Discussion Topic: Way back on WGT Episode 3 we discussed Mr Jones's struggle with jealousy when we entered the lifestyle. In this episode we welcome Catherine, a licensed professional counselor AND swinger! She breaks down jealousy: what it is, how to prepare for it, what it feels like, how to identify it, how to work through it and come out of it stronger as a couple. You can reach Catherine by email at [email protected] or on her website: www.expansiveconnection.com Resources Mentioned: The Ethical Slut by Janet Hardy The Jealousy Workbook: Exercises and Insights for Managing Open Relationships by Kathy Labriola Numerous books by Brene Brown Vulnerability TED Talk by Brene Brown
Transcript
This podcast contains explicit language and content and is for mature audiences only. Hey you teenagers out there, if you're under 18, this show is more for your parents. So now that you have that mental picture stuck in your head, put some music on and get back to doing your homework. We are a long-time married couple who's decided to chronicle our personal adventures and share our sex-positive discussions as we navigate our way through the swinging lifestyle. Care to join us? Hello everyone, I'm Mr. Jones. And I'm Mrs.
jones and we want to welcome you to episode 41 of the we got a thing podcast we have something extra special in store for you today bonus episode yeah yes so a while back um you all have listened to us for a while you know that episode three i had a little a little bout with jealousy. A little bout? Yeah, a little bout. It was like an eight-month bout. And we worked through that, and jealousy seems to be something that a lot of people, not only in life, but in the lifestyle, either are too worried about or maybe not worried about enough and don't think about.
And so we were contacted along the way by someone who is a professional and speaks to the issue of jealousy passionately. And she's a therapist and she's in the lifestyle. And she contacted us and we thought, isn't it great that there is somebody with these sort of credentials that has lifestyle experiences as well? And wouldn't it be great if we could somehow kidnap her and bring her up here and convince her to podcast? Yes, so luckily she was up our way, and we managed to convince her GBS to navigate its way to our house.
Yeah, so what we're going to do is we're going to have her introduce herself and she's going to talk about her credentials, but more importantly, she's going to talk about how her personal experience and lifestyle and how she's brought those things together and what her purpose and passion and mission is around that. So Catherine, it's great to have you. Thank you so much. It's so nice to be here. I was just saying it's so funny to watch your mouths move with your lovely voices that have filled my car in my office so many times. So I feel really honored to be here.
And I do so vividly remember listening to episode three, and it hitting me more on a personal level. And that's how I reached out was personally, because it just spoke to me so much, mostly because you assumed, Mr. Jones, that you wouldn't be the one that was going to be jealous. And boy, was that me. And it was me that ended up being jealous. So I remember reaching out, really just personally thanking you for being so authentic and genuine and brave in your podcasting and your sharing and how inspiring that was for me.
And I think I just threw in a line something about, you know, in my professional work as a therapist, that's something I'm always wishing people would be more of is authentic and brave and to feel what they feel and not be scared of it. And then here you are doing that and podcasting it and how impressed I was about that. And then for you to come back and say, Oh, wow, wow, maybe you should talk about this as a professional. It's really neat. So you asked me to give a little bit of explanation. So again, my name is Catherine, I'm a licensed professional counselor in North Carolina.
And so I see clients there in person, but I also have a business where I see clients via Skype. If it's outside of North Carolina, we have to call it relationship coaching, but also see individuals. I've worked in the field for 15 years, children, individuals, but couples has always been my favorite work.
So, but on a personal note, i have been married gosh 11 years or so when we um literally accidentally stumbled into the lifestyle we were in where have we heard that i know we were in cancun celebrating our 10th anniversary and we the only way we could afford to do it back then was to um go on one of those timeshare things so we're listening to the timeshare they're driving us around the island and we drive past temptations a couple resort for couples and i thought hmm what's that turns out we had brought 300 of adventure money with us thinking we go parasailing and instead we the $300 for a night at Temptation.
And we really were so green that we had no idea. People were asking us, what are you? And we were like, we're people, what do you mean? Are you swingers? What's that? What are your rules for what? Green as green can be. So as people are asking me these questions, I'm getting more of an idea about what this place is. And then my professional brain is clicking on and I am so curious. And anybody that would listen, I'm asking them questions. And my husband is hitting my leg under the table like, Catherine, stop it. Nobody wants to talk about this. They're on vacation. I was like, I think they do.
They keep answering and asking me questions, actually. So nothing happened at that time. We were just really looking into not even meaning to look into it. So a year later, after much discussion and research, we went to Desire. And what was interesting about that trip is we were there 100% on personal reasons, fun personal reasons. But whenever I would tell somebody what I did for work, it would end up being a long conversation, right? And that's when the seed was first planted.
Oh my gosh, you need to have a business because, you know, we've been in therapy, but we can't tell our counselor, because we just know that she'll us and she wouldn't really get it. Or, oh, we're afraid that he would only want to talk about that. And really, it's our finances that we're struggling with. But of course, our finances have to do with our extracurricular activity of lifestyle. And so it feels like we're in a dead end with our counselor. But how do you interview to find out if a counselor is cool with this or understands? You need to start a business with this.
I had this older gentleman ask if he could have a session with me there. Oh, my gosh. Proof of concept. He said, seriously, I'm sure they'd let us use an office. I was like, no, that is so not why I'm here. My head was already blown. My mind was already blown. It certainly wasn't trying to be professional.
But it planted the seed yeah I really didn't do anything with it we continued to do our exploration and have so much fun and add so much to our lives individually and as a couple and then I wrote to you again as just as a person loving what I heard and then you said it again and the seed got a little water and and we we talked about this right after and I thought about coming on and I just thought no I just want to keep the separation I just I just want to keep separation and but every time we'd go to a party it always ends up coming up and I'll throw out something just in conversation because my husband says that my native language is counselors.
He'll translate it. I'll say something like, oh, that was a really vulnerable thing to do and lean in and say, that's counselors for good job. She likes it. And anyway, so it just kept coming up. And then I was invited to come and teach some courses and some courses on jealousy and hall passes on a cruise, a lifestyle cruise. And I'm also a yoga teacher. And so I taught clothing optional yoga for couples and individuals. So on a cruise last year, I did that. And it was wonderful. And I was combining my profession and my one of my favorite extracurricular activities. And it was fine.
It was great. It was easier to make connection. And it was easier to it was it was no problem holding boundaries, we could still have our fun. And we could talk I could talk to people in a professional way. It was it was lovely. And so that's when I wrote you and said, okay, I think I'm finally ready. Thank you for being patient with me and letting me work through my process. Um, so here I am and I'm so thankful to have the opportunity to be with you guys. Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing so much. That's exciting.
So that, so what was the period of time from the, that $300 investment you made in Cancun to today?
What's the frame um well let's see that was let's say March um three years ago okay no four years ago or um and then like I say nothing for a year other than just thinking about it which is still plenty and then almost a year year later is when we um sealed the deal I guess you could say gave it a try and so that's been a little over two and a half years or so but you know as it goes with um being busy professionals and parents we have ebbs and flows there have been six months where it just wasn't the highest priority we had other extracurriculars or family things that got in the way and then we'll have other times that have been busy and we have more time to make it a priority um but it's never gone i mean it's we always have people friends that we've made that we're texting and always add some that you know that little purple emoji that has the little devil yeah that's our that's our emoji for lifestyle fun and there's a little purple emoji in our life all the time right it's all of our life a little more right well it's like you know the lifestyle i think is it's a mindset yes you know and i just kind of it changes your perspective on on looking at everything so even if you're not like actively engaging with people you're still in the lifestyle because you just have that way of thinking and relating right so so me, I'm really fascinated to hear your little bout with jealousy.
Can you tell that now, or is that something that you're going to get to? Sure, I can give a little context. So as I said, I just assumed, I absolutely thought that if we were going to have any jealousy issues, it would be my husband having it. I don't know why I thought that other than I just tend to be a little more wide open. I tend to be the one that hugs everybody first and probably is the bigger flirt. Although now I realize it's just a quieter, more of a covert flirter. Now that I know what I'm looking for, he was flirting all the time. It just wasn't as obvious.
It's just a different style. Yes. And so one of the things that I always like to start my jealousy talk with is the advice to assume that you're going to get jealous. And what I did is I assumed we would have jealousy. I just assumed it would be him. So I spent plenty of time thinking about how it might happen, how it might manifest, how I would so graciously support him through it and all this sort of thing. You had it all mapped out. Absolutely. And so I got half the equation right. I did assume that it would happen.
I just didn't prepare myself on both sides as being, I guess, arrogant there. So when it happened, it absolutely blindsided me, which is why my advice about assuming that it will happen to you, I think, is sound, because the blindsiding was almost as frustrating as the jealousy itself. So was there a particular moment that it started to bother you? Did it happen over a period of time? Was it something that you witnessed? Was it something that he said? What triggered it, or do you remember? I do.
It was the first time we were with a couple that we'd met, and they were similar age and family situation.
And we we just i guess the best way to describe it is because we've been together for so long the last time we had felt amorous feelings that didn't have to be checked yeah it led to a relationship and then a deeper relationship and an even deeper relationship and so without knowing or without thinking it through when there were these feelings this lusty dopamine that happens we just headed forth towards relationship because that's what we'd always done yeah we found each other and so we without any discussion or meaning to we sort of fell into a relationship with another couple which we all do but this was we just kept putting that same sort of relationship energy in and out of convenience we were texting separately just because one was more interested in texting than the other of them and time for us and we just didn didn't, again, we just didn't know what we didn't know.
We didn't know, for us, rules came about as needed. We didn't sit down and say, okay, one through 10, here are our rules before we step into the lifestyle. We just didn't know. And so I remember exactly where we were. We were sitting in our movie room, we call it in our house. And I said, I think it's really important that you read through the text that I've been sending with this guy. Just because I want to make sure that we're, you know, staying within our riverbanks and everything's feeling good. And, you know, if there's anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, I want to know.
So I don't, I'm not, whatever. So I was absolutely doing it like, here, here's my phone, read it.
And so I was just sitting there, you know, I don't know, probably picking up so I was absolutely doing it like here here's my phone read it and so I was just sitting there you know I don't know probably picking up my fingernails or something and then I was like oh well I don't know just can I see your phone I'll just look through it absolutely 100% honestly out of boredom with zero suspicion right so I'm reading through the text he's doing with her and mostly I'm laughing and smiling and then I get to this part where he had been it was a weekend where he'd been on a boys weekend and I see the text going back and forth between the two of them and I was like hmm can I see my phone for a second and I look and see there was this time where he had kind of shut me down and said I'm with the boys and then about 15 30 minutes 45 minutes later the two of them start texting and I was we're going to talk about this later where we talk about you're flipping your lid and that means you're the good smart part of your brain flips offline and the crazy part flips on oh boy I swear I I feel like I heard my lid flip off and hit the back wall behind the couch.
It was like, and I kind of got these big eyes and I could barely breathe. And I just kind of looked over at him and I was like, I am not okay. And then he looks back at me with pie saucer eyes and goes, why? And I said, this is not okay.
and so we we've used this analogy of flipping our lid we learned that in a parenting class which I'm going to talk about here in a minute but enough that I was like my lid is flipped we need to be careful how we proceed in this conversation I said I need a few minutes to get my lid back on before we go here and of course he's just in this oh my gosh the person I love the most is hurting and I did it I think but I don't know why and she tells me to go away but I want to be right there and love on her and do whatever I can and I was like just please please I want to be really careful about this and so I separated myself for you know 10-15 minutes I've learned since that it's better to have about 20 minutes before you're re-triggered.
There's actually some studies about that, about 20 minutes before you get re-triggered. But anyway, what I was able to do because I took that time is to come back and say, I'm not upset that anything about what you texted with her, it was when. And it was that she was getting access that I wasn't getting.
And so my flavor of jealousy was this sort of like, i'm happy to share i love i use your analogy mr jens of i'm happy to let somebody drive my ferrari but not when i want to drive it yeah or not when or you know if if if i'm not allowed to drive my ferrari on i-95 then nobody else gets to drive my ferrari first dibs right exactly and so for us boys nights and girls girls weekends that's always been an important healthy part of our relationship and we give each other that space and I don't require I don't require the space as much as he does when we're on girls weekend I love getting texts from him but he said when I'm there I just want to be dude mode.
I don't want to be worrying about replying in timely manner or whatever. And I love you. And I'm always available. But you know, if I can have 2440 hours where I'm just not on, it really is rejuvenating for me. And I said, Okay, I totally get that. Absolutely. And I've always given him that. So this is fascinating. You've introduced yourself, you've told us a little bit about your lifestyle and your profession.
And now these things collide know in a way so I know that part of that is what's driving your passion around this particular topic so why don't we why don't you just start from the top and let's talk about jealousy absolutely so as I said I think the number one important thing is the assumption that'll happen that it will happen because any preparatory work we can do for something that's difficult makes it easier.
If we needed to be able to swim, if we fell off a ship, it's much easier to learn to swim in the warm waters of the YMCA than in the deep, cold, churning waters when you fall off the cruise ship.
So any of that is super, I think is well is well worth our time um and so there again if we all know that this is playing with fire in certain ways and fire brings a lot of fun and warmth to our lives and it can burn us and so as we would when we're teaching our kids when we're camping how to manage fire appropriately i think that the assuming that it could happen to either one of you and talking through what that might look like is well worth time spent.
Um, and so I think the first thing that really struck me as I started to research this and yes, most of my research was done from my personal experience. So I bought a few books that I definitely want to share. And I sent you links to put in the show notes. The Ethical Slut was my Bible for quite a while when I was struggling through this. We laughed because we have a young child. And so I had to use a different book jacket. And the book jacket that fit was pasta sauces.
And I don't eat a't eat a lot of pasta anymore as an athlete i've moved more a little towards the paleo thing and so i said i wonder if our daughter's gonna wonder why i read so much about pasta sauces and then she never gets to eat pasta but anyway the ethical slut was by my by my side quite a bit and then of course i've ended up using it so much in my professional life too because even if you're not talking about the lifestyle or polyamory or any of that or even if you're just talking about anxiety it has such rich resources so the ethical slut um is is a book that i that i read a lot and and i thought the thing that really struck me about it that pulled me right in is this idea that, and I'll actually quote it from the book, they say it's written by two women, Dosie Easton and Janet Hardy.
And so this is a quote from the book. Jealousy is not an emotion. It can show up as grief or rage, hatred or self-loathing.
Jealousy is an umbrella word that covers the wide range of emotions we feel when our partners make sexual connections with someone else i would insert sexual and or emotional connections with someone else yeah but that i never thought about that as long as i've been doing this work i just we throw out the word jealousy like it's an emotion but as they described it as an umbrella emotion it was i think that's a really important distinction, because then it forces us to think about our particular flavor of jealousy.
So you know, just some of the ideas that they talk about, as far as the different flavors of jealousy would be something like, is it territorial? Are you is it because you feel left out? Is it fear of abandonment? Is it the compare and despair syndrome? Any inadequacies that it's bringing up in you or your relationship? Is the jealousy sparked from emotional or physical? Is it there's there's some sort of humiliation or embarrassment going on? You're feeling disrespected.
This is one that comes up a lot, keeping score, and you didn't quote get as much as your partner did any negative body image stuff that's coming up or a fear of scarcity or deprivation like there isn't enough to go around so that really struck me and it really got me digging into understanding my flavor of jealousy and in doing so it didn't feel so overwhelming to to down this road and learn more about it. Because jealousy is just so huge that sometimes, at least for me, my eyes would just get big and I would get numb in the brain like, I don't even know where to start.
So I think Ethical Slut did a great job of helping me break that down.
The other book that I love is The Jealousy Workbook that's written by Kathy Libiiola um so in the jealousy workbook she says as an understanding of a definition of jealousy that jealousy is an emotion that arises inside you no person and no behavior can quote make you jealous like it or not the only person that can make that jealousy hurt less or go away is you so that one was interesting too the good news is it's all me and the bad news is it's all me I mean I think it's interesting that you said you could walk away and 10 and 15 minutes later come back and have a conversation because in my and i remember these disparities in my head i remember convincing myself like like i was talking to myself like i was two people and i was saying wait, wait a minute.
You've been married 29 years. This gentleman lives across the other side of the country. He's happily married. And I'm ticking off of these things, you know, mentally, you know, just trying to understand why this would be happening. But then there's the emotional side of it or the response to jealousy, whatever emotion that is. And those two things were just in such direct, you know, contradiction to each other that it took me just a series of months of replaying this reality in my head before I was able to, you know, you know, resolve that. And then after that it was okay.
But for me it was, it was a long, it was at least six months. Right. And like Mr. Jones is one of the most logical people I know. So, you know, you could lay it all out on paper, what he just said, they live across the country, he's happily married, um, just all of this stuff. And it didn't matter. Yes, all that logical stuff was there, but that didn't solve the problem of the emotions that you were experiencing. Right, right. Well, you two are leading me so well to the next part.
Because then that was the other thing for me was to understand why am I feeling this when in my calmest, most logical space, I know that there's no reason to feel this. So why can't I just mind over matter, mind over feelings, force these feelings to go away? Why is my logical brain not driving the train right now? That shocked me. And so I really wanted to understand more about that. So there are two things that helped me a lot with this. One is the parenting class that I mentioned. We took a class called Positive Discipline. It's a whole book series and website. Wonderful.
They use this analogy that your brain, you can help us understand our brain.
They're talking about it as understanding our children's brain but i'm going to now bring it into adults so so if you think about if you and of course we're podcasting so this is a little hard maybe i'll try to find a link of a picture of this to share with you but if you make a fist um with your hand and you tuck your thumb underneath your your four fingers you can think about this being a representation of your brain let me go ahead and say to any neuroscientists or neurobehavioral scientists in the just close your ears because i'm going to oversimplify this so much you're going to drive mr jones crazy with um the emails about my um oversimplification of our amazing brain but let's think about our brain and our hands so we've got this fist so down here at the base where your wrist touches your your hand is your your brainstem.
And so your brainstem takes care of all of those natural urges, like your urge to eat and drink and have shelter and procreate and rest and all those things, some of the involuntary of our heartbeat and our blood pressure and blah, but then also those drives that keep us apt for survival, right? So then you come up, and if you lift those four fingers, you can peek in and see your thumb tucked in there, and that represents your middle brain or your amygdala. Now, I always, because amygdala is a big word, I love to break it down if you do so. It's Amy G. Dalla, amygdala, Amy G. Dalla.
So I have personified the middle of my brain as this lady named Amy. We talk about Amy a lot. So Amy is the middle of the brain and her job is to remember situations that are associated with strong emotions. These could be pleasurable emotions. And so she's going to drive us towards things that bring us pleasure. She's also going to remember things that felt terrifying, times where you're unsafe, times where we felt very angry, times that our survival was at least in her fight or flight mind at risk. And she's got a great memory, great memory.
Um, then on the top, these, as our fingers wrap around, this represents our prefrontal cortex. So this is the logical side, the part we're used to using. It doesn't get fully online till you're 25. But that's what we use in our day to day. That's when we're, you know, we know that even though we might feel stressed by a deadline at work, our survival is not at risk. It just feels that way.
It's just stress because of, you know know all the things we attach with work and the deadlines okay so those are the three parts we're going to talk about this a little bit more specifically we're going to go back down to this brainstem part and one of the parts that i didn't didn't mention is the need to belong and so this is something i learned from bernie brown i know you all are fans she i always laugh that she's my best friend. She doesn't know it, but gosh, we are so besties in my office. Her books sit right on a shelf beside my shoulder.
I always say she's my little angel on the shoulder. So Brene Brown in her research, she's a PhD social worker who does research on shame and vulnerability and courage. She's got quite a breadth of work. But the part that comes into this is the way she describes our need to belong. This isn't just a desire to belong. Life would be great if it is a need, a need like we have to eat, a need like we have to drink, the need like we have to procreate these sorts of things. Now here's's why. Infant, human infants, as the three of us certainly know, pretty helpless.
Yeah, they can't do anything for themselves. And so their greatest gift is to hook at least one human, if not a tribe to take care of them. The pitch, this is so fascinating to me, the pitch of an infant's cry is the same pitch as a tea kettle imagine if a tea kettle is going off in a room of adults have you ever people get twitchy like yeah right who who needs the who started a tea cup are you gonna get that can i get that for you and do you remember when your infants had that pitch you're looking at each other like oh no it's your turn you going to do it?
Because I cannot sit here and enjoy the TV show until you get that screeching out of here. Like now. Right. But that's so amazing. Our brains, adult human brains cannot sit still through that pitch. Brilliant. So that's the first hook. Come take care of me.
Then they goo goo at us and then they smile and they say mama and they say daddy and bring us the mother's day cards and the father's day gifts and they continue to hook us in to take care of them they need to belong or otherwise they die yeah right and this this need to belong to at least one other human never goes away we are always trying to keep our tribe close we're trying to fit in and do what we're supposed to do to fit into our tribe because of this need to belong that's down in the brainstem. Okay. So when this need is so primal that jealousy can trigger this belonging, right?
So you've been together 29 years. I know, I know that she's mine. Why is this happening? Probably that, that belonging trigger, that belonging need got triggered. And so jealousy can really ramp up that part. When the brainstem stuff happens, it can flip our lids. So now we're thinking about those four fingers on top, the profound cortex can flip it back like mine did when it hit. Think about if you're really hungry or you're really tired. I had a client who said, I think the need to pee should go in here because if I need to pee, you better get out of my way. That's right.
Everything else does kind of shut down. Then you flip this prefrontal cortex and you just got to go to pee or whatever. Okay, then we come up to that amygdala part. So think about that in terms of jealousy, where this, this remembering of strong emotions. So maybe it was from high school when your boyfriend or girlfriend cheated on you, or even back, like if your parent, you know, left and abandoned you, or, I mean, there's so many memories that we don't even have. Yeah. So that's actually what happened to me.
And I realized that that amygdala was pulling me back to a place that I had not felt since I was in high school and did experience somebody who was cheating on me.
And at that point in time, tucked it away, dealt dealt with it and it's never surfaced why why would it but then what i realized is all the other aspects of my life had i had grown through and matured through and had a partner to help me do that and so we grew together and then at work you grow professionally you know at home you grow as a parent you know all of these things that are advancing through your life through experience and help that one was still back there at 18 years old yes and and i real and i realized that it was it was like it was yesterday yeah yeah but it took me a while to noodle that through because i I unfortunately didn't have a therapist sitting here next to me telling you I was struggling through it at the time.
I was trying to, but I didn't have the credentials. Oh, you're too close to. Yeah. Just a bit. But you're so right. And I think that's the other reason why it can feel so jarring to, you know, when it happens when you're already in an established long-term healthy relationship, when you're an established professional, when you're at whatever age where you feel like you got this, you should be able to deal with this. But you're so right, Mr. Jones. You were 18 again. And so that part of your growth and maturity hadn't had any reason to catch up to the rest of you.
And that's why it can be so blindsiding, like, this shouldn't be bothering me. But it hasn't had that same chance to roll through. And the good news is you brought so much Thank you.
to the rest of you and that's why it can be so blindsiding like this shouldn't be bothering me but it hasn't had that same chance to to roll through and the good news is you brought so many so much success at working through this that it was only six months instead of it taking 20 years or right or that we just didn't you know because mrs jones's reaction was oh well we need to get out of this right and then no, because it's there. Whether we stop the lifestyle or not, whatever insecurity that I'm dealing with is not going away. So if we retreat, it's still going to be there in my mind.
And in the other half of my mind, I was thinking, and I really want to do this. But my desire to quit the lifestyle wasn't because I wanted to give up. It was because I was trying to protect you and protect our relationship. So I guess that was my instinct was to protect. Absolutely. And when you see somebody that you love that you're hurting and you want to just jump in there and do something. Yeah, especially knowing that you caused that look on their face. Oh, my gosh.
Well, but that's action it was the catalyst but it isn't the cause it was the cause of whatever happened when he was 18 oh you didn't cause it it was just something that that flipped his lid so now what's what's rolling is amy g dolla right and so it's that 18 year old memory that actually caused yeah yeah and so you know mr jones i love that you were saying, no, this is a trigger and this is something I want to pull through. So later we're going to talk about this lovely acronym that keeps us motivated to learning. So remind me, we're going to get to that.
And then the other thing is there are studies that say that once that the amygdala, if it has an association with, you know, a partner cheating on you when you're 18, that it can take up to 30 times of repetition with a different outcome before she calms down on that one she being amy amy g dolla that it can take up it repetition is really important so every time that you all stayed in this and mrs jones comes back and thinks that you're the best thing ever and would never dream of leaving you, you start to gradually retrain your amygdala. But it can take 30 times.
Yeah, especially if it's something very scarring, which it sounds like for you wasn't maybe wasn't that that scarring that you could work through it so quickly. But that can be really frustrating for the other partner. Like, I've told you I'm not leaving. How many times do I have to tell you? So now I'm always like, your answer is probably 30. Okay. Now we know. Okay. I also want to say that sometimes I feel like poor old Amy G. Dalla gets a little vilified. Keep in mind that her job is in remembering memories, emotional memories is for our survival.
And so, you know, back in the day, if we were attacked by a bear, the next time we see bear dung or see bear tracks or smell a bear, it's important that she remembers that so we can get the heck out of Dodge. And keep in mind, she does not want your prefrontal cortex to stay online if she sees a bear claw. Right.
Because't want you thinking i wonder how old this bear paw is and oh i guess i should run should i run around the maple tree or should i run around the elm tree that is a lot wow look at those leaves shut up she says run so she wants to flip our lid back so that we don't get in all of our monkey mind decision and we freeze when we're really supposed to be fighting or flighting. So she's not a villain. She's beautifully designed to protect us.
She just can be really inconvenient in our lifestyle extracurricular activities when jealousy pops up because she perceives it as a true threat to our survival. Yeah. Because that need to belong is down in the brainstem, right? So she is getting that message. We must belong to this person. I'm not sure if this person is going to stick around, flip the lid, run, or fight. Right. Thank goodness she didn't try to fight somebody across the country. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's important to give her a little love, even if she's a little inconvenient sometimes. Yeah.
I think the other thing that's interesting as we're thinking about what happens when this goes on, Dr. David Doshal, he's a psychologist. I like the way he conceptualized jealousy as a state that compels us to constrict. So shut down, protect, set boundaries, hold a rigid view of our current situation. That's really fancy talk for fight or flight, right? Yeah, kind of pull in the, you know, round in the wagons where we got a threat, we got to just do the very minimal. So we are ready to pounce and survive, right?
And so when we experience jealousy as a threat to our relationship and our need to belong which we're going back to we tap into that fight or flight and then we become very hyper vigilant so I don't know if this happened for you Mr. Jones but once that happened even once I got my lid back on I found it that it became difficult to feel the same ease at least with what I was afraid of is I wasn't going to be able to feel that ease in the lifestyle. It turned out it was more with that couple because I was in this hypervigilant state. So I was like looking for things. Right.
Overanalyzing everything and overthinking things probably. Yes. And while that was going on, I knew the logical side of my head was saying, Mrs. Jones, I want you to tell me about your experiences. Tell me about when you were with him or when you were with this guy, what you enjoyed. And the other half of me is screaming, don't ask her to tell you that that's just going to make things worse. We're just now making progress. So I felt this, you know, conflicting. And then she picked up on it, too, because she didn't really want to talk about it. No, I didn't.
I felt like it was going to make it worse. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, I remember my husband being in that situation, too, where he was like, I have since realized this look where it's this, I kind of feel like you're about to set me up look. Is that question a set up look? Which way should I go here?
Yeah yeah and really that makes sense because our our wonderfully perceptive partners are probably in some ways hearing the two sides of the head talking you know and going which one am i talking to right now oh that's good okay so again so just a review we've talked about you know looking at what assuming that we're going to feel it what it is why we feel it for me understanding the why really helped me with that mind over matter Here we go. talked about, you know, looking at what, assuming that we're going to feel it, what it is, why we feel it.
For me, understanding the why really helped me with that mind over matter to say, okay, I can tell that I'm flipped. I can tell that Amy's running the show. So I don't need to make any big decisions right now. I don't need to email. I don't need to text. We don't need to talk about this right now. I don't need to call her.
I mean, I but you know those are the things when we know we're flipped then we can at least say all right here i am flipped now what can i do to minimize the damage for me the way that i break it down is into four areas physical um clues that i'm that you're flipped or i'm flipped um the second would be emotions the third third would be thoughts. And then the fourth would be behavior. So if you think about physical, I mean, when you know that you are not this part, that prefrontal cortex is not online, I mean, what can you think of any?
You know, I've been thinking ever since you brought up this, you know, about Amy being in charge, you know, when we were outed four months ago, Mr. Jones did a much better job of staying logical, you know, using that, the fingers to not flip my fingers flipped and I was totally in fight or flight mode. And, and I mean, I, a lot of our listeners know that we shut our website down and we took our, um, audio files down for a bit of time bit of time because I needed that time to recover. I was totally in flight mode. I was threatened. Absolutely.
All the years I'm sure that you've spent putting into creating a safe space for your family as you all were so active in your community and your church. And then for that to be threatened, right. That's a big old trigger that maybe was more triggering for you than for Mr. Jones. Yeah. And so it was easier for him to keep his lid on. Yes. So I guess, you know, I guess that's the benefit of working as a team. Yeah.
And the more that this has happened, um, you know, through life in general, but then in the lifestyle as well, the more comfortable we get with having our lids flipped because we understand what it is, you know, and I can say, you know what, I know what I'm feeling right now, but I'm going to wait a couple of days because I know this is going to go away.
And I know that, that it's a bigger deal than I'm making it out to be so before I do anything I just want to take a few breaths and and because I know even if I do need to do something I don't need to make that decision in the with my lid flipped open and at the same time I'm watching the bear running toward us and he's trying to figure out what tree to climb right I just wanted to run sure well and it's also so hard because really as we all know and i think this is again where we've learned this professionally and as parents and even in the majority of the areas of our marriages or relationships is that time is one of our best friends yes there are very few stressors in our first world cushyy lives that need to be addressed immediately.
Right, right. Very few. But that is not Amy G. Dahl's timeline. Everything for her is immediate. Right now, stop thinking, do it. So that our experience tells us time is our best friend while Amy is shouting at us that we're crazy and we're stupid and we're about to get killed by the bear. Yeah. So that is a really hard space to navigate. So, okay. So again, knowing, being able to get, to understand your own manifestation of having, having your lid flip. So physically things that might happen, it's not, these won't resonate for everyone, but I'm just going to list some.
So you might feel more tense. You're, you might feel flushed either temperature wise, or you might actually be red. Your jaws clenched, your tongue pressed to the roof of your mouth, your lips pursed, tensioning your neck or shoulders. You may have fists. You may notice that your, your breath has gotten very shallow. Things that you wouldn't be able to necessarily be able to notice about yourself.
Your pupils might dilate because when you're in fight or flight, you're in hyper,'re in hyper you're hyper vigilant so you're able to see better um you probably will not be hungry your um your blood is going to go to your limbs ready to fight or flight so these are the things that happen physically so knowing for yourself oh whoa i didn't even notice that my eyebrows were pushing together so hard that I could hold a pencil between them.
That might be a sign for you to know about your partner, that he holds his jaw a certain way, or you can tell that her shoulders are holding up her head instead of her neck. Then this is a sign that she's flipped and knowing it within yourself. I mean, I think one of the most interesting things is that Mrs. Jones never really, I mean, you never, you handled me so well. but I hear people over and over again especially guys because as you like to say Mrs.
Jones never really, I mean, you never, you handled me so well, but I hear people over and over again, especially guys, because as you like to say, Mrs. Jones, we can be blockheads. But I mean, I've heard guys say, but, you know, we talked about this before we went to the party. You know, you knew she was going to be there. You said it was okay. Now, you know, I can't trust you. I can't believe you. What did I do wrong? And there's really not a lot of focus on the person that experienced the feeling. It's more, okay, I did everything that you said, and yet, so you can't blame me.
Don't blame me for this, where there's a lack of disregarding that for a moment and really trying to put yourself in the position of your partner and say, well, something's not right. I'm recognizing a change because you said something, but your actions don't add up to that. So rather than me berating you about me being right and don't blame me for this, you know, it's focusing back on the individual and giving them the freedom to be able to express themselves.
Because I imagine if I were to have handled it that way or you would have I would have shut down completely right yeah well and it's so interesting as I was reviewing my this presentation on my way down here the last piece of this is what to do if your partner is jealous and Mrs. Jones you knocked it out of the park I think you hit every single one of these bullets that I had written long ago. It was blind luck. You did a great job. But I think your point, Mr. Jones, of saying, okay, so I'm noticing that my partner is showing this physical manifestation of their lid being flipped.
What do I do? That's what we're going to get to. It's not time to be like, oh, gosh, you're doing that thing. You got to be careful about diagnosing your partner. It's more about saying, oh, I'm noticing that this is happening. I'm going to make sure that I'm putting a little extra energy into being supportive, which we're going to talk about how to be that way. Great. Okay, so our clue areas about how to know when we're flipped. We've talked about physical emotions. Gosh, I have an exhaustive list. I can actually, we can probably just, probably easy if we just post it on your website. Okay.
Because again, it's sort of that, it's similar to understanding your own flavor of jealousy. You know, one of the things that I've learned in our experience through this is that I always want to be in the loop. Like I always want to know what's going to be happening. Yeah.
And so, you know, I don't want to like go to the bathroom and walk back out and then see my husband with somebody that we've not already talked about oh yeah i totally get that yeah right but it's not it has nothing to do with that person that he might be with but i want i want to i want it to have been our team sport of them saying oh i think she's great and then i'm like yeah yeah but me coming into a situation and being surprised by it. Right. And then you weren't part of that initial decision. Yeah. Again, so that's a very specific flavor of jealousy, right?
It's not watching him with or any of that. It's that. Like, I want to be in the know. I've learned it through that. So this emotions list is very exhaustive. And I think it can be important to just realize that all of these emotions have, I'm sure, been felt in the context of jealousy. They are all okay. There's nothing wrong with them. We have very little control over what we feel. Our emotions, I love this analogy, our emotions are like the weather. And sometimes the weather is really inconvenient, and not what we had hoped, and not what we had expected. But what are we going to do?
Rage with fists at the sky because it's raining on the morning of our big race? Well, isn't the alternative to feeling those things just being a sociopath? Well, I think that they might feel them. They may just not have any judgment about them. Or they with it. So all feelings are, are okay. They're allowed. They're normal. We can't control them any more than we can control the weather. So knowing that you tend to get, um, oddly, um, self-deprecating, that might be the emotion that comes up for you. That's is flipped. Oh, wow.
And so to say, wow, I'm really beating up on myself right now can then become a barometer or a clue that I've flipped my lid, right? Okay, so again, we've got this long list of weather states and or emotions and keeping in mind that they're all okay. Then we have thoughts. So some of these, I actually, we brainstormed these, we were, my colleague and I were teaching a workshop about having difficult conversations with people.
And so we were, when we were discussing this with a group of like physical laborers, and we had so much fun asking them to think about what thoughts come in their mind when they know that they're really mad or they're really flipped out. I'm just going to read these because some of them just crack me up. Who does she think she is? Does he think I'm stupid? Do I have idiot written on my forehead? Are they trying to take advantage of my kindness and generosity? How dare they? She doesn't love me anymore. I'm not good enough. I can't compete with the beauty or the brawn of the other person.
He's probably lying to me about his feelings for her. Oh. Okay. So noticing these sort of thoughts that we probably normally wouldn't have. Right. I don't go around looking or expecting that people are trying to take advantage of my kindness and generosity. That is just not how I roll. So if that thought's going through my head, that is a big sign that something is awry. Yeah. Okay. So just to bring us back, we're looking at how to know when we're flipped.
So we've talked about physical, we've talked about emotional, we've talked about some of our thoughts that don't usually are not our usual thought patterns that could be a barometer and then finally would be behaviors or actions words that we might use so some people might get louder or more forceful or maybe short in their tone so you know like no it's fine all good um we might uh oh gosh, I live in the South. So boy, do I hear this one. We might get fake nice. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's fine. It's fine. Don't worry about it.
You know, like overly nice, fake nice, sometimes more formal or tight in our tone. The ones that are a little more obvious might be sulking or pouting sort of those childish ways of getting attention which again if amy g doll if amy's driving the train oftentimes her triggering is from a much younger part of us so sometimes those childish behaviors for fixing this may come out um slamming things around uh sarcasm Sure.
It's no problem that you didn't tell me honey none at all um you're really good at this um this one is definitely one that i've noticed in myself cynicism cool oh whatever i don't really care anyway it's fine which again is a vulnerability shield that's what brene brown talks about that like oh no i don't care enough for that to bother me yeah yeah I don't really care anyway. It's fine. Which, again, is a vulnerability shield. That's what Brene Brown talks about that, like, oh, no, I don't care enough for that to bother me. Yeah, yeah.
And then some of the words we might say, we might lead sentences with things like, no offense, but. Yeah. Actually, any sentence that has a big old but in it is things we should watch out for. No offense, but.
Sorry, but but i don't mean any harm here but usually that's us saying okay um i need um i need for you to excuse my behavior in the words i'm about to say yeah so these can be um you know more signs that we are flipped and so the more we're aware that we're flipped then we can mitigate the damage um so how do we minimize or mitigate this damage that's honestly where i i get in that's where i often work in working with clients because once we've gone through this and we start to understand our own flavor the things that are going to then once we understand our flavor, then we know the things that are going to potentially trigger us.
And so then we can look at how do we get our lid back on? And so I usually go to those four areas, physical, emotional, mental, and then behaviors. And so this is something that's a little more personalized. For instance, for me, I'm an athlete. And so I'm very kinesthetic, I work well with my body. And so for me, one of the best ways for me to get my lid back on is to move, fight or flight are very active words, there is no fight, flight or marinate in your negative emotions until they go away. That's not an option.
Andinating and the negative emotions does not work well yeah our body is meant to move those stress hormones the cortisol the adrenaline through by fighting or flighting so just sitting there and stewing just leaves these stress hormones building up in our bodies it's no good and so one time um the blue, something really flipped me. We were at a friend's house and they happened to have a pool. And so it was late. It was probably midnight. And I was just like, I need to go swim some laps. And they all kind of looked at me weird. And I was like, I know it sounds weird. I just need 20 minutes.
I'll be right back. My husband knew what was going on. But I just went out there and I think, you know, just put on my ear, put in my earbuds and put on my goggles and I swam laps for 20 minutes. I was fine. By the time I finished even 10 minutes of the laps, what the types of thoughts that were going through my mind didn't sound so nasty and cynical. They didn't sound like somebody was trying to take advantage of my kindness and generosity. It was much more in line with who I am and how I usually think.
My emotions, I saw that a storm had brewed and come up on the horizon and it was blowing on out. Yeah. I mean, I did a lot of running. I mean, I still do. And during that time, I just remember being that 45 minutes in the morning was the best therapy of my day, because I felt like I was detached from everything else. It was in my mind, I was able to think about it and process it without getting emotional, you know, because the rest of my body is working, and working off the energy.
And then, and then what was interesting is I realized, I could replay the event in my mind that occurred and each day you know it would get a little bit easier to make it through that story yes and so and then i i knew at the time i said you know i think i'm ready to try this again because i had prepared myself for it while i was running but honestly i didn't know right if if that was the case in mind, I was okay. But I said, you know, I think we need to do this again. Because that's the only way. That's the only way I'm going to know. Yes. And so you did some lovely desensitization.
So that's a lovely mental tool to use to get over. You know, if this has happened, that's one of the things that I do end up using with clients is that desensitization therapy where you think about it and you keep rolling it through your mind until, and basically what you're doing there is you are purposely triggering Amy G. Dala, but you're giving her corrective experience over and over and over. You probably did it 30 times. Probably. And so each time the world did not fall apart, you came home and you probably got a big old kiss, even though you were sweaty and gross. Thank you. probably.
And so each time the world did not fall apart, you came home and you probably got a big kiss, even though you were sweaty and gross. And it was all fine. And then as you actually had the courage to try it again, then each time that's happened, it doesn't seem like such a trigger.
I don't know if we're going to get into this, but one of the things that was occurring during that period of time, which is counterproductive or counterintuitive is the sex we were having was just primal yes you know so so it's like we were desperate for each other yes well and so i was going to say the two ways for me are physical but also connection um and so you know if one of the most connective things you can do with your partner not as as fun as good, hard primal sex, but if you don't have the opportunity to do it, it can be, and this sounds so simple and it feels so cheesy when you start.
I'm going to warn you about that, but it is so powerful is to hold hands with your partner, look in their eyes without moving your head at all and take 10 deep breaths together because you are physically touching you are connecting your eyes you are connecting your breath and you are right there only focused on each other and i will tell you i've done this actually this is a tool i used with our child as well i will tell you that sometimes it's taken seven or eight breaths of i really don't like you i'm looking in your eyeballs and i'm i'm right and you are wrong I'm gonna do this little breathing exercise but I know I'm right and I never made it to 10 without wanting to like cry and like slap them up you know like lovely I love you I love you but sometimes it can take a while and but that breathing and that connection can be and this is I mean right now I'm talking more of a cute like I know my is flipped what do I need to do again sometimes I usually need a separation to be able to be able to just feel my emotions not have to explain them if I can be physical during that time that works really well for me coming easing back into the situation if I can find a bit of connection so I'll you know, can we breathe?
Then that can be really helpful to get my lid back on, especially like I say, if it's inconvenient, like maybe we're at a party that we've driven three hours to go to, to be with people we want to be with. That's really an inconvenient time to feel jealous. And I want to get back in there and have the fun too.
So right now I'm talking about those acute things, but I think too, as you're dealing with a season of jealousy if you will or working through it um yes I hear that all the time and same happened for us the sex between the two of us was incredible and it was that to me it was as I think back on it now I think it was um creating a new how do say this? Um, kind of a corrective experience for Amy G. Dalla. Like I am feeling this and I'm connecting harder and better with my partner than I was last month. So yes, we can get through this and we continue to only get stronger and better together.
Right. So I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Um, you know, as you were, um, Mr.
Jones, as you were talking about these two sides of your brain that we're talking, because you rely so heavily on your, your logic and your rationality to get through things in your professional life and your marriage and your social life, I'm sure one of the, the places we would probably go with you would be coming up with very specific thoughts, thought patterns, um, questions, filters for you to go to the, um, the jealousy workbook that I mentioned earlier, they have this really lovely way to help you get cognitive again, which means get your lid back on and getting the prefrontal cortex part of your brain online.
And so the, the headier and more detailed thoughts kind of nerding out we can do, then we are having to get blood. We need that part of our brain. That's kind of a trick to get that part of our brains back on. So that might be something we would specifically do for someone who leans on that so closely.
So again, for me, I know physical and connection is the place for me, but it's so individualize it's it's a fun place to work yeah um so then i promised this um acronym and i honestly can't remember um how you all feel about bad words oh go right ahead they're fine and i will say this one because this is directly from the ethical slut and boy do i learn to use this all the time um an afol i know what the f can you guess yeah so when we um when we experience jealousy or any of its flavors it is an afol another fucking opportunity to learn i love that and of course that is said with a wry smile and your tongue in your cheek and sometimes as you can see me i'm wringing my hands like yep teeth gnashing opportunity to learn thanks amy but think about those six months oh yeah physically the way you connected you probably tried new positions you hadn't done or you reached due level sexually the conversations that that happen and the growth that you mr jones you learned about yourself and the healing you did the ways it helped you be stronger as a couple whether you'd ever gotten back into the lifestyle or not you learned a lot but then think about how much you learned in that six months that has helped you as you did, as you have gone back out.
Right, right. I mean, there are people that have asked us, don't you get jealous? Especially guys, don't you get jealous? And my response is, to your point earlier, it's she keeps coming back to me. So therefore, I mean, before this happened, I knew that she was going to do that but now i know yes and so the lifestyle doesn't necessarily have to be the only way to get to that point obviously but it there's no room for jealousy now because it's proven over and it never never comes into my head you know i never i never thought about it this way until I just heard you say this.
But when you said, you know, before I knew, do you hear the question mark on the end of that? That's the prefrontal cortex talking. The prefrontal cortex is all about questioning, curiosity, learning. And all of our learning is from questions. So I knew, question mark, that part of your brain knew. But then you said, now I know. That was Amy. Because Amy tells you what to do. And now you know. That's where it changed. Because of that repetition, she keeps coming back to you. There's not a question mark on the end of that anymore. That's beautiful.
And gosh gosh thanks for the afol um for sure um this is another point that i that i like to bring up um again we come back to we talk about the emotions as um weather and that they can be really inconvenient but a spin that is interesting to put on the ethical slut really gave me the courage to think about it this way that if anytime we experience the emotions under that umbrella of jealousy it's some part of us that's decided that we're now strong enough to do some healing around those emotions it's another afol so we don't really want to do those learnings like give me a chemistry book please i don't want to do this kind of learning right now right but if once i said you know what i'm strong enough right now our marriage is strong i'm really plugged in and open and real in my life right now i've got a good therapist i've got a great running buddy that i can talk about all this with i've got all the supports and the resources to do some healing I'll see a good therapist.
I've got a great running buddy that I can talk about all this with. I've got all the supports and the resources to do some healing about whatever this is triggering. Yeah. Yeah. And so when I could put that positive spin, yes, sometimes it was with an eye roll and a grit of the teeth and AFOL.
But when I could come back to, you know, we're never given what we can't handle, whether you whatever your woo woo higher power belief is that really was comforting for me i i'm not going to be i'm not going to experience something i don't have the strength to get through now that doesn't mean i have to i can choose to say no thanks right but if i come back to that strength-based model i'm strong enough to do this i'm stronger than i think i can get through this i have the resources this wouldn't have come up if i weren't ready right right that really was inspiring for me and you know and the the afol i mean it i i truly believe in the whole you know if you're not growing you're dying yes you know and i don't want to become stagnant especially at this point in my life you know i just retired i could sit on the couch and watch tv all day for the rest of my life um i i was very afraid to retire because of that potential sure you know lethargic behaviors i could fall into so i really appreciate these opportunities to keep growing and learning and and yeah sometimes they're a little.
But the rewards, I think, are worth the, the process of going through that. Absolutely, absolutely. One of the things I want to point out, we keep using this analogy of the emotions are like the weather. Another comfort that I've come from that is this Scandinavian saying that says, there's no bad weather, only bad clothing. And so that is awesome. Isn't that great? And so all of this that we've talked about, to me is about getting better at choosing the right clothing. Yeah. You know, as I said, we didn't come into this with 10 very easy to understand rules, one through 10.
We said, I trust you and I feel good and I trust myself and I'll listen. We have since made some rules. I don't even like that word. Guidelines that we tend to go by. We're always willing to reassess and stay open and realize that every situation is a little different.
But we've learned how to pick better clothing so that if the weather gets inconvenient that's cool i got an umbrella in the back yeah yeah or i know that if i start to hear the creak of my lid coming off i know a few things that i can do to put it back down right right which to me is picking good clothing yeah yeah you know we um we finally played with a single female this year and up to the point of i guess i guess i put that in your naughty stocking right yeah yeah so we we started to explore that and coincidentally a single female had reached out to us at about the same time and i in my you know extreme ignorance said i never wanted to play with a single female because she would be messed up and needy and i didn't want that being interjected into our marriage so but of course i said that out of ignorance because we only knew one or two single females and you know the sample size obviously was not worthy of my opinion right um so the single female that we ended up meeting and having experience with was, first of all, she's beautiful.
And second of all, she is amazingly intelligent and perceptive. So I thought that was a good thing. And we invited her in and we played with her. And in the middle of the play session, I, I removed myself from the situation.
I, I mean, I, I stayed on the bed bed but i kind of like backed off and i was observing well she was very perceptive and she noticed that and she called me after you know like a week later and said is it okay if you and i have a private conversation about our experience and i was like yeah and she was checking on me wow she was like I I noticed you had removed yourself and she said and I you know I really like you guys and I'd like to get to know you better but she said I don't know that um I'm comfortable doing that unless I know you're okay oh wow so she was worried about me and and it was the second flavor of jealousy that you mentioned I forget what word it was, but it made me think of that experience because I had kind of removed myself.
I guess it was the being left out. But I'm the one that left myself out. But I think I was trying to figure out, am I going to be jealous? Because, I mean, here she is. She's beautiful. She's intelligent. She's a great conversationalist. And I mean, I couldn't have picked a more amazing female to bring into our marriage. So was I like, you know, self-destructing on purpose? I was really cognitive during that session when you're supposed to be the opposite of that. Sure.
But it was, there was, I'm sure a a lot of lead up and you were you were looking for it seems to me I'm trying I'm putting words in your mouth that you were absolutely welcome to spit out if they don't fit but this was a big deal it was for you to to invite this person and it had taken a long time for you to even be comfortable exploring it realizing that it was an exploration it was an afol yeah and it might have been an opportunity to learn that it's great and the best thing ever. It might have been for you to learn a little more about your flavors, right? What's okay and what isn't.
And so I think it makes sense that you would even take some of that time because you, I mean, in some ways it was set up. You're thinking, I want to learn from this.
And so to step back and be an observer and say, am i feeling right now right and the bottom line is that i was fine right i was a little bit neutral that night um but i was fine and so we got together again and then our next experience was awesome right because i had already processed all that so then i got to i was allowed to have fun after that in my mind yourself but you know another key point to hear is that i did not pressure you into a single female so even though it's all my idea yeah so even though you had this misperception of what it would be like you are the one who opted to an afol for yourself right i didn't you know so i think that you know kudos to you i mean i'm glad that you did i had a good time but it was so good that you know and there are other this is outside of jealousy but you know when it comes to age or race or or you know size or anything that we have these preconceived ideas of what uh we think to challenge that willingly and then learn from this.
So, you know, this whole jealousy thing with Amy, she forced us into this, but, you know, there are things that you can just choose. Well, why do I have this bias? Why do I have this perception? I'm going to intentionally put myself into that situation and see if that's true or not. Absolutely. Well, I mean, when we delved back in, um, after that first experience, I said, I absolutely want to go be with another couple because I want to see, I want to gather data. Is this about the lifestyle? Is this, is there something with them? Is it me? I don't, I said, I need to know.
So I'll know where we're going with this. And so it was putting myself in that situation. And I definitely was more vigilant with that next couple because I was really keeping an eye on what's, you know, all systems go with Catherine, yes or no, what's happening, trying to gather that data. And so I absolutely took that opportunity to learn you know and I haven't mentioned much my husband has had situations where he's been jealous too it did actually happen his is a lot more physical mine's more emotional you know and we've learned a lot about that but one of the as you said that Mr.
Jones about realizing that we have these certain areas that are potential triggers for us he became aware of some of those I think that it would be really hard for me to see you with this type of guy right and so he knew that so for a while the way that we dealt with the clothing choice for that weather system is to just avoid that area the climate right yeah yeah but then as as we got more comfortable we learned more he said, I think, I think I'm ready to try this. Well, so of course, because we both know that this has the potential to be stormy, we are going to dress for the occasion, right?
We're going to be a little more clued into ourselves, to each other, listening for the creak of the lid of lid flipping, doing anything we can to make sure that we're staying really connected.
So to that's that's another example of choosing good clothing for the weather yes preparing ourselves realizing that we may or may not have an emotional response or a jealousy response to this but the more we get to know ourselves and each other the more we can somewhat start to predict which is the whole point that brings us back around to assuming it can happen yeah so that we think about these things and we pack our bags well with clothing yeah yeah um so i was the last piece of this is we've been i think so far we've really been talking about this jealousy thing as a personal growth experience that certainly helps our growth with our with our partner but we've really been owning this like what's happening if I'm jealous.
And so I felt like it would be silly to anytime I do a jealousy discussion to not talk about the other side. What happens if you're, if it's your partner that's jealous. So this is where I was giving you kudos, Mrs. Jones, because I feel like you did this, all these things really well. Um, and, and I, and I think you both have pointed this out so well through your podcast that it can be in some ways even harder when it's your partner that's jealous because you, when that's happened for me, I feel so powerless. Yeah.
I'm like, if he could only jump in my skin and feel my heart and feel how I feel when I look at him and all the memories and associations I have with him and how it means, what we just did, it means nothing. I just wish you could just come in here and feel it because the words I'm using aren't getting there. And that can be such a hard and frustrating sitting on your hands feeling when it's your partner that's jealous. So my husband is an engineer type brain, and so he's often challenging my counselors to have more bullet points and more action items.
So I have created this in a more action item bullet. So the first thing is listen, ask for a little more information about their feelings and then listen some more. Yeah. So to your point, Mr. Jones, about if Mrs. Jones had said, but you told me I could. You said this was fine. She's not listening. She's defending. Right. And I think what she did well is she was just this, she held space to listen to you and listen. And as many times as you need to talk about it, listen some more.
And that gave you the go ahead, the permission, the encouragement to keep digging through, to dig through, to try thinking through this or thinking through that. There was never a shutdown of you've got four minutes to do this or four days or four months or how many more times am I going to have to tell you? Yeah, she did. She never put any fuel on the fire. Yes. There was never anything that she said that would make me, ah, I am right. Right. You know, there wasn't any of that. That's beautiful.
So the listening, one thing that my husband and I talk about often is for me, I'll usually shut down and get really closed lipped if I feel threatened in any way, even if it's just he and I having some typical marital fight. If I feel threatened, I just kind of shut down and lips closed. Once we calm down enough, you know, for him to come in and want to hear or talk, or if he says, Oh, I'm really sorry. Now that I think about it, I could see how that was a snarky tone or whatever. When he says, I'm sorry, or, or opens himself, that's when I finally start talking.
For years in our marriage, he would say, I just don't get it. I said, I'm sorry. Why are we still talking about this? And I'm like, cause I wasn't talking before. Once you said, I'm sorry, that opened the floodgate for me to feel comfortable enough to really share with you my experience. So we've kind of gotten this thing where the I'm sorry is the key. And now it's, you know, he's like, give me a job. Now it's listening. And it isn't even I'm sorry, it's more like I'm open to your point of view is really what the key is. I'm open to your point of view.
So now it's going to be lots of listening. And the listening is allowing me and telling me in an action that my feelings are okay. It's okay for me to process. He doesn't hold the first thing I say as law. He knows that once my tongue starts wagging, my brain works better. And so the first thought may be absolutely contradicted thought number six.
It's more just, I think of it as holding a container you're just just listening just letting the person flow right right and i don't necessarily need you to fix anything right now just listen but for me the key with the way my brain works versus his was to say the thing i need you to do is hold this big bowl and i am going to fill it with all of my thoughts. So you're doing is this holding or what I need you to do is listen.
That isn't using a hammer or a CAD system or a whatever you usually do as your tools, but the tool I'm handing you is accessing those things that stick out on the sides of your head. If you need to hold them so you feel like you're doing something with them, go for it. But just listen, that is a doing. It is a verb. I'm picturing Catherine's very handsome husband standing there holding his ears. Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. Are you done yet? And the same for me, because I can, of course, because this is my profession too, sometimes my Thank you. Are you done yet?
And the same for me, because I can, of course, because this is my profession too, sometimes my brain can get a little too far ahead or analyzing or thinking about what he's saying. And I have to do the same thing. I have to remind myself if he's struggling with something, that that is the number one thing I need to do is just listen. And in that listening, as I said, this is actually the third bullet point is allow all feelings and try really hard to not, again, we allow all weather because what else are we going to do? We just allow it. You know, we may not like it, but we allow it.
And trying really, really hard to allow those feelings without taking them personally or get defensive about them. It's your partner's feelings. It has very little to do with you. Even if you're part of what started the whole deal, like you said, this is what caused it. You didn't cause the jealous response in Mr. Jones.
It was just an action that the two of you agreed upon that triggered an old thing that created the feelings right right yeah it was going to happen anyway right yeah so there's no need to get defensive but boy is that hard that's so much easier said than done but try really hard to depersonalize just let the feelings be there um after you've listened and allowed one of the things you can do and this may not be all in one conversation this is usually over many conversations if you're dealing with something something a situation or jealousy is look try to look really honestly for the ways that that you've contributed to the problem in any way even if it's even if it isn't what they think it is, just your willingness to examine that and own that you may have contributed.
I mean, he when that happened, that first example that I shared with you, he as soon as I said it, he's like, oh, my gosh, you're so right. I can absolutely see now how it seemed that way. And he said, you know, honestly, for me, I was I was drinking.
I was with the boys boys we're all new in this experience i'm getting these hot pictures i'm like yeah i just wasn't thinking of it like that but as soon as i put myself in your shoes absolutely my bad i totally get it yeah so he was able to own that piece of it and that made it feel Again, like you like you said, he wasn't putting any fuel on the fire. It kept me open enough to continue to work through it. He didn't shut me down by trying to prove his righteousness. Right, right. Also be willing to offer ideas or solutions to lower the negative impact, either the way, like perception.
So his offering there was to help me understand his thought process.
That really helpful because in the absence of that i'm going to create all my own stories which would probably not have shown him in quite the same good light right because your imagination runs wild yes absolutely so in that way he was able to contribute by letting me into what was going on for him but then it also can be being willing to offer ideas or solutions about how to lower the impact of that next time like well what if we did it this way do you think that would be helpful because that's you're sending the message to your partner which of course is what you're feeling i love you and i don't want to be i don't want to contribute to bad feelings that you're having so here's an idea now your partner might say no i don't think that'll work but this might now you're on the same team again yeah and if this is anything isn't it beautiful that it's a team sport that's the best part of it you want to feel like again it all goes back to that belonging you want your teammate on your team and so if you're strategizing together about what clothing to pack for the bad potential weather you're doing that as a team yeah and that feels great um and then the other thing i think is important though is it if your partner is struggling with jealousy it doesn't mean that your feelings aren't allowed or your side of the story quote isn't allowed or important i just think i think most people just try to interject it too soon when the partner isn't ready and you're not in collaboration mode yeah their lid isn't back on so it's like your lid's back on and you're being a very analytical what you know maybe you're an accountant so you're looking at everything about this through a spreadsheet and you're ready to go at it like that and so you're sitting here with your brain with your lid on and you are spouting data to your partner who is flipped.
Right. And so you're trying to speak Excel to Amy G. Dala. Good luck with that. Talk about love languages. Those are not compatible. But once everybody's calm and you're back on the same team and you're collaborating and you're looking for ways to make this better, it is important that you let yourself be known too. So once your partner's really calm, feel safe and heard by you, ask for a time to share your feelings. So this asking part's interesting.
I remember one time my husband and I were laying in bed and I was a little bit, I didn't know, I didn't think I was flared up about something, but we were talking about, I think this is probably about in-laws and I don't don't even think this was lifestyle and he said something like I have a little feedback about what you're saying trained him well with the counselor he's right I've got a little feedback about what you're saying is this a good time do you feel ready for it and I took a deep breath because of course my instinct was yes I want to hear it right right what just from my voice did you hear that?
Yes.
I was in snark land I was in snarky and I was gonna hear it snarky so as hard as it was I said no I don't think I am I really want to know because now I'm just being curious gossipy you know yeah the train wreck that you can't look away from I was like but no I i really appreciate you asking and i really wanted the feedback but it's not a good time and then we were really mature and closed turned off the lights and went to bed and we did come back when i was ready and i was able to hear it and he was able to share it so asking for a time to share your feelings and then once you're doing it trying to of course, of course, use those I statements.
I felt this way when this happened. And then I sensed that instead of diagnosing or using you. You were clearly flipped. You were this. That's no good. Also, this practice of trying to express yourself, even your frustrations, without any blaming or assigning of feelings. This one's huge for us. I'm talking about my marriage right now. And if you think about this, we do this all the time. So let's say somebody is invited to your house for a holiday dinner and they don't show up. And maybe there's some old family drama around that. Think about how often we assign meaning.
Oh, well, I'm sure she didn't show up because she doesn't like my blah. You have no idea. Right. Unless you ask what her behavior is about. But we assign meaning all the time. And so if you try to explain your feeling about the situation of jealousy or whatever just from yourself, no blaming the other person and no assigning meaning to their actions, you're much more likely to be heard. That's so hard to do that. Yeah. Especially in the moment. Yes. Okay. So just one more. This is from the Jealousy Workbook and I love it.
Actually, one of my good friends is a lawyer, so sent her this one jealousy is about feelings not intellectual analysis be a lover not a lawyer yeah which can be difficult when your comfort zone is that prefrontal cortex analyzing and all that yeah well i mean you've you've touched on a list of things that not only apply to jealousy but just relationship 101 and communication and and i and i know i'm harder on the guys you know when it comes to this but really in all aspects of the lifestyle you just mentioned like when a couple doesn't respond to you okay i'm gonna fill in the blanks and i'm going to tell you what they're thinking.
There's a danger there. And also with consent. I mean, the many different personalities and voices you went through when you're talking about cynicism and sarcasm and all of these things, when somebody says yes, that's just a word. You know, there's still some observation that needs to come into play here.
Or when somebody says, this i enjoy this is what i don't enjoy you still need to like look and and check in and say well this doesn't she said she liked this but what i'm seeing is something completely different so i think it's incumbent upon us all of us to go beyond the words you know and what is behind the words?
what what tone did i pick up on and what's the context of the conversation and what's going on in our lives right now and too often it's very easy to say it's black and white here's a list of rules as long as we follow these everything's going to be fine or we're going to come back out we're going to diagnose this and we're going to say here's the problem right here we'll never do that yeah you said that it was okay to do that and we did it and it's not so obviously you know and and that's really the temptation that the temptation is to attack it that way well it's a temptation from the logical rational point of our part of our brain yes yes but absolutely you miss all those afols when you do that you miss the to me the juicy part of it the growth part of the of it and really to me you're coming at the lifestyle with sort of a shutdown point of view um and there is there's just hardly any black and white in relationships oh yeah and even less black and white in this the complication that's how one of my friends she's like why would why would you want to make your life more complicated?
I'm like, because this is so much fun. But when you add all the complications, if you want to put that word on it, that the lifestyle can create, there's just hardly any room for black and white. I mean, you know, of course, some condoms or consent or whatever, but all that, all that gray area.
And you're, as you said, you're being a little little hard on the guys but i also want to point out that with the assigning meaning piece you're um unicorn you're you're single female if if she had just assigned meaning to your pulling back and then created a story on the meaning that she assigned to you you probably wouldn't have heard back from her right and so kudos to her for saying i noticed this and she probably had already created some stories but some part of her had learned that maybe that didn't serve her well or she stopped that and said oh wait i have this source yeah the original one and i have her number crazy i'll call and ask yeah um and that goes that goes so well with all of this is to never assume that just because we would do it this way or this action would mean a b and c and our hearts and minds that it means the same for the other person i call that the platinum rule so we all grew up with the golden rule treat others as we expect others to treat us and that works pretty well until we start to use it to assign meaning right so she leaned back and watched me with mr jones so therefore if it were me that would mean i was jealous and she couldn't wait to get me out of the house and why did they invite me over in the first place and they're just a bunch of drama f them i'm out of here that's golden rule thinking because that's what she would be thinking and assigning to that action.
Instead, she used the platinum rule, picked up the damn phone and said, what was your experience? Yeah. So then she's, so the platinum rule is treat others as they want to be treated, is that side of it. And then the assigning meaning or trying to understand what people are doing is about asking them. Yeah.
And I don't know, as we start to wrap this up, I'm trying to look at this a little bit more globally because we, through these institutions and through, whether it's the institution of marriage, whether it's the indoctrination of religious views, whether it's your work and training you have to take of how you behave with each other around work, whether it's these societal norms that we've created. What we're getting at here is, you know, fundamentally, it's human being to human being. And I'm not at all preaching that the lifestyle is the only way to get to this point.
But it does create the perfect environment that if you do have this relationship, and you do understand, and you have these tools that you've so amazingly put together today, by the way, that these AFOLs are really what we're looking for, you know, and if we don't recognize them, we're either not moving forward or in fact, we can be taken a step back. So I think jealousy is just one of many, you know, that fit into this whole model of how we approach this and how we discover things and how we work as a team.
And the more that we do that, not only do we get more comfortable with these AFOLs, but I'll hold that bowl now. And you don't have to ask me to do it now because I've done this before. And I'm going to pick up on these things and be more comfortable. And now I know when Mrs. Jones gets upset about something, it's not my fault.
Or if't have that's it that's a totally separate issue we're a team we're attacking the problem you know we're not attacking each other and and a lot of these lessons even after been married 29 years before getting into this we had a really good relationship a lot of these lessons we've learned in the past three years you know and and so that's all about um part of how we've grown together as a couple and and a lot of what you touched on here today we experienced firsthand as you know and anyway thank you for for all of this amazing oh yeah i've so enjoyed it too it's i can't believe i was looking at my watch the time flew it was just i know and i'm's over.
I mean, I feel like we could talk all day. It's fascinating. It really is. I'm just so thankful. I'm thankful for the work you've put out into the world, and I'm so thankful to get to sit in your space and be part of it. Well, speaking of that, I mean, how can people reach you? Well, until very recently, I have kept this side of my business gloriously low-tech. Actually, I'll share with the listeners that Mr. and Mrs. Jones were looking at my notes, and I've got them on construction paper, like old-school slides. They're really cute. I don't do PowerPoints on computers.
I have these cute construction paper slides. But I've realized that, of course, to be out in um, and to be accessible to more people, having a website is important. So I have created one of those. Um, I do offer sessions via Skype, um, for this. Um, I don't, I don't have an office space that's appropriate for this sort of work.
Um, one thing I do want to point out though, if, if people are interested interested in doing some some work that it's so interesting when i'll have couples or individuals that contact me through this context you know they've seen a presentation i've done or we've met somewhere and they know that i'm in the lifestyle and that i'm a counselor and we have i've counseled them with of course nobody that i've ever played with or anything like that we have to keep good ethics and boundaries around that i would say half the sessions lifestyle stuff doesn't even come up yeah and that surprises people and i've even had one person who said well wait a minute we didn't talk about any of that stuff and was like we're not making use of you and i'm like i'm still a counselor i mean we can talk about it because there are so many things that impact our extracurricular activity of the lifestyle as well as that lifestyle create can create issues in other areas of our life about maybe it brings up the differences in how we spend our money because we know it's not always the cheapest sport uh this extracurricular that's so true or how much time we spend with our families or how often we play or how often where where this priority is in our relationship so that's an important thing too that know that we may or may not spend very much time talking about the lifestyle but if this feels like something that's important to you to be able to want to have somebody to chat with that gets it um sometimes i've seen people once we talked about one specific thing we got some ideas they moved on i've had other that I see on and off.
I've had people that are really consistent. So there's that too, kind of breaking the myth that you're going to like, you know, be on Sigmund Freud and I'm going to have you in analysis for the rest of your life.
So my website is expansiveconnection.com and then you can email me at expansiveconnection at gmail.com or you can go to the website and just do the contact me yeah or you can email us and we will connect you connect you yeah yeah with katherine so wow i i can't think of anything else about jealousy that i need to ask you about well if you do let me know i don't i think you have just the right number of construction paper cutouts for your presentation it can definitely get um it can overwhelm the brain sometimes but that might have been just a little bit snarky there i didn't take it that way at all yes well thank you katherine very much and we appreciate your time and the energy that you put to come all the way up here and sit in our studio and chat with us so it was a lot of fun so my pleasure my honor yeah so we'll and you can reach me at mrjones at wegotathing.com and mrsjones at wegotathing.com if you need a lady's perspective.
Yeah, and our website is wegotathing.com. And on our show notes for episode 41, we will have all of Catherine's information on theirs. All of the resources that we referenced here today, the books and the websites that we talked about, we'll have those all, the Ethical Slut and the Brene Brown and the others. So many good teachers to be thankful for. Yes. So we are Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and we got a thing. What's your thing? We'll see you next time.
