About |
The Option Institute is a not-for-profit educational organization founded in 1983 by best-selling author (Happiness Is A Choice) Barry Neil Kaufman and Samahria Lyte Kaufman.
The Option Institute was founded in 1983 by Barry (Bears) Neil Kaufman and Samahria Lyte Kaufman, who continue to actively teach in Institute programs.
The Kaufmans are the authors of 12 books on The Option Process® and The Son-Rise Program® including Happiness Is A Choice, Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues, To Love Is To Be Happy With and PowerDialoguesSM. There are over three million copies of their books in print, in 22 languages, in over 65 countries.
Bears and Samahria started teaching The Option Process in 1972 and 11 years later established The Option Institute, which has grown to a 100-acre campus with a full-time staff of over 80 dedicated individuals, offering programs to thousands of adults and more than 20,000 families of children with special needs.
Below are some key principles of the Option Process.
• Happiness is a choice
Though many of us speak as if our emotions happen to us, we believe that they are responses we choose in an effort to take care of ourselves. Misery, fear, anger, distress, anxiety, and discomfort are optional, not inevitable. We can show you how to meet crises and challenges with comfort and ease – and to create personal happiness in a sustainable way.
• You have your own answers
Oftentimes, we look for our answers from experts, institutions, the media, and the people around us – everyone but ourselves. We believe that you possess all of your own answers to the personal issues that mark your life. We can teach you to access and rely upon your own internal insight.
• Everything we feel, say, and do has a chosen belief which fuels it
We filter all our experiences through our beliefs and mindsets (about ourselves, others, and events around us). These beliefs, in turn, determine how we feel and what we do. Most importantly, people’s beliefs are changeable. We can help you to examine and then re-choose beliefs which fuel comfort, happiness, and the inner strength to overcome life’s challenges..
• Being non-judgmental is powerful, not passive
Most of us see making judgments (“that’s terrible,” “he’s mean”) as crucial to our moral compass and our ability to take decisive action. However, we see judgments as leading to discomfort, anger, clouded perceptions, and muddled decision-making. That’s why we help you to drop judgments, thus increasing your focus, decisiveness, and ability to handle crises.
• Self-criticism and self-doubt may be “normal” (as in “usual”) but they aren’t “natural” (as in “a necessary part of the human condition”).
You are not condemned to live the rest of your life thinking that you are not good enough, that something is wrong with you, that you are not whole, that you are not okay as you are. These are learned beliefs, and we can teach you different, more self-supportive ones. Why? Because we don’t believe that anything is wrong with you, and we do believe that you are okay just the way you are.
• We aren’t the victims we’re taught to be.
At every turn, most of us are treated as though we are victims – of our genes, or our upbringing, or our subconscious, of outside events. We have specific self-empowering strategies to enable you to capitalize on your own ultimate capability to be in the driver’s seat in every circumstance.
• Authenticity, not people-pleasing, builds close relationships and safety
Throughout our lives, we are taught to say what people want to hear, to mask our true selves, to focus on who others think we should be rather than being who we sincerely are. Most of us see this as safe – and crucial to maintaining our relationships. We see personal authenticity and honesty as the key to feeling safe (because you don’t have to live in fear of being “found out”) and creating close, meaningful relationships (because each person can know and love the other for who they really are).
• Changing the way you see things changes everything
Most of us think that events in our lives are inherently good or bad, and we can only hope for more good than bad. We give you tools to change your point of view about life events. We have seen, over and over again, that learning to change your perspective on external occurrences changes your entire internal experience – which then changes how you deal with external occurrences.
• We do not teach “the truth”
We do not teach “the truth.” We do not teach “the right way to live.” What we do teach are practical tools, principles, strategies, and perspectives for being overcoming life’s challenges and sustaining personal happiness.