What To Do With Your Big Poly Feelings
Both professionally and personally, I deeply understand the unique emotional challenges that can arise when practicing polyamory. It's not uncommon for difficult emotions to arise—such as jealousy, fear, and anger—when navigating multiple intimate connections.
It’s instinctual to try and throw those feelings as far away as humanly possible. However, rather than suppressing or avoiding this discomfort, expanding emotional and somatic tolerance can be super helpful in building resilience, confidence, and cultivating emotional wellbeing.
I want to share some tips and techniques with you for practicing emotional and somatic tolerance when difficult emotions arise.
What is emotional and somatic tolerance?
Emotional and somatic tolerance is the ability to hold and regulate difficult emotions without becoming overwhelmed or reactive. It involves being able to stay present with the physical sensations and emotions that arise, without either numbing out or getting swept away by them.
Practicing emotional and somatic tolerance allows us to build resilience in the face of difficult emotions and ultimately leads to a deeper sense of self-awareness, self-acceptance, and emotional freedom.
Here are some tools for building emotional and somatic tolerance:
Practice mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of bringing non-judgmental awareness to the present moment. When we practice mindfulness, we learn to observe our thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations without getting caught up in them.
What I often suggest to folks who don’t have much of a mindfulness background or are super rusty is to start practicing mindfulness while doing everyday activities. Some examples are washing dishes, walking pretty much anywhere, taking a shower, or driving a car. It’s all about experimenting, recognizing which activities provide the easiest access to arriving at the present moment. The second suggestion I often make is to observe which of one’s senses evokes getting present. For some, the classic pay-attention-to-the-breath feels great. For others, it may be focusing on how their body makes contact with gravity, noticing sounds around them, using their visual system to find presence. Play around and notice. Every moment of presence “counts.”
Use grounding techniques
When our bodies get flooded with intense emotion, all of us naturally want to escape our bodies. After all, it’s really uncomfortable. And—hooray!—we can do something different and helpful: ground back in to our bodies.
If mindfulness practice is one’s day-in and day-out emotional tolerance training, then grounding techniques are what the break in case of emergency kit. These need to be simple, something that a person can do when their stress response is winning and their executive functioning is not. Here are some examples:
Focus on the sensations of your feet on the ground, or even push feet down in to the ground and then let up the pressure alternately.
Notice the temperature of the air as it touches your skin or fills your lungs.
Slow down as you taste, chew, and swallow a bite of food.
Orient to your environment visually: name 5 objects you see as you scan the room.
Hold a comforting object, such as a smooth stone or piece of jewelry.
Put your hand to your chest and/or stomach and see if you can notice sensations from the perspective of your hands and then from the perspective of the chest and/or stomach. You may notice temperature or movement.
FInd a wall. Put your hands at chest height against the wall. Pushhhhhhh. Feel the pressure, the texture, the temperature. Back off and push again if you want, for as long as it’s safe and comfortable for you.
Grow kindness for yourself (ie cultivate self-compassion)
As CNM folks, as much as no one wants to admit it, the feel good stuff like compersion and new relationship energy (NRE) is what we’re aiming for, and struggling with difficult emotions not only naturally feels horrible, but may go against what our non monogamy ideals are! And then often shame and guilt just sit right on top of the difficult emotion, and shame and guilt are really tricky to get out of.
Luckily growing our acceptance and kindness for ourselves for being human—with inevitably very human emotions—is invaluable. If we aspire to create a safe and supportive space for our partners, why wouldn’t we also want to create a safe and supportive inner environment that can help us weather emotional storms?!
We need to recognize the shame and self-judgmental part before we can help it rest easy. After all, that part of you thinks it’s being helpful. Can you see that part of you and bring it some understanding? If you notice yourself softening toward the self-judgmental part, and vice versa, you can start to show some love and understanding for the big feelings. Giving room for it to exist, neither letting it take over nor trying to shove it in a closet.
Noticing these parts of you and using curiosity and kindness…this often helps people experience some relief. All the parts are invited to the table. It’s another way of tolerating big emotions by recognizing and acknowledging our layers of experience, staying in contact with our core self that can notice the other parts that are suffering and provide a loving ear.
Gradually growing emotional and somatic tolerance seems especially important for anyone navigating the complex emotional landscape of polyamorous and consensually non-monogamous relationships. By practicing mindfulness, finding grounding tools that work, and cultivating kindness toward yourself while you’re actively emotionally suffering, you can develop greater resilience and emotional wellbeing. Remember to be gentle and patient with yourself as you build these skills, and reach out for support from a trusted therapist or coach if needed.
