August 12, 2025 • 32 mins
We kick off our new podcast series with a heartbeat – and a Warrior Heart.
Host Mundanara Bayles speaks with Shantelle Thompson OAM – a proud Barkindji and Ngiyampaa woman, mother of five, three-time world Jiu-Jitsu champion and founder of the Warrior Heart Movement. Known as the Barkindji Warrior, Shantelle is a speaker, storyteller and fierce advocate for her people.
Shantelle shares her journey from deep trauma to cultural reclamation – a path grounded in ancestral strength, truth-telling and radical responsibility. Mental fitness, she says, is not just about being strong. It’s about remembering who you are, rising with your Ancestors at your back, and walking in sovereignty.
This episode is a call to come home to yourself and a reminder that we are not broken, we are becoming.
Resources and links:
Find out more about Gotcha4Life at www.gotcha4life.org and follow us on Instagram and Facebook @gotcha4life and Black Magic Woman on Instagram @blackmagicwomanpodcast.
Follow Shantelle on Instagram at @shantellethompsonofficial.
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or follow on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us!
Hosted by award-winning Indigenous businesswoman and Gotcha4Life Board Member Mundanara Bayles, and produced in partnership with Black Magic Woman, Mental Fitness Conversations centres First Nations voices in powerful conversations about culture, connection and what truly sustains mental fitness.
Content in this podcast covers topics related to mental health, including suicide which can be confronting and distressing. If you found this content emotionally challenging, please practise self-care. There are support services available 24/7, 13YARN 13 92 76 and Lifeline 13 11 14
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Podcast unite our voices.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Gotcha for Life and Black Magic Woman podcast acknowledges the
traditional owners of the land which we recorded this episode.
We also acknowledge the traditional owners of the land from
where you, the listener or viewer, are tuning in. We
would like to pay our respects to elders, both past
and present. We acknowledge that this land always was and
always will be Aboriginal land. This podcast talks about mental health, suicide,
(00:33):
and lived experience. If that brings anything up for you,
please take care while listening and remember you don't need
to worry alone. Welcome to Mental Fitness Conversations, a podcast
about how real people build their mental fitness through connection, community,
and simple everyday actions. Brought to you by Gotcha for
Life in partnership with Black Magic Woman. Here's your host,
(00:56):
Monda Narrabels.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Welcome back to another deadly episode.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
This is a.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Partnership series We've Gotcha for Life and Black Magic Women,
where we yarn to deadly blackfellows from right across the
country and talk about building our mental fitness, building our
village like making sure that no one ever has to
worry alone. We want to share inspirational stories embedded in culture,
(01:26):
community connection and resilience. Gotcha for Life is a foundation
where we want to imagine and work towards in Australia
with no suicides. And we know that mental health and suicide, depression,
anxiety a lot of our mob experience, but more they're
(01:48):
impacted more. Some of our listeners may even feel a
little bit triggered by this yard. And so please reach
out to your community and get support or ring one
three yarn twenty four hours, seven days away week and
you can talk to somebody who can actually help you
with what you're going through. The person that I have
(02:09):
on the show where my sister, This is Chantel Thompson,
and she's going to tell you her story. So thank
you for flying in this morning, and thank you for
giving up your time and lending your voice to be
part of this really important conversation. Tell us your mob,
your community and a little bit about where you grew up.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, perfect, and we're weaving that yarn in right. It's
been five years and so much has happened in the
world for us for the work that we do.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
You had another baby.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
I did have another baby. I didn't see that one coming. No,
I was always on the cards, but life has definitely shifted.
He's my I call him a little cooka cub, my
little kooka bar. He bought a new sunrise, a new
season into my life, and a new reckoning as well.
I just want to remind people that Australia did have
a world without suicide, It did have a world without
(03:09):
mental health prior to colonization.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Because there are no words. There are words thousand Aboraginal
languages for suicide.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, for even mental health and stuff like that, like too.
And this is only something I learned recently. In Bakangy language.
I was trying to look for words to describe the
work that I'm doing because my work is evolving and
something new is being born. And I reach out to
one of our language holders, our knowledge keepers, and I
(03:38):
was like, I need words for this, and he's like, shantel,
there are no words that exist for unnatural states of being.
And I was like, oh, for natural states of being.
I'm sorry, and he's like and I'm like, what do
you mean And he's like, well, you're looking for empowerment.
There is no word for empowerment because it was already
a natural state of being. So like Western methods of
well being is the absence of illness. But that's the
bare minimum. For our mob. The bare minimum is thriving,
(04:01):
and I think that's the difference. That's the reckoning yarns
like this have because we don't want to settle for
the status quo. We don't want to settle for less
than And I guess that was the birthplace for my story.
So for those that haven't met me yet, my name
is Chantel Thompson and I'm a proud barkinging imple woman.
I'm a nongo wimpature from northwestern town of Derton, So
I grew up in a very small community. My mum
(04:24):
is and my grandparents are from Vulcana, and that community
is known for far too many of the wrong statistics.
And yet a lot of our narratives in mainstream systems,
even in our own systems, are grounded in deficit in trauma.
It's almost that you have to prostitute your trauma to
(04:44):
get a stage, to get funding. And even in the
spaces that I work, prevention as the primary prevention of
what we are often tasked blackfellows a task with the
responsibility to solve problems that were not of our own
making and yet justifying why those solutions should be funded.
And I guess this has been a big driver my life.
So I'm known as the Barkandy Warrior. I'm a very
(05:08):
proud sibling of up to seventeen siblings, so mum and
dad together and then mum and Dad separated, and I'm
the very proud mum of five children ranging in ages
from eighteen down to four. And I'm Anishann too many
more so my role is Namika mum and as Anishan
and as Shantell the woman and understanding what that means
in this season of life. Are are my main roles.
(05:29):
They're the roles that define everything else. So I have
many different cultural backgrounds, but being a First Nations woman,
my story was seated in the whim of my ancestors.
And I am a self determined, sovereign, dreaming, led Aboriginal
woman first and foremost. And that is not the narrative
that was told to me. It was not the narrative
that the colonial patriarchal world tried to force upon me.
(05:52):
And every time I pushed back and said that wasn't
my story, there were consequences. There was a price to pay,
and I think one of the things that really drives
me now is that, particularly as a woman and an
indigenous woman, people say, be bold, just be yourself in
the world, right, But what does that mean and what
does it take? Like, what does it cost you, Mandonara
to be you in the world? What if you had
(06:14):
to pay, what do you still have to face? It
is not safe to be ourselves in the world. So
for me, this was the birthplace of the Barkundy warrior
and the warrior heart. And I mean my resume goes.
I have three world titles in Brazilian jiu jitsu, titles
that I won in my thirties as a mother of three,
overcoming postnatal depression, running a business, often studying, and not
(06:36):
because I wanted to do all those things, but because
those were the things I had to navigate and carry
just to be myself in the world, just to take
care of my family. And if I had to choose
between fighting for my dreams and settling for the status quo,
I chose to get up and fight and that's how
I started a business. Jiu Jitsu was my playtime, jiu
jitsu is my therapy, and winning world titles is easy
(06:59):
in comparison to healing into generational trauma, to look in
the mirror every single day, and taking responsibility for who
you're being in the world, knowing that you don't want
your children and your legacy to be collateral damage to
who you're being in the world. And that's been my
biggest thing. So all the things that I've done, the degrees,
the awards, the world titles are all possible because I
(07:24):
took a journey of reclamation and remembering and of regeneration
of my culture first within my own story. Because a
cedar tree has to take what it needs from country
before it can provide shade and fruit to other people.
And that's not a narrative that women that mothers hear like.
The narrative that I was given is that as a mother,
I need to abandon myself in order to be a
(07:45):
good mum, And in order to be a strong woman
or a strong leader, you need to burn out. And
for those that don't know, I just got back from
a four week trip to America where I had the
opportunity to speak at the United Nations Permanent Forum of
Indigenous Issues. A little girl from Dead New South Wales
or this little bargaging imp girl who's been fighting her
whole life. And I just went where my ancestors called me.
(08:08):
I think that's the biggest flex in this life is
that I'm now just following where the ancestors called me
to go.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And what did you speak about at the UN So.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I was there in my role as the national abordinal
torrost Rattle and a women's association the Victorian director.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
So they got funding.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
NATSIA, yep, yeah, they got funding to send over three
delegates to go and gain international experience in the human
rights space. And when I got the opportunity, I kind
of questioned it because I was like, why me, Like,
I'm not in that space and I'm grassroots. And the
whole tagline from that trip now is that I'm going
(08:45):
from grassroots to global and weaving it all together. And
I wasn't originally meant to speak. I was there to
gain experience. But then being there, we were reminded by
one of the eldest uncle.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Les who is Mauser.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Yes he is a national leader in this space, and
he reminded us there was a big yarn with like
justin Muhammad and all these names and hold these big roles,
and he said, remember first and foremost, you are sovereign
indigenous people with a responsibility to your communities and to
your culture and to the next generation before anything else.
And like stuff like that hits you in the soul
(09:20):
and I was like, okay, I'm listening, aren't And then
Hannah McGlade, who is also like an expert in this
space and has been leading Australia in this space for
quite a while, she reminded the women that were there.
So the first two days were around the rights of
women and girls and the implementation of the Human Rights
United Declaration of Indigenous Rights ANDRIP as it's called, and
(09:44):
the General Recommendation thirty nine is as well and from
seed Or and it was this reminder that we have
a voice, we have a responsibility, and these moments might
never come again. We can't just sit back and wait.
We do not have that luxury to think that there's
going to be another moment.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
And so you took this opportunity, yeah, to basically tell
the world on that global stage, on.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
A global stage, that we are not our trauma, that
as Indigenous women, when an Indigenous woman rises, the world changes.
And it was this space where I got to tell
I guess my own story, which is the story of
thousands of generations since colonialism, of women who have had
our children taken. Our blood has spilled into the lands
(10:30):
on which other people's wealth has been built. But we
are not often beneficiaries. And yet our wealth is still
within us, of our strength, of our culture and who
we fight for. And yet we're still expected to carry
the burden, the burnout, the colonial load, the cultural responsibility,
the matriarchal responsibility, and yet we do it every single.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Day, but little recognition, with very little recognition. It's not
why we do what we do. We do it because
we're obligated to culturally.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
But it comes with a big cost. To Sis. My
mum died at forty two. And through the work that
I I do at the Kilana Foundation, like I'm leading
young women every single day, and I get messages every
single day from everyday people who see me getting up
at three thirty am or four am just to fit
in everything that I do, and they're like, I don't
know how you do it, Sis, but you sharing what
(11:18):
you're doing. It makes me want to do what I
can do, and it reminded me of that responsibility that
I don't want to promote this picture of burnout of
doing it all. It was like for me, it's about
weaving what I can and doing the best I can
with what I've got. But I'm also allowed to thrive
within the legacy and the life that I'm creating. And
(11:39):
I guess that through all the experiences that I've had,
from the lateral violence, to the postpartum depression that escalated
into psychosis, to the depression that led to suicidal ideation
not once but three times, trying to take my life twice,
everything kind of came down to that moment, to reminding
myself and planting a seed in the ground that we
(12:00):
are not our trauma, and yet we have a responsibilit
to get up and heal through that. But it's from
reclaiming who we have always been. It's not about becoming
someone new.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
So and our culture plays a big role in this. Yes,
how has culture kind of grounded you? Especially with the
work that you do?
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Culture? So I was very I'm very grateful to grow
up knowing that I'm barkaging imprint and being a fair
skinned Aboriginal woman has come with its own challenges.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Tell me about it.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
I don't come from a legacy family name, so I've
had to do that reclaiming myself. So I was very
fortunate to I couldn't grow up with mum, so Mum
couldn't get a handle on her own shit. Basically, Mum
did the best she could, but she was a product
of her own trauma and her own choices. Yep, because
I think often when we talk about indigenous spaces, a
(12:53):
lot is talked about traumering, Yet in the roles that
we see man no no are there are a lot
of people who hide behind that too, a lot of
people who don't want to take responsibility. And I know
people will come for me for this.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
But but it's true.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Lateral violence and trauma have been used as excuses and
as weapons for people to not uphold their responsibilities to
roles that they choose to take. But when they are
called out for their responsibility, they don't like it. And
I don't know why the ancestors called me to this path,
the dreaming of the Barkagy warrior and this evolution the
(13:25):
warrior heart that is coming next. But I'm starting to
accept it and carry the fact that only I can
do this in the way that I can, and the
experiences that I've had growing up barking, and I didn't
know I was an imperor until twenty eighteen because I
didn't know my maternal grandfather was black until my grandfather
my grandmother passed away. So yes, my mom and my
(13:48):
dad are both products of their own trauma in their
own way. And yet I also know that they did
the best they could. But what they couldn't do for us,
and the harm that was done was they couldn't always
be what we needed, me and my siblings. So that
meant that as the oldest of my dad's children, the
oldest in the home, I started helping to support and
raise my siblings. At the age of six, I first had.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
My were like little adults and training, right we are,
and we're on girls being little mums yep, and mimicking
the older women yep, yep.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
And there's a difference between the cultural responsibility and opportunity
and the toxic overload and the toxic obligation that is
forced upon us, particularly those of us that carry a
strength and a capacity that not many can do what
we do, and yet we are still tasked with carrying
more than our fair share. And then when we can
and when we rise up and expect more from others.
(14:41):
We are often crucified for that, whether it be our
own mob, other women, or the white systems. So the
biggest strength we can have is coming together, and yet
those circles are so small. So for me, two spaces
that helped me become me and where culture really played
a space was the took Alina Cumbe Center and the
Anne Eileen Kirby Drop in Center. And these were spaces
(15:03):
where I could be black. I didn't have to carry that.
I didn't have to carry the code to explain that,
to translate that to other people, and I didn't have
to code switch there. I could just be this black
little girl with a big mouth. But being white, I
didn't fit in with my own mom. I was too
white when they didn't like me because I was growing
(15:25):
up different. I had my dad. My dad was the
one who fought for me. So when I was sexually
abused in my mum's care and my mum's family chose
to cover for that and to hide it, my dad
was the one who came and fought for me. But
it was my dad's mum. If it wasn't for my
paternal nan, I wouldn't be the person I am today.
So she fought in the she fought in the war,
(15:47):
she was a she was a mechanic during the war,
and she also supported my grandfather through the through PTSD
of the impacts of war. And I think all of
these different threads, but culture spoke to me. Country spoke
to me like the war. Being a river girl, a
(16:08):
fresh water country. It was it was culture that always
called me through, that said, this story isn't yours. Yours
is something else. And I think being able to hear
the ancestors from such a young age comes with a responsibility,
but it's such a gift. So culture grounded me. Culture
gave me a pathway through. But when people tried to
tell me what that looked like, it was always this.
(16:29):
It wasn't something I could put in words. It was
like my spirit and my body knew that this wasn't
our story, like this trauma and this deficit, and yet
that was the only kind of way through. Was these
contradictory sort of things. I've seen our aunties and uncles
and parents practicing culture and yet navigating trauma. And it's insufficient.
So those two places that I grew up in, they
(16:51):
don't exist because there was insufficient unsustainable funding models. We
didn't have entrepreneurship as a word back then. We didn't
have collectives supporting ecosystems and things like that. So politics
and unsustainable funding models. Yet it planted the seed in
me to become who I am today. And that's because
of elders like Annie Sharon Kirby and my stepmom Gloria
(17:13):
Spencer who wrapped around me at times that I needed it,
and my nan being that solid person in my life saying, yeah,
you got shit going on, but you've got a responsibility.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Girl, get up, Get up, yeap, go take care of
your shit.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah. And you've got children, yes, tell me.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
About your children, and I know your auntie and mum
to the whole community. Yes, But in terms of your children,
you've inspired them to change their dreams. I seen one
of your girls competing. What is she doing? Jiu jitsu?
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Of course?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
How did she get into jiu jitsu? Was you like
this is what you're gonna do? Would she one day
say Mom, I want to do this sport?
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Like?
Speaker 1 (17:50):
How did that happen for her?
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Look? My babies grew up on the mats and being
a mum is really hard. And no one kind of
tells you when you're called to something bigger than yourself
that it can come at a cost a lot across it.
Some people don't want to see, like my children have
(18:15):
had to sacrifice so much and pay a big price
being my child and to hold you, to hold me,
but also to not have me at times so when
they needed me. And I now can acknowledge I didn't
understand at the time, but I can acknowledge the impact
me being me has had on my children, both positive
(18:37):
and negative. And I couldn't always be there, and I
think that's the reason for the tears. It's something that
I'm still reckoning with. So my eldest daughter is eighteen now,
she's finished school and growing up on the mat. So
she grew up seeing me fight like my twins did
as well. So I was nineteen when I started jiu jitsu.
(18:59):
So I got introduced to jiu jitsu and martial arts
when I was nineteen because I was too busy getting
into fights.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
So for me to take out yeah, frustration and anger.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
I used to do it in the nightclubs and at
school in the school yard. And then someone said, come on, Shan,
you've got too much potential to be doing this. Go
and learn us, ye need something. And the funny thing is,
I'm not one of those black fellows that's good at sports.
Is like, I'm not. I don't know where the jeans where,
must have gone to my brothers or something. But for
me to be sitting here saying I'm a black belt
(19:29):
and a three time world champion, not a black belt
WORL champion, yet that's the one to come uh ah.
So to space everyone, Yeah, there's there's stuff coming you mob.
So my daughter and my twins started training jiu jitsu
when they were about seven and nine, and like they're strong.
My babies are just physically strong. So some people like
(19:51):
naturally flexible, some are naturally strong, and some are naturally athletics.
So my daughter took after her dad, like she's very
naturally talented, was picking up the sport. But she's got
this staunchness. And my kids are also Pacific Islander as well,
so very that's to the matriarchal cultures. And there's photos
of my daughter and I was like, she makes me
look like i'msoft, like just the fierceness on her face.
(20:12):
I was like, I'd hate to have to come up
across her in a battle.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
But so she won something recently.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Not recently so be she prioritized school the last two years.
But twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two she competed
at the World Championships and she came home a two
tomes bronze medalist both times in the Juvenile Blue Belt Worlds.
So she created her own pathway. And I don't think
I think it was built off of the seed that
I planted, but I cleared the pathway for her to
(20:39):
become whoever she wanted to be, and she took that up.
My son now plays basketball and is aiming for like
an elite level, and they I guess we created the pathway,
but we role modeled success. Like there's a video of
my daughter when up from the twenty twenty eighteen Conworth Games.
We were interviewed for that, and there's a video of
(21:01):
my daughter saying to everyone else like, wow, that's and
she's like but to us, that's just mum. Like, so
I've normalized this in my household. Me being a world
champion is nothing special in my household. Literally, my kids community,
You're just I'm just Ani Shan like me. Being a
world champion or coming home with another title is exactly
that to my kids, whether it's my nieces and nephews,
(21:21):
Ani Shan's kids or Nummiker's kids, it's literally that's just
what you do Onni Shan like what special, like show
us something different, And that's.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
A big part of your work. You're in community. You've
set up a foundation. I see that space that you've
created culturally safe. You're keeping these kids safe. Yeah, and
what do you do with them? Do you put on programs,
do you do weaving? What are some of the activities
that you do with these kids to teach them culture
(21:53):
and to teach them that they're loved or show them
that they're loved.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
So the Kilna Foundation kill Ana means growing in bark
and gy is something that's been in my spirits since
I was fifteen, and it came It was kind of
brought out of this moment where I had two teachers.
I had a teacher tell me I was more likely
to end up dead or pregnant than I was to
finish school because statistics were against me. Well, she got
some very colorful language and probably didn't come near me
again for the rest of my schooling experience, I can
(22:18):
tell you that. But then I had this other teacher
kind of tell me she'd been trying to help me
for six months, but you know, me being cocky but
being having a lot of trauma, having all these walls up,
I didn't see it as that, and she got so
frustrated with me one day. I can't remember her name,
but I can still remember the tears in her eyes,
and she said to me, Chantel, you got your head
stuck so far up your own asset. You're a part
of your own problem, Like you've got all this potential,
(22:39):
but you're just coming at this. She gave me that
black Auntie love, and she wasn't black, And if anyone
knows what that means, they'll know what it means. And
the person who gives me that these days is only
Karen Demory. But long story short, I knew that I
was going to create something for young mob but I
also understood, even at a young age, that I needed
(23:00):
to be an example of what I wanted for others,
because I I didn't want to be gam and I
didn't want to be contradictory to say to other people,
you know you can be and do anything you want,
And even at that young age, I somehow had this
knowledge that I needed to empower the individual but also
shift and challenge the systems that can break us or
hold us down. So I was originally my original pathway.
I was going to be a teacher, and I knew
(23:22):
I wanted to work with kids like myself. So kids
who sat in this messy middle had all this potential
but also had all this trauma and all this lived
experience of I've gone, well, that's not possible for someone
like me, Like I never had anyone in my world
that was starting businesses, that was an elite athlete that
I wasn't told that these dreams were even allowed for me,
(23:43):
let alone possible. So it was at that age and
then it's kind of had as different iterations. But in
twenty twenty, when I moved home during COVID, I got pissed.
I got angry at my community and at the echoes
and at the orcs because there was no active youth
space that wasn't attached to crisis and case management or leadership.
(24:03):
One of the kids that had all this potential and
families that were trying, but also there was no access
to culture that wasn't attached to politics or attached to
family tie. So if you weren't a family that had
culture in your family, there was nowhere to go like
parents and families yearning for culture. All the research tells
us that culture and community are the answer, and yet
(24:23):
there was nowhere to access that. So five months pregnant
with my son, I went forget. I'm gonna do something
about it. And I think that's the difference, and I
think that's what entrepreneurship has taught me, is to just
get up and do it. But it was more than that,
this was a calling. I sat there and argued with
their ancestors. I said, I don't want to do this.
It's not the right time.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Because this is twenty four or seven works.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Yes, it's and that's the thing special in your base regionally,
like it runs into you in the supermarket and it's
and it's a it's a big responsibility because these kids
don't You're not just Ani Shan or Nummi kid to them,
but they're witnessing what you're doing. They follow you, like
these kids talk my socials. They're always watching what Anishan's doing.
So it came with this responsibility that who I was
trying to tell them to be I had to be
(25:03):
doing on that work in myself. So in twenty twenty,
we started with one school session, after school session to
make it accessible, and it was an after school session
for girls, and I gave them the space. So my
kid's words now is Anishan's the ATM and the bus driver.
We're the GPS because I said, you need to tell
me what you want. I know what you need, but
(25:23):
you need to tell me what you want and what
that looks like. Our first session we had thirty girls
walk through the door. So in eighteen months, we had
over two hundred girls walk through our door two days
a week, and I was driving my own car most
of the time or borrow on something funding it most
of the time, myself two days a week after we're
pregnant with son delivering this program, and then it just
(25:46):
evolved from there. So it's a space where they can
connect to themselves. So we're it big on self development.
I'm big on personal agency. It's big on them finding
a sense of purpose and meaning within themselves. And I
find that this has been the case with myself and
everything that I've kind of looked at is when a
person has a sense of their own identity. They have
a sense of belief in themselves but also in their
(26:07):
capacity to do something. But they have something that is
bigger than themselves worth fighting for. Then it gives them
a pathway through anything trauma, suicide, violence, And that's what
kilana is. It's not about leadership because leadership has put
too much on our kids. They put up on too
many pedestals and there's no room from the muck up.
And we can see that with leaders like look what
(26:29):
HadAM happen to? Adam Goods and a few others that
have been vilified for taking up that space right and
then when they become human or fallible, they get crucified
for it in the public eye. And I was like, no,
this isn't about leadership. But it's also not about crisis
or case management. So we break through victim mentality, we
break through entitlement. We give them a sense of who
(26:49):
they want to be. We give them role models who
can show them that they can be and do anything.
But then we also go, if you want more, you
can have it and we're here for you. But also
so we've got kids out stealing cars and then five
minutes later, they're in Kilerlana doing like sitting there because
we've have a saying leave your shit at the door,
and I've had people ring me and say, oh, you
know your kid was doing this and I said, ann,
they didn't steal my car. I'm not here to do
(27:11):
that work. There's other people funded for that. We are
just a space and then for those that want more,
so we provide role models. We provide a space for
reclamation of culture away from politics and funding models. But
also we've refuse to prostitute our kids trauma to get funding,
and that's probably why it's been a little bit harder
to get support because we haven't danced to that tune
(27:31):
I because of who I am as well. But you
know what, we've had girls. I've got one girl in
university who got that direct opportunity because of what we've done.
I've got one young woman who's twenty one and is
leading our program and she came through the program. So
we're doing succession planning, we're doing legacy building one girl
at a time, and it's about empowering that individual to
(27:53):
be their own warrior, to be their own leaders, their
own person first before they're expected to lead the world.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
And that's what I wanted to kind of yeah, like
end this yar whe or wrap this yarn up with
what are yours? What's some key messages to some of
the young mob that are listening to this podcast right now?
What do you want to share with them before we
wrap up?
Speaker 3 (28:16):
As Anishan as just a normal everyday woman, Like for me,
I really had to go what did this all come
down to? You? Like? How did I overcome suicide? How
did I end a twenty year relationship that was acting
out family violence that I didn't recognize? How did I
have the courage to walk away and stand alone in
(28:37):
a world that told me who I could be and
risk everything to go No, this is who I am?
Was the warrior heart because so many people say, just
be yourself in the world. But in order to be
yourself in the world, you have to know who you are.
You have to know who your what your power is,
you need to know what your truth is. Because our
heart bypasses our ego and our trauma. But in order
(28:58):
to be ourselves in the world, we have to be
willing to fight for ourselves. And you are worth fighting
for and you are worth knowing who you are because
who you are is going to ripple out into the children,
out into your families and your communities. And often we're
so externally focused on our mob especially as young Black fellows,
like all of our kids, I want to do this
for my family. Come back to yourself, Come home to yourself,
(29:22):
and make yourself solid and strong. Look at country them
trees have to take what they need first from country
before they can produce shade and provide fruit, especially legacy
sort of stuff like generational stuff. When we come home
and we make ourselves well first, When we come home
and fight for ourselves and be ourselves in the world,
that's the greatest truth, especially as Black fellows. When I
(29:43):
can walk into any room barefoot, whether I'm on a
global stage of the United Nations or I'm on a
global stage of competing in jiu jitsu, or walking into
my home or walking into kilana, I can just be
myself in the world. And that's that warrior heart, knowing
who I am. And when we can do that, that
is the greatest healing. It is the greatest pathway to culture,
(30:03):
and it is the greatest pathway to our freedom, our
self determination and sovereignty. As first nations, mob to ourselves
first before we try to give it to our mob
and our families and our collective.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Oh my goodness, we're going to have to do part three.
I knew this was going to be a big yard,
and I knew you'd be able to share so much
in such a short amount of time. But we have
run out of time, and it's terrible. But I just
want to say it's been an absolute privilege to have
you back to share what you've been doing since five
(30:36):
years ago. And you know, watch out, yeah, people, you know,
stay tuned for people. There's our show notes, so people
can reach out and follow your journey. And for anyone
that's listening that want to back a grassroots community and
invest in young women, then your foundation is a no brainer.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Well, they can either fund the vision or the visionary like,
because I think both both are worth investing in. And
I'm taking this stuff global, like the new tagline fulling
din is weaving, the weaving the warrior heart grassroots to global.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
There you go. Well, I'll see you on LinkedIn Dondale
and see you more too, deadly. Thank you for coming
all the way down here to have this yarn. I
know that you've added a lot of value to this
really important conversation around building mental fitness, building your emotional
and mental muscles, and just inspiring not just this generation,
(31:32):
but generations to come.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
So thank you, no, thank you sis, and thank you
to Gotcha for life for doing this important work and
opening themselves up to the responsibility to weave ancient principles
and practices of doing well being and thriving in a
different landscape and a different language.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yes, there's more to come done, and I'm sure we're
going to be seeing you more.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Thank you, my sister, Thank you, Thanks for tuning in
to mental fitness conversations. Keep building your emotional muscles with
the free mental Fitness Jim packed with two rules, tips
and everyday actions to support your mental fitness. Download it
from the App Store or Google Play Store or visit
the Mentalfitnessgym dot org. If anything in this episode brought
(32:15):
something up for you, you don't have to worry alone.
Reach out to a trusted friend or family member and
know that support is available. You can contact Lifeline on
one three, double one one four or one three yarn
at one three nine, two seven six for free and
confidential support for Aboriginal and Torrostraight Islander people. If you
(32:35):
enjoyed this episode, leave us a rating, share it with
someone in your village, or drop us a message. We'd
love to hear what you think, and don't forget to
follow Black Magic Woman and Gotcha for Life on all
socials to keep the conversation going
Podcast unite our voices.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Gotcha for Life and Black Magic Woman podcast acknowledges the
traditional owners of the land which we recorded this episode.
We also acknowledge the traditional owners of the land from
where you, the listener or viewer, are tuning in. We
would like to pay our respects to elders, both past
and present. We acknowledge that this land always was and
always will be Aboriginal land. This podcast talks about mental health, suicide,
(00:33):
and lived experience. If that brings anything up for you,
please take care while listening and remember you don't need
to worry alone. Welcome to Mental Fitness Conversations, a podcast
about how real people build their mental fitness through connection, community,
and simple everyday actions. Brought to you by Gotcha for
Life in partnership with Black Magic Woman. Here's your host,
(00:56):
Monda Narrabels.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Welcome back to another deadly episode.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
This is a.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Partnership series We've Gotcha for Life and Black Magic Women,
where we yarn to deadly blackfellows from right across the
country and talk about building our mental fitness, building our
village like making sure that no one ever has to
worry alone. We want to share inspirational stories embedded in culture,
(01:26):
community connection and resilience. Gotcha for Life is a foundation
where we want to imagine and work towards in Australia
with no suicides. And we know that mental health and suicide, depression,
anxiety a lot of our mob experience, but more they're
(01:48):
impacted more. Some of our listeners may even feel a
little bit triggered by this yard. And so please reach
out to your community and get support or ring one
three yarn twenty four hours, seven days away week and
you can talk to somebody who can actually help you
with what you're going through. The person that I have
(02:09):
on the show where my sister, This is Chantel Thompson,
and she's going to tell you her story. So thank
you for flying in this morning, and thank you for
giving up your time and lending your voice to be
part of this really important conversation. Tell us your mob,
your community and a little bit about where you grew up.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, perfect, and we're weaving that yarn in right. It's
been five years and so much has happened in the
world for us for the work that we do.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
You had another baby.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
I did have another baby. I didn't see that one coming. No,
I was always on the cards, but life has definitely shifted.
He's my I call him a little cooka cub, my
little kooka bar. He bought a new sunrise, a new
season into my life, and a new reckoning as well.
I just want to remind people that Australia did have
a world without suicide, It did have a world without
(03:09):
mental health prior to colonization.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Because there are no words. There are words thousand Aboraginal
languages for suicide.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, for even mental health and stuff like that, like too.
And this is only something I learned recently. In Bakangy language.
I was trying to look for words to describe the
work that I'm doing because my work is evolving and
something new is being born. And I reach out to
one of our language holders, our knowledge keepers, and I
(03:38):
was like, I need words for this, and he's like, shantel,
there are no words that exist for unnatural states of being.
And I was like, oh, for natural states of being.
I'm sorry, and he's like and I'm like, what do
you mean And he's like, well, you're looking for empowerment.
There is no word for empowerment because it was already
a natural state of being. So like Western methods of
well being is the absence of illness. But that's the
bare minimum. For our mob. The bare minimum is thriving,
(04:01):
and I think that's the difference. That's the reckoning yarns
like this have because we don't want to settle for
the status quo. We don't want to settle for less
than And I guess that was the birthplace for my story.
So for those that haven't met me yet, my name
is Chantel Thompson and I'm a proud barkinging imple woman.
I'm a nongo wimpature from northwestern town of Derton, So
I grew up in a very small community. My mum
(04:24):
is and my grandparents are from Vulcana, and that community
is known for far too many of the wrong statistics.
And yet a lot of our narratives in mainstream systems,
even in our own systems, are grounded in deficit in trauma.
It's almost that you have to prostitute your trauma to
(04:44):
get a stage, to get funding. And even in the
spaces that I work, prevention as the primary prevention of
what we are often tasked blackfellows a task with the
responsibility to solve problems that were not of our own
making and yet justifying why those solutions should be funded.
And I guess this has been a big driver my life.
So I'm known as the Barkandy Warrior. I'm a very
(05:08):
proud sibling of up to seventeen siblings, so mum and
dad together and then mum and Dad separated, and I'm
the very proud mum of five children ranging in ages
from eighteen down to four. And I'm Anishann too many
more so my role is Namika mum and as Anishan
and as Shantell the woman and understanding what that means
in this season of life. Are are my main roles.
(05:29):
They're the roles that define everything else. So I have
many different cultural backgrounds, but being a First Nations woman,
my story was seated in the whim of my ancestors.
And I am a self determined, sovereign, dreaming, led Aboriginal
woman first and foremost. And that is not the narrative
that was told to me. It was not the narrative
that the colonial patriarchal world tried to force upon me.
(05:52):
And every time I pushed back and said that wasn't
my story, there were consequences. There was a price to pay,
and I think one of the things that really drives
me now is that, particularly as a woman and an
indigenous woman, people say, be bold, just be yourself in
the world, right, But what does that mean and what
does it take? Like, what does it cost you, Mandonara
to be you in the world? What if you had
(06:14):
to pay, what do you still have to face? It
is not safe to be ourselves in the world. So
for me, this was the birthplace of the Barkundy warrior
and the warrior heart. And I mean my resume goes.
I have three world titles in Brazilian jiu jitsu, titles
that I won in my thirties as a mother of three,
overcoming postnatal depression, running a business, often studying, and not
(06:36):
because I wanted to do all those things, but because
those were the things I had to navigate and carry
just to be myself in the world, just to take
care of my family. And if I had to choose
between fighting for my dreams and settling for the status quo,
I chose to get up and fight and that's how
I started a business. Jiu Jitsu was my playtime, jiu
jitsu is my therapy, and winning world titles is easy
(06:59):
in comparison to healing into generational trauma, to look in
the mirror every single day, and taking responsibility for who
you're being in the world, knowing that you don't want
your children and your legacy to be collateral damage to
who you're being in the world. And that's been my
biggest thing. So all the things that I've done, the degrees,
the awards, the world titles are all possible because I
(07:24):
took a journey of reclamation and remembering and of regeneration
of my culture first within my own story. Because a
cedar tree has to take what it needs from country
before it can provide shade and fruit to other people.
And that's not a narrative that women that mothers hear like.
The narrative that I was given is that as a mother,
I need to abandon myself in order to be a
(07:45):
good mum, And in order to be a strong woman
or a strong leader, you need to burn out. And
for those that don't know, I just got back from
a four week trip to America where I had the
opportunity to speak at the United Nations Permanent Forum of
Indigenous Issues. A little girl from Dead New South Wales
or this little bargaging imp girl who's been fighting her
whole life. And I just went where my ancestors called me.
(08:08):
I think that's the biggest flex in this life is
that I'm now just following where the ancestors called me
to go.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And what did you speak about at the UN So.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I was there in my role as the national abordinal
torrost Rattle and a women's association the Victorian director.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
So they got funding.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
NATSIA, yep, yeah, they got funding to send over three
delegates to go and gain international experience in the human
rights space. And when I got the opportunity, I kind
of questioned it because I was like, why me, Like,
I'm not in that space and I'm grassroots. And the
whole tagline from that trip now is that I'm going
(08:45):
from grassroots to global and weaving it all together. And
I wasn't originally meant to speak. I was there to
gain experience. But then being there, we were reminded by
one of the eldest uncle.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Les who is Mauser.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Yes he is a national leader in this space, and
he reminded us there was a big yarn with like
justin Muhammad and all these names and hold these big roles,
and he said, remember first and foremost, you are sovereign
indigenous people with a responsibility to your communities and to
your culture and to the next generation before anything else.
And like stuff like that hits you in the soul
(09:20):
and I was like, okay, I'm listening, aren't And then
Hannah McGlade, who is also like an expert in this
space and has been leading Australia in this space for
quite a while, she reminded the women that were there.
So the first two days were around the rights of
women and girls and the implementation of the Human Rights
United Declaration of Indigenous Rights ANDRIP as it's called, and
(09:44):
the General Recommendation thirty nine is as well and from
seed Or and it was this reminder that we have
a voice, we have a responsibility, and these moments might
never come again. We can't just sit back and wait.
We do not have that luxury to think that there's
going to be another moment.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
And so you took this opportunity, yeah, to basically tell
the world on that global stage, on.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
A global stage, that we are not our trauma, that
as Indigenous women, when an Indigenous woman rises, the world changes.
And it was this space where I got to tell
I guess my own story, which is the story of
thousands of generations since colonialism, of women who have had
our children taken. Our blood has spilled into the lands
(10:30):
on which other people's wealth has been built. But we
are not often beneficiaries. And yet our wealth is still
within us, of our strength, of our culture and who
we fight for. And yet we're still expected to carry
the burden, the burnout, the colonial load, the cultural responsibility,
the matriarchal responsibility, and yet we do it every single.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Day, but little recognition, with very little recognition. It's not
why we do what we do. We do it because
we're obligated to culturally.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
But it comes with a big cost. To Sis. My
mum died at forty two. And through the work that
I I do at the Kilana Foundation, like I'm leading
young women every single day, and I get messages every
single day from everyday people who see me getting up
at three thirty am or four am just to fit
in everything that I do, and they're like, I don't
know how you do it, Sis, but you sharing what
(11:18):
you're doing. It makes me want to do what I
can do, and it reminded me of that responsibility that
I don't want to promote this picture of burnout of
doing it all. It was like for me, it's about
weaving what I can and doing the best I can
with what I've got. But I'm also allowed to thrive
within the legacy and the life that I'm creating. And
(11:39):
I guess that through all the experiences that I've had,
from the lateral violence, to the postpartum depression that escalated
into psychosis, to the depression that led to suicidal ideation
not once but three times, trying to take my life twice,
everything kind of came down to that moment, to reminding
myself and planting a seed in the ground that we
(12:00):
are not our trauma, and yet we have a responsibilit
to get up and heal through that. But it's from
reclaiming who we have always been. It's not about becoming
someone new.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
So and our culture plays a big role in this. Yes,
how has culture kind of grounded you? Especially with the
work that you do?
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Culture? So I was very I'm very grateful to grow
up knowing that I'm barkaging imprint and being a fair
skinned Aboriginal woman has come with its own challenges.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Tell me about it.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
I don't come from a legacy family name, so I've
had to do that reclaiming myself. So I was very
fortunate to I couldn't grow up with mum, so Mum
couldn't get a handle on her own shit. Basically, Mum
did the best she could, but she was a product
of her own trauma and her own choices. Yep, because
I think often when we talk about indigenous spaces, a
(12:53):
lot is talked about traumering, Yet in the roles that
we see man no no are there are a lot
of people who hide behind that too, a lot of
people who don't want to take responsibility. And I know
people will come for me for this.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
But but it's true.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Lateral violence and trauma have been used as excuses and
as weapons for people to not uphold their responsibilities to
roles that they choose to take. But when they are
called out for their responsibility, they don't like it. And
I don't know why the ancestors called me to this path,
the dreaming of the Barkagy warrior and this evolution the
(13:25):
warrior heart that is coming next. But I'm starting to
accept it and carry the fact that only I can
do this in the way that I can, and the
experiences that I've had growing up barking, and I didn't
know I was an imperor until twenty eighteen because I
didn't know my maternal grandfather was black until my grandfather
my grandmother passed away. So yes, my mom and my
(13:48):
dad are both products of their own trauma in their
own way. And yet I also know that they did
the best they could. But what they couldn't do for us,
and the harm that was done was they couldn't always
be what we needed, me and my siblings. So that
meant that as the oldest of my dad's children, the
oldest in the home, I started helping to support and
raise my siblings. At the age of six, I first had.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
My were like little adults and training, right we are,
and we're on girls being little mums yep, and mimicking
the older women yep, yep.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
And there's a difference between the cultural responsibility and opportunity
and the toxic overload and the toxic obligation that is
forced upon us, particularly those of us that carry a
strength and a capacity that not many can do what
we do, and yet we are still tasked with carrying
more than our fair share. And then when we can
and when we rise up and expect more from others.
(14:41):
We are often crucified for that, whether it be our
own mob, other women, or the white systems. So the
biggest strength we can have is coming together, and yet
those circles are so small. So for me, two spaces
that helped me become me and where culture really played
a space was the took Alina Cumbe Center and the
Anne Eileen Kirby Drop in Center. And these were spaces
(15:03):
where I could be black. I didn't have to carry that.
I didn't have to carry the code to explain that,
to translate that to other people, and I didn't have
to code switch there. I could just be this black
little girl with a big mouth. But being white, I
didn't fit in with my own mom. I was too
white when they didn't like me because I was growing
(15:25):
up different. I had my dad. My dad was the
one who fought for me. So when I was sexually
abused in my mum's care and my mum's family chose
to cover for that and to hide it, my dad
was the one who came and fought for me. But
it was my dad's mum. If it wasn't for my
paternal nan, I wouldn't be the person I am today.
So she fought in the she fought in the war,
(15:47):
she was a she was a mechanic during the war,
and she also supported my grandfather through the through PTSD
of the impacts of war. And I think all of
these different threads, but culture spoke to me. Country spoke
to me like the war. Being a river girl, a
(16:08):
fresh water country. It was it was culture that always
called me through, that said, this story isn't yours. Yours
is something else. And I think being able to hear
the ancestors from such a young age comes with a responsibility,
but it's such a gift. So culture grounded me. Culture
gave me a pathway through. But when people tried to
tell me what that looked like, it was always this.
(16:29):
It wasn't something I could put in words. It was
like my spirit and my body knew that this wasn't
our story, like this trauma and this deficit, and yet
that was the only kind of way through. Was these
contradictory sort of things. I've seen our aunties and uncles
and parents practicing culture and yet navigating trauma. And it's insufficient.
So those two places that I grew up in, they
(16:51):
don't exist because there was insufficient unsustainable funding models. We
didn't have entrepreneurship as a word back then. We didn't
have collectives supporting ecosystems and things like that. So politics
and unsustainable funding models. Yet it planted the seed in
me to become who I am today. And that's because
of elders like Annie Sharon Kirby and my stepmom Gloria
(17:13):
Spencer who wrapped around me at times that I needed it,
and my nan being that solid person in my life saying, yeah,
you got shit going on, but you've got a responsibility.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Girl, get up, Get up, yeap, go take care of
your shit.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah. And you've got children, yes, tell me.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
About your children, and I know your auntie and mum
to the whole community. Yes, But in terms of your children,
you've inspired them to change their dreams. I seen one
of your girls competing. What is she doing? Jiu jitsu?
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Of course?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
How did she get into jiu jitsu? Was you like
this is what you're gonna do? Would she one day
say Mom, I want to do this sport?
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Like?
Speaker 1 (17:50):
How did that happen for her?
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Look? My babies grew up on the mats and being
a mum is really hard. And no one kind of
tells you when you're called to something bigger than yourself
that it can come at a cost a lot across it.
Some people don't want to see, like my children have
(18:15):
had to sacrifice so much and pay a big price
being my child and to hold you, to hold me,
but also to not have me at times so when
they needed me. And I now can acknowledge I didn't
understand at the time, but I can acknowledge the impact
me being me has had on my children, both positive
(18:37):
and negative. And I couldn't always be there, and I
think that's the reason for the tears. It's something that
I'm still reckoning with. So my eldest daughter is eighteen now,
she's finished school and growing up on the mat. So
she grew up seeing me fight like my twins did
as well. So I was nineteen when I started jiu jitsu.
(18:59):
So I got introduced to jiu jitsu and martial arts
when I was nineteen because I was too busy getting
into fights.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
So for me to take out yeah, frustration and anger.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
I used to do it in the nightclubs and at
school in the school yard. And then someone said, come on, Shan,
you've got too much potential to be doing this. Go
and learn us, ye need something. And the funny thing is,
I'm not one of those black fellows that's good at sports.
Is like, I'm not. I don't know where the jeans where,
must have gone to my brothers or something. But for
me to be sitting here saying I'm a black belt
(19:29):
and a three time world champion, not a black belt
WORL champion, yet that's the one to come uh ah.
So to space everyone, Yeah, there's there's stuff coming you mob.
So my daughter and my twins started training jiu jitsu
when they were about seven and nine, and like they're strong.
My babies are just physically strong. So some people like
(19:51):
naturally flexible, some are naturally strong, and some are naturally athletics.
So my daughter took after her dad, like she's very
naturally talented, was picking up the sport. But she's got
this staunchness. And my kids are also Pacific Islander as well,
so very that's to the matriarchal cultures. And there's photos
of my daughter and I was like, she makes me
look like i'msoft, like just the fierceness on her face.
(20:12):
I was like, I'd hate to have to come up
across her in a battle.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
But so she won something recently.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Not recently so be she prioritized school the last two years.
But twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two she competed
at the World Championships and she came home a two
tomes bronze medalist both times in the Juvenile Blue Belt Worlds.
So she created her own pathway. And I don't think
I think it was built off of the seed that
I planted, but I cleared the pathway for her to
(20:39):
become whoever she wanted to be, and she took that up.
My son now plays basketball and is aiming for like
an elite level, and they I guess we created the pathway,
but we role modeled success. Like there's a video of
my daughter when up from the twenty twenty eighteen Conworth Games.
We were interviewed for that, and there's a video of
(21:01):
my daughter saying to everyone else like, wow, that's and
she's like but to us, that's just mum. Like, so
I've normalized this in my household. Me being a world
champion is nothing special in my household. Literally, my kids community,
You're just I'm just Ani Shan like me. Being a
world champion or coming home with another title is exactly
that to my kids, whether it's my nieces and nephews,
(21:21):
Ani Shan's kids or Nummiker's kids, it's literally that's just
what you do Onni Shan like what special, like show
us something different, And that's.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
A big part of your work. You're in community. You've
set up a foundation. I see that space that you've
created culturally safe. You're keeping these kids safe. Yeah, and
what do you do with them? Do you put on programs,
do you do weaving? What are some of the activities
that you do with these kids to teach them culture
(21:53):
and to teach them that they're loved or show them
that they're loved.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
So the Kilna Foundation kill Ana means growing in bark
and gy is something that's been in my spirits since
I was fifteen, and it came It was kind of
brought out of this moment where I had two teachers.
I had a teacher tell me I was more likely
to end up dead or pregnant than I was to
finish school because statistics were against me. Well, she got
some very colorful language and probably didn't come near me
again for the rest of my schooling experience, I can
(22:18):
tell you that. But then I had this other teacher
kind of tell me she'd been trying to help me
for six months, but you know, me being cocky but
being having a lot of trauma, having all these walls up,
I didn't see it as that, and she got so
frustrated with me one day. I can't remember her name,
but I can still remember the tears in her eyes,
and she said to me, Chantel, you got your head
stuck so far up your own asset. You're a part
of your own problem, Like you've got all this potential,
(22:39):
but you're just coming at this. She gave me that
black Auntie love, and she wasn't black, And if anyone
knows what that means, they'll know what it means. And
the person who gives me that these days is only
Karen Demory. But long story short, I knew that I
was going to create something for young mob but I
also understood, even at a young age, that I needed
(23:00):
to be an example of what I wanted for others,
because I I didn't want to be gam and I
didn't want to be contradictory to say to other people,
you know you can be and do anything you want,
And even at that young age, I somehow had this
knowledge that I needed to empower the individual but also
shift and challenge the systems that can break us or
hold us down. So I was originally my original pathway.
I was going to be a teacher, and I knew
(23:22):
I wanted to work with kids like myself. So kids
who sat in this messy middle had all this potential
but also had all this trauma and all this lived
experience of I've gone, well, that's not possible for someone
like me, Like I never had anyone in my world
that was starting businesses, that was an elite athlete that
I wasn't told that these dreams were even allowed for me,
(23:43):
let alone possible. So it was at that age and
then it's kind of had as different iterations. But in
twenty twenty, when I moved home during COVID, I got pissed.
I got angry at my community and at the echoes
and at the orcs because there was no active youth
space that wasn't attached to crisis and case management or leadership.
(24:03):
One of the kids that had all this potential and
families that were trying, but also there was no access
to culture that wasn't attached to politics or attached to
family tie. So if you weren't a family that had
culture in your family, there was nowhere to go like
parents and families yearning for culture. All the research tells
us that culture and community are the answer, and yet
(24:23):
there was nowhere to access that. So five months pregnant
with my son, I went forget. I'm gonna do something
about it. And I think that's the difference, and I
think that's what entrepreneurship has taught me, is to just
get up and do it. But it was more than that,
this was a calling. I sat there and argued with
their ancestors. I said, I don't want to do this.
It's not the right time.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Because this is twenty four or seven works.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Yes, it's and that's the thing special in your base regionally,
like it runs into you in the supermarket and it's
and it's a it's a big responsibility because these kids
don't You're not just Ani Shan or Nummi kid to them,
but they're witnessing what you're doing. They follow you, like
these kids talk my socials. They're always watching what Anishan's doing.
So it came with this responsibility that who I was
trying to tell them to be I had to be
(25:03):
doing on that work in myself. So in twenty twenty,
we started with one school session, after school session to
make it accessible, and it was an after school session
for girls, and I gave them the space. So my
kid's words now is Anishan's the ATM and the bus driver.
We're the GPS because I said, you need to tell
me what you want. I know what you need, but
(25:23):
you need to tell me what you want and what
that looks like. Our first session we had thirty girls
walk through the door. So in eighteen months, we had
over two hundred girls walk through our door two days
a week, and I was driving my own car most
of the time or borrow on something funding it most
of the time, myself two days a week after we're
pregnant with son delivering this program, and then it just
(25:46):
evolved from there. So it's a space where they can
connect to themselves. So we're it big on self development.
I'm big on personal agency. It's big on them finding
a sense of purpose and meaning within themselves. And I
find that this has been the case with myself and
everything that I've kind of looked at is when a
person has a sense of their own identity. They have
a sense of belief in themselves but also in their
(26:07):
capacity to do something. But they have something that is
bigger than themselves worth fighting for. Then it gives them
a pathway through anything trauma, suicide, violence, And that's what
kilana is. It's not about leadership because leadership has put
too much on our kids. They put up on too
many pedestals and there's no room from the muck up.
And we can see that with leaders like look what
(26:29):
HadAM happen to? Adam Goods and a few others that
have been vilified for taking up that space right and
then when they become human or fallible, they get crucified
for it in the public eye. And I was like, no,
this isn't about leadership. But it's also not about crisis
or case management. So we break through victim mentality, we
break through entitlement. We give them a sense of who
(26:49):
they want to be. We give them role models who
can show them that they can be and do anything.
But then we also go, if you want more, you
can have it and we're here for you. But also
so we've got kids out stealing cars and then five
minutes later, they're in Kilerlana doing like sitting there because
we've have a saying leave your shit at the door,
and I've had people ring me and say, oh, you
know your kid was doing this and I said, ann,
they didn't steal my car. I'm not here to do
(27:11):
that work. There's other people funded for that. We are
just a space and then for those that want more,
so we provide role models. We provide a space for
reclamation of culture away from politics and funding models. But
also we've refuse to prostitute our kids trauma to get funding,
and that's probably why it's been a little bit harder
to get support because we haven't danced to that tune
(27:31):
I because of who I am as well. But you
know what, we've had girls. I've got one girl in
university who got that direct opportunity because of what we've done.
I've got one young woman who's twenty one and is
leading our program and she came through the program. So
we're doing succession planning, we're doing legacy building one girl
at a time, and it's about empowering that individual to
(27:53):
be their own warrior, to be their own leaders, their
own person first before they're expected to lead the world.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
And that's what I wanted to kind of yeah, like
end this yar whe or wrap this yarn up with
what are yours? What's some key messages to some of
the young mob that are listening to this podcast right now?
What do you want to share with them before we
wrap up?
Speaker 3 (28:16):
As Anishan as just a normal everyday woman, Like for me,
I really had to go what did this all come
down to? You? Like? How did I overcome suicide? How
did I end a twenty year relationship that was acting
out family violence that I didn't recognize? How did I
have the courage to walk away and stand alone in
(28:37):
a world that told me who I could be and
risk everything to go No, this is who I am?
Was the warrior heart because so many people say, just
be yourself in the world. But in order to be
yourself in the world, you have to know who you are.
You have to know who your what your power is,
you need to know what your truth is. Because our
heart bypasses our ego and our trauma. But in order
(28:58):
to be ourselves in the world, we have to be
willing to fight for ourselves. And you are worth fighting
for and you are worth knowing who you are because
who you are is going to ripple out into the children,
out into your families and your communities. And often we're
so externally focused on our mob especially as young Black fellows,
like all of our kids, I want to do this
for my family. Come back to yourself, Come home to yourself,
(29:22):
and make yourself solid and strong. Look at country them
trees have to take what they need first from country
before they can produce shade and provide fruit, especially legacy
sort of stuff like generational stuff. When we come home
and we make ourselves well first, When we come home
and fight for ourselves and be ourselves in the world,
that's the greatest truth, especially as Black fellows. When I
(29:43):
can walk into any room barefoot, whether I'm on a
global stage of the United Nations or I'm on a
global stage of competing in jiu jitsu, or walking into
my home or walking into kilana, I can just be
myself in the world. And that's that warrior heart, knowing
who I am. And when we can do that, that
is the greatest healing. It is the greatest pathway to culture,
(30:03):
and it is the greatest pathway to our freedom, our
self determination and sovereignty. As first nations, mob to ourselves
first before we try to give it to our mob
and our families and our collective.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Oh my goodness, we're going to have to do part three.
I knew this was going to be a big yard,
and I knew you'd be able to share so much
in such a short amount of time. But we have
run out of time, and it's terrible. But I just
want to say it's been an absolute privilege to have
you back to share what you've been doing since five
(30:36):
years ago. And you know, watch out, yeah, people, you know,
stay tuned for people. There's our show notes, so people
can reach out and follow your journey. And for anyone
that's listening that want to back a grassroots community and
invest in young women, then your foundation is a no brainer.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Well, they can either fund the vision or the visionary like,
because I think both both are worth investing in. And
I'm taking this stuff global, like the new tagline fulling
din is weaving, the weaving the warrior heart grassroots to global.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
There you go. Well, I'll see you on LinkedIn Dondale
and see you more too, deadly. Thank you for coming
all the way down here to have this yarn. I
know that you've added a lot of value to this
really important conversation around building mental fitness, building your emotional
and mental muscles, and just inspiring not just this generation,
(31:32):
but generations to come.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
So thank you, no, thank you sis, and thank you
to Gotcha for life for doing this important work and
opening themselves up to the responsibility to weave ancient principles
and practices of doing well being and thriving in a
different landscape and a different language.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yes, there's more to come done, and I'm sure we're
going to be seeing you more.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Thank you, my sister, Thank you, Thanks for tuning in
to mental fitness conversations. Keep building your emotional muscles with
the free mental Fitness Jim packed with two rules, tips
and everyday actions to support your mental fitness. Download it
from the App Store or Google Play Store or visit
the Mentalfitnessgym dot org. If anything in this episode brought
(32:15):
something up for you, you don't have to worry alone.
Reach out to a trusted friend or family member and
know that support is available. You can contact Lifeline on
one three, double one one four or one three yarn
at one three nine, two seven six for free and
confidential support for Aboriginal and Torrostraight Islander people. If you
(32:35):
enjoyed this episode, leave us a rating, share it with
someone in your village, or drop us a message. We'd
love to hear what you think, and don't forget to
follow Black Magic Woman and Gotcha for Life on all
socials to keep the conversation going
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