Transcript
Speaker: Holding anger in your body creates high blood pressure, heart problems. Like there's a dozen things we could name that anger is bad for the body. Sadness, simply depression, you know, hurt. Fear, fear holds an anger in your body. It holds energy in your body. So, hoʻoponopon, any of those things is really empowering to the person doing it. It's also empowering to the people out there in the world that you're
Speaker: forgiving. And I don't care if it's like the person who cut you off on the freeway. Like open up all of that too. You don't need to stay angry.
Speaker: When we hold on to old negative stuff, it tends to distract and drain us. It can also affect how we feel and our relationships. In this episode, you will learn how the Hawaiian forgiveness process Ho 'oponopono can help you let go of old negative attachments, process emotions such as anger, sadness, and fear in a healthy way.
Speaker: have more clarity and free yourself to focus on what you do want and improve your relationships and wellbeing. Vicki Thomas is joining us today. She is an expert in Ho 'oponopono as well as a master hypnosis trainer with the Master Hypnotist Society.
Speaker: Today, what I want to explore with you is the process of forgiving and letting go that we find really helps a lot of our hypnosis clients. I know that you are an expert in the forgiveness or whole pono -pono process, which is a
Speaker: comes from Hawaiian spirituality and you have an audio recording of it which is very beautiful and so today it would be great for us to have a conversation about who would benefit from it and what it involves so that people have some idea what to expect
Speaker: Obviously, we all need to experience this. It's something that we process subconsciously and emotionally and through our senses, so understanding it isn't going to change it. But I thought it would be helpful for people to just know it's an option and have some idea of what it's all about. Cool. Yeah. And maybe you can start by telling us how you first discovered forgiveness and how it helped you personally. That would be a great thing to do. Oh, wow.
Speaker: My husband and I studied Huna, which is the ancient Hawaiian belief system and for six years like in Hawaii and New Zealand and Ho 'oponopono was one of the just like amazing techniques we brought back. Like my, okay, Ho 'oponopono is out there like everywhere, you know, you can Google it, you can find it, but my particular style
Speaker: comes from both of our Christian background and it seemed like, I mean, it's a forgiveness process and it's about forgiving all the people in your life that you feel have messed with you. So, whether it's through childhood or adulthood, it doesn't matter. And we needed to bring in our faith
Speaker: And I think that's where it hits a lot of people in that, you know, we believe we have a forgiving God. So we shifted it into adding our beliefs and our system of belief and making it so ho -ho, ho -ho, pono -pono, which is still a deep and lasting forgiveness process. For me, it's been really profound.
Speaker: and even like using it all the time like have a bad day you go inside and you hope one opponent whatever was bad or whoever I crossed your path that maybe ticked you off or hurt your feelings and you don't have to carry that stuff forward
Speaker: And and I like to kind of add Jim's story because Jim has always been very spiritual very spiritual and People don't realize that because you know, he's a big brawny guy, you know all tough and
Speaker: gun -toting big tough guy you know so people don't realize how really spiritual he is but this is when it became so profound and this story is actually on the recording is when his father passed away now his father was very very abusive verbally physically he was a big jerk and um so at his grave site were
Speaker: Jim's two older sisters from another mother who he didn't even know existed until he was like 23 and His his younger sister his younger brother and his mom now all of them knew him as extremely abusive and so we're at his gravesite and they wanted people to say something and Jim started because he was the oldest son and he said
Speaker: I love you. I forgive you. Please forgive me and the sound like it was an audible sound of Everybody going what you know, like how what what could he be forgiving? you know, what could his father be forgiving Jim for you know, and After that moment when everybody was like what Jim said it again and he said it's so grounded and so strong He said dad. I love you
Speaker: I forgive you. Please forgive me. And it was like this huge tension and huge
Speaker: anger and resentment just lifted. It was a physical feeling of forgiveness passing. And that was when I knew I had to make the recording. I knew I had to make it so that everybody could experience the profoundness of that. Because I had just begun to do it as a regular practice, you know, like, okay, I can forgive this person. Oh, yeah, I think of something in my past. I can forgive that.
Speaker: And I was doing it just regularly, kind of easily, that moment that was really profound. So that's how it became what it became.
Speaker: Wow, and that's a great story, and there are actually a few themes in what you just shared that I want to go over. The first of which is that sometimes people believe that forgiving means excusing what the other person did, or themselves for what they did, and so they hold on for that reason.
Speaker: And they end up, if they were hurt by somebody else, they end up hurting themselves over and over and over. And if they hurt somebody, they also end up hurting themselves over and over. Yeah, the endless cycle, right? Yeah. And so to really make that distinction between you can forgive and let go, it doesn't mean it excuses what happened. It means you're freeing yourself. So you don't have to be trapped by it anymore. You don't have to keep hurting.
Speaker: Absolutely. So think about this if if you're holding on to anger to something that happened years ago You're not hurting that person like holding on to that anger doesn't do anything to them or for them. It only hurts you inside So once you do that forgiveness process If walk even even if you're only forgiving yourself for holding on to anger, it's big. I
Speaker: Also, when you forgive that person and you let go, it's a virtual cutting of the cords. In Hawaii, they call them the aka cords. Aka means sticky, and throughout your life, everyone you come into contact with creates that sticky connection.
Speaker: it's a naka cord and once you cut the connection you get your own energy back you get your own beliefs and your own feelings back so it's very very profound so the very very first time I did this very first time I was actually forgiving my mom in her old age she became very manipulative and I was just forgiving that and
Speaker: Almost instantly, I mean, because people will feel that connection. And almost instantly when I was done, she called. So you then can reconnect. You know, people who you want to reconnect with.
Speaker: Actually, the energy of the world will just bring them back to you. So one time, four in the morning, Jim and I had had an argument, and I was laying in bed, and I was doing a bonafono, and I cut the cord between him and I, and in his sleep, he reached over and touched me.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay, I moved his hand, I put it back and I did it again because I wanted it to be real clean and clear. And he did it again. As soon as I cut the cord, he touched me again. And I'm like, okay, I said, honey, I'm doing ho 'oponopono. Ho 'oponopono. And he goes, oh, okay. He rolled over the other way. And then I could complete the process.
Speaker: And then when I was done, I put my hand on him. So it's really interesting the way the energy of it works and you can feel that energy of it. It's kind of cool.
Speaker: Yeah. So you're cutting the cord not with the person with the bad energy or the anger or resentment or like all the negative stuff is what you're cutting the cord with. You can still be totally connected with the person themselves. Absolutely. Yeah. And energetically, they reconnect the next minute you think about them.
Speaker: So if you're disconnecting a negative energy, you almost don't think about that person. It's almost gone. If you're disconnecting to someone that you really care about, it's almost instantly reconnected, because you'll think of them. And you'll think of them with love instead of anger. So it's quite so cool. Yeah. Yeah, awesome. That's all I can say.
Speaker: So one thing I wanted to explore with you a little bit is I know you mentioned that for you, you integrated your Christian faith into this. Where I live, it's very multicultural and many people either aren't connected to a specific faith or they don't believe in God or they're just of a different faith.
Speaker: Some of them have moved here and been refugees from countries that were torn apart because of religion. And so to them, they don't want to go there. And so one of the things that I've developed a way of teaching people is that this is spiritual. It's beyond a specific religion or rules or anything human created. This is just your connection with something bigger than you. So whatever you believe in, sometimes it's when people feel connected with nature
Speaker: or when they're doing something creative like art or music, when they're loving a person. So finding a way for people to feel that connection and interpret this in the way that's useful for them, I think is a really important point. Absolutely. And I'll tell you, my faith doesn't allow me to judge anyone else's faith. My faith says,
Speaker: You believe how you believe and God has many different names. And I think the way that I address that in the recording is some people call it the God light, some people call it the light of the universe. And I don't even care what you call it, just it's a whole and healing light coming from above.
Speaker: So that's how I, that's like the little bit of Christian I put in there is the God light. But I try to downplay that because it is for everyone. And like I said, my religion doesn't allow me to judge anyone's. I don't even know who's right until I get to heaven. And that's a long time away, I hope.
Speaker: And we could look at it more as a metaphor, like when Jesus came on the scene and he introduced this idea of grace, right? That people could be washed clean of their sins and recognizing that people sin and it's very unhealthy and harmful for them to hold on to that for their whole life.
Speaker: So it's a way to be able to function in a healthier way. And that it's just an example of how to do that. But you can do that in whatever way makes sense. Yeah. I think, like you said, we're multicultural, too. I'm in Southern California. And I have never had anybody say they disagreed with what was said in there. So it's very big umbrella.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And it's important to frame it right. I have had people disagree with that. Yeah. And, you know, I'm Jewish. So for me, I've learned more about Christianity and other religions, but that's different from feeling connected to it, right? Or in rapport with it. So I think that just exploring it at that level helps people generalize it and make it their own in a way that feels familiar. Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think they can. I think, I think, I mean, I get letters from all over the nation thanking me for that specific recording. So I must be doing something right in it.
Speaker: For sure. It's beautiful and there's so many great things and I think it's really good practice for people to Find a way to connect with something. It's so to find a way to agree and make it fit you Even if not, everything is a fact, you know, I wanted to touch on something you said earlier about When we're talking about carrying it forward in energy like anger
Speaker: Holding anger in your body creates high blood pressure, heart problems. Like there's a dozen things we could name that anger is bad for the body. Sadness, simply depression, you know, hurt. Again, depression or sadness. Fear, fear holds an anger in your body. It holds like a energy in your body. So, hoʻoponopon, any of those things,
Speaker: Is really empowering to the person doing it. It's also empowering to the people out there in the world that you're forgiving and I don't care if it's like the person who cut you off on the freeway like Open up all of that too. You don't need to stay angry and I had an interesting experience of of
Speaker: almost generational anger this last weekend where one, and these were adult women in their 60s, and one said something not positive about the other one's kid, and then his grandkid. It went real sideways. But the woman who heard that and who it was addressed to was angry.
Speaker: And I said to her, listen, all you need to do is say to her, you said some things that were off base. I think I deserve an apology. And that would have been fine, but she didn't. She started talking to other people about it and being angry. Now, that triggered this person to be angry at her sister and this person to be angry. And it was like amazing watching that happen.
Speaker: Mean end result the woman who opened her mouth in the first place gave flowers and candy to the other one to apologize when she found out she'd said something off -base and I like I so wanted to do a whole group because anger spreads like that and we are seeing that in our society so big today that People just need to forgive
Speaker: Even if it's the idea of, you know? Yeah, some people are so used to like the outrage, right? The anger, the outrage. It's drama. It's a story. They can go on a rant of people. And so some people, that's how they connect with others. And they don't realize they're doing it, but they might get entertainment value out of it. They might get some sense of adventure out of it because it gets you going. And maybe they're not having some adventure in a healthy way in their life. So they're expressing it.
Speaker: that way. Yeah, that's where they're everywhere. Yeah, they're connecting with other people like other people relate to their anger. So they find a way to get in rapport that way. So sometimes people hold on to it for those reasons. And they once they forgive and let go, they they have to rejig their life because all of a sudden they have to discover what to talk about or how to connect with people in a new way. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And, and I hate to say it, but you can easily reinstall anger by going over that story, that story that you created out of your perception. And remember, perception is projection. Like what we see in someone else really only bothers us is there's a piece of us for which that is true. Right. So yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. So talk a little bit about the kinds of situations that people would benefit from for doing this. Like I know you mentioned some examples, but when we have clients come to see us or students come to train in hypnosis, there are a number of things that I've seen it really help with. And so share a little bit more about that. Well, I always use it when couples
Speaker: Come in, you know, couples certainly don't need to hold on to anger for what happened 10 years ago or some even 20 years they've held resentment towards something that happened 20 years ago. So couples is a big one that I use that with.
Speaker: I think, I tend to use it for everyone, but I also use it at the end of every training that I do in case somebody had something stirred up in them that they recalled or that got triggered, whatever. Triggered is a big word in society today. So I would use it for weight loss clients who are holding on. You know, oh, I'll tell you a story. I had a client who was feeling that anger for a lifetime.
Speaker: you know, and it was a weight loss client. And so I decided to do pono with her specifically to really say anger on all the stuff that she was angry about. And she called me a week later, she goes, you know, anger is pretty heavy. And I'm like, yeah, you know, you carry that burden on your shoulder. She goes, no, really, I lost 11 pounds after I gave up anger. I'm like, cool. 11 pounds of anger. That's a lot of anger to carry around for a lifetime. Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker: So I have also used it with smoking people who are concerned about stress or worry, or people who are stressed and worried. And I'm using it a lot now in time because of the angst. Angst is the only word I can think of because it's kind of a combination of anger, sadness, fear, heart, guilt.
Speaker: It's a European word. We don't really have an English word that matches angst. So people come in and society now or because of Facebook they got triggered or because of some kind of social media or some kind of mask mandate or all the crazy things that people are getting mad about.
Speaker: They'll come in for stress. They'll come in for stress at work. And Ho 'oponopono tends to change all of the future. Like, if you just can't hang on to the anger of the past, how can you still be angry about the future? Then you're just creating it and that's kind of a sin.
Speaker: It helps them learn how to frame life in a different way. Or even if the emotions come up, which they will, that they can let them, they can move through them instead of holding on. So it's more about flow and letting go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is.
Speaker: And kind of the way it is in the recording, it pretty much encompasses everybody. You know, it starts with, I think it starts with parents and it goes to extended family or relationships or past relationships or exes. And I think I include like ex -bosses or coworkers. Like there's so much in there that like it's everything in everyone.
Speaker: Join us for the next episode where we will continue to explore even more ways that Ho 'oponopono can help you free yourself to build a better life. Vicky will also be telling us about her amazing passion project that may be able to help you or your loved ones.
Speaker: To find out more about how hypnosis can help you or what it takes to become a professional hypnotist, visit HypnosisTrainingCanada .com. Remember to click the button to subscribe, share the podcast with a friend, and please leave us a review so you can help others benefit from the podcast too. Until next time.
Speaker: You've been listening to The Hypnosis Show with Robbie Spear Miller. Tune in next time to learn more about how you can change your life with hypnosis. And if you are interested in learning more about training opportunities, go to hypnosistrainingcanada .com and schedule a free consultation.
