¶ Exploring Polyamory and Non-Monogamy With Tanner
Hey , I'm Alicia , 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 . Hey , hey , hey .
Do you ever find yourself yearning for a relationship filled with heartfelt connection and authentic communication ? You know the kind where you can just be you . Well , today's guest is about to reveal the keys to unlocking that kind of relationship magic . Our guest today is Dayana Tanner .
She's the driving force , show owner and in-house expert behind the Healthy Humanine Institute . She's a firm believer that healthy humanine , which is crucial for every kind of relationship , is especially beneficial in the realm of polyamory and non-monogamy .
And speaking of polyamory , dayana is currently living her best polyamorous life with a sizable blended family seven humans , three pets all in one roof , along with an expansive network of friends , partners and chosen family .
So we're going to dive into the nitty-gritty of cultivating trust , creating a space for open conversations and finding emotional fulfillment and true intimacy . It's all about keeping it real and making connections that matter . Quick heads up Our podcast is fueled by the awesome support of our Patreon crew .
So if you're loving these episodes and you want to get even closer to the nope we're not monogamous vibe , consider joining our Patreon family . You'll get access to cool extras , behind the scenes stuff . You'll be helping us keep these awesome conversations coming your way .
So just head over to patreoncom , slash not monogamous and be a part of our fantastic Patreon family . I'd really appreciate it . Okay , enough of that . Let's hear this awesome , awesome conversation with Dayana . Enjoy , yay , okay , hi , so , um , dayana , you , it's Dayana , right ?
Yes , yeah , okay , good Dayana Farm .
Dayana Farm . I love that . Okay , so you were on the show in 2021 , episode 16 . So , if anybody wants to go and listen to that , you can go and listen to that . And that was , like you know , like two years ago . It's a long ass time Two years .
And that's like you know , like I mean , you know , I'm not a big fan of this , I'm not a big fan of this . Business is a whole bunch of stuff , right , I love that . Um , okay , first I have to ask you the questions I ask everyone so that they can get a feel for , um , they , the listeners , can get a feel for , uh , what you've got going on .
All right , I'm down for it . Awesome , perfect . So tell us what your relationship to relationships is , what's your , what's your romantic style ?
Well , I'm polyamorous , so there's that Um , and I do like just exist style polyamory , like everybody does their own thing . However , it works for them , but it's it's not like it's just .
It's not like it's just it's not like it's just a natural , or natural Like you know . You know , it's just a natural .
You know prescriptions or whatever . Um and I currently have . I love that Um . I currently have two live in partners Plus . I also live with my sister in law and I am not quite ready to take on another partner , but I have decided that she has to have season 19 , so I'm going to take on a new one . So when I find it , I know what I'm looking for .
Uh-huh .
Uh-huh , nothing like asking the universe for a very specific thing .
I mean I will take Kate Walsh too she's available and into polyamory , but like that's the energy I'm going for .
I love that , oh my gosh , and I love that , so I'm going to have a new one .
I'm going to have a new one . Oh yes , Polyamorous yes .
Yes and no , yes and that for me .
I get that answer a lot . It is evidently an intrinsic part of who I am . I did not have the words to put to it for a very long time , but I distinctly remember when I was like 11 years old , I told my best friend oh my God , I have a crush on this other kid too . Are always in love with so many people and you need to stop .
You need to just pick one . And I was like so upset by that because , first of all , I'm not cheating on anybody . First of all , I'm 11 years old , so you know , even if I were dating we're talking , hand holding and walks in the woods but also like that just felt so unfair to me and I couldn't have told you why .
But like you can't , you can't help how you feel , it's just there . So I stopped telling her I was in love with people . And the next time it happened again I said I'm in really , really , really really deep , like , oh , I've been there a lot . Call me to . I'm just recovering from another one . It's okay , it's all good .
I love that , so so . So , like you know it's funny , as you're saying that I remember when I was in seventh grade like before I had even kissed a boy , I had like all of these crushes and I had a friend who was like stop it , make up your mind . Quipian says slutty . I'm like I haven't even like kissed anyone . How am I being slutty ?
Yes , yes , and like my first kiss was the guy cheating on my one of my really good friends . So like , like non consensual , by the way , because nobody talked about that back then , but like nobody was saying anything to him about it , Right , Like hello .
Except with that .
How much do we carry into ?
adulthood .
No feelings there , it's fine , it's fine .
Yeah , not . Not carrying a graduate all for decades . That's amazing .
Okay so that right .
So so you have multiple living partners and have you I know the answer to this , and if you go back and listen to episode 16 , you'll learn the answer to this but have you always been non monogamous with those partners ? I mean , was there , was there one first ?
So it's really funny , because I was really wondering if I was going to know the answer to this before you asked the question Do I ? Know I was seriously panicking for a second . Oh no , what if I don't remember what ?
I said Pop quiz time . I need to add that segment .
You did not tell me this was part of the arrangement . I didn't study . So when my husband and I got married , we just celebrated our 12th anniversary . I'm so excited , congratulations . We had talked prior , so I'll just do like a quick recap of All right , cool . So I was a single mom working two full time jobs and going to school full time .
And so I , when I met my husband after about two weeks , I was like , okay , cool , I can see this going somewhere . But I was like so , by the way , I don't have time to invest like six months or a year into this relationship and then find out it's not going to work .
So here have a list of everything that you might one day hate about me and like tell me now if we have a shot here .
And so we talked for a couple hours and one of the things that I included on there was that I was bisexual , and I was like , not saying that I have to act on it or whatever , but like I grew up Catholic and a lot of people are not even okay with that , like being said out loud .
So think , tell me now if that fits for you , because this really isn't going to work . And he was like oh well , I don't , I'm not really bothered by you hooking up with another woman . And I was like , but you don't get to watch or participate . Like that's not how we we play this game .
And he was like , oh no , like no , thank you , that doesn't even sound appealing . I was like , oh really , this is fascinating . And then , shortly after we got married Well , actually funny thing is , my first girlfriend messaged me the night before my wedding After like two years of not talking , and so that was , we got to put the did you really mean that ?
To the test very early on . And then after a few months , I was like , hey , so there's some things that you're not comfortable with that I really kind of miss .
And what do you think about me talking to my old friend who I used to enjoy those things with , and he was like , okay , so like we've always been some version of open , but we didn't actually like intentionally delve into polyamory until 2016 or 17 . I can't remember which . I think it was 17 . But I could be wrong there .
So we said we were poly in theory in the interim time .
I love that so much . I love giving people an idea of like .
Every time I have a guest on , I want the listeners to have an idea of like how people get there , because every single story is unique and every single journey is its own thing and with its own nuance , and like little things that come up right , because people think like , okay , how do I do this , how do I open my relationship , or how do I be polyamorous ,
or how do I become non-monogamous ? Like well , what are the opportunities in front of you and how are you going to talk about them ?
I mean , that's basically all it boils down to . My only thing is if somebody's come talk to me and they haven't said anything to any current partners that they have , I always ask them can you be okay if you say this thing out loud and then your partner just like can't even handle the fact that you said it out loud , kind of like me being bisexual .
Some people are like yes , so I'm not okay with that , but thank you for letting me know that that's how you feel about that . And other people are like okay , you have said this thing , it is unforgivable . And now we're over with and like unfortunately it happens .
Yeah yeah totally I've been thinking about that a lot lately actually like the idea that if you think about this thing , then you've betrayed me , or then you're a bad person or you've broken some boundary , and I'm like there's no such thing as thought crimes , like you haven't committed the crime , you haven't done a thing wrong .
You've thought about a thing and for some reason we as monogamous culture especially , has like equated that to like how could you possibly ever let the idea of doing something outside of our boundaries ever cross your mind ? Or how could you ever think about another person ? Or how could you ever sexually desire another person ? Like what the fuck ? We're human .
We think about all sorts of shit , but it's in the movies and the music . That's where we get it from , Like that is where a lot of our problems come from , and I totally understand that . That is art imitating life . So it also originated in life somewhere , but that's how it perpetuated and got stuck the way it is .
And one of my partners had been thinking about nonmonogamy for a couple of years and didn't want to say anything to their spouse because they were afraid their spouse was going to fall into that category of oh my God , you've said this thing and now we can never be together again .
And their spouse , for the exact same amount of time , had been thinking the same thing , not saying something because they were afraid it was going to be a . I can't believe . You said this . We can't be together anymore , Right , and I'm like sometimes it's worth taking a chance .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . I always try to remind people like you you should be able to talk about concepts , ideas , theories , fantasies , without it meaning that now you're changing your relationship or going to go do the thing , talk about it , play with the ideas .
It can be a no , absolutely not , but that doesn't mean it has to be like now everything is ruined .
And my question is if your partner comes to you and says , hey , I'm thinking about this thing , and you decide that they have them , having that thought is a deal breaker , how much do you just not trust your partner to begin with ?
Like , how much energy are you expending ruminating on all of the ways that they might or are possibly cheating on you in ways that most of us wouldn't even consider ? Like , how much of your energy is going towards that ?
Because if you think , saying , hey , I had this thought , or I've been thinking about this , or hey , I heard about this from a friend , and that automatically equates to cheating for you , you are expending a lot of energy in a way of like and don't get me wrong , I understand that it comes from a place of trying to protect yourself , but you're not actually
protecting yourself from anything . All you are doing is exhausting yourself , like 100% of the time .
So , like , if you can't trust your partner to say something to you and be like , no , that doesn't work for me , and being like them , being like okay , cool , so like , thanks for giving me out and I'm glad we had this conversation and then that's just it , why are you with them ?
Right , right , that's the only time you trust your partner or you don't Like . That's the . There's only two ways that plays out . Either you trust them or you don't . And if you don't trust them , why are you with them ? Right ?
Right and they say , like well , I don't trust them in these situations . So if we just maintain structure that doesn't allow them to go into a situation where I wouldn't trust them , then we'll be fine . I'm like , really , that's the relationship you want .
Okay , but also this is this comes up in parenting a lot too . This is this is one of the examples I go into with parenting . If you say you can't do this thing because I will have these feelings , I will feel this way about it . I will see it as cheating or whatever . And if you do these things , this bad thing is going to happen .
And they choose not to do the thing just to avoid the bad thing . They still have the same amount of autonomy . They are just choosing not to have the consequence , the threat that you have given them . You have no more control over that than if they were to just do the thing that you're like no cool , I'm not okay with this . I'm not cool with this .
Yeah , Like the amount of control you have is the same and it's zero across the board .
Yes , yeah , totally . Um , parenting , I love that Excellent segue . I get a lot of questions
¶ Parenting and Non-Monogamy Discussion
about parenting children as a non-monogamous parent , like multiple partners , dating uh-huh and having children . What about the kids ?
Have you seen my essay ? Have you seen my essay ? I don't know . We're in a lot of the same circles , so you know we're in a lot of the same groups and circles and stuff . So you know just as much as I do how often it comes up of the time . I don't want to introduce my kids to any of our partners . It's too soon . We need to protect them .
We can't have it . I don't want their hearts to get broken , et cetera , et cetera , et cetera . Totally understand where the sphere comes from . It's all part of your conditioning . It's all part of your caregivers not taking care of you when you were younger . But that doesn't mean that's the answer for now .
And so I have a whole essay that I have written on the topic that I post on an almost weekly basis in various chat rooms and forums , because the question comes up so frequently and it is a hill that I will die on like 100% Remember . I said I was going to get dramatic about healthy human being . This is one of those dramatic things , same Okay .
I'm going to . You're going to send me the link for that essay , right , cool , yes , I am . I'll post that in the show notes , okay , so I imagine your answer to that is very similar to my answer to that .
Probably pretty close . Yeah , I would guess . Yeah , yeah , right , so who's giving an answer first , you or me ? Yeah , okay , my answer is if I can't trust my partner to keep our kids safe , then I don't need to be with my partner Anything other than that it's their choice .
It is my job , and it is my partner's job as parents , to give the kids the coping skills and tools that they need to learn how to handle heartbreak , because the heartbreak is coming , polyamory or not .
The heartbreak happened the first time you took your two-year-old to the playground and they made their new best friend that they couldn't wait to see every single day and they were so excited about and they never saw him again . That heartbreak already left the station .
Yep , yep , yep , exactly , and my thing that I always say is we have so many people that are in our lives infrequently the cousins that we see on holidays they can't wait to see their best friend cousin that they haven't seen in a year . Or teachers they have a teacher for nine months and then they're gone .
They have the people that come into their lives and then leave all the time . They've experienced it over and over and it's like we've taken the idea that a romantic partner will have more meaning to a child , but they are romantically involved with them . They don't have more meaning . It's not exactly .
They were putting that meaning on it and we do it because of monogamous conditioning that a romantic partner automatically is supposed to equal a parent or a step parent or a parent's stand in .
But we have friends and a life friend commitment .
Yeah , we have friends that we hang out with , that our kids know they don't see them as their step parent my best friend since I was 12 years old . My kids aren't thinking like , oh , that's our other mom . I hope she never leaves us .
Right and I had a best friend from the age of five . We were friends for 25 years . We're not friends anymore . Do you think they met my kids ? Do you think my kids grew attached to them ? Yes , absolutely . But what happened was when I realized that the relationship was toxic and I needed to walk away for my own sake and my own benefit .
I had no coping skills . My parents modeled for me that once you met someone , you were friends for life and that was it . There was no cutting people off . There was no evaluating whether or not it was a healthy connection . There was no .
Either people moved away or you were friends for life and like , yes , I kind of get the idea behind that and I can see how it would be nice . But also , if it's not a healthy connection , then why ? And so it literally nearly killed me because I had no coping skills . I didn't know what to do . This was the biggest loss of my entire life .
And suddenly here I am with the biggest hole I've ever experienced in my life and I don't even have anything to hold on to . I've got nothing and it almost killed me .
Yeah . Yeah , there's a Like .
had you had those experiences as a child , you would have been more resilient when that came up 100% , and that's why it's important to give your kids those skills , and my very last paragraph of this essay addresses that is like if you are not giving your kids these skills , if you are just throwing them from person to person and ripping them away , then you're
not ready for polyamory anyway . So , like that makes it a moot point yeah , yeah , yeah , absolutely , absolutely .
No , I don't have strong feelings on this at all . I'm thinking of so there's polyamory , and you're dating someone for a couple of months or something and they come around your kids , fine , great .
So I'm thinking of friends from people who are non-monogamous , but maybe they're swingers or maybe they have an open relationship and they're like I don't want my children to have any idea about this , so I lie to them and tell them I'm doing something completely different on the weekend , when I'm going to go do a thing that wouldn't be appropriate to tell them
about , but there's almost like no Middle ground . I'm going to hang out with a group of Okay , I went to a hotel takeover a couple months ago no , last month and my kids are like where are you going ? I'm like I'm going to Canada . I'm going to go spend the weekend with a whole bunch of adults doing adult things , like totally fine .
But there's lots of people who are like , oh yeah , we told our kids we were going to . Just the two of us were going to a completely different place than we were actually going Like it seems really weird to me , yeah .
And that's where you get to teach your kids how to have boundaries and how to have privacy , because your kids deserve those things too . Your kids deserve boundaries and privacy . And then you get some model for them . Oh so , yeah , I'm going to go do this thing and you can share the location of where you're going . You don't need to lie about that .
That just doesn't make any sense . But you can say I'm not comfortable sharing or I don't want to share what I'm doing . It's private , it's personal , I'm not interested in discussing it . Whatever the truth , that feels best for you without having to lie to your kids . Because what happens when they figure it out ?
Because how many people think that their kids are never going to figure it out and then get blindsided ?
When their kids are like oh yeah , I've always known that . We were Christmas shopping last weekend and there was a you know like a magnet or something . God , what did it say ? It said something about being oh . Was it something about being straight or something about being monogamous ? God , I don't remember .
But my 13 year olds looked at me and was like that's not you , with a boyfriend , a girlfriend and a husband . I just I absolutely loved it because she's just like they don't care , the kids don't care .
No , so when we first got into our first polyamorous connection , my husband and I had two kids , and then the people that we got . We started with a quad , but it wasn't like romantic or sexual in both every direction there was a platonic leg of it , but there were three kids between us which are now part of my blended family .
We all live together and we just didn't say anything .
We didn't try to hide it , but we didn't say anything , and from the kids that I gave birth to and raised from birth , we had always normalized adults being behind closed doors , because when I was growing up , a closed door meant one thing and one thing only , and I was like I don't want that to be the case for my kids Also , it's really nice to be able
to talk to my friends without having a kid coming up every seven seconds going mommy , mommy , mommy , mommy .
Like I would like to be able to complete an entire sentence , maybe even have a whole conversation , and being behind closed doors allowed that for me , and so my kids never thought twice about anybody , any adult , being behind closed doors with any other adult .
It didn't matter who they were or what the relationship was , or their gender identity maybe , like none of that mattered . It was just sometimes adults need privacy and sometimes adults are behind closed doors together . That's just all it is .
And for my now oldest kid that wasn't necessarily the case , and they weren't even used to closed doors because their house operated differently . So that was a fun learning curve . But it was like a couple months later before , they were like so why do you go out with her husband , but not your her , because she's your friend ? Like why are you ?
And so that was the opportunity to say okay , so if you're following Emery , here's what it is , here's what it means . This is why we are making this choice . And then it was like oh , okay , and then that's good answer . That solves it Exactly . And then my youngest , like two or three years in , was like why do you just dad's girlfriend ?
And I was like well , because she's my girlfriend too .
And that was it . Uh-huh , uh-huh , yep , that's a lot of like conversations that we've had as well . I love that idea of adults behind closed doors . That's like just simplifies it all so much .
Everybody deserves privacy . Everybody deserves to be able to have conversations . Not every bit of information is open for everybody else , and so you achieve that privacy by closing the door .
It sounds really obvious and I feel like so many people are like . You can do that .
Because we it that goes into a whole another thing of like patriarchy and misogyny and sexism and gender roles and all that stuff but like we were raised to believe that our kids have to have access to us 24 seven and if we shut off any kind of access and we have any kind of boundaries then we are the most horrible list humans ever .
But that's a whole another story .
There's a lot there's a lot so much . Um , okay , so you've had a lot of experience Between polyamorous , managing multiple relationships , raising children . I imagine that that has impacted your communication skills . Tell me more about healthy human being .
Okay . So when I was here last time two years ago , they were the pillars of polyamory .
And it turns out because , because my business back then was practical polyamory , because that was the niche that I wanted to serve , and it felt so constricting and so constraining because everything I was talking about had to just deal with being a better human in general and not just polyamory . So I was like , okay , let me step back a second .
And so I rebranded to queer amory because I wanted to serve queer and polyamorous humans , because I kept running into that intersection a lot and again I kept just going back to human . This is healthy human being . This is you know how you are supposed to exist as a human in the world with other humans . And so I rebranded again as healthy human being .
And now , instead of those pillars that we started with , they're the exact same thing . Um , I have now turned them into . It turns out they had this nice little acronym within them that I just didn't see for the first
¶ The Brace Method
18 months is brace . So I created the brace method and so it's got two pieces to it .
There's the initial underpinning components , which are the those five pillars that we talked about before , and I call them the underpinning , because when you're in construction , if your foundation is not solid and they have to reinforce it , that's called an underpinning , and the way I describe it to people is your lived experience up until this point .
Right now is your foundation , for better , for worse . There's no going back and changing it , there's no undoing it , there's no ripping it out and making it fresh . Your foundation is already there . So what we do is we take these components of brace boundaries , personal responsibility , autonomy , communication and emotional intelligence , and we do that .
We put in underpinning . They become the underpinning of your foundation and once you have that foundation set , then you can use those things to build more on top of your foundation so that you can create a better lived experience for yourself .
You can create a structure for your life that feels really good , holds everything that you want it to hold , keeps you safe and protected , keeps the people you love safe and protected , and you can just build and build and build as much as you want . There's no limit because you have this solid structure in place .
Yeah , yeah , tell me again what those were .
Brace boundaries responsibility , personal responsibility , autonomy , communication and emotional intelligence .
I love that so much . It's been amazing .
It's so good .
Yeah .
Yeah , oh , it's the best . So then , the other part of the brace method is the framework , and I use the acronym brace again , but I have to actually read it . I have it on my wall because my brain just doesn't want to memorize something that big , which is why I created for all of your listeners that they want a handy , dandy little PDF thing .
So the other brace is breaking down the struggle to identify the components involved , reconciling your old behaviors and beliefs with the result that you want applying the tools , skills , knowledge , tools , skills and knowledge necessary to meet your end goal .
So where you want to be , clarifying your needs , wants and values in order to set your priorities , and then engaging in the behaviors and conversations needed to create and co-create change .
Yeah , that's it , that's . That's the thing that we need Exactly Monogamy , non-monogamy parenting like , yeah , just just life skills .
It's healthy human in all in one little PDF .
Yeah yeah , they should teach this in school Do you remember that or did you not know that ?
No , that's how I had it branded at first . The shit you should have learned in school , really .
Yes , it really is , though .
But then somebody . Somebody came to me and was like hey , so I just heard from a friend of mine who was checking out your site . It feels a little bit victim-blamey , Like you should have learned this , you should have known this . And so I walked it back and I said this is the stuff that they should have taught you in school .
This is the shit they should have taught in school , yeah , so that you can know that .
But I thought you knew that , so I thought that's why you said that that's just a cute little coincidence then , yeah , no , it's like , it really is like what we should , because , you know , so many people are raised in homes where the parents or the caretakers don't have those skills Right , and so we just keep having generations upon generations who don't have the
skills to have healthy relationships and to manage their emotions , or , you know , like , like there's almost , I would say , for everybody , there's some piece missing 100% , and that's why it is healthy , human , it is the whole human experience .
It is everything that you need , in the barest forms , in order to have a better lived experience . And yes , there is nuance and there is layer after layer after layer , like we can go wide and we can go deep with this , but if you want to boil it down to the bare basic essentials , that's what it is Brace , that's what you need .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , I love it . Thank you , I'll put the link . For excuse me , I'll put the link for your PDF in the show notes .
Yay , I have it . Well , I have it all over my house because it's me . But I recommend that you put a copy of it on your fridge and if you're struggling , like with your spouse or with your kids or , you know , trying to noodling over a problem with a coworker , a friend or a parent , you can go look at it and be like , okay , what am I missing here ?
What ? What feels like it's either missing or is being overstepped , or we're butting heads on , Like let me see which , which piece it is , and then we can like work it out from there .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , oh yeah , I'm gonna . I'm gonna print one out for my kids . I'll just have it around somewhere where they might see it .
Bathrooms work really well . Laminate it , put it in the bathroom . I might have done that a couple times next to the fridge , because you know they're always standing there looking for food constantly , Always .
Always Gosh All the time .
I literally came home with $1,500 worth of Costco and I heard two of my kids say that's nothing to eat .
Uh huh , yep Been there .
Oh , I love you so much .
Or or right now it was the . It's the fridge full of Thanksgiving leftovers . Well , it was a couple of days ago and there's nothing to eat . We cooked a whole turkey and a whole ham , Like come on , I promise you , there's food in there .
It's not the path of least resistance . I know I hear you there , but like it's there .
But I'll have to remove it from this container .
It's not even cooking . Okay , now it sounds like you're talking to me Because I am 101 . It says that's too much work . I mean me too .
But come on , my kids are supposed to be better than me .
Right , we talked about it , it'd be better . That's what we do .
That's amazing . That's amazing . Hmm , if there is anything , is there anything ? If you could go back and do things differently , is there anything you would do differently ?
I would start this a lot sooner , like 100% , because my husband and I went from met to married in five months to the day and I thought I had dealt with all of my trauma and that I was now and I had a background in leadership education . I had been doing leadership education since I was 11 .
So I thought I was good to go and he grew up in an idyllic home , like there was no fighting , there was no arguing , there was no conflict or anything . Like he got to just exist and just be . Well , it turns out that can give you your own kind of trauma .
Did not know that and so I thought I had this really great marriage and if I go back and look at it , at some of the things that I wrote and like oh my God , my Facebook posts , you know when vague posting was all the rage , my marriage was not healthy from the beginning and I just I was like , hmm , hot damn , how did we survive this ?
And so I would have done it sooner . That's the only thing that I would change is I would have done it sooner . But that's why I like healthy human for what it is , because part of the definition I had to make my own definition for healthy human because I kind of coined it as a whole thing .
But the last part of it includes doing what you are currently capable of , and that is literally meeting yourself where you are at and learning more tools and skills and knowledge and information when you are now , and we're not going to worry about perfection , we're going to go for progress .
We're not going to worry about perfection , we're going good , better , best .
We want to start working on the boundaries and the choices and doing the little bits of communication better that we can and recognizing our feelings and emotions when they're happening , before we spew them all over the floor and like taking back our autonomy , because the way we were raised basically taught us we aren't autonomous , we have nothing .
Somebody else is always pulling the strings for us and that's supposed to stay that way , but really it's not . It's just until somebody tells you different , you don't know any better .
Yeah , yeah , and that's one of the things I really .
I've been seeing a lot more , a lot more people have been coming to me that aren't in crisis , that are like we're doing this thing that doesn't look like what our parents did or what our friends are doing right , like some version of non monogamy , and we want to do it right from the beginning and we don't know what we don't know .
So we need guidance , we need support , and I'm just it makes me so damn happy to see people looking for that support , looking for , like , how can we do things better before they're actually like in crisis and everything has exploded and they're like just trying to salvage something . Mm , hmm .
Yeah , 100% . That is why my number one advice to people who come to me interested in non monogamy but who haven't actually started yet Six months of intentional personal growth as an individual and as a couple , before you get anybody else involved yeah yeah , because there's going to be some bumps
¶ Navigating Non-Monogamy and Personal Growth
and bruises , there's going to be some stuff that hurts , and if you take this healthy human and you apply it before you start bringing other people in , it's going to be a lot less .
Yep , yep , yep , 100% .
And I say at least six months , because it takes practice . You're not going to get good at it because somebody went oh that's not healthy , you shouldn't do that that way . That's not the best way to do that . You're not just going to oh okay , now I know the perfect way to do it . I've made amends with every single person I've ever done it wrong with .
I understand how to have empathy and compassion . From the outset , like all of the obstacles are gone and now I can do this perfectly . That's we're not in an I dream genie world , yeah , yeah , yeah .
Or like even like I read the book . So now I understand why I'm doing things the way I am , but that doesn't equate to like doing things differently . You know , like I have spent most of my life being very jealous and possessive and I knew I didn't want to feel that way .
I knew I didn't want to behave that way because it didn't serve me in any positive way . So I was doing a lot of work around it , but that didn't stop me from feeling jealous , right Like it , just over many years of doing this work . Now , when I feel jealous , I'm like , oh , I know what this sensation is .
First of all , I don't go into a panic , like I don't . I don't have the full fight flight on response , right Like , which I used to . It used to be like adrenaline flooding my body .
And now I'm like , oh , I'm a little wobbly and I can look at it and go , okay , this exists , I can dig into why , like I , and I can hold myself through it and I can regulate myself through it . But like it took lots and lots and lots of practice to get there , not just reading the book and knowing why I felt that way .
Mm , hmm , and that was similar to my experience . So I started with boundaries . That was the first thing that I changed in my life , and first of all , I was working on boundaries for several years before anybody really came to me and by anybody . I made the internet because that's where all the best stuff happens .
But before I found it on the internet , that was like boundaries are about what you do . Boundaries have nothing to do with what other people do . Your boundaries are based on a response to how other people behave , not a controlling what they do .
And so I had been working on my boundaries , but I had also been doing it wrong in a lot of ways , because there was not that clear cut piece of information . I was missing that one little bit of context . That is now reframed , everything , and that is how I got to the autonomy piece .
And then I had a really solid foundation and communication because of my leadership education experience , but that was in like a professional setting . There was nothing that taught me intrinsically how to translate it to personal relationships . So that was like trial and error and trial and error and trial and error .
And so now I've taken all of that and put it together and my goal is to make it as simple as possible for you to start from where you are in whatever thing pops up next . Instead of like , trying to predict , like or trying to be like , I want to fix this one issue , just whatever happens next . Okay , let's go look at the thing .
Let's look at this , see where the pieces are , see what your priorities are , what you value , what you want it to look like . Okay , so now , how do we make a little tweak ? And then another little tweak , and then another little tweak , because we also don't want to blow out your nervous system trying to get better either .
Yes , yeah , because that's not going to help .
Right , it sounds like so much work , but it's also so freaking rewarding .
And what I like to tell people is that the only reason it sounds like work , the only reason it feels like work , is because you didn't learn this in your formative years . If you had been taught this , as you should have from the day that you were born , it would be no different than eating , breathing , drinking , running , smiling .
These would just be things that you do . The only reason it feels like work is because you're trying to undo all the unhealthy stuff and relearn all the healthy stuff and get practice in connection with other people who are also just as unhealthy as you are .
Yeah , yeah , yeah . It's like starting to go to the gym when you haven't been going . It's fucking makes your muscles sore , so your brain is like sore from weightlifting .
Yes , and also the reassurance there is that the more you practice healthy and the more it becomes a part of your life that you don't even have to think about , the more brain space you have for other things . Do you know how much my creativity has gone up just since I started like being really intentional about this stuff ?
I used to say I wasn't a creative person . It turns out my brain was just preoccupied with unhealthy human . It was preoccupied with trying to control people that I had no business trying to control and having feelings all the fucking time because , I didn't know how to regulate myself .
Yep , yep , like .
I know it's like so nice to just like chill .
Amazing . Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you want to share with listeners ?
Well , as soon as we hang up , I'll know like three things right off the bat . So there's that . Yep , I think really the biggest thing is like lead with compassion and empathy 100% of the time , and it takes practice to like that's its own practice . I get that .
And also , the more you can cultivate that , the easier the rest will fall into place , and that applies to you too . Compassion for yourself , empathy for yourself , is just as important For you as it is for other people .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , totally . Oh , I love that . How , um , how can people find you ?
My catch all hub is my website , healthyhumaningcom , but I spend most of my time on Facebook . Right now , is is where you can find me Um doing the most ,
¶ Compassion, Empathy, and New Projects
because I can't ever stop . My brain never turns off , mm hmm .
All healthy humaning all the time .
Um , but I do have some stuff in the works . Can I be ? Can you be the first ? Do you want to be the first to hear about it ? Yeah , okay . So I'm working on putting together a learning library of all kinds of topics and stuff , and my number one goal is for it to be accessible .
So , every single topic in there , every single class , every single video , um , and everything that corresponds with it some things have worksheets and stuff is only going to be $13 . I want everybody to have access to this information , like as much as as humanly possible . Yeah , and so , um , that is the first thing that I'm putting together .
Behind the scenes , um , I'd like to say I could tell you when it's going to happen , but it's been trying to happen for like two months now , so it's happening . When it gets there , it gets there . It's all the perfect timing . Um , and then , exactly .
And then the other thing that I'm doing is , um , I'm opening up three one year mentorship spots for all things healthy human being , because I really want to keep working with people one to one , even though I want the information to go far and wide .
Um , but I want to work with people who are like deeply committed to it and like really invested in , like okay , I see the potential here and like I want to go after it and please help me because , holy crap , this is a lot yeah .
Yeah , yeah , oh , I love that . That's so good , thank you . Thank you so much . You're the first to know I love I mean , it's super related . That's why I started the podcast . It was like cool . Not ever I don't have the time or space to work with every single person , but , like this , information needs to be available for people .
So , like here's information Exactly Go listen , go read , do the things .
Exactly . Oh yeah , I'm starting a podcast tonight too , oh yeah .
That's right Do you know , do you know what it's going to be called ?
So you may have been around for the first time that I tried this , Um , so it's called show growth and it's talking about favorite shows and characters through the lens of healthy human being , like starting with gray's anatomy . Oh my God , I love this . If it had been done in a healthy way .
Here's what it would have looked like and here's what could have happened instead and like okay , when this situation happens , actually what you can look at instead of going into this response is to kind of see about this and all of these things , and so I I tried it once before and I got four episodes in and it was just me and I was so bored that I
couldn't even do it anymore because just mean yeah , it was too much , but now I have a co-host and so tonight we are . we are getting things off the ground and no idea when we'll have our first post , but it's , it's coming soon because we are both like ready yesterday .
I love that that's going to be so good . That's fantastic , amazing . Okay , I have one more question , um , and this one is for um , my Patreon supporters at patreoncom slash , not monogamous , uh , and it's called just the tip , and the ask is what is your favorite or best sex tip ? Thank you so much . This is wonderful . I love chatting with you . Yes .
Oh , it makes me so happy .
And that's a wrap for today's episode with the amazing Deanna Tanner . If you enjoyed our conversation and you wanted to hear Deanna's just the tip segment , well , you're in luck . That exclusive bonus content is waiting for you over on our Patreon page . It's packed with our guests favorite or best sex sex tips that you will not want to miss .
So head over to patreoncom slash not monogamous to get in on the fun , and don't forget to check out the show notes for this episode . You'll find all the links today on his fantastic work and more . Thanks for listening . Until next time , keep those conversations open , those connections authentic and , most importantly , stay curious . Bye .