THE
JOURNEY™ for kids
Liberating Your Child’s Shining Potential
BRANDON BAYS

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Introduction

PART ONE – INSPIRING KIDS’ STORIES

1 Discovering Our Shining Potential

2 The Journey in Schools

3 Partnering Your Child

4 Working with Health Concerns

5 Issues of Death and Loss

6 Using The Journey in Everyday Life

7 The Immense Power of Forgiveness

8 Divorce and Relationship Issues

9 Empowering Internal Resources

10 And the Greatest of These is Love …

PART TWO – A HEALING ADVENTURE FOR KIDS

11 A Healing Adventure for Kids: Instructions

12 A Healing Adventure for Kids

PART THREE – THE KIDS’ JOURNEY PROCESS FOR EIGHT TO TWELVE YEAR OLDS

13 The Kids’ Journey: Instructions

14 The Kids’ Journey Process

15 Working with Teenagers

Gratitude

Author’s Note

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

This is a book about liberation – about freeing the boundless potential that is shining inside each and every human heart.

Deep inside all of us is a boundless joy, a potential for true genius, an infinite love, a wellspring of creativity. It’s waiting there, beckoning, calling you right now, inviting you to discover your own magnificence, urging you to plummet the depths of the wisdom within to discover a vast potential that is capable of creating anything.

Each of our children is born as this radiant presence, as this boundless potential. Unfortunately, through the course of life’s pains and trials, their innate radiance may seem to get covered over – with layers of unresolved hurt, moments of failure, emotional shutdowns. It’s as if we come in as a brilliant, shining light and somehow life conspires to put a lampshade over it, obscuring it. In time we start to identify with all the layers, forgetting that there ever was a greatness within.

In this book you’ll learn very real and practical ways to take that lampshade off. You’ll learn simple but powerful tools for liberating that shining magnificence.

This book is full of joy, full of inspiring stories that will speak directly to your own deepest knowing. It is full of real-life accounts of everyday children who have gone on Journeys, freed themselves and taken the lid off their creativity. As we travel with them, we learn how they’ve healed their bodies and we share their love of life as they peel away the layers and unearth their own genius. We feel the poignancy of their easy ability to forgive that which might seem to be impossible to forgive and, through their Journeys, we see ourselves, and we are liberated.

The truth of the children’s wisdom, the health and vitality they experience and the simplicity of their awakening serve as a model of possibility to us all, inspiring us and giving us the courage to begin our own Journeys.

This book is also chock-full of practical tools, simple step-by-step process work, everyday wisdom and user-friendly skills, written in what I hope is a down-to-earth style that will encourage you to begin working/playing easily and effectively with your children, starting now.

It is my deepest prayer that, as parents and guardians of these beautiful souls, we truly learn to partner our children in their spiritual and healing Journeys. I pray that we recognize that our children are, in fact, already free, whole and full of shining potential.

All that we are doing as partners is helping them to clear away the veils that have obscured that potential, liberating their true selves. We are helping them take the lampshades off their already shining lights.

Currently, the Kids’ Journey is being used all over the world by schoolteachers, school counsellors and children’s therapists. It is being used in addiction treatment centres, by abuse groups, children’s support organizations and social services organizations. It has been adopted and used by priests, nuns, ministers, rabbis, monks, pastors and swamis from a wide range of spiritual traditions. Most of all, it is being used by everyday mums, dads, aunts, uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers from all walks of life – people like you and me.

Because there are literally thousands of inspiring kids’ stories to choose from, I have included those that deal with everyday issues – the questions and challenges that beset normal children from all cultures. Each story provides us with a lesson on how to address those issues, and specific tools and process work that are designed to liberate and heal the issue. So it’s the children themselves who are actually providing us with the teaching we need to lovingly partner them in their healing and growth. I’ve changed almost all the names, as I feel children deserve the same respect and privacy that we, as adults, feel we need. In some cases I’ve expanded on the process work to give a fuller explanation and understanding of how it works, but in all cases the actual issues and their moving and extraordinary results are intact, chronicling the children’s triumph, awakening and healing.

To make the work easier and more user-friendly, I’ve organized the book into three main sections:

1. The first section is an introduction to the work. It includes the children’s stories, their issues and how they resolved them, ultimately teaching us how to liberate our own shining potential.

2. The second section focuses primarily on our little ones – five to seven year olds. It includes in-depth instructions and then a specially designed therapeutic fairytale-like story that works at a subliminal level with the youngsters. It is like a spiritual adventure and can be read as a bedtime story. Kids love it! Even if you intend working only with older children, I strongly recommend you read this section in full, as it contains many of the teachings on which the older kids’ work is predicated.

3. Section three is primarily for working with older kids – eight to twelve year olds – and also has some instructions for working with teenagers. It includes the actual Kids’ Journey process together with in-depth instructions.

Finally, if your children inspire you to go on your own Journey, which undoubtedly they will, I recommend you read the original book for adults: The Journey: An Extraordinary Guide for Healing Your Life and Setting Yourself Free.

Journeywork was originally born from my own direct experience of healing from a large tumour without drugs or surgery in just six-and-a-half weeks’ time. In 1992 I was diagnosed with a large tumour in my uterus. Having served for 15 years in the natural health field as both a teacher/seminar leader and therapist, it was the last thing I had ever expected to take place. I thought I had been doing everything ‘right’. I’d attended countless seminars, therapy sessions and had done a huge amount of emotional / physical clearing work – I’d definitely dropped a lot of my emotional ‘baggage’. Physically, I lived all the principles I believed in: I meditated daily, did daily exercise, ate clean, vibrant, whole, organic vegetarian food, drank pure filtered water and received regular massage and bodywork. More important than all these things, I felt fulfilled and at peace in my life: I was deeply in love with my husband of 18 years, the kids had been brought up with what I trusted were wholesome and empowering belief systems, and my work was hugely uplifting and satisfying – I travelled worldwide teaching tens of thousands of people how to create vibrant health. I was a living example of all that I believed in: I looked vibrant and healthy, and felt that way inside and out. So the last thing I ever expected was to be diagnosed with a large tumour.

I was sent reeling and was catapulted on a profound healing journey that ultimately led me to face an emotional issue that had remained blocked, stored in my body for years. In freeing that old cell memory, my body was finally able to go about its own natural process of healing.

The Journey was born from my deep desire to share with humanity what Grace had so generously blessed me with: the means to get direct access to our souls, to uncover old repressed cell memories, to release the stored emotions and finally to forgive and complete with these issues so that our bodies and our beings can go about the process of healing naturally.

In the original Journey book you join me on my personal healing journey. You are guided step-by-step through the two mind – body healing processes which were born from that experience: the Emotional Journey and the Physical Journey. And you are freshly inspired as you read how others have found true freedom and healing in their own process work.

From the moment The Journey was published the work caught fire internationally. Currently hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have read the book, and more importantly are using the process work successfully and fruitfully in their lives. With the Emotional Journey people have successfully cleared issues of grief, loss, abandonment, depression, jealousy, betrayal, low self-esteem, sexual blocks, fear and anxiety. They’ve cleared chronic fatigue, fear of criticism, long-held guilt, issues of abuse, hostility and rage. With the Physical Journey people have naturally healed from a variety of health concerns, including allergies, acute asthma, eczema, cancer of many kinds, Crohn’s disease, tumours, fibroids, sports injuries, arthritis, migraines and even the common cold.

It has been deeply moving to know that so many thousands from all walks of life have successfully participated in their own healing journeys. And it’s been equally rewarding to see so many therapeutic and medical practitioners offer Journeywork alongside their own healing work. Cancer centres, orthodox hospitals, alternative health practices, doctors, nurses, homoeopaths, herbalists, kinesiologists, chiropractors, physiotherapists, massage therapists, nutritionists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts – people in nearly every field of healing, both emotional and physical, have felt free to incorporate Journeywork into their own specialist areas.

This book gives you new, fresh ways of using Journeywork with kids. It’s your invitation to partner your child in liberating their shining potential, and I pray it will also be a catalyst for you to begin your own healing journey.

It’s time we all took the lampshades off our lights.

PART ONE Inspiring Kids’ Stories

1 Discovering Our Shining Potential

I recently received a heart-rending letter from a deeply concerned mother of an eight-year-old boy, Matthew. Carla wrote that the school board had come to her about her son. He wasn’t keeping up with other students in his class. He couldn’t focus or pay attention, and often he appeared withdrawn from the other kids. He’d been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and dyslexia, and his teacher was apologetic and regretful, but she believed Matthew was too dysfunctional to continue at normal primary school. He needed to go to a school for children with learning disorders, as he was beginning to hold back the rest of his class.

Carla was stunned, horrified that they considered her son not only incapable of functioning in a normal school but so disabled that he needed to go to a special school. She just couldn’t and wouldn’t believe that her son was ‘stupid’ or abnormal. There must be some mistake, some explanation. She pleaded with the school board and begged that Matthew be allowed to stay at school just one more term. She promised to get him daily tutoring after school and, being a physical therapist herself, she would do regular therapy with her son. She’d also look into getting other alternative therapies that might help.

Reluctantly, the school board agreed, but with the proviso that if Matthew’s grades did not improve significantly by the end of term then, regrettably, they would be compelled to let him go and would recommend alternative schools which might be more suitable for him.

Carla gave Matthew her all. In addition to daily tutoring following school, she tried other therapies, including her own field, kinesiology. Matthew’s grades began to improve marginally … but not enough. Carla became desperate to reach her son, to find out what was really going on. She just knew in her bones that he was a beautiful and intelligent soul. He had always been a bright child. Even though he had been diagnosed with dyslexia, it did not mean that Matthew was inherently stupid. She just knew that there must be some emotional blockage that was holding him back. He was full of potential – she’d seen it from the time he was a toddler; sometimes that potential, that brilliance, would come out at the most unexpected moments. Yet she’d also sensed that there was something holding him back. She had noticed that often Matthew seemed quiet and isolated, shut down and emotionally unavailable. She just didn’t know how to get through to him, but with all her being she wanted to help him take this lampshade off his light. She was determined to do whatever it took to help her son find himself, to liberate his true nature, so that he could shine again.

Carla began to pray fervently to find a way to get through to her son. It was at this time that, by chance, she came across The Journey. She read the book from cover to cover – she could not put it down. It spoke deeply to her own wisdom. It detailed simple and powerful processes for opening into our true potential, and gave down-to-earth step-by-step tools for clearing emotional and physical blocks that might be obscuring that natural potential. In her heart of hearts Carla knew that Matthew could benefit from the work, if he was willing to participate. And she was thrilled when she turned to the back of the book to find in-depth instructions on how to work with children. She thought, ‘What have I got to lose? It’s worth asking Matthew if he’d be willing to give it a try.’

Carla briefly explained to Matthew that the Kids’ Journey is like a magical fairytale or inner adventure that carries you inside your body to emotional blocks that are stored there. She explained that it would be gentle and healing, and asked if he’d like to give it a go. Matthew shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sure, why not?’ He wanted to please his mum, and perhaps secretly he hoped it might help. And so Carla turned to the back of the book and began to read the process outlined. Part of the process involves getting access to specific ‘cell memories’ – limiting patterns which get stored in our cells. For Matthew, The Journey was surprisingly simple. He had no problems focusing or paying attention, because it was like listening to an exciting adventure or a really good bedtime story. Everyone likes a good story, especially kids.

Matthew’s own inner wisdom seemed to guide him perfectly to the exact place where his emotional block was stored. It guided him to the specific cell memory of when the initial ‘shut down’ had occurred – when he was only five years old and had just begun to learn his ABCs. In his memory Matthew was newly at school, and what neither his mum nor his schoolteacher knew was that he had an acute problem with his eyesight. He couldn’t see things clearly up close. Ever since he was a young child, when something was put directly in front of his eyes it would go all blurry and out of focus. He never told his mum because he thought it was normal, that it was just the way things were. He had no idea that others could see close things with crystal clarity, and it hadn’t really been a problem until he started school and was required to write his first letters on a page.

Matthew desperately needed glasses, but no one knew: not his mum, not his teacher, not even Matthew himself.

Matthew kept trying to write the letter ‘A’, but couldn’t figure out why it seemed to come out all wrong on the paper. Across the room, a friend of his held up his paper – his letter ‘A’ looked perfect, just like the one on the blackboard, but when the teacher came around to check on Matthew’s writing, she kept chastising him, telling him to do it better, more accurately, more carefully.

On the third day of learning ABCs the teacher, who was new to the kids and serving as a substitute, grew frustrated with Matthew. Why wasn’t he even trying? All the other children could write the letter ‘A’. In her frustration, she grabbed his paper out of his hand and marched him to the front of the classroom. Holding up his paper so all the other kids could see, she exclaimed, ‘Look at this page. Matthew is so stupid he can’t even write the letter “A”.’ All the kids laughed, and for Matthew time stopped. He froze. He looked into all his friends’ faces, laughing and ridiculing him, and the humiliation burned. His face got hot, his stomach began to churn; he couldn’t bear it another second. Something inside him shut down. A wall came down: he shut everyone out. The laughter faded into the background, everyone became a blur and he turned his face away and ran out of the room.

That afternoon when his mum picked him up from school he was unusually quiet, and when she asked him, ‘How was school today?’, all he could reply was, ‘OK.’ He felt too ashamed to tell her what had happened. Everyone thought he was stupid. Everyone who mattered had laughed. And now he felt numb to it all, incapable of finding his way through it. A wall had come down internally. He found himself shut down and shut out.

After that he could no longer focus at school. He didn’t care what the teacher said and didn’t want to hear. It didn’t matter anyway – he was stupid, so why bother?

Three months later, it was finally discovered that Matthew needed glasses, but by that time the damage had already been done and there would never be any way for Matthew to truly connect with and be part of school fun and learning in a healthy way again … not until he did his first Journey process.

Like Matthew most of us have had childhood experiences where we have felt unable to cope. I’m sure you can imagine how easy it would be to shut down in the face of such humiliation. Matthew’s story could be any of our stories. Maybe for you it wasn’t a paper being held up in front of the class; maybe it was being ridiculed in the playground or not making the sports team. None of us were trained in how to deal with these issues, and so often we found ourselves withdrawing or pretending it didn’t matter, losing ourselves in our colouring books or refusing to play with the other kids, all the while feeling desperately alone, alienated, excluded and not knowing a way out of our own pain or a way into the ‘in’ crowd.

During Matthew’s Journey process, not only did he access this old memory but he finally faced, released and let go of all the pain of the humiliation that he had carried for so long. He came to realize that his teacher didn’t really think he was stupid; she was just frustrated. She didn’t know he needed glasses; she just thought he wasn’t trying hard enough. Now that he had finally felt and expressed all of his stored shame and hurt, he found he was able to forgive easily. His mother did the ‘Change Memory’ process with him, where in his mind’s eye Matthew revisited the old memory, played it out on a video screen and then played it out a second time, but now seeing how it would have been if he’d had access to a whole host of more supportive and healthy emotional resources at that time. (More on this in Chapter 9.) He received a lot of imaginary balloons which gave him the internal emotional resources he would have needed at the time of the humiliation. His mother gave him a balloon of self-confidence which he breathed in until it filled his whole body. Then she gave him a whole series of balloons: courage, a sense of humour, the knowledge that the teacher was just frustrated, the knowledge that his friends all loved him and that they were only laughing because the teacher had made fun of him. He received balloons of self-worth, self-love and the ability to understand what was taking place. He also got a crystal dome balloon that allowed him to be inside a protected space, so any ridicule would roll off of him and he could just be at peace inside. Finally, he got a balloon of innate intelligence and the ability to reach out to his friends. He breathed in all of these beautiful qualities.

When he played the memory again, this time with all his balloons, he was able to see how it would have gone if he had had all those internal resources at that time. He found he was still hauled to the front of the class, but when the teacher criticized his paper it just rolled off him – he realized his teacher was just in a bad mood and frustrated; she didn’t know he needed glasses. When he looked into the faces of the other children he saw that they were laughing with him, not at him, and he himself broke into peals of laughter – laughing at his own paper, saying what a mess it was – and later he joked easily with the other kids as they played together.

Matthew realized in his Journey process that the teacher just didn’t understand that he needed glasses – neither had he at the time. Realizing that it didn’t matter anyway because all his friends liked him, glasses or no glasses, he forgave his teacher and the kids. When his Journey was over (after about 20 minutes) he opened his eyes and looked at his mum with a clarity that he hadn’t had in ages.

The Friday after his first Journey process he got his first ‘A’ and over the next several months became the brightest student in his class.

Carla was overwhelmed with joy when she wrote to tell me that Matthew was performing healthily at school – no more Attention Deficit Disorder, no more dyslexia.

So often we seem to label our children, giving them labels for behaviour we don’t understand. We pigeonhole them into a dysfunctional syndrome and see them through the filter of that syndrome, forgetting the beautiful, radiant souls that they really are. These days it has become almost fashionable to label kids and then put them on drugs – as if narcotizing them could possibly get to the root cause of their problem. It really is a crime, and very sad indeed that in our ignorance of how to cope with behaviour we can’t understand why we try to put that behaviour to sleep with drugs, mood-altering chemicals that change the very character and personality of these innocent souls, when all that is really needed is to uncover an emotional block and buried emotion that is part of what co-created these supposed ‘syndromes’ in the first place.

Matthew’s story could be your story; it could be mine. Recently I was in South Africa where The Journey is being used by teachers in primary schools. After I gave a school assembly programme to 800 shining, beaming children, I walked out into the school car park. There, two parents were standing in their Sunday best clothes, clearly having taken time off work to meet me personally. They stood there patiently waiting in the hot African sun with their three beautiful children, all in starched white shirts and school uniforms.

When I approached the mother, she had tears in her eyes. She simply said, ‘Thank you for giving me my son Daniel back … He’d been so withdrawn and aggressive towards his brothers and sister and had become so anti-social we didn’t know what to do with him. He was failing at school. Our doctor said he had ADD and put him on Ritalin, and his behaviour had become a little better. But I hadn’t really seen my son in three years. Do you know what I mean? It was as though he was under a dark cloud and I couldn’t reach him. But after Jayshree, his teacher, worked with him with The Journey – she did four processes with him – he became so joyous and loving towards his brothers and sister that we took him off the drugs. Now he’s thriving at school and playing with the other kids in the playground. Recently he won an academic award for excellence in all his subjects! Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving us our son back. That’s all we wanted to say to you – thank you.’

I was overwhelmed. I simply looked into her son’s eyes and said, ‘He shines like a diamond! What a beautiful being. Jayshree is an amazing teacher – she really cares about her students. She genuinely wants to bring out the best in them. I’m so glad your son opened up and let her in. And thank God he let himself out.’

Later, Jayshree shared with me that when she was teaching a class about geography and gold mining, she asked the kids, ‘Where do you think we find gold?’ No one raised their hand. Then Daniel jumped to his feet, hand in the air, and said, ‘I know!’

‘So, Daniel, where do you find gold?’ Jayshree asked.

‘In your heart, ma’am. That’s where the real gold is,’ he replied.

Jayshree was blown away by the answer. The simple, innocent wisdom of children can, indeed, take our breath away.

Here is an excerpt from the letter Daniel’s mother subsequently sent to me:

… My only hope was that he would take the medication, which controlled his attention in class so he could at least finish some work and barely pass. The medication helped him to keep focused and not daze off into his own world. He also managed to write in a straight line when on medication. However, he became very quiet, withdrawn and silent. He never laughed or played like the other kids and always looked so serious.

Then his teacher suggested that he try something new called The Journey, which had helped her family. And I thought that no harm could be done, so let’s give it a small try. She worked with him in the class and then at her home for ten minutes at a time. She also gave him special notes of motivation and encouragement, which he read all the time and kept in his top pocket. Two weeks later, I took my boy off the medication! He was answering questions in class, participating in sports, laughing, running – he was a normal child again!

Because The Journey is so widely used in so many countries, I hear these kinds of stories every week. Yet they never cease to awe me. The courage of the human soul, and the ability of the body and being to heal, no matter what our age, is astonishing.

2 The Journey in Schools

All of us come into this world as this same vast potential, yet so often life can seem to conspire to cover that natural radiance, obscure our genius, shut down our joy, block out the love. Still we sense that just beneath the surface there lies true greatness – if only we could get access to it. The Journey gives us the tools – simple step-by-step processes – for finally liberating that shining potential, so it can be fully expressed, wholesomely and joyously, in our lives.

In South Africa, at the school where I gave the assembly programme for 800 beaming school kids, I spoke of this very phenomenon in a general metaphor that I felt both kids and adults could relate to. I said that we all come into this world as a big bright shining diamond, completely whole, radiant and pure. We come in as a vast presence of love and joy, as a huge open potential that is capable of creating anything. And then, through the traumas of life, this diamond can seem to get covered over with layer upon layer of limiting patterns – the time we failed our exam at school; the time our brother or sister made fun of us in front of our playmates; the time we got shy and said all the wrong things to our first crush and they were off-hand with us. As we got older it could be the time we were interviewed for our first job and were so awkward and silly that we blew it, and later still it could be the time when we were at work and made a bad mistake then tried to pretend it didn’t happen or, even worse, let someone else take the blame … Layer upon layer upon layer our shining radiance gets covered over, until sometimes, as adults, we forget that there ever was a brilliant diamond inside. Instead, we identify with all the mess, the layers that cover it.

I told the kids that this was, in fact, exactly what had happened to me. As an adult, I completely forgot that there was a beautiful diamond inside. Instead, I identified with all the layers that covered it … until one day I got very sick. And part of the great blessing of my healing journey was that it carried me deep inside, where I uncovered a shining radiance that I realized had been there all along. I fell so in love with this light that I didn’t want anything to cover it anymore and so I began a process of clearing out all the layers that had previously hidden it. In that process, not only did my body heal, but I felt as though the real me had finally been set free. I’d finally taken the lampshade off my light.

I then asked, ‘How many of you are already aware of this light shining deep within you?’ Eight hundred hands shot up all at once – some kids practically stood up, their hands went up so fast. Then I asked, ‘Would you like to go on a magical Journey right into the core of this light – right into your very own diamond?’

‘YES, MA’AM!’ resounded 800 bell-like voices in a huge cacophony of sound so loud it felt like it shook the rafters. It was so loud that everyone burst into laughter. I then asked, ‘So are you ready to start?’

‘YES, MA’AM!’ followed by more laughter so loud that one kid actually fell off his seat, which of course produced even more laughter.

After it all died down, conspiratorially I said, ‘Well, I need your help, though. In order to go on this inner adventure, you will really need to pay full attention and go for it – otherwise the headmistress may get mad at me!’ I winked in her direction. ‘Do you all promise to pay extra close attention and go for it, so I won’t get in trouble?’

‘YES, MA’AM!’ came the enthusiastic reply, as some of the kids glanced in the headmistress’s direction, just to see if she approved.

Once we’d all settled down we began with the first ever simultaneous live Journey process with 800 joyous and enthusiastic souls aged five to eleven. And what a magical time we had. The little ones sometimes had a bit of trouble keeping their eyes closed, and kept peeking to see if everyone else was doing it right, but on the whole, I could tell it was all going very well. Even though their eyes were closed, their faces were so animated, they clearly were following the directions with gusto. Some of the kids were gesticulating with their hands, as if they were holding real balloons, while others were mouthing their conversations at the ‘campfire’. Children are so natural and open. They’re already aware of their own inner light, and processing with them is always a joy. By the end, they were all smiling, and everyone seemed to complete successfully.

Ten minutes after we’d begun, everyone opened their eyes and they were just beaming! They looked so beautiful and shiny that spontaneously I said, ‘Why don’t you look straight into the eyes of the person next to you and say, “You are such a beautiful person. I love the light I see in your eyes!”’ Many of them giggled when they spoke the words, but they all did so.

By now the room was full of laughter, but as I watched I realized that for many of these kids this was the very first time anyone had actually uttered those words to them, and many were quietly and secretly moved as they deeply drank in the words.

When the assembly was over, a rush of 800 kids wanting hugs and autographs came flooding. I was swamped from all sides! A huge hugging fest went on for about an hour and a quarter, with all our Journey staff joining in, signing autographs and receiving hugs. Sometimes the individual queues were over 200 children long, all politely waiting their turn. Each one wanted a special message whispered into their ear and then they’d run to the corners of the room to share what had been said with all their classmates. It was a pure celebration of joy.

Eventually the headmistress, who had been more than patient, insisted that everyone go back to their respective classrooms. For a moment it seemed as if we were resting in a soft lull, but then, quietly and secretly, one by one, the teachers came sneaking out of their classrooms, offering their gratitude and giving huge warm hugs. Then the headmistress put her foot down once and for all, and teachers and students alike returned to their classrooms.

Finally I was allowed to meet privately with the class of children who had been using Journeywork regularly over the past year. I was already aware that their teacher, Jayshree Mannie, and two other teachers had done a year of case studies, dividing the kids into three groups: one group received no Journeywork; one group only occasional Journeywork and one group received Journeywork every Friday afternoon. At the end of the year they tallied the results – and the statistics were extraordinary! The students who got no Journeywork averaged a 67 per cent pass rate. Those who received only occasional Journeywork averaged a 76 per cent pass rate. Those who did Journeywork every week averaged a whopping 91 to 93 per cent!

I was curious to find out what had taken place with the children personally, not just academically, so I sat with them and asked what they had discovered inside themselves. One child said that she’d found love inside and that she was nicer to her brothers and sisters, another said he’d found courage and understanding and that his grades had improved. Another said she could actually see the ‘love-light’, as she called it, in other kids. When she said this I asked them all, ‘Now that you’ve uncovered this love, this light inside, will you promise to help the other kids take the lampshades off their lights? Will you help them discover their courage, their understanding, their fun, their wisdom?’ Everyone promised wholeheartedly to become a torch to help light the other kids’ lamps.

I had already received several beautiful letters from the parents of this class about how their children were much more open, loving and socially well-adjusted, and kinder to their siblings; and they were thrilled with the academic results. I also received dozens of letters from the kids, but it was somehow more meaningful to hear it from the kids first hand and to see it shining in their eyes.

Here are a couple of parents’ letters I received, which I thought you might find inspiring:

My son was underachieving at school and was not performing well in his karate class. I had attended a Journey workshop and saw the merits of The Journey and tried this on Winston myself. However, I think that being his mother did not help too much, so I took him to Jayshree for a Journey session which lasted 35 minutes.

Two days later he was fine. He excelled at his karate championship and won a medal! Better still, I received a concerned call from the school and I frantically rushed there. The teachers said that they were baffled by Winston’s results … They had marked and remarked and remarked his scripts because his marks had improved by 65 per cent, and he was now topping the class! Before he was at the bottom end! They could not understand this and neither would I explain! I felt that it was a private issue and preferred not to say any more!

Winston is Head Boy now and we are all proud. I am doing Journeywork privately and can honestly swear by its success!

We had been beset with tragedies in our family, losing six members to cancer. Our daughter Tanya was suffering as we had just lost another favourite aunt. She was doing badly at school, was not sleeping well, had nightmares and was not eating properly. My sister told me about the Journey as she had brought her kids along. I saw the difference in her kids and decided to give it a shot.

One session later and Tanya was changed! Her chronic earache was gone! She was eating and putting on weight nicely and was sleeping well. Her grades were coming along nicely too. She did discuss that her fear of death was so strong that she had decided that it was not safe to enjoy life as we all would die soon anyway. And all this was because of the tragedies. She internalized this fear and literally stopped living!

Thanks to The Journey, she is a normal happy kid again!

Jayshree Mannie is continuing to take Journeywork to children all over South Africa, only now she is reaching into ghettos, working with social programmes like Life Line, molestation groups and abuse centres, and she’s teaching other schoolteachers, so that they can reach out to children to help them all liberate their shining potential.

We are all kids. Our bodies and our beings so want us to heal. When we take but one step towards Grace, it takes a thousand steps towards us.

3 Partnering Your Child

For us to work with children, the work must first start with us. We must see our children as already whole, free, inherently wise and beautiful. Then, when we partner them in their personal and spiritual Journeys, all that we are really doing is helping to lift off the layers of imposed limitations – the lies, the hurt, the emotional blocks that obscure their natural potential. That potential is already here, already free – all that we are doing is liberating it, allowing it to be expressed wholesomely and joyously.

So often parents come to me and say that they really don’t know how to ‘get through’ to their kids; they seem so emotionally inexpressive. Isn’t it true? When your child comes home from school and you ask, ‘So how was school today?’ what does your child inevitably answer? Usually it’s ‘OK’ or ‘Fine’, nothing more, nothing less. No one gave these kids (or any of us for that matter) the manual ‘How to Feel and Express your Emotions’, and so generally the most common response from kids of all ages is a shrugging of the shoulders and a one-word reply that doesn’t tell us anything. Have you ever found yourself quietly frustrated because you’re not even sure which questions to ask anymore? And have you ever had the sense that something more might be going on, but you can’t quite put your finger on it? I’m sure that every parent out there has experienced this frustration.

My husband Kevin and I had first-hand experience of this a few years ago. Kevin’s son Mark is a beautiful, angelic, highly intelligent 11 year old. He’s always been bright, quick to fall in with his peers, compassionate to younger kids and socially well-adjusted. He’s well-liked by teachers and pupils alike, and always brings home stellar school reports. When he was eight years old, we began to notice that when we brought up the subject of theme parks, his response was always lacklustre. As he was not an overly emotive child, his response wasn’t terribly concerning, but nonetheless, when you suggest going to Disneyland or Universal Studios to kids you can usually expect an excited or effusive response. Mark’s was almost always one of indifference. It seemed odd, but how do you penetrate that kind of malaise? We never knew what was behind his quietness until Mark attended the Junior Journey for the first time and underwent his first Kids’ Journey.

The Junior Journey is a fun-filled empowering programme for children aged eight to eleven. The one-day workshop is jam-packed with confidence- and self-esteem building exercises, and each child receives a private Kids’ Journey with a Journey Accredited Therapist (we have one therapist there for every two kids). They have guided ‘Sleeping Elephant’ meditation, they paint ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of their Journeywork, and they have a real-life bonfire where they throw in all the old unresourceful patterns or behaviour that held them back in the past – and they usually also roast marshmallows. They playact scenes using their resource balloons (something you’ll learn more about later), and they end the day with a self-esteem and confidence-building game – when the ball is thrown to you, you have to go into the middle of the circle and one by one each child shares what they like best about you.

The responses we get from both kids and parents are just phenomenal. Usually kids have massive positive shifts and the parents are just thrilled with the results.

Mark was attending the programme for the first time and usually we suggest that kids get their first few Journeys with someone other than their parents, as it gives the child the same privacy and anonymity that we, as adults, often feel we need. So Mark was to undergo his first Kids’ Journey with one of the Accredited Therapists at the programme.

As expected, Mark threw himself into the day (most kids do, it’s so much fun!) and fell in easily with the other kids. When it came time for his process, Sally, the head therapist, decided that she would work with him in his private session.

During his Journey, Mark went back to a memory of when he was seven years old. We had taken him to Legoland and had encouraged him to go on the little ‘Dragon’ roller-coaster. All of Legoland is pretty much aimed at younger kids, so when Mark seemed reluctant to go on the ‘Dragon’ with us, Kevin softly encouraged him, reassuring him that it would be fun. Mark begrudgingly acquiesced and we all three got on the ride together. Mark seemed to be enjoying himself until we got to the last hill of the ride. We could feel the roller-coaster slowly cranking up the hill and as I looked up at the steepness, even I thought, ‘Hmm, this is a bit high for little kids,’ but as there was nothing we could do, we just laughed and held Mark closer to us. As we went roaring down the other side of the hill, Mark turned white and looked as though he was either going to laugh or cry – we couldn’t tell which. Kevin, cognisant of Mark’s nervousness, tried to encourage him, and as we got off the ride softly reassured him, affirming how brave Mark was and how much fun the ride had been.

What neither of us had realized at the time was that Mark had been terrified, and he was secretly furious that we hadn’t listened to him in the first place.

During his Kids’ Journey, at his ‘campfire’, he finally got to let loose at us, and he released all of the stored-up anger and forgave us for not listening. When he had finished, he spoke to Sally, who then came to us on his behalf to say that Mark really wanted to make his own decisions about roller-coasters and felt that we needed to listen to him more.

Whoa, were we surprised … but also grateful. We had no idea it had affected him so strongly. It seemed like such a harmless thing – a three-minute ride on a kiddie roller-coaster. And yet it was pointing to something much larger: that we really needed to listen more deeply to Mark, to hear his needs and respond to them more respectfully.

Later, when Kevin spoke with Mark privately, he let him know how sorry we were and that neither of us had realized how scared he had been – that his lack of communication prior to the ride had left us in the dark as to what his true feelings were. Kevin asked Mark to promise him that if ever he felt afraid he would let us know. Mark admitted that he was shy and a little scared of telling us, but he promised in future to listen more carefully to himself and his body, and if he felt any fear at all he’d let us know. Kevin promised in return that we would never make him do anything he was too scared to do. He reassured him that we would never take him anywhere where there was real danger, that we love him too much and that if he was frightened we wouldn’t force him into anything he genuinely didn’t want to do. Kevin also agreed he would endeavour to listen more closely, more deeply, and got Mark to agree that communication is a two-way street – though a great deal can be conjectured and surmised, you can’t assume you can mind read just from someone’s body language, you need to verbalize your feelings.

Since that time, it has been ongoing learning. To strengthen Mark, we still like to encourage him to meet his fears and stretch to take action, even when fear is coming up. But he’s never since been made to do something that he really hasn’t chosen to do himself.

Now, whenever we go to Universal Studios or Disney, Mark chooses which rides he wants to take. Last summer at Universal Studios we went on the dread ‘Jurassic Park’ ride, the scariest of all the water-splash roller-coaster rides, and Mark asked to ride it three times! It was his favourite ride in the whole theme park. But more important, we as parents are learning to partner Mark on his journey, rather than foisting our ideas of what’s best for him onto him without his input. We are all learning how to listen and how to express ourselves clearly.

Part of what you will be doing as you work with your child is learning just this: how to partner your child in opening into their own experience, and how to support them in discovering their own truth and their own answers – a lesson that would be good for all of us to learn in all our relationships!

Recently I shared Mark’s story with one of our senior Accredited Therapists, Gaby, who had served as a trainer two years ago at a Junior Journey programme. She remarked that it reminded her of a process she’d had with a child who had seemed quite quiet and shy. Gerald seemed to like keeping himself to himself, which is unusual in the normally social and interactive kids’ programme. His aloneness touched Gaby and she felt in her heart that she would be the right trainer to do his process with him.

Respecting Gerald’s natural quietness, Gaby began the process with a tender sensitivity and lightness. In the Kids’ Journey the child imagines going down a set of ten steps, knowing that every step they take will carry them into a place of safety and relaxation and that on the bottom step they will open into an ocean of light, a vast presence of peace and love. Gerald took to the process easily, loved opening into the peace and love, and when he was on the bottom step described to Gaby that, in his mind’s eye, he was sitting by himself on a warm beach, happy and alone, basking in the sun. Gaby noted that he said he was alone and asked if he felt alright in his aloneness. ‘Oh, yes, I’m very happy. I like to be alone.’ It seemed clear that he was genuinely content, so Gaby continued with the process.

In his mind’s eye Gerald walked through the door, greeted his mentor and together they stepped into an imaginary space shuttle – so magical that it can carry you safely and gracefully into any part of the body. It carries you to the specific place where an emotional issue is stored. Gerald loved ‘cruising’ in the space shuttle and it guided him very easily and naturally to a part of his body where a specific cell memory was stored. Surprisingly, the memory had almost the opposite feeling to the beach scene. Apparently, when he was about three-and-a-half years old his parents had taken him to a firework display on a warm summer’s night. Everyone screamed and ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ as the explosions in the sky blasted one after the other, but Gerald kept telling his parents that he didn’t feel comfortable and he didn’t want to be there. Sitting in the dark, not knowing what was coming next, then the blinding light followed by huge thunderous explosions, the screams of excitement coming from everywhere, from faces he couldn’t even see – it was all too much for him. All he craved was a nice warm quiet place where he could just rest peacefully. He tried to express himself, but the more he spoke up, the more his parents ‘shushed’ him, overriding his discomfort and softly coaxing him not to be a baby – ‘Everyone else is enjoying it.’

To many of us, this may seem like a harmless enough memory. Haven’t we all been ‘shushed’ at some time or another? Haven’t we all been told in some way or other that ‘children should be seen and not heard’? And yet what made this particular memory so potent was that Gerald was extremely scared; he was in a peak emotional state. Repeatedly the loud noises and screams frightened him anew and yet he was basically told to ‘stuff it’. So he shut down internally. His body got the message: ‘If I feel a strong emotion and express it, I’ll just be made to shut up.’ From that he construed: ‘It’s not OK to feel those feelings and it’s certainly not OK to express them.’ In that realization, something happened inside Gerald: ‘If I’m not allowed to feel or express my feelings, then I’d rather be alone. That way I won’t have anyone around me to stir up scary or intense emotions, and I can feel safe just to be myself.’ At three and a half he’d already experienced the crystallizing event that would change the whole way he viewed the world, and indeed change his personality. In that moment a loner was born.

So often we wonder what makes one child so outgoing and another so tentative and retiring. Often mothers and fathers will say innocently, ‘Well, she’s been like that since she was a toddler – it’s just her personality.’ Yet that crystallizing ‘shut-down’ can have such a profound effect that often as adults we enter into intimate relationships and wonder why we just can’t feel the connection or the closeness. Somehow we can feel love in our own hearts for the other person, but their love doesn’t seem to penetrate into the deepest part of us. Often, we’ll go to parties and wonder, ‘Why is it that in the midst of this crowd, I feel alone? I know everyone, we all get on, everyone is friendly and caring, and yet I feel like an outsider.’ Well, that pattern may have started with an early childhood shut-down just like Gerald’s.

Perhaps you are already aware of the extraordinary research that has recently been published in the field of cellular biology. Dr Candace Pert, author of the bestselling book Molecules of Emotion, is a well-known cellular biologist who works in Washington, DC. On a number of occasions she has spoken to the US Congress about her amazing findings on the effect that repressed emotions have on our cells. What she has unequivocally discovered is that whenever we have an intense, powerful emotion that we repress or shut down, specific chemical changes take place in our bodies. These can affect certain cell receptors, blocking those cells from communicating with the other cells in our bodies. If these affected cells remain blocked over a long period of time then there is an increased likelihood that if disease occurs, it will occur in the part of the body where the cell receptors are blocked.

Perhaps this may help explain why it is that one seemingly harmless event like Gerald being shushed at the firework display had such a potent and long-term effect: the cell memory and its programming got passed on from one cell generation to the next. The actual memory occurred at only three-and-a-half years of age, yet the pattern and the decision made from that memory were still running on automatic pilot at eight years of age.

The internalization ‘Being around others might make me feel intense and scary emotions and as I’m not allowed to feel or express those, I’d rather be alone’, that entire consciousness, that programming, got passed from cell generation to cell generation.

In order to negatively programme our cells, we have to be in a peak emotional state and we have to repress that emotion at the time. This repressive action is what releases the chemistry that can begin the programming or blocking process. Gerald had experienced both sides of the equation – he had been in a peak emotional state and had repressed his feelings.

What Candace Pert also observed is that when we feel and express our emotions healthily, fully and wholesomely, our cell receptors remain open.

What The Journey process does is to guide you in a safe, gentle and wholesome way to specific cell memories, so that you can finally feel and release the stored pain, let go of the story and memory and forgive the people involved. Then you are given healthy, empowering internal emotional resources so that you can wholesomely and freely respond to life in the future.

When Gerald finished his process, not only had he finally faced and released all the intense emotion from that memory but he had wholeheartedly forgiven his parents. He also received a whole set of resource balloons which helped give his body and being positive and healthy reprogramming. He was given a balloon that allowed him to feel safe, even when there is loud noise and excitement around him, and another balloon that let him feel safe in a crowd. He received balloons of courage, self-confidence, the ability to play with others, light-heartedness, joy and the ability to feel his emotions, to express himself clearly and to share his feelings at the right time with his parents and peers.

After his process, Gaby noticed that at first Gerald remained on the outskirts of what was happening with the other kids. But slowly and tentatively he began to join in, and by the end of the day he was playing as rambunctiously and noisily as all the other kids. When they all did the ‘Monkey Rap’ song, where they all mirror each other in monkey gestures to loud and joyous music, Gerald couldn’t stop laughing as he pretended to be a mischievous monkey mimicking the movements of an eight-year-old girl.

Previously, Gerald was destined to be a loner. Who knows? Maybe now he will end up being the life and soul of the party, a shining star in his world.

Dear Brandon

My name is Lindsay Wilson. I am turning 13 this year. I am a boy who did the Children’s Journey workshop in 2002. I really enjoyed it because, while I was there I got to meet new people; adults and children – people I wouldn’t normally meet. All day long we got to play and have fun and games and we got to know everyone and how everyone felt.

I got to do this special Journey, just for me. It was really good, because I got to express a lot of my feelings and work out a lot of my problems with my Dad. Now that I’m working things out with my Dad, we’re getting along a lot better.

After the Journey, I felt a lot better and a big weight was taken off my chest and felt free to get on with the rest of my life. HOORAY!

I get on easily with my family and friends now and I’m not so angry anymore. Before, people couldn’t touch me or bump into me without me getting angry and hitting them – even if they said they were sorry.

Now, I can stay calm and I am able to walk away from a fight.

Thank you for creating the Journey so other people like me can feel better, relaxed and enjoy life.

I AM SO HAPPY!!!

4 Working with Health Concerns

The Journey is a deeply spiritual and liberating process that helps awaken us to our true potential. It allows our real selves, our own inner essence to shine, to be fully experienced, and it clears out emotional issues, negative beliefs, unhealthy vows, limitations of all kinds that have blocked or obscured that natural potential. It is a simple step-by-step process that enables us to clear out the hurt, lies and circumstances that have prevented us from allowing our shining potential to fully express itself.

In a nutshell, The Journey is a tool for liberation, a process for awakening, work that guides you deep into your soul and clears out all the limiting patterns. It opens you into the infinite, the boundless presence of love that is your own shining potential.

And the second aspect of The Journey, for which it is equally well known, possibly even better known, is as a tool for healing.

One of the blessings of my own remarkable healing journey was that I uncovered a means to access repressed cell memories and clear them completely, so that the body and the being could go about the process of healing naturally. So The Journey is not just for emotional and spiritual liberation – one of the powerfully positive side-effects is that it can be physically healing as well.

At that time much of the medical research on cellular healing was already available. Dr Deepak Chopra, a distinguished medical doctor and one of the leaders in the cellular healing field, had done a rare thing. He had decided that he wanted to discover what makes some people heal from serious illness against the odds, without drugs or surgery. He made a career study of the successful survivors of terminal disease to find out the process that made them heal.

After amassing hundreds (eventually thousands) of case studies, he found that he could find only two qualities in common among the survivors: the first was that, through some act of Grace, some spontaneous event or some spiritual revelation, they all got access to the boundless potential inside. The second was that they all got spontaneous access to the cell memories stored in the part of the body where the disease was.

What is known about the cells inside our body is that they replicate at varying speeds. Old cells die and new ones are born at different rates in different parts of the body. For instance, have you ever noticed that it takes about three weeks or so for your suntan to fade? That’s because it takes the skin cells roughly three weeks to regenerate. It takes our liver six weeks to renew itself and our stomach lining only about three or four days. The one that seems almost inconceivable is our eyes – we have all-new eyeballs every two days or less; that’s how long it takes for every cell in the eyes to replicate. This was so hard for my mind to conceive of until my mother went into hospital for eye surgery. They slit open her eye, inserted a lens and put the flap back. Only a day-and-a-half later they removed the protective eye patch and she could see clearly – that’s how quickly eye cells replicate. In fact, there is not a single molecule in your body today that was here a year ago – your body is literally all new. It is continuously renewing itself.

Deepak, however, asked a question that no one else was asking at that time: ‘If it’s true that our cells are constantly renewing themselves, why is it that, for example, a liver that is riddled with cancer in January is still diseased in June? If the cells of the liver are completely new every six weeks, why isn’t the liver completely healed?’

What he postulated at the time, and what has subsequently been verified by more current scientific research, is that stored inside the degenerative cells is suppressed cell memory – some unresolved emotional trauma or limiting pattern. Before the degenerative cells die, they pass on their programming, their consciousness, to the next cells being born. So the new cells are created as exact replicas of the old degenerative cells. The cell memory is passed on from one cell generation to the next.

What Deepak discovered in the case of successful survivors of serious illness is that if they opened into the boundless potential, the infinite body wisdom, the awareness that is responsible for making your heart beat and your hair grow, and if they got access to the specific cell memory and cleared it out, the programming was interrupted and was not passed on to the next cell generation. Fresh, regenerative cells were born devoid of the previous programming, and cellular healing was the result.

I had read all this research and knew absolutely that cellular healing was possible, but up to that point no one had given us a method! How do you get access to that infinite potential? And after you’ve done that, how do you access the right cell memory? You can learn all the science you want, you can listen to all the theories out there, but it’s one thing to know and understand a theory and it’s quite another to have a practical step-by-step method that works.

I had made an agreement with my surgeon that if, in four weeks’ time, the tumour hadn’t significantly healed, then I would let her do what she felt was urgently needed – which was to surgically remove it. This, of course, went against everything I believed in and had learned from alternative medicine. I simply had to buy myself some time to see if I could heal naturally.

Well, I was three weeks into my healing journey. Up to that point I’d done everything I knew to help my body heal: I’d taken herbs and homoeopathic remedies; I’d received colonic irrigation and massage every other day; I’d done emotional release work and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) work; I’d meditated; I’d refined my diet to the most cleansing food intake possible – 100 per cent fresh and raw organic fruit and vegetables with loads of freshly-squeezed juices; I’d taken enzymes and colloidal minerals – I’d done everything! I looked vibrantly healthy, but my tummy was still as hard as a rock, stretched as taut as a drum, and I still looked five months pregnant.

I began to despair that I would never find a way to get access to the cell memory. I knew for certain that part of my healing would lay in uncovering that emotional block, yet no one had published a ‘how-to’ guide.

I was lying on a massage table, still having seen no measurable result, and I felt like a complete failure. I didn’t know where to turn, or even what questions to ask anymore. I’d tried everything I knew in the natural health field and still had not succeeded. I felt deeply sorry for myself and was overcome with hopelessness. I had run out of options. I had no more answers, and something inside me just gave up. All striving finished, I just lay there in complete surrender, in total innocence.

Unexpectedly, I began to feel the room fill with a palpable presence of peace. It was as if I was soaking in a bath of stillness. In that stillness I heard myself spontaneously pray, ‘Please, somehow, let me be guided to uncover that cell memory and complete with it. Please let me be guided to heal.’ Then, lying there, unmoving, in the pure innocence of not knowing what else to do, spontaneously I was guided directly into the tumour.

What I uncovered was an old familiar memory of childhood violence. Immediately my thinking mind checked in and chastised me, saying, ‘It can’t be that memory! You know all about that one – you went through years of therapy clearing that old stuff.’ ‘Been there, done that, got the T-shirt!’ said my thinking

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