✨ Raíces & Relaciones: Healing Our Relationship Patterns From the Inside Out ✨

Relationships serve as powerful mirrors reflecting not just who we are, but also our deepest wounds, beliefs, and generational patterns. When something triggers us in a relationship, it's rarely just about the other person—it's about an old wound being activated.

As Latinas and first-generation Americans, many of us carry cultural beliefs about love that shape our relationships in profound ways: staying together for appearances, avoiding conflict, equating loyalty with tolerating mistreatment, normalizing secrets, and adhering to rigid gender roles. We're taught that "aguantar" (enduring hardship) is love, when truly, love should never leave you feeling drained or diminished.

Recognizing relationship patterns requires honest self-reflection. Red flags include constantly explaining yourself, anxiety when awaiting responses, avoiding necessary conflict, pretending everything's fine when it's not, and relationships that feel like emotional roller coasters. Green flags to seek include feeling safe to speak your truth, experiencing mutual effort and emotional consistency, having boundaries respected, and being genuinely celebrated for your growth.

The journey toward healthier relationships begins with practical healing tools: energetic cleansing (limpias), reflective journaling, exploring astrological and human design insights, setting loving boundaries, and performing cord-cutting visualizations to release old attachments. Perhaps most transformative is understanding how our inner child drives our relationship dynamics—when someone triggers abandonment wounds, it's this younger version of ourselves crying out for protection.

Ready to transform your relationship patterns? Start with these journal questions: What did love look like growing up? What are you still tolerating? Where do you stay silent to keep peace? What boundaries need setting? Remember, healing takes patience and much self-love, but creates space for relationships that help you grow rather than keep you small.

Share your journey or questions with me — I'd love to hear your story and support your healing path.

Get the Free Guide: The Raiz Ritual  for grounding your energy and reconnecting with your esencia.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Relationship Mirrors Introduction
• 4:26 Cultural Beliefs About Love and Sacrifice
• 7:30 Recognizing Toxic Patterns and Green Flags
• 14:09 Tools for Healing Relationship Patterns
• 19:59 Inner Child Work and Journal Questions
• 21:29 Oracle Card Reading: Not For You

Transcript

Dora: 0:55

Hola, hola, mi gente hermosa and welcome back to Ay Mijita. Embrace your roots, reclaim your esencia. I'm Dora Alicia Praxedis, your Spanglish hermana, intuitive healer, life coach and your compañera para todo lo que es healing, empowerment y reclaiming who the heck we really are is healing empowerment and reclaiming who the heck we really are. Hoy we're diving deep into a tema que hits home for all of us relationships, not just romantic love, pero familia, friendships, comunidad and especially the relationships you have con contigo mismo. Because the truth is, how we show up in relationships often reflects our deepest wounds and our deepest healing. So, ponte comfortable, grab your cafecito or a tea, your journal, your tissues, if you're sensitive like me, Porque hoy we're going to talk about how to heal relationship patterns from the inside out. We're going to talk about how to heal relationship patterns from the inside out. I'll share personal stories, spiritual tools y te voy a dejar con preguntas para que reflexiones y start transforming how you connect with others and especially yourself, contigo mismo. So let's talk about something super real Relationships are mirrors.

Dora: 2:26

Todo lo que we attract, tolerate or struggle with in relationships often comes from old wounds, beliefs and generational patterns. Many of us grew up hearing things like La familia es lo más importante, aunque te lastimen. Calladita te ves más bonita. Which I've used that one in the past before. It's your duty to stay loyal, aunque no seas feliz, like en serio. And that creates this idea that loving others means sacrificing yourself. Pero love isn't supposed to hurt, it's not supposed to drain you, it's supposed to expand you. And sometimes we don't realize that the person we're really fighting with is our inner wounds. So, mijita, mijito, I want you to pause and ask yourself when was the last time I felt triggered in a relationship? Was it really about that person or about an old wound being poked at? These are the preguntas that start to wake us up and become a little more open and start to dig a little deeper on what might be underlying the surface or the.

Dora: 3:34

I can see, when I had this first realization that our relationships are mirrors, I didn't really want to admit it because it was something that, for me, I felt shamed, right, or embarrassed to admit. Because I didn't want to admit that I was triggered by a certain thing someone would do, because I didn't see myself like that. But there was underlying things such as ego or like I would never wear that. But that was probably because I had insecurities with my own body and I wasn't able to give myself permission to allow those feelings and emotions to come up. So I can process and I did think I loved my body the way it was. But looking at others kind of dress a certain type of way that I thought I couldn't dress, that was the underlying issue. So it's not really just one-to-one. It might be something deeper once you look into it further. Let's talk cultura.

Dora: 4:38

As a Latina myself, mujer de color first gen, I carry so many beliefs about love and sacrifice and, as we all do, because that's kind of what some of these societal norms make us believe, for example, staying in a relationship for appearances. You don't want to get into the chisme right of others and that's where keeping the apariencias. I know my parents played a lot into this one because they didn't want to admit they weren't in love or that they weren't this happy family. It was kind of playing that charade. I know divorce in our family wasn't something of the norm or maybe people would talk in our family I mean, I think that's something my mom and my dad wanted to prevent was to be gossiped about. Where we ended up being gossiped anyway because of my pregnancy at 16. Everybody thought I was doomed, but anyway I digress.

Dora: 5:38

The other one is avoiding conflict at all costs, like don't rock the boat Walking on eggshells. When someone is a super reactive in a relationship, you don't want to poke the bear right and have them lash out and say hurtful, meaningful things at times, so sometimes we just keep quiet. The other one is believing loyalty means tolerating mistreatment, being complacent because you want to prove your love. You don't want the other person to think, oh, I don't love you the way you are, or you want to be that person that they go to. So we ended up tolerating a lot of shit that we shouldn't and being treated a certain way that is not respectful to us. And the last one here is thinking it's normal to have secrets or live in silence.

Dora: 6:33

I remember growing up we would just pretend like nothing happened the next day, even though we had a huge fight or we would argue or we would yell at each other. But because ignorance is a bliss that's one of my favorite sayings we just kind of sweep it under the rug. And I lied. I do have one more for you. And let's not forget how gender roles play into it, especially in our culture. That is a tough one to swallow. But growing up I remember my tia saying things like una mujer aguanta, eso es amor. A woman is supposed to tolerate everything for being with my man, and I get that. But then I don't get that, because then we end up enduring so much pain and hurt and things over time that I feel like it builds up and we explode sometimes. And I believed it until I realized that aguantar cost me my health, my mental peace and my own voice. Mijita, aguantar is not love. You deserve relationships that feel safe, free and expansive Expansivos. Let me get real contigo.

Dora: 7:52

For years I was a people pleaser in every relationship I thought being low maintenance made me lovable, keeping quiet kept, pero let's just say it was intense. This person would disappear emotionally, then come back like nothing happened and I'd stay thinking y pensando, y pensando. If I love harder, they'll stay. If I give it my all, they'll come back. But I was chasing someone emotionally unavailable because deep down I felt unworthy of the consistent love. One night after a huge fight, I remember I was crying in my car, shaking, and I asked myself why do I keep choosing people who can't choose me back Like I feel so used who can't choose me back Like I feel so used. That moment really changed my life and it shifted. I started to become more aware of how crummy it made me feel, and that's when it was the start of my inner shift. And it wasn't easy. Healing relationship patterns never is, pero it's so worth it, porque now I'm in relationships where I'm seen, heard and valued, and so can you.

Dora: 9:23

In this particular relationship that I had this fallout with, and realization, it was a family member and so that's not someone I could just brush off and say, oh, I'm not going to talk to them ever again. There was a point in time where I didn't talk to them for a bit, and I try to put my foot down, but every time I would go back after months of not talking, it would be the same thing over and over again. And that's when I realized I need to forgive the person for where they're at, because they don't know better. They really don't. They're not aware. In my awareness, my sense of consciousness, I was able to see things in a different light, and it was for me to get better. I can't change other people, and that was another huge realization was I need to love the person the way they are, and if that means I have to keep a distance, then so be it, but I still send the person love.

Dora: 10:28

Once you start having relationships that you feel like you're reciprocated and you're valued, it definitely shifts your perspective. But it all starts with you treating yourself in that way, with respect and love and compassion. Let's talk red flags y patrones tóxicos. We sometimes ignore Constantly explaining yourself like neta, te sientes que necesitas explicar todo. Like you need to explain yourself for everything. Feeling anxious when someone takes long to reply. So when you're sitting there you're waiting for someone to reply, you feel like you need to fill the void sometimes for someone to reply, you feel like you need to fill the void sometimes, especially if you're feeling, if you're sitting face to face. That's another one where silence sometimes is super uncomfortable for people.

Dora: 11:16

Avoiding conflict at all costs, that is trying to brush everything under the rug. It's ignoring, like pretending that nothing's wrong because you don't again. Like pretending that nothing's wrong because you don't again want to rock that boat saying I'm fine cuando no estás fine. And this one I kind of laugh and giggle to myself because I used to use this one with Philly all the time my husband and it drove him nuts because he would ask estás bien? And I'm like, no, si está bien, todo está bien, everything's fine, and it really wasn't. I just didn't want to pick a fight and I I was having a hard time honestly trying to process what was going through my head and my heart and my feelings and everything. And honestly I didn't want to cause a scene, because sometimes it was my berrinches, like my brat moments, that I just wanted to cause him to pay attention to me and that was one way of doing that. So now, my proudest moment relationships that feel like roller coasters. So it's a montaña rusa of emotions and I know people in my life they get on that roller coaster of emotions and I pretty much tell them call me when it's over, because I am so not taking that ride.

Dora: 12:33

Mijita, love should feel calm, not like you're holding your breath. There is a bright side to this. So, también, let's talk about green flags, because not everything is negativo. Feeling safe to speak up, opening up with the no filter, is the best feeling ever. Right, opening your heart, being able to talk freely, without judgment, the mutual effort, so someone that reciprocates, alguien, give me to where you are and walks you through hand by hand. That emotional consistency, that other person regulating emotions is key for the person with that emotional intelligence right, that maturity that feels so good when you finally find it with someone Respecting boundaries, and that goes first of all with yourself. But it's great when someone knows what your boundaries are and having the other person honor that and respect them, that is key, genuinely celebrating your growth, not having that other person guardar resentimientos or like look at you with the side eye or be butthurt because you're doing better than them. So that person that really cheers you on without any hesitation.

Dora: 13:57

Healing means learning to recognize both right, the toxic parts and the green flags. So ask yourself, am I choosing love or familiar chaos? So ¿cómo empezamos to heal nuestros patrones, our patterns? Te voy a compartir my favorite tools. Number one, of course, is the limpias. So I do egg limpias to release heavy energy from past breakups, any arguments, those heavy feeling vibes, and when I feel entangled in someone's energy, una limpia helps me clear it out. So that can be with palo santo crystals. Sage a shower and just go through the motions of releasing everything that doesn't serve you anymore.

Dora: 14:54

Number two is journaling. Ask yourself questions like what did love look like in my childhood? And if something does come up, that's where you probably want to sit with it. If you can, if you feel safe and comfortable, dig in and see what comes up emotionally and thoughts, memories. Ask yourself what do I truly want in a relationship? How do you want to be treated? What's your ideal in the relationship that you're asking for and put it out there in the universe. Deal in a relationship that you're asking for and put it out there in the universe. Who drains my energy and who gives me peace? That's a good one, because sometimes when you journal, it's automatic writing and that's where things come up that you didn't even realize you had in you, or thoughts right, put them on paper and sometimes, when you reread it, and sometimes when you reread it, something else jumps out at you.

Dora: 15:52

Number three is astrology and human design. So your natal birth chart can show you love patterns, attachment styles and soul lessons. I strongly believe that we chose our parents coming into this lifetime. They are our teachers in this life and so when you're looking at your birth chart, that gives a lot of indications, especially what placements you have in the different houses, what might be going on, especially in your home and family. House number four, house number eight of shared resources and definitely house number 11 when it comes to community social gatherings, that type of thing. And, of course, house number one, which is the most important one, I think, because that's how you portray yourself to others, especially to the broader world. Human design shows how you best connect with others. So, for example, I'm a generator, so I need sacred responses before I can commit to people or projects.

Dora: 16:57

Number four is boundaries con amor. So those boundaries are not walls, they're bridges built with respect. So practice small boundaries first. For example, I'm not available to talk about this right now, or I need time to think about my answer Like ¿es diciendo no? Without saying no necessarily. So that comes in handy when you're trying to navigate some of these difficult conversations, or you really don't have that mental space or emotional bandwidth to talk about it at that given moment.

Dora: 17:33

Number five is energetic cord cutting. So visualize scissors. Or if you actually have scissors and a string or a ribbon, you can go ahead and physically do this. You are cutting old ties with people who no longer serve you and you say out loud when you're doing this, I release this energy, with love and gratitude, I call back my power. You'd be surprised how freeing it feels. I remember I tried this with my grandma and she was so confused about this exercise, but once she was done she was able to say, wow, that felt really good, like letting go, and so this is a way to physically do that with that intention.

Dora: 18:17

Cariño, the inner child runs the show in relationships. When someone triggers abandonment wounds, it's your inner niña, niño, interior, crying for protection. Some ways to connect with them is to place your hand on your heart and say I'm here, I see you, I love you, you're safe. Visualize your inner child at the age you felt most hurt or the situation that came up that upset. You sit with them, tell them that they're not alone. You can also do a limpia when you're setting the intention to release that childhood pain around the love. In your visualization, healing your inner child transforms how you show up in all relationships, including the one contigo mismo. No dejes olvidado o olvidada that little kid that came out to feel safe, to express themselves, especially in a healthy way. I know there's more to explore here, which we will do at a later podcast episode, but for now, sit with what you feel resonates with you, and start having that relationship with your inner child. That will make you understand why you are the way you are, and there might be memories you don't remember now, but when you're doing this work, things come up because it's the time to work through them.

Dora: 19:59

Okay, let's pause and reflect. Aquí te dejo preguntas para tu journal. What did love look and feel like growing up? What am I still tolerating in my relationships? Where do I stay silent to keep the peace? What do I want my relationships to feel like moving forward? What boundary do I need to set this week? Take your time. Healing takes paciencia y mucho amor. I'd love to hear from you. Have you recognized a pattern in your relationships? You're ready to heal? Do you have a story where you finally spoke your truth? You can send me a DM on Instagram, at deepraxedis, or email me at hola, at dorapraxedcom, and maybe we'll share your story on a future episode. Siempre, anonymous, if you prefer. I'd love to hear what you're going through and if there's any way that I can assist. I'm here for you and I'm rooting for you as well.

Dora: 21:29

I thought to get some guidance with my oracle cards, which is another tool I love to use. And I pulled a card from the Wisdom of the Oracle from Colette Barron-Reed, and the card that came up was number six, not for you. And the card that came up was number six, not for you. Now the visual of it is it's like a fortune cookie, like one of those Chinese fortune cookies, in between a chessboard, and so we have the white pieces on the left, the black pieces on the right, and then there's a window, a ventana looking thing, or a chest at the top, and it's being held by a hand. And so I'm going to read what this card means.

Dora: 22:15

So the essential meanings for this card is a clear knowing that something is being denied you. Rejection is God's protection. And again, I pulled this oracle card to give a little more flavor and guidance on relationships. And so the oracle message for this is there are times when it appears that, no matter how deeply you desire something, no matter how hard you work at something, the result you seek always seems to elude you. It's as if you don't really get to be in the game and you feel you're just watching from the sidelines. The appearance of this card indicates that you are not going to attain what you want to right now that, indeed, your dreams for that exact thing will not be fulfilled. This is a time to radically accept that not everything is available to you when you want it. Take heart, for there are benevolent forces who desire the best for you and have a much clearer idea of what is for your highest good. Rejection is God's protection. Something much better that will make you truly happy is on its way. Trust this.

Dora: 23:34

The relationship message with this card is some relationships carry an innate seed of failure in them. That is obvious from the beginning, but the red flags escape your observation or you refuse to acknowledge them. When a relationship is not meant to be, it is not possible to make it be. Rejection is a sign that you're being protected by the divine. If you are the one who must reject another, remember that you do so for both your sakes. For every pot there is a lid. This one may not be the best fit.

Dora: 24:10

The prosperity message with this card is you can strategize and project and systemize and invest all the time and energy, but sometimes your best laid plans seem to go awry. In spite of it all, keep in mind that no effort is wasted. Fail fast and learn from defeat. Then keep going. You will eventually succeed, although perhaps not at this game, not at this time. Know when to fold your cards.

Dora: 24:40

The protection message with this card is don't chase after what flees from you. Don't obsess over what eludes you. Don't bang your head against the wall. There is nothing romantic about what is unavailable, no prize given for torturing yourself and nothing to be gained by refusing to see the red flags that have been waving since you began your pursuit. Now is the time to walk away. There are other goals, other loves, other gains, other successes waiting for you. The way out of obsessing is radical acceptance and surrender. Spirit wants only the best for you. This is a sign that you have something much better waiting for you Trust.

Dora: 25:24

So hopefully this reading and this card resonated with you and I think is very in line with our conversation today regarding relationships. Sometimes we don't understand why things happen, but know in your heart and in your mind. That's where logic needs to come on board. Right is everything's happening for you, not against, against you? Remember to trust the process and endure it, because you are learning so much from it and you're going to be such a better person on the other side. Cariño, thank you for hanging out conmigo today. Remember, relationships are not meant to keep you small. They're meant to help you grow, heal and shine even brighter. If this episode resonated contigo, share with someone who needs it or leave me a review so more people can find this space. Don't forget to download my free guide, the Raiz Ritual for grounding your energy and reconnecting with your esencia. You can find the link in the show notes below. Next week, we'll be talking more about relationships in my life. Trust me, you don't want to miss it. Until next time, keep embracing your raices and reclaiming your esencia. Besitos, mi gente.