Now what?

Wacheeya *speaks in Cree. I just said my ancestral name, which is ShadowHawk Woman and that I'm from the Wolf Clan and *cree with my ancestor hailing from Attawapiskat.

And I'm very pleased to be here today on what should be a really nice kind of sunny spring day with the wind howling and the gray skies, it feels more winter, but there you have it, it is the month of April, and it is unpredictable.

So today I'd like to talk about, what I call this piece now: Now what. Now what.

You know, I think we've had some adjustment time. And some of us have come into work, gone back to the office or maybe gone out fruit grocery so whatever has come out into the city or your world a little bit more than previously.

And from everything I hear from everybody, they seem to be really kind of unsettled like.

It's not going back to anything. You may be going back to work, but, how work looks and who's at work and how you do work looks forever different.

You know it's kind of like oh, so we're in a really huge adjustment phase, and I think it's really important that we understand that, so that we can cut ourselves some slack you know.

And the adjustment phase is time to for me and a lot of people that I've heard from is trying to manage our fear of the unknown.

You know we're not getting the numbers, but we know we, I have a lot of people that don't have COVID, there are people who I know who have friends or families with COVID, but they're not getting the severe COVID that we first heard about because they've all been triple vaxxed.

If they’ve all been triple vaxxed and it's kind of like oh it's kind of like alone, not quite as secure as I thought I was being triple vax, you know.

And so I have to recalibrate and I have to really think, “okay so what do I need to do to make sure that I'm okay”, you know as far as whatever it is, I need to do around PPE to feel okay, and still move forward but it's, I'm hungry to be around people and to be around friends and colleagues and family. But I'm still cautious that it's almost like there's some such a laundry list of things, I have to go through in my head about.

You know, would just be good, and where is everybody vaxxed, you know where we got all of that stuff that we would go through it's like it almost takes the joy right out of it and because our reality is below that.

And so we had kind of have to get comfortable with this isn't it. What lesson we all feel more comfortable and you know we'll find new and improved ways to move through our world and to embrace our lives once again.

But I think we're always going to have to deal with an element of the unknown and it has to be there because it is, but I think the important thing is that we don't focus on that.

Because in the unknown lies uncertainty and then fear.

And so, all we can really do is focus on the known and that's on the here and now, and have some faith I guess, you know when the resilience of humanity to overcome this and to find a new way of being that is new and improved and enlightened and better self aware and more aware about societal needs.

Hopefully we'll have a more responsive approach to life, not so much of it we action approach about responsive approach, where we think more about the greater good.

And we really can't unring those bells that were rung, it opened our awareness around so many things.

But also opened our awareness on so many positive things and it's really hard sometimes to you know quiet those fears, but once again.

A lot of these fears, if you look at fear F-E-A-R: false evidence appearing real, fears and they're silenced by the truths and, once again, you know that's our responsibility for our own mental health and our own state of wellbeing is to remind ourselves of the other side of that.

And the fact of the matter is, is that we're here, fact of the matter is science keeps developing and new ways to keep us protected, we still know what we need to do, we still have a future that we need to embrace and we need to acknowledge the fear, but not live in it.

We can't live in fear because fear stops us and human beings don't do well when we're stopped and we've been stopped for the last two years, so now we're finding out that maybe we're not doing so well moving forward right now that's really okay, we're going to be fine.

So the “now what” really lights up to us individually.

To focus on ourselves, to take ourselves, and then we move that out into our family, then into our our workplace and then to our circle of friends and colleagues and families or social learning to take it one step at a time.

One step at a time and believe in yourself, you've got this, we've got this, but it is an adjustment, a brand new territory we've never been here before.

So we are going to struggle and you're going to feel overwhelmed and we are going to be full of joy and we are going to be on that old friend of ours, called the emotional roller coaster.

Some of us like roller coasters, some of us grab and scream our head’s off, I'm of the latter category.

But there is an end to the ride. And there will be an end to this uncertainty.

But that will take time so continue to build that positive relationship with yourself.

Speak to yourself in positive ways, love the people that you are close, live with family and friends and being, most of all, grateful.

Because if we don't focus on that wolf, than the other wolf just takes over and it's too dark of a place, as you know.

Grandmother moon teacher says when she's a new moon that even in the darkness, the light is still there, we just have to look for it. I'm wishing all of you absolutely wonderful and end of April, into more flowers and green trees and good health, take care. 

Bye bye.