Your Brain Gets Polyamory—But What About Your Body? Ep. 119
So your mind gets polyamory—you’ve read the books, done the therapy, had the late-night conversations. But your body? It’s still freaking out when your partner goes on a date. Welcome to the nervous system’s opinion on non-monogamy.
In this deeply validating and often hilarious conversation, I’m joined by Dedeker Winston (co-host of the Multiamory podcast) and Orit Krug, a licensed dance/movement therapist, to talk about why your nervous system might not be as on board with polyamory as your prefrontal cortex is—and what you can actually do about it.
We cover:
Why jealousy can’t be “talked out of”
How trauma shows up in open relationships (even years later)
Why somatic therapy works when your brain hits a wall
What healing in community really looks like (spoiler: it’s not group sobbing, but it is a little weird)
A behind-the-scenes look at their upcoming somatic retreat for polyamorous folks in Spain
Whether you’re solo poly, partnered, in a polycule, or still figuring it out—this episode is a must-listen if you want more ease, embodiment, and nervous system support in your non-monogamous journey.
💌 Learn more about the retreat:
👉 https://multiamory.com/retreat
September 22–25, 2025 | Northern Spain | Sliding scale available
Retreat in Spain - Learn more and apply at multiamory.com/retreat
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Music: Composer/Author (CA): Oscar Lindstein
STIM IPI: 572 393 237
TRANSCRIPT:
Ellecia: [00:00:00] Hey friends, you are in for a treat slash therapy session slash movement class today. So I'm talking with Dedeker Winston. You probably know her from the Multi Amory podcast. And Orit Krug, a badass dance and movement therapist who helps people heal through their body. They're here to talk with me about their upcoming somatic retreat in northern Spain.
Yeah, Spain. Uh, but also about all the stuff that we really need to be talking about in polyamory and non-monogamy, nervous system, chaos, why our bodies sometimes really freak out when our minds are totally down for non-monogamy, like down for what's happening and how movement and community can help us regulate, reconnect, and get weird in really good ways.
So, uh, we talk about what embodiment actually means and how to deal with jealousy in your cells and why sometimes the breakthrough comes after you ugly cry on a yoga mat. So you've been m warned, [00:01:00] let's get into it. So welcome to, Nope, we're not monogamous. Uh, I'm, I am really happy to have you guys here and I was hoping that I could get each of you to tell our listeners, uh, who you are so they have an idea of who I'm talking to.
Dedeker: Yeah, I'll go ahead and dive in. How about,
Ellecia: or,
Dedeker: oh, no.
Ellecia: Okay. Dekar, you go first. Okay.
Dedeker: I'll go ahead and dive in. Uh, my name is Dekar Winston. I'm one of the co-hosts and co-creators of the Multi Emory Podcast, um, which has been running now about almost 11 years in August that we've been running the podcast, which in podcasting years is like two centuries.
Um, all the podcasters out there will know what I mean. Uh, I also work as a relationship coach and a somatic experiencing practitioner, primarily working with non-monogamous individuals.
Ellecia: Amazing.
Orit: And my name is Orit Krug. I am a somatic dance [00:02:00] therapist, and for the last 15 years I've been helping people monogamous, non-monogamous, um, access trauma from their bodies through dance and movement, and so that they can have healthier relationships with themselves and their partners.
And I co-facilitate a poly retreat with Dedeker here and other somatic trauma retreats too. Amazing,
Ellecia: amazing. I love it. Um, this is, this is, it's really exciting to me that you guys are doing this retreat and it's not the first time. Uh, um, and it just, it sounds amazing and I really kind of wanna go. Um, you should, there's a spot for you.
You should, but. I know, right? I wish the timing worked better because, uh, I would really like to go to Spain. Mm. Mm-hmm. So, I'm, I'm curious what, um, why [00:03:00] Spain?
Orit: Um, there's no, you know, solid reason. It was just, uh, it's calling us. Yes. We went to Greece in April and we wanted to keep it in Europe and so yeah, Spain sounds great.
Yeah.
Dedeker: This one is gonna be our fourth retreat. So this one is in Spain, as or mentioned, the previous one was in Crete. Um, then before that we ran one in Puerto Rico and also in Costa Rica. And yeah, the location has been just, we've sort of hopped around to wherever's been calling to us, but I think the important through line has been that we really wanna try to create a space that feels like it's.
First of all, like away for folks, right? Um, where whether you're coming from far away or you're coming from close by, that there's this container that you're sort of escaping into where you're here just to focus on the work and you're completely taken care of. Right? Um, and I think an important [00:04:00] part of that, definitely an important part for me that I really enjoy in these retreats is that we've really focused on making sure that there's abundant nature around, you know, really beautiful vistas place to go walk, or a place to go dip if you need to.
These things that, um, these areas that are not just beautiful aesthetically, but where your body can kind of pick up on these things that are more relaxing than, you know, just looking at traffic on the highway.
Orit: Yes. Thank you for naming that, er, and even though Spain is like, yeah, let's go to Spain, the whole retreat.
Location. The, the house, it's all very intentional in supporting people to one step away from their everyday space. Um, a lot of people feel distracted or they can't fully get into their therapeutic healing journey when there's so much going on every day. And [00:05:00] just for a lot of people just saying yes and doing this travel, a lot of people come solo.
Doing this travel on their own, even if they have partners at home, is already a pretty empowering, empowering, liberating experience. So people from the US who traveled all the way to Greece, that was pretty huge for them. And um, and people also traveled from Australia, from different parts of Europe. The UK being that it was in Europe the last time.
So we wanted to stick to Europe to get more of that international, um, accessibility. A lot of people in. In Europe and in Australia, we're like, wow, this is actually somewhere I can attend. And then the, the space of the house, the space around the house, it's meant to be supportive of people's nervous systems, calming, rejuvenating, life affirming just being around [00:06:00] nature in a, a private, beautiful place.
Um, and that supports the overall intention of the retreat to help people really reconnect with their bodies in a harmonious way instead of what a lot of people experience, especially through the non-monogamy journey of like, my mind and my body are working against each other. My mind wants this, or my mind wants to be cool with this, my body's freaking out.
Um, so yeah, that's going a little bit deeper, but that's it in a nutshell.
Ellecia: Yeah, that sounds ama like my whole, like, as you're describing it, my whole body relaxed, like, ugh, that sounds really lovely. What? Um, that's what we hope, uh, right, right. You know, I, I love that you mentioned that. Like, my, my brain is on board and my body's freaking out. Can you kind of break down what's actually happening there?
Dedeker: Oh [00:07:00] my goodness. Uh, how about, I'll start this one and maybe re can finish this one. Um, I, I think. It feels a little too daring to say that this is a universal experience for non-monogamous people.
Um, but I, I actually, but weirdly, I don't think it's too daring to say it's a universal experience for humans, for us to have this sense that like, my brain is running a particular narrative and maybe it could be everything from I need to get up and go to work today, even though everything in my body is saying, stay in bed and stay at home and stay in your pajamas.
So things like that. Two, I've been non-monogamous for several years and I know that I want this and I've consented to this, but like, my partner's out on a date and like, I haven't heard from them. I thought I was gonna hear from them two hours ago and I haven't heard from them. And now everything from the neck down is having like a full panic response and I can't rest and I can't focus on anything else.
And like, even though I can tell myself over and over again, you want this, you want this, you want this, it's okay. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. I'm still in a lot of this [00:08:00] physical, nervous system distress. Right? So, so it's sort of a funny thing where, um. You know, both naturally. I think it's a very human experience to have this disconnect between what our mind is telling us that we should want or that we should do, um, versus what our body is feeling.
And we also live in a culture where in order to survive, we kind of have to put that on ourselves almost daily. You know, like the example of going to work, you know, where, you know, like, yeah, I gotta pay the bills. Maybe you even do like your job, you know, maybe you even are looking forward to talking to that coworker or finishing this project.
You know? So it's not necessarily that your mind is just straight up lying to you and trying to deceive you. It's just that it's at odds with what your body might be crying out for in that moment, which is like, we're exhausted, we're burned out, we don't have the energy to do this. Right? So I think that's, that's maybe the baseline that I would set up as far as, um, what the phenomenon is, um, now or, or tell us how to solve it.[00:09:00]
Orit: Comes to the retreat. Yeah, no, that is all very, very good. Um, those are really helpful examples that can just happen in everyday life. Um, you know, I think essentially what it comes down to is we can tell ourselves and our minds whatever we want, right? We are really good at using words because that is our first language.
Verbal communication. Think, we think verbally and especially when there's a history of trauma in your life. You have learned most of the time, for most people to ignore what your body's feeling because whatever you went through in the past and probably throughout your life after childhood trauma, most people experienced multiple traumas.
After that, it was. It's too painful to [00:10:00] feel all of it. And so we're really smart. We learn ways to just connect, to escape, to dissociate, and we learn that, one, it's not safe to be in our bodies because of what we experienced and the pain that came with it. And it's just, it was a very wise coping skill whenever we needed it, to not feel that to get through life.
And that creates, uh, that creates a disconnect, uh, from our bodies and. It can be really easy to say or tell ourselves or tell our therapists that we're okay and cool with one thing. Um, for whatever reason, there's so many different reasons why we might, we wanna be the chill. I mean, I know I've wanted to be like the evolved, the most evolved partner and be okay with this.
And, uh, how many times have I come back and I'm experiencing this [00:11:00] anxiety. My heart is racing. I, no matter what I tell myself in my head, it's like, I'm not okay with this. And I've learned that lesson over and over and over again in this path, especially of polyamory. And we just can't lie. We cannot lie to our nervous systems.
That is our, that is our survival system. That is our alarm system. And even if it doesn't make sense, like it makes no logical sense sometimes, um. No matter how much we try to be cool with something, if our nervous systems and our bodies are remembering that the last time someone, right, like if my partner's on a date with someone, the last time someone who is supposed to be here with me left me for something else or someone else, no matter how much I tell myself, it's okay if my partner's out on a date, [00:12:00] it's not okay because it's unresolved in the body.
And my nervous system associates,
Dedeker: uh oh, Ellecia. Did you lose Orit also?
Ellecia: I still see her, yeah.
Dedeker: She's frozen for me. She's frozen. Yeah.
Ellecia: Yep.
Dedeker: Let me send her a text just so she knows.
Ellecia: Cool. Cool. Actually, you know, it's funny, um, as you were talking, I, you know, I, I've told you this before, Arit, but Dere, you hadn't heard this.
Like, I, I have dealt with a lot of jealousy and possessiveness and insecurity and, and worked through a lot of that. And just the other day my partner went on a date and I was like, absolutely fine until the like didn't ping me at all, which I was like, wow, this is an amazing experience. And until he got done with the date and he texted me and he is like, I love you, I'll see you tomorrow.
And um, and then my nervous system started like, it [00:13:00] wasn't bad, but it was like. And what I had said, it was like a shadow or a memory of how my body thought I was supposed to feel. Hmm. And I kept like bouncing back and forth between like, I'm fine maybe, but uh, is it okay to be fine? Should I be feeling jealous and insecure right now?
Like it was just pinging back and forth, like this memory of how I used to feel. And I'm like, I, I think we're okay. And so when we saw each other the next day, the very first thing we did was like a really long, like five minute hug before we talked about anything. And then I was just, okay, I'm good.
Dedeker: That's what's so interesting about hearing that story. Is it. Seems like such a good example about how our nervous systems evolved to protect us, and that's mm-hmm. The number one priority, right? As in our nervous systems didn't necessarily evolve to make us feel like happy and good all the ti all the time.
Right. They [00:14:00] evolved to protect us and so, you know, and so it's often a very hypervigilant sort of protection. Like you experience that even though your mind is like, I'm good, this is great. I've done all of this work. I know what's going on, that your system is still there because your system, your nervous system, you know, doesn't speak English, right?
It does not understand. You know, any kind of verbal processing really. And so it's not getting the message directly from you of like, yeah, this is fine, this is cool. Like this is great. We've done so much therapy and it's awesome. You know, and so like, it needs a different type of attending to, you know, and I know many people, myself included, before I started doing somatic work, like if I had noticed that shift, if I had noticed that sense of, ooh, my body's still kind of feeling a little weird and feeling like it really wants to maybe activate or, you know, implement some kind of protective mechanism.
The way I would've dealt with it many [00:15:00] years ago is just to try to like bring, really bring down the sledgehammer of my mind, right. Of just like, no, you don't have anything helpful to say right now. Right? No. And like, everything's fine. And I probably wouldn't have prioritized something like, yeah, when I reconnect with my partner, I need to make sure that that reconnection involves.
The language that my nervous system actually understands, which is stuff like touch, being in a safe environment, being able to smell them, being able to feel them feeling me, right?
Ellecia: Yes. Yeah,
Orit: yeah, yeah. And speaking of different languages, like the nervous system doesn't speak English. The our prefrontal cortex, which is the reasoning part of our brain, it's the part of our brain that makes decisions and that logics our way through a lot or tries to.
And when we [00:16:00] try, when we go to therapy and we talk about these things, when we think about these things and we try to process, we're using our prefrontal cortex, and yet there's all this research that shows that. This part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex is going quote unquote offline during trauma, during high stress situations.
So a lot of people are really feeling stuck, even if they're doing a lot of therapy and verbal mindset type processing, because they're not actually accessing the part of the brain and the body and the nervous system that is holding the trauma memories. They're trying to talk about it through a part of the brain that actually shuts down when trying to access the trauma.
So it's like speaking two different languages. And pri uh, trauma [00:17:00] primarily gets stored as fragments of sensations, which is not. English is not a language that that's, that can really be understood by that. It's the body, it's movement, it's all this, and yet,
Dedeker: oh, did we lose her again? It was the, uh, you were talking about the, yeah.
How trauma memories get stored as fragments of sensation and how, you know, again, the English language is not really something that can parse that or interact with that, that like these fragments of sensation are like in the body in the way that we move and like that was the last little bit that I got.
Yeah.
Orit: Yeah. And so I think I was starting to say a lot of people get stuck in this journey because the sensations that are being activated, which are tied to trauma memories are so. Uncomfortable in people's bodies that naturally all we wanna do is [00:18:00] get rid of these sensations. And it's reminding me of, of someone I caught up with recently who came to our first retreat in Costa Rica.
And when I was catching up with her, I asked her, how did the somatic stuff stick with you? And at first she was like, I'm not sure. And then she went on to tell me a story how one day she all of a sudden found herself in the field position on the floor for a longer than she anticipated. And she's like, what am I doing?
What am I doing here? I'm just on the floor. And she was feeling all these feelings. And then she realized in retrospect that she was feeling. Her feelings, her body, her sensations, and meeting herself there, like all she wanted to do was collapse with command, like with intention, collapse on the [00:19:00] floor, be held by the weight of the floor, curl herself up in a position that really honored all this difficult emotion she was feeling.
And once she got through that, she was like, oh, wow. I just felt, I just allowed myself to feel my feelings. Usually when I get triggered, when I get activated, I immediately project, I immediately blame my partners. I'm impulsively reacting because I just wanna get this feeling out of me. And that was the difference that she took home with her.
Like, I am feeling my feelings. It's, it's awkward, it's hard, it's uncomfortable, but I can do that. And now. I can decide how I want to approach my partners from a, a regulated place, from a place where I'm actually in command of how I'm, I'm saying things and what I'm saying. So [00:20:00] that to that point is, I think that's the first step, right?
Just starting to feel safe, feeling the sensations and being in the body.
Ellecia: Yeah. Feeling those feelings. What even is
Dedeker: this? But I, I wanted to highlight also what RIT was saying about the container and the intentionality, right? Because it's not quite the same as. Well just like, just feel your feelings and just become like a snotty mess on the floor that's inconsolable and just wallow in like the worst feelings that you've been avoiding your entire life and just like pickle yourself in it and just become this like big ball of emotions.
It's not quite that. Sometimes the work can lead to that, but it's not quite [00:21:00] that, right? Like, like there's a purpose to this work. It's about, you know, feeling your feelings. And I mean, I think the traditional therapeutic term that often gets trotted out is this idea of window of tolerance, right? Of expanding your window of tolerance.
And I find that term it's like a little too dry, it's a little too clinical. Like the way that I tend to think about it when I'm working with folks is it's kind of like. You know, we're, we're trying to make it so that you can just feel the sensation of what's happening without also having to grapple with the fear that comes up around even feeling the fear, right.
Without also having to grapple with, I mean, like I think about the classic cycle of when somebody's having an anxiety attack or a panic attack of that like. Certain portion of the panic attack is the, the preemptive panic that I'm gonna have a panic attack, you know? Mm-hmm. Like some of what comes up for us is this preemptive anxiety and fear of, I might end up feeling anxious and fearful when my partner's on a date.
And [00:22:00] it all just like feeds in on itself. And so if we can create a safe enough container where you feel held, you feel supported, you're not there trying to actively work out something with your partner right in the moment. You're not like on stage in front of a bunch of people. Like it's really truly okay for you to sit and, and to start to let yourself feel these things that, like we often expend so much energy in our day-to-day life to not feel that that's often where the work happens, right?
It's like we kind of take the start to take the fear out of just feeling the sensations in themselves so that when the sensations do arise, like you can actually listen to them, get insight from them, get an understanding of what it is that you're craving or what it is that your body is wanting to do instead of.
I think what happens for so many people instead of being dumped into this kind of knee-jerk situation of like, well, I can't feel this, or I need to keep this under wraps, or, or, I can't show my partner that I'm feeling this or it's wrong for me to feel this, and so I need to clamp it down as much as possible.
Orit: [00:23:00] Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's a great point. And it, it's, it's also about out rewiring these patterns. Like if you are, a lot of people might resonate with this, just reading some of the headlines right now, you can go into a freeze response, right? Um, it's not a safe container to just open your phone and the news and read it any time, right?
People are already really struggling with this, and if every time you. You read a headline or you read a book or you see a story and it somehow activates your own trauma, which is very common. Um, it was just my, one of my best friends was just telling me she was reading, uh, a horror book and it led her into a near panic attack.
So the stuff happens all the time. Um, the container is so important, [00:24:00] but if your body, let's say, always freezes, goes into a freeze response through being triggered being activated, that's the automatic, like that's the pattern. That's the, that's the highway, that's the pathway in the brain and the body that's happening.
And it is so important to re-pattern this in a therapeutic relationship where, 'cause when you're in that free state. Your, your survival system is tensing up to avoid getting eaten by an animal or a predator, right? I mean, it's not actually, but that is biologically speaking, physiologically speaking, what is the purpose and how it evolved?
And so you, that prefrontal cortex that would make those logical decisions, all that's turned down. And so it's very [00:25:00] hard to be like, oh, let me just get out of a freeze. Right? It's just gonna keep happening and happening, which is why it's so hard to change the patterns, to change the reactions. And if we're, if I'm working with a client who is very, obviously getting immobilized, not engaging anymore, just looking frozen, that is the golden opportunity to help them move through it.
In, uh, in one of the groups that I did on retreat, there was a woman who was about to have a panic attack and was freezing going into a freeze response and no longer looked at us. And I was like, okay, can you, can you look at me? Right? Step one, try to reengage, um, how can your body, how does your body want to move through this right now?
And that can seem like a really [00:26:00] abstract question in this moment. Um, and we could break that down. Like, what if you could just choose one pose right now, what, what would it be? So at least just get some movement going. And she put her hand on her heart and I was like, what, what, what wants to happen next?
And she starts swaying. And so slowly she's moving through this freeze response, which is already re-patterning something that. It keeps happening, right? Every time I have a difficult sensation, a difficult feeling, I'm freezing up. And then the beauty of doing this work in a group is that everyone else, sorry, I hit my mic.
Everyone else in the group who at this point in the retreat experience is kind of primed to like, oh, let's mirror each other through movement, without me even prompting them. They started putting their hand on their heart. They started swaying and now everyone's mirroring her. And I asked her if she could look, 'cause she, at [00:27:00] this point, she's still, you know, looking down, looking away, hard to connect, hard to be seen, and to see others when you're this vulnerable.
And she saw everyone had joined her and she was just crying and was like, wow, I've never been seen like that. And that is just speaking to the container and the human support that I think we really need. Um, not just because we need it and it's what part of what makes us human, but also if you're alone in your room, you can't get that same experience.
It's so, it's so hard to get yourself out of a, a recurring nervous system pattern by yourself. And, um, without, like you said, window of tolerance that occur, but without pushing past your capacity. [00:28:00] Um, there's a lot of stuff on the internet at that I is pushing people out of their capacity, right? Like screen therapy and, or maybe not even that, but people who are just running, running, running, running, running.
So for, or exercising so hard to the point of actual nervous system collapse. And it's, it's so important to, to do this in a gentle way, gently expanding our capacity. In regards to creating new patterns in our bodies and nervous systems.
Ellecia: Yeah. Why is it so like powerful to do this kind of work in, in community or in a group?
Because it seems like it really makes a big difference.
Dedeker: Yeah. Well, you wanna, you wanna start with that one? Re
Orit: Um, sure. I, I think there's a lot of aspects, um, a lot of aspects to that. The example that I just shared, um, just the [00:29:00] mirror, if we could speak to mirror neurons, right? Like I am seeing, um, in on so many levels, like the way that people, the way that you might have a conversation with someone.
And if you've ever had a really good conversation with someone. About your feelings, your experience, and you had felt like, wow, they really get it. Like think about how much better you felt after that. And that can feel so good on a verbal level and it can feel, it seems to feel so life affirming and like I belong and I, um, I matter.
Like it has that kind of deep affirming feel when people experience that through the body and through movement. And I think that is because of our mirror neurons and it's just [00:30:00] being seen on a whole new level. Um, and it feels validating and I'm not alone. And people get that through. Also just coming together in community, especially as a non monogamous.
Person who, and I know a lot of people on our retreats are like, oh my God, I don't have to explain myself. I can just dive into what, like what my challenges are and yeah, being seen,
Dedeker: I will. So I'll be the first to admit, like myself personally, I'm an introvert. I don't like groups. I'm a misanthrope. I'm not the person who like goes out to seek community.
You know, I've got my own baggage around community and stuff like that. And for myself, even as a facilitator, going on these retreats is extremely healing for me in that regard. Right. And I think like RIT was saying. [00:31:00] There's something about how, you know, when people first show up for retreat, obviously no one knows each other.
Um, we know like a little bit about the participants because they fill out some, you know, some forms and some information. We know a little bit about where they're coming from, but we really don't know who they are. We don't know who we're gonna get. We don't know what personalities are gonna show up. And I wanna say like maybe in that first hour of retreat, after people arrive, like people are in sort of their default patterns, you know, performing.
The way that they think they're supposed to show up. Right? And, and like again, not to say that any of this is bad, we all do this, right? Like when we're heading into a group of people, we don't know what to expect. Like we all have our own natural defense mechanisms and the ways that we default to, um, in how we show up.
And that goes away very, very quickly. Once the communication emphasis is less on, we're all gonna sit and kind of verbally talk about what's going on with us. And the emphasis is [00:32:00] more on. We're gonna do some weird stuff together. And by weird stuff, I, I mean like non-traditional stuff, non-conventional ways, right?
Of like, like RIT was sharing. Like if you're upset, if you're having a freeze response, I'm not gonna sit in front of you and try to get you to like, talk through it. I'm gonna prompt you to move through it, right? To communicate in this way that isn't heady, that isn't overly cognitive. And so it's like once people start doing that, quite naturally, a lot of our default mechanisms that have us performing melt away and people connect with each other very, very deeply, very, very quickly.
And. You know, some of my, my favorite memories from the retreats that we've run have been, you know, like the family style dinners that we have, where, you know, we're just all around the table. We've spent a whole day doing this, like, sometimes very emotionally intensive work, both positive and negative emotions, right?
Um, and like we all, not only do we all get each other as far as [00:33:00] like we're all a group of, you know, different flavors of relationship weirdos, but we all get that we're here doing something kind of different and kind of weird and like doing this really intensive work. And so, I don't know. I know for me it's like a lot of the default muscles that I might tense as I move through the world, you know, this default sense of protecting myself from other people socially really tends to relax.
And there are these, you know, muscles that I didn't realize I was even tensing. Right. And I mean both literally and figuratively, these muscles I didn't even realize I was tensing when I'm around people. And that experience, unfortunately in this day and age is actually pretty rare for us. Right. And I could do a whole TED Talk about the rise of the nuclear family and the atomization of society and us losing our communities.
Like, I'm not gonna do that TED talk, but I could. And so being able to create these containers where you literally get to have that sense of like, my body is able to [00:34:00] relax because I actually feel seen, even my like messy, unresolved parts are getting seen and they're still being held and accepted and loved.
Like that's incredibly, incredibly impactful. And again, not just for the participants, like I found it really impactful for myself as well, every single time. Yeah.
Orit: Yeah. And I, I wanna clarify too about the, there's two parts I wanna add on to that. One is we have a very thorough vetting process. Mm-hmm. So people who are coming or want to come to the retreat, submit a written application, and then I meet with everyone who quote unquote, looks good on paper, in, on video, and we chat and we vibe check, just like, you know, you might vibe check if you're meeting on a dating app, right?
Um, this is not a dating retreat or anything like that. That was just an example. But, um, really like feeling out for. [00:35:00] Um, honestly, how safe do I feel in my body when I'm talking to this person on the screen? Um, how free do I feel to be myself? How free do they feel to be themselves or how comfortable do they feel with me?
So it's, it's not just my decision, it's not, you know, sometimes people come on the call like, do you think I'm a good fit? And I'm like, well, do you, how do you feel with me? You know? Um, so that definitely to, to have a group of people who like, right, we don't know the full spectrum of each person who's coming, but we have a very confident sense that they're going to vibe well with the, what we're doing on retreat and with who's coming on retreat.
And then, um, I also wanna speak to Dekar saying. Like, oh, we're gonna be with all of each other's messy parts and still accept and love each other and all that. And that's exactly what I was [00:36:00] thinking of when Dere were talking about the weird stuff. Like, it made me think of the somatic parts work session that I do where we, we go into our, you know, our higher, more wiser part and we also explore our younger part.
And we do a lot of movement around that. And then I, at, after that, I have had people basically pretend that they are holding some kind of container in their hand and they're more vulnerable part, they've put that more vulnerable, vulnerable part in that container. And I've asked them. Can you hand that part of you to someone else here in the circle to to hold, to move with what, whatever that person who, whatever person's receiving that other person's vulnerable part, [00:37:00] they can move with it however they want.
And this has resulted in a whole lot of ways and Okay, weird, right? This is all imaginary. Some, someone actually said this to me when they were telling me how the retreat impacted them. They're like, someone actually took my imaginary part, like my imaginary younger self into their hands and rocked it as a baby and told it was beautiful and just loved on it.
And they went to that length to do that for me. And then gave it back to me. And as I got it back, that part that felt so shameful and heavy and like I didn't wanna show it to anyone in the world, just felt so much lighter. And all I wanted to do was spread that part of me everywhere. And it's like [00:38:00] that actually happened.
And somehow I don't know how it shifted so much for me that I went home and I felt so much more acceptable to everyone else and so much more loved. And it's hard to explain, like it's hard to come on a podcast and explain this in words. We're here doing our best,
Ellecia: but it's real also, right? Like I, I do, I do similar things.
Yeah. And I tell my clients like, look, I can give you all the science we've done brain scans, there's, there's a lot of information behind why this works, but we don't have time for that. So I'm just gonna tell you, doing some magic or some brain hacks, whichever works for you. Mm-hmm.
Orit: Yeah. A lot of people call it practical magic, but it
Ellecia: works.
Just know that we're gonna do weird things and it works. Yeah.
Dedeker: Yeah. We keep, we keep coming back to the word weird. Um, that's been a recurring theme that's come up on our past couple retreats is this idea of having permission to be weird. [00:39:00] Um, and when I say like. Sometimes I hesitate to use that word because I don't want to scare anyone away necessarily. Right.
Because if you just say the word weird without any context, the brain's gonna come up with all kinds of fantastical possibilities of what that could possibly mean on a retreat like this. But mostly what I'm, what I'm wanting to convey with that is that like, at this point, and I, I think many of us of this particular generation, like we know how to show up to talk therapy.
We know how to do that. Mm-hmm. Um, and again, to make it abundantly clear that it doesn't mean that any kind of talk. Based therapy or like CBT therapy isn't helpful. They can be extremely, extremely helpful. Um, but I think like RIT was saying, when there's stuff that is stuck where you have talked about it to your therapist or your coach or your counselor, whoever, 6 billion times, or maybe you've talked even to your partner about it 6 billion times, maybe you and your partner, you [00:40:00] know, can, could from memory repeat every single little, you know, detail about your attachment style or what happened the last time the two of you had a crisis.
Like you can, you know, be these very mature, very therapized adults who can understand exactly what's going on and yet still sit, stay stuck. The reason why I bring up weird is because. You know, the retreat, you know, alternative therapies like somatic therapies, movement-based therapies is they enable us to bypass that part of us that can be really, really good at actually creating distance between ourselves and our experience by using words, by putting it into a neat little box.
And we get an opportunity to do weird stuff that's outside of the realm of what we've been told is acceptable for how to process something. Right. You know, no one told us that it's acceptable when you're having a freeze response during a tense moment with your partner that like actually moving [00:41:00] through it could be more effective than your partner sitting there trying to ply, plow you with questions.
Right. Um. You know, we have never been taught that. Like when you're at home and you're starting to feel that, you know, maybe some kind of attachment panic coming up or some sort of jealousy spike coming up that, uh, you know, we've been told it's not acceptable. If you feel like what your body wants to do is to get on all fours Right.
And just kinda like growl your way through it and like do this weird stuff when, like, that may be the most effective thing for you in that moment. It's just we've been taught that is too weird and that's not socially acceptable. Right. And so I know, I feel very passionate about a ret feels very passionate about being able to break through that mold and give people permission to try things they have never tried before.
Yeah.
Orit: Yeah, that's brilliant. And also in gender roles come, comes into my mind here because I don't know if I told this to you, Dekar, but I caught up with another [00:42:00] person who had come to one of our retreats and they, so they came with their partner, the two partners came together and she was telling me that they do weekly radar.
Woo. Shout out multi amory. Yes. Um, and during the radar he now moves through it. He gets up and he moves through the radar process. And I was like, wow, that is just amazing. I love that. And yeah, that's what we can call that weird. Um, and we can also say like, that's so helpful. How, like, think about how we grow up here, at least in the states.
Like sit in your chair, sit still. Right? You tell these kids that they have to sit still. And we learn from such a young age that we cannot move our bodies and we cannot honor what our bodies need. And, and now this, you know, [00:43:00] this, uh, this person is moving through the radar because like breaking that mold, right?
I don't have to sit still and have this conversation with you about our relationship, like in, you know, in this rigid position. I'm gonna move
Dedeker: my way through
Orit: it.
Dedeker: I love hearing that story 'cause it's like, you know, both of my world's like crashing together in this like, really wonderful, beautiful way.
Ellecia: That's fantastic. That's, that's so good. I wonder, I wonder, um, could you, are there any somatic practices that, um, people listening could start using right away if they're having like, moments of being activated or jealous or, or, you know, just, uh, emotional.
Dedeker: Yeah, I mean, when I'm working with people who are brand new to any kind of somatic work, um, the entryway I like to take is actually encouraging people to [00:44:00] find opportunities to attend to positive sensations that come up for them.
Um, some people, um, this isn't everybody, but like some people, especially if they've never done any kind of movement practice, any kind of work that has them examining from the neck down, um, you know, telling them to, you know, the next time they have that jealousy spike or they feel the anxiety coming on to just like, sit with it and really feel it.
For some people that's just like too much, right? Um, and they've been so trained toward, towards not doing that, that it can also be really hard, um, to even get yourself to actually go there. And so I tend to encourage people. You know, the homework that I'll give is, you know, attend to when you first get into bed for the night, what is present for you.
And for some people getting into bed is not necessarily a pleasant experience. You know, like if they're dealing with insomnia or if when they go to bed, that's when their brain comes awake [00:45:00] and has all these anxious thoughts. Or if they have a habit of, you know, doom scrolling in bed before going to sleep, like going, going to bed is not necessarily always positive, but.
It's like seeing if you can root out, is there any tiny bit of your body once it's held by a mattress that has a little bit of relief, a little bit of release, maybe even a little bit of pleasure or a little bit of warmth or whatever. Like even if it's subtle. Um, so that's like just one example that I like to encourage people.
Um, 'cause it's also more fun, right? To see if you can catch yourself actually having sensations of pleasure, of ease, of lightness, of relief in your day-to-day life, right? Even if it's as simple as you're in the middle of your work day, but when you take a break to actually look at the tree that's outside of your window, you notice that when you look at the tree, there's even like the tiniest little glimmer of lightness, right?
Because you're not looking at a screen for, you know, you're taking two seconds to not look at a screen, right? It's like starting to prime your antenna [00:46:00] towards your capacity for feeling anything, and especially your capacity towards feeling. Pleasure and positive sensations. Um, that's the place that I tend to like to start with people.
I feel like you have some, some suggestions too, or,
Orit: yeah, and I want to reiterate that something as deep as jealousy or something rooted in, in insecurity takes so much more time and is a process and is often so embedded in some kind of trauma or difficult event in life. So whatever I'm about to suggest is just, you know, maybe a starting point or something that can help break it down a little bit and not necessarily be able to resolve the, the whole thing.
But, [00:47:00] um, I really love setting intentions with movement. So, especially when we're talking about something as big as jealousy, right? Like today, let's say there's an opportunity for me to be jealous because something's happening in my polyamorous world. Uh, an intention to not be jealous would just, you know, perhaps at this point my journey might be way too big and not practical.
And so maybe I set an intention to, um, to love myself. That's also really big, right? To be with my, yeah. To, um, to, to be more in touch with my emotions. Through whatever I'm feeling. And I just naturally already did this where I put my hand on my, my heart or my chest. And I'm setting an intention to [00:48:00] be more in touch with my, my body and my sensations through, through today or through whatever event is happening.
Maybe it's, uh, a partner going on a date with another partner or whatever it might be. And perhaps every time I'm starting to feel something, I remember the intention and I do the movement. And it's just kind of a bite-sized way to just start connecting to the body in a more healthy way, um, in a more, I think in a more com self-compassionate way to set an intention.
To not feel jealous. It, for example, is just not honoring my body. If I'm having a lot of struggles with jealousy, it's telling myself it's not okay to feel this. It's telling myself to continue the pattern, to ignore the sensation, to [00:49:00] ignore the feeling, or just to, I need to fix it, right? I'm, you know, I'm a mess.
I'm broken. I'm like all these stories, right? So maybe instead the intention is just like, I'm gonna touch my, I'm gonna put my hand on my heart every time I feel something, and I'm gonna feel what I feel. And it might not feel good. It probably won't feel good, but at least I'm starting some kind of healthier relationship with those feelings.
And that also leads me to this idea of a safety movement. So, um, if I, if with my intention, or in addition to my intention. I am asking myself what position or what movement feels really supportive to me right now, really safe. And, um, maybe it's hugging myself or it's giving my, my lap a gentle rub.
Whatever it is, there's no right or wrong. Come back to that movement, come back to that pose every time you [00:50:00] need or feel like you want grounding or to come back to yourself. And it's not meant to solve this huge, uh, thing of jealousy or whatever it is, but again, it's, let me at least come back to my body as an ally through this.
Ellecia: Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. I love that. I always think of, um, the way that we have an emotion and then we start justifying it. Going, well, you know, we, we just start creating stories about why it's okay to feel the way we feel, whether, you know, somebody harmed us or, you know, like we find somebody did something wrong or there's something wrong with me.
We find all these ways to justify the emotion rather than just being like, this is the emotion I'm experiencing and these are the sensations I'm experiencing. And if you just sit with them and like, hold yourself, soothe yourself. Do whatever works or is [00:51:00] needed in the moment, rather than trying to get into your head and, and make it like, well, I don't know.
It makes me think of, um, all the parents telling kids, like, like, are you crying for? I'll give you a reason to cry. Yeah. Well, it's okay. I'm crying because I got hurt, or it's okay that I'm crying because Jimmy pushed me down. But otherwise it's not okay.
Orit: Right. And when you've learned that it's not okay and it's not safe to, to just be with your feelings.
It's just like, you can hear those words, but it is just not an option. It is. That sets off all the alarms and the red signals in your body, in your nervous system. It's like a lot of people are like, I don't know how, and also, uh, I don't feel anything. Right. Or I just can't. Right. It just doesn't, it's not accessible to them and Yeah.
Right. If it, if it was [00:52:00] easier, then more people would be with their feelings. Right.
Dedeker: I, maybe you can relate to this, but, um, I often find that, uh, women in particular, a lot of my clients who are women have some very deeply entrenched patterns around not feeling anger or not letting themselves feel anger.
Um. You know, a lot of clients that I work with will, might have like this precursor. They can tell I feel like I might be about to get angry, and then something in their sense, in their, like inner sensation comes in to just like clamp it down, right? Um, which mirrors the way that we've all been socialized, right?
That like, women are not supposed to be the ones who get angry. Uh, women's anger is unacceptable. And if you even let yourself feel it, even the act of feeling it and not even acting on it or [00:53:00] saying anything led by your anger, like even just the act of letting yourself feel it is gonna lead to some kind of disaster.
And so we can't even let ourselves feel it, right? And, and so. And I mean this pattern plays out in many different people with different sensations and different emotions. Right. But like, just this particular example was the one that came to mind that when I am working with women in particular around this, that like a lot of my work comes down to again, like we were talking about, of increasing your capacity to even let yourself feel something like anger.
Right? And to separate this fear of the anger itself. Right. To separate out this fear. If I let myself feel it, that means I'm gonna be an asshole. Right? If I let myself feel it, that means I'm gonna say something mean or I'm gonna do something mean. Right. That, um. Yeah, that like this can happen to so many of us, that there are certain things we've just gotten like really, really [00:54:00] good at.
Like not letting ourself feel or to divert into something else. And it can be really scary for a lot of women. It was for me for sure, like years ago when I was also doing this work to like actually let myself feel anger and healthy aggression. Um, and that's just one example of like, you know, for all of us it's something like, for some people it's, it's kind of shutting down all sensation entirely, right?
Like for some people it's just a perpetual freeze and numb and for some people it's around. I can't actually let myself feel grief. I can't actually let myself feel joy and delight. I can't actually let myself feel confusion or I can't let myself feel multiple things at once 'cause that's gonna be too overwhelming.
Like, it's like we all have something and you know, the work of being able to. Increase our capacity, let ourselves actually feel these things without being afraid of feeling these things. Not only does it open up, [00:55:00] in my opinion, I think so much more therapeutic insight than we can get from just sitting and talking about it.
Um, but this is also part of just increasing our ability to be human beings, right? Like increasing our access to the human experience, which for various reasons we cut ourselves off from.
Ellecia: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. If, if, uh, if someone is, you're feeling a call to come to your retreat, but they're nervous about it, what would you want them to hear?
Dedeker: It's gonna be really weird. I'm just gonna lean in. Just gonna lean into making them so, so nervous about it.
Orit: Well, to, to what de just spoke about a, a common fear that's expressed is. The fear of feeling like, what if I feel something and it bothers someone else or someone else is upset by it, or what if I start to open up [00:56:00] this can of worms and I completely lose it?
Like there's this fear of losing control and, uh, impacting other people in a negative way, which really doesn't end up happening because of how the bonds are so strongly formed so early on. Like there's just this communal feeling and energy of support and acceptance and, um, and love and no pressure. I always say no pressure for any of this to happen, but just always does.
Like, you don't have to come in there and unconditionally support anyone. You just show up for yourself, but you just feel such a strong connection with everyone that it. It really just keeps end up, it keeps happening, which is great. And, you know, we have, we've done this several times now, and I [00:57:00] feel really confident in how we're able to support people.
We have had people have some pretty intense, um, emotional responses to processing their trauma and releasing it and moving through it. And we're, we're there. I mean, we have adequate support to pull, pull off one-on-one if needed, away from the group. Um, sometimes it's helpful to process in the group, you know, it's just kind of a game time decision based on the person and what they're needing.
But, um, come in with that fear. Come in with all parts of yourself, the parts that fear that, the parts that feel, um. Maybe more confident in being vulnerable. Like all of this is a part of us and we actually do parts work from a somatic perspective. We do embodied parts work, so that's what we want. Like whatever you're fearing, bring it.
Bring [00:58:00] it.
Dedeker: I, I know I cracked the joke about it being really weird, but the, the thing I realized is that I think another common fear that people have is. What if I am the weird one there? And what I mean by that in all different flavors, like what if I'm the only solo person there? Um, you know, or I'm bringing my partner, but like we have this very particular dynamic.
Like what if that's gonna be weird and off-putting to the group? Or what if I'm the only triad there? What if I'm not poly enough? Like, that's a really common one. People feeling like I'm not poly enough, I'm not non-monogamous enough. I probably don't belong here. Um, what if I'm not healed enough? What if I'm not evolved enough?
What if I'm gonna be, you know, like there's a lot of what if I'm gonna be the weird one? And. The message I wanna convey is we're all the weird ones on this retreat. Mm-hmm. You know, like, like, like REIT was saying, like you just show up with what you have. [00:59:00] Um, because what else can you do? Right. And the two of us, um, you know, we try really, really hard to make sure that we're creating a space where people feel cared for and that everything from.
You know, like if we go up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, everything from making sure that your accommodations are comfortable, like all your food and snacks are provided, right? That like you have an okay time getting there from the airport, right. Um, that you don't have to worry about cleaning. You know, that you can leave all that behind.
But it's not just that, but it's also making sure that like, yeah, like if something big comes up for you, we can be there to support it, right? That we, um, you know, we offer access to, like, if you need to work through something one-on-one, you don't wanna be in a group like that. That's totally okay. Right.
Um, and it's not just me and or Reed. It's like we have other people on our team who are also people who are there to support, to listen. Um, you know, this [01:00:00] retreat, it's not for the two of us necessarily to accomplish like a particular goal that we've set in mind. Even though we do have our own intentions that we take going into it, it really is about you, right?
And whatever it is that you're coming here for, like, we want to support that as well to the best of our ability, right? So, so we wanna just make sure that people feel as cared for as possible.
Ellecia: That's beautiful. That sounds so freaking good. It's so freaking good. Is, yeah. Is there anything I haven't asked you guys that you want to share?
Dedeker: Anything coming up for you? Aet.
Orit: No, but my brain is shutting off a little bit 'cause it's 10:20 PM 'cause it's
Dedeker: late. Yeah,
Orit: yeah. Yeah.
Dedeker: I feel like we're, I feel like yeah, we're good. I think we've, we've covered some good bases. Yeah.
Ellecia: Amazing. Amazing. Okay. Um, how can, how can people find [01:01:00] your application to, to go to Spain and hang out with you guys and get weird?
Dedeker: Yeah, so if people are interested, they can go to multi amory.com/retreat. So that's multi amory spelled just like the podcast, multi amory.com/retreat. That will redirect you to a retreat page that has all of the information. And so we have everything from photos, an example of what the itinerary might look like.
You can watch videos of other people from past retreats talking about their experience. Um, and then you can submit an application as well.
Ellecia: Beautiful. Beautiful. So good. This has been so fun. I'm so glad you guys came on and, and, um, it, you're like, I love the idea of the retreat, but also I just really love the work that, that both of you're doing.
It's great.
Dedeker: Thank you. Thank you. No, I mean, obviously we love talking about this. We're both very passionate about talking about these things. Um, [01:02:00] and, you know, being able to introduce a more somatic framework into the non-monogamous community, which tends to be very heady and cognitive. Um, it's really exciting to be able to bring that in to, to balance things out a little bit.
Orit: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you so much for having us. Of
Ellecia: course. Okay. If you're anything like me, you're probably wondering how fast you can get to Spain and start sobbing into a bolster surrounded by other polyamorous folks. Seriously though, uh, Dedeker and Ori bring so much depth and so much heart to this work and this retreat sounds like exactly what so many of us need, myself included.
It's a space to slow down, to reconnect with our bodies and feel really held while we untangle all the spicy, sticky, beautiful parts of polyamory. So if you want in, go to multi amory.com/retreat to learn more and apply. Uh, it's [01:03:00] happening September 22nd to 25th this year, 2025 in Northern Spain. And spots are super limited because they like to keep it small and intentional.
They also have sliding scale pricing. And if your body is saying yes, listen to that. And if this episode stirred something in you, or you wanna keep getting real about non-monogamy, emotional messiness, pleasure all with me. Make sure that you follow or subscribe wherever you're listening. It helps more people find the show and it lets your podcast app know that you're into this kind of thing.
So, until next time, stay weird, stay connected, and remember that you're not broken. You just were never taught how to do this stuff until now. Bye.