How to Understand Your Relationships: A conversation with the authors Meg-John Barker and Alex Iantaffi

'Profound and vulnerable. An essential gift for all of us that relate' - Anne Mauro

What do we mean when we say 'relationship'?
How do we separate our needs and desires from norms and expectations?
How can we approach our relationships with mutuality, care and compassion?

This down-to-earth guide is the ultimate companion for anybody who wants to examine their place in the world -- how we relate to ourselves, and others.

With considerations of historical, cultural, and developmental contexts; explorations of relationship diversity as it manifests in queerness, the ace and aro spectrum, non-monogamy and neurodivergence ; and a look towards deeper, compassionate, interdependent ways to relate - this book will help people of all ages, backgrounds and identities explore their relational world.

Order a copy of the Book: How to Understand Your Relationships: A Practical Guide

Transcript

Alex Iantaffi: 0:33

Well hello and welcome to a very special episode of Gender Stories. I know I've had a few episodes with the fabulous Dr Meg-John Barker, and today it's a special episode because we have a book out 'How to Understand Your Relationships'. And you also contributed, I know and if you're on video, you can see Meg-John showing you the book with a beautiful cover by Jules Scheele. I wish I could also show you, but I haven't received my copy yet, and we cannot show you the fabulous cover, also of'Trans and Disabled', which I edited and which team MJ has got a piece in as well. So welcome Meg-John. It's so good to see you.

Meg-John Barker: 1:17

Oh so good to see you too. Thank you for having us.

Alex Iantaffi: 1:22

Yes. So we were like, we got a book out, and then there's another book out. We should do something. And so here we are. I have to say, it's been a really weird week for me living in the so called United States, to have two books out, and so I want to be really transparent, as I usually am, and be like, Yeah, it feels like I don't know. It just feels like it's been such a heavy, heavy week for a lot of minoritized folks, right? Trans folks, immigrant folks, all the folks are getting targeted by the current regime. But we also want to make sure that people know that the books are out and they actually there might be a good resource during this time. Yeah. How are you doing about this books being out? Or do you feel,

Meg-John Barker: 2:09

Oh, yes, I mean, similar. I feel like these. I just, yeah, I was saying to you, actually, before we started recording, I've been looking back over our journals and pictures and things. And there's the book of when our first book together came out, how to understand your gender. And there's that picture of us with our book baby, and we're so excited. And I guess, yeah, those first few books that came out, we they really were kind of celebratory moments. And then yeah, like, how to understand your sexuality we did during lockdown over zoom. And yeah, I guess that one and this one have a very different feel here, because we've been through this kind of few years of PTSD, and also the world has been going through PTSD too. Can you say that? Yeah. So it just feels like a very different world, yeah. So it's not like, I guess we feel Yeah, kind of, there's a sort of balance, really. This is maybe a sobriety. It feels like just much more sober, like less of a kind of high that we've got something to celebrate, and more of a sober which maybe fits the book, you know, because again, again, like, how to understand your sexuality. I guess we're talking Yes, about the pleasure of love and relationships, but we're also talking a lot about trauma and marginalization. So yeah, I kind of feel that it's that sort of feeling balanced in a way, like I'm thinking of inside out and those balls with the joy and the sadness. You know, it's yes, yeah,

Alex Iantaffi: 3:49

yeah. And I do, I do think it's a more than once book. I think it's also more vulnerable book, like we really poured a lot of ourselves in this book and how to understand your relationships and and I'm hoping to do a separate episode for trans and disabled with as many contributors as I can gather, to have maybe a little round table to discuss people's contributions. So we're going to focus on how to understand your relationships at the moment. But there is also an anthology called Trans and disabled, which has poems and short stories and kind of essays so I hard, heartily, heartily said even a world word enthusiastically recommend the anthology, mostly because even though I have one piece in it, all these other brilliant authors have pieces in it, and I'm really looking forward to seeing a physical copy.

Meg-John Barker: 4:47

Yeah, it's really, really good, and you brought together such an amazing crew of people. But yeah, like you say, there's that vulnerability of being so open with these two books, you know. I mean, we always have drawn on our own experience, you know, with gender and sexuality, obviously, in the other two in this series. But yeah, this one, really, we are just very open about, yeah, how much relationship trauma that we ourselves have carried, also the struggles being neurodivergent and having relationships. Yeah, I think these two books are the first where we're talking about our autism and also our plurality, like, very openly, yeah, being really open about being disabled. So that's that is quite a lot of vulnerability. See, and maybe some new things to share, you know, things that we've only uncovered in the last few years, maybe some of them, and also, yeah, ones that feel good, yeah, good to be able to talk about. And also a bit vulnerable,

Alex Iantaffi: 5:47

absolutely. And I think that's the, I think, in a way, that's the strength of the book. I don't want to be quite conceded by talking about the strength of our book, but I do think that one of the things we bring is this like mixture of like scholarship, professional experience, also as therapists and like our personal experiences, right? That kind of we weave all of those together. And in a way, I don't know about you, but there is like, so much vulnerability in talking about relationships, because, you know, we don't do relationship by ourselves. I know mind blowing, right? Relationships with other people, and always like, what if somebody else who knows me is like, You're so full of shit. This is my experience of your relationship with you, right? And there's always this kind of, and I know that's trauma too, right? Yeah, this fear of like, oh, how is this gonna land with people? Because, and we say that in the introduction, yeah, we did, yeah.

Meg-John Barker: 6:44

I hope it helps that we're that open about it. It's like, There's no way. You know, this is about as far from the kind of glossy self help book by the person who says they're an expert on relationships, and they've been married 30 years, and, you know, probably married 30 years, it's about as far away from that book as you could possibly can.

Alex Iantaffi: 7:03

At least we're not saying,

Meg-John Barker: 7:05

but like you say, yeah, there's such a vulnerability about relationships. And we talk a lot about ruptures and rifts and relationships in the book, and just how painful those are. And again, I feel like these last few years, there's been so many more, because everybody's trauma has been, you know, up and, yeah, more uncovered and it is. There's nothing really for us that's sadder than that territory, which, you know, we have to deal with in the book. And so, yeah, it's, it's always tough to know there's people out there with stories about how you hurt them in relationship, and that's part of it. That's part of what we're dealing with here,

Alex Iantaffi: 7:48

yeah, and I think that's what it's beautiful about the book. It's like, it's very, it feels like very radically human and we're very clear that even though, like we do have what the world might call expertise in air quotes in this area, we're really approaching it as people who know like the joy and pain of relationships, right? That it can be the most wonderful, healing, beautiful thing to be in relationship with one another and with the ecosystem, and it can also be the most heartbreaking, painful thing, and all of it at the same time, sometimes, and it's complex and that we are not, by no stretch of the imagination, we have all the answers. It's not one of those. It's like, ask the questions.

Meg-John Barker: 8:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Alex Iantaffi: 8:39

But that's what I love about how we write books, that it's not about we're giving you the answers. It's like, we're giving you the questions. For me as a therapist, it feels very similar to what I do as a therapist, in a way, I get to be here. I have some knowledge. I get to ask questions, but ultimately, yeah, you know, people are the authors of their own lives. They get to make their own choices. They get to choose their own values and belief system and relationship containers, and the kind of how and with whom the one I engage in relationships and and that is not something that you see often in relationship books, I'm thinking about often it's like, here's how you do monogamy really well. Here's how you do non monogamy, here's how you parent. Here's about your relationship with the environment. And I think what we try to do is pretty ambitious, because we're like, let's talk about all relationships and how we relate to ourselves and each other and the ecosystem, and, yeah, the ancestors and ourselves as future ancestors and all. When I look back, I'm like, wow, yeah, that's a tall order. Like,

Meg-John Barker: 9:47

I mean, I remember when we said we were sort of thinking about this, and, you know, just for you. And I didn't make any sense. Did it to write? We had to cover all kinds of relationships, so we had to throw the net that wide. And, yeah, I think what we've it was kind of helpful to have that gender and sexualities books first, wasn't it? Because we kind of use the same format as for those and I think that really is, I don't think people would necessarily think about applying that to relationships this kind of, how do I understand where I've got to with my gender, with my sexuality, like that makes a bit more sense to people. How do I, you know, kind of locate myself with gender and sexuality, and how do I understand how my upbringing has influenced it and my wider culture is in. Step and how I want to do it, but actually to have that blueprint and then apply it to relationships gives something pretty unique as as does that insistence that we had of like we're not just going to deal with romantic obviously, not just romantic relationships, but then also, not just relationships with adults, then also, not just human relationships, relationships with other beings, and then yeah, like, relationship with community, relationship with culture, relationship with ecosystem. Like, yeah, we had to kind of include all those equally valid relationships as well as the inner relationships.

Alex Iantaffi: 11:10

And I love that, because, in a way, it's also a declaration about challenging this hierarchy, the dominant culture tells us we should have about relationship, right? It's like expressions like, you know, blood is thicker than water. You know that somehow our family of origin are kind of the most, the most important relationship, but at the same time that a romantic relationship should be the most important relationships, right? And right now we are seeing more and more every day, the very visible impact of climate crisis as well, and we do talk about relationship with the environment and also how relationship between adults are different in terms of power dynamics than something like a parenting relationship between, you know, parent and child, because and how culture impacts the way we look at all the ways in which we relate and and there's something about at the moment, it seems to be really in the air this topic, because Dean Spade, for example, has got a, I think it's called Loving a fucked up world this coming out also about relationship. And I'm like, that's great, because I can't wait to read it. Yeah? Hey,

Meg-John Barker: 12:19

Sophia, who wrote our forward, is writing, you know, about relationships at the moment. Mel Cassidy is doing radical relating

Alex Iantaffi: 12:26

yeah, book as well. There's quite

Meg-John Barker: 12:29

a lot of you know, they're actually all really different, distinct books that do different things, and I think underlying sort of ethics and value is quite similar. So yeah, I feel it's like people, hopefully, fairly soon, will have a whole raft of stuff that they can go to. I mean, we try to, you know, link to all the ones we're aware of already in this book. But yeah, it's great to hear there's a few more coming out along the slide. Yeah,

Alex Iantaffi: 12:55

I wasn't aware of like Dean's book when we were writing this book back in summer of 2023 it was the first book that we wrote in person together since the pandemic, if I'm correct, and and that was an experience too, because we had gone through like the pandemic so many years of not seeing each other physically, although, luckily, with that like, we were able to have some kind of connecting in person time the year before, but we weren't writing for the first time since we

Meg-John Barker: 13:27

tried some together. It was wild. It was great. What do we do with time?

Alex Iantaffi: 13:34

We swam in the pool, we ate delicious food, and then we couldn't stop ourselves from working. So we also, I think, got our notebook out and started to plan some things, but we might have to, yeah, and what I love is that I think a lot of us, who are educators, healers, community organizers, have been really feeling like it is so important for us to be intentional and clear about our relationship value, especially at this moment in time, right? Because capitalism colonialism are so, like, dehumanizing, and when, yeah, you know, part of dehumanization is also this, like, the cracks and the raptures that that creates in our relationships, and we do talk about that in our book.

Meg-John Barker: 14:18

I think that's the framework of the book, in a way, is this idea that we're so disconnected on every level, spiritual, cultural, you know, by capitalism, colonialism, then relationally, you know, because of because people are being brought up in families within that wider culture, and then that means that we're very disconnected internally, whether that's a lot of repressing or a lot of trauma kind of reactivity going on. It's like disconnection at every level. So the book's really about, well, how on earth do we relate when we are kind of disconnected at every level. And also, how might we reconnect, you know, also, how might we deal with what those disconnections when they happen? But also, how might we reconnect to any of those levels? But yeah, I agree. There was, yeah, oh God, there's so many things I want to say, I suppose, yeah, I was just like, I want to say how relational the book was, and I also want to say something about how we'd gone in such radically different directions in our own relating when? So, yeah, I don't know what to do. First,

Alex Iantaffi: 15:24

go for it. Whichever one comes out first, go for it. Well,

Meg-John Barker: 15:27

I suppose it was, you know, you were just saying about, oh, the pandemic. And you know, this was the first time we'd actually got together to write for. A long time that wasn't just online. And then, yeah, like, as we were beginning to write it, we got this, like, hang on a minute. Like, these last few years, you've gone like, way towards relationships and community, relationships with other human beings and other beings and community and your spirituality. And, yeah, I know you're really engaged with relationship with land and water as well and ancestors, and we'd gone much more into this internal plural relationship with selves, with or different parts of the selves, or different selves, whatever way you want to say that as and that was very linked with our spirituality as well. So yeah, in some ways overlap, but in some ways radically different approaches, in that, you know, I as a whole are spending a lot of time alone, and you were spending a lot of time in community and with others, and we felt like That was a, I guess both the challenge and a strength, again, of the book, right, is that we were able to hold via deal with that whole gamut, from sort of very solo relating all the way through to very embedded in community relating and everything in between. Right?

Alex Iantaffi: 16:46

Absolutely. And I'm thinking about even we had our little like personal check in sometimes. That's mom. I don't know what is even time anymore? And it was beautiful as talking about how we had such different winter holidays, like yours were very solo and mine were, like, full of people.

Meg-John Barker: 17:06

That's right, that's a stark difference. Like, yeah, I didn't even see people Christmas or New Year, like, and it was a spiritual retreat time for that whole kind of time, whereas you were, like, surrounded by, yeah, living with loads

Alex Iantaffi: 17:19

family of origin, queer family, family of family, you know, and but it was really interesting that when we were talking like our emotional and inner experiences were very similar, like the surface was so different, But then when we dove underneath, right, we were dealing with not so dissimilar issues internally. And I think that's a beautiful example, you know, even though this happened, obviously once the book had already been written. But I think it's a theme that you can live very different lives, but kind of really grapple internally with very similar issues. Well, it just

Meg-John Barker: 17:59

reminded me of that tweet I once saw that somebody, I think a relationship therapist, had said that whether you break up or stay together with a partner, the work that you need to do will be the same. And it is kind of, you know, I definitely feel that along the gamut of people I know in all different kinds of relationships, from the really queer ones to really quite normative ones, you know, different types of relationships as well. It does feel, you know, or people who are dealing with actual children and people who are dealing with inner children really similar, you know, like, there's a lot of, yeah, just similar, similar stuff comes up, even when they look, you know, pretty different. I just think it's so many different paths to the same place, you know, but what we get churned up internally will be pretty much the same whatever. Yeah, exactly.

Alex Iantaffi: 18:46

It's almost like we're all human and kind of dealing with a lot of similar issues around like, you know, belonging and how do we, like, care for one another without abandoning ourselves. And how, you know, like, how do we see in relationship when there's competing needs and and what a lot about our book is that there are all these tools that, no matter if you are monogamous or not monogamous, like you said, whether you're a parent or not, whether you're ace or not, whether you're kinky or not. Hopefully, there is something in the book for you to kind of really reflect about, how do I relate to, to myself, to the ecosystem, to other people, and even to the idea of relationships themselves, right? Like, even to the idea of relating.

Unknown: 19:29

And I hope that really takes the pressure off people for like, you know, this idea that there's a right way of doing it. I know that for us, whenever we talk with you, or yeah, all our friends are in very different relationship structures and different living situations and different communities just really helps to be like, oh, there isn't a it's so easy for people to think there's a magic solution. You know, whether it was looking for the one perfect partner or the one perfect way to do relationships or the perfect community, and, yeah, I think we're really gently challenging of that notion throughout the book, but yeah, just hope it can people can really feel that sense of like all that is, is, is kind of suffering to be in this could I be doing it better? Should I be doing it better? You know, am I doing the right way? I think Yeah. Hopefully people can get that sense from just from how diverse and different our ways of doing relationships are, and the fact it does bring up the same stuff regardless, you know.

Alex Iantaffi: 20:30

And I think what I love about that, it's that that inherently kind. Kind of challenges that more kind of colonial, white supremacist way of thinking of the right way, right That, to me, feels like and there's so much noise nowadays. And don't get me wrong, there's also, like, some beautiful, interesting things. I follow a lot of content creators who talk about relationship, and there's so much beautiful content that I found personally helpful. And at the same time, I also really see people struggling with this idea of what is right or what is wrong right, what is the right relationship, what is the wrong relationship? What is the right way to communicate, what is the wrong way to communicate? And I know as an anxious attacher of myself, I often struggle with like I could do better. I could be better. Let me read just a more relationship. Let me read just one more research paper about how we can do relationships better. And I know that my the most helpful is when I can lie, yes, taking all the information, taking all the theories and research, but then like, tune it all out and kind of come back to like ground and to self and to just like to what do I know in my bones? What do I What if I experience, and what are my values? And how can I align my values with my actions, which is so much more complex than it sounds? And, yeah, does that make sense? I don't know if you've seen people struggle with that too. Like, yeah, I just want to know the right way to do this, or I think I'm the right partner, yeah.

Meg-John Barker: 22:00

And then, you know, the danger is that that gets imposed in relationships, you know. And we talk a lot in the book about, yeah, how our trauma patterns connect out with the people in relationship with or, you know, colonial ways of doing, of relating, you know, can come out through us. And, yeah, I feel like, again, something we stress in the book is this more, this idea of fit, you know, and getting away from right and wrong ways. And it's actually, you know, how, how does your neuro divergence work? And how does mine and where's our overlap there, and where are the bits that are going to be challenging? And then what kind of relationship container might we have that enables us to have a nourishing relationship, rather than this kind of almost argument between, this is how my neuro divergence, does it? This is how mine does, you know what? Uh, yeah, what are my relationship trauma patterns? What's my cultural background? And, you know, what's yours? And, yeah, finding that overlap and being okay with the difference, finding the way of relating, you know, also finding when it's just not, you know, that's not a very good fit, but it might be a good fit for some kind of relationship, you know. But what's, you know, instead of this idea of like, this kind of relationship, is how they should all look, and regardless of how different or similar we are in those kinds of ways we should, you know, yeah, live together and have sex together, and all these other things much more this kind of conscious and really open sharing, you know, with this idea of it's, there's not a wrong and right here, there's how you work, this how I work at the moment, which might change. And then, yeah, like, I guess, you know, we do that all the time, don't we? Like, sort of finding our way, you know, with what kind of time together can work, what kind of time online can work, whether we want to be working on a project at the moment or not. And I love, you know, that there's just this permission giving, of like, it's about finding where the overlap is, you know, and what, yeah, what's sort of mutually nourishing, rather than some sense of like, oh, because we've got this history, therefore we should do it this way, or because this is the template of, you know, writing collaborators, that somehow we should follow that or something

Alex Iantaffi: 24:08

exactly. And what I love is that, you know, obviously we're not the first people to talk about this much bigger author than us, like Bell Hooks, have talked about, what does love even mean, right? And and what is love in but what I love about our book is that we really try to grapple with some of those questions in practice, and what are some of the practices and exercises and reflections that might help us kind of be more aligned with what our values are. And even, how do we uncover what our values are? Because I think we we live in a world that tells us, like, you know, relationships fall into those boxes, and this is how we do it, right. And then also, this is how you deal, you know, with relationships that might be labeled toxics, toxic in air quotes, and not to diminish, like, as somebody who is a survivor, like, not to diminish that there can be terrible abuse that happens in all kind of relationship, but that also, like, we can kind of take all of that into account and choose for ourselves as adults. Of course, when we have that agency to be like, those are what my values are. This is how I want to relate to other humans. And part of that is that flexibility of knowing that if you care for the people around you, that relationship is going to change. Like even as a parent, I don't have this. In relationship with my 21 year old than I had when she was five, or with my 14 year old than I had when he was, like eight years old, right? And, and we are a great example of that. We started as like colleagues who moved very quickly. I mean, colleagues in the field and out of the same institution were like met at a conference. You know, we started with a romantic relationship, and here we are. It's gonna it was actually 20 years of since we were meeting, since we met, when we were writing our book. Do you remember that then we met in july 2003 and we wrote the book in july 2023, which was 20 years of our relationship, which I would, I don't even know how to label, right? Because it's like 20 Well, in next July of this year, be 22 years, right? Because it takes a minute to go from writing to publication. And so yeah. And in this way,

Meg-John Barker: 26:33

beautiful, yeah, we were doing this book 20 year mark. And also it's the last of that kind of series of book that we did together as well. So it's really meaningful. And yeah, we, I think yeah, we, our relationship has shifted, and changes changed dramatically. You know, it's got closer and more distant at different times. Yeah, I love that about it, and I need that about it, or, you know, it feels for us, you know, as clearly just essential, that things can get closer and further apart, you know, if that's even the right way to describe it, but it's much more like 345, dimensional, right? But that on every dimension shift and change over time, and actually the closest relationships are the ones that can do that. Because I think you feel safe enough and you've built trust. You know that that is okay,

Alex Iantaffi: 27:22

exactly. And when I think about the you know, my most intimate relationship, which I would count you in between, is there are those relationships where we can be radically honest, even if it can be painful, like we, even we visited like, you know, we broke up, I think eight or nine months into the broke up in airport, right about like we broke up a romantic or and sexual relationship, about eight or nine months in, you know, back in 2004 right? We got better. 2003 we ended early. 2004 we were much younger. You know, I just, I was pregnant when we met. Then I just had a baby. You had a bunch of partners, like,

Meg-John Barker: 28:04

Far too many partners, Alex, as I think you may well have pointed out at the time! [laughs]

Alex Iantaffi: 28:10

True and how it worked when I had no needs, but then the minute I had needs, we're like, oh, no, one more person with needs, which pair, you know, and I might have been attached or mono and but, like you said, it's like, but we managed, somehow, through all of that, to keep talking to one another and like, to become friends and then collaborators, you know, and and that intimacy kind of shifting and deepening, even though, you know, there were changes, and I'm sure there will be more changes, you know, moving forward, because that's life. But I think that sometimes that's what's so hard for people, right? But I like this relationship, and I want it to stay exactly as it is, yeah. And the reality is that most relationships don't say as they are, but they don't always have the flexibility to kind of hold the changes which, which is, which is not easy.

Meg-John Barker: 29:12

Yeah, really hard. I mean, that's the, I'm really saying this stuff is the hardest possible stuff. You know, it's, it's, well, I mean, it's so basically, it's so hard when people want you to be something that you can't be. And it's so hard when people can't be what you want them to be like. But it's the push and the pull, right, of relating, to find that place where you can be, you know, sort of, I mean, again, this is really Bell Hooks way of loving, isn't it that you know this, this mutuality, the sense that you're both valuable, and you know that that's, that's what love is, and you're not trying to push the other person away or pull the other person in, and neither, neither are they trying to do that to you. And that's incredibly hard. There's just so often these, these hooks of, kind of, yeah, if you want to call it, you know, sort of, sort of needy and avoidant, or whatever language you want to use for that, you know, it's, yeah, really challenging to kind of just, I guess, have the value of, like, I'm not going to do that with people and other beings and the land and everything, yeah. And then to nurture relationships where that's a sort of shared value, I guess, yeah.

Alex Iantaffi: 30:23

And I think that, you know, when we talk about it can sound so like, smooth and easy and beautiful, but it's kind of messy, like, you know, there's less

Meg-John Barker: 30:33

thing. The feelings, yeah, like with absolute terror you know that you're going to lose somebody. You know, terrible loneliness, complete rage that the person is not being what you want them to be. You know, total shame, that you realize that you are wanting somebody to be something they're not and not actually loving them very well. And I mean, this is, you know, this is absolutely like you were saying, this is the human stuff. This is what existential philosophers, you know, Buddhist scholars, all these kind of folks have been writing about because it's so hard, you know, spending, you know, lifetimes writing about this kind of stuff because it's so hard.

Alex Iantaffi: 31:11

Absolutely, and also, sorry about that human we get messy, like we say unfortunate things. I mean, we both said things to each other, you know, during our first kind of breakup, let's call it, you know, yeah, and, and then we have to find our way back to each other, knowing that things that we say when we're not in our best self are not all of who we are right, and in a way that that does mean that we need to be radically honest with ourselves and each other right, like, hey, that hurt me or that. And sometimes it can't happen in that moment like it took us, I think, many years to be able to process that in a way that was really like, had enough distance from the rawness of the moment, right? But it can be so helpful. Because, you know, I know I was like, oh, that's how that impacted me. And you were like, Oh, I totally get it. That's where I was. And I was like, oh, that's where I was, right? And in a way, that's how we learn more about ourselves and each other. But I think sometimes when we read things in books, it looks so neat, but the reality is that it's messy that can be fights, that can be dysregulation, that can be unfortunate things that people say to each other. But somehow, when we're driven by this belief that we can repair, we can, you know, reconnect the most people are not and beings are not a threat to us, even, you know it, even when it might feel so because of our own trauma, like somehow, right, we managed to find our way back to each other in different ways. Yeah, I like that. You know, people are like, Yeah,

Meg-John Barker: 33:01

I'm sorry, yeah. I was just thinking, yeah, that it can, it can just take a long time as well. You know, it just is okay to Yeah. Sometimes it takes, it takes, it can take a while. Or, you know, the relationship stuff that comes up can reveal in a work that you need to do before you're able to kind of go towards it. And, yeah, I guess, like, you say messy, and just that is all right. That is okay.

Alex Iantaffi: 33:28

And I think in a way, it asks us to move away from this idea of purity and from purity culture, right? Because it's not about here are the good people, here are the bad people. If you avoid the bad people, you're only going to be relating to good people, right? And I'm like, That is not how community works. That is not our relationships work, right?

Meg-John Barker: 33:47

But again, like, like, the right and wrong we were talking about before. I think good and bad, safe and unsafe, you know? I think it's, again, it's only in recent years, you know, and we're 50 now you know that we've really got this piece around the same people. You know, all of us are capable of really wonderful, loving things, and all of us, when we're in you know, a bad situation, are capable of terrible and really hurtful things. And there isn't an exception to that. And yeah, to be able to hold that is one of the hardest jobs of life. But actually, I think relating gets so much better when you can hold Yeah, the whole of people, whether they're vividly, you know, plural, the way we are, or whether it's just more recognizing, you know, everybody's multiplicity, and you know, how they, yeah, how, even just how you different when you're, you know, got a lot of energy versus when you're really tired, right? You know, it's just people. People are, you know, people can have a much more capacity for loving, relating, you know, sometimes than others. And different sides of them, they have more capacity and less capacity. And people are different places on their journey of self knowledge and self kindness as well.

Alex Iantaffi: 35:03

Absolutely, and I love that you mentioned that self kindness, because I think a lot of us, I know, for me, like, are brought up with like, not with that kindness often and kind of, if we are used to like motivating ourselves or judging ourselves harshly, or treating ourselves harshly, we're likely to also, you know, treat other beings that human and Non Humans kind of more harshly, or to kind of have a lot of judgment. And I mean, I. My personal judges a lot, so I'm not saying this about other people. I'm like, I can be pretty judgmental. I know when I start feeling irritated by everybody and everything, I'm like, oh, okay, Alex, time to take a break and figure out what's going on here internally. Because obviously, either you're not meeting your needs or you're in a lot of pain. Like, why are you so crabby with the multiverse, right now, right? It's not, not everybody's against me, like the traffic lights or people, right? Like, Okay, time to, like, slow down and pause and be like, What is going on internally? And how am I, like, throwing out all this uncomfortable feelings and kind of spraying them all around for what a better word. I don't know. Does that make sense totally,

Meg-John Barker: 36:21

and I think, you know, that's this piece about reconnecting with the self and cultivating self love, which is really why, you know, we stopped and retreated, you know, five years ago, and are still doing that deep inner work. Because, you know, there was just so much kind of hate and criticalness in our system, and we've been, yeah, really working with the self who's held all of that that's been one of the really big pieces. Because, like you were saying about seeing the world as a threat, I think when you can't be kind to yourself, then it is very threatening, and conflict is very threatening, because somebody might say something that just will send you into, you know, way more, you know, we were sort of like, you know, some sort of knife comes from another person, and you turn it into 1000 knives, and it's absolutely unbearable, right? And so again, that they all go together, cultivating kindness at the level of the self and our interpersonal relationships, our relationship with the world, and our spiritual or existential relationship, or whatever you want to call that, I think they're all really connected. And yeah, again, just so people don't go too hard on themselves, if they're really frightened by conflict or if they're not able to do rupture and repair. You know, this is stuff we have found incredibly difficult ourselves. And yeah, we're really lucky with this relationship that we found a way through, you know. But it is. It's incredibly hard territory.

Alex Iantaffi: 37:56

You Yeah, and I think that's the beauty. I don't talk about relationship a lot by any way. It's foundational to the book we wrote. We even put that in the introduction, right? Because we are very different people. We were brought up in different country, different cultures, you know, we have, to some degree kind of different, you know, similar yet different experiences and identities, and there's places of convergence and divergence, but somehow we've managed to keep this open dialog between us, right, and this kind of trust that we've built with one another in over 20 years of relating, kind of really trusting that we are not trying to hurt the other person. Even when we are hurt, we can say like, Oh, ouch. That's really hurtful. You know, we become more and more skillful as our trust increased, but we could have just as easily, like, walked away and never talked to each other again, and that would have been such a loss. Like, sometimes I think about it because, yeah, because that has happened with other people, where there is, like, a rapture and and sometimes I feel so sad, because I'm like, oh, what could have been if we could just slow down a little bit more and figure out what is happening, right? As long as there is, of course, physical safety, because that physical safety is so important, and, of course, emotional safety is also important. It's a little bit trickier, because sometimes we can feel unsafe when we're uncomfortable. I know that is one of the things that can happen a lot under this kind of colonial white supremacist culture, like, especially when we're traumatized, like, am I truly unsafe? Am I uncomfortable? And sometimes we can also mistake lack of safety for lack of comfort, which is not great, right? And there's so much discernment that it takes to stay in relationship that is really hard. Like, really

Meg-John Barker: 39:57

hard, yeah, really hard. Like, say it's both ways. It's like, we might get, well, we will, you know, and we have definitely had a lot of this over the last few years, of like, yeah, seeing something as incredibly threatening. That's actually not so, but also not noticing that something's really threatening when it is, you know, or just a really bad idea. So, yeah, I think hopefully the book, you know, offers some guidance of how people can start to tune into themselves, and also what kind of support they can get. And, yeah, there's a lot of kind of people supporting each other with this stuff. I feel like in the last few years, hopefully. This understanding of, yeah, things like trauma and neuro divergence and the way being in this quite violent culture impacts us. You know, that's all got a little more awareness around it, and, yeah, hopefully this, this book, does help people to, sort of like, apply that to their relating.

Alex Iantaffi: 40:56

I think what's tricky, I think, in a way, is also that you know more and more as we descend into this kind of increasing level of fascism in many different places across the globe where you know, and in a way, there's a lot of purity culture within fascism too, right? This is right. This is wrong. This is the truth. This is the, you know, these are the lies, like things being in need, categories. It feels very counter cultural in a way, to have a book out that's like, look, it's actually, there's so much nuance. There is so much nuance in relating, you know, like you said, you can feel, you know, you can be in a situation that it's unsafe and not recognize it, and you can be in a situation that is safe but uncomfortable and feel like there's lack of safety there. Like, you know, in a way, we're asking readers to really go on this journey of like, nuance, radical honesty with themselves and each other. It is not an easy ask that we do of the readers. In some ways, it does feel like in a world that where people want fast answers, we're definitely not giving fast answers. In our book about believing, do we?

Meg-John Barker: 42:10

There's a lot about slow you know, and I guess that's, again, what you get in a lot of the trauma work is it can't be done fast. And then, yeah, we've really learned that the hard way over here. So yeah, and again, like, what does slowing down look like? And yeah, I guess we found that the chapters that kind of got really, really big with those ones towards the end, about how do we do this sort of slow, conscious, consensual relating, and again, lots of different ways, because it's not going to be the same for everybody. So hopefully there's a lot of tools in there, and also signposts to other people who have great tools for doing this kind of, yeah, really emotional, embodied work, right?

Alex Iantaffi: 42:58

Absolutely. And what I love is, like the slowness is also it's not necessarily like a steady pace, because we're humans. There are times where we're gonna get excited, we're gonna fall head over heels in love, right? Like with the place, or with the person and and we might make, like, big choices, and that's not necessarily wrong either. It's just like, it's more of this attitude of like, Yeah, let's like, life is gonna have a varying pace and and also when we want to be intentional, like, Can we take a moment? Can we take a step back? Can we relate a lot more slowly? Can we try not to make brush intense decisions, like, for forever, right? Like, we can be like, Okay, I need a little space, yeah, take, like, a few weeks or a moment to like, yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah?

Meg-John Barker: 43:51

And I think it's not so much about speed as again, as you, as you get to know yourself better, you have a better sense of like, am I, am I in an okay place to do this? Or am I likely to, yeah, go into blame or defensiveness or claps and and it's like, you know when, when you're feeling you know really grounded, and when you know what that feels like in your body feeling grounded, you know, you're able to be sincere and be present, then you might go quite fast, you know, but when you realize, you know, or, yeah, I'm really edgy right now, I'm or I'm dissociating a bit, or I'm tired, you know, it's kind of like learning how to put the pause. Or, you know, just explore whether something might be communicated slowly in writing or again, knowing our neoaddurgence, knowing our trauma patterns, knowing what work just plain works for us and doesn't work for us, and being able to articulate that stuff and again, and not not getting into the purity type idea that you know, if we tick all those boxes, then it's all going to be great all the time. We're not going to have difficult feelings. Because unfortunately, those are still going to keep coming, but hopefully we can, yeah, weather them a bit differently, perhaps than than when we, you know, instinctively, kind of lash out or lash in.

Alex Iantaffi: 45:09

And I think there's a lot to be said about the role of shame as well in relationship. Because if we have shame about who we are, or we react, I know for myself, like I've had to do a lot of work. I'm like, yeah, some of my neuro divergence means that sometimes I have meltdowns, I can lash out, and I want to be accountable, and I want to work on that. And also there needs to be a level of like. Uh, acceptance and not collapsing into shame or hiding, because I don't think that's helpful either. That's actually can cause a lot of actually abusive situation too, especially for like, neurodivergent folks who are autistic, for example. I know I dealt with so much shame, and I know other folks have too, and though sometimes somehow it's like, well, if I melt down, maybe it's okay that other people are treating me like this, right, because there's something wrong in air quotes with me, all the internalized sanism and ableism and what we consider acceptable or not acceptable in dominant culture. And so there is a lot of struggling with, like, acceptance of our whole self, knowing that, you know, we all have the capacity for good and bad. We all have the capacity for, you know, loving, affirming relating and totally like, distractive, yeah, painful relating, I don't Does that makes sense,

Meg-John Barker: 46:34

total, total sense, yeah? And I feel like there's such a longing in us, in our system, you know, to get to a point to be able to be with, like you said, to be able to be with discomfort, to be able to be with these hard moments, yeah, to be able to be with somebody when they're struggling, when they're melting down, you know, and and to be able to be with ourselves, you know, again, it's so much about not abandoning yourself and not abandoning others. And again, you know, just as we've said a lot of times already on you know, this is not easy territory. And yeah, the more, I guess is, the more honest and loving we can be with ourselves, the more able we might be able to be that honest and loving with others. And you know, let's acknowledge it's a lifelong journey, and it's okay that we get it wrong along the way.

Alex Iantaffi: 47:30

Oh, we're definitely gonna get it wrong along the way. I know I'm in my 50s. I got a lot of things wrong. Obviously, I got maybe some things well, and that's a struggle, even moving away from that wrong or right, like I have learned, like I've had, you know, relationships that felt more or less loving. I've had moments in my long term relationships when I've been more or less loving. I've had moments with you when I've been more or less loving towards you, right? It's like, before we signed on, you were telling me about your T shirt, which is really awesome. Oh yeah, that kind of sums up the book, like you said, right?

Meg-John Barker: 48:10

I'd love you can see, but it says, Love will keep us together. But it's a reversible t shirt, so it also says Love will tear us apart on the other side.

Alex Iantaffi: 48:24

And and for those of you are just listening on the podcast, don't worry. We're not doing a show and tell of MJ like turning their T shirt inside out, so you don't missing out, although you can absolutely come on YouTube and and watch MJ show the t shirt. Love will keep us together. Love will tear us apart. But I think that's a beautiful paradox, right? That kind of and that's how I feel, even in my love for the ecosystem right now with all this climate crisis, right? I feel like I could spend all day like, heartbroken and I and I am, but also I look outside and I'm totally in love with where I live, and I'm totally heartbroken, right? But the, you know, the fires in LA, and then, yes, exactly,

Meg-John Barker: 49:12

yeah. Can we hold the bothness? Can we hold, yeah, how how terrible relationships can be, and how wonderful and missed, and how mysterious is even some, you know, stay together, some break up, you know, and how, yeah, can we hold the world at the moment as this utterly beautiful, magnificent thing, and also this incredibly traumatized and traumatizing thing, you know, it's just, it's all of it. And again, I feel like the kind of tools, hopefully that we're offering the book might help people expand, perhaps a little that capacity to hold it all themselves and others, you know. And again, I think you know, like you say, comes back to shame, comes back so much to this dominant culture of having to be good, and you know, this terror of being seen as bad in any way, because, because of shame, and yeah, like, starts withholding the bothness and or the all this in ourselves, and, you know, hopefully expands that offer to others as well,

Alex Iantaffi: 50:22

absolutely. And I think that's the thing. It's like, it is, in a way, relating with the ecosystem, with others. It's also a way to of relating to ourselves, right? It's kind of, how do we come to accept the all of ourselves, right, the parts that we like and the parts we dislike, the parts where we know we can do and create beautiful things, but we can also be distractive and harmful, because we're humans, and we have the both both hands, right, both the potential of creating and the potential of destroying, both the potential of loving and the potential for hate, right? And the more we accept that about ourselves, I think the more intentional and conscious we can become in our day to day choices,

Meg-John Barker: 51:08

yeah, and again, I think, you know, almost like the beautiful and the terrible thing about the times we living through is there just holding up a mirror in a way that feels more so than ever before, of like it's very hard to avoid those facts about Yeah, the bothness, the capacity that we all have for Yeah, creation and destruction, because it's just being so starkly revealed in all these different areas all at once. Yeah,

Alex Iantaffi: 51:42

yeah. I think, quite like, we went down this kind of, I mean, I think useful rabbit hole in terms of people understanding what they might expect from the book. I mean, maybe they're totally put off, and they're like, why would I pick up this? Even gonna give me answers. But a little while ago, you were like, I have two things I want to talk about, and now I'm like, Oh, what was the other unusual?

Meg-John Barker: 52:05

But I've managed to hold on to it. Oh, good, which was just how relational the book was, I suppose. And it's kind of maybe a nice place to start rounding up. Because obviously we talked a lot about how it was relational, in terms of our relationship, but it was also like held in a much wider relationship. And I suppose you know a couple ones I would mention would be our friend Hannah, who put us up in this gorgeous place Living Well, I guess it was the land as well. It was the land and the water. It's like a kind of water mill by a riverside in Galicia. And so, you know that comes into the book, being in this peaceful location, being able to go and swing in a hammock, you know, Hannah cooking meals for us. And so much gratitude there and then. Yeah, like Sophia, who wrote the forward for us, you know, ordered, obviously, all our different relationships, our whole life that have gone into the book, from our kind of early family relationships onwards, right? So, yeah, I feel like seeing, I guess I always now see everything I do as relational, I mean, in the sense now I'm kind of writing as a we, you know. So there's various different selves in here that are contributing more explicitly in this book never before, but also it's everybody I've read and everybody I've related with. I've got a friend who started using we when they write, not because they're plural, but because they want to acknowledge that it's just not an I. There is no i. There is, you know, bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hahn and you know John, well, Lord, and I don't know Pema Chodron, and you know Audrey Lord, and you know, there's all these people, whether they'd like, you know, the words that we, that we use, that are so influenced by their words, or not, we are very influenced by all those people, you know. And equally, I guess, the ones we disagree with, you know. So it's all in there. So it's a very relational book. Does that? Does that sort of resonate for you as well? Alex,

Alex Iantaffi: 54:21

oh, my God, it resonates so much. Because often, you know, we have the this illusion of the self, right? Even when I think about rom Harris book, The singular self, and even this idea, like, what is our singular self? Whether, even if we're not plural, like, are we really a singular self when we bring our ancestors with us, our history? You know, we cannot move out of culture like we said in kind of passbook and other folks have said. And so there is something about colonialism, I think, and white supremacy and patriarchy, I think that one us want to feed us this like almost exceptionalism of the self. And yet when I write, I often feel like I am taking all of this with me. I do have my ancestors with me, my relationship with spirit, my relationship with place. Like you said, this book is the book it is because of the place we were able to write it in, and the way we were held with so much care and love and and the way we're held by community, including the community of readers. You know, yes, keep choosing to like, read our books or recommend our books or. Asked them on to like other people or use them to teach in their courses, right? There is like this web like, and, you know, again, this is not new, from my point of view. This is like most indigenous cultures that I know of talk about, like being in deep relationships with one another, right? And so for me, that's the beauty of this book, is that we really talk about the ease and complexity of being in relationship, right? I know that I think I do talk about this in the book, at one point, though, I from, if I think about, you know, romantic relationships, I have a real hard time with the concept of dating, right? It kind of almost denies that we're constantly in relationship, yeah, like we're constantly in relationship with one another. It's okay. So now we want to explore this aspect of relationship, right? It may work. It might not work just because we're in a relationship, but I think because people think that there are so many expectations, or may even read expectations where there may not be expectations, right, there's just this, like under parent or weight even to the word relationship, yes. And so when I think about even the title, and maybe that's a good place as well to keep moving towards the end of this conversation, I'm sure we'll have more like, even when we think about the term relationships, there is a weight to it, and so I really like, I would love for the listeners, or if you're watching on YouTube, take a moment to breathe and even notice Bucha what comes up for you when you hear The word relationships, I feel like the moment you say the word relationship, there is like a world of values and expectations and beliefs and experiences that kind of crowds the space. Yes, that makes sense.

Meg-John Barker: 57:30

I think so this, yeah, just this general theme, I think, of how we tend to what's the word, like, solidify things. You know, just like we tend to solidify people. You know, we were saying it's like, good, bad, safe and safe, it's easy to kind of solidify a relationship. And what it means are relationships of all kind, I guess, you know, romantic relationships particularly have that, like, I'm in a relationship, and it comes burdened with a lot of expectations and stories. But I think yeah, it's Yeah, so easy to do that. So something about the kind of relating as kind of something fluid that we do over time feels a little Yeah, a little looser, perhaps,

Alex Iantaffi: 58:15

yeah. And I think what I love about what we do in the book is that we do kind of deconstruct this concept. So they even when we say, like, I want more intimacy in my relationship, it was like, Well, what does that mean? Like, what kind of intimacy? I think at this point I have like, 17 different types of intimacy. Oh, and see it as well, and also it's like the different parts of us, whether we're singled or plural, have different needs when we're relating and even in different moments like that, just being able to have that self and other acceptance, if there is even a separation between self and other, of course, because if we're all part of the web, what impacts somebody else impacts me, and what impacts me impacts somebody else and and for me, that's the beauty of relating. Is that interdependence, right? It's like, it's not, it's challenging the myth of independence, which is which serves capitalism is so colonial right and and really move towards this much more indigenous concept of interdependence, right that I think is central to Many indigenous movements, is central to disability justice. Like yeah, this idea that if we're all part of the web, we are interdependent. We depend on each other for survival, for and so relating is inevitable in some way. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's that sounds very doom. Relating is inevitable. So you better get our book How to Understand Your relationships, to know how to do it. Better look at me like I can I can sum it up in a sound bite,

Meg-John Barker: 1:00:03

relating. It's never before. I love it. Yeah, totally, but yeah that we're so again, it goes back to what I said right at the start. It's every level tries to kind of disconnect us from others, which is why it gets so painful, because we get very much like we are this separate object and the other, the other, whoever the other is, is a separate object, this kind of us and themself and other. And it's a long, long journey to this reconnection that is so vital, yeah, for the planet, for you know, my. The conflict for pretty much everything we're facing so funny, like, I'm saying this, and there's a little, little thing going around on the computer saying reconnecting,

Alex Iantaffi: 1:00:49

like even the internet is like, relating is hard. Yeah, I'm trying to relay you across. Be compassionate.

Meg-John Barker: 1:01:00

Yeah, that's what we need. We can

Alex Iantaffi: 1:01:03

so there's always that is what we did, reconnection, but from the internet, which I hope we are connected enough for recording this episode, but also reconnecting with ourselves, the ecosystem and with one another, because relating is inevitable. There you go. This is my mantra or not, let's be less culturally appropriate. The my leading phrase for 2025.

Meg-John Barker: 1:01:31

Love it. Love it.

Alex Iantaffi: 1:01:35

So at the end of episode, always ask, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you were hoping we would talk about? So I'm gonna ask us both these questions in this dialog. Is there anything we haven't talked about that we were hoping to talk about?

Meg-John Barker: 1:01:53

I I just Yeah, only that also, yeah, do, do? Look out for Alex's excellent edited collection on trans and disability, which is just Yeah, absolutely wonderful from what we've read so far. Yeah, and hopefully you'll get to do a whole whole episode on that specifically. But yeah, you've got the two books out, and I think we really want to recognize that, and they're both really important, and lots of really interesting overlaps between the two as well.

Alex Iantaffi: 1:02:32

Oh, thank you. That is really kind, and I am excited to see what happens next to our writing partnership, because for the first time in several years, we don't have a project that we're doing together, but I know that we are relating to one another, and other projects are slowly emerging, and I'm sure at some point we'll find that beautiful overlap of your interest with my interest, and we'll get to nerd out and write another book, yeah? And in the meantime, we just get to enjoy relating without writing for a minute,

Meg-John Barker: 1:03:07

yeah, and maybe supporting each other with our separate projects as well. Like you know that that just feels beautiful to me, that. I mean, we do that a lot anyway, but in a way, not having a specific us project maybe frees up the possibility for sort of doing other kinds of support of each other's creativity, which, yeah, I'd really enjoy,

Alex Iantaffi: 1:03:35

absolutely, I think that's one of the beautiful things in our relating, is that we do support each other, relating to other people, relating to writing creative projects. So I'm really looking forward to see what happens next for both of us, separately and in our kind of beautiful partnership which continues and changes and flows with time and for so thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, MJ, for the beautiful time we got to spend together today, and to all of you wonderful gender stories listeners would love and appreciate if you get a copy of How to Understand Your relationships and or of the anthology trans and disabled, they're both published by Jessica Kingsley, and watch the space for all the other beautiful projects that MJ and I are kind of involved in, and we let you know about in due course. And until then, I hope that your relating is full of healing, spaciousness, growth, beauty and joy, and until then.