Invisible Wounds Conference -Season 3 Episode 13

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, as uh, we have Scott Johns and Dan
Johns and as you were telling their parents and the
art Brothers.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Dan I spent twenty nine years in the Justice assistant four.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Years in corrections, followed by twenty five years with given
to Police service.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
We have you retired last.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Year two years ago.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Two years ago wow.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Dan earned a master's degree in Applying Criminology at the
University of Cambridge That's not on terry owners and as
currently a PhD candidate and at Huntersfield University. He's also
the Chair of Justice Studies at Northwest College in Agua.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Dan is making a return to Invisible.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Willis Conference this year to share the uposite downs, the
experienced and administ journey of recovery, acknowledging the imports up
as family's pub and support.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Scott Jonas, who I left, was also a police officer
with given to.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Police service for over thirty years.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
He worked in numerous areas including control, crisis negotiation, policide
and child protection.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Scott has continuing his employee with the Edited Police.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Services of a civilian role as a wellness navigator in
the employee Wellness ranch, where he works to bring proact
of wellness activities and programmers to the fellow officers. Most reacingly,
Scott has been hired on as an instructor at Northquest
College How did that Happen? And he's an associate at
Tenth Academy as part of his wellness journey, Scott has

(01:24):
practiced yoga for over twelve years and became a yoga
teacher of about four years ago, with a focus on
trauma and foreign practice and mindful breath work. Scott has
been married for twenty nine years and has two grown boys,
and in his abundance.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Of free times, Scott is also the older which.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Twisted both yoga and wellness, and joins his brother Scott
on their regular podcast aptly named Justice on Justice and
other things Ladies of Gentleman Scott.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Joga and dar Joes.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
Thank you any much, Thanks so much. Yeah, this is
a really cool experience for us. We did this one
other time where we broadcast or did a podcast in
front of a live audience, live studio audience, which is
kind of a cool thing to say, even saying things
like in the show notes which sounds a little bit
loser ish, but it's still a cool thing. I like

(02:16):
to say a little douche. So we plan nothing, much
to the chagrin of our respective wives. We have nothing
written down. We have no real goals other than we're
going to kind of talk about our respective paths as
a hope to kind of prime you all, because what
we'd really like is if we get a bunch of
questions to us, you can ask us anything you want.

(02:40):
We have no feelings that can be hurt, so we're
very open. We're very open about our respective paths of
well being, so you can again ask us whatever. And
we also want to make sure that when we do
these podcasts, this is just him and I his opinion.
This has nothing to do with having the police service,
or nor quest or any other place that we work
in the half or work in the future. This is

(03:02):
just two idiots sitting here with microphones. And that's kind
of how the podcast started. It was his, two idiots
are going, you know, we talk like this anyway, why
don't we just start recording it? And that's literally how
we did that. And now we're into season three. I
think this will be our seventy sixth episode, seven seventy
seventh episode, and we have I don't know how many listeners.
I think there's something like thirty or forty thousand downloads,

(03:23):
but literally represented across the country in every state and
territory or theory province of territory. Half of the US
states have been represented, and like forty some countries. So
we were sitting actually having a beer the other day
and he looked at me, He's like, what the hell
is happening in Tokyo. I'm like, that's a great question.
I don't know what you're talking about. And somehow we
had had seventy five downloads in Tokyo within three days.

(03:46):
So how people are listening to it? I don't really
know why, because it is what it is. But I'm
gonna turn it over to you if you want to
start with your kind of background history, journey of well being,
and then I'll do the same after that.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, just talk about my career first. So in his
intro it says he has kids. I obviously don't really
honor mine as much because I didn't put that in
there because I do have kids as well, so I'm
a terrible parent. So I have a daughter who's thirty.
She lives in new Market, Ontario, and she's married to
her husband there and I have another daughter who's twenty
six and she is in Spruce Grove, Alberta. I am

(04:22):
forty nine years old and my daughter is thirty. So
do the math. But I do say that, you know, teenage,
I often say teenage pregnancy saved my life. I wouldn't
probably go to high schools to say that, but I was.
But I was a chaotic kid. In fact, when I

(04:42):
ended up working in the Fort Sskatchwan prison and then
later in the Max, I had friends that were incarcerated
in both those institutions. And that's kind of where I
went along the way. If I wasn't white, privileged whose
dad was a cop, I wouldn't be sitting here. I'd
be sitting in handcuffs and jail cell somewhere. Because I
got arrested on my eighteenth birthday for assault causing bodily harm.
Got little backdoor because who I was, And I totally
understand my privilege with that. But when I my wife

(05:06):
got pregnant and we just finished our thirty year anniversary actually,
and that changed my life. I started having to be
a grown up and not get involved in stupid shit
and run around carrying guns and running from the police
and doing the stupid things that my really long polygraph
showed up. And then I got into corrections and I
started in the Young Defender Center, which if I was

(05:26):
going to go into corrections, I would stay. I would
have stayed there. That's probably where I should have stayed
if I wanted to stay in corrections. But then I
moved to adult corrections, getting to the Fort Saskatch Cocrection Center,
then to the MAX. My wife did not want me
to be a police officer. I came home from the
Max after almost getting stabbed and said, I don't really
want to die in jail. And so when I applied
for police, they hired me miraculously, again probably because of

(05:49):
my dad, because even Scott he said one time I
won't say the name of the person, but he was
in a historical homicide and he calls me up. He's like,
do you know this guy. I'm like, hey, he's one
of my best friends. You know, he's the prime suspect
in this murder. I'm like, yeah, we all n me
did the murder. He's like, how the hell did you
get this job? Dad? But I had a really I

(06:09):
really enjoyed my policing career. But I also didn't realize
the impact it took on me until later. But just
I worked in Downtown Beats, Downtown Patrol, Downtown Beats, undercover operations.
I spent six months in a mister Big scenario since
six months infiltrating an organization. My wife did not like
undercover operations Gang Unit, where I became a court qualified

(06:30):
expert in Indigenous based street gangs. I left Gang Unit.
I went to a professional standard branch where I wrote
a wire tap on another police officer. And that was
one of the biggest learnings of my career as I
listened to two wire taps where I ran on a
street gang called the Indian Possum, and I never heard
a negative word said about me on those wire taps

(06:52):
with the Indian Bossy. I was always Dan this and
Dan that I ran a wire tap on another police officer,
and I wasn't Dan this and that, It was Rat
this and that, which is fine. And then I went
to homicide section, where that homicide section was a place
where I loved working, but it was probably I was
at my worst I started. I took a homicide file

(07:14):
that really affected me. A communative community of stress. We
all know about that, but it was one and I
went cool with the details of it. It was two
young boys that were involved in it, and it turned
me into this. I was the only homicide detective that
could work and I would. I literally said to my wife,
you will never be number one and number two or
number three in my life. The people that have experienced

(07:35):
homicides need me there. And if you can't understand that,
that's too bad for you.

Speaker 4 (07:40):
It's going to jump in there. So if everybody remembers
the show The Wire, and there's a character named MacNulty
who was just a raging alcoholic Danny wanted to be McNulty,
I'm like, I don't like that's what you should be.
A swiring kid.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
McNulty and the guy from Heat.

Speaker 4 (07:53):
Yeah, guy from Heat that worked.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
In Pacino had seven different marriages. So I'm not sure
where I got my ideology for for hero. But that
actually resulted in my wife and not being separated for
about eight months and me not being around my kids,
not because of her, because she called my mom and
said I'm worried about him, and she really wanted to

(08:16):
take care of me and I wouldn't let her. Sorry,
and then I left homicide section and got promoted to
watch him on her But in between there, I broke
my leg and the Creator does crazy things. And I
think he broke my leg on purpose because he made
me understand have to understand I needed to be vulnerable
and allow people to help me. And my wife, even
though we were separated, was driving me around with my

(08:37):
stupid broken leg and doing everything for me. And then yeah,
and then it was actually one of her friends husband's Warren,
who said to tear out my wife. You need to
tell that guy to shit or get off the pot,
like he either comes back home or And so I
went back home and things are wonderful. She's an amazing person,
and I realized that I needed help. It was sad though,

(08:59):
because she told me I need help, and I said,
I do not need help. I am perfectly fine. I
wasn't spoiler alert Morgan freementhly he was a person, you fo.
And then when I did get help, I was like,
don't tell anybody or I'll never talk to you again.
And then I did get help, and now I'm really
open about it. And then what happened was I went
through I left, I went through a different level of

(09:20):
stress in the organization. There was a certain chief of
police that really didn't like me because I'm really vocal
and I say a lot of things and I say
them publicly and I say them in the rooms, and
he didn't like me, and therefore the deputies didn't like me.
And then a new chief of police came and all
of a sudden, those deputies like me, And all of
a sudden, you're like this organizational stress where you don't
know the where the sniper rounds are coming from, not
from the people on the street, but from the internal things.

(09:43):
So at twenty five years I left and I went
to a place called Stan Daniels Healing Center, which is
an Indigenous healing center for adult man. I'm not indigenous,
let me be very clear, but I am very connected
to the community, and that's where I get a lot
of my healing from home.

Speaker 4 (09:58):
We did an ancestry or whatever, and we're on remarkably white.
I've done literally nothing. It's like a jar of mayonnaise.
That's why I'm back.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
Yeah, that's what actually what anterest you called this mayonnaise?
So I went to this place and it was a
great place and I met a lot of people there,
but it was going to ceremony with guys and then
sending them back to prison. And I started to realize,
you know what, I don't want to send people back
to prison anymore. And then I got this amazing job
at Northwest College. I became a full time instructor and

(10:29):
then the chair. But then I crashed. I'm sitting in
a meeting with my boss, who's a lovely person, and
everyone's nice there and my heart I get a pain
in my chest and my arm goes now. So I
wait till the meeting's over, and then I drive myself
to the hospital, as one would do if they think
they're having a heart attack. And it was my first
panic attack. I've never had that before. And so I

(10:51):
started going back to therapy and started doing MDR. And
I found something out about myself that I was in
chaos for a long time, and not being in k
became the tiger trying to kill me. And it took
me a little bit to regulate, and I'm still not
fully regulated. It's a journey. It's up and down. There's
no getting better, it's just getting better than you more
than a day before. And there's been times where I've

(11:13):
been super disregulated, and there's been times where I've been
super regulated. Right now, I'm pretty regulated and not gagging
or peruking or doing the things that come up with
my anxiety. But I've learned a lot about myself going
back through therapy, and I learned a lot about myself
when I'm out of the realm of first responding and
out of the realm of policing and in that academic
world where I get to kind of say what I

(11:35):
want to say without anybody kind of Well, there's people
that send things to me, but usually it's anonymous through Twitter,
because most people on those keyboards are pretty tough when
you don't know who they are. But you know, it's
been really great and it's it's a journey. But I
think it's really important that we talk about this journey
because there are a lot of people that suffer in silence.

(11:55):
I think, and statistically men more than anything else, because
we've been to build our lives. We have to be strong,
we have to be tough, we have to be this,
that and the other, and I think we haven't learned
or we haven't talked about the incredible strength that comes
with vulnerability.

Speaker 4 (12:12):
So our dad was EPs our uncle's EPs. Our aunt
was just civilian and calms like. We basically had no
other skills other than getting a paycheck from m to
police and nepotism is alive and well. So I started
in ninety three, and it's nice to do a presentation
like this to this room. I do recruit presentation. So
when I say I started in nineteen ninety three, most
of that room has wasn't born yet, so that instantly

(12:33):
makes me feel old. Ninety three, I was in patrol
like everybody, and then I went to downtown Patrol and
I walked a beat for a couple of years. Then
I got to go to recruit training unit where I
taught officer safety and firearm skills and I paused every sect.
That was one of my career goals, but it was
the universe putting where I'm supposed to be. Because fast forward,
and I'll talk about this in a minute, I became

(12:55):
a yoga teacher, and which I saw some people's faces
like what do you fucking talking about?

Speaker 5 (13:00):
It?

Speaker 4 (13:00):
You get teaching them? My I don't fit the bill.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
It expect you.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
You'd be leading a convoy for truck Yeah, yeah, totally,
But teaching somebody how to handcuff and breathing techniques. Was
the same as teaching warrior IWO and meditation. So it's
a cool kind of where I was supposed to be.
Then I went to professional standards or internal affairs. I
was a patrol sergeant. Then I got to go to homicide,

(13:23):
and him and I actually worked together in homicide at
the time I was there before and a half years,
very meaningful work, very high trauma saturation, very high energy
output on call. Like I have this garment now, which
I love my garment, and I just got it. I
had a fit bit before and it'll tell me because
we were our flight got delayed blah blah blah, like

(13:44):
usual travel stuff, and it's like you've had a very
stressful day. And I'm like, if this garment was on
when I was in homicide, it had probably caught fire
or just electric u to be to make me stop moving,
because it would have been a sleep score of four,
and oh my god, your body score is minus ten
and I think you're dead, Like no, I'm still good.
I'll just drink some boo and I should be fine.
That would have been the homicide way, and I didn't
realize like the language I use now, of which Carmen

(14:06):
used yesterday, which is lovely about nervous system regulation and
Polly vagel. That's the language I use now by saying
that I'm disregulated and I'm better than I was, But
it's still, like Danny said, a journey and I kind
of made a real point of looking after myself about
four to five years ago and really in the last

(14:26):
three because I watched our dad retire totally disregulated. I
watched Danny retire totally disregulated, and our uncle just regulated,
and I'm like, I don't want to do that. So
we go through all these tests to get me a cop.
We go, we get psychological testing and interviews and all
that physical testing. And I can tell you on the
other side of it, when you retire, nobody gives a shit.

(14:47):
And that's not a slag at Anya Emanton Police or
any other organization. The system is not built to check
to see are you okay when you walk out the door.
So I took the responsibility to think it's all of
our collective resks sponsibilities. There's organizational responsibility, but on our
own we have to figure out how am I going
to leave in the best way that I can, and

(15:07):
there's going to be changes because anything justice related, it's
going to affect your nervous system.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
But how do I do that?

Speaker 4 (15:14):
So after homicide, I went to child Protection. I was
a staff certaint there, which was again trauma saturated, but
was very meaningful and I always forget. I was on
the Police Association at the time for six years, and
then I was a crisis negotiator before homicide, and then
after homicide, then I became an inspector in HR zero
HR background, so I had no idea what the hell

(15:35):
I was doing. I was just getting ask questions to
take me four hours to answer because I didn't know
anything because I have to be on call all the time.
I became a critical incident commander, so then I did
that on the side as well, and then I was
very much dysregulated to the OLGU with a capital D.
I went from HR to Major Crimes as the inspector.
I don't really remember what I did there, and if

(15:56):
you ask my wife, she would just like, I just
remember you being really mad all the time. My nervous
system because of the chaos of where we were raised
and being a copper as long as I was really
really enjoys the chaos. I like conflict. I am happy
and comfortable in hyper arousal. So if you want to
have an argument with me or any you're my boss,
I am all ears. So I want to put my

(16:17):
forehead through that wall to teach you the lesson that
I'm going to teach you. As a fifty three year
old dude. Now, that's completely maladaptive and stupid. So I've
kind of learned that, excepting except for when I'm driving,
I'm a bad person when I'm driving. And these roads
are so fun to drive on because they're way wider
and there's way more traffic and I can drive off
storry George, I don't need to following me to the airport. Actor.

(16:41):
So then I went back to North Division after major crimes.
I thought that's a cool way to kind of wrap
up my career full circle and all that. I started
hanging around with patrol cops again and seeing the amazing
work that they do, and they were so compassionate and
caring and doing their best that it kind of filled
my cup. So uping in for Superintendent, I was fortunate
enough to get that, and I did that for a

(17:02):
few years. I just want to back it up though,
because I started to allude to some wellness praxes and
yoga being one of them. So I started practicing about
a dozen years ago because my wife basically told me
to and I'd heard my back and it wasn't there's
no wellness component to it. Is back to being very physical.
So I just liked the movement. I felt better when
I moved, and the breath work was starting to tie in.

(17:24):
I started doing deliberate cold exposure about eight years ago
after reading a book called What Doesn't Kill Us by
Scott Carney, and there was certain breath techniques there. And
then I became a yoga teacher about five years ago,
and then kind of deep dove into a whole bunch
of courses and training on trauma inform practice and breathwork
that is more activating my parasympathetic because I'm really good

(17:46):
at being sympathetically activated. I can hit that, no problem.
How do I intentionally and deliberately work on activating my
parasympathetic system and getting into that rest and digest And
I started teaching rut of the Gate. I taught Stan
Daniels when Danny was there, and then once he left there,
I got a gig teaching at an addiction center for
man in residential treatment facility, and then I also teach

(18:06):
yoga with cops and social agency partners. And it's just
been a really interesting and unanticipated path of well being
in that space.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
And then there's a parallel understanding of trauma that I
got working. It's actually interesting, totally not on purpose between him,
he and I. The research that I did with so
I went I was a very fortune. I got to
go to the University of Cambridge in England and that
was super weird. The research I did, it was actually funny.

(18:38):
My supervisor, Molly Slothauer, is an amazing, amazing human being,
and she became when she turned forty as my supervisor
and she'd already shut down Rikers Island in New York.
She is the criminologist for the City of New York.
She's an amazing woman. And she said to me, you
need to do something that you think is going to
change the world. Now I don't think I'm changing the world,
but what I got to do, I want to that's

(19:02):
want to be a prime minister. No, I'm just kidding you.
I got to do and I worked with the University
Alderd a prison project where we have interviewed eight hundred
incarcerated men and women in federal and provincial prisons and
we looked at the impact of trauma on the incarcerated
population and what we've what I've realized, what we've realized
through our research and we've written in several papers on it,
is we are incarcerating trauma. We ninety seven percent of

(19:26):
women in ninety five percent of men who are incarcerated
in those settings are victims of sexual violence and violence.
And when I do this in police audiences, I hear, yeah,
of course they're living hybrids at lifestyles. Well, the average
age that they experienced that victimization was nine years old,
so we're talking about adurg childhood experiences. And we went
to the Vonton Institution for Women. One hundred percent of

(19:46):
the institute Evanton Institution for Women were sexually assaulted. This
is a federal prison for women in Edmonton, sexually assaulted
and assaulted prior to their first attective offense. So my
understanding of trauma through my own lens and through the
other lens, but be also the lens of humanizing the
justice client is kind of my mission that I have

(20:07):
with the education that I do now and looking at
evidence based practices for police agencies. I have a company
I started, a Proximity Consulting that does that kind of
work with other agencies where we look at how do
you get trauma actually actually trauma informed understanding within your organization,
not just a check box, so trauma informed. So it

(20:29):
was a very interesting because we've kind of both gone
down this weird path of understanding trauma and understanding the
response to trauma that humans have, and it's we did
it by accident.

Speaker 4 (20:39):
Yeah, it's been an interesting parallel path because I'm now
a civilian with evan to police, working in and employee
an organization Willness and I'm wireless navigator, which is literally
just a term I made up. My boss is awesome.
I think she's actually watching right now. Shout out to
Donovan Rover, letting me do all the things I get
to do. So it's turned into we're having to police

(21:01):
service is very very good at the acute trauma, so
offer's wealth, shooting or highly traumatic events. Our employee assistance
people are fantastic. Our retegration people are like setting the
tone across the world. Actually, but when it gets chronic
and maybe those big TA traumas are small TA traumas
start to stack. Beyond going to see a therapist, we

(21:22):
don't have a whole lot and therapy played a huge
role in my well being as well. Emdr kind of
saved me at the end. It was one of the
modalities that saved me. So I'm not besmirching that, but
I wanted to focus on what do you do before
that all happens, so that as those grains of sand
or rocks start to stack, how do we kind of
squeek those off that weight and get that weight off

(21:43):
of us before we start to get overwhelmed, our nervous
systems get overwhelmed. So I made this job very intentionally
proactive where I want it to be that just think
as things we can do ahead of time. So my
wife and I had started Twisted o'kyoga and Wellmas and
we've been doing retreats for or since about twenty twenty.
I think we've done fifteen or eighteen of them. But

(22:05):
I got to do some cool stuff with them to
the police where I do presentations of an hour or
up to three hours long. That was internally and very
much like here's your nervous system, one oh one. Here's
what co exposure does, science base, here's what heat exposure does.
Here's some breath techniques that we practice. And that's then
morphed into having opportunities like this and this month. Last

(22:27):
week I was in Lauscasu, Saskatchewan, so Northern Subscatcheon for
a Saskatchewan Federation of Police Officers Willness conference and I
did an hour there and talking to a room full
of cops. You never know because I'm talking to the
cynic in the room, which is me, because I would
be sitting out with my arms crossbowing. Whatever broke you
in your reading shit, I don't care about it, but

(22:47):
so I understand that. So I think some of the
barriers get broken down. And I had a lot of
good feedback from the Sascatchean FOPES. And before that, I
was in Fredericton presenting at an RCMP integration course. So
it's been a very again unanticipated inter th path when
I do these as formal presentation like call this teaching
what I need to learn because I have not got
ship figured out. Just like Danny said, I still get disregulated.

(23:09):
I was really anxious about the Frederick trip. I don't
know why, but it was just all the logistics of
that risk kind of mucking with me, and my wife
kind of had to guide me through that. And then
I had no stress about Guauska Zoo and no stress
about this one. And this is the only one where
I actually had any travel issues. So it's just been
an interesting path. Like Danny says, very parallel, it's very
then diagramming. I think, because there is an overlap with trauma.

(23:30):
I just do my best and not focus on the
trauma so much, and here and provide kind of here's
a practical way that you can activate your parasympathetic system.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
Just one of the things in school. I hasn't mentioned
this yet, but wellness and fitness are there can obviously intertwined,
but for me, one of things. So about two years ago,
and I love that there's a couple of pups in
the room. About two years ago, I got a dog.
He's an informal trauma dog. My wife says, I have
an abnormal and an appropriate relationship with my dog. And

(24:02):
she says, like he's he's home without me right now,
and she's like she's she goes as much as he
regulates you. You regulate him like you guys have a
weird bond. But he I take him for walks and
I take him for about an hour a day. And
for a long time in my life, I couldn't do
anything without heads EarPods in. I was listening to podcasts,
I was listening to music. I was listening to you'd

(24:25):
name it, I'm listening to it because I couldn't be
alone with the thoughts in my head. It was a
scary place to be. I always used to say to people,
there's a good that's cool. Probably all heard it. You
don't want to walk a mile in my shoes a
boring take thirty seconds in my head, and you'll probably
find yourself either crying or screaming. But it took a
long time, and now I don't listen to music or
a podcast. When I walk in my dog, I take
him for an hour. I'm mindful of the sun, you know.

(24:47):
I take tobacco when I put it in the water,
and I talk to the creator and I do things
that are My wellness path is very, very diverse, from
going to therapy, from walking my dog to sitting in
the sun to you know, just spending time with my wife,
my kids, hoping for grand kids because I really really

(25:07):
like some of those. But then I look at what
I got to help with Scotti with and I'm not
sure if you were going to talk about two nine
o two nine, but Scotty just did this thing called
two nine o two nine, so he put club ears
for a second. I don't want you to hear this.
It's freaking and stupid, but at the same time, it
was really cool. He climbed Whistler Mountain eight times within

(25:28):
thirty six hours, and I felt like I had a
baby because I had to. I took a gondola to
the top, so it wasn't that hard for me. It
was kind of like when I actually had my babies
with my wife. I'd go to the hospital and it
wasn't that hard for me. But we had these babies
and she did all the work, but I'd get up
there and it was really cool because they climbed this mountain,
him and his good friend Kim and she also does

(25:49):
a bunch of stuff on our podcast in the background,
and they do this and they get up there the
first first one. I'm like watching people. I'm wait for them,
and I'm like I'm seeing people. They're sweating and huff
and I'm like, they're okay. These two come up, They're like,
I'm like, holy got you guys look great. Second round
same thing. I'm like, these guys look great. Third round
not so great. And part of was my fault because

(26:12):
I did that math and I'm on the gondola and
I'm like, hey, you do have fun and they're like,
oh my god, we're so far behind. And they weren't
behind it, but I just made them think they were
behind because I have. So I'm sitting up there and
I got this car. I buy their coffees and teas
and I'm I'm waiting. The coffees and teas are getting old.
I'm like, what's taking them so long? And when I
realized trick, I did that math and then we go
through the whole thing. But the craziest part for me

(26:34):
was he telepathically communicated with me through a text message
that didn't come so in the middle of the night.
I think that was around fifth ascent after the so
fifth percent, he's going up. It's middle of the night.
I'm going to bed and we have I'm like, you
guys got to get a hold of me. There was
a whole bunch of stuff where they were like, you
got to sit as an alarm for us. I'm like,
I don't know what time you're going to be at home.

(26:54):
I'm like, get'll hold of me when you get there.
And so I know and me and because his wife
Terry had a plan, we're gonna get up at this time,
I get a text message that says it's four thirteen
in the morning, we're on our way to the hill,
blah blah blah. So I'm like, cool, right on, So
I go wake up Terry and I set my arm differently.

Speaker 4 (27:08):
Terry.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
They we got on the hill at four thirteen in
the morning. We got to get to the top of
the hill. So I'm sitting at the top of the
hill waiting for them, looking for this text message. Never came,
but that's what time they went to go to the hill,
and I'm sitting up there. There would have been no
other way for me to know other than this mental
text message that came in that didn't exist. And I'm
sitting at the top of the hill going that's super weird.

(27:30):
So he sent me a telepathic message somehow, and I
got to the top of the hill, and I was
there at the right time and got to watch him
finish this amazing feat that they did and trained so
hard for.

Speaker 4 (27:38):
We kind of have weird twin energy, so that's not
out there that we got a telepathic message. So kind
of backing up a little bit what I've learned over
the last little while, and then I can continue to
take courses in is we are physiological creatures and the
big part of our brain was the last part in evolution.
So all the lower parts of your brain know when

(27:59):
they're stressed, and it's telling you a signal, and I
can't think my way out of that signal, nor can
any of us. Like we think, oh no, it's fine,
there's no reason for me to be anxious about Fredericton,
excuse me, So that means I'm not anxious, and then
it doesn't work that way. So the more I learn
about the physiology of stress and trauma, the more I go, Okay, well,

(28:19):
if there's I need to do something about it, then
I can't think my way of it. So usually to
do something is go over a walk, lift weights, run,
get sunlight on my face, see what my breathing is doing.
But it's back to awareness. So if we don't have awareness,
we're unable to change what state we're going on. So
when I do the presentations, I say awareness probably seventy times.

(28:40):
And then if anybody's read Emotional Survived of Law Enforcement
by Kevin de Martin, he talks about the ustas while
I used to pike, or I used to the garden,
or I used to ride horses, or I used to
and justice doesn't matter what role you're doing, and it
could be health, could be education. The use is fade
off and we get so focused and mired in what

(29:01):
we're doing for a job that it starts to cause
harm to us, Like the ladies are that one lady
in the video, which was such a huge statement about
like our jobs shouldn't lead to us ending our lives, right,
So I started going, Okay, well, I'm gonna try to
do something and put kind of a big exclamation point
on my policing career and have on our friend Kim

(29:21):
likes this word audacious goal. So the two nine oh
two nine that is the vertical feet of Mount Everest
two twenty nine twenty nine feet and they have events
across North America in the summertime and they rent a
ski hill, so we did Whistler and it was eight
per cents over thirty six hours. You started Friday morning
at six am and you have thirty six hours to

(29:42):
get up eight times and you goggle it down. Each
ascent has taken us about three hours and fifteen minutes.
And it was super cool. Like it was a difficult height,
but it was. There's so many lessons that I'm still
reverberating and it's only been a couple months, but like
it's sitting on a plane and the plane gets laid
I'm like, well, at least it's not raining. I'm not
walking up a mountain, right, And it was no big dealing.

(30:03):
You sent that Danny Sauce. That was the toughest one
where you're psychological and physically just rough after three for
maybe because we went two a little bit faster, but
I don't really know. It doesn't again that why doesn't matter.
There's a night hike, so you're hiking in the middle
of the forest and the middle of the night.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
That was a cent five.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
But we got some good coaching at the on the
hill and it's like on fifty three, surreal experience. I'm
walking through the mountains with the headlamp on, the only
thing I can see is that what's ever in front
of my feet, and then your senses get heightened at
what's around you. So again super unique went to sleep
for two hours and forty five minutes after a cent.
Five got up, six back in the dark, and then

(30:41):
it got light. Seven was rough, and then eight I
felt as good as I did on number one. So
it was just a really remarkable experience. And this is
not a body or a person who goes, yeah, I
did an ultra. It's not a sentence I ever thought,
because it ends up being fifty one one point two
kilometers and about thirty three thousand feet of elevation. So
then it's like, okay, well what else can I do?

(31:02):
Because I guarantee in here I'm gonna just make a
broad stroke statement. You all put limits on yourself of
what you can actually do, right. I did the same
thing because I'm like, there's not a chance in hell
I can make a fifty k I ran a marathon
I like thirty years ago, and I sucked. It was
five hours of torture. Now I'm like five hours, Like
that's no big deal. So it's just one of those
you are doing great things, and the work that you're

(31:23):
doing like so great things that the regular folks who
don't see the trauma, hear the trauma, all of that
don't understand, which means you can probably translated that into
great things for you. And I'm not saying you have
to go do an ultro, but maybe you're gonna do
the first time you do a five k, or you're
gonna start a podcast, or you're gonna learn to swim
or learn to paint, and it could be a creative

(31:44):
of it, but just starting to kind of get back
to I can reg them myself. I can't think my
way out of it. I'm gonna do something that's a
little bit audacious, a little bit bigger of a goal,
and push my boundary a little bit. One of the
impetuses for this two nine oh two nine was called
a twelve hour wat And a guy named Colonel Brady,
who's an adventure dudeis walk lin Everest a whole bunch

(32:04):
of times, and during the pandemic, he's struggling, goes to
a walk ends up being twelve hours and he realizes, oh,
there's something here, So we wrote a book about it.
And the premise is really simple. It is turn this
stupid thing off, the phone off, put on airplane mode
if you need to, and then walk out your door
for twelve hours and doesn't matter how far you could
be a kilometer or two or forty if it makes

(32:25):
no difference, and you can bring food, water, like it's
not a death march.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
You're not torturing yourself.

Speaker 4 (32:29):
But you think of how often you're interrupted by a
text message, a scroll, email, phone call, blah blah blah,
like probably every thirty to sixty seconds when you're not sleeping.
This was such a cool way to reset where it
turned Edmonton, where we're from, into like a museum that
I just had full access to. I went and walked around,
and I have all the time in the world, and

(32:50):
I would sit when I wanted to, and I would
walk when I didn't. And it rained a little bit,
and the danger signals my system was giving me for
the first four hours were crazy, like, oh my god,
your footstore, tomb store, it's starting to rain, all this.
And then after four hours it just shut the hell
up and I just kind of was living for eight hours.
It was remarkable. So highly recommend that and Danny did
a different version of that in gets Sound. So my

(33:12):
brother in law married a lovely lady from Getsund, so
Central BC in Northern Music and there was no cell
service there or Wi Fi like his total dead zone,
so he had no choice but to go over a
walk without headphones. And that was I think the start
of that for you, where you had no choice.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
I said.

Speaker 4 (33:29):
He was kind of like the village idiots who thought
he was security for the camp because they'd be just
walking in five in the morning, like what you're doing.
I just couldn't sleep, like okay, So he's walking around
the forest and it was ridiculously beautiful, and it was
that start of just unplugging because it's so hard. I
still look at this thing way too much. This is
not me sitting on high I scroll way too much.
And later on the airport, that's all I'm going to

(33:49):
be doing, but seeing if you can put that away
and just start to find the edges of comfort and
discomfort in your nervous system so that you can start
to figure out and be more aware of what your
system needs.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
And it was funny because when he does his everest thing,
I'm like, everyone needs an Everest and I was very
fortunate in my life boxing. I know, I don't look
like a boxer. I look like a punching bag, but
I used to look like a boxer. Boxing for me
was was was my thing. I did martial arts as
a kid for I have probably fought for it. I

(34:23):
think I fought competitively from the time I was about
ten years old till I was about twenty seven, and
that was my everest. And it's interesting because the importance
in the connection I have with that community also becomes
a wellness thing for me. And now one of the
things I get to do, which is I think the
coolest thing, one of the coolest things I've ever done
in my life. I'm a boxing analyst on Fight TV

(34:44):
and b XNG and I get to go in the ring.
I get to analyze the fights. I don't know if
anyone here know who Scottie Olsen is. That boxer he
went to the Olympics for Canada. He was the Canadian
flyweight champion. I got to honor him with a Lifelong
Achievement award last weekend. And Julina Mgenovitch, I don't know
anyone knows who she is. If you don't you should.
She's probably one of the most the best boxers in
the world, and she is the most pedigree female boxer ever.

(35:08):
Got to honor her as well. And you get to
be in part of these and opening yourself up and
just getting away from that different communities and just the
And one of the things that I find that we
do is first responders is we sometimes when you talk
about limit, we limit our circles. We limit our circles
to be circles of people that know what we've gone
through and know what we've done. And I watched that

(35:28):
we grew up with it, Like everyone was at our
house when we were kids. They were all cops. Now
I do that on purpose where I go to spaces
and places like in the boxing world and guess what,
there's some people in the boxing world that probably went
to jail, but I still like them, they still like me.
And I think that's an important thing, is that we
we surround ourselves with different people. And that's kind of like,

(35:49):
none of this. We don't know the answers to shit.
We're just too I'm a fat like he used to
be fat. Now he's doing old truths and we're just
But the thing is and that's one of the reasons
we started this podcast. And we had one of the
greatest compliments I think of it, and I think it's
made it worth this entire thing. One of the individuals
that both of us are connected to said he was

(36:10):
suicidal and he listened to our podcast and he felt
he wasn't alone. And that alone, that one compliment, that
one comment, that one thing was like, all of this
is worth it. And yeah, it's just one of those
things that's a journey, and I think it's nice to
talk about it openly because a lot of people are
unable to do that or they don't have the space
to do it. So that's kind of one of the
things we do here.

Speaker 4 (36:31):
So you haven't figured out, we can just drone on
and on for seventeen more hours if you want to,
but we do want this to be interactive, so if
anybody has any questions or comments, we would love to
have that dialogue. God, a quick question, was the age
differ between the two to three years worth three years apart?

Speaker 2 (36:51):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (36:51):
And did your older brother going against the police force
that influence.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
You he's the older brother.

Speaker 4 (37:01):
Just chickens.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
Yeah, so we actually come from a police family, our folks. Okay,
just asking about just to make sure it gets on
the podcast. Are we just asked about how what the
influences was for us for doing the police service. So
growing up, we grew up with our dad who was
a police officer. He was a police officer for twenty
eight years. He is probably one of the most proud
people I know who's done this job. Like he loves

(37:27):
this job to this day. He thinks like a cop.
And watching him grow up, he was our he was
my hero. He was I think your hero growing up
and he was our hero growing up and watching him
do this job and seeing what he did. Scotty got
into it first. I decided I was going to go different,
wrote my wife didn't want to do this, so went
to corrections, then went to Edmonton. And we also had
an uncle that was a police officer and an aunt

(37:48):
that was a dispatcher. So it kind of seemed like
the only thing for us to do.

Speaker 4 (37:52):
And I get to say, like, as a retire guy,
now I love my job, like it less of scars
and marks. But I think sometimes we go to conferences
or listen to folks and I'm not smirching anybody here
but I've been to them. When you're like, it's kind
of dark and stormy, there's dark and stormy times. But
I would do it again if you took me back
in nineteen ninety three. I don't want to do it anymore,

(38:13):
but there's really no other job I wanted to do.
It was it exceeded all my expectations, Like the life
experiences I had, the people I got to meet was
so great. And rank not uithstanding because actually I probably
had more fun at the lower ranks than I did
the high ranks. But it was a remarkable experience. And
now and again it's put me where I'm supposed to
be because I can sit in front of a room
full of first responders and go, hey, here's my path.

(38:34):
I don't look like the typical person talking about this,
But to Danny's point, I think that's our responsibility because
as men, we kill ourselves at three times the rate
of women. At first responders, I think it's three times
a rate of general population four. So whatever we're doing,
we're doing it prong So if we can have a
conversation and one person goes, hey, you know what if
those two idiots can talk like this and get some help.

(38:54):
I will get some help too. It makes it all
worth it, stated question.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
Yeah, share wellness and here people who.

Speaker 6 (39:12):
Are posed to that.

Speaker 7 (39:15):
How you navigated that in a way?

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Why? So the question was how do we navigate being
in spaces where people don't share the same value as
a wellness that we do?

Speaker 4 (39:25):
So that's a great question. First of all, my contrarion
nature really enjoys that. Yeah. I was really lucky enough
to do presentations to all of our patrol officers, which
is about six hundred people in the spring. I co
presented with a wonderful person named Comfort of Dana Saint Germain,
and we did a three hour presentation on wellness and
it went better than I expected. I thought if fifty

(39:47):
or sixty percent of the cops got something out of it,
were kind of winning. It was around eighty five to
ninety because we did a pre survey and a post survey.
But the ones who were not interested were not interested,
like they basically would have been sitting at their arms cross,
give me the finger, not interest at all. But I
kind of start out with Okay, this day's mandatory, so
right away you have a barrier, and again I'm talking

(40:07):
to myself sitting the room, because I would be that
person if all we say is bullshit, all good, have
a muffin, have a coffee, and just sit there. I
don't care.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
It's fine.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
But by the end of it, most of that kind
of got pushed away, with the exception of a few
really negative comments. But I also look at it. Those
are the folks who need this the most, right, like
they just don't know they're back to the awareness. The
ones who are like this is all bullshit are the
ones who are most disregulated. And we would get some
mean I call them mean tweets like the Jimmie fallon
or whatever. And I have a part of my presentation

(40:38):
is on negative bias, and we're hardwired to be like that.
That's what keeps us safe. And it's so easy to
slip into that in policing, in particularly that's my background,
but any first responder space. So I would have my
slide and go, if you're telling me that everything I
say is garbage and everything Dana says is garbage, and
I pointed to slide, this is you. You're the negative

(40:59):
bias in that. So you can see them almost prospering like, well,
fuck you. Then I'm not even gonna send you a
comment anymore. I'm like, okay, no whatever. So I hope
I'm basically looking at it like I'm planting a seat.
Maybe it takes, maybe it doesn't. But to Danny's point earlier,
when you a lot of times in our policing culture,
we think we're gonna leave this really really busy job,
I'm gonna go from homicide to whatever to something that's

(41:21):
not busy. Our nervous system will still stay in that
state unless we do something to metabolize and move that out,
whether that's cold or therapy or whatever, whatever the modality is,
our system won't be a For me. It was a
reverberation when I went to major crimes because I had
not dealt with the whatever fifteen or sixteen years of stuff.

(41:41):
So when I say it's all good to wall just retire,
then I'll be better. You might not unless you've done
some work, and you've got to be really intentional what
that work is. And then I hope that just sticks
with that person who's thinking this is all stupid.

Speaker 3 (41:54):
And one of the funny things too, is Scott he's
the internal helper and I'm the external helper. Which means
that I didn't do a lot of stuff to help
EPs members. I did a lot of stuff to work
with gang members and sex workers, and they would be like,
fuck you Jones, and then seven years later call me
and say, hey, can you be my parole condition? Which
is one of those things that's it is. It's planting

(42:15):
seeds with the people that don't want to listen. And
it's interesting because my circle, if you actually looked at
my circle and said this guy was a was a
cop and he if you look at my phone, I
talked to more lifers and former inmates and stuff than
I do people I worked with. And that's just for

(42:35):
whatever reason. And I know the reason. My therapist told me.
My therapist told me my nervous system meets their nervous
system because he I'm patting my brother for people that
don't see this on the radio. He was a good boy.

(42:56):
I was fucking running from the Pope pole in the
mall when I was fifteen years old. So my nervous
system meets the people on the streets way differently. And
actually had they did a podcast with a very dear
friend of mine, Melissa, and she was a gang member
and a sex worker and now she's been sober for
twenty years and she works at a poundmaker's healing lodge.
She's an awesome person. But she said something and it

(43:18):
was an interesting compliment, And I had two compliments since
I left policing, and she said, talk about live experience.
Dan was in every one of those drug houses with us.
He sat there, he had his feet up on the
coffee table, drinking soda pops out of the fridge like
he was part of the team. And then I had
another person come to me and who's brother's a lifer
And this is the weirdest compliment ever. And the compliment was,

(43:40):
Dan is the only police officer I know that could
walk in and stay in general population in any federal
prison if he ever got arrested. And I'm like, well,
that's so sweet.

Speaker 7 (44:00):
You have a mission to go and talk to the
ones that are our sub front.

Speaker 8 (44:08):
For the recruit that is coming straight out that as uh,
you know, their superhero cape and the world.

Speaker 7 (44:21):
What is your strategy in communicating with the imports of
self care, your commutators superhero what's your strategy.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
Overcoming a bias? So the question is, what's the strategy
to overcome the bias of the superhero cape on a
recruit when they're coming in at the academy, and how
do we talk to them about their wellness?

Speaker 4 (44:46):
So I'm fortunate enough I get to do recruit presentations
and I am doing one tomorrow at seven am. Yeah,
it's terrible planning. What I kind of started with is
I talk like I talk, and I actually swear quite
a bit more when i'm because I'm kind of be
I saw there's a little one in here. So I'm
trying to not swear as much as I normally do
because this is how I've talked since I was twenty

(45:08):
one years old. So I'm just being myself. So I
start out with like this is me, and I start
out again with I love my job for the most part. However,
here's some kind of the small a advice because I'm
a little reluctant to give advice. But the advice would
be have a wellness plan now or whatever you were
doing when it got you here. So we hire diverse folks,

(45:30):
and oftentimes when fruit training programs kind of puts them
into a blender, turns them and everybody comes out as
a green smoothie. Keep you were hired for you. You
be you, So trying to do your best to anchor
to your authentic self is b or there is a
because when you start to lose your authenticity and try
to be something or not, that's going to cause a
lot of internal stress and stress on yourself. Second one

(45:51):
is whatever, it's easy in recruit class to work out
because they pay you to work out. You get to
go for your hour and all that you need to
keep that up and whatever it is that you'd like doing,
keep doing that and then explore those boundaries and it
could be as an example, my kids are in their
twenties and they started going to climbing gyms. So they
asked me, Hey, do you want to go. I'm like, yeah, sure.

(46:11):
Just spoiler alert, this is not what goes to climbing gyms.
Like I'm old and I'm tall, and I'm heavy, and
they're tiny, little spider monkey kids going up the wall
in two seconds and are twenty one years old. But
I said, the cool thing about that is it's bilateral movement.
So move in your hands and feet on that hill
or on that wall, and you have to work on
your breathing. And it's just scary enough that you focus

(46:33):
do those kind of things and again finding that edge
of comfort and discomfort, which is what I actually learned
in a yin teacher training from a wonderful yoga teacher
and she's like, find that edge of discomfort and constantly
with that. And then the other one is we've already
kind of talked about, is don't get so insular that
all you do is hang around cops, keep those external

(46:54):
folks around you, because yeah, it's sometimes hard, well, oh,
you know, they don't know what it's like, and then
teach them what it's like, and then it kind of
keeps that you humanized to what's out there. And I
think you should do the reverse asshole theory policing because
that's the other one we talked about you do at drop.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
Yeah, so there's two things. The reverse assole theory of
policing is a perfect one. The other thing when you
us do and I do it with did it with
recruits when I was in that space, but I also
do with my students is I make them write a
letter as to why, write a letter as to why
you wanted to do this, and then look at it
everyone in a while, because you're gonna forget and you're
gonna you're gonna find yourself the ways away from it.
But the reverse Assho theory is you take a Maslow's
hierarchy of needs and you kind of put it upside down,

(47:31):
and the top of that pyramid is the big wide
thing is when everyone starts pleasing, and it's I want
to help people, and most people are good, and it's
that's you. Everyone says that, Everyone who's applying for a
police service anywhere says I want to help people. And
then it drops to the next level, which is in
you know, one to two years, where only cops because
only we weren't shift work and no one knows about
how hard we work and the stuff we see. And

(47:53):
then it goes to only my division. And Edmonton Police
Service has six divisions, and I went through all of
these phases. I was in Downtown Division, and I actually
was in Downtown Division when he came to Downtown Division,
and I'd already been into this thing, going, yeah, you
came from North Division where they don't know how to police,
and we're gonna teach you how to be a cop Downtown.
He'd been a cop for three years, longer than me.
But I thought I knew more than him because our
division was better. And then you drop down to only

(48:13):
my squad. And that's where when I was a West's
Division watch comander, I had Squad one and seven and
they hated each other. Squad seven didn't taken a Squad
seven was a bunch of glory seeking losers, and Squad
one was a bunch of lazy people. And then it
goes down to only my partner. And I was with this.
I had a partner in Downtown Division. It was a

(48:34):
super unhealthy relationship. We wouldn't even take breaks with other people.
We would just go get coffees and we'd leave the
windows down so we could listen for bad things, and
we have our good arms out the window, looking deadly.
And then the sad part goes. It goes down to
isolation only me, And that's where that four to one
ratio comes for four cops killed themselves. For every single
police officer who's flown, he's only murdered in North America.

(48:55):
And that statistic isn't actually on the rise. I think
Chicago at one point in time, a couple years ago,
it was at about a seven to one ratio. And
then you've got to find your way back. And I
talked to members about that, any member who came. When
I was in Snargent Downtown Division, all my new members,
I sat into the reverse househole theory of policing and said, wow,
you know this now, don't let yourself fall into that place.

(49:15):
And that's one of the things like no one told us.
No one told us that this job was going to
leave scars. No one told us that you were going
to wake up at night in sweats having bad dreams.
No one told us that there are going to be
times where you're looking at that gun and you're thinking
about putting it into your mouth because you were ready
to end it all and you think the world would

(49:36):
be a better place without you. And I've been in
that place, and I think we need to tell people
that these are the potential risks and here's what you
need to do. And that wellness plan is huge, and
understanding the potential risks that are out there and knowing
that you have people that you can lean on and
finding those people that you care about and care about
you for authentic reasons.

Speaker 9 (50:02):
Oh okay, you mentioned earlier how you would be you
know when you became with some of the guys and
then to get employed in prison, and you're like, I,
I don't wanna do that anymore.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
Now obvious you were a lot of.

Speaker 7 (50:20):
Pleasing by that.

Speaker 6 (50:21):
But us, Prime Minister, what is he a part problem
for you than h personalities?

Speaker 3 (50:33):
So the the question is ask Prime Minister, what options
do I see apart from prison? So here's a SOH
who in the room knows who Harold Johnson is? Harold
Johnson is was? He was a He was a he
was a person I had a lot of respect for.
He wrote several books, Piece and Good Orders, one I
would recommend everyone. And Harold Johnson said, we don't have

(50:57):
a crime problem. We have an alcohol problem. He said,
I never prosecuted a single sexual assault where alcohol wasn't involved,
and I never I prosecuted one homicide where alcohol wasn't
a factor. And I would say alcohol and drugs. And
if you look at the success rate for alcoholics anonymous
is about eight percent. If you look at the sex rate,
success rate for a narcotics analysis it's about six percent.

(51:20):
And if you look at the success rate for force treatment,
it's about two percent. Harold Johnson had a thing called
Camp Hope in Montreal Lakes in northern Saskatchewan where it
was land based healing and it was a success rate
of seventy eight percent. It's about changing the way we
think we're we're incarcerating trauma. And don't get me wrong,
I'm not saying people should not get be held accountable

(51:42):
for the things that they do, bigcause they should. But
that accountability hard. You know what's harder is sitting in
a room and looking at your having a restorative justice
with your victim. And I've seen, I've seen amazing things
come out a restorative justice. Yes, do we need prisons.
Do we need prisons to the level that we need
them right now? I'll use an example, and I'm not

(52:03):
going to say his name, but I have a friend
of mine who got caught up in something. It was
a file, and it was in twenty seventeen. I think
the rest were made. It's now twenty twenty four and
he's going to be going to do two and a
half years in federal prison, or two years and a
bit in federal prison. Well over that time, he's now
working concrete, he's taking care of his family, and now

(52:26):
we're going to put him in prison and his family
is going to suffer. And this it was drug dealing
and alcohol. There was no not like drug dealing is
not a victimist crime, but it was no violence into it.
But I think what we need to start doing is
looking at what we do when we incars rate people.
There is no rehabilitation really in corrections like when I

(52:46):
was in there, and it's tough, and it's tough on
the correction officers because they're understaffed. There is not enough programming,
and there needs to be different things to look at
different things. And if you're looking at that trauma piece,
and I'll use policing as an example. When I started
in pleasing, if you went off on an injury for
a psychological injury, you are likely not getting into a

(53:08):
specialized unit. That's changed policing, And there's research that shows
that policing has started to see and show quarter to
individuals who have mental health injury as a result of
post traumatic stress or policing, but it hasn't extended out
to the community where policing has gone, well, this person's
probably gone through something because we haven't educated them though,
because we still have us versus them. Everyone's a threat

(53:28):
mentality and I think we need to change the way
we train. I think we need to change the way
we interact, and I think we need to change the
way we incarcrate. And our incarcerating for a punishment does
nothing because that person's eventually going to get out. And
some of the guys I've seen, like I have a
friend who went into jail at fifteen years old. He's
now forty two. He's never been out of prison. He

(53:50):
was given a life no parle for six and a
half years. He was put in an adult prison at
fifteen years old. He was a put an adult reman
center at fifteen years old. He is one of the
most positive people I know, and he's when we've actually
asked him to. He's worked with at risk youth and
he's done amazing things. But we still won't let him
out of prison because he killed someone when he was fifteen.

(54:10):
The system continuously perpetuates these individuals being in there, and
specifically when it goes to indigenous populations, there's been a
fifty three percent increasing the incarceration of Indigenous people in
the last ten years in this country. That's with the
inception of things like glad You. We need to change
the way we do things, and that's really hard because
change is hard, and it's hard to change your mindset
and it's hard to go. Maybe this person isn't bad, right,

(54:32):
and it's hard because there's emotions that go with it.
But I would say the vast majority of people aren't bad.
They do bad things. Like there's some bad people out there,
like Robert Picton, Yeah he's no longer around. That's a
bad person. Clifford Olsen, bad person. But some of these
other people, like I had an individual column me, he's
on proll right now. This last two weeks ago, very
visibly Indigenous riding his bike home from work while he's

(54:53):
some guy walking his dog spits in his face while
he's riding his bike passed him, and my friend yelled
at the guy but didn't do it any because he's
afraid to go back as a parole. But society also,
we have we have seemed to tacitly approve racist behavior
in society now, and it seems like it's become more
and more common. And I think we just need to
change the way all of us think. And this is
me my rose colored glasses again, thinking that we can

(55:16):
change the world and be better to each other and
start and and that that includes in prison and and
setting up. Like if you look at the Danish system,
it's not perfect, but it's different, and I think we
could look at some of those other systems and think
we could possibly do better. Comments that.

Speaker 7 (55:37):
Get yours at different times as well.

Speaker 10 (55:48):
In your ole parents wanted for any of your own.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
Days, So the question is would policing be something we'd
want for our own kids.

Speaker 5 (56:00):
No.

Speaker 4 (56:03):
My oldest boy is a peace officer with Alberta Health
Services and he works in a hospital, but I think
he doesn't want to be a cop and that makes
me happy. And my youngest he in Edmonton. They have
like a school resource officer thing where they take a
young folks through and kind of put him through like
a mini recruit class. And he is very much like me.

(56:24):
So he's a contrarian by nature. And he came back
from that event and was like, fuck that, I'm not
going to something where they tell me how to walk
him out marching. That's ridiculous. So he's way too contrarian.
But he works in the addiction center where I teach
you a gad as well. They're both really good boys.
But here's why I don't want them to be cops,
and again I would do it again. I don't want
to do it anymore. Part of it is the expectations now,

(56:47):
I don't know what you're supposed to do as a cop.
Right when we started, if there's a dude passed out
on a bench in downtown, the expectation is we, hey, dude,
you can't stay here trying to move on? Can I
get your ride somewhere? Whatever? Now half the people want
you to move that guy along, the other half are
filming and going, why are you bothering him? He's not
doing anything? Like, there's so much gray. I don't know

(57:08):
what the expectations are. I don't know what society actually
wants from their police. Because you'll see, like during the
defund the police movement and detasking, the issue became world.
If you ask any cop going, hey, do you want
to keep going to mental health calls? The copa goes no.
Somebody also wants to take those fill your boots. But
the dehumanization is what happened during that detasking defunding because

(57:30):
it was basically all cops, anybody in uniform, you're a
piece of shit. We went from being first responders and
let's all celebrate COVID George Floyd gets murdered and horrible event,
and the person who killed him should be in jail forever.
But then that ended up coming across to all of us,
right like if a teacher in whatever Huntsville, Alabama commits
a sexual assault, everyone's not going we should get rid

(57:51):
of the Edvonton public school system, in the Catholic school system.
But for some reason it's an idiot cop. Is something
stupid south of the border or in Canada, that means
all cops are bad. And that just started to weigh
too heavily on me personally and him as well because
he took a lot of that heat when he was
still on. So I'm a long answer. I'm happy both
my boys are not interested in being cops.

Speaker 3 (58:13):
I agree with that, And for me, I still think
I have two daughters, and I still think there's policing
and the systems have a long way to go with
how women get treated in those spaces, and it's not
just pleasing up. My daughter was working at Bell and
some clown came downstairs at stairs and literally said, oh,
I just wanted to look at the new meat. Literally
this was like five years ago or eight years ago.

(58:35):
My daughter being my daughter, I think told him to
go do something. I'm not going to say because there's
children in the room. But yeah, no, it's a tough job.
At the same time, when people ask me, and I've
had several people because I teach people and they asked
me as a job that I should do, I'm like yes.
And I also really like when the students in my
class that are different in a good way and they're

(58:58):
interested and it's like, yeah, pleasing, he's a little bit different.
We can't hire like Scotty says, they put him in
a smoothe and they change him. And that's true. But
if you maintain who you are, and that's the I
think the way we change policing is by getting people
with different mindsets in there, different understanding of the system,
different levels of compassion. And I think that word has
not used enoughing in in justice, law enforcement and first

(59:19):
responsing responding at all.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Like there was.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
Child welfare workers in a city in Alberta that made
shirts that said professional kidnappers, Like where's the compassion in that?
I think that's one of the things that we need
to do is look at compassion as a competence and
if if people ask me, should my kid be a
police officer, I'm like, I will sit down and let's
have a real conversation and if you think you're ready
for it, then you should do it. But neither one

(59:45):
of my daughters had any interest in it. My oldest
would be probably in trouble if she was a police
officer because she's like me, and my youngest is too nice.

Speaker 4 (59:57):
And just to add to that, I didn't dissuade my
boys from udin. I was like, this is the realities
of it. And to Danny's point, earlier, no one told
us the kind of effects it was going to have.
So I my oldest boy went through a justice program
at Grant McEwen in Edmonton, and I'm like, okay, just
so you know, this is what policing is, like, this
is what you expect. You do you But he's a
really kind, sweet person, which again policing probably needs more of.

(01:00:20):
I would just be worried that it was going to
cause substantive harm to him as a person. The youngest
I would be less worried about, but it's just that's
not his past. So I was never going to do,
not be a cop. I don't want that to happen.
I was like, this is the reality what it's like.

Speaker 7 (01:00:36):
Before I ask you a question, I just have such
an incredible innersion.

Speaker 10 (01:00:40):
Between two you you probably would have wanted as members
when you were related.

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
Regardless like the fact that you are to thank you, great,
great story, it's great. A lot of harm from asking.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
My question is for you, Scott, it's.

Speaker 7 (01:00:58):
Not often we hear your officers lead the job and
to the job. As a civilian.

Speaker 10 (01:01:04):
IMPERTI space really cious space to have an opportunity to
reach both forward and with your membership.

Speaker 7 (01:01:13):
How does that impact your ability.

Speaker 10 (01:01:16):
To ship culture and at points sort of religned and
thinking the way that we need to create your work places.

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
So the question is basically, how does it align with
or Scotty being a former senior officer and now being
a civilian to change culture and the space he's in.

Speaker 4 (01:01:33):
Now, that's a great question. Thank you. So I had
this put to me very early on in this new
job as a wellness navigator, and it was from a
individual's kind of disgruntled and maybe rightfully so I don't know,
and he was like, we need to change leadership and
the white shirts. That's what we call senior officers need
to change their perspective. And my answer, initially and still is,

(01:01:56):
is well, I already failed that. Honestly, I had these
conversations and I was sitting in the room, and I
think how this path ended up me landing here is
because off the corner of my desk, I was already
having those conversations about wellness and doing one on ones
with people and starting to teach breath work and guided
imagery and preparing people for that. And Danny is a

(01:02:16):
systems change outlook like he has rose colored glasses that
all the systems are changing. I decided a long time
ago I can't put my energy into a system's change,
but I can put my energy into changing one person's
idea at a time. So that's all I've done. So
I was asked a question in the superintendent process, and
it was a really good question during the interview, and
they said, well, how do you define success? I'm like, oh,

(01:02:38):
that's so complicated and simple. So I said, I can
answer you with like data and logic models, but that's
not authentic to me. So here's my answer to that, is,
if throughout the day in my interaction with another human being,
was it a positive for them and me me secondary
or was it a negative? And if the positives outweigh
the negatives, I've won the date. That's my only definite success.

(01:03:01):
And that could be the lady who hands me my
coffee in the morning to a member coming to see
me who's really kind of struggling. So if I get
more up arrows and down arrows, that's kind of it,
and I hope that just kind of reverberates out. And
then again, a class of fifty people recruit class. If
five thinks this is stupid, but twenty think it's pretty cool,
then I think that's how it kind of starts to change.

Speaker 7 (01:03:27):
I have the persons class. That's very sorry. My lass
is Danny the gross guys about my resolution.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
So the question is do Scottie and I ever get
heated because I have rose colored glasses and he's a conrarion.
Actually the answer is really much. Know we have the
ability to kind of discuss these things at different levels.
He will tell me, yeah, you have those colored glasses,
and it's not going to change, Like he'll say all
the time, spoiler alert, You're not changing the world. But

(01:04:17):
at the same time that to me is it's a
bit of a challenge. Like, again, do I think I'm
changing the world? No? Do I think I've had an
impact on certain things I do? And you know, and
I say that because it just as this is just
a small example of it. When I was with EPs,
I did nineteen days of training on policing an urban

(01:04:41):
Indigenous population is what it was called. But I brought
elders in. I brought It was a full day and
we spent time looking at understanding the vicarious trauma, understanding
residential schools, understanding sixties scoop, but also understanding the coordinance
and the power of medicine. And about three weeks later,
one of the crustier people in that room, who I
thought thought I was a total didn't like me, got

(01:05:04):
a hold of me and said, I don't know what
to do. We're at a suicide of a sixteen year
old Indigenous person that just came off reserve with mom
and dad, and they don't have any connection for an
elder or medicine. So I got them connected to somebody
and got the medicine and the elder at that place.
And I thought to me that one thing alone from
a person who was coming across is very much not
wanting to be involved. And if you have that little

(01:05:25):
bit of an impact, maybe that maybe it's like putting
a pebble in a pond, not you know, like Bruce
Lee says, and you throw that pebble in the pond
and soon, soon enough, the ripples go across the whole pond.
I'm still a believer in changing things. That's why I'm
in academia, That's why I write papers, That's why I've
written a fricking book on police response to mental health
in Canada, because I honestly believe by educating people and

(01:05:46):
getting stuff out there that's accessible, that maybe we can
shift it. It's not going to be ideal, but I
think we can make some changes. And without him his
contrariy and nature, he's a bit demonstrative because he's a
he's a he looks like a freaking look like, he
looks like he looks like he should have a patch on,
says Ha. But he's a big teddy bear and he

(01:06:08):
loves people, and he doesn't realize that loving people also
creates change.

Speaker 4 (01:06:14):
And same answer. We actually haven't. I don't think we've
had an argument. We fought a lot as kids like
I beat the shit out of him, and most of
the time he deserved it. But we haven't. We don't
really argue like it will have different viewpoints, but we'll
kind of either agree to disagree, but that's pretty rare,
or we're just approaching things from a different angle because
we again, he has co regulated me and I've co

(01:06:38):
regulated him on our path, especially over the last decade
or so as we've worked our way through retiring from
policing and our next steps and all that. And there's
times when he is on the roof and there's times
when I'm on the roof, and but we've kind of
figure out a way to coregulate each other.

Speaker 5 (01:06:58):
And all of a sudden's coming up here because I
know what you're doing with this podcast, and you need
to get on it, your voice on it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:05):
So I'm just gonna save you doing that. I co
host a podcast as well.

Speaker 5 (01:07:10):
It's called ten to five, the official podcast of the
opp Association, And I actually saw Dan first at the
OPPA AGM, and just you guys are doing amazing work.
So I want you to know that making a difference.
In fact, you're doing this kind of on a podcast
is amazing. So my question is about the podcast. I

(01:07:32):
know how much time it takes, I know how much
effort it takes.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
I know how.

Speaker 5 (01:07:36):
Vulnerable you are when you're out there, and I know
there's a lot of resistance in the first responder community
to actually talk openly like like you're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
So, Hey, how many downloads.

Speaker 4 (01:07:48):
Do you get from those podcasts?

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
And can you share with us some of the kind
of benefits that you have.

Speaker 5 (01:07:59):
Received and lives changed because people listen to your podcast.
I know you shared a few, but I've got a
lot of stories, and I just want to thank.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
You guys for doing what you're doing. I appreciate that.
Thank you we get. We got about thirty to forty
thousand downloads, which they tell us you triple that for
the people that a lot of people don't download, they
just listen. We've got, like I said, Scotty said earlier,
multiple countries, I've been in rooms where I've never met
people and they've come up and said, I listen to

(01:08:30):
your podcast, and I really appreciate what you And You're like,
you listen to our podcast. That's super weird, Like we're
just like two idiots how do you even hear about
our podcasts? And but it is, it's one of those
things we get a lot of very very positive feedback.
I'm also very fortunate I do a bi weekly radio
show on six point thirty Chad Now which with shay
Gannam and it's again it's it's a radio show. But

(01:08:53):
then he gets sent out as a podcast and we
get a lot of really good feedback on that from
a different perspective. That more is from the citizens citizens population.
It's called the social free So you have these multiple
things and it's very very really like I was in
Fat Franks with my friend Art the other day and
some lady comes up to me, are you Dan Jones.
I'm like, I don't know, Lincoln, did I do something.

(01:09:17):
She's like, oh no, I love your podcast and blah blah,
and so you get it's really cool and it's really
neat when we hear and we've get a lot of
And I'll put it to him because he gets a
lot of feedback from the first responder community because I've
kind of I'm in the academic world now not as much.
But I'll put it to Scotty because I know he
gets a ton of emails.

Speaker 4 (01:09:34):
And because the podcast is about every fourth episode is
just Danny and I and we'll have a list of
whatever's kind of topical the time, but the other ones
are we'll have guests. So we've had everything from people
who are used to be gang members. We've had current
police officers, we've had retired place there's actually two people
in this room. Three oh yeah, that's right. Three yeah, Rob,

(01:09:56):
Nadine Stephen have all been on the podcast as well,
so we kind of just as we go through life,
go oh, that'd be a really good guest. And I've
kind of shot my shot a couple of times with
people who are big deals, like whether anybody's heard of
a guy named Brian McKenzie or not. He has a
company called Shift Adapt. It does breathwork and he trains
UOC fighters. He goes to Laired Hamilton's house and does

(01:10:17):
breath work. Like he's a guy connected to a whole
bunch of people. And I'm like, he can just say no.
So I said it to him and he came on
our podcast before a guy named James Gearing who has
his own Behind the Shield podcast out of the States,
and he was a former firefighter. So we get to
talk to people I don't think we'd ordinarily get to
talk to and we get to Again, we plan nothing

(01:10:37):
when we have a guest, and inevitably most people go,
what would I talk about? And it's usually women who
will say that, and they are the most remarkable guests
that we get to chat with. So there's no like
we kind of just sponsor this. We have twisted Oak
saying we're a sponsor in Danny's proximity to consulting. So
it's not like this is any money. It's just a
really really cool hobby where we get to talk to
super interesting people and then the feedback right away, obviously

(01:11:00):
from the human you're talking to, is cool. We were
We had an individual name Jeffrey Westman who was a
constable with Empton Police. He since quit and became a lawyer,
and he talked about his journey of being the first
openly gay male police officer in Edmonton and he said
at the end of it was I didn't really expect

(01:11:21):
to talk as much as I did, but you guys
are alarmingly disarming when you're talking, because we're I want
to hear your story. And one of the best trainings
I ever took as a police officer is being a
crisis negotiator because then I can actually listen to people,
and I actually actively listen, so it ends up just
being really cool conversations that scratches an itch and it's
just a hobby we get to do on the side.

Speaker 3 (01:11:49):
Per the questions, who had the wellness to piss me first?
Was it? Which one of us was definitely.

Speaker 4 (01:12:08):
Scott, I'll start yeah, So it was less epiphany than
a slow play and mostly slow play by my wife.
So when I again do presentation, I delineate fitness versus
wellness because I was always pretty good about lifting weights
or running and moving, but not with a intent of
being well. And it made me feel better. So I'm

(01:12:29):
not saying don't lift weights or run, but it was
a very sympathetic activating, like I'm gonna lift weights because
I might need to fight, or I'm gonna run because
I might need to foot chase or whatever. And then
even when I started taking yoga again, it was just
because my back hurt, so I was moving better. And
then it was just little bits and pieces that started
to stack, and again probably whatever five years iss ago,

(01:12:52):
I started to go okay, well, I feel better when
I do X Y Z. And they're very simple things.
This is not like it's ninety minutes more day. It's like,
get sunlight on my ass first thing in the morning,
go for a walk more than not. And then again
the TSN turning point I think for him was when
we're in gets him and he was very disregulated still
because he again he left EPs thinking I'm gonna go
to a job and I'll be way better because it's

(01:13:13):
gonna be less stressful. His nervous system didn't agree with that.
So this is where I've kind of dragged him along,
and we call regulated. If I'm really disregulated, he will
kind of point that out and we'll work through it
and vice versa. But the wellness space as kitschies that
sometimes sounds, was very much me kind of pulling him along.

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
Yeah, And I think that was the first of us
to ever go to therapy, But that was during an
acute time when I was in homicide. And then I
didn't keep it up like I thought, I'm better now,
I could put the band aid on and it's all good.
And then when I was leaving and he'd already he'd
been down the therapy's path dealing with everything with the
MDR for about a year I think before I started

(01:13:52):
going back so it and then so I kind of
followed that. And I don't do the I don't I
don't do the yoga. I do other things, but I
do a lot of the get into the sun. I
do some cold explosure. Nowhere near what he does. He
the one place he did follow me, I would suggest,
is into the sweat lodge and to ceremony. That's like,

(01:14:12):
you've been a huge part of my healing. So I've
been I've been very fortunate. I've been sweating for thirty
some years. And I used to sweat in silence and
secret because I was always afraid that, hey, I'm going
to be seen as culturally appropriating a community. And I
smudge all the time, and and and one of the
elders said, well, where'd you get the tobacco? And I'm like,
well from elders, and They're like, yeah, you can. You

(01:14:33):
can be part of this community like you you it's
not it's not just you don't have to just be
indigenous to do it. And on that I was very fortunate.
Fifteen or so years ago, I was given a Cree name.
My cree name is seep Musqua, which means river bear.
And I've recently got a tattoo which is a bear
pod with a river running through it. And we were
talking about that with some Indigenous folks and they're like,
that's not cultural appropriation, that's cultural appreciation. And the indigenous

(01:14:56):
ceremony has been a massive part of my healing, and
I know it's been part of yours well. But sweat
lodging and and ceremonies where I get probably this probably
what you get from yoga is what I get from that.
We have one more question coming.

Speaker 10 (01:15:16):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
So I work for kinds of the corrections.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
I agree with uh everything what you're saying.

Speaker 11 (01:15:25):
About UH incarcerating trauma, and when you put that trauma
in engage, you see things that you know nobody's ready
to see. I also agree with what you said about
meeting you can hire and compassion and I think we
do that. The people we hire that are compassionate are
more at risk of trauma from the work with you. Sorry, ab,

(01:15:50):
the long question you're gonna have to repeat, uh, I
all immediately work.

Speaker 4 (01:15:56):
At for a support where and that support you're a
trast more people that are retired.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
And so my question is if you took those people
that are.

Speaker 11 (01:16:08):
Compassionate and working in these difficult situations, right, if you
had an influence in any organization to prepare them for retirement,
m what would we be doing with their last five
years other than.

Speaker 7 (01:16:27):
Or whatever and just not be still to do the
work right.

Speaker 3 (01:16:32):
Yeah, the question is basically, hiring compassion is important. If
you take people in their last five years, how do
you deal with them to make sure that they come
out of their well and not just you know, having
one modality or the other. I I I'll give you
this two in a second. I think the the co
the c The key of this is, in my opinion,
is I can't remember that I I s present with

(01:16:52):
the psychologist at the at a conference one time, and
I wish I remembered her name, cause she was brilliant.
And she said there's no such thing as compassion fatigue,
and I'm like, what she's like? Compassion fatigue? When you're compassionate,
you get stuff back from compassion. Compassion fatigue is actually
your inability to address all your stressors, and when your
cup fills up, you can no longer be compassionate. So

(01:17:13):
I think it's about getting in front of that and
going how do we make sure your cup is empty?
How do we make sure that you're taken care of?
One of the biggest frustrations for me, And I've said
this lots. I teach a course on mental health and justice.
And the fact that we have a course on mental
health injustice and not just health and justice. Why are
they two separate things? Why does our Alberta Healthcare or
Ontario health Care not pay for us to go for therapy,

(01:17:36):
like if you can't afford it or you get five
whatever from your thing. I think we need to number one.
And I'm not saying therapy is the only medality, but
it's a modality. Equoin therapy is a medality that a
lot of people can't afford because it becomes extremely expensive.
There's all of these different things, and I think it's
about advocating for governments for making those things accessible and

(01:17:57):
the other one and I think this is whether it's
five years out, ten years old, or fifteen years out
of retirement, is having an okay conversation to talk about
And I think getting rid of the stigma, and I
think the only way to get rid of the stigma
is have conversations like this in open spaces and places
where we're going, Yeah, you know what, I was suicidal
in my life and this is what happened. And thank
god I'm here. My therapist said to me one day,

(01:18:20):
and it was really impactful. She said. As I'm walking out,
she says, I'm really glad you didn't kill yourself because
you've done some really good things. And even just hearing that,
I'm like, holy shit, you're glad I didn't kill myself.
That I'm glad I didn't kill myself too. But for
me to sit there and talk about that, if you'd
asked me fifteen years ago to come up here and
have this conversation about my own mental health, wealth well being,

(01:18:41):
I'd be like, not a chance. Am I talking about
the deep dark secrets in Dan Jones's head. But I
think for those people at that five year mark before retirement,
or even ten year mark retirement, making it okay to
be not okay, because we've so often it's like you
have to be strong, you have to be this, you
have to be that, and we have to be okay
with being not okay.

Speaker 4 (01:19:00):
Piggyback on that, I think planning for it sooner than
you think. There was a book and it's not great,
but it's okay that a friend of mine who I
was a recruit class with, called how to Retire, Wild, Happy,
and Free. And it's not for first responder population necessarily,
it's just how do you do that? And it did
a good job of going. Okay, So if you think
you're just going to retire and go, I'm going to

(01:19:21):
take up gardening and painting, and then you go and
you're like, fucking hate painting and gardening. This isn't working
for me at all. And preparing now on the police space,
you're going to take that uniform off, You're going to
hand it across a desk that they're going to put
into a bag. And that's not if you've identified with that,
So recognizing that, but planning it out about five years
ago or five years to that date with okay, so

(01:19:41):
back to the awareness, how actually am I is everything
I talk about negative? And I hate everything and everything's bullshit? Okay,
well that's something. Then what am I going to do
about it? And maybe it's again for me. Therapy wasn't
the only thing, but it was a thing that at
the end of it really made a difference, and specifically
eye movement de sensitiveation reprocessing EMDR. And that's not for everybody,

(01:20:03):
but that's what worked for me. And then again I
had Danny and our dad as role models quote unquote
and not in a positive way, because I'm like, I
don't want to leave. I'm going to get well on
company time. So kind of figure out I'm going to
get well on company time, going okay, well, there's all
these benefits, and I was terrible about using benefits. Use them.
Burn that shit to the ground, like every massage, you

(01:20:23):
can get, acupuncture, all those things. Do all of that
and then start to get back to your ustas and
figure out what social connection looks like because it may
not be where you have. You're surrounded by all your
work colleagues who you were really close to. Once you
walk out the door, that kind of fades off. So
you've got to figure out where is my community and

(01:20:43):
my connection. And I'm fortunate I have a great relationship
with my wife and my boys, and my brother and
our parents and a close group of friends, so that
gets me through. It's a relatively small but tight group.
So figure out where your social connections are. Again, we're
physiological creatures. So if you haven't walked for a while
or gone to a gym or done anything movement wise,
go do that. Find what works best for you. If

(01:21:06):
yoga's works for you, and finding a good yoga teacher
is like finding a good mechanic or a good therapist.
You got to find what works for you. But I
think everybody should do it because it teaches you how
to move, but it importantly teaches you how am I
feeling when I move my foot this way? Or what's
my breath doing when I'm put my arm here? And
it teaches us how to get inside and be intentional
and mindful of ourselves, because we collectively are bad at that,

(01:21:29):
and I was bad at that. There was research study
where they had they put probably university students into a
room for whatever amount of time, and they said, you
got to sit there quietly, no inputs, or you can
shock yourself. And like eighty percent of the dudes and
thirty five percent of the women shocked themselves repeated because
men are dumber than women. And one guy shocked himself

(01:21:50):
like one hundred and forty times. So back to that,
I can't be alone in my head when you retire,
you're going to be alone in your head, so start
preparing for that quiet time. Now again on company time,
when you walk out the door, you're the best version
of yourself, best spouse, parent, brother, all those kind of things.
Because back to that lady, the job shouldn't define us
and the job shouldn't end their life. So kind of being.

(01:22:12):
It's not selfish, but getting back to that self care,
whatever that looks like to you. And again it could
be a creative outlet. I've always thought about writing a book.
Write a book, write a podcast, do a podcast, write
a blog, whatever, but use the physiology of our beings
to get yourself back to regulation.

Speaker 3 (01:22:29):
I think with that, we'll just stand it quick and
then you can finish. And with that love you love,
you do

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