Michelle Chubb: Indigenous Baddie

Megan Hamilton (00:01.94)
I'm Megan Hamilton and this is the Embracing Enchantment podcast. I met today's guest a couple of years ago when I was given the honor of coaching her TEDx talk at the TEDx Queen's U where I'm the speaker advisor. She's an internet star who uses her influence to educate people about indigenous life and mom life. She's been featured in Teen Vogue, HuffPost, Refinery29, Canada, PopSugar, Fashion Canada,

The list is pretty bananas. Stick to what I'm doing. Please welcome my guest, Michelle Chubb, AKA Indigenous Batty. Hi, Michelle.

Michelle Chubb (00:43.63)
Hi. I'm really good. Life is life-ing right now, but I feel like good things are going to be coming soon. So I have high hopes.

Megan Hamilton (00:45.44)
How's it going?

Megan Hamilton (00:52.949)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (01:00.758)
I feel that way too. Okay, so this is not, we don't usually do this, but you mentioned this and I think this is important. So we're recording this on December 3rd and it's a full moon in Gemini on Thursday. I have been crying nonstop for the last few days. So you were just, you too? What's going on?

Michelle Chubb (01:23.944)
Yeah, me too. I don't know.

Megan Hamilton (01:27.018)
Like, part of me knows that it's important. Like, it's not necessarily current stuff I'm crying about. Like, I'm letting go of old stuff, which is good, which we want to do for a full moon. It's like part of the cycle of being a human, right? There's grief cycles. There's like, it's time to bring things in, but...

Okay. It's been, it's been, it's been a lot. You doing okay?

Michelle Chubb (02:02.158)
yeah, I'm hanging on.

Megan Hamilton (02:06.474)
That's good. That's all we can do, right?

Michelle Chubb (02:09.166)
Yeah, yeah, honestly, we just keep moving and hope for a better future.

Megan Hamilton (02:17.622)
Mm-hmm.

I think, yeah, times are really, really, really bananas right now. But I see a lot of people, I see people like you, I see people, I see a lot of really courageous and strong voices that are coming up and that makes me feel hopeful for change to happen.

Michelle Chubb (02:27.448)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (02:48.906)
Don't let me make you cry right off the bat. my god. Okay.

Michelle Chubb (02:51.816)
Hehehehehe

Megan Hamilton (02:57.224)
a tarot card and how do we get off to that start?

Michelle Chubb (03:02.794)
I don't know.

Megan Hamilton (03:04.63)
Okay, I don't know either. It must be, it's Okay, well, I'm shuffling. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself? Like what's important to you, who you are, what you do?

Michelle Chubb (03:20.206)
Um, yeah, of course. Well, I'm a content creator. I've been a content creator since 2020. And for me, it's kind of like blown up in a way that I have not thought. Because I always thought of myself as a shy, native girl, you know, and then to, you know, blow up on social media and to...

have my voice be heard by millions of people. It's really powerful. And to be able to...

stand in that power and to take on that responsibility. It's a really

It's a sacred thing and also powerful at the same time. And I truly believe that my voice is here to send a message out there for other natives or other people who are in need of help themselves.

Megan Hamilton (04:30.39)
yeah. Yeah. I like that you said that it's sacred, because I would imagine...

Megan Hamilton (04:42.592)
You get a lot of people following your every move, right? For those of you who don't know Michelle, and I'm assuming that's not gonna be very many of you, Michelle has a platform, between all of her platforms, we're talking, yeah, we're talking millions of people. Like it is, that is, and you as a self-described shy person, like that's, it's gonna have a whole different set of,

Megan Hamilton (05:14.048)
I don't know, baggage that comes along with it, or like, it's gonna force you to look at some of the stuff. But you specifically said secret, and I think you're taking that.

Michelle Chubb (05:21.439)
Yes.

Megan Hamilton (05:34.87)
You're being courageous with that, right? You understand the possibilities and the hope that can come with that. And you are moving forward with a platform that is, you're not saying banal. I mean, we get our Sephora, we get our different, we get our halls and stuff, but you're also talking about.

Indigenous rights, you're talking about, mean, the TEDx was about the Indian Act. You're not shying away from the hard stuff.

Michelle Chubb (06:14.229)
Yeah, I'm also, I say sacred because I'm talking about experiences of my own and I know my experiences are unique and different in a way that others don't have because one, I'm born with cleft lip and palate. Two, I'm native. Three, I grew up in a city in a white suburb, in a white area.

And for me to have these experiences are sacred to me because these experiences I've...

Michelle Chubb (06:58.571)
went through on my own and had to, you know, dissect each experience and to learn what I've learned from these and to carry the wisdom and to share my wisdom.

Michelle Chubb (08:01.707)
Yes, Using my experiences as a Native shy girl in a white city, you know, who has cleft lip and palate. These are unique experiences that I had to experience on my own. And gaining the wisdom on my own and to be able to share this with other people, the wisdom that's so sacred to me.

you know, it's courageous. It's, it's, it's opening up myself to others so that they have a light to look at if they are lost themselves.

Megan Hamilton (08:50.494)
I love that. It's just very, it's like rising to the...

Megan Hamilton (09:00.922)
rising to what's available to you. It's transmuting all of that difficulty into something like powerful and extremely that has the ability to be very widespread, right? So you're not going to believe the card. It's the strength card.

It's sometimes tarot universe is just really on the nose. And I love this. yeah. So as a universal card, because we pull the card for the collective, right? I think it's.

it might be saying that

We can follow you as an example, Michelle, in that any one of our experiences that were unique to us, right? So they're all going to be different. They're all going to have their own sets of challenges and certainly, no, like there's no comparing, but like, how can we learn from what you've done, which is take that difficulty and that

even just that like idea of who you thought you were and like changing it, right? Turning it into something different. Because a lot of people don't know that they can change. A lot of people don't really think like, well, this is just how I am, or this is who I am and I can't change. And that's not true.

Michelle Chubb (10:34.667)
Mm-hmm

Megan Hamilton (10:52.404)
we all have the capability and the strength to be able to, know, as we like, this is, this is kind of like cheesy at this point, but like you've overcome, like you and all of us, we've all overcome every single difficulty we've ever had. And all that does is show us that we're strong in whatever way, you know, like that's shown up for us. And,

Megan Hamilton (11:24.064)
The other thing about this card too is the sign of infinity above the head here, which is just the infinite strength that is available to anybody as long as you are keeping your lions with you, right? one of the things that can happen in this world of spirituality is that there's this thing that can happen, which is spiritual bypassing, which is where we just want to be like,

Love and light, just want to be nice. We don't want to think about the difficulties and the challenges and the darkness and the hard times and the lions, but that ain't it. We have to be one with all of the different parts of ourselves in order to fully embrace what it actually means to be strong. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Michelle Chubb (12:16.364)
Yes, it's funny the way that you said that because

Now that I'm in a different point of my life where I'm more mature and able to, you know, use my voice in a way where I can stand up for myself now. Younger Michelle wouldn't be able to do that. She would have people, she would let people walk all over her because younger self

Younger Michelle was so naive. She didn't know much of the social world. She didn't know much of the city world because I was a rez girl who moved to the city. And for me, that's like a culture shock. you know, people don't know the differences between the rez life and the city life. It's so much. There's so much differences. And,

for you to say that.

Michelle Chubb (13:29.75)
Since I was young to now, I had to learn how to use my voice in a way that doesn't hurt or harm others, but I'm able to stick up for myself.

Megan Hamilton (13:51.53)
Yeah, and that's not easy, it?

Michelle Chubb (13:55.316)
No, it's not.

Megan Hamilton (13:57.672)
Yeah. And especially again, when you've got so many people checking you out, like.

scrutinizing, you know, what you're doing and like having their own opinions about stuff. While you're also just trying to like figure it out.

Michelle Chubb (14:21.108)
Yeah, and that's also the other thing too is like, I don't think people realize the iceberg, what's under the iceberg, you know? There's so much a person has gone through in life to get to where they're at in their point in life. And for other people to, you know, to try to humble that person, you don't know what that person has gone through to get there. So you wouldn't want other people to judge you and your lifestyle, right?

and how you were brought up and how everyone interacted with you. It just sucks how some people's lives are harsher than others and it's just, it's difficult how minds, other people's mindsets are and it's just, you hope other people can read your mind too, the same way.

I think that I'm hoping that makes sense.

Megan Hamilton (15:24.52)
Mm-hmm. Like, do you mean you want to be met where you meet people?

Michelle Chubb (15:30.224)
Yes, yes, I want to be met. I want to be treated the way I'm treated. Yes.

Megan Hamilton (15:37.514)
Yeah, yeah, totally. And then, mean, it's easy for me to say, because I don't face this in the same way, but just some of the, whenever people are mean or harsh or cruel, I often think to myself, you know, that's coming from somewhere. that's coming from, like, that's on them. They got to heal themselves, right?

Michelle Chubb (16:01.565)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (16:07.254)
Um, but it still sucks. Like, like it's still not, um, it still takes energy to get past that or, um, Ignore it or, you know, I don't know, try to be the better person or whatever. Um, so when you and I met and we were talking about this the other day, it was your first TEDx talk. It was your first talk, right?

Michelle Chubb (16:07.453)
Yeah.

Michelle Chubb (16:19.028)
Yeah.

Michelle Chubb (16:35.339)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (16:37.722)
And you know, now every time I open Instagram, you're on a plane, you're doing like fashion shows and you're keynote talks and you're, you know, traveling and that's, that's two and a half years, right? From your first talk to all of this. How does it feel to to be on this side of things, to be

you know, out there talking about stuff that's really important that needs to be heard by people.

Michelle Chubb (17:17.163)
In my TEDx talk, I mentioned that I didn't see myself doing a TEDx talk. So I'm going to repeat the same thing. I didn't see myself doing this kind of stuff because, you know, I've always skipped school whenever there was like a presentation in class and I had to speak in front of the classroom. would always tell my mom, hey, can I not go to school today?

I'm like, would lie about something and yeah, that's how severe my social anxiety was and to be able to speak in a crowd full of people, it's kind of crazy to think that now because little Michelle wouldn't have done that.

Megan Hamilton (18:14.57)
Yeah. But you're, but you're doing it like, and you're doing it a lot.

Do you feel, is it easier now? Does it feel easier than it did?

like a couple of years ago.

Michelle Chubb (18:31.339)
Honestly, yes, I feel like it was a graduation once I did that 10x talk, especially with you coaching. Like I said, like every talk I do, I think of you because you were a pivotal point in my career to give me that confidence to use my voice more and.

So I want to thank you for giving me that confidence.

Megan Hamilton (19:07.862)
It was a pleasure to work with you, but make no mistake, I did not give you any confidence. You earned that confidence yourself. You showed up and did the work and that's what confidence, that's where it comes from. I gave you a few breathing techniques or whatever I did.

Michelle Chubb (19:08.053)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (19:33.462)
But it does make my heart happy to think that you're using that stuff every time you go to your talks. Cause that's the whole thing behind why I like to use that initial training stuff is so that people have a structure so that they can get up. I don't, for those who are listening, my other job is a speaking coach. I don't talk about that too, too much here, but it does, honestly,

It makes me feel so happy to know that people are using that stuff and that it's helpful. Like that's all we ever want in this world is to help other people. Like it's the nicest feeling, right? Yeah.

Michelle Chubb (20:13.0)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (20:16.326)
so are you okay if we switch gears a minute to spirituality and talking a little bit about, appropriation?

Michelle Chubb (20:28.692)
Yeah, I don't mind.

Megan Hamilton (20:30.014)
Okay. So one of the things that I wanted to do when I started this podcast, pardon me, like over a year ago, I wanted to talk about how sometimes there's, there's open and closed spiritual practices, right? And we're talking about all manner of spirituality. So religion, cultural spirituality,

And then just like whatever blend, you know, like like mine is from a lot of mine is taken from my ancestors and from the places where I my people come from, which is, you know, Scotland and England and Ireland. And then I, you know, I take things that really speak to me that I might learn. But there's practices that are closed that are.

You know, we say closed and that means like they're from a specific culture, a specific religion, and they're not for everybody. Right. So a lot of indigenous practices, they're not for everybody. They're certainly not. And same with, you know, like Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah, like that is a closed practice. There's lots of different closed practices. And I wanted to talk to somebody who has a spiritual practice.

about what can happen if we're not careful and we're not being fastidious or you know like researching the different techniques that we might be using. You are in a halo right now which is hilarious since we're talking about spirituality. Somebody out there is shining a light directly on you. you don't have to get rid of it. We love it. That's like what do you

Michelle Chubb (22:14.935)
my god.

Megan Hamilton (22:25.116)
Again, the universe is just right on the nose today. Can you talk a little bit about why appropriation can be so harmful?

Michelle Chubb (22:37.162)
Yes.

Michelle Chubb (22:42.452)
For me, as an Indigenous person who is, you know, my ancestors, their culture was taken away from them. Their practices were taken away from them. Their language was taken away from them. Their identities were taken away from them. And for me,

who's down the line from that trauma and that historical trauma. For me, who's just learning, you know, my own culture, who's learning it every day as I learn.

and for other people to come and you know, I want to learn this, I want to learn that, know, like taking whatever they want. For us, it takes a lifetime to learn these, to learn the wisdom, the knowledge of

and the ceremonies that we are taught from our people. you know, some people need to learn that you don't know what you're worthy with and you need to learn that some things aren't yours to touch, some things aren't yours to learn.

Because this is a practice, this is a culture that has been here for many, many years before colonization, before the Europeans settled on Turtle Island, also known as North America. So this knowledge and wisdom that we carry is very, very old ancient knowledge.

Michelle Chubb (25:03.53)
I think it's very important to keep that protected because there are protocols and like I said in my TEDx talk, there are protocols that we have to follow before we do said thing, right?

Michelle Chubb (25:26.858)
Yeah, it's just a lifetime to learn what we learn.

Megan Hamilton (25:32.705)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, know, thank you for saying that. Like it's it's it's not for everybody. It just isn't. And that has to be OK. Like it has to be OK that that you can't that you certainly can with some things. I'm not and I'm not talking about indigenous practices. I'm just talking about certain spiritual practices. There's certain

Michelle Chubb (25:45.706)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Chubb (25:58.964)
Hmm.

Megan Hamilton (26:02.792)
elements that are okay to take and play with, for example, and find what works for you. But there are certain ones that just aren't. you know, you might, it might be uncomfortable for you if you're suddenly realizing that using white sage and staging your, I don't know, wherever you want to stage is, you know, there's, there's more to it than what you're doing. And,

Michelle Chubb (26:06.537)
Of course.

Megan Hamilton (26:32.318)
And it's, can be damaging to a degree that you, might not understand and to have an open mind about learning about that. Because if you call yourself a spiritual person, then it means, you know, what is it? Do no harm, take no shit, right? Do no harm. If you realize if you've been told you're causing harm,

Michelle Chubb (26:42.473)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (27:03.21)
That's on you. You take that responsibility on right. And you know, as you mentioned, these practices were not just messing around with them. These were taken from people. Language practices, rituals, ceremony, all of that was taken from people to the point where and again, you and I talked about this another time, but

Michelle Chubb (27:07.133)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (27:32.723)
On another podcast I had, I had Tara Bagan, who's an indigenous playwright in Canada. And she talked about when she was learning or she was writing one of her plays and she would have these dreams and her aunties and ancestors were sort of like going through these ceremonies and practices. And she went after the dreams to talk to her elders and say, you know, this was in my dream and that, they were really

stressed out about it. They were like, we don't talk about that. We're not, you know, like they got really because they had been brought up. That stuff was dangerous because if you were caught practicing, you know, your ancestral millennia of everything that made you you.

you could be seriously harmed for it. And so now that you've got people just willy-nilly staging everything, when at one point the people who created that practice couldn't even do it, it's important to understand why people have such strong...

I don't even want to say opinions. It's like, just don't do it. You got to listen to people and stop doing shit. How's that? How's that for eloquent?

Michelle Chubb (29:03.433)
You

Michelle Chubb (29:15.433)
you

Megan Hamilton (29:17.195)
So.

Megan Hamilton (29:20.668)
Do you use spiritual practice? Do you use ceremony? What do you use it for?

Michelle Chubb (29:31.614)
I use it to heal myself. I know there's such like a taboo, it's such a taboo topic to talk about because, you know, people usually talk about the negative side of spirituality when really there's a lot more good people out there. I use spirituality for the good.

Honestly, I just use it to heal myself and others who ask.

Megan Hamilton (30:09.366)
Yeah. Yeah. Do you mean when you were talking about that, do you mean like the negative aspects of like religion and the power stuff that comes along with it? Yeah. Yeah. Nothing's ever just everything has, you know, the the light side and the dark side, right?

Michelle Chubb (30:21.041)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Michelle Chubb (30:33.531)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (30:35.136)
Hmm.

Michelle Chubb (30:36.571)
And just like life, everything has to come in a circle.

Megan Hamilton (30:41.206)
Yeah, yes. And we cry around the full moon, apparently. That's part of the cycle that we're in right now. Okay, so, okay, you're wearing a really cool hoodie right now. For those of you who are watching on YouTube or if you're not, can go and check it out. Can you tell us a little bit about your hoodie?

Michelle Chubb (30:46.626)
Hehehehehe

Michelle Chubb (31:07.817)
If you can see it, it's my merch. I partnered with The Colonial Clothing and it's another Indigenous-owned company. I partnered up with them to sell this merch and I'm hoping people will support me and The Colonial Clothing.

Megan Hamilton (31:09.64)
Yes!

Megan Hamilton (31:37.323)
Yeah, it's very cool. And they've got somebody working their ads because I get decolonial ads like constantly on Instagram. You must get them all the time. I'll definitely be linking to that in the show notes as well. And I think you're going to be in a book that's coming out this spring.

Michelle Chubb (31:48.817)
Yeah.

Michelle Chubb (32:03.181)
Yes, yes.

Megan Hamilton (32:04.192)
Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Michelle Chubb (32:12.946)
This is going to be coming out in April. I went to Toronto and we got some shots taken and I'm just excited for everyone to see it.

Michelle Chubb (32:27.814)
It's about Indigenous people and yeah, I think that's all I can say.

Megan Hamilton (32:34.23)
Okay, that's fun. do you know what mean? Like you're getting flown around all the time just to do all this neat stuff like jet set, jet set world. But then, you know, but then like we're on the pod and you know, somebody, the dog is, is doing something or is that what was happening before you had the dog? It's like that's, that's life. What kind of dog do you have?

Michelle Chubb (32:55.376)
My dog.

you, your teeth, well...

Megan Hamilton (33:06.848)
That's nice. Aren't dogs the best?

Michelle Chubb (33:10.076)
Yeah, he's pretty smart. I love him.

Megan Hamilton (33:13.366)
My dog is named Winnie after Winnipeg. Because she's from the North in Manitoba. Yeah, she's really, she's really, she's the best. are ridiculously into our dog.

Michelle Chubb (33:18.568)
That's so funny.

that's so cute.

Michelle Chubb (33:31.016)
Hmm

Michelle Chubb (33:39.272)
you

Megan Hamilton (33:42.792)
Okay, so one of the things we like to end with on this podcast is looking to practices that keep us hopeful.

and there's a lot of stuff going on obviously, and I think, you know,

finding ways that help you stay grounded so that you can take breaks and then keep coming back into.

awareness, I guess, of everything that's going on. What do you do as a person who is in the spotlight a lot? What do you do to keep yourself grounded and to stay hopeful?

Michelle Chubb (34:28.924)
honestly, I spend a lot of time with family and

Michelle Chubb (34:40.966)
I try not to spend so much time online and scrolling because I feel like once you do that you create this imaginary world that's not really happening in the real world. And I think just spending time, more time in reality will just help you stay humble and...

away from all that negative.

the negative aspects that come with social media.

Megan Hamilton (35:17.396)
Yeah. Yeah, that seems to be the thing right now, right? It's like step one is don't be on your phone as much.

Michelle Chubb (35:27.624)
you

Megan Hamilton (35:28.864)
Right? Like, and who knew that was going to be a thing that we had to really like get intentional about. But now it seems to be the number one thing in order to protect your mental health is to put your phone down.

Michelle Chubb (35:45.255)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (35:46.454)
It's wild. Listen, I am so grateful to you for coming on this podcast and I just, I love spending time with you and so I'm grateful for that. It's nice to see you again and it's so nice to see all of the incredible things that you get up to and how you're.

doing the good work, putting important messages out into the world and changing lives. And thank you so much for being here.

Michelle Chubb (36:15.816)
Yeah, thank you for inviting me and yeah, I really hope people learn something from this.

Megan Hamilton (36:25.812)
Yeah, they will. Of course. All right. This is where I do the reading part. So let me pull up my paper. You can find all the information and takeaways from today's episode in the show notes or at embracing enchantment dot com. Subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review or a voice note and find out more about Michelle and where to follow her in the show notes or at embracing enchantment dot com.

Michelle Chubb (36:28.306)
You

Megan Hamilton (36:53.972)
Make sure you're subscribed because we have some exciting episodes coming up about word witchery and we'll have a tarot reading for the new year and so much more until then here's to building an enchanted life. Thank you, Michelle.

Michelle Chubb (37:10.248)
Thank you.

Megan Hamilton (37:13.207)
All right.