Ep 68: One Question to Turn Arguments into Aligned Actions at Family Gatherings

At your family gatherings, you might have tried direct communication, indirect communication, book recommendations, or even prayer. But conversations with some family members just seem to go nowhere but downhill. Heated arguments. Salty side-eyes and silence. Bitter boundary settings. My dear, co-conspirator, I know you’re not one to shy away from having hard and heartfelt conversations about liberation. I got you. This episode is not about how to cut ties with family members who have different political views. Rather, it’s about how you can use one question this holiday season to redirect energy from having arguments into taking actions that are aligned with your values.

[INTRODUCTION]

Sawadee ka, and welcome to the Come Back to Care podcast. A place where we’re re-imagining parenting to be deeply decolonized and intentionally intergenerational. If you’ve been looking for ways to practice social justice in your daily parenting and nurture your child’s development while re-parenting your inner child, I’m so glad you’re here. I am your host, Nat Nadha Vikitsreth, a decolonized and licensed clinical psychotherapist, somatic abolitionist, and founder of Come Back to Care. A dot connector, norm agitator and lover of liberation. In this podcast, we turn down the volume of oppressive social norms and outdated family patterns so that we can hear our inner voice and raise our children by our own values too. We come back home to our body and the goodness within. We come back to our lineages and communities. And we come back to care… together. So come curious and come as you are.

[EPISODE]

Welcome and welcome back to Episode 68, my dear co-conspirator. It is so beautiful to be with you again. I haven’t quite figured out how to manage my time between organizing for community safety on the ground under fascism, finishing a book manuscript, creating podcast episodes, running a business, and oh being human. So, thank you so much for all of your grace while the podcast was on a longer break. Thank you for practicing liberation with your tiny change agents in your everyday parenting. Thank you for reaching out to check-in via emails and for meeting me live monthly on Patreon too.

In this episode, we’ll cover one question from my Classical Chinese Medicine teacher that you can play with during family gatherings when you want to stay on purpose and stay politically spicy. If that sounds generative to you, your heart, and your spirit, let’s get started.

You know how there are moments at your family gathering where you address Uncle Bob’s misinformation and disinformation clearly and confidently. You might even use the three-part political messaging strategy that we covered in Ep 64: Power-With With Your Family this Holiday with this Political Messaging Strategy. Say your piece and protect your peace? Checked!

But sometimes you’ve tried everything and the conversation comes to a standstill. Or fascism has run your cup dry and you have zero care to give and zero compassion left to spare. No matter the reason… instead of pressing further and turning the conversation into an argument filled with stats, numbers, and research articles, you and I can pivot the conversation strategy to something different. Not to get away from having a hard conversation. But to learn about yourself in ways that support your aligned actions.

Shifting the conversation back to you

Whether the conversation runs its course or into the wall, you might pivot the focus back on to you by saying things like “well, this conversation doesn’t feel meaningful anymore. I love you and I love myself enough to not keep going. Can we have a time out and revisit this topic at another time?” Or something like this, “you know, the fact that we can have different opinions and discuss all perspectives says a lot about how strong our trust in each other is. I love you and I’d like to end this conversation for now.”

In these two examples of boundary setting, what’s the common thread you pick up on? The thread is the love, trust, and relationship between you and that family member. And with this thread, boundary setting is, in fact, about bringing both of you closer together instead of severing the relationship. This is my favorite way to set boundaries while honoring the multiple truths that are in the room. But if there’s harm, please use your discernment and pick which type of boundaries would protect your peace.

One question to ask your family to make your advocacy sparkle

Alright, the boundary is set. Let’s talk about the question you can ask your family to turn an argument into aligned action. The question is this: “Can you tell me about what I loved doing as a child?”

This question comes from a lesson from my Classical Chinese Medicine teacher.

Her lesson begins with this question: “What did you love doing so much before you turned five years old? What came so naturally to you that you didn’t pay much attention to it?” The key to making your advocacy easeful, potent, and sustainable is weaving these childhood skills, talents, and abilities into how you’re fighting for liberation with your communities right now.

The why behind this question is rooted in Taoist spiritual teachings. My social justice action comes from a lineage of healing justice where we heal as we get free. It’s also where spiritual care is integral to collective care. But if it’s too spiritual for you, I absolutely honor your truth. I believe the question still applies because it can help infuse creativity and joy into your advocacy. And as you know creativity in our advocacy can really mobilize us out of cynicism. Alright? I’ll share a brief overview of Taoist spiritual teachings. As always please nurture what resonates and compose the rest.

According to Taoist alchemy, living in your purpose is all about becoming the person you came into this world as. And each of us was born with an inheritance from our ancestors (roughly translated as “Jing” – J-I-N-G- in ancient Chinese medical literature). When we use these ancestral gifts for humanity’s highest good aka liberation, equity, and justice, it regenerates the energy we need to live in our life’s purpose in this lifetime. Sounds beautiful, yeah? But there’s one catch: the specifics of what’s in our ancestral inheritance are vague. We only have clues to follow - clues in our childhood skills, talents, and abilities.

And where better to gather some clues than at family gatherings this holiday season?

Nat’s example plus two more of using this question in action

Back in 2020, I took my own medicine and asked my parents this very question: “What did I love doing as a child?”. All I got was an awkward silence on our video call followed by a smooth hang up. Perhaps, the silence reflected my mom’s guilt over sending her transgender daughter to an all-boy’s Catholic school. Or, was it my parents’ discomfort at not knowing the answer because they were working three jobs in Bangkok trying to put food on the table for my two siblings and me? Or, all of the above? I wasn’t so sure. But what I remembered in that moment was grief tied in a tight knot in my lower belly. If that grief could talk, it would speak of its yearning to be witnessed and understood by my parents who were too busy surviving capitalism.

No matter what your relationship with those who raised you looks like, my teacher shared that sometimes the folks who have the information we’re seeking are our aunties, grandparents, neighbors who were babysitting, or older cousins. To say it another way, expand your investigation and take your time.

My auntie was, in fact, the one who gave me the clues I needed. She delightfully recalled how I arranged my teddy bear, stuffed poodle, and my brother’s X-Men’s action figures (and sometimes my brother himself too) on the floor in front of my grandmother’s bed. Her bed had the most beautiful wooden panel that I could write on with chalk I quote unquote “borrowed” from the aforementioned all-boy’s Catholic school. I would pretend that I was teaching them lessons and then grading their homework. I was role playing a teacher!

It’s no surprise to my auntie and grandma that I’ve been teaching political education to caregivers, therapists, teachers, and parents for the past 20 years. Helping parents who care about social change- like you- make your everyday parenting political in practical ways is how I use all of my ancestral gifts and stay rooted in my life’s purpose. This alignment gets me out of bed with vitality and gets me back in bed every night with gratitude…most of the time.

Mei-Ling also feels the vitality of using all of their gifts- ancestral and everything in between- in their advocacy. According to their mom, three-year-old Mei-Ling was inseparable from their baby doll and toy stroller. Now, Mei-Ling provides childcare to caregivers in their neighborhood who want to attend protests or mutual aid network gatherings. Mei-Ling’s direct actions with their community include many things. But offering childcare is something they keep returning to even when their executive functioning is running low. Their cup gets so full when advocacy unfolds from this place of creative expression of all their gifts instead of anxiety of doing more, more, more, and doing it all perfectly.

Okay one more example. Rob grew up in a family of seamstresses. He makes the most beautiful gender-inclusive garments. Rob is unapologetic about applying the same precision in garment making to movement work. Oh, no one can craft a meal train spreadsheet like Rob. Organizing care to make sure his queer, neurodivergent, and disabled chosen families were fed throughout the peak of the 2020 lockdown was Rob’s magic. Serving his communities in such meaningful and creative ways sustained his advocacy.

How are these examples landing for you? I don’t know if you do this with your social media too or not. On days that I’m not centered or grounded, I would scroll on social media and I’d make a mental note of a social justice to-do list that I don’t have the bandwidth for. I’d scroll and see a post about a bystander intervention training I should sign up and take again, and then I would see this neighborhood is doing a food drive I should sign up, and then I scroll more and see another first aid training for protest safety I should repost. The more I scroll, the to-do list grows longer, the anxiety grows bigger, and the guilt grows meaner. Because I’d feel like I’m not doing enough. Then, I would shame myself into overriding my boundaries and doing more…as a savior clearly and not in solidarity. I mean how can I be someone’s accomplice when I’m not even my own ally? So my action ends up being performative instead of powerful. The invitation in this episode flips that individualism script upside down. Your next social justice actions come from the gifts you already have instead of the “should” you’re pressuring yourself to perform. This is one way we can make our actions sustainable for the next seven generations.

Now it’s your turn, if you’d like. How would you weave your ancestral inheritance – as reflected in your favorite childhood pastimes -- into your present day’s actions for liberation?

Together, we embody resistance by reclaiming all parts of who we came into this world as. Taoist alchemy applied to social justice alchemizes angst into aligned action and dignity-rooted purpose. Before my teacher joined the ancestors, she gifted me with a final teaching: fight for liberation. That means, meet the injustice and suffering with all we’ve got, become all of who we are, and “offer ourselves back to the world as a gift.”

If you’re curious about more ways to literally bring liberation home and practice it with your child, please pre-order my forthcoming book with Wiley, Raising Change Agents: Practicing Social Justice in Everyday Parenting anywhere you buy books today. I’ll leave all the links in the episode show notes for you.

If this episode fills your heart cup and you have extra bandwidth to support me, please share this episode with your loved ones. So that we can practice liberation together. Or, head over to comebacktocare.com/support to join me in monthly live workshops on Patreon.

As always, in solidarity and sass. Until next time, please take care.