Spirituality and Sexuality: A Journey into Ethical Non-Monogamy

Hey, one More Thing before you Go. Have you ever wondered if there's more to love in relationship than what society traditionally tells us?

What if embracing our true selves could lead to deeper connections and a more fulfilling life? We're going to answer these questions and more when we explore enm. Ethical Non Monogamy Growing It's a growing trend in society today.

I'm your host Michael Herst.

Welcome to One More Thing before you go Please be advised that this podcast contains explicit language, mature themes and discussions that may not be suitable for all listeners. This content is intended for adults only. Discretion is advised.

In this episode, we have a truly fascinating guest who's here to challenge the norms and inspire new ways of thinking about relationships and spirituality. Lauren Hayes is a relationship coach specializing in ethical non monogamy.

As I mentioned earlier, Lauren's here to share her insights on how ENM can be a path to personal growth in spiritual enlightenment. We'll get into that.

We're going to explore the intersection of sexual selves in our divinity and how embracing non monogamy can help us create the relationships of our dreams. She's passionate about helping people find their true path in love and life and she's here to share her wisdom with us.

Plus, we'll get a sneak peek into our upcoming book, For Better or Worse, seven Essential Life and Love Lessons from a Non Monogamist set to self publish this December.

So get ready for an enlightening and thought provoking conversation that might just change the way you think about love, relationships and spirituality. Welcome to the show. Lauren.

Hi, thanks for having me.

Absolutely Interesting journey that you have taken on your life. I appreciate you coming here and helping us to have a better understanding of life and love.

Yeah, I'm happy to share and love sharing my story. So thanks for having me on.

You know, everybody knows I always like to kind of start at the beginning. Can we talk a little bit about where you grew up?

Yeah, I grew up in the Midwest, in Wisconsin and I since my adulthood have lived a lot of different places including London and Paris for a stint. So I have lived in a lot of great places in my life.

Paris, that's on our bucket list is Paris.

Yeah, keep it on there and go.

Have to go there, right?

Yeah.

So would you be one? What did you want to be when you grew up? Because I know that right now you're a lifestyle coach, which is, you know, an interesting approach.

As we mentioned right before we started, I've had a lot of conversations with different coaches across the last 427 episodes. But you have a unique approach to lifestyle coaching. But did you always want to be that?

No. You know, I don't think I was one of those kids who knew really what I wanted to do.

I think for many, many years I just wanted to live on a ranch and raise pupp. But then when I, so as I got, you know, into college and you know, having to create a life for myself, I was more attracted to business.

I grew up in a household with entrepreneur parents. And so, yeah, I've had several careers. My first career was accounting. I was a cpa. My second career was in marketing. That was for about 20 years.

And now this is actually my third career in coaching. And it's kind of funny. I, you know, I've been coaching for a little over two years and it was just something that really fits my personality.

It's, you know, all through my adulthood, personal growth, spirituality, personal development was really kind of my side gig all the time. And so when I became a coach, all my friends were like, okay, duh, and you've been my coach for years now. Do I have to start paying you?

So it's just, you know, sort of who I am.

What, may I ask? Let's go back to the puppy ranch. I think I would love to have explored that when I was growing up. You know, the heck with this other stuff.

We need a puppy ranch.

Yeah, I know, right?

What inspired you to become a relationship coach specializing in ethical non monogamy? Because obviously there's a lot of opportunities for relationship coaching.

Yes. So my husband and I, when we, after we were married 14 years, we began our journey with ethical non monogamy.

So at the point that I trained and became a coach, we had already been in, we had been swinging for I think about four years.

And so just a lot of learning and understanding that really combined the training really combined with my experience in the sense that I think I of insights into sort of how things worked and had an ability to translate that for people and help people.

And my, my relationship training that I've done is actually Gottman Level 1 training, which is a surprise for some people because Gottman, if you know the name, probably one of the biggest names in the relationship therapy world is all about monogamous relationships. However, what I feel and have learned is that all relationships, monogamous or non, are the same. What makes them a healthy relationship is the same.

I think the difference between a monogamous and non monogamous relationship is that we have to be operating at a sort of higher or healthier level almost all the time in order to invite the emotional complexity into our relationships that we do. And so, you know, that's one thing I always want to make really clear to people. I'm not out to convert anyone over to E M.

You know, that is a very, very personal choice. I just like people to know about it because I feel like in our culture, we grow up monogamous.

We become monogamous without really any thought because we don't know there are other choices. And so it's just really being aware of what else is out there.

Because even if you say, you know, non monogamy is not for us now, you've just made a conscious choice towards monogamy, which I think is really beautiful. And I think the next question to always ask is kind of related to what I was saying. How healthy is our relationship and are we doing monogamy? Well?

And so that's really what I'm. I'm out to do, is help people have the healthiest relationship, no matter what their relationship structure is.

I think we're all striving for that. And I think it's an important aspect of a relationship.

No matter where you're at in communication and understanding and compassion and things like this all have to be explored. And I believe that you do that. Can you help us explain what ethical non monogamy is and how it kind of differs from monogamy?

Because, I mean, we've mentioned a couple times so far. Let's help understand what that, what that means.

Yeah, so some broad definitions here. So ethical non monogamy is a very broad, general term. It.

The ethical part of ethical non monogamy just means that everybody knows about what's going on, so everybody's aware. Underneath that broad term, you sort of have two camps. I call them polyamory and swinging polyamory.

You know, these people are having multiple emotionally and committed relationships. They may or may not have a primary partner. And, you know, they're. They're in it for love. On the other end, where I would.

I would say swingers are in it more for friendship and sexual adventure. And this can be sexual fantasy. This can be in both camps. Actually, there's me.

People who have are maybe exploring a bisexual side of themselves while they're in a hetero relationship. That's something their partner is open to. There are all kinds of reasons that people sort of get into it, and we can talk about that in a minute.

But really then the other thing to take away is that there's a lot, lot in Between. So the thing about non monogamy, and we usually drop the term ethical in the world of non monogamy because the ethical is implied.

If you are not ethically practicing non monogamy, which means everybody is aware of the situation and everyone is consenting, then we already have a term for that that would be cheating or an affair. So we just say non monogamy.

And also a term that I'll probably use, so I want to define, is in swinging in particular, we use the term the lifestyle or lifestyle.

So that term can get a little confusing for people outside of our world because it's, it's a very general term, but it just means the kind of the swinger world. Now, non monogamy is whatever you want it to be. So as long as it's the ethical part.

So you have swingers who might become polyamorous, you have polyamorous people who might be swinging, and you have everything in between. The polyamorous community is generally larger and a more diverse population. By diverse, I mean that's probably where more LGBQ people are practicing.

And swinging, like I said, usually involves a couple and not necessarily for polyamory. So there are some differences there. But really people practice and create. And this is the beautiful part, whatever really works for them.

And that's a very big part of being a part of this community, is recognizing that freedom to really create what you want.

You know, it's interesting because obviously there's a lot of, there's a lot of terms and terminology that you just put out, which I think we all need to have a better understanding of. How does that relate to, like our connection between our sexual selves and our spiritual selves?

Because I know you mentioned earlier about, and I may have mentioned it in the opening for you about being spiritual as well. How do you see that connection between our sexual selves based upon kind of what you just said? In our spiritual selves?

Yeah.

So I don't know if I would call this a part of the definition, but one thing that people definitely get to explore when they're non monogamous and are often exploring is their sexual part of themselves. Now, I'm not saying that people in monogamous relationships are not doing that, but our culture does breed a lot of shame around sexuality.

And so this is sometimes an area internally that we're not really acknowledging, learning about, or expressing.

So in my experience, when people are in lifestyle and I, because my husband and I have primarily been swingers, a lot of the experiences that I talk about are with Other swinging people.

And when people discover this part of themselves, and very often it is women, and I will say it as women, because culturally sexuality is more complicated for women. The messages that we receive and the mixed messages we receive about sexuality all through our lives can create a lot of confusion and shame and.

Which is unfortunate, very unfortunate.

It is, and I, and I hope it's changing.

But what I see in people is that when they do acknowledge and explore this part of themselves, because it is part of them, then we become more whole beings because there's a whole part of us that now gets incorporated into our being. And by the way, we are all divine beings.

So I think that connection, that sexual connection, especially because pleasure and ecstasy can be a channel to the divine and that if that sounds complicated, we can talk that in a little bit.

But just getting, I would say at the most basic level, being our whole selves, expressing our whole selves is the biggest gift we can give to this world and what we were designed to do.

Well, I, you know, I agree with that.

I think that there's a lot of religious, I won't say, I dare I say, I won't say persecution, but there's a lot of religious connotations that come out in regard to anything in dealing with sex and, and, and relationships, in regard to, to how we have them, who we have them with, in, in what's, what they consider, you know, a sin. You can't see my quotes, but you know, and what's bad and what's good for you. And I think it, unfortunately, I think we were making progress.

We have been making progress. I see an unfortunate step back from that here in the coming years, which I think is just, it's a whole different conversation.

Yeah, I agree.

But. Yeah, well, I have daughters too.

You know, we have two daughters and you know, we have raised them to be very self confident, beautiful, intelligent young women who, you know, we are fearful for over the next few years in regard to their own well being, not just their sexual health, but their own well being. So, you know, coming from that side and the fact that religion I think plays a huge part in what's, what's about to come out. I agree with that.

Do you. What kind of common misconceptions are there about monogamy and why people, I guess even religion, religious aspects kind of target it.

Yeah.

So for the, for the very religious, I think obviously there's just a fundamental belief that having relationship or sexual relationship with more than one person is just wrong. Which is interesting because I mean, there Is that end of it? And, you know, I'm not out to convince anyone otherwise.

But we also have a culture, a strong culture for people who are a little less religious of casual sexual. It's in our media, it's, you know, part of our culture. It's part of our dating culture. I would say it's really all that.

And so what I think is interesting is that we grew up in this monogamous culture that is, has a lot of sexual messages, condones, you know, multiple sexual partners.

Again, not that for the highly religious, but for others, then with the goal of finding the one, the one who we're going to, you know, is going to be our everything and our happily ever after. And I think that that message gets a little skewed.

And like I mentioned earlier, we know monogamy only, but we're not really taught monogamy and relationship. So I think there's a lot of expectation around these finding the one and what that's going to look like when we do find that.

I think culture in general, you know, kind of condones some sexual promiscuity while we're looking for a partner and then completely shuts that off after marriage. That's just kind of our cultural belief. So.

And the other thing that's sort of underlying this is that, you know, you, while you can have casual sex when you're in this dating period, you know, sex and friendship, it doesn't really mix. So I would say a lot of non monogamy just turns a lot of that on its head. And it says, well, actually we can be in committed relationships.

And commitment, I think, is one big misconception between the monogamous and the non that I can speak to in a second. But you know, that underlying belief that you can't mix these things and we're like, well, you can.

And in the speaking world where you can definitely mix casual sex and friendship and it doesn't always have to be with someone that you're in love with. And in the sexual exploration side, you know, there are many.

And in the friendship side as well, there are many levels of connection that happen between hi, how are you? And I'm in love with you. And that's really where most swingers are operating.

Most swingers are not looking for another emotionally committed relationship, but we are definitely in friendships with people at all different levels. And then on the polyamory side, they are falling in love with multiple people.

And still somehow there's that message in our culture that that does, you can't do that you can't be in love with more than one person at one time. You can't be in a commission committed relationship. Well, you can.

And so these two things just rub people the wrong way because there are a lot of like, fundamental underlying beliefs that we are just going against. And we're saying, well, that's just not true.

Well, it's, you know, we grow up, at least we, we didn't.

I mean, I'm an older guy, so obviously I grew up in the 60s and 70s, but prior to them, when I'm little, little, you grow up with the expectation of, you know, finding the one you talked about and then getting a nice house with a picket fence and a dog and two and a half kids and go to work and, you know, have your job. You have this, this mold set in place for you as to what you're supposed to do when you grow up.

You know, the father grows up and does this, the mom grows up and has babies, and you know, you have a nice family. You do this, this and this. In the 60s and the 70s, you saw more of the sexual revolution, as we all know.

But that also allowed for the ability to kind of understand that there is more to just having the one relationship, a picket fence and two and a half kids. So I think that we've evolved to a point where we as individuals have the choice that we can make in life, which is what you're saying.

You have a choice, you know, you can be monogamous if you'd like, or you can, you have alternatives to those, to those roles, so to speak. Right. Even if you have a committed relationship, which I, you know, it is, I'm friends with my wife.

My wife and I, we have 35 years, we've been married. We've been together about 35 and a half years. It is, to us, it works. And you know, we've, we embrace that on ourselves.

But I have respect for other individuals that may have chosen a different pathway, which I, I'm okay with. I have friends of mine that do swing. I have friends of mine that are polyamorous.

I have friends of mine, that of ours, I should say, not just mine, that we know that are non monogamous.

So I think in the aspect of all of that, I think communication is the key into understanding where you want to go and how you handle those relationships. How does that play into this?

Yeah, communication is so, as you can imagine, just the bedrock for opening up a relationship. And by the way, I was going to say there are other terms that you will Hear that are kind of fall under that general umbrella as well.

Which one of them is open relationship. And you also hear consensual, non monogamy, but you know, commit.

So commitment is the thing that as soon as people start practicing E M they say our communication just went up a hundred times. And also most people report their relationships improving. So these things are related.

But I do like to go a little deeper into communication because really there's a couple of concepts underneath that that ultimately have couples feeling closer. So communication happens all the time in any relationship. Picking up the kids, I got a big meeting today. What are you doing? How you feeling?

And so that's great. Then underneath that though is there's listening and there's voicing.

So there's listening to our partners communications and there's listening to learn, which is a term that I love. So I use this example in my book, something very simple. You know, our partner complains about us leaving the toothpaste off.

They may communicate about that very often that they don't like that. But what if we stopped for a minute and we said, wait a minute, why do you hate us so much that I leave it off? Like what is it really?

And now you have put your partner in a position to look internally and say why do I hate that so much? So they might discover something. You know, I had really controlling parents or something when I was a kid.

And the only thing I had was neatness to really feel like I was in control. And so when you leave it off, it just, it really bothers my nervous system. Okay, now you have communicated.

You've looked internally and you've shared what that feeling is. This is both what I call, not I call, but which is emotional transparency. Looking inside and really seeing like why do I feel that way?

And then it's vulnerable because you're sharing that with your partner.

So you know, you're sharing something about your upbringing, you're sharing something about how you're wired, you're sharing something about that really bothers you. Now it's up to your other partner to listen, to learn to understand. Okay, this is not you.

This is not like a personal attack on me about the toothpaste cover. And so that there becomes an emotional understanding all through communication. It's this emotional transparency, the vulnerability.

And then on the vulnerability side, it's also when you have listened, holding space for that emotion and you know that's vulnerable for the other person to share that with you. So that is an appreciation for them sharing it with you and holding space for that. So not just reacting to that. That's stupid. Whoever heard of that?

So that is what creates the emotional closeness, the, the increase in communication and ultimately what has lifestyle couples and E M couples feel closer because we're not just talking about toothpaste caps. Yes, we're talking about that also, but we're also talking about some very deep rooted fears and insecurities when we're operating in these worlds.

So it becomes much more of a practice to do this internal inspection, the sharing of, you know, what we've discovered about ourselves and then our partner holding space for that. So that is that continuous process that's happening more often and on more emotionally charged issues.

Yeah, I would say in, in, in my personal life, growing up in a very dysfunctional family, number one and, and then in my career in law enforcement, the one thing that I did really take with me in that process was communication is the key to any relationship. No matter which relationship you're in, communication is at the top of the list for making that relationship work on a very.

Whether you're husband, wife, whether you have multiple partners, between husband, between parents and their kids, you know, and this kind of a thing, that communication is key. So I'm assuming that in a relationship, if somebody wanted to move forward in a non maga. Forgive me for that little tongue twister.

Believe me, I spend my life tripping over this word.

Say that real fast, three times.

Exactly.

The non monogamy situations, how difficult is that to express or to communicate that to your partner without really overstepping, bound and when I mean overstepping bounds because obviously you may have partners that, that has not crossed their mind before.

So you're going to have somebody that's going to have to approach the other one in order to say, hey, this is what I'm feeling, this is what I'm thinking, you know, this kind of a thing.

Yeah.

So relating that same formula to this exact conversation, you know, it's interesting because in my position a lot of people will share a very big fear. You know, I'm interested or curious about em and I am terrified to bring this up to my partner. I understand that.

And the one word that I, you know, from every podcast, every talk, every book that I write, the one word I want people to take away is curiosity. So it's okay to be curious about anything.

And I think so in that moment where you're like, I'm interested in E and M or I'm curious about it, it's that same formula, introspection. Why am I Interested in this. What, what is it about tracks attracts me to it. Is it the sexual, you know, fantasy part of it?

Is it just the social scene? Is it having truly other, you know, multiple romantic relationships?

Now when you go to your partner to share that, you have this curiosity, it's already vulnerable because you are afraid of their reaction.

So what can happen in many relationships is, let's say I'm interested in the sexual part of it, but I don't think that's going to land as well with my partner. So I'm going to say that I'm just interested in the social part. That's not really being emotionally transparent.

That is telling our partner what we think they want to hear. And there is, you know, it's a gray, gray area here because we do want to frame things in a gentle way for our partner.

And of course we're never out to hurt our partner's feelings. And so there is a care and a gentleness. And also there does need to be a true self expression.

Then when you share that with them, there could be so many reactions, right? There could be like, tell me more about that. I'm really curious. I'm curious why you're curious. That's the ideal.

But let's say there is upset and hurt, you know, I don't know why you would want that. That's craziest thing I've ever heard. There must be something wrong with me because what does come up for often people.

It came up for me when my husband and I had the first conversation is, am I not enough? Are we not happy? All these things. So that's where the holding space comes in.

So now your partner, they may have a very emotional reaction, but you're just going to hold the space for whatever reaction they have. You're not going to react like if they get angry, you're not going to react back with anger and just escalate the whole situation.

You're just holding space. Like, I hear you, I understand how you feel about that and I still really want to talk about it.

By the way, side note, I do have a guide on my website, swinginglifestylecoach.com called Popping the E and M Question just really outlines this whole process for people who do want to approach their partner about it.

But now once they've held space for their partner who may have had some kind of emotional reaction to it, it feels safer for the partner because the whole thing didn't escalate into a big conflict.

But you held space for them and you listened to Them now in that another thing a lot of couples will do is, okay that I saw that upset you, I'm never going to bring it up again. Well, actually if it's something that's important to you, then that's fair.

This is the self expression piece that I think people can also lose in relationship as longer relationships because of this fear of conflict, this fear of upsetting our partner. So I'm not going to fully self express. I'm never going to bring it up again. Well, I don't know. Is this an important thing to you?

How curious are you about it? And if it's something that is important to you and you just want to discuss it further.

And the other thing I would say for couples is, you know, if you're just curious, say so. Like I don't know anything about this, I am just curious. But what I would love to do is learn more with you.

Now this is an exploration and a curiosity that you're doing together. It's not something they feel like they have to sign up for or not. And also making that clear, like, how important is this to you?

This isn't important to me at all. I'm just curious about it and I really want to, you know, learn more with you.

So it's that piece of like holding that space for whatever reaction they're going to have and holding that, that piece of self expression for yourself. I'm going to be honest, I'm going to express something that I want. Even if it might upset my partner, it doesn't hurt their feelings.

And even, you know, I think because of so many misconceptions that we have about em, that is the reason that so much comes up for people. So, you know, even saying that, it's like, well, let's find out what it's really about.

And because I heard these other things on a podcast, it sounds kind of, kind of interesting. Interesting. So I think that emotional reaction, you're not doing anything to hurt them. Being curious about something is not a hurtful act.

And I think sometimes, especially in a long term relationship, we have so many triggers and patterns that we can hear something like that and jump to a place of hurt. But actually it's just curiosity.

Do you think these conversations like this contribute to the process of maybe a more conscious relationship 100% within itself?

You know, it, it's, you know, I worked domestic violence for a long time and I only bring that up for the reason that obviously I saw a lot of miscommunication during a four year stint in regard to a domestic violence task force that I belong to. It's a multi agency one. And, and that's all we investigated was that.

And the primary thing across the board was 90% of the time, or well, let's say about 80% of the time, miscommunication. There wasn't proper communication. Nobody was allowed to have a voice. They were afraid to speak up, they were afraid to talk and so forth.

I wholeheartedly believe in any relationship that a conversation is a process to create a conscious relationship in order to help that relationship thrive to a point. And obviously you get into a situation like that and you do want to or you are curious about talking about it.

You know, it's a situation that if both parties feel that, you know, at the end of that they, they can make a conscious decision on, well, how they want to proceed together in regard to that. So, you know, I agree with, I agree with you and all that there's a lot of misconceptions. Everything what we see you think about.

And I know that you have this on your site somewhere on one of your webpages in regard to like Mormon wives. You know, a lot of us have grown up watching or listening or hearing about the Mormon where they have multiple wives and things like that.

How, how does something like that play into, into this, this whole situation, this conversation?

Yeah, so polygamy is not included in my definition of non monogamy or most people who are poly or swinging or kind of in this side of non monogamy.

Now technically they are ethically non monogamous, assuming, you know, everyone is completely consenting and it's just not part of this community that I'm talking about. When I do say the ethically non monogamous community, you know, that's very specific.

It's usually religious or some other structure that's kind of dictating the purpose around it. So it's quite different in that sense from there.

I only brought that up because obviously that's also in the mainstream now. We see it. You know, I think they had a television show. Yeah. That kind of. I didn't watch it, but I think they had a television show. Yeah.

And you know, and again, a lot of what we see in the movies, a lot of what we see on TV is something specific to that, not necessarily from the swingers perspective or from a non monogamous. I said it didn't mess that one up.

It gets easier and you'll trip over it again. So don't worry.

Life is such.

But you know, I find it Interesting that you've been in this lifestyle and coming from a coaching perspective, you've melded into helping other individuals in their relationship.

Do you, within your practice, your coaching practice, do you just deal with non monogamous couples or do you, do you open that up to other people with normal couple relationship type questions?

I absolutely open it up.

I would say because of just my marketing slant is obviously my site is swinginglifestylecoach.com but the whole thing about like you know what I said in the beginning, healthy relationship is a healthy relationship and the components that make up that relationship are the same. And so I can absolutely help monogamous couples because non monogamy me is more complicated.

There's a lot more to to work through what non monogamy often does.

It was like, well, just highlight areas in a couple's relationship that maybe is not quite as healthy as it could be they don't manage or a dynamic that is not particularly healthy. And by adding this complexity or this pressure to the relationship that will rise to the top, that is what I will help couples work through.

It's just creating a healthier dynamic in general. It's not a healthier dynamic just for lifestyle or just for ethical non monogamy. It's just a healthy, healthier dynamic period.

You know, I think most monogamous relationships, and I call these little cracks in our foundation, we all have them. Any long term relationship has these cracks in our foundation.

It's kind of human nature to ignore the cracks that we don't really have to deal with right now. And so that's why non monogamy can bring them to the surface.

Because it's probably something that has been there and you maybe even knew it was there, but you could kind of get by on a day to day basis without dealing with that. Now you have this extra pressure that's going to really bring that to the forefront.

I mean I would say as an example, even in this, what we were talking about bringing up to our partner, that we have a curiosity in them. If we don't even feel the freedom to bring up something that we are curious about with our partner that's already highlighting a dynamic.

There's some dynamic there that somebody's people pleasing someone's conflict, avoiding someone's not self expressing because like I just said, having a curiosity about something is not a hurtful act. And so even that can highlight a dynamic. If you were afraid to tell your partner about something that tells you something right there.

I agree with that. How can you, how do you help people create the relationship with their dreams, regardless of the number of partners in the. In. In that relationship.

Coming from that aspect.

Yeah. So like I said, in non monogamy, everybody's creating whatever works for them. The same is true for monogamy.

The thing is, we just don't really always recognize some of the choices that we have within that relationship.

And also we become a little bit afraid to voice if there's an area in our relationship that we can't or haven't, you know, that we are unfulfilled or not happy with.

Because always, as humans, generally speaking, and very much tied to attachment theory, we're all afraid of being rejected and left alone underneath all of it. I think that's what scares people the most when they even hear the term ethical.

Non monogamy is whatever my partner leaves me, which, by the way, that is a possibility. Even in monogamy, people get left, affairs happen all the time. So again, that's another one of those little misconceptions, like, about monogamy.

We're going to get married, we're going to find the one, and then we never have to worry about being left again. And so, you know, and I'm not saying we should sit around worrying about that.

I'm just saying underlying a lot of our fears is that so even in monogamy, just voicing that we're unhappy with something, then now we can address it.

And so that any therapist, any coach, and I do differentiate my coaching from therapy, but that is just going to bring to light those things that we're afraid to talk about. And I can be the objective party to help people through that now. Sorry, go ahead.

No, say, I think in any relationship, no matter if you're afraid to speak up, if you're afraid to voice your opinion, if you're afraid of something like that, then there's underlying things there that need to be addressed. And you can do that outside of that arena by finding the help that you need in order to get your voice.

Yeah, and the other thing I was going to say another way in which I work with monogamous couples is I kind of work with three groups, I would call them. I work with monogamous couples who might be curious about E. M. We just want to learn more about it.

We just kind of want to know the skills, we want to know what it looks like, all those things. So. And they very often will decide not to pursue E and M. They just want to know more about it.

And by the way, couples can have E M conversations for years, you know, and then never go into it or go into it five years from the first conversation. So that's a very dynamic process.

The second couple I would say that I work with is, okay, we know we're really interested in this and we want to go into it. We just don't know how to start this process. So I'll work with them. And then the third is people who are. Have already been.

Been practicing non monogamy and are hitting a snag. It might be people who jumped into it too quickly and didn't really maybe doing something a little bit wrong, quote, unquote wrong.

And it might be people who've been in a very long time. But like I just said, sometimes we're too close to our own situations to be able to really work through that. So I can help people with that.

From all those positions. What are some of the key lessons from your upcoming book?

If I remember this right, for better or for worse, seven essential life and love lessons from a non monogamist.

Yeah, so that's changed slightly and I probably didn't update you on it because as books do, there's. It's also a constant changing process, but it's for better or even better is the title now.

And it's seven lessons on love and life from a non monogamous. And it is seven lessons. And we've actually hit on several of them today, a couple others that.

And my whole point of the book and of our talk today is that these are lessons that are helpful for everybody. You don't need to be practicing non monogamy or even thinking about non monogamy.

But what you do want to think about is your own life and your own monogamous relationship and how these apply. And one of the first lessons that we did talk about is the chapter is called create your own damn life.

So recognizing that freedom that we all have to create, the relationships, the life, the children, how we raise our children, the where we live, the all those things, we really have the freedom to create whatever we want. It doesn't always feel like that because there might be pressures or, you know, and there are real life challenges around these things.

But we do have the underlying freedom. And so it's that remembrance. And if we are happy with something, being able to be proactive about changing that.

The other thing, the second chapter is about connection.

So I talked about non monogamy really operating in this space of connecting with other humans and all different levels that, you know, we kind of as a culture have decided that you can't do. Well, what we do in monogamous relationships is we still have friends and you can still go out and having fun with your partner.

This is something that the swinging community really excels at, just having fun.

And you know, I, I know many, many monogamous friends that when you go to therapy, one of the first questions they'll ask you is, are you going out and having fun together? Are you really connecting and also connecting with other humans? Are you meeting new people, keeping things sort of fresh in your life?

Because all of to like an overall happier life and an overall happier relationship.

We talked about all the communication stuff, about the self expression and you know, there's one, two other things that we didn't hand on that I'll say really quickly. One is this concept of emotional sovereignty. This is a really important and can be the most pivotal change in any relationship.

And this is the acknowledgment that I am responsible for my own emotional state. You are not responsible. And what this can kind of sound like the difference between.

So emotional sovereignty is I felt jealous when I saw you talking to that other woman the other day. Not being emotionally sovereign is you made me jealous the other day when you were talking to that woman.

So it's really giving the power to your partners who for how they affect you and being a victim to that versus owning our own feelings. We're still talking about it with our partner. I'm still sharing with my partner that I felt jealous.

And now this gives them space instead of to be defensive about that, to say that really that's interesting. You felt jealous about that. Let's talk about that some more to bring in that curiosity word again.

And so that's probably one of the biggest relationship lessons I think people can internalize.

I agree with that. I think that again, that goes back to the key communication factor. To be able to speak with the other individual and you have to be able to listen.

It's like a two way road. Two way road. In regard to that, it brought up something else too. I wholeheartedly believe in making sure that we love ourselves.

How can loving yourself a little bit more improve our relationships with others? Whether we're in a monogamous or a non monogamous relationship?

Yeah. Chapter four is called love your partner but love yourself a little bit more.

How about that?

Yes. Because the relationship to self is ultimately really the most important because it goes back to the self expression piece too.

I think as a people pleaser, codependent type of person. This is one of My behaviors that got highlighted right away when we got into ethical non monogamy.

Because when you put other people's feelings first, when you put other people's experiences ahead of yours, ultimately that is not going to serve your relationship because you're going to feel hurt or resentful and take all that on for yourself. Why?

Underlying that is some sort of self worth belief that somebody, somebody's emotions are more important than yours, somebody's feelings are more important than yours.

And underlying all of this communication piece and the self expression piece and, and creating what you want, all of it, you have to put yourself first in the sense that you are as important as anyone else, your emotions are as important as anyone else, your feelings, your desires are as important as anyone else. And actually to you the most important. Do we get everything we want? Everything we desire? No. But guess what?

We're not getting that if we never ask for it. So it's really putting ourselves first.

And here's the little like funny thing I always tell people because I am a recovering people pleaser at all times, I'm like, don't worry, you don't have to give up people pleasing.

The difference is that you're going to recognize the situation in which you would normally just jump to doing whatever your partner wants to do and you are going to, sorry, I'm having a little battery issue here. And you are going to say, okay, what do I want in this situation?

Okay, you know what, I'm really okay with going with what my partner wants in this situation. I'm going to choose to please him in this situation.

So it's like a conscious choice instead of a knee jerk reaction of putting other people's needs before your own. So it's kind of a version of people pleasing that I'm like, don't worry, you don't really have to give it up. In total.

I'm kind of a people pleaser. So I can relate to that. I do. Do. I do.

Yeah.

How do you see the future of relationships evolving in our society? I think that obviously this is a trend and that has been, you know, going forward. How do you see the future of our relationships?

I think more people will choose a version of non monogamy because I think a lot of people don't know it's available to them and then they don't know what is available to them because of all the misconceptions and then they wouldn't know how to do that. And I think because more and more people are discovering it, talking about it and Becoming aware of it.

There was a study done this past year that, you know, I think it was like 34% of people said that their ideal relationship involves something outside of monogamy. You know, this might be having a threesome.

I think this is like a really interesting little point you might want to fulfill on a, you know, a sexual fantasy and have a threesome. And people want to like label this non monogamy. I mean, maybe.

But also if you're still in a monogamous relationship, maybe it's just sexual adventure.

I think that we have these labels and we get afraid of these labels when really, like I said at the beginning, you can just create what it is you want as long as everyone knows about it and everyone is consenting.

Consenting with it. Yeah, Brilliant. Brilliant opportunity for people to have a better understanding of themselves as well as their relationship, I believe.

And you have the ability to help people through all of this. Can we talk about that?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I obviously offer coaching services. We talked about that.

That's swinginglifestylecoach.com also that website, I have a lot of resources on there. A couple free guides. The other one that you can see right now is. Is E and M right for you? This is for couples who are having that conversation.

There's the guide previous to that is about approaching your partner with the conversation. Now this is like you both think you might be interested. And this is a great. It's a quiz.

And the whole point of quizzes, as we all know, is not a yes or no answer, but just the conversations that they'll start.

And they also often tell this to couples, like what you will learn about each other just in the conversations about em is worth having these conversations about E and M, even if you're never even really pursuing it. And then the other thing you see there is my podcast called the Examine Lives of Secret Wives. And you brought up that reality TV show.

There are several, but the one that came out this year is the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. So the podcast was a reaction podcast to that show.

Both discussing how the non monogamous community might get represented and also how the Mormon community is represented. My partner on there is an ex LDS member and polyamorous. So it's. But now we've kind of.

That show actually had nothing to do with swinging, even though they completely used swinging as clickbait. And so now we've shifted it to discussing where E M does show up in the media and how it gets represented.

The Hollywood has a way of kind of yeah. Getting in the middle of everything and making it more dramatic or.

Yeah.

To suit their need. To suit their need. It's that old, powerful dollar. It is. It is. I have friends within the Hollywood industry, so I have to. I have to.

That'll be my little. Just a little dig. I'll make sure that everything is your. I'm sorry, real quick here. Your Instagram is at the bottom of the screen here as well.

They can reach and find you there.

I'll make sure that all of this is available through in the show notes so that somebody can just click and go right to your website if they have any questions or if they want to reach you or get your free guide or anything else involved. Lauren, thank you very much. It's been a wonderful conversation.

I think we've hopefully educated some people, maybe inspire some people, motivated people.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on and thanks for your openness.

Absolutely. I hope that. Hope we can have another conversation down the road. Maybe your book is being released this.

Month, later this month. And also just going to my website or any of my social media, you'll for sure, for sure hear about that.

And your podcast can be found on.

Everywhere, all the platforms.

Everywhere, all your favorite listening platforms. We'll have a link to that as well. So.

Okay.

Once again, Lauren, thank you very much. I really appreciate your time, your patience, your wisdom and in you.

Thank you.

For everyone else out there, please make sure that you check out the show notes to get all the information to connect to Lauren. And one more thing before you all go, thank you for being part of this community and have a great day. Have a great week and thanks for being here.

Thanks for listening to this episode of One more thing before you go.

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