Discussion Guide: "The Wellbriety Movement: Journey to Forgiveness"

1. Take a few minutes to acknowledge how you feel after watching the documentary. What emotions are you feeling? Make sure that you recognize your emotions, at whom they are directed, then acknowledge your reaction as perfectly normal and valid.
2. The documentary discusses the four mind changers: a liquid, a black book, a song, and a card. To what do the mind changers refer?
3. The elders in the documentary describe the trauma they experienced as children. The documentary discusses intergenerational trauma. It links that trauma to the social issues faced in native communities. In what ways does intergenerational trauma affect the lives of your family and community?
4. The documentary argues that the inability of our ancestors to express grief in the boarding schools led to unresolved grief in our communities. Some of the elders stated anger, high addiction rates, and a high suicide rate are the result of unresolved grief. How can we heal from our unresolved grief today?
5. The teachers and administrators in boarding schools did not show affection to the children under their care, so entire generations of our native people lost the ability to show affection and love. How can native people regain our ability to show love?
6. Do you think it is possible for us to heal from the hurts of several generations of genocide and boarding school?
7. How do we grow a healthy forest in our communities? How can our culture help?
8. The Elders teach us that in order to move beyond our intergenerational trauma, we must do four things: recognize it, acknowledge it, forgive it, which will lead to change. How can we accomplish these four steps?
9. The Elders teach us there are four levels of forgiveness: basic forgiveness, forgiveness of the unforgiveable, forgiveness of self, and forgiveness of others. How can we begin the journey to forgiveness?

Mindmap of the documentary