Paddleboarding and Dating Apps: A System’s Journey to Freedom

Many systems spend years trying to get parts to behave.Skye spent 36 years learning to love them instead. In this conversation, we’re joined by **Skylar Lyralen Kaye**, award-winning writer, actor, slam poet, storyteller, and openly plural, nonbinary trans fae, whose memoir *Bachelorx* does something most books about plurality don’t dare: it hands the page directly to the inner people and lets them speak. What unfolds is a funny, heartbreaking, and deeply human story of a newly separated 62-year-old getting on dating apps for the first time, navigating intimacy, rejection, and falling hard for someone when the system absolutely does not agree. But beneath the dating story is something many of us long to know: what it actually looks like when decades of inner work finally click into place. **Inside this conversation:** \* What it actually costs a system to date — and what singlets fundamentally don’t understand about it \* MICAH: the protector who kept everyone alive, never got credit for the grades or the poems, and finally gets the page — and the all-caps \* 17 therapists, 4 who helped — and what those four actually did differently \* How Brainspotting took decades of healing over the finish line \* Why IFS both normalizes and sometimes minimizes plurality — and how Skye holds that tension \* What system responsibility really means when a part goes rogue \* The chapter where the whole system disagrees about falling in love — in real time, in multiple fonts \* What later-stage healing actually feels like — not symptom-free, not perfect, just known And at the very end, what Skye wants every system to take away from this book:*"The humble gratitude of what it's like to fall in love with yourselves."* **⏱️ Timestamps**00:01 — Meet Skye: out, plural, trans fae, just off the paddleboard02:06 — Why the book opens with being outed on a first date09:16 — MICAH sets some limits — and the little kids feel protected23:24 — Coming out as plural to a date — and choosing integrity over a perfect cover story40:19 — Kids FIGHTING: writing the chapter where the system isn't unanimous46:09 — Giving MICAH the page — and the all-caps49:40 — 17 therapists, 4 who helped — what made the difference57:59 — What healing looks like now versus what it looked like in crisis01:00:45 — A message to the inner people listening right now Resources: Skylar Lyralen Kaye Website: https://lyralenkaye.com/ Bachelorx Skylar Lyralen Kaye Substack Additional Resources Healing My Parts Website **WORKSHOP👉 Building & Using Your Inner World: Practical Tools to Make It Work for You**If you're looking for practical tools to strengthen communication, cooperation, and daily life inside your system, this Live 90-minute workshop is designed to help.📅 Wednesday, July 29 | 7:00 PM ET🎥 Recording included with registration.💜 $37**For more info & to register:** healingmyparts.org/workshop Healing My Parts SubstackHealing My Parts Instagram **Thank you for listening 💜🫶🩷** Get full access to Healing My Parts at healingmyparts.substack.com/subscribe