Levels of Personal Empowerment - Where are YOU?

Hi everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher Misko Pognon Kwei Nadishnikas Mung Do Dam. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan and a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Northern Ontario. And I'm thrilled to be here again with this week's Tuesday teaching. Now, I just wanted to touch base before I jump into this week's teaching, I really wanted to touch base on why I do these episodes. The reality is this week we're going to be looking at the teachings found in self isolation, in social distancing, in Covid in this period of time that we're in, what it helped you discover about you. Now, if you've watched any of my videos or taking any of my training, you know that my mom taught me that there's a teaching in absolutely everything. There's a teaching in that meme you saw on Facebook, in that quote that you saw on a billboard as you drove by, or in that conversation with that good friend who called you out of the blue. What is important is to take the time to stop and ask yourself, what is Creator trying to teach me? What is the lesson here? Now, why is that so important? Why do I just want you to adopt the Anishinaabe way of doing things? No, that's not it at all. I want you to be incredibly proud of whatever culture you belong to. But I know for a fact through personal experience that the more self esteem, the more confidence you have, the more you build your wisdom, the easier your life journey becomes. For example, this pandemic has not been easy for me. There are definitely been rough days, but it's been way easier than it has been for other people. And I want to take a second and just send out prayers to people who have, God forbid, lost someone to Covid to the people that have found themselves sick. I have seen so many sharings of just how absolutely overwhelming that positive test result is. My heart and prayers go out to those people and to those people who have had loved ones that tested positive, no matter whether they came out of it fine or not. And I really pray they did. That is an emotional roller coaster that I have not had to go on. And I don't want to imply in any way, shape or form that my journey has been anywhere near as challenging as those people. That's a challenging journey. But for most of us, that hasn't been our reality. We are looking at inconvenience. We had to give up things. We're looking at missing the grief process that comes with not Being able to be with loved ones, that's not easy. It is difficult, but nothing compared to a Covid diagnosis. So today again I am sharing a teaching in hopes of helping you to build your confidence, your self esteem and your wisdom. So today's question is what has this time period taught you? What did you learn about yourself? In the seminar I often talk about the three levels of empowerment that a human being goes on on their life journey. And some people never make it through the stages. And often life will send you back to a previous level. We're bouncing around all over the place what I'm talking about and I'm using some handy dandy cue cards today so the people watching this as a video will see them for the audio version. Don't worry, I'm going to tell you what the cue card says. The first level of empowerment. Oh, I have my cards in the wrong order. Here is dependence. Now if you think about that, that's the easiest example is the child. A child, especially a newborn, is 110% dependent on the people in his or her world to look after him, to feed him, to make sure that he's somewhere safe, to make sure he's not too cold or not too hot. Whatever the case may dependence but and here's where the teaching part comes in. I think a lot of people were surprised during this pandemic to find out just how dependent they were on outside forces. The reality is we are responsible for our own happy. And there's nothing wrong with having someone else in your life that makes you happy. That's amazing and kudos to you if you're one of those lucky people. But they shouldn't be the only person that makes you happy. They shouldn't be your only source of happy. Not only would that be a huge amount of pressure to put on them, but it leaves you vulnerable and dependent. Now some of us had to realize we were dependent on habits that we just fell into. Maybe you were one of those people dedicated enough to be going to the gym on a regular basis. And kudos to you if you but then you had to realize that wasn't an option anymore. How you reacted to that tells me how dependent you are. If you found another way to exercise at home or by going for walks or whatever the case may be, kudos to you, that is proving you were not dependent on a certain way of exercising. But if you haven't made that adjustment, you really need to start considering that dependence is vulnerability. As an adult, we don't want to be dependent on an outside force for our health or our happiness. Now, the next level, and unfortunately, I'm going to talk about it in a second here, but unfortunately, this is the level way too many people attain and then stop not realizing there's a higher level. The next level is independence. And I know a lot of people that take great pride in their independence. I'm an incredibly independent person. I live alone. I run my own company. I have amazing friends, but I don't depend on them. Independence, unfortunately, is the one I see in a lot of adults who have had a relationship fall apart and now they're kind of bitter and they're saying things like, I don't need anybody. I don't depend on anyone. They're always going to disappoint you. Does that even sound healthy? Of course not. My mom would be the first to say, if we weren't meant to communicate with people, creator wouldn't have given us a mouth and ears. We have the ability to communicate because life gets a lot easier when you do it with other people. And that's the final level, which is interdependence. Nobody has control in this situation. It is totally reciprocal. I have many amazing interdependent relationships. They don't expect things of me, but they count on me to be their friend, and I count on them to be my friend. We're there for each other. I have no issue racing to be by their side if they need me. And I know they're gonna do the same for me. It's not expected. No one controls the relationship. It's healthy. If I don't get to see them for a period of time, I know it's just life happening and they're doing what they have to be doing. I don't take that as a personal shot because I'm independent. I love having them in my life. I want them in my life. I trust them to be in my life. That's the kind of relationships we need to build with our co workers, with our family members, and with our partner. You need someone you know is going to have your back and you need to have their back. You don't need to be controlled by someone and you don't need to control them, because that just kicks things into a whole new unhealthy area. So where are you standing? What has this pandemic taught you? Are you dependent? Are you independent? And maybe you need to work to get to that higher level? Or are you truly enjoying interdependence? Now, what else did you learn about yourself in this time period? One of the things that a lot of people had to face was how much they value themselves when no one else is around. How healthy are you eating when you don't have to prove yourself or be seen by anyone else? How well are you taking care of yourself? Are you exercising? Are you eating healthy? Are you saying kind things to yourself? Are you feeding your brain positive things? How much are you valuing you? My mom, again, would say, teach other people how to treat you. If you want to be treated with respect, treat yourself with respect. If you want other people to treat you with kindness, treat yourself with kindness. I wish I had my magic wand here. I actually do have a magic wand that I use. Oh, the sun's coming out here and making this difficult for me to see. Sorry about that. I'm not sorry about the sun, mind you. If I had a magic wand and I waved it, and I do have one, I take it to seminar. I didn't realize I was going to reference it or I would add it with me if I were to wave my magic wand. And from this point on, the people in your life are going to treat you exactly the way you treat you. They're gonna say the same things you say to yourself. They're going to be as kind to you as you are or as mean to you as you are. Would you be in trouble? Now, there's a point in my life where that would have been the most scariest thing I'd ever heard. Because I used to say the most horrific things to myself, and I don't anymore. And if you don't know, if you want to know how to change that and you don't know how, you need to go check out my A Day that Changed Everything video seminar. Because I teach you how to do that. In that course, you need to do that. You deserve to be loved and cherished and appreciated when no one else is in the room but you. And that brings me back to the first point of this episode. That's why I'm doing this. I have spent my isolation time and I've spent it with someone who loves me, who appreciates me and respects me. Me. And I want you to be able to say the same thing. I don't care how old you are. I don't care what you've been through. I don't care how other people have treated you. That's their baggage to carry. Let them feel bad about that or let them deal with it. It wasn't true. If you told me you hate my favorite song. I'm not gonna stop loving it. It doesn't change the value of the song. And because someone else didn't see your value doesn't change yours. We gotta put that down now. We gotta stop thinking of what they said and start saying the things you need someone to tell you. You want to feel loved. You need someone to say, I love you. Get over to that mirror and say it. It's time. What did this pandemic teach you? I would love to hear. Send me an email. Email address. Send me an email and let me know. I would love to have a discussion with you free of charge. Not going to cost you anything. Send me an email. Until next week's episode Tuesday dj'. Ings. I would love to hear what this Tuesday is teaching you. Stay well, stay safe. And when you can, please stay home until next week. I love you. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.