Dossie on Jealousy: a synopsis of her Poly Living Workshop, 2010

One of the reasons I (and several of my friends) wanted to attend the Poly Living Conference this month was the opportunity to meet and listen to the co-author of The Ethical Slut, Dossie Easton. Practically every person who explores the history and literature of polyamory has read this book, and whether or not we think of ourselves as sluts, pretty much all of us try to adhere to the ethics of open, honest relationships that bring our partners as much pleasure as they do ourselves.

Much of what Dossie has to say in her work as a writer and therapist revolves around the idea that we are not born "perfect" at what we do -- anything, even learning to love, takes work and awareness. I loved how she spoke directly and with humility about her own experiences, mistakes and challenges. Dossie definitely gets across the message that love and sex are experiences within the human realm, and therefore subject to all kinds of difficult (as well as blissful) feelings.

I decided at the last minute to attend her workshop on "Making Friends with Jealousy". After all, I've been attending and leading poly discussions on this topic for many years, not to mention wrestled with my own jealous demons over the course of my poly life -- what could possibly be said that I didn't already know? Turns out I was glad I went.

I've been feeling very scientific lately, so when Dossie announced that she was going to focus on the physiology of jealousy, I perked up. So many people try to find deeply buried emotional reasons for jealousy (and for love, and attachments in general) that coming at this most complex and frightening of emotions from the perspective of our biological self seemed somehow comforting --like maybe jealousy is something I don't need to feel so guilty about experiencing.

Dossie introduced us to our amygdala: essentially the region in our brain where emotions are experienced. There have been, she said, great advances in brain research regarding the physiological components of emotional experience via hormones (such as the stress hormone, hydrocortisone, which is produced by our adrenal glands in response to stressful situations -- essentially, our fight or flight mechanism).

So, in terms of the experience of jealousy, there is a lot going on that is autonomic, or that our bodies are doing without our even realizing it, and this affects our perception of the situation. Dossie listed several things we can do, however, to mitigate the effect of our very human reaction to what we perceive as a dangerous situation (eg. when we feel jealous):

1. Take care of yourself. Schedule times for gratification and things you love doing but don't otherwise get the chance to do. If you can do these things when your partner is out on a hot date with someone else, so much the better!

2. Create a container for your jealous emotions so that you can experience them but not allow them to spill over and affect all aspects of your life and interactions. We get in trouble, she says, when we pretend not to feel something we are actually feeling. (Dossie herself cheerfully admits that she still gets jealous, but after 40 years of working on it, "it's sort of a non-event".)

3. Because we can't solve conflicts in a state of stress, taking at least 15 minutes to calm down (through breathing, meditation, or visualization -- or, depending on personal preference, gentle exercise) will actually "reset" our amygdala and increase our capacity to calm down the next time we get stressed. I thought this was pretty cool, and it also explains why handling jealousy does get easier the longer you address it.

4. Use distraction to deflect the cyclic process of negative thought patterns. This doesn't always work, but it can be an effective tool to derail some of the negative self-esteem chatter than crops up in our minds when we're feeling like we might lose someone's love or attention.

5. Release and banish the "shoulds". There is no one "right" way to feel. Just let your feelings be what they are (this is what she means by "making friends with your jealousy"). At this point in the workshop, Dossie took us through some breathing exercises and a short guided meditation/visualization of what our own jealousy looked like. We were encouraged to try and open a dialogue with our jealousy in whatever form we envisioned it and afterwards we shared this experience with others in the room. (I liked this exercise a lot, because it reminded me of one in my Buddhist practice called: "befriending your demons".)

6. Finally, she reminded us to focus on what we can control in our lives, and to practice letting go of what we can't. As poly people, we know that we cannot (and should not try to) ever, ever control our partners' feelings. We can, however, feel pretty confident that we can control our own feelings with the help of some relatively simple tools and the knowledge that sometimes, managing scary feelings is as easy as shutting off the hormonal hot-water tap and allowing ourselves to rest.

My thanks to Dossie for leaving us with the assurance that we are all beautiful human beings who have valuable things to contribute in terms of wisdom and love.

Dealing with jealousy; getting to compersion: discussion notes from Poly 101

The last Poly 101 discussion had a record number of people in attendance.  To make sure everyone who wanted to had a chance to speak, we broke into four smaller groups after a general discussion about jealousy and compersion.  The following are notes from three of the groups.  It was a VERY productive session!

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We spent a lot of time elaborating on a vocabulary to describe the elements surrounding jealousy. This is an outline of that vocabulary and some of the discussion items around combating jealousy. I've added some of my own ideas to complete the notes.


Jealousy
Envy
Trust
Acceptance
Boundaries
Compersion
Reassurance
Disclosure
Compromise


Jealousy and Envy
While jealousy is anxiety over an anticipated loss of something, envy is anxiety over the desire to have something that someone else has. (So we may feel jealous about our partner's relationship with another, and envy about that other's relationship with our partner.)

Trust and Acceptance
Trust with a partner can make a significant impact on whether either party feels jealous. If you feel that you can trust a partner, the risk or feeling of anticipated loss is much less. Trust means that you feel that you can honour each other's agreements, that you will be honest with each other, etc.
Part of the problem with trust is that we feel we can trust someone if they act exactly in accordance with the rules or boundaries that we are comfortable with, or at least have agreed to. A higher ground than trust is acceptance. If we can accept someone for who they are, then we are more resilient (and less inclined to be jealous) at times when he or she cannot be trusted as much. This requires knowing someone very well. For example, accepting a compulsive liar means understanding when they can be trusted and when they can't, and being okay with this. Accepting someone as they are is also an important component of love.

Reassurance, Disclosure and Check-Ins
Offering reassurance to a partner helps to combat jealousy by lessening the threat of a situation that they have no control over. Reassurance includes reminding a partner how you feel about them; or planning a date on the day after a date with someone else.
Disclosure is more proactive than reassurance. Volunteering information helps to remove some of the mystery and anxiety that can develop if a partner begins to make their own assumptions about what may or may not be happening outside of their control.
Check-Ins are periodic communications between partners to confirm feelings, share information, and proactively double-check that assumptions and prior arrangements are still working for both parties. Checking in regularly can help greatly with trust and overcoming jealousy. You can't check in too much.

Other Tools to Combat Jealousy
1) Partners meeting each other. This can result in the lessening of anxiety, removal of assumptions and also genuinely liking the other person, which makes it much easier to wish them and your partner well.
2) Discussing feelings together. By processing feelings as a team, you can become aware of each other's priorities, anxieties, discuss new boundaries, and offer reassurance before feelings get unnecessarily out of hand. This also helps build trust and acceptance.

Processing Alone or Together
Some people prefer to process their feelings alone, for several hours or sometimes days, before discussing them with a partner. They want to keep the processing part private and avoid premature conclusions or the risk of sharing unfinished or uncertain thoughts. Once finished, they want to share their conclusions, needs and wants. Others feel more comfortable sharing their processing, with the advantage that feelings can be dealt with more quickly. This requires a greater amount of trust and a willingness to make mistakes.

Ownership of Jealousy
Jealousy is a feeling that is owned by the one that experiences it. If you are jealous, you cannot blame another for that feeling. You can discuss that person's behaviour, but the feeling remains your own. Just like anger, jealousy can be destructive and it helps to be able to do the inner work so it can be dealt with -- not externalize it or project it.  Clarify that jealousy can and should be discussed and shared. Ownership of the emotion doesn't mean keeping it to yourself, but accepting responsibility for it.

Compromise and Negotiation
Compromise is when both parties give something up. This is not always ideal, since it means a loss to both, but in many cases it's not necessary for both to give something up. For example, if I like cheese and you like bananas, mixing them together is a tasteless compromise. But if we have cheese today and banana tomorrow, I have what I want today and you have what you want tomorrow.
One advantage of negotiation in love, when compared to negotiation in most other scenarios, is that, because you love someone, you are willing to encourage them to start the negotiation by expressing ALL of their needs and wants. You actually are interested in trying to meet as many of them as possible.




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Another group discussed the following ideas:



Not keeping score

Looking for complementary benefits of other relationships

Understanding your own needs and needs of others and that don't always
mesh, and having realistic expectations of needs being met

Communication - OPEN - accepting feelings, clear communication about
boundaries

Not obsessing about future but still processing  / not denying worries


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Finally, the group I was in had these points to add to the general wisdom of the evening:

A memorable quote from my group in relation to encouraging compersion to blossom:  one must "feed a culture of compersion".   

This can be done in several ways, but mostly by communicating and reflecting compersion back to your partner on a regular basis by telling them when you feel happy for them or asking for reassurance that they do feel happy for you.  Cultivating friendships with partners of partners (metamours) also helps feed compersion.  Demystifying sex can also be helpful (because we communicate sexually as well as verbally!).