Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok a F Daily
Speaker 1: with me your Girl, Danielle Moody recording from the Brooklyn Bunker.
Speaker 1: Happy Valentine's Day, Dear friends, m Valentine's Day, let me
Speaker 1: be honest with you, is not a hallmark holiday that
Speaker 1: I have ever really celebrated, even when I was married,
Speaker 1: when I'm single, because one, I think it's a capitalistic
Speaker 1: ploy but two, I think that the idea that we're
Speaker 1: only supposed to spend one day dedicated to those loving
Speaker 1: relationships that we have is just foolish. And so I
Speaker 1: say all that to say that what woke AF is
Speaker 1: and what I'm hoping woke F becomes and expands into,
Speaker 1: is a conversation about how we live more consciously, how
Speaker 1: we love more consciously, both ourselves and in the relationships
Speaker 1: that we have with the people around us, whether they
Speaker 1: be platonic or intimate relationships or romantically intimate relationships. Because,
Speaker 1: as you will see in my conversation with our returning
Speaker 1: guest and friend, doctor Jen M. Jackson, who is the
Speaker 1: co host of the podcast of That Black Couple and
Speaker 1: a writer and abolitionist and a columnist with That Teen Vogue,
Speaker 1: we will discuss that all relationships are intimate, and that
Speaker 1: we really need to understand our relationship to attachment right
Speaker 1: and our relationship to ourselves. If we are to have healthy, happy,
Speaker 1: whole relationships, they only start from being healthy, happy and
Speaker 1: whole with ourselves. So we get in to really great,
Speaker 1: juicy conversation about love, what it means to love in
Speaker 1: the midst of a pandemic, what it means to have
Speaker 1: different relationship styles exist within one or multiple relationships, and
Speaker 1: how we navigate our truth and how we come to
Speaker 1: the table with that truth. So I hope, folks, that
Speaker 1: you will take this entire episode as a woke moment
Speaker 1: of wellness, as a check in right with yourself. We
Speaker 1: will talk about that as well. Are we checking in?
Speaker 1: Are we interrogating our feelings? Are we checking in with
Speaker 1: the partners that we have the relationships that we have
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. Right relationships, regardless of again how
Speaker 1: they stand in your life, require regular check in, regular conversation.
Speaker 1: We're not the same person that we were at the beginning,
Speaker 1: the middle, or at the end, and so it's important
Speaker 1: to have those moments of solo reflection and group reflection
Speaker 1: so that we're creating the type of dynamic that allows
Speaker 1: us to be our most authentic, true, and vulnerable selves.
Speaker 1: So I hope, dear friends, on this Valentine's Day, that
Speaker 1: you can get into and enjoy the conversation with our friend,
Speaker 1: doctor Jen M. Jackson. Folks, I am very happy to
Speaker 1: welcome back to woke a f which doctor Jen Jackson.
Speaker 1: I think that this is your third time. Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: so excited. Third time is a charm our, friend, abolitionist, writer,
Speaker 1: columnists at teen Vogue, and the co host of That
Speaker 1: Black That Black Couple podcast. Folks, doctor at Jen M. Jackson,
Speaker 1: thank you for making time to join us on this day,
Speaker 1: which is Valentine's Day, right where people have a lot
Speaker 1: of people have a complicated relationship to this very much
Speaker 1: manufactured Hallmark holiday that tells us that this is the
Speaker 1: day for love. So apparently the other three hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty four days. I guess we don't have to really care.
Speaker 1: Nobody's expecting cards, candy or date nights. But I think
Speaker 1: that it's important for us, particularly in this time, still
Speaker 1: living in this global health pandemic, still living in this
Speaker 1: time of I don't know, racial reckoning, white supremacists on crack.
Speaker 1: I have no idea but to marinate on love, on
Speaker 1: something different for a change, And so I want to
Speaker 1: open up our conversation today with you know, what are
Speaker 1: some of the challenges I guess that you have seen
Speaker 1: over the last two years, right of cohabitating? Uh, you
Speaker 1: know everyone, well not everyone, those of us that are
Speaker 1: privileged enough to work from home are working from home, UM,
Speaker 1: cohabitating and trying to keep our sanity but keep our
Speaker 1: love relationships intact. What has what have you seen? What
Speaker 1: have you heard? UM as you navigate this this crazy
Speaker 1: space that we're in. Yeah, I mean it's really excuse me,
Speaker 1: it's really complex, right. I think that UM, at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the pandemic, toward the kind of in twenty
Speaker 1: we saw a lot of news stories and a lot
Speaker 1: of accounts from people who were saying that they felt
Speaker 1: really strained because they were forced to cohabitate. So there
Speaker 1: was this narrative around UM being stuck in the house
Speaker 1: with one's partner UM, and a lot of relationships started
Speaker 1: to end in that moment where people were like, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: this is not a person I actually can see myself
Speaker 1: with UM long term. And frankly, I've actually seen a
Speaker 1: lot more of that, right, I've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: people who have not felt like you know, they have
Speaker 1: they chose the right person. And I think that's actually
Speaker 1: this is going to sound really bad, and I feel
Speaker 1: bad already, but I think it's actually a good thing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because yeah, I think people are choosing themselves, right.
Speaker 1: I think that the I think that the pandemic and
Speaker 1: being in quarantine and being isolated in certain ways has
Speaker 1: forced us to kind of sit with ourselves and to
Speaker 1: reflect on what we need as individuals so that we
Speaker 1: can make more thoughtful and intentional decisions about how we
Speaker 1: want a couple and if we want a couple. I've
Speaker 1: had a lot of friends of mine, a lot of
Speaker 1: folks I interact with in the poly community, who are saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I'm done right now with dating.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do anything serious at all right
Speaker 1: now because I'm so focused on my own health and
Speaker 1: my own healing, my own work. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that love in this in this moment in particular,
Speaker 1: is very very dynamic. Rights It's there's there's romantic love,
Speaker 1: there's platonic love, and then there's this inner self actualization
Speaker 1: self love that's happening that I'm really happy about as
Speaker 1: a person who I think last time I was on
Speaker 1: your show, I was with a partner who I'm not
Speaker 1: even with anymore, yes, right, yeah, yeah, And that relationship
Speaker 1: crashed and burned, and I'm fine with that, Like I
Speaker 1: learned from it. Um, I went through a whole process
Speaker 1: of healing with that, and I'm in a new relationship
Speaker 1: right And I think that, Um, you know what I
Speaker 1: think people are taking from this momentum for those of
Speaker 1: us who've been in long term relationships who have stayed
Speaker 1: with the same partner through all all this, and those
Speaker 1: of us who have entered and exited and entered and exited,
Speaker 1: and some people who are agnostic about all of it,
Speaker 1: I think what the general know you is is that
Speaker 1: you know, we have choices, and um, we are not
Speaker 1: hampered by the conditions of the world. We don't have
Speaker 1: to be in a relationship, we don't have to be coupling,
Speaker 1: we don't have to be dating. And so everyone I
Speaker 1: think that is thinking about this right now. People are
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly thinking about doing this whole love thing on their
Speaker 1: own terms. And I like that. I'm really excited about
Speaker 1: what this looks like going forward so that people don't
Speaker 1: feel like they're obligated to show up, you know, and
Speaker 1: do the whole chocolates and flowers and this kind of date.
Speaker 1: And you know, like people are showing up on their
Speaker 1: own terms. And I think that's a good thing, you know.
Speaker 1: I love. I mean, there's so many things that you
Speaker 1: just said, so i'll you know, we'll unpack some of them,
Speaker 1: one of it being that love is very dynamic now
Speaker 1: and and I really love that, right. I like that
Speaker 1: love is not something that happens to you. It is
Speaker 1: something that requires And I've been saying this a bit
Speaker 1: on Woke a F two similarly around joy, which is
Speaker 1: that there needs to be an intentionality around it. Right. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, Hollywood and society has fed us a either
Speaker 1: one size fits all model, right, which is which is out,
Speaker 1: which is you know, very heteronormative, um, very very monogamous,
Speaker 1: right in terms of there's one person out there for
Speaker 1: you know, for you, and if you don't find that
Speaker 1: person by the time that you're thirty, you're some type
Speaker 1: of failure, right, And that the goal is for everybody
Speaker 1: to walk down an aisle and exchange your ring. Um,
Speaker 1: And that there is a son, can we Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: dig into the to the the fact that love is dynamic,
Speaker 1: that there isn't just one prescribed way to love. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, we had so many jen the
Speaker 1: last time that you were on, We had so many
Speaker 1: comments and questions from from listeners about you know, and
Speaker 1: and I was surprised because I thought that maybe there
Speaker 1: would be like a lot of judgment, and there was none.
Speaker 1: It was more so questions about well, how does this work?
Speaker 1: And more and and and in the way. Even my
Speaker 1: own dad, who listens to the show, My dad was
Speaker 1: just like, so, how does this work? Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I get it. I get why two women want to
Speaker 1: be Obviously his daughter is a lesbian, so he's like,
Speaker 1: I get why two women want to be together, But like,
Speaker 1: why all the other people, you know, isn't she aren't
Speaker 1: they tired? Like that was my That was literally my dad.
Speaker 1: So talk to us about about about love being uh,
Speaker 1: dynamic and not and not static. Yeah, you know that's
Speaker 1: always people are so explaining to me how does it work?
Speaker 1: That's always the question. So I never I'm never upset
Speaker 1: when that's the question, Um, you know, my tired. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm exhausted. But it's not because my relationshous you know,
Speaker 1: Here's how I explain it is that you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a polyamorous person, and I've always been a polyamorous person.
Speaker 1: I've never been a monogamous because I've never understood monogamy.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think because you know, I first
Speaker 1: fell in love with a girl when I was eight
Speaker 1: years old, and she was my best friend, and all
Speaker 1: I knew was that I wanted to go over her
Speaker 1: house and like do crafts with her and hug her
Speaker 1: all the time and kiss her on the cheek. And
Speaker 1: you know, to me, that was the most innocent and
Speaker 1: most clear form of my expression of love for this
Speaker 1: person that I had I had experienced at that point,
Speaker 1: and so as I grew up, for me, these demarcations
Speaker 1: between like platonic love and romantic love, they weren't there
Speaker 1: because I felt romantic feelings at times. I felt platonic
Speaker 1: feelings at times for people. I was sometimes attracted to
Speaker 1: people and other times not. And for me, that was
Speaker 1: my body telling me, you know, what I wanted for
Speaker 1: myself and how I wanted to relate to others. And
Speaker 1: I was lucky in that even though my mother was
Speaker 1: always very traditional. She was just very heteronormative, very Christian.
Speaker 1: She never enforced those types of boundaries on me and
Speaker 1: how I moved through the world. I think she always
Speaker 1: kind of knew. She was like, I think you're queer,
Speaker 1: so I'm just gonna let you figure that out, right,
Speaker 1: Like she did what she could with what she had,
Speaker 1: But when it came to how I moved through the world,
Speaker 1: she would always tell me, you know, you're just very
Speaker 1: different from me, and I don't ever want to try
Speaker 1: and shape you, know how you make choices for yourself.
Speaker 1: But I'm here if you have questions, you know. And
Speaker 1: when we think about love being dynamic, what I say
Speaker 1: about this is that we love all the time, right.
Speaker 1: We love of people. We love children, niece's nephews, we
Speaker 1: love best friends, we love our coworkers. You know. We
Speaker 1: fall in love with people all the time. We'll meet
Speaker 1: someone and they'll be an amazing singer or a fantastic painter,
Speaker 1: and we're like, oh my gosh, and we feel this
Speaker 1: deep connection and we're like, oh my gosh, I love
Speaker 1: this person. Right, And for me, I embrace those feelings
Speaker 1: as directive, right, I say, oh, it's okay for me
Speaker 1: to love this person and if I feel romantic feelings
Speaker 1: for them, that's okay. It's monogamy culture that teaches us
Speaker 1: to feel bad about that, like we can only reserve
Speaker 1: those special feelings for one person, and typically like one
Speaker 1: person is someone who's a different gender from us and
Speaker 1: that we want to have babies with and go on
Speaker 1: the relationship escalator and blah blah blah blah blah. So
Speaker 1: for me, you know, being a black feminist and being
Speaker 1: an abolitionist, I don't care about it any of that, right,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, I don't understand how I can
Speaker 1: espouse a liberation is politic and create these encapsulations and
Speaker 1: these barriers for myself in my own personal life. And
Speaker 1: so love has to be for me, it has to
Speaker 1: be freeing. It has to be expansive. It can't be
Speaker 1: a place where I feel imprisoned to a set of
Speaker 1: standards and social norms that I don't even subscribe to
Speaker 1: or that I didn't even identify for myself. And to me,
Speaker 1: it feels like another way of thinking about this is,
Speaker 1: you know, white supremacy and to blackness, massage, no noir,
Speaker 1: like all these systems that I don't personally have an
Speaker 1: investment in right. I also don't have an investment in
Speaker 1: monogamy culture. I don't need to live that way. It
Speaker 1: doesn't serve me, right. So what I'm hoping and I
Speaker 1: honestly I will say, I feel like during quarantine a
Speaker 1: lot more people have been thinking about polymory and I
Speaker 1: love that too. People like on top of the conversation
Speaker 1: about you know, when we started, there are more articles
Speaker 1: and more conversations around you know this outside of monogamy,
Speaker 1: the belief that you know, I polyamory, which you tell
Speaker 1: me a couple of years ago, it was not. I
Speaker 1: don't want to say that it's mainstream now, but there
Speaker 1: were more people who know what polyamory is, who have
Speaker 1: like a basic understanding of it. We see it on
Speaker 1: some television shows. What is it about this time in
Speaker 1: our society outside both in the pandemic and outside of it,
Speaker 1: that you think is kind of leading this new charge?
Speaker 1: You know, there's obviously like the answer of the information age,
Speaker 1: and there's more people who have social media. There's like
Speaker 1: prominent polyamorousts on like Instagram who are sharing their experiences.
Speaker 1: And there was a red table talk talk and all
Speaker 1: of that, right, But I think the nitty gritty and
Speaker 1: the nuts and bolt of it is that people are
Speaker 1: realizing that monogamy doesn't really serve them, and you know,
Speaker 1: you go back to the drawing board over and over
Speaker 1: and over again in monogamous relationships that don't do well.
Speaker 1: And then so people are looking for options, they're looking
Speaker 1: for solutions to what their problems are. So a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of people have meant, unfortunately, come to
Speaker 1: polyamory through unethical non monogamy, so cheating, right, They're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I spent years and years and years cheating on my partner,
Speaker 1: and I realize it's because I'm actually polyamorous, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just wish that wasn't so much of the narrative, right,
Speaker 1: Like in nets life, you know, people discover things about
Speaker 1: themselves in the ways that they do. That's just that's
Speaker 1: the journey. But I do think that that is a
Speaker 1: important way for us to think about what monogamy teaches us. Right,
Speaker 1: It socializes us even into relationships and into a culture
Speaker 1: where even as it's not serving us, we will stay
Speaker 1: trapped in it, right, We will stay in it because
Speaker 1: we're supposed to we're afraid of the stigma. We feel
Speaker 1: a lot of shame. There are people around us who
Speaker 1: will say, how dare you not be appreciative of that
Speaker 1: one part you have when I have no one? Right,
Speaker 1: That's the refrain I've gotten for years. For years, there
Speaker 1: was a time where I was relationship with about three people,
Speaker 1: and I had a friend who was single, and they
Speaker 1: would constantly say to me, you know, do not talk
Speaker 1: to me about your relationships because I don't have any
Speaker 1: and you have three. And I was like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: so problematic, right. And I think that we are in
Speaker 1: a moment now where I think for folks who are
Speaker 1: discovering polyamory and the popularization of polyamory, there's an intersection
Speaker 1: there where folks who are realizing that they actually don't
Speaker 1: care about the stigma or the shame associated with it,
Speaker 1: because they'd rather be happy, right, you know. Being in
Speaker 1: this particular political moment, in the post Trump moment, in
Speaker 1: this COVID moment, it's like we have dealt with so
Speaker 1: much grief, were dealt with so much anguish and pain,
Speaker 1: in the constant state of mourning, and I think that
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly people are like, I just want to feel loved
Speaker 1: and held and cared for on terms that reflect who
Speaker 1: I am and what I want for myself. And that
Speaker 1: may not be monogamy. It may not be heteronormative, it
Speaker 1: may not be traditional. I may not want children, I
Speaker 1: may not even want to move through the world in
Speaker 1: the ways that I did be a post pre pandemic, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that those are all valid, explorative moments
Speaker 1: that people need to have in their lives. And I'm
Speaker 1: happy for people. Like when folks are like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: ending this long term relationships. I realized this wasn't happy,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, I'm sorry, but that's great, right,
Speaker 1: Like you weren't happy, and you're freeing yourself from something
Speaker 1: you're not happy happy with, Like that's a really good thing.
Speaker 1: So I think that you know, it's not just cultural.
Speaker 1: It's not just like you know movies and TV shows.
Speaker 1: We've seen a lot of it's on television. They always
Speaker 1: do it. They do an awful job talking about polyamory.
Speaker 1: One I saw something and I said, I said, they
Speaker 1: needed they needed y'all um to come on as like advice,
Speaker 1: No seriously, like as advisors, because I think that there
Speaker 1: is this made up version of polyamory. And then there
Speaker 1: is like the actual real, you know, conversation. There's a
Speaker 1: book that I actually i'd started reading, um, following one
Speaker 1: of our conversations poly Secure, Um, I had started reading.
Speaker 1: I had started reading that book to understand like that
Speaker 1: all of us have a different attachment styles, yes, and
Speaker 1: that and recognizing those attachment styles, recognizing ways in which
Speaker 1: our attachments have been disrupted, right, um, And and then
Speaker 1: how we come into relationship and what is that there
Speaker 1: is an opportunity to create secure attachment with multiple people?
Speaker 1: Yeah right, um? Yeah, And so I feel like when
Speaker 1: I watch these shows, though, I'm like, nobody read that book.
Speaker 1: I'm like, nobody, nobody read the book. Nobody, nobody's reading,
Speaker 1: nobody's reading. And you know, like, I'm so glad you
Speaker 1: brought that up too, because really, over these years, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people have been digging into their
Speaker 1: own helium journeys and reading books like My Grandmother's Hands
Speaker 1: and The Body Keeps the Score and Polly's Secure and
Speaker 1: you know this book called Attached. Right, I've been really
Speaker 1: hearing folks talking more about these or the set Boundaries workbook, right,
Speaker 1: all these books that are really about understanding what you
Speaker 1: want for yourself and your own body and your own desire,
Speaker 1: and then going out and setting a standard for others
Speaker 1: to meet you there. And I think you know, part
Speaker 1: of what's coming out of that, right is this when
Speaker 1: we talk about secure attachment, and you know, people can
Speaker 1: read the books or whatever, discovering how you attached to
Speaker 1: others based on the traumas you've experienced, based on the
Speaker 1: past relationships you've been in. Right, that is a major
Speaker 1: point of self discovery, Like that is a major access
Speaker 1: point for you to decide how you want to move
Speaker 1: forward in future relationships. And for a lot of people
Speaker 1: they found, oh my gosh, the way that I've been
Speaker 1: connecting with people on here, I'll just talk about not
Speaker 1: a lot of people talk about myself. Right. I discovered
Speaker 1: for me that, you know, my past relationship, my most
Speaker 1: immediate past relationship was a trauma bond associated with my
Speaker 1: parental relationship, and that it didn't work because I was
Speaker 1: trying to recapture a love for my mother in my relationship.
Speaker 1: And I was like, damn therapy, right, Like it hit
Speaker 1: me in my gut as it was ending, I was like,
Speaker 1: why am I dating my mother? Right? And I was
Speaker 1: reading these books and I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm doing. That's what's happening here, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think that's also what's happening in this moment,
Speaker 1: is that people are being forced to face the forms
Speaker 1: of grief and pain that a lot of in a
Speaker 1: lot of respects, we could walk away from before. We
Speaker 1: could leave the house, we could go on trips, we
Speaker 1: could go a movie, we could get ourselves distract, distraction
Speaker 1: of a hobby, right, we could do all types of things. Right.
Speaker 1: We can't socialize in those ways anymore. We can't go
Speaker 1: out and keep ourselves distracted from our inner cells, our
Speaker 1: inner knowing, and so having to face those things I
Speaker 1: think has also made people realize, hey, wait, I'm actually
Speaker 1: wired differently than I thought I was, and that might
Speaker 1: be in their loving relationships, that might or some people
Speaker 1: have said, actually I'm very monogamous, right, Like my spouse
Speaker 1: he said, listen, I'm actually still a heck of any
Speaker 1: and he like, he hasn't budged, and he's gotten happier
Speaker 1: and happier every day in his monogamy, and I'm happy
Speaker 1: for him. Right. So this isn't to say that you know,
Speaker 1: that's the direction that everyone is going to take, or
Speaker 1: that that's the option that folks discover when they start
Speaker 1: to investigate who they are. But it is to say
Speaker 1: that it's a great thing that in this moment people
Speaker 1: are doing that work. And if it just affirms where
Speaker 1: you are, that's good too. But what's important is centering
Speaker 1: one's happiness, one's joy, and one's authenticity right moving in
Speaker 1: one's authenticity. And if we're not doing that, we have
Speaker 1: to get to the work of doing that. How do
Speaker 1: you in you know, if you don't, if you don't
Speaker 1: mind me asking, because you and your nesting partner, your
Speaker 1: spouse have different uh, I guess different relationship orientations, right, um,
Speaker 1: how did you come about having those conversations? So, for instance,
Speaker 1: like I'm thinking to myself, somebody you know, the WOKAP
Speaker 1: audience listening to this, and they're saying, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe I do need to tap more into how I
Speaker 1: attach to people, what I consider to be important for
Speaker 1: me at the foundation of relationship and what relationship looks like.
Speaker 1: But I think that the person that I'm with this
Speaker 1: is going to be a really difficult conversation to broach.
Speaker 1: Maybe we've been together for several years already in one
Speaker 1: form or understanding, or I'm now venturing out on my
Speaker 1: own right having left said partner, and now I'm in
Speaker 1: a news space. How do I open myself up for
Speaker 1: these varied formations of relationship? How do I engage in
Speaker 1: those conversations? Yeah? So, I mean the first step I
Speaker 1: would say is truth telling. You know, shout out to
Speaker 1: Bell Hooks and all the black feminists who start there.
Speaker 1: We if we are not in community with people who
Speaker 1: if we can't tell people our truths, our inner sanctum,
Speaker 1: our inner communities or inner circles, so we can't tell
Speaker 1: them our truths, then we have to analyze why that's
Speaker 1: the case. You know, with my partner, I've been lucky
Speaker 1: enough to We were just talking about this yesterday. I've
Speaker 1: been with this man for twenty years. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I've known him since I was seventeen years old. So
Speaker 1: when I met him, and when I met him, I
Speaker 1: was not interested in him romantically. So let's talk about that, right.
Speaker 1: Part of the issue with meeting folks with the intention
Speaker 1: of romance, or navigating our early interactions with the intention
Speaker 1: of romance, is that we are also conditioned to perform. Right.
Speaker 1: We're conditioned to put out our representative to say, here's
Speaker 1: why you should pick me. Look I can cook, I
Speaker 1: love football, and look how I beat my face and like,
Speaker 1: we're conditioned to do those things right when we meet
Speaker 1: folk platonically, right, we are conditioned to be ourselves. Right.
Speaker 1: We are conditioned to say, here's who I am. You know,
Speaker 1: please take me as I am. I want to be
Speaker 1: friends with you, Like I would love to go and
Speaker 1: just have a I want to be like you know,
Speaker 1: the Golden Girls, right, Like, like that is a different
Speaker 1: type of orientation. And for me, because I'm a person
Speaker 1: who identifies a relationship anarchists, all of my relationships are
Speaker 1: are that, right, So when I meet someone I'm very friendly,
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, this is awesome, you seem cool, what
Speaker 1: we have in common? Blah blah blah. Right, and even
Speaker 1: if there is a romantic potential there, I still am
Speaker 1: very committed to you know, what type of friendship are
Speaker 1: we building? Where is there where is there a connection
Speaker 1: here beyond something sexual, beyond something romantic, you know, beyond
Speaker 1: whether or not you are attractive or I am attractive? Like,
Speaker 1: what do we actually have going for us here? And
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of us get caught up
Speaker 1: because we are searching for that one. We are searching
Speaker 1: for that person. We are searching and searching and searching,
Speaker 1: and we're not really searching for reflections of ourselves and others.
Speaker 1: We're not searching for healing and helpful and supportive and
Speaker 1: proactive connections with others. And so it's hard when you're
Speaker 1: already in one of those relationships to then try to
Speaker 1: go back and be like, Okay, so let's have this
Speaker 1: tough conversation that we're not prepared for. Right. So I
Speaker 1: would say, you know, it's get the books, right. You
Speaker 1: have to do a lot of priming, you know, get
Speaker 1: those books that we talk about. Send some links. Hey,
Speaker 1: I saw this thing online, and you know, I think
Speaker 1: it might pertain to us. What you think you know,
Speaker 1: and and tease it out as long as you can
Speaker 1: to see where where this person's head is at, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you are on the same page, that's fantastic. But
Speaker 1: there may be instances when this person is like absolutely not, never,
Speaker 1: no way, ever, And I would say that's not an
Speaker 1: equitable relationship, right. I would personally say I don't want
Speaker 1: to be in community or relationship with someone who erects
Speaker 1: walls um where we should have a dynamic and fruitful
Speaker 1: conversation about how we want to move because if we
Speaker 1: want to be life partners, if we want to be
Speaker 1: in each other's lives forever, we're gonna change. Like twenty
Speaker 1: years I've been with this person, I am, right, very
Speaker 1: similar to myself, but I'm very different, right. And if
Speaker 1: we're not agreeing right now, right, yeah, right, And if
Speaker 1: we're not agreeing to if we're not agreeing to explore
Speaker 1: and discover and to continue to fall in love with
Speaker 1: each other at every point of this journey, then I
Speaker 1: don't want it. I don't want it. And so I think,
Speaker 1: you know, it starts. It always starts for me at
Speaker 1: telling the truth, telling ourselves the truth, like hey, this
Speaker 1: is who I am, and dealing with the shame right
Speaker 1: Like it took me a long time. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh god, girl, not only are you gay, but you polyamorous?
Speaker 1: Who let's let's roll this out right. It's like you
Speaker 1: gotta tell people in ways because they're stressed out, you know.
Speaker 1: So I told people I was queer way before. It's like,
Speaker 1: y'all can handle the gay stuff, but I don't know
Speaker 1: how y'all feel about the stuff, right, and like it
Speaker 1: takes first starting with yourself to say, like what am
Speaker 1: I comfortable with sharing? What am I comfortable with being
Speaker 1: in public? Like how do I reconcile all of that? Right?
Speaker 1: And then how do I navigate this with a trusted
Speaker 1: set of folks who make me feel affirmed, who make
Speaker 1: me feel confident in this so that I can go
Speaker 1: out until the rest of the world. Because a lot
Speaker 1: of people will push back and say, this is the
Speaker 1: worst thing you've ever done in your life. There will
Speaker 1: be people to this day. I've been with this man
Speaker 1: for twenty years, and I explain we are in a
Speaker 1: platonic marriage, we have three children, we're gonna be together forever,
Speaker 1: don't plan on ever leaving this man. And there are
Speaker 1: still people who would be like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: cannot believe you're poly poor Darren every time, poor daring,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you are literally yeah, like and he's Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there like I'm good, I'm fine, everything's good,
Speaker 1: I'm happy actually doing great things. And they're like, oh no,
Speaker 1: because for them, right, their standard of how a man
Speaker 1: should be treated by a woman, right, These kind of
Speaker 1: very binary logics is not this right, And so for
Speaker 1: a long time I had to navigate the shame and
Speaker 1: the hurt of hearing people I love say poor him
Speaker 1: because of you, right, and people very close to me,
Speaker 1: my own mother right, would say these things to me,
Speaker 1: And I had to really work on making sure that
Speaker 1: I felt safe in my own body and then my
Speaker 1: own relationship so that when those things were said to me,
Speaker 1: or when those those ideas were communicated to me, it
Speaker 1: didn't rip me up the pieces. I didn't break up
Speaker 1: and fall out because you know, what people think about
Speaker 1: your relationship in the end, actually doesn't it matter? Like
Speaker 1: it really I know that do matter? It really doesn't.
Speaker 1: What really matters is how you and the folks that
Speaker 1: you are in relationships with feel in that relationship, right,
Speaker 1: how you does it make you feel better when you
Speaker 1: talk to this person? Do you feel better afterwards when
Speaker 1: you interact with this do you feel better? Do you
Speaker 1: feel worse? Like? How do you feel? Right? Our bodies
Speaker 1: tell us. Our bodies do all the work of telling
Speaker 1: us what we should be doing and should not be doing,
Speaker 1: but we are conditioned to ignore it. And I just
Speaker 1: don't do that anymore. Jen I you know, I have
Speaker 1: to tell you that every single time that you come
Speaker 1: on Woke a f it's like it's not even I
Speaker 1: don't even know what I call it, because it's not
Speaker 1: even light bulbs that go off. It's like fireworks that
Speaker 1: go off in my mind. Because there are so many
Speaker 1: things that are said. I no seriously, because I believe
Speaker 1: that we are conditioned to ignore our intuition. We're conditioned
Speaker 1: to be disconnected from ourselves and for society's judgment and
Speaker 1: ideas to be louder than our own internal voices. And
Speaker 1: I think that it is radical. It is a radical
Speaker 1: place to be in to say your outside noise does
Speaker 1: not have effect on my internal compass, like does not
Speaker 1: have does not get to direct me? Right? And to
Speaker 1: say that in an audacious way is it's just so radical.
Speaker 1: But yet I'm listening to you and I'm like, who
Speaker 1: who is allowed society to dictate how we show up
Speaker 1: and who we show up with? Right? Like I get
Speaker 1: you know, parents and loved ones wanting folks to you know,
Speaker 1: to be their best, to connect with somebody that will
Speaker 1: you know, care for them and love them. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: if I have done that and it falls outside of
Speaker 1: the the the construct that you have been participating in.
Speaker 1: Does that mean like, what what does that mean for you?
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that your judgment should reign louder. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it than my own intuition, than what
Speaker 1: my body my mind is saying. And I feel like,
Speaker 1: if we were to all ask ourselves, do I feel good?
Speaker 1: Does this person make me feel safe? Have these regular
Speaker 1: check ins? Because that's the other thing too. We don't
Speaker 1: regularly check in with ourselves. We don't regularly check in
Speaker 1: with the people that we're with. M that's so weird.
Speaker 1: So you know, right, because I'm a check but I'm
Speaker 1: a check in person, Yes, and I think I think
Speaker 1: that it's so important. Go ahead, no please. I was
Speaker 1: laughing about this with my current partner, Um she was
Speaker 1: she was making fun of me. Recently. We were over here,
Speaker 1: she was over here with her wife and Darren was
Speaker 1: in the kitchen and he was doing something and we
Speaker 1: were on We were like joking, joking, joking, and she
Speaker 1: was like, I just want everyone in the room to
Speaker 1: know that tomorrow Jen is gonna check in on this.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have a debrief. And I was like, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about She was like, so I know
Speaker 1: that tomorrow you're gonna wake up and say, okay, so
Speaker 1: how are you feeling about last night? Anything anything standing
Speaker 1: out for you? Any lingering feelings? And I was like,
Speaker 1: first of all, I am gonna do that, and second
Speaker 1: of all, I don't know why you don't know my life,
Speaker 1: but literally you do. It's like, first of all, because
Speaker 1: I do want to know how do you feel about that?
Speaker 1: And it hit me because it made me really I
Speaker 1: do these checkens with myself like, hey, how did that feel? Self? Like,
Speaker 1: how how did you feel in this? A first sexual interaction,
Speaker 1: at first kiss, first time holding hands, first time talking
Speaker 1: to someone on the phone, first video chat, like all
Speaker 1: these things. I'm like, hey, self, hey girl, how do
Speaker 1: you feel about that? I go to my altars, I
Speaker 1: talk to my hay spirits. How y'all feeling about this person?
Speaker 1: Do you like her? I don't know, right, Like, I
Speaker 1: am in a point now I think where I don't
Speaker 1: actually understand not doing that right. I check in with
Speaker 1: my friends. And this is something my therapist has said
Speaker 1: to me too. She said, you know, and this is
Speaker 1: something I will say about my last relationship that helped
Speaker 1: me to realize that I shouldn't have been in it. Right.
Speaker 1: Is that often when we're not checking in, it's because
Speaker 1: deep down we know the thing is not good for us. Right,
Speaker 1: So we're not checking in because we don't want to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: that didn't feel good. We don't want to tell our friends, yeah,
Speaker 1: this relationship actually feels abusive. We don't want to tell others,
Speaker 1: or we don't want to share outlet don't say out loud.
Speaker 1: We want to write in our journals, you know, oh god,
Speaker 1: it felt really uncomfortable when my partner embarrassed to me
Speaker 1: and didn't show up and didn't keep her word. Right.
Speaker 1: We learn to hide the things that make us feel
Speaker 1: bad because we self shame. We shame ourselves before we
Speaker 1: can get it to somebody else. Right. And I started
Speaker 1: writing in my journal. I do this thing in my
Speaker 1: journal where I introduced myself. Every new journal that I get,
Speaker 1: I introduced myself to my journal. I say, this is
Speaker 1: who I am. Here are the things that I've lied
Speaker 1: about previously to myself. Here are the things that I'm
Speaker 1: working on. Blah blah blah blah blah. And in one
Speaker 1: of my journals, I realized that I was not telling
Speaker 1: the truth to myself. And I was like, oh girl,
Speaker 1: you're lying down, like you're lying about this relationship because
Speaker 1: you want to You want this relationship so badly, right,
Speaker 1: you want the optics of this relationship. You want the
Speaker 1: good parts. Right. These good parts over here feel so
Speaker 1: so good, they feel so so good, but the bad
Speaker 1: parts feel so bad. And you're scared right about losing
Speaker 1: the good parts because of the bad parts. And maybe
Speaker 1: if you just ignore them for a little while, you
Speaker 1: can fix them and then you don't have to talk
Speaker 1: about them. Right. So part of this check in process, right,
Speaker 1: which my spouse will tell you, I do with him
Speaker 1: every morning he wakes up and he's half awake, he
Speaker 1: has one eye open, and I'm like, so, how are
Speaker 1: you feeling? He's like, why are you awake? You know?
Speaker 1: Part of that is, you know, I want us to
Speaker 1: be telling the truth, and I want us to have
Speaker 1: an open dialogue so that it always feels safe to
Speaker 1: do so, for him to tell the truth to himself,
Speaker 1: for him to tell the truth to me, for me
Speaker 1: to tell the truth to myself, for me to tell
Speaker 1: the truth to him. Right, and as long as people
Speaker 1: are in relation to me, my best friends, right, we've
Speaker 1: had difficult moments. I have a really, really, really close
Speaker 1: friend and she's a platonic life partner of mine, and
Speaker 1: we both have disabilities that we navigate all the time.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm kind of one of her for
Speaker 1: her medical providers, I'm one of her her the people
Speaker 1: that gets called from the hospital and things like that,
Speaker 1: and so when I don't show up, you know, it
Speaker 1: can cause a lot of anxiety. Right. This is a
Speaker 1: loving partnership I have with her, and she knows that
Speaker 1: she has a habit of when these things happen. She
Speaker 1: can spin out writing narrative boom boom boom boom boom
Speaker 1: boom boom. But because I'm a securely attached person, I say, hey, listen, girl,
Speaker 1: Hey hey, those emotions are yours and I love you
Speaker 1: and I love you through it. But you're gonna go
Speaker 1: on that roller coaster by yourself. So you go on
Speaker 1: that roller coaster and when you get off, we can
Speaker 1: talk about it. Right. But she always knows that once
Speaker 1: she's done right, she has a safe place to come
Speaker 1: and say I'm sorry, Hey, I was spinning out, I
Speaker 1: was on my thing. Were you upset with me? Did
Speaker 1: anything happen no, girl, everything was fine. Here's what was
Speaker 1: happening in my life, Here's what we're going on over here.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I didn't check in with you as I
Speaker 1: usually do. That is out of a character for me,
Speaker 1: and it's not a thing with you, I promise. Blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. You know that's what That's what we should
Speaker 1: be doing with people we love. To me, that's a baseline,
Speaker 1: right if I say I love you, it takes nothing
Speaker 1: for me to say, hey, I love you so much
Speaker 1: that I want to be transparent. Right. That seems very obvious, right, No, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know I will say that. I hope, UM that
Speaker 1: folks take from this conversation today, so so many, so
Speaker 1: many gems gen that you that you always drop. But
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is is that your first
Speaker 1: loving relationship that you should be in is the one
Speaker 1: with yourself, and that we should not feel yeah, with yourself, um,
Speaker 1: which your own personal Valentine's today should be every goddamn day.
Speaker 1: If we're not showing ourselves love every each and every day, UM,
Speaker 1: and affection and grace, I don't I don't know how
Speaker 1: we expect to show that up for other people. Um.
Speaker 1: And then two to consistently. I say, interrogate your feelings,
Speaker 1: check in with yourself, and check in with those that
Speaker 1: you are in relationship with, that you are in loving
Speaker 1: relationships with, whether they be platonic or romantic, all of
Speaker 1: those relationships are intimate. And ask yourself if you're not
Speaker 1: checking in, why is that right? And then get to
Speaker 1: your granular truth. Jen as always my goodness, such a pleasure, always,
Speaker 1: such a good time. Folks, make sure to check out
Speaker 1: that Black Couple podcast um, follow Jen on social media,
Speaker 1: and make sure to keep up to date with their writing.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you, says so much. Thanks for having me
Speaker 1: for us here. Absolutely pleasure. That is it for me today.
Speaker 1: Friends on Woke f as always, power to the people
Speaker 1: and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay
Speaker 1: woke as fuck.