"AYE!", "LYE!" & "FLY!"

A friend posted in Facebook "AYE!"  (Appreciate Yourself Everyday). I added  "LYE!" (Love Yourself Everyday). Another friend posted "FLY" (First Love Yourself). The bottom line of all these is--Self Love. Yes, self love comes first.

Incidentally I happened to read an interesting article in http://www.energeticwellbeing.com/2008/05/hooponopono-drihaleakala-hew-len/ titled HO’OPONOPONO, Dr.Ihaleakala Hew Len and written by Joe Vitale, Author of “The Attractor Factor” wherein he talks about a psychologist / therapist in Hawaii, who cured a complete ward of criminally insane patients--without ever seeing any of them. His name is Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len.

The therapist had used a Hawaiian healing process called ho'oponopono. When the author first heard this story, he thought it was an urban legend and so dismissed it. However, when he heard it again a year later, he felt he needed to know more.  He spent an hour talking on first phone call and asked Dr Len to tell him the complete story of his work as a therapist.

To do full justice to the story, I need to quote the author.

Dr.Ihaleakala Hew Len explained that he worked at Hawaii State Hospital for four years. That ward where they kept the criminally insane was dangerous. Psychologists quit on a monthly basis. The staff called in sick a lot or simply quit. People would walk through that ward with their backs against the wall, afraid of being attacked by patients. It was not a pleasant place to live, work, or visit.

Dr. Len told that he never saw patients. He agreed to have an office and to review their files. While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal.

"After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being allowed to walk freely," he told me. "Others who had to be heavily medicated were getting off their medications and those who had no chance of ever being released were being freed." I was in awe. "Not only that," he went on, "but the staff began to enjoy coming to work. Absenteeism and turnover disappeared. We ended up with more staff than we needed because patients were being released, and all the staff was showing up to work. Today, that ward is closed."

This is where I had to ask the million dollar question: "What were you doing within yourself that caused those people to change?"

"I was simply healing the part of me that created them," he said.

I didn't understand. Dr. Len explained that total responsibility for your life means that everything in your life - simply because it is in your life - is your responsibility. In a literal sense the entire world is your creation.

This is tough to swallow. Being responsible for what I say or do is one thing. Being responsible for what everyone in my life says or does is quite another. Yet, the truth is this: if you take complete responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility because it is in your life. This means that terrorist activity, the president, the economy or anything you experience and don't like - is up for you to heal. They don't exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections from inside you. The problem isn't with them, it's with you, and to change them, you have to change you.

I know this is tough to grasp, let alone accept or actually live. Blame is far easier than total responsibility, but as I spoke with Dr. Len, I began to realize that healing for him and in ho'oponopono means loving yourself. If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you want to cure anyone, even a mentally ill criminal, you do it by healing you. I asked Dr. Len how he went about healing himself. What was he doing, exactly, when he looked at those patients' files?

"I just kept saying, I'm sorry and I love you over and over again", he explained.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve yourself, and as you improve yourself, you improve your world.”

The author goes about telling how he successfully tried and tested it. You can read it in the link provided.

This convinced me more about what I wrote in my last post. That of scams, economy and positive thinking. Taking laws of attraction to another level is self love. Loving ourselves attracts more love. As simple as that. But why is it that we don't practice it often? Because most of us confuse self love with selfishness. Unfortunately we have been conditioned from childhood to think that to put oneself first amounts to self-centredness. What is the thin line that divides both? "Self love" spreads by including others too in the process while "selfishness" is loving one's own self at the exclusion of others. 

Ignoring the conditioned mind, let's start listening to our heart. Without procrastinating anymore, let's start practicing to love ourselves right now. Healthy self-love means doing things which adds quality to our lives........having confidence in ourselves, being kind to ourselves by binging on that chocolate once in a while, not feeling guilty when we take a much needed break to watch a movie occasionally, treating ourselves with a health spa when required, patting our own back on a success, taking responsibility for failures without remorse, be willing to accept help when offered, accepting and honoring our emotions when we feel like crying, accepting compliments gracefully, forgiving ourselves whenever we commit a mistake, being gentle and compassionate to ourselves...........these are only small beginnings. 

"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance" says Oscar Wilde. 

One word of caution though about this life-long romance. Knowing where to draw the line. Else we would end up like this woman who loved herself a little too much.

A woman was lamenting that she had gained weight. She'd made her family's favorite cake over the weekend, she reported, and they'd eaten half of it at dinner.

The next day, she said, she kept staring at the other half, until finally she cut a thin slice for herself. One slice led to another, and soon the whole cake was gone. The woman went on to tell her friends how upset she was with her lack of willpower, and how she knew her husband would be disappointed.

Everyone sympathized, until someone asked what her husband said when he found out.

She smiled. "He never did. I baked another cake and ate half!"