The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - When the Bagpipes Play: Owning the Moment, Moving through the Weight, Anchoring What Comes Next

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

This week’s episode, When the Bagpipes Play: Owning the Moment, Moving through the Weight, Anchoring What Comes Next, is about the weight of losing brothers and sisters in public safety, the responsibility of planning line of duty death services, and how to move through grief in a healthier way.I break it down using a simple framework:Own where you are.Move through the weight together.Anchor what comes next with connection and support.This one is for those who have carried the flag, stood watch, or covered a shift so others could grieve.Godspeed y'all,Kevin

Please silence your cell phones, hold all sidebar conversations to a minimum, and we will get started with people process progress in three, two, one. Pipes play, owning the moment, moving through the weight, anchoring what comes next. This episode was more recently re-inspired by watching a video about the loss of Curtis Bartlett, who was an Army veteran, Carroll County Sheriff's Office Deputy who was killed in the line of duty in March 2017, changed a lot of lives through leadership and fitness, showed people. what discipline looked like, raise the bar for others, right, just by how he lived. But he also changed the lives of the people they left behind, and the lives of the people who had

to plan and carry out his memorial services. This part really stays with you. Watching that video brought a lot of this back for me. This is where my head is today, where I've thought about recently, another line of duty deaths. I've been part of those planning teams for line of duty deaths. I've stood in formation for friends lost. Both hit differently, both carry heavy, heavy weight. What people don't always understand is that grief doesn't pause the responsibility, though, right? It moves right in with it. Someone still has to coordinate. Someone still has to make sure it's done right. Someone still has to be present enough to hold the structure together. Sometimes we'll carry in their own loss. That's what this episode is about.

Welcome to the solo episode of the Pupil Process Progress Podcast. I'm Kevin Penner, your host. Please visit people process progress.com for show notes on this episode to listen to the audio, watch video of my more recent interviews with Jennifer Prevette of the Bergbox and Adam of Blue Gorilla VJJ. And I'm going to have more interviews coming up over the next few months with more Jiu-Jitsu folks, leadership people, all from this area and some solo episodes. So thanks so much for checking that out. There's also a YouTube channel. So go there. Let's jump back into this. So let's talk about what actually helps before during an. after those bagpipes play.

I'm going to use an own move, anchor framework here. Owning is accepting reality and choosing responsibility, right? The first thing we have to do is own where we are. Own that the loss happened. Own that this hurts. Own that we don't get to skip the grief because there's work to do. In public safety, that ownership can look like saying, this is going to be heavy, we're going to feel it,

or we're going to still going to show up. We have to own the grief is not linear. You will rage. You will cry. you might feel nothing one minute and everything the next minute. That doesn't disqualify you from leading, right? It qualifies you, right? Ownership means committing to do your part, however small or large to help those still here.

That includes planning the most respectful, honorable service possible. It means covering shifts, post, stations so that those who lost their teammate can attend without guilt. It means providing mutual aid that isn't just operational but human. one thing I've seen make a real difference is intentional staffing relief. Great friends of mine that I love that I call brother and sister do this. Unfortunately, every time someone is lost and they go cover the shifts and you'll see a jurisdiction filled with fire engines from all over the place. That's love.

That's owning it. We're not scrambling at the last minute though. We're proactively sending people. We're coordinating with them. We're reaching out and saying, what do you need, brother, sister? or how can I help you? We're to run the calls or sit at desks. So the effect that agency can grieve together.

That's leadership, that's ownership. And yes, we can own the responsibility and the emotion at the same time. Now let's think about movement because movement is medicine and mission focus matters. Movement is medicine is not just a gym thing. There's solid evidence that physical movement reduces stress hormones, improves mood, helps regulate the nervous system after trauma, which losing someone that you just saw the day before is unbelievably traumatic. Public safety already knows this instinctively, right?

We just don't always apply it to ourselves intentionally. Exercise helps burn off grief, that helps pour your mind out of the dark spiral, gives the emotion somewhere to go. But movement here isn't just physical. Movement toward a common goal matters too. Planning a service gives structure when your mind wants to scatter. matter. It keeps you focused on what needs to happen right now. It creates forward motion when

everything feels frozen. So, move toward one another. Move toward the pain instead of away from it. Move together. One thing you've seen work well is shared physical action, right? Group walks, workouts done together, training sessions that aren't about performance, but just being there with each other, right? In the middle of the workout, someone might lose it. Hug a man. Be all sweaty together. That's brother and sisterhood, right? Even standing shoulder to shoulder during planning meetings is movement. Right? It reminds people, you're not alone.

We are right here. Movement honors the person you lost by refusing to let grief isolate you. Now let's anchor. Connection, faith, not numbing the pain. After the show, moni is when things often go sideways for folks, right? The structure's gone, uniforms come off, and all that emotion comes up, in addition to when it comes up when the bagpipes play, right? This is where I think anchoring matters the most.

Anchoring connection. Pray if that's part of your life. Sit in silence if it's not. Hug people, cry together. Don't disconnect. Don't disappear. Don't go it alone. Right.

Public safety has lost too many people after the funeral, not during the incident, but in the quiet weeks that follow. Alcohol feels like relief, but it's a false anchor. Isolation feels safer, but it deepens the hole. Anchoring means letting others hold you up. and being willing to hold them too. Another critical anchor is permission to seek help. Peer support, chaplaincy, counseling.

And Adam and I talked about this. It does matter what type of counsel you see. Have they talked to someone that's lost somebody? Have they been in public safety? So get help from somebody else that you know that has gotten help from someone that understands what it's like to lose people. It's not because you're weak.

It's because this work costs something. safety is not free for the soul. And if you pretend otherwise, it doesn't make it any cheaper. It's still going to cost. One thing I've learned is this. Checking in once isn't enough. Anchoring requires repeated contact, a text a week later, a conversation a month later, a quiet. Hey, how are you really doing long after everyone else has moved on? Frankly, that's how we can keep people alive. So in closing, when the bagpipes play, they remind you, us of who we lost. They also remind us of who we still have, that we can own where we are, that we can move through the weight together, and that we have to anchor ourselves for what comes

next with connection, faith, and support. That's how we honor the fallen. That's how we protect the living. That's how we keep doing this work without losing ourselves. This episode helped you, or if it describes something you're carrying right now, you don't have to do this alone. You can find more of my work, resources at people process progress.com. I'm on Instagram at X at Penel, P-A-N-N-E-L-L-K-G. I share longer form conversations, training, reflections, et cetera, and on YouTube at People Process Progress. If you're struggling, reach out to someone you trust. If someone else comes to mind while you're listening, check on them. We honor the fallen by taking care of the living. In the meantime, do your best to own your mind, move your body,

and anchor your spirit. Godspeed, and thank you for listening. Thank you.