Brent Baum is an important person in my life and a remarkable man. He’s a therapist and a teacher who developed Holographic Memory Resolution (HMR), a method combining meditation, exercise, and emotional reframing techniques to ease the impact of stress and trauma. He defines trauma as “any experience large or small that overwhelms us in our daily existence.” Left unresolved, “trauma dominates and governs the psyche, altering our good intentions to insure survival. Once resolved, however, new pathways open to possibilities.”
He’s worked with thousands of trauma survivors, including people impacted by the physical and emotional devastation wrought by the Oklahoma City Bombing, 9/11, the crash of TWA Flight 800, and Hurricane Katrina. And he doesn’t work just with victims of major catastrophes. According to Brent, “depression, addiction, and abuse all manifest as multidimensional trauma by fragmenting consciousness and creating conflicting messages and intentions within the psyche.” He helps people in all kinds of circumstances “move from survive to thrive.”
I’m one of them.
I met Brent a few years ago when I was beyond overwhelmed. My two children were small, and I was juggling motherhood and marriage with managing my real estate business and household, as well as taking care of my aging mother. On top of that, my father had recently passed away and I never had time to fully grieve. My yoga practice and Reiki work helped to some extent, but I still felt like I was falling apart and I couldn’t let that happen. Too many people depended on me.
I knew I had to do something or I’d have a complete breakdown. On impulse (or maybe it was intuition?), I phoned a travel agent and told him I needed to go somewhere by myself ASAP. He suggested a retreat center and spa called Miraval in Arizona.
It was my first trip alone since before my children were born, so I was nervous but excited.
I arrived with no plan, no treatments scheduled, no idea what to expect. I found myself in a healing session with Brent Baum. Through HMR he helped me learn to access my past experiences and reframe them without reliving traumas that might have been associated with them. Using several HMR techniques, particularly visualizations, he showed me how to work through some painful memories and was able to remove their emotional impact on me. I was fortunate to continue treatment with him for several months, though it meant flying to Chicago from my home in New York.
Brent’s latest book is called Surviving Trauma School Earth: A Practical Guide to Emotional Survival on the Earth Plane (Healing Dimensions). Now you don’t have to travel to Arizona or Chicago to learn his amazing techniques. It’s packed with anecdotes, meditations, visualizations, exercises, and other methods for revealing and healing trauma.
Here are some of my favorite passages:
“Trauma offers a gift by heightening our appreciation of how precious and fragile life really is. It intensifies our focus and realigns our priorities, forcing us to examine our intentions on the deepest level—determining what is really important to us and helping us decide where to commit our energies.”
“One difficult lesson that I had to learn early on was the fact that, as we learn to love and open our hearts and fields to embrace the pain of others, we are capable of taking on this pain and trauma as our own.”
“Our safety is not established by hiding in darkness and withdrawing from life out of fear; it is in shining and radiating unconditional love from the vastness that is inherent to our nature as light.”
“On some unconscious level, we are in touch with a wisdom that knows exactly what we need to heal.”
Understanding and healing the traumas we have all suffered is essential if we are to achieve the balance we all seek. Brent Baum’s book is an excellent way to start.
Rose Caiola
Inspired. Rewired.
