“Well, that sure is a strange name,” I’m sure you must be wondering, “What the heck is Ho’oponopono?” “Ho’oponopono means, ‘to make right’, or to ‘rectify an error. According to the ancient Hawaiians, “error” arises from thoughts that are tainted by painful memories from the past. Ho’oponopono offers a way to release the energy of theses painful thoughts, or errors, which can cause imbalance and disease.”

So let me begin by explaining to you what my understanding of ho’oponopono is. We know that we create our life by what we believe to be true about ourselves and the world around us. The thoughts we think, as well as what we say and do arise from those beliefs. They are the tools we use to, consciously or unconsciously, create our lives. This is called the law of attraction. Therefore, we are responsible for everything that shows up in our lives, both the joys and the sorrows.

When I read the book Zero Limits by Joe Vitale, I was pretty blown away. Ho’oponopono takes accountability to a whole other level. Ho’oponopono is a Hawaiian healing method that works on the premise that we must take 100% accountability for everything and every person that shows up in our life. Whatever manifests is there because there is something inside of us that resonates with the current situation or person. As we have discussed numerous times, whatever we see on the outside of us also exists within us. How do we heal certain aspects of our lives based on this method? Do we say slews of positive affirmations to help shift the experience and create more a positive one? That definitely can help. Yet most of us know that all of the concepts in the law of attraction, like gratitude, prayer, visualization, and affirmation, don’t always work, and even when it feels like they did, there is still unfinished healing we cannot see. Ho’oponopono asks us to go deeper. There are some past memories that are so deep-rooted in our subconscious mind that we are not even aware of them. They are there, however, and no matter how much we try to apply the law of attraction, we fail to manifest fully the desired healing or outcome. These memories create blocks that may keep our dreams, hopes, healing, and desires just beyond our reach.

Joe Vitale is president of Hypnotic Marketing Inc, a marketing consulting firm. He has been called “The Buddha of the internet” for his combination of spirituality and marketing. He is also, as I mentioned, the author of the Zero Limits, a book about ho’oponopono. Through serendipitous and active searching he discovered Dr. Hew Len, who teaches about Ho’oponopono, and Joe’s life changed forever.

Dr. Hew Len offered workshops on the Hawaiian method of healing called ho’oponopono for achieving health, wealth, peace, and happiness. The reason Joe Vitale was so interested in finding Dr. Len is because of the following story. He read about a doctor who worked in a psychiatric hospital in the Ward for the criminally insane. When this doctor, Dr. Len, began working there, it was a depressing, dangerous place to be, even for the patients, and working there was nearly impossible. Recidivism with the staff as well as constant absenteeism were the norm. People walked down the hallways with their back to the walls for fear of being attacked by the patients.

When Dr. Len began working there, he started doing ho’oponopono on the patients. He looked at their charts and learned what was going on with each of them. He felt their pain within himself. “That,” he said, “was a shared memory between he and the patient.” It was a “program” that caused his patients to act the way they did. They were caught up in the “program” and were unable to heal. Dr. Len then proceeded to do the Ho’oponopono method by holding the patient’s chart in his hands and working on himself to clear the shared memory/program from himself. He never actually saw a single patient! That’s correct! Never!

The staff thought, at first, that this man must be crazy to think he can help these patients without ever having contact. However, with time, many of them became less violent and were taken off their medication. They behaved differently and got healthier and more stable. The staff started to enjoy coming to work and the turnover of employees stopped. Eventually the entire ward was shut down because there were no more patients. It sounds unbelievable, I know but according to Joe Vitale, it happened.

How does Ho’oponopono work? The first concept to understand is that everything we see, and everything we experience…everything….is inside of us. If we want to change anything, we have to do it inside not outside. Ho’oponopono teaches that 100% accountability means that we are responsible for anything and everything that shows up in our lives!! People who show up sharing their problems, or even stories of other people’s problems automatically means that their problems are our problems. The person shows up with the story or problem to offer to us an opportunity. Problems are just replayed memories of the past showing up to give us another chance to see with the eyes of love, and to act from loving inspiration.

To help heal the world and other people, all we need to do is to go inside and clean and clear all past memories or programs that are in alignment with whatever has shown up in our lives. We heal ourselves, the other person, and even potentially, a situation on the other side of the world may be healed as well.

For example, suppose we went through a bitter hurtful divorce that caused much anger and resentment in us. Years pass and we think that we left all of those negative emotions behind when we left the marriage. Yet, we continue to attract very angry people into our lives on a regular basis. Rather that blame, accuse, and judge the angry people, we realize that they keep showing up because we are still holding onto the anger, hurt, and perhaps, resentment. So, the answer then is to go within and clean whatever is in there that keeps attracting angry people to us.

I have never been to a ho’oponopono workshop but from what I understand there are other techniques you can use to practice it. However, the one in the book, Zero Limits, is this. Whenever a problem, a difficult relationship or situation has presented itself to us, we go within and clean. The way we do that is simple.

We say these words to our Creator, “I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.”

What are we sorry for that requires forgiveness? We are sorry for whatever programs or memories that resides in us that has allowed this person or situation to show up. An angry person shows up because we are angry, so we are responsible for cleaning and clearing our own anger and in doing so this person’s anger dissolves as well. Actually, in doing this enough, all problems will eventually leave the world. That’s big!

“I love you” is the code that unlocks the healing. However, we use it on us not others. Other people’s problems are our problems so working on someone else’s problems won’t help us. We have to heal ourselves because we are the source of all experiences in our lives. We don’t actually have to feel the “I love you” when we say it. It still works because our intention is there. However, after a few times of saying “I love you” we will begin to feel it.

“The universe began when nothing saw itself in the mirror.” The User Illusion by Tor Norretranders

The title of the book, Zero limits, refers to the “Zero State.” In the zero state there are no thoughts, words, deeds, memories, programs, beliefs, or anything else, just nothing! According to this theory, one day nothing saw itself in the mirror and we were born. It’s confusing, I know. From that point on, we unconsciously absorbed and accepted beliefs, programs, memories, words, deeds and more, and began creating. Believe it or not many of these go all the way back to the beginning of existence. Wow!!! That’s a lot of “stuff” to clean.

Ho’oponopono clears all of that “stuff” out…makes us squeaky clean. That is zero state! Where all of the “stuff” was, can then be filled up with Love. Only when your mind is at zero, is when we create only through loving inspiration. The mind can serve one of two masters. Either it serves our thoughts, memories etc which part of the ego, or it serves the Infinite Light of our Creator. As always, God gives us our precious free will. We can choose how to act and react in this world always. Awareness and consciousness are the tools that will allow us to choose to clean and clear all of the “stuff” so that we can serve God and live an inspired life.

One final point: What about global issues? If we must take 100% accountability, does that mean we are accountable for all the atrocities in the world? We really would like to think, “no.” However, we know that we are all connected by one divine light. Will hatred of the evil doers help heal them or the situation they create? No! Should we do whatever is necessary to stop their evil acts? Yes, we must.

Yet, at the same time, we choose to accept 100% accountability. We go inside and clean, clean, clean. We pour all of the love and forgiveness we can into the person or situation, asking God to forgive us for whatever is inside of us, while we hold this situation in our soul with the intention of healing it. What happens in your soul moment to moment happens in all souls. Wow! With so much love and forgiveness coursing through our beings, all souls will feel it and dramatic shifts will be possible, both in our lives and in the entire cosmos.

Ho’oponopono: “I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you”

[1] Excerpts from Zero Limit by Joe Vitale