Ho'oponopono And The Work

I am a nurse with a prayer: that other nurses and healers learn how to love and heal themselves.

This is a process that can be thoroughly enjoyed as nurses and other healers learn to closely watch their thoughts, which is the key to enlightenment and transformation.

Only as I heal can healing occur in my sphere of influence--which encompasses the entire planet!!

Ho'oponopono is an ongoing process of cleaning and erasing shared memories that cause pain and anguish. It's an ancient Hawaiian healing practice which recently has gained recognition.

We silently chant: I love you, Thank you, Please forgive me, I am sorry as we direct these phrases to divinity as we understand Divinity to be for ourselves.

When judgments arise, we concentrate the phrases on the judgments. And even before the judgments arise, we ceaselessly say the phrases inwardly as an inner mantra.

We may notice that fewer judgments arise.

Someone on my Ho'oponopono forum at Powerful intentions mentioned The Work by Byron Katie as an adjunct to doing Ho'oponopono.

I bought Byron Katie's first book "Loving What Is" in 2002 because of the magnetic feeling her picture radiated on the cover. At the time, I did not actually study The Work in any great detail for a variety of reasons.

Now, The Work in action is displayed on Byron Katie's website, through a series of excellent videos.

One thing I learned as a complete revelation, after viewing the videos on her website, was that a judgment is not always obvious.

A judgment acts hypnotically to trick you into thinking that your thought, which bring you misery, is the truth.

Forinstance, a person who states: "I want my cancer to stop growing" appears to be making a perfectly legitimate request.

Ofcourse. If I had cancer, I would want my cancer to stop growing, too, and so would most everyone else.

But only at first glance.

Byron Katie uses the following Inquiry to get to the heart of every thought and judgment that is causing mental pain:

1) Is it true?

2) Can you absolutely know that it is true?

3) How do you react when you think that thought?

4) Who would you be without that thought?

5) Turn it around.

The following is a transcript of the session entitled: I Want My Cancer To Stop Growing:

Byron Katie: Is it true that you want the cancer to stop growing?

Response: (after some time) Yes.

BK: So you want the cancer to stop growing. We're looking at stressful reactions, here. How do you react when you say to yourself that you want your cancer to stop growing and it continues to grow?

Response: I have panic reactions.

BK: Give me a sress free reason to keep the thought--I want the cancer to stop growing.

Response: (after some time) I'm sorry, I can't think of one.

BK: There isn't one.

So I want the cancer to stop growing. Who would you be without that thought?

Response: I would be ordinary, in my own life, just the way it is.

BK: There's 2 ways to live your life. One is stressed out and the other isn't. Either way, you are living it.

So, I want the cancer to stop growing? Turn it around---What's the opposite?

Response: I don't want my cancer to stop growing.

BK: Give me an example of how that would be true?

Response: (after some time) My cancer has opened doors I could never open on my own or I would not have easily opened.

BK: That's one. Give me another.

Response: Because it has opened my heart.

BK: That's 2 now give me another.

Response: Because I am so much more alive than I was a year ago.

(Clapping).

BK: You've found three, you can find four.

Loving what is isn't kind of liking or sort of appreciating, it is good, it is loving it all.

It's really exciting and I'm inviting you--Just one more!

Response: I've found 2 more.

BK: I'm right there with you.

Response: I don't want my cancer to stop growing because I can be more of who I am, and can be of service to others.

BK: Did you consider that one or two?

Response: It's a mix.

BK: Ok! One more!!

Response: (crying) I don't want my cancer to stop growing because I want to be the world's greatest lover for my wife.

BK: There's more. Just meditate and sit with it. More will come.

My own insight: (I don't want myself to stop growing).

Byron Katie's work can be applied to any thought we sense is holding us back.

The Work of Inquiry, as so beautifully given to us by Byron Katie, is a way to expose those tricky judgments and beliefs that imprison our minds.

Add to this Ho'oponopono and we have a powerful duo of monumental proportion.

Don't leave home without them.