The Interracial Couple

The Lover's Journal prompts for week 2 are: 
1. List 5 things about your partner that make you smile and
2. how can you show up more authentically for your relationship this week?

Answering the above questions proved a bit difficult since this week as Cera has been a bit depressed. This meant that our usual rhythm has been thrown out of whack. So in order to turn up for the relationship more authentically this week, I make a commitment to allow her space to recover her spirits while also allowing myself the time to center myself so I can engage with her with more intentionality and presence when we're together.

Most people give up on their goals after their first attempt at achieving these ends in failure. Yet the problem isn't the goals but rather the expectations.

In this episode of The Interracial Couple Podcast we share our experiences with failure over the years in our personal lives, relationships and businesses.

The bad news is that you will also fail at one thing or another this year. The good news is that you are not a failure until you totally give up on your goals. Here are our lessons on going around failure to achieve your personal and interpersonal goals.

We are also launching a guided journal called The Lover's Journal. It offers journaling prompts and activities you can do as a couple that will deepen your understanding and appreciation of each other. You can get your copy here www.theloversjournal.com 

What made you fall in love with your partner? Are they still there? What do they do everyday that makes you two stay in love?

On this episode, Matthew and Cera make their first entries into The Lover's Journal. This week's prompt is: List the top 10 things that made you fall in love with your lover. They range from Matthew's ability for active listening and being a family man, and Cera's sense of humor and constant thirst for inner work to make the relationship work. Some of the reasons we fell in love are common to each of us.

Share with us your reasons for falling in love with your partner?

ABOUT US

MATTHEW started his career as an accidental filmmaker. He wrote a “practice script,”  hoping one day he could write one that he could sell or produce. That script became his first film, “Senses of Place,” which went on to win awards on the film festival circuit and was distributed by FilmBuff. 

Matthew then moved to Hollywood where he eventually made nine feature films, eight documentaries, and worked with actors Carrie-Anne Moss, Zac Efron, Edi Gathegi, Melora Hardin and many more. He worked with producers Kevin Costner, Bill Borden – Academy Award winner Francis Ford Coppola and Oscar-nominated director Mike Johnson. He has even shared the screen with Josh Brolin, Neil Patrick Harris, Kane Hodder, Naveen Andrews, and many more.

Last year, he released the documentary film, “Hardball: The Girls of Summer.” Currently, he lives between California and East Africa, writing and developing new projects, while consulting on film and TV projects. 

Visit his website to see his work – or check him out on IMDb.com

CERA graduated from UCLA with a degree in International Development and Entrepreneurship in 2018, after living in Los Angeles for eight years. 

She grew up in rural Kenya and at the age of nine, she lost her childhood home to civil war. That forced her to move to a Nairobi ghetto, where she experienced a different kind of poverty.

This experience shaped her mission. She returned to Kenya to start Ecodunia, a social enterprise that makes a difference in the lives of the poor by creating work opportunities and educating girls from under-priviledged communities. Ecodunia is not only driven by profit, but with a mission to lift people out of generational poverty, while making beautiful, useful and sustainable products. 

Culturally, we reward overactivity more than productivity. Yet to have a productive time requires that we take time out for recreation and self care. One of the habits I took up while in Kenya and especially in 2020 was giving myself more time to journal and tend to my inner garden -as it were. The benefits of doing this together with my partner cannot be overstated.

On this episode of The Interracial Couple Podcast, we discuss:

1. How attitude matters when faced with challenges in your relationship or life in general

2. How journalling helps when reflecting on decisions you've made over time

3. How our relationship benefited once we started reading books and journaling together 

4. How we came to compose the prompts and challenges that form The Lover's Journal

Every couple argues -but when does it turn from simply arguing to fighting?

On this weeks podcast, we discuss:

1. the differences between arguing and fighting

2. how Cera learnt to fight for the relationship instead of leaving to avoid conflict

3. how Matthew came to appreciate compromise as something that can make the relationship healthy

4. the most common causes of our arguments/ fights as a couple

5. why the holiday season is stressful for couples and how to resolve these disagreements with your partner 


BIOS

MATTHEW started his career as an accidental filmmaker. He wrote a “practice script,”  hoping one day he could write one that he could sell or produce. That script became his first film, “Senses of Place,” which went on to win awards on the film festival circuit and was distributed by FilmBuff. 

Matthew then moved to Hollywood where he eventually made nine feature films, eight documentaries, and worked with actors Carrie-Anne Moss, Zac Efron, Edi Gathegi, Melora Hardin and many more. He worked with producers Kevin Costner, Bill Borden – Academy Award winner Francis Ford Coppola and Oscar-nominated director Mike Johnson. He has even shared the screen with Josh Brolin, Neil Patrick Harris, Kane Hodder, Naveen Andrews, and many more.

Last year, he released the documentary film, “Hardball: The Girls of Summer.” Currently, he lives between California and East Africa, writing and developing new projects, while consulting on film and TV projects. 

Visit his website to see his work – or check him out on IMDb.com

CERA graduated from UCLA with a degree in International Development and Entrepreneurship in 2018, after living in Los Angeles for eight years. 

She grew up in rural Kenya and at the age of nine, she lost her childhood home to civil war. That forced her to move to a Nairobi ghetto, where she experienced a different kind of poverty.

This experience shaped her mission. She returned to Kenya to start Ecodunia, a social enterprise that makes a difference in the lives of the poor by creating work opportunities and educating girls from under-priviledged communities. Ecodunia is not only driven by profit, but with a mission to lift people out of generational poverty, while making beautiful, useful and sustainable products.

With most things we do in life, we have to jump in and learn on the go. No books, training or advice for others can ever prepare us fully as the experience we get from doing something by ourselves. For instance, you cannot study how relationships work unless you’re in one.

Today on The Interracial Couple Podcast, we discuss the value of going through the process and learning by/ while doing and:

-how we anticipate challenges in our relationship and prepared to overcome them

-the necessity of failing at the start. So be okay with sucking at new challenges.

-what is active engagement?

-who is the right person to understudy

Share your thoughts with us



ABOUT US

MATTHEW started his career as an accidental filmmaker. He wrote a “practice script,”  hoping one day he could write one that he could sell or produce. That script became his first film, “Senses of Place,” which went on to win awards on the film festival circuit and was distributed by FilmBuff. 

Matthew then moved to Hollywood where he eventually made nine feature films, eight documentaries, and worked with actors Carrie-Anne Moss, Zac Efron, Edi Gathegi, Melora Hardin and many more. He worked with producers Kevin Costner, Bill Borden – Academy Award winner Francis Ford Coppola and Oscar-nominated director Mike Johnson. He has even shared the screen with Josh Brolin, Neil Patrick Harris, Kane Hodder, Naveen Andrews, and many more.

Last year, he released the documentary film, “Hardball: The Girls of Summer.” Currently, he lives between California and East Africa, writing and developing new projects, while consulting on film and TV projects. 

Visit his website to see his work – or check him out on IMDb.com

CERA graduated from UCLA with a degree in International Development and Entrepreneurship in 2018, after living in Los Angeles for eight years. 

She grew up in rural Kenya and at the age of nine, she lost her childhood home to civil war. That forced her to move to a Nairobi ghetto, where she experienced a different kind of poverty.

This experience shaped her mission. She returned to Kenya to start Ecodunia, a social enterprise that makes a difference in the lives of the poor by creating work opportunities and educating girls from under-priviledged communities. Ecodunia is not only driven by profit, but with a mission to lift people out of generational poverty, while making beautiful, useful and sustainable products. 

It's inevitable for any committed relationship to change you: but why do others feel this as growth while others suffer it as a loss of identity?

On this episode of The Interracial Couple Podcast, we discuss:

1. Personal versus shared identity in a relationship

2. Signs that you're losing your identity to your partner

3. Is it true that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with? As Jim Rhon says

4. How do you protect your identity from being lost in a marriage

5. The place of compromise in a relationship

Is watching porn any different from watching Netflix? According to Cera it's all the same since we're not our thoughts therefore it cannot be cheating if I get off on watching hot videos of other women. Even then, I must admit I'd feel humiliated if my girlfriend walked in on me watching the stuff. 

On this Episode (42) of The Interracial Couple Podcast, we discuss:

1. Is watching porn cheating?

2. When does watching porn become a problem for you and the relationship?

3. How to handle your partner's porn habit and insecurities that arise from this

4. The upsides of pornography -are there any?

5. Edging and how conserving sexual energy leads to healthy relationships with yourself and your partner

What are your thought on porn and it's connection to cheating? How does it affect the health of your relationship?



ABOUT US
CERA graduated from UCLA with a degree in International Development and Entrepreneurship in 2018, after living in Los Angeles for eight years. 

She grew up in rural Kenya and at the age of nine, she lost her childhood home to civil war. That forced her to move to a Nairobi ghetto, where she experienced a different kind of poverty.

This experience shaped her mission. She returned to Kenya to start Ecodunia, a social enterprise that makes a difference in the lives of the poor by creating work opportunities and educating girls from under-priviledged communities. Ecodunia is not only driven by profit, but with a mission to lift people out of generational poverty, while making beautiful, useful and sustainable products.


MATTHEW started his career as an accidental filmmaker. He wrote a “practice script,”  hoping one day he could write one that he could sell or produce. That script became his first film, “Senses of Place,” which went on to win awards on the film festival circuit and was distributed by FilmBuff. 

Matthew then moved to Hollywood where he eventually made nine feature films, eight documentaries, and worked with actors Carrie-Anne Moss, Zac Efron, Edi Gathegi, Melora Hardin and many more. He worked with producers Kevin Costner, Bill Borden – Academy Award winner Francis Ford Coppola and Oscar-nominated director Mike Johnson. He has even shared the screen with Josh Brolin, Neil Patrick Harris, Kane Hodder, Naveen Andrews, and many more.

Last year, he released the documentary film, “Hardball: The Girls of Summer.” Currently, he lives between California and East Africa, writing and developing new projects, while consulting on film and TV projects. 

Visit his website to see his work – or check him out on IMDb.com

One of the reasons relationships fail is our expectations that one partner will become our everything and fulfill all our needs in this life. No one person should be made to bear the pressure to do for us what we should do for ourselves plus what the whole community is for -yet that is the reality of our modern society.

On this week's Interracial Couple Podcast, we delve into the question of how much we can depend on our partners. We discuss:

1. What leads us to be too dependent on our romantic partners?

2. What's the harm in my boyfriend/ girlfriend being my best friend?

3. Why your partner should not serve as your therapist or emotional support creature

4. Taking responsibility for your financial, emotional and sexual needs in a relationship

ABOUT US

MATTHEW started his career as an accidental filmmaker. He wrote a “practice script,”  hoping one day he could write one that he could sell or produce. That script became his first film, “Senses of Place,” which went on to win awards on the film festival circuit and was distributed by FilmBuff. 

Matthew then moved to Hollywood where he eventually made nine feature films, eight documentaries, and worked with actors Carrie-Anne Moss, Zac Efron, Edi Gathegi, Melora Hardin and many more. He worked with producers Kevin Costner, Bill Borden – Academy Award winner Francis Ford Coppola and Oscar-nominated director Mike Johnson. He has even shared the screen with Josh Brolin, Neil Patrick Harris, Kane Hodder, Naveen Andrews, and many more.

Last year, he released the documentary film, “Hardball: The Girls of Summer.” Currently, he lives between California and East Africa, writing and developing new projects, while consulting on film and TV projects. 

Visit his website to see his work – or check him out on IMDb.com

CERA graduated from UCLA with a degree in International Development and Entrepreneurship in 2018, after living in Los Angeles for eight years. 

She grew up in rural Kenya and at the age of nine, she lost her childhood home to civil war. That forced her to move to a Nairobi ghetto, where she experienced a different kind of poverty.

This experience shaped her mission. She returned to Kenya to start Ecodunia, a social enterprise that makes a difference in the lives of the poor by creating work opportunities and educating girls from under-priviledged communities. Ecodunia is not only driven by profit, but with a mission to lift people out of generational poverty, while making beautiful, useful and sustainable products.

Can you have a healthy relationship with a perfectionist? Most people will answer in the negative since perfectionism is something that has hurt more relationships than developed. It's for this same reason that my boyfriend denies being a perfectionist.

On this week's episode of The Interracial Couple Podcast, we discuss:

1. what is perfectionism, and how is perfectionism different from having high standards?

2. is perfectionism cultural?

3. how can we make one partner's perfectionism work for the other and the relationship?

4. how do we temper our high expectations of our partner's perfectionist traits so that perfectionism doesn't become controlling

Share your thoughts and questions with us below or via [email protected]



ABOUT US

MATTHEW started his career as an accidental filmmaker. He wrote a “practice script,”  hoping one day he could write one that he could sell or produce. That script became his first film, “Senses of Place,” which went on to win awards on the film festival circuit and was distributed by FilmBuff. 

Matthew then moved to Hollywood where he eventually made nine feature films, eight documentaries, and worked with actors Carrie-Anne Moss, Zac Efron, Edi Gathegi, Melora Hardin and many more. He worked with producers Kevin Costner, Bill Borden – Academy Award winner Francis Ford Coppola and Oscar-nominated director Mike Johnson. He has even shared the screen with Josh Brolin, Neil Patrick Harris, Kane Hodder, Naveen Andrews, and many more.

Last year, he released the documentary film, “Hardball: The Girls of Summer.” Currently, he lives between California and East Africa, writing and developing new projects, while consulting on film and TV projects. 

Visit his website to see his work – or check him out on IMDb.com

CERA graduated from UCLA with a degree in International Development and Entrepreneurship in 2018, after living in Los Angeles for eight years. 

She grew up in rural Kenya and at the age of nine, she lost her childhood home to civil war. That forced her to move to a Nairobi ghetto, where she experienced a different kind of poverty.

This experience shaped her mission. She returned to Kenya to start Ecodunia, a social enterprise that makes a difference in the lives of the poor by creating work opportunities and educating girls from under-priviledged communities. Ecodunia is not only driven by profit, but with a mission to lift people out of generational poverty, while making beautiful, useful and sustainable products.