A while ago, I was introduced to the practice of Ho’oponopono, made fairly mainstream by Dr. Hew Len. Since we are in unprecedented times and experiencing unprecedented things, I wanted to share the principles of this ancient Hawaiian practice with you as a way to ensure you continue to strive to vibrate at a higher level so that what you desire in life becomes your reality. Although describing Ho’oponopono could take several paragraphs, the central tenet is that anything that happens to you or your perceptions of things happening to you, is your own creation and therefore, it is entirely your responsibility. Yes, one hundred percent you with no exceptions.
To be clear, “it’s your responsibility” doesn’t mean it’s your fault. It simply means that 
you are responsible for healing yourself so that you can heal whatever situation or person that appears to you as a problem. If you don’t do this, you’re going to follow a flawed road of logic and one that will lead you to despair.
The road to despair has several steps along the way but it will always bring you to a place where you feel powerless to control your situation, which is really never true. Even if what you experience is something you can’t change (death of a loved one, loss of a job) you can always change your mindset, and that will ultimately change your outcomes.
Here’s what this path looks like: You don’t take any responsibility for where you currently are in your life/job/relationship (or you resentfully take a tiny bit of responsibility but that’s all). That causes you to blame other people or outside circumstances, and that means you can fall into victim mode with complete permission from yourself. After all, it’s those people and things out there that are the problem, not you! Once you embrace your victim status, you become powerless to do anything to change the situation, and therefore, you don’t have to try to change anything. You then become stuck, believing you can’t do anything about where you are. Yay! Go you! You can just sit and enjoy the misery now.
Enacting change can happen much faster than you realize if instead of following the above sequence, you quickly acknowledge your part in everything. It’s just a matter of perspective, accepting responsibility and deciding to do something about it. My friend “Mary” did a really great job of doing this after she hit bottom, hard. Growing up with two alcoholic parents, she quit high school, ran away and got pregnant, got married and experienced the struggle of life for quite some time. It was only when she took responsibility for herself that her life began to change. Yes, she had a difficult home environment and that wasn’t her fault, but she made many poor choices that she and only she chose to make and that eventually led to her life of struggle. Once she accepted what was, and shifted her perspective, her life began to improve quickly. She left the bad relationship and met and married a wonderful man. Eventually, they became successful business owners, bought their dream house and raised two happy and healthy children. It wasn’t until Mary stopped blaming her parents and her past though, that better things started to happen. The same can happen for you.
I read somewhere recently that you can tell you’re growing spiritually when you realize how hard it is to change yourself and how little chance you have of changing anybody else. Be on the lookout for people who seem to speak a language of complete responsibility. You’ll notice that they seem to have pretty happy lives. Why? Because if the problem is you, then the solution is also you and you actually have a chance to make some changes. If anybody or anything else is the problem, you’ve lost control, as well as the battle to create what you want out of life. You’ll just be settling for whatever defaults come your way. Don’t do that.
Choose responsibility, choose power and choose joy!
© 2013 MarBeth Dunn – All rights reserved
