Hawaiian Wisdom and the way of Aloha...

Featured in Connect Magazine FNQ 2025 Annual Edition

by The Blisstitute of Living Aloha

Hawaiian wisdom has so much to offer us in terms of remembering how to live in love, openness, respect, connection to our bodies, the earth, and spirit, and in taking passionate responsibility for creating our own lives. 

It is a culture based on aloha - love, joy and a full honouring of the connection between all things and all that is. This ancient wisdom helps to remind us that we are born to live in joy, and that now is the moment to create the life we want to live.

The word ‘aloha’ is used nowadays in Hawaii to say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. ‘Aloha’ can also be translated into English as ‘love, compassion, kindness and grace’. Yet a literal translation of the elements in this word is more like ‘in the presence of the breath of life’ and points to the interconnectedness of all things. As with most Hawaiian words, aloha clearly has layers of meaning.

The complexity and depth of meaning encompassed in the word aloha helps us understand that it is a state of being that is about sharing joyful life force energy in the present moment, and choosing the things that expand us and keep us connected to spirit, to the earth, to ourselves and to each other - and that this is your natural state of being, your birthright.

Being aloha requires loving without conditions, accepting and not judging. This applies to your relationship with yourself as much as it does to your relationship with others. Emotions like fear, hate, anger, shame, guilt and jealousy separate us from our own true nature, from each other, and from the extraordinary creative life force from which we came into being.

Choosing to live aloha is recognising your true nature and consciously making choices that allow you to walk this path. Being aloha also recognises that others are walking their own paths, with their own belief systems and cultures, and respects these differences. Aloha is not about judging, criticising or attempting to convert. It is about understanding and accepting what is true and pono (right) for oneself.

Anything that is not aloha is pilikia (contraction, drama, struggle). Things like drama, struggle, ongoing conflict, and holding onto any pohaku (stones that are weighing you down) hold you apart from love and presence and prevent you from building pa’a (an unshakeable foundation). Part of the process of building pa’a is discerning what is and is not, appropriate for you in your life. Honouring your personal needs and boundaries means not only loving and respecting yourself, but also others you are in relationship with. Sometimes the most loving response in a situation is simply saying “no”. Just remember it is always possible to do this with love, consideration and respect for everyone and everything involved.

One way to increase aloha in your life is to visualise your life as a bowl of light. As the traditional teachings from Molokai share about this, anything in your life that is pilikia is a stone that has been placed in this bowl. As the stones increase over time, your bowl - your spirit and your life force energy - becomes heavier, and its light is dimmed. If your bowl becomes so filled with stones that your light is extinguished, you become like a stone yourself. A simple way to let the stones go is to tip the bowl over and allow the stones to fall out. Becoming aware of your choices, and how some might be weighing you down, and by recognising pilikia in your life, you can ensure your bowl doesn’t get filled with stones again.

The more we align ourselves with aloha, the easier it becomes to see things through a lens of love and to respond from that energy. This affects everything in and around us, creating a self-perpetuating ripple effect that can be witnessed in our own lives and the lives of others, which ultimately impacts and changes the entire world.

When you choose to live in aloha you can see that the source that has created all things is, in essence, love itself. The more you choose to experience life in alignment with love and gratitude, the more connected you are to the flow of all creation. From this state of being it is easy to experience the connectedness of all things, and you will find that experiences, people and things of a similar energy find their way to you effortlessly.