Tom McCarthy

Our guests right now is someone that I’ve been so excited about four weeks to be able to interview. I first met him and we were just talking earlier. I can’t even remember how long ago it was, but he was at a meeting of the Transformational Leadership Council, which he’s a member of and I’m a member of also. I’d never met him before, so I didn’t know what to expect, but he gave this amazing talk at that meeting. I think the meeting was in Hawaii and what he taught us you’re gonna learn about today, but what he taught us there was something that I’ve used for probably the past eight years. And not only that I’ve shared it with so many people all over the world because it’s an incredibly powerful technique. But before we get into that, Joe Vitale, who is our guest today. Joe, thanks for being on, is a prolific author. He’s written over 80 books. One of my favorites is Zero Limits, which you’re gonna hear about today, but he’s written so many other books. And then not only is he a writer, he’s also a musician. And I didn’t know this about Joe until I saw his bio, but he’s recorded over 15 albums. So you can go out there and hear some of Joe’s music too. How do they get that, Joe? Is that on Spotify or where would they find that?

Dr. Joe Vitale

It’s everywhere, iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, wherever you find music you’ll find some of mine.

Tom McCarthy

I love it. Joe’s one of the most inspiring speakers you’ll ever hear. He’s thought of as one of the top speakers on the planet, and he’s created all sorts of really cool programs that you can take advantage of. We’ll let you know one at the end of this and then also make sure you check out his free gift. But Joe, thank you for being part of the Global Energy Summit. It’s really great to have you here.

Dr. Joe Vitale

I’m flattered. I’m honored to be included. This is a major project. It’s a major mission and I wanna make a difference as well.

Tom McCarthy

Yeah, so Joe, back when I first met you, I think your book, Zero Limits had just come out or maybe had come out a year before and you talked about this concept of Zero Limits and you told a fascinating story of how you discovered it. And can you start off by telling us that story ’cause that’s what captured me 10 years ago or whenever it was that I heard it, this story is like, unbelievable. So can you start off with that story?

Dr. Joe Vitale

I can and I would advise everybody to fasten their seat belts because this story, as you know, at this point, Tom, is mind stretching. It’s mind blowing. And the very first time I heard it, I dismissed it. I said, it can’t be true. I thought it’s an urban legend. It’s something people created just to have something magical to believe in. Well I heard this story so many times, I thought I need to go find out if it actually took place and to my astonishment it had. What I’m referring to is I had heard the story as you know now about a therapist who helps heal an entire ward of mentally ill criminals. Now that by itself ought to get everybody’s attention.

Tom McCarthy

It got my attention, yeah.

Dr. Joe Vitale

But to go deeper, he didn’t heal them by working on them directly, he healed them by working on himself. Now this is a mental turning point for anybody listening and following because that mental hospital was a state hospital in Hawaii and it was for the criminally insane. Those patients had to be shackled or sedated because they were truly dangerous. Doctors would quit. Nurses would quit. Social workers would quit because it was a hellish environment. The state needed to have a therapist there because they needed their funding. They found a therapist who would go there, but he said, “I’m not gonna do the therapy you want, I’m gonna do the therapy I know and I’m gonna do it in my own particular way. 

So if that’s the deal, we’ll make it happen.” And they agreed because they were desperate, but they didn’t know what they were getting because the therapist who went there was practicing an unusual Hawaiian healing technique. And I say, it’s unusual first because the masses didn’t know about it at that point. Today they do because of my books, including the one you know, Zero Limits and because of the talks I’ve been doing, but back then nobody knew anything about this Hawaiian healing technique. The technique is called ho’oponopono, and most people when they first hear it go, “Holo what, how do I say that? How do I spell that?” And I just say, it’s the ho ho method, just call it the ho ho method. And so I heard the story and decided I wanted to find out if it was real. 

And I went on a quest and again back then there was nothing on the internet. And it was very difficult to find anybody that knew anything about it. But I hired a private investigator. I turned over the rocks. I looked under the roots. I looked everywhere and I found the therapist, got him on the phone. We hit it off. He invited me to his first seminar. And back then again, the seminars had like 12 people in it. Nobody knew about this healing modality at that point. And I found out that what he used in that mental hospital for the criminally insane was an inner directed healing technique that was entirely focused on his inner perceptions and inner peace. So in short, he was using ho’oponopono back at the hospital and what that meant was he would look at their folder and as he looked at their folders and their charts, he would find out one was a rapist, one was a murder, one was doing some other dastardly thing and he’d feel what he was feeling inside himself. 

And I’m really stressing this because this is how ho’oponopono works. He wasn’t trying to change the patients. He was noting how he felt about the patients and as he noted how he was feeling and he was repulsed, he was enraged, he was embarrassed, he was confused, he was curious. He was all kind of different things. It was those different feelings that he used and directed ho’oponopono on. And in fact, the word ho’oponopono means to make right. And what are we making right? Our perceptions. So he looked inside himself, saw all the emotions as he was looking at the charts of these patients, and he would do the very basic form of ho’oponopono, there’s lots of layers to it. But the very basic form is four phrases. Four phrases you say inside yourself to your connection to someone say, God, somebody else would say divinity, somebody else might say nature. Somebody else might say Gaia. It’s some sort of higher power that I think we would all agree we’re part of, that we may call it something different. So we say the phrases-

Tom McCarthy

Before you get to the four phrase, I want people to really understand what’s going on here. When you told the story, you said the energy was so bad in this institution, that paint was peeling off the wall.

Dr. Joe Vitale

That’s true.

Tom McCarthy

Because energy has a vibration, right? So the energy in that institution, that’s why doctors were quitting. And so they get this doctor that you’re talking about, Dr. Hew Len and he tells them I’ll come in, but I’m not gonna meet with any patients. When you said this unusual technique, it’s like, whoa. And they still hired him they were so desperate. And he worked on himself. I hope people really understand what Joe’s saying there. ‘Cause didn’t meet… I mean, he probably met patients at some point in time, but that wasn’t his motive therapy, which is that’s what rocked my mind when you first told it, he took responsibility, right?

Dr. Joe Vitale

Yes. And Tom, that’s one of the biggest concepts for people to grasp in this whole story here. There’s two or three things that I want people to get as real takeaways. And one is, all the healing that you wanna see take place out there with other people, with the globe, with the universe, whatever you wanna call the healing that you would like to see take place out there actually takes place in you.

Tom McCarthy

Please listen to what Joe’s saying. This is so powerful.

Dr. Joe Vitale

It is the first Zen whack over the head is to realize you’re not healing the outer, you’re healing your perceptions of the outer and your perceptions are in you. That’s the first layer. The second layer is what you just hammered home and that was the idea that you are responsible. You are responsible. You are 100% responsible. In ho’oponopono there is no blame because they look at the outer as being a kind of mirror, a kind of illusion. It’s a little Buddhist in the sense that you’re looking out there and what you think you see out there is actually a projection of what’s in here.

Tom McCarthy

Right.

Dr. Joe Vitale

So if you wanna change anything out there, you got to go in here and take 100% responsibility. So those are a couple of the key statements or foundations to ho’oponopono right there. So going back to Dr. Hew Len. He’s noting how he feels as he looks at the charts and he’s not feeling very happy. And then he’s connecting inside himself to his higher power. He often used the phrase, divine. So I will often say he was connecting to the divine. And then the four statements he saying are a kind of a prayer, there are kind of a petition. There the simplest of the simple he’s basically saying, I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. He doesn’t say them out loud. He doesn’t say them to any of the patients. 

He doesn’t say them to the social workers. He doesn’t say them to the other doctors. He doesn’t say them to the hospital administrator, to the inside job. All four phrases are spoken internally as a kind of petition or prayer to what I ended up calling the right something. Joseph Campbell said it was the great mystery. I’m like it’s the great something. The great something hears this. And what’s he actually doing? He’s saying, please forgive me or my ancestors for anything I thought, said or did to help create the situation that I’m perceiving. 

I’m sorry for however I’ve been unconscious or my ancestors have been unconscious in the creation of this event. Thank you for healing it, cleaning it, clearing it, deleting it, making it right. Thank you. I love you for my life. I love you for this process. I love the divine, which pulls us back into that connection. These four phrases is what Dr. Hew Len was saying inside of himself as he looked at the charts. Within a few months… These patients remember are mentally ill criminals sentenced to be there. Within a few months they’re off sedation, they’re not being shackled and some of them are being released.

Tom McCarthy

Yeah, amazing.

Dr. Joe Vitale

Within four years, virtually all of them were released and the ward was closed.

Tom McCarthy

Unbelievable.

Dr. Joe Vitale

And this is what I got from the horse’s mouth so to speak ’cause I found the therapist, his name is Dr. Hew Len Ihaleakala and I convinced them to allow me to write the book which brought this to the world, which is the one you know about Zero Limits, which he co-authored with me. And I went to the social workers. I went to the people that were there so I can verify this astonishing story. And this is why I wanted to write it, Tom. This is why I think everybody even now needs to know this because I thought if he used this to heal mentally ill criminals in a state hospital in Hawaii for the criminally insane, what can you and I do with our everyday challenges?

Tom McCarthy

Amazing.

Dr. Joe Vitale

That’s when-

Tom McCarthy

After I learned it and read the book, I started applying it, had some amazing results and I still had to keep reminding myself. It’s not about the outside world because we’re so addicted to saying, “It’s that out there that’s the problem.” The problem that we need to heal or make right is inside of us. These people healed in this mental institution not because he talked to them or did therapy, there were no drugs involved. It was literally one human being taking responsibility for what he was feeling about them and these crimes or things they had done and healing that in him. And then the outside world changes when we heal and make right what’s not right within us, right? That’s the point that I had to keep reminding myself of several times to get it right. 

Dr. Joe Vitale

Well, believe me, I didn’t get this the first time around-

Tom McCarthy

I’m not the only one, thank you.

Dr. Joe Vitale

Oh, no. I was wrestling with it as well. And I remember one time Dr. Hew Len was telling me, he says, “Have you heard the phrase, you create your own reality.” And I said, “Hell yeah, I’m one of the ones that write about it. I get on soap boxes and say, you create your own reality.”

Tom McCarthy

Yeah, you’re in the secret.

Dr. Joe Vitale

I’m in the secret saying it. And he said, “Well, if you create your own reality, doesn’t that mean everything and every body in your reality was created by you?” I went, that’s taking it where I didn’t want it to go. Most of us draw a line in the sand and go, “Yeah, I created it up to here and you created the rest of it’s your fault.” And Dr. Hew Len said, “No, if you create your own reality, your reality includes everything including the people you’re complaining about, global situations you would like to change, transform or heal all of that.” And this is the other… Oh God, I so get excited and at the same time frustrated, because there’s such big concepts that I wanna get across. And I sit here like this bottle of dynamite wanting to explode. And one of the things I want people to realize is that everything they see there that they consider to be a problem is experience inside themselves. 

When you really get this, when you really say, “I’ve been complaining about my boss, or I’ve been complaining about the economy, I’m complaining about the president or whatever’s going on in the world right now and I really like to heal it.” We forget that everything we are deeming and judging that needs change is coming from our perceptions of it. If we didn’t have a perception that it was bad in some way, shape or form, we wouldn’t think anything of it. And this is a clue because if it’s all stemming from our perception, then where does the change need to be? It’s in our perception. So ho’oponopono was looking at ourselves as we’re movie projectors and what we’re projecting from our skull from our mind body system is the reality that we are thinking is real. 

That the reality that we’re thinking is real is actually the motion picture that we created and we projected. And then the next leap of faith, if you will, that in for me is it’s very practical and real since I’ve written three books about this at this point, I’ve done numerous seminars, three of them with Dr. Hew Len. And so I’ve gone into the deep end here. And when you look at everything that needs to be changed and you realize it’s all in you, this gives you enormous power to transform the world. Once you change yourself much like Dr. Hew Len did magically in some sort of quantum physics way that I can’t explain, there’s a ripple effect and those projections like inmates in the mental hospital, they change, they change. It’s astonishing.

Tom McCarthy

I read that in AA they have a phrase that says, if you spot it, you got it. And you see it in the outside world it’s in you. What you’re really saying is in you, which is very, very powerful. And I wanna go back to something you mentioned when you talked about the four phrases, and I know we’ll come back to those in a few minutes. But you also, as you described them, I love how you described it. It’s not just in me, but even in my ancestors, because a lot of us are running old patterns from our ancestors, from our parents they’re running patterns from their parents and energetically or we saw them do it when we were a child and we had no filters and it all came in. So it’s not like we’re terrible people we’re just unconscious almost. But I love the fact you talked about like healing it, going back to our ancestors. And one of the things I love is when we heal it in us and heal it and our ancestors then moving forward it doesn’t exist in our children and the people we impact so how powerful?

Dr. Joe Vitale

You are shining a light on some very important concepts that are in ho’oponopono. Many of them already validated by modern science. Epigenetics, for example, in Bruce Lipton and Joe Dispenza and that gang will tell you that a lot of what we are demonstrating in our lives didn’t come from our free will or our conscious choice we actually inherited it or downloaded it from our great, great grandparents. And sometimes they had issues or illnesses and it would skip a generation or two and then show up in your life. And you’re thinking, especially people who get into the law of attraction because they start beating themselves up thinking, I did this, you didn’t do this you inherited this and you were unconscious to it, which is why it’s very important in ho’oponopono that we point out that we simply weren’t aware and neither were our ancestors. 

Now, Tom, I got to point out that when I teach the four phrases to people they usually object when that gets to I’m sorry, or please forgive me ’cause they think, “I didn’t do anything wrong why should I say that?” And so I have to point out that this is not about you intentionally doing anything wrong it’s more about and you use the word being unconscious to thoughts and behavior. The example I use is if you go to a grocery store and it’s busy and you bump into somebody, don’t you naturally turn and go, I’m sorry. I’m sorry is not an admittance that I need punished because I intentionally did something, it’s more of an awareness that, “Oh, I’m sorry, I was looking at the eggs and I didn’t see you there and so please forgive me I wasn’t alert.” That’s the purity of saying, I’m sorry and please forgive me in the fourth phrase. The I love you and I’m sorry please forgive me-

Tom McCarthy

And many people have been taught where you sin and then you go, plead for forgiveness and flog yourself. This is completely different than that. It’s more of just bringing that unconscious challenge that you have and just saying, “Hey, I didn’t know I was doing this I apologize.” I love your analogy to a bumping into someone ’cause you always go, “Oh, I’m sorry.” And it’s not like beat me up I did something terrible. It’s just, I love that. That’s a great call-out, thank you.

Dr. Joe Vitale

There’s a purity to it. I’ve also used the example of my father died fairly recently and when people come to the funeral, they very often say, I’m sorry. Well, if you look at this in a very logical way, it’s like, what are they sorry about they didn’t kill them. But they’re feeling sorry in a very natural way as a sense of compassion. I’m sorry that you’re going through this. There wasn’t anything I can do about it, but I’m here for you. Those are extensions of the meaning and that’s what you wanna look at with the four phrases in ho’oponopono. None of this is about punishment. None of this is about feeling guilty. None of this is about a sense of self-righteousness for yourself or anybody else. All of this is about healing. And by healing yourself, you get to heal anything, everybody, all the situations, everything that you perceive that is out there, you get to heal it and you do it on the inside.

Tom McCarthy

Yeah, I love it. Hey Joe, when you talked, when I first saw you do this, you had a whiteboard and you use that analogy. Can you talk about that? Of getting to zero and kind of, yeah.

Dr. Joe Vitale

Thank you for pointing that out. What I was reaching for in that talk and in some of my books and speeches that I’ve given is a visual for people to understand. And in that particular talk that you heard, I had a whiteboard on stage and I made sure everybody noticed the whiteboard. I started, “Look at the whiteboard, look how clean it is. There’s nothing on the whiteboard.” And I was urging people to see it as this holy state of all possibilities. There’s nothing on the whiteboard. And as I’m describing it, I’m hoping people in their mind are doing that they’re visualizing a whiteboard and it’s white, there’s nothing there. And then in that particular talk I started talking about all the different ways we can change ourselves. 

Now, the people that are in Transformative Leadership Counselor these are the wizards of transformation in the world. And these are some of my heroes, they’re my mentors. They’re my role models, all of these people. And I would say, what are the various ways you know that we can change? And as they named them, I started writing them on the whiteboard. Well, within about 15 minutes the whiteboard was gone, meaning it was covered with all of this stuff. Now on one level, we understand we need different tools to help us awake. But on the point I was making there and I’m making here is as we keep writing thoughts, ideas, methodologies, insights, even, I love you. I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you on the whiteboard we have lost the whiteboard. We’ve lost the purity of the moment, Dr. Hew Len taught me and I think it’s the first book, Zero Limits that in any moment you’re either coming from inspiration or memory. 

Memory means that we are reacting because of the programs in our brain, in a sense it’s like our brain is a whiteboard, but we have just saturated it, we have just filled it with programs and data. Some of which we downloaded innocently, some of which were born as we came in, some of which we wired in ourselves with free will and our choices and our experience. And so as a result, when something happens at any moment, we go through the wiring in our brain to find out what’s appropriate response. And that response is coming from memory. 

The alternative is that’s put aside and you allow inspiration to come through 99.999999% of the time we’re coming from memory and where we wanna come from where divine can speak through us or the great something can speak through us is inspiration. And that’s why I had the whiteboard up there to remind people you can erase through ho’oponopono, gonna erase all the stuff on the whiteboard. There’s the purity of the moment and availability to inspiration.

Tom McCarthy

Awesome, I love that. And so if somebody is listening to us now, watching and listening to us now and has a disease, has an illness they will not overcome or heal from that illness by just running the same memories. The memories that are or on their whiteboard so to speak are probably part of the reason that their body is saying, “Hey, you need to pay attention.” And so the illnesses created. So how does somebody use this? ‘Cause we’ve talked about using it to heal others and heal the world. How do people use ho’oponopono to heal themselves? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Dr. Joe Vitale

Now, that’s a great question. And actually the process is the same whether you think you’re healing yourself, you’re healing the world because when you’re healing the world you do it by healing yourself. So the process is identical. So let’s go with what you just said. Somebody has been diagnosed. They’re told that they have a disease of some sorts. You have a variety of ways to respond to that news, okay? For most people, they’re gonna fall into their memory and their memory it’s bad. It’s bad in some way, shape or form. I know it’s bad ’cause other people have had it or maybe they died or maybe they suffered. 

Your memory, not inspiration. Your memory is kicking in. All the programs are kicking in and suddenly you’re in this moment and you have a relationship with your disease, which is based on a perception. Most likely the perception is not good. You’re not looking at it like, what if this is a good thing? You’re looking at it like, this is a bad thing what do I do? So ho’oponopono helps you focus on how are you feeling about that disease and how are you feeling about it? And maybe you’re angry, truly pissed off, maybe you’re bitter, maybe… Who knows whatever is going on here.Definitely all of those different things would be there. Some of which we would argue is natural. But in the ho’oponopono the goal is as the word says to make right. Where do we wanna go? Well, you asked me about my t-shirt, eudaimonia, which is the state of pure happiness, pure non-judgmental bliss. 

It’s an ancient Greek word. Where we wanna go is there. And if we’re sitting there and we have a disease and we don’t feel so great about the disease, that’s when we use ho’oponopono. What do we use it on? Our feelings of being upset. The upset can be described at any number of ways as we said, fear, anger, rage, whatever. But that’s what we wanna aim it at. And we’re aiming the four phrases at that feeling as we’re kind of pretending, we called up the divine, the great something, God and said, “I’m sorry I don’t know what in me or my ancestors contributed to the creation of this, but please forgive me and them for our beliefs, for our memories, for whatever aspect help create this. Thank you for healing it, for removing it, for releasing it for deleting it. I love you for this process. I love you for this healing. I love you for taking care of this issue with all of my ancestors and all future generations.” Because the rule of thumb is once this is healed in you it’s healed in everybody.

Tom McCarthy

I love that, yeah.

Dr. Joe Vitale

Which is why from a global healing standpoint, man, it’s all on us. It’s all on you. It’s all on me. We can take it in. So Tom, to answer that it’s an inside job using how you feel about whatever the issue is to get to that place of eudaimonia or peace. You’re looking for a state of serenity. You’re looking for a state the word I like is imperturbability. You’re looking for that state of being like, “Well, I’m at peace with this. Now at peace with this doesn’t mean you’re not gonna do it. You might still go to a doctor. You might still go to the surgery. You might still check out all kinds of alternative this, that or other because when you delete the interference between you and imperturbability, you may be inspired to check out something that does do the healing. This is mind blowing.

Tom McCarthy

So when you talk about… And the book is titled Zero Limits. When you talk about ho’oponopono we’re cleaning out all the old memories and then we’re letting you call it inspiration or the divine really then guide us ’cause now it doesn’t have all these old memories that are clogging up and robbing us of all our senses. Now we can have divine inspiration and move in the right direction. And also when you clean out all those memories, because one of the major causes of illnesses is stress, where does stress comes from? It comes from memories typically. When you clean those out, just the environment is more pristine. It’s gonna be more likely to heal anyway, right?

Dr. Joe Vitale

Right, yes. And this is where there can be a spontaneous healing because what was contributing to the healing is now gone. It’s a little bit similar to going back to the mental hospital with all those patients, they had to be shackled or sedated in the beginning. As Dr. Hew Len worked on himself they started to get better. They started to get better because there was some sort of peace in him that radiated out. When you talked about the walls and the paint wouldn’t stay on the wall one of the things they were trying to do before Dr. Hew Len got there was to change the environment. And they thought, well, let’s go paint the walls, like a happier color, a brighter color but the paint wouldn’t stick to the walls because the walls already had.. I’m gonna put this in quotes, the memories of the hell that was in the hospital. So the new wouldn’t stick and that was trying to change doing a direct, let’s change the outer kind of an experience where what we learned in ho’oponopono is the change comes from inside.

Tom McCarthy

Yes, yeah. And memories are energy. That’s all they are, is stored energy, right? So you’re deleting that energy that’s not allowing you to heal. And Dr. Hew Len he was healing others he was also healing himself. He was evolving.

Dr. Joe Vitale

And this is the important thing to get Tom, if you don’t mind me killing another story here. In the second book that I wrote about ho’oponopono, the first as you mentioned was Zero Limits. 10 years later, I wrote a book called At Zero. And that’s where I wrestled with some concepts that people had brought up from 10 years of it being out there in the world. But I was thrown in the fireplace in the sense that my mother went into the intensive care emergency room and I was on the road and all my family was in different places, but we were all called to come home. So we all go to Ohio, which is where I was born and raised. And I go to the emergency room and she’s in the intensive care. And this is so intense that there’s four other people in the room with her and four of them die while I’m there. 

So this is very serious life and death moments to go kind of a business. And I am the oldest in the family, my brother and sister, my dad they’re all there. Most people are quiet nobody knows what the say. We’re all in a state of confusion. I am confused, angry, don’t know what to say. And all I knew was ho’oponopono. I sat at the side of her bed and I started doing, I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. It’s important to realize I was not trying to heal her I was trying to heal me. I looked inside myself and I realized I am not at peace, I am not… I got chills now reliving the moment, I am not at peace in this moment. I’m mad at God, I am mad at myself, I’m mad at my mother. I am mad at the situation. 

And so this doesn’t help. This is not ho’oponopono, this is not me being a beacon of healing energy. So I did the four phrases on me and I probably did it for an hour. Everybody’s sitting there. Everybody’s quiet. Nobody knows what to do, maybe they’re praying. Maybe they’re crying inside. I don’t really know. I’m saying, I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. And I’m only doing it to achieve inner peace. I keep stressing that. So the nurses come in a little later and they say, we have to leave visiting hours are over, we leave. The next morning we go back my mom’s sitting on the side of the bed. She’s talking to us, she’s released and she lived for another four years.

Tom McCarthy

Wow.

Dr. Joe Vitale

Now, did ho’oponopono heal her? I don’t honestly know. Ho’oponopono healed me and maybe by healing me that healing energy went out and touched the people that were the closest in the room including her. So when I say that this is all an inside job, I am living proof that the only way to do any of this change is inside yourself. Dr. Hew Len did it with mentally ill criminals, I’ve done it numerously with all kinds of people, including my own mother. And then the book At Zero was loaded with stories so was Zero Limits of people who have used this process to heal their animals, to heal their relationships, to heal their finances, to heal virtually anything that anybody could ever name.

Tom McCarthy

Yeah, and it’s such a simple process and yet people need to keep reminding themselves. You’re not saying the phrases to anything outside of you working on you. I remember flying back from… ‘Cause when I learned something I always test it, okay, is this really gonna work? And so I’m flying back from I think it was Hawaii where I met you 10 years ago or however long it was, and I was flying and there was a child on the plane that was a little baby. That was distressed and crying and screaming and I’ve got kids so my kids have been that kid before, but everyone was like really uptight because this child and the parents are trying to soothe the child and just like was going on and on and on and all I did was I worked on me. 

I worked on how I was feeling about that child and how I was feeling about the screeches and this noise and I just worked on me and I did it for probably five or 10 minutes and the child did not cry or scream the entire rest of the flight, it was a long flight. And did I do that? I don’t know. I don’t care. I worked on myself though. And it was really powerful and I’ve had so many other. Another funny experience where I was driving up to Los Angeles and my daughter was being recruited to play for UCLA for soccer. And so she had taken a train up on a recruiting trip we live in San Diego and my son and I were going up ’cause we were gonna stay there and my wife couldn’t come. 

And I’m driving we’re running late for the meeting with the coaches I’m driving like 95 miles per hour on the highway and I’m thinking, “Well, I’m not going that much faster with other traffic.” And then all of a sudden I was feeling like a little bit of fear like what if something happens? And I was feeling that fear and all of a sudden in my rear view mirror, I got pulled over. And I could really feel it pop up and I’m like, you know what? I’m not trying to heal anybody but I’m gonna start using ho’oponopono between the time the guy gets out of the car and comes up here. ‘Cause when he shows up, I wanna be me I don’t wanna have the memory of being pulled over and all those times I’ve gotten tickets in the past and I just started cleaning that. 

And so 95 miles per hour though you don’t get a warning. Guy walks up he says, “You know you’re speeding?” I go, “Yes sir, I really apologize.” And I’d cleaned it I didn’t have any fear now. It was just having a conversation with him. And he said, “Okay, listen, I’m gonna give you just a warning make sure when you pull out your drive a little bit slower.” I turn to my son and he’s like, “Did that just happen? Like did that just happen?” That was a major ticket. Now again, we are not making any promises on anything on ho’oponopono.

Dr. Joe Vitale

Yeah, don’t start speeding all of a sudden.

Tom McCarthy

Exactly. But the beautiful thing is it frees up these trapped memories that are in you that are clogging up your ability to really live a healthy, fulfilling life. Now, Joe, how do you suggest people do this? Like you had mentioned maybe having it running in the background or do you wait for a feeling, are there ways to speed up the process of healing?

Dr. Joe Vitale

Those are great questions. When I first learned the four phrases, as simple as they are, I had to be reminded. First of all what they were and second of all to do them. And so I’m a great believer in having yellow stickies. And so I would write a piece of paper, write I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you on it and put it right on my computer and that would be my reminder. And then I found that very quickly not only did I know the four phrases, but I started to say them fairly automatically. At this point, I’ve been doing it 15 years I think it’s the background audio in my head. 

I used to say, it’s the background tape in my head, but it kind of dates me. So it’s like, there’s the background digital audio in my head but even as I’m talking to you, I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you is going on. So I’ve heard from everybody, they put reminders on their phone and so the phone would go off every hour or so and it’s just little reminder to say, I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. Nothing wrong with putting stickers all over the place, your dashboard, your refrigerator, your mirror, or your ceilings when you open your eyes in the morning there it is, I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you.

Tom McCarthy

It’s a lifelong ritual. It’s a lifelong ritual that you do it when you’re really struggling this become a part of your life.

Dr. Joe Vitale

Let me say two things about that because you asked what could make it work even better or faster or get quicker results. I have found that when you are actually feeling an emotion that’s bothering you, that is the ideal time to focus ho’oponopono and say the four phrases because you have the red hot heat of an emotion burning in you. It’s pretty hard to hide it, pretty hard to dismiss it and very easy to focus on because it’s there. So if something’s upset somebody this morning, yesterday, whatever it happens to be, I would bring it up. And as you bring it up inside of yourself know what you’re feeling. If you can put a word to it great, you don’t need to because the feeling itself is gonna bring you the attention. And then as you’re bringing the attention to it, you can say, okay, and this is talking to the great something inside yourself, your own intimate dialogue, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you and just a few times of doing that. The other thing I wanna point out is that I have gotten profound results by learning to say it all the time. 

And my example for this is I don’t… You said you live in San Diego, so you don’t have snow ballers, but you probably have street sweepers who come out. Most big cities have street sweepers who’ve come out at three in the morning and they sweep the streets so that when we get up at seven, nine, whenever we get up and we go to work or go get our coffee, the streets are clean and we never think anything of it. We never think anything of it, because most of us don’t even know most street sweepers who are out there cleaning the streets. So they’re easier for you to go 95 miles an hour down. And those who have snow, they’ve got the snowplows who go out usually in the middle of the night so that when you get up the snow is gone and you can drive on your road. 

Ho’oponopono is like the snow plower and street sweeper of life. When you sit here and you do, I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you with no real specific anything in mind. You’re just kind of saying it as a kind of… The Indians will have mantras, the Catholics will have a rosary there’ll be saying hail Mary and ho’oponopono imagine that you’re saying it as a kind of prayer or meditation, as you’re doing it it’s cleaning your path through life.

Tom McCarthy

Nice, yeah.

Dr. Joe Vitale

This is one of the biggest reasons to do it. Ho’oponopono is your street sweeper. It’s your life sweeper. It can get rid of mountains and bumps and holes and hills before you ever got to it. And so you go through your life and there’ll be a breezier quality to it because what you might’ve hit was already released.

Tom McCarthy

I love that. And the point, I just wanna stress over and over again ’cause it took me a while to get it to we’re cleaning inside we’re not looking up and saying, “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.” We’re not looking at someone else, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you we’re looking inside and saying that. We’re in our minds and our hearts and our souls where the divine is, right? God is everywhere. So, we’re going inside of us and healing inside of us and then not only do we heal, the outside world heals. I hope people watch this interview with Joe several times, ’cause it may take you a while to get it, but once you get it, it will change your life. It’s so amazing, so powerful. And Joe, there’s a site, Vitalelifemastery.com that has an intro to ho’oponopono is that correct?

Dr. Joe Vitale

Yeah, there’s actually several different products that should be of interest to everybody who’s watching something like this, but there an introduction to ho’oponopono. If you go to Vitale, which is my last name, V-I-T-A-L-E, vitalelifemastery.com and just poke around you’ll find it and it’s free.

Tom McCarthy

Awesome, that’s amazing. And then also you have a free gift for everybody. So please check that out on the Global Energy Healing Summit website, you’re gonna wanna download this you see how much value Joe has and what a great heart and soul he has. Joe, what’s the most important thing you want people to remember from everything we’ve talked about today? What do you wanna make sure they remember if there were one thing?

Dr. Joe Vitale

It’s kind of cruel to put it like that you know. Forced me to come up with one thing, I’m teasing you. I would say the one thing is, everything that you wanna heal, everything that you wanna attract, everything you wanna accomplish all begins and ends inside of you.

Tom McCarthy

So profound. So amazing. Joe, I’ve loved having you on our summit. And I look forward to seeing you again in person one day when we’re out traveling again. But thank you so much for your kindness, your love, your wisdom. And one final thing I want that also I should have brought up. The phrases you’ve mentioned them in a couple of different orders. The order really doesn’t matter per se. I prefer the I’m sorry, please forgive me thank you, I love you but you’ve said it a couple times-

Dr. Joe Vitale

Yeah, you can say them in any order. There’s two or three things that are worth pointing out since you brought this up. One is you can say them in any order at all, that does not matter. I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. You can mix it up, start anywhere you like. The other thing that people often ask is, do I need to feel it as I say it?

Tom McCarthy

Okay.

Dr. Joe Vitale

And I once asked Dr. Hew Len and he said, no, not at all it’s just important that you’re saying it. My own experience has been, as you say it, you will move in the direction of feeling. So if you’re saying, I love you, but you don’t really feel love you say it enough times and it starts to engage. So I would say, keep in mind, say it in any order. Second of all, you don’t need to feel it to say it. And third, you never have to say to another person, this is all a intimate conversation between you and your connection to the great something.

Tom McCarthy

Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much, Joe. You’ve helped so many people with your work over so many years and I just can’t wait for people to be able to see this interview and learn from you. And I’ve learned so much from you so thank you so much. Love you and appreciate you being on this summit.

Dr. Joe Vitale

Thank you. I’m grateful, I love you as well and Godspeed to everybody watching and listening, expect miracles.

Tom McCarthy

Awesome.