“They say healing is a journey, and the journey is lifelong,” shares Maxine Lacorne. She is from Deh Gáh Got’îê First Nation First Nation is from Fort Providence and is working in Yellowknife. After graduation, she moved to go to nursing school but soon found out the program wasn’t a good fit, though helping people was what she wanted to do. She came across an organization called The Healing Drum and met a mentor who helped her along her path to her own healing. Reception was where she first started, taking messages, but the most important calling she answered was to her own recovery. The organization helped residential school survivors and she learned about the legacy of the institutions as she did her work.

As an intergenerational survivor, Lacorne started to unpack her own trauma and she ended up getting promoted to program coordinator, then youth and elders coordinator. She worked there for eight years until she went back to school to study social work at Royal College. While she hasn’t completed the program, she’s working on a certificate in social work and the bachelor’s degree and she’s completed training in addiction, community social services and trauma recovery. As a life-long learner, she’s eager to take anything that will help her grow and better serve her clients.

Now, Lacorne works as a Resolution Health Support Worker/Wellness Coordinator working with residential school survivors and their families. She is working as part of the Indian Residential School Resolution Health Support Program, providing emotional support, referrals, networking, referrals, and presentations on intergenerational healing and trauma. Creating the program, connecting with families, individuals and partnering with organizations has made this role very rewarding in the four years she’s been providing services.

To prepare her for the role, Lacorne has been well-versed in both Western and traditional healing modalities, having been through a trauma treatment program, an addiction program and a parenting workshop, all of which were very Westernized. Struggling without the cultural content, she reached out to elders and mentors who helped her reclaim teachings and traditional knowledge to provide balance that was needed for her to be successful.

Lacorne was motivated on her path finding out she was pregnant with her son, realizing she still had trauma to deal with. “Working at this organization, I had survivors that were on their own, healing themselves, and they were really mentoring me and helping me and shaping me and being there for me and supporting me in my healing. A lot of them were giving me advice as survivors. I really took their advice, and I really took their wisdom to heart. I remember one person told me, ‘That's where we went wrong, not teaching our children to be proud of who they are’ and he said, ‘Now it's your turn. Your generation has that chance,’” she recalls.

Pregnant and emotional, Lacorne broke down wondering how she would raise a child when she was not yet healed herself. She promised her son that she would address things so he wouldn’t have to. “I really wanted that cycle to end with me,” she affirmed. She took a parenting course that reminded her how she had not been nurtured and she remembered how angry she was growing up. Her son spurred her into action because she wanted to give him the best chance at a good life.

Her advice for students considering leaving their home communities to pursue new opportunities is that being uncomfortable is how you grow and that’s how you’re able to take risks and chances. Leaving family and breaking away from routine is hard at first but Lacorne says that family will always be there and you can always call home. Lacorne also says, “As long as you're grounded and rooted in who you are as an Indigenous person, you'll always be strong wherever you go."

When it comes to obstacles, Lacorne struggled because she only worked on her healing in healing programs, not all the time. She ended up masking her pain with drugs and alcohol. With the help of her support system, an elder and mentor, and a psychologist, her friends, her partner, her boss, she was able to  find professional help and recover. Picking medicines and monitoring how she was doing with her wellness wheel also helped.

If she could share a message with her younger self it would be, “I know it's hard. There is hope, there is light in the tunnel. I know it may be hard to even try to think about the future at this moment, but you are worth it, and you have so much potential that the world is waiting for your gift to shine."

To balance her mental health, Lacorne sees a psychologist and an elder. She smudges, does grounding, cleansing, ceremonies to let go and a lot of self-care. She has a wellness wheel to keep herself balanced, as well as a support person and friends she connects with. “The healing is so messy and up and down, and just learning how to ride the wave is how I got better,” she reflects.

As far as inspiration, Lacorne looks to her grandparents, the Creator, her ancestors, her children and her own journey of self-discovery. She’s searching for the teachings she’s been missing and ways to balance Indigenous holistic views. Through every workshop, through every struggle, Lacorne thinks about her kids and her grandparents and she is motivated to keep going.

When healing is a journey and the journey is lifelong, Maxine Lacorne has worked hard to find travelling companions to help her along the way. She took a job as a receptionist at the Healing Drum and found the most important calling she answered was the one for her own healing. Inspired by the love of her unborn son, she addressed her intergenerational trauma and pursued a career helping others find support, too.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.