Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance

by Edgar Villanueva

Seven Steps to Healing: 1. Grieve. We have to stop and feel the hurts we’ve endured. 2. Apologize. We must apologize for the hurts we’ve caused. 3. Listen. We must acknowledge the wisdom of those excluded and exploited by the system, who possess exactly the perspective and wisdom needed to fix it. 4. Relate. We need space to share our whole selves with each other and understand we don’t have to agree in order to respect each other. 5. Represent. We must build whole new decision- making tables, rather than setting token places at the colonial tables as an afterthought. 6. Invest. We need to put all our money where our values are. 7. Repair. We must use money to heal where people are hurting and to stop more hurt from happening. These steps aren’t necessarily linear. Certain steps may need to be revisited, and the entire process may need to be repeated. In this way, it’s more of a circular or spiral process. Like any clever virus, the colonizer mindset keeps mutating and adapting, so in order to heal fully, we will need to be vigilant and get booster shots.