Ho’Oponopono is an ancient Hawaiian prayer which is used by people from across the globeregardless of their beliefs, ethnicities, and religious backgrounds. The prayer encourages us to take responsibility for all the good and not-so-good aspects of our life with the understanding that knowingly or unknowingly we are the ones responsible for the way our life is.
It emphasizes that during every challenging situation, first we should acknowledge that there is a problem and then we need to truly feel and say the 4 important statements of this prayer to release our known and unknown beliefs and actions which have caused this situation. So, what this means is that be it job-related issues, business problems, relationship issues or even illness, we are the ones responsible for them. Only when we truly understand that every situation, we experience is self-created in some way or the other can we utilize this prayer effectively to re-establish the balance in our lives.
Having gained an understanding of the prayer’s foundational belief let’s now understand the prayer itself. The prayer comprises four lines which are as follows:
I am sorry
Please forgive me
Thank you
I love you.
In this prayer, we talk to our inner self known to be connected to the Divine and acknowledge our responsibility for the present state of affairs in our life and then request forgiveness for putting our soul through this trouble. We then thank our inner self for having granted us forgiveness and conclude the prayer by expressing our love for the inner self.
- The first statement is an acknowledgement of the fact that a problem exists and that we are responsible for it (knowingly/unknowingly). It also shows our repentance for the wrong which has been committed.
- The second statement focuses on the request for forgiveness.
Now some of you may be wondering as to whom are we going to ask for forgiveness. Well, the answer is “yourself”. Yes, each one of us needs to ask ourselves for forgiveness for the wrong which has been committed by us.
- The third step involves the expression of gratitude
because we know that our inner self has granted us the forgiveness we were seeking.
- Last, but not least, we express our love for ourselves.
How can we use this prayer to our advantage?
1. Manifesting Abundance:
The biggest obstacle between our dreams and their manifestation is our own limiting thought process. Once we begin to recite the Ho O’ponopono prayer we can release all the limiting beliefs and manifest our desires.
2. Career Success:
Those of us who wish to achieve more progress in our careers but somehow seem to be stuck due to unknown obstacles can utilize this prayer to release all known and unknown obstacles (which could be mental or emotional) and achieve the desired success in our careers.
3. Strengthened Relationships:
By taking ownership and responsibility of our role and responsibility in every relationship we can release the negative emotions and ensure that we heal and strengthen our relationships.
4. Improved Mental and Physical Health:
The practice of Ho O’ponopono is known to reduce stress and anxiety in our lives thereby improving our mental and physical health.
As obvious, we can use this prayer in all the different aspects of our lives based on our unique needs. The repentance, the request for forgiveness, the thankfulness and the expression of love are all extremely important for the effectiveness of the prayer. For effective and visible changes, we need to deeply feel the profoundness of this prayer as we begin reciting it and only then we will experience true transformation in our lives.
Having said that, it is important to mention that, despite being an extremely powerful prayer for transformation and self-healing it is not a magical solution to problems, it will require consistent repetition with faith and conviction for it to truly transform our lives.
Good luck to all of you, who intend to embark on this transformative journey.