240 The Alchemy of Erotic Jealousy & Compersion: A Reverse-Interview with Dr. Marie Thouin & Dr. Joli Hamilton

Welcome to Playing with Fire, the podcast for people who are ready to custom build their life. We're talking about non monogamy. As an individuation. Want to leave the deal? Yeah. Marie, we're recording. Yay. I was uh waiting for a thing that says you are recording now. Right. I know I'm all it's Zoom Zoom has broken us into that idea. No, we're good. We're recording. We can do whatever we want now.

Yay! Oh hello Jolie. It's so good to see you. It's always good to see you. It's been too long. Life is busy. It's been so busy, so wild. It's like a whirlwind. Yeah. In good ways, but still. Still. Yes. I miss you. And I know you're doing exciting stuff. Yeah, I'm uh back with my research hat for the first time in several years really since I wrote my book and I did additional interviews for my book, which was probably in twenty twenty three, so

I'm super excited to be now like double clicking on a very small part of my research that I did and you know in those previous years about the erotic side of conversion. Yeah and how the Um the turn-on of jealousy can intersects uh in intersects intersect with the turn-on of conversion and how? So as part of this new research project, I you were the first person that came to mind, you know, was like, I need to talk to Jolie. She has a lot to say about this, I'm sure.

I do, I do. I mean, it was part of my um doctoral research as well, the erotic, um, the erotic element of jealousy. It's also a big part of my life. I've been speaking on this topic for a while because it's um It's something that I think though people who feel erotic charge around jealousy often need some permission to like to l allow themselves to feel that juice, to feel that energy. Um, so we need examples. So um I've been pretty uh

uh transparent, I guess we could say. Erotically transparent here. And also, you know, in my study, my original study, I found about thirty percent of my research participants experienced some form of um erotic charge attached to jealousy. And the people who felt that and didn't feel shame around it. seemed much happier with their jealousy overall than people who either felt shame around that or who didn't feel it. So yeah, I think it's well worth exploring.

Oh, beautiful. And actually that idea of like having shame or not around jealousy kind of throws us back into our compass struggle conversation. Right. Right. So much of the struggle, you know, like when folks really want compersion but they are not experiencing it, some of that struggle is the shame.

Absolutely. Yeah. The shame the shame of jealousy, the shame of the confusion. And then when jealousy comes up and it brings a whole bunch of emotions, if one of those emotions Eros, if it is it if is if it is that turn on, if it's lustful, or if it's aggressive and lustful, or if it's humiliation and kink lustful, like all of these can touch on Shame, depending on what other work you've been doing in your in the rest of your, you know, getting to know yourself and your erotic life.

And and as soon as shame is turned on, now we have now we have a hindrance, right? We've got break. Mm. And who wants breaks when we're trying to feel better about something? Right, right, right, right. I love that concept of breaks. It's like the brakes and accelerators and the sexual model of sexual I mean the the model of sexual desires. Yes. Absolutely.

So... I feel like I wanna ask you about both like what have you seen in your research participants, in your practice, kind of like in other people in terms of how people experience the intersection of jealousy and erotic turn on. And I would love also to ask you about your own experience around that. So which one do you want to start with?

Well, I mean, I think starting with my personal experience makes sense because that's actually how my research started. I mean, I I researched jealousy because I was I was caught by it. I was caught in the struggle um of of dealing with jealousy in a in a non-monogamous context where I was I I had

I've been exposed to a lot of ideas that said that jealousy was inherently bad, that it was uninvolved, that it was problematic inherently that and that I needed to get rid of it. Right? Like that's and and you know, when I first came out as non monogamous, it was two thousand nine and I think that the people who exposed me to that idea meant well. They meant like, let's let's get rid of this emotion that can

cause a lot of challenge in non-monogamy. And let's just replace it with conversion. So I worked really hard to try to do that for a while. And it didn't work.

And the erotic side of jealousy is what finally broke through for me. Um so that's that's why I stayed in this. I mean, you've asked me, I think the first question you asked me when we met was like, Why would you study something so dark, so challenging. Like why like'cause you know how long we have to spend with our topic matter. And um Yeah, it was this. It was exactly what you're asking about that kept me compelled and feeling like it was it also had this um

It has a tone to it that is kind of like bittersweet, right? Like, oh, it's you know, it's it's not all bad. There's also this incredible electric energy. So my personal experiences Yeah, I need it. I need I need erotic jealousy in my life, personally. Ooh, amazing to break through kind of the darkness and the heaviness of jealousy and how it can manifest otherwise if there's not that erotic charge around it.

Yeah, and you know, for me also to to really reclaim it. So that temptation early for me was that when I felt jealousy was to go in one of two directions. Either I would go in a shame spiral down into the dregs of my soul and feel like a terrible person and definitely a bad poly person just for feeling jealous.

Um and I was really, really clear. I knew that I was feeling jealousy at the beginning, but then we we just decided to like outlaw the word in our word in our little polycule, um, which did not help. So then I felt even more shame. So and the other direction was that I would masturbate. I would masturbate and I I noticed that my my charge around jealousy was great. I loved it. I like, and that was not problematic. So I had these like divergent paths in front of me.

And the the struggle to like choose one that felt good but but meant that I needed to keep jealousy close to me and the other that felt terrible, like horrible,'cause it was attached to shame, judgment, ostracization, um, not feeling included in my larger polyamory community. Like I felt very othered by acknowledging jealousy. Um and so there were so many negatives.

But that aligned with like what I had been told was like the ideal polyamorous value set. So I was really I was in a h a double bind and it was excruciating for a couple of years. Wow. Wow, so when you discovered you could masturbate and kind of keep jealousy close. Yeah. Were you fantasizing about your partner with others?

Yeah. I mean, so the thing is I I had always had fantasies of my partner, any partner I'd ever had with other people. Like that was part of my fantasy life. But in the monogamous container, I never thought of it as a jealousy fantasy. I I thought of it mm you know, if you look at like Justin Lemmler's work around like what are the common fantasies that Americans are reporting? The most common one is sex with multiple people. Right. So I kind of just lumped it under that. Like

Having a fantasy of my first husband with someone else, well, I was also in the fantasy. Even if I wasn't actually imagining myself as a third in that fantasy, like my it was my fantasy, therefore I was part of it. So for me, that just felt like, yeah, sure. It I it never even occurred to me that it was about jealousy. It was when I shifted out of a monogamous pr paradigm into a non-monogamous paradigm.

And I realized, oh, um, okay, so my partner literally does have other partners. Mm-hmm. And I know about it and sometimes I'm even present like in the same household while they're having sex. Mm-hmm. So it's very, very real. And I really struggled at the beginning with whether I was allowed to find that erotic, whether that was okay, because. Now it wasn't just about my fantasy life and something I was creating in my imaginal world, but about something that was real and was happening.

for my other partners and this it it was a real mind fuck for me. It I like I really didn't know. And I had one one of my partners in particular was very felt v like was very withdrawn and really wouldn't have wanted me including her in my fantasy life. Like that's not the kind of relationship. We had a life partnership, but not a sexual relationship. And So it it was so confusing, Marie, that honestly it took years. It I mean, there's a reason I studied jealousy.

It it took years to calm this out because I was so tangled up in what's okay, what's not okay, what am I doing when I'm bringing that erotic energy and and combining it like l allowing jealousy to fuel that. Like what am I doing? And and also to get out of the story that I was somehow um like fostering a neurotic behavior. Like fostering something bad, something that's like psychologically bad for

Because if we if we lump jealousy under this like, this is bad and you shouldn't have it, then what happens if I'm pulling it in close? Like how do I make sense of that? Even though it was providing me immense relief. from the symptoms of jealousy. Uhhuh.

That's amazing. Yeah, it's a little bit like if you were to think about eroticizing violence and other BDSM context and wonder like, well, is this healthy or am I creating a dynamic that glamorizes violence or, you know, glamorizes something that should not be glamorized, that actually should be.

Dissociated from ideally or something like that. Absolutely. I I mean, now I hold it alongside all of the other kink play that I do. And and playing with jealousy now feels like Um, it it feels like the m the tamest thing that I do in the kink realm. Because because my because my play range now is so different than it was sixteen, seventeen years ago. Um, so two decades ago I would have I would have put this on the like, yes, this is that's big. That feels really erotic and very kinky.

And and also right at that edge of like, yeah, am I am I glamorizing something negative? Am I actually like somehow hurting myself by doing that? And now I'm like, oh baby. You really are n you really are not. But I didn't know. Like I mean I wasn't I wasn't a sex educator in this way then. Like I hadn't received the kind of training at that point.

For me, I still thought kink had to be physical, right? I that's how I thought of it primarily was physical. Yeah. It was years of work to figure out like how

how the psychological aspects were the primary aspects of my at least my experience of kink. Right. Right. So how did you comment out and, you know, like detangle like, oh, jealousy is a bad thing that I should not really be glamorizing or getting off on? to concluding that like, yes, it's okay, it's cathartic, I wanna keep doing that. Yeah. I one of the earliest things that happened was um several months in to living full time in a triad, I

I noticed that I was I was uncomfortable with the fact that we'd sort of banned the word jealousy because uh because it just it was there. It was present. And so I started playing with it. It was probably about a year, maybe 14 months in, that I started playing with it erotically again and like letting myself play with it. And it was. It was not something that I worked through in the way that I would now, right? I played with it, I toyed with it, I journaled about it.

But unfortunately every therapist that I brought it to didn't know what to do with the either. Like they were some of them were I I saw three different therapists where I talked about this in some contexts and Uh they were like permission granting as far as like, well, emotions are emotions and they're just information. But that was sort of where it stopped.

Yeah. And so for me it became like starting to like write about what I was fantasizing about. And then I wouldn't keep those. I I don't have most of those writings. I burned them. So I would write them and then I would burn them. Because I didn't feel comfortable having that. Like, because that also we're talking about when we're talking about jealousy.

if we're talking about real people in our lives and we're eroticizing that jealousy, there's also the the the sort of lived fear of like, yeah, but they're real people. And I

how I interact with them, even in my imagination. Yeah, putting it on page, it was nerve wracking. I didn't feel like that was necessarily the safest thing to do. And I think that was also a it was a bit of an indicator about how much shame and worry I felt about admitting how hot jealousy was and how easy it was to play with. Um so that that went on for probably a couple of years of like just being more playful with it. Mm-hmm. And around

the fourth year that I um around the fourth year that I was playing with it, I finally like brought it into partnership. And that's where I think it started to solidify into, oh I'm not crazy. I'm not like I'm not crazy. I'm not hurting myself. This is just fun, kinky play. And I'd also started doing a lot more impact play and other types of kink play. So I could also contextualize it differently. And that's when it shifted. But the first yeah, years were just um

But a lot of permission granting to myself to feel where's this edge? And then and then watching to see, does it damage my relationships with anyone? Is it is it actually causing more harm than good? And the net result for me was no, it was helpful. It was it was taking something out of the shadow area where I literally couldn't see it, like that's so deep dark back in there, and bringing it out into my imagination and looking at it.

For me, that's always uh that's always better. I I it's it's never a loss. Right, right, right, right. It's like you could rescue jealousy from the shadows through this erotic channel that allowed you to kind of give yourself permission to look at it with that that kind of turn on to fuel or to maybe like dismantle fear. I mean I know that I think like erotic turn on can be almost like a drug where like it kind of you know like tempers down your fear.

Neurology or you know, like it just makes you feel more brave, more bold, more like oh Yeah. I mean we'll do things that we wouldn't do otherwise while we're around. Right. That's just the the nature of the beast. It's why we have to have our safer sex conversations sober and not turned on. Because once you're turned on, you're you're already less risk averse.

So if you're looking to keep your risks in check, obviously, right? So It was it was really helpful and it did work on the fear. Like the the fear that I was working with wasn't it wasn't really about my partner being with someone else. It was about trying to make sense from a monogamous imagination, right? Like so for years I'm trying to figure out like what.

What is love then if it's not exclusivity? What is love if it doesn't follow this pattern? What is what is sexual lustful connection? What is all of that? So as I was doing that, I the fear for me was also that I There was a lot of comparison. in early days, like so much comparison. Like what do I have that they don't have? What did they bring that I don't bring? Was just a sort of undercurrent that I thought just

I couldn't from that version of myself imagine not feeling competitive and comparative all the time. Uh-huh. But bringing it into the erotic. I mean That's true of everyone I've ever had sex with as well. Like they bring something I'm not bringing. We're we're showing up with differences, otherwise it would be kind of odd, honestly. So there was a certain um It wasn't so much about lessening the fear as just making it worthwhile to experience this difference.

To let myself feel how oh no, I can't I can't be them. I can't bring what they bring. I can only be me. Um, but to also see the other, especially my so-called competitor in an erotic light. Yeah, I I mean I feel I feel the the comparison sort of just takes on a different tone then. Kind of like having um so I used to run a lot.

And sometimes I would run and we'd be competing against each other. And then other times we'd be running, but we'd be literally running as a team. Yeah. And it it very much felt like that sort of shift, like, oh. Especially when my partners have partners who like we can at least have there's like space for that erotic compersion to be there. Like we can

I feel tot like they're like they're all in. Like we we all understand that we are erotic beings in each other's imagination. And that's not always true. So I think that's that's where that gets a little tricky for me. Like, oh I don't always want like if somebody doesn't If I hate someone, I don't want to in like if I if I'm feeling antipathy and and violence toward them, I don't really want to play with that energy. It's um

Not with their energy directly, anyways. And that gets edgy for me. That gets tricky because that doesn't mean I don't necessarily feel jealous either. Right, right. So then, you know, you have to deal with the jealousy in a different way. Yeah. At least I mean, for me, there's something about like I I want to observe a sort of um Goodwill, like like while I can hold someone in enough goodwill to be like, yeah, I can play with this because they're not my enemy.

Mm-hmm. They're they're just a they're a person who I may be feeling competitive with, but that doesn't make them my enemy versus someone who I'm like, ooh, I am the villain in their story and they are the villain in mine. That's tougher. That's tougher. And that actually like I think that goes to like another whole level of kink play, right? Where now I'm playing with like violence. I'm playing with my own inner, like the aggression that I feel, not more so than jealousy.

Right, right, that makes sense. And if it's someone who might not be like a total enemy, but they're not really wanting to engage in that, you know, like being erotic people in your s common stories, like do you feel like it's problematic to be then fantasizing about them in your imaginal realm?

Yeah, so I this is I think it's a really interesting depth psychological question, right? Like what are the ethics of of using someone's selfhood imaginally? And I don't I don't know that anybody is even having this conversation in the world, but um I've been wondering about it now for the last 15 years and where I've

the the way that I'm holding it for myself, right? I I I believe that we can only have our own ethical stance, right? Like I I have to make my own ethics brick by brick. Um and if if I If I cannot hold someone in goodwill, then I I don't intentionally like invite them into, like I don't craft fantasy around them. And if they don't want to be, then I I don't.

However, that doesn't mean they won't show up. Yeah. Right? It's like it's it's like asking yourself not to dream about someone. Yeah. The imagination does what the imagination does. So I also don't hold myself responsible for like Yeah, you're gonna be like, especially as you near Orgasm. The imagination does what it does. So but I think there's something different about like cultivating essentially like internal fan fiction.

Where I'm like writing stories inside about the how this person interacts with my partner and all of that. I think that's different for me anyways, than when I'm just like, ooh, spontaneously, that lit me up.

Um so what I do though is if somebody's not in that in that realm of like, yeah, they feel good for me to build that, I just use I just use other, right? Like it they don't have to be a specific person, right? And generally speaking too those are people who I don't have a relationship with, so they can't really build anything anyways.

So instead they become more of like a role. There's like a placeholder person. Like the metamore role is filled by, will now be played by. Insert whatever celebrity what you want. Like it doesn't matter. Um, and I can still play with that same energy.

Yeah. So that's how I've been made sense of it. It's it has not been easy though, because I I do feel some responsibility for how I How I interact with other people's energy that way. Right, right, right, right, right. I I understand a feeling of like, ooh, like is it okay to fantasize about this person? Like just energetically or yeah, it's it's an interesting question for sure.

Yeah, like like I think it is okay. And then sometimes for me it always comes back to and how do I feel about it afterward?'Cause I wanna feel good about it after. So if it feels good for you afterward, great. But like I ha I noticed this sometimes I didn't and that really Um, hasn't happened that often. There's just a like a handful of times. I'm like, oh, that's just not a good person for me to cultivate that energy around. Okay. Luckily there are eight billion other people. So So what is hot?

in jealousy or about jealousy. If we like go deeper into that, like why is it erotic? I mean So I'll speak personally. For me, um, I have I have several like clear lines of erotic tension around disposability, around um being being like it's like the inversion of abandonment, like, oh, abandonment is hot, like being disposed of is hot. There's like it's all the it's all the standard issue like being treated badly, being hit, right? Like if we put it into a

the proper container can be hot. So in the context of a very safe relationship where trust has been built and I feel really good. Yeah, the idea of being, you know, used and thrown away, the idea of being chosen, having someone else chosen over, the idea of of my partner intentionally turning their energy away from me to turn it to someone else.

All of that. Like it's uh yeah, peak erotic for me. Like that's that is right up there with any of my other like high level kinks. It's what I turn to over and over again. I don't think that works in relationships where there isn't a level of safety. Mm-hmm. But what I've noticed is also the like the level of safety only has to be commensurate to the relationship container. Right. So like if I'm a if I'm with a new connection.

And I we haven't really built very much like we just haven't built very much. It can still be erotic, but it doesn't have the same kind of like soul level like this is touching my deepest attachment wounds. This is like this is like fingering your attachment wound. Like right. Like, whoa, that is that is serious. And then it with a newer relationship it's more like

Oh, that's kind of hot. Like the fact that I can't have you and I have you and I can't like that just the tension. It feels more like day to day, like, oh, they're not here right now. So I feel the longing and the pull, the energy, the tension between us. But it d I don't

it's not touching my attachment wounds'cause I don't have an attachment based relationship with them yet. So uh yeah, depends on the context really, like how deeply this can go and how um And how much I think it is about like me versus just the idea of jealousy. Like my particular wounds, my particular like the way this touches me. Yeah. It could be completely different from the way it touches someone else, right? Because Right. Like it's a more embodied experience. Yeah.

Yeah. Versus just like the cultural idea of like jealousy and then and therefore okay, somebody else being chosen over you, your partner turning away, like like the jet like the Just not feeling chosen. Which which I mean even in a not in a newer relationship can still have a like a fun edge. Like I've been at group parties where like there's a there's a lot of people playing and all of a sudden you find yourself in a moment where you're like, nobody's playing with me.

Mm-hmm. Like, what do you do in that moment? Like, do you do you spiral out or or and like this has been inti such a different move for me? But in that situation, if I choose like Oh, I can choose to fantasize about the fact that I have not been chosen right now. Uh-huh. Like, am I willing to stand in this room and find that? hot. Wow. Which is it's like it's searing heat. Like it it even now, like m remembering that, like it I feel the heat.

All up the back of my neck and and like the heat of like that is so fucked up. Like I feel it right now, like ah and really hot. I it's like to stand in a room full of people and allow yourself to be the not chosen one. So, for anybody who hasn't picked up on it in the last half hour of me talking, clearly Jolie has a humiliation kink. Right. Like it's, it's just right. So for somebody who doesn't have that, that move might not work, but it works for me.

And why do you think that your psyche is designed in such a way that your attachment wounds are hot, you know, like our erotic spaces. And I know you're not the only one. Of course, there's a lot of people for whom that you know, like you said, fingering your attachment wound is hot. It creates sexual desire and and tension and like, oh my God, so much energy. Like, why do you think our psyches are designed to do that?

I mean we could just take the the good old fashioned Freudian approach and be like, this hurts a lot, therefore I'm gonna just you know, I'll marry it right up with something intensely pleasurable. I don't see any reason not to believe that. I mean, Freud got a lot of shit wrong, but like that just makes logical sense to me that that's one of the things as a protective mechanism. Like, sure. If you were abandoned, if you were neglected, if you felt humiliated as a child.

that early on I tied that to erotic energy. That I found a way to make it pleasurable. Yeah. How brilliant for my little A five year old self. to like find that way. And I do actually have some evidence of that. Like I there was some of that that was even intentional. Like I can remember um masturbating as a child to humiliation. But I didn't know the word humiliation then I just felt bad.

I didn't like how I felt. It I didn't feel good. Um, I'd been yelled at, something had happened, you know, I gotten in trouble somehow. I didn't know what that was until, you know, I'm in my forties and like, oh, that's what that was. So I think some of it was like a predisposition. I also th you know I mean, I've heard that our kinks are inherited. I've read the research that our kinks are inherited. Um, and my parents, they are both deceased, but they um they both shared

Uh we we had an easy conversation around sex in my adulthood. They they were easy to talk to about that. And um I have no doubt that I inherited. the predisposition, no doubt at all, that my parents both also carried this particular way of being in the world. Um so I don't think it's universal, but It it makes sense to me that also

I don't know, we had like we just moved through the world in certain ways. And I nobody taught me to do it. I just did it. Because I remember doing this like at some of my earliest memories, four years old, five years old. are of of finding ways to bring my body pleasure when I felt like I had been, especially for me, verbally. like condemned, yelled at. So yeah. Mm-hmm. Wow.

And just kind of a side note, that's so interesting, the idea of kings being inherited, would you imagine that they're inherited like biologically or behaviorally? Uh the evidence that I have seen suggests that that likely there is a biological element. I think there's a lot more to find out about this. And then of course. O of course then we're also like we're raised in an environment.

That's going to give us clues about how to make sense of the world. Right. And so I know that my parents both used. Masturbation and sex. as a self soothing mechanism. Like I know they did. And they they could not have used that language. But you know, for where I am now, I look back and I'm like, oh, sure. And then I did, you know, as soon as I started having sex at 16, like, oh, I see that path, that pathway of like

Oh, that's a way for me to self soothe, to feel better about myself, to to to find um a moment of joy in a I was a very depressive um young person. So both. To like it just makes sense to me that it would be a combination. Um and of course the idea that we the idea that we have kinks at all, I mean I I just don't I don't feel at this point in my life, I don't feel any shame for having them.

They exist. They're there. I don't particularly care whether I was born with them, whether I developed them in childhood, or whether I cultivated them later. If they work for me, I'm not hurting anyone else. And I can figure out how to allow myself to grow with them so I'm not stuck and stagnant, then for me, good, great. Like let's go for it. Let's play with that. Right.

Right. Yeah. And let's talk about the transformative nature, the transformative power of kink, and particularly, you know, like when jealousy functions as a kink. Like what do you think happens, you know, to us, like what transforms, like what what moves? Well I think part of it. For me at least, my experience has been that the Shifting from this is happening to me into I am participating in this. Yeah. Which isn't the same thing as doing a power flip where

I this is happening to me now, I'm doing this too. It's not an inversion of the power, but just to move into a participatory role with my jealousy feels completely different. Um there's when when things are happening in my life that I do not feel I have any input, influence, or impact over. I feel powerless, I feel helpless, and that form of jealousy tends to feel instead of erotic, it feels like

like a bell jar being put over the flame. Like it's just shut it shuts me down. When I decide to stand up and and actually participate. I'm alive again. So I don't think it has to be more complicated than deciding to engage in this. I also think that. Recognizing that I am choosing. And that was a huge I okay. If I go back to the very, very beginning again. um of my experience in non monogamy. I was very, very clear that I was choosing

To relate to someone who already had another full-time partner as well as crushes and whatever else. But like I knew and I was seeing it right up close. I was I was living with them. I was day to day in this. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I wish we had kept the word jealousy in our vocabulary because what I was doing was giving myself permission to be right up close to something that the monogamous paradigm would tell me run away or make that stop. So I

As soon as I then grabbed onto it and I was like, oh, I well, I'm not gonna run away. I'm not going to and I I'm not gonna make it stop. I'm here. I chose this and I'm choosing it every day. So if I if I recognize my choice in being in this dynamic that's also creating jealousy. Well, okay. Like I Great. Like that's a a great starting point, right? Like

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not yeah, it's like I love the word participatory jealousy, so that you kind of reclaim agency and your sense of safety inside of yourself. in relationship to this ostracized emotion and phenomenon. So you relate to it like almost like as an adult rather than as a child, maybe. Right. Well and and the jealousy triangle, you know, like

Every part of that every tip of the triangle has a role. So to act as though the jealous one doesn't have a role, or to act as though the others, like the beloved or the the interrupter, they all have a role. They're all really important. But I see so many people take on jealousy as if it's happening in a vacuum. It's not. It's happening in this really dynamic shape where we're passing energy around, even if the other people don't know it. Mm-hmm. There's a lot of energy to be drawn from.

So that's the other reason why I enjoy playing with it and why I enjoy working with jealousy in that way more than in I I have many clients who prefer to work with jealousy in a let's let's like sort of walk back out of it. We'll we'll get ourselves away from the jealousy. And we want to, we're gonna, we're gonna leave that sort of track and move into conversion. But I find a more direct route by allowing myself to not

I don't have to not feel jealousy. I think it's why when we talked about, you know, compass struggle and and about being jealous and compersive at the same time, I'm like, yeah, that's my nat, that's like my most native state. is those two emotions at the same time. Just don't feel their antithesis at all.

Even though they feel very oppositional, right? But but two things in opposition are just intention. They're not like they're not mutually exclusive. So I just find it like it's so direct to be like I am participating in this. I'm gonna actively own my place in it. And also it doesn't have to go away for me to also be happy. Right. Like so what if I can and and maybe not also speaks to the fact that I I was raised with a lot of value around

Being more than one thing at a time. Um, you know, like and not because I was verbally told that, but I always felt at odds with who I was supposed to be. So I had to have like an inner multi an acceptance of multiplicity in order to exist. So yeah. Can I just accept that the jealousy itself It's um It's like it's like having a power bank in my pocket. Like I always have access to that. Mm-hmm. super, super awesome. I've gone through stretches of time with my anchor partner.

Um, where we we're struggling in our sex life, but I can always turn to jealousy as a way for me to find someone like, oh, hang on. It is, it's like having a power bank. Like, wait, I can just use that. So we're we're struggling. Yeah, but I can get really charged up and then I can carry both of Through an erotic experience. Um we've spoken on our podcast recently about um we had like an 18-month stretch of like real challenge. And

My using like leveraging the uh the energy from jealousy was very advantageous. Because I didn't want to disconnect completely, but we're struggling to find our groove. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. And I I mean also it does make it easier for me, I find it It's easier for me to hold the tension of my metamor just being an other person.

Mm-hmm. Like like it keeps them more in the real. They're like they're more a part of my my day to day imagination. Mm-hmm. And that feels that feels calming to me. I don't like when metamores are like blips that appear out of nowhere. And like it feels like, oh wait, I forgot. I for like I forgot how to have you in my imagination. So I like having the the sense of them as like ongoing actors in in our lives. Like keeping them close.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and your research talks about this, like having positive regard for my metamors. I mean, that has been hands down the thing that makes it easiest to feel conversion. And So I have to also like I have to include them in my imagination, not just my erotic imagination, but my imagination at h as a whole. Otherwise, I I mean, I don't have direct relationships with everybody who I am in a metamor connection with. So yeah, like I have to do that.

So jealousy is just one of the ways that I want to hold them in my imagination. Right. Right. That's amazing. So so yeah, I would love to um double click on that connection or that juxtaposition between jealousy and conversion. And how you experience those, you know, in proximity, because I know you've said and I really agree that you can't transform jealousy into conversion? Like it's not the same stuff. Yeah. But how do you see those being related in the erotic realm?

Yeah. Well I think um I heard you were gonna use the word alchemi. Yeah. Around this talk, right? So like when I use that word, I'm using it very specifically um in the same in the sense that Jung would use that word. So to alchemize something is to to bring it into the vessel and to heat it.

And to go through the phases of Negredo, Albedo, uh citronitas, rubedo, like to to go through a process with it. Um But the base material of jealousy is it is generally like fear and anger and sadness and shame and loss and anticipatory grief and I don't have a direct way to go from point A to point B if point B is compersion being joy and happiness and light and vitality. I just, I don't have that.

But I can, I can imagine like an alchemical journey. And this is, I think, what I experience. So when I, when I use jealousy. erotically. I absolutely I'm applying heat, right? At that point, I am the element, I am the alchemical vessel. And I apply heat through passion, through sexual tension through like I'm I'm building that. But in order to alchemize it I actually have to let it

burn me to the ground, right? The Negreto phase of alchemy is total and utter burning to ash. It is not pretty, it is not pleasant, right? So f I To me, the the the experience of jealousy to compersion is is an experience of allowing like a real descent all the way to the depths of the underworld and then to allow that to like marinate and to exist.

And then to experience a return, but not all at once. Not like boom, now, oh yay. I've just like a piece of gold doesn't just pop up out of that. And even an orgasm doesn't give me that like, oh, it's just magically changed. Yeah. It's instead more like the dawning realization. And this is why I think like a more classical interpretation, psychological interpretation of alchemy does make sense because we're talking about the the dawning wisdom of like

Oh, jealousy also has all this power and it has all this charge. Okay. And also my metamor in this in this realm, they're not my enemy. They brought me something. And even though I don't Maybe that the thing I they brought me might have felt like destruction, but also it's pleasure and it's it's all wrapped together. And then to allow that to like really to be in that phase long enough.

then I can eventually see how my my psyche can make sense of it in a way that my metamor is not my enemy and is Yet another way for me to experience myself in the world, right? It's like an yet another erotic mirror is through this. dastardly portal. Like that is rough. Like that's a long descent. And I also don't think it happens all at once. This isn't like, oh, I'm gonna just fantasize about this once and I'll somehow convert this into compersion. For me it's been a a practice of like

over and over again, deciding to cultivate this the sensations of jealousy in my body and decide that I can, in fact, not just tolerate them, but enjoy them. Mm-hmm. And All of that depends on the larger context of my relational life. being one that is safe enough to feel all that heat, to feel all that destruction. Mm-hmm. And that's not everybody's experience of relationship, which is why I would never recommend this as the universal.

um medicine for the trans the the sh transition from jealousy to compersion because if your relational world is not a safe container, if you do not feel trust, if you if you constantly are in a cycle of current betrayal I mean, you might be able to get some charge out of it, but I question whether you'll actually get all the way to conversion because.

you're still being harmed, like in a continual sense. So in that case, I would be looking for other tools to move from jealousy to betrayal, I to, to conversion. Because that betrayal is just going to be like such a Um um it's gonna be a huge cock block for ya. No good. No good. Yeah, we have to heal that betrayal. Yeah, yeah. And and I mean, I I wish that weren't the case, but I'm sure you see it too. Like

N non-monogamy isn't a solution that just stops betrayal from happening. Lots of people are experiencing. unhealthy betrayal based relating while while tr while saying they're doing non monogamy'cause they haven't yet figured out how to relate well. Like putting the label non monogamy on your relationship doesn't magically make you a good relator. Didn't for me, didn't for my anchor partner, didn't like no. So Yeah, in the right circumstances though.

It's a descent to the underworld and a return with new knowledge, a new way of being. And I have found that um the the the experiences build on one another. So my previous experiences. Of working with jealousy and transmuting it over a long period of time into compulsive feelings for a specific person. Mm-hmm. Have left me with a genuine like positive outlook on the possibility that I can build conversion with a partner over time. Yeah. But that doesn't mean it works in every case.

Right. I've still had times where I'm like, nope, it's just not working. I don't feel the trust. I don't like something feels off. There's just something blocking it. So again, like not like a universal solution, even for me, who likes it so much.

It wouldn't just apply it every time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Different times call for different measures. Yeah. But I'm curious, what happens in the underworld that allows you to then, you know, come back and have more room for conversion? Like what is that Alchemical process when you're there, like you've let that jealousy burn you to the ground. Yeah. So I think there's a a a number of things that I ways I could talk about it. To to some degree, it's the unknown and the unknowable. Like

You you experience it to to feel it because it's gonna be so unique, right? I'm not sure we can totally describe this, but Um, but one of the things I have felt is a dissolution of my the ego structures that have kept me safe, the ones that say, I am safe because my partner's choosing me in this way. Or um I am safe because I have security built through this particular rule based relationship structure or whatever like those things. Um, if I allow those parts of me to burn away.

That's I mean that c that's powerful. Yeah, it's like it's in control. Yeah, allowing myself to not be in control. But I think the number one thing that has happened for me, and I I did a really elaborate like breakdown of this on um Girl Boner Radio for August McLaughlin, where when my partner has witnessed me Eroticizing my jealousy and been solid and steady and present through like through an entire erotic exchange.

And they were willing to witness me, ri mirror and reflect back without backing down about their attraction to the other person, their interest, their desire. And in fact, help me like build that. That's been transformative. Mm-hmm. But I but again, not everyone has access to that level of witnessing. So I'm careful to like I would not necessarily suggest that as the way because

It you have to have all these parts, right? Like to have an erotic witness, someone who's willing to hold steady in the face of them. feeling like they're the one who's doing this to you because they're the one who brought this jealousy into your life and to have them hold that tension and stay present and not leave. Yeah. So to play with now being feeling unchosen, disposed of.

And also right there in the moment, clearly experiencing the presence of the presence of being witnessed and having the other there. Mm-hmm. That juxtaposition, like it I mean it's it's such a huge cognitive dissonance. So I think at that point we're talking about like memory reconsolidation. W like it we're we're actually changing what it feels like. Oh, I've my uh my abandonment wound has now been changed because I'm having a new experience and I am relearning what it is.

to experience being unchosen? What if being unchosen doesn't mean you're disposed of? Or what if it and the way memory reconsolidation works is you have to actually elicit the the the neural tag and have a different experience so that you get that dissonance like the dissonance has to be present. And that's I mean, it's not easy to hold all of that. But when you do,

you come out the other side having actually changed. Like things are different. And that's how I that's how I feel. I mean, 15 years later I'm like, oh yeah. And I can I can even point back to say Maybe a half a dozen really peak experiences where that happened. And then in between that, lots of times of meaning making and and like yeah, combing through like what did I get from that and what was like trying to understand myself in the in the intervening times and then these peak moments of like

Oh, now we're rewiring. We're actually rewiring my my brain now. Right. The way you're talking about it reminds me so much of, you know, like the descriptions of I you know, different types of trauma therapy, but particularly psychedelic assisted therapy where yeah, like the memories of traumatic events can get brought back, but in a in an atmosphere of safety, safe witnessing and

you know, pleasure and relaxation so that the memory can lose its charge right and its association to like a really bad feeling. So it's really, really transformative and as you said earlier, kind of this reclamation of more of who you are can then happen in that erotic space and when you reclaim more of your psyche, then you have more room for everything, right? Right. Not just the jealousy or the challenging emotion, but then also maybe like the

Landscape of your inner world can include more conversion because you're just making more room. Yeah, exactly. The the the the container is bigger. Absolutely. Yeah. Wow. This is amazing. Jealousy is a practice. It's uh not for the faint of heart, but I mean, for anyone who's interested in in big kink play though, uh d like anybody who does kink play.

And who does it for the purposes of healing and transformation will recognize there is just nothing that's all we've been talking about the whole time. It's just using jealousy specifically as the implement versus a flogger or a n a cat of nine tails, right? Like it's but but jealousy being the implement doesn't change the actual trajectory. It's and so if somebody were looking to play with this, one of the things I would recommend is really solid kink education from extremely well-practiced.

um teachers from people who understand that it is not just about um, playing with a thing or having even just a scene, but about really like what is happening to your whole psyche, what's going on here and and how do we do that relationally so that it is something more than just I mean it's fine to play with like let's spank a little. That's one thing. But then like if you're gonna do these deep dives.

learn how to actually hold and be held and and that takes time. I mean My anchor partner and I tr we both trained in that specifically because we were having these deep experiences that were transformative, but they also felt like playing with electrical voltage that was way outside our pay grade. Like w we didn't know what to do with the energy we were unleashing. So we had to learn how. Like how how? How do we play with that? How do we make a container safe enough for that? Oh my God.

Really the true meaning of playing with fire. Right. Always, every time, all the time. Ooh, the alchemical fire. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Um, Marie, this is gonna be so much fun. I'm psyched. I can't wait to hear what you come up with. I know you're gonna be doing interviews with other people and I know that you're you're giving a spark talk, right? Yeah, like it's Ignite talk, yeah.

Perfect. I can't I can't wait to hear how it goes and how it lands with the audience'cause totally. It's gonna be on January tw uh thirtieth in San Francisco, but it's gonna be broad stream or uh how do you call it? Like live streamed. Yes. Okay. Awesome. Oh, that's awesome. And of course I'll share the recording and I'm so excited to share some of that Jolie Hamilton wisdom because you've been sharing so much of it.

Gold. Everything you've been sharing feels so potent and alchemical in itself to just hear about it. So thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for for having done all of this work that allows you to then just distill this. precious golden wisdom for everyone to to learn from.

Well, thank you. I'm I am so, so thrilled and so grateful to have your friendship as a colleague and and as a dear friend. And it makes it so easy to have a conversation like this where I can just dive in. I can't I mean, can and I do this week after week, but It's a rare other person that I can go like okay yeah sure I'll just

I just let the walls drop and we'll just go there. So thank you. And thank you for giving me this opportunity to do a reverse interview. It's so such an unusual thing to get to do. So thank you. This was really fun. And I can't wait to hear and

When um when the talk comes up, make sure you let me know so I can push it out to everybody because people are gonna wanna they're gonna wanna watch. They're gonna wanna watch. I can't wait. Oh, it's gonna be so fun. Awesome. Julie and oh my gosh, thank you to everyone who listened. You've done the work, the therapy, the remote. The breakthroughs are the same. Unfinished?

What if you're not stuck? What if instead you're standing at the threshold of transformation but you don't yet know the language to describe what you're I'm Dr. Jolie Hamilton. and guide in the work of individuation. Albedo. The embodiment? Because you were never to fix yourself. You were meant to find yourself. You are the alchemist. And your life is the laboratory.