Belonging Across Bloodlines: Wellness, Ancestry, and the Land
- Sierra Felicidad
- Sep 29
- 4 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
I grew up carrying many bloodlines, but no map. Filipina, Blackfoot, German, Swiss. All of it inside me, none of it in front of me. Until I was an adult and did my own deep dive into who I am, I didn’t have stories to hold on to, songs to sing, or rituals to remind me I belonged. Part of the silence was intentional. My parents’ generation thought they were protecting us by keeping our lineage a secret. They wanted to keep us safe in a world that punished difference, but their love of silence became both a shelter and a wound.
That kind of disconnection leaves a hollow in the heart. It’s a quiet ache that lives in your chest, in the twist of your stomach, in the way you hesitate to claim your own name. I knew my ancestry, but I didn’t feel it. Not until I began listening.
From Silence to Story: Learning to Carry My Lineage
As I began piecing together my Blackfoot roots and exploring the threads of my Filipino, German, and Swiss ancestries, I realized wellness was never meant to be individual. It’s in relationship — to land, to community, to memory, to ourselves. An elder in my dreams once told me,
“Belonging comes when you choose to carry it forward. Don’t wait for someone to hand you permission.”
That line traveled with me, across oceans and time. Identity isn’t a certificate or a title; it’s a practice.
Even my European ancestors, whose stories feel distant and fragmented, offer pieces of the same truth. One relative once said,
“We lost our ceremonies, but the land remembers. The stars remember.”
Those words softened something in me. Because even when family lines are broken, the universe itself holds memory. Star medicine. Cosmic threads. Backbones of belonging stretching through time, waiting for us to reach for them.
Hawaiʻi: A Place of Reflection
Hawaiʻi became part of this path for me. The islands asked me to slow down, to notice the rhythm of waves, the wind through the trees, the pulse of life moving through everything. “Malama ʻāina” to me emphasizes reciprocity. When we feed the land, she feeds us back. Simple words, but they stayed with me. Wellness isn’t just about what we do for ourselves. It’s about the relationships we keep, the ways we return care. Land, water, people: they all have memory, and they all teach.
The Challenge of Belonging
For many of us with mixed ancestry, or for those who don’t know their ancestry at all, belonging can feel like a moving target. Too much of one thing, not enough of another. It’s easy to internalize the idea that you’re incomplete, fragmented, or missing something essential.
But what I’ve come to believe is this: mixed ancestry is not a fracture. It’s a bridge.
Wellness, for me, has been about learning to stand on that bridge without apology. To find joy in the weaving, instead of shame in the gaps. My Filipina side wakes when I touch the water, when I taste the salt in the air, when the islands’ rhythms make me remember that we are tied to oceans, to family, to story. My Blackfoot side wakes in stone, in quiet, in endurance, in resilience that was passed down silently, but palpably, in my bones. My European side wakes in craft, in tending the earth, in quiet reverence for lineage. Together, they form constellations.
Redefining Wellness
Wellness, I’ve realized, is not something you check off. It’s not a smoothie, a meditation app, or a yoga pose. It’s noticing the thread that ties you to the land, to your body, to the sky, to those who came before you and those who will come after. It’s leaning into belonging even when it doesn’t feel like it’s offered freely.
Finding Your Grounding
I want to tell people who feel untethered: start small. Stand barefoot on the earth. Look up at the stars. Listen to people who have tended their roots and can teach you something without judgment. These are doorways into wellness. These are the ways belonging begins.
When I do this, when I touch earth, when I trace the constellations, when I remember my ancestors, I feel it. The ache softens. The hollow fills. I can see the threads connecting me to the world, and I begin to move differently through it, more whole.
The Essence of Belonging
Belonging isn’t something someone gives you. It’s not in one lineage, one home, one culture. It is the choice to step forward, to carry your ancestors, to honor the land, to notice the stars. That’s where wellness lives. That’s where home lives.
And if you’ve ever felt lost like I did, know this: you are not alone. The backbone of star medicine is there, reaching through you, waiting for you to remember. That thread is enough. That thread is everything. That thread is alive. May we all choose to acknowledge what’s alive inside of us.
About the Author
Sierra Felicidad is a writer and wellness practitioner focusing on ancestral belonging and cross-cultural healing.
