Welcome to The Option Institute Reading Library
On this page you will find links to books by best-selling author, Barry Neil Kaufman.
Happiness Is A Choice
Happiness Is A ChoiceHappiness Is A Choice represents the cutting edge of Barry Neil Kaufman’s evolving teaching, focusing on empowering our moment of change, the moment in which we can make self-acceptance, inner peace, joy, and love immediately tangible with these easy-to-use tools. Bears (Barry) Neil Kaufman offers a gentle, yet powerful, way to jump through a lengthy “process” of change right into action.
This book takes us step by step on a journey to increase personal power, sharing the same techniques that participants use at The Option Institute. In his work over the years, Bears has observed that people who are most successful in finding happiness share certain traits. He has used these traits to create, in this book six Shortcuts To Happiness that you can begin using immediately.
Happiness Is A Choice is filled with moving and inspiring examples of people taking roadways you too could follow – mapped by those who have chosen happiness, peace of mind, and love as a way of life. Many of these people used the tools presented in this book to heal troubled relationships, to revitalize stagnant careers, to deal with sickness or stress, or to infuse new vigor into their lives.
This book will change your life. A book to cherish and to share…a book that will ignite the healing process.
Chapter Segments
The Way We Look at Life Determines Our Experience
We Are Belief-Making and Belief-Consuming Creatures
Reader’s Letters
Happiness Is A Choice: The Little Book That Could
“It all started with a little book that could. I have been given this book titled HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE a few weeks ago. I looked at the title and thought to myself: “really…tell me something I don’t know” (I also made this weird gesture with my mouth which I made when in serious doubt). This is how my wonderful journey with my own happiness and The Option Institute began. With that doubtful gesture and that little book that could.
Already after a few pages I fell in Love, yes, Love at first sight exists! Each and every page made so much sense to me it was as if the words were written just for me. I felt special, loved and accepted to such a point that when I finished the book I knew that my journey had only begun. I immediately signed up for the Calm Amid Chaos seminar and the next day was on a train towards The Option Institute and towards my biggest decision making yet.
In the week I was there, I met and loved beautiful people from all colors of the rainbow. I allowed myself to let go of old believes (the knife is gone!!!), I allowed myself to cry, smile, laugh. I was a student, student of life. I witnessed firsthand that unconditional love really exists – if I choose to see that it exists. The most important thing I took with me home are my new grid goggles. When I choose to put them on, I see love, I see peace, I see my life with so much happiness. Come whatever may, I know it will be great – it is great!!!!!
I want to give thanks, to that little book that could, to the author (Bears – Barry Neil Kaufman) who’s smile and words are just a gift to the universe, to the most wonderful teachers who care in the most honest manner, to my personal rainbow of people who enriched my life and to myself for always choosing the right path for me!”
~Keren Rosenboim, New Jersey
“Dear Bears,
I am sure you get to hear the words ‘thank you’ quite often. Well, this is one to add to your wall of positive, happy, loving thank you’s!
I was given Happiness Is A Choice for my high school graduation back in 2002. I didn’t open it up until a few years later, when I was at my unhappiest. Your book became my… bible. It helped me survive Crown Heights Brooklyn, several deaths, break-ups, melt downs, etc. In effect it saved my life. It became my belief maker. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
We are all truly blessed in this amazing world.”
~Celeste Roeller
“Hi Bears, I just wanted to drop by your wall and let you know how grateful I am for your book ‘Happiness is a choice’. I am reading it every night last thing and stopping everytime that I find a golden nugget to meditate on. I rarely read more than a page before I stop as each page has something thought provoking and helpful to say whether my day has been challenging or smooth. Thank you so much for this little but wonderful book, it is such a blessing for me. Love always Alison ♥”
~Alison Sharpe Taylor
Giant Steps
Giant StepsHere are the stories of young people at critical turning points in their lives. Here also is the story of the man who neither judges them nor censures them, but simply accepts them and, ultimately, helps them to make their own choices.
Children are born from us; they are not owned by us. They are not possessions. The fact that they are little does not mean they are less. They are free spirits for us to love and enjoy. For all of us, children can be a beautiful experience … doorways into our own humanity.
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To Love Is To Be Happy With
To Love Is To Be Happy WithThis best-selling book, which details the principles and applications of The Option Process, has become an indispensable personal manual for hundreds of thousands of people who want a more loving and life-affirming basis by which to guide their lives. It has also become a teaching text, along with Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues and A Miracle to Believe In, in over 250 universities.
The Option Process is a very simple, beautiful, accepting, and non-judgmental dialogue method and attitude. Through the fascinating and intimate stories of the author and those with whom he shares theOption Philosophy, we read the awe-inspiring stories of people who come to trust themselves and experience themselves as their own best experts.
In each chapter, Barry Neil Kaufman shows us how to apply those very same principles in our everyday lives dealing frankly with love relationships, guilt, self-trust, children, questions of health, sex, and money.
The Option Process, based on the attitude that to love is to be happy with, is an extraordinary way to discard self-defeating beliefs and to clarify doubts that have for years inhibited our personal and professional success.
“I read your books when they first came out, and I believe they have shaped parts of my life forever. I am healed and strengthened by the concept of ” To Love is to be happy with.” Thank you. “
~Victoria Thurmond
Chapter Segments
| Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 |
| Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 |
| Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 |
Power Dialogues
Power DialoguesMany of us travel through our lives learning about many different philosophical, psychological, religious and spiritual paths in order to create a sense of clarity, comfort and understanding about our lives and the world around us. Some call this the search for knowledge. Some view such pursuits as the inevitable outcome of the human preoccupation with sanity and justice. Others believe we all really search for God. No matter what the rationale, we have a yearning for connection, communion and inner peace. Oftentimes, our sincere efforts, molded by the modern fad of going from discipline to discipline, keeping our options open, never quite committing, leave us empty-handed. There can be many roads to heaven, many avenues to clarity, many routes to peace of mind and many byways to love. However, we must travel far enough on one of those paths to reach such destinations. We believe the path outlined in this book is one of those paths that really delivers.
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No Regrets
Winner of the Independent Publisher Book Award. No Regrets is an intimate memoir of an extraordinary reconciliation between a father and son. This remarkable true story explores the fear that can rip families to shreds, as well as the courage and love that can bring them back together exemplifying the Option Process® in action.
Kaufman and his father had a rift between them the size of the Great Divide. Kaufman’s father, Abe, considered him the black sheep of the family and rejected his son’s philosophy and teachings. When Abe called saying he had twenty-seven malignant tumors in his abdomen and groin, Kaufman responded with excitement, “Sounds like you’re about to have one of the great adventures of your life, Pop!” There was silence at the other end of the phone, until he heard his dad say to his mom, “See? That’s why we called him. Listen to what he just said!”
Barry Neil Kaufman’s response typifies his attitudinal perspective. An outrageous, “out-of-the-box” optimist, he helped his father live more fully in his final two years of life than Abe had in his previous eighty-three years. It’s the same attitudinal perspective Kaufman had used to help his own son recover from autism, nearly twenty-five years earlier.
The life-affirming principles that are woven throughout No Regrets have been taught to thousands of people at The Option Institute since it was founded by Barry Neil Kaufman in 1983.
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Future Sight
If you’ve ever ignored your own “visions” or intuition, this book may very well change your mind. After you’ve read this book, you’ll think twice before you dismiss your next dream, hunch or premonition.
Peter and Jamie had everything — a loving marriage, a beautiful baby, and a successful business. Then, suddenly, with life at its fullest, Peter is haunted by a frightening premonition — the sense of a violent tragedy awaiting his young family. With growing surprise, he discovers that his own unspoken fears match his wife’s recurring nightmare. Caught in the shadow of their “FutureSight,” the only lifeline for Peter and Jamie is the whispering voice from within.
Barry Neil Kaufman has created a compelling tale based on the experiences that changed his life — and may change yours — forever.
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Outsmarting Your Karma
Outsmarting Your KarmaSometimes it is the simplest thought that allows us to cut through the clutter of confusion and, in a moment of time, reframe our beliefs and worldviews. The reflections and insights in Out-Smarting Your Karma and Other PreOrdained Conditions are offered in the hope that they may gently and playfully tickle your mind to question your “reality” … and inspire you to recreate your thoughts (and, therefore, your life) so that everyday experiences become more sensible, friendly, fulfilling and empowering.
This book by best-selling author Barry Neil Kaufman (Happiness Is A Choice and Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues) was published in October 1996. Twenty-six pages from the book have been posted here on this web site for your perusal and enjoyment!
So take a “break” and have a mental snack on us… you’re sure to come back for more! Just click on any of the links below to preview sample pages from Out-Smarting Your Karma and Other PreOrdained Conditions.
Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues
Son-Rise: The Miracle ContinuesIn 1979, the classic best-seller Son-Rise was made into an award-winning NBC television special, which has been viewed by 300 million people worldwide. Now, Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues presents not only the expanded and updated journal of Barry and Samahria Kaufman’s successful effort to reach their “unreachable” autistic child, but goes beyond to include a sensitive portrayal of how that singular event has become a world-wide phenomenon.
Part one of Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues is the astonishing and poignant record of Raun Kaufman’s development from a lifeless, non-communicative child into an active, loving, and verbal boy. When he was a year old, Raun began to withdraw from human contact. Oblivious to his surroundings, he appeared deaf and blind, staring silently for hours, examining his fingers, and rocking endlessly.
The experts offered little hope and as the Kaufmans watched their son slipping further and further into his impenetrable shell, they sensed time was critical. They decided to act on their own – crossing a bridge into uncharted territory in what became the adventure of their lives. When the Kaufmans completed their program based on love and total acceptance, their son showed no traces of his former condition.
Part two tells of Raun’s development after age four. His accomplishments surprise us and teach us much about love and limitless possibilities.
Part three delivers deeply moving accounts of five other ordinary families who become extraordinary when they refuse to be daunted, refuse to stop loving, and, guided by the Kaufmans, use the Son-Rise Program® to reach their own “unreachable” children.
Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues is an awe-inspiring reminder that love made tangible can move mountains.
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A Miracle to Believe In
A Miracle to Believe InA group of people from all walks of life come together and are transformed as they reach out, under the direction of the Kaufmans, to help a little boy the medical world had given up as hopeless. This heartwarming journey of loving a child back to life will not only inspire you, the reader, but presents a compelling new way to deal with life’s traumas and difficulties.