Introducing re-membering conversations
by Tileah Drahm-Butler
Re-membering reciprocal relationships
by Chris Dolman
A reflection from Aunty Barbara Wimgard
Now please read a reflection from Aunty Barbara about Chris’ video:
Bringing lost loved ones into our conversations: Talking about loss in honouring ways.
Who’s your mob? Aboriginal mapping: Beginning with the strong story
This article by Justin Butler describes ways in which his conversations are guided by Aboriginal worldviews and narrative therapy:
‘Who’s your mob? Aboriginal mapping: Beginning with the strong story‘ by Justin Butler
Saying hullo again when we have lost someone we love
This chapter, by David Denborough, explores ways of ‘Saying hullo again when we have lost someone we love‘
It’s from a book called ‘Retelling the stories of our lives: Everyday narrative therapy to draw inspiration and transform experience’
Carolynanha Johnson
Having a yarn with those who’ve passed on.
This short piece of writing by Carolynanha Johnson is about having a yarn with those who have passed on.
Creative Letters to Elders of my Past and Present
In this video Annette Dudley describes a project about writing letters to significant Elders who have influenced her on my life journey.
Re-membering Practices
Now please read this article from Paul Martin about Re-membering Practices.
Reflecting on re-membering conversations
by Tileah Drahm-Butler
Yolanda Chavez Leyva
31 Mar 2020As I move through the various models of this incredible training, I am struck again and again at the connections I feel with the stories shared by the narrative practitioners. While there are differences, of course, there are so many similarities in the way whiteness/power/colonization has worked in Australia and in Mexico and the United States. It has been a true gift to go through this online training. Thank you.
nadine.lohmeyer2@lwb.org.au
15 Mar 2020I enjoyed Justin Butlers article on Aboriginal mapping and how it can be useful in connecting Aboriginal people by privileging stories of identity and culture.
I also found Annette Dudley’s letter writing to bring a strong connection with ancestry and history while also cathartic in enabling an expression of emotions to address past and present experiences.
Natalie
31 Jan 2020Wow, so many gems in this segment of “Re-membering conversations”. Annette Dudley’s letters to her elders inspired me to think how this might be done with people who are lost or are searching for where they belong. Also, Justin Butler’s paper on Aboriginal mapping offered ideas for “first interview connection”- “Where’s your mob from?”. This seems a great place to begin the therapeutic relationship.
Michael Chanas
5 Nov 2019I enjoyed Chris Dolman’s strong theory foundation.
All articles are part of the holistic picture that come together to make a strong narrative framework.
Culturally safe ways of helping do not use a ‘whiteness lens’ for practice, where we view Aboriginal culture as an ‘Other’.
Annette Dudley identifies ‘her story in ‘Creative Letters to Elders of my Past and Present’. The writing is Beautiful and powerful – I love it. Writing is a powerful tool.
An interesting reflection in comments on ‘Re-membering Practices by Cheree Morton’ resonated with me and I will put it in my practitioner tuckerbox for later. By honouring past loved ones reflects the love we once had together with a view that the pain of loss becomes easier with time.
rachel.grace.pybus@gmail.com
7 Oct 2019Re-membering is such a beautiful sentiment that I was not familiar with before. It is yet another example of the importance of challenging dominant western constructs regarding healing. It was helpful to me to learn about this approach to support my own grief and loss journey, I am sure it will be helpful to my clients in the future.
Nicole Arbuckle
3 Oct 2019Wow, I found the video with Annette Dudley so powerful and it really resonated with me. I can see the therapeutic benefit in letter writing for myself as a journaling process to deal with past trauma. I always carry this sense of hopelessness because I was able to say all the things that I wanted to say to by perpetrator but now I can see the power in writing a letter than can name all my feelings and release it, to take the power c=back that I felt I lost through the unresolved case and through his death.
I can also see then the great benefit there would be for clients to use letter writing as an externalising tool. and also perhaps for the therapists to write empowering letters for our clients to reinforce their new truth.
Anthazia Kadir
11 Sep 2019Western traditions have cultivated us to believe that grief and patterns of remembering happen through a specific method and time frame. What I respect and honour about Aboriginal practices, whether through yarning, creative letter writing or remembering, is that it is organic and not forced.
Chris Dolman’s presentation pushed me to reflect on my practice and life from a soulful place, a place where meaning-making cannot just happen.
Thanks, Annette Dudley your letters bring back memories of times I spend with my nannie and grand-pa
Kylie Ellis
28 Aug 2019Thank you Annette for your very Inspiration presentation. Listening to you read out your heartfelt letters you had written to those people who have meant a lot to you throughout your life. Thank you so much for sharing !!
lindastaunton@hotmail.com
2 Jul 2019Thank you Annette Dudley for this inspiring presentation. After hearing this presentation, I shall certainly be using creative letter writing when working with clients to express and acknowledge what needs to be heard and felt. Creative letter writing offers the opportunity to connect a relative to a past family member who they would have liked to have met. I can see creative letter writing to help process grief and loss.
HeatherK
6 Jun 2019Chris Dolman and David Denborough have given me a lot to think about as I reflect on the western and pathologizing ways of experiencing grief. It has given me so much to think about in terms of those situations where the ‘stages of grief’ are just not ‘working’ for people – the notion of saying hello again is so beautiful and healing. I really appreciated that.
Charmaine
31 May 2019Re-membering and honouring our lost loved ones is such a great way to help people turn grief and sadness around and as Barbara Wingard states; ‘mainstream ways of talking about grief, there is sometimes a focus on the actual pain’. I loved Chris Dolmans video on “Re-membering reciprocal relationships”, how he was able to turn a simple statement into an honouring of re-membering of the lost loved one and bringing forward that story to be built upon thus refocusing the pain from the self to re-emerge into a re-membering and honouring of the Other (the lost loved one) and possibly other people who are still in their lives.
Justin Butler’s paper “Who’s your mob? Aboriginal mapping: Beginning with the strong story”, was a refreshing read and as an Aboriginal person, I could relate to what he was saying about the Aboriginal mapping questions because its common to ask another Aboriginal person these 3 questions and to find out if we are related or connected in some way. In relation to re-membering I feel these questions keep our history and our ancestor alive. The article, Re-membering Practices by Paul Martin, he writes; “I feel when thinking of ways of re-membering are we limited in what we are enquiring about in conversations, are we always looking to reconnect with the ones that we have lost or is it possible we are looking to find parts of ourselves that may have been lost or forgotten through time”. This gives another spin on re-membering as I feel it widens the scope for deeper “innerstanding” (understanding) of our personal journeys with those loved ones who may have helped influence that journey.
Jordan Mills
29 May 2019I was really intrigued by the Aboriginal Mapping article by Justin Butler. Particularly the questions he posed that asked what one might speculate about how their continued cultural practices or ways of living would be seen by their ancestors. It takes the idea of re-membering conversations and applies them to ancestral contexts. What a brilliant way to intimately connect past, present and future in the most respectful acknowledging of culture, kin, land, and family.
Jonathan Morris from Brisbane
23 Aug 2018Reflecting on the reading material and video’s watched I have been made more aware of while a person is sharing their story to look for ‘ Acts of resistance’ and ‘Personal agency’ in their stories and to get them to give more detail to where they may have got this from. I have a guide to use now when dealing with indigenous inmates who have lost a love one. What stood out for me was getting the person to tell me their thoughts on how they may have contributed to the life of whom they speak about. I think this would benefit the person, as they are in prison isolated from family and can have feelings of shame, not being able to attend the service. Creating the space for the person to see by talking about the positive effects they have made to another person’s life and becoming more aware of their own identity, would be very powerful to use with indigenous males.
Cheree Morton
15 Aug 2018A reflection on Re-membering Practices by Cheree Morton
Saying Hullo Again (White 2016, p. 95) resonates with me. I am often yarning to clients who have lost a family member and the hullo again metaphor strikes a chord with me as I am sure it would with my clients as each of them are finding ways to deal with the loss of a loved one in their life.
My client stated that she was feeling depressed because she had a lot of sorry business over Christmas and lost her sister/cousin (In Aboriginal culture we describe our cousins as our sister/cousin or cousin/sister which is culturally respectful and honouring). I thought about the hullo metaphor and began asking her re-membering questions. I first began to have a discussion with her about externalising the depression explaining that the depression she was feeling was outside of who she is, separate from her, she looked confused so I continued with the re-membering questions with her.
After yarning with her about Aboriginal people being spiritual people and discussing the way we often carry the people we have lost with us (Wingard, B 2001), we also had a yarn about honouring our people who had passed away and that it was ok to do so if she wished, (Wingard B 2011), She began to elaborate saying, “our family who passed away are always with us, but I still feel lost without her”.
I said, “How does the loss make you feel’?
She said, “Isolated, worrying all the time for my children”
I said, “If your sister were here now, what do you think she would say about the way you are trying to deal with her passing and about the worrying you have for your children”?.
She said, “I don’t know, I guess she would want me to be the best Mum I can be to my children and to stop worrying for my children”.
I said, “What would your sister say about you as a mother to your children”?
She said, “She would say I am a good mother, a caring loving mother”,
I felt my re-membering questions began to fade so I started yarning with the kids about their attendance at school, one of the children was a brilliant artist, I said to her, “would you draw me a picture or a painting that would describe the feelings you are having that stops you from returning to school and show me next week when I come over for a visit”? She said, “Yes”, as she enthusiastically nodded her head. As I left the family home, the mother, said, “Thankyou sis, I feel so good”
As I was driving back to my office I began thinking about the following week when I meet with the family again and how I could continue the re-membering yarns with the family as I could see that they resonated with them and the family began to open up because my clients face lit up when I asked her questions about her sister/cousin.
I was also reminded of another conversation I had with a client.
She described the frustration she felt with family members who were interfering in her relationship and how her x-partner had let her down. She began to describe herself as a failure as a mother because her relationship “failed”, she further explained, she moved into a new home, applied for domestic violence order because her x-partner was abusive toward her and transferred the children to a new school.
Sometimes in Aboriginal culture, when you marry or have children with an Aboriginal man or woman you often take on the whole family, Aboriginal people often have this joke with one another, in our family we do. We are very family orientated and sometimes this can feel like a hindrance for people who are not aware of the bond we share with our Aboriginal families.
I began to explain the club of life to my client, I further explained that there are good and bad people in our club of life and we can sift out the bad people who don’t serve us or our families well and keep the good people in our club of life, those who make a positive contribution to our lives” (Russell & Carey, 2004 p.47).
I said, “How does the failure make you feel”
She said, “Debilitating”.
I said, “if you were to name the failure, what would you call it”?
She said, “draining”
I said, “If you could see yourself through another’s eyes, and see how you moved house to a safe environment for your children, you applied for a domestic violence order and you left the abusive relationship, what would you say about that person”?
She said, “I would say that that person was a good mother, a mother who put her children first, strong and resilient, a person who could do whatever she wanted when she put her mind to it”.
I said, “would there be a name that could describe that person”.
She said, “yes, strong woman”
I again felt my landscape of enquiry began to dwindle but when I reflect back on my conversation with this client I could see the potential for a sparkling moment and re-authoring of the the thin description my client had of the failure.
Having a yarn with those who’ve passed away (Johnson 2018), I began thinking about our ancestors and how important it is to keep their legacy alive, to honour them. I thought about questions I could implement with clients who often speak about their ancestors with sadness and mourn at the loss of them and other family members.
I reflected on questions such as those described in the Remembrance: Women and Grief and Loss (Denborough, Pitcher, Leibeherr & Hedtke 2011), with particular focus on three themes, the cultural, the spiritual and the legacy questions. Some questions I reflected on were;
“Are there any things about our ancestors who have passed away that you would want to carry forward in life for you and your family’?
“Do you think our ancestors had cultural ways of responding to grief and loss that would be significant to you’?
“As you deal with the grief and loss of your ancestors, culture and language, can you think of ways our ancestors would want us to engage spiritually and culturally to keep their legacy alive”?
What questions did the readings/videos raise?
The following is more of a thought rather than a question or a dilemma. Aunty Barbara Wingard (2001) talks about how Aboriginal people sit in silence because of the loss of a loved one is to painful to speak about. I find the Aboriginal people in my community have forgotten how to honour their loved ones who have passed.
Re-membering conversations give our people, our families permission to talk about their loved ones who have passed in respectful and honouring ways, thereby keeping the spirit of the loved one who has passed away alive because their spirit is our spirit.
Our ancestor’s voices weren’t often heard and as a result Aboriginal people can sometimes feel like they are not heard, that they don’t have a voice, maybe that’s why they are silent. I’ve named this, “silent tears behind a bottle” because too often drinking is how some of my people choose to cope with grief and loss.
Some Aboriginal people in my community have forgotten how to grieve a lost loved one, re-membering conversations help us to honour them and to sit collectively and celebrate them as their spirit lives on in us and through us, their spirit is in the land, the trees, the rivers, oceans and the animals that often visit us from time to time to let us know that they are near.