The Only Way To Heal Is To Be Healed
I read the following story after following a link on Twitter (see article). I must admit that I have not stopped thinking about it since.
I have started changing the way that I think about my life and using the principles of healing myself in order to heal the situations in my life. In less than a week this is what has shifted in my life: I have been focusing on mending a relationship with a person and that person texted me this morning after about 7 mos of no communication. I have also been focusing on mending a once good relationship with my boss; we are now getting along better than we have in ~6 mos.
The next part of this story answers one of the long-standing questions that I have had about three of the past life readings that I have done. I have seen three Egyptian past lives in which there was a figure sitting on the side of a cliff above a crowd of people healing the crowd as the crowd sent the healer its problems.
Incidentally one of these readings occured days after I read Joe Vitale's story (see story below). This young lady was female and one of these healers in 3rd century B.C. Egypt (she lived somewhere between the three major monuments-the Sphinx, Great Pyramid, etc). Through her lifetime I saw that she apprenticed to do this job and that in her lifetime she was disappointed because as her career progressed her post healer was not as revered as it had been by previous generations. In fact she was one of the last healers of this kind.
Although I did not get the intimate details of how she healed I think that Ho'oponopono and this form of healing could be linked.
I have studied Hawaiian mysticism and teach a form of Hawaiian energy work (see www.rhondaobrien.com) and know that there was a group of Egyptians that migrated to Molok’ai (one of the Hawaiian islands). It makes perfect sense to me that both Hawaii and Egypt share beliefs and/or practices one of which could be this belief that by healing yourself you can heal others.
I am empowered by this story and see that these once powerful healers could once again set up "shop" and help others, many others to heal. It gives me great hope for the future.
Please enjoy the story below; I certainly did. I think that it will be awhile before I stop thinking about it. Hopefully it will continue to impact me from this day forward:
HO’OPONOPONO by Joe Vitale
Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a complete ward of criminally insane patients--without ever seeing any of them. The psychologist would study an inmate"s chart and then look within himself to see how he created that person’s illness. As he improved himself, the patient improved.
When I first heard this story, I thought it was an urban legend. How could anyone heal anyone else by healing himself? How could even the best self-improvement master cure the criminally insane? It didn"t make any sense. It wasn’t logical, so I dismissed the story.
However, I heard it again a year later. I heard that the therapist had used a Hawaiian healing process called ho ‘oponopono. I had never heard of it, yet I couldn"t let it leave my mind. If the story was at all true, I had to know more. I had always understood "total responsibility" to mean that I am responsible for what I think and do. Beyond that, it’s out of my hands. I think that most people think of total responsibility that way. We"re responsible for what we do, not what anyone else does--but that’s wrong.
The Hawaiian therapist who healed those mentally ill people would teach me an advanced new perspective about total responsibility. His name is Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. We probably spent an hour talking on our first phone call. I asked him to tell me the complete story of his work as a therapist.He explained that he worked at Hawaii State Hospital for four years. That ward where they kept the criminally insane was dangerous.
Psychologists quit on a monthly basis. The staff called in sick a lot or simply quit. People would walk through that ward with their backs against the wall, afraid of being attacked by patients. It was not a pleasant place to live, work, or visit.
Dr. Len told me that he never saw patients. He agreed to have an office and to review their files. While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal."After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being allowed to walk freely,” he told me. "Others who had to be heavily medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no chance of ever being released were being freed." I was in awe. "Not only that," he went on, "but the staff began to enjoy coming to work.
Absenteeism and turnover disappeared. We ended up with more staff than we needed because patients were being released, and all the staff was showing up to work. Today, that ward is closed."
This is where I had to ask the million dollar question: "What were you doing within yourself that caused those people to change?"
"I was simply healing the part of me that created them,” he said. I didn’t understand. Dr. Len explained that total responsibility for your life means that everything in your life--simply because it is in your life--is your responsibility. In a literal sense the entire world is your creation.
Whew. This is tough to swallow. Being responsible for what I say or do is one thing. Being responsible for what everyone in my life says or does is quite another. Yet, the truth is this: if you take complete responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility because it is in your life. This means that terrorist activity, the president, the economy or anything you experience and don’t like--is up for you to heal. They don’t exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections from inside you. The problem isn’t with them, it’s with you, and to change them, you have to change you.
I know this is tough to grasp, let alone accept or actually live. Blame is far easier than total responsibility, but as I spoke with Dr. Len, I began to realize that healing for him and in ho ‘oponopono means loving yourself.If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you want to cure anyone, even a mentally ill criminal you do it by healing you.
I asked Dr. Len how he went about healing himself. What was he doing, exactly, when he looked at those patients" files?"I just kept saying, ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I love you’ over and over again,” he explained.
"That’s it?”
"That’s it.”
Turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve yourself, and as you improve yourself, you improve your world. Let me give you a quick example of how this works: one day, someone sent me an email that upset me. In the past I would have handled it by working on my emotional hot buttons or by trying to reason with the person who sent the nasty message.This time, I decided to try Dr. Len’s method. I kept silently saying, "I’m sorry" and "I love you," I didn’t say it to anyone in particular. I was simply evoking the spirit of love to heal within me what was creating the outer circumstance.
Within an hour I got an e-mail from the same person. He apologized for his previous message. Keep in mind that I didn’t take any outward action to get that apology. I didn’t even write him back. Yet, by saying "I love you," I somehow healed within me what was creating him.
I later attended a ho ‘oponopono workshop run by Dr. Len. He’s now 70 years old, considered a grandfatherly shaman, and is somewhat reclusive.He praised my book, The Attractor Factor. He told me that as I improve myself, my book’s vibration will raise, and everyone will feel it when they read it. In short, as I improve, my readers will improve.
"What about the books that are already sold and out there?" I asked.
"They aren’t out there," he explained, once again blowing my mind with his mystic wisdom. "They are still in you." In short, there is no out there. It would take a whole book to explain this advanced technique with the depth it deserves."
Suffice it to say that whenever you want to improve anything in your life, there’s only one place to look: inside you. When you look, do it with love.
"The words of Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len:" Ho'oponopono is really very simple. For the ancient Hawaiians, all problems begin as thought. But having a thought is not the problem. So what's the problem? The problem is that all our thoughts are imbued with painful memories, memories of persons, places, or things. The intellect working alone can't solve these problems, because the intellect only manages. Managing things is no way to solve problems. You want to let them go! When you do Ho'oponopono, what happens is that the Divinity takes the painful thought and neutralizes or purifies it. You don't purify the person, place, or thing. You neutralize the energy you associate with that person, place, or thing. So the first stage of Ho'oponopono is the purification of that energy. Now something wonderful happens. Not only does that energy get neutralized; it also gets released, so there's a brand new slate. Buddhists call it the Void. The final step is that you allow the Divinity to come in and fill the void with light.
To do Ho'oponopono, you don't have to know what the problem or error is. All you have to do is notice any problem you are experiencing physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever. Once you notice, your responsibility is to immediately begin to clean, to say, "I'm sorry. Please forgive me."
I have started changing the way that I think about my life and using the principles of healing myself in order to heal the situations in my life. In less than a week this is what has shifted in my life: I have been focusing on mending a relationship with a person and that person texted me this morning after about 7 mos of no communication. I have also been focusing on mending a once good relationship with my boss; we are now getting along better than we have in ~6 mos.
The next part of this story answers one of the long-standing questions that I have had about three of the past life readings that I have done. I have seen three Egyptian past lives in which there was a figure sitting on the side of a cliff above a crowd of people healing the crowd as the crowd sent the healer its problems.
Incidentally one of these readings occured days after I read Joe Vitale's story (see story below). This young lady was female and one of these healers in 3rd century B.C. Egypt (she lived somewhere between the three major monuments-the Sphinx, Great Pyramid, etc). Through her lifetime I saw that she apprenticed to do this job and that in her lifetime she was disappointed because as her career progressed her post healer was not as revered as it had been by previous generations. In fact she was one of the last healers of this kind.
Although I did not get the intimate details of how she healed I think that Ho'oponopono and this form of healing could be linked.
I have studied Hawaiian mysticism and teach a form of Hawaiian energy work (see www.rhondaobrien.com) and know that there was a group of Egyptians that migrated to Molok’ai (one of the Hawaiian islands). It makes perfect sense to me that both Hawaii and Egypt share beliefs and/or practices one of which could be this belief that by healing yourself you can heal others.
I am empowered by this story and see that these once powerful healers could once again set up "shop" and help others, many others to heal. It gives me great hope for the future.
Please enjoy the story below; I certainly did. I think that it will be awhile before I stop thinking about it. Hopefully it will continue to impact me from this day forward:
HO’OPONOPONO by Joe Vitale
Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a complete ward of criminally insane patients--without ever seeing any of them. The psychologist would study an inmate"s chart and then look within himself to see how he created that person’s illness. As he improved himself, the patient improved.
When I first heard this story, I thought it was an urban legend. How could anyone heal anyone else by healing himself? How could even the best self-improvement master cure the criminally insane? It didn"t make any sense. It wasn’t logical, so I dismissed the story.
However, I heard it again a year later. I heard that the therapist had used a Hawaiian healing process called ho ‘oponopono. I had never heard of it, yet I couldn"t let it leave my mind. If the story was at all true, I had to know more. I had always understood "total responsibility" to mean that I am responsible for what I think and do. Beyond that, it’s out of my hands. I think that most people think of total responsibility that way. We"re responsible for what we do, not what anyone else does--but that’s wrong.
The Hawaiian therapist who healed those mentally ill people would teach me an advanced new perspective about total responsibility. His name is Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. We probably spent an hour talking on our first phone call. I asked him to tell me the complete story of his work as a therapist.He explained that he worked at Hawaii State Hospital for four years. That ward where they kept the criminally insane was dangerous.
Psychologists quit on a monthly basis. The staff called in sick a lot or simply quit. People would walk through that ward with their backs against the wall, afraid of being attacked by patients. It was not a pleasant place to live, work, or visit.
Dr. Len told me that he never saw patients. He agreed to have an office and to review their files. While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal."After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being allowed to walk freely,” he told me. "Others who had to be heavily medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no chance of ever being released were being freed." I was in awe. "Not only that," he went on, "but the staff began to enjoy coming to work.
Absenteeism and turnover disappeared. We ended up with more staff than we needed because patients were being released, and all the staff was showing up to work. Today, that ward is closed."
This is where I had to ask the million dollar question: "What were you doing within yourself that caused those people to change?"
"I was simply healing the part of me that created them,” he said. I didn’t understand. Dr. Len explained that total responsibility for your life means that everything in your life--simply because it is in your life--is your responsibility. In a literal sense the entire world is your creation.
Whew. This is tough to swallow. Being responsible for what I say or do is one thing. Being responsible for what everyone in my life says or does is quite another. Yet, the truth is this: if you take complete responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility because it is in your life. This means that terrorist activity, the president, the economy or anything you experience and don’t like--is up for you to heal. They don’t exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections from inside you. The problem isn’t with them, it’s with you, and to change them, you have to change you.
I know this is tough to grasp, let alone accept or actually live. Blame is far easier than total responsibility, but as I spoke with Dr. Len, I began to realize that healing for him and in ho ‘oponopono means loving yourself.If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you want to cure anyone, even a mentally ill criminal you do it by healing you.
I asked Dr. Len how he went about healing himself. What was he doing, exactly, when he looked at those patients" files?"I just kept saying, ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I love you’ over and over again,” he explained.
"That’s it?”
"That’s it.”
Turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve yourself, and as you improve yourself, you improve your world. Let me give you a quick example of how this works: one day, someone sent me an email that upset me. In the past I would have handled it by working on my emotional hot buttons or by trying to reason with the person who sent the nasty message.This time, I decided to try Dr. Len’s method. I kept silently saying, "I’m sorry" and "I love you," I didn’t say it to anyone in particular. I was simply evoking the spirit of love to heal within me what was creating the outer circumstance.
Within an hour I got an e-mail from the same person. He apologized for his previous message. Keep in mind that I didn’t take any outward action to get that apology. I didn’t even write him back. Yet, by saying "I love you," I somehow healed within me what was creating him.
I later attended a ho ‘oponopono workshop run by Dr. Len. He’s now 70 years old, considered a grandfatherly shaman, and is somewhat reclusive.He praised my book, The Attractor Factor. He told me that as I improve myself, my book’s vibration will raise, and everyone will feel it when they read it. In short, as I improve, my readers will improve.
"What about the books that are already sold and out there?" I asked.
"They aren’t out there," he explained, once again blowing my mind with his mystic wisdom. "They are still in you." In short, there is no out there. It would take a whole book to explain this advanced technique with the depth it deserves."
Suffice it to say that whenever you want to improve anything in your life, there’s only one place to look: inside you. When you look, do it with love.
"The words of Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len:" Ho'oponopono is really very simple. For the ancient Hawaiians, all problems begin as thought. But having a thought is not the problem. So what's the problem? The problem is that all our thoughts are imbued with painful memories, memories of persons, places, or things. The intellect working alone can't solve these problems, because the intellect only manages. Managing things is no way to solve problems. You want to let them go! When you do Ho'oponopono, what happens is that the Divinity takes the painful thought and neutralizes or purifies it. You don't purify the person, place, or thing. You neutralize the energy you associate with that person, place, or thing. So the first stage of Ho'oponopono is the purification of that energy. Now something wonderful happens. Not only does that energy get neutralized; it also gets released, so there's a brand new slate. Buddhists call it the Void. The final step is that you allow the Divinity to come in and fill the void with light.
To do Ho'oponopono, you don't have to know what the problem or error is. All you have to do is notice any problem you are experiencing physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever. Once you notice, your responsibility is to immediately begin to clean, to say, "I'm sorry. Please forgive me."
0 comments:
Post a Comment