229. Relationship Anarchist: Lucy Halliday

[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 Lucy join us for another relationship anarchy research conversation. Together we talk about the anarchy of motherhood, connecting with our old fashioned roots and relationship anarchy as a listening practice. Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Modern Anarchy. I am so delighted to have all of you pleasure activists from around the world.

Tuning in for another episode each Wednesday. My name is Dr. Nicole. I'm a sex and relationship psychotherapist providing psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, and I'm also the founder of The Pleasure Practice, so supporting individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships. Dear listener, oh my gosh.

Wow. Did you hear that? Doctor Nicole? Dear listener, it's official. Yeah, I got my doctorate. It's all official. I am Dr. Nicole, and it feels wild to say that. Oh gosh. To all my listeners out there who have been here since day one, the original episodes of the show with Conscious Objectors and the whole thing, I mean, hi.

I have so much love that you have been tuning in with me for the last four and a half years to be in this space, and if you're newer to this journey, hey, hello. I'm so happy that you've joined us here because we're having some powerful, badass conversations in this space, and I'm really excited to use this next chapter to embody that liberation with a full voice and confidence, and it is such a joy to be releasing these Relationship Anarchy episodes with you dear listener.

It is the continuation of my doctoral research. My dissertation on relationship anarchy is available for free on my website because we need more free resources on this topic. So 200 pages of relationship anarchy content is waiting for you. And dear listener, if you are ready to come onto the show and have a conversation with me about your relationship practice, the link is in the show notes below to come on, answer the questions, and be a part of the conversation because as I will remind all of us.

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

[00:05:49] Lucy: Well, I am a mom. Yeah. That matters to me a lot. I am a community builder within the sport of Highline. I am. Consumed by the business of trying to human well, and I garden mostly for money, but not exclusively Sure.

Um, I write, I'm not published, but maybe I would be one day I've not tried. Mm-hmm. And I work to make the business of my life as joyful an experience for myself and anyone else I encounter as I can.

[00:06:33] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:06:33] Lucy: And that's, that's like the, the core piece of work that I see myself doing.

[00:06:41] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Beautiful. I already see that tie into relationship anarchy, so I'm sure we'll, we'll get into it as we go.

So, welcome. It's a joy to have you here. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, of course. So the big first question, what is relationship anarchy? What does it mean to you? How do you define it?

[00:07:01] Lucy: It's a philosophy that I found myself aligning with before I even had a name for it.

[00:07:09] Dr. Nicole: Sure. Yep.

[00:07:10] Lucy: So I don't really call myself anything in terms of gender, sexuality, relationship style.

I find all those things when you use them as a label become a little bit too tight. But I definitely would say that relationship anarchy is like most closely allied name for a philosophy that describes how I like to manage my connections.

[00:07:34] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:35] Lucy: I think I maybe arrived, or I found the term sometime around 2017 maybe, but even before that, it was something I was, was thinking about, um, as a, as a queer person, as a person that leans towards non monogamous structures and exploring that as a lifelong thing from.

Probably the age of about 14 onwards. It's definitely something that when I arrived at that term and the literature, Andy Norman's manifesto, you had Mark interviewed recently on the podcast. Mm-hmm. This book is writing these things so suddenly like clicked and I felt like, okay, there are other people who ally with this description, who ally with this philosophy and it felt like a homely kind of place.

[00:08:23] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:24] Lucy: Um, so I've, I've. Been working into those ideas and what they mean to me for quite a long time. Yeah. Most of my life, in fact.

[00:08:33] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So many of my research participants have spoken about feeling connected to this concept, this idea, even before they had language for it. Right. So I think you're tapping into that these, uh, wanting to expand outside of many of the boxes that our society gives us that is so deep in our subconscious of how to relate, how to be, how to see ourselves in community.

Right. And so I feel like you're, you're tapping into something that I saw across many participants of feeling this, this calling, this drive, this way of relating way before there was even words for it. And then once finding those words, uh, beginning the journey of, of what do these words mean to me? And I'm sure it has developed over the years, right?

You, you say those two words, relationship anarchy, but what that looks like in practice. I'm sure it's changed

[00:09:23] Lucy: hugely and deepened an awful lot. I think initially there was a, a conflict, I guess in the sense that I was reading into it, finding myself very allied with the ideas. And then there was also this piece where I knew that the word anarchy was widely misunderstood.

And I had encountered that quite a lot. And I sort of understood that the common parlance definition involved chaos and things blowing up. And there's this really dramatic thing. And yet my personal lived experience of what that meant, what people who practice a rejection of hierarchy were actually like, was so different, was like miles apart.

Mm-hmm. And so I was reluctant to use the term for myself

[00:10:11] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[00:10:11] Lucy: Or to say, you know, I ally myself with relationship anarchy as as a philosophy because I felt like I would be so readily misunderstood. If I was to use that term. Mm-hmm. And I think one thing that's happened for me is that I've found there aren't any terms that really fit.

And what I need is a conversation. And so I will say a few kind of key words if anyone is, invites that conversation. But what I really. I'm after is more depth than that. So it's like a useful thing for people to understand that word more, but I think the conversation about what it really feels like to be you and what it feels like to be them is always the more important piece than the label.

[00:10:50] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's why I enjoy the podcast space so much, right? I personally haven't gotten into like short form content, which is, there's obviously a need for that and to create information and all of that, but for me, I'm like, oh yeah, give me an an hour and a half conversation where we get into this and the nitty gritty and what it looks like.

'cause it's way too 30 seconds, you know, of a clip is not enough to get into it. And so I love that we have all the space to get into that and to grow and learn together in these longer conversations. And so I'm. Curious, if you were to try and speak to your younger self that didn't want to align with that label because it meant chaos and destruction, what sort of wisdom would you have for your younger self that you would say now about the words anarchy and what that looks like?

[00:11:38] Lucy: I think something that's been a, another theme that's run through my life is building my capacity to self-advocate. And obviously within the relationship anarchy philosophy, that kind of autonomy and that kind of boundaried nurse are really important. And I've always been, I've always been strong on vulnerability.

I've always been strong on connection. And something that I wasn't terribly strong on was boundaries and self-advocacy.

[00:12:06] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[00:12:06] Lucy: So I think actually there's just been a process where that's bolstered those skills. For me. And then the people that I've been relating to because they've been on a similar wavelength, have also been in that feedback loop of bolstering those skills in myself and in in them.

And that's, it's meant that I feel like i's, it's okay for me to sometimes say things that sound, you know, unacceptable to someone else, or difficult or challenging because I trust myself to bring an approach whereby they can talk to me more.

[00:12:36] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:36] Lucy: That I'm open to questions and I'm open to being able to substantiate why I feel and think the way that I do.

Yeah.

[00:12:43] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:12:44] Lucy: There's so many choices I've made in my life that have, without being about that set me apart from the norm. And so all along there's been like a, a flow towards, but going well, okay, I, maybe I'm doing this differently, but I'm happy to talk to you about it.

[00:13:01] Dr. Nicole: Yeah,

[00:13:02] Lucy: absolutely. But I think for my younger self, I would say you, you know, you have the strength to help people understand you.

[00:13:09] Dr. Nicole: Mm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[00:13:11] Lucy: Mm-hmm. But that's a thing I can do.

[00:13:13] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. And there's so many skills to be learned in that practice, right? I feel like part of the world of hierarchy means we sort of defer to a specific relationship, and maybe even in some polyamorous context to relationships, right? Or whatever sort of frame you're looking at.

But you defer to these relationships that are more important than the others. And part of that means that there's these assumptions, these ways of relating where you might negate yourself or like feel like you have to show up in certain ways to follow certain scripts, like the relationship escalator, right?

All these other things. And so when you take off all of those structures, you remove the paint by numbers to have that blank canvas. Oh my goodness. The amount of, uh, need to find the language and the skills to advocate for what you want and also to care for other people in that because blurred knows there's gonna be so many mismatched desires, not just sexually, but also romantically, platonically time, energy commitments.

'cause you're navigating it with so many different people, so many different feelings, so many different emotions that. Wow. Our society doesn't really give us the space or the time to, uh, build these skills. Most of us are in jobs that require us to work in ways that like, we don't get to learn these skills.

Right. And so stepping into a world where you're navigating multiple different types of connections and relationships with intentionality, that is such a muscle. Mm-hmm. That every day I am humbled by. Every day I go deep down to this journey. I'm like, wow. New lesson here. New lesson there. Messed up over there.

Got it. You know what I mean? So just Wow. Um, and that's, uh, we're kind of leading into that next question, which is how do you practice it? What does relationship anarchy look like for you and your practice?

[00:15:06] Lucy: Mm-hmm. One of the key themes that's come up over and over again is that it's a responsive practice.

It's a listening practice. So right from the get go of forming a relationship, and I don't really. Use that term to mean a partnered, romantic sexual relationship. I mean, any connection that I make. One thing that's important to me that I've adopted, 'cause it's just a place I feel comfortable, is to take one version of myself everywhere.

[00:15:38] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:15:38] Lucy: So it could be a relationship at work, it could be my relationship with my daughter, my relationship with a sexual romantic partner. My relationship with what other people would def define as a friend. To have those connections be defined by listening to and responding to where it is that intimacies naturally emerge.

So it might be that there are certain activities I enjoy doing with someone. It might be, there are certain types of conversation I enjoy with them. It might be that I have the hots for them, but. I don't particularly want to be sexual with them or they don't want to be sexual with me. There, there's so many different intimacies that we can share with a person.

Right. And I like to take the time and the thoughtfulness to really just pay attention to where those emerge naturally.

[00:16:23] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:25] Lucy: I think it's something that we don't commonly take time in this society to do. In, in Western culture with a, with a kind of relationship escalator model, there's an idea that if someone's interested in you, you check in.

You're like, yeah, I think I'm kind of pretty much interested in you too. Oh, we'll hop on together and see if we can make a relationship out of this. And then somewhere down the line you might find that there are some things that are less compatible and stuff starts to break down. Whereas I like to really give the time to nurture the, the space between us and see what's flourishing there naturally, without trying to force it into any particular mold.

And I have a. A whole range of different relationships that I value. I, I like the term significant others because it just allows me to say there's a whole brain, a whole range of people who are really significant to me.

[00:17:14] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:16] Lucy: I have two partners that I have a sexual or kink relationship with. So in the sense of like looking at whether there's a non-monogamy component to my practice, sure there definitely is, but that fluctuates Totally.

And whether or not I'm sexual with someone is definitely not the cornerstone, uh, of, of their significance to me. I relate to a lot of people in terms of like the domesticity of daily life and community around the, the Highline community that I'm in. We are sort of quite nomadic.

[00:17:47] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:17:47] Lucy: So as an extreme sports community, we move around the country to wherever it is, it's possible for us to carry out our sport.

[00:17:53] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[00:17:54] Lucy: And then we'll pop up in little van villages or we'll be camping together and they're kind of the cooking, the talking, the emotional support, the lending of things that people might need in any given moment. That's really fluid and it's lovely to have that, that community support that's really, uh, kind of domestic household stuff.

Yeah. But shared kind of nationwide at times between a whole bunch of different people from different backgrounds, different ages. And I would say that my relationship anarchy practice definitely comes into that. I share my home with loads of people. There's quite a few people in the community that I bed share with because we have a small space and we're, you know, we're, we're just sharing the resources that we have.

Yeah. But it's very much related to who's got capacity to do what and who needs what. And, and that's like a. I find that my, yeah. My sports community is a lovely place where that really flourishes that practice of, of thinking that way.

[00:18:52] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:52] Lucy: And then I would say that another big place that shows up is in my parenting with my daughter.

[00:18:57] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:18:58] Lucy: For the longest time, since she was small. Because I come from a, a background in science of looking at, well, I studied behavioral ecology, so I Okay, cool. My kind of research background was how behavior is adaptive to a creature. How it, how the behavior helps the creature adapt to its environment.

And I took very much from the primate parenting model. Sure. So I did the things that are more common nowadays of sling carrying and co-sleeping and breastfeeding. And I treated my daughter a bit like she was a little primate. Sure. Is one. Um, and then that also extended to this concept of alle parenting.

Yeah. Which she's grown up with, which is to dissolve the. Sort of strict nuclear family to parent model and say all these other adults that are in her life are terribly important. Some of them she's had relationships with that are lifelong. Sometimes she might see someone only once or twice a year, but they're someone she's desperately fond of.

And all of them care take, all of them are helping sometimes because I have health challenges, they're the people who get her pajamas ready. Mm-hmm. Or somebody will contribute a bedtime story or people will contribute cooking or, you know, more formal forms of childcare. But that's definitely a place where the breakdown of, of hierarchy and then a, a kind of, um, adoption of, of this non-standard allo parenting model, which is more common in so many cultures, but less so.

In a kind of western European setting. So yeah, I, I wasn't close to my family of origin geographically or emotionally particularly. Mm-hmm. And then also these, these friends in my sports community have just become such an important part of our life. Yeah. Uh, we really have that like queer chosen family experience on steroids and it's wonderful.

Yeah. I can't thank all of the people involved in my daughter's life enough for what they bring to her.

[00:20:58] Dr. Nicole: Right, right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, historically that's what we have done. Right. Mm. As a culture, when you look back to the history, it wasn't just a nuclear family. That's much more of a modern concept that is not embraced around the world.

Right. Uh, and so you're tapping into wisdom that has existed for centuries, right. Of raising in community and not putting all that burden onto one or two people. Uh, so I definitely, as a clinician, have lots of thoughts about things like postpartum depression, right? And what that could be a part of, and a reflection of under these systems and things like that.

Um, yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:38] Lucy: And how isolating it can be to be in motherhood. Yes. In, in, in the systems and cultures that we have right now. And I, there was five months when, after I first had her, where I was very low, and then there was time where I kind of went back to the wild a bit and she and I would wild camp for days on end.

[00:21:58] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:21:58] Lucy: And then eventually we became through some. Very challenging circumstances where we were homeless at the beginning of the pandemic.

[00:22:05] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:22:06] Lucy: We became part of this community that Yeah. Raised us up. Yeah. You know, they literally provided clean socks at times and so much support. Mm-hmm. And I think that that's a place where this philosophy of relationship anarchy, where the, the cherishing of a nonsexual otherwise termed friendship sort of, uh, relationship or connection with somebody becomes absolutely precious.

[00:22:32] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:22:33] Lucy: And it, it's something that I think is, um. It's a very conscious decision between me and my daughter. She talks about her aloe parents. She makes reference. Yeah. She even jokes. She gives some points they get, they get points for when they do really cool parenting things or really useful parenting things.

I love that. Sometimes they get more points than me. They're disappointed about that.

[00:22:53] Dr. Nicole: That's funny. That's so funny. I love it. I love it. Yeah. That's so beautiful. And we, again, we all need that. We all need more support. Right. It's interesting how under capitalism, the more privilege you have there, the more you can outsource and buy that support quite literally is babysitting or a preschool, right.

Of where you're still getting support from a community, but now you're just paying for it. Yeah. Right. And so we, a lot of us have that, um, ability and that's kind of how we're still functioning for that need for community. But it, it's, it's. There's a brokenness to that when there's not that reciprocity that you're speaking of, of community spaces where there's that given flow back.

Um, and yeah, I think about when I had done my dissertation, people had asked me like, what was the most interesting thing you learned about relationship anarchy that you didn't see coming? And one of my research participants had talked about using relationship anarchy in her relationship with her children.

And for me, I had come so much from the polyamory non hierarchy lens, and I think I was just seeing it through this lens of sexual liberation and freedom in that space. And so to have, when I, my participants speak about childre, I was like, what? You know, like trying to understand what this looks like in relationships that aren't, um, just the sexual liberations piece, uh, piece of the relational piece, which, um, you know, there's a lot of movement with the asexual community as well that speaks to that too.

Mm-hmm. Um, but. Yeah. It was so eyeopening to see that we all have multiple relationships. I feel like if I can do anything in my career, it will be to dismantle rape culture and invite all of us to reflect that we all have multiple relationships. Yeah. And we all need multiple relationships. And so I'm hearing how the community for you has been a space of, uh, mutual aid, uh, care.

Yeah. And also, um, we are social creatures and so we need that. And so I'm sure even just your mental health, your wellbeing, it's reflected from all these different relationships. And also to be a mother is a whole, there's a whole cultural narrative about what that means to do that and to do it well.

Right. And so I'm curious even for you, that piece, 'cause I know that. At least in our Western society, there's a lot of negativity around women, um, and liberation outside of anything that's the strict norm model. Yeah. Despite the fact that we know Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead.

[00:25:23] Lucy: It's even tighter restraints then on there in terms of what's acceptable and what's not acceptable.

I used to get, uh, a lot of comments about the bag I would bring out with me when my daughter was small.

[00:25:35] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:36] Lucy: So people would question the sling carrying, although it's not that unusual now, but this is like 11 years ago and they would say Hard. Isn't that gonna make your back bad? Or when they make her needy or don't even wanna break from her all the time.

And yeah, sometimes I really wanted a break, you know, when she'd thrown up in my bra for the third time that day. I really wanted a break. Sure. But I also got so much satisfaction from having her close and she was that much calmer as quite a high need baby anyway, that it actually afforded me more of a break most of the time.

But the bag I would bring out with me was a tiny army surplus satchel. And it contained a few bits and pieces that I needed for her, but I didn't have formula because I was breastfeeding. I know not everyone has the option. Sure. And I was really lucky to be able to, to nurture the breastfeeding relationship with her that I have.

So I'm only speaking to the way I solve these problems because I think a really important piece of motherhood is that people should be allowed to choose whatever it is that works for them. 'cause it's a huge, uh, development of your self-awareness and that needs, that needs holding carefully and it needs nourishing.

Mm-hmm. Um, people mostly just saw me with like, with no stuff. Mm-hmm. And couldn't conceive of how I would be able to cope leaving the house for like four or five hours without this stuff. Because we have an idea that children need lots and lots of stuff.

[00:27:00] Dr. Nicole: Hmm.

[00:27:00] Lucy: I did nappy free, pretty much rearing with her.

So she learned to go to the loo immediately. She was in this ling, she would wriggle, I would help her. And it was a, a reciprocal relationship, but I, I come from a background of observing behavior. Sure. So I find that quite easy. Other people might find that a really difficult thing, but it meant that I, I was out in the world a bit more and really keenly aware of how much the, the confines of what's expected of motherhood.

The, the bedtime routines, the formula feeding the places it's considered safe or not safe to take a child, the ways in which it's considered unsafe to carry them. Even I used to carry her on my shoulders as soon as I could, and she would balance that perfectly fine. But people would stop me in the street and criticize me and say that what I was doing was dangerous, even though she and I were in our routine, you know, and we were just shopping in the local supermarket and there was nothing, nothing to it.

I think all, all these things, because they've set me apart. Even though they were just me naturally responding to the situation I found myself in, it's made me, uh, made me have to philosophize a little bit more and made me have to think through why it is that I'm doing what I'm doing.

[00:28:17] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:28:17] Lucy: And so I, I think that's where I suddenly found this concept of relationship anarchy colliding with the mothering that I was doing.

[00:28:24] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:25] Lucy: Because yet again, I was being called upon to change the shape of the way I was connecting to my child and also everyone else involved in my child's life because I didn't fit the mold that was handed to me.

[00:28:38] Dr. Nicole: Right, right. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. And so seeing the ways that. Relationship anarchy is that examination of the power structures and how that impacts our relationships.

All of our relationships, often on a unconscious level because we are social creatures, and so we need to be accepted by the people around us to survive and to thrive. And so if people are having all these judgments towards you, right? It's really difficult to unpack how deep that goes into our desires to be met and safe within community, right?

So it's like this unconscious process that we have to examine. Wow, okay. All of these things, the relationship escalator, the ways even of parenting of what that means and how to do that, right? Like that is all deep within our unconscious because it's the water that we swim in, right? And this water that we're swimming in is not very great, right?

It's no, it's that, uh, quote, it's no sign of health to be well adjusted to a sick society, right? So some of these. Pieces like feeding all these other things, like it helps us to survive under this society. But if we take a step back, like what, yeah. Is this society actually helpful? Right? So like taking that next level back.

And so I'm sure that's only just one area of probably many that you were pushing back on societal expectations, which can be really challenging I would imagine too also that the community that you're in probably has similar values and I find that often that can help to balance all of the criticism from people who might have judgments and a lack of understanding, who think anarchy is chaos, right?

If you have your own inner circle of people that do understand you and do get it, that can kind of form the resilience to be able to stand in your truth and your values and, and your intuition with these things.

[00:30:26] Lucy: Um, the word resilience really resonates for me there because I think. The community has been my source of resilience.

[00:30:32] Dr. Nicole: Yeah,

[00:30:32] Lucy: there's been been times in the journey that me and my daughter have had that's been really difficult, and having that support, having that love, having people who will listen, who you can air these things with. Even in terms of the motherhood aspect, because of living the way that I do and being so much a part of this community, I've, I've actually been able to take on a sport that as a single mum you wouldn't, that would be really hard.

I know other people who've had really challenging experiences where they were into the sport of highlining, but then motherhood has made it really difficult for them to access that, and it's happened in ways that wouldn't, you wouldn't expect. It's often a lot of men who are. 30, 25, younger even, who are the ones really facilitating my involvement in the sport as a 42-year-old mom.

[00:31:25] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[00:31:26] Lucy: And I think that's like something that people wouldn't expect. But then because they're around me and my daughter, there are things they get back from that relationship too. And there's moments that I'll never forget where I had two guys in the back of my bus having really big dialogue about breastfeeding ethics.

And they're in their early twenties. Mm. And these are things that kind of come up because we are mixing and matching all of the societal expectations and breaking them in different ways. And the fact that there's a child in the community and a mother in the community brings up conversation. It, it, it kind of like, it's a, uh, a point of interest for people.

And I think that's a really lovely thing that, that wouldn't happen in a sport that otherwise maybe people would think was associated with, you know, young fit guys.

[00:32:11] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[00:32:11] Lucy: And nobody from an older generation, or perhaps less so female athletes. And like, there's loads of ways in which Highline kind of cuts across that.

Mm. And there are people of all different ages and people of all different backgrounds and orientations. Right. Kind of coming together, but then the, the dialogues that come out of that are wonderful.

[00:32:28] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. So many opening of conversations, much needed conversations and yeah, it, it reminds me of, um.

Just a, a different model of looking at purpose and community, right? We, we know, again, historically when we were more nomadic, before we had agriculture, things like the plow to be able to farm at that level and stay static. We moved in communities. And so we co raised children, we cared about children. It wasn't about the, um, the change with agriculture and into private property.

It then became, I want to pass down my lineage of this property and this cclu, uh, you know, all of this wealth that I have, which now means I only care about my child and my child's future. And this. Right. Yeah. And so what I'm hearing from your experience is something that goes much back to more of our historical lineage of community care, right?

Where people are coming together to care for this child and also affords you the space to be able to be in the sport, which is very different than maybe, you know, in a more like typical, you know, society of our modern thought where it's like, no, I gotta go home and do my own work. You can't slackline.

Yeah. Whatever. That's your own problem. Go find daycare for yourself. Right? Like a very individualistic, and so it's so beautiful that you have this space where people are coming together to care in ways that we've done. Hundreds of thousands of y right. Before, before this. Right. Exactly. And so I, it's, it's always so wild to me.

I mean, I didn't know this before getting everything I did and doing my research, but now when I look at it, I'm like, it's so wild that we do this model and then beat ourselves up for struggling and beat ourselves up as if we are the problem. Um, so I'll spend a lifetime with that.

[00:34:18] Lucy: In some, in some ways I'm desperately old fashioned.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Being a nomadic sling carrying mom who's home is where her community is, is kind of old school.

[00:34:32] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely. And yet people will throw rocks at you and be like, how dare you? What are you doing? You know, it's like, well, well, what are you doing? You know? It's okay.

[00:34:41] Lucy: Yeah. It just, it, it. It just suits me.

And I would never want to dictate, you know, like of course, I, I live in a bus. Yeah. I don't have a, a fixed place that I live. Mm-hmm. We tend not to spend more than a couple of nights in any one place, uh, just because we like to experience the world. Mm-hmm. And we live in a really beautiful county in the southwest of England.

We can, you know, be near the woods. We can be near the coast. We can be near the, the MOS in the national park. And I love that I can give my daughter that. Yeah. I love that. I give my daughter that exposure both to the natural world and all these different places and to these different communities, different people in different parts of the uk.

So,

[00:35:21] Dr. Nicole: mm-hmm.

[00:35:22] Lucy: I think a nomadic lifestyle makes you very intentional about your resources. Yes, yes. And community is obviously a resource, a terribly, terribly important resource. Belonging is, is a resource that we need, like, yeah, like air. And it makes you notice where that's coming from and really care for and want to nourish where that's coming from.

[00:35:45] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'll be excited to talk to your daughter like many years later. She wants to come on the show. I'm like, please tell me how this impacted you. We'll get into it. I wish I was raised in a situation like that. Right. Oh, so, so beautiful.

[00:36:00] Lucy: One day there's gonna be some natural history documentary that's on being raised by highlighters.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Just like any other kid. I mean, there's a, there's irreducible humanity to all of us. Mm-hmm. And I think we basically are all terribly similar and we need really similar things. And when, when life gets dismantled, which it did very dramatically for me at a number of different points, it makes you look at what those components were in the first place and whether they're valuable enough to put back or not.

Mm-hmm. And so. I've arrived at a lifestyle that looks really different than most people's.

[00:36:38] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[00:36:39] Lucy: But I've arrived at it from the basis of looking for really similar things, I think, than most people look for.

[00:36:46] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. I think about love, connection, purpose, meaning some of those essential core things that we all need.

Really. Yeah.

[00:36:57] Lucy: And I, I run a business and my kid goes to a standard school, you know, you can mix and match these things.

[00:37:03] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. And that's a great segue, I think, into the next question, which is, how does relationship anarchy impact or practice of intimacy?

[00:37:15] Lucy: The first thing that kind of springs to mind there is that we're intimate with so many people all the time that intimacy to me doesn't mean sexuality.

Right. It doesn't mean or is not limited to. Sex and sexuality, and I think there is a pleasure to the smile you exchange with the supermarket checkout person.

[00:37:40] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:41] Lucy: You know, that's valuable to both of you because it's human connection and you can maybe brighten someone's day. Intimacies everywhere.

Yeah. And, and it's a mistake to think that it's not, because if you bring a mindfulness to the fact that it's everywhere and also an enjoyment mm-hmm. To the fact that it's everywhere. Right. Human connection is this really splendid thing that we are all very much in need of from a physiological perspective.

Nevermind that it's, you know, intellectually important.

[00:38:11] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:38:12] Lucy: I think, yeah. I think one of the, the really strong themes for me in relationship I Nike is, is that dissolution of the idea that intimacy is, is just between you and your sexual partner. It's definitely affected that element as well in terms of my sexuality.

And I think that. Um, the way that I relate to whether or not I have a sexual connection with somebody has become a much more open fluid and listening based practice. I mean, I identify as queer and also as a very sexual person, but as someone who is really not bothered by what I would term low quality connections.

[00:39:01] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:02] Lucy: I really am not about quantity. I'm very much about quality.

[00:39:06] Dr. Nicole: Yes.

[00:39:07] Lucy: It means that I have some very strong connections with very limited number of people rather than a kind of, I don't like this 'cause I, I, it, it might. Sound belittling, but rather than like a Pokemon Yeah, I've heard that metaphor Yes.

Of monogamy. Yes. Way like collecting. And, and I think that's a big misunderstanding that people have when they hear that I identify as a, as a relationship anarchist in terms of my relationship philosophy, they automatically assume that I would have loads of partners or that I would be pursuing loads of sexual partners.

Um, and that's really not a piece of it for me. If, if someone shows up in my life and that's the emergent property of us meeting, then that's wonderful. But I also think handling that in a way where I don't, uh, damage or diminish my existing connections in pursuit of new connections.

[00:40:00] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:01] Lucy: That's something that's also really important to me.

[00:40:03] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Um,

[00:40:04] Lucy: I think there's a lot in social media and media in general, particularly in the last 10 years, like increasingly so about polyamory, about non-monogamy, and there are, there's. Issues for me in, in creating this cultural perception that it's about having loads and loads of sexual partners. And also about this idea that, um, that that connection is kind of cheap and kind of individualistic and sort of comes from a place of, well, I'm entitled to have loads and nodes of partners, as if the mutual benefit, as if the care aspect of anarchy was not, you know, part of that conversation.

'cause for me it very much is.

[00:40:44] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:45] Lucy: So I think the way that I practice relationship anarchy, in terms of intimacy, it's really about very much valuing the intimacies, however small and however fleeting and however casual. And then also when it comes to more in depth, more involved relationships. Again, really centering, cherishing what I have rather than the constant pursuit of something different.

Right. Because I think I still just bring it to me. It does. If I, if I'm open, you know, if, if I'm. If I'm listening, life will bring me connection, so, mm-hmm. Yeah, I've, I've never been, I don't think I've ever been on a date. I've never been on something you could really formally call a date with somebody that I've not met before.

I hear you. I've certainly never been on a dating app, and these things work for some people. And as I say, I would definitely say that I'm a very, I'm a highly sexual person, and that's a really important part of my life. But I also feel like for me, the quality comes from the depth, yeah. And comes from the, the time.

Invested in those relationships.

[00:41:48] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I haven't been on a date in years either. What even is that? You know? But Yeah. Yeah. I feel you. It's like, I don't even know.

[00:41:58] Lucy: It feels like it feels like organized fun.

[00:42:01] Dr. Nicole: Yeah,

[00:42:01] Lucy: exactly. I like fun to be spontaneous. Yeah.

[00:42:05] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. We meet and like you said, like meeting for the unfolding of where the intimacy naturally goes, right?

Not meeting of like, Hey, we're here to like, fuck and be in a romantic relationship. It's like, Hey, we're meet. We're here to connect. If that's a part of it. Yeah. Great. Yeah. If not beautiful.

[00:42:19] Lucy: Right? Yeah. Even with the fucking, the curiosity is still the most important thing.

[00:42:24] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. To lead with curiosity.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And keep falling where the desire goes. 'cause even that will change what, like, what the emergent properties and, and chemistry between two people is and how they relate. I, I think honestly the, the sluttier I become with like, reclaiming that word with power and, and embodiment. Oh yeah.

The slu, the sluttier. I become the slower I move into sexuality because I'm just likem like, do we have the skills to be friends and able to communicate and work through whatever sort of complicated emotional things can come through with this situation? 'cause I definitely wanna be friends and communicate regardless of whether we.

Go into this space, I wanna be fluidly able to go out of it and back in. Right. And so those are a lot of skills that sometimes aren't always there. And so I'm finding myself like so open to sex and also, so moving slowly with intentionality in every connection.

[00:43:23] Lucy: I think a word that I like is discernment.

Yeah. I think a word that fits with relationship pany to me is discernment. Uh, and, and having the space and time to stand back and be thoughtful and be like, is this honestly where I want this to go? Because it might be fantastic. And being open to that is a huge part of this kind of ethos. But at the same time, building on what there is without rushing, like you say.

Right. Just taking your time. Mm-hmm. Such such that you get to keep. What is already splendid, I think. Exactly. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. It relates to kink and my practice of kink and my exploration of kink also.

[00:44:02] Dr. Nicole: Yes.

[00:44:02] Lucy: Because that's like another layer to sexuality that again, if it's explored with care and kindness and consent and consideration, is this incredible, expansive landscape to explore with somebody who you might not be standardly sexual with.

And I have in, in a number of different iterations of my relationship, had partners come together over kink bonds.

[00:44:30] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:31] Lucy: And so I think when you, when you're thinking about that within the kink culture, intentionality is like. And consent. There are a lot higher profile, but for me, this is, there's a beautiful segue back into relationship anarchy as well, because for me that that practice is definitely about slowing things down, checking in with people.

Yeah. Making sure that you've, you've granted the space to yourself to actually like. Settle into what is before you rush into something else.

[00:45:01] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think kink in its highest form is, is really so much communication, right? About what you're wanting, where your limits are, what pieces, parts of yourself you're exploring, right?

And so there's so much there that is built, uh, with a strong foundation of intentionality, right? Which allows you to go to much more expansive, edgy parts of your consciousness and embodiment, right? And so the more intentional you can be about that foundation, the more you can explore those edges, which is so beautiful.

And so I think, yeah, just like in other sorts of sexual connections, same thing and, and really any sort of connection, right? The more you build with an intentionality, um, communication. Slowness, the more you can go into, um, and have more of that foundation built. And you also spoke so much too, the expansiveness of intimacy and seeing all that, I often think about that as a frame, right?

Like, where is your frame? Um, it's something as simple as the half the glass. Is it half full, half empty? Right? But it, that's a profound metaphor we use, uh, because I think so much of our, of our Western society, right? Again, not the whole world. That's an important piece of this. Our western society is the one, the one, the one, the one.

Forget all of your platonic connections. Those aren't important. Look for the one, the one, right? And so your frame, it's almost like, um, your sunglasses or the frame is so small that you're like, if I don't have this one thing, I'm miserable. Right? And that, that is a lot of the like culture around, like, I'm single and I'm.

So miserable. I'm single. I'm so miserable. Right? Yeah. And so when you expand the frame out to look at all of your relationships, oh my gosh, the picture is so beautiful. It's so wide. And so I feel like you start to see more of that joy, more of the possibilities, like you're saying, even the smile with the clerk at the store, right?

That is a moment of human connection. And so when your frame is so small to the one, you're not seeing all these other moments where you are connecting with humans, let alone like the animal and plant world. You know, if we wanna get there, right? But like really expanding, expanding that frame, and then therefore finding more joy and gratitude and presence in that is so beautiful.

[00:47:19] Lucy: I think there's a a way where there's many ways in which the society, we live in capitalism, all kinds of things historically bring to bear an atmosphere of scarcity.

[00:47:29] Dr. Nicole: Yes.

[00:47:30] Lucy: And scarcity drives fear. It drives panic. It drives this pursuit of things in a much more. Um, fearful grabby sort of way. Whereas if you feel like you are in abundance, if you feel like you have plenty of what you need, you act very differently.

You show up in the world very differently in my life, having had, um, all of the systems, all of the structures that you grow up feeling like you are supposed to rely on. I, I had the, the full-time job and the mortgage and the husband and all of the things, the tick box. Yeah. Career progression, academic success.

And then eventually I was still homeless and I still had my daughter to care for and all our basic needs to look after, and I built myself back up. But that process entailed like this huge pruning because I was starting from nothing and that was real scarcity. Yeah. You know, I, I had moments where I wasn't sure how I would keep the both of us warm.

And so that sort of scarcity means that the scarcity that I thought I had before kind of just diminished massively.

[00:48:42] Dr. Nicole: Sure, sure.

[00:48:43] Lucy: It wasn't so important anymore, and the smallest things I became really, really grateful for. And I think cornerstone things in my own recovery, building back up from a really desperate situation in terms of my physical wellbeing.

Right. But also in terms of my mental wellbeing, because I ended up with a diagnosis of complex PTSD. Mm-hmm. I've been through this, this rebuilding whereby putting the smallest things in place became really important. And then also I had this enormous gratitude for them. And the intentionality inherent in that is massive.

[00:49:21] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:22] Lucy: And it allowed me. To get closer and closer into this allyship with relationship anarchy, because it was that same model repeated in my connections with other people.

[00:49:32] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:32] Lucy: Was what do I really need? What's really nourishing me? Mm-hmm. What do I really cherish? Mm-hmm. And in whose life am I also really bringing joy?

Mm-hmm. You know, who, who is it that I am able to really benefit? Who is it who I'm able to get really close to? And we still feel this enormous amount of safety

[00:49:51] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:49:51] Lucy: Where we can build trust together. Mm-hmm. So I got more discerning about pretty much everything. Yeah. And in a lot of ways, I have this minimalism, I guess I don't have very many things.

Everything I own is in this bus. Sure. Yeah. I don't have, I don't have loads of partners in the sense of the partners that people think about that. Mm-hmm. Uh, sometimes people assume when they hear non-monogamy that you have like six partners and it's up to, you know, it's up to everyone to decide what works for them.

But I think. For me, a small amount of the right things is like a philosophy that I take everywhere because then you do have that sense of abundance 'cause you have exactly what you need.

[00:50:32] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:33] Lucy: It's a piece of the practice of mindfulness for me. Mm. To like really pay attention to what those things are.

[00:50:40] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:50:40] Lucy: And so I, I love, and, and really kind of celebrate the way that adopting a philosophy of relationship anarchy makes you take those things apart, makes you ask the questions, makes you get into really deep, really granular conversations with people.

Um, and, and, and kind of scrutinize what it is that's working for you and what it is that isn't. Yeah. 'cause what comes outta that, it's so joyful.

[00:51:05] Dr. Nicole: Right, right. Absolutely. Absolutely. I feel like you're, you're hitting on the next question, which is why practice relationship anarchy? I'm, I'm hearing the ways that it's brought, uh. Quality over quantity in so many different ways. Right. And your connections.

Mm-hmm. And I think that that's a really important piece, right? 'cause often there is this push more and more and more. I mean, look at our soci, look at our society, right? So of course that's impacting our relationships, right? And so I hear you coming back to this like, quality, where's the depth of the connection here?

Um, and really focusing on that rather than chasing, rather than doing the hedonic treadmill of novelty and new connections, right? How can I go deeper into these spaces, into these people that are around me right now? And so I see that in, in so many different ways, probably with the lifestyle, the community that you've built, the relationships with your children, right?

And I, when I first came into relationship anarchy and hearing about non hierarchy, my brain was thinking, great, I'll have. This is, whew. We learned, we're just, we're just going deeper down the rabbit hole. But at the very beginning I was like, cool, I have have like two partners, three partners, I don't know, four.

And so then I was like, wow, like if I have four people, then it's 25, 25, 25, 25. 'cause non hierarchy, right? And then it was like, I was like really trying to figure out what that meant of like sharing and then what, what I lacked at that time of the consciousness was understanding that I have way more than just partners.

It's not actually about just partners, it's about all of your connections. Mm-hmm. And so when you look into all of your connections, you're like, okay, well non hierarchies is definitely not gonna mean splitting it up into pure percentages because how many friends do I have or connections like 25, 50. I don't, okay, so I see you for one minute.

You know, like what? What the hell does that look like? Let alone the full planet of how many people are here. Right. And so I think about it like in, in in Rings, you know, like orbits, right? We have some people that orbit us much wider. There's planets, moons, you know, stars that come much closer. Right. And I appreciated when I talked to Juan Carlos, like the discussion of it not being, um, hierarchy in terms of time and energy.

'cause those are finite resources. Mm-hmm. But rather hierarchy of power over moments. Right. So like, one of my connections does not have power over the connections I have with other people. Right. I, I, I do believe that time and energy are power. Under our society. Mm-hmm. So that's an important, like right fin, we can get nerdy about it.

Finite resource. There is power in that. You know, we don't gotta go too, too far down the rabbit hole, but like, just trying to understand that it, it's, it's, it's inevitable that all of us will also have a stratification of connections because time and energy is not that abundant resource love is. Right.

Um, but within that, to not have power over models. Right. And so we're building that expansive community of care and people. And so I just really, I don't think I had that lens to understand that it's not just about partnerships, right? It's about the whole community and how can you tend to a loving, caring, mutual space.

Um, just that word non-hierarchical was so hard to like fathom at the beginning. And I think mm-hmm.

[00:54:14] Lucy: It's always interested me that we don't bring that concept to bear in our other kind of Western culture approved connections. So when we think about if you have multiple children. Or you have, obviously most people have two parents, and if you have both of them alive, how do you apportion your time, right between them and then your grandparents, and then your uncles and aunts.

And we don't tend to get into a panic about, oh, if I have a second child, then I'll have to split. What proportion of this does this child get? And then this child, we don't even think about it like that. We come at it from the perspective of love being abundant. And we come at it from the perspective of, okay, life is lived on the fly.

It's a spontaneous thing. We don't really have any control over what happens. What we're doing is responding all the time to what people need, according to what capacity we have. I mean, those two words, the need and the capacity piece comes straight from anarchist literature historically. And yet that's how we practice family life, how we practice.

Having children and rearing children. We don't go into a, a kind of spiraling panic about how we're gonna manage multiple connections. And so it, it doesn't seem difficult to me to just take that into romantic or sexual relationships because it's already part of my concept and in fact, part of most people's concept.

[00:55:37] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:38] Lucy: That love is abundant and that time will be apportioned responsibly according to the needs of the people and also the personal preferences of the individual. And in the two people who obviously are very close to me, who would call themselves my partners, and I refer to them as partners because it's the, for kind of social metric.

Sure, I hear you. And helps me explain myself in, in daily life to people. One of them I spend much, much more time with on a daily basis, and we refer to each other as companion animals. Mm-hmm. I. I am. I am his companion animal and he is my companion animal. Yeah. And it doesn't say anything about the depth of our relationship.

Right. In a comparison with my other partner who I see less, she has a family, she has two sons of her own and a a practice that she looks after. So she has less time to spend with me on a daily basis, but it's never really common to any kind of conflict because it's simply an expression of the preferences that we have, the alignment that our lives have.

And listening to that, again, listening to how much time do you have? Okay, well, I have this time here and you have this time here, and this is the thing I'd love if we could do together, but that thing, actually, I don't really wanna do that with you. I'd rather do that with this person. We have those conversations within our friendship groups.

We have those conversations within our families and understanding that there will always be difficulties, jealousies, insecurities, things that come up that are really challenging. Those come up in our friendship groups, they come up in our families as well. But that those aren't things to run away from.

Those aren't things to suddenly get the need to get into scarcity and get into apportioning percentages of time and, and kind of freaking out about that because it's okay. Mm-hmm. We, we do have the capacity if we're willing to work on our communication skills to just let this stuff kind of settle out on its own.

Right. It's not, it's not something that's, um, that wildly different, I think, in, in relationship anarchy because we, we can bring skills that we already are having in, in other areas of our lives. So yeah. I have this one partner who I see if I'm lucky once a week. Yeah. Because we're often very busy and we're often in different parts of the country.

We've also had a relationship, this spans 17 years. Mm-hmm. And another partner who I've had a relationship with for four years, who, and, and these have changed, obviously, of course these relationships of course, but they're with me an awful lot more of the time, even though they technically live at the other end of the country.

[00:58:10] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:11] Lucy: So there's still strange ways in which it kind of just comes together, but it's from listening and from communicating.

[00:58:17] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's why I like to say the, the unconscious of how deep it goes within our unconscious. Right. Because often we are fish in the water.

And we don't even see the water, right? Of our cultural conditioning and the narratives and, and the scripts about what it means to be in relationship with other people. Again, historically, we know many of the roots of our relational practices in the West are a modern thing that has not been practiced all around the world.

So we know that that's a fact, right? Then people we're in the space where people get to choose what they want to do with that. But historically, we've existed in much more fluid ways, and even if we wanna get into the evolutionary thoughts about Bonobos and how they, you know, relate for, um, social connectedness with sexuality in much more fluid, even queer way, right?

So if we wanna go down that evolutionary path, we can get into all of that. We are social beings that Ed, he, um, love to make stories. Our big, beautiful brains make stories, which is beautiful. That's how we connect, right? As a culture or oral stories, how we make meaning of our experience. Mm-hmm. It's a fantastic thing.

Mm-hmm. Exactly. Exactly. And so when you live in a society that has a story of how to relate in a quote unquote healthy way, right? It's really hard to unpack that. And unpack how deep that goes. I remember sitting in my clinical psychology doctoral training and a professor telling me that non-monogamy never works, ever, right?

So here I have this woman with power, a doctorate telling me a little baby student in class. Uh, absolutely not. This never works. And so that's a moment of someone with power, with cred credentials in our system and her quote unquote expertise to say, this never works. I've had other, other conversations with professors to say, well, you know, like.

It's just like with attachment, you know, we've got the two parent model and that's really the best model. You know, it's, it's just funny when they say that, 'cause I'm like, oh, you're telling me we attach to two different people. Great. Let's all at least have two partners. Then that seems to be if we're, if, if we wanna go down the hat path, you know, like then at least two partner, you know.

But I don't even begin at that path. Because the reality is, even in that model, you still have multiple other people you're attached to in that circle. Yeah. Whether it's aunts friends, or we outsource it with literal money to pay for a preschool or to pay for these other, like, there are more than one person.

And so it's just wild to me how it's, but I think part of that is just the cultural scripts that we live in. It is. So deep. And so it takes a long time historically for people to unlearn to a point where we could at least get to a space of freedom where you could not feel judgment for choosing the paths of multiplicity, right, of, of a, of liberation with your eroticism, right?

There's still so much internalized judgment, stigma, it's not safe at work for some folks, all those other pieces. And so we're just not yet in that space where we, we have that sort of liberation, but I, I hear. Hear it and I feel you so much of like look at all these other models where we, we do this with kids and we say that we can have multiple connections and of course there's a limit to that.

You start having eight 12, you know, you start realizing, wow. You know, and so same things with our relationships and with friendships too. Look at this beautiful stratification of how many different connections we have. Some people you see once a year, some people you see once a week. Some people you see much more often than that.

And Sure. Throwing in something like an intimacy of sexuality, like that could be something that's absolutely fluid within those connections too. Right? If you want to be, yeah. It's not the pinnacle, but within our society that is often the most tricky and complicated piece of all of it. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and so it's just, we have the models there, but the narratives and the assumptions and the nervous system stuff with all of that is deep.

[01:02:07] Lucy: Yes. Yes. Keep, I think it's really, uh, it's interesting to look at it from that model because obviously this is relating to the, the research background that I come from. If you look at the, the Prairie Roll Vol, uh, Prairie vol on, on monogamous pair bonds even, and the way that we're using, uh, it's understood that we're using an attachment model from like the new neurobiology of that model comes from our attachments to our caregivers.

And then we repurpose that into adulthood when we're making connections for romantic sexual partnerships. And that's, that's established to be the case, but at no point when you look at the actuality of it, is that limited to one or, or even two, or even three people, as you say. Because we can attach to multiple caregivers, we can attach to a new caregiver to different point later on.

And the whole point is that our neurobiology is plastic. One of the wonderful things about human beings is that we have this plasticity. We're incredibly flexible. We're incredibly adaptable. You can put us in most habitats in the world, and we seem to do very well. And it's the same with relational connections in terms of a habitat.

Also, we can fit into all kinds of different habitats. And I think it's just a case of looking at which one suits you and actually exercising a choice intentionally, uh, instead of just adopting the prevailing script that you're handed. 'cause as you, as you said, we're meaning making animals, and we do this through story, but if you don't question the stories that you're given, you never get to make that choice.

[01:03:41] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:41] Lucy: And so I think in so many ways, adopting a non-standard lifestyle, whatever that is for yourself, including and not limited to relationship anarchy, in my case, is a practice in analyzing what works for you and then trusting yourself. And I think this is something that, um. It's something that I've come to you that's really been nurtured by the sport that I do because sure when you are on a slack line at height in the middle of the sky with one inch of webbing underneath you, and nothing but the thoughts rattling around in your own head for company, it doesn't matter what anyone said to you on the ground.

It doesn't matter what intention you brought up there, it doesn't matter what anyone else is thinking or expecting of you because there's this aloneness to that situation Sure. To the, to the degree of exposure, to your own capacity that you have in that situation. So you have to learn to listen to yourself and let that be good enough because there literally isn't anything else.

And there's an allegory in that for me, in terms of looking at my experience and the, the challenges and struggles that I've had in life that in so many ways have reduced things to the bare bones and forced me to rebuild. My homelessness, my queerness. Yeah. My non-monogamous tendencies, my challenges with disability, all these things, they, they take from you what you expected, and then you are forced into a position of, well, what can I do now?

What do I actually want? And can I trust myself to go get that? To find that, to build that to

[01:05:21] Dr. Nicole: mm-hmm.

[01:05:21] Lucy: Pull it out of the bag somewhere to find the resilience from somewhere.

[01:05:25] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:05:26] Lucy: And in all these ways, I'm, I'm falling back on myself. It's a very vulnerable thing to do, to trust yourself. I think so many of us struggle with self-worth because we're in so many ways letting ourselves down.

[01:05:38] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:39] Lucy: And we know we're not trustworthy. Something that I've had to do in my life, and I, I bring this into my practice of relationships as well, is to take apart with some serious scrutiny, what my values are and how. I am, or I'm not actually practicing them. Mm-hmm. And then kind of hold myself to account for that.

[01:06:03] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[01:06:04] Lucy: And try to make sure that the life that I'm living truly is a reflection of the life I want to live.

[01:06:10] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:06:10] Lucy: And not one where I'm just telling stories about how it would be nice to be this way or that way. Sure. And in, in so doing in, in living in my integrity and living in my, in my wholeness as far as I keep finding what that looks like.

[01:06:25] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:06:26] Lucy: I then trust myself more.

[01:06:28] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[01:06:28] Lucy: Because I'm credible and because I'm competent. And I think high Lining's really helped me Yeah. To develop that. And then having the community that I've had around me also has allowed me the resilience to kind of do what we all do when put on a slack line, which is to fall down a lot Yeah.

And stand back up again. Yeah. And in, in relationships, we fuck things up. In relationships, we, we didn't realize that was a blind spot and we do something insensitive and how you hold yourself to account, how you repair

[01:07:01] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:07:01] Lucy: How you show up the next time with a different intention. Now that, you know, those things are so critical to being able to hold multiple intimacies, multiple connections all at the same time.

[01:07:12] Dr. Nicole: Mm. Mm-hmm.

[01:07:13] Lucy: So I think it, it fits with so many themes in my life of, of that kind of like. Self-reflection and a work towards integrity and wholeness and, and self-trust. That's, yeah. These, these themes all link together all the time. Oh, absolutely.

[01:07:28] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely, absolutely. Yes. Um, it's a practice and so that practice can be mirrored in so many different areas of your life.

And so I can imagine with slack lining, and I say imagine because I've gone a slack line a couple of times, and man, that is so hard. I've only had someone walk me with their hands, right? Relationally so that I could balance on the slack line, like mad respect for that. Um, um. Got there. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

We all have to start somewhere. Exactly. Um, because I look at Slackliners, I see them like do like flips and stuff online, and I'm like, what? How, you know, but I'm a rock climber, so that's like my area of practice of like extreme sports. And I'm sure there's a lot of ways where it crosses and the, um, like you're saying, the heights when you're there and the, the monkey mind and all of the fear and the thoughts that are going on both in the mind and the body, the same, same for rock climbing.

When you're up there and you know, you're trying to make that next lead clip, you're like shaking. Um, yeah. But I think a lot about how when we were talking about the historical roots, the, the different perspectives on how we've done relationships in the past, uh, the research, right? What even having all of that, that's such a cognitive piece, right?

Yeah. You can be on that slack line and know, Hey, I've got this gear. I'm on this rock climbing route. The rope is right there, but oh my gosh, my body, my body is. Still making all of these fears and moments of connections. Yeah. And so when I think about my relationships, you know, like knowing like, okay, I believe this, I believe the philosophy, I believe all of this, that I know about relationships.

I've read set sex at dawn, I've read the ethical slut, I've read blah, blah, whatever amount of books, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And still. My body is reacting, you know, like my partners, oh, I'm going on another day. Oh, I'm doing this. Oh, I'm making this new connection. Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. Right? And it's like so frustrating at, at the beginning, and not to say I'm done with that, but to acknowledge I've gotten much stronger in those muscles.

But then before, but uh, still more to go. Uh, but always at the beginning it was so, so scary. And so when I think about that, um, I try to talk about the unconscious. And again, for years of our lives, we have this level of social conditioning where like the media will say. If you, it's like some dumb quote, right?

Like if you find someone else that you fall in love with, leave the first person because you never would've fallen in love if you really loved the first person, right? Or that someone's gonna leave, right? These are deep within our unconscious. So when there's that small moment of someone saying, oh, I'm gonna go explore this new connection or new this, your body within microseconds is responding to that classical conditioning that is so deep within the body.

And so it was frustrating for me 'cause I'm like, intellectually, I'm right here, but my body is right here. Right? And so having compassion for yourself as you're unlearning, um, these scripts and these narratives, right? And so I'm sure like slack lining and like rock climbing, you know what makes that easier is exposure.

You take the fall, you're okay, your partner goes on a date, they come back, it's okay. Right? And you also have other people that do it, right? I see other people rock climbing. I'm like, damn. They're doing it, they're good. Okay. I'm sure you see other people slack line, you're like, okay, okay. Right. And so like the beauty I back flip on a slack line and Exactly.

Still alive. Yes, exactly. And so it sets, uh, an example of what is possible. Yeah. And you can co-regulate with those people after you take a a, a fall. Right. And you're like, God, that was really scary. They're like, oh yeah, I've been on falls like that too. Right. And you can kind of co-regulate. And so when people, I think are wanting to step into expansive, relating around relationship anarchy and thoughts like this, I always say there's loads of work that you can do on the individual, the individual and your psyche.

But you also absolutely need a community for moments like this to see what is possible to co-regulate together and all that being, I would say almost confidently more important. Yeah. Is finding the community rather than just trying to do this individual self stuff. There's a lot to do there. Don't get me wrong.

I'm here for that. Like, journaling. Wow. What a powerful practice. However, the community, you know, the community,

[01:11:40] Lucy: yeah. Having models for how it works, having other people's experience is to hear from, uh, I think is one of the, I'm just gonna big you up here and say, the podcast is fantastic and it's really great because it feels like proper conversations with people who are willing to be that vulnerable.

Yeah. And so it's again, expanding that sense of community that, that we have. 'cause you can tune in and hear other people voicing similar concerns or laughing about the same things or saying, oh yeah, I messed that up too once. And, and here's how I, how I set that. Right.

[01:12:10] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:12:10] Lucy: I, I think something that's hugely important, just like the, the exposure on the highline when, when you are stuck in your own head.

That's how it feels when your nervous system is triggered by something relational. And maybe that's a friendship. Maybe it's a sexual relationship, maybe it's a romantic partnership. Maybe it comes under the umbrella of all of those, but something's pinged your amygdala. Something's making your attachment system feel like it's about to hit scarcity hard, and you're terrified.

And it doesn't really matter how long you've been doing this relational style. Yeah, the sensation, the physical sensation, and the fact that your body will go through that. Mm-hmm. Kind of just sits there the same no matter what and what. Changes is your resilience to dealing with it. What changes is your ability to approach it with curiosity and vulnerability and use it as a point of connection with your partner rather than a point of disconnection.

So rather than running away from them in fear or shoving them back because you, you think it's them that caused it,

[01:13:10] Dr. Nicole: right?

[01:13:11] Lucy: You get closer and you get more curious and you say, Hey, can I, can I say something daft? 'cause I really need you to hear this. And they go, of course it's not like this. You know? And you let them have a chance to tell you how much they love you or how much you mean to them.

But I think it's a, a thing that I've come up against over and over again is never, ever underestimating the importance of those moments where you, you wanna say to your partner, can I ask a silly question? Even if you're experienced, you know, and you think, oh, this is, I should be okay at this now, I should be fine.

I shouldn't be insecure about that. Yeah. I've done this a whole bunch of times. Yep. If you can say. It dissipates that the physicality, it dissipates the clenched ness, the swirling stomach, the grip shoulders, all of the things that we can't separate ourselves from in our biology. And it lets you soften into the other person again.

Mm-hmm. And I think it's so true what you're saying about identifying that these things are nervous system phenomena and that they're physically based in our bodies. And I think that the more I have looked into practices of embodiment through meditation and through yoga and through slack lining and through all sorts of things as part of my trauma recovery.

Yeah. Um, the more I realize that with physical beings and being in contact with other physical beings and relating on that, on that plane of, of the physical experience is so important. And so that's a, a key way that I feel like it's really important to practice compassion. In our relationships is over, over those little details, over those little moments of, you know, I've, I've fallen off the emotional slack line again.

Yeah. This time I really hit the ground hard and I could do a hug and to tell you about it and always being there as far as your capacity extends for other people to come to you and say, this thing hurts, and I'm not even sure why, or, yeah. Yeah. It's just such an important part of maintaining connection

[01:15:12] Dr. Nicole: mm-hmm.

[01:15:12] Lucy: Is to allow all the space for the fails and the falls and the bumps and the, the tiny grazes even Right. To be met with kindness and to be held as, just as valuable as the big cognitive ideals and Totally, totally. The things that we might read about in the books and, you know, really nod strenuously about Right.

Got this experience of this relational. Philosophy, the, the lived experience is a physical one.

[01:15:38] Dr. Nicole: Oh yeah. Philosophy and the actual practice are two different things as I've well learned and continue to learn, you know? Absolutely. And then, so I'm hearing that healthy interdependence, right? Being able to do your own self work and open up to other people's supporting you in that.

And Yeah, I, even just yesterday when I was at the climbing gym, someone was telling me about how they're starting to lead climb, and they're like, it's so scary. I feel it in my body. It's so scary. And so some days I say, I never wanna do it again. And other days I'm like, I should be pushing through that.

And I was like, what if it was like a daily invitation, you know? Like, how do I feel today? How do I feel today? Right? And being able to be fluid rather than this. Binary of I have to push, push, push, take the high dose psychedelic or whatever it is that you're trying to stretch your nervous system to, or just walk away completely.

I feel like I've found a lot of healing and compassion in the negotiation. Some days I do need a little bit more holding and nurturance and reassurance. Other days I feel really great and I'm like go, you know, feeling that abundance and so understanding that that also, like through that practice, our nervous system is gonna shift depending on the weather of our lives, metaphorically and probably physically, because winter is difficult for a lot of people depending on where you're at.

Right. And so all this sort of contextual factors and so I'm curious for you, like the next question is leading into the difficulties and the joys of relationship anarchy and trying to balance that. I'm curious if you could speak to that and your lived experience. Hmm.

[01:17:07] Lucy: I've had a great deal of difficulty in bringing this practice into my life because.

It doesn't always meet people's expectations and it doesn't align with the cultural norms. Yeah. And then also my own personal practice of it can and has been misunderstood by people that I'm relating to. But I would say that over the course of time, I've grown in the confidence that I have to work through those things with people and to be able to stick with something and explain.

[01:17:46] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:17:47] Lucy: Um, my perspective rather than getting scared off. I think I had a lot of hangups about being a non-monogamous person, whether I was too much effort, too much hassle to relate to, because in the situations where there's been multiple sexual. Relationships going on in my life. Sometimes there's been catastrophes in that really difficult.

I hear you.

[01:18:12] Dr. Nicole: Uh,

[01:18:12] Lucy: and I think a lot of people who, who have a relationship philosophy such as relationship panarchy, they, they have experienced things like that too. Um, but what I would say was that like everything, it's, it's been this enormous journey of self-awareness, like my career, my relationship to myself, my parenting, all these things are in development.

They're all a journey all the time. And I think when something just keeps coming back to you, it's worth continuing the curiosity, it's worth continuing the effort because I think I can say with confidence now that this not necessarily an essential component of non-monogamy, but a philosophy aligned with relationship anarchy just sits easily with me.

It just feels like a natural extension of who I am. And it's come outta that realm of the cognitive and the, the books that I've read and the things that I would like to aspire to. It feels like a practice of love in a really full sense. Yeah. And I feel like the business of my life is to practice love.

Yeah. It's what I do for gardening as a career choice, because that's about nurturing, it's about growth. Mm-hmm. And it's about applying love in a really physical sense such that things can flourish. And that's definitely something that comes into, comes into the way that I show up in relationships. But the work necessary in gardening, it's, it's also necessary in, in your relationship style, in, in whatever that is.

I think everyone finds the relationships of work.

[01:19:45] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:19:46] Lucy: This in particular, to adopt a philosophy of relationship anarchy, it means knowing that it comes with a lot of work.

[01:19:53] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:19:53] Lucy: And I just think it's very worthwhile to stick with it if it calls you. Because to speak to the joys rather than the difficulties and the challenges, I feel so much abundance and so much gratitude in my life for the connections that I have, be it sexual, be it romantic, be it friendship, whatever other categories people might choose to put on them.

I'm, I'm Boyd up by, I'm raised up by the people in my life and I'm a social animal. This is irreducibly important to the nature of who I am. And I, I think that expression, now that I've arrived at a place that I am comfortable saying, this is me to express, it's allowed a, um, a gentleness to come into my life.

[01:20:38] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:20:39] Lucy: That I think comes from that abundance. Oh yeah. It's, it's hugely, yeah, hugely rewarding. Yes. Despite the, the challenges and the pitfalls. And the nightmares and the, yeah. Yes. Yeah. And, and absolutely. Always, always refining and using that discernment, like I said. Yeah. It's very, very, very concretely a practice.

Yes. It will not always get right, but that it feels, feels wonderful when you do.

[01:21:08] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I know for myself. I've felt that calling to it from originally hearing the words, and that was the beginning of the podcast. Even using the words modern anarchy of like connecting to that idea as many years ago and starting there.

And I know for myself, when I have been put into a space of, past my zone of tolerance into dysregulation, um, there's obviously like a lot of somatic pieces I can feel. The tightness in the chest, the turning in the stomach, I'm caving forward, I'm crying, I'm not breathing fully, whatever, all of that. And also cognitively, I know that I've been pushed to a point when I start to say I can't do this.

Why do I even do this? Mm-hmm. You know, I've taken whatever fall from a relationship or two. 'cause that can happen where you have conflict in multiple at the same time. And you go, what the fuck am I doing? Why am I here? Why am I doing this? My deal is this. Exactly why. And then, you know, so that's when I know I've pushed too far.

'cause I'm like, oh, okay. And I think, uh, we see that in other areas of your life, right? Like, um, why do I rock climb at all? Why do I ever do this? Why do I slack line, why do I garden? There's all these things in the garden, right? Whatever it is, we get those points and then our brain goes into that state of like negative all or nothing thinking black and white thinking, right?

And it, it's funny, I mean, it's not funny, but I guess this far into the journey of relationship anarchy, it's so many connections around me where it's so grounded, where like, hmm. Sometimes I'm like, why am I even doing this? I'm like, well, I'm actually so far down the rabbit hole. I don't know if I can really re like, remove my, you know, like it holds me now.

'cause I'm like, well this is my whole community now. I mean, like, I, I am here, so it's a little bit easy in some of that, but at the beginning it was very hard. 'cause I'd be like, oh, maybe I should just abandon or get out of this. Um, take it slow. You know, you don't have to slack line every day when maybe you have an injury.

You don't have to rock climb every day when you have an injury. Right. We can take it slow and ease into that. And like you're saying, there's so much joy when you do learn those skills and you have those muscles of communication and working through conflict and rupture and repair, which are inevitable parts of any sort of relationship.

And so to work through those skills, there are days where it is. Tiring and you, you need to rest, right? But also like what a muscle to have built and then to see the fruits of that labor when, when you have so many beautiful connections and those small moments where you see your community all come together, it's like, uh, at least those are some of my favorite moments where you see all these people that you have these deep relationships with intermingling and connecting and sharing moments of intimacy together.

And I'm just like, ah. Like what a beautiful moment In the richness of that.

[01:23:52] Lucy: Truly, there were very hectic moments where both partners and all three of the children involved within two of the adults in the three adults mm-hmm. We're all in the same household. And it's bonkers, obviously. Yeah, of course. But absolutely fantastic.

[01:24:09] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[01:24:10] Lucy: And it feels so lovely to sit, you know, to sit at a dinner table with the people that you care for so much.

[01:24:15] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:24:15] Lucy: And have that the, that ease settle into a, a setting like that, or when I see. One of the people who's really meaningful to my daughter helping her, and particularly with the challenge of disability helping her in a moment.

Sure. When I don't feel resourced to what that means to me is just, I, I don't have the words to describe its value. I really don't. There are times when I've done too much, either highlining or work or a combination of everything or some really stressful life event has happened, and then the way that people muck in to help me and my daughter and the, the closeness and the vulnerability that's possible within this model.

Yeah. It's, I I cherish that beyond words. Yeah. It's really something that's, that's brought so much benefit to me and my daughter's life, and I, and I hope, you know, hope so deeply that that benefit is mutual and it, it seems to be, because we all keep coming back to the table for more. Yeah, absolutely. It has bumps in the road and it has hard bits, but I think if there's one.

Thing I've really been learning over the past three or four years of coming to terms with a challenge of disability, especially in relation to trying to continue doing an extreme sport with that. It's that listening to what resources I do have and trying not to exceed that threshold. Trying all the time to walk that balance, like you're saying between, oh, well I'll just back off and not do this at all.

Yeah. Or I'll go full throttle and I'm, I'm, I'm coming from a background of more than full throttle. I throw myself at life like nobody's business. So, and, and part of me will always do that. I, I don't think I would be slack lining at heights and, and flinging myself around trying to pursue freestyle at this point in my life if I wasn't that kind of person.

[01:26:08] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:26:08] Lucy: But I can't do it in the way that a lot of people in my community can. I used to wanna have four sessions a day. Now if I have one, that's a really good day Sure. Because I'm not gonna have the resources to do it. And if I push and push and push and push, I will find myself into it. I will find myself in bed for fortnight.

I will find myself unable to look after my daughter. I will find all these big impacts. You know, I, I won't be able to do my job. 'cause gardening is a really physical career. Sure. And so I can't practice the things that I want to, well, if I don't listen to the resources that I have.

[01:26:45] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:26:45] Lucy: And I think, uh, having a, a journey through fibromyalgia and complex PTSD has really brought me up hard against having to listen to those things.

[01:26:55] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:26:56] Lucy: And coming back to self care and self nurturance and self-compassion. First Yep. So that I can bring those things into my wider world so that I can deliver those things to other people and be a model of those things for my daughter.

[01:27:09] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[01:27:09] Lucy: And I think it's, it's something that's helped me in my practice of relationship anarchy.

Because, for example, me and, and my companion animal partner, we notice all the time that the times that insecurities come up, the times that things feel difficult, relationally, maybe in response to a situation, but also just maybe like you say, that whole, why am I doing this? Why am I putting myself through this question?

These difficulties, these challenges, more of the insecurities. They come up when you're tired. Yeah. They come up when you haven't slept well for three days. Yeah. They come up when other life events are exhausting you. Yep. They come up when you've overextended yourself and taken on too many commitments.

[01:27:49] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[01:27:50] Lucy: For us, it'll be, it'll be around sleep, it'll be around. In his case, university commitments, or in my case, parenting commitments, or we're on a trip in Europe and we've been highlighting for days and now we're absolutely knackered. It's always those times it seems. Mm-hmm. So paying attention to what I actually have capacity for Right.

Is something that, that's really helpful in, in that practice, and again, comes back to like the quality rather than quantity thing. I, I am very aware, I'm kept aware on a daily basis of my limited capacity.

[01:28:23] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[01:28:24] Lucy: By my, by my physical body.

[01:28:26] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:28:27] Lucy: But I'm a person who wants a lot. I quote Aya all the time about living the life that drips down your chin.

[01:28:34] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[01:28:34] Lucy: And so I have this, this desire to kind of throw myself in this desire to to go in at the deep end, to be really exposed, to be really vulnerable, to really push something.

[01:28:45] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:28:45] Lucy: And at the same time, I'm learning all the time, these lessons about going a little gentler. Yeah. Going a little gentler for sure.

Yeah. And then how much more resourced I am to offer that gentleness to other people.

[01:28:57] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:28:58] Lucy: To bring that gentleness into the relationships that I have.

[01:29:01] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[01:29:01] Lucy: And having the capacity to hold others in that. Yeah.

[01:29:05] Dr. Nicole: And yeah, so beautifully said, so beautifully said. And such a lifelong journey too, right?

Of embodiment, right? Like I hope to get to the end of my life, still going deeper and deeper into the practice of feeling into my body, feeling the pleasure, the pain, the suffering, the sorrow, all of it. And then also learning the skills to be in community with that, right? That lifelong practice of that.

Yeah. And you said it so well, and you've really covered so much of the different terrain of relationship anarchy. And so with all of that, I'm curious with the last question. What do you wish other people knew about relationship anarchy?

[01:29:44] Lucy: I love this question. I love this when you ask other people on the podcast.

[01:29:48] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:29:49] Lucy: I, I think one thing that really just, I keep coming back to all the time in the conversations that I have with other people about this subject as well, is I wish people. Knew that relationship anarchy was not so outrageous, was not so anarchistic in the, in the common parlance, understanding it's tea and toast, that it's having your laundry confused and trying to ball socks with someone that, it's someone who happens to know where your child's toothbrush is.

Yeah. When you're too exhausted to look for it yourself. It's really ordinary human and it's about a practice of human with as many people as it feels comfortable to bring close to you as possible, rather than bringing in a limited I set of ideals and categories about what that looks like.

[01:30:47] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:30:48] Lucy: Going back to that thing I said about being a little bit put off myself, not by the words meaning to me, but by the words meaning to others.

I wish people had a greater understanding that anarchy is about thoughtfulness. Measuredness, discernment.

[01:31:03] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:31:03] Lucy: Care, mutual benefit, generosity, and, and crumpets with an awful lot of jam. Yeah. There is this side of the pleasure that is possible when you bring a lot of vulnerability to life that isn't about excess, that isn't about explosions, that's thoroughly sustainable and that's thoroughly warm and nurturing.

And I think probably a lot more approachable than people imagine when they hear the term relationship anarchy. Right. So, yeah, I, I wish, I wish that. Was spoken to more.

[01:31:38] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you did such a good job of speaking to it today with me. Thank you. Yeah, I'm so grateful. Truly each, uh, one of these conversations is so life-giving and I learned so much each time, and so it's such a joy to have this space and I'm glad that the other episodes that I've made have resonated with you.

It's truly, if, if I could have found this resource many years ago, I don't even know how cool I would've been. You know, just be like, wow, this is real. Like, like, so, it's such a joy to make it, and, and it. Takes people like you who trust me, trust the space to come on to here and have this sort of conversation for our community and for the movement.

And so I'm so grateful that you did that with me today and spoke to the wisdom of your lived experience with this practice, both the philosophical and the embodied aspect of that. And so as we come towards the end of our time, I'll take a deep breath with you

and then I'll check in and see if there's anything else you wanna say. Otherwise, I have the closing question for you.

[01:32:48] Lucy: Uh, no, I don't think so. Okay. It's just been really wonderful to have another discussion with someone interested in this. Yeah. There are, there are not so many people that I can have a really wonderful, open, vulnerable conversation and have.

Have so much common understanding on which to base it, so thank you. Mm-hmm.

[01:33:06] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely. That's the life we're just giving right there, right Shirley. Right. Like to feel seen. Um, as you said, we're all craving to be seen, loved and appreciated. And so it's such a joy when you have someone who understands that and the, the life givingness that that can feel to be really seen.

And that is so powerful, so such a joy to hold that space for us. Um, and for all of the listeners who are tuning into our conversation too,

[01:33:30] Lucy: thank you..

[01:33:31] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Alright, so the last question that I ask everyone on the show is, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

[01:33:43] Lucy: It's such a hard question.

[01:33:45] Dr. Nicole: I know.

[01:33:47] Lucy: I, I think yourself the, the, that normal is an indefinable quality. Absolutely. Really, whatever you are. Is good enough. It's fine. That's normal. It's your normal. And that we all get to define our own normal.

[01:34:04] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:34:04] Lucy: Um, I think trusting that and listening to that and understanding that whatever you are isn't gonna be exactly the same as anybody else or any social scripts you are handed.

Mm-hmm. Being able to just Yeah. Make space for your own authenticity. Yeah. I, I feel like if that could be a little bit more normal, a lot of us would be an awful lot more comfortable. We'd feel an awful lot more abundance and we'd be able to treat each other with an awful lot more kindness and compassion.

[01:34:32] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:34:33] Lucy: I think when I, when I see people in, in spaces where vulnerability's Okay. And they can just show up as whatever they are, you know, be it freaky and weird, or be it terribly vanilla. Mm-hmm. Whatever it is, if it's just really you and it's allowed. Then, then the best things come outta people.

Absolutely. The best things come outta people. So yeah, I wish that people thought that what was more normal was them.

[01:34:58] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:34:58] Lucy: As they are unadulterated.

[01:35:00] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And as you spoke to the power of finding community spaces or that is reflected, right? They say we are, you know, the amalgamation of the five closest people to you.

Right? So thinking about something like that, like if you're wanting to feel more comfortable in your authenticity to be able to find community spaces, right? And so the listener who's tuning in right now and hearing us say that this is a form of community, right? Like we're two people, you're listening to the conversation, we're in this.

Space together. Right? And so that's a step towards that. And so then finding that in, in, um, embodied dynamic relationships and people around you, that's how you start to have that transformation. Again, there is so much internal work that we can do, um, journaling, learning new, uh, somatic tools, how to regulate your body, all of, because that is a internal thing, granted.

Hmm. Mirror neurons we can co-regulate all day long. But there is that internal narrative to work through. But it, I just so, so strongly want to emphasize the importance of finding community and that being the most transformative thing. Um, we see that when we look at relational patterns from the beginning with our families and, uh, caregivers and then any sort of other relationships.

It, it forms how we move through society. And so when we wanna normalize feeling authentic, find the spaces where you can do that, and it is celebrated and challenged, right? We need to be challenged at times, call in, right? But to be able to be in those spaces will transform your nervous system every single day.

We take that small moment where you're like, someone asked, how am I doing? You're like. I'm actually gonna share that I had a really challenging week. This is my big step. Here we go. And that person says, oh wow. Like what happened? I'd love to hear more. Whoa. Okay. Right. And so you start to learn, it's safe to be able to do that rather than getting shut down.

'cause we need connection. And so when you find those spaces where you get even more connection by being your authentic self, your nervous system, your soul, your heart starts to bloom in those spaces. And so, ugh. Yeah. I just, the community work, that's great.

[01:37:07] Lucy: Yeah. You break down all the ways you were shackling yourself because you felt ashamed.

You break down all the ways that you were holding yourself back or that you were holding yourself away from others and keeping yourself and disconnection and keeping them from being able to see who you are. And so I, I think that showing up with a kind of a, a radical insistence on being yourself and a, and a, a radical devotion to truth telling.

Those are some of the hardest things that we can do. Yeah. They really are. But especially in the closest, most intimate relationships we have. If we can't bring. A real version of ourselves, then the other person will always be relating to a made up story because we are giving them really poor data.

[01:37:49] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:37:49] Lucy: And if we want them closer to us, and if we want what we all want, which is to be seen and understood, and to truly belong so that we feel really loved, we have to show up as the whole of what we are. And that's messy.

[01:38:02] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:38:02] Lucy: And it requires a holding of paradox and an, and a appreciation of nuance and a care, a tenderness for all the weird stuff that crawls around in the corners, you know?

[01:38:13] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:38:13] Lucy: And I, I think those, those things. I, I find that an awful lot in my community. And then even more for me, it's magnified by the experience of watching my daughter be in receipt of those things too.

[01:38:26] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:38:26] Lucy: And the way that by nurturing those things in, in myself, I become able to model them for her.

Because for me in my life, it is not just me. There's this other nervous system that I'm responsible for, and I'm watching it be shaped by experiences the whole time.

[01:38:40] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:38:41] Lucy: And the exposure that she has to, to non normativity, to, to queerness, to neurodivergence, to non-monogamy and relationship panicky to people who do really strange things on sky noodles in odd costumes, you know?

Sure. Yeah. We'll also show you how they learned this instrument or talk to you about this language that they know or say, oh yeah, I really like stamp collecting, or whatever it is. You know, it doesn't, there are so many little tiny ways in which the strangeness of everybody allows my daughter to be herself

[01:39:16] Dr. Nicole: beautiful.

[01:39:17] Lucy: That I am, like I, again, I can't sum up the gratitude of course, that I have for all the people who show up in my life as they are. Mm. And the breakthrough that that takes.

[01:39:26] Dr. Nicole: Mm mm-hmm. Absolutely. Absolutely. The ability to be your authentic self in those spaces and. Yeah, when it, when it is scary to open it up, when it is scary to share that we can have the compassion for ourselves and knowing that somewhere along the line it was not safe to do so whether that was family, friends, partners, any sort of connection or even the general society, right?

That says this is how you, you're supposed to be, um, heterosexual and straight. And so like, it might not even be in a lived, um, relationship, but rather a culturally context sort of expectation where these parts of yourself are not safe to show up in relation. And so to keep ourselves safe, we hold it back.

And so, um, for anyone who is. Myself included, often feeling nervous to connect with new people. Right? It's a reminder that there have been times in the past where that has been painful or hurt or there have been, um, situations where you've needed to close up to protect yourself. Right? And so you have compassion.

I feel like starting with that beginning of compassion for knowing that we're always trying to keep ourselves safe and that is why we've gotten to this space and then finding new communities where you can do that sort of safe learning of opening up is okay, opening up is okay. Right? And so again, we are always healing in relationships.

So much of the internal work is like. What relationships caused me to be this way, but also it's best to do that in community talking about it, whether it's a healer, a therapist, a friend, right? Processing that and then also doing the nervous system attunement work as you open up and feel safe again. I mean, it's like, uh, it's all right here for me about healing and community and what it means to be able to thrive in that and to care in that.

And you did such a, a powerful job today of opening up that conversation and being authentic and vulnerable about both the struggles and the joys of relationship anarchy. And it truly was such a joy to have you on the podcast today. So thank you. Thank you,

[01:41:31] Lucy: thank you. Thank you so much.

[01:41:35] Dr. Nicole: If you enjoy today's episode, then leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast, and head on over to modern anarchy podcast.com to get resources and learn more about all the things we talked about on today's episode.

I wanna thank you for tuning in, and I will see you all next week.