Daranne Harris Compassion in the Systems - Season 3 Episode 9

A great conversation with PhD Candidate Daranne Harris about compassion, empathy, self compassion, systems change. Scott’s lack of compassion while driving and Dan’s dark thoughts while grocery shopping

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
One. Welcome to another episode ofJust Us on Justice and other things.
I am Scott Jones, your cohost with my baby brother Dan Jones,
and we are very honored to havea very lovely and articulate and intelligent guests
in Duran Harris. I said itright, nice, nice, Good for
me, because I mucked that upsometimes. So I first met you actually

(00:23):
at a retreat put on by LaurenCleveland, who's a wonderful human with serve
and connect who's been on the podcast, who's also been on the podcast as
well, and I was actually onhers, but then they deleted it.
It got caught in a wash andand so we're rescheduling. But that's neither
here nor there. So we'll talkabout the exercise that you did at that
retreat, because I thought you didsuch a beautiful job of taking a somewhat

(00:46):
topic that's not necessarily accessible to alot of people, and in a first
responder space, might get some likewe talked about off camera here, a
little bit of crossed arms, butyou did such a great job of increasing
the accessibility. So we'll park thatfor now. We'll get to it at
some point, but if we couldgo to like kind of where are you
from, where did you grow upand what led you kind of to the

(01:07):
path that you're on now for sure? For sure, Well, I grew
up in Saskatchewan. I'm one ofthose Saskatchewan girls that's a transplant to Alberta.
And you know, yeah, tomake a long story kind of short,
so I was that little girl whoused to kind of canvas for UNISEF
or trick or treat for UNICEF atHalloween, and I wanted to just make

(01:30):
the world a better place. Andyou know, when you're young, it's
sort of a naive approach to that, and you think that you can solve
the big problems of the world.And then you know, as you grow
up, you realize things are alittle more complicated than you imagined. And
not only do you recognize that theworld a little more complicated and complex,
but you also bring a maturity thatyou have more experience, you have some

(01:57):
new knowledge and different tools to addresssome of those challenges of the world.
And so you know, in manyways, I've been this person interested in
psychosocial well being and making the worlda better place sort of my whole life,
and it's taken various paths through myprofessional career and my education, but
it has led me to this placewhere I'm exploring compassion the evidence base of

(02:22):
that compassion, and then through thatresearch, I really connected with the policing
community first and then the first respondercommunity more broadly and started to see some
connections and places where compassion really kindof connects with people's lived experience. And
so that's kind of the work thatI've been doing, and that's how our

(02:43):
paths Frost Scott in the sense thatI want to give people tools that they
can meet the challenging circumstances of theirlives of whether they're a teacher, whether
they're a healthcare provider, or whetherthey're a first responder. And so that's
the poral research focus, and thenthe professional work kind of out in the
world as a person applies that takesthe research, finding that evidence base and

(03:07):
says, Okay, how does therubber hit the road? How does this
affect people's lives? What tools canthey take into their everyday to help them
cope with the stress, the trauma, et cetera that they experienced. So
what did you take as an undergradWas that in Saskatchewan or did you do
that in Aubura as well. Yeah, I actually did my undergrad at the
University of Guelph and that was abig joke on a Saskatchewan girl because I

(03:30):
thought I was going to this bigurban center going to the east near Toronto,
and it ends up it's the EggySchool. So I wanted to escape
Saskatchewan and I went to the EggiSchool in Ontario. But no, my
undergrad is actually a Bachelor of Commerce. Oh okay, I you know,
again a winding path. And forme that you know, major in that

(03:50):
was hospitality and I really wanted tothink about people's experience and that experience of
leisure and that was sort of mydrive in hospitality. How do you create
good experiences people as they sort ofrest and rejuvenate and have fun with their
families or brands and that sort ofthing. And so did you have this
kind of compassion lens as a guidinglight or just like, okay, I'm
gonna go into business hospitality, howdo I create a safe space for lack

(04:12):
of a better term, but probablyfits in really well. And then something
else like was there kind of aseminal moment or some kind of light that
goes Oh no, I need tostart heading in that direction. Yeah.
No, there definitely was not acompassion focus in those early days. It
was really what can I do tomake a lot of money. I live
in a great condo overlooking the lake, a really fancy car. That was

(04:34):
my you know, eighteen year oldmotivation, have a lot of fun,
make money, et cetera. Andthen there actually there was that sort of
epiphany moment Scott. So, afterI graduated, I worked in event production
and we did a lot of hugeevents in the city. And I remember
an event that we did for oneof the big consulting firms at what was

(04:55):
then the SkyDome, and we blewup thirty thousand dollars in fireworks for that
event, huge meal entertainment. Weactually had the like special tactical team from
the Toronto Police Service actually repel fromthe ceiling and kind of a James Bond
sort of thing, which was kindof cool. And then, yeah,
but I remember taking a taxi homethat night after that event, and I

(05:15):
drove to an area of the cityup Spadana. So it's the street that
the subway runs underneath in Toronto,and so events all the subway grates,
the heat and people sleep on thosesubway grates to stay warm. And I
looked out the window. I wasalone in the taxi, you know,
twenty minutes home, and I justthought, wow, you know what,
we just spent thirty thousand dollars.We literally burned money. And what could

(05:40):
have been done with that resource thatcould have affected people's lives in a more
positive way. Now, obviously thirtythousand dollars does not solve the issue of
poverty, homelessness, addiction, mentalhealth in the city of Toronto, but
it would make some difference. AndI think those resources could be used to
alleviate some of the social challenges thatwe have, and you could feel good
about that. You know what,if that company had said, you know,

(06:02):
we didn't we didn't do this.We spent this money in a different
way because we believe in these idealsor contributing to the world in this different
way. That's a very mature perspectivethough for you to go, as an
eighteen ish year old or whatever age, obviously early twenties if at the most,
to go, oh, that seemedlike a kind of a big waste

(06:24):
for us to blow a bunch ofthings up when we could have maybe bought
sandwiches for these folks who were sleepingon greats. Yeah, yeah, and
so that just you know, ledme down a different path of you know,
what are the ways that you canmove through the world, What are
the professions that you can move throughthe world in that help you to make
those changes at a more systemic level, but also just an individual person to

(06:45):
person level, you know, makea difference in one person's life in the
work that you do. And soyeah, then I went and did a
master's and then worked in kind ofthe nonprofit world, and then after working
in healthcare, it really became interestedin this the complexity of compassion in care
and how it's not just about healthcareproviders caring for patients or residents in long

(07:10):
term care in a different way,but how are those healthcare providers also care
for how do they also receive compassionfrom their employer from the system in that
way? And you know, obviouslywhen I first started to explore that,
I wasn't thinking about the first respondercommunity, but I see some similarities there
around the systemic pressures that people dealwith as they seek to make change,

(07:32):
they seek to serve in some way, and then because of the system that
is curved or thwarted. And sowhen I do this work, I often
talk about it's not only about individualwell being, but it's about systemic well
being and how we need to makechange up both those levels. You can't
just send all of your employees througha compassion training, for example, which

(07:53):
gives them some tools and skills andresources, if nothing in your organizational culture
or the system that you work inis going to change, If leadership isn't
willing to engage in this way ofbeing as well, it doesn't matter how
compassionate the people at the front lineare, and it still matters how much
they are, but that doesn't solveall the issues. And lots of times
that's where the focus has been islet's do some sort of compassion or professional

(08:18):
development training with our frontline staff,but nothing change in policy, procedure,
leadership, And that's where we seepeople become disillusioned and they say, oh,
it'll never work. Nothing changes here. It just goes on and on
and on. I don't know whichpaper you were referencing on the compassion,
because I wrote one on compassionate leadershipand I wrote one on universal Precautions for

(08:39):
passions. I'm not sure which oneyou were referencing, but I have to
give I'm just going to shut outto the Ontario Provincial Police Service right now
because they actually brought me out thereto speak to their senior leaders on compassionate
leadership, which I thought, that'sthe only organization that's helping me do that
specific talk, which is whether it'schanged anything or not, at least it
starts a conversation, and I thinkthat's what's happening now, as the conversation

(09:01):
is at least getting started at thoseleadership levels. Yeah. Yeah, and
those are really hopeful stories, right. I've done some work with different services
in the province of Alberta, andI must say the fire ems crew down
in Lethbridge, they've really got kindof leadership and the frontline working together.
Again. I come in and Ido this work with them, but I've

(09:22):
been back several times and I reallydo see that their leadership they want to
invest in this and they want tosupport their people in a different way than
some others that you never see anyof the leadership at these sorts of events
or this knowledge translation piece, oreven worse, they're at the event for
fifteen minutes they're on their phones andthen they leave and it's like, this

(09:43):
means nothing. Man, If thismeans something, either that deputy or chief
or whatever, this means nothing toanyone. And I think that's where leadership
people don't understand the actions speak waylouder than their words often and I think
that's one of those things, especiallywhen you're talking about this topic, people
think this is a soft topic.This is not a soft topic. This
is the most important, one ofthe most important topics that you're ever going

(10:05):
to deal with, in my opinion, whether it's first responders, teachers,
doctors, lawyers, whatever, andand and and that concept of compassionate leadership,
self compassion and compassion to the clientsis almost the triangle of of well
being. When you're dealing with thesetopics that are significantly impactful, right you're
you're you're seeing good, positive impactand you're seeing really negative things that happen,

(10:30):
and how do you deal with thatwith with a without a compassionate lens?
And and in in in policing specifically, where I've I've spent a lot
of my time and corrections, there'sa lot of us versus them mentality,
and there's a they're the threat.How do you be compassionate with said threat?
And that's I've been something we've talkedabout before on this on this podcast,

(10:50):
But how do you be compassion witha threat? Will change the wording
don't don't say don't don't lose yourofficer safety. But they're not a threat.
They are a human being who mayhave a threaten and may have threatening
behavior and we have to address it. But even that wording changes, right,
there's still a person, Yeah,and to not lose sight of that
humanity, right, And that doesn'tmean that there are no boundaries and it

(11:11):
doesn't mean there are consequences for behaviors. But to continue to see someone as
a human being, you show updifferently than if you can can dehumanize them.
That allows you to do things thatyou wouldn't necessarily consciously choose to do.
But if you've if you've dehumanized someone, then you can you know,

(11:33):
be over forceful perhaps or you don'tmake as good a judgment about some things.
And so yeah, that's one ofthe pieces that I'm always trying to
like bring that together, that tensionof to have compassion doesn't mean that there
are no boundaries or no consequences,and so how can you be both It's
a both and proposition rather than ifyou're this, then you can't be compassionate,

(11:54):
or if you're compassionate, then youcan't be this. I really think
that you can bring those things together, and it it takes probably some habit
building and some thoughtfulness, some kindof practicing it, like doing it and
becoming comfortable in moving through your workin this way. Or it's not just
about work, you know, I'malways really conscious in the workshops that I

(12:15):
do with services this isn't about makingyou a more compassionate police officer or corrections
officer. This is about how youmove through the world. And it can
be good for your profession. Butin the work that we did at that
retreat, Scott, it's really itcan be good for you as an individual
and for your family as well.So you know, maybe your circle of

(12:37):
compassion. You do the work inthat really small sphere with your spouse,
partner, or your kids or maybeyour parents, and that's where you practice
that and you get a little morenimble, it gets a little stronger,
and then you can kind of expandyour circle to encompass you know, some
of those people that you wouldn't necessarilythink of as people that you would have

(12:58):
off oportunity to be compassionate towards.And then, you know, my challenge
is always to say what does itmean to challenge yourself in that growth not
overwhelmed, but in that growth space, to say, could I even extend
compassion to someone that it might bequite resistant to extend compassion to? And
that's part of that seeing the humanityin them. Extending compassion to someone doesn't

(13:20):
mean that you're going to be theirbest friend, that you're going to love
them, but you continue to treatthem as a human and if they are
in a state of suffering, thatyou might do something to alleviate that suffering
or at the very least not makeit worse right, And I think that
is moving through the world in acompassionate way. And so, yes,
the compassion you convey to the driverwho cuts you off on the road,

(13:45):
who's probably different, hopefully than thecompassion that you extend to your husband or
wife, your spouse, but thereneither are beyond your compassion in that way.
It might be different kind of levelsor different ways of behaving or offering
passion to them. Some might beless intimate than others, et cetera.
But there is that possibility to notexclude people from our compassion, and seeing

(14:09):
their humanity or continuing to have asite line to their humanity helps us to
sort of be tethered to this ideaof moving through the world in a compassionate
way. Scotty behind the wheel isa compassionate free zone. Yeah, there's
no compassion. I am with youon all of it, except for the
person who cut me off. Theyare one hundred percent excluded from any compassion.
And I've tried. There's times like, well maybe they're having a day,

(14:31):
but even in my inner voice,it's so inauthentic that I can't do
it and I just have to loathethem. Then forgot even beware. Yes,
once I'm behind a wheel part ofa self awareness that's kind of key
in life, right, And Iuse the analogy of the day. It
was camera doing a presentation and Isaid, yeah, this is what I'm
like in a car because there isa dehumanization. I see a toyota to

(14:54):
cell, not a person who cutme off. Right, It's not like
in a grocery store if the samegrandma cuts me off, don't go and
go crazy behind my shopping cart.I would be like, oh, it's
no big gill on it, andit really it makes no difference to me
on the road. I yeah,I'm just that's my last kind of bastion
of just not of having that innerdarkness that still exists when you're talking about

(15:16):
that's so funny when you were talkingabout that how you treat people, I've
I used. I loved when Ilearned about the Platinum rule, Like you
know, you know, the Goldenwrul treat others how you want to be
treated, and the Platinum rule istreat others how they need to be treated.
And I think if we can,it's just those little tweaks of subtleties
in our brain and to remap thatbrain to be like, Okay, I'm

(15:37):
gonna be compassionate. And also don'tbeat yourself if you have on a day
where you're not, your compassion isn'tisn't as full as it could be because
you were. We can have days, right, and that's the self compassion
piast one. It's okay, yesyou were like I am, I was,
I'm getting better. I in thegrocery store, I am that's your
space. I am of I haveviolent and they're not good and I just

(16:02):
want to smash people. And I'mand I've actually, I've actually threatened people's
lives in grocery stores because they've raninto my legs with a cart four times,
and I'm like, if you dothat again, I will fucking end
your life in the superstore. Andno one's called the police, So that's
cool. I haven't done that formonths now, thanks to my therapist.
It's gotten better. We even aE MDR grocery shopping. Okay, Okay,

(16:26):
this went down a dark path.Okay, well I gotta go.
It's like, I don't know ifI want to be with the Johnes brothers,
get a car or at the grocerystore. Yeah, driving to the
grocery store, I'm a monster.Once I get there, I'm super chill.
So we'll just yet. And youdon't want to drive with him because
he's a terrible driver, so rightaway you'll be the one terrified at him.
Yeah. Wow, we'll all laughingaside. There's so many pieces in

(16:48):
that dance that just made me wantto just riff, you know, on
and that platinum rule. So that'sone of the key things about suffering and
compassion is that everybody's suffering experience different. So you can have two people in
the same circumstances and maybe you've evenexperienced that circumstance yourself or not. It's
not a prequisite, but people's experiencesare different. And so something that really

(17:12):
throws you for a loop, otherpeople kind of take in stride or something
that is just absolutely crushing. Someoneelse has different experiences or resources that help
them to, you know, notbe kind of set off kilter with that.
And so compassion really requires a curiositythat is the foundation of that platinum
rule, to say, how isthis person experiencing this? I remember,

(17:36):
you know, a rookie mistake Imade early on in my professional career.
Someone came it was in the workplace, and they said, yeah, you
know, my divorce is going throughthis week or whatever, and I said,
oh, I'm so sorry, Like, you know, just because my
thought process that I brought to thatwas, you know, you went to
into a marriage, you hope thatit's going to work out. Like no

(17:56):
one stands there on their wedding dayssaying well, I don't know where this
is going to go, or maybesome people do. And so my thing
was like, this is really sadbecause that's ending and everything, and she
said, actually, no, thisis really liberating. This wasn't a healthy
relationship. And I was like,oh wow, so you know, yeah
again, don't impose sort of howyou would interpret situation, but be curious

(18:18):
about someone's experience of that, andthat allows you to then pick up on
the suffering more accurately. And thenany action that you might take to kind
of alleviate or ameliorate, or comfortor advocate in those circumstances, whatever that
compassionate behavior is is more on markbecause their experience could be different than yours.
And interesting when you talk, well, you don't have to have the
experience, so you do have tohave the experience. So one of the

(18:40):
events in my career that early onin my career that taught me a couple
of things. And I look atlife and lessons and I didn't look at
it back then when I was twentythree years old. I look at it
now. But I had this younglady and she was very very aggressive with
the MS and fire and she wastrying to commit suicide. And I'm not
going to go into details and traumasthe world. But I was I'm like,

(19:03):
what's going on. She's like,you won't fucking understand. You won't
fucking understand. Fuck you. AndI'm like, what is going on.
You don't know what it's like tolose a child, And I'm like,
yes, I do, because mywife and I lost our second child,
Nikki Ah. And she calmed,she's, first of all, you're lying.
I'm like, I'm not lying.His name was Nicholas, this is
his birthday. But she calmed rightdown. But what I kept seeing was

(19:26):
if I wasn't in the room,she would go right up again and then
I'd have to come back. SoI ended up spending a whole bunch of
time with her in the hospital andeven to the I even have to kind
of give the doctor a bit ofit because she wasn't being great to the
doctor and she was bleeding quite abit. And the doctor is like,
I'll stitch her up when she's nice. I'm like, I don't think being
stitched up. Being nice is afreaking prerecoris and of getting stitches. I

(19:47):
don't think that's what the hypocritical Idon't want a doctor. But then the
other lesson I got. There wasa couple of crustier guys in my squad
that really gave me crap for spendingall that time with a suicide that I
should easily afform, tend and walkout of the hospital. And there's police

(20:07):
officers, very lots and lots ofpolice officers that are compassionate. But there's
also that other side of just thefacts, get your job done, get
in and out, get that nextcall. And I think it's about shifting
that get that next call mentality,and I think there is that humanity side
that we need to focus on.And that was the lesson I learned.
And the other lesson I learned aboutthat was vulnerability. Compassion and vulnerability.

(20:32):
It's okay for first responders to shareabout themselves. I'm not saying give your
address, but sharing your experiences,your life lessons. And it's totally different
from what they taught us in class. And that's one hundred years ago.
But I remember people telling me don'twear your wedding ring to work because you
don't want these people know that you'remarried, and even that some of those
things, right, like those littlemicro things that hit your brain and tell

(20:56):
you that they are different than us, and that's the you know, that's
the challenges is making sure that andthat's one of the things that Scotty does
and I've done, is we bringlived experience people to the conversation and have
them present to the police community,and that changes relatively quickly. You'll see
a third of the group change theirbrain. There's other people that keep their

(21:18):
arms crossed and whatever. But ifyou can have two thirds of the population,
you have the majority, and thenyou're winning the game and you're modeling
the way you want to be,and more and more people are modeling that,
and I think it then makes itokay to show a different way of

(21:40):
being in your role. And youknow, there's lots of research around just
culture change and organizational behavior and thatsort of thing, but I think it
really is about the people. Andthe interesting thing about that vulnerability piece is
that we talk about seeing the humanin the other and in some ways we
were talking about, you know,the people we encounter in our work.
Perhaps whether you're a healthcare provider you'reencountering the patient or a police officer encountering

(22:04):
someone in a circumstance, but youshowed your humanity too, so she could
see your humanity, and when wehear, you know, media criticism of
policing, oftentimes they feel to seethat those officers are also humans, and
I think that causes suffering, youknow, on both sides. If there

(22:26):
are both sides, I would liketo kind of reframe things so that there
aren't these us them other you knowkind of thing. But everybody can suffer
in some way, and how doour actions alleviate that in a compassionate way
or do they actually perpetu hate thatsuffering? And what does that do for
our world? Later on in mycareer, probably over the last five years

(22:48):
and I've been retired almost a yearnow, I would start going and this
was a different way to talk thatI had not done before because I didn't
necessarily think this when I was earlyon. As I matured through the career,
is like, let's just assume internallyeverybody's doing their best, So Squad
one versus Squad four or whatever specializedarea, everyone's doing the best with what
they have. Let's start with that. Now we'll ask the questions of what

(23:10):
we need to do, whether it'soperationally or resourcing whatever instead of and you
do a good job of explaining thereverse asshole theory of policing. At the
start, when you get hired,everybody gets asked a question, why do
you want to be a cop?Everybody will say, I want to help
people, and I'm about suggest ems, fire, nurses would all be the
same, teachers, et cetera.And then you drop down the level off
you've done it for a while,Well, only cops are good, right,

(23:34):
so now I've kind of excluded everybody. Now only the police are good.
And then you drop that down onlythe police and my division are good.
And then drop it down only thepolice and my squad are good.
And then I'm the only cop doinganything. I can't believe what everybody else
is doing their shitty And it's thatdownward spiral into that negativity confirmation bias,

(23:55):
which we're hardwired to do through evolution, that you really have to work hard
to swim upstream and stay with no. I'm gonna assume everybody's awesome. If
forest needs to be used, thatis what it is, that's what the
circumstance dictated. But I'm gonna assumethat everybody's doing their best. And if
you walk through a door of adomestic or a suicide, or whatever,

(24:15):
or talk having a conversation with anotherunit that is already going to start to
bring the temperature in the room townand we can have a more engaging adult
conversation to figure out what next stepsare. The only one you miss was
only me and my partner, right, Yeah, and the only one I
bring The only reason I want tobring that up, I'm not trying to
correct you, but because both ofus have had unhealthy partnerships. Yeah,
where we weren't like, we weren'tout there stealing money and stuff like that,

(24:37):
but we were like I was nottalking about our marriages. Our marriages.
I don't want to yell there.Like me and my partner in Downtown
Division at one point in time,thought we were the only two police officers
that were any good. Like theabsolute arrogance of that statement is ridiculous.
And we would drive around, wewouldn't take coff we wouldn't take cofee breaks.
We'd get a coffee to go whenwe'd had the windows down the time

(25:00):
so we could listen for the forthe bad guys, and it was just
you're like, what is I lookback at that time in my life and
I'm like, who the fuck wasthat guy and then you go to that
isolation, and that's and the scarypart of that isolation is the FOID to
one ratio and I and I andwhen you talk about what's going on with
police officers, and for those whodon't know, the FIDA one ratio is

(25:21):
for police officers in North America commitsuicide for every single police officer that's feloniously
murdered. And that's been that's beena statistic that's been very very solid for
a very long time. Unfortunately.And even yesterday I was on the news
talking about shooting that happened at Edmonton. They I what I said on the
news, I was relatially happy withwhat happy what they put up. Sometimes
I am sometimes I'm not. Butthe only thing that wasn't said I did

(25:44):
say it, but they only everput it on is Yep, you want
to question the shooting, that's thecommunity's job to question the police. I'm
good with that. But no onetalked about how that member is doing after
having to in their in their perceptionto life, and what does that do
to that person, their family andthe rest of their life where they've known

(26:06):
they've had to kill someone because I'mgoing to say this, and I'll say
the cops don't go out strapped upand ready and go and get excited about
I can't wait to use force today. And unfortunately, the media has portrayed
the police like that, that welike, let's just go kill someone and
let's beat the fuck out of someone. There may be the odd cop in
the world that does that, butI'm going to say ninety nine point ninety

(26:26):
nine percent of cops do not thinklike that and have never thought like that.
And I think, unfortunately the mediaportrayal is that we are not a
wee anymore, that the policing cultureis one of violence. It's not one
of violence. There is violence.There are violent police officers, and some
of it is we don't do probablya good enough job of taking care of
our membership, and then they godown that path of violence. And I

(26:49):
can tell you from my own andmy own journey of policing, there was
a period of time where I wentvery very I was work only, I
was horrible to my family to thepoint where I was living in this basement
and you know, and it's mythirtieth wedding anniversary next month. So everything

(27:11):
worked out good. But I hadthis. I had this belief that I
was the only cop that could dowork, and if I were to leave,
there was going to be nobody inthe world, may be mayhem,
no homicide would ever get solved again. And spoiler alert, I left homicide
like what fifteen hundred years ago andthere's been they're still solving them. But
you get that if you start toget so fucked up. But here's the

(27:32):
problem. They saw it. Iknow they did some of them. Nobody
tried to stop, Nobody tried tostep in. Nobody said, hey,
are you okay, Nobody said maybeyou shouldn't work so much because I was
effective in my work. I wasable to pump out wire taps. Other
than me, Yeah, other thanyou, And I don't you don't count
because you're my brother. I'm talkingabout the work people that are just the

(27:55):
work people. Yeah. I noticingwhat's going on with your peers, right?
You depend on them, you know, unless you think that you don't
write, which again we've talked aboutthat. But how do we make it
okay to support one another without youknow, it being received as criticism or

(28:19):
you know, this perception of weaknessbecause we are not robots, right,
we don't just plug us in andcharge us up. There's like this human,
emotional, psychosocial, physical, allthese pieces that fit together. And
so you know, there's not justone way to make it better and easier
for people. But we need tobe able to have these conversations. Just

(28:41):
as it's important to stay physically well, it's important to stay mentally well.
And how do you do that?And in a role where you are facing
this occupational stress on a daily basis, you need to be proactive. And
so you know we oftimes when wetalk about a physical ailment. So if
you're diagnosed with something like diabetes,we know that there are things you do

(29:03):
to control your diabetes. You adjustyour diet, you take your insulin,
et cetera, and that keeps youhealthy and alive and safe. And so
if you are in a place wherethis is sort of the every day you're
going to be witnessed to this trauma, to experience this stress, then what
are we doing every day to managethat, to address that, to be

(29:26):
proactive so that we don't have toresuscitate you later. And I just think
we're here, we are having conversationsabout this, and we're on the cusp
of I hope some change. Andyou know, when I hear about a
position like you're a scott where youget a chance to kind of do some
of this wellness stuff, and youknow, I think that that is such
a powerful piece coming from someone whohas the lived experience to say, there

(29:48):
are some of these things and Ilearned the hard way. I didn't.
You know, you have been veryauthentic that you didn't get it right all
the time, and you've got newways of coping now. And you know,
Dan, you talked about going totherapy, and yeah, we all
these things we do to help usbe, you know, a better self.
Maybe not our best self that mightbe a bit ideal, but for

(30:08):
ourselves and then for the people aroundus, whether it's the close people like
our families or the work people thatit's nice to work with someone who doesn't
make you crazy all the time.And yeah, these conversations I am encouraged.
I think there's still a mountain toclimb, but it is hopeful when
we have conversations like this, Andthen some of the conversations we have in

(30:30):
that professional sphere with leaders or individualswho want to change in their more informal
way. When you hear someone likeGabor Matte talking about that, the knowing
oneself and knowing who you really areand actually knowing yourself. A lot of
people don't know themselves. A lotof people have not allowed themselves to know
themselves, or they've allowed the systemthat they're working in, whether it's policing

(30:53):
or if other first responding or whateverthey've had, they've forced themselves into this
belief system because they want to fitin. And it's hard to not fit
in, because if you don't fitin, you feel you pretend a lot.
I don't care if I fit inweirdly, what I know right,
And that's been really that's that's oneof the biggest superpowers I have and you

(31:15):
have the same one is is Iwill do what I want to do,
and I will do what I believeis right. If you don't like it,
I don't give a fuck. Andand that's where you know, the
biggest rewards in my policing career,Like I, I've been given a lot
of awards. Yes, he's beengiven many, many awards. And the
only reason I'm saying that because he'sbeen given like not one. When I

(31:36):
stopped the robbery basically by myself,and I was I have like like I
have. It's so funny. It'sand I didn't do anything special. It's
all bullshit and it's funny. Sobut the biggest rewards for me and placing
are the people that I have connectedwith, that I still connect with,
that I talked to on the phone, that call me when they have a
hard time, Like here's an example. I'm gonna give this example, like

(31:57):
this is one of the to me, this is an amazing anything to be
able to do. Young lady.I've known her for probably twenty five thirty
years, because I've been gone forenough time it's almost thirty years. She
was a sex trafficking, human traffickingvictim, she was gang related, she
was hugely involved in the street gangs, later drug dealer, and then also

(32:20):
active sex worker violence. And shegets sober and she goes to school,
she gets a degree in social work. She gets a job, but it's
only a contract, and now she'sgoing to interviews and they love her,
and then they found that she hasa record. You're no, sorry,
you can't pass it this record check. So I got to write her letter

(32:42):
and it sounds like the person's goingto hire her be based on a vouching
for someone who you've known for thislong. Those are the things that actually
matter, actually matter, right.And I'm not trying to say this on
the podcast to go look how greatDan Jones. I don't want to,
right, I'm saying it because wehave those when we are in these positions
and we give people our time andwe get to know them. It's easy

(33:06):
to freaking go to a call,write things up, and leave. It's
more fulfilling to go to a call, write them up, get to know
the person a little bit and say, hey, if you ever need anything,
let me know. And then youcan't do that every time, and
I understand that. But you cando that, and when you do it,
it works, and you've done it. I've done it. You do
it more internally than externally. Ido it more externally than internally. So

(33:29):
can you walk it through? Yougo ahead. I just that story,
Dan, is a perfect example ofthe transformative power of compassion. But you
did not single handedly turn around thisperson's But I often talk about compassion as
a bridge that we build over achasm, and it's a bridge of many
boards. And boards are the thingsthat we have to offer someone else.

(33:52):
Right, they're in our tool shed. And it can be you know,
resources like knowledge, or it couldbe something like power, it could be
money in some sort of ccumstances.And you know, she got some resources
from other places, but you offeredsome of the resources that you had too,
and and it creates an opening forher, Right, she's no longer
just kind of stuck in this likeplace. It creates a pathway. It

(34:15):
won't be the only pathway, it'snot the whole pathway necessarily, But when
we do those small acts, it'scumulative with other people's small acts and acts
that people take on themselves. Right, that self compassion and that self agency
piece that we can do some thingsfor ourself too. And yet we can't
do everything for ourselves, and wedo need people around us and community.

(34:37):
And you know, I'm a hugebeliever in community. That you know,
you're not to move through this worldalone, that you will need help from
other people at some point in yourlife. And that's not a failing,
it's not a weakness. And compassionembodies that in the way that we work
together to make these these moments oftransformation for individuals and systems and societies as

(34:57):
well. Can you walk us througha a little bit of the definition of
compassion. I'm going to go tapinto your academic brain of it. Here
the definition of what we're talking aboutwith compassion. And then you're exercise with
the terrariums at that retreat, andI know that's an hour long, so
we'll compress it here. But youdid such a great job of making it
very practical. So if you're sittingthere with arms cross and be honest,

(35:20):
there's part of me was like,Okay, well i'll build this. I
don't know if I like it.And by the end of it, as
you may or recall, I wasbeing an idiot because I'm like, everyone,
look how good I am at this. I was celebrating my own terrarium
building skills and it was super enjoyablebecause it's nothing I had done before and
ended up scratching an itch in myhead that I didn't know I had.
But you tied it so wonderfully intothe science and physiology of self compassion.

(35:44):
Yeah. Well, I'm so gladat President Scott. You know, that's
what you hope for is that peoplego away with something new, and I
know that you know, some ofthat stuff that I shared wasn't new to
you necessarily, but it reinforces orreforms and it builds on kind of some
of the other practices that you bringinto your life. And so, yeah,
so when I think about compassion,the empirical kind of frame that I

(36:05):
think about is compassion as a processor a behavior. And so ultimately it's
not just an emotion. It's kindof emotion plus action. And so sometimes
compassion and the word empathy are usedinterchangeably, and they are a bit different.
So empathy is about feeling with someone. So having this kind of emotional
resonance with someone, and you know, we resonate with people both positively when

(36:28):
we're in an uplifted state, andwe also resonate with people negatively, and
that can be that kind of youknow, culture that starts to grind and
everybody becomes negative right as we emotionallyresonate with each other. But ultimately,
when we have this empathic resonance withsomeone, we start to tap into their
suffering in a deeper way than justsort of in our heads. But it
also resonates in kind of our heartsmakes it more real in that way,

(36:52):
and then when we add action toit, that kind of makes empathy into
compassion. So ultimately, when wethink about this process, we're thinking about
behaviors that create change, and theymight be building blocks of change, it
might not be full scale change.So when I when I work with people
to develop these muscles of compassion,we often look at kind of five distinct

(37:15):
pieces of that. So the firstis this idea of self awareness, So
to think about, you know,how am I showing up today? What
is is sort of my frame?How do I see the world? You
know, where am I at myself? Am I experiencing suffering? What is
the suffering around me? Or thechallenge? And then we move into this

(37:37):
self awareness. We channel that intosort of some of the feeling and that
taps into that empathy piece of kindof emotional residence. So what would it
be like to be in this person'sshoes? And then that feeling often sparks
some sort of motivation as we recognizea disconnect, we recognize that something is
wrong here, that this difficulty orchallenge is suffering. It's not the desired

(38:00):
state for well being or thriving.You know, we use these words of
flourishing et cetera, or just people'spreference when we think about the platinum rule,
right, how they want to bedan And so we think about that
motivation and then we take that energyof the motivation and this is where in

(38:20):
a healthy cycle we move to action. We move to that piece of what
can I do to alleviate or transformthis suffering for this particular person, or
if we're looking at ourselves, formyself, what can I do transform that
suffering? And so what skills resourcesdo I have for that transformation? Now,
if we don't feel like we havea good match of skills resources time

(38:45):
for example, oftentimes it's sort ofshort circuits or like puts like a stick
in a bicycle wheel right and stopsit from going around this process and ultimately
that place we move to. Peopleoften call it compassion fatigue, but ultimately
it's empathic distress because you've got allthis feeling of this motivation to make change

(39:06):
to alleviate the suffering, but youcan't do anything about it or your efforts
seemed futile, and that often leadsus into this empathic distress because we're not
able to sort of use the energyof that feeling and do something with it,
and then it just starts to kindof eat away inside at us,
and we've become disillusioned, we pullaway, et cetera. But in a
healthy cycle, when we can wecan find a match of agency and even

(39:29):
just a little one that makes sometiny difference in this difficulty you're suffering or
challenge, then we know that itactually moves us into this fifth piece of
the cycle, which we call thewarm glow. And the warm glow actually
shows up on an fMRI scan andit's an activation in the reward center of
our brains, and we know thatwhen something is rewarding, we want to

(39:52):
do it again. It's that dopaminehit that happens when you have a potato
chip and then you just you alsohave one more potato chip, maybe just
just more right or on a largerscale, like that's the root of addiction.
So gambling, just one more spin, just a few more dollars,
or just another drink or whatever.But ultimately, if we can channel that

(40:15):
reaction for good, that reward centeractivation, by showing up in a compassionate
way and being able to make adifference, it fuels us to do that
cycle again, that reward and soI see it as sort of a regenerative
upward spiral. So compassion doesn't necessarilyneed to be fatiguing. Our work can
be tiring, and we can experiencethat empathic distress that's very real, but

(40:37):
I wouldn't call that compassion fatigue becauseit's not the helping the alleviation of suffering
that's actually fatiguing. It's when youfeel like you can't make a difference or
it's not working in that way.And so, individually, and I emphasize
systemically, we need to think abouthow we're making sure that we get people
with that motivation to the action piece, to the reward piece, rather than

(41:00):
them kind of off ramping at thatempathic distress piece. And so systems can
do things differently, they can responddifferently to support their people. In families,
we can show up for each otherdifferently so that we keep people moving
around that cycle and we have thatkind of upward spiral of compassion with that
reward activation rather than you know thatthe alternative, which can be that sense

(41:24):
of disengagement or disillusionment, etc.I think the one thing that has to
also change is what should be rewarding, what success looks like, right,
because success. For I'll use anexample of somebody who is on my beat,
who i'm very I still am veryclose to. She has had times

(41:45):
of sobriety and times of not andshe struggles back and forth. She's currently
in the time of struggle right now. Just because she doesn't have a white
make defense, two cars in thegarage, and is making one hundred and
eighty thousand dollars a year doesn't meanthat compassion wasn't successful. The fact that
she has an overdose, the factthat she had seven years sober, the

(42:07):
fact that she has accomplished several things, the fact that she has has a
relationship with her mother again. AndI think we have to change in our
brains what success looks like, becausemy white man's success is not the same
as you know, a residential schoolsurvivor sex trade worker who's been suffered untold

(42:27):
traumas. Our successes are different.And I think sometimes we beat ourselves up
if we get into this world ofcompassion and we're like, well, this
is fucking stupid because and now youI agree one hundred percent agree with you.
I don't believe compassion can fatigue.It exists. I think it's either
empathetic distress, or you haven't dealtwith your own stress and you've filled your
cup up so much that your ownstuff is keeping you from being compassionate.

(42:52):
But I think the big thing ischanging the level of success. If you're
dealing with someone who is an armedrobber and they start dealing chocolate bars,
that's success, that's a success.The reduction in crime severity is a success.
The frequency in which someone commits crimesis a success. The reduction and
frequency of drug use is a success. And I think what we've done in

(43:15):
our world anyway and policing is wehave these very very strict parameters of we
need to see this, we needto see this, we need to see
this, and what we end upseeing is the opposite. Like so I'll
use it Ebonton for an example.Several years ago, we were running a
program and it was basically a safercity program. We had some funding from
the government. We were doing alot of pre work, trying to pre

(43:38):
re entry to the crime community washeavily involved. We started seeing it the
climb and crime severity and crime.A new chief came in. I'm not
going to go which which chiefs theseare because it doesn't really matter. He
didn't like that, so he movedinto this other thing where he felt traffic
and interdiction was those things. Sohe moved a bunch of money out of
that, stopped doing that. Andthen since then there's been a whole bunch

(44:00):
of other things, and what we'veseen is an increase in crime, severity
and all this stuff. It's easyfor us, as in these worlds,
to blame the unhoused we have,we have, it's increased thirty percent.
Okay, it's easy for and thedrug or the toxic drugs applies, or
it's not toxic drugs applies, thedrugs apply. To blame the drug dealers.
It's easy to blame everybody, andit's harder to look in and go,

(44:22):
okay, what are we doing,like how do we change this?
And you the evidence is actually kindof clear because if you like, take
compassion and the concept of police legitimacy, put them together in procedural justice and
all of these things that combine whenyou look at Tankabee and Bottoms and several
other researchers that my brother's gonna slapme if I keep saying them, and
what it shows is and and LarrySherman did some research on the even the

(44:45):
arrest of a domestic violence defender.If the arrest of domestic violence a defender
is arrested with compassion by the policeservice, it actually has a reduction of
recidivism on that offense because it lendsto police legitimacy. So compassion builds legitimacy.
And all of a sudden, youdon't get the US versus name.
You get the hay bro. Youmust be going through a lot. I

(45:06):
gotta arrest you. Can you notput handcuffs in front of my kids.
No, we'll do that outside.We'll do that in the car. Officer
safety. People are now wanting topunch me in the face because that's not
what you're taught. Show that compassion, and all of a sudden, you
we in the world have the abilityto make people's lives better by being compassionate
to them. And it's proven inthe research that if you do this,
this changes things. And it's thesame thing with so many of these things.

(45:30):
And it's interesting, like totally unrelatedto policing. I was in the
boxing gym, but I was Iwas a cop at the time. Got
to know these guys one of theguys fucked up and got arrested with a
bunch of dope. He calls meup and he apologizes to me. I
am sorry for letting you down.Like I really feel that, bro,
Like you know, I have alot of respect for you building those relationships.
That doesn't mean that guy's never goingto commit crime again. And he's

(45:53):
still doing he's actually still he's doingquite well now. But relationships and compassion
and police did you timacy and proceduraljustice, all of these things are interrelated
to make the community better. It'sjust a matter of police agencies being willing
to take that time and go thisis a five year program. We need
to do this for five years,and Scotland just did it and saw a

(46:15):
fifty percent reduction ground It's a fiveyear program you in violence. Fifty percent
reduction violence. If you do thesethings and bring compassion as the as the
lead model into it, it isit's a game changer if you believe it.
Don't just use the word and putit on a fucking poster exactly.
And that's what I see and feelsometimes is you know, I'll see,

(46:37):
uh, you know, our valuesand compassion is one of the values,
and I think, okay, howdo you live that every day? It
can't just be on a poster orin a book or on your website.
And you don't achieve that by havingsomeone like me or Scott come in and
do a half day workshop. Right. It needs to be this consistent way

(46:58):
of being. And it's, youknow, all the pieces of compassion,
not just what is compassion. It'spracticing the self awareness, it's tapping into
that emotional resonance. It's you know, how do we do things that help
us to remember people's humanity right whenwe might be tempted to dehumanize them in
some way. And these are theskills that people need to learn and carry

(47:20):
with them. And just like anyskill that you've learned. You know,
I have a new driver in myhousehold, right, and so behind the
wheel, everything is a thought anda decision. Right. And he was
like, what do you do,guest, And I'm like, I don't
actually know, because I just doit automatically. Now, right, I
put my foot on the brake,I put it into gear, and then
we go, you know. Butfor him, you're describing it, you
know, every step of the way. And compassion it is kind of like

(47:43):
that when you start to practice it, you just show up that way that
is your habit, that is thestrong pathway in your brain where the signal
goes, rather than some of theless helpful ways of moving through the world.
And you know, it is somethingthat you can strengthen in that way
through doing the work, doing thepractices, you know, holding each other
accountable, encouraging each other in thisway of being. And so I'm really

(48:07):
I really want to look into theScotland thing and see, you know,
how that's unfolding in their context,because I dream of these kinds of things.
How do we, you know,help our community need to be better?
And this is just one piece ofthat, but I think it's an
important piece. As we continue tohave conversations around policing in our community and
you know, some of the stuffwe've been through in the last few years,
how do we change the conversation andreframe that so that people hear these

(48:30):
stories of transformation and people showing upin a really compassionate way, because it
does happen. It has happened foryears and years. You know. I
remember a family friend of ours,their son died by suicide and they spoke
so warmly and gratefully about the policeofficer that showed up at their door that
morning, and that was the hardestdoor to ever answer. And you kind

(48:52):
of know as a parent when someone'son your doorstep at seven thirty in the
morning in a uniform, something isup. And that was a great comfort
to that family as they went throughall that grief of that hard circumstance.
The way that person showed up andstewarded their pain was incredible. And we

(49:13):
don't hear those stories in a bigpublic way. We hear them maybe individually
as we kind of share with eachother, and it kind of travels through
the grapevine. But those are thestories that are important and they do happen,
and so let's tell those stories andlift those ones up rather than the
one bad apple or so in themix that often makes the paper or the
website that sort of thing. Well, and trauma informed is a gateway to

(49:37):
compassion, right right, Like ifyou don't understand trauma and you don't understand
what people may have been through.And I'll use an example, and I
know he won't mind using this someone because he talked about it. So
our friend Art ladyswe who has beenon the podcast before. He's the lived
experienced guy. We grew up togetherand he was in jail when I was
a correction officer there, but wewere very, very close, but I

(49:58):
took him. He presented on trauma. He presented his story to police officers
at the Upper Association Chiefs of Police, and I presented the academic side of
trauma. He presented lived life,and at the end of it, the
chief of police came up and gavehim a challenge, going in a box
and it was like police crest onit. He looks at that every single

(50:19):
day he's That to him was apivotal moment in his life where a chief
of police and other police officers werecompassionate to him after he told his story
of breaking law, on doing badthings, but his real whole life story.
And it's those little tiny things thatsometimes have the magnitude this massive effect.

(50:40):
I was making up a word,magnitude. I don't think that's a
word. I didn't feel like aword. It was kind of start falling
out, but it hits hit himwith such magnitude that he talked about it
like this was fuck five years ago, maybe more well, you've been retired
for two so yeah, probably sixyears ago. And he still talks about
that, like he just talked aboutit yesterday. So and I think people

(51:02):
don't. And I think that's theother thing is when you are doing this
compassion work, you don't have tohave the big You don't have to do
the big thing like I moved someoneinto their house, or I bought someone
a bed, No, I gavehim a pad on the back and said
good job, or I'm here foryou, or how do you feel about
that divorce? How do you feel? Just my di Divorces Cup final,
Well, how are you feeling aboutthat? Feeling fucking great? It was

(51:23):
a shitty situation. I have afriend his divorce wasn't a shitty situation.
They went for divorce lunch and beersat a pub after their divorce, like,
and it wasn't like, hey,sorry about your divorces, Like why
was the best thing that ever happenedto? Was neither one of us wanted
to be married anymore to each other. We had our divorce license. They
took selfies with their divorce license,and we're drinking beer at a pub and
that's it. And they're still superclose and they're co parenting, So what

(51:45):
we might think of as a traumais actually a success, and we have
to change the way we think aboutthings in other people's lenses. Anyway,
Can I bring this down to alittle bit more of a granular because I'm
more the one on one changing someone'spath or whatever. One on one.
Danny's more systems change, and Ihave so much pessimism when it comes to
systems change, so I just kindof I just know I can't put my

(52:07):
energy there because then I would justbe disappointed all day. But what I
liked also about the terrarium exercise wastalking about the science and physiology behind self
compassion, because really, if youdon't have self compassion, because it's going
to start with awareness. And whenI do my presentations on wellness, I
say the word of Walln's probably awareness, probably fifty seven times, because if

(52:28):
you don't start with that, you'rereally not going to do much out in
the world. If you don't recognizethat you were super dysregulated and you're prone
to hyper arousal and you breathe terriblyin your mouth breathing, and you're always
in an agitated state, you haveto kind of bring that back to that
quiet center and see where you are. But then the math and science of
self compassion as particularly as related tothe window of tolerance, because that is

(52:51):
one of the ways to widen thatwindow is having positive self talk, not
having the shit talking, which Iwas really good at shit talking myself until
therapy and a whole bunch of workto point it out, and I mostly
quieted my ship talking, but Ihaven't really got the positive like, hey,
you're doing really good and you're reallypositive. I'm proud of you,
Bob, Like that's still a workin progress. But if you could talk
us through the self compassion for yeah, exactly no, And I think,

(53:15):
yeah, you folks have talked aboutwindow of tolerance on the podcast and it's
very something that's talked about in thefirst responder world for sure, and compassion
self compassion really does help widen thatin kind of make it more tangible as
well. Like you you have thatability to regulate when you are engaging in
self compassion, and so self compassionis really sort of has three sort of

(53:38):
concepts in it. The first isthat idea of mindfulness, that that awareness,
that self warness. So where amI at right now, and you
know, to not kind of dismissor bury your suffering, but to acknowledge
that and say, you know,this really sucks, and that allows you
then to do something about it rightSometimes, you know, in therapy they

(53:58):
talk about naming and claiming your painin that sense that if you never talk
about it, it just sort ofsits there in the room, But if
you can actually name it articulated,then you can actually do something with it
and transform it in some way.So when we think about self compassion,
we think about kind of that mindlessand our ability to recognize that we suffer.
The second piece is that you're notthe only one that suffers. That's

(54:21):
part of our kind of common humanity. Again, that the human experience is
not rosy all the time, andyou have not failed if things are not
rosy in your experience in some way. And so to recognize that, you
know, you're connected to this kindof common humanity, rather than being like
a pariah or isolated from that becauseyou're so bad or you've gotten it so

(54:43):
wrong, but to just acknowledge thatother people have suffered like this and some
people have gotten through it as well, or you know, worked some transformation
of it. You know, itmight not be curing of an illness,
for example, but peace at theend as you kind of move through a
cancer journey for example, that youknow is terminal. The suffering doesn't necessarily
go away, but you transform thatsuffering as you connect with family, make

(55:06):
memories, get things in order,et cetera in that way for example.
And then the third piece of selfcompassion is really this idea of self kindness.
And so, you know, theone phrase that is often used for
self kindness is are you treating yourselflike you would a good friend? So
oftentimes that voice in our heads it'smuch more critical when we're speaking to ourselves

(55:28):
than we would to our child orour grandma or someone that we really love
or care about, our friend.And so, you know, one of
the preeminent researchers in this space isKristin F doctor Kristin Nef, and she
often talked about talked about an experiencewith her child and he was kind of
having a meltdown at a playground,and she was being quite critical of herself.

(55:49):
But she thought, I would neversay that to a friend's child who
was having a melt down. Itwouldn't say you're such a bad mom,
you don't have things in order,and so she she started to reframe how
do I speak myself in a morecompassionate way. And the way that she
could train herself or help her tochange her language was to think about how
I speak to a really good friend, and that just changed how she showed

(56:13):
up for herself. And so whenwe think about engaging in these practices,
they have an effect on how weshow up, and they have an effect
on our physiology. And that mighthave been some of the pieces that resonated
with you, Scott, in thesense that we talked about the autonomic nervous
system, and of course that connectsto window of tolerance and hyper and hypo

(56:34):
arousal. But we want to createthis ability to kind of move through the
tough bits to instead of always justmoving to fight flight freeze mode, which
are those trauma responses, right Danfrom your research. We want to be
able to access that kind of restand digest state, that parasympathetic nervous system

(56:54):
where we are less anxious, wehave a greater sense of calm, and
that lowers things biomarkers like cortisol inour body, and that sort of thing.
And so when we engage in selfcompassion and we kind of move through
this sort of frame of what doesthis look like, it changes our emotional

(57:16):
regulation and also some of these physicalbiomarkers that affect how we show up in
the world as well. And it'sinteresting the thing about self compassion and compassion
for others, they're kind of twosides of a coin. Some people think
you have to have self compassion tobe able to have compassion for others,
and it certainly does help. Right, if you feel good about yourself and

(57:36):
you're you know, sort of inthis sense of contentment or moving through the
world with some ease, it issometimes easier. You feel like you have
more agency to show up for someoneelse in their own suffering. But if
you are having a really hard timeexercising and enacting self compassion for yourself,
one of the greatest things you cando is offer an active compassion for someone

(57:57):
else, and then you think abouttaking that pece and that energy and redirecting
it towards yourself, and that canbe a tool, kind of a hack
to help you increase or build yourown self compassion in that way. And
so so in that Terrarium Workshop,scot We worked through kind of these pieces
and we lay these foundations and thenwe layer in some you know, stones,
and we build kind of this garden. And when we engage in compassion

(58:22):
for ourselves, we're sort of buildingthis garden of our life that is not
without rocks, but we are intentionalabout the rocks, and we do something
with the rocks, and we movethe rocks around and then that sort of
thing. And so you know,for me, that is the nugget that
continues to draw me to compassion,the idea that it is about responding to

(58:45):
and moving through the grittiness of theworld. It isn't about eliminating the grittiness
from the world, but it's sayingit is gonna be like, there's gonna
be these things that happen and they'rebeyond my control, and do I let
them move me into the state ofdespair or do I approach that with this
kind of tool and power of compassionthat gives me hope that continues to move

(59:08):
me forward. And so you knowthat personally is sort of what fuels this
work for me because it's very realand it does connect to our lived experience.
That is not always rosy. Ithas kind of those bumps along the
way, those twists and turns,and it allows you to do something about
them personally and also to do thingsfor other people when that is their experience

(59:29):
as well. And the key part, I think is that what you emphasize.
So this is all the practice.It's not like you said, here's
your workshop. You're all good yourself compassion, You're totally compassion. It's
all. It is a constant likenoticing like, oh fuck, you're stupid
when you're talking to yourself like that, and going okay, now, I
got to reframe that a little bit, and I'm really good now because I'm
just deadly giving out advice after goingthrough therapy and having it pointed out how

(59:51):
I talk to myself when I hearsomebody saying negative and that's with him quite
a bit as well, I go, hey, just reframe that a little
bit, which then teaches me toreframe it to myself. If I find
myself going out and again back tohaving one kind of area where that doesn't
matter it's golfing, I will sayhorrible shit to myself golfing, and I'm
not changing. I don't care.That's just how it's gonna be well,

(01:00:13):
and I'm gonna go to a moreserious thing and it's something that I learned,
and it's just just gonna share thisjust because of what you're saying.
So I talked about my son passingaway early on it. We had to
make a decision at birth if theywere gonna revive them or not revive them.
So for years I have beat myselfup over this, Like for years,
it's been one of those did Imake the right quick decision? Did

(01:00:35):
we make the wrong and say allthat, And then someone told me about
rainbow babies, and so my daughteris a rainbow baby, so we wouldn't
have h if NICKI would have beenhere. And things happen for a reason.
And I've stopped beating myself up overthat, and I processed that all
through therapy. But I've started talkingabout myself compassionately about that, and I'll

(01:00:57):
even have conversations with my son Nikiin my head and and and it's it's
great. It's way better than beingI fucking hope I didn't make the wrong
decision. Because my wife works withwith individuals that have neural diverse kids,
and and she worked with one kidwho was had ccrubral palsy and he unfortunately
passed away when he was twelve.But I used to go spend time with

(01:01:20):
him and like i'd arm wrestle him, and I'm like, did I miss
out on this because of the decisionthat I made? And it's like,
you can't sit around and question yourdecisions forever and you made the right decision
and talk to Niki. And onecrazy thing that I will say that for
June twelfth, every single June twelfthfor twenty seven years, there's been thunderstorms

(01:01:42):
every single every single June twelfth fortwenty seven years. And we're always like,
because that was then, that happenedthe night of his birth, and
then every year after that, whichis super crazy, and we always say
that's Nikki coming to say hi,go so, but it's and it is
those you can do it with golfif you want or not, or you
can do with something serious. ButI was with the guy golfing that I've

(01:02:07):
never seen anybody mean to himself,and that golf with them a couple of
times. Great guy. I've neverseen anybody talk to this. I even
said I've brought up to him onthe golf course like three times, Hey,
have you ever heard of self compassion? His son was like, not
on a golf course. It's real, but it's it's so important and not
everyone's gonna be self copassionate all thetime. And that's the other thing.

(01:02:29):
If you've slipped, it's not overright. And if you start again,
you just how can I be afriend to myself next time? Yeah,
And the same thing with if ifyou're not compassion with someone that day doesn't
mean you've lost your compassion. Itmeans there's probably something going on in your
life that you need to probably lookat maybe, and maybe that's a hint
to be self reflective. But andyou go back to the first responders and

(01:02:53):
with to talk about compassion. Weteach people first aid every two to three
years. And ero point six percentof the population as heps zero point zero
zero six percent of the population outof HIV one point in time, two
point one seven percent of our populationhad COVID nineteen and where we're all wearing
masks. Ninety seven percent of incarceratedwomen and ninety five percent of incarcerated men
have trauma backgrounds. Why is thatnot a universal precaution? Like that is,

(01:03:17):
and the person besides you in thecar may have a trauma background too,
right, because lots of trauma outthere. And that goes back to
what Scott he says is everyone's doingtheir best right, And if if that
was a universe, if we startedtreating everybody we dealt with, and whether
it's medical policing, emergency, medicalservices, fire education, with that lens

(01:03:43):
that this person might be going throughsomething and let's be nice, we would
have a much better world. Youreally would. And I think another powerful
question that sort of sandwiches with thatis what is the unmet need? Right?
Just because someone has reacted or whateverdoesn't mean they're a bad person or
they're not worth anything. It's like, what's going on here? What's the

(01:04:06):
unmet need? And you can askthat question to yourself too when you get
sort of triggered or you know,ramped up, what's going on here?
Like, what's the unmet need?What's the gap for me that I'm trying
to fill in maybe this unhelpful responseor they're trying to fill in this unhelpful
response, And then we can kindof take maybe like a different route that

(01:04:26):
can help meet that need that youknow, that makes the change. And
so in some ways, those traumainformed care approaches are thinking about that potential
need that is sort of in thebackground or hidden away because of these trauma
experiences in the past and a lotof times that unmet need in dealing in
policing worlds is the need for someoneto care for someone. And they're using

(01:04:50):
that reactiveness as their armor to protectthemselves from anything, and that becomes the
way people function as they wear anarmor and to when you get through,
when you break through that armor onpeople, and both of us have been
able to do that, and someonedrops, they take their armor off,
and you sit and have a conversationwith a person who is a lifer or

(01:05:12):
who has done a bunch of timeor is still doing time, and you're
like, beneath this, this personis a fucking beautiful person. And I
think that the one interview did andI won't say the name of the individual,
is a homicide. And he getsout of the interview room, he's
like, that was one of thenicest people I've ever met, and they
just committed a homicide. And wehave to allow ourselves to the space to

(01:05:33):
be able to think beyond their offense. And I always tell people, And
that's the thing is the trauma ofoffending isn't talked about enough either, And
a lot of people have a lotof self hate for what they've done.
And some people say good they shouldNo, no, they shouldn't, and
they're not their offense. And onceyou get past that and you start to
see people and you tell them,I don't see you as your offence,

(01:05:55):
man, I see you as you. All of a sudden, you break
down these walls and you see thebeauty of people. Yes, they've made
a mistake, Yes they've done somethingfrimily. Yes they've paid. There's sixteen
years in prison. How much moredo we have to punish them. That's
an interesting reframe for me too,because I know in my work in healthcare,
we're you know, we're shifting languageto talk about a person beyond their

(01:06:16):
diagnosis. Right. You're not adiabetic, you're a person who lives with
diabetes, right. And there's ashift in that language. And to hear
you talk about that happening in lawenforcement and corrections as well, that yeah,
people are not just their offense.They're someone's child, they have a
life experience of some sort. Andhow do we see that fuller picture or

(01:06:36):
not lose sight of that picture becauseof this one particular quality or characteristic or
behavior. Well sure, Well,I'm just gonna say before we wrap up,
I just want to make sure becauseyou have a like you put on
presentations and workshops, I want tomake sure we get that on here because
I don't want to forget about thatfor sure. Yeah. So you know,

(01:06:58):
I love chatting with people about youknow, what's going on in the
organization and how might this work behelpful for a larger group or a small
group within that And oftentimes, youknow, we tailor a program to what
are people's needs, right, Laurensaid, I think self compassion would be
really important for this group, andso that's what we focused on with the
Terrarium workshop. Other people are moreinterested in kind of the family circumstance,

(01:07:20):
for example, and so what doescompassion look like in my family? And
how do I kind of regulate becauseso I can show up differently for my
spouse who happens to be maybe afirst responder or the first responder to show
up for my partner who's at homethat has to deal with me when I
come off shift, et cetera.And so yeah, we really tailor a
workshop to whatever context people are in. And so my website, Catalyzingcompassion dot

(01:07:42):
com has my contact details and peoplecould certainly reach out to me there and
we could have a conversation and thendevelop something that would be useful and meaningful
for their context. That's awesome becauseyou've done it a couple of times for
EPs with because you have the grantfunding, so how to cohort of people
go through that. And then youare recently at a wellness for our community
safety well being folks and got todo the terrarium exercise with that group and

(01:08:04):
I heard kind of the buzzing afterwardswhere people are so excited about and like,
yeah, it wasn't sure what toe'spect, this is way better than
I thought. Like again, you'rejust knocking those barriers down and kind of
open your mind being curious about whatelse is out there. Well, that's
great to hear. I always lovethat kind of feedback. And you know,
even the feedback, it's like,Yo, I'd be thought about this
piece to just continue to contextualize itfor people, because I really do think

(01:08:27):
there is a meetness and a weightto compassion that we just have to help
people understand that it's not this kindof fluffy, soft thing but can be
really powerful both personally and kind ofin this wider world that we move within.
Awesome, Awesome, just the samethings. We always say this before
I'm sorry. Anything else you wantedto add before we close up here?

(01:08:49):
No, I think that's great.This has been so wonderful to just have
this little back and forth and havesome of your insights as it kind of
layers onto what I do, andyou look relieved because when I talk to
you, when I invite these genresand you're like, okay, well,
what do I need to prepare them? Like you literally prepare nothing because we're
not. So you already know theanswer to all the questions because we don't
even know what we're talking about.So it worked out really good. As
always, just these are not theopinions of any place that we have worked.

(01:09:15):
These are our opinions alone. Thishas nothing to do with the place
that we work. This is thegive that caveat. Secondly, approximately consulting
my company and Twisted Oak Yoga,not Twisted Yoak. I called it twisted
the Oak the other day, andthat sounds like he's making eggs eggs.
Twisted oak. Do sponsor this andjust a housekeeper? Think if you like

(01:09:38):
it, hit the like button.It makes it more accessible to people.
That's that five star Spotify the GreatLub nice. If you do like it,
If you don't like it, wedon't want to hear from you.
We actually don't, and they justwant to like you acknowledge we are sitting
on three dy six land. You'rein threaty seven, right, You're in
Calgary. We are, Yeah,so we're on threty six and threaty seven

(01:09:58):
land and the they're the home ofthe Blackfoot in Calgary. DNA Soto Cree
may Te Inuit. Edmonton is thelargest Inuit population south of the sixtieth Parallel
set next to Ottawa. And Ijust wanted to say it's it was recently
National Indigenous Day and we had alot of conversations and I was at an

(01:10:20):
agency and Indigenous agency in Edmonton yesterday. We had a lot of conversations around
land acknowledgments, which I'm doing rightnow being canned, and how many of
them are just read off a pieceof paper. And I would like for
anybody who does land acknowledgments or thinksabout land acknowledgments, to think about it
from the perspective of history and fromyour heart, and talk from your heart

(01:10:40):
about it. That we are ina land that you know, was walked
long before we were here. Theyhad their own justice systems, The indigenous
people had their own justice systems,They had their own medical systems. They
used the medicines of the land.Which it's interesting as we're going as we're
going through medicine, we're going backto those medicines, we're going back to
proper diets, we're going back toall of these things. And we came

(01:11:00):
here as settlers and colonizers to thinkwe were going to teach the better side
of life to the individuals that werehere. And what we did was we
interrupted and disrupted several hundred years ofthe indigenous peoples. And what I think
is so cool is the resilience ofthe indigenous populations taking that back. So
I just wanted to end with that. All right, thank you so much,

(01:11:23):
love you, Love you too.