Dreams and Desires

Dreams and Desires from Polyamory: A Clinical Toolkit for Therapists (and Their Clients)

I highly recommend purchasing this book regardless of the population you work with.

This worksheet challenges the dominant narrative that our partners have to meet all of our needs in life. It encourages us to identify which needs we can meet on our own, from friends/family, and from our partner(s).

I use this worksheet with any client who is struggling to identify what they want from their romantic relationships (polyamorous or monogamous), or their life in general! I find this is especially helpful if the client is dissatisfied in their current relationship to help them identify what is and what isn't working, and what needs to change in order to feel more satisfied in the relationship (which can include breaking up or working through things).

This worksheet may also help clients identify their values or connect their needs and wants in relationships with their values. Perhaps most importantly, this worksheet gives clients permission to name their deepest dreams and desires in life, regardless of how outlandish they may seem. Additionally, this can be a great way to highlight strengths and resiliency in the client's life.

I've used this successfully with adults and teens, so try it out!

Areas of exploration:

- Values

- Relationship needs and wants

- Self-efficacy

- Strengths

From Martha Kauppi's Polyamory: A Clinical Toolkit for Therapists (and Their Clients), page 371

What is important to you in life and in a relationship? Consider things you deeply desire. What do you long for? What would make your life feel juicy, exciting, and magical? This list will vary from person to person, but here are a few examples of the kind of things that might show up: emotional security, financial security, fun, great sex, deep emotional connection, sexual adventure, long-term stability, creativity, joy, travel, deep conversations, great teamwork--you get the idea.

Now make your own personal list of things that are important to you in life and in your relationship.
Go through your list and think carefully about these questions:
- For each item, can you see a way that you could bring that into your life without depending on another person to do it for you? For instance, if you listed emotional security, ask yourself, "What do I do to make myself feel secure?" If you listed sexual adventure, ask yourself, "How do I express my sexually adventurous nature?" If you listed deep conversations, ask yourself, "What do I do to take conversations to a deeper level?"
- Which of these desires do you imagine being met by one partner? Can you imagine some of these desires being met by a platonic close friend or friends? Community members? Another partner in a purely sexual relationship? Another partner in a romantic relationship?

The idea here is to empower you to enrich your life with the exact aspects of life that feel the juiciest and most important to you. Think of desire as the fuel that powers joy and see how much joy you can create in your life and relationships.

Feeling the exciting feelings associated with your juiciest dreams and desires is good for you. You don't have to wait for them to actually happen to enjoy feeling them, and you probably can make a lot of parts of them happen as a part of your regular life without much else changing. Consider getting playful or creative; write poetry about your dreams and desires; or make a vision board, artwork, or anything else you can think of.

You might also enjoy sharing some of your dreams and desires with your partner(s). Telling them how exciting you find these ideas should be fun and is a great way to get to know one another on a deeper level. It will also give you practice talking and listening in turns and accessing depth and curiosity with some topics that are exciting, hopeful, and positive.