Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here. Thanks for listening to another episode of Hey Human podcast. This is episode 449, and my guest is doctor Jeri Iballa Rosa Tonnell. Jeri is a native Hawaiian. Her work is rooted in the guiding principles of aloha, ask, listen, observe, heart, adapt, integrating cultural knowledge and contemporary leadership strategies to support organizational and community development.
She holds her doctorate from the California Institute of Integral Studies and Transformative Studies and Consciousness. She's the award winning author of Let's Live Aloha, a children's book that introduces young readers to the values of empathy, adaptability, and emotional intelligence. And her mission is to provide a framework for cultivating meaningful connections and fostering a more compassionate world. She's also the host of the evolution of Aloha podcast.
I am hailing from my new digs. I spent the last nine days moving little by little. And so the sound is probably a little bit different than what everybody's used to, but I will adapt and adjust and took everything I had. I'm exhausted to, to do this edits and get this out. I'm I'm hoping right now, I'm my goal is to have it out Thursday. We'll see what happens. I'm so tired, and I'm covered in bruises. Moving is not for the faint of heart, I'll tell you that.
Anyway, that being said, check out heyhumanpodcast.com for links and to learn more about my guests in the show. You can find Hey Human Podcast on all the podcasty places for the most part, including YouTube. And I'm on social media under Susan Ruthism, and my music is out there, and it's in all the musical places for the most part. Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human podcast on Apple, iHeart, Spotify. You know the drill. And thank you for listening. Be well. Be love. Be aloha. Here we go.
Doctor Jerry Ibela Rosa Tonnell, how are you today? Welcome to Hey Human. I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. Yes. Absolutely. And you are currently hailing from my home state, so shout out to Washington state. Yep. Absolutely. It's a little bit cold today, but, you know, it's like it is the Pacific Northwest. But I noticed that on the trees, the buds are starting to come in. So springtime's almost here. I think we have another three
weeks before we're officially in spring. So you can start to see that the tree is starting to turn right now. It's starting to change colors because the buds are coming out. So yeah, it makes me excited. It makes me excited. Springtime always does something for me. It reminds me that change is happening, that there's rebirth, there's growth, there's transformation. We need all those things. We do. We do. Especially in today's world. Right? Yeah.
I read somewhere once, and I think I've mentioned it a few times on this show, but that we think of winter as being the dead time. But in fact, under under the snow, under the leaves, under all the the mulchy, horusness of of the the Earth that it's teeming. It's alive, and it's gearing up. And that in fact, winter is very exciting, a lifetime that we and we don't think of it in that way.
Oh, I you know, it's like I I living in you know, I was born and raised in Hawaii, so I never really experienced the different, the different weather patterns and all the different seasons. I love winter. I mean, I love all the seasons. And winter reminds me that it's a time for rest. It is time for us to prepare for what's to come. And so, yeah, so what's underneath that? It's so exciting to know that there's new growth coming. Yeah. The Colonels. Yep. Let's talk about childhood.
Grew up in Hawaii. Let's talk about that. So you are indigenous to the land of Hawaii, to the island. Yes. Tell me all about what that childhood was like. The only thing that I can comparing to when I left Hawaii and, you know, moving here to the Pacific Northwest. So growing up in Hawaii, I am I didn't know what layering was. Right? It's like I didn't understand what a layer was. And so, you know, it's like we were at the beach all the time. We were camping. We had either no clothes or just one
layer of clothes. So it was a lot of fun. Fresh fruit was abundant. I grew up and we had mangoes and we had papayas. We had avocado. We had tangerines and lemons and limes. And it was just all around that when I moved to the continent, I was like, doesn't everybody have pineapples and papayas growing in their backyard? So it was really confusing for me. It was confusing for me when I didn't know how to layer up and when the weather changed and everything, it
was like, what's happening? The first time I saw Okay. So the first time I thought I saw snow, I was living in Oak Harbor and the frost just came in and everything was white. And I was outside. I went outside and I was like, Oh my gosh, look at that. And I'm scraping the frost off the window of the car. And I was trying to make a snowball like I would see on the movies. And a friend of mine, she comes out and she's like, What are you doing? And I'm like, Oh my gosh, look, it's snow.
She's like, That's frost. You can find that in your freezer. That's hilarious. So I had no idea about that. And I would be at the beach all the time. I love the ocean. I love just having my feet just in the sand or just going deep into the ocean. And And here in the Pacific Northwest, the first time that I tried, I'm like, What is this? What are all of these things that's touching my lake? It's like there's kelp everywhere. A lot of kelp. You can't see the bottom and the sand's not like
the sand that I grew up with. So it was like growing up in Hawaii, I feel that it was such a blessing to have been born there. What an honor to be a child of the land. And you know, it's like understand what it means to be Hawaiian. Now that I live in the diaspora, right, it's like I live away from my home and I'm up here. It gets a little hard sometimes. You know, I have I do have the privilege and the opportunity to go home a lot. Like last year, I went home four times, which was really great.
And, you know, every time whenever I go back home to Hawaii and I book my ticket, I deliberately sit on the left hand side of the plane when I'm heading to the island and then I sit on the right hand side of the plane when I'm leaving the island because then I can see, right? I can watch as the islands are coming into view. And then when I'm leaving, I can see the islands just kind of disappear behind of me. It's amazing to be able to go back home, but I miss it.
It's like I don't Being here, I hardly ever see people that look like me. I can't walk into the grocery store and just buy my food or hear my music or anything like that. But I do my best. I do my best to try to create Hawaii around me. And no matter how far away I'm from the island, I will always have the spirit of Aloha with me because that's what grounds me. But yeah, I don't know if you could see, but I have a humidifier here. And I have my heat on probably like
at 75 or 80. So in my office, it's Hawaii. You mentioned Oak Harbor as well as Hawaii. So I'm wondering, are you from a military family? My ex husband was in the military. Okay. And so, yeah, we, we were stationed over in Oak Harbor. I actually was in the Navy as well, too. And so it's like I was in the Navy for six and a half years. When I joined the Navy, it was back in the eighties. It was like back in 1988 is when I joined the Navy.
And at that time, my ex husband just got back from being gone for six months. And him and his friends were like sitting around and they were talking about where women belong. And I have two sons. I have two sons. My sons are grown now. But as they were talking about where women belong, I walked in and I was like, What are you all talking about? And this one guy, he says, There's only two places that a woman belong. And I was like, Ed, you're about to tell me.
So he did, right? He did. He said, on her back or in the kitchen is what he said. So I, you know, I was like, oh, my goodness. I it hit me, but I didn't know what to do with that in the beginning. And then I looked over and I looked at my two boys and they were probably about three and four years old. And I'm like, oh, I am not raising boys. I'm raising men. And if they are to grow up thinking this way about women, I am responsible to whoever they end up partnering up with.
So I ended up joining the Navy two weeks later because I wanted them to know that a woman can do whatever she wants to do, and she belongs wherever she feels like she belongs. And so yeah. So I joined the Navy and stayed in the Navy for six and a half years. I appreciate your service. Tell me something. When we have the new administration, somebody like Pete Hegspeth, who thinks that women shouldn't serve in the military. As someone with that experience as a woman in the military,
how do you feel about that? And secondly, do you do you have memories of what it was like as a woman in going into the navy and your fellow female compadres, you know, how that all was, how your experience was? Oh, yeah. It definitely was a challenge.
It definitely was a challenge. I I remember being treated as an object, right, is that, you know, it's like even even when it came to to men that were in command, they were in charge, You know, things that they would say, the way that they would look at me, the unwarranted and the unwelcomed, you know, just touches when you walk by and think, oh, it was just gross. Right?
It was just gross. Being in the Navy, it it allowed me to really understand what it was like to be up against the patriarchy, be up against men who feel that they're always in power. So I needed to figure out how do I stand on my own morals? How do I stand in my strength? I'm very competitive. So when it came to any of our training, our PT, I would always try to be up against a man. So it's like I would run right next to him and run faster. I would do more sit ups. I would do
more pull ups. I would do whatever I needed to do because I needed to I not only prove to myself, but also for the next generation. And it's unfortunate. And I can't stand the fact that these words are even coming out of my mouth that we have to work harder in order to prove ourselves because I don't think we need to. So yeah, everything that is happening about how women shouldn't serve, it's Fuck. Sorry. No. I agree with you. Fuck is a perfect word. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. So yeah. So I I just feel that it's a bunch of bullshit. To me, it just screams of a beta male. Yep. I think there's a there's a threat. That's why. There is a threat. If the male species were a little more confident in themselves, they would know who they are. And instead of instead of trying to compete with with a woman is stand next to a woman. Know that we we each have our our strengths and that we should see that and honor that in each other.
And I don't I don't I don't know why there should be a competition on, you know, feeling so threatened by another person. Yeah. Yeah. It's weakness. I It is. Mhmm. It definitely it definitely is. Let's talk about your identity as somebody from Hawaii, as someone you spoke a little bit about what it's like to have the abundance of the land all around you.
But I'd like to dig in a little bit to the idea that the people of Hawaii are incredibly and fiercely protective of their environment and their land, understandably, because it is relatively unspoiled by the rest of the the Continental United States because it is hard to get to and hard to get to long enough to mess it up. But it's not like the Mainland doesn't try. Do you know what I mean? To mess it up. There certainly talk about your sense of self through the land aside from, yes, I can
eat really healthily. And by the way, I used to hate papaya. And then I went to Hawaii and had a papaya from there fresh. And it's definitely my mind, it was night and day. To me, papaya always tastes like feet, but in Hawaii, it's so good. Yes. Yes. It's like if you haven't experienced fresh fruit from the tree, it's like when somebody tells me they don't like certain things, I'm like, well, first of all, how long did it sit out before you even tried it? Or
did it get frozen and unfrozen? Doctor. Exactly. How far did it travel to you? Doctor. How insecticide laden is it? Yeah. Exactly. All of those things. All of those things come into play. But my connection my connection to the land. So in Hawaii, the word aina, a lot of time people hear the word aina and, you know, it was like at first it's like aina means land, but it means more than that. It's actually the land which feeds. So we are of the aina and we are
of the we are of the land. What there's a there's a reciprocal relationship between us and the land, especially the one that nurtures us. I am very connected to it. There's three principles that I live off of, aloha akua, aloha aina, and aloha kanaka. So Aloha Akua is the love and the divine, like the connection to the divine, the love and connection to the divine.
And when we are in alignment with Akua, we understand, aloha aina, the blessings that we have of all of this that is around us, the water, the food, the sky, everything is all around us. And when we are in connection with those two, then we can aloha kanaka, love and connection to each other. Because we understand that, you know, it's like for me to have fresh water is for you to have fresh water. I know what it does for me, which means that I should also ensure that you have it too.
Unlike in our society where poisoning the water and the land is something that is like people are okay with not knowing that connection. I'm greatly connected to the land because I want that for the next generation. I know what it does for me. I know what it feels like to walk out and have fresh air. And to not have that, it's like is not in connection with the divine or with Kanaka. How can you love yourself and enjoy everything without ensuring that everybody should have the same
thing too? That love and connection to Akua, to Aina, to Kanaka. That's my foundation and that's how I am so connected to it because I understand what it means on a deeper level than it's not just where we wake up and this is where we are. This is a place that feeds us, that where we breathe, where we exist. And so, yeah, that's my connection. Mary (3five forty three): How old were you when you left? Alisha Auslin (3five forty four): I was young when I left. I left Hawaii when I was 17.
But I'm home all the time. I go home all the time. Sometimes just like with, you know, last year I was home. I was home a lot. My family were like, it's like you never left. No matter how long I'm away from home, whenever I go back to Hawaii, the first thing I need to do is I need to get into the ocean. My body shakes where it's like, okay, it's time. I just have to go drop my things off and I have to get into the water. Even if it's at night, if I just have I just have to touch the
water. Right? There's just something and I'm like, oh my gosh. What's going on? In September, I had the opportunity to go and sit with one of our kupuna, one of our elders. And I was telling him about, you know, this feeling that I have. I said, you know, I can come home, you know, every other month, and every time I come home, I just have to get into the water. I have to touch it. I have to see it. I have to smell it. I have to be in it. And, you know, I said, I don't know
what it is. And he was like, that's your makua hine. And I was like, it's my mother. He goes, you are coming back to your makua hine. You're coming back to the amniotic fluid of your mother. That is why you wanna get into the water because it is where you feel safe, where you feel like you belong, where you feel welcomed. And I'm like, yes, that's that's it. That's it. That that unconditional love of being held in in the water, in the ocean of
Hawaii. So Having been away from Hawaii and then starting to develop your personhood as an adult, how did you decide to to facilitate that connection into your life's work? What brought that about? Oh, that's a that's a good one. Because you know, I mean, there's there's all chapters of my life and experiences that I had to go through in order to get to where I am today. And I always tell people, I said, Okay, so what I'm saying right now may differ. So just know that I speak in draft.
And it's because my experience and when deeper learning comes into play, then my thoughts, my perspectives, everything shifts. I said, so it's not inconsistency, it's evolution. So what I say now may change. When I first left Hawaii, I went from Hawaii to Los Angeles. Living in LA, it was the first time. I was 17 and never left Hawaii and decided to go to Los Angeles. And when I went there, everything was just
so big. Right? It's like, I remember coming into LA, and as we were landing, I was like, where do all these lights go? They just keep going and going and going, and it doesn't stop. And so the gentleman sitting next to me, he says, well, you can actually go across The United States. And to me, I was like, wait. What? What do you mean? He's like, you can drive across The United States. And I was like, this is amazing. Right? And everything was so big and everything was so different.
And it was the first time in my life that I was faced with the question of what are you in regards to what I look like. And I didn't understand that because in Hawaii, we never did talk about race. We talked about nationality. We talked about place. So, you know, it's like I was young. I was working at Jack in a Box. A woman comes up and she orders in Spanish. And I tell her that, you know, I don't speak Spanish. And she was she looks at me and she's like, what?
And I'm like, I don't I don't speak Spanish. And she's like she talks to her friend and she's like, well, what do you think she is? As if I'm not there. Right? What do you think she is? And I'm like, excuse me? And she's like, well, you're not if you're not Mexican, she goes, you're definitely not white and you're not black, so what are you? And that was the first time that I was ever asked that question, and I was like, human. Mhmm. I'm human. And she's like, No, no,
no, no, no. What are you? Where are you from? And she was a little rude. And so I told her, I was like, Well, I'm from Hawaii. And as soon as I told her I was from Hawaii, I noticed that there was this shift in her personality, where she's like, Oh my God, I love Hawaii. I own a condo in Mahui. And I was like, What is this? What just happened? Right? So that was my first experience with my identity on the way that I showed up in the world.
And then when I moved from Los Angeles to Oak Harbor and I went into a military, you know, it's a every everybody there was military. And so I met people from all over the world. And that's when I realized that, wow, Hawaii is so small and it's so contained. And the only information that we receive from what is happening out in the continent is what's coming over the television, is that the news, that's the only thing that I would understand. I didn't
know what snow was. I didn't realize that there were so many Christmas trees around and all of these things. And so that kind of shifted my identity of place because then I started to meet other people from different areas across the world and started to learn about these different experiences. I was married for eighteen years with my first marriage, ended up getting a divorce and then finding myself alone. That was that that's when I started to understand
who am I? Because I went from my mom and dad to a husband and then I had two children. I became a mother and then I divorced and then I found myself by myself. And then that's when a lot of I feel the deeper transformation came through is when I started to figure out, like, what does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a woman who served in the military, to be a woman of color, to be indigenous,
to be a mother? And all of these different identities started to pop up and I had to sit with it and look at it. I learned a lot during that time about who I was, how much fear I could endure because I didn't know how to live on my own. I didn't you know, and then also the excitement of living on my own. It's like I bought this fork with my own money. That's a big deal though, when you've always been under the care. Yeah. Yes. I, and that's it. The care. I started to, I learned how to care for
myself. Mhmm. And, you know, it's like I also learned about being too confident as well too. Confident became more cocky, and it's like I can do it. And it was all about this this independence, this strong independence where I forgot what it was like to be, not codependent, but interdependent. How to exist with another human being on a level where we would inspire and encourage each other to be our better selves instead of, you know, either caring for or
or taking in or whatever it is. And so, you know, it's like a lot of things changed and shifted in a time when I was divorced and then remarried. And then here, it's like nineteen years later. So my actually, actually tomorrow will be nineteen years that my husband and I have been married. So Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. So, and you know, that's and how that all played into the work that I do today. Someone asked me a couple of weeks ago, you know, it's like, doctor G, what is
what's your career like? And I'm like, well, first of all, it's like my career is to share the spirit of aloha. And I realized that aloha is something that you share. It's something that shows each the other person that you're in relationship with that we bring the humanity out in in each other. We bring the best out in in each other. Is it like namaste? I don't know. Maybe. I would say so. Namaste meaning I honor
your soul. Yes. Yes. Exactly. So a lot of times when people when people hear the word aloha, right, they're like, you know, aloha means hello and it means goodbye. It just means a simple greeting. But if you look at aloha, aloha means love, it means compassion, it means grace, it means empathy. Now if we look at aloha, aloha is presence, forward facing front, and is the breath of life. And so when we engage in conversations with each other in the presence of one another, we are exchanging
the breath of life. So it's like, I would say it would probably be similar to Namaste. My ancestors knew the depth of what aloha meant. And when it, you know, I mean, we never had, we never did, write things down, right? It we're we're orators, we're storytellers. That's how we share knowledge with each other. So until it became something that was written down, the interpretation probably changed. And I feel that aloha does mean that we are in the presence of another life. And so
I would say that's what it is. Everything that I do is is around Aloha. And you know, I mean, it's like sometimes it's really hard to share that Aloha in a world that doesn't know how to give Aloha back. And you know, again, it's not something that, I expect in return, but sometimes it would be nice to see that and to feel that. There's a conflict of reciprocity.
It is sometimes hard to maneuver in a world that feels like it could give up flying, you know, what about your existence and at the same time trying to lead by example or lead with love. But it's a complicated space to to live in and I don't know that any of us are able to maintain it
all the time. Certainly, we may try, some of us, not everyone obviously, but and then the the coupled with other human emotions, as you mentioned, ego or guilt or sacrifice or martyrdom, all these things that are woven into that presence. And it is. It's complicated. Sometimes I have to pause and I have to ask myself, man, it's so hard to to try to live aloha when we are challenged in so many different ways.
And I feel that I think that's where, grace comes in, is that we are, you know, we are human and we do have our own flaws. And I think when we are aware of them, then we're able to, with self regulation and self awareness and self reflection, we're able to own that, that part of us that sometimes we can feel embarrassed about. I always talk about, gracious anger because I tell people I'm angry. I'm fucking angry all the time. Sure.
I'm angry all the time. And we have every right to be angry right now, but if we come into the work with this uncontrolled, this untamed kind of anger, then what will happen is that we will end up becoming the very systems that we are wanting to dismantle and will end up hurting people. And in our wake of justice, in our wake of activism, in our wake of all of this, we will find more people being hurt
And hurt people hurt people. And as long as we keep perpetuating that hurt, we're never going to get where we really want to be. So it's like, yeah, be angry, you know, but have some grace, especially if there are people who are still learning and understanding who we are and understand that being human is complicated.
It is so Yeah. And there's something to be said for channeling and using it for good in a in a weird twisty kind of way that the anger that it cannot consume or it can consume, but to try and not let it consume and to channel it forward. This is why the metaphor of Hawaii is so interesting to me because it's got great wind and the trees move with the wind and do not break. It's got
vast ocean. It's got flowing volcano of fire that is constantly refiguring itself and hardening and softening and hardening and burning and, the rains that come and wash everything in these giant deluge systems, which cleans it all again. It's quite interesting, really, that that she exists as a as a embodiment of breathing, living being in and of herself. Yes. Separate by lots of islands yet connected.
It's fascinating, right? They said they the Hawaii in general, they think everything that she represents is is very power. It's powerful. Yes. Yes. And, you know, it's like Susan is so the way that you said it was just was so beautifully said because that's exactly what Hawaii is. And yes, we are apart but still connected. We destroyed but yet we still create.
It's all of this. And and I feel that we lose we lose the the depth and the beauty of the destruction and the creation, the grace and the anger, the fire and everything else that can coexist in this space simultaneously. And when we're able to embody that and see that I think that is when we can really grow and transcend beyond everything that we have right here, right now. And if we do it with kuleana, you know, kuleana is the responsibility,
the stewardship, the mission of our life. It is our deep sacred responsibility is kuleana. And same with creation and destruction. You can't have one without the other. Right? You do it and you do it with responsibility to extend, to expand for the next generations
to come. And you do this by being in balance, understanding that they can coexist simultaneously with each other, in harmony, in Lukahi, so then that way you can have these this deeper connection with everything else, when you can be in full connection with aloha akua, aloha aina, and aloha kanaka. And so, yeah, it is. You just made me realize and just made me think about how deep I am Hawaii. Right? It exists within me. Exists within me. Yeah. It's powerful.
I've been told before, you know, because I speak in metaphors. Same. I speak in metaphors and I'm always talking about love. I'm always talking about Aloha. I'm always talking about you know, co creating communities. I'm always talking about that. The people always like, oh my gosh, Jerry, you're so woo woo. And I'm like thinking, you know what? That's the problem with
the world. Maybe we need a little bit more woo in our lives Because it's like that that deep connection, that deep care for one another, you know, being able to see another human being and genuinely caring for that individual. That's what's missing. And we don't have that. And it and it hurts to really see what is going on, especially for our marginalized communities. I was, having a conversation with my husband and I was telling him, I said, I don't want to live in this place of fear.
I really don't. I said, but I carry my passport around. I carry my passport around because someone could be out there and all they see is this, without asking me questions, without knowing my story, without knowing who I am, their bias, their ideas exist by what they see. So they look at me and phenotypically they already have a narrative about who I am.
And if they react on that impulse that they've been given and fed through all of the social medias and everything that's happening, I could have people at my door wanting to take me away. It is scary. And I have sons and I have grandchildren, and I worry about them as well too. And, you know, it's like, I don't feel that anybody should have to live in this kind of place of such fear. And it it hurts. It hurts my heart to to see that and to know what is happening in in our society.
And I want to do all I can. And, you know, it's like, I I also know that if if I walk in and I want to like change things and I'm just like walking in with grenades and you know, sticks and ready to beat people up or whatever it is, I am going to be met with the same force or even more. And so, you know, it's like, okay, well, we have energy, right? It's like the way that our words have energy, our words have power, our existence, our presence has energy. So how we show up is gonna depend
on the energy that we put forth. And I'm like, alright. I'm gonna just put I'm like, my husband called me a care bear, the the the love a lot bear because he says you I think that he said, you give a lot of love. You give, you get a give a lot of love, and you really, really care for people. And I'm like, I do. I genuinely do. And if that is my superpower, then be it. Right? Sure. But you can have those two thoughts simultaneously. You can pair four people and be full of rage.
Yes. You can. In fact, I presented at the Northwest Regional Equity Conference a, just, just last week. And I was talking about gracious anger. And, you know, as I was sharing that anger and grace are not opposites, right? It's like, I was saying that they are the fuel and foundation. So hold the fire of righteous indignation without letting it burn our bridges. And then let grace guide our power so that our activism heals as fiercely as it disrupts. Mhmm. That's some hard thing to do. Mhmm.
Because we can get stuck in one or the other. And I've been there before when I'm in this place of disruption and I just want to just burn the shutdown and then I ended up getting burned. Right. Then I look back and it's like, oh my gosh, I ended up hurting people as well too. And it's, yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. What is CO3? Doctor. Co3? Doctor. Co3 is for co creating cohesive communities. So co creating
the three co's. When co creating cohesive communities came out fifteen years ago, came through a dream. It was a dream. Let me tell you really quick. So Auntie Palahi Pake, she passed away a few, not a few, she passed away a long time ago. But back in 1986, she went to legislature and she pretty much told legislature that the spirit of Aloha needs to be law. Meaning that the way that people from Hawaii would conduct themselves would be in this place of aloha.
And she took aloha and she broke it down, acronymically. So, kindness to be expressed with tenderness, lokahi unity to be expressed with harmony, olu olu agreeable to be expressed with pleasantness, haa haa, humility to express with modesty, and ahunui, patience to be expressed with perseverance. She was at this, this conference. It was called Hawaii two thousand, and this was back in 1970.
They were talking about the state of Hawaii and, there was just a lot of tension because this was during the Vietnam War and everyone was just like upset with each other and there was just all these things going on. And she was in the back of the room and she stood up and she started to talk about Aloha. And she was like, the world will come to Hawaii in search for world peace because Hawaii has the key and that key is Aloha.
And she talked about how Aloha is about this love, this compassion, this empathy, this being able to conduct ourselves in a way that is not going to cause any harm. And so as I was going through, I was working on my bachelor's degree. I was figuring out who I am and you know, what what is my purpose in this world and where am I gonna do, you know, what am I doing with all of this stuff?
Aloha came about, and it came to me in a dream because I started to realize that the conversations that we were having with each other, and I should say with myself, wasn't resulting to the outcomes that I really wanted. Back then, my husband and I, you know, we were in this place of, I was in this place of decolonization. And I started to look at him and he's a six two blonde hair, blue eyed guy. And I started to look at him as the colonizer.
And I started to tell him that he was occupying my space. And it's like I would call him, you know, the the white guy and haole and all of these derogatory things that we actually slapped in separate rooms for over a year as I was going through this process. Right? I would say these things about him and I pretty much would tell him that, man, you are you are everything that I wanna dismantle in this world. You are the representation of everything that is wrong in this world.
That's pretty heavy. And it was it was heavy. And you can't help how he was born either. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And as I were going through this and we slept in separate rooms, you know, it was like our grandson who is, he's 16 now, but he was only eight was, was hearing all of this. I didn't know that he was hearing it. Right? It's like I wasn't aware that he was often another place, but he was hearing the words that his JIMO was saying.
Moana came out and I was talking about my people and that it's like I was telling you, I'm like, Lyric, these are your ancestors. Your ancestors were warriors and they traveled across the Pacific North, the Pacific. They understood the stars and the moon and the ocean, and they were in connection with everything. So he's like, Wow, these are my people. And he's getting all excited. And so my husband is flipping
through HBO. He comes across Vikings. Yeah. I was just gonna say the Vikings did pretty damn good with the same thing. Comes across the Vikings. Exactly. And he starts talking about Vikings and everything that Vikings have done. Yeah. And so our grandson was like, Jima, if Moana is your people and I'm your grandson, then that makes Moana my people. And I was like, that's right. And then he goes, papa, if Vikings are your people and I'm your grandson, then Vikings are my people.
And I was like, no. But I was like, yes, yes, it is. And so he goes, he's eight. He goes, you know, back to his parents. He comes back the next, the next week or so. And all of a sudden he's afraid of me. He doesn't want to hug me. He's very distant from me every time, you know, it's like I, I go and hug him, he kind of like, I could feel his entire body stiffen up. And so I asked him, I said, grandson, what's going on? You know, what's happening?
And he's really sad. And he goes, Jima, you say that Moana is my people because that's your people. And I'm like, yep. And he goes, and Viking is my people because it's papa people. And I'm like, yes. And he goes, so Jima, which part of me do you not love? Oh, from the mouths of babes. Which part which part of me do you not love? And it was at that moment when I realized that I was like, oh my gosh. What am I doing? Mhmm. What am I
doing? I cannot be asking my grandson to dissect himself because if I kept if I if we never had this conversation, that part of him, he will hide. That part of him he will hate. Mhmm. And he will hate part of that part of himself because Jima does not love that part of him. And I'm like, no. I cannot do this. This is not aloha. This is not aloha. So in my dream, the guiding principles of aloha was born. And so A is to ask questions and inquire to avoid making unnecessary assumptions.
Listen deeply to understand what is being said without any judgment. And if you're going to ask questions and you're going to listen, you need to observe, always to observe your body, observe the somatic response that is happening in yourself and what is happening with the heart focused is the place where love and compassion and empathy and all of Aloha resides.
So that way we could adapt, adapt and acknowledge that we come from different places with different ideas, with different perspectives, and that when we are able to adapt our mind frame and the way that we think, we can learn more, which can expand our horizon, can expand our understanding of the world. And Aloha was born because my grandson who was eight years old at that time asked me which part of me do I not love. Mhmm. Powerful. The innocence of a child
Right. Who has not yet been taught to hate and is just starting to learn what that word even means. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And now he's 16. And oh my gosh. It's it's so amazing because we went to have lunch, yesterday, and he's talking about, he wants to go back home. Right? He's like, Jima, he would, I wanna go I wanna go to Hawaii. And I was like, okay. I'm like, let's go. And he goes, I'm like, but it may be a while, you know, before, you know, because he had, he plays soccer
and he's in school. I said, you know, he goes, let's just go to Hawaii for the weekend. And I'm like, you can't go to Hawaii just for the weekend. We're not gonna fly five and a half hours and stay for the weekend. And he's like he's like, alright, Jima. He goes, it's okay because you know what? Hawaii lives in me. And I looked at him. I'm like, what? Like, he's so proud. He is so proud of of who he is. You know, on his mom's side, his dad, his grandfather's from The Philippines.
Mhmm. And so he's got that culture, that deep culture of being Filipino. And so it's like when he's in spaces, I can see on how he has learned how to navigate those spaces where he embodies everything that is around him because of who he is. And so he code switches. Yeah. I was just going to ask about that. Yeah. He code switches and he code switches in a way that the people around him are just really they they see him and they're like, wow. He knows how to live his whole. Mhmm.
And the only reason is because of the people that surrounds him and that, you know, it's like he learned with us and we've learned with him, and we've been in challenging situations where we were able to aloha each other. We were able to ask these hard questions and truly listen with our whole selves, right, and just observe what is happening. And so the guiding principles of Aloha taught me how to engage in these complex conversations because I have to live it myself. It's not easy.
It's a process. We are in a continual growth until the day we take our last breath, and then I'm in my belief system, it doesn't end there. So Right. How might people find you? Well, they can find me at, co three consulting. So it's c o, the number three, consulting dot net is my website. Aloha Doctor G on Instagram is where they can find me, on Facebook as well too,
doctor Jerry Baloroza Tunnell on LinkedIn. So they can find me they can find me pretty much on the social medias and on my website and on your podcast. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Jerry, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you. Yes. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. This has been a pleasure. Yeah. I loved our conversation. I I like that it got deep and philosophical rapidly. Those are my favorite kinds. Oh, I know. Me too. I could have these conversations forever.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. And thank you for listening, everybody. Bye. Bye. Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human podcast on Apple, iHeart, and Spotify podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks. Bye.