My Nonprofit Reviews

I attended the Center for Attitudinal Healing in Tiberon California in the early 90's to become a facilitator and leader in Attitudinal Healing. This was after I after I met with Dr. Jerry Jampolsky, author of “Love is Letting Go of Fear” who presented at a workshop in Edmonton, Alberta Canada. I asked him to go to the hospital to help me with my friend, Dr. Vincent Visconti who’s 3 year old daughter had been in a tragic car accident. She had become completely paralyzed and her parents were devastated. Jerry has a very gentle way of helping people be okay no matter what the situation is. I believe attitudinal healing is the single most powerful tool we have in the world to heal our planet. In fact, after going through the program, which was to understand and integrate the 12 principles of attitudinal healing, I began to embrace these principles into my everyday life. What unfolded for me was a journey of creativity which included contacting Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen to co-author “Chicken Soup for the Soul, Children with Special Needs” to which Jerry wrote the foreword (see attached). Following this book I started the KEEN Education Foundation and Autism Today. One is a non-profit and the other a for profit to help in the special needs community. I have authored and co-authored over 15 books, hosted 70 conferences and continue to help shifting attitudes as much as I can. This work began as a result of the path that the center started me down. I believe that attitudes, above anything else, are the one thing that can shift the world from the inside out. If each person could embrace the twelve principles of attitudinal healing the world would be a much better place. The next venture I am embarking on with my fiancé is to write a book entitled “Living to Forgive” which is all about the principles of attitudinal healing and the power of forgiveness. At the age of 95, Jerry has also written a foreword for this book too. To forgive is like untying the knots around our hearts and souls that have us all so tightly bound. I believe The Center of Attitudinal Healing is the most wonderful charity of all because it can positively affect each and every charity on the planet in a unique and wonderful way.

The Twelve Principles of Attitudinal Healing are:
1. The Essence Of Our Being Is Love
2. Health Is Inner Peace, Healing Is Letting Go Of Fear
3. Giving And Receiving Are The Same
4. We Can Let Go Of The Past And Of The Future
5. Now Is The Only Time There Is And Each Instant Is For Giving
6. We Can Learn To Love Ourselves And Others By Forgiving Rather Than Judging
7. We Can Become Love Finders Rather Than Fault-Finders
8. We Can Choose And Direct Ourselves To Be Peaceful Inside Regardless Of What Is Happening Outside
9. We Are Students And Teachers To Each Other
10. We Can Focus On The Whole Of Life Rather Than The Fragments
11. Since Love Is Eternal, Death Need Not Be Viewed As Fearful
12. We Can Always Perceive Others As Either Loving Or Fearful And Extending A Call Of Help For Love

Jerry’s Testimonial from Chicken Soup for the Soul, Children with Special Needs
This is truly a remarkably helpful book not only for parents and others who relate to children of special needs but for all parents . The stories are filled with honesty, vulnerability, humor and hope. The connective tissue in the stories is the emphases on seeing the positive gifts these children give to us.
Many of the stories are from parents of autistic kids. My first two years in training as a child psychiatrist was working with autistic children and their families. I often look back at that treasured experience and see those children and their families as being my most important teachers.
So often these parents feel a deeps sense of frustration, guilt, and disappointment because their child is so different and there seems to be a lack of adequate feed- back of affection and ability to communicate in words.
These stories exemplify that as many of these parents discovered, when one concentrates on unconditional love, compassion and infinite patience the gifts of the child being a teacher of love becomes more obvious.
Rather than just concentrating on the problems, these parent’s stories focus on the solution which they find is UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. Or another way of putting it they concentrate on contents of their child’s heart rather than just on the behavior. They see their kids as master teachers of patience.
In our work in the Centers for Attitudinal Healing around the world, we find the following principles most helpful. We can at any moment be a love finder rather than a fault finder, we can be a love giver rather than a love seeker, and we can learn to see our children and everyone else as a teacher of love. We also learn how important it is to let go of the many measuring sticks we use on our children and ourselves. I do not think it is too simple to say one of the main functions of a parent is to continually see the Light in our children’s hearts.
Mother Teresa once told my wife, Diane, and myself that the one mother that impressed her the most was in Argentina and this mother named her new born infant, Professor of Love. So no matter what age of her child, she would always remember that her child was a Professor of love, a teacher of love. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if each of us would interact with our kids, not matter what their behavior is, as a Professor of Love.
Often times there is a temptation to see our kids as having a negative affliction which at times may be falsely perceived as a burden.
The parents in these stories have done a fantastic and an amazing job at shifting their attitudes, finding inner peace rather than conflict and frustration and most importantly, they have learned to experience the beauty of the inner heart and soul of their kids.
In life too often many of us concentrate on the frame of a painting, rather than the contents. Sometimes our child’s behavior seems like the frame of a painting and it is always our challenge to see and experience the hearts of our children.
The stories in this book are powerful, heartrending stories that will most certainly inspire hope by discovering what a treasure our children are when we remember to embrace the magnificent awesome beauty of the hearts of our children. These stories also reflect the importance of living in the present and counting our blessings. They remind us of the power of love and the importance of seeing our hearts joined as one.
I would like to remind you, the reader, and myself as well, about the often quoted statement that “ there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow”.
I like to think that our children are the rainbow and the pot of gold all in one……and that so are we.
HAPPY READING!
Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D.
Founder of International Center for
Attitudinal Healing, Sausalito,
California
Living to Forgive
The 12-step program for Love
Foreword, Gerald Jampolsky, MD
Many people wonder what true forgiveness is, particularly in the context of the teaching of the principles of attitudinal healing. It means to correct our own misperception that someone else has caused the harm we are feeling. It doesn’t mean tolerating a behavior that we don’t like in others or assuming we are better than someone else., Our only function as we practice, and I do mean practice forgiveness, is to consistently and constantly live in a consciousness of choosing to forgive, releasing any attachment to grievances in our hearts, no matter what the circumstance. By doing so, we release the heaviness we associate with that person or event and are able to move forward in our lives. You see, we truly are all one, and the more we see separation, the more difficult it becomes to forgive. When we finally see the simplicity and unity in humankind and that we are all, at our core, one, it becomes simple. To live in complete love is living to forgive.
I met Karen Simmons many years ago when I was part of a presentation with Wayne Dyer and Marianne Williamson. She asked me to visit a doctor friend of hers whose three-year-old daughter had been in a catastrophic car accident leaving her completely paralyzed. Karen told me how this occurrence took place on one of her son’s birthdays in 1992. She went on to explain that she felt joyful and that I happened to be in town during this traumatic event, especially considering the work I specialize in around sick and dying children. That day, I said, “Karen, we need to look at coincidences as God’s way of remaining anonymous”. The fact that I was in town at that very moment helped her friend’s family heal and opened up a place in Karen’s heart that led her down the path that she is on now.
When Karen told me she was writing this book, I was elated as she explained she wanted to bring new hope and light to the new generation, having seven children herself, while rekindling the light I sparked in her so many years ago. I have seen the work that Karen has done over the years, especially in the autism and special needs community, and I am honored to contribute this foreword. In fact, I introduced her to one of my very dear friends, Barry Neil Kaufman who founded “The Son-Rise Program”, an exemplary trail blazing program in the field of autism. Many, many families have been helped through these teachings and children helped as a result. Also, I wrote the foreword to her very first autism book, “Little Rainman, Autism Through the Eyes of a Child” She later became an Attitudinal Healer and Trainer through our center in Tiburon, California. Once again, we all learn that we truly are all students and teachers to each other.
At my present age of 95, which is a very contemplative time of my life, I reflect in appreciation of life itself -- the little children’s laughter as they play and giggle in the ocean waves, the breath-taking sunsets in Hawaii, my beautiful wife, Diane as well as my wonderful family.