Welcome to Thriving Humans

What does it actually mean to thrive, and not just survive? In this first episode, Rebecca Thompson Hitt and Meredith Alvarado introduce themselves, share what brought them together, and lay out the philosophy behind Thriving Humans: that you already have your answers, and they're here to help you find them.

Follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Radical Rest Retreats, both online and in person are coming soon.

Be curious. Be kind. Start with yourself.

Thriving Humans is hosted by Rebecca Thompson Hitt and Meredith Alvarado. Follow and subscribe wherever you listen.

Radical Rest Retreats, both online and in person, are coming soon!

Podcast artwork: Visual Medicine paintings by Rebecca Thompson Hitt

Theme music composed and performed by Chris Peña · chrispenamusic.com

Transcript

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

We've been having these conversations for years with clients, with each other, with friends who call us late at night, not knowing what to do. And we finally thought these conversations need to be out in the world. And so here we are with the Thriving Humans podcast. So who is this podcast for?

Meredith:

Well, it's for a few different kinds of people. It's for people who feel like they've been doing things the way they thought they should, or the quote, right way, and are still feeling like it doesn't feel right to them. It's for people who have followed what other people are doing, what society says.

Meredith:

We should be doing what feels like, well, this is just what our culture does. This is the conventional way. This is the mainstream way. And that could be what your friends are telling you, the books that you've read, the advice you've heard on webinars or articles and things like that. And it just doesn't fit. It doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel good. And...

Meredith:

You know, also folks who are questioning things and are willing to maybe go beyond what seems like the easier way, however, doesn't feel all that good to them intuitively. Those are some of my thoughts. What do you think?

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Yeah, you know, I think also people who are repeating a pattern from their past, like something that they don't want to be doing, maybe it's something that you watched your mother do or your grandmother do or your father do and you swore you'd never do and you're doing it.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

And you don't know how to stop doing it and you don't know what else to do. And so you're questioning that because it just doesn't feel right and it's not in alignment with who you know yourself to be. So this is for you. And you know, as a holistic family therapist, I...

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Love looking at the family, our relationships, the places that we came from. And that this doesn't matter if we're parents or not, we all came from somewhere, we all came from a family, and we learned things in that family, and those things may or may not feel good to us. And especially if they didn't feel good to you and you're looking for something else, this is for you. So if you're a wellness seeker,

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

If you're a parent, we welcome you. If you're a professional, if you're in a transition in your life, maybe you've been raising kids and your kids have launched. Maybe you're getting ready to have kids. Maybe you've left home for the first time. If you're in a transition, this is a great time to come and step into this container of what does it mean to be thriving for you. But really for anybody whose inner knowing is whispering that there's another way.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

So what is thriving? I think it's a great thing to go right into that. What do we mean when we're talking about thriving?

Meredith:

Yes, that is great. And I feel like in an age where sometimes language begins to mean different things over time and we have a lot of words that people use in ways that sometimes I hear and I think, hmm, what do they actually mean by that?

Meredith:

And are they actually meaning what they're saying? So I think that when we talk about this, thriving can get tossed around sometimes as a buzzword, like a lot of other words about how we live our lives and how we wanna feel. And I hear people talking about things like being happy or joyful and sometimes we are just going through motions and we think we're quote, fine, right? So I look at thriving as going beyond

Meredith:

That going beyond the sure, I'm okay, I'm fine.

Meredith:

Or even sometimes when someone will ask you how you're doing and you're saying good, you're saying that without really thinking about it. Is that what you really mean? So when I think thriving, it's beyond just doing what we're doing and not having problems, right? It's like sometimes we think, as long as nothing majorly horrible is happening, I'm fine. I'm living life, right? Thriving is about really going beyond that and feeling great often.

Meredith:

Not every day of course, because yes, we will have a day where we wake up and we're just not feeling great. However, it's not just about each day. It's about each individual choice and how that impacts our whole life on a longer term situation, right? So we can have a bad day here or there. However,

Meredith:

How we feel about our life as an ongoing situation. Are we doing the things that we love to do? Are we engaging in the activities that make us feel alive? Not just...

Meredith:

Standard, right? Not just we're okay and we're surviving. Are we making decisions based on what we know is right for us? Based on what feels good inside our bodies when we say, yes, I'm going to do that thing or you know what, I'm actually not going to go in that direction and have that feel really great and just

Meredith:

Feeling like we are living our lives in an intentional way on a daily basis, we know we could wake up and decide what we're gonna do that day, not out of a sense of obligation, the thing that's written on our calendar, the thing we told someone we'd do, maybe in a moment where we weren't listening to what the right answer was for us.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Hmm.

Meredith:

Thriving is, you know what? I am living my life in such a way that I'm in integrity with myself, my values, what I believe. And I know that in doing so, the me that shows up in the rest of the world is actually going to automatically take care of others, support them, because I'm supported and I'm making the choices that connect with those that ripple out into the world.

Meredith:

So that is my take on what thriving means.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

I'm so excited about that. I feel so inspired just listening to that Meredith. It's really so beautiful to have this idea. It's so counter cultural to have this idea that you could wake up each day and connect with yourself and be in integrity and in alignment with what you want to be doing. And that from there ripples out the goodness, the...

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

The support for other people, but it doesn't come from obligation. We have to do these things. It comes from us being really resourced, actually.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

What a different thing. That's not how I grew up. That's not what I see when I look at the larger culture. I see people hustling. I see people bypassing their needs for sleep or for rest or for eating good food because we don't have time to do those things. Or we gotta hurry up and go to the gym, but we don't have time to do anything else. And it's another thing that we're just checking off on our list of things that we're supposed to do. And so what you're talking about is very, very different.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Yeah, we as a society, are more surviving than thriving. We are doing the next thing that we have to do rather than coming from a place of what is it that I'm needing? What is it that I'm wanting? What is it that I'm wanting to give? What is it that I don't?

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Yeah, so thriving is very different from just getting by. It's not the, okay, yeah, I'm good. It's really, I'm good. I have space. I feel supported. And that, for some people listening, may feel like a pipe dream, like that's never gonna happen. And I think that that's part of the reason that we're doing this podcast.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Because we are doing it. We have done it. We help other people to do it. It is possible and we're here to walk with you what that might look like for you. And the other thing that feels really important to say right now is that thriving is not a list of things that you have to do. Thriving is different for each person. So what it takes for me to thrive is different than what it looks like for Meredith to thrive.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

At different ages and stages if we're parenting, it looks totally different what it means to thrive. And so we want you to find your own definition of thriving. What does that mean for you? It is not about we have all your answers and we're gonna tell you what to do, because we don't know what thriving means for you. But we're gonna help you ask the right questions and find what it means for you.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

I'm excited. Yeah, so let's talk about who we are. Would you like to introduce yourself first, Meredith?

Meredith:

Me too.

Meredith:

Yeah.

Meredith:

Sure, so I'm Meredith, I am many things. For the purpose of this introduction, I will talk a little bit about my role as a healer. I am a holistic healer. People always like to ask me if I have a specialty and I do not. I am a whole life healer. So I work with folks on all kinds of aspects of their lives, different transitions, experiences they're having related to their health and wellness, and primarily I help

Meredith:

People get back in touch with their intuition after perhaps having a lot of external messaging because once we return to ourselves we have all the answers. We really do.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Mm.

Meredith:

And it's not that life doesn't get difficult and challenging, it absolutely does. It's also the case that when we are as close to our intuition and our knowing as possible, we find that we are able to move through situations and know what the next best step is. We don't have to know how it's gonna turn out, in fact, none of us will. We just need to remember how to listen to our answers. So that's primarily what I do, and I've been doing that for over a decade now.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Nope.

Meredith:

And I really enjoy it. My choices in my life, having turned to the unconventional, have helped me be able to support others in asking those questions about what they're doing that's really working, what they're doing that's not working, and also what's coming from them versus what's coming from outside of them. So that's a lot of what I do with folks.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Mmm.

Meredith:

I am also a parent. I have raised one kiddo to late adolescent slash early adulthood. They're about to be 20. And I also raised two other kids. And those were two kiddos who were a former partners kids. And so I've actually raised three kids. I've been through a lot of fun parenting experiences and a lot of not so fun parenting experiences. Conversely, I actually am an only child myself.

Meredith:

So I had a very small family growing up. It was pretty much just myself My mom my dad and then I had one grandparent that was around from time to time so I had some interesting family dynamics and experiences as it pertained to that and then learned a lot when it became time for me to support young people on their growth journeys, so that is also part of my story I

Meredith:

Started off, I will say, as someone in life who really did follow conventional wisdom and advice, I was very much a rule follower as a young person and very much someone who wanted to make others happy with that rule following. So I did not start off in an unconventional way, the way I am currently living.

Meredith:

So again, when we talk to people about wanting to do something different, we know from our experience that it's absolutely possible because it's a lifelong process. It's one that we're experiencing. We're on the journey in this moment. And I was no exception. I went to school. I went to college. I got a job in the corporate world in the United States. I got married pretty young. 

Meredith:

I started parenting pretty young and all of these things were based on what I was told should happen. So I was checking the boxes of how life worked and then one day I woke up. No, it wasn't necessarily that sudden of a realization; however, at one point in my adult life I did realize that I've lived I had, at least up until that point, I had really lived for everyone else but me. I had done the things my parents told me to do and then I allowed

Meredith:

Schools, colleges, universities, et cetera, to tell me what to do during my late adolescent period. And then I entered the corporate world and allowed the companies that I worked for to tell me what to do. And at home, I was a dutiful spouse based on what I was told my society expected from me in that role. And then I raised children and they were my world. That was the most important thing for a very long time. And so it wasn't until my kiddo.

Meredith:

Was in their teen years that I realized, you know, there's another way. And I wonder what would happen if I started making choices based on what felt right for me instead of based on what everyone else expected of me. And so that was a big part of my journey and brings me to today. I live in the U S and have lived in the U S since I was eight months old. However, I was born in Guatemala. I am Mayan, of Mayan

Meredith:

Ancestry and that has also provided an interesting experience living in this country and having that ancestry and background. So I guess in summary I have had a lot of really great experiences that have taught me many things and I have had the experience of living in conventional society and I now have the experience of making choices that are very different from those that most people around me are making and how that feels.

Meredith:

And I can honestly say that I am thriving and am so grateful for that. And so I'm hoping that some of the ideas that we will share here can help others get to that same place.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Awesome. Thank you for sharing Meredith. so inspiring. So inspiring. Yeah, we're not stuck with whatever we think we're supposed to be doing. We do have choice and it takes effort, but also it's worth it. That's really what I was hearing from your story.

Meredith:

Yes, yes, very worth it. So would love to hear you share some of yours if you're willing.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Yeah, so as I said earlier, I call myself a holistic family therapist. I have been in practice for over 30 years and I do not believe in diagnoses. I don't believe in labels as, a way of identifying people. I look at context and I look at the whole person. I look at the story. I look at what's happened to someone. I look at what's happened to their people. I can't tell you how many times we have

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Expanded out a little bit and there's a whole other story in the next layer back that we aren't thinking of but it's actually a really big story that's showing up. So I love, I'm so curious, I love asking good questions and helping people to discover something that they don't know or understand about themselves because it's not about putting someone into a box and that I feel a lot of therapy does.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

What's your diagnosis? What's wrong with you? And I like to look at what's right with you or what makes sense about what you're doing or why you're doing it and I Often call myself a behavior detective because it's just what's going on here. What else is happening? What else is needed here?

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

What is the underlying need that's not being met? So it's a totally different way of looking and it's very holistic. It's very whole person oriented so I am the mother of two grown sons. I am a stepmom. I am now a grandmother. My husband's son just had a baby and I was able to go to the birth and that was their second baby and so this phase of life which is very different and a really interesting place to be and to have gone through the whole parenting journey and to see where I am now.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

And I was thinking about, you know, as you were sharing your story, your context, how you ended up here, I also, was raised in a very mainstream conventional family in a lot of respects, and I very much fit into the roles that I was assigned, and this is what I'm supposed to do, this is what it looks like, I did the things. I went to school, I got a degree, I got a job, I got married, all of those things. I got married really pretty young.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

And there were starting to be things in my first job where I knew it wasn't a good fit for me. I was actually working as a teacher and I kept getting sick, between that and the stress that was happening in my marriage at the time. I kept going to the mainstream doctors and it wasn't really helpful, but I didn't know what else to do. But it wasn't until I wanted to get pregnant with my first child that things really started to shift for me. I realized that the path that I was trying to walk wasn't working for me and that there were other paths that I could choose that maybe would feel better.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

I made an appointment to see my obstetrician because I wanted to get pregnant and I wanted to have a conversation about pregnancy and what kinds of things could I be doing to help prepare and have a healthy baby. And I made an appointment and I waited three hours in the waiting room and ultimately didn't even get to see the obstetrician. She was called out for a birth.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

And so I called back and tried to reschedule the appointment and I said, hey, I would like to get pregnant. I want to have a conversation with the obstetrician. And the person who answered the phone said, “Well, you know, if you're on birth control pills, you just go off the birth control and that's it.” And it was very unsatisfying because I was wanting to look at it from a holistic perspective. What are the foods that would be helpful? How can I support my body before I get pregnant? Is there anything that I need to be concerned about and I just felt completely brushed off. And I thought, wow, if it's going to be like this and I'm just asking a question, what's it going to be like if I'm pregnant and I have a question or if I'm in labor and something isn't feeling right? I don't know that I can trust this kind of a process, but what else is there? And someone gave me a book about midwives. 

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

So I looked in the phone book, that's how I date myself, looked in the phone book and I found there was a local midwifery practice and I picked up the phone, I made a phone call and the person who answered was the midwife and she talked to me for an hour.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

And she answered all of my questions and then said, please come in. I would love to talk to you and your husband. You know, yes, come, let's let's talk about this. And so when I finally did get pregnant, I had this person already who felt like a resource. And as she started asking me questions and saying, here, read this book and here, read this book and here, educate yourself about this. And I thought, my gosh, I didn't know that there was so much such a contrast to the other appointment.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Where they were like, yeah, yeah, whatever. There's so much here and there's so much to know. And that really jump started my path because lots of things that I said I would never do, I ended up doing because they were right for me and my family. And I think that that's probably one of the biggest guiding ideas for me is we're going to be talking about all kinds of things that we've done, that we've tried, that work for us, that work for other people. We don't have your answers.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

What worked for me, what worked for Meredith may not be what's right for you. And we don't want you to go along with what we did. That's not the point. The point is what will work for you. So we're going to ask questions, we're going to share stories, we're going to create a container for you to figure it out so that you can figure out what's right for you.

Meredith:

Yeah, exactly. And one of the things I like about that perspective is that maybe something we say gives someone an idea. Maybe it's not, I'm going to do exactly what they are doing because that could work. A lot of times when we hear others talk, it just sparks something in us, in our own creativity, that leads to something else. So it's great when we have resources that we feel like we can relate to, right?

Meredith:

As opposed to the books or the articles or things that we're reading and we're thinking, ugh, this doesn't feel right at all, versus when you connect with someone and how they're living.

Meredith:

You can get ideas from some of the things they suggest, right? So, hey, maybe let me try this. that reminds me, that thing that person just said, reminds me of something I'd been wanting to do, right? So, it's great because we can still have conversations and share perspectives and everyone still knows they get to make their own decisions regardless of what may or may not worked for someone else.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Exactly, exactly. So yeah, we think differently. We're going to talk about things differently. And the way that we're going to approach things may not be something you've thought about before. And it may not be the right path for you, but it may spark something for you. So go with it and let us know what happens.

Meredith:

Yes, we want to hear.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Yes, yes, yes. So, I think we've talked a lot about what makes this podcast different. I'm sure you've probably already gotten the idea that this is not like other podcasts that you've probably listened to.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

I think one of the things that I want to talk about that we haven't talked about that you mentioned is how everything is connected. How you sleep, how you eat, how you relate to each other, how you were raised. All of this is connected to thriving.

Meredith:

So I was just thinking, when you said that, it reminds me of how sometimes we try to put ourselves in boxes, depending on what area of our lives we're talking about or thinking about. And so when you say everything is connected, it's also a great reminder, I think, for all of us to recognize that we may have different identities, and we may have different interests in things, and we may not do all of those things at the same time. However, they all are part of who we are.

Meredith:

So not only are lifestyle choices and things like you said how we're sleeping and our relationships and all of those not only are those connected all of the pieces of us are still us so for example and people say I have to go into this work thing now, so I have to appear professional Let me not let on that I have this thing happening or I can't look stressed or let me not cry in a meeting or you know those kinds of things I think so often our society teaches us to pretend we're different things.

Meredith:

Or if we are a parent and we're at a meeting for our child, let's just be that and not think about the other pieces of us, you know, other things that we may have going on. and the truth is We're whole people and we are complex and complicated and have these things happening. And also that's okay. We can allow that and we don't have to put other pieces of us aside, just like we don't have to sacrifice our sleep to get something done.

Meredith:

We don't have to only sleep at night if we are tired. We can find other times to rest and nourish ourselves, et cetera, and we'll talk more about that. I just wanted to state that in as a part of this, right, that we'll be talking about because of how connected everything is.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

I think that's so important to remember because we have a very fragmented view of ourselves. We have lots of rules about what something should look like in one context versus another context. But how can we get to this place where we are one person? We are whole. I think that's such a huge part of thriving.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Yes. So I guess the other thing I'll just mention briefly is cycle breaking. We talked about it a little bit before. It's possible to break cycles if something didn't work for you. And it's the work of a lifetime. It's not something that you're just going to wake up tomorrow and be like, yay, I have broken all the cycles. It doesn't work that way, but it is very much a process

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

What is the next right step? And you said this earlier too, but I just wanted to come back to it. And we're also not talking about perfection. I think that's another thing to just name right off the bat. We don't put a bar here and say, jump, you need to jump this high. Those are external bars. This is from the inside. And it's about good enough. It's, are you doing what you need to do for you?

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

We don't have these external expectations, and we invite you to be kind to yourself and not have those same external expectations for yourself either that are impossible. They're impossible standards.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Yeah. So this is what we're doing, is we're going to be talking about, and so let's just talk briefly about this season. We're going to be talking about cycle breaking, how we were parented, our responsibilities as our children grow, boundaries.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

And nurturing yourself so you can thrive. Which leads me to mention our radical rest retreats. You want to say something about that, Meredith?

Meredith:

Yes, I'm so excited about these. So radical rest is a topic I have been on about for years, honestly. And so I'm so excited to be partnering where we are going to be offering the wider community opportunities to really rest, talk about what that means, talk about how we do it. Spoiler alert, it's not the same as sleep, it's different. So yeah, I'm really excited.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

It isn't just going and laying down either.

Meredith:

Exactly, exactly. There's more to it and it is going to change your world should you allow it to. It's going to be so amazing. So I'm really excited. We're going to have options both online and in person. So we will be sharing the details of those coming soon.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

Yay! I'm so excited about it too. We had our first little one that we did and it was so amazing. It was such a great weekend, so I can't wait to do the next one. Yeah, so you know, Meredith, I am just so excited to be here with you. These really truly are the conversations that I have been wanting to have in public for years, and so I'm so excited to get to do this with you. So thank you for your willingness to jump into this.

Meredith:

You're welcome and thank you for involving me. I'm just excited that we are going to be able to be reaching out to folks who are really meant to be in the circle. If you found us and this really feels good, then something in you is already reaching towards thriving and you're going to get there. You're exactly in the right place with us and we are so happy to have you.

Rebecca Thompson Hitt:

So welcome to thriving humans