When I was living in Hawaii, I learned about the Hawaiian prayer, ho'oponopono. It is made up of 10 simple, powerful words.

I’m Sorry

Please Forgive Me

Thank You

I Love You

I knew about it. It existed in the multitude of thoughts in my brain, but I had only ever used it sporadically when I was feeling really, really, guilty, broken by something I’d done. Broken by being a slave to my own triggers, my own wounding. There is a time and a season for every purpose under heaven, and my purpose while in Hawaii was to survive emerging from the underworld, to learn to turn towards myself, and to surrender to the reality of suffering long enough to recover my splintered pieces. I wasn’t ready to use these 10 words with any real sort of authenticity.

In transpersonal journey work there is the idea of a 2-Way-Com. This is where, in a state of being deeply relaxed and connected to the subconscious and superconscious we can do work with another person and resolve conflict even if they are not physically there with us. Over and over it has been demonstrated that although this work takes place with just one person, others are affected. We meet in the causal realm to sort things out and it trickles down into our physical world, sometimes with seemingly miraculous results.

In the recovery community, there is the dreaded 4th step, where we “made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves”. We come clean. How terrifying. (I’ve done this work with therapists. I didn’t use AA to get sober, but the principles still pop up anyway.) It is a reorienting of blame and focus from the wounded self to the other. It is an act of responsibility, an act of service . And as so many of these things are, it is ultimately a freeing of oneself from the chains of shame. It is an unarmoring. A vulnerability. A recognition of truth, responsibility and the role I’ve played in my own pain, trauma and drama. As ever, there are unexpected gifts that arise when we venture into the depths, and there is the gift here, too, of an unburdened heart.

I know that sometimes in this life our souls play the villain for each other. Sometimes I’m the bad guy. Sometimes you’re the the bad guy. Sometimes my being the bad guy pushes you into a sense of self and boundary that you wouldn’t have had and sometimes you are the bad guy for me and push me to finally face myself and turn inward instead of desperately, forever seeking outward. I know that pain and trauma ripple through the generations and I know that we spread it around, splattered like red paint on each other’s innocent hearts when we are acting from our unconscious, damaged selves.

Through my journeys I have unexpectedly arrived at a place where I am using this prayer. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It was borne out of months of twice a day meditation, of continually turning towards the divine and asking to be used as a vessel (I’ve finally surrendered). It emerged from the confusion that is life, alongside the practices that have been my daily anchor in uncertain times, and in response to spirit calling me into Joy. Suddenly, spontaneously, I am journeying back to my childhood each night. I am marching forward in time from there, chanting this prayer to each experience, each person, each situation, each reality, where I caused harm. Each moment I was unconscious and causing damage to those around me.

I’m Sorry

Please Forgive Me

Thank you

I Love You

And boy did I do a lot of wrong. Night after night, experience after experience, person after person, chanting this prayer until the energy shifts and I feel that I can move on to the next one in line. For hours and hours I comb my past and present seeking out every shame, every dark corner, every moment where I caused pain.

And finally, after many many prayers, I could see it coming. Finally, although I was trying so hard to avoid it, it arrived. Finally, I have one prayer left to pray. I have come to my own self, my own tender heart, abandoned again and again but now my Guiding Star. Finally, I meet myself.

I’m Sorry

Please Forgive Me

Thank You

I Love you