Healing from Hawaii
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.
Phew! 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, ‘Dear Father, I'm sorry, please forgive
me, I love you and I thank 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, ‘Dear Father, I'm sorry, please forgive me, I love you
and I thank 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.
