Sharon Ward, an Ojibway woman from the Brokenhead Nation in Manitoba, shares a deeply personal account of intergenerational trauma, survival, and healing. She traces the devastating impact of Canada’s residential school system through her own family — her mother was taken at three and a half years old and spent nearly a decade at Fort Alexander, enduring severe abuse and witnessing atrocities. Sharon describes how that trauma rippled forward, turning her once-gentle mother toward alcoholism once Indigenous women were legally permitted to drink in 1966, pulling the family into poverty and further abuse. Despite her own struggles — including navigating cultural identity and language barriers — Sharon found her way through a 40-year healing journey rooted in Ojibwe spiritual tradition, self-forgiveness, and the belief that every person has a sacred purpose. She closes with a message of resilience: that Creator only allows people to face what they are strong enough to bear, and that sharing her story is the work she was put here to do.
“Creator’s only going to allow people to go through what they are strong enough to go through” – Sharon Ward
*Connect with Sharon* ⇨ Her email is: ogitchita.ikwe@gmail.com
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00:00 – Opening: Sharon describes crawling through a light and feeling overwhelming love on the other side
01:36 – Introduction: Who is Sharon Ward? Ojibway Nation, Manitoba, raised on the trap line
02:42 – Residential Schools: What they were and how Indigenous children were forcibly taken from families
03:39 – Sharon’s Mother: Taken to Fort Alexander at age 3½, siblings separated across Manitoba
04:00 – Horrors Inside the Schools: Mother witnesses murders, experiences abuse by priests and nuns
04:49 – A Community Destroyed: 1966 law allows Indigenous women to drink; mother’s alcoholism spirals
06:00 – Survival Childhood: Family becomes self-sufficient, then alcohol breaks everything apart
07:31 – Sharon as a Teenager: Marijuana as coping, beatings by her mother, thrown out in a snowstorm
09:53 – Mother’s Death: Cancer, drinking through chemo, a peaceful passing — then Sharon’s grief unravels her
13:23 – The Overdose: Consumed 270+ pills and whiskey, hoping not to wake up
14:26 – The NDE Begins: Dying, Sharon hears her siblings’ voices and feels the pain she would have caused
15:57 – The Voice and the Light: Told to “turn around,” walks toward a distant speck of light, crawls through
17:05 – Meeting the Messenger: A being whose face cycles through all races tells her Creator has a job only she can do
19:46 – Sent Back: She begs to stay, is returned anyway — wakes on the couch as her sister calls the coroner
22:32 – Processing the Experience: Realizes over days that it was real; decides to begin healing
23:21 – Return to Indigenous Ways: Smudging, sweat lodges, traditional medicines as the path back
28:51 – The Philosophy of Forgiveness: Healing begins with self-kindness; forgiveness is for you, not them
30:11 – Closing: Life is sacred; Creator loves everybody
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Brilliant, Beautiful, and Wise!🥰
Thank you for your share.🌟
So beautiful ❤
"Wait till my time here is done so I can go home." I feel that everyday. I want to go home but cannot go now. My time here is not done. My Creator I love You! Please take me home soon.
Crying and crying silently. thank you all
Sharon, thank you for sharing your painful story of growing up..you are a beautiful and brave soul. Like you life seems to me like a series of Jails , some sweet others not so much. Thank you for sharing your NDE. I was once told in a deep meditation that it was not my time and I had to go back to earth which I did not want to do, but forgot the grief once I was being hurled back to earth. You are so right about everyone have a purpose. Love ya Sista!
Wow healing has to start with me.
You are healed and beyond!!! 💜🫶🏽💙
“Creator loves everybody….We are all related. . . Life is sacred…”
Ya. Thank you. That was a beautiful lady inside and out. Very courageous and deep. We need more people like that
One of these precious nde´s which are not full of organized religions bs and their brainwashing doctrines – leave those native, indigen people alone with your all brainwashing religions – they do have their very own spirituality and history created by their anchestors. Christianity and their weird abusive priests and nuns did a lot of harm and abuse to their native people – and all of their children too.
No, we are alone. This is just dreams…
Blessings to this brave woman❤
I wish I could say "I do not want to do the job, I don't have to, I will not do it." Why do I have to???
Dear Sharon,
Your peaceful words and demeanour are in themselves a gift to others still suffering through pain, shame, and dispair.
Thank you so much for sharing your story.
When I myself experienced dispair, I realized that I did not truly understand the meaning of the word before it "happened" to me.
It almost has a life and voice of it's own.
Thank you for the reminder that the our journey, our struggle, and loneliness are temporary and that the time is coming when we all will be reunited with our Creator.
Love and peace be with you.
❤.
thanks
Even though my mom was not First Nations, her life seems to parallel yours in some ways. Her dad left when she was young, she lived in a cabin in the woods in northern Alberta with no electricity and running water and her mom drank and drank and drank. She remembers one winter when all they had to eat was jars of moose that had been given to them by someone who was concerned. She would speak about never wanting to even see a moose after that. May we all be healed of our wounds and pass that healing on to others. ❤
Pastor John Anosike Miracle cancer.
NDE
Beautiful lady❤❤
🌹❤
Well thanks for answering that question. Guess I'll be staying in this 'life jail'
The things that were done to the Native Americans are despicable. I can only imagine the amount of karma those actions left on the lineages of those who committed them. I’m sure glad I don’t carry this karma. It explains a lot happening to Americans and Europeans and there’s more to come. It’s sad how many the victims of selfishness, greed, hatred and a god complex there are. The same ppl also committed so many atrocities in other parts of the world. What a legacy to leave your future generations! It’s certainly a lesson to the rest of us to be careful how we treat others.
All in the name of Jesus! @2:21– the banner reads: LOOKING UNTO JESUS. These fathers sinned and continue to sin. How hypocritical and evil that they want to drill Jesus into these young, innocent children in the name of showing them the one true God. Is that what Bibile says? Be evil and take the culture and traditions of these traditional people and call them backwards or pagans or devil worshippers, when in reality they worship the devil. If they worshipped the so-called true God, they would NEVER EVER commit such horrendous crimes against humanity.