by Kumu Nālani | Jan 20, 2023 | Blog Posts, Changing, Healing
EACH one of us has an important decision to make. One that we might make many times over, but each time we do, it becomes less of a decision and more of a necessity. We can decide to carry our burdens, or we can decide to heal them. You can to decide, as I do, one way or the other.
One way will lead to blockage and entanglement that keeps on turning back on itself. The other leads eventually to freedom to be in the flow of life as you encounter it second by second. That one takes real effort. It is longer. But, it is for life.
The first one will eventually exhaust you, frustrate you and erode you. And it will allow others to erode you too because your foundation that makes up the essential You isnʻt strong enough, unshakeable, impermeable. When our foundation is in place, when it is firm, we can let that which no longer serves us, and the barbs directed at us by those who operate from fear – because thatʻs whatʻs at the base of hatred, which is really self-hatred – move through and past us. We force it into run off.
Nature teaches us this Truth – take a look next time youʻre walking along a beach, natural waterway or forest. When we sat with this Ancestor, it showed us these two paths. Both paths have Pōhaku/ stones, which in our Lineage we refer to as “baggage”, but only one of them leads to Freedom…if we decide that we no longer want to be heavy and immoveable like a stone.
When we donʻt do the INNER WORK required to move ourselves out of entanglement, we become more snared within it. The entanglement keeps turning back on itself, pulling tighter and tighter until those knots are pulled so hard, you become immobile. Thatʻs when you really do get stuck because you feel you canʻt move in any direction. It feels like one big ball of messy knots.
BUT, when you find your path, the one that really means something to you, you learn how to do the inner work needed so you DONʻT get caught up with people, situations or memories of the Past. The Past is healed in the present. Thatʻs one of the things the Present is for. If the Past remains unhealed, you continue to live it in your present. You’re living your Past over and over again in all sorts of situations. Itʻs the Groundhog Day nobody wants. Do you get the lesson?
Finding YOUR path means starting. The path you start with and follow might not be the path you continue on, but it will do its job getting you started until you come to another path – and then itʻs simply another decision. Do I want to continue on this Path, explore and grow with it or is there another path that has shown itself to me BECAUSE I have walked this path and can more clearly see my way…
Not starting, but THINKING about it over and over again wondering what to do, IS the knots pulling tighter. The only way to loosen them is to start on a Path with a trusted Teacher to help you find your way.
I can show you the way we do it in our Lineage using our Teachings as the guide. You can walk this Path with me, learning and clearing your way as you go. And when we get to the end of our 6 – 8 weeks together, you can decide “YES, I want to continue on this Path” or “No, now I can see where I have to go next…”
Thatʻs how all this Spiritual stuff works – you just have to start. Let me help you find your way…Kumu Nālani x
Where do I go Kumu?
🌺 The Path to Pa’a is the Foundation Course that kicks everything off – whether it’s finding your way to your next Path or staying here awhile with me. We run it livestreamed – in a live online classroom – each quarter and sometimes as Retreats. Go to the Calendar to find when it’s on and either enrol in it now or get on the Interested List for next time. As always, if you have a question, find me here, i will always come back to you with an answer.
by Kumu Nālani | Aug 31, 2022 | Blog Posts, Changing, Growing
We think about the Spiritual Path as being fairly straightforward, but it isn’t really like that at all. Which is why people fall off the Path. Finding your way along the Path takes real commitment and tenacity. For as long as the memory within our stories tells us, Humankind has had to meet and face one uncomfortable truth – the truth of their humanness.
Sometimes it’s used as an excuse for our failings and mistakes. We can write them off as being “Human”. But is this level of our “Humanness” the same level of being “Human” as the Ancestors lived it?
So the real question is: what did they know that we do not? What is it that prevents each one of us living from the same level they did? And if we did, how would our lives be improved in some way, or would they?
When a set of Teachings is given within any traditional Cultural framework and you begin experimenting with what it’s like to live within them, each one of us is confronted with the weaknesses of our humanness because they are exposed and magnified by the Teachings we’re engaging with.
The roller-coaster of emotions (often labelled as unhappy ones) we experience is our resistance to letting go of what we have allowed ourselves to believe in for many years as Truth. As Humans we do not easily let go of anything we believe has valued and served us in some way. It is the not letting go that keeps us in a place of feeling stuck and unsatisfied. The more we hang on, the more rigid we become. We cannot move.
Often it is the very beliefs we are holding on to that are keeping us stuck – but we cannot see it because those beliefs have gotten us to where we are now. It is the Now that is telling us we are stuck and need to move, but it is the valuing of beliefs that we have outgrown – at some level we intuitively understand this even if it is a very vague intuitive sense – that is preventing the movement.
Every Tradition tells us that to prevent movement is to create suffering. We are the source and architect of our suffering…
Most people cannot take the roller-coaster of emotions. The roller-coaster feeling is the tension between holding on and letting go. Because we cannot cope with the intensity of the feeling, and because we have not learned how to experience the wide gamut of emotions in a healthy way, we resist the movement, telling ourselves all sorts of familiar fabrications: “I’m fine as I am”, “this is as far as I need to go right now”, “I’m OK, I don’t need to change”, “I like myself less now than before”, “itʻs normal to…” and 101 other one-liners.
All of them are the Voice of Resistance – we just don’t recognise it because itʻs a familiar voice and feeling the roller-coaster of emotions isn’t. When something isn’t familiar or when it fails to meet our imaginary view of what “becoming” looks like and what “light” feels like – we assess it as Bad or Not Good…what is really happening at the most profound levels is CHANGE…
And most of us arenʻt taught how to recognise it, embrace it, ride it out and live through it until it becomes our “norm”.
Which, if you really think about it, is why we actively seek out Spiritual Teachings in the first place – to make sense of ourselves…
People do not change because they cannot (or will not) go the distance. They haven’t learned basic coping mechanisms for being uncomfortable with uncomfortable experiences. They are thirsty for the quick fix that instantly makes them feel better and more approving of themselves – and that’s when the old “Stories of Resistance” like those one-liners really kick in.
That we have those thoughts is a normal process of personal change; that we allow them to keep us nailed to the same spot, is not. Are these words “pinging” you strongly in one way or the other? Are you feeling “the Yips”? Are you feeling uncomfortable? We hope so. That’s why we have given them to you. We want to be controversial. We want to create the Depths of Thought within you. We want you to objectively assess your own beliefs. We do not want you to stay nailed to the cross, sacrificing the finding of the Truth of Light within you. That is the mission of all Traditional Teachings in their pure form.
Uncorrupted Teachings help you to fight your way through; corrupted Teachings do not serve the Truth of You, they serve the corruption of your Spiritual Essence keeping you contained in “unpotential”, which is a wasteland, literally a wasting of your spirit and a wasting away of your potential. Uncorrupted Teachings teach you the Skill of Discernment, so you can see the Truth, corrupted Teachings will make it sound like truth, but really they’re hiding the Truth from you. They blind you to all that you can be. To all youʻre supposed to be.
You will only ever know this for yourself when you go the distance and follow the path to its end – in the process you will experience life unmasked. The roller-coaster of emotions is the first raw experience of unmasking. Only when you are unmasked, are able to decide the Truth. Which doesn’t require a decision at all…
How can I develop myself further Kumu?
- Join the School of Spirituality Spiritual Intelligence Training – Stage 1: 4 x Sundays in November 2022 @ 09:00am – 10:00am with Kumu Nālani live online or start the DIY Course and reach out to Kumu when you need to. This course is suitable for everyone
- Join the School of Hawaiian Spiritual Studies: Path to Paʻa. 7 x Mondays starting mid-October 2022 @ 6:00pm – 8:00pm with Kumu Nālani live online. This course is for those interested in learning about Hawaiian Spiritual Practices, Practitioners of Hawaiian Healing like Lomilomi and those thinking about becoming Lomilomi and/or Hoʻoponopono Practitioners.
- Get in on our mailing list to get our Free Magazine, overflowing with articles to get you thinking about life, growth and then what…👉🏽 join our community
- Do a 1:1 online Hoʻoponopono Session and start clearing the stones from your Path: Kumu and Wise Guide Deborah Halani both do these sessions Or doing live online Healing Sessions with one of the other Wise Guides – each Guide works with you in a different way
by Kumu Nālani | Dec 15, 2021 | Blog Posts, Changing, Growing, Hawaiian Studies Club, Healing, Relationships
WHEN THE YEAR STARTS TO DRAW TO A CLOSE & THE NEW ONE IS ON THE HORIZON it’s time to start looking forward.
When the hurly burly of Christmas & the Holiday Season ramps up it’s easy to get caught up in the distraction as you swing from crazy to chaotic – end of year targets, an endless round of socialising, holidays, Christmas lunch & dinner to think about, as well as co-ordinating visits to the rellies – family. In all of this, there’s one simple question to answer, “are you happy?”.
You might answer sometimes, generally, usually, not always – we all have things in our life that make us feel happy, but deep down are you happy?
If you find yourself saying “I’ll be happy when...”, it’s time to clear the clutter to uncover what truly makes you happy. Finding happy isn’t a chase or a goal to go after, it’s finding where your happy place is within you & the rest follows.
How about making 2022 your year of personal growth, change and development – free from being weighed down by past baggage…
Unfortunately there’s still a lot of stigma about Counselling but Counselling is really all about Personal Development – working one-on-one with someone to help you get where you want to go, to stop doing the things that prevent you from being happy and start doing more of the things that do. It’s that simple.
📅 A Year of Personal Change – what you can do:
1. Let go of expectations of yourself, others and how you think things should be
2. Stop trying to please everyone – it takes you away from your true self
3. Repair resentment, guilt and shame – find its root cause and heal it. Remember we all makes mistakes – it’s how we learn
4. Find forgiveness and you’ll find authentic connections with yourself and others
5. Say goodbye to draining, de-energising relationships – it’s tough but you’ve got to know when it’s not for you
6. Release all the busyness – have you confused it with status and achievement? Or avoidance? It doesn’t give you more of anything except stress and (often) lower self-esteem
7. Money doesn’t buy happiness – of course you need it but what have you traded-off for material gain & earning more & more? And how much do you really need anyway?
8. Let go of fear of abandonment – it leads to poor decision making
9. And let go of fear too – that’s one thing the Kūpuna/Elders always advise. Fear is the distortion of the Ego which is designed to help you in this school of life.
A list is just a list without action and action is hard to take on your own – that’s why you need a Wise Guide to help you access the places you would not be able to go by yourself and cheer you on through the tough stuff…they also make sure you’re holding yourself in love and not judgement
☝ If this strikes a chord and you want 2022 to be a milestone year, then make a time with Mark or one of the other Wise Guides and get set for 2022…
by Kumu Nālani | Aug 8, 2021 | Blog Posts, Changing
With the finish line for 2021 only a few months away, Now is the time to start looking forward.
Before the run home; before the hurly burly of Christmas ramps up where it’s easy to get caught up in the distraction as you swing from crazy to chaotic – end of year targets, an endless round of socialising (we hope…), holidays, Christmas lunch & dinner to think about, co-ordinating visits to the relies (again, we can only hope in these upside down times…)
Before any of that happens – start taking stock now. Put down Covid-uncertainty for a moment, take a breath, get a cup of tea, sit, breath, let yourself sink back and ask one simple question to answer, “am I happy?”.
You might answer sometimes, generally, usually, not always – we all have things in our life that make us feel happy, but deep down are you happy?
If you find yourself saying “I’ll be happy when…“, it’s time to clear the clutter to uncover what truly makes you happy. Finding happy isn’t a chase or a goal to go after it’s finding where your happy place is within you & the rest follows.
How about making this year, your year of personal change and development – free from being weighed down by past baggage, expectation, toeing the line…
Unfortunately while there’s still a lot of stigma about it, Counselling is really all about Personal Development – working one-on-one with someone to help you get where you want to go, to stop doing the things that prevent you from being happy and start doing more of the things that do. Really, it’s that simple.
A year of Personal Change can start at anytime, it’s not just a new year kind of thing. In the old times, everyone lived within the Seasons, you can start your own Season of Change. Here’s the list of the super 9’s:
1. Let go of expectations of yourself, others and how you think things should be
2. Stop trying to please everyone – it takes you away from your true self
3. Repair resentment, guilt and shame – find its root cause and heal it. Remember we all makes mistakes – it’s how we learn
4. Find forgiveness and you’ll find authentic connections with yourself and others
5. Say goodbye to draining, de-energising relationships – it’s tough but you’ve got to know when it’s not for you
6. Release all the busyness – have you confused it with status and achievement? It doesn’t give you more of anything except stress and (often) lower self-esteem
7. Money doesn’t buy happiness – of course you need it but what have you traded-off for material gain & earning more & more? And how much do you really need anyway?
8. Let go of fear of abandonment – it leads to poor decision making
9. And let go of fear too – that’s one thing the Kūpuna/Elders always advise. Fear is the distortion of the Ego which is designed to help you in this school of life.
A list is just a list without action and action, especially the first steps into positive action, is hard to take on your own – you need a Guide to help you access the places you would not be able to go by yourself, help you distentangle yourself from what’s got you caught, and to help you move from thinking to learning, healing, growing and changing…
Striking a chord? If you want to create your milestone Season of Change, this short article is shared from Mark, one of our Wise Guides. All of the Wise Guides are wonderfully skilled Helpers and they all work in lusciously different ways. You can book time with them on the Wise Guide Booking Page, and you want to have a free 15 minute chat with one of them before booking – let them know here (don’t forget to tell us which Wise Guide you want to work with).
by Kumu Nālani | Jun 2, 2021 | Blog Posts, Changing
Need to improve your People Skills – here’s how…
IF you’ve been given feedback that you need to improve your People Skills, Communication Skills or Leadership Skills OR you want to get ahead in the workplace for your next career move – here’s the best way to do it.
The world is full of people leading and interacting from their personal wounds – that is, wound to wound. The wounded trying to lead the wounded…it isn’t exactly a recipe for success.
There’s examples at every level of Governance – from Global Leadership to the local SME. The reason why workplace leadership is in such a poor state with rampant bullying and the like, is because Leaders don’t do their inner work and the teams they lead don’t either.
So all day every day, everyone’s wounds are getting triggered. If you are a leader of people you have a responsibility to heal and resolve your “stuff” so that you aren’t projecting and transferring it on to others in your workplace. And you model working on your “stuff” is cool and normal thing to do.
PROJECTION is when you take your own unliked, unwanted emotions and traits and attribute them to someone else. It stops you having to acknowledge the parts of yourself you don’t like.
People who feel inferior and have low self-esteem can also project their own feelings of not being good enough onto others. It’s a self-defence mechansim that kicks in under pressure. We’ve all done at some time in our lives – so don’t be too hard on yourself if this is hitting on a raw nerve.
The workplaces seem to reward stress, skewed values and all sorts of availability except emotional availability. The cycle continues – until you decide otherwise.
There’s a range of complex emotional transactions that happen at work and few people are well equipped to acknowledge them and work through them because Spiritual Intelligence isn’t always learned at home and it’s not taught in Leadership Courses or even thought about in workplaces.
if each person is doing their inner work, then there wouldn’t be the issues in the workplace to start with. Leaders and teams would be comfortable acknowledging weaknesses, vulnerabilities, failures – the whole conversation would change because they can accept experiencing the negative about themselves.
Language would be very different. It would be emotionally healthy, comfortable with intimacy and give space to working through problems without judgement or threat of punative action.
Good leadership starts with: developing self-reflection skills to understand yourself better FIRST, being able to explore your inner world, your past, learning about your wounds, your shame, anger, fear or whatever it is and their impact on your whole life not just work, and being curious about yourself rather than judging. Your future as a Leader isn’t that important but your future as a person is – good leadership will naturally arise when you become the person you want to be. That’s called being PONO.
To get better people skills come to our next workshop. Open the doors to the best of you – that’s where the real power comes from to get ahead in every part of life. That’s what real people skills are…
Did you know we run a 100% self-paced learning program in Spiritual Intelligence? Itʻs in 3 parts: The Beginning, Spiritual Nature and then, the whammy Universal Nature. This learning program is chock-full of the exact activities and practices we do ourselves every day to continue to develop ourselves as Healers and Teachers. Find more on the Courses Page...
