Turkeys and Traumas

Turkeys, Traumas and Giving Thanks 

Sometimes it feels like my entire life has been swimming upstream.
Living where the river runs north.
Moving against an expected flow.

I was thinking about that yesterday as I jumped into the pool for an evening swim. Swimming became my new love after a spinal defect made itself known and ended my running years. I am fortunate to live where I can swim outdoors year round, and yesterday the wind was fierce, pushing across the surface of the water. Each stroke felt like pulling against a tide — which is how I feel each Thanksgiving.

Every year people smile and say, “Happy Thanksgiving” with an ease I wonder about. It's been hard to know how to respond because “happy” doesn’t feel truthful for many of us. Most years I say something neutral like, “Have a good holiday,” and leave it at that.

But it's time we shed light in the shadows hanging over our shared histories.

There is a specific dissonance that arises when a cultural script expects gratitude, yet the deeper truth is tangled in harmful distortions of its origin story. It feels similar to when my daughters were young and people urged me to tell them, “Say thank you to the nice person.” I wanted my children to feel gratitude, not perform it, so when I felt courageous, I resisted. For years I could not articulate why I paused in those moments. Feeling alone in my resistance, I gave in at times, encouraged the polite thank you, and later wondered what I was teaching them about authenticity.

Now that my daughters are grown and are authentically grateful humans, when parents ask if they should prompt their children to say thank you, I slow down and invite a real conversation. I ask things like, “How do you model gratitude in daily life?” or “Do you talk about what you appreciated today?” Gratitude isn't a phrase. It’s a practice. It’s a felt sense that blooms when the nervous system experiences safety, connection, meaning or awe. A seed takes weeks, months, and in the case of redwoods sometimes years to express the fullness of its gratitude as it pushes from the earth.

Thanksgiving holds a strong tension in the gratitude paradigm. It’s an American holiday built on a story that has harmed Indigenous people for centuries and cannot be made holy through a centerpiece or a nice sentiment.

But it's hard to stop a stone from rolling down a steep hill, and where does that leave us now? There is a saying, “If you can’t make it different, how can you make it holy?” The day can become holy only through the words we choose when we speak about it, and through sharing a more honest story with our children. Through choosing gratitude for what’s real, not what’s convenient.

The truth is, the origin story of Thanksgiving contains deep wounds and historical lies. It is painful to acknowledge, and yet necessary. And still, many families gather. Many are choosing to reclaim the day as a moment to be together and to give thanks for what is honest and what matters. Not for the myth that has been repeated for generations, but for the possibility of a wider worldview. For the earth that sustains us. For the survival of Indigenous people despite genocide. For the chance to do better now.

If you are reading this, you may be an upstream swimmer too.
Someone who senses when the current of culture doesn’t align with what is good or true.
Someone who knows that ritual is meant to nourish the spirit, not to numb it.
Someone who understands what I wrote in Chapter Twenty of Wild Inside: When we see clearly, we can speak clearly, and language becomes a bridge back to belonging.

It reminds me of my mother’s swim against the current. From a young age, my mother behaved outside the expected and asked questions children were not supposed to ask. When she told stories about how she shocked the adults in her life, she had a mischievous laugh that filled a room. Every holiday she laughed like that as she retold one of my favorites, the story about her grandmother “Ma” and the family roast.

For three generations, every holiday roast had the end cut off before cooking. It was the sacred family recipe. The tradition. Until one year my mother, still a child, asked the brave question: “Why do we cut the end off the roast?” Everyone stared blankly at one another until Ma burst out laughing, her voice carrying through the house. “Well Honey! It’s because we never had a pan big enough for the roast!”

Tradition without examination becomes habit mistaken for holiness.
A roast cut short for no reason at all.

Thanksgiving is filled with these unquestioned habits.
So is parenting.
So is the way we interpret children’s behavior.

Why do we rush to tell them, “Say thank you”?
Why do we retell untrue stories?
Why do we assume children are pushing our buttons instead of remembering that most adults in this country are carrying trigger-happy nervous systems shaped by generations of unexamined trauma?

Adults feel stressed.
Children absorb and react to that stress.
Their reactions trigger us.
And around it goes, a spiral of toxic stress that neither side chooses but is reinforced until we break the cycle.

This is the heart of my work and the message of Wild Inside.
If we can see the pattern, we can shift it.
If we can widen perception, we can interrupt harmful judgements and narratives.
If we can be kind and courageous with good questions, we can reveal truths that liberate.

So instead of asking, “Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?” perhaps the deeper question is, “Why do we gather at all?”
Or even more achingly honest: “What do we hunger for that we keep trying to feed with unexamined tradition?”

Connection. Belonging. Safety.
The warmth of a home where people feel welcome.
The laughter of someone who knows how to tell the truth kindly (and a good joke too).

These are the things we are hoping for when we gather — the things that make us human.
These are the things our children will remember after the collective scripting has fallen away.

May we be brave enough to examine why we cut the end off the roast.
May we be strong enough to swim against the current when needed.
And may we build holidays and rituals that honor truth, nourish the heart, and widen our children’s sense of what gratitude can really be.

In gentleness and with gratitude and connection,

Kathleen

Get Your Copy of Wild Inside

Wild Inside: How Nature Protects Your Child's Mental Health and Restores Yours is a guide for parents, caregivers, and anyone who knows the world can be more honest and more humane than the scripts we inherited. Consider gifting it to someone who is ready to reimagine tradition with courage and heart.