Many people write resolutions this time of year, and we know what often happens.
Our lists are long and convoluted, often encompassing pounds of grief, anguish, guilt, and previous years' incompletions. We intend to wipe our slates clean and start over, as if all insecurities could vanish overnight.
Right.
Please forgive my questioning such long-held tradition. But I feel battered by so many recent emails promising to 'motivate' and propel me 'to the next level' -- as if where I am is not good enough. Maybe you have received these too? The ones offering to "coach" you, remake you, and overhaul your very being?
To me, there's more right than 'wrong' with most of us. I've felt this for many years, and am not alone.
Earlier this year, I met Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, a Hawaiian psychologist teaching "Self-Identity ho'oponopono" (hoh-oh-poh-noh-POH-noh), an ancient process of forgiveness and stress reduction. It's about valuing who we really are . . . rather than focusing so on outer achievements, accolades, and intellectuality.
Ho'oponopono also involves accepting 100% responsibility for whatever appears in our lives. According to Dr. Hew Len, people and situations show up because of accumulated memories from the past -- which we can ask Divinity within us to cleanse. It's our choice to do this, or to continue engaging in whatever chaos might be presenting itself at the time.
The practice is called "cleaning", and can be like a mantra of sorts.
Spending time with Dr. Hew Len and his colleagues (http://www.hooponopono.org/) can be quite uncanny. On the one hand, it undoes ideas that WE are 'in charge' of our outcomes, while it simultaneously models care for our innate selves. And although ho'oponopono is not a religion, it reconnects people with aspects of themselves that are eternal -- yet may have long been ignored.
Ho'oponopono views our basic selves as perfect; 'data' from old (often multigenerationally held) memories skews our present experience. It is this 'data' that needs cleaning and releasing, not us.
Practicing ho'oponopono generates profound peacefulness. Similar states are described by Mindfulness Meditation masters such as Thich Nhat Hahn and Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn; shamanic and Native American healers; even Christianity refers to the "peace which passeth all understanding".
It is wondrous that so many traditions reach a similar confluence point.
The basic idea with ho'oponopono is that each moment offers a choice to either release chaos, or continue struggling. No annual resolution lists are required, since one is practicing a constant process all year long. Each 'problem' offers a new opportunity, just like the New Year does . . . only on a smaller and possibly more manageable scale.
For me this seems simpler; also, we each can do it on our own. In fact, that's the point: dealing with what is inside us, rather than criticizing or complaining about others.
To learn the basics of ho'oponopono, Dr. Hew Len and others offer weekend seminars. http://www.hooponopono.org/ tells more. I have been grateful to meet many others working with themselves in this way; it's helping me along my own journey. Who knows -- lives might transmute 'to the next level' all on their own. :-)
Happy 2008, and beyond.
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3 comments:
Hello, "Road",
Thank you for your message; writing blogs is quite an adventure. So is living the life that generates them. :-)
What I meant in my post was that people practicing mindfulness meditation and other processes often experience a profound sense of peace; Christian mystics have also written about this feeling, and ho'oponopono describes this as well. The 'techniques' used to reach this state might differ, though. (different breathing, meditation, music, mantras, etc)
Perhaps all of us are healing in every moment; everything I do in my life probably has something to do with my own healing. Sometimes I feel more pain, sometimes more joy. Fortunately, lots of enjoyment can also come about while 'in process' -- the idea is to be with all of it. Zorba the Greek called it "the whole catastrophe".
Good luck to you, and with your writing also.
Ooooopppppssss. I seemed to have erased my previous comment while trying to correct it. My apologies.
Anyways, thank you for your kind words and good luck with your blog as well. :)
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