Welcome to the 118th episode of Giving Back Insights! Insights are our solo show to celebrate how our guests and their charities serve others, explore actions each of can take to make a difference in people’s lives and connect.

Today we’re talking about Ho’oponopono! Enjoy today’s episode and keep your comments and feedback coming.

Key Takeaways:

Ho’oponopono is an ancient practice of forgiveness and reconciliation.  Traditionally Ho’oponopono is a ritual performed by the eldest member of the family or a healer of the community to bring harmony back to the relations within the family.  If a person has wronged someone, or there are hurt feelings within the family than this practice is performed to reunite the family, to reconcile the situation, to make right what is out of harmony.

Ho’oponopono is an ancient Hawaiian huna, a secret to facilitating forgiveness within; or simply, the art of forgiveness.

Four healing phrases are employed in a harmonic mantra to help “make things right” or “correct the errors”. It works to cleanse hurt feelings and relieve suffering from being in an unforgiving or unforgiven state. According to the Babylon online dictionary, Ho’oponopono is used to release problems and blocks that cause imbalance, unease and stress in the self; bring peace and balance through physical, mental and spiritual cleansing that involves repentance and transmutation; and create balance, freedom, love, peace and wisdom within individuals, social entities, the world and the universe.

Ho’oponopono Forgiveness Mantra

I am sorry.

Please forgive me. Thank you.

I love you.

These four forgiveness phrases, both individually and collectively, help heal us and our relationships with others, especially loved ones. Each one melts hearts and heals souls. Going deeper, we can voice this mantra in communing with the divine and see the effect both within and without.

I am sorry for participating in this erroneous memory data.

Please forgive me for not seeing the perfection in this moment, and playing back a universal memory I have received within me that is riddled with wrongs and errors.

Thank you for cleansing me, others, the world and the universe.

I love you. Loving the sweet divine is the greatest power or energy there is in all space. I am now loving everyone involved and affected. I know that my perceptions of them are within me, where this error first occurred and where it can be eradicated.

Like planting a seed in soil that grows into nothing of our making, the divine does the work as we allow it to work through us. As we come to consistently use the Ho’oponopono mantra, we may elect to select a special word as a substitute for the whole mantra to use as a touchstone, so that when we say or think this word, we are immediately clear and clean of all the pain associated with any erroneous memory data presented. Our heart is healed and family or friends will return to relationships with a lighter heart. We do not need to understand how it works, only that it does.

My friend Swami told me an amazing story of a man knowns as Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, who cured every patient in the criminally insane ward of a Hawaii`i State Hospital — without ever seeing a single patient. Now this may seem a little “insane,” but upon having a closer look, the story speaks for itself.

Dr. Len set up an office within the hospital to review his patients’ files. While he looked at these files, he would work on himself, and over four years, the patients all healed. In addition, the staff who had been calling in, eventually loved coming to work. He used the legendary Hawaiian healing and cleansing method Ho’oponopono to accomplish all of this.  It is based on healing through loving oneself. Dr. Len repeated the words “I love you” and “I am sorry” over and over again while reviewing each file individually. After a few months, the patients who were shackled were allowed to walk freely, patients were taken off medications, and even the hopeless cases were eventually released back into society.

Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len PhD, a Hawaiian psychologist and shamanic practitioner.

“No one wanted the job I did with the criminally insane. They were averaging about one psychologist a month. But I got asked. We had about 25-30 people. Half of them would be in shackles at the ankles or the wrists because they were dangerous. They could either kick you or slam you. Everyone would walk with their back toward the wall so that they wouldn’t get struck. They had no family visits. No one could leave the building. A year and a half later there was none of that. There were people going out on bus rides. Nobody in shackles. The level of medication dropped. What did I do?  I worked on myself. I took 100% responsibility.”

Recently I have gone through with some very distracting situation. Swami made a simple but profound comment, He said “prayers for her” Because he wanted her to heal. Then I thought about “Ho’oponopono” which was relatively a new practice to me and I started taking the 100%. Responsibility.

This is a wonderful practice and I hope you all will engage when you are in distress.

Remember: Always err on the side of love & kindness

Love & Gratitude,

Rob

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