Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / **BONUS EPISODE** How to Survive the Holidays When You’re Breaking Generational Cycles

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**BONUS EPISODE** How to Survive the Holidays When You’re Breaking Generational Cycles · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to today's episode of the Healing Her Story Podcast.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: If this is your first time here, welcome.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so honored that you chose to press play on today's episode.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if this is not your first time, if you are returning, welcome back.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So lovely to have you and to spend a little bit of extra time with you during this holiday week.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I am coming to you today with a relatively short and sweet episode, all centered on the holidays, as the holidays are officially here.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And while this season is wrapped up in messages of gratitude and gift giving and travel and sparkly lights and drinks and sweets, for many of us, especially those doing the hard, messy, and sometimes painfully lonely work of breaking ancestral cycles, this time of year can feel complicated.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it can be magical.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it can also be very activating.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: We carry this cultural assumption that everyone enjoys their family dynamic, that the holidays mean warmth, joy, and connection.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: But that simply isn't true for everyone.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Especially if you're the only one in your family or the only one in your lineage doing things differently.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us come from toxic family systems.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us are estranged.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us have experienced loss this year.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the death of a family member, a friend, or even the loss of a dream or an identity.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Holidays tend to illuminate those absences with a sharpness that can sometimes catch us off guard.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes we can think that something is wrong with us if we're not having this ideal at this ideal experience of the holidays.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to name and normalize how okay it is to not be okay during this time of year.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe, like many cycle breakers, your values have evolved.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're realizing that parts of the holiday vibe just feel kind of like bullshit.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I get it.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: We wait all year to practice gratitude on one day when true gratitude is a daily embodied practice.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we rarely acknowledge the true history of days like Thanksgiving.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like many of us, I grew up with the sanitized story: pilgrim kindness, peaceful gatherings, shared meals.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the fuller truth is that this land was taken violently from indigenous people.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that truth deserves to be named.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Cultural psychologist Eduardo Durin talks about how intergenerational trauma is carried not only in our families, but in the very land itself.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So honoring that truth doesn't diminish the day, it can actually deepen our presence and integrity during it.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if any of this resonates, this episode is for you.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm offering five practices to explore that may be able to support you if you're wanting to experience the holidays differently this year.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And not just as a reenactment of harmful patterns, but as a reclamation of your values, your nervous system, and your truth.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, start the day intentionally.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Every holiday, I begin the morning as I normally would with meditation, breath, and movement.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Even if I'm traveling, I carve out at least an hour to ground into my body and clarify what I want from the day.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Research in somatic psychology shows that grounding practices regulate the vagus nerve and support emotional resilience.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: When you begin in yourself, you're less likely to be pulled into the old family dynamics or roles you've worked so hard to outgrow this year.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Two, change your language.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: You may have noticed I call this day a holiday, not Thanksgiving.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's small, but language shapes nervous system perception.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: In trauma research, we know that wounds carry implicit cues for the body.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, words carry implicit cues for the body.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: They can trigger or soften our internal responses.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Calling it simply a holiday creates a neutral container for me.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: It can let you hold your own meaning of the day.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, it's more about rest and connection and spaciousness without the cultural conditioning baked into the word Thanksgiving.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, acknowledge the land.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know who the original stewards of the land you are living on, or where you're traveling to, this is a powerful time to learn.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Where I live here in Sacramento, California, it's the Nissanan and the Miwok tribes.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: This year I've set the intention to learn more about the tribes in Southern California since that's where I'll be spending the day.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'll likely be making an offering.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe some blood that I have frozen in the freezer.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe something else I'm gonna feel into it as the days go by.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: There is a bit of a vulnerability here because this isn't really something that my family does.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I have this small fear or worry about someone seeing me or what they might think of me if I do it, or maybe they don't understand, or maybe they don't want anything to do with it.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's also this thought that maybe they'll be more open to it than I think.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Acknowledging the land is such a beautiful practice of respect, of remembrance, and almost of relational repair, if if we think of the earth, Mother Earth, as a living being for that which she truly is.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about how we're in relationship with the land.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Indigenous scholars describe land acknowledgement as a way of reorienting ourselves towards truth and accountability instead of guilt.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing I like to do to lean into this practice is make a dish inspired by foods that indigenous folks ate.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's a soup that I like to make called Three Sisters Soup, and there is a little bit of history to uh this dish.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: It has beans and corn and squash, and those three foods being the three sisters, the indigenous tribes would grow these foods, and they would grow these foods together, and they grew together quite harmoniously.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And as it got into the colder months, these foods deeply nourish the people, the indigenous people, through the later fall and winter months.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of richness to this dish as well.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I make it every year.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: I just made a batch earlier this week, and we had it at the start of our week actually, and we made an offering on our ancestral altar, and we've been enjoying that soup all week.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think it might be gone by the time it comes time to head to Southern California.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: If I feel inspired, I may make another batch there.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I I made it for myself, and that felt really important to me.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the soup turned out delicious, by the way, probably the most delicious I've ever made it.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something you could explore as well.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, participate in the economic blackout.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's a movement happening right now encouraging people to abstain from spending at major retailers this week.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really curious to see how many people actually do it.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't usually do Black Friday shopping, so it won't be hard for me.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And as a business owner, because I do run a somatic therapy and coaching practice, as I was really refining what I was offering as the years have gone by.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: In my earlier years of entrepreneurship, when I taught more classes and hosted retreats, I would try to put an offer together for Black Friday.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I always felt this pressure to like come up with something and give it the right price and post about it on social media a bunch.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm still a very small business anyway, so by no means am I someone who has 40,000 followers on Instagram or anything like that to really be able to offer these offerings to more specifically in my earlier years.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it just never worked, it never felt right for me.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was always this weird pressure to like get everything ready to put out there, and I'm just tired and like I didn't really want to deal with all of it.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, they were never really successful for me anyway.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And as it was coming again this year, I had to remind myself: no, we don't do Black Friday offers because we don't really align with the values of Black Friday, of consumerism and buying things.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I buy things and people do pay me for services that I offer, but there's a different energy to it, and there's a different energy to the work that I'm doing, and I don't really want it rooted in these consumeristic, capitalistic ways, at least to a degree, because to a certain degree, this is the system in which we are all currently living and operating in.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do we operate in it in a way that is in alignment with our values while still playing the game, if you will?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So depending on what is doable for you, you could potentially do no shopping at all this weekend.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't spend any money at all this weekend.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I will be traveling, so I've I've given some thought to this, and I thought, okay, I'm gonna have to buy gas because we're we're driving.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm probably gonna need to buy some snacks.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: So those are things that I will have to.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, have to, but if I would like to get to my destination by car, then I will have to.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: But what I did is I bought all my produce locally, like I do every week, and that's what I'm gonna be bringing for my dish that I'm making down in Southern California.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: My partner and I also agreed to skip Amazon, the big Black Friday shopping weeking weekend.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: I, in the spirit of integrity, did make a small order before the weekend.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so while it may not completely be what some might consider right, it was a way that did work well for me.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because as a small business owner, it did feel right for me to take advantage of things that I genuinely have been wanting and desiring to improve the quality of the work that I'm doing.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, I ordered a nice floor mattress for my clients to lay on for their breath work sessions.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I ordered some rechargeable, not battery-operated, LED candles because it's getting darker earlier, and I'm really wanting to bring some more warmth and gentle light into this space.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, it's not perfect, it's tricky, right?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sharing all of this to really name how nuanced and complicated all of this really can be, and that it's really okay for you to find a way to do this in a way that does feel right for you.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: We will be skipping the big department stores and we will be trying to buy, if we need to buy small or locally, as much as possible.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: I know where we're staying, there's lots of small local restaurants and coffee shops.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And for me personally, I don't see anything wrong with supporting small businesses this weekend.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: I know small businesses really need it, and they have to fight against these huge big box competitors, which can be really challenging.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't sell products like that, so I can't speak to the lived experience of it, but I I've witnessed it just watching other brands that I really like to support, businesses that I like to support.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: So perhaps another way that you could approach the economic blackout if not buying anything just feels incredibly difficult.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: However, if you have the means to participate, whether it's partially or fully, movements like this can really be revolutionary.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they can remind us that economics is power in this day and age, and collective action can shift systems.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: So very curious, as I was saying, to see how all of that plays out.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: The last thing that I'll offer, are you ready?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Number five, say no.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Say no.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Connection with others matters, and connection with yourself matters too.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe you can really meaningfully connect if you're already burnt out and overwhelmed and like operating from a trauma response and your fight flight, you're just stressed out and anxious the whole time.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And how are you really able to connect?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Especially if you're in an environment where there's a lot of that already happening.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: So may this be your permission slip.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: If something doesn't feel aligned, if something feels like it's a complete drain to you, if it feels like it's completely destabilizing to you, and you don't feel like you're in a place to deal with all of that, you're allowed to say no.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: If the family gathering is at your sister's boyfriend's house and your her sister's boyfriend makes you feel uncomfortable, you're allowed to say no.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: If the long drive to your aunt's house to deal with the awkward animosity of the relationship that you have with your mom is just making you anxious and spinning out, you're allowed to say no.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: If your body is really asking for a quiet night at home, maybe watching a movie and maybe eating some non-traditional food.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe Chinese food or pizza instead of going to Friendsgiving, you're allowed to say no.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: You might disappoint someone, and you can ask yourself, would you rather disappoint someone else or would you rather disappoint yourself?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Most people will adjust.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you might be a little uncomfortable as you're saying no, but I find for me, once I say no, yeah, I can take a deeper breath, I can relax a little bit.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's this lightness that comes in because I've honored what is actually true for me instead of people pleasing or doing what other people want me to do or doing something because I feel like that's what I need to do to receive love.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Some very simple practices that you can explore as you move through the holiday season, not just this week, but over the next month, and maybe allowing you to move with a bit more integrity, with a bit more compassion, a bit more authenticity, and a bit more nervous system safety.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: We'll keep checking in over the next few weeks as we close out the year, which I still can't believe we're doing.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you need support this week, there are a few free somatic meditations linked for you in the show notes to help you stay grounded, rested, and connected this weekend.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: May you remember that you don't have to navigate the holidays alone.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to navigate them in the ways in which you always have.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: May this be your season to choose differently if that's what you would like to do.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Happy holiday.