Ho'oponopono (Or: How I Finally Managed to Get to "That" Place).

As mentioned in my last post, I'm taking a few months off from writing about fashion and style. After a year of attending one fashion show after another, it all started to look and feel the same and, right now, I need substance.

To be fair, it's not like I've been sitting on my ass, either. In less than a month, a dear friend of mine and I will be launching a business we've been working on, on our spare time, for the last few months. Right before the holidays we decided to get serious about it and we're mere steps away from being able to share that with everyone but I digress...

I have the attention span of a gold fish. There are few things I can do without thinking of a million other things. Surprisingly, golf is one of these activities. Sadly, given the craft that chose me, sewing is not. If I can't even stay focused enough to get through assembling a pair of pants without wandering out of my studio, imagine how hard mindfulness meditation is for me. It's not for lack of wanting, at all, but I just can't stay focused for more than two full minutes. That's the primary reason I turned to yoga and then to Tai Chi. Focusing on my breathing, while moving, seems to help and both of these make me feel great. And, while practicing these keeps the hamster wheel still, something was missing.

Toward the end of last year, I came across the name of a book three different times, without actually looking through book titles. While spending the first few days of this year in a quiet environment, out of town, I decided to order it, despite my one misgiving being the author himself. Out of all the people who co-wrote The Secret and who were featured in the film, Joe Vitale is the one guy who came across as the used car salesman of manifestation. I don't know if it's because he reminds me a little bit of Danny DeVito or because of his general lack of eloquence but he was the one guy I wasn't all that interested in listening to or reading and, here he now was, co-author of a book I found myself suddenly drawn to.

I received Zero Limits a few weeks ago and, despite the fact that its cover flashed the phrase "system for wealth", causing me to roll my eyes, I chose to focus on the words "forgiveness" and "peace" and dove in. It's all about the Hawaiian meditation method called Ho'oponopono. I'll admit, I had a hard time getting into it, at first, due to its simplicity and redundancy but, as I started to extract what it was that I needed from it, it became easier.

Here's what resonated with me: Whenever we think and act, we do so from a place of either memory or inspiration. In order to be at a place where inspiration can flow (or strike!) you can't be constantly flooded by memory. This has always been my problem with meditation. It's always been a chore to keep memory at bay but this book finally taught me how to do so.

The idea is that, when you come across a problem in your life, a memory that haunts you, a fear, etc., you first need to acknowledge the fact that it is there, as a part of your reality, because of you. You don't take blame but you take responsibility. I know a lot of people who, when hearing about this theory, call bullshit and proceed to rant about a variety of things they think should actually be blamed and about go on about how this idea is all charlatanry. I understand that. I was angry for a long time, about a lot of things and at a ot of people but it was only when I shifted my way of thinking that I began to heal.

After acknowledging this, you need to direct the following mantra to the divine and, in the process, to yourself: "I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you." I don't always like the "I'm sorry. Please forgive me," part, nor do I feel that it's always justified. That said, there are some things I really needed to direct those feelings toward. The best example? My body. I'm pretty sure it's stress that lead to the hyperthyroidism. Then I accepted to swallow 6.6 millicuries of radiation. I woke up six months later, 75 pounds heavier and really feeling ashamed of my body. It's been quite the struggle and I have taken it out on my body in a variety of ways, over the years, so, yes, I felt that an apology was required and that forgiveness, from myself, was needed. I had to look back at my love life and do the same.

The part that is easier and applies to pretty much everything in my life is the "I love you. Thank you!" part. If you say "I love you," enough to any situation, place, person or thing, you will eventually start to feel it. If you give thanks for what you have and the lessons you are learning, you eventually begin to feel grateful for all of it. There could be nothing wrong with walking around feeling love and gratitude most of the time but, even better than that, as you do this, you wipe away the negativity associated with virtually anything, be it tangible, alive or a mere memory.

It really didn't take me long to feel it, once I got started and, within two weeks, inspiration started to flow, unhindered. Whether or not this leads to wealth and success, I don't know and, to be honest, I don't care all that much. For the first time in my life, I am equipped with the tools I need to get to "that" place I couldn't reach through meditation and I'm walking around feeling good most of the time.

That's not to say I wasn't tested, pretty much right away. A phone call from a drunk, passive aggressive family member. I love you. Thank you. I love you. Ugh. I love you. Thank you... I love you. Thank you. Someone who has wronged my children and I on more than one occasion and who is a self-entitled fake finding true love and being happy. Goddamnit. I... Lurvyou. Fuck. Thank you, you cow. *sigh* I love you. Thank you. I love you. Thank you.

Some parts of the book lost me. The idea that is you fill a blue glass bottle with tap water, cap it off with a non-metal stopper and leave it in the sunshine for at least an hour means that you've great "solar water" and that this "solar water" can help you clean your heart and mind is too much for me. Have I, in the last few years, started collecting blue glass bottles and glasses? Yes. But I refuse to see synchronicity in this because that's where I draw the line.

I'm usually careful when choosing my audience. There are people in my life I know I can talk to about spirits and hypnosis and synchronicity and auras and crystals and whatnot and there are others I know I can't touch upon any of this with. In the case of Ho'oponopono, however, I don't really care who knows and, if it can help others, even better. There's nothing hocus pocus about this. It's about love, gratitude, forgiveness and having a clear heart and mind so that inspiration has room to flow. As an artist, mother and businesswoman, all of these are key to me. I've been practicing this for a little less than a month and not even every day and, so far, it has done me a world of good. How could replacing anger, disdain, hurt and fear with love not do so? If I've managed to peak curiosity in some of you, then good! And, if you've made it all the way down here by rolling your eyes from paragraph to paragraph, to you I say "I love you.".

Posted in: forgiveness,gratitude,hawaiian meditation,healing,ho'oponopono,joe vitale,love,meditation,rise above,thanks,zero limits