549 - What's Really Driving Your Love Life: The 8 Worldly Concerns
Eight worldly concerns
What if most of our relationship problems stem from eight ancient obsessions we don't even realize we have? Today we’re discussing the Eight Worldly Concerns, which historically stem from some of the earliest Buddhist teachings (around 500 BCE). Simply, these eight concerns refer to four things we desperately pursue in our lives and four things we desperately avoid. These instinctual drives often create the problems in relationships that we’re constantly trying to solve. These concerns are as follows:
The things we chase:
Pleasure (comfort, happiness, etc.).
Gain (material wealth, success, etc.).
Praise (direct compliments).
Fame/good reputation (social status and standing).
The things we run from:
Pain (physical and emotional discomfort).
Loss (either material or status).
Criticism (direct negative feedback).
Bad reputation/disgrace (social disapproval).
Expanding on the eight worldly concerns
The Pleasure-Pain Axis
In relationships, how do we optimize for immediate pleasure or comfort while also balancing long-term growth? Consider exploring the following discussion topics and asking yourself the reflection questions.
Discussion topics:
Avoiding difficult conversations to prevent emotional discomfort.
Choosing partners based on how they make us feel rather than compatibility.
Sexual pleasure-seeking vs. authentic intimacy.
The difference between comfort and safety in relationships.
"Pleasure activism" vs. hedonistic avoidance.
Reflection questions:
When have you stayed in a situation that felt good but wasn't actually good for you?
How do you handle it when your partner needs to have a conversation that might be uncomfortable?
Where do you see the line between healthy pleasure-seeking and avoidance?
The Material Axis
What do we try to gain in relationships?
Discussion topics:
Time, attention, affection, status, security.
"Collecting" partners or relationship experiences.
Scarcity mindset in love and friendship.
Abundance vs. scarcity mindset in polyamory and monogamy.
How financial values alignment affects relationships.
The trap of trying to "earn" love through giving.
Try exploring the following examples as well:
Financial stress impacting relationship dynamics.
Keeping score in relationships ("I gave you this, so you owe me that").
Fear of "losing" a partner to someone else.
Material lifestyle compatibility issues.
Reflection questions:
What are you most afraid of losing in your relationships?
How do financial concerns affect your relationship choices?
When have you treated love like a transaction?
The Social Validation Axis
Ways we hope for praise or good reputation in relationships, and ways we fear criticism or bad reputations.
Discussion topics:
The validation trap in modern relationships:
Social media's impact on how we present our relationships.
Needing your partner to constantly affirm that you're "good."
Making relationship decisions based on what others will think.
Consider exploring the following examples as well:
Direct praise/criticism:
People-pleasing in relationships.
Taking feedback as personal attacks.
The compliment-fishing cycle.
Reputation/status concerns:
Staying in or leaving relationships based on social judgment.
How relationship style choices (monogamy, polyamory, single life) get influenced by social acceptance.
Professional reputation affecting relationship choices.
Reflection questions:
How much do other people's opinions influence your relationship decisions?
When have you stayed quiet about relationship problems to maintain an image?
What would you do differently in your relationships if no one else was watching?
When applying these to relationships, consider the following:
Authentic vs. performative intimacy.
How to receive feedback without defensiveness.
Building internal vs. external validation systems.
Practical Applications
Here you’ll find some practical ways you can weave this knowledge of the eight worldly concerns into your relationships and be more aware of how they might be driving your conflicts:
The Awareness Practice
Before making a significant relationship decision, pause and ask these questions:
What am I hoping to gain here?
What am I trying to avoid?
Is this choice based on fear or authentic desire?
How might I be unconsciously driven by one of these eight concerns?
The Middle Way Approach
The goal is to recognize when these very human drives are controlling us, not eliminate them completely. Remember that you can:
Enjoy pleasure without being attached to it.
Experience loss without being devastated by it.
Appreciate praise without needing it for validation.
Handle criticism without taking it as a personal attack.
Daily Check-In Questions
Check in with yourself daily about these topics:
Which of the eight worldly concerns felt strongest for me today?
How did this show up in my relationships?
What would I do differently if I wasn't driven by this concern?
How can I bring more awareness to this pattern tomorrow?
More reflection
Which of the eight concerns do you most want to work on?
What's one small way you could practice more equanimity in your relationships this week?
How might understanding these drives change how you approach conflict or connection?
In closing, we’re trying to not let these things run the show, not eliminate them entirely. The more we can recognize what is driving our behavior, the more consciously we can choose. As the Buddha taught, the difference between suffering and freedom isn't whether we experience these eight conditions, but whether our minds become "consumed" by them. Check out the companion PDF for this episode as well!
Transcript
If you find any transcription errors, please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Dedeker: There's this quote I've been chewing on for a while, and I'm afraid I can't attribute it because I don't remember where I got it from. I don't remember if it was from Esther Perel. But it's this idea that all change has some sort of loss attached to it, even positive change, even change that you know is good, or even change that you might be looking forward to, there's some sort of loss underneath it. The loss doesn't even have to be catastrophic, but sometimes even the fear of these tiny losses can hold us back from making positive change.
Jase: Welcome to the Multiamory Podcast. I'm Jase.
Emily: I'm Emily.
Dedeker: And I'm Dedeker.
Emily: We believe in looking to the future of relationships, not maintaining the status quo of the past.
Dedeker: Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous, swinging, casually dating, or if you just do relationships differently, we see you and we're here to help.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're exploring the Eight Worldly Concerns four things that we desperately chase and four things that we desperately avoid that have been driving human behavior probably since we've been humans, but has been talked about for at least the last two and a half thousand years. You'll discover why your need for praise might be sabotaging your relationships, or how fear of loss might be creating the very problems you're trying to avoid. And what happens when we make relationship decisions based on social media validation instead of authentic connection. So join us for this fun, historical, yet very relevant discussion today. If you're interested in learning about some of our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show all the time, you can check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships. It covers our most used communication tools for all types of relationships, and you can find links to buy it in print, ebook, or audiobook at multiamory.com/book or wherever you like to get books.
Dedeker: So Jase, you wrote down this opening question or this angle for this episode, and you wrote down what if most of our relationship problems stem from eight ancient obsessions we don't even realize we have? And I really wanted to guess what the eight Ancient obsessions might be. Like, pot shards.
Jase: Shiny stuff.
Dedeker: Amphorae.
Jase: That's one of them.
Emily: Yeah.
Dedeker: Aqueducts.
Jase: Sheep.
Emily: Sheep's a good one.
Dedeker: Seeds. Trebuchets.
Emily: Some of those aren't that ancient. I'm thinking of like biblical times from our other podcast.
Dedeker: Because it depends on how we define ancient.
Jase: How ancient is ancient?
Emily: Yeah, exactly. Unleavened bread.
Jase: I feel like he left out stars. I feel like that's been a big part of ancient Obsessions, to defy you stars.
Dedeker: Yeah, that's probably a pretty old, pretty old ancient obsession for sure. So you're saying the stars are influencing our relationships in ways we don't even realize. You're an astrologer.
Emily: Maybe. Mercury is in retrograde.
Dedeker: When is it not? I swear to God. Yeah, no one ever celebrates Mercury being out of retrograde.
Emily: That's a good point.
Jase: Prograde? Yeah, do we ever walk around being like, Everyone, Mercury is in prograde today.
Dedeker: That's why you're having an especially great day.
Emily: Yeah, bring that back. Cheers to you.
Jase: No, we're not talking about astrology today. Or pot shards. I mean, Dedeker, I do think you have made some peripherally relationship-affecting decisions based on your love of aqueducts. So I do think, yeah, where you.
Emily: All are gonna stargaze.
Jase: Yeah, like where she wants to go on a trip or what she wants to see. Yeah, peripherally related. Sure.
Emily: Definitely.
Jase: Maybe not aqueducts exclusively, but any sort of ancient waterworks. Archipelagos is, you know, not like a-
Dedeker: You are like, I do love an archipelago.
Emily: I know you do.
Dedeker: There you go.
Emily: I know. See?
Jase: There it is. So what we're talking about are these things called the Eight Worldly Concerns, which is something that Siddhartha, also known as the Buddha, came up with 2,500-ish years ago in 500 BCE. And basically the idea was that he wanted to come up with what are the things that affect our decisions and Buddhism is rife with lists of things. There's like the eightfold path and the four noble truths and everything's a list of something, sometimes there's nested lists inside each other. So, you know, don't be overwhelmed by that. We're just focusing on this one list of eight things for this episode here. Since I've already said the word Buddha and Buddhism several times in this opening, I do want to clarify a couple things about that. This teaching comes from Siddhartha, from the Buddha originally, but this is not religious in any way. It's not even particularly tied to Buddhist philosophy to identify these things, although we will talk about some things from Buddhist philosophy when it comes to how you can handle these better and how you can approach these more skillfully in your relationships, but we're not here to talk about Buddhism specifically.
Dedeker: We're sadly not a Buddhist podcast, as much as I would like to pretend secretly in my heart that we are.
Jase: Yeah.
Emily: Yeah.
Jase: We did want to share a fun quote from the Dalai Lama here, which is, Don't use the teachings of Buddhism to become a better Buddhist. Use it to become a better whatever you already are. And that's what we're doing here today. We're going to take these teachings and use them to become better, whatever you already are. So you do not have to be Buddhist or even be interested in Buddhism for this episode to be relevant and interesting for you. So I want to open up a little question for you two. What would you say has been driving your decision making lately? Especially if there's been any decisions you've had to think about, not just like, what am I going to have for lunch? But, you know, where am I going to go on vacation? Or what am I going to do this weekend? Or maybe Should I change jobs? It could be something big, it could be something small. But if you tried to dig down to what underneath that is driving those decisions, what do you think that might be?
Emily: I've definitely thought a lot recently about how fear in general drives us. And I guess what I mean by that is just it drives us often to decide to do things in order to keep ourselves safe or in order to maybe not rock the boat, not, you know, do something that would set someone off or make them want to run away or things along those lines. And I think a lot of that stems from a fear of the unknown. Maybe if you don't know a person that well yet and are not necessarily certain of how they're going to react to something or you're fearful of an outcome not being what it is that you want things along those lines. I'm not sure where that would exactly go in terms of the eight worldly concerns but I bet it is linked to one of them at least.
Jase: Probably several of them, yes.
Dedeker: Yeah, I think I'm in a chapter right now where I've really been wondering about what's next, like in the big picture of my life. What's my next big project? I suppose this is the way that I've been thinking about it and I've been a little torn, you know, like I've had a book proposal that I've been working on very slowly this year, but I've also had some doubts and questions arising of like, do I really want this? Is this really what I want to spend the next chapter of my life on? Do I really want to write another book? I've, you know, been debating since the beginning of the year, like there's a particular master's program, but I've also been like, do I really want to go back to school? Is that is that really the time? And I've been trying to do my homework and be an A student and be like, well, what are my values? I've done a lot of exercises about my values. Let's do some exploration. And it unfortunately still hasn't offered a lot of clarity because I'm kind of like, okay, well, like, this pathway does appeal to, like, this particular value that I have for, let's say, like, achievement, but it doesn't really honor this value that I have of, like, playfulness and freedom or whatever. So, like, I feel like I'm in a place where, like, I'm wanting to be values led in my decision making, and my values are insightful, but they're not really leading me.
Emily: Mm.
Jase: Okay.
Emily: Yeah.
Jase: Well, maybe this episode will give some new ways to look at that question.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: I think for me lately, I've been finding myself with work situations. I think being led, I would say probably in a good way, to kind of temper some of my reactions to things, to not look bad or to not have people dislike me. And I think that that could, if I did too much of that, I think that could be bad. But I do think it's been good holding me back for when I'm just like annoyed about something and I don't really have a good reason for it. It's not like I think this is actually a problem. I'm just feeling grumpy. I'm feeling spicy about it. Kind of keeping in mind, I feel like it's been really on my mind of, I don't want people to think badly of me or not come to me for things or not feel like I'm someone they can talk to about things if I react this way. And so, Actually, weirdly, at first when I thought of this, I thought that's a bad thing. But as I thought about it more, I'm like, well, maybe it actually is good to have a little bit of that there.
Emily: I do wonder in most of what we just talked about, like if maybe there can be a reframing of all of them to a degree. Like sometimes fear is just being mindful and choosing to take your time before you make a decision instead of being reactive about something. Maybe Dedeker, that's also what you're doing. You're looking at your values. You are waiting to really figure out, like, what is it that I want to do in taking the time? Because this is a really big decision to sit with your values or whatever it is that you're stewing over and decide after a period of time and not just do a knee-jerk reaction of, this is going to be the next big thing for me.
Dedeker: I appreciate that. To throw myself under the bus, though, I do think some of the hemming and hawing does stem from a fear actually of like, what if I make the wrong choice? Or what if I mess this up? Or what if I make a choice and I'm actually, this actually isn't what I want and I'm miserable? Like, what if the sacrifices are not worth so, yeah.
Emily: Yeah.
Jase: So let's hop into what these are and maybe we can revisit some of these concerns we've had in light of this. So the idea is, as I mentioned before, there's eight concerns, and that four of them are things that we seek and kind of chase after and pursue. And then the other four are things that we try to avoid or run away from or try to hide from. And so they tend to get paired up in pairs of two, so kind of opposite things that we want or don't want. And actually, I had not heard of this, but Dedeker introduced me to a way to remember these that's kind of a little rhyming poem. It's not really a poem, but it's a little rhyming stanzas, and that is pleasure and pain, loss and gain, praise and blame, fame and shame. Now, don't worry, we're going to go through all of these a little slower. And then also we've created a PDF summary to go along with this episode that will allow you to remember what those eight are, as well as give some examples of each of these, like we're going to be discussing in the episode. So you can get that in our show notes. There will be a link to that. If you're a subscriber, you can get that right away from that link. Or if you're not, you can sign up at multiamory.com/join. Or if you click that link, it'll give you the chance to join there as well. And we have a sliding scale, so it's accessible to everybody, and you can join and get access to the PDF. So you can follow along or go through some exercises at home later if you want. Okay, let's recap the ones that we chase. Let's start there. One of the things that we want. So the first one is pleasure. So that's like comfort, happiness, material pleasures, things like that. The second one is gain, which in this sense could mean success, it could mean material wealth. It could, I would argue, the Buddha didn't talk about this as much, but I would argue maybe gaining like partners or relationships or that kind of validation, right? And then we have praise. Which is what it sounds like, compliments being regarded well. And then there's one that's a little related, which is fame or good reputation, which is rather than praise being kind of a direct someone praising you, complimenting you, fame and good reputation is kind of that, but expanded more socially. Like generally being seen as a good person, an honest person, a helpful person, attractive person, whatever it is, right? Good reputation.
Emily: So I was a little surprised looking at this list because when I think of Buddhism, I think of the whole desire is the root of all suffering. And I guess all of these can maybe fall under desire or what we chase, what we're looking for. But yeah, I was a little surprised that that word wasn't in here specifically or directly.
Jase: Yeah, I think this is more like within desire, these are the things we desire.
Emily: Desire, yeah.
Jase: These are the categories of the things that we want. And then to go to what you were talking about, Emily, of feeling like fear was something that's been coming up for you, that's in these other four, which are the things we avoid, that fear would kind of get broken up into these categories. So the first one is pain, and that's physical or emotional discomfort and pain. And then maybe relatedly is loss. And so that could be like material loss or Status loss or I would say like breakups would fall into that category. If we said gain might include getting new relationships, you know, a breakup or something might fall into loss or losing a job or something like that. Maybe like Dedeker's example of, I made a bad choice and I wasted a bunch of time. That's maybe a form of loss that we would want to avoid. And then next is criticism. So the direct opposite of praise, that's more of a direct negative feedback, negative criticism. And then bad reputation or disgrace, which is the sort of wider social version of that, right? Of generally being seen badly. And I think that it's interesting to look at all of these, and they're, I think, intentionally a bit flexible, right? As we're talking about it, you're kind of like, yeah, I could see that falling into this category or that. And so it's not about, like, we need to diagnose and get to exactly which thing it is, but more this gives us a way to help think about things and discuss things.
Dedeker: So, Jase, which of these do you think drives you the most in your relationship specifically?
Jase: In my relationships? Gosh, I feel like that's a deeper question than maybe you meant it to be. But I think that for me, there's the wanting to seek pleasure or, you know, happiness is driving toward it. But I think stronger than that going against it is more of the fear of criticism or bad reputation, disgrace, so both on the individual level or the social level, kind of this fear of, but I don't want to do something wrong. And not only have this person hate me, but then everybody hates me. This is not a new theme for Jase on this show, but I would say when it comes to relationships, that's maybe where I'm identifying things lying.
Dedeker: Yeah, because I think something I've noticed has come up a lot in my relationship to you, Jase, is I often have these fears that come up around like, you thinking that I'm stupid, or you thinking that I've made a bad decision, or you thinking that, like, I'm not worthy of respect in some way. And so, like, sometimes I don't know if that drives all of my decision-making or all of my moves in this relationship.
Emily: You're stupid.
Jase: I know. I told her she was stupid for thinking that I might think she's stupid.
Emily: I'm sorry. Just again, both of you are, like, two of the most just wildly intelligent people I know.
Dedeker: That's why the stakes are high.
Emily: I think it's maybe to one another's intellect.
Jase: Is it like, that's kind of the idea.
Emily: Maybe to one another's intellect.
Dedeker: Yeah. Yeah.
Dedeker: So, but it does feel wrapped up with its mate, right, with praise, right? Because I also, like, I don't know, I recently learned this year that a praise kink is a thing, and I'm like, Whew, that might be me. I don't know.
Jase: Right.
Emily: Doesn't everyone, everyone likes to be praised except for those people who don't, and it makes them really uncomfortable. And I'm dating one of those people right now, and I want to praise the hell out of him, and it's really hard to. Because he's like, Don't do it. Don't praise me. And I also want to be praised more than I have in past relationships, where those words of affirmation came really easily, but then a bunch of other stuff didn't. And now the other stuff is coming more easily, but the words of affirmation aren't. I find myself craving them, craving direct compliments, for sure.
Jase: I think there were different points in my life where I probably would have identified more of gain and loss being a bigger part. I think those are still present. I think the idea is that all of these are present all the time.
Emily: Yeah.
Jase: But I think there are definitely times where there's been bigger focus, I guess, on different ones of these. So something that I do think is worth pointing out and keeping in mind for this whole episode is the point of this is not to say, these things are bad. It's just to say these things are. To help us understand our sort of desires and fears, you could say, or the things that we want to go toward and want to go away from. And to a certain extent, we should have these. These are good. These are motivating for a good reason, right? If you think about being motivated to have a good reputation versus a bad reputation, if that were flipped, that wouldn't be a very good society or world to be in, right? Like that's not a good setup for humans to thrive. So these things are good to have. It's when we can get overly focused on them or get too attached to certain ones or get kind of sucked in by one of these concerns more than the others or one side more than the other. That's when it can start causing problems in our decisions and our relationships and all of that.
Emily: Do you think that there are times where these might show up differently in, like, your family relationships or your friendships versus your romantic relationships? I think the criticism for me, that's a bigger fear in my friendships. Whereas I feel like you navigate that.
Dedeker: Coming from a place of wanting to.
Emily: Avoid criticism or blame.
Dedeker: Sure.
Emily: Like, I think generally in my romantic relationships, I understand that like, that may come up a little bit more because, you know, we course correct. There is intimacy and intensity there and you're with that person more. And sometimes like, you may piss each other off a little bit more than potentially a friendship where you don't see each other as often. And so if that comes up, it's like, holy shit, I must have done something really bad here.
Jase: Feels worse.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: Oh, that's interesting.
Emily: Yeah. I don't know. For me, at least.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Emily: That comes up, then it feels like, okay, I must have really done something to piss this person off, or I really need to figure out what am I doing wrong in this relationship? Whereas I feel like people get in fights in romantic relationships and they might be able to also say, can we talk about that or whatever? That feels a little bit less intense to me. The loss of that relationship is something that I worry about more in romantic relationships versus friendships or family relationships.
Jase: Yeah, I think interestingly thinking about the loss and gain part of it is I feel like when it comes to a person's time gaining or losing access to their time and their energy and resources, I find that with a friend that tends to be less of a big deal. It's just kind of natural of like, oh yeah, you'll go through phases where they'll want to hang out more or less or all want to hang out more or less. That's more natural. But then in a romantic sexual relationship, whatever, that feels more acute of like, oh no, even this little bit less time or I want this more time or, or maybe I want less time, but I'm worried because I know that loss is going to hit them hard and I don't want it to. But then like the opposite of that is I feel like, you know, breakups suck and are sad and devastating, but like a loss of a friend. Yeah, I feel like is much worse like that. The fear of actually fully losing a friendship to me is a much bigger fear. And when it's happened, like those are the ones I still think about to this day, you know, 20 years after it happened, much more so than breakups that happened the same amount of time ago, or even more recently. Not that those don't also suck and don't also hurt, but there's something different there about the friendship versus like a romantic relationship. Now let's dive into each of these in a little bit more detail. And so Let me kind of lay out the plan. We're going to divide these up into sections. So first we're going to talk about the first pairing, which is the pleasure and pain, the pleasure pain axis, you could call it. And then we'll go on to the gain and loss one or the material axis, even though it's not just material, it's also emotional. So we'll just call it the gain and loss axis. And then because I mentioned before that the praise and criticism and then the good reputation, bad reputation are kind of similar, but on individual versus social scale. We're going to group all those together and kind of talk about that whole group. And then at the end, we'll talk a little bit more if we haven't already covered it, just kind of about some ways that we can help better balance these, I want to call them the humors, but that's not all what we're talking about. But before we go on to that, we're going to take a quick break to talk about sponsors for this show. If you'd like to check those out, please do use our promo codes, use our links in our show description that does directly help support our show. And then of course, if you want to join our community at multiamory.com/join, not only will you get access to the accompanying PDF for this episode and for other episodes where we've been doing this, but you'll also get into our private Discord group, have access to our monthly video processing groups where you can actually chat with people in real time, and early access to ad-free versions of the show.
Dedeker: And we're back and we're gonna dive into looking at how this hope for pleasure slash fear of pain can influence our relationships. When you think about this access specifically, when thinking about relationships, what comes to mind?
Jase: I mean, when you mention pain and pleasure, or I just think no pain, no gain, which I guess gain is in a different category from this, but I think in a bigger picture, it makes me think about the whole idea of no pain, no gain, right? Is that you can't improve without going through some pain on the way to that. And I guess that I'm wondering about in a relationship, just focusing on all the short term pleasure versus like, I'm willing to go through some pain of difficult conversations and stuff to ultimately have more happiness and pleasure in this relationship. And that's anyway, that was my tangent about no pain, no gain. That's where my mind went to is like, Maybe the avoiding hard conversations could be when you're more biased toward avoiding pain, but that ultimately that is going to cause more pain down the line because those things build up, they don't get addressed, they don't get discussed. And then maybe similarly, if you are just focusing on, oh, having a good time, also that kind of dries up over time because it's like, oh, but we're not actually dealing with any of the harder stuff along the way too. And so it's like in seeking one or the other side, you kind of end up losing what it is that you wanted.
Dedeker: Yeah, it just makes me think of, and I think we've all been here, but like staying in a relationship a lot longer past the relationship's expiration date. To me, I often think that's a function of being motivated by fear of pain. And that sometimes leads us to even like be accepting more pain day to day, like being in a relationship that we really don't want to be in because we're afraid of like what seems to be the bigger, more scarier pain of having to deal with our life blowing up potentially, or having to deal with, yeah, like rejection or rejection of another person or like, yeah, all those things.
Emily: Yeah, sure. I mean, I think I had a huge fear of the unknown and just sort of similar to what you're going through now, Dedeker, but on a global scale of my life, like what the heck do I do now if I choose to leave a relationship? That just kind of becomes the norm in your life. It becomes something that is so repetitive and so normal, even if it sucks. And you just are like, well, this is sort of who I am now, what I deserve, what my life looks like. And so I'm gonna keep it going. Where my mind went to immediately for some reason is radar and how the framework of radar, at least to me, has been a little scary over the years because a lot of my radars ended up being pretty challenging and didn't always end very kindly. But I do feel like when done correctly or in the way that it was intended, it can create an ecosystem and a really nice container for people to work on their relationship in a very positive way and to not let all of the little things kind of pile up and instead like work through them, figure them out, make actionable decisions on, you know, what are we going to do in order to change this pattern or fix this problem or whatever, and that the fear of, well, it may be a really long, drawn out, shitty process that might be a little scary, like that fear often would cause me at least to not want to do it. But the reality is this is a relationship maintenance thing that is really great for the longevity and health of your relationship as a whole. And so I think, yeah, again, that pleasure or that fear of pain is something that I often went through when looking at the radar format. And in reality, maybe if I had, I don't know if it would have changed my past relationship in any way, but I do think that maybe in future relationships, I would love to start that process earlier and make sure that I do it often enough and am not like coming at it from this kind of fear-based place, but instead like knowing that it's good for the health of the relationship.
Jase: Yeah, it's making me think too about, you know, we talked about the if you're just trying to have good times and not deal with anything kind of avoiding conflict that in pursuing those good times, you can end up actually just not having a good time and end up having more pain in the long run. But I was also thinking about this situation where you're actually holding yourself back from feeling pleasure and joy and enjoying things because you're afraid of pain. So there's also that version of it where the fear is too strong relative to the desire for pleasure.
Emily: Can you give an example? Because I'm trying to, I don't know if I fall into that category very often. I'm pretty pleasure seeking at times.
Jase: Well, that's interesting you say that, because I actually would put you more in the pain-averse category.
Emily: Sure. I guess I do both, but I.
Jase: Bet it depends on parts of your life.
Dedeker: Of course, everybody does both, but it's yeah.
Jase: Yeah.
Jase: I mean, kind of like I was talking about with my relationship to relationships right now, is I do feel like my fear of pain or fear of some of the other things has been outweighing the hope for pleasure in dating, which has really kind of held me back from putting myself out there very much, like taking risks, trying to engage with people in that way.
Dedeker: You've just watched me go through a little bit of pain.
Jase: I've watched you go through several breakups. Yeah, for sure. But I guess that's what I mean is kind of that, or the whole, well, I really want to do this thing, like, you know, I really want to write a book, or I really want to try to be a musician, or I really want to become an artist or make an Etsy shop or whatever it is. But if I do that, there's a possibility that I'll fail and I'll feel pain at that. So actually avoiding the pain just makes me not do it at all. So I'm not getting any pleasure from doing it, but I'm not getting the pain, right? So it's like by trying to stop one, you're stopping the other. I think we all do, again, we all do all of these things. It's just identifying the ones that show up the strongest for you.
Emily: Okay, let's move on to loss and gain, because I do think that a lot of the things that we talked about with pain also can sort of meld into this question of are we worried about losing something that potential pleasure and the possibility of gaining something great in your life, which one is going to win out at the end of the day? And I do think a lot of us try to like keep things in our relationship steady and secure. And maybe also just choose not to discuss things or tell somebody our real vulnerable feelings because we're worried about loss of that relationship. I know I've absolutely done that before, and that's something that I wrestled with recently. And I think it's something that we all have to worry about from time to time.
Jase: It actually makes me think now putting it in the context of relationships about the whole jealousy versus envy. Thing that we've brought up sometimes where envy is I want something that someone else has. So you could think of that as being the gain side of this, like really focusing on wanting that. And then jealousy is being worried you're going to lose something that you have. So that's being really focused on this fear of loss. And I never quite put that together that there's this connection between this pairing in the Eight Worldly Concerns with the whole envy, jealousy, And where they feel so, or envy and jealousy feel so similar and have overlap in a lot of ways, but they're kind of opposites. And I think that's maybe part of what's going on here. And sorry, my mind's just a little blown by that realization. I've never put that together before.
Dedeker: Yeah, there's this quote I've been chewing on for a while, and I'm afraid I can't attribute it because I don't remember where I got it from. I don't remember if it was from Esther Perel or any of the other podcasts that, you know, prop me up on a daily basis. But it's this idea that, all change has some sort of loss attached to it, even positive change, even change that you know is good, or even change that you might be looking forward to, there's some sort of loss underneath it. I guess maybe to use a stereotypical example might be if someone decides that they want to be sober, even if they're not even necessarily in like the depths of, you know, addiction or substance use disorder, they just want to be sober for themselves, for their health, for their relationships, whatever it is, that, like, there's still a loss of, like, maybe a certain amount of, like, social ease when you could go have a beer in a group of people that you didn't know and would make things easier. Like, the loss doesn't even have to be catastrophic, but sometimes even the fear of these tiny losses can hold us back from making positive change.
Jase: It also makes me think about the relationship that I think a lot of us have to loss and gain, that sometimes there's this assumption that in order for one person to gain something, someone else has to lose it, kind of this transactional zero-sum monopoly style way of thinking about riches. And I mean that in a metaphorical sense. This comes up a lot in monogamy culture versus more of non-monogamy culture of this idea that, like, I remember a question I would get sometimes with non-monogamy is like, don't you think it's selfish to want more than one partner for yourself?
Dedeker: Interesting.
Jase: And I remember just kind of sitting there and thinking about that and being like, What a crazy thing to think. First of all, that had never occurred to me. And then also I was like, But wait a minute, but I'm also not saying that I want to remove them from anybody else by me dating them. Whereas a monogamous person, even if it is just one, you're saying, But I want to remove this from everyone else. And I know it's not that simple, but it's interesting looking at the complicated relationship that we have to loss and gain in a capitalist kind of world.
Emily: I will say the time question is the big one for me often, that when I do think about, you know, my partner dating other people or me dating other people, it's just the amount of time that I have. And it's not like I spend all my time with my partner, but it's all of the time that I have to do anything in my life at all. And so if I add an additional person or an additional multiple people to that, then some of the time that I have in my life is going to be diminished. And I think that sometimes that's where my fear comes in about losing that time and thinking about that versus, okay, am I going to gain new perspective on self, an amazing new connection or whatever it might be? Yeah, we talk a lot about like scarcity and abundance mindsets. And I think generally non-monogamous people like to think that they have this abundance mindset. And I think that That's a wonderful way to live, but we do only have a finite amount of time on this planet, and we do have to figure out how to best use it.
Dedeker: Yeah, it's interesting. I think it's taken a long time in my own non-monogamy journey to when a partner is dating somebody else or starting to date someone else or even thinking about a partner starting to date someone else. Where, yeah, I think that's instinctual to worry about loss. Of course, it makes sense that you might have, especially when there's unknowns, right? Some anxiety around, am I going to, not have as much time with this partner? Are they going to not have energy for me? Are they going to treat this other person better than they treat me? That makes sense to worry about loss. But it's taken me several years to not just go to that place first, but to be able to go to the gain place also, to be like, oh my God, I can finally get some time alone in the house.
Jase: Oh, I see the gain versus the loss in the same situation.
Emily: It's another flip of the narrative there.
Dedeker: I don't know. I'm not saying that that's where everybody needs to be. I think for myself, it's been nice that my brain can at least go there at all these days.
Emily: It is. Yeah, it really is.
Jase: Yeah.
Jase: Yeah. So something that this brought up, too, that I wanted to toss out there and see what you two think is something I've noticed in relationships where things can feel more transactional of like, oh, well, but I did all these things for you, so therefore I'm entitled for you to do these things for me. And this can show up different ways of like, I paid for more things, so therefore you should do more housework, or it could just show up in like, Well, I made you come four times, so like, you know, you kind of owe me now or something like that, right? A whole range of ways this can show up. But I think that again, to think about the idea that by you gaining something, someone else had to lose something. I have noticed that like I've definitely thought this way in the past and I've noticed people where it kind of seems like by doing something for a partner or a friend or a coworker or whatever, there's this sense that goes with it of like, by doing that for you, I've lost something. And so therefore I'm kind of owed, payment for that. Is this resonating at all? This just was occurring to me thinking about, again, the relationship between loss and gain and transactional relationships.
Emily: I think some people think like that for sure.
Dedeker: Yeah, it can be a jerk to be in a relationship with.
Emily: I mean, personally. I was in a relationship with somebody who thought like that, and it wasn't great.
Jase: Okay, so you have experienced this.
Emily: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think just because I don't think like that, I don't think that relationships should be transactional. I think there are times when we do give more and sometimes when we give less and ideally, like, each person is able to lift the other up in those moments. Of course, if it becomes like two on one side or the other, that's potentially a bad thing and something to look at and think about. But I don't think we should be keeping score in relationships generally.
Jase: And so you're against keeping spreadsheets to keep track of all of the things you've each done for each other personally?
Emily: Definitely. Yes.
Jase: I think we're all agreed on that one.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Emily: Yeah.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Emily: I don't know. That's an interesting way in which to live your life. And I think it sounds really exhausting and not what I want to be doing.
Jase: Before we go on to the social validation axis, dealing with the last four of these, we're going to take one more break to talk about sponsors of this show. Thank you to all of them for sponsoring us. Please do check them out. Use the links in our show description. Use our promo codes. That really does help support our show. And of course, the most direct way to support our show is by becoming one of our subscribers at multiamory.com/join. For a sliding scale, you can sign up, you can get our PDF that goes along with this episode, as well as access to our communities, our video discussion groups, early access to episodes, and ad-free versions of our episodes, so you don't have to listen to the ads at all if you don't want. And we're back, and it's time for the Social Validation Axis. So this is the one that's the hope of praise and fear of criticism. On kind of the personal level, and then also the hope for fame or good reputation, however you want to put it, and then fear of a bad reputation, or what's the opposite of fame?
Dedeker: Well, I learned it as shame, right? And that brings it down to, I think, a more accessible level. Not just like an ousted celebrity.
Jase: Shame. Yeah, okay. So like fame and shame, praise and blame.
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: Those are the ones. Yes. So we're going to group all of those together here. And I think that these ones are like the bread and butter of social media.
Dedeker: Interesting.
Dedeker: Sure. Sure.
Jase: That makes sense. This platform to get a lot of praise, even in the form of like a reaction, so easily, so quickly, without actually having to interact with any people in real life. But then also the criticism and the risk for shame or potentially the hope for fame, I guess, like it's all so wrapped up in the social media world.
Dedeker: Yeah, that makes sense. I think the thing that I see most often is when people de-escalate their relationship or go through a breakup, there's often, I think, a power struggle around reputation management in the sense of... How.
Jase: Do you present the breakup to people?
Dedeker: Well, that's some of it. Classically, I tend to think of how sometimes in a breakup, like, neither person wants to be considered the bad guy. And so there can be a big power struggle, a lot of processing, a lot of back and forth, trying to get the other person to understand, no, you were actually the bad guy.
Jase: Right?
Dedeker: I was the good guy. No, I was trying to be the good guy. You were the bad guy.
Jase: Right?
Dedeker: There's some of that. There is some of like, yeah, how you present the breakup to people, what the narrative is. Or even, I don't know, even like, you know, not wanting your partner's family to be upset with you because you broke up with them.
Emily: Right.
Dedeker: And having a lot of discomfort and fear around that, maybe even making some poor decisions, you know, around that, or like feeling the need to have to like directly reach out to their family to like do this like really direct reputation management.
Emily: Right.
Emily: I get that.
Dedeker: No, I did it. No, I did it too in my last like big breakup. I mean, I, I tried to, it was sort of part of the closure process for me where like I reached out to some mutual friends but were more like more of his friends.
Emily: Right.
Dedeker: And like also reached out to his family because we built up a relationship Relationships over the years. And for me, it's more of the closure process of like, these are things I need to say to these people, like thanking them, right? And wishing them well. Was that part of a reputation management? I don't know. I don't think I did it just because I think this is gonna reflect well, right? Or, or this is gonna get them on my side or, or anything like that. But I'm sure that's maybe some of it, right? There's maybe some of like, I don't wanna just disappear and, you know, not be able to acknowledge at least the independent relationship I had with some of these people.
Emily: I do wonder after a period of time how you all feel about removing that person from your social media history.
Dedeker: That's a great question, though. That's a great question.
Emily: Yeah. Because I do, from a reputation standpoint, it's also this question of, like, okay, if you're dating somebody new, or if you were dating multiple people that you want to highlight them, but you still have this old person on your social media that you were with for a while, Where's the reputation question there? Exactly. Do you get rid of that older person? What do you do? I don't know. I haven't done that yet, but I definitely have thought about it.
Dedeker: Yeah, sometimes some posts I'll come across and be like, Ugh. Sometimes just in the moment, I don't know. Sometimes they'll serve up a memory to you, right, of like, this was you six years ago or whatever. Maybe sometimes in the moment I'll be like, Ugh, I'm just going to delete this while it's in front of me. But for the most part, I don't tend to go back and do a big scrub, because I don't think I'm necessarily motivated by I don't want anybody to know I was with this person. Or sometimes I think this can come from I don't want anyone to know I've had a "failed relationship" with this person. If anything, sometimes I'm just like if someone's creepin' on my Instagram-
Jase: They deserve what they get.
Dedeker: A. They deserve what they get. B. Sometimes the way I've thought about it is I'm like, I don't know, I want to come across as someone who had a relationship history.
Emily: You know, I like that.
Dedeker: Right?
Emily: I don't know. Yeah.
Jase: Someone who's had experience.
Dedeker: Who's loved in life.
Jase: Yeah. It did.
Emily: No, that's nice.
Jase: So with all of these, right, they're having these fears and desires is not bad. Having those is perfectly fine. I'm curious about what are some places we could see where we've let one of these or we've seen people we care about let one of these particular fears or desires kind of overpower and then end up sabotaging. Like a fear of criticism, kind of like my example earlier about wanting to become a musician or start an Etsy shop or something. You could also see as like, if your fear of criticism is so much greater than your hope for praise, you'll just never try. I could also see like when we do things like this podcast where we get praise and criticism, the criticism, boy, that feels a lot louder and hits you a lot harder. Than the praise does.
Emily: Oh, definitely. That's a big one. And I think that has caused me to tread extremely carefully and very lightly just to make sure that nothing that I say is going to be construed in one way or another that is going to lead to criticism of me on this show, even though I'm sure that I have said many things that people can criticize. But definitely in relationships, too, I have found that I tread really lightly in order to not receive criticism from someone, especially if that was a pattern of behavior where that happened a lot and where it led to a lot of pain or a lot of hurt or a lot of anger. And so I found myself just trying to be very careful with what I said to not anger my partner.
Jase: Almost, do you think, maybe more fearing their fear of criticism?
Emily: Maybe.
Jase: Yeah, I think that's- More than your own.
Emily: That's a good point. Yeah, realizing that their fear of criticism was so high that it would cause a lot of emotional pain on my part if I were to do that. And I think that's just like a deep-seated insecurity there. But that it's all wrapped up.
Jase: It's all connected.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Emily: It's all wrapped up in the fear. And I think one can lead to the next and the next, of course.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Dedeker: I'm thinking about how we can choose to stay in a relationship based on social judgment, or sometimes we can even choose to leave a relationship based on social Judgment. And I don't think this gets talked about enough, particularly in America, which is a very hyper individualist society, right? And so for better or worse, we sometimes carry a little bit more of an attitude of like, I can date whoever I want. Who cares what other people think? Or at least we have that baked into some of our stories, right? I don't think that's necessarily how people actually behave. But I think in more collectivist cultures, this idea that like who you choose to be in relationship with, especially who you choose maybe to marry, like who you choose to be your central, most visible partner, isn't necessarily just an individual concern. It's like, how does the community feel about this? How does my family feel about this?
Jase: Right.
Dedeker: And so a lot of people can capitulate to pressure one way or the other.
Jase: I feel like a way that that does still show up even in our more individualist culture might be when it comes to things like having kids or maybe just getting married at all versus being together but not getting married, that there is a certain amount of, well, is this going to gain me good reputation or help me avoid a bad reputation or, you know, criticism within my social social group or my family or something like that can definitely, I mean, we've all experienced some form of those sorts of pressures. I think when people open up their relationships or start being non-monogamous, they experience a lot of that.
Dedeker: Of course.
Jase: I'm suddenly opening myself up to a lot more criticism on an individual level from people that don't get it. And then also this fear of on a larger level that the overall impression of me is bad because I'm being non-monogamous, especially when you're first starting out and you don't have as much of a support network and all that. What a journey we've been on through these eight worldly concerns. So now, if we're going to take all of this together, we've discussed, you know, how to observe these, how to notice them, how to maybe pick apart which ones might be overpowering others as we've gone. But I think that the key part here is this whole middle path idea. I'm actually surprised we've made it this far in the episode without saying the words the middle path. So if that was on your bingo card, you now can fill that one in. But the whole idea with the middle path, which is again something that's talked about in Buddhism a lot, is to say it's not about completely avoiding something and it's not about becoming obsessed with this thing. It's finding the middle path there. Or it's not about only experiencing good things or only suffering or only not suffering. It's like finding that middle path. Whatever it is, it's about trying to find this middle path. And in going along with that, I think there's a lot of mindfulness pieces that can be helpful. And one of those is realizing that all of these states, all the things we're afraid of and all of the things that we're hoping for are temporary. And when we're in the moment of it, though, it feels so permanent, doesn't it?
Emily: Tell me about it.
Jase: So one thing I wanted to suggest here is just kind of an awareness practice. And that is when you're finding yourself struggling with some kind of relationship decision or really any decision in your life, or you find yourself just having that question of like, why am I doing this? Like, why do I keep not doing this thing? Or why do I keep doing this thing? Is to maybe take a moment and think either, you know, what is it that I'm hoping to gain here? Or what is it that I'm trying to avoid? And see if you can use these eight concerns to help you dig a little deeper, get a little more specific. Because like at the top of the episode, Emily, you talked about, I feel like I'm being driven by fear. Then this is kind of saying, okay, let's take it another step further. Fear of what? And then what are the things you're hoping for? Just as a tool to help you get a sense of where you are with that and realizing that all of these are part of you, and that sometimes when we're focused on one, we can just become ignorant of everything else. And all we see is that one fear, or all we see is that one pleasurable thing we want, or that one thing we want to gain, and we kind of lose sight of the rest of it, and we end up suffering because of it.
Emily: If you find that you are ruminating on something for a period of time or you can't quite kind of get out of a thought process that maybe isn't helpful, a nice thing to do is to check in with yourself maybe on a daily basis or maybe for that period of time where this thing is happening that is maybe maladaptive to your relationships or just challenging for you in general. You can ask yourself, which of the eight worldly concerns felt strongest for me today? Maybe it was that you were worried about your reputation or a criticism, or you were really hoping for praise and you didn't get it from your partner, and that was difficult. You can ask, how did this show up in my relationships? What would I do differently if I wasn't driven by this concern? And then how can I bring more awareness to this pattern tomorrow? I like that one, so that hopefully we're sort of gently getting ourselves out of that thought process, out of that pattern. And moving more towards that middle path.
Jase: I love that. It's also worth just remembering that everything's impermanent, that everything's changing day by day. You're never the same person. No one else is the same person one moment to the next. And so we are able to inspect these things and adjust these things as we go, and we're not just stuck in that one thing. I want to remind everyone that there is the PDF available. So if you want to go through these exercises, those questions that Emily just read are all in there so you can go through those on your own. On your own time if you want. So you can, again, check that out. There's a link in the show notes to get that. And you can sign up at multiamory.com/join to get access to that. It's available on a sliding scale, so it's accessible for everybody. Go check it out. We'd love to have you as part of the community. And we're really excited to see some of the discussion that comes up around this. And one place to do that is on our Instagram stories, where we're posting our Question of the Week, which is to complete this sentence. I avoid difficult conversations in relationships because I'm afraid of very curious to hear what everybody has to say. Also, if you want to discuss this further, the best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is in our episode discussion channel on our Discord server, where we'll also post this question there, as well as a summary of the episode. So you can discuss in a thread with other listeners, and you can also post in our private Facebook group. Both of those are accessible to all of our subscribers at multiamory.com/join. In addition, you can share publicly on our Instagram @multiamorypodcast. Multiamory is created and produced by Emily Matlack, Dedeker Winston, and me, Jase Lindgren. Our production assistants are Rachel Schenewerk and Carson Collins. Our theme song is Forms I Know I Did by Josh and Anand from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode's page on multiamory.com.