What Excites Us!

Episode 63: Conflict Happens Now What? The Polyamory Paradox with Irene Morning

Transcript:

Ep 63 - Irene Morning

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[00:00:00] Introduction and Content Warning

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[00:00:00] Gwyn: This podcast is about sex and sexuality, so please only listen if you are an adult without kids or other ears around that cannot, or do not consent to sensitive language and content. Thanks.

[00:00:20] Meet Our Host: Gwyn Isaacs

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[00:00:20] Gwyn: Hello and welcome back to What Excites Us, the place where we talk about intimacy, desire, and all the sticky human stuff that no one told us about. My name is Gwyn Isaacs. I am a certified clinical sexologist. I have been working with people since 2017. I am your pleasure, cheerleader, and the woman who will absolutely overthink virtually everything

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[00:00:47] Introducing Irene Morning

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[00:00:47] Gwyn: Today's guest is someone I am so excited to bring to you, someone whose work I devoured, whose brain I admire and whose book I basically highlighted until there was very few actual just words left. I'm talking about Irene Morning. She's a somatic coach, a pleasure witch, an intimacy educator, and the bestselling author of The Polyamory Paradox.

[00:01:13] And listen, this book is not your typical polyamory theory buffet of abstract ideas and diagrams. Irene brings the missing pieces, the body, the trauma response the actual lived experience of navigating non-monogamy when your nervous system has its own thoughts about it. She weaves her own story through research, nuance and compassion, and it feels like she has said a lot of the quiet parts out loud, the parts that so many folks feel, but rarely see by example or education or written down in the literature.

[00:01:57] Diving into The Polyamory Paradox

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[00:01:57] Gwyn: In this episode, we talk about what actually happens in your body as you take those steps into non-monogamy. How to slow down instead of swan diving off the deep end we talk about the art of attunement, self-trust, conflict, jealousy, communication, and how you can tune into those things so that they can provide the points on your non-monogamy map.

[00:02:25] We get into the cultural pressure people feel to be one kind of relationship or another. The permission to choose what truly fits you and the gentle reminder that you are allowed to change your mind. About partners, about structures, and even about pickles and olives.

[00:02:44] Irene's wisdom is grounded, generous, and gloriously human, and I think you're just gonna fall in love with the way she makes complexity feel accessible and very comforting. So settle in, unclench whatever is clenched and let's go. This is episode 63 with the brilliant Irene Morning.

[00:03:07] Hi, Irene. I'm so excited to have you here. Welcome to What Excites Us.

[00:03:14] Irene Morning: Thank you. I'm really excited to be here.

[00:03:16] Gwyn: So, I just finished your book The Polyamory Paradox. What a great book! I love that it is, yeah, oh god, yeah. So many polyamory books are about theory, Which is really, really important. Um, and a couple of them delve into how to, but your book speaks to a bunch of nuances that don't really come up in any of those books. And I love the fact that you used your own personal story to weave throughout it because I feel like that really helps attach the reader. It helped me anyway. So what led you to write this book?

[00:03:59] Irene's Journey to Non-Monogamy

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[00:03:59] Irene Morning: Yeah, I mean, kind of to your point, I was reading a lot of polyamory theory. And like, in the phase of my life where I was kind of grappling with my own non monogamous identity and coming to terms with. Oh, this is what I am. This is who I am. This thing that I'm learning about for the first time is a core part of me.

[00:04:25] And how do I make sense of that? And how do I put it into practice? And I'm a deep and broad learner. I try to, you know, get my hands on, like, every single resource available when there's something that really piques my interest. And so, of course, realizing that I am non monogamous, I kind of reached for every single available resource at the time.

[00:04:43] Um, and this was several years ago now, and most of what I was finding was theory. And the experience that I was having in my own body was actually like a complex PTSD resurgence. Or kind of prolonged CPTSD episode and I wasn't finding any resources that really talked about. What might happen in your body as you start to practice non monogamy.

[00:05:14] And kind of the other puzzle piece there is that I had just finished a master's degree in yoga therapy. So I just been like, really intensively focused on what do we do with bodies? Right? Like, how do we regulate bodies? How do bodies regulate themselves? What are the tools available for moving through emotions, like, all of this stuff in the healing realm. And that was the puzzle piece that I was looking for in the non monogamy, literature and resources that I just was not finding. And so I kind of started to go through this process of like, okay, I have this tool set that I've developed in my educational and professional background, and then I'm over here having this really intense personal experience. Let me start applying some of those tools to the thing that I'm going through.

[00:06:02] And low and behold, it helped and also the more that I started talking to really anyone about it, the more people were coming forward to me being like, oh, my God, this is the puzzle piece that I'm also missing. So, as my coaching practice developed, it felt more and more relevant to actually get that story and those tools out there in a more digestible way for people. And that was the impetus for the book.

[00:06:28] Gwyn: That's awesome.

[00:06:29] Navigating Non-Monogamous Relationships

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[00:06:29] Gwyn: Would you mind telling us how you discovered that you were non monogamous?

[00:06:34] Irene Morning: So I started seeing someone, mean, I, I kind of laugh about it now because like, literally years later, we still live together. And at the time that we met, I told so many people in my life, like, this is just a casual thing. I'm just having fun. It's whatever we don't even live in the same place.

[00:06:55] But as he and I started to spend more and more time together, we discovered there were, there was a real emotional connection there that we both wanted to lean into. And I found myself. kind of fantasizing and curious about other lovers or romantic interest in his life. And so when the time came for us to kind of have a check in conversation about the status of our relationship, sort of the, the 1st check in conversation about the status of our relationship. he was driving me to the airport 1 day, because we'd been on a trip in California together and he said, you know, do we need to talk about what's going on here?

[00:07:33] And from that felt sense that I had had earlier on of that, like curiosity to know about his other connections, I basically said to him, there's something here that I really want to deepen into, and I'm pretty clear in myself that I want the relationship to remain open if we do that. That I think was kind of pleasantly surprising for him because he had actually spent the few years before that grappling with his own non monogamy.

[00:08:04] And had sort of reached a conclusion that anyone that he got into a more serious relationship with that was a requirement for him. So me bringing it up fit really well for both of us. And then we just dove right in. From there it was kind of like, okay. We're doing this and so everything is on the table, like any relationship configuration, any, sexual or romantic interest in other people.

[00:08:34] And, it's definitely 1 way to do it. It was, it was pretty overwhelming. It's not exactly what I recommend now. You know, when people come to me and they say they're considering opening, I think there are a lot of steps that you can explore before it's just like, diving completely off the deep end. I think that approach was some of what wound up bringing a lot of my PTSD and attachment wounding up to the surface without being very well resourced for it. But that is kind of the origin story.

[00:09:03] Gwyn: Wow. Okay, so then, what do you recommend? I feel like we're jumping ahead, but it seems like such a great segue.

[00:09:14] Practical Advice for Non-Monogamy

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[00:09:17] Gwyn: What do you recommend to folks who are opening up? Do you work with couples who are opening up? Do you work with singles who are opening up or deciding to adventure in this way? Like how do you structure your work and what do you recommend to them?

[00:09:28] Irene Morning: Uh, the majority of the coaching work that I do is individual coaching. I do sometimes work with couples, and I do sometimes schedule kind of sporadic couple sessions with clients and their partners, like existing individual clients. If there's a negotiation that feels like it might need some support or something where it seems like the communication is just going a little bit sideways, and maybe a translator would be helpful.

[00:09:59] Well, there's, there's a couple of things that are a couple of things that are just kind of about like the framing for ourselves. I think there are a couple of important pieces to integrate into our understanding before diving into whatever that new structure is going to be. Um, and then there are kind of figuring out more practical things, like, what are the agreements that feel within our tolerance level right now.

[00:10:20] My entire practice is kind of centered around this idea of holistic pleasure. And I like to put that at the forefront for people of, like, whatever changes you're making in your relationship structure. However, you're approaching any of your relationships, putting your sense of holistic pleasure at the center. Meaning in that holistic pleasure model, we're talking about things that are body based. Things that are mental, emotional. Things that are spiritual or energetic and then things that are relational. So we're kind of hitting on all these different aspects of being human.

[00:10:55] And I think when we make a major relationship transition, it can be really easy to get caught up in the hard work of it and something that makes that immensely smoother and more grounded for us is making sure that we're still prioritizing having pleasure in each of those four realms. Right, so that we're keeping our sense of self, our sense of our own humanity, our sense of our own enjoyment of life intact. So that's 1 of the framing things that I work on with people. And that's kind of like, regardless of non monogamy, right? Like, I think that's kind of an approach that applies to anyone.

[00:11:34] But then the other framing piece with non monogamy that I think is kind of at the top for me is making sure that we understand, we're going to be making pivots we're going to be encountering things that feel like mistakes. Whether or not they're actually mistakes is a whole different discussion. But going into it thinking that we're going to get everything quote unquote right is setting ourselves up to be in a lot of pain.

[00:12:00] So, working on that framing of like, okay, how do I handle challenge? How do I handle disappointment? How do I handle miscommunication? Because those are all things that I'll probably run into as I try to make a major paradigm shift. And then from there, getting into kind of more like the practical skills based stuff, right?

[00:12:21] Like, If I recognize that I have an existing relationship that I'm trying to open up, we want to understand what are the parts of that relationship that feel really secure that I can resource security from that can kind of act as my anchor as we make some shifts in other parts of it. Or if, you know, there's an aspect of communication in that relationship where we often get into miscommunication or it doesn't feel safe to, advocate for what we really want. Those are things we want to be working on either before or in conjunction with opening up, because those are relationship skills that wind up being extra important in non monogamy.

[00:13:05] Gwyn: Yeah, it seems like if the world were perfect,

[00:13:13] Irene Morning: There's the beginning of a sentence,

[00:13:19] Gwyn: and so are we just to make it even that more realistic. That we would think through all of these things before even considering this. Because our society is so based on the monogamous escalator style of relationships, right? This is what we've been taught from everywhere, whether or not, you know, Your actual family mentioned that it's, you know, movies, TV, all the things. So going through all of these really intense paradigm shifts seems to be. Pretty crucial and to be able to do that ahead of time would be great. But that's not usually what happens.

[00:14:02] Irene Morning: Right? You know, I, I've seen a lot of kind of non-monogamy advice out there talking about, kind of talk through all the different scenarios, talk through all the different things you want, talk through the things you don't want, and like that's important to a certain extent, and I work with a lot of people who kind of get stuck in this anxiety loop of trying to think through every possible scenario that they might run into and think through how they will feel in every possible scenario that they might run into.

[00:14:30] And one of the things that I find myself talking to people a lot about, I mean, I guess I'm, I'm hesitating because this is a little bit, uh, counter to what I said a minute ago, but it really it's finding the fine line between taking action and putting this into practice and doing that sort of like thoughtful consideration mental exercise of what are the options here, right?

[00:14:56] Like, I think it's helpful to kind of hone in on what's my desire right now, right? Is it sexual exploration? Is it multiple romantic partners? Is it just not feeling like I'm on that more traditional escalator? Like, what is the desire that I'm having right now that's at the forefront? And can I follow that with some action for a little while? See how it goes. Take in the new experiences and the new information and actually digest them.

[00:15:28] Part of why I say, diving into the deep end is not exactly what I recommend is it can be really hard to then have capacity to actually integrate the experiences that you're having. When we stay perpetually stimulated by things that feel really big. They don't necessarily get to sink into our system the same way.

[00:15:50] Gwyn: Right? It's the thinking versus doing and what comes up because right. As you said, when we're thinking through these things, at least those of us who are more brain based, we do tend to get stuck in a loop and try to figure out every possible scenario. And then when you get into that scenario, frequently, something comes up that I'm just going to speak for myself that I hadn't even considered.

[00:16:16] Irene Morning: Totally

[00:16:17] Gwyn: Ya I have found no matter what. area of life you're talking about, but certainly when it comes to things that are so tender like intimacy.

[00:16:27] Understanding and Managing Conflict

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[00:16:27] Gwyn: So what are some of the themes and challenges that come up a lot for you with your work?

[00:16:34] Irene Morning: I think that sort of anxiety loop of trying to anticipate every possible thing is really a big one. You know, that tends to be a very cognitive process. So doing some work around, well, can we get into what the body is trying to say about it? And the body will usually give us more clear information to direct the train of thought. Like, sometimes the mind is thinking about something is trying to think through scenarios that the body is actually, like, not really that concerned with.

[00:17:02] And if we can kind of hone in on that wisdom and practice actually listening to it, because most of us have developed a lot of ways of disconnecting from listening to that. That's something that I, spend a lot of time and energy doing with people. And what's really cool about that is once you have that skill set in you, right, it can be really helpful to have someone else guiding you through it.

[00:17:27] But it is also something that you can apply for yourself and anchor for yourself. I would say the flip side of that, is then on the other side, when we do encounter like that experience that you were talking about of like, Oh, now I'm in this scenario and I'm feeling a way that like, I just hadn't considered at all.

[00:17:47] When that activates us a certain way, it can be really hard to anchor into the understanding of like what I was saying before. It's like, we're going to run into things that feel like mistakes. Or there was a miscommunication here that didn't actually have any malice in it. It just was a miscommunication.

[00:18:07] And often those experiences can show us something that either isn't working for us or can show us a desire of something that we want to move more towards. And navigating with people, okay, you got more jealous than you thought you were going to, or that actually was really upsetting in your system in a way that you weren't anticipating. Let's figure out how to decipher that information and then make new agreements or new boundaries that support you differently.

[00:18:42] You know, my book has somewhat of an emphasis on addressing people pleasing, like, culturally and fawning where that gets into being a trauma response. And so partly related to that, my practice tends to be a lot of people who resonate with that. Right? So we'll wind up talking a lot about validating whatever the ask is, and it being okay to ask for what you want, ask for what you need.

[00:19:10] There's not actually like an ideal model of non monogamy, just like there's not an ideal model of monogamy. And so using the experiences that we have to figure out, what are my desires and what are the things to advocate for. And then figuring out, like, how do I actually advocate for them? What does it look like for me to say, this is what I want?

[00:19:31] Gwyn: I mean, that's, huge in so many ways for so many people around the world. Yeah, decades or more to work on just that piece of it. Along those lines, you mentioned listening to the body and, okay, so what if you don't know how to interpret those signals? How can you start practicing that?

[00:19:54] Irene Morning: The first thing I want to say about it is first and foremost, trusting yourself and thinking about what it means for you to trust your own body. Because a lot of people that I work with have some sense of listening to their body or some sense of like, here's the signal it's giving me, but then I'm questioning that.

[00:20:17] And I think it's really important as we build up the relationship with listening to the body that we validate whatever it's saying. The other thing I would say though, is then actually getting some education. Looking for whether, depending on your learning style, online courses or workshops, or YouTube's feel supportive to you. Getting some information on what are different stress responses in the body? What does that look like?

[00:20:48] For example, you know, a lot of people are pretty familiar with the phrase, fight or flight. Fight or flight is actually a stress response that can turn into a trauma response. And it is actually 2 distinct responses that can be blended.

[00:21:05] To give some framing here without getting too in the weeds with it. For example, I can notice a flight response happen in my lower body because I will actually want to like, leave the room, right? Versus a fight response happens in my upper body. When I get a lot of tension in my chest or my arms, because that's actually mobilizing my body to get ready to, like, throw a punch.

[00:21:31] And that's just like, for example, all the different emotions in our body have different physiological impulses. So, seeking out some information on what those are, uh, or working with. A therapist or a coach, right? Like someone like me, a lot of what we wind up doing in session is getting in dialogue with what are these sensations and what are the questions that you can ask them, right?

[00:22:00] So I'll guide people into an experience they're having in the body and then say like, okay, and then why don't we ask that sensation if it needs anything, or if there's anything that would feel supportive right now, or if there's something that it's trying to tell you. And often just opening up that space to be in dialogue with our own sensations, it sounds really simple, but it can be a really profound game changer.

[00:22:26] Gwyn: Yeah, I think that simplicity is often overlooked.

[00:22:31] Irene Morning: For sure. we as a species like to complicate things.

[00:22:35] Gwyn: Yeah. Yeah. my mom was a geek like computer programmer in the eighties and she would frequently look at me and say, Occam's razor. And I'd be like, okay, thanks mom. You're making this too hard.

[00:22:54] Irene Morning: We love to do it.

[00:22:56] Gwyn: All sorts of reasons that we go down those rabbit holes.

[00:22:59] Irene Morning: I think also, I mean, kind of on the note of simplicity, one of my, favorite somatics teachers, used to always like to say what works for kids works for adults. And I also kind of even think about it in terms of, like how animals will, literally shake off a stressful experience.

[00:23:18] Like, it's kind of the same thing. Like, what works for animals also works for humans. Like, we, want and need to shake it off to get stress out of our system. And we just have a lot of social conditioning that prevents us from actually doing that. So. If you can think about it as like, what works for kids also works for adults and let yourself be weird.

[00:23:40] Those are pretty good guiding tenets for how to be in a body and how to feel things.

[00:23:46] Gwyn: I love that. Let yourself be weird. Feel like that should be a bumper sticker, not just keep Austin weird or any of the places weird. Just be weird. It's okay.

[00:23:55] Irene Morning: Yeah, just you, you be weird.

[00:23:57] Gwyn: Um, one of the things that I wrote down, and I'm not exactly sure why, was trauma informed regulation and attunement, aka, how do we get through it?

[00:24:07] The Importance of Self-Attunement

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[00:24:07] Irene Morning: Part of why I advocate for learning about the body is that is a big piece of being trauma informed, being able to recognize. You know, when I think about being trauma informed, or at least trauma aware in relationships, part of what that means to me is being able to look at a partner or a friend or whoever the person is, it's in front of us.

[00:24:35] And recognize if they're experiencing something in their body, that is kind of beyond their threshold where they can communicate clearly. I think 1 of the things that's really important to understand about trauma responses is once we're past a certain point of our like stress tolerance. A lot of what we need to communicate clearly and to access higher thinking and to take in new information and to be able to listen to someone else, kind of goes offline.

[00:25:07] And that is also part of the attunement thing. Like, if I have someone sitting in front of me who is past that stress threshold. And they can't articulate clearly to me what's happening for them, and they also can't take in anything new that I'm trying to tell them, then me sitting there trying to problem solve with them, trying to access their higher thinking or their complex reasoning is just not going to work.

[00:25:32] I kind of, use the analogy of like, trying to, talk to someone who's drunk about like, making plans for the next day. Right. You know, it's just like, something's not going to click there. They can't really have that conversation with you. And so the attunement piece is if we can recognize where someone's at and actually meet them in that.

[00:25:57] Right. So developing some skills around, okay, if I see that you're past that threshold, then my role, if I have more stability in my nervous system and my body right now is to help anchor both of us. And that gets to be me attuning to the person in front of me and then also attuning to myself and going, what's my capacity? What do I have range for right now?

[00:26:21] Gwyn: Yeah. And, and it's one of the things that you address in your supportive pieces in the book when you're talking about how to be supportive. I think that's where I was tying all of that in. Supportive for yourself, supportive for the person you're communicating with.

[00:26:37] Irene Morning: Yeah. And I think the, just to kind of like add in the, or highlight the self attunement piece feels really key to me and in well, and also feels a little bit like the piece that we maybe don't talk about as much as I would like us to when we're talking about the trauma awareness piece. Is we actually really need the element of self attunement to be able to say, here's my limit or here's my boundary or here's what I'm not capable of. Because a lot of us are kind of flying past that and in moments where things are heightened that can wind up making it worse.

[00:27:13] If more than one person in a relational dynamic winds up depleted, then it takes that much more energy and effort to climb back out. It's a really, I think, significant relationship skill to be able to say, you know what, I'm actually not available for this particular thing right now. Can we resource that from somewhere else?

[00:27:35] And then that kind of puts us back in polyamory theory where it's like not expecting everything from one partner. Right. If the partner in front of me is not the right partner to, like, calm me down or help me regulate, what are my other resources for that? And it doesn't necessarily have to be romantic or sexual partners, but am I in a healthy, supportive relationship ecosystem where, like, I can get that support elsewhere?

[00:28:00] Gwyn: Yeah. Well, and that's Just so often overlooked in general in society.

[00:28:06] Irene Morning: Mm hmm.

[00:28:07] Gwyn: yes, as you mentioned, the self attunement piece is something that we generally don't do. We expect the world to take care of us in some way, but also that we don't have to get everything, even from a friend. That brings me to one of the things that I really liked with some of the communication techniques that you've talked about in the book.

[00:28:29] Irene Morning: Mm hmm.

[00:28:30] Gwyn: The one that I wrote down was what they say versus what I hear, huge. So,

[00:28:38] Irene Morning: It's always an interesting thing to me to, you know, I think one of the things included in that chapter is, a version of, the Imago technique. Actually, I can't even remember off the top of my head if I included this in the book, but basically the practice of, one partner speaks and then the other partner relays back verbatim what they heard, like, word for word.

[00:28:58] And it's a really interesting exercise because it can show you just how much interpretation you want to put on something, right? Like, even when we're able to, repeat something back word for word, often the internal experience is like, but I think they meant this and I want to change this word to this.

[00:29:17] And like, here's how I would say it differently to say how I understood this. But when I have to say it literally word for word, it puts me in a different experience of the information that someone just gave me.

[00:29:32] Gwyn: Ya I have a dear friend, just to make this personal again who when I ask them a question, they said, They respond with what they think my follow up question will be, or like, what the answer to what they think my follow up question will be, which makes me a little bit crazy because I wasn't asking you. Where you were so that, you know, I just wanted to give you the closest thing to where you are not because I have any judgment about where you are a very specific example, um, and it's taken me a long time to even be frustrated by that because I was also like that. The people pleasing, right? Because there's some piece of us that's always trying to, um, not everybody, obviously, but, um, those of us who have this, trying to get ahead of what could be a negative consequence.

[00:30:35] Irene Morning: Right, or it's like I'm trying to get ahead in anticipating what you might be asking me for or what the desire might be here so that I can jump ahead to fulfilling that for you. Yeah, and and it takes us out of actually listening.

[00:30:51] Gwyn: Exactly. Exactly. So I really appreciated in the book that you had several different tangible things that people can do to practice. And that, while it's based on polyamory, obviously, these are techniques that are useful all the way around. I found a lot of that as I was reading the book, like, oh, this would be, this is useful for this friendship with this person over here.

[00:31:18] That is not intimate in that intense intimacy way, but, we're good friends and this thing comes up a lot. I don't remember exactly what it was. Maybe I could try this particular technique with them and see if it helps.

[00:31:34] Irene Morning: Yeah. I mean, thank you. I that's feedback that I love hearing. Because I think, non monogamy, a lot of the skills that we need a non monogamy are not necessarily specific to non monogamy, well, aside from maybe like group sex scenarios. But a lot of the relational skills in terms of like, communication and negotiation and talking about desire and collaboration, like, they're all things that. That behoove any of us to invest in, if we want better relationships, regardless of what the relationship structure is.

[00:32:14] I think they're just often what I experienced and what I see a lot of clients go through. Is transitioning to non monogamy from a monogamous background, the new structure, that paradigm shift will put the need for those skills in your face a lot more directly then some ways of operating in monogamous relationship. So if you weren't on your A game for any of those things, making the transition to non monogamy will probably force your hand a little bit more, but all the skills really just apply to humans and human relationships

[00:32:54] Gwyn: which is once again, an amazing segue to the next thing that I wrote down, which is conflict happens.

[00:33:02] Irene Morning: at it does conflict happens for sure.

[00:33:09] Gwyn: Can you give us a tangible way to help cope with that when it comes up in this scenario?

[00:33:16] Irene Morning: The first thing that's coming up for me today is self awareness and just awareness of your relationship patterning. And usually the first thing that I say there is actually learning how to pause and deescalate conflict.

[00:33:32] And I'll, get a little bit deeper into each of those. The self awareness piece for me is noticing what it feels like in your own system to be in conflict. Are you someone who gets really amped up and really defensive really quickly? Are you someone who avoids conflict at all costs? Cause then we want to look at that cause you're avoiding something that's, you know, inevitable.

[00:33:55] And also having some awareness as you build intimate relationships. How do we as a unit navigate conflict? Do we have the kind of conflict chemistry where it's actually really helpful for us to kind of like dump out a lot of information and then come back to it? Like, do we need to have a little bit of like an offloading and then process after or do we need to pace it in a certain way and titrate it in a certain way?

[00:34:27] Does someone need to go for a run before we can talk about conflict? There are things to watch. There are things just to track and map of like, how does this relationship operate with it? The 2nd piece around, like, learning to pause conflict is most of us. Around conflict, once we're in it, we'll get into something that we call co triggering. Where I get activated and then something in my activation activates my partner.

[00:34:58] And then my partner's activation about whatever that thing is keeps heightening me. Right for. Maybe they triggered something else completely, or maybe I'm now just in the feeling like they're misunderstanding me and me feeling misunderstood as a trigger. And then we just get heightened, heightened, heightened, heightened, heightened, and then we're not listening to each other at all.

[00:35:17] Right? Not because we're not trying to, and that's part of what I think is really important to understand about the body level of this. We want to be listening to each other, but kind of no matter what we say, once we're past a certain stress threshold. We cannot properly understand each other.

[00:35:35] Everything is going to feel like it's missing the mark. And so learning how do we hit pause, if that's the dynamic that we're in. Is that we literally have like, you know, those, those buttons that they used to have it like staples, like, big red buttons that you would hit, like, You can actually have one of those around and, like, as soon as you can catch yourself getting in the co-triggering, like, hit the button, right? And that's our cue of, like, okay, separate corners,

[00:36:05] Gwyn: That's brilliant. Yeah.

[00:36:08] Irene Morning: you know, I have, I have some clients who, one of the tools that I work on with a lot of clients is something that I call mini scripts. Where we figure out kind of, like, what's the catchphrase? That then means something specific in this relationship, right? Like, if I'm getting triggered about something, my catchphrase might be Oh, there's a pineapple, right?

[00:36:30] And then my partner knows, okay, we're in that triggered place where actually the thing that I need to do, even if it seems irrelevant right now, is sit down and remind you how much I care about you and how appreciative I am. To get us out of whatever that trigger was. And so like having a mini script that's like, Hey, we're too deep in the activation of conflict of like, I'm gonna go to go fly a kite.

[00:36:51] Might mean like, okay, we're going to each take 20 minutes to go do something that calms us down or that is part of our holistic pleasure. When I talk to people about developing like a holistic pleasure menu, part of it is so that we can refer to it when we're in moments of conflict. So that then we can come back to the conflict with the more complex thinking parts of our brains online so that we can more effectively communicate with each other.

[00:37:21] Gwyn: I love the, if this than that, that means that we need to totally shift gears, do this other thing to help you regulate and that you can build it. It's, almost like a relationship safe word.

[00:37:39] Irene Morning: Totally. Totally. And, you know, I was using an example of like the pineapple or like, I'm going to go fly a kite. Cause part of what I also get into with clients is if we can layer in some humor about this, like if you're a relationship safe word or whatever that, sentence is can have some amount of play to it, that will also help us shift out of like where we might get stuck.

[00:38:05] Gwyn: Yeah, that's really good. I really like that a lot. I have had clients be like, okay, we need to just take a minute and, set a timeline so that the other person doesn't panic about feeling abandoned or what have you but it, usually means that somebody has to be able to say, I need to take a minute.

[00:38:23] Irene Morning: Mm hmm.

[00:38:24] Gwyn: Um, which can be really difficult for some people.

[00:38:27] Irene Morning: It can be really difficult. It's a, that's a really vulnerable thing to say,

[00:38:31] Gwyn: Yeah.

[00:38:32] Irene Morning: right? It's a really vulnerable thing to say. Like I'm struggling so much that I need to hit pause. Like that's really vulnerable, which like some people can, and that's a muscle that we can all build. And I hope that we do.

[00:38:45] And there's also something I think really fruitful in, whether it's a two person partnership or a triad or whatever your relationship configuration is talking about how you are in conflict when you're not in a moment of conflict. So that everybody has the framing of like, if we need to hit pause, it's not just because one person is struggling. It's because as a unit, we need to hit pause. And if we can bring in languaging around that, that makes it feel less like one individual is bearing the weight, then it's a more collaborative thing.

[00:39:24] Gwyn: Right. And it helps frame for people who may have abandonment issues or other sort of like triggers around even hitting pause on an argument because that also happens.

[00:39:37] Irene Morning: Mm hmm.

[00:39:37] Gwyn: It creates a nice, stable framework to be able to regulate because yeah, it's, it's. virtually impossible to get anything productive done when you are in a state of BLAHHHH

[00:39:49] Irene Morning: mm hmm. Yeah and I'll say like the other skill there is actually building up the understanding and the practice to go regulate. Like I, eat and breathe and teach and coach and geek out about this stuff all day, every day. And I, yesterday afternoon was having a moment. It wasn't a relationship trigger, but I was like triggered about something in my house.

[00:40:12] I just, you know, got into some ADHD overwhelm. And spun out for a little bit

[00:40:18] Gwyn: Wait, you're human?

[00:40:19] Irene Morning: and suddenly, well, and I'm bringing it up because I got into the thought loop of problem solving something about my house became very urgent. Right to the point where I was, like, saying it to my partner of, like, this is something that we need to talk about right now. And thankfully, we have the skills to kind of, like, parse out what was actually relevant and what wasn't. But I'm saying that to highlight that, like, it really is a practice, right? We, we can know that we have to put the body first and we have to get into the more regulated place before communication is going to be effective.

[00:40:55] And it is an ongoing thing that we have to keep working on.

[00:40:59] Gwyn: And hopefully people hear that and understand that it's okay to get it wrong,

[00:41:10] Irene Morning: Totally. Totally. And that's part of why my framing in the beginning is always like, You know, we're going to be making, we're going to be doing things that feel like mistakes here. We're not always going to get it right. it's About having grace and compassion with ourselves. When we do the things that feel like mistakes and coming back to like, what's the most caring way to try again, applying the tools that I have. And eventually they do become integrated.

[00:41:39] Gwyn: I love that. I really, I really love that. What's the most caring way to do this? Yeah, that's a really lovely phrasing. Is there anything that I didn't touch on that you want to be sure we talk about?

[00:41:53]

[00:41:53] Final Thoughts and Upcoming Projects

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[00:41:53] Irene Morning: You know, one of the, things that comes up with a good number of my clients is the permission to be in whatever relationship structure actually works for them. You know, I get, I get a lot of people in front of me feeling like they should be non monogamous because it kind of, it like fits in with their larger, their broader politics or, philosophically it really makes a lot of sense to them.

[00:42:18] And then as we get deeper into the conversation, for some people, we uncover that they need a very particular structure to their non monogamy for it to actually feel supportive. And that's great. That's wonderful information. Cause then we can make that happen. And for some people, I've had a couple of clients who actually really just needed permission to be monogamous.

[00:42:37] Right. And I think a lot of that to me speaks to how significant culture is. A lot of us are monogamous by default because that's the culture that we're born into and that's the culture that we're eat, sleeping, breathing all the time. so then to make the paradigm shift to non monogamy feels like a really big thing.

[00:43:00] And for some people, non monogamy seems to make perfect sense and is actually the culture that they're sort of in, especially as non monogamy is having a bigger cultural kind of upswing right now. I've worked with several people who are kind of feeling like, okay, all my friends are now non monogamous.

[00:43:19] My whole social circle is kind of heading in this direction and feel some kind of pressure to kind of also go in that direction. And I really want everyone to hear that it's not about like fitting into an existing relationship structure. It's really about listening to what works for you and your body and your context

[00:43:42] Gwyn: Yeah, I really love that because it's true. Not everybody is built for non monogamy. Not everybody is built for monogamy. It's how we it's getting to the core of who we are to figure out what types of relationships work for us.

[00:44:01] Irene Morning: And also giving ourselves permission for that to change at different points in our lives. I think there are plenty of circumstances where you don't have bandwidth for non monogamy, or it's not the thing that makes sense right now, or plenty of circumstances in which you may actually tend monogamous. In terms of like, the longer term, bigger vision for your life, but there are points where it's not your focus to be nurturing that kind of relationship and that's okay.

[00:44:34] Right. The biggest thing for me in all of this is just being clear with the people that you are in relationship with to the extent that you can be clear so that everybody gets to make the most informed choices.

[00:44:47] Mm.

[00:44:48] Gwyn: Yeah, And we have this tendency to want to be whatever it was that we were yesterday. Um, but as I remind my children, it's important to try foods every decade or so, because suddenly I don't despise pickles. I don't love them, but, you know, there are some pickles that I will reach for, which weird to me, but okay, great. So if that's the case with our taste buds,

[00:45:17] then why wouldn't that be the case with some of the more intrinsic or esoteric feeling, although they're not esoteric, but they feel that way, parts of our personalities.

[00:45:31] Irene Morning: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I love that example. I'm, I'm chuckling to myself a little bit 'cause the one, everyone in my li everyone close to me knows I will eat anything except olives. I just, I just hate them. I've always hated them. It doesn't matter what kind. And like, I'm sure someone listening to this is gonna be like, well, I'm not taking any advice from this lady anymore.

[00:45:56] But, every so often, I'll taste all the olives, because I'm like, let's just double check. Right? Like, let's see if something in me has shifted. And I completely agree with you. Like, It's good to know ourselves, and it's also good to keep checking in, is this still true? Right, because we change so much, and in so many ways that we're not actually consciously aware of.

[00:46:20] Gwyn: Exactly. And I feel ya on olives. Although again, I don't despise them the way that I used to. you working on these days, Irene?

[00:46:33] Irene Morning: I am currently running, an eight week group program actually based on my book. That has been a long time coming and is feeling really cool to facilitate. Yeah. There's something really, you know, I've been focused on individual work for the past few years, and there's really something magical about group work.

[00:46:57] And people getting to hear each other's stories and share experiences. So that getting a lot of my focus right now. I'm also developing a couple of workshops focused on skills and centering pleasure in non monogamy. And I'm also starting to think about going back to school for a second masters. So that'll be in the work soon, I think.

[00:47:22] Gwyn: Neat. That's really great. So I like to end my podcast by asking you one final question. Which is, Irene Morning, what excites you?

[00:47:31] Irene Morning: Human beings. I just think humans are fascinating.

[00:47:37] Gwyn: Yeah.

[00:47:38] Irene Morning: I think I can geek out about. I mean, I do geek out about humans all the time.

[00:47:43] Gwyn: Yeah, we're a fun bunch.

[00:47:45] Irene Morning: And sometimes not so fun, but still really interesting.

[00:47:48] Gwyn: Fair. Totally fair.

[00:47:51] Irene Morning: Thanks so much, Gwyn

[00:47:53] Gwyn: Yeah, this was super fun.

[00:47:54]

[00:48:00] Conclusion and Credits

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[00:48:00] What Excites Us is written, produced, and edited by me, Gwyn Isaacs, if you would like to learn more about me or What Excites Us. Please go to earthlydesire.com. The Music Used is under the Creative Commons attribution license. We have Steven Kartenberg at the head of the show and this is Julius H.

[00:48:23] Thanks for listening and remember, you are worth it