79 - Polyamory and Spirituality

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Welcome and namaste! This week we are talking about the spiritual side of alternative relationships. Polyamory has long been associated with the free love movement, which in turn has long been associated with the New Age spirituality of hippies. Though modern-day religions tend to condemn polyamorous relationships, there are a number of people in the poly community who closely tie their relationship structure to their spiritual practice. Is it possible to find enlightenment through polyamory?

If you want to support our show, the best way is to become one of our patrons at www.patreon.com/multiamory. In addition to helping us continue to create new content and new projects, you also get extra rewards and exclusive content and discussions.

Check out our sponsor, AdamAndEve.com, and use code MULTI at checkout to get free shipping, free gifts, and support our show.

Go to audibletrial.com/multiamory to try Audible.com free for 30 days, plus credit for a free audiobook download!

Multiamory was created by Dedeker Winston, Jase Lindgren, and Emily Matlack.

Our theme music is Forms I Know I Did by Josh and Anand.

Please send us your feedback and questions to info@multiamory.com, tweet to us @multiamory, check out our facebook page, or visit our website multiamory.com We love to hear from our listeners and we reply individually to every message.
 

Transcript

If you find any transcription errors, please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.

Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are talking about spirituality and polyamory.

Jase: So we've done episodes in the past about religion and polyamory, and this time we're going to kind of go a different/similar route, uh talking about spirituality and polyamory. And this is spirituality meaning, you know, New Age, the free love movement, and its association with spirituality, uh as well as some other things like that.

Dedeker: Yeah, a different/similar.

Jase: Different/similar.

Dedeker: Good way of putting it. It's a good way of putting it.

Jase: Yeah. Totally.

Emily: Okay, I'm excited. Meanwhile,

Dedeker: Yes. Meanwhile, I'm going to start this us off with a bang. When I say the phrase free love, what comes to mind?

Emily: Also, who are you?

Dedeker: Oh, I'm Dedeker.

Emily: I'm Emily.

Jase: And I'm Jase. And when I think of free love, I think of the Beatles.

Dedeker: Yeah? Really? You do?

Emily: I think of the '60s.

Jase: No, I actually think of that one movie. What's the movie I'm thinking of?

Emily: I don't know.

Jase: Where they sing Tiny Dancer a lot.

Emily: Oh, Almost Famous.

Jase: Yes, that's the one.

Emily: That's a good movie. Real good.

Jase: I also think about Forest Gump.

Emily: Really?

Dedeker: Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, I think about definitely think about hippies, like long hair and some feathers and beads and some communes and shirtless guys with long hair and long beards.

Jase: I don't think very much about showers.

Dedeker: Yeah, yeah. Faint smell of like incense covering up BO.

Jase: BO, yeah. Yep, yep. These are all things I think of.

Dedeker: And honestly, that's what most people think of as well. So obviously, the free love movement started in the '60s. It had a little bit of its roots in the '50s when we were coming off of World War II. The '50s was also when the first inklings of the swinger movement was actually starting to happen, surprisingly enough. But yeah, it's interesting because we associate free love with this particular era, with the '60s counterculture movement. And we associate it with many things. A lot of people associate it with irresponsible sex. I know that that era has particularly been demonized for being irresponsible,

Emily: Also drugs.

Dedeker: and not mindful.

Emily: Drugs, exactly, like experimentation with drugs.

Dedeker: But we also tend to associate it with this kind of interesting like hippie spirituality.

Jase: Which is

Dedeker: very much attached to what, like worshiping the earth mother and aligning chakras and yoga and Tai Chi and crystals. So it's the Age of Aquarius.

Jase: Yeah, it's kind of this mashup of things from Buddhism and things from Hinduism and things from paganism and various other kind of basically anything that was not Judeo-Christian was kind of like, let's pull from all of these and kind of throw them all together. And that's something that gets associated with that sort of hippie spirituality.

Dedeker: Yeah. No, the interesting thing, and this was actually something that I found when I was researching my big ol' history chapter for my book, which is that the original phrase for free love didn't have anything to do with sex or with spirituality. Originally, free love started getting bandied about, at least in America, in the mid 1800s. And it had to do, yeah, it had to do with people wanting to be in relationships, but not necessarily wanting the government to get involved. So as in being able to be in a relationship, but not have to get married, which is commonplace for us today, back in the 1800s was like unthinkable.

Jase: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Dedeker: It was very much attached to the very early days of the feminist movement when a lot of feminist leaders at the time were calling out against the institution of marriage, because at that time, the institution of marriage very much was about enslaving women and restricting her rights and taking away her personhood. And so that was the original free love movement. And so the free love movement from the '60s, it did start in some of that as well, because there were many things that were parallel to that, a lot of throwing off these ideas of being regulated by tradition or being regulated by government and being able to explore different types of relationships and different living situations. But now today we kind of just think about sex and drugs.

Jase: Right.

Dedeker: and rock and roll.

Jase: Yeah. Definitely interesting. So then part of this though that it did get associated with this kind of sexual revolution and kind of this idea of moving away from sex negativity or the idea that sex is something shameful or that can only be done when it's in this certain way that's ordained by the church, that that kind of ties into this idea that generally speaking, religion is associated with being anti-sex or, you know, anti-sex, you know, outside of marriage and therefore, you know, is anti-polyamory and I think that that's something that definitely gets echoed a lot in the communities that we're part of is kind of this idea that anything religious is inherently anti-polyamory or anti anything that's not sort of the status quo monogamy marriage centric kind of thing.

Dedeker: Yeah, so that's interesting because I see definitely within the poly community, I see a lot of people whose religious expression comes out more in this kind of a little bit new age-y alternative spirituality. I don't see as many people who do identify as Christian or who identify as Muslim or anything else. I mean, I feel like I've seen a

Jase: Within the poly community.

Emily: Yeah, within the poly community.

Dedeker: Have you guys?

Emily: In that episode that we did many, many moons ago, I thought that we did find a Christian group that identified as polyamorous. Maybe I'm making this up, but I thought that we did.

Dedeker: the Christian swingers.

Emily: Oh, is that what it was?

Jase: Christian swingers is a big thing for sure.

Emily: There you go.

Jase: That's definitely, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dedeker: I don't know if it's a big thing, but it is a thing.

Jase: I bet you it's bigger than you think it is.

Dedeker: Oh no, it probably is.

Jase: Listeners, listeners tweet @multiamory and tell Dedeker if you think this is a bigger thing than she thinks it is.

Dedeker: Tell us your secret sexy Christian swinging stories.

Jase: Yes.

Emily: Yeah. Exactly.

Dedeker: So anyway, that's the thing is that when you do start up the conversation about spirituality within polyamory that most people, I feel like, tend to align themselves with that kind of spiritual philosophy. It's where you see the people who are the tantra practitioners or the yogis.

Emily: And what is that exactly? A tantra practitioner.

Dedeker: Well, people, I mean, we associate tantra. Tantra is a much bigger subject. A lot of people associate it with tantric sex, which is like a meditative form of sex. Which people, I mean, there are plenty of workshops and books and resources and teachers and instructional videos, like tons of things ranging the whole spectrum from pornographic to educational on on tantric sex. But I guess how I would define this is kind of people who align their sexual and relationship life or choices with their spiritual philosophy.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: Yeah. I mean, well, yeah, that it's kind of this question of like, what is spirituality versus a religion? And this is something that actually, with the term New Age, which we've tossed around a little bit in this episode already, that is something that's a bit of an issue of contention amongst scholars even in talking about the New Age movement. That some people, some scholars do refer to New Age thinking as a religion, whereas others think of it more as a movement that had to do with embracing a lot of alternative, less common spiritual practices and beliefs and kind of is it a spirituality

Dedeker: pulling away from the regularly established religion.

Jase: Right, like is it a spirituality or as or is it a religion? And you know, even some sects that were considered New Age had to do with kind of believing that you know, we're descended from aliens and things like that. That there's a lot of stuff that falls under this umbrella of New Age and that some people, depending on their experience, will have those different associations with it. But it still comes back to this question of, you know, is it a religion or is or is it spirituality and what's the difference there?

Emily: Yeah, I mean, is one like a, I don't know, it's sort of a way of being, like you're spiritually, I don't know. That to me seems more like spirituality, although I guess one could argue that religion does the same thing. It becomes a way of life almost, like your moving mindfulness.

Dedeker: Yeah, most people tend to define it as that religion tends to be more of an institution

Jase: Sure.

Dedeker: and that spirituality tends to be more of a personal expression, but there are plenty of people on the internet who will hop all over me for defining it that way.

Emily: Sure, sure.

Jase: Well, there's a lot of different types of spirituality that are very defined and, you know, have a lot of systems in place, I guess.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: So yeah.

Dedeker: But I kind of want to, I want to examine why it is that polyamory and non-monogamy aligns with the kind of more new age spirituality. And I mean, part of it is because of that, is because most established religions are very anti-poly.

Dedeker: And so for people who still have this desire to have some kind of spiritual connection or maybe want to connect to a community, the only option they have left is to turn to these alternative communities. I know in my own research for the book, it was the pagan community in the '70s, '80s, and '90s that was one of the first, quote unquote, religious communities to be very accepting and open of many different sexualities, and of people being like transgender or people being bisexual or pansexual. And so they were also one of the first communities to accept polyamory. It's actually, Morning Glory Zell was a priestess, a pagan priestess in the '80s, and she's credited with being one of the first people to even coin the term Polyamory.

Jase: Okay, which is sort of this unknown thing of who really coined that term. It's a bit of an issue of contention, so that's interesting.

Dedeker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she published, she was a writer for a pagan newsletter and she published an article and that was the first time that we see the word polyamory in print where she was describing this way of having multiple romantic partners. And so it's almost kind of like the modern day polyamory movement was a little bit born within the New Age spirituality movement.

Jase: Yeah. Well, and I think that especially people that are poly, that are of the generation kind of overlapping and just a little bit older than us, their experience compared to ours is definitely even more steeped in that community of New Age spirituality and stuff like that. But I think that, like you said, it was kind of born out of that. And I think that it's becoming now, I think polyamory is becoming now something that's a little more of a lifestyle choice. I also think sort of culturally we have the term lifestyle choice that I think wasn't really a term used quite the same way before, that before it was polyamory, it was kind of more tied up in spirituality, and that now it is more in this realm of a lifestyle choice that doesn't have to be associated with any particular philosophy on, you know, the universe and spirituality and God and all of that.

Emily: I've heard people linking it to like a oneness though, which could, I mean, be connected to God in some sense, but also like people use the term high vibrational thinking and like a mindfulness and a oneness and all of those things. That's what it reminds me of. I'm like the most not knowing person of any sort of religion.

Dedeker: Well, this is actually, this is a good segue.

Jase: It's a good segue.

Emily: It is.

Dedeker: Yeah, because I wanted to talk to our listeners about the fact that the three of us embody a weird contradiction.

Emily: Yes, you're right, you're right.

Dedeker: In that I think the three of us all identify as very logical, relatively left-brained people. None of us are particularly religious or particularly spiritual. In fact, often we tend to make fun of people who are the super, super, like tantra-y, super, super hippie dippy. However, the irony being that we all have some of these hippie dippy influences in our lives that we still do manifest. And so I wanted to talk about that. I kind of want to talk to you guys about what are the more woo-woo parts of your life and how that relates to your relationships.

Jase: Yeah, I mean, I'll start this one because we had talked about this earlier. So before I moved to LA, gosh, seven years ago or whenever this was now, for a couple of years before that, I was a musician and then later became the co-music director at a New Thought church. Yeah, New Thought is specifically, it's also called Practical Christianity is another term for it that's not as common anymore.

Emily: That's what it's called?

Dedeker: I haven't heard that one.

Jase: Yeah. So New Thought is a movement that is, you know, kind of runs a range of things, but it is kind of tied up in basically like this idea that the message, that Jesus was a real person, but that he was an enlightened person just like Siddhartha was or, you know, various other or Thich Nhat Hanh or, you know, other spiritual teachers. But they do believe in a in sort of basically like the secret, right? Like in kind of manifesting things and that like faith healing essentially, but sort of without the kind of rules-oriented way that a lot of religion is. But it is, it's still kind of based out of Christianity. It kind of comes out of that teaching. And for me, when I first started getting involved with this is because it was a job, because they paid me to play music there. Yeah. And uh and I was, you know, somewhat fresh out of college and needed that extra money. And uh, you know, being raised Christian, it was like this interesting thing of like, well, this is a little bit weird. I'm not sure how I feel about this. But I did find that over time, I came to have an appreciation for it. And this particular church where in Seattle, um was one that more so than others really incorporated a lot of different religions. So like in each uh, you know, message, like during that sermon or whatever you want to call it, uh there would be quotes from Jesus and from Buddha and from Thich Nhat Hanh and from uh, you know, pagan teachers and stuff like that. There would be a whole, you know, variety of these things all uh together, uh rather than some other churches in this movement, I guess, are a little more focused on the Christian side of that message. Huh? But it is kind of this idea, though, that there's not this idea that that Jesus died for your sins, kind of in that traditional Christian way, but more that he was here to teach us about how to be better humans or something like that. Uh and so through all of this, this isn't something that I ever really considered myself actively a part of, but it definitely over the years has had a large impact on some of the things that I've learned about and some of the things that I've thought about since then. Yeah.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: So what about you guys? I mean, what what's your connection to this hippie woo-woo stuff that we're talking about?

Emily: I mean, I'm super vegan and super

Jase: You're a hardcore yogi.

Emily: And yeah, and that, I mean, I don't really meditate on a daily basis outside of yoga, but within yoga, there's definitely a meditative aspect of it, as well as sort of like a just being better within the world and living your life in a more mindful way and breathing. And it has absolutely made a huge difference within who I am as a person and definitely like made me at least feel more one and connected with everyone involved on this planet and stuff. And I think more so than I have been probably before, because again, as I've said before, I never ever grew up unlike the two of you with a religious background in any way.

Emily: So to have this other sort of thing, which I definitely wouldn't call yoga a religion, although maybe some people would, but it is kind of a spiritual, you know, way in which to live your life. And I don't know, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. To me, it's been super super enlightening in various ways and made me at least feel a little bit less alone. And that's cool.

Jase: Yeah.

Dedeker: My question for you is because I definitely get the impression from you that your yogic practice is is connected to that. Um, but I also get the impression that your choice to be vegan is not necessarily connected to your spirituality.

Emily: I wouldn't say that it is, no, except um it's connected me more to understanding that life forms in any sense are precious and that the animals that I could be eating, I have no interest in doing that simply because I am a sentient being who gets to choose whether or not I want to eat those animals. And I get to choose whether or not I want to contribute to the factory farming that is devastating this planet and I'm choosing not to. So from that standpoint, um you know, call that what you will if that's spiritual or not, but to me it is it has become like a huge part of my life and I believe very firmly and strongly in it. So that maybe has some spiritual aspects to it, but it at least grounds me to oneness with all things and that's cool. Yeah. And in terms of my relationships, I don't know, I mean, just having like an openness to not feeling like you were the only person on this damn sad earth, you know, and and rather that sorry, that was a little melancholic for this evening, but um, you know, that that you are together with humans and uh, I don't know, that's that makes me happier, hopefully.

Jase: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily: And you, Dedeker.

Dedeker: I mean, for myself, I mean, I was raised quite religiously. I was raised Christian. And then when I stepped away from that and had some periods of exploring, I guess the joke that I always make is that for a long time, I've identified as Buddhist.

Dedeker: just like kind of half Buddhist. Like I have a daily meditation practice and I do have a yogic practice as well. And I think part of my other spiritual practice is also reading spiritual teachers or listening to philosophers and trying to kind of contribute to my own growth in that way. But it's interesting because I feel like how that bleeds into my relationships is almost a little bit similar to your veganism where it's not necessarily directly connected to your spirituality. At least that's not where it started for me. Like Polly didn't start from a spiritual place for me of wanting to connect or wanting to feel like one with more people or wanting to find more like universal love or anything like that. But it definitely has created some ties between those two aspects of myself now, which is something that I think we'll get into a little bit later on in the episode. But we need to take a break real real quick.

Dedeker: So, so in coming back into it, so obviously all of us have a little bit of this kind of alternative spiritual influence within our lives, although not necessarily directly on our relationships. And I want to talk a little bit about why the three of us specifically have chosen to kind of express our spirituality in different arenas of our lives, but not necessarily tie it to our relationships.

Jase: Well, yeah. Okay, so so basically what we're going to talk about now is kind of this this the the problem with getting a little too spiritual. And in our episode about religion and polyamory, we got into this a little bit, and this kind of applies here too. A lot of the things are similar, actually. Yeah. And it's basically this, like we said at the very beginning of this episode, we generally think of ourselves as pretty pragmatic, left-brained kind of people. Uh empirical is the word that I like to use. But basically, it's this idea that there is spirituality, which can be this really helpful thing, or religion, which can be a really powerful, you know, um life enhancing thing for a lot of people. But when taken too far, it can lead people to kind of ignore science or ignore things that have been studied because there's kind of this opposition, this artificial, in my opinion, artificial opposition that's created between spirituality and science or religion and science. Uh and so the the example of this uh that that is a nice illustration of it is um when I was in college, I was in a psychology class and we learned about something called cognitive dissonance. And uh if any of you have studied any psychology, this is a pretty base level thing you learn in psychology. And basically it's the idea that your brain, if it interprets that you think something different than the way you act, it perceives that as dissonance, which means you're like acting inconsistently with how you feel and your brain doesn't like that. So it's either going to change the way that you're behaving or it's going to change the way that you're thinking. So the example of this is that they did a study where people do a really boring task and then afterward are asked to explain to the next person who's going to do this boring task that it was actually really fun. And in one group they just asked them to do it. The next group they paid them like $5 to do it and the next one they paid them $20 to tell the people that it was going to be fun. And they found that the less a person was paid to say that this thing they were doing was fun, the more likely they were to actually say that it was kind of fun later when they filled out a questionnaire about it.

Dedeker: Like when they're asking about their own

Jase: opinion of... Their own opinion about it.

Jase: That they remembered the activity as being more fun, the less they were paid to tell someone else it was fun. So the psychological principle here is that if you, you know, someone asks you to do something and you do it for very little reward, your brain can't justify why you've done it. It's not like, well, I got 20 bucks, so whatever. You're like, well, I did this for free, so I must kind of believe it. Um this is something that's been used in a more, in a more negative way in like prisoner of war camps in China specifically. There are some reports of that, um of getting prisoners of war to turn against each other for like a cigarette or something that then eventually kind of converted them to switching sides, this idea of cognitive dissonance. Anyway, so the story is that I was telling a friend of mine in college about this, uh my roommate at the time. and he got really upset. Like was like very viscerally, like physically upset by this whole concept and was arguing with me against it. And I was just like, no, no, no, this is, this is actual, like there's been research. This is just a, this is science. This is a thing that is. And he just, it upset him so much. And I remember being really puzzled about why it is that this upset him so much. My friend who's, who's like a physics major is like really into science. So it wasn't like that kind of thing. And what I realized about it is that it challenged for him this idea that he was the one in control of himself. that like everything that he thought or felt was entirely in his control. that it challenged that idea, and that to him was so threatening that it actually made him angry. It actually made him upset. It was one of the few fights that we ever had, actually. Uh and I think that with a lot of things relating to, you know, science and religion and logic versus spirituality and science versus spirituality, it's the same kind of thing. Um and like Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about in Cosmos a lot that this idea that explaining the science behind how humans work or how the universe works doesn't take away the magic of it, it adds to it. And in the same way with this, with just like gravity, that when we learned about gravity, it didn't make us all of a sudden less powerful, it made us able to utilize gravity to our advantage. And the same with this, with understanding cognitive dissonance, I found for myself that since having an understanding of that, it gives me a better understanding of myself, and it allows me to weigh my feelings in a different, more educated way than if I felt like, no, I have to hold on to this belief that I'm entirely in control all the time and that there's no other factors that can control my feelings.

Dedeker: What it reminds me of is I actually had a conversation about this with a partner once, talking about NRE, about new relationship energy. And I know we've covered that on the podcast before. I was explaining to him that, well, it's this chemical process and this fires off and then that fires off and it lasts for this long. And he got upset because he was like, well, that's very unromantic.

Jase: I've gotten the same reaction.

Emily: It kind of is, yeah.

Dedeker: That makes it less special. But honestly, really the way I feel is like, no, I think it's freaking awesome to know this stuff because that means that because I know it, I can actually enjoy it.

Emily: Yeah, knowledge is power.

Dedeker: Exactly. It loses its power over me and now I can actually enjoy it. And so it's kind of like I know, okay, well these chemicals are only going to be in my system for six months to a year, so I'm really going to enjoy them. But then also when those chemicals go away that I don't have to have that moment of panic of oh my God, am I falling out of love with my partner or do I not have my partner anymore?

Jase: Absolutely.

Dedeker: Knowing what's going on behind that feeling of falling in love actually empowers me to to feel more free to fall in love, which is an irony.

Emily: Yeah. That's cool.

Jase: Definitely. So when we're talking about this kind of the dark side of spirituality is that it can also, just like religion, lead to this resistance to thinking about things more scientifically. It can lead to this kind of magical thinking is the term for it. This idea, this magical thinking that in thinking that you have more power than you actually do. And it's this kind of, it's a tricky thing where it's like, I think for a lot of people we have more power than we believe that we do, but in certain other ways, people can start to think they have more power to kind of affect the physical realm in a way that they don't. And so there's sort of this

Emily: I'm going to pray for something.

Jase: Right, like praying for something, that there have been studies that have been shown that with people who are sick, where they have, you know, a control group that doesn't do anything and then a test group where people are praying for them and they found that the group that had more people praying for them were less likely to recover from their sicknesses.

Dedeker: Really? Yes.

Emily: I wonder why that is.

Jase: In the same way they've done studies with people who do affirmations of like writing what your ideal life is like and what you imagine, you know, like writing as if you already have the things that you want, which is what affirmations are about a lot of the time. Also, studies with that have shown that people who write about their life as if they already have it are less likely to get those things than people that don't do that.

Dedeker: Huh. Right.

Jase: So there's a lot of scientific evidence to go against both of those. And let me just clarify, I don't think affirmations are a bad thing. I do them myself. But I think that that knowledge, again, like we were saying, knowledge is power. And I'm saying this as someone who's from that whole camp of the the New Thought Church.

Dedeker: So to bring it back around to how this applies to relationships, I think that my big criticism that I see in people who so closely tie their spirituality to their practice of polyamory is that there's kind of this sense that you're tapping into this big source, right? And I mean, honestly, you are. Because human love is this amazing, far-reaching, cosmic, undefinable thing. It really is this thing that is so much bigger than us and that we constantly try to understand and yet we can't because it's so much bigger than us. But at the same time, relying on that to be the only thing that makes your life work or that makes your relationships work, I think that leads to a lot of heartache. Because I really believe that some people kind of have this feeling that, well, just this big cosmic love is just going to be enough. you know, that no matter how bad the relationship might be, that as long as you have love, it's going to be okay.

Dedeker: Or traditional relationships. Yeah, yeah, and obviously, this is like people who are not huge hippies are guilty of this thinking as well.

Emily: Yeah, sure.

Dedeker: And of course, we don't want to leave our listeners with the impression that we're like totally knocking any of these things, because obviously all three of us, you know, take part in these things in our daily lives and in our relationships as well to a certain extent. The big thing that I would want to leave our listeners with is to reassure you that polyamory and non-monogamy is not a more enlightened or a more spiritual way of living by default. There are some people who will try to tell you that, that it is more spiritually connected, but it's not. The difference is that the people who are the most effective at poly relationships and the people who honestly are most effective at relationships in general are people that happen to have a lot of qualities and a lot of habits that we associate with enlightenment. Things like being non-reactive or having good emotional management or being dedicated to personal growth or having patience or choosing compassion. These are all things that are really, really great for relationships. And they're also things that we happen to associate with people who are more enlightened or people who are more effectively spiritual. And so, I mean, I don't know. I guess the big takeaway would be that I do think that your relationships and your romantic life and your sex life can be an access point into spirituality. However, I do think that it's healthy to keep those things a little bit separate, personally, for me. That's just my own thing about all y'alls.

Emily: You just named off that list and I was like, need to work on that, need to work on that, need to work on that.

Dedeker: I think we all need to work on that. We all need to work on that constantly.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: Yeah. Yeah, well, I think, yeah, I think that that it's definitely, what you're saying is that idea that, you know, these are all things that we want to work on and we all feel like we need to work on. And it reminds me of the thing about meditation, that it's called a meditation practice. It's not called a meditation achievement.

Emily: Or performance.

Jase: That it's not something that you figure out. It's not like, oh, I'm failing at meditation because it's hard or because my mind wanders or something. It's called a practice because it's always difficult. Like you're you're always getting better. And I think that something we talk about a lot on this show is the idea of self-improvement and improving your self-awareness. And, you know, even if that's painful sometimes or you don't like the things that you're figuring out, I know I go through that a lot. of like, I don't really like all these things that I'm figuring out, but I always am motivated by improving myself and therefore improving my life and improving the way that I affect the world and my partners and my relationships with everyone, whether they're romantic partners or not. Yeah. Yeah, that it's that that sort of connection with with self-improvement and uh

Dedeker: And that doesn't necessarily have to be connected to spirituality.

Jase: Right.

Emily: No.

Jase: Yeah, that it you could approach it in a very logical, scientific way, or you could approach it in a more spiritual way, and that both of those are good paths to it if they motivate you and if they feel good to you, um but that because you're in one doesn't mean you should entirely write off things from the other, I guess. Like our our thing is always kind of this middle road between the two extremes, you know?

Dedeker: Yeah. Well, anything else?

Emily: I feel like we covered all of it.

Jase: Yeah, this was a big one. This is, again, as always, this is a topic that I would love to hear from you guys about. We might talk about this some, you know, in our future discussion groups, talk about people's spiritual practices. What is it that you do? Do you feel like that's connected to your relationships? Also, let us know. Send us a tweet at multiamory on Twitter, or send us an email to info@multiamory.com, or you can reach us on Facebook at multiamory, or just comment on our website and you can find all our info there. We'd love to hear from you guys. Really, we do. We try to respond to everything either in an email or by addressing it on the podcast. We really appreciate hearing from you. It helps us to come up with future topics and helps us to steer this show. You are all part of our community and we love you for that.

Jase: Thank you so much.

Dedeker: All right. See you next week.

Emily: All you need is love.

Dedeker: And does that with some throat singing? Some throat singing, Jase.

Jase: Okay. I took a class in Tuvan throat singing in college. Here you go.

Emily: He's so good at it, watch.

Jase: Now you psyched me out.

Dedeker: Come on, come on. Let's hear it.

Emily: Good night, everyone.

Dedeker: See you next week.