“Love is unconditional. Relationship is conditional. This is a really key distinction. Loving someone unconditionally does not mean staying in a particular kind of relationship unconditionally. Okay? So if someone is doing an addiction, or they lie, or they have abusive patterns, or any number of things that don’t meet my criteria to be in a certain kind of relationship, I can still love them unconditionally. But have conditions around what I interact with and how I interact with it. Does that make sense? Thinking that relationship is unconditional is codependence.” –Daniel.
Enjoy these controversial transcripts with Daniel from his game-changing talk called: “How not to get Fucked up in Relationship” at PolyPalooza. Following are Notes from the Q &A.
Question: So you meet somebody. How do you make time for self-care and find out if they’re really right for you? I’ve had a very tumultuous and awesome last few months letting somebody in so deep. This euphoria feels like the highest privilege of being human. You know?
Daniel: I got it. It’s a simple one. It’s, don’t pretend that there’s a false dichotomy here. Between being rationally clear and knowing what your values are, and being emotionally connected. There’s no dichotomy here. You actually can optimize both at the same time.
If you have a scarcity dynamic in your mind about the possibility of creating good relationships, you will compromise yourself. If you have a story running that says there aren’t really good men, or people wouldn’t really like me, or I can’t find what I want, or I’m not attractive enough, you will mortgage yourself and mortgage some of your values for anything that shows up, because we’re relational creatures and you need it.
And yet, if you know there’s an abundance of opportunities that you can have amazing oxytocin hits with and good feelings with, but some are really good for you and some aren’t, you’re not going to choose the ones that are bad for you. So if you’ve got some scarcity dynamics going on in your psyche, address them. And to address the scarcity dynamics in your psyche means, actually do therapy on it.
So there is no dichotomy there between being able to have something that’s really good for you and something that feels really good. It’s a false dichotomy.
We could also say that you’re having a parts conflict. Your mind, your heart, your body – when they’re all in agreement, it means that you’re in congruency. When part of you is a “yes” and the other parts are “no”, and you go ahead with that “yes”, you fragment inside. This is why we teach: “if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.” That means that your mind is a “yes” – meaning there’s good values in alignment, you respect this person, you admire them, you feel honored to get to be next to them. Your heart’s a “yes” saying you feel safe, they’re going to protect my heart and they’re going to honor it, they have enough emotional maturity and integrity. And your body’s like, “Yeah, I feel stoked to get to be physically close to this person.” The degree to which those circles don’t overlap is the degree to which you don’t have power, because you’ll have mixed messages inside that pull you different ways, and you’ll deal with the pain of fragmentation. So what we want is called parts reconciliation, or parts alignment. We want to have all of those parts line up.
Question: Can you talk more about the brain chemisty of Love Addiction?
Daniel: One big point that’s worth understanding about neurochemisty is that if you’ve ever read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins on how gene work evolutionary biology was, you’ll know that your genes don’t die when you die if you’ve procreated. If you haven’t procreated, your genes die when you die. Your genes care about living. They don’t care about you living. You’re just a package to carry them forward. And a new package is a better package than an older package is. Because it’s going to go for longer. So your genes that motivate the neurochemistry and hormones that affect how you think and feel care about your procreation more than they care about your survival. So they will make you think and feel things that encourage procreation, or at least the kinds of activity evolutionarily associated with procreation, over your own survival. Does that make sense? This is not you. This is not your consciousness. This is a gene saying, “You don’t have to do this.” But you have to be able to witness the itch and not scratch it.
A fun experiment that I did in my early 20s was I took massive doses of testosterone boosters while maintaining celibacy for several months. And celibacy meant no masturbation, no orgasm. Because I wanted to get really good at witnessing that itch and not scratching it until I would trust myself around sex. And I wanted to be around women that really wanted to hook up and know that I wouldn’t because then I would know that I wouldn’t make stupid decisions because I was horny. It was great practice.
Question: Did you sleep on beds of nails also?
Daniel: Yeah. Okay, moving on. Next Question?
Question: Can we go back to partner selection?
Daniel: Right, partner selection. This is about doing your due diligence before starting a new relationship.
To be with someone as a business partner, you better fucking vet who they are really well because you’re going to have – there’s a lot of consequences to that relationship. Marriage, sex – all of those have a lot of consequence. And so you want to know what your deal breakers are, what your minimums and musts are, and you actually are conditional about those kinds of relationships, even though you’re unconditional about loving them.
If something feels off, slow down, give yourself some time to check in, but if your intuition tells you that something feels off, don’t just blow past it.. What we think is off might not be. Your head might be playing stories and making shit up that isn’t real, but if it feels off, it is. And that doesn’t mean you just break up or say “no” right away. It means you go slower until you’re clear on what it is. So if you’re not sure, “Is this my own pattern coming up? Or is there really something off in the relationship? Are they really being honest with me? Are they being honest with themselves? Maybe they’re trying to be honest with me, but they’re in their own confusion and something feels off, Just slow down. Does that make sense?
Kamala Devi: Similarly in poly, when you’re in love and you already have a partner, and you’re like, “Oh, this is my new exciting prospect.” And your partner’s intuition is: “This is not the right person for you.” And you’re defensively like, “You don’t understand our love.” Chances are that you have been hijacked by your chemistry. The people who love you often know you and they can see what’s in your highest good. Your friends, your peers, your closest circle – if they have red flags, listen to their intuition because your own intuition may be way off.
Daniel: Yes. And if you’re wondering if your partner’s intuition that this other person is a red flag is just their own insecurity and triggers, versus if it’s right intuition, it doesn’t matter because if they’re too triggered, you shouldn’t be with somebody else right now if you want to maintain that prior relationship. So whether their intuition is right or whether they’re too triggered, it still a sign to slow down and figure it out. Does that make sense?
This is not just your partners. Your best girlfriends, your best guy friends, your family members that know you well – if they give you red flags about a relationship, pay attention. Don’t take it as gospel, but pay attention. Really take it in as, “Maybe my brain chemistry is altered enough that I’m actually wrong. And let me at least slow down enough to think about it.” If I notice that I really want to defend the person that I’m with, I really want to defend them – or especially if I notice that I don’t want to share certain things that would make them look bad because the other people just won’t understand – that’s a red flag.
If something feels off, it is. And trust the intuition of the people who love you and are close to you, enough to at least triple check it. So don’t lose your center in relationship. This is another meta-point. And don’t make anybody else your center. So we said maintain your sanity and your health. Another key way of saying that is, maintain your center, which means your okay-ness, independent of what they do. And if you start, if you note something’s off and you ask them and they say, “No, everything’s good,” that there’s nothing off, and you listen to that and something still feels off for you, you’re actually trusting their truth more than your truth. You’re putting your center in them. As a result of that, you will start needing them to actually feel centered. And when it doesn’t happen, you’ll get addicted.
Question: What if my partner doesn’t hear me when I’m like: “No. I see this person as poisonous to our relationship. They feel invasive to me.
Daniel: You got to get clear up front about what your deal breakers are, what your “must haves” are, what your “nice to haves” are for the relationship. Have the whole relationship clear. What your values are that you just don’t fuck with things outside of that. And what is a trigger that you’re own to work through, and what is a trigger that’s really a sign that’s something’s not good for you. And how to be clear on those differences.
Attachment theory, if you’ve studied it, is a brilliant psychological theory that says, when we’re kids, we’re supposed to healthfully attach to our parents and learn how to have a healthy attachment so that we can have healthy attachments later. And yet most of us didn’t get fully healthy attachments from our parents because they were fucked up by their parents. And so there are some childhood developmental attachment needs still unmet that we’re trying to get in relationship. That’s true. We know that. There’s a certain degree of looking for mommy and daddy kind of dynamics. Unconditional love that looks like unconditional relationship from someone else that is an unmet childhood need.
Q: How do you help grow your partner’s sovereignty and get their help growing your own sovereignty?
Daniel: This is an important one. First look at their finances. This is an important because it’s at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy. If you feel financially dependent on someone, or your survival level stuff is dependent on them, you will mortgage almost everything else for that. And so it’s the place to start.
Next, let’s say your partner is struggling with some emotional dynamics. They’re doing their own kind of inner child process. I want to be patient with their wounded child. I want to be loving and understanding. But I want to support their own adult taking care of their own child, not becoming the adult. I want to say, “I get it. I understand. That childhood thing is coming up. I’m not inpatient or judgmental. Now I want you to find your adult. Because I know she’s there. And I want her dialogue with that. Because again, I want to support her and I want her to do the same for me, and really growing up, not growing in-meshed.”
Kamala Devi: There’s a lot of mixed messages in spiritual and poly communities like, “Self-love is the ultimate love, and get your needs met from self and source first.” And there’s tremendous truth in that, and there’s tremendous power. But it’s a partial truth. We must also accept that we are pack animals, we are meant to be tribal, and we are hardwired to depend on others. We can’t actually satisfy all of our needs ourself. So being able to cultivate healthy, mature relationships where we are negotiating our needs and our wants with each other is a skill that should be developed in proportion to our independence.
In polyamory. We have a lot of mixed messages. I don’t want you to go from one spiritual ideal which is, “I’m only going to depend on self and source and be totally sovereign in relationship” to the other extreme of it takes a tribe and this is my family and I do what is in the highest good of all my lovers, even if I have to forsake myself.”
Daniel: So here’s how that works together. It is okay to need interactions with other humans, just not one particular human. Okay. So we have a need for connection. But we don’t have a need to connect with this person. That’s a strategy, not a need. It’s important. Before you knew that person, you didn’t need shit from them. You were happy plenty of times. You had highs, you had – you don’t need any particular thing from any particular person. If you think you do, that is codependence, not interdependence. You do need things from people. Just not one particular person.
If you really want to be able to be super messy and just have someone love you unconditionally through all of your mess and be there for you unconditionally and know that they’ll never leave you, get a therapist. That’s what they exist for. For meeting the unmet parental needs from childhood where you didn’t grow up all the way into independence. But it’s not actually someone’s job in relationship to do that.
If you’re going to do attachment theory with someone, you say, “You know what? I’m going to let them hold a space for me that says “safe”, as like a parent would hold, and I’m going to do that for them.” You only do an attachment theory practice with someone when you have both mutually consented to do that and you’ve known each other a long time. And you really know how they show up when they’re triggered and things go badly before you actually do that with them.
Because you’re asking them not for an equal adult interdependent dynamic. You’re asking them to say, “Can I be codependent with you in a healthy progressive growth the way?” And so the teaching here is, do not get to the place where you need somebody before you are sure that they are capable of, and want to, and will show up in that way.
This means needing them financially, emotionally, or anything else. So the dependence scale is codependent, independent, interdependent. You cannot go from codependence to interdependence without passing through independence. If you have not gotten independent really well down, work on that before you’re shooting for interdependent.
And get friends, and not one friend. But like a friend group, and ones that are capable of that. And consent to that. An important kind of distinction. Any place where you don’t feel powerful in your independence in your life is a place where you’re likely to get hooked in relationship. If you feel pretty good about your looks and about your purpose and about a bunch of bunch of things, but you struggle with finances and you’ve always struggled with them and you just have this hard life, “Will I ever be able to support myself financially doing something I love?” you are likely to get hooked by finances in a relationship. It’s cheaper to live with them than to live alone. And then you’re in the relationship and then it’s sucking, but you can’t financially get out.
So whatever areas you don’t feel powerful on your own, make the commitment to actually work on that in yourself until you’re powerful before getting that from somebody else. Before needing it from somebody else.
I’ll give you a personal story here. My wife was financially independent and she actually had real good relationship to that through her whole life, and spent less than she made. Wasn’t in debt. When we got together, I wanted to start paying for things – she would have none of it. She was like, “No, I’m independent.” It took us two years before she let me pay for anything. I could pay for dates or dinner, but not like her rent. Or her cell phone. Or whatever. Because she needed to know, like she wanted to watch me pay my bills regularly, and she wanted to really know that the relationship was good before she started needing me. And I was comfortable to support her in that way because she didn’t need it.
Now I’ve had other relationships where people are struggling and I love them and they’re beautiful and they’re amazing and I can support them financially and I want to so badly, and I can’t do it. Because I’ll fuck up their growth if I do. And so I will pay for their education and business. I will pay for extracurricular things. But I will not pay their bills, even if they’re super struggling because I’ll create addiction, rather than help them grow up. Does that make sense?
Now here’s a place where we fail at that commonly, is that we want to be needed by the other person, because that’s how we get our self-esteem hit. So pay attention to this. You want to be appreciated by them. You want to add enriching things to their life without being needed. If you’re needed by them, your freedom is gone. And you gave your freedom, and your integrity, for an esteem hit from the outside. Does that make sense? So this is where you notice, “Wow I really want to be needed. Why?
Because I don’t know that they will stay with me. If they don’t need me, and I actually need them. So I want them to need me because I need them.” Cool. Time to go to CoDa. Do the 12 steps on that thing and at least acknowledge it. And then say, “I want to add shit to their life that’s super unique and enriching so my unique self is realized and recognized by them, and they love it, and it’s enhancing, and they don’t need me.”
Kamala Devi: Actually, I think this is a really beautiful point to end on because we’re about out of time. And so I want to reinforce the distinction that being in love is about maturity. When we are in our infancy, love is synonymous with need. We need our parents and our family to take care of us. We need their food, touch, shelter to survive. And when we are children we don’t know who we are, or how the world works so we need their validation and support. Love starts to mature as we do, and there’s a whole journey to becoming a healthy adult and that may involve a rebellion phase, or betrayal or disappointment, or whatever we have to go through, but on the other side we become adults. As an adult we can take care of most of our own needs and love becomes this whole other thing. Mature love is enriching, adding to, wanting for, instead of wanting from. And so ask yourself: Do you want what’s in the highest good of that person? Or do you want that person to love you in order to validate that your good enough? And be responsible if those old programs that are still running us. It’s OK to own up to it: “I’m seeking proof that I’m lovable.” It’s OK to feel that way, but that’s not love. That’s your insecurity or your inner child. In contrast, the adult impulse to love is a generous one.
Kamala Devi: So, Daniel, we are about ready to wrap up, do you have a some final words of wisdom for us?
Daniel: So in closing, How many of the things that I said were a little bit triggering? Or like you can relate to having done and got fucked up by at some point? So, I remember being at a place in my life, many years ago, where I felt so clear, I had done so much therapy and meditation or whatever, that I felt pretty much invincible. And then some period of time later, when I was having nightly panic attacks and couldn’t sleep for like three months because of how fucked up my relationship got, and like, “How did that happen?” And it was that whole frog in hot water, progressively taking one more step beyond where my healthy boundaries should have been, and rationalizing why that was a good thing in the name of love. And so these are things that we all get fucked up on. And,rather than have to suffer for that whole time, I so wish I had someone to just bitch slap me and say, “Hey, look. Here’s how it is.”
So this talk was sort of a compassionate bitch slap. I hope you enjoyed it.
In addition to being one of KamalaDevi’s best friends, Daniel an evolutionary visionary. By day he works on restructuring global governance, memetics and environmental problems and by night, as a hobby, he likes to help poly people restructure their messy relationships. So, this is a 3 part blog series from PolyPalooza 2014 which was transcribed. If you loved this article you will enjoy Part 1 & 2:
Part 1: “How to Not Get Fucked Up In Relationship” The Brain Chemistry of Love & Sex Addiction Click Here.
Part 2: A deeper dive into the Poly 10 commandments or best practices for open relationships.
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