How The Indigenous Worldview Can Support Greater Harmony

Our worldview shapes our perceptions and actions towards each other and the world around us. In this special Earth Day episode, Diana Hill talks with Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez about the core precepts of an indigenous worldview. Together these precepts can guide us to live more harmoniously with each other and the earth. We explore the indigenous worldview’s emphasis on community welfare, respect for gender role fluidity, the sacred nature of competition, and living from our wise hearts.

Transcript

What is the indigenous worldview and what are some of its precepts that we can apply to enhance our lives,

Our well-being and our communities?

That's what we're going to explore today with Four Arrows and Darsha Narves on Your Life in Process.

Hi folks,

I'm off to Blue Spirit Costa Rica.

I am bringing a group of people there on retreat.

While I'm gone,

You can check out what we're up to in Costa Rica.

I'll be posting probably pretty much every day on Instagram and my stories.

It's kind of fun to get a little view into the retreat,

Even if you can't attend.

We're going to be opening up the retreat for next year for those that want to register.

Get on my email list at drdiannahill.

Com if you want to be first to know about it.

This retreat really fills up.

I also want to let you know that I'm going to be teaching a workshop at Yoga Soup on ACT.

This is an experiential workshop.

You can sign up at yogasoup.

Com and it's going to be offered online and in person.

And Debbie and I have a card deck coming out,

An ACT daily card deck that you're going to want to pick up.

It puts ACT into daily exercises for you so you can really incorporate it into your life.

That's out May 1st and stay tuned.

Debbie's going to be on the show.

We're going to talk all about it when I get back from Costa Rica.

Welcome back.

This week's podcast is about processes for living well and central to living well is compassion as we talked about with Marcelo Matos last week.

Compassion is a pro-social perspective and compassion-based perspectives often not only give credit to evolutionary psychology,

But also to indigenous worldviews.

Indigenous worldviews is holding wisdom in terms of collaboration,

How we relate to the earth and how we can relate to each other in a way that is more sustainable.

Some of the definitions of wisdom have to do with recognizing our own limits of knowledge.

To be wise is to be aware of the varied contexts and acknowledge other people's view and seek understanding of opposing views.

From a pro-social perspective,

We can use this type of wisdom to evolve culturally.

And part of that cultural evolution is to include indigenous worldviews.

So I'm going to tell you a little bit about who we're chatting with today.

We're going to talk with Dr.

Darsha Narves,

Who is a professor emerita of psychology at the University of Notre Dame,

Fellow of the American Psychological Association,

American Educational Research Association,

American Association for the Advancement of Science.

She was born in Minnesota and she grew up living around the world as a bilingual,

Bicultural Puerto Rican,

German-American,

But calls earth her home.

And in her academic career,

She employs a lifespan of interdisciplinary approach to studying evolved morality,

Child development,

Human flourishing,

Integrating anthropology,

Neuroscience,

Clinical,

Developmental,

And educational sciences.

And she hosts a webpage called evolve-nest.

Org if you want to learn more about her and is president of the kindredworld.

Org.

Four Arrows is of Irish Cherokee ancestry and a made relative of the Lakota medicine horse.

He is a sun dancer,

Pipe carrier,

And he follows the Lakota spiritual path with doctoral degrees in health psychology and in curriculum and instruction with a cognate in indigenous worldview studies.

His many books,

Chapters,

Articles,

And presentations focus on the importance of non-binary rebalancing of dominant and indigenous worldviews for surviving and thriving.

He's named one of the 27 visionaries in education by AERO,

A recipient of the Martin Springer Institute's Moral Courage Award.

And the book that Dr.

Narvaez and Four Arrows co-authored,

Restoring the Kinship Worldview,

Has been recognized by UC Berkeley Science Center for the Greater Good as one of the top 15 inspirational and practical tests.

Four Arrows is going to be joining us from Mexico where he swims,

Surfs,

And is trying to create a sanctuary to save the fish.

I think you're going to find this conversation really beautiful and inspirational.

And I'll see you on the other side to talk about how you can put some of these precepts into your life to restore your kinship worldview.

Welcome,

Four Arrows and Darsha.

I'm really glad to have you both together here.

We're going to talk about this concept of kinship worldview and restoring the kinship worldview today.

Actually,

How I came about your work was through Darsha's work.

You were a speaker at the Compassionate Mind Foundation.

When your book came out,

Someone on the list was so excited that it came out and there was sort of a little bit of a bustle about it.

And then I ordered it and then went down a rabbit hole of just exploring these indigenous precepts,

Which are very beautiful.

So thank you both for being here.

One place to begin is this concept of an indigenous worldview because just sort of identifying what that means.

And certainly we can talk about the,

You discussed 28 precepts in your book,

But there's even more that you talk about as well.

But what is an indigenous worldview and how does it differ from the dominant worldview that many of us are living in?

The indigenous worldview has to do with the way we perceive subconsciously who we are as human beings,

What our roles are in the world,

What the earth is like,

What the universe is like,

And how we get along with everyone,

Human and other than human persons.

And it guides our perceptions and our decision making and our actions and all sorts of ways that we don't pay attention to.

But it's sort of the water we swim in.

And we distinguish it from indigenous ecological knowledge,

Place-based knowledge.

That is something you learn through living in a particular landscape with intergenerational wisdom about how to get along and maintain that landscape for flourishing of the humans and the other than human persons.

And so this assumption of the indigenous worldview is something we can all embrace.

Whereas traditional ecological knowledge or traditional indigenous wisdom that's place-based,

You need to be there.

You need to have grown up in it,

Know the language that the landscape has taught you,

And know how to thrive with the bio-community in that location.

So we're distinguishing those things.

And Four Arrows is the one who has put together these precepts over years.

And there are so many.

And he can say much more about it.

The idea of worldview is really a relatively new concept that has come from the German philosophies of the Enlightenment to really mean that it incorporates cultures.

It incorporates religions.

It incorporates philosophies.

And so most of the work of the social anthropologist Robert Redfield,

Who really brought the European concept into the academy,

Is really about two worldviews.

That's the one that is the Western-based dominant one that is infiltrated into the East largely,

And the one that was the original one that guided humanity for about 99% of human history,

If we go back to 2 or 3 million years of the hominid species.

And so when we talk about this being unconscious,

It can be something that we don't really think about that much,

That we have these assumptions,

Oh,

Life is hierarchical.

And we center humans on top of that hierarchy.

And so worldview is about really a connection between who we are in terms of nature and the supernature of the spiritual world.

And these are things that we don't really talk about.

They're moral precepts that we have to look at to be able to recognize our behaviors in terms of culture.

And that's what we're trying to get across.

So some of the precepts that you have a table of in your book and the introduction include things like in the dominant worldview,

A rigid hierarchy versus in a common indigenous worldview is non-hierarchical.

You also have things like in the dominant worldview focus on self and personal gain versus in the indigenous worldview emphasis on community welfare.

And some of these precepts are particularly,

I think,

Relevant right now,

Considering the problems that we're facing on this planet.

And when we start to look at them,

Things like moving more from emphasis of the heart over the head versus the head over the heart,

We can think about how that may apply to problems of racism,

May apply to problems of climate change,

May apply to problems of war and inequities and all sorts of things.

And one of the concerns,

I think that even before we start diving into each of these precepts or a few of them,

One of the concerns that people have,

Especially for people like me who I'm white,

Non-Indian,

I don't want to be in a position of cultural appropriation.

And so this is a concern that many people have.

And for Arrows,

You talked about a conference you attended and there was concerns about this at a conference you attended and how you responded to those concerns was really of interest to me.

So can you address that even before we start to?

Sure.

And it's a good question to get your audience to right away open up and not be respectfully guarded about maybe I shouldn't be listening to this because I'm not Indian,

Right?

And so it's a good question.

And it's an important one.

In fact,

Indian country is divided in many ways about sharing information about indigenous spirituality,

For example.

Whereas the Fool's Crow and many of the other really well-known and respected indigenous scholars of the past,

They say people that don't want to share this medicine don't really know the medicine.

And though misappropriation is a significant problem,

And I totally understand my brothers and sisters who say,

Hey,

Keep this out of education because education is a place where the problem started.

Right.

I think the idea is that we're indigenous people are losing these worldviews.

I have a lot of Navajo students who over the years are getting their doctoral program at Fielding who have told me five years ago,

70% of the Navajo Nation have really lost touch with these worldviews and lost the language and even lost the place-based knowledge that Darsha was mentioning.

Now they're telling me it's 85%.

And so if we know that the indigenous are original nature-based kinship worldview,

It's been proven sustainable.

The largest study ever done that came out in May 2019 from the United Nations on biodiversity,

50 countries,

450 research scientists and 15,

000 peer-reviewed papers says that the reason 80% of all biodiversity on Mother Earth is on only 20% of the landmass that's controlled by 3% of the population,

Which are indigenous people,

Is not a coincidence.

It's indigenous worldview that drives that.

And so this is something that we all have to remember that we are all indigenous with a small eye to planet Earth.

And that sharing this while we support and fight for sovereignty for the place-based knowledge of indigenous cultures,

Because in many ways,

That's even more important because that place-based knowledge has a language that understands how to live in that place.

Since that's been lost,

We have to re-indigenize ourselves.

And we can't do that with the language because we haven't been raised in that same spot.

We don't know the ceremonies.

So the place for us to start is in re-embracing an understanding of our relationship to the cosmos.

And all our ancestors had this view.

It's not unusual really for the species,

Our species,

Which has been around for 2 million years and really our line of evolutionarily speaking is 6 million years old.

It's just the way you live well on the Earth.

This is how you support well-being in yourself and your relationships,

The bio-community everywhere.

So these precepts are just natural outgrowths of living well on the Earth.

It's also interesting to see how the neuroscience maps on to show that in terms of our brains being designed to be in a lot of ways pro-social and generous and giving and altruism and all of that.

So as the indigenous world view,

I think there's an increasing interest in that.

There's also an increased interest in the neuroscience of pro-social behavior.

Even as babies are already little toddlers,

Choose more of a pro-social,

Caring,

Giving activities.

If I may,

There's even a reason for worldview to precede the idea of neuroscience.

Greg Kehete and Jung Lee and I wrote a book a while back called Critical Neurophilosophy and Indigenous Wisdom.

And what we found was,

Although what you say is essentially true,

A number of interpretations of neuroscience come from people with the Western worldview.

And their interpretations contradict indigenous wisdom.

So you mentioned generosity,

For example,

Which is a major concept along with gratitude for indigenous peoples.

Some of the studies that our doctoral students did in sort of state-of-the-art studies for our book,

Did laboratory experiments where they showed little lights going on in the brain that because when they gave away monopoly money to the person next to them on command,

A light lit up.

That was the same place where selfishness had been seen in terms of other laboratory experiments.

So the conclusion of the team of researchers,

Neuroscientists said,

This makes us assume that there is no such thing as altruistic generosity.

That all generosity,

Since it is in the same part of the brain where selfishness is,

Is about ultimately getting something in return.

And so there were a number of things like that relative to other virtues like honesty.

And Greg and I and Zhongming,

We said,

Well,

What are we going to do?

The title of our book is Neuroscience and Indigenous Wisdom.

So we changed the title for critical neurophilosophy and challenged some of the neuroscience that because this foundational unconscious worldview was guiding what they saw,

Instead of saying,

Well,

Maybe the brain is deeper than just where these lights are going on.

Maybe there's something more complex that's going on.

So I just want to point that out that we've got to be careful with all of our sciences,

Psychology especially,

Which is probably one of the most colonized of our sciences.

And of course,

Indigenous worldview is pre-colonization.

And you can't have decolonization without pre-colonization.

So we see our work and worldview as a tool that's been missing in the decolonization movement.

Well,

Thank you so much for that.

Yes,

Darsha,

You want to add?

Yes,

I just want to point out that it's important to realize that what we're talking about are manifestations or practices,

The way you live your life,

Not ideas,

Not a thought structure.

I mean,

In a way that's true for any practice,

You have thought structures too.

But this is the way you act in the world,

Not just have a concept about it.

So I think it's important to realize that these are practices that actually work,

That lead to flourishing,

That lead to well-being in the bio-community,

That lead to happiness,

That lead to health,

Mental,

Physical health.

This is all grounded in that kind of way of being.

Each of the precepts that you introduce,

You introduce it from the perspective and voice of an indigenous person.

There's scholars,

There's Olympic athletes,

There's healers,

All just total diverse in terms of people's experience and backgrounds and the tribes from which they come from.

And one of the precepts that I would love for us to discuss and how it looks like when you actually are practicing it is the dominant worldview is the focus on self and personal gain.

And the indigenous worldview is emphasis on community welfare.

And you open it with the writing of Donia Enriqueta Contreras and she's a Zapotecan healer and teacher in Oaxaca.

And she talks about these life principles of everything has life,

Reverence for mother nature,

Reverence for our ancestors,

The relationship between human and mother nature.

And then you go on to discuss how this relates to community welfare.

The two of you have a sweet back and forth in the book where you present the writings and then the two of you go back and forth and talk about them from your different perspectives.

So can we do a little of that on this concept of community welfare and indigenous worldview?

Darsha,

Do you want to start?

Sure.

I'm looking through the book here.

What did we say?

What'd you say?

It's been a while,

You know,

Since we wrote it.

So,

Well,

I think the main context here is one of connection,

That we are connected to everything in the natural world.

And it's really important to always be grounded in a sense of connection and respect for those relationships you're in,

The web of life.

You're always,

Every action,

Thought,

Feeling that you are expressing is sending out energy on this web of life to all your relations around you,

Right?

And to be aware of that and to understand that your responsibility then is for the web of life where you are and not to be caught up in some ideals of something else in the future,

Maybe,

That you're working for and to act then.

So again,

This is practices,

The manner in which you treat those around you,

The spider you meet,

You greet the spider,

Do you acknowledge them,

Do you let them go on their way?

All around you,

You have opportunities to be grateful,

To be generous,

To be welcoming to the life that is thriving around you.

You know,

And you say grateful and generous and I think that combination of concepts is crucial.

If you're driving down the freeway and you see this beautiful mountain vista as the sun goes down and you wanna pull over and just go,

Oh my gosh,

How beautiful that is.

You know,

With the indigenous worldview approach,

You're thanking the spirit world.

You're giving appreciation for the beauty that you're witnessing.

And this is what indigenous traditional people do all the time,

Almost every moment there's something to be grateful for.

Well,

If you express gratitude,

It's because someone was generous or something was generous to you and giving you this beautiful vision or this wonderful food or this wonderful friendship of someone helping you.

Whatever that act of gratitude that you have,

Then you begin to practice that yourself as you do your thing and showing the beauty of who you are and showing your ability to help others.

And so this idea of generosity goes hand in hand with this idea of gratitude,

The two terms that Darsha mentioned.

Yeah,

I was really struck when I spent some time in the Sacred Valley of Peru,

How much the words gracias Pachamama are used like before everything,

Before you eat,

Before you take something,

It's just built into like a thanking of the earth is built into conversation in day life and a reminder of where all of this came from.

So when you have that gratitude,

Maybe it changes your behavior too when you feel grateful for what you're receiving.

And on a related note is the concept of taking.

Four Arrows,

You talked about a practice of going out into the wilderness and there being a tree and asking to touch the tree before you touch the tree.

And I was doing a meditation recently with a group of people and we were meditating on a flower and then can we just pick the flower and bring it back to the group after we're done meditating?

And that is such the dominant worldview,

Like,

Ooh,

I meditated on this flower,

I really like this flower,

Now I want this flower and so I'm gonna take this flower and bring it back because it's mine and I'll press it in my book and take it with me.

And the indigenous worldview has such a different perspective on that.

Can you share a bit about that,

That relationship with the earth?

Yes,

This idea of asking permission to touch a tree,

For example,

Is a practice that I've done over the years with different groups.

And it's remarkable to see the outcomes of these.

I've done it with troubled adjudicated youth,

I've done it with Japanese monks.

And the way the exercise goes,

Diana,

Is you have people go out and touch a plant or a tree that you've already predetermined from the conference room,

Right?

And I say,

Go out in this part where there's a lot of trees and bushes and just touch one and come back.

And they look at you like you're crazy and then they'll come back and start to sit down.

Oh,

Don't sit down,

I want you to do it again.

And they look at you and they say,

You're gonna laugh maybe,

But this time I want you to go out again and you can touch the same plant or a different one.

But this time I want you to ask permission and wait for an answer.

And of course,

Depending on the group,

There's always some mumbling and shaking of heads or whatever.

But remarkably,

And I've done this so many times,

When people come back and they report out as to what happened,

The unexpected stories are amazing and always there's someone with tears in their eyes.

And so living like this 24 seven is how we all did live and understanding this idea of the sentience that is in all things.

And this is not in the dominant worldview,

Although some people,

You know,

Love animals and love plants and this deep idea of sentience is rare.

In fact,

I wrote a book with Dr.

Walter Block,

Who is a friend now,

Strange bedfellows that we are,

Called Differing Worldviews.

And his worldview is very different.

I asked him to write the book with me because I didn't want us to debate and be at war.

I wanted to help us understand one another.

And he believes strongly only humans have intrinsic value.

Everything else on earth is utilitarian,

As he says.

And so I thought,

Wow,

This is how our world essentially runs.

I mean,

Even if we can admit to ourselves that it feels wrong,

We live according to that principle.

So until we can call a natural resource,

Which the environmentalist used that word,

A relative,

And really mean it deeply in our hearts,

We're not going to pull out of the tailspin that we're in.

I relate in the book,

My experience when I was gardening,

I saw this rock that was very attractive and I took it into the house and put it on my desk.

And later that night or the next night,

I had a dream where I heard voices complaining and she treated it like a pet rock.

I got the message and promptly took the rock back to where I found it.

So that's the sense,

Not only of sentience around us,

But also paying attention to the signals that come in from the rest of the world.

This is a dynamic,

Complex system.

And as David Bohm pointed out,

Inside intelligence is not in your head,

It comes from outside.

You have to have your heart cleared,

Your mind cleared to receive those signals,

Those divine energy signals,

We can call them.

And I think that's something too,

You have to learn how to redo that.

Our ancestors all did that.

But we've gotten so much into our heads through schooling and through suppressing all our intuitions and connections to the sentient world that it takes practice to get back to that.

Yeah.

And time and nature,

You know.

When I was with the Kogi Mamos in Colombia last year,

They have a 19,

000 foot peak that was never accessed by the conquest of the Spaniards.

And so they still live in that traditional way and I had the privilege of going up into the mountain and on the way down,

Our guide was with his son.

I think the son was maybe six years old.

It's a long climb,

Many miles.

And as we were coming down,

The little boy saw this very interesting stone,

Maybe the size of a fist,

Along the trail,

Because the pathway is very narrow going up this mountain.

And he bent over to pick it up and in the Kogi language,

The man said some words to him very softly and the boy very carefully put the rock back right where it was and kind of made sure it was in the right angles and everything.

And later I had my translator ask what he said to the boy and what he said to the boy was the rock rolled there for some reason to give wisdom to that which is around it.

Something to that effect.

Wow,

I mean,

You know,

That's understanding what Darsha is saying at a level that it's just not in our Western world view.

Well,

It does take,

I think,

Often one of the ways that we can intervene is with children and having children have access to the natural world and spend time in the natural world.

That precept,

Which is the specific precept,

Is all earth entities are sentient.

That precept comes to life for them.

And many of us,

We've had experiences as children in nature,

We can remember times when we felt very connected to a plant or an animal or a certain space and how you felt for that space.

I have a connection to plants that we've been in drought for a lot of years in the Santa Barbara area and we're finally getting,

We've just been getting a lot of water.

And the feeling when we were in drought,

When I would look at a plant that was limp,

I would feel the limpness in my body.

It would make me feel very sad for the plant.

And now seeing flowers that are blooming that I've never seen bloom here,

I feel the uplifted,

Like that sympathetic joy for the plant.

So once we allow ourselves our hearts to open to that,

It feeds us and it also makes us want to take care of all beings.

And another precept,

And actually I want to add that in that precept you reference Robin Wall Kimmerer who wrote Braiding Sweetgrass and her guidelines for the honorable harvest,

Which are very beautiful as well.

And her work has,

I think also brought a lot of interest in terms of indigenous worldview as well.

The folks that,

Many people have read that book and found it very inspiring.

It has poetry.

It's just poetry.

Yes.

Beautiful.

So another indigenous worldview that you talk about,

I'm gonna,

They're all kind of interrelated,

Right?

And there's two that fit together beautifully.

One is high respect for sacred feminine and another related precept is respect for gender role fluidity.

And this is in contrast with rigid and discriminatory gender roles.

So Darsha,

I'm wondering if you can talk a bit about these two precepts.

Well,

The Western civilization has over time,

And this has been maybe 5,

000 years going on,

That women's role has diminished in some people attribute it to women not bringing in economically important activity to the family.

And so their role has diminished in the Western worldview in part,

Perhaps because of that,

But also they're quite powerful.

Women are.

They're very powerful and patriarchy has to make women feel incompetent and powerless and separating women into nuclear families.

Isolated households is one way to undermine women's power because in our ancestral context,

Women would band together in order to meet the needs of their young children,

Raising children together.

Cooperative breeding,

Sarah Hrdy's term.

But this cooperative child rearing required a lot of calories which necessitated hunters to get meat.

At least this is the radical anthropology view.

And so women banded together to control the sexual inclinations and activities of the men in order to get them to bring meat.

And then they could have the sexual liaisons and they followed the moon and the full moon and the dark moon and had various painting in red so you couldn't tell which woman was menstruating,

For example.

All these techniques that are found across the middle of Africa where our ancient civilizations come from,

Our ancient ways of being.

So I think what we've lost is the sense of the mother-centered way of raising children and being in community.

Very important that children have their needs met.

I write about this a lot for the neurobiological structure of their brain and body.

And when they're undercared for,

All sorts of things go off kilter and they're less well-led and less social,

Less moral as a result.

So I think we need to get back to understanding that gender femaleness is kind of central to having a good life and a community that thrives.

Again,

It's back to understanding ourselves as fluid beings.

We can be one way or another,

More male,

More female in this moment or that moment.

And the freedom that comes with accepting everyone for who they are as they come.

You write about the difference between patriarchy and matriarchy and that the term patriarchy is associated with male domination.

But matriarchy is not about rule by women,

But rather egalitarian freedom for all genders.

And I really like that distinction because I think it's even the word itself can be conceptualized differently when we're talking about matriarchal societies.

Four Arrows,

Do you want to add anything to this precept?

Well,

I mean,

There's not a coincidence that most of the pre-contact cultures were matriarchal.

And certainly all of the peaceful First Nations pre-contact were matriarchal.

You know,

Even today in our most sacred ceremonies,

Lakota Sundance,

The women do not pierce.

Men do.

Because we keep forgetting these responsibilities that women have intrinsically.

You know,

They already bleed.

They already give labor.

They already nurture.

And so that wisdom has always been present in indigeneity.

And the histories of this are very,

Very important and are very,

Very,

Very clear.

And that diminishment of women in the world is part of the reason that we don't take care of Mother Earth.

Beautiful.

Okay,

Competition.

This was another fun one.

I love that one.

Interesting conversation.

Well,

That's because I hear you're quite the athlete Four Arrows when reading about some of your,

And I'd love for you to share a little bit about your life and your competition life.

But this precept around competition,

We often think of,

You know,

Collaboration and the importance and benefits of collaboration.

But in an indigenous worldview,

Competition is part of it.

The sacred nature of competition and games.

And I'd love for you to share a little bit about this precept.

You said something earlier,

Diana,

That all these precepts are interrelated.

That is so crucial.

You really,

It's not a pick and choose.

You've got to really see every one of them relates to every other one.

And at the same time,

All of the ones on the indigenous worldview side that relate to one another,

They also relate to the ones on the Western side in a potential complementary way.

So I don't want folks to think that one side is absolutely wrong and the one side is absolutely right because you can't have a mountain without a valley.

And there are,

There are these continuums.

For example,

The hierarchy of Lakota does occur during buffalo hunts when someone is named,

But it doesn't for the rest of the time.

So this interrelationship is really important.

But what you're saying about this idea is just crucial because,

You know,

Even Darwin's knew that competition was not the main way Earth lived,

Right?

Life on Earth lived.

And it was ultimately collaboration.

And that competition was a requirement in many ways for the collaboration.

But ultimately,

It was always about,

About collaboration.

And once we understand that,

You know,

It changes everything.

And so,

Yes,

I,

You know,

I'm very competitive as are indigenous people.

We,

You know,

They love to gamble and do sports.

And some of the greatest athletes have been indigenous people.

But,

You know,

There's a lot of interesting stories about like at Carlisle,

Carlisle,

The Indian University,

Back in the days of Jim Thorpe,

The coaches used to get crazy mad because the games were always winding up tied.

So when Carlisle would play against West Point,

You know,

The back and forth.

And one time one of the coaches said,

What is going on?

You guys are better than this.

You could have won.

And it's like,

Well,

But we backed off a little bit so they could have their turn getting a point.

Our other sports where they go out and get big logs and two teams of 11 will carry these giant logs for 40 hard miles.

But one log is always lighter than the other.

And that's the one that gets in front.

And when that happens,

The competition doesn't work anymore because of the inequality of the weight.

So a couple people get off of the team that's on the light log to go help the people on the other one.

The idea is to push yourself.

You know,

There's never been a four minute mile broken by someone that's going out by themselves to run.

You always have to have a partner to push you.

And that competition then is about increasing your potential,

Whatever your potential is.

And so people should love to go out and play people that can chick their butt,

Right?

Because that's a way to push you to be the best.

And then you just give thanks instead of feeling bad and never wanting to participate in sports again because of our understanding that winning is about quality of character or ego.

So it's a crucial,

It's a crucial difference between the idea of indigenous worldview competition and competition in the world and how it's come to be.

I recently interviewed a world champion of mountain biking and she talked about competition.

She talked about,

Yeah,

I compete every day and I compete within the perspective of not trying to get one piece of the puzzle.

And so I think of not trying to get one piece of the pie but trying to make the pie bigger.

And from,

If the pie is big enough for all of us,

I'm going to be pushing my edge of doing my best while everyone else is pushing their edge of doing their best and it's big enough for all.

And I thought that was such a beautiful and also that concept of she's a female athlete and bringing that perspective.

She's a female athlete mother.

So she has a lot of wisdom to her.

But I love this idea of the competition and games are actually part of play and part of what help us grow.

And it,

But there's a,

There's a different angle on it than having someone lose or someone,

You know,

Miss out on the benefit.

Yeah.

Darshad,

Anything you want to add?

Yeah.

Play is one of the best ways to grow your right hemisphere.

And the right hemisphere is what we underdevelop in the Western child raising because it grows more rapidly in the first years.

It's where the seed of our social,

Emotional intelligence and our empathy and our ability to reach higher consciousness.

And when it's underdeveloped,

We're just more depressed and less able to be,

Get along with others.

But play throughout life actually grows that right hemisphere.

So I,

With my students,

Play folk song games just to,

Because it's fun.

You know,

You're running around,

You're hunting where you will go and you catch people and you have to touch each other and you're laughing and you're singing and then we go play with kindergartners and they see the kindergartners so explode with joy that everybody's having fun in this play that's,

You know,

More structured because,

You know,

If you're not used to playing it's helpful to have a structure to it.

But ideally,

You're able to play with young children,

Zero to six,

Who are ready to run around,

Not the babies but the older ones,

Run around and,

You know,

Play chase and wrestle and all sorts of creative games and that's going to be fun.

And it's that back and forth because you have to stop your aggressive tendencies because your partner will stop playing with you if you're too aggressive and so you have to learn to control yourself and you don't know what the partner's going to do so you have to deal with unexpectedness and it's all in a fun way to grow your ability to get along in the world.

And everything you say is what we should continue to do as seniors,

Right?

That's right.

I've been with Hollywood and I've been with Hollywood and I've been with 102-year-old medicine men with the Rarámuri for example and it's just like they are children and their demeanor and how they act and their humor it's,

You know,

You don't ever stop having those qualities that you so beautifully just described.

So another concept that relates to community and collaboration is conflict resolution and one of the precepts that you reflect on is conflict resolution and how we can help people to be more inclusive and more open and more open to other people and so we see conflict resolution as a return to the community.

Can you speak a little bit about how what you see as an indigenous worldview around conflict resolution?

Well,

This is a long-standing set of practices that are not about punishment.

Why would you punish anybody?

That's just harmful to everybody.

You don't heal anything,

Right?

So the practice is more of a holistic restorative justice.

So even more than what you see restorative justice as a way of healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and healing Alienation from the tribe was usually probably the only punishment that was doled out and that was a possibility but instead the decision of the community was that the family of the deceased boy adopt the child that killed their son and when one does an adoption ceremony making a relative ceremony which is one of the seven sacred ceremonies of the Lakota they had to make a relative which included ceremony and gifts so if you can imagine your son was just killed by some angry person and now this person you're giving gifts to and you're doing ceremony with to bring into your family it's a pretty extreme example of what we're saying and of course the outcome was that this young man became one of the great great leaders of the Lakota and you contrast that to what would have happened had he been beaten or put into prison or of course we didn't have prisons but you get the idea Well you're changing the system and the context for that child and then the child has the opportunity to change within a changed system and context I think very much one of those basic principles I know psychology has a lot of things that are problematic about it but one of the basic principles of psychology the fundamental attribution error which is the tendency to attribute things to the disposition of the individual and neglect the context and the system that's playing a role and just that nature of bringing the son this child in a very nourishing environment for him is maybe what could help him change as opposed to putting him in a really ostracizing him putting him in a toxic environment or a jail or whatever so that's beautiful and what courage for that family to do something like that that's incredible What are the principles of conflict resolution that when we think about putting this into practice all of these are I'm envisioning people go ask a tree actually go do that try that today that's something that go ask a tree before you touch it go ask a shell before you pick it up from the beach but what would the core principles of conflict resolution look like that people could put into practice from an indigenous world view?

Well that there is a larger circle of understanding the incident that people are brought in to dialogue about that that the idea of gratitude and forgiveness are brought into it that you know just fundamental kind of common sense relative to the degree of the situation as to what dangers might certainly there are today individuals who maybe would continue to be dangerous and so those things we have to make these compromises from a world view that we once had because of the environment that the new world view has given us but we can work toward doing this in much much better much much better ways when we look at right now the prison systems for example are based on profit and the numbers of people that are in prison for non-violent crimes is outrageous right and so we have a lot of work to do and the principles are not that difficult to put into place if we were able to overcome these other world view precepts that we could name So I can go through what we put in the book about conflict resolution what the print the kind of areas to think about are and one is a focus on spirit so don't just look at the person as a individual isolated but they're in relationships and so there's ruptured relationships going on when there's a disruption a crime or a delinquency and to understand that the healthy person is about having good relationships healthy relationships so something has gone wrong the group has to be healed not just the individual and the individual harmed but the whole group has to be involved in that healing and to pay attention to the heart centeredness of a person something went wrong there that they acted out in a way that was harmful and to understand that you don't always have to talk about things right in native communities just being in the natural world and letting the land heal you being with animals horses and such that Four Arrows has used in healing practices I think we have to just have a broader sense of what the options are and use what works with that particular individual because everyone's different right but the group has to be healed as well as the individual That's beautiful and really relates to the last precept that you write about which is the emphasis on heart wisdom overhead wisdom and I'm wondering if we can close on that talking about the importance of the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart and the heart The heart is similar to a brain.

In fact,

It's referred to as a heart-brain by some specialists because it has like,

You know,

40,

000 neurons or something like that that are like those in our brain and it has its own nervous system and so there is a sense that the physiology of our bodies deserves more.

Of course,

We know this in all of the metaphors of love and heart-feltness and all those kinds of terms but I think that and using the metaphor and the science of brain hemisphere dominance you know,

This idea of being more on our right brain activity with these other things that relate to the heart like intuition and compassion,

Right?

So,

You know,

I think that this idea of leading with the heart you know,

Has really been practiced and certainly Sitting Bull talks about this in the interviews that he has had about his generosity and his childlike behaviors and his continued positivity and sort of caring for others.

Darsha?

The wisdom traditions of the world have emphasized heart wisdom as being clearing out the ego,

Clearing away fear,

Being open to a state of being,

Of being open,

That's how you can be wise,

It's the state that matters and this is something the indigenous people around the world have practiced where you are open to the divine energies,

The energies from the universe,

In part because you are thriving as an individual.

So the San Bushmen have,

And John Young has identified,

All their characteristics of thriving that include this quiet mind,

This ability to listen to others,

Have empathy and forgiveness and generosity and gratitude and just the ability to be childlike,

The ability to be present.

And so that heart-mindedness is about connecting to the other person,

Connecting where you are,

And being unimpeded by your fear,

Your ego,

The future worries,

The past despair,

Whatever it is,

You're here now and you're able to connect.

And that is what we aim for if you're going to have a thriving community,

If you're going to have and display well-being as an individual.

Thank you,

Beautifully said.

For those that want to read all of your precepts,

We just dove into a few of them today.

Your book is Restoring the Kinship Worldview.

Indigenous Voices introduced 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth.

And I guess before off air,

Before we started,

We talked about our intentions for today's podcast.

And I also maybe would love for you just to share your wishes for folks as they're receiving this information,

How you hope it is used,

Where you hope it's used.

Well,

I hope that people will get in touch with their inner,

More subtle self,

And honor and respect and feel great gratitude for the fire,

Earth,

Air,

And water of us,

But to really recognize that we are transient in our physicalness,

That we will move on,

And that we are not physical beings looking for a spiritual experience in this work.

We're spiritual beings that are having a physical experience in order to enjoy the gifts of part of the cosmos and to be learning how to continue on.

And I think that idea of spirit that Darsha brought up before is too rarely really believed in as something that is not just sort of fantasy.

So,

That's sort of a message I think that I would like to close with.

Well,

I would like your listeners to remember that they're members of the earth community and that we are grounded here.

Go lie on the earth for 20 minutes and feel that energy and that love that Mother Earth has for us.

And then also then understand this spiritual connection that we are here in these bodies for now,

And then we'll go into,

We'll disintegrate,

And then join other life bodies.

This is a cycle of life,

And we're here all the time spiritually.

We're just maybe not going to be in this particular ego shape,

Right?

So,

Just relax.

Be connected.

Breathe.

Honor and respect all the living beings around you.

Get back into sensing the sentient world and enjoy it.

Be in the moment and feel the love and the joy that brings.

Thank you.

Those are beautiful hopes to end on.

And I appreciate you both for taking your time and us meeting from Mexico to North Dakota.

South Bend,

Indiana.

Oh my gosh,

I got it wrong.

South Bend,

Indiana.

Why did I say North Dakota?

I don't know why I had that.

This is my,

Yeah.

Too cold.

From Mexico to South Bend,

Indiana.

There you go.

You were thinking of the Lakota from South Dakota.

I think maybe that's what it was.

I've been reading so much about the Lakota from you in here.

Yeah.

Okay,

Good.

Thanks for having us.

Your smile has given us joy and thank you very,

Very much.

So,

On the show today,

We talked about just six of the 28 precepts that are discussed in Restoring the Kinship Worldview.

And I want to share with you some ideas of how you can put these precepts into practice in your life.

The first one that we talked about is emphasis on community welfare.

And this is in contrast with the emphasis on self and personal gain.

An emphasis on community welfare is really seeing ourselves as part of greater systems.

A practice that you can start doing is to ask yourself two questions.

The first question is,

What is important to me right now in terms of my values?

And the second is,

What is important to us in terms of our values?

Whether that's including your family,

Your work setting,

Your greater communities,

And hopefully the earth as well.

The next precept that we talked about was that all earth entities are sentient.

Robin Wall Kimmerer,

Who wrote the book Braiding Sweetgrass,

Writes about these guidelines for honorable harvest that include things like introducing yourself and being accountable to the one who comes asking for life.

Asking permission before taking.

Never taking the first and never taking the last.

Only taking what you need.

Harvesting in a way that is meant to minimize harm and using it respectively.

Never wasting what you've taken and share.

And giving thanks for what you've been given.

And Darsha in Four Arrows talked about how this leads to gratitude,

Generosity,

And respect.

So the practice that I'd love for you to try out this week is the one that Four Arrows offered us.

Go find a tree,

A plant,

Or a rock,

Or even a pet,

And ask permission before you touch it.

Notice how it changes your relationship with it when you ask permission.

And hopefully we're doing that with each other as well,

Right?

You can go back and listen to my consent interview to learn more about the importance of that.

The third worldview that we talked about was high respect for the sacred feminine,

And a fourth one was respect for gender role fluidity.

There's evidence that indigenous societies are predominantly matriarchical,

And evidence that pre-contact indigenous societies included gender nonconforming people.

And as we consider this precept,

It is really honoring diversity and egalitarian freedom for all genders.

And part of that practice is being aware of your own biases and patterning,

Even looking at your own patterning within your home around gender and in particular patriarchy.

The next precept that we explored was the sacred nature of competition and games.

This was a fun one,

How you can bring more play into your life.

Go back and listen to my episode with Mike Rucker if you want to learn more about fun,

Or Sonia Looney if you want to learn more about competition.

But I'd love for you to compete at something this week and notice how it improves your skills and even how you can dial up or dial back your effort based on what's needed in the moment.

Finally,

Conflict resolution as a return to community,

And a related precept which has to do with emphasis on heart wisdom,

Overhead wisdom.

I'll link to the article that Joseph Sirochi and colleagues wrote on heart rate variability and wisdom and how it's related to self-distancing.

Actually,

Your ability to step back and observe yourself is central to this relationship between heart variability and wisdom.

And when we step into the heart space and stay open,

We're better able to care for others and take on others' perspectives,

Not be so stuck in our egos.

Heart wisdom from the indigenous worldview really parallels with the processes of self as context in act and the core value that rises to the surface when you start practicing psychological flexibility,

Which is compassion.

So this week,

When you're in a conflict or you're trying to make a decision,

Can you contact your heart and act from there?

We need your heart.

We need each other's hearts to be leading the way in order to face some of the challenges that we're facing globally.

So thank you so much for listening to this episode of Your Life in Process.

I appreciate you for staying open hearted and open minded.

And happy Earth Day,

Everyone.

This is just the perfect episode to celebrate.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Your Life in Process.

When you enter your life in process,

When you become psychologically flexible,

You become free.

If you like this episode or think it would be helpful to somebody,

Please leave a review over at Podchaser.

Com.

And if you have any questions,

You can leave them for me by phone at 805-457-2776 or send me a voicemail by email at podcast at your life in process.

Com.

I want to thank my team,

Craig,

Ashley Hyatt,

And thank you to Ben Gold at Bell and Branch for his original music.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only,

And it's not meant to be a substitute for mental health treatment.