It’s been a long time since I wrote something that’s very personal to me. It’s because I’ve been hiding and avoiding things that I think would take away my peace. But I am human and I can’t erase emotions.
There are some emotions we do want to feel always like happiness, contentment, peace, only the positive ones, but real life doesn’t work that way.
Negative emotions or feelings are inevitable. There will always be something that triggers us, something that would spark anger, frustration or anxiety. And even if I can call myself now as the queen of nonchalant, I still get angry, but not as much as I did before.
What do I do when I get angry? How do I get to protect my peace?
Four sentences. That’s the whole thing.
They come from an old Hawaiian practice called Ho’oponopono. The name sounds complicated. The practice isn’t. It’s just four lines you say, quietly, to yourself:
I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
That’s it. No candles required, no special time of day. You can do it in traffic. You can do it while folding laundry. You can do it standing in your kitchen with your phone buzzing on the counter and your jaw already tight.
I’ll be honest with you, the first time I heard about it, I rolled my eyes a little. Sorry for what? I wasn’t the one who did anything wrong. Why on earth would I be the one apologizing?
That’s the part that took me years to understand.
The words aren’t for them. They’re for me.
The “I’m sorry” isn’t me admitting the other person was right. It’s me making peace with the part of me that’s clutching the poison, expecting it to hurt somebody else.
“Please forgive me” is me loosening my grip. Letting go of the version of the story where I’m still owed something.
“Thank you” is the hardest and the most important. Gratitude, even here. Even now. Because somehow, even the moments that make me angriest have shown me who I am and how far I’ve come.
And “I love you”? That one’s for me. For God. For the moment I’m standing in, exactly as it is.
If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know I’m a woman of faith. I may not be the one who goes to church every Sunday, or read the bible fervently, but I stand by my faith. This doesn’t replace my prayer but it sits right next to it. I still choke a little every time I get to the part of the Lord’s Prayer that says as we forgive those who sinned against us. Some days I mean it fully. Some days I’m only 60% there and I say it anyway. Ho’oponopono is just one more way I lay the anger down before it takes root in me. These four little sentences — they’re all me handing something heavy to Someone bigger than me and my temper.
A real example, because I don’t like pretending
There are still people whose names can send me straight back in time. One message, one mention, and I can feel my whole body get ready for a fight that ended years ago. My psychiatrist once told me that trauma can surface long after the event that caused it — and she was right. It doesn’t ask permission.
So when it comes, I don’t fight the feeling anymore. I don’t lecture myself for still being affected. I just breathe, and I start whispering.
I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
Sometimes I have to say it ten times. Sometimes twenty. Sometimes I’m crying while I say it, and that’s okay too.
Here’s what I want to be clear about: it doesn’t fix the other person. It never has. They go on being exactly who they are. What changes is me. The heat still comes because I’m human — but it passes faster now. It doesn’t get to steal my whole day. It doesn’t get to move into my chest and unpack its bags.
That’s the difference between then and now. I used to think peace meant not feeling the anger at all. Now I know peace is just refusing to let the anger drive.
If your jaw is tight right now
Maybe something happened today. Maybe someone said the thing, or didn’t say the thing, or wore you down in that quiet way that’s hard to explain to anyone else.
You don’t have to fire back. You don’t have to win it. You don’t even have to feel loving about it yet.
Just try the four sentences. Tonight. Under your breath. See what they loosen.
I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
Your peace is worth protecting. It cost you too much to build to hand it over to a bad moment now.
If you want to know more about Ho’oponopono, I have written a blog about it and you can read it here.