Authors & Thought Leaders

Brandon Bays on Healing Through an “Inner Journey”

Published on May 13, 2017

Article by Brandon Bays

In 1992, alternative-healing practitioner Brandon Bays was diagnosed with a basketball-sized tumor, which she treated herself in a mere six weeks, without any drugs or surgery. Today, Bays teaches workshops all over the world, spreading the word about the self-healing process of cellular regeneration, which is based on the physical link between suppressed negative emotions and cellular disease.

How Negative Memories Affect Physical Health

According to Bays, whose method is based on teachings by Deepak Chopra, MD and Candace Pert, PhD, our cells continuously regenerate, and as they do so, negative memories are passed on to new cells, leading eventually to illness and disease. In this lecture from the Bodhi Tree Legacy, Bays defines a practical way to free our blocked cell receptors via an “inner journey.” She gave this talk in April 2002, after releasing her dynamic and innovative book The Journey: A Road Map to the Soul, which has since become a global best-seller. —Justine Amodeo

 “We all have emotional issues in which we are trapped. I pray that you decide to experience this internal boundless love, joy, and freedom. Ultimately, this is a process for awakening to the extraordinary presence of your own soul.” —Brandon Bays

The following is an edited version of Brandon Bays’ Bodhi Tree presentation from 2002.

Brandon Bays: On September 10, 2001, my book The Journey was released and 600 press releases went out. I was prepared for a big book launch, but after the disaster of September 11th, I realized I was here for an entirely different reason. New York City is my original home, and when I saw those towers falling, it impacted me quite strongly. You may remember that after a couple of weeks, President Bush said it was time to go back to work and time for the country to move on. On one level, that was a healthy idea, but something different happened in our hospitals: They filled up with people whose various illnesses seemed to suddenly become acute.

There is a reason for this surge in serious illness after such a traumatic event. When we experience a strong emotion that we repress, it releases chemicals into the bloodstream, which will go to certain cell receptors, causing blockage and rendering those cells incapable of communicating with the rest of the cells in the body. If disease is going to happen, there is a propensity for it to happen in the part of the body where the cells are blocked. But The Journey offers a way to reverse this process.

How The Journey Works

If I had to say in a nutshell what The Journey does, it’s a process of getting in contact with what I call “Source,” or the “Infinite Intelligence” of the body, or “The Living Presence.” It’s the part of you that makes your heart beat and your eyes shine and your hair grow. It’s the part of you that’s awake even when you’re asleep at night. Now, previously, it was thought that to get in touch with that Infinite Intelligence of the body, we’d have to have some kind of spiritual revelation. But part of the gift of my own healing journey was to pioneer a direct way to access that Infinite Intelligence. At the same time, I learned how to access the cell memories stored inside the body that perpetuate the disease process.

The best way I can describe the essence of The Journey is through a metaphor, a little story. I was conducting an “abundance” retreat in England, and during the lunch hour I had instructed all the students to go out on the lawns and the pastures and repeat the words, “I am.” “I am” as we looked at the trees. “I am” that presence that’s in the grass. “I am,” as we looked at a bush. My husband and I decided to participate in this process, and so we were just walking around on the lawn silently repeating “I am,” and I came across a big pile of cow manure. Before I could stop myself, I burst out laughing, because I heard myself saying, “I am the shit.”

A Brilliant Metaphor for Life

I once heard that we all come into this life as a pristine, flawless diamond, completely whole, full of potential, and radiant. And yet, unfortunately, through the course of life’s pains and trials, our extraordinary potential gets covered over, layer upon layer with the “brown stuff.” Then, when we get to be adults, we further cover over this whole mess with bright shining nail polish. When we present this polished veneer to the world, we wonder why people think we’re so full of… “it.”

But if you’re very lucky, life gives you a wake-up call. Then, for a moment you crack through that hardened veneer, or those layers of muck, and you uncover a shining radiance, an awe-inspiring brilliance, and a love that is beyond any description—and you realize it’s been there all along. You so fall in love with the truth of who you are that you will do anything to clear out the muck. The Journey is about peeling back the layers of your onions until you open into the extraordinary presence of your own soul—a boundless stillness—and you realize it’s always been there. And then, from that level of consciousness, you uncover the blocks that are stored inside the body, clearing them out, resolving them and forgiving them, so that your body and your being can go about the process of healing naturally.

Bays’ Background Story

I always had an intense thirst to understand life at a deeper level: What is it that makes us what we are? In my university education, I studied psychology, philosophy and comparative religion, but I kept feeling that book knowledge wasn’t enough. I began to take seminars, eventually going to hundreds of them. I’ve never been to a seminar where I didn’t take something away and put it to use in my life, such as learning to trust our gut responses to things. I began to understand that our soul communicates with us through the physical form. Your body is the barometer of your soul, and the answers worth knowing are the ones you uncover inside yourself. Everything else is just an idea—and I had to learn that the hard way.

I studied everything that could explain the nature of healing—kinesiology, acupressure, massage, herbology, and iridology, you name it. But something deeper seemed to be missing, so I turned to the psychological fields and studied neuro-linguistic programming, neuro-associative conditioning, hypnosis, emotional release work and women’s shamanism. Still, I felt there was more. Finally, I ended up going on a seven-year spiritual search and diving into the roots of the great world spiritual traditions—ancient Christian mysticism, Judaism, Sufism, Buddhism and Hinduism. Then I began to connect with something that spoke deeply to my heart.

Opening Up a Free Clinic in New York City

After about 10 years of study, I joined with other therapists to open a free-of-charge healing center in New York City. We would simply offer our services and people could design their own healing program be it herbology, acupressure, a nutritional cleanse, or emotional and physiological release work.

This work gave me the opportunity to watch what was happening in people who experienced physical healing. It was as if their soul was guiding them through the physical healing process while they were learning some deeper lesson that I couldn’t name. Often they would talk about discovering a greater and deeper gratitude for their own lives, and life in general.

Bays’ Physical Wake-up Call

As I approached my 39th birthday, it seemed that everything in my life had reached a peak. I was a vegetarian, worked out daily, and I felt emotionally fulfilled in my marriage, career and family life. As a therapist, I’d done every emotional and physical cleansing process imaginable. I felt that I was at peace. But then the last thing I ever expected happened: My tummy began to grow and I didn’t want to believe it was happening to me. But as I was sitting in meditation one day, a gut instinct came that I might be seriously ill and urgently needed to see a doctor. I didn’t realize that this particular illness was aggressive, meaning that the cells replicate exponentially. My tummy went quickly from being just a little bit puffy to being quite large.

Her Giant Leap of Faith in Alternative Healing

When the doctor examined me, she said, “Brandon, you are equivalent to five months pregnant with a tumor that is the size of a basketball. And not only that, it’s crushing the rest of the organs. You need to enter the hospital today for further tests so you can have it surgically removed.”

“You know what?” I said, “I can’t just let you take out this tumor. I need to be given a chance to give it my best shot.”

And she said, “Brandon, it’s not just the size. This isn’t your period that’s come suddenly. You’re bleeding internally.”

And I replied, “Look, I’m trained in NLP, homeopathy and medical hypnosis. If through one of those routes, I can get the bleeding to stop over the next three days, how much time could you give me?” She agreed to give me exactly one month to give it my best shot. Then, if it hadn’t healed, I would return for surgery.

Taking Life Into Her Own Hands

As I left her offices, my heart was pounding like that of a wild doe, and my mind was racing. But then I saw a mimosa tree that I had not noticed on my way in. I was so arrested by its beauty, and simply awed by being able to smell the fragrance and see that bright yellow color. I felt waves of gratitude just for being alive, and being able to see a tree, or to smell and breathe. And as I looked at that tree, my racing, thinking mind came to a state of rest, or stillness. And out of that stillness came a gut feeling that somehow I would be guided to heal. I was fully aware that I was being invited to go beyond everything that I had learned up to that point, and I was reminded of all the people I had worked with in New York City who were living, breathing examples to me. I had, after all, seen people who had been diagnosed with much more serious illnesses than mine go about their own process of healing, and through the studies I had done with Dr. Deepak Chopra, I knew about the healing that can occur at the cellular level.

Why Illness Spreads from One Cell to the Next

We know that the cells inside the body replicate at varying speeds. You get an all-new stomach lining every three days, while eye cells replicate in less than 48 hours. There won’t be a single molecule in your body a year from now that’s here today. And before each cell generation dies, it passes on its consciousness and its programming to the next one. Chopra postulated that degenerative cells become degenerative because they store repressed emotional memories. Then, the next cell is born as an exact replica, so the consciousness gets passed on from one cell generation to the next. Survivors of serious illness, however, somehow get access to that cell memory and clean it out, which keeps negative programming from being passed on to the next cell generation. But it’s one thing to know about cell memories, and it’s quite another to have a step-by-step means to get access to them. And no one had given us that means.

How Bays Started to Heal Herself

I was three weeks into my healing journey. I was on a 100% live-food, fresh-juice diet. I was getting a colonic and a massage every other day. I was taking herbs and I was getting emotional-release processes and NLP processes done. I was doing everything I knew of to cleanse the body, make myself vibrant, and slough off the degenerative cells. As a result, I was feeling and looking vibrantly healthy, but my stomach was still as stretched and taut as a drum and as hard as a rock. So one day, during a massage, I realized that I had been brought to my knees by this tumor. I felt abject despair and something inside of me just gave up. I felt this peace that filled the room, and out of the peace I heard a simple prayer that spontaneously began to pray itself: “Please, let me be guided to uncover what’s stored inside this tumor. Let me learn what it is my soul is trying to teach me, and let me forgive it, or resolve it, and let it go.” Then spontaneously, I was guided right inside my body and straight into the tumor. When I got access to the memory there, immediately my arrogant, know-it-all, expert, therapist-thinking mind said, “Oh, it can’t be that memory. I know all about that memory. I handled that memory years ago.” I knew it was a memory of childhood violence. “I’ve long since put that one to bed,” said my thinking mind, but my body and my soul were saying, “not really.” And I thought, “Well, what have I got to lose?” I began a process of resolving it, which I had used in the past, and I arrived to that same place of acceptance that I had felt for years. Thinking that nothing was different, I asked the peace, “Am I complete?” and the simple word “no” came, followed by waves of shame and failure. What could I do? I didn’t know where else to turn and I didn’t know any more questions to ask. So again, I surrendered, and out of the stillness, I heard myself give birth to another prayer: “Please, let me be guided to complete, to finish up, please.” And the simple word “forgiveness” came, with a wave of emotion. Then I realized that there’s a quantum leap between acceptance of what’s happened and forgiveness. I had been clinging to blame for 30 years, but at that moment, it was over.

As I got up from the massage table, I felt woozy and began to wobble. I felt disoriented, as though molecules were moving inside, although I can’t say for certain what was happening. All I know is that something felt like it was shifting, and all the other memories of violence from my childhood started pouring out. It felt like a process of emotional and cellular detoxing.

Living Proof that Detox Works

About six and a half weeks later, when I went to Cedars-Sinai, all the tests indicated I was completely tumor free! I didn’t feel that I was the luckiest person alive—I knew I was. And that gratitude was one of the many gifts that my soul had to teach me.

This experience changed my whole approach to therapy. It motivated me to give up my old methods, and work with people at the soul level. And so, I went on another spiritual journey, and I actually did find a means to get direct access to the soul. It is a step-by-step way to pull back the emotional layers and open into a blaze of love, light and stillness, and from that place, clear out the emotional and physical blocks. It means that you can uncover your own essence, or inner diamond, clear out your issues and complete your process of healing. I realized that each and every person is capable of doing this.

Understanding “The Journey”

My work is called “Journeywork” or “The Journey,” and I now teach it throughout the world. It is used by physicians, hospitals and individuals everywhere. I have also developed programs for children called “The Junior Journey.”

My prayer for everyone is that we don’t wait until we get a wake-up call like I did. Please decide that you’re going to go on your journey now—there are tools for that in my book, and I continue to give seminars. It’s not just “Brandon’s story “anymore since tens of thousands of people are using this process worldwide and getting extraordinary results. We all have emotional issues in which we are trapped. I pray that you decide to experience this internal boundless love, joy, and freedom. Ultimately, this is a process for awakening to the extraordinary presence of your own soul. This is my call to action to all of you.

Other Books By Brandon Bays

The Journey for Kids: Liberating Your Child’s Shining Potential (2003) [Editor’s Note: This book is currently unavailable]

Freedom Is: Liberating Your Boundless Potential (2007)

Consciousness: The New Currency (with Kevin Billett; 2009) [Editor’s Note: This book is currently unavailable]

The Journey: A Practical Guide to Healing Your Life and Setting Yourself Free (2012)

Living The Journey: Using The Journey Method to Heal Your Life and Set Yourself Free (2012)

Published on: May 13, 2017

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,