No Rules Polyamory: Exploring Pleasure, Tantra and Sex Magic

Can sex magic really help you manifest your desires and enhance pleasure? In this candid conversation with Lona, a neo-tantra teacher and sexual bliss coach, we unravel the mysteries behind this esoteric practice. Lona shares her personal journey into non-monogamy, kink, and somatic therapy as gateways to deeper fulfillment. 

We explore the challenges of her transition from a decade in a monogamous relationship to forging her own path of "no rules" polyamory. Lona explains how she discovered tantra while studying witchcraft, and became fascinated by its power to merge sexuality and spirituality. She offers insight into missteps within past relationships, and how those experiences ultimately strengthened her connections. Lona also discusses techniques for moving beyond trauma triggers using the wisdom of the body over that of the mind. 

By tuning in you’ll: 

• Gain perspective into a teacher's evolution with non-monogamy and polyamory

• Learn foundational concepts of neo-tantra, sex magic, somatic therapy

• Pick up strategies for communicating needs and embracing vulnerability in relationships

• Find inspiration to explore your most authentic sexual and spiritual self

 Join us for an eye-opening, taboo-busting conversation that will teach you how to unlock the magical power of pleasure. Hit play now to start manifesting your desires. 

Want to Connect with Lona?
www.lonateachesbliss.com

Do you feel like you could use some help with your relationships?
Get on a free call with Ellecia to see how she can help you  move through the challenges of jealousy, fear, anxiety, and insecurities in a way that strengthens your relationships, deepens your trust, and communication, and leaves you feeling confident.
https://elleciapaine.com/call

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Credits
- Host/Producer: Ellecia Paine
- Editor/Producer: Danny Walters
- Hosted on Buzzsprout

Transcript:

Ellecia: 0:14

Hey, I'm Ellecia, your non-monogamous relationship coach. Welcome to the podcast where my friends and I chat about our relationships, enthusiastic, non-monogamy polyamory, swinging, kink, and our lives. You'll get a candid peek into what makes it worth it to live life outside the box. And in case you're still wondering, nope, we're not monogamous hey, hey, hey, can sex magic really help you manifest your desires and enhance your pleasure? Hmm, today I'm chatting with Lona Garner, a Neo Tantra teacher and sexual bliss coach, and we're unraveling some of the mysteries behind this esoteric practice. Lona's sharing her personal journey into non-monogamy, kink and somatic therapies as gateways to deeper fulfillment, not to mention the challenges of her transition from a decade in monogamous relationships to forging her own path of no rules polyamory. She offers some insight into missteps within her past relationships and how those experiences ultimately strengthened her connections. Plus, she is giving us some techniques for moving beyond trauma triggers into the wisdom of the body over that of the mind. So today, by tuning in, you're going to gain some perspective into a tantra teacher's evolution with non-monogamy and polyamory. You're going to learn some foundational concepts of neo-tantra sex magic, somatic therapy, and pick up some strategies for communicating needs and embracing vulnerability in your relationships, and hopefully you'll find some inspiration to explore your most authentic sexual and spiritual self.

Ellecia: 1:58

Join us for this eye-opening, taboo busting conversation that'll teach you how to unlock the magical power of pleasure. Hit play right now to start manifesting your desires. Enjoy, found it Amazing, okay, cool. So welcome to Nope, we're Not Monogamous. I'm really glad we got to connect. Welcome to Nope, we're Not Monogamous. I'm really glad we got to connect.

Lona: 2:20

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, can you okay? First I'll just non-monogamous about seven, almost eight years probably now, and I've made every mistake that you could possibly make. So now I am much better at it than I used to be and I help people have amazing sex, love and relationships through Tantra, the tools of Tantra and cutting-edge somatic psychology.

Ellecia: 2:57

Amazing, amazing. I imagine that there's probably plenty of mistakes that you haven't made. There's a lot of them out there.

Lona: 3:05

There's a couple, one or two.

Ellecia: 3:09

Cool, tell me what. What flavor of non-monogamy do you eat, do you?

Lona: 3:18

practice Do I eat? Yes, yes, I call it no rules polyamory. So, basically, if this person is important to me, I'll make time for them, and if I'm important to them, they'll make time for me. They'll show me through their actions what they mean, how they show their love for me. So I have no rules around the time we spend together or who you see, or anything like that. The only rules I have around are like sexual safety, and so that's it, because I want autonomy over my um sexual safety, and that's it.

Ellecia: 3:53

Nice, nice. I love that. Has it always been like that?

Lona: 3:59

Oh God, no. Oh God no, it was hierarchical at one point. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just I always find that whatever you make the rules, that's where you get hung up on. It's always like if so we make a rule that you can only see another partner, like once a week, that's where we're always going to have the issue. Um, if I make the, if I'm your primary partner and I don't want you to have any other primaries, naturally you're going to find another person that you're going to want to be your primary partner. Um, so, yeah, I've done all of the versions of it, um, and from really like strict and sort of controlled to making it more and more and more and more open.

Ellecia: 4:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah, same same. The evolution, the evolution of polyamory. Amazing, very cool, very cool. Let me ask you this what this? What? What made you decide on non-monogamy over monogamy?

Lona: 5:03

ah, um, I wouldn't say. I was like ever, like monogamy is like everything for me. Um, I had just literally never heard of another option. So, uh, I grew up in rural Delaware uh, literally any. No one ever talked about anything else. I never even heard the word polyamory until I fell in love with another person. And I was with someone else and I was like what is this? Like I love both of these people. What do I do? And you go on the internet and it's like what is this polyamory thing? Um, so, yeah, I found out about all of it because I fell in love with my best friend, um, and I was with my male partner monogamously for eight years at that point, um, and then I fell in love with my best friend and I was like now I love these two people. I don't know what to do. She was like married to another guy at the time too, so I just sort of was like thrown into the middle of it.

Ellecia: 6:01

Like oh, no, now what do we do? Oh, oh. I feel like a lot of people kind of start out that way and then like, yeah, like what are the the rules or the structures that we can put in place so that everyone feels safe and safe and secure and comfortable? What would you say was the biggest challenge?

Lona: 6:28

For the transition was the biggest challenge to go from like I'm with one person to I'm with two people and like balancing the schedules. I think scheduling is always going to be an issue it's still my current issue but just sort of like making time for everyone to make them feel safe but at the end of the day, if everyone doesn't want to be poly, then it doesn't matter how much time you make for them. Like everyone has to figure out on their own if that's what they really want. And having my monogamous partner figure out that like maybe this wasn't for him and having my girlfriend's husband figure out that it wasn't for him and sort of like having those relationships fall apart, was really difficult to get through oh god, I bet yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's hard.

Ellecia: 7:21

There's so much that goes into that, like was really difficult to get through. Oh God, I bet yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's hard. There's so much that goes into that, like not just you know relationships, like the structure is changing or whatever, but like the identities that go along with that and who am I now?

Lona: 7:33

kind of things, that's so hard, of course, coming out to the family too, always being difficult. They didn't understand it. I thought that they would like hate me, but they were kind of just like you're weird but you've always been weird. But you know, do what you want to do.

Ellecia: 7:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, that's super relatable, super relatable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, I have like eight questions I want to ask you Um, um, what would you say, yeah, what would you say has been the most supportive? Or, like, what have you done in your life to help you navigate all of that?

Lona: 8:33

Ah, yes, yes, Therapy was really important for me.

Lona: 8:38

Um, therapy helped me sort of align the things that were fucking me up, uh, cause I was like abandoned by my father when I was a child.

Lona: 8:48

I had, uh like, uh, non consensual touch when I was a child, um, so I had all of these other things that were on top of it that I needed to figure out how to be safe in my own body before I opened it up to like five people to be with you know. So, yeah, so, learning how to understand my triggers, learning how to ask for what I needed, learning how to go slowly and sort of like, explain myself before I got into things, was really helpful. But in the last couple years, I've been doing a lot more somatic work and instead of just learning how to, you know, manage the triggers, now I'm moving beyond the triggers through the somatic work, so that, you know, abandonment will always be an issue in my life, but now it's such a tiny issue. It's like taking the backseat in so many ways and I relate to it in a way that is expansive and that it actually supports me now, which I never thought was possible.

Ellecia: 9:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, I know, recently I had a little jealousy moment come up and I was like, and it used to just rock me, jealousy used to just fucking kill me. And I was like, oh, I know this feeling. Huh, okay, wow, look at that, it's not as big as it used to be. It's actually kind of small and I am aware of it, but it's not a big deal. Huh, look at all that work that I did. That actually worked.

Lona: 10:16

Yeah, instead of, like, having huge explosions of emotion and then having to repair from there.

Ellecia: 10:24

Right, exactly, exactly. Can you share for those who don't, who maybe aren't, don't know what, what? When you talk about somatic work, what do you mean?

Lona: 10:35

Yeah. So what I mean when I talk about somatic work is we're going through the body more than we're going through the mind. I think talk therapy was a really important part of the journey and I think it can be helpful for a lot of people. But there's a point when you get to talk therapy, where you've just gotten to the point of surviving. Somatic work I see as moving beyond surviving into thriving. So instead of having the brain and we like, analyze, like okay, you were abandoned as a child, your dad did this, you have this, other things happen to you. How does that make you feel we move into? What is that bringing up in the body? And how can we speak directly to those pieces so that we can give them what they need, we can ask them what they want, we can give them new jobs in our bodies so that they're not interfering with our sexuality or with our work or with our money? Um, and really what we're doing is making those blockages, those fears, those objections turn into your biggest allies through the sensations of the body.

Ellecia: 11:34

Hmm, yeah, really good description. I love that. I love that. Hmm, yeah, really good description. I love that. I love that. Um, I lost what I was going to ask you. What was it? What? Nope, it's gone. It's gone. I don't know what it was. See ya, that thought will come back at some inopportune time. I'm sure It'll be an hour from now. I'll be like I remember. Now I'm curious about doing somatic work.

Lona: 12:25

How, like, how did you find that? Or how did you know to to do that? Yeah, so I found Tantra first. Um, I found Tantra through sex magic. I was learning to become a witch and you get to the sex magic portion of Tantra and I've always been huge into sex, probably hyper sexualized, um, but sex has always really spoken to me. So I got to sex magic and I was like I need to know everything about this.

Lona: 12:46

Tell me more, yeah, and on Google like sex magic and then Tantra, and they keep coming up every time you do a Google search. So I was like, clearly, this is something I need to learn about. So I was like, clearly this is something I need to learn about. And Tantra is like very much through the body. It's like sort of naturally somatic, but it never has like purported itself to be that. It's sort of they you go through the body and Tantra the body is the key, so you always are returning to the sensations of the body and working with those pieces. And Tantra is about liberation. So we're liberating these blocks through many different things like breath and movement and sound and energy and mindfulness and pleasure, so that you can move into your most authentic self. And I became a Neo Tantra teacher. So I teach workshops combining the tools of Tantra with some somatic work.

Lona: 13:39

And I wanted to do more than that. I wanted something. You know the workshops are amazing and I love doing the workshops, but it's like a two and a half hour thing and then you know there's no expansion on it, there's no like follow up. So I wanted something that was going to actually impact people. So then I was searching for Tantra coaching programs and the biggest one out there is Layla Martin. So if you've heard of Layla Martin, she's big on the internet and she has a whole. She combines the tools of Tantra with somatic practices to give people liberation.

Lona: 14:14

And it was a year long, 600 hour training. That was super intense. That was really wild to learn. That was like transformational in every way, like she designed the program to transform you at the same time that it turns you into a coach, to transform you at the same time that it turns you into a coach. So I went through I've gone through like 40 hours of the coaching at this point now with other coaches in the program and that shit is wild. It's just absolutely crazy. So I've kind of just like wandered into this field looking for where my next path was and kind of just flowing with whatever came up and saying yes when really big things were arriving.

Ellecia: 14:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it took me a full two years to go through the program oh, you did it too uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I think that's kind of how we. It's really funny, um so for the listeners. So, uh, we met because I was hosting a and and facilitating a breathwork workshop that you came to my first ever, yeah, really my first ever breathwork, yes, oh my god, oh, that's amazing.

Ellecia: 15:24

That makes me so happy. I, uh, I love breathwork so much that that's the, the tool that has, like, taken me through the deepest and the biggest, most transformations and and holding myself through so much. But, yeah, I love facilitating breathwork. And then, and then I saw you on Instagram dancing and being silly and playing and having so much fun and I was like, oh my God, this is amazing, I love it, I love it so much. Oh my God, this is amazing, I love it, I love it so much. Um, and I, just I, I want more people to be able to do things like that, to be able to get into their bodies and feel good and uh, and and and just shift all the shit that holds us down Right, like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, amazing, so good I am. Yeah, sex magic that's, let me call in all the things that I want and do it through pleasure.

Lona: 16:22

It's the best. It's literally the best. So good, there's no other thing I want to do.

Ellecia: 16:28

Uh huh, uh huh, yep, super relatable. No other thing I want to do Uh huh, uh huh, yep, super relatable, amazing, amazing. So okay, tell me I'm going to ask this as though I know nothing Tell me a little bit about sex magic. Is that done with a partner? Is that done by yourself?

Lona: 16:53

So I mostly do it by myself, but you can do it with a partner. I find it a more advanced technique to do it with a partner, but you can absolutely dive in wherever you're at. But essentially it's about coming up with a desire. I think the desire is one of the most important things to deal with coming up with a desire, moving into that five senses reality of that desire. So when you see yourself having this goal, what do you see around you, feel around you, taste around, you, touch around, you, smell around you? So getting really, really deep on this full senses reality of the desire. And then you start to pleasure. You don't necessarily have to pleasure, I find pleasure ignites the energy. So I feel the energy more when I use pleasure and I think it's a wonderful way to go about it, but you could just do the energy work portion if you know how to do that and basically the pleasure ignites all of the energy. And then, once you've got enough pleasure and energy moving around your system, you start to pull the energy from the root up to the sacral and then from the sacral up to the solar plexus, from the solar to the heart, from the heart to the throat, throat to the third eye, third eye to the crown, and then I like to cycle it several times, from the root all the way to the crown, and then I get back into that five senses reality. And then I you can do this on the at the point of orgasm as well, where you shoot the energy up out of your crown chakra to the center of the universe. Um, you don't have to do it at the point of orgasm.

Lona: 18:24

I find that the point of orgasm is a really powerful explosion of energy. So you can use that or not. And then at the point of orgasm, and you send that five senses reality up into the universe. And then the most important part, I find, is you then, once you let it feel into the middle of the universe, you allow it to fall back down through your chakras, so sort of imbibing the desire with the universe and then letting it fall like a waterfall back down through your chakras down to your root chakra and then back down into the earth. So it can take five minutes, sometimes I can do it really quickly, or it could take two hours and I could get even deeper. And just the more energy that you build up with, uh, the pleasure with the energy. The more potent, the more explosive the desire is going into the universe.

Ellecia: 19:21

Lovely, that's amazing. So good, so good, I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, so, okay, if if somebody wanted to use okay, I, I, I am really, I, I love that we're talking about sex magic, because that's just, my brain is like yes, if somebody wanted to use that um to say, manifest a partner, how would that work?

Lona: 21:02

So that's about getting into that desire. So it's less about how you meet the partner. We really want to leave the whole how it happens up to the universe and you want to get into the desire of what do you want when you have that partner. So it's not just like, oh, I want to meet someone and I want to meet him at this, like music festival. I'm going to no, leave all that up to the universe and get into how do you want to feel when you have this partner? What do you taste when you have this partner? What are the emotions you feel when you have this partner? What kind of support do you have when you have this partner?

Lona: 21:39

So really building that desire into what it actually looks like at the end of the goal, because the universe has so many plans for you and you have no idea what they are, and that's part of the fun and magic of living.

Lona: 21:52

But this perfect partner that you're calling in might be three years away Like I have no idea how long it is away or it might be two minutes away, like maybe the next time you go to the grocery store you're about to meet them. So really just surrendering to the universe that you trust the universe, that you are ready, because sometimes there's also things like there's things that you need to be doing to prepare to receive that partner. You know, I, when I was single for a little bit a couple of years ago, um, I really focused on myself and like giving myself what I needed, um that I expected this partner to be giving me. So giving myself the financial security that I desired, giving myself the companionship and the love that I desired, working through some of these blockages that were still in the way. So that's a normal part of the process and just learning to trust and surrender to what happens.

Ellecia: 22:52

I love that. That's really good. Yeah, so it's more about more about how will I feel when I have the thing I want, rather than how am I going to get the thing I want. Yeah, yeah, cool, cool, cool cool. I love it. Okay, I want to ask you another question about relationships.

Lona: 23:46

What? Okay, I have two questions. One is do you think polyamory or-monogamous? I think that there wasn't even a word to describe it back then, um, but that people just had many relationships with many people, especially sexually. It was very open. If you look at monkeys, they fuck everyone. But then I think, naturally humans tended to pair up in twos or threes or fours, and that's just what naturally happens as you move through these things. The agricultural revolution absolutely changed everything and how we related to each other. Women were seen as property and you could only have one owner.

Lona: 24:24

So I think that non-monogamy is really natural for humans to feel.

Lona: 24:30

So that's why you see such high rates of cheating in monogamy.

Lona: 24:38

That's why you see people having secret relationships, the lying and everything, because I think it's so natural for us to want to be with multiple people and it's this sort of monogamous structure that's been put on us, that we're told that we have to be, and even people like me didn't even know there was anything else. So I really disagree with only giving people one option. However, I also feel that even if there was no structure of monogamy, that I think there would be a lot of people that naturally paired up in twos anyway, just because that's in a lot of ways easier. I think it's in a lot of ways less scheduling, less expectations. It allows you to kind of focus all of your attention on one person. So I think that it's natural to be both and that people need to really ask themselves what is natural for them, and I really love normalizing polyamory but I love normalizing monogamy too, like if, that's, if you've really thought about it and you've considered all the options and you know that you can choose freely, then you choose monogamy.

Lona: 25:43

I want to fucking celebrate that so hard, because you are really choosing and going about your life in an intentional way polyamorous and then being monogamous, and then being polyamorous and going back and forth. I think it's a spectrum that we can all live on, um, and I think that, uh, I just want to promote freedom and choice and people. So I think it it's it's a choice that you make, but it's based on the you know, natural things that you feel.

Ellecia: 26:17

Right, right, right, right, yeah. No, I love that, definitely. It's so hard to make choices if you don't know what the options are. Yes, right, impossible, even, yeah, yeah. And I imagine there's plenty of people who are like, of course I choose monogamy, but they maybe don't know why, or don't know what other options are, or haven't seen anything else, and then they go well, okay, maybe, maybe if I had seen other options I might choose differently, but now this is where I am in my life.

Lona: 26:56

Exactly.

Ellecia: 26:58

Yeah, I know, I was monogamous and youogamous most of my life until I was like 35 and I got divorced and I was like I'm never going to be monogamous again. No idea what that looks like, no idea what that's going to entail.

Lona: 27:11

Yeah, it's sort of we all kind of go on this venture of like you do a Google search and then you're like oh, whoa, there's this like whole online community and there's all these books I can read and there's all this stuff I can do, and really then it's just learning and giving it a try.

Ellecia: 27:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, Totally. What would you say? What would you say makes a relationship successful?

Lona: 27:38

It's an old favorite, I'm sure, but communication is always the most important piece, and not only you know your partner communicating with you, but you getting in touch with the deepest needs that you truly have and being able to communicate those.

Lona: 27:56

So how can you understand everything that's going on in your body, in your life, understand the trauma responses that you naturally have, understand how past relationships have also influenced what you think and what you feel, and really going from there and really being able to put that into words in a way that your partner understands? So this sort of nonviolent communication I think it's kind of a weird title for it, but it works. It works really well learning how to say things so that people don't get offended, so that you can truly get your points across and your needs met, and then being open to you know, maybe my partner has come to me with this need that I feel like is more of based on his trauma or something like that and being able to communicate that back. So being able to support him through it, so that he feels like he's being seen and heard, and also expanding on the conversation of like. So what? Where does this come from? Like? Let's talk deeper about what this actually means.

Ellecia: 29:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like going beyond just talking, but really digging into the and getting some clarity behind why, why we want the things we want, or have the needs we have, or react the way we react. Yeah, yeah.

Lona: 29:20

And being able to do that in a safe space where, like I feel safe, that like I can get a little upset, I can, you know, start to get angry even and still know that I'm in a safe space to express myself, where I'm not like hurting the other person but I'm allowed to feel the emotions that I'm feeling the other person, but I'm allowed to feel the emotions that I'm feeling.

Ellecia: 29:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that, I love that. I am a big fan of create. You know it's funny I. So, when I am working with clients around relationships, I always say that communication is not real. I mean, we all know it is like we're talking. We're talking to each other, we know how to communicate, but what happens in relationships is this like, we all, like every single one of them. If I have a couple come to me, 99% of the time they will say we just need to learn to communicate better. My communication isn't the issue, not this, this, this word communication, but like how are you saying it? How are you supporting each other? What kind of a container are you creating to be able to share what's on your heart? How are you, how are you listening and receiving what your partner's saying? What kind of space are you holding? Like all of these things that aren't about talking. Yeah.

Lona: 30:36

A hundred percent.

Ellecia: 30:37

And everyone's like we just need to learn the right words to say, and I'm like no you've got the words you have. You keep saying them over and over how many times have you said that you want him to take out the garbage, like, come on, that's not what's going on here. Does it really matter if it was wednesday or or Thursday that this thing happened? That's not what's going on here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Communication.

Lona: 31:05

And then beyond communication is of course, intimacy.

Ellecia: 31:08

So how are we letting?

Lona: 31:09

each other in. How are we getting deeper than the surface level? How are we opening up our souls to each other in emotional ways and also in physical ways and energetic ways? If you're not opening yourself up to your partner fully, then you're not opening up yourself, who you really are, to them.

Ellecia: 31:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah, how. I would imagine that there's a lot of people who are like what does it even mean to open myself up?

Lona: 31:40

Yeah.

Ellecia: 31:41

Like I told him, my favorite color is purple. What?

Lona: 31:46

I trauma, dumped all over him. He knows all of my trauma now.

Ellecia: 31:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but beyond that.

Lona: 31:53

How do you show up in the bedroom, let's say this is one easy example is am I showing up and creating a container where I allow myself to surrender to the experience and not just sharing, you know, the intellectual parts of myself and what has happened to me and what I've been through, but then maybe allowing myself to get triggered and allowing him to create safety for me? Um, one of my big things that I worked through was getting triggered. Uh, I took a little break off of having sex with men for a while, uh, because I needed to figure some stuff out. But then, when I went back to having sex with men, the triggers were so fucking hard, like the triggers were so alive because I wasn't numbing myself to them. So allowing myself to get into an emotionally vulnerable space and allowing him to create that safety so that we could come together closer even after I got triggered.

Ellecia: 33:03

Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. I love that. That's a thank you for sharing that. Yeah, that's a. That's a really. Uh, you know, and of course, part of that is is having someone that you can trust to do that Right, and then, and then the other part is that is is having someone that you can trust to do that Right, and then and then the other part is is having trust in yourself that you can hold yourself through through being being vulnerable and and through the things that activate you.

Lona: 33:28

Yeah, Cause there are so many things that we can work on outside of relationships, like I can go to my therapy, I can even do all the somatic coaching and stuff but that's only going to help me about 10 or 15% when it comes to a relationship, because our brains are designed to be in relationship with other humans, and so there are things that literally won't happen outside of getting deep into an intimate relationship with another person. So I can only work on them when I get deeply into that.

Ellecia: 34:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. That's so good If you could go back over your journey of of non-monogamy. Is there anything that you would do differently?

Lona: 34:21

Oh my God, like, how far back, like, can I go back to college and understand myself better? Yes and no. Yes, obviously there are lots of things I wish could have gone differently, but no in the sense that they all helped create the sort of container that I build now. So, because I've made so many mistakes in how to build the container so that it's expansive instead of contractive, um, I can create such more beautiful containers now in my new relationships than I could back then. So it's like you kind of just have to get your hands dirty in a lot of different ways, like I'm sort of coaching my friend through their kind of opening up their relationship. They were swingers for a really long time and now they want to transition to poly, and I think that that's really difficult Because they're they're struggling to create this container and I'm trying to like, be like these are all the mistakes that you could make, but at the end of the day, you're going to have to make some of the mistakes.

Lona: 35:22

You really just have to make some of them and you can read as much as you possibly want, you can make as much of a plan as you possibly can, and things will go awry, and so really just accepting the fact that things could go wrong and then making a plan for like, how do we resolve this, like how, what do we do when things go wrong and how do we come back together?

Ellecia: 35:46

Yeah, what kind of resiliency does our relationship have when, when things don't go according to plan?

Lona: 35:51

Yeah, and even with my current partner. Uh, we even broke up like two years ago. Uh, we were together for a year and then we broke up for a year. Now we've been together for a year again and, like the mistakes that happened to create that have been the biggest ways we've grown and gotten closer together. So if you can figure out how to heal and be resilient from those things, I found the relationship is so much stronger than it used to be.

Ellecia: 36:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that. That's so good. Um, okay, what is something that anyone can do for free that will help them approach relationships in a like, in a healthier way?

Lona: 36:41

I think expectations destroy relationships. So I think one of the easiest things you could start to do is letting go of expectations. Now, that doesn't mean that you let go of like your boundaries or anything like that, or your dreams. But if I expect this person to be a certain way, then as soon as they show me they're not that, then all of my dreams are crushed. But if I have boundaries and I have desires instead of expectations and I share those openly, then that person can choose whether or not to be involved in the situation that I'm building, in the container that I'm building.

Lona: 37:21

So I think really like checking all of your expectations at the door and just opening yourself up to what is available to me right now in front of me. And is that something that I want? Because when, as soon as you start having these expectations, you start wanting something more, you see that they they meet like 5% of your expectations. And now you think, oh my gosh, they're going to be perfect in every way. But no one is perfect in every way and even in non monogamy we understand that, like none of our partners are going to be perfect, and there are so many other things to get from many different people, that I don't have to expect everything from this one partner.

Ellecia: 38:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a lot of um like accepting and loving people for who they are, rather than being in love with their potential or wanting them to change.

Lona: 38:14

Yeah, and it's so hard Like I can speak to the exact difficulty of how hard it is, um, but then when you take that person off the pedestal, you really can start relate, relating to them on a much deeper level.

Ellecia: 38:28

Yeah, yeah. Well, I love that. I love that so much, mm Uh, is there anything that I haven't asked you that you want to share?

Lona: 38:45

one thing that I got to explore more in non-monogamy is like sex positive spaces okay, yes kink and kink especially kink I was I never felt like safe enough in.

Lona: 39:02

I don't know if it was monogamy, if it was just who I was.

Lona: 39:04

As a person, I never really felt safe enough to like go into that Um.

Lona: 39:08

But when I started opening myself up to kink, it was like I had my girlfriend who was like super solid in many ways that I could like go back to if things got too scary. So I got to explore what it was like to be with different doms and to like explore my subby side and still have that like pillar of safety to return to. So non-monogamy definitely helped me in the kink scene. And then from the kink scene, uh, I was always interested in like voyeurism and exhibitionism, and so that just leads to the sex positive spaces and that's something that I've really really enjoyed being a part of um and really making it much more like my own and much more about my pleasure now than I did in the past. Before it was like you go to watch or you go to like perform Um, but now, like the last time I was at a sex positive space down in Portland um, which is one of my favorite clubs down there Sanctuary- I love sanctuary, so much.

Lona: 40:12

Yes, yeah. I decided I was like I'm going to just now.

Ellecia: 40:17

they can be a sponsor of the show Shout out to sanctuary. You guys should definitely go.

Lona: 40:24

I decided when we went that we were going to focus on my pleasure, because I so infrequently see like authentic female orgasms in sex positive spaces and that's fine, it's like no judgment about that. I like the performance that I see many times. But I wanted to know what it felt like to like get lost in my own pleasure and not care about what it looked like and just kind of do my own thing. So I did that and we fucked for two hours in like this back bed area and I thought it was absolutely amazing. I felt so empowered, um, by doing it. I felt so sexy. I felt like so in my pleasure and in my joy and in my bliss, um, and people like came up to us after and they were like you guys were fucking back there for like a really long time and I was like, yeah, that's uh, we. We just uh wanted to devote all our time to pleasure. And they were like wow, wow.

Ellecia: 41:20

Kudos. That's awesome. I love that so much. I think I completely agree. Being in sex, positive spaces and communities changes so much.

Ellecia: 41:35

I think one of the most my God, one of the best things that ever happened for my my own like self-esteem and confidence it was the first time I walked into a swingers club and you know, here I was like feeling like God, I'm too fat and getting too old and they're just going to be, it's going to be a bunch of hot porn stars.

Ellecia: 41:54

And then I walked in and I was like, oh my God, these are all humans, yeah, yeah, humans with like human bodies and they're running around in like lingerie and stuff and looking sexy as fuck, with like wrinkles and rolls and dimples and big ass smiles, and like it was like these are humans, yeah, with all the same flaws that literally every single one of us has, which is zero.

Ellecia: 42:22

It was so such an empowering thing and so good for my self-esteem and so I always encourage people, especially if they're like thinking about, like they're starting the pathway of opening up, being non-monogamous, of any sort of non-monogamous. I'm like go find a swingers club, go find a kink club, go find a house party, do something. You don't have to participate, you don't have to do anything, but just be in that space and that energy and see that people talk about sex and they dress sexy and they laugh and have a good time and it's not this, uh, serious hidden thing that everybody's running around feeling shame about. Like, yeah, it's very, it's very authentic and very real and I I think that that's a really great way for people to like, get a feel for, for what they like and and feel good about themselves.

Lona: 43:15

Yeah, and especially when the space welcomes kink as well, which I love when they have both, where it's like okay to be both Um and just seeing, like the authentic expression of people, like, even if it's a little bit performative, that's their authentic, that's how they wanted to show up in this space, and I think the more that we normalize sexuality, the more liberated our society can become.

Ellecia: 43:39

Yeah, definitely, definitely. Okay, I have. I have one more question for you, that it doesn't go on the regular, the regular podcast, but is, for supporters of the show at patreoncom slash not monogamous and it's called just the tip tip and it's what is your favorite or best sex tip? Um, how can people find you?

Lona: 44:15

you can can find me um on Instagram is where I mostly post on social media at Lona teaches bliss Um. My website has all the information. I do workshops in Seattle and Bremerton uh once a month for each of those Um uh, and you can find all that info at Lona teaches blisscom. I also do private workshops. So I do private, do private in person or private via video chat anywhere in the world, and I have like 10 topics to choose from that you can choose from that. We can go deeper into a lot of neo tantra stuff. And then I do one on one coaching for the sexual bliss coaching so you can get whole life liberation through your sexuality sexual bliss coaching so you can get whole life liberation through your sexuality.

Ellecia: 44:59

Lovely, that's beautiful. Thank you so much. I'm so glad you came on. This is really great.

Lona: 45:08

Thank you, Alicia. I appreciate it so much. I had such a wonderful time and you are amazing for doing all of this.

Ellecia: 45:12

Thank you and that was Lona Garner with her. Just the tip If you didn't get the tip, then head over to Patreoncom. Slash not monogamous and become one of my friends or lovers. I'm adding exclusive content right now just for you, so go do it. Bye.