In fact, the magnificence of the Five Attitudes of God is that, like the Seven Steps to
Friendship with God, their order may be reversed. God is totally grateful, blessing, accepting,
loving, and joyful!
This is another good place for me to mention my favorite prayer; the most powerful prayer I
ever heard. Thank you, God, for helping me to understand that this problem has already
been solved for me.
Yes, that is a powerful prayer. The next time you are confronted with a condition or
circumstance you judge to be problematical, express your immediate gratitude not only for
the solution, but for the problem itself. By so doing, you instantly change your perspective on
it, and your attitude about it.
Next, bless it, just as your mother did. Give it your best energies and your highest thought. In
this, you make it your friend, and not your enemy; that which supports you, rather than that
which opposes you.
Then, accept it, and resist not evil. For what you resist, persists. Only what you accept can
you change.
Now, envelop it with love. Whatever you are experiencing, you can literally love any
undesired experience away. In a sense, you can “love it to death.”
Finally, be joyful, for the exact and perfect outcome is at hand. Nothing can take your joy
away from you, for joy is Who You Are, and who you will always be. So, in the face of every
problem, do a joyful thing.
Like Anna sang in the musical story of The King and I:
“I whistle a happy tune, and every single time, the happiness in the tune, convinces me that
I’m not afraid!”
There you have it. You have it perfectly.
I have a friend who uses these attitudes every day, in every moment. He heals other people
by helping them to see how easily and quickly they can change their attitudes, and showing
them what a difference such a change will make in their lives. His name is Jerry Jampolsky—
Gerald G. Jampolsky M.D., to be formal— and he wrote a ground-breaking book called Love
Is Letting Go of Fear.
Jerry founded the Center for Attitudinal Healing, in Sausalito, California, and there are now
over 130 such centers in cities throughout the world. I have never known a kinder, more
gentle man. He holds a positive attitude about everything. Everything. In his home, I have
never “heard a discouraging word.” In this, he is remarkable, and his attitude about life is
inspiring.
Nancy and I were spending several days with Jerry and his wonderful and accomplished
wife, Diane Cirincione, when, as life would have it, I found myself experiencing a personality
clash with one of his other house guests. I’m sorry to say that I was not “on top of it” during
this time. Tired and drained from many months on the road, I was not dealing with the
situation very peacefully.
Jerry saw that I was agitated, and he asked if there was anything he could do to help. As
anyone who knows him will tell you, this is a common question from Jerry whenever he sees
anyone around him experiencing any kind of discomfort.
I told him that I was having some negative feelings about an earlier interaction with the other
house guest, and Jerry immediately suggested that it might be beneficial to sit down with
himself, Diane, and the other person to take a look at it and “see what it would take to heal it.”
Then he asked me a probing question. “Do you want to heal it, or do you want to hang onto
the negative feelings?”
I told him I didn’t think I was making a conscious decision to hold onto the negativity, but that
I was having some trouble getting past it. “Well, everything is going to depend here on your