Lolita Guarin

In this episode of Just Like Nana, host Amie (Elizabeth) Penny Sayler is joined by stress management coach Lolita Guarin, where they discuss struggling with anxiety and self abandonment as an unintentional way to honor your ancestors and how to break your ‘loyalty’ to your family’s trauma patterns.

They also discuss the societal pressure to uphold perfectly happily family narratives, even when that is not the reality for many people.

About Lolita Guarin

Lolita Guarin is a stress management expert, speaker, coach, six-time Amazon #1 bestselling author, creator of the CALM Process, and Story to IMPACT mentor. She helps audiences move from stress and burnout into clarity, confidence, and self-trust with practical tools they can use right away. 

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Understand that ancestral trauma is an inherited historical memory that converts into rigid behavioral patterns. Recognizing that your constant state of hyper-vigilance is an inherited default setting allows you to separate the trauma from who you truly are.
• By looking through a third-person lens rather than a wounded child's perspective, you can see how an ancestor’s inability to show love often stems from unresolved trauma in their own childhood.
• Many adults self-abandon and refuse to practice self-care because they unconsciously believe that suffering honors the sacrifices of their lineage. 
• Stop bulldozing your own needs. Reclaim your personal sovereignty by practicing small boundaries, like pausing before saying "yes" to a demand, and actively celebrating your small daily victories to heal your inner child.

Resources Mentioned

Dr. Gabor Maté: https://drgabormate.com/

Connect with Lolita

Lolita’s Website: https://www.beamazingyou.com/

Lolita’s Books: https://beamazingyou.lpages.co/get-the-books/

Book a Session: https://beamazingyou.lpages.co/book-a-session/

Connect with the Show

• Website: justlikenana.com
• Share Your Story: If you have a family story or trauma you’re exploring, reach out via our website for a chance to be interviewed.

Connect with Just Like Nana's Website.

A proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.

Theme music by Carter Penny.

Transcript

Breaking the Loyalty to Your Family’s Trauma Patterns with Lolita Guarin

Amie Penny Sayler 0:21

Welcome to Just Like Nana. I am your host, Amie Penny Sayler. Happy to be with you today. My hope for you this week is that at some point you can just take in the beauty of something in nature. Whether that's you're outside and you see something, you smell something that's beautiful, you can actually touch a tree or a flower. Or if none of that is accessible to you, maybe you can look out a window and just look at the clouds in the sky and marvel in their beauty. Today's guest is Lolita Guarin. She's a stress management expert, speaker, coach, six-time Amazon number one best-selling author, creator of the calm process, and she's also a story to impact mentor. She helps people move from stress and burnout into clarity, confidence, and self-trust with practical tools. It was an absolute joy to talk with Lolita. There are just a couple trigger warnings for this episode. She does mention alcoholism. It's not discussed in depth, but it is mentioned. And then I did want to let you know there was a word that she was using when she was describing the story about her grandmother. And she was talking about pajama pants, but she was using the word panties. So I just want to be clear that in that story, when she's talking about panties, what she's talking about are her pajama pants. And with that, let's hear what Lolita has to teach us. Welcome to Just Like Nana, Lolita. So excited to have you here today.

Lolita’s Grandmother and Childhood Memories

Amie Penny Sayler 2:11

I am so happy to be here. We like to start if you have a favorite or powerful memory of a grandma and what you called her.

Lolita Guarin 2:21

So for those who are listening in, they probably can can say right away that I have a slight accent. So I came from Lithuania 26 years ago to US, and we used to call our grandmothers only two names. Yes. So you will hear only two names in the whole country, and uh it would be Mociute, which is more you know, that's what you see in the books, because it just says grandmother. But then the cute way we call it Baba. Now, this sounds very Slavic, but Lithuania is not Slavic country, although we I mean I grew up in the Soviet Union. So when I was teenager, that's when we got independence, but we had a lot of Russian influence. So Baba, it's very Russian or Slavic name, and those who know the Baba Yaga, that's the Baba, yes. And the funny part is that the grandmothers usually will fight which one will be called Baba, because the only one Baba can be in the family. So I should have two sets of grandparents, right? From my mom's and from my dad's. And from my mom's, that's the one that got the title Baba. That's how I call her. So if you hear another child calling Baba, there probably will be five or six grandmothers turning their heads and saying, Is it me? Are you calling for me? So I don't have a specific name, and for the longest time I did not even know what were the actual names of my grandmothers. Because you do not call your grandmother by name, right? You call it by whatever the cute name you call them. And you know, when I think about it, I'm still calling my mom mom and my and I call my dad dad, and not by the name. And you know, I was when we got in contact that, you know, you have this amazing podcast about bringing up the memories about our grandparents, specifically grandmas. Obviously, I thought about what would be a story that I can tell that I loved. And I couldn't find one. The one that would come to my mind that was, I would say a little painful, but you know, the question you asked me, was there something joyful or not or impactful? So what was very impactful, and it really got me thinking now from the adult point of view, was I lived in the city, and my grandparents were living in the village. And as our customs back in the day, if you have anyone in the village during your summertime, you do not stick around the city. All the children were shipped to their grandparents, and you know, that's like a second life. I get to hang out with my cousins because they've been shipped to the village too from another city. That's the big reunion. I was always looking forward to going to the summer to see my cousins. But I remember when I was a child long enough to remember, and even in the teenage years, my grandmother used to do this thing. When I would go to sleep, I always was wearing panties. Like that's just

Challenging the "Rosy" Family Narrative

Lolita Guarin 5:39

I have to wear my panties. And I hated nightgowns because you know, as you sleep, they kind of have a tendency to roll up at you, and so I will bring my pajama that have you know pants. And my grandmother did not approve of that, and she said, This is not gonna work. I'm in her house, and she knows better, of course, because she's a grandmother. So she would now allow me to wear my pajamas, she will give me her nightgown that I supposed to wear. But it looks like, well, this is not a big deal. But what she will do, she will wait until I fall asleep, and then she will take my panties off. So I wake up in the like in the morning, I am wearing a nightgown, but I'm also have no panties. And then obviously the nightgown is all rolled up up to your neck because that's what this does. Exactly what you why you didn't want to wear it. And that terrified me. And I remember I would be afraid to fall asleep because I know I woke up tomorrow morning with no panties on. So now when we look at this, it's like from a child perspective, that's terrifying. Obviously, that's like no boundaries and all other issues that we can, you know, think immediately. But then I'm looking, okay, so obviously my grandmother didn't mean no harm. She was thinking that she's helping me to relax better and it helps the circulation because I don't have this, you know, this rub around my belly. Probably there was obviously a big, huge reason why she thought that that's supposed to be a good idea. And when I think about um my grandmother, she was not a happy person, and my cousins were afraid of her. You know, there was an event that I participated probably 15 years ago now, um, yoga retreat, and there was this powerful moment when they said, Okay, now we all, you know, I'll close our eyes and remember this beautiful, amazing place where you feel safe. And remember maybe you're sitting on your grandmother's knee and you're eating her hot cookies, you come into her house and it smells so nice, and you know, put yourself there. Well, I never had that memory.

Amie Penny Sayler 7:56

Right. And you didn't feel safe.

Lolita Guarin 7:58

And I didn't feel safe. And you know, when I think and and I'm a stress management coach and I do a lot of coaching, you there's a lot of shame that comes after not having a good relationship with your family. Or and you know, I when that moment when I couldn't find a good memory, or I'd never had my grandmother, you know, sitting with me giving me a cookie. I remember I was afraid of her because if I'm gonna do something wrong, then I'm gonna get yelled at. Of course, to the point when I became a teenager, probably 12, 13 years old, I told my parents, I am not going to the village, it's boring because I'm a teenager. So after that I stayed in town. But those younger times, I kind of felt that I was broken because of something's wrong with me. Why I don't have this happy memory, why my grandmother didn't love me, why she was upset every time when we come to visit. And I see a lot of that in my clients as well that are afraid and ashamed to even acknowledge that oh, I did not have a good relation with my grandparents. Because in our society, everything is rosy and you're supposed to have it, and you know, like this perfect family, you know, you have your husband, the house, and the three kids and a dog and a pet, and but not all of us do. And when you really look around, a lot of us don't have that. I was very surprised to see you know, when I published the book Stress Management for Adult Children of Alcoholics. I grew up on my dad being alcoholic. He's okay now, but it wasn't easy. I had so many people come to me and they said, Oh guess, guess what? My you know, I have also a family that is alcoholic, and thank you so much for bringing this up. Because we want to keep that good image and we are ashamed of that. So sorry to share a sad story right at the beginning of this our little chat. But that what came, and you know, I thought I'll just be honest, and I'm inviting everyone else to be honest with themselves and with the memories and honor whatever happened.

Amie Penny Sayler 9:59

Yeah, there is

Re-Envisioning Trauma: Moving from Anger to Context

Amie Penny Sayler 10:01

absolutely no need to apologize. I feel honored that you shared that memory with us, and you are so right about all of it. And I will tell you, I'm sure this won't surprise you, but part of the genesis of me trying to find out about my extended family is that same lack of access and lack of feeling like I belong to this family. And so that is absolutely understood. I think a lot of listeners probably have similar experiences in one way or another, and it kind of depends on the part of the family, but I'm just really grateful that you were so genuine in what you shared about your grandmother. I'd like to ask you how you define ancestral or intergenerational trauma in your work. You've hit on this component. One of the things we really focus on at Just Like Nana is trying to approach our ancestors with honor instead of blame. And at the same time, some of the choices they made and things they did, especially ancestors we had a direct relationship with, affected us. And we are the ones having to heal and move forward and try to reinvision as an adult. Okay, that wasn't -- I mean, I'll just share when you talked about the shame. Yeah, that's a saying or something that I've I've had to work through is like, what is it in me that is so monstrous, dark, lacking, that the most basic thing a mother loving a child didn't exist? Like I look out in nature and there are geese and ducks and all of the things, and the mother loves all of them. So I would love it if you could address how you define ancestral ancestral trauma and how you sort of hold that both that you can honor and understand they were doing the best they could do, and you can acknowledge your own pain at the same time.

Lolita Guarin 12:08

The way I say an ancestral trauma is the history, memory that became a pattern that we carry in the future. It's not that just ends with us, but continues with us as well. And you know, I just like for example, so as I mentioned, I came from Lithuania, and Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union, and of course was part of the World War II and World War I and all of those wars, and there was a lot of trauma that happened to everyone that lived on that land. And when you think about the you know, this year is 250 years of United States of America birthday. And the fun fact I was born actually on the 4th of July. That that's why I said that you know, this is this is meant to be, it's written in the stars, I need to go. That's why I left Lithuania. Although I believe it doesn't matter where you live as long as you're happy. But okay, go but going back to what I want to say is even this country has a lot of traumas because when you think about it, this all started with a struggle. And because we are herd animals, we try people, we need to belong to the group, right? The worst thing that can happen if we'll we are excluded from the group. So when you mention that what can go wrong and why feeling so painful when we excluded from the group, or when we feel that we're not included and not meaning not loved and appreciated and seen the way we should, it feels very, very bad and it is devastating. Especially for a child that doesn't have a good relationship or good memories. We already know it influencing so much a child's development that we carried this into adult life. So when I discovered that first started for me with my stress because I came to this new country and I worked overtime and did not take care of myself and you know, but what happened to me is that I got to the point that my body couldn't take it anymore. The hormones went out of balance and I ended up in an emergency room. And that's when I started to address my stress. And it came to I realized down the road that I was born in a very unstable environment where my dad was drinking, and I have this anxiety and the stress was my default. Constant hypervigilance was my default. So when I came into this country and I, you know, was pushing myself harder, that's when my body said I cannot do this anymore. That's when I started looking deeper, and I realized, okay, so my dad was alcoholic, okay, why he was like that? Because first, you know, when we talk about our families, the first came to my mind was anger. I was so angry that my parents, my grandparents were not taking care of me the way they should. And I just couldn't get over it for some time. But then I was like, okay, let me let me start looking, and this was really from their perspective, from a third point of view, not from the child point of view. And I realized that my dad had his own issues with his parents, and my grandparents had their own issues with their grandparents. It's going from generation to generation because we are just not taught how to handle emotions, how to manage stress, and how to live. But what we carry is those patterns that we learn how to do any life, any situation. And so if there is a trauma in the family about, let's say we had to save food because there was a war, there was scarcity, we will bring that fear that we'll run out of food in our adult lives now, also because that's what we've been taught. Of course, the body keeps the score and we have the genetics that we keep on having that energy pass from generation to generation, but the patterns really come also from the behavior that we learn. Naturally, our environment and those patterns, how to behave, we learn that. And you know, when I realized that what happened with my grandmother specifically, since we're talking about grandmothers here on this podcast, she was born in 1923, and so that's like in Warzones and World War I, and then they were going to World War II, and but when she was growing up, I remember this one story that my mother told me about my grandmother, and it said they grew up in the family of eight or ten kids, of course, because back in the day that's what it was. And the father, her my my grandmother's father will come back home drunk with some food, and then he will say, Okay, now kids, dance. And the one that will dance the best, that will make me laugh, that's the one that's gonna get the food that I brought. So, you know, when I think about that, my my grandmother was not really joyful about life. Well, she came from extreme scarcity, also she had to see the World War II, she had to rebuild, and she seen so much of loss that I am not surprised, you know, when I look back that she didn't see much of love and appreciation and what I needed, she didn't get that either. And that really spilled over on my mother as well. And there was a lot of healing that I had to do to realize that I cannot blame my parents for something because they are themselves inside children that didn't get what they needed to. And the same goes for my grandparents, and probably from grand-grandparents. There was always some trauma, some experiences, and some histories, and the patterns, how we behave, we carry from generation to generation.

Amie Penny Sayler 17:53

You know, I'm even just thinking about, and I'm not excusing anything, but your grandma and her wanting you to wear that nightgown so much, whether that was just to her, I'm helping you belong. I'm helping you do the right thing so you won't suffer from scarcity. You will you will please people and you will have what you need, just based on those experiences that she had as a child.

Lolita Guarin 18:19

Yes, I absolutely believe now when I'm looking from an

Breaking Misplaced Loyalty to the Family Struggle

Lolita Guarin 18:22

adult point of view that sure she loved us in in the way that she showed the care. And we never starved, definitely. We're always with full bellies running around and enjoying our summers. And when we start looking from that perspective, I think that's where the real change happens. And uh, you know, when I have uh uh stress management coaching clients that come to me and I say, okay, well, we need to change something in your life so you will not be so stressed out because if you're continuously doing the same thing over and over, you cannot expect different results. It's called madness. So you need to start changing something, and there is a lot of the loyalty that really comes to those patterns. And when we say, okay, we need to slow down, we need to acknowledge what we do that doesn't work for us, we need to change it. That's where is the hardest part is to let go of the loyalty to the identity that we're keeping in ourselves, is the loyalty to those generations because we don't want to be not honoring the struggle. But I think at this point we need to realize that it's time to start changing. And it is great for us to talk about and honor what happened to them and to us, but we also need to be courageous enough to change something in our behavior that has to do with our children. And you know, when I have those clients, they tell me I don't have time for this, I don't have time for anything, you just give, you know, I'm running three businesses, I have my three teenagers, and I have aging parents, I don't have time to take one minute a day to read a book or whatever that is. You know, I say, okay, so basically if you're not taking care of yourself, you think that you are making the sacrifice that you are providing for your family, that you're honoring your family's patterns that say you have to honor the struggle because you you believe you're honoring your ancestors by doing the same things that they valued. So you will be included in the group and you will be loved and appreciated. You know, basically people pleasing and you you're pleasing actually the people that probably maybe even not on this you know earth anymore. They may be already transitioned somewhere else and we're still doing the same things, expecting that they will validate us. Well, because we don't know any any other way. And more than this, we need to give ourselves permission to do something different because at the end of the day, is they want us to be happy and they want us to be healthy. So when I'm coaching my clients and they hesitate to make any difference in their life, I just simply say, okay, so what is that you're teaching your kids? When you teach your kids that you cannot take care of yourself, they will not take care of themselves as well. This is the future that you want for them. And that is this inner struggle that comes where you need to find the courage is to let go of the loyalties to the patterns that don't work with honor and in love to those ancestors, but not to be ashamed of saying, you know what, this, you know, lots of things were way great, but some things we can improve and then have enough courage and time and energy to actually invest in yourself and in your future and in your kids and your grandkids as well.

Amie Penny Sayler 21:35

I love what you just said about it's the loyalty to the pattern and to break that connection in our minds of I have to be loyal to the pattern to honor my family, my ancestors, you know, whatever that is. That's not true. You can still love and honor without loyalty to the pattern that's broken.

Overcoming Burnout & The Cycle of Self-Abandonment

Amie Penny Sayler 22:07

I would love for you to talk a little bit about your work, and then I think we're getting close to that self-abandonment idea and how that plays into your work.

Lolita Guarin 22:17

So when we meet someone that we haven't seen for a while, even last week, usually we say, How was the weekend? or how you been? And many answer with so much of a struggle of, oh, the life is hard, I've been running around, being crazy. Basically, we're wearing the badge of honor of constantly being stressed. And when we look at our grandparents' parents, it's generational of being stressed out and being useful. So, you know, I when I started my self-healing journey, I discovered Dr. Gabor Mate, and he just explained so well of if you grew up in the environment that you were not being seen and loved and appreciated who you were as a child, just to be without doing anything, and you had to work for it, you have to be producing, you have to be useful some way, you will bring that into your adult life. And that's why we, you know, in today's society is very popular thing as of you have to struggle, you have to sacrifice, and especially it has to do with women. Women need to work extra hard and not not even show that they're women, meaning we take care of the house, but now women became men as well, because now you need to go and get the beef at the same time and look good doing it, and look fabulous while doing that.

Amie Penny Sayler 23:37

Yes.

Lolita Guarin 23:38

So that is like another humongous conversation about you know what our society needs to really work on is to honor also feminine and masculine in us and really work on that. That's the whole stress management and health issue. But when I start working with my clients about that, how to bring that balance into lay life, I say, okay, let's do one thing that you love doing it. And that's a great tip. Do every day something that you love doing. Could be, I don't know, watching your Netflix show or reading a book, but it's for you. There are so many I have difficulty with this small task because we've been taught that how dare you to be selfish, how dare you to take time for yourself, and you always need to sacrifice, you always need to give. And you know, when I heard that because we are people who need people, we're so afraid of being excluded that they say we're eager to kill ourselves in order to survive. So we will abandon our own needs because we want to be still in the group, we still want to survive. That survivalism is really ruling us so much. So we abandon ourselves in multiple ways by picking something that we don't, you know, just no boundaries. You abandon yourself if you want to say no but you say yes, that's a you know, you abandon your needs. You know, simple things like just being dehydrated or wearing clothes that you hate or they're too tight. That's also self-abandonment. But that pain would take as, well, that's the way things are, and I'm not gonna change because I am afraid to break that loyalty because my mother and my grandmother, you know, they suffered so much. So I'm just gonna carry on and I don't want to make waves, I don't want to change anything because I am feeling threatened. So, and that's very important for us to teach our kids that it's okay to choose you because when we are healthy, and that's when we can support others that we love.

Amie Penny Sayler 25:42

For a listener who is hearing what you're saying, it's resonating with them, they're thinking, Yeah, I need to do this. What are some first steps that you recommend?

Lolita Guarin 25:54

Everything starts with um building trust with yourself and stop abandoning by just do something that you like and start catching yourself when you're going against your own will. So if let's say somebody is inviting you to go somewhere and you are afraid to say no, although you don't want to, because you don't want to hurt

Small Steps to Reclaim Sovereignty & Build Self-Trust

Lolita Guarin 26:15

their feelings, find other way, you know, to tell them, I'll think about it, then I'll let you know. And then later you say no. But that moment is when you not abandon your own needs, you build a trust in yourself that you can do it. Also, I invite all my clients to actually make a list of things that they accomplished in their life, as of difficult situations or you know, health scares, or even sitting in traffic and being afraid to be late to work. How did you handle? Did you survive through it? And count your victories, and build that trust with yourself that you are adult now and you can take care of yourself no matter what will happen. And the more times we'll pay attention, then we can take care of ourselves and not abandon our needs. And the beautiful things happen when uh you stop abandoning yourself. Guess what? The life still goes on, nobody dies. You know, and that's how you you build that trust of saying, you know what, I didn't feel like I want to have that amount of glass of wine that my friend gave me, and I said no, and she was okay with that. So I don't have to say yes next time. And really, the point is it starts small. Start small, don't bulldoze yourself anywhere. That's the self-love and self-care is honor your inner child, talk to yourself like your grandmother that you wanted to have. You know, look at yourself and say you're doing good, you're amazing, you are enough, I love you. And that's where it starts. Everything starts from within. Because when we are in giving love to ourselves, then we have plenty of gift others that are around us. And that's not only to our kids, but we would your example of taking care of yourself, you give other people around you permission to take care of themselves too. And I think that's how we really change the world.

Amie Penny Sayler 28:09

What I'm hearing too, that misplaced loyalty to the pattern that we have, I really believe that's not what our grandmothers would have wanted. I mean, there might have been some actions that showed, or you know, those silent stories that carry through and all of that. But really, and of course I'm speaking most, there's always exceptions. I think most people want the generations behind them to have things better than they did. So when you're self-abandoning, you are creating the situation again unnecessarily. And at the end of the day, that's not even you're doing it out of this sense of loyalty that really that's not actually what they would have wanted anyway.

Lolita Guarin 28:54

And starts all that with allowing yourself to make that change. We should stop being ashamed of ourselves. We're doing amazing, and we're the only ones. So we are perfect by default.

Amie Penny Sayler 29:08

I love that. We are perfect by default. That is fantastic. Well, we will obviously be linking your website. There might be some listeners who definitely want to check out your website and may even want to work with you because there's just, I mean, I realize we just touched on the very tippy top of what you have to offer. So thank you so much.

Lolita Guarin 29:30

Thank you.