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Element
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
The website address is: www.thorsonselement.com
-s©ate; Gein”
and Element are trademarks of
HarperCollinsPublishers Limited
Published by Element 2003
1355 7 91078642
© Brandon Bays 2003
Brandon Bays asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
Illustrations by David Wyatt
A catalogue record of this book
is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 00 715526 3
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Martins the Printers Limited, Berwick upon Tweed
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publishers.
Contents
Introduction V
PART ONE — INSPIRING KIDS’ STORIES
1 DiscoverinOgur Shining Potential 3
2 The Journey in Schools 17
3 Partnering Your Child 29
4 Working with Health Concerns 45
5 Issues of Death and Loss 75
6 Using The Journey in Everyday Life 5
7 The Immense Power of Forgiveness 117
8 Divorce and Relationship Issues 129
9 Empowering Internal Resources 145
10 And the Greatest of These is Love ... 157.
PART TWO — A HEALING ADVENTURE FOR KIDS
11 A Healing Adventure for Kids: Instructions 165
12 A Healing Adventure for Kids 171
PART THREE — THE KIDS’ JOURNEY PROCESS FOR
EIGHT TO TWELVE YEAR OLDS
13 The Kids’ Journey: Instructions 207
14 The Kids’ Journey Process 5
15 Working with Teenagers 231
Gratitude 235
Author’s Note 241
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Introduction (
This is a book about liberation — about freeing the boundless
potential that is shining inside each and every human heart.
Deep inside all of us is a boundless joy, a potential for true genius,
an infinite love, a wellspring of creativity. It’s waiting there, beck-
oning, calling you right now, inviting you to discover your own
magnificence, urging you to plummet the depths of the wisdom
within to discover a vast potential that is capable of creating any-
thing.
Each of our children is born as this radiant presence, as this bound-
less potential. Unfortunately, through the course of life’s pains and
trials, their innate radiance may seem to get covered over — with
layers of unresolved hurt, moments of failure, emotional shut-
downs. It’s as if we come in as a brilliant, shining light and some-
how life conspires to put a lampshade over it, obscuring it. In time
we start to identify with all the layers, forgetting that there ever was
a greatness within.
In this book you'll learn very real and practical ways to take that
lampshade off. You'll learn simple but powerful tools for liberating
that shining magnificence.
vi The Journey for Kids
This book is full of joy, full of inspiring stories that will speak directly
to your own deepest knowing. It is full of real-life accounts of every-
day children who have gone on Journeys, freed themselves and
taken the lid off their creativity. As we travel with them, we learn
how they've healed their bodies and we share their love of life as
they peel away the layers and unearth their own genius. We feel
the poignancy of their easy ability to forgive that which might seem
to be impossible to forgive and, through their Journeys, we see our-
selves, and we are liberated.
The truth of the children’s wisdom, the health and vitality they
experience and the simplicity of their awakening serve as a model
of possibility to us all, inspiring us and giving us the courage to
begin our own Journeys.
This book is also chock-full of practical tools, simple step-by-step
process work, everyday wisdom and user-friendly skills, written in
what | hope is a down-to-earth style that will encourage you to
begin working/playing easily and effectively with your children,
starting now.
It is my deepest prayer that, as parents and guardians of these
beautiful souls, we truly learn to partner our children in their spir-
itual and healing Journeys. | pray that we recognize that our chil-
dren are, in fact, already free, whole and full of shining potential.
Introduction — vii
All that we are doing as partners is helping them to clear away the
veils that have obscured that potential, liberating their true selves.
We are helping them take the lampshades off their a/ready shining
lights.
Currently, the Kids’ Journey is being used all over the world by
schoolteachers, school counsellors and children’s therapists. It is
being used in addiction treatment centres, by abuse groups, chil-
dren’s support organizations and social services organizations. It
has been adopted and used by priests, nuns, ministers, rabbis,
monks, pastors and swamis from a wide range of spiritual tradi-
tions. Most of all, it is being used by everyday mums, dads, aunts,
uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers from all walks of life — peo-
ple like you and me.
Because there are literally thousands of inspiring kids’ stories to
choose from, | have included those that deal with everyday issues
— the questions and challenges that beset normal children from all
cultures. Each story provides us with a lesson on how to address
those issues, and specific tools and process work that are designed
to liberate and heal the issue. So it’s the children themselves who
are actually providing us with the teaching we need to lovingly
partner them in their healing and growth. I’ve changed almost all
the names, as | feel children deserve the same respect and privacy
that we, as adults, feel we need. In some cases I’ve expanded on
viii ©T he Journey for Kids
the process work to give a fuller explanation and understanding of
how it works, but in all cases the actual issues and their moving
and extraordinary results are intact, chronicling the children’s tri-
umph, awakening and healing.
To make the work easier and more user-friendly, I’ve organized the
book into three main sections:
1. The first section is an introduction to the work. It includes the
children’s stories, their issues and how they resolved them, ulti-
mately teaching us how to liberate our own shining potential.
2. The second section focuses primarily on our little ones — five to
seven year olds. It includes in-depth instructions and then a
specially designed therapeutic fairytale-like story that works at
a subliminal level with the youngsters. It is like a spiritual
adventure and can be read as a bedtime story. Kids love it! Even
if you intend working only with older children, | strongly rec-
ommend you read this section in full, as it contains many of the
teachings on which the older kids’ work is predicated.
3. Section three is primarily for working with older kids — eight to
twelve year olds — and also has some instructions for working
with teenagers. It includes the actual Kids’ Journey process
together with in-depth instructions.
Finally, if your children inspire you to go on your own Journey,
which undoubtedly they will, | recommend you read the original
