What If Thoughts Were Like Baseballs- Ho'oponopono Practice

I have collected many tools to heal the way I see and perceive the world, from complicated to simple. Ho’oponopono practice has been a deeply appreciated addition to my spiritual healing toolbox. Recently, I attended a seminar in Huna practice, (Ancient Hawaiian mysticism mixed with modern western psychology,) and it has healed a world of hurts.

Ho’oponopono is a Hawaiian word, a practice and a philosophy. The direct translation is: “To make right, to rectify an error.” Most of my errors are in the way I see and perceive the world, and thus my behaviors stem from those misperceptions.

The way I see it, Huna philosophy strongly believes that the way we perceive the world is solely our responsibility. The world is here and occurs to us, specifically based on the way we view it, percieve it and think about it. Both the lovely and the not so lovely, are products of our beliefs and memories.

Apparently, our purpose is to CLEAR the stuff that is difficult to perceive and accept through the practice of Ho'oponopono. Ho'oponopono practice means saying this internally to practically everything:

I'm sorry

Please Forgive Me

Thank You

I Love You

To thank it, love it, apologize to it and ask for it's forgiveness is particpating in a grand acceptance. It is our job to NOT leave our power outside ourselves ON another person, place or circumstance, as though they have done something TO us. This proves to be a really intense new level of responsibility to take. After all, I like to blame my problems and feelings on someone or something else, as much as the next person, only it doesn't bring me joy or freedom, so I have given it up for the personal and greater good.

It does wonders for a relationship, to stop seeing and reacting to things outside of us as though it is OUT THERE, IN THE OTHER PERSON. To stop seeing and thinking that they are wrong or need to change is an incredible thing to ponder. Perhaps we don't like the way we feel around it. That is something we have control of. Maybe we don't like a hysterical reaction it evokes, that is an important message. It doesn't mean that you stay in a situation that is abusive. I believe that the abuse has more to do with what we believe or say to ourselves about the situation, than what is actually happening.

I am seeing that things OUT THERE, bring up a well of feelings and memories and interpretations INSIDE MYSELF. It provokes my awareness that I have unhealed feelings, a reservoir of sorts, that needs CLEARING. It is my responsibility to CLEAR my perception and one way to do that is with Ho'oponopono. We can love the person or situation that reflected the existence of our wounds; thank it, apologize to it, and even ask for forgiveness.

This is a silent internal process of making peace with what is. The Buddhists say that "Pain is inevitable and suffering is optional." The formula for suffering is this:

Pain + Resistance = Suffering.

Acceptance, love, release and forgiveness is our way to peace. Ho'oponopono.

When I find myself upset at my partner, it is my job to internally say, “Thank You, I Love You... as if to be thankful for the irritating circumstance for being the sand in my oyster. It is the irritating sand in the oyster that causes the oyster to form a smooth protective covering around it so as to stop it's irritation and then it forms a pearl. Our irritations are the lessons, and the protective covering is love and acceptance; it is the means with which we form pearls of wisdom.

Ho'oponopono helps us to express our gratitude for the reflection of humanity. It is as if to say, "Ok, I am done reacting now. Nothing that can ever be done, said or reflected to me can harm, hurt or endanger the real me, in any way. Thank you for throwing all of life my way so that I can CLEAR my misinterpretations and receive you with no resistance. I see what is happening and I make it mean nothing about my BEINGNESS. I thank you and love you no matter what. I am even sorry for any way I may have been, that may have influenced you behaving this way. I love you, thank you, I'm sorry, please forgive me."

It isn't always instantaneous that this works and relieves all the emotions. If my energy is low, my self care, deficient, my sleep, interrupted or unrestful, if my pain is high, my finances are stressing me out, and I am weakened, I will feel my pain and get triggered more easily. Even still, if I cannot blame anyone for my sensitivity, then I am responsible even more for not taking care of these conditions that have weakened my awareness. Ho'oponopono.

The knowledge of Huna is helping me to step away and take care of myself, process the activated feelings from my reservoir on my own or with a friend and get myself back to spiritually and physically “full” so that I can be responsible and show up the way I want to show up. It relieves the sense of entitlement to point out another’s character defects and bad behavior as though someone should do something about it or change, so as not to activate me. My trigger, shows my shortcomings. MY trigger is the issue, not the fact that someone touched the button of MY trigger, that is the problem.

Even when someone does something and I want to share that it hurts, I don't have to come from the same place I used to; the place of covert blame, disappointment or subtle control. SHOWING and sharing that I have a reservoir of pain in an area and revealing that it got touched, is the way I can take responsibility. I can reassure the other person that I am working to clear it and I am an informant of my process. This is MUCH different than communicating in order to change someone.

If I am lucky, my friends, relations and family may be working on their side of their process. I may get a loving or responsible response, I may get kindness from someone who knows of my triggers and wants to be respectful around them, but doesn’t tip toe. After all, I am human, and it’s nice that we have kindness with each other. But, I don't need them to. The work of CLEARING is my own. When I change my perception, the circumstance seems to change.

This is some of the benefit of the Ho'oponopono practice.

Apparently, simply thanking something internally when it comes up is a form of acceptance, the absence of resistance. If I see it as JUST a thought, then I can dismantle it's meaning by loving it. This is a peaceful behavior that I can control. The teachings say, you don't even have to feel it as true, or like it, you can fake it...

I say, that even faking the internal practice of saying, "thank you, I love you" is creating new grooves that move our reactivity away from pain and personalization and make a new groove of acceptance and non-reactivity. I'm working on dismantling meaning and seeing the world, people's behaviors, words and deeds the same way I would see the noise in my brain during meditation... as just another thought... just another picture, just another memory. By saying thank you, I love you; I am getting the lesson that IT IS ONLY a thought, like a cloud going by, it is gone if I don't attach to it.

I came up with a metaphor that is working wonders for me...

I see thoughts in my head (about things I see, people, judgments, things other people say and do, fears, insecurities, comparison’s, circumstances, etc.) I see them as baseballs coming at me.

If I bat the ball when it comes my way, my participation in the batting it away causes an energetic power and reaction. It hurts my body to hit it, it causes friction and reverberates through my cells. It leaves an energetic reaction. THIS IS MY RESISTANCE!

If I don't see what I am thinking, or don't see what is happening in front of me or inside of me and it is wreaking havoc on my life because I am not engaging properly, then the ball hits me square in the forehead. THIS IS MY DENIAL!

If the thoughts are coming at me and I am dodging the ball this way and that, so as not to get hit by it, and I lean off to the side so it will pass by me, and I never deal with it, it may come around again... THIS IS MY AVOIDANCE!

If the thoughts about all that is happening around me and in me come flying at me and I hold up my catchers mit and catch it, then I can thank it, and love it, even say I'm sorry to it and ask it to forgive me. I can put it in an imaginary shoot or basket where all my dismantled thoughts are, and let them go with love and compassion for them...

THIS IS MY ACCEPTANCE.

Huna philosophy says that as humans we see and experience things and collect them as memories. Some we cling to because they feel good and don't want to let them go, some we collect as evidence of our pain and our interpretations of life and we repeat them over and over. They all need to be cleared.

Huna says that our job on this earth is to clear memories.

I like to add something to the back end of that.

We are here to clear our memories so that we can remember who we truly are... beings made of the stuff of infinity...

The first law of thermodynamics states this: “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed.”

Human beings are made of 100 trillion cells which each, individually are made of 100 trillion atoms. I can't even do the math on that... This is pure energy.

Each atom is made of 99.9999999% space... and only .0000001% matter.

We are eternal. There is no way that we cannot be good enough. So all that defending, fighting, proving and trying is like trying to fill a cup that is already full.

I believe that it is my job to dismantle the false illusions I have collected like baseball cards (funny new metaphor) and dismantle their meanings. I want to play life like a game and REMOVE the bruised, covered, battered, callouses covering over my awareness of the truth. From this foundation as the rule, relationships can be so beautiful, healing and amazing.

I thank Oprah Winfrey for her plaque on her wall at work that says, "BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENERGY YOU BRING." My partner and I are both feeling so much more responsible for the energy we bring and are committed to treating each other and ourselves as precious. This creates an environment of responsibility if either one of us gets lazy, sleepy or unconscious. We wake up, take responsibility and return to the preciousness of life. Ho'oponopono.

All of these practices we have collected and are using are simply amazing tools to help remove our nightmares and veils over the truth of who we are. We are all one, made of the same substance and stuff of infinity, and we exist as slowed down versions of energy that forms into matter.

I am not a vibrational match with everyone, or want to hang out with everyone, but it is my job to clear any reactivity I have toward anyone...

I just say, Thank You I Love You, inside myself, over and over and over and over... sometimes adding I'm sorry, please forgive me... and it is a blessing beyond comprehension. Don't let the simplicity bore you, as peace takes some getting used to. Ho'oponopono.