Unleashing Your Inner Resilience: A Conversation with Experts

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hi everyone and welcome to this week's episode of Entering the Badge Podcast. I'm your host, jerry Dean Lund, and I don't want you to miss an upcoming episode. So please hit that subscribe button and, while your phone is out, please do me a favor and give us a review on iTunes or Apple Podcasts. It says, hey, this podcast has a great message and we should send it out to more people. So please take that 30 seconds to a minute to do that review and just maybe by doing that it will push this up into someone's podcast feed that really needs this message. Number one I'm super excited to announce that I've teamed up with an incredible person, and that person is Dr Tia White. She is a public safety, wellness and empowerment specialist. Together, we have combined our knowledge and expertise to create a five day training course. Now that training course, you can attend different days of that training course, whichever ones fit you, but day one would be peer support and how to structure that and get your team up and running and maybe some of the legalities about that. Days two, three and four are going to be about advanced wellness and sleep and finances and family dynamics and diet and nutrition Complete first responder. For more details. I have two very special guests today on and we're going to talk about resilience and we're going to get some very unique perspectives. One of my guests is a very culturally competent licensed therapist, dr Tia White, and the other guest is longtime officer, jake Steyer. So we're going to get kind of both of their perceptions on resilience and what resilience really looks like and how we can hone that skill, because we all have it. Good news, guys and gals. We all have it, but are we doing the necessary things to make ourselves even more resilient in our lives? and there's a lot of tips and a lot of skills that come with this and we're going to dive down into those and make sure you have them so you can take them and use them in your lives, and not just in your lives, but you can use them in your family's lives, which is just important. Now let's jump right into this episode with my very special guest. What is resilience?

Speaker 2: 2:26

In order to understand what resilience is, i feel like we should really talk about kind of the popular notion of what it is and how that plays into some of the myths that surround it. So when you hear the word resilience or resiliency, most people think of this idea of like a rubber band, of bouncing back or snapping back to what or who you were after a difficult encounter or a traumatic event. Something happens and then you got to get up, dust yourself off, bounce back to the state that you were in before that happened and drive on. But I think resilience is something a little bit more than that. I think something happens to us after we go through a very difficult challenge in our lives. We cease to be the person that we were before that challenge or difficulty came into play. We're a different person now, after that experience. We've grown somehow, and so in my mind, resilience is that continual growth past the event. So we become more than what we were before it. If we're not learning or growing from the experiences in our lives, then when we bounce back we're actually at a deficit compared to where we should be. So for me, resilience is continual growth. It's that evolution past the event.

Speaker 1: 4:09

So growth after going through something difficult.

Speaker 2: 4:14

Yes, absolutely, absolutely, and that can be anything. That's difficult, that challenges us, but in order for someone to be resilient, they've got to grow. They've got to grow past it. And so, because it's growing past something, it's not something you are, it's something you do. In my mind, resilience is a skill that can be developed over time And as we grow and age as human beings, we learn this skill. What's the first thing that happens when a kid's learning to ride a bike?

Speaker 1: 4:58

They fall down and they learn how to get back up.

Speaker 2: 5:01

Exactly, they learn how to get back up, But even more than that. That's the kind of get up, just yourself off part, but then they learn what they did wrong, that created the fall in the first place. It was a lack of balance, and so over time, they practice the skill of resilience by getting up and growing, and then they balance, and then suddenly they're riding a bike and now they're a new person. They've grown, and so we do that throughout our lives. As police officers, we experience very difficult challenges that come up either of our own creation or challenges that we are called to respond to, and they affect us differently, and so the skill of resilience is so critical for us to develop so that, when we're faced with a challenge, we can grow through the challenge.

Speaker 1: 6:00

Dr White, what do you have to add to that?

Speaker 3: 6:07

It's really good. I don't know what to add to that Now. I think here's the thing This is a believer that everybody has the ability to be resilient. I do believe that. I think that we are all born with that in us. But it is a skill which means it has to be developed. You can't, like using the bicycle analogy if you fall off, you have to be willing to get back up and get on it again. You can't just walk away, throw the bike to the side and walk away and never go back to it again, which it happens. But resilience is, we're all capable of it, we're all. we all have that in us. It's just a matter of if we're willing to put the work in to meet that goal and to accomplish that thing.

Speaker 1: 6:58

Through our careers in law enforcement. Is it possible to feel like we've lost that skill?

Speaker 2: 7:06

Yeah, i think so. It's a perishable skill, like all the skills that we have to acquire and practice and develop over time. It's a perishable skill. So you think about handcuffing. How many times does a police officer use their handcuffs throughout the course of their career? A lot, i mean a lot, right? Tens of thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. You know, it just depends on the length of the career, where they're working, all those kinds of things. But that's one of those fundamental skills that every police officer needs to know how to do. You need to know how to handcuff. What would happen if you just went a year without handcuffing anybody? You might be a little rusty, a little less proficient. Yeah, you'd be less proficient. Resilience is the same way, right? So if you're not practicing the skill of resilience, then it could be more difficult to do so when you're faced with the need to do it. And so, really, one of the best ways you know, as with any skill that you want to practice and maintain, you have to go through those steps, know what those steps are for doing the skill, and then you practice the skill. And so the first step in resiliency, as I see it, is the kind of the preparation skill, the preparatory skill, this idea of know thyself. You have to know yourself, you have to have a certain awareness of who you are, and that awareness is composed of a couple different things. One, it's your. What are your internal strengths as they correlate to this idea of a holistic person? And this is something Dr White taught me. There's five pillars of being a holistic person. There's a social aspect, a spiritual aspect, a physical aspect, an emotional aspect and a psychological aspect. Where are your strengths within each of those pillars? That's really part of knowing yourself. And then the other component is knowing what your core values are.

Speaker 1: 9:24

So, dr White, i mean, what do you believe about those core pillars, those five core pillars? Why are they so important for us to know those?

Speaker 3: 9:36

In my world I'd like to see people as a whole person, not just pieces, right? I mean we have to address pieces so that they can heal or grow or whatever we need to do. But we're all very dynamic individuals, right, and we're made up of these parts of our world. So, for example well, let's back pit a little bit. So some of us to Jake's point is, we have these internal strengths. So that means that maybe some of these pillars or these parts of us are stronger than others, right, it depends on who you are, your personality, your life, your character. So, for example, social, the social pillar. We're social creatures. We have to be around people. We need people in our life, and cops, especially, don't always believe that's the case But, interestingly enough, they love to be around each other. So there's still a social. There's this social piece, right, but some of us have a social intelligence about us that others may not, right, you know you're like, why don't you know how to read people? I'm saying that nicely. But then there's a spiritual component. So that's how we connect to the universe around us. That's how we connect to if we believe we have there's a higher power, right, our place in the world, and some of us have a very deeply rooted sense of that And some of us don't. You know the physical component. Our bodies are incredible products of nature And they work so well with our mind. And as officers, you have to know your body well Or you can't do your job right. You have to know how to move it and use it and and help protect yourself and the people in the community. So then again, emotional, psychological, psychological, all these things is how are you growing your mind? Are you, do you have a different kind of intellect than maybe somebody else? You know, like maybe Jake's into math, i don't know why, but maybe he is Right, but somebody else might be really into philosophical things. I mean, i don't know. I'm just saying you know emotions too, but these all make up who we are, all of these pieces. And so when we know where our strengths are like I was pointing these little things out right then we can use them to help us grow through, as Jake said, grow through these rough experiences. And you know, i think sometimes we get a little bit especially in Copland right, we get a little bit catastrophic. Oh, it has to be a really big thing. It was a really bad call. It was a really bad. Whatever. Right, oh, it's a third divorce or whatever. The case might be right, but really it's the small things too. Like you know, i did a little bit of jiu-jitsu until recently, and just being on the mat and learning a new move was really psychologically difficult for me. And so, like coming back from that and not like wanting to sit in my truck and cry afterward, right, and being like, no, i'm going to go back and train, i'm going to go try it again, i'm going to try it again, like that's something really simple. Nobody else would think anything of it, but that's the battle in my head, right? And so these little things. Maybe it's how we interact with our kids. You know, officers have a really hard time sometimes connecting with our families, and you know, some social workers aren't much different, right, because we get stuck in this land that we live in of the culture, you know. And so how are we overcoming those challenges? How are we getting through those challenges? How are we working with our families for support? And you know, like I said, it's not always the big call, sometimes it's these other parts of life, and so really understanding our strengths helps us get through those things.

Speaker 1: 13:32

So if we're understanding our strengths, does that mean that we can? that's something we can use as a compass to guide us.

Speaker 2: 13:40

Yeah, i think so. Our core values act that way. And then we use our strengths within those holistic person pillars as kind of they're kind of like the legs that carry us through right. And so I've got this analogy that I like this idea of if you were going out on like a backpacking adventure or you were gonna go out in the woods before you left the house, you would prep, you would pack your backpack, you would make sure you had all the equipment you needed, like your shelter, your sleeping system, your food, your water. You know you might have a knife you might and you would absolutely need a compass right, some way to navigate the terrain that you're going into. Maybe you're gonna bring a rope, you know guidelines, things like that. That's like that's your equipment And those are your internal strengths within that reference point of a holistic person. And then your core values are like your compass right. And so if we imagine that we have this adventurer who's going out, he's gonna go hike into a kind of unexplored territory. He's packed his Rucksack, he's got all of his equipment, he feels confident in his abilities and he's gonna go out into the field. He's out there, he's walking through the woods and something horrible happens right He slips and falls down and embankment ends up in a pit right, and so that creates the problem. The problem is he's stuck, he's stuck, he's in a pit right. So the first step in this kind of analogy for resilience would be evaluate the situation. What is your perception of the reality around you? So, in this case, you know what would be an accurate perception for this individual.

Speaker 1: 15:50

They're stuck.

Speaker 2: 15:51

They're stuck. I'm in a pit right, it's pretty basic. I'm in a hole I can't get out. How do I get out? Right. But we do this in life so many times where we don't understand or we don't accept the kind of the reality of our situation, and so this is really a subtle point, but it's important. We have to evaluate our perception. Am I perceiving the situation accurately? Okay, the next step would be I've got to accept what's happened. Right. If I'm in a constant state of denial as to this problem, i'm never going to be able to solve it. And so acceptance is huge. Right, it's not a form of I'm resigning myself to what's happened, but it's just. This is the reality, and now that it wants, i've accepted it, i can move forward in the process of problem solving and doing resilience Right. And so a lot of times we've, in our conversations together, dr White and I have talked about this idea that's found within stoic philosophy of Amor Fati, a love of fate. It's a form of acceptance And it's a way of looking at the world and our problems through a almost like a cognitive reframing, in a positive way, right, oh, i'm glad that this happened to me, because I'm prepared, i have all these tools. I'm glad I fell in the pit with all my gear, because I have all this gear now, right? Surely there's something in my pack that can help me get out of this pit, right, right, and it's having that positive attitude and not being resigned to your fate, but accepting it and going okay. I'm glad this happened to me because I have the tools I need to overcome this.

Speaker 1: 17:53

Do we always have a fair and accurate perception of our own situation that we're going through?

Speaker 2: 18:00

I don't think we do. There are many times when we don't, and so that opens up a question How can we get that accurate perception if we don't think we're getting it? What are some things we can do?

Speaker 1: 18:18

Yeah, Dr White. what do you have to add to that, Because you probably see some of this in your practice.

Speaker 3: 18:24

Yeah, all the time, and I think it goes back to something that Jake brought up a couple of times, but it's the core values. What do we? So, when we're following this analogy and we recognize our strengths, then these are tools for us to be resilient, to practice resilience, to do resilience. We have to know our core values. What do we as an individual? what drives us? So it's not that I have these strengths, but it's, for example, me. I love education. I have very much value education. I want to learn all the time. I spent a lot of time in school because of this. It's very important to me. So if I'm stuck in a pit, for example, then I'm going to go back to my core values of education. What can I learn from this situation? What can I learn from the pit I'm in? What can I learn from my surroundings? I'm going to circle back to what my value is. Let's say my value. one of my core values is hope and optimism. So I'm in my pit, right? So am I following my core value of hope that I'll be able to learn what I need to to get out of the pit and use the things I need to, or that somebody might help me right That somebody up above can help me get out of this pit. Am I going to hope for that? or do I feel hopeless and afraid and scared to the point that I'm shutting down and I'm not using my own values? right? So optimistic, same idea, right? So we all have core values that drive us, our moral compass, if you will right, but they guide us through using our strengths and helping us make decisions about how we think about stuff. I love more Fati. I always say it wrong. Did I say it right, jake? I'm the problem. Did I say it wrong? I think you got it right, but I love that. I really do love that saying, because love of fate has so many different layers to it. Right, it's an appreciation that the universe will provide right, that things work out for a reason. You know that you are supportive and loved, however that looks, but you have to see it right. And then it's also an appreciation and acceptance of where you are right now. And so when you look at it that way using your strengths to help you, using your core values to guide you, you really do become this resilient human being that has a lot to offer to your life and to others around you.

Speaker 1: 21:13

Yeah Right, i like something that you talked about and that you brought up, and that's reframing things. I think that's pretty important in today's world, because these pits don't have to be, like you said, very big. They can be just big enough for us to fall in and can't reach our hand to get out, but I mean, i think something you know, or they're just really small and then we make them to be so big. So I think that's a really important thing that we can do, you know, as law enforcement officers, is maybe reframe what we're going through Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 21:52

And I think to Dr Wilde's point, if we keep in mind what our strengths and our core values are, we can start to develop a creative solution to the problem, right? And so you know, if we go back to our example of our adventurer in the pit, if you will, you know he or she is able to kind of, they have a choice to make, right, am I going to act or am I not going to act? Am I going to stay in the pit or am I going to try to get out? right, and what's in line with our core values, to what Dr Wilde was saying Hope, optimism, persistence, you know, perseverance. Okay, i want to get out of this pit. So now I'm going to do an inventory because, amor Fati, fortunately for me, i fill in this pit with all my gear, right? And so maybe in this analogy, our adventurer can start to look through their equipment, you know, which really represents their internal strengths, and go what do I have here that can help get me out of this pit? Oh, i'm glad I brought that rope, i'm glad I developed that skill that I can use now, in this moment, you know. And so now I have to come up with a solution, and then I have to act on that solution. I've got to follow through, and not only do I have to follow through, but I've got to act decisively right. Once we make the decision, we've got to go, we've got to follow through it right And then we've got to try to complete that action. So some things to consider that If it doesn't work right, what if it doesn't work? We've got to remember sometimes we need to be flexible, we need to be willing to understand that not every solution is going to work the way maybe we intended it, and so we may have to go back and start over again this whole process. But that's okay. That's the whole point. And this is where the practice of doing resilience over time and developing our internal strengths and cultivating our core values helps us. It's a practice, it's not just a character trait. I believe over time it can become a character trait, right, but it begins in practice.

Speaker 1: 24:24

Yeah, but it's not time to start to practice taking inventory of my core values when I'm in a situation? So how do I inventory those core values before these things come up? Because this is practice, so I've got to get started.

Speaker 2: 24:46

Absolutely. And that is the question How do I do this? And it all starts in a preparatory phase. Right when we're preparing, we need to constantly be thinking about this What are my values, what are my strengths? And if I evaluate, let's say we get out of the pit, right, and we dust ourselves off, we've now learned something right, we're a different person. Now We've stepped onto the other side of that pit and we can look back on the experience and go, okay, i was pretty weak in, maybe, my physical skills there. Right, if we go back to our holistic person pillar, right, maybe I need to develop that a little bit more so that next time something similar happens I can be a little bit better. We see this all the time in the combatives world. Right, as police officers, maybe we get through a hairy situation where you're wrestling a resistant suspect and you've eventually get them cuffed up and you're like, taking stock, at least we should be going okay, what worked, what didn't work? right. And maybe, hopefully, we're taking stock of ourselves and going man, i really need to do more cardio. Right, can I run and chase somebody down and talk on the radio? It's like, oh man, i really sucked. I was sucking wind on that one. And so maybe I might look at that holistic person pillar and go I need to get on the stairs some more. Or maybe it's something else, maybe it's social right. I should have relied more on my friends, i should have reached out, i should have talked to somebody right? Maybe it's time that I do that movie night with my bros. You know, that's meaningful, that's important. We don't think those things are sometimes, and sometimes I think as police officers we get really focused on the physical right. But these other pillars are so, so important. So when we get out of the pit and we look back, we take stock, and that's what we should be doing all the time During our so-called downtime. We should be getting to know ourselves and having honest conversations with ourselves about how prepared are we really, finding those deficiencies and then working to strengthen those deficiencies.

Speaker 1: 27:18

Dr White, how could we do that in a positive manner? taking the inventory of those things and just looking at ourselves without doing, maybe just downplaying, like undermining ourselves, undermining our confidence, our resilience, or just right? We have a tendency to be way too hard on ourselves. I guess that's what I'm saying. So to be honest and fair with ourselves, Thank you.

Speaker 3: 27:48

This circles back to what we've been talking about. There's an acceptance, right. There's also a permission Giving yourself permission to be okay with your strengths, giving yourself permission to grow, right. I think a lot of times we have this belief. I don't know where it came from. You know society, culture. I don't know that we need to compare ourselves to other people, that we need to be something different, and so then we spend so much of our precious energy focusing on that stuff instead of just looking at ourselves and saying you know what, i'm okay or I'm not okay, right Or no. I really do need to change this, and I think this is where it comes into the big question well, how do I know I'm resilient, right? How do I know that I'm there? And this all again circles together. But I really believe that you look at your quality of life. That's the metric, that's the measurable, right. Are you happy with the quality of life you have? And if you're not, why? Right? Ask yourself, are you? But I think again, culturally speaking, i think we tend to look outside of ourselves and we look around other people and say, oh well, if this happened or they did this, then I'll feel this way, right, but the first place we need to look is right here. I'm unhappy with my quality of life. I'm not happy that my kids and I don't have the relationship I would love to have with them. So what am I doing Right? Am I living to my values of how important my kids are to you know, so that I can build that relationship with them? Or am I not, and then do the work. right, do the work. I think one other thing, too, that is worthy of conversation here is that, as officers, kids already have some incredible skills with this but you tend to think of it very operationally and tactically, you know, i mean, i know a lot of officers that were not like masterful shooters I don't know if that's the right term, but you know what I mean, right. So what did they have to do? What do you guys do when you're not at the skill level that you want to be at? What do you do?

Speaker 2: 30:06

How to practice, get a development, yeah.

Speaker 3: 30:08

That's right. So you already have this ability inside of you. You would just have to translate it and move it over to another part of your life, right? But you had to assess the fact that you were unhappy with it in the first place, right? And maybe it was a competition you lost, fine, whatever. I got you there. So you know, maybe you're in competition with yourself on this one, but you have to be aware. again, it comes down to awareness and it comes down to honesty giving yourself permission, allowing yourself to be where you are, and then recognizing you know, how happy are you with your life? That's the metric How happy are you with it? Because if you're happy with it, you're never going to change. That's just. that's the reality of it, right? We don't grow unless we're uncomfortable. So then we can't become resilient if we're not uncomfortable.

Speaker 1: 31:01

Yeah. So if I think back to this adventure example you know, getting raids, going to venture, if I go on an adventure I spend some time writing down the things I'm going to need. I just don't hastily pack my bag to go on an adventure where I'm not going to have things that I can, you know, pick up along the way. Right, i'm an adventure, i'm out in the woods, i'm out in the mountains or wherever I'm, you know, potentially by myself, so I have to depend on myself. So could it be as easy as maybe writing down the social, spiritual, physical, emotional and psychological things like on a paper and then just kind of maybe start taking some inventory that way, because, like I said, i'm not going to go out into the woods without, you know, doing some homework first, but we tend to do that in life.

Speaker 3: 31:55

Yeah, i don't think it has to be complicated. I think we have a tendency to make it complicated, right? I mean you could literally spend two minutes every morning and two minutes every night kind of assessing yourself, right? So my morning is before my day starts, right? What do I need for the day? Well, i need to accomplish this thing and this thing, because the responsibility that I have and also a value that I really need to fulfill, the need for, yeah, i don't know, right, and then at the end of the day, did I accomplish those things? And if I did, was it to the level that I wanted to? right, i don't think it has to be complicated. I mean, it could be a voice message to yourself, right? It could be a text note in your phone, it could be. I mean, i mean, we had that great class once where everybody drew everything. So draw some pictures you know, yeah, and I mean, do an emoji, it doesn't have to be complicated right Face, straight face, thumbs down, thumbs up, right, But yeah, but it's what it is is actually creating those neural pathways of awareness and getting your brain to realize what you're wanting it to do and to be in it, kind of snowballs. So at first I might be doing emojis because I don't know what to say, right. But then, before I know it, maybe it's two days later, all of a sudden, words are coming to me now And I say, oh yeah, it's not just a smiley face like this is fantastic. I'm really happy with what happened. You know, it's two smiley faces.

Speaker 2: 33:25

I agree, and I think keeping a journal it sounds old-timey, but I think there's a lot of value to that, where you're writing down your thoughts and writing down your values, writing down your strengths. There's a lot of power there, because you can look back and see growth And we're able to see the growth and track the growth. This is why certain endurance sports are so useful. Right, you mentioned Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, right? I mean, it's the feeling of having to endure so much just to get a little piece of tape on your wrapped around your belt to show some growth. Right, some rank advanced net. You look back and you're able to steal yourself against the future in a way, because you see, i've come this far, i've grown so much, i've developed so much, i've improved so much, i've exercised the skill of resilience so much. You can develop a sense of confidence in yourself, right, what carries into future events? And so to the question of how do we cultivate this skill? I think what we do is we constantly evaluate where we're at, we assess ourselves and we go okay, where are my strengths, where are my weaknesses, what are my core values, what do I need to do to improve those weaknesses and enhance those strengths And then we practice the art of resilience, the skill of resilience, every day with the little things. To Dr White's point, we practice with the little things And if you can create a situation for yourself, a safe situation, like an endurance sport, like Jiu Jitsu Jiu Jitsu is a great example Some type of sport that pushes you, some type of thing that pushes you where you know you're not going to get hurt, you know you're not going to get damaged. You know hopefully, but where the stakes are controlled, so that you can grow and develop. You know, maybe you're a distance runner, maybe you're into hunting and you like to go long distances over land on foot, you know chasing that elk. But cultivating those skills helps practice resilience so that when that big thing happens, you know that serious thing that happens in your life, on duty or personally, in your family you can have that moment where you go. This sucks, this is really hard, but I've been here before. I know what this feels like. I have some frame of reference for difficult things and I can do these hard things And I have the strengths and the core values and the skills to get me through this, to become an even stronger person than I was before, and that's how you do resilience.

Speaker 1: 36:37

So is this, some of this can be handled tactically, because not very many times when we talk about mental health or talking about things that maybe deal with mental health or whatever, that they can be handled like in a tactical manner. So is there a part of this that could be handled like tactically and then I could see that part, and then maybe part of it. I'm like, well, okay, maybe I need to do some journaling and then I'll call that tactical. But also, at the same time, it's kind of like I'm taking time by myself to take some self inventory, And a lot of us don't want to take time to take self inventory. And the last thing I want to touch on is like it takes practice right, Because anytime you get good at something, the tendency is to do what Not practice as much anymore. To stop right. So how do we cultivate the continued, the practice right? These are some things that we need to set up in our daily lives on how that, through this discussion, we've given a lot of different ways to formulate something that's going to work for you to build and keep resiliency, But it's now it's up to you to enact on that.

Speaker 2: 37:53

I think that speaks to the idea of establishing a routine for yourself. Right, get in the habit. I know we all work, shift work and it sucks, it's hard. But if you can develop and cultivate a routine around, whatever shift you're on, whatever you're doing, and be consistent with that routine and include those steps right of taking an assessment, you start to develop a culture for yourself within that routine, and that culture that you build for yourself can either strengthen or weaken you. And so the idea is to develop a strength, focused culture for yourself and you start with a routine and that culture. You'd be surprised how influential that can be to your peers, the people you care about, the people in your family, your coworkers right, because we all know we have those quiet conversations in patrol room or when we're car to car with somebody and we're talking about life you can start to share. Hey, this is something I do. It's helped me, i have this routine And I think by developing that culture we can really start to get good at this because we're consistent over time.

Speaker 1: 39:17

Yeah, i like how culture definitely takes a big role in this, as it does the word that we're doing things for the good or for the bad right in our culture. There's quite a bit of influence that happens.

Speaker 3: 39:36

In the crisis world, the question is always asked what have you done before to help you get through hard things? And so to your point, jake, it's really to have that ahead of time. The thing is, you guys this is what I wish everybody could hear If there was one message is that we all have it in us. We've all been able to get through hard times. It's just a matter of if we recognize it. So, no matter who the person was that I was talking to, or in the crisis, you know, the emergency room or in the community, no matter how downtrodden their life was and how hopeless they felt, if we really explored, they were able to find times and things that helped them get through those hard moments. I think one of the most impactful one for me was when a woman said to me and she was very strange, from her family, she was not in a good space, but she lived for the memories of the good times with her kids when they were younger, and that one thing helped her get through the hard moment right, however hard that was for her, and be able to learn something new and progress. If we all have them, do we recognize them?

Speaker 1: 40:56

Yeah, if you went through an academy, you went through a hard time somewhere along the way, yeah, exactly. So you don't have to look very far back. I mean, some of us do, but there's a commonality, right?

Speaker 2: 41:13

Yeah, and I think that's the point of academy training and the type of training that we go through as police officers. And it is hard, it's supposed to be hard, it should be difficult, but it should also serve a purpose, and oftentimes the purpose is to create that mental reference point for us, so when we are exposed to something difficult, we have that file folder that we can go fall back on and go oh yeah, i remember In training we did this, and this is why so often our training is designed to be more difficult than the real world, right, to make that easier. That's why we do resistance training. When we're weightlifting, we want to get stronger, right. It's the same kind of thing with our practical skills training, critical skills training. It's often harder so that we can get better.

Speaker 1: 42:06

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 42:08

And I think I'd like to add one other thing, and that's I just want to circle back again to the act piece of this. I think what happens is we get lost in the analysis right, the assessment of it, analysis by analysis maybe. Yes, that's it. And one thing I know about a lot of cops is that happens all the time. They're always analyzing everything, right, but you have to act right. You have to do the thing. You have to get on the bike again, you have to face the hard conversation, you have to look in the mirror, right, you have to act. You can't just sit there. You can go through all of these steps that we talked about and you won't be the resilient person you want to be if you don't take action. Because, like we've been talking about in Jake's mentioned several times, when you act, even if it didn't go the way that you wanted it to, you learn something new. You grow through it, you become a new person and you learned how not to do something if it didn't go well, right, or how to do something a little bit different. You know, all of this country was founded by individuals that just kept trying right, whether it was going across the country and hand cards or getting their ship from Europe to here and trying to plant the marsh. I mean, they didn't know, they just kept trying and then they learned And now we have fields that can grow vegetables. You know it's a bad analogy, but you get the idea Right.

Speaker 1: 43:48

Anything else you'd like to add, Officer Steyer?

Speaker 2: 43:53

Just that. Remember, everybody has the capability. You have it in you to do resilience, to practice resilience. And if you just remember the basic steps right, you already know how to do this. You just maybe don't realize you're already an expert. And that idea is evaluate your perception of reality. Am I assessing this correctly? Is this really what's happened? And once you realize, yep, this is it, accept it, recognize that you have a choice right to act or not act, and then to act in accordance with your core values and your strengths. Right, come up with that solution and then act decisively. Try it out, do the thing that you need to do to get through the situation, and do it with the mind that you need to be flexible. It may not go as planned. And if it doesn't go as planned, go back, repeat the process, Figure out where it went wrong. Maybe your perception was off, maybe your solution was off. You need to try a different solution and just try it again, right? And then, when you're done, take a look and go is my quality of life better now than it was before? Have I improved? And then take stock, go back to that awareness component and go okay, where was I strong, where was I weak. What are my core values? Do they need to be tweaked at all? And then that's start the process again the next time.

Speaker 1: 45:34

Yeah, dr White, i you know, i just got to think of something that's like maybe that's just not quite in line with all this stuff, because we're seeing act within your core values, but what happens when I don't like we should talk about that.

Speaker 3: 45:49

Yeah, we absolutely should. We should recognize that it happens all the time. We all make decisions right, but it's that's. That's that part that we were talking about earlier. If we're taking stock of, we've set a routine for ourselves to evaluate where we are right, then we're going to be able to recognize that faster, before we dive down a road that we're going to not be happy about later. But it's the same steps. We have to recognize that we're not following in our core values, that our quality of life is not where it should be right, and we need to accept that. Maybe we made a mistake. It happens. We're humans, we make mistakes. What are we going to learn from it? Right, and what action are we going to take now to correct the course? I mean, it follows the same pathways. But those are hard truths. Sometimes you know, especially in police culture, you know a lot of alcohol, a lot of addiction, a lot of, you know, relationship issues, right, this is common, common things. So that means you have to face some hard truths.

Speaker 1: 46:57

I think sometimes a hard truth is to say that you made a mistake, because sometimes we feel very judged by our peers, that we have to be very perfect in all of our actions. that we do And not my core values are not going to always align with you know, your kids core values, right, that's just, we're all so different.

Speaker 3: 47:18

That's right. But that's the point. It's your value, it's your life choice, it's your quality of life. I think everything I try to frame all of my clinical work around is what is your quality of life? because guess what? Now it doesn't matter that your values are different. It's about your quality of life and how you perceive that. Right, maybe you're okay with doing a certain thing, and I wouldn't be, but if your quality of life is good and you're happy, great, go for it.

Speaker 1: 47:44

You know, who am I to? say Yeah, i think that's right. It's like, if you think it's good, sometimes right, we think it's really good decision in a moment and then it was not a good decision.

Speaker 3: 48:03

And then we go back through the cycle.

Speaker 1: 48:05

That's right.

Speaker 3: 48:06

But that's the point. We know the cycle. If we know these steps, no matter what, we're going to be able to go through them again, and we become the resilient being that we are designed to be, and that is it. So that's it. It's not that hard, that's all it takes.

Speaker 2: 48:26

Just extreme vulnerability and honesty. That's all it takes.

Speaker 1: 48:30

And one last thing Just do the work, just do the work, just do the work Just do it Yeah, which is a feat in itself. Right, right. Well, thank you both so much for being on today.

Speaker 3: 48:45

Yeah, Thanks Jerry, Thanks Jake.

Speaker 2: 48:47

My pleasure.

Speaker 4: 48:48

Thanks again for listening. Don't forget to rate and review the show wherever you access your podcast. If you know someone that would be great on the show, please get ahold of our host, Jerry Dean Lund, through the Instagram handles at Jerry Fire and Fuel or at Enduring the Badge Podcast, Also by visiting the show's website, Enduringthebadgepodcastcom for additional methods of contact and up-to-date information regarding the show. Remember, the views in a painting expressed during the show solely represent those of our host and the current episode's guest.