Nicole: Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host, Nicole.
On today's episode, we have David Cooley. Join us. This is for a conversation all about intentionally cultivating secure and dynamic attachments. Together we talk about moving through relational fluidity, waiting to attach until navigating conflict, and going down the rabbit hole of non monogamy. 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.
Dear listener, what a joy to have David Cooley on the podcast! How exciting! Dear listener, David Cooley is the co author of Pollywise with Jessica Fern, and if you haven't already heard my episode with Jessica Fern, I definitely recommend checking that out. It is episode 175, which is It's titled The Pauly Secure Paradigm Shift, and so I would say that these two episodes go together.
They can also, of course, stand alone, but David talks about some of the pieces of navigating his relationship with Jessica that we explored in that episode, and so if you haven't heard that, highly recommend listening to that first and then diving in here. And, dear listener, one thing that really stuck out from this recording with David, for me, was the concept of waiting to attach until you've navigated conflict.
It is inevitable that as human beings, we are going to go through rupture and repair in our relationships. We are two separate, Beings, that is the beauty of it all, right? To reach across the divide and hear about the world of meaning making that each human has. It is truly a whole universe, right? And so we can reach across the divide to hear another person, to listen, and to speak to them.
And in that process, it is inevitable that we are going to have ruptures. Those ruptures can be small moments of miscommunications, misunderstandings to much larger ruptures, right? Of pain, abuse, trauma, but it is inevitable that we are going to have ruptures in our relationship. And so what does it mean to wait?
To think about the future, to think about the world of meaning making you're creating with this human, until you have seen how they navigate conflict, until they navigate the repair process, and that's definitely something that has stuck out for me and something that I have reflected on in the many months from this recording to the release and this intro that I'm making for you right now, dear listener.
And another piece that I want to add to that is new relationship energy. I think it's also important to be realistic and intentional about your attachment with folks who are new to this paradigm shift. of polyamory and expansive relating. Wow, just a little bit of advice, definitely, for my past self to, uh, wait until you watch them go through new relationship energy, because that is a wild drug, and if someone has never taken that, an intense experience before, you can see a whole different person on the other side, and I just wish I could have told myself that, uh, to wait until you've seen someone go through NRE, especially if they are new to polyamory.
Wow. So just adding that to the conversation here with David. There's a lot to, uh, navigate with that one, and it is definitely a concept that I will continue to explore in this podcast space. And, again, it is just such an honor to have amazing guests on the show, like David, and Truly, I am so, so, so grateful that I get to share this content with you and that I get to grow with you each week, dear listener.
All right, dear listener, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can explore my offerings and resources at modernanarchypodcast. com. Also 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 free and accessible to all people, so thank you. 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 modernanarchypodcast, also linked in the show notes below. And with that, dear listener, please know that I am sending you all of my love.
And let's tune in to today's episode. Okay, cool. Well then, the first question that I ask every guest is, how would you like to introduce yourself to the listeners?
David Cooley: My name is David Cooley, and I'm the creator of a model called the Restorative Relationship Conversations Process. And so what I do is I facilitate difficult conversations with intimate partners, sometimes with family, sometimes even with friends or business associates, but mainly with romantic partnerships.
Sometimes that's a dyad, sometimes that's more. Right? It just depends. And so it's really, it's work that's really open to any kind of relationship that's struggling with either past ruptures or difficult communication dynamics that feel sort of intractable or stuck. And so I use the process that I've created based on the principles of restorative justice, which was a field that I worked in for several years, but I've integrated a lot more modalities into the process.
Things like internal family systems, narrative theory and therapy, mindfulness, somatic work. Okay. Thanks. Nonviolent communication stuff like that.
Nicole: Yeah, which I already feel the power of this work and what it is and the implications for our lives, right? Our mental health. I mean, our relationships create our reality of this life.
And so when your relationships are in conflict, your whole world, you know, at the end of our lives, when people are asked, what is the most important thing? It's, Relationships. Who were you sharing your life with? Right? What stories were you creating with other people and on the power of that? So it's almost like, where do I start you David?
You know, like, where do we even begin this conversation? Knowing, um, how profound and important this work is.
David Cooley: Yeah, yeah, I think that's I think that's absolutely right. You know, that's one of the reasons why I wanted to walk away from doing restorative justice at an institutional level was I realized there was sort of ways in which the context that I was doing that work, even though it was really powerful, and I was being given a model that's so effective and so universally applicable in so many ways, there was still something missing in terms of the intimacy.
And so I realized that there was sort of a niche to fill. And that no one had been using the restorative model or concept and applying it to intimate relationships yet. At least not that I had seen. There may be others, but I just haven't seen it.
Nicole: Interesting.
David Cooley: And so doing that, making that fusion happen has been so rewarding.
It's been so fun. It's been so gratifying to see how effective it's been, um, in the majority of the cases with clients. And so, yeah. Yeah. Recognition that. You're absolutely right. I think our relationships are the single most important determining factor of our well being as human beings.
Nicole: Yep. Yep.
Absolutely. And so then I'm thinking about, you know, me search how much of our work, you know, is so deeply connected to our personal experience in this world, our positionality and being able to name that, right? Because I think that's an important piece of knowing where we're coming from. And so I imagine that a lot of this work is maybe something you've seen in your own journey, right?
Even just reading, um, Polly Wise, hearing about your pieces of this. So I'm curious if you could take, you know, rather than even a theoretical conversation of the fusion you're talking about, I'd love to hear the praxis of how this kind of showed up in your own life and in your relationships.
David Cooley: Yeah. I mean, like I said, I think, you know, I was hitting a certain kind of plateau at my work in, in restorative justice, you know?
So I was a bilingual case coordinator there, which essentially means case manager working for a nonprofit in Colorado, learning just a ton, learning a ton about our judicial system, the way that it's really applied. You know, the way that justice can look on the ground, working with police officers, courts, lawyers, judges, all that kind of thing.
So getting a real intimate look at the inside of several major institutions that shape our society as a whole.
Nicole: Yeah.
David Cooley: And through that exposure, you know, really finding a lot of discontent. Some of the things that I saw were not surprises, but reinforced kind of ideas that I had already had about some dysfunctionality around our justice system.
Men. I think personally, it was coming at a really sort of volatile time in the relationship with Jessica, you know, and so we were sort of coming to the end of our relationship share.
And so, in that context, I was experiencing as we were sort of falling apart in the context, larger context of opening our marriage.
A lot of stuff that I had never reckoned with, you know, I E anxious attachment, primal panic, attachment attacks, you know, like stuff around my own nervous system that I had never really understood or really seen before that. So it was a real massive invitation seeing that play out. Going through the divorce, seeing what unraveling a life of over a decade with someone with, with a kid in the mix means in real time.
And it showed me the places where I really needed to continue to deepen my own self awareness. And do more self work. And so, as I was doing that process, I was realizing, yeah, where I'm where I'm at isn't sort of where I want to be professionally and personally. So, there's just a way of confronting myself that I was so important, so painful, but so important and that was really the introduction to attachment theory and attachment work.
And it started to make the sort of approach to dealing with conflict so much more personal. So I feel like the divorce and the meltdown that happened in that context of the relationship with Jessica was just like a powerful initiation that sent me way deeper down the rabbit hole of self growth than I had ever imagined.
Yeah. But now looking back, it's just such been such a gift because it's given me an opportunity to explore so many different. Things that I wouldn't have otherwise that feel like I'm able to use in service of other people's relationships.
Nicole: Oh, yeah. I mean immediately I'm thinking like high dose psychedelic trip.
You got dropped on the floor. Where is the grounding? What is happening? The world is all shifting around me, right? And, and to come out of that on the other side saying, wow, I learned a lot in that process. It was a little bit dark during certainly large parts of that, but I, I learned a lot. And, um,
David Cooley: yeah.
Nicole: Yeah, I can only imagine, you know, like, As you were talking about it, like what I'm thinking about, at least in my own journey, these moments where I can know my own value system of where I want to move with the relationships. And I'm actively experiencing my body and sheer panic and disarray and just balancing between that.
Like I want to go in this direction, but I'm having these visceral somatic experiences that are so beyond, you know, the way I want to go. And you're nodding here. Right. So I'm curious if you want to speak to that for your own journey.
David Cooley: Yeah, it's an interesting question because, you know, a lot of people that come to me are in some kind of non monogamous situation, not all, but many.
And they've talked about the frustration that they've had with traditional therapists and the way that that's fallen flat for them and helping them get to a place of sort of movement or transformation. And I'm realizing that there is sort of a line that needs to be drawn. Around who's offering what kind of services, right?
And I'm realizing unless you've gone through that initiation that I'm talking about, which is you've gone through an attack, primary attachment loss in the context of a non monogamous relationship. I don't know if you should, you know, you should be, you should at least at the very least name that you haven't had that and you haven't gone through that experience.
Or potentially you shouldn't be offering the services, but I'm just realizing like this is something that's very difficult in the same way that psychedelic experiences are impossible to describe to someone in words like words will get you to a fraction of what the experiences really is. But until you've gone through it, it's really hard to commiserate in a way that's going to feel sort of genuine or authentic.
Nicole: Yeah. Yeah.
David Cooley: Or even useful. Right.
Nicole: Right.
David Cooley: Right.
Nicole: Yeah. Go ahead.
David Cooley: Yeah, and so because psychedelics have been such a part of my life for so long, there's so many parallels that I can draw in so many different arenas, right? But for me, it's really about the question of How do we handle transformation? Right? And this is why I like psychedelics and their connection to shamanic cultures is I think these older societies that really had at their root some kind of shamanic process.
For helping people with their issues. They really understood that life is about just an infinite series of transformations. And so the way they looked at loss, I think, was really mature and really integrated, right? They were able to really see loss as something inevitable and important for our growth as beings.
And I think we've lost that or never had it really kind of here in the West. And so for me, I think it's really exciting that there's so much access now to psychedelics in a way that there wasn't before and that that's sort of being decriminalized in a way that's really unprecedented. It's for me, it gives me a lot of optimism that this is sort of a branch of exploration that's available to so many more people now.
Nicole: Right. Yeah, it's really exciting. And I will say that in the research on psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, there's been very clear statements that it's not necessarily ethical for someone who has not experienced a psychedelic to be providing psychotherapy on it. Right. Because you just don't know. I mean, how, and then I think that does ask deeper questions though about when do we draw that line of you have to have had some sort of lived experience because everyone's experience of this world is going to be so unique, right?
Where do we draw that line of, Oh, I'm a white woman, so I can't provide therapy to anyone else of a different rate. These are deep questions. Now, where do you draw that line? But there does seem to be something inherently different, like different about a psychedelic experience. And I do feel the same way about just how deep the internalization is of a certain type of relating and love and family and meaning making and to actively go through this process of deconstructing it is a significant experience.
And so it feels very similar. Caliber to me. So I'm just sharing that similar resonance with you of because I think, you know, in my research with relationship anarchy, which is, you know, maybe one of the most scary ones for a therapist who's never heard of this, you know, um, you get a full world of community, right?
I've talked about this. Like, I got a full world of community, all these different relationships and I meet someone new and maybe I say, Hey, I really like our relationship. This is really great, but I only have the space right now to meet once every two weeks. Like, how does that sound for you? That person thinks like, okay, that's great.
Like eventually I'll get Nicole to reign in. We'll have like a whole life together. Like how exciting. Right. And I'm like clearly saying, Hey, no, this is what I've got, but there's a relationship escalator going on the other side. Right. So then that person takes it to their therapist and that therapist goes, Oh, it's a relationship anarchist.
Oh, She doesn't want to attach. She's got attachment issues. She's avoidant, right? Like and could spew all of that with theory because I won't go beyond two times a week now to the relationship escalator, right? And then that's how we, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no. So it's just, it's so deep, David. I know you're nodding with me.
I'm speaking to the choir here, but it's just, it's really profound how deep this goes with power dynamics in the field and all of this.
David Cooley: Absolutely. And I think that's one of the reasons why I really like attachment theory and polyvagal theory theories of that ilk is that they're really, I think, creating a more kind of universal baseline for approaching at least conflict work, if not even more generalized relational work, because we all have nervous systems.
Nicole: Yeah,
David Cooley: right. That's a universal human experience. That's undeniable. And I think when it's been one of the most helpful and grounding concepts for me and helping partners deep pathologize the way that they see each other behave, especially in moments of conflict and so helping people start to ground their awareness of, hey, Your conflict has more to do with what your nervous system has been programmed to do because of your attachment styles template that you cut as a kid, then personality or sort of the intention to thwart you from getting your needs and wants met.
That's huge. Right. And then helping them understand, yeah, there's sort of a baseline set of attachment needs that you both have. What if we look at the hierarchy sort of of what your most important attachment needs are compared to your partner's and see those differences? How much can we understand just from that alone about why you're having these kinds of conflicts, right?
And so it's it's really been exciting to find tools that help people sort of sift through the muck Of where they're getting stuck.
Nicole: Yeah, I mean, this is just so good. I'm loving it. I think this is so great. I just think about, um, there have been many times in class with my professor, one of my existential professors, who's just as critical to the field of psychology.
And I'm like, God, Dr. How do I. How do we get beyond the DSM? I hate the DSM, right? It's like, in terms of personality disorder. Let me put this on the individual that they have some deep pathology that they were inherently born with because they're innately wrong. You know, just, Compared to the paradigm of you're talking about your nervous system, your early attachments, and we can add narrative therapy.
What are you meaning making out of all, right? Like that's in my opinion, how we get outside of the DSM along with a systems level understanding of the ways that that is constantly impacting us in all these different forms. Like, like that is the vision I do see getting outside of the DSM, which means we're going to have to have much more.
Unique individual like quote unquote diagnosis. If that's what we're going to say with this, right? Like, it's not going to be these boxes anymore of just like, boop, boop, boop. It's going to be this person's individual, unique nature of all these different pieces that are going on. And the fact that we don't think about all of that is just, you know, Again, absurd speaking to the choir, but
David Cooley: yeah, well, I think one of the things you're signaling and I like the way you opened the dialogue about, you know, wanting to integrate my own personal experience into the trajectory of my, my work and the way I think about these things is when I was 19.
I got really, really sick. I went to Africa and contracted a really intense intestinal parasite that then turned on a genetic predisposition for an autoimmune condition that I still battle now to this day. And so that thrust me into a world of doctors, health insurance, like these big systems that are based on the practice of diagnosing and creating these models that.
Can make these economic systems work. Right? And so we see the way that health care and psychology and all these things that in their sort of essence originally are supposed to be about the well being of human beings have much more to do about the bottom line. And so I was sort of steeped in that.
Realization very quickly, you know, as a 19 year old watching insurance companies tried to deny my claims, right? For rightful things and seeing like, oh, this is about money and all these doctors that I'm going to see are just the only thing they have to offer me are sort of pills, essentially, and these interventions that really are undermining and eroding my body's inherent capacity to support itself.
Right. I was going through that at the early sort of late 80s, early 90s. Thankfully, there's been a lot of evolution in some of these systems. There's a lot of doctors that know more. Now we have functional medicine. There's just kinda more access to more alternatives. But still, I think this underlying breach in terms of the gap between what medicine is supposed to be doing or psychology is supposed to be doing is still pretty large in terms of how it's actually or not, I'm sure.
Benefiting clients. Right. And so this is the thing that I'm really sensitized to. A lot of people are coming to me and saying. We don't want a therapist, we've been hurt by therapists and I'm not saying therapists are bad by any stretch. Absolutely not. Right. I live with one, you know, it's like, it's not that, but I think we do need to understand what are the implications of a system that diagnosis people?
What are the consequences of that? And as people become sensitized to it for themselves and looking for alternatives, it's important. Those alternatives exist. And that's one of the things I'm wanting to do for people. I'm not going to diagnose your relationship.
Nicole: Right.
David Cooley: I'm not interested.
Nicole: I don't want to.
Right.
David Cooley: I don't want to. Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, you're speaking to such an important piece of this, of course, like, you know, when my, if my heart fails, I want the doctor who knows how to diagnose and deal with my heart. Like, you know, yeah. Like we're not trying to be anti science or the logistics of that, but like, The field of psychology is a hundred years old, you know, right?
And it was created by white men. Like what the, you know, there's still so much to unpack about that and the ways that it has tried to exist. See, now I'm getting passionate. You can hear in the voice here. It's the ways that it has, um, tried to exist. in a paradigm to be respected, right? We need the field mental health to be respected.
Here's the hard science. Here's the clinical data. Listen to us. We're real. And yeah, this work is important. It changes lives, right? But at the same time, there's much more to this. It's The relationships that you're having with your therapist are based on that, uh, therapist's training. And if they don't have this larger systems perspective, they're enacting harm by coming from their bias.
I mean, sex is one of the biggest places of this. Oh my god, right? Like, I mean, Forgetting the poly question, just like kink, you know, it's all so many different things that you can come in with this power dynamic. That's so based on the positionality. And yeah, the field of psychology, it has such an individual take on it that I think was really born out of a lot of the Newtonian physics concepts of, you know, The individual, the individual, and as we've moved into more quantum mechanics, understanding of science and the ways that all things are interacting, I don't think we have a diagnostic model that models that transition of what are all the various, uh, you know, places, the things going on for this equation that's happening.
So I don't know, man, but I'm here for the change, you know.
David Cooley: Yeah, I think what you're signaling is, you know, kind of something that we were really trying to ground in poly wise, which is we need to be thinking in terms of paradigms because that's what you're talking about is like, how do we actively, proactively, how do we intentionally, consciously make, Paradigmatic shifts in our consciousness.
It's something that's kind of been haphazardly happening in our species evolution. Yeah. But I think we're sort of at a unique place again, referencing back to sort of the more ubiquitous access that we're getting to psychedelics and consciousness change culture. More and more people are starting to realize, wait a minute, so much of what life is, is just this kaleidoscopic projection of my own awareness.
If people can really anchor their consciousness in that understanding and start to use that in ways that positively affect sort of their relational experience, fuck yeah, we're doing something really cool at that point, because I think we're really changing culture to move away from what I'm calling an adversarial stance.
Into a more relational one, you know, and so I'm really curious. Like, what are the paradigms that we're wanting to change? And then what are the tools that allow us to do that? And so I think very specifically in the work that I'm doing, I'm really inviting people into an awareness 1st of the fact that we've been really steeped and saturated in an adversarial stance and adversarial paradigm owing to our criminal justice system.
That's grounded in punishment and retribution, deconstructing that, seeing it. Yeah. The ways that it shows up and manifests and puppets us in our thoughts, speech, behavior, and so on. And how do we make that conscious move toward a restorative or relational paradigm? That's psychoeducation around paradigm shifting.
That's something that I'm really wanting to make more. I'm wanting us to do that more and more. More of us to do that, be like, what are the paradigmatic shifts that you're working on? What does that mean? How do you ground your own life in a process like that?
Nicole: Totally. Yeah. And I'm just even thinking about like the impacts of capitalism and scarcity mindset and you must hoard resources here, cannot share because if we did that, what would happen, you know?
And I'm, yeah, for me, I grew up really conservative Christian. So coming out of that to where I'm at here was, you know, finding out I was queer, then exploring non binary and, you know. So the amount of paradigm shifts I've kind of gone through are pretty, You know, a significant chunk for me personally. So I think in my research on relationship anarchy, I found that a lot of people who have started to do that turn of the original deconstruction of the whole God purpose life thing just keep going on this sort of, okay, what's next in my reality that I still need to deconstruct?
And it's. Wow, because we kind of understand that in other paradigms. We are learning to get better at understanding this in other paradigms, right? Like, what does it mean to deconstruct racism? That's an active process of continual reflection and thinking about, and it's never a point where we're just kind of done.
And it's this, you're changing your whole reality because you didn't realize how glossed over it was with shit. And so, What does it mean to look at our love in the same way? What does it mean to love and think, Whoa, there are a lot of systems here that are really, really deep that I have to continually deconstruct for maybe the rest of my life, right?
David Cooley: Like, yeah. So what for you felt like water? Kind of one of the things that helped you move out of that original paradigm with that mindset of kind of conservative Christianity?
Nicole: Well, right. So then you think community. That's how you get in. That's how you get out.
David Cooley: Right. So you found another community you found.
Nicole: Yeah, I started, um, yeah, at the time I was dating something, someone super religious. We had the purity ring. We had the promise ring. He was my whole world. And I had just joined a sorority and he was like, you shouldn't do that. That's bad. That's where all the bad people go. And so I dropped out. Once we broke up, I was like, I have no friends.
You know, I've been, I'm in a controlling dynamic here. Ultimately is really what it was. Because I wasn't able to have friends that were males because that was too risky. Right? So. There's a level of control going on there. So then I immediately go back into the sorority and the sorority has more expansive people that are not so fundamentalist.
I start hanging out with them, right? And then you, you slowly stretch and you stretch. And that's the only way that I've learned about consent is being in the kink community, polyamory, all this stuff. Like when I process this with people who are on different paradigms, which like all respect to the paradigm, but when I process it with them and they say, I could never do that, that sounds crazy.
That doesn't help me compared to a friend who sits down and goes, yeah, I've done that with my partner and we talked to our metamorph here and we talked about this and we're all on the same page and it's really good. Like that is a radical paradigm shift. So I think that's part of why I find the podcast to be so important, right.
Is how to create communities like this, where you and I are dialoguing. We're having an intimate moment. We're unfolding right here, right now. And if someone's deep in where my Mormon family lives, you know, and doesn't have someone around to have these conversations. Tune in, let's go, you know, where are we going?
David Cooley: So was psychedelics part of your journey out?
Nicole: Oh yeah, hell yeah, absolutely. I, I mean, yeah, I mean, once you have those experiences too, where you're like, wow, this brought so much love. I mean, I, I want to be very clear that psychedelics can have really difficult, scary times, you know, it's not all rose painted glasses here, but to have moments of such profound love and connection, and then to get out and be like, And this is illegal?
What? And then you're just, you know, at that point now you're just asking even more questions, you know? And, and yeah, for me, just in terms of my own healing with sexual trauma and with, uh, purity culture,
Man, to have just experiences with my own sexual expression, with my own body, I mean, breath orgasms on various experiences, like, I, there is no end to the way that psychedelics have helped me to unpack my sexual trauma.
And that's one of those things I think about. Like, love is so deeply laid in by all of these systems. In so many ways that I continue to unpack every single day. Um, so yes, that's cool. That's cool.
David Cooley: Did you have to lose your family or your connection to family in order to stay true to your journey?
Nicole: Yes, I would say lose is an interesting word, right?
How do we define that? I would say that have I taken significantly more steps? space in my dynamics with much larger orbitals of connection and had to go through various moments of saying, wow, okay, in their paradigm, they're not going to get this. And I've gone through different points of trying to keep that door open, it being slammed in my face, and then having to readjust my expectations and draw further out.
I mean, yeah, because my friends were pastor's wives when I first started this journey, like, they are no longer my friends. I mean, I could probably shoot them a text and say, hey, you know, but we're just in different worlds. Or even as I started to do the ketamine assisted psychotherapy work, you know, yeah, my mom's Mormon, my older brother never went to college.
I So I say, oh, I'm doing ketamine work, and he's, that's a hard drug. I would never talk to a psychologist who ever gives anyone hard drugs like that. That's me at Christmas time. I'm like, okay, I'm not, I'm not even about to get into all of the research, you know what I mean? And I'm just like, okay, so yes, but I wouldn't use the word lose.
I keep them, but with much, much space.
David Cooley: I like that. That's a good reframe.
Nicole: Yeah,
David Cooley: I like the nuance of that. Yeah, I was lucky. You know, I grew up the son of two Presbyterian ministers. And so I was lucky in the sense that they were really willing when I was in high school to sit down with me and have an intellectual conversation about faith and what it was and wasn't for me.
So I never liked church. It's interesting. I sort of had a kind of a. internal deep resistance from a very young age. I remember going to my, my dad's first church, you know, and just being like, what the fuck is all this?
Nicole: Yeah.
David Cooley: Um, but they made me go initially and I had to go and, you know, kind of in the younger years, my only sort of argument was I want to stay home and watch wrestling, you know, and that wasn't enough for them.
Um, to not let me go. But then when I was in high school, I started smoking weed, studying philosophy, getting much more sort of adept at expressing myself on more intellectual grounds, very intellectual parents. So I remember that conversation, it was a really life changing moment, you know, and they, I could see that it was hard for them to let me go, but they did.
You know, there was essentially their blessing. They weren't going to cut me off, you know, and so I realized that that was a profound privilege and luxury to have grown up in a context that was religious and could have been way more repressive, but that thankfully, my parents had a more relational consciousness underneath.
But it's interesting to hear. I'm always curious about. Yeah. What do people given up to be themselves?
Nicole: Yeah, I could hold a lot of space for that question and and for the continual question that all of us are kind of facing with that. Right.
David Cooley: Mm hmm.
Nicole: There's so much more to go there in terms of society and space for safety of our authenticity.
David Cooley: Yeah, and I see it, you know, I see it in relationships. I mean, kind of question of attachment. You know, what makes it so hard to be ourselves often is the attachments that we have with family, friends, partners.
Nicole: Totally.
David Cooley: A lot of the work I do is not about keeping people together, but actually helping them end the relationship.
Nicole: David, I hate ending relationships.
David Cooley: But that's an important part of it.
Nicole: I know, but I want to believe in their inherent goodness, the capacity for growth.
David Cooley: But it's like you said, it's like you said, I like the way you reframed loss. Right. Well, it's like if people can't get their needs met in a relationship, the most important needs, it is important that they find the relationships where they can or else they're going to make each other suffer unnecessarily.
So, I think that's something that, like, helping people really understand, like, wait a minute, are you just still together because you don't want to go through the attachment disillusion process, which is awful and intense and overwhelming. Sure. But that's not the reason to stay in a relationship. Cause you'll just make each other suffer.
And that's what I see. Whereas if that's all it is, Hey, let's do it. Let's get an, I'll help you go through that. I've been through that, you know, and you can see it in my eyes. Like I'll tell you my story. I'm happy to say whatever is true, but don't let that be the reason you're staying in the relationship.
Stay in the relationship only because you actually think that the possibility of getting your core needs met is there.
Nicole: Sure. I mean, you know, that someone's going to ask you, how do you know that? How do you know when to stay or go? Like that's, that is the ultimate question for people.
David Cooley: Absolutely. And that's why I'm really helping people ground into what are your attachment needs, not just your broad smattering of universal human needs, but like, what I have a list.
So I have a list of 15 attachment needs. And for me, this has been really, really helpful for helping people really ground their awareness in a specificity that they can then communicate with a certain level of precision, right? To their partners about that. I need this, this, and this, and this is what it looks like behaviorally.
Right? We figure out if the partner's got resistance to meeting those needs, what is that? Is that hurt from the past that needs to get worked on before you have that disposition? Is it the fear that once you start trying to meet that need, it's going to be insatiable and nothing you do will actually meet that need?
Maybe you've been doing things that you thought were meeting the need, but they weren't, and the partner was interpreting them differently. We got to shore up that misunderstanding, right? And then there's a few others, right? Contraindications. But those are the things we have to make sure is like, okay, why are partners not able to meet each other's needs?
So it's not just a matter of, ah, this is hard, call it. It's, all right, let's do some deep diving. Let's figure out what your attachment needs are. If there's resistance to meeting those, where is that? Why is that? Can those obstacles be removed? And then once we've done that process, there's still just this part of me, or part of a person that's like looking at the other person and going, I can't do that, I want, that's not what I want.
Mmm. And when you get to that moment, it's like, that's hard. And it's time to go.
Nicole: Yeah, I think it's tricky too, because what again, like we were saying earlier, what does go mean? Right? In some absolutely. Yeah. And some spaces it is. And obviously, don't get me wrong. There's so much need for time space separation.
Right? But, uh, existing within a relationship anarchy framework for me has meant. Spaciousness reconfiguration, not necessarily even the words de escalation, right? Like where do we reconfigure and oh, it's so painful to sit with that. And as you're nodding and have I would in your life experience, maybe you can speak to this.
Yeah, just the pain of like, holding one another saying like, I love you. And I, I love you. Want to be in relationship with you and we maybe need more spaciousness and and and how do we find that together so we can both come to one another with full excitement and joy and companionship and it's not this black or white end or or together.
It's this, like, infinite miles of people. Gray space that you can just navigate with someone that you love deeply. And that is a whole level of pain to be with, as you can maybe imagine was very recent with me and that I'm still figuring out, um, pain to be with someone in compared to a paradigm of, we broke up, goodbye, I'm not talking to that person.
David Cooley: Absolutely, and I'm glad you stated it that way. I think that's a really important consideration. That's definitely been a big part of my experience and relational journey. You know, I mean, 1 of the biggest bombs that Jessica Fern dropped on sort of the non monogamous world was that love and secure attachment are not the same thing.
You know, so everyone's saying. Love is infinite. Maybe that's true. But secure attachment is not. There is a limit to how many people we can securely attach when we're talking about this. That's big. That's big. And so what the fuck are we talking about when we're saying attachment and secure attachment?
What does that mean? That's helped a lot of people, right? And so extending that model and using it. To really help people understand, okay, what is it that helps you feel securely attached in a relationship? And sometimes a romantic relationship isn't the best way or container for you and another person to be connected or attached.
Right. Like, me and Jessica are a perfect example of that. We have an amazing relationship now that I'm so grateful for that we never had when we were married. Right. And so we live in the same house. We're parenting our child together.
Nicole: Yeah,
David Cooley: and it's just like we've had a certain level of relational fluidity that's allowed us to grow and evolve.
And so it wasn't she's out of my life. If we hadn't had the kid, I don't know if that would have been the case. But we did and we had to find a make it a way to make it work and it has worked and it's worked really well, and now it's really cool. We're collaborating on a level that I just You know, kind of suspected was possible, but never happened when we were together.
So, for me, I'm very, I'm very in favor of yeah. Is it just the container that needs to change? Is it just the level at which we're sort of relating that needs to like, what is it? It doesn't have to be just a, like, a break, but the way that it is now, we're not getting these needs met. We need to make something be different and be able to do that in a way that feels good.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah,
David Cooley: maybe not comfortable, but integral. That's what I mean when I say good,
Nicole: right? Yeah, growth is so uncomfortable, right? I don't know when I've ever grown. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Um, yes. And I'm, I'm just the pain of that process. Hold space for that. And also, God, I'm so happy that you're here to say this narrative, right?
Like this is needed just like a deep dive into what is possible. And for you to have gone through that paradigm shift yourself, and then to be able to speak of the type of relationship you have with Jessica now, that is a narrative that we need as a culture, because it's often this, Oh, you know, the custody battles and, you know, just like really intense, you know, Um, a lot of feelings, you know, so for you to be in the space to speak of the type of relationship you have now, very powerful.
David Cooley: Yeah. And that's a lot of what you're talking about is, you know, I think about the kids when I'm working with partners that have kids in the middle, that's what I'm thinking about most is how do we reduce the collateral damage on these little human beings? You know, how do we reduce the amount of session hours that they're going to need down the road?
Absolutely. Um, because I think absolutely, I think the system is sort of contrived to process or a narrative again, that's anchored in an adversarial paradigm about what divorce means. Right? And it's so brutal. It can be so brutal. You know, it's interesting to go through the divorce process with Jess. And we're going through the formal process in the court and it's just like holy shit at every step of the way The process is offering you this place to go after the other person like you're hitting you're talking about financial stuff Worst stuff like all of these identity all these tectonic existential plates And our being are just getting rattled and shook and you're being you're sort of being handed this opportunity to like Do you want to fuck this person over or not?
Do you want to make this worse? And it's just like oh my god You Every turn that's possible. So anyone that's willing to avoid that and getting caught in that, I want to be available to help and to say, okay, it doesn't have to look like that. It can be different. And how are you going to do it differently for your kid's sake?
If not for yours, at least for your kid's sake.
Nicole: Right. Absolutely. Yeah, I was, and when Jessica spoke, she talked about that moment of, and it just struck with me and struck me in so many different ways, the moment of the two of you walking to the bridge and throwing the rings back into the water.
David Cooley: Yeah, that was a really special moment.
Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. What was going on for you at that time?
David Cooley: It was very surreal. It was a very surreal experience. You know, I think there's a part of me that really understood how important it was to have that kind of ritual, you know, to have that kind of uncoupling, you know, so to have that ceremony where we were really looking back and, you know, Consciously leaning into what was good because that's part of what can happen is you start to frame things Retroactively is all bad.
Like this is painful now. So it all sucked, right? So it was kind of a denial of the real complexity of the live situation So I think to do that was really important to anchor like yeah, this has been amazing Like actually there's been so much growth and so much healing on so many levels because of this relationship What a gift.
And this is the way it didn't work, right? And this is sort of part of that integration of learning is talking about what didn't work and why, right? and so using that as sort of a Jumping off point for thinking about future relationships is critical But then recommitting to each other because knowing is like, yeah, I don't want to walk away from this Well, I don't want to just have that kind of relationship where it's just like we don't know each other and we're just passing our son off back and forth.
It just didn't, it didn't make any sense, like, I couldn't compute that, you know, and so I felt the love, I felt the intention, I felt the connection that still existed, and so that ritual is a way to really honor that, connect to it. It took time to be able to get to the point where right now, you know, there was a lot of space for a while where we lived apart, but that was necessary for my healing.
And I recognize that that was really hard on her son, it was hard on all of us, and I'm glad that doesn't feel necessary now, and that's not the case for everybody, and I recognize that, but yeah, I think that ritual, ending the relationship with a lot of intentionality was really, really important to minimize the damage that was done and set an intention for the future that I think has really helped sort of blossom into something beautiful now.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah, I really appreciate you naming the ways that we can look back on the past and yeah, see it through all dark. It was all horrible. It was all this right? Because somehow that's going to make. The grieving easier, right? This is where it's ending. This is, it's all dark, it's all dark. And so to sit in that nuance of inviting more of the perspective of, wow, this is a lot of the good.
And when you do see the good, then you're going to grieve even more, right? We don't want to look at that when we're sad, right? No, no, it was bad. It was bad. You know? So just for you to even have that moment with her of like living into that nuance and that complexity and looking at that and, and making decisions on how you want to move forward.
forward and like inviting the inevitability of change and that dynamic right there. And I can only imagine just the shattering, the complexity of the world that you were going through that trip, that journey, that, you know, whole narrative unfolding. So much for your experience that I'm sure, you know, like, like psychedelic journeys, right?
It's still happening right now, right? Like you're still integrating what it means to have had this relationship with Jessica to still be co parenting and to be talking about it right now on a podcast, right? Like it's still unfolding every day.
David Cooley: Absolutely. Yeah, but I like that. You know, I like your point about sort of the way that we retroactively color the past and create a sort of a new narrative about what it was sort of reducing the complexity in order to avoid grief.
And that's something I've been thinking a lot about recently with partners, you know, it's just how to invite the grief to the forefront. You know, how do, how do we hold our own and our partners grief for these kinds of transitions? You know, and it was, I was really lucky to kind of tap into a network of men who were really dialed into the importance of holding space for grief.
And so that was something that I was able to lean against because I had no real concept of that, especially as a man in this culture. I had no real concept of holding grief, honoring it, being with it, allowing it, you know, and I think that's been another really important thing in being with clients is, you know, They know that I have some understanding of grief until when they're going through some kind of loss.
It's like I'm not trying to say my pain looks like yours, but I know what it means to sit with grief and the importance of that and I'm here to help you figure out what does that need to look like for you?
Nicole: Right. I'm curious when you were in it and, and it's all, you know, it's happening right now. It's all happening, right?
What were the ways that that was showing up in ways that maybe we could say we're unconscious, automatic, who knows, you know, whatever words we want to use. But when you look back now, you're like, oof, I was grieving in ways that I didn't even realize at the time.
David Cooley: Well, I think right, uh, right. Initially at the right, sort of the beginning of that.
Disillusionment of the marriage. You know, I think there was a lot of there was a lot of anger and I think anger is a necessary step in the grieving process, but I could see the way that it was distorted. It wasn't really me being with with the anger. There was a lot of anger towards Jessica. There was a lot of projection of you're responsible for this.
You're doing this. Right? And, and there was some part of me that because of the work that I had done previously on myself knew that that was Off, but I was still very much blended with it, you know, kind of like an IFS terminology standpoint. Like, I was very much blended with the perspective of hurt.
Right. And hurt often makes it very easy for us to say, you're doing something to me. This is your fault. So, interestingly enough, kind of at the, as we were breaking up and I was moving out. Uh, of the apartment. I went and lived in this little crawl space in an attic for like 400 bucks. This folder is so fucking expensive.
Like, some friends were just like, Dude, you're about as pathetic as you can be right now, man. Here, you can rent this. Here's my attic. Yeah, like, yeah, it was rough. It was like, so fucking rough. David. And so, You know, thinking about that darkness, that low point, you know, just like, I remember saying to myself, I don't know if I'm gonna make it out of this.
Like, I literally don't know if I'm, the level of depression, the level of self loathing, the level of just, just darkness and, and the totality of that experience is so great. And, and I could see it impacting my relationship with my son, you know, I was like, this anger is starting to corrode my connection to the most important human being in my life.
I have to figure this out. And I know this isn't just like, what's me that I'm not seeing in this, right? And so I went on a series of four, I locked myself in that little closet four weekends in a row and did parkour, like kind of high dose acid trips. It didn't come out of the room until I was like, I got an answer.
And it wasn't really until the third trip that I got that answer. And it was really, it was, the clarity was, oh shit. I've been trying to make a woman responsible for my existence. I wanted her to take care of me. And take care of me like just as a being I haven't been stepping up fully to taking care of myself as an individual I've been projecting so much of the mom shit onto her And when this fell apart i'm blaming her When like there are all these ways that I wasn't really stepping up to the plate and being a co Partner.
And when I saw that, I was like, Oh,
Nicole: no,
David Cooley: please.
Nicole: Not me.
David Cooley: Yeah, not me. I'm so woke, you know? And it was just, it was a bombshell. It was a bombshell, but it was such a good wakening. It was such a good eye opener, such a good reflection. And then like something snapped. It was just like, all right. Anytime I felt that anger seething up for, I was like, that's you dude.
That's yours. You gotta face that, you gotta handle that, what, what are you not looking at right now that you're starting to project that, you know, and it like, it really did shift for me, it really did change, and that's when I was able to start relating to her differently, and like, just, it just, yeah, it allowed all these other things to open up after that, kind of like, this, uh, cascade of just good karma after just coming to terms with, oh, that's me, like, not taking responsibility for my existence.
Nicole: Damn, what a trip.
David Cooley: Serious things. Ooh,
Nicole: yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and even as you're speaking about the anger and all this, the first thing that goes up in my head is, where are you at in the body, right?
David Cooley: Right.
Nicole: God, I'll spend the rest of my career trying to get that one in the field of psychology, right? But just like let's start there, you know I'm feeling that anger in my chest or maybe in my belt wherever you're feeling it Just the act of being able to slow down to tune in enough to know It's we talk all about top down processing and forget about the bottom up.
Okay. Like when we are in anger, we are not in our prefrontal cortex anymore, where we make our executive functioning skills, right? The amygdala, all that is getting activated. We have stepped into a different part of the brain folks. This is not where we make large decisions with our lives. Right. And so it's just.
So important to start with the body rather than beginning in that state of, you know, activation, dysregulation, wherever, you know, so for me, that's the first thing I think about of when we're having these dynamics with our partners, because yes, it is all of this, you know, narrative process, relational dynamics, my Lou mix.
But if we can at least slow down first to get into the body, we have a way better shot at dealing with that than coming in activated, you know,
David Cooley: a hundred percent.
Nicole: Yeah.
David Cooley: Yeah. Yeah. So I think, you know, these for me are the ways in which so much of my process has been just embodied through the journey, you know, and Jessica is a great sort of marker for so many different points of transformation in my life, you know, which makes it easy to talk about her as a life partner.
Yeah. I love that. Because we, we've had such a profound impact on each other in so many different ways, and that continues to be the case. Um, and I'm really liking this particular incarnation of our relationship.
Nicole: Yeah. Do you want to speak to it a little bit?
David Cooley: Yeah, I think it's really sweet. You know, it's, it's really sweet to recognize kind of what works, what doesn't, where the attachment ends and starts.
You know, it's, there's such a level of presencing and awareness around, you know, What needs can I get met here? What can I, like, the expectations are just calibrated so efficiently, so accurately that it just feels easy to move in and out of space. And when conflict arises, it's just kind of like, okay, this is a place where we're going to have to like, sort of dig in and figure this out together.
Or it's just like, I just walk away and it's like, that's my end of process and it doesn't really matter. And so to have that level of clarity, which I never really had in the marriage, it's just amazing. It's just amazing to like, Be able to know when to sort of dig in and lean towards a process or just be like, there's no point.
And that's okay. It's not even like, there's no point. Like, fuck them. It's like, no, it's really not worth it. This is more mine to do anyway. It's just, it feels like there's so much less expenditure of vital energy on trying to navigate. So it feels more relaxed. It feels like more of me can come online. It just feels like it's easy to laugh together.
You know, when things are hard, they're hard. That's okay. But it doesn't mean really much. Whereas before, what does that mean? What's it mean that she said that? What's it mean that that happened, you know? And so the meaning make it, because I'm a five on the Enneagram.
Nicole: Sure, sure.
David Cooley: I'm a hardcore meaning maker, like everything's an inference of the big grand meaning of, you know, like always making these connections that sometimes serve me and sometimes don't.
Nicole: Yeah.
David Cooley: So, so it feels really cool to have this experience relationally, where it's just like, that's not happening that often,
Nicole: right? And depending on your early childhood dynamics, some of us do that way more than others, right? Where for me, you know, if my, you know, I love my family, right? We started that one out off at the beginning of the conversation, but, um, Where in a dynamic, when you're constantly having to watch to see if this person might get activated and yell at you, the amount of times that you were going, Oh, is that the point?
Was that too much? Is this where it's even?
And so your nervous system, because it's so beautiful and it's so smart, my dear friends and listeners, right, is, uh, wisely attuning to the environment so that you know, to scan and check and make all of that, you know, safety checks for yourself because that's what you grew up with.
And love is this space where that's what it is. And so then when we get up to our partners, you know, our our body has continued to Hone that process of beautiful safety for you of, is that it? Is this when they're leaving me? Oh, oh, oh. Right. And so like that process of getting out of that to be into a relationship where you can breathe quite literally breathe into that takes one relationships, right?
You're going through this with Jessica. Like, are we still in this? Yes. We're still in this together. Yes. Yes. Yes. Space. We're angry. No time apart. You know, we're in it together. And so to be where you're at now, like you said, you can bring more of yourself into the relationship because you know, she's there.
David Cooley: Yeah. She's there.
Nicole: Yeah. You're going to figure it out.
David Cooley: Totally. And I think over time, I was like real, I think it's, I think we've come closer to secure attachment.
Nicole: Yeah. Yes. And love, dare I say, like the deepest of love. And because I think, yeah, there's so much allusion to the, No, when you're in love, they can read my mind, and we just melt together so perfectly, and we spend every day together, and it's, you know, just this, we don't even have to talk about the dynamic, it just unfolds.
David Cooley: Right, which is dangerous. Like it, if that's really how it is and it stays that way, nice. You, you, you won the lottery. But like, yeah, if you're just like, you're in the symbiotic phase of a new relationship or a semi new relationship, don't count on that shit.
Nicole: It's just so true, you know, unfortunately.
David Cooley: It is. It totally is. And we perpetuate it, you know, I think that's another thing we talked about in Poly 1, it's like, oh my god, the way that we perpetuate and sell the idea of a love that, like, is just basically based on assumption making and projection and mind reading is just, it's spellbinding.
It's like, no wonder we're set set up to fail so much relationally.
Nicole: Yeah. I mean, the rom com ends up the marriage, right? The wedding day or whatever, you know, so many of them we're getting more these days as, you know, we progress as a society, but when you go back to the nineties, it was like, you know, just like last scene, they're getting married and you're like, okay, great.
The rest of it was happy. Right. And it's
David Cooley: done.
Nicole: It can be right. But through so much work and so much conversation that we never get to see modeled for us. Right. And so there's so much here to unpack in terms of what it means to be in love with someone, you know, and I would say that that is love this continual checking in and co sharing of your narrative and your existential experience.
I mean, you're right. The, uh, Uh, attachment capabilities are limited love. That concept is infinite, but the ability to truly know someone's story and get, you know, depending on where that depth is for you. And I like to talk about orbits, right? Because we can have partners, people, family members, et cetera, that we see once a year and it's, it's deep.
We see them every year, right? But the closer you try and get to orbiting around you, there is only so much you can see in our limited time and energy. Right? And so what does it mean to recognize the limited nature of that and then be very intentional about sharing it with people and doing it in ways that are going to work for both parties like you're doing?
I mean, that's. Love of the highest caliber if I ever know any, right?
David Cooley: Yeah, and I think one of the concepts that's really interesting to me that I'm wanting to explore more with myself and with other people is, especially in the work, is you know, what does it mean to really intentionally cultivate attachment as opposed to just sort of letting it happen?
You know, the whole concept of falling in love is this very casual, I had nothing to do with it, it just It happens a force of nature, you know, trick of fate. And for me, what I'm realizing is it's changed since really doing the deep dive into attachment work. I'm really realizing, wow, there's a lot that we do in terms of languaging.
There's a lot that we do in terms of gesturing that I think is very much wrapped up in the societal narratives about what you're supposed to be doing as a quote unquote partner that really speed up. A sense of attachment before the nervous system is actually there, is actually ready. You know, like, how quickly do you start saying things like, I love you?
How quickly do you start having sex? Like, and what does sex and love mean to you anyway? Like, are those things linked, infused in your mind? You know, like, what are the things that make you start feeling very attached? And are you actually doing them in a way that's appropriate to you? Just, you're not, not a social standard of when it's appropriate, but your nervous system.
Like, really having kind of a felt sense of somebody as much as can, you know, as much as you can, like, you can't always sort of, oh, there's a perfect time to wait and then you'll know the person well enough and then you can start doing it and turn it on. But what I see is we sort of air more towards the, we just start doing it.
We just start creating attachment, sort of putting on attachment behaviors, initiating attachment behaviors before ready. That's where I see a lot in my practice with people. Is partners, especially when they're going out and exploring new relationships for the first time, they're very excited and they're sort of using this old template.
And the old template is very romantic. And that romanticism is really about cultivating a sense of attachment fast, so that the person won't run away or get away, and yet that's really destabilizing for everyone involved. Everyone. And so it's been really interesting to help people walk back that sort of trail and sort of like, when were the choice points here?
When were you starting to create an attachment? When really that wasn't actually indicative of your lived experience from a nervous systems perspective or the secure attachment perspective of the original relationship. What were those choice points? And what would you do differently now? Can you understand your partner's hurt that you were going and doing this this fast?
Like, can you understand why that's jarring for them as opposed to seeing them as controlling or manipulative or just not wanting to be happy for you? You know, so these points of reference have been really helpful in the work with, With clients who are struggling.
Nicole: I'm just like smitten going like, uh, yes, someone who's gone through new relationship energy.
And the first time that you step into that, it's like, and, and depending on, you know, so for me, I, I want to live in a world of relationship, anarchy, sexual self governance and the freedom for me to move about, obviously through deep connections where everyone's known what's going on. We're all on the same board about, you know, fluid, but all of.
stuff, you know, that's all above board, but I want to live in this world of that, you know, and the first person that I meet and get really excited and start to feel love patterns about my brain goes, well, what if this is the monogamy dream? What if it's right here? Oh my, oh my God, look, and you get so excited.
The cocaine drugs are rushing in NRE. And then now you're just in this. It's a space of, Oh my God, but these other relationships and then you're just a mess across the board, you know, because your brain's going, but I'm falling in love with this person who could be the person that maybe sweeps me off my feet and we do the whole thing.
So maybe I shouldn't be kissing this other person I have over here. Cause that would cause, Oh my God, David, holy shit. So yeah. Help, help a girl out. Yeah.
David Cooley: And it's, I think it's the question for me is like choice. Are you choosing your attachments? And what and based on what right? Right. Like if you love the process of falling in love quote unquote Then great, go for it.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it. But for me, the work that I do is like, I want people to have a sense of choice and agency. Like, are you choosing your relational predicament?
Nicole: Yeah, which I like to think I am. Like, I'm like, damn, I'm looking at this person. I'm checking for the red flags, you know, the orange, yellow flags, you know, somewhere in between.
I'm trying to feel into my body. I'm trying to feel into their community, you know, all the good things. But if I've learned anything in my journey, So, you know, I, I'm, I'm, I know a lot, but I don't know the stuff I don't know, you know what I mean? And so I am conscious as much as I can be, you know, until, until I learned through a couple of years later that I wasn't cautious, conscious of that one thing.
Right. So scary.
David Cooley: So what are the pieces for you that you feel like you have integrated where you're like, in terms of your vetting process, you're like, okay. I'm not going to do this shit anymore.
Nicole: Well, sure. Like anyone who, as a queer person, anyone who's in the closet to that degree that, I mean, there's, there's a level of like, I respect the journey and where they're at, but that is not where I'm at with that.
And that's a whole emotional process to support someone in and I'm not there. Right. And so the same that you, we can draw those parallels out to non monogamy too, of the person who's like. If I go and sit on, um, get a coffee date, right, because as a relationship anarchist too, it's like, whatever we unfold, we unfold, right?
But if there is a discussion of some sort of romantic potential, or again, I don't even know where I draw any of these lines, but we have to use words to use. Communicate with people. So romantic and sexual connections, um, and the person sits down and says, Well, I'm actually not sure about non monogamy. I don't really know if that's what I want to do.
I make a very inherent choice at that point to say, Okay, well, then I want to keep it in this sort of sector of platonic because, dear, I get attached to you. You go down this, and then the first time I take you to meet my partners at the climbing gym, you go, I'm out. You know who's going to be crying? Me, because I will have to attach to you.
And I have to make that decision of like, okay, there's journeys to this, of the paradigm of the unfolding, and I I'm not going to risk my own attachment for your process of figuring out if this is for you or not, which reminds me a lot of queer questioning, right? This, like, bi curiosity of, oh, I'm going to explore, and then they go back to the hetero partner, you know?
So there are definitely moments of this, um, and depending on how someone, and I think this is where it gets complicated, too, of, like, depending on if I connect with someone and they're, like, for me, my security means that you would text me before you have sex with anybody else. I can understand if you're in a dynamic and that's the security of what you, you want.
I respect that. But for me, that's not going to work in my world. We could have conversations about, you know, um, barriers, my STD testing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But that's not something that I'm comfortable with in terms of providing your security, which could make me quote, unquote, The bad person in that dynamic.
But with all of my other relationships, we have managed, um, through safe conversations of having that freedom for myself. And so that's not something I'm okay with, you know? And so you gotta get really clear here of like where you're going and, and doing it in ways that you're conscious of the other person's needs.
So I don't look at that person and say that's stupid or, or, you know, like I, I respect why they want that for their secure dynamics, but it's not something I'm willing to do.
David Cooley: That's great. I mean, I love the specificity. That's what I'm always curious about when I'm exploring people's vetting process.
Cause to me, that's like sort of, that's like your Batman utility kit. You know, like, you got to have that. You got to have all the tools you need, or at least as many, like you said, as many as you can have based on the experiences that you've had, knowing that there's gonna be things you don't know, and they're gonna have to figure out on the fly and can't see it all ahead of time, but I love someone with a really well equipped vetting tool belt.
Because that part of it is like, oh, I just want to learn new things too. I want to hear people. Oh, that's a good idea.
Nicole: The kink one's a fun one, too.
David Cooley: Yes, it is. Woohoo. Yes, it is.
Nicole: Yeah, because I got to do a lot of editing there, you know? Because, uh Depending on where someone's at, they might make assumptions about it being cruel, fucked up, weird, you know, like,
So that's a fun one, too.
And then that's, and that's a paradigm shift. Like, that is a radical paradigm shift, right? If I want to take one of my, and I can meet people at different levels and it's fun, right? But if I'm planning a scene with, like, four people at the dungeon, is this person cool with that? Or is that gonna, like, activate you beyond capacity to, like, know that you're, new attachment friend is going to have a four person scene at a dungeon, you know, like I really like you, but I can't feel that level of like shame in my body.
You know, that's a lot of caretaking to pull someone through to that. It's a, these are heavy math conversations for me, especially as a therapist, right. Who's got to like, check that, like, when am I doing that work thing? So
David Cooley: yeah, totally.
Nicole: Yeah. What about you?
David Cooley: In terms of what?
Nicole: You're dating. How do you wear your flags, markers, pieces, relating, probably, instead of dating, right?
Relating.
David Cooley: Yeah, relating. I think, um, you know, I think because of the work that I've been doing, I want to see how people behave in conflict. Like, I won't make any kind of attachment commitments until Yeah, I won't start doing attachment behaviors until I see the person in a hard situation.
Nicole: Okay, so how do, how do we, what, what does that mean?
How do you wait to find that out and, and hold off on the attachment that feels inevitable, right? Yeah.
David Cooley: Yeah, I mean, I think for me, you know, I think like for the partner I'm with right now, You know, there was on both of our parts where we were just like, I'm not ready to use the word love, like, this is what love means to me.
This is what it means. And when I start using it, this is what it means. And I don't want to start using it till I'm really ready to start using it. This is what I'm feeling. And this is sort of the experience right now. And so we both kind of had that sense of doing that, you know, like waiting for certain attachment markers.
We knew we kind of had a sense of what our attachment markers were. Okay. This means this sex means this to me. Let me just, you know, so we had to kind of a lot of meaning already figured out that we were able to talk about explicitly. So that really helped. Right? So, beyond that, I was waiting for. Yeah.
When's that first. Hard moment going to manifest and how does that happen? You know, and it was months down the road. Mm hmm, but I was consciously waiting like yeah, I want to see. That's like if that's not handled well, forget it.
Nicole: Yeah,
David Cooley: you know and again there could be extenuating circumstances like it's not just You're acting pissy and so you're gone.
It's not like that. But when ruptures happen, when communication starts to happen, someone gets triggered into past hurts. Oh my God. You just learned so much. Oh yeah. You do. Right. And so I want to see how my nervous system reacts to their nervous system. When that happens, you know, we're both anxiously attached styles.
So I was kind of like, okay, that's going to be interesting. You know, and I'd seen the way that some of those dynamics dynamics had played out in almost conflict situations, but then we were able to navigate them. But. There was one big one that was, that kind of came, I don't know, maybe four or five months into the relationship.
And I was like, it was hard. It was really hard and fantastic. Like the space that she held for, I was hurt. I was the one that felt hurt in the, in the situation. And, you know, I did my best, like, yeah, name my hurt for what it was, take ownership for it, say what was hard about what, you know, she was doing, what I would have preferred to be different.
So She took it like a champ. She was like, I hear that. It makes so much sense to me. Validate my experience. What do you need? It was just not a thing. You know what I mean? She didn't turn it back on me. She didn't fall apart in shame, even though I know it was super uncomfortable. I just got to see her be in there with me and stay collaborative.
I was like, okay. I'm ready to attach on a new level.
Nicole: Huge.
David Cooley: Huge.
Nicole: I love that scene, like the collaboration. We're on the same team. We're holding hands on this. We're not gonna. Yeah.
David Cooley: Yeah. Like, I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm hurt, but I don't want to hurt you. And I know you, and I had that sense that you're not trying to hurt me, but this is how it played out.
And I could feel that from both of us and the intention. We were both really careful. We were both cautious. We were like, okay, how do we hold each other in this space? And with that care and attunement, this one's special.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah. Immediately my brain goes, ah, you can climb so many heights with this person.
You know, I'm a rock climber. So all my metaphors end up going through that of like, oh, there's so much there. Like, that's a great partner. You can climb really hard routes with that safety check. If you don't have a safety check, don't be climbing with that rope. Right?
David Cooley: Exactly. Absolutely. And so that it is, and it's, and it's, it's proven true, you know, and we've hit, it.
But it's just been like, I feel that intention to really hold each other with a lot of care and skill and awareness. And that's what I want. You know, that's what I'm realizing. My tolerance for anything else is just so low. Like, I just don't, I don't have time. I don't have time. I don't have energy for that.
I need people to be kind of, you know, no one's going to be perfect. She's not gonna be perfect. I'm not gonna be perfect. There's gonna be harder moments where we don't hit it right on the nose. Yeah, but it's more about that disposition and that self development that's cultivated a level of skill. It's like, okay, we know how to do this well, though.
Nicole: Sure.
David Cooley: And when we don't hit it right, we repair it.
Nicole: Sure. Now painful complexities, you know, this happens in all of our relationships, right? Not just not monogamy, but it happens in all of our relational dynamics. So as I move through this, I want to get better at speaking of ways that don't take it into these binaries of this sort of stuff, but it's, it's my lived experience of experiencing it in this way.
But. The complexities of when you are dating two people deeply at the same time and you are having arguments about various life things and circumstances and you are having them with two different people and you're watching how, yeah, one relationship, it doesn't circle. It really closes in this way. And, you know, there's these set boundaries of how long the conversation goes because maybe you have a meeting or something and it's not this like straight, you know, Compared to one where it's going like that and you're immediately looking at both of these dynamics going, wow, actually this processing conflict dynamic is much smoother, right?
And when you're in the other one, the complexities of feeling, you know, It's just so dizzying of which part of this is myself versus, it's obviously both of us, we're both coming together, we're co creating it, right? But like, which part of me is getting sucked into this dynamic with this person because it's how they're contributing to the conversation.
And then, so the uniqueness of being able to be in a different container and notice how that part of yourself that's showing up over there is not showing up over here in conflict. Oof. That's an eye opening space.
David Cooley: It is. And I think that's one of the coolest things about kind of the ethically non monogamous experiences that.
You get to see the way that attachment plays out so differently, depending on who you're with, where you have that juxtaposition. That's just sometimes real time. Yeah. And you're like, whoa, I'm so different over here. Wow. It's so crazy how this person elicits and draws out these things. You know, it's like, we like to think of ourselves as more static.
And yet. Not so much,
Nicole: right? It's like, uh, is H2O solid or a gas? It's like, Oh, what temperature is it? Let me, let me, let me check the temperature, right? It's again, getting into that more like, like we were talking earlier, that quantum, that systems, you know, what's going on there rather than the individual as this innate being, it is really co created through so many different pieces.
And so, yeah. Right, we're gonna see it in our relational dynamics and then, yeah, the subsequent choice of what you do with that and how you choose to maybe create more space or not is a messy game, but I really am so thankful to be in such deep relationships where it's Bringing out so much growth in myself through this uncomfortable journey of seeing those messy points, but like God am I growing?
David Cooley: Yeah, let me ask you a question about your journey. I'm curious kind of how did you get to Sort of identifying for yourself Relationship hierarchy did you feel like did you move through a succession of? Sort of more hierarchical concepts or did you go right to it or
Nicole: I went right to it and that's partially because of Jessica, right?
These other people, right? So think about this. So I'm, I'm meeting someone who's non monogamous and, uh, he, he didn't tell the other people that he was doing this, right? Just the classic like textbook first time. Um, and then I read the book more than two and you know, there's a lot, I know there's a lot of complexity to that dynamic, but at the time it was a very helpful book.
There's still a lot of helpful stuff in that, right? And so I'm in there and there's one chapter on relationship anarchy and it speaks to me like a bell in my body that rings to me. I'm like, this is really neat. And then I need a dissertation topic. I'm like, Oh, what about this? You know, and, uh, there's nothing on it.
And that's the key sign for a good dissertation. And then, uh, I'm wanting to start this podcast and that's ringing true to me. And then we go there and. So, but the thing is I read polysecure, right? Oh, there's these deep attachment theories. Oh, okay. So, and then I'm reading the book, um, getting off the relationship, ask, okay, I'm not going to do this because I'm seeing the 50%.
I'm seeing this, right. So because of my younger generation and my positionality of having these books go before me, I'm already deconstructing the system pretty initially up here, right. In my late twenties going. No, I'm gonna do something different. And so, I think that's the positionality of our different ages of, of, you know, going through this process in that way versus me trying to start off in a non hierarchical zone, which I will say is probably the most dysregulating thing for my attachment.
It was intense, but I met someone who had been doing non monogamy through that path for about a decade. So he's done the hierarchy, the primary, the oh, we don't veto. Oh, oh, oh, to get to here. So meeting him, he's done a lot of holding for me, um, in ways that I've just been so scared. So, yeah, it's a little bit different positionality because of my age.
David Cooley: For sure. What helped you the most in terms of being able to acclimate or. integrate sort of the, the identification, like what were, what was one of the core challenges, one of the hardest parts about becoming sort of grounded in the anarchist sort of way of being, and then what was helpful in sort of working through that challenge?
Nicole: Yeah, I mean, The spaciousness of the dynamics are really hard. I think that was really hard in terms of, Oh, like once a week versus every day.
David Cooley: So like how often you see the person.
Nicole: Yeah. Cause he originally, you know, so he dated someone did primary dynamics and then, um, became platonic reconfigured and then now lives with that person, you know, maybe like a you and Jessica situation.
And so there's a lot of his needs that are met in ways that as someone coming from a monogamous. culture would have been like, well, why aren't we spending every day together? You know what I mean? And so all of that complexity, and then particularly for me as someone who is a therapist, you know, on the side to wonder about his attachment because of all stuff like that, you know, where I could be like, well, what if this is why he doesn't want it?
Rawr, you know? He's got problems, you know, and yeah, I laugh, you know, we all have problems, but, uh, not the kind that I was projecting onto him. Do you know what I mean? As I get more into it and seeing the fullness of his community. And so I think that's been one of the scarier projects of finding attachment in a way that's not so, um, close in orbit, but still very, very deep.
Um, and then that, that is almost impossible to do when you do not have that for yourself. You know what I'm saying? Like now that I have like a handful of different relationships that orbit me and we explore all different types of fun play together and it's all the different orbiting, I am so much more grounded than I think about it in terms of just like basic resources, right?
When you're thirsty for attachment and security and you're trying to get it from this one person, when you're coming out of the, like a monogamy paradigm, you're used to the one, everything else is a little bit like lighter, you know, versus now I have this. Full community of people. So it's almost like the spaciousness at the beginning was the hardest part to transition into and is now my greatest strength because I have so many loving, deep connections that are holding me.
And particularly if one of the eggs in my basket, the wells like shatters, and I realize, Hey, the conflict's not going anymore. I have so many beautiful people in my corner. I'm going to be okay. And I fucking love that because that means I raise my standards every single day.
David Cooley: Do you feel like you have a particular sort of default setting or a template for your own attachment?
What is this?
Nicole: This is fun. I don't, I don't know. What do you, what do you mean by that?
David Cooley: Like, you know, they're from the classic attachment theory. There's sort of the four central templates, right? There's secure, attached, anxious, avoidant, disorganized. Do you have a sense of being sort of grounded in one of those?
Nicole: I would say that in the past, I would say anxious given how I fly right now. I think I would say I'm a secure babe, but with anxious leanings for sure. Yeah.
David Cooley: Cool. Yeah. I'm always curious. Like when someone identifies as kind of non hierarchical or anarchist, you know, relationally, I'm always curious, like what is their own appraisal of their nervous systems and what are the challenges according to that appraisal or that lived experience of having a nervous system that seems to react to.
Yeah. , you know, wobbly things
Nicole: for sure. And the sex stuff's hard. Like it's just hard.
David Cooley: How, how, how so? For ,
Nicole: oh my goodness. I guess it's all com complex, but just like to, to be at parties and, and, and my partner going, oh, I wanna flirt with other people and movie and like. Cool. Me too. Right. And you're at the party together, but you see them doing it.
And then I panic, you know, and it's, it's like, ah, damn, I wanted that secure attachment. It's just been a journey to, uh, honor the slowness that I need with that. Again, it takes me back to rock climbing. I, I want to be able to do this route, but if my body is shaking, we have to take a break. We have to ground, we have to check in and, um, Just the first times I even had like a threesome dynamic.
It was funny because the sex part actually inherently was really fun and beautiful and easy, but my god, when he reached over to touch her hand and rub her hand, I lost my shit. You're rubbing her hand? You know what? The sex part, that part actually was cool, but you're, like, affection? Oh. Oh, you know, so, I mean, the journey of it.
Yeah. The meaning making of all of it.
David Cooley: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So fascinating. I appreciate you sharing so much of your experience with me.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. It's fun to talk about. It's fun to be asked, um, particularly with someone who can look at me and nod and understand, right? This is the beauty of your work, our work.
You know, the joys of the positionality that we started this conversation out with, because frequently in my life, I'm doing so much explaining that I can't even hit to these level of conversation. So it's, it's actually a joy to be asked.
David Cooley: Yeah. Cool.
Nicole: Yeah. Well, I'm looking at the time and I know I could talk to you for hours, so I want to be conscious of that for both of us and future me that will be editing this.
Um, so I'm thinking that maybe we can take our collective deep breath.
And then I want to ask you if there's anything left on your heart that you still really want to share with the listeners Otherwise, I will give you two closing questions for us.
David Cooley: Okay, let's go to the questions. I don't have anything.
Nicole: Okay, so I'd like for you to close your eyes and Recall a time in your journey, you know in other paradigms before where you're at right now and seeing your younger self I'm curious where you're at and what you'd want to say to yourself.
David Cooley: Hmm. I think I would go back to kind of a late teen, early 20 self and that was really struggling with addiction and on certain levels in certain ways and really tell that young self the reason why this addiction is so hard is because you're trying to deal with it. Just some core anxious attachment issues that you inherited from your mom.
You've internalized this stuff and they said what these substances are sort of creating an artificial reprieve and that there's other ways to work with the anxiety that's kind of just there as a undercurrent or baseline experience. Yeah, I feel like I could, I could have saved a few years if I had known that.
Nicole: Yeah, my heart's just thinking of the pain of that space.
David Cooley: Yeah, just like trying to be okay. You know, it's like many years of just trying to just be okay with living and it's been so amazing and been in awe of like, wow, this is just my nervous system. The way it's set. There's nothing wrong,
Nicole: which makes me ask a deep question.
I ask often every day in my work. And what I do is like, do you think that if someone would have told that to you directly, it would have done the healing or did you need relationships where your nervous system could be safe? To be in connection with for that, right? Like, does, do you hit the nail on the head and give that to yourself there?
Or is it, Hey, find the people where you can feel that safety and it's going to grow on its own and we don't need to hit the nail. I don't know. I mean, you know, maybe, yeah, totally.
David Cooley: Like if, if it would, it would definitely, I was pretty stubborn and hardheaded and so in many ways I needed to live through a lot of the, the struggle to get to where I'm at.
But. I'm just wondering if it had been the right person when sort of naming it the right way, even, even if it had just been like a seed planted, you know, but no one was talking about it. Like, that was not on anyone's radar at that part. Like, that information wasn't available. I remember, like, I grew up in a part of Richmond, Virginia, and it was like, you know, a lot of Rastafarian influence, you know, and that was like, I kind of went through my Rastafarian phase and, and, you know, there was something really cool about that because, you know, You know, I spent a lot of time trying to diminish my whiteness because I grew up in a very African American community, you know, and so there's a lot of racial violence that was thrust upon me at a very early age.
And so being white was a problem. Being white was not something you wanted to be because it made me a target. And so there was, it was interesting the way whiteness and blackness were these things that you could gain and lose. You could be more black, less white. And then if a black friend was too cool with me, he could lose his black points.
Sure. And be called a seller. So it was a real mindfuck in terms of identity. And so it was interesting to get a little bit older and kind of find my way into this Rastafarian culture where. If you just understood the principles and were down, brothers didn't care who you were. They were just like, yo, what's up?
Nicole: Sure.
David Cooley: They'd look you in the eyes. Oh, dread. What's up? Dread. I looked at we had this head of just horrifying dreadlocks. Just look just awful. But there was something about just like the way of being really identified with it. You know, that it's like, oh, I'm trying to find a place of acceptance that where I really feel resonance culturally.
And so it was cool because I remember some of the, the older elders in the communities that I was swimming and would be like, man, it's crazy how y'all young kids have access to all this information. There was still no Internet yet. Really? I mean, I was like this thing that was just kind of on the peripheral.
Yeah. And so we were still getting books the old school way. We were still getting information the old school way. You know, it's like someone would find a book, pass it on. They had a story, someone traveled, you know. It was like this really organic and very personal web of information sharing and gathering.
But I remember being struck by the ways that they were saying, man, y'all have access to all this like spiritual information. Like these bookstores didn't exist when I was coming up, you know, like these cats were in their like 40s we were in our early 20s. And so, so interesting to like hear them, you know, how they were just like, the information wasn't there.
Yeah. And they had to learn it the other way. The old school way and it's funny to see sort of how that key that pattern just keeps cycling keeps playing out over and over again, you know, it's like now I'm of that generation of that age where I'm looking down seeing like the other, the younger school, the new school and they're just like, man, it's crazy how fast y'all are moving, you know, in terms of your growth.
So it's, it's, it's hard to say. You know, if one of those cats had been like, Hey, have you heard of attachment theory? You know, would I have been hip enough to like, be like, interesting, but Hey, a lot of the shit that you're doing really fits this, you know, kind of patterning. Who knows? It's a cool question, though.
It's a really cool question.
Nicole: It's a question I ask every day in my therapy office. I love that. But yeah, it's been such a pleasure to have you on today's show. I still have our last question, too, if that feels good for you. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, so, I know we've been talking about so many meaningful things with relationships.
And like you said, even those groups of people were pulling you through to these levels of consciousness. And so I'm, I'm really thankful for you, the work you're doing, the work Jessica's doing, and the way it's influenced my life and just all of the, you know, listeners that are tuning in and the way that these things ripple.
So it's exciting just to feel that energy and to, yeah, look to the next generation of people and. Be excited that they'll stand on our shoulders one day and even more radical love than you and I could have ever imagined. Um, that's a joy to think about. Um, so yeah, my closing question for you, David, is what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?
David Cooley: I love that. Yeah, I wish people really understood how normal it is to project a hurt onto partners. And assume that they're trying to hurt us instead of protect themselves from hurt. Like, that's the thing that I wish people could recognize we've been conditioned to do, which is normal, but not preferable.
But that doesn't mean there's something wrong with you or the other person. So it's normal, but not preferable. Mm hmm. But I wish more people had an understanding of that dynamic. Like, the way that we don't realize that our partners are doing what they're doing because they're in pain and they're trying to protect themselves from more pain.
Mm hmm. They're actually not trying to hurt us, but the hurt is happening.
Nicole: Yeah. I hear you. And not wanting to normalize that, but in the understanding of how common it is, hopefully we can get out of it. Right. To know that is where we're going first. Um, sometimes for me, it's helpful to think of the person in front of me as their childhood self, right?
Like just some touch into a level of compassion rather than whatever sort of monster my brain is starting to think of.
David Cooley: Totally. And that question, you know, my answer kind of betrays the intention of your question. And I think another thing that I can say is I wish people sort of realize how normal anxiety is, like anxiousness is like, that I would say, I think is more in line with sort of the spirit of your question.
But yeah, I wish people understood that so prevalent, like, oh, my God, overwhelm and anxiousness.
Nicole: Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And it doesn't have to be pathologized.
David Cooley: Correct.
Nicole: Until it's paralyzing.
David Cooley: Right. It could just be, yeah, as human beings we're faced with a lot and life's challenging.
Nicole: Mm hmm. Absolutely.
There's a lot of unknowns in our life. And so, yeah, it's common all the time, so many different areas of our lives. So I think the more that we normalize that and we can be in community with that and those feelings, the more that we'll, uh, have the support to get through those times rather than trying to take drugs to take it away.
David Cooley: Yeah. Yeah. Just name it. If we can just name it, be okay with naming it. Having people see us in it, it could be different. So I want to thank you, I want to thank anyone listening to the podcast, anyone that's like, cares this much about relationships to sort of grow and evolve their ideas about them. I really feel a lot of gratitude for this network of people.
Nicole: Yeah, changing the world, dare I say, through love.
David Cooley: Yeah, culture.
Nicole: Absolutely. Where would you want to plug for the people who are connecting with you and want to learn more about your work? What would you plug?
David Cooley: I think the easiest way to get in touch with me is the website. And so www dot, I don't think people really still say that anymore.
That's definitely giving myself away.
Nicole: I say it, I guess. Yeah. I don't know.
David Cooley: Uh, restorative relationship. com.
Nicole: Great.
David Cooley: Yeah. And then they can, or they can just email me straight up at David at Restorativerelationship.com.
Nicole: Great. Thank you, David. It's been such a pleasure today.
David Cooley: Yeah. Thank you. It's good to meet you.
Nicole: 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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