At a recent Gaia’s Temple service I learned about the Hawaiian forgiveness ritual Ho’oponopono. Judith explained how in some areas of Hawaii if someone in a family harms someone or causes conflict or misconduct, they are held responsible to the entire community and their ancestors to make amends. The family gathers together so the perpetrator of sorts can apologize and then be thanked for doing so by the community and forgiven.
It reminded me of the make amends step in the twelve step program only it felt more sustainable and deeper, because the amends was made to everyone in the group publicly rather than privately with one individual at a time. With the group amends, there is no chance of the person skipping a key person in their life and perhaps choosing to make amends with the mailman instead. All of the family and community attend the ritual, leaving no chance to avoid the person you most want to ignore.
The Ho’oponopono ritual has carried over to the judicial system where minors perform the same ritual rather than face incarceration. My mind spun with the all of the recent facts I learned from various friends who work with the Pongo project, all of them leading to the sad truth that our judicial system does very little to prevent repeat offenders. Incarceration is by far the most expensive option, yet still vastly utilized over any other “alternative” option, many of which actually lower the recidivism rate.
While my mind whirled with several “what if” fantasies, such as “What if the mainland adopted the same forgiveness system?” Judith continued to explain the importance of not only forgiving others, but most importantly ourselves. As we all know, we are often our worse critics. The examples she gave about caring about being right more than being happy brought me out of my “What if?” tailspin and very much into my body and heart. So much so, I felt as if I was going to vomit. I squirmed and sighed and otherwise tried to avoid the ill ease I was feeling. At one point, I contemplated racing for the bathroom, but I knew my desire was due more to my need to escape rather than really being in jeopardy of puking on the floor.
Judith led us in a guided meditation where we envisioned people we held a grudge against, including ourselves, and rather than continuing to convince them that we were right, we merely told them we loved them. My squirming and nausea continued to the point that my friend Misty put her arm around me and rubbed my shoulder. One look at her grimaced face told me she was not having an easy time with this exercise either. “This sucks,” I whispered. “Yes it does,” she replied.
I took a deep breath and let myself envision my mother. I’ve come a long way in forgiving my mother for what I perceive was her inadequate job of protecting me as a child. I know she did her best, which was far better than her mother, but once I became a mother, I judged her mothering skills. Judgment is my cross to bear. Knowing this, yet not knowing how to stop judging, was the cause of my nausea. I told my mother I was sorry and I loved her in my mind, but I knew I hadn’t forgiven her entirely.
The next person I envisioned was my ex-husband. Just this week I had an interchange with him where we couldn’t support or listen to one another’s complaint about our hard day. This was the cause of our divorce. Rather than appreciating each other and the help we offered one another (we co-parented, co-cooked, co-cleaned, co-financially supported our family), we became stuck in resenting one another for what they weren’t doing and believing we had the more difficult situation and the other person’s life was relatively easy. In my mind, I told him I was sorry and thanked him for being a great father.
The third person I envisioned was myself. I couldn’t get past, “boy you’re a judgmental bitch.” I tried to tell myself that I judged because I cared and wanted the best for the people I was close to, but all that came to mind was, “you’re also a controlling bitch. Their life is up to them, not you.” The nausea increased to a point where I really was in need of the bathroom. Just as I stood up, Judith led us in a song:
“I’m so sorry
Please forgive me
For I love you
And I thank you ”
“Oh god,” I sighed as I collapsed into my chair. Misty embraced me causing the tears that had been suppressed to finally break free. And once a few trickled down my face, others followed suit to the point where I was sobbing. But I no longer felt nauseous and I no longer squirmed. Nothing could have moved me from that room. The words of the song had me pinned to my chair.
More “what if” thoughts swarmed around my mind. “What if I was raised in a family that sang this song rather than shut down emotionally?” “What if Jason and I had spent five minutes a day appreciating one another rather than six years resenting one another?” “What if I stopped judging my friends for what they aren’t doing and instead appreciated what they are doing?”
More singing, more tears, more of my petty grievances surfaced for what felt like eternity. Although I couldn’t wait for the singing torture to end, when Judith transitioned to an upbeat song, I didn’t go with her. Again, one look at Misty’s sunken face told me she was in agreement. “No,” she said as she shook her head. She and I remained in our flattened tear-stained state as others rose up and sang about the earth and sky.
I still feel somewhat ripped open several days later. It’s not an entirely horrible feeling, because I usually welcome a shift in consciousness. What I get stuck on is how to remedy the past. Although I contemplated calling both Jason and my mother after the service and chanting the song to them I knew that probably wouldn’t be very effective. They would most likely not be in the same mode as I and feel as I was thrusting my agenda upon them. Which is exactly what I would be doing. My tendency has always been to blurt things out to serve my “I want to fix this now” need, but in these cases years of slights have occurred. They cannot be fixed over night, nor can they be healed merely because I am ready for them to be healed, all parties need to be receptive.
I decided to save the forgiveness part for when I had a clearer idea of how to do so. In the meanwhile, I told myself I could do my best to not have it repeat in the future. When my son complained about the babysitter who was going to watch him while I was at a reading, I stuffed my irritation, which I knew was only a poor attempt at masking my guilt, and instead embraced him. “I’m sorry I’m working again tonight. I know it probably feels as if I haven’t been home much this week, so tomorrow why don’t we come straight home from school and you can show me all of the work you’ve brought home.” He brightened a bit at this suggestion, and then more importantly, he let himself cry in my arms. If I had snapped at him, “sometimes parents have to work and you need to have babysitters” which was my first instinct, none of the love and forgiveness would have occurred. I may have monetarily felt comforted about being right, but neither of us would have been happy nor would he have felt loved.
The following evening when my boyfriend told me he had been admiring me silently but didn’t want to speak it out loud for fear of ruining the moment, I shrieked, “You can’t stop appreciating me already, it’s too soon for that. We’ll die a slow death if we stop saying what we think, especially the good things.” I held firm in my righteousness until the next day while cleaning out my inbox on both my phone and emails I noticed it was full of adoring compliment and statements of appreciation from him. I immediately called him to apologize. “I did it again, I’m so sorry. I freaked out about something from my past that bares no relevance to you. I’m so sorry.” He recited the Ho’oponopono painful forgiveness song to me but this time, it didn’t make me squirm.

Corbin Lewars (corbinlewars.com) is the author of Creating a Life: The memoir of a writer and mom in the making, which has been nominated for the 2011 PNBA and Washington State book awards. Her essays have been featured in over twenty-five publications including Mothering and Hip Mama. She has been a writing coach and instructor for over fifteen years and currently sees clients in the old Carnegie Library Building in Ballard. Contact her for details.