How Hiding and Seeking saved Randi Sager’s life

By Laura Mushumanski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(ANNews) – The spiritual teaching of the diamond willow tree is embedded in understanding that the tree needs to survive and thrive in its natural environment for 50 years before the fruiting bodies of the plant can share its medicine with us – the diamond willow fungus. During the time of restoration, along with the process of learning and growing, the medicine that the diamond willow tree produces continues to gift us medicine of understanding that all parts of ourselves are gifts, and it is okay to hide until a person is ready to share their gifts with the world. This spiritual understanding is similar to what Randi Sager experienced so far in her learning journey.

“I was born with no identity,” Sager, an Indigenous psychologist, shared. “I didn’t know who I was because my father never grew up with his culture. I was born knowing that I was native but never knew what that meant. My upbringing wasn’t the greatest because we moved around a lot and I felt very lost. I had no idea who I was. In 2010 I got my status. I was officially recognized as an Indian, but what did that mean? All I knew was that I could get cheap gas and cigarettes. I floated for a long time. My 20s were quite lost. I had a lot going on mental health wise. Previously, I developed an eating disorder in my early teens as a result of the trauma that I experienced. I didn’t know I had an eating disorder. I just knew that whenever stress happened, it would show up. For 20 years I had that. And when I say I didn’t know I had it, I was really good at lying to myself when I didn’t think I had something.”

It wasn’t until Sager’s last year in her undergraduate studies while she was preparing for grad school in Counselling Psychology that she decided she had to help herself first if she wanted to help others. “When I acknowledged and identified that I had an eating disorder, I started day-treatment. I went to the only place I knew at the time. It was both one of the worst and most profound experiences of my life because it led me to where I am today. During that time, I didn’t engage in any culture. As I was in treatment and the way I was being treated, it felt like my eating disorder was being demonized. I really felt like I was being punished. I was viewed as being resistant when I would question things,” Sager said.

“I remember I was at home and heard a voice say: it is time,” Sager shared and she started to have a very strong pull to go to the Indigenous student center at the University of Calgary. “I had identified as being Indigenous when I enrolled, but I never went because I was afraid of going, that I wouldn’t be accepted because I didn’t look native enough, and thought I was going to be rejected. I was welcomed with loving arms. That is when I experienced my first ceremony, it was a Grandmother’s Cree tea ceremony. It felt like home. It was like my ancestors were going, ‘finally.’ When I sat in that circle, I felt like this is what has been missing in my life.”

As Sager listened to a story being shared about somebody who had schizophrenia and telling those voices that they can stay – but to stay in the stadium seats, not in the field where the person was, “it was so powerful that I had a conversation with my eating disorder, I call him ED. I let him know that I didn’t need him anymore. He could go to sleep. It was after that that my behaviour stopped.”  It was the Elder from the Indigenous centre that taught Sager her relationship with her eating disorder through storytelling. The Elder taught her “what was missing was my cultural identity and understanding that ED saved my life. That ED had a purpose, but he was no longer a purpose in my life, that he was harming me, but understanding and allowing that relationship with him allowed him to go to sleep.”

In that moment, Sager didn’t know she was going to become an Indigenous psychologist. she knew she wanted to become a psychologist. She just didn’t know what or how to go about it. “In that experience with the Elder, I wondered why this was not available. I tried the western ways, but it just wasn’t helping. That’s when I decided I was going to be an Indigenous psychologist. I had no idea what it meant or what it looked like. That is just what I was going to do.”

“Creator was like… ‘here you go.’ He cleared that path. Everything was really fast and life changing. I had to let go of my old life and really embrace it. [During] my last year of grad school, I would describe my life like my forest burnt down. I was devastated; I had to start new,” Sager said and she trusted Creator that this was where she was supposed to be. “I went into grad school. I had to indigenize all my courses, I had to do all the extra work, meaning I went out into community, ceremony – that’s scary when you are not from here. I had to put myself out there and start creating community. My dad was so nervous for me because he was afraid that I was going to experience what he experienced. I have in a systemic way, but not the way he has. I have experienced the systemic racism, the covert racism, where he experiences overt racism.”

At one point early on in Sager’s career, she was accused of practicing shamanism by a co-worker who was unaware of Indigenous cultural practices. “My instinct was to hide, that I needed to shut down. I realized that in that moment it wasn’t me that was wanting to hide, it was my grandmothers – that is what they did to survive. I stood in my power, I didn’t hide. I pushed forward. That was the biggest teaching I got from those experiences – to accept who I was  – Indigenous and also Scottish and German.”

Working from spirit is embedded into Sager’s practice as an Indigenous Registered Psychologist. “I stand in both worlds,” she shared. “The western world taught me how to navigate that world so I can advocate for my clients. I avoided the helper role for many years. I was afraid of the gifts that I have – those gifts that were given to me. When I wasn’t using my gifts, I was getting sick. I learned this when I was doing my research with my participants who gave me these teachings that I still use today. The teachings that I received from my co-researchers and continue to carry in my medicine bag are community, clients, culture identity, spirituality, and empowerment. These are the powerful teachings that are in my practice that are in my daily life and the teachings that I share with clients.”