فصل 14

The Truth Behind the Story

I wasn’t done with Dr. Hew Len. I still didn’t have the complete story on his work at that mental hospital.

“You never saw patients?” I asked him again one day. “Never?”

“I saw them in the hallway but never as a patient in my office,” he said. “One time I saw one of them and he said, ‘I could kill you, you know.’ I replied, ‘I bet you could do a good job, too.’ ” Dr. Hew Len went on to say, “When I started at the state hospital working with the criminally mentally ill, we had three or four major attacks between patients every day. There were maybe 30 patients at that time. People were shackled, put in seclusion, or restricted to the ward. Doctors and nurses walked through the halls with their backs against the walls, afraid of being attacked. After just a few months of cleaning, we saw a complete change for the better: no more shackles, no more seclusion, and people were allowed to leave and do things like work and play sports.” But what did he do, exactly, to begin this transformation?

“I had to take complete responsibility within myself for actualizing the problems outside myself,” he said. “I had to clean my own toxic thoughts and replace them with love. There wasn’t anything wrong with the patients.The errors were in me.” As Dr. Hew Len explained it, the patients and even the ward didn’t feel love. So he loved everything.

“I looked at the walls and saw they needed to be painted,” he told me. “But none of the new paint would stick. It would peel off right away. So I simply told the walls that I love them. Then one day someone decided to paint the walls and this time the paint stuck.” That sounded weird, to say the least, but I was getting accustomed to this sort of talk from him. I finally had to ask the question that had been bothering me the most.

“Did all of the patients get released?”

“Two of them never were,” he said. “They were both transferred elsewhere. Otherwise, the entire ward was healed.”

Then he added something that truly helped me understand the power of what he had been doing.

“If you want to know what it was like during those years, write Omaka-O-Kala Hamaguchi. She worked as the social worker during the time I was there.”

I did. She wrote the following to me:

Dear Joe,

Thank you for this opportunity.

Please know that I am writing this in collaboration with Emory Lance Oliveira, who is a social worker who worked on the unit with Dr. Hew Len.

I found myself the social worker assigned to the newly opened forensic unit at the state mental hospital in Hawaii.This unit was called the Closed Intensive Security Unit (CISU). It housed prisoner-patients who had committed often heinous felony crimes of murder, rape, assault, robbery, molestation, and combinations thereof, and were also diagnosed with or thought to possibly have a serious mental disorder.

Some of the prisoner-patients had been found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) and sentenced to be there; some were floridly psychotic and required treatment, and some were there for examination and assessment to determine their fitness to proceed (i.e., their ability to understand the charges against them and participate in their own defense). Some were schizophrenic, some bipolar, and some mentally retarded, while others were diagnosed psychopaths or sociopaths.There were also those who were trying to convince the courts they were one or all of the above.

All were locked in the unit 24/7 and allowed to leave escorted in wrist and ankle restraints only for medical or court appointments. Most of their day was spent in a seclusion room, a locked room with concrete walls and ceilings, a locked bathroom, and no windows. Many were highly medicated. Activities were few and far between.

“Incidents” were expected occurrences—patients attacking staff, patients attacking other patients, patients attacking themselves, patients attempting escapes. Staffing “incidents” were also a problem—staff manipulating patients; drugs, sick leave, and workers’ compensation problems; staff discord; perpetual turnover in psychologist, psychiatrist, and administrator positions; plumbing and electrical problems; and so on and so on. It was an intense, volatile, depressing, and wild place to be. Even the plants would not grow.

And even when it was relocated to a newly renovated, much more secure unit with a fenced recreation area, no one expected anything to really change.

So when “another one of those psychologists” showed up, it was assumed he would try to stir things up, attempt to implement state-of-the-art programs, then leave almost as soon as he came—ho hum.

However, this time it was a Dr. Hew Len, who, besides being friendly enough, appeared to do next to nothing. He didn’t do evaluations, assessments, or diagnoses; he provided no therapy and did not perform any psychological testing. He often came late, and did not attend case conferences or participate in mandated record keeping. He instead practiced a “weird” process of Self I-Dentity Ho’oponopono (SIH), which had something to do with taking 100 percent responsibility for yourself, looking only at yourself, and allowing the removal of negative and unwanted energies within you—ho hum.

Weirdest of all was the observation that this psychologist seemed always at ease and even to be really enjoying himself! He laughed a lot, had fun with patients and staff, and seemed to genuinely enjoy what he was doing. Everyone seemed to love and enjoy him in return, even if it didn’t appear he did much work.

And things began to shift. Seclusion rooms began clearing; patients were becoming responsible for their own needs and business; they also began participating in planning and implementing programs and projects for themselves. Medication levels were also dropping and patients were being allowed to leave the unit sans restraints.

The unit became alive—calmer, lighter, safer, cleaner, more active, fun, and productive.The plants began to grow, plumbing problems became almost nonexistent, incidents of violence on the unit became rare, and staff seemed more harmonious, relaxed, and enthusiastic. Rather than sick-leave problems and understaffing, overstaffing and losing positions now became a concern.

Two specific situations made an especially memorable impact on me.

There was a severely delusional, paranoid patient with a history of violence who had seriously hurt several people in the hospital and out in public, and who had had multiple hospital admissions. He was sent to CISU this time for committing a murder. He was creepily frightening to me.The hairs on the back of my neck stood up whenever he was anywhere close.

It was, then, much to my surprise that a year or two after Dr. Hew Len showed up, I spotted him walking in my direction escorted sans restraints and the hairs on the back of my neck did not stand up. It felt as if I was just noticing, without judgment, even when we passed each other almost shoulder to shoulder.There was not my usual getting-ready-to-run reaction. In fact, I noticed he looked calm. I was no longer working on the unit at that time but had to find out what had happened. I learned he had been out of seclusion and restraints for some time and the only explanation was that some of the staff were doing the ho’oponopono Dr. Hew Len had shared with them.

The other situation occurred while I was watching the news on television. I had taken a mental health day off to get away from work and relax.The court appearance of a CISU patient who had molested and murdered a three- or four-year-old girl showed up on the news.This patient had been hospitalized as he was deemed unfit to proceed on the charges against him. He was examined and evaluated by several psychiatrists and psychologists and given an array of diagnoses which, back then, would have most likely gotten him a not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) judgment. He would not have had to go to prison and would have been committed to the less restrictive setting of the state hospital with the possibility of a conditional release.

Dr. Hew Len had interacted with this patient, who eventually asked to be taught the SIH process and reportedly was very persistent and consistent in its practice, like the ex-marine officer he was. He, by now, had been deemed fit to proceed and had a court date to state his plea.

Whereas most other patients and their attorneys had opted and would probably always opt for the NGRI plea, this patient did not.The day before he was to appear in court he dismissed his attorney.The following afternoon, he stood in court facing the judge and regretfully and humbly proclaimed, “I am responsible and I am sorry.” No one expected this. It took a few moments before the judge could grasp what had just happened.

I had played tennis with Dr. Hew Len and this fellow on two or three occasions and, though the patient was most polite and considerate, I had judgments. However, at that very moment, I only felt tenderness and love for him and sensed a huge shift in the entire courtroom as well.The judge and attorneys’ voices were now gentle, and all those around him seemed to be looking at him with tender smiles. It was a moment.

So when Dr. Hew Len asked if some of us would like to learn about this ho’oponopono after tennis one afternoon, I jumped fast and high, anxiously waiting for the tennis game to come and go. It’s now almost 20 years later and I am still awed by what I have since learned was the Divinity working through Dr. Hew Len at Hawaii State Hospital. I am eternally grateful to Dr. Hew Len and the “weird” process he brought with him.

By the way, in case you’re wondering, this patient was found just plain guilty and was in a sense rewarded by the judge, who granted his request to serve his sentence in a federal penitentiary in his home state where he could be near his wife and children.

Also, though almost 20 years have passed, I received a call this morning from the former secretary of the unit wanting to know if Dr. Hew Len would be available anytime soon to get together with some of the old staff, most of whom have since retired.We will be meeting with them in a couple of weeks.Who knows what may unfold? I’ll keep my antennae up for further stories.

Peace,

O.H.

And there it was. Dr. Hew Len had indeed accomplished a miracle at the hospital. By practicing love and forgiveness, he transformed people who were hopeless and in many ways considered throwaways of society.

That’s the power of love.

I wanted to know even more, of course.

As I was completing the first draft of this book, I sent it to Dr. Hew Len for review. I wanted him to check it for accuracy. I also wanted him to fill in any holes in the story about his years at that mental hospital. About one week after he received the manuscript, he wrote the following e-mail to me: Ao Akua:

This is a confidential note to you and to you alone. It comes from my reading the draft of Zero Limits. I have other comments to make on the draft but I will leave them for later e-mails.

“You’re done,” Morrnah said without being emphatic.

“I’m done with what?” I replied.

“You’re done with Hawaii State Hospital.”

Although I sensed the finality of her comment that summer day in July 1987, I said, “I have to give them two weeks’ notice.” Of course I didn’t. It never came up to do so. And no one from the hospital made mention of it.

I never returned to the hospital even when I was invited to attend my farewell party. My friends had it without me. The farewell gifts were delivered to the Foundation of I office following the party.

I loved my stay at Hawaii State Hospital in the forensic unit. I loved the folks on the ward. At some point, I don’t know when, I passed from being staff psychologist to being a member of the family.

I lived closely with staff, patients, rules, polices, cliques, and forces seen and unseen on the ward for three years, 20 hours a week.

I was there when seclusion rooms, metal restraints, medication, and other forms of control were regular and acceptable modes of operation.

I was there when the use of seclusion rooms and metal restraints simply evaporated at some point. When? Nobody knows.

Physical and verbal violence evaporated, too, almost completely.

The drop in medication use occurred on its own.

At some point, who knows when, patients left the unit for recreation and work activities without restraints and without needing medical approval.

The transformation of the ward from being crazy and tense to being peaceful simply occurred without conscious effort.

The transformation of the ward from being chronically understaffed to being “overstaffed” simply took place.

So, I want to make it clear that I was a close and active family member on the ward. I was not an onlooker.

Yes, I provided no therapy. I did no psychological testing. I attended no staff meetings. I did not participate in case conferences on patients. I did, however, become intimately involved in the workings of the ward.

I was present when the first in-ward work project—baking cookies for sale—appeared. I was present when the first off-ward activity—car washing—appeared. I was present when the first off-ward recreation program started.

I didn’t carry out the usual functions of a staff psychologist not because I felt that they were useless. I just didn’t do them for whatever unknown reasons.

I did, however, walk the ward and took part in the baking of cookies and in jogging and tennis games off-ward.

But more than anything, I did my cleansing before, during, and after each visit to the ward week in and week out for three years. I cleaned with whatever was going on in me with the ward every morning and every evening and if anything about the ward came up in my mind.

Thank you.

I love you.

Peace of I,

Ihaleakala

I loved this further clarification. While it revealed a humbleness on Dr. Hew Len’s part, it also helped explain what he did and did not do while employed at the hospital.

I wrote him back and asked for his permission to include the e-mail here, to share it with you. He wrote back one word—the one I expected him to write: “Yes.”

I’m not done with what I can learn from this amazing man. We decided we would begin to lead seminars together and of course be coauthors of this book. But at least now I had the complete story on how he helped heal an entire ward of mentally ill criminals. He did it like he does everything: by working on himself. And the way he works on himself is with three simple words: “I love you.” This is the same process you and I can do, too, of course. If I had to sum up the modernized Self I-Dentity through Ho’oponopono method that Dr. Hew Len teaches in a few short steps, it might look like this: 1. Continuously clean.

1. Take action on ideas and opportunities that come your way.

2. Continuously clean.

That’s it. It may be the shortest route to success ever created. It might be the path of least resistance. It might be the most direct route to the zero state. And it all begins and ends with one magical phrase: “I love you.” That’s the way to enter the zone of zero limits.

And yes, I love you.