Ho'opono opono Healing Prayer

One of the most important yet misinterpreted virtues is that of humility.  Being humble in this day and age is misconstrued as weakness but that couldn't be farther from the truth.  It takes IMMENSE humility, courage and love to admit that we are sometimes less than we could be, worse than we should be, or too proud to be what we would be - if we were walking in humility.

To walk in humility is to put others first and ourselves last.  It doesn't seem to gel with the world in its current state or paradigm.  The current paradigm is all about greed and arrogance, and do unto others before they do unto you.  Just how much can we obtain for ourselves, even hoarding things or resources for our immediate or long-term survival, and actually live peacefully?  Well, we all know money can't buy love or happiness and we've seen enough wars to know that, right now, this is the mantra for many and for many, it is creating a void that is leading to some very interesting behavior.  How could money ever bring peace to the Spirit that lives within the human body?  It cannot.  Spirit has little use for these things unless we are giving them away to others less fortunate....then they become real spiritual gifts that return way more than they could ever give.  Humility gives.  Pride hoards and we've seen the damage this has done and it might just take another lifetime to undo and unlearn all that's been taught in the spirit of success, wealth, beauty and fame,  If any of those things had any real value the ones with the most of it wouldn't live in such fear of losing it all.  If those things had any real power the whole world would be cared for, elevated, and fed.   Just look at our nursing homes in the USA.  Get to a certain point in this paradigm and you are no longer useful for anything other than sitting in a chair with wheels staring out a window and a street sign that says One Way.  Oh, surely there is more than one way.  Question becomes, 'can we get out of our own way' long enough to contemplate the really profitable choices like humility?

While arrogance, greed and pride can come with what seems like power - it is fleeting.  Someone will always be stronger, hungrier, more prideful and so the competition goes.  Who has the power?  Who is losing it?  Who is gaining it?  And for what?  What is the purpose of all of this power?  Perhaps just like anger can lead a soul to peace, this kind of power can lead to giving if the human only look into the margin of the mirror.  The margin contains all that is stored up.  All of the things we don't want to look at are there behind us, beside us, in front and behind but as long as we stare at our own reflection we are distracted from the light that illuminates us - all of us, good, bad and ugly.  Take your gaze off of yourself.  Look at your brothers and sisters, our suffering earth and animals.  Look at your heart and how you have contributed to this destruction and if so inspired, make some changes.

For me, my personal inventory of what was in my margin led me to the wonderful Hawaiian Ho'opono opono healing prayer.  Thankfully, I had help in obtaining this spiritual guidance.  You must surround yourself with Spirit filled people...what you need comes.  Broaden your horizon.  You will find what you seek and I found it just in time.

We've all had magnificent pasts that have helped us, healed us and hurt us.  It's holding onto the hurt and disappointment that creates ill in the body, the mind, the spirit, and our world.  Bitterness, holding onto grudges, past offenses, not seeing people especially oneself as fallible, all lead to illusion, separation, confusion and God does not live there.  

New International Version - 1st Corinthians 14:33

For God is not a God of disorder but of peace--as in all the congregations of the Lord's people.

Humility can be a very hard concept for some and I think it should be a class in school throughout our entire tenure.  We should learn about Humility before anything else and as a magnificent side dish there should also be a class called Forgiveness.  We, as humans, need as much spiritual guidance as we can get to make clear the illusion of separateness.  We think we're better than some people.  We think we're smarter than some people.  We think so many thoughts that separate and feed the illusion, but when you prayerfully contemplate existence there is an overwhelming love and peace that prevails inside that the outside just doesn't match up to.  It's contrary.  You deeply FEEL the truth that love is the bottom line not greed, success or wealth.  Real connectedness is profoundly humbling.  It's beautiful to contemplate.  But, there are still those that hold on so tightly to what they've obtained that surely they will lose their grip or their grip will be loosened for them.  This is not the way.  This is not the truth of real peace and tranquility.   If it were, I would know.  I would totally be all in as I am with Spirit.  I've seen fame, fortune and success.  It is not the way, in my humble opinion.  And while I am not famous I am wealthy in Spirit and consider that a great success.  You define it for yourself.   I'd be really honest if I were you.  Take a good look in the margins.  What do you live for?   Who do you live for?

I live for God.  Period.  I aspire to please God, not men.  I aspire to reach the heights of a virtuous life.  I want my companions to be of the light, Godly, inspired, fast to forgive, quick to love, quick to share.  I want to help everyone reach the heights of pure love, pure compassion, pure joy.  It is possible to reach this exquisite paradigm in your heart.  I have and I strive to stay there every single day and trust me, with this type of statement, the tests and trials come.  Oh boy, do they come and that's why this prayer came to me.  Just in time, not a second too soon.  If it had come to me sooner, I might have disregarded it.  I wasn't ready.  Are you?

It takes a truly humble heart to pray this amazing prayer.  I could not just describe this prayer without first setting the foundation as to why we should be humble to begin with.  Perhaps you've been persuaded by the illusion?  Perhaps you are wreaking havoc in your own life as you struggle with the anxious feelings of not having enough friends, love, money, power, fame, or even time left?  That's a wrestling match we will always lose.  When you place your trust outside of yourself how will you ever be satiated?  Who has ever been truly satisfied with what the world offers?  The world is at odds with the Spirit on so many levels yet when you tap into Spirit you are given eyes to see the world as it really is and you start to tread much lighter on her, on others, on yourself.  You can no longer dwell in self service you can only rise to serve others, and one of the first ways is humility which leads to forgiveness.  How do I know?  Because I am so very human seeking super spiritual power.  Humility and forgiveness are indeed supernatural, super powerful, super Spiritual.  It's when you finally settle into searching your heart that this prayer becomes one of the most powerful healing resources you'll ever come across.  Are you ready to forgive yourself?

Ego may answer that question with 'what have I done'?  'What do I have to be sorry for'?  That is not Spirit.  That is ego.  Your highest self knows emphatically that you are a fallible human being and you have some stuff in the margins.  Only a fool would think their hands are clean.  Everyday, in every way, we offend ourselves and others.  Every single day.  I pity the fool who thinks otherwise and I also pity the fool who thinks this is a waste of time.  This is the most profitable way to spend your human lifetime because it leads to virtues that indeed, the soul takes with it when it leaves this school of life and this body.  What will be in your soul when you leave this planet?  If you don't like what you see perhaps this prayer is for you, as it is for me.

I'm sorry.

Please forgive me.

I love you.

Thank you.

As defined in the Hawaiian Dictionary through Wikipedia:

Literally, hoʻo is a particle used to make an actualizing verb from the following noun, as would "to" before a noun in English. Here, it creates a verb from the noun pono, which is defined as

...goodness, uprightness, morality, moral qualities, correct or proper procedure, excellence, well-being, prosperity, welfare, benefit, true condition or nature, duty; moral, fitting, proper, righteous, right, upright, just, virtuous, fair, beneficial, successful, in perfect order, accurate, correct, eased, relieved; should, ought, must, necessary.

Ponopono is defined as "to put to rights; to put in order or shape, correct, revise, adjust, amend, regulate, arrange, rectify, tidy up, make orderly or neat".

That's it.  Simple yet profoundly difficult for some.  It was difficult for me for quite a while until I understood that peace lives inside of me, not outside in the approval of others and anything that I'm holding onto is preventing me from moving forward with grace, love and tenderness.  While I want everyone to love me, not everyone does, and that's okay but it's not okay for me not to love me, or them.  I was so self destructive for so long believing that I was unlovable, unworthy, and just not good enough because of a few people in my life who just did not have anything of true value to give to me.  I held onto this need thinking that this is the way it is, we obtain this esteem from others but that is not the case.  I have all the self esteem in the world now and it depends on a much higher source of inspiration, One that never let's me down, ever.  God's grace is sufficient for me but I wouldn't mind a few more super spiritual humans in my life.  Perhaps offering this prayer out into the ether will bring them closer to me.  I am ever hopeful.

Your energy is felt long before your words are spoken and grateful is the heart that hears the words the heart needs to hear.  Perhaps your heart needs to hear these words today from yourself, or from someone else.  Start with yourself as I did.  Forgive yourself for all of it.  ALL OF IT.  Then you will begin to see the bridge that gaps the divide of the illusion of separation.  Then, you can forgive others effortlessly and easily and the proof will be in the fruit you produce.  You cannot harvest hate and love at the same time.  The immediate harvest of love is the grace that flows through a forgiving heart.  Humility melts the hardest heart.  It melted mine and it will melt yours as well.

There is real healing power in this prayer, and in the heart of the human whose focused intention is to forgive self and others through immense humility.  It becomes increasingly more difficult to perpetuate what you once thought of as profitable.  Once you've crossed this threshold, what once deeply offended you becomes much easier to rise above and transmute into love.  Once you've prayed this prayer to yourself, you learn to pray it to everyone and then, you can navigate your way to true peace and tranquility.  The last leg of this journey is honoring all the virtues that you may have offended;  Peace, Consciousness, Gratitude, Unity, Kindness, Holiness, Harmony, Compassion, Healing, just to name a few.

Imagine forgiving yourself for all and starting fresh.  Imagine forgiving everyone for everything and erasing your memory of these offenses.  Doesn't that sound amazing?  It is.

Imagine being the peace.  Imagine being the love.  Imagine being the harmony.  All of these virtues, and many more will fill your spiritual bag of resources and you become a brighter light that beckons peace, love and harmony.  You couldn't prevent peace if you wanted to.  You just are the peace through love and humility and peace begets peace.

This is the way. ~*~

Namaste,
Reiki Master Ree

Bringing Relationships to Light

Relationships can be tricky.  Navigating the right words and emotions sometimes is a bit of a pain in the ass.  Get it wrong and someones going to be 'mad' at you.  Get it right and the rewards are love, devotion, respect and happiness.

I find myself saying 'I work hard' at relationships a lot.  I often think long and hard about what people say to me, as well as what I say to them, but oftentimes I have felt misunderstood.

Interesting that I never really feel misunderstood in business.  Business, especially really good business, has it's parameters and business people learn to navigate within them.  It's pretty simple really and I really love it.  I get a tremendous amount of respect from my customers because I give them a tremendous amount of respect.  I give them exactly what they call me for and the 'relationships' are happy ones.  Of course occasionally a customer will call with a complaint and I leap to the challenge to win them back over.  I have a very successful turnover rate thus far and as I type these words, I am looking forward to the opportunity to do it all over again tomorrow.

However, there is an emptiness associated with this 'misunderstood' feeling and I am learning to disassociate and disconnect from the expectations that come with feelings.  It's not that important that I feel misunderstood.  What's important is that I lead with love always and patch up and spackle any cracks or feelings that would steal that love.  Forgiveness for feeling offended and love for the broken heart.  I've had a broken heart most of my life because of one relationship or another.  The time has come to change the outcome, the expectation, and the feelings.

As I look back over my relationships, I realize that I had a deep need for love (as most of us do) but perhaps mine was a little more intense due to my earliest definitions of love and devotion.  My experience coming from a broken family left my expectations in turmoil.  I navigated relationships poorly constantly coming from a place of deep need.  I lived that way for most of life perhaps up until most recently.  These past few years have brought many bad habits to light for me and my inner most being rises to the surface as being the most important relationship that I have ever needed to learn to navigate.  Getting to know oneself is the most important relationship because once you truly know yourself, you can give to others in a way that is selfless, needless but filled with love, respect, devotion and happiness.  That's all I've ever wanted in my relationships ultimately but having that want can lead to disappointment.  I now realize that loving yourself, nurturing yourself, understanding why you do what you do, letting go of past hurts, forgiving others, all of these things lead to a better you and a better you in a relationship.

A clean slate, an open heart and boundaries are something I rarely started with in the past but it's how I wake up every morning now.  I embrace the newness of day and opportunity and although yesterday may have been a bear for one reason or another, the new day presents a chance to breathe differently, pray more effectively, release more expectations and dream cleaner visions for myself and others.  When you come from a place of hurt or brokenness, your expectations are cloudy, never fulfilled and disappointment is the order of the day.  When you release all of that and embrace openness you realize that even if the other person never even notices you, you do not have to buckle under unmet expectations, you notice yourself.  You love and nurture yourself and more importantly, you set boundaries.  You adjust the flow of qi in your life in a sense.  If you focus on energy that is negative or of a really low vibration - like anger, or sadness, that energy will be more prevalent.  The opposite of that is also true and so much more beneficial.

Every toxic word or deed that has ever been said or done to you that has hurt you deeply, you can release.  You can create a space where pain used to reside.  You can change that energy to something healing instead of something draining and capable of creating sickness.  Every toxic word that you have ever said or deed you have ever done, you can forgive yourself for and if you need to, apologize for.  Humility is salve to a multitude of wounds.  Forgiveness is the bandage and love is the result all within the boundaries that you set in your relationships. 

Why boundaries? 

Because everyone is on a different part of the journey.  Not everyone understands that expectations lead to disappointments.  Not everyone understands that love is the higher law.  Not everyone will embrace your thoughts and emotions as good, as accurate or in some dire relationships, necessary.  Those are the ones you need to really set boundaries with.  Love your neighbor, your family, your friends, but don't yoke up to them if they have a habit of invading your space in a way that is toxic.  Plain and simple.  Change the way you respond and you will get a different result.

Of course, most of this wouldn't even be an issue if people were more honest with themselves and if they were more interested in the pursuit of mind, body, spirit-evolution.  Some people are more on a journey than others.  Unfortunately, we all have people around us that are not even aware that transcendence is a reality and something to be searched for.  For some, they've carved out a hollow that allows only a very small amount of light to illuminate.  These relationships rarely evolve, perhaps too much auto-pilot role playing.  Honesty and humility however, can bring all of these bad habits to light and relationships can evolve because people can evolve.

I am living proof that you can change and you can overcome just about anything.  Love yourself first and the energy that flows from you will be illuminating.

I Cherish The Day

I cherish the day and deep breaths that I find myself taking.

I feel like I've been working non-stop, and it's such good work that I can't and won't complain. Truth be told, I have nothing to complain about and why should I be looking for something to complain about? I'm healthy, I'm working, I'm prayerful, I'm alive...funny how our society can be so bitter that we look for the problems instead of the blessings.

If we spent more time focused on blessings and light, we wouldn't even notice or realize that there were any problems. I've been working my whole life on one thing or another, but I don't think I've ever enjoyed it more now. Perspective perhaps.

God knew what I needed way before I did because I landed in quite a sweet spot. I really do have what I have because God has given it to me. I will always give God the glory for all things in my life, good and maybe not so good. Bad? Nah. Challenges? Yes, definitely. Some seem quite insurmountable, "seem" being the operative word here.

Things are always only what they 'seem' to be, so why shouldn't I see them as moveable?

I believe that all things are possible through Christ, through the light of God, through the universal life force energy that we are, so I believe that nothing is impossible.

I realize with that thought process, it's much easier to 'cherish the day'. Most people do not think this way I've come to find and I'm not quite sure why not, but speaking only for myself, I do have a large amount of faith in that which I cannot see.

Scripture says that to each a portion shall be given and I think it's important to respect that portion and develop it into more. So, through my portion of faith I truly believe that I can make a difference. I truly believe that I can manifest anything that I want if I work hard enough at it and if God is in it and for it. If God be for me, who (or what) can be against me?

In my life, I can testify that if God was in it - my path was made straight and direct. Sometimes miraculously so, especially with this most recent acquisition of blessings in my life. Just a humble job, but is there really any such thing?

Perspective.

For me, I imagine it, envision it, feel and sense it - it's there if I want it to be - the possibility that is and when I focus on that and play with that - the universe and God get in line with it and bless my circumstances to bring that which I am manifesting into reality. Can you hear me?

The rest? Well, there are many parameters when it comes to the power of attraction but let's just say that if you need a friend, and you envision a friend, and you pray for a friend, you just might get one.

I overcome and I learn so much about myself in the process of dreaming, hoping, growing and learning some hard life lessons. I've always had growing pains, I've been here before and I'll be here again as long as I have the desire to be the best I can be in my spirit first, my mind second and my body last, but certainly not least (and I know that on some level all things are equal).

I realize that refining is a continual process and because things have changed so drastically for me in my personal life recently, I know from experience and living this faith filled life that there is so much more that I can't see that I'm growing into, that I'm manifesting, that God is giving to me.

I believe in balance. I won't be afraid.

Life is what you make of it.