Microdosing Our Way Forward 👅

What happens when two married scientists question the relationship script they were handed and crack open a door they never knew existed? This is our research phase and the experiment is already changing us. Welcome to the partnership lab where we study love, partnership, and consensual non -monogamy. Think of this podcast as a relationship lab notebook.

filled with real -time observations, experiments, and what we're learning along the way. Our discussions may include explicit language and sexual content, so listener discretion is advised. Welcome back to the Partnership Lab for episode 13. I'm Roz.

I'm Max, and it's been a minute since we recorded. Hot second. Unlucky 13 took a minute to get it recorded. Yeah, it has We've been super busy with just like back -to -school stuff.

We had some illnesses. We were Everyone in the house was like going through and then we took a family vacation But we have still had a chance to do some little nuggets of open relating type of activities, so We thought we'd make this episode just like about what we've been up to and a little bit about those things that we've been doing. Yeah, this one's going to be a little bit of a potpourri for the Jeopardy fans or a grab bag. But I think there's a lot of stuff that we did that is worth talking about.

And as we kind of put together the outline, I was getting more excited because I was kind of recalling a lot of the activities we'd done in the last four weeks or so. And a lot of these like activities like they're like small quizzes or like workshops we attended and just like information we've gleaned from a bunch of different resources and new things that we've like just happened upon and so we'll go through them. But yeah. Do you want to start with maybe like a Scottsdale update?

Because that's kind of like our next event that we're going to. Yeah, definitely. We're about a month out now. Outfit items are being purchased, which is always one of the biggest parts of these parties.

How are you feeling about the outfit part of it? I'm feeling pretty good about... I have all my things ordered. Nice.

So... when they have to come, I just have to make sure everything fits the way I want it to. And I was going more for like on theme, but comfortable because I feel like maybe I was like pushing myself a little too far in terms of like my own. This just might be a woman thing like.

What do I wear? Well, I feel like I want to wear this outfit like in the moment, you know, so It's like I always feel like I need to have Like a primary and then like a backup So you're referring to Toronto you felt like maybe you went a little Outside of your comfort zone for what you picked. I think that's why I just brought a lot more than I actually wore Yes can confirm options. Yep Because I didn't know how Was gonna be feeling like in the moment like for that specific day or for the event or whatever Like did I want to go with something like super super sexy or was it gonna tone it down a little you know?

And I just I just want to feel comfortable So I'm my most confident self is basically what I was trying to achieve First round like and only bringing one outfit because it just takes a lot up in your suitcase. Yeah, so yeah Yeah for me, I think I've got Some items that I've picked out I haven't actually purchased them yet You're saying you've had a hard time because you feel like women have more choices well certainly with the neon cowboy, I think there's another one that was like it's white hot and then Lace and leather and yeah, so I mean those are pretty male friendly, but the neon cowboy one's tough because It's like, do you go...

Like, if you want to go with a theme, you really kind of have to go for it, I think. And you have to be, like, really fringy or, like, bold with the colors. I think there's going to be a mixed bag. I feel like some people are going to go for, like, 80s, like neon.

Right. And then some people are going to go totally Western with it. Right. Yeah, it's hard.

It's hard to make it look Western and also neon. So I right now I'm thinking like chaps with something maybe like sexy underneath on the bottom and then like a fringy Tassely shirt and maybe some like neon accents that way it doesn't feel like Super super revealing but there is like a little bit of like cheekiness there literally so I My another thought I had is I had ordered my outfit for the neon cowboy But I think I'm gonna see if I can try and order some like blue like neon that I can like attach To like the leg or Some sort of somewhere like on my outfit.

I don't know. Yeah, so I think the neon is pretty a fun thing to do Mm -hmm. Yeah, I'm assuming it's gonna be black lit which Like sequin isn't gonna really show up in that so you really got to go bright If you want it to or I mean white would work to white would be pretty but the other nights white too Anyways point is I've got a full Amazon cart that I've not pulled the trigger on but the clock is ticking So I'm I need to do that soon Yeah, some other thoughts I had about Scottsdale was just you know I went through the the guest lists pretty extensively and took a lot of time and I know you did as well of like picking out a couple folks that we thought like it might be nice to reach out at them beforehand just like say hi see if they might want to just hang out and you know we sent a message to them it wasn't anything like super sexy it was just like hey we liked your profile we you know saw you're new or Whatever appealed to us from them And we've gotten one response and I was honestly like a little bit disappointed by that but I feel like so if if you've never been to like an in -person event or if you're going to it's like an all weekend like takeover or something usually like month or so maybe a little bit more than a month or so like before the event you'll either be in like a telegram chat or some sort of like group chat Yeah Where you get to like meet the people who are going and you can kind of start to like make a few connections like through the chat or app or whatever it is and Honestly, I feel like that chat has just been like to do Tuesday Home Day Wednesday, it's very DTF feeling and not so much like, hey, this is what we're about and trying to make connections.

I don't know, I guess. It's just been really physical, which is not really. It's actually turned me off entirely. So any time I get a notification, I'm just like, whatever.

Yeah, I'm hoping that there's more Like I'm hoping there's like a couple people who are participating in the chat that are doing that and then there's a lot of folks who are gonna come who are Chiller, you know, I've been kind of like invisible. Yeah happen. Yeah, right I'm hoping that that's there because you're right. It is a little bit intimidating when You know, you're just like getting bombarded by all these like sexy pictures.

Oh, it's like every day Yeah, I mean it's not like it's once a week. It's no there's every day. It doesn't a day of you know tit picks or They're pretty chill with the dick pics I think that's like out of respect for the women but there is a lot of nakedness and I'm it's kind of like I Don't know without the context of knowing that person it isn't particularly exciting which is interesting to me because that's kind of in contrast well I think also just like if your brain's not in a sexy place and then it's like constantly your watch is like hey like titty Tuesday you're like okay I'm at work but yeah so I guess the last thing I would just ask is And we're going to talk about this more in the next episode, because that'll be our Scottsdale prep episode.

But given all the stuff we've just said, do you want to share maybe a little expectation or hope that you have and get into it a little bit more next episode? I think the expectation or, I guess, what I want to get out of it. this time is just like more exposure like just talking to people who are also open or in the lifestyle or whatever and just calm those like conversational nerves of like meeting new people all the time and kind of doing the small talk thing you know like what are you into and then that could not necessarily is like a sexual thing it's like what hobbies do you have like where Where do we, like, cross over and what can we talk about to, like, build a connection?

And, I mean, there always doesn't need to be one, but, I mean, you have to have those conversations so you can have something to grab onto to... Right. It makes conversation a hell of a lot easier if you watch the same TV show or have, you know, both do... Or, like, you have interest in the same hobby, anything, really.

I would say that's a good goal. I was a little bit surprised, like... not Not as like a criticism, but that was something I thought you would excel at and it was something that was a little bit challenging in the Toronto trip so I think it was probably just your whole like nervous system was a little bit dysregulated and so hopefully this time kind of chill that out and like be your charming beautiful amazing self and Like just talk to people like I don't have to be I don't have to be anything.

I'm not no and That's okay. Yeah, like if you don't vibe with someone it's fine You're totally charming. I'm I think that's like the people pleaser part of me that I'm trying to get over. Yeah Because it's like oh, they don't like me I have to change something about myself like that has been a decades thing that I've had and I'm just trying to break that so it's hard to do Yeah, you can't just do it and within like one go so But I think what would help with that is giving it a go as yourself and getting positive feedback, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. So I think for me, it would probably just be like being more in myself and like focused less on you, not focused. entirely on myself and not at all on you, but it was almost like That you're too worried about me.

I was almost entirely thinking of like how you were feeling if you were enjoying yourself that I wasn't really and and that is also kind of a decades -long thing for me is like if someone is unhappy I have to fix it and I can't be happy unless everyone around me is happy and if someone's not happy it's obviously because of me. So yeah, there's a bit of an old wound there too that I'm going to work on. So yeah, that's the Scottsdale update. And again, the next episode will be almost entirely about that, but what else have you been up to?

We just recently attended a Expansive Connections workshop about bisexuality, which was put on by Expansive Connection and Monogamous Marriage, Kate and Liam. That was really good. I wasn't sure what I was really expecting out of it, but... as someone who is kind of landed in like the bi -curious like area like I'm not sure if like before this like I wasn't really sure if I would call myself bisexual but bi -curious like I'm pretty comfortable like with that if you want to put a label on it um but I actually thought it was really good and I actually just really love how Kate and Liam this is the first time I've really gotten to like talk with, like, Liam in a group setting.

I mean, I think I met him, like, at the Women's Retreat for, like, two seconds because he was, like, one of the drivers. Yeah. Yeah, worth mentioning this is Kate, who put on your Women's Retreat, which was back in episodes two and three. Yes.

So I've met her before. Yeah, the one who flogged you. Yes, she flogged me. Yeah.

So I just really love their, like, perspective and, like, take on... Like going just going through these things and figuring out like your own Definition of things and like how you feel like What fears or what labels mean like yeah all the things that go along with that and We really got into also kind of like the stigmas that people hold With either like heterosexuality bisexuality lesbian like lesbianism like just all the things combined yeah and how honestly confusing it is because if you knew from like an early age like you like guys or you like girls or you like both or whatever it is you it just gets so muddled with society expectations and things like that it's like okay I don't even know anymore It's like am I choosing this because that's the expectation or is it because of what I actually enjoy and That's what I like Yeah, and I think we talked a little bit about Like you can't I didn't really want to use the term lesbian or bisexual because I just don't feel like I'm gay enough or You're like unworthy of the label Because you didn't do X Y or Z like with whoever mm -hmm Which I think is like really important because I do kind of Feel like that like I can't really call myself bisexual because I haven't really experienced That Yeah as a whole it was like well, and we also talked about okay if you say Like I'm bi curious or bisexual or whatever.

It doesn't mean that So for example if I'm talking about myself if I say I'm bisexual It doesn't mean that I'm going to want to be bisexual with every woman that I come across. It's simply It's just like I'm not gonna want to be with every man that I come across if I was heterosexual the same Thing applies but for whatever reason we don't feel like we can use those terms because we haven't done, like haven't had sex with the same gender or something like that. Right. And that would be like saying you couldn't call yourself heterosexual until you had sex for the first time.

Right. And like, that's not true. Yeah. You know?

We just went through a lot of like nitty gritty things like that. And it was just very thought provoking. Yeah. And we did do, um...

Well first we had we had everyone as a group and then we had some breakout sessions where the men and women like went into their own little session To just discuss like a little bit more. Do you want to talk about the men's one? Yeah, and I'd also be interested to hear the women's one. So The men I think there was like five or six men including Liam and He had us start by talking about our current interest level and by by play and each guy is like origin story more or less and Nearly all of them Were way more experienced in the lifestyle than we are so a lot of it was like we were doing this swap and like we you know, we're Had two guys and one girl and are like dicks were touching like that was kind of the origin story for a lot of these guys It wasn't that they went in Super attracted to men.

It was more just like they wanted the freedom the sexual freedom in the moment to kind of Not feel like there was boundaries Which was interesting because that does really kind of make it more of a situational thing And then we also talked about our partner's current level of enthusiasm with sort of guy on guy interaction. And most of the guys actually said that their partners were like more enthusiastic than they were about it, which was surprising to me because I always thought that...

This was like a marriage ender if you reveal to Like a female spouse that this is an interest and maybe it would be in sort of a more Vanilla normal setting but in this case again, it's a pretty biased sample set but All the women were super into it in this setting And that kind of goes back to like the compulsive element of open relationships. And we talked a little bit about compersion, because we took Marie Tuin's quiz. The worksheet. Or did the worksheet.

And not everyone always starts there, but you sure can like... get there after like having some experiences and finding out like oh this isn't as scary as I thought it was gonna be and actually like I'm super happy for you like you don't have to really get any like sexual pleasure from it but if you're just simply happy for your partner like getting something that they've always wanted to experience and hopefully it was a good experience for them and it's like a win -win basically.

That's really nice. We also talked about common fears and the common fear with men, all men, all men in this group, and I think most men in general, was that their women would see them as less than, not as masculine or as manly, if they were to share this interest or perform a particular act in front of them. So yeah, it was Unfortunately, it was really short. We only had I think 15 minutes and with five guys, you know, that's not much time I would like to talk to Liam more one -on -one because I find him very Thoughtful and I really like when he speaks on their pod.

I think he's like very matter of fact without being like This is how it's going to be. Well, yeah, and it's not like in your face. Like there's some other, there's some other pods that kind of give the details almost for like a shock value or like to get you off type of thing. But he just shares them as like, this is what happened.

These are the facts. This is how it made me feel. And I don't know, I just really like his delivery, but. I guess that's just really a lot more of our vibe though.

Being over like, just give me the outline. I'll make. what sense of it I will, like from my own perspective, yeah. Yeah, he definitely comes across as a thinker, which is part lane.

What about the women's breakout? Someone had brought up, it's called the skirt club, so I guess it's like they plan events in like different cities and it's for bisexual women only and it's basically like this dinner party. With play potential like after and I was like, that's cool. I didn't I didn't know anything about it.

There are a few um People that were there that were talking about it. I was like i'll have to look it up. I guess um, so we talked about that for a little bit and then also it was just like We just were talking about if you had like an earliest Like memory of like a sexual exploration or sexual fantasy And kada just shared one of her Experiences I think that she's probably talked about on the pod also She just remembered like being attracted like to women and then Just let's many many many years later.

She was like, oh that that's what that Lesbian word means like am I that like so it was just like kind of a realization of like, huh? That's interesting and Sort of like a self -discovery sort of story. Yeah And we talked about kind of the more performance aspects, like for women, because I feel like men's bisexuality is, like, suppressed in society, whereas, like, women's is, like, expected. Right.

Fetishized. Yeah. It's, like, thumbs up, you know? And so we talked about that a little bit and I realized like because we were talking about okay like how does it how do you guys feel like when you're around like other women and men like at the same time or if you're like around men only or women only and I was like I know just from the women's retreat that I just I felt very comfortable around all the women.

Yeah. And if there was a guy in the room, I would have not felt like that. So we just talked about like the more performative aspects of like being bisexual, like as a woman or even like if you're a lesbian and only like women, like it just feels you just feel much more comfortable around women in general. See, we talked a lot about that.

Let's see. I don't know, it was just a really fluid, like, conversation. We didn't have, like, any, like, super, like, bulleted points or anything. Yeah, same.

But they also didn't realize the meeting was going to be that day either, so. Oh, I feel so bad for them. I know, I do too. They have so much going on.

Well, okay. But we did take a quiz. Yeah. It's called the Kinsey Quiz.

And we'll link the... Quiz website like in the show notes and everything so you guys can take it if you want. So basically What it does it you have it was pretty short like seven questions. I think yeah seven questions And it's just like how do you feel about this and then you would rate it?

Yeah, so an example would be And this is actually from the quiz so it'd be to whom are you attracted and the answers you could pick from are both men and women Mostly people the opposite sex mostly people of the same sex Only people from the opposite sex or only people from the same sex. That's one example of a question There were six more. So other ones would be Who have you had sex with who you had sexual fantasies about with whom do you form strong emotional bonds? Who do you feel most comfortable socializing with?

And then the last two questions had a different set of answers you could choose from. So the question was, the idea of having sex with someone of the opposite sex from mine, and then there was also the same sex from mine. So those are the last two questions and your choices were desirable, interesting, tolerable, negative, or disgusting. I thought that was a pretty like strong word to use.

It's an aggressive word, yeah. And so... It takes these seven question seven questions and your answers to them and puts you on a spectrum of Sexuality Which I thought was pretty cool. It was cool When you're growing up and you're like learning about sexuality kind of like for the first is either like you're gay or not gay or heterosexual or you're not like there's only two choices, right and so Let me tell you what the outcomes could have been and then we'll tell you where we scored.

So you can get anywhere from 0 to 6 with 0 being exclusively heterosexual and 6 being exclusively homosexual and then 1 through 5 are in between there. So 3 splits the difference down the middle and means you are equally hetero and homosexual. That would be a true bisexual. Then to the left of that you have one and two.

So one is heterosexual with incidental homosexual tendencies two is heterosexual with more than incidental homosexual tendencies and Then four and a five are basically just the inverse of that. It's homosexual with more than or just incidental heterosexual tendencies So I hope that was clear. If not, you can take the quiz yourself and see Yeah, it has like the chart everything on it, so. But where did you land on there?

I was a two. And so was I. Yeah, and I kind of, as we were like talking through the workshop and everything and hearing like people's perspectives and things, I kind of started to realize that I don't really think it's like a gender thing for me. It's really more like based on the person.

I think in general, I feel like women physically are more attractive. I would agree with that. Like as a whole. But I, again, I don't necessarily think when like I'm thinking about like connections and like making friends and stuff.

It's not a gender thing. That's interesting. That would... I mean kind of fall in the pansexual category that's the definition of that is it's You don't really determine your interest based on gender Yeah, you know I was interested with my result because Kate flashed up a slide that said 93 % of men who take this test score a zero Which would be strictly?

Heterosexual with even no incidental homosexual tendencies, so they would be answering questions to these like only Attracted to people the opposite sex only have had sex with people from the opposite sex Only have fantasies about people from the opposite sex, but I kind of wonder How much of that is like really true? I wonder that too. Yeah, because with as much fear and stigma as there is about men wanting or being attracted to other men and who are like also attracted to women I feel like it's not so much like being gay like so much anymore but I think there's like even more stigma pressure fear whatever negativity for bisexual yeah Well, it's because you're like not gay enough for the gay guys and you're worried you're gonna ruin your chance with the women and so You go from what Kate and Liam said was oh now you you have the entire room to choose from to like Do I have any of the room to choose from you know, that's the fear at least?

Yeah, so we wonder how much of those answers were actually like well I don't want to be this not that they knew like the outcome of the quiz but still I think you kind of like Can get in your head it could be like a subconscious thing too. Like you haven't opened yourself up to The possibility. Yeah, even though it's the interest is there Yeah, so yeah that was all in all I thought that was a really interesting evening to spend together with them. Any final thoughts on that before we move on?

The only thing I was thinking of was I just love like these little workshops things. I mean not all of them I'm really gonna be like gung -ho about but when you're trying to understand yourself and you just need like a guide or like other people to be like oh hey like how did you discover the you liked men or you liked women or you know what I mean like going in alone is not a good idea you need like this is where the community part comes into play where you can like get other people's perspective because other people have had different experiences than you especially if you're new to it like we are one something I don't know, something as important as this where I feel like a lot of people have suppressed feelings.

Um, just having someone make a space where you can like share your thoughts and you feel safe to kind of speak openly feels really good. And also it feels really fun to do it with your partner too, cause if they learn something about themselves and you're there to see it then I don't know that's like the one of the greatest joys of my life is like every time you Learn something about yourself and share it with me or I can share something with you like after 20 years, you know, it feels Like oh, there's still stuff to learn, you know, yeah, we're you know, like were you nervous when we were in the workshop like Having to like chat about it like with me like physically be sitting next to you yeah or so you liked the breakout where we got separated i did yeah yeah i mean i'm not kidding when i say like this you know i i thought if this was something we ever talked about that it would like be the end for us and so You know the remnants of that fear is still there but Yeah So thanks to Kate Liam for yeah putting on that nice workshop, what was the next thing we did we also So this is not within the same like workshop.

This is a completely separate thing that we did on our own. We max found a, it was like an E &M placement quiz. So it's from FetLife. And basically it was like a bunch of questions.

A bunch, 34 to be exact. Ranging from you would like rate each question from like strongly disagree to strongly agree and like the series of prompts evaluates like how Like where you are on the spectrum of being like kinky Polly or like swinger and This one like really surprised me because I was like Really? Because I don't think yeah, I don't know. Yeah, so it's a tri directional spectrum It's a triangle.

And the three points are kinky, poly, and swinger. Those are the three extremes. And what it's trying to do is place you within the triangle kind of where you fall on all three of those spectrums. So a little bit of a different presentation than we're used to with spectrums, but so.

What was your, uh, outcome rise? I got the polyamorous. And it was literally like, it was like less than a sentence. It was like here for the Amory connection love.

And I was like, what? I mean, it was like all the way in the corner. There was like no middle at all. It was poly like all the way, the farthest you could be.

I was like, yeah. I mean, I get that I answered a lot of the questions where like I want to like be familiar and make connections and things like that. But I was like, I don't think I ever will be Polly at this point in my life. Yeah.

Mine was the Demiplayer. I think player is kind of a weird. word to use but what I was surprised by was how far away I scored from kinky which is my like kind of go -to on a lot of these quizzes but I think that's explained by FetLife being a little bit well not a little bit a lot more advanced in like the kink exploration than I'm used to so the questions were phrased in a way Where I probably was disagreeing with a lot of things just because I didn't really have any experience with them That's always a tough thing to like if you're new and you're trying to take some of these stuff and you have never Like seen what they're talking about or sometimes I didn't even know what the term meant and so that can be kind of tricky because You're not really sure like what should I say?

for it like I'm not going to say like agree because I've never even done it. Right. And then I was right in the middle between Polly and Swinger and I believe the demi and demi player is a reference to demisexual which I don't have the definition in front of me but I believe that means you need to have like a mental connection with someone before you have like a more physical connection and I would say that's Probably pretty accurate Yeah, so I want to stress that this is this quiz is self -proclaimed as being non -scientific And in the FAQs it was asked like why was this made and their answer was because we thought it'd be fun so You know if you take it yourself take it with kind of a grain of salt But I will say that I wasn't actually all that surprised by your result and the reason is because Basically all the way through what you've come back to describing over and over again with variations is like a friends with benefits or this majestic like Commune, you know or Friends that like we travel with and sometimes maybe do stuff with and like that is In this realm on that spectrum is about as far probably as you can go because the other side is like I don't want to know your fucking name I don't need to see your face like just put your dick in me and then we're gonna be done and you are I am NOT there.

You're as far from that as you could be so, you know, maybe you're not like talking about having multiple You know romantic relationships and things. Oh, yeah That was a new one that I had not heard of as nesting partner. Yeah That's me, I'm your nesting partner All right, so yeah, those are Our two quizzes down a couple other things we've done We have this new Cut these are gonna be quick, but we have this new follow on Instagram. Her name is Aria Diana, I believe And she's a somatic relationship coach She posts some really thoughtful things on Instagram.

We went through some of the posts that she put up previously after we followed her, and two of them stood out to us. One was one I shared with you, and then I think one was one you shared back. So the one I shared with you was a series of posts that she put together about microdosing ENM, which ... I thought was an interesting way to phrase it because microdosing is typically something you would think of with like a psychedelic or drugs or something like that.

But basically she was saying that not every E &M experiment has to be one that, you know, shakes your core. And that simple exposure may be enough to imbalance you at times. And I think what we do a lot of the - It was, I think it was, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. It's okay.

But I just think it was like more, it's like you don't need to do something big for it to be challenging for you. Right. I think that's what she was, even small things can imbalance you a little bit and that's okay. Like you don't have, not everything has to be like earth quaking.

But I think it. was also that it can be meaningful. Like it can have a positive impact too, even though they're not these huge things. And I think when we start, and this is Toronto in a nutshell, right?

Like when you start, you're thinking, you know, can I see my partner have sex with someone else? Or like, am I going to be cool if she wants to go on a date with someone? Those are questions that are in your mind. But the thing is you should be actually trying.

To push yourself on, or like, can I go up to a stranger and start a conversation? Like, can I take my top off at the pool? You know, can we go and stay out past midnight and not be falling asleep at our table, right? Like, those are the things that are on the boundaries of our bubble right now, that if we lean on those, we still have a great time.

We still grow and learn, and then next time maybe we lean a little bit farther. But you don't have to be looking at like the biggest scariest challenge right at the beginning. You can just kind of be like let's do the fun stuff and maybe do stuff that's a little bit uncomfortable and then go back and do more fun stuff. I think we probably talked about this in our Toronto episode quite a bit because we were like okay my mind is like way down the road but my body is like hella back.

Yeah. So we were trying to like Make them come together a little bit more So the things are like, okay, let's just have like a small goal for every trip or experience that we have and Not Like kind of let ourselves down if we don't meet like this huge ass goal that we set for ourselves, right and Like just be okay with like the little steps and I think We were kind of doing that already, but then one of you sent me this post about microdosing, quote unquote. I was like, of course.

Yeah, put it in a really nice. It said it way nicer than we could, but that was essentially the shower conversation we had in Toronto. So if you didn't listen to that episode, you can go back. But that was a really nice sort of reframe for us.

I think maybe in the next episode when we're talking about our trip to Scottsdale, we could maybe talk about a couple of examples of this microdosing that we could kind of set as goals for ourselves. Yeah, for sure. And they kind of segues into the other thing that I was kind of interested about from her, which is so she's a semantic relationship coach. So obviously she's going to talk about nervous system regulation and like somatics and like how all that works if you've never attended like a somatic workshop or someone who is very Versed in like this area.

I highly highly recommend it especially if you're more of like a body person like a body feeler like you Feel things in your body before your mind really catches up. That's kind of I'm learning this about myself that that's how I am like my body signals to me That I'm dysregulated way before my mind tells me that I am So it's kind of more listening to those body cues But she talked about she has like a free master class If you just go to her Instagram will put her it's actually super hard to find so i'll put the link in yeah we'll put the link in but it's just like a master class on youtube about the somatic nervous system and she talks about the window of tolerance which like completely explains like how you feel when you're like up or down Basically, so you have this window where you feel like this is your safe place and either above or below That's when you're dysregulated.

So the microdosing is kind of all about like expanding this window of tolerance until You're not like having a pan attack or shutting down or like feeling numb from an experience Over time Right. Expanding your capacity is I think another way they describe that. Correct. Yeah.

Which I was like, okay, yeah. I was totally all into this. This is where like the science part of it comes in for me where I'm like, okay, yes, tell me about all like the body things. I also thought the idea of, she called it neuroception.

So, your body does this concept of neuroception where you have like an unconscious scan of your environment for danger and to like evaluate the safety level so this is what happens like when you're in a new environment like or you know if you're a woman you're walking home alone in the dark to your car like your body is your mind is constantly doing like this scan of your environment like do am i safe like telling your brain like okay and you need to walk faster because I feel I feel danger I don't feel comfortable things like that so I thought for Scottsdale 2 we could just simply like a journal maybe not every day maybe like once a day and just be like okay this is how I'm feeling this is maybe triggering me just so we have like a document because I feel like After a whole like takeover or weekend you kind of like forget a little bit So it'd be nice to just have that record.

Yeah, so we can look back to be like, okay This was triggering me and like in this situation So how how do I go about like handling this trigger? How do I go about like handling this feeling? And like when you're not activated like when you're not in that specific situation where you're out of your window of tolerance. Yeah, it's very similar to the note -taking that we did when we were in Toronto, which actually proved to be super helpful because you had kind of a running, and I did too, a running chronicle of how you were feeling in the moment.

And then we could kind of look back and sort of see the progression over the weekend rather than sort of just see it through Kind of the the end view which was our moment of clarity But yeah, I like that idea a lot and actually something interesting pops in my head as you were talking about that where You said your body Knows it's feeling Something before your mind. Is that what you said? Yeah, like my body will cue me Before my mind says hey pay attention to me That's weird Not weird it's interesting because I'm the opposite and I have I've told people on a number of occasions that I like think My emotions, I don't like feel them so much I've been working on that because it's something I want to be a little more embodied but it's interesting how We're like opposite on that.

It's like I Kind of think about emotions as inputs kind of like break them down And this is not meant to be a positive or negative, but you know overanalyze them very much in my own head Whereas your body knows something's Making you feel a certain way before your brains even processed it so don't get me wrong my brain will be like shut up shut up shut up shut up Okay, so they're both going yeah, so there are times where I'm like I I often when I have anxiety I often have tight chest like that's like the my Telltale sign that I am getting Activated I'm dysregulated.

I have a tight chest. That's just The one place as is very constant. Yeah, and I'll my mind will Be like, no, you're fine. No, you're fine.

Like, you know, it'll try to explain it away or like push it down. And it's gotten to a point before where I've tried to push it down or like ignore it basically for so long. And then it's just like, I burst into tears, like at a random moment or you're like, whoa, like what just happened? Like, yeah, that's.

All right, cool, that's um, that's our little plug for aria Diana and we'll include her information as well. I Really like her posts. There's probably more mention of her on here Yeah, and she works with people like I said, she's a coach so she works with people So if you're this is something like you're having like a serious issue with like with your primary partner and she I think she mostly Talks through the lens of like people who are in poly relationships. Yeah But so she works within the community so she definitely like understands and Yeah, definitely would will be keeping an eye on like her stuff because I think it oh Speaking of this somatic stuff on our vacation.

I also picked up a deck of cards that has hold on let me get it um it's called hack your nervous system and it has it's just like cards that have like evidence -based practices to help alleviate anxiety stress and like retrain your nervous system i was like how Awesome is this. I was like, yes, I'm going to be purchasing this. Anyway, but it has like three different colors of cards. And so like one color is for maintenance, like a little bit of stress, and it has different exercises.

So you just like pick a color and like do that exercise. It's completely random. It just helps you build resilience in your nervous system. So that's one color, the other color.

So purple is the maintenance and mild stress one. Orange is when you have anxiety or some moderate stress. It gives you exercises that are linked to that level. So that's when you have body tension, shortness of breath, your heart is racing, things like that.

to just like calm yourself down. And then yellow is acute stress and anxiety. So deescalating and controlling like intrusive thoughts and like things like that. So I will definitely be using these.

I need that last deck. My anxiety is pretty acute. Yeah, but it's, it's pretty cool because some exercises are like a physical exercise. So for example, like one of them is tapping.

If you guys have ever heard of that. Yep. I had the therapist try that. And or it's like sound, like listening to a song, laugh therapy, breathing, just like a bunch of different stuff.

So which I think will be pretty cool. Yeah. Well, that's a good transition because the place where you bought those cards. We also had one more thing to share, which was we got our auras photographed.

That was pretty cool. We are kind of woo -woo over here. More so now, yeah. I mean, I think once you start opening yourself up to new ideas, it kind of just bleeds into everything.

But do you want to talk a little bit about, like, the process? And then we can maybe talk about the photos and what they looked like? Sure. So when we were planning our vacation, we just found this place that does these aura photos and then they go through them with you like afterward.

So basically it's basically like an aura photo booth. And so we made an appointment ahead of time. This is like before we even got there. So it was like way ahead of time.

So we knew it was going to be this day, this time, et cetera. And you kind of go in, you sit. Basically is literally like a photo booth There's these two hand pads that you put your fingertips on like sitting next to you like metal plates Yep, and then you just like look forward and I smiled. Yeah, you can do whatever you want and it takes your photo and then it prints out basically like a Polaroid of your aura and That's it.

And then we so we did one individually and then we did one together Yeah, which is I Look forward to telling you about the together one, but let's talk about our separates first so Mine was incredibly Like red yellow magenta So the way that they explained it to me was that my root was red and Red in this case means action And then that I had a magenta in there as well, which means that I'm very kind of analytical and that I need space to do my work and do my processing. You can't be micromanaged in other terms.

Yeah. And that's, you know, I think that's pretty true. And then sort of my external, which was the left side was yellow, which stands for analysis and being curious, which particularly applies to this phase of life and the way that I remembered the summary was that the lower field of my photo said I want to experience things the yellow says I want to understand things and the magenta says I wanted to imagine what else is possible which like most of these things you can kind of See what you want to see in it, but that seems pretty accurate to me What did you think about because you were you were sitting there kind of jotting down notes that she was talking to me And I was just trying to hold the intense eye contact What did you think about my my?

Reading was it pretty accurate Yeah, I think there was really accurate I would agree that With all of those things especially like in our current state of like doing the open relating like we're Seeing how we like it and like opening our minds to like other experiences I also think that it I mean, it's not just that side of our life too. It's like our day -to -day like at work and Everything but There were a couple times when I was like got distracted and like had to Yes, we were trying to parent for a second child Calm while we were doing this.

Yeah But honestly, I was shocked when she was doing mine because I was like Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah So mine, so if you guys aren't familiar with auras or like what it generally looks like when you get your photo taken, basically if you just think of a general Polaroid, then you have colors either around your whole self or kind of like looks like a rainbow, like around yourself.

Mine kind of really looked like a rainbow. You really could just see like my face and there was a gap and then they had color like all around. Whereas Max's, you had color kind of just over your person. You didn't really have the gap like I did.

I don't know if that means anything. I don't remember her saying anything about it. But mine was pretty predominantly green, which means that I am actively in a growth or desiring change sort of. point in my life I've also read that green also means I'm very connected to nature which I 100 % agree with Green also can mean that I'm very generous, but sometimes at my own detriment in terms of like personal cost to myself for like self -care So I had green pretty much All on my right side, which is my root chakra above my head was like your mental space.

And it kind of shifts to yellow on my left side, which you also had yellow on your left side, which I feel like is super telling because we're both scientists. We're both in that curious setting, um, analytical thinkers. I had also green over my heart center and green is also like a heart forward color so a lot of my energy and things like comes from my heart and sometimes They'll say like your heart led. So I'm very led by like emotional pull I also had orbs above my head what she explained to be when you have those orbs like that it's really telling you these are guides that are helping you along your journey and I had like four to five of those above my head and honestly like couldn't help but think I was like okay well one's probably my dad sorry I might get a little emotional I lost my dad a year ago Pretty much almost like a couple weeks ago a year ago so I Couldn't help but think that maybe one of those is him totally I Did not have any orbs in my photo, but they were in our Couples photo which is pretty cool because that means like they're all kind of looking over our relationship The relationship one I thought was really really interesting so The again just to kind of paint the picture You look at my Polaroid.

It's like all red a little bit of yellow a little bit of magenta Roses all green a little bit of yellow and if one of us was sort of dominating the relationship you would expect that the photo between the two of us would look more like one of those two colors but actually our photo together was completely blue and the lady who was doing the interpretation said like that was a really beautiful color for couples photos because it means that you're very safe together that you have really good communication that you're very open with each other that you're very receptive she did mention that sometimes you can require a little bit of individuation in this particular color just because you've sort of Become something together that neither of you are when you're separate But really it was just it was beautiful how different it was and just kind of like How we've balanced each other and created Like a relational aura that's different than what we each are on our own.

Yeah It was cool I Even if you like don't believe in like that kind of stuff like it is just really interesting to hear Someone else who they don't know you at all. They're literally looking at this Polaroid and telling you blah blah blah blah blah Based on the color and like the position of like where the color is which is like pretty amazing Yeah, my take on it is And I'm gonna have this apply to other things like tarot and stuff It doesn't matter if the tarot, the cards are imbued with some sort of magic or the person reading them is some sort of gift.

I kind of look at it more as like a guided like therapy session, sort of a guided introspection. They're like, oh, you're green and it makes you think about yourself and oh, what about me is that? Or like what part of me is curious? And so that's how I look at it.

If there's something more to it that I'm not seeing, then I'm totally open to that being true. But at its worst, at its simplest, it causes you to look inward. And I still thought it was a really amazing experience. Yeah, totally.

So did anything we talked about today change how you saw yourself? Don't know if anything like Changed how I see myself. I'm it definitely just makes me wish I could take like a life sabbatical and That's not a break from life by the way What I mean is like not worry about like work paying bills and like all that adult shit. Yeah, and just like figure my shit out There's two other too many other things I feel like are on the life plate that it's just like I just I just wish I had the unlimited amounts of time to Like do the little walkabout, you know and like really Like tie in like all the stuff that we're learning and like having the space and quiet and Time to just think And then think some more because things just change like as you learn Other things you have other resources and yeah, I don't know I Can see that for sure I think for me The thing that I'm just continuing to learn is that you're never gonna be you're never gonna go wrong being more yourself and I think that we spent You know the first 25 plus years of our lives where it's like you're doing what your most of what you're doing is because of someone else you want to please someone else or you want to look like someone else or you want to family dress like someone else or your family yeah right and it can be really scary to kind of like try and say i don't want that anymore or i only want parts of that but i'm going to try and like learn more about myself and i think i just keep learning from all of these experiences that like you're that's never going to be a bad thing You know?

Yeah. It's always going to be something where you learn about yourself. Maybe you bring some of those things in. Maybe you say, I'm glad I know about those, but I'm not going to bring those into my everyday.

But I think that these types of quizzes, these types of classes and stuff are, I really appreciate it for that, that reason. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

So I guess our Next episode will be our last before we head to Scottsdale So want to tune in and hear us kind of Talk about our mindset going in We'll talk about where our outfits are. Hopefully I'll have some clothes that I can tell you about before then and How we're gonna integrate the things we talked about today Also what we learned from our Toronto trip and try and not spin the fuck out this time And I also want to mention our next book club is going to be a wild love theory which is published by our friends Scott and April they just released their book and It's gonna have our own copies so we can make our own.

Yeah notes in them annotations. I'm still waiting for mine Hopefully it's gonna arrive soon But it's gonna be a bit, it'll probably be I would say Thanksgiving. Oh, okay. I was gonna say maybe like Halloween.

Well, whatever. I don't know. The point is like this is your note now if you want to read along with us and you want to be a part of that discussion, I would order your book now. It is on Amazon.

So get it in. This is your first Note about that, but looking forward to reading that very much And as always if you like our show, please subscribe and leave us a five -star review on whatever platform you listen on On our contact info is always in the show notes You can find us on Instagram or send us an email again all that information is in the show notes and I love you very much. Oh you I had fun today This was a like you thought those are gonna be a throwaway one but Turned out to be I was I was concerned I'm like we haven't done anything exciting and then we started listening.

It was like oh shit to talk about so Anyway that wraps up today's entry in the partnership lab until next time stay curious These conversations reflect our own observations and experiences and are not professional or institutional advice. They do not reflect the thoughts or opinions of employers, family, or guests, nor imply their approval of the content shared.