Celebrating 30 years of Alternative Healing Arts
"Release what blocks you from your greatest fulfillment"
Transcript: Joy Interviewed by Gary Goldberg of
"In the Spirit Radio", WRPI
Here is the transcript of my friend and radio host of "In the Spirit" on Thursdays, WRPI...Gary Goldberg and I. We were chatting about my upcoming class. If you've been curious, here is more info about the course I developed-- Energy Diagnostics...Since it begins this Tuesday evening. I thought I would share this, to give you a taste of what this is about! My email is at the end if you feel called to join us. In every class, it’s all about the music for healing. This semester I'm honored to sing and create spontaneous soundscapes with Dan Zavadil, percussionist, Betsy Soares, Singer/ Songwriter, Beth Jochum, Harpist, singer, and sound therapist, Dawn Danis. And our own Elizabeth Woodbury Kasius, musical director of my group, The Souls of Evolution, on piano. I'm excited for what songs will emerge from this!
GARY: I’m so happy to know you, Joy. You’re a star, as far as I’m concerned, in every way. And you light up the world with your brightness. Thank you.
JOY: Thank you so much, Gary. It’s nice to have a place to shine, and its fun to shine in the same sky as you, my brother.
GARY: (Laughs) Oh, thank you, sister.
JOY: We do have fun, don’t we?
GARY: Yeah, we do. We do.
JOY: Aw … (Laughs).
GARY: Joy, I’ve really come to appreciate your immense energy and your talent. And, your ability to organize. It’s just incredible, like, you come here and you are so well organized. I really appreciate it because we get things done. And you’ve got some new things going on I really want to know about. So that’s why you’re here today, and that’s what everybody wants to hear what Joy Adler is doing now.
JOY: Well, what I’m doing now is what I’ve always done, Gary. Just sharing the skills that I have learned over a long period of time, and practiced, and continue to be fascinated by and love. I also enjoy continuing to develop our Energy Diagnostic program. It soothes my "science head”. and creates a nice balance for me between my left and right brain!
GARY: Tell me about Energy Diagnostics.
JOY: Energy Diagnostics is about creating and holding space for peoples’ self healing, because all healing is self healing. So we’re really holding the matrix of possibility, right? I look at myself as kind of a mechanic, an energy mechanic. So it’s like assessing and diagnosing what’s going on in the energy field or the chakra system, how it impacts their body and our alignment with life, with our destiny. We then utilize a variety of advanced methods to assist ourselves and client's to come back into our intended alignment. We tap into several systems to achieve that by using what we know about the physiology as well as the human energy field to track and diagnose, then offer healing skills to bring about a healthier balance.
Over the years I’ve learned a lot of techniques, and I’ve compiled them and written a workbook called “Energy Diagnostics,” which we train from. To date we’ve trained quite a number of people. We have teachers that have come through the teacher training program that I developed from it as well, because I love to mentor. I love to support other people in their leadership and unique gifts. That is one of my passions.
So when we are in class we have students -as well as graduates who are called to teach, so I have the honor of training on two tiers, therefore. My goal is to support them in bringing their unique voice, leadership as teachers forward in the world. Energy Diagnostics is an eight week course.
GARY: Wow, eight week course?
JOY: Yes, we schedule across three months because participants need time and space for the practical skills, the clinical time, as well as allowing the energies from the attunements from these advanced states to elevate, we always start with live music and soundscapes to help people to really get the higher energetic, their highest potential as Spirits in form. And having the course run across several months, gives our participants the time and space to really integrate it, really make the shifts in their energy system, by releasing old patterns that no longer serve them. Then they really move forward, go to that next level, upgrade, remove any obstacles that are in the way to their path; and therefore, their greatest fulfillment. So they feel freer to offer their unique message that they have for humankind. I personally find that so rewarding. I love to watch people fly and love what they’re doing and share it with the world,
GARY: Yes.
JOY: What a gift to see them more happy and fulfilled and … it’s just a great thing. My team and I, we create and hold the space, and teach them how to open to energy completely and fully through every means that I personally have learned. Soul Retrieval, Music and movement, shamanic journeys, attunements, meditation, immune system support energy through advanced healing methods, and create the optimal environment for our participants to open beyond their own set limitations, and we begin this again on Tuesday evening.
We spend time in Energy Diagnostics, is the root system, which I personally teach through Ancestry... Now, many schools of energy will teach about the root, but how many know that the way to do that is through our ancestor’s country of origin? For me I was blessed to learn this through my many training's and experiences with a lot of Native American tribes and indigenous peoples. I had a very difficult time grounding when I first started this path. So I have a real sensitivity for that. For sensitive or artistic people, we feel things so much, that it takes a little extra added knowledge and time to get grounded. For people to encourage us to ground is counter intuitive! It feels so dense here to us. And yet, grounding is so essential, Gary, because if we’re not, we’re giving away our energy rather than channeling it. And that’s what differentiates someone who has the training, who’s a true channel, in energy healing, versus someone who has not. Because, without having fully grounded … they’ll get depleted very, very quickly, and thus burn out. Therefore it’s very important to have that training.
What I share in class regarding our roots is what I had learned from the great Carlos Nakai, who is, of course, one of the world’s greatest flute players. We hear him in many spiritual tracks. In fact he and Peter Kater just put out another tremendous, transformative album this year...and you play his music all the time in the studio.
GARY: Yes! He’s great.
JOY: A lot of our student's and now grads use his music in massage sessions and healing sessions. That’s what someone was saying the other night, “Oh, my gosh. When I read the story that you wrote Joy, about meeting Carlos Nakai and what he taught you, I flashbacked in time at how many people I’ve personally massaged or done healing work on while I was playing his music.” That’s destiny. That’s a man that’s connected. So many have been changed by his beautiful music!
And what I learned from Carlos, when I went back to school for healing with sound to help trauma survivors, I mean, he came in like a mountain to New York City, it was such a powerful experience for externalized, fast-paced New Yorkers. You know how we run so fast in the city. right?
GARY: Yeah, yeah.
JOY: We want things yesterday. We’re buying things today for tomorrow. We have a different, faster vibration. … And this is what I try to convey in our class. That slowing down is essential...for so many reasons. In Energy D. We create the environment by which we claim our roots and this then emanates out, This is why we begin and spend a couple of classes in Energy Diagnostics to connect in with our ancestors … our roots …our own Family Tree. We encourage them to connect back into the earth from the countries from whence they have come. And I think this is also very important because healers, and spiritual people, they have so much developed spiritual energy, and very often it’s at the expense of the roots …For example, spiritual people are often hand to mouth, they're in such survival … money can be an issue, right? Just putting food on the table, basic survival things. And what I learned from Carlos that I began to use myself, after traveling back to my ancestor's homeland, is that it expanded my root, Gary, my connection as a human, on earth … exponentially. It changed my life. So I wanted to incorporate this into Energy Diagnostics.
When I considered my family from Portugal, from Ireland, and then went back to Ireland again to sing to my ancestors, suddenly my root chakra anchored and tethered in a greater way. It helped me feel that I belong, and then I was able to ground more than ever before, and draw up from those roots and unlimited supply of energy! This happened because Carlos encouraged me to go back there, to go back from where my ancestors are from, and root in to get the frequency, you know, the DNA coding from my people. And he painstakingly took the time in that class, three-and-a-half hours, the first day, Gary … to go around the classroom with all these therapists, and insisted that we name where our maternal, and our paternal families came from, so we could honor the ancestors.
He sat there … and I remember at one point about the three-and-a-half hour mark, this woman in class said, very impatiently, “I just need to know when you’re going to start teaching us some Native American songs.” And he said “It’s time, first, to learn about each person here and their families, because their families are with them, and that is where there song will come from.” And he went back to what he was doing. Listening … avidly. And I could feel the impatience mount in the room, you know? And then one gentleman said, “When are you going to teach us some Native Chants? This is BS!”
GARY: Whoa!
JOY: And he actually said that aloud, as well as; the curriculum said that you were going to be teaching us Native American songs for healing people.” And Carlos turned to the director in the room and said, “Let me see that syllabus.” And the director hesitantly handed him the syllabus. Carlos read it, then through the paper to the ground saying; “These are not my words.” And from a very empowered and centered place, almost like he was appealing to us, like he was really trying to show us something, you know, he said; “I can’t teach you my songs … these are my people’s songs. I’m here to help you find your people’s songs, because there’s no power in my people’s songs for you. Your power will come from your people’s songs.” And the moment he said that, about 20 people got up … and walked out. Out of 30-.and I could understand that. I could understand the impatience, do you know? If I hadn’t studied with Native Americans I wouldn’t have known their rhythm is a different, slower, down to earth rhythm, and we wait, respectfully for that which they choose to share...and trust the time is right when they go to share it.
GARY: Wow.
JOY: You know. It was a mass exodus. And it was amazing.
GARY: Did he continue after that?
JOY: Oh yes! He came back the next day. When he arrived- there were ten of us. And what he said was “Okay, there are ten of you here. You’re the ones that I’m meant to teach. Now, let’s say prayers to your ancestors for your medicine songs". And then the class really began. (Laughs)
GARY: That’s powerful.
Joy: Yes! Powerful stuff. He was trying to teach us how to connect in with our very bones, the marrow from which we were built, not to look outside of ourselves. And I was like, “Him …” And I had to get real about … I really had to think. You know, a lot of people don’t know exactly where they’re from. We’re all from different places here.
GARY: Right!
JOY: But he had a very important point. He said, “I’m a cultural anthropologist, musician, and a Native American. My songs have no power for you.” So to discourage people, Gary, to look outside of themselves for something, but instead, to encourage them to drop in, drop down … and connect with themselves, was a mighty teaching. And I listened well that day, and I learned a lot. And then as I said, in the integration of that, when I recognized the changes that it made in me, I said, this great man is really on to something. You know? And he was so true … to himself. And he was teaching us to do the same. And he was not going to let people dis-empower themselves by giving over to what they were demanding. He instead was going to keep encouraging for them to go toward the within … to find their own song.
GARY: Toward the within.
JOY: Exactly....So I use these things that I learned across time, from great teachers that I’ve had the honor to learn from, I write about it in my workbook 'Energy Diagnostics', and we teach from that throughout the course...So I am simply incorporating the many lessons that proved beneficial to me, you know, what has worked, from my own experience as well. Clearly so much of what I have learned and now integrate and teach is ancientness. And that’s why we call it Energy Diagnostics, Advanced Holistic Healing Techniques for Balance in our Busy, Modern World.
We want to discover the keys of life that open the door to your deepest healing, wholeness, optimal health and fulfillment, by reclaiming yourself through your creative nature … and it’s really ancient skills that we draw upon. And we apply them in our busy, modern lives. If we can do that, our lives are going to change. We’re going to slow down. This is just sharing what I have found is very effective, and what has worked for me, and my client's, as I've said.
So …I realize not everyone can physically travel to their homeland, but we create experiences in class to help them reclaim their roots, their art-- through soundscapes, shamanic journeys and high level meditation as I mentioned. We essentially create the play space, the art space for people to rebirth themselves...
GARY: That’s what we want to learn about.
JOY: Yes! I believe, we have stories for each one of the chakras, and I've developed different methods-keys to unlock the doors of the chakras for optimal health, happiness and the fulfillment of our destiny, as I shared. For example, in class after having journeyed to our family tree, we encourage participants to open their seat of creativity yet again. What does that mean? As we feel more grounded, we then focus on the lower lumbar... the pelvic girdle and the pelvis, the sacroiliac joint, the hip flexors, the sacral chakra. This is the place of our personal power, which we birth all of our creations from here. It's all about using our art, getting back to our art, no longer distracting ourselves from our art. To let it heal us. And if we've done a good job as a team to have helped them to be rooted prior to that, our students begin to be in their power and creating on earth yet again. I’ve watched people in class that put down their art 30 years ago … suddenly … pick it up, and go, “Why did I ever stop creating like this?” So it’s all within them.
It’s taking the time and the space to unlock the magic therein … and for people to choose to do it for themselves. (Because all healing is self healing,) and discover how balancing and fulfilling that can be. For me, I enjoy sharing what I love to do, and have the opportunity to integrate all that I am, and enjoy, while watching others’ benefit from it. That’s the best! Creating that field of possibility for participants through music to affect very advanced states of meditation, to help people really expand their muscles and capacity to stay in these higher frequencies, and in these meditative states, for longer and longer periods of time is divine ecstasy. As they open yet again, from where they had been closed, through this process, they’re transmitting it for their beloveds, for their clients. I always say that as we heal, our families heal, to the degree that they are open to that. Gary, my hope, my prayer is that as this healing energy folds out across the world that it may unite humanity and help toward world peace.
GARY: Yes.
JOY: How could it not?
GARY: Yes.
JOY: And it helps heal the earth.
GARY: Yes.
JOY: And again, we’re always using the arts … movement … live instruments voice, chanting, are very important toward that end. And so I’m very excited about the future of the world and seeing so many people awakened and alive, and, through so many various means.
GARY: Mm.
JOY: But this is just what has worked for me, my personal system that I’ve developed over 22 years. So there’s a bit of many things. Some cutting-edge counseling tips that I’ve learned that really work, as well, that are not out of our scope of practice and again, some of that ancient skill and principle that I’ve learned from some very great and mighty people that I’ve been blessed to be with, and Carlos Nakai was certainly one of them. Gary, I'm just excited about where the world is heading, and, hey, we all have our bit that we hold.
GARY: Yes.
JOY: You know … I like to support people opening to theirs. And then, really the fulfillment of helping people share their specialty to make this world a better place...
GARY: Thanks for joining us Joy...
JOY: Thanks for letting me share about my passion for Energy Diagnostics Gary. Folks who may be interested in joining us can contact me at goldenvoice@prodigy.net
Interview/Article with Joy from
Atlantic City Press, 1994
About Joy's Work
Note: These questions were originally part of an interview that Joy did for a holistic medical online magazine,in Turkey, regarding The Barbara Brennan School of Healing, as well as how she utilizes her own specialty in working with clients and students. The interviewer, Gulbin, a Dentist from Turkey, that writes for the chronicle, came to NYC for a recent Brennan Workshop that Joy lead. Here you'll find some questions and answers that may assist you in understanding more about Joy's work with clients.
Gublin: "Joy, can you tell us about the healing process the people experience when they come to you as patients to seek healing and recovery?"
Adler: "I'll actually quote Barbara Brennan here, as I believe she summed it up best when she outlined "The Seven Stages of Healing" in Chapter Seven of her book "Light Emerging, The Journey of Personal Healing," Bantam Books."
"As I watched people through the healing process, I noticed that the process is never a smooth, even curve upward into health. Most of the time, people experienced an immediate internal improvement. Then later patients seemed to regress. At this point, they often questioned the treatment. Many times they thought they were worse off than before they came. Their energy fields clearly indicated that they were indeed better. The imbalances in their energy fields were much less; their organs were functioning better.
Despite their more balanced fields, however, they were experiencing the imbalances they had more acutely. Sometimes they would even have worse pain. What was happening was they were becoming less tolerant of imbalances that at one time felt "normal" to them.
In short, they were in better health. I also noticed that people go through distinct phases during their healing process. These phases are part of the normal human transformation process. Healing requires changes of mind, emotion and spirit, as well as physical change. Each person needs to reevaluate his or her relationship to the issues involved in a personal healing process and set them into a new context.
First people must admit there is a problem and let themselves experience (feel) the problem. They need to come out of denial about the situation. I noticed that each time a person experienced "getting worse," he or she was coming out of denial and into consciousness about another aspect of the problem. Many times patients thought they were angry because they were getting worse. Actually, they were angry that there was more to deal with.
Most patients would then search for a way to make it easier; they wanted an easy out. Many would say things like, "I've done enough work on it" or "oh no, not that again." Finally, if the person decided to go deeper, there would be the willingness to go the next round, expressed in statements like "Well, okay, let's go for it."
Healing, like therapy, is a cyclical process that carries a person on a spiral of learning. Each cycle requires more self-acceptance and more change as one goes down deeper and deeper into the true, clear nature of the real self. How far and deep each of us goes is entirely our own free choice. How each of us takes the spiral journey and what road map we use is also a free will choice. Rightly so, for each path is different.
All disease requires change within the patient to facilitate healing, and all change requires the giving up, surrender, or death of a part of the patient--whether it be a habit, job, lifestyle, belief system, or physical organ. Thus you as a patient/self/healer will experience the five stages of death and dying that Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross describes in her book "On Death and Dying".
They are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. You will also go through two more stages: rebirth and creation of a new life. They are a natural part of the healing process. It is of utmost importance for the healer to accept whatever stage the patient is in and not to try to pull them out of it. Yes the healer may need to lead them out of it because of a physical danger that may be involved. But it must be a gentle leading.”
On Healing
Gublin: In light of your education and career, how do you evaluate a client?
Adler: "First of all, I have profound empathy and understanding of how trauma, or adverse experiences deeply imbalances and impacts a person's mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual beingness. This has become a specialty for me in my practices in Albany NY, and Manhattan. I have deep sympathy for clients who have suffered emotional duress, trauma, or abuse, that ultimately blocks them from what they long to create.
When a person first comes to see me, I work to develop a healing plan or strategy to assist them in the emotional release of these circumstances that get held in ones physiology that eventually cause physical pain, fears, anxiety, energy depletion, depression and stress related illnesses. I base this on their history, medical intake, and conversations with my client regarding their life experience, and encourage them to “feel” where they are holding that in the body.
At times it is clearing trauma from an accident, childhood stress or a physically related stress. Many times, it stems from a feeling of “emptiness” or unfulfillment in their lives. And the healing journey becomes releasing ‘held down essence” and journeying to discover why a person will not “give themselves what they long for”, and all the accompanying images held in the body, soul and psyche around that.
Once we address what has been held down in the cells from past traumas, and begin connecting to that, and then clearing it in their healing sessions; physical wellness, emotional, spiritual and psychological balance is often restored! Many illnesses that a client may have developed due to emotional trauma, dis-ease are healed, ( brought into balance, by facing them, feeling them, clearing the old energies held there) and the client experiences a newfound state of health, balance and wellness. This frees them to enjoy their lives!
The energies that pour forth, that had been stored in the body also help to release previously depressed creative energies that begin to assist a client in healing on all levels including renewed energy for self-care, or redefining their lives, their priorities. (I think this coincides with the 6th and 7th stage of healing that I quoted from Barbara earlier). Sometimes a person realizes they aren’t living the life they dreamed of at all. And a client may make huge shifts, including career changes, relational changes, geographical changes etc. For me, it is very fulfilling indeed to watch someone really risk creating the life they want, by clearing all the reasons why they don’t, and going for it!
I find this to be an extremely rewarding career, particularly knowing that my life and path were not in vain, and I am most thankful to my own, at times, adverse early childhood experiences that prepared me for this career. In other words, I am who I am because of those early childhood experiences, and being able to assist others and help show them the way to balance is a wonderfully fulfilling path indeed!
I feel grateful to my mother, a healer in her own right, whose family was from Portugal. She didn't have the training that I received, she was "old school" so to speak, and gave and gave, so she burned out her body from over care taking...I learned a lot from her about the need to "balance" for the healer, so it’s no surprise that I continually seek that balance for myself and I also teach that to professional therapists, physicians and caretaker's of all sorts. So again, I am who I am because of what I experienced in life, and I'm so grateful for the parents I had and what I learned from them. As you can read, this has shaped my healing and teaching practice.
To be more clear, once we glean through our own healing process, the gifts from our own wounds, we realize our specialty. Naturally people, our clients or students that have a similar path, experience or wound are drawn to those that have forged a path before them. I liken being a healer to clearing the path to fulfillment by continually working to clear all of our blockages, fears, pain, that we may have personal freedom. Then we turn and reach our hands out to others...and help them out of theirs, knowing from our own healing process, how this is done. Remember, “we can only take a client to the places that we ourselves have traveled.”
Gublin: What can you say about protecting and taking care of health as a whole and about the origins of illnesses and disturbances?
Adler: "I believe that all illness, all imbalances are a gift to us, a "red-flag system" if you will, that sends a message to us, about the need to balance something, or some aspect of our lives. Or to acknowledge an area where we have “held something from the past,” in order to come to terms with, finally feel and release it, or get refocused on self some aspect of our lives. Healers assist a client to “get the gift” from this internal “red -flag system.” This is a positive spin on what can at times be a frightening time. Healers are trained to assist a client or patient to find the message or “gift” that any circumstance is teaching them.
In our training at The Barbara Brennan School of Healing, we learn how to bring that awareness to the client or patient, from our knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the human energy field, chakra system and how it correlates to illness and dis-ease. As well as how that affects every aspect of the client's life. Healers are particularly adept at assisting the client to bring balance to areas that they were formerly in denial about, and thus will need to choose (as mentioned above) or surrender something that is taking them out of balance, affecting their health or sense of wholeness. (Again, as Barbara describes in the aforementioned excerpt from her book, “Light Emerging.”
We as healers, then assist in restoring balance and wholeness in the healing session as we were trained to do, via the healing techniques we learn in our education at BBSH, as well as the courage to “feel our feelings“ from our own deep process and therapy.
The healing session may be two-fold, The restorative healing treatment, coupled with suggestions to the client to make shifts that would benefit that balance in their lives, (that they are ready to hear), that will help them to hold the healing work, and for wholeness. This creates a partnership with the client, as a support and as part of their healing team which at times interfaces with their physician, chiropractor etc.
But remember, all healing is "self-healing", the client will receive the healing to the degree that they can surrender and open to the healing energies that the healer channels to them in the session. The energy goes where the client allows it to. This is very empowering and important for a client to learn. That way we humbly remind the client they are in charge, they have free will as discussed in Barbara's books, they make the choice to heal. Prior to that knowledge, they may have felt like they had "no power" or were a victim of circumstance or their body betraying them."
Gublin: Your school is one of the most famous, well-known and appreciated schools in the world. What is your anticipation about the role and function of healing and dedicated schools and organizations on healing they will lead all over the world in future ?
Adler: "In truth, it goes back to the answer for the first question, the better trained healers are, in healing themselves, discovering their own specialties, and bringing them home to their communities, cities, towns...etc...the more people are educated about the new paradigm of healing. Which is as Barbara refers to it, "Full Spectrum Healing," treating the whole person. Therefore, the healers that have good training, will assist in educating the world that we are in partnership for the better balance and health of a patient.
Full Spectrum Healing refers to the need of a patient to have a team for good health. Their medical doctor, nutritionist, acupuncturist, dentist, their psychologist, and their healer for example. Together they create a marvelous team that assists a patient with remembering who they are body, mind, emotions and spirit. This affects all levels of a human being. In a more full, whole manner. In that way, every aspect of human kind is held, supported and acknowledged, that from my perspective of what Barbara teaches, creates full spectrum healing, or “holographic healing, “ as outlined in her groundbreaking book “Hands of Light“. And of course this helps to heal the world, one person, one family, one community at a time. This folds out into "The lake of life"...it has a ripple effect and helps vibrationally lift the consciousness of all..."
Gublin: Thank you Joy, and thank you for your beautiful loving and spiritual work.