Gratitude & Ho'oponopono

"And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more." (Doctrine and Covenants 78:19)

Ah...life is wonderful and magical and awesome and amazing and fantastic!

And the best part is...it just keeps getting better and better!!!! :o)

Over the past several months someting called Ho'oponopono has been showing up in my life.

I first heard of Ho'oponopono through an article by Joe Vitale (one of the teachers of The Secret). It is an ancient Hawaiian forgiveness ritual that consists of simply saying the phrases "I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you." over and over again.

The idea is that who we are and what we do affects everything everywhere. Therefore, if we see something undesirable, we need to take responsibility for the part of us that created that undesirable thing.

Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, the therapist that Joe Vitale had encountered, says:

I operate my life and my relationships according to the following insights:

1. The physical universe is an actualization of my thoughts.
2. If my thoughts are cancerous, they create a cancerous physical reality.
3. If my thoughts are perfect, they create a physical reality brimming with LOVE.
4. I am 100% responsible for creating my physical universe the way it is.
5. I am 100% responsible for correcting the cancerous thoughts that create a diseased reality. 6. There is no such thing as out there. Everything exists as thoughts in my mind.

(http://www.hooponopono.org/Articles/self_i-dentity.html )

Though this kept show up in my life (I kept running across websites, getting emails about it, etc.), I honestly wasn't sure it would work, and I had some pretty deep issues with the idea of being "responsible." After all, one of the things that kept me so stressed out for so many years was that I thought I was reponsible for everything! I honestly felt that if I did not personally hold the world up, it would come crashing down. Part of my healing has been to learn to "let go and let God," as they say, so the task of actually taking responsibility back on myself was pretty uncomfortable.

Still, I had a situation this morning where I could see clearly the posibility that I had contributed or caused what had happened, so I decided to give it a try.

Let me just say that not only did it work, but the SPEED with which it worked nearly knocked me to the ground!!! (Actually, it DID knock me to the ground in praise and gratitude...!)

Here's the story...

My 7yo daughter came into my bedroom this morning at 7:30am. This is unusual in itself--not only does she rarely come in the room in the morning, but she rarely gets up that early. She walked in, clearly upset about something and climbed into bed with us.

As we talked to her, she was so incoherent that we thought she might be sleepwalking--but she wasn't. She was upset that she had set her alarm but wasn't able to get out of bed, and now she was going to be late to school. (None of this was true--in fact, she HAD gotten out of bed, obviously, and there was plenty of time to get ready for school.) But what struck me about her was that she just seemed so DEPRESSED...sooooo sad. She said her tummy hurt, but I chalked it up to the anguish.

She could barely get dressed, she hardly ate any breakfast, and when she spilled on her shirt and had to change, she just sat on her bed kind of a trance. She said she didn't want to go to school this morning, but maybe she would go this afternoon. I told her that would be fine, and she crawled back in bed.

My husband took my son to the bus stop, and when he returned, I told him what had happened. We had a fairly long discussion about hormones (she's only 7) and depression and the fact that we didn't want to set a precedent by giving attention to a bad mood--it would just spiral as she grew older!

Anyway, I said I would talk to her about it, and my husband left for work.

After he left, the thought occurred to me that perhaps I had contributed to her behavior. After all, I have noticed that whenever I am in a good mood, my kids are in a good mood. Whenever I am grumpy, they are grumpy. In fact, my kids are a perfect reflection of how I am feeling at any given moment.

But it didn't make any sense. Far from being grumpy or depressed, I have spent the last several weeks in a state of utter elation!

Still, I opened up my mind to the possibility that I had some responsibility for her condition. And because of that, I saw that it was the perfect opportunity to experience ho'oponopono.

I went in my room and thought of her. I repeated the phrases maybe 4 or 5 times, each time concentrating on healing the part of myself that was causing this in her.

Almost immediately, she called me to her room. She was throwing up.

I got her and the bed cleaned up, and I noticed that she was immediately happy and chipper. Literally, it was like she was her regular self again. I was astounded!!! After I got her taken care of, I fell to my knees in praise and gratitude. Will I ever cease to be amazed at how wonderful and powerful I am in this perfect universe?

It is now 2 hours later, and there is no sign that she was ever sick.

"My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise." (Psalm 57:7)