IN THIS ISSUE 
 

So You've Made a Mistake.  Where Do You Go From Here?
     by Dr. Cedar Barstow (6 minutes)
 Power Positive Award update
     from Reynold Ruslan Feldman (1 minute)
Features:
     • Strength poem by Katherine Martin Widmer
     • Feedback insights by Elizabeth O'Connor
     • I am not alone, by Richard Rohr (2 minutes)
Upcoming Workshops and CE Credit Hours 
     E-Courses available at the RUPI website

Our VIsion and Mission
 

So You've Made a Mistake. 
Where Do You Go From Here?
 

by Dr. Cedar Barstow 

Just process your mistakes into learning: it sounds simple and obvious. Why would we not want to learn from our mistakes? But as easy as it is to say, resistance can come from some interesting places, and we may not always be aware of it.

For example, when feeling ashamed, you might become convinced there is something irreparably bad about you and lose your ability to connect with others. When that happens, it makes sense that you might try your best to keep a mistake secret and hidden.

When you want very much to be helpful and kind to others, you may make yourself less prone to noticing a mistake, a misunderstanding, or even unintentional harm. When you’re not feeling self-confident or empowered, you may react defensively to criticism or challenging feedback. Generally, when people feel like a mistake is a bad reflection on them, they won’t admit it.

Our very human feeling is that we don’t want to cause harm, and we are afraid of making mistakes. We imagine that we lose power, control, and respect if we do unintentionally cause harm.

Our very human feeling is that we don’t want to cause harm, and we are afraid of making mistakes. We imagine that we lose power, control, and respect if we do unintentionally cause harm.

LEARNING TO MAKE MISTAKES

In my early thirties, I got a job as a carpenter. In the beginning, I was the “go-fer,” wearing new baby blue overalls and eating from a lunchbox from the television show The Waltons. Barney, the company owner, enjoyed teaching carpentry skills and hired minority workers. I was a minority individual as a woman in the 80s. I loved the job and stayed on, but I had to go through quite a learning process that was slowed down by my fear of making mistakes.

I would measure for lumber cuts four and five times before making the cut and would ask Barney for instructions several times. I would measure the distance between nails before hammering them in. You get the idea. I was slow.

One day, Barney said, “You know, the sign of a good carpenter is not one who never makes mistakes, but one who knows how to fix them.” It took months to learn that lesson. Here’s what I noticed: As I let go of fear, I became more skillful. The electric saw became an extension of my hand rather than a difficult, loud tool. As I relaxed, I worked more quickly and easily, and I even made mistakes.

Because I had learned that I could fix mistakes, I could cut another piece of wood and use the one that was too short for something else. Drywall mud can cover imperfect looking cuts. I discovered that fixing a mistake can be quite creative and even produce something better.

PROCESSING MISTAKES INTO LEARNING. . . .

 

The rest of this article can be seen here:  
https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/so-youve-made-a-mistake-where-do-you-go-from-here-0918194    

 

  Power Positive Awards for 2019

 

Stuff’s happening. Really? What stuff? October 28, 2019 will be the first annual, national Power Positive Day?  The BePoP Team has now chosen, out of many great candidates, two awardees:  one individual and one organization that have demonstrated exemplary public use of their power.  We will be announcing the names and sending their awards on October 28th and will feature these awardees in the newsletter in November and December.  Stay tuned.

The idea of annually naming a few public exemplars of this kind of use of power would be one way to get the name and concept of Right Use of Power into public consciousness. Each awardee will get a framed certificate.

Meantime,  BE POWER-POSITIVE. Hey, one day you might find yourself or your company being a Power-Positive awardee.

              Reynold Ruslan Feldman, Ph.D., RUPI Board of Directors Secretary
 

“We have been given very little help and practice in the creative giving and receiving of feedback. We have not faced in any decisive way the fact that others have information about us that we do not have about ourselves, and that our blindness might be healed if we had the courage or ego strength to ask for it. Until we have become experienced in the giving and the receiving of constructive criticism it will remain extraordinarily difficult work.” –Elizabeth O’Connor, “Dialogue,” Called to Community

 

Right Use of Power E-Courses

Meet Your Ethics Continuing Education Requirement using Right Use of Power e-courses from the convenience of your own home, in your own time.  Or go into more depth with each topic in the Right Use Of Power book.

My Hakomi colleague Rob Fisher calls this ethics program, "ethics from the inside out, rather than from the rules' side in." Recently revised and up-dated, the courses are engaging and cover the material in the book:Right Use of Power: The Heart of Ethics, by Hakomi Trainer, Cedar Barstow and is the ethics approach described in the book:Hakomi Mindfulness-Centered Somatic Psychotherapy. The courses are approved by NBCC, NCBTMB, and BBS (California), and some other organizations by reciprocal agreement.

Five Courses, each worth three CE hours and covering the following topics:

Dimension One--Power Differential, Codes and Guidelines, Ethical Decision-Making, Violations and Statistics.
Dimension Two--Personal Power, Shame, Touch, Sexuality, Transference.  
Dimension Three--Boundaries, Resolving Difficulties, Grievance Processes, Referrals.
Dimension Four--Leadership and Power Dynamics, Challenges, Soul Work and World Service.
The More Dimension--Dual Role Relationships, Impact and Intention, Feedback, Self-Care, Influence/Values/Diversity.

Find out more about the E-courses here.
 

 

UP COMING TRAININGS

June 6-7, 2020: 
Right Use of Power Core Training
with Dr. Cedar Barstow, D.P.I. and Magi Cooper, C.H.T.
in Boulder, Colorado

June 6-10, 2020: 
Right Use of Power Teacher Training
(Includes Core Training)
with Dr. Cedar Barstow, D.P.I. and Magi Cooper, C.H.T.
in Boulder, Colorado

http://www.rightuseofpower.org/calendar.html