WALKING ALONGSIDE YOUTH - AN ONLINE ANXIETY COURSE
Session 4
NOURISH
youth with anxiety through relationship
Indigenous perspectives
When the mind is full of worry, and attention is scattered, Elders will say, Go to the water, go to the forest, smudge, sweat, cry, talk to the animals. This is how we take care of ourselves. It is that connection with nature and the spiritual world that needs to be honoured. This is how Indigenous Peoples ground themselves. This is the sense of relational continuity that their worldviews provide.
Indigenous youth need culturally affirming, placed-based teachings that help them reconnect with who they are and where they come from. Their unmet needs include connection with their places on the land and with nature, ancestors, kin and community. Togetherness is a collective endeavour, not just an individual one.
Gregory Cajete, author of Look to The Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education, talks about the development of identity, courage and passion as the foundation of human potential. He says these things are developed in community and through participating in the life ways of our own people, including ceremony, ritual, stories, foods, drumming, singing, hunting, fishing and all day-to-day activities of community. This is how we grow to become one of the people and take our place within our communities.
