For the Marginalized ...

For those of you who have followed my work for any length of time, you know I support both sides of Indigenous Canadian reconciliation. On one side, I work with Canadian non Indigenous entities, whether it's corporations or nonprofits, municipalities, hospitals, universities, whatever the case may be, to increase their Indigenous engagement by understanding Indigenous people more, understanding the challenges, understanding what we need to be able to thrive in their environment and be the employees or whoever the case may be, whatever the case may be that they need us to be. But I spend just as much time on the Indigenous side of the feather because we need to. We need to get past the pain. We need to heal for our sakes, for our children, for our grandchildren. We need to move past what was done to us and remember who we are, our resilience, our determination, the strength of our teachings, our pride. Today, now, on Monday, I'm going to have a video that is definitely leaning towards the non Indigenous side. But today I want to talk to the marginalized, the oppressed, to all the people who feel their voice isn't heard. Now, of course, I'm going to come through the lens and be speaking to Indigenous. But if you're black or a person of color, you're a newcomer, you're two slgbtqiap, you're trans, specifically, because that's a challenging journey right now. Anyone who feels marginalized, I believe is going to benefit from this video. I have so much to share with you today, so let's talk about it. Hi, everybody. My name is Andy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan. I, a proud member of Seine River first nation in Treaty 3 territory in Northern Ontario. And as I said, I have so much I want to share with you today. But I'm speaking to that woman, that child, that youth, that man of any age who is feeling marginalized, oppressed, singled out, or more not singled out, invisible, unheard. Because I think I have some things today that I'm going to share that may help you. I'm going to start off with my journey because as Anishinaabe Kwei, as an Ojibwe female, Ojibwe Anishinaabe are taught that there's no more powerful story than your own story, that when we share someone else's, it loses so much because the emotion isn't there, the wisdom isn't there, the memories are not there. So I have come to realize in the last couple years that the people who meet me now have a really hard time imagining who I once was. But I want you to imagine A young woman in her early 20s, a young adult. I was the epitome of disempowered. I was oppressed, I was marginalized, I was impoverished and I was abused. I was a young wife and mother. I stayed at home. I was in charge of looking after the budget, but only the amount of money that was given to me. And yes, at times that meant utilities got turned off. And no matter how he treated me, I realized I didn't have a car, didn't even have a driver's license at that point, that my child's food was dependent on the person I was with. That's where I want to start this journey today. My first step, the first step that truly changed my path was getting away from the abuse. And in fact. Hang on a sec, I gotta grab my book off the shelf because I want to share something with you. I'm back. I had to grab my book. This is my copy. You can tell. For those of you who have read my first book, Honorary Indian, you know it has now been re released as Honorary Indian Decolonized. Some things were changed, some things were moved around so they landed on dates that more matched the blog post. What you may not realize is what I'm going to share with you, which is the October 6 entry is actually way older than the book. It was something I wrote years ago in line with this time when I left the abuse, which is why I wanted to share it with you. It's called welcome to the New World. My world. What a strange dark place. I see the people I love moving in and out, going around and around. But I'm not here. I work, I play and I pray. Pray for the good days, good days, bad days. All the same somehow. Oh for a crystal ball do I smile? Do I hide? Do I really want to know? Violence, chaos. And then suddenly the new world. A strange place. Quiet. Where flowers grow smiles for all real ones, not imitation laughter. Dancing and peace. No crystal ball here. But there is no need. Everything is new and wonderful and scary at times. But everything is safe. The sun shines all the time in the new world. Not from outside, but from within. No calm before the storm. Just a wonderful peaceful calm. I have found the new world and I am safe. Walk with me. Let me tell you of the new world. For all those people that ask, how can an indigenous woman in Canada be so optimistic, be so positive, be so happy? That would be why it is pretty easy to appreciate the sun when you walked in the dark for so long. So the abuse, leaving the abuse behind was the first step. And then I went to work because I was also impoverished and I had to get out of poverty. And because Creator is amazing, I got hired at an employment and training agency. I was going to break free of my poverty by helping other people break free of theirs. There's a little foreshadowing for you at that job. As I got to know my job, as I started to believe in my skill set as a natural progression, I started to find my voice. I went from being the admin assistant to training the other admin assistants and getting to know the program coordinators and becoming a program coordinator, then a department head and eventually executive director. And then I started working on my own to help other people find their own voice. But even then, overcoming oppression. You're dancing with a lot of ghosts. Ghosts you may not even realize are holding you back. And it wasn't until what, maybe three, four years ago I had hired a business coach to work with a personal business coach because I realized I was probably the barrier that was holding myself back. Maybe there was some ghost I was dancing with and I couldn't even hear the music. And it was in one of my conversations with Jen Smollett, who I highly, highly recommend. Her details will be in the video notes. I shared that I know I could do so much and I know I can empower people and I know I could help people believe in themselves and I know I could help even non indigenous understand. But I was worried about taking up too much space because I'm indigenous and female and we're taught to be a size 0. We are literally taught not to take up space. Space. And Jen's response was the most authentic, genuine, spontaneous response I have ever seen. Because when she heard me say I was fearful of taking up too much space, she just said, oh, Sandy, you don't take up space, you create space. And it's like all the walls fell down. Now that has become the hashtag for my seminars. I don't just create space, I create safe space. Safe space for essential conversation. Safe space for indigenous people to say, I still don't trust them. I'm still afraid of non indigenous people. And a safe space for non indigenous to say, I don't understand and no one's getting attacked. No shame, no guilt. And then the ultimate breakthrough, when I realized that all the employment in training was still indigenous specific and there was no employment in training training for the employers, the non indigenous employers, it was still assumed that we weren't employable because of something of what we were doing. There were no two sides to the feather. I started realizing that there was a problem with how mainstream employers still looked at us. And I set out to change that. Now I inspire other marginalized people not only to find their voice, but in joining me to help educate those that say they want to work with us. That is my journey. Today I came across because, yes, I still do. I do inspirational work. I do personal growth work. I know if I want to keep succeeding, I have to make sure that the voice in my head is saying what I need to hear. And this morning I heard a quote that stopped me in my track. So of course it wasn't in my let. So surprisingly enough, I listened to him. Later on, it was Brendan Burchard. And the quote was, are you ready for this? You better be sitting down. You choose your hard. You choose your hard. All of the examples came flooding in. I can choose to pass up on dessert today, or I can choose my diabetes diagnosis. I can choose to hit the gym even though I don't want to, or I can choose what other health consequences I'm going to pay. I could choose to do some extra work before I hit the road or choose all of the stress that's going to happen if I have to try to do things on the road. You choose your hard. So just make sure when you choose, whatever you're going to tackle, that it's actually going to make things easier for you in the future. And last but not least, I have a challenge for you. It is all about changing the conversation. And I'm going to talk more about that on Monday. That don't even worry about that yet. You have heard me talk about the back to back teaching a hundred times. Two people standing back to back, they look around the room without moving and they both realize they can see so much of the room they're in. But both of them have a complete blind spot. Some area of the room that they absolutely cannot see and that happens to be directly in front of the other person. Humility teaching reminds us that we can never see the whole room. And when someone tells us what's in the spot we can't see, we have to believe them. We have to understand that they are helping us complete the circle. We have to accept what they can see, and then we have to figure out how to blend what we see with what they see to come up with the bridge that works for both of us. And that is my challenge for you. So for the next seven days, until next Friday, this is what I want you to do. Every person you Meet whether teenager, coworker, partner, friend, neighbor across the street, person on social media, they say something, it's not the way you see it. I want you to instantly remember back to back teaching. What I want you to do is to remember before you attack, before you type, before you argue, before you say you're wrong, before you go to add to their wisdom and go completely to your ego, I want you to remember they are telling you what it looks like from where they are. They are not wrong. You are not wrong. It's back to back teaching. So instead of attacking, instead of telling them wrong, what I want you to do, instead of telling them they're wrong, I want you to ask questions. I want you to get details so you can picture their world. Accept that their world is what they see. Share your world not as truth for them, but as fact for you. And find a way to build the bridge. Because two things can be right at the same time. I can be totally uncomfortable in the same space that you're totally comfortable in. Let's talk and find a way where we can adjust things that's not going to make you uncomfortable, but is going to make me feel comfortable. There is a way. But if you do my way or the highway, we're never building bridges, then I would wonder why you're on my channel. That's not an ally, that's a problem. So then you got it. Seven day challenge. Every single person you come across, they start saying something that is definitely not how you say things. Back to back teaching. Ask the questions. Get curious. Not judgmental. Curious. What do you see? Explain it to me. Why? Why do you feel that way? What? What made you think that? Even if at the end you still don't agree, you're closer to them because you know what they believe. Figure out how to build the bridge. And the bridge is not the important part at this point. Practicing the back to back teaching is. I can't wait to hear how you do seven days. Every single time you, instead of getting triggered, think, oh, back to back teaching. I know you can do it. I know you want to do it. That's why you're on my channel until Monday. I'll talk to you soon. I love you. Take care. Bye bye.