I was lucky to be part of committee from the Cree Board of Health that promotes wellness for the Cree Nation. This opened me up to an opportunity of being part of a Mental Wellness team, which in turn allowed me to get training for counselling on addictions (which is only halfway done, a long story reserved for another blog entry) by the Nechi Institute.
I have had some very insightful learning experiences through this training, especially on myself. I shared what I had learned with my close friends, using a sci-fi analogy and they found it quite clever and suggested I post this analogy. So here it is:"
Being the geek that I am and loving science fiction, when it came to be my turn to talk about what I had learned over the past week during my training, I found that using Star Trek as an analogy about how I was functioning over the years resonated with me. If you don’t know what Star trek is, Google it! You may actually end up liking the shows.
I feel that I am like the Starship Enterprise. I am comprised of Captain Kirk, who is like my confident/arrogant side. There is also my logical/rational side which is obviously Mr. Spock, Doctor McCoy is my emotional/reactionary side, Mr. Scott is my clever/smart side, Sulu my direction in life, Uhura my communication/expressive side, and finally there is my youthful/sometimes naïve side which is Checkov.
After a long battle with my own life explorations and dealing with addicts, addictions of my own, drama, betrayal and loss, I took an easy mission and just orbited a planet called unemployed. It was a rest and reprieve from an adventure that took a wrong turn somewhere.
It was good for some time because it helped me take the time to recoup and repair. During that time in order for me to rest, an away team left me with only Spock to run the show and Urhura to maintain communication.
So I was being driven by logic and rationality, however to be fully functional I need the rest of the crew. I ignored my emotional needs that McCoy brings, my inner youth that Chekov gives, my sense of direction that Sulu provides which of course meant my smarts from Scotty weren’t being used much. This affected an important crew member of me, the Enterprise: My self-confidence, Captain Kirk!
How can I go through life’s adventures without my self-esteem to help me be confident enough to take the risks again? That is what Captain Kirk represents to me. Being rational and relying on logic is a good survival tool with a skeleton crew in you. However, once fully operational, all it does is stall you. It doesn’t open you up to the wonderful opportunities out there. You need the full crew to be a successful explorer and boldly go where no one has gone before!
It is a scary concept when you have lived through hard battles and carry the scars to pick up your crew and go, but you can`t be an explorer of your own life if you are just going to orbit a planet undetermined time to protect yourself from whatever perceived danger you may or may not encounter.
So I beamed my crew back on, welcomed them with all the qualities and flaws they have and move forward. I am presently moving forward with a new job as Cree Health Representative for the Cree Board of Health. I am enthusiastic about this job because we are doing things to make a difference by bringing awareness and prevention messages to my community.
I am boldly going forward in my life.