#12 The Hawaiian practice of Hoʻoponopono
What do you do when there's nowhere to run and you don't want to fight? Hawaiians worked this out 5,000 years ago.
An island nation’s method of conflict resolution. The modern mantra for reconciliation and forgiveness is: “I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.”
As we face global environmental crisis, increasingly global economic and health systems, the need to reevaluate the US justice system, and politicized strife in many countries, we can all benefit from how an island nation solves its problems. What do you do when you don’t have space for a feud? What do you do when there is nowhere to run, and you don’t want to fight?
Hawaiians worked this out 5,000 years ago and we can learn from them.
Hoʻoponopono is defined in the Hawaiian Dictionary as:
(a) “To put to rights; to put in order or shape, correct, revise, adjust, amend, regulate, arrange, rectify, tidy up, make orderly or neat, administer, superintend, supervise, manage, edit, work carefully or neatly; to make ready, as canoemen preparing to catch a wave.”
(b) “Mental cleansing: family conferences in which relationships were set right (hoʻoponopono) through prayer, discussion, confession, repentance, and mutual restitution and forgiveness.”
Perhaps most telling is where the process starts. Instead of “conflict” or “dispute,” Hawaiians see the problem as “stubborn dispute,” “having difference,” or “entanglement.”
Can this mantra help us find resolution?