How To Practice Self Forgiveness

Apr 26, 2022


Hoʻoponopono, an ancient Hawaiian practice for self forgiveness.

Oftentimes when we hear the quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, “Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that”. I don't know about you, but for me for the longest time, I automatically thought of everybody else ‘out there” - If that person changed, or if they said things differently or that person was better or nicer. We automatically just think external, but today I'm going to challenge you. Just like I challenged myself to bring this conversation internal. 

What if you changed the way you were with yourself? What if you changed the way you speak to yourself?. What if you filled yourself with more self-compassion, more self-love, self-forgiveness? This is something that I have been working on for quite some time. I’ve introduced the practice of Hoʻoponopono. It is an ancient Hawaiian prayer which essentially brings you self forgiveness, which, if you think about it, the more you can forgive yourself for all the things you think you are not enough of, all of the things that you feel like you could be better at, do better at, all of that. I'm not going to go down that list because as you’re reading this, I'm sure you have a tape running of the things!

So what Hoʻoponopono does, is it asks you to take self responsibility, radical self responsibility. The first time I heard someone say that you're going to take radical self responsibility, I was like, Ooh, I heard radical. And I stopped listening. So if you are like me, lean in a bit. 


Ho'oponopono is a four line prayer, four stanzas:

I'm sorry.

Please forgive me. 

Thank you and I love you.


Now the sentences in themselves seem so simple, so easy, almost pedestrian. But you're asking yourself for forgiveness and at the end of the day, the more we can forgive ourselves, the more we can make space for that love that we're asking for. Because as human beings, that is one of our biggest drivers.


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The more you fill your cup, the more it overflows outward, and it takes you into that ripple effect. So you leave not only yourself, better than when you started, but you leave others who come across your path better. So this week, I'm going to challenge you. I would love for you to practice Hoʻoponopono.


And for those of you who know I am a practicing Hindu and we often say our verses 108 times. There's a whole science behind that, which I'll save for later. Now, obviously, if it's new to you, practice where you can. Set a timer for one minute, two minutes and increase them as you go along and see if you don't start to notice a shift within yourself, because really, how you show up dictates how people will respond to you.


There's a universal law that says “As Within, So Without”, meaning how you feel on the inside is what's shown to you as a reflection. So the more love you give yourself, the more Self-compassion you can show yourself and the more forgiveness, as I said in the beginning, you open that space for more of the positive that you're asking to bring into your world. For more of the joy - because love, joy. All of that works together. It's one of those simple practices that makes such a big difference. I know for myself, that's exactly what happened in 2021, as I started to begin this practice.


Very simply put, I'm sorry. You're asking yourself for forgiveness because you know, or maybe you don't know, and maybe this is new to you, your brain, your subconscious brain is always listening. So the more you feed it, the positivity you desire, the more you say, I'm sorry, I know I could have done better, I am better, I want to be better. The more you clear that space. and it's where your subconscious mind is always listening.


Your subconscious mind is always listening, so feed it, the positives, the things that you want to see in your world. So, I'm sorry, please forgive me, you’re asking yourself for the forgiveness that so often we're seeking outside of ourselves. 


“Thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for giving myself the compassion, the love, the forgiveness that I have desired and I love you. The more you fill your cup with that feeling, with that energy, the more you bring it in. 


The Hoʻoponopono is an ancient Hawaiian practice brought into mainstream culture. It is said that this practice was used in the Hawaii State Hospital criminally insane ward because it was believed by the elders that a sense of self-compassion and self-love was missing amongst the patients. 


I would love for you to experiment with this this week and come back to me, let me know what shifts you noticed or what feelings it brought up for.


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