The Path We Must Pass Through

Earlier, I shared with you that I once carried a dependency on money. Looking back, I realize that at the same time I was also dependent on the man I was seeing then.

A long time had passed since I divorced my former husband, and my children were already grown, so I cherished him like family, feeling that he might become my life partner in the years ahead. For many years I had worked as a producer at a commercial television station in Germany, and my work was stable. In the midst of this, when he set out to launch a certain business, I ended up becoming his guarantor. While I was glad to be able to support him, at that very time I had already begun to fear losing him. But back then, I did not honor the identity of each thing—him, his business, my own work, and money—and, driven by memories, I had thrown them all together into a single pot and begun boiling them down until they lost all shape. That was the state I was in.

I was afraid of losing him. It meant losing someone into whom I had poured both time and money.

One day, when my daughter, who is skilled with finances, was visiting, she asked to see his company’s balance sheet. When I showed it to her, she said, “Mom, do you understand what on earth is happening?” and then explained that the company was already carrying losses beyond any hope of recovery.

In truth, a little before this I had begun to show symptoms like depression, and my relationship with my partner had become anything but peaceful. Our Unihipili—the subconscious, our Inner Child—always know what is happening, in every moment.

Around that time, an acquaintance recommended Ho’oponopono to me; I took the course and came to practice it without any resistance. That is exactly why, when I learned this truth, there were moments I wondered whether things had actually grown worse because I had begun practicing Ho’oponopono. Yet even as things worsened, even as the heaviness in my heart lingered, thanks to Ho’oponopono I could still feel a small sense of relief.

I remember how painful it was from there until I reached bankruptcy, yet all the while I kept cleaning. I lost my house, my car, every asset I had, and afterward I wept for some three weeks. At that time I was still with my partner, but once, while I was drinking Blue Solar Water, he suddenly said something dismissive of it, and soon after he left the house for good.

In the financially difficult days after my bankruptcy, there were times I kept eating peanuts as my meals because they were highly nutritious. One Christmas, I tasted a truly deep suffering—I could not even afford a single candle—and just as anger toward the man who had left began to rise in me, I cleaned, and in that very moment I felt the greatest gratitude toward him. It was the realization that, without this experience, I might never in this life have passed through such deep suffering. I could clearly understand that this deep suffering had been within me from the very beginning.

To let us pass through what we must pass through—that is Ho’oponopono.

To begin with, we ourselves cannot forgive anything. True forgiveness can be granted by Divinity alone. What I can do is to clean, and simply restore the sacred connection that has been blocked. Whatever it may be—whether the object is another person, a nation, an organization, or even myself—rather than growing anxious over what I cannot forgive, I only turn inward and clean.

It felt as though Ho’oponopono had given me a reset. I truly feel that I was able to clean the addiction and dependency within me—the craving to trust others, to be liked, and to be of use. I was able to bring an end to the long journey I had spent seeking self-love outside myself.

The process of Ho’oponopono feels just like the process of birth, or of death. Passing through what must be passed through. It is the most trustworthy presence of all—one that joins with me to carry me through what must be passed through, what cannot be turned back from or halted midway. Within that process, miracles keep happening without cease.

The miracle is not something that waits on the far side once you have passed through; being there, passing through it, is itself the miracle.

My peace
Irene Schwonek