Bell Lets Talk Day with Caroline Cheng - Season 4 Episode 1

Today we participated in Bell Let’s Talk Day with Caroline Cheng at RCMP “K” Division. We had questions from a live audience both in person and on line. We discussed the importance of mental health and wellness, different journeys to healthy futures and had some fun with a very serious and important topic.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to another episode of Just Us on Justice and
other Things. I am Scott Jones, so your co host
with my baby brother Dan Jones, and we are very
honored today to be recording a quasi live because it's
not really live, because we still recorded on here and
then uploaded a live podcast on Bell Let's Talk Day
from RCMP headquarters in Edmonton, Alberta.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
And we're gonna kind of have a non.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Hostile takeover today because my dear friend Caroline Chang is
going to be the moderator who's going to take over
the podcast, and Danny and I are kind of guests
but not really.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
And of course, as always, we have.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Planned nothing, but Caroline is sitting next to me and
she has a list of things that she is planned
to the minute detail, so we're good no matter what.
But I'm gonna hand it over to her so she
can kick this off perfect.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
I tried to keep it in the spirit of your
unplanned nature, and so it's just loosely planned, that's almost unplanned.
That's basically unplanned for me. Yes, yeah, big moves for me.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Okay, So.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
A lot of people within your podcast will be familiar
with you as I was telling Dan today, who I
met is that I know you first and then I've
actually met you afterwards. But for a lot of people
that are joining us for the podcast, like people who
are joining us through.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
The RCMP, may not know you.

Speaker 4 (01:23):
So can you introduce yourselves, tell me a little bit
about your background, your journey, and then we'll start there.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
You want to start, you want me to go ahead?
So I'm Scott Jones, as I.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Said at the start here, I was a police officer
for thirty years with Evminton Police Service. I started in
nineteen ninety three when you were seven. We just established
what your age was in ninety four when you were
at Sea World, So you were seven years old in
ninety three. That's cool that I was twenty one in
a cop already and you were just in grade two.
I had a awesome career in that it exceeded all

(01:57):
my expectations. I got to do cool things. I walked
a beat, I was in recruit training. I was a
homicide detective. I was a patrol sergeant, a crisis negotiator,
Level two incident commander. Like it was an awesome, fulfilling ride.
But what people didn't tell me and We come from
a police family, which we may talk about. Our dad
is a retired police officer or uncle's retired police officer.

(02:20):
We have a cousin who's on the job currently with Edmonton,
and we have an aunt who is a civilian in communications.
But I didn't know the effect that the job was
going to have on my nervous system.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
So as I went through my path.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Of policing, eventually I kind of branched off in a
very unanticipated way where I started on a wellness journey
exploring breath work and cold deliberate coal exposure and then
became a yoga teacher and now I am currently a
wellness navigator with Eminton Police Service. So I'm a civilian
in employee organizational wellness where I do wellness presentations and

(02:52):
teachings as a part of my job. And just before
we get rolling here, just so it's clear, this podcast
is separate and distinct from that opinion Danny and I
are sharing. Here are just our opinions alone, not affiliated
with im Into Police Service or Northquest College or any
of those kinds of things.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
So that brings me here today.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
And then you were kind of my counterpart with Caroline
with the RCMP, so we have developed a very strong
friendship over the last year and a half or so.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
And here we sit.

Speaker 5 (03:20):
And I'm Dad Jones.

Speaker 6 (03:23):
To the crowd of two and the folks online. So
similarly but differently. We obviously have the same dad, and
well that's not obviously. I could have had different dads,
but we don't, and same mom. So we come from
a police family. That is a weird way to injer
that I actually did twenty eight years in the law

(03:44):
enforcement world, but only twenty five in policing. I started
in corrections. I did three years in corrections, both federally
and provincially. Did in policing as well. I loved I
loved my first seventeen years. I didn't love being a
senior officer. I got to do great things. It was
a downtown patrol I walked to beat one hundred and
eighteenth Avenue, which I always says my Hall of Fame Jersey.

(04:04):
Got to coach inner city kids boxing and it was awesome.
Left there went, I did some undercover work, in did
some infiltration work with White supremacists, and then mister Big
scenarios for homicide, and then I went to gang unit,
spent some time there. Then went to internal affairs, which
actually I really enjoyed public professional standards a manch. A

(04:25):
lot of people think that's a terrible job. I actually
quite liked it. I went to homicide, where me and
Scott worked together. We actually were partners during the Millennial
Millennium y two k. We actually partners that night, which
was kind of funny when one person says, you guys brothers,
were like, yeah, bullshit, you're lying to us. We're like,
you asked us. Our last names are the same. Well,
Jones is pretty common, but anyway, Yeah, and I loved policing.

(04:48):
I loved operational policing. When I moved into management, I
realized I'm not a manager. That's not my nature. But
I was really fortunate I got to go back to
school late in life. I got a scholarship to go
to the University of Cambridge in England, where I did
my master's degree and I looked at the victim of
vender Overlap in partnership with the University of belbert Or
Prison Project looking at the impact of trauma and child

(05:09):
adverse childhood experiences.

Speaker 5 (05:11):
On the incarcerated population.

Speaker 6 (05:13):
We've interviewed over eight hundred incarcerated men and Women, which
becomes the largest qualitative prison research project in the world.
And we've come up with a lot of different things.
And my goal now I've moved on. I'm the chair
of Justice Studies at Northquest College. We're actually developing some
trauma based courses for justice students that are going to
be coming out in twenty twenty six, and my goal

(05:35):
is to kind of educate on the idea on the
understanding of who the justice client is. And it's very
interesting and I'll just kind of to just make a
quick detour for a second. Scotty has always been a
very front facing mental health person, whether he knew it
or not, He's supported people internally. He's always been that
person who if someone needs help with something, promotions and
stuff like that, he's that person.

Speaker 5 (05:56):
For whatever reason.

Speaker 6 (05:57):
I've always been that external facing and I have reasons
for that. We could talk about what therapy tells me
about that. We don't need to get into that today.
But I've always been the person who's if someone who
is involved in gangs, drugs of violence needs help. I'm
kind of the person that has always my phone rings
and the vast majority of people that fill me, are
either on prole, have been on parole, are in gangs

(06:17):
and used to be in gangs. Since retirement, I get
way less calls from people that were in placing in
a lot more calls from people that were on the
other side of the fence. And for whatever reason, my
nervous system drew me to those folks. And that's kind
of where my research research went to, because I want
the system to have a better understanding of who we
actually interact with, that they're not bad people, that they're
individuals who are in certain circumstances that make certain decisions

(06:38):
that are based in their backgrounds, their histories and their trauma.

Speaker 4 (06:46):
Awesome, thanks so much for sharing all of that. Let's
like dig in because Dan, you just mentioned how in
Norquest College you're developing sort of more programming and education
based on trauma being trauma informed. So what And you
talked about this Scott as well, and we have in
previous conversations about sort of mental health mental wellness within

(07:10):
while working within policing. So can you walk me through
the sort of journey of maybe what your mental health
mental wellness looked like overlaid with your careers in policing.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
Sure, so this is all relatively new language for me
as well, talk about nervous systems and regulation and all that.
This is not something I was even thinking about, probably
ten years ago. And when I do my more formal presentations,
I lay out my career kind of as a timeline
with the goal of showing here's where I lit a
fuse of dysregulation where I probably I had no boundaries,

(07:46):
like I was always on call, I was going into
I never went into quiet areas always and went into
super busy, highly trauma saturated environments. I was pretty good
about fitness quote unquote versus wellness.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
I didn't.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
I was.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
I'd lifted weights for the most part consistently. I ran
most of the time consistently, but not always. So if
I had any computer skills, when I do these presentations,
I would have a timeline of my work history and
a timeline of my fitness wellness journey underneath. And I
would guess that at my most disregulated and there's a
couple key points, I was probably not doing what I

(08:22):
need to do to look after myself. A homside being
an example that would be my Hall of Fame Jersey
deeply meaningful work.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
I loved it.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
But I recently saw a picture of myself back then.
It popped up on I think my wife's Facebook feed
or something like that, because I was a coach in
a kid's hockey and I look puffy and red and inflamed.
And I'm no doubt I was because for sure, I'm
not eating right because the phone rings, you're gone for
three days. I'm not drinking water, I'm drinking way too
much booze. I'm taking on the weight of those files
because they're very important, obviously, but I wasn't looking after myself.

(08:54):
So about a dozen years ago, I had hurt my back.
So my wife's you should go to yoga, and I'm like,
I'm not going yoga. I'd want to do that. And
then I went to physio and the physio said, hey,
if you don't get flexible, you're gonna need a hip
replacement in about ten years. And I'm like, absolutely not,
that's not happening. So I started going to yoga once
a week with my wife, and in three months, just

(09:16):
doing it once a week, I felt physically better again.
No wellness component, no spiritual component, none of that. Just
I moved a little bit better. About eight years ago
started exploring deliberate cold exposure, which means deliberately going into
cold plunge or cold water and learning about the physiological
reasons why I felt better, and I do that today

(09:36):
to stay I went outside like a crazy person in
my bathing suit and crocs, and I got into a
cold tub in whatever it is minus five and snow
is lining my head. And every day I don't want
to do it, and every day I do it, I
feel better.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Explored breath work that.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Was very activating back then around the same time as
a cold and then started going, well, I'm pretty good
at being in that kind of fight or flight. My
nervous system's come comfortable there. So about five years ago,
became a yoga teacher, and then it went in a
deep dive of courses on traumanform practice and breath worked.
It was more relaxing in nature, more activating my para

(10:14):
sympathetic that rests and dead just and I knew, I'm like, okay,
well that makes my whole system better. So when I
again do these presentations, I call teaching what I need
to learn because I've not got this figured out. It's
not like I'm sitting here and everything's super chill and
nothing ever goes wrong and all that.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
That's not what life is.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
It's for the most part, my window of tolerance is
a bit wider, so whatever stressors come my way, I'm
able to absorb them and deal with them. Versus back
in the day when my window is very narrow, and
a stressor would come in and it would end up
through the roof of that I'd be in the hyper.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
Arousal except when you're driving.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
Except when I'm driving. I'm a terrible person when I'm driving.
I don't like anybody when I'm driving. If I was
a billionaire, I would have all the roads cleared ahead
of time.

Speaker 5 (10:54):
No window of tolerance in a car.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Zero window of tolerance.

Speaker 5 (10:58):
Yeah yeah, I do you want me to Yeah?

Speaker 6 (11:02):
Yeah, So I'm a whole lot different than him. I
don't do yoga.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
You did it twice.

Speaker 5 (11:09):
I did it twice. I don't three times. Yeah, I
don't mind it.

Speaker 6 (11:13):
I don't like it. No, So for me, I, uh,
my mental health thing. I I I never maintained my
fitness to Wastecott he did.

Speaker 5 (11:22):
I was. I'm an all or nothing kind of person.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
So I was going to say, that's pretty apparent to
the four people in the room right now.

Speaker 5 (11:28):
Yeah, true, that's physical, that's true.

Speaker 6 (11:32):
See, But I like when I was in when I
was in policing. I prior to policing, I fought my
whole life like I fought when I shouldn't have fought.
But I fought competitively as well, like I fought from
the time I was ten until the time I was
nineteen competitively got into policing and then I went and
then I started boxing. When I was in policing, I
had thirty six amateur fights. Fitness to me was always very.

Speaker 5 (11:57):
About what the next fight was. I never I can't
lift weights.

Speaker 6 (12:01):
I'm not I know I'm not attractive anyway, so I'm
trying to make myself more attractive with weights. Like I
don't there saw anything about I.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
Know, but I didn't see.

Speaker 6 (12:11):
So for me, it was like but the journey was
the same but different, like realizing I was in hindsight
in bad ways in certain places. Homicide was an amazing
place to work. But I as much as Scotty said
he doesn't have boundaries, I have ten times less boundaries
than Scotty. Like I am, I will say yes to everything.
I will be at work a hundred times, I will

(12:32):
put my family second, third, and fourth. In fact, at
one point in time, I told my wife she wasn't
gonna be first, second, or third in my life, that
that work needed to be that and if her grandma
was killed, that's what she'd need. Which don't ever tell
you're suppose that anyone online or anyone in the room
didn't go well. I didn't realize at the time. I

(12:52):
know Scotty always likes my tell the story of me
almost drinking myself to death.

Speaker 5 (12:56):
He thinks it's hilarious. No, it's funny anymore.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
No, I kind of have some con perspective.

Speaker 6 (13:02):
At one point in time, I was separated from my
wife as a result of my choices of work, and
I ended up drinking a bottle of Jamison's and a
whole bunch of beer and puking in the bed at
my mom and Dad's place where I was staying and
almost choking to death on my own vomit, and at
that point realizing I probably need to make some changes.
But I didn't make any changes. At that time, I

(13:23):
was like, this is I don't know. That was unfortunate,
And then kind of through I kind of started to
realize that I needed to get my shit together when
I was when I left policing, because things kind of
got stabilized and I kind of was doing I wasn't
doing that. I had some boundaries. I had done some

(13:44):
other things going back to school. I love research, I
love reading, so I kind of dove into that significantly,
and then when I left policing, my nervous system did
not understand what not to do with chaos. I had
been in chaos my entire life, and all of a sudden,
I'm working at Norquest and everyone's nice to me, and
no one's trying to stab me in the back, and
no one's trying to climb over me or take credit

(14:08):
for something I've done or blame me for something that
they've done. And we all know if you work in
a policing environment, those kinds of things happen. And it
was very interesting. I said, I've been in this building
a lot. We're in K Division, the RCMP K Division
here in Edmonton. If I walk into the Edmonton Police
Service and haven't for a while, every time I walk
in there, my system becomes super disregulated based on the
history that I had in that building. And certain people

(14:30):
that have been around and whatever. We don't need to
go into all the details. But I come into this
building and actually have good memories because I worked in here.
I was seconded here for a homicide. I did a
ton of work with the farm or Integrated I can't
remember what EI E I O was. They used to
call it Edmonton Integrated Organized Crime. Did a ton of
work with them over the years. Spent a lot of

(14:52):
time in this building. And literally I have no dysregulation
walking into this building. So it's not police buildings. It's
specific to the no experiences that we've had with those
agencies that we worked with.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
I love this high tech phone passing. It's so good.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
We tried to we have.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
We've bought two microphones and both have failed, and they're
both two hundred and fifty dollars each, and then we
both just gave up.

Speaker 4 (15:18):
You know, sometimes it's just good to drop it all
the way down to basics.

Speaker 6 (15:21):
Hey, Bill Bird does a phone, so it's good enough
for bilb Bird, it's good enough for us. I don't
know if anyone eats Bill Bird, they might work.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
I know, I figure he had a whole podcasting situation.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
No, he just talked to phone. Yeah, but we're not,
so let's not.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
We could try to be we could.

Speaker 5 (15:36):
We might be better than Bilberg, better people, Yeah, that
could be.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yeah, shots fired. My goodness.

Speaker 4 (15:44):
This is what all of our conversations sound like. I think,
is that we sort of side quest and then come back.
But okay, let's let's circle back around. Now.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
I'm really trying my best to be focused. But what.

Speaker 4 (15:58):
I've really noticed, in toping to anyone in within a
trauma like exposed position or within an organization, is that
people who have been in these types of jobs or
any period of time and come out for the positive
have had some kind of inflection point.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Right.

Speaker 4 (16:18):
I was in forensics for five years, and there's certainly
an inflection point where I did not pay attention to
my mental health, got to pretty close to what my
bottom would be, and then there was a moment that
it there's more more or less an aha moment that
allowed me to say, Okay, I have to take control
of this. Is this is up to me to do so.

(16:40):
Is there like a particular without going into too many details,
no slimming in those types of things, but is there
like an incident or situation that you got to that
helped you reach that inflection point, or was there a
person who reached out to you or someone you reach
out to, like, what did that look like? What did
your inflection point look like?

Speaker 1 (17:01):
There was really no one defining moment. It was kind
of a slow burn for me. And again when I
talk about my career, it started lighting that fuse probably
when I went to Professional Saners Branch, so internal affairs,
and that would have been about two thousand and six or.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
So, and I didn't know it then.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
And then I went from there to being a patrol
sergeant for a couple of years, and I was a
crisis negotiator at that time, so pulled in that's separate
and distinct with our agency. I was on the Police
Association as well at that time, on the board of directors,
so kind of doing all the things. I am married
and have been for almost thirty years. I have two
boys who were grown were very active in sports, so

(17:41):
I did my.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Best to do that as well.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Like the whole working midnights and then actually sleeping was
not a thing, Like if the kids needed to be
taken to school, my wife is working too, so I
would get home at eight in the morning, I would
make sure that they were looked after, get them and
then maybe try to squeeze in two or three hours
of sleep. And then those of us who know when
you're a little bit older in those situations that sleep
comes a little more difficultly. So then I went homicide again,

(18:05):
no sliming, but it was a very when it was busy.
It was so busy it was laughable, like you were
just literally not sleeping more than an hour or two
at a time, and you're putting everything into those files.
And then went to be I was a staff sertant
in child protection, so a highly trauma saturated environment, the
busiest job I ever had. But then of course I
had to go back to be a negotiator, because why

(18:27):
wouldn't I. Then I went to from there Human Resources
as an inspector, and then I went to be a
Level two incident commander at that point at the end
of twenty eighteen. As when I left Human Resources, that
would be probably the first like, as you say, inflection point,
but I didn't know it. I had burnt myself out

(18:49):
or whatever term you want to use. So I went
to my next posting, which was Major Crimes. I don't
really remember what I did, but I know I was
kind of an asshole, and I was picking fights with
the deputy chief, and I was picking fights with the
chief of the My nervous system really really enjoys conflict
because of our childhood and because of being the job
I'm in, so I'm comfortable in that chaos and confrontation.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
So I started to go, Okay, well, I need to
do something better.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
So then again, having that timeline of fitness and wellness,
starting to explore different ways that I could look after myself,
and then about excuse me, twenty twenty one ish kind
of inflection point number two. I watched in kind of
thinking about it. Watch my dad retire, very disregulated, didn't
look after himself. Watch him retire, very disregulated, didn't look

(19:36):
after himself, And I kind of thought, excuse my language here,
but this is what my thought was.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Fuck that.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
Like I got ill on company time, I'm going to
get well on company time. So twenty twenty one kind
of hit me really hard. I really don't really know why.
I guess I know why, but it doesn't matter. And
I was very disregulated for six months, like I could
hold together at work, people at work would have no
idea I'm good at apartmentalizing. I go home and I'm

(20:02):
either bawling my face off or I'm mad about nothing,
and I'm just like, not well. So I talk to
a friend of mine who puts me onto a psychologist
and I go start doing therapy. And what worked for me,
because in the past i'd done our mandatory wellness talk
therapy didn't work for me, and I'm not disparaging talk
therapy if it works for folks, but that didn't work.

(20:22):
So eye movement desensitization reprocessing EMDR with a skilled therapist,
And what nobody told me at that point was it
feels a lot worse before it gets better, like you're
kind of shaking up the PEPSI can and all that
silt and there's everything bouncing around, and it felt like
shit for a while. But I'm like, I know this
is what I need to do, because again, I don't
want to leave policing and then try to get better,

(20:45):
because I've watched people do that, and I've even watched
people internally go Okay, if I just leave this really
busy area and go to this quiet area, then I'll
be good. You probably won't be because your nervous system
is going to go. I don't know what's going on
right now. This is not safe to me because it's quiet,
and all of a sudden, you're even more regulated than
you were before. So that was a good two and
a half years of therapy in addition to all the

(21:06):
other things that I was doing, like cold and movement
and sunlight on your eyes and all that, and just
the more I've learned about it. We are physiological creatures
and our giant brain gets in the way and we
try to think our way out of those situations and
we can't. We get to get back to the physiology.
So getting back to you need to move every day,
you need to get sunlight on your eyes, You need
to eat good food and drink water and cut down

(21:27):
the booze and all of those kind of things because
the physiology will then support that regulation.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Yeah, I totally agree with you, And I will never
admit this to my spouse, But anytime I'm in a
bit of an off mood, there will always be a
snack that shows up, a glass of water and a
thirty pound kettlebell. It'll just operate in front of me
and he's like, you could swing this, I bet you
would be fun. And then I do it and it
always makes me feel better, and I'm never going to

(21:54):
admit to him that that is affective. Well we'll see,
I guess this is. Yeah, we're just gonna I know,
I totally forgot about it. It's disarming. So yeah, he
will eventually he knows. But now now there's documented proof
the fact that all the bullshit he makes me do

(22:16):
is actually effective. Yeah, I'm totally with you. I also
feel the same way about therapy, is that I also
have a therapist that I see frequently, but no one
actually tells you that at the beginning, you have to
unpack everything first, so it's like a big mess first,

(22:36):
and then you get to put it all back together.
It's like moving, it's like literally anything. Because I was
just hoping you would just talk to a human and
then you would feel better and then life carries on.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
Nah, No, I feel like you have. That was like
a total of acknowledgment, Dan.

Speaker 5 (22:53):
Yes, the title of the podcast.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yeah, your ending?

Speaker 4 (23:01):
Would that be like a punk Bin Sco band? Yeah,
chortable acknowledgment. I'm here for it. Do you want to
talk more about why that about like, why the chortal acknowledgment.

Speaker 5 (23:17):
Yeah, just because you're right, you have to unpack it.

Speaker 6 (23:19):
For instance, as you're sitting there talking about was there
an inflection point retrospectively, there was an inflection point. I
had no idea what it was until I went to
therapy and then figured out what it was. And it
was a specific commiss I don't get into details. It
was the homicide of two children by a father, and
that thing fucked me up, and I had no idea
how bad it fucked me up until I started looking

(23:40):
back in my life and going like, oh, I can't
the car's characters. I can't see the car's characters without
vomiting or crying or freaking out. I'd be in the
middle of a superstore and I'd see the car's characters
and I'd throw up on the floor. It was awesome,
and I'd be.

Speaker 5 (23:52):
Like, oh, that was weird.

Speaker 6 (23:53):
And then I'm the idiot who coughed up blood once
and didn't say anything to anyone, And then six months
later I coughed up blooding in and my it's like,
oh my god, there's blood over your time. I'm like, yeah,
this is what's happened again. And my wife's like, happened again.
You didn't go to the doctor that after the first
time you coughed up blood. So I'm not very smart
when it comes to my own wellness. And but you're right,
like I I'm still going to therapy. I think I'll

(24:15):
go to therapy probably forever, just sometimes it'll be more
frequent than others. And but yeah, that unpacking all that
stuff was no fun at all because you start to
remember and through EMDR there's times where I saw something
in the MDR that I totally didn't realize was sitting
in my brain that causing me grief, and I'm like,

(24:35):
holy funk, why is that coming up now? Like that's
I didn't realize. I actually forgot that even happened, but
it's coming up. So unpacking all that stuff is is
no fun at all, but it's so necessary in order
to come out the other end and at least work
towards being as healthy as you were at one point
in time.

Speaker 5 (24:53):
And I don't know if.

Speaker 6 (24:54):
You'll ever get to the you know, to the pre
trauma state. I don't know if you'll ever get to that,
but at least you'll get to a place where you
know you can, you can help other people, and you
can function, and you can you can acknowledge and identify
when you're going down that so you need to lift
a kettle bell or for me, weirdly enough, play the harmonica.
Like that to me is my if I'm having a

(25:16):
rough go, I need to play the harmonica. That's I'll
sit there and I'll sit in the room or whatever.
My dog really enjoys it, and his dog really enjoys
it as well.

Speaker 5 (25:25):
Oddly enough, But yeah, that's.

Speaker 6 (25:26):
Like if you find different things, and you know, some
things that aren't necessarily always healthy that people would consider healthy.
I like one of the things I like to do
if I'm whatever, I like to play poker, because I
find poker takes you into a totally different way. I
understand that gambling can be an addiction issue as well,
not poker. Expoker's not gambling, but that's a whole other story.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
The key part of that too, for me, is it
was a word I learned in a book called My
Grandmother's Hands by Resmo Moanackam. So for me, going to
therapy metabolize the trauma that was stuck in me, and
I like that, and it was a chronological orders starting
early in life, all the way through, and it was
almost like a flushing of the pipe. So instead of
repacking it, I didn't repack it. I took that trauma

(26:08):
trunk that I buried at the bottom of the ocean,
and I dealt with whatever came to the top, metabolize it,
and then it's gone, and I know it's still there
in somewhere. I like, to Danny's point, a thirty year
or whatever, five year career in policing operationally or and
this is making sure we're acknowledging the civilian folks who
operate in policing, not necessarily taking calls. But there's a

(26:31):
vicarious trauma to that because you're still walking in through
the energy of a policing organization and that stuff sticks
to you. So making sure. I'm not really much for regret,
because I think that's a wasted energy. But there's times
I'm like, if I had gone a little bit earlier
before all these fifty two things stacked and I started
dealing with them, maybe in clumps of five or ten,

(26:52):
I probably wouldn't have been dysregulated by the end of it.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
Totally. Retrospect is a real bitch.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
Like that is that kind of looking in the rearview mirror,
you can see the hallmarks of if I would have
dealt with this at this time, it would have been
better if we play the shotakuda. What does There's a
million different ways that that could have ended up. And
so this is an audience question that was submitted beforehand. Reminder,
you can people in the chat send in your questions.

(27:20):
Also y'all join in as well. But one thing that
about mental health mental wellness, and we've discussed this before,
is that it has to be a thing that you're
doing all the time. It's a thing you have to
actively work on, which is a bit of a pain
in the ass to be completely honest. We were chatting
last week and I called it sort of like it's

(27:42):
the equivalent of taking a multi vitamin. Is that you
take this vitamin and the result is no change. So
when you don't do the good habit, you feel the
negative effects, but you don't necessarily feel the good effects
of doing the healthier habit. And we're here talking about

(28:03):
therapy from three different experiences saying, yeah, it's tough at
first and then it gets better. But we can see
how that creates a barrier for people to want to
seek help. If we if from experience, we're saying it's great,
it feels like trash first, but then you'll get through
it and it will feel good.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
Is that?

Speaker 4 (28:23):
What then can you say in terms of encouraging other
people in terms of like about opening up about their
issues or seeking help. What can you say or how
can you speak towards that when you know it's going
to be tough first before it gets easier.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
But I think everything is like that to your point
about that you have to do it all the time.
There's no finish line to any of this right there.
Physiological response to being stressed or overwhelmed or whatever word
you want to use doesn't go away by trying to
think our way to it. So, yes, therapy is more
difficult at the start, But maybe again if I started

(29:02):
earlier and started to metabolize smaller things that were stuck
with me, Because there was times when I went to
therapy and all of a sudden, I'm talking about a
suicide that I went to in two thousand and seven,
and I've told a story fifty times I'm not going
to tell now, but when I'm telling it in therapy,
suddenly I'm balling my face off.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
So it had stuck in there.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
But it's kind of like going to the gym, and
if you're really new at it, that's an intimidating thing
and it's going to be worse before it gets better.
Going into the cold water sucks every single time I
get in the cold water, but I know when I
get out, I'm I'm going to feel better. Going for
a run, that first kilometer is a liar, or that

(29:40):
first set of stairs is a liar, and then it
gets better. Like all of these things are rough at
the start, but you'll feel better and you have to.
It sounds too advicey, but I'm not meaning it that way.
Do whatever you want, but there has to be a
plan that you're going to do something for yourself every
single day. And this is not an exhaustive list. It
could like we talk about you journaling, which just you know,

(30:02):
I started journaling sweet because you I've done three days,
so I'm just trying to do every day ish. I'm
being patient with myself. It's a super interesting process because
I've tried it before and I hated it. But with you,
we talked about the logistics and you're just like, just
start out writing every day kind of about something that
happened in my day, so kind of biographical or whatever.
And I'm like, okay, that's a good starting pot. I

(30:24):
never really considered what the starting point was, so I
just started that. And I've always liked the active writing.
I have a blog as well, which we can give later.
I like the writing, so that's a different path. And
writing alone it sucks at the start until you get going.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
All of it sucks at the start.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
So the point is instead of sitting there kind of
in that stew of dysregulation that I promise you if
you don't deal with it is going to get worse
if there's not a plan for it. Taking that first step,
but being compassionate. And the first step doesn't mean Okay,
I need to lift weights, so I'm gonna go for
ninety minutes. Maybe you're going to swing the kettle bill
ten times, and then that's your waits that day, and

(31:01):
then the next day, okay, I did cattlebell, so maybe
I'm gonna do push ups that I'm gonna do five
of them against the wall because I can't do a
real one perfect. And you just start to build on
those little micros and the micros end up eating turning
into macros.

Speaker 6 (31:14):
Yeah, I the everything's hard, everything's hard at the start.
I agree with that totally. The journaling thing is interesting.
For a long time, I didn't journal. I wrote poems
or wraps every day, like that's kind of that's how
a journal I recently did. I won't talk about what
I did the rap about.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
But he is a shockingly good rapper, like, like ridiculously good.
And I don't like giving Danny kufmas as everybody else
because it just makes me feel lucky, and he probably
doesn't like it either, But he is a ridiculously good
rapper of and he can make them up. He can
rap pretty much anything from any eighties or nineties wrap
god that you've ever heard, and he can do a

(31:51):
remarkable job of it.

Speaker 6 (31:53):
So yeah, So I that's my one of my wellness
plans for this year is I'm gonna write I'm going
to freestyle a rap a week for the next fifty
two weeks, and I'm going to record it because I
have a little recording thing on my recording studio on
this fucking phone that is everything. It's a recording studio,
it's a podcast, it is the communication device that it is.
But and that's what I'm just gonna say, is the

(32:14):
journaling whatever journaling, If people want a journal, it's not
just you don't have to do it in that way
that seems to be normalized as oh, this is I'm
writing about this or writing about that. Write a song,
write a rap, write a frickin whatever, write a non
fiction story, write nothing about you. Like I have a
cousin who's on the spectrum and he's the coolest person,

(32:35):
one of the coolest people I know. And he has
written I think one hundred and twenty books now that
he puts online.

Speaker 5 (32:41):
Like he writes these books. They're just crazy cool books.

Speaker 6 (32:44):
And now he's got a podcast and he's reading a
chapter of the book every day, and I listen to
this this book, like every every day he reads this chapter.
It's this book he's reading is called The Metal Cowboy,
and he writes every single day and it's all imagination.
It's his imagination and it's his release, and it's one
of the coolest things to do. And I think that
was people have to find what works for them and

(33:06):
not just one thing. And like you talked about earlier, fitness.
We've said there's lots on the podcast fitnesses and wellness.
Sometimes fitness is actually terrible for you. Sometimes you can
you can put yourself into a position where all you do,
you're so addicted to that the endorphin high of running
and biking and all that stuff, and you think you're well.
You're not freaking well. And I think people think that
sometimes that is wellness and it's not. And you have

(33:27):
to find all those other things, whether it's playing an instrument,
learning something new, like this freaking behemoth learning how to swim,
like he's he's learning how to swim. He's fifty seven,
fifty eight years old. Were he sixty three, and yes
he is younger than which wouldn't make sense. But the
fact that he's learning how to swim, in the fact

(33:47):
that he climbs a mountain like and does all these
new things, and I think that's an inspirational thing. And
again I don't like to give you credit because you
being inspirational is gross, but I know it is like
when you're fifty three years old, only you start doing
different things. And I think that's one of those things
that people when you leave any career, whether it's policing
any first responder or any high end Like I have

(34:10):
friends who are high end business people, and the stress
that they go under and the stuff like I got
a friend who wakes up at two o'clock in the
morning so he can check the cameras at the company
he works at to make sure everything's going well in
the organization that he works for, and then he has
to go back to sleep, So he wakes up three
or four times a night to check on his work.
So that's not good hygiene, right, So all of those people,
when you leave whatever you're doing, you need to find

(34:30):
something else or you're just going to fade away.

Speaker 4 (34:36):
Well I have I have like a million different questions
based on that. But I mean, let's let's start with
the you started mentioning journaling, because this is the thing
that I started doing. I have a huge perfectionism vein
that runs through my body that nourishes me, and so
starting anything new is.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
The interpretive dance of nourishes.

Speaker 5 (34:59):
Was awesome.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
You're welcome to all the people online. You're welcome. It's
a gift that I give freely.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
Can you tell I have a movement background?

Speaker 3 (35:08):
But yeah, so.

Speaker 4 (35:12):
My perfectionism really prevents me from doing anything new because
if I can't see myself doing it every day, if
I can't see myself doing it perfectly, whatever that might
look like, I just won't start it. I have just
a room full of half started projects that I have
bailed because there I assume that I won't be able
to do it perfectly. But for journaling, it really just

(35:34):
started off as a documentation of the anything that I'm doing,
the cool things that I'm doing within a day, because
I will entirely forget about the documentary that I saw
or the concert that I went to. And now it's
turned into a place of where I'm reflecting and adding
pictures and doing whatever I need so that it turns
into a little bit of a document of my life.

(35:58):
But yeah, you're right in in terms of like it's
consistency that it's it's tough at the beginning, but it's
just finding these like lower barriers of entry to sort
of maintain consistency. And I, yeah, let's move into the
difficult things that you'all do. Like the things that you're
doing consistently, is that you're taking on hard jobs or

(36:20):
do you're taking on hard tasks, like I'd love you
to speak towards everesting and swimming and all those types
of things. Is that, how are you finding sort of
the strength or the motivation to continually do something that
admittedly you will do not so great at first, and
having the faith that it will sort of all work out.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
I kind of draw I don't have a perfectionist nature,
but I am highly competitive. But I've recognized realistically, I'm
not winning anything anymore, right, Like that's just not I'm
not winning a race or any of that.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
So I've kind of dropped those things.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
And again, I've always been really consistent with weights or
running or whatever, mostly consistent. So the everesting thing is
called two nine two nine, and that's a company name
as well, and it's a company that they do these
everesting events all across North America in like spring through summer.
And what that means is two nine oh two nine

(37:20):
is the vertical feet of everest. So they find ski
hills across North America, organize events where you have to
climb up and gondol it down X number of times
to reach two nine zero two nine vertical feet. So
the one I did, my wife and I went last
year to support a close friend of ours as she
did it in Whistler, and I was like, this is stupid.
There's not a chance in hell I'm doing this. And

(37:41):
I volunteered two days on the mountain and I spent
eight hour days and I talked to every participant and
universally everybody's like, hey, have you done this?

Speaker 2 (37:50):
And I'm like, nope, you should.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
Everyone said that, and by the end of it, I'm like,
for fox sakes, now I have to do this.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
And I did.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
So we got in and then my friend and I
the very basic training at start it out with like
walking up and down a hill five times, and then
it progressed all the way through to the end where
we did a ten hour day that included five hundred
and sixty flights of stairs and thirty kilometers and it's
just this slow role like it was nothing big. It

(38:19):
was just one foot in front of the other and
kind of just putting your ego aside and brain aside
and just doing the thing. So ultimately did that event
last August. Took thirty four and a half hours to
go up Whistler eight times in gondola down. Super cool experience.
Never in a million years what I've thought, Yeah, I
did an ultravan and ended up being about fifty two
kilometers worth of movement. And then I'm like, okay. And

(38:40):
the term that I like is Jesse Itzler is one
of the co founders of two nine oh to nine,
and he talks about having a masogi, which is a
Japanese term apparently where you do one grand thing a year,
something that you're going to remember and recall, and setting
that as a goal. So my masogi for twenty twenty
four was two nine oh two nine. My masogi for

(39:02):
twenty twenty five is kind of twofold. Learning how to
swim because I don't know how to swim at all.
Like I started out with a friend of mine who's
a firefighter in Saint Albert. He's like, I'm a dive instructor.
I can teach you.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
And he's like, okay. We get in the pool. He's like,
can you float? Nope? Do you know how to tread water? No?

Speaker 1 (39:17):
I don't even like being in the deep end, Like
I'm nervous about it. My nervous system is not comfortable.
So he speaks the language I do with nervous system
and He's like, hey, we're gonna hold onto the side
for three minutes. You don't have to do anything else, okay,
And then he teaches me how to tread water. He goes,
we're gonna tread water for ten breaths and super micro
start too now. And I'm still like a giant toddler.
I still have a flutterboard and you have all these
exercise have to do. I was at one pool and

(39:39):
the lifeguard came over and said, you need to go
in the shallow it. I'm like, why, I don't think
you can do a lap. I'm like, I could do
a lap. I'm not well, but I could do it.
So she's gonna kick me out. My kids are killing hmself,
laughing that you have to get like a little smiley
face on your shoulder that shows you've done one lap.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Like she's treating me like a toddler. It's all.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
I'm like, I'm not going back to that pool. So
I go to Kinson, which is awesome, and it's just
that again, I'm not winning any race, but I think
the length of my body should eventually be good for swimming,
and I think I'll be good at it.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
But when at fifty three do you get to do.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
I have to learn a nervous system regulation tool, going
something I'm not comfortable with, and learning a physical skill
and a mental skill and putting all this together. That
is the kind of growth thing that feeds me. Plus
I'm kind of quasi retired, like I'm not in a
job anymore. That is just all encompassing and pulling all
of my energy out. So I can do these things
because I have a bit of space. So perhaps if

(40:34):
you're still in the midst of a pleasing career against
sworn or civilian, if you're in a really busy area,
finding just those little small things that you can do
to make sure you looked after, and then eventually when
you go to a quieter area or retire, you can
start to expand those things that bring you joy. And
just again, this career injustice, and it doesn't matter if
you're in justice or health or education. They can be

(40:55):
all encompassing and train all of your energy and that
there's nothing else to think.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
About but figure, So, what did I used to do?

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Like doctor ke Kevin gil Martin's talked about the Eustace Well,
I used to draw, I used to paint, or I
used to run go back to your eustace, because there's
so much more to living than just going to work
forty hours a week, making sure you're you're fed and
the kids are fed, and then watching TV till bedtime
and doing that all over again.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
Yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
I also can picture you, or I want to envision
you with like the big orange like the water wings,
or like one of those little floaties with the dock
on it.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
I'm here for it. Yeah, I actually.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
Would have needed that at the start, just to do it.
Like that's how uncomfortable in the water I look.

Speaker 6 (41:36):
Yeah, the crazy party is at a lake lot for
frickin thirty years and he has a water that he's.

Speaker 5 (41:41):
Around all the time and he hasn't figured.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
On a swim yet hope, but you've decided to. Yeah,
so this is something that we again we sit down
and talk for like ninety minutes at a time and
then just do this all of the time. But it
is a little bit of when you real that, okay,
you just have to put the time in and get

(42:03):
something done, then everything does feel very doable. Once you
know that with enough time and work and help from
others you can you can get things done. So, Dan,
I've spent a lot of time with Scotts, So I
hear and lots of people hear about everesting, and we
know that you are a part of that as well.
But do you have a similar mindset of having like

(42:23):
these masogis? Maybe not to the point of climbing everest,
but how do you look at deal with tackle things
that might feel like obstacles or big, big goals, big tasks.

Speaker 5 (42:38):
I don't really have any big goals, No, I don't.

Speaker 6 (42:41):
I don't have the same thing as Scottie, but I
have I have a bunch of really in my life.
I have a bunch of very diverse things that I
do that bring me a lot of joy. The boxing
community is one of those things. So I, like I said,
I had thirty six amateur boxing fights, but I trained
it at time time where I trained. We trained at
a place called Cougar Boxing Gym, which was the inner

(43:02):
city gym in Edmonton.

Speaker 5 (43:03):
And we didn't spar. We just beat the crap out
of each other.

Speaker 6 (43:08):
Like I'd get in the ring and I'd spend I'd
have fifteen rounds of fighting and I'd fight Adam ad
Jason the Troll.

Speaker 5 (43:12):
Adams who is the.

Speaker 6 (43:13):
Canadian bantam weight champion, and I'd finish off with Sheldon Hinton,
who was a national heavyweight champion.

Speaker 5 (43:20):
And I was one hundred and fifty six pounds at
the time.

Speaker 6 (43:22):
That's what I fought at and I would fight guys
that that had one hundred pounds on me and I
would just go in there and I loved I loved fighting.
Now the boxing community has kind of embraced me in
a totally different way where I actually I am the
color commentator on fights when they come to Edmonton. So
when Alliance Boxing brings fights, and I actually sit at

(43:43):
ringside with former champ Kenny Lacusta and Doug Harter and
we do what if you ever watch boxing on TV,
We're the three guys sitting at ringside making comments and commentary.
On the twenty I think it's the twenty seventh of February,
we have a TV presser for or the Women's International
Boxing Association title where Alexis Kubiki is fighting for that

(44:07):
title and I get to run the I get to
run the press conference like Dana.

Speaker 5 (44:10):
Whitewood, right, So this community has.

Speaker 6 (44:13):
It's and Scott he's been there when I walk into
a boxing gym, it's like coming home right Like the people,
I get so much love, and and and and people
in there that are the people I trained with. And
and it's interesting because the boxing world there are unfortunate
people who've been on the wrong side of the law
in the boxing world, because there's a saying in boxing

(44:33):
no one ever fights unless they have to. And being
around those folks, they know exactly what I did for
a living, and I was doing it while I was policing,
And regardless of their histories or backgrounds, those folks have
always embraced me. And so those kinds of things I
get super excited about. We have fight coming up on
the first of March, if anyone's interested. It's the River
Cree Resort and Casino. It'll be a great fight. It

(44:54):
could come on by. There's some relatively, they don't pay.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Me for this.

Speaker 6 (44:57):
This is advertising, but but it's a cool it's a
cool experience. I you know, obviously I'm different than him.
My movement is tied to my dog. I know Scotty
has a dog too. Scotty does not have the abnormal
and inappropriate relationship to his dog that I have with mine.

(45:18):
My dog sleeps on my head. He's one hundred and
twenty pounds and he literally sleeps on my head at night.
I have a weighted blanket and weighed pillow the way
to pillow breathe. I also have a little dog who
is I have a one hundred and twenty pound dog
and eleven pound dog. And my eleven pound dog sleeps
either in my tummy crook, my tummy crook, I don't

(45:42):
know what that just was, or my or kind of
my knee crook. Whatever, he sleeps there. So I tie
my movement to my dog. Like my dog like to
This morning, I took him for an hour because it's
been pretty cold out, so I literally got up walked
him for an hour this morning. I do like being
near water, like I find myself. If I need, I'll

(46:04):
go and i'll there's I have creek by my house.
I'll go and I'll do that. I love the sun
in my face. I love it's actually interesting. Up until
I don't know, eighteen months ago, I couldn't be without EarPods,
Like I had to have something in my ears all
the time. I had to have music, I had to
have a podcast, I had to have Now I don't
even actually like having anything in my ears. So I
like to be alone with my own thoughts, which is

(46:26):
something I never liked before.

Speaker 5 (46:27):
So just kind of the goal of.

Speaker 6 (46:30):
Living in silence and being quieter and you know, being
alone with myself, which sounds creepy and my Tommy Crook.
I don't mean it to sound creepy, but yeah, I
minor different I I My concern is if I decide
I'm gonna go do something, I fear my own background.

(46:54):
Like when I decided I was boxing, I was boxing.
When I decided I was doing martial arts, I was
doing martial arts. I literally I have no off switch.
So for me, I have to moderate my own behavior
and be like, Okay, I want to do this. I
want to do this. I've you know, you know, started
hitting the heavy bag again. I'm going to start going
to the gym. I have a gym at work which
is super cheap, and I'm gonna start doing some of that.

(47:15):
But I have to be very careful because if I
decide I'm going to do Everest, I'm actually going to
go to Everest and climb.

Speaker 5 (47:20):
Ever, because I'm an idiot, I have no I have.

Speaker 6 (47:22):
No balance, you know, that old balance knob that was
on your old stereo. That one fell off for me,
So I have to either find a way to put
it back on or just kind of address my own
issues when it comes to that, because I have never
ever done anything without going in so far that it
makes actually no sense to people.

Speaker 5 (47:40):
If that makes sense, it's.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
A trauma response, thank you. Yeah, I'm aware.

Speaker 4 (47:49):
Paying lots of people, or paying at least one person
a lot of money to let you know these things
that those are trauma responses. I've also decided Tommy Krook
is gonna be the name of my SKA band.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Yeah, that's a nice one. I like it.

Speaker 6 (48:00):
One fact, I wasn't a punk band.

Speaker 5 (48:02):
Really, and it was called our CMP.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
What did? Can you say? What the what the acronym
stood for?

Speaker 6 (48:07):
I don't really know if we had an acronym, but
we actually did a song that was very very derogatory,
and we started out with yelling our CMP r CMP,
and then we did something else that will say because
people hang up on this phone.

Speaker 4 (48:21):
I think this is how we get the people into
the chat. But it's totally fine, man. Yeah, the more
I hear about about everything that you've been through, in
terms of like all of the things you've done personally
now because I've heard you through the podcast, so I've
heard the things about your involvement with boxing, but now
the rapping and the punk band, it's just y'all are

(48:44):
truly fascinating human beings.

Speaker 3 (48:46):
Like it's it's like they're.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
Very interesting, sort of like if I liken y'all to books,
just like flip open to any chapter and sort of
read a page out of it.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
Absolutely fascinating. Is tough for me, yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Because I'm oh, yeah.

Speaker 5 (49:00):
The biggest truth that I say that people think is
a lies. I can't tell time, okay, like twelve watches,
I can't tell time. I have no idea how to
tell time hand, I can't tell time. I can't tell time, wow,
never have.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Okay, explains why he uses terms like tummy crook.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
Okay, but like legit.

Speaker 4 (49:25):
Side quest again is that I was literally telling my
coworkers today that when I look at my watch, which
I have an analog watch, is that I only look
at the minute hand and I don't look at the
hour hand, so that I because I know ish what
time it is, so I really am only paying attention
to the minute hand. So I have a hard time

(49:45):
remembering what time it is if I have to look
at the hour hand, which it works for bare basics.
This works for me until the watch dies and then
I'm like, oh, yeah, it's only twenty five after Man,
this has been going really slowly because I'm not looking
the fact that it's is twelve third.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:02):
Yeah, I'm not looking at the hour hand. So you're
certainly not alone at that A support group of telling time. Yeah,
I was trying to think of like, what can we
call it?

Speaker 3 (50:15):
But we'll work on that.

Speaker 4 (50:16):
We'll work shop that later. Yeah, what's that? It's in beta.
I'm excited to think about this more so, where was
I going with this? I'm just having a great time
and not paying that much attention. I'm catching too much
of this. We were not planning and just hanging out.

(50:38):
So let's like, I'm gonna ask you a big, hard
question and if you don't have an answer, then that's
totally fine.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
I guarantee you we will always have an answer. That's
our skill set. It doesn't even matter if it's a
right answer.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
We can bullshit what anything at any time, okay with anybody?

Speaker 4 (50:53):
All Right, So here's the gap you're bridging.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
Are you ready for this?

Speaker 4 (50:57):
Is with any of your or any of the things
that you're pursuing, whether it's like the big things the
little things. I find that everything that we do, like
the things that shape our behaviors and shape our decisions,
are it's coming from a meaning or a purpose, like
there's something bigger than each of us individually of why

(51:19):
we're doing the things that we're doing. So can you
speak to this is your challenge now? It's very mis
America pageant kind of situation. Is what have you learned
about your meaning and purpose?

Speaker 3 (51:32):
Is that?

Speaker 4 (51:32):
Why do you take why do you take on these things?
Why do you do difficult jobs? And has that changed
when you were a police officer to now being sort
of outside of those careers pursuing other things.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
Well, I think because everyone who ever joined policing ineviably
will be asked why are you joining? And the universal
answer will be that you want to help people? And
I think there's times when we maybe drift away from
that as you're figuring away out. I started when I
was twenty, and I was a mature twenty one year old,
so I should have been hired at twenty one, but
there were still times where I'm like, I have no it,
Like I'm at a family fight and these two people

(52:08):
are fifty five year old alcoholics. I don't know why
they're listening to me, like I'm telling them to go
to bed or you're going to jail, and then even
going how am I here? But genuinely wanting to make
a difference for people, And it sounds hokey or whatever,
but it's true. And now it's translated into well, I've
been through a whole bunch of stuff in my life
and career. My wife has been through her own journey

(52:31):
life and career, so her and I've kind of joined
forces with anyone who wants to listen to what we
have been through and what we're doing to regular or system,
we will help you. So we host retreats and we've
done them for Epton Police, and then we also have
Twisted Okyogun Wallace, so we do it separately, and I
am happy to share my path, but I'm at this

(52:53):
stage I am kind of lost the energy to overcome resistance.
So when I'm talking to a group of people and
let's say there's fifty people and five are like, I
don't give a shit, this is fucking stupid.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
Godspeed.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
I'm not do your thing, but I'm not trying to
convince you. Keeping in mind, I was one of those
five people. I had been sitting with my arms cross, going,
I don't care about this fifty something year old beer
to do who used to be a white shirt talking
to me about wells. Fuck that guy, That's what I
would be thinking. So I'm kind of talking that person,
but I'm not. Again, I'm not giving advice. I'm not

(53:25):
a therapist. I'm not telling you what to do. I'm
just going here's what I've gone through, here's what you're
probably gonna go through, and I'm gonna be right. I
don't trying to be I told you so, but I'm
probably gonna be right, and I will share as much
as I know to make it better for you. Like
Danny says, I have internally with police members in and
around EPs or now kind of a bit outside. Hey,

(53:46):
I have this going on.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
What do I do? Or I'm really anxious about this
promotion exam. What can I do?

Speaker 1 (53:51):
And I'll do like a guided imagery session with people
so I can use the skill set that I have
to help people through. So I think that's the gap
is just using the Experi's because that's the only meaning
really in life is what are you doing for other people?
Again kind of sounds hokey and a little motivational poster ish,
but it really is a true thing, because if you're
sitting by myself at the lake, which is lovely, and

(54:14):
I just go about my business and not talking to people,
I don't think I would be fulfilled. It'd be nice
and relaxing, and there's times for that, but there still
has to be a purpose that gets me up out
of bed every day.

Speaker 6 (54:25):
I think it was Mark Twaine that said, there's the
two most important days in your life for the day you.

Speaker 5 (54:29):
Were born in the day you understand why.

Speaker 6 (54:31):
And I think to me that that's always been something
and for me, it really is the trauma of the
victim and the victim offender overlap, looking at the individuals
and understanding who the justice system deals with. And I've
been really fortunately I've got to do research on the topic.
I've written multiple papers on it. I've been the co

(54:54):
editor and the contributor to a textbook called Police Response
to Mental Health in Canada. So to me, it's really
about it's about let's educate our future police officers, justice actors,
public health officials, public health workers on the understanding that
the social determinants of health and crime are almost identical.
And with one we talk about public health and when

(55:15):
we throw people in jail, and that's not to take
away you know, that doesn't say I'm not saying that
no one ever has to get arrested and no one
has to, you know, have accountability, but understanding why the
why of behavior. And I think we failed through that.
And I also think, and this is part of my
own history, I probably there's times in my life I

(55:38):
probably could have no. I probably I was in footchases
with the police. I ran away from the cops when
I was getting into trouble as a kid like I
would get into fights in the mall and then me
and my friend would run away from the police. My
mom learned about that at on a podcast about three
podcasts ago. I carried a gun to school when I
was in in junior high.

Speaker 5 (55:56):
In high school, I was involved with I did.

Speaker 6 (56:00):
I was on the wrong path, and so for me,
I was lucky. I got arrested on my eighteenth birthday.
Oddly enough, it happened to be someone. I don't know
if you were on the were you on the job
when I was eighteen, just so I think it. Well,
eventually it was somebody from your squad, and I don't
know if you were there or not at that time.
I can't remember if that was if you were hired
or not. But a person let me go on the
back of a police card because they knew who my

(56:21):
dad was.

Speaker 5 (56:21):
And I understand my privilege. I'm a white kid whose.

Speaker 6 (56:23):
Dad was a cop and I got second, third, and
fourth chances. So for me, it's about educating people as
to why those behaviors occur. And it's about bringing compassion
into a field that oftentimes forgets that word. And I
think that that, to me is kind of my why
and he makes it on me all the time because

(56:44):
I have rose colored glasses about changing systems and making
people see things differently. I recently saw a police service
in Canada's self simpical police says, leading with policing with
something and compassion. It's actually right on their badge, which
is the first time I've see that on a badge.
I know Gwelph has it in their Compassion is one

(57:04):
of the one of their key points and Calgary now
has it as well. But I want to make sure
it's more than just words. And one of the things
I've learned and policing is words come along and then
people start using those words and they'll be like, Oh,
it's trauma informed, are you really, It's evidence based?

Speaker 5 (57:18):
Is it really?

Speaker 6 (57:19):
And I have that struggle, and I've had that struggle
with policing, and that's where sometimes I come across as
Sometimes I come across as a contrarian and policing. And
if you read recent news articles, you can learn all
about it.

Speaker 5 (57:32):
Just google my name and you'll.

Speaker 6 (57:34):
Learn about me being a contrarian and not popular in
certain policing circles, which is okay with me, and I'm
I'm all about. I've always been a believer that if
you are doing the right thing, you're going to have enemies,
and I'm okay with it. I've always been kind of
the swimmer upstream. And one of the things that's always
pissed me off is I read these books, and I've

(57:54):
read lots of books.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
I read lots of books.

Speaker 6 (57:57):
That was a stupid thing, and I read books. When
a person leaves a police service or leaves policing, and
then they talk about the policing system, but they'd fail
to talk about it while they were inside it, Like
they just sit there and then all of a sudden
they're writing a book and you're like, seriously, either fuck all
while you're in there, but now you're going to be
a superhero. I will go to the grave and he'll

(58:18):
I know, Scotty will support me. I have never not
done this. This is I've always said these things. This
is how I was when I was in policing. This
is how I am now. There's things that needs to change,
and that's what gets me up in the morning. That's
why I'm working at Northwest College. I love nor Quest
and they allow me to be the chair and we are,
like I said, we're changing the program to make it

(58:39):
more trauma informed, and we're actually looking at setting up
a fully separate certificate for public health, law enforcement and
public health, an entire program, like a five class program
for anybody who's been in policing or who has a
degree in criminology or criminal justice that they can take
this after degree or after certificate in policing a public health.
So for me, it's just that motivation of getting out

(59:01):
there and trying to change the narrative of what people think,
because if you change the narrative, you actually start to
see the people for who they are. And a lot
of these people that get themselves in trouble are really
beautiful people, but they find themselves in a really rough way.
Scotty and I got to take a friend of mine,
a friend of ours, to get his first apartment.

Speaker 5 (59:18):
He's fifty. Just he's in his fifties.

Speaker 6 (59:20):
He went to resist residential school when he was six,
in and out of jail. He's in his fifties. He's
got his first apartment ever. And to see a guy
who's in his fifties go, I've got keys for the
first time. Whatever he's done, he's paid his dues and
now he gets to live his life and be part
of that is pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
That's absolutely amazing.

Speaker 4 (59:41):
And I think if we get really existential about it,
I do feel that if life is a series of
dice rolls, it just so happens that, like my dice
rolls ended up a certain way, and maybe I had
slightly loaded dice so that I was rolling a little
bit higher, right, And so then I think when we

(01:00:01):
think about our lives in terms of choice points, and
maybe it's a random chance, and maybe it's someone who
knew better, or maybe it's us that knew better.

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
We ended up here.

Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
We can hold a lot of compassion for other people
who had different sets of dice, who had different outcomes,
And as you said, like everyone has these fascinating stories
to share and have lots of depths and richness, and
if we only look at sort of what they've done,
we miss a bunch of that. Yeah, that's amazing. I'm

(01:00:34):
going to steer us in a slightly different direction for
the last thirty minutes because we're talking about mental health,
starting conversations. That's a lot of what the focus of
today is. The theme that we've taken on is sort
of like keeping the conversation going. So there are lots

(01:00:54):
of questions that we've gotten from the I was gonna
say from our listeners, as if I.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
Do this regular, it feels good. It's nice.

Speaker 4 (01:01:03):
Yeah, it's a it's an odd position.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
Of power I feel in right now. Yeah, it's good.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
I have a microphone.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
You will listen to every word I say.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
Is that what he says?

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Wedding?

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
I haven't seen that movie.

Speaker 5 (01:01:14):
I homework.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
The audience is.

Speaker 4 (01:01:20):
Upset now I know everyone, Yeah, this is a cancel
bull offense. It's not that I it's not that I
wasn't alive when that came out, If that's any consolation
for anyone.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Who's feeling it's not. It's not it's like before my time.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
It's it's timeless.

Speaker 4 (01:01:35):
It's timeless. I'm just a person who hasn't seen a
lot of movies. So I just like, oh, someone a
geat the inn, like the chat is blowing up yet
wedding singer is a must?

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
I watched the Matrix recently, so that's new anyways. Okay,
all right, I'm moderating, circling. Okay, so let's circle all
the way back around. Why did we get into the
wedding singer because.

Speaker 5 (01:02:00):
You said you have a microphone? Will you listen?

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
You ever got that word? You have power with the microphone?

Speaker 3 (01:02:06):
Right?

Speaker 4 (01:02:06):
Okay, that didn't help us get back on to no
perfect Okay, mental health conversations.

Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
Here we go. I'm redirecting us.

Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
Is there's been lots of people asking listeners who've been asking,
there we go, found the lead again, asking questions about
how to approach a loved one or a coworker that
you can see is struggling but is not necessarily being
open with it. Is that I can see your point
of view of when you are because you speak to

(01:02:36):
a room of recruits or a room of members, and
so it's really about sharing the message with people who
want to hear it. But if someone is closer to you,
so a loved one, a colleague, someone, and you see
that they're going through a tough time but they haven't
quite reached that inflection point, what are things that are
that you are doing that will either are you helping

(01:02:58):
them get to that inflection point? Are you what are
the things that you're doing as they sort of get
there themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
Okay, I think that's a really important part.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
And there's times when and I know, Danie, you'll have
an example as well that I didn't know that I
was struggling right Like, you can't see the forest for
the trees when you're right in the midst of it.
So if it's somebody you are close to that you know, well,
just kind of having micro conversations and not coming in like, hey,
you're acting like an asshole, you need to get help,

(01:03:31):
is probably not going to what's going to work, and cops,
I think by their nature or people, even in justice,
we're a little bit we have a ribbon of contrarian
through us anyway. So if you come at me hot
and you're telling you what to do, I'm going to
do the opposite. So my wife has a superpower of
recognizing that I am an idiot donkey that will dig
my hooves into the dirt. If she tells me what

(01:03:52):
to do, she kind of slow plays it, so it
makes it my idea. But I think approaching that person
with compassion going hey, I just noticed, and then having
objective things what did you notice. I've just noticed that
that last call you were pretty upset pretty fast with
how that guy was and okay, well yeah, and just
starting to objectively go note, hey, this is like how'd

(01:04:16):
you sleep, Like those kind of basic questions like are
you sleeping? Because all the research attaches sleep. There is
no psychiatric or psychological disorder that doesn't have a component
of poor sleep. And when they talked about people who
were suicidal and attempted suicide, oftentimes the sleep pattern leading

(01:04:37):
up to that was atrocious as well. So again back
to justice by its very nature, because a shift work
is going to have an impact on sleep, having family,
all that. So having those kind of conversations but not
labeling it with hey, you're being this, or you're being that,
or you are that, or you are this, having something objective.
I've noticed that this is happening. I noticed that when

(01:04:59):
you went here. I've noticed that you're sure every time
you talk, you're kind of mad about everything, is everything's
going okay, and initially knowing that you may get blowback
and then just okay, it's all good. But if it's
somebody you have a relationship with or you're close with,
or even if you don't, let's say it's just a
squad mate or somebody who works in your office that
you know, just kind of keeping that it's not about

(01:05:20):
you if they kind of flash at you, but maybe
having a small p persistence to those conversations.

Speaker 6 (01:05:26):
And I think, to me, one of the big things
is this the question are you okay? Like and if
they are like, yeah, I'm fine, Like seriously, I'm asking
as a friend, are you okay?

Speaker 5 (01:05:38):
And I've had it. I've had a couple of experiences
with this.

Speaker 6 (01:05:41):
I had one really bad one, which is very person
who was very close to me and they still don't
talk to me. I don't regret it that I had
this conversation because they were not doing well. But that's
the thing you have to be prepared is the person
might be pretty mad at you if you're asking them,
because people don't like to be they don't like to
be introspective when especially you're in that space. And I

(01:06:02):
won't go into details, but one of my biggest regrets
is not checking on somebody when I should have and
it ended badly. So if you think somebody's not doing well,
make sure you check because eventually, if something bad happens,
you're gonna feel that guilt for forever. And that's that's
so so do it for them, but also do it
because it's the right thing to do and they might
need it and you might be the person there for

(01:06:24):
that that time. But simple questions, and never anytime any
type of accusation like are you okay, I've noticed you know,
you've you've been a little bit off today, Not you've
been an asshole to people today, those kinds of things,
because that doesn't work. But it's definitely the are the
ru okay?

Speaker 5 (01:06:43):
Has been? Always really something that's worked for me really well.

Speaker 6 (01:06:47):
And I actually learned it from someone who was going
through a lot, and she said it wasn't are you okay?

Speaker 5 (01:06:51):
Is are you safe?

Speaker 6 (01:06:51):
And that's another question depending on the circumstances are you safe?
Because sometimes people are disregulated because they are an unsafe
circumstance and that could be relationship or what ever. And
I think those two things and the other thing is
not expecting a response and not expecting it to be better.
I can think of one specific person in my life

(01:07:12):
who it was eleven years later they reached out after
giving them hey are you okay? Hey, this is giving
them options for a bunch of times, and it took
eleven years for that person to finally reach out. So
it's not going to be immediate gratification for the pre
that person asking. It's going to be potentially it can
take some time.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
A couple other things too, could be I have utilized
employee assistants and said, hey, can you call this person.
I don't think they're doing really well, and then subsequently
follow up and said, hey, just you know, I got
a hold of employe assistants to check on you because
I thought this and I thought the person was suicidal.
So I'm like, sorry, if you think I'm a dick
and you don't talk to me, Abe, that's fine, but this.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
Is what I was really worried about you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
And it could be slow playing a little bit with Hey,
I don't know if you've read this book or listened
to this podcast or or whatever, just give that a listen.
Like we've had the reason A. We'd like doing this
because it's fun and it's a cool hobby to have.
It's also been really rewarding where we've had folks who
have reached out to us and said I was actually
complating suicide and then I heard you two talk about it,

(01:08:15):
and then I didn't kill myself and then I actually
got help.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
So we talk about this for a reason.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
It's also our contrarian nature, because if you want to
throw kind of mud at us because we're talking like
this and vulnerable without it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
I don't give a fuck actually at all.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
So I will if again, fifty people in the room,
forty five I think this is bullshit, but five go,
oh that was interesting, and two go I really need
to seek help. And if those two idiots up there
can talk about it, and I'm talking about me and Danny,
your course is not an idiot, then I will seek help.
Yeah that's right too, but just making sure which too.
So that's another reason why we talk about this, and

(01:08:50):
it could be just a resource.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
Go.

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
Hey, those two marks are talking about this, and they
were through some stuff and they are not really the
quintessential quote unquot mental health speakers like no one look
at me and going, he guy must be a yoga teacher, right,
not at all, or looking at him, going, he must
be an academic. Hey, Tommy Crook must be an academic.

Speaker 4 (01:09:12):
Ye, Tommy Crook is gonna follow you for a while
now till today.

Speaker 3 (01:09:18):
Oh man, I'm a huge fan. Yeah, I totally agree
with you. Is that I think.

Speaker 4 (01:09:23):
Our brains are very good at just kind of working
on their own. I love the phrasing that our brains
are always more more concerned about keeping us safe than
keeping us happy. And safe is usually what have we
done previously that have allowed us to stay alive now,
and those can definitely be maladaptive, but as long as

(01:09:45):
we didn't die, our brain is like that worked, we
made it right. And so it's really developing that self awareness,
moving away from autopilot and just developing a level of
self awareness that I think is is one of those
big turning points of just being aware of the choices
that we're making. And sometimes that takes other people to

(01:10:09):
lovingly bring that up and say, these are the things
that I'm noticing that's happening to you and certainly happened
to me as well. Is that's how I got into
going to therapy more regularly and improving myself, is that
I had my partner. I've also had other people that
I was in grad school with being like, what you're
doing is like intense, and it's a lot, and it's

(01:10:31):
it's tough on them as well, so they're like, have
you thought about getting help? Because this is not a
thing that you want to be doing for the next
the rest of your lifetime basically. But yeah, I think
that's all coming from again, like hindsight is twenty twenty, right,
So it feels like, and what I've heard a lot

(01:10:53):
from both of you is that there's been lots of change,
lots of growth in the period of time since you
were in the force, or even throughout your entire lives.
So let's like get into a time machine. Let's go
back to what was in ninety four, ninety three. Okay
for me, it'll be a little later than that. But

(01:11:14):
if just to really jabbing in there, yeah, a little
bit is that if you went back and could leave
yourself one piece of advice or something like a little
nugget that you're like, Man, I wish I would have
known this at twenty or whatever. What would that be

(01:11:35):
like knowing what you know now? Right, the lessons that
you should have learned are what would you give yourself
at that age?

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
I think I would have told myself that the next
thirty years are going to leave marks and scars, and
to be more proactive with making sure you're well.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
And there was a.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
Time when I was a patrol sergeant and I had
a couple of really rough call and I was really struggling.
Actually I backed that up. I was patrol constable and
I went to a homicide call. So I probably had
maybe four years on the job, and it deeply, deeply
impacted me, like I was a mess for three weeks
after and then probably even longer than that. If I

(01:12:17):
knowing now, I would have been like, that's the time
to go to therapy and go I don't even know
if EMDR was necessarily being practiced, but let's say it was,
let's go EMDR at that particular call and then metabolize
that as it lands. So I'm not letting that be
the bottom part of the foundation of that stack that's coming.
I heard an analogy and I can't give credit to
because I can't remember where the hell I heard it.

(01:12:38):
And if you have like scales, and we're always thinking
the balance of those scales in these careers, that there's
going to be a big t trauma, that that rock's
going to go on there and it's going to put
us out of balance, and that maybe, but oftentimes it's
the small grains of sand that add up and eventually
knocks out a balance. So what are you doing to
knock those small grains of sand off and keep you in?

(01:13:00):
So being more intuitive and mindful and those are not
words I would have used when I was twenty one
years old at all. But knowing what's going on with
my system earlier on and then doing something about it
and keeping up with whatever fitness I was doing, but
doing with a little bit different intention would have probably
led to not being so tremendously disregulated later.

Speaker 6 (01:13:24):
I think I would have if I were to talk
to twenty two year old me who started into policing,
I would have had twenty two year old me look
at you know. Make sure that you write, and I
do this when I talk. I used to do this
my time to recruits. Right, make sure that you write
down why you've decided to do this career, what's important
to you, and what you see is important to you

(01:13:46):
in the future, because I think what happens is we forget.
I think what happens in policing is we forget. We
we we start out here and then we we kind
of leak and we don't remember why we actually started
this job. And there's that reverse asshole theory of policing
I don't know if you've ever seen.

Speaker 5 (01:14:04):
And it starts out with everyone's good.

Speaker 6 (01:14:07):
I want to be a police officer to help people,
and then only police are good, and then only my division,
and then only my squad, and then only my partner
and then only me, and that isolation reverse triangle comes down,
and it unfortunately isolates to that four to one ratio
where four police officers kill themselves to every one police
officer that's flouniously murdered.

Speaker 5 (01:14:25):
And that's a statistic that's been pretty.

Speaker 6 (01:14:28):
Strong across you know, North America for as long as I've.

Speaker 5 (01:14:31):
Been involved in this world.

Speaker 6 (01:14:33):
And it's that why do we have that reverse triangle
of policing because we forget why we started And sometimes
you get back to that, but oftimes you get back
to that when you're not in a position to impact
those folks that are in patrol or whatever like that,
because now you're in a specialized area or whatever, and
now you realize that. And I think it's it's about
always remembering why you'd started and why we're here, and

(01:14:54):
always leading with compassion. And I think that's something that
we weren't taught. You know, you're policing is still taught
that everyone's a threat, Like everyone's a threat. Well, how
are you gonna be compassionate with a threat? And then
my biology tells me that if it doesn't look like me,
it's an additional threat. So now I'm dealing with a
person of color and an indigenous person and I'm told that
everything's a threat, and I've not.

Speaker 5 (01:15:13):
Spent a lot of time in those communities.

Speaker 6 (01:15:15):
Now, that person's a double threat, and I would suggest
that's a that's a hypothesis for why there's excessive.

Speaker 5 (01:15:20):
Use of force on Indigenous use.

Speaker 6 (01:15:21):
Indigenous and people of color across are content because that
is there. And I think if we number one, we
remember why we're there. And number two proximity. Make sure
that you start to be in communities that that don't
look like you. If you are a brand new police
officer or a brand new first responder, go to a powow,
go to a black church, go to something, be uncomfortable,

(01:15:44):
be the only white person in that space if you're
a white person, if you're not be around people that
aren't like you and doesn't don't look like you, and
get that proximity and start to realize that we're all community,
and start building that community early on in your career,
because I think it'll make you more compassionate throughout your
entire service. And I think so I would have liked
to have done when I started.

Speaker 3 (01:16:07):
That's amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:16:08):
And there's someone in the chat who's saying, yeah, that's
amazing advice. So thank you for both of you. The
last question, because can you believe it? We've been talking
for almost ninety minutes now.

Speaker 3 (01:16:18):
I know, right, so will some of them?

Speaker 4 (01:16:23):
I really want to touch on this question because I
think it's important. We got this from someone who submitted
it online in the days preceding this, and you can
clearly go wherever you want with this. So this person asked,
how can I find the strength to deal with mental
illness for my entire life? And I think that's really
important to touch is that, whether you're diagnosed with something

(01:16:45):
or not, everyone always deals with obstacles, with challenges. We've
all sort of been there, and.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
So what are the.

Speaker 4 (01:16:57):
What's like a sign of hope or something that you
can and say that helps you through tough times to
kind of keep going.

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
Again, keep in mind, I'm not a therapist or a doctor,
so talking about somebody who has a mental illness having
a good doctor who's going to help you navigate that
having a good therapist, because those are going to be
two separate things, and if you're privileged enough to have
both of those, that's a good start. So that's your baseline.
And then now let's look at, Okay, in my day
to day life, how is my exercise routine?

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
Like do I move? How am I sleeping? And how
am I eating?

Speaker 1 (01:17:34):
So let's call that like Tier one, making sure that
most of the time, you're moving every day, most of
the time you're eating well, and most of the time
you're sleeping, and you're doing those little micro techniques that
facilitate those Once you get past that and go, okay,
I have a good baseline, my medically looked after, I
have psychological care and looking after these things, and I'm okay, now,

(01:17:59):
let's seek out opportunities. How can I challenge myself a
little bit to get out of my comfort zone?

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
And that could be I don't really like walking, but
I'm gonna go walk around the block three times today.
Or I hate cold water, so I'm going to try
cold shower for ten seconds about three or four days
a week. And you deliberately, intentionally kind of take yourself
out of your comfort zone with the goal that inevitably,
when life starts throwing you different obstacles or stressors, you

(01:18:28):
have kind of taught your system well, we've been here before,
so we're okay to do this. And it could be
the stressor could be your car breaks down, right, like
the battery dies, and that's just going to normally put
you over the top. But no, I've done the work
at a micro level. Again, this is not you have
two hours a day that you have to do all
these things you probably should be finding thirty to sixty
minutes a day that you're doing something for you and

(01:18:49):
your well being. That's not scrolling or watching Netflix or
eating whatever garbage food. It's doing something that's good for you.
Going outside first thing in the morning, when the sunlight
and it's sun's rising, getting that sun on your eyes,
going for a ten minute walk, having optic flow through
maybe even trees.

Speaker 2 (01:19:07):
There's lots of park space here.

Speaker 1 (01:19:09):
That's going to set a cascade of events in your
nervous system that you're likely going to sleep better that
day having this phone, which are tethering us. I just
finished a book called The Anxious Generation, highly recommended reading
for everybody. I recently just whatever thought, I got to
get my phone out of my room. It has made
a huge difference in my sleeping just in a month.
And maybe it's the electric magnetic waves in there. Maybe

(01:19:32):
it's because of the light in my eyes, but maybe
it's because my brain is so tethered to that thing
from being on call as long as I was. I'm
always anticipating it's going to ring because my dog brain
now wants to go to work. Now, having that thing
out of the room, I sleep ten points higher. So
just small things. It doesn't mean I have to go
climb everest. It might be just those daily practices, a

(01:19:53):
creative practice, a creative outlet, learning an instrument, learning how
to swim, whatever, and doing something for your physical life.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
Physiology.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
I took a certificate called a somatic Therapy certificate a
year or two ago, and one of the things in
there it talks about is your body is going to
tell you the truth. Your mind's going to tell you
a story. So if your body doesn't feel safe and
it has a dysregulation, doesn't matter, why what are you
gonna do about it?

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
Again?

Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
Might go swing to kettle bells, might go into cold water,
might go write it out, do something about it.

Speaker 6 (01:20:26):
Yeah, I'm going to go just a different path on this.
And this is one of the things that I'm really
fortunately teach the Mental Health Response to Justice course, And
like I said, I was involved in.

Speaker 5 (01:20:35):
Writing that book.

Speaker 6 (01:20:38):
It's when someone has a mental health diagnosis, it shouldn't
be called a mental health diagnosis.

Speaker 5 (01:20:44):
It should be called a health diagnosis.

Speaker 6 (01:20:46):
And I think one of the things when you do
have and I would you know, based on my therapy.
I have postraumatic stress disorder and I have an anxiety
disorder that I probably had my whole life that I
didn't know about, and.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
It's just health.

Speaker 6 (01:20:59):
And I think one of the thing is it's reducing
that stigma for yourself. You can't reduce the stigma in
the world right now.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
You can't.

Speaker 5 (01:21:04):
You're not in control of that. And hopefully that eventually
get I think it's getting better.

Speaker 6 (01:21:09):
But I think that one of the best things that
you can do is you learn about the disorder that
you have. And I think that's there's a there's a
therapeutic methodology that is education on your own disorder so
you have an understanding of it, but also reducing your
own stigma, like because people are ashamed of having a
mental health disorder, because we have societically told them that

(01:21:31):
they should be ashamed because it's well, it's mental health.
It's not the same thing, well it is. It's actually
a diagnosable thing. It's no different than cancer. It's no
different than having asthma, it's no different than having diabetes.
It's about making sure that you manage that.

Speaker 5 (01:21:46):
That illness with whatever is required.

Speaker 6 (01:21:50):
Whether it's medicine, whether it's different diets, or like Scotty said,
different other things.

Speaker 5 (01:21:55):
But realizing that you are not.

Speaker 6 (01:21:58):
Alone and you are not different because you have a
mental health disorder. You know, right now they say one
in for youth in Canada has a mental health disorder
that's undiagnosed and untreated.

Speaker 5 (01:22:08):
That's one in four people.

Speaker 6 (01:22:11):
So I think what we have to do is we
have to reduce that stigma to ourselves and we have
to be comfortable with it, and we have to and
that's why I talk about it all the time. I
was the opposite early on in my life when I
first went to therapy. I told my wife, as she
told anybody, I was going to therapy a divorce her.
And I think that's one of those things is because
I was afraid to say that I needed to get help,
or I needed therapy, or I needed or I had

(01:22:32):
I had something wrong with me.

Speaker 5 (01:22:33):
There's nothing wrong with you.

Speaker 6 (01:22:34):
You have an illness and it's diagnosable, no different than
any other illness. And I think that's one of the
things that for people that are living life with a
mental illness is that they have to realize it's just
an illness and it's part of who we are and
it's part of our no different than anything else that
we'd be diagnosed with.

Speaker 4 (01:22:52):
Yeah, I actually i've heard it described as you know,
getting any kind of diagnosis. It's not an inscription to
how you are in terms of your worth or your value,
but it's literally just an extra piece of information of
understanding who you are, how you function, and those types
of things. That's wonderful. We got one last question in

(01:23:12):
the chat, which just says, can we do this again
next year?

Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:23:17):
Yeah, it's awesome, and like, I hope I see you
all before that.

Speaker 4 (01:23:22):
But yeah, so, surprisingly enough, it's eleven We've done this
for ninety minutes now. So I want to thank you
too for taking your time in the schedule. I want
to thank everyone in person and online. I know this
looks underwhelming, but there we do have listening humans.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
People wonderful and we appreciate them.

Speaker 3 (01:23:38):
We do like you.

Speaker 4 (01:23:38):
Yeah it's true, but yeah, thank you so much for
taking your time, for being so vulnerable and open. I
honestly think, yeah, we can do this annually, bi annually.
I think that we'll always have a million things to
talk about. There's lots that we can all personally learn
from each other, and I think it's only by having
these types of conversations.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
Thanks having us, and I'll Dan need to do the closing.

Speaker 6 (01:24:02):
Yeah, thanks again. I really appreciate that everyone online. Thank
you for being here and listening to us, and thank
you for coming to the room. I just want to
acknowledge that we are on Treaty six land and I
just want to, you know, talk about I'm just gonna
acknowledge some of them my own, and I know Scott's
as well, the beautifulness of Indigenous culture that has actually
been a massive part of my own wellness journey as well.

(01:24:24):
I have an elder at Alexander Reserve, Fred, who I
go out and we go out and sweat with, and
he's also I've also done other ceremonies with Fred and
and spend a lot of time, you know, in that
spiritual space. I am fully as white as they can be.
I've taken the test I failed at answers to dot
Com told me how white I am so unremarkably white.

Speaker 5 (01:24:43):
But I find a.

Speaker 6 (01:24:44):
Lot of solace and a lot of I've found a
lot of healing and in in Indigenous spirituality. So I
want to just thank the Indigenous community for, you know,
allowing me to be a part of that, because we
are all treaty people when we're on these lands. And
threety six is the home of the the Kree, the Dane,
the Soto, the Lakota, Sioux, the Anashinabe, also the Mayti

(01:25:08):
people have come across this land forever and we are
one of the largest communities of Inuit people south next
to Ottawa. We're the largest community in Edmonton. So I
just want to acknowledge that and thank everyone for being here.
And with that, I hope everyone has a great day
and let me