“I wish I could just hug everybody,” exclaims Madelaine McCallum. Her ceremonial name is Strong Earth Woman and she’s originally from a Northern Saskatchewan community called Île-à-la-Crosse. She lived there until she was 12, when she left to go find her dad in British Columbia. Thirty years later, she lives in Maple Ridge, British Columbia.

In her professional life, McCallum is an entrepreneur. She started off Métis jigging, then powwow dancing, then backup dancing for hiphop and R & B artists. Later, people asked her to share her story, MC conferences and be a keynote speaker. While technically self-employed, she prefers to refer to what she’s doing as a self-love movement rather than a business.

At the centre of this movement is her belief in the value of people and herself. “I want everyone, every single person, every young person, to know that you are enough. You have always been enough since the day you were born. This was a realization for me since the day I was born, I was always 100% valuable and enough, even though my mom and dad couldn't take care of me, even though I didn't get to grow up in the home with them, even though I was homeless on the streets, even though I was in the foster care system, even though I went through abusive relationships, that never decreased my value…I didn't have that realization until I was 35 years old, that we are all still valuable, even in those hard parts of our life…. And that's the job that I have, I get to go sharing love.”

When it comes to her education, McCallum took two years of criminology to prepare her for a job she decided not to pursue. Growing up, she learned from ceremonies she participated in with her dad. “I really say that my knowledge is really based on my life experience and our knowledge keepers sharing all of that, and me actually taking it into a bundle and putting it into action,” she explains.

For Indigenous students considering leaving home to pursue their education and career dreams, McCallum says, “One of the teachings along my path is that if it shakes you up a little bit, and it's not harmful, but it's just makes you a little bit uncomfortable, go into that uncomfortable place, because that is where you grow. You can always come back…. just remember the growth that you want to bring back to your community…I want to acknowledge that you're very powerful, like all these young people, you're powerful and you're strong and you're gifted, and sometimes we have to step out to be able to come back in even stronger.”

She also acknowledges that it's okay to be afraid and to go out in the world afraid and conquer that fear. As a young child, McCallum had a lot of fear and now she travels extensively and does all sorts of things she never imagined. She’s even inspired her mom.

If she could share a message with her younger self, McCallum would want to be told she was loved and good enough to be loved. She also would want to hear that she was a beautiful dancer. She wishes positive things were said to her and now she offers positive feedback herself, knowing how important it is.

To balance her mental wellness, McCallum uses affirmations in the morning, as she knows self-talk is so powerful. “We have to start changing our internal dialogue and stop carrying the words of what someone else said to us or what someone didn't say to us that we wish we heard. We have the ability. It's in us. We have the ability to change that narrative and to change that blueprint that's within us.” She has learned to love things about her dad that are in her to build up her self-love. “To learn to love ourselves is one of the hardest things we'll ever have to do in this life. It's possible for every single one of you, every single person,” she encourages, holding her own journey up as evidence that it’s possible. She encourages starting with simple affirmations, “I am enough as I am, as I am is beautiful, as I am is powerful, as I am is a gift, and I always have been.”

What she’s found is that so many mainstream speakers echo Indigenous worldviews and practices and there’s always room for more voices doing this important work. She also believes the result of all the heart work is visible from the skies and “each time someone finds their light again and reignites it, you could see that shining from those satellites and our communities are just lit up with with passion, and all that kind of light and love”

McCallum also holds space for challenges and hope. “I always say, it is possible for you to have a broken heart and to have joy at the same time… I've lived with a broken heart my entire life… but I also choose joy, because I have one life,....and I want to be the best version of me that I can become because I want to prove that to me, to little Madelaine, to little Maddie, who used to run on the streets crying. I want to prove to her… that she can do all of these things, not to be egotistical, but to say it's possible for us little bush kids to live in that mainstream world and share our love and our light and to show that we are deserving of that greatest love,” she beams.

In closing, McCallum reflects, “Sometimes people are like, ‘Wow, you're so positive.’ and I've been sad and negative a lot of my life because the world has shown me how to do that. I want to do things differently. I want to show our elders, our adults, our kids that we can live with a smile.”

She wishes she could hug everybody but since she can’t, entrepreneur Madelaine McCallum started a self-love movement to show people how to love themselves. From jigging to powwow dancing to sharing her story and being an MC, she built a business out of sharing her gifts and talents and most of all sharing love. She lived with a broken heart her whole life and now her heart is full of self-love.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.