Decolonizing for Mental health, wellness, and empowerment.

Black, Indigenous, people of color, and other marginalized communities experience the highest rates of suicide, self harm, addiction, and other struggles related to trauma. When we shift the conversation to understand the structure and harm of colonization leading this wave even beyond our communities, we can start to see that when we look to decolonize not only our thinking, but apply that knowledge to the decisions that shape our lives and communities, we begin to see how cultural knowledge and practices can lend to our healing and empowerment.

• What messages come to mind when we feel our worst?
• What values, or social measurements lent to these thoughts?
• What are the cultural values that have been buried, that shaped our beliefs of who we are?

By learning cultural values, we can shift our thinking from disempowerment, to dignity, pride, and in our worth and value. When we see ourselves and one another through a cultural lens, we can begin to see our strength more vividly, and expansive.

How do we raise leaders?

What does it take to be a leader? What does it take to raise a generation of systems changers like the historical figures of times past? People who stand tall in the face of adversity and crushing oppression?

Elizabeth Peratrovich was a Tlingit woman from a small community in Alaska who simply showed up to the invitation to testify on the senate floor to advocate for the Anti-Discrimination Bill in 1945. After a powerful speech she persuaded the senate to pass the bill.

How could someone like Elizabeth, in those deeply racist and discriminatory times, stand up in a room full of White men who didn't believe she even had human rights, and find the strength to speak, or successfully advocate for the end of discrimination?

What did it take to raise a person who could speak so powerfully at such an oppressive time?

By learning about the cultural values of the Tlingit people, we can begin to understand what preserved the light inside her that allowed her to speak up in such a way that a room full of people who had a history of disagreeing with her, finally agreed to deliver on her plea as law and policy.

Through this conversation we can learn ways in which we can pass this along to our children and youth. We can learn how we can show up at home, in the classroom, and in our communities in a way that we can help raise a generation of powerful new leaders.