Tag: law of attraction

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Recovering from emotional bankruptcy

Grief, by Kris Wiltse, for the Mixed Emotions card deck

Last Tuesday, while my son was at his father’s over spring break, I broke down. I came home from work, crawled into bed and cried, fell asleep, woke up, and then cried some more. My eyeballs felt like unhusked chestnuts from weeping, and I felt utterly depleted emotionally. It was a good thing it happened while my son was gone, because if he’d been home, I would’ve made it about him, somehow.

The problem? Maybe it’s the hormonal train wreck of my son’s adolescence and my menopause. Maybe it’s matters of the heart. Maybe it’s because I not only parent my son alone, but have started Whidbey CareNet, a nonprofit organization that provides free care for a hundred or more emergency responders on Whidbey Island. Maybe it’s because I have a 30+ hour-a-week day job, as well as two businesses (the Writer’s Refuge and Heron Lake Press) in addition to the nonprofit. Maybe it’s the fact that in providing care for a lot of people, I completely neglected to care for myself.

In any case, I had a week to pull myself together. Fortunately, several Whidbey CareNet providers have “grandmothered” me in and extend free care to me, even though I’m not an emergency responder. I received free craniosacral therapy and counseling, then went to a naturopath, who gave me a vitamin IV and prescribed supplements as well as dietary changes. I also spent time with three friends who make me feel nourished, one of whom offered me some CDs about the law of attraction.

I’ve been bah-humbugging the law of attraction since going through one of the most painful periods in my life several years ago, but I love my friend, so I took the CDs she offered. As I began to listen to them, I was reminded that when we feel good, it’s easier for good things to find their way to us. I had completely forgotten this, and made feeling good a higher priority.

When I awoke the next morning, I could barely walk. It was incredibly painful to put weight on my left ankle, even though I hadn’t injured it. An EMT friend checked it out, but it wasn’t a break or sprain. It felt like someone had taken the bones of my foot out, shaken them up in a paper bag, and then done a bad job of reassembling them.

I committed myself to feeling good that day anyway. We headed to the home of friends for Easter–friends I enjoy spending time with, and whose family I feel privileged to be part of. They lent me a pair of crutches to make it easier get around.

Then my son and I went to see a movie at our small-town theater, which is one of our favorite things to do together. When we purchased our tickets, we were told to hold on to the ticket stubs, because there was going to be a drawing for six dark chocolate truffles made by a local chocolatier. I knew those truffles would be mine, and I was right. They were a cosmic wink that let me know the law of attraction was working.

When I went home, I looked up “ankle” in Louise Hay’s Heal Your Body and learned that “Ankles represent the ability to receive pleasure.” Surprised? I wasn’t.

The next morning, I woke up in no pain whatsoever and was able to take a two-mile walk with a friend that afternoon.

Point made. Point taken. Thank you, Universe.

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A major spiritual shift

I was speaking, in passing, with a friend, when someone who overheard our conversation stopped, waited for it to end, and then mentioned something she’d just learned about that might help me. Challenging to pronounce, and even more difficult to spell, I had trouble finding more information about it on the Internet, but ultimately succeeded. It’s called ho’oponopono, and as you may guess from its spelling, is Hawaiian in origin.

What is it? It is an ancient practice of reconciliation and forgiveness. “Ho’oponopono” basically means to set things right. It entails taking 100 percent responsibility for everything that enters your awareness, because there is no “out there.” Everything you perceive is interpreted within the confines of your physical body, where all kinds of filters and influences come into play—especially in the form of memories.

We are all One, and in ho’oponopono, we take responsibility for the situations in which we find ourselves, whether we “caused” them or not. Long before I knew about ho’oponopono, I forced myself to go to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. I did not play a role in the Holocaust. I was not responsible for it. But I knew that if humans could do that to each other, somewhere deep inside me, I must hold the potential to do it too. I had to face and confront that.

If I had known ho’oponopono then, my experience would have been different. Ho’oponopono is a simple four-step process that entails taking responsibility, apologizing, and asking for forgiveness. In Dachau, I might have said something like this:

  1. I am sorry for the suffering that people experienced here. I am sorry for the unspeakable cruelty that prisoners endured. But I am also sorry that Nazi soldiers were ordered to be cruel by their superiors.
  2. Please forgive me for the potential that lies within me to be so judgmental of and so cruel to my fellow human beings.
  3. Thank you for this opportunity to make amends.
  4. I love you.

This process is called “cleaning.”

Ho’oponopono in everyday life

Yesterday, a friend told me about a situation that has been incredibly challenging, in a twisted, convoluted, messed up sort of way. It was her experience, but once she told me about it, it became part of my experience, and something I needed to clean. You clean everything that comes into your experience that does not feel right or harmonious—which means you could be cleaning continuously. And when you are not cleaning, you can cut to the last step and say, “I love you” to things you’ve been taking for granted. Today, for example, I loved the trees in their autumn splendor and the road that brought me home.

Another example of using ho’oponopono is food, which I’ve thought a lot about. Are certain kinds of foods bad for us in and of themselves, or are they bad for us because we think they’re bad? A friend recently told the story of her Grandpa Norm, who had his own stick of butter at mealtimes (everyone else at the table had to share a second stick). He put butter on everything—including donuts—and lived to the age of 92. Clearly, grandpa was saying “I love you” to his butter. He welcomed it into his body and his body received it in harmony.

Although I’m committed to eating in a healthy way, I hate thinking of supermarkets or restaurants as mine fields, where danger lurks in the artificial sweeteners, trans fats, and genetically modified organisms that are hiding everywhere. So today, I tried ho’oponopono on the can of non-organic soup I had for lunch. I said, “I am sorry for the way I have judged you. Please forgive me for thinking that any part of you might be bad for my health. Thank you for nourishing me. I love you.” This will be our new way of saying grace.

The advantages of ho’oponopono

For me, the advantages of ho’oponopono are:

  1. It prevents me from judging. When I take responsibility for the circumstances I’m in, say I’m sorry, ask for forgiveness, and express gratitude and love, it becomes impossible to judge.
  2. It makes me feel peaceful.
  3. It makes me feel empowered, because acknowledging the role I play in everything means I can’t possibly be a victim.
  4. It addresses issues I’ve had with the law of attraction for a long time. The law of attraction is about intention (tell the Universe exactly what you want and you will get it). Ho’oponopono is about inspiration (clean up your mess and clear the way, so you can receive inspiration from the Divine). The law of attraction entails constant effort via affirmations, visioning, scripting, etc. Ho’oponopono entails clearing the channels between ourselves and the Divine, so we can receive (and act on) its inspiration and guidance. And that feels right to me.