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A podcast on Native American resilience through and beyond trauma… exploring concepts, science, history, culture, stories and practices that we are working with as we seek to shape a future for our children and our grandchildren that is defined not by what we have suffered, but what we have overcome. This podcast explores NEAR Science, Historical Trauma, and ways Indigenous communities and individuals in Minnesota are creating and Remembering Resilience.
In season 1, podcast series hosts David Cournoyer, Susan Beaulieu and Linsey McMurrin share stories of this project and of ways community members and others are “Remembering Resilience.”
In season 2, podcast series hosts Susan Beaulieu, Briana Matrious and Linsey McMurrin continue to explore stories of collective and individual healing and how our communities continue on their journeys of “Remembering Resilience.”
Now that you’ve listened to us, we want to hear from you. Please fill out our brief survey by going to surveymonkey.com/r/podcastRR.
Susan Beaulieu: 00:00:00
Boozhoo, Niigaani-Binesii ikwe nindizhinikaaz. Miigizii nindoodem. Miskwaagamiwizaaga’igan nindoonjibaa.
(Hello, my name is Leading Thunderbird Woman. My clan is the Eagle. I’m from Red Lake.)
My name is Susan Beaulieu, and I'm a citizen of the Red Lake Nation in Northern Minnesota. I'm a mother of four and live in Central Minnesota with my family. In January of this year (2023), I began a new role as the Healing Justice Director at NDN Collective, an indigenous-led organization dedicated to building indigenous power through a variety of strategies including ongoing activism, organizing, philanthropy, grant-making, capacity building, narrative change and healing to create sustainable solutions on indigenous terms. It's been an amazing experience working with them, and I'm grateful to continue supporting the Remembering Resilience podcast this season.
I feel so fortunate I've had the opportunity to work with my amazing co-hosts, Briana Matrious and Linsey McMurrin, for over six years. Through this work, we aim to lift up the importance of our traditional ways of knowing and being, the invaluable wisdom that comes from us both individually and collectively as indigenous community members. We welcome you all back into this space to begin Season Three of Remembering Resilience together.
Briana Matrious: 00:01:51
Boozhoo, Naawaah comigookwe indizhinikaaz. Name indoodem. Aazhoomoog indoonjibaa.
Hello. My name is Briana Matrious. I'm an enrolled member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. I'm a part of the American Indian Resource and Resiliency Team with the University of Minnesota Extension and work as a tribal community facilitator. I currently reside in the urban area, but I'm still very much a part of my hometown which is located in Pine County. I'm passionate about helping people to understand the impacts of trauma in our communities and how to bring awareness to healing individually and collectively. I'm really looking forward to all of the topics we will be exploring in Season Three of Remembering Resilience, including attachment, boundaries, food as medicine and so much more.
Linsey McMurrin: 00:02:38
Boozhoo. Gaawiin aapiji ninitaa-Anishinaabemosii. Ninga-gagwejitoon ji Anishinaabemoyaan.1 Niin Linsey McMurrin nindizhinakaaz. Gaa-Zagaskwaajimekaag nindoojibaa, idash Walker nindaa.
I'm Linsey McMurrin, and I'm humbled to join you again as the co-host of this important podcast along with my friends and colleagues, Susan and Briana. I'm a citizen of the Leech Lake Nation of Ojibwe, a descendant of the White Earth Nation, and live in Northern Minnesota with my family. I've recently transitioned from my role with FamilyWise Services as a director of tribal projects and prevention initiatives to lead a nonprofit called Peacemaker Resources located in Bemidji, Minnesota. We focus on building skills and capacities in the areas of social, emotional learning, and cultural responsiveness. It feels good to continue this work, although in a different capacity, and I'm thankful to still be here in this space with all of you having these conversations with the Remembering Resilience podcast.
I am the mother of two little boys and the auntie to a bunch of nieces and nephews and little cousins and various other relatives, our upcoming generation, all of whom make this work even more meaningful. After all, this work is really about creating a better future for those young ones that rely on us to be those good ancestors, to do our own healing work so we can change those pathways and trajectories for generations to come.
When the three of us sat down to plan out Season Three of Remembering Resilience, our own healing journeys played a big part in determining where to go next. We took time and reflected back on all of the topics covered in the first two seasons and realized we needed to keep connecting the dots, to continue acknowledging and naming how the legacies of our past and what our ancestors have endured have left us all with wounds that need tending. One of the most important steps is to acknowledge and embrace all of the wisdom in traditional ways that will guide us in that process as well. We decided to begin our first episode looking at how attachment and, to be honest, lack thereof, has impacted us as indigenous peoples, as individuals, as families and as communities.
When we think back about the many eras of historical and ancestral trauma our people have endured from first contact to the boarding schools, to foster care and adoption, as well as those ongoing ripples and reverberations from those eras, that brings forth so much to hold on to and to consider, and while we already know and feel from the inside out the impact that this has had on our family structures, the data and research from the Western lens confirms this as well.
According to our report by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in September of 2017, American Indian and Alaskan Native children remained three times more likely than white children to be placed in foster care nationwide. Even more startling is that disproportionality here in Minnesota. Our indigenous children were over 16 times more likely than white children to be in out-of-home care according to an October 2020 Minnesota Department of Human Services report.
I will note also that this number does not include children in the state who identified as two or more races, over half of whom reported American Indian as one of those races, so this group also is almost six times more likely to be removed. What is happening here? Where is that disconnect? We know that, most times, we learn to parent by how we ourselves are parented. When we think back to the boarding school era, to the ongoing forced assimilation during the adoption and foster care era, when our children were removed from their family structures, from their source of strength and place of belonging within their cultures, within their families, within their communities, those are the wounds that need tending, and those are some of the topics we're going to begin addressing in this first episode of Season Three of Remembering Resilience.
And, with that, I want to pass the talking piece, so to speak, over to Briana, who's going to share a little bit more about her own experiences with understanding attachment styles and what that means for all of us going forward.
Briana Matrious:
Thank you, Linsey. I'm so happy that we're diving into this. I believe that attachment is a really big part of life that impacts all of our relationships, so, before we get into this conversation, I want to give context and share a really broad overview of what these styles are and how they might impact us.
Attachment theory is how we emotionally and physically bond with our parents and caregivers, how comfort, familiarity, nervous system regulation and soothing all gets wired in at a very early age. There are four different styles of attachments that we can have: secure attachment, insecure-avoidant attachment, insecure-anxious attachment, and disorganized attachment.
And, of course, the one that we all strive for is secure attachment. Secure attachment is when we have parents or caregivers that meet our emotional and physical needs. This means a lot of consistency, safety, being responsive and tuning into our child's needs. Insecure-avoidant is when we have parents or caregivers who were unavailable and did not meet our emotional and physical needs. This can lead to disconnection from self and to other relationships as we have learned that others can't be counted on to meet our needs. Also, challenging emotions and conflict become overwhelming for those that have insecure-avoidant attachment.
Insecure-anxious attachment occurs when our parents or caregivers sometimes meet our emotional and physical needs and sometimes don't. At an early age, we begin to doubt and question whether or not our needs will be met in the future, and so this attachment style can unconsciously bring up fear of abandonment and we begin to seek connection from others.
Disorganized attachment is attachment style that gets wired in when our parents or caregivers send two different messages when it comes to meeting our emotional and physical needs. Those needs may be met. However, they're met with physical or emotional abuse, and it becomes confusing. Mental illness with a parent or caregiver can also be a source of this type of attachment style. We want love and connection, but it becomes a source of pain, fear and confusion at an early age.
These attachment styles are such important foundational pieces to who we are. The need to form bonds as babies with our parents or caregivers is so important. It's a means of survival. We are all wired for connection, and it's innately in our DNA as our life depends on it. We need each other to survive.
Susan Beaulieu:
Miigwech, Briana, for grounding us in attachment styles and how our attachment styles get created. I know, for me, knowing what I know now about how the unresolved trauma of my parents impacted their attachment and parenting styles, which then impacted me as a mother on my healing journey, I've really felt called to learn about and heal my own attachment style so I can work on developing more secure attachments with my kids.
So I also want to highlight that attachment styles are not fixed. They're fluid and they're influenced by the experiences we have within relationships. The more opportunities that we have to connect with people who are safe for us in a variety of ways, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, the easier it will be to heal and shift our attachment style which, ultimately, impacts every relationship we have.
I want to go a bit deeper now and talk about a topic Dr. Gabor Maté, a world-renowned addiction and trauma expert, speaker and author, discusses in his new book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture. By the way, if you haven't checked out this book yet, please do. There are links in the show notes with Gabor's book and webpage.
So one of the things that Gabor talks about is that, as children, we have two additional primary needs outside of our other basic needs. These needs are both attachment and authenticity. Attachment speaks to what Briana mentioned, our ability to connect to our primary caregivers, and authenticity is our ability to be our full selves, big emotions, quirks and all. When we're young and dependent on our caregivers, anytime these two needs come into conflict, we will choose attachment or connection over authenticity every single time. Again, this is because of survival. Gabor says that it's too scary for us as children to believe that our caregivers can't be counted on. So, in order to make sense of not having our needs met by our caregivers, whether that's our physical or emotional needs, we begin to believe there's something inherently wrong with us.
I think it's important to remember that, as children, our ability to pan out and understand the bigger context doesn't exist yet and we end up internalizing our experiences. Perhaps we start believing we're too much for people and need to make ourselves smaller or maybe we think we aren't lovable or that we're bad and not deserving of love and connection. It never crosses our minds as babies or children that the reason our needs aren't being met has nothing to do with us.
Linsey McMurrin:
You know, that really makes me think of another quote I've heard Dr. Gabor Maté teach about. He says, "Children don't get traumatized because they get hurt. Children get traumatized because they are alone with their hurt." What immediately comes to mind for me is thinking about our ancestors and relatives, all the way down to grandparents, parents, aunties and uncles that endured the boarding school era themselves.
So many of our traditional ways of caring for one another and being in relationship with each other and the natural world around us had what we now call protective factors, those elements that fostered safety and connection built right in. Those eras of historical trauma had a common thread of separation, of isolation, of disconnection from not only our parents, but also our extended families, our communities, our culture, that sense of authentic belonging. It was unfortunately the most effective weapon used against us and, that wounding, it hasn't stopped.
I think about what that tear in the social fabric of our tribal communities has done to generation after generation because, again, that impact is not only felt with those that directly experienced it, but also epigenetically inherited. It also brings to mind the stories that have been passed down even when I think of just my own family on both sides. When we listen to those stories of what our relatives endured, we empathize even more profoundly with what happened during those times and the aftermath that followed because, well, we feel it in our bodies. The reverberations of that sense of isolation and disconnection that accompanies those experiences that many of our ancestors and direct family members have endured, that lives within us, too.
Susan Beaulieu:
Yeah, that's so powerful, Linsey. And what that brings to mind for me is how that sense of separation or isolation really starts with losing touch with ourselves, our own bodies, thoughts, emotions and even our spirit. When a traumatic event happens to us, and we're kids without the tools to navigate it ourselves and when our caregivers aren't able to give us the compassionate supports we need in that moment, we end up having to shut down from those really big feelings of overwhelm brought up by the traumatic event. This is what Gabor calls trauma. It's what happens inside of us: that lost sense of connection to ourselves and to others.
Something I've come to understand in a deeper way over the last few years is that, when I'm checked out or overwhelmed as a mother, if I'm not present in my own body, if I'm not aware of my own emotions, thoughts, if I don't feel that connection to my spirit, it makes it almost impossible for me to attune to anyone else, to tune into what's going on for them so that I can connect with or support them. And of course, now, as a mother, I realize that I might be physically present, but if I'm habitually dissociated or dysregulated, that can lead to creating insecure attachment styles for my kiddos.
Briana Matrious:
When thinking about the boarding school era, those children who were taken away eventually went home and started their own families, and they began parenting the same way that they were parented. Those that worked in the boarding schools did not love those children the way that they should have. They experienced physical and emotional abuse, which has led to a lot of disconnection and attachment wounds. Their stories are heartbreaking, and we see these patterns continue, and they give reason to the challenges we face in our communities.
Susan Beaulieu:
Briana, that brings to mind a story I heard a boarding school survivor share about how they were so young when they were taken and, because of that, they didn't have the context to understand what was happening to them or why. They didn't understand why their parents sent them to boarding school. They didn't realize their parents were forced to do it. And I remember hearing this individual say they really felt like they were abandoned by their parents and family, by their community.
That made me wonder how common the sense of abandonment was and how it may have created avoidant or anxious attachment styles for many of our ancestors who were sent to boarding schools. The message they got was people can't be counted on, people can't be trusted, people won't stick around, but the truth is they weren't abandoned. Their parents loved and wanted them. I think this also goes back to children's limited contexts with which they can make sense of their experiences, so I feel like there's also this piece that we often don't think about in our indigenous communities: how boarding schools generated generations of insecure and disorganized attachment styles that have rippled out in our parenting even today.
Briana Matrious:
I just want to take a minute to acknowledge how working on this episode and sharing about our attachment styles has been incredibly vulnerable for us because, in part, in sharing about our attachment styles, we're also sharing in a roundabout way the experiences we've had as kids that caused a lot of pain and the way insecure attachment shows up in our relationships, being controlling, dismissive, needy, moody, manipulative. None of these are very flattering, so it can be hard to look at. But I know, for me, when I began to understand how these symptoms are symptoms of insecure attachment styles and not just personality traits, it helped me to have less judgment and more compassion for myself, which has been incredibly supportive on my healing journey.
To be honest, I started to learn about attachment through the challenges and difficulties near the end of a 16-year relationship. We were in couples therapy for years when my therapist encouraged me to read a book, Healing Your Attachment Wounds by Dr. Diane Poole Heller. Dr. Diane Poole Heller is a leading expert on attachment theory, and all of what I was learning from her books and training were exactly the major communication issues we were experiencing. It opened up my eyes to many things, and it gave me perspective and new understandings on how I interacted through all of my relationships. This new learning has been pivotal for me to heal my nervous system and has allowed me to heal in other aspects of my life. It also allowed me to have less judgment about myself, and I didn't feel so alone or, more so, that there is something wrong with me. These attachment styles are wired in deep. However, the one thing that I want to remind everyone is that they can be healed.
Susan Beaulieu:
Briana, thanks for sharing that. That really makes me reflect on how my own attachment style and moods showed up in my intimate relationships for the first few decades of my life. I mean, one of the things I know, for me, having had a disorganized attachment style, I really had a hard time sharing what I needed, being open and vulnerable, and so then that made it hard for my partner to know what I needed, and then they weren't able to fill those needs because they didn't know. But, because they didn't know and I was afraid to ask, then I got hurt really easy, and then I would be angry and upset that my needs weren't being met, and then that, of course, caused a lot of resentment and pain in the relationship, and that resentment over time becomes really toxic.
So not being able to ask for what I need was a result of this attachment style of like not having my needs met, and so maybe feeling as a little girl that my needs weren't important, and so I needed to just shut them down or just try to ignore them, and then another way that my attachment style impacted my relationships is I had a really difficult time with uncertainty. And, of course, being in relationships, there's always a lot of uncertainty. You don't know how people are going to react or what they're going to do or say. But I used to think that I could like control some things that other people did, and that trying to control that provided a false sense of safety and security for me. I thought like, if I could control the situation around me, which in some cases included the people around me, then I would be safe, then I would be okay.
And so, of course, nobody likes to be controlled, and so that, too, created a lot of toxicity and resentment and hurt within the relationship. And so I literally could go on and on and on about how my disorganized attachment style impacted my ability to show up in healthy ways and relationships, but, again, the brain is malleable, and new experiences create new neural wiring and new pathways, and new relationships can create new understandings and new ways of being and beliefs, and so these attachment styles can be changed.
Briana Matrious:
Really quickly, I just want to share a quote by Brené Brown. She says, "We would rather be miserable and certain than wholehearted and uncertain," and so that piece around always having to know, always needing to know the future is really difficult, but if we can relinquish that, it can be really helpful for us.
Linsey McMurrin:
We hope this episode has helped you better understand how we relate to others and how we perceive the world either as a safe or an unsafe place. I know it's been incredibly impactful for all of us to learn about these attachment styles, to look inward, to consider our own style, the styles of our loved ones and the attachment styles we are creating for our children.
I think understanding our needs and feelings is paramount to our own wellbeing and is also so important in the formation of healthy and secure relationships. It is a central component we talk about in the realm of social emotional learning as well. When we focus in on what's going on within ourselves and how that plays into those relationship skills, that's what will help us be our most authentic selves. I know that I am most definitely in the process of learning and unlearning so that I can be my most authentic self and can move forward in my relationships from a more healed place.
It has also been insightful to think about how the historical trauma our ancestors experienced especially with boarding schools impacted their ability individually and collectively to develop secure attachments with their children and their grandchildren, and how those insecure and disorganized attachment styles got passed down to our generation. Ultimately, relatives remember this wisdom. Linda K. Hogan, an indigenous author from the Chickasaw Nation, says this: "Some people see scars, and it is wounding they remember. To me, they are proof of the fact that there is healing," and that, my friends, is what this work, this journey is all about, finding our own roads to healing.
Briana Matrious:
I want to say thank you to Susan and Linsey for this conversation. In the next episode, we are going to be talking about boundaries, what they are, why they are important, and how trauma impacts our ability to set and maintain healthy boundaries with family, friends and coworkers. We hope you'll join us for the next episode of Remembering Resilience.
This has been Season Three, Episode One of Remembering Resilience, a podcast on Native resilience through and beyond trauma. Today's episode was hosted by Linsey McMurrin, Susan Beaulieu, and myself, Briana Matrious.
Season Three of Remembering Resilience was created and led by Linsey McMurrin, Susan Beaulieu, Deanna Drift and myself, Briana Matrious. You can find the full Remembering Resilience podcast series at rememberingresilience.home.blog. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible and elsewhere. This podcast is developed through a Health POWER Project at FamilyWise Services, with support from the University of Minnesota Extension and the Center for Prevention at BlueCross and BlueShield of Minnesota. Sound design for Season Three was done by Kalen Keir. Sadie Luetmer contributed additional producing.
Kalen Keir:
A big thank you to all of the artists who have contributed music to Remembering Resilience. This episode featured tracks by Wade Fernandez, Corey Medina & Brothers, and additional compositions by Kalen Keir. Season three's intro theme features “The Calling” by Corey Medina.