Redesigning First Nations Healthcare Through Cultural Safety And Relationship

If healthcare “works” on paper but people are afraid to walk through the doors, what are we really measuring? I’m joined by Roxanne Sappier, a longtime First Nations health leader and executive director for a health and wellness organization representing 15 First Nation communities, to talk about what it takes to redesign care so it actually serves the people it’s meant to serve.

We start with Roxanne’s personal journey from growing up in community, learning early lessons about service, and stepping into leadership after decades in health administration. From rebuilding local health services to using accreditation as a roadmap for stronger policies and patient safety, she shares what sustainable community health leadership looks like when the work is real, daily, and complicated. We also dig into the systemic barriers that keep programs fragile, especially siloed and term-limited funding that makes long-term prevention and mental health support harder than it needs to be.

Then we zoom out to the bigger picture: Indigenous-led health transformation in New Brunswick, what “culturally safe care” actually means, and why relationship-based learning matters more than a quick online module. Roxanne breaks down how holistic wellness connects with the pillars of lifestyle medicine, and why frameworks centered on hope, meaning, belonging, and purpose can change how we deliver care. We also talk about systemic racism, trust, and how Indigenous patient navigators can help people access services sooner and more safely.

If you care about Indigenous health, culturally safe healthcare, lifestyle medicine, and practical health system reform, this conversation offers both clarity and a path forward. Subscribe, share this with someone in healthcare training, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

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Transcript

Meet Roxanne And Her Path

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Roxanne, Slapier. Thanks so much for accepting to your first official uh appearance on a podcast and it being mine. So, first of all, Roxanne is executive director for health and wellness, an organization that represents 15 First Nation communities. You're a strong advocate to make sure that their voices are unified and heard and that we can redesign the healthcare so that we meet their needs, right? So I want to talk about that, but before we dive into that, I want to get to know Roxanne. So talk to me about you, your journey, and what kind of led you to this new role.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

That's an interesting question because I think in a way the creator has the plan ahead before I even know, and my ancestors. So, you know, my name's Roxanne Sapier. I'm from Nagutkook, Topic First Nation. I'm 60 years old now, and I'm a mother and a grandmother. So at a very early age, I I lived with my grandmother in Nugutkook. And my grandmother used to ask me to go and do errands. She would say, you know, go take this to Matante. She was her friend that lived up the hill, or go to the convent where the nuns are and go do whatever they ask, like go make deliveries. So I would go make deliveries to, I guess, those that needed that extra little bit of care. And so I would make deliveries to them. And so that kind of started my early seeds of helping, I guess. And then I went to Indian Day School in my community for many years. And then I went off reserve to the provincial school system around middle school. And that was very different because it was like a culture shock to go from my community to, you know, outside of my community.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

In what ways was it different?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Because the familiarity, I guess, that I had with living with within my community and within my family, and spending so much time away from that and all different faces, a whole different school, different environment, and not knowing what that was going to be like. But I quickly aligned with my indigenous friends in the school, and there was a way that there was that support. So, you know, I adjusted over time. I finished high school there, and then I wasn't sure what I was going to do. And I was able to get into a job finding club. And through the job finding club, different opportunities started. You know, you have to work on your resume, you gotta kind of put yourself out there. And I did have an opportunity to work in my community to do some. I started off like doing bookkeeping and then doing some different programs that were starting to come into the community around addictions, around like prevention services and treatment services. I was also able to attend some schooling that were more like First Nation specific programs. Like there was the Certificate of Social Work program, I was able to join that. Then there was a certificate in health administration, I was able to do that. And then there was the Mi'kmaq Wallisticway Bachelor of Social Work Program. So those types of programs are the ones that resonated more with me for my learning because I was work working, but studying with my peers from other First Nation communities, which I guess is more culturally safe, or it felt more culturally safe to learn and grow and to work alongside people that come from the same sort of similar environments and also around looking for solutions together as well. So that really resonated with me. And so yeah, I was able to complete those programs. I went on for my certified First Nation Health Manager, belong to that association as well. That's a national association, again, of First Nation leaders across the country. And so those are the type of you know, associations and programs that help, I guess, me as a First Nation leader to do what I do and and to learn from others and the work that they're doing. And yeah, I have I've been married for 37 years this year in May, and I have fur babies, and I love to sing and dance when I can, go out, I play bingo, I play cards, you know, just try to to keep balance in my life as well.

Leading Community Health Services

SPEAKER_02 5:48

You seem to still be on a mission. You still have, you're still advocating for improvements in our healthcare system. And I I read that you spent 25 years as director of health services for Toby First Nation. How did that role, what did that look like? And how did that role prepare you for what you're doing now?

SPEAKER_00 6:09

It really was, I guess, that journey that has led me to where I am now, for sure. I after I took my certificate of health administration, I just had that vision for myself that I wanted to do more in health administration and health services. And at the time I did approach our chief, you know, about my aspirations.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Your vision, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Yeah, and there was the opportunity that came for a director of health services for my community. And I applied, and I, you know, was a successful candidate, and there was a lot of restructuring at the time that needed to happen. And it was not an easy time for my community and and for our health services. But we put, you know, and sometimes in small communities there are conflicts and and there are difficult times, but we we met as a as a team, as a staff, and we put differences aside and we focused on the client and the community. And we all had that was the unifying piece is that, you know, we have we know we have different dynamics, different conflicts, whatever, but we're we all know we're here for the for the community and for our members. And you know, just getting everybody on side and moving in that common direction, we just continue to grow and grow and grow and grow and grow. And you know, we expanded into a new health facility. Our staffing team grew, we were able to, you know, eventually get a new facility, which I'm very proud of. We became the first accredited facility in the Atlantic region through at the time was Accreditation Canada. And because with accreditation as well, we we knew that we were doing some things right, we knew we needed to grow, we knew there were gaps, but we also needed a bit of a roadmap to help guide us. So we found that to be helpful in in many ways, even though it at the time it didn't really have all the First Nation lens into the standards as much as it does. It's come a long way now, but at the time, piloting all of that really helped us to gain a better footing of our organization and and looking at, you know, patient safety and so many different policies that probably needed to be put in place. And and so we worked. It was just an ongoing, you know, it just really helped us with our structures and governance and all of that.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

I I'm assuming that you've had to learn how to collaborate with federal government, provincial government, First Nations to identify these gaps that you're talking about. What are these types of gaps that that kind of you've tried to close over the years?

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Well, again, in that role, it it's a very fluid role in our communities because you never know. A health director wears many different hats in the community, and you never know from day to day what is going to be happening. So as you're trying to deliver, you know, sort of your mandatory programs and services, there's all a lot of other things that are happening in the community. And so, you know, COVID, none of us expected that. You know, mental health and addictions has been a huge priority. Crisis response. We've had to really mobilize and figure out how we're going to deal with different crises that happen in our community. Of course, you know, like diabetes, other inflammatory diseases that are at play in our in our communities. But yes, dealing with different partners, different challenges that come with, you know, the whole health landscape. And sometimes, you know, there's just a lack of understanding sometimes about what it's like to do the work that we do in communities, and also trying to recruit and retain, you know, staff and funding, because everything is really quite siloed. We get like very compartmental pockets of funding, which creates when you're trying to deliver consistent programs and services, and you've got different pockets of funding that are, you know, sort of chopped up, it it you have to design, you have to work, and you have to be creative on how you how you build programs and services, especially to sustain them over time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

As I've been learning about the work you you you're doing now and you've done in the past, I've noticed that for even for myself, there's quite a misunderstanding on how there needs to be a redesign of how we practice healthcare in New Brunswick to make sure that we meet the needs of First Nations.

Holistic Wellness Meets Lifestyle Medicine

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Now, what are the successes that you've you've seen happen over the last few years?

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Well, I think that it's important to understand from an indigenous, like our worldview is that we look at holistic wellness. We don't rely on the medical model per se. It's an important component, but it's not the entire component that our worldview focuses on. So when you look at our health and wellness initiatives on Giuida Huswagan, it actually encompasses our whole worldview. And we, you know, intentionally call it a health and wellness initiative because I think that sometimes people see like a narrow view of health, and it's really more holistic, and we look at the whole community, the whole family, the whole individual, the whole nation, and that collective needs that we all need to strive for.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

So this podcast is all about lifestyle medicine. Lifestyle medicine is the holistic view of whole whole person health. Instead of seeing it in different silos, our system has a way of separating organs into specialties and forgetting that the heart impacts the brain and that the way we eat impacts the way we sleep, and the way we sleep impacts how we feel in terms of mental health, right? The six pillars of lifestyle medicine are healthy foods, healthy movement, sleep, managing stress by living a life of purpose, passion, where your behaviors align with your values, connecting socially with your community, with people. So I feel like there are these six pillars of lifestyle medicine, they actually overlap with some of the values that are shared with First Nations. How they connect with land and with food and with people. So talk a m- talk a little bit about that overlap that we see between lifestyle medicine. Because the goal, my goal, is not to silo lifestyle medicine, but to integrate it into how we practice modern medicine, right? Doesn't need to be one or the other. We can benefit from the advantages of both these systems and marry them together, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:01

There are lots of different, you know, very informative frameworks that are out there, indigenous frameworks that are out there. And one of the ones that I have really embraced is the First Nations Mental Wellness Continuum Framework, which talks about all of those pieces, but it also talks about, you know, that hope, meaning, belonging, and purpose in the center and how all these other relationships exist around that. So, you know, when I'm dealing with an individual, say, you know, back as a health director in my office, you know, or in community, it's, you know, trying to make sure that their spirit, they understanding every person has a spirit, and the spirit component and the fire of that spirit is so important to our nation. And embracing like strength-based assets that our people have. It's we don't have everybody has deficits, but if we focus on that, you know, that's not the way to proceed. It's all very strength-based. So everybody has skills. We don't know what every person has been through in their journey. And so we have to have that respect and compassion. And, you know, seeing everybody through like non-judgmental and you know, with compassion and respect. So with our with the mental wellness continuum framework, it it talks about all of those pieces. It talks about how important our culture is as a foundation, how important our ceremonies are and our language and our traditions. And there's so much teachings that are grounded in our land, in the foods that we eat, our medicines, our songs. And I I did grow up around language, and I had lots of aunts and uncles in my at my grandmother's home when I was young, but I was not allowed to you, you you only speak when you're spoken to, but you listen. So, you know, oftentimes they would be speaking and I would be listening. And as I got a little bit older, then the drumming, you know, I was like listening to the drumming more of our songs. And it was like a light bulb moment for me too, because I was like, oh my gosh, but before it was just like drumming. I didn't really. I guess I had the aha moment when I was I caught the language in the songs. And then I was like, wow, you know, when you're talking about, you know, Dulna Bamuk, all our relations, Magwahatina, when we gather together, Skitgamig, you know, the earth, Mother Earth. And so I I started really paying more attention to the songs and the teachings in the songs than when I was younger, you know. It's just a part of maturity, I guess, you know, that the teachings become more important and the ceremonies and the culture starts to really you want to preserve and maintain and support and elevate. And I think with the mental wellness continuum framework, you have that opportunity to it it really shaped me as a health leader to know, okay, this is where I know we need to, we need to bring out all of the strengths. We need to work with our storytellers, we need to work with our medicine people and you know to help bring those teachings back because that is the foundation. Absolutely. And and Zankiwita Hazawagin encapsulates all of that.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

That's so beautiful.

What Cultural Safety Really Means

SPEAKER_02 18:08

I've heard you say a few times, making sure that what we practice in healthcare is culturally safe. Can you explain to me what that means? And if we are practicing culturally culturally safe healthcare, what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 18:24

I mean, yes, we are, there are culturally safe spaces, but at the same time, our facilities, the health facilities, are not always culturally safe for our people, still to this day. You know, I am on Facebook, I I do have a lot of friends from many different communities, and those, you know, experiences continue too frequently, unfortunately. And so a lot of focus does need to be spent amongst partners to build culturally safe environments for our people. And some of the work that we have been doing has been on with a national organization again, it's with the First People's Wellness Circle, around building culturally safe standards for again. We started with psychologists and social workers because who's helping us heal in our communities? It's psychologists and social workers. So we wanted to make sure that those people that are working with our communities understand our history, understand systemic racism, understand unconscious bias, erasure. There's, you know, a lack of understanding about, you know, our territory, this is our homeland, and you know, that settler colonialism impacts, intergenerational trauma, all of those pieces have huge impacts to this day. And, you know, we need to get ahead of that. We we we need to do better. And I think that some of our partners with, you know, sort of the air of reconciliation and sometimes change of governments really help to support greater allyship, critical allyship that is needed to address some of these challenges that we have and experience. And, you know, I'm light-colored, I don't look indigenous, I carry white privilege with me, even though, you know, I live in a First Nation community and I've lived my whole life there. I'm raising my family there, all of my extended family is there. But when you're brown skin and you're coming into these facilities, you are often treated less than. And that's that's not right. That's not right. And there are many examples of the impacts of that. So when are we gonna do better? When are we gonna say that that's not not okay? And so part of the work in Zankewita Hazawaken is working with you know our partners around cultural safety and addressing systemic racism.

Patient Navigators And Trust

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Those are the that's health transformation. That is the change to look at, you know, to look at that, but also to look so right now, just Horizon, I want to give a plug in there. They have hired, recently hired 10 indigenous. Patient navigators. That is huge because they're going to help our people navigate that system. Oftentimes, our people don't want to go into those facilities because of what they might face or how the treatment that they might receive. And again, when you're leaving community, we're not as familiar with, you know, the navigation of all the different programs and services or different types of ways to maneuver through the healthcare system. And those navigators are going to be critical to supporting our people through those systems, their journeys, whatever their health journey is.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

I I really want to understand the role that patient navigators will will play and what that looks like.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

I think they're going to be spread out across the province. Okay. So, you know, probably like in a regional fashion. And because we started originally we started with only two. So I think there was one in the Mermachi and there was one out of Fredericton. Clearly not enough. Clearly not enough. And so they were able to demonstrate the huge needs that are at play because our uh, you know, in my community, there are a number of people that are, you know, younger and that have complex issues. They have, you know, more than one health issue that they're faced with. And so they need to utilize those services. And sometimes people wait until, you know, they're so sick before they will seek out the health care that they might have been able to prevent earlier on. And that's a real challenge as well.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

So they really avoid interacting or navigating our health system because it feels unfamiliar for them.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Unsafe.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

And unsafe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Not, I mean, I think that's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Yeah, yeah. There are there are really good people working in the system too, but there are there's a lot more education and learning that needs to happen. Yeah. And you can't do it from modules on a you know, on a computer. Experiential learning is an important component as well. You have to you have to do some hard work. Our allies need to do some hard work to build relationships, to come into community, to experience and learn from the people and build trust.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

Aaron Powell, How do we keep advocating to make sure that patient navigators we get more and we we show the benefits that they can have?

SPEAKER_00 24:44

And I'm assuming we're measuring health metrics or are we just talking to First Nation members that that have patient navigators helping them or well it'll probably be a combination and you know certainly I would like to see Zankewe to Husawaken have a role to play in supporting those navigators as well. We want them to succeed, but again, it depends like sometimes, you know, whether they're in you know working. What what area of the province they're working in? You know, there's there's geographical issues and and challenges as well. You know, my communities considered a semi-isolated rural community where you have some that are urban and then you have different size First Nation communities as well, small, medium, large.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

Okay. What

Fear Of Care And Chronic Disease

SPEAKER_02 25:38

some one thing you said really stood out to me is that some people are avoiding seeking out health care because of fear of I I want to understand that more. We're in the midst of a chronic disease epidemic. I mean, in New Brunswick we have cardiovascular disease, cancer, autoimmunity, mental health. Would you say that these chronic conditions that are impacting First Nations are different or the same that we were seeing in New Brunswick in general?

SPEAKER_00 26:09

They're more severe.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

They're definitely more severe than what you're one what you're seeing. And again, you know, depending on the location of the community, there's long-standing relationships with some of the local First Nation communities and these health facilities. And yeah, there's there just needs to be a lot more relationship work that is done and you know, to make people feel comfortable for coming in and understood. I think sometimes we have to remember that, you know, we're not walking a mile in their magazines. That my grandmother used to have that in the kitchen. Unless you walk a mile in their magazines, basically you don't know.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

You don't know what they've been through. And so when you when somebody's presenting, you don't know if they're a residential school survivor, you don't know if they've lost their you know, child to suicide, you don't oftentimes you see, and assumptions are made. And to me, that is not right. Because every person, and and you know, if I as a health director, if I didn't know my community members so well, I don't know how I would have been able to do my job. Because you have to know the context sometimes. There's more to understand than they come in and uh, you know, they might have you, you know, they might have a stomach, uh upset stomach, but there's maybe more things that are going on. So we we have to earn trust with our with the patients and get get to know more about what's going on to really help them. And also to understand the services that are back in community. Because if we really want to help provide a circle of care, we also need to understand what resources and supports are are there for them as well.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Aaron Powell Yeah, and I don't I don't think um a PowerPoint presentation to try to create awareness is necessarily sufficient to help the healthcare professionals and system understand the background, right?

How Clinicians Learn The Right Way

SPEAKER_02 28:25

What would you say to help healthcare professionals that want to learn more? And where do they get that information and how do they how do we navigate this? Because we I know there's gonna be doctors, medical students that are just starting, that are highly highly impressionable, that are they want to practice medicine the right way for the entirety of the population of New Brunswick. Where do they go? How do they learn more?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Well, I mean, we do have our community First Nation Health Centers. I think those are good places to start, but you have to keep in mind that they are also very understaffed sometimes. They're so busy. So to have patience as well and maybe try to plan in advance to support, to have the best outcomes, I guess, of what that relationship might look like. I know for someone like Dr. Pearlie, Dr. Michael Pearley, he's taken in different residence students and brought them into like my community, for example, and you know, like to recruit some of them back, but you know, sometimes it's it's not always possible. And and yeah, I I I think you know, you have to build relationships, you have to start with those seeds, you have to experience community, you have to be willing to build those relationships, come into community and have patience and a lot of compassion and respect. And yeah, I I love to tour, like I love to bring different, you know, partners, visitors into my community, talk about the history, you know, show where I grew up, and also, you know, here's where, you know, here's our health center, and and tour them around so that they get a feel of the community. And I think that also, you know, we are trying to create more standards, more cultural safety programs. But the problem that we're seeing is that there's not ongoing, dedicated, consistent funding to do that hard work that needs to be done, which I feel is an injustice to our people and and and to the work that needs to be done. You you can't just and and you know, it's just that fragmented, ongoing way that funding models are delivered, that it's just very piecemeal. And it's when we're trying to create system changes and consistency and stability, you need ongoing, consistent funding to do the work. So that's why things get interrupted sometimes, because it's you know, proposal-based or you know, very, you know, term-limited funding.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

The Vision For Indigenous-Led Transformation

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Most people, when they're you said at the beginning that you were in your 60s. Um, most people are kind of not starting huge new projects. I obviously people say you don't work a day in your life when you're passionate about your do what you're doing. You're clearly one of these people that are on a mission. What do you hope happens in the next three, five, ten years? How do you see your role evolve? Uh, this is your first podcast or first time speaking publicly about this. This will reach thousands of people. I would enjoy talking with you again in the future and seeing how things evolve. Sure. What do you want to see change and where do you see change?

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Well, I think it's important for listeners to know that we are just starting off. We, this is a collaborative initiative. There's, you know, it's part we're in the early stages of this transformation journey. And the beautiful thing is that it's unified right now. So we have all of our First Nation communities, our health leaders, our our chiefs, our tribal councils. We're collectively and purposely working together for health, to support health, indigenous health, and wellness. So we hope, again, that our funders, right now, the core funding comes from the federal government for this. These initiatives are just starting across Canada. British Columbia was the first one. They they've been at it a lot longer than the rest of us. And it's going to look different in every every region, every jurisdiction. You know, the Atlantic region, we've been sort of clustered, like New Brunswick. First Nations have been clustered in the Atlantic. So it's like PEI, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, right? And then New Brunswick. So Nova Scotia, through their Dutch, they got Dajagemag, which is their health and wellness transformation initiative that's happening there with the Mi'kmaq. And in New Brunswick, we have Mi'kmaq Woolistagwe and maybe eventually the Pescamakati people that will also join. So we're early on, we we have, you know, a desire to move forward in a collective fashion. And there's strength, there's so much strength in that, in because again, when you think about, you know, guided by our culture and our language and our traditions, with the help of and guidance of our elders and you know, so many people. This is this encompasses really a true collective approach that we've it's unprecedented for us because we've been geographically separated for so long into our own, your your reserve is over here, your reserve is over here. In my lifetime, I haven't seen that happen for us, even as health leaders, to be able to come together. So for me, it's long overdue, and we're just very early on in our journey. But I have hopes that we can only go up from here because we know when it's Indigenous-led that we have more success because we know our needs. You cannot take like a regional approach and think that you know what's best for us. We we know our needs. We live it. We live it. And we're very vested in seeing that change more than anybody. Would you say that we've learned valuable lessons by looking at other models in other provinces or the needs are absolutely we know it's always gonna look different, adapt it, yeah. But I think that we want to connect with those other initiatives and learn as well and what went well, what hasn't went well. Some are a little further ahead in their journey. And, you know, is there going to be continued investment from the federal government to see these initiatives grow as they need to, right? To to have full, you know, devolution or to have, you know, a First Nations health authority. I I feel like right now in the province, especially under this new government, because they're there's specific First Nation mandates that are in, you know, this under this government, that a lot of doors have been opened, okay, and that there is more inclusion of indigenous voices now than ever before. And so we need to also harness the momentum that's going, right? And what's that gonna look like in 10 years? I would like to see, and you know, more youth. I'd like to see more of our youth become doctors. We have some that are becoming nurse practitioners now or nurses, that's great, but also like the whole multidisciplinary team, right? We want our own people to have those opportunities. But again, reflecting on my experience and what took me to be at this stage. I I want them to have c access to that cultural safe learning environment as well. Because that's where the change will happen. And you know, we'll see, we'll see success.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Yeah. Well,

Building Capacity For The Next Generation

SPEAKER_02 36:57

you just gave me goosebumps there. I'm a strong advocate for lifestyle medicine, as if people who listen to this podcast already know. But I want this whole thing to survive far after I'm done. So I'm already building a team, or 18 doctors, 14 of us did the board certification course in lifestyle medicine. Six of us got board certified by passing our exams. We're passing over the flame to our students that are starting in July, and I'm assuming that you're surrounded with a team of people as well. What are you doing to make sure that this momentum that you've gained keeps going for generations?

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Well, it is about succession planning, really. And I do work with a great team of young, fresh minds, and I hope to be able to transfer and mentor and support just as you are doing. And I feel like, you know, people have told me that, you know, I have impacted their health journey in a positive way, and you know, we want to continue to do that, and we want to get more people trained. That's the whole backbone of Zankiwita Hazawag and is going to be that it'll be Indigenous-led and that our people will be leading all of that. So I want to help build that capacity wherever it needs to be and make sure that we do get, you know, the resources and the support that we need to do all of that so that in a few years' time, you know, I'll kind of like be able to step back and enjoy my retirement.

SPEAKER_02 38:38

Although you'll always implicate it, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like I am, I want to continue to be of service wherever to my community and to our people.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

Absolutely. You you said something that stuck with me a few minutes ago. You said health, and then you paused and said, and wellness. Um I I love that because health and wellness are two different things, right? Health is something you can measure. It's a blood pressure, it's a blood sugar, it's a cholesterol. Wellness is a state of being, right? It's connecting with your purpose, with your passion, with your people, making sure that your life you you live a life that's aligned with who you want to be, right? So I'm in amazement of what you've done. And a lot of the principles that we've discussed today, they overlap completely with the mission I'm on to include lifestyle medicine. So I wanted to make sure that you have a chance. Was there any other things you want to talk about? Any things that you have on your mind?

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Well,

Healing Forward

SPEAKER_00 39:41

I just wanted to share like around the term Zankewi de Hasawagan and let listeners know that it is a very holophrastic word. And it, like I said, is the same in Mi'kmaq or Wallisticway or Pascal Makwadi. It's it's maybe said with a little bit different dialect, but it is the same word. And it means peaceful thinking, but it's a very much a holistic term that talks about the balance that we have within oneself's family and community and nation, but also it is about a state of being. It is a state of being in that we're always striving and you know, and achieving that state of wellness that we need, right? Because there are a lot of influences in our environment. Of course, you know, there's the the Indian Act that guides a First Nation person from birth to death. We are impacted by the Indian Act. And so all of these colonial practices that have been imposed on us, we weren't asked to be placed on reserves. You know, we were weren't asked to not be able to hunt, fish, and gather. All these disruptions to our way of life have had such profound impacts, intergenerational trauma. So Zunkewit Hazelwagen is really about trying to reverse and heal from and to create a new state of being in a modern context, right? Because New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, this is the this is the first part of where colonization first began. So when you think about that, we've been really impacted the longest. But we are the people of the east. We are the Wabanaki people. This is our homeland. That's still the Woolestok, the river. This is our this is our homeland, and we need to be a part of that. It's not just Francophone and Anglophone, and you know, these are original languages of the land that need to be embraced and not excluded because we can all learn and benefit. Our teachings are rich and they could help everybody's spirit. Remember when I talked about everything starting with spirit? These the there's all these ingredients that are there that are untapped for everybody. And so, you know, I want to bring all of I want to bring those fires back. I want to ignite that and find ways to do that. And it's gonna take all of us to do that.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

I see you've gained a lot of momentum, but what I've learning through this conversation is we still have a long ways to go.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

We do, and it's gonna, I mean, maybe not in our lifetime, but hopefully we're all the changes are in the right direction. Yeah, in small for our younger generation.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Exactly. And small incremental change they do have.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Because our youth are trying to learn their language now. There's more interest than ever before now, is even though we're losing our language, there's still resilience. Lots of resilience.

unknown 43:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

I I feel the passion behind the way you talk about your the work you're doing. So I just wanted to make sure that everyone here feels that too. Any any final words before we land the plane?

SPEAKER_00 43:54

I think I'm good. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 43:57

It was an amazing conversation. Yeah, thanks so much for sharing all of that with me. You would think you've been podcasting for years. I I hope. I hope we can have another conversation in the future.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Yeah, I would really like to be able to share our progress as we go along to see if we're, you know, able to move the mark, you know. Like we are working on other, I think, foundational pieces under Zankewita Hazawagan. And I'm hoping that by doing so, yeah, we'll be able to tell our story more clearer and that we start seeing good changes.

Final Reflections And Resources

SPEAKER_02 44:41

Well, thanks for sharing your story with Tamisa, like and share it with the thousands of people who listen to this episode.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

Hey everyone, go check out my website, livefacedrjouls.com, to find free downloadable resources. And remember that you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Dr.Juels Cormier, and on YouTube at LiveBaseDoctorJoul.