Have Your Cake, Eat It Too: A High-Performer’s Guide to Jealousy, Joy, and New Relationship Energy

Cultivating connection, embodiment, and conscious pleasure, with Radiant Rebecca

Even if you’re not into polyamory, you’ve probably brushed up against the cocktail of feelings that come with a hot new connection: thrill, anticipation, uncertainty… and yes, jealousy.

This piece isn’t just for the ethically non-monogamous. It’s for anyone navigating multiple intense desires while trying to stay kind, grounded, and high-functioning. Whether you're dating, connecting, or just indulging in new chemistry, these emotions can hijack your nervous system if you’re not careful. So let’s unpack them—with elegance.

Why This Matters (Especially If You Have Great Taste)

After 25+ years of layered relationships, 13 as a professional courtesan, and hundreds of conversations about intimacy and identity, I can tell you:

• Jealousy happens when someone you care about is enjoying themselves without you.

• NRE (New Relationship Energy) makes you euphoric—and maybe a little less intelligent.

• Staying regulated in your own body can feel like an Olympic sport... (and pay off in satisfaction, joy and pleasure like an Olympic win!).

This is about learning to play the long game in a way that keeps your dignity, your relationships, and your pleasure system intact.

Terms Worth Knowing

New Relationship Energy (NRE): That hormone-fueled high at the start of something new. You’re lit up, insatiable, maybe a little obsessive. Normal. Juicy. FUN! Useful. Potentially problematic if you let it steer your life.

Jealousy: Not a sin. Not a failure. Just a message. It’s your nervous system saying, something here needs your attention.

Compersion: Pleasure at your partner’s pleasure. Even if it’s not about you. The opposite of jealousy. (Yes, it’s real. Yes, you can train it.)

Polycule: Your relational ecosystem. Who’s connected to whom. Even if you’re not poly, you still have one. It just might not be mapped yet.

Don’t Trust the Dopamine

Dopamine isn’t a pleasure hormone, even though it has a reputation as one. It’s antici...

...pation of pleasure.

It’s what makes your brain buzz at the thought of the next text, not the actual kiss. You feel a spike not only when the reward lands, but we receive an even BIGGER spike when our brains simply anticipates that something it wants is coming. That makes dopamine the master of seduction—and the king of distraction.

🧠 Reframe: "Dopamine makes you crave, not coast. It’s the surge that gets you to lean in—not the satisfaction that lets you lean back."

Dopamine makes you want to feel good. Not feel good.

Want to stay sane? Balance dopamine with:

• Oxytocin (bonding, safety, orgasmic glue)

• Vasopressin (protectiveness, emotional withdrawal post-connection)

• Serotonin (groundedness, mood regulation, the compersion tonic)

These neurochemicals don’t spike like dopamine. They deepen. You feel them when you slow down and let your nervous system trust.

And here’s the key: you can consciously cultivate them.

If you feel a lack of connection but don’t have a partner handy:

• Go dancing. Try salsa, ecstatic, tango—anything with closeness and rhythm.

• Take up Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or wrestling. Or contact improv—consensual, skill-based touch can flood you with oxytocin.

• Get a dog you can hug. Or borrow one. Seriously.

If you want to laugh, connect, and light up your play circuits:

• Learn improv comedy. Or go see a local troupe perform.

• Call up your funniest friend and go out for ramen.

• Play fetch with that dog!

To cultivate long-term peace and satisfaction:

• Support your serotonin system by caring for your gut microbiome. (That’s right—fiber and fermented foods help your emotional baseline.)

• Do kind things for others that don’t directly benefit you. Helping a stranger, sending a thoughtful message, or quietly paying it forward activates the kind of pride and purpose serotonin loves.

• Think "planting a seed of a tree you will never sit underneath" energy. 

These aren’t just feel-good hobbies. They are chemical rituals for connection, authenticity, and personal expansion.

Beginner Mistakes (Whether You’re Poly or Not)

• Thinking “it should be easy”

• Overriding your pacing out of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) or guilt

• Defaulting to assume that monogamy frameworks still apply

• Ignoring your nervous system’s regulatory cues

• Going to people for advice who don’t share your values or dynamics

Jealousy and joy don’t cancel each other out.

But pretending you’re not jealous? That is repression, and that will bite you.

The Reframe That Changes Everything

Jealousy isn’t about your partner. It’s about your stories.

Ask: What have I made this mean about me?

• "I’m being replaced."

• "I must not be enough."

• "They’ll leave when they see someone better."

These thoughts are old scripts. Not facts. If you can name them, you can work with them.

Your Nervous System Is in the Room

“Your nervous system is the real third in every relationship.” It’s not about working through jealousy often… It’s about working through regulation.

Don’t bank on being able to manage your relationships while you are dysregulated. Do this instead:

• Anchor into your own center. Remember your values. Revisit your reasons.

• Separate needs, wants, and desires.

  • Needs keep you functioning

  • Wants are fleeting cravings

  • Desires (hungers) are what grow you

• Build a support web. Don’t go it alone. Have at least one person who gets it.

• Schedule rest + rituals. Not just sex. Not just processing. Actual self-care that refuels you.

From Addiction to Alignment

One of the sexiest ways to rebalance your dopamine system? Challenge.

Do something hard that changes the way you think about yourself and requires you to show up. Build something. Learn something. Dance something. Be bad at something for a while. True pleasure isn’t the opposite of discipline. It’s the reward of aligned discipline.

Build a Life That Lights You Up

The one-liner I live by:

"Build a life so satisfying and aligned that you're not upset they’re not with you."

Because when your days are filled with tango, sculpture, dinners, mentorship, art, rest, joy—you stop spiraling. Jealousy has no oxygen.

And from that place? You attract people differently. With discernment, not desperation.

If You Want to Go Deeper:

These books are excellent whether you're monogamous, curious, or cultivating multiple nourishing connections:

• Polysecure / Polywise – Jessica Fern: The gold standard for integrating attachment styles into open frameworks.

• What You Really Really Want – Jaclyn Friedman: Unlearn cultural scripts. Discover your erotic truths.

• The Art and Science of Connection – Kasley Killam: A social-health science guide to thriving intimacy.

• The Ethical Slut – Hardy & Easton: Still iconic for communication, boundaries, and emotional fluency.

You don’t have to be poly to want more pleasure, more freedom, and more clarity.

You just have to be willing to know yourself.

With hunger, heart, and high standards,

Love courageously,

Radiant Rebecca

Want to Go Deeper?

I offer coaching, immersive sessions, and access to community events and study groups.
You can explore more on my podcast Pleasure Central Radio, or reach out for a private discovery session.

References & Further Reading

• Berridge, K.C. & Kringelbach, M.L. (2015). Pleasure systems in the brain. Neuron, 86(3), 646–664.

• Salamone, J.D., et al. (2005). Dopamine, behavioral economics, and effort. Psychopharmacology, 191(3), 461–482.

• Carter, C.S. (1998). Neuroendocrine perspectives on social attachment and love. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 23(8), 779–818.

• Young, L.J. & Wang, Z. (2004). The neurobiology of pair bonding. Nature Neuroscience, 7(10), 1048–1054.

• Fisher, H.E., et al. (2005). Romantic love: An fMRI study. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 493(1), 58–62.

• Zald, D.H. & Andreotti, C. (2010). Neuropsychological assessment of the orbitofrontal cortex. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 4, 230.

• Huberman, A. (2021). How to Enhance Dopamine Naturally. Huberman Lab Podcast, Episode 39.

• Van Edwards, V. (2022). Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication. Portfolio.