Here come the holidays...

As thanksgiving rapidly approaches with hanukkah and christmas nipping at that turkey's heels, I have to take pause and look at the real things to be thankful for.

As an activist and public speaker, I have always been of the mind that the more open you are the better. Better to be out and deal with the occasional argument/awkward discussion with a relative than to live in secrecy. I want to reiterate that this is MY belief--I would never presume to tell another person what is the best choice regarding non-mongamy and being out with family, co-workers, etc. Having said that, my experience has shown that undue stress and anxiety are often presented to me by folks who for one reason or another are hiding who they are from the people near to them. 

For all the ways that I complain about my family and grumble my way through thanksgiving (which for the record I still believe is Imperialistic brainwashing at it's best. Let's just call it what it really is, 'Genocide celebrations' and stop pretending). But I digress... The fact of the matter is that I am polyamourous and living with my two partners, yet my mother and brother (and my partner's parents, sister and 2 kids) are all coming to our home this weekend to break bread.

For those of you out there who worry about all the bad that can come from letting people in and showing them who you really are, remember that you are also robbing them of the opportunity to embrace you and accept you.

Have a great holiday if you can manage it and shop local if you're into the black Friday thing (down with corporate America)! etc, etc.

Triggers

Howdy folks!

It's been a few months since the last blog entry but I'm back with some stories and a call to action.

Team Triad has just returned from the great white north. For reals y'all, we were just in Tornoto, Canada for the amazing Playground Conference. We were asked by Samantha Fraser to present our workshop The Power of 3: Triads, Threesomes & Dating a Couple (we are also proud to be presenting this same workshop tonight for the TES novice group), in addition to speaking on a few other great panel discussions and as always, it was a learning experience and a blessing (insert corny yet accurate anecdotes about pupils teaching teachers). The meat and potatoes if you will (or tofu and quinoia if you won't) of the workshop is around the concept of triggers and it was during this segment that we all learned the most. 

Just to give those who aren't familiar with the term an idea, urban dictionary describes a trigger as:

A strong emotional reaction set off by a set of words or image that reminds a person of a traumatic event.

This is obviously a basic working definition, in short its the things that remind you of a bad time in the past and set you off. It's important to address this concept whenever one talks about relationships, because when someone is triggered while in relationship, the way in which it gets handled can affect everything.

We asked people to share triggers in a small group and were amazed to discover the results. Many people reported a lot of anxious feelings--they were triggered by talking about triggers! The reason why we emphasize this in our workshop is because when we're in relationships, ultimately we all want to be understood, to feel safe and secure--knowing that our feelings will be respected and cared after. Communicating triggers to our loved ones enables us to cultivate safety and understanding within the relationship. 

Brian, Lisa and I made a pledge at the end of Playground to build community through extending the conversation beyond this past weekend, and that's what I hope this thread can do. If you feel so called, whether you were at Playground this weekend, heard us talk at another event or simply have something to share around triggers, please drop a comment on this thread and lets chat. 

Looking forward to talking

love, Jazz

Picture UnPerfect and Proud of It

Now that I've started therapy and I'm beginning to find my legs in that medium, I'm back to write about relationships. 

 As a person who advocates for open honesty and forthrightness in all my relationships romantic or otherwise, I was still thrown off balance by my own knee-jerk reactions to the recent hard times in my life. I have to admit that I ran and hid. I shut down, stopped communicating with family and friends and spiraled into a very dark emotional space that I'm just beginning to feel the strength to climb out of. And as my mood is shifting, I realize that the driving force behind it was trying to be perfect.

 I was lucky enough to experience 3 years of polyamory with virtually no hiccups or drama. Then a lot of major shifts happened (graduated from college, started paying back loans and paying other bills, moved out of the nest, got a new job) you know...all the common big transitions one makes into adulthood in the 21st century...and somewhere in the midst of all that change, something just snapped. I don't know if it was my capacity to let things go that went first or my ability to not be a total dramatic puddle of emotions, but things got hard. I could go into the mushy details of my changing sexual identity, my exploration of new relationship dynamics and my ongoing struggle to integrate my family with my chosen family--but really the bottom line is, I was able to begin to climb out of the hole when I began to tell people everything wasn't simply ok.

Click to read more ...

Poly/Mono: Not Foreign Species

This Thursday night I sat down with my partners, Jazz and Brian, to watch Showtime’s new reality show called "Polyamory: Married & Dating". We were pretty excited because this show will be introducing some people in America to the idea of polyamory for the first time and we wanted to see how the relationships would be handled in the reality show format, especially since reality shows thrive on drama. Brian wrote a great synopsis with his thoughts. 

For me this show renewed my interest in talking about something that’s been brewing in my mind for a while now. Because polyamory as a relationship style is still relatively new to a lot of people, I (and my partners) am often asked a lot of questions. The questions start: How does it work? Don’t you get jealous? Do you all sleep in the same bed? How does your family feel? I understand when something new is encountered there will be curiosity, however I’m still a little surprised at how often people relate to polyamory as some foreign species and I’ve become the newly discovered exotic bird.

This country thrives on divisive politics and binary ways of relating to everything from gender identity to sexuality. We also consistently look for what’s different or similar so we can see where we fit into the world. I’m not interested in pitting people or relationships styles against each other here. I’m interested in creating dialogue where we can discover commonality, learn more about ourselves and others and open up new possibilities for our lives. I’m challenging the idea that monogamy and polyamory are so different from each other. 

Click to read more ...

My thoughts about Showtime's "Polyamory: Married and Dating"

The producers of Polyamory: Married and Dating were presented with a considerable challenge for their opening act;  how to, in 30 minutes, not only introduce viewers to polyamory for likely the first time, but also introduce us to two established poly families, provide us with something more than a glimpse into their lives, and show us the unique trials and triumphs of those living a polyamorous lifestyle.  Despite those challenges, they got a lot of it right. 

Their textbook descriptions of polyamory were solid and positively framed.  And, the families they chose represent a nice cross section of America…   A married couple, Kamala and Michael, decide to invite their long-time partners, Jen and Tahl, who are also married, to move in with them and then young son, Devin.  Anthony and Lindsey are married and living with the third in their triad, Vanessa.  Lindsey has just returned home from a 6-month stint at graduate school in Northern California, and is missing her new boyfriend.  They're people you might encounter at work or at the grocery store or on vacation and not once guess they might be living a life that's slightly different from the usual dog-and-two-kids existence. 

The show is played out in typical reality show fashion.  We're a fly on the wall, spying in on the day-to-day lives of both families.  The producers frequently cut to studio interviews with families members as they candidly recount their thoughts and feelings of the experience as the drama is happening.  Not surprisingly given the tight schedule, editing is extremely fast paced, and important decisions seem to get vetted in mere minutes of conversation, with the focus of the editing being on the greatest points of friction.

Click to read more ...