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Rone John

About Rone John

https://greatrelationshipsu.com

Rone John is the head trainer and founder of Great Relationships U, author of Relationships 101, founder of OLNE: a revolutionary approach to dating, love and relationships, a former professional Dominatrix with deep understanding of psycho-sexual dynamics, founder of the number one tantra therapy in the nation with over 140 5-star reviews and featured in magazines like Epoch, a former dating and relationships consultant of 10 years and has managed an organization of 3,800 people spanning 64 countries facilitating leadership and management skills.

Posts by Rone John :

The Lore Behind The 10 Rules of Gentlemanship

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Dom had grown up in a pretty tumultuous environment where his parents (my sister and his paternal father) were just separating and so he had to grow up in a war torn environment of two households where he’d divide his time.

As a result (my opinion) he’d experienced LOTS of trauma including delaying his speech to a later age than common. I recognized this and since I’ve always spoken the same manner even with Dom, he’d learned to speak meaningfully and “properly” (being deliberate with languaging) at least around me since my sister always edified me so much.

So here’s the lore of a familial tradition we have which I started one vacation week I was in Anchorage that involves during a last supper before my departing back to Vegas (because I love religious irony so much), I’d do toasts 🥂 inspired by the toastmaster speaking club, to go around the table where I’d insist every individual briefly talk about 3 things:

  1. How their year went (since I’d only visit them during the end of the year)
  2. What they’re appreciative about.
  3. What their future plans were for the upcoming year.

Obviously it was a hit and since then every year which we’ve congregated, we’d do this and it became essential where no get together was without it.

The fun irony of the 10 rules of being a gentleman which I simply derived from what I considered at that point the first principles and essences of being good with interfacing with the opposite sex (I was still dating coaching during that time) were also applicable ironically in to simply just being a good person and communicator.

Just like the 10 commandments which propagates religion, I’ve broken it down into the 10 essences which would drive every aspect of his moral code as he’d grown up.

His reading it was the culmination of his achievement of ability to speak eloquently (of which his uncle was so adamantine!) whereby I determined he deserved the certificate of Padawanship- a padawan in Star Wars were a Junior Jedi to a Jedi Master (since I saw words and communication as tantamount to sorcery) 😆

vintage pamphlet evolutionary psychology reasoning

V. Evolutionary Psychology Reasoning

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While humans generally didn’t evolve to be monogamous (otherwise, males wouldn’t evolve sperm warfare – phenomena where there are sperm cells whose sole purpose is to fight off other men’s sperms or a requisite to have the word “marriage” instead of just pair-bonding), we also didn’t evolve to be strictly polygamous or polyandrous. We’ve evolved mechanisms that make us very complex and end up somewhere in the middle.

Human relationship structures have historically been fluid, shaped primarily by ecological, social and reproductive pressures instead of a biologically determined predisposition toward lifelong monogamy.

Early Humans and Evolutionary Reasoning For Flexible Relationship Styes

Evidence from hunter-gatherer societies indicates that humans evolved with highly adaptable relationship patterns. Early human communities often practiced flexible arrangements to ensure survival, resource sharing, and effective parenting. Anthropologists studying contemporary societies that retain ancestral traditions provide compelling evidence of this flexibility.

For instance, among the Mosuo people in southwestern China, women practice what are known as “walking marriages,” in which partners engage freely without long-term expectations of exclusivity. The Mosuo structure their families matrilineally, meaning children are raised collectively by maternal relatives without emphasis on paternity, a clear departure from the monogamous nuclear-family model.

Another striking example comes from indigenous societies in Amazonia, where the concept of “partible paternity” is widespread. According to this belief, multiple men contribute biologically to a child’s creation, leading mothers to deliberately engage sexually with several partners. This cultural practice ensures greater communal investment in child-rearing, as multiple “fathers” feel responsible for contributing resources and protection to children who are considered partially theirs. These practices demonstrate not only the flexibility of human relationships historically but also highlight ecological strategies beneficial to child survival and resource pooling.

Evolutionary psychology explains human mating as driven by dual strategies: long-term pair-bonding to facilitate cooperative child-rearing, and opportunistic mating for reproductive advantage. Pair-bonding evolved due to the enormous energy and time required to raise human children, who are uniquely dependent for years after birth. Emotional bonds like romantic love and attachment evolved to keep parents cooperating through these demanding periods.

However, this long-term commitment has never excluded the pursuit of multiple partners. Physiological evidence such as moderate sexual dimorphism (size and appearance differences between sexes) and intermediate testes size relative to body weight suggests ancestral humans experienced moderate levels of competition among males—an evolutionary marker of polygamous mating systems. Additionally, psychological studies consistently find gender differences in mating desires, with males typically reporting a desire for more lifetime partners than females, aligning with evolutionary theories about reproductive investment.

Moreover, the intense emotions of sexual jealousy and possessiveness are themselves evolutionary products aimed at mate-guarding—an indication that infidelity and partner-switching were common enough historically to necessitate emotional safeguards. If lifelong sexual exclusivity had been the natural state, evolutionary psychology suggests there would have been no selective pressure to develop such strong emotional reactions against infidelity.

Social Forces Gave Birth To Monogamy

Strict monogamy as a societal norm is a relatively recent cultural invention, emerging primarily with agricultural civilization and complex social structures involving inheritance, property ownership, and social hierarchy. Societies adopted monogamy not because humans evolved biologically toward exclusivity, but rather because monogamous relationships provided distinct societal advantages.

Anthropologists and social scientists, such as Joseph Henrich, have suggested that monogamy became widespread because it reduced intra-group competition and violence among men. By restricting men to one official partner, monogamy mitigated the destabilizing effects of many men competing for few women, thus decreasing violence and conflict. Monogamy also encouraged males to channel resources and energies toward their own households rather than pursuing multiple partners. This shift resulted in more stable families, improved child welfare, better economic productivity, and stronger societal cohesion. In other words, monogamy spread due to its social functionality and effectiveness in managing societal tensions, rather than reflecting a fundamental change in human mating psychology.

Both evolutionary psychology and anthropological record converge on a clear insight: human beings did not evolve in a world of strict monogamy, and thus we carry a legacy of flexible mating strategies that can include non-monogamy. Our Pleistocene ancestors likely formed pair-bonds to jointly raise offspring – a tendency we see in the love and attachment between mates today – but they also likely mated with multiple partners over their lifetimes (and sometimes concurrently), as suggested by cross-cultural patterns and our own biological signals. The rise of socially imposed monogamy is a relatively recent historical development, driven by the benefits it conferred to group stability and socio-economic organization, rather than a sudden change in human nature. Monogamy became the dominant norm because it solved certain social problems and was culturally spread and enforced, not because our inherent desires fully shifted.

The 10 Commandments

One of the aspects of the institutionalization of monogamy is how telling the 10 Commandments are (from Christian religion) and how important it was for women to be determined as property (which many still espouse to this day).

When you examine the 10 commandments, there are three clear themes that emerge: they’re rules that sustain and reinforce the religion itself, rules that are good for any society as a whole, and finally, rules that reflect views on family, gender roles, and property.

Rules for Religious Identity

Some commandments were designed specifically to reinforce religious beliefs and practices, creating a clear identity that set the community apart from others. The most obvious example is the commandment to “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”

By requiring followers to rest and worship on a specific day every week, this practice reinforced a collective identity and ensured religious continuity. The Sabbath distinguished believers from other communities and made sure the religion’s values and traditions were passed down through generations.

Why does this matter?

  • It created a strong group identity by regularly bringing followers together for worship.

  • It ensured the religion’s beliefs and practices were consistently taught and observed, strengthening its presence and continuity over time.

Rules For Social Order and Harmony

Several commandments clearly benefit society by establishing basic moral standards. Examples include:

  • “Thou shalt not kill.”

  • “Thou shalt not steal.”

  • “Thou shalt not bear false witness.”

These commandments weren’t just religious guidelines—they provided a practical blueprint for maintaining social peace, stability, and cooperation. They formed the basis of trust and fairness, essential for any functional society.

Why does this matter?

  • These universal moral guidelines have influenced laws across countless cultures and nations.

  • They help reduce violence, theft, dishonesty, and conflict, creating safer, more stable communities.

The Two Telling Rules: One For The Woman. One For The Man.

The commandments addressing adultery and coveting reflected the view where women and certain possessions were viewed similarly as male property:

  • For The Woman: “Thou shalt not commit adultery” protected a man’s marital rights by controlling women’s sexuality and ensuring clear paternity for inheritance purposes.

  • For The Man: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” treated a woman similarly to property, comparable to “thy neighbor’s ox” or house.

These commandments, which many still religiously follow today, viewed women as assets rather than equal partners. 

Women As Property Throughout History

Throughout human history, the role of women has often been shaped by societal structures that treated them as property. Over millennia, women’s status—as codified in legal systems, religious doctrines, and cultural norms—shifted in ways that reinforced male dominance and privilege. This article traces that evolution from ancient civilizations to modern times.

Ancient Beginnings: Codified Ownership and Family Ties

In many early societies, women were regarded as integral to the economic and familial structure—but largely as “belonging” to men. In Mesopotamia, for instance, the Code of Hammurabi (around 1754 BCE) laid down legal principles that defined women’s roles primarily in relation to male authority. Daughters were born as the property of their fathers and later, upon marriage, became the responsibility of their husbands. Similar patterns arose throughout the ancient Near East and Mediterranean, where women were often legally subordinated to the man who held family authority.

This understanding of women as property was not merely a legal fiction. In these early cultures, property rights extended to family members. For example, a daughter’s marriage was viewed as a transfer of her “value” (often measured in dowry or bride price) from her natal family to her husband’s. In these settings, women were less seen as independent individuals and more as assets whose primary role was to secure familial alliances and further economic interests.

Religious Doctrines and Cultural Narratives

As societies developed, religious texts and cultural narratives further reinforced the idea of women as subordinate or owned by men. Many ancient religious traditions codified gender roles. Early Hebrew scriptures, later adopted and adapted by Christianity, include passages that implicitly support patriarchal authority. For instance, the idea that a woman should be “subject” to her husband was integrated into interpretations of marriage and family life.

These religious doctrines served a dual purpose. They not only provided spiritual guidelines for personal behavior, but they also reinforced social hierarchies. When religious teachings echoed prevailing social customs—viewing women as dependent or subordinate—they helped normalize the notion that men “owned” women. Such perspectives were later mirrored in medieval church teachings and laws, where a wife’s identity was considered an extension of her husband’s, and divorce or separation was heavily regulated, further limiting women’s autonomy.

Feudal Societies and the Commodification of Women

During the feudal era, the concept of property gained even more tangible significance. In medieval Europe, for example, property—especially land—was the cornerstone of wealth and power. Women often became tools in the intergenerational transmission of property. Marriages were arranged not only to form social bonds but also to secure economic and political alliances. A woman’s dowry, along with her labor and reproductive capacity, was treated as an asset that could improve a man’s standing or be used as collateral for economic ventures.

Under these conditions, women were regularly treated as commodities. They were objects of exchange: prized as inheritance, but also subject to control. Legal systems continued to affirm that women were under the guardianship of their fathers or husbands, reinforcing a view of women as dependents whose rights were secondary to the property interests of their male relatives.

Transition Toward Modernity: Shifting Paradigms of Equality

The gradual evolution of thought during the Enlightenment and the rise of modern democratic ideals laid the groundwork for a radical rethinking of these longstanding hierarchies. The emergence of feminist movements in the 19th and 20th centuries challenged the traditional view of women as property. Social reformers, intellectuals, and activists argued that women were not possessions but autonomous human beings, equal in rights and dignity.

Legal reforms began to dismantle many of the old frameworks: property laws were revised, voting rights were secured, and marriage began to be redefined as a partnership between equals rather than the ownership of one party by another. Although lingering social and cultural biases have sometimes slowed the pace of change, modern legal and social standards largely reject the notion of women as property.

The evolution of women’s status from property to personhood is a complex story marked by longstanding traditions and gradual reform. In ancient societies, legal codes and cultural norms explicitly defined women in terms of ownership by their male relatives. Religious doctrines further cemented these ideas, and during feudal times, the commercial value of marriage turned women into economic commodities. Today, however, modern principles of equality and human rights challenge these old frameworks, emphasizing autonomy, dignity, and mutual respect, such that OLNE propagates.

The Slut/Whore Dichotomy

There are two ideas taught to boys and girls by their parents that dictate how they view relationship structures – one was for the boy, one reserved for girls.

For the boy it was: “Your word is your bond” which ensured, to him, his being trustworthy and consistent was a high moral value. Ironically, this was not taught to women because they were taught something else where the irony lies in its contradiction…

For girls: “What Daddy doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Since it’s ingrained in society that men were security provider and women were property and essentially ‘broodmare,’ that her job wasn’t to be truthful (unlike her male counterpart), but rather to ensure her “sponsor” was pleased. Her “sponsor” firstly being her father (security provider) and then it was her sponsor after she was “vended off” to her next sponsor whose name she’d assume, her husband.

This idea of sponsorship goes further as she becomes of age. For women who have sex, there are only two kinds which forms this dichotomy…

On one hand is the woman who has sex for her own reasons. She has sex with someone for reasons like she may be bored, could be fun, thinks he’s cute, she’d like some company, etc. Whatever reason it were, they’re her reasons.

Her sisters, aunts, peers will decry her since she’s not doing it in exchange for a traditional exclusive relationship. They’ll yell at her and say, “You’re giving it away for nothing. You have no self-respect!” and they’ll call her a nasty, evil, 4-letter word…. do you have an idea what that word is?

Women you ask this typically come up with the word, “slut.”

After all, her mother told her from when she was young, “If you give away the milk for free, no one’s going to buy the cow!”

Ironically, the word ‘slut’ has no specific meaning other than as a derogatory term for women (i.e. a high school kid appearing to be a bit too friendly, despite being a virgin, her peers would call her a slut, or for some men who’d refer to a woman as slut merely because she’s sleeping with other men except him!).

This is also the woman who’s wearing low-cut tops and short skirts whom other women will talk badly about because she’s competition and presumably giving away for free for what they have to charge for. 

The Other Type of Woman

On the other hand is a woman who does the opposite and “only has sex for value” – who only has sex for something in return. What do you call a woman who has sex for value?

Maybe it’s something short-term like to help with a fixture, do her taxes, a favor, or simply $500. 

But the irony goes to higher level, you might refer as “high echelon person” who only has sex in exchange for a lifetime worth of security for her and her offspring for which she’ll (at least publicly) exclusively provide her sex to him. There’s a 4-letter word society has given her too!

This is of course a funny irony that points out that women who have sex for her own reasons without asking for anything in return is decried by her peers and the woman who only has sex for value is seen as morally superior.

The OLNE Modern Approach To Morality

Upon retrospection, evaluation and critical reasoning, we come to how we facilitate a fair, reasonable and practical approach to facilitating relationships in a way that works with our neurobiology, social structures, and upholds respect for every individual while embodying love as relationship’s central tenet. This is what OLNE proudly espouses.

Old pamphlet book on Open Communication

IV. Open Communication

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Open communication is facilitating transparent communication where individuals in relationships can freely and openly communicate without fear of psychological punishment or emotional blackmail. This is facilitated through inspiration rather than coercion.

To Inspire

To inspire someone is to fill someone with an urge to do or feel something. In open communicating, you must facilitate a sensation in someone so they feel the emotion of wanting to communicate (share information) rather than to coerce them by mandating they transparently communicate. This distinction is the most essential to open communication.

Psychological Punishment

Psychological punishment refers to the use of methods designed to cause mental pain or discomfort so to punish an individual through negative emotions like humiliation, shame, fear, or by depriving them of sensory or social stimulation. It’s the intentional infliction of mental distress or suffering on an individual rather than physical harm, as a form of punishment. Psychological punishment are things such as:

  • Silent treatment or withdrawal: deliberately ignoring your partner or withholding communication to inflict emotional distress or pressure compliance. Not to be confused with withdrawing from communication without a deliberate intention of inflicting emotional distress or compliance (e.g. simply disliking and not wanting to communicate for lack of inspiration or motivation in accordance with the definition of open communication).
  • Passive-Aggressive Remarks: Indirectly expressing displeasure or criticism disguised as humor or casual commentary, creating shame or insecurity (e.g. sarcasm).
  • Dismissive or Invalidating Responses: Consistently minimizing your partner’s feelings or opinions to condition them against openly communicating in the future.
  • Using Vulnerabilities Against Them: Leveraging personal fears, insecurities, or past mistakes shared openly in moments of vulnerability to manipulate behavior or inflict emotional discomfort.
  • Conditional Affection or Approval: Withholding affection, approval, or validation as punishment for behaviors you dislike, creating fear of emotional rejection.
  • Guilt-Tripping: Inducing guilt intentionally to manipulate your partner’s decisions or actions, discouraging genuine, transparent communication.
  • Excessive Criticism or Over-reacting: Routinely criticizing minor issues or mistakes to trigger shame and discourage your partner from openly expressing themselves.
  • Comparisons Intended To Shame: Comparing your partner negatively to others (including past partners or friends) to trigger insecurity and shame, undermining their self-worth.

These forms of psychological punishment undermine the trust and willingness to communicate transparently, turning openness into a risk rather than a comfort.

Emotional Blackmail

Emotional blackmail is manipulating someone’s emotions – especially with guilt, fear, or obligation – to control their behavior or decisions. Here are some examples:

  • Threatening Self-Harm or Extreme Reactions: “If you ever leave me, I’ll hurt myself.” – Creates fear-based obligation rather than genuine commitment.
  • Guilt-based Ultimatums: “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t do that.” – Pressures the partner to comply out of guilt rather than honest desire.
  • Conditional Love or Support: “I’ll only help you if you promise to never bring that up again.” – Using emotional support as leverage rather than offering it freely.
  • Punishing Vulnerability: “After everything I’ve done for you, how can you ask for more?” – Weaponizing past generosity or kindness instilling guilt when the victim expresses needs or concerns.
  • Leveraging Fear of Abandonment: “Do that again and I’m leaving. You’ll be alone.” – Targets insecurities about being left or isolated, forcing the victim to choose compliance over potential rejection.
  • Demanding Proof of Love or Loyalty: “If you really care, you’ll stop talking to that person.” – Equates devotion with obedience, pressuring the victim to cut off connections to demonstrate loyalty.
  • Intentionally Stirring Jealousy: Openly flirting and then saying, “If you gave me more attention, I wouldn’t need to do this.” – Induces insecurity, blaming the victim for the manipulator’s behavior, and compelling them to fix it by catering to their demands.
  • Using Secrets as Leverage: “If you don’t do what I want, I’ll tell everyone your secret.” – Threatens social or emotional harm, trapping the victim into compliance in order to avoid exposure or humiliation.

Each coercive tactic exploits fears, guilt, and emotional vulnerabilities, thereby undermining honesty, autonomy, and open communication.

“Truths and Lies”

Open communication is not a demand or mandate for transparency. This is especially important as you facilitate a ‘non-obligatory dynamic.’

Most imagine that telling the truth is a prerequisite for happy and love-founded relationships. This is only partly true because there iss something more important than telling the truth in relationships: it’s to not be obligated to tell the truth yet being inspired to.

This begins with breaking down social norms about truths and lies.

In certain social dynamics, we feel comfortable telling lies purely because of social conventions (e.g. a random person demands for your address otherwise they won’t leave you alone, you lie and that’s the end; a person is clearly poor in self-esteem and they ask you whether their outfit looks great, you say a small lie… etc).

In the same token, purely because of convention, there are certain dynamics where you “must never lie” regardless of your relationship dynamic.

The reason this is problematic is because it has a black and white approach to communicating, but more importantly, it involves coercion (i.e. being forced to tell the truth for fear of judgment, guilt, emotional retribution or psychological punishment). This is antithesis to the notion of open communication, which is a great irony.

The truth about open communication is as we propagate with OLNE, that one facilitates a space to be able to communicate whatever they’d like without fear of being judged, psychologically punished or emotional blackmailed. It’s for this reason one may be able to communicate totally openly and be themselves and not need to keep secrets. It also doesn’t mean they can’t maintain secrets if they’d like. To be forced to divulge information is, by definition, coercion (especially the sinister kind, where one receives emotional manipulation).

In essence, we encourage you to communicate transparently since there needn’t be secrets to be kept (because of nonjudgmental acceptance), but if, for whatever reason, either parties prefer to keep certain things to themselves, they’re free [and encouraged] to do so.

Voluntary Disclosure vs. Personal Privacy

Make a delineation between ‘secrecy’ and ‘dishonesty’: keeping certain information to yourself is not inherently deceptive. Encourage and uphold the right of each individual to personal privacy.

Open communication is most authentic and meaningful when it arises naturally (inspired) from emotional safety – without fear of punitive judgment or retaliation. In this environment you create, people are more likely to freely share, because they genuinely want to, rather than being forced to.

Non-Coercive Openness

True openness grows in a relationship where each person feels accepted, supported, and free to choose what they disclose. This naturally encourages honest, in-depth communication. Mandating or coercing transparent communication only builds resentment as it assumes psychological manipulation built into it.

When you establish and insist on each person’s maintaining their boundaries regardless of what dissatisfaction may come to you, ensures they trust you even more and naturally, at their pace, build deeper and deeper intimacy with you (as opposed to coerced intimacy which is an oxymoron and builds undeniable resentment).

Misunderstandings

Words intrinsically have no meaning – in, and of themselves, without context and being assigned meaning, can’t have meaning.

The challenge then is: how do two people assign the same meaning to words in the same ways they experience it. The answer is, it can’t be done (no two people experiences things in exactly the same ways).

We do the best we can with the linguistic resources we have (which every culture manages in different ways) to be able to communicate.

This is the reason misunderstandings are not only frequent, but also inherent in communication.

The following are techniques for clarity of communication:

  • Paraphrase and Reflect: Restate what the other person said in your own words and check for accuracy: “So, you’re saying you feel frustrated when….?” Do this with genuine curiosity and positive intent. This helps your partner confirm they’re understood as they’ve meant. 
  • Ask Clarifying Questions: Use open-ended questions (e.g. “Can you tell me more about….?”) to invite deeper explanation. This encourages them to provide nuanced expressions of thoughts and feelings. 
  • Use ‘I’ Statements: Focus on your own emotions and experiences to ensure you remain non-accusatory: “I’m confused because I want to make sure we’re on the same page.“
  • Stay Curious and Calm: Maintain a gentle and non-confrontational tone, signaling genuine interest in understanding. This reduces defensiveness and makes it feel safer to clarify areas of confusion.
  • Summarize Before Moving On: Conclude by briefly summarizing what you’ve agreed and understood: “So, we agree to… and we’ll revisit if needed?” This ensures all parties are aligned with the next steps and resolutions.

Facilitating Open Communication

To facilitate something is to create, to manufacture an environment for something.

To facilitate open communication is to actively create an environment and hold a space so that individuals in that space may feel they can communicate anything and be themselves without fear of psychological punishment and emotional blackmail.

Hence, it’s each individual in the relationship’s responsibility, if they’d like to develop a deep intimacy with their partner/s, to facilitate this environment.

  1. Establish Open Communication: The protocol for establishing open communication is “Early And Often.” At the outset of the relationship (at the beginning of the Intimacy Model), establish the foundational premise of your relationship are: nonconditional love, open communication and nonjudgmental acceptance. The open communication happens as a byproduct of nonconditional love and nonjudgmental acceptance. Because you want for their happiness regardless of your involvement and they truly can be themselves despite your satisfaction, you both can communicate transparently without ever fearing repercussions of psychological or emotional blackmail. You truly can communicate about anything, even other lovers, and not need to keep secrets except if you really liked to (which wouldn’t be condemned). 
  2. Create Emotional Safety: Establish a space where each person can feel safe expressing vulnerability, concerns and mistakes without fearing harsh judgment or condemnation. Be absolutely consistent in your respectful tone with your partner’s disclosures. This will make you reliable. Use the following communication protocols as a guideline:
    • Use calm, non-blaming language (“I” statements) and avoid accusatory tones.
    • Presume always their intentions are well-meaning and positive and any offense taken by either parties immediately framed as merely a misunderstanding and miscommunication since this is often the case unless it’s a direct and clear attack. (Though even if when it’s a direct attack, the misunderstanding has still occurred just inappropriately behaved).
  3. Active Listening: Illuminate the value of hearing partners out fully and reflecting back (“What I hear you saying is….”). Explore the power of validating emotions by communicating you understand how they feel even if you don’t understand their perspective.
  4. Maintain Nonjudgmental Acceptance: Persistently communicate about nonjudgmental acceptance that it’s the recognition all parties have their own preferences, desires, mannerisms and things they’re into and you won’t align with a lot of them – so it’s important all parties are encouraged to pursue what makes them happy or have their individuality facilitated without judgment. Neither parties need to engage with the other with things they’re not open to exploring and can happily help them find a way and means that’s conducive to everyone’s happiness.
  5. Encourage Clarification and Questions: Words only have meaning when individuals who want to communicate determine the same meaning on those words. It’s important to insist on asking questions for clarity if when unsure instead of making presumptions (“Could you clarify what you mean?”). Make it a habit to facilitate clarification as it deters misunderstandings and conflicts as a result.
  6. Establish a “Pause and Resume” Tool: Determine a signal for taking a break if conversations become overwhelming, tense, or emotionally charged. Return to the discussion once each person involved, which have different requisites for time, has cooled off and is able to maintain a calm and respectful manner in conversating.
  7. Check For Genuine Understanding: Aim for clarity and mutual understanding, that any lingering confusion are addressed. Prompt with, “How are you feeling about what we just discussed?” or “Is there anything you need from me now?”
03 Nonjudgmental acceptance blog post chapter 3 banner cover

III. Nonjudgmental Acceptance

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Nonjudgmental Acceptance is the total acceptance of others as they are, without criticism or desire to change them. It’s recognizing that everyone has their own unique desires, choices, and ways of being. This facet of OLNE ensures and advocates individuals in the relationship’s ability to be themselves. We create a safe space where individuals can express themselves authentically and explore relationships freely, without fear of rejection or moral judgment. While it doesn’t insist that others agree in their style, manners, ways or choices, it demands respect that each person live and let love their own ways. Nonjudgmental acceptance creates the fundamental requisite for trust for without authenticity, there can be no trust.

To ‘accept’ something is to consensually receive it or to recognize it as valid or correct.

To be nonjudgmental is to avoid making judgments about whether a thing is good or bad, recognizing that things are just as they are for their own reasons.

Therefore, to be nonjudgmentally accepting is to appreciate someone as they are, with everything which they come and the configuration in which they come, and recognizing that as sufficient and valid for the dynamic which demonstrates itself – i.e. the love and admiration you share is because they’re them and you’re you, and that in itself is sufficient for your relationship to exist, regardless of everyone’s imperfections.

Free-will Is A Misnomer

Free-will is a misnomer – that one has free will because they make choices… but that’s not accurate.

Nothing we are, and do, are free from our neurobiology, history, environment, and ancestry, all of which we have no control.

There aren’t any decisions we make that are free from the influence of our circumstance, upbringing, neurological and hormonal configuration… all of which we’ve no control. In essence, we’ve effectively no free will.

This is critical to recognize as it deepens our understanding of each other. It inspires empathy, compassion, and furthers our desire for intimacy to seek better understanding as to why we do the things we do. Remember…

Hindsight from foresight is always 20/20.

What this means is every time we look back as to why people do the things they do, we can always reason out why they did that. When we retrospect, or introspect, or circumspect, we recognize, “Oh, OF COURSE they did that or decided that, because of this reason or that reason.”

Why Nonjudgmental Acceptance Is Essential

Every decision you make is based on your neurobiology of which you’ve no control:

  • Genetics: Your DNA dictates a significant portion of your neural architecture which influences traits like impulsivity or delayed gratification (patience).
  • Neurochemistry: Levels of neurotrasmitters – e.g. dopamine or serotonin – affects your behaviors, decisions, habits, etc. 
  • Past experiences: Your upbringing, childhood, gestation, or trauma, leave lasting imprints on the brain which affects how you interface and interact with the world. 

Take any mundane and banal decisions you make may feel like a freely-chosen action but is actually determined by things like your blood sugar levels, habits, upbringing, culture, beliefs, deep-rooted unconscious identity structures, etc. 

The brain is an input mechanism which churns out actions without a magical “free” agent pulling the strings; all effectively a cause and effect.

Because our actions stem from factors we’ve no control and didn’t choose – our neurology, biology, upbringing, our circumstances – then judging others for their behavior becomes illogical.

Blame is illogical – blaming someone for their actions is like blaming a car for breaking down. The car isn’t “at fault” – its performance reflects its design and maintenance history. Likewise, when someone acts in ways we find difficult, it’s often a reflection of their unique wiring and life story, not a willful decision to be that way.

This appreciation is transformative. In OLNE, we see people are shaped by forces beyond their control and release the urge to criticize or blame. Instead, we lean into empathy and compassion.

e.g. – A partner’s jealousy might trace back to past betrayals, trauma, or a genetic neurological tendency toward anxiety whether by genes, gestation, or childhood environment – not a desire to restrict you.

 – A moment of anger could stem from stress hormones or a long and rough day depleting their willpower to make good judgment decisions – not a personal attack.

This doesn’t mean ignoring or tolerating harmful actions – it means addressing them with understanding rather than condemnation. Nonjudgmental acceptance shifts the focus from, “Why did you do that?” to “What led you to feel that way?”

Real Trust and Safety

Nonjudgmental acceptance creates a relationship dynamic of trust and safety for partners to show up authentically – flaws, quirks and all – without fear of rejection. When we let go of the free-will myth, we also let go of unrealistic expectations, like expecting someone to “just change” their deeply-rooted habits or emotions.

Blame becomes illogical and this becomes the antidote to the shame which erodes relationships. It facilitates compassion (empathy with a desire to help bring the experience to a better place) and deepens intimacy and strengthens connections. You see the person for who they are rather than merely taking them at face value – their struggles, their makeup/biology, their history – yet loving them. 

Determinism Vs. Predeterminism

We recognize that free-will has very little to no part of anyone’s behavior as there’s nothing they do or decide which isn’t free from circumstance, neuropsychology, biology, history, environment, upbringing, etc. Hindsight from foresight is always 20-20 in that our behavior is determined.

Determinism isn’t to be confused with “predeterminism.” Predeterminism is to say that things are already set in stone and that nothing changes, that things are fated. Fate is just as tantamount to mysticism as is faith – faith being things which deny proof-of-evidence [therefore, requiring faith]. Determinism which is our position, maintains that what we do and decide, while we’ve little-to-no free-will in the matter, is determined by things outside of our control – it’s been determined by our neuro-psycho-biology, history, ancestry, genetics, etc (things which we’ve no control).

Punishment and Discipline: The Quarantine Model

As we accept those we’ve relationships, we also accept and appreciate their determined behaviors. Because we have no free will about our behaviors and decisions – all a result of chance – merit, punishment, reward are not logical or appropriate.

The manner which we handle bad behaviors is the same way we handle behaviors that harm any public or private establishment. When your child is sick, we don’t punish them for being sick. Instead, we tell them to stay home so not to get other kids in their class sick. This is referred to as the “Quarantine Model.”

On the same token as the child not having any free-will in the matter of being sick, so do any bad behavior of people. Instead of punishing them for things which they’ve no control which would be illogical, we, instead use the Quarantine model. The level and severity or quality of the quarantine will be determined by just enough so they don’t cause further harm or distress. Since the variety of individuals’ behaviors are infinite, that’ll be up to you to determine how to maintain the holistic well-being of your relationship. Consider the following:

Make a deliberation as to what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable by parties involved. You may also refer to this as communicating about boundaries.

Just like any boundary, they can only exist and maintained when boundaries are clear, outlined and determined which parts, instances and dynamics are inaccessible.

Strictly maintain these delineations and lessen just enough access so that the parties involved do not take part in unwanted behaviors (e.g. if jealousy becomes problematic, access must become limited whether it’s communication, sharing of physical locations or items, and if it’s severe enough, access to proximity may have to be revoked).

Gratitude

Gratitude, coming from the latin root word, “gratus” meaning, “pleasing,” “thankful,” or “grateful.” It also has relation to “gratis” meaning, “given freely” or “without payment.”

This relationship of ‘gratis’ and ‘gratus,’ comprising ‘Gratitude’ formats an attitude of gratefulness from receiving something freely.

A nonjudgmentally accepting person, one who appreciates that those whom they interact and interface with make decisions and actions outside of their control, without free-will, and whom has arrived at their circumstances purely from chance, can feel tremendous gratitude at any stage in their life and compassion for everyone they interface.

Toleration Is Arrogance

Being nonjudgmentally accepting isn’t to mean tolerant of bad behavior. 

To tolerate something is the arrogance of recognizing someone’s bad behavior and “giving it a pass.”

The standard model of relationships must maintain tolerance as its premise since the experiences of its constituents aren’t as significant as the relationship entity itself.

Furthermore, if when they seek therapy, most therapists work for the relationship entity and manage the individuals’ so they may maintain the relationship entity despite the betterment of the individuals, as a general rule.

Particularities

Particularities are the unique intricacies of each individual shaped by their biology, brain wiring and configuration, genetics, environment, experiences, history, etc. These particularities result in how each person feels, thinks, reacts, communicates, behaves and connects.

Each person will have very distinct neurological wiring, deeply-rooted patterns, habits, triggers, and emotional tendencies, none of which they’ve freely chosen or can easily alter at will. By recognizing and exploring these particularities, partners become empowered not only to understand but also compassionately engage with one another to build deeper intimacy and trust.

It’s learning about each other’s particularities that diminish tendency for blame and judgment, altering those sensations to empathy and curiosity instead. After all, it’s the celebration of what makes each of us unique that makes relationships so wondrous and serendipitous.

Neuro-Individuality

Neuroindividuality acknowledges that each person’s brain is uniquely wired, affecting how they perceive, process, and respond to their environment. In an OLNE relationship, we recognize each person’s neuroindividuality and, as a result, can become sublimely nonjudgmentally accepting and compassionate. You see behaviors not as intentional acts of defiance or difficulty, but as authentic expressions of neurological diversity.

There is no singular “normal” way of experiencing life – each individual’s cognitive style, sensitivities, emotional patterns, and communication preferences emerge naturally from their distinct neural configuration.

Understanding neuroindividuality affords you to facilitate open communication and adaptation to each other’s cognitive and emotional needs and preferences. Some partners might need direct communication and explicit guidelines, while others benefit from slower pacing or additional processing time. Mindfulness techniques, structured routines, and accommodating environments can also reduce stress or overwhelm related to sensory sensitivities or emotional triggers.

Not every behavior that’s neuroindividual requires change – only those that potentially cause harm or disrupt mutual respect. Here, communicating likes, boundaries and empathetic communication become tools to address challenges constructively. As you acknowledge the underlying neurobiological and experiential factors that shape behavior, OLNE relationships shift from frustration to compassion, strengthening intimacy through authentic acceptance of each partner’s beautifully unique brain. 

Conversations To Learn Particularities

  • Personal History and Upbringing: Invite each other to share childhood memories, formative moments, and events that shaped core values. Talk about family dynamics, cultural influences, and any personal or intergenerational experiences that impact how you relate to others today.
  • Neuroindividuality and Cognitive Styles: Discuss each partner’s neurological differences and cognitive patterns openly – how you process information, respond to sensory stimuli, handle stress, and communicate best. Explore sensitivities, attention styles, and energy levels, recognizing these as part of your natural wiring rather than personal flaws or deliberate behaviors. Talk about accommodations or adjustments that would help each partner feel comfortable, understood and supported. This conversation helps each partner develop empathy, reduce misunderstandings, and facilitate an environment of acceptance and authentic self-expression.
  • Triggers and Emotional Patterns: Talk about situations or behaviors that provoke strong emotional responses (e.g. jealousy, anger, fear). Explore the roots of these triggers – trauma, betrayals, or neurobiological predispositions – and how they manifest.
  • Values, Needs and Boundaries: Discover and clarify each other’s personal beliefs, priorities, and principles. Outline each other’s boundaries – “red line” – to ensure they’re adhered and the well-being and respect in the relationship is preserved.
  • Communication Styles and Preferences: Discuss the best ways to approach sensitive topics, give feedback, and resolve conflicts. Identify whether you each prefer direct, gentle, casual, or structured forms of communication.
  • Emotional Care and Support: Talk about how you’d like to receive comfort during stress and conflict (e.g. reassurance, physical affection, reflective listening). Share the forms of support that feel nurturing – like acts of service, words of affirmation, or quiet space to decompress.
  • Personal and Shared Goals: Talk about what you both envision for the future, whether short or long-term (e.g. lifestyle, career, relationship expectations). Explore how these dreams and aspirations intertwine, and where you can support each other’s growth. 
  • Intimacy and Pleasure: Have a candid communication about emotional, physical and sexual intimacy. Talk about what brings pleasure, satisfaction, and comfort – recognizing that everyone’s preferences are shaped by their unique wiring and past experiences.
  • Healing and Growth: Reflect on areas where you’re seeking personal growth or healing (e.g. emotional regulation, self-esteem, trust). Brainstorm ways to support each other’s developmental journeys, including therapies, self-care practices, and community resources.

As you have these candid, curiosity-driven conversations – free of blame and judgment – you and your partners can illuminate each other’s particularities. This openness builds an incredible bond of intimacy and a deep appreciation and genuine acceptance of who each person actually is. 

pamphlet banner old nonconditional love olne

II. Nonconditional Love

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Nonconditional Love is your genuine desire and wanting for your beloved’s happiness, well-being and actualization intrinsically to your own without added stipulations. 

You love them for being them. Them, the person whom you’ve nonjudgmentally accepted as they are. 

Happiness

Much in the same way that your own happiness is the most important thing to you, you want that exact same thing for your beloved. 

Actualization

Part of nonconditional love is the delight and desire to support them in getting what they’d like – regardless of your involvement especially when it involves another person.

Unconditional & Nonconditional Love

There is no important delineation between unconditional love and nonconditional love in effect. 

The delineation rely on their perception whereby nonconditional love makes a more explicit indication of the absence of conditions. 

Unconditional love has connotations of an unwavering and unqualified love for people, regardless of the person and of their actions. This is more commonly used in a parental sense or altruistic love for humanity.

Nonconditional love is specifically one you have with your beloved – presuming they’ve already a person you love, admire, adore, respect, and attracted. In essence, it’s qualified by that you love them for who they are, for being them. Once you do, you continue to love them because they’re them and do not add conditions to maintain that love other than their simply continuing to be themselves.

Demonstrating Nonconditional Love

Definitions of ideas can only become meaningful if its definitions are demonstrated by its attributes. Here, we clarify the definitions of nonconditional love and how it may present itself:

Authenticity

The reason sincerity and directness when communicating especially at the outset is critical is because intentions and desires must be aligned.

When you clarify the relationship to be love-centric wherein love is one’s desire for the other’s happiness, well-being and actualization, the process of accepting a love-centric relationship rather than an arrangement based relationship becomes much easier. They’ll either gravitate towards you or extricate themselves.

This genuine desire and wanting for each other’s happiness will demonstrate themselves by attitudes and arrangements they engage into. If arrangements are made which inhibits actualization of the other or requires exclusivity and involves jealousy, would be demonstrations of ‘lack’ of love.

Support What Actualizes Them

Actualization – the process of making actual – is the process one goes through imagine what they’d like and endeavoring to achieve that. 

Part of love is your wanting and supporting that, especially when it doesn’t involve you and especially if it’s with someone else.

This becomes particularly important when that someone else is also someone whom they can be, or are, sexually attracted and intimately related. Because, and if, it makes them happy, you’ll want that for them primarily, despite if you feel the sensation of “loss.”

OLNE doesn’t disregard that sensation of loss as it’s a human, neurobiological experience but merely suggest that your love supersede it.

A wonderful irony is if when you can demonstrate true nonconditional love, because it’s so rare and mostly unattainable by most people, regardless of their proximity to you, will gravitate to you because of their desire for nonconditional love and nonjudgmental acceptance.

Their Happiness Intrinsic To Your Own

During the initial stages of attraction and infatuation (the state where our brain drugs us with hormones so we have intense admiration and passion for someone), we’re simply happy that we get to interface with them.

Knowing they exist and the possibility of a long-term dynamic you could share with them is elating, motivating and inspiring.

With the standard model for relationships, an event occurs where sexual relationships go through an ‘entitlement’ model where partners grant the other titles whether it be “boyfriend/girlfriend” or “wife/husband” and with those titles come a ‘granted relationship’ dynamic.

Remember: being [and therefore feeling] taken for granted is the death-knell of all loving relationships.

OLNE isn’t against titles but rather the entitlement attached and the grantedness given with those titles. (Titles are great for communication but detrimental when used for entitlement)

As time passes and individuals in relationships accumulate agreements, entitlements and commitments, these dynamics supersede the “love” they have.

This is the reason OLNE encourages making its 3 Foundations [of nonconditional love, nonjudgmental acceptance and open communication] as paramount in importance and may require revisiting as often as required.

We facilitate this Nonconditional Love by navigating relationships, agreements, contracts, commitments, obligations using it as a compass which every decision is based on.

Every decision we make in OLNE is based on love, defined, “The genuine desire and wanting for your beloved’s well-being, happiness, and actualization intrinsically to your own.”

“Genuine Desire and Wanting’

This phrasing is very specific within the OLNE definition of Nonconditional Love of (A genuine desire and wanting for your beloved’s happiness, well-being and actualization)

It’s specific in that it’s requires self-introspective, meaning, one has to look into oneself and see whether they have a genuine desire and authentic wanting for their partner’s happiness, well-being and actualization.

It’s this introspection that can create the authenticity required to maneuver around the relationship and craft every agreement and contract within the relationship founded on nonconditional love.

By these terms anything that inhibits their freedom to pursue their happiness, well-being and actualization is precisely, by definition, a demonstration of one’s lack of love.

Demonstration of ‘Lack of Love’

That which supersedes your genuine desire and wanting for your beloved’s happiness, well-being and actualization undermine your love for them – for most everyone, this appears as their personal inhibitions.

This important recognition must be worked through and worked out of the relationship for the relationship to persist with nonconditional love. Otherwise, personal inhibitions will demonstrate itself within the relationship subtly or directly over time.

Hence, it’s critical each partner have a consideration period whereby no long-term commitments are created until demonstrations of lack of love are eliminated. While it’s sound practice to have this consideration period during, or beyond, the length of the infatuation period, everyone will have different circumstances and manners which they develop their resiliency, character and enlightenment.

It’s good practice that instead of making long-term arrangements with partners and figuring out if they demonstrate love or lack of love along the way, format a consideration period where your intention is to ensure they have no demonstrations of lack of love, or if they do that it gets managed and addressed before making important partnership arrangements.

Jealousy

One of the common and primary inhibiting demonstrations of lack of love is jealousy due to its nature that it stems from insecurity.

Jealousy isn’t a primary emotion on its own. It’s a compound emotion of 2 emotions: fear of loss and rage from feeling that fear of loss.

The sensation of fear of loss is a very natural and reasonable thing especially when it’s someone you value, love and adore. It becomes a demonstration of lack of love when couples with rage from that fear of loss supersedes one’s desire for their beloved’s happiness, well-being and actualization. 

It’s at this critical point it must be managed so it doesn’t become cause to poor, contaminating or irreparable behavior in the relationship. These are behaviors such as:

  • possessiveness, aggression towards the perceived threats, self-destructive actions, excessive criticism or judgment, withdrawal or isolation, manipulation or emotional blackmail, hyper-vigilance, competitive behavior, blaming or accusing, emotional outbursts.

Irreparable Behavior

Once these behaviors demonstrating lack of love (i.e. prioritizing one’s self-interest over the genuine desire for their partner’s happiness and actualization) occur, the decline process of the relationship ensues unless an intervention is facilitated (e.g. therapy, consultation, big meaningful change). 

The intervention, if facilitated, must be meaningful, change-worthy and effective since behaviors are nearly impossible to alter without radical action, insight or change-work.

Hence, it’s suffice to say, red flags must be recognized and managed directly during the consideration period of the relationship where the culture of the relationship is formed and no long-term agreements or contracts that may become at risk are consummated.

Presuming love is granted to either constituent of a relationship is the death-knell of the relationship.

Grantedness

Being, and therefore feeling, taken for granted is the death-knell of loving relationships – a signaling mechanism which marks an end.

Be extremely careful and avoidant of taking your beloved for granted at any and all cost.

Endemic to most of society, who assume the standard relationship model, begin with the premise one party grants themself to the other exclusively in exchange for the other’s granting themselves to them exclusively.

The inevitable outcome of which, always, is both party’s eventually feeling taken for granted because they’ve unwittingly granted themselves to each other. 

The magic of love diminishes until all that’s left is affectionate love, if that, rather than the original passionate and erotic love which they shared at the outset when neither parties granted themselves to the other.

This is a nearly irreparable behavior without meaningful intervention, so stay clear from it.

When in doubt, consider the following:

  1. Presume nothing is granted to you, even attention. 
  2. Practice gratitude (the overwhelming appreciation of luck that you’re interfacing with one another).
  3. Increase your communication skill in meriting their attention
  4. When you catch yourself making presumptions, stop and communicate to check whether consent there still exists. This is a worthwhile endeavor to prevent from grantedness when getting used to one another even when it appears easy and relaxed. This will always be appreciated. 

Radical Support

Radical support is an extraordinary form of encouragement going beyond what’s typical. It’s an active expression of nonconditional love whereby partners support each other especially when it stretches their sense of personal comfort and, not only honoring, but celebrating their freedom to be themselves.

Radical support is a demonstration to your beloved your care isn’t limited to their actions and choices benefiting you or whether their journey diverges from your own. It demonstrates your existing in their life makes their life more vibrant, productive and filled with love.

It’s never coercive but an additive. It’s an empowerment of their independence rather than permission for codependence. It may never presume your involvement nor undermine your consent. It’s not a blind agreement to their choices but championing their right to make them and opportunities to pursue them if they’d like. 

  • Listen fully: be present without trying to fix things.
  • Ask empowering questions: “How can I help?”
  • Celebrate progress: Be their best cheerleader (if not their only).
  • Encourage their unhindered pursuit while expressing your ‘would-likes’: “I would like some reassurance during this…. if you could.”

Codependency

Codependency is one’s support, enablement and empowerment of vices and bad behavior.

Radical support differs from codependency in that it’s a conscious decision to empower another the freedom to pursue what actualizes them presuming they’re independent persons which are responsible for the consequences of their own actions.

Codependency isn’t relegated only to obviously harmful vices (vice being any action which doesn’t result in a ‘good’ outcome). Codependency occurs also in small actions that seem to be harmless though over time becomes habitual and detrimental to the relationship – e.g. the following:

  • Allowing things you’d otherwise not tolerate to slide
  • Allowing being taken for granted because it seems minuscule and harmless in the moment
  •  Themes of crossing boundaries of respect
  • Allowing themes of emotional or psychological manipulation
  • Aversion to addressing issues and problems in exchange for comfort 

Acceptance and Tolerance

To tolerate something is the arrogant position of deeming something as bad and giving it a pass.

You can be in ‘healthy intolerance’ and be a complete joy to be around by communicating your boundaries and asserting them consistently. This way, people whom you interface and interact always know what they can expect from you. 

Co-Independence

Because codependency is endemic in standard relationships, co-independent relationships are the wondrous dynamics where independent and whole individuals maintain a worthiful relationship without dependency on the other or a requisite for the subjugation of their partner’s dependency on them.

It’s an empowering position  for each persons in the relationship encouraging each other’s pursuit of their actualization and happiness regardless of their involvement.

It maintains ‘Authority-Equals-Responsbility’ strictly as each individual is accountable for their authorities and responsibilities in an explicit and clear manner. 

Autonomy – Each partner maintains their independence pursuing their own goals, interests, and friendships. The relationship thrives because partners want to be with each other rather than needing to be. This dynamic of two whole and complete individuals (as opposed to two halves, incomplete persons) wanting to be with one another entirely freely without obligation is what maintains the attraction in the relationship keeping away the inevitable resentments born from obligation.

Empowerment Over Enablement – The support-style with co-independency is about empowering each other’s personal growth and self-resiliency rather than fixing the other’s problems and enabling harmful habits and toxic behaviors. It’s the conscious empowering of one another to pursue what actualizes them.

Clear Boundaries – Each person is empowered to establish and respect personal boundaries, ensuring their needs and desires remain distinct and not overshadowed by the relationship entity. This prevents the subtle, habitual encroachments codependent relationship brings which erode relational health over time.

Open Communication – Honest, transparent, and regular dialogue is essential. Partners discuss feelings, expectations and decisions collaboratively to ensure mutual understanding and intimacy. This keeps the relationship dynamic and responsive rather than stagnant or one-sided.

Trust and Security – A foundation of trust facilitates each person’s sensation of security and intimacy even when pursuing individual endeavors or being apart. 

Emotional Maturity – Because of the explicit and clear assertion that authority equals responsibility, each individual is responsible for their own emotional well-being. (This is different from emotional influence where boundaries may have to be asserted). Neither parties rely on the relationship for validity or stability though can rely on each other’s consistency, support and communication when needed.

Co-independency is a partnership with peers – whole, independent people enhancing each other’s lives whilst themselves being complete. It’s a deliberate choice to be together, grounded in mutual respect, love and adoration whilst providing a protocol for avoiding vices and having clear personal accountability.

OLNE blog pamphlet a new paradigm of love by Rone John

I. OLNE: A New Paradigm Of Love

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Anything you know that you don’t know why you know it, is suspect.

One of the most misunderstood words in the English lexicon is the word ‘relationship.’

A ‘relationship’ is how you interact and interface with entities. Each entity will have a different dynamic since there can be no two things, especially people, that are alike.

This recognition is empowering.

You can build, and have, the relationships you’d like by recognizing your dynamic, basing it off of sound principles, and managing it with good protocols.

As you go deeper into this book and deepen your understanding with your relationship with yourself and relationships with others, you may firstly become unsettled but ultimately become unburdened and enlightened as a result.

Love, The Word

Words, intrinsically, have no meaning.

For words to have meaning requires:

  1. Individuals want to communicate
  2. Assign  a word to the same experience

Tremendous misunderstanding comes from:

  1. individuals utilizing words when there’s no established desire to communicate and make efforts to understand the other, and
  2. Rarely do two individuals experience the same thing in the same way and assign the same meaning.

As a result, even the most simple and banal of words are misappreciated. Tremendously so.

Love, And Its Meaning

The Greeks divided love into four kinds:

  1. Eros – romantic, emotional, physical and sexual desire kind of love
  2. Philia – platonic love you have for friends out of mutual respect, companionship and loyalty
  3. Storge – familial love you have with parents and siblings, instinctual, dutiful and familiar
  4. Agape – love for all humanity, selfless, compassionate and altruistic goodwill to others

“Love” doesn’t exist.

“Love”, appears to have meaning because it’s universally understood, provided the appropriate context, to be associated to certain feelings… but when asked to define ‘love’, you’ll have as many different definitions as there are people you ask. 

Love is defined differently by every one.

But love itself is merely a word, an idea, associated with a concoction of sensations and dynamics, such as: affection, passion, care, devotion, compassion, empathy, tenderness, trust, respect, support, loyalty, intimacy, commitment, romance, marriage, adoration, infatuation, heart, soulmate, etc.

Different people weigh the words more importantly than others and some ostracize other dynamics entirely. 

Ultimately, to love is to value.

This can be tested. Find any situation which you value something or someone wherein you value them highly but don’t love it or them. 

Things and people you value, you love.

OLNE makes a sharp clarification about love in relationships so you can have successful relationships.

A ‘Successful’ Relationship

The word “success” has been maligned to mean, “a preferable outcome.” 

The Miriam Webster definition: 

  1. The accomplishment of an aim or purpose – referring to achieving a specific goal or objective, personal or professional.
  2. The attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence – focusing on societal markers of success, such as gaining financial prosperity, popularity, or high status.
  3. A person or thing that achieves desired aims or attains prosperity – extending the concept of success to individuals or entities that meet their goals or become prosperous.

These definitions collectively describe success as both the process of achieving goals and the outcomes tied to personal fulfillment or societal recognition.

These are the modern definitions of success. Originally, the definition of success was:

  • Miriam Webster’s archaic definition: outcome, result.

Much like succession, successor, and successive, all mean one which comes after the previous.

When applied to relationships, the modern interpretation of a “successful relationship” is also tied to achievement of goals and societal recognition. This is also one of the reasons relationships are one of the most painful experiences people may go through. The modern perspective of how relationships are ‘supposed to be’ cannot work.

A successful relationship actually is one which can persist (become ongoing; be continual).

When you have the ability to create persistence in your relationships based on what you intended the relationship to be, you can have a successful (persistent) relationship.

This is what OLNE will help you create.

Purpose

There are as many different relationships as there are entities that interface.

Each entity you have a relationship with will have each its own dynamic. There will be no two relationships that are the same even if, when, you interface with genetically identical twins.

Take time to introspect the format you would like to experience and create your relationship. There are no right or wrong relationships (aside from compromising the safety and well-being of another).

OLNE is not a protocol to determine a model of relationship but a sound foundation for relationships you can build your own model from. 

Ultimately, the format which you’ll build your relationship will be based on the 3 pillars of OLNE and the arrangements you make with those foundations in mind.

The 3 Foundational Pillars of OLNE are:

First Principles

In essence, OLNE is a ‘love-centric’ based relationship rather than an ‘arrangement’ based relationship. Rather than beginning a relationship with the premise it’s any particular format that it’s supposed to appear or experienced as, OLNE begins a relationship with first-principles which will be foundational to how you’ll determine your relationship will be formatted.

1. Nonconditional Love

Nonconditional love is a modification of the idea of ‘unconditional love’ as many consider unconditional love impossible as ‘love’ requires conditions from whom they love. 

Once you love someone, do not add further clauses, stipulations and conditions. This is nonconditional love.

Nonconditional love, in its pure, unadulterated, unencumbered and highest expression, is your genuine desire and wanting for your beloved’s happiness, well-being and actualization intrinsically to yours.

To be unadulterated is to be authentic, without added mixture. To be unencumbered is to be unhindered.

This first principle of nonconditional love ensures that their happiness is intrinsic to yours; the same way your happiness is the most important thing to you, you want that same happiness for them in their own experience of what makes them happy, regardless of your involvement.

2. Nonjudgmental Acceptance

Nonjudgmental acceptance is based on the premise that everything we are, and the decisions we make, are the results of our neurobiology, history and circumstance – of which we have no control. Free-will, the act of making independent, uncaused choices, are illusory. The decisions we make are caused by a preceding history, neurobiological tendency/impulse, and circumstances that’s come before.

Hence, blame and judgment doesn’t make sense. While there are ways to account for behavior and manage relationships, we may only accept a person as they are and format relationships based on how we interact and interface, individually.

3. Open Communication

Facilitate each other’s ability to communicate freely, as themselves, so they may have no fears of psychological punishment or emotional blackmail.

The combination of your ability to communicate openly, be accepted and become nonjudgmentally accepting, combined with the pure expression of love without additional conditions, makes it possible to facilitate persistent, love-centric, happy, sexual and worthwhile relationships.

The 3 foundational first principles of OLNE along with the 10 Core Commitments will ensure you have lasting,, happy and world-class relationships. After all, the quality of your life will depend on the quality of your relationships.

 

A Unique Style

OLNE is unique and one-of-a-kind in that it’s the only relationship style that can facilitate all 3 first principles – of nonconditional love, open communication and nonjudgmental acceptance.

No other format of relationship can have this, and this is testable.

  • Relationships that require exclusivity asserts that its constituents maintain their loyalty to the relationship entity foremost and the pursuit of their happiness only secondary. This is, by definition, conditional love.
  • Individuals that require their partner’s loyalty and sexual desire strictly to them – ensuring jealousy (the confluence of fear of loss and rage) – is antithetical to nonconditional love.
  • As a result of obligation-based formats of relationships where the loyalty must be to the relationship rather than the pursuit of one’s own happiness results in each partner’s always having to pretend to be the person they imagine their partner wants them to be – a form of personal abandonment.
  • Open communication can never be facilitated because of constant fear of psychological punishment, emotional blackmail or even physical punishment (e.g. battery; nonconsensual physical contact).

Just because ‘arrangement-centric’ relationships (as opposed to OLNE’s ‘love-centric’ approach) can’t facilitate nonconditional love, open communication or nonjudgmental acceptance doesn’t make them amoral or bad.

Everyone has different goals, intentions and preference (e.g. for many, open communication, nonjudgmental acceptance and nonconditional love are not as important, or if at all significant, as the exclusivity of their relationship).

The essence of OLNE, and this book, is to clarify and as a result, enlighten (unburdening by becoming knowledgeable and witting) rather than make judgments – i.e. not every sexual relationship requires love. Many can be transactional entirely where all parties are in consensual agreement love not being a requisite [even when it’s sexually exclusive].

OLNE, Open, Poly, Mono – Amory

OLNE is strictly distinct from other formats of sexual relationships in that it maintains nonconditional love, nonjudgmental acceptance and open communication as axiomatic and essential. The 3 foundations of OLNE are that which every agreement are built on. 

OLNE Black and Gold Cover

OLNE 7: Navigating Common Challenges

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Dealing With Societal Stigma

Personal Abandonment

There are three ideas propagated in society which are actually themes of personal abandonment:

  1. “Growing up”
  2. “Fitting in”
  3. “Settling down”

1. Growing Up

To “grow up” is to tell you to abandon your child-like curiosity and play so you can take things more seriously. The irony is that these are two qualities that make for happy and successful adulthood. There hasn’t been a technological and societal innovation which hadn’t required curiosity and the desire to make things work well. 

It’s during ‘play’ where we learn mistakes are necessary for learning. It’s when people transition into the role of “grownup” where they imagine they mustn’t make mistakes because they’d otherwise become embarrassed. After all, they’re supposed to know a whole lot now that they’re a big boy or big girl.

There’s a phenomena that occurs during this transition…

A ‘Grown-up’ and an ‘Adult’ are different in this important respect:

A grown-up is someone a child looks up to and recognizes they’d like to be them so they can do the things they’d like. Since these grownups have always ‘told them what to do’ rather than encourage their coming up with solutions on their own, the children imagine once they become ‘grown-ups’ themselves, that they’re supposed to know what to do.

This is where we delineate between an adult. An adult is someone who assumes responsibility for their own authority, of which is wholly and only, their own manners, behaviors, actions, and thinking. This is responsibility not in the sense of judgment or blame, but in the sense of accountability.

2. Fitting In

To ‘fit in’ is to say you must abandon your personal, and individual, proclivities and expression so you may be accepted into a group. Ironically, it’s those that maintain their personality and individuality with sublime comfort that people gravitate towards.

3. Settling Down

To ‘settle down’ is to abandon your personal pursuits so you can adjust your life to the mold which society has laid out for you. Much of this type of personal abandonment is rooted in obligation – whether to your family which they presume you belong (like property) or society of which a particular culture ostracizes those outside of convention (what’s commonly practiced and accepted).

Recognizing these common themes of personal abandonment empowers you to appreciate that you needn’t abandon childlike play and curiosity whilst still being accountable and responsible… that you needn’t abandon your individuality so society may consider you as acceptable and good… and that you needn’t abandon your personal pursuits so you may acquiesce into what’s commonly accepted as worthwhile. 

You can, in fact, become sublimely comfortable and confident in knowing you’ve accepted no obligation by birth and you may facilitate your own arrangements as you see it fit for you and worthwhile for you. Many things work differently for different people. There’s no one way that works no matter how fantastically well it’s worked for others because there are no two people with the same neurobiology, preference and desire.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking – the act of evaluating things and making objective analysis so that you may form your own conclusions – is the sole purpose of this book. You are always invited to become a critical thinker and never obligate yourself to follow even this book without reasoning it out for yourself, testing it, and coming up with your own conclusions.

The origin of the word ‘human’, “men” (genderless) meant “to think.”

Reasoned Confidence

You can confidently communicate with any one or any groups of people if your confidence is reasoned. This is what’s referred to as ‘Reasoned Confidence’ – confidence which exists because it’s thought through with justification and logic.

Your confidence in the OLNE style of relationship is irrefutable. The notion that there are no other format of relationship which can facilitate what OLNE offers (nonjudgmental acceptance, open and transparent communication, and actual non-conditional love) is incontrovertible. 

This type of confidence – one which is reasoned (logical, ethical, moral and good) – is sublimely empowering and confidence inspiring.

Celebration and Recognition

You may not get the celebration of your peers or family because you’re not following the convention which they’ve expected of you and arrangements which they’ve obligated you regardless of whether you’ve explicitly agreed to them.

For some, this may take some time to get used to as recognition and admiration is a great feeling and most people would rather take on personal abandonment than receiving the admiration of others regardless of their value to them – but remember, getting validation from people you don’t know nor admire is insane.

Managing Jealousy and Insecurity

Security

Security is merely a sensation – a feeling.

There is no such thing as security outside of keeping your head above water. 

e.g. How much “security” do you need if you’re on a plane crashing down into the earth at 600mph? 

How much “security” do you need if you are one of the richest persons in the world and you have pancreatic cancer? This was the dilemma of Steve Jobs, founder of Apple.

Neither has security – because security is just a feeling.

How much security do you imagine you have that the door of your home provides? Of the 10-100 individuals that pass by the vicinity of the door to your home, how many of them do you imagine if they wanted could break into your home? The answer is anyone who wants to break into your home will be able to. It’s just a matter of how much desire to pursue it they actually have.

Because security is just a feeling, how then do you get to feel more secure?

You get security from your ability to maintain your survival and influence others for help if you need it.

This is all of security. Based on your desires and your wanting for a style of life will determine what personal development you require to maintain that life and the skills you need to master to be able influence others.

Insecurity From A Non-Exclusive Relationship

Insecurity is the uncertainty (and anxiety) about oneself or a vulnerability to the threat of danger.

In the standard model of relationships, people overcome their insecurity of a relationship by playing the social games which they’ve inherited without consideration and “locking down” a partner through a contractual agreement of exclusivity – through a social contract upheld by force or a legal contract upheld by law (i.e. a marriage contract).

We maintain this as a “social game” as it’s full of unwitting (ignorance, i.e. lack of information) and emotional manipulation, and often physical violence. This isn’t a morally judgmental remark but a systemic, natural occurrence which is a behavior in all species. What makes us so special is our ability to facilitate morality (determine what’s good and what’s bad).

In the OLNE model, we insist that security is just a sensation one is solely responsible for. Therefore, you may get security – this feeling – by ensuring arrangements are well-managed.

We don’t make presumptions at the outset of OLNE. In fact, it’s having no presumptions that make OLNE so wonderful. Arrangements are created as you format your relationship. With those arrangements come commitments. It’s up to each participating parties within that arrangement to ensure its upkeep so that it’s well-managed and well-maintained. The only security you’ll get from your relationship (how you interact and interface) are the securities you maintain with those arrangements.

Personal Insecurities

Virtually everyone will have their own personal insecurities and afford their own compensations. It’s key to your satisfaction, fulfillment and happiness to recognize that each person in a relationship mostly will mean well even when they behave badly.

Virtually always, these behaviors are not malicious but compensations for insecurities. Maintaining the OLNE pillar, ‘Nonjudgmental Acceptance,’ as a foundation, makes it so we accept our partners with their insecurities and compensations without needing to react to bad behaviors negatively but constructively. You have the choice of whether to engage in the capacity you’d like or to disengage whilst affording each other personal responsibility through…

Authority Equals Responsibility

Authority and responsibility are strictly conjoined and can never be severed apart. 

There is no such thing as authority without responsibility, or responsibility without authority.

One is responsible for which they have authority and cannot be responsible for things which they’ve no control over.

This is particularly important in relationships where partners constantly insist, and unwittingly, try to take authority over the other and assuming responsibility over things they have no authority.

Authority without responsibility and responsibility without authority is a cause of the majority of the pain people feel in relationships.

i.e. You can’t make anyone feel any way about you since only they have authority over their feelings. The only thing we can do is influence others the best we can to inspire them to feel a certain way about us.

You can’t make them love you or hate you. Vice versa, they can’t make you love them, hate them, or feel happy. These are all strictly your own authority, and therefore, your responsibility.

Wife of former President, Eleanor Roosevelt once remarked, “No one can make you feel any way without your permission.”

Accountability and Personal Growth

Authority = Responsibility = Accountability = Autonomy

Once you take accountability (you account for) over what you have authority (things you have control – i.e. your own actions, thoughts and behaviors), you can have autonomy.

To be an ‘Independent’ requires this equation become fulfilled. When you recognize what you have control over (no more, no less), you can have freedom and control over your life.

Once you take accountability over what you have authority, and take responsibility, you can have autonomy.

Our thoughts and feelings are our own responsibilities and no one else’s. Recognizing those things about us whether by introspection or circumspection, is critical in the ‘Accounting’ process on the road to having more control over our lives and feelings.

While we can’t control our thoughts (since they generate on their own via our unconscious brain processes and environmental cues), we can choose which thoughts we focus on and from that, manage our behaviors and perspectives.

Many therapeutic methods will help you develop skills in managing and developing yourself, some of which we do in this book, some of which I can facilitate through personal coaching, and many other licensed professionals can help you with. These are all great and important ways of personal development. After all, the most important investment of time and resource are those you make towards yourself.

Managing Jealousy

Jealousy is a compound emotion of 2:

  1. Fear of loss
  2. Rage from fear of loss

It’s not a primary emotion. This is the reason you can look at a wide variety of people in relationships and see what different circumstances create jealousy for each individual, all of which are different. Jealousy is always dependent of the level which they feel fear of loss at which point they begin to feel rage from that fear of loss.

This fear of loss is a developmental process and can be grown out of. Everyone has a different experience and capacity for it based on an innumerable variety of reasons of which they’ve no control (neuro-psycho-biology, environment, upbringing etc).

Hence, why taking accountability of which you have authority (your personal processes and thinking) can help you take better control of your life and, ultimately, your relationships.

Jealousy Is Not A Virtue

A virtue is an action conducted to for a moral (good) outcome (as opposed to a ‘vice’ resulting in an immoral, i.e. bad outcome).

Many people imagine jealousy is a necessity in a relationship (a virtuous behavior) as they believe it’s a demonstration of love. They make the logical equivocation: love = jealousy = good.

As we maintain in OLNE, jealousy is antithetical to love. It’s a demonstration of lack of love – because love is your desire and wanting genuinely for your beloved’s happiness, well-being and actualization (getting what they’d like) regardless of your involvement; even if it’s with another person and in another bed.

The rage from the fear of loss (jealousy) when their beloved interfaces with another person cause them behaviors that inhibit or prohibit them from pursuing what they’d like. Hence, this is their demonstrating their fear of loss subverts their getting what they’d like… and this is why we refer to this as a demonstration of lack of love.

Take accountability of the following:

Go back to the first principles of happy, loving and successful relationships and recognize it’s about the love you have for one another – love as we defined as: your genuine desire for your beloved’s happiness, well-being and actualization [regardless of your involvement].

Since you want for their happiness regardless of your involvement, things (and people) that make them happy, you genuinely would desire to provide support and encouragement even, and especially, when you’re not involved and the relationship is romantic. The level which you’re comfortable and at ease with this is how you examine whether your ‘fear of loss’ subverts your love for your beloved. Be strictly honest with yourself since no one else will examine you but yourself.

When you’ve reached sublime (blissful and happy) comfort with your beloved’s interfacing with others, especially sexually, is when you recognize (and demonstrate) your love for them is non-conditional – i.e. you simply love them for being them and their happiness is intrinsically conjoined with your happiness.

Managing Multiple Relationships

There is no one successful system or way to manage multiple relationships. Everyone will manage their relationships in ways appropriate to their individual dynamic and circumstances.

Most of us don’t already create systems or think of ways to manage multiple friendships or work-relationships. We manage them based on the dynamic and circumstances – on a case by case basis. Most people make the mistake of not recognizing the dynamics with other people as “relationships.”

The word ‘Relationship’ is one of the misappreciated words in English. Most people recognize the word ‘relationship’ mostly in the context of long-term monogamous, exclusive, sexual relationships. 

A relationship is how you interact and interface with entities.

Your relationship with your cat, your friend/s, your lover, your parents, your siblings, coworkers, partners, colleagues, etc have their own dynamic, per individual entity. Each relationship will be completely unique with each entity even when you delineate a group as a category. Once you interface with an individual entity within a group category, it’ll be near impossible to not interact with them uniquely.

For this reason, you manage sexual relationships just like any other relationship (friendships, colleagues, siblings, partnerships, etc): as individuals.

Equitable Attention

There is no successful system for managing attention per relationship because each circumstance and each dynamic is entirely unique.

It will be entirely up to each individual and each relationship dynamic what allocation of your attentiveness you give. 

‘Hierarchies’ (i.e. delineating levels of attention and importance towards people whom you’re in a relationship) are simply arrangements. Arrangements are not requisite for successful, happy and fulfilling relationships but for some, it may help in structuring a larger organization or simply because of preference. 

Keep in mind, there’s no requisite or natural hierarchical structure relationships fall into. They also evolve over time. If one were to consider a hierarchical structure as a form or organization management, this is simply an arrangement. Like all arrangements, can be subject to change and reform, and must be communicated clearly and completely with all constituents involved.

To be continued…

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OLNE 6: Facilitating Open Communication

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Open communication is creating a dynamic with those whom you’re deeply intimate so they’re inspired to communicate openly.

Open communication is not a demand that people must communicate forthrightly and transparently. As we recall, an OLNE relationship is free from coercion and obligation outside of commitments which you’ve arranged.

Like the word, “glasnost” which is to mean openness and transparency and openly consultative in one’s communication, you can view open communication as open and nonjudgmental sharing to commune with one another – to share resource, in terms of data, so as to cooperate and coexist with one another – and to demonstrate honoring each other by providing sufficient data so they may be able to consent to whether they’d like to participate on interface with those terms (an openly consultative consensuality).

Open Consultative Consensuality

To be openly consultative is to be open, transparent and inclusive in our communicating especially where decision-making and planning is involved. The consultative aspect is where we actively seek and consider input so partners are valued and heard.

The consensuality aspect of OCC is to denote each person’s freedom to choose whether they’re willing to participate and engage and at what level or capacity.

To communicate in an openly consultative consensual manner is to mean that we openly and transparently communicate with one another whilst inviting their input and considerations and encouraging them and honoring them to distinguish whether and what capacity they’re willing to participate or not.

Truths and Lies

The idea ‘open communication is not a demand for transparency’ is especially important in OLNE with facilitating a non-obligatory dynamic.

Most imagine that telling the truth is a prerequisite for happy and love-founded relationships. This is only partly true because there is something more important than telling the truth in relationships: it’s to not be obligated to tell the truth yet being inspired to.

This begins with breaking down social norms about truths and lies.

In certain social dynamics, we feel comfortable telling lies purely because of social conventions (e.g. a random person demands for your address otherwise they won’t leave you alone, you lie and that’s the end. A person is clearly poor in self-esteem and they ask you whether their outfit looks great, you say a small lie).

In the same manner, purely because of convention, there are certain dynamics where you must never lie regardless of your relationship dynamic.

The reason this is problematic is because it has a black and white approach to communicating, but more importantly, it involves coercion (i.e. being forced to tell the truth for fear of judgment, guilt, emotional retribution or psychological punishment). This is antithesis to the notion of open communication, which is a great irony.

The truth about open communication is as we propagate with OLNE, that one facilitates a space to be able to communicate whatever they’d like without fear of being judged or psychological punishment or emotional blackmail. It’s for this reason one may be able to communicate totally openly and be themselves and not need to keep secrets. Yet, it also doesn’t mean they can’t maintain secrets if they’d like. To be forced to divulge information is, by definition, coercion (especially the sinister kind, where one receives emotional manipulation).

In essence, we encourage one to communicate transparently since there needn’t be secrets to be kept (because of nonjudgmental acceptance), but for whatever reason they’d prefer to keep certain things to themselves, they’re free to do so.

Trust and Faith

To be continued…

Facilitating Open Communication

To facilitate something is to create, to manufacture an environment for something.

To facilitate open communication is to actively create an environment and hold a space so that individuals in that space may feel they can communicate anything and be themselves without fear of psychological punishment and emotional blackmail.

Hence, it’s each individual in the relationship’s responsibility, if they’d like to develop a deep intimacy with their partner/s, to facilitate this environment.

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OLNE 5: Embracing Nonjudgmental Acceptance

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One of the 3 pillars of OLNE is Nonjudgmental Acceptance – recognizing that everyone can be radically different and facilitating each person’s individuality with nonconditional love and appreciation.

Understanding Nonjudgmental Acceptance

To ‘accept’ something is to consensually receive it or to recognize it as valid or correct.

To be nonjudgmental is to avoid making judgments about whether a thing is good or bad, recognizing that things are just as they are for their own reasons.

Therefore, to be nonjudgmentally accepting is to appreciate someone as they are, with everything which they come and the configuration in which they come, and recognizing that as sufficient and valid for the dynamic which demonstrates itself – i.e. the love and admiration you share is because they’re them and you’re you, and that in itself is sufficient for your relationship to exist, regardless of everyone’s imperfections.

Free Will Is A Misnomer

Nonjudgmental Acceptance is critical for this reason and is fundamental for the happiness and easy acceptance of people’s predilections, situations, imperfections and mistakes…. that is free will is a misnomer – that one has free will because they make choices, but that’s not accurate.

In fact, it’s so inaccurate, it’s mistaken.

Nothing we are, and do, are free from our neurobiology, history, environment, and ancestry, all of which we have no control.

There aren’t any decisions we make that are free from the influence of our circumstance, upbringing, neurological and hormonal configuration… all of which we’ve no control. In essence, we’ve effectively no free will.

This is critical to recognize as it deepens our understanding of each other. It inspires empathy, compassion, and furthers our desire for intimacy to seek better understanding as to why we do the things we do. Remember…

Hindsight from foresight is always 20/20.

What this means is every time we look back as to why people do the things they do, we can always reason out why they did that. When we retrospect, or introspect, or circumspect, we recognize, “Oh, OF COURSE they did that or decided that, because of this reason or that reason.”

Determinism Vs. Predeterminism

We recognize that free-will has very little to no part of anyone’s behavior as there’s nothing they do or decide which isn’t free from circumstance, neuropsychology, biology, history, environment, upbringing, etc. Hindsight from foresight is always 20-20 in that our behavior is determined.

Determinism isn’t to be confused with “predeterminism.” Predeterminism is to say that things are already set in stone and that nothing changes, that things are fated. Fate is just as tantamount to mysticism as is faith – faith being things which deny proof-of-evidence [therefore, requiring faith]. Determinism which is our position, maintains that what we do and decide, while we’ve little-to-no free-will in the matter, is determined by things outside of our control – it’s been determined by our neuro-psycho-biology, history, ancestry, genetics, etc (things which we’ve no control).

Acceptance Of Determined Behaviors

As we accept those we’ve relationships, we also accept and appreciate their determined behaviors. Because we have no free will about our behaviors and decisions – all a result of chance, merit, punishment, reward are not logical or appropriate.

The manner which we handle bad behaviors is the same way we handle behaviors that harm any public or private establishment. When your child is sick, we don’t punish them for being sick. Instead, we tell them to stay home so not to get other kids in their class sick. This is referred to as the “Quarantine Model.”

On the same token as the child not having any free-will in the matter of being sick, so do any bad behavior of people. Instead of punishing them for things which they’ve no control which would be illogical, we, instead use the Quarantine model. The level and severity or quality of the quarantine will be determined by just enough so they don’t cause further harm or distress. Since the variety of individuals’ behaviors are infinite, that’ll be up to you to determine how to maintain the holistic well-being of your relationship. Consider the following:

  1. Make a deliberation as to what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable by parties involved. You may also refer to this communicating about boundaries. Just like any boundary, they can only exist and maintained when boundaries are clear, outlined and determined which parts, instances and dynamics are inaccessible.
  2. Strictly maintain these delineations and lessen just enough access so that the parties involved do not take part in unwanted behaviors (e.g. if jealousy becomes problematic, access must become limited whether it’s communication, sharing of physical locations or items, and if it’s severe enough, access to proximity may have to be revoked).

Cultivating Empathy and Intimacy

The deepest, most genuine form, intimacy comes in is through understanding. Understanding, the genuine sort, can only be achieved through openly [transparently] communicating. Transparent communication can only be achieved when you can demonstrate nonjudgmental acceptance.

Demonstrating nonjudgmental acceptance is like jet fuel for the [IMR] Intimacy Model of Relationships as it creates a space between you to truly get to know each other at a deep level. When individuals can feel they can become accepted for who they are, free from judgement, shame, and guilt, they can begin to feel they can communicate transparently. That’s when you truly get to know who they are. 

Some conversations to deepen your understanding, trust, and intimacy:

1. Personal Histories and Life Stories

  • Childhood Experiences: Sharing formative events, family dynamics, and significant memories.
  • Defining Moments: Talking about turning points that shaped who you are today.
  • Cultural and Social Influences: Discussing how upbringing, culture, or environment has influenced personal values and worldviews.

Heading someone’s background inspires compassion and helps us see the layers that make each of us unique and builds emotional connection.

2. Dreams, Aspirations, and Goals

  • Short-term and Long-term Goals: Career, personal development, or lifestyle aspirations.
  • Bucket Lists: Adventures, experiences, or personal milestones they hope to achieve.
  • Creative Passions or Hobbies: Exploring interests that fuel their sense of purpose and joy.

Understanding what inspires and motivates someone creates empathy and a willingness to support them on their journey, strengthening partnership and connection.

3. Fears, Insecurities, and Vulnerabilities

  • EmotionalTriggers: Event, topics, or behaviors that elicit strong emotional responses.
  • Past Traumas or Setbacks: Exploring how challenges were overcome and the impact they continue to have.
  • Self-doubts: Discussing internal struggles or areas where they feel least confident.

Sharing fears and insecurities in a nonjudgmental space fosters trust, openness, and a sense of safety, allowing both partners to support each other empathetically.

4. Core Values and Beliefs

  • Ethical or Moral Principles: Discussing what’s fundamentally important to each person.
  • Spiritual or Philosophical Views: Exploring personal belief systems, religious influences, or existential perspectives.
  • Political and Social Stances: Respectfully understanding each other’s viewpoints on broader societal issues.

Learning someone’s core values inspires mutual respect and better alignment in decision-making and relationship dynamics.

5. Relationship Expectations and Boundaries

  • How the Principles of OLNE Applies: Outlining what nonconditional love, nonjudgmental acceptance, and open communication mean to each person.
  • Clarifying Ideas of Loyalty, Faithfulness, and Obligation vs. Commitments: Being clear on what loyalty, being faithful. and the distinction between obligation and commitments, mean to each person.
  • Emotional and Physical Boundaries: Clarifying comfort levels in different aspects of intimacy and connection.
  • Time and Energy Allocation: Discussing how to balance personal space and shared experiences.

Openly communicating expectations prevents misunderstandings, nurtures respect, and inspires a sense of security.

6. Communication Styles and Conflict Resolution

  • Preferred Communication Modes: Texting, phone calls, in-person discussions; how each partner expresses and processes information.
  • Conflict Triggers: Recognizing which words, tones, or situations spark disagreements.
  • Resolution Techniques: Sharing healthy strategies for addressing misunderstandings, like taking breaks or using nonviolent communication.

Knowing how to communicate effectively and de-escalate conflict builds trust and strengthens the relationship’s emotional foundation.

7. Emotional and Mental Well-being

  • Stress Management: coping mechanisms, self-care routines, and relaxation techniques
  • Therapy and Self-help: sharing experiences with personal development, therapy, self-help, counseling, coaching, and meditative activities.
  • Thoughts on Mental Health: talking about anxiety, depression or other conditions in a supportive and stigma-free, nonjudgmentally accepting environment. 

Understanding each others’ emotional state and thoughts facilitates empathy and deeply enhances the intimacy by encouraging and supporting each other’s healing and growth.

8. Sexuality, Pleasures and Desires

  • Preferences, Likes, Wants and Fantasies: Openly discussing what brings pleasure, curiosity and excitement.
  • Boundaries and Comfort Levels: Outlining what’s potentially off-limits and potentially triggering. 
  • Exploration of Intimacy: Consider ways to deepen physical, emotional, and erotic bonds that honor each partner’s autonomy. 

Transparent conversations about desires reduce shame, makes you closer to each other, and makes it so your sexual interactions are consensual and fulfilling.

9. Love Languages and Expressions of Affection

  • Primary Love Language(s): whether it’s words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, physical touch, or gifts.
  • Receiving vs. Giving: Understanding how each person prefers to show and receive affection.
  • Creative Expressions: Come up with fun and sweet ideas and ways to share appreciation and gratitude within the relationship.

Recognizing and appreciating each other’s preferred ways of giving and receiving love reduces miscommunication and brings each other closer and more intimate.

10. Future Vision and Shared Dreams

 

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OLNE 4: Practicing Unconditional Love

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In this chapter, we’ll explore the aspects of “non-conditional love” which most people refer to as unconditional love. This reframe is important as some imagine that unconditional love doesn’t exist because for you to love someone, the condition must exist that they’re them. So we reposition it to be “love without added conditions” which recognizes that once you love someone [because they’re them], you don’t add conditions outside of their being them.

Genuine Desire For Your Beloved’s Happiness

During the initial stages of attraction and infatuation (the state where our brain drugs us with hormones so we have intense admiration and passion for someone), we’re simply happy that we get to interface with them.

Knowing they exist and the possibility of a long-term dynamic you could share with them is elating.

With the ‘Standard Model of Relationships,’ an event occurs where sexual relationships go through an ‘entitlement’ model where partners grant the other titles whether it be “boyfriend/girlfriend” or “wife/husband” and with those titles come a ‘granted’ relationship. 

Remember: being [and therefore feeling] taken for granted is the death-knell of all loving relationships.

OLNE isn’t against titles but rather the entitlement attached and the grantedness given with those titles.

As time passes and individuals in relationships accumulate agreements, entitlements and commitments, these dynamics supersede the “love” they have.

This is the reason OLNE encourages making its 3 Foundations [of nonconditional love, nonjudgmental acceptance and open communication] as paramount in importance and may require revisiting as often as required. 

We facilitate this Nonconditional Love by navigating relationships, agreements, contracts, commitments, obligations using it as a compass which every decision is based on.

Every decision we make in OLNE is based on love, defined: “The genuine desire and wanting for your beloved’s well-being, happiness, and actualization.” 

Demonstrating Nonconditional Love

Create rules and checks and balances in your relationship so that nonconditional love is ensured. This agreement is paramount to facilitate nonconditional love:

Neither person will remain in the relationship if they feel they’re only in it because they have to.

This agreement is crucial. Encourage and maintain this and never become complacent. Softly communicate this by assuring them if they’ve got something or someone that they feel is better for them in any way, they should pursue it.

This ease and comfort of facilitating your partner’s independence allows them to feel released from feeling obligation especially when you’re incredibly valuable to them. The irony is that once they appreciate that they’re totally free to do as they’d like without fear of emotional blackmail or psychological punishment and guilt, they’ll gravitate towards this unconditional form of love since they will never find this in a sexually exclusive relationship.

‘Genuine Desire and Wanting’

This phrasing is very specific within the OLNE definition of Nonconditional Love of (A genuine desire and wanting for your beloved’s happiness, well-being and actualization). 

It’s specific in that it’s requires self-introspective, meaning, one has to look into oneself and see whether they have a genuine desire and authentic wanting for their partner’s happiness, well-being and actualization.

It’s this introspection that can create the authenticity required to maneuver around the relationship and craft every agreement and contract within the relationship founded on nonconditional love.

By these terms anything that inhibits their freedom to pursue their happiness, well-being and actualization is precisely, by definition, a demonstration of one’s lack of love.

“Lack of love” Defined

Behaviors that demonstrates one’s lack of love doesn’t mean one doesn’t love them, and even love them tremendously. It simply means that their love is preceded by their own self-interests, which includes their own inhibitions over the other person’s happines.

Jealousy

The primary culprit of one’s demonstration of lack of love comes in the form of Jealousy because it’s comprised of two very common emotions: fear of loss and the rage (uncontrollable anger) from feeling that fear of loss.

This definition of jealousy is demonstrable and replicable, i.e. find any moment where you’ve experienced jealousy without the combination of anger from fear of loss… you won’t find that instance… because jealousy always comes with rage from fear of loss.

When it occurs in a presumably loving relationship, this rage expresses itself in many ways – whether by passive aggressiveness, emotional manipulation, direct prohibition, or any of a number of behaviors that may not present itself as related to the jealousy circumstance.

Once this has occurred, a phenomena has presented itself: a demonstration of lack of love (love as we’ve defined; your genuine desire for their happiness and actualization – part of that actualization being their pursuit of what’s causing the jealousy).

This can be overcome with a form of ‘radical love’ – as in, love them so much  and want so much for what they’d like that it diminishes your wanting the opposite (opposite being: their not becoming actualized – i.e. getting what they want).

Radical Support

In this sense, you can imagine that love that transcends behavior that inhibits the propagation of deep and genuine love in a relationship can be referred to as ‘radical support,’ as you want for their actualization so much, your support for them overwhelms your more selfish desire of tethering them to you.

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