Have you been noticing lately there's been a whole lot more suicides in our lahui? Have you also noticed that our teenagers are still getting into ice, as well as a plethora of other pills & drugs?
What's going on? What happened to our ohana systems? Generations of simply trying to hold it together are falling apart. Solutions that used to work, no longer work.
Modernization makes everything breakable these days. Cars don't run like they used to. People don't cook like they used to. And life just isn't what we're used to. Sure, the struggle is always going to be there, but how we relate and get through the struggle are what's changing.
Life is not a race or competition.
Please go camping alone in a secret location for 3 days before thinking about doing that to yourself. Sometimes, all you need is to separate from everything to be able to get a grip on yourself. You are far too valuable to be hurting yourself, but less you forget how to treat others.
A lot of our families have forgotten how to overcome things. We've forgotten what true ho'oponopono is, and have mixed it up with modern mind sets. Look deeper within, k?
There is no real finger to point and no one person to blame.
Problems like this and people in those positions are almost always faced with plenty of problems and no one is listening.
How do I know?
I'm so messed up that I couldn't even die right when I committed suicide, because I was found and saved. I didn't want to be saved, I wanted to die.
The hospital people told me people cared about me. They lied.
The mental health people told me all kinds of things that were wrong about me and my life. They didn't really know, they work in a practice - they practice.
Some people in my family even said they cared.
I guess they sort of cared, but my being saved didn't help anything.
Nothing changed, except now people threw that in my face for years.
Did anybody start listening? Not at all.
When they saved me from suicide,
I was not thankful and I am still not.
I tried to be thankful.
I tried to stop feeling bad about my situation.
I tried to not see how messed up my family was.
I tried not to see my loved ones fall apart.
But nobody tried to listen.
Nobody saw what I saw.
Nobody heard my voice.
Nobody was concerned like I was.
That was 30 years ago.
What happened since then?
Every concern I had, happened.
My family continued to fall apart around me.
My peers continued to get killed daily.
Everybody felt something, but everyone hid their feelings in hopes that nobody else would see, in hopes that nobody else would know.
People were too worried what somebody else was thinking.
People were too worried about local gossip.
When I was trying to overcome my feelings of wanting to die, everyone told me I was selfish.
Now there's reasons that people don't want to live and usually, they are anything but selfish.
Most of the time, the person who wants to die, wants to die because they don't want to say mean things to the people around them, who often don't listen because they don't have to, they don't want to, its somebody else's fault, etc..
When a person wants to die, it is usually because they already know that the situation isn't going to get any better unless something drastic was to happen, to wake people up.
The person who wants to die has been trying to tell everyone around them how they feel, but there is always a reason nobody hears them.
And nobody else can see this until the damage is done.
But have we forgotten that we all have gifts?
Have we forgotten that some people can see things from their perspective, that we might not be able to see?
Usually, those are the people we ignore and the reason is this:
We don't see what they see because we don't want to see it. We would rather close our eyes to it and continue as if there is not a problem. We don't want anyone to know that on the inside, we have things tearing us down! Can you imagine what our neighbors might think? What if our enemy saw that and enjoyed our suffering?
What if we had a past that we are shame of and don't want people to pry into an area of our lives that hurt us the most.
But what if we decided to take on a few small things at a time with one another, so that these things don't happen?
What if we began a few small baby steps in our own households, that just might be a good glue to hold us together?
Since committing suicide some 30 years ago, not too many days have gone by that a small part of me didn't wish it happened.
It has nothing to do with self pity, really.
It has more to do with the same exact reason I did it in the first place: nobody listens and everyone is way too busy worrying about something of lesser importance than what is hurting the person who wants to die. People are worried about reputations, gossip, birthday parties (that they can't afford) and other menial things, rather than the most important things in life, to which most people would call boring and not special.
To make my point, try tell your family you like spend your kid's 3rd birthday just with family..
They will complain from the high holy moon and then try to win your kid's love by telling your kid that they did something better than you - the parent did. Then the family is going to talk about that. Before you know it, you got half the family talking bad about you and the other half defending you.
The sad part is that they ALL failed to ask your child what your child wanted, and they failed to see that you're relationship with your child is valuable & important to you.
So even thought they only mean to be loving and fun, they don't realize how deep their actions affected the relationship between you and your child. When that tiny misconception issue blows up, it can cause a full on family war, bringing up all the other little crumbs that have successfully been swept under the carpet unto this point.
Nobody saw this coming, and those who did only gossiped about it anyway. That's because people don't realize how their choices affect those around them.
So this small changes we are asking people to explore, are so small, so easy to say or write, but so hard to follow through with. They challenge you to mind your manners - something that we as a people do not know in this generation, as a result of having to sort through so many lies of yesterday's generation, who had to sort out hewa from the generation before, which all stemmed from political oppression and American wars, for the last 150 years.
Think about it.
We don't have to all become each other's therapists, but just as the voice of God or our Ancestors can be found in the gentle hum of the whispering wind, so can the light of faith, the light of knowing things will one day be alright.
Let's look at some ways we can small kind lighten the mood, without really going out of our way. I'm telling ya, being nice isn't always nice. It can be hurtful sometimes, but if we keep something funny in our own head, we will never run out of reason to smile.
I might not be thankful to have been saved from my own disaster, but in being kolohe, I have learned how to change those feelings.
I wasn't working on being nice, I wanted revenge on all the things that took me there to begin with.
The only revenge I found that worked on everything, was the simplest thing I could have ever and never figured out.
None of my revenge tactic worked.
Being upset all the time was only killing me anyway, but slowly.
But one smile, huh... one smile did the trick for everything.
That smile made those who did care, happy.
It made my haters wonder what I was doing wrong.
It made gossipers wonder what I was doing altogether.
It kept my secret, making spectators believe I was doing better than I was, because they all thought I was well put together.
That stupid smile actually put me one step above everyone else because it gave me a power I didn't have when I cried.
I could see when my haters were lost in their own hatred. Oh pity them! ha ha
I could see how my smile inspired others to want to be around me.
I felt better, knowing these things, not that I wanted to be crowded, but just knowing that I gave all kinds of people good vibes, was a new feeling inside. It eventually made my smile real.
And the love behind it grew, even though I wanted to remain cold, I just couldn't. I was already transforming into some kind of teddy bear or something.
But don't get me wrong... If someone crosses that line, the tita is still inside. She is just more content now ;)
Here are some ideas:
- Remember that you have 2 ears and only 1 mouth for a reason
- Try listen before speaking
- Try think before speaking
- Take 15 minutes a day to practice nice face in the mirror
- Try answer your family with the word "yes" and not "what"
- Think before you react altogether
- No judgment means that you don't call people names when they do something stupid. You can call the action stupid, but not the person.
- If you drive, let 3 'idiots' go today, on your new "3 Idiot" rule. Trust me, this one can make you laugh to yourself all day too!
- While out, do a random nice thing for one random kupuna each day, that's out of your normal kupuna nice thing that you do
- Once a week, pick one "complainer" and set a timer for 30 minutes. For 30 minutes, try listen to them without talking much. Give them 30 minutes to get it off their chest, and if they don't like hang up, you are welcome to charge them after 30 minutes have passed ;)
- Spend 1 hour each week with each kid, one-on-one. This is the single most important thing you can do with your children that will keep trust, honesty & the bond alive between you & them.
- If you have a significant other, turn everything off and spend one hour per week just on one completely undivided attention kind conversation with them.
- If you normally go to the bar after work, try go to the hospice or old folk home and play one game of chess with one kupuna, or take the women flowers or something. One hour per week, one day per week.
- If your parents are getting old, or your kupuna, try spend a one hour date with them per week. This could be something like taking them to the movies when you take your family, or bringing them to one of the kids' games or recitals. You could be their special after church ice cream date or something. Go take pictures or something.
- Designate once per month to be family photo day. Those actually get creative & fun after awhile! Especially with filters! But the trick is that its a family photo day, so everybody has to participate! We just got a bunch of those red noses from Walgreens for our Christmas pics.
- Hold the door for the random person behind you when you go to the store. When they walk by announce something silly like "Monday Morning Door Service" and share a random laugh.
- If nothing else sounds good, or you enjoy being a rebel, here's the best one ever...
Smile.. It makes people wonder what you've been up to.
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