S6e8: Susan Beaulieu – Drumming & Singing Back My Spirit

Susan Beaulieu, Healing Justice Director, is Anishinaabe and an enrolled member of the Red Lake Nation. Listen in as Susan shares her powerful healing journey, including her journey at the Hoffman Process. Content warning: this episode mentions suicide.

Susan has worked directly with Indigenous communities for over 17 years. For the last seven years, her focus has been helping others understand the impacts of unresolved individual, ancestral, and collective trauma, and developing strategies to support healing. When Susan came to the Hoffman Process, she was well-versed in the ways to heal trauma.

Susan’s Experience during the Process:

What called Susan to come to the Process? She heard Hoffman grad Tim Harjo speak about healing our connection with our child within. When she heard his words, she felt a deep longing to reconnect with this child within her. At this moment, she could see that it was “a critical next step” in her healing journey. In the Process, Susan did reconnect with this little one within her. She didn’t expect to find her in the ways she did. This little one was carrying so much rage and terror within her. The cathartic work was a doorway to a new relationship with her little one.

Susan also experienced a pivotal moment in the Process when she found herself drumming and singing back her Spirit. Susan was given her Spirit name when she was about twelve. She shares with us, “I could feel my Spirit starting to come back in as I was drumming and singing that name, Niigaani-Binesi-Ikwe, Niigaani-Binesi-Ikwe.

This is a beautiful, rich conversation with someone who has done a great amount of work to heal herself and now shares not only her own experience but also her vast knowledge about healing. Susan shares that her work at Hoffman helped give her a more grounded healing language to share with those she serves. We hope you enjoy this beautiful conversation with Susan and Drew.

More about Susan Beaulieu:

Susan Beaulieu (She/Her), Healing Justice Director, is Anishinaabe and an enrolled member of the Red Lake Nation. Susan has worked directly with Indigenous communities for over 17 years in a variety of capacities including project development, training, and facilitation. Her primary focus for the last seven years has been helping communities, organizations, and individuals understand the impacts of unresolved individual, ancestral and collective trauma, and develop strategies to support healing.

Susan is passionate about creating opportunities and encouraging processes for reconnecting to the mind, body, heart, and spirit to support well-being. She was a 2016 Bush Leadership Fellow, is an ACE Interface Master Trainer, and is a certified Mind-Body Medicine Facilitator. She has a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Minnesota. Discover more about Susan on LinkedIn.

As mentioned in this episode:

Susan’s Spirit name:
Niigaani-Binesi-Ikwe or Niigaanibinesiikwe (Leading Thunderbird Woman)

ACE Interface:
Dr. Robert Anda, Co-founder ACE Interface
Laura Porter, Co-Founder Ace Interface

Dr. Bruce Perry, Child Trauma Academy

University of Minnesota, Humphrey Public Policy Institute

Zero Foundation The Horizon’s Program/Project

Tim Harjo – Listen to Tim’s episode on the Hoffman Podcast

Susan’s earrings: