The Journey method®

“Experience a Journey directly into your Soul – into the vast boundless

presence of love in the core of your being.”

I was intrigued; I was captivated by an email I received inviting me to hear Brandon Bays, author

of “The Journey – a Road Map to the Soul”at the Bodhi Tree in Los Angeles.  There was something ‘unique’ about this…that couldn’t be defined within the wording of the email…it was just ‘this something’ that jumped out at me…that leapt through the electronic boundaries and called my name.

I showed up early, (something new for me) on a Friday only to find that the presentation was the next day.  I usually am very clear about dates and was surprised that I was so early….one day early.  The next day, I showed up again…and I know now that I arrived on the wrong day, to show ‘my soul’

how committed I was to The Journey and its path; once again confirming that there are no mistakes

in life; only validations.

I sat back and watched a radiant Brandon Bays share her personal story of triumphing over

adversity in her life.  Feelings of ‘knowingness’ filled my entire being and I realized that The

Journey had already begun for me.  I heard Brandon talk about healing her tumour, her husband leaving her; her home burning to the ground in the Malibu fires…and on and on.  And here she

was exhibiting a vibrancy and positive life-force that illuminated the room with her ‘being of lightness’.  I wanted more.

For two days, I sat in The Journey workshop for two days participating in various exercises that

were part of  the Emotional Journey.  I left that day feeling a sense of lightness  but on the second day, I showed up feeling ‘cluttered’ inside; a sense of darkness that I knew all too well. It was always so easy for me to ‘mask’ this feeling.  On this day, we paired up and were sent to quiet corners of

the room to be guided to our Physical Journey that Brandon claimed would free us from repressed emotions once  we entered ‘our deepest space’…the place where innate wisdom and intelligence resides…the place of ‘true-all-knowingness’.  “It is a place of ‘no mind’, says Brandon. “Athletes call it ‘The Zone’.  Scholars call it the universal intelligence.  Physicists call it ‘the ‘quantum soup’.  It is who you are at your deepest level.” I felt safe with my partner and yet I could not go deep enough, to that place that I needed to be.  I finished the process and went back into the main room to wait for the others to finish.  Sitting in my chair, I knew….I knew…that I wasn’t finished.  I couldn’t shake the feeling. This time, I couldn’t pretend or walk away.  After several uneasy minutes, I made eye contact with my partner and told her that I needed to go back into the process again – without questioning, we started over.

Again, I felt stuck mid-way and couldn’t break through…but I was determined that I wasn’t going

to get up from my chair, until I had. One of the staff members came over to assist, gently asking leading questions.  I soon found myself spiraling inside to a place of complete and utter nothingness.

I surrendered to it…the Zone.    More gentle probings.  Suddenly, I felt struck by an intense vibration deep in my stomach and then I had a vision of my mother.  I started to identity feelings of intense anger and rage that were buried so deeply inside. After processing this, I was guided into another

place where feelings of lightness and peace engulfed me.  It felt so pure and so filled with light.

It was because of this benevolent feeling of grace, that I was overwhelming filled with a sense of loving-ness and I said the following words, “I forgive”.  Suddenly, as if from an unseen force,

my shoulders caved in and my body racked forward as huge sobs released from deep inside.  I was

filled with waves of tears for what seemed like eternity until they subsided.  I then felt the need

to declare,  “I want to forgive everyone in my life that I have held resentments toward and I release

this right here and right now”.  I sat up and opened my eyes to behold my loyal partner, Nita and Amber ,the lovely staff spirit.  Feeling cleansed, my eyes burned brightly, shining with the love that

I felt for everyone; and most importantly,  for myself.   I felt complete.  I had found peace within myself and with everyone, at that very moment.  I had come home to myself, experiencing the joy and lightness of it all!

“Deep inside all of us a huge potential beckons, waiting to open us to the joy, genius, freedom and love within.  This presence is calling you home right now, longing to set you free.  Yet all of us have issues we have felt trapped or limited by.  We hear the whispering of our own soul calling to us, but feel unable to access that greatness.  Instead, we feel covered or blocked in some way, limited by our issues – anger, fear, depression, grief, hurt, anxiety.  It may be as simple as feeling there must be something more to life, or as complex as feeling a complete failure.  It may be as debilitating as an addiction or as life-threatening as a serious illness.  Yet, no matter how deep your issue is, no matter how much you have struggled with it, the possibility exists for you to become absolutely free, whole and healed.”   Brandon Bays, described as one of the most dynamic teachers of our time, talks of our search and longing to access our true potential.  “Everyone would agree we all sense that there is greatness inside, most of us have glimpsed this potential, yet something prevents us from accessing it and experiencing it daily.”

For Brandon, it took a tumour the size of a basketball to catapult her to a remarkable, soul-searching and ultimately freeing healing journey in which she uncovered a means to get direct access to the soul, the boundless healing potential inside all of us.  Only 6 ½ weeks later she was pronounced tumour free, no

I was intrigued; I was captivated by an email I received inviting me to hear Brandon Bays, author

of “The Journey – a Road Map to the Soul”at the Bodhi Tree in Los Angeles.  There was something ‘unique’ about this… it was just ‘this something’ that jumped out at me…that called my name.

I showed up early, (something new for me) on a Friday only to find that the presentation was the next day.  I usually am very clear about dates and was surprised that I was so early….one day early.  The next day, I showed up again…and I know now that I arrived on the wrong day, to show ‘my soul’

how committed I was to The Journey and its path; once again confirming that there are no mistakes

in life; only validations.

I sat back and watched a radiant Brandon Bays share her personal story of triumphing over

adversity in her life.  Feelings of ‘knowingness’ filled my entire being and I realized that The

Journey had already begun for me. 

I wanted more.

For two days, I sat in The Journey workshop participating in various exercises from the Emotional Journey.  I left that day feeling a sense of lightness but on the second day, I showed up feeling ‘cluttered’ inside; a sense of darkness that I knew all too well. It was always so easy for me to ‘mask’ this feeling.  On this day, we paired up and were sent to quiet corners of

the room to be guided to our Physical Journey that Brandon claimed would free us from repressed emotions once we entered ‘our deepest space’…the place where innate wisdom and intelligence resides…the place of ‘true-all-knowingness’.  “It is a place of ‘no mind’, says Brandon. “Athletes call it ‘The Zone’.  Scholars call it the universal intelligence.  Physicists call it ‘the ‘quantum soup’.  It is who you are at your deepest level.” I felt safe with my partner and yet I could not go deep enough, to that place that I needed to be.  I finished the process and went back into the main room to wait for the others to finish.  Sitting in my chair, I knew….I knew…that I wasn’t finished.  This time, I couldn’t pretend or walk away.  After several uneasy minutes, I made eye contact with my partner and told her that I needed to go back into the process again – without questioning, we started over.

Again, I felt stuck mid-way and couldn’t break through…but I was determined that I wasn’t going

to get up from my chair, until I had. One of the staff members came over to assist, gently asking leading questions.  I soon found myself spiraling inside to a place of complete and utter nothingness.

I surrendered to it…the Zone.    More gentle probings.  Suddenly, I felt struck by an intense vibration deep in my stomach and then I had a vision of my mother.  I started to identity feelings of intense anger and rage that were buried so deeply inside. After processing this, I was guided into another

place where feelings of lightness and peace engulfed me.  It felt so pure and so filled with light.

It was because of this benevolent feeling of grace, that I was overwhelming filled with a sense of loving-ness and I said the following words, “I forgive”.  Suddenly, as if from an unseen force,

my shoulders caved in and my body racked forward as huge sobs released from deep inside.  I was

filled with waves of tears for what seemed like eternity until they subsided.  I then felt the need

to declare,  “I want to forgive everyone in my life that I have held resentments toward and I release

this right here and right now”.  I sat up and opened my eyes to behold my loyal partner, Nita and Amber, the lovely staff spirit. 

   I felt complete.  I had found peace within myself and with everyone, at that very moment.  I had come home to myself, experiencing the joy and lightness of it all!

“Deep inside all of us a huge potential beckons, waiting to open us to the joy, genius, freedom and love within.  Yet all of us have issues we have felt trapped or limited by.  We hear the whispering of our own soul calling to us, but feel unable to access that greatness.  Instead, we feel covered or blocked in some way, limited by our issues – anger, fear, depression, grief, hurt, anxiety.  It may be as simple as feeling there must be something more to life, or as complex as feeling a complete failure.  It may be as debilitating as an addiction or as life-threatening as a serious illness.  Yet, no matter how deep your issue is, the possibility exists for you to become absolutely free, whole and healed.”   Brandon Bays, talks of our search and longing to access our true potential.  “Everyone would agree we all sense that there is greatness inside, most of us have glimpsed this potential, yet something prevents us from accessing it and experiencing it daily.”

For Brandon, it took a tumour to catapult her to a remarkable, soul-searching and ultimately freeing healing journey in which she uncovered a means to get direct access to, the boundless healing potential inside all of us.  Only 6 ½ weeks later she was pronounced tumour free, no drugs – no surgery!

The extraordinary gift of Brandon’s own healing journey was to pioneer a road-map: a simple,

yet powerful step-by-step means to tap into the body’s infinite wisdom, joy and potential, elicit its unlimited healing power, uncovering specific cell memories, resolving them completely and clearing out any emotional, spiritual or physical block stored on a cellular level.  Renowned cellular biologist, Dr. Candace Pert has established that when we have repressed emotions, or issues we’ve not coped with, it releases chemicals into the blood stream that will block certain cell receptors in the body.

If those cells remain blocked over a long period of time, there is the propensity for disease to be created in that area.  “The key is to uncover this repressed trauma, or the unaddressed cell memory, resolve it and clear it completely”,  says  Brandon, “then your body and your being goes about the process of healing quite naturally on its own and you are left soaring in a boundless joy, peace and wholeness

that is your own essence.”

Across the globe, tens of thousands of people from all walks of life use Journey work to discover

self-esteem, grief, and anger issues dissolve; addictions fall away and illnesses can resolve and heal. Everyone longs to live their life as an expression of this huge potential, experiencing the boundless joy and love within.  But it is not enough to know about it, you need to directly

experience it to facilitate true healing on all levels.

THE JOURNEY

“Deep inside a huge potential beckons, waiting to open us to the joy, genius, and love within.”  Brandon Bays.

In 1992 Brandon Bays had what she called “a huge wake up call”.

At the time she was fulfilled in her marriage and motherhood and enjoying a prosperous and rewarding career. She thought of this time as “the peak of my health and wellbeing.”

Despite her healthy lifestyle, spiritual practice and background in alternative medicine, she was stopped in her tracks by the diagnosis of a tumour in her uterus the size of a basketball.

What she thought was an early menstrual onset was actually internal bleeding caused by the tumour pressing on vital organs in her body.

Undeterred by the dire warnings of her doctor that immediate surgery was her only option, Brandon felt a responsibility to honour her body and her belief in its infinite ability to heal itself.

Following the initial shock, she was overwhelmed by a calm reassurance. Brandon realised, “It wasn’t a question of if I would heal, but how.”

Just over 6 weeks later, after exhaustive tests at Cedars Sinai hospital in California, she was pronounced perfectly clear.

The process of her extraordinary recovery is documented in her book, The Journey –An Extraordinary Guide for Healing Your Life and Setting Yourself Free.

Brandon confesses that, on noticing the first signs of the tumour, she went into denial.  She admits to being humbled by the experience, saying, “An arrogance had given birth inside me that somehow, if I did everything right, nothing could happen to me.  I just didn’t want to believe that after everything I’d learned… it was happening to me.”

A massage therapist suggested that Brandon may have “some old stuff” she needed to get rid of and encouraged her to get inside the tumour to see what was there.  A childhood memory emerged that, at face value, seemed of little importance, but proved to be a profoundly emotional experience. Brandon was able to resolve that issue with understanding and forgiveness.  “It seemed as if I had literally put the painful memory into a package and put a lid on it.”

She now realised that she had to go past her ‘thinking mind’ and trust in the ‘inner wisdom’ of her body.

From that moment she began to heal.

The concept of mind-body healing is not new. In 400BC Plato wrote, “All disease in the body proceeds from the mind or the soul.”

Science has established that cells inside the body regenerate at different rates – the liver cells are replaced every 4 weeks, skin cells three weeks, stomach lining three days and eye cells every 48 hours. Each cell passes its memory to its replacement.

Brandon was well aware of Dr. Deepak Chopra’s work on cellular memory.  He asks the question, “If a liver is riddled with cancer in January, why would it still be riddled with cancer in June?”  After all, the cells would have been renewed several times in that period.  Dr. Chopra believes that “our cells are constantly eavesdropping on our minds.”

Dr. Candace Pert has established that repressed emotion releases a chemical into the blood stream that enters certain cell receptors and renders them incapable of communication.   This blockage, over a long period, can lead to a disease in that area.

With her newly acquired first-hand experience, Brandon began to wonder how she could assist others to explore their own healing power, realising that each person’s experiences are unique.

Her first revelation came while taking a course with a spiritual teacher.  A student asked how one could find peace in an intense emotion. The answer, “Just don’t move.  Let yourself be completely present to the emotion.  Welcome it…  In the very core of the emotion you will find peace.”

This has become the basis of Brandon Bays’ guide to self-healing.  Put simply, it involves peeling back the layers of emotions until you reach the inner peace buried within each of us.

Brandon says, “What has moved me deeply is that (The Journey) is now being used in cancer centres, hospitals and addict groups, in prisons, schools and by medical doctors, alternative health care practitioners, priests, ministers and people from all walks of life.  They are gracefully incorporating                                                      the Journey work into their own practices and personal lives.”

“In the medical profession, our training is so scientific it blinds us… most doctors want to heal more than to cure but the problem is a lot of our innate abilities to heal people are trained out of us by the system… We’re well equipped to fix things but healing is much deeper and involves the mind, body and spirit… Every case is individual but if you look, the figures aren’t very encouraging. More than 50 per cent of cancers don’t respond to chemotherapy but nevertheless not all of those people die… People have an enormous ability to heal; they just need to believe it.”

Inspire: There have been a lot of books recently about the Law of Attraction. But why is it that sometimes, even however much we focus on positive thinking, we still seem to sabotage our own positive efforts?

Brandon: It is because all of us have what I call our silent saboteurs. One part of us is saying: I want to meet my soul mate, my dream job, or I really want to get my health in order, so on a positive level we are thinking positive thoughts, and it is going out to the Universe. And on another, deeper level, there is another part of us saying: You are never going to find that soul mate, you are not worthy of your dream job, even if you get thin and strong, nobody will be attracted to you. So we have these silent saboteurs inside, and what is happening is that there are two impulses going out – one that is very positive and inspiring, and another one that we are probably not aware of is that it will never happen. And they end up cancelling each other out.

Inspire: How can we find and address these silent saboteurs?

Brandon: In the book Consciousness – the New Currency, there are a series of processes that will actually challenge you and stretch you, so you have to go past your current comfort zones. Because we all have a certain level, which we have as a comfort zone; for example you may be really good at a sport, but you never go beyond a certain level, or you may have a certain salary, and you never seem to get beyond that stage. And what the exercises do that are in the book is that they inspire you to experience what would happen if you had that stretch beyond your hidden comfort zone. And what that does is that it causes these silent saboteurs to rise within you. So it will cause these hidden beliefs you have to rise to the surface, beliefs you did not know you had. And then with The Journey-work you can then clear out these hidden beliefs, these hidden silent saboteurs.

Inspire: You obviously have been on this path and done this work yourself for a long time, and I found it very inspiring when I read in how you continue to do this work on yourself regularly.

Brandon: I get a Journey Process once per week, because I surely know there is more than one issue stored inside of me, and I want to be as prudent as I can to the day I die. It is not that you just go through a process and then you are fixed for life, it is a journey. Our soul wants to give us certain life lessons to heal in this life, and with the Journey you can really get to the root cause to what is holding you back, so you can instead just be more open to life and to be used by life and to serve life.

Inspire: Do you find that you are able to get to the root cause of the level where you are at that moment, and then the next time you get to the next layer, and so on?

Brandon: Absolutely. You are able to connect more and more with source, with your essence, with freedom, whatever word you want to give this deeply spiritual realization. With source, it is not a landing place, it is an opening. And when you open yourself up more and more into this radiant potential that you are, then more of that is available to you. All of us have veils, and blocks, that we are probably not aware of. And these are obscuring our ability to fully experience and live this potential that is inside us. And the Journey is not a process of addition, but a process of subtraction, because when you subtract away the limitations, the blocks, the lies, then what remains is this radiant essence that is our soul.

Inspire: Which role do you feel that facing our deepest fears play in enabling us to connect with the source within us?

Brandon: As long as there are hidden fears stored inside, they run our show. Most of us are on the run from fear. We will do anything to run away from fear; we gossip, we drink, we watch TV, we work, we do anything to try to avoid meeting the fear. And yet, my own direct experience is that when you finally sit down and say: OK. I am willing to go into the core of my worst fear, then you connect instead with the source that is within you.

Brandon here gave me permission to re-tell her own story in how she did this, and it is quoted from the book Consciousness – the New Currency:

When I did this myself, I had already been through some challenges. At the age of 39 I had faced a life-threatening illness. At 40 my uninsured home and personal possessions had been completely destroyed by fire. At 41 my income was confiscated and my marriage fell apart. And at 42 my employment wound down and ended. I was left alone having lost everything that mattered.

I did everything I could think about to stop myself from actually feeling my fear, to try to run away from it, but eventually I realised that nothing was working. So I decided it was time to face every fear that was secretly lurking inside my body. As I sat down to face all my worst fears, I could feel the panic starting to rise again, but I kept on going. Eventually I faced the deepest of all the fears – that death would come for me, that I would perish. Because this was at the root of it all; that because I did not have what it takes to survive, I would die. As I faced this, something seemed to let go. It began to feel as if something was dissolving into a vast field of blackness. My physical form seemed to become insubstantial, non-existent, to disappear into nothingness, into pure awareness. Everything became timeless, infinite. I experienced the whole universe as one consciousness, an all-inclusive potential waiting to manifest and express itself as form, as all of life. And I recognised that this pure potential was my own soul, my own Self. Then came the realisation that in this potential everything is available: all genius, all wisdom, all love, all creativity, all answers. I sat in wonder and laughed at the ludicrous cosmic joke of it. In meeting my greatest fear – the fear of not having the ability to take care of myself, not being able to survive on my own, that I would die alone, destitute – I had fallen into my own soul. In a simple act of opening into the most frightening of possibilities, my own death, I had found liberation.

And I then asked: If this infinite presence could create the highest and the best in my life, what’s the best that could happen here?

I wrote these words at the top of a new page and the answers started pouring onto the paper. I could barely write fast enough as a dialogue began.

-Paddy Rudden, MD, People as Partners in Medicine

Commenting on Brandon Bays and The Journey in The Irish Times

“The Journey is “logical, unique, simple, effective and extremely cutting edge… The feedback from patients has been remarkable… Over time, I have started to see patterns emerging and there are certainly some conditions that have been totally relieved and some partially. I have a collection of correspondence that attests to the remarkable healing powers of the Journey.”

-Dr Mark Naim, GP for 30-years in Sydney, Australia

Interview with Brandon Bays

In 1992 Brandon Bays was diagnosed with a tumour, the size of a basketball. This led her to start an intensive healing journey, where she had to cleanse out old mental and emotional baggage, which stopped her body from healing. Only 6 and a half weeks later she was pronounced tumour- free. The method she had used was to form the process we now know as The Journey. Since that time, The Journey has now spread world-wide. She is one of the warmest, loving and insightful people I have ever had the pleasure of talking to.

Inspire: There have been a lot of books recently about the Law of Attraction. But why is it that sometimes, even however much we focus on positive thinking, we still seem to sabotage our own positive efforts?

Brandon: It is because all of us have what I call our silent saboteurs. One part of us is saying: I want to meet my soul mate, my dream job, or I really want to get my health in order, so on a positive level we are thinking positive thoughts, and it is going out to the Universe. And on another, deeper level, there is another part of us saying: You are never going to find that soul mate, you are not worthy of your dream job, even if you get thin and strong, nobody will be attracted to you. So we have these silent saboteurs inside, and what is happening is that there are two impulses going out – one that is very positive and inspiring, and another one that we are probably not aware of is that it will never happen. And they end up cancelling each other out.

Inspire: How can we find and address these silent saboteurs?

Brandon: In the book Consciousness – the New Currency, there are a series of processes that will actually challenge you and stretch you, so you have to go past your current comfort zones. Because we all have a certain comfort zone; for example you may be really good at a sport, but you never go beyond a certain level, or you may have a certain salary, and you never seem to get beyond that stage. And what the exercises do that are in the book is that they inspire you to experience what would happen if you had that stretch beyond your hidden comfort zone. And what that does is that it causes these silent saboteurs to rise within you. And then with The Journey-work you can then clear out these hidden beliefs, these hidden silent saboteurs.

Inspire: You obviously have been on this path and done this work yourself for a long time, and I found it very inspiring when I read in how you continue to do this work on yourself regularly.

Brandon: I get a Journey Process once per week, because I surely know there is more than one issue stored inside of me, and I want to be as prudent as I can to the day I die. It is not that you just go through a process and then you are fixed for life, it is a journey. Our soul wants to give us certain life lessons to heal in this life, and with the Journey you can really get to the root cause to what is holding you back, so you can instead just be more open to life and to be used by life and to serve life.

Inspire: Which role do you feel that facing our deepest fears play in enabling us to connect with the source within us?

Brandon: As long as there are hidden fears stored inside, they run our show. Most of us are on the run from fear. We will do anything to run away from fear; we gossip, we drink, we watch TV, we work, we do anything to try to avoid meeting the fear. And yet, my own direct experience is that when you finally sit down and say: OK. I am willing to go into the core of my worst fear, then you connect instead with the source that is within you.

Inspire: Why is it that neediness pushes abundance away?

Brandon: Because inside neediness is the belief of desperation; that I am not going to get it. So you have the external thing that I really want this thing, but deeper inside you have this other belief of desperation that I am not going to get it. Need is born of fear, from a belief that you are not going to get it, and that is why neediness pushes things away. And also, it is something repulsive about neediness. If we have ever been in a relationship with someone who is really needy, then most people would find it repulsive when someone is that needy. And I feel that life is a mirror for that. When you have someone being desperate, thinking: I got to have it, got to have it, got to have it, then life pushes it away. When your heart is full of gratitude, and you do not require anything, then it is easier for life to give things to you. I have always felt that gratitude is a magnet for grace.

Last week at the seminar in Stuttgart, we had a man there, Frank, who is 90 years of age. And he said: Brandon, I don’t know how to thank you. I am 90 years old, and I am the most joyful I have ever been in my life. Ever since I did my practitioner programme, I have every day, all day long, been thinking about everything I am grateful for. Grateful to breathe, grateful that people want to hug me at my age, 90 years old. I am the happiest and most joyous I have been in my life. And people love to be around me.

Inspire: It seems like every time you have faced your deepest fears and cleansed them, you are being taken through an even more intensifying level of light?

Brandon: That is true, and even more abundance is then available to you. And what I mean with abundance is not a financial abundance, but an abundance of life. To have the ability to be able to be used by life for the benefit of so many people. You see, life gets it, that you are a manifestor. And it will start to use you, to help to serve life. And the more light I have available, more and more of me will be used by life, and more and more people are capable of being touched. It has only been 10 years in total since The Journey book was published, and since then it has spread all over the world, and we run courses all over the world. It has even expanded into being used in hospitals, and schools, into prisons, into indigenous communities, and even into the Canadian Ministry of Justice Department. Now I cannot do all of this, but what I am is that I am open to being used, and I am accessible to be used in this dance of creation. Now this is a pretty intense schedule, and I teach for 44 weeks per year.

What is NLP?

Neuro Linguistic Programming

The NLP guidance method is especially effective in treating learning difficulties, but also works well with other issues such as speech problems.

NLP helps teach how to learn. It helps one to rediscover the foundations of learning and the joy that learning brings.

An excerpt from an essay by Don A. Blackerby, Ph.D:

“Often, when a student begins having trouble learning, the parents and the teachers tend to respond as if he’s doing it on purpose. In other words, they assume that negative intentions are behind this. Sometimes they accuse the student of “being lazy”, “lacking motivation”, or “not caring”. As they use these labels, they assume that something is wrong with the student

To defend himself and his self-esteem, the student will either fight or withdraw in whatever way he finds. As this labeling continues, the fight over the student’s self -esteem becomes the focus of attention, taking the place of the real issue: the learning problems. When parents and teachers look for positive intentions in the student’s behavior, he is more open to the real problem, and is willing to look for a solution. The parent or teacher becomes an ally instead of being an enemy. Sometimes it is hard to find the positive intention, as it is buried deep inside”.