Time to move beyond pain

Page 6

Read an article in the Insight Section of the Toronto Star not too long ago. It was intriguingly titled: Has the culture of victimization gone too far?

First I took it to mean that a person - or a people - can take the notion of being a victim - or a nation of victims - too far at times.

Next I applied the question to Indian Country. I apply just about everything to my beloved Indian Country, not to see how we "stack up," since we don't have to measure up to anybody but simply out of curiosity. How does it apply? Can we learn from a comparison, can we grow from the knowledge? It fits like a glove. Whether we like it or not, there are times when -individually and collectively - we come dangerously close to spending too much time and energy seeing ourselves as victims.

True, some heavy stuff has come down in Indian country over the past 500 years, but making it a part of our individual and tribal psyche may not be the wisest thing for us to do. Call someone a "loser" enough times an they will begin to play the part.

I have a friend, and our "friendship" is based on our childhood pain. She was raised by nuns and I was raised by priests, and our conversations can never seem to move beyond our mutual pain. I want to talk shop, or about my beautiful grandson or about the price of bologna these days. She wants to dwell on her suffering.

I need to go on, but my friend is trapped in the 50s, emotionally and permanently bent out of shape from her terrible experiences. She could wallpaper her home with the diplomas and certificates she's earned on the life-skills seminar trail. What she endlessly rehashes at A.A. meetings, and more recently - at "Indian Healing Circles" - has been committed to memory and is regurgitated one cue.

Every man and woman hides a secret pain. Each of us has a horror story, each of us are "victims," of bad parents, of residential schools, of men, of women, of the workplace, of sex, of stress, of religion, of drugs, of food, of alcohol, of racial prejudice, of discrimination, of physical characteristics they were born with, of adoption, of bad breaks, of bad marriages, of acne, of being too tall, too short, too fat, too skinny, too dark, too light...

I don't mean to belittle or trivialize anyone's pain: I mean to say that we need to get beyond that pain at times, to keep it in perspective, put it in the proper context, learn to live with it, move on....

If for no other reason, we should be trying to let go of all this "excess personal baggage" for the sake of our children and grandchildren. They will have a hard enough time, without having to lug around our garbage as well.