450 - Polywise: A Conversation with Jessica Fern and Dave Cooley
Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships
We’re so happy to have Jessica Fern, author of Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma, and NonMonogamy, The Polysecure Workbook: Healing Your Attachment and Creating Security in Loving Relationships, and co-author of Polywise, back on the show! Today she’s joined by her co-author David Cooley to talk about their new book.
David Cooley is a professional Restorative Justice facilitator, diversity and privilege awareness trainer, and bilingual cultural broker. He is the creator of the Restorative Relationship Conversations model, a process that transforms interpersonal conflict into deeper connection, intimacy and repair. He specializes in working with non-monogamous and LGBTQ partnerships, incorporating a variety of modalities including trauma-informed care, attachment theory, somatic practices, narrative theory, and mindfulness-based techniques.
Jessica Fern is a Psychotherapist, Coach, and Certified Clinical Trauma Professional. Jessica is the author of Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma, and NonMonogamy, The Polysecure Workbook: Healing Your Attachment and Creating Security in Loving Relationships, and Polywise: A Deeper Dive Into Navigating Open Relationships. In her international private practice, Jessica works with individuals, couples, and people in multiple-partner relationships who no longer want to be limited by their reactive patterns, cultural conditioning, insecure attachment styles, and past traumas, helping them to embody new possibilities in life and love. Learn more at JessicaFern.com.
Some of the questions and topics David and Jessica cover during this episode are:
How Polywise came to be and its relationship to Jessica’s first book, Polysecure.
How was it co-authoring a book with someone you are deeply connected to and how did you logistically work out who wrote what?
The first chapter of the book is all about paradigm shifts and how in order to be successful in non-monogamy, we must shift away from mononormative paradigms. Can you talk about what paradigm shifts are and what they may look like?
Additionally, many of your examples focus on the paradigm shifts that occur when established couples first go from a monogamous relationship to a non-monogamous one. How do those shifts differ from ones that occur with people who’ve been practicing non-monogamy for years?
You had a really interesting section on creating temporary vessels for CNM transitions. Can you talk about what you mean by temporary vessel and why it might be a good idea to create one in your relationship?
You talked a lot in the book about realizing when a relationship is no longer right for you. Some of your examples included ending a relationship if one partner really doesn’t want non-monogamy and the other does. Is that kind of compromise ever tenable, or do you think a relationship simply will never work out if there are fundamentally differences in what kind of relationship style each partner wants?
How you described “parts” was really interesting, as well as talking to and soothing the different parts of yourself that may have adverse ideas about your partner or the relationship. Can we talk about parts a little bit?
You get into the debate about non-monogamy as a lifestyle choice versus a decision. Can you talk to us about that and tell us your personal perspectives on the matter?
Dave, can you talk about Restorative Relationship Conversations and your work in restorative justice?
Can we discuss your exercise for identifying and creating an awareness of our internal and external triggers?
The discussion around differentiation from our partners was incredibly insightful. It makes a lot of sense that people might mistake differentiation for “falling out of love” or not feeling as intense about a partner as they did during the NRE phase. Can you talk about why differentiation is so important, especially in the context of non-monogamy?
Why are setting boundaries and encouraging positive self-esteem so important in breaking the patterns of codependency?
Find more about Jessica and David on their respective websites (linked in their photo captions), along with information about how to buy their book!
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are joined by Jessica Fern and Dave Cooley to talk about their new book, Polywise. To check out our first episode that featured Jessica, listen way back to episode 291, where we talked about her first book, Polysecure.
Quick introductions. Jessica Fern is a psychotherapist coach and certified clinical trauma professional. Jessica is the author of Polysecure, Attachment Trauma and Non-Monogamy, which I know many of our listeners have already read, and also the author of the Polysecure Workbook: Healing Your Attachment and Creating Security and Loving Relationships, and now Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships. Jessica also works with individuals, couples, and people in multi-partner relationships who no longer want to be limited by their reactive patterns, cultural conditioning, insecure attachment styles, and past traumas.
David Cooley is a professional restorative justice facilitator, diversity and privilege awareness trainer and bilingual cultural broker. He's the creator of the restorative Relationship Conversations model, which is a process that transforms interpersonal conflict into deeper connection, intimacy, and repair. He specializes in working with non-monogamous and LGBTQ partnerships, incorporating a variety of modalities including trauma-informed care, attachment theory, somatic practices, narrative theory, and mindfulness-based techniques.
Then of course, it wouldn't be complete without saying that, we also have a book which just came out recently, which is Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships. I'd say really just by all the books I've listed, you should go get them all. Covers some of our most used communication tools and you can find out about that at multiamory.com/book. At the end of the episode, we'll give you links where you can go to get books from Jessica and David. Jessica and David, thank you so much for joining us today.
Jessica Cooley: Yes, thank you for having us.
David: Thanks for having us.
Emily: Oh my gosh, it's just been a real pleasure to go back and read this book again this week. I was lucky to get an advanced reader copy, but then I also got to go back and read it again this week. There's so many incredible nuggets of wisdom and education sprinkled all throughout. I wanted to start off for both of you to talk to us about how Polywise came to be and its relationship to your other book, Polysecure.
Jessica: I originally thought this would be my first book because I had a talk that I was bringing around to different conferences that was based on my research with clients and qualitative research that I was doing of trying to answer this question of, why are people struggling with the opening up process? Or people who have been non-monogamous for so long, they're coming in with these big hurdles and challenges.
My publisher though initially, was like, "Can you do a whole book of attachment instead of what would've been a chapter on attachment?" We did Polysecure first.
Dedeker: David, how did you get on the bandwagon with this project?
David: Well, as she started to get into it, it became clear that the work that I was doing complimented the things that she was wanting to highlight for clients. We work with a very similar demographics and so we were just seeing a lot of parallels in the things that we were noticing in the conversations we were having about the work before she was even writing the book. I think it was also something that we had wanted to do for a long time. We were actually intending to collaborate on her first book and then we just weren't in a place to do that in terms of our relationship. We were fresh in the divorce phase and really apart. Really, there was no intimate connection at that point. I think it just became clear me, you could say more Jess, what your thinking was, why you brought me on?
Jessica: Yes. Because there is a whole section for me of people, one of the challenges they face is all of this old conflict that hasn't been dealt with in their relationship. It really felt like Dave's work was the answer and needed a chapter in and of itself. Then as I was writing, as we were writing, there was just a lot more story, personal story that we wanted to add in this book. It felt great, I think, to have us share a bunch of our hardships through this process.
Dedeker: I know it's interesting because the three of us have, earlier this year also went through the whole gamut of doing like book promotion interviews and talking about our collaborative relationship together. In the history of the three of us, we also have a history of being in a quad together, then a triad, then the triad breaking up and stuff like that. Of course, everyone wants to know, "O my God, how did you get through that?" I am curious, I know you touched on it in the book a little bit, but what was the most important things for the two of you to do to shift your relationship, to enter that place where you could collaborate on something like this? Because I do think for a lot of people, the idea of being able to write a book with their ex or produce a podcast with their ex is just unthinkable.
David: She was asking for me to collaborate on that first book. I think she was in a very different place in our divorce process. I actually needed space. I think it took about a year where we were living across town. We were in Boulderer, Colorado. We were living on opposite sides of town and really just connecting around the logistics of picking up and dropping off our son.
I was really just needing to heal and go through a lot of the attachment separation stuff, figuring out what was my part, what was my stuff to own. I went through a lot of deep personal work after our separation, which was really, really helpful. I wasn't able to do that in the context of intimacy with Jess. Then after about a year or so, it just started feeling natural. In those pickups and drop-offs with our son, I would linger longer, she would linger. I would start to be more curious about what was going on for her intimately. She was in a relationship that was getting more serious. It was a live-in relationship at that point, hanging out, having dinner, getting to know him more and then the pandemic hit.
We were all ready for a change and we needed to pivot pretty dramatically to protect our son from being in a situation that felt like wasn't going to really work for him or be sustainable for us. I had always wanted to get out of the country and go to Latin America. We found an opportunity to go to Costa Rica and we jumped on it, we all went together and we ended up living in a house together, all of four of us, right out of the box for about, I don't know, what was it, three months, three, four months, Jess?
Jessica: Yes.
David: Wow. Something like that. This tiny little two-bedroom cabana and yes, it was tiny in the rainforest of Costa Rica. It just really threw us back into a very intimate dynamic that really felt pretty easeful, at least between me and you, Jessie.
Jessica: At least for us.
David: Yes, at least.
Jessica: Right. It brought us back together, our co-parenting, co-authoring and living in the same house.
Emily: That's amazing. Brought back together in a romantic sense, or brought back together in more of "We're co-parenting and co-living and existing together as friends and all of the great things that happen from being in relationship?"
Jessica: Exactly. Yes. For years, we were really good friends for 6 years before we were together for 10 years. The foundation has always been this really deep friendship and love as humans for each other. Sure, we got divorced. In that year, we did like an un-vowing and released our wedding vows, and then we re-vowed. We re-vowed to each other as co-parents and as basically attachment humans. Like, "I've got your back in this life and you've got mine." That was really powerful I think for both of us.
David: Yes, there's been a karmic connection. It really does. Of all the relationships, it really feels very karmic.
Dedeker: I was just going to say, I really appreciate. I remember our first conversation when we had you on the show, Jessica, how it really helped to clarify this really good language around the relationships around us about whether we make someone into an attachment figure or not. I know that sometimes we struggle in the non-monogamous community wanting to reject this traditional language around like, "Oh, is this relationship "serious" or not? Or is it, I don't know, romantic or is it emotional?" There are so many of these really wonderful relationships that don't quite fit any of those labels. Looking at it through the lens of attachment makes it make perfect sense, at least to me. I really appreciate that in that conversation, I feel like that light bulb really switched on for me. I like the label you use right now of just attachment humans.
David: There's something interesting for me. I don't know what would have happened if we hadn't had a child in the mix, but the commitment to be co-parents was really a glue that kept us through some really rough moments. I can imagine my own attachment system wanting to do the avoidant, "See you later" thing after the separation because of the pain. I'm really glad that that was the case, that we did have a child in the mix, that we were committed to co-parenting and we put him first because now, I'm really am seeing what you were alluding to, Dedeker, is that there is something.
There's something really rich there now that I think I only understand after the fact, which is a level of commitment that has nothing to do with romance and everything to do with just what does it mean to have someone's best interest at heart and feel connected to them. There's just something about that connection I would have had no understanding of it if we hadn't gotten to this point.
Jessica: Even as you said exes, for you all to consider each other exes when you've probably spent so much more time in a different configuration that's more salient than calling each other exes. It's interesting how people want a central phrase that that's what's most important.
Emily: Yes, 100%. I was with Jase in a monogamous relationship and then a non-monogamous relationship, but we have been out of relationship for far longer than we were in one, so I am trying to shift my narrative around these two people were my exes are my exes to more like they're two of my deepest closest relationships in my life, and two of my best friends, and two people that I have a lifelong connection with because I think that is more powerful and more important for sure.
Dedeker: Can we compare notes on how the co-authoring process, specifically, went for the two of you? I know I learned a lot when the three of us had to suddenly co-author and I was really grateful that the three of us already had this history of producing a podcast together and running a business together for many, many years, and so that did help us, but when it came to the actual co-authoring process, I still had a lot of lessons to learn a lot of my own control freak shit to work out.
Dedeker: I just want to hear what your experience was like.
Jessica: I think it went overall pretty well, actually, because we had done some other writing projects previously. I think we had worked out the kinks in that. We just knew how to work together. We knew what our strengths were. We knew what to highlight for each other. Overall, I think it actually went pretty smooth. We drove each other nuts with certain overword usages that each of us fall into.
David: I think you're working with the author of a highly successful book, it's easy to lean in, and trust her, and default to her voice in some places, and just be like, "She knows what she's doing." I think even more than that creatively, there's a way in which I appreciate the way that she thinks. I like the way that she fills out ideas. I like what she brings to my writing. I have a very academic drier voice and Jess is really, I think, does well with humanizing that. I really get a lot out of working with her in collaboration.
We went through that initiation, that gauntlet of ego threshing early on, and so I was able to see, "Okay, this is where the ego shows up in writing." I definitely relate to that idea of control. Going into this ahead of time, knowing that we just needed to really not have that be upfront was helpful.
Jase: Having that little bit of experience first can go a long way. Let's move on to talking about some of the content in the book here. Why don't we start off with this first chapter?
Emily: I felt as though in your last book clearly, attachment theory was the thread that held the whole book together and specifically attachment theory within non-monogamy, but this book very much is about paradigm shifts. That's what the first chapter in the book is all about. These paradigm shifts that occur when you have to change your ideas around what relationships look like and especially moving from a paradigm of monogamy into non-monogamy.
Can you talk a little bit about what paradigm shifts even are, and then also what they may look like in this context?
Jessica: We're referencing Kuhn's words and work around just using the phrase paradigm and paradigm shifts. Paradigms would be a synonym for our worldview, the lens that we look through, the world with from everything though. Not just our personal philosophy like how we are, who we are, what we think is okay and not okay. In the chapter, we even get down into some of that nitty-gritty of how paradigms can even shape our actual perception at a biological level or our physiology of what we're actually aroused by. It's not something to be underestimated.
Making a paradigm shift, the whole way that you experience the world yourself and others is a pretty seismic thing to even start to contemplate for one and then start to make a shift. I really see that in my work with people is, this is a big deal to live in a different paradigm of relationship. Some of us make that transition quite smoothly and some people do not, and they really actually need help with understanding what they're going through can be a product of what we say is like paradigm shock, similar to culture shock of being in a different country or culture, we can have paradigm shock.
Jase: I've never heard the term paradigm shock and I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. It makes a lot of sense because it's a similar concept of culture shock where just suddenly, everything's just a little different from how it was before. In terms of paradigm shock, how would you identify that if you were going through it and what might you do about it?
Jessica: Right. Great question. Not just sometimes a little different, and I think that shift from monogamy to non-monogamy, we see that most when often in monogamy, the worst, the absolute worst thing that could happen in your romantic relationship is that your partner is with someone else. That becomes this wired in emotional reactivity, not just the conceptual thing, it becomes a fear.
Then here out, I'm in a different paradigm that says I'm supposed to celebrate that my partners with someone else, how do I just do that? How do I just wire myself differently? I think people, they start to almost feel queasy. They talk about feeling sick. They talk about not knowing what's right or wrong, who they are, what they're supposed to do. Dave, you might have some input on this one as well, or a lot of shame even for, now, the new paradigm that they're trying to step into, and there's all of this monogamy hangover and inner critic, or guilt, or shame that's showing up.
What I see is someone can identify it too as if on one hand, they really resonate with the ideas of non-monogamy, but then they keep getting pulled back or deferring to very monogamous ways of thinking like, "But if I was enough, then you only would want to be with me." That would be an example of a monogamous paradigm thought that people can have this emotional attachment that's hard to untie themselves from, just identifying that you're going through a paradigm shift, that it might be hard.
Then we give exercises throughout the chapter of having paradigm awareness, what is the paradigm I'm trying to leave from, what's the one I'm trying to shift into it. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, there might be some from both paradigms that you want to be living or incorporating. Then just how to work with those.
Dedeker: I think the examples that you use, of course, the classic experience of a previously monogamous couple transitioning into non-monogamy. I think it also makes sense where we see people who've been non-monogamous who transition back into monogamy or decide to close their relationship either permanently or temporarily. What are some examples of big paradigm shifts that happen or paradigm shock-producing events that happen for people who maybe have been non-monogamous for years already?
Jessica: Usually, I see it when they've been practicing one style of non-monogamy and then they shift into a different style. Usually, that's less hierarchical and more polyamorous. You'll see people that like, "We've been doing non-monogamy for a decade or more, but I haven't really gone through the threshold of my partner falling in love," and that becomes a real paradigm shift for them.
David: One of the things about that is that it seems like attachment styles, or attachment ruptures, or, tweaks on the attachment system can really, really feel differently in different styles of non-monogamy. It's been really fascinating to work with clients who, for example, previously had a solo poly trajectory, and then meet somebody that really changes that for them, and they take on a primary structure for the first time in their relational history.
It starts to bring up the different feelings around what is attachment in this new context, whereas in solo, for that person, the ways that attachment formed and happened were very, very different and didn't require the same things that it did in the context of a more primary hierarchical relationship. It's really been fascinating to see those and think about it in terms of attachment and how they can be very, very different in the different styles of dual monogamy.
Jase: Yes, absolutely. It's funny that I think most often we talk about that paradigm shift from someone who, like your example where we were swingers or doing something and then transitioning to now all these feelings are involved. I have sometimes seen the other side of that of maybe we did more of a parallel polyamory where you're doing your thing, I'm doing mine, this is all great and it's not right in front of my face quite as much.
Then maybe we switch to more of going to play parties or something where I'm more confronted with it and that on the other side can also be that jarring. Wow, I thought I really had this all figured out, but this is different from what we've been doing for the last 10 years or however long it is. In this when you're talking about this, you had this interesting term that came up where you talked about creating a temporary vessel to help cope with the intensity of this paradigm shift. Could you tell us first what that is and why did you decide to call it a temporary vessel specifically?
David: Touching on that issue of attachment. It's really what do our attachment systems need to feel safe and secure? If we're putting that first, which many people are wanting to sort of the importance of poly secure was, okay, here is where it feels like our metric is for what nervous systems are needing in making big transitions relationally. If we're able to figure out, okay, this is what we're taking care of, we're trying to move forward in a way that's going to preserve as much safety and security moving forward as we can, what is it that we need to do to augment or truncate our relational exploration in a way that keeps that intact?
We have that concept of titrating for example. It's like, "Okay, we try something and then see how that lands." How are nervous systems doing with that change? Can we integrate that before moving on to bigger steps? Giving people permission to try things and move at a pace that is more inclined to support the nervous systems through these bigger changes.
Dedeker: The question I want to ask to that though because I know this comes up a lot in the work that I do with clients and I also do somatic work. We really dive into titration and how things land and things like that. When I find that then people are trying to do that bottom-up work of then realizing, okay, now what does this mean for me? I think I've noticed a lot of people really struggle with, "Okay, well, I tried something it feels scary and a little uncomfortable, but it's really hard to suss out what is my nervous system telling me, oh my god, don't go there at all. Versus was my nervous system telling me, Ooh, this is maybe a little bit risky but it's ultimately going to be safe." I do think people sometimes have a hard time sifting out, does this mean it's always going to feel this bad or is it just scary right now? I'm sure you've encountered that with clients that you've worked with.
Jessica: Yes. That will change too. The things that bring you to your edge of your nervous system won't always be the same. I make the distinction for people of like, yes, you're trying new things. It is going to be scary and uncomfortable. That needs to be a new norm for a while, but it shouldn't put you into a trauma response. If you're having primal panic meltdowns, you're having panic attacks, you're completely off your axis for what you would consider too long.
That's telling you your nervous system is way too far. It's breaking instead of bending. That would be another one of, you're going to have to bend, but I don't want you to be breaking. Then the other way to work with that is from a parts perspective, what parts of you are afraid? Let's talk to those parts. Let's work with those parts and soothe them. See what that does then to your nervous system to step more into some of these experiences or not.
David: Another thing about that too is when people have that conceptual framework of paradigm, this is what you're working with, you're changing this, especially in the context of working with parts. When you can connect parts awareness that you're making this paradigm shift, it creates almost like this scaffolding or this bridge conceptually for those parts to even temporarily just adjust themselves to these big changes. It makes it more digestible in some ways, even if it's like, "Okay, this is feeling right now, this is very acute, this is feeling very activating." Having that paradigm consciousness with the parts work in place, I think it can help some people integrate it in a way that they wouldn't if they hadn't had that.
Emily: Your book actually was the first time I believe that I had heard the term parts. I'm sure that Dedeker has heard it before in all of the work that she's done. I was like-
Dedeker: Well it's originally an IFS thing. It was IFS the first?
Jessica: IFS was not the first, but it's the most well known.
Emily: Can you just for the lay person say what parts is and talk about that in the context of the book and the work that you do?
Jessica: Yes. Parts Work is looking at how as individuals, as people we are made up of many different parts and that's actually normal and healthy. We intuitively know it when you're like, "Well one part of me wants to go and another part of me wants to stay home." We have a social party part and we have a part that just wants to get cozy on the couch, or we have the part of us that shows up a certain way with one part or with our children or with our family of origin.
Internal family systems by Dick Schwartz really popularize this aspect of the holistic self that is made up of many parts. Often what happens is certain parts get into these extreme roles or they're holding wounds or they're protectors and so they need to be worked with so that we have more of an integrated system.
Dedeker: Well, I'm glad to use that example of, yes, I have a part of me that wants to go and a part of me that wants to stay. I think with a lot of people sometimes it can be, there's a part of me that wants to see how this non-monogamous relationship could play out. There's also a part of me that's really terrified about this and thinks maybe I'll never be able to do this.
Of course, that also leads to the question of when people in relationship are trying to go through some kind of paradigm shift like this and one person is much more gung-ho about let's shift this paradigm. "Hell, yes." The other person is like, "Oh God. I'm not really sure that I can do this." Do you think that finding some compromise there is ever tenable or do you think that that's something that people can find a way to meet on, or do you think that that should be taken as a sign very early on that this is probably just not going to work out?
David: Oh, I think it could definitely work. It really just depends on what people are willing to do in terms of modifying their needs and expectations. It also depends on where they are in terms of those possible extreme polls that you just mentioned. Because typically what you're talking about there is a dueling conflict between needs. One person wants autonomy and freedom and the other person's needing more security.
If you can really start to flush those things out and depersonalize those so that those differences in needs aren't feeling so pathological or charged or problematic in their essence. Like, "Okay, yes, these are things where you're just rooted. This is the exploration, you're needing." There's nothing necessarily wrong with your positions, but they're there. What are you willing to do in terms of compromise?
That's something a vessel could really be helpful for having the person who's needing to explore or try it. The person who's needing more security and slowness can lean into the structure of the vessel. I think there's definitely ways to work with it. There are situations where I think that difference will end up being the end of the relationship. I think there are a lot of cases where really good compromises emerge and people end up surprising themselves.
Jessica: I've been surprised many times by the person who seems like the more reluctant partner compared to their very enthusiastic partner. With time and experience, they become the one that later than won't even give up non-monogamy that in the original partner wants to.
Emily: I appreciate it in the book also where you said, "It's okay if you go back to monogamy or it's okay if you decide monogamy is actually the thing that's right for me." That you also acknowledged that if your partner finds that it's really not the thing that's okay for them, then perhaps a decoupling in some way does need to happen. The fact that you put that towards the beginning of the book I thought was really powerful because so many people are constantly just trying to fit themself into a box that doesn't really work. Just being able to read that permission, I think from a book that's about non-monogamy and saying it is okay if this isn't what is correct for you. I thought was really powerful.
Jessica: There's this funny thing that happens with people who are newer to non-monogamy is they feel very judged. I shouldn't even say newer. I think people feel very judged by non-monogamous people about being monogamous often as if it's less evolved. For me, it's just as valid of a relationship orientation or a relationship choice and structure. My request though is that you're not defaulting into it. You actually have chosen it.
Jase: That idea that you have choice and it's not like, "Oh, you've got a choice, you have to take it now." It's the best of both worlds of saying you don't have to just take the one thing that you thought was your only option, but you don't have to take this one other thing. There's a lot of other options out there. There's a whole range of different ways you could do it, or maybe the original thing feels better once you know you're choosing it instead of just, this is my only option.
David: I think sometimes having a professional or someone who's in the work give you permission to really make a hard choice really helps and opens up a more spaciousness internally to consider it in a new way. It's like if a professional like Jase or myself is saying to you, "If you need to be monogamous and that's what's best for you, absolutely choose it or if this is not the right relationship for you, definitely. We're not here to keep you together. We're here to bring you more clarity around what you're needing as an individual." Sometimes that creates a spaciousness that was necessary for them to lean into the exploration. That's been an interesting thing, is the permission itself can start to create this space internally for something that they were needing before.
Jase: We're going to take a quick break to talk about how you can support this show. If you appreciate this content and you enjoy being able to have this out there for free and to be able to share it with everyone out there for free, not behind any paywalls, the way you can do that is by taking a moment to listen to our sponsors and check any of them out if they seem interesting to you. Of course, you can support us directly and join our communities by going to multiamory.com/join.
Dedeker: I want to springboard off of all this conversation around choice because something I've seen some people struggle with, especially if it is this particular paradigm shift of opening up a closed relationship and if it's running into conflict and resistance where often the partner who's maybe more gung-ho about shifting this, can really struggle with this question of is this a super-inherent intrinsic part of me that if I don't have this, I'm just going to be miserable or is this something that I can leave by the wayside for the sake of maybe going back to monogamy or going back to a more familiar type of relationship?
Now in the book, the two of you get into a little bit of that, the debate about, oh, is non-monogamy? Is it a lifestyle choice? Is it a decision? Is it an identity? Is it something that's immutable within people? Can you talk to us a little bit about that and about your own personal perspectives on that?
David: Whether or not those categories are hard and fast, fixed things and human experience is less important to me personally. I think I don't want to diminish-- If someone says to me, "I am ethically non-monogamous, conceptually non-monogamous as an orientation. This is who I am. This is my essence," great. That's great. I have no problem with that. If someone says, "This is my lifestyle. I'm choosing this out of multiple choices, but I could live with it or without it," great. That's not a thing for me in terms of that being ultimate big T truth.
I think it comes back to that question of agency and choice. I'm most interested in what are people choosing based on their own assessment of their own personal needs and wants, have they gone through enough experiential situations relationally to really know that about themselves, and then to figure that out? I'm much more interested. This circles back to that question of parts work. You've got a mature adult self as the center where we're wanting to make decisions, where we're really able to see what are my needs, how do I get those met, and then parts.
We're really helping clients figure out when are you grounded in yourself, your adult self, and when are you being led or blended with a part. In terms of this question of what are the decisions, you're making around any given particular relationship or even the kind of identity that you're taking on, if you're really anchored in your sense of self, then great. I think it feels less important to me where you're falling on that spectrum as long as you're really feeling anchored in your connection to yourself and what's right for you in the now.
What I've seen is I've seen people on either side of the spectrum in their own journey flip to the other. I've seen people who were devout "I am poly's orientation, this is who I am," change and go to monogamy. I've seen the same on the other side. For me, it feels less fixed and I don't want to tell people they are or aren't or these things are real or aren't. I'm just really curious about where are you grounded in your own experience, lived experience now that's really going to help you make a decision that serves you.
Jessica: As a practitioner, I love what you're saying, but there's also the politics to this question too that so many people have found that they haven't been able to get equal rights unless they claim something as immutable and that it wasn't a choice. This is who I am.
Especially, sexual orientation would be the obvious example or something like my ethnicity or gender and so therefore I have a right to human rights like everyone else. It's interesting. Why can't we actually have rights, legal rights as polyamorous people if it was a lifestyle choice the way religion actually is a protected class, which for many people is a choice? I think there's that dimension of this question too, which is just important to at least name.
Jase: I'm glad you brought that up because I feel like that's always-- anytime we are being interviewed by some outlet or something and someone asks a question related to is it a lifestyle choice, is it an identity, is it inherent in you, whatever, that I always want to say, "Why do you want to know that?" because there's always that fear of why?
Is it because you just need validation and you feel like if it wasn't part of my orientation, then I don't deserve to get it, or is it about saying, "If this isn't your orientation, then I don't have to respect it?"
It's like where are you coming from when you ask that question? It is such a loaded one that I tend to try to avoid answering it and we end up taking this middle road of like, for some people it's an orientation, for some people, it might be a choice, which is true, I suppose, but also is avoiding it because it's such a problematic question in and of itself, or at least it can be.
David: I love what you're saying and I really resonate with that caution. I see the way that then socially people are positioned to make claims or lean into an identity because they feel like this is the only way I'm going to get it justified or see it legitimized, and then people are less in tune with their own individual experience. For me, that's the sticking point, is, is this social construction the thing or the need to be legitimized, which is important and I recognize? What does that then mean for your own capacity to pivot when you need to?
Emily: I want to move over to the chapter that was the mostly Dave chapter, and that was on restorative relationship conversations. First, I want to talk about what that is, and then, also, if you want to discuss your work in restorative justice as well, I'd be really curious to talk about that.
David: The restorative relationship conversation model came out of my work in the field of restorative justice and so restorative practices is an umbrella term for a lot of different approaches to the usage of the concept of restorative. There's churches, schools, courts, hospitals, businesses, even. On an institutional level, there's a lot of places where restorative practices are starting to be integrated. I think it's still on the margins, but it's definitely making slight inroads into the mainstream.
I was doing restorative justice as a bilingual case coordinator and restorative justice conference facilitator trainer for several years before creating this model, the restorative relationship conversations model. What I was seeing in that world was there was incredible possibilities for transformation of conflict when people had the opportunity to sit in the same space and talk about the impacts of their behavior on others, and then work together to figure out what needs to be done in order to repair this harm.
Where I was situated was I was working with people who referred to our nonprofit typically by the police. Sometimes we'd have freelance cases come to us. Then instead of going to the courts and being sentenced, these people would have the opportunity to sit down with the people they've harmed and do a conference. It was interesting and really powerful work, but at the end of the day, what I was seeing was that even though these conferences were transformative and amazing, people were still being leveraged to be in that space. You had a choice, to do our program or you're going to go to court.
While you're probably going to learn a lot and have an amazing experience, that leverage always stuck with me. It was something that it didn't land well. I had this experience where this principal from a local elementary school came to us and was like, "Would you take this case on pro bono?" We've had all these eight-year-olds, six eight-year-olds who've gotten into this huge really intense fight on the playground. The cops were called, no one could be arrested, thankfully, because they were under the age, but it was this small community school where the principal recognized this has to be resolved. We can't just have this tension. These families recognize the kids recognize that something has to be done, but they didn't know what to do.
They came to us, asked us if we'd modify our process, and so we did. We modified it, changed the language, showed up in their gym one cold and frosty January morning with all of these kids and parents on a weekend. It struck me as we were going through the circle and I'm listening to these kids and parents just be so sincere and talk about the ways that they were hurt and why they did what they did and how they wanted things to be different, I realize that whoa, no one is being leveraged to be here. Everyone is choosing to be here because they recognize the importance of these connections. Everyone is a deeply committed stakeholder to this situation.
I was so moved by it and everyone's like, "I want to do work like this where everyone wants to be in this space where everyone's choosing to be here." It took a couple of years to kind of go from that breakthrough revelation to creating this model, but I realized that there was a niche out there that no one was filling, no one was applying restorative principles to intimate relationships as far as I'd seen. I thought this is a great model for creating safe containers for conflict, and Lord knows people need it in these circumstances.
Emily: That's amazing. I appreciate also, in here that you shout out being able to create those safe containers and then doing it on a regular basis as well, which is something that we talk a lot about. Thank you for shouting out the radar method in the book as well. Something that you discussed there is about creating an awareness of internal and external triggers, and you have a specific exercise. Can you talk about that a little bit?
David Cooley: Yes. This is really about learning how our triggers function in us and this is something that's really close to my heart because I feel like it's one of the most practical and immediate ways to start interrupting conflict cycles. Most people have at least access to three self-awareness points. It could be the story that your mind's telling you. You get triggered, you go into a loop, a predictable story. She doesn't love me. He doesn't care about this relationship. This is always going to be this way.
If you can catch that narrative that's usually very repetitive and very singular, that can clue you in to the fact that you're triggered and you probably need to slow down and do some adjusting for your nervous system.
The next is emotions. Other people are more in touch with their emotional side. I'm getting really upset. I'm getting really angry, really frustrated, really overwhelmed by sadness, what's happening for me. Then third is somatic. What's happening in your body? It's really interesting to see how this is typically a gender thing for a lot of clients. A lot of men have a really hard time connecting to their emotions. They're usually the first thing that they can connect to is they're-- Not everyone. This is a generalization, but it's what I see across the board in terms of the work that I do. It's really fascinating to see men typically can connect to their thoughts, but have a harder time connecting to their bodies and emotions.
It's been interesting to have these different touchpoints for triggered awareness to help people start to clue themselves in and slow themselves down. Part of what I've done too is given them a 1 to 10 scale. It's like, okay, where are you in terms of your level of activation? If you're at a five, you're out of your prefrontal cortex. You no longer have control of your administrative functions. You're not going to have a good constructive conversation anymore. You go any further. You're down to the amygdala, you're into fight or flight responses. You got to know when you're at a five or above and you need to be doing something to pull out of the conversation.
Dedeker: I'm so glad that you lay out that scale because I feel like so much of not just the work that I do with clients, but also just the work that I've had to do with myself, my entire life, is not only learning to pause when there's activation, but also learning that the cue for pausing is when you're at a three instead of when you're at a nine.
Because I think that's something that, I don't know, we just lose sight of that. It's so much easier to think, "Okay, when I explode, that's when it's time to pause or when my partner explodes, that's when it's time to pause." When it's like, no, you could probably be pausing a lot earlier. If anything, it's even more of, I think, fine-tuning that muscle to be okay with that cue coming much earlier than maybe we've been used to it coming.
David: Totally. There's some really interesting work to do with people in naming where they are on the attachment spectrum. For avoidance in that circumstance, they really have to be pulling. If they're pulling out early and as they're recognizing a three or a four, they need to really be naming that and externalizing what's happening for them and creating a very caring, compassionate, communicative exit so that their partners know what's happening. It's not just this, "I'm out, this is too much."
It's really important for the avoidance or people who fall on the avoidance spectrum to really do that and be very, very explicit about that intention and naming, "Hey, this is for my wellbeing. I care about you. We're going to circle back, but I can't keep having this conversation the way it's having, the way it's playing out right now. I'm going to make this exit to regulate."
Whereas for the anxious people like myself, we have to really be aware of, okay, this is going to feel like potential death. I'm going to want to follow you. If you are trying to leave this conversation while I'm feeling activation, it's going to be very, very challenging for me to let you go. Yet, it's a really profound exercise in self-regulation and self-awareness to recognize, "Okay, this is the attachment system. My system's flooded with cortisol and whatever other neurotransmitters and hormones. I've got to let that metabolize and I'll come back after that metabolism has happened and this is my work." It's like a lot of deep breathing's got to happen.
There needs to be a plan B. If a partner's going to exit and you know that's going to be hard, you have to be ready to do self-care and handle that exit well.
Jessica: Yes, I'll have clients we do the 0 to 10 and I'll call it their yellow, orange, and red zones. We map out what do those zones look like? Because they can look like fight, flight or freeze depending on which zone. Then what is self-regulation for each zone and what's co-regulation for each zone, which could be very different things.
Dedeker: Yes. Can you give some examples of that?
Jessica: Yes. Let's just take the easier yellow zone. If I'm not fully triggered, but I'm starting to get activated, for me, my yellow zone, I'm going to see my thoughts start to spin. I'm arguing with someone in my head, I keep thinking about the conversation. My body feels a little tight. Whereas if I'm in my orange zone getting closer to that four, five, six, then I'm really distracted. I start to feel stress hormones moving. Then by that time, I'm already reacting usually in some way like withdrawing a little bit from my partner.
In the yellow zone, it could just be me catching it and being like, "Oh, I'm upset. What are my options? Well, in the yellow zone, I could use breath. Breath is not going to work in my red zone. I can say what's going on and name it to my partner, say, "Hey, I am activated right now. Can I have a hug?" In that zone, something like touch, rubbing my back really works very well naming what's going on and getting to speak about it. As I get further along, those interventions don't work as well. I need things that are maybe more vigorous, like running around the block or taking a break.
Dedeker: I want to talk about the red zone co-regulation because I think that's the quadrant that's so difficult where I think so many things can go awry where because you're so activated, it's really hard to even know what you want from a partner to co-regulate with you if you even want them to co-regulate with you. Then like sometimes if you ask for the wrong thing or if your partner does the "wrong thing," it can just spin things out even more. Can you share some examples of where you've seen people, and I know this is all highly individual, but figure things out of that combination of being extremely activated and yet also being able to co-regulate with a partner?
Jessica: If both people are in the red zone, you're not going to be able to co-regulate together and really do need to take that space and maybe co-regulate with other people or have your tools for what you need to do for yourself. If we have one partner in the red and the other isn't, that's the ideal situation where they can say, "Come on, let's do jumping jacks to move the hormones out. Let's get our cardio on. Let's go for a run. Punch this pillow. I'm going to hold it. Yell." If you can hold that space, but if it's going to traumatize you or it's directed at you, that's not going to work. If your partner can actually off-gas not directed at the other one, but off-gas it in front of, or with the support of the other one, let's go to a rage room that can work.
Emily: Something that was said in this chapter, I believe, if I'm remembering correctly, that I found to be so profound, even though it's so simple, is asking for consent from your partner to be able to talk about challenging things as opposed to just springing it on them. Which I think so many people do. We don't even see how they're doing. We're just like, "Hey, I'm going to talk to you right now about this thing that really me off about something that you said or did."
As opposed to asking, "Are you in a place where you can handle this conversation right now? Am I in a place where I can talk to you about it in a respectful manner?" All of those things just so often don't happen and I want everyone to read even just that little section where you said that because it was mind-blowing to me and yet made so much sense and was so simple.
David: It's one of the most simple, probably as you say, but revolutionary for so many people, especially for partners who are living together and have been for so long. We just take it for granted. There's such a sense of entitlement to partners in our world and it's so interesting how that starts to just collapse over time, right? This autonomy, this space, this just, you wouldn't do that for most of your other relationships. Yet with a partner with whom you live, it's just so interesting how those boundaries start to really blur. Consent is such a powerful word and used so often in the world of ethical non-monogamy or consensual non-monogamy and yet why doesn't it cross over into process?
Jase: I'm just thinking about you also have a chapter about codependency and the enmeshment that we can have and how we can differentiate and that anytime that topic comes up, it makes me think about all of these classic ways that we have to think about relationships, like the whole you complete me or two becoming one. All of these things where I think the thing we forget about when we romanticize this idea of becoming one is also this. The other autonomy or that respect for this other person might be in a different mental space than I am but it's this like, "No, no, no, we're close enough that whatever." I guess to put it more negatively, whatever horrible stuff I might throw at myself I can throw at them too. Maybe that's a little bit dark to say it that way, probably true though. It's like that learning how to differentiate at respect that they are this distinct different person who does deserve that respect. I think going both ways even it can feel like you can never say no to a certain conversation or anything a partner does maybe even that's embarrassing in public. You feel it for yourself because our identities become so entwined with each other.
David: One of the things I think is really connected to that phenomenon is people don't realize that they're this goes back to that piece of self-awareness. People don't realize that they're actually trying to co-regulate and they start processing and they're just trying to go into some co-regulation loop. There's no and that's partly why it doesn't feel good and why you do need consent, because if that's what you're doing and you don't realize it and you're trying to draw somebody into that process, it's probably not going to feel good really to the other person.
They're going to be like, "Wait a minute. What's happening?" If they're even aware of that, but that's really the thing that I see over and over again is people are actually trying to get some regulation. They're trying to off-gas because they're holding the tension that they can't really, they haven't learned how to hold themselves.
Dedeker: Holding that tension that I always think about Martha Kauppi’s phrase that she uses in her fantastic book about that muscle of holding steady which it goes both ways in that dynamic that if you're the person who your partner stepped on your toes in some way or maybe you're more anxious attached and you are trying to seek a little bit of that comfort and reassurance of, you were saying, David, it's like developing that sense to hold steady if it's not the right moment or if your partner's not ready to co-regulate with you or process with you what happened.
Then same thing on the other side that if you are ready to go through that process with a partner having to hold steady through realizing like, "Yes, I'm going to have to sit with my partner maybe saying that I hurt them in some way," or expressing feelings that maybe I had no intention whatsoever of producing in them and having to hold steady and hold that and hear that without immediately jumping to the defensive or throwing it back in their face. It feels like those are similar muscles to me and it's so much easier to talk about this stuff than to do this stuff.
David: Also I wanted to jump back to this when you all were talking about that piece around co-regulation, when people are activated and how to co-regulate in the different zones. One of the things that can help a lot of partners is to have a contingency plan and talk about what actually does work when you are that activated because a lot of people don't realize that the thing that they're doing makes things worse. What I want for partners is to actually have a good roadmap for what is actually going to give their partner's nervous system, the soothing and support that it needs in those moments when activation is happening.
If we can do that when people are not triggered and practice that, literally practice it so that their nervous systems have a chance to feel that flow together and they're in the same agreement created in the therapeutic space, it often creates a lot more sense of safety because a lot of people try to verbalize and talk things out when often what they're needing is something sematic or vice versa. Really want partners to really know what's going to be the strategy that's actually going to work for that co-regulation.
Jessica: For listeners, Deb Dana's work, she's applies polyvagal theory to what are the interventions that you need if you're in that sympathetic dominance or if you're in that dorsal vagal shutdown. I would recommend people check out. I think it's befriending your nervous system.
Emily: Well, I so highly recommend this book. Again, I think as I've said in the little blurb that I wrote for you all this book is really about moving into 401 territory in terms of Polyamory. There's so many books out there that are really 101 and this just goes above and beyond into really how to become polywise as you said in the book and move past the changes that happen when you are just starting out becoming polyamorous. Thank you so much for your work in this book. It's been a pleasure to read it again and where can people find more of both of you and your work?
Jessica: Yes, for me they can find me @jessicafern.com.
David: They can find me @restorativerelationship.com.
Jase: I'm assuming that has links to buy the books and all of that stuff there as well as work with you.
Jessica: Yes, exactly.
Jase: Awesome.