National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

I have done a lot of overthinking about this post and that overthinking is a very familiar pattern for me.

As I have mentioned many, many times on the blog, I often get caught in thought loops that look like this 

I understand that change needs to happen.

I start with good intentions.

I want to do something the ‘right’ way (or, at the very least, I don’t want to do it ‘wrong’)

I overthink and worry about it.  (sometimes I seek certainty by doing a ridiculous amount of unstructured research that doesn’t help at all)

I don’t actually take the action because I am so concerned with doing it right that I can’t do anything at all. 

I get upset with myself and start the loop again. 

And when it comes to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, for decolonization, for reconciliation practices as a whole, I admit that I have gotten firmly stuck in this loop, over and over again. 

I get so caught up in trying to do a good job, in trying to do reconciliation ‘right’, that I end up not taking any useful or sustained actions.  

I often have an idea what NOT to do* but I sometimes get so tangled up in avoiding those wrong things that I don’t leave myself room to do anything at all.

I’m tired of this loop and I am getting out of it.

---

Recently, a friend of mine told me that she sees a lot of people in loops like this – good intentions, overwhelm, guilt, inaction – and she told me the cure: 

EDUCATION. 

It was both incredibly obvious and a great revelation. **

Obviously, education will help me to understand how to be useful, how to figure out what actions to take, how to do things ‘right enough.’

The revelation was that educating myself is very different than getting caught in a whole loop of researching for certainty.

Thank you, M-L, for helping me to take a step in the right direction.

---

First Light, an Indigenous organization in St. John’s, NL, has a social media campaign asking people to state their commitment for the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation

In the spirit of that request, here are my first set of commitments to educate myself and work towards reconciliation:

1. I will attend the Reconciliation Rally this afternoon and wear my orange shirt.
2. I will take the 8 hour version of First Light’s Indigenous Cultural Diversity Training.
3. I will read Decolonization and Me by Kristy McLeod and Phyllis Webstad.
4. I will take the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Native Studies’ ‘Indigenous Canada online course.

Now, I want to be clear that I understand that this is not a checklist – I can’t “finish” reconciliation…I can’t even “finish” educating myself.

I understand that reconciliation is about learning new ways of thinking, about new ways of being in relationship with each other, with other species, and with the land.

I understand that there are so very many things that I don’t know, and that I have a lot to unlearn.

I recognize that reconciliation is a very long-term, ongoing project and that it will involve making mistakes and learning from them.

But I refuse to stay in the loop of good intentions with very little action any longer – almost anything I do will be better than that.

And, as recommended, I am starting with seeking education about the truth of Indigenous experiences.

(This post has been edited to add the two items below. The first one didn’t travel along with the copy and paste from my draft document. The second one was added for clarity after the post went live.)

*For example: I am currently wrestling with thoughts that writing this post this way is centering myself – I know not to do that but I’m not sure if this is an example of that or not. I hope not. I hope this is a loop-breaking way of starting to take the actions I want to take to educate myself properly.

**To clarify a little – It’s not that I thought I knew everything already, it’s that some part of my brain thinks that I don’t know what to do because I haven’t thought about it enough or because I haven’t asked the right questions yet. I forget that the path (and the questions) come from learning – I don’t need to know them before I start. Is this an ADHD thing? A Christine thing? A human thing? It’s probably a combination, right?

Update:

The rally was incredibly moving and incredibly hopeful.

Here are a couple of photos: