How Indigenous yogis and meditators are adapting and reclaiming ‘wellness’ | CBC Radio

Yoga courses are sometimes meant to convey a way of peace and serenity to practitioners, however Tareyn Johnson remembers one which did the precise reverse. 

The Anishinaabe girl, who’s a member of Georgina Island First Nation, says she began practising yoga — which has its roots in India — a number of years in the past to search out calmness and assist scale back common migraines. She later dove deep into the traditional apply’s historical past and philosophy by finishing a 200-hour yoga trainer coaching program in Ottawa, the place she lives. 

This particular yoga session was taught by a white teacher at an Ottawa studio. 

“[The teacher] brought out what she called her ‘sacred medicine bundle.’ And she smudged. And then she put on some music and … talked about being trained by a medicine man,” Johnson recalled in an episode of CBC’s Unreserved. 

“I just had to walk out of the class at that point.”

Activities like smudging and mindfulness meditation are in style within the wellness trade; smudging, or what’s typically known as “saging,” has been quickly gaining traction within the Western world in recent times. Today, folks like Johnson are working to respect these practices’ roots and shield them from cultural appropriation, whereas additionally respecting that the apply of meditation originated outdoors Turtle Island.

Other Indigenous practitioners say contemplative actions like yoga and meditation may be highly effective instruments for therapeutic.

Johnson says she has seen Indigenous traditions and objects being adopted or appropriated by non-Indigenous folks many occasions earlier than. But, that one yoga class in Ottawa was simply “too much,” she mentioned. 

“People are paying [this instructor] to teach them yoga and she’s giving them a sort of watered-down [version] of Indigenous spirituality and it just, overall … was an icky feeling,” Johnson mentioned. 

Meditation is ‘a part of ceremony’

Michael Yellow Bird started his mindfulness apply in 1975, when he was an undergraduate scholar, and located that it was a strong, therapeutic strategy to assist calm and centre him. 

“Especially when I had traumatic memories from growing up on a reservation as a kid that interfered with my thinking, my sleeping and my studies,” Yellow Bird advised Unreserved host Rosanna Deerchild. “Or to help me deal with some of the daily microaggressions and the racism that I faced from [other] students.”

Today, Yellow Bird, a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nations in North Dakota, is the dean of the college of social work on the University of Manitoba. His analysis appears to be like on the neurological results of colonization and what he dubs “neuro decolonization” and “mindful decolonization.”

Yellow Bird believes mindfulness approaches cannot solely assist Indigenous folks heal from colonial trauma, however heal the mind itself. 

Regular mindfulness apply will, over time, improve white matter within the mind and improvise gray matter, Yellow Bird mentioned. White matter helps with connectivity and gray matter protects vital components of the mind, he famous. 

While the apply of meditation originated outdoors Turtle Island, Yellow Bird additionally believes — after a few years sitting on meditation cushions — that Indigenous folks have been utilizing mindfulness for generations in ceremony and prayer, and in actions like singing or dancing for lengthy durations of time. 

“When we meditate a lot, and when we practice contemplative Indigenous practices where we do a lot of deep prayer [and] ceremony … that part of the brain also activates. And it helps raise our level of emotional intelligence and to understand the mental state of others.”

In graduate college, when Yellow Bird was experiencing a psychological well being disaster, he visited his  grandfather, a Sun Dance chief and well-known medication man named Tom Yellowtail. 

His grandfather gave him directions on the right way to pray and discuss to ancestors, and requested the younger man if he prayed. So Yellow Bird described his mindfulness apply to the elder.

“He listened very carefully … [and] he said, ‘Keep it up,'” Yellow Bird remembered. “He said that meditation is really a part of all Indian ceremony.”

Indigenous folks have all the time carried out practices that focus their thoughts on therapeutic, Yellow Bird recalled the elder saying. 

“And sometimes it takes a long time to get that healing done, so we always have to come back and focus, and keep good thoughts there and bad thoughts out,” Yellow Bird continued. 

“To do that, he said, was sacred.” 

‘Walk with kindness’ 

To Tareyn Johnson, the Ottawa yoga trainer’s use of Indigenous practices was a “theft of cultural knowledge.” 

Johnson is the director of Indigenous affairs on the University of Ottawa and mentioned she believes that the way in which yoga is practised in a lot of the Western world is theft of cultural information. There’s a lot deal with the bodily side of yoga, to the detriment of its personal non secular parts, she mentioned.

But it is potential to strategy yoga — in addition to Indigenous cultures and practices — with out appropriating, Johnson steered. If you are new to the subjects, learn, be taught as a lot as you’ll be able to, use a vital eye and be respectful, she mentioned. 

“I would never want to scare someone away from being interested in Indigenous cultures or yoga because it seems intimidating or it seems like it’s like a landmine of cultural appropriation,” Johnson mentioned. 

“And definitely get into yoga. I love yoga. Yoga changed my life,” she added. “I just think that when you’re approaching anything, try to think critically and walk with kindness.” 

Yoga trainer Jessica Barudin, who’s is Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw and a member of the ‘Namgis First Nation in British Columbia, understands how typical yoga courses are a far cry from the apply’s historical roots. 

To not repeat the cycle of cultural appropriation in her courses, Barudin reminds folks of the place yoga comes from. She additionally honours yoga’s Indian roots — the mythology of the chants of the Sanskrit language, or completely different facets of the postures — by studying from lecturers who’re from that a part of the world.

Yoga is far more than stretching out the hamstrings in downward dealing with canine; it is a aware, embodied motion apply, she mentioned.

“Yoga is really about the mind. It’s a mental science,” she mentioned. 

And it could assist folks deal with the stress and ongoing traumas occurring not solely inside Indigenous communities however all over the world, Barudin mentioned.

“Yoga provides a framework to find a bit of balance … through some of the chaos.”

Integrating yoga and Indigenous cultures

Barudin mentioned she sees parallels between yoga and Indigenous cultures, and her educating blends the 2 collectively. She incorporates issues like medicines and conventional language, creating yoga periods that talk to each her and the apply’s ancestry.

“The practice of yoga is to bring us closer to a spirit, to greater consciousness, and that’s embedded in our ways of being as Indigenous people,” she mentioned. “In our ceremonies and our connection to place and land.”

Barudin would not educate in yoga studios; courses are sometimes costly and inaccessible for the folks she’s serving. 

Instead, she works with and in communities and tries to spend money on the well being and wellness of, particularly, Indigenous girls and two-spirit folks with packages just like the First Nations Women’s Yoga Initiative. 

Through this work, Barudin has seen Indigenous girls in transitional housing, fleeing from home violence and abusive relationships collect up the braveness to take part. She’s had girls concerned who’re deeply immersed of their tradition and studying their language, and used yoga to care for themselves all through this course of.

In her eyes, yoga is usually a highly effective instrument to assist Indigenous folks heal from intergenerational trauma. If each Indigenous particular person on Turtle Island rolled out a mat repeatedly, Barudin believes their lives would change for the higher. 

“I think we’d have a beautiful revolution of healing,” she mentioned.