Description

Content Warning: Discussion of suicide.

Juliet Patterson is the author of Sinkhole: A Legacy of Suicide, which exploreshow suicide shaped her family line. She also discusses how breaking generational silences, reconnecting with the land and local communities, and cultivating somatic awareness can help us heal inherited grief and reclaim our true sense of belonging. 

About Juliet

Juliet Patterson is the author of Sinkhole: A Legacy of Suicide (Milkweed Editions, September 2022), finalist for the 2023 Minnesota Book Awards and named one of the best memoirs of 2022 by Library Journal. She has also published two full-length poetry collections, Threnody, (Nightboat Books 2016), a finalist for the 2017 Audre Lorde Poetry Award, and The Truant Lover,(Nightboat Books, 2006),winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize anda finalist for the 2006 Lambda Literary Award. A recipient of the Arts & Letters Susan Atefat Prize in non-fiction, and a Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize, she has also been awarded fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Minneapolis-based Creative Community Leadership Institute (formerly the Institute for Community and Creative Development). She teaches creative writing at St. Olaf College and Augsburg University’s low-residency MFA program. She lives in Minneapolis with her family.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Understand Inherited Grief and Generational Silences: Unaddressed family trauma and shame create inherited grief—an unspoken emotional weight that children absorb and carry somatically in their bodies long before they learn the facts.
• Reconnect with Land and Place as Somatic Anchors: Human beings are deeply mammalian; reconnecting with the physical land, environment, and regional geography helps ground us, allowing space to process complex grief that feels too heavy for everyday life.
• Break Free from Rigid Family Roles: Family systems often assign surface-level roles to avoid difficult feelings. Reclaiming emotional honesty and practicing vulnerability helps disrupt stilted patterns and allows each family member to express their full humanity.
• Examine the Pressures of Traditional Masculinity: Three generations of male suicide highlight how societal expectations of traditional, stoic masculinity force men to repress deep emotional sensitivity and isolate themselves instead of seeking community support.
• Cultivate Somatic Self-Awareness Daily: Simple somatic practices—such as checking in with how your body feels when you're upset or walking barefoot on the earth—help reconnect the mind and body, breaking the cycle of emotional detachment.

Resources

• Jonathan Foer
• All About Loveby bell hooks 
• Pema Chödrön

Connect with Juliet Patterson

Juliet's paternal Grandma Leah Kennedy Patterson is pictured in the episode art.

Theme music written and performed by Carter Penny.

Connect with Just Like Nana's Website.

A proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.