Ho’oponopono is an ancient Hawaiian healing practice that can help you heal relationships, resolve conflicts, and restore balance and harmony in your life. Dr. Hew Len, a Hawaiian psychologist and shamanic practitioner, has successfully used the principles of Ho’oponopono to heal patients in mental health facilities, even those who were deemed incurable.

The four key phrases of Ho’oponopono – “I’m sorry,” “Please forgive me,” “Thank you,” and “I love you” – are the foundation of this practice. By saying these phrases, you can clear negative programming that causes illness and suffering.

The first step is taking responsibility for your own thoughts and emotions and seeking forgiveness and reconciliation with yourself and others. Saying “I’m sorry” acknowledges that there is something that needs to be addressed and shows a willingness to take responsibility for your role in the situation. “Please forgive me” is an invitation to let go of any negative feelings or resentments between you and the other person.

Expressing gratitude is the next step. Saying “Thank you” shifts your focus away from negative aspects of the situation and toward the positive. Finally, saying “I love you” is a powerful statement of unconditional love and acceptance.

When you repeat these four phrases, you are “cleaning” your own thoughts and emotions around the situation. This process can lead to positive changes in your relationships and circumstances.

Dr. Hew Len teaches that there are only three kinds of data to deal with – IZ, IZI, and memory. IZ is the neutral state, while IZI is inspiration, where divinity comes to zero and inspires you. Memory, on the other hand, goes against ease and creates dis-ease. By practicing Ho’oponopono, you can shift your thoughts and emotions into the IZI state and align with the flow.

Joe Vitale explains that the four phrases are trigger words for a longer process. “I’m sorry” means “I’m sorry for whatever program is in me that created this event.” “Please forgive me” means “Please forgive my being unconscious to my own thought processes.” “Thank you” means “Thank you for releasing this program from my being.” And “I love you” means “I see you as a valuable and worthy human being, regardless of any past conflicts or difficulties.”

Some quotes from the book At Zero: The Final Secrets to “Zero Limits” The Quest for Miracles Through Ho’oponopono:

1. “There’s something in the human brain that won’t allow people to say they are responsible. Even with evidence piled up against them, they will deny and ignore and rationalize away their own involvement.”
2. “Spirit, Superconscious, please locate the origin of my feelings, thoughts of (______ fill in the blank with your belief, feeling, or thoughts ____). Take each and every level, layer, area, and aspect of my being to this origin. Analyze it and resolve it perfectly with God’s truth. Come through all generations of time and eternity. Healing every incident and its appendages based on the origin. Please do it according to God’s will until I am at the present, Filled with light and truth. God’s peace and love, forgiveness of myself for my incorrect perceptions. Forgiveness of every person, place, circumstances and events which contributed to this, these feelings and thoughts.”
3. “Ever since my own satori (or glimpse of awakening), I realized communication with the Divine is a two-way street. You can clear yourself so that you can receive inspiration from the Divine, and you can clearly send requests to the Divine.”
4. “She also believed that you never did any cleaning per se. ‘The prayer is an application for relief,’ she explained. Dr. Hew Len calls it a petition. Your cleaning is a request. It’s up to Divinity to do anything. Sometimes a person had a karmic debt to pay, and no amount of Ho’oponopono would help unless the Divine showed the debt was paid.”
5. “Modern Ho’oponopono looks like this: you are upset because of a situation. You then turn within, feel the pain, and plea with Divinity (God, Gaia, Tao, Zero, Nature, etc.) to remove your inner program (data, thought, or belief) that caused or attracted the situation. You repeat this cleaning, clearing, erasing, or repairing until you are at peace.”
6. “I’ve often explained that the four phrases are trigger words for a longer process. For example, when I say, ‘I’m sorry,’ I’m really thinking, ‘I’m sorry for whatever program is in me that created this event.’ When I say, ‘Please forgive me,’ I’m actually meaning, ‘Please forgive my being unconscious to my own thought processes.’ When I say, ‘Thank you,’ I am meaning, ‘Thank you for releasing this program from my being.’ When I say, ‘I love you,’ I am returning to Source (Divinity or Zero) and wiping my inner whiteboard clean.”
7. “Once free, you can have, do, or be whatever you can imagine—but you’ll probably be wise enough to prefer what the Divine imagines for you. Remember, constant cleaning and clearing is what removes the data of the mind to allow something greater to come along. Clean, clean, clean.”
8. “A fear is just a program. Like software, it’s only wiring in your brain—neither good nor bad. Morrnah, as well as Dr. Hew Len, often described people as simply computers, rarely so clear that they have no programs. I have no idea if Morrnah was enlightened. Hawaii considers her a national treasure, but that doesn’t mean she was awakened. I’ll bet she had programs, too.”
9. “I am the ‘I’ I come forth from the void into the Light, I am that emptiness, That hollowness beyond all Consciousness, The ‘I,’ the ‘Id,’ the ‘All.’ I draw my bow of rainbows across the waters, The continuum of minds with