Becoming a Good Relative : Calling White Settlers Toward Truth, Healing, and Repair - Hilary Giovale

Becoming a Good Relative

Calling White Settlers Toward Truth, Healing, and Repair

By: Hilary Giovale

Paperback | 8 January 2025

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Becoming a Good Relative weaves the author's personal story of transformation with historical research, spiritual teachings, and an appendix of practical skills, resources, and rituals. Giovale offers warm, compassionate, and vulnerable personal stories to reveal how unlearning fragility, becoming antiracist, and repairing ancestral harm can feel. She invites readers beyond intellectual analysis into intuition, dreams, and practical rituals. These practices can transform the harms of colonialism, racial hierarchy, and economic inequity from the inside out. While written as a memoir, this book gives readers practical tools for building their own resilience and committing to reparations for the long term.

This book is for white people who are curious about moving beyond white fragility and into robust healing. It speaks to the TikTok users who have viewed videos on #decolonization 14 million times. It also addresses the philanthropic sector, which has increased its overall giving by 41% since 2019, along with regular Americans' substantial donations, and is seeking inspiration to direct more funding to communities of Color.

Industry Reviews
"With a voice of intuitive compassion, Becoming a Good Relative will open your heart's eyes. This book offers a physical and spiritual prescription for the awakening paradigm shift that is calling all of us into Divine Alignment. Hilary has come to understand the disruption of the sacred natural order of the Universe and its remedy: the principle that everything is related and connected."--Basil Brave Heart, Oglala Lakota Elder, Korean War Combat Veteran, Boarding School Survivor, and author, The Spiritual Journey of a Brave Heart

"Hilary Giovale unpacks the legacies of historical harm that continue to afflict American society and shows us a way forward toward healing. Her lens is informed by indigenous concepts that encourage harmony between one another and the planet we call home. This book is for people who want to be better and do better for the sake of generations to come." --Sharon Leslie Morgan, Founder, Our Black Ancestry and co-author, Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade

"Hilary Giovale models courageous exploration of truth-telling, healing, and repair. She boldly amplifies voices and wisdom from sources that are often marginalized. Her humility and courage are refreshing and inspirational. Becoming a Good Relative is a must-read for anyone grappling with their own relationship with cultural identity, race, and colonization."--Kevin Eppler, co-founder, White Men for Racial Justice

"In her groundbreaking book, Hilary encourages us to re-member who we have come from and honor today's Elders, who are breathing new life into our ancestors' treasured languages, songs, and stories."--S?ne McKenna, Scots Gaelic Songs and Stories Teacher (ancestralfire.ca)

"Hilary Giovale initiates white, European-descended people into the work of stepping into their collective power to dream and to build a different way of living. She provides knowledge and actions white settlers can use to reclaim their full humanity."--Dr. Anita Sanchez, Nahua (Aztec & Toltec), international award-winning author of The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times

"To write this book Hilary literally climbed, fasted, and prayed in sacred places. All the while she was open to mentors, some of whom serendipitously showed up to help guide her. She is bold, courageous, and most timely in sharing this work of reconciliation."--Steven A. Darden, Din? Traditional Practitioner

"Becoming a Good Relative offers an invitation for collective liberation. Hilary has beautifully and carefully crafted an offering - a model of how we can create a just economy."--Dr. Aisha Nyandoro, CEO, Springboard to Opportunities

"With a fearless spirit and authentic boldness, Giovale embarks on an introspective journey, unraveling the intricate layers of her ancestral past to forge a path illuminated by truth--a path aimed at propelling all those who surround her towards an infinite future guided by love, intention, and responsible action."--Beatrice A. Woody, Global Philanthropic Strategist ??


"Hilary's journey is supported by deep community, ancestral figures, and liminal experiences. This is the meaningful and transformational work the world needs, rooted in action while engaging the head, heart, and hand."--Jude Lally, Scottish Cultural Activist and Artist (pathoftheancestralmothers.com)

"This is a profoundly brave book. In sharing her journey, in all its pain, revelation, and imperfectness, Hilary has woven both a reckoning and a calling-home. May her offering embolden many more of us with white settler lineages to do the work of becoming good relatives-work that is essential for a shared future of well-being and liberation."
--Joanna Levitt Cea, co-author, Beloved Economies: Transforming How We Work

"In Becoming a Good Relative, with an unflinching gaze Giovale offers her own story as a pathway for settlers to reach into their own stories for the tools they need to become whole. Being a good relative begins with knowing yourself. This book is a beautiful invitation to accept and transform personal and collective settler histories and live alongside Indigenous peoples."--Patty Krawec, Ojibwe Anishinaabe/Ukrainian. author of Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future

"Becoming a Good Relative is an invitation to walk out the door, take a long, slow breath, humbly listen to the people and lands outside, and let our hearts break open with their stories of what we and our ancestors have done. Hilary's story is an invitation to join her. She's holding the door open for all of us."--Morgan Curtis, Ancestors and Money Coach and author of Decolonial Dames of America

"Told with utter honesty, humility and profound respect for all of her sources, Becoming a Good Relative not only draws readers in magnetically, it should be required reading for anyone embarking on a journey toward healing and right relationship. This book humanizes Turtle Island's and Giovale's own brutal historical legacies, resulting in a journey that's been blessed by many relatives and alchemized by love."--Nina Simons

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