Tag: spiritual survival for law enforcement

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Building Small Police Agency Wellness

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Do you want to start or enhance a police wellness program in your small law enforcement agency?

What do you say when the public and media ask: how do police officers stay healthy and fit for the job?

Small law enforcement agencies deserve the best possible wellness initiatives to keep their people physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually fit.

For small agencies, usually with less than twenty-five employees, paying for training, both in time and money, can be daunting. It’s hard to get everyone together for a class and then sometimes that information is lost without regular reinforcement.

What would you say if I told you that for less than $300 you can harness the makings of a full wellness system and get started immediately. The scheduling, implementation and reinforcement are totally within your control and it will create the foundation for a life-long learning experience for your people.

I believe wellness… Continue reading

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Try an Awe Walk

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The Law Enforcement Survival Institute (LESI) is launching a series of short Resilience Building Challenges to expose you to new ideas about resilience enhancement from a group of experts within our wellness field, and specifically targeted to benefit emergency responders. So whether you want to armor your Self, build your emotional survival skills, your spiritual survival skills or just want to learn new and simple ways to add resilience building techniques to your life, we’ve got something for you. I believe that the police need to be more resilient!

Are you in?

Here is the first LESI Mini Resilience Building Challenge:

Topic: Building Resilience Using Awe

Title: Try an “Awe Walk”

Defining Awe
The Oxford Dictionary defines awe as: a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.

The Collins Dictionary says that Awe is the feeling of… Continue reading

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Eric Potterat’s new book: Learned Excellence

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Law Enforcement Survival Institute Associate Director Eric Potterat, PhD has just announced the pre-release of his book Learned Excellence with co-author Alan Eagle the former Managing Director, Sales and Executive Communications at Google, Inc.

Learn how to perform at your very best, from the psychologist who has advised elite military operators, Olympic medalists, big wave surfers, neurosurgeons, cliff divers, first responders, Cirque du Soleil acrobats, professional athletes and coaches, Fortune 500 business executives, and CIA analysts.

Learned Excellence is a comprehensive and practical guide to the mental disciplines of high performance, from the expert who developed the US Navy SEALs mental toughness curriculum and has worked with thousands of top athletes, elite military personnel, business executives, and first responders.

To Pre-Order Your Copy CLICK HERE

These stars perform across a wide variety of fields, but they all have something in common: when they are at work they know how to… Continue reading

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Dabbling in Police Wellness

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Is Your Agency Just Dabbling in Law Enforcement Wellness?

There are three reasons why most law-enforcement wellness programs aren’t making their people healthier, safer nor more professional. First, they’re not comprehensive enough. Second, they’re not doing anything more than just adding new training programs and creating more “flavor of the month” initiatives. Third, they are not investing time in their people, but rather using “band-aid” measures to try and fix complex problems.

As the public asks for police reform, I recommend… Continue reading

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Managing The Trauma Suffered In Law Enforcement

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This week we will be continuing our online discussions about modern policing as part of our Tactical Resilience™ & Ethical Policing Project. We want to ignite a thoughtful, and regular, discussion about issues critical to the success of modern policing and we want to involve you! To that end we are planning regular webinars that will last about an hour.  talking about how law enforcement officers, and other first responders, manage the trauma they encounter within their careers. Our focus will be on the prevention, management and recovery from trauma.

Our guest will be Law Enforcement Survival Institute faculty member NYPD Intelligence Detective First Grade (Ret.) Mordecai Z. Dzikansky.

As part of NYPD’s Manhattan South Homicide Squad Det. Dzikansky responded to, and participated in the investigation at, ground zero following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Additionally, from January 2003 through 2008… Continue reading

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The Difference Between Spiritual Survival Training and Chaplaincy

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Over the past 18 years it has been my privilege to design and provide training for law enforcement officers in Spiritual Survival. My training addresses a very specific aspect of the law enforcement experience: the spiritual dimension. Spiritual Survival training is, I believe, a crucial aspect of training to help officers successfully negotiate the challenges of a law enforcement career. The goal is to help officers recognize and acknowledge the noble idealism and integrity within the human spirit that brings them into the career. It is this human spirit that can keep them devoted to their law enforcement mission, with all its challenges, disappointments and difficulties. My aim is to help them identify the toxins that daily deplete and exhaust their spirit, equip them with tools to nourish and replenish their precious idealism and integrity, and renew their commitment to faithful performance of their law enforcement mission.

Often, when police chiefs hear that I offer training for “Spiritual Survival,” they reassure me that their agencies already have chaplaincy services, so their agencies don’t need the spiritual survival training I offer. That’s when I gently explain that the two support structures, chaplaincy and Spiritual Survival training, are not the same.

Chaplaincy services inspire strong reaction – avid advocates and suspicious detractors. A common story among law enforcement executives tells of a skilled, dedicated chaplain who intervened to save a cop in distress; others regale me with anecdotes of chaplains who overstepped their bounds and trespassed into the realm of proselytizing. But in all cases I unequivocally assure law enforcement executives that Spiritual Survival training is not equivalent to chaplaincy.

Indeed, chaplaincy and Spiritual Survival training both support officers and agencies, and ought to be complementary. But they each have profoundly different goals.

REACTIVE BENEFICIARY OR PROACTIVE PARTICIPANT
The greatest distinction between chaplaincy and Spiritual Survival training is this: Chaplaincy is reactive by its nature, whereas Spiritual Survival training is proactive. Even more significant is the fact that officers who receive chaplaincy services are… Continue reading

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Whats Your Credo?

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Screen Shot 2014-12-22 at 6.45.32 PMI believe that all of us in law enforcement need to determine how to strengthen and condition ourselves to endure the rigors of our career in law enforcement.

One way to start to do that is to discover what your most important beliefs are as a law enforcement professional. One such statement of belief is the personal credo.

I’ve always liked the credo expressed by John Wayne’s character in the movie The Shootist: “I will not be wronged, I will not be insulted and I will not be laid a hand upon. I don’t do these things to others and I require the same from them.”

That credo says more about what he won’t tolerate rather than what he believes in, but it is all food for thought as you decide what you believe in.

To Protect and To Serve

You may recognize this motto that has in it’s simplicity been adopted by most of the law enforcement personnel around the world but it has it’s roots with the Los Angeles Police Department here in the United States. This famous motto was the winning entry submitted by Officer Joseph S. Dorobeck for a contest held by LAPD as published in their internal BEAT magazine in February 1955.

“To Protect and to Serve” became the official motto of the LAPD Police Academy, and it was kept constantly before the officers in training as the aim and purpose of their profession. With the passing of time, the motto received wider exposure and acceptance throughout the department. Today that agency motto is recognized, and has been adopted, by many agencies around the world. Source: http://www.lapdonline.org/history_of_the_lapd/content_basic_view/1128 Web accessed 5-12-14.

THE CREDO PROJECT is a special educational initiative of the Police Chaplain Project dedicated to unlocking the power of CREDO in daily life.

Over the past year, Rabbi Cary Friedman (author of Spiritual Survival for Law Enforcement) and Phillip LeConte, co-founder of the Police Chaplain Project, have sought out members of the law enforcement community who… Continue reading

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Spiritual Survival For Law Enforcement Course at Natick PD

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spiritualsurvivalbookcoverChaplain Cary Friedman will be presenting his excellent program on SPIRITUAL SURVIVAL FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT at the Natick Police Department outside of Boston Massachusetts on Monday February 18, 2013.

CLICK HERE to download a flyer.

If you have not read his book “Spiritual Survival For Law Enforcement” I highly recommend it and it is available in both print and electronic versions from the publishers website CLICK HERE to learn more.

The cost of the program is $99 and you can learn… Continue reading