What does reconciliation mean? I have asked this question many times. I get many different answers. Reconciliation seems to mean different things to different people. I looked up this topic on the Canadian government website. As with most government documents there was a lot of jargon. It wasn’t easy to follow.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission report is six volumes long. I wonder who takes the time to wade through these documents. I wonder what effect these words have on survivors struggling with trauma and addiction. Let’s bring this topic down to day-to-day reality. My focus is “how do people heal today? How to heal our families and communities and build a better future for our children?”
Let me share what reconciliation means to me, personally. I am a recovering addict. I grew up in an alcoholic home. I dropped out of high school. I survived abuse. I started my healing journey with lots of “baggage.” The good news is I have done a lot of recovery work. I’m not shy about getting help when I need it. I also love working with others and sharing in their healing journeys.
The first step in my own reconciliation was to reconcile with myself. I needed to find peace within. I had a lot of anger. The more I did recovery work the more I cleared away the pain of my own past.
Some of the angry voices I hear are demanding reconciliation. Did they reconcile with their own soul first? Maybe they are putting the cart before the horse? These are the questions I have. I once witnessed a young activist screaming at a man who had been sober for over twenty five years. He did not reconcile the way she thought he should. Maybe she thought he was not angry enough? But everyone’s healing journey is different.
In another case, an angry activist on Facebook denounced a man who was a hereditary chief calling him a “false chief.” This chief was a beautiful soul that was promoting healing. He was helping many people. I was stunned. The activist did not like the chief’s healing ministry. I did not think the activist was being very respectful. There is a place for anger. But even when we express anger we need to do so in healthy ways and be respectful. We can use our anger in positive ways to create positive action. It seemed to me the activist did not do his own healing first. His activism was simply creating more division.
The first step in my own work of reconciliation was to heal the division within me. To heal from my abusive anger. I transformed the energy of my anger into positive action. If we hold on to raw, unprocessed anger we may just create more abuse. We can process our anger through therapy, spiritual practices, ritual, prayer, meditation, and traditional medicines. Then we can use that energy to heal.
I started my journey of reconciliation by first doing my own recovery work. That was the first step. I had to find some inner peace. Then I could share that peace with others. Then reconciliation with others will happen. I won’t have to scream at them or dump my anger on them or disrespect them. After all, maybe they have been hurt too? Maybe they need to heal? Usually, it’s hurt people that hurt others.
There’s a lot of hurt in our northern communities. There’s trauma and addiction. There are a lot of angry people. Let’s not turn our anger on each other. Let’s not turn our anger on anyone until we heal first. For me, that was the beginning of my healing journey of reconciliation.
I needed to take other steps. I needed to reconcile with my Creator. I grew up believing in an angry god. This god was more about punishment than love. My image of god needed to heal. Another step I needed to take in my reconciliation journey was to heal my relationships with my family. This was not easy and took time. I’m still working on it. Later I had enough recovery under my belt to look out into the community around me. Our communities need healing. We need to reconcile with each other. But the first step was to begin the journey of reconciliation in my own heart.
Let’s heal together. Let’s look within ourselves and our own homes first. Let’s start the reconciliation process there. Then we can start to share the healing and reconcile with the world around us. In my next article I will talk about one powerful method I used to create reconciliation within. As I mentioned above, this is the practice of meditation. How does meditation bring reconciliation?
(Darrell Taylor is a mental and spiritual health consultant. This article is for information only and not meant for diagnoses or treatment purposes.)