The Health Realization Model has been in existence for over 25 years. During this time, the Model has been implemented in businesses, psychology practices, high risk communities, schools, hospitals, social services, clinics, chemical dependency treatment centers and countless other arenas to increase quality of life. In its simplest form, the Model states that all humans are born with a core of innate health. Living in, speaking to, and thinking from this core of health is possible for all people regardless of their economic status, race, age, level of education, etc.

Roger Mills was the first to bring the Health Realization Model into communities in 1987. Officials in Florida’s Miami Dade County studied the Modello low income public housing are where school truancy, drug trafficking, domestic abuse, gang violence, chemical dependency and welfare dependence was prevalent. After reviewing the situation and listening to Roger describe the Model’s natural tendency to facilitate empowerment, it was concluded that a new approach (the Health Realization Model) was warranted. Janet Reno supported the initial grant proposal. Within the first few years the results received national recognition. Since that time, the Model has been implemented in communities such as South Central L.A., Stockton, San Jose and Oakland – California, Bronx – New York, Minneapolis – Minnesota and others.

The Model has been used to teach residents and social servants in communities how life is experienced from the inside out. The Model points people in the direction of healthy functioning by helping them understand how their thinking processes can create a state of security or insecurity regardless of their life circumstances. When people learn to notice their habits in thinking and find ways to discern themselves from their thoughts, they begin to experience and access innate health, which is described by words such as: wisdom, common sense, instincts, knowledge, natural self-esteem, intelligence, and creativity.

As people find ways to access their health, they have a shift in perception, which allows them to notice the nature of their thinking in low moods. They begin to identify and understand how everyone is creating a moment-to-moment experience of their lives via their thought system. As people begin to understand how their mind operates, they become more secure and less apt to take on their own negative thoughts or other people’s negativity. They see people who might be functioning poorly as lacking understanding and have compassion versus taking the dysfunction or negativity personally and responding to it with self-defeating behaviors. This shift in understanding allows for individual empowerment, which in turn leads to community empowerment.

It has been our experience that when people identify with their health, they will rise above their circumstances and find solutions in very creative and respectful ways.