Hands of Life

Julie Motz takes us on an extraordinary journey into a revolutionary form of healing. Five months after she began treating patients recuperating from open-heart surgery, she became a pioneer, crossing into uncharted territory--the first alternative healer to work on a surgical patient whose dying heart was being replaced with a new one. Inside that operating room, her own experience of healing would be completely transformed and redefined.... This remarkable book chronicles Julie Motz's uncommon mission to bring alternative methods of healing to the country's most prestigious hospitals. Invited by a young heart surgeon, she began working with patients undergoing radical lifesaving procedures. As she sensed the traumas and unresolved emotions that contributed to their suffering, she helped them release fear and anger, to begin healing both body and soul. This breakthrough form of healing draws on Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine, treating the body and spirit as an interconnected whole. Julie Motz shows how strong emotion affects our bodies, creating energy imbalances that can lead to illness if unaddressed. And as she offers her deep compassion to the people under her care, she shows us how to care for ourselves as well: with patience and love, without judgment. She teaches us the role of the systems of our bodies in processing emotion, and how we can detoxify anger and fear, whether past or present. And she makes a persuasive case for allowing feeling into the sterile world of the O.R. Hands of Life offers a stunning new view of the synthesis of high-tech medicine and ancient healing wisdom, presenting powerful evidence of the role of the spirit in matters of life and death. It is a book that urges us all to find deeper understanding of our bodies and enter the mysteries of our flesh with curiosity and wonder instead of passivity and fear.