Author Archives: ambber92

I grew up on a reserve and if you know rez life then you’ve had a very unique upbringing.

Unique is a gentle way of putting it. For as many good days, there were equally as many bad days. Kids were mean, parents were big children. Addictions and trauma ran deep, suicides were high – I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t know about the ugly of world.

In my family, the good days consisted of family gatherings, community feasts, holidays together, trips to the laundry mat with your mom and best friend, and walks to the river.

Happy moments were double riding bikes through the rez to your friends house (and the occasional crash while you cried for you mom and your best friend laughed – meaning all you could do was laugh too). Happy nights were staying out late, hanging out with your friends outside of the day care or the park beside the rec.

All in all… I was too sensitive for the rez, the bullying, the quick turning emotions, the backstabbing, the gossiping. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was to sensitive, I think we all just hid it from each other – either you became harder and meaner or quieter and weaker. I was the latter. In some peoples eyes, I think I was a mean kid.

I mentally left the rez when I was 13 years old. As soon as I got into high school and saw a way out – I took it with no remorse. You know the song Hate It Or Love It by The Game. I used to sing the lyrics “I’d run away from this bitch and never come back if I could” as if it meant something.

I look back at that moment, the moment of leaving, with regret. I didn’t realize the irreplaceable bonds that would deconstruct over the years of my absence.

There’s always love there but it’s different because I became different.

I went to a party on the rez in my teen years and I got into an argument with a long time friend. In that argument, he said you aren’t even from here.

It’s taken me quiet a few years to not take that personally and really look at what he meant – what he meant was I got out and I was different. I wasn’t like them anymore – whatever that means from peoples personal perspective.

This was followed of years of being told “you think you’re good” or “you are too good”

And if you’re an Indigenous person who left the rez or got sober or did something different than the norm then I’m sure you’ve heard those damaging phrase of being too good.

Never once have I looked at my people and thought I was better. As Anishnaabe people, we live for our people and I’ve never stopped.

I may have strayed or not realized the importance, as I sit on the deck of childhood home and look around my community I’m reminded of my purpose – the purpose of connection to people, spirit, Mother Earth and all creation. Yes, with my human eyes, I see the occasional sad story but they are overwritten with the love, the happy memories, the connection.

I wouldn’t change my life for the world.

I often feel this emptiness, an incompleteness.

That I’m either doing things really right or super wrong.

I feel caught between the colonized world and my Indigenous world. A space between spiritually and science. Free thinking and logic.

I let the words of others impact who I am. I let outside forces determine who I am.

As we know, there is danger in that. You lose yourself but when you don’t really feel at home in the world, how do you decide who you are?

When you are caught between two worlds.

Who decides what is right and what is wrong? Who upholds the standard and why do we allow it? Why do we judge others for being who they are. When we ourselves don’t know why we see the world as black and white, and whose ideals we follow.

Some of us live within these imagined borders unsure of who we really are and we never actually realize that we living up to someone else’s expectations, someone else’s validation.

I once asked my cousin how they lost so much weight. The response I got was “it was all in my head”. (Now I realize this isn’t true for all people but this was true for them.)

We walk around making choices from unknown places. Making comments like “well my parents did it that way” or “I have no other choice – it’s just the way I am.”

We plant ourselves deep in the ground of internal choice not realizing we can change the choices. Our branches can in fact grow out of the cages we have created. Our roots can expand far greater than the 6 feet we’ve given ourselves.

You can in fact make a choice. To sit on the couch and watch tv or read a book – there is a choice. Whatever you shame yourself for, there is alternative option… you just need to choose it for yourself.

Poor choices are wrapped in illusion. An illusion that there is only one way to be.

If you were to choose today, what would it be? Would it be taking the opportunity to rest or getting that 45 minute work out in?

There is no wrong answer so long as you are making the choice for you.

What does it mean to be some one?

As a young girl, I had this eternal feeling that I would be someone. The feeling was unwavering.

I knew I was going to be someone.

But what did it mean?

Who is someone? What does someone do? How does someone behave?

What defines someone?

As I sit in the kitchen of my new home. I think to myself. I am someone.

I am someone who is important not because you kind find me on the cover of a magazine or you can hear me singing on the radio but it’s because I exist.

That is enough to be someone.

I am someone because I decided so.

I decided today that I am going to be someone the someone that little girl dreamed of. We all get to decide we are someone and we get to make choices to be that someone.

Today, I am the someone that I needed when I was that little girl and tomorrow I will dream of the someone that I becoming.

We sit and reflect on the pain our parents passed down to us.

We yell at them, we want them to know what they have done to damage us.

Anger fills our souls as we hold resentment towards the ones who raised us with fear and rage in their heart.

“It’s your fault” we say as the perpetual abuse flows through generations.

It’s only when we stop to heal ourselves that we begin to reflect on the years of misconceptions, pain and hurt was caused by the inner child of every ancestor who raised each one of us.

The infliction of pain they received for years and years for just existing as they are was reason enough for the outsiders to make them feel insignificant, not enough, unworthy.

If you feel unworthy, how do you raise children who believe they are?

As a new generation, it is our responsibility to heal these wounds rather than play victim to the shame and the pain.

What will you do? Who will you be? And how will you teach?

When did you first fall in love with yourself?

Was it the first time you picked up a paint brush and noticed how creative and beautiful your art was?

Was it the first time your hips started to form and you noticed the first roll? Noticing that you were human and your body is ever changing beauty.

Did you happen to walk by a store window and catch a glimpse of your reflection? In awe of your appearance.

Did you have a thought or a perspective that stopped all other thoughts – and you thought “damn, I am an interesting, intelligent human being”.

When do you fall in love with yourself and how do you maintain that love everyday?

———————

Since getting sober I have fallen in love with myself little by little everyday.

I look back at when I was 16 years old living in a group home with no happiness in sight.

My counsellor asked me to write 3 things I love about myself and I broke into tears not being able to list one.

I sit and write as a 28 year old woman – I know that I love who I am. I love that I am…

⁃ creative

⁃ determined

⁃ mindful

⁃ loving

⁃ intelligent

⁃ thoughtful

Overall I love that I love myself and that I explore things that I love.

It wasn’t always easy to love myself surrounded by hate, anger, negativity and living in a world knowing that I might be viewed as less than because I am an Indigenous Woman.

I still struggle when I notice an extra pound on my body or when I make a mistake. The little girl inside of me cries that I am not enough but as the adult, I know that I am enough and everyday I’m doing my best.

So how will you love yourself today? Sit down and write all the things you love about yourself even if there’s tears, even if it hurts. Know that you are made of love and you are loved by all those that surround you.

When I was younger my grandmother lived in Toronto. She would come visit most weekends and every Sunday we would drop her off at the Grey Hound station.

With my arms wrapped tightly around her, tears would fill my eyes and fears would enter my mind. At that time in my life, my parents weren’t the reliable structures that a young child needs. My grandmother felt like safety and stability, and as she would walk onto that bus, I felt all of that safety and stability go with her.

That was my first feeling of abandonment.

Over the years, I have felt my fears of abandonment grow and grow with each change that life threw at me. My mom going off to school, my dad going away to better himself, boyfriends leaving, friends moving, bosses changing jobs.

But 2021 has brought so many changes and has so many triggers for the little girl who longs for the safety and stability of her grandmothers arms.

My dog died of cancer in April.

My boss got a new job.

My boyfriend and I got into a fight that we never recovered from.

My best friend moved across the country.

My favourite coworker got a new job.

————

I wrote this at the beginning of summer. I thought about my abandonment and wasn’t sure how to put it into words – the hurt child within me wanted to cry and scream for all to hear.

As I reflect on this year, feeling the changes of the ever growing landscape that we call life. I release that energy. I heal and love the parts of me that see these changes as loss – a familiar victimization of circumstance.

I miss my boy, Roscy, everyday but I know he is free and having fun.

My previous manager is doing amazing work in her new role and left us with an amazing new manager.

My now ex-boyfriend is still a dear friend but I look back on who we were together and see the incompleteness our hearts must have felt.

My best friend looks happier than ever. She appears free and lives her best life. My first visit is booked and we update each other on our lives each chance we get.

My favourite coworker has yet to start her new job but I know once we are back to reality she’ll still be my #1 gym buddy.

These are the changes of life and I know these people moving and growing in my life may not seem large but to the little girl inside it can feel like the familiar feeling of abandonment. It ignites fear in my mind and I’m no longer a woman nearing her 30s but rather the small child looking for her parents.

But today I am at peace and I feel joy for all of the changes that have happened. I look forward to the unknowing future with the biggest smile – my life is filled with love.

I often find myself in the cycle of being excited about something. Giving it my all and then giving up.

Giving up is usually influenced by the fear of failure, fear of judgement and fear of being myself.

I have found myself in this same predicament when it comes to this blog.

I struggle to see my thoughts as meaningful and important. I see them as “dumb” and weak; lacking in inspiration.

It’s the story I tell myself about myself until I believe it and I lose the courage to write or to post.

I wonder “who even reads blogs anymore, it’s all about the podcasts these days.” So what’s the point?

But here I am. Writing on a whim.. with the thought that today someone might get me a little bit. They’ll see the similarities in our behaviours and we will both find peace in the anxieties of being human.

We will feel each other’s energy and we will choose to propel through our anxious minds and fearful hearts. We will do all the things we are afraid to – we will write, we will dance, we will sing, we will speak up and we will move through life with fearlessness.

So cheers to us all being the best versions of ourselves and not listening to little voices who tell us otherwise.

Advice of the day.

Be still.

Be quiet.

No music. No TV. No phone.

Just you and the silence.

There is strength in a moment spent alone. To hear the voices in your head crying out.

Feel your emotions and all power they hold. Listen to yourself. Feel the weight lift from your body.

You may feel anxiety fill you body as if there isn’t enough happening around, as if the quiet may rip your heart out, as if the thoughts and fears may flow right out of your ears into reality.

But it will all be worth it once your in the moment. Listening to you. Have a conversation with the Universe and hear the answers returned.

Cry. Scream. Laugh. Smile. Wrap yourself in a blanket of self love.

Enjoy the journey of your mind.

(Or rather… Journey to the Centre of the Mind as the Amboy Dukes would recommend)

I choose to love my past, present and future.

I choose to say all the words I need to say with love.

This has been a difficult place for me to get to especially with this topic. The topic of spirituality. I will be touching one practice we see today.

As a girl, I was raised to honour everything around me. The green grass out my bedroom window, my friends, strangers on the street, trees, water little spiders and grasshoppers.

It was never a question of why, I just knew it needed to be done.

Traditional medicines were no different. Medicines were grown with love by our Mother, they were picked with good intentions, they were weaved with good thoughts and prayers, they were burned to cleanse my soul and ease my thoughts, and the smoke spread around my home with a feather gifted to my family from a crow.

Today, Sage, is commercially grown, it is no longer grown in the habitat being nurtured by our Mother. You can buy a commercially produced Sage Smudge Stick Kit for $35.99 on Amazon. Feather, Shell and Sage all included. All items that come from the land and have energy tied to them.

You can go to your local corner store and buy a pack of cigarettes filled with what was once a healing medicine, Tobacco. It has been chemically dowsed to forget its origin.

These are just a few traditional medicines that I grew up with that have been abused and commercialized to fulfill western needs.

The first time I saw a person use a non-Indigenous person use a “Sage stick” was at a music festival while she was intoxicated. She was in the friend group but I didn’t know her well enough and frankly I wasn’t confident enough to correct someone on my own culture (oppression, am I right?). It’s something that has stuck with me since that day.

Smudging for us is in the realm of going to a temple, it is sacred, it is a means to pray and cleanse our spirits. It is not a stick to be waved around while you are drunk.

In fact, Sage has the ability to bring in positive energies but it also has the ability to bring in negative energies if it’s not grown or used properly.

From the time it is planted, picked, dryed and used. It absorbs all the energy that has been put into it. What type of energy do think a factory produces? A person who doesn’t care about the plant? What type of energy does financial value put into it?

Sage shouldn’t be used in a drinking household, I was raised that if you drink in your home you are allowing bad energy in to begin with; so add a smudging practice in.. you might be in trouble. Drinking wasn’t allowed in my family home, I wasn’t allowed to smudge if I drank.

Memories of cleansing my energy fill my mind.

In my childhood home, if I was having a bad day my grandma would say “go get the smudge bowl” and we’d smudge together. On weekends she would take the same bowl and cleanse our home.

This medicine, these teachings are far beyond on some spiritual fad.

It is an honour that some won’t understand, to be able to use Sage freely. Smudging wasn’t banned under the Potlatch or the Sundance ban but as part of “Government Assimilation Policies” it was outlawed like all Indigenous practices and spiritual traditions. To “remove the savage out of the Indian”. We were killed for trying to use our spiritual practices but today, you will see unknowing or unacknowledging Instagram spiritualist using the medicine as if they discovered it, as if it wasn’t considered “savage”.

As Indigenous people we still struggle to use this medicine anywhere (Thunder Bay 2016, Regina 2017). I don’t want to sit and be a complete pessimist about the topic because we are seeing forms of reconciliation take place. Conversations are happening, smudging protocols and guidelines are being made. I wasn’t with my Ancestors when they were hiding our practices and trying to do them underground but I’m grateful that they fought to get here. To this place, where I do exist, where my voice can be heard and I can provide knowledge.

But it’s been hard for me to not feel some level of anger or resentment (I’m working past it) but it’s also up to me to teach those who will listen and I will forget the ones who don’t care enough to listen.

So before you buy a Sage stick or kit from some “Native American” store run by non-Indigenous people or online at Amazon. Remember that you are participating in Cultural Appropriation.

If you are lucky enough to have an Indigenous friend and you feel it’s appropriate, ask them for guidance.

As an Indigenous person, I have felt the pain of the lack of respect my people have felt for centuries. When it comes to spirituality, look at the origin story of the practices you are using. Give credit and honour the cultures and people who have blessed the world with their practices.

Miigwetch (Thank you)