Attitudinal Healing is a contemporary and
practical application of ancient, time-honored principles
for personal and societal healing and transformation. The
Attitudinal Healing approach to health and well-being is based
on the understanding that it is possible to experience peace
of mind even when we are facing life’s most difficult
circumstances. By consciously choosing our thoughts, feelings
and attitudes about the things that cause us conflict and
distress, we can learn to alleviate stress and regain a sense
of well-being. Attitudinal Healing defines health as “inner
peace”, and healing as “letting go of fear”.
The principles of Attitudinal Healing affirm
that it is not people and events outside ourselves that cause
our happiness or unhappiness, rather it is our thoughts attitudes,
judgments and perceptions about people and events that actually
cause distress or peace. Instead of attempting to change others,
we can focus on changing our own minds through personal choice
and taking responsibility for the way we experience our lives.
Ultimately, attitude determines the quality of our inner experience,
regardless of what is happening externally.
The purpose of Attitudinal Healing is to help
individuals, families and communities to strengthen their
connection to the personal, cultural and spiritual values
that are dear to them; and to support them to move from competition
to cooperation, from blame to responsibility, from conflict
to peace, from victim to empowered, from fear to the authentic
experience and expression of love – The Spirit of Aloha.
At the heart of attitudinal healing is the
concept that every person possesses an essential quality of
being that is constructive, creative, peaceful and whole and
that it is possible to access this quality at any moment through
our conscious choice to do so.
History
of Attitudinal Healing
The
work of the Center for Attitudinal Healing began in 1975, in Tiburon
California, under the guidance of Dr. Gerald Jampolsky and others.
He and five volunteers saw that children facing cancer were struggling
emotionally and spiritually as well as physically.
Developing
a peer-support group process to supplement medical treatment, they
found that even when the children were feeling isolated, fearful
and angry with their disease, they could begin to experience peace,
love…and meaning in their lives by reaching out and supporting
another child.
The
approach was so successful that parents and siblings wanted support
groups of their own. These groups provided the nucleus of Attitudinal
Healing programs. Over the years additional programs were added
in response to community needs.
The
founding Center for Attitudinal Healing received national recognition
when Phil Donahue invited Jerry and the children to appear on his
talk show in the early 1980’s. Soon after that show (which
won Donahue an Emmy) the Sixty Minutes team filmed a segment at
the Center and a feature done by Mr. Rogers on PBS won the Odyssey
Institute Media Award.
The
work of the Center generates love which continues to have a rippling
effect around the world through many avenues: the popularity of
Jerry and his wife Diane Cirincione’s books; the support of
well-known persons including Mother Theresa, Robert Young, John
Denver and Madame Sadat; and workshops offered around the world
by Center staff.
Hundreds
of individuals around the world have come to the founding center
for training in the attitudinal healing peer support model. Attitudinal
Healing groups and services are currently offered in more than 120
culturally diverse communities in 23 countries.
Attitudinal
Healing Centers around the world provide direct services free of
charge to people in crisis. Because healing has spiritual and emotional,
as well as physical components that must be addressed, programs
are designed to supplement traditional health care, which focuses
on the physical/psychological aspects of illness. Centers around
the world provide a safe place where trained facilitators offer
unconditional love, and support participants to work through their
emotional pain and fear in a confidential and caring environment.
Attitudinal Healing is not about illness or dying, but rather about
the quality of living no matter what the circumstance.
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Twelve
Principles of Attitudinal Healing
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 ourselves and others as either extending
love or giving a call for help.
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