UNTOLD MEDICINE
Come with me on a journey to the unexplored side of medicine where we speak with rebel doctors, radical herbalists, unorthodox healers, and patients who have healed themselves. Explore the intersection between science & spirituality and discover the power within you. Hosted by Dr. Michele Burklund
UNTOLD MEDICINE
Ramsay Taum: The Sacred Wisdom of Ho'oponopono, Reconnecting with Hawaiian Traditions, and Embracing Mana
What if reconnecting with ancient traditions could transform your life? Join us as we welcome Ramsay Taum, a cultural resource and practitioner of Hawaiian traditions like Ho'oponopono. Ramsay takes us on a journey through his upbringing in Hawaii, where he was profoundly influenced by his grandmothers and other elders. Despite the pressures of American assimilation, he was drawn back to his roots, learning the rich traditions of his heritage through service and sharing with the elders. Explore the profound concept of mana, the life force present in all things, similar to qi or prana. Ramsay shares invaluable insights into how mana drives life and health through the balance of polarities, much like maintaining a balanced nervous system. Learn about the transformative practice of Ho'oponopono, emphasizing its role in restoring harmony and proper alignment in our lives. This ancient practice goes beyond problem-solving, fostering healing from within through forgiveness and spiritual realignment, making it a powerful tool for personal growth and balance.
Lastly, we delve into the Hawaiian language's spiritual depth, focusing on the word " Na’auao." Ramsay explains how words embody elements of fire, god, heat, light, and foundation, underlining the importance of mindful communication. Hear about the significance of the gut as a source of intuition and inner knowledge, and the fractal nature of Hawaiian thought. Reflect on how our thoughts, emotions, and words manifest our realities, and learn how Ho'oponopono can restore relationships and create a harmonious life. Join us for a profound reflection on interconnectedness and the transformative power of Hawaiian wisdom.
Want to watch the video version of the interview? Click here.
Welcome to the podcast Medicine Untold and come with me on a journey to the unexplored side of medicine, where we speak with rebel doctors, radical herbalists, unorthodox healers and patients who have healed themselves. Explore the intersection between science and spirituality and discover the power within you. I'm your host, dr Michelle Birkland, licensed naturopathic doctor, botanical alchemist and practicing physician. Welcome everyone today. Today, we have Ramsey Tom with us, so welcome. I'm so excited you're here.
Ramsay Taum:Aloha. Thank you for having me.
Dr. Michele Burklund:And I'm going to read a little bit about your background to introduce you, and we'll go deeper into that in a little bit. So Ramsey Taum is a recognized cultural resource and sought-after keynote speaker, lecturer, trainer and facilitator. He's been trained by respected Hawaiian elders and is a practitioner and instructor of several Hawaiian practices, including Ho'oponopono, in addition to others. He is also the founder and president of the Hawaii-based Life Enhancement Institute of the Pacific LLC, the director of the Pacific Islands Leadership Institute at Hawaii Pacific University and cultural sustainability planner at PBR Hawaii and Associates. Ramsey effectively integrates place-based, cultural-based indigenous and native Hawaiian cultural values and principles into contemporary business.
Dr. Michele Burklund:So thank you so much. That was a very impressive background too.
Ramsay Taum:Oh well, thank you, Appreciate it. I'm tired just listening to it.
Dr. Michele Burklund:So, to get started, can you kind of tell our audience a bit about your background and how you came into this and into teaching these practices and how it found you kind of on your journey too?
Ramsay Taum:Yeah, I think that last statement is probably truer than anything else. It found me and actually anytime I tried to step away from it, thinking I was going to follow another path, things happened, so I ended up getting pulled back into it. So rather than fight it, you know, I just continued on the flow. I was born and raised in Hawaii and my ancestors come from both Hawaii the islands as well as from the east the Chinese ancestry. But I'd like to say I'm 100% part Hawaiian.
Ramsay Taum:My cultural upbringing fundamentally has been in what we say kanaka maoli, the Hawaiian culture. I say that because Hawaiian is actually a nationality and not so much an ethnicity, the rooted culture we refer to as Kanaka Maoli, the native people of these lands. So, with that upbringing and really been immersed in various components of the culture although I was raised in the American culture because, of course, the United States and the state of Hawaii represent that frame and that concept but deep underneath all that is the kanakamole Hawaiian culture, and I was fortunate that I had grandmothers that lived that way. They lived the culture in their being. And then I also attended Kamehameha Schools, a school that was created for Native Hawaiian children by the Princess Bernice Pohi Bishop so that we would have a good education, native Hawaiian children by the Princess Bernice Pohi Bishop so that we would have a good education.
Ramsay Taum:And it was during these times and this upbringing that we began to see that, while we're trying, the community was trying to get us to assimilate right, there were parts of our culture that were staying alive, being practiced and maintained by particular families, particular elders kupuna as we require, as I would say.
Ramsay Taum:And so I was fortunate at some point in time to uh be engaged with it, and they saw that I had an empty coconut that needed to be filled and they proceeded to do that, more so because I was probably the last man standing. Everyone else went out to play and I was still in the room with them and I was close enough for them to grab, and they grabbed me, which I'm so grateful that they did. But it was really a reciprocity agreement unspoken by being there in service to them, which is part of our practice, caring for our elders. I had the good fortune of learning from them, not so much that they were specifically teaching, but sharing, and I think that kind of leads into your other question about how I got into the teaching component. I really don't consider it teaching, but really sharing and, as a result, hopefully people learn things. And so it was that tradition and eventually it led to the work that I'm doing today.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Interesting. So it kind of started with the elders. You were around with your grandparents and then you met different elders kind of on your journey. But it wasn't official trainings, it's more like you aligned with them and then learned from them yeah, there was always an interest there.
Ramsay Taum:But you see, um, I grew up at a time when hawaii was just becoming a state 1959, 1960, that period so there was a concerted effort really to move away from, or not highlight, hawaiian culture. Actually, my grandmothers come from a time where they didn't want their children, my parents or that generation, to speak the language or to even consider that it was about becoming part of the American fabric of things. Consider that it was about becoming part of the American fabric of things. So, even the language I couldn't listen to the language unless I was hiding outside. I could hear my grandmother's to her friends, but the minute I walked into the room they would quickly revert to English, and so it was a difficult time for the culture because it was a time when it was illegal to speak the language.
Ramsay Taum:It wasn't until 1978 that we began to see the revival of some of these cultural practices the practice of Lomi Aha, which is part of the Hawaiian battle art system, l lua system. Even that was hidden for a while. Um, the hula most people knew about the hula. That had been revived early, but more so because of the visitor and tourism industry. It was more for entertainment than it was for cultural transfer of knowledge and communing with nature, which is really an underlying principle behind that practice, the battle system of Lua, which I'm also a practitioner of.
Ramsay Taum:Similarly, we thought many of us didn't even know it existed. We thought it had been lost to time and antiquity, but fortunately there are some parents uh, families, I should say that maintained it. And then, ho'oponopono, this practice of making right and putting things into proper order, um, similarly, was being taught by certain individuals and families, really more as an internal family mediation process which brings about healing at many levels physical, mental, spiritual. But all of our practices were considered taboo things that you just didn't talk about. So it wasn't until I began meeting and being around these kupuna, these elders, that I began to see that it was still very much alive, that we aren't a dead culture, something you see in the museum. We are a living culture, which was very important to us and to myself to help not only restore it, revive it, but to make sure we perpetuate it. So this entered into many places in the world of business, in the world of legislation and policymaking, to make it really part of our daily life. So culture isn't something you do on weekends, honey. I'm going to do my culture thing and I'll be back tomorrow. Right, if culture is what it is, it's part of our life, it's living, then it should be integrated in our daily practices and to a certain extent, ho'oponopono is that it's a way of being, the process and practice of lua. It's also a way of being, as much as it's, a combat battle system. The principles, the values, uh, the intentions, are things that you live on a day-to-day basis, and with that comes health, prosperity, happiness and all these other things.
Ramsay Taum:So, but by being around them, I was able to see it and experience it and, as I said, they saw something within me that they felt confident enough to share it with me so that I could then turn around and share it with others later.
Ramsay Taum:And so I'm sitting here really appreciating the fact there are numerous elders, appreciating the fact there are numerous elders I would say between 10 and 15 that at some point in time came into my life or I into theirs and they began to share. If I stop at 10, mind you, there were a few more. I would suggest all of them were in their 80s or older, which means the accumulation of all that information was about 800 years of experience. So I had the fortune of being around that and around individuals who had really succeeded as far as the external parts of their lives. So they were really in what the Maslow talked about that self-actualization stage, were really in what the maslow talked about, that self-actualization stage, and so to be around them at a time when they're willing to share was quite important. So I I call it fortune as much as it was just opportunity.
Ramsay Taum:so I can say I didn't anticipate or vision being where I'm at today here talking to you about these things, but it was just a matter of course and being in the right place at the right time.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Yeah, or your energy, attracting their energy and them, kind of choosing you and you choosing them definitely for this experience and sharing this knowledge to a larger group, which I think is pretty amazing that you can do now also, and getting that knowledge and that sacred information out to people in a way that we can understand it and and cherish it in that way, too, is is pretty amazing seen.
Ramsay Taum:Well, like I said, I I am grateful because in hindsight, when I look back um, I'm seeing now where, early on um there are downloads, there are things that are happening, um little things are positioning and putting me on a trajectory to do these kinds of things. It wasn't a conscious, but it was a flow, right, staying in that flow. So I can go back and look and say, wow, you know this is not what I intended, but I guess it is. You end up where you end up. Exactly.
Ramsay Taum:So it's been quite a journey. You end up and so it's. It's been quite a journey. It's not over yet and continue to, you know invite other companions along the way when we can.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Right, and can you tell us a little bit more? So I was listening to you explain different theories about Hawaiian culture and and there's there's a lot of depth, that I know a lot of discussion between these, but I wanted to hear a little bit about how you describe the term mana and like and what that means in Hawaiian and Hawaiian culture and kind of set the stage for that, so people can understand the essence kind of behind it.
Ramsay Taum:Sure, you know I'll start broad and come in. I mean, in biblical stories they talk about the tribe of people walking across the desert right being fed by manna, the gift of God, life energy, this food. Well, the concept of man, mana, is not so different M-A-N-A. Mana is this notion of life force, life energy that's in all things, it's in us. The Chinese might refer to it as chi, the Japanese might refer to it as ki, others prana, basically, basically, that life force, energy that is in all things. And so mana is a big part of the understanding of health, but also of life at large. When we talk about electricity, the power that runs through and runs all things, in terms of machines, mana is kind of like that it's in all things and it runs all things. In terms of machines, mana is kind of like that it's in all things and it runs all things. So it can be considered.
Ramsay Taum:I like to say the notion that one is in and one is out. It's a balance. Ma is the feminine nature, or the negative polarity, while na is the masculine, or positive polarity, and the interchange of these two energies, soft and hard, in and out, light and dark, those principles of yin yang. They're constantly in movement, they're in play, so there's never more than one or the other, but they're always in exchange. So you're looking for equilibrium, not equality. So sometimes you're more ma, sometimes you're more na, and if you're living with health in mind and proper balance that is always going back and forth and that revealed in your health and your thoughts and your behaviors and practices, like that, um and it's. It can be inherited, but there's also something that's within you. I mean, it's already there, but then it can be generated and maybe that's a wrong term. It can be accessed in the same way that um.
Ramsay Taum:I'm not sure have you ever seen an image of a fish spouting water? So the fish isn't creating the water, right, the fish is accessing water around it through his gills and spitting the water out. Omana is similar. We're in mana, we're swimming, it's all around us, it's in us, but it's also all around us, and so it's a misnomer to think that we're generating mana any more than we're generating air. We're in the air, oxygen. You can either accept it or not. So you access the air, the oxygen, and similarly access the manna.
Ramsay Taum:Now, depending on how well you are accessing it, you have more or less of it, and when you're in dis-ease and disorder and illness, you could say that you are low in manna. By eating the right foods, doing the right movements and exercises, you begin to improve the system's ability to access as well as distribute that manna. So it is something that's accessible to all and we tend to make it very mystical, but in reality it's just part of who we are. It's what helps our hair grow and our eyes blink and our hearts move. It's all part of that, so it's not separate from us. Like many people want to make it. We have to bring it and go get it, but it's really a part of us and once we understand that, then we can learn to access it and recognize it and utilize it better and so it's, it's almost it's.
Dr. Michele Burklund:It's keeping the balance somehow too. So it's not having like an excess of something or a like not enough of something, but it's keeping that balance somehow too. So it's not having like an excess of something or a like not enough of something, but it's keeping that balance and keeping that flow at a certain rate too, cause if you have, is there an issue if you have too much or too little, or is it? Is there a like, a negative and a positive when it comes to that energy, or is it?
Ramsay Taum:negative and a positive when it comes to that energy, or is it yeah, yeah, um again, if we look at it from that standpoint, as polarities my one soft, one hard, one negative polarity, one positive polarity and that's neither good or bad, that's a.
Ramsay Taum:That's the way we place weight on those terms, right right right but one is receiving and one is giving so much like the parasympathetic sympathetic system. When that's out of balance if you're not sleeping enough, you're always up something's going to occur your adrenals are going to burn out, you know. So those are probably good ways of looking at them in the contemporary space is that your parasympathetic, sympathetic system is needs to be in balance so that you can amp and run when you need to, or you can sit and relax when you need to, and the more you have the ability to control that and manage that consciously, then you're probably in a much better position to manage and maintain your health.
Ramsay Taum:Many of us, however, aren't aware of that Right, so we fall victim not to anything else external, but to an internal inability to manage and know our place, which is our home, where we live right, right, and it's odd because we, we should be living here, and yet when there's a disorder or disease, we leave here to go somewhere outside, to someone who lives outside to tell us what's going on inside right, right, yeah which is kind of awkward, right. So I'm going to my neighbor's house to find out how to clean my own. It just doesn't. There's a disconnect. So money is like that. So I like to say, um, in this world today, it's how to monetize versus just monetize.
Dr. Michele Burklund:I like that. I like that. I mean I think, like the definition I always use for health, is balance right? It's not. It's always keeping everything in alignment and balance. The same thing, kind of, with finding peace rather than happiness or avoiding sadness.
Ramsay Taum:It's staying in the middle, or staying in the middle of the circle, keeping the balance with everything, staying in the middle or stayed in the middle of the circle, keeping the balance with everything? Yeah, and I think you can extend that to, uh, the notion of harmony, uh, which isn't necessarily balanced from, I think, the traditional sense of there's five on one side of the equation and five on the other. Right, that's the way I think most people look at balance, at least in the western principle. Uh, because balance is you have five and I have five, you have ten and I. That's equality.
Ramsay Taum:But we know the body is changing constantly, right, there's a temperature fluctuation and then something happens to either bring it back down or meet it. That's what we talk about equilibrium, much like the ocean, in order for the environment to be in balance. The tide comes in and the tide goes out. It doesn't just stay in and it doesn't just stay out. So there's always a movement, and being in sync and synchronizing with that movement is harmony, and that's where balance is.
Ramsay Taum:And if I'm there at the wrong time, I could be crushed by a wave. What's not the wave's fault, right, it's just I did not plan or prepare myself for that energy. Now, if I bring a surfboard, then I might ride that wave rather than get crushed. There's peace and harmony right. So at that point in time it's being responsive and recognizing conditions and adjusting and adapting to those conditions with mindfulness and awareness. And many of us just have either lost or forgotten the practices and the ability to be aware and to be mine. So I think more and more of us are waking up to that and I try to come back to that um beingness, you know, being present, being in yourself, being in it. I like to tell my, tell my students, it's all an inside job.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Right, and it really is too. Yeah, so kind of with that can we transition, and can you kind of tell us a little bit more about the practice of Ho'oponopono and what the real meaning is? I think, especially today, that name and the practice is around quite a bit, but I still think there's a lot of confusion or somehow the depth gets lost kind of in the mix here. So I think this is a perfect question to kind of ease into with that.
Ramsay Taum:Well, thank you. Yeah, so the term or the word is ho'oponopono, so repeat that with me.
Ramsay Taum:Ho'oponopono right and it's pono is the word for proper, correct, appropriate integrity, if you would. It's a. It's a larger condition. The word pono pono refers to the ability to see or to measure when things are in proper order, balance and in harmony. So the example would be opening your kitchen drawer. I think most people, at least in this part of the world, are familiar that. Open the kitchen door and there's a tray and that tray is where your forks and your spoons and your knives. So that helps you to see that everything is where it's supposed to be In health. We look for vital signs heart rate, blood pressure. When they're in the right place at the right time, I can measure it. We can say, ah, things are pono, pono. So when things are pono pono, then everything else above that is pono. So my forks and spoons and knives are in the right place. Pono, pono. That means my kitchen drawer is pono right, okay, so the word ho'opono means to behave correctly. So after I wash my dishes and have my meal, I clean, I wash and I return the utensils to the drawer the spoons and the spoons and the forks and the forks and the knives and the knives. That's ho'opono. So when you behave ho'opono properly, you will see the results of your work pono, pono. And now you know that you are pono. See the order. So hoʻopono behavior is measured by a pono pono method and assessed and described as pono.
Ramsay Taum:Pono is the condition that we're all trying to achieve to be in proper alignment with the world around us the spirit, physical, mental and emotional and our relationships. That would be pono. Now, when you find that your forks and spoons are not in the right place and everything else that's lost, you know your keys and your license and you find them scattered about your drawer, that is what we call pono'ole, the absence of order, or a'olipono, improper behavior. So when someone is behaving improperly, a'olipono, or the condition is pono'ole, out of balance and misaligned, there is a method now to restore that alignment, and that method is called ho'oponopono. Ho'o is the concept of combining, putting things together, bringing them. It's an action word. So anytime you say ho'o before something, you're putting it into action, as ho'opono is doing the right thing. Ho'oponopono means to put it into proper order. So ho'oponopono, then, is really the term for alignment, the act of putting things into alignment again, into their proper place, and to restore order.
Ramsay Taum:It is not, however, the idea of fixing. It's about healing, and it's important because we live in a world that really comes out of an industrial age where we relied heavily on mechanics and technology and technicians to fix things that are broken. But the human condition isn't a broken, we're not a thing that breaks. We're in dis-ease and disorder. So a technician, a mechanic, isn't what we need. We need a healer, a physician, something that helps us inside out versus outside, in which what which most mechanics do they're outside the thing and they work on it, whereas a proper healer works with you from the inside out. Whether we're changing your chemical makeup or your mental thoughts and emotional focus, it's always an inside job facilitated by someone trained to do that. So the Ho'oponopono practice is about that. How do you restore alignment first to one's own internal family, your spiritual, mental and emotional family within you, which is what our process recognizes.
Ramsay Taum:And it's a process, it's not something you do to people, it's not something you do at.
Ramsay Taum:So I'm not going to come in and ho'oponopono, you Pull out my gun and fire my ho'oponopono bullet at you, but it's something, a practice that each person does with guidance from someone else until they can do it on their own to realign those things within us. And once we have an alignment there, then we can start aligning with things elsewhere. So the process of Ho'oponopono really is about aligning to the one, the one, what, the one condition, the preferred condition, proper health, proper order, proper relationships, etc. Now Ho'oponopono is also known as a forgiveness process. Well, forgiveness just happens to be a process of realigning broken relationships right or a misunderstanding. So, once again, at the end of the day, ho'oponopono is about realigning, putting things into proper order.
Ramsay Taum:Now, when I said it's not fixing, what I mean by it's not just fixing a problem. It's actually creating a condition where the problem no longer exists. The conditions that the problem required required to be a problem, such as misunderstanding, right. Otherwise, all we're doing is making a bad thing better, and I don't think we want a better bad thing, so we don't want to throw good after bad hope. One opponent's about really creating a preferred condition. What does that look like? So, rather than going to a conference on conflict resolution and trying to resolve the conflict by bringing it into the room and then pushing it out. It's like bringing an elephant in and trying to spend the rest of the day pushing it out of the room. How do we create a room where the elephant doesn't live anymore? Right so, rather than focusing on the problem, focusing on the preferred condition and, as a result, the whole ponopono process really begins to remove the criteria or adopt a criteria that allows you to be in the preferred place rather than living better in a bad place. Does that make sense?
Dr. Michele Burklund:right so it's it's fixing within and going within for everything and saying where is this out of alignment, what belief, what energy pattern? And removing that within. So then it's not a constant, even if it's not that elephant. It could be another else, that's coming in.
Ramsay Taum:Right, that's right. Yeah, so there's a tendency to to look at the problem as an external thing, but the reality is, whatever we're feeling is an internal thing, and so, if I'm having an emotional issue, to place blame on something outside of us misses the point. So when we say you make me feel this way, at the end of the day I feel this way, but I place it in the responsibility of how I feel on someone else. It's taking responsibility, but this is the way I feel, and I feel this way because I heard what you said or I saw what you did in a way that it bothers me, right.
Ramsay Taum:So when I take responsibility for the fact that I'm making that decision about how you behave and how it affects me, then it really doesn't matter how you behave, it really matters on how I translate that. And where does that come from? Why do I translate it that way? It's because of memory, experience, expectations, and so the whole Pona Pona process is really about reframing and removing those memories that serve as barriers and obstacles to our moving forward, to our physical, mental, spiritual health, as well as to our relationships, and so it is a spiritual process and not one that I can consciously go in and say, okay, I'm no longer going to do this simply by saying that, which is what has happened in many ways because that exercise I think they call it NLP, right? There is that notion that if I speak it and I resonate with it mantras, affirmations, mantras, affirmations while much of the time that does work, perhaps temporarily, if you don't remove the fundamental memory or the thing that's inside you, then you and I may be able to come to an agreement and forgive one another, but the issue is still within me, which means the next person and the person after that that triggers me. We'll get the same amount of anger, pain that I did with you, but I just happened to make it right with you. But I'm going to keep carrying that with me.
Ramsay Taum:And so this is where some people are having difficulty applying what has become a practice of saying certain things like thank you, I love you, I forgive you or forgive me. Those are important statements, no question, but they aren't necessarily cleansing or removing the internal thought, emotion or reason for the fear that I'm feeling, that's triggered by you every time I see you or anyone that reminds me of you. So maybe an easy way for it is for your listeners to repeat these words, and maybe you can do it with me just for fun, just for tickles. What is it about me? Oh, you want me to um.
Dr. Michele Burklund:What is it about me, oh?
Ramsay Taum:you want me to? What is it about me that allows me that?
Dr. Michele Burklund:allows me to see in you, to see in you what bugs me what bugs me about you about you right.
Ramsay Taum:So if each of us were, were saying that, were saying that, what is it about me that's allowing me to see in you, this person, this condition, what causes me to be bothered by that? What is it about me? What did I bring to this situation? That every time I smell, hear, taste, hear, taste, touch, feel and experience this, that you them, that I run, I hide, I freeze there's something about me that is triggered by these things, that causes me to behave a certain way, as in move across the planet, quit my job, leave my home, right, whatever that might be, or prevents me from really achieving the goals that I had in my life. Because of some fear, some anxiety, because it's not those things. I had a student come to me and say Kumu, I have a problem with her, I have a problem with him, I have a problem with them. And they proceeded to ask me what I thought and my response was you have a problem. The common denominator in all of those things for that person was I have a problem.
Ramsay Taum:In our contemporary space, we would often say you bug me. When the Buddha says what is it about me that allows you to bug me? Because that places a greater ability within you to take responsibility for that, as well as to release that once you understand what the process is. So, to really oversimplify it, it's really a cleansing process that removes those triggers or splinters, if you would that are in us, that get triggered by someone's words, behaviors, just how they look, Because it goes back to an earlier memory that may be embedded in our subconscious.
Ramsay Taum:An earlier memory that may be embedded in our subconscious and perhaps maybe came in with us. If you subscribe to the concept of life and rebirth birth and rebirth then there's a potential that many of the things that we came into this existence with had already been planted there to enable us to interact with the world that we chose to come into. If that's the case, interact with the world that we chose to come into. If that's the case, then there are some things that are there to help us avoid pain and others to overcome it. Some of us, however, are programmed more to avoid pain than overcome it, and that tends to be a much more fear-based experience than one of a proactive-based experience, and much of that comes from those memories and, of course, by how we were nurtured around people who were either fear-based or faith-based. So sorry, long answer to a short question.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Right. I mean, I think that's incredibly powerful and I think that a lot of my own patients and people who are listening to a lot of them, they're recognize their triggers or they're say I'm I know that something's wrong with me, this is triggering me or this happened and I need to remove it. But a lot of people I think are like okay, how do I remove it now? How do I push that button, how do I take that out, even if I am aware that it's my trigger and my issue? So I think that this practice could be incredibly powerful to learn, because that's so much of a core issue that I run into in my own clinical practice of just having patients recognize, want it to get out of it, but then they really don't know the next steps of how to remove that.
Ramsay Taum:Yeah, I mean I would liken it to the idea I'm sitting in front of my computer and all of a sudden I see funny things going on in my computer. Now I can consciously say I don't want that anymore. But I don't have the skill set to make it change because I don't know how to get into the programming. I'm not a programmer. So my conscious mind may say I've got a problem, I've got to address this problem. Every day I turn on my computer and said I've got a problem, I got to address this problem. I'm not going to do this anymore. But if it's built into the programming, I'm not going to do this anymore. But if it's built into the programming I need a programmer. I need someone that can get into the underlying program to change the memory.
Ramsay Taum:What some of us don't is that we keep making adjustments, accommodations for the little errors. So one day it's an adjustment to the right. Three days later it's two adjustments to the right. The next thing you know, we're walking around in a circle adjusting to the pain that we're feeling on the left. And the next thing you know, our life is about going in circles because we're avoiding the pain on the left. I don't want to do that anymore.
Ramsay Taum:I want to keep doing it, but we haven't changed the initial programming, that underlying base memory that is triggered every time I look left. So I fool myself into thinking that I've now overcome it by looking to the right only. Okay. And so when I look to the right, oh, the problem's not there anymore. But eventually we run into it again, because all we did was walk around in a circle. You see that? And I keep telling myself I've I've taken measures to avoid it. Therefore it doesn't exist anymore.
Ramsay Taum:Well, the stimulus may no longer be in your space, but the thing that's being stimulated is, it's still in you right right so this concept really begins to say if you're allowing external realities or externalities to define your reality, your pain, your discomfort, then really you're a victim of externalities and you're a victim of your own expectations of what those realities can do to you or those expectations externally can do to you, so that gives someone else something else, power. So this is the power dynamic, right?
Ramsay Taum:if I have to wait for you to say I'm sorry in order for me to feel better, I'm a victim of that right if I have to wait for the world to get better before I start behaving better, then I'm a victim of my own behavior, right, because I'm expecting something else outside of you. So the Ho'oponopono process really is a very powerful process because it enables us to come back into our power, and I'm not saying physical power to hurt people, but really to take responsibility for how I'm feeling, how I'm behaving and teaching others how to treat me, which is very different. So I'm no longer a victim of your inability to say I'm sorry, right, or your inability to see my truth while I'm living in it. And that's the other part your truth, my truth. But what's our truth?
Ramsay Taum:The Ho, the whole point upon the process, begins to look at that and say there's, there are multiple truths. The real question is what's the truth that we want to land on? What do we agree to and can we live from that perspective? And my truth is I come from a very wounded, traumatic experience. Well, if that's case, then how can I move into something else until I release that? Hypothetically, right, I mean, each of us needs to explore that. So if someone can get to that point, the Ho'oponopono process helps them to go into that depth, because what it's relying on is the programmer, your relationship with the programmer, in this case, the spiritual relationship with the divine, the grand creator, the grand programmer, god, if you would. So, if you subscribe to that notion at all, then here is a way of actually becoming much more in tune and connected with the architect and the programmer, which is why it is a spiritual principle. It requires a different level of intervention.
Dr. Michele Burklund:And I think definitely my audience too is very interested in that component of it and really trying to figure out for themselves how to remove these blockages and really whatever works along the way. So can you and I know this is extremely hard to do in a short period of time but explain a little bit about the process? I mean, I think that they're going to have to look into this at a much deeper level, of course, so this is always the tough part, yeah yeah.
Ramsay Taum:It doesn't involve prayer, it doesn't involve meditation and one being the sending of the message. That's the prayer and meditation, receiving the message, the response, right. So many people sometimes get that mixed up, but it does involve that. But what you're praying for and what you're listening for is also important as well, and so the Hoʻoponopono process is really about acknowledging this internal relationship and so the ancestral practice that was updated for us to use in contemporary time by a kahuna la' human mind, a single mind, may have three parts to that mind. We call it a triune family, and anytime we're in dis-ease, disorder, it's because one of those minds are out of order. One of those minds are out of order. So I like to say, when you are in alignment mind, body and spirit you are now mind full because you're complete, you're whole. It's when you are physically in dis-ease or mentally in disorder, that's when you can say you are mindless, you're out of your mind. You can say you are mindless, you're out of your mind. So what we want to do is get back into that mind, and the process allows us to do that, to get back to one mind, a singular mind, and in your field it might be called integration. Right, we integrate, but we don't just integrate internally. That integration now allows us to incorporate as well as integrate with everything around us. So I'm much more in a line with the spirit, with the trees, with the people around me, because I'm no longer self-centered, I'm just centered in self. Self-centered, I'm just centered in self. And once I can achieve that, I can now begin to interact and relate to people in a different way and it becomes less transactional and much more relational. So the process asks us, or helps us, to actually get to that level of communicating with that grand mediator and begin to remove those memories. So that's what that would be. So if you saw people doing the process, it would look like they're sleeping, because they're really.
Ramsay Taum:It's an internal and as much as I might facilitate it by reading the prayer or reading the meditation to them, it's really an inside job. So I really teach them, as Auntie Morna asked, to really do it for themselves. I don't really do group cleansings where people come. My preference is to teach people how to do that. The last thing you want to do, that. The next thing, last thing you want to do is create a codependency right. It's really about empowering people to do their own cleansing with their own family, with their own colleagues, with their own world around them. So if people wanted to do it, I would recommend that, you know, they look into a class or having someone like myself share that and teach that. Once they go through the experience and continue practicing it, then they become their own healer, as they should be anyway.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Exactly so. Are you still offering one-on-one teachings right now? I know you're kind of on a larger scale and you're teaching this and giving a lot of speeches kind of around the globe on these practices, but are you still working one-on-one or in a different way?
Ramsay Taum:to teach people then yeah, thank you, I am, and because, of course, it's a timely undertaking. It's not something you just jump in and take a Tylenol and feel better tomorrow, so it requires time, and so if people are willing to do that, I also like it to do it in small groups, preferably groups that are related, because it's their relationship that you're trying to heal or that you'd like to help them heal. So if a individual wants to do that, they can coordinate that and then we can work with them, or I can come to them or we can do something.
Ramsay Taum:My preference is to do it in person because I think there's energy as much as I do also do it online, but I find that whoever's in the room will determine the outcome of what's coming out. It's always the same, but it's always different Meaning. The content is there, but it will find its way into the room and reveal itself depending on who's present and what the issues are. As long as I can get out of the way and let it come through me rather than from me, if that makes any sense, I can be in different rooms and people will get different things, but I really said the same thing in each room, but oftentimes the story that comes out that helps them to relate to their issue or their concern, maybe completely different from the last room because the people in the room are different, and so I like to say that this is your healing. This is the individual's individual practice. Consequently, it's customized for them in that way. So one-on-ones are helpful, especially with people really want to delve into a deep understanding rather than just learn the mechanics.
Ramsay Taum:I I just don't like teaching mechanics. I really want to share the meaning, and once people find deeper meaning, then I think they find it easier to embrace and do on a regular basis or as they need to right, which I think is important. Ho'oponopono is a way of being it's. It's a when you're on default. The default mode is I'm sorry, right, or let's make this right, rather than allowing it to fester or turning away from it. So, in that way, ho'oponopono is a way of being my default practice. If I can live a life of pono, do the right thing all the time, but we have a frailty. Sometimes we miss it. Well, I always have Ho'oponopono there.
Dr. Michele Burklund:And so how do you like? So, basically, what you're saying is like, with this, it's your you're just, your awareness has changed. You're always aware of kind of how you are in the world and and if there's an imbalance, you can utilize this to rebalance it and so like for for you in your daily life. How do you, how do you use this for you in your daily life? How do you, how do you use this? Do you take time and set aside every day to do the practice, or is it more? You can utilize this throughout the day as it comes and and kind of continue on that way?
Ramsay Taum:Thank you for that. My process has evolved because it's really a relationship that I now have with myself, but also with this, with the spiritual guide, if you would, with divine. So anytime I feel or sense like the movie, the force is off right, I feel a movement in the force. There are ways of going right into that and dealing with it, including putting up shields of some kind. So once I start feeling that negative energy beginning to be move in, I can now put up a shield necessary to deal with it, get into a place and begin to respond. Equally important, it says what is it about me? What, what, what did I just think? Or what just came up that attracted that? Or why did what you showed me bother me? Rather than trying to avoid the person, have to ask myself why was I bothered by what they just said?
Ramsay Taum:Now, this isn't about taking blame. This is about being aware, aware. So, before I react to what someone is saying, my question is why am I reacting right? Why am I placing so much value and importance on that word, on what that person, a complete stranger, has said to me? Why have I given that so much power that I'm I'm starting to cry or that I'm starting to run or that I'm laughing? Whatever my reaction is, can it be a response that is now chosen rather than a reaction that is a conditioned behavior? So this is the difference between conditioned responses and informed choices. So when I become more aware of that, anytime something is said, done or I experience is really a lesson for me.
Ramsay Taum:So any patient that I have or a client that have is really becoming the teacher and I'm the student. It really flips everything to come from a place of humility that says it's a little arrogant for me to think that they're coming to me to see that, to fix them. Why so, if I have 10 patients, they come in all with left shoulder problems. I start looking at my shoulder and I thank each of them for showing me the problem I need to work on today. Well, next week I have people with right knees coming in.
Ramsay Taum:So now I start looking at my right knee problem, which is a directional thing. It's about flexibility, it's about moving towards the future. Right, that's what my right knee represents, where my left shoulder is carrying ancestral weight of carrying things that really aren't mine to carry right. But it's the patients that come. The clients that come with their issues are really the teachers that are now helping me move through the process. So this is gratitude. Thank you for showing me your problem. Thank you for showing me this illness, because it subscribes to this belief that if I see the splinter in your eye, it probably came from the log in mine. That's the only way I can recognize it, because what's coming out from you is somewhere in me which then says that I'm just a mirror, as you are a mirror to me. The reflection.
Dr. Michele Burklund:So if I don't like what I'm seeing outside, I have to ask myself what did I just put in front of the mirror?
Ramsay Taum:And if I want to see something better, reflect back that I need to ask myself what did I just put in front of the mirror? And if I want to see something better, reflect the fact that I need to reflect something different. Again, it's not about blame, but it's about programming. Our memory is that this came from our ancestors, this came from, and that could be yesterday Time. As far as we're concerned, time is continuing. So when we refer to our ancestors, it's not someone five generations ago. It could be your mother, it could be your teacher, right, who in sixth grade called you stupid, right? That ancestor planted a seed in your mind.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Right.
Ramsay Taum:So we don't lock in on ancestors being a DNA ancestor, spiritual one as well as a physical one. Anyone that had an influence on you in the past is an ancestor.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Okay, yeah, I mean, that makes sense too, especially in this life, and how things are influenced.
Ramsay Taum:That's right. That's right, yeah, so that's, that's part of it. And once I can get to that and I live that way, I can process that in a much more quick, quicker way, because it's kind of like having a filter. Oh, I'm not sure that's any different technologically when you put a an anti-virus filter on your computer, stuff is coming in all the time but something's catching it right hopefully ho'oponopono is kind of like that.
Ramsay Taum:There's a way of developing this filter that begins to redirect viruses of emotion, of anger, of fear and pain, and kind of reprocesses it so they can define it in a different way. And you see it for what it is a memory, don't get me wrong. There are people out there who are just knuckleheads. Right, they behave in a way that is bothersome. There's they behave in a way that might be hurtful. Well, even there, the question is what is it about me that keeps attracting that behavior? But what is it about me that thinks I can change that behavior?
Ramsay Taum:therefore, put myself in the position to do that right so this isn't about changing other people, which some people want to use Ho'oponopono for. I want to change my wife. I want to change my husband. He needs to be doing this right.
Ramsay Taum:So, really, ho'oponopono says what is it about me that keeps allowing me to be in this space, that I continually see this? Because other people aren't in this space, they're not seeing it, they're not bothered by it. So there's something about me. And how do I begin to adjust to that? And, oddly enough, when that happens, these knuckleheads can go be somebody else's knucklehead.
Ramsay Taum:I was in here to heal knuckleheads but oddly enough, if I shift my perspective and behavior, they may no longer see that in me and they no longer need to be a knucklehead. So to the external world it looks like I just healed a knucklehead, but in reality I cleaned myself up and I removed that thing for them to be triggered by thus shifting their behavior. So this is where, in the stories that people hear about of a psychologist going into a hospital and healing everybody, I happen to know him, I knew him and I knew the story. And the real behavior was that he changed the way he behaved and responded to the patients and, as a result, they were no longer being triggered by his behavior, his beliefs and et cetera. So anytime he walked into the room they were fine.
Ramsay Taum:So to everyone else they were healed and to him they were healed, but in reality when he left the room they were the same people. So if someone came in with that same behavior they would get agitated again. So we have to be very careful about the narratives and the stories we believe and hear and dig a little deeper. And in this case that particular individual, that physician, was able to look at himself, adjust himself so that he no longer triggered others and they then appeared to be healed. He healed their relationship. He didn't change them, he changed himself. That's a very powerful.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Yeah, that's really where the power is is being able to heal yourself and get in there. And to me at least, how I kind of view medicine and illness is that it's an imbalance, and a lot of it has to do with emotion, right, the core of it is perception and how you see things, and then it can go into different realms and then go deeper and become physical and stay in the body and so, um, knowing something like this, to be able to remove it and to go in and to give somebody that instruction and have that tool, I think is huge. So I think this is this is an amazing practice to do for sure.
Ramsay Taum:Yeah, and I see it's been in my experience with an individual can actually own it, can actually own it. They can now let it go as long as it's somebody else's they can. And we've done this now with chronic pain groups and these are individuals 10, 15 years of pain medication, a whole number of other things not going to work, et cetera. You have complete turnarounds off medications, back at work, a number of things. Simply by going through the process Maybe I shouldn't say simply, but by adopting the practice and beginning to really remove these questions. I asked the group after they shared their pain with one another tell everybody about your pain and how you got it, and et cetera, et cetera. Well, once they're done, I asked them okay, who wants to exchange pains? Nobody wanted to exchange pains. I said I don't want his pain, I like my pain. And then I proceeded to ask them to point to their bodies where they were experiencing the pain or where the pain was. And inevitably people pointed somewhere in their leg, their head, their back or the chest. But here's what happened None of them pointed at me, none of them pointed to the next person, nobody pointed outside of themselves, they all pointed inside themselves and it was in that moment that everyone had a recognition that it's an inside job technician or the x-ray machine none of those things, until you decide.
Ramsay Taum:And it was at that moment that many of them were able to start moving towards preferred health again, because they realized they were holding on to it for whatever reason. It's their pain because that was their new identity. They needed that pain because it allowed them to maintain their lawsuit. They needed the pain because they wanted to stay angry, because they couldn't find a way to find peace with the person that made them angry. The pain is what the one thing that they could hold on to that nobody could take from them. It was theirs. And the minute they recognized that and they could go back and say, well, this pain comes from a childhood experience or something my grandmother said, or my great-great-grandfather told my grandmother, who told me it's not even mine. Wow, Okay, now I can let it go. So this is where ancestral trauma really becomes something that we can address. That's addressed by this when you realize it's not ancestral, it's yours, it's now, it's right here. It may have happened to your ancestors, but you're living it now, so don't blame your ancestors anymore.
Ramsay Taum:Take responsibility for it here and wow, it's amazing the things that shift when that happens. But again, it's all an inside job.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Right.
Ramsay Taum:Anyways, sorry, you got me, am I?
Dr. Michele Burklund:so buff. No, I think that's important and huge for our audience too, because that's the biggest part is recognizing that and giving them the power back. And when you have those moments of the reason why you're really holding on to things, yeah, I think a lot of amazing things can happen.
Ramsay Taum:Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Well.
Ramsay Taum:I hope that's helpful. Yeah, yeah, okay, well, I, I hope that's helpful and you know um to your point yes, I I am available and um, we have a process by by which we address questions and that you know, and opportunities. But thank you for this opportunity yeah, thank you too.
Dr. Michele Burklund:I have one more question that I want to ask you, and then then we can close out, but I wanted you to tell us a little bit about the meaning do with letting go of your mind right and finding source to get rid of all these thoughts and different things that are that can guide you in a different direction. So I want to hear a little bit about that, and then then we'll be sure to let everybody know where they can find you and send the links and everybody to this podcast too.
Ramsay Taum:Well, thank you. Yeah, so the term is na'awao, so N-A-O-K-I-N-A-A-U-A-O, all right. So in Hawaiian it's a spiritual language. I'm not just communicating, but I'm communing. So when you utter the sounds, you're calling upon a spiritual element. And in the word Na'awao there's elements of fire, god, heat, light and foundation and base. So A is fire, heat, light, god, the sun, like Ra, la A Yahweh. Then there's O, which is an earth energy, a more foundational. When we say O A Yahweh, then there's O, which is an earth energy, a more foundational. When we say O-O is to dig, ma-na-o is the foundation of one's thoughts, po-o is your head, so O is a foundation. As in Ho-O-Pono-Pono, all Os. It's all about getting back to the basics and the foundation. Well, na-oawao is the notion of an intuition, an inner knowing, an inner knowledge. We can also say no'ono, an awareness, but na'awao, and there's two or three root words in it. So na'ao.
Ramsay Taum:Na'ao is the concept of intestines, like your intestinal fortitude, but your intestine is your gut. So oftentimes in behavior it's like well, go with your gut, right, not with your head. And we now know medicine and science is telling us that, yes, that the microbiomes in our guts right is actually maybe the first brain that's affecting the second brain. It's interesting how our ancestors kind of recognize this. But what? What does your na'au say? What does your gut tell you? So that is like a uh, like another mind.
Ramsay Taum:The word na means plural, as in more. Is that positive, active energy in manna? Right? So that is active. It's a plural na Au. A-u is a reference to me, as in I am right, the little I, I am humbled. Au you. But in the spiritual reference definition of ao refers to your relationship to god. A you. When you say oh, you're acknowledging that you are a product, you are inside of that larger mind, oh Ao. So when you say na ao, which talks about intestines, if you look at the intestines it looks like a big brain, Right? Na ao says the plural mind, the plural relationship, meaning the multi rather than the singular. So many minds, right? So now is your gut? What does your mind say? What is your gut telling you? What are your thoughts? Where are they coming from? So many thoughts. And it's interesting if you subscribe to the idea that we are what we eat, right?
Ramsay Taum:What we eat mentally, physically and spiritually. So everything you eat has its own mind or affects your own thoughts, including whoever was feeding you or whoever planted that plant or killed that animal or raised that animal. Their energy, their mana, their thoughts are in that. So if you eat that without cleansing it and removing it, that is now in you, in your intestines, and absorption is what your intestines do. So you're absorbing all that mana, that energy, that memory. See how that works.
Ramsay Taum:So the last word in there is eo or ao. Ao fire, o ground. Ao is also the term for light. So we say from po darkness to ao eo light. Ao is light or enlightenment. Ao with a little okina is the word for education, awareness. Na'awau is the education, awareness and the knowledge that comes from your gut. So that's it and it speaks to intuition. It's your inner knowing, knowing things that you know but were never taught, recognizing that your body understands better than your mind itself. So your conscious mind may not understand what your body needs to stay in balance and in harmony, but your na'au, through na'au, your na'awau knows because it's been enlightened, it's been educated. So na'awau is that, it's this deeper understanding and awareness.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Right, and I think there's a lot of power there. It's so interesting that the language too, every word, has such a deeper meaning, and especially when they're combined, I mean there's it's very carefully chosen and organized and much different. I think then the English language in that sense too.
Ramsay Taum:And it's very fractal, right Cause it can take a single single beam of light but run it through the right crystal A single crystal receiving a single light source of light but casting many colors in the room. That's how the Hawaiian mind and the Hawaiian principle operates. From it's fractal, so, depending on where I'm standing and who I'm with, I may see it completely differently because of how the light is being refracted by the person that's next to me, right?
Ramsay Taum:right and so, yeah, that goes. It goes to emotions, and so it says to be mindful of who you're with right, to be mindful of who you're carrying in your mind and in your heart, because they are all influencing how you're seeing the light.
Ramsay Taum:So I'm a fractal being right all right and everything I'm experiencing is coming through a fractal now, at some point in time. How do I integrate all of that to a single light? Or am I able to begin to separate, disintegrate that light and begin to see the value in each vibration that I'm experiencing with the person to my left and the person on my right, that together we can create light. Separate we create darkness. That's the concept.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Yeah, it's a very beautiful language with a lot of depth in it, and it reminds me, because I'm in greece right now the greek language has a lot of really intense origins, where it has that deeper meaning behind each word, where the symbolism and the the pronouncement of the words and the combinations all have different energy frequencies too.
Ramsay Taum:There's a lot of real power. If energy has a name, I think we want to call it the right thing if you want to invite it into you, right?
Dr. Michele Burklund:Exactly.
Ramsay Taum:Same way that if I pronounce someone's name incorrectly, they don't answer me right. So if I'm going to invoke something, I should probably know what its name is or pronounce it properly, if anything, out of respect.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Right right.
Ramsay Taum:But if I recognize that I used the wrong tone with it, I either turn it on or I turn it off, or I turn it off, and we now can see that, as we've created technologies that allow us to experience voice activated, right Type of technology.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Well, if you say it wrong and doesn't hear you, it won't turn on.
Ramsay Taum:So you have to be very clear. So it's not the human mind any more powerful than the thing that we created called a computer. I think we've distanced ourselves from our true capacity and, at the end of the day, it comes down to respect. Can I respect each person, each thing, each animal, each tree? Can I respect it in such a way that it responds when I commune with it properly? Now, communing and communicating are two different things. Communing is being present. Communicating is imposing my thought, because I wasn't able to convey that just my by my presence, and so that's part of why the language was designed or evolved the way it did, at least for us, because it now allows me to commune with something, not just convey an idea to it.
Ramsay Taum:Right, or impose upon it my wishes or desires, like, for instance, I'm not sure there's so many redwood trees that grew up that want to be furniture. Right, we might see the furniture in the redwood tree, but the redwood tree never saw itself as a piece of wood that you're gonna a piece of lumber. It's a tree. We oppose upon nature, things and people, our desires upon them, and when they don't live up to that expectation, then we get angry with them. Right? That anger then becomes an illness within us which we're spreading to others. So this is a full circle. It comes all the way back to what we're believing. What is it I, how I treat others, I'm teaching them how to treat me by the way I treat them right. And all of that comes from me. It's a memory inside of me. So what is it about me that allows me to behave this way when I'm around you? That's the thing.
Ramsay Taum:And so that all comes back to a spiritual principle the words we use, the thoughts we have, the emotions we carry. So I I can close it with this uh, the elder kupuna that was my mentor. She would say that the seeds of thought is given life on the life giving breath of ha which comes from your heart and your lungs. So be careful of what you think, what you feel, but more importantly, what you say, because you're giving it life the minute you open your mouth. Guard your thoughts, guard your feelings, but above all, guard your words, for we manifest that and once it leaves our mouth, once it comes from our teeth, I can't get it back. Fortunately we have Ho'oponopono to heal that relationship. But it's better to be pono and Ho'opono. So things are pono, pono to be pono and ho'opono.
Dr. Michele Burklund:So things are pono, pono, right. Well, I think that was super powerful today, and I'm sure a lot of our listeners are going to seek you out to learn a lot more about this practice and to really go deeper in themselves too, and I'm definitely going to dig deeper into this myself as well.
Ramsay Taum:Thank you Well. I appreciate the opportunity.
Dr. Michele Burklund:Thanks for the inquiry. Thank you very much Okay, thank you.
Ramsay Taum:All right.
