Polyamory as a modality for spiritual growth

Carson, I can identify with a lot of what you are saying. I would even add by saying that for me, sex itself is a spiritual experience. It is not as if I need to look for forgiveness in my spirituality for such an experience. Quite the opposite - it is a natural consequence of my spirituality. My spirituality is about how I fit into this world, how I am connected to everything. Can there be a deeper connection that an emotional bond consummated in sex?

In addition, I also have the problem that I can see very easily when my wife tries to downplay her emotions/desires. It actually increases my anxiety levels when I sense she is trying to hide/downplay her emotions/desires. I dunno if you also feel that your anxiety would be less if she was just brutally honest with you? Like just ripping the plaster off?

I wish you good luck dealing with your anxieties. I believe I too will be there soon :).
 
Hi kullervo,

Carson, I can identify with a lot of what you are saying. I would even add by saying that for me, sex itself is a spiritual experience.

Absolutely... same for me. I probably won't get too in-depth here at these forums regarding my personal sexual experiences simply because they are so dramatic and unconventional. I had a full kundalini awakening in 2009 and this has resulted in biological changes like having 5-10 minute long non-ejaculatory orgasms that can border on religious experiences... I wrote about an extreme example not so long ago here: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=14913.

It is not as if I need to look for forgiveness in my spirituality for such an experience. Quite the opposite - it is a natural consequence of my spirituality. My spirituality is about how I fit into this world, how I am connected to everything. Can there be a deeper connection that an emotional bond consummated in sex?

The only other experiences I have had that touched the level of intimacy of connected sex has been using certain psychedelics in a therapy style situation with a partner. Outside of that, sex seems to be the pinnacle for sure.

In addition, I also have the problem that I can see very easily when my wife tries to downplay her emotions/desires. It actually increases my anxiety levels when I sense she is trying to hide/downplay her emotions/desires. I dunno if you also feel that your anxiety would be less if she was just brutally honest with you? Like just ripping the plaster off?

Both my wife and I laughed crazy hard at reading this part... we had this exact discussion yesterday only a few hours prior to you making this post. I have requested that she please be absolutely upfront with how she is feeling about another person because I can tell regardless of her words. She is starting to date another guy right now and is obviously feeling some NRE from it but wasn't particularly aware of it and is still conditioned to feel that expressing these types of feelings to me is a complete no-no. Getting this out into the open though and requesting that she just lay it on me, regardless of whether or not it may hurt initially, seems to have helped me considerably.

I wish you good luck dealing with your anxieties. I believe I too will be there soon :).

Thanks man and likewise... maybe we should start a support group. ;)

Love,
Carson
 
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I can relate to the original post. In my limited research into poly it requires a commitment to self and loved ones to face every aspect of yourself especially the things you would like to hide from the light of day. If you can't atleast try things won't work.

It gives me perspective and I'm starting to see this self-reflection sinking into different aspects of my life outside romance. Combined with Taoism I'm seeing personal growth and a more fearless relationship with the world at large.
 
My first post, I've something to say!

Hi kdt26417,



It may take me a while to get used to the "environment" here, and I apologize for that. I am a long time participant of a large online yoga/meditation/tantra community and that is really my only exposure to online forums. I sometimes forget that phrases like "self-realization" means different things to different people. In the yoga community I'm referring to, self-realization is synonymous with enlightenment and enlightenment is generally defined as having a silent mind and a body that is "lit up" with ecstatic energy. So when I ask shit like "are others here using their poly lifestyle as a modality for self-realization" I'm sort of wondering if anyone here is actively trying to use the emotional turmoil that can be triggered by (perhaps only newly) poly relationships to make the mind quieter and less reactive.

Love,
Carson

Carson,

Hello! This is my first post on this forum, and as you can tell by the fact that I zoomed in on your thread here, I'm experiencing something very similar to what you've described.

I'm a mono cismale , maybe getting close to becoming a Monomour (my GF is bi). My GF is wonderful, she & I have been close for 5-6 months now. She always casually used to mention how nice it'd be to go hook up with a girl (all in playful , not that she was seriously entertaining the idea when we were in the same place) The next 4 months however, she's off to a coop in a different part of the country and I wont be seeing her at all. Something came to my mind, and I began entertaining the thought of her being sexually unsatisfied (she's a very beautiful, sexual being and she acknowledges its tough for her to not have her sexual partner near). I wanted to let her not feel that sexual lacking. So I, being the giver, asked her if she wanted to consider meeting a lady to be a close intimate friend/partner & that I would be ok with it.

Here's the tough part - I really wasnt ok when I said it to her. I still needed more time to get my emotions understood. I'm a spiritual believer, atheist, and I had a very tough time understanding why I had this painful reaction in my mind/body in imagining her with another human being in love or sexual union in a nonmonogamous manner.

I've read a few books (Ethical Slut) to try channelize these emotions and understand deeper who it is that I AM, and who I want to choose to be.

This forum has been of tremendous help already (i've stealthily read many a post here) and while my dear lady has not yet begun any relationships besides ours, I hope to express my fully formulated thoughts to her. She is the epitome of good relationship communication, and I hope to let my negative thoughts subside and with this eventual transition, take our relationship to deeper, more satisfying depths.

Carson - Yes, it is a very powerful spiritual stimulant. I am finding myself (in brief bouts) to be at greater peace in my life with myself & the world around me. But I'm still in the growing phase and hope to get to the other side with a smile on my face.

Regards,
thepaleob
 
In my limited research into poly it requires a commitment to self and loved ones to face every aspect of yourself especially the things you would like to hide from the light of day. If you can't at least try, things won't work.
This is true of monogamy as well. Any relationship where you are a partner to someone and sharing yourself in intimate ways requires self-knowledge. If a person is skating through life not committed to doing any self-examination, they would likely do that in any form of relationship, mono or poly. People don't suddenly become enlightened just from having multiple relationships.
 
I'm curious to know if others here are using their poly lifestyle as modality for self-realization.

...

Just curious to hear if anyone else resonates with this or not.

Hi Carson.
And, a resonant YES. Though I don't have time to reply more than that for now...
 
Hi L23,

It gives me perspective and I'm starting to see this self-reflection sinking into different aspects of my life outside romance. Combined with Taoism I'm seeing personal growth and a more fearless relationship with the world at large.

Do you find that practicing Taoism helps you with self-reflection in any specific way? I found that meditation (mantra style designed to retrain the brain to eliminate unnecessary threads of thought) really helped me with this by making the mind considerably quieter, less reactive and allowed me to witness emotions arising before falling into a habitual reaction. Curious to know more about how/if Taoism is directly contributing to your poly and evolutionary successes.

Love,
Carson
 
Hi thepaleob,

Carson,
So I, being the giver, asked her if she wanted to consider meeting a lady to be a close intimate friend/partner & that I would be ok with it.

Is there a reason you will only consider letting her meet another woman? This is something I've had to confront. Originally my wife seemed only interested in dating other females, but that only lasted a short while before she started dating other guys (much easier for her to find suitable men vs women she's finding). When this happened, and when she started talking about getting physical with them I was forced to start confronting the conditioning that made it feel less threatening for her to date women. It wasn't fun, nor comfortable, but it was worked through quickly and I'm really glad to have had the opportunity to do so. Life has been much more fluid and smooth ever since and she and I feel dramatically more connected than before as well.

Here's the tough part - I really wasnt ok when I said it to her. I still needed more time to get my emotions understood. I'm a spiritual believer, atheist, and I had a very tough time understanding why I had this painful reaction in my mind/body in imagining her with another human being in love or sexual union in a nonmonogamous manner.

I went through this too. It was incredibly confusing to feel these painful emotions coming up when Dee was starting to connect deeply with other people. It was hard for me to understand how it could be SO easy for me to love numerous people yet SO hard for me to handle when she started loving other people. Such a double standard!!

This forum has been of tremendous help already (i've stealthily read many a post here) and while my dear lady has not yet begun any relationships besides ours, I hope to express my fully formulated thoughts to her. She is the epitome of good relationship communication, and I hope to let my negative thoughts subside and with this eventual transition, take our relationship to deeper, more satisfying depths.

This has been probably the most profound benefit of choosing to open our marriage. The level of communication, honesty and openness has expanded so dramatically that it's impossible to imagine going back to just "coasting through the relationship."

Carson - Yes, it is a very powerful spiritual stimulant. I am finding myself (in brief bouts) to be at greater peace in my life with myself & the world around me. But I'm still in the growing phase and hope to get to the other side with a smile on my face.

Thank you so much for sharing thepaleob!!

Love,
Carson
 
Hi nycindie,

This is true of monogamy as well. Any relationship where you are a partner to someone and sharing yourself in intimate ways requires self-knowledge. If a person is skating through life not committed to doing any self-examination, they would likely do that in any form of relationship, mono or poly. People don't suddenly become enlightened just from having multiple relationships.

While I agree that people don't suddenly become enlightened by being poly I disagree that every relationship requires the level of self-knowledge that is required for successful poly relationships. I have been in mono relationships for about 20 years now and 99.9% of my friends are in mono relationships and only once Dee and I opened the marriage did I have to start confronting issues like jealousy, self worth, insecurity and fear of loss. Prior to that I would externalize all the emotions and conditioning and force the situation to change, not me. We could have continued like this indefinitely and never would have been forced to confront these difficulties.

Love,
Carson
 
They say that polyamory tends to magnify/train a spotlight on any previously-unnoticed cracks in a previously-monogamous relationship. Perhaps it could also be said that polyamory tends to magnify/train a spotlight on any previously-unnoticed cracks in one's own personal/spiritual growth.
 
They say that polyamory tends to magnify/train a spotlight on any previously-unnoticed cracks in a previously-monogamous relationship. Perhaps it could also be said that polyamory tends to magnify/train a spotlight on any previously-unnoticed cracks in one's own personal/spiritual growth.

I would agree 100%. At least that is how it is playing out for me!

Love,
Carson
 
While I agree that people don't suddenly become enlightened by being poly I disagree that every relationship requires the level of self-knowledge that is required for successful poly relationships. I have been in mono relationships for about 20 years now and 99.9% of my friends are in mono relationships and only once Dee and I opened the marriage did I have to start confronting issues like jealousy, self worth, insecurity and fear of loss. Prior to that I would externalize all the emotions and conditioning and force the situation to change, not me. We could have continued like this indefinitely and never would have been forced to confront these difficulties.

The structure and status of monogamy, as the 'default', can allow folks to skate along and never question themselves, their partners or society. It is entirely possible to resolutely not look at oneself - encouraged even by mainstream expectations - and take a pass on developing self-knowledge. I think this is double true of things that cause pain or discomfort, like experiencing jealousy, insecurity, fear.

But, it is entirely possible to consciously do spiritual and/or self-awareness work in a monogamous relationship. It has to be a conscious decision however - the structure of monogamy with its expectations and ready-made solutions doesn't encourage. Relationships can be a major path to spiritual development - I know I would be much less aware and conscious of my choices, of how I think and feel, if I hadn't been with my ex-wife for 12 years. I learned lessons from my ex-boyfriend too. Having more relationships can be springboard to spiritual growth but, it has to be a conscious choice.
 
TL/DR: Polyamory often kicks you in the butt, whereas in monogamy you often have to kick yourself in the butt! :)
 
Polyamory is part of my spirituality

I see poly and compersion especially as part of my spirituality. I am a pagan and that is one of the few religions that is genuinely sex positive. For me though the whole idea of loving people separately from what they can "do for me" is part of loving well and being connected and the self examination and realization that goes with that practice is how I evolve as a person.

I am certainly not a saint, I get angry and jealous but polyamory is the way I love people and I like that poly requires an open mind and heart--which is my spiritual practice.
 
Polyamory is part of my spirituality

I see poly and compersion especially as part of my spirituality. I am a pagan and that is one of the few religions that is genuinely sex positive. For me though the whole idea of loving people separately from what they can "do for me" is part of loving well and being connected and the self examination and realization that goes with that practice is how I evolve as a person.

I am certainly not a saint, I get angry and jealous but polyamory is the way I love people and I like that poly requires an open mind and heart--which is my spiritual practice.
 
I see poly and compersion especially as part of my spirituality. I am a pagan and that is one of the few religions that is genuinely sex positive. For me though the whole idea of loving people separately from what they can "do for me" is part of loving well and being connected and the self examination and realization that goes with that practice is how I evolve as a person.

I am certainly not a saint, I get angry and jealous but polyamory is the way I love people and I like that poly requires an open mind and heart--which is my spiritual practice.

Very awesome!

When you get angry and jealous, how might you deal with that in a spiritual way?
 
Ah, you speak of poly (and its impact on the mind) as a meditative tool. While I don't go in for "the silence of the mind," I do favor "peace of mind." Which is perhaps a way of saying I'm too lazy to meditate. :) I sleep a lot though. :cool:.


I've become increasingly involved in what is called "mindfulness meditation." Curiously enough, mindfulness meditation is neither about seeking to dwell in "peace of mind" or "silence of mind". Rather, mindfulness meditation is mostly about committing to being with (with awareness) whatever is happening right now in our experience -- which involves a lot of awareness of present-moment sensations in "the body". I put "the body" in quotes because "the body" is not the idea we have about "the body," but is rather, the experiential "soma" -- the lived body.

In any case, meditation is not what we think. :D Nor is it opposed to what we think. ;)
 
Can't change the past ... can't predict the future ... might as well live in the present.
 
Can't change the past ... can't predict the future ... might as well live in the present.

Yes. True. But "mindfulness meditation" takes us past a merely intellectual assent of these facts into a very experiential awareness and experience of it all.

Knowing that water is H2O is very different from swimming in water.
 
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