I’ve recently been using this healing practice called Ho’oponopono (ho-o-pono-pono) which is an ancient Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness.

It is very simple and so powerful.  In any order, you say the following statements over and over…

“I love you, I’m sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you.”

A shaman and therapist in his 70s, Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, used this method to cure a complete ward at the Hawaii State Hospital of criminally insane patients…without ever seeing any of them. Every day he would study an inmate’s chart and then look within himself to see how he created that person’s illness. As he improved himself, the patient improved.  The crazy thing is, he never actually met with any of these patients!

The ward was a mess.  Psychologists and staff were always quitting and many people would walk through that ward with their backs against the wall because they were afraid of being attacked by patients.

Dr. Len never saw patients, he only stayed in an office and reviewed each of their files. While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal.

“‘After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being allowed to walk freely.  Others who had to be heavily medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no chance of ever being released were being freed.  Not only that, but the staff began to enjoy coming to work. Absenteeism and turnover disappeared. We ended up with more staff than we needed because patients were being released, and all the staff was showing up to work. Today, that ward is closed.”

So, what was Dr. Len doing that caused these people to change?  He says that he was simply healing the part of himself that created them.  He believes that total responsibility for your life means that everything in your life, since it is in your life, is your responsibility. In a literal sense the entire world is your creation.

Holy smokes!  So if we really believe in taking total responsibility for our lives, then everything we see, hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience is our responsibility because it is in our life. This means that terrorist activity, the president, the economy or anything we experience and don’t like is up to us to heal.  They really only exist as projections from inside ourselves. The problem isn’t with them, it’s with us, and to change them, we have to change ourselves.

But, it’s so much easier to blame than to take total responsibility!  Actually, Dr. Len believes that healing really just means loving yourself.  If we want to improve our lives, we have to heal our lives.  For Dr. Len to cure the mentally ill criminals, he had to do it by healing himself.

What I like most about this whole thing is how simple he did this.  He just kept saying over and over, “I’m sorry, I love you” as he looked at each of the patients’ files.

So, loving ourselves is really the greatest way to improve ourselves, and as we improve ourselves, we improve our world.  Just think how powerful this is if we really believe it…whenever we want to improve anything in our life, there’s only one place to look: inside ourselves. And when we look with love, we have the power to change anything!

Here’s a video of Dr. Joe Vitale talking to a group of people in Maui about this practice.

Imagine living in this new year in Magic and Miracles?  What is possible for you in your life when you live this way?