A short recorded conversation between authors/partners Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due about sustaining a committed relationship through stress. They recount recent pressures — a major professional pitch setback and Due recovering from COVID — and describe how a silent snuggle (lying together without speaking) helped them reconnect. They emphasize team identity, self-care, communication, and routine maintenance of partnership. They also promote an upcoming Soulmate course: five Saturday sessions starting July 30 (replays available) with a $100 discount and registration at www.soulmateprocess.com.
Questions this video answers
They say they have been married for 23 years.
Five Saturdays in a row starting July 30.
On Zoom; sessions will be recorded and replays will be available (evergreen).
A $100 discount is available until the day of the workshop.
www.soulmateprocess.com.
Chapters
Hi, it's Steve Barnes, and this is Tananarive due right there. She's sharing this to my Facebook page so that everybody can see this at the same time. So, basically, what we're going to talk to you about today is we just, you know, hit a. Had a major. What hopefully is going to be a major win from yesterday in the midst of a lot of stress. And I think that it's important to talk about how life and our relationships and our careers have to all be part of the same complex. So are we ready, darling?
Almost.
Almost ready.
Check this out. I'm saying. And now it's on Steve's page.
Okay, let's go. Hey, everybody. This is Tanada Reeve, and this is Steve. So go on. I was doing a little talking, so you can go ahead and do a little talking.
Well, if you've been on my page recently, on our pages recently, you know that we're talking about our upcoming Soulmate course. Rosalind Bell is here.
Hey, Rosalyn.
One of our students. She's already signed up. I can't wait for the course to start. We have been married for 23 years.
And, you know, it's. We're more committed to each other than ever. And I just want to make sure that you understand that that's through the ups and the downs, that's through times of stress. You know, it's for better or for worse.
Exactly.
To a huge degree, what makes it better or worse is not what happens in the outside world, but much as with us as individuals, it's how we deal with it. I mean, the. The problems are absolutely unavoidable. It's gonna happen. So the question is, when those problems hit, who are you? And if you're having any relationship with, let's say, a friend, a partner or a lover or a wife, who are the two of you? Who are you together? What is it that you're. That you create as. As an. As an entity that allows you to deal with the stresses of life?
I think it's important that we talk about this, too, because when you talk about a Soulmate course, a lot of the time, people think it's just about finding partner. But a component of this course is keeping that partner, keeping that love alive.
Well, keeping the love alive. I mean, the fact is that there is an aspect of life that is just a grind. It's just you get up in the morning, you chop wood, carry water all day, you go to bed. Finding the ways to celebrate those days is critical. So one of the things that we really Enjoy is the notion of that we're a team, that we do this together. You know, that when we have, you know, extremely challenging, you know, situations coming up in Hollywood or whatever, what is the thing that we say? We are that bitch.
That's what we have. A little catchphrase.
It's a little catchphrase. It's just our way of kind of breaking the tension, reminding ourselves that we really are tough enough, smart enough, good enough. And it's not as individuals. It's not just as individuals. It's as a team. It's. It's. It's who we are together. So, like, within the last few days, we had an example of this that Tananarive is getting over Covid.
Yeah. A little low energy.
A little low energy. Feeling a little back on the.
Feeling a little pushed, you know, to try to keep up with low energy.
So what is it? And I could probably have been better. I mean, I tried to be as responsive as I could possibly be. But communication is key. If your partner is feeling low energy, they may not be able to communicate their needs as well as you would like. And so, you know, basically, I'm embarrassing myself right now by saying I don't think that I was as responsive as I could have been. I certainly tried to be.
Well, many, many times you asked, what can you do for me? And I didn't have an an. So you're right. When you're low energy, you don't always have those answers. You don't know what the magic formula is. And some of that pressure I felt to perform was coming from inside.
Talk about the pressure to perform.
Well, we had a major, major pitch, you know, this week, and despite the fact that I got Covid, and despite the fact that we had to change the pitch at the last minute, it was still on the calendar there.
Yeah. And it was. It was very disappointing because I'd come up with an idea that I really liked. In my circle of allies, we all liked it. Most liked, I mean, and not just.
Like, loved it, but loved.
And so I'm investing myself in this. I'm seeing. Okay, this could be great. It could be fantastic. It wants to write itself. I can write this so easily. And then we got a call from our representatives, basically saying that there were some things about the story that they felt made it unpatchable.
Yeah.
Okay. I won't go into what it was. It was total kick in the gut.
Kick in the stomach. I was, at the time pretty much bedridden and shouldn't have probably even Been on that call, but as usual I was trying to keep up. We had no idea the call was coming. Kind of blindsided, sighted. And it led to sort of a pressure situation. At the same time I'm feeling low, the pressure is getting high.
And the same time I'm feeling, like I said, kicked in the guts. It's that, that sense of I can't trust my own judgment or they're not aligned with me, they don't believe in what I am and what I'm doing and what I'm trying to do. Those voices, emotions, it's not that those voices are not legitimate. They're not necessarily useful. You try to take them past the three gates. Is it true? It might have been true. Is it kind? Well, if I'm thinking kindly about this and I have to try to think, are they trying to do what's best for me, is there a way in which what they said there was an attempt to help me get the things that I want in life. If it's useful, if it's true that they're trying to help me get these things and they're the ones keeping the long view, then the pain that I was feeling and Tananarif could not comfort me because she's dealing with her illness. So I'm, you know, she's in the, in by far the worst situation because she's dealing with a potentially life threatening illness.
Although I should say I'm fine, you know, a little low energy, but I'm mostly fine. Where it really started to become a factor is we made an agreement with each other when we started collaborating together that collaborating would never get in the way of the relationship. And, and what had happened was collaborating had started to take over our relationships. So a few days ago we had what I call a silent snuggle because, you know, talking to each other had led us astray a few times. So we were just silent and we just snuggled and it was.
So we just laid down and she said, you know, silent. So I deliberately didn't say a word and I waited for her to speak first. I don't know how long we were there. It was at least 20 minutes.
It was nice. It was beautiful.
It really was. Because just hearing her breathing reminded me just how much I love her and how I would feel if. If she stopped.
Yes.
And that cuts a lot of the bullshit out. It's down to I love this woman.
Laying my head across Steve's chest and hearing his heartbeat is actually one of my favorite activities. I love the sound of Steve's beating heart. So. So yes, that silent snuggle was so important. And that's just a part of maintenance. When you have a partner, whether it's a collaborator, a romantic partner, you have to do maintenance to keep that relationship fresh, alive and vibrant.
And where it begins is your maintenance with yourself. Self care, self love. If I had done better self care, yeah, it might have been a shock what I heard, but I would have just rolled with it just like that, instead of it taking me a day and a half to recover. And I found a way to do that by putting my anger into work, which ultimately, based upon, upon the meeting we had yesterday, seems to have worked out quite well. It still came back into our relationship in a way that did not serve us and did not serve our commitment. So the Soulmate course is about taking care of yourself, taking care of your relationship to the world, finding a partner with whom you can share that journey.
And yes, preparing yourself to find that partner. Being ready. So it'll be five Saturdays in a row starting July 30th. If you can't make every segment, it absolutely will be recorded. The replays will be available. Evergreen, that's right.
It'll be on Zoom. So you'll be able to do it at home. And you go to www.soulmateprocess.com. now if you go there, you will see that there is a hundred dollar discount. That discount is great until the day of the workshop.
As Steve said, It's www.soulmateprocess.com. you can read more about it there and we look forward to seeing you and growing and learning together starting July 30th.
