280. The Ego Dissolution of Sex and Pleasure - Jordan Dobrowski

[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 Jordan. Join us for our conversation about learning to release control. Together we talk about slowing down to savor, continued care, and celebrating your growth story. Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Modern Anarchy. I am so delighted to have you here, and that you are joining all of the pleasure activists from around the world who come every Wednesday to learn more about pleasure and the liberation of our desires in our community.

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- I am so excited to be bringing Jordan on the show for a round two episode. I know so many of you have reached out and have been enjoying this series where I'm bringing back guests from the beginning, the beginning of the journey. And when you're able to listen to both of the episodes a bit side by side, you can see how much we have expanded in our journeys and where we have gone in the last couple of years and just, yeah, seeing what unfolds.

And I really appreciate this conversation because we get into the crossover between sexuality and psychedelics. Wow, what a rich, fertile crossover. There's just so much, right? Whether it's the psychedelic of the actual drugs themselves and the neurochemical soup and journey that that is, or the endogenous experiences of kink and sexuality, right?

When we go through those experiences, wow, there are so many endogenous neurochemicals, essentially just chemicals that are created by the body that will take you on your own trip itself, right? And so we get into all of that, and Jordan has so much wisdom to share from their clinical work, and I am excited for you to tune into this episode and learn more about control, psychedelics, sex, and pleasure.

All right, dear listener, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can explore all of my free resources. I have so many free resources. Dear listener, we've got the Psychedelic Jealousy Guide, my dissertation. We have worksheets on creating more sexual language for your desires, worksheets on your non-monogamous commitments, worksheets on relationship reflection practices to bring more joy into your long-term relationships.

All of that is at modernanarchypodcast.com. You can also find there more information about my Pleasure Liberation groups that I run in the spring and the fall, as well as my Queer Joy Psychedelic group. So all of that is linked in the show notes below at modernanarchypodcast.com. And I wanna say the biggest thank you to my Patreon community.

Thank you for supporting me for the last five years to make this free educational content for you and for all of our shared community. So thank you. And with that, dear listener, please know that I'm sending you all my love, and let's tune in to today's episode So the first question that I love to ask each guest on the show is, how would you introduce yourself to the listeners?

[00:03:46] Jordan: Hmm. There are so many different ways, right? I know,

[00:03:50] Dr. Nicole: yep.

[00:03:51] Jordan: I, I try to cater my introductions to each individual person. I can only imagine who's all listening. Right. But my name's Jordan. Let's start there.

[00:03:59] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:00] Jordan: Uh, my name is Jordan Dabrowski. I am a psychotherapist, a social worker, a cat mom- Mm ... community member, and I specialize, as far as the psychotherapy part, uh, I specialize a lot in complex trauma and treatment-resistant depression, which has led me down this path of psychedelia, as well as personal interest in the area, and just non-ordinary states of consciousness in general, however that might look.

[00:04:28] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So glad to have you on the podcast for round two.

[00:04:33] Jordan: Thank you so much. Love it. It's good to be back.

[00:04:35] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Before we get into the magic of all that, I'm curious, in the last couple of years since we recorded, how has your own relationship to pleasure evolved- Hmm ...

[00:04:49] Jordan: and expanded? Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's interesting, 'cause I think last year this was kind of the big focus of my personal goals to myself.

[00:04:57] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:57] Jordan: Um, I, I set a goal... So each, each year, I don't really do intentions. Mm. I do, uh... Well, I don't do New Year's resolutions. I usually set an intention word for each year, and last year's was standards. Hmm. Raising my standards-

[00:05:13] Dr. Nicole: Yeah ...

[00:05:13] Jordan: for my relationships, for the way I treat myself.

[00:05:16] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:17] Jordan: Uh, and a big part of that was getting back into pottery.

[00:05:21] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:05:21] Jordan: And so- That's so hard. I, yeah.

[00:05:24] Dr. Nicole: I did a

[00:05:25] Jordan: class recently. I love it.

[00:05:25] Dr. Nicole: Wow.

[00:05:28] Jordan: And having that regular outlet and, like, play, uh, time, I mean, it's playing in the mud for me. I'm not too focused on what comes out of it. Mm-hmm. It's, it's, it feels almost childlike in nature- Mm ... and messy, and it feels like this really kind of beautiful n- representation of how the world feels right now- Yeah

of messy and formable, but not fully controllable. Hmm. What helped me get there was kind of my relationship with psychedelics, right? Hmm. And kind of this path of, uh, creativity, losing, you know, such a tight grip on control, right?

[00:06:04] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[00:06:04] Jordan: And being able to noodle in the mud a little bit.

[00:06:09] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Beautiful. Yeah, what's the saying in the psychedelic community, surrender and let go?

[00:06:16] Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. In is through.

[00:06:20] Dr. Nicole: Just-

[00:06:20] Jordan: Yep ...

[00:06:20] Dr. Nicole: keep going. Keep going. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as a psychotherapist with you, I can understand so much of our job is in the cognitive, the cognitive, the cognitive. Mm-hmm. So to get into pottery, where we're actually just touching things and forming things and-

[00:06:35] Jordan: Yeah

[00:06:36] Dr. Nicole: when I did a class recently, my goal was to, uh, be way less perfectionistic. Like I'm not trying to make the perfect bowl or mug. I am just feeling this clay and it feels good. Mm-hmm. And yeah, it's a little wob- wobbly on the wheel, but, you know, Yeah. It's fine. That's not the goal here. Same.

[00:06:54] Jordan: I mean, personally, same.

I'm a little wobbly these days.

[00:06:58] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. And so I know I wanna drop in and talk about sex and psychedelics specifically. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm curious, how do you see psychedelics playing a role in the liberation of our pleasure sexually?

[00:07:15] Jordan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think for one, it, it helps us get out of this idea of control that I've already kinda talked about in, in my practice with pottery, but also in my practice with psychedelics of you don't always know where you're gonna go.

Yeah. You don't know where the clay's gonna take you. You don't know where the journey's gonna take you. And I think that models a sexual experience really well. I mean, you don't want too many big surprises, right? We want, we want clear consent. Yeah.

[00:07:41] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:07:43] Jordan: Sexuality, desire, they're such fluid and ambiguous things that learning to ride in the present moment, the kind of wave that you're on, right, I think psychedelics give us a really good kind of playground to practice- Mm-hmm

that, of how do you dive into something and commit to something and experience, right? And go along with all the weird sensations that come along. I, I work with a lot of neurodiverse, uh, clients and that's a, a big part of sexuality is like, oh, there's a lot of sensation that happens.

[00:08:17] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:08:18] Jordan: Right? So how do we develop a tolerance?

How do we regulate our nervous system and get ready for the highs and the lows that are a part of

[00:08:26] Dr. Nicole: it? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah, when you were talking about that I was thinking about applying the frameworks of set and setting-

[00:08:36] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[00:08:37] Dr. Nicole: to our- Yeah ... sexual experiences and-

[00:08:39] Jordan: Oh, absolutely.

[00:08:41] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:42] Jordan: Yeah.

[00:08:43] Dr. Nicole: You wanna

[00:08:43] Jordan: say more? Yeah, I work with, um, yeah, I, I've started working a lot in the kink community, and I think- Mm ... the kink community understands set and setting. Yes. Right? Yeah, we do. I think that there's a big overlap, uh, between how psychedelic people talk about set-and-settinging and how the kink community talks about scene- Mm-hmm

and, you know, sub space or dom space. Mm-hmm. How you're gonna negotiate roles. Yeah, there's a lot to be said about, like, where are you gonna do something? What safety concerns do you have about that specific setting? How can you make that setting feel either more protective or perhaps more exhibitionatory, right?

Yeah.

[00:09:23] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:24] Jordan: Uh, in psychedelics, you know, I think the, the parallel would be, like, do you want to be in a safe little container, right? Or do you wanna go out and experience nature and engage with, like, the broader experience, right?

[00:09:37] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:38] Jordan: Inward or outward, um, there's a lot of parallels there.

[00:09:42] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah, the intentionality to the container- Mm-hmm

the moment. Right? And so yeah, when you're creating a scene, you're bringing in all of those contextual pieces, and if you're exploring psychedelics intentionally, you're also bringing in that creation of the container of what you're going to explore. But- Mm-hmm ... right, in a kink scene or in a psychedelic experience, we don't know where it's gonna take us.

Okay. Right? You- Mm-hmm. In the kink community, we can do a lot of affirmative consent, you know- Mm-hmm ... naming exactly what we want to do, but the reality is where that's gonna take you-

[00:10:19] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[00:10:20] Dr. Nicole: you can't exactly know, right? Yeah. And especially if you're playing with limit consent and trying to- Mm-hmm ... f- you know, if the listener, if you're not familiar, like that edging of your ability to be in the scene and to find- Mm-hmm

out, the goal being to find out where your limit exactly is. Now we're really stepping- Right ... into something that is very psychedelic in that way of- Mm-hmm ... surrendering to the experience. Mm. Mm-hmm.

[00:10:45] Jordan: Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I just had another thought. Oh, the, the importance of integration afterwards too. Mm, yep, yeah.

You know, I think this is something that I learned about in my psychedelic training, but almost was reinforced- Yeah ... with, like, n- uh, my understanding and work now in the kink community too of- Mm-hmm ... you gotta have that after talk, right? And I think this sometimes gets neglected by, you know, s- some models of psychedelic use where you just have the experience and you're done, right?

Yeah. Maybe you talk about it the day of, right? But I think it's so important, no matter how you're using psychedelics, to have that after conversation with those people who were around of, how was the dosing? How were our interactions, right? There's a lot of physical touch that happens even in professional settings with psychedelics- Yeah

right?

[00:11:34] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:35] Jordan: You know, "I grabbed your shoulder," or, "I gave you a hug." How did that feel in that moment? Mm-hmm. How did that feel asking for something like that? Mm-hmm.

[00:11:42] Dr. Nicole: Right?

[00:11:43] Jordan: And, and that's a very normalized part of the kink community that I think the psychedelic community could actually get better at.

[00:11:50] Dr. Nicole: Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. I mean, I remember doing a training where it was a crossover of, yeah, what someone has learned in the kink community and how it can inform consent and touch in the psychedelic space. And I was like- Mm ... "Oh, this is so juicy." Like, yes. Yeah. 'Cause there's so many frameworks that the kink community has created around consent and aftercare.

Mm-hmm. And I'm currently teaching my Pleasure Liberation Sexuality program. It's like a 16-week program, small groups, and one of my members was like, "I don't like the word aftercare. I like continued care." Ooh. "Because this doesn't just come in after. We should be continuing it throughout the experience."

Mm-hmm. And I was like, "I love that. I'm gonna include that-" Oh ... "in the teachings." You know? Like, I love that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, so it's great to be growing and learning in community- Mm-hmm ... with my clients. Um, but yeah, I mean, in the psychedelic world we know that the experience is profound, but most of the growth, the catalyst can come with how you integrate that into your life afterwards.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And so I've done, you know, like, kink integration sessions for my clients- Mm-hmm ... who have these scenes that are- tremendous. You know, they bring out so many different aspects of yourself. And rather than just going to the next scene, the next scene, the next scene, how can we slow down, like, to really- Mm-hmm

process what parts of you were present in this scene? Mm-hmm. What parts weren't? Um, how are you integrating this when you go into work on Monday and you just did- Mm-hmm ... X, Y, Z on Sunday night? Like, who is- Mm ... the new self that is moving forward? Whether it's after that psychedelic experience or the kink experience.

Mm-hmm. Those are both profound. Very profound.

[00:13:33] Jordan: Right. Yeah. Also thinking about integration as an intentionality being brought to it, right? Mm-hmm. 'Cause I think in both psychedelics and in sex, it's easy to get caught up in kind of like a, a escapist kind of perspective.

[00:13:51] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:13:51] Jordan: Right? And we want to have pleasure.

We don't wanna demonize things for pleasure. Not everything has to be hard work.

[00:13:57] Dr. Nicole: Yes.

[00:13:58] Jordan: And how are we grounding that, right? How are we moving forward and making sure, and you used the word presence, right? How are we staying present through these experiences? Even experiences where people get into things like, you know, subspace where the mind- Yeah

kind of goes smooth, right?

[00:14:14] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:15] Jordan: How do you come back from that and be like, "Wow, what do I learn about myself when I let go of these things?" Right?

[00:14:21] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Is there anything that you take your clients specifically through with that, that you could share with the listeners that you think might be helpful?

[00:14:32] Jordan: Hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, something I, I like to just kind of assess is, you know, what's our intention going into it? Mm-hmm. And if it's just relief, then I, I kind of push them to dig deeper, right?

[00:14:46] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:47] Jordan: You know, what, what does relief look like? What does it mean? Like, what would have to change in order for relief to happen, right?

Because you can go into psychedelics with this very, like, curative, especially with the way it's talked about, is like- Yeah ... oh, you know, you do shrooms once and- ... you know, cure your depression, right? Right. Uh, do six weeks of ketamine and you're reset, right? Right. What I see over and over again is the people who approach it from, like, a medication standpoint- Mm-hmm

right? Take this X amount of times a day- Right ... you know, repeat for, you know, indefinite periods of time, is you do need the repetitive exposure. It's like the body and mind know, like, "Oh, you're not learning it. We'll just keep coming back," right? Hmm. Whereas when people bring that intentionality and, you know, I like what you said about your, your student with the continued care, you know?

'Cause I think that's something I try to bring into, you know, ketamine work, for example, 'cause that is a, typically a repetitive series of six sessions to kinda- Mm-hmm ... onboard people if we're working with it therapeutically. And to let them know, like, KAP, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, isn't just the day that you're doing the ketamine.

Yeah. Right? It's the preparation. It's the medicine day- Yeah ... that you let go. It's the integration. It's how you're changing your behaviors in between. Mm-hmm. And I think we can compare this to- sexual relationships, right?

[00:16:07] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:16:08] Jordan: Even in the most, uh, fringe kind of relationships that are really just focused on the sex part, you're still in this negotiatory kind of relationship, right?

Right. There's still something that's happening in between those encounters that deserves tending to and attention.

[00:16:28] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, what's the container that we're creating in- Mm-hmm ... in this dynamic? Is it a container for just, you know, X amount of time while we're at this party together- Mm-hmm

and exploring the novelty of a new connection, right? Mm-hmm. Or is this a friendship, a connection that we're building over time, and yeah, how are we tending to the flame, giving it space- Mm-hmm ... listening to one another? I mean, yeah, I think the more intentionality we bring to these things often highlights more of the complexity, but also- Mm-hmm

there's more pleasure there, I feel like. Mm-hmm. When you really get into the nuance, it's that, that yes, and. Like, we'll dive- Yeah ... deeper into the complexity and the conflict, but also then the pleasure is richer when you're- Mm-hmm ... in that space as well.

[00:17:14] Jordan: Yeah. And you know, I think this is a place where we can tie in something like the term committed action that comes- Mm

from acceptance and commitment therapy, right? This idea that there are things we can do that bring us closer to our values, right?

[00:17:29] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:17:29] Jordan: And that it doesn't always have to be one specific thing. You know, a committed action for one person, how they might express, you know, the value of family is to work long hours to provide for that family.

[00:17:39] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:17:40] Jordan: Whereas for somebody else, a committed action is, um, to s- give up their career and stay at home to be with their family. Mm-hmm. Right? Both committed actions in regards to, um, values, but different expressions of it.

[00:17:55] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:56] Jordan: And to use this, like, this fluidity, this flexibility, the creativity that's in either sex or psychedelics to be able to give us some flexibility and like, "Oh, maybe this one way I've been trying to live my values wasn't working for me, but can I do it in other ways?"

[00:18:11] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:11] Jordan: As well as how do I commit to this relationship I'm in right now, whether that's a relationship with myself or a relationship with this other person. Like, what are those other ways that I'm expressing its value to me-

[00:18:25] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm ...

[00:18:25] Jordan: right, that aren't just in this one climactic event?

[00:18:30] Dr. Nicole: Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

It reminds me of, uh, really slowing down. Have you done the, uh, raisin meditation in mindfulness? No.

[00:18:39] Jordan: Yeah,

[00:18:39] Dr. Nicole: yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh, when I went through my yoga teacher training, they had included this, and it, they have you take a raisin, and I'm also doing this in my sexuality groups 'cause- ... it's all about pleasure.

It's all connected. Mm-hmm. Um, where you bring, you know, a raisin and you come in and- At first you, you know, you crinkle the raisin between your fingers and you feel the texture, and then you bring the raisin up to your ear and you can, like, hear the sounds it makes when you crinkle it. Mm-hmm. And then you smell it, and you look at it and think, "How would I describe this to someone who's never seen a raisin before?"

Mm-hmm. Right? Like, the crinkles, the color, all of this, the squishiness, the smells. And then you put it on your tongue, and you don't just swallow it. Mm. Right? You let it sit. Mm-hmm. You feel the texture on your tongue. You feel the mouth start to salivate, right? All these pieces. Mm-hmm. And then you swallow it.

Yeah. And in my own experience and when I've taught that to people, they talk about how pleasurable that felt.

[00:19:38] Jordan: Hmm. And

[00:19:39] Dr. Nicole: I'm not gonna say that it's not pleasurable also to open up the whole box of raisins and just stuff it down your mouth. Right. Especially if we need a quick snack before a podcast. And we're like, "Ah, here we go.

Let me just stuff this all down."

[00:19:52] Jordan: Yep. '

[00:19:53] Dr. Nicole: Cause there are other pleasures we are prioritizing. But, um, you know-

[00:19:57] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[00:19:57] Dr. Nicole: to slow down-

[00:19:58] Jordan: Yeah ...

[00:19:59] Dr. Nicole: with these things. Mm-hmm. And, and that's one of the richest things of relationships, you know. You get into those longterm relationships and you're like, "Oh, I know them. I know what they do." Mm-hmm. "I know how they respond.

I know this." But if you take that moment of the raisin, you're really like, "Wow, who is this person?"

[00:20:15] Jordan: Yeah. "

[00:20:15] Dr. Nicole: Who am I relating to? Who are they becoming in the here and the now?" Mm-hmm. Yes. Right? Mm-hmm. I mean, that's where the richness of all this really starts to come alive. Mm-hmm.

[00:20:25] Jordan: I love what you're saying, like, who are they becoming here and now, right?

Because that, that is it. The, the key to this, right, is what's right here, right? What's actually in the present? Not the stories I've been telling leading up, not the worries I have about what might happen in the future. Who's currently here- Yeah ...

[00:20:43] Dr. Nicole: right,

[00:20:44] Jordan: in this experience?

[00:20:47] Dr. Nicole: Oh, man, what an enlightening journey, right?

Talk about psychedelics. Mm. You know, I- Yeah. I've metaphorically talk about new relationships and just relationships in general as psychedelic trips, right? We- Oh,

[00:20:59] Jordan: for sure.

[00:21:00] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. We meet someone. We have the oxytocin. We have the dopamine, the serotonin. It's flooding our brains in rates that are similar to drugged- Mm-hmm

cocaine experiences when you meet a new person. So talk about a true psychedelic, right? Oh,

[00:21:14] Jordan: yeah. Mm-hmm.

[00:21:16] Dr. Nicole: And then depending on your paradigm, and I feel like I'm getting better at how to ride this psychedelic trip every day, but-

[00:21:23] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[00:21:24] Dr. Nicole: the amount of visions that you can create about a relationship, you know- In my past, you know, I have, like, a kiss with someone, and then I'm visualizing, like, a year later us being on the beach- Yeah

having X, Y, Z, and it's like, "Oh, God, what a psychedelic vision I just fully-" "... went through," you know? Like, that is not- Yeah ... really happening, but I'm seeing it. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think my lifelong journey will be to, like, come back to the present moment and not project out to something. You know- Mm-hmm ... it's good to get excited, but also, where is reality?

Yeah. And so I, I see that similarity, too, in the ways that these experiences really cause us to have visions of where we wanna go and what we wanna do, and how do we ground into what's actually here. Mm-hmm. And I do think the more you ride the psychedelic experience with the drug itself or the metaphorical drugged version of your own endogenous Mm-hmm

neurochemicals from love, I do think you get a little bit... You get your feet, right? You notice a little bit- Yeah ... more to be like, "Okay." I'm drugged right now. I am not gonna- Mm-hmm ... make life-changing, altering decisions. I'm not- Yes ... going to move in with this person. I'm not going to do X, Y, Z, right? We're gonna just- Yeah

slow down.

[00:22:39] Jordan: Yes. No, my drug of choice for many years has been Liberance, right?

[00:22:44] Dr. Nicole: Oh, yeah,

[00:22:44] Jordan: yeah, yeah. That, that very exciting moment at the beginning of a relationship, riding the highs. Yeah. I love planning.

[00:22:51] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:22:52] Jordan: Right now on my screen, I have a long list of the rest of the week, 'cause I'm moving apartments this weekend- Oh

and I, I love a plan.

[00:22:58] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[00:22:59] Jordan: Right? But the planning takes us out of the present moment, and I, I see this also with psychedelic expectations as well as- Mm-hmm ... traditional expectations- Yeah ... is the more you start planning, the more you have your expectations set high and not checking in on yourself and noticing, 'cause we all have expectations.

[00:23:17] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:23:17] Jordan: But if we don't see them as expectations, as we see them as this is what's going to happen, and we're not having that honest conversation with ourselves of maybe we're not future tellers, right?

[00:23:28] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:23:28] Jordan: We, we get disappointed, right? And we start feeling like something is wrong- Mm ... if it's not working out exactly the way it's supposed to, right?

[00:23:36] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:37] Jordan: You know, a lot of people have this expectation of what psychedelics can do for them or will do, right? Whether it's gonna be this joyous ride of your life, and then they end up having a difficult trip, right? Or it's gonna cure all their depression, and then they realize, "Oh, actually my depression's caused by these present life things that need to change," right?

[00:23:58] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:23:58] Jordan: It, it makes you disconnected from what's really happening, and overall leads to a lot of disappointment. I mean, l- at least that's my experience is the more I got caught up in what was gonna happen in a relationship, the less involved I was in the relationship as it really was.

[00:24:14] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, coming back to consenting the kink community- Mm-hmm ... and all this, right? Like, how do we honor that consent is ongoing? Mm-hmm. So that vision that you had of the relationship, did you get the consent of the other person to say yes onboarding to that? And-

[00:24:34] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[00:24:34] Dr. Nicole: maybe it changes in six months, a year, whatever framework, and how do you readapt to what's actually happening- Mm-hmm

in the relationship? God, that's painful. It's painful. Oh, yeah. You get excited- Mm-hmm ... and go, "Cool, we're going to... Oh, you don't, oh, you don't wanna do this anymore. Oh, you actually wanna do that with that person. In my community- Mm-hmm ... I'm gonna watch all of this." Wow. Yeah. That's a- Mm-hmm ... some real grief work to do internally in that sense.

Mm-hmm. And even if someone is committed, you know, and is ongoing, there might be parts of that vision that when you got more specific You didn't fully get that consent- Mm-hmm ... from the other person. Like, "Oh, we said we would have kids together," which means for me- Mm-hmm ... X, Y, Z under that umbrella, and the other person's like-

[00:25:18] Jordan: Yeah

[00:25:18] Dr. Nicole: "Well, I saw us having kids in this polyamorous context." Mm-hmm. "We weren't gonna live together. I didn't ex- put all these other additional expectations underneath that vision." Mm-hmm. And so there's so much here that we could get clarity on with our connections.

[00:25:34] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:34] Dr. Nicole: Uh, which makes me think of even the, the deeper, like, existential level, which says that we're always locked in our own isolated experience, you know?

Mm-hmm. So even if we got that perfect clarity, quote, unquote-

[00:25:47] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[00:25:48] Dr. Nicole: it's still gonna look different if we, with the person- Oh, yeah ... you know, that you're talking to. Mm-hmm. Ugh.

[00:25:53] Jordan: Yeah. Yeah, no, it, it's tough, especially with things like kids, right? You- Yeah ... uh, I mean, I, I once got into a relationship where I'm like, "Okay, let's make sure we're on the same page about all these things."

"I don't wanna risk turning this friendship into something bad." Yeah. "I thought we were in the clear." But lo and behold, we changed. Right. Things change as you continue to grow and work on yourself and discover things, and your setting changes, and set and setting, right? Right. Set sometimes follows the setting, and now we're no longer on the same page.

What do we do with that?

[00:26:33] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:26:35] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:36] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, I mean, the amount of, uh, grief work and you have to do to let go of whatever internalized vision you had is not- Mm-hmm ... easy, not easy at all, you know, especially depending on how much weight that vision had to your- Mm-hmm ... experience, you know, to be able to let that go.

And my biggest hope is that we continue to build communities and all types of relationships where when that reorienting or reimagining- Mm ... happens in the dynamic, that we don't have to blow up and annihilate and completely exile that person that we once had- Blow up ... a vision with.

[00:27:12] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:12] Dr. Nicole: Easier said than done.

Again, feels like a skill I'm getting better and better at, to say, like- Mm-hmm ... "Hey, if we don't have sex anymore, or if we don't have X, Y, Z, like, I still want you to have keys to my apartment because- Yeah ... I trust you."

[00:27:26] Jordan: Mm-hmm. "

[00:27:27] Dr. Nicole: And we are gonna stay in relationship regardless of what-

[00:27:30] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[00:27:31] Dr. Nicole: the vision that we're moving towards is."

You know, the, the foundation is- Mm ... community care and connection and friendship.

[00:27:37] Jordan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, you know, you talked, or m- mentioned, uh, as we were kinda planning for today, this idea of like, what needs to happen in the psychedelic world for us to be able to have more pleasure in that space, right? And I think that's where my mind goes to, is this idea of we need to get better at calling people in.

[00:27:59] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[00:27:59] Jordan: Right? 'Cause, you know, going back to my experience with limerence, a lot of people enter into- ... limerence with psychedelics. Yeah. "Oh, my God, this is great. This will solve all of our problems." "If everyone just does it, we'll have a better country," right? And, and harm can very easily happen in that space, right?

So how do we call people in? 'Cause limerence is beautiful, and also, you're probably not gonna marry the person you met at the bar on Friday, just statistically speaking- ... right? Um-

[00:28:26] Dr. Nicole: Yep ...

[00:28:27] Jordan: not everybody is cut out to be a guide or should be a guide or is, is ready to be a guide right now. Right. Um, so how do we have this culture where we are able to check in on each other in a non-judgmental way, but also give real feedback- Mm

and, um- Not pathologize everybody as good or bad at these things, right?

[00:28:49] Dr. Nicole: Right, right. Which is seeing rather than the binary, a much more nuanced, contextual understanding of the people and the relationships. When I think about narrative therapy, we talk about expanding the n- uh, from thin narratives to thick narratives.

Mm. Mm-hmm. So the thin narrative is, "Oh, that guy's a piece of shit." Fuck him. A thicker narrative- Yeah ... you know, is also like, "Wow, this person has a lot of relational contacts that created the ways- Mm-hmm ... that they're trying to keep themselves safe, that they're now showing up in this container in this way.

How do we as a community come together to, you know, explore transformative justice to bring- Mm-hmm ... this person back in, um, while also keeping the safety- Mm-hmm ... of our community members?" I mean, that's a much more thicker narrative, which- Mm-hmm ... with way more complexity to navigate- Yeah ... than, "Fuck that guy.

Get him out of here. He's a piece of shit"- Right ... which is what the systems- Mm-hmm ... want us to do, right?

[00:29:45] Jordan: Oh, yeah. Simple. I mean, I, I think so much of the current systems we're in are shaped by trauma responses, right? Yeah. We're scared of not having enough, right? We're scared of what the stranger's gonna do to us.

And so what happens when we're in a trauma state of mind is we do, we, we shrink things down to the thin narrative. We want black and white. We want easy because we gotta react fast. There's no time to consider complexity. And I think this is actually where psychedelics are really good- Mm-hmm ... at getting us out of the ruts of our thin narratives-

[00:30:18] Dr. Nicole: Yeah

[00:30:18] Jordan: right? As well as creating some three-dimensional spaciousness, uh, for that. You know, I think that's my favorite thing about ketamine in particular is it feels- Mm ... kinda like this sandbox-

[00:30:28] Dr. Nicole: Mm ...

[00:30:29] Jordan: in my experience, and I, I've heard this from clients as well, which un- if you go in unprepared can feel terrifying because you're just in this big open void, and what are you gonna bring out, right?

But if you go in with a bucket full of, "Let's figure this stuff out," right? "Let me expand these issues so that they don't feel like they're gonna burst me open anymore"- Yeah ... I have the space to look at them and kinda spread them out, right? What I would give to be able to spread out my boxes right now and organize them-

in a more spacious environment. I would love to be able to do that with the people in my life mentally too.

[00:31:05] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, and those are relational skills that take language and insight and somatic skills to be able to have those sorts of conversations- Mm ... of clarity, right? Like we were saying, if someone no longer consents to the vision that you have, are you able to be with your somatic response when you feel- Mm-hmm

that vision no longer being something that both parties or all of the parties in your network are consenting to? Mm-hmm. That's when you can start to feel, you know, the pain in the stomach, the pain in the chest, and depending on your experience with your body and your body's reaction- If you get really activated, that's often when we see some of the worst sides of ourselves.

The- Mm ... you know, the things that we regret that we say to people. That's because we're going from that prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that makes logical, critical executive functioning skills and decisions, into some of the older parts of the brain, the amygdala, the parts that go into- Mm-hmm ... the trauma responses, the fight, flight, freeze, fawn, right?

And so-

[00:32:21] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[00:32:22] Dr. Nicole: the somatic piece, right? When you're in- Mm-hmm ... the sandbox metaphorically or real life, right? Mm-hmm. I feel like it always comes back to that body and having a deeper sense of an internal locus of control.

[00:32:37] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:37] Dr. Nicole: Because if you constantly go like, "Wow, all this stuff is happening, all this is happening, my body's flaring.

There's nothing I can do about it. Oh, God, it's all bad"-

[00:32:46] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[00:32:46] Dr. Nicole: that's a really tough place to pick yourself up off the ground from, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. You have to know that deeply on a fundamental level that- When my body starts to react like that, I can feel it and I can change it Hmm. I can allow it to move through me.

I can allow it to... You know, when you first start to allow it to move through you, it often is even more intense. Mm-hmm. But it will come back down. I can do some breathwork. I can do some grounding practices, and then that's- Mm-hmm ... I can go for a walk, you know? Mm-hmm. And also community. It's never just alone, you know, 'cause we-

co-regulate in community. I think that's really important. Oh, for sure. You know? Um- Yeah ... but all of that is necessary to be able to- Mm-hmm ... have the kinds of conversations we're talking about with conflicting- Mm-hmm ... community or reorienting the types of visions and commitments we have. You have to know your body.

Yeah. You have to be connected to it and be able to trust that you can change that internal state, too. Mm-hmm.

[00:33:44] Jordan: Yeah. Yeah, so I work a lot with people with chronic illness and chronic pain. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, I personally have fibromyalgia- Yeah ... and kind of that, that broad category of there's something wrong, but we don't know what to call it, right?

[00:33:57] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Rheumatoid

[00:33:57] Jordan: arthritis.

[00:33:58] Dr. Nicole: Um- So

[00:33:58] Jordan: there you go. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You're part of that collection. Uh-huh. Yep. Yes. Um- Yeah ... and you know, I, I've learned a lot about, you know, what a lot of the literature calls, like, pain catastrophization, right? Mm-hmm. If I do this, my pain's gonna be so bad, I won't be able to handle it.

Um, and I think we do this emotionally, too, especially- Mm ... w- with people who have had really chronic depression or really intense, like, states that felt unsafe, right? Mm-hmm. Is we have this idea of if I do this, big bad thing will happen.

[00:34:28] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:34:29] Jordan: Right? And what I see time and time again is what seems to be the implicit way the brain often fills in big, bad thing is death.

[00:34:40] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:34:40] Jordan: And so trying to actually sit there and answer, "If I do this, then what?" Right? If I do this, well, then that means I have to grieve. Grieving's not fun. I went years refusing to do it, and my therapist was like, "No, you have to do this." I'm like, "But what's the point?" Mm. Well, emotions don't have to have a point.

They're just an experience we have to go in and through, just like psychedelics, right? Um, but being able to answer that big, bad thing and come back to the body of, oh, right, big bad thing is my heart really hurts, and my stomach is in twirls, and I really don't like this feeling.

[00:35:17] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:35:18] Jordan: And that's the woods I have to walk through before I'm gonna get to the other side.

[00:35:25] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:25] Jordan: So I'm curious, how do you get buy-in? 'Cause that was something I struggled with, right? Get buy-in to, like, go there with your clients- Mm ... and, like, coach them through staying in the body when it's such a difficult experience.

[00:35:41] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking about a session I had yesterday with a client who wanted to process some of their, like, earlier sexual assault experiences that they had had.

[00:35:54] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:54] Dr. Nicole: And before we started that, I had brought up, you know, one, that it's... You don't have to do that, first off. Mm-hmm. That's an important thing, right? Is that- Mm-hmm ... my existential professor would always talk about there's a lot of different ways to live a human life. Mm-hmm. And often the field of psychology comes in with, like, you must feel, you must feel, you must feel.

Mm. Which is a bit of what you just experienced. So we'll, we'll take this with a grain of salt here. Mm-hmm. But he would say, like, to not feel is also a way to live. You know, he's deeply existential. Mm. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, like, he's like, "You get to live how you want." You know, that's, that was his frame.

Right. Like, you get to live how you want. And so he was honoring that there's just so many ways to do this life. Mm-hmm. And I'm not God to tell you what is right or wrong. Yeah. And so as the therapist to say that, like- You get to choose again, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so I did fight him about that. Like, matter, you know, in class I'd be like, "Wait, but what about the person who's avoiding their pain, avoiding their pain- Mm-hmm

avoiding their pain? It's causing them suffering, you know?" And he's like, "How can you be with them in that?" Mm-hmm. You know? But that's, that's like a really deep level of existential therapy of- Mm-hmm ... saying that I'm not gonna come in and direct the client of where to go. I'm gonna follow where they wanna go, you know?

Yeah. So there's a lot of different thoughts on that. But when my clients are coming in to wanna do trauma processing, and, and because of my focus, it's so much about sex often-

[00:37:19] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[00:37:20] Dr. Nicole: I usually tell them, like, "Healing doesn't have to mean telling your whole story again."

[00:37:24] Jordan: Right. Mm-hmm.

[00:37:26] Dr. Nicole: Maybe you never tell that story.

[00:37:28] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:29] Dr. Nicole: And we can work with what's in the here and the now and the body and the other pieces, right? Mm-hmm. All of that. But if you do wanna go back to that, do you trust me first to be able to hold- Mm-hmm ... this container? Do you feel like we have done enough sessions, enough time together that you feel safe to be held in that space?

And if it's not ready- Mm-hmm ... then it's not ready. And I trust- Mm-hmm ... you, client, to be able to tell me when that time is, and that we will walk through that door together, and I will not say, like, "It's time. Let's go. Let's go." Yeah. "What are you waiting for? Come on. Come..." Like, that is a power over dynamic- Mm-hmm

that I do not wanna participate in. So, and at the end of the day, my biggest hope is that each client I work with feels empowered to know that they're the author of their life and the expert on their life. Mm-hmm. So that means that when they're ready, they're ready.

[00:38:13] Jordan: Yeah.

[00:38:14] Dr. Nicole: Right? Yeah. So a lot of that buy-in is so much of their own choice in this.

[00:38:20] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:20] Dr. Nicole: And then beyond that, my thoughts as the container holder are how do I pace? Mm-hmm. So I will tell them that, you know, I, I said this pretty directly, like, "As we get into your story, there will probably be experiences that come up in your body. Continue to scan the body. If there are things- Mm-hmm ... that come up, how can you release them rather than trying to stuff them- Mm-hmm

back down? Whether that's the anger that comes up or the tears, like, let's actually cathartically release that. And then as we go through it, I will pause you and invite you to check in with your body and provide the grounding, the safety." Do you see fat cat hit me? She's like, "That's too much." Uh, I've tried to do some trauma work with my cat.

It does not work.

Oh. She's got a nervous system. But, um- Yeah, like, as you, as you go through this, we're pausing, checking in with the body because we wanna do exposure therapy and re-inviting safety as you tell the narrative. So the worst thing- Mm-hmm ... would be to tell the narrative, come out being completely dysregulated, panicked again, and- and can make- Yep

the trauma even worse, right? So let's pause. Okay, you just shared that part. Okay, where are you feeling that in the body? What are you noticing? Mm. Can we take a couple of deep breaths? Can you maybe place, you know, one hand on your sternum and apply that pressure?

[00:39:45] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:45] Dr. Nicole: Um, whatever that is that they need to do, that's the gentle exposure because we're- we're telling the body that these things did happen, absolutely, and also where you are at now, you are safe.

[00:40:01] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:02] Dr. Nicole: And so then that gives us the capacity to have these things integrated in that way, um, and to feel safer in the body as we do it. And so I, I think about the buy-in as, like, yeah, the trust, their empowerment, and also the pausing that I can do as the- Mm-hmm ... creation, the container holder for that.

[00:40:19] Jordan: Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, something you mentioned about the pushback you gave your professio- professor- Yeah. ... a little bit, I was thinking of Resmaa Menakem. Um- Mm-hmm. I don't know

[00:40:29] Dr. Nicole: that ...

[00:40:30] Jordan: uh, the author of My Grandmother's Hands.

[00:40:32] Dr. Nicole: Oh, I don't know

[00:40:33] Jordan: that either. Um, oh, highly recommend this book. Okay. Okay. I hope I'm saying his name right.

[00:40:37] Dr. Nicole: Okay.

[00:40:38] Jordan: Uh, it's called Somatic Abolitionism, and then the idea- Oh, cool ... is the way that racialized trauma inhabits the body. I, I took one of his, like, weekend courses, and he talks about this concept of clean pain versus dirty pain. Ooh. And usually I don't like a dichotomous, you know, option, a binary. Right.

Right, right, right. Um, not, not about the binaries in my world. Um, but, uh, I think this one is helpful to understand of, you know, when a person is in that avoidance stage, right, that too is pain, right? And the clean pain is the pain of the addressing it, the exposure, um, what in some Bu- like a Buddhist pr- parable sometimes calls, like, the, the first arrow.

And the dirty pain is, was, I think, pretty apparel to the second arrow, um, narrative of it's the pain of it shouldn't be this way, right? Hmm. The pain of numbing- Right ... and the cost that that takes, the pain of shutting these parts of oneself down or changing your relationships in ways that protect the hurt but don't process it, right?

Mm-hmm. And so I'm thinking about, you know, when a person maybe isn't ready to Maybe work on the, or maybe never will and not interested in working on maybe something more directly.

[00:42:01] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:42:01] Jordan: How do we get them in touch with, "Well, what other ways you're currently suffering in this position, too?"

[00:42:06] Dr. Nicole: Right?

[00:42:06] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Bringing them into that, that feeling. Not that we want people to be suffering- No ... but we want them to be honest so that then they can accommodate what they're experiencing, right? Make space for it.

[00:42:17] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:18] Jordan: Um, it costs a lot of spoons to be avoidant.

[00:42:23] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. I remember in my psychedelic training we would talk about that as a splinter, right?

Mm. When you go to pull the splinter out, it does actually hurt. It stings. Mm-hmm. And so you can say, "Ah, actually, I'm just gonna keep pushing it down, pushing it down, push it down."

[00:42:38] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:38] Dr. Nicole: But when you do that, it festers, and then anytime- Mm-hmm ... you go to touch something with the splinter there, it's really sharp, right?

Yeah.

[00:42:46] Jordan: And so

[00:42:46] Dr. Nicole: yeah, we can decide like, "Oh, I don't wanna process that," but it, it will be- Mm-hmm ... touched when you go into other areas- Mm-hmm ... of your life, right? Mm-hmm. And I always remember him talking about like, um, an example of a, a mother he had worked with who lost his, or lost her, her child. And it was like such an interesting question of is it my job to help the mom move on from that experience?

Mm. Mm-hmm. I think so many therapists would come in and be like, "Oh, help, I'll help you get over it, get over it," or integrate it- Mm-hmm ... or whatever, you know? But, you know, he'd come back and say, "But maybe her new meaning-making is that the rest of her life is absolutely destroyed."

[00:43:26] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:27] Dr. Nicole: And that's her narrative, and what she wants is that- Mm-hmm

that's how I'm going to honor this, is that it's truly devastating, and there is no- Mm-hmm ... getting back to a over or integrated or happy again.

[00:43:39] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:40] Dr. Nicole: You know? And those are the moments where it's like, if that's what someone wants, I can show up to be in that with them- Mm-hmm ... and, and relationally be there.

Um, and is that where you wanna go, you know? 'Cause I- Yeah ... it's, it's honoring for that person, and maybe that is what they want for a decade, and then it shifts or whatever- Mm-hmm ... you know? But really trying to honor the goals of the client and where they wanna go to avoid that power over model, which is a huge part of psychedelic therapy- Mm-hmm

right, is that so many of some of the paradigms of work that we do in the psychic, um, therapy spaces can be very directive- Okay ... and power over. I try to not do that. I'm sure you- Mm-hmm ... don't either, but there are certain- Mm. Yeah, absolutely ... types of therapy that are definitely there. Mm-hmm. Um, and I feel like a big thing in, like, my psychedelic training is how do I create space for the unfolding of that person and not impose my framework onto the psychedelic?

Right. How do I not impose my intentions of where they should go with that?

[00:44:35] Jordan: Mm-hmm. I mean, it reminds me of the consent conversation about consenting to the person who they are now, right? Yeah. And this- Right ... this getting to, you know, be in a relationship with a new version of oneself and the other person every single day.

And that, as therapists, we can't be living in the altered reality either, that this person is somewhere else or has different desires, right?

[00:44:59] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And even in the worst case scenarios when we want them to get out of X, Y, Z scenario, one of my, uh, mentors would always remind me, "You don't know that the next scenario is gonna be any better," you know?

'Cause I'm always like- Mm-hmm ... "Oh, get out of this relationship or this space or that or this or that." And they'd be like- Mm-hmm ... "Well, Nicole, you just don't, you don't know what's on the other side of that either." Yeah. "Maybe this is better than what that could be" so it, it's a very- Mm-hmm ... humbling process to try and step back and really create that container for people to, again, be the author of their own life- Mm-hmm

in these ways while also supporting them with becoming who they wanna be.

[00:45:37] Jordan: Yeah. So one thing I'm thinking about i- is tying this back to pleasure.

[00:45:43] Dr. Nicole: Yes.

[00:45:44] Jordan: Right?

[00:45:44] Dr. Nicole: Please. It's my favorite topic.

[00:45:45] Jordan: And, you know, as we were talking about building tolerance perhaps- Mm-hmm ... or spaciousness to hold the challenging somatic experiences.

[00:45:54] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:45:55] Jordan: I work with a lot of people who have been depressed for a very long time, and experience distress when they start feeling joy again, right? Sure. That there is a lack of tolerance or, um, uh, hypersensitivity to the highs as well, right? And so I imagine it's kind of a similar situation of bringing it back to the body and slowing it down.

But how do you prepare a person for pleasure when that hasn't been their experience for so long?

[00:46:24] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. What a good question. Yeah, it's like, um, a muscle that's been atrophied, right?

[00:46:30] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:46:31] Dr. Nicole: And so if you try to use that muscle when it's been really atrophied, it's gonna feel painful, uncomfortable- Mm-hmm ... all of those things.

As you were saying that, I was thinking about the person who would be, yeah, so disconnected from pleasure because of X, Y, Z circumstances that when they tap into it, they feel like all those X, Y, Z circumstances are gonna come back. Oh. Every time I get happy, the world just completely collapses. Mm-hmm. I get excited for a moment, and then my world just falls on me, right?

And so-

[00:46:59] Jordan: Mm ...

[00:47:00] Dr. Nicole: I'd wanna bring it back to, again, the set and setting, which is something that I'm thinking about, whether it's a psychedelic experience with the actual drug, the experience in a kink scene, the experience with coming into queerness, the experience with coming into non-monogamy, the, really any experience of life, I think we can get back to the set and setting.

Mm-hmm. Which is what is going on in your internal world? What are the narratives about pleasure?

[00:47:27] Jordan: Mm. Mm-hmm.

[00:47:28] Dr. Nicole: Right? If I feel pleasure, then it means shame. You know? Mm-hmm. If I masturbate, it means shame. If I have this many partners, it means shame, or it means that someone's gonna come after me or judge or whatever it is.

So what are the narratives around that that are making it difficult? And then how can we titrate the experience, right? Mm-hmm. So gentle exposure, gentle exposure, gentle exposure. When I'm thinking about the pleasure of non-monogamy, which is so much of my work, and having, like, group play experiences, yeah, if you drop yourself into that, like, sex party, middle of the pit with a bunch of people, holy shit, there's so many narratives- Mm-hmm

storylines, bodies, consent frameworks you need that, like, that would just, uh, you know, if you don't have an experience with that before, that would just completely override the nervous system, right? Just as much as the super high dose of a psychedelic would- Mm-hmm ... too, where you're like, "Who am I anymore?"

You know? Like- Right ... so how can we titrate this all the way back to gentle exposure to th- to pleasure. Mm-hmm. Gentle exposure, and then that way you're expanding your capacity. Same thing with orgasm, right? Mm-hmm. People who really have a hard time staying in that state for extended periods of, like, a longer orgasm, right?

Mm-hmm. It's that gentle exposure. And then maybe the next time you come, can you see if you can stay with your breath and your body even longer- Mm ... before collapsing? And so it's that- Mm-hmm ... bit of that titration as well as the continued integration, right? Who are you processing- Mm-hmm ... this with? Your community, your people.

The more people you have in your circle who talk about pleasure, and the pain too, but talk about pleasure, right, and it's that balance between the two, the more you're naturally going to ebb towards that and have capacity. Mm-hmm. But if your group is constantly coming together to talk poorly about other people in the world, talk poorly about everything that's happening, right?

Mm-hmm. Then that's gonna be even harder 'cause now you're trying to swim in a completely different ecosystem than you've ever swam before- Mm-hmm ... and you just don't have the neuronal pathways. So I think about-

[00:49:27] Jordan: Yeah ...

[00:49:28] Dr. Nicole: titration and community building, too.

[00:49:31] Jordan: Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. Yeah, y- you mentioned, you know, the peak experience of psychedelics-

and, like, who even am I, right? Yeah. And you brought up, you know, what triggered me is this idea of ego dissolution. Yep. And I've been chewing on this, but in a lot of ways, sex can also create ego dissolving moments. Hell yeah.

[00:49:48] Dr. Nicole: Oh,

[00:49:49] Jordan: yeah. Not just in the taking us out of our body because of the intensity of pleasure, but that first, you know, non-heteronormative relationship you're in, right?

Yeah. The first time you really enjoy it without the, you know, inherited religious trauma or-

[00:50:07] Dr. Nicole: Yeah ...

[00:50:07] Jordan: uh, shame, right? It- there's all these stories we tell ourselves about who we are because of our sexual habits-

[00:50:15] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm ...

[00:50:15] Jordan: that get called into question when we actually follow desire and pleasure.

[00:50:20] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I just had some queer sex last week, and I was reflecting after, and it was joyous. And I was like, you know, going pee afterwards 'cause that's what you should do so you don't get a UTI, right? Like- Mm-hmm. Always. Yeah. Yes. I was just sitting there, and I was like, "Damn, I still feel like I'm coming out."

Like,

[00:50:40] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[00:50:41] Dr. Nicole: like, what is this? Like, uh, like It's just the joy of, of realizing that I get to do this and that this is great. Like, I don't feel as much shame anymore, but, like, to truly, like, revel in the magic of, like, the d- the magic of a female body and how beautiful and delicious it is, is- Mm ... still something that, like, when we talk about titrating experiences, like- Mm

you know, the first time I come out and I'm like, "Oh, shit, my whole Christian community's gonna hate me," you know? "My mother's gonna disown me." Mm-hmm. She did for a period. We've come back. Things are better years later, right? But, like, all of that is my consciousness to now, like, right, this is so amazing. I'm so gay.

This is so great. Like, it's been a titration-

[00:51:26] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[00:51:27] Dr. Nicole: of consciousness there, right? So yeah, the first time you get outside of any normative paradigm, there is that ego death because yeah, now who am I to be doing this in a Christian community, right? Who am I now- Mm-hmm ... to be doing this here and here and here, right?

It's an evolution in that way, and you have to go gently into it. You, you need community to hold your hand as you- Oh, yeah ...

[00:51:50] Jordan: go

[00:51:50] Dr. Nicole: through that.

[00:51:52] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:52] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:51:53] Jordan: Yeah. Yeah, a community that says, "Even this version, we accept you," right?

[00:51:58] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:51:58] Jordan: You have permission to keep changing, and we will keep coming back to who you are today.

[00:52:04] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Mm. I don't listen to my earlier episodes of the podcast.

I don't think I can do- Yeah ... I mean, I can, you know, if I really- Mm-hmm ... but that feels like, that feels like a high-dose psychedelic that I don't wanna purge on. Like, I'm like, I'm like, "Oh, I'm okay." Mm-hmm. Grateful for- Yeah ... my past consciousness, but, like, I'm over here now, you know?

[00:52:24] Jordan: Yeah, yeah. That version of me got me here.

At least I can, you know, attribute it with that.

[00:52:31] Dr. Nicole: Uh-huh, uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Absolutely, absolutely. And I, I feel like the biggest thing I learned in psychology in, 'cause I trained in much more relational psychology, is the- transformation that our community creates-

[00:52:47] Jordan: Mm.

[00:52:47] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm ... on such a deep level. On such a deep level.

It cr- it creates quite literally our reality of what- Mm-hmm ... we feel like is the norm, you know? We, we look at cross-cultural research and- Mm-hmm ... we see how much, especially in the field of sexuality, creates the reality that we live in, right? Like even- Mm-hmm ... you know, like currently in the world there are cultures where when you grow up into this culture, it is non-monogamous.

And I'm not even... That frame of calling it non-monogamous is inappropriate, right, 'cause it's applying our Western frame of monogamy- Yeah ... onto another one- Mm-hmm ... and saying it's non-monogamous. But for the context of this conversation to understand, it is not normative within our monogamous paradigms of what we see.

Mm-hmm. And so you come up into that world. Maybe it's polyandry, you know, of having a woman having multiple husbands, which you see in much more, like, um, they were talking about, like, colder climates where there's not as much resources and- Mm-hmm ... contexts like that, right? Or maybe it's polygamy or maybe it's something else.

Whatever it is, that's just the norm that you grow up into.

[00:53:49] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:49] Dr. Nicole: And so the idea of one person for life, like we have it here, would be so out of the context and it would feel very- Mm-hmm ... uncomfortable, strange, forbidden, right? But within our context, it's the flip, and that is- Mm ... so deep within the unconscious.

Or even if we think about cultures where, um, boobs and breasts are not such a sexualized piece of the society. Mm-hmm. It's very common to walk around without a shirt or having those covered, right? So it doesn't produce the same sexualization. It's the same thing with, um, ankles even in, you know- Mm

Western context- Mm-hmm ... used to be really sexualized. Like, "Oh my God, you have an ankle out?" Mm-hmm. "You slutty whore," right? Like, like these- Yeah ... these things are so contextual. And so yeah, when we're thinking about our pleasure and the relationships that we have, that's the biggest piece of this, and we see that in the psychedelic- Mm-hmm

space too. We see psychedelics- Oh, yeah Hi, fat cat. We see psychedelics enhance, um, extremist groups. Mm-hmm. So the people who think, "Let's just put it in the water," that's not gonna-

[00:54:54] Jordan: Yeah ... it's

[00:54:54] Dr. Nicole: not gonna do what you think. Set and setting. Yeah, exactly.

[00:54:57] Jordan: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, you were talking about the ankles, and I just, I, I had this flashback to fifth grade sitting- Mm

reading Cosmo Girl. I might have actually been Cosmo. I might have swiped a Cosmo.

[00:55:09] Dr. Nicole: Hell

[00:55:09] Jordan: yeah. Um, and, um, there was this article that was like, "If you show your shoulder, the guy will think about it as your boob." And I was like, "What a ridiculous thought," You know? And now as an adult- Yeah ... um, I've shared that with some of my guy friends, and they're like, "I've never thought of shoulders as boobs."

Um, but I'm like, "Yeah, it's, it's about the same size I guess for me personally." Yeah. Um- Hilarious ... yeah, the, the things that we sexualize. Um, the other thing I was thinking about is one of, I have my psychedelic trips with ketamine. Mm-hmm. Um, I don't think I shared this, but if I did, g- let's listen to it again.

Yeah, let's do it. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I struggled a lot with perfectionism. I mean, I still do. Yeah. But this idea of perfectionism in how I hold myself, but also the standards I held other people to. Sure. Right? I hear

[00:56:04] Dr. Nicole: you on that one.

[00:56:05] Jordan: Yep. And I found myself for a while working in a very bizarre world of corporate mental health.

Oh, dear God. Uh, this is not mental health for corporations. This is a mental health clinic that's run as a corporation, uh, for profit, and it was a really tough, you know, conflict of values, right? It was messy. It was not black and white. Yeah. On the one hand, I thought we did really good work on the ground level.

Right,

[00:56:31] Dr. Nicole: yeah.

[00:56:32] Jordan: On the other hand, you know, the higher up structure and some of the people I worked with that were not clinicians I had a lot of frustration with. And so I, I kept struggling with this kind of push/pull feeling that came up when I went to a, a training through this company on ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, and I had a trip.

And the entire trip, it was one of the most ego-dissolving trips I've ever had. Yeah. I fully no longer existed as an individual. Oh, yeah. We were just a big psychedelic amorphous blob.

[00:57:06] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:57:07] Jordan: And the entire trip I was trying to get out, right? Mm-hmm. Like, let me be an individual again. Let me get out. I don't know who I am anymore.

I'm getting mixed up in all of this, right? I'm too interconnected. Let me be a person again. And at the end, I break free. I become a, a little droplet outside of the blob.

[00:57:28] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:57:29] Jordan: And I'm hit with this immense grief. Oh, no. Of I thought this was what I wanted, and now all I want is to be a part of it again, the big, messy community of humanity, right?

And for me, it, it really helped me see, one, just how black and white I was viewing my relationships, right? Mm-hmm. And this, this falsehood of it's better if I do it on my own. Mm. Right? I think back to, again, you know, I was just talking about high school and- Yeah ... you know, I was often the group leader who kinda did the bulk of the work at home, and then came back, and everyone agreed to it, right?

Mm. I, I wanted to get it done well, and that meant doing it myself.

[00:58:11] Dr. Nicole: I hear you.

[00:58:12] Jordan: That's me. It didn't feel good. I didn't enjoy it. It was not pleasurable- Yeah. Yeah, yeah ... doing it that way. But the control factor, it gave me control- Right ... and I was happy with control. Right. I thought that that was happiness.

Right. Right? But sometimes you gotta be a big psychedelic amorphous blob in community with people. I hear you.

[00:58:30] Dr. Nicole: And,

[00:58:31] Jordan: uh, it's beautiful in its own way, right?

[00:58:36] Dr. Nicole: Hmm. It's humbling.

[00:58:38] Jordan: Oh, that too. I sob like a baby in front of people I, I did not- Oh ... intend to ever show that side to. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely.

[00:58:43] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. Yeah, 'cause there's different types of communities, of course, right? When I think about the word community, maybe it's a community that you crafted yourself, right? Mm-hmm. Like, hey, like these are the people I love. Here's my birthday party. Let's come over. Let's have a, you know, a great time.

That's a community with much more control in who's inside it. And even then, right? Mm-hmm. Things happen. Uh, you know, relationships change. Is... it's inevitable, right? Mm-hmm. But then there's also community spaces where you don't choose who's in them, as in maybe it's like, for me, I think about the rock climbing community that I'm a part of.

Hmm. Like, there is a place that we go to rock climb, and people are welcome into that, which means- Mm-hmm ... I could have people there that I've had conflict with, people that I feel great about, all of it, because it's not a place I get to choose who's a part of that.

[00:59:39] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:39] Dr. Nicole: Right? And so the surrender when you're in community- Mm-hmm

like a community where you did not choose and you are a part of that. I mean, you get to choose whether you show up- Yeah ... but the, the container of the rest of the people, oh, wow. There's a lot to work through. And I think that the, the scary thing is that the further we get into this digital age and all the things that we have, the less and less we have these resources and skills to actually be in spaces- Mm-hmm

like that, you know?

[01:00:06] Jordan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's something about... Well, a- I mean, technology gives us a, a huge menu of people to choose from. And so- Yeah ... we get to have more of a selection. On Tight-Knit Community, right? A single Discord channel, uh, that we all- ... talk on, or server. I guess I'm not cool enough to fully understand Discord.

I hear you. Um, but it, it... I think we're atrophying, right? Yep. To use that language from earlier. Yep. And how to be in community and that surrender with a, a more diverse group, right? Uh, in some ways, globalization has really diversified things. In other ways, it's really created pockets of homogenous, you know, populations.

Mm-hmm. Right?

[01:00:52] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[01:00:56] Jordan: Yeah, it makes me wonder what's the set and setting do we need to, to hold more in-person community restorative practices?

[01:01:07] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, and it's tricky 'cause not all those places have accountability structures.

[01:01:12] Jordan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I feel like my trust i- or my trust issues are trust issues squared, 'cause I'm thinking about- Mm

the need for accountability in psychedelic spaces. This is a really hot topic that I feel like every conference I'm at- Yeah ... uh, it comes up. Like, "Hey, we got a problem. What are we gonna do about it?"

[01:01:28] Dr. Nicole: You're right. Right, right.

[01:01:29] Jordan: Right?

[01:01:30] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:01:30] Jordan: And it, it's tricky 'cause a lot of times this boils down to legalization or- Mm

um, you know, criminalization or, you know- Sure ... the above ground versus the underground scene.

[01:01:41] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:01:42] Jordan: And on the one hand, you know, I think there, you know, there's a part of me that doesn't trust the underground scene because it's like what are the systems for- Right ... accountability, right? I hear you. Like, how do we develop these networks?

And some, some places do have an informal, you know, almost psychedelic underground community where they can have some accountability, but there's not an, a structure that's well-known that people know where to tap into for the average psychedelic user. On the other hand, I don't trust the people that would regulate the psychedelic space either, right?

[01:02:14] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:02:15] Jordan: And these, these are my trust issues, right? Is that, you know, and I think that some legalization can bring some accountability, some standardization, some safety. Um, but also you're gonna lose a lot in this, that kind of control space too. Um, yeah. What, what is the blob comm- uh, accountability model?

I'm not sure yet.

[01:02:40] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely sharing your experience with people though. Mm-hmm. You know, that- Yeah ... that feels clear to me. You know, I, I know that we know that these things, the bad things that occur in community thrive when there is a silence pushed on it.

[01:02:55] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:56] Dr. Nicole: You know, even, even in the Chicago polyamorous community, it's small.

[01:03:01] Jordan: Yes.

[01:03:04] Dr. Nicole: You know, so you hear things about people, you know? And so we have to think about privacy- Mm-hmm ... and sharing, and sharing your experience, and not someone else's story, but your experience with them and all of that. Mm-hmm. But the more we have conversations, the more we can keep ourselves safe, right? So I, I- Mm-hmm

when I think about either one of those, being able to really, like, speak to our experience. Mm-hmm. But yeah, what do the full systems look like? Those are really important anarchist conversations I think- Mm-hmm ... to explore in our current contemporary times because, yeah, I don't wanna put it all into the ivory tower of the systems which- Mm-hmm

have historically marginalized significant groups of people. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. So I don't think we should put it all over there. You know what I mean? But I hear you- Right ... in terms of in, in, in the other side where there's no structure, then how do we keep people safe? Mm-hmm. And there is absolute harms that happen in the psychedelic- Yeah

community, right? And so- That's the, the impor- I was gonna say the million dollar- Mm-hmm ... question, but like the super- Right ... important question, the balancing question out of all of this.

[01:04:07] Jordan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And overall, I think it points to maybe another growth edge that we can, we can encourage the communities we're already a part of to too, which is have healthy conflict, right?

Yeah. Because as much as it's important to share my story, I think I also have to always remember the humility and this is my story.

[01:04:27] Dr. Nicole: Yes.

[01:04:27] Jordan: Right? And the story I tell myself from day to day sometimes is wildly inaccurate.

[01:04:33] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:04:34] Jordan: Right? And I, I catch myself in those false stories sometimes. So I have to hold some space that somebody might have a different story of those same events.

[01:04:42] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[01:04:43] Jordan: Um, a- and you know, I think unfortunately this comes out as cancel culture sometimes. Right. Right? When we don't have that humility and there's these absolute cutoffs that happen, which doesn't allow people to grow either. It kinda isolates them to keep harming people.

[01:05:00] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

That's where the ideas of transformative justice- Mm-hmm ... become so important, to know that people are not disposable and we don't need to reenact carceral states to be able to have that be the wo- that's not the world that I wanna live in. Right. Right? Mm-hmm. And so being able to, you know, yes, as you said, understand that each person's story has a bias and a lens.

Yeah, it reminded me of a time where like this very complicated switching of switching of partner dynamics in the small k- you know, network of community climbers that are polyamorous that I know, and like-

[01:05:40] Jordan: There's a big overlap there. Also, climbers and pot- pottery people too.

[01:05:44] Dr. Nicole: Ah, really, you know, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Um, but we had both, you know, had sh- shared partners. Like I was with this, I don't even, I don't even know what to call her, and usually when I get out of language I just call people their names, but for privacy won't of course. Mm-hmm. But like, we had both dated the same people and had challenging experiences with them, and we got to that same point in our conversation of like Hey, I'm gonna share my story, and I want you to know this is just my story, and it's just- Mm-hmm

my experience, and this does not define this person, and like, but I do want you to know what happened through that and to take it with that grain- Mm ... of salt. And I think the more that we could build that skill, you know, because I think so often, you know, for example, I remember in past years of my life when I would have a friend tell a struggling time about an ex, I'd be like, "Fuck that guy.

They suck. Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba." Mm-hmm. You know? So it's like how can you hold a bit more of the nuance of who's telling the story, the perspectum- perspective, the lens that they have, while also keeping people accountable- Mm-hmm ... but also knowing that is just their one story. Um- Mm-hmm ... also understanding that people show up in different relationships differently.

[01:06:54] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[01:06:54] Dr. Nicole: Now, when we start to get multiple patterns across many dynamics that are clearly repeating- Mm-hmm ... okay, that's where, you know, community intervention- Mm-hmm ... and how can we explore that together? But-

[01:07:05] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[01:07:06] Dr. Nicole: yeah, the wisdom to know that every single one of us has a biased and a lens that is- Mm

informing the narrative we tell about ourselves and others is so important. Mm-hmm.

[01:07:15] Jordan: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, the integration work of relationships and that sort of thing of, uh, this is, this is my story in this situation. Right. And as a listener, I can validate that's very real distress that you're experiencing, while holding space that the story might be different, right?

If a person's telling me a story about standing in front of a brick wall, right? But what was that actually like, integrating the experience rather than saying, "Well, you know, your trip was just about a brick wall." Right? Yeah. Where else do you feel like that brick wall exists in your life? Where else are you feeling these frustrations that happened in this relationship?

And, yeah, just tying it to the present moment.

[01:08:01] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I feel like the biggest overarching thing I'm hearing through this conversation is the continual reminder of a beginner's mindset- Mm-hmm ... of humility, of curiosity, of surrendering to the many- Mm-hmm ... things in our human condition that are so outside of our control.

And how can we do that- together in community and understand that it will be messy. Mm-hmm. But that mess can also be its own beauty.

[01:08:33] Jordan: Yeah. Yeah, I, I think, you know, o- one phrase that you said that kinda sums it up for me is continued care, right?

[01:08:41] Dr. Nicole: Yeah,

[01:08:41] Jordan: yeah. There's no such thing as an after, right?

[01:08:43] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:08:44] Jordan: Uh, th- I mean, there is, right?

There's a before and after the trip. There's a before and after the relationship. Yeah,

[01:08:49] Dr. Nicole: exactly.

[01:08:51] Jordan: But there's no after in the sense that everything will end, right? Mm-hmm. I, I guess what I'm trying to say is every day there's an after, right? And so continuing, what's my continued care for today, right? And then when there's an after tomorrow, what's my continued care into this after?

[01:09:07] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:09:08] Jordan: Um, how do we continue care after rupture? How do we continue care in between psychedelic journeys?

[01:09:15] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[01:09:15] Jordan: Um, I really, I like that framework.

[01:09:18] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'll have to let my client know that it's- Yeah ... it's rippling. It's rippling, their wisdom.

[01:09:25] Jordan: Thank you. Yeah.

[01:09:27] Dr. Nicole: Of course. That's me. Yeah. I'm curious for you, Journal, before we head towards our last question-

[01:09:34] Jordan: Mm-hmm

[01:09:35] Dr. Nicole: is there anything else that you wanna share with the listener who's tuning in, um, and has been tracking with us through this magical, unfolding conversation together?

[01:09:46] Jordan: Mm-hmm. The words that are coming to me is start where you are.

[01:09:51] Dr. Nicole: Oh, yeah.

[01:09:52] Jordan: Right? You've talked about this titration, right? In psychedelics we have, you know, start slow, go...

Or start low, go slow.

[01:10:00] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:10:00] Jordan: Right? And if becoming, you know, conflict verse and- Yeah ... calling people accountable is a lot right now, that's okay. You- it's a lot for you right now, right? Let's sit with that, right? I- if this idea of, you know, avoidance versus non-avoidance, you're not sure where you'll land on that, okay, we'll sit in that discernment, right?

Nobody has a timeline for you. W- this is one you get to create as you take each step.

[01:10:34] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Really trusting in your inner wisdom as you explore- Mm ... those pieces and find what resonates with you and-

[01:10:46] Jordan: Mm-hmm ...

[01:10:47] Dr. Nicole: I really enjoy conversations like this because they're... There's not, like, a, a punchline that we got to of, like- Mm-hmm

A, B, C, D, here you go. Here's how you have a great time, you know? 'Cause-

[01:11:00] Jordan: Yeah ...

[01:11:01] Dr. Nicole: that's not how life works. And I know so many- Mm-hmm ... of my listeners who tune in, like, really enjoy the unfolding of each conversation and the journey that we get to in there, and that I can hear my, like, hustle culture push, you know?

Mm-hmm. Like, like what did you tell the clients today? What did you teach them in this po- you know? Or what did you teach- Mm-hmm ... the listeners in this podcast, you know? It's like, a lot- Yeah ... actually, you know? About, like, really just- Mm-hmm ... being with and being humble as you go through this, right? And I think that- So many of the people that I work with and the listeners that are really aware of how much systemic change needs to be, needs to happen, there's always this continual push of like, "Okay, I'm titrating and I'm getting further and further and further, and God, look, there's this next thing and I wanna get over there," and there's more, and there's more, and there's more.

And so as you do that titration, make sure to also look back.

[01:11:56] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[01:11:57] Dr. Nicole: Right? 'Cause like so many of us are like the next, the next, the next, and it's like, hey, can you look at- Mm-hmm ... all of these ways that you've already expanded your capacity for pleasure or whatever conflict- Mm-hmm ... or whatever it is. Like, you have already come so far, and yes, there is more to do.

You will die- Mm-hmm ... with more to do. Like, just truly, the systems will not be out of our unconscious by the day we die, right? Mm-hmm. So we will hand that off to the younger generations. Mm-hmm. And so how can we hold that like, yes, let's keep going and titrate, and also, yes, we have done so, so much to get to this space here.

Mm-hmm.

[01:12:34] Jordan: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the best way to look back, right? Is to be able to see my growth. What's my growth story? Not my- Mm-hmm ... you know, long list of things that went wrong. I mean, those are valid, right? Yeah. But being able to see, you know, as, as sometimes I'll talk to people about continue the story, right?

Mm. I mentioned finish the sentence. What's the big, bad thing? All right, continue the story. All right, this bad thing happened, and then what happened? Right. Right? It, it changes what the story is about if you just change where you finish it.

[01:13:07] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And I guess

[01:13:10] Jordan: what I'm saying is it never finishes.

[01:13:11] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:13:15] Jordan: Mm-hmm.

[01:13:16] Dr. Nicole: Well, Jordan, I'm gonna take a deep breath with you again. And

so the last question that I have for you today, not forever- Mm ... but for today is what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal? Hmm.

[01:13:39] Jordan: That's so broad

[01:13:41] Dr. Nicole: I know. I love it. Don't you love it? What's one thing- It's a projective. Yeah. It's

[01:13:48] Jordan: a projective. The thing I would want people to know is more normal-

[01:13:52] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm ...

[01:13:52] Jordan: is doing things afraid.

[01:13:54] Dr. Nicole: Mm. Yes.

[01:13:56] Jordan: I think there's this idea that, you know, brave people do things and they're not afraid to do them, right?

Or they have to be, you have to be, quote, quote, "ready". And when I let go of the expectation that I have to be ready to do something and let myself just do my best, right? You know, try to assess making sure that there's no safety hazards, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that I don't have to feel ready, I don't have to feel confident, I don't have to feel unafraid to move forward towards something that matters, whether that is a psychedelic journey or a big change based on my insights from the psychedelic journey, a new relationship, the end of a relationship.

[01:14:37] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:14:38] Jordan: It's okay to do it scared.

[01:14:40] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Uh, most growth is uncomfortable, right? Mm-hmm. I'd say almost all, but most of it is uncomfortable, right? And so yeah- Mm-hmm ... I don't think I could ever be a rock climber if I didn't have that deep understanding that fear is a part of it, and also that the fear- Mm-hmm

can transform. Mm-hmm. And the edge will keep moving, just like, um, what brings us pleasure will always be ongoing and adaptive. The edge of your fear will continue to evolve and adapt. Our, our... Humans, one of our biggest strengths is our ability to adapt to our environment.

[01:15:16] Jordan: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[01:15:18] Dr. Nicole: And that's where things like the hedonic treadmill come in, and we, you know, that's a whole other podcast.

Mm-hmm. But, like, yeah, that true understanding that you can be scared and say yes, make it a values-based decision- Mm-hmm ... to work through that and get to the other side. And the beautiful thing is there'll still be another edge for you, I promise. Mm-hmm. It'll just be something new, you know? And you don't always have to edge- Mm

the reality, thankfully. Uh-huh. In the psychedelics space- Yeah. ... the next big dose might actually be a small one for you- Oh, yes ... if you keep edging, you know? Mm-hmm. Oh, Jordan- Mm-hmm ... well, it was such a joy to talk to you today and get to share all of your wisdom with the listeners. I'm really grateful that you came onto the show.

[01:15:58] Jordan: Thank you so much for the invite. It's a lovely place to be here on the podcast. Yeah. I love

[01:16:03] Dr. Nicole: the work that you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I'm sure for all the listeners who wanna know how to find you, how to connect with you- Mm-hmm ... where can they go to connect with you and your work?

[01:16:14] Jordan: Yeah. So, um, I do have an Instagram, Willow and Leaf Counseling.

Um, otherwise, the website, uh, is probably the best place to get in touch with me, Willow and Leaf Counseling. I do provide consultation for professionals, uh, as well as psychotherapy services throughout the state of Illinois. Um, there's a link to, to get in touch, as well as to, to book a session, a phone call, um, right there.

Otherwise, if you search my name, uh, you might find me, or I think a cousin of mine who does photography too. Uh, I have somebody with the same exact name, but- Well ... Jordan, like the basketball player, and then Dobrowski. D as in David, O, B as in Bravo, R-O-W-S-K-I.

[01:16:57] Dr. Nicole: Amazing, amazing. And I'll make sure to have all that linked in the show notes below, listeners.

You can go check out Jordan and all of their work. Thank you again for coming on the show.

[01:17:07] Jordan: Thank you so much.

[01:17:08] Dr. Nicole: 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.