Let’s Hold Hands and Space Together
by Sue Letwin

It’s been a year of trying to pivot in my home-based cannabis education business and I’m still working on it. There hasn’t been much support for these changing times. We are learning how to adapt while living through a restrictive, confusing period in history.

Last year I had booked free public events to teach people about cannabis at Saskatoon Public Library and a community room. The future was bright for moving toward full legalization of cannabis in Canada, with education programs popping up and people getting excited about new cannabis stores and products. Our government deemed cannabis an essential service! Those working in and alongside the industry breathed a collective sigh of relief. We all began to pivot, trying new ways of educating the public using digital technology and limited, highly restrictive marketing founded in governments’ lack of cannabis knowledge and outdated research using intoxicated people. And guess what? Stigma is still very strong. The public and most healthcare professionals don’t know that each person has an endocannabinoid system (ECS) that balances our cells and that phytocannabinoids in cannabis can supplement this body system.

Many banks don’t want to lend to cannabis businesses. This means that some cannabis companies aren’t getting funding and can’t pay one another. Layoffs and business failures are occurring. Our new cannabis industry is struggling at every level, and medical cannabis patients continue to lose rights and access. There’s good news, though. Quality cannabis is coming into the market with small growers. Non-profit cannabis organizations are being formed and are collaborating to help improve Health Canada regulations and patient rights, access, and costs.

One of the new organizations that has been founded this past year is EduCanNation, a group of certified Canadian cannabis educators creating a radical new philosophy of healthcare that begins and ends with the patient in charge. I am in the communications role on EduCanNation’s board of directors. We have partnered with Afrocannada Budsistas and People’s Alliance of Cannabis in Canada.

People are waking up to the conditioning, the spell we’ve been under. We thought we could build top-down systems to look after people. We were wrong. The best news? Like-minded people are connecting to build something different.

Have you felt confused this past year? We all do. Those who are questioning what is really happening in the world are beginning to band together for change. All people want love, respect, health in mind, body, and spirit. How do we make this happen for everyone on our planet? We begin at the grass roots level with individuals. That is what people all over the world are beginning to do. We have realized that the systems people built don’t serve its people. Some are discovering that leading with compassion and ethics brings about beneficial change for ALL. People are more similar than different all over the world. When we work and plan together with compassion, ethical behaviour, and respect, we gain strength. When we cultivate our own health, we are better able to support others.

Holding space and one another’s hands creates huge beneficial change for ALL. When our first response is compassion, people begin to open up and heal. Holding space for others means being patient, listening, cultivating kindness, not stepping in with advice or criticism. Holding hands means we really are in this life on Earth together. Collaboration works; polarization and judgement of others doesn’t. A healthy relationship with nature and being as ethical as possible, by raising our self-awareness of how we treat other humans and everything else in our environment, is the way of our free-will universe. When we stray from this, we become unhealthy in mind, body, spirit. Let’s do better, let’s get to work to balance our planet and ourselves. I’m listing some resources below to help you begin your journey of healing on Earth:
www.indicapable.ca
www.educannation.info/
www.afrocannadabudsistas.com/
www.peoplesallianceofcannabisincanada.ca/
www.stephiemassey.com/
www.cannadent.ca/
www.dyingmatters.ca/

Sue runs her own cannabis consulting and cooking business in Saskatoon. To access cannabis education by Sue, send her an email or check the calendar on her website. Email curious@indicapable.ca, website is indicapable.ca. Also see the display ad on page 21 of the 27.1 May/June issue of the WHOLifE Journal.