How Forgiveness Will Detox Your Liver This Spring

“I am sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.”
– Ho’oponopono healing prayer for forgiveness

Ho’oponopono (means to “make right, to come into balance”) is an ancestral Hawai’ian practice that was used as a form of family therapy. It recognized that we are all connected, and that everything we do affects others. The above prayer is so powerful, because it realigns ourselves with our Higher Selves, connects us to our hearts, and makes things right, on an energetic level with those we have difficult relationships with. It can heal anger we may carry towards challenging situations we’ve experienced. The reason why it’s effective is because past resentments, fears, and insecurities melt away in the face of forgiveness, love, and gratitude. Although its roots are indigenous to Hawai’i, this mantra is meant heal the spirit, no matter what your religious or spiritual background may be.

In addition, this simple forgiveness prayer can help you overcome blocks that you are currently experiencing. How? Because our blocks – no whether they be creative, financial, romantic, career, or otherwise – are self-created. And if you feel blocked in one aspect of your life, the energetic block may be felt in another aspect of your life. So, how do you release the block? You heal it!

The beauty of our lives is that we are totally responsible for our own happiness. Unfortunately, that means no scapegoating, and blaming other people for our failures and shortcomings! Because, even in challenging things we encounter, we participate in some way in making them happen. From being in a bad relationship, to devastating business experiences, it is important for us to acknowledge whatever we’ve brought to the table to help create the situation, to own it, and then to send forgiveness. To ourselves, and to others.

You can apply the mantra to your day, to a group of people, or, if you’d like to get specific, you can apply it towards a specific person you are in conflict with, or memories that are painful and that have not healed.

How to apply the Ho’oponopono prayer:

1. Get still.
2. Think of the person you are in conflict with, or of the experience or memory that is painful.
3. Say the above healing prayer.

That’s it! Healing doesn’t have to be hard.

So, how does forgiveness relate to the Liver and Spring?

In my previous Spring-is-coming post, “Springing Forward, Bamboo Style”, we’ve learned that the season of Spring is related to the Liver in Chinese Medicine, and that the emotion of Spring is anger. When our Liver is unbalanced, it can show up as irritability, a short temper, red eyes (and possibly red face), headaches, pain in the neck and/or trapezius muscles (the muscles between the shoulders and the neck), to name a few symptoms.

And, although anger is normal, and sometimes needed (as in when we are experiencing injustice, or our boundaries have been crossed, or when we need to protect ourselves), many times the anger is not directly due to the situation, but to what the situation has triggered in us. And, we can only be triggered by things within us that have not yet healed.

In addition, when we hold onto anger, it creates blocks in our life, because our energy is not freely flowing when we’re angry. In fact, our energy is blocked when we’re angry. And, since the Liver is in charge of the free flow of Qi throughout the body, when our Qi is obstructed, it indicates that our Liver is not balanced. Time for an energetic detox!

How do you heal these triggers? By acknowledging where the trigger is stemming from, and to send healing to it, whether it be through the above Ho’oponopono prayer, or through another form of healing (there are many ways to heal triggers). When you heal your anger, you help heal and detox your Liver. What a great way to herald in Spring!

New growth can’t happen without resistance, and we need to find another way to flow when we experience resistance. So, don’t be upset with yourself if you experience resistance – it usually means that you’re growing!

And, as an added bonus, when you forgive, you show your strength. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

What are you triggered by? What would it feel like to have them healed?

Make it right,

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. I am currently in the mode of revamping the Alcantara Acupuncture & Healing Arts website, and this WordPress blog will be integrated with it! I look forward to launching it in the next few weeks! Keep your eyes peeled.

 

 

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