Loving More 2009 Retreat
Presentation List
(Tentative)
HELP: What kind, when, where to find it, how to get it.
Living polyamorously (not to mention parenting while poly) can be fraught with difficulties. It may be true for everybody that "life's a beach, and then you die", but if you're poly, it is often a ROCKY beach. Dealing with partners, dealing with authorities, dealing with families of origin, dealing with schools, dealing with children all present special challenges when your life includes multiple partners. Learn how to avoid trouble. Learn what to do when trouble looms. Bring questions, bring answers--let's share our wisdom and experiences.
Valerie White
Poly Parenting
Many people react to polyamory by saying "I wouldn't care what you do, but what about the children?" There is no evidence that having poly parents harms children, but being poly can raise unique issues in our parenting. How do we tell our kids and what do we tell them? What do we teach them? Since there are so many different ways of living an ethical poly life, each one raises a different set of issues in parenting. Come and share our stories, successes, and challenges.
Yankl Josephson
Making Peace with Jealousy in Polyamorous Relationships
Sound familiar? Just when we think we've got our act together, our relationships are going well and we're maybe even feeling confident, someone we love is attracted to someone new, and all of a sudden the bottom falls out. Or we meet someone new and want to explore our attraction to them, and contrary to what we anticipate, a poly partner starts freaking out. Why is this happening? Why do our emotions sometimes run so contrary to our will? What's a fair and reasonable poly person to do? We need not be jealousy's victims! Come learn to accurately analyze and identify jealousy's complex underlying emotions. Devise an effective plan that works for you that will take away their seemingly overwhelming emotional power. With a bit of patience, some love and support, and the right poly relationship skills, we all have the power to make peace with jealousy.
Anita Wagner
Hap-Poly Ever After: Long-Term Poly Partnership
What does committed long-term polyamory look like? What kinds of agreements and relationship structures can thrive and support each partner’s development and growth to make their dreams come true throughout their lifecycles? What have we learned about making this lifestyle work? And what shapes do our households and emotional lives take on, several decades down this path? For folks who want to share what they’ve done and how, or ask questions of those who have, a discussion (along with some roleplaying) of long-term polyamory and poly families with and without children.
Ben Silver
"How do I tell them about my life and loves?": Coming out Poly
PresentationSynopsis The answer to this question will vary by your situation and with whom you are sharing. In this session we will explore the concerns you and/or your loves have regarding 'being known' or coming out as poly. This is an opportunity to explore our own experiences with speaking to people who don't practice our loving style and discover what considerations impact our sharing with people who matter to to us. We can explore how these factors influence our lives and love situations . We'll talk about the conditions that make such opening up favorable for sharing and the motivations for doing so. And what can we polys and those we care about gain from our revelations? Come join the discussion , gain instructive information, listen to others' experience and wisdom so you can examine your own reservations on this issue. Carol 's insights from professionals' encounters with their clients' on this issue and the lessons learned for the group's benefit for this instructive and interactive session.
Carol Morotti-Meeker, MS,MLSP
Speaking Truth, Meeting Needs, and Releasing Attachments
How many of us say “yes” to things we don’t actually want out of guilt, obligation, or a fear of losing connection? In many ways, “no” is the most intimate thing that one person can say to another – if I can hear your “no”, I can trust your “yes.” Practice the skills of self-awareness (“what do I really want?”), transparency (revealing our true desires), and non-attachment (dealing with the feelings associated with not getting our first choice) in this experiential workshop – these skills enable us to find the space of mutually desired and open-hearted connection that is available to us with each person.
Michael Rios and Sarah Taub
Polyamory in Media’s Spotlight
Over the last two years much has happened on the public stage that has the power to affect poly lives in ways both good and bad. More than 140 media events that focus on polyamory or are polyamory-related have been documented. Their sources range from prime-time TV plot lines to articles in campus newspapers.
The good news: Polyamory is no longer socially obscure.
The bad news: Visibility attracts attention from people who actively oppose the way we live our lives.
Increasingly the media is the grass roots playing field that offers the most effective means of influencing public opinion – and hopefully public policy – in polyamory's favor. There is no doubt that media interest in polyamory is at an all time high with no real end in sight. Whereas for many years sightings of poly-specific media events were very few and far between and consisted mostly of hostile daytime talk show experiences, today local, regional and national broadcast, print, and internet-based media are driving a much more positive trend, with polyamorists and polyamory movement leaders often in media's spotlight. This tends to reflect well on the concept of polyamory, but troublesome media events still happen, events about which we must remain aware and address as is appropriate.
Come hear more and ask questions about this exciting and challenging trend.
Anita Wagner
Societal Programming, Guilt and the Little White Lies...
How can we overcome the unconscious programs that threaten our success in poly relating.
Do you ever find yourself feeling guilty for having fun with a sweetie while your other sweetie is at home with the kids? Do you sometimes find yourself saying “we only snuggled a bit” only to say the next day “and oh we did have sex a little” or “we didn’t really have sex it was just a blow job” out of guilt or fear of hurting your partner? Our culture does not teach us much about navigating mono relationships much less how to deal with multiples. In addition we are inundated by messages that if we really love our partner we will lie, never want anyone else and never hurt the one we love. You come to poly relating with a suitcase of behaviors that are not conducive to successful relating, poly or mono. In this led discussion we will look at the why and how of these and other counter-productive strategies that interfere with successful loving relationships.
Jesus Garcia
Beyond The Monogamy/Dominator Paradigm
This experiential workshop will explore ways to move beyond our monogamous and dominator programming of society and into an open partnership way. Most of us were brought up in a dominator authority model in our families and have been ingrained with monogamy as our model for relationships. Through discussion and exercises we will explore together ways to shift our programming to embracing a more partnership mode of relating in life. We will explore how genderizations of emotions and energy as masculine and/or feminine have served to rob both men and women of their full emotional expression as whole human beings. Experiential exercises are based both on Tantric teachings and the teachings of Riane Eisler author of The Chalice and the Blade and Sacred Pleasures.
Robyn Trask
Poly Without Drama, Security Without Commitment
What would relationship be like if everyone took 100% responsibility for their own feelings? What if every surge of emotion was seen as an invitation to connect with essence and rise to a new level of awareness and love? What if we made the commitment to never again blame another person for our feelings? The more we do our own spiritual work, the more available and loving we are in the moment. We no longer cling to rules and impose agreements that we hope will keep our partners from triggering painful emotions in us; we welcome those emotions, work through them, and delight in our connections whatever form they might take. Join us as we walk the path of open-hearted relationship!
Michael Rios and Sarah Taub
Bisexuality, Self-Knowledge, and Eros
This workshop is designed to assist participants in becoming more aware of how bisexual cultures and lovestyles complement and integrate with Polyamory. We open with a short poem about bisexuality by nonetheless that William Shakespeare. There is nothing new to bisexuality or Polyamory, since even the bard practiced them . . .
We continue with definitions and historical perspectives about the bisexual movement, especially in the late 20th century, with a special reference to the work of the late Fritz Klein, from a psychoanalytical perspective, and Lani Kaahumanu and Loraine Hutchins, from a cultural and earth‐centered perspective. Participants will be invited to share in small groups about bisexual dreams, wishes, fantasies, and experiences. Next will be a practical exercise based on the Klein Grid, a bi version of the Kinsley Scale. Participants will be invited to place themselves on this grid. Then they will mix and mingle while they ask questions of each other as to where they best fit, so that in the end everyone will stand on the floor in correspondence to their place on the grid, to everyone’s amusement!
Bisexuality is largely in the mind of the beholder. Participants will play the roles of givers and receivers in small groups. The messages will be expressed via soft touch and/or flirtatious gazing. The givers will keep their intention secret, and the receiver will be invited to guess as to what that is. In many cases, a non‐sexual intention will be interpreted as sexual, and vice versa, to the amusement of all.
Serena Anderlini‐D’Onofrio
Let's Talk About Sex
How exactly do we talk about sex, and say what we mean? There are many opportunities when the sexual conversation is necessary, but most of the time factors get in the way: embarrassment, inhibition, lack of vocabulary, fear of judgment, and so on. In this workshop we will learn techniques for having the sexual conversation boldly and gently, using words and ideas that we already know. Erotic preferences, safer sex negotiation and boundary agreements will all be included, but mostly we will focus on talking about what we want, and what feels good.
Eric Francis and Amanda Painter
My Body and Me
What do you like about your body? What don't you like? What's keeping you from unconditionally loving yourself? In this workshop we'll explore how we feel about our bodies and how our feelings may keep us from being all we can be to ourselves and in our relationships. In a safe clothing-optional environment we'll have the opportunity to take some risks and open ourselves to sharing those parts of our bodies that keep us from unconditionally loving ourselves. No one will be admitted once the workshop begins. Everyone will always be at choice as to how they participate and what they share.
Lee Hencen
Connecting through the Mandala;
Sacred Sexuality for the Polyamorous
This in depth interactive workshop combines the teachings of Taoist and Tantric Sacred Sexual practices to take you on a journey exploring what is possible when we tap into our most powerful creative energy. Using techniques of Tantra and Taoist fire breath, heart connection and energy exchange we will connect to ourselves and others in dyadic partnership, with multiple partners and with the entire group. It is recommended that you have some knowledge of Sacred Sexual breathing.
Robyn Trask
