Raun K. Kaufman, the Director of Global Education and a senior teacher at The Option Institute, explains the fundamental concepts behind why you feel hurt when someone criticizes or judges you and the way to use it as tracking system to learn more about yourself and your own personal self-judgments.

Barry Neil Kaufman introduces the concept of choosing to love as a way to increase your own happiness and generate more love and happiness in the world.

Imagine learning to invoke love in an instant, with anyone...before you say anything or take any action so that you are grounded in the priority to love. This is truly a position of peaceful strength and gentle power.

Raun K. Kaufman, an international speaker, writer and teacher for The Option Institute and The Son-Rise Program® at the Autism Treatment Center of America™, offers an empowering perspective.

Many of us feel like a victim of people and events around us. Happiness seems random, evasive, fleeting -- dependent on circumstances outside of our control. This need not be the case. By taking ownership of our own thoughts and feelings, we need not ever be a victim of outside events again. Taking ownership puts us in the driver's seat of our own experience of life!

Empirical studies have shown that people who are happy perform better at work, have stronger relationships at home, make clearer decisions about their lives, exhibit greater self-control and coping skills, have stronger immune systems, live longer... the list goes on and on. Yet, for many, happiness seems random, evasive, fleeting...

In the first of this series, Barry Neil Kaufman offers the idea that you can know and understand yourself deeply. In fact, he believes that you are your own best expert and if you want to, you can access everything you want to know about yourself.

We live in a society that worships the opinions of others. We look for our answers from experts, institutions, the media, and the people around us, everyone but ourselves. At The Option Institute, 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. In this brief, clear, delightful video, Bears explains the value of bringing up your own knowing, your own wisdom and how to do it.

Barry Neil Kaufman introduces the powerful concept that you choose and create your own happiness.

The Inner Strength Program, exclusively available at The Option Institute, will help you become indestructible from the inside out - take charge of your own experience, put yourself in the driver's seat and learn concrete techniques for overcoming fear, building self-esteem, and choosing happiness.

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Barry Neil Kaufman shares his journey and insights on what it means to love and how to expand your personal experience of love and happiness.

The Power Dialogues Program is not only about learning a very impactful and effective Socratic dialogue process to help yourself and others (you can even become certified in this process), but fundamentally it's about establishing a relationship with another person in which your heart is open, acceptance abounds and love becomes the bond that enables you to facilitate another's process.

Barry Neil Kaufman offers a clear and powerful look at the key attributes of an empowered person and concrete actions and perspectives you can take and hold right now as you begin to move towards greater personal empowerment and happiness.

These concepts and much more are explored and expanded in the personal development program, Empower Yourself, given only at The Option Institute. Over the course of this 5 day interactive, experiential program you will develop the confidence and skills to bring your greatest dreams to life -- dreams that you may never even have been willing to acknowledge previously.

In this video Bears (Barry Neil Kaufman) explores the idea that our personal beliefs are powerful in supporting or limiting our happiness and personal development. Whether dealing with life challenges such as the diagnosis of a child with autism, or cancer, or simply wanting to be happier and more confident, the beliefs we hold create the lens through which we perceive the world. Change your beliefs - change the world! The programs at The Option Institute and The Option Process® Dialogue will help you do just that.

Imagine being able to maintain an inner quiet and strength in the face of challenging and seemingly incomprehensible events. Not by hiding from them or ignoring them, but by facing them unflinchingly and with ease. In the Calm Amid Chaos Program you will develop a foundational system of interlocking beliefs that enable you to stand easy in the face of whatever the world throws at you.

Barry Neil Kaufman provides the principles for happy negotiations for couples, or parents, or any relationship.

Does your relationship seem like a lot of hard work? Or, are you and your partner completely on autopilot? Perhaps you have a great relationship that others envy, but still want more.

The course is built on a simple yet profound concept: your partner doesn't make you happy or unhappy. You have the power to decide how you feel, regardless of what your partner does! Imagine a relationship liberated from the blame game. No more "You don't care", "You hurt me", "You don't appreciate me". When partners take ownership of their own feelings and experiences, the door swings open for limitless expressions of love and affection -- without conditions, without blame and without manipulation.

Samahria Lyte Kaufman suggests that we may actually be teaching our children to use whining, tantrums, begging, persistent pushing and other unhappy/uncomfortable behaviors to get what they want...

She further explains that it's OK to feel comfortable when our children are displaying unhappy/uncomfortable behaviors and it's OK to feel good about sticking to our choices without judging ourselves as parents.

Barry Neil Kaufman clearly explains why and how we use fear to take care of ourselves, even though this often creates limiting beliefs and anxiety.

Fear can be an ever present, incapacitating emotion that prevents you from completing the simplest tasks. Or it can be a rare occurrence out of nowhere catching you at just the wrong time. Or it can be a background anxiety just below the surface that you can't put your finger on. Big or small, fear can impact every facet of your life from your career, to your health, to your relationship.

Raun K. Kaufman is an international speaker, writer and teacher for The Option Institute and The Son-Rise Program® at the Autism Treatment Center of America™ In this short video, Raun exposes the truth about feeling bad for others.

Although we think it is a sign of caring, feeling bad for others is actually a highly self-involved experience and not helpful when others are having a challenging time. Being loving, caring, and the calm in the storm is actually the most helpful thing you can do when someone you care about is having a hard time. Tuning in to our inner voice and inner wisdom is one way to be clear and comfortable in the face of others' stresses and challenges.

In this video, Barry (Bears) Neil Kaufman, suggests that the fundamental difference between discipline and addiction is a judgment.

If you habitually work out, you're disciplined. If you habitually smoke cigarettes, you're addicted. You look at both activities through a filter based on your own personal beliefs, therefore putting your stamp of approval on one activity and not the other. Bears further explains how each moment offers you the opportunity to choose and how easily you can make profound changes in your habits by simply identifying the beliefs that fuel your so-called "habitual" behaviors.

Raun debunks the myths, such 'love is risky', 'love makes you weak', 'love means sacrificing who you are'...

Raun K. Kaufman lays out clear and compelling reasons to stop apologizing for what we want. Apologizing actually disempowers us and holds us back from going for and getting what we want. When we STOP apologizing, we empower ourselves to live a much more fulfilling life.

How many times have you set your sites on something huge, something amazing, knowing that this is it, that you're really going for it . . . only to find yourself back in the same situation? Perhaps it's the job that you didn't apply for because you "knew" you wouldn't get it, or the date that surely would have turned you down or the lifelong dream to be a musician, a writer or an entrepreneur but you never got around to it.

In the personal development program, Empower Yourself, given only at The Option Institute. you will develop the confidence and skills to bring your greatest dreams to life -- dreams that you may never even have been willing to acknowledge previously.