Nicole: Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast, exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host Nicole.
On today's episode, we have miles join us for another relationship anarchy research conversation. Together we talk about shedding internalized scripts of normality, healing in community, and expanding our capacity for intimacy. Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to modern anarchy. I am so delighted to have all of you pleasure activists from around the world tuning in for another episode each Wednesday.
My name is Nicole, I am a sex and relationship psychotherapist with training in psychedelic integration therapy, and I am also the founder of The Pleasure Practice, supporting individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships. Ah, you know I love these relationship anarchy conversations.
There is so much expansion with each conversation that I have, so much to learn from the relationship anarchists that trust me to come onto the show, to join the conversation, and join the community. And so, so much. I am grateful for Miles. I am grateful for all of the relationship anarchists that have come onto the show to answer these questions that started with my dissertation research many years ago.
And, dear listener, if you are interested in joining the conversation, please do. There is a form on my website, a modern anarchy podcast. com under the relationship anarchy tab, where you can submit your answers to these same questions and be invited onto the show to have a conversation with me. And yeah, I just love these conversations.
I am so grateful to be in community with you at dear listener and miles talks about the need to shed. And I thought it was funny because that is a part of my. 2025 New Year's resolution to shed anything that is no longer serving me, right? The only inevitability that we have is change. Who I am today is different than who I will be tomorrow, who I will be in a couple of months, years, right?
And you too, dear listener, what parts of yourself have you already shed? What is something that you know you need to shed, right? The scripts of who we are and where we are going and The further and further I get into expansive relating, I, you know, really explore new challenges, new moments of stretching and feeling into new complexity and also new moments of beauty, new moments of security, of feeling really secure in the expansiveness, we love that.
And yeah, I'm just really resonating with the inevitability of Change and that shedding process that we are all going through as human beings in this world. And Dear listener, I really hope that you have a beautiful, bright, full community that can hold you in that process and witness your change.
Alright, dear listener, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can explore my offerings and resources at Modernanarchypodcast. com linked in the show notes below. And I want to say the biggest thank you to all of my Patreon supporters. You are supporting the long term sustainability of the podcast, keeping this content alive.
Free and accessible to all people. So thank you. I also want to say a shout out to our newest member, John. Thank you. Thank you for joining the community. Thank you for supporting the show. It is truly Patreon supporters like you that are supporting the long term sustainability of the show. So thank you, John.
And dear listener, if you want to join the Patreon community, get exclusive access into my research and personal exploration, then you can head on over to patreon. com slash modern anarchy podcast, also linked in the show notes below. And with that, dear listener, please know that I am sending you all my love and let's tune in to today's episode.
First question that I like to ask each guest is, how would you introduce yourself to the listeners?
Miles: Ooh. I am a little creature. I am just like, I'm someone who's connecting, um, and discovering with my voice and my light through psychedelic body work, um, and relationship anarchy and the freedom and the flow and movement that that, like, allows me.
I feel like I'm just like. Little creature in the desert vibrating and pulsing with with all of that
Nicole: Yeah,
Miles: I'm freedom embodied. I'm I'm gender play. I'm really sensitive
Nicole: Good
Miles: What else uh, so I go by miles or a lot of people call me miles but my birth name is Mary Kathleen. I was named after my great grandmother and I still really feel a lot of power in that name, but, um, miles.
The name Miles came to me, uh, because I do long distance motorcycle rides to visit friends across the country and like I check in with how many miles away I am because what is time? I sent you that email because I don't, I didn't know what time zone I was in. Um, so yeah, I, uh, I like the idea that miles is this arbitrary assignment of measure for this like arbitrary assignment of gender that I've been kind of put on with since I started, you know, growing facial hair and like showing more masculinity. So, yeah, that's, that's cool. That's who I am.
Nicole: Yeah. Well, welcome into the space. Thank you for trusting me and, and joining me for a relationship anarchy conversation. Yeah. These are some of my favorite conversations, so I'm so excited to see where our brains go and just the power of these conversations for, for the movement.
Miles: Yeah, thank you. They, they've been incredibly powerful to listen to, um, really deeply healing and opening and expanding for me. So I'm, I'm delighted to be able to contribute my voice to the conversation. Thank you. Cool. So cool.
Nicole: Yeah. There's like a level of seen this that I don't always get in all conversations out in the real world, even the podcast recordings.
So to be with another relationship anarchists, there's, there's some sort of seen this there that is really healing. I feel like every time.
Miles: Cool. Yeah. Amazing.
Nicole: Yeah. Well, the first big question, what is relationship anarchy?
Miles: Wow. It's, to me, it's just this open, expansive, vast space. Just the universe. It is the entire universe.
Which, if that seems overwhelming, I could, I could understand that, but to me it feels safe, it feels like, you know, there's space for all of me, my whole range, like, everything belongs here in Relationship Anarchy. It all belongs. And that is all of my insecurities, all of my fears, all of my soul connection.
It all belongs here. And, gosh, I think I wrote to you in my responses about tying this kind of ethereal, like, everything concept to a physical activity. And, um, that physical embodiment for me, it really resembles, um, What it's like to paraglide to fly with wind medicine in the sky and sky medicine and relationship anarchy is its own medicine of freedom.
And so, um, yeah, I, I want to like, just kind of take my time and like, go into paragliding because it's so special to me. But this, this embodiment, um, it feels like. You take that risk and you jog off that hill or that sea cliff or wherever you may be and you let the wind take you. You don't go down. You go up.
You go up into the sky, into these beautiful vistas that you could never even imagine. That's not to say that it's not scary and that it doesn't take skill. It takes a lot of skill and a lot of time and a lot of like perfect weather days, you know? Right. But that, that is the embodiment for me is, is, is painting the sky with this big colorful wing and just taking it all in and being so present in the moment.
You have to be present with that. Everything, when you're up flying in the air, right? Um, and when you're, when you're engaging with a partner, when your souls are connecting, like, you have to be present. Brings you to presence.
So, um, yeah. That's that.
Nicole: Yeah. Such a beautiful metaphor. Yeah. I've always, you know, talked about my relationships like rock climbing.
or yoga, right? Because those are my movement practices. And so I just, when I saw your response with paragliding, I'm like, Oh, that's so cool. I've never done that before. I could see how this is all related.
Miles: Oh my gosh. I, I don't want to try too hard to recruit you, but I just want to extend the invitation.
Um, the wind medicine, the sky medicine, it's, it's always there. It's waiting for you. And, um, I think I live in the Bay Area right now, but I'm moving back to Arizona, but while I'm in the Bay Area, amazing place to learn, amazing place to connect with, with those elements and see how it's just so interesting how these.
These body practices, these movement practices, like, align with the, the, like, ethereal inside of you and kind of, like, bring things into connection. Sure.
Nicole: Yeah, there's that saying, uh, how you do one thing is how you do everything, right? So I think that, yeah, I think that that can come through in terms of particularly things that, uh, require trusting yourself or challenge or being with, um, a set of variables that are out of your control, right?
All of that sort of stuff, how you. How you are in relationship with that can mirror out to a lot of different things. So I can totally see that. And, and when you say it as the whole universe, yeah, I'm sure maybe, maybe some relationship anarchists are like, yeah, man, I get it. Like, that's totally it. And other ones are like, what, what are you, what are you saying?
You know? Uh, but I, I feel that I think that it's, uh, sometimes when people ask me, what is relationship anarchy, it was like, well, what is it not? You know, but
Miles: yeah,
Nicole: yeah, no, where you're looking at it. And I think when I hear you say that, what I'm thinking about is how. I am a being that is created by and through relationships, right?
This language that is coming out of my body right now is a language that was created before me by other people. Everything I have in my space right now, you know, is created by or through with other humans and nature and this earth. And when you think about my community, And then my broader community and then the world and the impacts that we have, the small little ripples, the ways that I am connected to people, I'm connected to drugs, right?
All this sort of stuff, these relationship, what are we not in relationship with? And hence where I go, that's everything, you know, but if you say that to someone who's never heard it before, they're like, what is this girl talking about? So I think that, you know, it's, it's really seen how far. We can really examine our relationships.
And power, and narrative, and structures, and in that sense I see that, yes, being climate change, relationships, uh, drug liberation, sexual liberation, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the whole thing.
Miles: Yeah, yeah, well, gosh, thank you so much for, like, that really helped kind of, like, encapsulate and ground it, but yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I, uh, I sometimes I'm like, gosh, I'm so far out there on these things that I, I'm wonder like where the threads will like kind of, you know, where the lightning will like actually strike the ground. Um, but you, you really pulled it together. So thank you. Yeah,
Nicole: of course, of course. And I think the joy of like connecting with another person with similar paradigms, you know, you, you have to, uh.
You get to explain less, you get to run further, more miles, you know, and all of them are important. It is fun to also slow down and be with someone and say like, Hey, yeah, and there's a lot of like values grounding in that moment. Even when someone challenges you and says, I don't like that, or I don't believe that there can be moments of a lot of growth there too.
And also when you find someone from a similar like resonance and paradigm, the amount of space that you can traverse in that time is much further. And so being able to be in a space where we kind of see that similar outlook, you know, I think that's the beauty of it.
Miles: Yeah. There's a, there's a proverb or saying is if you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.
Nicole: Sweet. Yeah.
Miles: I like that. I like that.
Nicole: And so how do you practice relationship anarchy? I know.
Miles: How do you do it? Okay, that one seems a little bit more like I can kind of like,
Nicole: yeah,
Miles: I can kind of like, look at like, my, my path and like the guardrails that have been on my path and be like, Okay, yeah, I'm a little bit more in the know, as opposed to like, just really acknowledging how much I don't know about the entirety of it.
But, um, yeah, so how I practice it, I, I, Feel like, like you were mentioning before it's, it's been like, I am a being, like I am a being that is feeling and breathing and living and growing. And this is just a part of my nature. And I haven't had the language until recently, my last like five years to kind of start to put those.
little blocks together, the blocks of language together to like, share with other people. But, um, yeah, it just has, it has always kind of been in me and the ways I practice it. I, I have a partner, a nesting partner, if you will. I don't know. I don't know these words. We live together and, um, she's amazing. She also paraglides.
We came to paragliding outside of our relationship and then we connected with it. Um, and so I've been living with her. We've only been together for like about a year, but it was just, When you know, you know, I guess. And what do I know? I know that our souls are connected. Um, and we don't really need, like, kind of any other label than that.
So we're non hierarchical. We don't, you know, put boundaries on who we can love or how we can love. We just, Make the space to communicate about it, make the space to talk and share and be vulnerable and put it all out there. And so I do that with, with, with them. And I also leave that place in Oakland. I leave that place for the whole summer, like a quarter of the year.
And I come back to Arizona and I prioritize my relationship with my niece. And with my family and, um, so my niece, I, I was pretty much the big, like almost the primary caregiver in her life from like two to four, a lot going on with her biological parents. That time and then I moved her into my parents house.
So now she lives with my my parents who are 77 and 74 and she's now 17. And so there's a 60 year age gap. I come back during the summer I give everyone a little break from each other and I take her dirt biking up in Flagstaff, Arizona And we spend a lot of time just being in nature on on dirt bikes and I feel like motorcycles are another kind of medicine too.
Nicole: Sure.
Miles: And so I, you know, I do what I need to do to like, You know, make sure that I have the space to do that. I open up that space. I give her as much of it as she wants. She's got a boyfriend in Tucson, Arizona, and so she's wanting to spend a lot of time with him, so it's like, I'm here. You can take as much as you want.
I practice it in these really intimate relationships I have with my friends. Who I spend time with in the summer and who I, I like live, I move into their house and live with them. And, um, right now I'm currently in one of my dearest friend's houses because my parents are having solar installed. And so the power is out.
I was like, Oh, I have to go somewhere else for this. Carmen's house we go. And so, yeah, I feel like a very deep soul connection with Carmen and, and we do a lot of medicine work together. And she shared so much wisdom with me.
So i, I prioritized that relationship and yeah, I, I practice it and just kind of shutting off these scripted.
Traditions, or like peer pressure from dead people who needs those scripts, like, who were they actually working for? They're not working for me. So I practice it and just like having a good shed of that and, and continuing to do that. That's a process, right? Shedding is always a process. And so I continue to do that whenever I'm called to by being present with my feelings and, and having the conversations and, and letting myself.
Be drawn to the relationships that fill me up and fulfill me and then letting that process then flow out Think that is my practice of it. I just stands right now.
Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I think it's so important to talk about the different ways that relationship anarchy impacts all of our relationships I think that sometimes Uh, people can think it's about sexual and romantic freedom and all of that, which is, it's funny because it's almost the kind of opposite.
It's not necessarily the opposite, but really, it's a deeper into what does it mean to not value the sexual and romantic over the platonic. So in that inherent deconstruction, it means it's about all of our relationships. But I think that sometimes, um, depending on your lens, if you came from, like, the non monogamy world, you might see it through that of, like, oh, it's a, it's a space where people just do whatever they want, you know, like, we can get into the whole, you know, assumptions and the whole world of it all.
But really, when you get into the practice, when you learn more about anarchy in general, it's about community. It's about all of these different relationships. And so, yeah. It's about your partner. It's about your friend. It's about your parents. It's about your niece. It's about all of these people and how can we be present and intentional in those relationships.
And you talked a little bit about shedding different scripts. I'd be curious. Uh, are any scripts coming to mind that have particularly stood out for you?
Miles: Oh, certainly. And scripts that like were traumatic, traumatizing, right? Yeah. Like deeply traumatizing. Yes. Yeah, the, the, oh, I also wanted to backtrack a little bit and, and also, um, mention, like, I practice relationship anarchy in my prioritization of self too.
Sure. My, my relationship with myself is really important, but yeah, like back to the shedding social scripts and, and the trauma of that, like. Marriage.
I, and that's a tricky, that's a tricky one for me because the script that I had from my parents was they have been married 54 years this year, uh, and my parents, 52nd wedding anniversary, my dad Had gone into the hospital and had, he had an auditory, a tumor on his auditory nerve and it was kind of half in his ear and half in his brain.
Nicole: Yeah.
Miles: And, um, yeah, this is kind of a little bit intense, but it has like a really nice little bow on it. Okay. Um, but yeah, so, yeah, back in August. August of 2022, my grandmother passed away. I was, I had a very close relationship with her. Um, my grandmother passed away four days later, my dad went to the hospital for the surgery.
My parents kind of thought that it was going to be like an in and out thing. They're like, Oh, he just, Can't drive for two weeks. No, that's like a legal statement. That's not a medical statement. It's like the recovery is going to be longer than two weeks. They just are telling you, like, don't operate heavy machinery.
Um, but he ended up having complications and he was in the hospital for almost two and a half months.
Nicole: Wow.
Miles: Um, he had water on the brain, pressure on the brain, and, um, basically his, his brain just like went into this mode where it was producing like way too much cerebral spinal fluid. And so, um, he just was like saying things that didn't start in the right place, didn't end in the right place.
Yeah. A lot of. Unknowns of like, are, are we going to get him back? Like, is he going to come out of this? Um, yeah. And, um, so yeah, my grandmother passed away. Then he went into the hospital, he stayed in the hospital. And during this time, my grandfather also was passing away. He was, my grandmother was 88. My grandfather was 94 and they took care of each other pretty much until the end.
And then when my grandmother was passing away, like he just, Wanted to be there for her and then he's like, peace. I'm out. Like my heart is really common. My heart is with her. Yeah, and it was really beautiful. Like that's so beautiful. And so that's, that's a version of the script of marriage that I got.
Right. And, and that was so beautiful. And I could appreciate that during that time. And also like, so that was my mom's parents. And so my mom was dealing with losing her mom. Her dad and her husband was in this like really wild limbo place. Sure. And so, she showed up every day from the entire visiting span that she was allowed to be there at the hospital.
She advocated for him over and over again. And the hospital system is amazing. It's like if you have like a small margin of improvement, you're out of the ICU, you're into a skilled nursing place or a rehab place. So they were just moving him around and moving him around and he wasn't getting better. He like literally could not make any sense of anything.
Like, you know, and they're like, Oh, what was he like before? Well, He could have a complete sentence.
Nicole: Yeah, so tough.
Miles: Yeah, and so it took a lot of faith that my mom exhibited to be like, no, I'm getting him back. Like, we are going to get through this. And so their 52nd wedding anniversary. He was in a hospital room in an ICU room at Barrow Neurological Institute in Arizona.
And from his hospital room, it overlooked the spot where they first met.
And I thought like, Oh, to have a life partner like that, where you just have journeyed and so lovingly through all of this. And 52 years later, you're like, just caring for each other in the ways that you can and showing up and being present and continuing to be present, even though the unknowns are so great and there's, you know, loss and death happening around that also need to be attended to.
And so what a beautiful example and like, what a, an amazing example. Of that kind of like, deep loyal marriage bond, right? Um, and they're very traditional, like, they're very, like, Her, her, her.
Nicole: Yeah.
Miles: But, um, uh, anyway, my dad, they finally figured it out. Like, he needed, like, a low pressure shunt. I don't know how it works.
I was just, I was knitting away. That's all I could do is go to his hospital room and knit and be present through like knitting, but, um, they finally figured it out. And then, so like, the last surgery he had happened at nine o'clock at night and then 11 o'clock the next morning, complete sentences, totally fine.
Just like insane. He lost like 65 pounds from being in the hospital for like two and a half months. And so my mom, you just showed me like, wow, this is, this is real partnership, you know, this is real being there with, with your love and with your connection with somebody else. And so it's not like I had like bad scripts in front of me, right?
I had amazing lifelong love stories, but they're just, they're just not for me. Like that, that kind of model is not for me. But when I was younger, kind of. Got a little scared by like emerging queerness and I just went right into a relationship that was This really bad, like really traumatic, really abusive and the abusive stuff started like very subtly and insidiously.
Nicole: Yeah.
Miles: But, um, you know, like financial control, like isolation and then just wild stuff having to do with like bleep, kind of like sleep terrorism.
Nicole: Sure.
Miles: So I was engaged to this, this man. And we got engaged after like, I don't know, like four weeks or something, just like stupid quick, like radically, like not right.
But it was all kind of based in like this fear of queerness. And like, I don't, I don't, I don't have that script. Like, I don't have that script. I just have the script that my parents had laid out for me. So, um, the fear of the unknown, like kind of led me into this, like, Oh, well, this is what I should do kind of place.
And, um, yeah, he was, he was just a quite unwell person and, um, yeah, there was a lot of abuse and a lot of trauma. And, um, then finally it became like overtly physical.
And, um, I was almost thankful for that because it was like, okay, like that is the line, right. It just seemed more of a line to me, more of a boundary to be crossed when that happened.
And so, yeah, I just was like, well, I'm. I'm out of here.
Nicole: Yeah. Yeah.
Miles: Probably being okay with my queerness is probably better than, like, dying from domestic violence. Right. I guess. Yeah. So.
Nicole: Low line, but yes. It's okay. You're here now. You're here now.
Miles: Yeah. Yeah. Journey. That was a long time ago. Yeah. Um, and so yeah, that was, that was definitely like a script that I've had to shed and to, um, kind of now kind of reopen to because.
In my partnership with uh, Um, her name's kelly with my partnership with kelly we kind of say like oh We we never want to get married and like part of that is from this experience when I was younger when I was engaged To this just for sure and i'm like, well, I just don't need that. I don't need you know, this Acknowledge me or the structure to like validate, you know, how I'm connecting with you and how I choose to and each day step into that connection.
Right. But we want to like, we're like having these conversations about like, actually really wanting to touch on this and wanting to like, practice it. So we're, we're going to like have like a little practice marriage thing ceremony just to ourselves like the summer and just see how it feels and like, Okay.
write our own script to it. But I'm finding when we say like, Oh, I never would never, we're never going to do that. We're never going to get into that. That's kind of indicating like where the healing is, you know, pointing towards, right? Like, that's like, Oh, we're going to put that in our past. We'd like, we are, Not done shedding that,
Nicole: right?
Miles: So again, the shedding process is like a constant, continuous, like evolving thing.
Nicole: Yeah, I feel like the biggest relationship anarchy thing we can do is to write our own narrative about all of it, right? And so to say that I don't want marriage with the historical roots of property and ownership over someone to pass down your lineage and wealth.
I don't like that. I don't want to be walked down the aisle to be given away by my father as the property that I used to be in previous historical times, you know what I mean? Like, Yeah, you get the right to say that part of it doesn't resonate with me, but the celebration of love, the tax benefits to say, fuck the system, right?
Like all this stuff that resonates for you. That's like the most relationship anarchy thing to do is to say like, Hey, I don't like these scripts, but these scripts, and this is why I'm doing it. And this is what this word means to me. If I want to call someone my partner, great. What does that word mean? If I want to call them my boyfriend, my girlfriend, my person, what does it mean?
Right? It's not that the words, the labels are bad. It's specifically unpacking what those words and labels mean for you. Ride the relationship escalator with consciousness and intentionality. There is nothing wrong with riding the escalator. It is, do you know that you could have other relationships? that are meaningful, that don't ride them, and that your relationship is not somehow less meaningful because you reconfigure, because you stop having sex, because you stop living together.
That doesn't mean that your relationship is any less valuable. So it's really, yeah, so much about that freedom, really.
Miles: Absolutely. I'm, yeah, I'm so glad you just are so good at like coming around and encapsulating it. I love it. Um, yeah.
Nicole: My student loans, man, they've given me some good, some good skills, my good, good student loans.
Miles: Uh, yeah, I, um, yeah, the conscious conversation, the conscious choice, the respecting autonomy, the respecting agency, the putting it all out there. The um, it feels safe that feels safe when it's a script And it feels like there's that pressure, that's not safe, that doesn't feel like safety to me. And so yeah, moving into a space where my partner is kind of like, Oh, no, no, I'm having these feelings of being like, mine, like you are mine.
And I am not comfortable with those feelings. Like, I need the freedom. I need the space. And I want that for you too. But I'm feeling myself, like want to like, claim it, claim you. And I'm like, well That, I think that's okay too, you know, like that's, that's okay. Like we do have these conversations. We do have the respect for each other's agency.
And if that's coming up, it's coming up in safety and in this protected open space. That's okay.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's important to remember that we do that in other relationships. This is my friend, right? And there is, uh, an understanding to what that means of, of closeness, of, of mineness. And in that relationship, I mean, I would say in healthy friendships, we don't then say you can't do other things with other people, even though you are my friend, there is closeness and mindness in the attachment that we share, but that attachment is not real.
also connected to a deep level of control over what that person does with their life. And we somehow so easily seem to just flow with that in platonic relationships. And then the second it gets to the sex and romance thing, everything gets so complicated. Right? Right. Right. And I think that's where that, that deeper understanding that me, you, we are the products of our environment.
And so All of the historical context. The systems are so deeply internalized. And so it is an active dance to say, wow, I am having these desires. I'm noticing that they are not in alignment with my value systems. Both are happening at the same time right now. I'm going to work through the discomfort to get closer to my value system, you know, and that is something that we're going to do for the rest of our lives.
And I pray that the future generations will come into a world of even more liberation than we can even dream of in this current context. You know,
Miles: uh, I pray for that too. Yeah. Especially for my niece. Yeah.
Nicole: Totally. And I think it's, you know, like honoring the generational differences, the cultural differences that is age or even different locations in the world, right?
Particularly when I think about, you know, I guess I'm thinking about my family. So, so my mom didn't go to college as the first person to go to undergrad and my grandma didn't finish high school. Uh, she would not be happy that I'm saying that, but I don't think she loves us a podcast. Um, yeah. You know, and in her eyes, if I talked to her about education, she'd say like, well, I didn't want it.
I didn't need it. I, I w I, why would I have graduated high school or gone to college? I was a mom. Right. And I think there's some level of, of respect for that, of like, okay, you were following your pleasure and also a little bit of critical examination of what was presented for my grandmother at that time, in terms of possibilities.
Right. Yeah. Access. Yeah. So she was happy. She lived her life. And so we're not going to just. credit, that pleasure that she found. And also, as a feminist, I'm going to be raging up in here that she couldn't have a credit card until 1970s and that education wasn't as accessible. So yeah, so I think when I hear your stories about, yeah, your grandma and your parents and all of us, We see these models and now we're also living in a time where way more access is possible.
And so how can we respect the pleasure that they found in their paradigms and also be sitting in ours now saying, wow, this is a bit of a different game. And where do we want to go with it?
Miles: Yeah, absolutely. And. My parents have never put that pressure on me. My grandparents never put that pressure on me.
It was something that came from like outside, this like social C, the soup that we're in, you know?
Nicole: Yeah.
Miles: But my grandma has always like, when she was alive, she always Wanted to learn from me and like wanted to kind of like ride on my wings, you know
Nicole: Yeah,
Miles: and my parents too. They're always like so like I was how was the journey like tell me about your journey
Nicole: yeah,
Miles: and that's such a privilege to have that kind of lineage of unconditional love and acceptance that they just want to see you.
And I know I'm super fucking lucky to get that. Yeah. It's a huge privilege. It's probably one of the biggest privilege you could be born into. And even still, even still with that like really strong lineage, there's so much social soup and it's sticky. And it's Are dished.
Nicole: Absolutely. And so I think that's where a level of mindfulness about the fact that we're gonna have responses and we are not defined by that initial response, right?
That initial reaction we have. We have to take responsibility in that, of course, but don't define yourself by that initial response. Define yourself by how you align to your value systems. So when I was first particularly trying to practice like expansive relationships where I did not control my partner's experience of eroticism and pleasure with other people, I knew that that's what I wanted to do, and hearing about them just dancing, let's be very clear, just dancing with someone, I know, just dancing with someone else at a club, and I, my stomach is turning, I'm crying, and I'm going, fuck, like, how do I want to be here, but my body is reacting with such fear.
Oh, my God. Right. And so I think that just having a little bit of that observers mindset to say, Hey, it is valid that I am crying. I have been socially conditioned for years and years that the only way to find exclusivity is through control. And so to get outside of that, I am having a trauma response to the systems that have been so deeply internalized.
And I can have compassion for myself, and I can know I want to move over here into values, and so I'm going to take that step towards that of moving through the discomfort to get closer in alignment with my values.
Miles: Beautiful. Yeah, and again, it all belongs here. It all belongs. The whole process of that, it all belongs.
Nicole: Yeah, and we do that with other systems of oppression, where you have to acknowledge that even when you think you're not a part of the problem, you are. Right? Right, the second that you think, I don't have that internalized ism, don't talk to me, I'm fine. That's when I'm more scared, where I'm like, Okay, time to really open up the eyes to see it.
Miles: Yeah,
Nicole: exactly. And so it's that continual embrace of like, okay, where can I examine how this is going? Of course, live into your pleasure to don't just spend every single day, like examining and digging and digging and digging and digging. But where's that balance in that of like, okay, I'm right here and there's more.
I'm proud of where I've come. I get a lot of clients who are like, Oh, I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. I suck. And I'm like, yeah. Dear client, please look at all that you have climbed, please look at all that you've, you know, flown, right? Like you're in such a different landscape than before, and I know you're still looking up at who you want to be, which is such a great indication of your values.
How beautiful that you see that and you're still like, damn, I'm not there. But also celebrate yourself in that, like, where's the balance of growth and celebration at the same time?
Miles: Yeah. Yeah. I was, uh, as I was getting set up for this call, talking to Carmen and, and I was like, nervous. Cause you care so much.
Cause you care so much. Not cause you're, you're not, you know, exactly where you need to be or you're not there yet. It's just cause you care. Like it's, there's a lot there. It's just moving an energy through you. So yeah. Yeah. So powerful.
Nicole: Yeah, that's so powerful. That was one of the biggest things I feel like I learned when I was in therapy before becoming a therapist was honoring all of my anxious feelings as an indication of how much something meant to me.
Miles: Mm hmm.
Nicole: Yeah.
Miles: Yeah. Yeah. And they, they actually belong in there. You're not trying to get rid of that anxiety. It belongs. And, you know, instead of trying to like shoo it away, get rid of it. Yeah. Maybe send it some love, give it some space.
Nicole: Absolutely, absolutely. And I'm curious, why do you practice relationship anarchy?
Why is this important to you?
Miles: Yeah, let's go for it.
Oh, it's a need, it's a need. I need it, like I need. It's not a desire. It's, it's deeply based in need. It's in my bones that I need it. If I'm not having that freedom, if I'm closed off, if my heart is closed, if, if I'm not able to heal through this, I actually develop like, a lot of somatic responses.
Like, very, like, sensory overwhelmed for like, everything. Everything. Textures on my face. Like, I can't even, I can't even be like, like, if I get like, a drop of something on me, I need to be either completely wet or completely dry. Like, it's, it's, Wild sensory things that I don't need to understand. All I need to know is that those sensory things are my guardrails on my path and my path is towards freedom.
Um, and I need that.
Nicole: Yeah,
Miles: it's, that's actually like a really simple like answer to that question.
Nicole: I love that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. To be able to be your authentic self, to have the freedom. And then I think one of the biggest things about that is your connection to the body. I mean, Oh, the field of psychology, my five years of doctoral training and not a single class on the body.
Of course, I take a, yeah, yeah, I take a neuropsychology class and we talk about cortisol, we talk about adrenaline, we talk about how that impacts you, your stress response, but not a single class is a therapist of, hey, how are you going to work with your clients when they're in that state? What should you do with that body when you're, Oh my God.
So thank God for my psychedelic training, where of course you can imagine in a psychedelic space, that stuff's even more intense. So obviously there was a very grounded training and somatic therapy that I'm so grateful to have had because it now has such a lens to everything that I do. And I think that any healer should really have, right, is how can we be so connected to our bodies.
That when something is out of alignment, we notice it and we notice it hard. And I think that it's tricky because particularly in our society, there's so much that puts us into a state of misalignment and inauthentic expression that we're constantly holding that in our mind. I hate this job. I have the Sunday scaries.
I have to show up on Monday. Yeah. I hate the system too. Capitalism. Whoa. But like How inauthentic, how disconnected from your body do you have to be to show up at that job every single day and chug so much coffee so that you don't hate it? Oh my, you see what I'm saying? Wow, woah, woah, woah, okay. So I think that's hence why I find, like, particularly, like, the idea of eroticism and pleasure and somatic joy and sexuality to be one of the most radical revolutionary practices because the more we can get people back into their bodies and back into feeling pleasure, I think the more you automatically feel that misalignment and misattunement
Miles: Yeah, even just like going through that was really overwhelming for me.
Nicole: Yeah, I feel like I've been there. I've had that job. Hey, I have had that job. Let me tell you. Let me tell you. Oh my god.
Miles: I don't think I can get into it. Yeah. Um, yeah, I actually, well, gosh, I guess it's coming up.
Nicole: Yeah, sure. Might as well.
Miles: One, I want to make the recommendation. To go to massage school. Sure.
Fucking amazing.
It's so good. It's so good. Um, you get, you get, you get worked on like so much in massage school. It's part of the learning process and that, that was huge for me. I, I really enjoyed that, but yeah. Um, yeah, I've had that job right when MDMA therapy found me rather, I was working at a flash in the pan startup.
Actually it's made it an incredibly. Horrendous impact on the world. Um, cause I was an office manager and I actually worked for, um, somebody who recently was sent to prison for over 25 years for a massive fraud. It's like probably the largest fraud in the history of man. And I needed that job. I needed it for the healthcare.
Like, I, I just, I would do anything for the fucking healthcare. Yeah, it's not wild. Anything for the healthcare.
Nicole: Ah, talk about control.
Miles: Yeah, I know. Yeah. And so the healthcare that I needed was, I needed to To have a hysterectomy, I needed to like my ovaries out of my body and I needed to do that for myself.
And so I just needed to hold down this crazy ass job working for this person in crypto. And, um, as soon as I did that, I, you know, menopause. This like, churn of chemicals in my body, like, and the lack of chemicals and the, and the shedding of that, um, was a huge, like, intense time. And, yeah, and so then MDMA therapy found me after that, and I was still in this role as, like, office manager for this place.
And, um, I, on the Friday before the MDMA therapy, um, the CEO who's, Now in prison took me into the his office and and he was like, hey, so Getting a sense that you're not really that happy here. Like you're not really that comfortable here and I'm just wondering like is there anything we can kind of do to give you a Sense of control over your life and like bring you back to go a good place And I I was really honest with him.
I was like, you know what I'm doing MDMA therapy this weekend I'm Let me get back to you on Monday.
And, um, you know, I, you know, this, they tell you like, don't quit your job. Don't make any big financial decisions, like don't, you know, yada, yada, yada. But, um, I, it was, it was a soft firing, right? Like he, like he was opening the conversation to like, you know, get the fuck out.
Cause the energy from you is homicidal almost. Like that is menopause energy where it was in my body. I was like, I could go nuclear on people. I was really not trying to, like, it's just. That was what was coming out of me. And, um, and so, yeah, I, I went through the therapy and I came out the, went to work and just immediately was like, yeah, I got to get out of here.
I need to go. And he was like, oh, do you want to quit or do you want to be fired? I was like, Please fire me. Um, yeah, and it was what I needed to do. It was, it released so much of that. Like I needed to like, not be there. I needed to be doing something else and moving along my path. And, and, and I just was, I was scared to like, let go of that security of having access to healthcare.
And, um, yeah, so those somatic responses and like having it real. Intertwined with, like, capitalism and working and, like, caring for yourself.
Nicole: Right. Woof. Woof. Deep. Yeah, deep. Yeah. There, there's no end to that question of what a different world it would be if we lived in a structure where at minimum The profits from health care.
Let's let's just start there. The minimum, the profits from health care, our ability to live in our bodies with health or redistributed to the people rather than private companies. Like let's at least that one folks, like it is so wild to me that that. Wasn't always the system until very recently, so all of us our age are like, oh, yeah, this is normal, right?
No, this was not the always the case prior to this very recent time where medical care got privatized and Just it's it's interesting. Like we had started our recording right with consent conversations about coming into the space. What a wild Consent question that if you want to live in America and be safe enough to not fear going to the ER because of a life or death emergency that could put you into a bankruptcy, so because of that fear, because there's no universal health care, you need to get a job.
What kind of consent is that? Like, you can't Bankruptcy and a ER. Whoa. Like, it is astronomical to me to think. There's a lot of different things about capitalism, but really the fact that, like, so many of us, me, my friends, all of my student friends say, Hey, if something happens to me, call the Uber. Do not put me in the ambulance because I cannot afford the ambulance there.
Like, that is Crazy. What world do we live in? Oh my God. You know, and the second you start looking at different countries, you're like, Oh shit, like America is behind.
Miles: Yeah. And what's coming to mind is like, you're, you're talking about, you know, like, like a, a maybe thing that might happen, you know, like if something happens to your health, but something is going to happen to our health.
We're aging, we're aging. It's going to happen. And our, our system for aging is. Based in capitalism too. And that's, I mean, I know it's wild. Yeah. Like it's not, it's not consent. It's not consent. And so, so my partner and I have had these kind of like, fantastical conversations about like our quote unquote retirement plan.
Sure. And for us, it's paragliding until we cannot possibly paraglide anymore, which you can paraglide until you're quite old because I know some quite old paragliders and they're amazing. But yeah, paragliding until we just Almost couldn't do another launch and take a one more flight over the Pacific and into the ocean.
Like that's, that's my idea of a retirement plan because that has consent in it, that has freedom, that has, um, returning to the earth and, um, you know, becoming again, part of the, just the flow of energy into other things, which we don't allow for that in capitalism. We just allow hierarchical accumulation and.
And also with that money, sickness flows with that money. Like people accumulating that wealth are not well. You don't become a billionaire with wellness. Like that is the burden of not knowing when enough is enough. And I don't wish that on anybody.
I have a lot of compassion for people who are in those echelons because They're dealing with stuff and it's, and it's impacting us.
If those people were to heal, we would all heal too. And so I have a lot of compassion for them.
Nicole: Sure. Yeah, 49 percent of the world's world, the world's wealth is owned by the 1%. Fun facts, fun facts we can all fit with as a global society. Crazy. Um, And before we get way too far into the universe of relationship anarchy, I'm curious, how does your relationship anarchy impact your practice of intimacy?
Miles: Oh, just so many more conversations and I feel like conversations Are the main line to connection and main line to like deep intimacy and deep intimacy is an avenue. Like it goes from like a thread to a string to a rope to a street of, of connection. And yeah, so you just, you follow that from, you know, communication to.
Intimacy, vulnerability, and sex, and pleasure, and yeah, it's just deep into everything. It's made me realize I'm a lot more demisexual than I ever thought. Um, I always knew I was, I, I can be pretty like wild and like kinky, and I don't know, I think kinky is just a kind of others. These sexual practices.
Nicole: Yes.
Miles: And I, I just, I like to think that it's, that's just, we're, we can all be, like, we're all just creatures, right?
Nicole: Right, right, yeah. Kinky is anything that's not normative, not normal, so who's defining the box of norma normative and normal and Yeah. When BDSM is some of the highest reported fantasies. It's pretty normal, you know,
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, my friends, uh, how far do we wanna spin that one? But yeah, I agree what you're saying. I think that it's important to dismantle the box of normality. And so then that means that the word kinky could take on very different meanings to all of that. And so, yeah, I see all the different ways that, you know.
There's just so many different systems that are internalized that are preventing us from accessing our pleasure. And I think that one of the biggest transformative things for me, which I would love to hear how it's been for you in terms of intimacy is the ways in which you step into a community. Maybe it starts with one person or you found the big community first, but that person introduces you to other people who introduce you to other people.
And then you start to run into these people who are, Vulnerable who are authentic, who can have difficult conversations with you and sit down and be present, be in their bodies as they have those conversations to hold space for you, to be there on the tough days, to celebrate with you. And you start to step into a very different community that when you look back on, you realize maybe that's the biggest piece of change ever is really changing the people in your close inner circle.
Whoa.
Miles: Yeah, yeah. So I, I just sat for three nights in Tucson, um, with an ayahuasca church and talk about community, digging into their vulnerability and, and sharing that. Not, not really sharing that with like words, but just with like, With energy and with light and, um, gosh. Okay. Can you bring me back to the question again?
Nicole: Sure. Yeah. I'm essentially I'm asking you how has your community shaped you? How has it changed over the years?
Miles: Sure, sure. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, It's slowly, like really slowly. As my community changes, it changes me. As I change, I change my community. And so there's that, like, you know, kind of infinity shape of a flow going to it.
Some of my, my friends, our, our relationships have deepened in intimacy and I hand them one piece of my healing, I hand off just by me attending to my own heart. And that allows them to take that and attend to their own heart. And then they. Get something more out of that and they give that back to me and it that that constant Exchange that's not transactional that's interconnected in community and that brings me again back to this This church, this, um, it's called the Arizona Yage Assembly, and the lead facilitator really believes in each person attending to their own heart heals the group.
And just watching those threads kind of go out and then come back to you is so beautiful. Beyond.
Nicole: Mm hmm.
Miles: To witness that.
Nicole: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. The, um, Sauna Healing Collective, where I did my psychedelic integration therapy training, uh, they're, like, saying is community is medicine. And that has always read it, like, yeah, really resonated with me that, you know, it's, it's Yeah, you could do all of the medicine work in the world and it would not change anything.
It's about who you're with in that circle. And of course, we always talk about, yeah, and we always talk about the set and setting, right? And I think that, you know, you, we get the setting, that's a big part of it. And then everything I've learned about psychology tells me that the set. Is created by your setting, you know, so then it's like, ah, okay, how do we even define the two and get outside them?
I mean, I get, I've, I've had lots of conversations with Dr. Jeff Beachy about that of like, okay, the set is you, your person, yourself. And I'm always like, yeah, but that's in relation, Jeff. Like, he's like, yeah. And then setting is anything external. I'm like, okay, okay. Fine. You know, but like you're saying.
Sign of that, like, where does that end? Where does it begin? What a great question, you know, and I don't think we have to define it. It's a yes and, and so sitting in that I think is a really important piece and so being able to, at least for me, one of the biggest things when I think about intimacy too is the way in which, particularly the deeper I go into deconstructing scripts around sexuality and pleasure, one, the slower I move.
Wow, like so slow now. Whoa. Um, and then also the ways in which my desires for intimacy and connection and vulnerability are present in my relationships regardless of who I'm having sex with. You know, I used to live in this world where sex meant deep emotional connection and now sex means something very beautiful and pleasant.
And I've realized that I can have that deep emotional connection with multiple people and that my choice to engage in sex is one aspect of intimacy rather than the aspect of intimacy. It is one facet of that. And so I feel so much more intimacy in all my different relationships by doing that.
Dismantling that, like, nebulous power that it had, which was, I think, so much of, like, unprocessed desires for closeness and intimacy that you could also meet in other ways in your life. But we've just given it such this power. And so I don't want to say that sex is less important to me. It's, it's, if anything, more important.
But what I've learned is that that's not the only way to have valuable intimacy.
Miles: Yeah. It's like discovering. Other flavors, right?
Nicole: Yeah. And they're also tasty.
Miles: Yeah, you just eating the fruit when it's right, you know,
Nicole: yeah.
Miles: And there's lots of different kinds of fruit like sex is just one kind of fruit.
Right, exactly. Yeah.
Nicole: And I'm curious to What are some of the difficulties that you've experienced with relationship anarchy? Yeah.
Miles: Oh, the difficulties are the thing, like, the things that I love about it too. Like, sure.
Nicole: What's a bad trip on psychedelics, right?
It was challenging.
Miles: Everything is a, is a true paradox, right?
Like, um, I'm grateful for the difficulties because they And bring me to presence and presence is the difficult thing. Um, so I, I have the gratitude for the difficulties and I have. Just a lot of like, awe in the paradox of it. The difficulties are you have to be so. Frickin present like so absolutely like right here right now that you know your mind might even spin off a script in like the 0. 2 seconds that you were reading it. Drifting away from presence, you know, um, so yeah, it's difficult. That's difficult. It's very challenging, but I have so much gratitude for that. And I love it.
Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so many of the scripts have this. Paradigm of you're with this person till you die, right?
And so we start to see all the way out to that that world So much so that we don't value anything that ends shorter, right? so I think that's an important thing for people to examine the ways of like Hey, you had a beautiful meaningful relationship for the time That meant what it meant for the two of you.
And then it was important for you guys to separate and go your other ways. And that's beautiful. Right? And so dismantling that assumption that the only way we can have a meaningful relationship is that we make it to our own deathbeds together. Right? So, so that, and remembering too, that like we said at the beginning of this conversation, there's nothing wrong with wanting that, right?
The relationship, it's beautiful. It's beautiful to say, I want to live my whole life. with you.
Miles: And I've seen it.
Nicole: Yeah, totally. And, and, and in that when change happens or if the change happens in that desire, can you go with grace and that and understand that that also means it was still a meaningful relationship, even though there was change, right?
So I think that it's exciting to dream about these worlds, but watching how far out your mind can go. Sometimes we get So far out into we're going to be here. We're going to be doing this together. We're going to be doing that together. So much. So they're not even in the present moment. Yeah. Hey, I've been there.
I've been dreaming about relationships where they're giving me breadcrumbs in the moment, but I'm like, Hey, eventually they're going to start showing up and we're going to be here. Going to be down here. We're going to be doing this or walking down the aisle. We're going to live together with the kids and the white picket fence is going to be a great.
And then you, like, when you actually pin, like, pin back into the present moment, you're like, yeah, they're, like, not texting me back, like, they're not emotionally available, like, but it's fine, we'll get there, you know? So it's, like, just, like, what does it mean to be in the present moment with the beauty of what's right here, to dream into the future, to get excited about the future, and in that, be in relationship with change?
Things might change. Things might change, and how can I be present with that, rather than holding on to scripts? Oof, that's a dance I'll learn for the rest of my life, for sure.
Miles: Yeah, and that brings me back to the song that I had us listen to before opening this conversation. Hold your heart with grace.
Don't forget the moment. Hold your heart with grace and open to the present. So yeah, absolutely. It's a challenge. It's a beautiful, beautiful challenge.
Nicole: Yeah. One of my partners and I have talked about the different storms that we move through when you're unpacking pleasure activism, because let me tell you there, they are there, uh, with everything that we're talking about, the ways that these systems are so deeply internalized.
There are often days where my body responds. Bonds in ways that I wish it was just chill. And, uh, similar practices like with you and paragliding and for climbing, like lead climbing used to cause so much fear. Wow. I'm so proud that I use that word. Used to that's a, you don't even know, but for me, that's a big.
Miles: Cool.
Nicole: Oh my gosh, just like I would go to go climb and like just, oh, I truly felt a trauma reaction in my body, even though nothing was actually happening. It was a safe space, but I would feel like dissociative. Everything would get kind of blurry, hazy. I would have a full chest reaction, like so many things.
So working through that, through gentle exposure and, and oh my gosh, what a journey. And so again, like you, it's a metaphor that I see a lot of this stuff. Through of gentle exposure with safe partners going slow to get to a space where things that used to scare me no longer do. But of course there are still days when you're climbing outside and you're on a really intense route to presume that you're never going to be scared again might mean that you're not climbing high enough or radical, you know, questions, but maybe,
Miles: maybe you're, yeah, maybe you've drifted from presence even there, you know, like, um, but yeah, I think, I think Yeah.
Again, coming back to the somatic responses, back to your body, come back into your body. Like what is the feeling on your skin? Like what's, you know, are you overwhelmed by the smell of something? Like all of these things are our internal messaging system. And like, have you just, is your inbox like over full and you're just like not getting the messages?
Like what's, yeah. What's going on? I like that you talked about the storms of it, right. Yeah. And in Arizona. You just have this oppressive heat that beats you down, but then in summer, the monsoons roll through and the outside matches the inside and you break through that oppression. You just have these like giant electrical storms and everything is like, just, and it feels so good to feel that energy flowing through.
Yeah. And, um, Yeah,
Nicole: totally. Yes. And so, in line with our somatic ness, right, it's finding storms that feel good, not the hurricane that destroys, right? Like, there's a big difference between that. There's a big difference between being so dysregulated that I'm dissociated on the floor and a gentle palpitation in my chest because I'm scared, right?
And so, what does it mean to work with like exposure therapy and gentle exposure to that in safe environments? Uh, because that can be a really big difference in terms of what feels accessible for these things.
Miles: Right. Yeah. The storm should bring relief. Relief from the heat. Relief from the oppression.
Right? It should bring relief. And not tear your house apart.
Nicole: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so being kind with yourself in that process. I'm curious too, what are some of the joys that you've experienced in relationship anarchy?
Miles: Oh, I mean, there are so many joys. But the one that has staying power, real, come back to staying power, is, is the healing joy.
Like, we're all healing. We're all moving energy through, you know, you can't, you can't avoid suffering. Um, you can't avoid trauma and we all have it, having these conversations and opening the space to care for that, making space is healing. When I have a conflict with Kelly. And just kind of coming to rely on coming to know that it's a sustainable thing that we do to open the space and to whatever it is, attend to it with care that's so healing and the joy that that emanates from that. Is so powerful and so lasting.
Nicole: Right.
Miles: So yeah, there's that. There's also like, ooh, we get to play, we get to be in pleasure. It's like we get to get to the fun parts faster and have more of them. And that's, that's very joyful. Um, but I think the, the healing aspect of it is, is really important. Beyond anything.
Nicole: Absolutely. We heal in relationships. So the power of finding those people where we can grow together. I mean, it makes me so excited about the next year, the next two, the next five, the next 10. Whoa. What sort of intimate loving connection are we going to be in? It's going to be even Wilder than I can possibly think about right now.
And yeah, so many of those moments of, uh, emotional experiences, you know, the storms, the complexities of it, the difficult trips on the psychedelic. I think, you know, when I think back to that experience. I had mentioned earlier about my partner, uh, dancing with somebody else or, you know, having kinky play or kissing or caressing all of those times.
Um, the ways that those drops on the lead climb on the, on the paraglide, whatever you want to, you know, every time that I dropped, Oh, it was intense. Oh my goodness. It was intense. And also there was like an afterglow after that. I think that's what, for me, it was very interesting. I don't think I could have predicted that because.
What was needed for grounding after that rather than going into a state of like compression of saying I can never do this I can't you know, I'm all alone all that sadness. What would come out was this? Okay. How do I ground myself right now? I am a beautiful Sovereign being. No one else is going to be me.
There is no replacing me. And if my lover wants to be with me, they will want to be with me. And I don't have to put a cage onto them or anybody else in my world. I am beautiful. I am intelligent. I am powerful. I am empathetic. I am strong and I can do difficult things. And so when I would come out after one of those, I'd be like, Oh, Lowin bouncing like don't get me wrong.
I was crying on the floor before that, but to reground I was like, damn, you know
Miles: Well, really really beautiful inventory of self and like capital s self right like really beautiful returning to self What a great opportunity like what great opportunities to do that to return to self like amazing
Nicole: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And then I'd ask them, can you hold me? Cause I want to snuggle. That's my favorite.
Miles: Such good practice asking for what you need. Absolutely. Being open to receiving too. Yeah.
Nicole: And I think that's the vulnerability of so much of it is like, can I name him having this reaction in all of our relationships, right?
I think this is where these, these skills, these difficult things, these storms that we've gone through become skills for all of our relationships. Hey. I'm having this reaction. I don't want to be attached to this reaction. I'm having it. It's valid. I need support of a hug. Can you support me by giving me some space?
I'm going to go for a walk, right? So that ability to not attach to your reaction, to name what you need, and communicate that with other people. Those are skills that you need for all relationships.
Miles: It's all, what does Ram Dass say? He says it's all grist for the mill.
Nicole: Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I'm curious. The final question.
What do you wish other people knew about relationship anarchy?
Miles: It has gifts to give for anybody in any relationship structure. Right. You don't need to be you know, dating a million people or sharing yourself or spreading yourself too thin, you can be with that one person and still benefit immensely from understanding these concepts, this language, these practices, the people in these communities, you can still benefit immensely from connecting to that.
Nicole: Yeah. I think that, you know, if anarchy is about dismantling power structures, I think one of the biggest things is that there's no one way To be in pleasure. There is no one way to be in relationship with others, right? And so if in a relationship anarchist comes to you and says you are not doing enough to get this label I'm almost a little bit more concerned I think that the only part where I usually come in and say well Maybe that's not anarchy is if you think that you exist in a silo if you think that you exist in a way where it's just Just you up in there and you're not connected to the reality that, hey, you exist in relationships with community and people that's usually I'm like, okay, maybe we could draw the line and say that's not relationship anarchy.
But beyond that, to come in and say like, this is the way to do it. This is the way to practice is almost, in my opinion, very antithetical to the actual value system of anarchy.
Miles: Yeah, yeah, a lot of ego in those statements.
Nicole: Yeah, and and hurt. Let me let me let me. Hey, man Yeah, when we have been so so so Blocked off from access.
You get almost vitriolic towards other people. I've been there towards other people like, Hey, why aren't you doing this? Why aren't you doing this? Come on. You know, it's like, that's reflective of our own. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. So we can have compassion for that journey and the ups and downs of that one.
Miles: Absolutely, for sure.
Nicole: Yeah, it's been such a joy. I want to be sure to take a deep breath of you as we come towards the end of our time.
And I'm just going to check in to see if there's anything else that you'd like to share with the listeners. Otherwise, I can guide us towards a closing question.
Miles: Oh, no, this has been fantastic. I just want to share some gratitude with you and for everyone who is listening like I'm sending out gratitude for attending to your own heart and doing your own work.
Like, that's all I want to share.
Nicole: So beautiful. And thank you for trusting me. I'm so honored every time that people from around the world like trust me. I'm always like, what? That's so cool. Hi.
Miles: You have a really cool job that you've carved out for yourself. Like, you are really giving yourself some fantastic medicine.
Nicole: I'm having lots of fun. I think that as a pleasure activist, I need to keep having fun in this space. And that will be my goal here. And hopefully we'll all have fun in it together. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Well then, the last question that I ask every guest on the show, Miles, is what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?
Miles: The non normality of it all. The uniqueness of everything. Every little thing. And if I might add one more thing, being overwhelmed. Sure.
Nicole: Yeah, well, when you take a world where everything is unique, if you actually slow down to think about that, whoa, that is overwhelming. Let's go back to the beginning of our conversation.
The universe, whoa, you know? Yeah.
Miles: The subtlety can be overwhelming.
Nicole: Yeah, turning on the full saturation can be intense to step into, but also what a beautiful world to be in, in your relationships and your connection to others and yourself. Yeah. Well, it's been such a joy to have you on the podcast again.
Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for being so vulnerable and for joining me and all the listeners today.
Miles: Thank you.
Nicole: Thank you. If you enjoyed today's episode, then leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast. And head on over to ModernAnarchyPodcast.com to get resources and learn more about all the things we talked about on today's episode.
I want to thank you for tuning in and I will see you all next week.
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