When Silence is Your Job

I mentioned in a recent blog post that sometimes silence is what is needed. That in this day and age we are all. I don't know why everyone thinks they have to be heard. I don't know if they're trying to prove they have value, which is really sad. I hope that's not the reason. But there are so many times that silence is what is needed, that silence is. Is powerful, that you are still there even if you're not talking. And there's an incident of late that I have definitely chosen silence for a very specific reason. 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 the reality is, I've been a blogger for 14 years. I've been around for a while, and I've done videos for a long time and I've written books and I've trained people and done keynote speeches. So to a certain extent, and definitely not to the level of the social media influencers, but to a certain extent, I have definitely had influence. And by the way, that comes with a huge responsibility, just putting that out there. But because of that track record in history, I am often asked to comment on things that are not necessarily or don't have anything to do at all with Indigenous Canadian reconciliation. So out of my sphere of knowledge or influence, the Titan Submersible was one of them. And in that case, I took it upon myself to comment. I felt it was important. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And if you want to see my reaction to that, it's in my videos. It's on. Maybe I'll put a link in in this video. But the whole Israeli, Gaza, that whole situation. Now, I did comment on it in my podcast last week, and I will definitely put my link below, but I really tried to stay away from sharing an opinion because that is not my area. Even more importantly, if you imagine every single one of us takes up a certain amount of space, and then of course, when you do the work I do, you take up a bigger space by being silent. I'm leaving all of that space open and I'm sharing the voices of the people that know what's going on. I'm amplifying the voices of the people that should be heard that maybe don't have a following, that maybe aren't reaching as many people as they should. And when I come across those posts and those videos, I share them. So I'm not being silent because I don't care. I'm not being silent because I don't just want to pretend it's not happening. I am being silent out of pure and total humility, in line with my teachings. This is not my fight. Even though, yes, it does matter. There are people that know so much more than me that need to be heard. So this is privilege, by the way, in this case, my Anishinaabe and white privilege that I'm going to share their message with my followers. So all of you out there that struggle with privilege and you're not sure what to do with it and maybe even got wrapped up in some shame and guilt for having it, no one asks for the privilege they have and you can't give it back. The only thing you can do with it, it's use it to help the people that don't have it. So I just want to be crystal, crystal clear here. My silence is not because I don't care and I'm watching every single day what's happening and educating myself. It's just my voice is not the voice that needs to be heard. So please join me in amplifying the voices that do need to be heard. I hope that makes sense. Comment below. Please share links to voices that need to be heard. I would love to see those. You have a circle of influence as well and I'd love to see who you're connected with. So please feel free to share. Don't forget to subscribe. And as always, if you would like to receive my videos in your inbox, then just head to sandybouchet.com and get on on my email list. You can get them either daily or weekly. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye Bye.