Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)
Come on a ride along with a Veteran Homicide Detective as the twists and turns of the job suddenly end his career and nearly his life; discover how something wonderful is born out of the Darkness. Embark on the journey from helping people on their worst days, to bringing life, excitement and smiles on their best days.
Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)
Pathways to Healing: My time at First Responders Resiliency...Meet Susan Farren
This episode highlights a deeply personal narrative on coping with PTSD as a former police officer, revealing the crucial role of vulnerability and the healing potential found through creative outlets like therapy. The conversation emphasizes the importance of mental health resources for first responders, the stigma associated with trauma, and the transformative journeys that can lead individuals to reclaim their lives.
• Reflecting on March 2022 and societal tensions
• The irony of the defund the police movement
• Personal experiences with PTSD and stress-induced seizures
• Importance of programs like First Responders Resiliency
• Addressing the stigma surrounding mental health in law enforcement
• The significance of creative expression for healing
• The role of mindfulness in recovery
• Encouragement for those struggling to seek help
Hi, I'm Aaron your host and I would love to invite you to leave a review, send some fan mail or email me at Murder2Music@gmail.com. Does something I'm saying resonate with you...Tell me about it! Is there something you want to hear more about...Tell me about it! This show is to provide value, education and entertainment and hopefully find its way to the WORLD! Share, Like and Love the Murders to Music Podcast!
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Murders to Music podcast. My name is Aaron, I'm your host and thank you, guys, so much for coming back for another week To all the loyal listeners out there. Thank you so much for giving me 30 to 45 minutes of your week, each week, to hear about the ups and downs of life, how you can learn from my issues, other people's issues, the good, the bad, how to balance your life, how to make yourself a more effective human being, the ones that you love and the ones that love you. Thank you, guys, so much. You know I don't think anybody's paid is without purpose, mine included. So whatever road God has me on right now that feels like a life of hell. I just want you to know it's for perfect reason, and that perfect reason is to help others that are out there. I want to take everybody back to March of 2022. In March of 2022, let me remind you as to what was going on, so maybe you guys can put yourself back there. I essentially want to teleport you from where you are right now in your car and I want to take you all the way back to March of 2022.
Speaker 2:Here's what was up Russia. Russia was huge in the news. So Russian forces escalated their attacks on populated urban areas of Ukraine. Remember that? The explosions, the booms, everybody going over there to help them. Canada slapped some sanctions against Russia, said that they weren't going to help their economy and everything else. This is the time. Remember the Academy Awards when Will Smith marched up on stage and slapped Chris Rock during the jokes and during the monologue of the Academy Awards? Yeah, that's what was going on. Will Smith then apologized to him. All of this stuff was going on in that March of 2022.
Speaker 2:Also in March of 2022, the defund the police movement was hot and heavy. Everybody was trying to take money from the police and give it to other organizations Black Lives Matter, other groups. You know, what I thought was weird is Black Lives Matter and the defund the police movement. So these guys are on this solo front out there to rid the world of shitty cops that you know. Just go out and feloniously murder people, or they misdemeanorly murder people. I guess you can't really do that, but anyway, they're out there doing their thing, just random, random loose cannons out there, just tearing up the nation and killing everybody, which is a lot of crap and we all know that. But here's what was crazy. So the whole defund the police movement, right? You know how many calls we got from these defund the police people when their shit got broken or their car got broken into or their car got stolen, because they're out at a protest and they want to call the police to have us help them get back their car or help them undo a wrong. I thought it was super, super ironic, but that was going on in March of 2022.
Speaker 2:Also in March of 2022, I was just about two months out of law enforcement on medical leave. I had been diagnosed with PTSD. I was going through the first seven independent medical exams. I was fighting the diagnosis of PTSD. I was having some little mini seizures where the whole right side of my body was going numb. I was falling down. I couldn't talk. At times my tongue would swell. I was going through some medical stuff. I was hospitalized with that. Ultimately, all of that is stress-induced seizures, stress-induced, trauma-induced seizures and side effects, because the brain is a super powerful thing.
Speaker 2:I had the absolute privilege to go out to California and attend a first responder resiliency program, and the resiliency program is ran by a lady named Susan, and here's what it's all about, right. So Susan has a story of her own and I'm actually going to have her on in just a couple of weeks where she can tell her story and she can tell about her program and how it got started and what led her there. But to give you the 30,000 foot view, she was a professional in the industry. She was a professional. She was a paramedic, a paramedic supervisor in a very, very busy part of California. I'll let her tell all the details because I don't want to steal her thunder. But at the end of the day it really started to stack up and it was too much for her and she found herself being diagnosed with some medical issues. She also found herself on the brink of suicide. It was, just like many other people, myself included, a simple contact or a phone call that in that moment it's funny how all the pieces align and in that moment the right person is put into your path to say, hey, maybe you should consider another tomorrow. And that's where she went.
Speaker 2:Well, coming out of that, she realized, just like I'm realizing right now, that there is not a ton of resources or things for first responders in this world, right? You guys heard Jeff Hall talking a couple of weeks ago on the Alaska State Trooper episode, where he's now 80 years old, telling us that, for you know, 40, 50 years of his career between military and law enforcement and getting into shootings in Vietnam and then Rhodesia, and then four shootings as an Alaska state trooper and losing loves of his life and friends and buddies, and during that time they never spoke about PTSD or healing or recovery. There was no programs or no resources and you would think that over time things would get better and all of a sudden we'd have tons and tons of stuff out there. Well, you know what Today? Nobody wants to talk about it.
Speaker 2:The men and women that are out there in the field, a lot of them are scared to bring up the fact that they can't sleep. They're having nightmares, they're losing the touch with their family, they're suicidal, they're drinking a bottle of alcohol at night, they're smoking weed, they're doing whatever they're doing and they're just deteriorating in their world. But they come to work and they put on that brave face and they hide behind that suit of armor and that trauma-proof shield that they're on because nothing affects them and nothing gets in, and they put on this fake smile and then at home they're absolutely falling apart. Why are they scared? They're scared because there's a stigma and because they don't know the resources are out there. They're scared because there's a stigma and because they don't know the resources are out there. And that is what the First Responders Resiliency Program is all about. So Susan was able to take her experience and realize that there's no resources. She was such a professional in her area that she was able to reach out to other professionals and say hey, we have a problem and people in our situation have nowhere to go. Will you help me build a better tomorrow? That's what she did. She built the program and now the first responder resiliency program is set up in Northern California.
Speaker 2:Participants fly in, they spend three or four days there however long the program is, I can't remember and they talk about tons of different stuff, and it's not war stories. In fact, they actually don't want war stories, because in a war story world you start to compare how many times has somebody told you a story? And you're like you know what? I can kind of relate to that and the first thing you say is well, something like that happened to me, but my situation wasn't as bad as yours, you know. But this is what happened? Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.
Speaker 2:No-transcript and some of the training modules that they use in their three, four day program is this they talk about the brain. They talk about the neuroanatomy of the brain mindfulness, the autonomic nervous system, the central nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system. They talk about the body, physical discharge of energy. You have heard me say in my early episodes, when I'm responding to that call on the way I'm all psyched up and I got lots of energy, and then I get there and all of a sudden I'm numb. Well, that energy just doesn't go away. You have to do something with it and you have to get into a flow state. You have to shake that energy off because if not, that energy just stacks up and stacks up and before you know it, your cup hath overfloweth with energy and bad shit happens, like you lose your mind, you can't help yourself, you kill yourself. You turn to the bottle to try to discharge the energy and the negative feelings that you have. Well, they teach you how to get rid of that and they talk to you about what it is. Now, I'm not into this hippy-dippy BS of you know, I don't know incense and all this other stuff. That's not my style right. Maybe it works for you and that is totally awesome. But what I did learn in this is I learned mindfulness I. But what I did learn in this is I learned mindfulness, your body and how, if you do X, you'll have product Y. It's super cool.
Speaker 2:They talk about physical exercise and nutrition, the importance of sleep. Did you know? If you don't get your full eight hours sleep, then your amygdala doesn't get to relax and shrink to its normal size. So you're constantly going into a world with a swollen amygdala. Some of you guys might think, man, I'd really love to have a swollen amygdala all the time, but you probably don't. The amygdala is the fire alarm of the brain, if you will, and what happens is the more out of whack that your amygdala is in your system. It may allow you to take risks or chances or do things, make piss poor decisions that you typically wouldn't make, whether that's with yourself, with your family, with your alcohol, with whatever it may be. You make these irrational decisions because you don't have a good sleep. Irrational decisions because you don't have a good sleep. Have you ever been like going on very little sleep and somebody says something or does something? That shouldn't be that big a deal, but you get really pissed off and you lose your ever loving mind. I have it happened at work and I had to apologize to everybody for it. That's because you're not getting that amygdala relax and you are just stacking up yesterday's shit on top of today's Talk about toxin exposures.
Speaker 2:Then we talk about the mind, psychological health, physiological health, cognitive, behavioral therapy, emotional awareness, emdr, different modalities of how to reset the mind. Then they talk about what do we do from here? What does leadership look like? What does sharing your story look like? What does helping others look like? What does your family health look like? Family health survey, what is everybody in your family doing and how has what you've learned about yourself and what you've been doing for X amount of years affecting those right around you? A bunch of different type of training modalities. They talk about substance abuse, suicide awareness, stress and injury reduction.
Speaker 2:It's such a such a cool class. You know I did yoga and I didn't think I would ever do yoga. But there's this guy that came and this dude is awesome and his story is simple. He won't tell you what he was, but I'm pretty sure he was a Navy SEAL. He is 50 years old. He doesn't look like he's going to be a yoga instructor. He doesn't even look like a Navy SEAL. A little bit of stutter, a little bit of hard time talking. His name's Todd, and he is absolutely awesome. But he came in. Everybody in the class? Nobody in the class. We're all tough cops, we're firefighters. We're not going to be doing yoga. We were all doing yoga, you know, and it was pretty awesome. So Todd comes in, he tells his story and, in short, his story is this Todd is a military expert, super secret guy who does sneak and peeks.
Speaker 2:He's on a very small team. He's out doing sneak and peeks, does this for many, many years and then comes back and has an opportunity to go have a drink with a friend and when that doesn't work out, he's like nah, I got to stay home tonight. His buddy goes out and ultimately his buddy takes his own life. So that kind of set a ripple effect through him and his small team and before you know it, they all got out of law enforcement or not law enforcement, all got out of military. Then he finds himself wrapped up in life, all the things that I've spoke about, just pissed off at the world, and he one day happens to stumble into a yoga studio because he's upset with them over something. And the lady's like why do you want to do yoga? And he's like, so I can touch my toes? Well, he was there to like, rip him a new ass, but instead he something came over him.
Speaker 2:So he finds himself in this class the next day and he's doing yoga and he's breaking down and he's crying and his emotions are out. And the girl's like what's? You know everything? Okay? He's like I don't know, I just can't control my crying. And she's like well, have you ever experienced trauma? And he's like have I experienced trauma? Yeah, well, have you ever experienced trauma? And he's like have I experienced trauma? Yeah, so you know he gets this release and this is, you know, the toughest guys out there, right, the ones that are out there protecting our country, doing shit that we don't want to know about. And now he's in the middle of a yoga studio crying, and that just in itself, is such a testament to things outside of this box that we have outside of alcohol, affairs, anger, isolation and insulation all these things that we typically go to during times of trauma and during times of unrest. This is thinking outside that box. Well then, all of a sudden, he starts going back, day after day after day, and then he becomes a yoga instructor. Now he does tactical yoga. So we're out there, there's 40 people out there on the lawn and we are all chanting warrior chants and doing these poses and doing awesome yoga. You know, if Todd would have said, okay, for $1,000 each, you guys can all stay here and do yoga with me for the next week, we would have all done yoga with Todd for a week. That is what was cool about it. If you guys have found yourself in the law enforcement first responder family of first responders any of that totally check out this program. It's on resiliencyfirstorg.
Speaker 2:With that said, I want to introduce the podcast that I did a couple of weeks ago with Susan, with Susan. Susan interviewed me as a past participant in her program. We spoke about the good and the bad and the ugly, and I want to introduce that. I want you guys to hear that. I want you to hear Susan, I want you to hear a little bit of her story and then, more importantly, come back in a couple of weeks when she is the guest on my show and we're really going to dig into it. We were supposed to record that today but she had to cancel All these wildfires in LA. Her and her team are out there on the front lines helping the first responders that have been working perilously through the days and nights for the last three weeks trying to put out the city of Los Angeles. So, without further ado, here is my podcast with Susan.
Speaker 1:Hi, this is Susan Farren, founder of First Responders Resiliency.
Speaker 2:And I'm her daughter, bailey, and we're the co-hosts of the Resiliency First podcast, where we share the most up-to-date research regarding behavioral wellness for first responders and their families.
Speaker 1:So take a few minutes for yourself, leave your expectations and to-do list at the door and welcome. Hello everybody, Welcome to the Responders Resiliency Podcast. We are so glad you're here. This is part of the first Responders Resiliency Program and we like to come to you with different audiences, different speakers, and today we have a really unique opportunity. We're going to be talking to a former officer out of Gresham, Oregon, by the name of Aaron Turnage. Aaron was, I think, 21 years. Is that right, Aaron? Correct?
Speaker 2:yes.
Speaker 1:Yep, and Aaron was a guest at one of our conferences and he has had a really, really incredible journey, so much so that we were emailing back and forth and he wrote to me about his new podcast Murders to Music from the crime scene to the music scene. I love that. What a great tagline. But more importantly, I think as what you and I were talking about here just before we launched the podcast is some of the stuff that we know that we think everyone knows this now and they don't, because when we started in the industry, we were still in that sort of suck it up buttercup philosophy and, although we had changed and stopped calling it just you know, the veterans had post-traumatic stress and the first responders had burnout.
Speaker 1:We were talking about it, but you put a, you had a kind of a great twist on this just recently, which is, even though we were given that awareness, it still had a huge stigma attached to it, and so we weren't able to even address this idea without somewhere in the back of our minds, thinking, oh man, I'm broken, oh man, I'm broken, instead of nope, I'm not broken, I'm just wounded. I'm wounded from this industry and I, without going into any more detail, I think you're just you're singing from the same sheet of music we are. Tell us a little bit about you, aaron. Tell us about how you got into law enforcement and how your career played out for you and anything else you want us to know before you get that, that awareness that something's going on with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. So my journey in law enforcement started very, very early. I actually went on my first ride along. I'm from Alaska. I went on my first ride along when I was eight years old and at eight years old I realized that after that first ride along and watching a couple episodes of Cops, I realized that that was going to be my journey. That's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:At 13 years old I started with the Explorer Post, a cadet program in Alaska. Between 13 and 17, I spent about 3,500 to 4,000 hours in a police car in a uniform, learning and absorbing this trade. And one of the interesting things about law enforcement at that time and just liability is we got to do a lot. In today's world, the handcuffs are on, figuratively speaking, with what you can allow cadets and young people to do. But at 14 years old, I'm conducting felony arrests in the middle of a street handcuffing 40-year-old suspects. And that's where I got my career and I really, really loved it. I had a mentor named John Watson, who was somebody that I rode with a lot. There were two officers I. I had a mentor named John Watson, who was somebody that I rode with a lot. There were two officers I rode with a lot. John Watson was one of them, jesse Rouse was the second. They were both senior officers at the time.
Speaker 2:After that I went off to Arizona, got my degree in criminal justice, got married and as soon as there was an opening back at my hometown police department I went. At 22 years old I became a police officer 2002. And that's where my career started and the first year or so of my career. Everything was great. It's your first year. You're excited, you know. I was actually out on the road taking calls for service and being a full-fledged police officer before I even went to the academy, because they have such academy dates up there. They'll put you on the road and work you once you complete the field training program. So by the time I go to the academy I already have seven months of being a police officer.
Speaker 1:Wow, is that exclusive to places like Gresham, where you can be on the road before you've actually been through the academy?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, but at this time I'm still in Alaska. At this time I'm a police officer in Alaska. Yeah, I'm a police officer in South Central Alaska, a city called Kenai, alaska. So I'm a police officer there. And, yeah, it is unique to that area because one police academy for the state it's out of Sitka, it's run by the Alaska State Troopers and they only have academy programs twice a year. So I had to wait for my class to come and they need to do something with me. So they put me on the road and used me. So the first you know year or so was great Got through the academy in 2003,.
Speaker 2:Around Christmas of 2003. My wife wanted to go back to Arizona to visit her family for Christmas and I was the new person on the you know, in the department and I got approved for vacation but somebody had to cover my shift. At the time I still worked with John Watson. John Watson, who was my mentor as a explorer. He had to cover my shift and he was forced to cover my shift because that was Christmas night and it was his wife's birthday. So he was told he was going to cover my shift and that kind of you know.
Speaker 2:He was angry about it and John was a very loud man and he didn't mind sharing his opinion, which kind of happens to all of us. You know, in this career, after a while the louder voice sometimes wins. And John was ordered to work that night. He worked and he got in to a call of a suspicious circumstances call and he got killed, he got murdered. So he responds to a domestic violence call and unknown, that's what it is at the time. And it got into a fight with a suspect. The suspect took his gun and executed him and I think that is where the start of my downward spiral began.
Speaker 1:And you'd been on the job. How long at that point.
Speaker 2:About a year, a year and a half.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so there's that big trauma, yeah, trauma that gets you launched into this, trying to process what's happened and your level of responsibility Right, because we have all that guilt around that and then trying to put all those. It's kind of like a game of Jenga, you know. It's like it doesn't matter when the pieces come out or go back in. At some point it can collapse around you. So say more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so and absolutely that was the you know, hindsight being 2020, I understand it now, but at the time, that is where my career change to my spiral began, you know, and during these times, I think it's fair to say that we didn't talk about feelings, we didn't talk about PTS or PTSD or post-traumatic stress. We barely did debriefs in critical situations. And we've learned a lot in the last 20, 25 years, but at that time, you were considered weak. You were considered less than damaged, injured goods and you were just lucky to have a job. You wipe the blood off and you go on to the next call, and that was the mentality of working in Alaska.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's fair to say that was the mentality everywhere. I don't think that was just unique to Alaska, because that was how it was for us working in the Bay Area as well. But I want to make a quick comment here because it's interesting. As you're saying this, what I'm thinking about is that you know, you're a relatively young man. Right, You've already got 20 years in the job, but you're still in the prime of your life 46.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's okay. Well, the older you get, the younger that sounds. And the thing that's interesting about this is people think, oh, we're so evolved. Now, right, we're all talking about physiological wellness, not just psychological wellness and physical wellness, how we're going to mitigate some of these symptoms. But a majority of our folks who are on the job today have been seeped in this mentality to some degree. You might have less than I don't know. I'm guessing let's just say less than 10% of the nation has five years or less on the job.
Speaker 1:But anybody who's got more than 10 years on the job is going to have been exposed to this sort of old school philosophy because their mentors, proteges, ftos they will have come from the industry that was still doing the suck it up part of it and it will have been. It's sort of bleeding down. So there's going to be change. We're going to see change the next 15, 20 years, massive change in the industry as a culture. But it's sort of bleeding down. So there's going to be change. We're going to see change the next 15, 20 years, massive change in the industry as a culture. But it's interesting, as you talk about it, it's like, even though you were from you know, 20 years ago, the people that were training us were coming from that former era. That was that suck it up. So here you are. You started this sort of unraveling. Is your wife saying anything to you? How are you recognizing that you're starting to struggle? Are the thoughts in your own mind? What's going on with you?
Speaker 2:Well, at that time I didn't think I was struggling. At that time I thought I was okay. I started planning my funeral at about one year on the job and it wasn't just like, oh, if I were to be killed, it's when I'm killed and I've got my funeral planned, I've got my songs, I got my pallbearers and, as my life changed over the next 20 years, I continue to update my funeral file with songs and that kind of stuff and I guess I thought that was normal hindsight. My therapist says it's not so, you know, but that for me that was just kind of my way of life and I didn't really realize that I had issues or injury as a result of the job until well, let me get us to, let me get us to Oregon.
Speaker 2:So in 2010, after being a cop in Alaska for about eight and a half years almost nine years I moved to Gresham, oregon. I needed to get out of Alaska for some medical stuff for one of my kids and I took that job. And Gresham is it's the armpit of Oregon. It's a high crime rate, high violence rate, lots of murders per capita and it's just a as a police officer. It's a fun city to work, but it's a very violent city.
Speaker 2:About two years after I got there, I went on to detectives and I spent the next 11 years in detectives working primarily homicide and child abuse. So my every day was somebody else's worst day and I enjoyed that. My goal was to be the longest serving homicide detective in the department's history and I was well on my way to that. At any given time I was averaging five to nine homicides at a time. Most of them were hot and active homicides and you know I'd probably have a case file of 30 felony child abuse cases from physical abuse, sexual abuse and death. So that was my caseload for about 11 years and I was totally fine. I thought that I was okay.
Speaker 1:I thought that Do you happen to have children of your own at this point?
Speaker 2:I do. I have three kids. Been married 26 years, I currently have a 19-year-old, an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old. My two oldest boys.
Speaker 1:Okay, so 1918. And what was the third?
Speaker 2:15.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so they're littles at the time when you're in this. They're five, eight, nine kind of a thing, right.
Speaker 2:Yep, you're in this. They're five, eight, nine kind of a thing, right? Yep, yeah, they yeah, totally. And you know they've only known a cop as a dad. So I think I'm okay. I think that the short temper is normal. I think that the back against the wall, the suit of armor, um, not trusting anybody, I think all that stuff is normal. That's just part of being a cop.
Speaker 1:Do you stop going to family functions?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Stop going to family functions. Isolated, insulated, withdrew from church, withdrew from friends and family. There was, I mean, a couple of times, on the edge of divorce.
Speaker 1:Is your wife saying anything to you at some point? Is she saying what's going on with you? What's wrong Are you? Is it creating distance between you? What's happening in that part of your life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was definitely causing distance between us and we talked about it. But you know it's a slow fade. When that's what you know. You know when, when all you know and you kind of are, you're inoculated into this law enforcement world, well, that's just the way he is and I thought that's just the way I was, and if anybody had a problem with it, it was their problem and not mine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're finishing each other's sandwiches over here. Yeah, Exactly, and that's that's the interesting thing about it is that it does happen slowly. I mean, of course, people have acute episodes right when they have one call that traumatizes them and it's kind of like a back injury. You think it was that event. Actually, it was the 74 events that happened before that. This is just the the you know, the straw that broke the camel's back kind of event. But for a lot of officers, like you said, it's more of a slow fade. It's you becoming desensitized, you know, desensitized, even though you're good at your job.
Speaker 1:You're desensitized to the fact that you've become desensitized to humans, right, You're becoming desensitized to trauma and I won't get too much into the details because a lot of the people who are listening to our work now we try not to focus on the horror of the work that we do because we all have it. If you're listening to this podcast, you know it firsthand, so I won't trigger a lot of that. But as you're going along here you've been there now 11 years as a homicide detective what changes in you that makes you say, hold on a second, what's going on? You talked about being on TV and Dateline. There was a lot happening in your life. Sounds like some of it pretty good stuff. And then what goes down?
Speaker 2:It was good, yeah, so yeah, I mean I've got a lot of good stuff going on. If there's something sexy happened in the city, I'm probably the one getting shoulder tapped for it, if you know, there's just a lot of stuff happening and all that's going to circle back and all that was pride which I didn't see until. You know, I had a revelation and you know, uh, here a couple weeks ago, but you know, all of that was pride and that wasn't necessarily good. I thought, my, I thought that you know, my crap didn't stink and I was a little bit too big for my britches. But crap didn't stink and I was a little bit too big for my britches but that's all hindsight.
Speaker 1:In the moment, yeah, it's more than pride.
Speaker 2:It's just ego, right, it's ego ton of ego, ton of pride, you know, and that it is what it is. I didn't know that at the time, of course. So at the time, um, my last murder was a cartel murder and in four months, four and a half months, I had four days off and I worked about 150 hours every week. So there's only 168 hours in a week. So I was averaging about 18 to 20 hours off per week and I did that for four months straight and at the end of that I got into. So I get done. My murder happened September 27th.
Speaker 2:We make the arrests on December 13th, finish up with court on about January 3rd or 4th, and then I go to some training and I get into a fight at the training and end up breaking three ribs. So I go to the doctor with the three ribs and my blood pressure is 185 over 145. So super high. And she says, well, what's going on? I'm like nothing. We run some tests. There's no reason medically why this would be happening. She's like, well, what's going on? I'm like nothing, we run some tests. There's no reason medically why this would be happening.
Speaker 2:She's like, well, what do you do for work? So I told her and I said, for the last four months I've averaged 18 hours off a week. I've been chasing seven cartel members around the Pacific Northwest. This is my stress level. This is my caseload. The world is imploding and I'm in the center of it. I get in about three hours sleep at night. My fuse is short. She cut me off and she's like you know, you have PTSD. And I'm like, no, I don't. So we fight about that for a minute and then she ultimately, you know, marks me not fit for duty and I can't go back to work. I need to take some time off to get my head straight. And at that time it was take two weeks off and you know, see a mental health professional and try to start working on yourself and maybe you can go back to work. Well, that Thursday was my last day of effectively being a police officer. I never went back to the office until I cleaned out my desk 14 months later.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's hard stuff. That's hard stuff because it sounds like all that you had going on this was far more than a job. This was your identity Because, like you said, the world was kind of revolving around you and you felt like you were keeping the world safe. And you know, there's a thought that crosses my mind that I'll be very careful about saying this, but you're not the first homicide detective that I've talked to who's told me a very similar story of going months and months where they're taking one day off. What does the department think is going to happen to detectives who are living like that? I mean, is anyone paying attention or is it just that, hey, crime is happening and people need to be on the streets and this is what we've got, so this is what we're going to do. You have any comment on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think that in my situation a lot of the drive was not from the department, a lot of the drive was from me and lack of department oversight, where you know they would enforce rules, regulations and timeframes. Yeah, I figured that if I could keep going, I was going to keep going. I don't get paid to quit and if my team isn't up for the challenge and they go work with somebody else, so I drug my team along with that and my mindset was wrong. But it wasn't them pushing me, it was me pushing me.
Speaker 1:Right. I'm just wondering how you felt about the fact that nobody at the top stopped and said hey, I think Aaron's working, like you know, 700 hours a week. Should we say something to him? Or I wonder what's going to happen with him if we allow this to continue. So I actually feel like you're right. Maybe it wasn't commission, but it was definitely omission.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was. Honestly, it was the way of our life. It's the way that we worked cases. You know, it's what was known, so I don't think anybody gave it a second thought.
Speaker 1:To be honest with you, I agree, I agree, keep talking. So you're 14 months later, you're there, you're emptying out your desk. What's going on? How are you feeling about all of this? How are you feeling during that window of time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, during that 14 first probably three months were really really hard and I was really fighting. You know, I'm enrolled in some mental health. I have a therapist who ultimately we didn't really connect, but I had that therapist so I was doing that. I started on some medication and the whole time I'm fighting the PTS diagnosis. So much so in my brain that I start to have what looks like strokes or TIAs. Whole right side of my body is going numb, I can't speak, I can't think, I'm falling down, I'm not able to drive and ultimately I was hospitalized with it. After some testing it showed that these were seizures that I was having and they put me on some seizure medication and we kind of moved on.
Speaker 2:Then I had the interview that completely changed everything.
Speaker 2:I had a worker's comp interview and that worker's comp interview was with my lawyer and one of the things that they we needed to do was talk about maybe a dozen different critical incidents in my world that I had experienced that might, you know, push me over the edge towards PTS or cause an injury.
Speaker 2:So I started with John Watson getting murdered and you know I listed out my dozen or so. When I made the list they were like yeah, these are a dozen different cases, but who cares? And then, as I started to tell the story to the interview, it really started to sink in and compound that the reason I was the way that I was was because of all the stuff that I experienced in my career the way that I was a father, the way that I was a husband, the way that I disciplined my kids, the way that I interacted in public. All of that was a direct result of my experiences and almost individualized experiences of my career. And, um, you know, by halfway through the interview I am in tears and I realize I'm screwed up for a reason. I have an injury and it's okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I want to just stop you when you say I'm screwed up, because that's how we all feel, right, and that's how people feel when they hear this, and I'm just going to make this disclaimer in here. You know, so often when we talk about this and you use the analogy when we talked earlier, this is something like you said. We have this mindset. We don't want to believe it's true, because we have this mindset that we're okay, but you aren't actually broken, right? You're wounded and, like you said, all this stuff. It's like being I use the analogy it's like being punched in a boxing ring. It's like how many times can you punch the same guy in the head or the same gal? You're going to have symptoms. You're just going to have symptoms, and that's what this can be like, right, it's like being punched repeatedly.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, it's death by a thousand cuts and you don't want to believe it. What I was saying earlier is you don't want to believe it Because remember those days when we started 20 years ago. There's a stigma attached to this. Then you think, because we're all part of the culture in the world. Well, they treat, you know, pts or mental health issues with and you think you're crazy and you're not but they treat them with medication. Well, can I take medication? Because what if I get an officer involved shooting and I'm on meds? What if I get into a car crash? I'm on meds. What if my department hears that I'm on meds and I now broken and damaged goods and are they going to sideline me?
Speaker 2:So all of those things really keep us from telling the truth, you know, and and all of that. Now that I'm through this, I understand that all of that is just, you know, it's not true. It's fake news that we make up in our minds. Um, but that's what we're feeling. So, going into this, you know, do we run to the doctor and say, hey, I think I've got a problem, I'm not sleeping. I'm sleeping two hours a week, you know, and kicking the cat? No, we don't, because we're scared of the quote unquote repercussions because we're still in that mindset from 20 years ago. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course, and and for some reason I mean, for some people it's. You know, you use this analogy, we're in that mindset from 20 years ago. But we got to remember that. You know, I just met a guy 25 years on the job. He's the field training officer, the lead training officer for the department, and you can talk to him and you recognize he's got all the symptomology. He sees none of it and he prides himself on the fact that he's trained everybody in the department. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like nobody stops and says, hey, brother, I think it's time for us to give you some breathing space and let someone else step in and help out, because it's become his identity. But see, he's coming from that mindset from 20 years ago. He's trained the new guys, he's still on the job and he's coming from that mindset from 20 years ago. He's training the new guys, he's still on the job and he's training the new guys, but he's got this old guy mentality.
Speaker 1:But I couldn't, I mean I couldn't even have a conversation with him, because the moment we I even even touched around the idea that you know, there could be another approach. Clearly I didn't know what I was talking about. So the moment I realized I didn't have an audience, I just stopped talking and I'm like you know what? He'll find this out in his own time, in his own way, if that's what's meant to be.
Speaker 1:But back to what I was saying with you is that we've still got some of these and I'm not suggesting that somebody with 15, 20 years because there is something to be said about experience right, we got experience. Boy, if we could get those people with experience and re-educate them a little bit you know what I mean Like what we're going to talk about a little bit, with what you've learned, what you're doing, what you went through, just as an example, with some of the training that we do, it's like if we could wed those things right, take all that experience and say, hey, and, by the way, we're going to give you some techniques and tools that are going to help you be even better at your job. So I'm sorry to interrupt you, but keep talking.
Speaker 1:No, it's totally good Whether it's this thing you realize when you're being interviewed that man, there is something else going on here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was the pivotal moment of healing for me, and not healing, but at least crossing the summit of the mountain and kind of down the backside on the healing journey. From there I started to really sink into therapy, seek into different programs, like yours. I found a different therapist that her husband is a 26, 30 year police officer. She's culturally competent, she's a Christian lady. She has been doing, you know, first responder counseling for a long, long time and has a very good business at it and you know we really connected and I think that when you find the therapist you connect with, that makes all the difference in the world.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I like that. You know this is culturally competent, right. We're getting that today. We're getting that today where people can have been police officers and firefighters and paramedics and they're getting out of the industry and going into counseling, therapy of some kind, and so having someone to talk to who understands what you've been through, that's a game changer right, talk about these cops getting out and going into therapy.
Speaker 2:I don't know where my journey is going to take me in this life. You know I'm doing something different today than I was yesterday, figuratively speaking. We'll get to that in a second. But you know I'm not going to write the idea of therapy off for me or being a therapist or something I think you know I don't believe my pain is not without purpose.
Speaker 2:I've went through a lot. I've learned a lot on this journey. I've been there on this journey. I've been there, I've been in the trenches, I've been suicidal, I've had the gun in my mouth and now I'm on the healing side of things and, um, I just, you know, I was good in an interview room, I'm good at, you know, talking to people and hearing and listening. It's more about listening, it's not about talking.
Speaker 2:And you know, I don't know what God's gotten for me as far as my plan, but I don't know what the future holds. I don't think like and that's one of the reasons I do my podcast and I've said it on there a thousand times I don't think my pain isn't without purpose and if I can take the experiences that I've had good, bad and indifferent and you know, first of all, that somebody else know they're not the only one that feels that way. Somebody else out there has experienced the feelings of loneliness or depression or despair or isolation or whatever it is and show them that there's life on the other side. Sorry, we got off on a tangent there, but that's kind of my. You know my long-term thoughts.
Speaker 1:I think that's actually that's probably of all the things that we're going to talk about. That's probably one of the most important messages you're getting out there, because someone's listening to this fire or law enforcement thinking man, nobody understands what I'm going through. Or, more importantly, I don't know anyone who I can talk to about this of what I'm going through Because, like you said, there's this message being played in your head and this kind of goes back, and I'll just sidetrack this just for a second to talk about what we talked about at the conference. And you are well aware of this, that your brain is talking all day long, right 60 to 80,000 thoughts a day. Most of that's negative. Well, you expose yourself to murders and child abuse and all that stuff. Well, that subconscious messaging is negative, negative, negative, negative, negative.
Speaker 1:So it's a shock when we realize that thing is running our life and we don't even know how to turn it around, like no one teaches us when we get. That thing is running our life and we don't even know. We don't even know how to turn it around, like no one teaches us when we get into the job. Oh, by the way, this is what's going to happen to your brain, which is the driving force behind your, your body. Here's what's going to happen to you and here's how to interrupt that process. So no one teaches us other than the idea of medication and counseling. You mean, I can do something else to reset my nervous system, I can stop this process. And I want to make this one comment that I want you to continue to talk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:I heard this said recently, that it's not just the negative things that happen to us that lead to our depression and anxiety. It's that we no longer focus on the things that we once were grateful for, and so gratitude, I think, is a huge part of it. And when you say my pain has purpose, I love that. That's. One of my favorite lines is let your mess be your message right. Help someone take the next step out, and so continue to talk about this. So you checked in with this new counselor. She's culturally competent. You feel great about it. Your pain has a purpose.
Speaker 2:And where are you today? What's going on now? Yeah, so a lot of therapy between then and now. A lot of different modalities, neuromodulation, emdr, a lot of you know like going to your program, going to Mighty Oaks program, also there in California, just doing different things and ultimately over about you know, an 18 month period, 20 month period. I slowly kind of got back on the right side and my wife started to see a husband she hasn't seen in 20 plus years. My kids are seeing a father they've never met before. I'm starting to let go of that shield. I'm starting to let go of that. You know, I'm being on guard, hypervigilant, excited, startled response, all those things that you experience that are symptomatic of PTS. Those things are all starting to go away. Because I'm really working through it, I won't spend a ton of time.
Speaker 2:There was a relapse, if you will. I had to go back to court for a cold case, murder. So for about a nine week period, after having 18 months off, I was back being a cop, acting like a cop, thinking like a cop, talking like a cop, getting hammered on the stand for 19 hours, you know, and that really set me back and as a you know what we learned first, we learned best. What I learned first wasn't to go to therapy, it was to take care of it myself. So instead of going to therapy, I isolated, insulated, looked inward, thought I could solve my own problems. All that did was make my world implode again. So I was worse off than I ever was the day that I left the police department, because now I had a functioning nervous system. Now I knew what feeling good was like. I had feelings again and you know I feel like I've regressed and lost ground, and nobody likes to feel like they're losing it. You know losing ground. But got through that through therapy again. And that brings me up to today, professionally, during the process of healing, during that 14 months that I was out between getting sent home and emptying out my desk, an acquaintance of mine got me involved in his company and it's a factory rep agency.
Speaker 2:So my whole job now is to teach, educate, train adults on, you know, certain products or procedures and I'm in front of people, I'm educating, I'm teaching, I'm talking, and it's a good fit for me. It's a great place to find kind of that healing and that you know, resiliency, if you will. Is this my final stop? I don't know. You know I'd be foolish three years ago. I wouldn't you know I'd say I was going to be a cop for the next 25 years. So I realized that you know, life can throw something at you and you gotta you gotta go with it, whether you want to or not. And in hindsight, it's been my experience that everything that's happened to me has been for a reason. And I may not notice it at the time, I may not understand it at the time, but in hindsight, being 2020, I've always found something positive out of it that had I been continued down the same path that I was headed down, I would have never seen those blessings.
Speaker 1:And it sounds like you're a man of faith, which I know. For a lot of people, that's a huge help. For people who don't have faith, they have to find other things to anchor into their wellness is really important. Obviously, I am a like-minded person in that area. I have to be sort of cautious on how I present that in trainings, but for me, it's my saving grace to believe that there is something out there bigger than me that's keeping this whole universe intact, and that I'm not as important as I think I once thought I was. Yeah, I just like, oh, my gosh. Okay, let me ask you I want to go back just to a second. You made this great quote, this great quote. I'm sure this is something you learned. You said what we learn first, we learn best. Is that the quote you used?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's why I say with officers especially this concern around excessive force et cetera what I say is you can give officers all the diversion and equity and inclusion training you want, but under a stress response they're going to go back to what they know primarily. And until we learn to calm our nervous systems, like I'm sure I'm guessing and don't let me put words in your mouth when you were back in that courtroom for nine weeks, I'm sure you must have not just thought different thoughts, you must have felt differently. You must have gotten that rush again right, that charge that we all get when we feel like we matter and people are asking questions that only we have answers to. I mean, did you feel it? It wasn't more, it was more than just a thought right, you could feel that rush. Did you get that rush again?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I totally did. You know, coming out of law enforcement and being an expert in my field, where I was, and you know I was an expert in what I did no-transcript you're talking about. But going back into that courtroom and when I was out trying to do my new job, I found my memory was lapsed and foggy and I couldn't remember things and I'm getting confused all the time. Now I go and I'm working that job for about a year and a half prior to going to the courtroom, a year going to the courtroom. Then when I get in the courtroom everything is sharp as a tack. I'm right back into being the expert. I have the answers to the questions. I haven't looked at the reports in six years but I have them verbatim that I'm about to spit out and you know sand or oath I can take on the defense attorney. I, you know I can do all those things. I'm right back in it. So yeah, there was that rush with that.
Speaker 1:Edge was back, that hypervigilant edge.
Speaker 2:Absolutely that hypervigilant edge. And you know, on one side, man, it feels good to feel like I know what I'm doing again. But on the other side, because now I have an active nervous system, I'm no longer numb to the world, I know what it's doing to me, you know, I know what, looking at those pictures, looking through the case files, talking about the detail, know that that is absolutely destroying me and I can now feel as a cop. And you know I could walk into the worst situation in you know, a child death scene and really not care. I walk in like, okay, it's another one, let's go grab lunch and then we'll come back and deal with this.
Speaker 2:And uh, you know, after all the therapy and understanding, sympathetic, parasympathetic, and feelings and nervous systems and everything else going back into that, now it affected me. But I didn't want to let people know that it affected me because that's not what a tough guy does. Everybody still sees me as the tough Aaron and the homicide detective, but inside I don't want any part of that world anymore. I don't want to look at these pictures, I don't want to talk about this. So it was really mixed emotions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can imagine and it's interesting that you talked about. But now I'm feeling, and so there's two things that came to mind. Number one, that rush. Again, it's kind of like you've been in recovery for 18 months from cocaine or crack or whatever and then you just go do a line and you get the rush and you feel that sharpness, right, like you said, that sharpness of recall of information, you could tell it verbatim. Feel that sharpness, right, like you said, that sharpness of recall of information you could tell it verbatim. But you know, doing this line is going to kill you, right, this line is going to hurt me, but man does it feel good. And I know that feeling. I mean, we all know it. And I just want to go back because you use this phrase I didn't care and I think that deep down in all of our souls we care, just so desensitized from being hammered right.
Speaker 2:I would agree with that.
Speaker 1:Just you cared. But you're so desensitized and it's all of us right, it doesn't matter whether you're a police officer or a paramedic or a volunteer firefighter. When you're dealing with the trauma of humanity, the stress is the same as all humans. It's just that the intensity of that stress is so dramatic that the impact like you said, that you it was having on you, it was where did that begin? Right, where did it begin, like? Did it begin when you were, you know, eight years old? Did it begin when you were 13? Did it begin when, when John died? When John died? It's part of your journey. This is your life journey. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:so there's two things you said that I want to touch on One. I want to rephrase what I said. It's not that I walked into that scene and didn't care. I knew that, no matter what scene I walked into and you can ask any one of my dozens and dozens, or hundreds of homicide families I make them a promise on day one. I, or a hundred homicide families, I make them a promise on day one, I'm going to solve your murder. Okay, we're going to get to the bottom of this. We're going to find the people responsible and hold them accountable, and I can't think of a case that I didn't solve, including a 44 year old cold case. So that was I cared, but it did not affect me. You know, my emotions were shut off. The graphic nature of what I was seeing had I felt like it had no effect on me. It did. My wife knew that. You know, everything I'm seeing would seep in through the cracks and crevices and penetrate my soul. But you know, I didn't feel that. Apparently, people around me could see the effects. But I didn't feel it because my nervous system was right to it.
Speaker 2:And then, when did it start? It started for me at 13 years old. I was an explorer. I went on my first death investigation. I was brand new and somebody had found a body, had been laying there for seven months, kind of, in the snow, winter time, and we were going to go deal with this death scene. I'd never been to one before. And we were going to go deal with this death scene. I'd never been to one before. Approaching that scene and driving there, I was feeling anticipation, anxiety. I was a 13-year-old child, I didn't know what it was going to look like a little bit of fear. Then we got there, you know, and the guy I was riding with said well, you know you're not going to see anything if you stay in the car, so let's go.
Speaker 2:So we get out and it's him and I and we walked down this ravine to this body and his body's face down. And I won't get into details. But he's like do you have gloves? Yeah, so I put gloves on and I actually helped, you know, uh, collect this body. And I remember, as soon as I looked at the body and roll them over, I stopped feeling, um, I no longer had those feelings of anxiety, fear. It was literally just we got a job to get done and we palpated the body and did our thing. And you know, I just remember going numb and you know it is what it is.
Speaker 2:And now, you know, fast forward 25, 30 years as a cop, I had those same feelings. I go to the call, call X, and as soon as I get out and close my door, it's like it's all business and it just didn't affect me. And then go and then going to the, going to the you know, 14, 18 months of healing. Now I go back into that courtroom. Well, all of that shield of armor is gone.
Speaker 2:So now, all of those things that I felt like didn't affect me, now I'm just an emotional sponge and I am getting saturated with the tears of the victims, the victim's families, the testimony, my exposure, all that stuff is just soaking into me like a sponge and I became saturated with emotions and that is what I try to deal with on my own Couldn't, because what I learned first, I learned best, was just deal with it yourself, you know, and it took me six months to get back into therapy and actually get some professional help, and it didn't take long that I was back on the right track again. But so those are a couple of things I just wanted to say to your comments.
Speaker 1:No, I totally appreciate that and you know I made a note to myself when you were talking, which is, you know, I don't know what the rules are now on explorer programs, but I can tell you that I know I've interviewed enough young men and women who have parents who are first responders, who allow them to do ride-alongs, and were traumatized, totally traumatized, and we're not thinking about the brain, the developing brain, these young people who are explorers and exposing them to things like this, because you know I've met kids who are agoraphobic. They can't even go outside and when I get down to the bottom of the conversation it turns out that their mom or dad allowed them to ride along when they were 14, 15 years old and they were exposed to something horrifying and it doesn't show up. Sometimes it doesn't. You know, I think that a lot of PTIs, especially the acute stuff that people are traumatized by, it doesn't show up for about a year.
Speaker 1:So I think that a lot of us you can't tell that we've been injured right Depending on the exposure and how long we've been doing it and how equipped we are at suppressing it. But I think that's part of the problem is that if you tear your ACL, you're going to limp immediately. Someone's going to know if you tear your ACL, you're going to limp immediately. Someone's going to know you've torn your ACL. If you damage part of your brain, the limbic system of the brain, you may not notice this for weeks, months or years, and by then a lot of damage has been done and more damage has been added to it.
Speaker 1:So good for you for recognizing, yeah, and then getting back into getting the help. So where did we get to? How did we get to today? Tell me how we got to, what's going on with your podcast and how you're using this new sort of passion that you've got to help others in this podcast. I want to hear about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally so. In order to get today, we have to go through programs like yours where we educate and learn, and we spoke about an educational component a minute ago. You know that 25 year guy who learned old school what you learn first, you learn best. That's what he's teaching his recruits and you know now. You have to be open and your mind's like a parachute it's only going to work if it's open and if your mind is open to it and we go to training like yours. Now we start talking about sympathetic versus parasympathetic. A deer trying to get to the game trails of water, which is your neural pathways. And in law enforcement and fire and rescue and everything else, our neural pathways are primarily through the sympathetic nervous system of the brain, sympathetic nervous system being the side of the brain that speeds you up. It's the adrenaline side. Parasympathetic is a paralyzing side. It slows everything down and that's not a place we live. So as we build those neural pathways for example, the deer trying to get to water the beat down path is through the sympathetic side of our brain, because that's what we use. The parasympathetic side is what we need to engage and we can do that through yoga, meditation, adult coloring, those peaceful activities, the things that we don't do as cops. You know what cop is carrying a coloring book in his car to build those neural pathways after that tragic call? He or she just went on. So that is where I think to get me today is a lot of that education and training. And then today I'm in.
Speaker 2:I've been involved in music my entire life. I started playing drums at five years old. I've been in band since I was 13. I'm currently have a band that's been around since 2017. I've played in front of 25,000 people multiple times. Just music has always been a part of my world. I DJed when I was 16, 17 in Alaska and then in Arizona. I quit DJing during my time as a cop, but music has always been there. It's always been that therapeutic release for me in my career and even and even on the job, when people would come to see me, my coworkers. They'd come to see me and they'd be like, who is this guy on stage? Because this is not the a-hole that's, you know, at the office, monday through Friday.
Speaker 1:This is Aaron flow state.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. Um, and when I came out of law enforcement, I came out kicking and screaming, but I still wanted to help people. So I opened a business called Streamline Events and Entertainment and I do DJing, live music, lighting and sound production for weddings and corporate events and you know from most of my weddings are good size, decent size weddings and the corporate events and stuff, and it's just a way for me to go from helping people on their worst day to helping people on their best days and from making the, you know, from being their worst memory. And you know, a year later, after you solve the murder, you call them up and they say hey, aaron, please don't ever call me again, you're just triggering all the things of the past. Well, I got tired of that conversation. So now, when I'm helping people on their wedding days and producing this awesome wedding for them and making those memories, you know nobody's going to remember the braised chicken that they ate at the wedding, but they're going to remember the party and the atmosphere that happened.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So that's what I do. And then I wanted to take so that's streamlined. Then I wanted to take my experiences and help others with them and but I wanted to do it in such a way that you don't have to be a cop or a firefighter first responder. I don't care what career you're in. If one day you're on top of the world and the next day you're fired, now you have an identity crisis because that's what you've known and you don't have to be a cop to understand that or anybody else in first responders. That is just a human thing. When you find yourself stressed out and you take a left-hand turn to alcohol or drugs or affairs to find that dopamine hit, you don't have to be a first responder to figure that out.
Speaker 2:So that's what I want to do with my podcast. I wanted to talk about my experiences, the good and the bad and the ugly very vulnerable, very transparent, very honest, about the things that I've been through. But then the healing journey that got us to the other side and what we spoke about a moment ago was, you know, people feeling like they're the only ones to anybody listening. If you're having a feeling, if you are in a world of darkness, despair, whatever. You're not the only one. Other people have been there either myself and survived and not only survived but flourished. On the other side. You know there's a life on the other side of this hell that you're walking through today and that's what I want my podcast to do. So Merges to Music, from crime scenes to the music scene, helping people on their worst days to helping them on their best days. Worst memories to best memories, and then using my pain for a purpose in that journey. And that's the podcast.
Speaker 1:This is so beautiful and you know something I think that we probably have in common, but you learn from our training is obviously the work that we do is around the nervous system. It isn't psychology, it isn't psychiatry, it isn't meditation I mean medication, it is meditation. Right, it is meditation. Yeah, I get it. 10 years ago, if you'd come to me and talk to me about doing something like this, I would have thought it was complete insanity. I was absolutely disconnected from the idea that something like this could help, and yet it has been an amazing journey. I just with my staff yesterday. We were talking about what we have is sort of a charcuterie board of information that we provide, with people learning around just the issues that you talked about. How do I get out of that hypervigilant fight or flight response? How do I recognize what's happening to me? But, more importantly, you know we use that phrase going to the mind gym, and I just want to sort of comment on that for a second here. Like you said, you know what officer is going to have a coloring book in their patrol car Nobody. But what we're trying to do is change legislation so that when you go into the academy you're trained early on. These are things you have to do on a regular basis. So there's now in many departments there's an hour of mandatory PT. You've got to stay in physically fit shape, but we also want people to recognize I've got to do these self-care, creative flow state Aaron on the drums in front of 20,000 people. We have to do that consistently so that maybe I don't have a coloring book in my patrol car. But when I get off shift I know, as I love Joe Rogan's things he says I owe those things.
Speaker 1:When I'm coming off a shift, I'm going to do some coloring. I'm going to get myself into flow state. I'm going to get my legs up the wall, get my blood into my gut, let my nervous system know I'm not in fight or flight. I'm going to do some breath work and I'm going to slow my breathing down, have some mindful, deep breaths so that my body recognizes. I'm not trying to tell my brain to do it, I'm letting my body do it. And when my body falls into line without being in a hypervigilant state, the brain joins it.
Speaker 1:And that's what I'm trying to do is sort of backdoor the process which is I'm not trying to get you to necessarily think different, I'd like you to feel a little bit different. Then we'll change the way your thought process is going and as soon as you start to feel alive again and that's the key, not the dopamine rush, but the joy. The joy is seeing your kids smile at you having a conversation with your wife, or she goes oh my gosh, my husband, where have you been? It's like a body snatcher, right. It's like the first responder industry. The public safety industry is like a body snatcher for spouses. So I don't know. I'm excited to hear about what's happened in your personal life. That's huge 26 years of marriage and three kids who've gotten to know a man that they didn't know most of their lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a pretty cool place to be Touching on what you were talking about, the Academy stuff, you know. I think that whether it's me or somebody like me or you, we've all been to the end services and we all dread the mental health in service, but it's because it's being taught by somebody who is probably on staff, is not culturally competent in that conversation, hasn't been there and done that and maybe hasn't lost their career like I have. You know, and I think there's. If you find that you know whether it's me or anybody else, but you find that person that understands the nervous system, understands you know what is going on behind the scenes and you don't start your conversation there. You start your conversation with building your credibility as to what you've done in your career and who you were and all of a sudden one day my career is over. And if you think it can't happen to you I'm sorry but you're absolutely wrong Then once they've got that, then you can talk to them about what's going on behind the scenes to activate that parasympathetic and get that nervous system and that flow state going.
Speaker 2:Then I think that conversation would be much more impactful from a law enforcement. So is anybody on here listening from a law enforcement agency. Find your you know your elector, find your speaker and, you know, find somebody who's been there and done that and maybe not wearing a badge anymore, because that is where I think the impact for me, that's where the impact would have been. I sat through dozens of mental health and I tuned them out and doodled in my notebook because it would never affect me, because this person I'm not looking at a living case study as to somebody who's been through it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:That's why this is why the work that we're doing is so, I think, is so different is that, without a doubt, all the researchers and professors that are working with us say what makes this work work so effectively is that you're all people from the streets, and so whether you're a female medic or a female police officer or a firefighter or a male cop, doesn't make any difference, whatever, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. There's somebody on our team that recognizes it. Well, aaron, we've got a um, we've got our time limit here for our podcast, but I want to just offer a couple of things. So, first of all, I want to say thank you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, thank you.
Speaker 1:I would love you to tell people right now, before we finish up this podcast, where can they find you.
Speaker 2:So you can find me online. Uh, at murders to music is the name of my podcast. It's on any streaming platform. If you want to email me, it's murders to music at gmailcom. That's the number two, and a streamline events and entertainment is also another way to contact me. It's on all your social medias. If you look up streamline events and entertainment out of Washington, you'll totally find me.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I love that. Thank you. Thank you for being vulnerable, thank you for being honest, thank you for what you did for a living, and thank you for turning that pain and making it purpose.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me on. It was a blessing. Well, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. That is the podcast that I recorded with Susan. Like I said, come back in a couple of weeks, meet Susan, get in the conversation with her. You guys find the five-star reviews that you've all got hiding inside of your souls. Go out there to all your podcasts, all your streaming platforms. Give me a review, send me some mail, email me at Murders to Music. And, ladies and gentlemen, that is the Murders to Music podcast.
