Culture, family history and healing from emotional trauma are the center of the lives of the Garcia family. Joshua Garcia is an alumnus from Utah and his wife, Hailala Garcia, is a junior from Kahuku majoring in hospitality and tourism management. After Joshua Garcia graduated from BYU–Hawaii in 2012 with a degree in university studies and exercise and sports science, he said their family felt prompted to move back to Laie after living in Utah. Shortly after returning, the couple started their projects Remember and Remove My Baggage to help people preserve culture and deal with emotional trauma.
Remember
Remember is a multicultural non-profit group comprised of individuals all over the world, according to their Facebook page. The Remember Cultural Exchange Program brings workshops to communities in the Pacific to help them continue their education, remember their culture and ancestors, and increase peacebuilding.
According to Joshua Garcia, the purpose of Remember is to celebrate the past and present by sharing stories. He said, “We can honor the past by preserving and nurturing culture, being aware of where you're from. That’s family history.”
Heilala Garcia explained, “We’ve been able to mingle and connect with all these different people from all over the world. We think, ‘Wow. You have an amazing story. That needs to be shared.’ You could pick two people on campus and they would definitely have some kind of amazing story about their life that will just blow you away.
“Remember is allowing us to remember their stories, remembering the people who came before them, and preparing those who will come after. There’s no point in sharing stories if the people who come after you can’t hear it.” The idea for Remember, according to Joshua Garcia, came from their experiences doing different dances with people from around the world. “One of the groups we were with focused on dances, firesides, and promoting higher education. It’s similar, but this has more workshops and interactions.
“We have learned from and danced with a lot of people. We want to do a similar project here where we find people who have stories of overcoming struggle … Stories of faith and perseverance.”
He described Laie as the perfect place to base his project. “We need to really think, ‘How can we spread the gospel? How can we impact the world?’ Being here, I realized instead of going out to different countries and going into the world, being here in shining light, you're preparing to spread light into the world.”
Remember featured Yanique Hadley, a senior from Fiji majoring in hospitality and tourism management. She said she became involved after her then coworker, Heilala Garcia, mentioned it to her. “It’s really good because it will help students around the community. I remember her mentioning [students] don’t take advantage of the school, the programs and the education. This helps people around here know this helps students from the islands and lets them know they should come and take advantage of the resources at this school.”
Remove My Baggage
Joshua Garcia said they found out about processing emotional trauma when they met a student using alternative medicine to help process her emotional baggage. They worked with her in dealing with emotional trauma and had desirable results. The couple then decided to learn how to use alternative medicine.
“Since then, we’ve helped people all over,” Joshua Garcia said. “We’ve worked with people in the Dominican Republic and in Europe. My wife has even helped people in Afghanistan process their emotional baggage.” The couple connects with people via social media.
While she initially didn’t believe in the program, Heilala Garcia said, “The only reason I became a believer was when we did some work on my son and I saw an immediate change.
“I had noticed he was starting to withdraw from people. He was really quiet, crying a lot, and shy. This was not my son. We did some work on him, and after the first two sessions, he was back to his crazy, bubbly, talkative self.”
As they started Remove My Baggage, Joshua Garcia said they started working with people and the word spread. “We would get emails, texts and phone calls saying, ‘Can you help one of my friends?’ We would say, ‘Sure,’ because it doesn’t take very long, maybe 20 minutes or a half hour.”
How it works
According to Joshua Garcia, Remove My Baggage works the process of applied kinesiology, otherwise known as muscle testing. Emotions are named and they can identify which emotion a person is subconsciously feeling by the way their body reacts.
When they name an emotion and the person is feeling it, their body will feel strong, but if they name an emotion and they do not feel it, their body will be weak. After they identify the emotion, they will work to help the person release the emotion through their inner energy.
Heilala Garcia said, “It’s helped me too. I’ve had a lot of trauma in my life. One of the reasons I was able to come back to school is I’m mentally in a better place than before.”
Joshua Garcia said they wish more people knew about the resources available through Remove My Baggage. “We all go through hard stuff. Sometimes it’s loneliness, sadness, depression or anxiety. There are different things we can do to work through them.
“One of the things a lot of people say is they feel lighter after we work with them. Sometimes we carry burdens and we don’t even realize. As we work through it, you’re able to have more freedom and do more. You don’t have this heavy load or burden you’re carrying. It’s awesome.”
Testimonials from their website echo this sentiment. Andrea V. from Utah, said, “When I graduated from grad school, I became very sick and unhappy. I developed an infection and sensitivity in my eye that caused me to spend lots of money with doctors. None of the doctors could figure out what I had. I wasted almost all of my savings on going to doctors until one day I was introduced by a friend to a muscle testing.
“I didn’t understand it logically at that point, but I knew I needed it. So, I emailed Heilala and she was super quick to respond and she helped me release my heart wall, a barrier formed by your mind containing trapped emotions. My eye sensitivity is almost completely gone now. I am much happier in my life. My infection is completely gone.”
Writer: Haeley van der Werf