1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,560 I'm extremely excited to announce a brand new sponsor for the Behind the Shield podcast, 2 00:00:04,560 --> 00:00:07,480 and that is Rescue 1 CBD. 3 00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:10,880 For any of you who have listened to this podcast for the last eight years, you will have heard 4 00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:17,320 my own personal journey from using prescription pills after a knee surgery to finding CBD 5 00:00:17,320 --> 00:00:20,200 and having incredible success with that. 6 00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:26,160 I then saw my son's wheezing diminish, my wife's anxiety, and so many more kind of success 7 00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:27,260 stories. 8 00:00:27,260 --> 00:00:32,400 The problem is though, I've also seen the stigma and misunderstanding about this incredibly 9 00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:34,580 powerful plant medicine. 10 00:00:34,580 --> 00:00:39,460 When it comes to workplace drug testing, it's THC that they are looking for. 11 00:00:39,460 --> 00:00:45,080 The concentration is higher in marijuana, but there is a small amount in most CBD products. 12 00:00:45,080 --> 00:00:50,200 And with John being a veteran firefighter paramedic himself, he was determined to find 13 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:54,920 a product that was pure, that would ensure there was nothing in there that would put 14 00:00:54,920 --> 00:00:57,280 someone's career at risk. 15 00:00:57,280 --> 00:00:59,720 So he developed a three tier system. 16 00:00:59,720 --> 00:01:05,800 The third party testing facility tests to parts per billion, which is the most minute 17 00:01:05,800 --> 00:01:09,540 amount I have ever heard of in all the time I've worked with CBD. 18 00:01:09,540 --> 00:01:14,260 The results of every batch are posted on their website so you can literally see the same 19 00:01:14,260 --> 00:01:17,400 results that they see from the batch that you are ordering. 20 00:01:17,400 --> 00:01:23,200 Secondly, they include workplace drug test kits in the order when you order it. 21 00:01:23,200 --> 00:01:27,380 So if you have any fears, you get to do it just to appease it, even though this is a 22 00:01:27,380 --> 00:01:30,000 pure and safe product. 23 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:34,600 Thirdly, they've just finished a year long study with the University of Maryland and 24 00:01:34,600 --> 00:01:40,520 Arcadia University and firefighters from all over the country sent in their urine samples 25 00:01:40,520 --> 00:01:44,160 and not a single person failed a drug test. 26 00:01:44,160 --> 00:01:48,600 So you have three different tiers of trust with this particular product. 27 00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:50,800 Now they have different flavors for their CBD. 28 00:01:50,800 --> 00:01:54,180 For anyone that's had it that's just the CBD oil, it does not taste good. 29 00:01:54,180 --> 00:01:56,680 So they found a way of making it more palatable. 30 00:01:56,680 --> 00:02:00,760 They have a sleep remedy that has terpenes in, again, completely safe. 31 00:02:00,760 --> 00:02:02,760 That one's called out of service. 32 00:02:02,760 --> 00:02:07,240 And then topical CBD, obviously for aches and pains on the outside. 33 00:02:07,240 --> 00:02:11,320 Now on top of all that, Rescue One is offering you, the listener of the Behind the Shield 34 00:02:11,320 --> 00:02:18,160 podcast, 15% off your order if you use the code BTS, as in behind the shield. 35 00:02:18,160 --> 00:02:20,040 And you can find all of their products. 36 00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:25,480 You can find all of the testing and understand why this truly is a product that you can trust 37 00:02:25,480 --> 00:02:29,480 by going to rescue1cbd.com. 38 00:02:29,480 --> 00:02:34,120 And you can listen to my conversation with John on episode 1011 of the Behind the Shield 39 00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:36,240 podcast. 40 00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:40,660 This episode is sponsored by TeamBuildr, yet another company that's doing great things 41 00:02:40,660 --> 00:02:43,340 for the first responder community. 42 00:02:43,340 --> 00:02:48,600 As a strength and conditioning coach myself, who also trains tactical athletes, dissemination 43 00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:52,360 of wellness information is one of the biggest challenges. 44 00:02:52,360 --> 00:02:57,280 Now TeamBuildr is the premier strength and conditioning software for tactical athletes. 45 00:02:57,280 --> 00:03:00,280 And there are several features that really impress me. 46 00:03:00,280 --> 00:03:03,280 Firstly, there is a full exercise library. 47 00:03:03,280 --> 00:03:07,880 So you, the personal trainer, does not have to create that within your own department. 48 00:03:07,880 --> 00:03:13,260 Secondly, you can send out programming, but also individualize, which I love. 49 00:03:13,260 --> 00:03:15,560 So you blanket program for everyone. 50 00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:21,080 Now you can tweak based on someone's injury, someone's need to maybe drop some body composition 51 00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:25,760 rather than having to write a program for every single person on their own. 52 00:03:25,760 --> 00:03:30,280 TeamBuildr also allows you to build custom questionnaires to collate health and wellness 53 00:03:30,280 --> 00:03:31,280 data. 54 00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:33,160 It integrates with wearables. 55 00:03:33,160 --> 00:03:36,880 And I think one of the most important things is obviously it tracks. 56 00:03:36,880 --> 00:03:43,280 To me, it's imperative that we as a profession start tracking our people from day one and 57 00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:46,680 then over the full span of their career. 58 00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:52,120 Therefore catching potential wellness issues and injuries before they happen. 59 00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:56,000 Now if you want to try TeamBuildr, they are offering you, the audience of the Behind 60 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:02,640 the Shield podcast, a free 14 day trial to experience all of the features. 61 00:04:02,640 --> 00:04:08,400 And if you want to take a deeper dive into TeamBuildr, listen to episode 1032 with 62 00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:12,440 Melissa Mercado or go to teambuilder.com. 63 00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:15,480 And I'll spell that to you because it's not as you think. 64 00:04:15,480 --> 00:04:20,800 T-E-A-M-B-U-I-L-D-R.com. 65 00:04:20,800 --> 00:04:21,960 Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. 66 00:04:21,960 --> 00:04:25,880 As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on 67 00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:32,600 the show, founder of Mindful Junkie Outreach, Gina Rollo-White. 68 00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:37,600 Now in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from her own journey into the world 69 00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:44,280 of mindfulness and meditation, working with the first responder population, breath work, 70 00:04:44,280 --> 00:04:47,760 tactical brain training and so much more. 71 00:04:47,760 --> 00:04:52,800 Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment, 72 00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:57,880 go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and 73 00:04:57,880 --> 00:04:59,900 leave a rating. 74 00:04:59,900 --> 00:05:05,160 Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for 75 00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:06,600 others to find. 76 00:05:06,600 --> 00:05:12,280 And this is a free library of well over 1000 episodes now. 77 00:05:12,280 --> 00:05:18,200 So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so 78 00:05:18,200 --> 00:05:23,840 I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them. 79 00:05:23,840 --> 00:05:28,640 So with that being said, I introduce to you Gina Rollo-White. 80 00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:49,200 Enjoy. 81 00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:53,820 Well Gina, I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time and coming 82 00:05:53,820 --> 00:05:55,880 on the Behind the Shield podcast today. 83 00:05:55,880 --> 00:05:59,720 Yeah, I mean, thank you for having the Behind the Shield podcast. 84 00:05:59,720 --> 00:06:02,240 That's the real thanks. 85 00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:05,200 So where on planet earth are we finding you today? 86 00:06:05,200 --> 00:06:11,360 So I am in Alexandria, Virginia, which is right across the bridge from Washington DC 87 00:06:11,360 --> 00:06:16,880 and it's been snowing for like four days and really what I want are my kids to go back 88 00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:17,880 to school. 89 00:06:17,880 --> 00:06:18,880 So that's it. 90 00:06:18,880 --> 00:06:21,440 Yeah, we don't get snow days here in Florida. 91 00:06:21,440 --> 00:06:23,440 We have hurricane days. 92 00:06:23,440 --> 00:06:25,560 Yeah, yeah, exactly. 93 00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:27,960 How bad has the snow been this year? 94 00:06:27,960 --> 00:06:31,160 Because obviously we've seen parts of the Northeast are certainly getting battered. 95 00:06:31,160 --> 00:06:32,840 Yeah, it hasn't been bad. 96 00:06:32,840 --> 00:06:36,680 In fact, it's never in Alexandria, Virginia, we don't really get snow. 97 00:06:36,680 --> 00:06:39,320 It's interesting. 98 00:06:39,320 --> 00:06:41,800 We have snow days built into school, which is funny. 99 00:06:41,800 --> 00:06:42,940 I'm from California. 100 00:06:42,940 --> 00:06:47,640 So this whole concept of snow days was really new to me when I moved here. 101 00:06:47,640 --> 00:06:48,720 What's a snow day? 102 00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:51,740 So we have snow days where the kids miss school. 103 00:06:51,740 --> 00:06:55,140 But ever since COVID, they kind of have done away with that. 104 00:06:55,140 --> 00:06:57,720 They would build in like X number of snow days. 105 00:06:57,720 --> 00:07:01,400 And now they're like, screw it, we can just learn async. 106 00:07:01,400 --> 00:07:03,960 So they just put kids on pretend learning days. 107 00:07:03,960 --> 00:07:04,960 So that's fun. 108 00:07:04,960 --> 00:07:07,880 So my kids have been home for a really long time. 109 00:07:07,880 --> 00:07:09,560 And yeah, we don't get a lot of snow. 110 00:07:09,560 --> 00:07:11,600 And that makes me happy. 111 00:07:11,600 --> 00:07:16,600 I saw a device and I'm sure it's come from that where you put your mouse of the computer 112 00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:19,800 on and it makes it look like your cursor is moving. 113 00:07:19,800 --> 00:07:23,200 So you can pretend that you're actually there and listening to what the people are saying. 114 00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:26,120 So be careful your kids aren't buying that on Amazon. 115 00:07:26,120 --> 00:07:27,120 Yeah, yeah. 116 00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:30,320 Listen, modern technology, you got to evolve, right? 117 00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:31,520 We got to be with it. 118 00:07:31,520 --> 00:07:33,680 So it is what it is. 119 00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:35,600 Well, you mentioned California. 120 00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:37,720 Let's start at the very beginning of your timeline. 121 00:07:37,720 --> 00:07:41,240 So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what 122 00:07:41,240 --> 00:07:43,600 your parents did, how many siblings? 123 00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:50,980 Okay, so born and raised in California in Van Nuys mostly, which is the valley. 124 00:07:50,980 --> 00:07:55,420 And I don't know for a certain group of people who are around my age, we remember the concept 125 00:07:55,420 --> 00:07:59,080 of a valley girl, which I was a valley girl. 126 00:07:59,080 --> 00:08:03,280 And we used to say things like, Oh my God, and Mike and gag me with a spoon. 127 00:08:03,280 --> 00:08:05,040 And I literally said those things. 128 00:08:05,040 --> 00:08:06,760 I'm so embarrassed now. 129 00:08:06,760 --> 00:08:07,760 Actually I'm not. 130 00:08:07,760 --> 00:08:08,760 Who cares? 131 00:08:08,760 --> 00:08:09,760 It was funny. 132 00:08:09,760 --> 00:08:10,760 It was it is what it is. 133 00:08:10,760 --> 00:08:18,600 So I was raised there and went to school there, went to college there, university. 134 00:08:18,600 --> 00:08:24,520 And then I was raised by two first responders. 135 00:08:24,520 --> 00:08:30,320 Actually my mother was an ER nurse at a trauma center in Burbank, California. 136 00:08:30,320 --> 00:08:32,480 In fact, she started the trauma unit. 137 00:08:32,480 --> 00:08:37,040 It was like one of the first trauma units in LA that they would bring, you know, the 138 00:08:37,040 --> 00:08:38,380 major trauma cases to. 139 00:08:38,380 --> 00:08:40,340 And she was head nurse of the ER there. 140 00:08:40,340 --> 00:08:45,120 And my father was an LA County firefighter and paramedic. 141 00:08:45,120 --> 00:08:52,600 So we hit all the marks with first responder work and living in constant chaos and emergency. 142 00:08:52,600 --> 00:09:02,100 I have four siblings, one older who is my father and my mother's daughter with myself, 143 00:09:02,100 --> 00:09:08,680 and then three younger that are my bonus mother and my father's children. 144 00:09:08,680 --> 00:09:13,080 And so there are four girls total in our family. 145 00:09:13,080 --> 00:09:18,660 My father always used to say that he one time wished to be surrounded by women and he got 146 00:09:18,660 --> 00:09:21,360 two ex-wives, a wife and four daughters. 147 00:09:21,360 --> 00:09:23,240 And he was like, that's not what I meant. 148 00:09:23,240 --> 00:09:26,920 It is what it is. 149 00:09:26,920 --> 00:09:29,480 And they all live in California currently. 150 00:09:29,480 --> 00:09:32,760 I'm the only one who kind of moved out. 151 00:09:32,760 --> 00:09:38,760 And I worked in technology for years and lived in California doing high tech startups and 152 00:09:38,760 --> 00:09:45,320 then eventually made my way across the country to Washington, DC, where I met my husband 153 00:09:45,320 --> 00:09:49,360 and we stayed here and have been raising a family since. 154 00:09:49,360 --> 00:09:56,520 And it's been, I've been here for about 20 years, maybe 23. 155 00:09:56,520 --> 00:09:59,120 When I first moved to America, I lived in Burbank for a while. 156 00:09:59,120 --> 00:10:01,000 So I'm very familiar with Van Nuys. 157 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:03,700 So whereabouts was the hospital? 158 00:10:03,700 --> 00:10:08,100 So it's called St. Joseph's Medical Center and it was right by the studios. 159 00:10:08,100 --> 00:10:10,360 So right there by all the studios. 160 00:10:10,360 --> 00:10:11,720 Is that where you lived by the studios? 161 00:10:11,720 --> 00:10:12,720 Yeah. 162 00:10:12,720 --> 00:10:16,880 Well, I was up, basically the planes that landed at Burbank airport kind of hit the 163 00:10:16,880 --> 00:10:18,200 roofs of where we were living. 164 00:10:18,200 --> 00:10:21,800 So it was a perfect, like, you know, we were in a shoe box, like part of a house. 165 00:10:21,800 --> 00:10:26,720 And if you look at any, you know, I just moved to LA, you know, story in Hollywood, basically 166 00:10:26,720 --> 00:10:28,440 that's what we were living. 167 00:10:28,440 --> 00:10:29,440 That's yeah. 168 00:10:29,440 --> 00:10:30,440 Yep. 169 00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:32,800 That's, that's the classic scenario. 170 00:10:32,800 --> 00:10:35,080 So were you in the entertainment space? 171 00:10:35,080 --> 00:10:37,560 Is that why you were living in Burbank? 172 00:10:37,560 --> 00:10:42,980 So funnily enough, I actually got hired for Anaheim Fire Department, but my ex wanted 173 00:10:42,980 --> 00:10:45,680 to be famous. 174 00:10:45,680 --> 00:10:48,000 That more than anything, she just wanted to be famous. 175 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:53,080 So we went there kind of like, you know, starry eyed, she was wanting to go to Hollywood, 176 00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:57,200 but there wasn't really an actionable plan that went with it. 177 00:10:57,200 --> 00:11:01,040 So but I worked, we stayed there for three and a half years. 178 00:11:01,040 --> 00:11:04,920 So I worked for Anaheim just about three and a half, but lived in Burbank initially moved 179 00:11:04,920 --> 00:11:07,840 down to Huntington Beach to be closer to the, to Anaheim. 180 00:11:07,840 --> 00:11:09,920 But yeah, it was, it was an experience. 181 00:11:09,920 --> 00:11:13,280 I mean, I think everyone should live in LA once. 182 00:11:13,280 --> 00:11:14,600 So wait, so what did you work? 183 00:11:14,600 --> 00:11:15,600 Were you LA City? 184 00:11:15,600 --> 00:11:17,520 Is that LA City Fire? 185 00:11:17,520 --> 00:11:18,520 What is that? 186 00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:20,240 No, Anaheim Fire Department. 187 00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:21,240 So down. 188 00:11:21,240 --> 00:11:22,800 Oh, that's not an LS. 189 00:11:22,800 --> 00:11:23,800 Yeah. 190 00:11:23,800 --> 00:11:24,800 Okay. 191 00:11:24,800 --> 00:11:26,480 So my dad worked LA County. 192 00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:30,920 And there was always the running joke of it's like LA County versus LA City. 193 00:11:30,920 --> 00:11:36,960 And it was like, Connie or shitty. 194 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:39,120 How are you doing during the fires at the moment? 195 00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:40,120 They all okay? 196 00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:42,000 Oh, it's messy. 197 00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:43,000 It's messy. 198 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:49,000 One of my sisters who lived in LA, we, I, when I still spend a lot of time in California, 199 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:50,560 I never really moved. 200 00:11:50,560 --> 00:11:51,880 And so we still have a house there. 201 00:11:51,880 --> 00:11:54,120 And so she's now in my house. 202 00:11:54,120 --> 00:11:56,900 She moved from LA to a safer, safer grounds. 203 00:11:56,900 --> 00:12:01,040 And most of my family's now in like the Manhattan beach area. 204 00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:06,240 And if things keep getting worse, they'll travel down more to Costa, to Costa Mesa with 205 00:12:06,240 --> 00:12:08,460 one of my other sisters. 206 00:12:08,460 --> 00:12:14,520 So far it's okay, but it was just, I feel for all the firefighters and emergency personnel 207 00:12:14,520 --> 00:12:17,480 and all the people who've lost their homes, it's a shit show right now. 208 00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:23,160 I mean, literally it's like Los Angeles is burning down. 209 00:12:23,160 --> 00:12:26,920 We had the paradise fire a few years ago and I had the dispatcher from that. 210 00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:29,000 That was an extremely powerful conversation. 211 00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:33,400 Cause you imagine, you know, that feeling of just, you know, being unable to save anyone. 212 00:12:33,400 --> 00:12:36,640 And she's literally listening to them take their last breath before the fire comes in 213 00:12:36,640 --> 00:12:39,400 and you know, takes over their home. 214 00:12:39,400 --> 00:12:40,400 But this is the problem. 215 00:12:40,400 --> 00:12:44,240 And you know, I've had a lot of people on the wild land side on the show as well. 216 00:12:44,240 --> 00:12:50,880 There are some things that you can do to lessen the chance of people, of homes, you know, 217 00:12:50,880 --> 00:12:52,820 getting in the way. 218 00:12:52,820 --> 00:12:57,400 But there's a lot of opposition that people don't realize, the prescribed burns or not 219 00:12:57,400 --> 00:13:00,300 allowing people to burn in certain areas. 220 00:13:00,300 --> 00:13:03,920 And so a lot of my wild land friends just like, yeah, this is what happens when, you 221 00:13:03,920 --> 00:13:06,480 know, when you, when you push against the things that we need to do. 222 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:10,520 And even the, you know, the U S forest service and all the federal firefighters, they're 223 00:13:10,520 --> 00:13:13,280 woefully underfunded, understaffed. 224 00:13:13,280 --> 00:13:16,240 And yet, you know, obviously when something like this happens, everyone's screaming for 225 00:13:16,240 --> 00:13:17,240 them. 226 00:13:17,240 --> 00:13:19,600 Well, you know, this is, this is the issue and we'll sure we'll get into it. 227 00:13:19,600 --> 00:13:23,360 You know, if you don't support your first responders all the time, when you absolutely 228 00:13:23,360 --> 00:13:27,480 need them, they may not be able to be as effective as they should be because of that lack of 229 00:13:27,480 --> 00:13:28,480 support. 230 00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:29,480 Yeah. 231 00:13:29,480 --> 00:13:33,400 And you touched on something that I work with a lot, which is this. 232 00:13:33,400 --> 00:13:38,320 So it's like firefighters, paramedics, dispatch all kind of have the same feeling. 233 00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:42,680 It's like you're working either you're on the phone with someone and you can't save 234 00:13:42,680 --> 00:13:49,120 them and there's no closure or you, you know, you, you're on the phone with someone, they're 235 00:13:49,120 --> 00:13:50,760 in a bad way. 236 00:13:50,760 --> 00:13:52,380 Paramedics come take them to the hospital. 237 00:13:52,380 --> 00:13:53,640 You never know what's going on. 238 00:13:53,640 --> 00:13:54,640 There's no closure. 239 00:13:54,640 --> 00:13:56,640 As a paramedic, you drop them off at the hospital. 240 00:13:56,640 --> 00:13:58,800 You never know what happens to this person. 241 00:13:58,800 --> 00:14:01,640 And it's something that so many people are affected by. 242 00:14:01,640 --> 00:14:07,680 And just this left with this unknowing resolve and not knowing what to do with these emotions. 243 00:14:07,680 --> 00:14:09,600 And I mean, there's so much sleep deprivation. 244 00:14:09,600 --> 00:14:13,980 There's so much I want to talk about, but so much sleep deprivation and, and first responders. 245 00:14:13,980 --> 00:14:16,760 And it's cause you're just sitting there at night, this poor person that you were talking 246 00:14:16,760 --> 00:14:20,360 to just having to listen to someone who's dying in their home and knowing you can't 247 00:14:20,360 --> 00:14:21,360 help them. 248 00:14:21,360 --> 00:14:22,360 That's horrifying. 249 00:14:22,360 --> 00:14:23,360 Absolutely. 250 00:14:23,360 --> 00:14:25,760 Well, getting to your parents, I think that's interesting. 251 00:14:25,760 --> 00:14:30,580 Cause you know, your lens as a young girl versus what you saw when they were working, 252 00:14:30,580 --> 00:14:37,160 your mom first, when you unpack, you know, or she even unpacks her career with the 2025 253 00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:40,040 lens, um, you know, what were the, what were the highs? 254 00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:43,280 What were the beautiful moments that she's talked about in that nursing role? 255 00:14:43,280 --> 00:14:46,160 And then what were some of the costs of her service? 256 00:14:46,160 --> 00:14:47,160 Yeah. 257 00:14:47,160 --> 00:14:52,000 So, um, let's talk about the cost first so we can end on a happy note, but you know, 258 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:59,640 the costs for her were great and, um, there was a lot of, um, emotional dysregulation 259 00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:05,760 that didn't have a name and didn't have, um, a way of coping with, you know, it's, we have 260 00:15:05,760 --> 00:15:12,100 all these great tools to train people to do their jobs, to, you know, do heart massages 261 00:15:12,100 --> 00:15:18,240 and to do CPR and to fire a weapon and we don't have any training on how to manage the 262 00:15:18,240 --> 00:15:21,400 associated trauma and outcome of these situations. 263 00:15:21,400 --> 00:15:27,400 And for her that looked like, you know, it, a lot of depression and a lot of sadness and, 264 00:15:27,400 --> 00:15:28,880 um, she was an amazing woman. 265 00:15:28,880 --> 00:15:33,460 I mean, uh, she's such a bit, still she's such a, she sits on the VAT team now for the 266 00:15:33,460 --> 00:15:38,160 police department in Manhattan beach and she's like 83 and they call her and they're like, 267 00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:40,000 oh, we need you to come out to a call. 268 00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:41,640 She's like, I'm on my way. 269 00:15:41,640 --> 00:15:48,000 Um, she's a bad ass, but she did suffer from tremendous amounts of depression and sadness 270 00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:54,840 and she would just get down and being home at night and seeing her just kind of go retreat 271 00:15:54,840 --> 00:16:00,480 into her bedroom and just close the door and you could hear her crying down the hall. 272 00:16:00,480 --> 00:16:06,020 And um, you know, a lot of it surrounded child abuse and child violence and you know, lives 273 00:16:06,020 --> 00:16:10,000 she couldn't save and people, family, you know, she had to interface with public all 274 00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:14,960 the time and tell loved ones that their child has died or their spouse. 275 00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:17,160 And it just, it takes a toll. 276 00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:22,960 And um, for her, I mean, she would show up, but also on top of that, I lived with my mom. 277 00:16:22,960 --> 00:16:26,800 Um, my mom raised us, my mom and dad got divorced when I was two. 278 00:16:26,800 --> 00:16:28,760 And so we were predominantly raised by my mother. 279 00:16:28,760 --> 00:16:33,160 I was with my father a lot, but probably with my mother, she was working 12 hour shifts. 280 00:16:33,160 --> 00:16:36,480 I mean, she's working 12 hours shifts as a single mother. 281 00:16:36,480 --> 00:16:42,040 Um, you know, like we were shipped from here to there on our own, latchkey kids, all that, 282 00:16:42,040 --> 00:16:46,560 but she did what she had to do to raise her family, but it did. 283 00:16:46,560 --> 00:16:52,040 It took a toll and, um, and we would see it and we would know when to stay clear and know 284 00:16:52,040 --> 00:16:54,140 when, uh, oh, mom's sad. 285 00:16:54,140 --> 00:16:55,760 Don't talk to her right now. 286 00:16:55,760 --> 00:17:01,800 But the good side is that she has tremendous, I mean, her empathy and her sympathy is huge. 287 00:17:01,800 --> 00:17:04,120 She has tremendous care for people. 288 00:17:04,120 --> 00:17:12,760 She, um, she transitioned from like the ER to the ICU to, um, then to home health care 289 00:17:12,760 --> 00:17:16,960 then to, and she's just always been on the helping side. 290 00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:22,440 And the amount of, I mean, it's sad, the amount of funerals she's been to is insane, but the 291 00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:27,640 amount of people that want her at their funeral, I mean, she has changed the course of people's 292 00:17:27,640 --> 00:17:28,640 lives. 293 00:17:28,640 --> 00:17:31,600 She has helped them being there for them, sit by their sides. 294 00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:36,360 Um, the amount of lives that she's actually saved is, I mean, you can't even count the 295 00:17:36,360 --> 00:17:38,040 amount of lives she saved. 296 00:17:38,040 --> 00:17:42,800 And just like with every other first responder, she frames it like a lot of these tragedies, 297 00:17:42,800 --> 00:17:44,400 you know, you kind of have to laugh at it, right? 298 00:17:44,400 --> 00:17:48,200 We have this sixth sense of humor in this industry where we laugh at the things that 299 00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:52,600 most people would be like, that's gross, you know, from, you know, sitting there and cracking 300 00:17:52,600 --> 00:17:56,660 some guy's chest open and massaging his heart and blood going all over her face. 301 00:17:56,660 --> 00:18:01,320 And she's like, I don't know, I was massaging his heart and I was like, spit or swallow. 302 00:18:01,320 --> 00:18:02,320 I swallowed. 303 00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:10,920 It's like, you have to laugh at these moments or else you really go down the rat hole. 304 00:18:10,920 --> 00:18:11,920 Yeah, absolutely. 305 00:18:11,920 --> 00:18:15,680 Well, it sounds like she's had a journey then. 306 00:18:15,680 --> 00:18:20,720 So you know, I'm sure that when she was a young nurse, there was no discussion at all 307 00:18:20,720 --> 00:18:23,520 about, you know, the, the, you know, the mental health side. 308 00:18:23,520 --> 00:18:27,080 And it's interesting because if I reflect the first conversations we were having as 309 00:18:27,080 --> 00:18:31,920 PTSD and now as we progress forward, we realized that, you know, yes, there's PTSD, but moral 310 00:18:31,920 --> 00:18:36,400 injury is probably more prominent, you know, especially with the inability to save, which 311 00:18:36,400 --> 00:18:38,520 I had 14 years in uniform. 312 00:18:38,520 --> 00:18:41,080 I never saved a single cardiac arrest pre-codes. 313 00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:42,080 Yes. 314 00:18:42,080 --> 00:18:46,220 But one that went into cardiac arrest, the movie saves zero. 315 00:18:46,220 --> 00:18:50,160 So you did everything that you were trained to do and everyone still died. 316 00:18:50,160 --> 00:18:52,640 That's you know, that that's a weight as well. 317 00:18:52,640 --> 00:18:57,240 What have been the tools that have allowed her to process that and arguably forge this 318 00:18:57,240 --> 00:19:01,280 resilience where at 80 something years old, she's still, you know, running out the front 319 00:19:01,280 --> 00:19:03,400 door. 320 00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:07,840 So it's such an interesting question. 321 00:19:07,840 --> 00:19:11,960 I think there are some people that are predisposed to be able to do this. 322 00:19:11,960 --> 00:19:16,860 I think though, you know, a lot of times we look at like triggers as, oh, you're going 323 00:19:16,860 --> 00:19:17,860 to be triggered. 324 00:19:17,860 --> 00:19:27,800 And you know, it's like some of the things we do that might look bad are actually protective 325 00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:29,600 mechanisms. 326 00:19:29,600 --> 00:19:40,240 And I think that her view, being able to just kind of take things a little bit surfacey 327 00:19:40,240 --> 00:19:45,400 and not dive too deep has protected her. 328 00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:49,560 She's not one to sit and super analyze things. 329 00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:52,600 I mean an injury and you know, something she has to do for work. 330 00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:53,600 Yes. 331 00:19:53,600 --> 00:19:57,000 But in general, like, you know, she's happy and go lucky. 332 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:02,840 And I think so there's this just personality trait in general that she had. 333 00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:09,400 And I mean, you know, you could probably go back into her childhood and look why she chose 334 00:20:09,400 --> 00:20:14,520 to be on the surface of things and not dive deep and get carried away from them. 335 00:20:14,520 --> 00:20:19,280 But what my, it was probably a negative thing to begin with, but it served her well for 336 00:20:19,280 --> 00:20:21,360 the job she was in. 337 00:20:21,360 --> 00:20:26,220 She's able to put things in a place and kind of put them in a bucket and leave them there 338 00:20:26,220 --> 00:20:29,480 and not go back and touch on them. 339 00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:36,080 But I will say also she has had tremendous amount of therapy and she as an adult went 340 00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:38,180 to therapy and why? 341 00:20:38,180 --> 00:20:42,660 Because all of a sudden she just was suffering from depression. 342 00:20:42,660 --> 00:20:44,060 And what did the depression come from? 343 00:20:44,060 --> 00:20:48,280 It could have come from just she might've been depressed regardless of her job or was 344 00:20:48,280 --> 00:20:49,280 it from her job? 345 00:20:49,280 --> 00:20:50,280 We won't know. 346 00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:51,280 But she did. 347 00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:55,900 She suffered from depression and luckily was able to see some really great providers who 348 00:20:55,900 --> 00:20:58,760 have been treating her and giving her the proper medication. 349 00:20:58,760 --> 00:21:03,000 A lot of times we think like there's this weird stigma with being medicated. 350 00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:05,640 If you have depression and I don't feel that way. 351 00:21:05,640 --> 00:21:08,120 I feel like, no, it's a chemical imbalance. 352 00:21:08,120 --> 00:21:10,000 Let's write the course. 353 00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:15,640 So she has been able to through therapy and through interventions like chemical interventions 354 00:21:15,640 --> 00:21:18,760 been able to manage some of the stuff. 355 00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:22,340 But in general, she's just kind of that way. 356 00:21:22,340 --> 00:21:26,280 She's a little bit more like laissez faire. 357 00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:32,520 It's interesting because when I look at my journey, I am literally no different than 358 00:21:32,520 --> 00:21:35,640 any other person wearing the uniform at the moment or prior. 359 00:21:35,640 --> 00:21:36,640 I'm no better. 360 00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:37,640 I'm no worse. 361 00:21:37,640 --> 00:21:41,560 I'm just a human being that chose to do this job. 362 00:21:41,560 --> 00:21:44,000 So many people that had on the show, they were there. 363 00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:45,840 They were there with that pistol in their hand. 364 00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:48,840 Some of them jumped off the bridge and survived. 365 00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:50,820 My question was, why not me? 366 00:21:50,820 --> 00:21:52,800 Why didn't I spiral down as deeply? 367 00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:56,300 The only thing I can really come up with, which aligns with a lot of the holistic healing 368 00:21:56,300 --> 00:22:00,080 that we know now is even though there were some pretty shitty things that happened when 369 00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:03,640 I was young, I grew up on a farm in England. 370 00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:05,200 My dad was a veterinary surgeon. 371 00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:06,440 So we were around blood and guts. 372 00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:07,440 He was healing animals. 373 00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:12,320 There were people from extended royal family to gypsies cycling through the house. 374 00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:13,520 I was one of five kids. 375 00:22:13,520 --> 00:22:15,720 We always ate around a dinner table. 376 00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:17,280 We laughed and joked. 377 00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:23,720 So just by winning the genetic lottery as far as where I was born, I think there was 378 00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:29,640 this constant coping mechanism infused to my childhood, even though I almost died in 379 00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:34,560 a house fire and my parents had a horrible divorce and some real traumas. 380 00:22:34,560 --> 00:22:39,360 And so it's interesting to see as your mom progressed through her early timeline, was 381 00:22:39,360 --> 00:22:43,420 there a similar thing that even though there were some bad things, were there other things 382 00:22:43,420 --> 00:22:48,680 infused that just organically gave them coping mechanisms, which is probably what happened 383 00:22:48,680 --> 00:22:53,920 for most of history, tribally and beyond, until we got to this very technological age 384 00:22:53,920 --> 00:22:59,000 and this kind of ridiculous facade that, for example, talking about your mental health 385 00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:00,000 is weakness. 386 00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:03,680 So we were shoving all our emotions down, not talking about them. 387 00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:10,440 So you brought up something so interesting, which was dinner table and sitting around, 388 00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:12,080 we sat around the dinner table. 389 00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:17,720 And so I've been doing this, I don't know, for like, I don't even know how long, 15 years, 390 00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:22,880 something like that, mostly 10 years with first responders specifically, but before it 391 00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:23,880 included them. 392 00:23:23,880 --> 00:23:30,560 But anyway, what we used to see, and this is sad, the trend of suicide, is it okay to 393 00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:33,240 talk about suicide and say suicide and things like that? 394 00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:35,080 That's how we fix it. 395 00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:36,080 Yes. 396 00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:37,080 Okay. 397 00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:39,360 So we saw the trends of suicides are really interesting. 398 00:23:39,360 --> 00:23:46,480 And way back when, suicide rates among law enforcement were higher than suicide rates 399 00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:48,840 with fire services. 400 00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:54,940 And as of recent, like last 10 years, it's slowly been changing. 401 00:23:54,940 --> 00:23:59,000 And the last time I looked, fire services was higher than law enforcement, but that 402 00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:00,000 was last year. 403 00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:01,120 I don't know what the exact numbers are now. 404 00:24:01,120 --> 00:24:03,600 So someone can research it. 405 00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:08,600 But I find personally, and I would love if someone would do a study on this, a direct 406 00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:16,320 correlation, oops, I think there's a direct correlation between dinner table talk, processing, 407 00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:18,040 and suicidal ideation. 408 00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:23,160 Way back when, when my father was a firefighter, we used to go, I was in the fire houses all 409 00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:24,160 the time. 410 00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:28,520 We'd sit around the table, everybody's making meals, you're having a meal together, everybody's 411 00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:33,280 talking shit, you're talking about the last call you went on, you're talking about, you 412 00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:37,440 know, this funny thing happened, this tragic thing happened, and you're sitting around 413 00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:39,760 and you're processing, right? 414 00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:44,160 You're sharing what happened during the day, you're sharing with each other, you feel this 415 00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:48,880 idea of community, of connection, you all have the same goal. 416 00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:54,120 And then over time, we started using our iPhones, which they serve a purpose, but honestly, 417 00:24:54,120 --> 00:24:57,720 they're a fucking shit show, like so much else in this world. 418 00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:02,600 But I mean, I have an iPhone, I use it all the time, but now you have people in fire 419 00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:05,740 houses are off on their own. 420 00:25:05,740 --> 00:25:11,280 They're off on their own doing things, and they're not sitting around the table anymore 421 00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:13,400 as often processing. 422 00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:17,320 Some houses are doing it, some places are doing it, and I feel like there's such a correlation 423 00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:24,880 between being able to sit and just talk about shit and having things be okay, right? 424 00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:28,240 Because we know when we talk about it, just like you said about the word suicide and talking 425 00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:31,780 about it, so the more we talk about it, the more we normalize it, normalize the talking 426 00:25:31,780 --> 00:25:38,460 about it, and making it just more, you know, more accessible, and it's not such a taboo. 427 00:25:38,460 --> 00:25:43,480 And I feel like that's one thing we're missing right now, and what never really law enforcement 428 00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:48,040 didn't have it to begin with, because they never had, they didn't have the 24 hour shifts, 429 00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:50,240 or 48 or whatever. 430 00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:54,880 And so I think that's interesting to look at and to talk about is just this idea of 431 00:25:54,880 --> 00:26:00,360 sitting down like you had with your family, sitting down around a table and just talking. 432 00:26:00,360 --> 00:26:04,800 In my family, we sit down, we have dinner almost every night, and we say, and I'm not 433 00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:08,520 saying like I'm all that, and I'm so great, it's just something we do, we sit down and 434 00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:12,480 we say, you know, tell me the best part of your day, tell me the worst part of your day, 435 00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:14,040 and tell me a neutral part of your day. 436 00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,720 We just go around the table, and it's, we get to talk about stuff. 437 00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:19,080 It brings stuff up. 438 00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:22,040 Yeah, no, I mean, this is what I look back now. 439 00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:25,720 I mean, I had real food, you know, we had fresh air, we had exercise, and it wasn't 440 00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:29,560 even working out, it was mucking out stables and herding sheep and all that stuff. 441 00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:34,280 But when you look at now, you know, when a lot of these retreats that first responders 442 00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:38,920 and military members are going on, they're outside, they're talking to each other, there's 443 00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:43,160 exercise, there's fresh air, there's sunlight, there's dirt, there's animals, I mean, all 444 00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:44,360 the things that are infused. 445 00:26:44,360 --> 00:26:50,240 So, you know, if you think about us a long time ago, you know, the warriors that came 446 00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:54,240 home from war, you had those tribal ceremonies, and they would talk about what they did, or 447 00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:59,280 whether it was coming back from a hunt, or, you know, and stories are passed on from generation 448 00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,560 to generation, like which plants to eat, which plants not to eat. 449 00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:07,280 And we've just become so detached from that communal conversation, that I think that's 450 00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:08,680 a big underlying element. 451 00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:12,960 And our poor kids that were born into this world, this generation, we wonder why there's 452 00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:15,440 a crisis in their mental health. 453 00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:16,440 It is true. 454 00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,680 I was lucky enough to be brought into this amazing group of people. 455 00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:22,160 It's the Recon and Sniper Foundation. 456 00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:28,400 And they brought me in, and every year, they take a group of veterans up to this ranch 457 00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:30,200 in Colorado called Rawai Ranch. 458 00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:32,160 I think I pronounced it right. 459 00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:34,800 Rawai, I don't know. 460 00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:39,800 And we go up there every year, and we take like 20 people, 20 veterans, and it's exactly 461 00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:40,800 that. 462 00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:46,200 We're doing outdoor, we're doing physical activity, whether it's riding horses, or taking 463 00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:53,840 hikes, or fly fishing, or we've just recently incorporated Jiu-Jitsu, which is really fun. 464 00:27:53,840 --> 00:28:00,160 And then all day long, I do therapeutic mindfulness with them. 465 00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:04,400 So one-on-one, therapeutic mindfulness, and then there's a psychiatrist there. 466 00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:06,680 She does all the talk therapy. 467 00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:10,280 And then at the end of the day, we all get together and we sit around the table, and 468 00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:14,800 we just, for an hour or more, we're sitting there having a meal together, just talking 469 00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:18,040 smack, and it has all the components you just said. 470 00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:22,640 You're outdoors, you're around animals, you're doing an act, you're not just working out 471 00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:24,280 to work out. 472 00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:32,480 We also, we get there before the ranch has all the people that show up to rent places 473 00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:35,480 from them, and we clear fields. 474 00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:36,480 We clear trails. 475 00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:40,280 We're out with chainsaws, clearing all the debris away. 476 00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:45,400 And it's just like you're outdoors and working out just to be outdoors and working out, not 477 00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:49,200 to build muscle, but just to be in the outdoor elements. 478 00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:50,200 It's so cool. 479 00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:51,200 I agree. 480 00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:56,240 I wish our lives, I don't know, we could, I don't think we could do it, but wouldn't 481 00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:57,920 it be cool if that was our life? 482 00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:02,680 I mean, if you have one of those EMF things that you hear about where it just kills every 483 00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:07,280 electronic device, you know, and assuming that there was an infrastructure where people 484 00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:11,840 just didn't simply starve to death, it would be interesting the impact that would have 485 00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:17,120 on mental health if we had to just be out there growing and hunting and foraging and 486 00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:18,440 all the things that we used to have to do. 487 00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:19,640 We'd have to cook around a fire. 488 00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:23,400 We'd probably be super sleepy by eight, nine o'clock and go to bed. 489 00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:24,800 Oh, before that. 490 00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:25,800 Yeah. 491 00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:26,800 Yeah, exactly. 492 00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:29,240 So yeah, it would be interesting as a social experiment. 493 00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:33,840 Yeah, my family thinks I'm crazy because I'm like, one day I want to live on a commune. 494 00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:38,280 I want to sit and like everyone's going to have their own task and I'm going to be responsible 495 00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:44,240 for X and you be responsible for Y and we're all going to take care vegetables and goats 496 00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:45,240 and all. 497 00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:47,400 And I can't even like water a plant to save my life. 498 00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,000 Like I have no plants in my house. 499 00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:53,400 I am so bad at planting and gardening, but I feel like if I have nothing else to do, 500 00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:55,000 maybe I would do it. 501 00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:56,000 Absolutely. 502 00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:00,120 Well, going, you talked about your mom, just quickly touch on your dad as well through 503 00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:02,680 your 20, 25 eyes now. 504 00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:03,680 What were the highs? 505 00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:06,800 What were the struggles when it came to his career? 506 00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:17,120 So first of all, my father died of a heart attack when he was 62, which is really young 507 00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:24,480 and I attribute it to just the high stress of his life and his job. 508 00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:28,400 And he had a lot of injuries working as a firefighter. 509 00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:32,480 He ended up working air ops for a while in LA and was the guy who would like would hang 510 00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:35,560 out of helicopters and rescue people off the side of mountains. 511 00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:38,920 And he had knee injury and back injury and elbow injury. 512 00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:43,540 So he had a ton of injuries and when he retired, he was on a lot of medication. 513 00:30:43,540 --> 00:30:47,720 Some of it was self-medicated and he loved basketball. 514 00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:52,200 And one day he was playing basketball on a pickup game while he was picking up one of 515 00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:55,680 my little sisters who was coming home from diabetes camp. 516 00:30:55,680 --> 00:31:01,920 And mind you, my stepmother had died five years previously from breast cancer at the 517 00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:05,160 age of like 45, which is way too young. 518 00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:08,540 And his daughters, my sisters at the time were really young. 519 00:31:08,540 --> 00:31:13,480 So we also had that stress, but he goes out to play a pickup game and like drops dead 520 00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:18,280 on the basketball court, like in one fell swoop, dead. 521 00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:20,680 And I do really think that it was accumulative. 522 00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:24,440 I think it was accumulation of stress. 523 00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:30,060 Going back to way back when he was raised in an abusive environment. 524 00:31:30,060 --> 00:31:35,600 My mom was very like, I think about things in like the window of tolerance where you're 525 00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:37,820 hypervigilant or you're hypovigilant. 526 00:31:37,820 --> 00:31:39,780 And my mom was very hypovigilant. 527 00:31:39,780 --> 00:31:43,080 She pulled into herself when she was stressed out. 528 00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:44,160 She was very quiet. 529 00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:45,920 She would cry, depression. 530 00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:47,280 My dad was on the other side. 531 00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:50,080 He was hypovigilant, very angry, very active. 532 00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:54,440 I mean, holes were always in our walls, couches flipped, like the whole thing, right? 533 00:31:54,440 --> 00:32:00,320 He luckily didn't touch us much, but like physically violently, but he sure did like 534 00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:01,580 inanimate objects. 535 00:32:01,580 --> 00:32:04,840 And I ended up liking those also. 536 00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:07,160 So his father abused him. 537 00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:10,160 And so I know that that's where it came from. 538 00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:14,920 So I don't think all of it is to say it's from fire services. 539 00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:19,120 But then once he got on the job, he was really sensitive. 540 00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:29,000 And he worked really hard to not be violent, but he had this side of him that really resonated 541 00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:31,200 with children. 542 00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:40,460 And he had an enormous amount of child deaths on duty that he witnessed and was a part of. 543 00:32:40,460 --> 00:32:44,960 And every single time you just, he was just crushed. 544 00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:49,840 Like he couldn't function. 545 00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:54,040 And it was so sad to watch and so hard to watch it as a child to watch, because you 546 00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:55,800 don't really understand it. 547 00:32:55,800 --> 00:33:02,720 But he would, I remember one time there was a little boy who was at a pool, maybe like 548 00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:05,520 two or three, and he sat down. 549 00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:09,520 I don't even know how this happened, but you know, like outside of a pool, there's that 550 00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:13,000 external drain and it has a suction on it. 551 00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:19,720 And he sat on it and somehow it suctioned him to it and just pulled a lot of stuff out 552 00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:21,280 that it shouldn't. 553 00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:26,440 And my dad was there, brought him, helped him, brought him to the hospital. 554 00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:28,020 The poor child ended up dying. 555 00:33:28,020 --> 00:33:32,720 But my dad was at that hospital for every, like for a week, he would go there every single 556 00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:38,360 day and just sit with this kid and feel the pain of not being able to help and feeling 557 00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:42,960 like, like you were saying in the beginning, it's, you know, this moral injury of, you 558 00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:47,600 know, once the shit hit the fan, you were trying CPR, they were gone, they were gone. 559 00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:49,240 You couldn't bring them back. 560 00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:55,240 And just that pain that he, I saw him numerous times, way too many than someone should deal 561 00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:57,920 with trying to work through this. 562 00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:00,520 And it really took a toll on him. 563 00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:07,000 Now, the other side of it, my dad was like hysterical, amazing sense of humor. 564 00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:09,600 I mean, constantly playing jokes on us. 565 00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:14,200 I can't like, the guy, you would just walk down the hall and all of a sudden you'd see 566 00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:19,200 his head sticking out, like on the floor, he'd be lying sideways being like, surprise, just 567 00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:21,040 weird shit. 568 00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:26,160 So he had this other side of him that made him resilient, that made him enjoy life and 569 00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:27,160 have fun. 570 00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:29,120 He didn't drink. 571 00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:31,560 He just kind of enjoyed life. 572 00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:34,680 But there was the dark side. 573 00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:39,320 And it was dark and it was ugly and it was sad. 574 00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:45,400 This is, I think, one of the two areas that aren't discussed when it comes to mental health 575 00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:46,400 and first responders. 576 00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:51,920 I mean, they are by some, the really passionate ones, but the general conversation is there's 577 00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:56,280 a disregarding of seed deprivation, which I know we're going to get to, which is a huge, 578 00:34:56,280 --> 00:34:58,600 as I say, herd of elephants in the room. 579 00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:02,600 But then also what happened to us before we put the uniform on, from in vitro through 580 00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:06,120 to you get the badge pinned on, we've had a life. 581 00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:11,480 And more often than not, if you look at ACEs scores of first responders, most of us have 582 00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:16,640 some significant things that have happened, which I would say if addressed becomes absolutely 583 00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:21,320 a strength, but if left unaddressed and shoved down, fractures the foundation. 584 00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:28,640 And if I'm playing white belt psychologist, if your dad was hurt as a child, subconsciously 585 00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:33,080 his mission was to protect children, which is probably why he was so crushed when he 586 00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:34,080 couldn't. 587 00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:35,080 Right. 588 00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:36,880 I'm right there with you. 589 00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:41,480 Like I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychologist, but I feel the exact same way. 590 00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:52,520 Also I see that a lot of people who put themselves in jobs and that are filled with like high 591 00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:56,160 energy and danger. 592 00:35:56,160 --> 00:36:03,920 Oftentimes, I've noticed a correlation, like you're saying with childhood and, and whether 593 00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:12,880 it's to right a wrong or it's because people have become desensitized to pain. 594 00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:15,400 I think it's worth something. 595 00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:22,040 It's worth looking at because a lot of times if you live in constant chronic chaos and 596 00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:24,880 pain, your threshold is different. 597 00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:32,520 And when you are engaging in the world in order to feel anything, it has to be dangerous 598 00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:37,440 because you felt so much pain your whole life and so much suffering your whole life. 599 00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:38,560 That's your homeostasis. 600 00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:39,680 You're just used to that. 601 00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:40,920 That's normal. 602 00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:46,560 And so in order to feel anything, sometimes it has to be above that threshold. 603 00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:48,040 And that's where danger comes in. 604 00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:55,840 And that's why being attracted to dangerous jobs and dangerous behavior is really attractive 605 00:36:55,840 --> 00:37:00,440 because it enables people to feel something who normally can't. 606 00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:07,560 Yeah, I think the other element that I've heard people mention as far as when they kind 607 00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:12,980 of started spiraling downwards was when it wasn't exciting anymore. 608 00:37:12,980 --> 00:37:14,640 So there's almost like this element. 609 00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:19,560 You see this with what we affectionately refer to as the overtime horse, that they just take 610 00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:20,920 every hour they can. 611 00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:22,360 It's like you've got a family at home. 612 00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:24,040 Why don't you want to go home? 613 00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:29,320 But busyness is another under recognized symptom of mental health challenges. 614 00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:33,240 If you cannot just sit with your thoughts, that's a huge red flag. 615 00:37:33,240 --> 00:37:34,240 If you have to be busy. 616 00:37:34,240 --> 00:37:39,480 And the problem with the first responder profession is just like you said, once we hit eight, 617 00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:43,280 10 years ish, a fire isn't a fire anymore. 618 00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:48,280 At 14 years, unless I had to fight my way to the front door, I didn't even call it a 619 00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:49,280 fire. 620 00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:53,840 Whereas as a rookie, if a mattress is on fire, like, yeah, I had a ripper today. 621 00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:59,600 So when that becomes less exciting and or less busy, you know, to distract the mind 622 00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:04,560 from the thoughts that it wants to think about, that I think is why, you know, a lot of the 623 00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:08,200 suicides and struggles that you see are people that are a little bit later in their life. 624 00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:11,400 And I think part of it is exactly like you said, it's not as exciting. 625 00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:16,400 And it's not therefore as distracting from the things that are simmering underneath. 626 00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:17,400 Right. 627 00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:18,800 It's dysregulating. 628 00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:22,680 Calm is dysregulating because chaos is the norm. 629 00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:25,560 Your system is used to being revved up. 630 00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:27,480 It's used to being in emergency mode. 631 00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:33,480 And the second you take that away, it's like, that's all of a sudden uncomfortable. 632 00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:39,320 Being calm and and just copacetic is uncomfortable and dysregulating. 633 00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:41,560 And that's yeah, that's fucked up. 634 00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:42,560 Right. 635 00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:47,060 At the least, that is it's it's really disheartening. 636 00:38:47,060 --> 00:38:53,760 And then, yeah, it's like we also I've it just made me thought about the concept of 637 00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:54,760 purpose. 638 00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:55,760 Right. 639 00:38:55,760 --> 00:39:00,640 It's when you talk about it happens later on in life and a lot of time after retirement, 640 00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:06,720 it's all of a sudden your whole entire identity, who you are and what you do and how you show 641 00:39:06,720 --> 00:39:09,160 up in the world is gone. 642 00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:11,920 And I mean, we should have reentry programs. 643 00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:15,500 We should have we I know some places do, but it should be mandatory. 644 00:39:15,500 --> 00:39:18,840 Part of the job is like, what happens after retirement? 645 00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:19,840 What do you do? 646 00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:24,140 Finding something, finding purpose, because without it, I feel like that leads to a lot 647 00:39:24,140 --> 00:39:25,140 of suicides. 648 00:39:25,140 --> 00:39:26,140 Yeah, 100 percent. 649 00:39:26,140 --> 00:39:29,400 And we just get especially the man of my generation. 650 00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:30,400 I've talked about this a lot. 651 00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:31,400 You got the yin and yang. 652 00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:37,280 You know, the black is the the soft and compassionate and the white is the hard and, you know, on 653 00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:39,040 a structure fire on an extrication. 654 00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:42,680 Yeah, you can lean into the operational side, the white. 655 00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:47,780 But through this kind of faux stoicism that, you know, the Schwarzenegger and Stallone's 656 00:39:47,780 --> 00:39:52,120 gave us when we were younger, these men become a white circle, especially men. 657 00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:55,800 You know, I'm sure it happens in the women, but I think more so in the men. 658 00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:58,840 And so then they become I'm a Marine, I'm a firefighter. 659 00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:01,880 And then you come out the other end and then you fall apart. 660 00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:07,200 But what they fail to recognize is it was the other side, the black side, that was the 661 00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:10,640 compassion and empathy that sent you into that job in the first place. 662 00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:12,920 And your dad's a perfect example of that. 663 00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:18,440 So realizing that you can serve in a different capacity and allow yourself that compassion 664 00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:19,680 and empathy. 665 00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:24,800 That's actually what a man is not a white circle, but the yin and the yang. 666 00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:29,520 I mean, that's that's really I resonate with that a lot. 667 00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:41,200 And somehow there is just so much pushback on compassion and empathy and, you know, and 668 00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:42,960 it's making me weak. 669 00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:45,560 And and there are a place for both. 670 00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:47,200 You can hold both at the same time. 671 00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:49,680 You can actually hold the yin and yang at the same time. 672 00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:50,680 Right. 673 00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:51,920 You can be both at the same time. 674 00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:55,360 And oftentimes we think that you have to be one or the other. 675 00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:57,200 And it's divisive. 676 00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:02,760 And I think some of this training that we could do is to show that you can still be 677 00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:05,640 sad and show up for your children. 678 00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:11,840 Like you can still be you could still be upset about something and still be able to navigate 679 00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:12,840 the world. 680 00:41:12,840 --> 00:41:18,160 You don't have to shove it down and have it, you know, and ignore it and not be there. 681 00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:23,360 And the second we open up to it and say, OK, I need to feel an emotion and let me feel 682 00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:28,120 like what sad feels like all of a sudden, it's not the white elephant in the room. 683 00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:31,680 And all of a sudden, you're not not thinking about it, not thinking about it, not thinking 684 00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:32,680 about it. 685 00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:36,220 It's there and it gives you space to think about something else. 686 00:41:36,220 --> 00:41:37,680 And I think that's really important. 687 00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:42,200 And it's one of the things that, you know, I was thinking about this the other day about 688 00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:44,480 this concept of suck it up. 689 00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:51,480 And you know, so many people in law enforcement and fire services and so many of these helping 690 00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,080 professions, it's like, you know, you suck it up. 691 00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:55,080 You can't feel your emotion. 692 00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:56,700 You got to suck it up. 693 00:41:56,700 --> 00:42:03,440 And I remember one time when I was like, I don't know, I was maybe seven or eight. 694 00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:08,600 And my dad was teaching me how to do a backflip off the diving board. 695 00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:12,120 And I it took me a little while, but I finally got it. 696 00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:14,480 And he's like, OK, you got to do it over and over again now. 697 00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:16,560 So I did it over, backflip, backflip. 698 00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:19,740 And then I started getting a little cocky and I'm like, oh, I'm going to jump even higher 699 00:42:19,740 --> 00:42:20,740 this time. 700 00:42:20,740 --> 00:42:24,840 So I jumped really high and I was thinking, oh, if I could do like one and a half, wouldn't 701 00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:25,840 that be cool? 702 00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:29,960 Anyway, I went up and when I came back down, I didn't jump out. 703 00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:34,120 I just went straight up and I came down and I hit my head on the board and I just kind 704 00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:37,560 of fell into the water, fell all the way down to the deep end. 705 00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:42,000 I remember like looking up and seeing my arm, my dad's arm trying to reach down. 706 00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:43,680 And I'm like, just fucking get in the pool. 707 00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:45,240 Like why are you sticking your arm down there? 708 00:42:45,240 --> 00:42:49,920 But anyway, I swam up to the top and I got out and I was like, oh, and my head is like 709 00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:55,600 a big knot and I'm crying and he's like, okay, get back on and do it again. 710 00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:57,200 And I was like, no dad, I can't. 711 00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:00,320 And he's like, you got to just suck it up and do it. 712 00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:03,280 And I was like, what an asshole. 713 00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:06,160 And I got up and I did it again and fine. 714 00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:07,680 I landed it. 715 00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:11,280 And you know, the second I did it again, I got out of the pool and I went in the house 716 00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:13,520 and for years I was so mad at him. 717 00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:18,160 I was like, what a jerk, you know, suck it up, suck it up. 718 00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:24,440 And that was his like mentality towards so many things was you just have to suck it up. 719 00:43:24,440 --> 00:43:29,960 And later on in life, upon reflecting, there is a place for sucking it up. 720 00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:37,380 You sometimes do have to suck it up in order to take care of the task at hand, in order 721 00:43:37,380 --> 00:43:41,760 to get the job done, in order to do what you need to do. 722 00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:45,180 And then you can feel your emotions. 723 00:43:45,180 --> 00:43:48,440 It's not to say that suck it up is like a one or a zero. 724 00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:51,120 I feel like suck it up, it has a place. 725 00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:52,840 It has a place sometimes. 726 00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:59,120 But if we then lay it over absolutely every part of our life, that's when we get into 727 00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:00,120 problems. 728 00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:04,360 When we have like these absolutes and these black and whites versus the black and white 729 00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:08,400 yin and yang thing, but like put everything in a black and white box. 730 00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:14,560 All of a sudden we have problems addressing what needs to be addressed. 731 00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:21,000 Instead, if we can say, okay, let's suck it up momentarily so we can take care of what 732 00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:23,080 needs to be taken care of. 733 00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:29,560 As a first responder, if you get carried away by your emotion in the moment of a tragedy, 734 00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:32,880 you're not going to be effective at your job. 735 00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:35,620 That's just, it's impossible. 736 00:44:35,620 --> 00:44:40,800 So you have to put it in a box and be like, okay, I'm going to get back to you. 737 00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:45,120 And then get back to it and go, okay, now I need to make some space to feel the shit 738 00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:48,720 that I felt so I don't feel like such crap. 739 00:44:48,720 --> 00:44:51,920 But I do believe we should sometimes suck it up. 740 00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:52,920 Yeah. 741 00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:53,920 I mean, operationally, absolutely. 742 00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:58,320 You know, if you've got to go over the edge of a building on a rope, that's not the time 743 00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:02,300 to be screaming like a little girl and saying, I don't like high, you know. 744 00:45:02,300 --> 00:45:07,620 But if you then rappel down and God forbid you're retrieving a child who's deceased, 745 00:45:07,620 --> 00:45:11,040 then that's when you're going to have to process that because that's a completely different 746 00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:12,840 part of the psyche then. 747 00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:13,840 Yeah. 748 00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:14,840 Yes. 749 00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:15,840 All right. 750 00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:18,840 Well, I want to get back to your journey into mindfulness. 751 00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:23,000 So you're in high school, you're saying, oh my God, Becky, look at that, but, and all 752 00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:31,560 the other Valley girl stuff that you guys say, what was your initial career aspiration 753 00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:34,640 and how did you find yourself in the world of mindfulness? 754 00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:38,880 Not only just mindfulness, but actually academically studying mindfulness. 755 00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:39,880 Yeah. 756 00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:45,840 So, I mean, of course, like every other person in Los Angeles, I was going to be a movie 757 00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:46,840 star. 758 00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:47,840 No, it was very brief. 759 00:45:47,840 --> 00:45:50,440 It didn't last long, but I did like theater work and stuff like that. 760 00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:57,040 So to my, when I eventually went to university, so my father was a firefighter, mother was 761 00:45:57,040 --> 00:45:59,160 a registered nurse. 762 00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:02,400 Neither of them went to a formal university, right? 763 00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:12,240 They both got their, their certifications and their degrees in nursing and in fire services. 764 00:46:12,240 --> 00:46:20,760 So I, there was not, there was not a lot of focus on education and going to university. 765 00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:26,200 It was never a lot of conversation in our family and it was just like, oh yeah, do what 766 00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:27,200 you want to do. 767 00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:33,320 So I ended up in community college for about six years and then eventually transferred 768 00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,040 to a, a UC. 769 00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:43,600 And I, so I am essentially was the first person in our family to have a formal college education. 770 00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:52,600 And while I was in school, I was part of the speech team and ended up going to like nationals 771 00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:58,400 and winning gold championships for speech, not the debate side of speech, but the there's 772 00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:01,920 like pros and all sorts of other sides of speech team. 773 00:47:01,920 --> 00:47:07,440 So and I found this great love in speech and I started to focus on communications as a 774 00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:08,440 major. 775 00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:15,320 So I focused on communications and I initially got into public relations, which I thought, 776 00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:17,840 I don't know, kind of marketing people centric. 777 00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:18,840 I could talk to people. 778 00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:19,840 Let me try that. 779 00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:23,580 And I ended up in, in technology. 780 00:47:23,580 --> 00:47:29,160 And so I was kind of during that technology nineties boom where, you know, startups were 781 00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:31,680 really cool and manageable. 782 00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:35,600 And so I did that for years and really enjoyed it. 783 00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:37,800 And I eventually moved to DC. 784 00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:43,720 I started my own consulting firm after a company that I was at sold to another company and 785 00:47:43,720 --> 00:47:49,080 I got some contracts in DC, moved to DC where I met my husband. 786 00:47:49,080 --> 00:48:03,640 And so fast forward, we started raising children and I started noticing that my level of frustration 787 00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:10,240 and the way I showed up for my children was getting ugly. 788 00:48:10,240 --> 00:48:16,400 And I was still working in technology, but I started noticing with my first two children, 789 00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:19,480 they were my husband's kids from his first marriage. 790 00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:25,280 And so I didn't have, I was a little bit more reserved with them, even though we had them 791 00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:30,480 half the time, I was more reserved because they had a mother and you know, I deferred 792 00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:31,800 to her on everything. 793 00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:32,800 Like she was the mom. 794 00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:33,800 I'm, they call me Nina. 795 00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:35,440 I'm their Nina. 796 00:48:35,440 --> 00:48:43,740 And so, but when we eventually had our own, our youngest kind of like something else inside 797 00:48:43,740 --> 00:48:47,340 me opened and I didn't have to reserve. 798 00:48:47,340 --> 00:48:51,640 And so the ugly side of me came out that I didn't know was there. 799 00:48:51,640 --> 00:49:01,720 And I found that when my daughter was four, I really was aggressive towards her one day 800 00:49:01,720 --> 00:49:04,480 in a way that's not acceptable. 801 00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:10,160 And I just had this epiphany of like, what the fuck am I doing? 802 00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:13,960 This is not okay and why am I doing this? 803 00:49:13,960 --> 00:49:16,480 And do I have control over this? 804 00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:17,480 Obviously not. 805 00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:18,880 Why don't I have control? 806 00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:19,880 That doesn't make sense. 807 00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:22,560 I should be able to control my actions. 808 00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:25,320 And so I started to study the brain. 809 00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:26,800 I was really curious. 810 00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:31,220 I went back to school and I was like, I want to understand the stress response. 811 00:49:31,220 --> 00:49:35,760 I want to understand what part of our brain reacts during stress. 812 00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:38,900 What part of our brain is connected to trauma? 813 00:49:38,900 --> 00:49:41,040 What part of our brain do we have control of? 814 00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:42,680 What part of our brain don't we? 815 00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:46,240 And can we actually train for control? 816 00:49:46,240 --> 00:49:47,660 Like is that a thing? 817 00:49:47,660 --> 00:49:53,640 So I started looking at neuroscience and the stress response system and I fell into mindfulness. 818 00:49:53,640 --> 00:50:00,720 And mindfulness is really interesting because it's an actual training that you do where 819 00:50:00,720 --> 00:50:03,540 you train your brain to think. 820 00:50:03,540 --> 00:50:06,120 It's all about awareness. 821 00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:13,920 It's not like the talk therapy of how did my childhood fuck me up to this point in life? 822 00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:16,540 It's like I'm here right now. 823 00:50:16,540 --> 00:50:19,560 What am I feeling and what can I do about it? 824 00:50:19,560 --> 00:50:25,000 And so I started just studying it more and more and more, which is kind of like why I 825 00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:31,680 named my company Mindful Junkie because once I fell, like some friends of mine actually 826 00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:35,640 said, oh, this would be the perfect name for you once they saw what I was doing, which 827 00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:37,760 was just, I felt like a junkie. 828 00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:41,960 I was consuming more and more mindfulness, getting mindfulness certified, getting teacher 829 00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:44,160 certified, going to school, like all these things. 830 00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:47,000 I'm like, give me more, give me more, give me more. 831 00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:55,600 And eventually got into a master's program, which was the very first mindfulness master's 832 00:50:55,600 --> 00:50:57,280 degree you could get in the United States. 833 00:50:57,280 --> 00:50:59,080 It might even be the only one still. 834 00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:00,080 I don't know. 835 00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:05,360 But I was like one of the first 10 graduates of this mindfulness master's program. 836 00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:12,240 And while I was conducting, I conducted the study and was writing my thesis and all my 837 00:51:12,240 --> 00:51:16,360 research was honing in on first responders. 838 00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:21,400 And I was looking at it because I was interested in the stress response system and I was interested 839 00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:23,080 in chronic stress, right? 840 00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:27,200 So like everybody has stress, but then there's chronic stress and chronic stress says it's 841 00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:28,200 pervasive. 842 00:51:28,200 --> 00:51:29,760 It's just happening all the time. 843 00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:33,760 And the life of a first responder, I mean, your entire job is stress. 844 00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:37,240 Like it's just like, oh, the trauma, the tragedy. 845 00:51:37,240 --> 00:51:44,120 And so I was looking at all of this and I was, I think I mentioned to these this once 846 00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:47,640 when we were talking before, but this lieutenant once said to me, he's like, why are you so 847 00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:50,000 interested in first responders? 848 00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:54,100 And I was like, I don't know, they're just really cool people, badass people who want 849 00:51:54,100 --> 00:51:56,600 to take care of the world and no one's taking care of them. 850 00:51:56,600 --> 00:51:59,520 So why don't we figure out something to take care of them? 851 00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:03,680 And I was like indignantly told my husband, I'm like, this jerk was like, why first responder? 852 00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:10,520 And Jeff, my husband finally was said, pointed out that no, I was raised by two first responders. 853 00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:14,760 And that's why my lens is such and I didn't get it at the time, but not like while I was 854 00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:15,760 doing it. 855 00:52:15,760 --> 00:52:18,040 But now I realize, I mean, that was my lens. 856 00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:24,720 My lens was seeing two people who were so amazing taking care of our community at a 857 00:52:24,720 --> 00:52:29,400 cost at a cost to themselves at a cost to our family. 858 00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:33,380 You know, when the doors closed at the end of the night for us, it was a lot of pain 859 00:52:33,380 --> 00:52:34,880 and suffering. 860 00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:39,160 And yet they were out there in the world every single day taking care of our community, taking 861 00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:40,440 care of others. 862 00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:46,200 And no one was saying who's taking care of the people who are taking care of the people, 863 00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:47,840 what resources do we have? 864 00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:52,260 And so when I started asking all these questions during my study and during my thesis and writing 865 00:52:52,260 --> 00:52:57,740 all of this, like what, what training do you have to help you process? 866 00:52:57,740 --> 00:53:01,640 What trainings do you have to prepare you to go into a traumatic moment? 867 00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:05,800 What trainings do you have when you leave work at the end of the night before getting 868 00:53:05,800 --> 00:53:06,800 home? 869 00:53:06,800 --> 00:53:07,800 How do you learn to regulate? 870 00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:12,600 Like how, what trainings do you have to show up in the world to show up for your family? 871 00:53:12,600 --> 00:53:16,920 And I just kept getting a whole lot of nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. 872 00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:22,800 And so I started looking at mindfulness as a way of going, okay, we can do this. 873 00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:25,320 We can train just like we do a muscle. 874 00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:33,520 We can train our brain to identify being triggered, identify a stress state, identify trauma, 875 00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:38,500 even identify happiness, identify joy, identify gratitude. 876 00:53:38,500 --> 00:53:45,240 And we can train to magnify it or to dim the light on it. 877 00:53:45,240 --> 00:53:52,800 And so I just, after I wrote my thesis, it is, was like the backbone for the curriculum. 878 00:53:52,800 --> 00:54:01,240 I developed a curriculum called Tactical Brain Training and I go in and I train in departments 879 00:54:01,240 --> 00:54:02,240 and agencies. 880 00:54:02,240 --> 00:54:06,320 It's a four hour course and it's the psychoeducation of stress and trauma. 881 00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:11,560 So all the interventions for stress and trauma and it's, and you apply mindfulness throughout, 882 00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:13,040 mindfulness interventions. 883 00:54:13,040 --> 00:54:17,800 And one of the things that I think is a huge misconception with mindfulness, but also with 884 00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:21,920 stress management in general is that there's a fix. 885 00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:28,880 There's one thing you can do when the reality is everybody's trauma is personal. 886 00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:30,720 Everybody's stress is personal. 887 00:54:30,720 --> 00:54:33,880 Everything that brought you to this moment is personal. 888 00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:40,680 And so are the interventions you're going to use for helping to de-stress. 889 00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:42,800 What works for me might not work for you. 890 00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:45,460 What works for you might not work for Joe. 891 00:54:45,460 --> 00:54:51,640 And so part of this training that I do is to help identify a personal strategy to say, 892 00:54:51,640 --> 00:54:54,960 okay, maybe I hate square breathing because it makes me claustrophobic. 893 00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:58,960 So I'm not going to use that to regulate, but I'm going to use a listening intervention. 894 00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:03,160 And maybe if I do this listening intervention right now, it'll take me out of my amygdala, 895 00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:09,760 fight, flight and freeze and into my prefrontal cortex where I can start actively making decisions 896 00:55:09,760 --> 00:55:11,200 and I can get out of ruminating. 897 00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:14,360 I can get out of self judgment and start thinking. 898 00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:19,600 And so it provides like 15 different opportunities and mindfulness interventions to help you 899 00:55:19,600 --> 00:55:25,240 establish what works for you and create like a personal system. 900 00:55:25,240 --> 00:55:28,000 And I started teaching it. 901 00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:33,040 So what were you seeing in that community when you first started teaching it, especially 902 00:55:33,040 --> 00:55:38,240 as far as the resistance and what has been the kind of metamorphosis since then? 903 00:55:38,240 --> 00:55:39,240 That's such a good question. 904 00:55:39,240 --> 00:55:40,240 Okay. 905 00:55:40,240 --> 00:55:46,640 So when I first started teaching it, I called it mindfulness for first responders. 906 00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:48,560 That was like no go. 907 00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:50,760 Open the door in the face. 908 00:55:50,760 --> 00:55:51,760 This ain't happening. 909 00:55:51,760 --> 00:55:55,840 Crazy lady with the Mohawk is coming in to talk to a bunch of first responders. 910 00:55:55,840 --> 00:55:57,600 This shit ain't flying. 911 00:55:57,600 --> 00:56:01,160 They expected me to be burning incense and wearing little lemon leggings and sitting 912 00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:03,360 on the mat and breathing. 913 00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:05,160 And I don't resonate with that. 914 00:56:05,160 --> 00:56:09,960 So that's not how I show up because that never worked for me. 915 00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:11,160 So I didn't do it. 916 00:56:11,160 --> 00:56:14,440 I mean, a lot of this is like cultural competency we talk about. 917 00:56:14,440 --> 00:56:19,200 And I have the cultural competency only because it's what I resonate with. 918 00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:25,520 And I was raised in the environment of first responders. 919 00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:26,920 There are many different ways of getting there. 920 00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:27,960 This is just my approach. 921 00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:35,840 So I was getting a lot of rejects, a lot of nos, a lot of I started with mindfulness for 922 00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:41,600 first responders and I started with a very tried and true course, which was like an eight 923 00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:42,600 week intervention. 924 00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:43,600 Okay. 925 00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:49,560 No one can give me eight weeks, an agency, a department, no one eight weeks is like impossible, 926 00:56:49,560 --> 00:56:51,320 especially with shift work. 927 00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:54,880 It's like to get everybody in eight weeks to learn something. 928 00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:55,880 It doesn't work. 929 00:56:55,880 --> 00:56:57,300 Paired it down to six weeks. 930 00:56:57,300 --> 00:56:58,300 Let me try six weeks. 931 00:56:58,300 --> 00:57:00,680 No go paired it down to four weeks. 932 00:57:00,680 --> 00:57:01,680 No go. 933 00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:07,120 So I realized that it has to be a planting of a seed. 934 00:57:07,120 --> 00:57:10,960 It can't be an entire training. 935 00:57:10,960 --> 00:57:19,040 It has to be, let's start planting the seed of what mindfulness is so that you can then 936 00:57:19,040 --> 00:57:23,080 take it and grow it into what you want it to be. 937 00:57:23,080 --> 00:57:28,680 And then I had to, when our nervous system is all revved up with like mirror neurons, 938 00:57:28,680 --> 00:57:32,360 you know, with mirror neurons, you show up and you're like angry and the person gets 939 00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:33,560 angry, right? 940 00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:36,800 Like the mood you're in really seeps onto the other person's mood. 941 00:57:36,800 --> 00:57:39,440 And if you're threatened, people feel threatened. 942 00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:45,880 Well, I was noticing that the word mindfulness negatively impacted the nervous system of 943 00:57:45,880 --> 00:57:46,880 people. 944 00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:53,440 And so rather than creating a insurmountable situation to begin with, why not just change 945 00:57:53,440 --> 00:57:58,120 the name of it so that I don't walk in and they're already pissed off at me, make it 946 00:57:58,120 --> 00:58:03,600 something that is manages somebody's nervous system so I can come in and we can start talking 947 00:58:03,600 --> 00:58:04,740 about this shit. 948 00:58:04,740 --> 00:58:08,520 And so years later, I named it tactical brain training. 949 00:58:08,520 --> 00:58:14,320 And that's when I started seeing way more interaction and way more interest. 950 00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:16,380 And it wasn't, it's not a lie. 951 00:58:16,380 --> 00:58:21,280 You could say it's marketing, but it's marketing to the extent of creating it. 952 00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:24,980 It's like people are more open to it and it is what it is. 953 00:58:24,980 --> 00:58:30,980 You're tactically training your brain to identify stress, identify trauma, and then 954 00:58:30,980 --> 00:58:32,660 do something about it. 955 00:58:32,660 --> 00:58:34,640 And so that was like the progression. 956 00:58:34,640 --> 00:58:39,340 And then it became a four hour training that's a planting of a seed. 957 00:58:39,340 --> 00:58:43,040 And it's specifically called tactical brain training because you're training your brain 958 00:58:43,040 --> 00:58:44,920 to think. 959 00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:49,280 It's interesting because the same, same thing that I came across, I mean, not too long ago 960 00:58:49,280 --> 00:58:56,400 way after you had this conversation with yourself, but when there's resistance to using the tools 961 00:58:56,400 --> 00:59:02,300 that we know work when it comes to mental health, having the performance conversation 962 00:59:02,300 --> 00:59:05,080 results in the same exact thing, but you've reframed it. 963 00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:08,740 So you get, you know, a firefighter or police officer is like, Oh, you know, that's just 964 00:59:08,740 --> 00:59:13,240 hippie dippy bullshit, but they're on the SWAT team or they're one of the rescue guys. 965 00:59:13,240 --> 00:59:15,720 It's like, all right, then rock star. 966 00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:19,540 Do you know that you cannot get into flow state with a busy mind? 967 00:59:19,540 --> 00:59:25,200 So if you really want to be at that top operator level as a firefighter or a paramedic or whatever 968 00:59:25,200 --> 00:59:30,900 it is, then these are the tools that the elite athletes use so they can get into a flow state. 969 00:59:30,900 --> 00:59:32,060 So that can be present. 970 00:59:32,060 --> 00:59:36,420 So when you're searching a room and it's all smoked out, that you can actually see that 971 00:59:36,420 --> 00:59:40,460 layout of the room as you're feeling with your hand versus, you know, two corners in 972 00:59:40,460 --> 00:59:42,920 you, you start panicking because you got lost. 973 00:59:42,920 --> 00:59:46,560 So I like that reframing because the result is exactly the same. 974 00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:48,000 You're trying to calm the nervous system. 975 00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:53,640 You're trying to clear the mind, but the operational side is also a good hook for the naysayers. 976 00:59:53,640 --> 00:59:54,640 Yeah. 977 00:59:54,640 --> 00:59:59,160 And it's like, instead of trying to like, I don't know, I screw up these things all 978 00:59:59,160 --> 01:00:00,160 the time, but what is it? 979 01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:04,300 You're like trying to put a square peg in a round hole or a round peg in a square hole. 980 01:00:04,300 --> 01:00:06,040 I don't know whichever one it is. 981 01:00:06,040 --> 01:00:09,900 It's like, instead of trying to do that, we're like trying to shove, we're like, ah, mindfulness, 982 01:00:09,900 --> 01:00:10,900 mindfulness. 983 01:00:10,900 --> 01:00:12,300 And it's like, no, no, no. 984 01:00:12,300 --> 01:00:13,300 Why? 985 01:00:13,300 --> 01:00:14,380 Why not just change it? 986 01:00:14,380 --> 01:00:19,480 Why not just reframe it and make it so that people want to do it? 987 01:00:19,480 --> 01:00:27,260 It's like, it's, one of the things that I have found over and over again is you have 988 01:00:27,260 --> 01:00:31,800 to show up where people are, not where you want them to be. 989 01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:38,180 And rather than trying to say, I want you to be here, I just like offer up ideas and 990 01:00:38,180 --> 01:00:40,920 everything is like also an option. 991 01:00:40,920 --> 01:00:48,640 One of the, you know, what I teach is a very trauma aware mindfulness, which says that 992 01:00:48,640 --> 01:00:53,740 you don't have to sit with your eyes closed and have no thoughts and focus on it. 993 01:00:53,740 --> 01:00:56,460 It's like, it's all about options. 994 01:00:56,460 --> 01:00:58,020 It's like, do you want to close your eyes? 995 01:00:58,020 --> 01:00:59,020 Great. 996 01:00:59,020 --> 01:01:00,020 If you don't, fuck it. 997 01:01:00,020 --> 01:01:01,020 Don't close your eyes. 998 01:01:01,020 --> 01:01:02,020 You don't have to. 999 01:01:02,020 --> 01:01:03,500 If you want to stand the whole time, stand. 1000 01:01:03,500 --> 01:01:05,980 If you want to lean back in your chair, lean back. 1001 01:01:05,980 --> 01:01:09,060 Like do it that it's going to work for you. 1002 01:01:09,060 --> 01:01:13,060 Don't do it in the way that we've created this system that you must comply to. 1003 01:01:13,060 --> 01:01:14,060 Absolutely. 1004 01:01:14,060 --> 01:01:17,340 Well, you mentioned about the punctuation of shifts. 1005 01:01:17,340 --> 01:01:22,140 I've had a guy, Jim Poole on and he's from a company called Newcom. 1006 01:01:22,140 --> 01:01:25,420 And if you ever heard of them, N-U-C-A-L-M. 1007 01:01:25,420 --> 01:01:27,940 It would absolutely go hand in hand with what you do. 1008 01:01:27,940 --> 01:01:29,300 Oh, look them up. 1009 01:01:29,300 --> 01:01:30,300 The quick backstory. 1010 01:01:30,300 --> 01:01:35,140 I'm sure people listen, they've heard it before, but this technology came from this incredible 1011 01:01:35,140 --> 01:01:40,100 scientist that we had in the U S who took 15 years to figure out the frequency that 1012 01:01:40,100 --> 01:01:42,460 the brain is at in certain emotional states. 1013 01:01:42,460 --> 01:01:43,460 Okay. 1014 01:01:43,460 --> 01:01:47,420 He then took another 10 years to figure out, well, can we influence the brain to go into 1015 01:01:47,420 --> 01:01:48,420 those states? 1016 01:01:48,420 --> 01:01:53,060 And he came up with this device and you put headphones on and it's not the kind of neuro 1017 01:01:53,060 --> 01:01:55,380 beats that you can get on a Spotify playlist. 1018 01:01:55,380 --> 01:01:58,100 But each song is like a gigs worth of stuff. 1019 01:01:58,100 --> 01:02:02,380 So under the music are all these kind of undulations and it's the only one in the world that has 1020 01:02:02,380 --> 01:02:04,740 the patent for this particular technology. 1021 01:02:04,740 --> 01:02:09,500 And it used to be in the NASA, you know, training rooms and the seal rooms and, you know, NFL 1022 01:02:09,500 --> 01:02:13,100 locker rooms, $6,000 box that they had. 1023 01:02:13,100 --> 01:02:18,660 Well, now, as we touched on earlier, the technology that we have in our phones, it's an app. 1024 01:02:18,660 --> 01:02:23,940 And so I cannot speak highly enough of this and the same with mindfulness. 1025 01:02:23,940 --> 01:02:28,180 I've used Headspace for years, but it's passive. 1026 01:02:28,180 --> 01:02:30,940 So like you said, trying to get the thoughts to go away. 1027 01:02:30,940 --> 01:02:34,380 I think it's also a good gateway drug into mindfulness too. 1028 01:02:34,380 --> 01:02:40,820 But so what I've said to a lot of people on the show is find somewhere safe because obviously 1029 01:02:40,820 --> 01:02:42,460 you can't relax since you feel safe. 1030 01:02:42,460 --> 01:02:45,940 So go back in the bunk room when you've been relieved or, you know, sit in your patrol 1031 01:02:45,940 --> 01:02:49,980 car, but within the, you know, within the perimeter of your, you know, station or whatever 1032 01:02:49,980 --> 01:02:53,620 it is that you, you go to for meetings. 1033 01:02:53,620 --> 01:02:57,900 Put on the eye mask and the headphones and do the 20 minute power nap. 1034 01:02:57,900 --> 01:03:01,940 And what it does is it, it, whether you like it or not, it will down regulate your nervous 1035 01:03:01,940 --> 01:03:03,180 system. 1036 01:03:03,180 --> 01:03:10,780 And I can't think of, aside from mindfulness, a better way of punctuating between, I just 1037 01:03:10,780 --> 01:03:16,060 cut a kid out of a car at 3 a.m. and I'm dad walking through the door at nine. 1038 01:03:16,060 --> 01:03:17,060 So talk to me. 1039 01:03:17,060 --> 01:03:20,980 I mean, that's, that's that technology, but I mean, mindfulness, again, doing a Headspace 1040 01:03:20,980 --> 01:03:26,820 session or, you know, the things that you're going to teach, I think we need a punctuation 1041 01:03:26,820 --> 01:03:29,300 between work and home. 1042 01:03:29,300 --> 01:03:31,260 So talk to me about that space. 1043 01:03:31,260 --> 01:03:32,260 Yeah. 1044 01:03:32,260 --> 01:03:36,200 So first of all, Newcom, I feel like might be my new best friend. 1045 01:03:36,200 --> 01:03:39,580 I am going to research the shit out of it. 1046 01:03:39,580 --> 01:03:43,060 As soon as we're off of this, I can't wait. 1047 01:03:43,060 --> 01:03:48,300 I know that there are huge, there's tons of research with sound and brainwaves and how 1048 01:03:48,300 --> 01:03:49,460 it all works. 1049 01:03:49,460 --> 01:03:50,540 I don't know anything about it. 1050 01:03:50,540 --> 01:03:52,900 I just know that it's out there. 1051 01:03:52,900 --> 01:03:59,580 And I know there's also something called heart math, which is a, it's like a little, I wonder 1052 01:03:59,580 --> 01:04:00,580 if I have it on me. 1053 01:04:00,580 --> 01:04:06,620 It's like this little device you put on your ear and it follows your heart rate. 1054 01:04:06,620 --> 01:04:10,940 And then you look on your phone and you take the ball and you either try and keep, it's 1055 01:04:10,940 --> 01:04:11,940 biofeedback. 1056 01:04:11,940 --> 01:04:13,500 I don't know if you've ever done biofeedback. 1057 01:04:13,500 --> 01:04:15,780 I did it way back when, when I was a kid. 1058 01:04:15,780 --> 01:04:21,940 But anyway, it's a really great way of regulating and keeping you on track. 1059 01:04:21,940 --> 01:04:27,140 And it's a great way of practicing mindfulness where it really is mindfulness. 1060 01:04:27,140 --> 01:04:30,860 You're focusing on something and when you get distracted, you know, you're getting distracted. 1061 01:04:30,860 --> 01:04:35,460 So you come back to being focused, which is what it is, but it's also another great way 1062 01:04:35,460 --> 01:04:36,660 of getting there. 1063 01:04:36,660 --> 01:04:41,620 And this does speak to this feeling that I have so much, which is there's not one access 1064 01:04:41,620 --> 01:04:43,140 point to all of this. 1065 01:04:43,140 --> 01:04:50,820 There are so many different access points to creating, being able to manage down regulating 1066 01:04:50,820 --> 01:04:52,980 and being able to manage the tragedy, right? 1067 01:04:52,980 --> 01:04:55,380 There's new column, there's heart math, there's mindfulness. 1068 01:04:55,380 --> 01:05:00,860 There's all like, it behooves us to talk about them all and to not be adamant that one is 1069 01:05:00,860 --> 01:05:02,060 the only way to go. 1070 01:05:02,060 --> 01:05:03,340 There's a shit ton. 1071 01:05:03,340 --> 01:05:10,060 So anyway, yeah, I, so one of the things is mindfulness is great. 1072 01:05:10,060 --> 01:05:11,460 It's preventative. 1073 01:05:11,460 --> 01:05:19,180 It's great for before you encounter a tragic situation during the moment of, but also afterwards 1074 01:05:19,180 --> 01:05:25,020 when you're trying to down regulate, as you mentioned. 1075 01:05:25,020 --> 01:05:30,420 Part of the mindfulness practice itself is just, you have to first notice that you're 1076 01:05:30,420 --> 01:05:33,460 in a moment where you need to do it. 1077 01:05:33,460 --> 01:05:38,220 And after practicing over time, that's when you start noticing that you feel out of your 1078 01:05:38,220 --> 01:05:43,700 window of tolerance, you feel hyper or hypovigilant, you're not feeling copacetic, you're not feeling 1079 01:05:43,700 --> 01:05:44,800 like things are okay. 1080 01:05:44,800 --> 01:05:46,580 You feel uncomfortable. 1081 01:05:46,580 --> 01:05:49,900 Then once you notice that discomfort, then you could do something about it. 1082 01:05:49,900 --> 01:05:57,020 So a lot of times, even it could be something as simple as when you're driving back from 1083 01:05:57,020 --> 01:06:00,940 an incident to actually tune into a sensation. 1084 01:06:00,940 --> 01:06:04,500 So you can notice like the feeling of the steering wheel. 1085 01:06:04,500 --> 01:06:09,820 All of a sudden you start having thoughts of the situation you just went through and 1086 01:06:09,820 --> 01:06:13,900 you go up, I'm thinking, and you redirect and go back to a sensation. 1087 01:06:13,900 --> 01:06:15,500 I'm going to feel the steering wheel. 1088 01:06:15,500 --> 01:06:16,900 I'm going to feel the door. 1089 01:06:16,900 --> 01:06:18,580 I'm going to, I'm listening. 1090 01:06:18,580 --> 01:06:21,020 A lot of times I recommend listening to music. 1091 01:06:21,020 --> 01:06:24,640 Music, like we were just saying, sound is a great soother. 1092 01:06:24,640 --> 01:06:28,580 It's a great way to focus on something else. 1093 01:06:28,580 --> 01:06:32,380 And it's not to disappear what has occurred. 1094 01:06:32,380 --> 01:06:35,620 It's not to say, I'm not going to think about this. 1095 01:06:35,620 --> 01:06:37,800 It's more to say, I'm feeling heightened. 1096 01:06:37,800 --> 01:06:41,260 The way I'm thinking about it is dysregulating. 1097 01:06:41,260 --> 01:06:45,600 And so I'm going to refocus on something else. 1098 01:06:45,600 --> 01:06:50,020 We should be able to sit with our feelings and with our emotions, but we have to do it 1099 01:06:50,020 --> 01:06:51,180 in a safe way. 1100 01:06:51,180 --> 01:06:55,560 We have to do it in a way that isn't going to take us and spiral us down. 1101 01:06:55,560 --> 01:07:00,940 And so there's a way of doing that where you can sit and it, you know, what does this feel 1102 01:07:00,940 --> 01:07:01,940 like? 1103 01:07:01,940 --> 01:07:03,580 You can sit and name it, right? 1104 01:07:03,580 --> 01:07:06,060 So there's a thing, it's name it to tame it. 1105 01:07:06,060 --> 01:07:07,700 I'm sure you've heard of that saying before. 1106 01:07:07,700 --> 01:07:12,540 It's very neurologically based neurons that fire together, wire together, name it to tame 1107 01:07:12,540 --> 01:07:13,540 it. 1108 01:07:13,540 --> 01:07:18,700 When you can name something, you somehow take some of its power away, right? 1109 01:07:18,700 --> 01:07:25,500 So in the moment when you're feeling sad, notice this is sadness. 1110 01:07:25,500 --> 01:07:31,460 And there's a specific mindfulness intervention that you could do where rather than identifying 1111 01:07:31,460 --> 01:07:36,140 with it and saying, I am sad, I am angry. 1112 01:07:36,140 --> 01:07:39,220 Instead you say, this is sadness. 1113 01:07:39,220 --> 01:07:42,220 This is anger because who I am is Gina. 1114 01:07:42,220 --> 01:07:43,820 I am not sadness. 1115 01:07:43,820 --> 01:07:45,160 I am not frustration. 1116 01:07:45,160 --> 01:07:46,780 I am not anger. 1117 01:07:46,780 --> 01:07:48,520 I am Gina. 1118 01:07:48,520 --> 01:07:52,180 But this feeling I have, this feels like sadness. 1119 01:07:52,180 --> 01:07:53,260 This is sadness. 1120 01:07:53,260 --> 01:07:54,360 This is pain. 1121 01:07:54,360 --> 01:07:59,440 And then once you name it, you go, okay, what can I do to redirect? 1122 01:07:59,440 --> 01:08:02,980 So you name it, this is sadness. 1123 01:08:02,980 --> 01:08:04,200 Take a breath. 1124 01:08:04,200 --> 01:08:11,460 We know through a lot of research that actual breathing helps to decrease cortisol overload. 1125 01:08:11,460 --> 01:08:13,540 Cortisol is the stress hormone. 1126 01:08:13,540 --> 01:08:17,620 A lot of times it's in our systems, whether we want it or not, we're living in high stress, 1127 01:08:17,620 --> 01:08:18,780 everything goes, goes, goes. 1128 01:08:18,780 --> 01:08:22,340 You're just like in stress and hormones and cortisol. 1129 01:08:22,340 --> 01:08:28,360 And just taking a breath helps to decrease the cortisol levels in our system. 1130 01:08:28,360 --> 01:08:32,020 So it's not like you're just taking, oh, you need to calm down and take a breath. 1131 01:08:32,020 --> 01:08:38,860 You're actually doing something physiologically to your body. 1132 01:08:38,860 --> 01:08:41,340 But you have to remember to take a breath. 1133 01:08:41,340 --> 01:08:44,180 And that's another component of mindfulness. 1134 01:08:44,180 --> 01:08:46,900 Remembering, remembering to do something. 1135 01:08:46,900 --> 01:08:49,700 I need to remember to take a breath. 1136 01:08:49,700 --> 01:08:54,780 And we know also through science and through wonderful books like Breathe or Breath, I 1137 01:08:54,780 --> 01:08:59,460 can't remember which one it is, that we have two different chambers in our lungs. 1138 01:08:59,460 --> 01:09:05,220 And it's like the lower chamber, the deep, deep breath we take, that is connected to 1139 01:09:05,220 --> 01:09:06,620 our nervous system. 1140 01:09:06,620 --> 01:09:10,960 And so the deeper the breath, the more you're going to be able to down regulate. 1141 01:09:10,960 --> 01:09:19,700 So you have stress, you name it, you feel a sensation, take some deep breaths. 1142 01:09:19,700 --> 01:09:21,820 Yes, this is sadness. 1143 01:09:21,820 --> 01:09:24,540 Okay, now what? 1144 01:09:24,540 --> 01:09:28,540 And then you carry on. 1145 01:09:28,540 --> 01:09:32,620 I used to use breath work on the way to acute calls. 1146 01:09:32,620 --> 01:09:35,380 So obviously there's a lot of calls at the very run of the mill, it doesn't even get 1147 01:09:35,380 --> 01:09:36,380 your heart rate up at all. 1148 01:09:36,380 --> 01:09:40,820 But then you get that pediatric call or confirmed structure fire. 1149 01:09:40,820 --> 01:09:42,740 And it wasn't really box breathing so much. 1150 01:09:42,740 --> 01:09:48,640 It was probably, again, just a slow inhale, slow exhale. 1151 01:09:48,640 --> 01:09:50,660 But it was amazing how it would just keep it down. 1152 01:09:50,660 --> 01:09:54,100 Because obviously you're not trying to be in some sleep state on the way to a call. 1153 01:09:54,100 --> 01:09:55,980 You got to have that level of performance. 1154 01:09:55,980 --> 01:09:59,620 But just to take the edge off it where it doesn't become overwhelming. 1155 01:09:59,620 --> 01:10:00,900 Yeah. 1156 01:10:00,900 --> 01:10:02,820 And you mentioned box breathing. 1157 01:10:02,820 --> 01:10:04,140 Some people call it square breathing. 1158 01:10:04,140 --> 01:10:05,540 Some people call it box breathing. 1159 01:10:05,540 --> 01:10:06,540 It's amazing. 1160 01:10:06,540 --> 01:10:11,740 In all these, every single time I do a training, I do box breathing, square breathing. 1161 01:10:11,740 --> 01:10:12,900 I do open breathing. 1162 01:10:12,900 --> 01:10:14,580 I do a shit ton of other things. 1163 01:10:14,580 --> 01:10:20,060 But between box square breathing and open breathing, at the end I have them raise their 1164 01:10:20,060 --> 01:10:21,060 hands. 1165 01:10:21,060 --> 01:10:22,060 Who preferred square breathing? 1166 01:10:22,060 --> 01:10:24,060 Who preferred open breath? 1167 01:10:24,060 --> 01:10:26,380 It's almost half and half. 1168 01:10:26,380 --> 01:10:29,660 And the people who don't like square breathing feel like they're holding their breath. 1169 01:10:29,660 --> 01:10:30,660 They feel claustrophobic. 1170 01:10:30,660 --> 01:10:32,340 They feel like they can't breathe. 1171 01:10:32,340 --> 01:10:36,040 The people who don't like open breathing feel like it's never ending. 1172 01:10:36,040 --> 01:10:37,260 And they can't stop thinking. 1173 01:10:37,260 --> 01:10:40,380 And their thoughts just keep going and going and going. 1174 01:10:40,380 --> 01:10:43,580 And so again, one is not right. 1175 01:10:43,580 --> 01:10:48,520 It's find what works for you and do that. 1176 01:10:48,520 --> 01:10:52,120 So for people listening, if they took the course, what would the kind of principles 1177 01:10:52,120 --> 01:10:59,060 be that are infused in them? 1178 01:10:59,060 --> 01:11:11,300 Learning to identify what's occurring while it's occurring so you have agency over your 1179 01:11:11,300 --> 01:11:13,420 actions. 1180 01:11:13,420 --> 01:11:23,140 A lot of times we are just in a reactive state and a reactive state takes you to the amygdala, 1181 01:11:23,140 --> 01:11:25,580 to the fight, flight and freeze. 1182 01:11:25,580 --> 01:11:31,340 A responsive state is prefrontal cortex executive functioning. 1183 01:11:31,340 --> 01:11:38,940 So you're learning about the science behind the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, the science 1184 01:11:38,940 --> 01:11:46,500 behind the stress response system, your adrenal glands, your cortisol overload, the science 1185 01:11:46,500 --> 01:11:51,660 behind ruminating, having thoughts that just keep spinning out of control. 1186 01:11:51,660 --> 01:11:56,700 But while you're doing that, the entire time you're practicing an intervention. 1187 01:11:56,700 --> 01:11:59,180 And this is kind of how my book flows also. 1188 01:11:59,180 --> 01:12:03,660 It's like there's some science and then you actually do a practice. 1189 01:12:03,660 --> 01:12:08,020 So I'm not just throwing stuff at you saying, oh, here's all these wonderful ideas. 1190 01:12:08,020 --> 01:12:10,900 We're in class in the moment going to practice this shit. 1191 01:12:10,900 --> 01:12:15,660 So you do some practice and then you learn some more science and then you do some practice 1192 01:12:15,660 --> 01:12:18,300 and you assess over and over and over again. 1193 01:12:18,300 --> 01:12:21,180 One of the main principles is self assessment. 1194 01:12:21,180 --> 01:12:24,420 You assess what you're like before you do an intervention. 1195 01:12:24,420 --> 01:12:26,900 You assess what you're like after an intervention. 1196 01:12:26,900 --> 01:12:28,100 And did you like it? 1197 01:12:28,100 --> 01:12:29,420 Like maybe you hated it. 1198 01:12:29,420 --> 01:12:30,420 Great. 1199 01:12:30,420 --> 01:12:31,420 Don't do it. 1200 01:12:31,420 --> 01:12:33,780 Don't do the one you hate when you're feeling really bad. 1201 01:12:33,780 --> 01:12:35,740 That's going to suck. 1202 01:12:35,740 --> 01:12:41,180 And then through the whole thing, it's science practice assessment, science practice assessment. 1203 01:12:41,180 --> 01:12:45,580 So at the end of it, when you're done, you have a list of things that work, a list of 1204 01:12:45,580 --> 01:12:50,060 things that don't work, and then you could start developing your own program. 1205 01:12:50,060 --> 01:12:55,580 And one of the things that's in my book is I was able to convince the publisher to put 1206 01:12:55,580 --> 01:13:01,200 QR codes at the end of each chapter so that at the end of each chapter, you can go on 1207 01:13:01,200 --> 01:13:05,660 and do a guided meditation, like it takes you to my YouTube channel where they can do 1208 01:13:05,660 --> 01:13:09,660 an actual guided meditation on their phone or on their computer. 1209 01:13:09,660 --> 01:13:10,660 Brilliant. 1210 01:13:10,660 --> 01:13:11,940 I forget who it was. 1211 01:13:11,940 --> 01:13:16,020 Someone recently said they wanted to do that in, I think it was one of my English chiropractic 1212 01:13:16,020 --> 01:13:17,020 friends actually. 1213 01:13:17,020 --> 01:13:21,500 I thought it was just such a brilliant idea because there's text and you can absorb a 1214 01:13:21,500 --> 01:13:26,980 lot but there's certainly times where, how do you describe a Turkish getup, for example? 1215 01:13:26,980 --> 01:13:29,180 That's really hard to do with words or even pictures. 1216 01:13:29,180 --> 01:13:34,220 But yeah, so now you go to a video and then I think the guided meditation is fantastic. 1217 01:13:34,220 --> 01:13:39,540 My wife gets a little bit of anxiety and she'll just do literally, I don't even know if it's 1218 01:13:39,540 --> 01:13:41,100 a minute, the headspace breathing. 1219 01:13:41,100 --> 01:13:46,580 I think it's five breaths and then it's a bird or a balloon or whatever it is. 1220 01:13:46,580 --> 01:13:51,540 And within that literally 60 seconds or so, she's kind of downregulated again and she's 1221 01:13:51,540 --> 01:13:52,540 good to go. 1222 01:13:52,540 --> 01:13:54,100 So yeah, it makes a lot of sense. 1223 01:13:54,100 --> 01:13:55,100 Yeah. 1224 01:13:55,100 --> 01:13:57,300 And I think that's it too right there. 1225 01:13:57,300 --> 01:14:01,860 It's like, just be curious, like try it out. 1226 01:14:01,860 --> 01:14:02,860 See if it works. 1227 01:14:02,860 --> 01:14:03,860 Try it for two weeks. 1228 01:14:03,860 --> 01:14:08,540 Just do, one of the misconceptions is that you have to do a seated meditation for an 1229 01:14:08,540 --> 01:14:10,220 hour a day and it's bullshit. 1230 01:14:10,220 --> 01:14:16,780 They have shown such high efficacy with 12 minutes a day, 12 minutes, even five minutes, 1231 01:14:16,780 --> 01:14:21,220 even like you said, like 60 seconds for your wife or whatever it is. 1232 01:14:21,220 --> 01:14:26,660 Just be curious and try it and see how it's showing up for you. 1233 01:14:26,660 --> 01:14:27,660 Absolutely. 1234 01:14:27,660 --> 01:14:29,940 Well, you mentioned the book, Tactical Brain Training. 1235 01:14:29,940 --> 01:14:35,220 So talk to me about what people will find in there aside from the QR codes. 1236 01:14:35,220 --> 01:14:39,460 So they'll find it's meant to be an interactive book. 1237 01:14:39,460 --> 01:14:42,980 So it's each chapter is like a story. 1238 01:14:42,980 --> 01:14:44,300 It's a first responder story. 1239 01:14:44,300 --> 01:14:50,840 It starts with like an actual real life situation that occurred without having a mindfulness 1240 01:14:50,840 --> 01:14:55,740 lens and then it replays the scenario with a mindfulness lens. 1241 01:14:55,740 --> 01:14:58,820 And then it has the science as to why, why did this happen? 1242 01:14:58,820 --> 01:15:00,220 Why did this occur? 1243 01:15:00,220 --> 01:15:03,380 And then you also, each chapter is a contemplative question. 1244 01:15:03,380 --> 01:15:06,180 Like it asks you a question. 1245 01:15:06,180 --> 01:15:08,220 When was the last time you were triggered on the job? 1246 01:15:08,220 --> 01:15:12,940 What does it look like for you to be an external stressor? 1247 01:15:12,940 --> 01:15:14,660 How can you down regulate? 1248 01:15:14,660 --> 01:15:15,660 Was this effective? 1249 01:15:15,660 --> 01:15:19,660 So like literally in the book, you can write, there's questions that you're writing answers 1250 01:15:19,660 --> 01:15:21,980 to based on the previous learnings. 1251 01:15:21,980 --> 01:15:24,680 And then there is the self assessment. 1252 01:15:24,680 --> 01:15:29,060 So you can write down in the book, you can assess how each intervention works for you 1253 01:15:29,060 --> 01:15:33,920 after you do the guided one that you can watch, or you can like listen to someone else. 1254 01:15:33,920 --> 01:15:37,000 Maybe you hate my voice, listen to someone else's guided meditation. 1255 01:15:37,000 --> 01:15:38,060 That's totally fine. 1256 01:15:38,060 --> 01:15:39,900 You could still go through the whole book. 1257 01:15:39,900 --> 01:15:46,300 And so it's science, it's practice, it's, it's like processing through questions and 1258 01:15:46,300 --> 01:15:47,300 then it's assessing. 1259 01:15:47,300 --> 01:15:48,300 Beautiful. 1260 01:15:48,300 --> 01:15:52,660 Well, I want to get to where people can find that at the end, but just before we do, we 1261 01:15:52,660 --> 01:15:57,060 touched on sleep and sleep deprivation and shift work a little bit before. 1262 01:15:57,060 --> 01:15:58,700 I'm just going to give you the microphone. 1263 01:15:58,700 --> 01:16:03,100 Talk to me about what you see as far as my community and that issue. 1264 01:16:03,100 --> 01:16:04,580 It's a shit show there. 1265 01:16:04,580 --> 01:16:05,580 Yeah. 1266 01:16:05,580 --> 01:16:07,460 I mean, just to lay it out there. 1267 01:16:07,460 --> 01:16:10,420 Sleep deprivation is huge for a multitude of reasons. 1268 01:16:10,420 --> 01:16:13,500 One shift work shift work totally screws you up, right? 1269 01:16:13,500 --> 01:16:15,200 Like it's just, it's hard. 1270 01:16:15,200 --> 01:16:20,140 It's just really hard to be up all night and then stay awake when you get home to be there 1271 01:16:20,140 --> 01:16:25,060 for your kids who you now have to make breakfast for, get them out the door, stay awake. 1272 01:16:25,060 --> 01:16:26,460 And then you want to be awake when they get home. 1273 01:16:26,460 --> 01:16:28,980 I mean, it's just really hard. 1274 01:16:28,980 --> 01:16:38,060 Plus when we lay down at night, it's really easy to go into judgment and to go into all 1275 01:16:38,060 --> 01:16:42,700 the things you did wrong, all the things you wish you could have done throughout maybe 1276 01:16:42,700 --> 01:16:48,060 that bad call that, um, and so it's, it's really, really difficult. 1277 01:16:48,060 --> 01:16:54,900 We're all revved up and, um, I think that almost every single first responder I talked 1278 01:16:54,900 --> 01:16:58,460 to has sleeping issues. 1279 01:16:58,460 --> 01:17:04,580 There are so many different ways of helping with sleep and it's really important. 1280 01:17:04,580 --> 01:17:06,020 We know the science behind sleep. 1281 01:17:06,020 --> 01:17:09,640 I don't have to go over all the studies, but it really messes up with your brain. 1282 01:17:09,640 --> 01:17:11,620 It messes up with your nervous system. 1283 01:17:11,620 --> 01:17:16,700 It messes up with your, um, with your ability, you know, your cold, you get sick more often, 1284 01:17:16,700 --> 01:17:17,700 your immune system. 1285 01:17:17,700 --> 01:17:18,700 I couldn't think of that word. 1286 01:17:18,700 --> 01:17:20,620 I just did immune system. 1287 01:17:20,620 --> 01:17:25,540 Um, but, and so it has really negative effects on you when you don't have, plus you're just 1288 01:17:25,540 --> 01:17:26,540 kind of mean. 1289 01:17:26,540 --> 01:17:29,100 Like when I don't get enough sleep, I'm just not that nice. 1290 01:17:29,100 --> 01:17:33,360 So at a basic level, you're just kind of mean, but there are some really great exercises 1291 01:17:33,360 --> 01:17:34,360 you can do. 1292 01:17:34,360 --> 01:17:40,980 Um, a body scan is a great example of, you could literally sit there and listen to a 1293 01:17:40,980 --> 01:17:44,660 guided meditation next to your bed on your iPhone. 1294 01:17:44,660 --> 01:17:50,620 These phones are great and listen to a meditation and a body scan takes you progressively. 1295 01:17:50,620 --> 01:17:54,980 It's like a progressive muscle relaxation and you go, you like relax your feet and your 1296 01:17:54,980 --> 01:18:00,140 knees and you go all the way up to your chest and your head and then you go back down and 1297 01:18:00,140 --> 01:18:01,860 it's literally so boring. 1298 01:18:01,860 --> 01:18:02,860 You fall asleep. 1299 01:18:02,860 --> 01:18:04,740 You're like, that is so boring. 1300 01:18:04,740 --> 01:18:05,740 I'm falling asleep. 1301 01:18:05,740 --> 01:18:11,520 Um, so, but there are so many different types of meditations you can listen to and you can 1302 01:18:11,520 --> 01:18:14,940 either put it on your phone and put a timer on your phone. 1303 01:18:14,940 --> 01:18:21,180 They, Amazon has the most amazing headband that has speakers in it, wireless speakers. 1304 01:18:21,180 --> 01:18:25,280 So for instance, if you share a bed with someone and they don't want to listen to what you're 1305 01:18:25,280 --> 01:18:28,080 listening to, you can sleep with this headband on. 1306 01:18:28,080 --> 01:18:33,380 It's like, it's meant, it meant for sleeping and you can listen to a guided meditation, 1307 01:18:33,380 --> 01:18:37,740 a body scan, a listening, um, just white noise, dark. 1308 01:18:37,740 --> 01:18:42,660 I mean, there's all sorts of noises you can listen to, uh, and then you can also, like 1309 01:18:42,660 --> 01:18:47,220 my husband, listen to the history of Rome and just fall asleep by listening to the history 1310 01:18:47,220 --> 01:18:48,220 of Rome. 1311 01:18:48,220 --> 01:18:50,260 But there are a lot of different ways. 1312 01:18:50,260 --> 01:18:58,540 And they did this study once taking, uh, people who were intoxicated and people who had sleep 1313 01:18:58,540 --> 01:19:05,420 deprivation and they put them on a driving course and they said, ready, set, go. 1314 01:19:05,420 --> 01:19:11,680 And they put them through this driving course and they both sucked and they both failed. 1315 01:19:11,680 --> 01:19:19,640 And so when you think about, we are putting our lives in the hands of poor individuals 1316 01:19:19,640 --> 01:19:27,220 who cannot sleep and we're asking them to protect and to serve and to not get injured. 1317 01:19:27,220 --> 01:19:33,060 And they literally are having a hard time thinking because of sleep deprivation. 1318 01:19:33,060 --> 01:19:34,220 That's a problem. 1319 01:19:34,220 --> 01:19:37,140 But then not only that, what do we do? 1320 01:19:37,140 --> 01:19:43,780 I, I'm working with someone right now who recently, um, thought they were having a heart 1321 01:19:43,780 --> 01:19:44,780 attack. 1322 01:19:44,780 --> 01:19:49,140 It turns out they probably were, uh, have, has had to go to the hospital numerous times 1323 01:19:49,140 --> 01:19:50,140 now. 1324 01:19:50,140 --> 01:20:00,700 Um, sleep deprivation, Adderall energy drinks over, over, over, over, repeat, rinse, repeat, 1325 01:20:00,700 --> 01:20:02,760 rinse, repeat, rinse. 1326 01:20:02,760 --> 01:20:04,540 They can't sleep. 1327 01:20:04,540 --> 01:20:06,700 They have to have energy drinks. 1328 01:20:06,700 --> 01:20:10,700 They have to take Adderall and then they crash. 1329 01:20:10,700 --> 01:20:17,020 And um, and this is something we see a lot, especially night shift, especially, you know, 1330 01:20:17,020 --> 01:20:24,100 a lot of people who are working nights, you see this and, and it's obviously a really 1331 01:20:24,100 --> 01:20:25,980 dangerous situation. 1332 01:20:25,980 --> 01:20:33,340 Um, and I do believe that things like medication, if you're seeing the proper doctor and you're 1333 01:20:33,340 --> 01:20:37,540 taking something like Adavan, sometimes that could be very helpful. 1334 01:20:37,540 --> 01:20:42,540 And we shouldn't be scared of that if you're seeing the proper doctor, but self-medicating 1335 01:20:42,540 --> 01:20:50,660 to help with sleep deprivation is a dangerous, dangerous, um, solution and doing things like 1336 01:20:50,660 --> 01:20:58,620 taking 10 minutes before you go to bed to do a mindfulness intervention can really help 1337 01:20:58,620 --> 01:21:02,540 to get you into a state where you can sleep better. 1338 01:21:02,540 --> 01:21:07,620 And if that doesn't work, listening to a mindfulness intervention while you're sleeping can be 1339 01:21:07,620 --> 01:21:09,780 really useful. 1340 01:21:09,780 --> 01:21:13,100 It's interesting with the studies where they show, you know, this is the same as a blood 1341 01:21:13,100 --> 01:21:14,620 alcohol of 0.1. 1342 01:21:14,620 --> 01:21:19,740 Um, because I've had this conversation with some of the neuroscientists. 1343 01:21:19,740 --> 01:21:24,060 It's a high, high likelihood that the people that took part in that study were probably 1344 01:21:24,060 --> 01:21:28,100 students of that university that were in bed every night. 1345 01:21:28,100 --> 01:21:32,180 So for that study, for that period, they were sleep deprived, but probably just for a day 1346 01:21:32,180 --> 01:21:33,900 or two. 1347 01:21:33,900 --> 01:21:39,580 We're talking about a profession where they're sleep deprived for 10, 20, 30 years. 1348 01:21:39,580 --> 01:21:44,640 So I would assume that if you actually broke it down for first responder, it was way worse 1349 01:21:44,640 --> 01:21:46,180 than 0.1. 1350 01:21:46,180 --> 01:21:47,180 I would agree. 1351 01:21:47,180 --> 01:21:48,740 Yeah, I would agree. 1352 01:21:48,740 --> 01:21:54,900 God, it reminds me, there was this other study that was out about sleep and the brain and 1353 01:21:54,900 --> 01:21:57,260 like atrophying of some area of the brain. 1354 01:21:57,260 --> 01:21:58,900 I can't remember it right now, but yeah. 1355 01:21:58,900 --> 01:21:59,900 Oh yeah. 1356 01:21:59,900 --> 01:22:00,900 The impact is incredible. 1357 01:22:00,900 --> 01:22:01,900 Yeah. 1358 01:22:01,900 --> 01:22:03,540 Well, even, I mean, speaking of atrophying. 1359 01:22:03,540 --> 01:22:09,540 So what I do know is sleep deprivation causes demyelination of the myelin sheath as does 1360 01:22:09,540 --> 01:22:11,240 TBI. 1361 01:22:11,240 --> 01:22:16,820 So you've got, you know, as combat athlete or, you know, the SWAT member who's a breacher 1362 01:22:16,820 --> 01:22:19,840 or an ex-military member that became a firefighter. 1363 01:22:19,840 --> 01:22:23,780 And now you're compounding head injury with more head injury. 1364 01:22:23,780 --> 01:22:26,100 So that's another under discussed element. 1365 01:22:26,100 --> 01:22:27,100 Yes. 1366 01:22:27,100 --> 01:22:28,100 TBI's concussions. 1367 01:22:28,100 --> 01:22:31,820 That's, yeah, there's a lot there. 1368 01:22:31,820 --> 01:22:32,820 Absolutely. 1369 01:22:32,820 --> 01:22:33,820 All right. 1370 01:22:33,820 --> 01:22:36,940 Well, I want to move to some closing questions to be mindful of your time. 1371 01:22:36,940 --> 01:22:41,740 The first one I love to ask, is there a book or other books that you love to recommend? 1372 01:22:41,740 --> 01:22:45,580 It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated. 1373 01:22:45,580 --> 01:22:48,300 Oh my gosh. 1374 01:22:48,300 --> 01:22:49,300 Okay. 1375 01:22:49,300 --> 01:22:52,980 God, I wish I could remember the name of it. 1376 01:22:52,980 --> 01:23:02,540 The Man Who Mistook His Head for a Hat or something like that. 1377 01:23:02,540 --> 01:23:06,060 I'll get, let me try to remember it and I could send it to you. 1378 01:23:06,060 --> 01:23:12,740 It's just a really great book on connecting, you know, obviously the tried and true, which 1379 01:23:12,740 --> 01:23:17,420 is the one about the mind-body connection. 1380 01:23:17,420 --> 01:23:18,740 The body keeps the score. 1381 01:23:18,740 --> 01:23:21,340 That's a tried and true, but that's a hard one to read. 1382 01:23:21,340 --> 01:23:23,220 It's like a lot and really in depth. 1383 01:23:23,220 --> 01:23:26,980 This one that I'm trying to recall the name of is a fun way of getting there. 1384 01:23:26,980 --> 01:23:33,060 And it's just really, it shows the connection that we have, the mind-body connection, which 1385 01:23:33,060 --> 01:23:38,300 our body holds so much information, but if we're not tuned into it, we just don't know. 1386 01:23:38,300 --> 01:23:42,780 And so training to tune into our body is really, really key. 1387 01:23:42,780 --> 01:23:49,540 And then the second book is called, I think it's called The Gift. 1388 01:23:49,540 --> 01:23:54,300 And it's about our intuition. 1389 01:23:54,300 --> 01:23:58,900 Do you know that one? 1390 01:23:58,900 --> 01:23:59,900 Yes. 1391 01:23:59,900 --> 01:24:03,220 I actually had Edith Eager on the show. 1392 01:24:03,220 --> 01:24:04,220 Oh really? 1393 01:24:04,220 --> 01:24:06,420 I think it was the other one she signed, The Choice. 1394 01:24:06,420 --> 01:24:10,700 But yeah, amazing, amazing woman, Auschwitz survivor, Turin psychology. 1395 01:24:10,700 --> 01:24:11,700 Yes. 1396 01:24:11,700 --> 01:24:12,700 Yeah. 1397 01:24:12,700 --> 01:24:13,700 So those are some good ones. 1398 01:24:13,700 --> 01:24:14,700 Beautiful. 1399 01:24:14,700 --> 01:24:17,420 Well, then what about films and documentaries? 1400 01:24:17,420 --> 01:24:18,900 Oh gosh. 1401 01:24:18,900 --> 01:24:19,900 Okay. 1402 01:24:19,900 --> 01:24:20,900 I can't even touch that. 1403 01:24:20,900 --> 01:24:31,860 I am such not a movie, like any pop culture music movie I'm really bad at. 1404 01:24:31,860 --> 01:24:36,780 I just watched, it was a two part documentary on the Jerry Springer show. 1405 01:24:36,780 --> 01:24:38,820 And obviously we passed away a couple of years ago. 1406 01:24:38,820 --> 01:24:42,100 So now they're kind of, you know, putting it out there. 1407 01:24:42,100 --> 01:24:47,940 But if you want to see, you know, the kind of origin story of this horrendous kind of 1408 01:24:47,940 --> 01:24:54,220 reality TV culture that we've got, but also, I mean, just, there's no other way of putting 1409 01:24:54,220 --> 01:24:59,060 it, the lack of ethics, like the horrible human beings that were behind that show that 1410 01:24:59,060 --> 01:25:04,020 had no regard whatsoever about the real lives that they were displaying. 1411 01:25:04,020 --> 01:25:05,620 It is nauseating. 1412 01:25:05,620 --> 01:25:09,640 But then you look at the narcissism on social media and you look at the way our news is 1413 01:25:09,640 --> 01:25:15,260 done now and the way that these god awful politicians behave in election time. 1414 01:25:15,260 --> 01:25:20,220 It really, you know, there's a lot of kind of Genesis from, you know, that, that was 1415 01:25:20,220 --> 01:25:23,740 a turning point where TV just fucking went down the toilet. 1416 01:25:23,740 --> 01:25:29,640 So even though it's, it's not a nice thing to, it's not an enjoyable watch because you 1417 01:25:29,640 --> 01:25:33,300 just want to reach through the fucking TV and punch them square in the face, but it 1418 01:25:33,300 --> 01:25:37,580 really does show you where this kind of idiocracy really started. 1419 01:25:37,580 --> 01:25:38,820 But it is, it is interesting. 1420 01:25:38,820 --> 01:25:39,820 I can't wait to watch that. 1421 01:25:39,820 --> 01:25:40,820 I'm going to watch it. 1422 01:25:40,820 --> 01:25:47,780 And it's interesting to think that we looked at that and we're like, God, this is disgusting. 1423 01:25:47,780 --> 01:25:51,220 I can't, I can't believe we got here in life. 1424 01:25:51,220 --> 01:25:54,820 And now look where we are. 1425 01:25:54,820 --> 01:25:55,820 Exactly. 1426 01:25:55,820 --> 01:25:59,820 It could just, it just evolves. 1427 01:25:59,820 --> 01:26:00,820 Doesn't it? 1428 01:26:00,820 --> 01:26:02,820 It's like building blocks of shit. 1429 01:26:02,820 --> 01:26:03,820 Exactly. 1430 01:26:03,820 --> 01:26:07,860 It's that, you know, well, I'll watch this because then I can feel better about my life 1431 01:26:07,860 --> 01:26:10,460 versus why don't I improve my life? 1432 01:26:10,460 --> 01:26:13,420 You know, and it's a very sad state of affairs. 1433 01:26:13,420 --> 01:26:15,420 And I'm obsessed with like narcissism. 1434 01:26:15,420 --> 01:26:18,740 I mean, it is narcissism and psychopathy. 1435 01:26:18,740 --> 01:26:23,500 Like both those, for some reason, I, it's just, I can, I never get enough of that. 1436 01:26:23,500 --> 01:26:26,100 But yeah, I want to watch this Jerry Springer. 1437 01:26:26,100 --> 01:26:29,340 That's a shit show that ruined tons of people's lives. 1438 01:26:29,340 --> 01:26:30,340 Absolutely. 1439 01:26:30,340 --> 01:26:35,340 Well, one of the cases they highlight, it was a murder suicide as well from three guests. 1440 01:26:35,340 --> 01:26:36,340 Yep. 1441 01:26:36,340 --> 01:26:37,340 Yeah. 1442 01:26:37,340 --> 01:26:38,340 That's horrifying. 1443 01:26:38,340 --> 01:26:39,340 Yeah. 1444 01:26:39,340 --> 01:26:40,340 Actually, it's not murder suicide. 1445 01:26:40,340 --> 01:26:41,340 It was, forgive me. 1446 01:26:41,340 --> 01:26:44,700 It was a murder, brutal murder, you know, with his, with his hands and feet, but yeah. 1447 01:26:44,700 --> 01:26:50,420 And it was all really amplified by the fact that they, they ridiculed them all on television. 1448 01:26:50,420 --> 01:26:51,420 Yeah. 1449 01:26:51,420 --> 01:26:57,380 Was it the one episode where this person came out as gay and he, he, he talked to his, this 1450 01:26:57,380 --> 01:27:00,840 guy that he was attracted to and the other guy was straight. 1451 01:27:00,840 --> 01:27:02,500 That was, that wasn't the Jerry Springer show. 1452 01:27:02,500 --> 01:27:03,500 I know what you're talking about. 1453 01:27:03,500 --> 01:27:08,580 And that I think was a different show, but this one was, he was married to this woman, 1454 01:27:08,580 --> 01:27:11,660 I think, or dating this woman, I forget, but he was from Germany. 1455 01:27:11,660 --> 01:27:13,780 He was now with another woman. 1456 01:27:13,780 --> 01:27:18,840 The way that this woman was told the show was going to go was complete, you know, smoke 1457 01:27:18,840 --> 01:27:20,380 and mirrors bait switch. 1458 01:27:20,380 --> 01:27:21,380 Yeah. 1459 01:27:21,380 --> 01:27:23,140 You know, she, she good for her. 1460 01:27:23,140 --> 01:27:26,900 She basically realized it was bullshit and just kind of walked off and left the set. 1461 01:27:26,900 --> 01:27:28,380 She's like, Oh, you want to be with her? 1462 01:27:28,380 --> 01:27:29,380 Fine. 1463 01:27:29,380 --> 01:27:30,380 You know, whatever. 1464 01:27:30,380 --> 01:27:33,460 But anyway, they ended up getting, he, he weaseled his way back into her life for a 1465 01:27:33,460 --> 01:27:37,140 moment and then, yeah, he killed her in her home. 1466 01:27:37,140 --> 01:27:42,580 He basically was caught order because he was abusive to get out of their house and, you 1467 01:27:42,580 --> 01:27:46,480 know, restraining order and he went to the house and killed her. 1468 01:27:46,480 --> 01:27:48,140 But there is no doubt. 1469 01:27:48,140 --> 01:27:52,700 And then the whole Jerry Springer, you know, TV show, all the people there, they all denied 1470 01:27:52,700 --> 01:27:56,860 that, you know, it had anything to do with it, but they were lied to, you know, this 1471 01:27:56,860 --> 01:27:59,980 woman was lied to and then publicly ridiculed. 1472 01:27:59,980 --> 01:28:05,500 And it was after the show aired, this, the killer, the husband or ex-husband or whatever 1473 01:28:05,500 --> 01:28:08,340 he was, um, was at a bar. 1474 01:28:08,340 --> 01:28:10,660 And I'm sure they were probably all laughing at him at the bar. 1475 01:28:10,660 --> 01:28:12,860 And that's when he went round and did what he did. 1476 01:28:12,860 --> 01:28:16,380 To say that the TV show had nothing to do with it is absolute bollocks. 1477 01:28:16,380 --> 01:28:17,380 Right. 1478 01:28:17,380 --> 01:28:18,380 Yes. 1479 01:28:18,380 --> 01:28:19,380 It is bollocks. 1480 01:28:19,380 --> 01:28:20,380 Yeah. 1481 01:28:20,380 --> 01:28:21,380 Great word for that. 1482 01:28:21,380 --> 01:28:22,380 Great, great word. 1483 01:28:22,380 --> 01:28:26,380 But on a lighter side, I did remember my favorite movie, which is The Matrix for whatever that's 1484 01:28:26,380 --> 01:28:28,380 worth favorite movie. 1485 01:28:28,380 --> 01:28:29,380 Brilliant. 1486 01:28:29,380 --> 01:28:30,380 Beautiful. 1487 01:28:30,380 --> 01:28:31,380 All right. 1488 01:28:31,380 --> 01:28:36,420 Well, speaking of good people, is there a person that you recommend to come on this 1489 01:28:36,420 --> 01:28:41,340 podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the 1490 01:28:41,340 --> 01:28:46,340 world? 1491 01:28:46,340 --> 01:28:51,860 I'm going to think about that because that's a heavy question in a good way. 1492 01:28:51,860 --> 01:28:55,740 Um, this industry is interesting. 1493 01:28:55,740 --> 01:29:04,740 It's like, I mean, people cut sometimes are like, they say, Oh, I understand if you don't 1494 01:29:04,740 --> 01:29:10,500 want to share your slides or if you don't want to share your workbook. 1495 01:29:10,500 --> 01:29:18,580 And I'm always like, no, just take it all because there are just so few people doing 1496 01:29:18,580 --> 01:29:20,020 this. 1497 01:29:20,020 --> 01:29:22,300 And I'm not saying like, Oh, I'm out there doing the work. 1498 01:29:22,300 --> 01:29:23,300 I don't mean it like that. 1499 01:29:23,300 --> 01:29:27,060 I just mean there's plenty of people out there that need help. 1500 01:29:27,060 --> 01:29:30,540 And the more people we have doing it, the better we are. 1501 01:29:30,540 --> 01:29:40,020 So having said that, I don't know many people specifically that are doing this kind of work. 1502 01:29:40,020 --> 01:29:47,860 I do have someone in mind who does some critical incident training, but that's in law enforcement, 1503 01:29:47,860 --> 01:29:49,380 but that would work too. 1504 01:29:49,380 --> 01:29:52,340 That I can pass your way. 1505 01:29:52,340 --> 01:29:57,620 Patrick, Patrick Halpern, I can't remember his last name, but I'll, I'll remember it 1506 01:29:57,620 --> 01:29:59,300 and get back to you on that. 1507 01:29:59,300 --> 01:30:00,300 Okay. 1508 01:30:00,300 --> 01:30:01,300 Thank you so much. 1509 01:30:01,300 --> 01:30:02,300 All right. 1510 01:30:02,300 --> 01:30:05,460 Well, then the last question before we make sure people know where to find you, the classes, 1511 01:30:05,460 --> 01:30:10,660 the book, what do you do to decompress? 1512 01:30:10,660 --> 01:30:14,340 Well, of course I do mindfulness. 1513 01:30:14,340 --> 01:30:18,540 And if I didn't say that, you know, I think that you should, everyone should fire me. 1514 01:30:18,540 --> 01:30:24,500 So one, I do mindfulness, but mindfulness isn't always just sitting and doing a meditation. 1515 01:30:24,500 --> 01:30:29,940 So oftentimes all while I'm doing the dishes, I'm practicing, I'm just noticing my breath 1516 01:30:29,940 --> 01:30:36,700 while I'm doing the dishes, or I'll just sit and take a moment to notice what I'm feeling 1517 01:30:36,700 --> 01:30:37,980 in this exact moment. 1518 01:30:37,980 --> 01:30:41,620 So it's like these weird little moments in between. 1519 01:30:41,620 --> 01:30:44,640 And then also I do jujitsu. 1520 01:30:44,640 --> 01:30:46,160 I love jujitsu. 1521 01:30:46,160 --> 01:30:48,100 It's my happy place. 1522 01:30:48,100 --> 01:30:53,020 I literally can't think of anything else, but what I'm doing in the moment while I'm 1523 01:30:53,020 --> 01:30:54,860 doing it, I have to focus. 1524 01:30:54,860 --> 01:31:00,700 I can't think about what I'm making for dinner or the contract I didn't sign, or I'm thinking, 1525 01:31:00,700 --> 01:31:03,220 oh my God, I'm about to choke and die. 1526 01:31:03,220 --> 01:31:06,300 So let me figure out what to do to get out of this. 1527 01:31:06,300 --> 01:31:11,620 So jujitsu is probably a very, a huge outlet for me. 1528 01:31:11,620 --> 01:31:12,620 Beautiful. 1529 01:31:12,620 --> 01:31:13,620 Yeah. 1530 01:31:13,620 --> 01:31:14,620 I do jujitsu as well. 1531 01:31:14,620 --> 01:31:15,620 And it was the same thing yesterday. 1532 01:31:15,620 --> 01:31:19,900 I had a, you know, nothing wrong with it at all, but what we would call a spazzy white 1533 01:31:19,900 --> 01:31:20,900 belt. 1534 01:31:20,900 --> 01:31:26,500 Yeah, there was no, no thinking about the bills or relationship issues when this guy 1535 01:31:26,500 --> 01:31:28,660 was trying to smother me with his groin. 1536 01:31:28,660 --> 01:31:32,740 So it kept me very mindful. 1537 01:31:32,740 --> 01:31:34,940 I so relate to that. 1538 01:31:34,940 --> 01:31:35,940 Yes. 1539 01:31:35,940 --> 01:31:36,940 All right. 1540 01:31:36,940 --> 01:31:42,780 Well, then where first can people find mindful junkie and then where can they find the book? 1541 01:31:42,780 --> 01:31:43,780 Okay. 1542 01:31:43,780 --> 01:31:50,460 So mindful junkie is at www.mindfuljunkie.com and it's J-U-N-K-I-E. 1543 01:31:50,460 --> 01:31:56,060 So M-I-N-D-F-U-L-J-U-N-K-I-E.com. 1544 01:31:56,060 --> 01:32:02,020 And then the book you could, it has most every outlet has it online. 1545 01:32:02,020 --> 01:32:08,060 So whether it's Amazon or Barnes and Noble, or you could just search tactical brain training 1546 01:32:08,060 --> 01:32:09,220 and it will come up. 1547 01:32:09,220 --> 01:32:13,940 But you can also go to my Instagram, which is at mindful junkie. 1548 01:32:13,940 --> 01:32:17,900 And I have it in my link tree, my link in bio. 1549 01:32:17,900 --> 01:32:19,380 There's a link for it. 1550 01:32:19,380 --> 01:32:22,300 So I think if you just did a search, you would find it. 1551 01:32:22,300 --> 01:32:23,300 Beautiful. 1552 01:32:23,300 --> 01:32:25,340 I have a question for you, James. 1553 01:32:25,340 --> 01:32:33,220 Wait, before we go, what do you do to down regulate and what do you do to practice kind 1554 01:32:33,220 --> 01:32:35,220 of mindfulness? 1555 01:32:35,220 --> 01:32:36,220 Yeah. 1556 01:32:36,220 --> 01:32:43,640 So the jujitsu, you know, my gym, I do strength and conditioning classes. 1557 01:32:43,640 --> 01:32:46,900 So that the physicality side is definitely part of that. 1558 01:32:46,900 --> 01:32:50,260 When I walk my dog, which usually twice a day, I leave my phone at home. 1559 01:32:50,260 --> 01:32:53,500 So I try and be mindful on those walks. 1560 01:32:53,500 --> 01:32:57,820 And the obviously things will ruminate a little bit, but I do try and catch myself and just, 1561 01:32:57,820 --> 01:33:01,860 you know, again, listen to the birds and, you know, just try and be present there. 1562 01:33:01,860 --> 01:33:07,260 So that's a solid hour of a day just on the dog walk inside. 1563 01:33:07,260 --> 01:33:09,660 Newcom, I do that a lot. 1564 01:33:09,660 --> 01:33:10,660 Headspace. 1565 01:33:10,660 --> 01:33:11,660 Yes. 1566 01:33:11,660 --> 01:33:12,660 Yeah. 1567 01:33:12,660 --> 01:33:13,660 So I'll do that. 1568 01:33:13,660 --> 01:33:14,660 Usually the power nap. 1569 01:33:14,660 --> 01:33:15,660 I'm sorry. 1570 01:33:15,660 --> 01:33:16,660 Say it again. 1571 01:33:16,660 --> 01:33:19,740 How often do you think you do Newcom? 1572 01:33:19,740 --> 01:33:24,140 I like to try and do it when I was writing the book, it would be almost every day. 1573 01:33:24,140 --> 01:33:25,740 I'd do at least the power naps. 1574 01:33:25,740 --> 01:33:27,020 That's a 20 minute one. 1575 01:33:27,020 --> 01:33:29,300 They've got them all the way through to I think it's 70 minutes. 1576 01:33:29,300 --> 01:33:32,580 But you know, if you're tired, if you're a first responder and you've come off shift 1577 01:33:32,580 --> 01:33:36,860 and everyone's gone to work and you're home, but you can't sleep, I could never, I could 1578 01:33:36,860 --> 01:33:37,860 never nap. 1579 01:33:37,860 --> 01:33:38,860 Just not a napper. 1580 01:33:38,860 --> 01:33:39,860 Yeah. 1581 01:33:39,860 --> 01:33:43,900 Then I'd lie down and do maybe a 40, 50 minute what they call rescue. 1582 01:33:43,900 --> 01:33:47,460 And then they have thing called focus, which is the other way and that works really well. 1583 01:33:47,460 --> 01:33:50,140 When I was writing my book, a lot of times I put that in the headphones. 1584 01:33:50,140 --> 01:33:52,740 So those are really good. 1585 01:33:52,740 --> 01:33:54,400 And then the headspace. 1586 01:33:54,400 --> 01:33:56,860 So I like that guided meditation. 1587 01:33:56,860 --> 01:34:04,100 So like a 15 minute morning meditation when I'm in that kind of routine, I like doing 1588 01:34:04,100 --> 01:34:05,100 that as well. 1589 01:34:05,100 --> 01:34:11,260 So I'm very deliberate in my down regulation, obviously learning what I'd have and knowing 1590 01:34:11,260 --> 01:34:15,740 that 14 years in uniform, you know, you've got to keep topping it up. 1591 01:34:15,740 --> 01:34:17,700 Otherwise, you know, it will, it will come at a cost. 1592 01:34:17,700 --> 01:34:20,820 So and my big thing is asleep. 1593 01:34:20,820 --> 01:34:25,060 I sleep, but I'm still working on the sleep quality, trying to get that deep, deep sleep. 1594 01:34:25,060 --> 01:34:30,700 And that's the juggling because I'll stop drinking for a while and wait for these supposed 1595 01:34:30,700 --> 01:34:34,340 amazing revelations that everyone on Instagram tells me, I just stopped drinking for seven 1596 01:34:34,340 --> 01:34:38,100 days and now I'm, you know, able to do the splits and, you know, I can run around the 1597 01:34:38,100 --> 01:34:41,780 earth without taking a breath and all these other bullshit claims that they have. 1598 01:34:41,780 --> 01:34:44,900 I feel worse off and not drinking for a long time. 1599 01:34:44,900 --> 01:34:46,840 So it's trying to unpack that. 1600 01:34:46,840 --> 01:34:49,740 Why do I feel worse when I stopped taking this poison in my body? 1601 01:34:49,740 --> 01:34:55,140 So it's just an unending, you know, work in progress, but that's, that's what happens. 1602 01:34:55,140 --> 01:35:00,520 You know, if you want to continue to, to thrive in the world, then as you get older, it just 1603 01:35:00,520 --> 01:35:01,660 takes more and more work. 1604 01:35:01,660 --> 01:35:03,460 It's just, it is what it is. 1605 01:35:03,460 --> 01:35:04,460 Yeah. 1606 01:35:04,460 --> 01:35:09,060 So why are you making yourself uncomfortable, like doing something that you're not used to doing is uncomfortable. 1607 01:35:09,060 --> 01:35:12,900 So why wouldn't you revert back to what you were doing before, which was, was comfortable. 1608 01:35:12,900 --> 01:35:13,900 Yep, exactly. 1609 01:35:13,900 --> 01:35:15,060 But there's no question. 1610 01:35:15,060 --> 01:35:18,060 My body hates alcohol, even though I ignore it sometimes. 1611 01:35:18,060 --> 01:35:23,260 I mean, even just my GI tract, you know, if I have just two glasses of wine, you know, 1612 01:35:23,260 --> 01:35:27,420 I'll have to be careful not to leave, you know, be too far from a toilet for that morning. 1613 01:35:27,420 --> 01:35:30,340 So yeah, it lets me know that it hates it. 1614 01:35:30,340 --> 01:35:34,300 But especially when we're older, it really, really has an effect on our bodies. 1615 01:35:34,300 --> 01:35:38,340 And they're now coming up with all this research about cancer, you know, the surgeon general 1616 01:35:38,340 --> 01:35:44,660 warning wanting to put that it's, you know, cancer connected to alcohol and on the labels. 1617 01:35:44,660 --> 01:35:45,660 I don't know. 1618 01:35:45,660 --> 01:35:50,140 It's yeah, it is poison, but we've normalized it. 1619 01:35:50,140 --> 01:35:51,140 Yeah. 1620 01:35:51,140 --> 01:35:55,700 Like the phrase I've always said is I've never woken up having not drunk the night before 1621 01:35:55,700 --> 01:35:57,020 wishing I had. 1622 01:35:57,020 --> 01:35:59,540 God, that's a lot of double negatives. 1623 01:35:59,540 --> 01:36:04,260 And I know what you're saying. 1624 01:36:04,260 --> 01:36:08,300 But what is the voice that you listen to when you listen to the calm app? 1625 01:36:08,300 --> 01:36:10,220 Who's who's what kind of voice do you choose? 1626 01:36:10,220 --> 01:36:13,340 I actually do Andy Podokum, so the founder of Headspace. 1627 01:36:13,340 --> 01:36:15,300 I had him on the show a while ago. 1628 01:36:15,300 --> 01:36:16,660 He's disappeared into ether now. 1629 01:36:16,660 --> 01:36:20,900 I think he's probably doing monk retreats again, which is what sent to the first place. 1630 01:36:20,900 --> 01:36:27,180 But I like his is very kind of like, you know, like a bloke you meet at the pub versus, you 1631 01:36:27,180 --> 01:36:33,700 know, maybe some kind of earthy, more traditional what you think is a guru or whatever. 1632 01:36:33,700 --> 01:36:37,780 So because it's just so normal, for some reason, that resonates with me a lot. 1633 01:36:37,780 --> 01:36:40,380 So Andy's voice is one I still listen to. 1634 01:36:40,380 --> 01:36:47,900 Yeah, it cracks me up because in the mindfulness space, one of the main mindfulness people 1635 01:36:47,900 --> 01:36:54,800 that like everybody, you know, bows down to and is like, oh, mindfulness person. 1636 01:36:54,800 --> 01:36:56,840 I cannot stand their voice. 1637 01:36:56,840 --> 01:37:01,240 Like it sends nails through my my face. 1638 01:37:01,240 --> 01:37:03,360 It's like greeting to me. 1639 01:37:03,360 --> 01:37:10,380 And so it's so interesting to me because people like it just we all have discernment and you 1640 01:37:10,380 --> 01:37:16,500 have to find something that you resonate with, whether it's the tone or the sound or the 1641 01:37:16,500 --> 01:37:20,700 gender or, you know, the presentation. 1642 01:37:20,700 --> 01:37:26,660 There are so many different literal voices out there that we just have to be comfortable 1643 01:37:26,660 --> 01:37:31,200 with sorting through them to find something that we resonate with, because I don't ever 1644 01:37:31,200 --> 01:37:35,380 say who it is that I can't stand because I would be like outcast from the world. 1645 01:37:35,380 --> 01:37:38,100 They'd be like, you are not a mindful person. 1646 01:37:38,100 --> 01:37:41,740 And meanwhile, I'm like, la la la la la, please stop talking. 1647 01:37:41,740 --> 01:37:43,220 Yeah, yeah. 1648 01:37:43,220 --> 01:37:48,900 Even I love Rodney Yee, who does the Gaia yoga videos, but I don't know if it's his 1649 01:37:48,900 --> 01:37:52,380 wife or it's just his yoga partner, whatever it is. 1650 01:37:52,380 --> 01:37:56,420 But there's a lady in there and no disrespect to her at all. 1651 01:37:56,420 --> 01:37:58,460 But I don't want to do her one. 1652 01:37:58,460 --> 01:38:04,300 And so I'd rather have a shirtless Asian dude leave me than and it's just like you said, 1653 01:38:04,300 --> 01:38:07,100 we're just we can't explain it, but we just fickle like that. 1654 01:38:07,100 --> 01:38:08,420 So it's okay. 1655 01:38:08,420 --> 01:38:09,820 Find that thing that works for you. 1656 01:38:09,820 --> 01:38:14,700 If you want Idris Elba leading you through meditation, so be it or Jason Statham. 1657 01:38:14,700 --> 01:38:17,460 Just try not to think about anything. 1658 01:38:17,460 --> 01:38:19,420 Whatever works for you. 1659 01:38:19,420 --> 01:38:21,900 Then find your fit. 1660 01:38:21,900 --> 01:38:23,380 Find your voice. 1661 01:38:23,380 --> 01:38:24,380 That's all. 1662 01:38:24,380 --> 01:38:25,380 Absolutely. 1663 01:38:25,380 --> 01:38:26,380 All right. 1664 01:38:26,380 --> 01:38:28,340 Well, then we've gone over all the stuff. 1665 01:38:28,340 --> 01:38:32,500 So is there anything else that you want to make sure that we do discuss before we close 1666 01:38:32,500 --> 01:38:33,500 out? 1667 01:38:33,500 --> 01:38:34,500 No, you're amazing. 1668 01:38:34,500 --> 01:38:38,140 I really appreciate what you're doing and how you're putting all this information out 1669 01:38:38,140 --> 01:38:39,340 there. 1670 01:38:39,340 --> 01:38:45,460 I think it's so beneficial to people and you really touch on so many different great subjects 1671 01:38:45,460 --> 01:38:51,020 that it's you know, I think that your audience is so appreciative and there's something there 1672 01:38:51,020 --> 01:38:52,020 for everybody. 1673 01:38:52,020 --> 01:38:54,340 So I just I appreciate what you're doing. 1674 01:38:54,340 --> 01:38:56,060 Well, I want to thank you too. 1675 01:38:56,060 --> 01:39:01,180 I mean, coming on, sharing your work and the mindfulness is needed in our professions, 1676 01:39:01,180 --> 01:39:04,860 obviously, especially if we can get these work weeks, you know, shortened to what they 1677 01:39:04,860 --> 01:39:05,860 should be. 1678 01:39:05,860 --> 01:39:10,260 Then we can really start leaning in not just, you know, how not to die, but the performance 1679 01:39:10,260 --> 01:39:13,660 died, getting into that flow state as a firefighter, as a police officer. 1680 01:39:13,660 --> 01:39:17,420 So I want to thank you too for being so generous with your time and coming on the Behind the 1681 01:39:17,420 --> 01:39:19,060 Shield podcast. 1682 01:39:19,060 --> 01:39:31,220 Well, take it easy and let's connect again.