I want to write about a complex, emotive and swept under the carpet subject. We are an educational sector that is made up of mainly strong and passionate women, did you know that 1 out of 3 women have been sexually abused at least once, sometimes far more than just that one terrrifying confusing ocassion.

If you think about your teaching team, maybe you have 5 colleagues that you work alongside, that means the odds are at least 1 of your colleagues has been sexually abused or maybe it is you the reader.

I was pondering on what builds resilience and for those who have been sexually abused how do you regain your sense of positive wellbeing enough to remain resilient. I remember as a teenager my mum used to say to me, 'what is for you want go past you'. A saying that, at the time, really irked an impatient teen. I also wanted to retort. with, ' not everything that happens to you is meant for you.' I count amongst the one in three women.

Recently I have many conversations with kaiako regarding He Mapuna te Tamaiti a document that focuses on building emotionally competent tamariki. While researching emotional literacy I found Brene Brown's list of 30 core emotions. The journey to emotional literacy is about being able to name the emotions we are feeling but also to recognise them in others. So my conversation with kaiako is to ask them how many of these core emotions do they talk about on a daily basis with tamariki.

Below are some words of wisdom from the book Aroha written by Dr Hinemoa Elder. She has written about her own journey in understand 52 whakatauki, that have inspired a contented life lived in harmony with our planet.

Poipoia te kākano kia puāwai - nurture the seed and it will bloom.

Hinemoa wrote, "Nurturing ourslves is a struggle. I for one am not used to reaching out and letting people know I am not well, or even tired. Do you find that too? To be honest, I prefer to be the one looking after other people - that gives me great pleasure. And yet, lately I have been experimenting with the seed of more honest communication because I have been exhausted. I can feel that I have been running on empty. I need to take some of my own medicine.

What tends to happen more often in our lives is the "How are you?" "I'm fine." dance. We all buy into the 'busy' equals,' I am of value' principle of life; and the unspoken code that I'm too 'busy' to be anything other than fine and you are too 'busy' to listen so what's the point in sharing anything real? We are all highly proficient at this.......
How uncaring our society can be towards people who are healing and recovering without external markings. People going through and healing from mental and emotional pain still remain largely unnoticed. And worse, we stick to our social codes the requires silence.

We are a long, long way from building caring communities where people feel safe to talk openly with listeners who are truly hearing."

I am guessing you know where I am going with my thinking. If we are expecting tamariki to understand their emotions then why are we so scared to talk about our own?

Of course there is a time and place for everything and we have to understand when it is and is not appropriate to talk about our own emotional struggles. What is important is the talking about how we feel with someone, this is the healing balm that we need no matter what the emotional ailment is. For me I know that I am whole, that I am resilient and that has happened through talking about the big emotions with whānau and friends. At times there are triggering conversations, in these moments it is a time to acknowledge not surpress emotions so others will understand. All to quickly we say, "I'm ok" when inside we might be in utter turmoil as we recoil from comments from those around us, those who have not walked the same road. Sometimes our journey helps others to understand.

Thinking about Hinemoa's words, we are too busy to say how we are really feeling and more powerfully we feel that others are too busy to listen to what we have to say. How is this building a nurturing community? Why is this the forum to talk about this in? Te Whāriki says the, "The wellbeing of each child is interdependent with the wellbeing of their kaiako, parents and whānau." As passionate, strong kaiako we need to ensure that we are emotionally whole in order to give the very best to our tamariki. I have spoken about sexually abuse because I know this, there are many other ways that life has created an emotional ailment that we need to acknowledge to move on, to move forward into resilience.

There is a saying, what doesn't kills you only makes you stronger. University of Glasgow philosophy professor Michael Brady explains that not all suffering will result in strength, but rather that one should take suffering as an opportunity to build strength, and that those who are already strong are those who can do so. I started by saying that we are a sector of strong passionate women, are we this way because one third of us has experienced huge emotional trauma that did not kills us, and strangely has made us stonger.

Ko ō tātou whakapono ngā kaiwehewehe i a tātau. Ko ō tātau moemoeā me ō tātau pākatokato ngā kaiwhakakotahi i a tātau.

It is our truths that are the actors of separation. It is our dreams and difficulties that act to unify us.

Idealogies separate us. Dreams and adversity bring us together.

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