Hi Fox! Hey Nova! How's it going? Pretty good! Welcome back to Mindful Poly! Yeah! It's a very
special episode. It is, I mean they're all special episodes. I'm gonna say that every
time. Yeah, it's true. I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. Yeah, right. You're a beacon
of honesty and truth. And purity. Pure of heart. Yes. Well, the reason why it's special
is this episode will share a bit of why this podcast is named what it is. How we already
had the domain name before we even started this podcast. So, to fill listeners in on
a little backstory, Nova used to do a mindfulness and meditation presentation that you named
Mindful Poly. Yeah. And that you also developed a website for. Right. Which was really awesome.
I thought it was one of the coolest things that I'd ever seen when you first introduced
me to it. Oh! And I was like, oh my god. Not only are you a badass coder and you can make
websites out of nothing. Well, I can do that, that's true. You're a sorcerer. Okay. I'm
getting shy now. Okay. Sorry, I'm talking you up. I'm trying not to put you too much
on the spot. Anyway, I was very impressed. Thank you. So the reason I was inspired to
start doing this presentation was because I did a mindfulness and meditation course
a while back. And it happened to be around the same time that I was learning a lot about
polyamory. And I realized that the two skills really overlapped. Like the things I was learning
about mindfulness and meditation really helped me in my poly journey. And I thought that
was kind of a cool intersection and I wanted to explore it. So sometimes, you know, if
you make a project for yourself, it kind of helps you dive in even deeper and explore
it even further. So I was like, why don't I, you know, I've been to a lot of poly conferences
and I've really enjoyed them. And I was like, I wonder if I might have something to offer
there. So as part of my pitch to do the presentation, I made the website and then use that to kind
of come up with what the presentations would cover. And now I've done it at Beyond the
Love and I did it at Southwest Love Fest. I did it at Southwest Love Fest. And I've
done a couple online ones. I've actually done the presentation a bunch of times now. And
I almost I think I've kind of decided I'm going to retire it because just because it's
been really fun and I'd like to challenge myself on something new and do something new
for the next one. But one last time, bring it to this episode and share just one small
piece of it. I've come up with lots of versions of this and they're usually much longer than
our short little episodes tend to be.
This will just be a little taste. A little slice. But the main point of it is that you
can use mindfulness meditation practices to help you. Like the presentation talked a lot
about how it applied to how these can be helpful for Polly people in navigating their emotions.
Yeah. And the website still exists if you want to go find it. It's actually it's on
our mindfulpoly.com. It's one of the links at the bottom. You can still find it. I didn't
take it down. So if you just...
I'm glad it's still there. It will be there forever.
If you feel like peeking through it.
So great. Well, what we're going to do is Nova is going to lead us through a section
of it. Kind of a sample. And I'm going to... And you at home can play along. I'm going
to be the one as if I'm in her session. Yeah. And we're going through the presentation.
So how should I prepare? Shoes off?
Shoes off?
Well, I'm about to meditate, I think.
Oh, you only do that barefoot?
Is that what... What are you supposed to do?
Oh, we'll get there. We'll get there.
Okay.
So one of the things I realized as I was putting together this presentation is that part of
what I connected with when it comes to mindfulness and meditation was I realized that I've got
this history of sort of being... I come from what I would characterize as hippie and engineering
roots. Like hippie engineers. And that's kind of what I've become in my own life. And so
mindfulness is kind of hippie. It's kind of... There are some people who have a hard time
connecting with it because it just seems a little too squishy, a little too... I don't
know.
Crunchy?
Maybe that's a word for it. Yeah. But to be honest, the engineering side of me is fascinated
by the studies they've done and the research they can do on brains that actually can track
the changes that happen when you practice mindfulness. And that's like... I'm just like...
I gobble that up.
Data. All the stats.
So I think one of the trickiest things about putting together this presentation is that
any given audience can have a very different understanding of mindfulness and meditation
going into it. Some people have been meditating a long time. Some people have been practicing
mindfulness in many ways. And some people are still kind of new to the concepts. So
that was always a really challenging aspect is to try to guess what level makes the most
sense. So I've kind of picked a middle ground that hopefully is still interesting to people
who practice it all the time and also still approachable for people who are brand new
to it.
Great. That's me.
So mindfulness is really... It's just a very simple concept. It's really just about being
in the moment, being present. More often than we... If we're not aware of it, it's very
easy for us to get caught up in thoughts about the future and thoughts about the past and
not really even be in the moment we're in right now. Some of the good examples I've
heard many times are if you're at dinner and you're planning what restaurant you should
all go to next and you're kind of missing the fact that you're already at a restaurant
enjoying a meal. Or if you think about the last time you took a shower and were actually
present for the sensations of what the soap smells like and feels like on your body and
what the water feels like. So often we just kind of go into autopilot when we do certain
types of tasks. So mindfulness, that's really all it is, is being present, being in the
moment.
Breaking you out of autopilot.
Yeah. Yeah. And so meditation is just a tool that can help you be more mindful. And there
are so many kinds of meditation. The one that most people are familiar with are closing
your eyes and paying attention to your breath in some way or another. So meditation is just
one of many tools that can help support your ability to think mindfully. So it's really
all about training your awareness. And once you train your awareness, you can be more
in the moment. I think of meditation a lot like working out in the sense that you can't
just do it once and suddenly have amazing muscles. It's something you've got to do
over and over and over to get practice. It's something you build slowly over time. Which
I think is one of the challenging things about it is that it's easy to do it once or twice
and be like, man, I'm awful at it. And it's like, yeah, you'd probably be awful at running
six miles if you just were sitting on the couch and decided to try it one day.
So yeah, takes practice. Yeah. But the nice thing about it is that built into it is sort
of an opportunity to give yourself some patience and some space.
Compassion.
Yeah, some compassion. And so meditation, I think sometimes people have a kind of mistaken
idea that it's about sitting there, sitting and breathing and clearing your mind of all
thoughts. And that's really not the goal. It's to bring awareness to the thoughts that
you're having and noticing them. The idea that you're just going to push all the thoughts
out of your brain is really kind of going against it. I like to think of it, meditation,
as being on a river, on the bank of a river. And so when you're going about your normal
day, you're usually in the river. So you're in with all your thoughts, you're caught up
in the stream of things, you're going along with it all. And meditation is about sort
of sitting on the bank and you're still, all those thoughts are still happening and they're
still going by. You're just noticing them and seeing them and being aware of them.
Observing.
Yeah. And you're just that little distance of being on the banks can make such a dramatic
impact in how you react to all those thoughts going by.
I remember you talking about that in one of your presentations and it hit me really hard.
Yeah, I remember you sharing that.
Well, because I can just really feel my imagination of the pull of the current on my ankles or
on my legs, like when you're deeper in the middle of the river. And when you walk to
the shore, that pressure eases off. You're not swept away by powerful emotions. You can
feel them because your feet are still wet, like you're still in it. But you can observe.
Cool. Yeah, I like that. Being able to connect with that sense of how much power the river
has over you by how much it's kind of pulling on you, the sensation.
And I don't think it's helpful to just banish thought and if you're having an uncomfortable
emotion to just stop, try to make yourself stop. So that river analogy just feels so
good at acknowledging its existence, allowing it to pass through you without sweeping you
away.
Right. And the part that I've always connected with, I like that you're describing what you
connected with is the pull of the river itself. I always enjoy thinking of my thoughts as
like fish because it's such a different relationship. You have such a different relationship when
you're imagining your thoughts that way. You can think of them as kind of like, oh, they're
kind of cute or they're kind of playful or they're kind of active or they're kind of,
you know, you can get all these adjectives in your own mind. And it's such a different
relationship than when you're just like, I'm just angry. You know, you're like, oh, there's
the angry fish. Look at him.
He's so grumpy.
Yeah. He's going to overbite.
Yeah, one of those like snaggle tooth like deep sea fish.
Yeah.
Fox made fish faces at Nova.
Yeah, they were great. Sorry you missed them.
So we've talked a lot about mindfulness and meditation, but we haven't talked a lot about
poly and that's kind of the main thing that we're trying to connect it up to.
That's why we're all here.
Yeah. So I'm going to start with a quote that I really love. That's from stranger in a strange
land. Mike doesn't have technique, but when Mike kisses you, he isn't doing anything else.
You're his whole universe and the moment is eternal because he doesn't have any plans
and he isn't going anywhere. Just kissing you.
Hot.
Yes. Like I aspire to Mike. Oh my God.
I want to kiss Mike.
Well, I mean, I would love to kiss Mike and I want to be Mike. I want to be the kind of
person that is described in that way that is kissing people in that way, leaving them
with the impression that like I'm doing nothing else but being there with them in that moment.
Mike is incredibly mindful.
So for this podcast, I just chose one particular topic out of all the ones I go into in my
presentation and the one I chose is being in the moment with a partner because one thing
that every poly person seems to connect on is the idea that we have a very busy calendar
and we tend to be juggling a lot of things and we have a lot of people that we want to
make time for. And I think when you have done all that work, you've carved out this time,
you've agreed upon a location and you've set aside this moment to share with each other.
The most important thing is to be there, to be mentally there, not just physically there,
but mentally be there in that moment, to be connected to that time and that place and
that person. And I think when you practice mindfulness, it can help you do that.
I find that so helpful. I am the target audience.
And so there are a lot of, there's a lot of options for how to practice being more mindful
and being more present with a partner. I think senses meditations are really good ways to
connect with the moment. And obviously you can do any type based on each of your senses.
I personally am most drawn to sound meditation. So that's the one I'm going to focus on today,
but you can really choose any of them that you think you enjoy the most.
So we're going to try something out here. I don't know how well meditation over podcasting
works, but we're going to explore going through a really quick one. I'm going to keep it as
short as I can, just so you get a taste for what it's like and you can practice it on
your own if you'd like to and do a more extended version. So the first step of any meditation
is really just to get into a comfortable position. So usually that involves sitting up straight
or standing straight, kind of rolling your shoulders, getting kind of relaxed in your
body. And once you get settled in, you're going to start focusing on your breath and
notice what it feels like as you breathe in and as you breathe out and just take a couple
slow breaths that way. You really kind of want to be curious about your breath each
time about what it feels like as it goes in and out. And now I want you to notice the
sounds in the room you're in. Obviously one of the first sounds is going to be my voice
since you're listening to this podcast, but we're going to take just a moment and see
if you can identify some other sounds in the room, in the space that you're in. And if
you can pick just one of them, spend a little time being curious about it. Is it loud or
is it soft? Is it near or far away? What kinds of things can you notice about the sound?
And then see if you can pick another sound, see if there are other sounds in the room,
even if it's really quiet or maybe even just notice the silence and explore the sound of
silence. And we'll take a brief moment to be curious about that new sound. And then
see if you can connect with all of the sounds together. It kind of gives you an idea of
the soundscape of this moment. You know, explore what it's like to be right here, right now,
and all the sounds that come along with being in this space that you're in. And just let's
take a couple of breaths noticing all the sounds around us. And now we'll come back
and talk a little bit about that experience. I kept that one much, much faster than I would
normally do them, just for the sake of giving you a taste of what it's like. And I normally
check in and see what people have to say about that experience. Do you have anything you'd
like to share, Fox? That was really nice. Even the abbreviated version just felt good.
I think there are so many moments where we're reacting on instinct and gut reaction, and
all it takes is five seconds to just pause. Yeah, I think that's a really good point.
Sometimes when I see meditation spoken about, there's an idea that it needs to be for a
really long time, or it's not going to be meaningful. And yeah, I mean, that's a really
good... Skeptical.
Yeah. I mean, obviously it's great if you can invest that kind of time into it. But
even if you only have a couple of minutes, or what I've found, if you're in a date and
you realize that you're really focused on what you just did before the date, or what
you need to do next, or trying to plan what's going to happen the next time you see this
person, you can just take, like you said, five seconds, take a breath. And for me, I
like to notice the sounds in the space I'm in. And it's a quick way for me to be like,
right, I'm here now. I'm here in this time and space.
You know what this made me think of was with my partner River on our video call dates.
Sometimes there will be some breaks in the conversation where neither of us are talking.
And like, I don't think I've been able to experience this with almost any other person
in my life. But with River on those video calls, that I'm able to feel comfortable in
those silences. Yeah. Like we're able to just let them happen.
I think that's really cool. I feel like silence is often a source of anxiety in relationships
for people. Right? We feel the pressure to feel it.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it really speaks highly when you can just like, be comfortable in
silence. You're comfortable enough with another human to be silent together. So that's just
a really brief idea of one of the gifts that I think mindfulness and meditation can offer
to Polly people is just a different way to connect with your in-person time with another
human or even not in-person, virtual time with another human. Long distance time.
And one of the other skills that meditation and mindfulness can cultivate that I think
is also really powerful in Polly is curiosity. Because if you notice during that meditation,
we were curious about the sounds around us. I liked it.
Yeah. Which is really fun. I think curiosity is something that's very natural to us as
kids. And we over time kind of lose touch with it. We're so often taught not to be curious
to accept what's told or how someone else presents things instead of saying, well, why
is it this way? Or why should it be like that? Or what are you feeling about that? And I
think anytime you start applying curious thinking to other people, it can be kind of amazing
because you can be curious about yourself. You can be curious about who you are on a
given day at a given time during a given date. You can even like, who am I right now in this
moment? Yes, I've been this way with this partner before, but who am I today? And what
kind of energy am I bringing right now? And who are they? I know what we've been like
in the past. I know how our dates have been, but what is this date going to be like? What's
it going to feel like? What are we going to share together? And even, I think you can
take it further. There's a lot of situations where you might, I've heard so many times
people say, well, I know they're going to react this way, or I know my partner's going
to feel this way about this thing. And I'm like, but do you?
I've done that so many times. Maybe you should be curious about that. Give them an opportunity,
give them space to be whatever they are. It's possible you're right, but you might not be.
And even when you give off the energy that you already know the answer, they're going
to pick up on that. You might be kind of pushing them towards feeling a way that they wouldn't
have otherwise. Kind of taking away an opportunity for them to be present with you. Yeah. Yeah.
Versus just saying, how do you feel? Tell me how you feel. I'd love to know. I'm curious
about you. I'm curious about what your reaction is to this.
So that is just a very mini little tidbit of one of my presentation topics. If you're
curious or you thought it was kind of fun, feel free to check out the website and explore
some of those areas that I didn't get to talk about. I have done a presentation about self-love
and how mindfulness and meditation can help you with that. And obviously self-love is
like huge in the Pali world. There's one about conflict and breakups that I personally have
found really helpful in my own life. So that was mindful Pali, the presentation. Before we let you
go, I want to remind everyone that we are doing our audience discussion prompt again this season.
This season, the question is what makes you feel secure in a relationship? Record a voice
answer or write to us at podcasts at mindfulpali.com and we may use it in that episode at the end of
the season. We're doing the audience participation. I bumped my microphone. How embarrassing.
How embarrassing. Oh my God. I am so embarrassed. I am so embarrassed. That's my Grover voice.