Dear <<First Name>>:
Our focus this month is on offering care and compassion to yourself and to others.
Please check out new resources at the BePoP website www.bepowerpositive.org and follow us at Facebook and Instagram.
Order your own cool Be Power Positive T-shirt at the BePop website: https://www.zazzle.com/bepop_shop/products
Increase your power-wisdom this month: buy a right use of power book, take an e-course, register for a training. https://www.rightuseofpower.org
Sincerely, Cedar on behalf of Right Use of Power Institute
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- November 2019 -
IN THIS ISSUE
Offering Care and Compassion to Yourself and Others
by Dr. Cedar Barstow (5 minutes)
Reflections on Martin Luther King Day
Martha Porter (3 minutes)
Features:
• Why I Train Grandmothers.. . , by Dixon Chibanda, TEDWomen talk (13 minutes)
* Centering Practices, by Roland Evans (5 minutes)
* Correct link for Jeff Couillard's interview with Cedar Barstow (15 minutes)
* All the Light We Cannot See: Book Review by Fenna Diephius
Upcoming Workshops and CE Credit Hours
E-Courses available at the RUPI website
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Offering Yourself and Others
Care and Compassion
Dr. Cedar Barstow
Cedar's Note: To preserve client confidentiality, the names and details in this article have been changed.
Offer yourself and others care and compassion. It sounds easy, doesn’t it?
However, providing compassion to yourself can be challenging. Some years ago, I opened my door to a new psychotherapy client “Jim”. Jim sat down on the chair and looked very uncomfortable – almost emotionally frozen. It was hard for him to look directly at me.
“Tell me what brings you here,” I requested.
“I am required to see a therapist by the Grievance Board. They found me guilty of an ethical violation. This is only one of many things I need to do to avoid losing my license,” he answered. “It wasn’t sexual, but my patient accused me of flirting and being emotionally intimate with her. She complained about how hurt she was several years after we stopped seeing each other. I didn’t even know she was hurt. Now I just feel mortified.”
I took a moment to find my compassion for this man who had caused harm. I am more accustomed to clients who come to me because they have been harmed. So, our first process was to help Jim come out of his frozen shame. I think of shame as a kind of dungeon in which you are stuck for life because you feel there is something irreparably bad about you. When you understand that it is not your “self”, but only your behavior that might have been bad, you can experience the less devastating emotion of guilt.
I think of shame as a kind of dungeon in which you are stuck for life because you feel there is something irreparably bad about you. When you understand that it is not your “self”, but only your behavior that might have been bad, you can experience the less devastating emotion of guilt.
As soon as Jim was able to understand that he, himself, was not irreparably bad, but that his behavior had caused harm, he was able to come out from the shame dungeon and into social contact with me. In the shame state, understanding, repair, and learning are not possible. On the other hand, in the less-traumatizing experience of guilt, Jim could talk about his behavior. He could understand that he was lonely in his marriage and needed an emotional friend. He found compassion for himself. He could then understand the pain this brought to his patient and why it isn’t appropriate to get your emotional needs met through your patients.
Jim took an excellent course in ethical boundaries. In addition, he and his wife engaged in couples counseling to work on rebuilding their marriage. At the completion of therapy, he was able to say, “I forgive myself, and I have learned a lot about good boundaries. I also know that my patients are now safe with me.”
Read the rest of the article here:
https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/importance-of-offering-yourself-others-compassion-0107207
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Seeing Color—Reflections on Martin Luther King Day
I used to say I was blind to color,
thinking that meant
I was not biased
against those whose skin
happened to be different,
darker, redder, sallower,
than my own.
That I would treat all equally,
regardless of skin tone.
But now I see—belatedly—
that we are not the same.
That those with pigment different than my own
have suffered constantly because of it.
That not seeing color meant
I did not have to see
the injustice constantly, insidiously, unconsciously
meted out against all those
who could not help the skin
they were born in.
How does a country founded on such bias
redeem itself?
How does a country claiming to be just
reform itself?
When a distraction like
“reverse discrimination”
gains currency
in our laws and halls of justice
and is not seen for what it is:
Just one more clever way
of whites holding onto power
against others’ efforts to gain fair share?
This day of memory
I recommit to see
my neighbors in the skin they’re in.
Not so I may judge them by that skin,
but so I may see the full content of their character,
including all that they’ve endured
to come and stand beside me.
Margaret Porter
January 20, 2020
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Why I Train Grandmothers to Treat Depression, TEDWomen talk by Dixon Chibanda
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Centering Practices
from Roland Evans
In the face of life’s demands, we often feel imbalanced and off center. Here are some reminders on how to maintain your balance. Scan through the list to decide how to strengthen your centering in particular areas. Try one or two actions for a couple of weeks and determine if they help. Add your own suggestions to the lists.
- Quiet your mind. Discover your best quieting practices: sit with eyes closed for 5 minutes before starting a task (especially in front of a computer); stop for a minute before getting out of your car; meditate when you first wake; take a contemplative walk in nature; pray internally whenever you are not occupied.
- Exercise regularly. Find a routine that suits your body and needs. Explore alternatives such as high-intensity interval training (HIIT), gardening, yoga, chi kung or martial arts. Take time to breathe deeply and evenly (see Coherence Breathing).
- Challenge negativity. Write down self-criticisms, frustrations and aggravations. Think of them as ‘mind weeds’. Read them out loud in the third person using your name (X is feeling Y because of Z). Listen carefully to your words: what effect do those messages have on you? How do you want to change them?
- Ration media. Consciously limit your exposure to media that stirs up anger, sadness or fear. Occasionally seek out and be open to information that is radically different from your usual position. Balance negative news with positive stories that reflect the best of humanity.
- Recognize your projections. Notice when a person or group makes you feel threatened, irritated or upset. Notice if you keep thinking about them and feel they have to change in some way. Step back and view your reactions as not essential to your true self. Cultivate empathy: see others as essentially human like yourself—even if their values and actions are painful to you.
- Initiate nurturing rituals. Say a blessing before meals; create a soothing routine before bedtime; repeat positive affirmations (“I am resilient and compassionate”); listen to meaningful music with full attention.
- Make a night list. Before going to sleep, write down those things you want/need to tackle the next day. Remind yourself that you do not need to think about those things again until tomorrow.
- Sleep long and well. Wind down at the end of the day; limit evening screen time and night snacking. Aim for seven hours of sleep. Take short naps (less than 20 minutes).
- Separate work and home. Let go of thinking about work at a particular time or place each day. Create a firm dividing line between when you work and when you relax. Practice holding that boundary until it becomes automatic.
- Take a day off. Create a day with absolutely no expectations or demands—turn off your phone, leave emails unread, avoid media and attend only to those things that nurture your soul.
- Resolve interpersonal conflicts. Notice when any relationship is off and decide what you need to do: take a stand, initiate change, let it go. Assume the other person has good intentions and work to understand their position—but without losing your ground.
- Be more loving. Let others know that you love and appreciate them through words, gestures and loving acts. Do your best to maintain a loving attitude with no expectation of a reward.
RolandEvansBoulder@gmail.com
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All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr
Anthony Doerr uses the tragic and violent expansion of Nazi Germany into France as a backdrop for the tale of two young people, one French and one German, fated to be victims of this cruelty. In “All the Light We Cannot See” Doerr tells this raw tale in exquisite language, detailing accounts of the many characters who play a role in their eventual meeting in the end.
Doerr’s style deeply satisfies the need for Truth to be woven into and through the tapestry of lies that tranny weaves. Throughout the novel, Doerr does not hide the horrors these children must endure, but throughout, continues to weave all the light we cannot see, the Hope that is invisible symbolized and embodied by the power of the Radio.
It is a dark and intimate look at the power and vulnerability of innocence. Our 12-16 year old heroine Marie-Laure, is blind and displaced by the Nazi invasion of Paris, loosing her father to a Nazi prison, who before his arrest, secured his daughters relative safely with her reclusive great uncle in Saint-Malo, also occupied by the Nazi’s. Our other hero, Werner Pfennig, a young orphan fascinated by radios, then conscripted into Hitler’s youth corp, is at the mercy of his commanders who use his superior intelligence to root out Russian radio receivers and neutralize their operators.
Throw in a mythic jewel that seems to have super natural powers, a fanatic nazi who is hunting for it, and you have the perfect tension required for a novel of horror and grace, inhumanity and redemption.
When I was finished, I began again, for the beauty of the language and mastery of story telling.
Fenna Diephuis
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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.
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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
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RIGHT USE OF POWER INSTITUTE'S MISSION
The Right Use of Power Institute is a small international 501c3 non-profit organization.
We envision a world in which people use power with wisdom, compassion and skill.
Our mission is to foster shared well-being through programs, tools and resources that guide people in using their power with integrity.
Our Values
Our programs and resources are built on the following core values:
Inclusivity--actively working to cultivate equity
Compassion--telling the truth with heart
Direct Experience--whole-person, holistic, practical learning
Integrity--aligning impact with intention
Connection--understanding power as relational
Power with Heart News supports our mission by providing writings by RUPI members and links to other materials that elucidate issues of power. We also bring new perspectives and guidance, and advocate for socially responsible uses of power. Our aim is to counter misuses and abuses of power with wise, compassionate and inclusive uses of power. We do our best to be non-partisan advocates of right use of power in every realm.
JOIN US IN TAKING OUR PLEDGE
TO USE OUR POWER WISELY AND WELL.
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