KNOW YOU ARE POWERFUL, PART 4

This is the final hub of a four part series. Check out the other hubs: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

I believe there is a "ton" of valuable, informative, and motivating information in this series for any of us who serve people in our vocation or occupations, for example, parents, foster parents, doctors, police officers, correctional officers, teachers, clergy people, coaches, drill instructors....

But my principle target group are those of you who choose to work with high risk teens and children in residential treatment. You are a precious group of folks who go far beyond any call of duty. You deserve much support and big salaries, and I know you get neither. So check out the first three blogs. Take all of this information in, and I guarantee you your work will become so much more rewarding and perhaps even easier. You know, the old Staples Button, "That was easy!"

THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME READ AND COMMENT. Pass this valuable information on to your coworkers.

1. You know you’re powerful when the resident says to you, “F U,” and you are able to respond with, “Whoa! You’re really angry today. Want to talk about it now or later?”

2. You know you’re powerful when you can hand a conflict with a resident over to another staff person and walk away.

3. You know you’re powerful when you not only stop demanding the residents’ respect and appreciation, but you really get it that you don’t need it.

4. You know you’re powerful when your peers tell you how much they respect you and your peers and loved ones tell you how much they appreciate what you give to them.

5. You know you’re powerful when you can look into the kid’s face and eyes and see beyond and through whatever he or she is presenting. See beyond that mask to the desperation, the clinging for survival, the hurt, the anger, the pain, the grief, the fear.

6. You know you’re powerful when you can speak to the desperation, the clinging for survival, the hurt, the anger, the pain, the grief, the fear, and speak to it in a way that the kid gets it that you get it.

7. You know you’re powerful when you can speak to it in contrast to giving the kid a pep talk to try to make it all go away.

8. You know you’re powerful when you can recognize that you are actually walking along side of and sometimes carrying the resident as described in the poem Footprints.

9. You know you’re powerful when you care about the way you dress for work.

10. You know you’re powerful when you stop telling other people that you have no addictive behavior.

11. You know you’re powerful when you confront your addictions and begin doing something about them.

12. You know you’re powerful when you are taking care of yourself physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.

13. You know you’re powerful when you can say “I love you” to the person in the mirror.

14. You know you’re powerful when you can say “I love you” to the people you love.

15. You know you’re powerful when you hear yourself saying, “But I don’t talk that way,” and you realize that is precisely why you have problems and you better learn how to talk that way and, of course, mean it!

16. You know you’re powerful when you can feel yourself walking tall.

17. You know you’re powerful when you stop blaming another adult or child for your thoughts, your feelings, your attitude, your behavior, and your decisions.

18. You know you’re powerful when you can attend a training and not argue with the trainer or attempt to impress the trainer with how much you already know.

19. You know you’re powerful when you can cry your eyes out over all the things in your life that are sad, whether it be Grandma or Grandpa dying when you were fourteen, your spouse not wanting to have sex with you, losing a job, losing your health, or perhaps just losing your keys on a bad day.

20. You know you’re powerful when you realize that a pound of cheap bacon (don’t even have to serve any) frying in a skillet in the morning gets everyone up faster than your loud ugly morning voice screaming that it’s time to get your asses out of bed!

21. You know your powerful when you can look the kid in the eye and sincerely say, “If anything ever happens to you, it is going to break my heart.”

22. You know you’re powerful when you can look at the kid who gets into trouble all the time and say, “Wow, I am so impressed. You are one brave kid.”

23. You know you’re powerful when a kid calls you every name in the book, and you can respond with, “Wow, that’s what I really like about you. You just tell it like it is.”

24. You know you’re powerful when you finally get it just how stupid it is for you to say to a kid, “No one talks to me like that.” (He just did!)

25. You know you’re powerful when you can look at a kid, and the first thing you see is his or her strengths.

26. You know you’re powerful when you can collect all the contraband from your unit and say nothing to the residents.

27. You know you’re powerful when a kid lets all the air out of your tires in the darkness of the night, and you simply refill your tires in that same darkness, then drive home and never let on that anything ever happened.

28. You know you’re powerful when you can initiate a conversation with a kid by asking the question, “You know what I’m thinking? You don’t want to know, do you? Nah, I’m not going to tell ya. You really want to know? Really? Well, I gotta tell you. I’m really concerned. You see, you are one awesome dude in my book.........”

29. You know you’re powerful when you can admit out loud at a staff meeting just how powerless you are feeling when......

30. You know you’re powerful when you begin creating a very clear, very clear, concrete, detailed picture in your mind of the behavior you want to see from the kid, and then actually begin believing that it will show up.

31. You know you’re powerful when you do see the awesome behavior you have been waiting for, and you give it lots of energy, not a reward, but your personal energy.

32. You know you are powerful when you finally get it that what you give energy to persists.

33. You know you’re powerful when the kid who let all the air out of your tires comes up to confess, you can look him in the eye and tell him you have no idea what he is talking about.

34. You know you’re powerful when you can share with a kid who just lost a loved one how sad you felt when you lost.... and actually cry as you tell your story. Not a put on, but real.

35. You know you’re powerful when you can begin thinking about the conversation you are going to have with....instead of what restriction or punishment you are going to give him or her.

36. You know you’re powerful when you worry more about being authentic and human than appearing weak and being taken advantage of.

37. You know you’re powerful when you can tell a kid to do whatever it is that needs doing in a normal or at best warm and inviting, and powerful tone of voice, and you can feel it in your gut that the kid is going to comply.

38. You know you’re powerful when you can see the difference between the kid’s compliant movements and his digging in his heels attitude, and then respond with lots of energy to the compliant movement and totally ignore the attitude.

39. You know you’re powerful when you can let everyone know you are afraid of the bears when you go camping! So are the kids!

40. You know you’re powerful when you have safe adult allies in your life, safe adult loved ones in your life.

41. You know you’re powerful when you can go to the safe adult allies in your life and the safe adult loved ones in your life and let them know what you need.

42. You know you’re powerful when the safe adult allies or safe adult loved ones in your life cannot meet your needs at a given moment in time, and you are able to wait till they can without falling apart or going crazy.

43. You know you’re powerful when you can look in the mirror at yourself and when you can look into the eyes of safe allies and safe loved ones and allow them to confront you with the changes you need to make in your life without becoming defensive and nuts.

44. You know you’re powerful when you can be accountable and take complete responsibility for every thing in your life including the parents you chose. If you do not get this, for some reason or another, email me and I will explain it to you! When you can do this, you are FREE at last.

45. You know you’re powerful when you begin looking for ways to forgive and ways to be forgiven.

46. You know you’re powerful when you finally acknowledge how powerless you are, and you do not experience that moment as weakness but as humility.

47. You know you’re powerful when you don’t have to say anything at a moment when you are dying to say something.

48. You know you’re powerful when you no longer have to be right and no longer have to win.

49. You know you’re powerful when you can allow yourself to feel all of your emotions, you can acknowledge all of your needs, and you can take ownership of all of your thoughts and decisions without the caveat, “but I’m not that kind of person.”

50. You know you’re powerful when you finally get it that you are an important and powerful speck in the big scheme of things and there is a God.