HEAR THIS!! (The PATH Podcast for Feb 3, 2024)

Hello, you super duper, absolutely amazing person, you. Welcome back to the PATH podcast. And seriously, we gotta talk, because if you never watch or will never watch any of my other videos, you need to hear me. You need to watch this one. We need to have this conversation, because things have got to change. So let's talk about it. Bonjour. Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory in Northern Ontario. And welcome to the PATH Podcast, where we discuss all things Indigenous Canadian reconciliation, in case you are new here. And by the way, if you are new here, welcome. I love having you in my space. Be respectful, have your ears open here. You probably learned some stuff. And if you have respectful comments, I'm certain I can learn from you, too. Now, in case you didn't realize, the word PATH is is actually an acronym. It's what I call the four sacred or essential tools that I believe every conversation must include if we're ever going to reconcile. And I'm talking about any two parties that need to reconcile. The P stands for patience. Maybe you're ready to reconcile and they're not. Maybe you need to give it a little time. Maybe you need to be patient with yourself. Give yourself time to come up with the right words, whatever it is. Patience is important. The A is for awareness. What is going on with the other party? You may have not liked the words they used, but where were those words coming from? Are they dealing with something? Is there something you should be aware of? We don't exist in isolation. We got a whole bunch of stuff going on. So be aware of what's going on. For people, especially those that don't look like you. The T is for tenacity. Don't give up. Don't give up. This relationship is worth it. You might have to give up for today, you might have to give up for this week, but then come back once you've had a chance to breathe. And so have they. And the most important one in my mind, the H. Humility come into this. Knowing your opinion is just that. Your opinion, your. Your perspective. From where they're standing, they may see something totally, completely different. And you need to be open to hearing that. That's why I. Statements are so important. When you said this, I heard this. Is that what you meant? I was really upset when you said this because it made me feel, or I felt not attacking humility. So using those sacred tools, I really wanted to talk about once again. And I know some people are going to think I'm beating a dead horse here. What a horrible metaphor that is. Or phrase that is, by the way. But I really need to talk to you about your core. Right. And again, I've done videos on this. First I did the immigrant envy and why I really envied the people that moved here and knew who they were. They had their cultural identity, they knew their languages and their customs and their traditions. And because as indigenous people we grow up in this colonized environment, even our reservations or reserves have been touched by that. We never have the chance to develop our core. Assimilation can start in our homes, it definitely continues in school, in the workplace, it's everywhere. If only we had a place like our traditional lands to become indigenous. And then I had to do the disclaimer video because there was. The way I explained it I didn't think was very clear. So I just wanted to talk about that. But today I really want to focus on why I think having a strong identity, cultural core is. Is essential to world peace, is essential to us getting along in a country, essential to cross cultural community communication, essential to diversity. So here is the biggest point. First off, actually I'm looking at my handy dandy index card which is now on steroids. You notice my cards got bigger. If you have a strong core, you have a strong identity. Otherwise you're the leaf in the wind as I mentioned and referenced in another video. And I don't know if you see my tattoo here. This actually I got my tattoo ages ago, but then it turned out to be the logo for my company. I got this as a large part of the grieving process after my mom passed away for several reasons. For one, my mom used to always say, no matter where you stand or who you stand beside, remember who you are. Now I have to admit, because of assimilation, because of low self esteem, because of colonization, for so many reasons, internalized oppression, oppression in itself. I actually thought what my mom meant was remember who you are like down here, that people are going to look down on you, that you can't have a loud voice. And then I got older and realized my mom would have never said anything that disempowering she meant remember who you are, be proud of who you are, speak from strength and pride and not because you're better than anyone else, but because you're not worse. The other thing my mom used to remind me of on a regular basis was how strong I was. She would tell me that being strong has nothing to do with feeling strong. And it's actually on those days where you can barely get out of bed, but you do, that's when you're at your strongest. So when my mom passed away, I got this tattoo. It's on my bicep to remind me how strong I am. And it's huge. It's almost physically impossible to hide it unless I wear really long sleeves. And that's so I could never again hide who I was. It helped me and reminded me of my core. Now why do I think having a strong core is so important? And I didn't even realize this till I was older. Age is such a gift for mainstream out there worshiping youth and thinking getting older is so awful. All of the bonus points come with getting older. So what I realized is with a strong cultural identity, a strong core, someone else's core, someone else's cultural identity is not a threat to me. And what do I mean by that? I have met many people, and maybe you have as well, who say they belong to a specific faith and they don't want to hear anything about anyone else's faith because that's not theirs. And when I meet these, this has been happening for me for years, but when I meet these people, I always think, how fragile is your belief system? I know who I am and I know what I believe. And learning about Jewish faith or Muslim faith or Christian faith or anything else does not threaten who I am. I'm not going to adopt it. I'm not going to be, you know, sucked into that faith base. We might find some commonalities. I've definitely found some differences over the years and some amazing commonalities. It's just interesting to learn it's not a threat, but look at the world today. How many people are threatened, acting fearful and threatened by someone else's belief system or God forbid, someone else's identity. I'm sorry if I'm going to go off on a trans rant for a second, but if one of my children as a child came to me and didn't like, say, for example, it was my daughter and they shared with me that they, they're a boy and they feel like wearing boys clothes because they know that they don't want to be a girl, they're not a girl, and it's that youthful innocence that they know who they are, I would never argue with that. And I thank Creator for the, the challenge and the opportunity to learn how to support my amazing child. So you don't get to tell other people what their identity is unless it's a fake identity. We could go into the whole pretending thing. That's not core. That's. That's the exact opposite. You are so confused or quote, unquote, ashamed of your core that you want to adopt another one. And you know what? Let's get real about that. How many Pretendians are ashamed to be white? I don't preach shame or guilt. You didn't ask for your privilege. That's just the privilege you got. You don't get to give it back. But there's no sense feeling bad about it. There's a history in this country that has to be owned. Not because I want to hate people, but we gotta unpack that and get real about it. So if you're ashamed to be white, how does that help? It doesn't. Owning, like with any reconciliation, own what happened in the past, own what your ancestors did, own the benefits you enjoy because of the systems they built that supported you and excluded us. And let's move forward on this. No name calling required. But if you feel so bad about who you are that you need to pretend to be someone else, you need to unpack that for your sake, for your mental health and wellness. That is sad. That is. And so many indigenous people were made to feel ashamed of being indigenous. That was the intent of the schools, to kill the Indian and the child. Whether it was literally unalive people through neglect and. And malnourishment and all the other things that went on in the schools, or just make them deny they're indigenous, which is why pretend Ians, again, don't fit, because they're. It's really hard to have the guts to stand up and say you're proud to be indigenous. We have to do a lot of healing, a lot of unpacking, a lot of, you know, knowledge seeking and working with elders to get to that point. For someone to just. Ta da. Buffy, are you listening? So if you have a strong core, my point here, if you know who you are, then who I am is not a threat. No matter what my lifestyle is, no matter what my religion is. Then it just becomes this beautiful field of wildflowers where we get to sit together and share how we pray, how we worship, how we do whatever it is we do, and we get to share that together. If we know who we are, we know where our ancestors came from. We have done the research, then learned their customs and traditions instead of adopting some culture that we think is really cool. Is. Remember, you don't choose to be indigenous if you've got a. If your life or your ancestry is a 500 piece puzzle. And somewhere in there there's a puzzle piece that's indigenous. You don't get to choose to be indigenous. There's no teachings, there's no influence there. There's no culture there. It's one of the puzzles. You can claim that you have some indigenous that indigenous ancestry, that would be true. But you're so far from being indigenous, especially if you're going to try to set yourself up as a spokesperson for indigenous. Where is your lived experience? What pain have you endured for being indigenous? If you don't understand that question, then you're definitely not indigenous because every indigenous person on the planet knows what I mean. We know. The reality is we already have a diverse world. We. And we have so many people that have been denied their identity that there is no safe space for them to be who they are. How can we possibly work together? Why is me being me a threat to you being you? Years ago, you know what that reminds me of? Years ago. And this used to happen all the time. Hasn't happened in a while, come to think of it. But I used to have people ask me what could I do or say to help indigenous people be proud of who they are. In other words, trying to outdo history, undo history. And my response used to always be the same. And it still is. Be proud of who you are. That's it. Share with me your customs and traditions. Invite me to share mine with you when I'm comfortable and trust you and don't expect it, but be proud of who you are because that creates space for me to be proud of who I am. Create is an accepting space. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Which is why I've always had an issue with the. There is. The Christians are about to get upset with me. But that whole. There is only one God. And the reason I have. I don't like that phrase is not because it's a Christian phrase. It's because it leaves zero room for anyone else. I'm sorry, where do you get off? Excuse the bluntness. So how do we create our core? Well, you get. I mean, you could start off with like ancestry CA or whatever it is. And no, I'm not. I've never used those, so I wouldn't know if that's a good idea or not. It's not true. I tried ancestry don't CA once. My tech limitations and it didn't work for me. Didn't work for me at all. Anyways, find out where you came from, talk to your family. And there are indigenous people out there. Find out the treaty area you came from. Find out if you're registered. And even if you're non status, where'd your family come from? Find out. And if you're European descent, I'm sorry. There are amazing cultures from Europe with beautiful traditions. Learn those. Don't adopt someone else's. And don't pick one of your puzzle pieces. What is the predominant influence? Right. And don't say Canadian because that's just. Maybe that's the problem, that no one wants to be proud of their roots anymore. There's nothing wrong with your roots. And there is no root system that doesn't have negatives in it. So we can. You know what? And by the way, Brene Brown whispering in my ear. I wish anyways. Shame takes silence to survive. Shame takes silence to survive. So stop. Stop it. Whatever you're ashamed of. Find the person who deserves the right to hear your story. Someone you can trust with your story. Not just random people on the Internet. That would be dangerous. Let's not be vulnerable with strangers we don't know. But share that story. And you know what? The people who have watched my videos or followed my work for any length of time knows I'm a 10 year domestic abuse survivor. There were stories I never told. And I held on to that shame and that guilt and that fear and those insecurities until I found an amazing therapist. Shout out to Stephanie, you're amazing. And I told my stories. And honestly. And it was so hard to do. I am not minimizing that. I'm an author. I wrote it out. I just wanted to hand her the piece of paper and she was like, read it if you have to. I prefer you just tell it to me. But you gotta say it out loud. For anyone who's ever gone through that or had a loved one go through, then I guess even more importantly, I have no idea what I thought was going to happen. It was just. I could not open that door. That's the door that you never open. And then I opened it and I told my story and nothing changed. Except I didn't have to waste all that energy holding that door closed anymore. So yeah. So people on here often comment on my vulnerability. I'm just owning my truth. It doesn't. I don't even feel like I'm being vulnerable. What I'm being is authentic. It's a Bernay Brown kind of day. I guess. I did her little values exercise where you take the list. It's a free download on her website. Go Check it out. I think it was from Dare to Lead or Darren Greatly. I'm not sure which book it was. Anyways, it's the 50 values, and you pick your top 10, which is not easy to do. And then once you have the 10, you have to bring it down to five, which is even harder. And then you got to bring it down to your core. 2. Take some work. But then you start realizing if you're this, you'll also be this. So you can take out that second one. Anyways, long story short, my two core values, bravery and authenticity. Welcome to my YouTube channel. Welcome to Anishinaabe Kwe, an Ojibwe female daring to share and own her truth on a public forum in a country that said my culture doesn't matter. Daring to do it. Anyways. That's authenticity. That's bravery. That's my core. That's Misko Paganankway Red Thunderbolt Woman. And that's the kind of strength I want for you. So take the steps. Find out who you are. Do the research. You come across some negative stuff yet find and dig for the good stuff, the beliefs and the traditions that you can be proud of reenacting in your home and in your family. We all deserve to be proud of who we came from. So, as my mom would say, take the lessons, Leave the rest. Take. Take the good stuff. Leave the baggage behind. Be proud of who you are because it allows room for other people to be proud of who they are. Quit being scared of other people's strong identities. Take that as a hint that it's time that you had a strong identity and a strong core, too. I hope that made sense. This. This was important to me because every single day I am about to turn 60 years old. And I used to naively think by the time we got to 50s, 60s, that everyone would love the person they are. And the exact opposite is what is playing out to be true. You have lived in your body and been you for far too long not to be proud of who you are. So build that core. Be proud of who you came from and your roots, and then take the actions and say the words that make you proud of who you are today. Because at the end of today, the only thing that should matter is that you're proud of how you did this day. And if you can do that, then you can sleep soundly and do it again tomorrow. That doesn't mean perfect. That doesn't mean you didn't make mistakes. That doesn't mean you don't have to apologize to people. But if you can say, you know what? In that moment, I did the best I could and tomorrow I'm going to do even better, then you're on an amazing path, using patience, awareness, tenacity and humility. I hope that made sense. I hope it was worth your time. And thanks again for checking out my channel. I love you. Until the next PATH podcast, be well. I love you. Bye. Bye.