by Kumu Nālani | Dec 5, 2023 | Blog Posts, Hawaiian Studies Club, Healing, Spirituality
You are not alone. Although we have the Teaching of No Separation, the truth is you are never truly alone. Separation is the illusion.
All things work in unity and harmony. You are part of the unity. It is a universal bond that can never be broken.
That this bond feels broken, disconnected or missing doesnʻt mean that it canʻt be found and repaired. We all have those times when we feel weʻve lost our way.
Itʻs frustrating and sometimes disheartening too because we feel we try so hard to make the connection happen, and then it goes nowhere.
But the road to Nowhere is always a road to Somewhere. It may not be the Somewhere you envisioned, but it might be a necessary Somewhere for you to visit.
Visiting Somewhere means there is Something to find. What if that finding was Yourself, your true Self? We often think that the “spiritual path” evens out at some point. But the Truth is, when the Path starts to even out, buckle up, because youʻre on your way to the next level.
All that you have experienced at this level, learned, put into practice or maybe left behind, is in readiness for the next step up. Because once your lived experience is what we call in our Teachings Paʻa – that is, you have a strong, unshakable foundation at the level youʻre on, meaning, itʻs just how you live nowadays, the Ancestors will take you to where you need to go next.
The taking can be uncomfortable. Horrifyingly sad even. Sometimes our journeys have felt so exhausting at the level weʻre at – we think we canʻt take anymore. Weʻve given it our all. Weʻve put our heart into it, only to discover thereʻs more…
Of course, elevating and levelling up does require rest – otherwise it leads to Spiritual Burnout. Just like a Star that burns too fast, we donʻt want to burn ourselves into extinction.
Everyone and everything around us needs us to shine brighly and without effort. Just “is-ing” while we find our way and allow ourselves to adjust and take stock of where we are.
We donʻt always make the time to reflect – to look back in wonder to see the mountains weʻve climbed, the molehills weʻve navigated around, the people it was necessary to leave behind, or work too.
Sinking into where we are now is how we meld with all around us. Connect, but not at the same level we connected before. Now it is different. It all feels different – sometimes itʻs hard, harsher, or weʻre less patient. Sometimes the way we connected “before” doesnʻt work any more, or at least, doesnʻt feel as comfortable, maybe even less real.
We have to find a new way. An evolutionary way that isnʻt from where we were before because weʻre not there anymore. Weʻre not that person. Where we we are Now is more of the person weʻre becoming.
Every step up is a step TOWARD the Spiritual Self that we truly are. Itʻs a step into our Spiritual Origins. Itʻs a step into our formless Essence which is the True Nature of our existence and our the Truth of our Form. We have to come to know and understand this formless Essence which we call ʻuhane/Spirit…
The more we learn to add this to the way we Connect, form relationships with the Universe around us in all of Itʻs forms, the more it brings us to a different level of understanding. Connections change as we do. They refine and become finer energetically.
Itʻs a necessary evolution too, because if we continue on the Path, we will one day discover that weʻre no longer “connecting” – we just are. And even then, the work isnʻt done, it simply levels up once again…
Finding and following that old friend. How to do it:
▶ Healing helps you. Healing Conversations – sometimes you just want to have time to kukakuka/talk it all through. Kumu Julia Nālani and the SoHAD Wise Guides are experts in matters of life. Kumu and the Wise Guides can help you process, sort things out, find your way, make decisions and feel more settled about things..
▶ Hoʻoponopono is another way to “get there”. Here we delve deep; we make a direct line into all of the nooks, crannies and regualar hiding spaces. We go behind the veil to find what we traditionally call “pōhaku”/stones – baggage. As you level up, things that might have been so well hidden come into vision. It is important to your quality of life, your spiritual development, for your change and transformation that we find these things and they heal. It is about being able to live life without feeling burdened by the past and freeing your future so that the path of peace and happiness is wide open for you. You can book Traditional Hoʻoponopono Sessions online with Kumu Paʻa Nālani and Wise Guide Deborah Rose Hālani. You can also do online and in person Session with Practitioners trained by Kumu around the world – to connect with them contact Kumu Nālani directly
▶ Training yourself with our Hālau is another way to level up again – here weʻre all going up and we take you with us. The Foundation Course – Path to Paʻa – is where you start. Itʻs not only the Cultural Foundation of Hawaiian Spirituality, itʻs the Knowledge that underpins all healing practices like Lomilomi Bodywork Massage and Hoʻoponopono, as well as Hula Dancing and Oli/Chant.
▶ Hawaiian Studies Club is another way to continue doing your Inner Work – the Hana. This is a place of gathering to learn, explore, ask questions, get answers, try things out. Itʻs informal but thereʻs a structured, diverse and interesting learning program. Think: learning about Spiritual Intelligence, our Hālau Teachings, Traditional Learning Moʻolelo/Stories, learn a Hula,and an Oli/Chant, Q&A Sessions, Special Guests, Learning Challenges to explore and experiment with, and more.
Kumuʻs Promise: as a Lineage Kumu Paʻa, my only role is to help you get to Paʻa and stay there…and the way I do that is through my healing and teaching work. The door is open…Aloha, Kumu Julia Nālani x
by Kumu Nālani | Nov 20, 2023 | Blog Posts, Growing, Hawaiian Studies Club
Scrolling through the SMʻs this morning Iʻm struck by how many people “like” and “love this” on the quick fix lists.
So I want to know – whatʻs the rush? If youʻre a Spiritual Seeker why are you rushing your development with Quick Fix Lists?
What are you rushing to or from? Itʻs true in our Teachings we often share Anakala/Uncle Pilipoʻs wisdom about making our way up the Mountain – but never does he tell us itʻs a fast trip!
Zooming up the mountain and getting there faster doesnʻt mean youʻll find what youʻre seeking when you get to the top!
Because when you get there, you might find thereʻs a new peak which you couldnʻt see before. And so the journey begins again. What you learned on your way up, is what equips you for the next peak. Where you are, which you thought was the top, is a plateau to rest for the next leg of the journey.
So being in a hurry means you might by-pass important Teachings that are the foundation for your next level of ascension. And where will that leave you? Ill-equipped for whatʻs next…
Hurrying towards the goal (whatever that is) is triggered by Need. Need stems from a sense of lack in some area of your life – maybe itʻs your stuff from the Past that you havenʻt fully resolved, maybe itʻs a sense of time running out, new information revealed or maybe itʻs just that youʻre in a hurry to “move on”.
But hurrying isnʻt the answer. Hurrying can cause you to skim over only the top level which gives the illusion that youʻre “doing the hana/the work”. For growth and change to occur, the learning has to be deep.
Going deep takes patience because just like the mountain, thereʻs depths within depths. Your job is to discover them all. As you do you will discover the pathway changes as you expand.
Expansion takes patience and persistance, thatʻs why we have the word “E hoʻomanawanui” – which literally means patience and fortitude or taking big(nui) time (manawai) to do (hoʻo) something.
Our Ancestors understood Patience and Fortitude are not easy to live by day to day. They are two sides of the same coin. One arises because of the other. If you are in a hurry, youʻre trying to CONTROL the flow of your life. Control in this context doesnʻt help, it causes you to hold on more tightly, which creates a sense of scarcity and hurry.
You think you are hurrying forward, towards something. But thatʻs not true. Youʻre not hurrying away from pain but hurrying deeper into it. Peddling backwards. Some people might call it “avoidance”. Only you will know.
So what to do?
▶ Acknowledging growth requires you to stop, step back and reflect deep into the REAL TRUTH. As you do, be aware of even the slightest, most subtle contraction, frission or glinch as you do. Your body is your physical sensory vessel that is most often the easiest to listen to – but remember, when your body tells you something, it has already happened at the Spiritual Level. The Phsyical is the last place you become aware of it.
▶ If your body feels the REAL TRUTH about your attachment to Quick Fix Lists, fast remedies or 5 Ways to…, listen to it without hilahila/shame or judgement. It is simply your expansion into REAL TRUTH – which is always the domain of the true Seeker.
Itʻs a sign of your Growth, lean into it…Aloha, Kumu Paʻa Julia Nālani x
🌺 PS Hereʻs how I can help you to REALLY grow and develop fast as a Healing Practitioner and/or Spiritual Seeker: join my Hawaiian Studies Club. Itʻs a community of Healers, Practitioners and Seekers just like you. Itʻs a real community filled with a variety of weekly learning opportunities led by me Kumu Paʻa Julia Nālani, unikiʻd 51st Generation Kumu Paʻa. In the Club I share with you Teachings, ʻolelo noʻeau/wisdom proverbs, weʻll explore Spiritual Intelligence – the intelligences of our Ancestors – and how to use these intelligences each moment of our living. Thereʻs a Hula and Oli as well + build your biz advice and Ask Me Anything Days. Thereʻs more of course – check it out over on the Hawaiian Studies Club Page or contact me to ask more…
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
