[More than the Four Phrases]

If you have fears, doubts, or concerns about your ability to be successful as an author, however you define that, it could be that you are ready to release old baggage that is holding you back. Today, I am going to share a little secret with you that may be different, but is easy to implement. Let’s start Clearing Your Publishing Path with Ho’oponopono.

Clearing Your Publishing Path

Greetings Worthy Tribe, Tanya here and I appreciate your joining me on the Write Something Worthy Podcast. Today, I am going to step outside the box a bit and talk about clearing your path to authorship in an energetic way. It may be a reach for some of you, but hear me out. You are so powerful and sometimes you forget that. I hope this will remind you. For those who already get it, enjoy the ride.

Many of us can see the connection between our positive energy and having pleasant surprises or splendid serendipity grace our lives. Others can see that when they grouse and bitch constantly, they find more to grouse and bitch about. Right? That is your energy working for you, for good or for ill. You are creating through your beliefs, thoughts, and actions, and the results are showing up in your life.

So if you are constantly staring at a blank page and complaining that your writing sessions are a waste of time because you never produce word count, that will continue to find ways to be true for you, because that is what you believe and expect. Blank page syndrome or writers block is your own doing. (Sounds harsh, I know.) So what can you do to clear this negative clatter? There are many ways, but I want to talk about one specifically today. Ho’oponopono.

Ho’oponopono Defined

Ho’oponopono is a Hawaiian clearing and healing practice that I learned deeply from Dr. Joe Vitale at his inaugural Advanced Ho’oponopono Practitioner Certification event back in 2017. I had recently helped Joe with his book, The Miracle, which includes a few sections on Ho’oponopono. I wanted a deeper level of understanding of it. This also happened to be at the most stressful time in my life: two weeks before my husband was to undergo open-heart surgery, so whatever I could do to clear my path was welcomed. I had no idea how I was going to juggle my husband’s surgery and recovery while being a caregiver to my mother-in-law with dementia and my three, awesome, school-age girls. Add to that the prospect of no income from my husband’s work for six months and not being able to work much myself to juggle everything. Life was crazy. Did I create that?

As a practice, Ho’oponopono helps you to acknowledge that you are the creator of your own reality and what you see outside of you and around you is a reflection of what is within you. When you practice Ho’oponopono, you are clearing the old programming, the limiting beliefs, the negative chatter, and clutter from your subconscious mind so you can be clear and open to Divine inspiration from your Higher Source (or God or Spirit or whatever you define as that which is greater than you). It allows you to release the negative feelings you have about what you see reflected around you so you can let it go and move past it. If someone pissed you off, what within you attracted or reflects that anger? Look at yourself and you will see. And even if your ego won’t let you see it, just know it is there.

A book title and quote from a dear departed friend, Jolly Stickley, says: “Insight is an inside job.” (See: https://amzn.to/3UTMEVH) What is it in you that has attracted the situation? What beliefs do you hold, what habitual thoughts are you acting from, what fears are you buying into that brought this into your experience? Since it is what is within you that creates that which is about/around you, you have the power to shift it. You can do so with Ho’oponopono. Clear your slate so you can connect with and receive inspiration from the Divine. Then you can step forward with confidence, peace, and clarity.

Using Ho’oponopono

Ho’oponopono allows you to forgive yourself for anything you have created that you want to clear. It clears the underlying beliefs on every level that brought your situation to your awareness. This clearing is done by holding that situation or issue in mind and heart, and talking and feeling through the four phrases: “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.” And at the training with Joe, he offered a fifth phrase that I resonated with immediately: “I forgives my self.” Yes, that sounds odd, but the “I” is Source, not me, which forgives my subconscious self, my programming. Sometimes we have a hard time letting go when the Divine has already done so. Forgiveness is so important and liberating. Note that you are saying these phrases to the Divine (or God or your Higher Self, etc.), not to someone who has angered you or the situation you want a solution for. And it doesn’t matter what order you say the phrases in.

You are essentially having a conversation with Source using these four or five phrases as the base. For example, in my stressed-out, pre-heart surgery state, I said:

I’m sorry for being so stressed out about what to do. I am confused and afraid that I can’t do this…that I can’t handle this. Please forgive me for my role in creating this chaos. Forgive me for any negative feelings I have about others in this situation. Forgive me for the baggage and past programming that I or others brought into this. Thank you that you are clearing my path and making a way out of no way. Thank you for all that I have now at my disposal. I love you for being here for me, for healing me and my situation, and for the grace and ease you bring to my life. I forgives my self and for this I am grateful.

After getting into the feeling place of this conversation, really feeling the gratitude and the forgiveness, I can continue to “pray without ceasing” by repeating the phrases over and over as I need to, to keep my path clear: “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you…” As Joe says, “they are shorthand for a longer prayer” and you can keep repeating them whenever you want to clean. It keeps the filters of perception clear so you can see that which you want, rather than the perceived lack of it.

I will tell you that I was totally blessed throughout my husband’s recovery, and all worked out despite appearances. I was constantly cleaning, which paved the way to blessings throughout that year.

Authors Using Ho’oponopono

For authors, you might be wrestling with a variety of feelings and concerns. Some of the authors who come to me for coaching share some of the following:

• I am not a good enough writer to write this book
• Everything must be perfect or I can’t publish
• I am not an expert worthy of being an author
• I will never get it done
• I don’t know how to publish a book
• I don’t know where to start
• I suck as a writer but I have a great story to tell
• My story won’t help anyone so why bother
• My book will never sell
• I can’t afford to publish a book
• I am a good writer, but I just don’t have time to write the book

Have any of these thoughts ever run through your head? Have you acted as if any of these were true, thus indicating an underlying belief? Want to start Clearing Your Publishing Path with Ho’oponopono?

Let’s take the last fear I mentioned and run it through the Ho’op