You are having a beautiful day living into your pleasure, and then you hear that your lover has explored some new romantic connection or erotic experience with another person. Suddenly, you notice a shift in your body. A knot in your stomach begins to form, your heart starts to race in your chest, your breath may feel heavier, and your body becomes tense. Your sympathetic nervous system has kicked into high gear, initiating your body's instinctive Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn response to protect you from perceived danger.
Despite joyfully committing to a non-monogamous relationship style, you experience a significant wave of somatic (bodily) feelings, leaving you confused as to how your value systems and the experience of practicing them can be so drastically different. The stress response hormones adrenaline and cortisol are flowing through your body and impairing your thinking. You are left wondering, "will practicing expansive love always produce such dread?"
I have personally been here, more than once, and it does get better. Regardless of which relationship style you practice, all of us have experienced moments of jealousy in our relationships.
But, Why Though?
Our Western culture's colonizer narratives of sex and relationships have established monogamy as the only relational practice of security, true love, and purity. This has conditioned all of us to understand exclusivity as safety. We call this bias mononormative thinking. Transitioning out of this thinking requires a rather psychedelic paradigm shift.
Hearing that your lover explored something new with another individual challenges this classically conditioned narrative and can set off feelings of fear and insecurity within milliseconds.
In that time, the brain has responded to this perceived threat by activating its amygdala and the Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn response. This response decreases the activity of the prefrontal cortex, which is used for rational thinking and decision-making.
With the ability to think rationally compromised, it's best to avoid trying to intellectualize these feelings. Instead, first focus on regulating the body through the practice below. This practice will help your body to feel safe again and engage your mind's ability to think rationally through bottom-up-processing (using somatic (bodily) grounding techniques like breathing to influence the brain).
As you practice, remember to have compassion for yourself. While the initial conditioned somatic response may feel automatic, you are in control of how you respond to this experience moving forward. This is the first step of finding grounding in any psychedelic paradigm shift. Try having an observer's mindset and curiously exploring your psychological and somatic experience without judgment. Jealousy, like any emotion, is a moment in time that will pass like all other moments.
Let go of tension and ruminating thoughts...
Sometimes we will hold tension between the eyebrows, the jaw, the shoulders, or the hips. Take a moment to release any tension through a deep exhale, finding more peace and relaxation. Try intentionally squeezing your muscles to build tension for 5-10 seconds and then releasing to feel deeper relaxation.
Ask for a hug, place your hand firmly on the center of your chest, or use a weighted blanket to benefit from the grounding of compression. You know what also helps to let go of tension and release feel good endorphins..? A delicious expansive orgasm. If you are looking for a meditation guide for your pleasure practice, check out Episode 69.
To quiet the mind and let go of ruminating thought patterns, you can try counting your breath with the inhale as 1 and the exhale as 2, continuing to count up. Try counting up to 10 or longer to relax the mind and body through deep breathing. If you lose your count, you can always begin again at 1.
Singing can also help to regulate your breathing and let go of ruminating thoughts. Turn on your favorite grounding song. You can check out my favorite song about non-monogamy here.
Let Go
Move energy through the body...
Find movement that helps your body release emotional energy. Try walking outdoors, shaking your body, running, stretching, or dancing to release feel-good endorphins that counterbalance stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.
Explore movement practices that feel intuitive to you. Move in ways that feel pleasurable and nourishing without judgment.
Move
Assess your sensory experience...
To ground in the here and now of the present moment, you can try connecting with your 5 senses. Take a moment to identify 5 things you can see around you, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste.
Start from the top of your head and scan down. Check in with each part of the body. Observe any sensations that may be present, without analyzing or judging them.
Assess
Center yourself with deep breathing...
Bring your attention to your breath. Notice the sensation of air entering and leaving the body. Observe it as it naturally occurs.
Take a deep inhale breath through the nose and allow your belly to fill with air, then slowly release the exhale out through the mouth. Repeat this breath, noticing your body relax as you activate your parasympathetic nervous system (your rest and digest system of regulation), feeling more safe and secure with each round of breath.
Center
Center
Center yourself with deep breathing...
Bring your attention to your breath. Notice the sensation of air entering and leaving the body. Observe it as it naturally occurs.
Take a deep inhale breath through the nose and allow your belly to fill with air, then slowly release the exhale out through the mouth. Repeat this breath, noticing your body relax as you activate your parasympathetic nervous system (your rest and digest system of regulation), feeling more safe and secure with each round of breath.
Support Your Body
-CALM-
Assess
Assess your sensory experience...
To ground in the here and now of the present moment, you can try connecting with your 5 senses. Take a moment to identify 5 things you can see around you, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste.
Start from the top of your head and scan down. Check in with each part of the body. Observe any sensations that may be present, without analyzing or judging them.
Let go
Let go of tension and ruminating thoughts...
Sometimes we will hold tension in-between the eyebrows, the jaw, the shoulders, or the hips. Take a moment to release any tension through a deep exhale, finding more peace and relaxation. Try intentionally squeezing your muscles to build tension for 5-10 seconds and then releasing to feel deeper relaxation.
Ask for a hug, place your hand firmly on the center of your chest, or use a weighted blanket to benefit from the grounding of compression. You know what also helps to let go of tension and release feel good endorphins..? A delicious expansive orgasm. If you are looking for a meditation guide for your pleasure practice, check out Episode 69.
To quiet the mind, you can try counting your breath with the inhale as 1 and the exhale as 2, continuing to count up. Try counting up to 10 or longer to relax the mind and body through deep breathing. If you lose your count, you can always begin again at 1.
Singing can also help to regulate your breathing. Turn on your favorite grounding song. You can check out my favorite song about non-monogamy here.
Move
Move energy through the body...
Find movement that helps your body release emotional energy. Try walking outdoors, shaking your body, running, stretching, or dancing to release feel-good endorphins that counter-balance stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.
Explore movement practices that feel intuitive to you. Move in ways that feel pleasurable and nourishing without judgement.