~~~~ Notes from Nancy ~~~~
          Creating the Life You Want
                                                         November, 2006

Welcome to all new subscribers from the ICF convention! I enjoyed meeting everyone and sharing The Concepts. For those interested: Yes, I am willing to speak on this at Chapter and organizational meetings. Please contact me personally to work out the details.

This month I want to do something a little different. I have always shared my own writing but a friend, Deb Giffen sent me the following article. I find myself re-reading and re-reading it, then sending it out to others. It touches deeply on and gives a whole new meaning to personal responsibility; to the idea that EACH of us, by everything we do affect our world. My personal belief is that when each one of us fully takes personal responsibility we will find at last the peace and joy we are looking for.

The article is written by Joe Vitali. Joe's work is always powerful and thought provoking. He was also one of the stars of "The Secret." To learn more about Joe you can go to http://www.mrfire.com/

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Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a complete ward
of criminally insane patients--without ever seeing any of them. The
psychologist would study an inmate's chart and then look within himself to see how
he created that person's illness. As he improved himself, the patient improved.

When I first heard this story, I thought it was an urban legend. How could
anyone heal anyone else by healing himself? How could even the best
self-improvement master cure the criminally insane?

It didn’t make any sense. It wasn't logical, so I dismissed the story.

However, I heard it again a year later. I heard that the therapist had used a
Hawaiian healing process called ho 'oponopono’. I had never heard of it, yet I
couldn't let it leave my mind. If the story was at all true, I had to know more.

I had always understood “total responsibility” to mean that I am responsible
for what I think and do. Beyond that, it's out of my hands. I think that most
people think of total responsibility that way. We're responsible for what we
do, not what anyone else does. The Hawaiian therapist who healed those mentally
ill people would teach me an advanced new perspective about total responsibility.

His name is Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. We probably spent an hour talking on our
first phone call. I asked him to tell me the complete story of his work as a
therapist. He 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 me 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.

Whew. 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--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. Let me give you a quick
example of how this works: one day, someone sent me an email that upset me. In the
past I would have handled it by working on my emotional hot buttons or by
trying to reason with the person who sent the nasty message. This time, I decided
to try Dr. Len's method. I kept silently saying, “I'm sorry” and "I love you,"
I didn't say it to anyone in particular. I was simply evoking the spirit of
love to heal within me what was creating the outer circumstance.

Within an hour I got an e-mail from the same person. He apologized for his
previous message. Keep in mind that I didn't take any outward action to get that
apology. I didn't even write him back. Yet, by saying "I love you," I somehow
healed within me what was creating him.

I later attended a ho 'oponopono workshop run by Dr. Len. He's now 70 years
old, considered a grandfatherly shaman, and is somewhat reclusive. He praised
my book, The Attractor Factor. He told me that as I improve myself, my book's
vibration will raise, and everyone will feel it when they read it. In short, as
I improve, my readers will improve.

"What about the books that are already sold and out there?" I asked.

"They aren't out there," he explained, once again blowing my mind with his
mystic wisdom. "They are still in you."

In short, there is no out there.

It would take a whole book to explain this advanced technique with the depth
it deserves. Suffice it to say that whenever you want to improve anything in
your life, there's only one place to look: inside you.

When you look, do it with love.

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to feel, explore, and shift in order to heal. The concepts are
"simple" but not necessarily "easy" because our lives are a
complex web of our beliefs, feelings, and circumstances
which we are constantly creating and recreating."
~ Paula Gregorowicz
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