Angry? Get over yourself!
What do you do when you feel irritated or angry? The kind of situation where it’s impossible or inappropriate to express how you feel. A family dynamic you have no control over, a boss who is demanding and illogical in their demands, a feud or longterm disagreement that rumbles between you and a loved one, unresolved disputes or small day-to-day annoyances… Here’s an age-old Hawaiian ritual, ho’oponopono, that allows you to achieve acceptance in such situations. To be peaceful in agreeing to disagree with who whoever and whatever is making you angry. It disperses those pent-up emotions and stops you harbouring self-destructive ‘stuff’
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When you are confronted with a conflict and find yourself reacting violently, what do you do? Exercise, drink, sulk and feel hard done by, shout and then regret venting your spleen…? We’ve all done it. But here is a much healthier way to disperse your angry and carry on. Ho’oponopono is an ancient Hawaiian shamanic tradition used for generations as a process of atonement or reconciliation among individuals of the same family or community. It clears your consciousness of negative memories and dysfunctional programming and grants you forgiveness, peace and love (not least self-love).
It’s simple!
All you have to do is repeat these phrases to yourself in the order they are written here – aloud or silently, it doesn’t matter:
I’m sorry
Forgive me
Thank you
I love you
Say them several times and you will feel a sense of calm descend. You have no expectations about what is happening – the magic of ho’oponopono is you achieve inner peace.
What do these words mean?
- ‘I’m sorry’ is acknowledgement that I created whatever pain I’ve caused or errors I’ve made.
- ‘Forgive me’ because I did not know I had that inside me.
- ‘Thank you’ for allowing me to release and cleanse this memory,
- ‘I love you’ meaning… ‘I love me’. Forgiving others starts with loving yourself.
The ho’oponopono process
The principle underlying ho’oponopono is that no one is a victim of their circumstances: we are the creators of 100% of what befalls us. Sceptical? This is definitely a concept that’s difficult to accept and maintain in our culture.
But think about it… all that takes place in your life – events, meetings, where you live, journeys – is created by your memories. They are guiding your life by remote control. If you are not careful they are programming you to react in a certain way, think erroneously, stay in a groove of negativity. Your memories are holding you back.
Ho’oponopono permits you to ‘cleanse’ yourself of your memories. They are in themselves intrinsically neither bad nor good – it’s your judgement on them that invests the emotion into your past experiences. You begin ho’oponopono mantras with ‘I’m sorry’ because when you got angry you were unaware you carried that memory, that potential for negative anger, inside yourself.
The Ho’oponopono process is to forgive yourself, thank yourself and send yourself love
The power of thoughts
Our beliefs and values come from our parents and earliest childhood, but they can be altered, transformed or erased. This is one of the beauties of ho’oponopono – it can free you from our self-limiting baggage inherited from our past.
There is a large body of evidence that proves the influence of human thought on the body. Take the placebo effect: yes, if you think you’re going to get better after taking a pill you may well get better.
Our thoughts affect the molecular structure of our cells. Japanese alternative practitioner/scientist Masaru Emoto proved this in his amazing photographs of ice crystals exposed to different environments, from music, to pollution, to the human voice, to our thoughts. Published in The Hidden Messages from Water, they demonstrate that your own thoughts can alter the structure of the water in your body, and as we’re made up of over 60% water any negativity you manifest could be seriously affecting your whole system and health.
Sending out positivity to others can also have an effect. A study at New York Columbia University in 2001 showed that when people prayed for a group of Korean women who were having difficulty getting pregnant their IVF results improved. The pregnancy rate rose from 26% to 50% in those who had prayers sent to them, even though the beneficiaries were unaware they were being prayed for.
Research also proves that happiness is contagious. A 20-year study of 4,739 people from 1983 to 2003 showed that emotions like happiness can be transmitted to others, whether they are present or not (Fowler and Christakis, Dynamic Spread of Happiness). Groups of happy or unhappy people were identified, and the study’s authors then observed that happiness could spread, not only from person to person but also to friends of friends. They even established that if a person had a friend living within a mile who was happy, it increased their probability of experiencing feelings of happiness by 25%.
Your subconscious does not distinguish between real and imaginary, or between action and thought. Smile, even if you don’t feel smiley, and the body will produce endorphins (the hormones we produce when we are happy or after exercise which also act like opioids, or painkillers). MRI scans show that the same zones of the brain are activated whether we perform an action ourselves or watch someone else performing that action, or even when we imagine or visualise performing that action.
It takes practice! A personal message from Sue Leach, owner of The Hub
You may not subscribe to some of these beliefs, and find them hard to fathom. So did I a few years ago! But I discovered that the practice of ho’oponopono benefits me enormously. Sometimes I am not very good at voicing my irritations, I bottle up the emotions. Sometimes I harbour irritation – occasionally not even realising I am cross until later – and allow it to fester so that it becomes bigger than the original event. When I repeat those words, I’m sorry-forgive me-thank you-I love-you, they are like a balm soothing the toxic thought patterns I’ve got myself locked into it. It does take practice, ho’oponopono, but I thoroughly recommend it!
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