Kelly Terbasket is the Program Director of IndigenEYEZ and KinSHIFT & Andrew Greer is the Managing Director of Purppl
Being in relationship is the spark, the pax’t, as they say in the Syilx nsyilxcən language, that deepens our understanding and moves us forward to create a better future. Building and healing through respectful relationships between Indigenous people and Settlers is a starting point for reconciliation; we believe it won’t happen otherwise.
Recently, Purppl cofounder Andrew Greer joined IndigenEYEZ and kinSHIFT founder Kelly Terbasket to talk about their personal journey of Indigenous-Settler relationship building, on Jalen Seguin’s podcast Small Business, Big Impact.
In this vulnerable conversation, Kelly and Andrew share the ups and downs in building a relationship rooted in mutual respect and understanding — including their initial hesitations and fears, and acknowledging the impact of colonial patterns between Indigenous people and Settlers.
Over the years, their relationship has evolved into friendship, reciprocity, and mutual care to take space and make space with each other. This conversation reminds us that building authentic relationships are the heart of meaningful change and reconciliation — a pathway to regeneration, hope and collective impact.
As Kelly shares, “pax’t means the spark that comes from being in relationship with others — like the tension between our diverse thoughts and opinions and ideas. So that spark, the pax’t, is like the enlightenment. And the better we get as humans moving into tension, the more pax’t we’re going to have — the more spark of new understanding — the more we’re going to deepen our understanding and know how to move forward to create a better future, and be better ancestors for our people to be.”
In the conversation Andrew shares some of his fears and learnings in relationship. “I was nervous and that got in the way. By not taking any space and being a silent consumer in a relationship, I was, at best, enabling status quo. And at worst I’m perpetuating ongoing harm that is the status quo. Silence is deafening. More deafening than speaking up and more harmful than actually taking a misstep.”
Listen to their conversation and let us know what your takeaways are: https://questio.us/podcast/learning-relationship
