by Kumu Nālani | Oct 20, 2022 | Blog Posts, Healing
Feeling lost? Not sure where you’re going in life or how to get there? Carrying a sense of hard-to-explain unhappiness, feeling displaced? Hold on. It’s all part of finding the right Doorway…
All of those sensations of feeling displaced, yep, know ‘em well. In fact, it was those exact, hard to make sense of feelings that turned my own engine over, with just enough sputtering to kickstart the most important enquiries of my own life.
And many, many people who cross my path in healing sessions, talk story gatherings, courses and workshops all tell of that same inexplicable feeling of “wrongness” – out of step, out of place, out of belonging, not devastatingly unhappy but not high kicks happy either.
LOSTNESS.
Lostness isn’t a bad thing. The experience of it can be really disconcerting, destabilising, wobbly and frustrating leaving you future-fearful, but in the checks and balances, it isn’t a bad thing at all.
In fact, some might say it’s a necessary rite of passage that we have to come to grips with if we are going to “make it” up the mountain.
Lostness is part of our survival instinct. Ever been lost travelling overseas or even in your own neighbourhood shopping mall and couldn’t find the way out? The very first thing we all do is start looking for a way to solve the problem. We look for the way out. Our innate instinct is self-preservation. Our pule/prayers are all about “save me from…”, “show me how to get out of…”
THINK ABOUT IT FOR A MOMENT.
Lostness and spiritual survival are partners in Spiritual Revival. One is necessary so the other can survive, thrive and continue. That’s the natural way of things. Continuance. But it’s how we continue that’s the important thing here.
Because we know we can’t continue as we’ve been – that presents itself in the Lostness. The Lostness begins our search for the right Doorway for us. To find it we might open many doors, go inside, stay a while, even years sometimes, before we find ourselves still feeling lost.
THAT’S NECESSARY TOO.
Every door we open helps us find another part of ourselves. Sometimes we’ll like what we find and do more of it, sometimes we don’t and we can either go down that same spiral into the nadir, or we can take action and do the real hana/inner work needed to heal what doesn’t fit with how we want to be in life. We can spiral into the nadir, the dark night of the soul, but we can’t stay there. Sooner or later we need to emerge. We emerge through the healing we do. We emerge through the inner learning we do. We emerge by living what we find out about ourselves. We live in alignment with a force greater than ourselves but of which we are also a necessary part.
That’s what we find out when we enter those spaces. We confirm it. Even if the first set of doors isn’t our final landing place. They’re still necessary. A needed part of our own return to the essence, the true nature of our own existence and our place within Existence itself.
THE FORCE IS WITH YOU.
When we feel Lostness, we’ve lost our relationship (not our connection) with the lifeforce/mana of Existence. We’ve forgotten ITS true nature and therefore obscured our own. Our families and friends can be wonderful people, but no matter how wonderful they all are, if we feel out of step with something unnameable but of which innately know exists, we’re out of step. And you’re the only one in the whole of Existence that can put things right.
THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A MOMENT.
That doesn’t mean H-E-L-P isn’t available to you and you have to go it alone. That’s what the Healers and Teachers are for. And then of course there’s the Ancestors. They’re on your side and you’re never alone when you have a pilina/relationship with them. But you’ve got to cultivate it, just as you would any relationship.
And every time you open the doors, even the wrong ones, if you’re doing your inner work (and opening wrong doors is part of that inner work), trying to find THE Truth, trying to find clear space within, trying to find peace, trying to find the pilina/relationship, the Ancestors see it and recognise your effort. Effort is always important to them. They will reach out to you. You reach out to them through Pule/ Prayer – that’s your doorway to them. Pule/Prayer is the container that you create, into which you invite the Ancestors, make space for them, tell them the problem, tell them the help you need and then ask them to show you the way.
YOU WON’T FIND THE WAY IF YOU DON’T DO THE WORK.
That’s the bottom line. You won’t find the way, no matter how many times they show you because you won’t RECOGNISE where they are taking you. And that’s a major reason why people stay in the cycle of Lostness and keep going through the wrong doorways. They don’t recognise all of the ho’ailona/signs, the spiritual taps on the shoulder, because they don’t have the grunt to keep doing the inner work.
They sell themselves short, self-soothing by filling up on the same “it’s OK to stay here” stories that started their movement away from Lostness in the first place. Not knowing how to self-soothe is a problem because it keeps you in false-soothed patterns where you keep doing the same, or more of, the downward cycle behaviours, but you tell yourself they’re somehow different. You make up a paradigm to fit the pattern.
Which means you stay in Lostness…
Sometimes you’ve got to kiss a lot of Frogs to find your Prince or Princess. Each time you do, you learn that the Frog is not the one for you. The Doorways are like that too. Always something to learn, but don’t stay there too long if it isn’t right for you. Stay a while. Learn, Heal, Grow, Change and then Move. When your healing reaches a certain point, then you will clearly recognise the right Doorway and have the right keys to open it and go on in. It will just FEEL right, like you have found where you BELONG.
You might’ve journeyed for a short time or a long time. You might have travelled far or just a few steps. It’s the movement that’s important. That’s the way of all things in this Universe.
MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.
Because it already is. That’s what the Doors are. They all open inwards…Aloha x
Hmmm, what next Kumu?
- If what you just read seems to resonate or irritate, reflect, reflect, reflect. What is it about this article that’s getting under your skin either way? Can you put feeling words to it, even vague ones. Try to identify and name your feelings
- Go quiet. Take a walk. Sit a while. Contemplate where you are and where you feel you’d like to be – even if it isn’t all that clear. That’s another point of enquiry – what’s getting in the way here?
- Find a skilled Helper to guide you through where you are – the SoHAD Wise Guides have years of experience helping people and they’re always deep in their inner work too. So they know…or find someone close to you that you vibe with
- Come to our monthly free gigs which we livestream – get on the Newsmail list so your get an invite. Like minds help like minds 👉🏽 join our Commune-ity here
- Maybe you want to do a course with us. The Spiritual Intelligence Courses are all about this type of thing – you can DIY with help from US when you need it. You just reach out. Or join our Path to Pa’a Course which is our Hawaiian Spiritual Teachings from our unbroken Lineage. We have preserved them and share them. You can also do this course DIY, self-paced or jjoin a livestreamed class. They are the Foundation Teachings upon which we can learn to build a strong foundation for spiritual living and happiness. You don’t have to be “fully into Hawaiian Stuff” to join or ffind what yuo need…
- Another way to extend on your earlier reflections and going quiet is to do a Traditional Ho’oponopono Session – both Kumu Julia Nālani and Wise Guuide Deborah Rose Hālani do Sessions
by Kumu Nālani | Nov 25, 2021 | Blog Posts, Growing, Spirituality
Disconnect from technology & reconnect with the land
It’s Summer in the Southern Hemisphere. The time when she arrives with her Ruler the Sun, and you know it’s time to strip down and open your heart to the season ahead.
Summer is the traditional time of heart opening inwards as she beckons you toward expansion. Now is a good time to think about how you limit yourself and also how you can throw off those constraints and reach for what you really want.
☝ What has limited you this year? Has it been time, money, an old story, an entangled relationship or perhaps not knowing in which direction to move…
In ancient times when we lived within the changing seasons, Summer ignited our hearts and our joy – and this is the real message as the weather ripens. Now is the time to reconnect with your heart and your joy.
And because Summer breathes fire through the sun, she is also connected to your Solar Plexus – the home of your life force, the life energy that invites you to create powerfully in your life.
☀ For those into the Chakra System, your solar chakra is the home of your will – the energy powerhouse that fires up the energy to get going and reach out and achieve. It’s here that you store your emotions (and sometimes the rawness of them), your self-discipline and your self-esteem.
When your solar plexus is juicy and in tune you can overcome the limitations of the ego and the thoughts which keep you feeling small. Your inner warmth and confidence radiates throughout your whole being, you feel in balance, in love, enriched, full and this extends out to other people and all areas of your life. Life feels good and you feel happy.
But when it’s blocked you can feel angry, depressed, stuck, planning but never actually doing. You easily jumble your priorities so that things like work are high up the list and your own needs and interests are buried at the bottom. You can become judgemental and critical of others, and more importantly, of yourself.
Your solar plexus governs your relationship to yourself and how you see yourself in relation to others – so when its energy is depleted you might find you’re over-dependent on other people for approval. Often you can feel it in your digestive system as it goes out of balance too. We’re lucky in Australia that our Summer coincides with the new year so we can reset for the year ahead and start planning for a renewed way of living.
You can clear and unclog your solar plexus and refresh it by turning off the technology and getting outside under the gaze of fire energy – the sun. Take walks in nature, by the beach or in your own garden. Add more yellow foods into your diet – yellow is the colour of the solar chakra. Try aromatherapy oils and herbs that clear & energise – take a trip to your local Herbalist.
Commit to attending to your emotional needs with Counselling, Ho’oponopono, Lomi Lomi or other Holistic Healing Modality with a skilled Helper. The solar plexus is also the seat of your intuition – so by doing these things you rid yourself of self-doubt, worry about what other people think of you, anxiety and mistrust in your ability to Know.
💚 But most of all really focus on connecting with yourself from your heart – look into your own eyes from your heart and let it remind you of the good stories about yourself; re-prioritise so your needs are at the top of your list and then watch how everything and everyone else naturally falls into place around them…
by Kumu Nālani | Oct 2, 2021 | Blog Posts, Growing, Healing, Spirituality
The Slow Movement: slow down you move too fast, you’ve got to make these moments last…
For years we’ve been vocal advocates for the Slow Movement Movement! In our Healing Studio with Clients, in workshops, courses, Wise Guide Sessions – we love the slow!
Slow movement is all about slowing things down but it’s more than just taking time to stop and smell the roses. In fact, it’s not about stopping at all, which eases the horror when I tell someone it’s time to wind it back a bit…
Now, I never advocate what I haven’t tried myself, so for most of the last few years, I’ve really gotten into the movement of doing things real slow. And what’s the easiest way to try it out – through excercise.
Put your hand up if you rush through your stretching to get to the main event? Every time I’ve asked someone about stretching they all say the same thing “I rush through it to get it over and done with...” Well, that’s where just about everyone gets it wrong.
But stretching isn’t only about getting ready to do your exercises – strip back the traditional stretching activities like Yoga and you’ll remember that it’s all about the PROCESS of opening, exploring, being curious, interested and aware. So slow stretch before Yoga is necessary to get more out of it…
In the battle for the bikini body, it seems the message of Yoga (and all stretching actually) is getting lost.
Your spirit, mind & body love the process of “interested curiosity” and you’ll find that the effects of your stretching and follow-on exercises will actually last longer. The slower you go the longer the benefits stick around. I’d love to say slow movement is mindfulness, but I get stuck there as well because the word MINDFULNESS is so exploited its real meaning is getting lost somewhere too.
But I guess Mindfulness, the real kind, is probably the best description of the tool needed for slow movement effectiveness. After 5 years at Buddhist School, which seems a lifetime ago (or many lifetimes from the Buddhist perspective!) what I learned was the purpose of mindfulness was to end suffering by developing insight and the ability to be fully aware in the moment.
So whether it’s Mindfulness or interested curiousity, when it comes to a healthy Spirit, Mind and Body, the point is to take things slowly so you become aware of what’s actually stuck in there and put an end to it by releasing it…
…S L O W – GIVE YOUR BODY A CHANCE AND IT WILL SHOW YOU WHY IT LIKES TO GO SLOW RATHER THAN PUMPING THE PERSPERATION
☝ Let me explain how it works.
I’ve been rehabing a mysterious hip injury for at least 2 years and against my better judgement I took advice to stop doing Yoga. At the time I wasn’t so sure it was a good thing to do and now I wished I’d listened to my own inner knowing of what’s good for me.
Anyway, the good thing about not listening to myself was I returned to the roots of yogic practice. Even though parts of my job is physical, Lomiomi moves you in a different way. And when I wasn’t offsetting this because of my injury, my own muscle tone fell away.
At the same time, I’m thinking about why my original injury’s taking it’s time to heal. You know, what else is stuck in there? Cue SHAZAAM MOMENT! 🤸♀️ Of course, body wisdom. Your body always knows the answer to what’s needed if you give it (and yourself) time to team up and you do the listening rather than the doing. Bodies speak slowly…
All kinds of stagnant, stalled energy gets stuck in there. Some of it is years old that’s gotten stuffed in there. But it can’t get out if you keep stuffing more on top of it. And that’s where the slow movement – literally, slow movement, comes in.
When you go slow, you also have to start engaging with your breath differently, you don’t have any other choice. So your breath becomes your super-charged power weapon. Think Tai Chi, Qi Gong and all those other slow moving activities (watch a video if it seems so out of your stratosphere that you couldn’t possibly imagine moving so slowly) – and what do they have in common? Go to the top of the class!
👉 Slow movement allied by the slow movement of the breath kills the lower order thinking mind’s (the Ego) need for distraction and aversion – especially to those things that are actually good for it. The Ego acts this way because it never lives in the present – which is part of mindfulness training and also the tool need to go slow.
Let’s not get lost here – we’re discussing the benefits of going slow and using your body wisdom to do it. The Ego won’t want you to go slow – as soon as you do its going to fill your mind with chatter about what you “should” be doing so you better hurry up.
But you will have better health and wellbeing for longer, if you just go slower. For example, when you go slow, you can hear how your body talks to you; you can feel how your breath moves through your body and actually points to where things are stiff or stuck. You become aware that if you direct your breath into your joints, for example, it will curl its way through and around the ends of your bones always looking for the space between them to clear and open them up – which is why over time you’ll notice that you’re less stiff and more flexible. And really that’s the aim of all Yoga and excercise.
So take it really slow and make the stretching part of the excerise not the entree.
But it’s more than the just the physical effects, it’s the emotional and mental impact too. When you let your breath be the Explorer it will take you deeper into your body wisdom and you become aware of the emotion that’s stuck in your joints, bones and muscles.
How many times during the day do you find yourself choking back emotion to keep the peace or save embarrassment? It all has to go somewhere and it goes deep into your body…
When you go slow, you easily and naturally contact it and it releases. You’ll know because you’ll feel much freer when you move. And that’s why stretching is really the main event. So take it slow, breath slow, move slow and your thinking will be sharper too.
