Since I first read it, over 20 years ago, my favorite poem has been “Harlem” by Langston Hughes:

“What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up
      like a raisin in the sun?
      Or fester like a sore—
      And then run?
      Does it stink like rotten meat?
      Or crust and sugar over—
      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags
      like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?“

Today I found out he has another poem by the same name:

“So we stand here
On the edge of hell
In Harlem
And look out on the world
And wonder
What we’re gonna do
In the face of what
We remember.”

Langston Hughes, “Harlem” from The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Copyright © 2002 by Langston Hughes. poetryfoundation.org/poems/46548/harlem

I’ve been struggling to be grateful, my whole life. I’m a thoughtful person, I’ve become significantly more aware and more mindful in recent years, but not significantly more grateful. I’ve been told that the benefits of gratitude are more happiness, I know people enjoy being around grateful people, yet it’s not an easy or natural thing for me.

I’ve been struggling to be grateful, my whole life. I’m a thoughtful person, I’ve become significantly more aware and more mindful in recent years, but not significantly more grateful. I’ve been told that the benefits of gratitude are more happiness, I know people enjoy being around grateful people, yet it’s not an easy or natural thing for me.

It’s not something that I’ve never done or known, but it’s really strained when I try. Spontaneous gratitude happens for me, gratitude at the light of the dawn, the soft sway of bamboo in the wind, a cup of coffee gone right, the smile of my baby son, yet forced or expected gratitude is no easier than a dental visit for me.

It’s so hard that I wonder if it’s just not part of who I am?

I’m not sure if it’s because I didn’t have a typical mother-daughter relationship or not. My mom suffered heavy postpartum depression, so she didn’t want to be close to me, she didn’t enjoy feeding me, didn’t enjoy life around me, my dad was also suffering, suffering from depression and anxiety, overworking and a failing marriage. The moments I can remember my parents being happy in an honest way when I was growing up are extremely few. My mother later left my life and my father has become happy since owning dogs, both of which are good things for me, but I wonder if I didn’t learn gratitude because I didn’t see it?

My daughter is sleeping in the corner right now, at this moment I am grateful for her, but when she wakes up and demands many things she knows I will not give her (sugar cereal for breakfast, when we always eat oatmeal, toys she wants when she just got six new toys last night at the big music festival, attention when her brother needs to be fed and she already ate and was cuddled) I know it will be hard for me to be grateful to her at those times.

When I am multitasking I get angry, I get frustrated when two or three people talk to me at once, but now that I have two kids and am living with my dad and sister I am multitasking and multiple people are talking at once to me all day long. Except for dawn, for a few hours I am alone, then my son wakes up and that’s just fine, then my daughter wakes up and for a few minutes I’m fine, then the day is a downward spiral of me serving her, myself and the baby, my family vying for attention in their own ways and it’s completely overwhelming for me, I get more and more impatient and tired and more and more rude as the day goes on, until night when I am bitter and exhausted.

I’m taking a parenting class about being respectful, I’m doing a personal challenge to try to be more grateful and reading a book, “Only Love Today,” to try to slow down and expect less of myself, but so far no mental reframing, no perspective shift, no change in me has been able to resolve the fact that people want more than me every day than I am comfortable giving and that I hate multiple people talking at once.

I don’t want to ignore my daughter, I don’t want to be rude to her, I don’t want her to think her words and questions don’t matter, but I will not enjoy a life where she screams over anyone else talking to be heard constantly, I will not enjoy a life where she gets to spend all my mental energy and time having my answer her “why” questions whenever she feels like it without really listening or trying to remember what I tell her. I wish I could tell my family to stop talking when they hear other people are already talking, but I feel like I can’t phrase it in a way that wouldn’t offend them and even if I did they don’t take suggestions from me about how to live.

I guess I can stop talking over people myself, I guess I can write my daughters questions down in a notebook and have a time I will answer them, I guess I can tell my family “I feel overwhelmed” when they talk at the same time, I guess I can ask for help teaching my daughter to stop interrupting before I get so mad at her I want to punish her for it.

So, I’ve been failing to be sincerely grateful a lot during this gratitude challenge, but I wanted to keep going as non-judgementally as I can and gather information about myself.

To me, gratitude is a feeling (it can also be an act) and feelings are not easy to turn on and off like a switch. It’s also similar to love for me, most of the people I have been grateful towards I have loved as well.

One problem I have is that I have no words for gratitude, the ones that English has “thank you,” have been required for me to say as standard social interaction (when I didn’t mean them), all my childhood. Now that I’m an adult it’s up to me, I could stop saying thank you, but it would be hard.

I think I will try to stop saying thank you when I don’t mean it. Or I will start looking for another way to say it when I really mean thank you.

I have the words in Japanese, 有り難い arigatai (life is hard/thanks for making “the difficult thing I asked you to do” happen), ありがとう arigatoo (thank you), どうもありがとう domo arigatoo (really, thank you), ありがとうございます, domo arigatoo gonzaimasu (really, thank you so much).

I have the words in Chinese too, 感谢 gǎn xiè (real gratitude) and 谢谢 xiè xie (for common thanks).

But in English, the power of gratitude has been lost for me by thousands of forced thank yous given and received with no meaning.

So I haven’t found gratitude much in this gratitude challenge, but I’ve found curiosity and forgiveness.

My dad, for example, I’m unable to be very grateful for him, even though he often supported me in my life financially and physically, and I would mentally/logically expect myself to feel grateful towards him, I can’t force my feelings to be that way. But I was able to forgive him for not being the perfect dad, for being too depressed to come out of his shell and nurture me emotionally. I was able to be curious about why he is depressed and what that was like for him. He was more open with me about his childhood this year than ever before, he hated his dad, who hated his dad, so even though I don’t hate my dad, I can start to see why he didn’t have a role model of a father being open with his kids, because his father was not very close to him and my grandfather (who is 100 now) had a horrible relationship with his mom’s husband and possibly didn’t know his own father.

I know we don’t always copy what we see, sometimes we overcome the past, but it seems like because my grandfather was so distant from a father, my father was as well and I as well. But things are starting to change for the better this year.

So I mention this just as an investigation of a possible reason that I’m struggling so much to be grateful, just because I wasn’t exposed to gratitude growing up in my particular family. Even though they tried to force us, and succeeded in forcing us, to say thank you, without showing true feelings of gratitude, I didn’t learn that aspect of humanity until much later in life.

Perhaps someday I will be better at being grateful or perhaps it’s not something that will ever be my forte, but I’m giving it a chance for a month and seeing what the journey tells me about myself.

I’ve been struggling to be grateful, my whole life. I’m a thoughtful person, I’ve become significantly more aware and more mindful in recent years, but not significantly more grateful. I’ve been told that the benefits of gratitude are more happiness, I know people enjoy being around grateful people, yet it’s not an easy or natural thing for me.

It’s not something that I’ve never done or known, but it’s really strained when I try. Spontaneous gratitude happens for me, gratitude at the light of the dawn, the soft sway of bamboo in the wind, a cup of coffee gone right, the smile of my baby son, yet forced or expected gratitude is no easier than a dental visit for me.

It’s so hard that I wonder if it’s just not part of who I am?

I’m not sure if it’s because I didn’t have a typical mother daughter relationship or not. My mom suffered heavy post partum depression, so she didn’t want to be close to me, she didn’t enjoy feeding me, didn’t enjoy life around me, my dad was also suffering, suffering from depression and anxiety, over working and a failing marriage. The moments I can remember my parents being happy in an honest way when I was growing up are extreemly few. My mother later left my life and my father has become happy since owning dogs, both of which are good things for me, but I wonder if I didn’t learn gratitude because I didn’t see it?

My daughter is sleeping in the corner right now, at this moment I am grateful for her, but when she wakes up and demands many things she knows I will not give her (sugar cereal for breakfast, when we always eat oatmeal, toys she wants when she just got six new toys last night at the big music festival, attention when her brother needs to be fed and she already ate and was cuddled) I know it will be hard for me to be grateful to her at those times.

When I am multitasking I get angry, I get frustrated when two or three people talk to me at once, but now that I have two kids and am living with my dad and sister I am multitasking and multiple people are talking at once to me all day long. Except dawn. For a few hours I am alone, then my son wakes up and that’s just fine, then my daughter wakes up and for a few minutes I’m fine, then the day is a downward spiral of me serving her, myself and the baby, my family vying for attention in their own ways and it’s completely overwhleming for me, I get more and more impatient and tired and more and more rude as the day goes on, until night when I am bitter and exausted.

I’m taking a parenting class about being respectful, I’m doing a personal challenge to try to be more grateful and reading a book, “Only Love Today,” to try to slow down and expect less of myself, but so far no mental reframing, no perspective shift, no change in me has been able to resolve the fact that people want more than me everyday than I am comfortable giving and that I hate multiple people talking at once.

I don’t want to ignore my daughter, I don’t want to be rude to her, I don’t want her to think her words and questions don’t matter, but I will not enjoy a life where she screams over anyone else talking to be heard constantly, I will not enjoy a life where she gets to spend all my mental energy and time having my answer her “why” questions whenever she feels like it without really listening or trying to remember what I tell her. I wish I could tell my family to stop talking when they hear other people are already talking, but I feel like I can’t phrase it in a way that wouldn’t offend them and even if I did they don’t take suggestions from me about how to live.

I guess I can stop talking over people myself, I guess I can write my daughters questions down in a notebook and have a time I will answer them, I guess I can tell my family “I feel overwhelmed” when they talk at the same time, I guess I can ask for help teaching my daughter to stop interupting before I get so mad at her I want to punish her for it.

So, I’ve been failing to be sincerly grateful a lot during this gratitude challenge, but I wanted to keep going as non-judgementally as I can and gather information about myself.

To me gratitude is a feeling (it can also be an act) and feelings are not easy to turn on and off like a switch. It’s also similar to love for me, most of the people I have been grateful towards I have loved as well.

One problem I have is that I have no words for gratitude, the ones that English has “thank you,” have been required for me to say as standard social interaction, when I didn’t mean them, all my childhood. Now that I’m an adult it’s up to me, I could stop saying thank you, but it would be hard.

I think I will try to stop saying thank you when I don’t mean it. Or I will start looking for another way to say it when I really mean thank you.

I have the words in Japanese, 有り難い arigatai (life is hard/thanks for making “the difficult thing I asked you to do” happen), ありがとう arigatoo (thank you), どうもありがとう domo arigatoo (really, thank you), ありがとうございます, domo arigatoo gonzaimasu (really, thank you so much).

I have the words in Chinese too, 感谢 gǎn xiè (real gratitude) and 谢谢 xiè xie (for common thanks).

But in English, the power of gratitude has been lost for me by thosands of forced thank yous given and recieved with no meaning.

So I haven’t found gratitude much in this gratitude challenge, but I’ve found curiousity and forgiveness.

My dad for example, I’m unable to be very grateful for him, even though he often supported me in my life financially and physically, and I would mentally/logically expect myself to feel grateful towards him, I can’t force my feelings to be that way. But I was able to forgive him for not being the perfect dad, for being too depressed to come out of his shell and nurture me emotionally. I was able to be curious about why he is depressed and what that was like for him. He was more open with me about his childhood this year than every before, he hated his dad, who hated his dad, so even though I don’t hate my dad, I can start to see why he didn’t have a role model of a father being open with his kids, because his father was not very close to him and my grandfather (who is 100 now) had a horrible relationship with his mom’s husband and possible didn’t know his own father.

I know we don’t always copy what we see, sometimes we overcome the past, but it seems like because my grandfather was so distant from a father, my father was as well and I as well. But things are starting to change for the better this year.

So I mention this just as an investigation of a possible reason that I’m struggling so much to be grateful, just because I wasn’t exposed to gratitude growing up in my particular family. Even though they tried to force us, and succeeded in forcing us, to say thank you, without showing true feelings of gratitude, I didn’t learn that aspect of humanity until much later in life.

Perhaps someday I will be better at being grateful or perhaps it’s not something that will ever be my forte, but I’m giving it a chance for a month and seeing what the journey tells me about myself.

Perhaps someday I will be better at being grateful or perhaps it’s not something that will ever be my forte, but I’m giving it a chance for a month and seeing what the journey tells me about myself.
I’m grateful for all the people taking the time to read this. Maybe because I don’t feel pressured to be grateful for you I can be? I know it’s hard to be grateful for my parents, my husband, my sister because I feel an intense pressure that I should and guilt that I can’t yet.

Perhaps someday I will be better at being grateful or perhaps it’s not something that will ever be my forte, but I’m giving it a chance for a month and seeing what the journey tells me about myself.

I’m grateful for all the people taking the time to read this. Maybe because I don’t feel pressured to be greatful for you I can be? I know it’s hard to be grateful for my parents, my husband, my sister because I feel an intense pressure that I should and guilt that I can’t yet.

I’m grateful for Langston Hughes’ “Harlem” (both of them), his words gave me words for my feelings at a time in my life (I think 4th grade, or age 8) when I had never had words for my true feelings before. My family told me to say I feel excited when they spent money on me, instead of dissapointed and invisible, happy for pictures, instead of embarresed and angry, sad when they got divorced instead of happy there would finally be less fighting, they told me how to feel and I tried to follow their advice, but in the end I never could do and be the way that my family and my countries social norms prefered for me to feel. I think it was this poem that caused the idea of trying to be what people told me to be to explode inside my heart. The dream of fitting in so people would like me, eventually exploded. Many years later, the people who matter to me, who I need, who I like, still like me, without me pretending and those who don’t, didn’t even when I pretended.

I’m grateful to the musicians at the hoolaulea music festival last night, I don’t know all their names, but I really appriciate the music. Music is something that has lifted me up when I’ve been the lowest. Words lift me from normal to inspired, but music lifts me up from half dead to alive again. I don’t really know the intentions of the musicans, but it felt like they were trying to give the world some love to make it through another year’s challenges.

I’m grateful for two books. The first is “The Pain of Challenges,” by Steven Turikunkiko. This is a book written by someone who lived during a time of genocide and is an orphan. Sometimes I feel bad that I didn’t have a family with two loving parents, yet it’s very common, I’m not alone and other people get through it and are able to live with hope and gratitude, so it inspires me to keep trying to let go of the past and move towards gratitude little by little. The second book is “How to Survive Your Childhood Now That You’re an Adult: A Path to Authenticity and Awakening” by Ira Israel. I don’t agree completely with either book, but both were helpful in my personal journey of forgiveness and my journey of forgiveness was neccesary in my journey of gratitude.

I’m very grateful for two boggers today. The first is Nomz, the writer who started this gratitude challenge and was the first person to encourage me to challenge myself to boldly celebrate myself, her writing is a constant source of inspiration and surprisingly eloquent and powerful for a “younger writer.” The second is Dr. Jurisharma who wrote a beautiful post about 5 situations when walking away is healthy and helped me grieve in another post about emotional healing where I first heard Rumi’s “What hurts you blesses you. Darkness is your candle,” which has really helped me to allow myself to go through the grieving process when I’m hurt instead of running from it or denying it.

Sometimes I wonder if it matters to write, for me or for readers, and if my time would make a difference somewhere else, I’m still not sure, but since it matters to me that others write, since it makes my life better, maybe it matters for me to write as well, maybe it will make someone’s life better also, maybe mine or maybe someone else’s? Maybe. 🌻

Aloha! This is the week four, it’s been a great, yet busy week (started a gratitude challenge, still doing an extra parenting class, preparing to leave the nursery for the year, redid the kid’s homeschool curriculum blocks) checking in a day late for the second week in a row…

Pono & Mind:

🗹 Be the change you want to see happen instead of trying to change anyone else. -Arleen Lorance “Did this by giving a lot of love to my kids and behaving well as a mom (teaching and spending some time with them) instead of expecting them to behave well, and being respectful to my sister instead of expecting her to be respectful to me.”

🗹 Create your own reality consciously. -Arleen Lorance “I found a phrase where Canada appologizes for expanding into the North with an absense of awareness, somehow it helps me and gives me courage. The U.S. where I live would never appologize in a meaningful way for stealing land and commiting horrible acts of violence on the natives, but just a little bit away is a country that is willing to admit the truth and change how they view and run things, that’s inspiring to me. I was inspired when the gave back native lands before, but thinking that they are doing the best they can to do what is right strengthens my resolve to be fair and respectful to my kids as I take a respectful parenting class and try to shift my mindset to fix the relationship strain that has been going on for the last two years between my daughter and I.”

☐ See problems as opportunities. -Arleen Lorance “I didn’t do that this week, my son got a bad hair cut and I grieved it as a bad hair cut, I didn’t find a way to enjoy being sad that I missed his first hair cut or that I didn’t like the way he looked now.”

🗹 Have no expectations, but rather, abundant expectancy. -Arleen Lorance “I did well with that, I am trying to change the way I parent, yet not expecting the new changes to help, hoping that something changes for the better, yet not expecting any specific instant fixes.”

🗹 Read books. Do puzzles. Brainstorming. Drawing, painting, and/or sculpting. -Demitri Martin “Did coding puzzles with my daughter, brainstormed a lot of curriculum with my sister, disciplined a lot of discipline and conflict resolution issues, thought deeply about what life I want to live and raising awareness about what my choices are and how much I can get done with the time and energy I have and how to accept my limitations.”

🗹 Gratitude Challenge – Consistent gratitude for 30 days. -Nomz “It wasn’t easy for me, because I won’t let myself lie about what I really feel. I for some reason struggle to be greatful for the big things, my husband supporting me, my kids being in my life, my sister helping me, but I can be grateful that my sister wore a silly pizza hat that made me feel happy, that my son’s hands pressed together at the finger tips resting on his chest look so cute and peaceful, that my daughter said it was the happiest day of her life when she realized I do love her still, that my husband bought me a greenhouse to keep my papaya tree sprouts alive. I’ve been trying to be consistently grateful, it’s been taking a lot of effort, but I’ve been learning a lot about myself in the process. It feels like my brain is broken when it comes to gratitude, but I’m just doing my best, exploring and determined to finish at least the 30 day challenge.

🗹 Respectful Parenting – The philosopher Immanuel Kant said that rational human beings should be treated as an end in themselves and not as a means to something else. The fact that we are human has value in itself. If a person is an end-in-themself it means their inherent value doesn’t depend on anything else – it doesn’t depend on whether the person is enjoying their life, or making other people’s lives better. We exist, so we have value. “I’m starting with respectful parenting, but after the class is over I plan to expand slowly towards the rest of my social connections, my birth family, my husband, my friends, everyone I meet, people I don’t know… Due to the parenting class I have really started treating my children’s feelings with more respect, even though I don’t agree with their logic, I can respect that they feel however they feel.”

Mālama & Body:

🗹 Eat better. -Demitri Martin “My dad made home made poi and my sister grew home made mung bean sprouts so I actually ate better this week.”

🗹 Exercise. -Demitri Martin “I did T25 lower focus and started integrating martial arts into exercise time.”

Aloha & Relationships:

🗹 Did you let people help you/provide others with opportunities to give? -Arleen Lorance “I accepted an invitation to a birthday party and had the best time I’ve ever had at a party. There was a beautiful black cow (Malu) who lives right on the ocean and it gave me hope that maybe my life could be as great as that cow’s life someday.”

🗹 Did you receive all people/someone as beautiful exactly as they are? -Arleen Lorance “I’m so much closer, at least I can do that for both my kids now and almost my sister and myself.”

🗹 Did you help a friend/stranger? Uplift those around you? Do something nice for someone? -Demitri Martin “I was nice to my daughter a lot this week and also started a ritual of dancing and singing to my son once a day.”

☐ Practice Confidence: Be forthright and proactive in your life. -Demitri Martin Boldly Celebrate Yourself – Nomz

🗹 Walk Away: From anger, ego, people who put you down, fear, the past. -Dr. Jurisharma “Walked away from anger at having my ideas called stupid, walked away from fear that if I don’t discipline my daughter she will not find her own way safely in the world.”

Kuleana & Career/Personal Management:

🗹 Did you set weekly goals? -Demitri Martin “Yes, here, changed three of my weekly goals.”

🗹 Did you take daily steps toward achieving those goals? -Demitri Martin “Yes, it’s not everything everyday, but it’s something everyday.”

☐ Money: Keep careful track of your income and expenses. -Demitri Martin “I didn’t keep careful track, I did keep track more and still don’t spend a lot, but I hate focusing on finances so I didn’t really keep careful track.”

☐ Errands: Do your cleaning, marketing, and pay your bills on time. -Demitri Martin “Dishes were all washed, but put away late, laundry was all washed but folded days later, it’s not like me, but all the other things I am doing take time, the parenting class happens right when I usually clean, gardening takes extra physical energy, looking into finances drains me emotionally, everything else I did took away from the energy that feeds the cleaning…”

14 Points of 18 Points = 78% for the third week of September. The system feels really right, not too easy and not too hard. I am glad I did the things that most reflected my values and put the most important things, my kids and my well being first, yet I would like to not have the clean laundry laying around in a basket all week next week also… There has been a lot of change, the gratitude challenge, the parenting class ext, but it’s been really good change. I’m glad because the early part of the year felt wasted when I was sick with pregnancy and just surviving taking care of the newborn. I’m ready to have things get back in order soon hopefully.

What really happened the next week?

Hello! This is the week three, it’s been a hard week (swollen eye, whole family sick), checking in a day late…

Pono & Mind:

🗹 Be the change you want to see happen instead of trying to change anyone else. -Arleen Lorance “Did this by starting rushing a lot less and putting my family ahead of the garden (still not natural for me – kind of painful).”

☐ Create your own reality consciously. -Arleen Lorance “I may have done that a little bit, but at the end of the week I got overly tired and failed to live the way I wanted to, failed to have the energy to even see it as an option.”

🗹 See problems as opportunities. -Arleen Lorance “I did that while I was disciplining my daughter, using some of the unpleasant times as learning opportunities and others were just failures, but those were opportunities to forgive myself as human.”

☐ Have no expectations, but rather, abundant expectancy. -Arleen Lorance “I didn’t do that, I was sad that while caring for my sick kids I wasn’t able to clean, write and garden, I was bitter at the time my family spent talking to me that I much much rather would have caught up on keeping the house clean.”

🗹 Read books. Do puzzles. Brainstorming. Drawing, painting, and/or sculpting. -Demitri Martin “Read Dinosaurumpus, Only Love Today. Worked on a digital drawing.”

Mālama & Body:

☐ Eat better. -Demitri Martin

🗹 Exercise. -Demitri Martin “I did T25 today body circuit, cardio, and stretch.”

Aloha & Relationships:

🗹 Did you let people help you/provide others with opportunities to give? -Arleen Lorance “I got help from my family to get through the days with the sick kids and swollen eye.”

🗹 Did you receive all people/someone as beautiful exactly as they are? -Arleen Lorance “I did that with my baby who was sick, but that was it, better luck next week.”

🗹 Did you help a friend/stranger? Uplift those around you? Do something nice for someone? -Demitri Martin “I think so, nothing big, but I think I made it this week.”

🗹 Practice Confidence: Be forthright and proactive in your life. -Demitri Martin “I wasn’t perfect this week, but it was actually more often than not.”

Kuleana & Career/Personal Management:

🗹 Did you set weekly goals? -Demitri Martin “Yes, here, still working on aligning my values and nature’s principles with my goals. Made some cuts (putting away dry dishes and brushing twice) because it was too much for me to really do.”

🗹 Did you take daily steps toward achieving those goals? -Demitri Martin “Yes, cutting the excess goals helped a lot, I actually didn’t get behind what my plans were, but still didn’t feel like it was enough. Still trying to shake the feeling of wanting to do way more than I really can in a given day or week.”

☐ Money: Keep careful track of your income and expenses. -Demitri Martin “I didn’t keep careful track, I am getting more mindful, yet haven’t made it a priority just yet.”

☐ Errands: Do your cleaning, marketing, and pay your bills on time. -Demitri Martin “Behind in cleaning, most things are getting done, but with kids, that is something challenging.”

10 Points of 15 Points = 66% for the second week of September. I wasn’t sure if the point system would give me too much or too little credit compared to real life (it is arbitrary after all) but it’s perfect so far. Since I checked out due to my swollen eye not being able to use the computer or do much of anything for about three days, I’m not surprised that I hit a below-passing score. I’m not trying to beat myself up, yet the unpleasant feeling I had about not living life the way I wanted to, pretty exactly matches the 66%. It takes a lot of mental effort to do well on this point system, not physical effort and not time, but a ton of mental and emotional effort and I didn’t have the capacity to be where I wanted to be this past week, but I’ll try to cut the loss, grieve the pain and move forward persistently the rest of this week.

How did the next week go?

Hello! This is the week two, it’s easier to do this the second time, it almost feels like a habit already to reflect on and learn from the past week on Sunday. I’m grateful that I jumped on someone else’s momentum, but I could still be rushing to get things done, instead of doing what matters to me, if not for upholding my own values, so I am celebrating myself too!

Pono & Mind:

🗹 Be the change you want to see happen instead of trying to change anyone else. -Arleen Lorance “Did this by starting a parenting class – The Whole Brained Child: Beyond the Book – to try to change the way I communicate during melt downs ext.”

🗹 Create your own reality consciously. -Arleen Lorance “I’m doing this by changing my values and beliefs as painful and energy draining as it is, until I enjoy life and am satisfied I am living with integrity, why not keep changing the life I’ve made for myself?”

🗹 See problems as opportunities. -Arleen Lorance “I did that by taking a chance for a free video lesson by Rachel Stafford Monday, that focuses on the problem of distraction.”

🗹 Have no expectations, but rather abundant expectancy. -Arleen Lorance “I did that because I’m not expecting any particular behavior or dynamic to change in my family due to the parenting class, yet I am open to improvements happening.”

🗹 Read books. Do puzzles. Brainstorming. Drawing, painting, and/or sculpting. -Demitri Martin “Read The Book Thief, reviewed took notes on The Whole Brained Child. Did a ton of brainstorming about discipline, what makes a well lived life and gardening. Worked on a digital drawing.”

Mālama & Body:

☐ Eat better. -Demitri Martin

🗹 Exercise. -Demitri Martin “I nailed T25 Ab Intervals, and was very sore afterwards.”

Aloha & Relationships:

🗹 Did you let people help you/provide others with opportunities to give? -Arleen Lorance “I got help from another writer in the form of a life lesson I needed about gratitude. Thank you to Nomz for another inspiring post about Sunday reflection!”

🗹 Did you receive all people/someone as beautiful exactly as they are? -Arleen Lorance “I did that with my baby, and I tried the hardest I could with my daughter and sister. It seems like acceptence isn’t all or none, I feel myself starting to approach embracing my sister and daughter, who are different than me, a little bit more everyday.”

☐ Did you help a friend/stranger? Uplift those around you? Do something nice for someone? -Demitri Martin “I don’t really know, I want to believe that this writing will do that, but since I don’t know I won’t cheat.”

🗹 Practice Confidence: Be forthright and proactive in your life. -Demitri Martin “I can’t believe I’m doing this, it’s maybe not 100% smooth, but I am communicating with respect what bothers me or what is on my heart and mind with those that I love instead of staying quiet believing that it will stir up trouble or that no one will understand.”

Kuleana & Career/Personal Management:

🗹 Did you set weekly goals? -Demitri Martin “Yes, here, monthly on a note and daily on Habitca, everything isn’t perfect, but I am getting my goals on paper and working on aligning everything with my values and nature’s principles over time.”

🗹 Did you take daily steps toward achieving those goals? -Demitri Martin “I did take two scary steps, paying $24 for a parenting class that might help my current worst problem and signing up for a video class given by my favorite author, which is free, yet still scary.”

☐ Money: Keep careful track of your income and expenses. -Demitri Martin “I didn’t keep careful track, I am getting closer though, I kept loose track of finances this time.”

🗹 Errands: Do your cleaning, marketing, and pay your bills on time. -Demitri Martin “I did my basics, as I could, even though I didn’t upgrade them.”

12 Points of 15 Points = 80% for the first week of September. A little less than last week, but that makes since, I had a little less to give this week. A little less sleep, a little more sick. I think the point system has helped me to be mindful of what I really want in life, but not really sure yet…

The next week I got sick and my eye was swollen halfway shut for three days…