Reconnecting With My Indigenous Roots Helped Me Heal My Health

As a child, my grandma and I would practice counting in Lakota together at the kitchen sink, overlooking the bird feeders. Wanzi, nunpa, yamni, topa. She would tell me stories about the birds we counted and the messages they carried.

Her kitchen pantry was, to my 8-year-old mind, enormous. I would help her gather items to bake or cook, and she would tell me about the plants in the garden and the plants drying on the pantry shelves — what they could do and how to use them.

In Lakota, we say mitakuye oyasin. Roughly translated, it means “We are all connected,” but it means so much more than that. All humans are tied together, but we are also inextricably connected to animals, water, rocks, plants, and stars. A true ecosystem, in that we cannot survive without everything in balance. As I’ve since learned, this cycle is true for our relationship with ourselves as well.

Growing up in Georgia, my elementary school teachers talked about Indigenous people (“Indians,” back then) in the past tense. They told me to erase the checkmark next to “American Indian” on standardized tests, but in every Thanksgiving play, I wore a headdress made out of construction paper. My Lakota culture was only shown to me from the outside looking in, from the future looking back.

At home, everything came under the microscope of an extremely conservative, evangelical Christian worldview. Everything outside of the church walls was something to fear and condemn. That narrative made it difficult for me to embody, or even believe, that any part of my Indigenous identity could be accessible to me, outside of a toddler’s vocabulary and a handful of children’s stories. Could an ugly root really help with tooth pain, like my grandmother told me, or was that just an old wives’ tale? Back then, anything Lakota was magic to me, just fairy tales.

Years later, in college and finally all on my own, I followed the breadcrumbs my grandmother had dropped and began to reconnect with my Lakota family, traditions, stories, and language. Lakota culture doesn’t necessarily have a set of rules about wellness — we have a worldview that encompasses all aspects of wellness: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Taking care of your body is not separate from taking care of your mind or your spirit.

Identity and wellness are inherently connected in Lakota culture. You cannot have one without the other — even on a biological basis, you cannot have a surviving culture without safety measures in place to ensure the best possible outcomes of survival and reproduction. Essentially, the culture is the wellness practice, and the wellness practice is the culture.

Throughout my 20s, I thought of myself as relatively connected to my cultural identity. I read books written by Lakota elders and, albeit timidly, participated in community events and ceremonies, slowly coming out of my shell. But by my late thirties, in 2020, I had left any recognizable version of the church, and I rode the tide of uncertainty that comes with losing — and mourning — something so inherent. I didn’t recognize what it was back then. I thought I was depressed over a bad breakup.

While I insisted I was doing just fine, in reality, I was battling two decades of eating disorders, about a decade of hard-to-admit heavy drinking, a lifetime of undiagnosed and untreated conditions, and an autoimmune disorder triggered by all the abuse I was inflicting upon my body. My hair was falling out, my skin was gray, I had gained nearly 60 pounds, and, most importantly, I wasn’t sleeping. I existed only as a shadow, even to myself.

I spent a lot of time, money, and energy gobbling up wellness content and products. Oh, not sleeping? Here’s an Ambien prescription, a ridiculously overpriced alarm clock, lavender body lotion, a 10-ingredient-long recipe for the “sleepy girl mocktail,” and CBD gummies. But I knew what I actually needed to do: remove toxic people and unnecessary stress from my life, quit drinking so much, and prioritize my health and happiness. Most importantly, I knew I needed to focus on truly connecting with my existence in the world, which meant reconnecting with my ancestors, the earth, and myself. It was scary. The world felt like it was on fire, I didn’t like myself very much, and my grandfather had just died. I didn’t have any ancestors left to connect with, and I was completely lost at the bottom of the stagnant barrel.

So I started from scratch. I moved to a quieter neighborhood. I got rid of so much: not just gadgets with long-lost chargers, but also old friendships that weren’t serving me anymore, bad habits, and lies about myself I had started to believe. Without all the noise, it was easier to make the right choices. It’s difficult to pinpoint the timeline or to say exactly what happened, but I attribute my healing to going outside and existing in the world, and not in my house (or worse, my bed).

I started gardening and put out no less than seven bird feeders. Paying attention to the birds made me pay attention to bees and other bugs too. That made me notice the soil, so I spent $75 on a dump truck load of compost. My herbs and tea plants loved that, so I started harvesting (and therefore consuming) more tea than I previously would have thought possible. On top of the feeling of satisfaction from eating something I had grown, I was outside in the sun with my hands in the dirt, watching the world grow, change, and die again with the seasons. Even my beauty routine got a makeover when I finally admitted I only bought most of the junk I was putting on my face because someone on Instagram said it was a good idea. I started being intentional about everything I was putting into my body.

I lost 60 pounds, my hair grew back, my skin cleared up, and my light returned. Without even realizing it, I had healed my health by finding my Lakota roots again. I had been looking at it all wrong — I kept trying to isolate a problem and bombard it with potential solutions, rather than looking at the big picture.

And for over a year now, I never once stopped thinking about my grandparents. When I think about what they taught me about the world, everything crystallizes. I only need to look at the world through my grandmother’s Lakota eyes to know what I need to do, regardless of the decision I’m facing.

I no longer claw through mud. I trudge a little, sometimes, especially when it’s hot outside. But my nails don’t break as badly anymore, probably because I remembered my grandma said to drink nettle tea with black strap molasses every once in a while. My joints don’t burn as badly, since my papa told me to make tea with bear root. And I don’t drink that much anymore, because I look forward to tomorrow’s sunrise now, knowing the cycle is the entire point because it will eventually bring me back to my ancestors, my home, and where I belong.

Sheena Roetman-Wynn, Lakota and Muscogee Creek, is the education manager for the Indigenous Journalists Association and has been a freelance journalist for more than 15 years. In addition to PS, her work can be found at Indian Country Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Native Peoples Magazine, Vice Sports, and more.