SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, non monogamy, monogamous, book, relationship, love, non monogamous, life, trigger, grounded, work, attachment, injuries, sex, person, couple, feel, polyamory, notice, narcissist
SPEAKERS
Ellecia, Kate Loree
Ellecia 00:07
Hey, I'm Ellecia, your non monogamous relationship coach. Welcome to the podcast where my friends and I chat about our relationships, enthusiastic non monogamy polyamory, swinging, kink, and our lives. You'll get a candid peek into what makes it worth it to live life outside the box. And in case you're still wondering, nope we're not monogamous.
Ellecia 00:36
My guest today, Kate Loree is a sex positive Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a specialty in non monogamous kink, LGBTQ and sex worker communities. She is a certified sex educator and an EMDR certified therapist with additional training and trauma resiliency model for the treatment of trauma. She's been practicing psychotherapy since 2003. And she's also the co host of her own sex positive podcast Open Deeply with Sunny Megtron. She has been featured in Buzzfeed videos, she's been a guest on Playboy radio and on lots of podcasts like American sex slots, and scholars and sex nerd Sondra. I'm a fan of all of those. She's written for good vibrations and Hollywood magazine. She's a frequent public speaker, and she is also an author of what I think will be a best selling book Open Deeply: A Guide to Building Conscious Compassionate Open Relationships. This book is picking up where consensual non monogamy self help books like open up and the ethical slut are leaving off. Right it tackles a lot of the difficult challenges that that are posed by non monogamous relationships. And she is sharing stories from her own life as well as her clients experiences to illustrate the highs and lows and in betweens of life. As a non monogamous person. I am about halfway through the book. But when I recorded this interview, I did not have it in my hot little hands yet. So I can tell you, from what I've read so far, it's fucking brilliant.
Ellecia 02:16
Kate and I had like this really, really good conversation about so many wonderful things. A couple of highlights were attachment styles, and how attachment injuries impact non monogamy and her epic communication system. And the importance of somatic tracking when you're making decisions in non monogamous relationships, as well as like lots of personal things, too. I really hope you love this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it. And if you do, please leave us a review. I might read it on air Do we still say on air with podcasts? You might hear me read your review. And it'll help more listeners find us.
Kate Loree 02:59
Enjoy. Here we go.
Kate Loree 03:03
All righty.
Ellecia 03:04
We've begun. This is the thing.
Kate Loree 03:09
Thank you, Ellecia for having me on your podcast.
Ellecia 03:12
Oh, you're so welcome. I'm seriously when we talked about it. I was I was fangirling pretty hard, actually. Because I've been following you for quite a while. And I was like, oh my god, she wants to be on my podcast.
Kate Loree 03:28
Well, well, thank you. I appreciate the love for sure. I you know, I'm probably not for everybody, you know, because I talk about all all the things and you know, I'm very social justicey, but I talk about non monogamy and you know, kink and so many things. So some folks would maybe think it's too much information, but other people I'm their cup of tea and they just really dig all the different things that I cover on, you know, Instagram and some of my other social media sites.
Ellecia 03:58
Uh huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm one of those people. Totally. Okay, I've been super excited about your book coming out. And I'm going to ask you some questions about that because I have a lot of curiosity but I also want to ask you about a couple of more personal questions first, because one of one of the things I always love to ask people who come on the show is about their own experience with non monogamy and like what that looks like for you.
Kate Loree 04:28
So before I became non monogamous, I had had an 11 year monogamous relationship and and then I had come out to LA recently ended that 11 year monogamous relationship just got involved with a wild California artist, fresh off the bus, and within a month we were living together and shortly after that he's he broached the idea of non monogamy and I was the scared one I was the one with the was saying what If other therapist buddies find out about this, they might frown upon it, I was the nervous Nellie, and I look back on that version of myself and I just want to give her a hug and just tell her that it's actually just going to open up so many amazing experiences so much personal growth, and yeah, injuries as well, but that it would be worth it. And that she has this amazing journey before her. And since then, I've been every form of non monogamous I started out in the swing lifestyle for a good I don't know, seven years and then started to transition to this hybrid model where we were playing separately because my, he's my ex husband now. But he was dirty dolly photography was his name name of his company. So he was traveling half of the year doing photography for the lifestyle. And so that's when we started playing separately. And then over the years, we migrated to being poly. So from the beginning to now, I've been pretty much every hybrid you can think of non monogamous.
Ellecia 06:07
I love that, I think, I don't know, I feel like most people start out thinking like, it's gonna look one way and then wind up evolving their relationship structures, you know, just over time, like with desires and experiences changing.
Kate Loree 06:25
Yeah, that's why I like to kind of reclaim the word fluid. Like, if you look at the definition of fluid, it says one thing, but I like to think of the word fluid in the same way that you might think of gender fluid or whatever, that you can be relationship fluid, and that it can shift and change over your lifetime. And even if, perhaps in your head, you are non monogamous, you might be monogamous in practice, after you know, during the birth of the baby, and the year after it, like so many things can shift and change. And the more adaptable and fluid you are, the more you up your chance of having a healthy life. You know, because it's the rigidity that makes us lack adaptability. So I'm all about fluid relationships, for sure.
Ellecia 07:13
I always try to remind people that like, any decision you make, you can change your mind. Right? Like, you don't have to go okay, here's what we're gonna do. And now we're sticking to it even if we don't like it.
Kate Loree 07:28
Right. And I think there's such a lovely discussion about consent, related to sex. But I think it really needs to be brought in when we're talking about non monogamy as well. You know, because I remember back in the day, a long time ago, I used to have this private Facebook group and it was all women and they were either non monogamous or kinky or some of them were sex workers or pro Dom's, you know, just like, as we came to trust each other a lot of and these were badass bitches like these were not wall flowers by any means. But a lot of them admitted that if they were in a group sex situation, and there was like, say, six people on the bed, that a lot of times they lost their voice, because they did not want to be captain bring down. They did not want to ruin all the fun. And so they would just go through it even though there yes had no law was no longer Yes, it was not a true Yes, anymore. And so I feel like our conversation about consent needs to be broadened into how that impacts non monogamy.
Ellecia 08:30
Yeah. Oh, that I'm really curious about that. What? In that particular type of situation? What advice would you give them?
Kate Loree 08:38
Well, I think there has to be a little bit of self work, right? And self love and self compassion, and realizing that, you know, that we need to take care of ourselves and how that person takes care of themselves may differ. You know, there's the practical advice, like maybe coming up with some kind of code with your partner, oh, my phone just rang, I have a private message that I want to share with you, Honey, can I pull you out just for a second? Love you guys, we'll be back in a second. You know, you, you pull them off to the side and you have a conversation. And maybe you can have a quick conversation and go back to the fun. Or it may be that the two of you decide to call it and let everybody know that you need to leave or there's a million things that might happen at that juncture. But first you had to figure out a way to pull yourself out of it. And and even before that, you have to have the self love to know that you deserve to be able to do that.
Ellecia 09:32
Yeah, like you're worth speaking up for.
Kate Loree 09:34
Yeah, yeah. And of course, you know, when we're talking about this, we're talking about a group sex situation. If we're having the same conversation, we're talking about polyamory. Now it gets more complicated, in terms of everybody's opinion matters. Couples privilege is definitely a thing. So it gets more complicated when we're talking about poly, but even in the group sex situation, it's, it's, it's challenging. A lot of times people lose their voice when they are no longer just asserting themselves to one person, but many people.
Ellecia 10:11
Mm hm. Yeah, I love that. I just I love that you brought that up because I teach a course on group sex specifically. And so that is one of the things that we go over is kind of the mindset work that actually needs to happen, you know, all the things that you don't know, you don't know, until you're there. And like, I didn't know that this would be a thing.
Kate Loree 10:36
Yeah, yeah, there's so many things that are like that, where, you know, I usually work with an individual or a couple, even if they have a, they live in a poly tri, you know, a poly household at home or something like that. But in my private practice, it's usually one or two people. And a lot of times I'll have a couple where they're convinced that she's going to be the nervous one, and he's going to be the one that's swinging from the rafters, and then they go do the thing and find out it's completely switched that she's just the kitten and catnip. And he's the one that is struggling. Nope. You don't know until you're there?
Ellecia 11:17
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They just, like need to expect the unexpected, for sure. Okay, so tell me about it. Tell me about your book that's coming out. Because it's coming. It's being released very, very shortly. And I'm just excited about it.
Kate Loree 11:34
Well, the book is very dense, you know how there's some books, and some of them are amazing books, but they just have a few concepts. Like if you think about the five love languages, which changed a lot of people's lives. But you know that there's only a few concepts in it really, for instance, make sure that you love your partner the way they want to be loved, not the way that you want to be loved. Like that's a core concept in that book, right? My book has a bazillion different concepts in it. But if I were to nutshell it, I would say that it addresses all the different things that have not been addressed in other books that I've read. A lot of my clients, I have very bright, open minded creative clients, a lot of times they've already read a lot of books on non monogamy before their first session. And they just feel like none of the books are really helping them. And so there's many different things from my book that I could pluck. And we could talk about. One thing that happens is, you know, regarding just the heated conversations within non monogamy Yeah, yeah. You know, so within a heated conversation, there's so many things that a lot of times are not going well, a lot of a lot of couples are lawyering up, meaning they it's almost like they have little paralegals by their side. And they're they've got their stack of information to prove that they're the ones that are right. Yeah, I'm always breaking that down immediately. And instead replacing it with something that's similar to Imago dialogue, but a little bit more complicated than that, like Imago dialogue is mirroring, empathizing and validating. I use a system I call it epic. Mm hmm. So the E is emotional, I is intellectual. P is the physical and C is compassion. So the thing that I add is the physical. So I'm a trauma therapist, I have a lot of training in somatic psychotherapy. And what people don't understand regardless of like communication strategy you've learned, none of them will work if you are not grounded. So many people, they come into a conversation, and they get really heated, they're either what's called in the high zone, like panic attack, right? Like super angry, super anxious, or they're in what's called the low zone, which might be kind of dissociate, checked out, overwhelmed, need to walk away. All right, in either one of those places. The prefrontal cortex that negotiates between reasons, reason and emotion is not working so well. So pardon my language, but this is where you might call your call your girlfriend a cunt, and then regret it the next day. Yeah. And wonder why you did that. It's because when you get super upset, there's all kinds of changes in the brain in the body that make you not not in the place you need to be when you're having an uncomfortable conversation. And this can happen there's a few reasons why this might happen even more so a non monogamy because non monogamy pokes at our attachment injuries more than monogamy does. Folks hard too. And so again, a lot of this stuff, you know, because I've been a trauma therapist for 19 years. And trauma sounds like a heavy word. But within the word trauma, attachment injuries fall under that umbrella. And so if your dad left you when you were six, if any kind of abandonment, injuries, any kind of attachment injuries in your, in your past can get triggered in these uncomfortable conversations. And now you're probably in the high zone or the low zone. So along with teaching people, the epic communication model, again, where I'm teaching them how to ground themselves, and how to ground their partner, as they empathize with their emotions as they validate the intellectual peace, I'm also teaching within the book, How to notice a trigger, how to find the trigger, and then how to come down from that trigger. So that now we can have a conversation with the non monogamy from a grounded centered place, and then more likely be able to have a happy non monogamous relationship.
Ellecia 16:21
One of the things that I try to teach people is to find, to be able to recognize right when they're when they're in that place, like being able to recognize the physical sensations that happen in their body when they're, you know, mad, sad, upset, jealous, whatever the thing is, but to be able to recognize physically what's happening. And it sounds like that's, that's kind of what you're saying, as well. What is one of the ways that you teach people to ground themselves?
Kate Loree 16:52
Well, you know, sometimes I give this example. Well, first, if I were to back up, I think the first thing is to notice that you are out of your resilience zone. A lot of times within non monogamy and in fact, some sex educators and non monogamous educators will teach people to lean on the intellect. And what ends up happening when you discard using your emotions and your body sensations as part of your compass is and you lean on the emotions is now you've suppressed that. So you know, like if Bob says to Sarah, how do you feel about me seeing Misty this weekend? You know, and she's trained her brain to be over intellectualized. She won't even notice the knife drops, she feels in her gut. That means something, she will just think, Oh, well, Misty has always been kind to both of us. We've known her for six years, intellectually, it makes sense. So yeah, I don't have any issues with you seeing Misty, and he's like, Okay, well, I'm gonna set something up. Whereas if she knows to value her full comp compass, and her full compass, is her intellect, her body sensations and our emotions. Then from that place, she'll notice that knife drop, and she'll be able to say, Can I have an hour or two to like, sit with my feelings, and then she'll be able to come back and say, you know, our anniversary is coming up in two weeks? Would you and Misty be okay with delaying it a little bit? Or you've never spent the night before? Would you miss the view? Okay, if you came back at two, and then when he when if Misty and him are okay with that, and everybody agrees, and he goes off and does that, and he comes back the next day, they're much more likely to cook pancakes the next morning and talk about his wild night, rather than her being devastated and not knowing why. You know, so that's the first part is just recognizing to value your body sensations. So once you actually notice you've had that knife drop, or you're getting dysregulated. Now I can answer your question about like, how do you ground yourself? You know, there's many ways to ground yourself, you. For a lot of people, deep breathing is a wonderful way to ground yourself. For other people developing positive resources and your positive resources can be so many things. Positive resource for me, it's just my porch. I go out on my porch and my little three kitties go out on my porch with me and I have this view for miles. And the little Hummingbirds are going around, you know, zooming around my head. They love my red hair. They think I'm a hummingbird feeder,
Ellecia 19:35
beautiful flower.
Kate Loree 19:38
And I can just think of that I don't even have to be there and that just calms my whole nervous system down at the risk of being long winded. I'm going to tell you a little bit that you may already know about somatic psychotherapy at the beginning of somatic psychotherapy being developed. They started out with asking Say, war vets to check in with their body and find the part of their body that feels the best or the most neutral as a way to ground themselves. But what they found out, it was with people with a lot of trauma, like a war vet that had gone through two tours of duty, that that dysregulated them rather than regulated them. So it was at that point that they found out that thinking of positive resources, like my porch, or maybe listeners, dog or cat, or a favorite vacation place, or their grandmother, etc, and so on, that they could think about that meditate on it. So it's not just going well, I like the sun, okay, I'm looking at the sun still feel like shit did not work. It's not like that. It's like meditating on it. I love that beach place. Okay, I'm thinking about my favorite beach place, I can smell the air, I can feel the sand under my toes, I can hear the water going in. And now I can see the person handing me the drink with a little umbrella on it, in it. And now I'm noticing that I'm calmer. And when I track my body, I noticed that calmness is in my chest. Now I'm tracking my chest. And it's getting bigger. Now I'm asking my chest to tell every cell in my body about this peace and calm. Now I can feel expanding. Now my whole body feels grounded.
Ellecia 21:23
Yeah, now, I feel grounded. Oh, I noticed that, in that you in the meditation and finding that happy place that you brought, like all the senses on board. Right? Like I can smell it and taste it and hear it and see it and feel it.
Kate Loree 21:41
Right? Yeah, you have to make it come to life. And then from that place, you can get grounded. Now a person might be thinking, How the hell am I going to do that when I've pulled my partner into the bathroom in the middle of a sex in the middle of group sex or something like that. Sometimes you need to pull yourself away and go to the bathroom and ground yourself on your own. You know, all it takes is five minutes a lot of times to just step away, do some deep breathing. Think about your positive resources. Once you're connected to it connected to your body, all of that. And once you're a little bit calmer, then you can have a conversation with someone. Right? Yeah, yeah.
Ellecia 22:27
In my experience, the more you practice that, the easier it gets. Right? Like, yeah, if you never do that, it's like a real challenge. But when you start making it a regular thing that you do like, like, it goes from 10 minutes to five minutes to two minutes.
Kate Loree 22:44
Exactly, yeah. But I find even with my clients that have really big trauma histories. A lot of times, if you talk to them, they can find it. I've had one client in all my years that really had a hard time. And so I just put her into a semi hypnotic state, and she was able to come up with all kinds of positive resources. So I think anybody, no matter how strongly you have, is capable of coming up with positive resources.
Ellecia 23:13
That almost feels like, like a mind hack. Or like a brain hack, like, like, we're just we're gonna we have this tool that we can use to overcome everything that's, that's happening that feels like you can't overcome it.
Kate Loree 23:26
I think for a lot of us, you know, we're in these little boxes in our little homes, especially in LA, a lot of times people in LA, their view from their porch is another building. And we're not supposed to live that way we're supposed to be living in harmony with nature or population is supposed to be a fraction of what it is, if that was the case, we would just have nature and like lions, and tigers, you know, just roaming around us and all of these things. If that was the if that was the case, if we were surrounded by more nature, we would be more grounded. You know, part of the reason that we are struggling so much is we're living in a unnatural environment. We're not supposed to be living in an environment where we've dominated this planet in the way that we have. Yeah, absolutely.
Ellecia 24:14
What would you say is one of the biggest like blocks or challenges that people coming into your practice talking about non monogamy like, like, what's one of the biggest challenges that people have?
Kate Loree 24:27
Well, I would say whether you're non monogamous or monogamous, the biggest block to connection is unresolved trauma. And a lot of times with a couple, there is what I would call a double trigger that happens within the relationship when they're having an uncomfortable conversation. And I'll give you an example. You know, because a double trigger you're not going to find that out in the world. You can't google that because it's just something I came up with, but it's one happens when two people get triggered at the same time within an uncomfortable conversation. But specifically, each trigger is playing off of each other. And I'll give you an example. So say, Becky when she was a little girl, her dad was an alcoholic. And when she was 12, mom said, Well, when dad is drunk, you need to take care of him. And so she was, she became a parentified child at the age of 12. And so when she grew up, she in her relationships really hated men that she regarded as weak. And men that coward or seemed weak, triggered her memory with her dad. That's her traitor. She falls in love with John. And in John's backstory, he was bullied quite a bit. So if somebody gets bigger with their energy, it triggers his bullying history and he starts to cower. So these two are dating, then they get into an uncomfortable conversation. It's a chicken or the egg situation. If she gets really big, he starts to cower. The cowering triggers her backstory, and she gets bigger with her energy, and then he cowers more because it's triggering his backstory. So with couples when that is going on, um, once I find the double trigger, I will do solo EMDR sessions with them on that trigger. And then once I've done those EMDR sessions, and the trigger has been reduced. Now when they have that same argument in a different derivation, it's much more low key, and they're able to move through it. Now, not everybody can afford EMDR. But what you can do instead, is when you find that if you look for that double trigger moment, you can at least find it within yourself like what, okay, I'm getting really upset now. Maybe you pull yourself off into the bathroom, so you can think about it. And once you're in touch with it, what are you? What were you looking at when you're the most upset? What were you feeling I was seeing feeling sad and overwhelmed. What did you notice in your body, my heart was racing, my face was flushed. Okay, connect all that what you were looking at what you're feeling what you're noticing in your body. Now bridge back to the first source memory in which you felt that way, or you had a sensory expression in your body that was similar. So it's not similar in story, it could be wildly different. And so in the case of in this case, if the female in the story bridges back, she'll notice that it bridges back to her dad. Right. And so now at least she knows what it bridges back to and now she can consciously work on it, rather than continuing to be unconscious and reactive in her relationship. And that's a game changer. That happens all the time in both monogamous and non monogamous relationships. But you can see how it would happen more in non monogamous relationships in the sense that, again, we poke at each other's attachment injuries more, because we have these other lovers and all that. And so although it can help monogamous people, this is a toolkit that any non monogamous person needs to be aware of. So that unresolved trauma does not become this huge block between any two lovers or partners. You know, and if we're being reductive and just thinking, Oh, and just being jealous, or I'm just being insecure, then you're never going to get to this root. And a lot of the stuff out there, the books and everything, are reductive. They do just say oh, you're jealous, or you're insecure. And so nobody is ever Well, a lot of people are not getting to the heart of what's going on. Right? Yeah,
Ellecia 29:15
yeah, well, I guess I'm just jealous. And that's just that's the end of the story. That's where it ends I guess I can do nothing about it.
Kate Loree 29:24
Well, I mean, I you know, obviously the you and I both there's books that say what to do but a lot of times it's it is an intellectual exercises, like just rationalize your way through it, you know, that this is your lizard brain acting, you know, that kind of thing. And the thing that is a shame about that is that a lot of a lot of people go into shame spirals and they come into my office, you know, in the fetal position crying saying I'm bad at polyamory. I'm a failure at this. You know, why can't I do this a lot of times the over until the over intellectualization creates shame spirals. And another thing at the risk of being long winded. You stop me if I'm talking too much. Another problem with that situation where the person is in a shame spiral, because the intellectual advice is not working is that a lot of times that same person might be involved with what I would call an overtaker. And then a lot of times the person in the shame spiral is an over giver. Now the reason I don't use language like codependency is because codependency in a lot of ways it's very old fashioned in the way it frames things. A lot of not always but a lot of times. The over giver sometimes is a woman due to patriarchy, like patriarchy, and misogyny grooms us at a societal level to be over givers. And if the overtaker in our life, and they may not be diagnoseable as narcissists, you know, as narcissists, they may just have some of those symptoms like the manipulation and whatever if we're already in a shame spiral and then the narcissist comes in then they can really use that advice of being intellectual and hijack it to beat down the person that's in the shame spiral further and then get their way with a non monogamy when the yes is not a true yes. Oh yes,
Ellecia 31:41
I feel like I see that a lot a lot Yes, like this very very fine tuned emotional manipulation happening
Kate Loree 31:51
Right and I mean, granted for anyone out there listening that's monogamous and is going to see same thing on non monogamy is screwed up is like no, no, there is a lot of amazing people with a non monogamy having beautiful relationships have been doing it for decades. So I'm not saying that all non monogamous relationships are like that. And certainly what I'm talking about the whole over giver over taker phenomenon happens in monogamous relationships all the freakin time.
Ellecia 32:21
So almost like the standard.
Kate Loree 32:27
It does it. It's happens all the time.
Ellecia 32:29
Yeah. It's like the, the baseline that we judge everything from,
Kate Loree 32:37
like this. Other give? Granted, other genders sometimes are over givers. You know, certainly I've seen other genders besides women be over givers, like maybe they had a parent that always ignored them. So they were always like trying so hard to get attention. And so then when they grow up, they're still doing that same behavior. And they tend to gravitate towards narcissists that love. You know that love bombing them at first, but then yank the love later on, and then they're chasing chasing, that can happen to any gender. But because of misogyny and patriarchy and the grooming involved, that happens everywhere. A lot of times, it happens to women more. Yeah.
Ellecia 33:25
Yes, yes, that makes so much sense to me. Oh, I wanted to ask you, what is one thing that everybody or anybody can do for free or low cost? But what is one thing that everybody can do to create and have healthier relationships?
Kate Loree 33:44
Let's see one thing, there's so many different things? Well, I think, again, I would say, making sure that you're in touch with your full compass, you're not just in your head, that you realize that your full compass is connecting intellectually, emotionally, and somatically from a grounded place. If you're making a lot of your life decisions, from a disconnected place, you know, where you're not connected to your emotions and you're suppressing your body sensations, you could easily be making a lot of poor decisions for yourself. So building a practice of mindfulness and meditation, anything that helps you become grounded in your body is the first step to happiness in life in all areas of your life. You know, and some people are like, well, I can't meditate. I have ADHD, you know, or something like that. There's, there are hacks around that, like, breath work meditations fine. Oh, you know, that's what I would say is, first is you have to start with yourself and get your body grounded and within your relationship I think a lot of us have to re learn what love is, if you read Bell Hooks, if you notice a lot of books about love are written by men. And granted, a lot of them are great like Gay Hendricks, you know, conscious, loving, amazing Harville Hendricks, although he's kind of like, nor a Norman Rockwell painting come to life, you know, getting love you want. Brilliant, but both books are more for monogamous people. But this book all about love by bell hooks, when the first thing she says out of the gate is that love cannot be concurrent with abuse and neglect. And that a lot of us in our childhood, had parents or some kind of, you know, the people that were supposed to love us, were concurrently abusing us and neglecting us in some way. And so then we grow up. And we get into these relationships were being told that we are loved is concurrent with some kind of abuse or neglect. And to me, that's the first step is realizing that those two things are not concurrent. And so when we start to realize what love actually is, we have to take everything down. I remember so I'm 53 I remember when I was in my, in elementary school, some of the first movies I watched, were grace and the outsiders. So the entertainment industry was teaching me my little girl brain. What was supposed to be sexy in a man. And let's face it, both Matt Dillon in outsiders in John Travolta in Grease, those are narcissistic, self absorbed guys, those are not guys that are gonna love you. Well, but that's what I was being groomed by the energy. Well, all little girls, you know, yeah, a lot of us are, let's face it all people only like bad boys.
Ellecia 36:49
I don't know. So weird.
Kate Loree 36:55
And so we have to realize that we have been conditioned all the way it's systematic. It's a systemic problem. It happens with our families, within our relationships within the entertainment industry, politics everywhere is teaching us to be attracted more to that kind of narcissistic trauma, bonded relationship. And none of that has anything to do with love. And so we have to really just like we've been in a cult, we have to deprogram our mind. And then part of part of that is then trusting our compass, which is again, those three factors mind, body, and emotions, and then we can start to find our way out of the weeds and into a garden. That is love. And that that expansiveness non monogamy is just the beginning. I think it's our, our subconscious, knowing that love is not potentially just with one person, but connected to the whole. So it's not necessarily even just a few lovers. It's like, it's it's loving the whole and realizing that your separateness is actually an illusion, that your energy and that's what this world is. And so when you start to really understand what love is, then you realize that you are surrounded by love constantly, but oftentimes just cannot see it. Because of all the injuries that you might have incurred, but you can start now and you can reprogram yourself now. Beautiful.
Ellecia 38:29
Oh, I love that. That's gorgeous. Okay, what is there anything before we finish up? Is there anything else that you absolutely want the listeners to hear?
Kate Loree 38:44
Let's see. Well, a lot of it I just said gorgeous. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Um, one thing that I would like to say is if if you are in a relationship right now,
Kate Loree 39:00
you can't do it just on your own. I mean, it is good to have your own journey. But if you're trying to make a relationship or relationships work if you are the only one reading books and watching documentaries and learning then you know it's a bit like being in a canoe where you're supposed to row on one side and your partner's supposed to row on the other but they're not and so you're rowing really freakin hard but the canoes just spinning Yeah, you have to surround yourself with other people that are doing the work.
Ellecia 39:34
Oh, that's good. Well, oh, what I just had like six questions pop into my head so um in that instance, if you're the one doing all the work you're reading all the books you're putting an effort into growing and shifting and changing and and your partner's just not they're just sitting back letting you do it all and what do you what is what does one do?
Kate Loree 40:00
You know, I think that's, I can't tell anyone what to do. But I think, see, this is what I would say, to a single gal, or someone just dating somebody, it's very different than what I would say to someone that's in a relationship with three kids, they let go of their job to take care of the kids. And for them to, they don't have the same amount of options, right? What I would say to those two people is very different, you know, to the person that has more, you know, agency and flexibility in their life. What I would say is that, I think Buddhism has a lot of good stuff to say, in terms of attachment, sometimes we have attachments to how love needs to show up in our life, like I have to find love with with this partner, or else I'm just going to burst into flames, you know, you know, we have these attachments. And when we stay in a state of love. And let me just preface this, think about Nelson Mandela, I'm sorry, I'm being a little rambley. Yes, great about Nelson Mandela, he was in a prison cell for 27 years. And he stayed in a state of love, I'm talking about the fact that you can stay in a state of love and being in a prison cell, you know, so this is I'm not talking about necessarily love with one other person, that we have to start with being in a state of love, and then start to let go of our attachments. Because it's, you know, if you think about that Buddhist formula, of that suffering, is resistance plus pain. Right? Our attachments are the resistance. And so when we notice, oh, I just realized that I'm involved with a narcissist. That's manipulating me. Sometimes after we try and make it work, sometimes loving ourselves well is setting the boundary sometimes it means walking away. Setting boundaries is half of self love. setting boundaries, part of part of love, either in either direction, self love and with others.
Ellecia 42:20
Yeah, yeah. You know, the, I always try to remind not only myself but other people that that love is is internal, right? Like, like you, it comes from within, you're not getting it from some outside source. It's just a part of you. And when you can start to tap into that and have those kinds of boundaries. And even even for the person who, you know, can't possibly walk away, they can still set boundaries for themselves.
Kate Loree 42:49
That will feel good, I would think. Right? Because once you have that self love, then it's easier for you to walk away from what does not serve you. Yeah, yeah. For the person that's in a relationship with three kids that has let go of their job. And it's hard for them to leave. That's I have all the compassion in the world for that situation. That is super hard. I tell you what I've even had, I've known of people in that situation where they realize they were actually in a relationship that was full tilt, abusive, and they've walked even in that situation. I did that.
Ellecia 43:37
I did that.
Kate Loree 43:40
And how was that for you?
Ellecia 43:42
Amazing. My whole life is different. Yeah, I was I was married monogamously For 13 years to a narcissist. And I walked away with with two kids and was like, Well, I'm never gonna be monogamous again. And here I am. Eight years later.
Kate Loree 43:55
Yeah, and you probably at certain points were completely terrified.
Ellecia 44:00
Oh, fuck. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely.
Kate Loree 44:05
Yeah. You might have wondered if you were being selfish, and that, you know, maybe you should just kind of continue to be abused by this narcissist for your children or what have you. Hmm. But I'm guessing you realize that this was the biggest love gift that you could give your children
Ellecia 44:23
Totally! 100 100,000%.
Kate Loree 44:28
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's again, you're modeling love. Exactly. For your kids. And, you know, half of love is setting the boundaries. Mm hmm.
Ellecia 44:38
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you have to love yourself. Whatever that looks like. You have to love yourself.
Kate Loree 44:44
Yeah, so amazing.
Ellecia 44:47
Thank you. Um, I'm taking a virtual bow
Ellecia 44:58
Okay, Open Deeply: A Guide to Building Conscious, Compassionate Open Relationships. When does your book come out? And where can people find it?
Kate Loree 45:07
It comes out on April 19. And it can be bought wherever books are sold. I would really encourage people to buy from your local bookstores if you are one to actually read a book, like skylight books, or the last bookstore, you know, book soup. These are all independent bookstores that are in Los Angeles, you know, and they need our love and support is also going to come out in audiobook. It's read by Carol Jacko, Jack, Jacob Banos. I'm not pronouncing it very well, anyway. Yeah, it comes out in audiobook as well. And the audio book. The narrator is wonderful. And it comes out on April 19, as well.
Ellecia 45:55
Oh, fantastic. I'm a big fan of audiobooks. They make reading so much easier, because I can do everything else I'm doing in life as well washing dishes.
Kate Loree 46:06
And so it was really important to me to have like a narrator that would just knock it out of the park. And so I paid extra money for that. And I couldn't be more happy. Well, good. Yeah, she's awesome. Oh, fantastic.
Ellecia 46:19
I'm excited. I literally cannot wait. And if people want to follow you or get in contact with you, I have all of your stuff that I'll put in the in the show notes. But is there anything you want people to know?
Kate Loree 46:34
They're listening. If you like my book, please shout from the hilltops about it. I decided to go with an indie publisher so that I would retain almost full creative control. So I have an engine behind my book, but any shoutouts is deeply appreciated. It will help a lot. Um, yeah, you can find my website at Kate Loree.com. And then everything will be in the show notes on Instagram. That's the best place to find me open deeply with calleary.
Ellecia 47:09
I love it. Thank you so so so much.
Kate Loree 47:13
Thank you. Thank you for having me on and for creating such a amazing podcast.
Kate Loree 47:19
Oh, you're welcome. Thanks.