38. Bambi Dawn III - The Body Connection
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38. Bambi Dawn III - The Body Connection
Bambi and I finish up our chat by talking about being in our bodies, even when that’s not such a great experience. Bambi shares her encounters with medical self-advocacy, language and the connection to Spirit and Ceremony as a helpful solution to anxiety.
I thoroughly enjoyed my epic chat with Bambi and I hope you do too. Please contact me if you’d like to talk with me about Land + Spirit. It’s my favourite thing!
Click below for more episodes with Bambi:
▶︎ Bambi I - Talking with Spirit
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38. Bambi Dawn III - The Body Connection
Transcript
Bambi (00:00:00):
And they were looking at me and the one guy's like, wow, every white, not everybody can really hear a story, hear stories like this and receive it in the way it should be received. I appreciate you because I know you get it. I mean, if I'm telling my stories about my dog and my dad and the tissues and it's like, oh yeah, she gets it. And I really appreciate that.
Lezley (00:00:44):
Thank you. I appreciate you. You're a mirror. I see myself in you and you reflect kind of what I've been living as well, so I appreciate that.
Lezley (00:00:59):
Thank you. I appreciate your willingness to share. Speaking with spirit. It's been very new to me to be public about it. It's something I've done my entire life, but it wasn't supported and it was actually perceived with fear by my mother, which not her fault. Same thing. Christian devil's demons just bad, wrong, very scary. And so I perceive that as me being bad somehow or wrong or broken, and it's been very, very recent where I've been publicly sharing it, but it's opened up my life to be real. I can be really who I am in the world now, accept the gifts that I've been given by spirit and share them and share them is what makes them real. So people like you give me that safe space to do that. You know what I mean? I'm really very heartfelt, spirit appreciative of you doing that.
Bambi (00:02:10):
It's so nice to be able to share stuff like this with someone who's also on a similar journey because there's so much in life that hinders us, weighs us down, suffocates us on so many levels, and just, I mean, think about it. Think about a kid like me going through those things that I went through with my grandparents, seeing those things, surviving those things. Where am I going to talk to about it? They had done a lot of programming to ensure that I didn't tell because I had
Lezley (00:02:49):
All
Bambi (00:02:49):
These fears of authority and you don't tell role in my marriage because I was afraid of my husband, even though he wasn't physically abusive to me. But there were definitely these power dynamics that did not work in my favor, and I didn't know how to address it, and I was scared. And it wasn't until I started processing those memories from when I was four that all of a sudden things started to become more free in my current life with him. He didn't end up staying together because he wasn't on a healing journey. So he was still stuck, and our problems were all my fault in his mind. So that's why I went to get some counseling and I ended up becoming free and I ended up doing intercession with my kids because I could see these things happening in our house that were hurting them.
Bambi (00:04:01):
And instead of being afraid because he's the authority figure, I started to stand in the gap and go, oh, I've told you all about my sessions and the processing, my memories and stuff. This was all Christian counseling that I was getting, but it was good Christian counseling because it was more like shadow work than it was fall in line into this box, which I really appreciated about my counselors back then. And I was going to talk about Jesus, one of my sessions that I was doing here for myself, because I have so much, I have two or three years of weekly Christian counseling processing trauma memories. Essentially I would be feeling something sad, angry, whatever, and we would just follow that to, oh, it's attached to this memory. Does it go deeper? Does it go further back? It go further back, further back until we got to what I would perceive as the original memory, and we'd invite Jesus to speak to little Babi in that moment. Interesting.
Bambi (00:05:21):
And so there's no way that I could completely negate Jesus out of my life because I have so much healing through that. And so I put that out there when I was doing an ancestor meditation. What about cheeses? I have all this feeling over here. Where's cheeses in all of this? Right? And it was funny because I'm looking and we're sitting around a fire and there's darkness around us, but there's this light in the middle from the fire, and we're just enjoying each other's company, and I'm asking these questions and Jesus does, I'm still here. He just popped his head in, I'm still here. It's all the same.
Bambi (00:06:12):
Nothing cancels out anything else. And that was what was available, available to me at that time. And the ancestors are like, oh yeah, we just send Jesus in there. Because that's what was accessible to you at the time. Absolutely. And it was just really cool. Like, oh, I don't have to throw the baby Jesus out with the bath water because I walked away from the church. Would I say that I still have just this really great relationship with Jesus these days? No, mainly because a lot of that was tied up with church stuff, and I have a lot of stuff. There was a lot of spiritual abuse that came through the church I went to, which was Evangelical Mennonite, and also because of the history with and trauma that, so Jesus isn't a huge part of my spiritual practice, but he haven't canceled. My focus though is more my ancestors, my granny, my dad, sometimes my grandma and grandpa, my dog, and this one other A that granny introduced me to from way back, his name is, and he steps in sometimes.
Lezley (00:07:51):
Wow.
Bambi (00:07:53):
Yeah. I'm not sure exactly how it's spelled, but it's me. And
Lezley (00:07:59):
Interesting,
Bambi (00:08:02):
The first time I met him, hey, so this was the scenario. I asked Granny if she could introduce me to other ancestors, and I saw the picture of her sitting in her chair at the house where we used to visit her, and this portal opened up in the wall, and I saw this cord winding down this hole into this blackness. And we went where? I went down this hole where this cord was going, and the cord at the time just represented a connection to ancestors, but later it was revealed to me that that's an abil cord,
Lezley (00:08:42):
Essentially. Oh, okay. That makes sense.
Bambi (00:08:46):
So I show up and there's these two native guys and I show up and they look surprised and they're looking at me and the one guy's like, wow, ever white. And the other one said, yeah, the wider they get, the less they come and see us. And then I cry,
Lezley (00:09:20):
Oh yeah, oh God. I just
Bambi (00:09:25):
Spoke about the watering down of that because of colonization. And then he spoke to me about birthright and how me claiming Tuffy was a representation of me claiming back that birthright that was essentially denied me when I was a kid. So yeah, it was really cool. He is like, you know how when indigenous people, they take up dancing or they take up drumming or they take up singing, they're reclaiming their birthright, and you went and got that dog because that was important to you, and that's how you're connected with your dad. Because me and my dad always have a dog. So we didn't connect on a lot of levels, but we always had that dog. And I'm like, this is how I'm going to connect with my dad. And dogs have been a really big way that I've connected with him now that he's on the other side. And he was like, that's what you were doing. It's just the same thing as dancing at a powwow for an indigenous person. You reclaim that dog. It's the same. You reclaimed your birthright. I was like blown away. Yeah,
Lezley (00:10:35):
The wording is interesting, claiming I had that same sense of being claimed and claiming ancestors in return. And I feel like that's when it's the healing of the cutoff. For me as a European, as a Celtic immigrant, there was a complete nutter cutoff on Turtle Island. They wanted to have nothing to do with that trauma that they didn't want to heal or look at or deal with. But yeah, the claiming is the healing of the cutoff.
Bambi (00:11:06):
Yeah,
Lezley (00:11:06):
It's beautiful.
Bambi (00:11:08):
It really is. It's kind of fun.
Lezley (00:11:12):
It's fun. I mean, I love Kelps have such a mythological view, all of universe, because it's feta. Futa is intertwined with form and spirit, so everything has meaning. Everything has as spiritual meaning, and it makes it so fun to like, oh, that came through. It's not a coincidence. Coincidence doesn't exist. Everything is, if I don't get it, it just means that I don't get it right now, but later I might get it.
Bambi (00:11:47):
Right. It's either not the right time, or maybe you have a blockage you need to work
Lezley (00:11:51):
On. Right? I don't get right now, but I know it's something
Bambi (00:11:55):
That's pretty cool. Even just the idea where I'll feel stuck about something like, oh, I just need a change in my house. I dunno what I want to do. Should I paint a wall or whatever? You can ask your house. So
Lezley (00:12:10):
Smart. Yes, of course. And that's weird too, because when I walked into this house when I was looking, did you know when you moved into your house? Did you know? I knew the second I walk in, I'm like, oh, here you are. Oh, I know you. Yeah, okay. I knew,
Bambi (00:12:31):
Yeah, there was another house that I was looking at that I really, really wanted. But when I look back on that time, I really had a sense of I will end up where I'm meant to be. And someone bought that house out from under me. And I think part of me looking back, I'm like, oh, it kind of closely resembled the house that I felt forced to sell because of a relationship breakdown and stuff. And I'm like, oh, if I get this, then I get back what I'm losing over here. But even in the midst of that, I kept telling myself, why am I always trying to do a redo of things?
Lezley (00:13:13):
Interesting.
Bambi (00:13:14):
And so I had to teach myself new concepts. No matter where you go and what you do in life, if you have 80% of what you want, for example, that's a pretty high percentage. Not everybody can live in a place where they say, I have 80% of what I want living here. So then I just started to just, it's not even lowering your expectations. I think if anything, it's elevating it because it's like you're just accepting that life is never going to be a percent. So this house, I was so sad about losing it. I just went back to the day that I came and saw this house and felt what I felt.
Lezley (00:14:04):
That's it. The feeling.
Bambi (00:14:06):
Yeah. It has maple, hardwood floors, wood. They did a bunch of cutouts in the walls so that light could pass through from the front of the house to the back. Oh, nice. And they put a bit of an addition on the front where my dining room bench is. And then there's a couple additions on the back of the house where they just extended, which seems like a lot of expensive work for three feet. But also, it makes
Lezley (00:14:35):
A difference.
Bambi (00:14:36):
It does make a difference. And there's just a lot of neat quirk things about this house. I dunno if you can see, there's wood at the top,
Bambi (00:14:48):
And that's around through the whole house. And in some, there's a plate rail where you can put plates along the top stuff, and they put a little skylight in the side like that. And there's one on the other side of this wall, which is my bedroom. So let's light in over there. And it's like, that's the east wall, so it'll make sense to let that light in. But who does that in the house from the sixties? People don't do that. So it's really unique. And then seeing all the fruit trees and everything in the backyard and stuff. I knew that I had picked the right place though, because I brought a lot of plants from property. I moved from, it was out in the, and I brought hazelnut trees and rose bushes and a lot of things that I knew I would miss about that property. One thing I forgot to bring was I can probably get one somewhere. I was trying to consult myself with it. So I moved here in August. So in October, I'm sitting in the bench, in the window seat in the dining room, and I look up, I,
Lezley (00:16:07):
That's awesome.
Bambi (00:16:09):
And
Lezley (00:16:09):
I'm like, that's great.
Bambi (00:16:11):
Wow. It was already here. I didn't need to remember it. It was all like, whatever spirit knew ahead of time, you knew I wanted that. Right? Yeah. Whatever. And I just felt so much love in that moment.
Lezley (00:16:28):
Yeah. Taken care of, known and cared for. Yeah. I love that. I love that cared
Bambi (00:16:35):
For.
Lezley (00:16:36):
Yeah.
Bambi (00:16:40):
It's just all these little spiritual glimmers that get sent to us that I never can't say I never got it in a church setting, because I would get them there too sometimes, but I get them way more now.
Lezley (00:16:59):
Same. And I get them more, the more I pay attention to my body and listen to my body, and I'm in my body and allowing my body to connect with earth, that it's where I feel safe, and it's where I feel known and cared for is in that presence. I know that you have a lot of not great experiences in your body. So I'm telling, oh, my body, Ooh. And then I'm like, ah, shut up, Lezley. The body's not the greatest experience for everyone.
Bambi (00:17:40):
No, no. You were absolutely hundred percent correct. See, as a child, I learned how to dissociate because of trauma, but the ability to dissociate that much served me well, but didn't serve me well. And it's been a process to undo that. Those dissociations. The other day, I was driving home from the city, and my shoulder just was on fire for no reason. I mean, I'm sure there's a reason, but it was like nobody hit me in the shoulder with a two by four. Immediately I could feel that I wanted to escape that pain, and there wasn't really an escape. And then I just thought to myself, no, because focusing on those feelings, actually my body forced me to focus on it. And the result of focusing on it was I found some good treatment for the migraine disorder. So I've had three migraine attacks since I started this new medication in August. Before that, I was having at least 50 out of 90 days spent in migraines. It was awful. So yeah, I've had some not so great experiences in my body, but dissociating from that kept me in that pain loop. I wanted to keep myself away from it. And so I would just get through it, and then I would feel better. I would get out of bed and not think about migraine at all. That didn't help me. That didn't serve me.
Bambi (00:19:30):
So when it got to the point where I was having every second day or more living in migraine, it's like, what else can I do? But focus on it. I'm like, Hey, bitch, you want my attention?
Lezley (00:19:42):
So accurate, so accurate. Hey bitch, here's what's up.
Bambi (00:19:48):
And I started studying migraine, and it led me to these other modalities that I never knew about before because I ignored it when I wasn't in it. Through learning about that, I started focusing on my body and what am I feeling so that I can, oh, there's a symptom that lets me know that a migraine attack is probably coming, and if I medicate now, I can prevent this worse case scenario from happening.
Lezley (00:20:25):
It's an ancient wisdom tool. It's an ancient wisdom tool for sure. And if I didn't
Bambi (00:20:32):
Learn how to do that, I wouldn't.
Lezley (00:20:34):
None of us do. None of us do. And it's one of the biggest, it is literally one of the biggest healing that I've had through Christian wounding is healing the belief inside me. That spirit is separate from the world of form. It's a fundamental, whether it's implicit or explicit, it's a fundamental belief that's pushed on us, that we are separate from spirit. And it is the most wounding thing that's ever happened to us. Ever.
Bambi (00:21:11):
Yeah. It's so damaging. But because I wasn't listening to my body, my foot ended up flaring up really bad. So I couldn't walk for months and months. And I dissociated all through that as well. And I was going to this chiropractor, and the chiropractor did so much more damage to me, actually. He didn't help me. He damaged me, damaged my foot even more. And through that, I had to do shadow work because I left. The last time I left his office, office from getting a treatment, I ugly cried. I had to spend a good five, 10 minutes just imposing myself before I could leave the treatment room. I was in that much pain after
Lezley (00:21:58):
This. Sorry, I'm not laughing at your ugly cry. I'm just, I'm laughing at the phrase ugly cry. I'm sorry I'm not, I look very not sensitive at all to No, no,
Bambi (00:22:10):
You're fine. You're fine. It's kind of funny.
Lezley (00:22:14):
Ugly cry. Well, it brings up that
Bambi (00:22:18):
That's exactly what was happening.
Lezley (00:22:22):
I'm funny either, but it is.
Bambi (00:22:25):
Yeah. So then when I was doing, I'm like, I have to use some work around this because I just feel so triggered. It's almost like I can feel myself going back to 4-year-old feelings. So I'm like, this is not good. So one thing that I try to practice is when I'm feeling triggered, how old do I feel? What does that part of me need right now?
Lezley (00:22:49):
That's awesome. What do I need right now? Holy shit. That's,
Bambi (00:22:57):
Thats
Lezley (00:22:57):
The only question we ever need to ask. What's needed right now? What do I need right now?
Bambi (00:23:03):
And what came to me was what's going on? And what came to me was that there's parts of me that said, I can't be trusted to keep myself safe.
Lezley (00:23:19):
Oh, shit.
Bambi (00:23:23):
Ultimately, I allowed that to do those things to me because I believed that he had the education and the wisdom and
Lezley (00:23:29):
Whatever. I know, but that's the invasion part. That's the, that I'm not explaining it to you, but fuck, we always blame ourselves. Children blame themselves because parents in the world and the authorities are gods and goddesses. They are correct. And they are the loving universe. And so if anything is painful, it's our own fault. We did it to ourselves. Poor us.
Bambi (00:24:06):
I know.
Lezley (00:24:08):
Poor all the little children.
Bambi (00:24:11):
It's
Lezley (00:24:11):
Not your fault.
Bambi (00:24:12):
I know, I know. But I still felt an obligation to myself to prove to myself that because I clearly wasn't listening. I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do, but I wasn't listening. I'm making a commitment to myself to listen, because your body does manifest these things, even in just weird ways where I'm feeling really upset, my hands will start to hurt. It's like, oh, what's going on? What going on? Something's getting, it's a part of me getting violated somehow, and I need to figure out what that is. Yeah.
Lezley (00:24:50):
But isn't it amazing that our, sorry, sorry. It's amazing that our default state is peace and love and harmony. And we're not taught that anything that that is a sign to pay attention and to rectify. We grow up with this idea, this monstrous idea given to us that harm is natural harm and pain and strife is natural. Just don't take it stiff upper lip. And I'm just like, oh, it's not the way the universe is built. It's contrary to how things are created, how spirit is, and how the world of form is created.
Bambi (00:25:38):
I made an appointment to go talk to the chiropractor, and I told him, I'm not looking for treatment. I'm just to talk to you.
Lezley (00:25:47):
Wow. Interesting. That's policy.
Bambi (00:25:51):
And I went there. I told myself, my purpose for going there is to prove to myself that I can speak up and advocate for myself, but I'm not worried about the outcome because other people will do whatever they do, and I don't have control over that, but I can control myself. So I did. I went there and I just said, Hey, I realize now that the treatment you were giving me was actually damaging to me. And this is why, because I'd also seen a physiotherapist and stuff. I won't be coming. I just wanted you to know that just in case you have other people coming to you. This didn't work for me because I think I have, EDS is actually the reason, but
Lezley (00:26:38):
Sorry, you think you have
Bambi (00:26:41):
Eeds? Ehlers Danlos syndrome.
Lezley (00:26:43):
Oh, okay.
Bambi (00:26:44):
Connective tissue disorder. And the flare is probably ans flare. Anyways, he told me I was wrong. He talked over meed me about the body because he's the one with the education and me. Oh, but
Lezley (00:27:00):
That's like the system. That's Western system, just right. Stepping in. Oh, stepping in and overriding your natural wisdom. Fuck you and your body. Fuck you and your body. You don't matter. Oh God. I'm enraged now.
Bambi (00:27:17):
I felt a little bit of that at the time, but I just console myself with the idea that we're not looking for an outcome where he gets on board with me.
Lezley (00:27:27):
Yeah, fair. The
Bambi (00:27:28):
Outcome is that I can stand up to people like that and say no to them. It was just like an exercise in proving something to my inner self.
Lezley (00:27:41):
Nice.
Bambi (00:27:42):
And so he did all of that, and I just said, you're showing me who you're right now.
Lezley (00:27:48):
Yeah. And you're making the right decision to not continue treatment with him.
Bambi (00:27:54):
And then after he explained everything to me, he said, so what can I treat you for today? And I said, oh, I don't actually go to people for any kind of treatment that makes me ugly cry. And he went, oh, he was visibly uncomfortable. And I was like, I came here to do what I had to do, and then I just walked out.
Lezley (00:28:26):
Interesting. That's interesting.
Bambi (00:28:30):
Yeah. It a exercise for me.
Lezley (00:28:33):
Yeah, good for you.
Bambi (00:28:35):
It takes courage to, because especially because I have that history where you don't question the man who's authority. It's true. It's scariest thing you can do because true.
Lezley (00:28:50):
You're going to get in trouble.
Bambi (00:28:52):
Well, not even just trouble going to be really bad. Things happen to you if you try to do that. Right. And I have to teach, I still have to sometimes teach myself inwardly, no, I'm in my fifties now. Who's going to hurt now? I have the power. I'm power now. So yeah. Didn't have to worry about mentioning the body, even though I've had, it's been a journey with the body, but it's taught me how to listen, because that's kind of your antenna.
Lezley (00:29:32):
It's, it absolutely is. Your antenna a
Bambi (00:29:33):
Spiritual antenna,
Lezley (00:29:36):
Literally soul expressing in the world of form, in a body, authentic expression of soul. Yeah. So much bullshit that it's been taught and believed. Honestly, my world. Now I'm like, oh God. And all the children, oh, don't teach them that. That's not true. That's not true. You are wonderful. You are created exactly the way you're meant to be. You know what I mean? Just like those basic, beautiful, nurturing, nurturing parenthood, indigenous models of nurturing parenthood. It's different completely from European Western styles. And so nurturing and encompassing. And did you know that Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs was ripped off by the Six seven Nation? I think I said that
Bambi (00:30:39):
Correctly. Yes. Yep. The Six Nation. Yep.
Lezley (00:30:43):
It's just,
Bambi (00:30:44):
It's crazy.
Lezley (00:30:45):
Everything amazing is indigenous and white people just grabbed it for themselves.
Bambi (00:30:50):
Ripped it off.
Lezley (00:30:51):
Just ripped it off. Yeah.
Bambi (00:30:55):
Yeah. It's kind of crazy. It's crazy. My entire hospital was so smart. Was smart enough to rip something good,
Lezley (00:31:04):
Right?
Bambi (00:31:05):
Yeah.
Lezley (00:31:06):
Yeah, exactly. And my whole family is from the west, from the prairies. My dad was born in Manitoba. My family, all of them basically are in Saskatchewan a little
Bambi (00:31:21):
Bit. I grew up in Alberta.
Lezley (00:31:25):
You, yeah. My cousins are in Alberta. And it's interesting to me to think about coming to Ontario because connecting the Celtic cultural rooting on Turtle Island is part of my vocation. It's part of what I came here to do, to learn and to share. And I don't think I could have done that if I had stayed in Saskatchewan. I think I would've absorbed the implicit racist views of indigenous peoples. And I probably wouldn't have been able get out of it enough to be able to embrace. And my desire to learn right now about it is intense.
Bambi (00:32:24):
I don't know. I think you still would because I grew up in Alberta.
Lezley (00:32:29):
Yeah, that's true. You're right. You're right. I don't know.
Bambi (00:32:35):
You're right about Saskatchewan though. One thing, I didn't really know a ton about Saskatchewan before I started this job. And now I'm in Saskatchewan all the time for work. And even just driving around and noticing how many street names are, there's a lot of Victoria Red, Regina Prints of Wales Drive in Regina, things like that. There's so many colonizer names on everything. Everything. And then you've got, I'll listen to the radio when I'm out there, and it's just a couple steps edgier when it comes to colonizer thinking even, and just how they talk about things. And I have relatives out there that are really, really good. But when I tried to talk to them about privilege, about white privilege, and she was like, I'm not privileged. I've struggled. And I'm like, right, but your skin color wasn't one of the things that caused you to struggle.
Lezley (00:33:45):
Right.
Bambi (00:33:46):
That's the point. And I was able to explain it to her, but I don't think she was able to remain in that understanding because visited her a few months later and she was right back to the way
Lezley (00:33:59):
She was, which she's
Bambi (00:34:01):
Not terrible. She's really nice. She has a lot of friends of different demographics. But at the same time, I still can see these lines of thinking that when it seems appropriate or works out, I'll sometimes say something.
Lezley (00:34:24):
I think it's been my own experience, so that's all I know. But connection to whiteness and identity to whiteness prevents that idea of accepting the privilege. When you identify with it and you identify with it when you don't have any other cultural roots, if you're only white, then oh, it's your identity as a person that's being attacked. But whiteness is offers zero. There's nothing nurturing in it. There's nothing of value in that identity. But unless there's something else to be rooted into, that's all that they have. Is this whiteness or this idea of, I find the same thing with Canadian. The idea of Canadian identity is really a sacred cow that people don't want to be poked. And it's just, it's not real. It's not real. I don't have to educate you. Not that I have to educate anyone, but
Bambi (00:35:36):
I used to always want to put up a Canada plague on July 1st and stuff like that. And now it's like,
Lezley (00:35:41):
That's
Bambi (00:35:42):
Crazy. I don't ever want to do that again.
Lezley (00:35:45):
No. And I don't want to refer to it as Canada. It's an idea that's based on a lie and a theft. It's Turtle Island. Turtle Island. And I know that's not the referred, that's not every nation's choice of words, but I think people get Yeah,
Bambi (00:36:04):
Sometimes people just call it, so-called Canada,
Lezley (00:36:07):
So Canada, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bambi (00:36:13):
Sometimes people will out of the blue be like, oh, whatcha doing for Canada Day? It's like, oh, I think I'm going to cancel it. And then if they ask why, I'll tell them. But not everybody wants to know.
Lezley (00:36:29):
No, I'll share. You know what I'm doing. I'm going to share the link to the four seasons of reconciliation. That's what I'm going to do. That'll be my candidate day.
Bambi (00:36:39):
Last year I didn't go because of my foot, but I have gone down to Port Maine and Winnipeg with other indigenous people. And then we walk down Portage and then up the road to the legislature, and then they have speech and stuff on Canada Day. Everybody rose along.
Lezley (00:37:05):
Nice. Awesome. That's great. A lot
Bambi (00:37:07):
Of people,
Lezley (00:37:09):
I wanted to make the point that you talked about how there's a lot of colonizer words, road names and structures and everything. I mean, that's Ontario. It's completely, completely. The whole reason that I didn't grow up with any stereotypes of indigenous people is because there weren't any that I knew of in my life. It just wasn't, we never even got taught
Bambi (00:37:38):
Complete absence.
Lezley (00:37:40):
Complete absence of complete total erasure, total erasure. Anyway.
Bambi (00:37:48):
Well, I know there was a lot of kale. Even some of my friends on Facebook were complaining about changing the name of Bishop Grandin Boulevard to Abeana.
Lezley (00:37:58):
Good.
Bambi (00:38:01):
And I would just ask them, why does this upset you? Well, it's always been this way. I'm like, well, it's been this way for a while, but before that,
Lezley (00:38:12):
Not always. Not always this way.
Bambi (00:38:16):
Yeah. And are you basically telling me that you're okay with having streets named after P Priests? You're okay with that?
Lezley (00:38:27):
Thank you. Thank you. What about constant re-victimization, re harm happening? It's gross.
Bambi (00:38:35):
Imagine that you're the victim of that priest, and every time you go to the mall, you go to Patel. It's right on Bishop Brandon. And you have to see that name Bishop. That's the person that raped or,
Lezley (00:38:53):
Well, yeah. You just be reminded that you don't have value and that the structure is there to keep you small and contained.
Bambi (00:39:03):
And so, oh, you have a little bit of discomfort because you keep forgetting that they changed the name because you're used big fucking deal.
Lezley (00:39:11):
Big fucking deal. Eventually you'll get it. Eventually you'll get it. Eventually you'll remember.
Bambi (00:39:16):
Yeah. And so what, they changed the name Big deal. Big deal. Did you change your name when you got married? People change names on things all the time.
Lezley (00:39:26):
Yeah.
Bambi (00:39:26):
Why are you making a big deal about it? Because it's important to Indigenous people don't want, it's important
Lezley (00:39:34):
To us. It's important to us too. It's important to non-indigenous people to connect with the land. This land's first relationship is with indigenous people, and we do not have a future if we don't connect to the land and we only connect to the land on Turtle Island through indigenous ceremony. That's it. That's the only way. Hey, this is editing Lezley here. I just want to explain or clarify what I mean by indigenous ceremony. I don't mean specific First Nation ceremonies that we take for ourself. That is not what I'm suggesting. What I am saying is that we need to create ceremony, meaning making sacred between ourselves and the land and go through the process of becoming indigenous to land, which requires ceremony. And ceremony is the making sacred and the intentional calling into our lives and into our relationship spirit and sacred communication. So I just wanted to clarify that. I think it wasn't very clear
Bambi (00:40:47):
Anyways, and I think that that's one way that the average individual can practice reconciliation. You know what? They changed the name and I'm going to learn it.
Lezley (00:41:00):
Yeah.
Bambi (00:41:02):
It's a small thing, but it's a big thing
Lezley (00:41:05):
And practice pronouncing it properly.
Bambi (00:41:07):
Yeah. Sometimes the little things are the big things.
Lezley (00:41:11):
Yeah. Well, it's just the care. It's the care that goes into the fact that you respect a name saying someone's name properly is so respectful and honoring of that individual. Just taking that moment to ask, how do you pronounce that? And practicing. It's embarrassing. It is uncomfortable. It's not a name that you're familiar with. It is a different role of consonants and flavor in your mouth. But I think language is magic. I think language is magic. Our voices are literally the first way that spirit becomes flash. So speaking is bringing that spirit into form.
Bambi (00:41:56):
I've heard a lot of people say that to reclaim their own indigenous culture, they started learning the language because the language itself is a spirit.
Lezley (00:42:06):
Yeah. It's happening with me in my Celtic reconnecting. I'm learning both Irish and Gaelic and learning. I learned words and I learned short little phrases. I'm not reaching for fluency here. Even just that and the words that I've been learning that I've come to me are very spiritually Ed. The very first one I learned was Mo in Irish, which is in Gaelic. And it's sensitivity, and it's the feeling in your chest that you get when you feel the sense of the world, oh my God, I'm in the right place. This is resonant
Bambi (00:42:54):
To me. Yeah, that's really cool. I feel like that idea is really daunting, learning the language. And so I haven't really pursued it yet. Part of it is just me wanting to focus on getting my health on track and stuff. So I just really pulled back from a lot of other things. And anytime I get down on myself about any of that kind of thing, I always have grannies stepping up and saying things like, you're still my granddaughter.
Lezley (00:43:32):
That's
Bambi (00:43:32):
Not going to change. Nobody can be that way. I'll never do this or whatever. It's fine. I mean, she was, I think the first one to marry a white person. She married someone from Gimley Iceland. He died though, I dunno how he died actually. And then my grandfather married my grandmother who was Irish and Scottish. And then my mom married my dad who is Mennonite. And then I married a white guy also who Islg. So yeah, it's interesting. But I named my son Dakota. I didn't, he is kind of always associated better with indigenous people than the white kids school, for example. So much so. Even though he looks about the same color as me, just to look at him, but his name's Dakota, and he always hung out with the indigenous kids at school. So then the teacher one day says to him, oh, if you need help with that, just ask your mom. And he was like
Lezley (00:45:01):
Weird.
Bambi (00:45:07):
I guess the community where we used to live, white picket fence bill. The only indigenous kids in town that I knew about were foster kids. And so that's fine. But what is going on with the teacher that makes that assumption based on whatever, unless for a fact, why are you making comments like that? So I called the school because I had to think about it because I'm like, am I mad that they thought he was a foster kid? I mad because they thought he was admit this, what am I mad about? So I called the school and I talked to the principal and he's like, well, I'm really sorry that doesn't happen again. And I'm like, I'm okay with people making mistakes. It's just what is going on in a teacher's mind where she's making assumptions that these people are fosters and I'm concerned about that.
Bambi (00:46:08):
So you might want to look into that because it feels a little like a racist comment. And I'm not totally concerned about my kid in particular, but what about these other kids? How is she treating those kids? And that's my concern. So just that people make assumptions on things. Even I did it. Even I did it. I have a friend that I went to high school with and I went up north and I met her. We went for coffee and stuff. We seen each other in years. She had a little toddler at the time, and I remember thinking, she's such a good mom. What a surprise.
Lezley (00:46:58):
Yeah. I mean, we're all a product. Yeah.
Bambi (00:47:04):
Why am I having that thought? That's ridiculous. The thought was there. Or when I went to Bible college, there was a guy that I'm still friends with to this day. He came from UPN and is indigenous and to make him feel more comfortable because he said he was feeling homesick. And I said, oh, well, let me know when you feel homesick and I'll go, you're sick. And then he just laughed and he's like, oh, that just made me feel so much better to hear you say that. And I'm like, Hey, I used to live in the north. I know. Anyways, but he was literally the smartest kid in college. Not even a kid, smartest guy in college. He thought the best marks when we had to learn how to speed, he got the highest count. He's so smart. And I was surprised. Why is that surprising? So just recognizing that these unconscious biases are just baked into our society and society is not going to fix.
Lezley (00:48:24):
Yeah. Most fish don't know what water is, and then a lot of people are just very uncomfortable that they're forced to look at it.
Bambi (00:48:43):
Yeah,
Lezley (00:48:44):
Very
Bambi (00:48:46):
Resistant. There was a guy that said to me once, what am I supposed to teach my grandchildren to feel bad that they're white?
Lezley (00:48:54):
Well, see, here's the thing. Deal with that badness. That badness is in you for a reason. That feeling, that's the part that I'm like, Ooh, good. Yeah. Feel that feeling. Don't blame anyone else for that feeling. And I know you get this. I know you get this, but it's go with that feeling. Go with it. Don't try and make it someone else's problem. Don't make it go away. Go with that. That's where the good juice is. This is all fucking new to so many people, so new. It really
Bambi (00:49:27):
Is.
Lezley (00:49:28):
I mean, okay, but sometimes,
Bambi (00:49:32):
Well, and a lot of those ideas and those things come from your history when your people were colonized.
Lezley (00:49:43):
That's what I'm saying. That's exactly what I'm saying. That's what I'm
Bambi (00:49:47):
Celtics.
Lezley (00:49:48):
Exactly.
Bambi (00:49:49):
Different countries, and that's what people like. I dunno if you follow Asbe or on TikTok, he does a lot of teaching of Anishinabe
Lezley (00:50:00):
Thing,
Bambi (00:50:01):
But he's like, if you want to feel yourself or learn about indigenous people or whatever, you want to understand those colonization and stuff go back in history to when it happened to your people.
Lezley (00:50:15):
Yeah, 100%. That's exactly the healing that needs to happen, and that's how we'll get rid of whiteness. That was what was chosen of reconnecting to the painful roots of our own oppression. I get why it was done. Who wouldn't want to leave the colonized island and come to a new land and be the colonizer? Oh, fuck you meant. Oh shit. Oops. Fuck. You had to act out. The oppression that you can't look at and heal. It's like predator. It's like being a predator. You need to act out that harm that you can't heal in yourself.
Bambi (00:51:09):
It's so prevalent too. I even see it here where I live. There's a lot of Mennonites where I live, the Bible belt central and Mennonite history on Baptist history is rife oppression and persecution from the Catholic church because they broke off from there and a lot of people were murdered. A lot of people were chased across countries and stuff. There's a reason why there's Amish colonies and Mennonite colonies and colonies. They're all under the umbrella of that anaba philosophy. But when the pride community rises up and decides to have pride march in a town that's predominantly Mennonite, you see these Mennonites getting really mad about it. You got LGBT kids getting bullied a lot at school, and there's all these churches and big wigs in town that are rising up. There was this bill 18 that they didn't want to get passed because they didn't, they wanted to be allowed to continue to bully people from thet community because they don't agree with it and whatever how you have, so you've history.
Lezley (00:52:40):
Oh no, but that's different. That's different. That's not the same. I'm right. I'm right. They're wrong. That's obviously wrong. This is completely different. I mean, you
Bambi (00:52:54):
Think they would understand and then look what we got going on over in Gaza, right? It's the same shit. You've got this huge history of persecution against Jewish people back with the Nazis and stuff. That was terrible. Agreed. Everybody can agree that that was terrible, but why are there certain factions of that demographic now turning around and unleashing their persecution on? It's happened in lots of countries in Africa. It just kind of ramped everywhere actually.
Lezley (00:53:33):
Yeah, and it's the same thing happening over and over again.
Bambi (00:53:38):
Or even in Rwanda. You have these two people groups that were created by the Belgians. They aren't actual real different groups
Lezley (00:53:51):
God,
Bambi (00:53:52):
But it was created by the Belgians when they were colonized. So then these two groups are fighting against each other and the Belgians aren't even there anymore. It's like the Belgians just set it up. Okay, now you guys can each other and then we'll just come, I dunno,
Lezley (00:54:08):
Divide and conquer.
Bambi (00:54:10):
Yeah, and it's like, don't you guys remember being oppressed by the, why are you now oppressing each other? Why is one tribe to kill the other? I don't get it. It don't get how this happens.
Lezley (00:54:25):
I assume that, well, I'm pretty sure that everyone has to feel it before it changes. Do you know what I mean? As long as any single person on the earth is willing to make it someone else's problem for their own feeling, we're not going to heal this and I don't know what's going to be necessary. I believe in spirit to change it. I believe in even just speaking this out loud to one another that we're changing it, but I don't know what's required to make it a global thing. You see a different world, you see it. You can see it, right? I can see the world, I can see it. I would
Bambi (00:55:18):
Like to see people be more proactive about their own issues that get them fired up because then they'll, instead of reacting from a place of fear or a place of fear, they're going to be able to respond from a place of peace and calm of healing. And the outcome is so much better when you're responding from that place than when you're responding from fear or
Lezley (00:55:51):
The fear feels like, I understand the fear feels really real. It feels like you have to fight and push or else you are going to die literally or figuratively. I think we all need to get better too at responding to that triggering person with love and safety. Do you know what I mean? That's the only thing,
Bambi (00:56:16):
Not even that, it's not that it's now and that you're not my enemy. You're just tapping into something from the core, and I need to go look at this, but then I'm going to talk to you about it. When I find for myself and I go back and I feel this stuff that got triggered and I'm feeling better about it over here, then when I come back, I can more clearly see, okay, this is healed. Now I have an understanding about it that brings me peace and calm, but I also see that this is where you have hurt me and I want to address that. You don't have all the weight of this other stuff fueling you now. You can just deal with what's actually,
Lezley (00:57:10):
Absolutely.
Bambi (00:57:11):
It makes such a huge difference. It
Lezley (00:57:14):
Changed
Bambi (00:57:14):
The way I parented so much, and it actually created a scenario where I started not only parenting differently, but I started teaching that kind of lingo to my kids to recognize like, oh, when you feel like this, it's because you're triggered. It's probably tapping into something that happened before, and that person maybe isn't your enemy, or if they're mad at you, it's probably because they're triggered. It's probably not exactly your fault. It's not your fault if you trigger someone because that happens whether you wanted to or not. And you can't take on, oh, I'm the bad guy now because they're triggered. They're just triggered because of their own stuff. And you just need to know that within yourself so you can feel okay.
Lezley (00:58:06):
Yeah.
Bambi (00:58:07):
There's so much that I've learned in this journey of healing that it's just so important. And that's the only thing I really have control over is myself and how I interact with the world. And so it makes all of these really big world problems feel a little better because I know that I can't go over to Gaza and protect anybody, for example. I can't talk sense into anybody who's perpetrating those things over there or anywhere else.
Lezley (00:58:46):
In a very real way, though, your body is earth and your healing your own self is doing your work for the world
Bambi (00:58:56):
Both.
Lezley (00:58:57):
Absolutely. And I'm not saying that to suggest that we don't advocate and we don't do what we can to help, but I mean, your only purpose is to be you as fully and completely and as you can in the world, which means healing what I,
Bambi (00:59:22):
Yeah, I can affect change overseas, but you know what? It's really freaking cold in Manitoba right now, and I built Aoh cat shelter for those park kit.
Lezley (00:59:33):
So cold. Why is it so cold? Manitoba minus 39. Get the fuck out of here.
Bambi (00:59:39):
Yeah. So you know what? You got to inject that positive energy into the world where you can with what you have available to you. And during the pandemic, my motto was, do your best. Let go of the rest.
Lezley (00:59:58):
It's funny. Everyone says, oh, the pandemic. In my whole life, my life didn't change at all. I went to work every day. The only thing that changed is we weren't open, but my husband too, we went to work and it was just, people were like, oh my God, the pandemic and everything's changed. And I'm like, it didn't at all.
Bambi (01:00:21):
That was my boyfriend's experience. His life didn't change. My life changed exponentially. Actually. I got laid off and then not related to the pandemic, but I lost two more pets after chance during the pandemic. And my kids moved in with me. They had been living at their dad's, but there was this, whatever. He was on vacation with his wife, and then they had to come back and then quarantine. And my kids are like, we can't quarantine because we have jobs. And he's like, well, you're going to have to move in with your mom. So we got some do over opportunities that way as well. And that was fun. They lived here for a bit, but it was just really, really different. And I was off for 16 months.
Lezley (01:01:11):
You said that earlier, and I'm like, yeah, I don't, can't relate.
Bambi (01:01:14):
Well, I'm so
Lezley (01:01:15):
Grateful. Didn't get any serve, nothing.
Bambi (01:01:18):
No, I got work subsidy, so I was able to stay afloat, but I also had a job working at the vaccine clinic for a while because I'm like, well, you know, that's where the jobs are right now.
Lezley (01:01:30):
Yeah, right. That's smart.
Bambi (01:01:32):
I did that for a while, and then they called me back. So I'm back doing what I was originally doing, so I got to take my job. But a lot of people in my field, in other organizations, things are starting to change for them. That's all I want to necessarily talk about my job online. But I can see the ripple effects in the aftermath of the pandemic. It did affect our company, but we were able to recover. Whereas these other organizations, I'm not sure that they're necessarily recovering as well as ours did. So that's sad to see that happen because these are a lot of organizations that are more like fundraising for certain, see people losing revenue that they're trying to raise money for, because those are important causes too.
Bambi (01:02:26):
Definitely these ripples are still happening in certain sectors. It's sad to see it happening. But my life changed a lot and it also triggered a lot of my anxieties, and I think it contributed to the overall buildup of different things I was dealing with in life that it just disregulates your nervous system. I mean, not realizing that migraine is a nervous disorder, and if you have migraine, then there's a good chance you have pot, which is orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. Basically, if you stand up too quick, the blood doesn't get to your head as quick as it should, and then you pass out.
Lezley (01:03:18):
Oh my God.
Bambi (01:03:19):
Yeah. So I've always had that, but I've learned how to alter my behavior, so I get up slowly all the time.
Lezley (01:03:27):
It's like, get up slowly, I guess. Wow. Talk about being aware of your body. You'll be forced.
Bambi (01:03:38):
And also Aler Danlos, which is the connective tissue disorder, which probably caused the flare off in my foot, but it's all related into this neurologically neurological disorder, pain disorders, but not knowing any of that, I'm just letting my anxiety run rampant during the pandemic. Like, oh my gosh, this is happening. And that's happening. And I just really did get caught up in that stuff, and it just added to the pile of everything in my life. And so I stopped wearing a mask only when I was going to the chiropractor, my foot, because I forgot it one day. And I was like, you know what? I just feel like I'm going to die. And so I don't care anymore. It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of right now, because I just feel so overwhelming in so many different areas about a mask right now. That's when I stopped one and I never did again, other than when I actually did rethink, even today when I thought, oh shit, I'm late. I, because I'm sleep. I started to myself up a little bit.
Bambi (01:05:08):
We ourselves out. This is a person that I don't really on really easy going. She's on a journey like me and totally understand it's going to be okay. And so I talk myself down from those things immediately, and it's becoming more and more of habit so that I can stay at a regulated level. I used to panic about losing my job because of the whole thing. And now just when those thoughts come, I'm not going to get a job or I'm going to lose my job somehow, which is part of my brain symptomology to say, you get dark thinking and depression and cognitive distortion and stuff like that, brain. And now I tell myself, oh, well, I actually have a lot of really good skills, so if I lose my job, I'll just get job. I really loud like that. And I think if more people could be more working on themselves that have more peace in the middle.
Lezley (01:06:18):
Oh, a hundred percent. Byron Katie says, is it true? Do you know for sure? It's true? And I think those two questions when we're spiraling are fantastic. Whatever you're spiraling about, is it true normally it's not true. And if you say, yeah, true. Do you know for sure it's true? No. No. I don't know. It's true. Okay, so what are some other choices for thoughts that we can have, right?
Bambi (01:06:48):
Yeah. And that's where ceremony comes in handy, because ceremony for me is getting into the flow state and being creative. And so, you know what? Instead of ruminating about this, I'm going to go do a sewing project or make some jewelry or do some woodworking in something.
Lezley (01:07:11):
Yeah, win-win because then you're feeding your spirit, avoiding the spiral thoughts and feeding spirit. Feeding your
Bambi (01:07:20):
Spirit. Yeah. It's so important. And people don't put enough priority on it.
Lezley (01:07:26):
Well, in fairness, I don't think our society has been set up to value it at all in anywhere. And then even church, I guess spirit was just in that building. I don't know where it is, to be honest. I don't know where it's in church, but the ways of knowing, our way of knowing, direct, empathetic spirit, connected way of knowing. It's growing. And for me personally, that's what I think is going to change the world. That will, when spirit comes back, well, comes back. It never went anywhere. When we express spirit and recognize it and connect with it in the world of form, it'll change everything.
Bambi (01:08:20):
And when you live that way, people pick up on it. People come to my house that maybe aren't here on a regular basis, and they're like, oh, so peaceful.
Lezley (01:08:33):
Good vibes. There's good vibes here. Literal good vibes.
Bambi (01:08:41):
Yeah. Well, I feel like in some areas of my family that we're coming full circle, my son is actually has this really wonderful girlfriend who is indigenous, and she's also a practicing witch. So you know what? Yay.
Lezley (01:09:00):
That worked out good.
Bambi (01:09:02):
Yeah. So it's like I don't have to worry about gifts. I just get something for her that I know I would like.
Lezley (01:09:08):
That's great. That's great. Can I teach you a word?
Bambi (01:09:15):
Yes.
Lezley (01:09:16):
Ka and it's, it's the back of your throat. Ka.
Bambi (01:09:25):
Okay. Like a K sound in the beginning.
Lezley (01:09:28):
Yeah, it's a C, but it's pronounced like a K, so Ka. Yes. And it's And Irish for witch goddess. Yeah. I love it is
Bambi (01:09:49):
That's a good one.
Lezley (01:09:50):
It is a good one.
Bambi (01:09:52):
I made myself a menopause necklace and I have a nice big hag stone at the end of it.
Lezley (01:09:56):
Yes. I love it. I love that.
Bambi (01:10:01):
Embrace your inner hag.
Lezley (01:10:03):
Yes. 100%. 100%. Alright, I'm done. I'm done now. I'm done
Bambi (01:10:13):
Too.
Lezley (01:10:14):
Yeah,
Bambi (01:10:14):
I'm tired.
Lezley (01:10:16):
We came together and we rang every, let's get all the juice out of it. We're just, we
Bambi (01:10:22):
Did. We got all the juice out.
Lezley (01:10:25):
Yep. Got all the juice out. Thank you so much. Miigwetch, Tapadh Leat, Go rah maile mait agat.