More than one in four American adults — that’s more than 70 million people — live with at least one disability.

Some disabilities are visible; others, including many chronic illnesses, are not. Some disabilities affect mobility; others affect communication, development, learning, or behavior. Some people are born disabled; others become so through illness or injury. And many folks live with multiple disabilities.

Even if you aren’t disabled, chances are you love, work with, exercise with, go to school with, worship with, or ride the bus with someone who is. If you live long enough, you likely will become disabled yourself.

“There’s a saying that you can join the disability community at any time,” says activist and author Emily Ladau. “That’s not a threat. It’s just part of the human experience.”

Yet our society is not built for the human experience of disability.

Despite the achievements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other efforts, many disabled people cannot participate fully in society as it’s structured. People with disabilities still have limited access to spaces, technologies, and activities. They still experience discrimination, exclusion, and segregation in housing, education, healthcare, and the workplace.

We have a long way to go to create a more equitable society, and we are all called upon to be part of the solution. But we must first recognize how our assumptions about ability and disability are part of the problem.

Pervasive Ableism

In her book, Demystifying Disability, Ladau, who lives with multiple disabilities and uses a wheelchair, describes ableism as “attitudes, actions, and circumstances that devalue people because they are disabled or perceived as having a disability.”

Ableism presumes and prioritizes ability over disability and is woven into the fabric of everyday life, she says. Sometimes it’s blatant, such as when disabled people are passed over for jobs, when events are held in inaccessible locations, or when disability is mocked or used as the punchline of a joke.

Often, however, ableism shows up as well-intended behaviors that point to an unexamined belief that disabled people are “less than.” For example, telling someone they’re “so inspiring” for doing everyday tasks like grocery shopping is ableist, as is speaking to a disabled adult like a child or rushing to help a disabled person without checking if they need or want help.

Ableism is so entrenched in our culture that many of us even shy away from the word “disability.”

“There’s this fear that it’s a bad word,” says Ladau. “It’s stigmatized. We’re socialized to think about disability as a negative. But it really is the most straightforward, accurate terminology. It’s not a bad thing; it just describes a facet of somebody’s existence.”

How to Be an Ally

While noting that her perspectives on disability are not necessarily shared by all disabled people, Ladau offers guidance on how able-bodied people can shift out of an ableist worldview and truly support people living with disability.

Own your ableism. If you’re able-bodied, what drives your impulse to “help” people with disabilities? Is it pity, sympathy, or a belief that disabled people are helpless? “The first step to being an ally is unlearning this misconception and recognizing that disabled people aren’t in need of saving,” Ladau writes. “We’re in need of a world that recognizes our rights and our humanity without question.”

Mind your language. Ableist words and phrases are embedded in our vocabulary, she notes. Euphemisms like “differently abled” or “special needs” reject the reality of disability. Metaphors like “fall on deaf ears” trivialize hearing loss. Words like “crazy” or “lame” are often used in daily conversation to describe people or situations, but such words are considered by many disabled people to be outright slurs.

Work to fix systems, not people. “There are many things I encounter as a disabled woman that I find very challenging,” she says. “I’m not denying myself the opportunity for care, but I’m asking that people don’t try to ‘fix’ me, the human being. Instead, acknowledge that there are certain facets of my being that require support.”

“Nothing about us without us.” If you are a nondisabled person engaging with disability issues, yield the floor and hold the microphone for your disabled colleagues. “Disabled people should be at the center of the conversation,” Ladau says. “Be an advocate alongside. Be an advocate together. Don’t try to be the loudest person in the room.”

Think journey, not destination. We all must start somewhere in understanding that disability is part of the human experience, she says, and we will make mistakes. “Sometimes you’re going to say something harmful. Sometimes you’re going to do the wrong thing. Sometimes you’re going to offer help, and it’s going to be awkward.” The key is to remember that the person in front of you is a whole human being and not someone in need of charity.

Inclusive Health and Fitness Spaces

Disabled people benefit from health and fitness facilities as much as anyone else, yet they often face barriers the moment they come through the gym door.

“Imagine going to a fitness class and not seeing anyone who looks like you, or not seeing equipment you think you can use,” says Sarah Winchester, a personal training leader who specializes in adaptive exercise at Life Time in Frisco, Texas. “The possibilities for you there would seem limited.”

Here are some examples of everyday barriers disabled people face in health and fitness spaces:

Physical Barriers

• Equipment placed too close together or gear left in pathways, making it difficult to navigate the fitness floor safely
• Weightlifting platforms that don’t have ramps, making it harder for people in wheelchairs to access
• Cable and pulley handles that are not within reach
• Loud, pumping music that overwhelms people with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or sensory-processing issues

Organizational Barriers

• Having to pay extra for personal trainers just to make the facilities accessible
• Staff who are not trained to adapt exercises safely or for desired fitness outcomes
• Gym apps and websites that are not designed for people with visual, auditory, or cognitive disabilities, and online exercise demonstrations that don’t include disabled models

Social Barriers

• Cultures that emphasize “optimal” performance over health and well-being
• Stigma, rude comments, or staring
• Expressed assumptions about what a disabled person should or should not be able to do
• Group dynamics that feel exclusive instead of welcoming

Small changes can make a big difference in how all members experience health and fitness centers. As an advocate for making fitness more accessible, Winchester offers the following advice for trainers, staff, and members who want to make their spaces welcoming for all.

For trainers and staff:

• Seek out continuing education through organizations like the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) or the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).
• Advocate for facility changes — such as equipment relocation or settings adjustments — to make machines and equipment easier to access.
• Get creative with gear and modifications to support your clients.
• Be human. “The No. 1 skill for trainers is basic human connection,” says Winchester. “Just be welcoming.”

For members:

• Put weights and other gear away when you’re finished with them. “It may seem tedious, but it does make a difference,” Winchester says.
• Lower machine cables and pulley handles to the halfway position when you’re finished so people can reach them without asking for assistance.
• If you’re able-bodied and regularly work out near or with someone who is disabled, introduce yourself and be friendly. Real connections break barriers and lift the feeling of isolation for everyone.

The post How to Be an Ally to the Disability Community appeared first on Experience Life.

Jennifer Mullan, PsyD, is more than a clinical psychologist. She’s a scholar-activist, an ancestral channel, and a paradigm crusher. She views much of contemporary psychotherapy as part of an outdated and broken system, rooted in Eurocentric values and methodologies. In her work to decolonize therapy, she encourages practitioners and support seekers alike to break free from these constraints, which can be not only unhelpful but also retraumatizing for people from marginalized communities.

This involves moving toward an entirely new model that considers how the ancestral, collective, political, and psychological aspects of our daily lives intersect and impact us, as she explains in her 2023 book, Decolonizing Therapy: Oppression, Historical Trauma, and Politicizing Your Practice. She also addresses the subject in her podcast, From Root to Bone With Dr. Jenn Mullan.

As a multiracial, Black-identified cisgender woman of Panamanian, Irish, Italian, and Indigenous descents, Mullan has endeavored to do this hard work in her own life, too. She spoke with us about the act of decolonizing therapy, developing a relationship with rage, and adopting a more collective approach to mental health. 

Experience Life | From your perspective, what does it mean to decolonize therapy?

Jennifer Mullan | Decolonizing therapy is about uprooting and disconnecting from colonial harm. And identifying how we as healers, helpers, and space holders may engage in that kind of structural, emotional, political harm — even when we are “well-intentioned.” That goes for the practitioner as well as the client.

Decolonizing therapy looks at how colonization deeply impacts how we think, how we engage, and how we seek healing. As Angela Davis says, “‘radical’ means ‘grasping things at the root.’” That is what we are doing in decolonizing therapy — ensuring folks are helped and learn to heal from the root.

Whether we’re looking at the transatlantic slave trade, residential schools, or Japanese internment camps in what’s now known as the United States, these various forms of colonization have impacted how a people and a culture have learned to do relationships with our bodies, with each other, and with the land around us.

My invitation is for therapists to look at how the colonial wound leads to inflammation in the body. As we know, trauma, stress, and inflammation are besties. Decolonizing therapy focuses on political access — how our people responded to historical trauma and how that shows up in us today.

EL | How has the mental health industry potentially caused harm, particularly to people of color?

JM | Therapists and clinicians operating from dominant Western psychological frameworks have historically aided in incarcerating people who did not fit within the margins of society. Anyone that pushed up against the dominant political structure or belief system was often seen as “manic” or “psychotic,” and research has shown that this happens at a higher rate with Black and Indigenous bodies.

So the question is, What is sane? And who gets to decide what sanity is in a world where many people don’t feel seen? People have lots of reasons to revolt, to rebel, to rage.

Oftentimes, we’ll see individuals who have alternate experiences or realities. Sometimes it’s for a period of time, like when dealing with grief. We often forget that leaving home, being forcibly removed from land, and watching genocides on TV or social media causes vicarious re-traumatization, as therapists call it. It may not actually be happening to someone, but it’s having an impact on their mind, body, and spirit. Therapists have been taught to diagnose anyone or anything that’s outside the norm of what we deem happy or content.

EL | Many of us have a complicated relationship with rage, but you explain that it is sacred and holds wisdom. Why is it important to connect with our rage?

JM | Historically, emotionality hasn’t been seen as a strength, and this impacts how we respond, if at all, to big emotions like rage. Rage wants to be seen, heard, and validated — because it is protecting us. We all experience rage. It doesn’t just show up out of nowhere; rage is the love child of ancestral trauma, shame, and suffocated grief. It desires to be seen and heard and for action to be taken — but that doesn’t mean violence. Sometimes we correlate violence with rage because we’ve seen unbridled rage harm people.

Also, we have been socialized to quiet and pathologize anything that is too much. Anything that is big, expansive, loud, a roar — our educational and mental/medical health systems have trained us to engage closer to whiteness. And the trick is, white people rage too. In fact white rage needs further studying and investigating, but instead our gaze as a society is on Black rage and people who feel too much having some sort of problem.

All people, but women in particular, have a right to look at what creates these moments of disconnect and in what areas of our life we’re pushing down and swallowing what we want to say, what we want to do, and what we need.

One of my mentors, Ruth King, who wrote Healing Rage, discusses the six disguises of rage. Rage isn’t just fighting; it can show up as distraction and devotion (flight types), dominance and defiance (fight types), and depression and dependence (freeze types). These are masks and lifelong coping mechanisms that kept us alive. Rage is not an emotion to squash or remove — rather an energy that desires to be seen, heard, and loved. I believe it’s vital to form a relationship with rage and to figure out what our inner rage child needs.

EL | How can we start to develop a comfortable relationship with rage?

JM | The first thing is to form a practice that allows you to notice the energy of rage on a daily basis. All of us have a fire somewhere, and all it takes is the wrong poke to make it blow.

I suggest having a little sacred space with a picture of yourself as a child when you were unabashedly joyful or when you started to notice society, a parent, or a teacher trying to put you in a box or dim your light. Many of us have been socialized to get small, quiet, invisible — and this disconnects us from our inner flame. This is often new and uncomfortable for people because we have been trained and socialized to fear big, bad rage. Instead what if we turned around, really looked at it, and asked what it has to teach or tell us?

I journal every morning, and one of my freewriting questions is, What does my inner rage child or teen need today? That might look like letting yourself cry, taking a quiet meditation, or punching a bunch of pillows on the couch.

Or if you have access to a gym and your body has the physical ability to do so, you could try an activity like kickboxing. It’s about letting that younger aspect of yourself feel seen, heard, and fed.

Release is a very primal, normal protective response, so we don’t need to demonize it. I highly recommend a mental, emotional, and physical practice as a way to cope with rage. My only ask is that people get serious about rage-release aftercare. That is the specific set of rituals, practices, or habits one may need post-release. Whether [it’s] a planned or a reactive “oops-release.” Either way, rage can really feel shameful if we do not set up practices or care ecosystems after the physical release of some of our anger and rage.

EL | Can you talk through the process of emotional decolonization?

JM | The emotional decolonial process is for everybody, whether your ancestors have colonized or whether you have been a colonized people.

This emotional decolonial process is about getting curious about your ancestry and examining where exploitation is showing up in your life. Exploitation is a big word, but where is there not a fair-enough reciprocal exchange in how we’re living? That can be emotionally, financially, physically, or professionally. We need to take stock of what’s no longer working for us and why that might be.

The next part is understanding the ways in which our emotions started. The emotional decolonial process involves working through your own areas: the past (historical and ancestral trauma and wisdom), the political (who and what has and has no access), the psychological (mental emotional health), and the people (community care). It is our work as helpers to journey inward and down first — then we can begin to help people unlearn and remember that they are not a problem; they are living in violent systems and trying to survive.

Finally, there’s connecting with community. I’m a huge fan of group therapy, support groups, book clubs, and affinity spaces that allow us to have a mirror to learn about ourselves.

EL | What does a more just, collective approach to mental health look like?

JM | It’s where therapists are not the end all and be all expert; they’re just one person who collaborates like a web with other practitioners. It’s understanding that we as therapists have been taught to pathologize rather than look at culture, identity, ability, and the like.

It looks like many current practitioners of therapy divesting. It looks like practitioners coming out of their own closets and honoring their neurodivergence, other ways of knowing, and their “AI,” or “ancestral intelligence,” as my friend Jen Maramba states. It means divesting from Eurocentric talk therapy practices as the end all and be all, and instead reconvening with peer support, mad liberation, somatic and nervous system care, and our own cultural medicine.

A more collective form of this work is meeting people where they’re at, which might look like getting on a bus with them and talking, rather than expecting them to come into an office. It also involves more community spaces for peer support, because as a society we’re really struggling with loneliness and isolation.

Decolonizing Therapy was formed for therapists to understand how our well-meaning intentions can be harmful if we’re not considering culture, environment, access, and more. It’s a loving call to action for all people to begin to unfurl colonialism’s grip around how we see and engage with each other.

My hope is that this brings more liberation and equity — that individuals find some solace in ancestral whispers and develop an understanding that colonialism is deeply intertwined with our mental, spiritual, and physical health.

The post What Does It Mean to Decolonize Therapy? appeared first on Experience Life.

Authentic Native representation is on the rise in popular movies and television, politics, ecology, and more, yet misunderstanding and misconceptions about Native American life and culture still abound. That’s because American history as it’s long been taught in U.S. schools has largely whitewashed the challenging truths about colonialism, which intended to destroy Indigenous lifeways through dispossession, displacement, and disenfranchisement.

The long-lasting effects of colonialism can still be felt today in Native communities, which experience ongoing discrimination, marked health inequities, and disproportionately high rates of poverty, substance use, and suicide.

But those traumas don’t paint a full picture of Indigenous life among the United States’ 574 federally recognized tribes and the hundreds of other tribes that are not officially acknowledged; the picture is also filled with beauty, joy, and traditional wisdom.

As tribal nations endeavor to uphold their sovereignty and revitalize their rich cultures, non-Native individuals play a vital role in uplifting them. So, what exactly does that entail?

We tapped four Indigenous change makers for their thoughts on this complex topic, including Life Time personal trainer and martial arts instructor Snake Blocker (Lipan Apache); IllumiNative executive director Angel Charley (Laguna/Zuni/Diné); author and entrepreneur Sarah Eagle Heart (Oglala Lakota); and acclaimed chef Sean Sherman (Oglala Lakota). Here, they offer 10 tips for how to be an intentional, empathetic ally to Native people.

1. Educate yourself. This is a necessary first step, according to all these experts. “If we don’t understand this country’s difficult history, we’re doomed to perpetuate it or repeat it,” says Sherman, whose Minneapolis restaurant, Owamni, serves decolonized cuisine made without European-introduced ingredients. To combat common myths — for instance, that Indigenous cultures are a monolith or are stuck in the past — social-justice organization IllumiNative offers extensive educational resources and regularly partners with Native scholars and organizations to conduct research.
2. Lean into the discomfort. “There’s an element of embracing discomfort around these challenging histories and realities while also uplifting the voices and struggles of the movement work happening throughout Indian Country,” says Charley, who has spent much of her career working to halt violence against Native women and girls. “Allies being able to sit in this discomfort is part of growth and reconciliation; it’s fundamental for our healing.”
   That includes wrestling with “white guilt” — a construct “typically motivated by the recognition of unearned and unfair racial privileges, the acknowledgement of personal racist attitudes or behavior, and/or the sense of responsibility for others’ racist attitudes or behavior,” according to a research paper in The Counseling Psychologist.
3. Do your own inner work. To be an authentic ally, you need to examine your own prejudices and preconceived notions. “Try to see yourself from the outside and reflect inward deeply about your beliefs based upon what you were taught as a child,” says Blocker, who incorporates Apache battle tactics into his martial arts classes.
   “The only way we can do that, in my experience, is in solitude and silence out in nature — no distractions, no technology. We’re losing that value of reflection.” Give yourself grace as you reflect on the past while also vowing to do better in the future.
4. Recognize your position and privilege. Similarly, “you have to dig into your own family history and understand how some of the privileges you experience have affected people from other cultures,” says Sherman. “For instance, how did your family get their farmland and what happened to the people who were removed from that place? And if you come from a space of privilege, how can you use that privilege to open doors and amplify Indigenous voices?”
5. Embrace Indigenous wisdom. Understanding Native cultures also involves understanding a Native worldview. “It’s important to take a step back and realize you most likely come from a very different worldview,” says Eagle Heart, who served as a producer on the Emmy-winning documentary Lakota Nation vs. United States. “An Indigenous worldview is really geared toward the collective, mutual respect, and harmony with nature, while a Western worldview is more focused on the individual, goals, and future outcomes.”
   All of us — and the world around us — stand to benefit from embracing Indigenous knowledge, which the United Nations deemed crucial in the fight against climate change at its 2021 conference. 
6. Listen to Native voices. “It all starts with humility and a willingness to listen,” says Blocker. “You can’t learn if you just stay in your own bubble, family, or tribe; you need to go outward and make your circle bigger for that.”
   That could be as simple as following Indigenous thought leaders on social media or watching Native-created TV shows, like Reservation Dogs and Rutherford Falls, notes Charley.
7. Speak up against discrimination. Discrimination takes some obvious forms, like offensive stereotypes and racist mascots, and more subtle ones, such as implicit bias or Indigenous invisibility — the erasure (purposeful or not) of Native contributions and cultures from society. Discrimination can take place in the workplace, in healthcare settings, and in other public and private environments.
   Even though it can be hard to do, say something when you see discrimination in action.
8. Recognize the difference between appreciation and appropriation. For far too long, non-Native businesses have profited from appropriating tribal motifs and iconography. That said, you can appreciate tribal traditions without appropriating them, such as by patronizing Native-led restaurants, wearing Native-designed fashion, and purchasing directly from Native artists. Make sure you can clearly trace the work back to an individual or group associated with a tribal community; otherwise, buyer beware.
9. Take meaningful action. Acknowledgment is insufficient without action to back it up. Supporting Indigenous entrepreneurs and donating to Native-led initiatives are easy starting points, but your support doesn’t need to be financial in nature. After you’ve equipped yourself with knowledge, Charley suggests volunteering with Indigenous-led organizations, supporting issues important to local Native communities, and using your political power — your vote and your voice — to uplift marginalized groups. 
10. Above all, center Indigenous perspectives. “In a lot of advocacy spaces, there’s a tendency for non-Natives to come in and try to ‘fix’ things for Native communities,” says Eagle Heart. “But we don’t need you to ‘fix’ us; we need you to be a companion alongside us. It’s really important in Indigenous spaces that Indigenous people lead the conversation.”
    Charley echoes that sentiment: “We are our own best advocates.”

The post How to Support Native American Communities as an Ally appeared first on Experience Life.

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Although I grew up surrounded by fields of food in Midwestern farm country, I’ve had a dysfunctional relationship with food my entire life.

In hindsight, my ’90s upbringing — sans high-speed internet, smartphones, and social media — seems relatively simple compared with what today’s kids face. Even so, as an Alaska Native (Tlingit) coming of age in rural Minnesota, I still felt immense pressure to conform to impossible beauty ideals.

With my chubby cheeks, olive skin, and deep brown eyes, I just didn’t fit in — not among my blond-haired, blue-eyed classmates; not into the popular midriff-baring fashions du jour; not with the cookie-cutter criteria for how American girls are “supposed to” look.

It would take me decades to under­stand that the era’s skewed health ideals were designed to make us all feel inadequate. But BIPOC, in particular, have been set up for failure with this absurd ultimatum: Assume as much whiteness as possible or be rendered utterly invisible. It’s the enduring effect of decades’ worth of whitewashed, one-size-fits-all health culture that pervades much of society.

As a teen, I desperately tried to keep up with what was “right” and “wrong,” subsisting on a contrasting blend of packaged “healthy” fare — think SnackWell’s and Lean Pockets — and produce from our family garden.

In college, I rebounded from the freshman 15 with restrictive eating and excessive exercising. Slimming down to my smallest size, I received praise for my jutting cheekbones and protruding clavicle. But then I was slapped with a diagnosis of “eating disorder not otherwise specified” ­(EDNOS), a now-outdated term that fell out of fashion due to its broad nature.

I wondered, How could the way I treated my body be so wrong if society was telling me it was so right?

Upon entering adulthood, I became even more confused by the constant onslaught of conflicting advice from the so-called wellness industry, which had cleverly swapped places with its canceled twin, the diet industry. I pretended to feel satiated by the kale salads, bone broths, and collagen drinks it touted.

In short, for decades I have battled my own body and fought my food instincts, riddled with endless guilt.

That food shame is very common among BIPOC, who rarely see themselves or their foods reflected in health recommendations, explains Kera Nyemb-Diop, PhD, who created the popular Instagram account Black Nutritionist.

A prime example? The body mass index (BMI), developed in the 1830s by Belgian statistician Adolphe ­Quetelet, who was obsessed with defining the “average man” by collecting data mainly from white European men. Known as the Quetelet Index until 1972, this height-to-weight ratio went on to become a gold standard health indicator, but it has recently been dethroned due to what the American Medical Association describes as its “historical harm” and “racist exclusion.”

“For too long, being healthy has meant being closer to white aesthetics,” Nyemb-Diop says. “So much of the public-health narrative is rooted in white supremacy. It places the blame on marginalized communities for higher rates of conditions like diabetes by saying they’re not eating well or exercising enough, instead of talking about the socioeconomic inequities at play.”

Native American nutrition educa­tor Valerie Segrest (Muckleshoot) seconds that. “Before European contact, there wasn’t a word for ‘diabetes’ in any Indigenous com­munity,” she says. “It wasn’t as if we suddenly decided to stop eating our traditional foods. Indigenous people were forcibly removed from our foodways, followed by the systematic interruption of knowledge transfer to the next generation by sending our children off to boarding schools, erasing their identities, and feeding them rations that altered their food preferences. Never before in human history have we been so disconnected from where our food comes from, and that has great impacts on our health.”

Like so many Native Americans who have been displaced and disconnected from their cultural traditions, I recently embarked on a personal journey to embrace my Tlingit heritage and tap into the ancient wisdom of my ancestors. This quest would require decolonizing not only my mind but also my plate.

But what exactly does that mean?

The Web of Colonialism

For Oglala Lakota chef Sean ­Sherman — whose acclaimed Minneapolis restaurant, Owamni, represents one of the most prominent examples of decolonized cuisine today — plate ­decolonization translates to delectable dishes free of Eurocentric ingredients like beef, chicken, pork, dairy, wheat flour, and cane sugar. Instead, he focuses on local, seasonal fare such as venison, walleye, and wild rice sourced from Indigenous producers. (Learn more about Sherman and his work at “Sioux Chef Sean Sherman on the Importance of Indigenous Food.”)

And that’s precisely where ­Sherman suggested I start — by identifying and appreciating the abundant food around me. After all, there are countless edible plants that we often overlook, like dandelion greens and stinging nettle, quite literally in our own backyards.

Relishing regional bounty was the impetus behind the Decolonizing Diet Project, led by Northern Michigan University Native American studies professor Martin Reinhardt, PhD (Anishinaabe Ojibway). Study participants — both non-Native and Native, including Reinhardt himself — spent a year eating primarily Great Lakes ­Indigenous foods, such as bison, turkey, beaver, corn, beans, maple, and berries.

The result? They recorded statistically significant improvements in weight, BMI, and girth, as well as noteworthy or significant reductions in cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood-glucose levels.

“I strongly believe that the healthiest way for us to live is to eat ­locally and Indigenously, and now we have evidence to support that,” says Reinhardt, who during the project procured his food through hunting, fishing, gathering, gardening, and trading — much like tribal communities did precontact.

“For Anishinaabe and other Indigenous cultures, we have a covenant with plants and animals as relatives. In that way, our food relationship is not a matter of producers and consumers; it’s about respecting our relatives in order to be in balance with the world around us.”

Unsurprisingly, many Decolonizing Diet Project participants shopped for ingredients at grocery stores and encountered issues like high prices and low availability. The meals were work-intensive and required more prep time than ones made with modern convenience foods.

“What it means to decolonize the diet is all situational,” explains Claudia Serrato, PhD. “For me, it started with eliminating foods that were introduced as a result of Spanish colonialism. But for a friend with Chinese heritage, it meant avoiding tomatoes and other ingredients that were introduced to her family from Mesoamerica.

Tribal treaty rights also played a factor for those who did hunt and gather, dictating when, where, and how they could harvest wild bounty. But all study participants walked away with a deeper knowledge of Native American foodways that will likely inform their eating choices for life.

Indigenous culinary anthropologist Claudia Serrato, PhD, went on a soul-searching quest similar to mine in an effort to connect via food to her P’urhépecha, Huasteca, and Zacateco roots. Through her work, she has realized that decolonizing one’s plate is an extremely personal experience, without the one-size-fits-all approach we’ve been taught to expect.

“What it means to decolonize the diet is all situational,” she explains. “For me, it started with eliminating foods that were introduced as a result of Spanish colonialism. But for a friend with Chinese heritage, it meant avoiding tomatoes and other ingredients that were introduced to her family from Mesoamerica.

“To get started, I encourage people to think about how their grandmother or their great-grandmother ate. It’s all about reestablishing those cultural connections that bring us back to our origins.”

In other words, decolonizing work isn’t just for Indigenous peoples: We can all benefit from untangling ourselves from the web of colonialism.

A Greater Ecosystem

Much like the pervasive health ideals I’ve wrestled with throughout my lifetime, colonial constructs have created a panopticon effect, in which we’re all subconsciously self-policing in a bid for social and political capital. But the positive effects of decolonizing our plates go far beyond personal well-being. This act is also inherently linked to the climate crisis, the Land Back movement, and Indigenous sovereignty.

“We should be asking ourselves how our food choices can ­concurrently heal the landscape,” says Serrato. “With Indigenous knowledge, we understand that we are connected to the land, the plants, and the animals. When we do decolonizing work, we slowly begin to repair not just our bodies but also the landscape and our ecological relationships, which have been completely severed as a result of food politics.”

Indeed, Indigenous farmers have long focused on cultivating regional ingredients, as opposed to the big three monocrops — corn, soy, and wheat — that make up much of the typical American diet. Supporting Native producers supports not only their self-determination but also the earth, thanks to the traditional ecological knowledge that tribal communities have practiced since time immemorial. In fact, while Indigenous peoples make up just 5 percent of the world’s population, they protect around 85 percent of global biodiversity.

In contrast, our modern Western approach falsely puts humans at the center of the universe, asserts Nicole Redvers, ND, MPH (Deninu K’ue First Nation), director of Indigenous planetary health at Western University’s Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry.

“We’re just one small part of a greater ecosystem, and we need to start seeing health as part of that larger system.”

“The problem with the social determinants of health — our socioeconomic status, our intersectionality, our geography — is that they still place humans in the context of human needs and are not inclusive of planetary health,” she says. “If the water is not healthy, we’re not healthy. If the soil is not healthy, the food is not healthy. We’re just one small part of a greater ecosystem, and we need to start seeing health as part of that larger system.”

I found myself fascinated with ­Redvers’s book, The Science of the Sacred, which highlights countless studies about epigenetics and quantum physics to deftly bridge the gap between traditional and modern medicine. Her extensive research has also helped me understand the strong connection between personal and planetary health and why a reframing of our relationship with the earth is so necessary.

As it turns out, my mission to heal my relationship with food goes far beyond just my plate. It’s really about living in harmony with not only my body’s landscape, as Serrato puts it, but also the landscape around me.

With this more global perspective, I’ve come to realize that I’m not going to find some magic bullet.

Instead of seeking quick fixes and external gratification, I’m endeavoring to become more in sync with myself, the seasons, and the earth, as my ancestors once were. I’m relearning to trust my body, mind, and spirit to guide me toward what’s right or wrong for me, which is highly personal.

And I’m giving myself grace because, as all these experts empha­size, decolonizing your plate isn’t an overnight transformation: It’s a lifelong journey.

Food — especially traditional BIPOC food — has been vilified and weaponized for far too long. It’s high time we change that. For my part, I’m nurturing a relationship with food that lets it restore my body, repair past traumas, and revive Indigenous wisdom for future generations.

“In our traditional ways, our foods are our teachers,” Segrest gently reminds me. “They teach us how to live on the land and how to be better humans. They are our gifts.”

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Thosh Collins (Onk-Akimel O’odham/Wa-zha-zhi/Haudenosaunee) and Chelsey Luger (Anishinaabe/Lakota) are on a mission to help everyone embrace Indigenous ancestral knowledge. A decade ago, the couple founded Well for Culture, a grassroots organization promoting healthy living among tribal communities, whose members face disproportionately high rates of diabetes, heart disease, and early death.

But the duo’s principles — outlined in their insightful book, The Seven Circles: Indigenous Teachings for Living Well — aren’t just for Native Americans. All of us can learn to live better through the holistic, culturally appropriate focus areas of food, movement, sleep, ceremony, sacred space, land, and community. Here, they discuss what it means to decolonize wellness, how everyone can benefit from Indigenous teachings, and what they envision for a healthier future.

Experience Life: From your perspective, what does it mean to decolonize wellness?

Thosh Collins: When we’re talking within the context of Native communities, we typically don’t use the term “wellness,” because if we look at our original lifeways, they are inherently wellness-based. But when we’re talking about folks living within dominant society, there are a lot of ways to go into that.

It begins with shifting away from a focus on appearance and instead thinking about taking care of our mental and physical health on a physiological level. Those are outcomes of how we eat, how we move, how stressed we are, and how connected we are to others. We do this not just for ourselves, but to be a good parent, auntie, neighbor, and citizen.

Dominant society also needs to get out of its tribalistic mentality — us versus them, Paleo versus vegan, CrossFit versus yoga. Having two opposing sides is a very American way of thinking, which we see in politics. Instead, it’s important to look at evidence-based science as well as traditions that have been carried on by our families for generations. There’s a reason why your great-great grandmother cooked a certain way or only ate at certain times of day. Decolonized wellness is considering all of that and building your own lifestyle.

EL: How do the seven circles of well-being keep our lives in balance?

Chelsey Luger: We created this model for wellness in circles because we understand from our ancestral teachings that everything in life is interconnected. These seven modes of lifestyle allowed our ancestors to thrive across Indigenous nations, which all have teachings associated with these areas.

We noticed that most models for health were made in lists or pillars, which architecturally speaking is a very Western model that doesn’t allow room for interconnection, expansion, and contraction. Health is not linear; it’s not “I’m healed. I’m done.” We’re going to be in and out of balance in certain areas and continue on this journey throughout life. Circles allow for a continual, dynamic lifestyle, which really makes sense to people once they see it.

TC: The circle structure also pushes beyond compartmentalized thinking, which dominant society tends to do with everything from the body to time to the environment. If there’s one lesson I hope people take away from our book, it’s that everything is inextricably connected, from inside of us to our relations with other living beings to our interactions with the land.

I encourage readers to think of themselves as the middle of a circle with the seven circles around them. If you move one circle, you’re going to shake them all. Movement, for example, causes the body to release feel-good neurotransmitters that affect your mood and clarity. Meditation is shown to have positive physiological effects, like improving blood pressure.

There’s robust scientific evidence to show how each of these circles contributes to our health. How we treat ourselves in turn has a ripple effect on our family, our coworkers, our community, and our world.

EL: Why are these principles especially important for Native Americans, who face marked health disparities?

CL: Our primary audience is and always will be Indigenous communities. When we’re working with Native people, we really focus on continuity of lifeways as opposed to dismantling colonialism. Of course we acknowledge that systemic genocide took place, but we try not to fixate on removing something that the Western world imposed on us.

We founded Well for Culture with the intention of offering a culturally relevant wellness model for Indigenous people, because so many of us are in a state of reclaiming our health due to disparities we’ve suffered as a result of the colonial process.

TC: From our travels throughout Native country, we see Indigenous communities in a state of preservation, revitalization, evolution, or all of these simultaneously. Our communities were affected differently based on their location and how American colonialism came westward.

Some communities, such as our relatives out east, are really just putting their worldviews, social structures, and cultural practices back together. Others, like the Pueblos in the Southwest, still have fairly intact lifeways — with all these little kids running around speaking their language — and are evolving.

There are still silos in Native country, like the wellbriety movement, tribal food sovereignty, language revitalization, and more, that should all be working together at the table. With Well for Culture, we’re bringing together these Indigenous practices with Western technology to meet our needs here and now. When we present in communities, elders often tell us, “This is what we need to be doing again; this is the way I was raised.” That’s incredible validation.

EL: When you look to the future of Native health, what do you envision?

TC: We hope we have created a model for Native health and human service departments so we see a positive effect in communities at a systemic level. For instance, in Salt River, where I come from, they’re using the seven circles to try to raise the life expectancy from 52 to 57 by 2027.

Way down the line, we also have a vision for ourselves as elders. I think everyone should have a vision of how they will think, act, and present themselves to the world, if you make it that far. We hope we will really be living to the fullest so that we’re not burdened with disease and placing that burden on our family.

CL: I’m really impressed with our youth as well as younger parents who are breaking cycles of trauma and rooting our children in these powerful, positive aspects of Indigenous culture. Thosh and I grew up in the ’80s and early ’90s, and as kids, we didn’t always have the freedom to be proud of who we are.

Today, Indigenous kids still face discrimination, but they have access to plenty of resources so they can grow up proud. They can see representation in everything from leaders in Congress to Reservation Dogs on TV to educational TikTok videos. That’s all connected to our wellness as Native people so we can start from a base of feeling worthy and feeling motivated to continue our traditions. That’s the root of our health.

It’s so heartwarming to know that as a people we never lost that, and right now we have this ball of energy that keeps growing in Native communities. I’m just excited to see how the youth take this vision for health into the future.

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Andrea Hanson expected her trip to Africa to be transform­ative. She didn’t expect her transformation to begin before she even left JFK Airport.

A graduate student in social work, Hanson was headed to Ghana last December for a research internship. She was the only Black person from her university on the trip, but virtually everyone else boarding the plane to Ghana that day was Black.

“To see an entire area at the airport filled with Black people — I had never experienced that before,” she recalls. Her initial reaction was one of confusion. “It just felt so foreign.”

Hanson is of West African descent, which she discovered via Ancestry.com’s DNA testing program. After a year of deep personal losses — her grandmother, mother, and brother had all recently died — this trip to Ghana had personal as well as academic meaning for her.

“In my family, your elders usher you into being an adult,” she explains. “I didn’t have my elders. But my family believes we walk with our ancestors — that they’re with you. So going to Ghana felt like not just a return for me but a return for them too.”

Arriving in Africa awakened in Hanson an overwhelming sense of connection to her roots — one she had craved but never experienced so intensely.

“I can’t explain the feeling of seeing all these people who looked like me,” she says, reflecting on the rare experience of not being in a minority. “I felt safe. I felt like I was just ‘Andrea,’ not ‘a Black woman.’”

A New Era in Ancestry Travel

Hanson’s reaction to arriving in Ghana is common for people of the African diaspora returning to Africa, says Gina Paige, PhD, cofounder and president of African Ancestry. For 20 years, the organization has used DNA testing to help people trace their family lineage not just to general regions but to present-day African countries and specific ethnic groups.

“Time and time again I hear people say, ‘I immediately felt like I was home,’” notes Paige. “The feelings and the experiences are visceral.”

African Americans have been returning to Africa for generations. In the 1950s, Henderson Travel Service, the first Black-owned international travel agency catering to African Americans, planned trips for clients who wanted to visit the continent. The agency relied on a chartered plane to take its first group to celebrate Ghana’s independence in 1957.

The experience of ancestry travel is different for African Americans than for Americans whose ancestors hail from, say, Europe.

“Black people are the original victims of identity theft. We don’t know our names, we don’t know our languages, we don’t know who our ancestors are,” explains Paige. “So, unlike an Irish person who knows that their family lived in this village and enjoyed this lifestyle, and who can look up records in the local archives, we can’t do that because of slavery.”

All the same, Paige believes traveling to Africa can be a profound experience.

“This is why what we do is so important and impactful: We tell people the exact county and tribe they came from,” she says. “Heritage travel is powerful for Black people because it fills a void. It tangibly connects us to lost traditions, cultural practices, values, and spirituality.”

Welcoming Their Children Home

In 2019, the government of Ghana launched an initiative to invite African diasporans home to Africa. Called the Year of Return, the program commemorated 400 years since the arrival of the first documented ­enslaved Africans in the United States.

“Ghana is considered the gateway to West Africa,” Paige explains, and for many people returning to Africa, the journey starts there, where so many of their ancestors’ journeys into slavery began.

At the height of the slave trade, Ghana was the “point of no return” for many stolen Africans; more than 40 “slave castles,” where African people were sold to traders and sent across the Atlantic, lined the country’s coastline. Ghana’s ongoing Beyond the Return campaign seeks to sustain the momentum of the 2019 program.

Hanson didn’t go to Ghana to participate in an official returning, but she nonetheless experienced a feeling of return with each place she visited and each person she met.

“The first time I went to the water, I got really emotional,” Hanson recalls. “I don’t know if people understand how meaningful it is to see the Atlantic Ocean from the other side, to recognize there’s someone within my lineage who never got a chance to look from this perspective again.”

Hanson says her visit has forever changed the way she looks at her ancestors, and at herself.

“I remember standing in one of the slave castles and feeling sad, and then angry — and then I just had this huge feeling of gratitude,” she recalls.

“I realized I’m not just some little Black girl who came from slavery. My story is vast and huge. I thought of my ancestors, and I realized you can’t survive something like this and not be made of magic.”

Hanson intends to return to Africa with her husband and children, and she’s considering doing DNA testing through Paige’s organization to learn more about her family’s lineage.

“There’s still so much unknown,” she says. “I don’t have names. I don’t have pictures. But I know this is where our story started.”

Have DNA Results, Will Travel

The type of DNA tests you might consider will depend on the level of genetic information you’re seeking to augment your ancestry travel experience, explains Kyle Betit, senior genealogist and travel-program operations manager for ProGenealogists, the professional services division of Ancestry.

“The AncestryDNA test is an autosomal DNA test, which means it’s looking at all of your chromosomes — all of your ancestors on your mother’s side and your father’s side of your family tree,” Betit explains.

Autosomal testing provides a snapshot of your ethnicity indicating regions of the world where your ancestors were living in the past 1,000 years. Most autosomal testing services offer a list of living relatives who have also tested with that service. AncestryDNA, for example, maintains a database of 22 million people, enabling you to find relatives and make connections.

“The other two kinds of tests that are commonly used are the Y-chromosome test, which looks at your father’s father’s father’s line, and the mitochondrial DNA test, which looks at your mother’s mother’s mother’s line,” Betit says.

Specifically, Y-chromosome testing for those assigned male at birth identifies the Y-chromosome haplogroup, the ancient group of people from whom your patrilineage descends.

Mitochondrial DNA tests trace your matrilineal ancestry through mitochondria, which are passed from mothers to children. African Ancestry uses these tests to identify the countries and tribes of their clients’ ancestors going back as far as 2,000 years.

Of course, you can enjoy a meaningful experience visiting the lands of your ancestors without taking a DNA test or doing genealogy research. But the more you know about your great-great-greats and beyond, the more you can discover about not just them but yourself.

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