Mother dearest has been learning more about diabetes Type 2 and how to help maintain her sugar levels and caring for herself. It’s encouraging when I see her reading and watching videos about how to help herself and creating healthy meals around health conditions.

High blood pressure and diabetes affect many of our loved ones in Samoa and worldwide. It is a universal problem given the amount of cheap processed food and busy lifestyles for most of us. For years, she’s been looking after everyone else and now she has time to focus on her health and her own goals. There is no slowing down for my sixty young year old mother, every day she is learning something new. With grandchildren who mostly live overseas and cannot speak Samoan, she suggested that I should start teaching her lessons from my reading classes on Saturdays.

Letting go of bad habits is an art in itself. Communicable diseases are a generational curse so to speak. Our parents learnt their eating habits from their parents and we learn from our own parents. Just like letting go of many bad things in our lives and making way for the new. We are on a path of constant learning and self-discovery, so we know and do better for the next generation. Obesity, unhealthy habits, negative self-talk, low self-esteem, confusing body image, binge drinking are some of the symptoms of these generational deep imbedded curses that we take on ourselves and repeat for our children.

The number of times you hear women talk down at themselves and their girls saddens me especially in public places. “Ia vaai mai a ua lapopo’s kagaka i le koakele o gei kamaiki, aea foi oe ia i lou ia magava kaukau”. The common greeting among our people is commenting on how much weight you’ve gained since you’ve had children or asking whether you will have another one. Sadly, it’s women who make these comments and a few men too. Why do we do this to ourselves? Is it a mandatory part of our culture that cannot be changed?

Can we not live in a society where every standard of beauty if appreciated? Then you go to the school yard and this is replicated. Girls are bullied due to their looks, size, beliefs, socio economic status and boys are bullied due to their physical prowess even sexual orientation. We have to start somewhere with changing our own minds about who we are and what we want to become. Education alone, cannot solve the problems of the world but compassion definitely can.

Having conversations around these issues are so important if we want the next generation to be kind. It starts with us. We can catch good advice and release the bad stuff. We can work in our own corner and impact our own community and families first. We talk to our children about what is acceptable and what is not. We talk to our colleagues about helping others and awareness around the work place.

We use humour to hide many of the subtle discriminations, jabs, jokes, mean things we say to others that we don’t want said about ourselves or our families.

Using good advice is a conscious decision just like working on our health. One thing that connects us as human beings is our ability to feel pain. Whether that pain is emotional or physical, we all have experiences of being hurt. What separates us is how we deal with that pain. When that emotional pain prevents us from healing, it means we are not moving forward in a growth oriented way. Moving forward means we learn the lessons from the situation and focus on our own growth through positive changes.

While we work on ourselves and go about our week. Let us all do our own work, practice mindfulness, be gentle with yourself, allow yourself to feel all the negative emotions and let those flow out of you, accept that people may not apologise to you and surround yourself with people who add value to your life and giving yourself permission to forgive the past, childhood trauma so we can all heal. Enjoy the rest of the week Samoa.