The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How to Become a Mindful Warrior with Owner and Author Kim Colegrove | KEV Talks #22

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

In this episode, Kim Colegrove and I talk about her growing up in Kansas City, how she learned Meditation at a young age, the loss of her husband David to suicide, and how she and Pause First Academy provide First Responders and U.S. Military Veterans resilience training focusing on holistic wellness and work-life balance.Reach out to Kim directly at [e-mail] practical tools by reading Mindfulness for WarriorsLearn more about Pause First AcademyKim Colegrove is a veteran meditator and speaker with over 40 years of experience and the Author of Mindfulness for Warriors. In 2014, Kim lost her husband David to suicide, less than three months after he retired from a 30-year law enforcement career. She created The PauseFirst Project to honor David’s memory and to help other first responders cope with stress and trauma.

In September of 2022, I recorded Mindfulness for Warriors, a review of a book by the same name. Well, in KevTalks Podcast episode 22, I am so fortunate to have the author of that book, Kim Colgrove, with me on the show. In this episode, Kim and I talk about the tragic loss of her husband, David, to suicide. We touch on the weight of stories from other first responders, and that's public safety folks and military veterans alike. And then we talk about the wisdom, the tools, and the resources that Kim has been studying for over 40 years that she shares with veterans, first responders, warriors, as we call them, as she calls them in her book. And then we talk about the PAWS First Academy and the services it provides, the departments that use those services and

the learning and the tools. And we have a really frank conversation about the initial treatment sometimes for trauma with medication, but not a holistic approach. And I just want to add that if you're in a dark spot, if you're in a spot where it's hard to get out of bed, where you're just not sure that you should be here anymore, let me tell you one you should, that you can get out of bed, and that this episode will help point you in the right direction from someone who has been at the darkest times, who lost someone she loved, and who then created tools for folks like you and me to use in our darkest hour. If you need help, you text HOME or 741741, or you call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. And stay tuned to this episode. Listen to it.

Learn from it. Use the tools. Go to the website. Buy the book Mindfulness for Warriors or get it from your library like I did. Thank you so much for including the KevTalks podcast in your library of things to listen to. But I'm not going to hold you up anymore. Let's get to this great conversation that I was fortunate to have with Kim Colgrove. Three, two, one. Hey, everybody. Thanks for coming back to the KevTalks podcast, episode 22. I am so thankful to be joined by Kim Colgrove, who is the author of the book

Mindfulness for Warriors that I both read, used the tools in and did a podcast episode about in September of 2022. So please go check that out. Really thankful that you're on the show. Thanks for being here so much, Kim. I think I said thank you like five times, but I appreciate it. Well, thank you five times for having me. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Yeah. Like I mentioned, last year was a tough one for me. I had some family sickness that brought up a whole bunch of other stuff. I had a panic attack, dealt with that at the time pretty poorly, but throughout the year expanded or rebuilt on a lot of my tools, right? Of better sleep, cutting back on alcohol, hydrating, I was

exercising pretty well, and then got more into mindfulness, which we'll certainly get into here and that you've been into for a long time. But it just makes a huge difference. And we'll get into kind of how that works as well. But we also want to share, you know, kind of your background and your history, because you have a long history of using mindfulness in general, but then also the catalyst for what, you know, caused you to create Mindfulness for Warriors, the book, and then we'll get into the Paws First Academy. So where did you grow up and what led you down the mindfulness path? Well, I'm from Kansas City, Missouri, and home of the Chiefs. Sorry, I had to stick that in there. Nice.

And this is where I grew up. I'm like, I don't even know, third, fourth generation Kansas Cityan, I guess. Oh, wow. And yeah, I have a long history with meditation, that's for sure. My parents had me trained in transcendental meditation in 1976 when I was 10 years old. So that's a technique. It's still around. It's a viable technique. It's

what a lot of our research is based on, actually. It's not what I practice anymore, and it's not what I teach. But that definitely was the foundation that helped me create the methodologies I ended up using down the road. My parents were meditators. And I look back now, and I think a lot of people would have thought that was weird that they were having a kid trained but i'm so glad they did because it's a tool i used my whole life and um i was kind of a closet meditator for a long time until the early 2000s when i kind of came out of the closet started sharing with people about it about a few small workshops and then by january of 2011 i was teaching meditation and mindfulness full-time professionally in corporate settings,

primarily, but I also taught small classes and worked with private clients. So that's when I started using meditation as a tool professionally and supporting myself doing that. That was a huge transition because I quit a corporate job that I loved. Oh, wow. Yeah. What field were you in before you took on mindfulness and meditation full-time? Oh, gosh.

Well, I worked for a company. It's not in business anymore, but it was called College Coaches Network. And we helped high school athletes get college scholarships. And I came from a big sports family. My grandfather was an NFL official for 25 years and worked five Super Bowls. My dad played three sports in college and played college football. My brother played three sports in college and played college football at University

of Kansas. And so I came from that big sports family. And when I started working for this organization, I loved it. And I already got kind of understood the recruiting process. So I developed in and ran the customer service department, though. That's really my gift. My strength in life is kind of customer service facing. That's what I do best, I think. There you go. Cool. Yeah. And you can read the experience in the book, Mindfulness for Warriors. You can tell even when you speak to someone or read kind of their words that you had that background, kind of very knowledgeable, all that great information. What we also read, unfortunately, is the story about your husband, David, right?

Which was a catalyst for the book and getting this out to more first responders and warriors. Can you just touch on what happened in that process of you realizing, you know what? Could this have made a difference? How do I get this out there to other first responders? Sure, yeah. So I was teaching mindfulness professionally in corporate settings.

And I've been doing that for about six or seven years. And in September of 2014, my husband, David retired from a 30 year law enforcement career. He was a police officer for eight years, and then he was a federal agent for the last 22 years of his career. So he left the house every day with a badge and a gun, but he, his heart was really in business. And he had spent the last two years of his professional life building and working on and creating a new company with a business partner. So he appeared ready to retire. He was excited to step into the business world because he had a master's degree in business management. So he was excited to make that transition, but also terrified at the same time. All he knew was law enforcement. And so he retired in September and then unbelievably, and unfortunately,

less than three months after he retired, David took his own life. And that was the beginning of what changed the trajectory of my life professionally, because it really made me think about the level of stress and trauma that he was living with, that he carried that went unprocessed. And what I realized maybe, you know, several months after he died was in his mind, he was going to retire and that kind of would all go away. Wouldn't be in that world anymore. And he would be okay. Cause he had plans, he had things lined up, but I don't think he ever really took care of all that that was piled up inside of him.

And that led me to think about all, well, I started with law enforcement, you know, thinking about, gosh, what, you know, what cops see and hear and do and endure and what they carry. And they don't really, you know, I knew, I didn't know all of his stories and some of his stories he would talk about very rarely because he didn't want to, you know, put that on me or other people. And anyway, thinking about that led me to think about all first responders. And I realized, my gosh, these people are carrying such a heavy load and there is no way for them to offload it. Because I knew part of what hindered my husband was he was never going to get the level of help that would have made a difference for him because he was always terrified that his employer would deem him unfit to do his job. So what are are you going to do hold it in so that that's why i then eventually

a couple years later uh well just a few months after david died i started thinking you know uh cops need to learn how to meditate they need to know how to meditate they need to be learning it in the academy i got all gung-ho about that but turned out that that getting any police agency to allow me to teach their employees to meditate was a little bit of an uphill battle. I would imagine, yeah. It took me some time, but I did meet finally in 2017. I met a police commander who said yes, and I started teaching meditation and mindfulness to law enforcement and then opened it up to all first responders, social workers, all these surrounding professions. And that led me to write the book where I tell the story about David. I interviewed some veterans and first responders who share how they struggled and what tools they found

that helped them. And they all did say meditation or mindfulness, or they wouldn't have made the book, quite frankly. Because that's what I was talking about. How that worked out, yeah. But they listed a lot of other helpful tools. And I think that's been really important and helpful for first responders because they're reading from their peers about tools that helped them. Yeah, that's a great point. And we touched on it of, it's the book educated person that's never been in the situation

that wants to talk to you about the situation and how you should deal with it. It doesn't register the same. And that doesn't mean that the tools might not work, but if folks haven't been there and for my exposure, one, thanks for explaining it, is really firing a mess.

Some of the best friends are cops, career, you know, career cops. Some are getting ready to retire, shared, you know, what you shared the other day, um, prepping for retirement, which we'll get into with some of the pause first courses and stuff. Um, but also wanted to, wanted to touch on it because for me last year, after I had a tough time dealing with tons of stress, I was like, I got to find solutions. And I just was like, like ravenous for those. Right. Cause I didn't want to deal with it. Did you find when, you know, a few months later you, you realize, Hey, I have to get

this in front of more cops. Like, did you have that trying to find a solution that, that was kind of part of a coping mechanism for you as well? Oh my gosh. Having the skills and tools that I developed over years around meditation and mindfulness and learning from other teachers and taking courses and going on retreats and things that I had done for years, a hundred percent saved what could have been a devastating, just a devastating event for me. I can understand why people struggle to get out of bed, why they shuffle

around their house for months and don't know what to do with themselves. If I wouldn't have had the skills and tools that I had developed, I could have really shut down because David was retiring. He was starting a company he was really excited about and I was building my company. So we were going to both be self-employed and we had plans. I mean, we were shopping for RVs, you know, we had our house, we were going to, our grandkids were going to come to and, you know, and swim in our pool and have sleepovers, you know, we had plans and that all got wiped out. And I can see that that's ruining a life. So yes, I used a lot of the tools that are mentioned in the book and the mindfulness and the meditation and having developed the ability to bring myself into the present moment. Huge. And that self-regulation piece, because of course your

emotions want to continually pull you back to the good times, to the previous times, to what could I have done differently? I didn't do enough to the day the incident happened, right? And you could get stuck there. Right. Yeah. Yeah, totally. You know, and you mentioned and touched on, and I have kind of honestly a cheat sheet that touched on, and I've kind of, honestly, a cheat sheet that we talked about. So using kind of, I talked about these foundational five things and the foundational five is a concept. So for me, between project management, incident management, if you can get the leader's intent, make some objectives, make like an org structure, get resources and communicate, you can solve pretty much any problem. And that's like

taken from all the book stuff, but it's like, what has worked when we go somewhere to help after a missing person or a tornado or plan a vice president, all these events, which is great and tease those out. And so when I did the previous episode of the solar one, I said, these are the five things that to me were most impactful and I think would be helpful for listeners. And I wanted to talk about those a bit more than one you already touched on, which was a great, I was sitting there like, oh, that's the segue, but the invisible wounds, right? So all the things that we keep stuffed into that attic in the back of our head and either, like you mentioned, are afraid both one to probably show quote weakness because it's

not weakness, right? But then also because employers in previous years, and probably still some now, but in previous years, haven't really supported that as much like, hey, they're pretty unsteady not dealing with it, as opposed to let's get you the help you need. What are some of those invisible wounds in dealing with it? Because you also mentioned not dealing with it, which as we both know, some folks deal with it in a horrible way, right? With anger and withdrawal and rage and alcohol and drugs and all these other things. What can some folks kind of look at for, and this touches on the other one of kind of predictors of suicide, but those invisible wounds in hindsight, are there things now that you see that you either teach, and you mentioned in the

book or through pause first, like, hey, if you're kind of starting to see these, whether it's retirement or someone that's one year in or something, those invisible wounds where you can kind of, they're not so invisible for folks. Are there some tools that folks can use to spot those? To spot that in other people, for sure. I hear stories all the time about people being at work and realizing you know she's just a little off like something's not quite right or somebody's personality changes like he's really withdrawn he used to be like jokester he's really withdrawn so i think it's somebody's demeanor personality personality changes, noticeably changes. If you notice a lot of risky behavior, that's a huge indicator. A lot of they're drinking more when you're with them or when you run into them when they're drinking, they seem like they are just wasted.

That could be that they're also using drugs, you know, with the and other risky behavior. I mean, I've talked to so many first responders who are kind of reformed risky behavior people who just wanted to drive motorcycles fast all the time and just do all kinds of crazy stuff. but I think if you detect that something is really off or different about a person, just engaging them in a conversation, and that's what people are afraid to do, but you can just say, Hey, are you doing okay? Like you seem a little off. Are you, I mean, I'm here for you, buddy. If you ever need to talk, you know, something like that just to open, open a window because sometimes people just simply don't have anybody to talk to that's a good point right yeah and it's it's hard it's actually not hard but it's

it's hard some some way however that fits to to reach out to some folks right even if it's somebody you work with all the time and it's that maybe afraid to cross that barrier um because do they want to hear the answer for real? You know what I mean? Yeah, that's such a good point. That's such a good point because we do kind of have that thing sometimes where we're like, I don't really want to get involved. Or it's just about my pay grade. Like, what if they do say something's wrong?

I don't know what to do with that. And heaven forbid, someone tell you they're having suicidal ideation, thoughts of suicide, or feel like something like that, because you can't walk away from that conversation. You can't be like, well, hey, tomorrow's a new day. So that's a good point. It's sometimes hard to ask. And this is why really what needs to happen. I mean, we can speculate all the, you know, what are good ways to approach this, but what needs to happen is an overall culture change across all of these professions. And it needs to be a top down endeavor and real and true mental and emotional wellness and health and wellbeing needs to be important.

And it has to start with the leadership and the leadership has to support it and model it. Support it and model. It's one thing to be a boss and bring in some training or get a clinician for your agency or whatever it is. It's one thing to support it. It's a completely different level to model it for people, talk openly about it and make it okay. And those are the kind of people that I've met on my path. These are the true leaders, in my opinion, the ones who are brave enough, courageous enough to be vulnerable and be honest about their struggles, like to share with their people at work and like, hey, I struggle to be open and honest about maybe going to therapy.

And so start to normalize that. That's what needs to happen. The rest of us that are kind of on the leading edge of wellness, we can tiptoe around all this and try and figure out like, what's the best way to secretly do it? But that isn't, I mean, people are dying. People are dying every day at their own hands. And first responders life expectancy is lower than that of the general population because of health problems and alcoholism and all kinds of things. We are sacrificing human beings to these jobs and that's not okay.

So the true leaders, the actual leaders, the bosses, and then those, not the actual leaders, but the leaders within the organization. And I know you know these. I know you've worked with them and you may be one, but they're leaders in a different way that are willing to step up, step forward, be honest, and pave the way for this to be okay. It just needs to be okay. The fact that, and this is what happened with my husband, for sure. He held in and carried this stuff for so many years because he was so terrified that anybody

would think there was anything wrong with him. He needed to hold up to keep up the facade. Right. And he didn't live to be 52. And so that's not worth it. Right. It's not worth it to keep up the facade. It's not worth it.

Right. Yeah. And I totally know what you mean. There's, and you, you see it on, you know, critical incidents or something and, you know, kind of the white wave shows up, right? The white shirts with the collar brass and the leaders you mentioned are the leaders that have, who knows what rank they are, but they're the ones people look to like on field decisions or in the precinct or the firehouse decisions. Yeah, exactly.

And those folks are not, they may on the outside be stoic and, you know, look like, oh, they've got it squared away, but they could be the worst off, right? And just not showing it. And to your point, to let folks, it's not a break, right? But to let them kind of release the pressure valve and say yeah you know what i am going to go talk to somebody and and learn that balance of you know someone may start the discussion with their crewmate or you know someone you know their colleague and then educating the colleagues to know hey if you hear these kind of things it's all right to let other people know because to the point you're like morally obligated kind of now, right? Because it's better to say something than not see something and someone does take your life.

And then you're like, oh, my God, why didn't I say something right? Yeah. Yeah. The ripple effects of guilt around that. That's not worth it either. Right. Yeah. Yes.

This just has to change my dream is that in a decade or so, um, it, it, it therapy and time off for the invisible wounds and all that will be the norm will be the rule and not the exception. So, you know, you're standing around shooting the, you know, what with buddies at work and, and someone goes, uh, Oh yeah. When I get off my shift today, uh, I got, I've got therapy and someone else goes, you go to therapy and everyone else in the room goes, oh, yeah, when I get off my shift today, I've got therapy. And someone else goes, you go to therapy? And everyone else in the room goes, you don't? That's weird. Dude, you've got to get therapy.

Like, you've got to. If you're going to do this job, you've got to be in therapy. Right? I want that to become the norm. Yeah, shift it the other way. Yeah, that's the shift I want to see. Like, before I die, I want to be able to know that that's what's happening across all these professions. Yeah, absolutely.

There's so much help. I was going to say therapy, but there's obviously therapy and therapy, but it's so helpful. At times it's painful talking about it, but it's also a release, right? To talk to somebody, you know, and it doesn't make a difference when you do get trained professionals that are either from that field or very much understand that field. That's the key. And you can talk about it. Yeah. That's the key that when we talk about therapy and that therapy is not the only way you can heal and get better. It's in a lot of people are very resistant to it, but the key is you have to find a culturally competent therapist that specializes in trauma. Right. You can't just go to, you know, just anybody. So, you know, a lot of people resist finding a therapist

because of the finding a therapist part, which I understand, but it's worth it. Yeah, I've had similar discussions. And that's the thing. It's like any product, frankly. Not every product's the same. And by that, I mean the quality of the therapy, the person giving you the tools tools and you'll feel it. And it's, you know, probably a funky comparison,

but like you find a good, for me, I get my hair cut with clippers so I can go to a bar pretty much anywhere like sports clubs, whatever. But when you get that one that just cut just right, you're like, okay, I'm going there again. And it clicks, right? Versus, oh, they really messed it up or, you know, something like that. And the same thing happens with with therapists. And I haven't gone to a lot of different therapists, but there's a there's a different just like any other skill set. And to that point, in in your dream, it'd be great if the if the institutions had already kind of filtered that out. And sure, there could still be some variability. But, you know, those leaders, both mid level, low level, high level, whomever, veterans, and first responders. And they come and learn the tools they need to use, they can use, you know, to get themselves

on a healing path. And that organization has worked with some other local org. Anyway, let me just say, if anyone's curious about any of this, you can always email me or call me or something and give you the information, but they have a very robust, well-vetted network of therapists just for veterans and first responders. Yeah. And that's, that's through the state of Missouri. I live, I live in the greater Kansas city area, but just like barely over on the Kansas side, Kansas city is a border city, you know? Gotcha. Yep. But yeah, they've done that and it's a really robust, culturally competent list It's that you vibe

with them, that you connect with them because not all personalities vibe with each other. So if you have two or three sessions and you're like, a word is not clicking, then you have to go find someone new because you want them to be trauma-informed, trauma-sensitive, culturally competent, but also you want to be able to be really comfortable and click with that person. So you can open up and get where you want to go with the, with the therapy. Yep. That makes sense. And, and again, you touched on the ripple effect. Well, the ripple effect of, of trauma is one thing, but there's also a ripple effect of suicide, right? And, and that was seen after your husband's suicide and then your nephew,

was it? Yeah. Seven months later, seven months after my husband died. So my husband and my nephew were extremely close. My nephew has two brothers, but he hung out with my husband a lot. My husband taught him how to fish, you know, taught him how to use tools, taught him how to, you know, look under the hood of a car, things like that. And they were just buddies always. My husband would always, I remember him saying so many times he would hold his hand down and he would say, I remember when Nico was just this tall, there was just something about that kid. And, and yeah, then seven months after my husband died, my nephew, Nico took his own life using the same type of gun. I mean, it was just horrible, just, just, just really horrible. And

I didn't know that there was something called suicide contagion. I actually heard about it from my hairstylist after my nephew died. She said, did you know this is a thing? And then she explained to me, there was a family in the city she was from that had like, I don't know, like three or four different generations, like grandfather, father, like that had all died by suicide. And so that I looked into it, I read about it and I thought I would have not known about this. And, and I was criticized by one veteran for bringing that up in the book that said, I'm just trying to guilt trip people. And.

It's really hurtful to me to, for anyone to think that I would mean any harm with this book. But I think that part that was some of his own stuff, maybe, you know, coming in, here's what I know. When someone decides to take their life, I know one person who attempted and didn't succeed. And I've read books, heard podcasts, and other stories of other people who attempted and didn't succeed. And when they get to that point, I've heard a lot of people call people who choose suicide, I've heard people call them cowards. But the reality is when they get to that point,

they literally feel like everyone will be better off without them. They're so miserable with themselves. And just so it's something I don't even think we can really truly understand if we aren't there. They're so miserable that they don't want to exist anymore. That alone breaks my heart for anyone to be in so much pain that they think the only relief is to not exist anymore. But they also feel like they've been a burden, like they're not doing well in life. They're a burden to their loved ones or whatever that is, whatever's going on in their life. And they literally feel like everyone will just be better off without me. And if somebody were to say, well, what about your kids? Or what about your parents? Well, they'll get over it. Everyone gets over a death and, you know, they really believe that the world would be better off without them. And I just want to say to anybody and everybody who's there, so many people attempt and aren't successful and are always so glad they're alive when they survive. Right. And there's always something else. There's always something else.

Then this is really personal and I don't ever talk about this, but I believe if my husband hadn't been so concerned about what people would think if they knew anything was wrong with him, I think if he would have stepped fully into help that was available, we did put him on the mental health track. This all happened so fast after he retired, but his anxiety was debilitating. And so he did get some treatment and they put him on a what I feel like was a very dangerous cocktail of medications. And when something wasn't working or he would report it wasn't working, they would just add another one. And it was very, I finally had to take control of those medications because I realized he was not taking them right.

So I had to completely take control of him. And I think he was so, he was so not himself on that cocktail of medications. Right. It still makes me actually really mad. I get really angry when I talk about this. Yeah. I don't think he would have done what he did if he wouldn't have been on all those medications.

And he was sneaking alcohol on the side. I found out after he, after he died and I'm telling, I'm saying this to you because of people who might be listening and it might be kind of where David was, like in this struggle. When I work with people at the Battle Within, I teach the meditation and mindfulness there. And a lot of those people are really, I mean, this is kind of like a last ditch. They really need a new level of help.

Right. And they're hurting so much. And I think sometimes all the psychiatric meds can be really dangerous. And I'm not telling anyone don't take the meds because we're crying out loud. You have to sleep. I've talked to people who didn't sleep for five, six days on end and you have to sleep. So if you need the meds, but I would say to anybody who's taking psychiatric meds for anxiety, for depression, for sleep, whatever it is, what else are you doing? And are you taking them right?

And are you monitoring them? And are you regularly going to your psychiatrist or whatever it is? And if a pill bottle says not to consume alcohol when you're taking it, don't consume the damn alcohol. Right. You know, because it's affecting your brain. So I don't feel like David would have gotten in the condition that he was in to choose taking his own life. If he wouldn't have been so consumed with the anxiety and everything that I think rushed up at retirement that he had held down for so many years and then the um you know that crazy cocktail of drugs that the doctor just kept piling on more and more so that's for

you know i listen this is about my crate pay grade and i probably shouldn't talk about it but i do kind of like to caution people a little bit yeah i mean I mean, and it's a, it's an immediate response, right? Of, oh, you're having these, here's these pills. Right. And for some folks, they take them right and they work. And for other folks, they make you feel awful and not like you're in reality. And that's from personal experience. And, but to the point then it's like, okay, well, it can't take any of this stuff um but it's a it's also not a one-stop shop right these don't magically fix things and and and user experience varies right there's some folks i know that have taken them for a long time and they

are good to go no side effects nothing and other folks it's an awful awful thing so if you're yes and if you're someone who's not having the good experience you don't feel right you don't feel good that you just can't let it go that's you're just gonna have to get to know your provider really well yes go back and talk and be honest because they can't adjust you have to get someone that will pay attention to you yeah um i you know i felt like my husband's psychiatrist was just like i've got like three minutes i'm just gonna going to get here. Just add this, add this, add this.

I mean, that's kind of what it felt like. Yeah. You just, you have to be really invested in yourself and do it right. And make sure just keep going back, keep talking to your doctor until you can get that right. And I still would ask you, what else are you doing? How are you eating? Are you getting fresh air? Are you exercising? Are you taking fresh air? Are you exercising?

Are you taking care of your relationships? Like all the things, right? All the other things that we need to be doing too for self-care. Which is funny. I just turned the page on my notes, which I already knew what was on the other page, but that's another great segue is. So medication, they make a difference, but there's so much more to do. And a ton of that is in your book, which is great.

So you hear about your story, David's story, stories from other first responders of all kinds veterans as well and then okay here's here's some tools that you can use you should use you should combine this whatever the mix is and i think that's part of it too so you not only with your doctor with your therapist with whoever you know medical professional you have to be your own advocate or have someone with you that can, and that can be hard for folks, you know, if you're single or whatever. Right. And so, um, but you have to do that. You also have to be your own advocate to take action, to do these other things. And on your, to your point, you haven't slept well in three or four days, you're still the only person that can get you up out of bed and do it.

And some days that is awful, right? It's just, it's super hard to do, but you can do it. And just to share on that. So for folks that if you feel like that, and every time, whether it's Twitter, anywhere, someone's like, what's a book you've read? What's a quote? It's always Man's Search for Meaning from Viktor Frankl. And it's always, you know, if you have your why, you can figure out your how. And he was quoting, you know, Nietzsche on that. But it's it's amazing. And this was a guy, right, that was taken. His family killed her in the Holocaust.

Like you want to talk about worst possible and not to do as my other my friend that was a corpsman with me that and we've had some back and forth discussions, similar things. We're not going to do the trauma Olympics on whose is worse, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah right? Which people can get into, but that perspective is amazing. And if you want to look at an example of someone that was in the worst possible situation, probably a human could be, it was that guy. And even when you read through that book, one, it's really well-written, you smart guy, but when you get that perspective of, okay, today is awful. I didn't sleep. I'm exhausted. I don't want to eat. I'm anxious, but realize, you know, I have a why, whether it's, you know, and sometimes that's hard to

find to the point, like we mentioned earlier, some folks, their why is gone seemingly. And so, you know, for that, I don't have an answer, but I think using a lot of these tools ahead of time to build up your resilience or pull back some of the anxiety can make a difference. And, and so you mentioned when you started, you were in, you know, transcendental meditation throughout the years. I'm sure you learned a bunch of different techniques and, you know, in the book you mentioned, and it goes in a lot more detail, but, you know, a few as simple as a few moments

or minutes of just like uninterrupted quiet. Yeah, it's like a great place to start. Yeah, what I specialize in is teaching introductory meditation. That's kind of my jam is bridging that gap between people who think it's weirdo, hippie, dippy, airy, fairy, you know, whatever. And, you know, and then the people on the far side that, you know, meditate two hours a day and everything, but to bridge that gap and I teach it to people in a very mainstream, straightforward, plain language way. And so every class I teach, every talk I give everybody, you know, that asks me about it, I always talk about the evidence-based benefits and that's, you know, support meditation. And, um, and then I, so yeah, I think I just lost my train of thought. Evidence-based meditation. I mean, in everything in two points. So I did, I did like a,

a gold rush or grab. I was like, I need to find solutions. I need to do something, you know, someone to talk to these things to help me feel better to sleep. Right. I got into all the sleep hygiene, you know, which my sleep hygiene was awful, which probably most people's that have problems are. And so I dug into a lot of that too. And it was, you know, your book, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, like all these really good ones. Yeah, that's good. But in all of them and other things I read, yoga, meditation, walking in nature, like a lot of the similar stuff, but, but the science behind meditation and mindfulness and those get kind of used interchangeably. Can, can you kind of

tease the difference of those? Like is, is mindfulness, does meditation fall under as a tool that's part of overall mindfulness or how do those go together? Cause I see them together a lot in different sources. Yeah. And people get very confused. I talk to more newbies, like beginners than anybody else. So here's the way I view them. This is the way I use them. And this is the way that I teach them to people. I think of meditation as a daily exercise or a daily practice. And then mindfulness is kind of a more of a way of being or like a state of being more present in each moment and more present in your life. And what I mean by that is not always mentally distracted,

focusing on things from the past, which we love to do as humans. We like to ruminate about the past, you know, go over and over things, not projecting ourselves always into the past, which we love to do as humans, we like to ruminate about the past, you know, go over and over things, not projecting ourselves always into the future, worrying and anxiety and fears and precautionary thinking and all that. But developing the ability to bring yourself into the present moment, be in the present moment, because there's relief available in the present moment. And so I usually will say, meditation is to mindfulness as exercises to fitness. So if you want to improve your overall physical fitness, you know, you have to exercise and not not once, you know, you exercise daily or regularly, right? And then you know, that's going to increase your physical fitness. So to me, meditation is that daily exercise or practice.

And it just sort of invites more mindful awareness and mindful presence into your days. It kind of mindfulness then will kind of weave itself into the tapestry of your days and you'll learn, you'll train yourself then to pause, to get into the present moment, to take a breath, to respond instead of being reactive and things like that. And I, a minute ago when I lost my train of thought, I remember what I was going to say. You said something about, and I was tying it into meditation that the, these tools we're talking about, these skills and tools, and you said something about when people are in really bad shape, when they have that really bad day, and I don't want to get out of bed today. I'm so full of anxiety. I can't eat. Everything feels bad. That's probably

not the day to try and force yourself to meditate. But if you will meditate, take a walk, do a two minute breathing exercise, do a one minute mindful exercise, anything, you know, find, find something in this list. It doesn't have to be even what we're talking about. There are many other tools and skills, but do them on the days when you do feel better. You know, do them as a habit when you are feeling better. And then when those bad days hit, first of all, you'll notice that the bad days aren't so frequent and not so intense if you start integrating self-care tools. And then if you apply the self-care tools, whatever you choose on the days when you feel better, then you're going to feel really good about yourself because you won't be as resistant. Right.

So there's just, I mean, it takes, it's a little heavy lifting in the beginning, especially if you're in a pretty well-worn path of misery. Right. Yeah. That's a great point. Yeah. And the cumulative effect, it's not an instant acting pill to put you to sleep. Right. it's not an instant acting pill to put you to sleep, right? It's a cumulative effect of how you retrain,

literally rewire your brain to work better, different. I don't know what the right word there is, but yeah, and it has to be over and over time. I just caught up with a good buddy of mine. It's a prior captain. He's an emergency manager. And same thing we talked about. I use the app Headspace all the time, no sponsorship, but you know, if you're listening, I'll talk about you all the time. But it's good. Right. But, and it's anywhere from

two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes to your point. I think, I don't know the ones I use go up to half an hour, which I haven't gone that long yet either. But, but as much as that much a day, every day or on the good days, to your point, when you're starting, uh, like do the, do the short one, right. And really it's getting you to take those breaths, sit there, do a body scan, and then you're done. Right. And it just gets longer with different intervals, that kind of way. I'm sure there's, there's other different ways too, but, um, to, to that, when you're doing meditation breathing and breath work right and as you you know that as you say that the uh the breath is the body's natural stress reliever

right it re-regulates our system which is amazing when you were first learning and then kind of evolved your your meditation practices was was breath work just a huge part of that i just remember being taught that the breath carries you into the meditation and that the breathing was really still kind of finding your center, engaging with your breathing, paying attention to your breathing, slowing it down, deepening it, really breathing. I remember that all being part of, you know, kind of initiating the meditation, carrying you into the meditation. And now there's, I mean, that was 46 years ago that I had that first training, that initial training. And now there's so much research on just breathing, breathing exercises. So I and my team,

we really emphasize breathing exercises because that can kind of be like the gateway drug to meditation or in mindfulness eventually. And it's something that people aren't as resistant to. And then the only problem is remembering to do it. You have to become aware. And this in and of itself is a mindful exercise or a mindful awareness. You have to begin to become aware when you are dysregulated. So when you're freaking out and all the alarms are going off, whatever happens to you, the breathing gets labored or choppy, your shoulders get real tight, you clench your teeth, your gut feels bad, like whatever it is that happens, you have to start to recognize that and stop just living with it. Because some people, they're like a fish in water, right?

Because their stress response kicks in so regularly and they're so used to living in stress and chaos that they're just in it. Right. Like they don't even realize how much they live in it, but that wears down your biological systems over time. So if you don't want to continue, you're marinating in stress hormones. So you don't want to continue to do that. And any little, any little practice or any little tool, one minute tool that you can do to, to help kind of reset that. And that is, um, that's the thing that I, I share with people, especially who are new to this or a little bit skeptical. I have ever so many tricks,

tips, and tools to teach people how to meditate at all kinds of different approaches because we're all different. We all have different learning styles and all that. And then, you know, people get really hung up on, I can't possibly sit still for 15 minutes. No way. So I'm like, okay, how about you start with one minute and let's do something really simple. And then you just do one minute a day until you hit a day. I don't care if it's in six months that you say, I think I can add a minute now. Now do two minutes, just make it doable. In fact, I have a totally free 21 day meditation course on the academy. It's not open right now.

You can sign up for it, but I open it every so often. And so I'll give you that information. And again, people can reach out to me, but that's a good way. And when I tell you it's free, I mean, it's free. It's not like free. And then I email you four times a day to buy something from you and I was free because it really is my way of just dip your toe in the pool. Just try some different things. It's 21 days of trying some different approaches. And I just have very, very short little lessons, five minute lessons. Nice. And so that's a good way to experiment with it. I mean, if I can just say one thing to people

listening about meditation and mindfulness, if you think it's if you're rolling your eyes or you're skeptical or you think it's weird or hippy dippy bs or whatever if you could just set those preconceptions aside for a minute right and go take a look at the evidence-based benefits you know pick up a book and um because it is a way it it's a really, these are really powerful tools we can use to use. Earlier, you said rewire your brain. We can actually rewire our brain. We can cool off our own stress response. You know, we can, they're empowering practices.

They are. Yeah. And I think one of the best benefits I got was in sleep. So I did the whole, and it's not a cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia podcast, but I did one of those. So go listen to Got Sleep. But that makes a difference. And really the sleep hygiene, right? Like don't look at your screen late, turn the lights down, kind of a whole routine. But with that, and I usually do it earlier in the day, and I did some sleep meditation things too. But the cumulative effect of being able to calm myself down, if I happen to wake up going like that, you're like, Oh, okay. And then breathing, let me do like box breathing, right?

1234534, you know, like that, and you just control yourself back out pretty, pretty well, pretty easily. And it's not, you know, all the time, but it's, it's most, it's a lot of the time when you are into it. And because you're plus you also to the point of, you know, you feel when you're not in fight or flight all the time. Right. And I'm not on call. I don't do that work anymore. So I don't have an on shift off shift where my mindset has to change as much anymore. If anything, it's do I have chores now? Or do I have a work call, you know, something like that working at home. But that that's a real tangible to me benefit and a lot of other things overall, because I'm sure during the day, but but when you go to sleep, if you if you're stressed or anything, if you if you do this practice, you can calm yourself down

a lot more so you can sleep better than of course, that cycle of sleeping better than helps all the other stuff. And it's this whole connected, you know, circle. That's all the other stuff. Yeah, yes, it's all connected. Mental health, emotional health is health, health, sleep, what you eat, fresh air, breathing properly, it's all connected, it doesn't have to be overwhelming. I mean, if one breathing technique, you don't like it, it doesn't feel good. It doesn't really calm you down. Then there's 30 more that you can go try. And what it boils down to Kevin is self-regulation, self-regulation, the power to regulate yourself when you feel out of control or when you feel overwhelmed or stressed. I mean, that's like a superpower. And I don't know any, I really don't know a path to self-regulation

other than breathing, meditation, mindful practices, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it's regulation, not masking, right? With something else. But to your point, so a lot of these tools are in there to get started in mindfulness for warriors in the book. However, there's also a whole academy, right? That you mentioned, you put out sources, right? So pause first. Pause first academy. Yeah. Pause first academy. What's in the name? How'd you get to that? And then let's get into a lot of the stuff you provide, which is awesome. Not just, you know, online like this, but for other academies and, you know, departments around the country. So how did, how did you come to pause first Academy? How did that

come about? Okay. Super quick readers digest. I was teaching mindfulness and meditation in corporate settings for several years before my husband died. So I kind of understood about presenting and talking and PowerPoint and things like that. And so the first thing I did was put together a half day training called an introduction to meditation and mindfulness. I started teaching that to first responders. And then I wrote the book. And then I was asked to do a few keynote speeches around the book. And as I traveled around and taught that, I met a lot of first responders. And one by one, I met people that I just clicked with that I really liked. And so when I decided, I think this is really something that needs to happen. I think this training just for first responders and completely stopped doing

corporate jobs turned my full attention to first responders. So one by one, I asked these people if they wanted to come and work with me somehow, do training together. They were all first responders or veterans. They all had an interest in wellness and resilience building, and they all had experienced teaching in their own professions already. And so now I have a team. My core team is six of us. They're all, they all have backgrounds as veterans and first responders. And we do in-person trainings, like in-service training, keynote, we do conferences and things like that. But we have the online platform, Paws First Academy, and we all do online training there too. And we have, yes, meditation, mindfulness, yoga, Pause First Academy, and we all do online training there too. And we have,

yes, meditation, mindfulness, yoga, but you know, you're learning yoga from a retired detective and you're learning meditation from a retired police officer who now teaches law enforcement, teaches meditation and mindfulness law enforcement. He also is a chaplain now, and he also works with incarcerated people. Right. So these are all people who have done similar jobs. They're your peers. And we have that. But we have also just there's an anger management conflict resolution. There's oh, there's there's one on emotional intelligence.

And there's a whole I think we have 46 published courses now. And most of our members, it's a subscription, it's a membership. Most of our members are organizations who purchase the subscription and give the memberships to their employees for free. So like Missouri Department of Corrections is our biggest client. I think they have like around 8,000 employees. So they just renewed with us for their third year. And yeah, so I'm super proud of what we're doing. I'm really, I love my team so much. I feel really happy to be surrounded by such smart, heart-centered people. And I mean, this is just what we're doing now.

We're just trying to help people get out of stress response 24 seven. That's a noble call as a challenging one. I'm sure, especially when their job is stress, stress responses, you know, and you mentioned correction. So I talked to a good buddy of mine about substance abuse, right. And law enforcement, his story, he had struggles with it too. And he mentioned corrections and part of the stats I kind of use, I like to start with a quote or stats or something like that. And but a big part of it was corrections, right? And the perspective he gave me, because he was police, now he's with sheriffs. So, you know, he had the patrol perspective and now he's got like that jail perspective that was, that I never thought about was, you know, as a police officer,

I can go to a call and then I leave that call and then I can go get lunch with my buddy. These guys are in jails and prisons all day long. So it's not the greatest environment, as you can imagine. And so that constant is just a whole other level in person, kind of similar to dispatchers. They're getting call after call after call after call. And hopefully they give them a break and have an episode coming up soon, which is great from someone that, that is, you know, doing therapy and grants and stuff for the, for the 911 dispatchers, right? Cause they're, you know, it's not as I know, as I've talked about it, they don't have kind of the sexy lights and sirens kind of thing. But as we all know, they get the first call, they hear it, they're on the line. It's probably harder because they

can't put their hands on somebody and make a direct difference. You know what I mean? Even though they make a giant difference in talking to somebody and, and, um, but that perspective and corrections, and then, you know, just being exposed constantly gave me a new perspective for them, which I didn't think about because the environment is nonstop. I've learned a ton from doing this work. I have a dispatcher in my book. I don't know if you remember reading her story, but her, oh my gosh. And I've learned a ton from doing this work. I have a dispatcher in my book. I don't know if you remember reading her story, but her, oh my gosh. And I really learned a lot from her and she was, she's a dispatch supervisor and I went to do a ride along and her, and you know, she was, you know, kind of my, my guide that day.

And I was going to do a whole shift and I think I lasted 30 minutes because I happened to be there when a real horrible call came in. Horrible, horrible. And that led me to this whole, you know, new arena of discovery about what dispatchers actually do, what they do for us. First of all, what they do for police officers. Right. What they do for the people who call in and just what they are doing, you know, for us as a society. And they've been so overlooked. So I'm glad to hear that you're doing an episode on that for sure. And I've learned a

ton about corrections and it's, it's such hard work and, and they don't get nearly enough attention, you know, as they should. And it's crucially important work. I mean, you know, we really need these people. Yeah. And so I'm going to make sure that I have somebody in my next book that is, has worked in corrections. I have somebody in mind. I haven't asked him yet, but I'm hoping he'll participate because yeah, it's just really, I think it's really important for all of us to understand each other. And then, you know, and then I think down the road, I would love to contribute to educating the public about what you guys do for us. What you've done. I mean, I know you're not out on the street anymore, but you did the work.

Before, sure. People take it for granted. They don't understand just how hard it is. And so anyway. Yeah, that's a great point in the, um, talking about correction, just, it made me think about kind of the whole cycle of, right. Someone's worst day could involve all of those people at some point, right. You know, something happens, firing a mess or their police are there usually all together, depending on the call, you know, say someone gets arrested and up in jail, right. Before that they went through number

one and then their perspective on it. And this was, you know, not to arrested they end up in jail right before that they went through number one and then their perspective on and this was you know not to get on political rabbit hole but when we talked about like police reform and all this we need to teach crisis intervention well well where i was and i know a lot of places that's taught right it's taught hey i see you're upset i'm here to help like these four plays you do and And we were lucky we got to do that with EMS where I was and it works. I mean, it does, but it's not new, right? It's not revolutionary, but the perspective that I think the public could benefit from to your point, I think would be great to have more of. And it's neat to see now and probably in the past, you know, two, three years, there's an, I forget his channel, but there's a police officer who puts citizens in situations that were based on real situations, right? As you can imagine, doesn't always go very well, right? Wow. It's pretty awesome because the, you know, from the sideline,

it's easy to see a snippet of a phone video or this or that or, or something or a call like, on that call, I would have just done this, but you've never ever been trained or gone in the street, right? Whether it's police, fire, or mess, but this is police've never ever been trained or gone in the street right whether it's police fire mess but this is police yeah and it's happening in real time happening in real time and it's fast and people want to fight you i mean it's like watching a football game and watching the slow motion replay and you can't believe you didn't catch that ball really try being on the field and watching it in real time and that's you know that's what the firefighters and ems and police are doing corrections officers that's what they're dealing with.

It's real time. It's fast. It's life or death. So we don't need a bunch of armchair quarterbacks that don't do the job saying what they would have done. That's a whole other story. I look forward to your book series on public perception or something, whatever it is. But yeah, is there anything, what's the best way for folks to get in touch, to get to pause first, to get to those 40

something courses to, you know, enroll or, or interested, you know, departments, how should they contact you or pause first or all of them? Well, they can, anybody can reach me directly. I'm Kim Colgrove at pausefirst.com and um pausefirst.com is the website so that's probably the best way to go see the team go you can go to pausefirst.com and then click over to the online site or you know you can click around on the website and learn more about us and i just you know I welcome anybody to reach out if there's anything we can help you with. You have any questions. I and my team, we're always accessible. We always give out our contact information whenever we travel and speak and

teach to people. Because sometimes people just need a lifeline or just need some advice or just need someone to talk to. And, you know, we're, we're, we've all, you know, all of us have lost people to, to, to, they've all lost people in line of duty death. All of us have lost people to suicide. And, you know, we not, we're not clinicians and therapists, but we, we are here to, to help. So feel free to reach out anytime. Yep. Well, and thank you. Like I mentioned, I read the book. It was helpful for me. New stuff, reinforced stuff, and just to hear other people's stories again is also helpful, right? Like, oh, I'm not the only one, which is interesting because I think inherently responders know that,

but it's good to hear it again or read it again or see that. And of course, Mindfulness for War is available, I'll assume Amazon, plus other places or your library. I got mine in my local library, which is great. It's available on Audible if you don't really like to read that much. You can listen to it. But I kind of pride myself on the fact that it is a very simple, easy read. And so many people have reported that to me. People who know me say, reading the book is exactly like talking to you. And I take that as a high praise.

I like that it's kind of conversational, but it's an easy read. Yep, it is. I agree. Oh, it's a hard read. Okay, let me, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, it's true. It's, I mean, it might need a trigger warning. So parts of it are hard to read, but it's a quick read.

Yep. Yeah, the content is heavy, but yeah, that's one of my first notes was exactly that. So I'll add to the easy to read, easy to understand, but yeah, hard to hear sometimes, but sometimes we need to hear hard things, honestly, and kind of, you know, learn people's stories, your story. I'm sorry that that is your story. I'm thankful that you're helping others through that. And I hope folks that are listening are as well. Please go to pausefirstacademy.com. Is that the right website?

It's pausefirst.com. Pausefirst.com. Yeah. And then the online platform is called Pause First Academy. Gotcha. Cool. Yeah. So check that out.

Read the book. Reach out directly to Kim. And Kim, thank you so much for being on the Cap Talks podcast. Thank you. Thank you for what you do too. I listen to some of your episodes. Good Kim, thank you so much for being on the Cap Talks podcast. And thank you. Thank you for what you do too. I've listened to some of your episodes. Good stuff. Thank you. Good. Yep. Absolutely. I think, you know, if we get this info, if we've learned from our hardships, right, or good chips, you know, good things. This is a great platform to put it out there in the world. And kind of, we should be kind of like, if we learn about someone that needs help,

we're obliged to help if we find ways to help others, just like you are. So I'm happy to help. I appreciate your time. And look forward to seeing your next book. Do you so you mentioned that? So I know it's kind of kind of the end, but you mentioned that do you have a name or a focus for that yet? Yeah, the next book is called wellness warrior style. And it's gonna be a little bit of a memoir. Again, I'll have a little some personal stuff in there, but I'm going to do some new interviews. And then I'm really going to cover kind of basically all of the resources and tools that the people in the first book mentioned and what I and my team teach just going to be a book full of tools and resources and accessible for warriors, you know, and offered for warriors, meaning I know my audience.

You know, I know you're not always open to the touchy feely stuff right up front. So it doesn't have to be a wishy washy approach. You know, you can you can approach self-care like a warrior. There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Good deal. We'll look forward to that.

Thanks for listening, everybody. For more great interviews and solo episodes, please go to KevTalksPod.com. Subscribe on your favorite platform. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. That would be really helpful. And let me know how I'm doing. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter at PenelKG.

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