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Dr. Anita Sanchez, Azteca and Mexican-American, is a board member of both the Pachamama Alliance and Bioneers. She is the author of four books, including the #1 international best-selling “Success University for Women in Business,” and “The Four Sacred Gifts.” She is also the TedX presenter of “Humanity’s Hope.” Dr. Sanchez discusses the Sacred Hoop of Life, the importance of intimate interconnection, and that, especially in these exciting and challenging times of the Eagle and the Condor, every thought matters and LOVE is essential!
In this episode, Dr. Sanchez discusses the importance of reconnecting to the sacred, of active stewardship, and of connecting with our hearts to all of our work. An organizational consultant who has trained thousands of leaders in global corporations and non-profits, Anita also participates in indigenous ceremonies with wisdom-keepers all over the world, including a 7-day retreat with women in Kyrgyzstan. Her book, “The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times,” shares the deep wisdom and power of The Gift of the Power to Forgive the Unforgivable, The Gift of the Power of Unity, The Gift of the Power of Healing, and The Gift of the Power of Hope in Action.
Serving on the Board of the Pachamama Alliance, Dr. Sanchez works to help cultivate awareness of the sacred presence of Earth, Sky, and alliance with the entire Universe at all times. The Pachamama Alliance is dedicated to creating a socially just, environmentally sustainable, and spiritually fulfilling culture.
Learn more at: foursacredgifts.com, sancheztennis.com, anita-sanchez.com, pachamama.org, and bioneers.org
Transcript
(Automatically generated transcript for search engine optimization and reference purposes – grammatical and spelling errors may exist.)
Welcome to the YonEarth Community Stewardship and Sustainability Podcast Series.
Today we have the opportunity to visit with Dr. Anita Sanchez.
Hi Anita.
Hi, glad to be here.
It’s so great to be able to visit with you today and I’m so thrilled that we’re doing this in your home.
Yes.
And we have a very special person entity being with us.
Yeah.
We can acknowledge the grandmother, the DNA grandmother.
I was teaching all the babies, the original knowledge, the oral history and of course they all listen.
It’s so beautiful and we’ll be talking a little bit more about that.
Dr. Anita Sanchez is Azteca and Mexican American
and is a board member of both the Pachamama Alliance and Bioneers.
Anita inspires people to discover and trust their gifts
so that they become life-giving connections to people and to the earth.
She has trained thousands of leaders in global corporations and nonprofits.
Using indigenous wisdom in modern science,
Anita guides leaders in creating caring and inclusive workplaces and communities.
Ted X. presenter of Humanities Hope.
Anita is also the author of four books,
including the number one international best selling success university for women in business.
And the four sacred gifts published by Simon and Schuster.
She leads an annual journey into the Amazon rainforest for the Pachamama Alliance
to support people to discover and deepen their purpose and the importance of sustaining our earth.
Anita, I’m so excited we have the opportunity to speak with you today,
especially given your incredible depth and connection in the indigenous wisdom
and the way you’re bridging that over into the work that you do in the corporate world.
It’s beautiful, it’s what we need in these times.
And I’m just curious what got you started in that kind of integration work.
Yes, I didn’t have the language for it,
but I will say it digs way back to age three and four,
my earliest memories of a dream that I still have today.
And in that dream, there’s the earth and there’s all these stick people, different colors,
and we have our hands on each other’s hearts.
Remember in kindergarten where the teachers said, you know, draw what you’re going to be
when you grow up and people drew wonderful things, mommies, daddies,
but I drew this picture of my dream.
And I said, and I’m one of them and they’re all over the world.
And so there, I already knew that part of what my purpose was,
part of what I was going to be doing was connecting hearts.
And so I’ve always loved learning, so I love school,
so of course I went on to get PhD,
but I also knew that this dream just kept coming to and coming to me.
And so what it turned out to be is I’m an organization development consultant.
You know, I focus in on human systems and a positive change using positive psychology and things.
But that’s where all the learnings that I got growing up and still to this day
by engaging with amazing wisdom keepers from different traditions,
indigenous that I’m able to weave that together.
Because otherwise people really think we’re gone.
Too many people think, oh, or but that just belongs there.
Now we’ve done that. Let’s get on with the business.
Wait a minute. This wisdom is so needed now.
We even have like United Nations.
Finally, in their report saying, we’re essential.
I want to use the language.
They said, indigenous people are essential to reversing global warming.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It’s so beautiful. It’s so needed. It’s so necessary.
It’s so logical.
Right. And one of the things that increasingly strikes me in this work that we’re doing,
healing earth, healing our relationships with earth with each other,
is that when we apply logic, it actually requires us to open up our awareness,
our thinking to incorporate things like indigenous wisdom,
which are often informed by thousands upon thousands of years of ecological knowledge, for example.
Exactly.
And my gosh, to help share that message in all kinds of contexts is so powerful.
It’s very powerful.
And as you say, well, indigenous people all over the world were the first scientists.
Yeah.
And when you look at science, of course I’m a social scientist.
When you look at science, a lot of it is about testing, about observation,
and where some of the best observers to understand, especially coming from a mindset
that we’re not separate from, but we’re part of, then we sit and observe
and understand that what’s happening there is happening here.
And so now we have all the new sciences and stuff, saying, you know, the whole thing
between observer and observed, and we’re just sort of like, well, and what’s the question?
Right. It’s the problem.
It’s one who’s alive, yes.
So it’s really great to see the awakening happening that we have been in ceremony
and dance and chant and prayer and out, because we’re not just staying by ourselves.
We’re out in the various places, all the different sectors you’ll find indigenous people.
And it’s just that we’re so small and number that people think we’re not here,
unless we actually name ourselves, unless we bring these beautiful art in the different ways
of our knowing out, very in a very forward way, which in part of our learning is not to do that,
but now we know the time is Earth is telling us all of the world I’m hearing from ceremonies.
Earth is telling us it’s time we all must bring our voices forward.
We must be in positive action.
So I so love what you’re doing.
Yeah, this is all needed now.
Truly, absolutely, Anita.
You know, I’m really eager to ask you about some of the ceremonial work that you do.
And I want to I want to wait just to make one more point on the science from what strikes me sometimes
is I’ll be in conversations or even perhaps giving a talk somewhere.
And somebody might respond saying, oh, I don’t believe you.
I don’t agree with this because I have a science background.
And I think to myself, well, now wait a minute, lovingly.
Okay, maybe you took a biology class in high school 30 years ago.
Maybe you’ve got an undergraduate degree in some science that you did 20, 30, 40 years ago.
But the actual correct response could be, well, that’s a wonderful foundation.
Now have you been paying attention to the latest discoveries?
And just in the last five, 10 years, our observational instruments, our ability to see the microbiome,
our ability to see all the way back to the birth of the universe is absolutely transforming our scientific understanding of reality.
And it’s coming back around to the indigenous worldview in many respects.
And so it just seems in this culture in particular, we have this really big and important opportunity,
those of us who were trained in that system to keep on that journey and catch up to what’s being discovered right now.
Well, that’s part of the thing, and I love science.
Science is part of the hoopla life, too.
But some scientists are still stuck in, but science is only testing and looking at the physical world observable.
However, even scientists don’t accept that, know that through quantum physics and the microbiology,
oh my gosh, the thing they all can agree on, there’s something more, and we don’t know.
So you’re right, the right answer to that kind of stuff.
And I hope I do that. It’s like, science never is about denying your experience.
Instead, it’s to ask the question, tell me more.
Let’s look at that further.
And so that’s what indigenous people have kept aligning that knowledge.
They didn’t have the MRIs, these different kinds of testing things.
But they did know from observation, from being with, they understood.
And so that knowledge, which is preserved so much of our land and our waters all over the world,
and now we need to use that knowledge.
And so I love this scene, this coming together.
Or, as some of my elders said, no, they’re just catching up.
And it’s wonderful, because it’s not about, oh, I’m here first, and you’re here for that.
It’s like, it’s time. We’re all interconnected.
So let’s get on with it, because life itself is telling us,
you know, we need to change some of the things we’re doing,
and some of it regenerating the earth and, you know,
and paying it to force, protecting them and everything.
So, yeah, it’s an exciting time. It’s challenging.
But point, we get to really matter.
And what every thought we have, everything we say, and science is just reaffirming what we already knew.
Absolutely.
I’m so struck, Anita, that I’ve been invited to a few Indigenous ceremonies over the years,
and they have been among my most profound and impactful experiences.
And I know that you do a lot of ceremonial work all over the planet
with a lot of different traditional wisdom keepers.
And I was hoping you might tell us a bit about that, and talk to us a bit about
what are the duration of some of these ceremonies that you engage in.
And what is the unique form of wisdom that comes through there
that maybe doesn’t in a border room with spreadsheets, for example?
Well, there is, there’s, ceremony is a certain particular kind of sacredness,
with a particular structure, and for millennium of language,
science, chanting, medicine, connecting with through plants and things.
However, I have to start with first saying is that I am in connection with the sacred.
All of us are at every moment.
It’s just whether we want to pay attention to it or not.
That doesn’t mean to say that everyone and everything is always operating in a sacred way.
But the essence is sacredness.
So that’s powerful.
But ceremonies, I’ve been in so many, I’m so fortunate that both from being young
and my grandmother with her second ceremonies that she would teach us.
But as a young girl going to college here in Colorado, I began immediately
hooking up with so many different people, friends from various tribes,
and they’re so gracious and loving to bring in whether it’s in sweats
or which can last just a handful of hours and prayer and fire.
Or what I just was in, Courget Stand, with beautiful first time to be a Courget Stand.
And seven days of ceremony, a Pila Colorado led that group.
She’s a Nida elder.
And we had 12 indigenous women from all over the world,
and then 12 local indigenous women.
And they invited us to be with them as they showed us their ceremony
and it had us participate.
And the focus of that whole week was about unity.
And we know that’s what we’re talking about.
We’re all interconnected unity, but particularly because what’s coming up is that women’s voices.
And for women’s, so I just have to say two eagles are flying by the windows right now.
You might catch one of them.
You see, there are several of them that have been flying.
But anyway, so it was a really beautiful blessing that we have them coming through.
But so they were particularly because in the different ceremonies and different parts of the world is coming through,
it is time for women to help us lead from the heart.
It’s not to say men are left behind, men have heart, men have the feminine parts of themselves
just like women have the masculine parts.
But it’s saying this must lead.
And so in their ceremonies, it was beautiful.
We used prayer bundles.
They used wool because it’s so plentiful in the foothills of the Himalayas or the greys and stuff.
And so we had these thousands of prayers and they showed us how they create their fire
with this dipping it in ghee and creating this pyramid.
It was all in song and dance and it just evolved.
There was some structure to it but it was also evolving.
And what is true is that you get to have inside of you resonate because there’s a knowing as scientists know.
We don’t really understand how everything works out.
Light works out.
Well, how does this turn into that?
In that state, there is so openness of the heart to everything.
So the spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, it’s all there along with the great mystery.
And so what happens is like what just happened here, we’d be in ceremony and it would be cloudy.
And somehow one ray of sun would come in right into the center of the ceremony.
It’d be cloudy and all of a sudden not only is that one ray coming but we’d look up and not only eagles are circling
but other species of bird are circling.
Or in another place where we’re in ceremony and we’re smoking the pipe and this plentiful deer
but they’d come over and brush and touch and lean on us.
I think what’s happening is as we understand, as you know, trees talk to trees, animals talk to animals.
And we can really be in presence of each other.
We are in communication and we just be still and listen with the softest part of our ears and the softest part of our hearts.
And so there was this knowing that in the face all the horror, the challenges that are happening in the destruction,
just about every sector, all of these other life beings are for life and they’re here for us.
And you must know that with the beautiful work you do with the earth and oh my gosh, I’m just so excited when you were telling me what you do.
And I’m like, well, yay.
I think part of the joy in the work we all can engage in regeneration and restorative practices working with soil,
working with plants and other species is that it enhances our quality of life.
And it truly fills us with an energy that, yeah, we can understand how the microorganisms in soil can penetrate our skin,
can influence our serotonin production in our neurobiocamistry.
Yeah, the science is starting to really put that together.
And the fundamental fact is it absolutely changes our experience of life.
And it’s such a gift. We are so blessed to be on this miraculous planet.
And I love describing it sometimes as a spaceship that is so well engineered.
We ordinarily don’t even have to worry about the life support systems.
And I know in many indigenous traditions, you know, deer has deer’s role in the ecosystem.
Beaver has beaver’s role. Wolf has wolf’s role.
And the humans are this very peculiar species that really don’t have a role in the ecosystem per se,
but have a super special role of stewardship of that place.
And that as we get away from that knowing, boy, destructive and dangerous things can happen.
However, as we open that listening part, that soft part of ear, that soft part of heart,
and truly embrace that aspect of our role being here on this beautiful miraculous planet,
my goodness, we can transform almost instantaneously with that kind of knowledge.
Yes, absolutely right. And I would say we do have a role because of our millennia that we’ve been here,
and when we’ve been staying in connection, I think about the terrible fires that had happened in California,
not that long ago. And I happened to be there after the really bad one in Napa Valley, Sonoma, and that whole area there.
And I was with some of the tribe, some of the leaders from the tribe there,
and they showed us that for several decades, they were going to the city councils saying,
please, we need to do this print, this dog patch, this is always, that’s the positive relationship.
There’s a certain kind of control burn so that the animals have more, so that it’s all in balance.
It doesn’t mean not touching it. In some situations, it means actually engaging,
because we’re part of that hope. And so lo and behold, they showed us the latest,
which was a couple of months before the big fires were hundreds of millions of dollars of damage,
but they were too afraid to listen to this knowledge. It’s like, when you do it, how you do it?
It’s just not flippin’. It’s really from a long, long study and knowledge to be able to do this.
So exciting now to see when scientists and indigenous people are coming together, or business people,
philanthropy, it’s all the different sectors, education, because there’s not any one area where we can’t make a difference.
That leads me to something I have to say, because women’s voices.
So I love that in reversing global warming, clearly the work you’re doing is so critical.
But number, I think it’s six or seven, is education of girls.
And so we know that all over the world, if we do that, then that girls make better decisions only about family planning,
but they always give back and it’s connected to the people, to the earth, to doing small gardens,
all these kinds of things that are like, oh, well, that’s girl stuff.
So this is human stuff, this is hoofable life stuff, this is what’s being called forward.
So it’s exciting and it does change.
One of the ways, also, that I think it changed things for people, that I have to tell people, no, I’m not drinking anything,
I’m not on anything, because they’re like, you’re happy so much at the time.
And I said, well, I have challenges, I’m a human being. However, I never, ever.
And I don’t use that word very often, never, ever feel alone.
I get lonely, that’s a human condition, but I’m never lonely, because I know that I’m connected to all this, sitting here with you, obviously I’m not alone,
but the oxygen I’m breathing, thank you, trees, who’ve taken the car, and I’m giving me this oxygen, this earth that this house, my home sits on, the beautiful rocks, I mean, it’s everything.
So, oh my gosh, the universe really is working in our favor.
As you said before, like, you almost don’t have to do anything.
Well, we are in a place now, because we’ve done so many things not well, we have to be in positive action, but we have everything conspiring in our favor.
So beautiful, I love it, I love it, you know, you mentioned earlier about the unity.
And I know that in the Four Sacred Gifts, the book you wrote, that’s one of the Four Sacred Gifts.
And I was hoping you could tell us a bit about each of the four, what they are, and how they apply in these times in particular.
Oh, they’re so relevant.
Ahmohican Elder Don Coyas, White Bison, had a vision back in the early 90s.
In that vision was the call from life itself, spirit was calling, and to bring together elders and to build this hoop of 100 Eagle Feathers.
And that in this ceremony, they were to put the gifts in the hoop from elders from all over the world, from different traditions, to help us remember.
Because human beings have forgotten.
They’ve forgotten that they’re part of the hoop alive, not separate.
They’ve forgotten that in order to have harmony and balance, they needed to remember how to be in connection with themselves, their head and hearts, their bodies, their minds.
And with other being, other people, and all nature and earth, all of it.
So they put these four gifts in there, and there’s no secret.
So it’s a beautiful book, because it has all these indigenous wisdom elders speaking and stories related to now.
The four gifts to help each of us remember how to be in right relationship with ourselves and each other are first, the gift of the power to forgive them, forgivable.
And we could all imagine we all have things that we may say, oh, that’s just not forgivable.
However, that’s an energy drain.
And to really free up your love of self, as well as love of others, forgiving them, forgivable.
And it doesn’t mean we forget, and that we don’t seek new systems and structures so those injustices don’t happen.
But also means we’re free to be able to use our energy what we want to create.
So the power to forgive them, forgivable. The second one is the power of unity.
And we can come back to that because I know this is what we really want to focus a lot on is power of unity.
Unity, I’ll take all of us.
And now I’m talking not just to like, it’s all of us to create a thriving world.
And then the third gift is the gift of healing.
And healing for indigenous people isn’t like, go with a pharmacy and take something.
I’m not saying don’t do that. It’s great.
That sacred thing that we created, some of these medicine and stuff.
However, healing is more of a process rather than event.
And it’s something all of us have.
And it’s healing all the time that we can help each other heal.
We can help heal ourselves starting from the inside out.
And that is an ongoing gift.
Oh gosh, I have to heal.
I was, yay, I get to heal again and again and again.
From the small wounds and the big wounds.
And then the fourth gift I just adore is the power of hope in action.
Yes.
Which is neat at this time.
We need hope because some of these things we look at look so desperate.
Like how are we going to deal with this?
I think of the fires and birds like, oh my gosh, this is a horror.
It is.
And it absolutely, we go to the depths of it.
It is anger and fear and go further.
And it’s love that’s calling forward.
And so that we can see things that maybe we can’t see through our senses right now.
But we know are possible that we can do these innovative things that we can come together.
I think of Notre Dame burning down and billions of dollars coming.
Well, we have a situation where I think billions of dollars would come.
But we also have a national.
There’s the human beings.
We’re saying, no, we don’t want your help.
However, that’s not the, oh well, we can’t do anything.
No.
This is the opportunity for us and the forest is asking us.
And the indigenous people there and all the other people, like it’s time.
It’s time to be in action.
And so there’s organizations you can help.
Like Amazon Watch or Pachamama Alliance or many of the tribes directly receiving funds.
It’s so necessary because these are the lungs of our earth.
So those four gifts, the power to forgive them, forgivable, the power of unity, the power of healing and the power of hope and action.
Use these four gifts and spirit said, you will then remember.
And I have been using those gifts in 1995.
I’ve incorporated them into my teaching of leaders at all different levels and corporations.
And no matter where I am, people, when I share the whole story of how they came to be and a lot more detail, people slow down slowly on.
We want to write down the four gifts.
It doesn’t matter what language.
Because we all know these are already existing side ourselves.
It’s about using them.
And when you do, then you’re able to be present to what is.
And then collectively, we’re able also to then to co-create user energy to do that, rather than more suffering.
That’s what life’s calling for.
So that our children have a great place.
I know you have a son and I have two sons.
But it’s our children.
It’s our children’s children.
It’s other species children.
You know, we get to really make a difference.
Yeah, absolutely beautiful.
I have a daughter also.
You do?
Oh, well, her too.
Don’t leave her out.
She’s an incredible healer, actually.
Oh, cool.
Yes, that needs to be…
Yeah, thank you.
I can tell from your smile.
You support that.
All of that.
That, my grandmother, because she came from Mexico.
She’s that second.
Neighbors built higher walls in the back yards,
because they were like, who is this woman doing this stuff outside
and taking children out there?
So we used to…
She taught us how to connect in part to the Earth and the plants.
We’d come…
It’d dark in the morning.
She’d take us outside, and we’d stand by her garden with the sunflowers.
And the light would come out, and we’d turn to where the sunflowers looking.
We’d go play every hour for a whole day.
From sunrise to sunset, we’d go back to that spot five minutes in silence.
And, whoa, the lesson learned with our bare feet on the ground.
And following, being with that flower, you know, it’s powerful.
That has served me as a social scientist in so many ways.
And talking now to other kinds of scientists, scientists, biologists, other go like,
yeah, right.
We’re talking about life seeks life.
You know, that’s what needs to guide us.
So following the light.
It’s so beautiful.
And the sunflowers are such an amazing phenomenon and metaphor.
And I imagine most of our audience knows this,
but perhaps if you don’t, that the sunflower literally tracks and faces the sun throughout the day.
And I recently stumbled across a little study that showed that people are observing
that when really dark clouds show up instead of facing sun,
sunflowers will face each other.
Yes.
And it’s like, wow, what an amazing, amazing…
It is totally.
And I think about my grandmother who had no, my grandmother had no formal education,
was one of the wisest women.
And that’s what I’m seeing all over.
There are indigenous wisdom keepers who are PhDs and law and all sorts of science.
But there are also ones who have not had hardly any education.
And I’ll tell you, I don’t want to move out of their presence when they begin to speak
and share or just following them in silence.
It’s like, oh my gosh.
And that’s the reality is we so judge each other,
that knowing that, just watching those like those eagles fly,
something was being transmitted, right?
And that there’s beauty and there’s value in beauty.
But it’s also something that part of it’s giving us life.
So it’s all of it matters.
It’s really just, I’m very excited about, I’m about to travel again.
So I’ll be going to some more indigenous gatherings.
And some of them are only indigenous people,
but also so many of them are like what we’re having here.
It’s from all four directions.
So we have from the red direction,
from the yellow direction, black direction, white direction,
human beings, from all these red knowing that they’re being called,
philanthropists, business people, scientists,
wisdom keepers, young people.
Oh my gosh, the young people who are teaching us so much,
they know in such a no-perform way, you know,
like let’s get going.
And inviting us to be part of making this shift, you know,
that’s so needed.
I just, to me, it’s like every day I wake up
and I’m just like so grateful to be alive
and in this beautiful place that I get to caretake.
It’s hard to say I own it because it’s not.
I’m just caretaking it.
And it brings such gifts and a place to rest
and between then going back out and doing the work.
Yeah.
Thank you very much.
It is a sanctuary, it’s very much.
I really feel it being here with you.
And I’m grateful and I sense so much of that gratitude
through everything you’re describing must be part of that wellspring
of that joy that you experience on the regular basis.
It is. And again, somebody was like,
oh, you’re just being polyannish.
But no, they’re suffering.
You know, I have lost.
I have an uncle who’s a 97.
And I know he’s being hospice right now.
So, you know, I’ve just forgot a way to do my client work
and then get to him.
And he’s lived a beautiful life.
And he would say it’s all happening just right
with all his children around him.
And it’s all perfect.
And we know as indigenous people,
everything is changing just like the season.
Just like the seed becomes the flower and then goes back to seed
or you know, all the different things
and microorganisms that work, the insect, all of it.
It’s all here in this beautiful dance,
this amazing intimate interconnection
that I have a hard time,
nor do I want to, staying down.
I allow myself because it’s not good to hide.
So, if you’re feeling bummed out, depressed or well,
look at that.
Find out where it’s in your body and take a look at that.
And then, allow it, move through it.
And that’s what I found is like go deeper, go deeper.
That’s my elders have taught me.
And there’s something that happens when you do it
in connection with others.
In that circle, then the healing happens.
And with that, on that mother earth,
and with all these beings with us, it’s just, yeah.
It just gives you all this energy.
And that’s what we are ultimately, right?
Science knows that, we’re energy.
So, how do we choose to use our energy?
Yeah, you know, part of what I sense in this, yes,
there’s so much emphasis on the relationships
and the awareness of the relationships.
And I think for some of us,
there’s also an invitation to deepen into our courage.
Sometimes I think some of this requires some courage
and I know Anita that you’re probably so steeped on this path
that you’ve exercised courage for a long, long time.
It must be second nature now.
And I just invite a lot of our audience
who are maybe dipping the toe in the water
or thinking about just kind of opening up awareness
and heart space, thinking about doing more ceremonial
and healing work alone in relationship with others
to acknowledge the courage that’s required
and to celebrate that.
This is not necessarily easy work all the time.
No, it’s not, but again, that gift of healing is there
and you’re right, so sometimes people say,
oh, well look, you look beautiful.
But my story doesn’t start that.
I have always had this incredible Indigenous elders around me.
But I also had a big secret for a lot of years
where for age four to 13, I was a victim of rape,
a repeatedly incest.
And then at age 13, my father is murdered.
It’s race related.
They thought he was, they didn’t know his Mexican Native American.
They thought he was black.
And it was during those horrible sixties
and still happens where black people are being killed
and he lost his life.
So many, so many pains it hurts to be healed.
But what I found is that getting caught in all that,
getting stuck in it, actually began taking away my humanity
and began causing more sufferings to where I put up a shield
and we would never have had this conversation.
I would be, oh, white guy, you’re over there.
You know, no.
Instead, I realized as I started lowering my shield
because I started appreciating more and more of nature
and appreciating more and more human beings
who saw things in me.
But I began to lower that and I realized that armor
that I thought was protecting me, was killing me,
was suffocating me.
That, yeah, I’m going to get hurt.
Yeah, I’m going to not make it.
But I don’t think of them as failures.
You know, like, okay, I’m like 40 times closer.
I know what doesn’t work on that.
All right, thank you.
And so it’s just again, it’s this mind is like shifting it
because we get to decide, we get to choose.
And that’s what my elders are saying.
Be careful.
I remember my grandmother and I remember in the Osage
where my cousin, her cousin lived and we used to go there.
The elder would always say, as we were kids,
sit down in the place and be careful of what you say.
Be careful even what you think.
Because once you put that out, you can’t take it back.
And it would be like, oh my goodness.
Now, you can put something different out then.
You can put out a new thought.
We’re affecting each other enough 12 14 foot radius
at minimum, our heart rate variability.
We know that words we can do muscle testing
and see that we can actually cause people to become weak
by sending these horrible messages to each other.
But we also, when we’re grounded, when we’re connected
with the water, with the earth, people can send all sorts of things
and your body doesn’t weaken.
All sorts of things.
We have much more control over what we thought were involuntary
systems of ours, our digestion, everything.
We’re so lucky that we get to know this.
But the elders were teaching this all along.
And I’m just like, so grateful that you taught me this.
And now I get to see the science in it too.
But you were the first one to.
So why wouldn’t you have told me this?
Well, that’s absolutely beautiful.
It gives me the shivers that I love it.
I need to thank you for sharing such a personal part
of your story and journey also.
I know that that’s very powerful medicine.
And I want to just honor and acknowledge that.
Thank you for doing that.
Because sometimes people, it can be overwhelming like,
oh, my gosh, incest.
She’s in Mexico.
She must have had a hard time getting her business going.
Her father is murdered.
Oh, my gosh, poverty.
And now why I share that is because I want people to know,
you are not your circumstances.
We are these sacred beings here for purpose,
honoring these vessels, honoring all the other vessels,
all the other beings, and everything can shift and change.
And you can expedite that.
Or you can slow it down.
Right.
And these four gifts, I go back to the four gifts
because these wisdom keep reserved it.
They knew.
Thank you, Don Clayson, all of them.
Oh, my gosh, that we use these four gifts
and we can remember.
And that’s life-giving.
That’s why I say my purpose is to help people
discover and trust their gifts so they can be a life-giving
connection to themselves and others.
That’s a love.
Absolutely.
Yeah, that’s the good medicine.
Well, let me remind our audience
that this is the YonEarth Communities Stewardship
and Sustainability Podcast Series.
And today we are visiting with Dr. Anita Sanchez.
And I want to mention a few websites
because I’m sure folks are interested
to get more information and to get copies of the book
for the more sacred gifts.
You can go to foursacredgifts.com.
It’s all spelled out.
We’ll put this in the show notes.
Also, Pachamama Alliance is at Pachamama.org.
Bioneers is at bioneers.org.
And you can connect with Anita a number of different ways
on LinkedIn.
She’s at Anita-Sanchez.
Twitter is Dr. Anita Sanchez, all one word.
Instagram, same thing as Twitter.
And Anita-Sanchez.com.
Sanchez-Tennis.com.
And on Facebook, it’s Anita Sanchez PhD.
And I also want to take a moment to thank our many sponsors
and supporters who make this work possible.
And that includes several individuals and families
who have joined our monthly giving program.
Many, many thanks to all of you.
And this is an opportunity for any of you to support
on a monthly basis, the podcast series,
as well as the community mobilization work that we’re doing
all over the country and throughout the world
with our network of ambassadors.
If you haven’t joined yet and you would like to,
you can go to yhoners.org slash support.
You can join at any level.
When you join, I will send you an email with a special code
that will allow you to unlock for free
all of our e-book and audiobook resources,
unlimited quantities.
You can share this with as many friends, family co-workers,
colleagues as you would like.
And so we really appreciate your support and your engagement.
I would also like to thank our sponsors.
And this includes the Association of Waldorf Schools
of North America, Earth Coast Productions, Equal Exchange,
the International Society of Sustainability Professionals,
the LIDGE Family Foundation,
Madera Outdoor, Patagonia, Purium, and Walei Waters.
A big thanks to all of you for your support
and for our audience.
If you want, you can go check out some special discount codes
using the code Y on Earth at many of those sponsor sites.
So just keep that in mind.
And, you know, I am so thrilled and excited
and need to that we have this opportunity to visit with you today.
And I was hoping we could spend a little more time
talking about this grandmother statue behind us.
And what it symbolizes is that I’m hoping those of you
who are tuned into the video that you can see this.
Behind us is this beautiful, beautiful sculpture.
Yes. Yes.
So being half indigenous
and I have the opportunity to work with indigenous people
all over, oftentimes they end up selling their beautiful art.
But the meaning of this is so for many indigenous people,
of course, how they teach is just like my grandmother taught us.
It’s not with PowerPoint slides or in fancy buildings.
It is through the oral history, sharing the stories,
the stories of the people.
And so you see her mouth open and she’s singing or talking
and sharing the stories and there’s 140 babies on her here.
And they’re all listening, taking that in.
It’s powerful.
The other side of me is I’m blocking right now is a male.
And he’s also doing the same thing.
So the story tells her female and male.
And animals, I have some storytellers that are turtles
sharing the wisdom.
But this is what is happening is that
we are all sharing what we know to be true.
And for indigenous people, it is so essential now
more than ever for us to share with each other.
And so that’s what you’re allowing to have happen
with all the work that you’re doing and all those amazing sponsors
is my sentiment blessings.
Because every, you know, you don’t know who you’re touching,
who’s then comes alive, what their contribution is in the world.
But for now, everyone needs to step forward with whatever it is.
And so this storyteller showing us whether in good times
the stories of abundance and plentiful are really challenging times
is that we endure.
We persist.
There is a saying that I think it’s a Mexican indigenous person.
It’s anonymous.
I don’t have it.
It basically said that they tried to bury us,
but they forgot their seeds.
And so we’re still here.
Because basically indigenous people have faced genocide
pretty much all over the world.
But we’re still here.
And we’re still out and active.
And we’re still protecting the water and the earth and the trees
for all of us.
It’s not just for our own people and nations for all of us.
And so we love when we have all these alliances sparing up everywhere
and these wonderful sponsors who are helping support your work
to make that happen.
That’s what’s using whatever is your call to do to be.
That’s what this storyteller would love that.
Because that’s the story she’s sharing with all the babies.
Oh, it’s so beautiful.
I absolutely love it.
I absolutely love it.
Well, speaking of alliances, I was hoping could you tell our audience
just briefly what is Pachamama Alliance?
What is it doing?
And also the same for pioneers?
Yes.
Two powerful organizations, both 25, 30 years old.
Pachamama Alliance, whole purpose and mission is to bring forth
an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling
and socially just human presence on this earth.
And one of the major firsts, including incredible educational programs
that are free.
You can go on the site so we gave you the Pachamama.org.
You can see what’s there and take some of those classes in that.
But it’s also our purpose is to preserve the Amazon rainforest.
We’re particularly focused on the sacred headwaters and work with
Ashwara, the Sopra, 18 tribes there who are the leaders who are the natural custodians.
And so for 20 some years we’ve been an alliance with them helping to teach people
about why this is so important amongst our earth.
And now people are listening even more with, of course, the horror,
the fires that happening in Brazil of Amazon.
So all across the Amazon’s that people are coming together and all of the world.
I see it rising up and saying, no, this cannot be.
This is our future.
So that’s Pachamama Alliance working on the board.
I imagine some of our audience has not heard the word Pachamama.
Yes, so Pachamama is a beautiful word.
Thank you.
It’s a Kishwawa word, indigenous word from a nation up in the Andes.
And most people see it in markets.
So they think it means Mother Earth.
And that’s powerful.
But actually Kishwawa word Pachamama means the sacred presence of the earth,
the sky, the universe, and all time.
So to call in oneself Pachamama Alliance, we take really seriously.
So we’re in collaboration with a lot of people we are really listening to
and allying with the indigenous people who have that first upfront knowledge and wisdom.
And we’ll have break supporters and we need more.
And we need so much to permanently preserve the sacred headwaters.
So that’s the work of Pachamama Alliance.
I love it.
And every summer I lead a group into the Amazon to the sacred headwaters.
Next one will be in June of 2020 that I’ll lead.
But Pachamama leads a number of these journeys so you can go in and really get connected to understand.
And I think that more people will be wanting to have that experience.
The Bioneers organization is another amazing organization.
It’s 30 years old or 31.
And I’m on that board.
And they have been in the forefront in all the different sectors,
bringing forward solutions, educating, cross pollinating.
And they have real focus on indigenous people, on women, science.
I mean, they really, their focus is huge.
But they really, so lovingly put their arms around all of it.
And bringing forward in an annual conference every October in San Rafael.
That’s California.
California.
Yeah, bring together for three days.
And you just absorb and learn so much and make connections.
And so much comes out.
And then they threw radio.
We put out a lot of information in communities all over the world.
Right.
Yeah, we have one locally here in Boulder, Colorado, too.
Just continue the learning and continue to inspire the connection.
And what is understanding?
What is each of ours to do and collectively to do to, again, reverse global warming,
to really be in co-creation with life rather than in competition or destructing.
So that’s a wonderful organization.
Go to bioneers.org and you can learn all about the October or next month
our conference.
It’s really great.
That’s so beautiful.
Well, Anita, I just want to thank you for taking the time to visit with us today.
And I’m really grateful we had the opportunity to share this conversation with our network
and audience.
And before we sign off, I’m wondering is there anything else you’d like to say or share?
I think pause.
It’s so busy.
If maybe even before you go to sleep at night, just give a little pause and ask for grace,
ask to bring whatever message needs to come.
Because in the stillness, in the quiet, I believe that’s where we…
And I’m going to talk about has to be hours or a 50 minute meditation.
Just being still and just present to being present.
And waking time or sleeping time, you’re bringing forward your gifts.
So I’d like to share that.
You are needed and appreciated.
Yes, I’m hopefully one day.
Many of them, although you have thousands of millions of people.
So I’m out and meet them all, but I just wish everyone well, because I know it was interconnected
with life.
We are supporting on each other’s behalf.
So yeah, that’s it for me.
Thank you so much, Anita.
Thank you.
The YonEarth Community Stewardship and Sustainability Podcast Series
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