Triggering Indigenous Participants During Reconciliation Work

Hello, you absolutely amazing person. You have been feeling a little under the weather today, which is kind of fitting considering the topic of this video. I want to talk to you about triggering. So this video is definitely more to indigenous participants. Whether you're at one of my seminars, whether you're listening to one of my speeches, or you're at any reconciliation type seminar and you get triggered. What does it mean? What should you do about it? 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 we got to talk about triggering because the reality is it happens all the time. So in layman's terms, what I'm referring to is a person who has endured trauma, which I'm starting to think if you're human, you fit under that definition. But let's stay indigenous specific. So we know Indigenous people have endured trauma since the day we were born. But this is a person who has never had the opportunity to heal from that trauma. Whether they've never had access to services, whether it's counselors, whether it's elders, whether it's healing circles, sharing circles, whatever the case may be, they've never had access to that. They're not surrounded by people who believe in that kind of thing. The they may be surrounded by the type of person who thinks you just endure, which is not healing. I mean, what's that quote? Healing can be a long and painful journey, but without it, life is a long and painful journey. Trust that if you've had trauma, you need to do the healing for your sake, not for anyone else, but for yours. It is too heavy of a burden. It is robbing you of joy, of life, of energy. Please do that. But some people don't have access to that information, or they are so terrified of talking about whatever their trauma is that they don't approach those. Those options. And trust me, I know. I'm a 10 year domestic abuse survivor. There were some things that I didn't talk about for years that I thought if I spoke it then it would take me back to that moment and I would just, just get swallowed up in the trauma again. Funny thing, like shame, trauma needs silence to keep its power. I know firsthand that sharing of the trauma takes away so much of the power. It's like instantly you have shared the weight of this burden and it's just not as heavy anymore because you realize you shared it and you didn't blow up. You didn't disintegrate. You didn't melt into a puddle of tears, which I thought was what's going to happen to me. And you're able to move on now. There's one thing I also know about healing, that healing is a process. And I honestly believe, in line with my teachings, that you heal from things in the order of, like, what you're ready to heal from is what you're going to heal from first, is what I'm trying to say. So that's where triggering comes in. I'm at a stage now. Now I have had all the opportunities, I have worked with elders for my entire adult life, had access to them, have received healing words from elders when I didn't realize I needed to hear them. Any chance you get indigenous specific here again? I don't want a bunch of non indigenous people flooding our elders. That's allyship. Back up your side of the feather. But for indigenous, any chance you have to sit and just listen to an elder, please do that. If you are a practicing Christian, that is not against your Christian teachings to learn of what your ancestors believe. There's nothing wrong with that. We're not saying, we're not trying to convert you. We're not saying Christianity is bad. We're saying we want to help you heal. So any chance you have to listen, just listen to an elder, not even talking about going to see them, hearing the words at an event. I love that Indigenous events always have an opening and close from an elder and you get to hear those words. When it comes to triggering, I believe with everything in me that, like, I'm in a pretty good place. Like I said, I've done so much healing that I can talk about really hard things and my seminars and not be affected by it. Not because they're not hard, not because they're not horrific, but because I can speak to them from a place of healing. I no longer feel it like I'm in it. I can speak of it and help people understand how horrific this would be without draining myself in the process. That's healing. It's not minimizing what the trauma was. It's just you don't have to live there to be able to speak to it. But every now and then something is said, even for me, and I react the difference. Somewhere along the lines, people started believing that a trigger means other people can't say certain things. And that's not what a trigger is telling you at all. A trigger is telling you this is now, this is the next thing you have to heal from. Now, here's. Here's the roadmap. This is the issue you now need to work on healing from. And if you do that every single time, you get triggered. And in the beginning, you're getting triggered left, right, and center, one step at a time. But if you do that every single time you're triggered, you get to a healthier place. You get to stage four. You get to that place where you're not. I still get angry over injustices, of course, because those are current. But you're not carrying the baggage of the past anymore. You're allowing yourself to be who Creator designed you to be. A happy, healthy person, healed from what life did to you. In my seminars, in my speeches, in my workshops, we discuss things that will trigger people that are not healed, that have not done the work in those areas, and that's not a shot against them. Again, maybe they had too much on their plate. Maybe they didn't have the opportunity. Maybe they didn't think they were ready yet, whatever the case may be. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about those things. We have to talk about those things. When I do reconciliation work, a lot of it is letting non Indigenous Canadians know what happened to us. But if you're an Indigenous person sitting in that session hearing of, well, we survived, you haven't done that healing, that can be triggering. The onus is on you to take care of yourself. I'm not attacking. I'm just talking about facts. And now I now know I'm going to be doing a disclaimer at the front of every single one of my seminars, because it might be triggering. But by giving that onus, that means, okay, Indigenous in the room. If you belong to a nation that smudges, smudges, there's an elder here. If you feel triggered, talk to them. Do not keep it inside yourself. Do not not talk about it, because that's what gives the trauma its strength. Whether you go outside and sit and talk with a friend or you talk with the elder, you talk with a counselor, you need to talk. Don't just silently speak it to Creator. Share the burden. It will get easier because we need to be able to talk about these things. And if we're ever going to come together, the first stage for Indigenous people is to heal. It is the hardest stage, but it makes every other stage so much easier to go through. I hope that made sense. So for everyone attending my seminars, we talk about hard things. We talk about what we've endured. Now we can wear the medal on our chest and say we endured it. We shouldn't be in a place where we're reliving it. If you are, that's creator's hint. It's time to heal. If you need suggestions on how to do that, please reach out. As always, take care of you. That is your first assignment. And not by ignoring things that trigger you, but by using those triggers as the road map. Ha. This is the healing path I must take now. Trust me, it's worth it. Been there, done that. I love you. Take care. Is this. This is the final video of the week. I will see you next week. I love you. Bye Bye.