Sobonfu Somé was born and reared in Dano, Burkina Faso, a small village in west Africa. Before she was born, Somé was recognized by her tribe to possess gifts that would allow them to spread their cultural wisdom, and was given the name Sobonfu, which means “keeper of ritual.” Sent by her tribe to bring indigenous wisdom to the west, she has traveled extensively throughout North America and Europe, spreading their message of the importance of community, ritual, and spirituality through workshops and seminars. She is the author of The Spirit of Intimacy;Ancient Teachings in the Ways of Relationships and Welcoming Spirit Home.
Author
Mount Madonna, Dec 2001 and 2002
Sobonfu: Well, it’s a pleasure for me to be here today. It always delights me to be able to get to meet young people because it’s not always that you can actually talk to the young people down the street and so being able to come to a school always opens up a wide range of possibilities.
I come from Burkina-Faso, which means “the land of the proud ancestors.” I come from a tribe called the Dagara tribe. The Dagara are people who live in community. Their life is based on spirit and their greatest wealth is the people that they have in their lives. They get up in the morning thinking about spirit. They go to bed thinking about spiritual things. The day is made sacred. In other words, you have to welcome your own spirit and have the spirits out there welcome you as they welcome everybody else’s spirit. That is very important because without the continuous tuning of the spirit, of the self, it is very difficult to remain in balance within the community, and also for you to keep connected to other people.
When I was growing up there wasn’t school in the village, so you were taught by everybody around you. Life is school; that’s how I look at it. In my culture they say that when you stop learning you stop existing, so life is about learning, you are continually learning. Even today I’m still learning; I’m learning from all the different people who come into my life. What they bring to me is a gift, and then I can take that gift and share it with other people.
When you become a teenager, just like all of you here, the community will be interested in you because that is the second big initiation. The first initiation is that of being born. The second big initiation you go through would be to find out again who you are. You might recognize initiation by how people act when they start to change rapidly, they start to feel rebellion against their parents. You know when your parents say something you feel like you have to say ten more things to counteract that. When this happens, there is a whole process that the entire village goes through. First there is the need for the parents to recognize that you are becoming your own person. That brings some grief to them, to recognize that their little baby is no longer a little baby and is now becoming an adult. They mourn that. But it allows the young person to step into their place and be who they really are.
At that point they train you physically, and also emotionally. The reason is that if you are not prepared physically, mentally, and emotionally, then you can get stuck, and it’s true that sometimes people don’t come back from initiation. Just like here, when you get your driver’s license, if you are not really prepared for it, you can have an accident. That is a Western form of initiation. Another form of Western initiation is experimenting with sex, drugs and alcohol, your looks, your beauty, and what effect it is going to have in the world. So you just have to remember that there are things about initiation, that when you experiment you can’t come back just as easily as you left. That’s how some people end up becoming alcoholics their entire lives, that’s how people end up being drug addicts their entire lives–because they need to reconnect with something bigger. All the pain they’re experiencing in their life is so great that they feel that they need something bigger to hold it.
When you go through initiation you are supposed to come back with your gift, something that you contribute to the world. At the end of it, you get this huge welcome from everybody in the village, and that in itself brings you back to life. And then you go through mentoring; it’s something that everybody needs, it doesn’t matter which culture you’re from. Because sometimes you have great ideas, but the way you go about bringing them forth is not life-giving.
After my initiation I was married to someone I had never met before. In my culture, they do arranged marriages. It was after the marriage that I met him, and for three years he wanted me to come to America.
My first experience in coming into this country was like being sent to the North Pole. I first landed in Michigan in the middle of winter, the 15th of January. When I landed everybody was looking at me like, “what planet is she coming from?” And it’s true, I was coming from a different planet. When I landed in New York I had to change flights, and I couldn’t actually speak English. So I was running around talking to people about “Detrat.” And they are looking at me thinking, “What in the world is she talking about?” And finally I got to this policeman and kept on saying, “Detrat, Detrat,” and he looked at me and said, “What are you talking about?” so I showed him my ticket and he said, “Oh you mean Detroit!” and he took me to the flight.
I had no idea about cold. I had no idea about snow. My husband walked up to me and he handed me this heavy coat. I said, “What is this?” and he said, “Put it on, you’re going to need it.” I had never seen clothing so heavy in my life! I said, “Is this something for someone to wear?” And he said, “Hey, you are either going to wear it, or you are going to freeze to death.” I was dressed in something like this, but with no sweater, and sandals, because this is how we dressed in the village.
The first time I saw snow, I kept wondering, “What is this thing? Is it corn flour? It’s crazy to dump all this corn flour. Let’s get some!” I’m thinking about my family at home, and how we sometimes run out of food, and I’m saying, “Somebody’s crazy to dump all this corn flour.” And he’s looking at me, and he’s getting even more frustrated, and he doesn’t know how to answer all my questions, so he said, “When we go out you will understand.” Oh my God, I did understand. I didn’t even have to go out. Just with the door open, it was so cold, I was running back, and he caught me and said, “We have to go out!”
So that’s how I came to be in America. After two winters in Michigan I decided that’s long enough for me and I couldn’t take another winter and we moved to California, and so that’s how I ended up here.
I’m going to open it up now so you can ask questions.
Student: In our culture I’ve noticed that we value individual achievement, or an attitude of everyone for themselves. How can we create an environment that will foster a community-oriented attitude instead?
Sobonfu: Well, first we have to realize that we did not fall from the sky. We were born into a community and that community is very important. Whether the community pays attention to us or not, that is a different question, but that does not mean that we have to stop looking for ways to bring the attention of the community back to what is important. The role of a community is to not only help us come together, but to be able to give us each our gifts. The community supports the individual to bring their gift out and gives them a container inside of which they can put it.
So the way to start a community is to go with your determination to be able to find the kind of community that will support you and whom you can support also. It begins by us going out of our way. Many times we don’t want to go out of our way because we don’t want to be bothered. When we start to say, “Well, I need community, so I am going to start to knock on people’s doors.” You may find some who will be frustrated with you. At the same time, you are also going to find people who are will get excited about finding community.
This means you will have to start to share more of yourself, share more of your dreams, and get people to join you in it. Many times people want to sit back and wait for you to form the community so they can come join you, but you have to let them know that in a community everybody must be active. Otherwise you get some people who sit and wait for everything, and a community doesn’t work that way. Everybody gives as needed, and everybody’s contribution is needed, whatever that contribution might be.
That’s because as far as community, I need to be transparent, translucent, so they know who they’re dealing with. The fear in people is because they want to be anonymous, so when you ask them to be a part of community it is a big challenge. One of the things that we have to work on is to let other people see, “Hey, I’m really this person. I don’t have anything to hide, so it’s okay for you to come out.” The more people are like that, the more you will see other people start to come out. That is what communities like Mt. Madonna are trying to teach people; just to be yourself. You don’t need to pretend to be somebody else for people to accept you. If you are yourself, then we can be ourselves also.
As I shared earlier, you need to have different rituals that celebrate the community, and mark the different transitions that the community goes through. Whether it be a newborn, a death, and so forth, because without that, again you go back to the place of anonymity where you are not able to come out and share your joy and share your sorrow. When people go to my village, they are very shocked when they see the poverty, but they’re also bewildered to observe how happy people are by simply knowing that they have each other. That is a gift to them. That is their wealth right there. When somebody is hurting, everybody is hurting; and when somebody is happy, everybody is happy. So you see them crying together and laughing together. In fact, that’s what brings the richness into the community.
Student: Have you been back to your village since you came to live in the United States?
Sobonfu: Oh yes, I have to go back. That’s how I keep my sanity. I need to check in with my elder and get my mentoring, so that I am sure I am not being foolish. You go back to the place where you come from when you die. It’s always important for me to check in, to learn things that I didn’t know, so it is a viable thing that I am bringing, not something dead. Also it’s a way to keep in touch with my family, to meet my new nieces and nephews, and to see the others growing up also. It is always exciting for me to go home, and it definitely has kept me somewhat sane.
Student: If someone moves around a lot, and has many homes, what home do you think they come back to when they are older? Is “home” about family, or it is it an actual place?
Sobonfu: The answer is yes, and more. Home is your family, but there is also the home in the heart of other people. When there is one person you know who genuinely loves you, you know you have a home in this person. You can count on that. And that’s why we love each other, and at the same time we drive each other crazy, because we’re looking for some home in each other. It’s important that we don’t lose sight of that. When there is a conflict with the person and they completely come apart from our lives, we’re cutting something vital out of our life. It’s very important to remember that when conflict arrives it means we need to cultivate a deeper intimacy with the other person, because there are things about the person we don’t know. That’s why we’re having the conflict. We’re trying to preserve the home in their heart.
I was interested in the initiation you were talking about because I think that in the Western culture it’s not as personal. You were talking about how we experiment and get our licenses, and I don’t think those are as personal as what you were describing in your culture. You also said it prepared you emotionally, and I was wondering what you meant.
Sobonfu: Initiations prepare you emotionally in the sense that they help you to find the source of your emotion. When we are having a bad day, as we call it, we are looking for someone to blame. What we are required to do is look at the source of our emotion. A lot of times the people who end up being the recipient of our anger, or our frustration, are the people who are the closest to us. The thing to do is to tell them, “I’m having a hard day, here’s all the things that happened,” and basically bring out all the emotion in it. When we lose track of that, then we end up being very violent because we think that’s going to solve things.
Even at a young age you learn about emotion, because there is a lot of work around grief in my tradition. So you’re not a string that can break at any moment. Your emotion is flexible. Also there is a community ritual, because there is a communal aspect about grief that can only be healed in the context of community. Everybody’s in it, and everybody’s releasing it at the same time, so nobody needs to hang onto it anymore.
When you hang on to things, it’s like carrying a carcass around. Also, when you’re mad at someone for a long time, you’re unconsciously agreeing to carry their burden. I define revenge as making a cup of poisoned tea for someone to whom you feel resentment, and somewhere along the line you forget, and drink it yourself, and you get poisoned. That’s why it’s important to not stay mad too long. It’s ok to be mad, but do not carry it too long, because it will poison your life. Your precious energy goes towards holding that anger and causes your gifts to go dormant. You want to have your gift spark up, and be alive.
Initiation here is personal. The problem is that often we have the person personalize them, and we’ve taken them out of context, and we don’t put any value to them. We don’t feel like anybody’s really witnessing us in our process. That’s why it has become this anonymous experience that you referred to. The difference between that and the initiation of my home is that we have elders who put you through the process, and here you have to make your own initiation, you have to create it. The missing element is a welcoming community at the end to say, “You’ve done it. And we saw it, too. So come back, and bring the wisdom from that experience back to us.” As a result, we think, “Oh, nobody really noticed.” The psyche has a way of saying, “See, you didn’t do a thing. Go back and try again.” So you go back and you try even harder, and you come back with a big smile and you go, “Anybody notice? Anybody notice?” And you get silence again. So you say, “Oh, I still haven’t done anything. Maybe I should go back and try it again.” And so you end up being caught in a vortex of initiation. And sometimes you’re returning and sometimes you going back, and you don’t even know when you started and when you’ve ended. You’re just going through this kind of racing initiation and you never feel at peace.
Student: What inspired you to come to the United States?
Sobonfu: The honest answer is “nothing.” I always said that my elders made me come. I’d never really dreamt about leaving my community, because I really enjoyed being part of the community, the sharing of everything, the sharing of clothes, the sharing of underwear, everything, and the sharing of the heart also, that was very important to me. That was partially why I resisted coming here for a long time. And also I was married to someone who was teaching at the University of Michigan, which is in part why I came here.
Having been in this country, there are a lot of things that inspire me that I can take back and share with my country, which is very favorable for me, and for my people as well.
Student: Are there any aspects of the American community that you don’t like?
Sobonfu: I think there are a lot of things missing. In the way they bring children up, they do not have ritual to acknowledge the children. In a way, the basic foundation of life is no longer there for people. Being able to be yourself, and having people like you for who you are. Just for you to be seen by the entire community. And for people to be able to greet someone and to really mean, “How are you?” The basic human needs have been taken away. We end up thinking it is in something else, or in someone else, when we really need to have it right here. I could go on and on about the different things, but I really think there is a lot we need to bring back if we are going to be a surviving species.
Start with our children, validating our children. Like in my culture, each child is a gift to the community; each child is coming here because they have something unique they’re bringing to the community. That gift is vital to the survival of the community. Believe it or not, every single one of you is here because you have something unique to bring to the world. And it is important that the environment is set in a way that the gift is brought out. If the environment is not set in that way then it is up to you as you grow up to find an environment where you can deliver the gift. As we value our young people, we are also ensuring the future. So far we haven’t seen any species survive without children, so we need our children. They are our past, they are our present, and they are our future. They are our gift from spirit. When I see people who look at the children and don’t see anything, that really does worry me, because it means our future doesn’t have anything.
Student: It seems that in our society children play a much more insignificant role than in your village. For example, the word teenager is almost a pejorative term. It seems that children are pushed too quickly into adulthood, and their process of growth is not valued. How can our society learn to give children a safe space where they can truly be themselves instead of portraying adolescence as an interim stage?
Sobonfu: As the young people, you know how critical it is to know the place of children in the community, and to know the kind of gift that children are bringing out to the world. Also you know that it is important to respect the different stages of life that children have to go through before they become adults, and to recognize that those stages are just as important as being an adult. Actually, being a teenager is something that people do not know how to open themselves up to because they are too scared of what they might be learning. So people don’t want to learn. They want to remain the same, and yet in life you have to continuously learn, you have to change.
I believe that is really what drives a lot of teenagers crazy because, especially when you go to big schools, nobody knows you. You go home and nobody looks at you. So hey, what’s up with that? How can I be myself when I can’t get attention anywhere? I have witnessed different youth groups which I have encountered, and I have been part of their meetings. For example, the Youth Coalition of San Francisco does different activities and they see the need of the young people’s voice. That has been really meaningful for them. I have heard people leaving the meetings and saying, ” I didn’t have a clue that these children had so much to share. Now I have an idea,” because before that it was out of their world. They have cultivated one mind, and so that is all they see. They are waiting for you to grow up when, in fact, you have been growing up all along.
Yes, it is true in my community that children are very valuable. In fact, they see them as spirits coming to test our generosity, coming to test our willingness and our sincerity. When you see children show up at your doorway, despite whatever craziness is going on, you stop and say, “Okay, what is going on here?” Once you have paid attention to that, then you don’t have the difference between the young people and the adults.
Student: You spoke of how important it is to carry out our vision and our gifts. What is the process that we can go through in order to understand what our mission, gifts, and visions are?
Sobonfu: Oftentimes what I recommend is to go back to early childhood, to look at pictures, places you have been to that have touched you, or activities that you used to do that made you very happy. Start to see why you haven’t continued doing so, and when you do them, do you feel happy again? Look at the different things that have come, that you have been connected with. That is whether it be different groups or feelings, and also what drives you. What kind of thing bothers you in the world? It is more likely that the things that bother you are where you have things to contribute.
For instance, you asked about community. If you feel bothered by the lack of community, chances are your gift is to ignite a sense of community in people’s lives again. Maybe people have already told you that you make a good friend simply because you are able to bring something different into their life that they cannot get anywhere else. That means that you have within you different elements that will help you to build community and inspire people to be within community. Your gift is not something that is so far removed from you that you cannot even comprehend it. It is often very close. In my tribe they say, “Where the wound is, is also where the gift is.” The gift and the wound are like one coin with two sides. If you turn one side, you are going to see the wound, but if you have the courage to flip it, then you are going to see the gift sitting there. You then use the wound as your foundation that drives you to give your gift.
Part of the difficulty is that we have been educated by the media to believe that we have to be some big figure in order to bring our gift out in the world. Oftentimes that is not how it comes. If you are not connected with your gift, you are going to then lose touch with yourself, and then everything is going to fall apart. Believe me, I have been there. I know that it is not worth it to think that you have to be somewhere else, or doing something else, when in fact you are just not in touch with your gift.
It is very important to know that what is burning within your heart is your gift. Oftentimes when you walk in nature, things start to come. You start to see images, but don’t think you are crazy. Start to write those images, because those are signs of what you need to do. Those are the different pathways that you are being given. Sometimes we say, “Oh, I’m seeing things, hearing something that nobody else is hearing, so I must be crazy.” No, just say, “I hear a different language,” and it is okay. How can you apply that? How can you bring it out to the world?
You have to do something. You cannot just sit and think that it is going to miraculously happen out of the blue. You can receive your gift and then you can deliver it to people. I have to say, though, that sometimes there is a difference between knowing your purpose and actually having the courage to be able to fulfill your purpose. The trouble that you may go through is actually a challenge as to whether you are able to bring your gift out, or whether you are going to keep it. Now the thing is, when you keep it and you do not deliver it to the world, you then turn it into a poisonous gift to yourself. It then becomes a major illness that will take your life away. It is very important that you not look at all the different challenges that you encounter in your life as barriers that hold you back, but as things that give you energy. Things that you can draw from to continue on, so you can be more determined to be able to do what you are here for.
Student: You speak a lot about rituals in your book. Do you think that the United Sates has lost a lot of the rituals and openness towards children?
Sobonfu: I would say so, simply because the sense of community has deteriorated. We have lost touch with our extended family; we have lost touch with our community. By African standards, it’s not only your child. Your child is a gift lent to you and you must care for it. When you are bringing up a child, two people cannot be a child’s world; you need an entire community. That’s why we feel like we have to crucify our parents, because we feel like they are not meeting our needs. We’re thinking that our parents are our community. But they cannot be everything. It’s impossible. So we need to reach out to other people, and get what we need from them. You look for someone who has the things you do not have. And you take that, and the rest you don’t worry about. When you have more people taking care of this child, what the parents will realize is that they are more sane when dealing with the child. If nobody else is there, you’re going to go crazy! It’s true! So the more people there are in the child’s life, the more the world is opened in that child’s life.
Student: In your book you spoke a lot about relationships. You wrote how in the Dagara tribe it is not the individual’s job to create relationships; it is Spirit that does that. You also said that romance is a way of hiding our true self. I was wondering what you meant by that.
Sobonfu: It is a very good question. I was wondering when you were going to ask that question! You have to understand that in my tradition any form of relationship is based on Spirit. First you have to be spirit, because you are spirit, embodied in the human form that has taken on this suit we call the body. When you walk, you vibrate an energy that your spirit sends out, and so every single time you meet somebody, your spirit meets their spirit first. Also if you meet somebody, it is because there is a reason for you to meet that person. In other words, we do not believe in accidents. Everything is meant to be. As a result, when you get into a relationship with someone, the first thing you want to know is which spirit is bringing us together, and what does this spirit want us to do? When you start to ponder on that question, things then become clear for you. Otherwise there is a tendency for us to want to jump into love relationships immediately without really exploring what it could mean.
In the village, when you meet people, you are not looking at them from a romantic perspective. You are looking at them first as a spirit, second as spirit with gifts to give, third as human beings having something to contribute to the world, and then whatever transpires from that. You don’t bypass those three steps and say, “Well, I’m going to be here.” What I have noticed is that in romantic relationships there is a desire for us to be accepted and to be loved. As a result we are willing to go out of our way to show our best part. We don’t want anybody to know where our weaknesses are, so when we get into a relationship everything is fine until the masks start to wear off. When the masks wear off, the true self starts to shine and the other person goes, “Wait a minute! This is not the person I met. What happened to that person?”
So romance is an illusion in the sense that it basically takes you away from yourself, away from your community, so you can cultivate a relationship with only one other person. Sometimes the person you think you are cultivating the relationship with is not really that person, because they are not really there. You can be sitting with somebody and their spirit is 10,000 miles away, so you cannot really say you are cultivating a relationship with them.
It does not mean that when you acknowledge the spirit, there is not going to be love. If you acknowledge the spirit, the love that you feel from one another will be beyond romance. You have gone beyond the false sense. You have gone beyond the hiding of the true identity to a place where the two spirits truly have merged. Then you have a true sense of love.
I think the outfit, the things that the romance wears to make itself appealing to us, is not really what we want to call romance. It is a connection with spirit, but because many of us are afraid of spirit, or the thought that something else is responsible for our coming together, we want to cut spirit away from it. That is when romance becomes troublesome. It is very important to look at the attraction that you feel with someone else as driven by something bigger than who you are, or what the two of you could ever imagine. If you can look at it that way, then you are beginning to get close to the positive sense of romance. Otherwise you will then be looking at the attire that romance wears to make itself appealing, and you think, “I don’t have to look any further.”
Student: In our society we are brought up with the idea of romance ingrained in us. Is it possible to change that basis upon which we enter relationships? In other words, is there a way that a relationship can develop from being based merely on romantic attraction to a spirit-based relationship?
Sobonfu: Yes, definitely. It’s just like what I shared about finding the positive side in romance. What you need to do first is to remember the first encounter, and the spirit that you felt between you two. If you can remember that spirit and go back to it often, then you begin to take the relationship to a place where it is not going to be ego-driven. If you can begin to bring your larger community support to the relationship, then you create an environment that will sustain the relationship. Be able to renew your relationship often, because we think that once we have said, “Yes, I do,” it’s over. However, sometimes the relationship goes through changes, and you need to say many “I do’s,” and, “Yes, I am committed to going with you again. Let’s do this again.” A relationship needs to be continuously renewed, because if it is not, then it will not go anywhere.
I have also found that when I do not do ritual, whether it is a relationship with my sister or a relationship with my brother or friend, I start to lose something within that relationship. I feel disconnected with them until I can do something to ignite it again. A modern style relationship can be lacking in the dimensions beyond the romance. This is because when we only see the romantic and the relationship starts to grow, we can’t go beyond that because we only want to see this person in a certain way. However, life is saying, “Let’s take the next step together.” So if you are able to take the next step together, then you can still have the romance in the next step. The key is to have both people do that step. A western relationship can stay long and lasting with the commitment of two people. If you remember the first time you met, and go back to that energy thinking about how strong you were, especially in times of difficulty, you can draw from that again.
Student: When you wrote in your book sharing your community in Africa, were you ever afraid that people wouldn’t accept it? Were you ever scared that people might not see it for what it is?
Sobonfu: I don’t know, maybe it’s my upbringing, but I never thought for a second to have fear about sharing. My way of thinking is you put it out; if it’s accepted, great, if not, hey, life continues. The only part that I was concerned about, was if it was misinterpreted, then we could end up with people thinking something that is completely different than what I put out. And I notice it when I teach, sometimes people will repeat what I said, and I go, “No, that’s not what I’m saying.” But it’s good, in the sense that it’s helping me be clear. So I like that kind of challenge when it comes. I really let it go, because I feel that it’s a gift that I put out. I’m not going to supervise, and see if people are taking it in. If they don’t take it in, oh well.
Student: It seems that in the Dagara tribe the elders are the platform, and they’re the ones who hold the community together. And it seems in our society we’ve lost that respect for elders. I have two question. Why is there such a big difference between the two cultures, and how can we change our view of elders? How can we learn to take in their knowledge and grow from that?
Sobonfu: The elders are valued because they have not only gained knowledge, but that knowledge is there for people to use. It is the seeking of the elder out of the person that turns the person into an elder, just like it is the seeking of wisdom in a person that turns knowledge into wisdom. As an elder, after a time, your gift can become a burden if it’s not sought out, and I think that’s what’s happening to a lot of elders in this culture. I believe that one of the causes of Alzheimer’s comes from that, because what’s the point of having something nobody wants?
Student: My grandmother has Alzheimer’s. And it’s gotten to the point where she knows who I am, but everything’s kind of foggy, and it’s very sad. How do you, in your culture deal with sickness, and how do you validate someone when you don’t know if they even know you anymore?
Sobonfu: What I usually do with people who have Alzheimer’s, whom I knew before, is I tell them stories of things we’ve done. I’ll repeat these same stories over and over, and they start to click in. Eventually, they will be able to finish the story for you, but you have to continue. A lot of times we give up on people who are sick because we don’t know how to relate to them. So it’s about knowing that this is a human being also. At one time, they were at their height and they were brilliant, and now they’re frail we can’t relate to them. You establish a new relationship with them. Instead of them telling the story, you tell them the story. It helps them tremendously. When you do that they become part of your life, so you are giving back to them.
So, how does everybody feel? The reason I ask that is that in my tradition there are many levels of emotion. Sometimes there are more than one, and sometimes we feel like we don’t have any emotions at all. One of the emotions you can recognize rapidly is indifference, or numbness. Those are the times when, in my culture, they say you are “drowning in your own emotions.” When you start to come out of that numbness, you start to experience shock, because you’re finally waking up into something. You say, “God, what is this that I’m going through?” Then the next emotion that you start feeling is anxiety. You start to eat your fingers. (I’m jumping because there are many different emotions; I’m just saying the basics.) The one after anxiety is sadness. And then after sadness comes anger. After anger comes rage. And after rage comes release of emotions. You work the emotion out. And when you release, what you will experience is calm, peaceful, joyous, restful, and happy. That’s the other side of it. But if you start to feel it, you get to the sadness, and the anger, and then you repress it, you start to walk the ladder backwards, you get back to frustration, you get back to depression, you get back to hopelessness, and then suicidal feelings. It’s important to work your emotions out. So when you feel different, ask yourself, “Why am I feeling different? What’s holding me? What’s keeping me trapped? What’s drowning me right now?” So you can start to work your way out of it.
Mr. Mailliard: What do you think is the most important thing that young people need to know these days in our culture? What is the most important message you have for them?
Sobonfu: Well, they need to know that they have things to give. Every single one of you is irreplaceable. No one can replace you and what you bring to the world is really invaluable. You have to believe that. You have to remember it any time when you are in doubt that you are not just here as a tourist, but here because you have something to give to this world. No matter what the world looks like, no matter how dark it is outside, you have to remember that the fire burning within your heart is the very fire that the world needs to survive. So when you are out there, always remember that the gift you have for the world is going to take the world to the next step.
You are the fresh air that is going to come and make the lungs of this world breathe again. If you do not give your gift, you are not only robbing yourself of something valuable, but you are also robbing the entire world of your gift. Any time you want to withdraw, any time you want to pull back, think about how critical your contribution is to the world. Yes, life is difficult, but at the same time, if you have one another, if you can stick together, then you will continue to have that heartbeat that keeps you going.
So thank you, God bless you.