Healed.

They ask in hushed tones if I’m OK, standing still, afraid to open the dusty curtains in case the sunlight is too happy, too much, too bright.  They whisper phrases like “I hope you can heal,” and fuss about the room unsure where to put the cards and flowers.

I laugh, sending a ripple of energy through the room, unexpectedly scattering the brittle petals of the long-dead roses.  Stepping to the window, I fling open the curtains and raise the window to let in the fresh air. “Don’t you see?” I gleefully ask.  “The illness is gone.  I am free of that which held me back and weighed me down.  There is no need to tiptoe about as if I were inflicted.”

I breathe deeply of the coming-spring air and feel myself eager to touch the earth with my bare feet. He is long gone, and so is the drama, the emotional drain, the suffering.  Here in my home is my forever family, and there, outside, is the bold and vibrant world.

I laugh again, letting it ripple through my body, my body so alive and awake and well.

Intensity, Presence, Joy.

One day, you roll out of bed and move through your routine. You make coffee, feed the cats, check email, shower, look at yourself in the mirror.  There is something about this morning that feels different and you realize with a jolt that you are rapidly heading towards your mid-40s.  Your hair is becoming gray and you see wrinkles.  But it’s not the physical changes that disturb you so much as the sensation that life is speeding up.  And, that so much of life is mundane, where the “what must done to become” portions have a spiraled into a list of increasing obligations.  Energy goes towards maintaining your life, as it is, instead of towards contemplating what you truly need and how to get it.

And you crave intensity.  The being-aliveness that you felt in your youth.  The feeling you could conquer the world by achieving whatever you truly wanted.  Life has shown you that you don’t always get what you desperately want.  You’ve grieved losses and learned radical acceptance and compassion for the self and others.  Important knowledge for the journey.

And yet in the prison of routine, intensity has gradually been placed in a cage, built bar by bar.  Suffocating.  Withering.  And still pulsing somewhere deep in your core.

You consider what you’ve learned about presence and how being completely in a moment can free this colorful bird.

You recommit to be fully engaged and exquisitely present for every moment you can.  What is there but the present?  You feel that alertness of the moment calling to intensity, to the vastness in the universe of your heart, to the meadow of your soul.  You feel expansive again, eagerly seeking out the morsels of joy that surround you in music, art, taste, connection, love, lust.

You refuse to settle for less than this.  You have accepted that we will all die.  And you intend to soar, to sing, and to seek intensity, presence and joy.  Until the very end.

Intimacy, Tantra, Surrender

A lover once told me years ago that I had difficulties with sexual intimacy.  Since that time, I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating what she meant and now, on the cusp of a step towards major healing, believe I understand more clearly what she saw at the time.

I am a survivor of sexual abuse which has created difficulties in my ability to stay fully present in the moment, a necessary ingredient for deep and soulful connection.  A secondary effect of that abuse was turning towards self-harm behaviors in a way that negatively impacted my body itself, creating another layer of difficulty in presence.

Now, as an adult who has reclaimed her safety and her body, thanks to some very difficult work and the amazing support of loving partners, I understand that I no longer want to feel any shame or disconnection during sex.  In fact, I want something more than sex.  I want, and deserve ECSTASY.  Not the faux ecstasy created by the fantasy world of porn or our minds, nor the adrenaline rush of intense busy-ness, but the the ecstasy of mindful, focused presence with giving and receiving.

Recently, I’ve resumed reading “Urban Tantra” by Barbara Carrellas and the concepts align beautifully to the work I’m doing in my healing therapy: mindfulness as a core practice for life, non-judgmental stance and letting go of expectations.  The author writes about surrender as a conscious choice, and I understand this now in new light.  Radical acceptance – accepting what is – means that I can now accept what happened to me.  It doesn’t mean I approve of it or am glad.  It just means that I understand and accept it happened.

And now, these battle wounds can heal.  And once again, I can walk.

The Big D: Disclosure in Poly Relationships

My Knight recently wrote an articulate and astute post on the complexities around disclosure.  It’s a topic that has frequently been on my mind, too, along with sharing and integration.  The “monogamous norm” seems to be “don’t-ask-don’t-tell”, causing me to battle a sense of shame I feel when I enjoy sharing.  Furthermore, I do find it difficult to feel safe without understanding key information about my partners and their partners.

What I’ve come to realize about myself is that not only do I need a healthy dose of baseline information disclosed, I enjoy both receiving and sharing out information as it brings me joy to do so.  I relish relaying stories of flirting. I love hearing tales of connectedness and closeness.  I bask in the other loves of my partners.  I really like knowing the details of my partner’s life and what is going on for them.  For me, sharing is not just requirement – but a source of happiness and compersion.

And what I’ve found is that some of my relationships (romantic and otherwise) don’t want to know all the details I’m willing to share.  And they don’t necessarily want to share the level of detail with me that I would be comfortable hearing (and indeed, welcome hearing.)

Areas & Types of Disclosure

At a high level, there are three scenarios of disclosure to my partner.  (Sharing information outside the partnership, i.e. to friends, is more in the area of “confidentiality agreements” versus disclosure.)  Each of these has it’s own approach and in my experience, needs careful discussion.

• Disclosing information about myself.  This may include information about the way I’m interacting with non-partners, casual dates, and friends.  More frequently, it’s around my plans, schedules and the state of my health.  These are areas that possibly impact my partners, so I have negotiated with them what/when they want to know this.  And again, sharing stories of my flirting escapades brings me joy, provided my partner wants to hear that. (I have one partner who does and another who does not.)
• Disclosing information about myself + another partner.  This information could be something that will affect my partner – such as the emotional progression of the other relationship, a change in relationship status (more or less commitment) or even issues and relationship problems that could affect me broadly enough to impact the connection.
• Disclosing information about another partner.  If a partner is having personal difficulties outside the relationship with me (for example with a lover), an increased level of need from that partner could impact my availability or my emotional needs.  Or perhaps there are work/health/life changes.  This scenario can be challenging given varying needs for confidentiality.  For me, this is where integration – or open channels of communication with partner’s partners – can amplify understanding.  Otherwise, I tend to tread very lightly here.

To add further complexity, all the above can be flipped to be scenarios of disclosure from my partner.  There are things I need to know about my partner, about his relationships with other partners and about his other partners.

Finally, I also see areas of disclosure that may need to be separated out and negotiated individually.  For example:

• Safer Sex Status & Agreements
• Activities
• Emotional progression of relationship
• Changes in relationship status / Commitments

Ultimately, I choose to negotiate (and renegotiate) all these points of disclosure with each partner individually.  Difficulties can certainly arise particularly where needs among partners conflict, such as one partner needing to know a level of detail that the other partner does not want shared about them. A challenge not fully resolved although here is where understanding disclosure versus sharing might be useful.

Disclosure versus Sharing

The word disclosure has a slightly negative connotation or even legal definition:  “making of secret information public” or “process of sharing information between sides in a lawsuit”.  I see disclosure as the ‘knowing requirements’ side (as my Knight talks about) – what I need to know from my partner and provide to my partner – in order to be in a healthy, functional and safe relationship.

Sharing can be viewed as a separate component where there is a joyful exchange of information among the sharer who provides information, sharee who receives the information, and if applicable, a “disclosee” who has information disclosed about them or their interaction with the sharer.  This is where it’s important to understand 1) what level of information the sharee wants to know and 2) what level of information the disclosee is ok having shared.

For me, my base level of agreement with my husband is that no one can ask us to keep anything from each other.  (This is articulated in our written agreements and interactions with others.) That said, with my husband as sharee, he does not want certain levels of detail.  I typically start small and if he asks for more detail, provide it.  He also has complete license to stop me at any time with a gentle, “That’s enough, thank you.”

Approaching Disclosure and Sharing Conversations

So how do you create a framework for disclosure that works?  For me, it’s important to know that it’s always a work in progress where I  – nor my partners – will be perfect.  This is where the idea of having a “recovery mechanism” (as my Knight so eloquently puts it) will provide a good safety net.

Some operating methods that have worked for me:

• Identify the areas for disclosure and sharing.  Look across scenarios and areas while recognizing that you won’t be able to pre-identify every possible situation.  Adaptability and frequent re-negotiation are bound to happen.
• Be clear about your disclosure and sharing agreements ahead of time.  Respect those agreements.
• Understand your partners’ disclosure and sharing agreements with their other partners.
• When sharing with someone who does not want extensive detail, start small, allowing them to indicate when the boundary of what they want to know is reached.
• When disclosing, provide adequate detail as agreed upon with the partner so they are fully informed.
• Talk about what you will do when you need more or less disclosure.
• Build recovery mechanisms for when things go wrong.
• Recognize the closeness that sharing can bring and relish it when possible.

Like so much of successful poly, disclosure and sharing is really about good communication. I find it important to keep in mind that the ultimate goal is to create emotional intimacy with a partner so my relationship can flourish.

Who Am I?

Life is movement. The more life there is, the more flexibility there is. The more fluid you are, the more you are alive. – Arnaud Desjardins

Old definitions of the self are falling away.  I am undergoing a significant reset in my perception of myself – one that requires radical acceptance of the way things are.  The shift also requires a non-judgmental stance towards the self, which is extremely difficult.

We live in a society that clings to labels, wanting a baseline for connection, a shorthand of understanding.  The sex-positive community is particularly prone to this approach, in my experience. Are you a switch/top/bottom?  Are you bisexual? Polyamorous?  Masochist? Submissive?  Do you fit my needs?

The labels that mostly fit over a decade ago have now become sadly misshapen.  Trying to keep them snugly attached has become impossible and so, I am letting them go.  Because the answer to “who am I?” is not one that can be answered neatly.

The truth of my present state is that I don’t know.  I have uncovered old wounds that I see now have influenced my path.  I have begun a journey of growth and healing, with the practice of mindfulness as my companion.

In the moment, I can tell you that I feel hopeful and a little afraid. I can tell you that I crave connection – with myself, with my loves, with others, and with the universe. I believe that at my core, I continue to be someone who strives for compassion and explores creativity.

I don’t know where this path will wander, nor where I will end up.  Everything is up for reconsideration.  Unencumbered by a need to map myself to old definitions, I have freedom to ask myself in each moment what I feel, want and need now, how I will choose to be, and how I will choose to love. Right now.

Soul and Body

“I’m not a body with a soul, I’m a soul that has a visible part called the body” – Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

Something in me has changed.  There is a resurgence, a rising of my soul that seeks profound integration with my body.  We are one, and the truth of life and death feels right there, as if it were a word on the tip of my tongue that I can’t quite remember.

I am going to die.  I don’t know when.  But I will.  As I am reminded each time I watch Aronofsky’s The Fountain, the undeniable truth of inevitable death contains the seed of freedom, for there is nothing I can do to change this.

I can, though, change how I live.

I can choose to celebrate and experience pleasure.  I can seek meaning, intimacy, joy, understanding, and beauty.  I can embrace pain as a part of the experience of being alive and choose to let go of judgment (which only creates suffering).  I can choose to forgive myself when I struggle to find that place of self-acceptance and connection.

The fact is, I am already living and changing, each moment.  This practice of coming back to the self, this reminder of my self-intimacy, is a part of my imperfectly perfect journey.  Over and over, I choose to live.  Because I will die.

Connected to the body…

This weekend, I’ve taken time to engage in self-nurturing on a physical level.  That ever-elusive connection to the body is still there, although lately hidden by the intensity of work and other distractions.  As I think about my physical needs, I believe strongly that sex is a part of my overall musts to feel whole and healthy.  Going deeper, I have been pondering what sex and intimacy means to me right now.

In light of my year of gentleness, and in my feeling of nesting, the fact that I crave deeply connected sex, infused with love and romance, is no surprise.  I feel a strong need to have my body worshipped and adored, to see it through my lover’s eyes, and to feel the pureness of physical connection without the brain engaging too much.  A visceral, spiritual connection that transcends the mundane, the thought process of the brain, and the worries of self.

Ironically, my taste in porn has always leaned towards the hardcore and brutal.  My interest in BDSM has been for pain (and service).  Where do these come from?  I don’t have answers right now, but it’s something I seek to understand so I can better let go of any attachments to these concepts of sex that just might be holding me back.  Not that they will disappear completely, or that I think they are wrong, but I don’t want to be reliant on anything external.  I prefer instead the connection of bodies and energies in a real, loving act of celebration.

I’m unsure how to get where I want to go, so am again assuming a posture of gentleness and allowing myself to bend, stretch, flow and see what happens.

The Year of Gentleness

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness, and nothing is so gentle as real strength.”

A few weeks ago, as I was spending my natal day in quiet contemplation, my thoughts kept returning to the idea of gentleness.  After years of pushing and strong-armed efforts to change, I thought, “What if I simply let go and allowed everything to move at the pace it needed to?  What if I were to acquiesce to gentleness, and see what happens?”

Gentleness is quite different from kindness.  My counselor has talked about “being kind to one’s self” and while that has some merit, it also has a few landmines for me in the sense that being kind, or nice in this case, means unhealthy self-indulgence.  Gentleness instead means doing what is best for the self in a loving and compassionate way.

I’ve always been drawn to and periodically active in martial arts.  I love feeling strong, punching and kicking.  And I’ve always hated falling.  Yet, the art of falling is equally important – bending with the force and not breaking.  Rolling, literally, with the punches.  Bringing gentleness to my ferocity in no way makes me weaker.  In fact, it creates a real strength.  For I can bend, and change, and grow.

There are many subtleties here which I will ponder in the coming days.  For now, I yield to the beauty of the coming autumn.