By now the room was full of laughter, but as I watched I realized that for many of these kids this was the very first time anyone had actually uttered those words to them, and many were quietly and secretly moved as they deeply drank in the words.
When the assembly was over, a rush of 800 kids wanting hugs and autographs came flooding. I was swamped from all sides! A huge hugging fest went on for about an hour and a quarter, with all our Journey staff joining in, signing autographs and receiving hugs. Sometimes the individual queues were over 200 children long, all politely waiting their turn. Each one wanted a special message whispered into their ear and then they’d run to the corners of the room to share what had been said with all their classmates. It was a pure celebration of joy.
Eventually the headmistress, who had been more than patient, insisted that everyone go back to their respective classrooms. For a moment it seemed as if we were resting in a soft lull, but then, quietly and secretly, one by one, the teachers came sneaking out of their classrooms, offering their gratitude and giving huge warm hugs. Then the headmistress put her foot down once and for all, and teachers and students alike returned to their classrooms.
Finally I was allowed to meet privately with the class of children who had been using Journeywork regularly over the past year. I was already aware that their teacher, Jayshree Mannie, and two other teachers had done a year of case studies, dividing the kids into three groups: one group received no Journeywork; one group only occasional Journeywork and one group received Journeywork every Friday afternoon. At the end of the year they tallied the results – and the statistics were extraordinary! The students who got no Journeywork averaged a 67 per cent pass rate. Those who received only occasional Journeywork averaged a 76 per cent pass rate. Those who did Journeywork every week averaged a whopping 91 to 93 per cent!
I was curious to find out what had taken place with the children personally, not just academically, so I sat with them and asked what they had discovered inside themselves. One child said that she’d found love inside and that she was nicer to her brothers and sisters, another said he’d found courage and understanding and that his grades had improved. Another said she could actually see the ‘love-light’, as she called it, in other kids. When she said this I asked them all, ‘Now that you’ve uncovered this love, this light inside, will you promise to help the other kids take the lampshades off their lights? Will you help them discover their courage, their understanding, their fun, their wisdom?’ Everyone promised wholeheartedly to become a torch to help light the other kids’ lamps.
I had already received several beautiful letters from the parents of this class about how their children were much more open, loving and socially well-adjusted, and kinder to their siblings; and they were thrilled with the academic results. I also received dozens of letters from the kids, but it was somehow more meaningful to hear it from the kids first hand and to see it shining in their eyes.
Here are a couple of parents’ letters I received, which I thought you might find inspiring:
My son was underachieving at school and was not performing well in his karate class. I had attended a Journey workshop and saw the merits of The Journey and tried this on Winston myself. However, I think that being his mother did not help too much, so I took him to Jayshree for a Journey session which lasted 35 minutes.
Two days later he was fine. He excelled at his karate championship and won a medal! Better still, I received a concerned call from the school and I frantically rushed there. The teachers said that they were baffled by Winston’s results … They had marked and remarked and remarked his scripts because his marks had improved by 65 per cent, and he was now topping the class! Before he was at the bottom end! They could not understand this and neither would I explain! I felt that it was a private issue and preferred not to say any more!
Winston is Head Boy now and we are all proud. I am doing Journeywork privately and can honestly swear by its success!
We had been beset with tragedies in our family, losing six members to cancer. Our daughter Tanya was suffering as we had just lost another favourite aunt. She was doing badly at school, was not sleeping well, had nightmares and was not eating properly. My sister told me about the Journey as she had brought her kids along. I saw the difference in her kids and decided to give it a shot.
One session later and Tanya was changed! Her chronic earache was gone! She was eating and putting on weight nicely and was sleeping well. Her grades were coming along nicely too. She did discuss that her fear of death was so strong that she had decided that it was not safe to enjoy life as we all would die soon anyway. And all this was because of the tragedies. She internalized this fear and literally stopped living!
Thanks to The Journey, she is a normal happy kid again!
Jayshree Mannie is continuing to take Journeywork to children all over South Africa, only now she is reaching into ghettos, working with social programmes like Life Line, molestation groups and abuse centres, and she’s teaching other schoolteachers, so that they can reach out to children to help them all liberate their shining potential.
We are all kids. Our bodies and our beings so want us to heal. When we take but one step towards Grace, it takes a thousand steps towards us.
For us to work with children, the work must first start with us. We must see our children as already whole, free, inherently wise and beautiful. Then, when we partner them in their personal and spiritual Journeys, all that we are really doing is helping to lift off the layers of imposed limitations – the lies, the hurt, the emotional blocks that obscure their natural potential. That potential is already here, already free – all that we are doing is liberating it, allowing it to be expressed wholesomely and joyously.
So often parents come to me and say that they really don’t know how to ‘get through’ to their kids; they seem so emotionally inexpressive. Isn’t it true? When your child comes home from school and you ask, ‘So how was school today?’ what does your child inevitably answer? Usually it’s ‘OK’ or ‘Fine’, nothing more, nothing less. No one gave these kids (or any of us for that matter) the manual ‘How to Feel and Express your Emotions’, and so generally the most common response from kids of all ages is a shrugging of the shoulders and a one-word reply that doesn’t tell us anything. Have you ever found yourself quietly frustrated because you’re not even sure which questions to ask anymore? And have you ever had the sense that something more might be going on, but you can’t quite put your finger on it? I’m sure that every parent out there has experienced this frustration.
My husband Kevin and I had first-hand experience of this a few years ago. Kevin’s son Mark is a beautiful, angelic, highly intelligent 11 year old. He’s always been bright, quick to fall in with his peers, compassionate to younger kids and socially well-adjusted. He’s well-liked by teachers and pupils alike, and always brings home stellar school reports. When he was eight years old, we began to notice that when we brought up the subject of theme parks, his response was always lacklustre. As he was not an overly emotive child, his response wasn’t terribly concerning, but nonetheless, when you suggest going to Disneyland or Universal Studios to kids you can usually expect an excited or effusive response. Mark’s was almost always one of indifference. It seemed odd, but how do you penetrate that kind of malaise? We never knew what was behind his quietness until Mark attended the Junior Journey for the first time and underwent his first Kids’ Journey.
The Junior Journey is a fun-filled empowering programme for children aged eight to eleven. The one-day workshop is jam-packed with confidence- and self-esteem building exercises, and each child receives a private Kids’ Journey with a Journey Accredited Therapist (we have one therapist there for every two kids). They have guided ‘Sleeping Elephant’ meditation, they paint ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of their Journeywork, and they have a real-life