"I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I forgive you. I love you. Thank you."
These five powerful, concise sentences seem to me to sum up and move forward much of the personal and spiritual work I have been doing for almost three decades.
I found these deeply evocative sentences last week, in the middle of an e-mail from a woman who kindly forwards me material from many sources about spiritual and personal growth.
Already, they have become a wonderful tool for me to use in my own life, and have been helping two friends I've shared them with.
The e-mail they came in was quite a long and involved one, and started by saying that it was going to explain a Hawaiian spiritual technique called Ho'o' pono pono. I didn't know what to make of that, and the explanation included a very long story that I barely made it through.
But when I finally reached the heart of the whole thing, I was amazed and delighted.
"I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I forgive you. I love you. Thank you."
Looking them over, and letting their profound meanings sink into me, I knew immediately that they were going to be important to me.
The issues and problems I've been wrestling with all my life, no matter how deep and complex and insolvable, seem to be contained here. Every brief sentence feels bathed in meaning, and is incredibly versatile.
Saying them, and repeating them, in the order they're written in, reminds me of individuals, situations, problems, feelings, and parts of myself that disturb my inner peace. Continuing to repeat them brings about understanding and release.
Repeating them over and over, I've found that I am saying the sentences to someone else, or to me, or to a combination of the two --- or sometimes to a situation or a memory, or even to a divine force.
"I'm sorry."
I take responsibility for what has happened in my life, perhaps in a particular situation I am thinking of.
"Please forgive me."
I need to feel forgiven to be at peace. I can ask for this forgiveness from someone I feel I wronged in some way, by asking through the universal energies, recognizing the wrong and sending heartfelt apologies their way, silent though this may be. Sometimes I disliked or resented someone so much that I feel I sent harmful energies their way in the past, and sending a heartfelt request for forgiveness into the atmosphere is the best way I can now address this.
Or I can ask forgiveness from myself, or from the divine source. In any way I feel unforgiven, I can ask.
Stating that I am sorry and that I ask for forgiveness opens the way for healing.
"I forgive you."
I have no control over anyone's feelings but my own, and I need to feel it within myself --- any forgiveness that gives me peace. Having compassion for myself and forgiving myself is a wonderful feeling.
At this point, too, I am often forgiving someone else, or some situation that has brought about difficult feelings in me.
Or, I don't even have to know who I mean when I ask forgiveness, or offer forgiveness. Somehow, it is working inside me, and it feels very good.
"I love you."
This just seems to flow from the what has come before, love to myself, to others, to the whole.
"Thank you."
Love and gratitude are so natural at this point, and make the Ho'o' pono pono complete somehow.
It has a simplicity and a beauty that I wouldn't necessarily expect from something so deep and powerful,
I say the five sentences over and over many times every night when I am going to sleep. I can feel them working in me, finding shadows and bringing them into the light to be released, and filling me with comfort and peace.
"I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I forgive you. I love you. Thank you."
