Morrnah Simeona: The Hawaiian Healer Who Founded Modern Ho'oponopono

Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona (1913–1992) turned Ho'oponopono into a practice one person can do alone. Who she was, and what's documented about her life.

If you have practiced the four phrases, or read about Dr. Hew Len and the Hawaii State Hospital story, you have met Morrnah's work secondhand. She is the reason Ho'oponopono exists today as something an individual can do quietly, alone, without gathering the whole family in a room. Yet she is far less known than the people who carried her teaching forward.

This profile sticks to what can be documented: newspaper coverage from her lifetime, the honor she received in 1983, the organization she founded, and the tribute entered into the Congressional Record after her death. Where accounts vary, we say so.

Who she was: the short version

• Born: May 19, 1913, in Honolulu, to native Hawaiian parents, Kimokeo and Lilia Simeona.
• Died: February 11, 1992, near Munich, Germany, where she had been living quietly at a friend's home.
• Known for: adapting traditional Ho'oponopono into Self-Identity Through Ho'oponopono (SITH), a self-help process an individual can practice alone.
• Recognition: named a "Living Treasure of Hawai'i" in 1983 by the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawai'i.
• Organizations: founded Pacifica Seminars in the 1970s and The Foundation of I, Inc. (Freedom of the Cosmos) in 1980. The Foundation still exists and carries her teaching.
• Best-known student: Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, who trained with her from 1982 and later taught her process around the world.

Was Morrnah Simeona the founder of Ho'oponopono?

This is one of the most common questions about her, and the honest answer has two parts.

Traditional Ho'oponopono had no single founder. It is an old Hawaiian practice of family reconciliation. Traditionally, a family met with an elder or healer who guided them through prayer, discussion, confession, forgiveness and release, to set right what had gone wrong between them. It belongs to Hawaiian culture, not to any one person.

Morrnah founded the modern, individual form. Beginning in 1976, she reworked the traditional group process into something a single person could practice alone, directed inward and to the Divine rather than worked out around a family circle. That modern form became Self-Identity Through Ho'oponopono. So when people call her "the founder of Ho'oponopono," what's accurate is that she founded the version most of the world now practices.

For a closer look at how the two forms differ, see traditional Ho'oponopono vs Self-Identity Ho'oponopono.

Her early life and work as a healer

Morrnah grew up in a family with deep roots in Hawaiian healing. Her mother, Lilia, is described in historical accounts as one of the last recognized healers who worked through words and prayer.

Morrnah became a practitioner of lomilomi, traditional Hawaiian massage, and for about ten years ran health spas at two of Honolulu's best-known hotels, the Kahala Hilton and the Royal Hawaiian. Accounts of that period say her massage clients included President Lyndon B. Johnson, Jackie Kennedy and Arnold Palmer.

In 1983, she was recognized as a kahuna lapa'au, a Hawaiian healer, and honored as one of the year's Living Treasures of Hawai'i, as reported in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin at the time.

How she changed Ho'oponopono

Morrnah's version kept the heart of the tradition: making things right through repentance, forgiveness and release. But she changed who does it and where.

From group to individual. The traditional process needed the family together and a guide to lead it. Her process could be done by one person, at any time, about any problem.

From outward to inward. Instead of resolving a conflict between people in the room, her process treats the problem as something to be cleaned within oneself, through prayer to the Divine.

A framework of three selves. Her system works with three parts of the self, which she called by Hawaiian names and also described as the subconscious, the conscious and the superconscious. The process aims to bring these into partnership. If you'd like to understand this framework, our explainer on Self-Identity Ho'oponopono (SITH) covers it in plain language.

Broad influences. Accounts of her life note that her approach also drew on her Christian education and her study of ideas from India and China, including reincarnation and karma. Not everyone welcomed that blend. Some Hawaiian traditionalists criticized her for adapting a sacred cultural practice, and that tension is worth knowing about if you care about where the practice comes from.

Teaching around the world

Morrnah did not keep her process in Hawai'i. Over the following years she presented trainings and lectures in nearly a dozen U.S. states and in more than a dozen countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Russia and Japan. Accounts of her life say she also spoke at universities, among them the University of Hawai'i and Johns Hopkins University, as well as at medical facilities, religious institutions and businesses. She is also reported to have presented her work at the United Nations.

To carry the work forward, she founded Pacifica Seminars in the 1970s and The Foundation of I, Inc. (Freedom of the Cosmos) in 1980. In 1990 she started Pacifica Seminars in Germany. She wrote a series of course manuals, Self-Identity Through Ho'oponopono, Basic 1, with later levels intended for students who had practiced for several years. Basic 1 was translated into German and French in 1990.

Her prayer and her process

Two things associated with Morrnah often get blurred online.

Her prayer. Morrnah's original Ho'oponopono prayer is a longer petition for forgiveness and release, addressed to the Divine. It is not the same text as the four short phrases. Versions copied from site to site often differ, so if you want to use her original prayer, learn it from The Foundation of I, the organization that carries her work. We explain the difference in the original Ho'oponopono prayer vs the four phrases.

Her process. The full SITH process she taught has several steps and is taught in the Foundation's classes. Secondhand accounts describe it as a 12-step or 14-step process, and they don't always agree. We don't reproduce it here. The Foundation is the authoritative source.

The four phrases. The short mantra many people now practice, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you., was popularized later, largely through Dr. Hew Len's teaching and the 2007 book Zero Limits. It is a simplified daily practice that grew out of the tradition Morrnah renewed, not her original prayer. For how to practice it, see the four phrases of Ho'oponopono.

Morrnah and Dr. Hew Len

Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, the Hawaiian psychologist at the center of the famous Hawaii State Hospital story, trained with Morrnah beginning in November 1982 and spent roughly a decade learning from her. He went on to teach her Self-Identity Through Ho'oponopono for decades, and his work with Joe Vitale on Zero Limits brought her process to a much larger audience.

Joe Vitale never met Morrnah; she died more than a decade before he learned about Ho'oponopono through Dr. Hew Len. You can read more about him in our biography of Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len.

Her final years and death

In late 1990, Morrnah made what would be her last lecture and seminar tour, traveling through Europe to Jerusalem. In January 1991 she returned to Germany and lived quietly at a friend's home in Kirchheim, near Munich. She died there on February 11, 1992, at age 78.

Her death was noted in the Honolulu Advertiser, which ran an obituary describing her as a kahuna lapa'au. On March 25, 1992, U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka of Hawai'i paid tribute to her in the Congressional Record. Among other things, he recounted that she had learned the original plaster model of the Statue of Freedom, the figure on top of the U.S. Capitol dome, was sitting in storage, and that she raised $25,000 to have it restored and put on display. The model is now shown in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center.

Why her work still matters

Most people who practice Ho'oponopono today have never heard Morrnah's name. Her central change, making Ho'oponopono something you can do yourself, about anything, without anyone else's participation, is the reason the practice could travel around the world at all.

If you want to begin where most people begin, with the four phrases, the clearest next step is a simple daily routine. Our free guide walks you through it.