Restoration Over Ruin: Lise Gillies on Decolonizing Self and Systems Together

At Len Pierre Consulting, we believe decolonization is not only possible, it is essential. Few voices embody this truth more powerfully than Lise Gillies. 

Lise’s traditional name is  ᐸᓯᑯᐤᐯᓯᒧᔮᐱᕀᐊᐦᒑᕁ. She is Cree/Métis on her father's side and mixed European settler on her mother’s side. She lives as an uninvited guest on the beautiful unceded territory of the Quw'utsun' Peoples in what is known as Maple Bay on Vancouver Island. As a consultant, facilitator, and visual artist, Lise specializes in designing strategic initiatives that advocate for diverse abilities and equity informed practice, leads transformative education programs, and supports the integration of Indigenous perspectives and cultural safety through constructive review and critique. 

In a recent conversation, Lise shared deep reflections that offer an approach to reimagine the systems we work within, beginning with ourselves.

What makes you believe in decolonization and reconciliation right now?

"I do believe decolonization is possible," Lise said, her voice steady with conviction. But her belief isn't rooted in abstract ideals, but rather in lived experience. When reflecting on the idea of decolonization, she talked about a recent flood in her home and the restoration process that followed. It became a metaphor that captured the grief, opportunities and beauty present in this work.

"My house is not the same," she shared. "We lost a whole lot of things and it was ripped to shreds. Some of it we got to keep. And as we were restoring different parts of the house, all of a sudden we had a say. We had agency in what we restored and how we were restoring it. And now it's a million times better than it ever was." Though the flood necessitated grief, the restoration process brought with it new potential and power. All of these experiences sat closely to one another. 

This story wasn’t just about loss, destruction and grief. It was also about agency, choice, and healing. In Lise's eyes, restoration is a concept that helps us understand the emotional complexity and potential within the work of decolonization and reconciliation. It’s not about reverting to what was or romanticizing the past, but about intentionally deciding what to carry forward and what to release. The flood forced her to look critically at what could be salvaged and what needed to be let go, mirroring the way many of us must confront the systems and mindsets that we have inherited through colonization. "When I use the term restoration in place of decolonization, then it becomes something that is easier for me to understand, it becomes something I can actively engage in" she said. Through restoration, she found autonomy, voice, and a vision for something better. This was not a return to what was, but rather the creation of something beautiful that honours the full truth of all that has been.

Lise recognizes that this process of restoration starts within. "Systems won't decolonize themselves because they're systems. It's people. It's the people within them that require that shift." It is the people who are stepping into the complexity of this work, the grief, the agency and the healing, who show her that decolonization is possible. 

Lise works on a graphic recording of an event on community overdose response

How has LPC supported your journey and influenced your perspective?

Lise spoke openly about the pain of working in systems where harm is often minimized or ignored. "The lateral violence from calling things out is so rampant. It’s all under the basis of fear… colonial ideology disguised as transformative change"

Through these challenges, LPC has become her circle of support and solidarity. For Lise,  LPC is a place where fear doesn't control the conversation. What she experiences instead is radical safety, grounded in trust, truth, and healing. For Lise, LPC is a refuge to come back to, to learn, grow and access the support required to keep going in work that can be both devastating and transformational, "[Without that support], I can see how so many people just get lost in it and then leave the work." 

In a world where doing cultural safety and decolonization work often means facing silence, resistance, and fear projected by others, LPC acts as a circle of care. It's a place she can return to after navigating the grief, the isolation, and to find the emotional and spiritual strength required to challenge systems.

"LPC is the place I can bring the heartbreak and still be held," she shared. "That’s what keeps me in the work. It’s what lets me come back to myself, again and again."

She described LPC as a space where people are committed to the inner work, and where mutual care and accountability aren't just buzzwords but daily practices. "Every person in LPC is in that state of actively decolonizing themselves and coming together in that circle of care. We don’t have a hierarchy when we’re together. Feedback is given respectfully." She also emphasized the importance of training, continuous growth, and how people at LPC are learning from each other and continuing to do the work together of moving more deeply into change and transformation. 

She also highlighted the significance of LPC's debrief culture. "It’s the most incredible debrief culture. I use it in my other work as much as I can. I try to share that with every team that I support."

What are you most proud of in your work with LPC?

Without hesitation, Lise lit up describing her favorite LPC project: reviewing a young adult novel for cultural safety. "It was just so neat. I got to know these characters, and I feel like I know who they are."

The project involved reviewing Coast Salish characters written in a period piece by a U.S.-based author. "I waited for someone to pick up the project and realized that’s probably not everyone’s cup of tea. Even though I’m not Coast Salish, I feel like I’m on my way to a PhD in cultural safety," she laughed. And she didn’t do it alone. "I had an incredible network and LPC and beyond to bounce things off people... and they kept me on track and validated and supported the feedback I was making.’"

What made this project so meaningful was the opportunity to restore dignity and truth to the way Indigenous peoples and nations are represented. In a world where Indigenous stories are too often erased or distorted, this was a moment of reclamation. “To offer feedback that could bring more accuracy and even some social justice to how these characters were written—that was huge,” she explained. It was a chance to guide how Indigenous lives are portrayed and to ensure that those portrayals are grounded in respect, history, and cultural truth.

“Storytelling is powerful,” Lise emphasized. “It shapes how we see one another and how we see ourselves. This wasn’t just about characters in a book. It was about Indigenous youth seeing themselves represented with dignity. It was about truth-telling.” Storytelling of this nature is so critical across the diverse projects that Lise is involved in at LPC and beyond.

This experience wasn’t just a professional achievement—it was a personal joy. "It challenged me to know my history, to think deeply about cultural representation. I got to be an ally to my Coast Salish relatives, to be a part of active reconciliation."

What work is getting you excited right now?

Lise is dreaming in colour and texture. She’s thinking about art as a tool for healing, justice and as a way to reconnect to joy. "I have a love-hate relationship with art. I love it, and then I twist it, torture it, totally saturate it. Then I get mad, and I put everything away." But recently, she’s finding a rhythm and ways of producing that step outside of colonial expectations around time and creativity, to find ways to generate work that honours the emotional and spiritual complexity of what surrounds her.

"I just did a couple of pieces for perinatal substance use and perinatal infectious disease, and now I’m reconnecting with it in a good way," she said. For Lise, this reconnection is about honoring the stories that emerge from community, and about allowing herself the time and space to create from a place of purpose rather than pressure. She envisions art not just as expression, but as a gentle act of resistance that brings beauty, truth, and emotional resonance to spaces that need it most.

She’s not interested in strict timelines. "If you're looking for someone to stand and produce a piece in real time, I’m not your human. I’m neurodivergent, I need time. I need to know I can do it right, listening to understand, and honour the voices and wisdom in the room."

Art, for Lise, is another circle, a way to say, "I see you" and "you belong here too." It's that same ethos of widening the circle that she brings into every aspect of her work with LPC.

What advice would you give to others building this kind of collaborative support?

"Decolonize yourselves," Lise said simply. “It isn’t an external process. It starts with an internal decision to stop protecting systems that keep us comfortable and complicit. It asks us to let go of certainty, control, and defensiveness and replace it with humility, accountability, and trust in Indigenous leadership.”

Getting to that place of trust is difficult but it is what empowers true collaboration and change. "Reconciliation and Decolonization is like filing for bankruptcy, in addition to land and resources there are debts for trust, relationships, and responsibility. You don't get to pretend nothing happened. You can’t claim reconciliation if you haven’t finished the bankruptcy paperwork. Truth first. Repair next. Then we’ll talk about trust". Lise highlights that it is a long, slow process that allows people to take accountability and rebuild trust over time. Without seeing and following this long process, it is easy to be paralyzed by emotional overwhelm. Following the process step by step will allow you to move from truth to rebuilding trust over time. 

She acknowledged how rare LPC’s environment of deep listening and trust truly is. "We are a community of practice, coming home to each other, learning and supporting, and then going back out to do the work." Building this in larger colonial organizations can be really difficult, especially given all the pressures that ask us to conform to advance in our careers. But the process of connecting and building out trust is the same.

We ask, what can you do today to advance your project of restoration? What do you need to grieve? What can you restore? What do you want to build? And most importantly, who can be present with you in that process of restoration, to support you to feel through all of its complexity and to keep moving towards something more beautiful. Something that honours the full truth of all that has been.

In every word, Lise reminds us: this work is personal. The change begins within. And when we choose restoration over ruin, we don’t just rebuild. We reimagine what is possible.