It Will Be

Something that I have become increasingly aware of in the past six months, and become increasingly better at recognizing and changing, has been my tendency to focus on a relationship role and attempt to have someone fill it, rather than letting my relationship with that person do its own thing.

This really started happening last January when I decided I really wanted to date women. I really wanted a girlfriend. I don’t think there is anything wrong with this desire (I still have it as part of my “ideal” relationship configuration). But where I went sort of wrong was my focus on the very specific image of what I wanted that to look like, and focusing on all of my energy in trying to make whoever was “available” to me fill that role, despite knowledge, signs, or communication that that person was not interested in or unable to fill that role. This tendency of mine really took a crashing nosedive during the summer, when I was so focused on the creating a specific relationship that I did not pay attention to the fact that I wasn’t really feeling that relationship with the person I was so desperately trying to create it with. The chemistry, communication, trust, and honesty were all lacking, but I tried so hard to make it work anyway, because dammit I wanted a girlfriend. Recipe for disaster? Yes.

There can also be a tendency for me to focus on end goals: I want to feel that way, I want it to look that way. I compare myself to others. I stop paying attention to what feels good for me and I stop living in the moment. I start listening to what other people want, thinking I need to want that for myself. Ironically, if I focused on my present moment and what sounds satisfying and healthy for me in that moment, I would probably also experience those other things eventually. But in not relaxing, I completely shut down, unable to move anywhere with my feelings.

I went on a date with a woman last week; it was the first one in three months. Great conversation, really fun personality. No chemistry. What do I do? Finally take a deep breath, remind myself chemistry is rarer than we are led to believe, and am honest with myself and her. Platonic dates sound great, romantic ones not so much.

This all takes a great deal of honesty, and it’s work to be that honest with myself and with others. But extremely worth it and I feel grateful to have the capacity to take this kind of personal work on.

Poly Math

I had this article recommended to me, and I found it really useful: http://www.serolynne.com/poly_complex.htm 

Thinking about how the health of each “mini relationship” affects larger group configurations makes so much sense to me. 

I don’t have much else to say about it; mostly I wanted to post the article link as food for thought 🙂 I’d love to hear from folks with poly configurations about how mini relationship health has affected your larger group of partners! 



 

Love & Fear

I have been thinking a lot lately about something that a good sexy friend was talking to me about. (Thanks for the inspiration B!)

From what I remember, he described that all decisions in life are made out of fear or love. And that we choose what basic motivation will drive our decision-making.

I think this is a really thought-provoking framework. I think that it adds a lot to my understanding of myself, and can provide some interesting ways of approaching my relationship with J and other partners. I think perhaps there is a gray area, though, that isn’t accounted for. What happens when my love for myself dictates that I behave in a way that seems fear-based to others? How do I balance my need to be honest with any fear-based feelings with the need to express behaviors that demonstrate my love for others? I think it is interesting to note that both feelings, love and fear, can be extremely vulnerable and both can produce highly vulnerable states of mind.

I think it is intriguing to think about how rules and boundaries are negotiated in a relationship, and what basic motivation (love and fear in this case) is driving them. What about negotiations and compromises? To me, communication and negotiating can be approached similarly- with fear or love. A fear-based conversation is wrought with reactionary language and drama. A love-based conversation is filled with active listening, validation, compassion, and kindness. This of course doesn’t mean that a love-based conversation can’t include directness, honesty, and communicating about needs. And it doesn’t mean that one person has to “give up” what they want in order to appease another. 

Overall, J doesn’t find this framework especially helpful for him. It feels a little too “new-agey” or “woo woo” for him 🙂 I think it is helpful for me in trying to approach some of my common triggers differently, and experimenting with a different frame to see if I can achieve some different results. 

I really like this from a website I found (my added comments are in red):

1.  Love and accept yourself.  Only with true love and acceptance can you let go of the part of you that is overtaken by fear.
Accept yourself with all of your imperfection. Accept your worries, doubts. Accept the fact that you were making those fear based decisions.
Accept even the fact that you might continue making them no matter how hard you try to stop. This last point sounds counterintuitive, but, trust me, what you resist, persists. Instead of fighting, try accepting and facing. I really, really like this first point. I need to accept myself for who I am, completely, before anything can change. I also feel like I need to be accepted by the people in my life for who I am already, before I can feel supported in changing and growing. If I feel like I am expected to change before I can be loved, I am extremely limited in my confidence and motivation to do the work to change. Also, I think making love-based decisions for myself first, before others, is extremely important.
2.  Make unconscious conscious. It is proven that up to 95% of our daily activity is based on the subconscious programming we have downloaded from the past. Most of the decisions we make on a daily basis, we don’t even question. We make them based on that programming. 
The result? Lots of fear without us even realizing we have it.
How do you stop living on autopilot? Learn self awareness. Learn being fully present in every moment. Then you’ll be able to consciously make a choice and notice yourself making fear based decision right away.
3.  Find your “Whys”. Why do you want to stop making decision based on fear? Even if they are small ones. Even if you hardly notice doing it. Why do you want to stop? What are your “whys”?
Most likely one of your “whys” is a desire to live a more authentic life. Or maybe a desire to spread the vibe of love and acceptance? Or maybe your “why” is your desire to have that inner knowing that you are being true to yourself?
 What are your “whys”?
4.  Find your True Self, find your purpose and passions. Too often we live our lives based on the limitations and standards others imposed on us. 
What do You truly want in life? What is your purpose? What are your passions? Amazingly, once we discover our purpose and what we truly are passionate about, making love based decisions and letting go of those that are based on fear becomes so much easier. This is J’s favorite out of the list. We have talked a lot about fear-based decision making around employment and pay, and how breaking out of the paradigm that you have to stay really busy and make a lot of money is really difficult to do.
5.  Jump, the net will appear. It takes courage to leave a job that is paying your bills and commit to doing  what you love. It sometimes takes courage to leave relationships that no longer make you happy.
It takes courage and lots of faith to commit to making only love based decisions. Take that courage.  

I also really like this post and this one.

Radical Honesty?

I have been thinking about honesty and radical honesty the past couple of days. I haven’t read the book, although I have poked around on the website. I recommend looking at the FAQ page. My other information about it comes from Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up (pages 42-45), which admittedly is a biased perspective as Tristan isn’t a big fan of the practice.

After looking through the website, though, and reflecting on Tristan’s take on it, I don’t think I am a fan of radical honesty. Honesty, yes. Radical honesty, no. What is the difference?

To me, honesty is about being open with my feelings with myself and the people in my life. It means being clear about my intentions, motivations, desires, and needs. It means owning my feelings. It means owning my mistakes and making a commitment to doing better, as best I can. It means asking questions. It means answering questions. It means keeping the lines of communication open as much as possible. It also means taking other people’s feelings into consideration, and framing your honest communication in ways that take other people into account. It means recognizing that what I say has an impact on others. While I can’t be responsible for how others react and feel about my communication, I can understand that what I say and how I say it has real consequences for the listener.

Radical honesty, from my limited understanding, is about being honest at the expense of anyone else’s feelings. My feelings and ideas and opinions become the most important thing when practicing radical honesty. I understand the need to be honest in order to alleviate discomfort around something that you previously were being dishonest about. I think being in tune with your mind and body is really important. I know that if I feel guilty (feeling like my behavior and ideals of myself are in discordance) or uncomfortable with something, I have a serious need to disclose whatever it is I am keeping in. Being honest can be a serious release, and build trust. However, I think this also needs to be balanced with kindness, compassion, and consideration. Spouting off simply to release your own feelings is not appropriate in my mind. I also definitely understand the value in not maintaining a persona simply because you are scared to be your real self. I think the Radical Honesty take on this aspect, on being an authentic and real person, is a valuable one.

I really do think that context is important. I think that the people and personalities involved are important. I think that keeping kindness and compassion as core elements of honesty and communication is key. I am also really unsure that radical honesty is the way to build relationships in a healthy and sustainable way.

"Not Under My Roof" and Family Reflections

How were you raised around sex?

Here’s me (in a nutshell):

My parents were pretty liberal and progressive (especially for the part of CA I grew up in). My mom started going to the Unitarian Universalist church when I was 8. I started going with her when I was 10 or 11. I took OWL (Our Whole Lives) when I was 12 (going into 8th grade). The comprehensive sex ed curriculum emphasizes knowledge, clarifying values, and relationships. It was really great. But the intention of the curriculum (as I saw it then and still see it) of giving teens information so they can decide the best path for themselves, was colored drastically by my mom’s own values around sex. Sex is sacred for her (largely impacted by the fact that she was sexually abused as a child), and must only exist within the confines of a long-term and stable loving relationship. I was taught my body was my body, but I was also taught that my parents controlled my actions, behaviors, and relationships. Bottom line: I might be in love as a 15 year old, but I was most certainly not in a long-term and stable relationship and my parents had the final say around my relationships and so sex was ultimately not permissible. Talk about some complex and inflexible messages.

And then there were the (unfortunately) classic messages in high school (from peers and parents) that a guy who has sex is a stud and a girl who does is a slut. That sex before marriage was a bad idea, but it was really, really bad if pregnancy was a result. That you should not be having sex or you’re grounded, but I’m also not going to give you the means to have it safely (i.e., birth control, condoms, etc), even though I know you are having it. What?!

Even though J isn’t writing any part of this post, I can safely say that he had a very similar experience growing up. So when we met and began talking about our past sexual histories, we found a lot of sympathy and empathy from one another.

Now this book. Not Under My Roof by Amy Schalet is fantastic. Comparing the culture in the US versus Denmark around teenage sexuality makes me furious, sad, and hopeful all at once. Furious and sad thinking about my own experience and about all of the people growing up with such sex-negative messages. Hopeful in that organizations like Planned Parenthood have continued to take research like this to heart and have accordingly maintained sex-positive and honest messaging and programming around teenage sexuality. It is also my hope that our culture is changing.

Here is a really brief summary of the book, outlined simply by the distinctions between the two cultures. I highly recommend it, and reading the book in its entirety is totally worth it, especially since these are just snapshots of her main points. The interviews and vignettes she includes as examples and illustrations are worth the read.

US Perspective & Culture:
–Raging hormones: who hasn’t heard of teenage sexuality being fueled purely by teens’ “raging hormones”? This is exactly how my mom characterized teen desire. We were all just a bunch of hot messes, and it all had to do with those pesky hormones. My ability to genuinely love someone was somewhat out of the question.
–The drama of adolescent sexuality: Teen sexuality is seen as a soap opera. Teens have passionate and short-lived relationships that may include rebelliousness, pregnancy, and drugs. Two teens spending the night together? “Not under my roof” is the message loud and clear. Moreover, American parents tend to teach a gender-polarized lesson: that boys only want sex and girls only want love (I am shaking my fist at you, John Gray!!) Girls versus boys, women versus men makes for a conflict-ridden social and romantic arena.
–Adversarial individualism: Teens in the US must fight against their parents in order to “earn” their adult status. They must learn to “live on their own,” do things for themselves, be financially independent, and self-sufficient in every other way before parents see them as adults.
–Connection through control: American parents often attempt to stay connected to their teens through controlling their behavior. Curfews, staying in touch when apart, strict punishments and disciplining are all part of this. “Sneaking around” and “getting caught” are the yin and yang of the American teenage experience.
–Romantic rebels: American teens (both girls and boys) tend to think they cannot control the outcomes of their sexual behavior (who can blame them? if they haven’t been given the information or resources to do it safely, wouldn’t you assume it was a Russian roulette to have sex?) Also, girls still experience the double standard- no sex=prude, sex=slut. 

Dutch Perspective & Culture:
–Regulated love: Dutch parents believe that their teens are fully capable of being in love, and they believe that their teens are capable of making careful decisions around relationships and sex if they have been given appropriate information. A paradigm of “raging hormones” doesn’t really exist.
–The sleepover: The perfect example of how the two cultures differ. Dutch parents prefer to help their teens create and maintain healthy and loving relationships. Many parents will allow their teens to have a boyfriend or girlfriend stay the night as long as the relationship is longer-term, and the family has been able to build a relationship with the person. (Reminds me a lot of poly negotiations!) Dutch parents help their teens access birth control and other reproductive and sexual health services. Many Dutch parents want to stay connected to their teens and want to be a part of the process their teens take in becoming adults.
–Interdependent individualism: Teens in Denmark are taught how to take others into consideration before going after what they want, and the interdependent family is highly valued. A turning point for teens in becoming adults is living on their own, even if they are still financially dependent; so college students living on their own are often considered adults. However, even young people living at home can be considered adults. The bigger idea is that a young person knows the skills to take care of themselves- cooking, cleaning, financial management, how to take care of themselves emotionally and physically. 
–Control through connection: Dutch parents maintain “control” over their teens by staying connected to them. Without the tug-of-war present in the drama of American teenage sexuality, Dutch teens are more honest with their parents and vice versa. Negotiation is often less heated, and parents just as much as teens make concessions and compromises.
–Regular lovers: Dutch teens tend to assume they can proactively prevent any negative outcomes from having sex. Dutch teens deal less than American teens do with gender binaries around sex and love. The “normality of love” allows girls to experience sex without slander, and also allows boys to integrate sex with love without penalty.

She does a great job of covering the social, political, and religious forces at play in both countries and how they impact societal values and family dynamics. Again, the book is worth a read; I can’t even cover half of it here.

If I ever had kids (and I don’t think I will, but you never know), I would hope I could maintain more of the Dutch attitude. It would be so important to me to allow for conversation and growth, and to remember that my kids were individuals with individual paths and experiences. I wouldn’t want a sense of fear of pregnancy or STIs to impact the decisions I let my kids make. Rather, I would hope that it would motivate me to have honest conversations and provide them with appropriate tools and resources to make the healthiest decisions for them.