I recently wrote the article below for an organisation I belong to Aloha International. The original article an be found here: http://www.huna.org/html/hunasimple.html It deals with what might be considered a misconception about Huna and some of my experiences of developing the use of Huna in my daily life.
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One of the aspects of Huna that really attracted me was the apparent simplicity of it. In fact I found that very simplicity to be deceptive at times. How could something so seemingly simple be effective? Surely in order to be powerful and effective something needed to be complex and intricate? For example in healing there are really in-depth, long complex methods of therapy that carry over years if not a whole lifetime. There are also philosophies and systems of beliefs which involve a maze of complex rules and tenets. When I came across Huna I was struck at how different it was in this respect. There was a beautiful simplicity – sometimes as simple as just being you.
These days when I talk to people about Huna, I occassionally come across the flawed assumption that ‘simple’ equates with ’easy’. This is not necessarily the case. Sometimes people have failed to get the results they wanted using Huna techniques and have blamed the techniques themselves. Of course, different people respond to different techniques in different ways at different times and we know that effectiveness is the measure of truth so things need to be tailored to meet each particular need. However that particular topic is not the focus of this article so I won’t dwell on that any further….
What I am keen to explore here is another reason why people may find that things may not work for them. In many cases I have found that expectations, particularly around the often mistaken assumption that ’simple’ equals ‘easy’, is a factor in failure. In these cases there seems to also be another flawed assumption in play; that ‘simple’ and ‘easy’ equates to ‘effortless’. In life, many seemingly simple skills still require effort to learn and it is likely that at the outset this effort seemed great and the skills did not seem so simple at that point in time.
Huna is similar in this respect. of course, this begs the question: what constitutes ‘effort’ in this context? Based on my personal experience, my answer is: makia or focus. When things have not worked a common feature is that I have not given it enough focus. It is surely not unreasonable to expect that to achieve something requires some degree of focus. Despite this I have come across people who have approached Huna and Huna techniques expecting results but without being prepared to give it any focus or attention. This reminds me of a saying I quite like which says that to get the results you want there is a price to pay and that the price you pay is attention. In other words you provide focus.
Anything can become easier over time. In fact enough effort (focus) can make certain things feel effortless in time. One way to acheive this is use repetition and communiciation with your body mind to make behaviours and beliefs into habits. I would also advise throwing some confidence and positive expectation into the mix for good measure!
Huna is simple, it is effective. It can be easy but to get to this point requires some effort and attention which is always too often overlooked. One of the keys to making the simple effective and easy is through focus.
As an adjunct to this article you may be interested in some of the things I did initially to get me focussed on using Huna in my life:
1. Mentally reciting the seven principles upon awakening and whenever else I felt like it throughout the day.
2. Acknowledging (as simple as saying hello) my three selves and thanking them for things such as memories, focus and inspiration.
3. Showing grattitude (blessing) towards something upon awakening and whenever else I remembered to do so during the day.
Sounds simple doesn’t it? I can confirm that doing even just these simple things provided a catalyst for some profound changes in my life. I can also confirm that it did take some effort -I needed to give it some focus. Finally I can confirm that over time these things became second nature to me so became easier.
Maybe you might consider giving some of these things some focus. It’s just a thought.
