The Sacred & The Profane

It’s a champagne-fuelled existence here at Fab Towers at the minute. With a hectic schedule of lunches, drinks and dinners, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to fit in that tiny little detail called work. Must try harder – or not, maybe. It is summer after all.

Having sunk a record number of champagne and rose syrup cocktails at the Roofgarden Bar of the Trafalgar Hotel on Friday night, it’s set the tone for a relentless pace of fizz consumption that shows no signs of abating. When the bubbly is flowing, I have absolutely no sense of self-restraint. Well, if you’ve got to have a poison, they don’t come better than that!

For a little balance, I’ve been ferreting around looking at healing in various traditions – always handy when dealing with Olympic standard hangovers – and came across a fascinating piece by Serge Kahili King, author of Urban Shaman.

He describes the four ways of keeping a positive focus to manifest your desires in the Hawaiian Huna tradition, encapsulated in the word haipule.

Ha means life, breath and spirit. To use the power of ha, King recommends to “breathe deeply and get emotionally excited about while thinking about what you want … when you lose focus, breathe deeply to get back into the present and start again”.

I means to speak, so it’s important to “describe what it is that you want, aloud or silently”. King counsels to pay attention when you find yourself speaking negatively about what you want and to learn to stop, breathe and return to a positive focus when this occurs.

Pu means to issue forth or appear like smoke. According to King, “This is a poetic description of imagination. Imagine what you want in as much sensory detail as you can.”

Le means to move. King advises to embody the feelings of having already received what you want and to act that way. He suggests “Whenever you are thinking or speaking about what you want, assume a positive posture and move in confident ways. When you find yourself feeling depressed, helpless or disillusioned in relation to what you want, stop, take a deep breath and change your posture or the way you move into a more positive and confident mode.”

It’s not necessary to take each step of Haipule whenever you’re focusing on what you want to create, but each one builds on the other and helps to maintain a positive focus. As the Huna believe, energy flows where attention goes. If you want to create more happiness, abundance, love or friendship in your life, a focus of positive attention will help to draw it towards you.

This week, pick something you’d really like to bring into your life and commit to trying the Haipule creative process for fourteen days. Pay attention when your energy drops and focus on breathing deeply and returning your mind to what you want to create – rather than what you don’t want. It’s a particularly Western way to focus more on lack than on what you actually want to bring into your life. Try a little Hawaiian magic and see what you can conjure up …

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column by using the link in the Favourite Sites section on the right or by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. To contact me, email coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material © 2007 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 7 Aug 07)