Hands of Life opens with “energy healer” Julie Motz trying to observe heart surgery. She is so overcome by the opened chest and blood that she runs out and collapses on a gurney. From this inauspicious beginning, Motz learns to work with heart-transplant and breast-cancer patients during surgery, as well as before and after. She feels the patient’s energy and emotions, senses images of childhood pains, and helps to direct energy toward healing.