Oneness: Ho'oponopono

Anxiety, fear, addiction, depression, alienation, isolation from our neighbors, even loved ones are daily obstacles many people struggle with through their entire life continuum.  Caught in repetitive thinking and feeling patterns, disconnected from our “home”, our internal truths, we tend to wane through the decades we are given instead of living them with robust energy and joy.  We begin to believe this is what life is.  It is sort of like a dog that has always been kicked and starved, it doesn’t know any better, thus endures and expects more of the same.  Or the person who has never eaten an organic carrot, only the petroleum tasting conventional carrot; they can’t be expected to know the difference. Because these abysmal expectations are what are known, this is probably what will be continued to be had. 

These are somewhat extreme parallels I put forth, but the truth is, most of us live some version of them in some way.  Whether it be our acute and unabated loneliness which has conditioned us to feel we will never know satisfying relationship or peace; or wellness/illness obsessing has us completely disillusioned we will doubtfully know a semblance of an ideal life style pattern.

This nagging lack, “hole creating”, often leads people to therapy, self-help books or classes to improve themselves. It rarely leads them to an introspection that connects them to the idea of Oneness, that their difficulties are not solitary, but related to others and the entire cosmos.  Exploring this understanding can be liberating.

A decade ago, a friend introduced me to a Hawaiian healing process called Ho'oponopono, and Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len’s work on the concept. The Huna Process of Ho'oponopono .  It basically considers that we are all interconnected, there is no separation between your pain and my own, we are One.  This is considering all sentient beings, ecology, technology, the universe; a very big concept.  The healing comes from saying 4 simple sentences to oneself over and over in relation to the pain or suffering one is having with another (or oneself). The sentences being, I Love You, I'm Sorry, Forgive Me, Thank You.

Dr. Joe Vitale, a psychologist, has explained the basis of this healing works because we enter a sense of responsibility in relation to one’s own suffering and the suffering of another I Love You, I'm Sorry, Please Forgive Me .  I personally find the “responsibility” word a bit loaded in my associative understanding, as have others whom I’ve introduced these concepts to, so I use relationship or relatedness (other “r”words) and that sits with me better.

When I first heard of this type of healing, frankly I thought it was kind of hokey (and it does not help the literature around it is slick and commercial sounding/looking). But I also had a sense there was something simply profound there.  Paradoxes are intriguing, so I sat with it a little longer and decided to test it in my work.  And the experience of it has been illuminating.

I have used it when I am at my wits end, overwhelmed with a patient, or at the end of my available inner resources.  I was working with a revolving-door pair of married addicts, who took weekly turns getting hospitalized ostensibly for pain management to get their narcotics.  The way I was entering this patient relationship on this particular day was alarming to me as a professional; I was frustrated, disgusted, repulsed and angry at this duo.  I had nothing to lose but try the four sentences.  I entered the hospital room to narcotic dose the wife (the patient of the day) and found the wife comfortably watching TV, husband pacing near the window and teenage son glued to his computer. Upon entering, the husband started to bluster about the meds having arrived, and maybe there was some extra for him.  A wave of revulsion ran through me as well as a professional shame that I was feeling this way.  I stood still facing the husband and started repeating to myself the four sentences.  The husband went on and on and I stood there continuing to try the Ho'oponopono practice.  To my surprise, something softened in me and I became engaged with my firmly planted feet.  Within a few minutes, the son stopped looking at the computer screen and looked up at me.  The husband stopped pacing, talking non-stop and gesticulating.  Taking a long pause he said, “You’re listening to me” and then, “No one ever listens to me.”

This was a surprising turn of events.  Where there seemed to be some impact on this family, what was most intriguing was the impact Ho'oponopono had on me.  Being fully caught in an intense internal polarization, this exercise mercifully shifted the rigidity I had entered in myself and made something else possible.  Some facsimile of this experience has happened every time I have tried this and other healers I have passed this on, report similar findings.  There is a penetrating depth to this work.  I am continually finding an expansiveness to its concepts, continued layers to the practice (as I have explored it experientially not per the literature).  It has effected my own practice and thinking on health considerably.

How can this “profound hokiness” be? It’s based on acknowledging (not initially with authenticity) my relationship and connection to another’s pain, asking for forgiveness, and finally gratitude. I don’t understand this in parts of myself, but also it rings true.  It brings home the power of the mind and words thought or spoken to myself and others.