15/10/2026
🍃 HO’OPONOPONO
The Power of Forgiveness, Compassion and Letting Go
I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.
There is something I have been practising for probably seven or eight years now, and I wanted to share it because I truly believe it has changed the way I experience relationships, hurt, forgiveness and, most importantly, myself.
It’s a beautiful Hawaiian practice called Ho’oponopono, which I came to know through Dr Hew Len.
Throughout our lives, we are going to experience people who hurt us, misunderstand us, betray us, judge us or simply walk away. Sometimes we will understand why, and sometimes we won’t. Sometimes we will have the opportunity to sit down, have that conversation and find understanding together. And sometimes that conversation will never happen.
But what happens to all that pain when there is no conversation? When there is no apology, no explanation, no acknowledgement of what happened?
Where does it go?
So often, we continue carrying it. We replay conversations, question ourselves, revisit what was said or done, and hold on to these invisible energetic threads connecting us to an experience that has already passed.
And sometimes the person who hurt us has moved on with their life, while we are still carrying the weight of what happened.
This is where Ho’oponopono has been such a beautiful practice in my own life.
At the heart of the approach taught by Dr Hew Len is the concept of taking 100% responsibility for our own experience. For me, that means recognising that while I cannot control another person’s choices, behaviour, understanding or reactions, I can take responsibility for what I continue to carry within myself.
And I can choose to release it.
The prayer is just four simple phrases.
I’m sorry.
I love you.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I repeat these words over and over, sometimes quietly in my mind, sometimes out loud. Sometimes with tears, sometimes with gratitude, sometimes with love, and sometimes when I am still feeling deeply hurt.
I continue until I begin to feel something shift within me. A little more softness. A little more space. A little more ease.
And when I find it difficult to imagine saying these words directly to someone who has hurt me, I imagine speaking them to their soul.
Because underneath all our human experiences, our conditioning, our fears, our reactions and the ways we have learned to protect ourselves, I believe there is a soul having its own incredibly complex human experience.
And I often think about that soul.
I think about the day when our human journey comes to an end, and we reflect upon the life we have lived. The people we have loved, the people we have hurt, the things we understood and the things we never quite found the awareness to see.
And I like to believe that by choosing forgiveness now, I am offering both our souls a little more peace. That perhaps, when that moment of reflection comes, there is one less painful thread to carry between us.
That I have already chosen to forgive them.
And just as importantly, I have chosen to forgive myself.
For what I didn’t understand at the time. For the ways I reacted when I was hurting. For the expectations I held. For the things I wish I had said differently. For all the moments when I was simply doing the best I could with the awareness I had.
I have experienced some truly profound changes in relationships through this practice, including relationships I never imagined would find their way back to a place of peace.
And sometimes the greatest change has been within me.
The more I work with people, the more I see how much pain we carry. How quickly we can judge someone’s behaviour without ever understanding the experiences that shaped it. How easily we misunderstand one another through the lens of our own wounds.
And how desperately so many people simply want to be seen, heard, understood and loved.
We are all learning. We are all carrying experiences that others know nothing about. We are all going to make mistakes, misunderstand people, react from pain and have moments when we could have chosen differently.
Being human is hard. Really hard sometimes.
And I find myself wishing that we could all be just a little more gentle. With each other, yes, but especially with ourselves.
Because imagine how much lighter our lives might become if we stopped waiting for someone else to give us permission to heal.
If we could release the need to be right, the need to be understood, the need for an apology, and simply choose peace within ourselves.
Not because what happened was okay, but because we deserve to experience life without continually carrying the pain of it.
Four little phrases.
I’m sorry. I love you. Please forgive me. Thank you.
And sometimes, for me, they have changed everything.
🤍With love, Nadine x
