Playing With Fire – Details, episodes & analysis

If you have a hard time keeping relationship agreements, you probably also have a hard time keeping the agreements you make with yourself. If that’s you, or if you’ve never even tried to make self-agreements, you have to listen to this episode.

This process shouldn’t feel like a punishment—I want you to make agreements with yourself that you actually want to uphold. And that’s not always a straightforward process. If you’re struggling, you’re so not alone. This isn’t entry-level work—it requires real skill-building, and we’re breaking down that learning process so you can start fostering integrity and consent with yourself.

In this episode, we talk about:

— Why some people struggle to stick to the agreements they've made

— How past relationship experiences and attachment styles influence our approaches to agreements

— The role of unconscious factors in undermining our commitments

— Why self-agreement keeping is the first step to keeping agreements with other people

— The benefits that come with not naturally being good at upholding agreements

— Balancing flexibility with reliability in relationships

— How to create effective response plans for when agreements aren't met

— The importance of written agreements and reminders

— Why punitive consequences often backfire, and how to use educative repercussions instead

— Practical tools for improving agreement-making and follow-through

Resources mentioned in this episode:

— Gretchen Rubin’s 4 Tendencies Quiz

— PWF Episode 149 Relationship Agreements 101

— PWF Episode 150 Asymmetric Agreements

JOIN The Year of Opening community for a full year of learning & support. Registration is open now at ⁠⁠www.TheYearOfOpening.com⁠⁠

Learn the 5 secrets to open your relationship the smart way

Are you ready to open your relationship happily? Find out at www.JoliQuiz.com

Get the answers you want to create the open relationship of your dreams! Sign up for an Ask Me Anything here

Music: Dance of Felt by ⁠Blue Dot Sessions

“Jealousy is just insecurity, so if you become more secure in yourself, you won't feel jealous anymore.” Ever heard that one before? We have, and we don’t agree. One of the reasons I love thinking about, talking about, and doing academic research on jealousy is that jealousy contains multitudes. Insecurity and attachment issues are just one of its many facets.

People tend to over-simplify jealousy because it can feel like a loaded word. Jealousy can get all mixed up with fear, shame, guilt, attachment challenges, and a bunch of other tricky, tender stuff. We made this episode to help you untangle those feelings and frameworks without pathologizing or boxing in your emotions and experiences.

On this episode, we’re talking about:

— The complex and multiple nature of jealousy

— How attachment and jealousy are related

— Why jealousy is not a bad word, and why it’s actually one of our favorite things to talk about

— Strategies for dealing with jealousy

— Using nervous system regulation tools to help you move through experiences of jealousy

— The importance of giving yourself permission to try new strategies, even if they might not work perfectly

— How to disrupt habitual patterns and reactions to jealousy to achieve different outcomes in your life and your relationships

— The power of patience and self-compassion when you are struggling with jealousy

— How to create a jealousy rescue plan

Resources mentioned in this episode:

— The Jealousy Roadmap & The Jealousy Resource Center

JOIN The Year of Opening community for a full year of learning & support. Registration is open now at ⁠⁠www.TheYearOfOpening.com⁠⁠

Are you ready to open your relationship happily? Find out at www.JoliQuiz.com

Get the answers you want to create the open relationship of your dreams! Sign up for an Ask Me Anything here

Music: Dance of Felt by ⁠Blue Dot Sessions

When we read Entwined, Alex Alberto’s genre-blending memoir, we felt seen, understood, and represented on a whole new level. We knew right away that we wanted Alex to join us on Playing With Fire—and this week’s episode is even better than we could have imagined!!

Alex’s ground-breaking collection of essays covers beautiful and difficult parts of polyamory that are rarely discussed in story-telling formats. They show us how intense and transformative metamour relationships can be, and they bring us stories of sex and love that go beyond the romp-in-the-hay format. Whether you're polyamorous, monogamous, or somewhere in between, this conversation will expand your understanding of what's possible in relationships.

In this episode, we discuss:

— Alex’s journey to non-monogamy

— How polyamory can be a path to self-discovery and personal growth

— The value of intentionality in relationships, regardless of structure

— How non-monogamy can expand our capacity for joy and connection

— Appreciating the day-to-day realities of non-monogamous relationships, even the challenging parts

— The beauty and importance of metamour relationships in polyamorous dynamics

— The power of storytelling in normalizing and validating non-traditional relationships

— The need for diverse representation in polyamory media

— Parenting, co-parenting, and navigating the societal pressures of raising a child in a non-monogamous family dynamic

— Embracing change and transitions in long-term partnerships

Resources mentioned in this episode:

— Alex's book, Entwined: Essays on Polyamory and Creating Home

— Alex's website

— Alex's Instagram and TikTok: @thatalexalberto

— The upcoming magazine Entwined Mag

Join the global Week of Visibility for Non-monogamy – July 15-21. Visit www.weekofvisibility.com to learn more and get involved!

Are you ready to open your relationship happily? Find out at⁠⁠ ⁠www.JoliQuiz.com⁠

Get the answers you want to create the open relationship of your dreams! Sign up for an Ask Me Anything here

Read the transcript of this episode here

Music: Dance of Felt by ⁠Blue Dot Sessions

We talk with Megan Bhatia from the Amory podcast about our different polyamory journeys, our experiences with family as polyamorous people, and parenting outside the monogamous paradigm.

You can view the transcript here

Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube

Get my free top 5 relationship guides at ListenToJoli.com for easy to implement conversations that will help you create the love you really want.

Are you ready to open your relationship happily? Find out at www.JoliQuiz.com

Get the book Project Relationship

Learn about Joli and how to work with her

If you want to stay up to date on all of Joli's work be sure to join the Project Relationship mailing list

Ready to take your relationships to new levels of growth and satisfaction? In a community of like-minded, growth oriented people with similar goals? Led by a highly trained expert and her experienced partner? Listen to Episode 69 where we share some of our thoughts and experiences about opening relationships, and offer an exciting new opportunity to join a group coaching program designed to help you open your relationship the smart way.

Start by taking the quiz to find out how ready you are to open your relationship happily

If you're ready to start opening your relationship the smart way, go directly to the application!

Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube

Join us for the first episode of Season 6! We talk with Elisabeth Kristof of Brain Based Wellness about training your nervous system, and how you can use those skills to improve your relationships. Elisabeth is not only a certified applied neurology coach but also one of Joli's most treasured trauma-informed colleagues. 

Click here for a free video series to relieve stress, resolve anxiety and eliminate unwanted behavior! 

BONUS: Elisabeth and Joli created a one-of-a-kind workshop called Jealousy Rewired! Get access to this groundbreaking combination of somatic and cognitive tools to transform your jealousy struggles into opportunities.

Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube

Are you kinky? Nobody but you can answer that question, and nobody but you can decide what it means. There's no board of kink that issues certificates, no licensing board that decides what you can and can't do based on your "kink" status. 

In this episode we talk about ways you can explore this question for yourself. And some of the things to think about along the way - practical, psychological, and relational.

Get my free top 5 relationship guides at ListenToJoli.com for easy to implement conversations that will help you create the love you really want.

Get the book Project Relationship

Learn about Joli and how to work with her

If you want to stay up to date on all of Joli's work be sure to join the Project Relationship mailing list

Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube

How did we get where we are? What stories do we tell each other (and ourselves) about the decisions that got us here? In this episode we dig into how the way we remember and tell our stories affects the way we view our relationships, and our partners.

Here's the graphic on cognitive bias I mentioned.

Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube

Get my free top 5 relationship guides at ListenToJoli.com for easy to implement conversations that will help you create the love you really want.

Get the book Project Relationship

Learn about Joli and how to work with her

If you want to stay up to date on all of Joli's work be sure to join the Project Relationship mailing list

How satisfied are we in our relationships? How satisfied can we be? How do we decide? When we make explicit agreements with our partners, we can start to see clearly how well our relationships serve us. The more we know about our values and our partners' values, the easier it is to make effective explicit agreements, which is what this episode is about. We share experiences with our relationship agreements, and talk about some of the tools we use to help us craft them.

Here is the exercise and list of values Joli mentioned.

Also here is a quick link to available values lists on Google.

Strugging with what your relationship is for? Check out "Getting What You Need", Chapter 7 of the book Project Relationship, which has exercises to help you. It's part of my free top 5 relationship guides at ListenToJoli.com. It also includes easy to implement conversations that will help you create the love you really want.

Get the book Project Relationship

Learn about Joli and how to work with her

If you want to stay up to date on all of Joli's work be sure to join the Project Relationship mailing list

Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube

How do we navigate those times in our relationships when trust has been violated? How can we respond in ways that increase the chance of reconnection? Are there ways to avoid situations that cause trust troubles? In this episode we talk about some of our experiences building and rebuilding trust, and share some strategies for navigating trust issues.

Get my free top 5 relationship guides at ListenToJoli.com for easy to implement conversations that will help you create the love you really want.

Get the book Project Relationship

Learn about Joli and how to work with her

If you want to stay up to date on all of Joli's work be sure to join the Project Relationship mailing list

Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube