#153 – Love More, Fight Less – Dr. Gina Senarighi

#153 – Love More, Fight Less – Dr. Gina Senarighi

Listen to “153: Love More, Fight Less – Dr. Gina Senarighi” on Spreaker.

Love More, Fight Less 

From early on in her career, Dr Gina knew she wanted to help people with sex and relationships. Her work delved into the more uncommon areas such as discernment counseling, conscious uncoupling, and consensual non-monogamy. 

Her work today revolves around a diverse group of clients, which she calls expansive relationships. Dr Gina explains expansive relationships as relationships between partners that want to explore and encompass more of themselves, people who want to “color outside of the lines.” 

Looking Deeper into Our Stories 

Gina deals with many stories and talks about how we all have stories. She notes that we need to look at our own actions and history in a healthier way and finds that this can bring us to realizations in our lives that help us better understand ourselves. Exploring our norms does not mean we need to scrap them but rather encourages us to better tailor them to our current relationship needs. 

Intimacy 

Dr Senarighi highlights that vulnerability and intimacy are not the same but that handling vulnerability with care can deepen intimacy in a relationship. She explains intimacy as a deep connection with people and explores the different kinds of intimacy around us. 

Communication 

She explains that trust and openness go hand in hand and shares how we can cultivate that openness for ourselves. Dr Gina discusses her book and how important communication is in relationships. It is filled with tools  and actionable steps for couples to use to strengthen their communication and deal with obstacles. She uncovers a few examples to give us some insight into what she means. 

A few key elements she unpacks that help communication are clarity of boundaries, having a clear and compassionate accountability process and  trust and stability in relationships  

Background 

Dr Gina Senarighi, PhD, CPC is an author, teacher, sexuality counselor and certified relationship coach based in the U.S.  She’s been supporting clean fights and dirty sex in happy healthy relationships since 2009. Gina has written several books and currently leads couples retreats and coaches clients all over the world to have deeper intimacy and more meaningful connection.  

Call for a free consultation to rethink the way you do relationships. 

About Gina 

Dr. Gina Senarighi, PhD, CPC is a couples’ therapist turned relationship coach, retreat leader, and author specializing in intimacy, authenticity, shame-resilience, and connected communication for diverse relationships.  

For over twelve years she has supported hundreds of clients creating fulfilling integrity-based relationships according to their own rules. In that time she’s developed a solid framework based in neuroscience, nonviolent communication, and positive psychology research that has transformed diverse relationships around the world. 

In 2020, she published her first book, Love More Fight Less, A Communication Workbook for Every Couple with Penguin Random House. She earned her Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy in 2010 from Saybrook University, her Bachelor’s degree in Education from the University of Wisconsin in 2002, and a Masters in Education with a minor in Human Sexuality from Indiana University in 2004. In 2019 she completed her PhD in Spiritual Studies and Pastoral Counseling. 

Gina was named Portland’s Best Life Coach in 2019 and has taught psychology courses, communication workshops, couples intimacy retreats, and guest lectured on alternative relationships and sex-positive therapy at universities across the US. Students love her no-nonsense “real talk” presentation style. 

Her podcast, Swoon has helped over 10,000 listeners build a more compassionate, creative, confident, and fulfilled society.  Gina offers practical, proven skills to transform relationships in deeply meaningful ways.   

As a retreat coach, her background in psychology, mediation and communication training has enabled her to offer uniquely powerful tools to help clients overcome stuck patterns.  Her uniquely non-judgmental, inclusive approach to couples work puts even the most concerned participants at ease.  She is not your average sit-and-nod supporter- she’ll call you out, and always help you grow.  Gina has created thousands of tools, worksheets, guides and authored a few books to support relationships Get on her email list if you’d like access to her tool library. 

When she’s not working you can find her in her gorgeous urban garden, cooking dinners for friends, playing with her two adorable kids, or traveling the world with her partner, Rae. 

Links and Resources 

Website: heygina.com

Book: Love More Fight Less, A Communication Workbook for Every Couple 

Website: Nonmonogomous.com 

Podcast: Swoon 

Get on her email list if you’d like access to her tool library. 

 

#141 – Doing Non-Monogamy Well – Tristan Taormino

#141 – Doing Non-Monogamy Well – Tristan Taormino

Listen to “141: Doing Non-Monogamy Well – Tristan Taormino” on Spreaker.

Doing Non-monogamy well 

On this episode we dig into non-monogamy with Tristan Taormino.  She discusses how the processing of both parties feelings is a crucial element to open relationships. Interestingly, she shares how working on yourself is a big part of the open-minded approach required to make this type of thing work.  

The Importance of Boundaries in Consensual Non-monogamy 

Tristan recommends a slow start and provides clear guidelines and examples on how to do this. Knowing what you want and need makes setting boundaries easier. These boundaries include whether or not you and your partner wish to keep your non-monogamy close to home or not. This ultimately bleeds into how much time you will be investing in non-monogamy and the depth of the relationships you will be seeking. Tristan shares the types of boundaries that could come up. 

Decisions to make regarding non-monogamy 

Tristan’s advice for couples with different feelings about non-monogamy is to go at the pace of the slower partner. Ultimatums are not encouraged especially if your partner agrees to give it a try. 

Tristan adds valuable advice about making decisions during the heat of a moment, advocating a more thought-through approach when put in these situations. People trying non-monogamy also struggle with certain behaviours including jealousy. We learn more about this and how to constructively handle this. 

The Common Pitfalls of Consensual Non-monogamy 

Time management is considered one of the pitfalls of non-monogamy. With many tools available at our disposal, Tristan unpacks the subtle and obvious scenarios that eventually lead to your time being consumed and the negative impact it can have if not managed. 

We hear about emotional privacy and how it involves considering the preferences of all the parties included in your non-monogamous arrangement. Tristan’s suggests the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell ‘ method if all parties can agree to it. Vito power comes into play here and we hear about how it can be used fairly. 

Considering the Past 

Trauma and negative childhood experiences eventually manifest in our relationships. Tristan urges us to investigate these issues so that we are informed when entering a relationship and acutely aware of our partner’s triggers and understand why they exist. 

Background 

Tristan Taormino is an award-winning writer, sex educator, speaker, filmmaker, and radio host. She is the editor of 25 anthologies and author of eight books, including Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships. She lectures at top colleges and universities and teaches sex and relationship workshops around the world for nearly 20 years.  

Tristan hosts Sex Out Loud, a weekly radio show on the VoiceAmerica Network and is the creator of Sex Educator Boot Camp, a professional training program while still running a coaching and consulting business for sexuality and creative professionals. 

Links and Resources 

Tristan’s Book 

https://www.amazon.com/Opening-Up-Creating-Sustaining-Relationships/dp/157344295X 

Website 

http://tristantaormino.com/ 

https://openingup.net/ 

Podcast 

Sex Out Loud 

 

 

#73 – Jim Fleckenstein – Consensual Non-Monogamy

#73 – Jim Fleckenstein – Consensual Non-Monogamy

Consensual Non-Monogamy 

My guest is Jim Fleckenstein. He is a coach and educator on sexuality. He is also a researcher who focuses predominantly on non-exclusive relationships and how they affect the individuals involved. He is an expert in consensual non-monogamy and a wellspring of knowledge and insight, which he graciously shares in this episode.

Jim shares stats and information on consensual non-monogamy, how those who practice it are reporting an overwhelming amount of satisfaction and happiness, how emotional needs have a lot to do with those who are drawn towards it, and how these relationship structures are actually much more common than you may have realized. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg of this discussion though. Listen along and learn a lot about this interesting topic! 

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