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)
Resiliency 1st: Susan Farren, Hear Her Story, Change Your Life
What if we could stop first responder PTSD before it starts? Susan Farren's life-changing revelation came at her darkest moment – facing a terminal cancer diagnosis after 30 years as a paramedic, when a surgeon casually mentioned they "see a lot of this in first responders." That pivotal comment launched her investigation into how trauma physically changes emergency responders, ultimately leading her to sell her home and create First Responder Resiliency, an organization that's now trained over 12,000 people nationwide.
The traditional first responder wellness program – what Susan calls "Suck It Up Buttercup" – clearly wasn't working. Despite existing support like CISM debriefings and employee assistance programs, rates of suicide, addiction, divorce, and depression continued rising among those who serve our communities. Susan realized something fundamental was missing: a proactive approach that addresses how trauma physically alters the brain and body before problems emerge.
Susan shares her personal journey through addiction, divorce, cancer, and suicidal thoughts with remarkable vulnerability, describing a moment when she found herself "howling like a wounded animal" in her trailer with a handgun, saved only by a random call from her manicurist. This dark night of the soul mirrors what countless first responders experience – trapped in isolation, ashamed to admit they're struggling, caught in what Susan describes as a tornado pulling all life's debris into its vortex.
The First Responder Resiliency program combines cutting-edge neuroscience with practical healing modalities like meditation, tactical yoga (taught by a 260-pound former military operator), and recently, healing drum circles led by Def Leppard's Rick Allen. These approaches reset the nervous system, helping participants escape the biochemical addiction to stress hormones that many first responders develop unknowingly. As Susan eloquently puts it: "I would love to get people meditating before we get them medicating."
Whether you're a first responder yourself or love someone who is, this conversation offers profound insights into how trauma changes us physically and mentally – and how we can heal before reaching crisis. Susan's revolutionary approach shows that true strength comes not from suppressing emotions but from understanding our nervous systems and learning tools to maintain balance throughout a challenging career.
Ready to transform your relationship with stress and trauma? Visit resiliency1st.org to learn about upcoming programs and how you can support this life-saving work.
Gift For You!!! Murders to Music will be releasing "SNAPSHOTS" periodcally to keep you entertained throughout the week! Snapshots will be short, concise bonus episodes containing funny stories, tid bits of brilliance and magical moments!!! Give them a listen and keep up on the tea!
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Murders to Music podcast. My name is Aaron, I'm your host and guess what you guys are in for another amazing show. On today's show we're going to pick up where we left off, back on episode 36. If you remember, that's the episode where Susan Farren, the founder of resiliencyfirstorg, which is a first responder resiliency program, that's where she interviewed me and we spoke about her program out in California that attacks PTSD or PTS in a scientific approach. We can talk about all the things that occur to the brain during our career and we talk about the modalities and ways to fix them, to undo them.
Speaker 2:Now, you don't have to be a first responder to get something out of this. The idea of oversaturating yourself in work or in family or in hobbies or anything, where you lose track of who you really are and maybe you don't recognize the person in the mirror. That can happen to anybody and that's what this program and tonight's show is about. Susan is going to talk about her story. You're going to hear about her growing up as a young EMT paramedic in Oakland, a lot of the stuff that she had to face and ultimately how that almost led to her demise and then starting a program because her friends were dying on the job and somebody needed to do something. So let's talk to Susan and hear all about her story. So, susan, thank you so much for coming back today. I really appreciate you being here. Thanks for taking the time out of your schedule.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Delighted to be here, Aaron.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the first podcast we did I was actually on your podcast. I played it for my guest and it got a lot of listens. People are interested in what that First Responder Resiliency Program is and what it's all about. And what I was hoping today is we could talk about, maybe your story. I had the honor of being a part of one of your classes and heard the story and how this thing came to be. But once you tell the listeners your background where you came from, born, raised, what got you here and then we'll talk about the program a little bit in some details, if that's cool with you.
Speaker 1:Love that. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'll try to keep this relatively short. Right, everyone's heard everyone's story in some capacity. I am from Sonoma County which, for those who know the area Napa and Sonoma is the wine country Grew up on a ranch out here. Like a lot of first responders, I grew up with a lot of addiction and alcohol in my household, which I think sort of set me up to be a caretaker. I think a lot of us do this naturally at home as children and then it sort of it's a siren song pulling us into an industry. It's not true for everyone, but it's certainly true for a lot of us. And I lost my mom when I was 17 years old and went straight into a local junior college to figure out what do I do without any parents in my life. My dad had left a year earlier, and so I went straight into criminal law and administration of justice and thought I was going to be in law to some capacity and then took an elective course as an EMT and found my calling. That's the only way I can say it. It just felt like I would have done it for free, but I was getting paid. I would work for a couple of years here in a relatively rural environment, and then I would go done it for free but I was getting paid. I would work for a couple of years here in a relatively rural environment, and then I would go to paramedic school and become a paramedic in an area in the East Bay called Oakland. Most of you have heard of that area just east of San Francisco, a very violent area. At the time I was just a kid. I was 21 years old when I got onto the streets in Oakland as a medic and saw a lot of penetrating trauma, a lot of murder, a lot of mayhem. You know, just, it's welcome to the industry. You know, as we age we think, oh, we change our technology and we change our protocols, we change our equipment, but people are still doing the same things, right? People get sick the same way, they die the same way they. But people are still doing the same things, right? People get sick the same way, they die the same way, they hurt each other. The ringer and I got you know what we called back then burnout right? We had a behavioral wellness program called Suck it Up Buttercup. Much like you did, and like a lot of folks in the industry, I started looking for ways to assuage the pain. And I transferred to San Francisco as a medic and I thought that would make all my problems go away. And that didn't change anything. What changed was my pay rate and my uniform and it was the same stuff, the same trauma. And you just don't know, as a young person going into the industry, what the industry is going to, what the impact is the industry is going to have on you. And they had a lot of what we have today. Right, they had the employee assistance program, they had CISM and debriefings.
Speaker 1:I would spend 30 years in the industry. I would work as a medic, I would work as a medical investigator for private sector areas as well as public sector and the fire departments. And honestly, erin, if you had come to me 10 years ago after I had spent 30 years doing all of this, I would have told you I felt like I had come out unscathed. But boy, what a difference a day can make. And only a couple of years later, after 23 years of marriage, five kids and a 30 year career, I discovered I was going to be going through a divorce which has not been planned for me.
Speaker 1:And while I was in the midst of that divorce, I ended up starting to urinate blood and I went into the hospital and discovered that I had a kidney tumor in my right kidney. Initially that was a terminal diagnosis that gave me a year to live. I had five kids, 11 on up to 19. And it was really emotionally traumatizing. I think it would be for anybody any mom, any medic, any firefighter, any cop, anybody on the planet to hear you have a terminal diagnosis. But especially, I think it hit me powerfully because I had made a promise that I would never do that to my children, leave them without a mother. And as it had happened to me and as it turns out, exactly the age my mother was when she died was the same age I was when I got my terminal diagnosis. So it was really a very powerful and trying time for me. Obviously I did not die. That's sort of the spoiler alert.
Speaker 1:I survived that experience, but it wasn't without having to go through major surgery, having part of my kidney removed, the tumor removed, and then having to go two years without cancer to be considered clean. But that's my story of being in the industry and what happened to me physically. But it really was about what happened after my operation, where a surgeon came into my room and he said we see a lot of this in first responders. And I said a lot of what? And he said organ cancer. Now you know we're all familiar with the shenanigans of our industry. This is not uncommon to most of us. We know that we have an exceptionally high divorce rate and adultery rate. There's a significant issue around addiction and isolation and, I think, anger and depression, and there's some significant issues around things like suicide. You know the stuff that we've talked about. But I think that a lot of these conversations were really sort of reactionary.
Speaker 1:After we saw the symptoms of post-traumatic stress in a first responder did we begin calling it out, where most of your colleagues could have seen what was happening to you. But I use this phrase you can't see the label from inside the jar, right? You don't realize you're changing. And so when I got out of the hospital, I just researched organ cancer and first responders, and one article led to another, article led to another article. And here was my epiphany If everything we were doing for it to help people in this industry was after they were damaged, for it to help people in this industry was after they were damaged and our suicide and depression rates were still going up, then we weren't doing something right. Something wasn't effective. Now I'm not suggesting that reactionary approaches, including talk therapy, emdr, medication, all of these things aren't good in their own right. What I mean is that if that was working, good in their own right. What I mean is that if that was working, then we would be turning the tide in these areas, and we don't seem to be, at least statistically we don't seem to be.
Speaker 1:So I began doing the research and, as I think we talked a little bit about before, what I discovered was number one that when you're repeatedly exposed to trauma and stress, your neuroanatomy changes. That changes your psychology. That affects your emotions. Your emotions and your psychology affect your relationships. Physiologically and physically, you're altered by these repeated chemicals of stress and trauma in your life Adrenaline, cortisol, all of the stimulation chemicals that are in our system and that chronic stress hormones, that chronic stress in our lives that we're usually unaware of and unconsciously addicted to have a huge impact on us physically and physiologically. But, like I mentioned, we don't see it, and so what I realized is we needed a proactive approach. We needed to have something to help people before they got sick before they got traumatized.
Speaker 1:I wanted to teach people like me before they got sick, depressed, isolated, divorced, addicted or suicidal, what can we do in advance, what tools are available? And as I did that research, there was these core areas that I realized we were being impacted and I thought what if I reverse engineered that, started at depression and isolation, reverse engineered it, found out what was causing it and created a program that addressed it before it happened? As we say, trained people to go to the mind gym and not just to the physical gym, right, because there's all this stuff now about working out and in most departments, whether it's fire, police, ems, there's physical fitness. That's sort of an expectation of our work to protect us from physical harm and injuries. But there's very little being done before we get injured psychologically and physiologically, before we're on the brink of divorce, before we get injured psychologically and physiologically before we're on the brink of divorce, before we're hiding addiction, before we're on the back deck with a bottle of whiskey and a handgun. And so that's the. You know, that's the shortest I can make that story.
Speaker 1:I became so intimately aware that there had certainly been nothing for me and for most of my colleagues, there had been nothing in advance of them getting into trouble. So in 2017, just before we had this huge wildfire here called the Tubbs Fire, I sold my house for the seed money to start a nonprofit, having no idea what I was doing but completely compelled that I could make a change. I sold my house and started a nonprofit organization and started going door to door and telling departments. I think we can get ahead of this. Before your folks are injured, before they're disabled, before they retire early, before they're medicated to the gills, let's show them some techniques to keep them healthy and alive, and that started with our first conference with 40 people in June of 2018. And we're up to 12,000 people training coast to coast. We just partnered with the Raven Drum Foundation, which is led by the drummer of Def Leppard, and we are kicking down doors.
Speaker 1:Now.
Speaker 1:I'm not knocking gently.
Speaker 1:I'm coming in and I'm saying we can do something before people get sick and injured. And, like I say, erin, I want to be really clear about this. There's always going to be a place for things like conversation, counseling, medication, but I would love to get people meditating before we get them medicating. I would love to give people tools to calm their nervous systems before we see these. You know, as we I think we talked about this the young officers going into the job, lean and mean, high and tight, glad for their work, and three years later they're in there a little, a little sour, a little sarcastic, with their can of Zen and an energy drink and a cup of coffee, because they're replicating the hormones of stress with chemicals, right, so that the rush of the job has begun to wane. So now I'm starting to fill my body replicating that stress with chemicals, and off to the races. We go, right, we're propping ourselves up with toothpicks and paperclips and duct tape, and then here we are, these sort of occupational athletes succumbing to the impacts of our work for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you said a couple of things that I want to go back and touch on and just get a little bit more clarity or get your opinion on it. So we were talking you mentioned a couple of times about talk therapy and EMDR and those types of modalities versus meditation and other stuff, more holistic stuff and I can tell you, when I came to your program one, I didn't want anything to do with therapy. Uh, I was never going to meditate or do yoga and I didn't want to talk about my feelings because I had this stuff figured out. Uh, and it wasn't until I went through it and saw just how a holistic approach to treatment, to regulate and, you know, centralize that nervous system was such a great thing, right. And meditation, I love it. Yoga, I loved it in your class and I haven't done it since and I don't know why. I just need to do it. And if I had Todd to come teach me, I would. I would do it every day with that dude. Yeah, please send him.
Speaker 2:So you know, I do think there's that holistic approach and I've done lots of therapy and thankfully I have an amazing therapist who is culturally competent, she's involved in law enforcement and has been for the majority of her adult life.
Speaker 2:She gets it and you know she also agrees that we need to centralize that nervous system and regulate things before we can really progress and heal. You don't want to put the cart before the horse, right? So I think that one of the things that's been important for me the EMDR, the talk therapy, all of that stuff is important and, frankly, emdr has been the most powerful modality for me in my healing journey. But with that you're not going to EMDR yourself. When you wake up in the morning, you lay down in bed at night. That's where that meditation comes in and it's just and that's something I learned at your program, and I think it's such an amazing approach that most first responders, even the people listening to this today, I would say, because we haven't, we haven't been in this new way of thinking long enough, the majority of the listeners that are still active today are going to be thinking there's no way in hell I'm meditating and there's no way I'm doing yoga. Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who the hell is this lady? Way too woo-woo for me. Yeah, and all I can say is amen, because if this program had come out 10 years ago, I wouldn't have come to my own program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and I think that you know why not try meditation before you end up with a gun in your mouth. You know why not give something a chance. So I think that is super, super cool. As far as your personal journey, what was the lowest point in your journey? I got to imagine coming through that diagnosis, coming through that healing process I know there's some marriage stuff in there. What's the lowest point in your journey and how did you come out of that?
Speaker 1:Well, that's a great question. And, to be completely transparent, while I was recovering from my surgery, I got really depressed. I don't tell everybody this. I actually rented out my house because I'd gone through a divorce Once I had to have my surgery. What I didn't mention is that they had paralyzed part of my abdominal muscles so I could no longer return to my job. I couldn't work as a medic, I couldn't drive down to my job in the East Bay, and so I'd run out of money. I didn't work as a medic, I couldn't drive down to my job in the East Bay, and so I'd run out of money. I didn't have a career.
Speaker 1:My marriage was over, my kids were spending half their time with me, and the voice began to play in my head it's always going to be like this you are a total failure. You have, you are failed physically, you are failed financially, you have failed at marriage. I mean just all the self-pity stories that it's almost like you know Satan with a deck of cards oh, how about this one, how about this one? How about this one? How about this one, how about this one? And once you start playing poker with the devil, you're going to lose every time. And for me, what ended up happening is I moved into my trailer the trailer that I thought my husband and I were going to travel around the US when we got retired and we were going to spend our children's inheritance, and instead I'm living in it on my brother's property while my house is rented out. And I was so depressed I could only say that I was. It's really hard to say this. I was like howling like a wounded animal in that trailer. I was just sobbing and I ended up on a day where, just like I talk about right, I had taken a handgun with me and I was in a fetal position on the bed of that trailer with that handgun and I was thinking I know exactly what to do, I know how to stop this pain, and I hadn't talked to anybody in probably two or three days. I was isolating, right the worst thing you can do in this crisis. But we're all. I think we're so ashamed I'm speaking for myself. I was so ashamed that I felt like I had failed at life, that I couldn't call anybody. I couldn't call my colleagues, I couldn't tell anybody. I don't know what was going on. But I think the depression becomes its own tornado and all of a sudden it's pulled in its own. All the debris of your life is being sucked into this vortex.
Speaker 1:And my cell phone rang and it turned out to be my manicurist, the lady that used to paint my fingernails. I hadn't talked to her in two years. She called me and she said hey, it's Nicole. What are you doing? And I said I'm laying in a fifth wheel thinking about killing myself. What about you?
Speaker 1:And I think Erin, for me it was number one. She wasn't from the industry, number two. I had nothing to lose. I was moments away from making a permanent decision to a temporary problem. And she said hold on, hold on, I've been there, we're going to get you through this. Hold on, can I get you some help? Can we call somebody? Just give me 10 minutes. And sure enough, she hung up the phone with me. She called and set me up to go in and meet with somebody.
Speaker 1:I committed one thing at a time. I committed to meet with this therapist an hour or so later and that therapist wanted to admit me to the hospital. I refused. The therapist wanted to know if I had a plan and I said you mean so you can 5150 me? No, I don't have a plan because we know I can. I can BS any therapist. I know exactly what you're waiting to hear and I know what to say and what not to say. Right, like all of us, we know what to say because we're the ones who institutionalize people when they're a danger to themselves or others. So I know how to play the game.
Speaker 1:And she said would you be willing to go into an intensive outpatient program? And I agreed to it and I will tell you, it was an hour by hour survival. It was, and I you know this is really hard to say out loud, because I want anyone who's listening to this to say no matter how dark or how hard your life gets, there is always hope. And I was actually in a space where I would say to myself if I don't feel better tomorrow, I can end my life. If I don't feel better tomorrow, I can end my life.
Speaker 1:And that was my mantra while I was in this outpatient program and what I learned was I knew how to take care of everyone else. And what I learned was I knew how to take care of everyone else no-transcript, and I didn't realize that taking care of my nervous system, calming myself, getting myself out of a fight or flight state that I didn't know I was in and I didn't know that physiologically I was addicted to, like most of us in this job, right, we just go from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing. I didn't know it and I learned it. I came out of that place and it was. It went from minute by minute to hour by hour, to day by day, to week by week, to month by month, and then all of a sudden, I was out, I could breathe again, I was alive. I couldn't believe that I'd ever been so low. And the rest is history. Right, I found purpose in my pain.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for sharing that, um. You know, and I can tell you that your story up until me going to get a manicure, um, your story resonates so much, right, uh, and we don't do comparative stuff because everybody's got their own journey, but I can tell you I was right where you are and, the minute to minute at least, with the idea of taking my life. And the minute to minute, week to week, hour to hour, I get all of that and I think that you know somebody out there listening. We're not the only two in first responder world that have been there, um, but we're two that are talking about it, and I think there's so much empowerment that comes from hearing somebody else and realizing that. You know, I wasn't the only one ever there, you weren't the only one ever there, and we're, you know, thousands of miles apart and don't know each other, yet we're both in the same position, Um, so thank you so much for sharing that Um my honor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so who? Well, before we get onto that, you mentioned one thing Tell me about this drum program you guys have going on, because I've played drums my entire life. I've got a band, I've done music. My podcast is Murders to Music. It's all about music. So let's figure this out together. Tell me about your program. What do you got going on?
Speaker 1:Okay, no-transcript. Losing a part of your body and I don't know how well he dealt with it when he was experiencing at the time, but he same thing took his pain and made it a purpose, took his mess and made it a message. He figured out with probably his producers and managers, how they were going to create pedals for him to play with his feet so that he could accommodate the missing arm. And his brain knew. Right, his brain knew and Rick became a worldwide sensation. The funny thing is we are six months apart in age.
Speaker 1:I followed Rick my whole life and the funny thing, I got to tell you this I used to be a rock medic at the Deaf Leopard concerts. So I would go to the Deaf Leopard concerts and I would pick up drunk people and injured people and people who thought they were God and I would take care of them. The funny thing is I had never been to a Def Leppard concert and sat in a chair until August of 2024. And when I came out of that concert I looked him up again. I was like I remember this dude. I remember we were 21 when this happened and it's just random, like totally random, no connection to him, don't know anything about him and I find out that there's an article in the paper or something that there's going to be a drum circle up right near where I live with the drummer of Def Leppard and I can't get there. But I'm super. It's like what a coincidence, right that the guy's going to be in my own neighborhood. I can't make it to that drum circle and yet a fire chief who knows of our program mentions it to him and his wife and they seek me out and the day we meet it's like the planets have aligned for this very moment. And what it is is that Rick, obviously using his skill as a drummer, his wife, lauren Monroe, is this incredible woman who is incredibly well-educated but incredibly well-versed in our industry and what it is that we do, and she's also a percussionist and a singer. And they created, rick and Lauren created this drum foundation that helps with heart coherence.
Speaker 1:So if you're not familiar with the work of the HeartMath Institute in Santa Cruz, california, there is now scientific evidence that when we can help the first responders veterans too, but obviously I serve first responders specifically when you do drumming, it creates coherence in the heart right, the heart connects to that and you know this is a musician which opens up the right side of the brain, that creative, musical side of you. And they said we'd like to work with you and bring drumming into your conferences. And so last week, for the first time ever, we had our first drum circle and we had 50 first responders in the room. And I'm going to tell you I doubt there was a dry eye in the house. Hearing Rick speak, hearing the brilliance of his wife and what the drumming does with the heart, it's like you can't stay in your stress and your trauma. While you're drumming, while Rick Allen, the drummer of Def Leppard, and his wife are setting the beat, you're following along. It is magic. And so this has now become our new mission is the Raven Drum Foundation with us mission is the Raven Drum Foundation with us. We are providing this training at our conferences, but we're also going around and doing some no-cost training. Specifically here we'll be hosting a conference at a place called 1440 Multiversity in Santa Cruz at the end of March, and all of these firefighters and police officers and first responders who were involved in the Palisades and Eaton fires down in SoCal we're going to provide. The venue's been donated, we're donating our training and the Revin Drum Foundation is donating their drum circle and we are truly Erin. We are going to change the world. We are going to change the world. It sounds so dramatic, but I mean this from this capacity.
Speaker 1:I love what you said about your culturally competent therapist. I love that there are people out there and I am an absolute believer that counseling can be a vital part of our wellness. I believe that medication serves a purpose in times where we're really, really stuck. I know that debriefings work for some people they didn't work for me, but that's neither here nor there. But I will say this what I hope is going to happen is that we're going to provide the proactive support, the holistic wellness information that you get right from the beginning of your career. We'll have people who were there as a safety net for us to catch us when we fall and they can show us the way back right.
Speaker 1:We have tools now. We have assistance, we have medication, we have good counselors, we have EMDR, we have whatever is an approved form of therapy for first responders. But what I want so much, aaron, is 10 years from now, no first responder or their family enters this industry without recognizing. Here's what can be done to keep me healthy and whole, and if I fall, there are people there to catch me. So I think you should come down and come to one of our drum circles. I think you should come to another conference to experience it, so that you can speak to it. That's what I think.
Speaker 2:I think that would be awesome. You know, I think that and this is a conversation for offline but I definitely think my message, your message, we're going the same direction and there's potential to do something really cool. I don't know what that is right, I don't know how we can be a part of each other's worlds, but I think that, again, like I said in my first podcast, you know, or my first time with you, everything I've went through is for a purpose. My pain is for a purpose and I just want to help people. And the fact that we got drums involved I can do this all day long. You know what I mean. I can do drums all day long. So let's talk a little bit about the First Responder Resiliency Program. What does your program look like? What is the structure, what do we talk about, what do we do and who are your instructors? Where do these people come from? Are we hiring them off the street or do they have some kind of background?
Speaker 1:So the foundation of the organization, here, our trademark, is putting PTSD out of business, because it's neither a disorder nor do you have to be labeled with it, it's an injury. That's our first thing. Our internal mission statement is starting with ourselves. We train those who save others to save themselves, and what we are is a group of all career first responders physicians and we do have a couple of military folks working with us, who there's a team of about 25 of us now and all of our instructors have to be career first responders. The funny thing is we get a lot of applications, people saying I want to be an instructor for you. I have a story to tell. But it's not so much that we're getting instructors who have a story to tell, but it's not so much that we're getting instructors who have a story to tell. It's we're getting students of life who are willing to come in and learn a different approach and adapt their presentation to reflect the holistic approach that we have and what our program consists of. First of all, it can be anything from a one-day training. Sometimes departments will hire us and we'll go in and do 15 one-day trainings so we can train the entire department. Sometimes departments will bring us in for two-day trainings and that covers all the curriculum. But we don't do a lot of the modalities. I'll expand on that here in a second.
Speaker 1:But the sort of big kahuna is our three-day conference, and the three-day conference is held, as you know, up at a 360-acre ranch out in the middle of wine country where it's lots of privacy and cows, and we set this up so that first responders can come in and their families at the end. But we'll start with the first responders. Most of them show up just like you, arms crossed with a uh-huh, tell me something. I don't know. I love that. I love that because that's who I am and that's who I would have been. And we hit the ground running straight away with why we're here, what the value of this work is, and we start with the science. Let's talk about scientifically what do we know is happening to first responders, psychologically, neurologically, physiologically, what's happening because of our work? And then for each presentation that we go into, we add a modality to it. So we'll do things like meditation, breath work, art therapy, cognitive, behavioral therapy a dozen different modalities that we do in between each lecture on science.
Speaker 1:And each lecture on science that's science-based is done by a career first responder who's sort of a subject matter expert. So we find people who've got certain skill sets and we plug them into these areas. And this starts off with everybody being skeptical and hesitant, and I expect that. And at the end of day three we have reset their nervous system, we've given them a massage, they've been meditating every day. We're doing some slow movement, martial arts, we're out in nature, we're doing some art therapy, we're doing stuff that most of us would never have considered doing in our careers. And on day three it's like leaving a wedding, like where everybody's laughing and talking and we play games and we just we find our joy again. And I'm not saying this is the only game in town and I'm not saying this is the perfect game in town. I'm telling you this is a game in town.
Speaker 1:And what we do is we spend three days with the first responders at the major conferences and then we bring their families in and the families are trained in a separate area and we train them in sort of a shorter version of each subject so they know what the first responder is going through. So we don't get together with the families and complain about the first responders and give them you know the secret trick to manipulate them. We show them how it's impacting them as well and how the whole family can get well by doing these holistic modalities. And my hope is that sometimes, when someone comes completely closed off, you know they've been voluntold to come because their career is suffering, their marriage is suffering, they're medicated to the gills and they want a different way of life. What our hope is that they're going to come in here skeptical and then they're going to leave and they're going to be open-minded.
Speaker 1:I never thought this could work, and now maybe I will consider therapy, maybe I will consider EMDR, maybe I will try something different, and so my hope is that we're opening the door and we're also working. I want to add this we're working with universities and neuroscientists who are watching how effective our work is and saying how the hell did a career group of first responders start an organization that is literally changing the culture? One first responder and one family member at a time. Like I said, it's not everything, but it's a big thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I completely agree. I think that it was an awesome program. And when is your program usually? Is it usually during the week? Is it on the weekends? If people are thinking about scheduling this, what is your schedule usually look like, or does it vary?
Speaker 1:Traditionally we train Tuesday through Thursday, because most first responders don't know what a weekend is, and so we train Tuesday through Thursday. When people are coming in from out of the area, we let them come in the night before and stay with us on the property and then we have them. Training starts at 9 am on Tuesday and they are done by 5 o'clock on Thursday. So they're Tuesday, wednesday, thursday all three full days Thursday. So there are Tuesday, wednesday, thursday all three full days, and if it's a training that they're looking to like to bring into the department, something like that, it's everything you can imagine. We I think I told you that we went out to DC and we trained a bunch of the folks from the federal government and law enforcement, so people can really bring us in to accommodate their own schedules.
Speaker 1:But here in Northern California the conferences are about five times a year. Our next one is April 1st, 2nd and 3rd, but these are often and it's hard to admit this sold out weeks before they actually open, because we've got groups of departments now trying to send in 15, 20 of their staff. A lot of departments will send in two or three and every conference will have two or three from the same department, which is wonderful. But I do want to say my dream was not just to host those conferences, which we'll be doing for the next probably two years, but, as you know, we bought 18 acres in Northern California and I am hell-bent on building the first first responder resiliency center in the world, so that this center is built here on the property and we're able to help first responders anytime they need and we're able to host conferences every single month. So you know, world domination is going to take more than me traveling around the country, but I'm willing to pay the price until we get the center built. So that's what we're doing right now.
Speaker 2:That is awesome. So one of the highlights of this training for me was a tactical yoga Todd. What can you tell me about tactical yoga Todd? And for those people who are out there being like I am way too much of a badass to do yoga with my friends, can you tell me about Todd?
Speaker 1:Well, this is what I'll say. If you think you're a badass, grab your amateur booklet and bring it to our conference. So Todd and I met before I started this organization. It was the first time in my life I would never have done yoga. It was for middle-aged women who weighed 110 pounds and owned a closet full of Lululemon. And I wasn't a middle-aged woman Don't you dare tell anyone I am. I had no Lululemon and I hadn't weighed 110 pounds since the seventh grade, so I was not a yoga person. And yet in my healing I committed to try anything and everything to get well. I wanted to live long enough to see my children grow up and have grandchildren. I did this for me.
Speaker 1:And I went into a yoga class one day and I was in a position called child's pose, so face down on the ground, and I heard a man's voice and I thought, well, that's bizarre. I've never met a male yoga teacher and the whole class. He's doing things like worry, one chat, a wrong guy. And I thought, holy crap, this is like military cadence stuff. This is no, you know, this is no Bikram yoga class. And so I asked him at the end. I didn't even ask him what his background was. But it was such a great class and the dude's like six foot four, 260 pounds, right, I mean he'll kill you with this finger right here.
Speaker 1:And I said have you ever thought of doing yoga for first responders? And it was so sweet he got you could just see the tears filled his eyes. And he said I've been trying to teach yoga to first responders for four years, but they won't let me in the door. He said because the moment they see the yoga mat, they think we're going to talk about feelings. And I'm like, oh man, I got you, I absolutely get that. And so I said how about? We'll trick them? Because that's the way you get a first responder, especially like a SWAT cop. You trick them.
Speaker 1:And so I said why don't you come to one of our conferences and I'm going to hide you in a separate room, put all your yoga mats out and I'm going to tell everybody we're doing tactical resiliency training. So all these bad-asses show up for this training. They walk into the tactical resiliency training and they find this behemoth yoga teacher and he starts talking and, game over, he starts doing his own form of yoga stretching movement, hip openers and everybody sold Like anybody. I've never once we trained some of the violent fugitive apprehension task force officers, guys that you know, when they walk past you you think it's a solar eclipse and they'll do yoga with him and it's like a bromance. It's just the most beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:And and that's kind of to answer your question how do people join the organization? It's weird. It's like I feel sometimes like I'm out in the middle of the ocean on a raft and people will swim up and say, can I help? And I'll say, sure, what's your, what's your skill, what do you got? And they'll get on the raft and it's just like it's magic. The right people show up. And if the wrong people show up, I feel it pretty quickly and we set them aside until they're doing the work, until they're really doing the work and they're settled in the work and I'm just the luckiest woman on earth.
Speaker 2:We have the best team of people, including tactical resiliency yoga Todd teaching our classes. Yeah, he is. He is great, you know, and I won't go. Todd will tell you his own story. You got to go to the, you got to go to the course to hear Todd's story, but there is not a tougher group of people in the nation maybe the world than what Todd is has been and will be until the day that he dies. Amen. And to see this huge guy out there bringing grown men and women to tears, not in pain, but just in release. And if you would have told me at the end of those three days, for a thousand dollars you could all stay and do nothing but yoga with Todd for the next week. I think every one of us we had 40 people in our course every one of us would have paid the thousand dollars to spend a week with Todd. It was pretty freaking amazing.
Speaker 1:That's a moneymaker I got to think about that you got to think about it.
Speaker 2:You know one of the things that and we've talked about medication, we've talked about different modalities but one of the things that's creeping up on the surface is microdosing psilocybin, and I know you have a background as paramedic, you have a background in medicine. And now this what are your thoughts on psilocybin? Is it working? Is it not working? Let's go there.
Speaker 1:So here's my position. Psilocybin is like EMDR it doesn't work for everybody, and I actually believe that we need to have access to anything that might help a person, and so it can be as and I'll say sedate, as a small dose of psilocybin which can create an opportunity for you to experience life in a completely different way. Ketamine I actually was part of a ketamine pilot program. I'd never done ketamine in my life. I did a medically guided ketamine experience. Holy cow, that's all I'll say about that. I would never do that for fun, but holy cow.
Speaker 1:I know that people are using ayahuasca and other things. Here's my thought. Now, this is where it's different than EMDR. These things can also become crutches and I think, in the right hands, with the right support and the right people, and you're doing a guided with an experienced person who has a background that is trustworthy, right, maybe a medical background, in a safe environment, I think there is a huge benefit to this, a huge benefit to this.
Speaker 1:However, it doesn't work for everybody, and that's where I said, like with EMDR. Some people like for me. I've done EMDR. The first hit was the best, like the first EMDR experience I had. It was the best. I could never replicate that EMDR is not going to harm us, but I do find that people who start down this path, and specifically with areas like ketamine which is what Matthew Perry overdosed on is and that was an overdose so make no mistake that I think what happens is people can exchange these types of experiences and they become their own habit. Right, we become addicted to that idea, and I've heard of folks who've tried ketamine, had a great experience, maybe done it a second time, and then they start accessing it and now they're doing it every other weekend with their friends and everybody's going on this journey together, and that concerns me. I'm not speaking as a medical professional on that subject, but I do believe that plant-based medicine things like that can be incredibly powerful if it's guided in the right hands. Is that a fair?
Speaker 2:description. Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, and I think that's right on. You know. I just want to touch base. You're obviously out there doing the work every day. I know you're familiar with this topic and I just wanted to get your opinion on it because people you know whether people are thinking about trying it or whatever. I just want to get your opinion. You know whether people are thinking about trying it or whatever. I just want to get your opinion. So thanks for that insight. Yeah, two more things and then we're going to wrap this up. So you guys recently worked on the Los Angeles fires. I know you and I had a podcast scheduled a couple of times and it got moved because of the fires. What was your role in that? How did you guys help with that? And I know you mentioned this fire free training that's coming up. What'd you guys do with the fires?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it wasn't so much. It's not a fire free training, it's a first responder no cost training for the folks down in Southern Cal. But really what I was doing during that window of time was we were down telling people about our work, getting people aware that we were doing this donated training, trying to make people aware because you know, anytime you're trying to break something new and I mean it's hard enough to buy a new Kevlar vest and believe it's going to be effective because we're so attached to our old ideas. And so we were actually down. I went down two weeks out of three down to Southern Cal and we were at expos and conferences introducing people to the work of resiliency training and getting people on board with the idea of how can we help the first responders, how can we change this culture, and getting as much exposure as we could. So we weren't on the fire line providing a service there. That actually one of the things that is really beautiful is there's a group called the Volunteer Fire Foundation. They're down there with doctors giving things like glutathione, which is a nebulized treatment that gets the chemicals from the fires out of the first responders' lungs. There are people that are actually on the front lines doing work like that, but we're more in the background, trying to change the culture and getting people aware that we're here. We are, you know, as anyone would imagine, when you sell your house to start a nonprofit organization.
Speaker 1:Not only am I trying to raise money just through teaching, but also through grants and donations, trying to get people on board with the idea of and here's what I want to tie this back to areas like psychedelics. Back to areas like psychedelics, I think. For us to change as a culture, as society and communities, we have got to think outside the box. We have got to say wait a minute, how do we evolve to something better? As you heard me say in the conference, there was a time that we thought smoking on airplanes was a good idea, right, and there was a non-smoking section. We've learned better. We know now that the work we do whether it's football, having chronic traumatic encephalopathy, whether it's smoking, whether it's psychedelics, whether it's holistic training it's time for us to evolve as a community. So my work has really been in the background, getting people exposed to what we're doing.
Speaker 2:Perfect, you know, and as we, as we get ready to wrap this up, um, we can go to all the academies, we can go to all the trainings. We can be the most book, smart, tactically trained firefighter, paramedic, emt, cop, whatever it is. All of that prepares us to deal with the crisis and destruction in front of us. It does not prepare us to deal with the crisis and destruction in front of us. It does not prepare us to deal with the crisis and destruction inside of us. That is where it compounds. That is where we end up with a gun in our mouth because we feel like our vortex has sucked everything in and we have nowhere to turn.
Speaker 2:You know, my son is just starting into the first responder world. He is an EMT on an ambulance, he's going to get his paramedic and he ultimately five-year plan paramedic firefighter. So for my son and for everybody else out there starting into this world, what can they do today? What tips or advice do you have today that will help them prepare for the crisis and disaster that will be inside of them?
Speaker 1:Man, I just need to hire you. I think you communicate this sometimes better than I do, Aaron.
Speaker 2:Thanks.
Speaker 1:Sean Number one, my first selfish thing is send him to me. Let me train that kid before he starts getting his behind handed to him, before he starts getting his behind handed to him. But the reality is, what I would invite anyone who's listening to this is start researching the nervous system. We spend billions of dollars on equipment, tactical training apparatus. We spend billions of dollars nationwide. Our own departments spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment, and we spend nothing on the most important piece of equipment you will ever have in your lifetime your brain and spinal cord.
Speaker 1:And what happens is the brain, which job is to keep the body alive, hijacks our mind. It gets into the driver's seat, then we run in this loop of crisis and trauma. We don't even know what's happening, all happening invisibly, until somebody stops it and says hold on. You've been hijacked by the trauma and stress that you're exposed to, and I'm going to show you that there's a way out, and so do your own research. Read books like the Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, waking the Tiger by Peter Levine, listen to Andrew Huberman, people who are doing work around the nervous system, matthew Walker on sleep.
Speaker 1:Get onto some of these things and do some research for yourself, because ultimately, at the end of the day, I don't want people just to remember me specifically or this group of people who's trying to change the world. I want, 20 years from now, that nobody can go into this industry until you've been trained on the nervous system and how to keep it regulated so that you can number one have a great job and it can become a career, you don't end up being retired out early. Number two, you have great sex with a partner of your choice that does not become adultery and divorce and you're splitting up your retirement. That you have healthy relationships with your children, that you can experience sobriety and not need to hide behind narcotics and alcohol to protect yourself. And that we become known as sort of the warriors of the world. That all first responders are seen as compassionate caretakers who are also caregivers to themselves. And that's how we change our communities.
Speaker 2:Amen, Thank you for that. That is awesome. So can you tell the listeners how to find you? I know you have a podcast. Where's the website? How do they get involved in this if they want to? And then, and also just and also real quick, touch on any costs that may be associated, because I know that's a question that's going to be asked. What does that look like?
Speaker 1:Paint that picture and let us know how to get ahold of you and get involved in your program. Yep. So our website is the word resiliency and you're going to have to do chat, gpt or Google to figure out how to spell it. The word resiliency, the number one, st it's kind of a play on words resiliencyfirstorg. Our website is that's our website and you can go to that website and you can find our podcast, which is the Resiliency First podcast. You can find that on Spotify where we interview the instructors. I've interviewed authors from the book the Nature Fix. I've interviewed you lots of folks.
Speaker 1:We haven't been doing a lot of interviews recently because we've been so busy training. Our conference currently is $24.99. That's $2,499. That covers your training, your housing, your food, so it's all self-contained. That price is going up. I don't think we've raised it in a couple of years. This is not a moneymaker. Those conferences are not moneymakers. To rent a venue to host a conference runs about $30,000. So oftentimes I'm at a little bit of a loss. But we do it through some extra training that we provide and obviously, grants and donations. We're trying to keep going.
Speaker 1:But here's the most important thing that a listener needs to hear we also get people who donate for scholarships so that when a first responder is in crisis and they really need to get to a training like this, they can apply for a scholarship and we can give them 50% off In some cases we can give them 100% off so that they can just get to the training. Now what I ask is, if someone's listening to this, they ask themselves can I afford it? Like, honestly, do I have the money stuffed away somewhere that I can afford to pay for this? And if they really can't, I want them to apply for a scholarship. If they can, but they really don't want to part with the money, then please don't apply for a scholarship, because you're taking the money away from someone who needs it and can't get to it. So that's all I ask is that we're just kind of on the integrity plan for getting people in here and that's the cost for the conferences. If they want to bring us into training department, they just need to send us an email, and in every email I respond to with fees and overviews. I always say the same thing If your department is limited by their budget, please let us know so we can try to help you.
Speaker 1:My goal in doing this, erin, was never. How much money can I make? Nobody sells their house and cashes in the last bit of their retirement to start a nonprofit because they think they're going to get wealthy. They do it because they feel like they have no choice. And I have to do something because my partners were dying, and so that's it. That's the bottom line is come find us, come join us, tell us how we can help. We're here for you.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thank you so much for that. So a second ago I said thank you, sharon. I don't know who Sharon is, but it's Susan, so I just want to apologize for that I didn't hear it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've probably been called worse, but anyway. So, sharon, thank you as well, and Susan, I really thank you. Anyway. So, as we wrap this up, guys and girls and everybody out there listening, resiliencyfirstorg you can get a hold of me at Murders2Music again, I play on words at gmailcom and you can check it out on Instagram all the socials, Murders2Music. So again, I just want to say thank you for you and your organization, your team. Thanks for taking this hour to come out and sit with us and answer these questions, and I look forward to working with you in the future. So, thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 1:Terrific. Well, let's finish this up and we'll have a little sidebar conversation.
Speaker 2:Sounds great, all right, so you know, I hope you guys really enjoyed today's show. I just want to make sure we get the right information out there for the right people at the right time, and I don't know why this has happened and why God's doing this, but he's going to use it and get in front of the right people. So, ladies and gentlemen, that is the Murders to Music podcast.
