‘Reality is the mirror of your thoughts. Choose well what you put in front of the mirror’ ~ Remez Sasson

I had a feeling the first time I saw this topic on the Official List, over a year ago now, that it was going to give me a little trouble. And I was right, it definitely did, although, surprisingly, not quite in the way I thought that it would.

The week started out with a somewhat sticky situation involving myself and some good friends. I don’t want to bore everyone with the details, so suffice it to say that some information was shared in a way that caused a few hurt feelings. In hindsight, though, I guess I can be grateful that it happened when it did, because it certainly provided me with a pretty good opportunity to try to ‘See Perceived Faults As A Mirror Image’.

And I was definitely starting to perceive some faults, because I honestly didn’t think I had done anything wrong!

Now, believe me, I am no saint. Sadly, I’ve been known to partake in my share of gossip in the past, and have learned the hard way that nothing good ever comes from it. But I really felt as though I had actually, finally, learned the lesson, so when I found myself smack in the middle of this situation anyway, despite my conscious effort to stay out of it, I figured that it had to be someone else’s fault.

But before I could really start playing the blame-game, I remembered my ‘assignment’ for the week. And so I took a deep breath, and forced myself to look at the ‘perceived faults’ I was trying to find in the others as a ‘mirror image’ of something inside me. Not the easiest thing I’ve ever had to do…my ego was pretty reluctant to accept any responsibility, even in the name of My Consciousness Project!

It seems, however, that taking responsibility was, in fact, exactly what I needed to do. According to Dr. Hew Len, an Hawaiian therapist and co-author of the book, Zero Limits, we are all, each and every one of us, 100% responsible for what happens in our lives. And not just for our thoughts and actions. It seems that everything we experience, whether it’s good or bad, our fault or not our fault, is totally our responsibility, simply because it’s in our life. By learning to accept this responsibility, and see our experiences as a reflection of our own inner judgements and beliefs, we can begin to take more control of what happens in our lives.

Dr. Hew Len teaches an ancient Hawaiian practice called Ho’oponopono, which, loosely translated, means ‘to make right’. Basically, it’s a very simple process that involves the following 3 steps:

1. Acknowledge the negative situation.
2. Accept 100% responsibility for it.
3. Silently repeat the words; “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.”

In their book, Dr. Hew Len and his co-author, Joe Vitale, share the story of how thirty years ago, Dr. Hew Len healed an entire ward of mentally ill criminals at the Hawaii State Hospital, using only Ho’oponopono. It’s a pretty amazing story, especially since he never even met with these men in person. He simply sat in an office with their files, and, over a period of several years, he would read about what each one had done. Then, if he noticed himself feeling repulsed, or judgmental, or in any way negative about them, he would use the process to clear himself of the negativity:

“Dr. Hew Len’s method involves cleaning yourself of all memories or negativity in order to see change in yourself and even in others. It seems bizarre, but when you take care of your own issues, they disappear in other people. The whole idea is to love the problems away.”

According to Dr. Hew Len, because our reality is a reflection of our internal thoughts and beliefs, when we experience a negative situation it is simply because we have a similar negative thought or belief lurking in our sub-conscious. Ho’oponopono is a way to clear these limiting beliefs so that they will no longer be reflected externally.

Anyway, I decided to give it a try to see if it would help the situation with my friends. So here’s how it went:

1. I acknowledged to myself that, yes, I was definitely in a negative situation.
2. I acknowledged that yes, I was (gulp) 100% responsible for it because I was, in fact, experiencing it.
3. I silently repeated, somewhat self-consciously, the prescribed words.

Now, I would love to say that as soon as I did this the whole situation miraculously resolved itself, but it didn’t happen quite that way. What did happen, though, was that once I honestly accepted the responsibility for being involved, I realized that blaming someone else was not going to help make it right. The only way that I could possibly make it right would be to change the way I was handling it.

Which made total sense when I really thought about it.  I mean, if I were standing in front of a real mirror and didn’t like something I saw, I wouldn’t try to fix the reflection. That would be a complete waste of energy because, obviously, it wouldn’t change a thing. The only way for me to change the reflection would be to change what was being reflected. There’s just no other way.

So, I took yet another deep breath (believe me, I took a few this week!), pulled up my big girl pants, and went over to apologize to my friend. And, believe it or not, before I could get one word out, she was apologizing to me!

It was almost like I was looking in a mirror again…but this time I really liked the reflection. And, amazingly enough, I never heard another word about that whole situation again, from anyone involved. It’s like it never happened.

Anyway, I have to say that although this week’s assignment was one of the hardest I’ve experienced so far, it was also the most enlightening. The idea that we each have within us the potential to change our life experience, simply by taking responsibility for the things that happen to us, gives me such great hope for the future.

Just imagine how incredible the world would be if we all remembered to look in the mirror! Because, as the great 13th century poet, Rumi, once wrote:

“We are the mirror, as well as the face in it.”