What Totem Poles Can Teach Us about Healing
Sometimes what feels the most insignificant matters the most
I have long been a firm believer that children and older adults hold the greatest wisdom. Children hold wisdom because they see life so purely; they haven’t been bogged down by the multitude of weighted cares of the world. Older adults hold wisdom because they’ve been on earth long enough to stop sweating the small stuff and focus on what really matters. The rest of us, those in the middle, are often too caught up in the hurry of life to be grounded in the innate wisdom of children and earned wisdom of older adults. And so, I often look to the younger and older among us for bits of wisdom.
Some of this wisdom and insight was given to me this past week by my 6-year-old daughter. At school, they recently learned about totem poles. As a learning activity for this lesson, they got the chance to make their own “family” totem pole in which they picked an animal to represent each member of their family. For instance, you could be a “playful otter” or a “strong thunderbird,” among many other things.
“Mama – I picked ‘healing bear’ for you!” she exclaimed. I was shocked at how moved I was that an animal that represented healing was what she picked for me.
“And why did you pick that one for me?” I asked. “Because you always make us feel better” she replied as she hugged me warmly.
In that moment, I was reminded of how utterly important healing in its many forms is. In researching this concept of “healing bear,” I found that among many Native American cultures the strength of the bear is thought to bring healing. Much like the “mama bear,” the bear in Native cultures represent both healing and protection.
In our modern American culture, we tend to devalue healing. Traditional healing roles, such as nurses, are often undervalued. We gravitate towards quick fixes more than we seek out true healing and comfort. And healing tends to be feminized, which banishes it to the realm of being inherently viewed as a “soft” or less useful skill or talent. (*Interesting side note that the healing bear in Native American cultures is very masculine, due to the strength associated with this power.)
But think back to your own childhood. If you were lucky enough to have a caretaker who cared for you when sick, you can remember that incredible and powerful feeling of being healed by their tender care. The chicken soup, the perfectly placed cool rag on your feverish head, the hugs and cuddles to comfort your body when sickness struck.
If you’ve suffered from any chronic illness or challenging medical diagnosis, you can speak to the absolute life blood that is good nursing staff and physicians. My best experiences within hospital settings always tie back to how much the people there made me feel healed and comforted. In other ways, they cared for me.
Healing, it turns out, is often more about comfort than the actual act of healing. In hindsight, we all know our parents or caretakers were just comforting us as we got through our illness, but in a child’s eye that is healing. “Making us feel better” as my daughter says.
In much the same way, Native American cultures view the bear as not only a literal healer but a symbol reminding Native people to protect their ways of life, stand up for what is right, and restore balance. To heal, it seems, is so much broader and more important than we give it credit.
So often, I get bogged down in chasing things like more success, more work, more achievements, more money. But in the end, those things don’t really matter to anyone but me. It’s the healing that I do, the ways in which I comfort others and they comfort me, that lasts and matters.
I think the world is hurting enough to need more healers right now. May we find our inner healers - our bear spirits - and bring that into the world.
Exciting news this week!
My work on grief was featured in USA Today, which was a delight!