Self-Care for First Responders Essential Strategies to Prevent Burnout and Enhance Performance with Chris Chandler-Yates

In this episode, Chris Chandler-Yates shared with me his personal experience as a police officer and how that rebuilt his life after a career of trauma. Being a former police officer has really influenced him a lot into doing what he does now. Chris joined the NZ Police in 2011 and after a seven-year career, he experienced severe burnout that caused him to leave the job he once loved.

After a journey of self-care, recovery, and personal development, he's now hyper passionate about helping officers take charge of their mental health and significantly reduce the chance of burnout. He lives to ensure others learn to see themselves so they don't go through the pain he once experienced.

Chris speaks very vulnerably and openly about the personal challenges he faced from burnout, such as almost breaking his marital vows, as well as some of the tough cases that led him there, and the impact they still have on him today, such as losing his sense of smell after one particular case. Chris is incredibly real, and I know he’s not the only officer who has struggled to this degree…but he is one of the few who are courageous enough to speak about it in a public forum.

You can find him on his website createfromwhy.com

In this episode, you will learn: 

• What is the life of being a police officer 
• Root causes of trauma responses 
• The importance of knowing “why” you do what you do 
• How to deal with burnout and trauma by the importance of self-care

If you loved this episode and you got a lot out of it, leave a review and share your biggest takeaway with me. And while you've got your phone out, make sure to follow me on Instagram @coachktdubs for more quick tips and tricks on how to change your experience with pain.

Resources:

createfromwhy.com

Credit: Tom Giovingo, Intro & Outro, Random Voice Guy, Professional ‘Cat‘ Herder

Mixed & Managed: JohnRavenscraft.com

Disclaimer: Katie is not a medical professional and she is not qualified to diagnose any conditions. The advice and information she gives is based on her own experience and research. It does not take the place of medical advice. Always consult a medical professional first before you try anything new.

Transcript

Katie Wrigley  00:05

Welcome back to the pain changer podcast. This is episode 68 and I'm your host Katie Wrigley. Today is a very special episode focusing specifically on self care for law enforcement, other first responders in particular, the rate of burnout and how to prevent it. Now, before we dive in, I want to give an extra disclaimer. I want today's guest to be able to speak freely about some of what he experienced on the job as an officer, and also what he hears from other officers within his coaching work today. So if you're squeamish, you're easily shaken or you don't think you could hear the hard truth that is a police officer's life then this episode may not be for you. However, if you want to hear the truth and how important self care is for first responders and why, then stay tuned because this is going to be a good one. Joining me today is Chris Chandler Yates. Chris is an American Kiwi who arrived in New Zealand in 2004. He joined the New Zealand police in 2011. And after a seven year career, during which time he protected the Right Honourable Sir John Key, New Zealand's Prime Minister. He experienced severe burnout that caused him to leave the job he once loved. After a journey of self care, recovery and personal development, he's now hyper passionate about helping officers take charge of their mental health and significantly reducing the chance of burnout. He lives to ensure others learn to see themselves so they don't go through the pain he once experienced. Welcome to the pain changer podcast. Chris. I'm so psyched that you are here with me today.

Chris Yates  01:35

Hey, how's it going? I'm excited to be here as well. Thanks Katie for being with me. Or having me on I should say. I've been here virtually. Technology's amazing. Yeah, so that's a little bit about me. I am originally from California, northern California grew up there until I was 13. And that actually had the privilege of sailing halfway around the world with my parents. Sawn off 40 foot catamaran, so from the Caribbean, and then ended up in New Zealand in 2004. We resided here, and then I got residency with my parents and then actually because I applied for residency with them, got citizenship through them as well a few years later, and then met a kiwi and ended up staying here. I'd never planned on staying in New Zealand to be perfectly honest. I remind my wife that quite often I'm like, you're the reason that I'm still here. And then I joined law enforcement, because I actually got dropped into my head. By my brother-in-law, I was not a person who was like, from an early age or even as a teenager I was like,  I want to become a cop. I actually wanted to go back to sailing around the world. Slash actually at one stage wanted to design yachts, the America's Cup boats that are hydrofoil and around the world,  around the place doing stupid stuff. I actually had an idea for a similar design back in 2004, which was quite interesting when I first saw them flying around the world. Let's run Auckland Harbour. I ended up having an idea to join it. My brother in law, my girlfriend at the time. He was like,  we should join the police together. It can be like bad boys. Have you ever seen the movie Bad Boys?  driving around a Porsche and shooting guns and having fun or the movie SWAT and I was like, I love the SWAT movie. So it was all in my head and then some sailing jobs fell through so my wife and I came back to the US to show her California and we went to a train. We were driving to my uncle's house and drove past and saw smoke coming out of the valley and my friend that we're staying with was like  probably just another California forest fire if you're familiar with any summer in California? Yeah, there's a fire every summer there's a ton of fires. So we went to my uncle's house, went to go back that same way and the road was closed. And so we're like "huh" that's weird I stopped to get gas because of the long way home we needed gas if we're going to go that way. And at the time the TVs on the pumps, and it was breaking news. a freight train had collided with the passenger train and turned out 18 people died.

KW  04:27

Oh wow.

CY  04:29

And I was glued to the television that night. And I've been kind of going What am I going to do when I get back home? What am I going to do for my future? What am I gonna do for a career and that moment just sealed it in. I was like I saw the cops do it. I've got a photo of it when I do presentations, a photo from the news, from online and it's all firefighters that you can see, can't even see any cops. But my eyes were so focused on the cops and what they were doing. I was like man, they are helping people when they are at their most painful time. They are the saviors there. I have to do that the next day. I got into the Yellow Pages. This was back in 2008 and I found all the different places. I knew I had to get Lasik eye surgery because I had already gone through some preliminary stuff. And so I was like, I need Lasik eye surgery, who do I get to do it, it's going to be cheap. Like I can call around, find pricing, did that and got my eyes lasered. Two weeks before I flew back to New Zealand got my eyes lasered. And that next day, I also started running through the hills of Sierra Madre. And I was not a runner. I literally was like, I'm done. I'm doing it, I'm doing this. So came back to New Zealand applied for the police and didn't get in until 2011. Because they just did a big push for cops. And so they kind of had slowed recruiting down as well as I'm a white male. They wanted ethnicities here because we have so many different ethnicities. And so I finally got in, built my fitness up and joined. So that's my story to get in. But when it comes to the burnout side, it started quite early, probably in my career. My first week, I called my wife up and I went there because I just put the rule of you can't be on Facebook, you can't do this, you got to protect yourself, like all of a sudden my nervous system was going overboard. And I called my wife up at the end of the week and was like, I think I've done the wrong thing. I don't think this is for me. And I literally called her up and said that and she's like, why? That's why I love the why question. And, and I go because of x, y and Zed. They said all these different stuff. She's like, well, that doesn't have to be you. You've put a lot of hard work into this. Don't give up now. So I was like, Okay, and so I didn't. I went through it passed above average. As I do when I get focused on something I just fully went into it passed the above average in the class. I think I got like 87% out of everything, I only failed, which is ironic firearms, I had to reset that. Yeah, I'm from America and had been shooting guns since I was like a toddler. I think it's because I tried to change too much too quickly. And then I came out of the police. Actually halfway through the police, you do a thing called station duty. And this is where things started to kind of already spiral. But I didn't recognize this until years after the police. Halfway through the police. you do a thing called station duty where you come back to your hometown, you go to the station where you're going to work. And you do a week with them on duty as a recruit. So you don't actually have any policing powers. But you're in full uniform, going around, you're partnered up with another cop. And then you get a week of leave at that station. The very first day, halfway through the day, I went to a guy who had been dead for three weeks, I could smell him from the road. And, at that time, I was like,  this isn't that bad. I was like, holy crap that smells, this is really bad. I'm glad you did the disclaimer at the beginning. Because if you've ever been to anything like that, the blowflies are crazy. And it's just not so great.

KW  08:09

Something you never forget the smell of it. I've smelled it a couple times.

CY  08:15

Yeah. And this was the middle of summer. And so I'm gonna put a little disclaimer real quick if you're squeamish, or if you have trigger alerts of whatever we need to say, because I'll go into detail. So I went inside and the sergeant handed me the camera, the section camera because we didn't have iPhones or anything, We didn't have smartphones back then. So he hands me the digital camera and goes Chris, I need you to take photos of the body, me being the new guy. And so went in there and I took photos and took all these photos. And I mean, this guy is black as my water bottle. it's black as Black can be. And maggots everywhere and I'm taking photos of him. No idea what I'm doing. So I'm walking right up to the side of the bed leaning over taking photos of the top. I'm like, I think this is what we need to do. They ended up making comments about the photos like saying  were you straddling him and things like that, afterwards. So that's the kind of stuff that started to kind of tick things away for me already, which I didn't even recognize. I shoved it to the side and I went nope, this is what I'm doing. And I'm very good. I'm extremely mentally strong. So I just shoved that to the side. Get rid of it. It's fine. That doesn't mean anything. But looking back, it did mean something to me. And then I went back to the station and ate rice. Again, shoving shit away. I opened it up and my partner goes, he had something that looked kind of similar. It was a pasta that kind of looks like rice then he goes "ew" and we both look at each other and I go "meh", I don't feel like going anywhere. and So he asked me do you want to go get something different for lunch? " I was like, "meh", whatever, and started eating it. So again, pushing it away, started saying things like, oh the dead bodies don't bother me, went back to college, finished college, came out, went to training. And if I actually look back, I was on a week of leave after training and a guy cut me off. We're out somewhere out West Auckland, here in New Zealand and a guy cut me off, came through a give way and cut me off but stopped because I hammered on the horn and started yelling at me. I started yelling at him. So much so that I opened the door and started yelling at him and my wife's grabbing me going to get back in the freaking car should have thrown alarm bells already. And so I got back in the car, we drove off and it was all wound up. Wound up as an understatement. And then and then, first day on the job. Officially on the job after we did a thing called tag, which is like traffic alcohol, which was six weeks. So then the first day on the street like at the station, went to a guy who jumped in front of a train.

KW  11:12

That can be pretty.

CY  11:15

First thing I found was his heart looked like he'd been surgically removed and just sat on the train tracks in the middle of night. So we're sitting there going along with a flashlight,  there's a heart. Never seen one of them before. To preface this, I have seen cadavers when I was like six or seven because my dad went to chiropractic school. And I would go to San Francisco and go to school with him. So I've seen that kind of thing. Next thing I found was his liver, I think it was the next thing I found after that was his torso and upper body. His lower half had been ripped from him.

KW  11:48

What was going through your mind at that point? Were you still saying  this doesn't bother me? 

CY  11:52

My mind went to  it kind of looks like rubber. And I even said it to my buddy. I was like, it kind of looks like he's made out of rubber. I was like, whatever and carried on. I think I might have even said,  that's kind of cool looking.

KW  12:16

The horror of it, right? Like your brain doesn't know what to do with things even though you have all this training behind you. The human brain isn't equipped to understand how to take in that kind of data.

CY  12:30

Yeah, I had no training for any of that. I've never even talked about any of that training. And I hadn't been taken on more. None of that kind of stuff. I take that back when I was a kid, I believe and I think a trauma response may be shuttered away. I believe I snuck out of the car after we've been paragliding. A guy died paragliding. And we're looking for him. We found where he landed. We parked the car while my parents went and looked and I have the faint memory that I got out of the car. And I went and looked and I would have been probably about eight or nine. And I remember I was faced being bashed in, because he came in and hit his head on the ground. But I can't guarantee that I actually did. There's this thing of I'm not sure if I really did or if it's a story I've told myself in my head or if I'm telling myself a story that I didn't actually see. So I can't actually clearly identify if I did but at the same time that body I was like "eh yeah", and I've been trained how to take people to the ground I've been trained how to shoot I've been trained. All that kind of stuff never trained with any of that. So my response was to follow what the other guys were doing. Just shove it away, that doesn't matter. That's kind of cool or whatever. Also didn't want to look weak. I'm new on the job. Don't want to look like that's doing anything. And then all honestly I don't feel like it did hugely but looking back it was little tiny stones going into my boat making me sink. And so that happened and then I went to a different station where I was actually going to be stationed for a long time and there's bullying and stuff and I didn't feel like I fit in and all this different stuff, a lot of stuff I was reacting to, to my past pre policing so much so that I wanted to change stations. I remember coming home to my wife after six or seven weeks on the job and going. I think I need to change because I just don't fit in here. It's horrible. I don't even know how to explain it. So I carried on and stuck it out. And then I had a partner of mine get assaulted. So I was about a year into the job and my female partner that I was working with. We went to a domestic then went to go to an address to go arrest one of the brothers in the address where we thought one of them might be and the other brother was there, they didn't actually live there but I went to go arrest the guy and he went for the front door and my female partner went to go stop him and grab him and block him. And he “Haymakered” as hard as he could, hit her in the cheek, split her, cheek open dented it. I was training for our version of SWAT the old,  "let's be like SWAT". I was training for our version of SWAT which is called AOS. I was really fit, chased this guy up a 30 degree slope, but 200 yards, sprayed him with OC spray, caught them, had to fight with him to get his hands to his back and that got him, didn't use any excess force or anything. She ended up coming up. And she was so traumatized, looking back on it, knowing what I know, now she's sitting there pumping her three sell Maglite, wanting to just go nuts on him, but she didn't. And I saw that and I also honestly wanted to just lay into this guy, but I was like, again, values morals. The above said that I was like this,  you got a job to do here. And in my head, I blame myself that she got punched. Obviously, cars and cops are coming from everywhere. And then we deal with the file and the adrenaline is going crazy. And we get back to the station and I can already think back on it. I've got, the adrenaline comes down, shakes and that. And I'm sitting at the computer and my sergeant comes over and goes, Chris, you needed to just take a minute. I was like, no, I'm fine. I'll carry on again. That kind of pushing stuff away going forward. He's like, No, go get a cup of coffee. Go get a cup of tea. I'm like, I don't drink hot drinks. He's like, just go sit and chill for a minute. Have you ever told somebody that's been in a traumatic incident or had something like that happen? You tell them to go sit and chill. rethink about it?

KW  17:02

Yeah. He was trying to get you to calm down.

CY  17:05

He was trying to get me to calm down. So I went into the mailroom, which was through the door. And I went in there and I sat down. And the whole incident came flooding back. All the things I did wrong, all the reasons why I should have done everything. I was like push it away, came back into the room and started doing paperwork.

KW  17:27

Yeah, I actually want to pause there. So you're talking about something really important, like traumas. And a lot of times like when it's a shared trauma, the nervous systems have to blame themselves. And so that's where the logical mind stops serving us. It repeatedly doesn't serve us but when we're talking about a traumatic situation,  and you're going into that silence, I'm glad he was trying to get you to go to the side. But that's also the worst thing. You get someone, you keep them talking, you help pull them out of it. Like there's different tricks that you can help because you were basically in shock at that point from what you have witnessed and what you have. You've got to deal with someone as if they are in shock. letting them sit in a quiet room on their own is the worst thing that you can do. So I'm like so I'm saying good that he was trying to help you. 

CY  18:14

He cared, he's one of them. I used him as a reference on CVS for years within the place and that great sergeant, but again, he didn't have any training on how to deal with it.

KW  18:24

Right. And so like you're actually being left alone, and your brain is going a million miles an hour, and you're going to look for everything. and this is so common with police officers. because in hindsight is always 2020  if I had done this, if I had done that, and your mind is racing, so you come up with 20 million different scenarios and 20 million of them probably could not have even happened but that is not what's going to come in and then the blame comes in and it sits in your neurology and then somehow it's your fault that your respected partner got hurt on the job and it's not.

CY  19:02

To make it worse for my mental state she left the job the next day

KW  19:06

Yeah.

CY  19:10

She went on leave without pay that was our last set our last shift before we had days off, it was our last late shift and so we had days off so I was off for six days as well

KW  19:26

And no debrief, no one to give you proper support, no mental health expert.

CY  19:31

Didn't know what happened with her really. 

KW  19:36

Wow. So you're completely blind to anything you're feeling like it's your fault. So I'm guessing your nervous system said  she left because of me. This is all my fault that this person has left. 

CY  19:48

I blame myself for almost 10 years.

KW  19:51

And this on top of you wanting to be in there so bad. So I'm guessing you probably picture anybody wants to be a police as bad as you did. And someone had just taken it from you.

CY  20:06

Leading up to that I was trying to get everybody to join the police. Like, this is the best job in the entire world, everybody should do this job. After that day, I never pushed anybody to join the police again.So I've talked with her before, since and we haven't had deep conversations around it. But even afterwards, I messaged her because I still got her phone number and texted and was like, hey, I heard you're on leave without pay. I'm sorry.  I wish I'd done this and that she's like, it was not your fault, Chris. and obviously she said all this. Do I believe any of it? No, I do now. But back then it was no this is still my fault. But I didn't talk about it. I didn't talk about any of it. I came home, I was supposed to finish at 2am. I didn't get home till about 7:30 That morning, because of all the paperwork and dealing with all the other different things. So that morning, I came home. I was riding my mountain bike to and from work. And I got home that morning. And obviously my wife's concerned, she woke up in the morning to go get ready for work. And she's like, Where the hell is Chris, he's not home. So she's calling me. I can vividly remember my phone vibrating in my pocket as I'm riding down the hill to my house. And I get home, carry the bike past the boat that I had at the time, set it down at the back, let it fall over, sit down on the back steps and just start bawling my eyes out. And my wife's going, what's going on, what happened in that? And so I tell her briefly, we got assaulted and this happened And she's like, God, did you catch him? I was like, Yeah, we caught him with this and that didn't really go into details from what I remember. Or how I felt. I know, my wife would have asked me how I felt, but I would have been like, it sucks. I wouldn't have really said a whole lot. And then I didn't talk about it again.

KW  22:05

Until when? How long did you keep that inside? 

CY  22:08

2018. 

KW  22:10

So what happened next? So you talked about that one night, you bottled it up, shoved it down into the physical body, like we do with trauma when we don't know what else to do. And then what happened after that, Chris?

CY  22:23

After that, I just went back to being a cop and just went back to policing. But what I really did is,  people when they're in that kind of situation, they'll do one or two things, learn from it, and go how can I prevent that from happening again? And my way of preventing it was okay, cool. I'm gonna retract. And I stepped back and let everybody else start taking the lead. unless I was on my own. if there's a partner with me or any, like, if I was working something on my own, I was totally fine. But if I was with a partner, I would retract back looking back on it, it was because I didn't want to be the person  that could have the possibility of that happening again.

KW  23:08

Yeah, understandable.

CY  23:09

And so I did that my sergeant started to recognize that I even recognized that I was doing it and didn't recognize why. But I recognized that I was doing it and I was like, I need to get that confidence back to be able to stuff. And so I was like motorways sounds really fun, which is like our version of Highway Patrol and you work one up, I was like, I need to go work on my own. so I was putting my hand up for doing the solo cars when we'd have what we call the cue car, which when you have an extra person you did that and you didn't get sent to domestics except for unless somebody else was meeting you there. And so I was saying to my sergeant I want to go to motorways, if there's a convent. I want to go there. And at this stage, I hadn't even finished my probationary. So I was still having to do stuff and get stuff ticked off that I knew what I was doing. This is not even a year this wasn't this was just about a year into the job just shy of a year. I think it was that incident that happened. And so I'm new to the job. have all that don't know what you're really doing. And so I went to motorways and I went there for three months. I commented for three months and the sergeant was a different sergeant to the one that I had when the assault happened. He goes ah Chris, I want to send you to motorways because I feel like your confidence of working, taking and being assertive and that has kind of been knocked a little bit and I think motorways would be good for you because you'll be working on your own. And you'll have to do that. I was like I already said I want to go and so I went for three months and ended up there for a year. Because I kept extending it. I was loving it. I was on fire. I was having fun. I was back in my zone. I was enjoying things. And then towards the end of it, it kind of came back up a little bit because I remember having conversations and feeling a little bit numb. Didn't know I was feeling numb but my wife was going. What's wrong, and we were kind of fighting a little bit and I just feel like all I do is piss people off every day, I just give them tickets, when really, I was actually loving it and wanted to stay. It was a response to the previous stuff that I hadn't dealt with. And then I came back to the North Shore and back to the station that I was working at. And I got sent to a different section. So a different team that I was working with, that I had been before, but it was all good. They were very proactive, very much around like, let's arrest people, let's actually get out there and stop crime and get the bad guys. And so it was really good. It was at high flow, high energy. But then the department started trying to send me around different places like after a couple months after I was there. They were like,  no, we're gonna send you to this section, or we're gonna send you to that section. And I was like, all this uncertainty was really kind of screwing me. But as soon as I got back to the street, I think it was maybe a month, I don't know the exact timing, but it was pretty quickly in I ended up going to three suicides. And I had to do and they're pretty intense notification jobs, or advising jobs as we call them here. And some of them were right off the back of the suicide one, the very first one. There's two of them that I remember vividly. I know there was another couple but I can't remember them too well. Because they weren't really either I was numb, or I just weren't as impactful. But there was one where we were trying to find a kid who called up the crisis line and said, I have a rope and I'm going to kill myself talk me out of it. And he had lots of alerts for suicidal attempts and mental health stuff. And so we went to the house, cleared the house, tactically, me and my partner, and then the dad and mom came home. They like to go to the park or on the corner down by the water. And so the Dad takes us down there. So we went down there and the trail from the carpark hit. So the dad and I went right, my partner went left and my partner found his son, took his own life, had hung himself. And so I don't know why. But I was like, okay. Luckily, I had an earpiece, so the dad couldn't hear anything on the radio. And so I went to the dad. As we got back to the T intersection just wait here, I just need to confirm some stuff with my partner who's gone down that way. And I don't know why I did that. But I went down there. I think it was more of a curiosity. I wanted to see the body or I don't know exactly why. But I went down there and I saw him. I can still vividly see the kid hanging out over the water. And so I was like,  okay, and I'm 25 At this stage, I think. not that age really matters. I haven't had anything really superly traumatic happen in my past or anything, either. So I went down there, asked my partner if he's all good. He's like, Yeah, I'm all good. We're gonna have to get the marine team to come in and get him. He's like, I'll wait here. You take the dad back. I was like, okay, cool. That's fine. Started walking the dad back in the dad's like, have you found my son? And I was like, Yep, we've found your son, I'll tell you more. When we get back to the patrol car. Take a few steps, what's going on with my son, what's going on? And so ended up having to tell this guy who was my dad's age, that his son passed away taking his own life and watching him. And I can vividly, like a video, watch him collapse. A week later, I went to a guy who went to report the guy's new girlfriend, he's going through a divorce, his girlfriend has found him and he's taking his own life, gassed himself in a car. So we go down there, we start dealing with that it's on shift change. So the night shift comes and they go, the night shift goes on, we'll take it over, which is actually my old team that I used to work with. They come, they take over the thing and again, the dead body. I'm like, okay, yeah, I've seen enough of them by this stage.  with traffic accidents and everything. I'm like, okay, yeah, cool. That's not anything gruesome. He's falling asleep, and he's passed away. And we're dealing with the girlfriend, and by that point, she's got some friends there and so then the other team comes, we hand it over to them, they get there quite quickly. We handed over to them and found out that the actual wife that he's having a divorce with lives on the way back to the station. So we're like,  we'll go deal with that. We'll go through the advisory job, because we'll get the Victim Support team to come meet us and it'll be fine. Can't get a hold of Victim Support, we end up there for four hours. The lady when we knock on the door, at first wouldn't let us in because obviously is going to shock why there are cops on my front doorstep. But then what ends up happening is she ends up letting us in, she thinks that something's happened to her daughter who lives further south in New Zealand. That's in college or university. And then we ended up telling her no, your husband's passed away. She goes into shock, again, and doesn't know how to deal with any of it. I'm there when my partner has been in for 15 years at that point he had been in. so he and I are kind of bouncing off each other doing stuff. She can't even dial a telephone and call her best friend to use a telephone because she's in so much shock. So we're there consoling her and that by this point, my emotions are so disconnected and gone. That I'm just a shell and just kind of a robot just doing what I think I know best to do. Yep, survival mode. So her friends finally get there. Before they get there. She goes I need to fly to Wellington to go tell my other daughter, and we're like, well, we can get a unit to go around there and that and she's like, no, no, I want to fly down. So she goes into the computer to do it and finds a suicide note. We're waiting for the friends to arrive. And we're sitting back in the living room after she's booked that flight. And her 16 year old daughter comes downstairs and goes is like what's going on her mom's obviously bawling her eyes out. And we're there and I look at my partner, he looks at me. We look at the mom and we go, your dad's passed away. And obviously she gets distraught and all that and is with her mom. and then a little bit later she gets up and I didn't see where she went. I was like,  she's gone to the restroom. She's going to the toilet or whatever. And I see her come out of the office and shoot upstairs. Like, no, she's read the suicide note. And so she ran upstairs. And I tell my partner, I'm gonna go upstairs. And at this stage, this is 2014. So there's a lot of that anti-police stuff going on in the US. And so I've got that in my brain as well. There's a lot of people doing stuff, just to get cops and are taking things out. I started taking things out of context and all that kind of stuff. And so I have a lot of that in my brain, as well as being emotionally disconnected. So I went upstairs and I talked to the girl and I went, it's okay. She's like,  my fault, I should have done more. He hasn't been doing well. like starts to blame herself. And again, don't have the training to do this as cops don't necessarily shouldn't necessarily have to, but they are in these situations. And I'm telling her it's not your fault, just like I did with the dad who dropped to his knees, put my hand on her back. And that was it. All I wanted to do is give the 16 year old girl a hug and be like, it's going to be okay. in my head I was like, No, I can't. and I'm completely empty completely a shell. That job completely turned me off. I shut down and lost all emotion. Completely lost myself. I didn't like who I saw in the mirror. I hated myself, I started doing stupid things. Shortly after that, I ended up getting called up and got a shoulder tap to go to protection services, which is like our version of Secret Service. because I'd done the training for it. I qualified for it. So I was all ticked off to do it. And so I got a call and they're like, We need somebody for the residential security. There's a job going, I think you should apply. So I applied and I think I was the only one applied. So I got the job. And so I left the street. And I talked to my sergeant that I had at the time I was like, I'm looking at doing this job because of hierarchy. I like to get the approval before I apply for it. And he's like, Well, they're trying to move you around. They're dicking you around all over the place here at the station. He's like you don't seem like you're really enjoying it that much. I was like, No, I want to go beat the crap out of people is what I want to go to. And he's like, Well, maybe it'd be good to get off the street for a while. I was like, Yeah, I think that might be a good idea. I was at the point where I was starting to want to do street justice. And that's incredibly important there because when someone doesn't have whatever keeps you from doing that. That's when we see these headlines, these cringe worthy headlines right. And so I hope for anybody listening, you're hearing everything that Chris went through that led him to get to this point where he had to shut off in order to survive and tell himself that he was emotionally wrong. He was in rage all the time, emotionally void. He was in rage all the time. So what was happening in your personal life as all of this was going on? I was just about to say that my marriage wasn't going so great. So before I got a shoulder tap for this job or asked to apply for it, my relationship was majorly on the rocks. We were fighting. I was unhappy. I come home and I'd literally do nothing. On my days off, I'd work on my truck to say that I was doing stuff for me, and I just get pissed off at the truck. And then I just sit and I'd be like, Okay, I have to be done with doing the truck when my wife gets home, so that I can look after her. I wasn't doing anything for myself. I'd sit there and watch TV. I'd sit there and just say five words a day kind of thing. She'd do something little and I'd put a hole in the wall. I repaired a few holes in the wall at that place. I get snappy like there was a non-existent fuse like my wife was on eggshells all the time. And a lot of these things I don't even remember. Like she's told me that this is the way that I was because my memory was just gone.

KW  36:24

Trauma. Yeah.

CY  36:25

Yeah. Which is trauma as burnout. It's a side effect of burnout, as well as a side effect of trauma. Not emotional. so I went to counseling. We went to counseling together, we went to EAP here as police, you get EAP. So we did that. The Counselor Kristen was burned out a bit with her job. And I was like you should resign. And I've been telling her because she was not enjoying her job so much, because it wasn't what she actually enjoyed doing. So she resigned and ended up getting a new job. We thought that's kind of done so we talked a little bit about my stuff. And that I also went to a police psychologist, because I went to the welfare person, I remember talking to a partner of a lady who had been on this same team, as I was on when I started coming to find out she was actually going through stuff at that stage. She was retracting herself away. And everybody was just being like, she's not turning up to work or that she's always making excuses that her back hurts her that she's got injuries, I know you do a lot of stuff with, getting rid of pain in the body, now that I know that kind of stuff. It's like, the back was probably to do with all the stress and that of the job. And so, this is back in 2000. I joined in 2011. So lots changed, obviously the last 12 years, with the way that we look at things and we deal with people. So I talked to her just randomly. My wife was like,  maybe you should get some help. I was like, I don't need that. I literally said that in my head. I don't need that. Everything will be fine. I'll work it out. So talking with her about my relationship, and she's like, have you talked to the welfare person? And I went to who? And I remember them at police training telling us you got the welfare person you can talk with, you can talk with them, if you're going through stuff, or you're struggling and I'd never been told by where she was where the person was, or ever been contacted by them. And she's like, she's downstairs, literally downstairs in the back office and the whole pretty much, that's where they have a tendency to put them. 

KW  38:31

So you had dramatic events that had happened all of these major life happening at umpteenth level, they tell you briefly, there's someone there for your welfare, no one at this time. And so you've had no training, and how to handle mental health crises in the first place, you've had no training and how to handle your own mental health or your own self care. There is just barely a nod to the welfare person and your wife is the one that brings it up. After three years,

CY  39:01

My wife didn't bring up about the welfare person. This is about a year and a half into the job. this is sorry, this is two and a half years into the job. And my wife doesn't bring it up. I'm talking to a past colleague of mine is on a different team. She's on investigations in that now. And I just randomly happened to run into her and she asked me how I was doing and I just for some reason spilled my guts to her. And she goes, maybe you should talk to the welfare person. So that's that another cop that tells me that in the station, and I was like the who, and this is before I was starting shift. So I'd come in a little bit early, Actually thinking back on this first time I've actually thought about that day. I came into work early. I was never the kind of person that came in early but that day I did for some reason to do paperwork, I think it was and I was never I was always the person that you give me time on on shift. Not my fault. I can't get it done. I'm too busy. That shift, I actually went to my boss and I went, I'm gonna go down and see the welfare person. I got a few little things going on. I said, I need to go deal with something. I can't go on the street just yet. And he's like, okay, cool. So I went down and talked to the welfare person. And that's when she told me about EAP, which I didn't know about. And then she also told me, she was like, she was like, I can also put you in touch with a police psychologist, if you want. And then she goes, and I didn't even let her finish the sentence. And I went, Yes, I'll have it. Because like, I'm a talker. I've grown up, and as you can tell them, I like to explain things. I like to dig into things at that stage. I wasn't and so we ended up going to counseling, went to play psychologists and all that. And to be perfectly honest, that was shit. When it came to me, I didn't recognize what was actually going on, didn't give me tools or strategies to actually counteract, it didn't give me any kind of things to and sure that I implemented them and took action on them. And so from there, I thought I dealt with everything a few weeks later, then I got a shoulder tap to go to residential Security Group, which is at the Prime Minister's house, and then my career carried on and I went into super hyper vigilance. I get so bad during that part of my career that everybody's bad. Everybody's out to kill me and my wife, and we should all just live in a frickin bubble. Pretty much.

KW  41:21

How many hours a night were you sleeping at that point.

CY  41:26

I never had an issue with sleep as far as I'm aware, even during that, I'd hit the bed and I'd be gone at that point. I can't remember. So as a cop I used to come home on late shifts at two in the morning, and I'd literally walk in the door and wouldn't even turn any lights on, I just brushed my teeth. And then I crawl straight into bed and I'd be out.

KW  41:42

Wow, that's very unusual. 

CY  41:44

It's very unusual. I think it's because I grew up on a boat. And I got used to shift work like working doing shifts in the boat. And so you had to go straight to sleep because you only had six hours to sleep before you were back up again. And I had to get good at it. But I think during residential security, I probably wasn't sleeping as good. I think maybe I was waking up. And even after I left the place for a couple years, I'd wake up to go to the toilet. That I need to pee in the middle of the night. Now I recognize it was all the trauma there that was actually waking me up. I didn't know it. I didn't remember any of it. But I also needed to pee in the middle of night. Because most of the time we do need to pee in the middle of night. But our mind, we've slipped through all of it and wake up in the morning need to be. So went to that hyper vigilance. And this is the whole reason I tell this whole story is because this is the whole reason why I do what I do now because I had different tools. So I'm hyper vigilant enough that in 2015, New Year's going into 2016 I think in early 2000 Black Tahoe is following me and my hometown. So I pull over and force it to pass me. I'm driving to my best friend's house. And then I think the long way. Yeah, it passed me. It wasn't actually like it wouldn't have even known who I was.

KW  43:11

Right? 

CY  43:13

No. And so you fast forward. Later in that year, I'm at a dinner party, my wife's away out of town for an event. Because she's doing overseas event stuff. And I'm at a friend's house and there's another friend of hers there and I find myself making a move on her and contemplating how to sleep with her. And I catch myself when I go. I really don't like myself. And I'm writing motors, I'd ride motorcycles 24/7 now and back then at this stage. I took the long way home trying to pop wheelies, doing stupid speeds, literally just trying to make myself feel something and also pissed off at myself that I've gotten to the stage. Yeah, my wife gets home a few days later, and I go, I want to divorce I almost cheated on you. I found myself going to a boy wanting to sleep with another woman and actually starting to look at taking action on it. And I'm just done. I can't do this anymore. My wife gets me to go to counseling one more time that counselor identifies in the first session, Chris, you're burned out you need to take a break.

KW  44:16

Yeah, big time.

CY  44:19

And so I left my and I'm gonna fast forward through a bit of this stuff. But with the counselors help and actually finding a good counselor and her saving my life to be perfectly honest. She works with me and my wife to come to a realization I need to take a break. My mind is sitting there fighting everything about it going, you hate cops, you want one less on the street. And that's just that nervous system. I call it the demon taking over. She gives me a ton of tools and strategies, breaks things down to simple terms like there's a dark wolf and a light wolf. The dark Wolf is really loud, obnoxious, and pushes you around all the time, but the light wolf actually has all the power when you sit with it. You actually are in that calm and place of calm When peace and you're actually you. And so we ended up coming to a thing where I was going to take a break. So I took some leave without pay for a long journey with my wife to get on board because I was doing it anyway. And friends help with that, the counselor and then also her friends. And then I took three months, and I traveled around the US on a motorcycle.

KW  45:25

What did that give you?

CY  45:29

I know, most people would be like,  that must have been so much fun. It was the hardest trip my entire life

KW  45:35

remounts on your own after all that? Yeah, I would imagine.

CY  45:40

Yeah, and  looking at it, I could have gone one of two ways. That whole intent, everything I do with is with intent consistently. I went back there with the intent of, I'm bettering myself, and I'm talking about what the hell's going on, because talking to this counselor has been helping him to gain lots of tools.

KW  45:57

Yeah.

CY  45:59

And so I bought a motorcycle, I borrowed some camping gear, I had a dream of a blue drybag from the boat that was bungee to the back of the bike. And I told everybody that asked my story, what was going on. There are more tools and strategies on that trip than I ever had in the seven years, seven and a half years I was in the police.

KW  46:19

That's amazing. And then you just brought up another point, I just want to call out, there was a big difference between that first psychologist that just heard you and didn't give you any tools. And someone that really actually heard you and gave you tools to help move forward. That is a huge distinction that a lot of people don't talk about.

CY  46:43

I'll also add in there, she made sure I was doing them.

KW  46:47

Nice. She held you accountable. That's important. 

CY  46:49

Because I'd come back and she'd book in the next session right there. When I was with her. She didn't let me walk away and then book it in, and the first psychologist would do that side. But I don't ever remember him, making sure that I was implementing things. And I don't remember every session that I had with that last counselor. But I do remember the pivotal things of her telling me like the dark Wolf and the light Wolf. Going Chris, I want you to really pay attention. Is it the dark wolf or the White Wolf listening?  and then we and then we come back and she'd be like, how's the dark wolf in the light wolf going?   he's getting louder. And she's like he will.

KW  47:33

Nice. Go ahead. Continue.

CY  47:37

So there were a lot of strategies to break through it. It was in a way I feel like it was more coaching than it was actually therapy. But she wasn't having me talk about all the dark things that I was doing in that. And probably if she hadn't moved to the South Island, while I was away, probably would have actually ended up doing some of that digging into the past type of stuff. But she was just trying to get me to get out of the weeds. And she's like, your tank is so empty. It's never filling up everyday you go to work and puts it below empty. You'll fill it up a little bit. You'll go on holiday, you'll go on vacation. And you'll fill it back up a little bit and it'll drop back down.

KW  48:25

Yeah, yeah,

CY  48:27

I have photos of myself that I did a presentation for our land transport. And I was going through photos of myself over the years to work on some presentations. And I was like, Holy crap. Look at my eyes. There's nobody home. Compared to like now.

KW  48:43

Yeah, I've looked back at pictures of myself, not to the extent that you're talking about the same thing and just like, my eyes weren't even that open. I think even when I'm tired now they're more open than they were when I was just completely blinded out to all of it.

CY  48:56

Yeah, it even follows when I'm on vacation. And I'm like a waterfall. And I'm in Hawaii and having fun. I look at my eyes. I'm like, Yeah, I'm having fun, but I'm empty still.

KW  49:10

Yeah, you got a big cheesy smile on your face. It's not hitting your eyes. Like,  this is how I'm supposed to act in this situation. So you start mimicking what you're supposed to do, because you don't know how to interact normally yet.

CY  49:24

Putting all the masks on as I talked to all my clients a lot about as well. As you're putting all these masks on and as a cop, especially you learn extremely well how to put masks on.  The first time I went through everything was going to counseling that my best friend who I went to police college with, and training. I was seeing him at least once a month, and he had no idea I was going through anything. That's how good I was at putting a mask on.

KW  49:35

 yeah. Very much. Yeah. And that's a common outcome from people who have endured a lot of trauma is that you lose the ability to connect with other people. So it opens it up to things that you talked about potentially even cheating on your wife and I give you mad props for calling yourself back on that situation. Because not a lot of people would have that awareness to even do that. And nor can you even fault them for that. It's because that's not that person, it's just the nervous system, it is a pattern running in there at a level that they don't know that is causing that creation. 

CY  50:32

The reason that I believe that I didn't is because I saw and I was hyper aware of the trauma that caused my parents when they both cheated on each other. And when my wife and I first got together, we made a promise and the first month that we're together, because her family or parents relationship was horrible as well. She's like, they shouldn't have been together as long as they were. And I said the same thing about my parents. Were like, we promised each other that if it got bad enough, we would end it before we hurt the other person.

KW  51:02

Yeah. That's important. 

CY  51:04

And obviously I'd already hurt her a lot emotionally because of all my different stuff. But for me that was beyond hurting her. And so I caught myself and I was like, this is done. I'm over this.

KW  51:22

So how did you take all this experience and start to shift it into what you do now with coaching and helping other officers, other first responders get out of burnout and prevent burnout.

CY  51:35

So initially, on that motorcycle trip, I learned a lot around self care. And I realized I was a cop, I didn't take care of myself at all. All I did was do things that I would call for myself, but really, they were for other things. Like I go to the shooting range because I enjoyed shooting, and I do but I would go because I needed to be better for work. I would work on my truck, which is actually jointly owned with my dad and I'd work on it because it made me feel good that I enjoyed it. When actually I was doing it because at the beginning it did. But then it became a thing of,  this is so that dad has it for work, for his business. Because he's looking after me because he's helping me in different financial ways. I would go out to dinner with my wife to have good food because I do and it'd be all about her in the relationship. I would end that five o'clock and make sure that I was done by the time she got home for her not because I wanted to be with her but because I was worried what she would think. I wasn't doing anything for myself. Even the gym was so that I could join AOS or protection, or for work. So that I was better at work. when really the gym was my happy place, but I was putting the wrong mental thing. So I recognized a lot of that. And when I came back I was like okay, fitness. I'm not ready to go back to the police yet let's go into fitness and become a personal trainer. And was the thought of okay, how do we use fitness to better our health? Better our mental state because fitness kept me alive. I can still remember the first time I went and I was doing some boxing in the bag. And I wasn't doing it from a place of anger. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, oh my god, this is the first time I've ever hit this bag calmly. I used to punch the bag so that I could get the anger out of myself. The only time I would really go hit a bag. I'd call it for fitness. But really it was getting the anger out of me.

KW  53:35

Right. They have rage rooms now to get the anger out of you.

CY  53:38

Yeah, they're great. But if you don't know why you're getting that anger, then you're just literally creating a cycle. So I went into fitness, and then I fell into helping future cops join the police. And then I went to a Tony Robbins event. And that's where I learned about neuro linguistic programming. And at that stage, I was like, one I'm great at mirroring other things. I've seen how things work. Like I'm great at breaking things down. I rebuilt a diesel motor at 17 on my own with just a manual. So I'm great at breaking things down, putting it back together, and working better. And so I watched Tony and I did all that while I was developing myself. And afterwards, I was like, Oh my God, every single cop needs this before they join. So I started to implement that into the fitness side. And I also recognized at that same time, I'm already doing all of this. When I was training for like our version of SWAT and I was training for five hours a day, I was implementing this stuff into my training. I just wasn't using it and bettering myself as a cop or dealing with the trauma or preventing any of it I was telling myself the right things I was focusing on the right thing so with my mental strength I started to shift it and teach people how to build that mental strength both in their fitness and also in their mindset. And now I do a lot of stuff where it still uses the fitness but we do more of the mindset and how not to burn out so things like looking after yourself or Are you looking after yourself? What's your life pyramid? People do it with different buckets but how are you looking after yourself? How are you looking after your relationship? How are you looking after your work? Most people don't struggle with work. And a lot of people, especially cops, don't struggle with the relationship too much. But self is normally dead empty. Especially when you start to preface it with the fact of how are you focusing on it? Are you saying that the shooting ranges for yourself but really the reason that you go there you preempt or you initiate it is because I needed to go till I'm better at work. So if I have to draw my gun. And then it's looking after my seven step process, which part of it's from some Tony stuff, some DNS stuff, and you might find it around, but then I actually shift and change it. So the first four levels I find people can get to really easily because it's the logical brain. then what we do is we definitely talk about the emotion, the negative emotions attached to that deepest level, and then you  actually work out in a safe place using some NLP techniques is actually go back to when you first felt not experienced not, part of the actual happening, but when you first felt and how old you were when you first felt that negative emotion. for a lot of people it's anger, a lot of people it's fear, are the two that come up a lot for law enforcement, fear and anger. The leading negative emotion that we all feel this fear and anger. And, then we ask, and I get them to envision. It needs to be before seven years old. The reason I say that is because that's when our brains develop. That's when it's planting all the seeds. And then and then they just get reinforced over the years. And as a cop, they get reinforced extremely fast.

KW  56:57

 yes. 

CY  57:00

So it's going back to that pre seven year old, but it's all then taking a vision of yourself and literally asking yourself, why things are important. And then we got another three layers deep. And that's normally where it ends. So my "why", my three subconscious levels are, creating experiences in joy, and creating less pain, and actually being safe. So those are my three levels. And then we turn it into a mission statement. And then we look at the rules around how that's actually been met.

KW  57:40

So what kind of changes have you seen people make since you started doing this and putting the system into place, especially that part. It's interesting, because that was something that came up when I did the ceremony last month. It is the importance of people being seen and heard. And the importance of me being seen and heard and places in my life where I hadn't felt that way. And the impact of not being seen and heard. It is huge when somebody's visible.

CY  58:08

It's absolutely massive, not everybody's "Why" is to be seen and heard. But it's a huge part of when you feel connected with somebody is because you're being seen and heard. And so that's why my "why" that's why me as a coach is so great, because I can tap into that. for a long time. It was all about me. I needed to be seen as soon as I recognized this, and I was like,  okay, I need to be seen. Now, how do I take this? How do I be seen? I'm here on podcasts. I'm doing all these different things. And then it's like, Now, how do I help other people be seen as well? And so it is about me first, and then it's about others. Because again, that self side, that self pyramid side, look after yourself, so you can look after others. And it's all to create the best version of ourselves. So as soon as you can recognize that it's like, okay, cool. But once you recognize your deepest level, like my wife says, to create joy. Also why we get along so well is because my shallowest level of my subconscious is experiencing joy. And so I can tap into that, because I do enjoy giving experiences in joy. It's part of who I am, if I'm doing it, I'm energized, it's filling my tank up exponentially. And so what it does is it changes officers, especially in the newer officers where they haven't been hit by a lot of the traumas and that they don't have they don't fight it as hard is that they enjoy their job more. They're more aware, or more alert in a calm, safe way, not in a reactive way. Anxiety. So I just did three months in the US running this for a couple of departments. So I ran one for a department in Colorado, one for a department in Arizona. And overall, in four hours of training, I call it my introductory session where we run through all this stuff quite quickly. So it is in depth, but not as in depth or as good implementing it as much as we could. But in just four hours with a survey of the same questions at the beginning versus the end, the overall average drop of anxiety is 25%. 

KW  1:00:13

Wow, that's a big drop. That's for hours 

CY  1:00:16

That's in four hours. That's by the end, the average was that the classes felt 20 to 25% less anxious about their job. The impact went up by 18%. The feeling that they make an impact, and what they do went up by 18%, on average.

KW  1:00:38

I feel like I'm repeating myself, but that's huge. Because every officer, every cop, I know, you get into it, because you want to help people, you aren't getting in there, then of course, there's always those rogue people who get in it to be the power person because they have something to prove. That's not the majority at all. That's the minority. It's the people who are getting in there that really want to be in law enforcement and like and why else would you want to be doing this to all your body, your body this way? Unless you really want to be there for people to help them. Why in the hell else? Would you get into a profession that is that dangerous, that is that thankless? That has all these things that go in without the training that you guys need to be able to support yourself? And unless you are doing it for a pretty altruistic reason.

CY  1:01:28

Yeah, exactly. emotional burnout got dropped by 26%. In just four hours. that's a feeling that they feel emotionally burned out. Physical burnout was not far off of that it was around the same number. I can't remember exactly what it was. It was maybe 18%.

KW  1:01:50

That's amazing. That's those couple numbers. Chris, 

CY  1:01:54

It is, it's insane. And I hadn't ever done the stats on stuff until I ran these in person for our trainings. And I was like, holy cow, this is actually insane. This makes a bigger impact. And I thought, I always just did it off of  my aspiring cops that I was helping pass the fitness test and get in and teaching them all these same tools, applying it to their fitness and also relating over 12 weeks how you actually apply this to your life. So you will stay a cop for 20 plus years. And you're not that cynical cop, you're not me. You're not the staff that we hear about all the time. And I only know of one cop who has left the job since going through my training and joining. And I know of at least 150 Cops who have gone through my training. At least I've trained over 600 people and at least 150 of them are cops that I know of are 50 to 200. And the one that left, knows exactly why she left. And it wasn't to do with trauma. It wasn't to do with that. It was just she recognized this as, I shouldn't have even joined the job. Because it's not actually for me, and we had had discussions before she even joined around that exact thing. Is this the right career for you? And she's like, always wanted to do it, I've got to go for it. I'm like cool, go for it. But she could clearly tell herself why she needed to get out of it.

KW  1:03:11

That's beautiful. I mean, that clarity is important. And on the flip side, those other 150 to 100 officers, they're more clear that they know that this is what they want to do. This is what they want to be doing.

CY  1:03:25

The job now serves them instead of them feeling like they're serving the job. when I say that it means that they're energized by the job not drained by everything that's going on in the world.

KW  1:03:39

Yeah, and that's, that's massive. 

CY  1:03:41

And that's the key right there because they don't fall into the George Floyd incidents. They don't show it falls into the use of force instance. And then it saves the department's money. On average. Let's say it costs a department 100 $250,000 to train somebody just to get them to the street. Wow. That's expensive in 2019. Statistics show that 26% of officers were leaving because of mental health, PTSD or burnout.

KW  1:04:08

That's expensive. Wow.

CY  1:04:12

Two to three out of 10 officers that leave or because of mental health burnout trauma. And this counteracts a lot of it so you saved yourself 150k And we're seeing cops leaving in five years.

KW  1:04:27

Wow. And  why you're getting out of bed to go to work now and instead of like,  I have to go to work it's  I get to go to work. That's a completely different headspace to be in. 

CY  1:04:38

The biggest thing with it as well as you recognize when those traumas are starting to take up I have one client who actually reached out to me as she was in the job for about six months. And she reached out to me, she's like Chris. On my first day I had somebody pull a shotgun on me and I ran to the car to go because our firearms are in the car. She's like I ran to the car to get the firearm I mean, she's like, I can't quite process why I feel bad about running to the car. Well, my partner and another cop were there. They ended up tasering the guy and getting him before she got back. And she's like, I feel like I ran away from them. And so I reiterated and reminded her of her "why" and what drives her on that and where it comes from, we even went deeper than we do in the program, in the intro session, because you got to hold a safe place if you're going to actually take people back to the past and actually have them experience things. And we took her back. And the reason she feels bad is because she was abandoned. And as a kid, she felt like and so it teed from her past back into her present of running to the police car, when she logically knows she was running the police car to get a gun to take a gun to a gunfight. And she was like, to save myself. And then to save everybody else. I need a gun. I don't have the tools. Where are they? They're in that car. I'm going to it. And then I'm coming back.

KW  1:06:06

You've got to get the body too 

CY  1:06:07

Yeah, but the subconscious was like you've been abandoned before you just abandoned your colleagues.

KW  1:06:15

Yeah, you gotta get that alignment back.

CY  1:06:18

Then she unlocked that it was all good. And she also like, I'm clear what I need a psychologist to help me with.

KW  1:06:27

That's beautiful.  Thank you again, for the work you're doing. Chris, where can people find you to reach out about their department and get your help to work with them? Where can they find you?

CY  1:06:38

My websites createfromwhy.com. That's createfromwhy.com you can send me an email I've slipped switched over to using Gmail because it gets the different people easier. It's createfromwhy@gmail.com, that's still createfromwhy@gmail.com. Or alternatively, a really easy way is to come over my instagram or even my LinkedIn just search Chris Chandler Yates. That's why Y A T E S for Yates and you'll find me send me a message. I'm always open to having a conversation with you, see where you're at, see what's going on. And then if I can't help you, I'll find people like Katie, I've got a massive network of people, all I want to do is make sure that you have every tool that you can to either overcome burnout. which overcomes PTSD. Or to help you prevent it, my huge passion is around helping give you the tools so you don't ever actually get there. Because it causes a lot of destruction.

KW  1:07:34

And thank you so much for sharing so much of your story in detail. And really painting the picture of what a cop goes through in the course of their career and the impact, the deep impact it has on every area of your life. Thank you so much for sharing, so vulnerably. And so openly. And really thank you for shifting this into a system that can now help other people prevent exactly what you've had to go through and prevent all of that ripple effect of added hurt added pain to people that you truly care about and love and being able to help save that course from even happening and going down a road. It's much smoother and much easier on your body and on your loved ones. Thank you for doing that.

CY  1:08:15

Thank you, Katie, for this place to be able to do it. I learned obviously from a motorcycle trip, the more you talk about it, the less it actually has control over you. And also it can help just that one person. And I know my trauma’s not as big as some of the officers that are out there or that I even know personally, I know cops that have been in shootings, they've been shot. I know cops that have lost their partner in shootings, they've watched their partner get shot and killed in front of them. But trauma is trauma, and how we react is exactly the same no matter the level, some of us are just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the trauma is even higher, or the event is even higher. So for all those out there, I just want to say, remember, you're not alone. We all experienced this. But you don't have to stay in it. And you don't even have to get to it. You can actually do things and be vigilant and regularly do things and have things in place so that you can prevent from even that shooting or that partner getting assaulted or that suicide actually knocking you on your on your ass. So, yeah, thank you. Thanks for the opportunity, Katie. I appreciate it.

KW  1:09:32

And then I was gonna ask any last words, but I think you just wrapped up so beautifully there that they're not alone and you have a chance to prevent going through what you did completely. So thank you so much for that, Chris. And thank you to the audience for joining me here today. Hope you'll join me again next week. And until then, just please remember, chronic doesn't have to mean permanent. Take care.