Honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day: Reclaiming Our Understanding of “Relatives”

Each October, Indigenous Peoples’ Day invites us to pause, reflect, and honor the original stewards of these lands: the First Peoples. Their wisdom, resilience, and relational ways of living continue to guide us toward deeper healing and wholeness. It is more than a day of remembrance. It is a call to re-member; to piece back together what colonization fragmented, and to reclaim the sacred ways of being in relationship that Indigenous communities have carried for millennia.

One of the most profound teachings shared by many Indigenous cultures is the understanding of relatives. This concept is far more broad and interconnected than the Western notion of “family.” In many Indigenous worldviews, all of life is kin. Rivers, mountains, cedar trees, stars, salmon, ancestors, and unborn children all are relatives. All exist as part of the vast web of life that we belong to, care for, and are cared for by.

Much more than poetic metaphor, this worldview is a lived reality that shapes how communities make decisions, resolve conflict, steward the land, and heal.

“All My Relations”: A Way of Seeing and Being

The Lakota phrase Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ— “all my relations”— beautifully encapsulates this worldview. It expresses the truth that nothing exists in isolation. Every being is connected, every action ripples across the web of life, and every choice carries responsibility to ourselves, and to the whole.

To call the river or the cedar tree a relative is to acknowledge that they have inherent worth, agency, and wisdom. It is to approach them as far greater than just resources to be used, but as kin to be listened to, cared for, and lived alongside. This worldview teaches reciprocity. This is the understanding that well-being is more than individual— it is shared. And healing must extend beyond the human body and psyche to the land, water, community, and spirit.

When we honor all our relations, we remember that our healing is bound up in the healing of the world around us.

Reweaving This Wisdom Into Modern Healing Spaces

At Eastside Counseling Center, we are inspired by this Indigenous teaching as we co-create a culture of care that honors interconnectedness. Too often, mental health care has been shaped by models that isolate the individual. This separates mind from body, person from community, human from nature. But healing happens outside of isolation. It happens within relationships.

We are actively cultivating a practice culture rooted in the understanding that:

• Clients are more than individuals with symptoms. They are whole beings woven into families, communities, ecosystems, and ancestral lineages.
• Healing extends beyond the therapy room. It includes the foods we eat, the waters we drink, the land we walk upon, and the stories we inherit.
• We, too, are relatives. Clinicians and clients, human and non-human, ancestors and future generations are all part of the circle of care.
  
  

This worldview informs how we design our programs, how we hold space, and how we approach healing itself. It reminds us that our work is more than reducing symptoms, but also about restoring balance within ourselves and the wider web of life.

From Individual Healing to Collective Belonging

When we begin to see ourselves and those we serve through the lens of all our relations, therapy becomes more than a clinical intervention. It becomes an act of belonging. We are no longer trying to “fix” an isolated self but tending to a living, breathing part of a greater whole.

This shift has practical implications too. It means we ask new questions in therapy:

• How does your relationship with the land support or challenge your mental health?
• What ancestral stories might be shaping your current patterns?
• Where might you feel disconnected from belonging? How can we help you reweave that bond?
  
  

It also shapes how we build our team culture. We strive to treat one another as kin. That is, with respect, accountability, and compassion. And to remember that each decision we make ripples outward to clients, communities, and future generations.

Honoring Indigenous Wisdom as a Path Forward

Honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day is more than a day of rememberance. It’s about looking forward as we learn from the wisdom of the First Peoples of this land and weave those teachings into the future we are building together.

At ECC, we are committed to walking this path and honoring the sacred interconnectedness of life, to practicing reciprocity and respect. We are committed to remembering that healing is relational. When we honor the land as our elder, the waters as our lifeblood, and each other as relatives, we create a deeper, truer foundation for healing.

On this Indigenous Peoples’ Day, may we pause and listen. May we honor the ancestors who have tended these lands and carried this wisdom forward. And may we recommit ourselves to building a world, and a counseling culture, where all beings are seen, honored, and remembered as part of one vast family.

Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ — All My Relations.