The Gift of Ho'oponopono

The Gift of Ho'oponopono
I learned a practice from a tradition called Ho 'oponopono
that you might be interested in. It's very simple, very
powerful, and easy to remember. You can go deep with it
rather quickly, bringing lightness and healing quite soon
to your heart and mind. One of the central exercises - you
could call it a personal discipline - one of the primary
gifts of Ho'oponopono, is a very effective forgiveness
exercise.

This simple exercise from Ho'oponopono (or "making right")
has five basic parts. First, bring to mind something
that's bothering you. It can be anything at all, a worry, a
physical pain, a sad memory, a friend, someone you're not
at peace with, anyone, anything at all.

Begin by saying to this worry, or to this person, "I love
you." You can say this out loud at first, but you can also
do the entire exercise silently, whispering inwardly, as if
the person is present to your inner voice, or even visually
present to the imagination if you like. Stay with this
until you feel the phrase settle in a bit, "I love you."

Then, to whatever comes up next, say, "I'm sorry." It
doesn't have to be specific, just say, "I'm sorry."

Then ask with an honest heart, "please forgive me." These
are very powerful words, "please forgive me..."

To complete the prayerful exercise, simply say, "thank you."

Express gratitude for the opportunity to heal, for this
opportunity to be released from the sadness, from the hurt,
the woundedness that life so often serves up, even in
completely innocent circumstances. It's also helpful to
understand that your gratitude extends to being thankful
for being allowed to release another, to make their healing
more likely, more sure. Gratitude for the privilege to help
another is an experience of our connectedness in creation.

This can be personalized, simply by using the person's
name, or maybe addressing for instance, a heartache or
headache that's bothering you. You can say, for instance:
"I love you, Jason," or "I love you, dear headache." "I
love you, my friend." This simple phrase takes on new
meaning when used for healing this way.

A beloved's name can be used throughout: "I love you,
Donna... I'm sorry, Donna... Please forgive me, Donna.
Thank you..." You can repeat the phrases, for as long as
you feel it's helping. We all carry more hidden and
seemingly insignificant complaints than we can remember or
address in the hustle and bustle of our lives.

I sometimes whisper these phrases as I'm going to sleep at
night. After I've repeated them with the people who come to
mind, I might notice the little aches and pains in my body.
Saying "I love you" to my knees, to my muscles, to my
heart, then expressing gratitude, this is a kind of self
healing and brings greater sensitivity to not only our own
bodies, but the physical experiences of others as well.

I like to consider the phrasings creatively on occasion,
especially since I'm sometimes unsure I'm being properly
respectful of another tradition, or if I'm not feeling
especially confident at the time.

For example, I might say to a teacher of Ho'oponopono - in
my imagination: "I love you teacher... I'm sorry I haven't
studied more... please forgive me for just jumping in and
trying this... I hope you don't hold this against me.
Please help me. I'm sorry. Thank you." I've felt an inner
freedom in my own embellishments this way, and a restful
permission to let go of all my grievances and misgivings.

It doesn't have to be a formal process, or formulaic, to
have effects, in my experience. This four phrase practice
is only one variation on an ancient Hawaiian healing
practice, a personal expression of one of the prayers for
healing taught in this tradition.

A close friend told me about this and I did some searching
on the web, once I learned how to spell it. It's been
taught for centuries on the islands of Hawaii, part of the
Huna religion, making relations right within the native
communities. One of its present living teachers, Dr.
Ihaleakala Hew Len has become known for his extraordinary
healing work with patients at a hospital for the criminally
insane, where patients previously written off as hopeless
experienced some unexplainably complete recoveries.

Ho'oponopono requires a sincere heart, and a willingness to
take 100% responsibility for all our judgments, all our
perceptions, all our experiences. Once you begin
experiencing the peace and graceful release this practice
brings, it easily becomes a touchstone in your spiritual
practice. You begin understanding that each of us is
responsible for all that we perceive, all that we imagine.
We are even responsible for those who seem never to
understand.

Another thing, once you start practicing this, you're
likely to meet others who have tried it. Within weeks of
learning a couple basic Ho'oponopono exercises, I met four
more people who have attended workshops or have been
practicing some variation themselves. There's something
about the simplicity and focused clarity this brings that
resonates naturally with others.

I mentioned doing this when going to sleep. It works great
for letting go of the day, for inviting restful thoughts
and pleasant dreams. It also has a calming effect when
driving, especially on the way to meetings where there may
be people you aren't yet comfortable with. On the drive,
simply imagine being there, meeting those you expect to be
there, while also offering the blessing silently to those
who you don't yet know. It helps clear expectations and
anxieties, and its much more likely you'll be in a space
that's welcoming and friendly when you arrive. Who can't
use a little more of that?

So I offer you this practice, imagining we are already good
friends. I'm clearly not an expert, yet I suspect the
teachers appreciate people knowing even the least little
bit about Ho'oponopono. The kind energy and love, the
forgiveness and gratitude considered this way offer a
sampling of the experience that when given an honest try
will very likely inspire more exploration.

This world can use as much healing as we can find.

----------------------------------------------------
Jess Freer has studied many alternative healing and
meditation approaches over the last twenty five years. He's
presently immersed in graduate studies focused on Spiritual
Psychology.
http://mypieceofthe-e-pie.com

He looks just like his father

He looks just like his father
Isn't it interesting that as soon as a baby is born, the
first thing we do without even thinking about it is to
identify physical traits in the baby that reminds us of
either parent?

Sometimes these physical traits are obvious, like
particularly shaped ears. However most of the time we only
see what we want to see. We all know the colour of a
new-born baby's eyes and hair is not permanent. Yet we
look at these physical traits and use them to make the
parents feel good about their creation. We have nearly
seventy muscles in our faces, and each one of us uses
different combinations at different times. But when faced
with a tiny baby that has been in this world only a few
hours, we actually imagine that we can see a likeness to a
parent in the way they use those unpractised muscles.

But then when we are faced with these beautiful creatures
of God, we are so in awe that any emotional reactions can
be forgiven.

When we look for the likeness to a parent, we intuitively
reflect our understanding that each child is a combination
of the father and mother. This is not just a combination
of sperm and an ovum that results in a new person. This is
a combination of the best and the worst of two souls.

We only experience this fact as the baby grows into a child
and adult and displays behaviour that we feel reflect back
to either parent. Where a child acts like a parent in a
way that is acceptable, we like to praise the child ' "a
chip off the old block". Where the child acts in an
unacceptable way, of course the child is wrong and needs to
be disciplined. We do not for a moment even consider that
the child is still a reflection of the same two parents.

Let's assume that everything our children do and say are in
fact a reflection of us as parents, like a mirror that the
child holds up to us. Where a child reflects behaviour and
emotions such as love and gratitude, we love that child
even more. Where the child reflects any emotion or
behaviour that we do not like, we reject the emotions or
behaviour of the child and try to shape them by means of
various types of punishment, ranging from physical
punishment to emotional withdrawal. Sometimes this is so
blatantly hypocritical, for example parents that smoke and
drink but are very upset about their teenage children that
do the same in imitation of their parents.

Other times the link to the parent is less obvious, because
our children also display our hidden fears and our dark
sides. For example, the child of an overly conservative
parent becomes sexually promiscuous. Or a rich parent who
became rich because of self-discipline and focused ambition
raises a child that has only one ambition, namely to live a
hedonistic life. Everyone is shocked, because the child
has been raised "properly" and the parent is "good".
Nobody realises that the parent needs to redress an
imbalance at soul level, and that the moment it is done,
both parent and child will be healed.

What if we do some introspection and identify the part of
us that we dislike or want to hide, rather than judge and
punish the child?

We often see our own childhoods as times where we suffered
deprivation of some kind, either physically or emotionally,
and we often go out of our way to ensure our children do
not have the same experiences. We do not understand how
our childhoods served the purpose of shaping us into the
people we have become. All we remember is what we like to
call deprivation, and the emotions like resentment that we
like to associate with it.

When our own children are born, we want to withhold similar
experiences from them, because we do not understand how
those experiences redressed an imbalance in us at soul
level. We then go out of our way to re-create the same
imbalance to the other extreme in our children without even
realising it. Then we add to this imbalance all those that
we have to address in ourselves, and we are disappointed in
our children when they show us what our dark side looks
like. Poor children!

When we reject the behaviour of a child, we reject a part
of ourselves that we regard as unacceptable or imperfect.
We in fact say that God created us as a reflection of
Divinity, except that God did not create our dark side. If
God did not create our dark side, then who did? Did we not
do that to ourselves, so that we have ourselves to blame?
If God did create our dark side, then it is perfect,
because God did not make a single mistake when creating
this universe.

The most effective way to change unacceptable behaviour in
your child is to acknowledge that behaviour or emotion in
yourself and make peace with it and accept it as part of
who you are. Then you can love that part of yourself as
well and make a conscious effort to either change your own
behaviour if your dark side is expressed in behaviour, or
change your beliefs about yourself if the behaviour of your
child is the opposite of the side that you normally display
to the world.

Our children look just like us in more ways than we
realise. We should thank God for providing them to us as
teachers.

----------------------------------------------------
Elsabe Smit hereby grants a NON-EXCLUSIVE license to any
and all persons and entities to copy and reprint any
article she posts as long as the article is left IN-TACT
and UNALTERED and proper credit is given to her as Author.
Elsabe Smit is the author of the blog <A
HREF="http://www.mypurpleblog.com">Spiritual
interpretations of everyday life</a> ]