Teachings In The Air

In this first episode of our latest season, Gerry shares about our Indigenous National Treasures;

our elders!

For thousands of years every generation of elders has been considered the treasure of our

communities and culture. Being a traditional elder himself, Gerry teaches us how to spot these

treasures and treat them as such! So tune in and learn something new from an ancient way of

being.

This is the final episode of Teachings In The Air season 2! So let's celebrate!

In this episode entitled "Celebration" Gerry celebrates "the beauty way of life". Our people always saught out and greatly appreciated the beauty in life. So Gerry shares some the beautiful things in our Indigenous culture that we need to celebrate; beauty like our art and artists, musicians, carver's, weavers, storytellers, athletes, environmentalists, and more! We always show our appreciation through acknowledgment and celebration. So maybe you'll hear yourself in this podcast! Listen to our season finale and celebrate our culture!

In this episode of Teachings In The Air Gerry teaches about Kwazantchut; train yourself!

Gerry shares stories and methods of how our Indigenous ancestors trained for everything in their lives. This training applied to everything from to hunting to ceremonies. "Kwazantchut was a way of life. Not just for athletes. It was for everyone, everyday." Gerry says. Through Kwazantchut (training) we can overcome fear and further our healing journey's towards being whole in mind, body, and spirit.

Today’s podcast is called 24/7 Indigenous, because at times, we get negative. The goal of this podcast is to bring a light to listeners about the negative and harmful habits of the colonizers manifesting themselves in our lives in a detrimental way to ourselves as individuals, to our families and communities, and ultimately, to our mother the earth.

This podcast is for all of the students out there - from kindergarten to post-secondary.

“It’s a natural feeling for all of us to feel pain, but it doesn’t mean we have to stay there. When we disown our pain, that’s when we become isolated. We must embrace that pain and let it happen; then, we can direct our life again.”

Gerry believes that if we become strong families again, there is nothing that can stop us - but before that happens, we have to get past the grieving of our losses by facing them head on and dealing with them.

"Free yourself. Free yourself from negativity. Free yourself from fear and anger and depression."

Gerry shares his thoughts on freeing yourself through empowerment.

Where do we belong in the circle?

Colonization disrupted our Indigenous systems of governance through acts of genocide, and Gerry wants to unpack how the traumatic events that our Indigenous communities have survived have determined our behaviors today. What have been some of the impacts that have affected us?

Listen along while Gerry gets to the root of some of these issues.

Have you ever gone skydiving? Gerry has, with his sister Nancy! Tune into this episode of the podcast to find out what Gerry was able to learn from jumping out of an airplane with his sister about healing and repairing unhealthy relationships within the family.

This week on the show, Gerry speaks about something that’s in all of us; that none of us in this country are immune to - and that word is colonization.

Recalling the earliest memories Gerry had in hearing the term decolonization, our host explores the origins and the impacts of colonization in North American from an Indigenous way of thinking or understanding. The purpose of this podcast is to help Indigenous communities, and others listening, is to understand what happened to us in order to find a way forward through challenges and obstructions.

Indigenous people have been easily and often been pathologized or deemed crazy or mentally unfit by non-Indigenous peoples over the years. This has led to much unnecessary suffering and trauma, leading us to think of ourselves as unworthy, and installing a negative self-image in ourselves and our communities. Wondering what these mental wounds of colonization are, or the traumatic impacts of colonization, Gerry explores how we find ourselves in dangerous situations of the mind, and how to find our way through these places: if we don’t work to end the internalized colonization, or healing mental wounds that are direct impacts of colonization, we risk passing on learned behaviours to our children, and our grandchildren.

So how? How do we heal these mental wounds, these psychological cuts, so that we don’t negatively impact our young people and pass on unhealthy coping behaviours and ways of thinking?

If we’re going to decolonize ourselves, we have to stand up for ourselves. In this episode, Gerry points out how the trauma that we’ve experienced has shaped our current circumstances, but he shines a light on some ways through the toxic thinking and colonized behaviours as we continue to encourage our communities to heal and embrace wellness.