Live Session Times:
January 10, 17, 24, February 7, 14, 21, 28, March 6th, 2024
Taught Exclusively by Bears (Barry Neil Kaufman) along with Samahria Lyte Kaufman,
Co-Founders of the Option Institute®
The pandemic, as we once knew, is over, yet we still face challenges and difficulties. Financial hardships, relationship breakdowns, trauma, chronic illness, pain, and death. Sometimes you say to yourself – “I can handle this,” and sometimes you say, “I can’t handle this.”
IMAGINE RECEIVING 8 STRAIGHT WEEKS OF SUPPORT… and learning that you can, and will handle anything the world throws at you.
The Option Institute® Wide Awake MASTER CLASS Series LIVE via Zoom will help you understand how to operate more comfortably and clearly as you navigate life’s obstacles. Additionally, you will learn to develop more strength, conviction, and comfort with any and every situation that comes your way.
The Option Institute Wide Awake MASTER CLASS Series LIVE via Zoom is a non-stop roller-coaster ride! At once intimate, gentle and loving, while at the same time being challenging, thrilling and life-changing. This is a hallmark of Bears’ signature style of teaching and he is joined by Samahria, who adds her wisdom, love, and humor to every class.
You will immediately dive deeply into topics and issues that you might have once considered uncomfortable or off-limits but topics that you’ll want to understand more profoundly and master. This unique masterclass provides you with an incomparable opportunity to challenge your core beliefs and the fundamentals of how you operate. In doing so, you can re-create, re-imagine and re-engineer yourself so that, in the end, you create a more centered, calm, and wiser YOU.
We invite many of our most advanced participants to attend this program… and we are also open to those less experienced with what we teach to apply through their Program Advisors.
What makes Wide Awake like no other program offered at the Option Institute?
All Bears / All Samahria, All the Time:
Taught exclusively by our Co-Founders Barry (Bears) Neil Kaufman and Samahria Lyte Kaufman in a style all their own… done with an abundance of love and interactive group dynamics. All this combined with very personal attention. Participants feel listened to, and connected to the teacher and the teaching process. This program has included participants who have come back year after year (some for decades,) and the reason they keep coming back is because each program is distinct, unique and constructed on the spot during the activities in the class. Bears is always warm, thoughtful and loving and at the same time, he can be playfully unpredictable, dramatic, feisty and even fast paced and daring. However, when you jump of the cliff with Bears, YOU LEARN TO FLY.
Live Session Times: January 10, 17, 24, February 7, 14, 21, 28, March 6th, 2024 | 12pm – 3pm EST (UTC-5)
By invitation or application only. To apply, click the button below to contact a Program Advisor.
CONTACT US TO APPLY TEACHER REVIEWSPROGRAM REVIEWSProgram Reviews
Don’t take our word for it – here’s what our participants say:
I loved it even more than in person. It felt more personal. During one class I realized I was doing “poor me”, looking for sympathy. When I realized this, I didn’t like it. I’ve worked hard to change that, and in only 2 weeks, I’m 6lbs lighter and getting after healing my body from pain. This is not just a program for the mind, this is body-wide. A loving fun class with an amazing teacher.
Linda McGinn
Option Process Mentor, Scotland
I LOVED my experience in Wide Awake Master Classes on Zoom. I was more curious than anything about how it would be to do this class virtually and decided to suspend any expectations or comparisons to my in-person experiences at The Option Institute. By doing this, I opened myself up to an amazing intimate experience. I loved doing the class from the comfort of home and also really like the time in between to reflect and integrate what I have learned into my “real life” and day-to-day experiences and then be able to come back to the next class to take the learnings to a higher level. It was an invaluable experience for me and one that I highly recommend and would do again in a heartbeat.
Elena Caffentzis
Speech-Language Pathologist, USA
Every Wide Awake Master Class – even every individual session is the best. They ARE getting better and better for me – it is so wonderful to be loved so deeply for 3 straight hours every Wednesday. I find these classes help me really look inside at how I function and also help me see how others function AND how this is all so beautiful. I honestly feel that due to Wide Awake I am learning to accept all parts of me and grow all parts as well. I love how Bears blows things up so we really see them (and ourselves) and doesn’t just gloss things over. I love how much it is obvious that Bears and Samahria love us all.
Wendy Edwards
Pediatrician, Canada
The Wide Awake Master Class was the whipped cream on the top of all the Option courses I have taken. Bears and Samahria were the cherries on top. The exploration was as diverse as the experiences of the participants. Option principles were taught in a fun-loving, safe, nonjudgmental environment. The personal examples of real-life challenges and victories shared brought us together. Our lives forever changed by changing beliefs.
Sandra Ricks
Caregiver, Idaho, USA
I was super skeptical about taking Wide Awake Master Class online. I thought no way could it be as beneficial as when I took a week out of my life to relax, get away and be at the Option Institute’s campus. Much to my utter surprise, it’s been the most meaningful Option Process course I have ever taken! I am using the principles and topics discussed in class far more effectively and efficiently than I ever did when I was on campus, attempting to cram everything into myself during a week and then bring it home and implement it. Wow!
Kari
Son-Rise Program Mom
I think the Wide Awake Masterclass Series is the best thing that has happened for our household during Covid. From the start of the course the belief busting and self-investigation has been transforming my daily life. The transformation of new beliefs into acted reality I found easier as I never left my home. I have so enjoyed these master classes and the homework between classes really waking me up to see things differently. I am experiencing much more creative energy, peace and insights since taking the classes.
Helen Rachel Cherry
Retired, United Kingdom
The course helped me further my understanding of what it means to live genuinely curious, blissfully liberated, both in my work and in the world. I immediately applied everything I learned in the course in a session with a client the morning after, and I was more confident, trusting, and playful than ever before. The expansiveness of the work was amazing. The level of skill development was exceptional, providing real-life opportunities to practice our dialogue acumen with couples who were living real-life challenges; doubling the stimuli, responses, beliefs, and fun. It was exhilarating to experience the changes they made in real-time, while we, the students, explored the myriad of options in the questions, we enthusiastically offered to them and honed. And, as always, it was taught in the true spirit and commitment of the Option Institute, by an extraordinarily masterful faculty. The virtual, online class was no less intimate or effective, and in many ways, more so, given that we were able to see everyone’s faces up-close, either in a grid or in speaker mode. I am grateful for the ease and accessibility of this and other Option Institute programs that continually help me grow personally and professionally. Thank You to all for putting the work into it and giving us the opportunity.
Roe DiBona
Executive and Life Coach, New Jersey, USA
Teacher Reviews
Extraordinary! Bears keeps our class vibrant and deeply meaningful for 3 straight hours. Not only is he teaching; at the same time, he watches participant’s non-verbal language on the zoom screen and responds to what he is seeing. What a masterful teacher.
Julie Flaherty
Disability Coach/Attorney, Minnesota, USA
Having Bears as a teacher has always been the best – he challenges me and all of us, in very daring ways that others in the world would never do. He speaks consistently with reality, authenticity and playfulness!!! That is a gift for me. He is, for me, “blessings upon blessings, upon blessings!
Wendy Edwards
Pediatrician, Canada
Bears is a gift to the world and the twinkle in his eyes reminds me of the blissfully endless possibilities in my life. He is a creative genius, and it’s so fun to watch him lead this course.
Lauren Brackman
Finance, Texas, USA
I love Bears. His passion, commitment, love, and authenticity are always present. He gives 100% of himself (maybe 200%) all of the time. I choose to always feel loved and pushed in his classes to dig deeper into myself in the knowledge that it helps me live my life in a more loving and happy place.
Barbara Beckmeyer
Faculty Tech Consultant, CA
I love you Bears! It is fabulous to have you facilitate an entire week with what seems like limitless passion, energy and enthusiasm. I love how you make connections between all different kinds of class material, stretching the imagination and relating unrelated comments to how we may live our lives. I love how you can take the class so quickly and expertly from one direction to another, whether it is a humorous to a serious moment or a recurring on a tangential topic.
Rachel Jacobson
Psychology & Neuroscience Student, United Kingdom
I respect your integrity and willingness to go the distance. Presence, humor, wanting the best for us, being outrageous and creative. Your ability to make everything important and meaningful. I have learned so much from you about how to be in my own power. Thank you.
Honey Friedman
Chiropractor, NY