CULTIVATING
WELLNESS
Taking care of ourselves is a far more sacred and profound responsibility than simply resting, especially in the context of community work. In this section, we offer you tools to cultivate your well-being.
Building a solid
foundation
In CCP, it all starts with building a solid foundation for your health and well-being. Building that foundation means recognizing and honouring your needs.
By making this practice a priority, you’ll be able to fully support your community and strengthen your resilience.
Think of this as a wholistic practice that nourishes our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being.
Knowledge about well-being is very much alive among First Nations people, notably through the widely transmitted teachings of the medicine wheel. Fortunately, they have been preserved, despite many traditional practices and ceremonies being outlawed during the colonization process. Today, they remain as relevant as ever.
According to this traditional vision, wellness is not limited to individual health, it also encompasses maintaining the balance between self, community, land and spirit, as we are all interconnected.
Throughout Turtle Island, this teaching is found in different forms and versions. They all remind us of the importance of balance, and of the need for deep connection between self, community, land and spirit.
WELLNESS WHEEL
Inspired by these teachings, we invite you to use this exercise to assess your well-being on a daily basis. We learned it from our mentor, Suzy Goodleaf.
- Take a moment to draw or visualize the wheel.
- For each sphere of wellness, observe how you feel and estimate your level of connection on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 represents maximum connection.
- Breathe deeply and appreciate the present moment, as it reflects exactly where you are. Congratulate yourself on how far you've come, whatever the outcome of your wheel, including for spheres that show imbalances.
- For spheres where you are closer to 10, take a moment to express your gratitude for what has contributed to your balance.
- For spheres where you are closer to 1, make a commitment to yourself to take action, to nurture and strengthen your connection.
Debriefing
Honouring your emotions and sharing your story
Taking care of yourself also means honouring your emotions by sharing your story through debriefing. Debriefing is a practice that helps us connect with our emotions and lets them work their way through us. By expressing what we feel, we can better understand what’s going on inside of us and make sense of our experiences. By expressing what we’ve been keeping to ourselves in a safe, structured space, we let go of the things that weigh us down.
In a CCP context, whether you’re discussing work-related challenges, debriefing a community engagement activity, or meeting with your team or committee, debriefing is a valuable wellness tool.
The following is a debriefing template for you to try out with your colleagues and collaborators, or even with your friends and family. It’s important to remember that debriefing is a structured exercise that must be carried out with the consent of the participants. You can combine it with the collective norms exercise, to make the space even safer.
Debriefing
A tool to reduce the risk of emotional distress
Debriefing takes place in a circle, one round at a time. Each person is invited to answer the questions from the 1st round, one at a time. The others listen and are present. When each person has had time to speak, we start again for the other 2 rounds. It’s essential to allow enough time for everyone to speak and listen fully. For example, for a group of 4 people, it takes at least 40 minutes to complete the 3 rounds. The larger the group, the longer it will take.
ROUND 1
- What happened?
- How do I feel?
- Each team member shares the challenges, difficulties and worries experienced during the day or week, or their Medicine Wheel results.
ROUND 2
- How did I get through it?
- What do I need?
- What strength or resilience have I discovered to cope with stress?
ROUND 3
- Is there anything I need from the team?
- What did I appreciate about the team?
wellness Resources