213 Psychedelics and Non-Monogamy with Dr. Nicole Thompson

Welcome to Playing With Fire, the podcast for people who are ready to custom build their love. We're talking about non-monogamy, however you design it, as an individuation opportunity. Want to leave the default and make your life spectacularly you? You're in the right place. Hey, Ken. I am super excited for this conversation. You and I have been talking about having somebody come talk to us, with us, share their wisdom about this topic.

We couldn't have found a more perfect person. So I'm super excited. I'm really excited. And this is a topic that has been, I just see potential, but I don't actually know all that much about it. Exactly. We're right at our own growth edge here. That's right. So we have Dr. Nicole Thompson with us.

I'm going to just introduce Nicole to y'all. Definitely go pay attention to their work. It's fantastic. And if you haven't heard their podcast, Modern Anarchy, before, you're going to want to run right over there. But listen here. And you can multitask. I know you can do it. it. Do both. Follow and listen. Nicole is a queer, non-monogamous sex and relationship psychotherapist with training in psychedelic integration therapy.

host of modern anarchy podcast and the founder of the pleasure practice such a great name um nicole's supporting individuals and crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships her published doctoral research is the first research study on relationship anarchy. And I cannot tell you how happy that makes me and how excited I am to have your work in the world. Thank you for existing, Nicole.

Welcome. Thank you. So delighted to be here. I really connected during our episode we had many years ago, and I know you are the expert on jealousy, and so I always refer to you too in that space. It's so... It's so amazing to watch your work have evolved. And I remember when we were talking. it is it's so long ago now when we're talking and you're at that beginning stage of like okay i'm writing the dissertation and then you're going through it but also to choose a topic that most people

don't even really know what it is. Now, people listening to this show probably have an inkling, but when you choose a topic that like your dissertation committee doesn't even know what it means, I just want to give you a high five.

Thank you. Because it is a unique experience. Yeah. Way to go. Yeah, it was hilarious. They were like, are you going to get enough participants? I had way too many participants. Exactly. I had too many. I had to cut the door. I was like, you guys have no idea what I'm doing. Oh, yeah. Don't worry. I won't invite you.

I'm going to invite people who know. Yeah. I told them, I told my dissertation committee, I said, just, just wait, just bear with me. I filled my participants in 25 minutes. I love that for you. I was like, come on. Like, what did you think? Poly people love to talk. Exactly. We love to talk. It's fine. Exactly. So, Nicole.

We're just so glad to have you here. Your work across the board, so your work in relationship, anarchy is so interesting. We're going to have you back to talk about that specifically. But today, Ken and I have really... wanted to have a rich conversation about psychedelic integration specifically as it applies to relational liberation. How can it help us? And what should we watch out for?

just start us off with a little bit of like, what's your background and how did you get here? Yeah. Great question. Great question. So gosh, I think it's important to start with my background all the way back in purity culture. Right. And that's. you know, like unable to be queer, unable to masturbate, unable to have any relationships outside of marriage, right? Let alone polyamory and all of this. And so...

That lineage of grooming within purity culture, that's something I've definitely talked a lot about on the podcast and how that impacts people who are moving through that culture. and so experiencing that along with a sexual assault in my younger years really put me on this trajectory of trying to understand how we heal from sexual trauma right so i went into crisis volunteer work and then i went into the field of clinical psychology with this very specific lens of how do we heal trauma and then

about a couple of years into that i started doing clinical work with psychedelic assisted psychotherapy at sauna healing collective and so i trained with them for a handful of years of really applying psychedelic healing to all forms of trauma but specifically with my research, right, I start to look at it around sex and relationships.

And so in my personal life, psychedelics have played a huge role in unlearning all of purity culture and starting to ask deeper questions about these systems and whether they're serving us. psychedelics also played a really big role in reconnecting with my body as a trauma survivor. I had so much going on in my head and so much disconnection that to be able to have psychedelic experiences where I'm having breath orgasms were things that I had never experienced.

because of that amplified state where you're really in so much sensation, right? we talk about psychedelics as nonspecific amplifiers. And I'm sure we'll get into more of that as we go into some of the risks with this as well, right? Is that it's not always amplifying pleasure or intimacy. It can amplify anything.

Right. And so we have to know that. But within that state, there is so much more connection, intimacy, sensation and really a lot of play. Right. It gets us out of our default mode network and creates neuroplasticity. And so a lot of us can.

to play in that space and have a lot of enjoyment. And I'm sure we can start to talk about how that works with sex, right? Of course, with sex. But Nicole, before we go any further, I wanted to just deepen into this question of... When we are, when we're experiencing that amplification, right? Non-specific amplifier is such an important phrase when we're talking about psychedelics. I see people turn to psychedelics frequently as a repair method.

And I both love this and I get really nervous about it because often I see people who are, they're in disrepair. They're really struggling together, specifically couples or polycules. They're really struggling. Sometimes it's like magic and I am not a psychedelics professional, but I have also seen it be the opposite where, okay, yep, it amplified.

but not what we intended to, or it felt great in the moment, but the come down was really, really rough because afterwards we could feel the lack. So I would just love to hear just a little bit of what you're looking for. in a person or a couple or a polycule who's looking to explore this around repair, is there any words of warning that you might offer or words of encouragement? Because I'm not sure whether I'm being maybe overly worried about this.

I mean, I think it's really important to be worried about this, right? Because within the media and culture, there's often this narrative of a magic bullet. Psychedelics can heal everything. You see advertisements for what? It's like, take this and in 30 days your depression is healed. You know, it's like, okay. So I think your message of concern here is crucial specifically to counterbalance this magic bullet sort of paradigm that a lot of people are being inundated.

with advertising. When we think about the psychedelic experience, right? I call non-monogamy a non-specific amplifier too of attachment. Yes. This comes into my book on the psychedelic jealousy guide. So if we're looking at both of these experiences, right, we'll kind of focus on psychedelics for this, right? It's about the set and setting.

Right. So this is a crucial piece that is really big within the psychedelic community and trying to bring it within the non-monogamy community too, right, is what is your mindset, which is all the cultural scripts, all the different things that are going on in the narrative. of who you are and the meaning making of your experience. And then there's also the setting and there's also my cat. We need cats for this work. It's not going to be right otherwise.

Fat Cat always comes in like mid-recording for Modern Anarchy. She's like mid-recording, hello? Hello. We need to be part of the picture. Exactly, exactly. I'm sorry, but it's a podcat. Oh my gosh.

Sorry. Dad jokes have arrived. I keep that one to myself. Anyway. Yeah. And then the setting, right? Being the context of where you're at, right? So if you... when i'm working with clients in clinical settings right there are people who have taken this drug multiple times we specifically work with ketamine right now right so there are people who have taken ketamine recreationally at different sort of experiences and then we'll take it in the therapeutic

setting and be like, this is a completely different drug. What do you mean? i swear this is not the same and right that's the setting it's a completely different setting as well as the integration afterwards right you're talking about that drop that can happen there has to be that integration of what came out of the psychedelic experience and that's again a container

or that people need, whether it's the relationship, the community, wherever you're at, really needing all these crucial pieces to have a quote unquote good experience. Yes.

So I hear you describing the set and setting. Okay. Do you have particular suggestions for people to create the kind of set and setting that might... bias this non-specific amplification into what they're actually wanting to change. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm not an exceptionalist, so definitely the most ideal space isn't always a therapeutic office. I think that's important, you know, especially around sexuality.

If you're exploring your body by yourself, that is not currently what we have within our clinical therapeutic field of psychology. No, I mean, I'm an ASEC certified sex educator. We're real clear in our ethical guidelines. We are not the body practitioners. You actually have to go to a sexological body worker. You need to go to somebody who is certified to do that work. Therapists are not. That's outside of our…

allowance even. So yeah. Right. So if you know who's even available to hold that space for us. Exactly. And so if you're wanting to explore your own touch practices with a psychedelic, that is not going to happen in the office, right? So we want to make sure that we're doing harm reduction. That's a big thing within the psychedelic field as well as pleasure enhancement. So how do we create?

the setting you know it's uh when clients book a session we say you're not going to go to work after this and if you can don't work before try to limit the sort of content that you're seeing right so it's it's a general sense of like um wellness practices. So can you clear out your whole schedule? Make sure you know the length of time of the psychedelic because each one has a different profile, whether you're doing LSD and you're there for 12 to 16 hours, ketamine, maybe something shorter, MDMA.

the eight you know wherever you're at clear the whole schedule as well as the day after, if you can, right? This is a privileged conversation of how much privilege you have to have those sorts of days. But if you do, can you create that space for yourself? And then when you are in the container, right, to be able to have someone who...

is sober that you can reach out to, even if they're not in the room, someone that you can call, right? There are different hotlines that also, you know, you can call to for psychedelic support that are available. I'll have to look, I'll have to send it to you what it is. I think it's Fireside Chat, which is one that you can call and it's free and you're able to get psychedelic integration support on the spot if you're having a challenging trip.

being able to have that sort of outside container. That way, in case you are having a challenging trip, you can call someone who knows what you're going through, right? Somebody who's not going to panic. Right, exactly. Panic is not going to help. Right before you go on a climbing trip you want to let people know hey we're gonna be at this crag if you don't hear back from us at this

Please call us. Right. So these are just basic safety things that we want to make sure we're doing. And then within that experience. Right. Making sure that you're with people that you trust. Right. This is how it. directly pairs to sex, right? How do you have a good sexual experience? You have to trust that person. You have to feel comfortable with that. If you do a psychedelic with someone you don't feel comfortable with, you're going to feel that a lot.

A lot, right? Amplified, amplified. And this is such a, that now as I think about the repair piece, this is where I think it's interesting because often I see people who are, they're hoping to touch back into trust. but they're currently actually struggling with betrayal or trust, right? And so I see there's opportunity for opening and there's also an opportunity for a crash.

If we don't have that integration support. And, and often I see people struggling because they don't know how to have integration support beyond like the couplehood or the polycule. Like they're, they're trying to do for each other. And that in itself. like it's just a lot of burden it feels like a lot of burden at the same time it is privileged like we have so like every time I have

taken any substance, I have had the privilege of being able to have, yeah, the next day off of being able to have adults I can call. Yep. If we don't have that. It does introduce a set of questions around like, how can we then best care for ourselves? Because the benefit is worth some risk. But what does that mean? We have to do that risk analysis for ourselves every time.

Yeah. And that's something even as a clinician that I've had discussions about with my colleagues, right? When you have a client who's experiencing domestic abuse, is it ethical to then have a psychedelic session where for the next 72 hours afterwards, you are in that...

you know, really open state, you know, you're having that neuroplasticity and you're much more open and sensitive, right? And so to go home to a domestic violence situation, where's the ethics of, is that helping versus potentially harming someone? So I think that full scale is important. Yeah.

There is the risk to these things. And so we have to be conscious. It is not the magic bullet. It is not just going to fix your relationship like that. If anything, it's going to amplify and create a lot more to digest and integrate. And the integration, you know.

it starts even before the psychedelic experience. When I'm working with clients clinically, we'll have three to four prep sessions beforehand talking about their intention, their past experiences with drugs, their past experiences with attachment because they're in there.

room with me and they're going to feel lots of stuff with me. Right. And so if you are in a couple or a polycule who is doing this, can you take three or four times to meet beforehand and talk about what is our intention for this experience? What do we want to explore together? What sort of things might come up in this altered state, right? It's the same thing I walk clients through when they want to go to a play party, right?

You're starting to see all these parallels of preparation, expansive experience, and integration. I see a big opportunity here to circle back to something that Ken and I talk about all the time, which is... As we prepare, we are essentially making an agreement with ourself about how we're showing up. And that can be challenging if we're also trying to fix something or bridge a gap.

Like we're really trying to like get past something, heal something. I find I have done this myself, but I've seen so many clients struggle with. over-promising, like really committing to like, I'm just going to be in this even though I'm not ready. Or I don't know if I can actually commit to being in this process with. the people as we are right now. But there can be this real opportunity to be honest with, maybe we need more.

awareness beforehand. Maybe we need more time for pre-integration and to start to at least tend to all these confusing feelings that are coming up before we jump in because that...

that tendency to fawn, that tendency to over function in that moment of, I think this could fix it. That's what makes me just nervous. Because like you said, If non-monogamy itself is a nonspecific amplifier and now we add a pharmaceutical level one, now we have a situation where my fawning could turn into, ooh, am I self-harming?

Is this actually me pushing past something that is there for a reason and just deserves attention, simply deserves attention so that I know what I'm unpacking? What exactly am I taking apart of my psyche? I really appreciate the centering of the individual experience leading up to, during, and after, versus the centering that I have heard and observed of

I'm going to have this experience. It's going to happen to me and then things will be different. Acknowledging that there's work to do beforehand to make sure you have the experience that does the thing you want. And then you have to do the work afterwards to make sure it sticks and that it works and that you don't break it. Because that's, I mean, we just had an experience recently where it went great. And then.

I didn't like completely crash the whole thing, but I did break a big part of it because I hadn't prepared myself for the work that was going to need to happen afterwards. And so that the centering of that.

separate from the, well, this is how we're going to fix our relationship. We're going to have this experience. Love it. So Nicole, I love this image of non-monogamy itself as a kind of psychedelic trip. It is, right? I've heard people describe working with me, especially if they're coming from a really mono paradigm, as like, oh, working with you is like taking an entheogenic.

substance. I don't think it's me. I think it's actually like the topic is so intense that often they feel like there's an alteration. But I'm loving this image and thinking about how do you help? clients navigate the complexity using that image and helping them understand, especially if they're people who really like and enjoy the use of psychedelics? How does this help them understand what they're going through in non-monogamy?

Yeah, I think one of the most important things that I always come back to is community. This comes from my training in relational psychotherapy, all of my work as a queer feminist.

training with sauna healing collective where their motto is community is medicine and that is the biggest thing of all right is look at they tap into you right and they start to feel like this resonance shift and everything is shifting and if i were to probably ask them what is your community look like you know they'd probably say oh we're monogamous friends around me all of that i'm listening to monogamous content right all of that and so when i think about these experiences right

the the 70s movement where everyone's like let's put acid in the water it's going to change the world right that's not true right and we're seeing a lot of that because when you take that psychedelic in a room of hedge fund

folks, they say, how do we capitalize on this and make millions of dollars versus you take that in a community that says, wow, this has indigenous wisdom and lineages that we should honor and respect and give back to. Those are two different circles. And so I see that. Context matters.

Yeah, right. And so your community makes or breaks the experience, both in non-monogamy, who is your support, what sort of experts are you looking to for wisdom, as well as what sort of partners you have. Of course, the one that lies to you and doesn't tell you the full truth.

that's a pretty challenging set and setting. And you're going to have a challenging psychedelic trip on that, right? And that's not a reflection of you as much of the set and setting that you're in, right? Or even a reflection of the non-monogamy, right? Like having a bad trip. of non-monogamy does not mean that they will all be. I definitely had that. That doesn't mean relationships are bad. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I think you see that.

We do judge non-monogamy that way. We don't tend to judge. People don't say, oh, well, had a bad monogamy trip. Never doing that again. Right. It's the norm. So we just expect. But when we're swimming against the stream. it definitely does introduce an idea of like the thing, the thing is the problem. And I've definitely heard people say that, like, oh, I took psilocybin once, bad trip, never doing it again.

And, and I mean, fair, you absolutely get to, but there is something really interesting here about, well, what if we think about that, that, that idea of what was the set, what was the setting? So what was the community? What was the context you were experiencing this in? And then what was the substance you took? Because now I'm thinking about the difference between swinging versus polyamory versus relationship anarchy and all these different ways that we can embody our non-monogamy.

And I don't have a preference, like a stated preference, but I definitely think some people seem suited to one or the other. And when they go down a path that really doesn't fit them. And it just doesn't. And then they'll shift paths like, oh, oh, this works for me. Like watching somebody find relationship anarchy after trying to be like a monogamous minded swinger. Sure.

That in itself is mind-altering. Oh, it can be like that. Speaking of mind-altering, you mentioned neuroplasticity a couple times. Would you say a little bit more about that? And then specifically afterwards, you're in this... neuroplastic state, what does that mean exactly? And what should happen? What should you watch out for or pay attention to?

Right. Yeah. So with neuroplasticity, we're talking about the ability to make new connections in the brain, right? So when you're on the psychedelic, you're having these new connections that we can see are being formed, new pathways. often talk about this as like shaking up the snow globe, right? We're changing the mindset and you can feel a bit more expansive. New connections are being made and there's a 72-hour period afterwards we're in that sort of state, right? So you might be more...

receptive to new ways of looking at paradigms in your relationship and your connection. I think this is also where an important concept that we always talk about in the community is psychedelic exceptionalism, right? This view that all drugs are bad except for psychedelics.

Those are some magical substances because reality is that you also have neuroplasticity and that sort of opening on cocaine, right, which is often a drug that we look pretty poorly on within our culture. And so it's just important to recognize there's a lot of drugs that produce this sort of state.

And so whenever I start to talk about this, I think it's important that psychedelics are not the highest form of drug, right? It's important that no drug is bad. It's more about the system that we live in and how we use it. And that's where I often talk about the research.

with Rat Park and how that forms our addiction. And currently in our society, if people are not familiar, there's a great YouTube from a journalist and TED Talk all getting into addiction and how that can form. Because I know that's often a conversation too.

I've worked with clients who have had chaotic addiction to alcohol. or even ketamine and use ketamine therapeutically, right? So that's an important part of this conversation as well. But I also wanted to mention, I think when you're going into that set and setting and creating that container, it's important to think about the other drugs that you take too. Whether that's coffee, big one.

Yep. Or an SSRI, right? Because that might not be safe with things like molly and MDMA, right? Knowing what sort of drugs might be counteractive to these substances is also a really good piece of this in terms of safety. Yeah. Yeah, because we're talking about like setting off serotonin syndrome if you're taking an SSRI. So there are specific precautions that should be taken into account, which is, I'm sure that the list is longer, but I'm curious.

Is this why finding someone to actually offer this, if we can, to offer the therapeutic integration is also about understanding what substance might be appropriate? for the individual? Because there are options here. So I would imagine there's some conversation about, well, what substance is appropriate for the individual? Is that something that happens in... psychedelic assisted therapy? Well, right now, because of our legal...

You know, we're not, we're, we're boxed in. We can only work with ketamine, which is like, yeah, how exciting, but we are boxed in within that. So we can't even have that conversation yet right now about like, yeah, where to go in terms of different drugs. Cause they do produce different experience. chances, right?

Ketamine is a dissociative, right? And so you can still feel a somatic experience, but it often feels like you're in a bathtub, right? There's a bit of that dissociation, numbing. And so if you're wanting to specifically work on embodiment... Maybe something like MDMA is more of the route because you're going to really feel that. But maybe, yeah, you take an SSRI and that's not safe. Maybe the stimulant effects of MDMA just don't sit well with you and you're sensitive to that.

So unfortunately, within the legal framework of therapy, we're boxed in right now, but we know that people are taking these drugs outside of that context. And so I do not shy away from talking about this because we need harm reduction. There are people that take these drugs and die. So we need to talk about it. We're not talking about it. It doesn't do any good to not talk. Not helpful. Yes. So testing your substances. Yes, testing. Yeah, yeah.

Testing the substances. Yourself. Yes. Because it doesn't matter where you got it from. Nope. You need to know. Absolutely. Yes. So now I'm curious. If someone is. is pursuing this route. They're pursuing integration through psychedelic use. If you're open to sharing this and if you're not, it's okay. What are some of the results that you've seen?

Like what might someone experience? Because I so often hear people only talk about the negatives. We only hear the bad stories. Sure. We don't get to hear like, yeah, what can happen? How can someone experience? especially around their non-monogamy. What have you seen? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I dropped my breath orgasm early. We can go here. Found my body. Positive story.

Yeah, absolutely. That was me alone in my studio, really being with my body and the pure intention of feeling and feeling pleasure and feeling pleasure. That's my own lived experience of that, which I am. working towards recreating in my ordinary states of consciousness, right? That amplifier really, I could feel a lot of that in a way. Give you a window. Yes. You know it's possible.

exactly exactly exactly exactly and so i've seen you know the full range of working with clients who are not doing not monogamy at all and the healing that it can bring for them in terms of just seeing things differently the client who's depressed

and finally experiences pleasure during a session and they feel joy. And then they look at me and they say, did I do that wrong? Because they didn't spend the whole time talking about their depression, right? And you have to remind them that, no, I think this is actually what you needed was a little. bit of play and giggles and laughter. Wow. And then specifically within non-monogamy.

it can really, you can think differently, right? When you're in that container, you're able to have that sort of space. You start to feel differently about things like jealousy and compersion, right? I think it creates more space to ask these deeper questions about society. and these scripts, right? A lot of people go into a psychedelic experience coming out going, I want to live on the queer commune, okay? Right? There's a bit of questioning of like,

Who sold us this and why? Right? That kind of tends to happen, again, when you're in the right set and setting. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. You brought jealousy into the room. Yes. Let's go, doctor. Let's go. I mean, bye. I am a stand for jealousy. I am maybe one of the only people in the world who's like, yes, not only do I see jealousy as a threat detection mechanism, but because I can experience deep arousal through jealousy, I like being able to play with it.

I really enjoy being able to play with it. So many of my clients and people who listen to this podcast are looking to solve jealousy. They're really hoping that they can solve the puzzle of jealousy. And I know you have taken a very specific direction with jealousy. Would you just explain a little bit about your thoughts on jealousy?

and and psychedelics in general mm-hmm Yeah, I wrote the Psychedelic Jealousy Guide combining all of my clinical work in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and the ways of non-specific amplifier for psychedelics and non-specific amplifier for non-monogamy and trying to look at how... we can deal with jealousy specifically as that quote-unquote challenging psychedelic trip right what do we do when that happens right we

The first thing that often the field of psychology forgets, like where have we been for the last 200 years? You know, wow. The body, the body, not just the mind. Hold on. Hold on, before we start to make meaning and a narrative of the jealousy that I'm feeling in my stomach as a turning of my stomach and as a tightening of my chest, maybe I could actually just be with that and work from a bottom-up processing, right?

So whether it's jealousy or you're panicking about anything going on within a psychedelic experience, the drug-wise or non-monogamy, let's take a deep breath. Let's ground. Let's use those grounding techniques to come back into the present moment. we get away from the amygdala and back into our prefrontal cortex where we make executive decision-making, right? Which is where we tend to blow up our relationships over jealousy.

Right up here while also in primal panic back here. Not ideal. Not ideal. Exactly. Exactly. It's so. In my jealousy research, the very first thing that turned up was, yep, the people who were dealing successfully with their jealousy could identify the sensations of jealousy. And they had learned how to tolerate and or enjoy.

Those sensations, depending on what context they were coming up in, you can enjoy them if they're happening in the context of a safe, secure relationship and you have a safe, secure life and your basic needs are met and all of these things. Their ability to name and notice the sensations, it's so interesting to think about that in jealousy because...

we immediately go to story. I haven't worked with anyone who doesn't have a snap story about jealousy, even if they're really good at naming and staying with sensations. every other life experience. Jealousy is a special case. And I think that my personal take on it is that that is cultural as well as a human thing. Yes.

It's detecting a threat for a reason. I definitely fall into the camp of people who believe this is because jealousy is there. It was there originally to keep us connected to our primary caregivers. And so it makes sense that it's coming up with this big way and sends us into an... infant's reaction, but we tell such stories. And the stories we create are cultural, like they are fed anyway, you know, by the culture. Yeah. And so I'm thinking about the ways that.

I have unpacked, and my psychedelic use is very mild. I mean, it's a few times a year and only for the last couple years. So just a little bit of experience, but it has helped me step out of the stories. And so that's to me this huge overlap of, yes, I want to be able to be in my body so that I don't tell this same story about jealousy. And that story is seeped in from everywhere.

The myths we tell, the stories we get, the music we're hearing everywhere. So what do you suggest people do when they're experiencing jealousy? How do you approach it? Just a little teaser and then they should go download your guide. Of course, of course, right.

Yeah, there's so many cultural messages that are going on that I think the biggest thing I always want to stress is compassion for the self because we are living in this soup of so many cultural messages. And so the amount of times even in my own personal... journey where again specifically because i came from purity culture and that to deconstruct all that to get to polyamory was

particularly challenging to put it lightly. And so I cried a lot and I would repeatedly have experiences where I'm like, my value system is right here. This is where I would like to go. And then my partner would be like, I danced with someone. Let's just dance. Just dance. You did what? You know?

you know? And so it was so frustrating for me because I was like, why, when I know I want to be here, my body is reacting in this way. And it would be frustrating because it feels like just this automatic response that I'm not able to control. And it parallels a lot.

lot to my rock climbing practice, right? There's many times I've been afraid of a wall. And you know what we do? We stop. We take the deep breath. We relax. We don't have to go to the play party if we're crying about it. Okay? We don't have to do that. We are also at choice. We are at choice. Exactly, exactly. And so a big thing with psychedelics of all kinds, metaphorical and real, is starting low and slow.

You do not need to take five grams of mushrooms for your first trip. That is rather intense. And when we're talking about building safety with a drug or with a partner, partners, it's starting with that handshake. And so that's the low dose of whatever drug that is. is and then the low dose of whatever expansion is for you. So maybe it is, hey, you're going to go out and go dance with somebody.

Yeah. Or maybe you're going to like watch them from across the room rather than be right there with your hypervigilance, able to control the situation. Maybe I'm going to give myself that space of, oh, I'm watching them. Mm-hmm.

And like you said, for your psychedelic experience, like it gives you the sort of perspective where you can start to see how your thoughts are really powerful. You start to have a little bit of distance and you start to see them. And I think that frame is so crucial for all areas of life.

But when you are working with non-monogamy and you have that moment of jealousy, if you can remember any bit of that distance that you had from your psychedelic trip to go, wow, my brain's really powerful. It's about to tell a story. I am not attached to these thoughts. I am not. attached. I'm experiencing them. I can come back to the body, stop the monkey mind. And now that I have this space, I'm going to write my story.

rather than it writing it for me, right? That's a powerful frame of shifting for folks. Again, my research completely aligns with that as well, that the third step of the process people were going through. what the hell is the story I'm telling myself? Does it even align with my reality? And whose story is it? Is it actually my story or is this a story I have picked up and I am carrying because the culture tells me I'm supposed to? And that could be.

your macro culture or a micro culture that you find yourself in. Because I also see people shaming. They get into a jealousy shame loop because they're happening to find themselves in a community that says all jealousy is bad. It's all personal insecurity. Just let it go. And I'm like, oh, oh, sweetie, maybe. again, more compassion about the story being a story. Yeah. And we just need to like, we need to be with it long enough to even hear it. Can I hear the story without believing the story?

Right. So Dr. Nicole, because I get to call you that now. Yeah. So you mentioned self-compassion as one of the ways to help get into that mindset. But are there other cognitive and emotional states in CNM that kind of start to mirror that psychedelic experience of the neuroplasticity and that distance? Have you found that there are particular places where this shows up for people just because it does? Yeah, let's talk about NRE. Right, right, right.

Yeah, absolutely, right? Because the research of the dopamine and how much is going on in your brain, right? It's an altered state of consciousness. You are, wow, like on the trip. It's fabulous, right? And so we can compare a lot of that experience of when you're on the psychedelic, what do you do? You do not change your life.

After one psychedelic trip, people get out and they're like, I want to quit my job and move. And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm moving to Costa Rica now. It's happening. It's happening. Yes. And if that is your truth, it will become clear with time. We don't have to do it the first day. Look at NRE. You meet someone. I'm going to leave. everybody else and this is my person right it's like very simple oh yeah deep breath yeah i'm gonna immediately fold them into my polycule

I'm going to have a baby with them. I'm going to – yes, yes. What are we doing with that NRE story? Absolutely, yes. I'm going to put him on the deed. Exactly. As David Cooley, when I recorded with him, said, wait until people are in conflict and then attach. Yeah. That's a great. Yeah. Very good. Props to David. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. If you can attach with, with, with someone through their conflict style, now we're in it. Exactly, exactly. It's making me think too about how NRE is a time for...

enjoying what is. I've even had people describe themselves to me as like, I think I'm addicted to NRE. I think I'm in it for this. I'm like, I'm not here to label your addictions. That's not my gig. Um, but to be with it and be like, yeah, I I'm in it for that trip. I like, that's what I want. My next question would be, what do I do when, when it wears off?

Like, how do I handle my relationships? What, like, what am I building? Because if that is me, if I'm really like, if I just want to float from NRE high to NRE high. yeah, how do I help other people integrate that? Because I might not be in a spot to be their long-term people. I might not be in that. It's really calling into question for me. Can I make clear what my purpose is? Or does that actually, does that kill some of the vibe for me?

Does that make it less fun? Um, cause I've seen people say the same thing about like taking MDMA is I just want to take it. I just want to party. I don't want to, I don't want to do hard work. I don't want to, I don't want to integrate it. I don't want, I'm like, I see that, but I think they're two different. They're two different experiences. We should probably be aware of which one we're doing. Are we building a polycule or are we dating for fun? Are we partying or are we integrating our soul?

Right. And pick up play is great. Like if someone wants to have that rush of dopamine and play of that sort of experience, right? Go for it, right? There's nothing wrong with having MDMA as a play experience. That's very different than, wow, I want to see a therapist and work on... my childhood trauma, right? Yeah.

that person could do both of those things with the same drug. And again, that's why it comes back to the set and setting. And so for that person experiencing NRE, beautiful, go live into the play of meeting multiple people. And to be a well-functioning human, you have...

to have relationships that exist in longevity, whether those are platonic, romantic, sexual, doesn't even matter. You need to have relationships that live into longevity. And so there will be this space of integration. I've met a lot of people who also like really like

around sexuality. And so maybe they don't have sex with the person that they're with more of a deep, emotional, long-term platonic relation with. Beautiful. Let's deconstruct all the boxes. Cool, right? While we're taking stuff apart. Yeah, exactly. Go for it. Do what we want to do.

do. Do what brings you joy, peace, and care for the community. Because of course, in this space, our freedom is interconnected with community care. We don't just run through polyamory and non-monogamy, not caring about the people in our worlds, right?

important piece um but when you're in that like enjoying it for what it is and then when in the relationships again where you have longevity whether that's platonic romantic or sexual how do we integrate that experience right and so what i do with my

partners and have invited my clients to do is a relationship reflection question practice that we do once a month. And we ask these five different questions and take time to answer them, write them out, and then look back at the previous month. Once we've done it for a year, we look back at the year. very simple questions like, what are you most grateful for in our relationship?

what does our relationship mean to you what are some of the most memorable moments we shared in the last month and so it's really rooted in narrative psychology and positive psychology to focus on your story and what you're doing and to recall those things right because

All of us can go on a vacation and then live, live, live, live, live, live, live and forget the joy. But if we take a moment to integrate, what are some of the memories from that trip, right? Our relationships are very similar if we can take that time.

to integrate, we can feel that joy. Often even in couples therapy, if you ask clients, how did you meet? Tell me your story. You'll see them smile, right? And have that moment or get angry, depending on where the narrative is. Yeah, everything's contextual.

Yeah. They could be in a moment. Yes. There's something so beautiful here that like the word integration, I actually used to not, I went through a whole phase of being like, I just cannot hear that word one more time. I mean, I studied depth psychology, of course. I hear you. It can be used to the point of tedium. However, I think what you're talking about here really brings me back to a lot of joy around the word integration, which is it's an action.

It is a set of actions. It's about what am I actually doing? in order to fold my experience into the whole, in order to bring it actually into my waking awareness rather than just letting it sort of be the undercurrent of my experience. And I want to ask them, like, so what else, what can people do? So I love this idea of anchoring to my narrative and not only thinking about my relationship.

It's really easy to remember the fights. It's really easy to remember the time when somebody slammed the door. It's harder to anchor into, you know, when we just spent that whole Sunday just like chilling. The music was perfect. Nothing happened. And it was glorious. Remember that time nothing happened? Wasn't that great? It's a very different memory. We have seven kids. So the times nothing happens are really awesome. That's great. Love that.

Absolutely. Yeah. What else can people do as active integration practices, whether it's, you know, coming back from a psychedelic trip or just from their non-monogamous altered state? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Every time I do the relationship reflection practice, I'm more turned on, honestly, than ever to my partner. The second we start talking about all those good memories, I'm like,

wow, please come here. It's my favorite erotic practice to do, but I'm also a nerd, so that probably shows. It works though. Yeah. I'm feeling like I'm taking notes. Totally. Totally. I love it. There are so many ways to integrate. So if someone tries to sell you on a prescriptive way of doing that, throw that out the window first to operate. There's so many.

different ways, including journaling, right? Sometimes I have clients who have had a psychedelic experience where they are floating down a river, watching the leaves fall and change through the seasons. And so maybe we'll say, okay.

Is nature speaking to you? Do you want to go on a hike, right? And that's integration and mental health healing to kind of follow these different things. Maybe they felt connected to drumming or some sort of rhythm was coming up when they were in the psychedelic and really moving their body.

Great. Can you do your drumming practice? Right. So that doesn't have to be this prescriptive way of being. I think everyone has that innate wisdom, these things that speak to them, these desires. Right. And so following those. And so when you have a psychedelic. Some of my favorite things to do on it are to play. Yeah.

Okay. We can do therapeutic healing. We can do relationship processing, but wow, we can also play. Again, when that default mode network is down, that childlike part of us can come out and that part needs airtime. And so maybe you're playing.

maybe you're wrestling, maybe you're role playing, maybe you are drawing. One of my favorite things to do is to get some acrylic pen markers and just scribble whatever feels good in my body. And so then we can also do those things after the psychedelic, right? I can draw another. drawing. I can do another play integration. I can go to the beach. It really is following your pleasure and the things that speak to you. There's no one way to do this. Yeah.

I can't actually picture a better description of inviting ourselves into the symbolic life. Yeah. Like really bridging the archetypal layers of psyche with your mundanity, the everyday, right? There is a tendency to separate them as if they're two distinct states of being. They're not, but I think we do tend to box things up. So I love this idea of just like, what is it?

like you said, like is nature calling to you? Like what, what did you receive? Can we now bring that in? Right. So now that word integration is really working for me. Cause I think of, I always think of when I'm baking, like integration is when I'm folding the almond flour in. to the egg whites like at that moment where I'm like oh they are perfectly combined and yet they are each integrally themselves they like they're not they're not

Yeah. I just, I love that. Really, really helpful. Right. It's so needed even, you know, with play in terms of aftercare. I would hope, and I know it's not happening, but this is part of my career, right? That we are integrating our sexual experiences. Wow. really great experience. What was a part of our set and setting? What made this happen? What headspace were in? What container? We had this really great DS dynamic.

great. What were the rules? What were our red, yellows, greens that we were talking about in terms of safety? I hope that we're talking in our aftercare, whether it's psychedelics, sex, or non-monogamy, we have that moment with the metamor.

is at the table. Let's integrate afterwards, you know, what is going on there. And when you're talking about these experiences that kind of mirror the psychedelic state in my own personal life, I will say like, When you have that party where all five or how many of X of your lovers are in your space and you all get to kiss them goodbye, what a high.

What a high. Well, then I think we should all be able to experience more of that kind of love and opening, right, where we have that many people that we feel safe with. And also, what a low when things start to get really complicated. Yeah. The amount of relationships you can be stressed out about. Yeah. Right. Oh my God.

Yeah. Non-specific amplifier. Yes, that's what I'm saying. So it's like really good or really high. And it's just, I try to take a step back. I'm like, wow, my brain is really powerful. There's so many more relationships I could get excited about. So many more I could get stressed about. It's all in my mind. I'm okay. Right. Can I just be here? Yeah. Maybe not write that story so exactly. Yeah. Come back to the body. Back to the body. And I feel that, and I see it, that...

So many of us are just accustomed to pathologizing everything and looking at the problems. And, you know, when they get really into growth, they start breaking apart the problems, figuring out where they came from. And this is true of me too. I very rarely look at some peak experience and say, great, let me break that apart. Let me find out how that happened. Let me find out how to repeat it. What were the elements? I often don't think about that. And what a great idea.

Right. Wedding videos. Think about that within our cultural narrative. That's a very common big psychedelic expander, right? And then people integrate it. Oh, look at our video. Let's rewatch it. And then they feel the emotions, right? So I think doing that with more of our life in different areas, whether it's a... trip physically or mentally, right? These moments of expansion to be able to look back and not just keep going into our lives without reflecting.

Yeah. It's making me think about, we just had a cohort of year of opening. We were talking about debriefing and. You know, the debriefing act so frequently what we're doing is talking about what went wrong or talking about where agreements maybe were either not held or right at the edge or talking about where we're uncomfortable. debriefing all the things that worked.

And I like to even do debriefing sessions where like, let's just talk about the positives right now. And then we can take a break and then we can talk about the negatives and like, but can we like make some space for those? And I hear people in our programs craving. Hearing about the good experiences. The good experiences, yeah. Because non-monogamy is filled with, like the hard stories just get so much more airtime. So I'm so grateful to just make more space for it. Yeah.

And little moments, big moments. There's a lot to be excited about too. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so as our culture shifts with these big things like psychedelics, right there is beginning to be more of a world where we feel. feel safer.

with depending on our privilege to talk about these experiences, right? There's still so much more to do with the war on drugs. So I don't want to undermine that in any capacity. And also we are stepping into a world with more expansion around this where people are feeling safer to talk about it. You got Michael.

Poland's How to Change Your Mind on Netflix, right? Things are changing. And so the same thing I'm confident at this point in my career is going to happen with non-monogamy. It's already happening. My research was showing that the younger generations are really starting non-monogamy. most of their relationships. We're going to vibrate into a new culture where this is much more common.

you know, when you take the psychedelic and the entire time you're wondering if the cops are going to come down your door, that's not the best experience. And so when you're taking non-monogamy and you're like, shit, my mom is not going to allow my other partner to come home for Christmas with me, right? That's a really-

Challenging setting and so we are expanding with both things and I'm really excited for this world of people feeling more comfortable to have more expressive love and expansive Relationships and to play because at the end of the day, it's about embodied liberation whether it's I want to fuck multiple people or I want to take that drug that is about embodied liberation that we all deserve the right to do.

Hell yes. Well, I appreciate- We're better to stop than that. Yeah, that's great. And I appreciate that you two, and I suppose me too, are having these conversations that are- helping expand that out of the world. Awesome. So, Nicole, tell everybody where they can follow up and find out more about you and everything you're putting into the world. Yes, yes, yes. I would love to connect with all of you who are listening.

and who are resonating and enjoying this, I have a podcast, Modern Anarchy, where I produce weekly content. Every Wednesday, we have a new conversation with pleasure activists from around the world. And so you can learn more about that on any podcast player and also... on my website, modernanarchypodcast.com. Yay. Yeah. And we will link directly to also your work on jealousy and psychedelic integration because I know y'all.

want that information but yeah do go check out modern anarchy it is one of my it's one of my weekly downloads and i do not have a lot of weekly downloads so thank you for existing as i said before and i hope you'll come back and talk about relationship i would love to i would love to absolutely thank you nicole yeah thank you

We talk to you all the time. It is absolutely imperative to me that we get to hear from you as well. Yes, please. So we'd love to invite you to join us. Join Ken and I. We're holding monthly Ask Me. things. You can show up. Bring your questions from podcast episodes, from your relationships. Bring questions about non-monogamy, about individuation, about relationship skills. We would love to share space with you. We're hosting these AMAs.

free of charge for our podcast listeners. You are the Playing With Fire community. It matters a ton to us that we connect with you directly. Oh, I would so love to hear your questions. It would be so awesome. Yeah. Go to JolieHamilton.com forward slash AMA and you'll find a way to sign up real quickie quick and get an invitation to join us in a small group where we're going to get together and talk about all things non-monogamy, individuation, and relationships. you