Facilitator looks to the past for guidance

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Romeo Crow Chief's workshop at the ninth annual Knowing Our Spirits conference was a series of exercises for the participants to help them set personal goals.

At the root of the exercises was a discovery, however, of how our reaction to our past will determine our future.

In his workshop, Crow Chief discussed a variety of topics, including family planning, community or organizational planning, personal inspiration and disillusionment.

Raised by his grandmother, Crow Chief, 47, from the Siksika First Nation, moved to Calgary when he was 12 to be with his mother for a short time before moving back to his community. He attended schools in Strathmore and the Drumheller and he's worked in the community since 1981.

Trained in the area of accounting, his healing journey began when he was 26 years old. He started off as an office manager and eventually became a manager. He wanted to improve his skills so he started to take courses and attend conferences on personal development.

"I saw a need for doing that for my community, because many of our people have lost hope and confidence in themselves. So I wanted to empower them by building their skills. I feel that you can get a lot more from a person who is working with you when you build them up positively, than if you were bringing them down. So I started improving my skills and then passing them on to others," he said.

"I do not give advice. I just help people know that they have choices and they usually come up with their options as far as what they want to do. I just facilitate the process, knowing that we can step out of our comfort zones because we are creatures of habit. We sometimes do the same things the same way over and over again and we forget that we can do it differently.

"We have a lot of community members that are scared to leave their communities, because they are scared that people are going to be racist against them and that they are going to run into problems. So they feel more comfortable in their own environment. Sometimes you need someone else to help you step out of the box, to help you take a bit of risk, and show you that you can do it, and that everything is possible."

In his workshop Crow Chief, a certified mediator, talks about seeing only part of a person when you look at them.

"As in an iceberg, you only see what is above the water. So what I try to do when I mediate is, I try to find out what is below the water. What are the values of this person? What are their concerns? What are their fears?

"As I get to know the person better, I find out who they are because when I deal with conflict a lot of times what is on the surface is not really the issue. There is always something underneath so I try to help find that. If there is a conflict between two people, I'm there to help. I'm not there to take sides. I'm just there to help them come to a resolution, and hopefully for them to come to a win/win situation," he said.

Crow Chief is starting his own company called Crow Chief consulting and mentoring services in Siksika. He believes that everyone can learn from his past.

"As you move forward, you are responsible for your choices. Whatever happened to you in the past, you have a choice to respond to it, and if things happened to you negatively in the past you can turn them into a positive," he said.