How to do Ho’oponopono Meditation?
Ho’oponopono Meditation
Ho’oponopono is a Hawaiian meditation practice that can help you to love yourself better. It is simple to do and can be done anywhere.
How to do Ho’oponopono
- Find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed.
- Close your eyes and relax your body.
- Repeat the following four phrases to yourself, over and over again:
- I love you.
- I’m sorry.
- Please forgive me.
- Thank you.
- Continue repeating the phrases for as long as you feel comfortable.
People who practice spirituality and some life coaches also teach a meditation called ho’oponopono. They claim that repeating it in your mind can bring health, peace, and wealth.
I don’t believe it has supernatural powers. Its “magic” can be explained with psychological theories, even reaching the core of healing family trauma.
Why do I say this?
If we think about the 4 meditation phrases, an interesting thing comes up: they create a kind of scene!
There are two people involved, like one person is talking to the other.
They must have had some complicated stories; their emotional relationship seems contradictory.
Look at it – the first phrase “I love you” is so intimate and gentle.
But then comes “I’m sorry,” showing the person who said “I love you” has also caused harm. This harm seems not easily healed.
So, with remorse, it seems one person is patiently and sincerely asking, “Please forgive me.”
Finally, we hear a “thank you.”
From a psychological perspective,
The process is quite similar to healing family trauma through psychological counseling because a significant part of family trauma involves relational trauma.
What kind of relationships can lead to trauma? For example:
- Children’s emotions and thoughts are often ignored in interactions with caregivers as if they don’t matter.
- When you express negative emotions, especially intense ones, they are denied, criticized, and told it’s wrong, bad, or even terrible.
- In such relationships, experiencing acceptance and support when feeling upset or angry is rare.
- Feeling soothed and protected during worries and fears is also seldom experienced.
- You may feel something is off or even painful, but caregivers insist, “I’m doing this all for your good!”
This means there are facts caregivers cannot face and admit:
- Apart from love, they have imposed their desires and anxieties on the child.
- Even with good intentions, from the child’s perspective, they may feel ignored, controlled, or harmed.
If caregivers must be perfect and flawless, what about the child?
- The child must bear all the mistakes, deficiencies, and vulnerabilities in the relationship.
In healthy intimate relationships, both sides don’t need to be perfect or always right.
- What matters is being able to see and acknowledge each other.
When relationships have small cracks, some are willing to take responsibility and say “I’m sorry” to repair them.
Therefore, we can see that the interaction depicted in Ho’oponopono meditation is like a remedy:
- There’s someone with care, goodwill, and love coming to you.
- They see all your grievances, stress, struggles, or fears.
- They bravely face you, expressing their regrets.
- They admit they might have genuinely hurt you.
- Or, they acknowledge their limitations and powerlessness.
- Even though subjectively they haven’t done anything wrong, unfortunately, they couldn’t prevent the harm.
- Or they couldn’t better protect and cherish you.
Avoiding the “Despair Black Hole” in Healing.
Another reason I recommend Ho’oponopono meditation is that it helps us navigate a cognitive misconception or obsession. This obsession creates a black hole in our minds, causing stagnation in life and even in counseling. The misconception is:
- “I am suffering now and facing difficulties because of past injuries.”
Since time machines don’t exist, it might seem impossible to fill this black hole.
- Unless someone takes responsibility and compensates for my past.
Unfortunately, in real life, such compensation or apology might never come!
Does that mean we’re stuck in a negative, helpless cycle?
There’s a way forward:
- Start practicing self-dialogue,
- Begin repairing your relationship with yourself,
- This isn’t limited to Ho’oponopono meditation.
Let’s start today. Try to be the person who sees, cherishes, and actively takes care of yourself.