Reprogramming a Marginalized Mind

When a flower doesn't bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower. You're the flower. You're the flower. There's nothing wrong with you. We are going to start this year out strong because that's who you are and that's what we should do. Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher and I have dedicated the last 15 years of my life to Indigenous Canadian reconciliation. If you followed my work at all, you know, I often use the feather as a metaphor, the two sides. Because I believe there are two very distinct sides to Indigenous Canadian reconciliation. On the Canadian side, I spend a lot of time working with Canadian employers. They're suffering with low capacity. They have positions they need to fill. There are Indigenous people that need jobs. But without the appropriate guidance and understanding of the challenges an Indigenous employee may bring to the table, they have no idea how to support these employees. And they're literally paying the price with low retention rates, advertising, hiring, training that is not cheap. So I spend a lot of time supporting those employers because it benefits all of us. But I spend a fair amount of time on the Indigenous side too. Because Indigenous people living within Canadian borders are marginalized people. And before you jump down my throat, that is not an excuse. That is problem solving. The first step to solving a problem is identifying the problem. We are marginalized people. That is not an excuse for failure. That is the roadmap. That's where you start. Because guess what? If you're marginalized, no one's coming to save you. And yes, it would be great if Canada could stop marginalizing us. But just like a person who has been the victim of intimate partner violence, your healing is not dependent on them smartening up. The empowerment of Indigenous people rests with us. And I say that with total confidence. Because that's my journey. I've done the poverty, I've done the violence. I'm not 10 year domestic abuse survivor. I have sold furniture to feed my kids. I have eaten once every three days by choice because there was no other option. I had to make the food stretch that far. But I'm here now. And I want to tell you how to reprogram a marginalized mind. So let's talk about it. Hi, everybody. My name is Andy 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 as I mentioned in the opening, this is what I do. This is what I do for a living. But today I spend so much time talking to non Indigenous Canadian Entities and people that today I really wanted to focus on how to reprogram a marginalized mind. Because you know what? I mentioned the poverty I endured when my my children went through that with me at one point we were living in a low rent housing project. The projects as so many people refer to it. There were many other indigenous people there. The problem if they went deep down inside, a good portion of them believed that's where they belonged, that that's where they were meant to be, that they were never meant to be successful in society. And it's that internalized oppression that holds so many of us back. So that's what I wanted to talk about today. And yes, I have notes on my handy dandy phone. So by the way, what were you doing at 7am this morning? I know what I was doing. I was thinking of you and coming up with the idea for the this video. I'm totally okay with that. So let's talk about what a marginalized brain is first. What kind of things is the voice in your head saying to you if you have a marginalized brain? And by the way, indigenous people are not the only marginalized people. Newcomers, LGBTQ, QIP +2s, LGBTQIAP + Black, South Asians. I think I said newcomers. Women in general. There are so many marginalized groups. So you may identify with this, which means the solutions will be able to help you. By the way, if you know someone who could use this information, please share it with them. Subscribe to my channel while you're at it too, because I got a lot of good stuff to share with you this year. Okay, so what does the marginalized brain say to you? Your. The voice in your hand is saying, you can't do that. I'm not going to apply for that job. They're never going to hire me. No one who looks like me works there. I could never apply to go to college or university. There's no way I'm going to graduate. There's no way I could tell the boss that I don't understand. There's no way I could bid for that other position there. I'm not qualified enough for that. They're never going to hire me. And just because I've got a whole bunch of degrees doesn't mean I can do it. Do you recognize it? Very limiting, Very debilitating. And it's real. Now first thing, the voice in your head is not telling you the truth. The voice in your head is echoing the messages of your environment. Remember my favorite quote? When a flower doesn't bloom you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower. You're the flower. You're the flower. There's nothing wrong with you. The voice in your head is saying those things. That's because of the environment you're trying to grow in. And I have said it a hundred times, Indigenous people living within Canadian borders are flowers trying to grow in soil dosed in gasoline. The answer, find better soil. Soil. In this case, we're going to create better soil. But keep in mind that down on yourself, that negativity, that low self confidence, none of that is your fault. That is a condition of the environment. That's the environment that's talking to you. That's what it's taught you. All of those stereotypes, all the people that roll their eyes when you bring out your status card, all of that, that's what's contributing to this. You didn't ask for that. You were born into the environment. That taught you that. But it is up to you to change that. That's what we're talking about today. My phone keeps blinking off here. Okay, so how do you reprogram it? Like I said, you got to create better soil. The first number one, change the message. So the time, every time. And you do this to yourself. You don't need to do it out loud. No one else needs to know you're doing this. But do this for you, because you deserve better. So every single time the voice in your head says, I couldn't do that, you didn't. You stuck. No, that's not true. I could if I really wanted to. You correct the voice in your head. If it says something like, they would never want to be my friend. No, that's not true. You know what? If they honestly knew me, if they took the time to get to know me, and if I showed them who I really am, of course they'd enjoy me. I'm a pretty cool person. I'm stupid. I've never. I've never. I'm too stupid to do this. I'm never going to get it right now. That's not true. I've never done this before. It's a learning curve. I'm going to make mistakes, but I am intelligent. And I've done other things for the first time before and I figured it out. I can do it again. So you see what I'm doing? Switch flip the coin. Right? Negative to the positive. You got to change this. So every single time. Like my. The voice in my head. And by the way, does this sound like someone who survived domestic violence? Exact Same situation. The abuse goes on in your head long after you leave. So my voice used to. If I made a mistake running my business, I made a typo in my email. Anyone? I email email. You know, there's a really good chance there's a typo in it. And, and I'm now at the stage, I'm not even going to sweat the small stuff. Whatever. I was typing too fast. Welcome to my world. I'm not beating myself up for that. I trip over words in my video. Does that make me stupid? No, it makes me passionate. Means maybe I should slow down, but that's not really in my nature. It's just tripping over a world. Or I just did it. It's just tripping over a word. It doesn't change the value of this message. I'm not beating myself up for it. You know what did I hear the other day? The perfectionist. Perfectionism is just low self esteem in disguise because if it's not perfect, you can convince yourself you can't release it. I release these videos totally imperfect because the message is important, not the perfection of it. Okay, so like I was saying, because I'm a 10 year domestic abuse survivor, I had that voice in my head and I'd be making a mistake when I first started my business and the voice in my head would say, oh my God, Sandy, you're so stupid. Look what you did. No, I'm not stupid, I was rushing or no, I'm not stupid, I need to take a break or no, I'm not stupid, I'm running out of energy. I gotta go eat something. The best part, the news. The great news I have for you. If you keep doing that, if you keep reprogramming the voice in your head, it'll stop saying those things. The voice in my head never says that anymore. Or incredibly rarely. And of course if it does, I'm going to correct it right away. I used to be, I used to be incredibly intimidated by the group I call the academics. Excuse me, the academics. The people with the 52 degrees and the entire Alphabet behind their name. They use words that no one's ever. I've never heard before and I sure as heck couldn't spell. And I would go to these events and hear a speaker and they'd be using what my mom would call a 15 word, those big long words. And I would feel so stupid. I was convinced I was the only person in the room that didn't understand the question or didn't understand that word until I finally realized not understanding that Word has absolutely nothing to do with my intelligence and everything to do with my experience. If I've never heard the word before, never seen it, never read it, how could I possibly know what it means? That's kind of an unrealistic bar to set. So I became that person who does put up their hand in an event and ask, I'm sorry, excuse me, do you mind explaining that word? I had never heard it before. You'd be surprised how many people cannot explain the words they use. So change the message, change the programming. Just as important. I hope, hope, hope and pray that you're in an environment. And now I'm talking about the people in your world, that the people in your world are encouraging you. But there's a really good chance maybe they're not, or maybe not all of them. So you have to. Now you got to balance the feather. My niece used to tease me about this all the time because she'd go on Facebook and type, oh, my God, I'm so stupid, or something like that. And I would swoop in as fast as possible and say, no, you're not. You're intelligent. You're amazing. You're an asset, whatever. And she would just giggle. Auntie, I was just kidding. Calm down. Our teaching says your spirit hurt the negative. It has to hear the positive, or else it's going to believe the negative is true. Now, you're doing the programming of yourself, so don't do that. That's why you got to change the message in your head. And the second step is to change the message you receive, feed your brain encouragement. So I got a long list here. If you followed my work for any length of time, you know I'm a huge Ed Mylett fan. I actually watch 30 minutes from 1 of his podcast episodes every morning on my treadmill. It's awesome. Before, I found. I think I found Ed Mylett because of Brendan Burchard, who is the creator of Growth Day and the Growth Day app. I'm not endorsed. I don't have an affiliate deal. I. I just listen to Growth Day every single day. I do the journal prompts used to do the scoring. Don't do that anymore. Definitely taking some of the courses. And most importantly, I listen to the Daily Fire. There's a little audio message that Brendan records for us every single morning. I listen to that on my treadmill first, and then I watch the Ed Mylett video. So think about it. I was born and raised the stereotypical indigenous person. I have high blood pressures and diabetes in my family. I. I'm sitting right on the edge of having both. But I'm not just accepting that. So every single morning I'm on the treadmill listening to Brendan Burchard and Ed My light. Can you say changing our personal path, the family path. Darn right. Siam. Who else? Oh, you know what, long before Brendan Burchard, well before Brendan Burchard, I was a huge fan of Mel Abraham. If you're a detail oriented person, Mel by profession is a cpa. He's an accountant. So you're going to love his frameworks. Very detailed. And before Mel Abraham, I was probably listening to Tony Robbins. I don't anymore. The best part of when you get into this personal growth and start listening to people, someone going to click with you and some aren't and if they doesn't, that doesn't mean personal growth, not for you. It just means you haven't found the person that resonates with you. And I've been doing this for so long. I can tell you that over time, as you grow and mature and develop your own personal growth, someone who worked for you before is no longer going to work for you. I don't listen to Tony Robbins anymore. I listen to Mel Abraham every now and then because he's part of growth day. Brendan and Ed are my two go tos right now. Kiki Palmer, I mentioned the other day, I just bought her book, signed up for her podcast because I loved what she had to say when Ed Mylett interviewed her. So definitely following her. And of course Rachel Rogers is we should all be millionaires. She's the author of that book. So following her, read the books, listen to the podcasts. Daily. Daily. I don't care if you listen in your car. You listen while you go for a walk. You're listening on your earphones while you're making dinner. No one else needs to know this is you're doing this. You don't need to set yourself up for Christmas Criticism. Lateral violence is a thing. People that are marginalized and have no desire to move out of that get really threatened when someone's trying to. So especially in the beginning of this journey, keep it to yourself. After a while you won't care. Which brings me to point number three. I have six points, by the way. Point number three, keep your promises to yourself. I make a to do list. I have to do lists every single day because I'd be a total airhead without it. I'd be all over the map doing. I'd probably accomplish amazing things, but I would forget the detailed stuff because I'm not a detail oriented person, but I celebrate every single time I check something off my to do list. So if you say you're going to work out, daily workout daily. Because how proud do you feel of yourself afterwards? Rarely do I feel good in the first five minutes, but I always feel epic in the last five. Do it for yourself and then you get to look in the mirror and you start to see the changes. It's absolutely awesome. Self care is self respect. My mom used to say, teach other people how to treat you. If you want other people to respect you, they need to see you respecting you. Self care is a great way to teach them to respect you. So keep your promises and celebrate every single one of them. Because why not? Why wouldn't you? Number four. This will become easier with time, but I need you to start hanging out with people who believe in you. Maybe it's a teacher, maybe it's someone you just met at your job. Maybe it's a colleague or co worker or maybe you're going to drive. Join a woman's group or an entrepreneurship group or sewing group. Whatever. Stay clear of the negatives. The people that are constantly in the past are constantly complaining, you don't need that in your world. That'll bring you right down. Think of the people that you know. Find the people that talk about dreams and talk about what they're doing. The achievers, the dreamers, the doers. As the quote says. Find them. And if you can find them in real life, find them online. For now, that's all those people enlisted. Number five. Count your blessings every single day in the Growth Day app. Journal prompts. One of the journal exercises I do every morning and it's not in the app, I just do it myself. Is yesterday's wins, it's called. And I take five minutes to write down everything I accomplished yesterday. All of the wins from yesterday. Because we live in an environment where it is so easy to list off all the things that didn't work out. And guess what? You're not enjoying your life if you do that. So every morning it's like, and I've typed, you know what? Yesterday was a challenging day. But there were still wins. I still got in my workout, I still did some reading. I still had an excellent meeting with my brother because he's my general manager. I booked another event, whatever the case may be listed the wins because then you remember them and you get to enjoy them again. And last but not least, I mentioned it just a minute ago, but I want you to do it and every person. If you Google how to become successful, there's two things you're going to see. Well, I guess three things you're going to see. One, change the voice in your head. That's the first thing we talked about. Two, they're going to suggest you meditate. That's that review. Or that just clearing your mind and appreciating the moment. And three, they're going to tell you to journal. And that's the last thing I'm telling you to do. I want you now. This is the best part, because. Keep your journal private. Which makes me giggle because I think of how many times my brother bust into my diary when I was a kid. He watches these videos. I can have fun saying things like that. Anyways, I digress. In your journal, you can write down the craziest dreams and no one's around to talk you out of it. I. I have a floor plan. I actually got the graph paper and drew out with a ruler the floor plan of my dream house. I had a picture on my wall of a Mustang long before I got mine. Have fun. Wave your magic wand. And what would you have? And don't just say a million bucks. Because if I gave you a million dollars and told you you couldn't spend it, nothing would change for you. Money is a vehicle to get you what you want. What do you want? That. That Security. You want to be on a lakeshore enjoying the beautiful summer? Well, rent a campsite and make sure you're doing it at least two weekends out of the year. You don't need to wait to the end of time to do this stuff. So last but not least, just looking at my notes here, all of this, maybe you already think it sounds stupid and it's definitely going to feel stupid in the beginning. Keep doing it. Keep doing it because your spirit is listening. And suddenly it's going to get easier to believe that you can do these things, believe in you privately, even if no one else in the world does. In other words, find those online, in real life. The ones who don't believe the stereotypes about you. As I said earlier, find the good soil. Because that's how you reprogram a marginalized mind. I know because I've done it. And the things people who meet me now can't even imagine. The woman I used to be, the woman that had no voice, the woman who was literally being abused and wouldn't tell anyone. That's not who I am now. That's not who you deserve to be. We all deserve to have a voice. But we are the ones that are gonna save us. We gotta do the work. And I just gave you six steps on how to do it. I hope that made sense again. Please share this with someone. If they. If you know someone who's struggling, send them this video. Just say you were thinking of them and you wanted to share it. They don't need to tell you if they watched it. That's their personal journey. But maybe, just maybe, by sharing it, they start on a bright new chapter. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.