. And I'm like, "I wanna be open to that experience when it comes."

[01:32:25] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And usually when I think about death, if there is that fear, which it feels much more calm these days, 'cause it feels almost like a, a peaceful release, what I think I fear more is the not living piece.

Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah. To, like, get to that moment. If it's today and I don't get to publish this episode, which I have a... My partners are on queue, by the way. I have, like, a, a death plan for the podcast. It's like, "Cooper, you're on deck. You have to release it whatever happens. Here's my password to the computer.

Here we go." Um,

[01:33:03] Laura: That is hilarious, because I've been telling everyone, "If I die before this season comes out," I've been like, "A, it needs to be released, and B, you need to, like, do that final edit on that last session." Yeah, I know. Like, I'm just like, "I did w- not work for four years on this for it to go down with me."

[01:33:18] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It will get out there. Exactly. So you have... Right, we have the plans. Yep. We have the plans- ... 'cause it's our babies. It's important. Um, and yeah, so my, my fear more so is that if it is today, if it is tomorrow, if it is whatever point, that did I not live up to that point? And so usually when I get the, oh, the death thing, I'm like, "Pff, I better enjoy this current moment."

You're right. This life is short. It is inevitable. You can't run from that. The only other variable is when, you know? It's, it's coming, and so how can I actually enjoy the full experience of this? And that's usually where I find actually pleasure when I think about death, of like, "Yeah, it's coming." You know, we love, I have some flowers off to the side of here.

We love flowers that are real because they actually have a death point, and there's a sacredness to that of like, "I'm here to witness this time where it is blooming," right? The plastic flower is always there. Where's the eh? Mm-hmm. You know? And so like- Mm ... the same thing with our life. It's the finiteness of it all that I think actually brings the pleasure when you sit with it.

[01:34:21] Laura: Absolutely. Absolutely. I, I could keep going and going, but I'm not- We're...

[01:34:25] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

Put two podcasters in a container. There you go. I

[01:34:30] Laura: know. We're like, "Blah, blah, blah, blah."

[01:34:35] Dr. Nicole: That's good. It's good

[01:34:36] Laura: to be here. That's good. It's

[01:34:36] Dr. Nicole: good to be here. Yeah, yeah. Happy to see you. Happy to see you. Well, I'm sure everyone is dying to know, where can they listen to your new series, your show? How can they connect with you?

[01:34:47] Laura: Yeah, so my series is called Inside Eyes. Um, and you can find that on any podcasting app.

And if you wanna find me or, like, reach out to me or anything like that, you can go to my website. It's lauramay, May with an E, northrup.com. Um, I have an email list. I send, like, very few emails. I send, like, five a year. Um, and, uh, it's honestly the best way to stay in touch with kinda what I'm up to if you wanna work with me in some kinda capacity.

I also have an Instagram, but I, I honestly don't really use it. I, I- Mm-hmm ... like, very rarely do anything with it, but that's Laura, @lauramaynorthrup is the, is my IG. But the email list is the way to find out about, like, I run consult groups and teach. I do retreats sometimes. For the series, this probably will be over, but m- maybe it'll keep going by the time, um, this comes out.

I'm doing some, uh, special, like, online Q&As where people can come on, and we'll-

[01:35:37] Dr. Nicole: Cool ...

[01:35:38] Laura: meditate and probably pull an archetype card, then I'll do Q&A. Nice.

[01:35:42] Dr. Nicole: Nice. Amazing. Well, I'll make sure all of that is linked in the show notes below, dear listener, so you can just go head on over there and find all of the hyperlinks to that.

And again, thank you, Laura, for coming onto the show today. Thank you so much. Yeah.

[01:35:55] Laura: Thank you for having

[01:35:56] Dr. Nicole: me. Yeah. Dear listener, thank you so much for tuning in to 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 non-monogamous dynamics and step into compersion and pleasure-filled connection, you can read my book, The Psychedelic Jealousy Guide, for free on my website. There you will 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 modernanarchypodcast.com to find all of those free resources, and I look forward to seeing you next week.