The Medicine Wheel Model (the Model) is a unique, right-brained, holistic teaching tool. It is universal, genderless, colorless and reconnects us to life. It is a simple, common sense approach to affect transformation. It can work for all tribes and people. We know it really changes lives, we have proven it doing this work for over 20 years with Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island and beyond. I have presented at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) and other internationally renowned places about our work. There are many different definitions of the medicine wheel, this Model is unique. We have all been impacted by historical trauma and colonization, and the dispossession, oppression and dependency that go hand in hand with it. The suffering our People have been through is universal, my Mother was forced to attend boarding school and then was sent to the Cushman Indian Hospital in Tacoma, Washington, where she was tortured. They were subject to medical experiments and so many perished. These ancestors many buried in unmarked graves, are showing themselves now, so we can finally resolve the inter-generational trauma and the ongoing effects of genocide. I have developed this Model, based on my lifetime of experience, understanding how Western linear thinking has been impacting our lives, and based on my ancestral teachings. For those of us who have ancestral teachings left, it can help us reconnect to them and it can help shift thinking for others beyond that. No one has to be threatened by this, it does not take away from your teachings, it enhances them and it enables you to go deeper with your inner work to learn, grow and heal. 

As a child, I was (mis)diagnosed with dyslexia, like so many of our children, who get diagnosed with learning disabilities. Rather than talking about learning disabilities, we look at the gifts of our children, in my case I realized that I can see many patterns. Through research, therapy and treatment I have found out that our right-brained way of thinking is genius and connected to our language, culture and identity. 98% of the children on Indian reservations are right brained, only 2% are left brained. The latter are the ones who get celebrated in the Western education system, the others fall through the cracks, in danger of becoming statistics of the environment of oppression. This is why we have to shift things to a way of un-learning that recognizes and celebrates our indigenous right-brained way of thinking. I based this Model on a universal language connected to body, emotion, mind and spirit. It is energy and spirit-based, circular, from the ground up and from the back forward. It acts as a mirror reflecting your body, emotion, mind and spirit. It is natural law and natural justice. Creator gave out her original instructions to life and nature still follows them, for example the horse. The horse when it gets domesticated, trained and broken, gets numbed and dumbed down. They still have an inner knowing and so do we. The problem is we have been assimilated, overeducated and traumatized. The Western system aims to disconnect us from our original language, culture, identity and our spiritual connection to the land, without it we are not who we say we are a totally disconnected from the original instructions. For Indigenous Peoples, that is genocide, assimilation and extermination. After that we become territorial, entitled, closed-minded and distorted. The Model guides us to remind, reconnect and reclaim ourselves. 

NOW is the time to reclaim ourselves. The best counter-remedy to inter-generational trauma are the teachings that have been passed down from generation to generation. This is why the Model is so helpful in countering trauma and mental health issues, it has been presented at the National Indian Mental Health Association. It has been endorsed by: Dr. Michael Yanuck, who was the second in command at Indian Health Services (IHS) in Maryland and wrote about it in his book: The Blue Light at the Center of Creation People; Dr. Roy Shelton, Doctor of Humane Letters (DHL), a university professor, scientist and right-brain specialist; and Peter and Jennifer Buffett of the Novo Foundation. I served as a language and culture consultant for the movie Hostiles with Scott Cooper, producer, and lead actor Christian Bale, the philosophy of the Model influenced the script, so much they even changed it.