Creative Musings: Relationship Anarchy
Relationship Anarchy
Have you heard of such a thing?
Well this concept got right down deep into the potent magic and had me musing on relationships past and dreaming up relationship potential and ways.
My guest on November 21st 2023 introduced me to the idea of Relationship Anarchy and it opened up a depth, invited in the trickster and shifted my view. The most creative people will do that. There are many ways to lead a life.
In my human connections, I observe and am often invited into the ways that people have relationships. How people uncouple. How people couple. How they navigate family, community and professional relationships. How it can look when anarchic love or relationship is in play. How people reinvent and redesign relationships as time goes by.
As I type this, I realise there are some serious relationship reinventions that could happen for me. What if I bring relationship anarchy to the table? What if I don’t need to talk it out or work it out? What if I just adjust the entire approach to just me, holding the relationship, and its own powerful presence, rejecting any cultural norms I’ve been handed, throw overboard the baggage and come to the relationship fresh, unencumbered and innovative? Anarchic.
Short Instructional Manual for Relationship Anarchy (Andie Nordgren 20026)
Love is abundant, and every relationship is unique
Love and respect instead of entitlement
Find your core set of relationship values
Heterosexism is rampant and out there, but don’t let fear lead you
Build for the lovely unexpected
Read more on this manifesto here
Co-regulation
Also Co-regulation - jeez I had forgotten this. How many days have I sat at home, white-knuckling some anxious feelings, some nervous system hijack or something that rattled me and trying to work it out on my own with my intellectual toolkit, with my call to rugged individualism and my erroneous belief that there is something deficient in me if I can’t stop spiralling on my own, even after walks, lies down, music dancing, a cold shower or reading. I’m a human. Sometimes I NEED A HUMAN with whom to co-regulate.
That could just mean a chat with a neighbour. Or a quick call to my team to walk through or talk through some logistics or some voice messages exchanged with a dear friend. This I believe is one of the great gifts of the Lighthouse Grief Circle that I run with Gretchen Miura. Co-regulation.
Finding deeply aligned community and culture. More co-creation and connection. My guest moves cities. My current phase of this story is on the inside and on the edges. Yet also what is finding its way to me. I looked at my inbox the other day and almost everything was people with whom I feel a deep connection.
In this Creative Musing, you will hear a lot of musings on relationships that I am in constellation with. Past and present.
I actually think I could have gone further in these musings, but I’ll leave that in my notebook and intimate conversations for now.
And I ramble a lot, and at some point I will likely edit it down considerably, but for now you can hear me (or see me on YouTube - a 2024 project) rifling through notes aka Google, searching for names I can’t remember and losing my words all together at one point …
Ahh the many ways to be human. This is no apology but please do enjoy how deeply unprofessional I am, scrambling for references while still just sending my voice out there. It feels like a kind of trickster move. Is this a relationship anarchy of sorts? Queering my relationship with the professional? In fact, I disliked this mid-pod ramble, so I might invite you to fast forward from when I reference IFS, Internal Family Systems, then spend a good five minutes telling you how much I like it, while simultaneously becoming increasingly inept at using Google to find the name of the author (Richard C. Schwarz). Fun times. You should really get a PhD for listening to things this well-prepared. And the moral of the story is - for this version of SF, at this stage in life, no matter how many times you have delivered, read, or studied content YOU WILL NEVER HAVE THE NAME READY WHEN YOU WANT IT it will be ON THE TIP OF YOUR TONGUE so you need to have it written somewhere clear if you are going to reference OR say you will reference in the notes! No amount of fish-oil is going to restore that function. That was a different version of you who had an encyclopedic knowledge of references on the tip of their tongue; your brain has now started jettisoning non-essential information into far-flung corners of the neuro-map, in order to allow a new version of yourself to rise like a Phoenix from the fire. I have a fantasy self that is well read (check) and has references ready (no) and can pull them together like an academic ninja, yet what I really am is a storyteller who likes to give attribution. That new version will of course be referencing other people’s IP or even the source of the ideas that emerge in the musing so here we are:
Internal Family Systems Therapy: Richard C. Schwarz, Martha Sweezy
Family constellation: Bert Hellinger
Parts Work: Tom Holmes, Laurie Holmes
This is truly fascinating stuff and in Systems Coaching we talk about roles: Outer Roles, Inner Role, Secret Roles and Ghost Roles, all of which echo the above work. We align with, explore our relationship with these roles that exist for us and inside us and we also vent at them if need be!
My guest on November 21st 2023 introduced me to the idea of relationship anarchy and it opened up the breadth of how to be for me once more. And the many ways there are to lead a life. In my human connections, I observe and am often invited into the ways that people have relationships. How people uncouple. How it can look when anarchic love is in play. How people reinvent and redesign relationships as time goes by
In this episode you’ll hear:
Sarah musing on Relationship Anarchy (Andie Nordgren 2006)
Musings on queer hetero relationships
Co-regulation - a deep reminder of the need for people with whom to regulate our nervous systems
Deeper connections, access to culture and what that might sound like
Stories from real life and real time self-coaching
Please note that I am not telling you or teaching you what you ought to take from these musings - I’m throwing out the story, as it stands, this week, then allowing you, the co-creator to make of it what you will. With references of course.
If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram or Facebook.
Other Relationship AnarchyFlavored Legends episodes:
Maya Ileto of Mayamoves.com "Bodywork made me feel like my body was mine again".
https://www.sarahfuruya.com/blog/check-in-with-angela-ortiz
https://www.sarahfuruya.com/blog/legend-of-neil-chapman-d-whom
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