Talking Story

Seeds X, 14

Seed: Talking Story

Talking story is an expression from an Hawaiian healing technique called ho’oponopono. It addresses the stories we tell ourselves.

The thing about our inner stories is that we do tell them to ourselves. Our stories are made up of memories, past experiences, judgments and opinions. Do you like the stories you’re telling yourself?

True confessions. I don’t always like the one I tell myself. There’s a particular one I tell myself about the war in Iraq that really makes me squirm. Talking story is about looking at the stories we tell . . . to ourselves, about ourselves to others, about others to ourselves.

Consider adding a question to your experience this week. Ask yourself when something upsets you . . . are you talking story again? If you are, tell another one!

Be content,

Susan Corso

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

When you have friends you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, send their addresses to me at SeedsDrCorso@comcast.net and please visit my blog Ode Magazine.

The Cost of Wow

I recently spent an hour on a teleclass taught by Mabel Katz, author of a simple book on ho’oponopono called The Easiest Way. {fwiw, she pronounces her name in the Spanish way, maBELLE.} Mabel is an accountant by profession and a Spanish-language radio show host in Los Angeles. She’s been doing ho’oponopono for ten years.

In her book, one of Mabel’s aphorisms is:

Learn to live in the WOW.

I loved it! Then I got to thinking about the cost of living in the wow, and let me assure you, dear reader, that there is a definite, tangible (and sometimes not so tangible) cost to living in the wow. That cost is best put: Control.

To live in the wow, we must be willing to and actually give up the need to control.

The thing about this need to control is it’s only a need, or so we think, and it isn’t real. Namely, we don’t control much of anything, except our own conscious thoughts so if we’ll give up the illusion that we have a need to control, then we’ll find and live in the wow.

Wow is a childlike state of discovery. Wow is equally applied to butterflies and buttonholes. Bees and knees—and fleas and keys. Everything is a wow if we’ll let it be.

What we need to do is believe that things can work out for the best and see how trying to control things can make them turn out alright but not always the best.

First assignment? Find a wow, let that feeling flood your being, and keep on wowing. {You won’t even notice that you’ve given up the control you didn’t have in the first place!}

Talking Story

As you know, I’ve been researching ho’oponopono for the past few weeks. It’s a fascinating discipline. The word is Hawaiian, and it means, “setting to right.”

A social worker did a study of the technique and in her recounting of the process, she mentions a Hawaiian process she calls “talking story.”

Story is a soul task. Our stories come from our souls. Are you telling yourself stories you like or stories you don’t like? How are you talking story?

Do your Once Upon A Times end with Happily Ever After? Once Upon A Time stories are formulaic. They all end Happily Ever After. It’s the middle of the story that we are making up all the time. That’s where the challenges, problems, vicissitudes et al show up in our lives.

The phrase “talking story” is a wonderful reminder that we’re making it up as we go along. All of us. If you don’t like the story you’re talking, talk another one.

Yielding to Ho’oponopono

When something grabs my attention, my natural inclination is to delve into it. The word of my title is Hawaiian. It means setting to right. It reminds me of tikkun olam, a Hebrew expression meaning repair of the world.

Ho’oponopono is featured in Joe Vitale’s newest book, Zero Limits, written with the man who taught him the technique, Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. It’s a simple practice featured in an earlier post on this blog.

When I put ho’oponopono into the search at Amazon, several books came up. I ordered and have read them all. The original use of the technique was for conflict resolution in families. Any technique that deals with conflict resolution in any setting is of value.

The point here is this:

When something draws your attention, yield to it!

Often it is the Divine asking us to pay attention. Where your interest is, there is a path for you. The only way to step onto the path is to pursue the interest.

The Cheek of Love

Turn the other cheek.

We’ve all heard it especially when people who care about us want to help us not get involved in something that might hurt us.

Turn the other cheek.

I’d never thought about it till I was reading Mabel Katz’ book on Ho-oponopono called The Easiest Way. In one simple phrase she turned my head around. Mabel calls it the cheek of love.

Turn the other cheek.

What cheek?

The Cheek of Love.

I laughed out loud. Of course! When I’ve shown up with my first cheek, it’s often the cheek of resistance. When I’m encouraged to turn the other cheek, that other one has to be the cheek of love. Wow.

Go a little further with me. Cheek is a fun word that has more than one meaning. Sure, it refers to that span of skin which appears below your eye sockets and above your jawline, but according to the OED, it also means audacity!

And isn’t audacity what it takes in this world which encourages us to fight our way to and through everything to choose instead to turn the cheek of love to what we formerly resisted? I’d say so.

Honey, turn them (whoever they are) the cheek of love and watch what happens.

100% Responsible

We’ve all heard it in all sorts of consciousness circles. We have to/get to take one hundred percent responsibility for our lives and our experiences, so that we can change them. In the past two days, I have heard of a take on one hundred percent responsibility that has solidified a long-standing idea of mine.

When I say we are one hundred percent responsible, I mean it. I mean that whatever we encounter is our responsibility. It’s the “absolutist” posture of the turn of the century metaphysicians. If you so much as hear of . . . fill in the blank, it’s on your radar to address and heal.

This includes Osama bin Laden, pigeons, pollution, climate change, the dry Christmas tree in the living room, health issues, wealth issues, work issues, relating of all kinds, a president you like or don’t like, pundits, articles, a war you do or don’t believe in. EVERYTHING without exception. If it’s in your experience, it’s yours to deal with.

It’s hard not to get overwhelmed.

Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len agrees with me. He’s the co-author, with Dr. Joe Vitale, of a new book called Zero Limits. If I could, I’d buy a copy for everyone on earth and ask them to read it, consider the premise, and commit to its practice for thirty days.

Based upon an ancient Hawaiian healing technique called Ho’oponopono, it’s all about the use of four healing phrases all the time. They are:

Thank you.
I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
I love you.

The acronym I use to help me remember the phrases is T.I.P.I.—a sometime old spelling used in crossword puzzles for first peoples’ homes found in North America.

The system is for repentance, forgiveness and transmutation. Like the old metaphysicians, it allows us to see our own participation (even if it’s just awareness) in the existence of a problem. The repetition of one or two or three or all four of the phrases cleans up the mess both for your own awareness and for the problem itself.

2008 is a bright, shining promise of a new year for each one of us. Shall we do the work we can to make our home, our selves, our lives, our minds the bright, shining beacons of love they were meant to be?

P.S. If you want my T.I.P.I. document to print out, email me: seedsdrcorso@comcast.net. I'll gladly send it to you as a gift for the beginning of this wondrous new year.