If you’re a helping professional you probably already know that working with relationships is one of the most profound, and challenging aspects to support someone through. Couples work can be dynamic and asks us to track multiple elements simultaneously, even when we are only working with one partner. Add in more partners, and things get complex!
This is why I’ve created Resilient Polyamory.
Resilient Polyamory is a 3 month mentorship container for helping professionals working with Consensual-Non-Monogamous (CNM) clients.
This is a unique opportunity for anyone in the helping professions (including coaches, therapists, doulas, sexual health nurses, and more) to learn innovative approaches of working with non-monogamous dynamics and complex relationships, from a trauma-informed and somatically integrated framework, as part of an international cohort.
This course consists of three elements:
Online Coursework
Covering the essentials for ensuring CNM competency, including identifying value-bases for non-monogamy, frameworks to support practitioners during client sessions, navigating unconscious power & privilege, grief & trauma in non-monogamy, with new content introduced every 2 weeks.
Client Facing Resources
Frameworks, activities, and resources you can share with your clients.
Community Case Study Calls
Bimonthly calls (6 in total) where we take deep dives into specific case studies, as brought by participants, and delve into the many approaches to working with CNM relationships in the helping space.
“This was one of the best workshops I have taken regarding polyamory and trauma informed agreements in twenty-five plus years of seeking to develop skills within myself and relationships.”~ Non-Monogamy Workshop Participant
What You’ll Get
- Lifetime Access to premium content to support your practice, including worksheets, glossary of terms, and more!
- Six Case Study Recordings with examples brought by yourself and other professionals, with a thorough analysis of relationship dynamics, and exploring approaches to take in your support of your clients.
- One Year’s discounted access to professional consults: a 15% discount on professional consults to support you working with the specifics of your non-monogamous clients, and building your practice to be welcoming and supportive of non-monogamous clients.
- 3 Exclusive Workbooks: The Essential Open Relating Guide, Triangulation & Complex Dynamics, Creating a CNM-Affirming Practice.
- Lifetime online access to the Radical Relating community.
This Course Is For You If:
- You are a professional working in (or training to work in) the fields of mental health, personal coaching, wellness, or other related ‘helping professional’ field, including sexual health nurses, doulas, and more;
- You have, or want to have, clients that are non-monogamous, and you want to enhance your competency for understanding and supporting them;
- You’re curious about applying trauma-informed practices to non-monogamous relationship;
- You practice values around decolonising, anti-racism, and queer advocacy.
This course is trauma-informed: everything we explore comes from a place of understanding that trauma is a consequence of experiences that overwhelm us beyond our capacity to engage, and that multiple-partner relationships can be overwhelming. The work we do follows four principles of trauma-informed relating: Orienting to Safety, Resolution & Healing, Nurturing Resilience, and Embodied Engagement.
This course is also somatically integrated: you won’t just get frameworks and intellectual information to apply in your work with non-monogamous clients, you’ll be experiencing embodied ways of working with your clients, including tools that you can use with non-monogamous clients too!
The course content is infused with values of Relationship Anarchy, Queerness, Feminism, and Anti-Colonialism. The course community space seeks to be actively anti-racist, trans-inclusive, and anti-ableist.
This Course Is Not:
- personalised support for your own non-monogamous relationships (if this is what you’re looking for, check out my other workshops instead!);
- academic information about Consensual Non-Monogamy;
- at this time this training is not accredited for any continuing education credits.
Values and Ethics Disclaimer
This course is great for folks who have enjoyed or aligned with the works of folks like Brene Brown, Betty Martin, Dr Kim Tallbear, Dr Meg-John Barker, Gabor Mate, and Peter Levine. This is not suitable for people who enjoy the products of Joe Rogan, Aubrey Marcus, Teal Swan, Kelly Brogan, or Jordan Peterson.
Accessibility
Financial Access
Course Dates
This course goes live on Jan 12th 2025 and will run for 12 weeks, wrapping up on March 30th.
“After the workshop I felt like I could breathe again. I felt like my version of non-monogamy wasn’t “wrong” and, even more helpful, my former partners wasn’t either. I connected with people thinking of the same things as I was, struggling with the same things, and asking questions like me. I cried. I breathed. And for the first time in my life I didn’t feel like a love alien dropped onto this planet.”
Course Participant
Curriculum Overview
Lesson 1: Consensual Non Monogamy & Obstacles to Professional Care
- Identifying who practices non-monogamy: understanding and examining the intersections with queerness, BIPOC communities, neurospiceyness, decolonising relationships, conservative and libertarian non-monogamy, and other values and identities;
- Examining the challenges for accessing support;
- Acknowledging our own biases, triggers, and how transference can show up when working with CNM clients;
- Exploring the diverse landscape of non-monogamy;
- Developing a comprehensive language and terminology glossary.
Lesson 2: Motivations & Role Models for Non Monogamy
- Exploring motivations for non-monogamy: how value systems shape non-monogamous relationships, distinguishing between patriarchal vs. feminist perspectives, traditional relationship escalators vs. anarchist approaches;
- Examining the distinct challenges faced when transitioning from a monogamous relationship to non-monogamy versus starting non-monogamy while unpartnered;
- Creating your own personal library of resources on non-monogamy, through critical examination of popular client-facing non-monogamy resources.
Lesson 3: Complex & Complicated — Understanding Non-Monogamous Dynamics
- Exploring the interaction between trauma and adaptations within relationships, including discussions on veto power and other self-protection strategies;
- Clarifying the locus of relational challenges using the Meta Model of Relating;
- Addressing hierarchy, couple’s privilege, and the Monogamy Hangover within non-monogamous dynamics;
- Investigating healthy and destructive triangulation in non-monogamous relationships.
Lesson 4: Mythbusting & Liberating From Shame
- Countering prevalent myths and beliefs held about non-monogamy, including internalised stigmas, such as perceptions around STIs, attitudes towards sexual openness, and more;
- Navigating complex situations through supported boundary work in non-monogamous dynamics;
- Addressing Jealousy and other strong negative emotions through focusing on addressing underlying core needs.
Lesson 5: Safety & Attachment in CNM
- Understanding Disrupted Orienting in Non-Monogamy, and how to support clients through it;
- Examining the possibility of multiple secure attachment relationships in navigating non-monogamous dynamics;
- Investigating self protective responses of Fight/Flight/Freeze/Appease/Ask For Help within non-monogamous situations;
- Exploring titrated containers to manage emotional and relational boundaries effectively.
Lesson 6: Refining Your Practice
- Mapping polycule and anarcule relationship networks to include non-hierarchical and platonic dynamics;
- Developing your own worksheets and activities to facilitate discussions and reflections on non-monogamous relationships;
- Understanding how to work with multi-party relationship agreements to define boundaries, expectations, and commitments within non-monogamous dynamics.
What you’ll need:
- A journal (physical, electronic, or otherwise) to record your experiences and reflections;
- A few existing CNM clients who you can practice these skills with;
- An hour or two every other week to review activities and worksheets;
- A device you can access the internet with.
“I receive so much incredible value from your work — I LOVE how you organize your rich information. You also have a knack for setting up a really safe, thoughtful, reflective container for learning. I really appreciate and admire your brain! Hoorah! In addition, your teaching brings together an amazing community of courageous humans that gather to learn and practice trauma-informed relating with ourselves and others!
Sunday’s class was a deeply nourishing in ways I didn’t know I needed. THANK YOU!“Course Participant
Course Cost
As with all my work, this course is available with a tiered pricing model.
Those who are able to pay more help me offset my costs and keep the Low Income and Student/Hardship Rates available to all who need them. 2 and 3 part payment plans can be arranged.
Regular Price $500 USD
Low Income Rate $400 USD
Student/Hardship Rate $300 USD
How To Join
Spaces for this cohort course are limited and I am only accepting candidates who are a good fit for this course.
Click below to head to the application form.
Who am I?
My name is Mel, and I’m a relationship coach who guides social misfits and cultural rebels to experiences of joyful, embodied, authentic, open relationships.
I’m a white-presenting human with Irish, Greek, and Khorokane Romani ancestry. I was born in the UK, grew up in Kuwait, and Canada has been my home since 2004. I am grateful and humbled to live, love, study and share, as a visitor on the beautiful and sacred Unceded territory of the K’òmoks First Nation, which are traditional territories of the K’omoks, Pentlach, Homalco, Wei Wei Kai, Wei Wei Kum, and Tla’amin peoples — people who have been in relationship with this land and these waters for 10,000 years.
I hold a certification in Counselling for Intimacy in Relationships from the Vancouver College of Counselor Training, and am trained in Holistic Peer Counselling and ZEGG Forum facilitation. My current studies are focused on Somatics and Trauma-Informed approaches to healing: I am a student with Somatic Experiencing International, working towards my certification as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. I am also in the process of completing my training as a Somatic Movement Teacher with the Institute of Applied Somatics. I previously studied with the Institute for the Study of Somatic Sex Education.
I have been teaching in one form or another for over 25 years, and currently sit on the faculty at the Vancouver School of Healing Arts, in addition to freelancing non-monogamy and consent workshops and education to schools, institutes, and community groups.
I’m queer, and practice relationship anarchy as a solo polyamorous person. I’m also dyslexic, and live with Long Covid. I’m a survivor of sexual trauma, gaslighting, and complex PTSD.
I practice anti-racism, anti-oppression, and support decolonization.
I refute binary gendered scripts.
I support inclusion.
I advocate for consent culture, feminism, and dismantling the patriarchy.
I support accountability and compassionate community care.
I bring all my experience to the work I do.
My first book, Radical Relating, will be published in Fall 2025
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are you doing this?
Quite simply, because people have been asking me for this!
When I began my coaching practice in 2015, there were still very limited resources for people in the helping professions who wanted to learn about consensual non-monogamy and support their clients through their non-monogamous experiences in an affirming and empowering way.
Even though there are a lot more resources out there now, many of them focus on a more clinical and intellectual approach to CNM, and there’s still very little that takes a trauma-sensitive or somatically-integrated approach.
Over the years, I’ve had numerous counselling, coaching, somatic, and other mental health professionals come to my public workshops and classes because they’ve wanted to learn more about how I work with clients — and why it is that my work is so different from what most others are offering out there!
How Is This Different From Your Monogamy Detox Course?
The Monogamy Detox is a course I created for people who are practicing alternative relationships in their own lives, and want to detox from the harmful stories of traditional, patriarchal Monogamy.
While there is some overlap in the content with this course, Polyamory Proficiency is focused on how to apply these principles to work with non-monogamous clients in your own practice.
Whilst I currently offer The Monogamy Detox live twice a year, this is the very first time I’m offering a training dedicated to professionals.
Do you have a Safer Spaces Policy?
Yes I do! You’ll read the full policy once you sign up, but in summary:
- Honor Your Own Boundaries
- Respect Privacy
- Stay on Topic & Say What You Need
- Centre the voices of those who might not get as much air time in mainstream society.
- Do No Harm***
- All participation is optional
*** Anti-science rhetoric, conspiracy theories, COVID-19 denialism, anti-masking, Q-Anon and related alt-right and fascist ideologies are harmful and support of them in the workshop space will result in immediate removal.
Why do you make a big deal about being queer and feminist, can’t you leave the woke politics out of it?
The personal is political, and as a queer feminist human who has the privilege to be visible in the public eye, it’s important for me to emphasize this. Its also a way of filtering out folks who embrace patriarchal approaches to alternative relationships. If you feel activated by discussion of patriarchal narratives, my work is probably not a good fit for you.
Why aren't there CE (continuing education) Credits for this?
Two reasons:
1) I’m not set up for that (yet!)
2) This course is brand new and I’ll be refining these materials before looking at getting approved as a CE with any governing bodies.
My hope is that it will one day be eligible for CE credits, and that it will be possible to retroactively reward those credits to everyone who has been part of this course.
How long do I have access to the course?
You’ll have lifetime access to the group recordings and course materials, and a consultation fee discount for 12 months the course start date.
Your access to the online Radial Relating community is lifetime access.
What if I’m unhappy with this course?
Well, I would be sad. But if you’re really unhappy with the course, just email me within 10 days to get a refund.
I still have a question, how can I contact you?
I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have. Send me an email at melina@radicalrelationshipcoaching.ca.
I desperately knew in my bones there was another script out there for me but when I struggled to find a healthy version of one, I haphazardly began writing it myself. And now?! To come into an entire community of people actively peeling back the veil to reveal their own trauma and vulnerability?? I am over the moon and feel so enthusiastic all the time. It’s the first time in the last several years where I have had such sustained joy and direction.
Monogamy Detox Course Student
Just wanted to send my deep gratitude and appreciation for your workshop. I let go of some self-indictments around believing something “different” about love, and was able to move towards being more in integrity with myself (and those with whom I relate). I was also able to become really clear about my core “essentials” in relationships (whether monogamous or non-monogamous; romantic/sexual, emotional, social/community or other), and am certain these breakthroughs will only serve my own wellbeing and the wellbeing of those I have relationships with now and in the future more than I can even comprehend.
Workshop Student
My session with Mel went beyond value for money. She created an immediate sense of being seen and heard in non-judgmental space. Mel reflected accurate insights to me, and held space for me to explore things that were beneath the surface. I was moved by the integrity she worked from in our sharing. I felt great compassion and wisdom with her, and my thoughts and emotions shifted to we worked. Mel is sharing a gift with her energy.
Coaching Client
Course Cost
As with all my work, this course is available with a tiered pricing model.
Those who are able to pay more help me offset my costs and keep the Low Income and Student/Hardship Rates available to all who need them. 2 and 3 part payment plans can be arranged.
Regular Price $500 USD
Low Income Rate $400 USD
Student/Hardship Rate $300 USD
How To Join
Spaces for this cohort course are limited and I am only accepting candidates who are a good fit for this course.
Click below to head to the application form.