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STYLE, ROLES AND SKILLS IN FACILITATING
To move through a workshop together, a group needs to be coordinated and guided. The group, itself, can share leadership by taking turns leading discussion and different exercises. One person can be the group guide, or a team of guides can plan and facilitate this together.
Each of us has his or her own style of working, as distinctive to us as the way we walk or laugh. Trust it. Our naturalness and genuineness in the work is our gift to workshop participants. If you are a singer, your workshop will probably draw heavily on the power of sound and music. Or if you are a dancer, your participants will be encouraged to use their bodies to explore and express their ideas and emotions. Some guides, like myself, work within a fairly structured framework moving from one exercise to another. Others prefer a less directive approach, giving participants more leeway in setting their own agenda and following their needs as they arise.
We must remember that as facilitator we are not offering ourselves as experts or healers. We provide experiences and structures in which people can do their work. We are there to guide this work, not give answers or solve problems or cure.
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Exercise: Sharing Circle (20 minutes for 15 people)
Begin by having the group sit in a circle. Sitting in a circle achieves many healthy goals before anything is even discussed. It personifies a deep democracy in the sense that everyone in the workshop is facing each other at the same level. No one is more important than anyone else. Everyone can see everyone else. When people are seen and feel as equals in any group, they have the ability to fully participate. This is very important to establish trust in the group.
The circle also grounds us in our traditional ways because this is how our ancestors communicated.
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THE WEB OF LIFE
The one thing that allows us to enjoy true relationship and deep peace is the feeling of interconnectedness with life and all other beings. It is the living web out of which our individual, separate existences have risen, and in which we are interwoven. Our lives extend beyond our skins, in radical interdependence with the rest of the world.
Western Science Catches Up with Indigenous Wisdom
Until recently, classical Western science had proceeded on the assumption that the world could be understood and controlled by dissecting it. Breaking the world down into ever smaller pieces, classical Western science divided mind from matter, organs from bodies, plants from ecosystems, and analyzed each separate part. This mechanistic approach left some questions unanswered – such as how do these separate parts interact to sustain life and evolve?
As a result of such questions scientists in the twentieth century, starting with biologists, shifted their perspective. They began to look at wholes instead of parts, at processes instead of substances. They discovered what Indigenous Peoples have known for millennia – that these wholes (be they cells, bodies, ecosystems, and even the planet itself) are not just heaps of parts, but dynamic, intricately organized and balanced systems, interrelated and interdependent in every movement, every function, every exchange of energy. They saw that each element is part of a vaster pattern, a pattern that connects and evolves by discernible principles. The discernment of these principles is what is known as general systems theory.
Instead of beholding random separate entities, the scientists are beginning to see the universe with “Indigenous eyes”. They are becoming aware of interconnecting flows – flows of energy, matter, information – and see life forms as patterns or currents in these flows. By these flowing currents, open systems sustain themselves and evolve in complexity and responsiveness to their environment. Interacting, they weave relationships that shape in turn the environment itself. Every system – be it a tree, a cell, a human being – is like a transformer, changing the very stuff that flows through it. What flows through physical bodies is called matter and energy, what flows through minds is called information; but the distinctions between matter, energy and information have become blurred.
What has become clear, however, are the principles by which systems evolve – and central to these principles is openness to the environment, openness to feedback. This is how intelligence and power are created. For it is by interaction that life forms are sustained. As earlier stated, the old mechanistic view of reality has erected dichotomies, separating substance from process, self from other, thought from feeling. But given the interweaving interactions of open systems, these dichotomies no longer hold.
What had appeared to be separate self-existent entities are now seen to be so interdependent that their boundaries can only be drawn arbitrarily. What had appeared to be “other” can be equally construed as an extension of the same organism, like a fellow-cell in a larger body. What we had been taught to dismiss as “just” feelings are responses to input from our environment that are no less valid than rational constructs. Feelings and concepts condition each other, both are ways of knowing our world. In this way we participate and co-create in the living web, giving and receiving the feedback necessary for its nourishment.
To convey this dynamic process, systems theorists use a variety of images: an open system is like a pattern made by flowing water, or it is like a flame that keeps its shape by transforming the stuff that flows through it. The image or symbol many First Nations use to express this interconnectedness is the Medicine Wheel.
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Bannock: we love it because it tastes good.
Baked or fried, with raisins or without, it’s the one food that bonds us together here on Turtle Island.
We love it because it anchors us to our childhood. I can think back to many meals of fried moose-meat (sauteed with onions and mushrooms), mashed potatoes, baked beans, hot tea and bannock. Especially on cold days, those were always the best meals. Meals like that symbolize my Mom’s love.
When we eat bannock, we can’t help but feel a connection with our Indigenous heritage. Bannock is what got many of our grandparents and great-grandparents through cold winters and trying times. Bannock served them well.
For those of you not in the know, bannock is a popular bread made by Native Peoples throughout Canada and the United States. It consists of flour, lard, baking powder and water. There are some variations on the ingredients, but that’s generally what goes into it.
You’ll find bannock being served at most pow-wows. It’s also known as fry-bread or Indian bread. Native women are very competitive when it comes to making the best bannock. Reputation quickly spreads. Just as everyone knows a community’s toughest guy, they also know the woman who makes the best bannock.
Now the bad news about bannock: it’s probably the worst food in terms of nutrition.
For a People who struggle with heart disease and diabetes, bannock unleashes a slow and lethal combination of clogging our arteries and shooting up our blood sugar levels.
Some people think they’re being healthy by making it with whole wheat flour, but it doesn’t really make it healthy. It’s like cooking up crystal meth without the drano and adding vitamin C instead.
This is an example of the many lies we tell ourselves and others about what we eat and our levels of exercise being more than healthy even when it’s the furthest thing from the truth. Talk with any obese person and most of them will try to convince you that they’re eating a healthy diet, even as they’re holding deep-fried food up to their mouths.
As Native People, we really don’t need any additional help in getting diabetes. And we can’t continue the perpetual lies about our diet at the expense of our health.
Let’s get real!
Looking at our history, bannock is not even Native in origin. It originated in Scotland over a thousand years ago. It only became popular when our ancestors grew to depend on government rations for survival.
In many ways, bannock symbolizes our colonization. We enjoy eating bannock in the same way we enjoy watching TV: we know it’s bad for us but we do it anyways.
Eating bannock encouraged us to break from generations of hunting and gathering to eek out alien, sedentary and largely dependent lives.
Government dependence didn’t happen overnight.
It’s okay to acknowledge bannock’s place in our history, but now is the time to embrace a new diet and a stronger concept of who we are–independent of the Crown.
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This is a post about preventing Aboriginal youth suicide.
Suicide is never an easy subject to discuss.
My sister’s own suicide still haunts me ten years later.
It would affect me even more today if it was not for the Sun Dance.
Two years ago, I gave my body and flew with the eagles for her spirit’s return to the circle.
Even now, I can’t help but ask the question everybody asks: why?
Suicide is about stopping the pain. It’s not about wanting to die.
When I think about her tragic life, there must have been lots of pain. She found herself living the worst life any woman can experience. She turned to prostitution to feed her addictions. For her, suicide was about stopping the pain.
The answer to preventing Aboriginal youth suicide can be found by looking to our Elders, says Aboriginal suicide prevention expert Darien Thira. Darien developed the “Through the Pain” Aboriginal suicide prevention curriculum, which he facilitates to First Nations communities. I find his ideas to be both profound and accessible.
Even though Aboriginal youth suicide rates are very high, the suicide rate for our Elders is extremely low.
There are four reasons to explain the low Elder suicide rate:
Emotionally, our Elders are cared for. There is a connection that the general population of seniors don’t experience. Connection is the sense that you are valued by those who are important to you
Physically, our Elders are respected. This leads to empowerment. Empowerment is the belief that you are in control of your life and that you are valuable for who you are and what you can do.
High levels of connection and empowerment lead to high self-esteem. People have high self-esteem when they feel lovable and capable.
Mentally, our Elders are given meaningful family and community roles. This, in turn, creates positive identity.
Spiritually, our Elders have maintained our sacred traditions. Spirituality and culture have the power to create vision and transformation.
With positive identity and vision, our Elders have a well-lived life.
Our youth need these four elements.
They need to feel loved. Attention and encouragement go a long way in building youth self-esteem.
They need to feel empowered. “They need more responsibility, not more entertainment,” says Darien Thira. Boredom stems from a lack of responsibility, but we think the answer lies in giving them more video games, I-pods, cell phones, TV’s, and cameras.
Our youth need a meaningful role in the community. So often, lip service is paid to the needs of our youth without fully involving them in important decisions. Before colonization, this was different and we need to get back to those traditional ways of involving the whole community.
And finally, our youth need our spirituality and culture for a greater vision and deep transformation. You can signs of this yearning in our youth, but many of them can only express this need in a superficial way. If they had a deep connection to their own clan, there would be no need to belong to an artificial clan based on brand-named clothing, rap music and sports emblems.
Many of us adults would be wise to heed this advice as well.
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Our anger belongs to us, and it’s up to us to do something about it.
Making forgiveness work to strengthen a relationship is a three-step process. When someone is asking you for forgiveness, you may want to open your heart to allow a connection of love or light between you, but you fear that if you trust them you’ll be hurt.
The following three-step process will increase the likelihood that another’s request for forgiveness and your hard work at forgiving will have positive results for both of you.
Step 1: Listen
Listen to the person asking for forgiveness. True desire to repent and ask forgiveness involves an understanding that we have done something that resulted in another person’s pain or injury.
A person who is truly sorry or experiences regret is aware that their behaviour, whether intentional or not, resulted in another person’s suffering. Being able to see through another’s eyes and truly hear what they’re trying to say is the essence of good listening.
Step 2: Determine their Goals
People who seek forgiveness should be clear about their goals. When they are truly remorseful over what they’ve done, they communicate a sense of certainty that they don’t intend to choose the same behaviour in the future.
Step 3: Appraise their Commitment
Asking for forgiveness requires a commitment. The person who seeks forgiveness is essentially expressing a commitment to react to the same or a similar opportunity for negative action with a different choice.
Most people are given numerous chances to face situations that represent the core choice of a behaviour they want to change. Ask the person who is requesting forgiveness to tell you how they will manage their behaviour when faced with similar choices and situations in the future.
In order to make the changes that follow their request for forgiveness, they will need to have a plan for future behavioural choices in place.
Remember that the actual of forgiving is not a gift you give the other person, but a gift you give to yourself.
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When people are caught in a fearful thinking habit, they become prisoners to all that they fear.
They block their awareness of their own spirit and LIFE. Because they are engaged in fearing thinking, much of their energy is focused on avoiding the unpleasant aspects of anxiety.
To use a sports analogy, it’s as if they came onto the playing field with strategies focused on avoiding loss rather than on trying to win.
Any sports fan will know that to increase your chances of winning, a player must hit a ball, run a distance, make a catch, or score a goal.
The main point is that the player must be willing to get a few bumps and bruises, navigate obstacles, and come up against blocks along the way.
In order to win, you must play to win, rather than play to avoid losing.
Fearful thinking results in a type of self-imprisonment where you are stuck in a cycle of avoidance. Your thoughts encourage you to live like a child hiding from a bully– you can hide for a time, but you will never be able to stand out in the open.
Of course in the case of fearful thinking, you are your own worst bully.
Where does this come from?
Learning a behavior is a very complicated process. First, you may have a predisposition or tendency to have stronger or quicker internal reactions than others.
In other words, the unpleasantness or discomfort you feel when afraid may engender more physical reactivity than what someone else experiences.
Another reason may be that your parents, caregivers, siblings, peers, or other influential people in your life have communicated, either intentionally or not, that certain types of emotional or physical distress are intolerable or represents something terrible.
In such a case, you’ve learned that the experience of fear itself is something to be avoided.
Finally, our brains appear to be hard-wired to have us learn to be afraid, as avoidance of true life-threatening events is very adaptive.
As human beings, we have a very well-tuned brain network to help us avoid true danger.
The problem is that, through many different types of conditioning or learning, we come to respond to many different situations, thoughts, and experiences as dangerous.
For example, the dangers of failure, humiliation, embarrassment, or even negative feelings are circumstances that we learn to avoid. It doesn’t matter whether or not anyone intentionally taught you to think fearfully, but due to the circumstances of your development, you learned how.
Identifying Fearful Thoughts
In order to change your fearful thoughts, you will have to be able to use your awareness skills to catch yourself stating fear-based statements silently to yourself. Another way to state this is for you to “be mindful” of your fearful thoughts.
Common fear-based thoughts contain an anticipation of harm. Examples include when you hear yourself making internal statements that you may fail at something important or that other people may get angry with you. Thoughts like these indicate that your mind would prefer to avoid a situation you can’t control.
If you follow through with avoidance, you’ll escape from possible negative results–but you’ll also miss out on many positive experiences. Wayne Gretzky wouldn’t even make the NHL, let alone become the best hockey player in the world, if he was afraid to lose his front teeth.
Another common fearful thought involves assuming what others think (or ‘mind-reading’) when you have no proof. Examples of these fearful thoughts include: “He thinks I’m stupid”, “They’re probably laughing at me”, “I’m boring to her”, or “He doesn’t care about me”.
In these cases, your mind may be trying to exert a false sense of control over the situation. In other words, if you can be sure about the other person’s negative reaction, you won’t have to cope with an unknown.
Your mind has already reasoned that if you expect love and approval from others, but are disappointed, that would be devastating. Following this faulty logic, it’s better to just accept the worst now.
This is no way to live.
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Effective teachers provide an opportunity for you to advance and realize your unique potential. Occasionally, they provide a chance for you to accomplish things they knew you could, even when you doubted it.
Important learning experiences with effective teachers almost always involve a struggle, such as learning a difficult subject.
When people describe worthwhile learning experiences and important teachers in their lives, they often say that effective teachers give you encouragement and support as part of the experience.
The teacher is one who allows you to apply what is learned in a practical way. This a very critical part of the learning process.
Would you be surprised to learn that the next time you’re confronted with a difficult situation in which you catch yourself blaming or getting angry at someone who seems to be your enemy, that this could be one of those valuable learning experiences?
Many spiritual traditions embrace the concept that every person with whom you come in contact during your life can serve as a catalyst for your spiritual learning.
Even when someone has committed hurtful and destructive acts resulting in your distress, this concept can still hold true, because your learning is related to your experience and what you take from it.
You may want to argue, “But my valued teachers gave me encouragement and support. The current person who is causing me pain, whom I cannot forgive, isn’t!” The difference here is that you need to give yourself the encouragement and support you need.
The individuals who cause you distress can still serve as teachers because they give you the opportunity to learn more about yourself and apply this new knowledge to your own spiritual advancement.
It’s as if there is a clear and logical reason for why you are presented with this person, in this situation, at this point in time.
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Here is a tool to help you learn how to forgive and to increase your understanding that an inability to forgive is far more harmful to you than the person who has injured, insulted, or harmed you in some way.
The ‘30 percent solution’ is useful when we see ourselves as totally blameless and are having difficulty forgiving the person who has offended us.
The next time you find yourself angry for more than two days, experiencing difficulty forgiving another person, and ready to blame another person concerning the problems you experience in your life, remember that in any argument or incident between people, how you react is contributing at least 30 percent to your current distress.
Even if you’ve been unfairly treated, you have a choice in how you will react. Regardless of what has happened to you, your choices account for about 30 % of the reasons why your current emotional state persists.
Moreover, your choices regarding how you think and act with regard to this situationwill not only impact how you currently feel, but whether or not such situations may occur in the future.
Maybe there are ways to think or react differently to reduce the chance of this happening again, or perhaps you have been reacting to what happened in ways that are holding you back from your spiritual journey.
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we learn to proselytize.
The meaning of proselytize is to convert someone from one faith to another.
Indigenous people the world over lack this skill.
Personally speaking, I struggle when it comes to marketing and selling my business. At 32, I realize I can’t get by on my looks or even my ideas anymore. Being an entrepreneur is forcing me to grow. Right now, it’s forcing me to gain a new skill, that is to hustle.
We’ve been at the receiving end of proselytism for centuries, but never its agents.
We have so much knowledge and wisdom to give the people of Mother Earth.
Instead, what happens is green revolutionaries take our knowledge and spread it themselves.
The environmental movement and green revolution would not exist without the input of Indigenous wisdom.
However, in swallowing our knowledge, these scientists and politicians miss a fundamental component to this wisdom: prayer. Not only do we have to recycle more, buy less, ride a bike, we also have to pray for Mother Earth. Without a deep sense of spirituality and love for the Earth, the shift in consciousness will be incomplete and ineffective.
Although people many North American environmentalists credit Native Americans, First Nations and Indigenous Peoples for what makes their perspectives holistic and balanced, it’s still them and not Indigenous Peoples taking the stage, glorifying their ego’s and getting rich for what is really ours.
A stolen idea is not so different from stolen land.
What is it that prevents us as Indigenous People from trying to convert the world into our way of thinking?
Many of us are excellent orators, so it’s not that.
When Christopher Columbus and host of others landed on Turtle Island, why did we not convince them to turn away from Christianity instead of the other way around?
Initial contact with the inhabitants of Turtle Island definitely had a huge impact on Europe, but it’s not because it was our ancestors’ intention to make it so.
Like the environmentalists and new age people after them, early Europeans took the seeds of our vegetables and adapted them for a surge in food production. Can you imagine Italian cuisine without the tomatoes and peppers? Or the Irish without potatoes?
The enlightened few are beginning to realize that Indigenous wisdom holds the key to our survival on Planet Earth. Why can’t we see that ourselves?
Just as non-Natives are turning to our ancient wisdom and holistic way of being, Native People are turning away from the lessons of our Elders.
In Canada, only 3% of us practice our ceremonies. As a society of many Nations, the large majority of us are backwards in the sense of clinging to the tired ways of our colonizers. When are we going to realize that there’s nothing new they can teach us? When are we going to realize that there’s real strength to the teachings of our ancestors?
When are we going to have enough courage to stand up and spread our own ‘good word’?
Perhaps our gentle way of being stands in the way of the aggressiveness and persistence required to win converts.
I don’t know the answer.
I’m trying to envision the Native community filled with zealots and aggressive salespeople going door to door like the uniformed Mormon teenagers that blanket the planet.
Although it’s a strange thing to conceptualize, I feel it’s time we, as Indigenous Peoples, get into people’s faces, debate the issues, sell our ideas, close the deals, and begin winning converts.
After all, it’s the fate of Mother Earth at stake.
