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 | 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 | Aug 1, 2022 | Blog Posts, Growing, Healing, Spirituality
A Moʻolelo is a story. Every story preserves important information for a healthy, spiritually-driven life. Teaching Stories have many layers and levels. We call this the kaona – the deeper, sacred meaning concealed within what is shared.
A Haumana/Student learns a moʻolelo word for word so they can share it acurately with the next generation of listeners to benefit from the Teaching. And the story of how the Naupaka Flower came to be goes like this…
There is a shiny green plant that grows near the beaches of Hawaii called the Naupaka. It has small delicate white half flowers. It was named for Naupaka, a Hawaiian Princess who lived many, many years ago at a time when the Naupaka blossoms were whole.
Her people loved Naupaka. She was always smiling and she had sweet words for all the people of the village. One day they noticed Naupaka was very sad. “Aue! Oh dear, why is Naupaka so sad?” they asked each other.
Word reached the King and Queen. They found Naupaka at the mountain pool. The face reflected in the water was a very sad face. “O dear daughter, why are you so sad?” her mother asked.
Naupaka shook her head “I am deeply in love, in love with a handsome young man named Kauʻi”
“Is he of noble birth?” her mother asked.
“No my mother, he is not”
The social order of the day did not allow members of the royal family to marry commoners. Her father said “we must consult the Kupuna/Elders of the Village. They will tell us what to do.”
Alas, the Kupuna did not give their decision. They said “Naupaka and Kauʻi must journey far, they must journey to the Heiau. There the Kahuna will tell them.”
Naupaka and Kauʻi journeyed for many days until they finally reached the great heiau at the top of the mountain.
There they waited at the lava wall and called out to the Kahuna within. “We have arrived here at your temple. Please answer us and come to speak with us.”
The old Kahuna arrived and listened to Naupaka and Kauʻi. He shook his head sadly. “The Hawaiian Gods must decide.”
Suddenly the sky darkened and the wind rose. There was a torrent of rain, a loud clap of thunder and flashes of lightening. Naupaka and Kauʻi embraced sadly. The Gods had given them a sign. They were not to marry.
Naupaka tore the blossom from her hair. She broke it in two and placed half the blossom in Kauʻiʻs palm. “We will separate” she said. “I will remain here in the mountains and you will journey back to the seashore. And, my beloved, never again will we meet”.
The Naupaka blossoms growing nearby heard the lovers sadness and bowed their heads.
To this very day the Naupaka blossom of the mountains and the Naupaka blossom of the seashore remain in perfect halves
The Hawaiians believe that some day Naupaka and Kauʻi will be reunited and the flowers will again bloom as whole, perfect blossoms.
Mahalo Anakala Pilipo Solatorio – this moʻolelo was shared with Uncle by Anake Noni Beamer. Mahalao na Kupuna for preserving this beautiful Teaching Story for us all to learn, live and share.
☝🏽 Learning Challenge From Kumu Nālani:
- Challenge yourself to “think like a Hawaiian” (thatʻs one of the things we help Seekers and Practitioners interested in Hawaiian Culture & Healing to develop) as you read this Moʻolelo
- Can you find the main points that tell you what this Moʻolelo is about?
- What is the purpose of this moʻolelo – the Kupuna/Elders always did things for a purpose, moʻolelo is not different
- Now, can you take it a step further and find the “kaona” – the deeper, sacred meanings placed carefully within this story?
- Write or record your answers – send them to me if you like and Iʻll give you some feedback 😍 here to share with me
- Next Step: put what you learn into practice in your own life…
🌺 We always start each module of our Hawaiian Studies Courses with a Teaching Moʻolelo – you can begin learning about Hawaiian Spirituality, Culture and Healing right now in our distance education, self-paced course: Path to Paʻa. You work your way through all of the learning materials and reach out to Kumu when you need help or clarification. And if we donʻt hear from you, weʻll reach out to you.
🌺 The Path to Paʻa is also in a live, online facilitated format with weekly classes with Kumu Nālani. Suitable for Spiritual Seekers and Healing Practitioners – especially Lomilomi Practitioners to make sure you have our correct cultural teachings in place…youʻll find (as everyone does) your work will go next level very quickly. Get on the mailing list so you know when the next Course is on 👉🏽 here to be first 👉🏽 learn more about our Courses and do the free preview course too (and yes, you can always send Kumu questions too without enrolling in the full course 😊) 👉🏽 click your heels to go here 👉🏽 want to join something really cool that will help you grow into the true essence of yourself – open to Spiritual Seekers and Healing Practitioners especially of Lomilomi – join the Hawaiian Studies Club: the Path to Paʻa is one of the Courses included as part of your membership along with HEAPS of other KA BOOM Learning Activities, Forums and Biz Building Resources 👉🏽 go for a browse here 👉🏽 and then get on the waitlist here
🌺 Things not chugging along as you want? Do one-on-one online Healing Sessions with one of the Wise Guides. Each Wise Guide works with you in a different way 👉🏽 here to find a Wise Guide
☝🏽 We are a Social Enterprise – which means Course Fees and some of your Wise Guide Session Fees go into our Projects Fund, so youʻre helping us to do good things in the world…
by Kumu Nālani | Jun 23, 2021 | Blog Posts, Healing, Latest News, Spirituality
Itʻs one of those WOO-HOO Moments! Weʻre excited to launch this flagship Training Program. Itʻs the full-blown Traditional Training that weʻve done ourselves. And, as well as being recognised by our Lineage of 50+ Generations, your qualification is recognised in 27 Countries which means that you can conduct Hoʻoponpono Sessions with Clients in any of those Countries. Youʻll be able to add Hoʻoponopono as a Healing Modality to your insurance if youʻre a Practitioner.
Luna Hoʻoponopono Training hasnʻt been done this way before…anywhere! Weʻve taken every piece of the Hoʻoponopono Healing Process and broken it down into bite-sized chunks; weʻve not only thought about the Process, but what we’re (the Luna Hoʻoponopono) actually doing when we use those “chunks” into the Process. Weʻve analysed each of the meta (big) skills as well as the micro (itty bitty) skills, and scrutinised what weʻre doing when we say this word or that word. That is, what the intent behind it is – what the Ancestors wanted to achieve as a result of “doing” each skill, “embodying” certain qualities, “thinking” in a particular direction and so on…
And weʻve done it for each of the Lessons weʻve included in the Training Program. Thatʻs why itʻs a full-on, deep, deep, deep experiential immersion into not just learning about Hoʻoponopono but really understanding every part of it in detail. Which is mission-critical because weʻre dealing with people’s lives and theyʻre coming to us, the Luna Hoʻoponopono, for help to get back on track. For Healing.
In case you missed it, we’re real Practitoners ourselves doing sessions with people – so this isnʻt an “academic” Course, itʻs the real deal…
This Program is also at the pointy-end of Mythbusting all those furphies (improbable stories claimed to be factual. Furphies are supposedly ‘heard’ from reputable sources, sometimes secondhand or thirdhand, and widely believed until discounted) that are plastered regularly across the Internet. And thatʻs one of the reasons, Kumu Paʻa Nui Lawrence Aki, our own Kumu, wanted Traditional Luna Hoʻoponopono Training done in detail. Because what is untrue is contributing to the death of the actual Traditional Cultural Practice. In a way, when people continue to do what is not Pono/right, they are contributing to Cultural Genocide…
…tough words, but this is a serious issue and itʻs also why we set up the SoHAD as a Social Enterprise – so we could put in place Projects which preserve the Teachings and Cultural Practices in all sorts of different ways. If you’re a Practitioner or Home Healer of Hawaiian Lomilomi Massage Bodyworker, from any of the Schools, Luna Hoʻoponopono is part of the must have skill-set – so you need to do the Training. Itʻs Professional Development for you that also gives you another Healing Service to offer your Clients in additon to what youʻre already doing. All Practitoners of Healing and Wellness Modalities can do Ho’oponopono Sessions.
And, if you’re a Home Healer – someone who works with family and friends – you do this Training as well. In fact, thatʻs how it is Traditionally done, within the family. Itʻs still done like this today.
How much do you really know about Hoʻoponopono and being a Luna Hoʻoponopono? Put yourself to the test and take this learning challenge – youʻll find out whether youʻre on track or, maybe it will truth-bomb you! Either way, youʻll also get a feel for some of the learning activities in our Training Courses – not sterile, death by powerpoint or boring “read yourself into a coma” learning resources. Instead, you’ll find a warm and encouraging classroom with engaging experiential learning activities, community meetups and vibrant spiritual learning…
🌻 Give the Quiz a go and then weʻd be super, duper, knee-knockingly excited if you join our class – here to enrol and do the Free Preview Course too.
☝ Thereʻs an automated Payment Plan or you can pay in full, whatever works, but if you need an alternative, reach out and letʻs see what we can customise for you. The last Training Program for 2021 starts 01 August. First modules release 25 July and our first Meetup get together is 01 August via the Online Schoolhouse.
Oh! Thereʻs also a Special Introductory Course Fee Offer until 30 June 2021. We really want to work with you and train you to be a confident, highly skilled Luna Hoʻoponopono doing Hoʻoponopono the way our Ancestors wanted it done – read the Course Guide for more and then we’ll see you in the lumipapa/classroom…
