Meditation, Mindfulness & Hacking The Human Brain with Mike Cancellieri

Ever had one of those days where stress seems to be piling up with no end in sight? Well, you're not alone. We've had a riveting chat with Mike Cancellieri from Frontline Foundations, an organization that provides indispensable support to veterans and first responders grappling with post-traumatic stress. Mike educates us on the power of mindfulness, a skill that when exercised and maintained, becomes an instinctive response to stressful situations. Our conversation even delves into Mike's personal narrative of acquiring and cultivating this vital competency.

Imagine the tranquility of being completely in tune with your senses and allowing your thoughts to drift by without judgment. That's the essence of meditation. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not about emptying your mind. Instead, it’s about being present and acknowledging your experiences. We'll guide you through the power and benefits of meditation, its myths, and how it can be a lifeline for individuals dealing with post-traumatic stress. 

Lastly, we'll demystify post-traumatic stress disorder and address it for what it truly is - an injury. A change in the brain and endocrine system due to horrifying experiences. You'll hear about Mike's personal journey navigating PTSD and how mindfulness played a pivotal role in his healing process. Furthermore, we'll underscore the importance of seeking help and breaking free from the stigma attached to it. Don't miss out on an episode replete with invaluable insights, practical advice, and a glimpse into the Firefighter Cancer Alliance Clear Podcast.

About Mike Cancellieri:
Mike is a founding member of Front Line Foundations and serves as our Executive Director. Mike attended Stockton University in Galloway, NJ where he earned a BA in Criminal Justice. After moving to New England in 2008, he began a career in behavioral health working with diverse populations in a variety of settings. This experience in mental health crisis work and inpatient psychiatric settings gives him a unique perspective on many of the challenges faced by first responders. His nearly lifelong study of mindfulness and Eastern thought dovetailed seamlessly with his interest in nature when he began working with veterans and first responders in 2018. Mike considers it a personal mission to share these skills and knowledge with our clients at Front Line Foundations.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

This week on All Clear Meditation, mindfulness and Hacking the Human Brain with guest Michael Kancelleri from the Frontline Foundations. I'm Travis, eric. How you doing today, sir, I'm doing good man. It's weird. We're actually in the same room for a change. Yes, this is different. Yeah, but anyway, we are here today and we have a guest with us, and I'm going to let Eric introduce our guest, since he is new to me, but you guys have been working together for quite a while.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Yeah, I am very excited to be able to introduce Mike Kancelleri from Frontline Foundations of North America in Bellows Falls, vermont. Mike and I our relationship goes back four years now yeah, I believe four years. From my recovery journey. I met Mike and I credit Mike and some of his colleagues up in Vermont to save me my life. Mike, how's everything going up your way, brother?

Speaker 3: 1:02

Pretty good man, pretty good, eric. Nice to see you, nice to talk with you. Travis, nice to meet you, good to meet you too. Thank you, heck of an introduction, and I hope to someday live up to that.

Speaker 2: 1:16

I'm 100% serious man, what?

Speaker 2: 1:18

you guys are doing up there is phenomenal work, and I can't thank you enough. I've got my wife sitting right here with me too, so Deb is probably very thankful that I was able to go up there and spend some time with you guys, and you guys put these, instill these very important traits, qualities and new lifestyle into me to be able to be here tonight to do this podcast. If you could, mike, just fill us in a little, tell our listeners who you are and some of your background, and then we'll get into some of our other questions with you.

Speaker 3: 1:50

Cool sounds great. Yeah, I'm Mike Canceleri. I'm the Executive Director of Frontline Foundations, which is a post-traumatic stress clinic, essentially like a health and wellness clinic for veterans and first responders. Our office is in Bellows Falls, vermont. We have a five-day totally outpatient, mindfulness-based program for veterans and first responders that treats post-traumatic stress and teaches resiliency skills. In addition to that, I have three clinicians now who take on clients for individual therapy. In addition to that, I go all over to place doing in-service trainings for fire departments, police departments, private ambulance services. I'd love to break into the military, but you know how it is with the federal government. We'll get there someday. And that's just a taste of what we do the mindfulness-based program. I'm happy to be here and looking forward to talking with you guys.

Speaker 2: 2:46

I appreciate that man. In the work that you're doing up there. Like I said already, it's phenomenal and getting that outreach. You mentioned the government. I was fortunate enough last week. I just spent four days four solid days on a military installation talking to federal firefighters about this kind of stuff Very cool, yeah, it was cool. You mentioned several times in your introduction there about mindfulness-based practices. Tell us a little bit about mindfulness.

Speaker 3: 3:18

Cool. Yeah, my favorite definition of mindfulness comes from a book called the Mindful Path to Self-Compassion by Christopher Germer, and so the definition of mindfulness is the ability to selectively put your attention on what you want your attention on, and we like to learn how to do that in a curious, open, accepting fashion. But a couple of things I point out about that definition of mindfulness that are very important for people to understand. I said mindfulness is an ability. Another word for ability is a skill, and that's really important to know that. Mindfulness is a skill that you can learn. It's also a skill on the fire service. You guys are very familiar with the idea of perishable skills. So mindfulness is a perishable skill. You can learn it. You can get real good at it and then, when you slack off in everything that you need to do to take care of yourself, you can get worse at it. Ask me how. I know Part of our program is like we all of us that work at FLF have been through traumatic events on the job.

Speaker 3: 4:26

My two clinicians are firefighters, paramedics. My newest clinician, who we just brought on, amy, was a retired police officer. I spent a lot of time dealing with daily violence, a variety of psychiatric settings. It was important for me in my journey to really double down on that idea that mindfulness is a skill, because I think what people might have a mistake and impression of out there is that mindfulness is a quality that calm people have, or nice people are mindful, and it's really not like that. It's a skill that anyone can learn and it's simply the skill of learning how to put your attention where you want it, which might be like on what your wife is saying across the dinner table, as opposed to events in your mind from the past or worries in the future.

Speaker 2: 5:15

And that is not easy to do sometimes and I've got that first-hand experience. Like you said, it is perishable and I found that out the hard way myself after I visited you guys the first time had a relapse because I thought I was OK and you say I'm good, ok, maybe I don't have to do my mindfulness today, or maybe I can skip part of my self-care, and next thing you're down that rabbit hole again and you forget everything and I had to go back up for it, tune up, as I call it, with you guys. And then really it really sunk in the second time for me. And it is funny that it almost becomes muscle memory. Once you get really good at it, you get used to using it where now it's instinctive, a reaction or whatever else to an event that's taking place. And I'm going through mindfulness techniques. Yeah, awesome.

Speaker 1: 6:14

And Eric, we were talking about that today. When we were traveling up to that class we were teaching. I was telling you about the investigation that I had to do. That was rough and we'd gotten through it. But you did bring up the point that you have to keep practicing what's working for you so that when it does come back up which no doubt it will, in whatever form that you're able to work through it again when it pops back up, even if it's just on a maintenance level.

Speaker 2: 6:40

Absolutely that's critical.

Speaker 3: 6:42

Because it's just like anything in emergency services.

Speaker 2: 6:45

If you're waiting for the big event and you're not practicing your skills and everything on the smaller events, guess what? When the big one happens, you're going to suck and you're not going to be good at it. So it's, no different with your daily routine, with your mindfulness practices.

Speaker 3: 7:01

I couldn't agree more. And I think to add to that is, if you so, we teach breathing techniques which are more of like how to help you out right now or inside the day, and then we teach mindfulness, which is more of a longer term thing, like cardio at the gym. If you only practice these things when you are feeling bad, you are going to get some muscle memory. You're going to get some mental muscle memory in there too, and that mental muscle memory might say that, ah yes, when I do these breathing techniques it's because I'm at a nine out of 10 for stress and I'm all wigged out. You got to practice. You don't have to be perfect by practicing every single day we're all human but you got to practice, it's got to, it's got to be worked into your life. That way your body remembers doing your breathing techniques and your meditation sitting calmly at home. You don't want that muscle memory to just be when you're all torqued up.

Speaker 3: 7:58

So it's a message we try to send is working it in every day.

Speaker 1: 8:04

So working it in when you're not stressed will make it more effective when you are stressed.

Speaker 3: 8:10

Yeah, very well said.

Speaker 2: 8:13

It is a skill. You have to practice it and you have to become good at it. It's not just like a gifted thing? I don't think at least for me it wasn't because, I used to think that I stunk at it.

Speaker 2: 8:26

You mentioned the meditation and the guided meditations when I was up there were extremely difficult for me, because I thought that I was no good at it, because I could not stop those thoughts and I could not redirect my thoughts of hey, I'm not going to pay attention to you right now, I'm concentrating on my breathing and being present in a moment. And I couldn't do that. I thought that it was being able to shut the brain off. And here we are now. We're present. No, you have to harness that and you have to build the skill set, and the only way you're going to be able to do that is to practice the breath work. I find myself doing this on a daily basis. I have my daily routine that I have to go through.

Speaker 2: 9:13

It might not be in a particular order and it might not be in any particular time, but throughout the day I'm going through my routine. At some point you mentioned meditation and I just mentioned meditation too. You guys incorporate meditation in your program.

Speaker 1: 9:32

Now wait a minute, let me ask a question here Now, eric, you don't look like the type that's into meditation and that's that type of stuff.

Speaker 2: 9:39

Yeah, I don't sit on the little pillow and cross my legs in my arms, and you don't have to. You sit in your recliner, close your eyes, concentrate on your breathing, be present in the moment, and I like using a couple of apps on my phone to help me guided meditations, and you'd be surprised what a three to five minute guided meditation can do for you, to help you forget about the stress of the day and bring you right back here and say, whoo, there's a little recharge, I feel better and off you go to the next thing.

Speaker 2: 10:19

If you got to go back and revisit another meditation, go ahead and do it, I like it.

Speaker 1: 11:03

So is it possible to meditate too much? That'd be a question for Mike. Mike. Too much meditation a reality?

Speaker 3: 11:11

Yeah, I think too much of anything is a possibility. I really draw a comparison between meditation and like running on a treadmill at the gym. You want to lose I don't know 10-15 pounds. You got to start going to the gym running on a treadmill. You're not going to expect huge results in the first 15 minutes of day one on that treadmill. You're going to expect small, incremental changes over time. And that's what meditation is really about. There's a couple of misconceptions about meditation that are very popular out there. Anyone who's like just casually googling stuff about mindful listen meditation, they might find something like this. It might say meditation instructions Get everybody out of your house can make sure it's nice and quiet. Go up to your room, dim all the lights, light some incense, put on some like tinkly new age music, sit down and clear your mind. So Nia's not involved in real meditation.

Speaker 3: 12:11

That's not necessary. What I'm trying to, if you like, any more power to you, but I'm like all of these things are not necessary and a big important point is that the instructions that you'll often see on the internet that says clear your mind are very misleading and, I would say, almost dangerous, especially for people like us that know what real emergencies are like. We like to get things right, we like to put effort out, we like to have the tools in the town and get things done. So if your idea as a person that's brand new to meditation, if your idea is that I'm supposed to sit down and clear my mind, that's going to fail in the first three seconds, when your mind just starts randomly Could be random stuff I got to get hot dog buns on my way home, it could be. I can't believe they promoted this guy to lieutenant. It could be a memory of something from three days ago, five years ago, but within three seconds of you sitting down and trying to quote clear your mind, you're going to fail at that because that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what meditation is.

Speaker 3: 13:16

Meditation is the skill, or it's the practice of the skill of being present. With whatever your experience is. I've we've gone over different iterations in. At FLF I've been I changed the focus depending on who's in the program at the time really been focusing on silent meditation more because, lately, because I point out that there's two instructions for meditation. This comes from my background studying zen, which is a little bit different from the type of meditation that you'll see in most yoga studios or meditation centers. Two instructions for meditation are be still.

Speaker 3: 13:56

What I mean by that is, if you're gonna, you say you're gonna meditate for 20 minutes, cool, set a timer on your phone for 20 minutes, sit there, focus on your breath, no matter what happens, no matter where your mind goes. Do not chase those thoughts around you. If, imagine it, you was like oh my god, I forgot to pay my taxes, I got to write a check, go down a town hall immediately. It doesn't matter what comes up in that 20 minutes. Your goal is to be still. And when you do that, you are learning that a couple of things. One, the mind does what it does. Jack cornfield has a quote. He's a meditation teacher. His quote is the mind secretes thoughts the way the salivary glands eat saliva. That's what the mind does. It just kicks out one thought after another. And when you get quiet, your mind goes out.

Speaker 3: 14:46

The goal is to be still, be present with whatever your mind is doing. You're not trying to control your thoughts. That's going to be a failure immediately. You're just trying to be present with whatever your mind is putting up there in front of you. And the second instruction that I give number one is be still.

Speaker 3: 15:05

The second one is fix your posture when you realize that you've been in La land for five straight minutes. Holy geez, I'm supposed to be focusing on my breath and I just been thinking about this. I just won an argument with my boss and my thoughts. You ever have that happen. When you come back from that while you're meditating and you realize you've been in La land for five minutes, if you pay attention to your posture, even if you're sitting in a chair, you might notice that your head is slumped a little bit. Your shoulders have rounded.

Speaker 3: 15:33

Instruction number two sit up straight, take a deep breath, focus on your breath again. Be still, fix your posture. If you do those two things, you are meditating successfully and you've got it right and you're good at it, period. That's very important for vets and first responders to understand, because if you think that your mind wandering means you're not good at it, you're going to give up and we all know where that road eventually leads. So you're there to be present with your thoughts and any. If you do that 20 minutes and you hear your alarm at the end of 20 minutes, that was 100 successful. That's very important.

Speaker 1: 16:11

Mike, when you talk about dealing with, let your mind be with whatever it's thinking about, don't try to control it. Yeah, one of the one of the things I know that is a big issue for first responders a lot of times is when they have intrusive thoughts. Maybe they keep seeing a certain incident over and over. Maybe there's some negativity that keeps coming into their mind. How does that play into what you're doing with the meditation here? Cool?

Speaker 3: 16:40

when I was talking about my analogy that meditation is like doing cardio on a treadmill at the gym. You're looking for incremental results over time. People like us really want to. We want to kick a door in and have that be a successful intervention. We want to have something happen that actually changes the situation for the better. It can be difficult for us to spend time working on a project that you don't see results for a few weeks, but the key to understanding this is that is how those intrusive thoughts are going to become fewer and fewer.

Speaker 3: 17:17

It's less frequent. It's the practice of meditation. Over time, it almost feels like a side effect that you notice one day. Hey, your family and friends will notice before you do. Everyone should know that. Your family and friends will be like hey, you just, you know, this guy just cut you off and you handled that pretty well. That's weird. You're feeling okay, your friends and family will notice before you do, but a day will come barely quickly where it's gee. I haven't been that event that I have not been able to keep out of my head for five years. I can't remember the last time I thought of it. Might have been days ago. So it's incremental progress.

Speaker 2: 17:58

I was just gonna say the the incremental part of it. We, our professions, were usually. We want that instant gratification. Yeah, instant, immediate success. And oh my gosh, I actually have to wait for that to happen. And when you mention that one day it will click. You need that cognitive shift to take place and once that happens, it's like that light bulb just automatically goes off and, yes, this is working and I've got this and it's a huge relief, I know it was for me. That's exactly the way it was for me.

Speaker 3: 18:37

You have to get out long enough to get that, though. That's the thing. You've done it, but a lot of people fall short of that.

Speaker 2: 18:43

Yeah, and I didn't realize that it was a cognitive shift. But since I've been up there with the last, the research that I'm doing the constant, trying to figure out new ways, new techniques to keep myself on track, the mind-melter classes of psychotherapy, is okay. All this stuff is crystal clear to me now. You just got to put the time in, you got to put the work in and I'm living proof. It will click if you give it 100% effort and you give it the time that it deserves.

Speaker 3: 19:20

Absolutely. I want to say one more thing, because Travis brought up the intrusive thoughts. The way to work on that, as we've been discussing, is that meditation. But if you're in a bad way and you just can't get this stuff out of your head, you need to do some breathing practices. That's like the second big prong of what we teach in the program. There's really no point in meditating if you are at 9000 rpms in your mind and you're partnering at 140 sitting in your chair. That's not the best time to meditate. What you need in that case is to do some real deep breathing exercises.

Speaker 3: 19:57

We teach just normal diaphragmatic breathing. There's box breathing that I'm sure people are familiar with. There's all kinds of different vegas nerve reset techniques for breathing. All of them are good. Intrusive thoughts are going to go away over time through mindfulness practice and meditation. But in the moment, if you're worried that you're going to make a bad decision for yourself and your family, that's breathing. Breathing is a PRN for my medical people out there. Breathing practices are going to rescue you in the moment. It's that meditation practice that's going to reduce those thoughts over time.

Speaker 2: 20:35

And the breath work is critical. You mentioned two of them that I practice. I do diaphragmatic breathing and I do the box breathing and I do those on a regular basis and people don't understand why that is so important. Jen, one of Jen's favorite phrases that she always tells me Jen is a colleague of Mike's. Breathe with intention. Sometimes we forget how important breathing is. Yeah, it does more than just keep us alive. We don't even think about it. You need to breathe with intention and to get yourself calm, especially during a crisis situation.

Speaker 3: 21:54

It's very important. It's an important thing to have multiple angles of attack in your recovery the breathing practice that's every day and that's what's going to pull you out of a bad way in the moment. And then the longer term meditation practice is going to really change your life. But that's over time and there's a bunch of other stuff that we can do. There's, like, physical exercise, very important. There's probably no better treatment for PTSD than physical exercise. But the problem with vets and first responders is we think that that's all we need to do. So, like you get my, I've worked with people that are in the gym.

Speaker 3: 22:34

They're doing two days every day. Cool, that's good for the body, but that's not all you need to do. You need to have a well-rounded program breathing, meditation, physical exercise. Have some fun, get back into whatever hobby that you used to do that you stopped doing because you started having difficulty with anxiety or with depression, or you got to work a ton of overtime to take care of your family. All of this stuff is important, but balance is very important. But your family doesn't necessarily need to work at 80 hours a week. They might want to see you a little bit more and a little bit less money in the bank account. This is just me talking from experience of speaking with many firefighter cops and vets.

Speaker 2: 23:22

The practice of having a routine, the key to any recovery is routine.

Speaker 2: 23:29

You have to be able to practice something that works for you. I always tell people that what works for me may not be suitable for you. It may not work for you. I have a lot of people that make fun of me when I tell them about meditation and mindfulness and meditative movement Things that are part of my routine. It's like that hippie tree hugger stuff. You got to be crazy. I don't care what your routine is Physical activity, getting out there, moving the body around, getting out there in nature, doing recreational activities, whatever it is. Find something and stick with it if it's working for you.

Speaker 2: 24:14

Two quotes from you that have stuck with me you were just talking about the mind, and the mind pays attention to. The mind resembles what it pays attention to. That sticks with me all the time. Another one where you're just talking about hobbies, enjoyable activities, things like that. I remember you telling us in the group and you told me sitting in your office one day that if you were waiting to feel better to do things that you once enjoyed, it's never going to happen. You have to get out of that comfort zone. Comfort kills progress If you feel okay and you're not stepping outside that box to pick those things up. It may never happen. Sometimes we have to force ourselves to do things that are uncomfortable to get to the end goal objective.

Speaker 2: 25:10

Those two phrases right there have stuck with me ever since I first heard you speak them Very powerful.

Speaker 3: 25:18

Awesome. I can't take credit for the first one. That goes back to a guy named Siddhartha Gotama, who people call the Buddha. This is not a religious system, necessarily. This is what he was talking about with that quote is psychology. There was no difference 2600 years ago. There was no difference between psychology, science, religion, politics, agriculture. There was no difference between all that stuff. When the Buddha said the mind resembles what it pays attention to, that's a cycle. He's speaking psychologically there. A different version of that quote I saw on a bumper sticker in the beautiful Brattleboro, vermont. I'll edit this for our family audience here. It said the grumpier I am, the more A-holes I meet.

Speaker 1: 26:01

I thought that was a great bumper sticker.

Speaker 3: 26:03

I was like man, is that true or what? That's a different way of saying. The mind resembles what it pays attention to. Whatever the mind pays attention to, it is more likely to think that same way over and over again. That's a great quote. I can't take credit for that. But if you're waiting to feel better before you get back to doing what you love, what you enjoy, that's never going to happen.

Speaker 3: 26:27

That is my quote. It's not necessarily a downer. It's just not a fatalistic comment, it's not a depressive comment. It just means that it doesn't work in that direction. You can get back to doing whatever it is you want to do Pinch-striping motorcycle gas tanks, playing basketball, playing golf, whatever it is you can get back to doing it. But the trick is you've got to realize that the body has to move first. You've got to get out there to the driving range and hit balls, whether you want to or not, and if you're miserable the whole time, that's fine. The body has to move first, and then the mind will catch up. So when I say if you're waiting to feel better, that's never going to happen, it's not a downer, it's just that we have it backwards.

Speaker 3: 27:12

You've got to go out there and do what you need to do.

Speaker 2: 27:15

To me that was like a slap of reality right in the face form. Holy crap, this guy's not crazy, he's right with this and sure enough, and I'm sure we've all experienced that where we don't feel like doing something or we, man, I don't want to go do it, and once you start to do it again, it feels good and it's oh my God. Don't always pay attention to the thoughts that are in your head, because they're going to lie to you, and put those off to the side. Go do it, and you may be surprised at the results. I would like to talk about something that I think you and I have a strong belief in, and that is the difference between post-traumatic stress disorder and how it really should be classified more as an injury in our line of work.

Speaker 2: 28:13

I don't ever like to use the word disorder because that's usually a negative connotation associated with it, and what we experienced are injuries, and I had to live that firsthand, going through my legal issues and things like that. It's not necessarily a disorder. It was a job-related injury and we haven't documented it and we haven't proven it. It is an injury to the mind, and do you like to elaborate on that a little bit for us?

Speaker 3: 28:41

Yeah, absolutely so. The word disorder right there in that word. It makes it sound like there's something wrong that shouldn't be wrong. That's what the word disorder means Something's out of order and that makes it sound like it's not totally predictable, like it's not a totally predictable result of a 15-year career in the fire service or of a two-year career in the law enforcement. Disorder is a great term for insurance companies, if you ask me.

Speaker 3: 29:14

Post-traumatic stress disorder is more of an injury. The example that I use to illustrate this is I probably should learn a little more about baseball before I shoot my mouth off with this. But imagine like a major league baseball catcher and I know that MLB they play like 170 games or something a year. I don't know what it is, but it's something like that Imagine a catcher who's having a heck of a season for seven straight seasons and he's down there in that crouched position for over 100 games a year for six straight years. At the end of this guy's career, even if he's like a Hall of Famer, he's going to have a hard time getting up off the floor. His knees might be just a little bit tweaked from that and there isn't anyone alive that would judge him for that. There isn't anyone alive that would point at this MLB catcher and be like this guy's a coward. How come he's taken such a long time getting up out of his chair?

Speaker 3: 30:10

That's an injury and it's clear enough to everyone the fact that we will take someone who is like a firefighter, paramedic for 15 years and is out there working in the community and basically this person's job is to go to your worst day of your life, a day that you couldn't even imagine happening once in your life, with all the tragedy and all of the shock and the trauma that comes with that. This hypothetical firefighter is doing that every day for 15 years. That's an injury. That's a totally predictable injury that this person might have intrusive thoughts, might send angry text messages without thinking twice about it, might be a little bit hot under the collar. This is an injury and if we had time and the inclination we could go into that. There's physical changes in the brain.

Speaker 3: 31:02

There's physical changes in the endocrine system with adrenaline and cortisol and all of that stuff and those types of physical changes are what we're totally comfortable calling an injury if we were dealing with somebody's knee or rotator cuff. But because this injury expresses itself in the ways that we think, in the ways that we communicate with our friends and family, we've all gotten the idea that, oh, it's a disorder, it's in our head, there's something wrong with you. And the first thing I hit my clients with on day one at 9.15 in the morning, when it's my turn at them, after we've had the introductions and all that, the first thing I hit these people with is there is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with you. That's important to know.

Speaker 3: 31:50

Almost every one of my clients comes to me thinking they're the only one in their firehouse that's not handling this stuff right, or the only one in their barracks that's not handling this stuff properly, and that's just definitely demonstrably not true. There's nothing wrong with you. That isn't wrong with anyone else that had your career. There's nothing wrong with a baseball catcher that has bad knees. That isn't wrong with every other catcher that's had that kind of time in the game. So that's why it's an injury and not a disorder, if you ask me One of my staff clinicians, josh Coates, who was a firefighter and paramedic for about 15 years. I'm indebted to him for that little speech I just gave. He really put all those ideas together in a really powerful way and I'm ripping him off a little bit, but I'm his boss, so it's okay.

Speaker 2: 32:40

That's huge Things that we go through, things that we see on the job. That's a normal reaction to an abnormal situation and automatically we get those thoughts that, oh, something's wrong with me. No, there are imbalances and there are injuries to the brain that have taken place and it goes back to the fight or flight sympathetic versus parasympathetic and prefrontal cortex to limbic system and how we're reacting and why are we reacting the way that we do?

Speaker 2: 33:14

And if we're already not understanding it, trying to figure it out and fight through it is not going to make the situation any better. So being able to have that explained in a different way is crucial being able to get on that road to recovery. But absolutely, you and I definitely agree.

Speaker 1: 33:35

So if me trying to wrap my head around this? It sounds like that firefighters need to understand that they're going to come away from their career probably with a bad back and some scars, whether it be emotional or mental. It just goes with the job, just like any other physical injury that may plague you to the day you die.

Speaker 3: 33:58

Yes and no. Yes, that is that you are again. Firefighters, police officers, medics, you guys are going to somebody's absolute worst day of their life.

Speaker 3: 34:12

But you're doing that every day. So that's not free. You can't do this job and expect there to be no consequences, but that does not mean that you have to develop post-traumatic stress. One of the things that I'm doing, that I really enjoy doing, is I'm doing these resiliency trainings at firehouses and police departments. I love what I can get the younger, newer people that are just starting out. I partnered a little bit with the Vermont Emergency Medical Services Academy and I love it when I get a hold of a brand new EMT basic class of young people. Even a lot of these young people in an EMT basic class have been a volunteer firefighter for five years, so they've already seen some stuff for sure.

Speaker 3: 34:57

But the things that I teach which Eric did a great job of summarizing kind of what we do in the program the things that I teach are not different. If you're coming to me after 30 years in the fire service versus I'm coming to you in week one of your EMT basic class. It's the same skills. They're remedial, they're medicine, but they're also preventative. So, travis, it's yes, you can't, you're probably not going to get to the end of a full career in the fire service without sustaining a couple of bumps and bruises mentally, certainly physically, but it's not like that. It doesn't have to be like that, if we can. Some of the work that you guys are doing with the peer support network is really important, because if we can get this type of message to people in the beginning of their career, they don't have to go where we've all gone in our various different types of jobs. They can use these skills to digest these things that they're seeing. I use a digestion metaphor a lot.

Speaker 1: 35:58

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 36:00

You can digest these things.

Speaker 2: 36:02

Travis and I just we talked today in an executive fire officer program and I talked about some health and wellness and the importance of leadership when it comes to that, and we're really good at helping other people and for the most part we suck at taking care of ourselves. And we're good at helping people when they get in trouble, but why are they getting in trouble in the first place and getting into the academies, getting into the careers early, incorporating some sort of resiliency program, mindfulness training early on and having that in your health and wellness program in your fire department? Holy cow, that's going to allow people to work 15, 20 plus years and hopefully not have to go make a visit to you guys or go somewhere else, and it just becomes part of the training aspect. Preventative maintenance on your vehicle You're not going to wait for the little light on the dashboard to come on before you change the oil in your truck. Hopefully we're doing that beforehand.

Speaker 2: 37:08

Your body and your mind is absolutely no different. Got to take care of. Yes, you do get it. Get ahead of it. Which leads me to the last question I have for you, mike. When somebody does finally get to that point where they have no other options, they've tried taking care of themselves, it's not working. Usually, when you get that far deep. Anyway, it's not going to work without some sort of help, counseling, treatment, whatever. How important is it to be able to advocate and empower and encourage your people that asking for help is not a weak point?

Speaker 3: 37:51

It is crucial to answer your question. It is crucial that idea that asking for help is a weakness that kills people. We've lost people to suicide. I talk about suicide plainly. It realizes in everybody's cup of tea, but it's very important. It's that idea that there's something wrong with you, that it's weakness if you need help. That idea that's in the back of your mind that everybody else is handling this stress better than I am. That is pointing you down a road that doesn't lead anywhere good and often leads somewhere real bad. So it is absolutely crucial for us all to send this message that it's asking for help is not a weakness, Asking for help is a strength.

Speaker 3: 38:37

I talk about two kinds of strength from the people that we see in our program. The first kind of strength every one of us has. Everyone that's ever come through my doors in my program has the first kind of courage. And the first kind of strength that's the courage to kick in a door, to run out into the middle of a four-lane highway and do CPR on a patient, To go assault some objective if you're in a combat zone. We all have that kind of courage.

Speaker 3: 39:03

The second kind of courage is to just suck it up a little bit with the pride and with the ego that can be part of our culture, Suck it up just a little bit and say you know what? I need some assistance here. We do that in our jobs all the time. I certainly, in all of the hand-to-hand combat I did in the psychiatric field, I had no trouble calling for help. I've worked with a lot of soldiers and Marines that had no trouble getting on the horn and calling for a little close air support. I know that I follow our local mutual aid system on Twitter and nobody there has a problem asking for another engine. So it's very important. It's not a weakness, In fact, it's courage to show up and be like you know what? I'm going to learn some new skills. I'm going to learn a new way of being here.

Speaker 2: 39:54

Yeah, absolutely that mental health mayday, whether you're in the military or a first-use foundry when, where and how to call for a mayday, call for help. But there is such a negative stigma attached to us saying I need help and advocate. I preach it all the time going around doing my teachings and things like that and that's all we can do. Just show people that it is not weak.

Speaker 2: 40:25

If you don't, these are the potential consequences and I always tell people that was probably one of the one of the toughest decisions I ever had to make in my life was when I realized I was to the point that I was destined to one of two things, and that was living absolute life of misery where I was going to die by my own hands and I need help. And look at me now. Thanks to you and Jen and the rest of the crowd up there, I'm a success story and I'm proud to be able to share my story, be able to go around, teach, advocate for people that it might not feel like they have the strength or the courage to be able to ask.

Speaker 3: 41:05

Includers. I just want to thank you guys for having me on. Of course, I appreciate the opportunity. I just I want to again we I, you are a success story man and it's the most gratifying thing for me to see people that I've worked with doing well, and then especially a few people we worked with are now helping others and spreading the message. If I have helped you or anyone else, it is because I have the map and I have the compass. But you did the walk and now you're showing other people how to do the walk. That's what this is all about.

Speaker 1: 41:37

I appreciate that, brother. So, Mike, would you be willing to come back and maybe let us use your compass a little bit more in the future, maybe look at ways that we can maybe get started in the art of mindfulness and moving down this road ourselves?

Speaker 3: 41:53

Absolutely I'd be, I'd be honored, and I always like talking to people that are you guys get it and you guys are doing good work, so I love it. Yeah, I could go on. I don't know with how much time we have. I think we're over time. I could go on and on, so I can't wait to come back, yeah.

Speaker 2: 42:09

We will definitely bring it back. If any of our listeners have any questions for you, what's the easiest way for them to get in touch with you?

Speaker 3: 42:16

Yep, you can. We have an email address, a general email address that's flf at frontlinefoundationsorg. And everyone's got to remember that Foundations has an S on the end of it. I know that's confusing and I should have thought about that three years ago, but it's because we teach the four foundations of mindfulness, flf at frontlinefoundationsorg. Call us 802-732-2518. And if you can remember all this, send me an email personally, mikec at frontlinefoundationsorg, and do me a favor. If you're listening to this and you send me an email, just mention that you heard me on the All Clear podcast. That way I have an idea of where you're coming from.

Speaker 2: 43:01

Well, I appreciate your time, Mike. You guys first and foremost say hey to the crowd for me up there and you guys keep doing the good work that you're doing, brother.

Speaker 1: 43:11

Hey, mike, before we go I have a little bit of therapy I do myself.

Speaker 2: 43:16

Oh, you better hold on to your seat.

Speaker 3: 43:18

I heard some of your episodes. I think I know what's coming. Let's do it.

Speaker 1: 43:21

Eric, did I tell you I got carded at the ABC store the other day? No, when I opened my wallet, my blockbuster card fell out and he said ah, never mind.

Speaker 3: 43:32

Yeah, very good Okay.

Speaker 2: 43:34

There it is.

Speaker 3: 43:35

Yeah, thank you, you don't take that joke, you're not old enough. Exactly.

Speaker 1: 43:39

Well, most of our demographic are older. But, mike, thank you so much for your time and Eric, again thank you for sharing part of your journey with Mike and how you all know each other. We're going to have Mike back before too long, absolutely as always. We thank you for listening to All Clear and, like we always say, light your fire with them. You have been listening to All Clear. All Clear is presented by the North Carolina Firefighter Cancer Alliance and the first responders peer support network. This program is hosted and produced by Travis McGeach and Eric Stevenson. Visit our website, allclearpodcastcom, where you can contact us and leave feedback. If you like what you hear, please share this podcast with someone. The opinions of guests do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast. This podcast is recorded with e-script and with technology that is provided by Cortec computers. We'll see you soon and, as always, light your fire with them.