Sandi L. Boucher, of Zane River First Nation, shares Principle #3 of her personal power framework: you are not here to prove yourself to anyone else, but to live up to who you truly are. Your value is innate and cannot be diminished by others' opinions. She connects the principle to colonialism and internalized oppression, drawing on her mother's teaching.
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Foreign. Hi, everybody, it's Sandy Boucher, Red Thunderbolt, woman of the loon clan. I'm a proud member of Zane River First Nation in Northern Ontario. And I'm so excited to shoot this video video today because it's March 1st, which means I get to share with you the third of the 12 principles of personal Power. Now, before I do that, I want to do a quick recap, because remember, these principles are to help you realize your own personal power. How strong you are, how much influence you have, how important you are. So, way back in January, we started with the first of the 12 principles of personal Power. And that said your value was gifted to you on the day you were born. No one can take it from you unless you give them the power to. Now, that one was super important to realize because you don't have to go find your personal power. You don't have to develop it, you don't have to to hope that someone hands it to you. It was gifted to you on the day you were born. What you need to do is remember it. So that was January, and a great way to start us on this journey. And then we got into February with the second of the 12 principles of personal Power. And it said, another's opinion, past or present, is just that it does not in any way diminish your value. First principle taught you that you have your power. The second one reminded you that no matter what someone else's opinion of you is, it doesn't diminish your value or your power when. Which brings us to principle number three. Drum roll. And the third principle of the 12 principles of personal Power is, you are not here to prove yourself to anyone else. You are here to live up to who you truly are. Now, unfortunately, I know a whole bunch of people watching this video are gonna think, who I truly am is way down here. When truth is, Creator doesn't make a mistake. Look at everything he's created. It's absolutely amazing and unique, and so are you. Now, my mom had a saying, a teaching that she used to say over and over, she repeated to me so, so many times. And she used to say, no matter where you stand or who you stand beside, you remember who you are. Now, unfortunately, thanks to colonialism and discrimination and internalized oppression, honestly, when I used to hear that, I thought she meant, remember who you are, that you're down here and other people are up there. Now, of course, as an adult, I realized my mom would never say something that would cut me down that way. That's not who she was what she meant was, remember who you are. Remember that you're this unique being, this combination of DNA and cells that has never existed before and will never exist again that was gifted to you on the day you were born. It can't be taken away from you by someone else's opinion. And your job is not to impress them. Your job is to live up to being that person for your sake, not to change their mind. So this week I asked you to look at your behavior, look at what you've been doing, and dare to ask yourself, why have you been doing something or saying something to try to impress someone else. The only person you have to impress is you. The only person that has to be proud of who you are is you and your creator. Now, I hope personally that you can look in the mirror and absolutely love the person you see. And if you can't do that yet, and it is possible because I do it, I love the way I turned out and it took me a long time to get here, largely by using these 12 principles. So if you're not there yet, let's start working on that. Start today. Start living up to your best self and to heck with the people that think you're less than. Prove them wrong, because success is. Is a great way to shut down the haters. Until next week. I hope you love the third principle as much as I do. We'll spend the entire month expanding on it, as always. Until next time. I love you. Talk to you soon. Bye bye. Sam.
