The Key to Successful Indigenous/Canadian Reconciliation

So often Indigenous and non Indigenous people ask me what they need to do to prepare to do the kind of work I do. They're interested in reconciliation work. They want to be on the front lines. They want to give their time and effort to the cause, and I absolutely love it. And often their question comes down to what is the key to successful reconciliation work? Well, in my humble opinion, there is a key. There's also some prerequisites. So let's talk about it. 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 yes, I. I have dedicated my life to Indigenous Canadian reconciliation work. And yes, as I said in the opening, I believe there is a key to doing this work. Something that I didn't know at the beginning of my journey, which I guess should be what you can say about any great journey. Right? That's the idea. It's kind of like entrepreneurship. There's all these people out there studying and learning, and they think they need to know it all before they start a business. And you're not going to know it all because some of the most valuable lessons are going to come to you while you're running the business. After 15 years, I definitely know a lot more about running a business than I did back in 2010. That's the same with reconciliation work. There is a key to this work that I can now share with you. But as I mentioned in the opening, there's some prerequisites and these are essential. No passing by these. I know people who have tried to leapfrog over them and it didn't end well for them personally, especially. I can't even say that I was gonna say especially for the Indigenous people doing this work. But I don't want to minimize how hard that lesson would have been for non Indigenous as well. So let's talk about. Let's talk about the prerequisites first, because like I said, you're not skipping past if you want to. And we need you. Before I get into this, can we say we need you? This is not a competition. I have zero interest in a monopoly. There's too much work to do. I wish I could team up with other reconciliation workers and. And that we could, you know, tag team off each other and that would form a network, that movement that I talked about. Because there is too much for any one person. This is not about ego. If it's about ego, you're definitely not ready to do this work. So let's start with indigenous peoples. Obviously we have a personal stake in wanting reconciliation. Things most definitely have to change for our lives, for our families, for our communities. Like, I mean, seriously. And you're not going to be surprised at what the prerequisite is not if you've watched any of my videos in the past and if you're new here, by the way, welcome. Subscribe. There's a lot of good stuff here. If you're indigenous and you're brave enough and strong enough and, and educated enough and passionate enough to want to do this work for one, kudos to you. But before you start the work heal, you have to do your healing. There are far too many and I have run into them because I used to run a speakers network and the quote unquote phrase is healing on the stage. These are people that get up in front of complete strangers and share their trauma stories. It is my heart goes out to them. They're being completely tonally vulnerable and there is no guarantee that the people in the audience even care. Let's get real. If everyone cared, we wouldn't be having to do this work. You have to heal first. This is not about airing out your worst pains. Yes, those stories can be used as part of your education. There's nothing more powerful than your own story. I am not saying stay silent. I am saying get to the point where you can talk about your past trauma without triggering yourself. I mention often I'm a 10 year domestic abuse survivor that I can't count how many times alcohol blew my family apart. You notice I didn't get upset about it because I've done the healing. I am a 10 year domestic abuse survivor. I do not hate my ex partner because I've done my healing work. I don't hate Canada for what was done and continues to be done to indigenous people because if I did, I couldn't do this work. So healing is essential in the test. Just like in my book the Path. Is it up there? Right there? Yep. In my book the Path, I put a little test at the end of every stage. One question you can ask yourself and depending on the answer, you would know if you could go ahead or not. So for indigenous people who think they have done their healing and they're ready to do this work, the question is, are you still angry? Because if you're still angry, you're not ready yet. Go do some more healing. You can be unhappy with what happened, you can want it to change, but if you're still feeling the anger, you're not ready yet. And your blood pressure and your health don't deserve you trying to do that before you heal. Now, on the other side of the feather, the non indigenous side, because I get a lot of allies really interested in doing this work for them. One word, education. Educate yourself on Canadian history and I mean immerse yourself into it. The legislation that I've talked about, which reminds me, I think I have to finish off that series. You should know about the residential schools. Where were they? How many kids were taken? How many kids didn't come home? Look at all of the oppressive legislation before and after the residential schools. That's not the only problem. Look at the reality of the dollars that are given to a First Nation community, that everyone thinks we get these huge ridiculous budgets and. But that's because it's all one pot of dollars. Federal dollars take care of everything. So what a Canadian would see coming from federal and provincial and municipal and maybe even regional, it's all one pot for us. So yes, it sounds like a lot of money, but we don't have the services of the rest of Canada. We don't have the education system, we don't because the funding isn't there. We don't have the health services, we don't have the youth services supports. Do your research. You got a lot to learn. And before you stand on a stage and say something that isn't true and hurt people because of it, because a little bit of knowledge is dangerous, we know this. Do the education. And again, there's a question that tests to know if you're ready to move on or not. If you've done all that learning and learned all that and you don't see your part in it and why you need to be part of the solution, you're not feeling any responsibility for it, then you're not ready yet and you need to go do some more educating. Okay? And for either side trying to bring this feather together here, talk to Indigenous. Talk non indigenous. If either side is still up to your neck in judgment, you're judging the other side. They shouldn't have done this. They shouldn't have done that. Net, net, net, net net. And you're focusing on the wrong side of the feather. You are not ready to do this work. But let's say, for example, that you have done all that work on whatever side you're on, you're prepared, you're ready. And now you're wondering, what is the key to successful reconciliation work? I can sum it up in three words. Are you ready? Can you Guess them, write them down, pause the video. I don't think you can. I'm an example of it, but I don't think I've ever said it before. Just put it out there. The key, in my humble opinion, to successful reconciliation work. Help both sides. Help both sides or balance the feather. I spend. And I love it when I can look at my year and the events I've done or the groups I've worked with, it always comes right down to really close to 50%. That 50% were with indigenous entities and communities and 50% with Canadian non Indigenous entities entities. And I love it because that's balancing the feather. And I can't. I have to practice what I preach because authenticity is everything. And you're not going to believe me if I'm spitting out a bunch of garbage. God knows there's enough people out there doing that. And I honestly believe that's why I resonate with my audiences, because we're attracted to authenticity. It is so rare that when we find it, we gravitate to it. So again, just to repeat, Indigenous, you need to heal. Non Indigenous, you need to educate. Both of you need to abandon judgment. And then the key to your work, whatever you do in the realm of Indigenous Canadian reconciliation, is make sure you're helping both sides. Because the reality is if you focus all on helping First Nation side, the Indigenous side, it's never going to end. Because that means the attacks don't stop, the legislation doesn't stop, the hurting doesn't stop. I want you. The metaphor I've used before is imagine you're a paramedic and you come across someone laying on the highway that has been hurt in a car accident. I know it's a horrific metaphor. Bear with me for a moment. The first thing you're going to do is what? You're going to pull them off the highway. You're going to pull them off the highway and then administer first aid, or you're going to block the highway to make sure what? No more harm. So just helping in First Nation communities and not doing anything in non Indigenous Canada to start the harm is never going to get us to reconciliation. And guess what? The other side of the feather is just as inadequate. If we took all our time and energy as reconciliation workers and just focused on educating Canada and no supports were given to Indigenous people to heal, it's not going to work because we need to do the healing now. The healing is the responsibility of the Indigenous people. No one can do that for us. That's up to us to make that decision. Mainstream has to focus on stopping the harm and educating itself first. Nations has to focus on healing. And then we can finally bring this feather together. Because as I mentioned yesterday, once we start recognizing this as a nation of nations, which, with incredible wisdom that goes back generations, then finally the feather comes together and Canada flies to heights it's never seen before. We have to change the conversation. And that means having a conversation with both sides. I hope that made sense. I'd love to know what you thought. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.