The Journey
Brandon Bays’ Journey
The Journey is a method of treatment effective in a wide variety of physical, emotional and mental ailments, from chronic diseases and various types of cancers to depression, anxiety and coping with day-to day difficulties.
This is a deep and unique process, which also incorporates a connection with spiritual development and abundance.
The Journey ®was developed in the United States by Brandon Bays in 1992 following the amazing self-healing process she experienced when she was cured of a tumor in her womb in six and a half weeks without the help of drugs or surgery. The method is successfully employed in 31 centers all over the world, including Israel.
Today, the Journey is considered a powerful and empowering process in mental and physical healing. This method is unique in its ability to heal various aspects of physical, emotional and spiritual imbalances.
The Journey is suitable for everyone of every age since each session is tailored to the needs and circumstances of each person.
This treatment can help anyone who has experienced difficulty in his life, whether he feels that it is lacking something such as happiness, peace or satisfaction or whether he suffers from addictions, a chronic disease or any other health matters.
The Journey will enable you to rid yourself of limiting beliefs, phobias and fears and thus live a fuller life.
The Journey is for anyone who wants to release himself from the shackles of the past and to live a true, free, free and healthy life. This is a wonderful opportunity to discover the truth and the infinite potential that exist within you so that they can positively affect all aspects of your life.
This release allows us to understand the roles of other people in our lives and lets the changes taking place inside us create new, deep and meaningful relationships with our loved ones.
The Journey is a simple, accurate, deep and intense process that ventures to the depth of the body and mind, a process which enables the body to use its natural healing ability through introspection, discovery, deep cleansing and full forgiveness of ourselves and others. The Journey is a process of release and revelation of the essence of love and grace inherent inside us.
The Journey facilitates a focused, yet intense release of emotions and thus permits access to memories and traumas imprisoned within; emotions and memories that have created limiting patterns and models through which we experience the world and ourselves.
The Journey leads one directly to the root of emotional and physical barriers, irrespective how long they have existed and the story behind them. The process permits release and the healing of obstructions and memories on a cellular level.
The physical aspect of The Journey method can treat allergies, high blood pressure and blood sugar, asthma, insomnia and other complaints.
The emotional aspect of The Journey can help treat depression, stress, fears, phobias, low self-esteem, doubts, and difficulties in all types of relationships.
The Journey allows us to experience our true inner lives and ourselves. It enables us to open up to new resources and insights, to be liberated and alive.
Discover the radiant essence of your being and your body’s wonderful ability of healing. Come to learn how to reach the root of long-term problems, and the means to physical and emotional healing.
Through an intensive workshop, you can learn the techniques and processes of The Journey and experience a guided introspection and personal understanding of various Journey techniques.
First, you will experience the process of the emotional Journey, which uncovers your true nature and your limitless potential, and where you release deep emotional blockages.
Later you will experience the physical Journey – exposing old cell memories and limiting patterns and cleansing them – enabling your body and your whole being to start a healing process.
Each session is unique and comprehensive, with guided instruction adapted to the participant. The process facilitates raising emotional obstructions that inhibit and prevent one from experiencing one’s full inner potential.
THE JOURNEY TO SELF:
By Dawna Shuman
“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 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 a chemistry into the blood stream that will block certain cell receptors in the body.
If those cells remain blocked over along 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
real freedom in their lives. They are uncovering their own answers, their deepest truth, experiencing profound emotional and physical healing at a cellular level. People who have experienced The Journey have found that chronic pain vanishes; anxiety, depression and sexual blocks disappear;
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.
Brandon has been touring the world with The Journey workshops…recently returned from a
hugely successful tour of England, Holland, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. She met
with the Minister of Education in South Africa due to her overwhelming success there to discuss implementing her book in the school curriculum and teaching The Journey within the public school system. Brandon also taught her workshops to prisoners within the penal system in that country.
Brandon has chosen the city of Vancouver to hold her first Canadian Journey Intensive Weekend
on October 5th & 6th. It will prove to be a powerful and transformative weekend for those who want
to experience this profound process first hand, to let go of long-standing issues and come into true wholeness and freedom. She is very excited about bring The Journey to Vancouver, a reality that
was visualized through a dream; an awakening that Vancouver resonates with the energy to receive the information. And in synergistic response, the city has welcomed Brandon with an open heart. Brandon will appear on “The Vicky Gabereaux Show” on Thursday, Sept. 20, Shaw TV’s“Studio 4” with Fanny Keifer on Wednesday, October 2, guesting on various radio shows and lecturing at
the Downtown Public Library and Chapters Book-Store. (see below)
As I sit in my apartment in Van Nuys, California, I can hear the cacophony of Canadian Geese
flying overhead on their early migration to South America; with a pit stop at the Wild Life Reserve,
a short distance away. My heart beats proudly for I am a Canadian. I am excited realizing that
as the Geese fly South, so will The Journey fly North and brings its message for all hearts open
to receive theirs.
Brandon Bays is an inspiring role model of courage and self-discovery and her triumphant
story is a source of strength and enlightening experience for all!
“My heart felt healed, whole. I felt as if I’d been washed from the inside
out, as if someone had just wiped me clean. I wanted to dance, sing,
celebrate. I finally felt free!”
Suzie Greaves – The London Sunday Times
THE JOURNEY
“Deep inside a huge potential beckons, waiting to open us to the joy, genius, and love within.” Brandon Bays.
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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 practise 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 it’s 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 has perfected a repeatable process to uncover old traumatic memories at a cellular level that not only helps physical healing but also psychological and emotional issues. A step-by-step guide to the Journey process is included in her book.
Brandon also teaches and performs Journey workshops and seminars world wide that attract people from all walks of life. The Journey’s mission is to put people in touch with the best part of themselves. A workshop participant described Brandon as “funny, intelligent and completely authentic. There is no new age nonsense with Bays.”
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.”
A sceptical Suzy Greaves of The London Sunday Times, emerged from a Journey workshop feeling “curiously light, a little bit shiny and finally free.”
“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.”
-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… People have been freed from issues that have profoundly influenced their lives up until that point. I was particularly interested to see whether patients could be ‘cured’ from traditional illnesses,” he says… 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
Commenting on Brandon Bays and The Journey in The Irish Times
Irish Times, Dublin
Published: 08 June 2004
Can past trauma result in illness later?
by Niamh Hooper
Diagnosed with a tumour at 39, Brandon Bays was told the only option was immediate surgery. But the New Yorker refused. Having spent 20 years in the field of mind-body healing she wasn’t going to allow a surgeon to open her up without trying to heal herself.
Driven to probe deeper, she underwent a profound process and six weeks later underwent every test available before being pronounced text book perfect, clean, completely tumour-free – without drugs or surgery.
Within her tumour, she believes, was an old unresolved memory of childhood abuse that she was sure she’d already dealt with but obviously hadn’t. Once finally resolved and forgiven – and the lesson the tumour had been sent to teach her had been learned – her body went about the natural process of healing on its own.
In the 12 years since, thousands of people claim to have released themselves from physical illnesses and emotional blocks using the process Bays pioneered.
This process, called The Journey, is reported to be getting good results worldwide by cancer patients, prisoners and violent criminals, and the South African Government is financing the training of teachers who will introduce it into the nation’s school curricula.
“For every emotion we have, there is a biochemical response in the body. This is measurable in a lab. Cellular biologists have found that when you suppress an emotion, it releases a specific biochemistry into the blood stream which will go to certain cell receptors and block them. When they’re blocked, they cannot communicate with any other cells in the body,” Bays says.
“If these cells remain blocked over time and if disease happens in the body, it’s likely to happen in the part of the body where the cells are blocked.
“So what The Journey enables you to do is get access to these blood cells, find out the stored repressed emotion and memory stored there in consciousness and release the stored pain so it is no longer stored inside the body.”
Not alone in her belief that repressed emotional conflict can manifest itself physically, Bays says even if the condition heals, it may reappear if the memory of that trauma is retained in the cells. The only way to resolve the issue is to uncover that emotion, find the root cause and make your peace, she believes.
“When we have an emotional issue, it is an invitation to find freedom. I feel emotional issues and physical challenges can be an invitation to undergo your own healing truth and to heed the wake-up call.
“They can be an opportunity to learn what your soul is trying to teach you through this illness. You can become part of the process of healing rather than become a victim of it.”
The Journey is being used by cancer patients alongside orthodox and alternative medical treatments. “The thing that people need to know is that in the core of their worst pain is a peace that is beyond anything they could imagine,” Bays says.
“You can have pain leaking out and feel it in a muted form for 40 years or you can face up to it for an hour, release it and find completion and come home to the wholeness of who you are. Emotions are the gateway.”
Hard as people find it to accept, our bodies are print-outs of our biographies. And given the right circumstance, the human body will heal. It has been seen over and over again. And it is often dismissed by the medical profession as “miraculous”.
Dr Paddy Rudden, a GP who has been in practice in the North East for more than 30 years, believes this approach is the future of medicine. A member of People as Partners in Medicine which is dedicated to returning power to the individual through an integrated approach to healthcare he adds: “The only way you can hope to heal a person fully is by integrating mind and spirit as well as body.”
“In the medical profession, our training is so scientific it blinds us to this kind of thing which is a shame. 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. The new physics supports this point of view and some of the best writing on this subject is by physicists and not by doctors. Brandon Bays’ work would fit right in here.”
In response to criticism that this could be giving people false hope, Dr Rudden says this is a very relevant issue. “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. We don’t know what impact hope has in each situation.
“Often it’s seen that it’s the rebellious people who tend to do better – with a spark of individuality and a survival instinct. Perhaps that’s what this lady, Brandon Bays, did – she harnessed her own survival instinct very effectively and connected with hope.
“People have an enormous ability to heal, they just need to believe it.”
Bays’ Journey work is being deployed in a large number of cases in South Africa and Australia. Sydney-based GP, Dr Mark Naim, who has been in medical practice for 30 years, believes the Journey is “logical, unique, simple, effective and extremely cutting edge”.
“The feedback from patients has been remarkable. Some changes are quite rapid, others are slower. People have been freed from issues that have profoundly influenced their lives up until that point. I was particularly interested to see whether patients could be ‘cured’ from traditional illnesses,” he says.
“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.”
Ignoring or suppressing issues isn’t going to make the cause go away, hope as we might.
“The more you run from fear, the more it hunts you. There comes a moment when you must face it and deep in the heart of that fear you will find your true self. Each of us knows our own truth. Fear is an invitation to find it,” Bays adds.
From her experience of working with thousands of people, she assures any curious potential participants that “your own soul only gives you what you are ready to face and clear”.
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 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.
Inspire: How would you say you are able to heal your deepest fears, which role does forgiveness play in that, and how do you forgive?
Brandon: My experience is that you have to listen to the body first of all. The body never lies. When you feel an impulse arise inside the body, then that is the time to stop and breathe, and ask: If that had words, what would it say? And how do these words make me feel? You have to be willing to really open up to the feelings inside you, to really be listening and to really feel what is really there. For myself, forgiveness is a mystery, it is a miracle. And I cannot explain how the mystery works. But it is something I can share from my own life. I did all this, and I am certified in so many fields, and had lived and walked my talk. And then at the age of 39 I got diagnosed with this basketball-size tumour. This really set me reeling, because I lived and breathed what I was about. And part of the gift of this tumour was that I healed in 6,5 weeks, and in order for me to heal this I had to radically heal, and I was invited to go to places I had never been before, to a place even deeper into the stillness inside myself. And in order to get there I had to really turn the flashlight on. And I unearthed really painful memories and went through the process of releasing them. But when I went through these processes I realised that it was not enough to release them. I had already been, at the age of 39, at the place of acceptance. I had done lots of work for many years to face and clear old memories, and yet here in my psyche were more wounds. And I thought, you know what, I have arrived at the same place of acceptance where I had been for the last 20 years. And I thought to mys
elf: I have been there, done that. And I asked the essence inside myself if I was complete, and I did not feel complete. And I put out a prayer, tha
t somehow I would be guided to complete. And whilst I was getting a massage, I put out this prayer, and out of nowhere, the word forgiveness arose. And immediately my thinking mind started: What difference does it make? I have already faced it; I have already accepted it. I have already got everything I needed to get. And my mind kept saying that, but my body and soul kept saying: Well, you might think you have handled it, but you haven’t really. And I then thought, well what have I got to loose by trying to forgive? And I realised then I did not know how to forgive, because one of the things I had done was that I had created this identity of this noble person, this therapist, who has come to understand her violent past, had
come to be accepting about it, understanding about it, and I had to face down 30 years of my blame-game, and my self-made pedestal that I had put myself on. I had to face down my own pride, and finally open my heart, and whole-heartedly forgive. And then something happened. When I faced down 30 years of pride, and all my pseudo-compassion, and I really truly opened my heart, I was finally able to forgive. I realised then that that chamber had never before been cleaned. I realised that 30 years of blame was finally over. It is something amazing that happens when you forgive, because that is when you let go. That is when cellular healing is possible, because you are no longer dragging that cell memory around with you.
I once read in a book that the root of all disease is lack of forgiveness, and in my own experience I would say that the root of all healing lies in forgiveness. Forgiveness is the great liberator, because it liberates you from this place of being God and Judge in other people’s lives. Because when you forgive you are no longer in judgement, you no longer hold that particular position, that particular job.
Inspire: How can you live a guided life in conscious abundance?
Brandon: The key step for me is that I first of all have to get real. I have to clear out whatever is holding me back from fully being myself. I use the Journey-work for that, which I do once per week, since I don’t want any dust to fall on this inner diamond. Once the veils have been lifted away then I am able to be open to my body and my being. I see the body as the barometer for the soul, because the soul communicates through feelings, and not through thoughts (which are from the ego). Being consciously guided means being open, and listening to your heart, rather than following what you think others say should be done, or what society says should be done. Instead you are listening to the truth in your heart. And it is something very beautiful and still that happens when you let that guidance move you and guide you to the next step. And I listen to life. God is speaking through each incident in life. I never know whom God is going to speak through or how God is going to speak to me. But if I putting out a prayer that something is wanted or needed, I then listen to life, and it is not my job to manifest anything, but it is my job to stay open and be guided to anywhere it might manifest in the world.
Inspire: How are you able to stay in this state of detachment, when something you put out there is really important to you?
Brandon: To me, when I vision quest, I first of all do an abundance process, so I first of all clear my own blocks. Then I write down all that I am grateful for in life, and when I do that my cup runs over. I am so full, and I realise how incredibly blessed I am. Like now, I am sitting here, in a beautiful apartment, over-looking the sea, and there are all these sheep in my garden, and it is so greet, and it looks like Ireland, and I am in Wales, and it is spectacularly beautiful. And my heart is so full; it requires nothing, so there is no personal want. Now from this place of feeling over-flowing with gratitude, I then go into meditation and I ask: What is truth? What is life? What does God most want for this specific area of my life. And I become a scribe for life; it is almost like automatic writing. And when it goes onto the page, I am always amazed what it is that truth wants. It does not actually feel like that it is Brandon Bays that wants this. It feels like a non-personal something writing it down. And I always have just one prayer, every day: Life use me, please.
How I get used, what that looks like, is not in my hands. And so when I am writing down what is most wanted in a certain area, be it a house, a certain seminar, or a certain country that I am serving, whatever, then when it gets written down, I then surrender and I say: Okay. Let me be guided to find wherever this is located in the world. And it feels like it is a very non-personal experience. There may be passion to feel the results, but it is a preference, and not a need. It would be wonderful if it happened, and if it did not happen, then that is okay, and that can happen too. Because something I have found is that God can put you on a path, where you are guided to do certain things, and what will happen is that all of that was part of a journey. It did not have to do with giving me things, but giving me certain life experiences that I needed. So I just trust that truth is writing down what is most wanted, and my job is to stay open and be guided to whatever and wherever it is. And the reason why I write down everything I am most grateful to, is that it takes all the personal need out. Because when your heart is so full, you realise you do not need anything.
Inspire: Why is it that neediness push 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.
Inspire: How do you manage to also have a family life in combination with such a hectic schedule?
Brandon: I believe that all of my life is part of being used. For example, I am a grandmother, and I also have my own mother. So how can I be used and allow a deepening of these family bonds? I just stay open and let life guide me. I say the same prayer: Life, use me please. And then I listen to the guidance I am receiving. And I see being used as being part of the whole. If grace is using me, it needs to use me to be a guardian to my body, and also to look after my mother, and make sure she gets a holiday, and to be there for my daughter and grandchildren. But somehow, if there is a trust, and it is non-personal, so the need is not coming from you, and all you ask is for grace to use you to serve life, and all aspects of life, from your own health, to your family, to your children, to your parents, then somehow it orchestrates a healthy, so called, balance. It is more of a fabric, rather than a balance. If I thought I had to balance it all, I would get exhausted. But if I am just open and guided, then life orchestrates the balancing, and it does a much better job of that than me.
