The First Nations Factor:

Understanding the Culture

"Working with the People"

When dealing with First Nations people one has to have a relevant understanding of all the factors involved.

You deal with the individual, the family dynamic, the community and cultural foundation. It is all one.

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Most of all, one must understand that they are dealing with the descendants who have survived genocidal programs and are still in an ongoing battle for their culture, their heritage and their basic human rights.

Failure to perceive the connections between pre-contact lifestyle and post-contact struggle will lead only to greater frustration and lack of success.

"Book learned" methods have little success here. There are too many things left out of those books and missing from the history books that were supposed to teach us basic understanding of our own relevance in the land we call "home."

This is not to say that we must approach the healing process from a "victim" mentality. That only furthers the stereo-typical images and the ongoing damage.

We must approach the situation as human beings that respect and are learning to understand what we must do to improve our own lives and create a healthier environment for the generations that are the future.

The healing process must be just that: Healing. Empowering the individual to break free of destructive methods in dealing with both the struggle and the joy that life has to offer.

At the same time, being aware of the often overwhelming wrong or mixed-reactions from those around them, and how to more constructively respond to situations.

Each person that recovers from or heals after a lifetime of abuse, anger, and/or addiction becomes the better example in their community. This example ignites the fires of choice and recovery that reaches into the present and carries the light that guides us on our path to the future.

Everyone

Everyone who feels or has been told that they need to find a new personal and interpersonal approach to their everyday life, can benefit from these workshops and this method of counseling.

As an Employee Assistance Program, those who work in crisis or stressful environments can greatly benefit from these workshops and methods on every level.

Most counseling methods do not take into consideration the essential elements of life in a First Nations/Aboriginal community. The circumstances and history being apart from most of the surrounding communities, are seldom considered and never taught in most colleges as a necessary component to personal and community healing.

Lee has tailored the largest part of his method to meet the needs of First Nations communities.

The separate history and different systems of governing, make these communities somewhat isolated from the mainstream experiences. These experiences are seldom understood by "outsiders".

Health care/counseling methods which are text book-based applications do not take into consideration the different circumstances that have shaped these communities and the people who live in them or come from them. This leaves the greater part of the healing not addressed.

Lee Saunders grew up closely interacting with friends and families from the First Nations communities. His awareness of the often misunderstood customs and processes within these communities were a driving force behind his developing the Emotional Awareness Project.

Those Who Do the Work

Avoiding or dealing with "Burn out"

To best meet the needs of the individuals seeking assistance, as well as for strengthening and educating those who work in the health care field, The Emotional Awareness methods are designed to relieve stresses, causes and symptoms of burn-out associated with the intense level of service many health care providers in these communities are often called upon to provide for their communities and their own families.

After exploring different "text book" and workshop based methods for dealing with various levels of stress and emotional dysfunction, Lee found that most of these methods had little or no value in everyday situations that First Nations communities and their health care workers were facing.

As he was redesigning the methods and approaches to better meet these needs, he discovered that by making fundamental changes in the overall program approach he was using, not only could people from First Nations communities benefit and better cope with their situations, but also people from non-native based communities could more rapidly adjust to their situations, using these same methods.

The extremes presented in both community types are also different by degree, and the method that is more reality-based rather than lab, or text book-based, makes for greater progress and more enlightened responses in most people who are seeking this kind of help.

"Empowering the survivor in a person, is key to that person's progress and self-esteem. Calling someone a 'victim', dis-empowers them, makes them feel helpless or foolish while creating a god-like authority and wisdom in the counselor or therapist.

"Those processes seldom make real progress from what I have seen. The treatments go on for years where the client doesn't feel like he or she can make a reasonable decision without the advice and input from their therapist.

When the therapist or counselor leaves for any reason, (and this happens far too frequently, especially in First Nations communities) the client resumes the old behaviors, not having any real tools for rebuilding their own life on their own.

" Learning the difference between a 'victim' and a 'survivor' is key to how much a person can do for themselves.

"There are some people in every environment who don't want to be empowered, don't want to take control/responsibility for their life at any point. Those people are harder to reach. But most people, given the choice of self-empowerment, healthy self-esteem, will choose to go that route.

"I think it is important to remember that there are basically two kinds of methods out there: One works ON a person, the other works WITH a person. The choice is clear.
"The difference a positive approach in counseling can make is not limited to that individual. Rather, it becomes an example in their own family, their own community and in interactions between diverse communities.

"We all learn by example, the more choices we have, the better we can choose how we want our life to be." ~Lee Saunders