Physical Healing
Thanks For Getting My Health and Fitness Back on Track
Thanks for getting my health and fitness back on track… I had begun to think that my knee was going to give me constant pain for the rest of my life.
It all began when I had the bright idea that running a marathon was a great challenge for a 52 year old and I am pretty proud of how in 10 months I went from gasping at 100meters to completing a 50km run – HOWEVER… In the big push to cover the last 10km I noticed my right knee had developed a stabbing pain on the inside of the kneecap. In typical male fashion I figured it would come right after a rest so I cut back on running and waited for it to heal.
Unfortunately the pain didn’t go away and over the next 18 months got worse to the point that a short 4km run meant it hurt for hours and also when I lay in bed or crossed my legs there wasa nagging pain that just didn’t go away. Finally I realized that I had to DO something and your massage had been highly recommended so I figured it was worth a shot.
Well what a difference in just 5 sessions – I am now running up to 9km three times a week with only a tiny hint of pain afterward– a 95% improvement on what I used to feel after only one run – I’m a very happy man – and heading back to full fitness.
What I didn’t know was that for my knee to recover you needed to work on the all the major muscles in both my legs and back and groin and that what I thought was the problem was just a symptom of more that could be healed.
I also learnt that your therapeutic massage in a 1½ hour session relaxed my muscles more completely than a shorter session so that meant you could get into the underlying tension. At the same time you (Karoline, Journey Practitioner) also talked me through some of the emotions locked in my muscles (something completely new to me). I believe that your unique combination of treatment is why we have made such amazing progress in so few sessions.
B.W, Christchurch
The Journey Helped Find the Source of This Pain and Heal It
Our son (now 10) was diagnosed with Leukaemia. His treatment plan is for 3 and a quarter years. The first 3-6 months of treatment were intense. Two weeks into his chemotherapy he suffered a major brain hemorrhage. The family was divided as we lived away from the hospital. So initially we were in Christchurch for 2 months and after lots of anxiety and separations our family unit was re-united.
As our life would never be the same I welcomed any kind of assistance for our son and our daughter (now 7 years) whose lives had been upturned. Now just over two years into our journey with Cancer we find a new meaning to the word Journey.
The journey has given them both an opportunity to look inside themselves and find a way of dealing with and coping with situations and feelings. They have both benefited greatly, this is evident in their attitude towards life, their ability to use this technique with anything that arises, school issues, peer pressure, fears etc not just Cancer or illness.
Our son had abdominal pain, doctors performed tests, scans etc to determine where his pain was coming from but to no avail. The journey helped find the source of this pain and heal it, which has had a huge impact on our son’s current well being who is still undergoing treatments.
Our daughter has now found a way to handle the separation and abandonment issues she had, her demeanor is calmer and we have reconnected in a way that I don’t think would have been possible without the Journey and its fabulous ways.
We know we are on this road for a long while yet, thankfully we now all have ways in which to improve our quality of life.
P.R., Canterbury
My Body Has Returned to Normal
Thank you is too insignificant a word to express how I feel about what you have done for me, through the journey process you took me on. It begins in the morning when I wake and I actually feel well rested and can’t wait to get up and begin my day, I feel so happy, hopeful that my life is exactly as it should be, otherwise stressful situations and hurtful events are all things that just wash over me now in a very surreal way, acknowledged but hardly affecting my peace of mind.
The changes are so subtle but so profound, my memory is a hundred times better, no more big lists of to dos), even my hand writing is different, there’s a certain continuity to mundane things, I have begun to do crosswords not something I would have attempted before, can’t spell and too busy, not now life’s a breeze and I get more productive things done. Even the colours in my wardrobe has changed, I used to wear reds and purples (bright loud colours) now there are greens and blues and yellow, a colour I would never have even contemplated wearing a few months ago.
I feel brand new, honestly all these things are amazing, but the most profound change has been in a medical condition that has been progressively getting worse for twenty years, three years ago my Doctor put me on medication to control an out of control bladder, five months ago I had to give up the medication because it was causing other problems, so I had resigned myself to having a over active bladder. Embarrassment and annoyance were my constant companions.
A week after my last process I found myself out without my usual pads, a situation that caused me to immediately return home for some security, as going without wasn’t an option, then I thought, I hadn’t needed to use the toilet all morning, unheard of for me, so for the rest of the day I waited and watched, at first I thought maybe I hadn’t been drinking enough, but no that wasn’t the case, so the next day I tested not daring to hope that this horrible condition had been cured, drank all day and had normal bladder function, that was a little over a month ago and I have not sprung a leak once, and that’s a miracle to my way of thinking, no amount of medical intervention or alternative treatments have worked but something has, so long may it last and I didn’t have to do any anything my body has returned to normal.
M. B., Christchurch
Today is My First Totally Pain Free Day
Having been ill on and off for 27 years, and in pain every day for the last seven years with chronic fatigue syndrome, today is my first totally pain free day!!! I feel wonderful, alive and full of energy. Thank you, thank you.
Mandy Plimley, Journey Participant
A Remarkable and Innovative Approach
The Journey offers a remarkable and innovative approach to accessing important inner resources which can powerfully support the healing of body and mind.
Walter Jaros, MD. MPH, Chief Medical Officer, Natural HealthLink Director of Professional Training, Green Medicine Company
From That Day to This I Have Had Not One Moment’s Pain in That Area of the Body
In the spring of 2003 I and my therapy practice were both in the doldrums, and I was upset with myself. After all, I was certainly helping people to come out of past trauma and live functional, reasonably happy lives; why wasn’t that enough? Out of answers, I issued a wild call to the Universe: “Help!”
Help arrived. A week later a client dropped a book into my lap: The Journey, by Brandon Bays. Ten days after that I went to the Boulder Journey Intensive weekend in equal parts hope and doubt: Is this a cult?
Made cult-savvy by painful experience, I was delighted to hear Skip Lackey, Senior Journey Practitioner for North America, tell us immediately to “take out our BS detectors.” (Mine was already out.) We were never told what to believe; facts were presented to our minds, experiences to our hearts and bodies. The conclusions were up to us.
By Sunday morning I knew this was truly extraordinary work, and my next step as a therapist. But why? The format isn’t that different from what I’ve been doing with clients for over a decade as a hypnotherapist and EMDR clinician. Yet these simple processes bring unprecedented results – freedom from the tyranny of “my story” and its devastating effects on the body, and a sense of coming Home to one Self.
The difference lies in who is running the process – and my own experience provides a sterling example. By 2003 my ulcerative colitis, a painful and sometimes lethal condition of the intestinal lining, had defied all inner and outer healing modalities for about 20 years. The hypnotherapist and I would agree to “go into” the colon to see what was going on there and ask the colon how to heal it. Or, the EMDR clinician and I would list and desensitize traumatic events which might have impacted this area of the body. But there was never anything there but a vague anxiety… and no results, over and over and over again.
In that Journey weekend, though, I was guided first to open into the vast Consciousness within – what Brandon calls Source – and then under the direction of this infinite wisdom, to my great surprise I went not to my colon, but to my heart. And there was a memory which, even more surprisingly, would never have figured on any trauma list. I was 12, spending a beautiful afternoon helping my adored father in his rose garden. Far beneath the surface, however, in that moment of oneness between us my soul tuned in to his and knew that he planned to die young. Unbeknownst to my conscious mind, my loving heart decided, “If he goes early I have to do that too.”
And so with every beat of my heart this message was being sent out to my body – and especially to the “second brain” in the gut: “Your days are numbered. There’s a sword hanging over your head. You never know when your time will come…” At my Source-fed campfire the cells opened and I poured out the grief and fear, finally separating my destiny from my father’s. Then the infinite wisdom of my Source reprogrammed the heartbeat with much a healthier message to my body. And from that day to this I have had not one moment’s pain in that area of the body.
Never could I have tracked down the deep cause of all that pain using the “my mind’s-best-guess-plus-the-therapist’s-best-guess” method. After all, I spent 20 fruitless years trying to do just that! Nor do I have any idea how, after not having worked on it at any conscious level, the anxiety that prevented me from meditating for 40 – yes, 40! – years magically left; or how an addiction to reading fiction that had kept me out of my life for over half a century quietly disappeared, no fuss, no bother. I do know, though, that my Journey clients are experiencing similar – dare I call them miracles? Except that these “miracles” are repeatable, based both on solid science and on the infinitely reliable, infinitely wise Presence in each of us.
I continue to be amazed at the physical, emotional and deep soul healing I and my clients are receiving. And I am deeply happy, seeing my world through the eyes of the Light and Oneness I now know myself to be. My greatest prayer is that you’ll join me in letting the infinite wisdom of your True Self bring you into wholeness and freedom.
Pat Kendall, Accredited Journey Practitioner
I Have Not Experienced Another Migraine Headache
For as long as I can remember I suffered from migraine headaches. From about the age of 15 or 16 years old I would get regular debilitating headaches that would sometimes last up to two or three days long. Around the age of 20 I found a medication that helped relieve the pain and I was so excited and thankful for that.
I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of relying on prescription medication to help me but it was much needed relief. As life continued I became more and more frustrated with the fact that I had no real control over this plaguing issue. I could start to see the triggers of the headaches but I also knew there had to be some much deeper reason for the migraines. I knew that spending three days exerting myself at a high altitude or that it was simply my monthly cycle wasn’t the only reason I was having these insane headaches.
So I finally approached an acquaintance that happened to be a Practitioner of The Journey and asked for help. I surrendered to the unknown… if I could have “figured it out”, certainly I would have done so by now. So we sat down for probably an hour and a half together doing this process called The Journey. I was gently guided into my own body, accessing my own infinite body wisdom, to a place where I had unknowingly stored the block that was creating these migraines.
In an instant, I was shown an old cellular memory that had created a fear so deep inside of me, which as life unfolded, played itself out as debilitating migraine headaches. The Practitioner that I was working with led me through a process of deep and true forgiveness finally freeing me of this blocked cell pattern. I could not know the depth of the work done that day until the weeks and months would pass.
You don’t wake up one day and know that you are free from migraine headaches. So I left my process that day in November 2006, feeling a deep peace in what had taken place but not really sure if anything “happened”. Months passed….my normal triggers happened….migraines did NOT. All I can say is that since that day in November of 2006, I have not experienced another migraine headache. It is the miracle I was hoping for my entire adult life.
I am still in so much gratitude for this healing, this freedom. I’m not sure if someone who’s never had a migraine before can truly know the immensity of what has happened for me and my life and for those who have watched me suffer, but I will tell you it is nothing short of a miracle. Thank you for letting me tell my story. It is good to be reminded of the gifts the Universe has for us and I am humbled by the power to heal ourselves! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Valerie Stillman, Journey Practitioner
My Transformational Journey from a Breast Cancer Survivor Into a Thriver
In the fall of 2005, as the date of an impending elective surgery to remove my ovaries slowly neared, I acquired a severe case of hives ALL OVER my body. Not just ordinary run of the mill hives, but loud hives, flaming hives, out-of-control burning hives. My doctor followed the traditional western model for helping me by first prescribing steroid cream, which was only marginally effective. Next, she upped the ante by giving me oral steroids for eight days, which seemed to calm the symptoms. Once off the drug however, the hives returned with a vengeance, and my doctor resorted to injecting my rump with a brutally painful steroid shot that temporarily solved the problem, this time for about two weeks. Shortly thereafter, the hives reappeared, seemingly victorious against the steroidal invasion.
In the midst of this battle, feeling extremely frustrated with the vicious cycle of hives and steroids, my ears vibrated as I listened to a CD by Dr. Andrew Weil discussing skin problems. The wise Doc Weil declared that in his experience, skin problems always contain an emotional issue at the core. Thus, he recommended that his patients try to resolve their skin issues with hypnotherapy. Willing to try ANYTHING at this point, I called my doctor and shared Dr. Weil’s advice. Enthusiastically she concurred with Dr. Weil’s idea, which left me wondering why she hadn’t suggested something like this before. My doctor gave me the name of a hypnotherapist and two days later I arrived for the appointment.
A graceful (grace-full!) woman greeted me warmly and explained that she was a certified hypnotherapist, but that she had found an even more effective modality called “The Journey” . She asked if I might be interested in trying a Journey process instead of hypnotherapy. Little did I know then that my “YES” reply was not only a response to her question, “YES” was also the answer to a whole new direction in my life and more importantly to LIFE itself. “YES!!!!” my body, mind, and spirit shouted. “YES! YES! YES!”
I learned the true source of my symptoms: RAGE!! One Journey session quelled the screaming hives and by the end of the week, after two more sessions, my hives disappeared FOREVER! More significantly than that – and believe me, the significance of being hive-free cannot be understated – I learned the true source of my symptoms: RAGE!!
At the (much too young) age of 33, I received a breast cancer diagnosis and underwent a modified radical mastectomy with a TRAM flap reconstruction. Reconstruction is actually a bit of a misnomer; my entire being felt utterly violated! Yet as I coped with the difficulties that go along with cancer diagnosis and traditional medical treatment, outwardly I projected a calm and courageous veneer, while unbeknownst to me, deep in the interior of my soul, I was seething with rage. Still, my optimistic nature carried me through the rough spots and covered up my deeper emotions and after five years my oncologist declared that I was cured! (Yep, he actually used the “cure” word). On top of that fabulous news I became pregnant with my first child at the ripe (almost too old) age of 38. Life seemed to be back on track and full of blessings.
Three speedy years later at my 16th routine oncology check up, and only several days after deciding to try for one more child at age 41 (definitely pushing the envelope for conceiving, but what did I care, I simply adored being a Mom!), I again received a diagnosis of a new primary breast cancer in my other breast. This time the news shattered my world! Not only was the cancer more invasive than the first one, but more importantly I was a Mommy! I was a Mommy!!!! I felt like an enormous tornado had swept me up and just tossed me asunder. I couldn’t breathe or think or sleep. My whole world spun out of control. Though my psychological/spiritual toolbox contained many appropriate tools, I couldn’t even manage to locate it, much less open it. At the time, I had no clue that what was really transpiring in the depths of my being was an ominous, explosive rage trying to make its way into my consciousness. My extreme anxiety was a huge cover up job. I had no reference point for feeling rage much less expressing it; no women in my family or community raged (or so it appeared!). The only women that I had observed rage were labeled bitches by the world. Oh no, raging was not an option and so with all my might I kept it hidden and the energy this choice required created unbelievable fear and fatigue. My oncologist put me on an anti-depressant which abated the power of the rage and dissipated the fear. My school district gave me a year leave-of-absence and I managed to make it through three more surgeries, chemotherapy, and mothering a three-year-old.
Cancer was merely a physical process of cells running amok. It was not a personal attack after all. I understood that my experiences weren’t about good vs. evil or any other misconceptions I harbored A year later, as I faced the hive-causing ovary surgery, I realized that my body had done me a tremendous favor by bringing my buried rage to the surface. The hives raged in unison with my soul! After healing from the hives and going through several additional Journey processes with my hypnotherapist/journey practitioner, I attended my first Journey Intensive where I received two more processes, learned how and why they work, practiced how to give them, and discovered how to truly forgive. That weekend the physical Journey process I went through turned out to be the key to unlocking all that I had buried so deep inside. In that process, I sat at a campfire with Cancer. Cancer showed up as a large, pink, blobby mass covered with mouths all over. I spoke first and painfully emptied out a myriad range of emotions, thoughts, and feelings about having undergone cancer treatment twice, inheriting the BRCA 2 gene, watching cancer eat away my father’s face and then his life force, discovering how cancer had maimed my grandmother, and witnessing cancer kill two aunts, an uncle, my favorite cousin, and several friends. At the campfire, I really let Cancer have it with both barrels. I cussed, I sobbed, I stomped my feet, I raged, I grieved, I pleaded, and I moaned “why?” until finally, I was empty. Then Cancer had its turn to reply. It simply responded, “That’s what I do. I eat things. I’m an overactive cell that eats things, reproduces more cells and keeps eating things.” That was all! This response left me stunned and pierced through all the torrid emotions, leaving me in a strangely peaceful state of being. In that moment I realized that I had unwittingly given cancer a sinister personality with malevolent intentions. This realization enabled me to begin a process of unhooking from the drama I had created around cancer. Cancer was merely a physical process of cells running amok. It was not a personal attack after all. I understood that my experiences weren’t about good vs. evil or any other misconceptions I harbored, and that I had openly given my power away to an accursed phantom. After that Journey Intensive, the question of “why?” began slipping from my vocabulary, being replaced with the invitation, “Tell me more. What would you like me to learn?”
As alarming as it might sound to WILLINGLY spend time cussing, sobbing, stomping my feet, raging, grieving, pleading, and moaning, I LOVE doing Journey processes because they are enormously creative, deeply empowering, and truly transformative. The Journey has given me unbelievable gifts! I have learned how to access and express all my emotions (some that I didn’t even know I had). By opening up a wide, expansive door to my soul, The Journey has enabled me to look deeply, see, and embrace “the good, the bad, and the ugly” in all parts of myself. During Journey processes I have uncovered numerous blocks (illusions, miscon
Kerry Geary
I Got My Voice Back
I had the most incredible Journey. My mind was taking me to one place, but source told me to relax and guided me to the place that I needed to be. All my life I wanted to know why I could not express my thoughts out loud? Why my self esteem was so low? Having two parents who gave me as much unconditional love as two human beings possibly could, I had no idea where it came from.
My source took me to the place when I was three years old in the hospital. The doctor who had to perform surgery (removing the tonsils) asked me to open my mouth and when I refused, he hit me on my face 5 or 6 times. It was a very dramatic event for a three year old child …this event influenced my life tremendously: my grades, my marriage. On the energetic level, every time I was planning to talk I had a horrendous fear that something terrible would happen…(through the process) I GOT MY VOICE BACK.
Bertha M
I’m Fully Recovered and Self-Supportive
I have known seven and a half years of pain and torment with M.E., including paralysis and renal failure. Thanks to The Journey I’m fully recovered, self-supportive and working full-time. I’m free!
Caroline Gardner, Administrator
Migraine Headaches… Completely Stopped! I Feel Great
I had suffered for 25 years with serious migraine headaches. After undergoing Journey processing the headaches have completely stopped! I feel great!
Nicki H., Pharmacist
Medically Clear and Pain Free
I was diagnosed as needing a hysterectomy and back surgery. I also had a breast lump. Within three months of starting Journey work I was medically clear and pain free!
Noreen C., Personal Growth Teacher
Every Time I See My Baby Girl, I Feel So Grateful for All of You
I am the mexican who took the Journey seminar in Houston and got pregnant immediately after the workshop! I am so glad to get in touch again! Every time I see my baby girl, I feel so grateful for all of you!
After what I LIVED with the journey, I want to help not only my baby girl but a lot of people around me. (actually, I have been doing some journey work with my family and a couple of friends. One of them got rid of breast cancer!!!) But I know I need more knowledge to be able to help more. I´d love to complete the practitioners program!
Thank you all!
Teri, (follow-up year after The Journey Process)
It’s Not About the Tumour…My Journey Home
My name is Jean Brazeau and I am a seven year breast cancer survivor. I am a survivor of brain and spinal cord tumors. I am also a survivor of violent physical, emotional, and sexual childhood abuse that had left me filled with fear, shame, anger, self hatred, guilt, and an endless number of self limiting beliefs about who I was in the world.
My life as I knew it started crumbling around me on March 11, 2000 when my oldest sister died unexpectedly. My strength to go on with my life as it was came from a daily dose of Wellbutrin.
Eleven months later, a routine mammogram revealed that I had breast cancer. At this moment in time, from somewhere deep within me, I knew this diagnosis would somehow free me from the life I was living which was not providing me with personal fulfillment or joy. Because I believed I had no control over cancer and because I had spent my entire life looking outside of myself to cope with the challenges of living and surviving, I numbly and mindlessly turned my body over to the medical community with the hopes that soon I would be having an opportunity for a new beginning to my life. As customary I parked the emotions somewhere deep inside where I would not have to face or feel them.
Motivational tapes in hand, I engaged in daily physical exercise and healthier eating habits, I ran for the cause, offered advise to others and was cited by the medical community as a model example of how to deal with cancer positively. As my treatment that included surgery, chemotherapy and radiation progressed, the battle became more difficult. The side effects of treatment took me to a new low and another anti-depressant was added to my repertoire to off-set the effects of the chemotherapy-induced menopause.
I vividly recall 9/11/2001, the day terrorists attacked America and the Twin Towers. The day started as any another day in my life which was then being defined by the cancer. Having just completed my final chemotherapy treatment, I sat in the family room glued to the television. The effects of chemotherapy and menopause were taking their toll. I was bloated, bald, weary to the bone, alone, afraid and seriously depressed. The world trauma of 9/11 added to my personally deep fears of what was going on in my life. Both my outer world and my personal world were falling apart, and it felt as though the world was coming to an end. I could feel myself slipping deeper into that black hole of depression and despair.
I was unable any longer to hide behind makeup and highlights or the shell that I had created and believed was me. I attempted to look inward and tried to convince myself I liked what I saw. In retrospect I realize looking inward for me was very superficial as I had no idea how to go very deep, nor did I have any idea of who I was. For the next two years, life presented me with more countless painful experiences including the deaths of my best friend’s son, my brother-in-law, my step-father and my mother. It didn’t seem to matter which corner I turned, there was always a hammer waiting to come down and validate my belief that life was hard. It was just nineteen months after completing treatment for breast cancer,another devastating blow came. A series of routine tests ordered by my oncologist uncovered “something unknown” in my brain and spinal cord. It was five short days after my mother’s memorial service at a long awaited appointment with the NeuroSurgeon when he spoke the words of possible outcomes of “paraplegic”, “irreversible damage”, and “prioritized spinal cord surgery”. Words that left me more in shock than I can ever verbalize.
But it was also in that moment that my new future became very clear to me, a future filled with a cycle of serious illnesses, more drugs to offset side affects, paralysis, death. It was on this day I got very angry and made a declaration of Enough already! No Way! No More! Somewhere deep inside I knew this was not how life was supposed to be. A series of synchronistic events followed this proclamation that introduced me to a totally new life paradigm. This paradigm invited me to explore different alternative and complementary healing modalities and offered a completely new and empowering perspective on the root of illness. Every cell in my being knew truth was being spoken when first exposed to the scientifically based teaching that the root of dis-ease, be it physical, emotional or spiritual, is repressed emotional trauma at the cellular level. This level of healing had not been explained to me by any of my medical team and certainly was BIG news to me!
I certainly had to acknowledge that I had life-long repressed emotions. I had lived a life that included breast cancer, elevated blood pressure and cholesterol, severe migraines, allergies so bad I would vomit on a moment’s notice, a back so wracked with pain I could hardly walk, a brain tumor, spinal cord tumor, a diagnosis of depression, disassociate disorder and post traumatic stress disorder all of which threatened my very livelihood…WHEW !! That was a heavy load to carry.
Thus began my personal healing journey. I was spiritually dead, emotionally exhausted and my body was consumed with pain when I was guided to “The Journey”. The Journey is both a book and a set of processes that Brandon Bays created after healing herself of a basketball sized tumor in 6½ weeks without chemotherapy, surgery, or pharmaceuticals. Since my initial introduction to the work of “The Journey”, it has now became an integral part of my own personal healing, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It provided me with the love, safety, support and tools I needed to venture inward and to reclaim myself.
Over the course of the next year and a half while completing “The Journey” Accreditation Program, I bore witness to the most incredible metamorphosis taking place inside of me as I learned to shed the pain, grief, sadness, guilt, fear and anger that was ravishing my body, mind and spirit.
There is so much less of me here now, less ego, less anger, less fear, less envy, less desire, less attachment. At the same time there is so much more of me, more love, more joy, more compassion, more inner peace, more Gratitude.
In retrospect I realize I never knew who I was, I never even gave it a thought. I know who I am now, I stand proudly and comfortably in my own skin and everything about my life has changed. I am independent now, after having spent my whole life dependent on others, introspective after having spent my life analyzing others. Loving and compassionate in a way that no longer enables others in their self destructive behaviors. The worry which consumed my every thought in the past is gone and replaced with a great faith and knowing that all things will unfold exactly as they should….and it’s all good! My health is great and I have more energy than I have had in a very long time. I am now unwilling to ingest anything that interferes with the flow of my energy or inhibits my ability to feel alive. The use of all prescription medication including those intended to minimize the recurrence of cancer fell away quite naturally at the onset of my personal journey into this complementary and alternative field. Around every corner is a new exciting adventure waiting for me. For the most part, life has become easy, effortless and so much more fun. There is no longer any question in my mind, we truly can and do affect our own experiences, What a blast!
I have also come to know for sure we are not the “labels” allopathic medicine has given us, we are not our illness or dis-ease. They are simply our bodies way of communicating with us. It is time for us to get still, go inside, start listening to what our bodies are trying so desperately to tell us. This is where true healing really begins.
Jean Brazeau
