Okay so as my first post after a long time away from the blog, I thought I’d write something that is relatively significant or meaningful to me.

A while ago my parent watched a movie called “The Fundamentals of Caring”. I had a fair bit of homework to do so I didn’t watch it with them, but I could hear some of it from my bedroom.

At the start, there was a female narrator, and she was addressing helping others (I think). She had a few good quotes, but the one that stuck in my head was a quote for a method for helping others, linking to the abbreviation ‘Aloha’:

Ask,

Listen,

Observe,

Help,

Ask again.

I think it’s really beautiful way to remember it since “Aloha” also means “Hello”. I think It’s also quite a lovely thing to have in your mind, not only for when you are helping people do something, but for everything.

For example, you wouldn’t just go up to someone who looks upset,  give them your thoughts and assume you’ve helped. You’d go up, ask them what’s wrong, listen to what they have to say, and then do what you can to make them feel better. You wouldn’t leave, however, until you had asked again if they were okay, or if they needed anything else.

I think it’s also great for helping yourself. If you’re struggling with something or having a hard time juggling things, you’d ask yourself what you are doing to cause the problem, consider what you are doing and your options, and depending on your situation, you might ask someone else for help.

Although, sometimes it’s hard to help ourselves. We don’t know what to think or how to express yourself, or how to ask for help. There was another quote later in the movie: “My needs are equal to the needs of the person that I am helping, and I cannot help that person any more than I can help myself”. That quote is very important when you are helping yourself or others. If things are bad, you need to get yourself back on track before you can reach out to others, and that’s something I am finding more and more as time goes on.

Umm so yeah, those two quotes have been circling my mind a bit recently, which is why I wrote a blog post about the two. I hope they make a bit of sense!

Yours faithfully,

Grace.