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 | 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 | Oct 20, 2022 | Blog Posts, Spirituality
Our Ancestors were lifelong students of the Universe, Existence and their place within it all. Everything they learned was transportable and transferrable to other parts of their daily lives.
They learned, understood and were 100% in the Knowing how their every breath had some kind of relationship to everything around them. They learned and understood breath as an element of common lifeforce with all around them…
It isn’t enough just to “know” of these things. The Ancestors taught was that we must know “the how”, “the why”, “the when” and so forth of the “what” we are doing. For example, many Lomilomi Practitioners and other Healers will use hot stones in their healing treatments.
…But they will not know “why” they are using them. The “why” goes way beyond the physical – the “why” is the Spiritual Practice of using stones in healing treatments. Just one example. An example that applies to all of us…
Our Ancestors studied Place, their Place and its relationship to other Places…and then they’re relationship to place and other Places. They knew they could not study one without studying another. Otherwise there learning would be fragmented, non-sensical and, because of their isolation, dangerous to the collective survival.
Spirituality is all about collective survival. It’s not an individual thing – although it does start with an individual’s decision. A decision that has its roots in a feeling, usually of “something just isn’t right here”…meaning “here” as “here within me”.
That’s where it always starts. Even if you’ve grown up in a family that practices some kind of spirituality – religious or otherwise. There’s always a feeling. Even in the most free-flowing families there’s still “the feeling” of “something”.
That’s where the enquiry really is. In the feeling. The feeling that there’s “something more, else, in addition to”. Some people will express it as a “call”… whichever way you name it, it’s still a feeling.
Feelings are our piko/our centre, very personal to us. Our place where very deep, insightful, intra-communication can form between ourselves and Other. However, if the inner space isn’t clear or understood, then the Feeling Piko can also be one of compromise. Turmoil. Entanglement. Deprivation. Horror. Self-hate. Frustration. Suffering. Repression. All expressions of conflict which arise from not having a firm relationship with Place.
Place, where you come from and where you live now, is not always at the forefront of spiritual thinking and living in these modern times. But they were very much in the Teachings of the Ancestors. We must understand Place because it is part of our singular and collective identity.
We must work actively to clear ourselves of anything that gets in the way of finding, discover, growing, nurturing, living our relationship with Place. If we do not find Place, we will never find our Place within it or the Universal Place of which it is a part. We cannot “half-do” our spirituality, which is what is happening large-scale across the world today.
You cannot cherry-pick Spirituality. It’s either the whole thing or not at all…
Sink into Place. Let it find you. Do you “know” what is happening beneath & within the land on which your currently sit? Do you have a pilina/a relationship with it? What about above the land as far as you can see right now? What is your pilina with it? And now above your head into the clouds – what’s that relationship like? And further into the inky darkness that you might call Space, where is that relationship?
Do you know the Winds of your Place, the Rains, the Moons, the Waters, the Stars – how they move and flow together and what that means for you? What is their name – they will have one. What is the quality of each Wind or Rain of your land – do they come from different directions, at different times of year, are some warm and gentle, or cold and brittle?
Where does the Sun rise and move to, and the Moon? What shapes are in your landscape – how do they move and change throughout the Seasons? What grows, what colours are they? Which insects and birds come? What about the Waters – fresh, rain, ocean…so much to observe, record and take in.
And then, YOU. Where do you fit into all of this – what does all of this observing tell you about you and your massive web of pilina/relationship? This is what the Ancestors studied, recorded, shared, lived by. Years and years of continual study and observance until it was lived moment by moment. And the people just “knew” and lived by that “knowing” and then they shared that “knowing” from generation to generation – keeping it clean, clear and accurate by living it.
Sadly, it’s not that way today. Spiritual Seekers want to cherry-pick, select the bits that appeal to them. It’s this dilution that can leave Seekers open to spiritual attack…
…why are you using hot stones…Aloha x
What next, Kumu?
- If you don’t know Place, get on out there and start observing it, sitting with it, recording your observations. Do it for a month at the same time and place. Get to know it. And then the next month, do the same things at a different time. And then keep going. Every month or two, sit and reflect on your notes – what do you notice? What can it mean? How are you feeliing?
- Get going in our Spiritual Intelligence 1 Course – it’s all about attuning. What we’ve been discussing is Spirituall Intelligence, a layer of it at least. So this course, fully DIY with learning resources and access to to me and the Wise Guides, will get you started
- If you feel all clogged, entangled and not sure of your “feeling” – book a 1:1 Ho’oponopono Session with Kumu or Deborah Rose Hālani + thereʻs the other Wise Guides with whom you can book sessions too…
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 | Jul 27, 2022 | Blog Posts, Growing
I almost walked past this one. Stepped over it, thinking “I have had enough Enlightenment for now…”.
And then I heard “the voice”. Retracing my steps, I heard it before I got there. I just knew what this Teaching was going to be about.
Looking down at a Kukui Nut Shell submerged in the sand. Kukui Nuts – literally used to make light in the old days of Traditional Molokai, Hawaii – are all about enlightenment. Beautifully patterned, I knew before I turned it over, it would be only a half-shell…
…earlier, sitting under the Keawe Tree (an invasive and destructive non-indigenous pest), looking out across the Kalohi Channel toward Lanai in morning calm, this was the conversation I’d been having with the Ancestors…
I knew this important Teaching would be reinforced somewhere as I made my way back home to my Kumu’s hale/house. (Put these 3 things together in the context of this Teaching: the Keawe Tree/ an invasive pest, Kalohi/slow, lingering, becalmed & Kumu – the Source…)
Of course, it would only be half of the Kukui Nut Shell. Of course. Knew it as I turned the pretty thing over. This is the problem we face as a Spiritual Community, and as Teachers of Deep Tradition.
People who only go half-way on the “Path”, thinking they’ve “got enough”, solved their problem, know it all, advice-give to others, think they know enough to teach others.
Going half-way on the Path means there’s still more you don’t KNOW – how could you know, you haven’t completed the Path…
…and if you’re wondering right now “have I…”, then you KNOW you haven’t completed the Path…
The world is full of “teachers” and “seekers” who only have one half of the shell. They sound convincing on the Socials, in their Workshops. They look credible in carefully crafted pics. They sound credible, mostly to people who are just starting the Path, still on the Path, dropped off the Path…
But they only have one half of the shell. They know enough to convince themselves that their work is done, or done enough…
Enlightenment is going the whole length of the Path. Doing whatever it takes. We only know where it ends when we transition into Pō, the place of Origin. And then the Path simply continues but at another level.
We can experience levels before we get to Pō – which is why we “think” we’ve achieved enlightenment, but really what’s happening is we are growing, changing and literally uplevelling our physical experience. It’s enlightenment with a small “e”…
And because we ARE uplevelling, the Path appears to change. Maybe it becomes easier in parts, maybe we become more comfortable with ourselves as we go along it, maybe our KNOWING/Intuition increases, maybe it gets “hard” at times, but we KNOW how to find our way through it.
We know “hard at times” is part of the Path. We KNOW we don’t have to give up and get off the Path, but use what we’ve learned, our Teachings, to get to the other side of “hard”.
The Path seems to change because we do – and because we do, we can change the path through the Path. The Path itself doesn’t change. It’s always going in the same direction – toward Enlightenment.
The Teaching: don’t get caught out thinking you have achieved Enlightenment, and so there’s nothing more left to do. Don’t go through life with only half the shell in your toolkit. Stay on the Path. That’s the only way to get what’s waiting for you within the whole shell. What we call Enlightenment….
☝🏽 What do I do next Kumu?
Take some time to think about where you are and the Path you’re on – take a step back and truthfully ask yourself “am I actually on the Path?” and “If I am, what Path am I on?”. Then take it a step further and check yourself out: “am I where I really need to be, or do I know there’s a few missing pieces in my puzzle?”. And if you’re a Hawaiian Healing Practitioner of Lomilomi or Ho’oponopono who DOESN’T have the Traditional Teachings in place – ask yourself “what is preventing me from learning them?” and “what am I holding onto in my previous training, even if I have a feeling it’s not culturally correct?”.
😊 We’re really interested in working with Spiritual Seekers who want to get on the Path and go the distance in life; we also L-O-V-E–E working with other Healing Practitioners and Teachers…the world needs you and your work, BUT we need, as a deep and culturally esteemed Lineage, to MAKE SURE you have the CORRECT Teachings in place. We are culturally appointed custodians of the Teachings – we don’t decide “hey! I’m going to start teaching this stuff”, the Kumu Pa’a Nui decides on behalf of the Community. And that’s a really significant difference between the Kumu of the SoHAD and most other Spiritual Teachers of Hawaiian Healing.
👉🏽 Development you can do:
- Seekers and Practitioners: develop your Spiritual Intelligence. Join our distance, DIY Courses with help from Kumu and the Wise Guides on tap whenever you need it whilst you are studying with us or join a facilitated class with Kumu Nalani or one of the Wise Guides
- Hawaiian Healing Practitioners: start by joining our Path to Pa’a Course – you’ll be so glad you did. It’s got the Traditional Cultural Teachings you need for your Healing Practice. Two options: in a live online class with Kumu Nalani or Distance Education with help from Kumu when you need it. This training is recognised Professional Development in 39 Countries.
- Join the Hawaiian Studies Club: this is a members only Club – check it out here 👉🏽 Yo! Take me there
- 1:1 Develoment: do regular sessions with one of the Wise Guides, there’s 5 to choose from. They all work in different ways 👉 Wise Me Up!
