Healing the Soul
The invitation came unexpectedly - Would I like to be part of a healing circle the next day? Somehow I knew straightway that it was going to an unusual day, and not just because 5 planets were lining up with the Full Moon on the eastern horizon.
Just bring a plate to share for lunch were the instructions.
And it was definitely and unusual day. One to be treasured for it's effects for a long time to come.
We enjoyed the very ordinary - sitting round a table sharing our food, everyday conversation and some very down to earth stories which provoked much laughter. And woven through the ordinary, we explored the extraordinary, opening up to healing along our ancestral lines. The place itself was healed of old, deep traumas as we learnt and felt the difference between believing that the earth belongs to us and knowing that it is us who belong to the earth.
Later in a cooler part of the day sitting on the grass, we talked about damaged relationships and felt the bitterness and isolation that infuses the fractured disconnections. It was here that I first heard the story of therapist Dr Ihaleakala Hew Len.
Dr Len worked for four years on a ward for the criminally insane in the Hawaii State Hospital. Before he began working there it was a dangerous place to be for inmates, staff and visitors. It was chronically understaffed due to illness and high staff turnover. Yet within months of Dr Len's arrival the atmosphere was noticeably different. Inmates who had previously needed to be heavily medicated were having their medication reduced and even discontinued. Shackles were being removed, life was returning and staff were no longer chronically absent. It became a pleasant place to be. Eventually the ward was closed because it wasn’t needed anymore.
The really unusual thing though, is that it all changed without Dr Len seeing a single patient. He sat in his office, read through their files and worked on himself. As he read through a file, at each point where he experienced pain and distress about the patient’s story he used a version of the Hawaiian healing method, known as Ho’oponopono to heal, not the patient, but himself.
He talks of four steps which involve saying,
I’m sorry
I love you
Please forgive me
Thank you
At first I thought this meant doing an imaginary process with the other person, a bit like a dialogue where you still get a chance to judge the other person. As I read about it more
I realised that it’s not about the other person at all. This is all about you, your relationship with yourself and discovering the Divinity within.
When feeling upset, distressed or out of balance by anything at all, instead of being powerless and blaming others, turn within and explore the effects of taking 100% responsibility:
Apologise within yourself
Allow forgiveness to melt any bitterness or distress
Allow love to mend the fractures in your soul
Be truly grateful and thank yourself because you've given yourself and others an amazing gift
This is the place where healing work begins.
Life becomes a gentler place.
