Tag: BreakingAwayFromMonogamy

The Rollercoaster of My Life

    K Ghislaine
Yoga Calming the Rollercoaster

The past few days have been a shiny example of the rollercoaster of life, and true to form I am going to openly and honestly share a few of the highlights and my thoughts. My personal life is going through some pretty significant changes. I am questioning what I want from future relationships and openly exploring what that might look like for myself, and those around me.  My book has taken what I consider to be an incredible turn, and I am writing with more passion and purpose than I have in a long time.  Also, I have met a person who is treating me the way I had always hoped was possible but never dreamed I deserved. It’s new, fresh, and very exiting.  And while I am just trying to live in the moment, and take things that are really new day by day, it’s difficult not to look back on my past and wonder why I made certain decisions.

While all these pretty significant things are going on and bringing me beautiful little highs, I am getting slammed back into reality at what seems every fricken turn. Physically I am in a pain, but healing from a sprained wrist and body aches from an icy fall I had. Emotionally, I am at a place where I am trying to be vulnerable with one person, and putting up walls and boundaries with another. It is an exhausting struggle, that multiple times during the day I worry that I am just going to break, say the wrong thing, or cave all together. The balancing act is treacherous, and I look forward to the day when all this emotional regulating pays off. Unfortunately, I see no end in sight, and that makes my emotions difficult to anticipate. Which in turn, makes me a little volatile, and wanting to just run away to some safe haven, and hunker down until everything has stabilized.

So, while all the real world stuff is playing ping pong with my emotions, I spent yesterday reading the comment section from my last blog post. Not only, did I get to read fully unsubstantiated claims, I also found out that my troll is back. Normally I just smile, and calmly respond to haters (I’ve done it for years and am pretty adept at not taking things personally), but yesterday, it broke me. Call it bad timing, or whatever you want, but honestly, I just dropped my head down on my desk and started crying.

(Need a break? Why not earn real prizes for taking quick surveys using this affiliate link?)

Breaking Away from Monogamy is my blog. It is filled with my words, my experiences, and my truth. To have that questioned, and then my integrity called out within a few hours by multiple people just shook me. Yes, I recognize that by admitting that the troll got to me, I am opening myself to more trolling. When it comes to random internet attention seeking there is nothing I can do or say to make it stop aside from ignore it which I usually end up doing. Today however, I am choosing to be honest in saying that the so called “truth” seeker is a thorn in my side. And the timing of that person coming back into my life just plain sucks.

But, here I sit, writing about all these rollercoaster events happening, and thanks to an amazing nights sleep, I may finally be regulating on the side of that little thing called hope. There are great human beings out there. A few of you even reached out and supported me yesterday, which was beyond appreciated. And that is what I will try and focus on. Hope is healing me. And I wish the same for each and every one of you out there. Take a pause and focus on one tiny thing that glimmers with possibilities. Hold that in your mind, visualize it, materialize it before you, and let that be your 2021 ray of sunshine. I’ve got my hope written on my calendar beside me, and I read it every morning and smile. And I want all of you to have the same.

For all the behind the scenes photos and a full collection of my work, please consider subscribing to my Patreon. Stay for an hour, a week, whatever you choose my gratitude will be the same, huge!

Breaking Away: My Podcast is Back!

    K Ghislaine

I am very excited to announce that I finally struck inspiration and will be relaunching my podcast!!! And while I dearly want to write out a long explanation as to where Breaking Away is headed that would defeat the purpose of recording Episode 6!  So without further ado, please click on the icon and have a listen!

Exploring Together, a new outlook!

I look forward to your questions, comments, and sharing this exciting exploration of shame free sex positive exploration. And for those who love early access and bonus content, please consider subscribing to my Patreon.

We Are in the Darkest Timeline…

    K Ghislaine

And When We Need Empathy the Most, It Doesn’t Seem to be Working

Let us start at the beginning, what does empathy really mean?

It is “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.”

I have always thought of myself as an empathetic person.  Putting myself in other people’s shoes is something I do without thinking. Perspective is everything, and I love having the capacity to experience and understand more about the human experience through this skill-set. Using this mindset it feels valid for me to claim that I am an open-minded sex positive individual and in turn coach and help those who are struggling with various aspects of their non-monogamous relationships. It’s difficult to write this, without appearing like I am bragging, but the honest truth is developing empathy was how I survived a difficult childhood. As an only child, moving every 3 years, I had to efficiently learn skills to fit into new situations quickly and without any previous frame of reference.  And if you believe in such things, I am a libra, and I have been told this brings a natural balance to my perspective. 

Now, to the post at hand. There is a lot going on in the world. People are justifiably angry with, well, pretty much everything. From being forced to isolate, to the disgusting murder of a black man by people of authority, to the fact that it is supposed to be pride month, and quite frankly we have very little to celebrate. All in all 2020, has sucked so far. And being a person with a platform (no matter how small), I believe it is my duty to speak out and show support for all the people who are suffering. But there is a huge problem with this, empathy doesn’t seem to be working.

In all my years of blogging, and being active on social media, never have I felt this total chaos.  And by chaos, I mean this completely helpless feeling where everything I do is wrong. Empathy, up until now has always been a strength and has helped me be an ally to the people who truly need it. Now though, people are just so damn angry I am at a loss of how to help. Being silent is never OK, but when I am called out for being “obtuse” due to asking what black charities small businesses can donate to in my local community, it is obvious that anger is at the boiling point. Again, I want to make it clear, that I have complete empathy and want to learn, help, and ensure that racism is extinct from out future. But, I have to say again, I am at a loss of how to do this.

One theme I keep seeing is that activists are exhausted from providing lists, resources, and links to those among us who keep asking what we can do. The frustration seems to be that it is far more important for the white ally to just do some research to find the best charity etc. on their own, thereby taking a more active approach. But I hope you understand, there are many of us who just don’t want to make anymore mistakes or make things worse. I for one, have always been taught never to use race as a means of dividing people. So it goes against everything I know to do a specific Google search for black owned/run companies or charities. It feels, like I am doing something wrong. Why should it matter what race/orientation/ etc. a company is run by? That is the preconception I go into this with. And the confusion doesn’t end there.

When one person says that they don’t want to see any white person use #blacklivesmatter, and another says that “silence in white people is supporting white supremacy” or that unless you have experienced racism you should just shut up and let black people talk, it becomes less and less clear how not to mess this up. I am at a complete loss as to how to be an effective ally. Racism needs to end. All humans should have fair access to healthcare, education, and due process under the law. Equality for all needs to be fought tooth and nail to achieve. So I ask again, please, tell me how I can help?

I would love to boost black authors, sex positive educators, and support in anyway I can. However, I don’t want it to seem like I am just pandering for the here and now. I want desperately for these actions to be meaningful, insight real change, rather than a temporary increase of exposure, unless that’s all you want me to do. I’ve seen call outs for specific contributors, and I am going to be brutally honest, looking for one specific voice has always made me uncomfortable. Again, my bias has always been an open space where anyone should feel comfortable commenting, interacting, or even reading. And if this is not appropriate at this time, I need to know.

Empathy used to be enough. The complete willingness to learn, support, and stand up for what is right has always worked for me, as I said, until now. I’m not rich and famous. I don’t have a lot of resources at my disposal, but I do have my words.  I don’t want to remain passive, but I cannot constantly fight for a cause I very much believe in, if I keep getting told I am wrong by the very people I am trying to fight for. Help me learn, do better, and above all, be the ally you need. 

If you have a resource or book that you think would help me, and others, please link it in the comments or on social media.

Breaking Away from Monogamy Check-In

    K Ghislaine
Check-In

I have a bunch of blog posts, articles, pictures, and projects on the verge of being shared, but before I do that, I want to ask one thing: How are you doing?

For me, it has been 6 weeks of my partner and I against the world.  We alternate going grocery shopping every 10 days or so, and go out to pick up a new keg of beer every two weeks.  The sunshine has been shining for the last 2 days which as certainly helped, but let me be completely honest, I now have days in a row where I do nothing.  I love my projects, and my writing grounds me, but for one reason or another, I just do nothing!  Many days I feel just like I am in a state of limbo.  That’s me, now, how are you doing? Feel free to answer in the comments, social media, or even share a post you have written about your current state of mind.

Check-In’s are important.  At the end of this isolation, having a strong network of support will make shifting out easier.  We had no say as to when the distancing would begin, and that can be incredibly challenging for many of us.  Being told what to do is not an easy thing.  We are adults after all, with autonomy, and yet, here we all sit choosing the collective good of society, rather than our own selfish needs. And that needs to be acknowledged and celebrated.  I thank each and everyone of you who are doing your part to distance, and minimize contact with your fellow humans.  Again though, this is not easy, so, how are you doing?

NoMoreWetSpot.com (Affiliate link that supports this blog!)

If you are not Ok, please comment.  Reach out!  Let us all help each other get through this. Alternatively, if there is something that you are doing that is working really well, could you please share?  Maybe something as simple as smiling at yourself in the mirror, or taking 5 minutes to stretch your whole body helps.  Wherever you are with this check in, let us work together by helping, or sharing.  The whole social media community has a real opportunity to prove its real value in our society.  So, let us pause, reflect, and use the tools we have on hand.

Today, I am doing OK.  How are you?

Hope: It Excites the Fantasies

    K Ghislaine
Hope and Fantasies

Being in a good dating state of mind is the foundation of my non-monogamous dating and relationship coaching.  And if you have been following along in the last few years, you may have noticed that I took a step back when it came to dating, because I recognized that I was in a bad state of mind.  I had lost something very dear to me, and that was hope.  And as a result, I took a step back, and focused on healing, and basically tackling only those things that were already within my grasp.  I took the time to rebuild my own confidence, and sort a few things out.  In essence, I put myself into survival mode.  And then, with the help of therapy, an incredible network of friends, and my partner I slowly found my inner strength again.

But when I had just accepted that this was my life now, something miraculous happened, I found a glimmer of hope.  Without realizing it, that had been what I stopped believing in.  I shut the part of me down that was the eternal optimist, and just lived for the few moments that fueled me.  Slowly those moments grew into hours, then a full day, and then a few days at a time.  And suddenly, I felt my confidence and power come back.  It wasn’t the goal.  But it was a delightful result.  And, as an added bonus, my sexual fantasies, and erotic imagination are starting to rebuild as well.

Click on Betty’s Toy Box and use BreakingAway at checkout to help fuel this blog!

Over the past few years, I have started dabbling in erotica writing, and honestly, it was a muscle that felt incredible to finally put down on paper.  But it always felt a little out of my grasp.  If inspiration struck, I would have to drop everything and write that specific fantasy down.  It was not something that I had any control over.  And what’s worse, is that the fantasies, were so far beyond what I had experienced in person that they actually made me a little sad.  Here were sexy interludes, crisscrossing my brain, but fully intangible.  And yes, I know that many erotica writers are primarily doing so in the fiction realm, but what I wanted to write, I also want as a real part of my life.  And well, without hope, I buried that, deep into the depths of my imagination. 

I actually did something that I learned as a very young girl, and that was to compartmentalize.  But here I sit, with a growing clarity and a slowing re-merging confidence realizing that these fantasies could become realities.  And if I was brave enough to take some action… wow!  Would I ever be in for some fun times and sexy adventures.  I am flushed just thinking of the possibilities.  Of putting down the guard that always says no, until I have weighed out all the pros and cons, and just opening up, a little bit more than I have in the past. 

And finally, just writing this post, my brain has been awash with a few percolating fantasies.  While the majority will simply exist on paper, there are a few that I might try and make reality.  And that is both terrifying and deeply erotic.  It is a place I want to grow more comfortable with exploring, and all of that was made possible by the tiny little word… hope.

If you’re curious what fantasies I am working on, check out my Patreon page for the latest!