Chelsey Luger & Thosh Collins: Decolonizing Wellness
Chelsey Luger and her husband, Thosh Collins, are wellness teachers, authors, and the founders of the indigenous wellness initiative, Well for Culture. Launched in 2013, Well For Culture was established to reclaim ancient Native wellness philosophies and practices to promote the wellbeing of the physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional self. From their exploration and practice, the two have developed a holistic model for modern living which they share with us in their first book, The Seven Circles: Indigenous Teachings for Living Well.
According to Luger and Collins, these seven circles—food, movement, sleep, community, sacred space, ceremony, and connection to land—are interconnected, working together to keep our lives in balance. In our conversation, we begin to explore these many aspects of health, as Luger and Collins explain how their teachings can be adapted to every life, and how to do so while maintaining respect and reverence for the Indigenous origins of the wisdom and practices they share. We discuss their work to reframe wellness, how to integrate spirituality into movement through intention, and the power of the hollow bone mentality. Healing and wellness is not just a journey of one, they tell us, but rather a journey of family and community: When we take the important steps to heal ourselves, we contribute to the health of all. I was very moved by this conversation, which we’ll turn to now.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
Creating a true connection to movement…18:37
Misappropriation…26:36
Fools Crow and the Hollow Bone Theory…40:31
Creating agreements with ourselves around technology…59:26
MORE FROM THOSH COLLINS & CHELSEY LUGER:
The Seven Circles: Indigenous Teachings for Living Well
Check out their initiative: Well for Culture
Follow Thosh on Instagram
Follow Chelsey on Instagram
TRANSCRIPT:
(Edited slightly for clarity.)
ELISE LOEHNEN:
Congrats on your book. I thought it was beautiful. And one of those books that has so much clarity in the way that you articulate your vision for a balanced world, where it's like, oh yes, of course, but I had never seen it articulated in that way. But that idea of a rotating circle, ever moving dynamic, relationship to life where some things are more balanced than others, certainly I think something that will be felt is a truth. So thank you for that.
CHELSEY LUGAR:
I am so pleased to hear that feedback. That's exactly what I could hope somebody would get out of it, so thank you.
ELISE:
Yeah. So maybe before we even start, do you want to say the seven circles?
CHELSEY:
You want to do it?
THOSH COLLINS:
Yeah. So just a little intro, too, for us. My name's Thosh and I'm one of the co-founders of mine and Chelsea's little initiative that we call Well for Culture, which we started creating it in 2013, 2014. And later on we, after traveling a Native country and doing trainings, and we started to kind of narrow it down and see all the different aspects that play a role in our health and wellness that was rooted in a lot of ancestral indigenous life ways and we came down to seven circles. And so that's a little bit, you know, of that. And I'm originally from the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Community, it's a small reservation right outside of the city of Scottsdale in Arizona, near the Phoenix Metropolitan area. And I also work with the Native Wellness Institute. I've been on the board there for about 12 years. And, together, yeah, we do our work together. Do you wanna intro yourself too?
CHELSEY:
Sure, yeah. I'm Chelsea and I'm also the co-founder of Welfare Culture and the co-author of The Seven Circles, Indigenous Teachings for Living Well, which is our forthcoming book. And we are two indigenous people who are passionate about health and wellness. And we formulated our friendship based on our shared interests in wellness and in revitalizing health and wellness for our, our communities. From there, we became colleagues, and from there we decided to get married and have kids. So, you know, we're really passionate about this, this work that we do. And yeah, so the seven circles are food movement, sleep, community, sacred space…
THOSH:
Ceremony, and connection to land.
CHELSEY:
There has to be two of us, because I always forget.
THOSH:
Which is funny, as long as we've been doing it. And, you know, we just put our minds together and we thought, you know, what were the aspects in our pre-colonial, indigenous lifeways that contributed to our people to be living in thriving health. Health as in spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional health. And when we display the seven circles in a visual map, we see them in a circle and at the center we see that spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional. Also at that, there's one person at the center there. And when we are practicing these seven live ways right here, we are affected spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, as one single person. If we reach our arms outward, there's another circle around us, philosophically, spiritually, and those are all the people that we love, that they sit into that circle. We're holding hands with them, and they have their people that are holding hands with them. So that also illustrates the teaching that healing and wellness is not just a journey of one, but a journey of family and community in the greater world. So we believe that when I am healing family experiences, that healing when families are experiencing those healing communities are experiencing those healings and able to function well in a political, cultural, social, and ceremonial sense.
ELISE:
It's interesting to me that you guys have wellness and obviously well, for in the title of the book and in your work, because so much of it, understandably of the book is a take-back, right? Of this concept that's become this trillion, four-trillion dollar industry, right? And you talk about it, you know, there are some really stunning moments in the book where you talk about, I think it's in the conversation where you're talking about parenting and elders and let's see if I can find it, you write, “Just as we view children as sacred and beautiful, we view elders as sacred and beautiful too. Our elders have given us so much throughout our lives, it is our honor to take care of them and to remain close to them, to the end of their lives. Perhaps one of the most striking shortcomings of western wellness culture is that it prioritizes and glorifies youth while painting a picture of old age as being desolate and bleak.”
And you write about the “wellness industry” throughout, in a pretty stunning way. Which I think we'd all recognize, how it's become, the instinct is beautiful, but it's become commoditized, commercialized, and engineered for meeting some exterior idea, right? Of what it is to participate, whereas you guys are centering it in community and in an idea of wholeness. But how do you guys think about that as being part of this wellness “industry?” I don't even know what you would call it. Like how would you explain it? And I understand it as a shortcut, right? People understand that word and its mainstream cultural idea. But if you could completely reframe it, would you?
CHELSEY:
If we could completely reframe wellness?
ELISE:
Yeah.
CHELSEY:
Well, I think in a way we have done so because we have offered a model, the seven circles, that helps people to understand that it's not just food and fitness, which so many wellness practitioners purport. It's not just diet and exercise. It's not just the way that you look on the outside, or the $90 yoga pants that you can afford, or the fancy studio class, or the 25 ingredient smoothie that costs $25. You know, those are unfortunately the images that we have now when it comes to wellness. And that's why so many people continue to feel excluded and uninterested in wellness. It seems so superficial. And so, what I hope is that we have incorporated all these other elements to show people that not only can they be a person who participates or who practices wellness, but they are already, we are all on this journey to some degree already.
And you know, it's interesting, just yesterday I was visiting with Thosh's mom and she goes, “well, I know I'm not, I don't do that stuff myself and I'd really like to,” you know, and she's talking about being healthy. She's like, “oh, I know. I'm not really walking the walk either.” I said, but Joe, you are, it's not just about being on the perfect diet or going to the gym every day. I said, look at the way that you care for your home. Look at the way that you care for your family. Those are huge pieces of wellness that you are very, very much a practitioner of and a leader of. And she was like, okay. I think she was, you know, happy to hear that.
And, and I hope that people recognize that they are in some way a leader or a person who exemplifies wellness in some aspect of their life. I truly believe that everybody has that or that they have it inside of them. And then I also believe that even for those areas of health that folks haven't yet connected to, that they will find a way that works for them. And so certainly we don't expect an elder to out of nowhere decide that, you know, to be a yoga practitioner or to feel comfortable going to a yoga studio or something like that. But there are types of movement that everybody can participate in, even if it's like, you know, mindful breathing exercises and stuff like that. So I just think it, wellness first of all, is so much more than what the industry tends to promote. And there are also so many other ways to connect to the common areas of health, which are food and fitness.
THOSH:
I'd also like to kind of give a little bit more context too, for listeners that may not be familiar with Native country, but within Native country, there has been a movement dating back even to the sixties about reclamation of indigenous life ways and culture and heritage identity. And the theme has largely been around decolonization, decolonization of the mind and of tribal governance structures and to, you know, revitalize what was taken away from us through the colonial process. And so the movement for Native healing and wellness has been happening for a long time. I used to attend a lot of the gatherings of the board that I sit on, the Native Wellness Institute. I used to attend a lot of their healing and wellness gatherings when I was like 14, and I'm like 40 now. So they've been using that term too. I've always, you know, heard that term ‘Native wellness’ for a long time. But as you know, in the recent years in dominant culture, mainstream culture, wellness has really become something that's more in the spotlight. So for, coming from, you know, my upbringing, I see wellness different than what we are seeing in the mainstream culture and Chelsea as well. And so I think that our book is also a way to try to show that perspective to dominant culture. That there's some other aspects and elements that we as Native people would like to share with dominant culture that are very appropriate, that are not along the lines of appropriating our culture, but to give another perspective that's actually rooted in our original, pre-colonial lifeways.
ELISE:
I wanna talk about cultural appropriation. We'll sort of put that in a parking lot for a minute and go into that and, and some of the spiritual theft that's happened. And going to what you were saying, Thosh, this idea, which I feel like is something that's so significant in the American consciousness as we grapple with systemic racism, then you get to this idea of mass genocide, right? The foundation of this country, which most people can't even fathom, right? Like this house that I own, what was to say that I own that? Just the extreme reality. I was reading, I think I was reading this in The Dawn o Everything too, that with the genocide, with smallpox, with the decimation of indigenous population, which was what I think you guys say, somewhere between 20 and 100 million that went down to 200,000 by 1900’s that there was actually a, this book was written by an anthropologist, an archeologist, there was a mini ice age experience on Native America because of the extreme drop in population, which was like just a stunning idea when you think about the complete shift. But do you guys feel like people are starting to actually grapple with this and process it? And obviously like there's the trauma the indigenous people carry, it's the collective trauma, in some ways. Do you feel like people are starting to face it?
CHELSEY:
Yes, absolutely. I think that in Indian country, when we really started to reclaim our pride in our culture and to re-teach and re-examine and revitalize so many of our cultural teachings and our true history that started in the 1960s and 70’s with the Red Power Movement, and it has continued ever since. And it's a totally different situation with the youth of today versus 30 years ago, where today kids are finally benefiting from all of this intergenerational reclamation and healing that has taken place within our communities, where there are youth today who are growing up able to be proud of who they are from the day they're born and that is something that we absolutely do not take for granted because even in my generation and Thosh’s generation, we experienced a lot less acknowledgement of our history and a lot less appreciation, from dominant culture of our culture, of who we are.
It was a lot of racism. And it's not to say that racism's gone or that people aren't experiencing that anymore. I think that in certain circles though, folks are starting to become educated. And then we also look to the Black Lives Matter movement that I think really catapulted and was a catalyst for mainstream societies’ recognition of finally learning the truth about this country's history, finally learning the importance of anti-racism, and that it's not just marginalized groups who have to be a part of this conversation. It's relevant to everybody. And so I think that in the last couple of years we have seen even more of an interest from mainstream society in learning about these topics. But this is just the beginning, of course, we have so far to go.
ELISE:
Yeah. And then you guys mentioned too, just how Native people are not a monolith, and now there's this move to treat every Native person like a mystic and just trying to get people to understand the nuance, while venerating and understanding the culture, which has been obviously maligned, traumatized, but so misunderstood, right? Culturally, this idea that Native people weren't using the land and, you know, all these incredibly insidious and harmful ideas that were starting, particularly in the context of climate change, you're talking about before we started recording, now it's like, oh an understanding of the planet is essential if we're going to survive, which seems late, right? But maybe hopeful, maybe there's something in that.
Let's start with movement, because as you were talking about, in the context of elders, and this idea that we're all in the circle, right? These things might be timing circles or they might be over-indexing in our lives, but the presence of these seven circles that you guys outline, and the way that you re-contextualize them, I think is very powerful, movement, for example, instead of fitness and Thosh the way that you wrote about running, can you talk a little bit about that, the sacred nature of running and how to think about that?
THOSH:
Yeah. You know, I think that for anyone that's interested in the age old tradition of running that you can think about, first off, I think everything starts in the mind. You know, what's the purpose of your running? And where do you plan to go with your running? I think that there's many different reasons why people will run and people will run to get into a tunnel to help heal from any sort of stress, you know what I mean? Anxiety. And some people will run for cardiovascular health, and some people will run to challenge themselves to improve their overall mental, emotional, physical, spiritual grit. You know, people will challenge themselves and run distances from all across, you know, the culture. And some people will run from one place to another simply as a means of transportation, right?
So I think that we can always start with the mind and ask ourselves “what is my purpose for running today? And what do I hope to get out of this?” And I think that if people are running for any sorts of reasons, having to do with their spiritual health, or to improve their overall understanding of the spiritual world and how they're connected to it, they can first see their body as a gift, the body has been given to us. Obviously, if they're running, then that means they have legs and that we can util feel, we can view the body as something to give thanks for, what health that we have, but not recognizing what health we do not have. But if we recognize the health we have, we recognize our heart, our organs, you know, our brain, and recognize that this unit that we are living in right here, our spirit is living in right here, is something to give thanks for.
And to run would probably be to a way to celebrate your physical wellness, to celebrate your health, to celebrate what you have here, and to think about those things as you run. And that may improve somebody's overall feeling of connectedness to a greater higher source of energy that, you know, is involved in everything. So I always encourage people to think about those sorts of things. If they are, you know, wanting to run for their spiritual health. And those are along the lines of things that knowledge keepers in our communities have told us when we were younger. Our runs we're for certain causes run to acknowledge sobriety, and communities running to acknowledge a certain cause. You know, in our communities, that's what a lot of our runs were for. They weren't, they were never for, you know, here's a 5k, marathon, or something. They did have races that were, you know, several miles long. They had races. And even then, though there were certain spiritual causes attached to it. So I always encourage people to know that you can run for, of course improving body composition, cardiovascular health and such, but there's more components to it, and there's that spiritual sense of the body is something to give thanks for. And when you're doing that, you're basically in ceremony.
ELISE:
Yeah, I love that. And I think, Chelsea, you talked about the sacred, how we think of certain things as sacred, but that it's all movement in some way, I don't think you call it in dance, but like the equivalent of thinking about the way that you move throughout the day.
CHELSEY:
I think that when folks, as soon as you realize the practicality of spirituality, it becomes much easier to incorporate spirituality in your life. And unfortunately, there has been this unusual new age-y sect of the wellness industry that's very performative with spirituality. And that's very, I would say, ‘woo-woo.’ And unfortunately, that type of stuff impacts our reputation as indigenous peoples. So we are already dealing with a very long history of what I would call religious or spiritual discrimination. And the way that the wellness industry mis appropriates our culture doesn't help us at all. But what we hope to do is to help folks connect to spirituality in a way that is authentic for them. And that is through movement.
I think that once people begin to place a purpose for their movement that is outside of the realm of competition or body image, not saying that competition is wrong, but I'm just saying there should also be this aspect of, I'm doing this for my mental health. I'm doing this for preventative healthcare, I'm doing this for my family, I'm doing this so that I can be strong in the service of others. That's all it is. That's all spirituality integrated in our movement practice, placing an intention. And so when I think many of us can truly begin to connect to movement in a way that feels like a relationship, as opposed to it feeling like something that we are forced to do. And that's also a way that we can begin to truly connect to an authentic spiritual feeling, as opposed to something that feels very performative.
ELISE:
Say more about that, are there examples of where you feel like that you see that and it causes a shiver down your spine?
CHELSEY:
Oh, yeah. There's a very popular wellness festival that takes place. Like they kind of move it around to different cities, but one of the big ones is in Sedona, and it's literally like hundreds of non-Native people getting together. And they're putting on face paint and feathers, and they were instructed to mimic the Maori Haka, but to create their own version of it, which as we know, is totally inappropriate to just mock a ceremony. And that's part of their wellness festival. And they dress up in these costumes and they bastardize indigenous regalia and face pain, and they just play with it like it's a joke, you know? I'm literally, I'm not kidding. We've seen things like, you know, naked yogis, white women yogis in Hawaii with hand drums that come from our culture.
And so there's just like all these element, this mishmash, and it's this misappropriation of so many different things. And of course, you know, the majority of folks, when they see that interpretation and that bastardization of indigenous spirituality that does impact their beliefs on what spirituality is or what we as indigenous people practice, which is very not that. One thing that you'll notice about Thosh’s and my social media presence is you don't see us performing ceremonies. You don't see us performing our smudging or bringing the cameras to our community gatherings that are private and things like that. I mean, these are things that we participate in on a daily and weekly basis, and you don't see any of it on our social media pages, whereas you'll see these non-Native practitioners that call themselves medicine people in their bio and they're charging a hundred dollars for some kind of a spiritual session or a ceremony or whatever. So yeah, that's the difference. And that's what we really hope that folks begin to realize is that, please, you know, no longer associate Native people with those.
ELISE:
Well, it's interesting too, because throughout the book, you, I feel like are appropriately really guarded about the intricacies of events that you allude to or write about. So you underline the sacred components without actually sharing invasive details. So I'm from Missoula, Montana, Salish, Kootenai Country and adjacent to the Flathead Reservation. And so I would always go to the annual Pow Wow or 4th of July, and that's where I did most of my shopping. And, loved, I mean, like loved Pow Wow watching. And so it's interesting too, because I feel like as you guys write, particularly going all the way back to 1492, there was a willingness to exchange, and you guys will allow people to go to Pow Wows, right? Like they're open to the public. And so almost in that generosity, I think people might only be seeing the tip of the iceberg, but they think that they understand an entire culture.
And can you talk about how, because I saw Chelsea, you were dancing the jingle and talking about your girls learning how to dance, and it's multi tribal, right? Like people are coming from all across the region typically to get together, and there's competitions sometimes, or it's just community dancing, but is that more of a community event or is that a sacred event or both? And are you at a point where you're like, actually Pow Wow should be private?
CHELSEY:
No, I think that, you know, Pow Wows are an intertribal event that are actually relatively recent in terms of the, you know, history of indigenous people. They are typically open to the public and folks are welcome to watch Pow Wow and to learn about our culture through that lens. And they're also competitive actually, a lot of times. Not all Pow’s are competitive, but many of them are where dancers have a chance to compete and to win money as their earnings. And the drum groups get a chance to compete as well. And so I love that folks can get an understanding of there's this level of skill and athleticism that is required for Pow Wow and you know, there are champion dancers out there that are just incredible athletes and artists, and it's a really cool piece of our culture that I think is great that it is open to the public.
Now of course, you know, there's an expectation that anybody who attends a Pow Wow, Native or not, is respectful. And, you know, even as Native people, we don't go around asking invasive questions about people's regalia or tugging at their braids or, you know, jumping in the circle and dancing if we're not a dancer and that kind of thing. And, you know, there's certain modes of respect just as a person would follow a protocol when they attend a tennis match.
THOSH:
Right, if people go to powwows.com, there's great articles there about Pow Wow etiquette, especially it's great resource for non-Native people. So I encourage people to attend those, and that's a respectful way to learn about our culture. And there are times too where whoever's hosting the Pow Wow will allow all people to come out and dance, you know, and so there's those times people get those opportunities to partake in our culture at the discretion of our people. But yeah, one thing you had mentioned earlier about Pow, you know, is it sometimes it's spiritual or sometimes it's ceremonial, or sometimes it's not, and with every aspect or everything that we do in a lot of our culture, there's the spirituality of things is it's always there. It's seamlessly overarching everything that we do. It's a part of everything, inherently, right? So there's always those moments where the spirituality of everything is acknowledged in the opening of any sort of event. Words will be said, things will be recited, acknowledging all the elements in our life, that give life such as the air, the mother Earth we walk upon, the food we eat, the water we drink, you know, the ancestral people that walk here before us. And we do that with help, like a lot of different gatherings. And so there's always the spirituality component there. But see, one thing too, in our ceremonies, is that we even laugh during them, as well as we cry. Native people love to joke and you know, we're kind of looked at as the stoic people, they have the romanticized version of us as stoic and these people that are walking in spirituality in the romanticized sense every day. But much of our ceremony, when people are getting ready, we're laughing, we're joking, we're poking fun at each other, and our humor, Native people, is pretty harsh, sometimes. And then the next moment we're circling up and acknowledging all elements that give life. So there's always the spirituality that's acknowledged in all that we do.
CHELSEY:
Yeah. And I think, you know, to get to the root of your question, ‘where does cultural appropriation come from?’ And I think it's that in western culture and religion, there's always been this aspect of you want to recruit other people and to bring people into what you believe because you believe, and I'm not saying you, I'm just saying in general, you know, if I'm a Catholic, it's my responsibility to believe that Catholicism is the best way and that I should bring other people, recruit people into that if I have the chance. You know, when I was a kid growing up on the Standing Rock Reservation, every single summer there'd be busloads of missionary kids coming in and like lingering around our town all summer trying to get the rest of us to join their religion. So that's, I think, been the way of western culture, and that's why there was this massive effort to convert Native people into western religions and western lifestyles. Now this concept that ‘everybody has to believe what I believe’ was never present or there would be some higher punishment, right? That was never present in indigenous communities. There was always this respect of your beliefs are your beliefs and you know go ahead with that, that's great. Like, you know, nobody's going to hell. There's no concept of hell, we can believe different things and we can all respect each other. It has always been the way. And then I think the reason that we have to now be guarded of our culture, and the reason that we have to be protective over it is because when it is appropriated, we face consequences. As I said, people take us less seriously. They don't see us as fully formed human beings just like you or I, who are worried about what our kids are gonna eat for dinner or who we're gonna vote for in the next election, and that kind of stuff. And, you know, how am I going to, you know, get all my emails answered today. People are unable to see us that way because our humanity is muddied by these stereotypes and these ridiculous notions of our humanity. So, I think that's why we now have to be guarded and we have to be protective and careful over only talking about certain ceremonial things, where it's safe.
ELISE:
Well, that makes sense. And I thought, you know, at one point it's really beautiful, you write about that there's no single story, there's no religion, right? It is a spirituality or sacredness that's baked into life and the planet and your relationship with the earth, and that you reject the word nature, which is a problematic definition because according to, you know, the Oxford English dictionary, I think it has humans as distinct from nature, right? Sort of the beginning of the western problematic idea of nature as something to dominate and exploit. And the fact that within indigenous culture there's no church. There's no place where you have to go. It's not a single deity, right? It's not the same, I don't know. So please correct me, but this idea that it is essential, it is in everything, is also why I think that the concept of the book is so meaningful. Because it's like your space, how you wake up in the morning, where you procure your food, not about perfection in any of those spheres, but this idea that everything is sacred and you don't go somewhere to do that. You do it all day. Is there a single deity or creator or it depends?
CHELSEY:
Well, first of all, most people talk about God or you know, the spiritual world in their indigenous languages. And I think there's so many different interesting ways of doing that, many of which I don't even understand because, you know, there's so many different nations and they all have their own ways of talking about things. But yeah, I think a lot of times we'll use the word creator and that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I don't think it's ever been a single deity type of thing.
ELISE:
Anthropomorphized.
CHELSEY:
Yeah. It's more of a presence that's everywhere. It's more of a recognition that there's always something, you know, something higher wherever we go.
THOSH:
And I always like to share my interpretation too, that there's that higher source that is responsible for all of creation. And, you know, I share with people a lot of times, like even the bioelectricity that is in our brains, in our hearts, it's, it's connected to, you know, the sun is connected to the microorganisms that live in the soil. There's everything in us set a cellular level is circular and even moves in cycles, the earth, the seasons, everything at a cellular level in the body. And there's something that connects all of us. And I think that, you know, maybe in time science and technology will even be able to measure that and to be able to find that, what's that source? But I believe it's present. It's not something that is mysterious, it's present. You know what I mean? And that's where we, as Native people, all of our understanding in a spiritual sense is practical. There's no difference between spirituality and practicality. And we don't have concepts of something being mysterious. The only really mystery that I think a lot of Native people kind of carry across our different nations is this is the understanding that we don't truly know how we have been created. We truly don't know. I guess the I immensity of the power that created everything. And we're humbled by that. And we admit that we don't understand that, and we're humble in that sense, and that we don't try to understand it and try to have the answers and to, you know, be the end all source of information about, about all creation of life.
ELISE:
Can you guys talk a little bit, I think this is such a beautiful idea, Fools Crow and the Theory of Hollow Bone. And you talk about it at the end of the book too, at trying to be hollow bones. But it's stunning. Can you talk about that a little bit about that?
CHELSEY:
Yeah. So Fools Crow was a medicine man who lived from the 1800’s all the way until the 1980s, a Lakota, spiritual person. And he teaches in his biography, and he taught to many Native people as a spiritual leader about this concept of being a ‘hollow bone.’ And he would say that we are all these hollow bones. He just uses that as a visual tool for us to recognize that there's this space within us that can be filled by anything, however we choose to live our life on a daily basis, that space is going to be filled with a certain type of energy or a certain type of force that we can then pass on to others. And however we end up filling our bone is how we live our life and how we impact those around us. And so he would say anybody can live the life I live who has, you know, done the things that I do. So he puts the effort into acting in such a way that allows him to help others. So we can all do that. We can all fill this hollow space within us in a way that allows us to share our abundance.
ELISE:
It's so beautiful. I have been on a kick exploring that idea of kenosis, that idea of like self emptying and I'm not a religious person, I'm very spiritual and I'm interested in how everyone in many ways is saying the same thing. But in the wisdom, in the Christianity wisdom tradition, they talk about Jesus being someone who was just, all he was talking about was kenosis, self emptying. And this idea of, the more you let go the lower you go, the more spirit can come through you. It's sort of getting past that egoic binary structure of “I'm Elise and this is what I believe.” And it's similar to that. I loved that hollow bone idea of like, how do you be really become just a vessel where things move through you without so much attachment.
CHELSEY:
And thank you for sharing that too, because we love to hear about the ways that other cultures can relate or connect or the ways that other cultural tools and teachings actually align with indigenous teachings in many ways. And I think that's really interesting.
THOSH:
When I was growing up in my communities, spiritual leaders would talk about very similar concepts. They'd talk about when you are conducting a spiritual healing session for somebody that it's not you that's doing it, it's the great creator that comes through you, that higher spiritual power that's working through you. And you should never think that it's you, because then you would lose the true and whole understanding that you are just another human being. That you are not more powerful than any other human being, but you can open up your consciousness to a higher source to work through you. And I believe that our model that we set out to Seven Circles is a good way for people to allow themselves to raise their consciousness and allow themselves to be connected to all sorts of creation in life. And to see themselves as a part of this grand interconnected network of living beings to see themselves as a part of that. And believe that when we are having good relations in each of those seven circles, then we are improving our spiritual, physical, mental, emotional wellbeing. And that's one of the symptoms of improving that it is raising the consciousness and helps one to receive a better and more whole robust worldview on how they can help with themselves, the family, and community there. So I believe it's a way to achieve that and begin to be that hollow bone or to move themselves out of the way in order for a higher source to work through.
ELISE:
Yeah. And thinking about this too, and going back to what you were saying, Chelsea, about appropriation or proselytization as well, and trying to keep things sacred. Because one of the things, having worked deep in the wellness industry for a while and engaging with it throughout my life, but that watching the guru-ification happen too, where it was supposed to be an antidote to exterior authority, but then watching people emerge out of the wellness complex who are professing to have answers. You know, I agree with you completely Thosh, like people, we’re all channels, we're all capable of that. And it requires that hollow bone mentality. I don't know what this is, I'm just like moving this through. It's not mine to own, it's not based in dominance or superiority.
And so, you see people sort of assuming this, I have the answers and I have the answers for you. And so I very much understand why the most sacred parts of culture need to be protected from that. Also, that appropriation, or, as you said, people calling them self medicine men or shaman or things where it's like, well that's actually not how that like shamans are, and I'm not an expert, but it's like, that is an ancestral lineage that is a very specific cultural idea from a particular part of the continent, and it's not something that you can just claim.
CHELSEY:
Yeah, absolutely. And you'll never find a medicine man on Instagram, I'll tell you that much right now. Or if they have Instagram, they're not posting about being a medicine person or medicine woman either, for that matter. So, you know, one of the other aspects of the modern wellness industry that we see all the time is this competition of knowledge. And for example, there's YouTube videos every single day where their whole thing is just breaking down why this other wellness person was wrong and why their diet doesn't actually work, or why their, you know, mode of fitness is not actually as effective as they say it is. And you know, there's this whole thing of all of these different experts and then they get thousands of views when they critique each other and break each other down and criticize each other. We watch that stuff sometimes just because it's fun. I mean, we actually watch and participate and read a lot of these people who are reporting that they are the end-all/be-all answer, just because we like to see what's out there. And we encourage everybody to, you know, read everybody, but with a grain of salt.
ELISE:
Well, exercising discernment.
CHELSEY:
Yeah, with a level of discernment and you know, a level of critical thinking and including ourselves, which is something else I'm sure you've noticed we wrote about in the book a number of times as we remind people, please, you know, take from this what works for you, take from this what you connect with and don't feel like you have to live exactly as we live. Don't feel like you have to think about all of these things in the exact way that we think about it, but what we do hope is that there's something here that you can connect with in a way that helps you in a way that serves you. So I think that that's something else that we've really tried to do differently from a lot of the gurus that we've seen. And we've had uncomfortable moments in the past where people have called us a guru of indigenous health or something. No, no, no, no, no, please don't ever use that term. We're not gurus or of anything or experts.
ELISE:
Yeah, experts tough too, Right? It's a very human tendency to want to look to other people for answers rather than learning how to live it, to think is what you guys are. And yes, I loved throughout, it was reassuring within food and food ways, talking about how where you guys are and where you'd like to be and the fact that of course, you shop at grocery stores and your kids eat chips. I know. I let my son buy some flaming hot Cheetos at the hardware store this weekend.
CHELSEY:
<laugh>
ELISE:
You can't win them all. I want talk a little bit, just go going into food because and being a Montanan, and this isn't the first time that I've spoken about this, but I think you in particular are writing about hunting and I feel very defensive of hunting even though I don't hunt because I'm not tough enough to look my food in the eyes, and it's easier for me, like it is for all western people to buy it at the grocery store. But I loved how you wrote about hunting and this the essential paradox of to survive other things, plants, animals have to die. Like is is this paradox of the circle of life. And I thought it's so beautiful. I think hunting is so honorable. And can you talk a little bit about your relationship to that?
THOSH:
Yeah, and I'm glad that that's what you got out of it. And I think that that's what a lot of people miss who haven't been raised in hunting or haven't been raised in a culture where hunting has been something that we've been doing, even from a ceremonial way since, you know, the beginning of time. And people do not realize that. I think that's what I say. I say that the most fascinating paradox of our time is that in order for some organisms, living organisms to thrive, others have to be sacrificed whether that is the intention or not. And no one is exempt from causing harm, you know, to causing a loss of life of the four-legged, of the microorganisms that live in the soil and of other cultures. No one is exempt from that. And I think that if people would like to practice a way where they are not eating animals, then I think I support that, I support any endeavor for one to do what they need to do to make themselves feel whole and well.
And even if that means not contributing in, you know, eating animals in some way, shape, or form, you know, I support everyone's ideological purpose, spiritual ideological purpose of acquiring good health, but it's also should be understood that hunting is the most ethical and sustainable way to acquire protein, which protein is a very important macronutrient for health, wellness, longevity to building blocks. And sure, you can get it from plants, you just have the more of it. You can consume, you know, four ounces of any sort of meat, hopefully sustainably sourced, you know, four ounces of meat there and get a very low caloric intake and get high quality protein, all of the amino acids. And so we don't have have to eat as much to receive that.
And so I was growing up hunting, and that's one of the main indigenous food ways that our family was still able to maintain, was hunting. And then later on we started to revitalize within our family the foraging of seasonal foods, plants on land, and then the planting of seeds. My great grandparents were the last to still plant some of the original seeds that our people have planted since pre-colonial times, which is a variety of corn, beans, melon, squash. And so there's those various food ways, their modalities to acquire food is to forage, grow food, and to hunt. That's the one that a lot of our people have always done. All across the content, all across the world. Human beings across the world acquired their food in that way. And then the fourth part is that human beings from across the world had spiritual practices associated withacquiring those foods, the giving of thanks of, of life that was sacrificed to feed them, and to give thanks, you know, that it's going to nourish their body.
And in our way, we don't see just four-legged, the sentient beings as just having eyes, nose and four- legged and fin and wing. We see them also as the plants. It's all of our plants that we put in the ground, the seeds and who we foster. We foster them like children. And when you go also to harvest and forage foods on the land seasonally, that you are also giving thanks to that plant. And you are also apologizing that you're taking a piece of it off and that you're cutting a piece of it off to consume it. But as you do that, it's going for a good reason and to nourish me and the family, to nourish us. And that's the relationship we have between forging the plants. Even when you take the squash off of the vine, you're supposed to do it in a good way. And then you're cutting it skin off. You're filleting it, you're cutting it open, you're taking its organs out. So in our way, we see it all the same. There's no difference. There's no difference between taking life of the four-legged or taking life of the greened and vined and leafed. They're the same for us. Because all life, in a sense comes in different forms. So for me, you know, to hunt is just really to play that role. And when I view out in the world, I see that there's just, there's a lack of diversity in acquiring foods that everyone is really just set on just planting. There's some that are just set on foraging that are some that are just set on hunting, fishing, and trapping.
And every culture is different. Some of them didn't forge, some of them didn't plant food. But I think a lot of it, you know, it was that way. So I encourage everyone to see hunting is a part of that and not see it as an isolated thing, that '“it's 2022. And why are people still killing animals and eating them?” I think that, you know, those are really shortsighted arguments that obviously we can't get into right here, but very shortsighted and very misunderstood. But for us, we have a relationship with the nations that we hunt and they're in our creation stories all across Native country, all across the world people have in their creation stories, their stories of genesis, how they came to hunt those animals there. And I think again, it's a certainly a paradigm shift in, as far as thought process, when in order for someone to understand this concept of, okay, we see, as Native people, we see all the four-leggeds as extended relatives, then we hunt them. Someone says, well, why would you hunt your relative? You know, and there's this really, you know, shift in thinking that has to happen. But I don't expect people who weren't raised within the context and cultural values of my people to understand that. And I'm okay with not everybody understanding that. I think we need diversity in the world. I think we need people who only eat plants, and people who only eat animals and people who eat both, there should be a respect for all these various modalities on how we acquire food and to leave it at that, you know?
ELISE:
Yeah.
CHELSEY:
I think, you know, hunting gets a bad rep because of trophy hunting and so I just hope that folks recognize that there's so many different ways of doing these things and you know, one could argue that corporate agriculture displaces animal life and biodiversity, corporate agriculture that feeds vegan diets, you know to the same degree that you know, that a life might be harmed by somebody going out and doing a hunt. And one thing that I would love to share about Thosh is, there's times, just the other week he came home from a halina hunt and he said, I was right there, I almost had the shot, but I wasn't certain that it was going to be an ethical kill because he is kind behind a bush. And so he didn't do it.
He didn't take the shot. He is very, very committed to ethically hunting. And there was one time where we had this little ant infestation, they were crawling up our daughter's changing table, and I'm all mama bear, I'm like, Oh, I need to kill these ants. And, you know, and he comes home and I'm all in this tizzy and I'm trying to kill these ants. And he's like, hey, hey, hey, calm down, these ants are not doing anything to you. Just chill. And he's like, gently like taking this broom and sweeping the ants up and like dusting them outside and, you know, trying to plug the find where they were coming in the wall. And you know, it's like he is really genuinely walks the walk. He respects life, He respects animal life. And if he's hunting and he takes the life, he takes that very seriously and he honors that. And we eat the whole animal. We use every piece and that's the indigenous way. It really is very different from this trophy hunting that we see on tv.
ELISE:
Chelsea, you mentioned obliquely in the book that you have a plan, not that I expect you to share it, but I have a very complex, I think we all have very complex relationships with social media. Can you talk about how you guys are thinking about that and what you think is how you would imagine spreading or engaging with the world without it?
CHELSEY:
I think if there's one thing we can observe in our own lives is that we grew up with none of this social media stuff. We, you know, I think we got internet when I was 9. I got Facebook when I was 18, and so I really grew up in this time where I've seen social media and the internet continue to infiltrate and to be an absolutely necessary component of pretty much everyone's life. And we're also now seeing that technology develops, um, exponentially faster. Digital technology develops exponentially faster than pretty much anything else. And so we get really absorbed and we adjust very quickly to everything that's new and coming at us. And the next thing is the meta-verse, right? That's you know, the powers that be hope that we're all wearing these headsets and sort of halfway living in this world. And I think that it's up to any of us who care at all about our health and our wellness and the health of the planet and the health of communities to put the breaks on that and to be really cautious in how we continue to engage and not to just accept every continued infiltration of technology into our lives.
And I think it's great that we have technology to connect in different ways, but that we proceed with caution and that we all have a plan in our minds, and we make agreements with ourselves just as we make agreements with ourselves about the type of food that we think we should be eating or about how often we visit our doctor or how we care for our families. We should have agreements with ourselves about how we engage with technology, and we should be very clear about the degree to which we find it healthy. So monitoring our screen time and not joining every single app that comes out. Like, I'm not on TikTok, I was never on Snapchat. You know, Instagram is enough for me. That kind of thing. And I have a plan, which is that at some point I want to be completely off of any form of social media and hopefully I won't be using a smartphone either at some point. And the reason that I have developed that plan is because I've observed a number of years in that I think my attention span and my memory is worse than it used to be before I had a phone for everything. So that's basically it. And I don't have an exact timeline on that, but that's probably me just putting it off. And we all tell ourselves these stories about, well, I need social media for this, well, I need my email for that, well, I have a blah blah blah…I don't know. I think it's a mix. I think that some of that is a reality and some of that is a box that we put ourselves into. And so I'm just hoping that I can get to a place where I live really without any of that stuff and maybe I'm idealizing a little bit here, but I think that in generations past when people were not on their phones all day, they were living maybe happier, more present lives. And I just can't see myself, I really don't want to see myself as an aging person when I'm less mobile, getting stuck on my phone and my iPad all day in my house. You know, I wanna continue to be more outside and more active and live life to the fullest.
ELISE:
I appreciate that. Okay, one more thing really quickly. You talk about allyship and this context you write, “we hope that you can now work with us as allies, something we greatly need during a time when the wellness industry is making billions of dollars from spiritual colonialism, all the while remaining oblivious and unhelpful when it comes to the economic hardships, health disparities and other social ills that indigenous communities continue to face because our ceremonies were outlawed for so long,” outlawed until 1978, as I learned from you, which is insane. So how can people serve besides not culturally appropriating learning, exchanging learning from, are there specific organizations that you talk a little bit more about making donations to organizations and nonprofits that particularly are helping younger people reconnect, but is there anything in particular that you really want to see people do?
CHELSEY:
You know, I say donations and we make that suggestion because I think it's easy for people. I think that that's a pretty straightforward way of contributing. And of course there's dozens and dozens of incredible Native led nonprofits and organizations that are doing great work in Indian country. We work with one specifically called the Native Wellness Institute, a nonprofit based in Gresham, Oregon that truly has been changing lives for decades, reintegrating wellness teachings into Native communities and specifically doing a lot of really amazing youth work and work with you know, foster children and mothers who need assistance and just, they have so many, you know, honoring elders and honoring veterans and so many important initiatives that the Native Wellness Institute takes the lead on. So that is one that I would specifically recommend, but also get to know the tribes, the tribal nations and organizations in your area because there are urban Indian organizations, there are reservations that have lots of initiatives within. And so find out and sort of get to know the tribal nation that is near your area and if you can contribute in some way, I think that that's always welcome.
ELISE:
Okay. Perfect. Thank you guys. Congrats on the book. It's beautiful. This will run your pub week, which is at the end of the month, right? And if there's anything I can ever do to help, please let me know.
CHELSEY:
You already helped because I just love hearing your feedback on the book.
ELISE:
Well, it's really vulnerable, my book is in production, it comes out next year. It's very vulnerable to write a book and then be like, does this resonate?
CHELSEY:
We'll be on the lookout for your book as well and we'll share this episode and stuff and hopefully we'll turn some eyes toward your podcast.
ELISE:
Oh, amazing. Thank you. I appreciate it.
CHELSEY:
I was just listening to your interview with the Gottman's.
ELISE:
Oh yeah.
CHELSEY:
I thought that was so cool. My sister Liz is actually a clinical psychologist and she's trained in the Gottman method. I’ve heard her talking about that so much. So now I'm so excited to share your episode with her and tell her that I understand a little bit more about what she does.
ELISE:
Yeah. Know who you guys, who she probably knows about, but you guys would also love, I love him, is this man, Richard Schwartz. I interviewed him when I was at goop, but I interviewed him again and it became sort of personal, which is probably an overshare, but we did IFS work, but have you heard of Internal Family Systems? It's essentially about self retrieval. It's the way he started out as a marriage and family therapist. And he realized that mono personality is a myth. And people are too scared to acknowledge that we all have all these multiple parts within us. And that these conversations that are happening internally are different parts and doesn't mean that we have multiple personality disorder. That's when someone's completely not grounded, but that we have these parts and he calls them exiles and then they are protected by either ‘managers’ or ‘firefighters.’ And so when people get triggered, it's this sort of firefighter response projection back anyway, it's a very beautiful system of therapy where he goes really deep, it's beautiful. And his point is that each person has a true self that is unchanging and unyielding. And then these parts sort of start protecting the self. But when you can let the true self start to emerge, it's this hollow bone idea. That people become more grounded and whole and no parts are bad. He has worked with pedophiles. I mean, he has worked in all parts of the system healing and getting people to talk, getting access to the parts, talking to them, reassigning them. It's very cool.
CHELSEY:
So what's his name again and what is it called?
ELISE:
It's Richard Schwartz. Yeah. And it's called Internal Family Systems. And it is beautiful, I think. Beautiful.
CHELSEY:
Wow.
ELISE:
He'd say the only thing that's not consistent with is cognitive behavioral therapy. Because he's like that’s not working with the self, you're like dealing with managers. But yeah, your sister might know, but it's such a cool, cool therapy modality.
CHELSEY:
Wow. Interesting. Yeah, I love learning about that stuff. And I love even that little snippet that you just said, how that it reminds you of the hollow bone theory. Like those are the moments that I hope that people have continually while they're reading our book is just like connecting it, you know, I am familiar with, you know, or I can see how this indigenous world viewer concept is related to all this other stuff that. And I think that those are the ways that we as humanity, those are the connections that I hope that we continue to draw and just sort of are absorbing from each other.
ELISE:
And if you guys haven't read, it's a big book, but I think you'll find it interesting, that book The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber, an Archeologists, but anyway, have you read it?
THOSH:
I've heard about it. I've seen some stories. I've came across it. I heard some reviews on it.
ELISE:
I think you'll find it really interesting. It's sort of like this retelling of like, I mean going to what you were saying, it's not like planting things just emerged and suddenly people were like, oh, we can farm. People were always planting and it's pretty interesting.
THOSH:
Yeah.
ELISE:
Alright, well I'll let you get to your next thing. Thank you both, let's stay in touch.
CHELSEY:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. It was so fun.
ELISE:
I’ve been thinking a lot about my conversation with Thosh and Chelsey, and specifically about Thosh’s gentle correction at the beginning, that we might think of wellness as a new, mainstream cultural idea and massive industry, but well, it wasn't invented by white people. And we know this well, obviously it’s seen primarily as an aggregation of other cultures, practices, and systems of healing, many of which are really, really beautiful. And as we’re learning too, with the way that we steward the earth’s resources, or where we recognize how we should steward the earth’s resources, many of these concepts are completely and fully indigenous. And as they articulate throughout the book, wellness is the bedrock, particularly in its expression as a form of balance, it’s the bedrock of indigenous cultures and it is ancient. So I just wanted to acknowledge that.
Being from Montana, where the Indigenous population is about 10%, it was very present in my life. And as mentioned, I loved going to Pow Wows and shopping at trading posts and I have, over the years, bought so many things. And its funny now, I mean my house is full of Pendleton, and I identify so deeply with that culture, even though I recognize myself as a big outsider to it, in part because I think it is a culture, it is this living, beautiful community and so few of us have that. If you follow me on Instagram, understand that I am trying to understand my own relationship to Judaism, in part because I want to belong to a community. And so I think that white westerner’s are so drawn and unfortunately tend to appropriate indigenous culture because it can feel like we don’t have a culture of our own. I don’t know if this feels resonate and true for anyone else, but as an outsider looking in I was just enamored and jealous and really wanted to dance the Pow Wow.
I also wanted to leave you with an Indigenous world view of parenting, which we didn’t get to in our conversation, but there are four tenants that they outline: 1) Adults can learn from children, 2) Every child belongs to every adult, 3) No violence or yelling, and then they elaborate, “In Native communities, loudness in general tends to be viewed as obnoxious or out of place, so you can imagine that the thought of yelling at children has always been looked down upon and the notion of violence against children, even a spanking, is unthinkable. In precolonial times, a person would have been considered less mature than a child if they could not control their temper and response to a child’s tantrum or misbehavior. There was less weight on the child to act inline and instead more expectation on the adult to demonstrate patience and self control,” and 4) Adult social lives need not exclude children. Anyway, it’s a really beautiful book and has given me a lot to think about, as did our conversation. Thanks, as always, for listening.
