Cultivating Connection - by Sander T Jones (Paperback)

About the Book

Cultivating Connection is a communication skills and conflict resolution book for people practicing non-monogamy. Written by an experienced psychotherapist, this book is solidly LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and power dynamic affirming.

Book Synopsis

Does communicating about needs and boundaries with multiple partners seem like a labyrinth of emotional landmines?

Discover a comprehensive yet easy to understand method for communicating that will have partners compassionately making room for the needs of multiple relationships, and ethically defining and respecting each person's boundaries.

Are you tired of feeling like metas are competing for scarce resources, or that your needs come last? How can you meet the needs of all partners when some of their needs seem to conflict?

Sander T. Jones is a licensed psychotherapist with well over a decade of experience living polyamory and helping clients in non-monogamous relationships.

And now Sander is sharing this unique system for repairing relationships and nurturing harmony.

Drawing from polyvagal and attachment theories, Cultivating Connection is written with practical application in mind and exercises to help you and your partners practice new skills together.

Within Cultivating Connection, you'll discover:

• How to communicate compassionately with partners, and come together as a team to solve problems in a way that meets each person's needs.
• How personal boundaries need to adhere to specific principles to be ethical rather than coercive.
• How to overcome our individual obstacles to creating and enforcing the boundaries we need to live authentically within our relationships.
• Four simple questions to tell when we are overstepping a partner's rights and need to focus on our own growth and change.
• How to know when relationship agreements are healthy and support the needs of all the people impacted in our multiple relationships.

Cultivating Connection is your comprehensive guide for bringing harmony and joy to your multiple relationships while taking responsibility for the impact we have on others, living authentically, and continuing to grow as individuals. It's also solidly affirming of LGBTQ+, BIPOC readers, and readers engaged in relationships that are unequal by design.

If you liked Polysecure, Power Circuits, and Unf*ck Your Boundaries, you'll love Sander T. Jones' invaluable roadmap to collaborative, clear, loving communication. Buy Cultivating Connection, today!

Review Quotes

The compassion that Sander encourages as they teach about human rights, boundaries, relationship agreements, personal responsibility, mutual respect, and ethics, shines through on every page. Cultivating Connection is a must have conflict resolution and relationship skills book. - Dr. Elisabeth Sheff, author of The Polyamorists Next Door, and Children in Polyamorous Families.

A must-read, and one of the most comprehensive resources for non-monogamy! This book gives readers the tools they need to communicate collaboratively and effectively, navigate and resolve conflicts, and nurture relationships built on respect, responsibility, and autonomy.- Dr. Liz Powell, PsyD, author of: Building Open Relationships: Your hands-on guide to swinging, polyamory, and beyond!

Cultivating Connection teaches practical skills on how to balance loving relationships with healthy individual boundaries. It's a must read for every person doing consensual non-monogamy. This book is a very readable, accessible guide for people with attachment injuries and other mental health struggles to get through their obstacles and create healthy, happy relationships. It's written specifically for the ethical non-monogamy communities, and is also affirming for LGBTQ+, kink, and BDSM readers. Love it! - Kitty Chambliss, MCC, CPC, relationship coach, and author of Jealousy Survival Guide: How to Feel Safe, Happy and Secure in an Open Relationship.

Readers practicing ethical non-monogamy with authority transfer elements will find Cultivating Connection a great place to start building their fulfilling dynamic. This book doesn't judge or discriminate. Personal and relationship growth for all! - Master Devyn Stone, author of Why I Don't Own Them Yet... A practical guide to building an authority transfer dynamic.

Sander writes clearly and compassionately, understanding how our pasts, our neurophysiology, our wants and needs, how we communicate, and the systems in which we live, all combine to influence the places we feel stuck in relationships of all kinds. Sander gives real world examples of how this complexity impacts people, and then follows with practical exercises to work through. We all exist in relationship to other humans, and we have all felt stuck. I recommend this book to anyone! - Dr. Rachel Anne Kieran, Owner, StorieBrook Therapy & Consulting; Contributor, Critical and Experiential: Dimensions in Gender and Sexual Diversity; TEDx Presenter, How Fairy Tales Failed Me.