Episode 9 - Mike Cancellieri - Front Line Foundations PART 1

In part one of this episode I talk with Mike Cancellieri, founder and executive director of Frontline Foundations of North America.  Frontline is an extremely important organization that provides mental health services to veterans and first responders, with a focus on building a mind/heart connection and resiliency.

Mike and I discuss the unique approach that Frontline utilizes based on the staff coming from the communities they serve.  We dive into the way Frontline builds trust, overcomes stigma and teaches mindfulness practices that resonate with first responders and veterans alike.

Frontline is a non-profit and much of their important work is funded by small donations.  Please consider supporting their mission at the link below.

Frontline Foundations Website
Support Frontline Foundations
Facebook - @FrontLineFoundationsOfNorthAmerica
Instagram - @front.line.foundations
YouTube - @frontlinefoundations1014

Part 2 of this episode coming soon!

Thank you for listening.  Please don't hesitate to contact me at Twistedremedies.com

Take care of yourselves, and each other.

Transcript

Welcome to Twisted Remedies. I'm your host, Justin Couture, and this is a podcast about the benefits of jujitsu and other nontraditional remedies in trauma recovery. Recovery. We're doing something a little bit different for this episode. My guest is Mike Cancellieri from Front Line Foundations of North America.

Front Line is an important organization in that they provide amazing services to first responders, veterans, and frontline workers. Mike and I talked for quite a bit longer than I usually do with my guests, so I broke the conversation into 2 episodes. Since frontline is a nonprofit, I'm gonna try and do some fundraising through September, so stay tuned for that. Thank you for listening to part 1 of my conversation with Mike Cancellieri. We are back on Twisted Remedies podcast.

My guest today is Mike Cancellieri. Mike is the founder and executive director of Frontline Foundations of North America. Mike has a BA in criminal justice, lots of experience in the mental health field, with some inpatient psychiatric, settings and does have a martial arts background for all of you keeping track. So, I'm gonna let Mike jump into that. But welcome, and thanks for coming on the podcast.

Thank you, Justin. Really appreciate the, opportunity to be here. I dig what you're doing with this podcast big time. Happy to be on. Thank you.

Can you just kinda walk through I just breezed through your you know, the last many, many, many years of your life. Do you wanna can you just expand on some of that and stuff you think is, you know, is crucial to the conversation? Yeah. I I, you know, I I went to college for criminal justice. My older brother is 10 years older than I am.

He was a police officer. He's a semi retired police officer now. You know, and I thought about being a police officer early on in, in high school and college, and it just life took me in a different direction. We moved up to New England from New Jersey, where my wife and I are originally from, because my wife was going to Antioch in, Key, New Hampshire for environmental studies. And here I am with a criminal justice degree and not necessarily wanting to enter a law enforcement career at that point in my life.

What can I do with a social and behavioral sciences degree, that is available for work in New England when I moved up here? That's how I got into the mental health field. I thought it would be interesting, and it sure was and continues to be, but, in in much better ways now that I'm working with veterans and first responders. That's the short version. Yep.

You mentioned my martial arts background. That what that does for me is give me the ability not to panic when someone hits me in the face. Important. I really yeah. That is important.

That is a skill, but I really haven't kept up with, I did about 4 or 5 years fairly seriously in a in a school down in New Jersey. I was teaching a a style called United States black cat Kenpo, which is a mixture of a bunch of different things. We had, you know, typical Tae kwon do style kicking, traditional stuff, mocha now and karate, aikido, joint locks and throws, and good old fashioned, like, collegiate wrestling for ground techniques. It was really cool. It was like I feel like at the time I was in that school, it was right before this country went nuts with lawsuits and tort reform or whatever goes on.

And we were it was like it was almost almost like old school karate kid style Yep. Instruction and legit instruction too. These people were serious. So, yeah, that's that that, I think that gave me a seat at the table to to talk about martial arts, and some of the things it's done for me. But I haven't kept up with my training, and I wouldn't step in the ring with a 15 year old right now.

Yeah. It's well, I mean, it's, you know, it's definitely a perishable skill and No doubt. Do you do you miss it? Are there times where you wish you were still training? Yeah.

Totally. Like, I that's there's so many benefits to, to no matter what even if you're studying, like, a super traditional Chinese martial art like, wushu or whatever, there's still so many benefits just in terms of physical activity, movement, getting oxygen into the body, the discipline involved. There's a lot to it. And if I had well, you got the time for whatever you wanna do, generally. But if I had the time, I I would pick up some jujitsu for sure.

That would be something I wanna Yeah. I'd wanna study, but you gotta prioritize what you do with your time. And I don't I don't have the time to take it seriously, and I don't like probably like a lot of people like us, I don't like to half ass things. Yeah. So someday, though.

Maybe when I'm 60, I'll start jujitsu like Anthony Bourdain. It's never too late. Yeah. Right on. Yeah.

So I think a good place to start is what is the what's the story behind Frontline Foundations? And, well, I guess, what is Frontline Foundations, and and how did that come to be? Cool. Yeah. Frontline Foundations is a 501c3 nonprofit healthcare organization.

We basically treat PTSD for veterans and first responders. We also include anyone who is suffering in the same way. So this might include, like, DCF investigators, children and family type of stuff, attorneys that prosecute, like, child trafficking and sex crimes. But we mostly just advertise for vets and first responders, and that's who most of our clients are. There's 3 things that we do.

I I will go out to different departments, police departments, fire departments, to do in service trainings on resiliency skills, how to have a long and sustainable career in law enforcement, military, fire service without accumulating the type of trauma that, you know, slows us down in our lives and stuff. So just the emphasis on those in service trainings is resiliency skills, how to continue this job without sort of getting stuck. The second thing we do is I have 2 clinicians that see clients for individual therapy. If people can just come in for individual therapy on an outpatient basis, We pride ourselves on being one of the few culturally competent mental health organizations for vets and first responders. We really have some sense of what you guys go through.

My 2 clinicians that see people for individual therapy, both of them were firefighters and paramedics for about 15 years each. That's different from law enforcement. It's different from the military, but it's close enough that we get it. Right. We certainly get it.

And then the third thing Frontline Foundations does is we run a 5 day intensive outpatient program that teaches the same resiliency skills that I would bring to your department for an in service training, but it's for people that are feeling kinda stuck in their lives and need just some kinda leg up to start grappling with the weight of all the experiences they've had. We do that once a month. It's typically about 6 people, 6 clients. It's a mindfulness based program, and I could say much more about, like, our philosophy behind what we do, why we do it. Everything we do is intentional.

Everything right down to the way my wife, Lila, has organized the the decor in the place is intentional to promote the right kind of environment to work on what we need to work on. So that's that's Frontline Foundations in a nutshell. We started in 2020, which is a great time to start a health care organization. Right. Yeah.

There was nothing going on then. But suit real easy. Just everything was greased. Yeah. It's funny you you mentioned, this just struck me as you were saying this, that, you know, the fire service is different.

But as I think about my last couple of years on the job and even talking to people I know who are still working, in fire service, it's I feel like it's shifted in the last couple of years with the kind of calls that firefighters are going to are not just Mhmm. You know, like, there there's so much fire suppression. I don't think they're putting out a whole lot of fires Right. Especially in, like, urban areas. Sure.

And they're going and they're having to deal with a lot more of the same stuff that, you know, typically the that police are going to. So that I think there is definitely tons of overlap there for sure. Absolutely. You know, the all all of these jobs that we deal with are have radically changed in the last, what, however, whatever time period you wanna put on it, 20 years. But, yeah, I'll have I'll have, young firefighters, you know, that are 25 years old or something like that that grew up pushing a fire truck around a Christmas tree.

And, you know, they maybe they had a Dalmatian in the whole 9 yards, and they they wanna be like a firefighter. And they are starting to discover that their job is a lot they really are pushing professional firefighters towards EMS. And even if you are a, like, interior firefighter, you might just be Narcanning the same people on your street corner in your city over and over again, and that's a radically different job. Yeah. So that that tends to weigh on people.

Yeah. Well and they end up they also end up dealing with a lot of the mental health Mhmm. Like, population that is, you know, in that needs those kind of services. So it's it's definitely it's, I think, more taxing than it's differently taxing than it was years ago Yeah. Exactly.

For sure. So frontline, were were there gaps in services and systems that you saw from I mean, you you so you worked in inpatient psychiatric. Mhmm. So, I mean, it's it may not be a one to one correlation, but there's definitely I think there's definitely some some consistency there. But were there gaps in in services and things that were provided that you were looking to fill?

Yeah. For sure. You know, part of my story, speaking of inpatient psychiatric stuff, you know, the reason I feel comfortable talking to veterans and first responders about trauma, even though I've never served in the military and I've never been a first responder. You know, for about 10 years, I worked in a locked psychiatric facility where violence was an absolute guarantee every day. And just like many of, our listeners, I would imagine that, lots of people have the experience where if you're good at something at your job, you kinda get funneled into doing more of that same thing.

And in your department, you become the specialist for whatever it is. Yep. You don't get paid for that differently. It's just like, oh, yeah. Justin's really good at this situation.

We'll send him out. That's what happened to me in terms of violent psychiatric emergencies. I became like mister emergency in a way, and I had a lot of other people there helping me on my team. I trained everyone in that hospital on how to deal with these emergencies, and I had a lot of co instructors that were excellent as well. But my experience basically became rolling out to to what we call codes, couple of 3, 4, 6 times more times per shift.

Violence, really severe, injuries, almost exclusively on the staff side. Mhmm. We, really prided ourselves on never injuring the patients. Every once in a while, you get a skinned knee Right. Fat lip type of thing, but, you know, how are we gonna take down a guy that weighs £365 and a 6 foot 5 without hurting him and without being able to use joint manipulation, throws, pain compliance, none of that.

So we did a very good job. I racked up some trauma doing that for about 10 years that started to really affect my life. And so, you know, a couple of things happened. I I had my own sort of, you know, for lack of a better term, come to Jesus moment about, I don't think I could do this particular job anymore. Yep.

Right at that time, within the same organization, there was a program, an outpatient program for vets and first responders, and an opening popped up. So I slid right over there, and it was a loosely mindfulness based program. Wasn't quite as legit as what I'm teaching now, not to sound arrogant, but I love the work. I love the clients. I love the team, and I found out that my personal experiences in the previous 10 years gave me the ability to communicate with vets and first responders.

I kinda speak the same language. Like, I know I know what especially for police and fire. Like, I know what it's like to be kinda minding your own business, doing admin stuff, and then an alarm goes off, and 3 minutes later, you're, like, fighting for your life. And I know exactly what that's like. So I have the ability to talk to people who have had similar experiences.

And so to ask answer the question you asked 20 minutes ago about, like, what what gaps there were, the just the the same thing I was saying about cultural competence. There's like, a lot of people are very well meaning and really wanna help and especially wanna help vets and first responders, but you really need to speak the language. You really need to know, what the issues are and what it what they might be going through in their emotions and in their thoughts to be able to communicate effectively because the whole, like, how does that make you feel Right. Vibe does not work. So I don't know if that's an answer to your question.

Yeah. I mean, I I think I think there's there's a certain amount of well, obviously, you have to build trust with somebody that you're trying to work with. And I think if you are approaching something and you don't speak the language or you don't you don't have the same perspective, it's it's a lot harder to overcome that Yeah. That trust barrier. Absolutely.

And I and I think I think that I like the, you know, that cultural competency piece is I think without that, it's it's you're you're painting and you don't have all the colors. Yeah. That's that's a great way to do it. You know, you're you're you're giving your best effort to to do something, but if you're not able to connect like, that connection, and I'm I mean, just from having, you know, known you for a bit and, you know, the retreat, and we'll I'll probably get into that in a little bit, but having seen you in action with first responders, you definitely have that, you've overcome that barrier because you speak the language and you have lived experience that you're not just talking from a textbook, you're talking from, listen, I get it, like I've been there. So I think that's a critically important piece that a lot of, a lot of agencies, you know, like, partner with people who look great on paper Yep.

But when it's time to get people to, you know, get help and and do the work, I think there's there's shortcomings. Yeah. For sure. You know, one of my favorite, I guess, I don't know what to call it. There's a graphic novel called Stick Vet.

I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's a guy that's a combat vet that draws, like, stick figures that is about his experience getting treatment for PTSD. Oh, wow. My favorite panel is it's all stick figures. It's hilarious. But my favorite panel, he's at the window, the check-in window at the VA, and it says, hi.

My name is stick vet. I'm here to see a civilian intern for counseling. And it just cracks me up because it looks like I'm a civilian for sure. But, like, just the the I I totally get where he's coming from. Yep.

And, like, I never wanted to be that guy working with vets and first responders. And so one of, like, the specific things I see, we're actually gonna talk about stigma at some point, but, like, one one barrier to treatment I see a lot is is guys that have, like, a high speed nature. They're switched on. They have excellent situational awareness. They have a lot of specialized skills and training to keep people that they love safe and to keep things that they care about safe.

And a lot of their experience going to see, mental health providers can they they can be made to feel paranoid. Right. It's like, what do you mean you have a go bag in your truck that you never you don't even go to Walmart without this bag that you put in your truck. And it's like, that's not paranoid if you understand the experience. And also, it's like a skill set.

So, like, what we what we do at frontline foundations is try to teach ourselves and our clients how to separate when you need to be switched on and when you don't. You know, a lot of people are afraid that if they get help, if they talk to a therapist, if they start meditating, it's gonna make them a less effective operator, law enforcement officer, firefighter, and it's just the opposite. It it it makes you so much better if you get good night's sleep and you're feeling healthy. And it's not gonna it's not gonna remove your skill set. You know, an example I always give to my clients is if you are taking your family on vacation and you pull off at a rest stop on 95 in an area that you don't know, I want you to be switched on and to have your head on a swivel and to have a little huddle with your kids and explain if we get separated, this is where we're gonna meet and all of that.

That's but that should not be the vibe at your dinner table every single night. Maybe. You know what I'm saying? It's like when to use these skills and when not. It's like having a tool in your hand.

When do you pick up this tool, and when can you put the tool down? You know, Christmas morning, Thanksgiving, when you come home from work, these are good times to put the tools down. But I don't I don't tell anyone that they can't have a go bag, that they can't be switched on, that they can't have you know, their skill set is a big proud part of their life. So, anyway, that's I don't even remember what the question you asked was, but that's that's, like, what we that's what we really try to do. We try to, teach people how to, you know, when to be suited up and when to be dad Right.

Or when to be a musician. You know? Yeah. I I think that, you know, from I mean, I did just shy of 24 and survived. But I think, you know, there is there's there certainly is a a detriment to always being switched on because it's exhausting, and it's usually, like I wasn't, like, super operational, but, like, you know, I was at in some narcotics positions and Yeah.

Places where you had to pay attention or things could go kinda bad. Yeah. Yeah. And it it there is a certain amount of, it's not complacency, there's a certain amount of if you combine that switched on with trauma, there's a certain amount of numbness that Yeah. Eeks into the mix.

Mhmm. And it's really, I think it's even harder to recognize at that point that you need to switch off because that's the only like in some cases, that's the only thing you're clinging to is I am switched on, I have to be switched on because if I switch off, it's messy. And I don't messy, you know, messy can be scary if you don't have the right captain navigating the boat through the Yeah. Right. Through the channel.

So which I think is a good segue that I set up for myself. Nicely done. So how does you mentioned, like, some of the other some of the your your approach is the cult cultural competency piece, and it's it's mindfulness based. But how is frontline different than like, what are you doing that's different than these other places that that really gets, you know aside from you speak the language and you've got, you know, you've got the credibility behind it, what is what is the formula or what are you doing that's different that gets results? Yeah.

Well, this would be a good place to talk about, like, our general philosophy maybe, and that's, you know, for, like, 10000 years or so, human beings had a way of preparing warriors for battle, and human beings had a way of welcoming warriors home from battle so that they could be integrated back into their normal societal roles. And this is something that pops up everywhere in human history when you study it. I've been particularly focused on, like, the Western American Indian traditions lately, like the Lakota people, that kind of thing. Do you see this in in Southern North America with the Aztecs. You see it in Amerindian populations in South America.

Any indigenous population around the world seems to have the same sort of framework for preparing warriors for battle and for welcoming them home. We don't have that anymore. So the broad answer to the question is what Frontline Foundations does is we try to recreate how human beings have been welcoming warriors home for 1000 of years. You know, the in order to do that, I have to kind of remind or, educate, I guess. I don't wanna sound like arrogant, but I gotta I gotta bring people in that like, hey, if you're a police officer, you're a warrior.

That that makes a lot of sense. But even, like, if you are a, an EMT in the back of an ambulance, you are a warrior. And I'm talking, like, culturally, like, archetypically, to use a big mental health word. You know what? So what makes up a warrior in this definition?

You are part of a tight knit cultural group. So cops versus firefighters in the bowling league, like, we used to take people out to do that. Like, that's a tight knit cultural group. EMS is a tight knit cultural group. So that's, like, that's one check mark for what a warrior is.

Another one is specialized skills and training. Cool. That's that's a check. We all got specialized skills and training. Another one is, engaged in an ongoing struggle.

So that is no doubt. Right? That's that's the what it is. My my experience, that 10 years or so I was working inpatient in the psychiatric hospital. Couple of things happened during that 10 years.

There was a hurricane Irene, which turned which turned the state hospital ruined the state hospital, and it turned my nice little psychiatric hospital into the state hospital. Mhmm. And the and the rest of those years that I worked there was radically different from the first couple years, and there was high points and low points and danger and good leadership and bad leadership. That's an ongoing struggle. I mean, that has the flavor of a campaign, to it.

Same thing if you're a firefighter. A lot of my firefighters at some in some of the bigger professional departments around here have seen their job, like we talked about earlier, radically change in response to the opioid crisis, in response to the homelessness crisis, everything that came with COVID. So ongoing struggle, that's that's part of what makes a warrior. And the last element is, yes, self sacrifice, man. Like, willingness to sacrifice yourself for the good of your group.

Maybe your group is your partner in your squad car. Maybe your group is your whole shift. Maybe your group is the town that you work in or work for, but self sacrifice for the group. And that is that is that runs the entire gamut from small self sacrifice, like you've had to take a leap for the last 2 hours, but you can't get to it because you got you're helping people out all the way up to the ultimate sacrifice that we've seen a lot of our colleagues make. That's what a warrior is.

You know, I'm talking culturally. And so culturally, human beings know how to work with that. We've lost it. We've lost it in the last couple of 100 years. Some of the advances that we've made in science and technology have come at the cost of losing some of our roots would be a way to talk about it.

So that's kinda what we try to recreate some of the things that are necessary for warriors to heal, and I can get into that. Yeah. Like, what are some examples of those methods? Yeah. So, you know, traditionally, in preparation for battle for warriors, like, there'd be a lot of different things that would be done intentionally, like like a sweat lodge.

We're probably gonna talk about those types of practices a little bit later, but, you know, you get into the sweat lodge. You'd you'd experience that physical feeling of exhausting everything that you had in your body, focusing the mind. They would sing traveling songs. They would get themselves kinda pumped up, and they everyone would leave together to go, to go to battle. And then on homecoming, there's 4 different stages, and you'll see these 4 stages regardless of where the culture is.

The way that I'm gonna talk about this is really heavily influenced by the work of doctor Edward Tic, who we can probably link to some of his books, which are good. But the first phase in homecoming for warriors is is what they would call isolation intending, not isolation in the bad sense, which is something that people like us are at risk for. But isolation, meaning when you come back from battle, you should probably be with people that understand what you've just been through for a little while, and you should probably be tended to by people that really care about you, and they know who you are. Like, they know who Justin was before the military. They know who you were as a little kid.

So that's an important part of coming home, and we don't get that anymore. Right. The the starkest example is for our combat vets in Iraq and Afghanistan recently. Of course, our Vietnam vets did not get a great welcome home, and we all are grappling with that to this day. But, like, what what didn't quite happen so much in the Vietnam era that happens now is you could be involved in some heavy duty combat in, like, Iraq and hop on a series of airplanes and, like, maybe 48 hours later, you're standing in Boston, Logan, listening to someone bitch that Starbucks got your order or got their order wrong.

Right? That's like that is that is not at all the right way to come home. There's no wind down. No wind down. I had a job one time that it was a it was a 5 minute commute to, like, a hardware store I worked at, and I was like, there's not enough wind down Right.

For my hardware store job. So that isolation intending phase is is really important. And one of the most important parts of that is when you come back from battle, they will speak your true name back to you, not the name that's on your gear, not not your call sign, not like your the cool nickname that you earned in boot camp or whatever or your embarrassing nickname. They speak your true name back to you to remind you who you are. And, of course, you are now that person plus skills, experience, and that's not a bad thing.

But if you lose who you were in the beginning, there's some negative things in our thoughts and feelings that can happen. That's the first phase, isolation intending. Not bad isolation, but, like, welcoming you back to here are here's other warriors and elder warriors. So that's, like, one thing that we do at FLF when if you come to our 5 day program, it's it's isolation. There's in the way meaning there's nobody that works for us that isn't here because this is exactly what they wanna do.

Right? Nobody at FLF is there because, oh, this sound like, the way I got into the mental health field. Like, oh, this will be interesting. Nobody is there for that. It's all because we've either had personal firsthand experience with job related trauma or, like in the case of my my lovely wife, who's our office administrator in a 1000000 different other jobs, her father's a Vietnam vet.

We have a clinical mental health counseling intern with us right now whose brother is a marine corps veteran. Everybody else is a is retired fire or police. So that isolation intending phase is is huge, and it's good to be with people that get it. And that's what you don't get in the broader mental health, I wanna say market, which I don't like that term, but, actually, that's what it is Yeah. Unfortunately.

I think that's strangely appropriate. Yeah, man. So that's phase 1. I mean, doing quite a bit of talking here. You want me to No.

Keep going? Yeah. I I mean, this is all I think this is interesting stuff of of the difference in the approach because I would wager, that places who aren't doing it this way aren't we've already gone deeper than those Uh-huh. Than Yeah. Than I think a lot of, you know, a lot of and I'm not I I shouldn't say that.

I'm sure there are other, you know, entities out there who are who are striving to, you know, do something similar. But I think for, you know, for the, I guess, for lack of a better word, the cookie cutter, you know, oh, you're you feel like you need to talk to somebody and they just send, you know, somebody to a therapist that is out of, you know, the list of therapists that they have. Yeah. I think we have already gone subterranean on the level that Yeah. Right.

That that is out there. So this is I think this is fascinating and good for people to hear. Yeah. Awesome. Cool.

Yeah. Quick sidebar, like, when I when I decided in my job that I need some help with the stress and trauma that I was dealing with wrestling psychotic people for years, I decided to avail myself of our organization's EAP, our employee assistance program. And I got myself an appointment, and I was all excited. Not excited, but I was like, good. I'm finally I broke the ice.

I'm gonna get some help. Within 5 minutes, this therapist, who I'm sure was a skilled therapist, who's very well meaning and probably very good at what she does, but she said to me, oh, I don't do trauma work. Great. Then there was, like, crickets for a little bit. I was like, wait.

And I looked at like, am I in the right place? Like, you're the EAP for a psychiatric hospital, and you don't do trauma work? That's, a little upsetting and surprising. So, yeah, I mean, that's just in the idea that we are intentionally trying to create an environment specifically for warriors. Yeah.

I think we're you know, we've already already gone a long way to not having the experience that I had be repeated. Yeah. So like the second phase in this traditional model is what might be called purification and cleansing, and surprise, surprise, you get back in the sweat lodge because that's very important. There's something you you know, from your jujitsu experience and a million other experiences, there's something really healing about sweating Mhmm. Like a real serious sweat that I mean, it's physically and medically cleansing for sure, but, like, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, you feel cleansed when you've got you just got it all out.

So that sweat lodge is real important. You know, praying, as hard as you can is is language that I picked up, about this purification and cleansing phase. And I think that can be a really important part of healing. I don't I don't get too specific with that in my program because I'm not trying to push any particular spiritual system on anyone. Right.

But that you know, for 10000 years, that was an important part of coming back, you know, and and trying to make yourself a little bit more humble. And that's a tough that's a tough one to talk around because, I'm not saying that people like us by and large, what your problem is, you're not humble enough. It's like that's some guy's problem. Yeah. That's for sure, but that's it's more about, like, changing your perspective and looking at the larger situation.

You know? And so we don't have, like, a sweat lodge at, at FLF yet, but, part of what we do is is through, talking, through storytelling, through having a lot of laughs, through some physical activity that we do, we do get we address that cleansing and purification, element in that way. You know? And one one thing I'm working on right now is is how to take this model that I'm taking you guys through and how to put it in into, like, your day when you get home from your job as a law enforcement officer, how to take these elements and put it into your day. Right?

So cleansing and purification might be sweat lodge, cold plunge when you get home, that kind of thing. But moving on with this 4 part framework, the 3rd important element in homecoming is in fact storytelling, and it's stories not only of trauma but also of triumph. Now when people come to our program when people come to any program, they're usually concerned that, like, they're gonna be made to spill their guts, and they're gonna be made to talk about stuff that they don't wanna talk about, and we don't do that at FLF. Nobody has to say a damn thing that they're not totally comfortable talking about. We do encourage people to be able and we try to teach some skills for communicating your experiences in a way that doesn't make you say something that or reveal the details of something that you're not comfortable with.

As you're coming home and talking to your kids, and they know that you're looking a little rough coming home. And what's wrong? And you say everything's fine. Right? It's like everything is not fine.

We were at a, first responder conference, and doctor Nicole Sawyer, who's a clinical psychologist, that we work with sometimes did a great job of talking about you tell your daughter that you're fine, and it's clear that you're not fine. You've just taught your daughter that she can't read you, and her her ability to read people is is, inaccurate. Yep. So the storytelling piece of this framework can be, like, even with your kids. Like, yeah, I have a very difficult job.

Not everybody has a very difficult job. I see people on the worst day of their life, and I do that 3, 4, 6 times a day. And today, I had a very difficult call that involved children, and I love you and you and when I see children, sometimes it reminds me of how much I love my own children. And it's like, that's all you have to say. Right.

And by the way, I'm not saying that that's even easy at that level. That might not be easy, but I think it's important, and that level of discussion will improve your life so much, your relationship with your family, with your children, with your friends, just being able to talk about your experience in categories so people feel like you're letting them in a little bit. You don't have to give the details. And that's the model that we use at Frontline Foundations when we have a discussion group that's on paper, it's a psychotherapy group, but that word freaks people out. Right.

Yeah. But, like, you know So this yeah. Yeah. So no. That's not I thought you guys were about, like, you know, teepees and serpilogies and stuff.

The hell is it? But, yeah, the the psychotherapy group, which is really a discussion group in the middle of the day, is is what that is for. It's for that storytelling piece that is so important to the health of of our vets and first responders and warriors. And people people go deeper than they thought they would. That's a common experience.

We are very cognizant, and we try to be very skilled about not not leading someone down a road that's gonna go deeper than they should Right. At 1 PM on a Friday afternoon, for instance. But that storytelling piece is very important to relate your experiences. We have a peer counselor on our staff named Joe Gorman, who's a veteran firefighter, and a just an amazing guy, and the language that he uses is you gotta get it past your teeth. And I think that's a a really cool way to put it, that storytelling is important.

The the traditional element that makes it so important is it transfers the responsibility for things that you have done in the name of your job that you might not have grown up as a kid thinking I'm gonna hold some particular person down on the ground, for whatever reason. Combat veterans have a lot of experiences of seeing themselves do things that were absolutely necessary at the time, but then they're left struggling with, like, what if I could have made a different decision? So the storytelling phase helps transfer the responsibility from you to the group in whose name you acted. That could be the United States of America. Yep.

That could be Brattleboro Police Department. That could be your coverage area if you're a paramedic in the north country. Could be whatever it is. And it's not you know, part of the reason these things are so tough to talk about is I just said the word, it transfers responsibility away from you, and people like us don't like that. Right?

It's like, no. It's my responsibility. It's a different way of thinking about it, though. I'm responsible for every action I've ever taken, but some of the things that I've had to do in the psychiatric field that I never saw myself doing, I realized that that I have done that in the name of the institution and the regulations in the state and what I've been mandated to do by the law and by, doctors and and the situation. So that's what I'm talking about, and that storytelling phase is so crucial for that.

And so, like, it helps people realize they're not the biggest asshole in their department. We're not the biggest asshole in the room or in the world or in their family. It's like, you know, moral injury is a technical term for when you see yourself doing something that you never thought you would do. My example I guess I'll talk about it. My example of that is, working with teenagers on an inpatient unit.

I worked with many young teenage females who had an absolutely horrendous abuse history, probably involving sexual abuse. And for a variety of good reasons, like they were trying to kill someone else or themselves, I was put in a position where I now have to hold down with other people with a team, but I have to hold down a a female teenager who is now definitely reexperiencing all of her trauma. And there's a sound to that. There is a sound to that that is real hard to handle. So that storytelling phase is, like, a thing that will help remind me of, like, I I can't let this girl kill herself or anybody else.

That's why I had to do this. Right. And that example, I'm sure hits home pretty good with a lot of our listeners maybe in different scenarios, but that exact type of thing. So that's the storytelling phase. I so the thing that comes to mind with that that and you mentioned the, you know, that transfer of responsibility is tough.

But as I'm hearing you talk about it, I think the other the other thing that strikes me is there is there's a certain amount of vulnerability that has to be involved in that. Yeah. And that is and maybe that's part of the whole stigma piece, but that that vulnerability, again, when that starts happening, that's where things can get messy. Yeah. And, you know, in I think a lot of people look at it like, well, it's easier if I don't have to deal with the mess.

Yeah. And so in that storytelling, how do you overcome that vulnerability piece and get people to to cross the line into, you know, whatever level of the story they're gonna share Yeah. Saying anything is is getting, you know, it I mean, is an achievement. So I think, you know, especially, there's varying degrees in that, but there is definitely that's a that's a big step. A big first step is, well, going for 1 is a big step.

But I think when you get there, and okay, we're gonna talk about whatever we're gonna talk about, and you can talk about in the you know, to the extent you want to, but that's still a a leap of vulnerability and Yeah. And trust. And how do you overcome that? Yeah. Well, through education, and there's 2 specific things that we really try to hammer home.

We so before we really get into the storytelling and the vulnerability, I'm I'm hitting people with just straight up education. We start out with mindfulness, the four foundations of mindfulness, which is, like, over 2000 years old, and I do a lot on, what we call trauma and the stress response. It's like how the body and the mind react to repeated trauma exposure. And we talk about the limbic system versus the neocortex and adrenaline and cortisol and the amygdala and the hippocampus and all this stuff, and that sets the stage to really explain why it is that you have to feel switched on all the time. Yeah.

Why it is that you can never let your guard down. And I still you know, I'm I'm trying to practice what I preach. I'm trying I'm I'm on this journey with you and with everybody else that comes to this program. So I, you know, I still have some of the things being overly switched on in certain situations. I don't like having my back to the door in a restaurant.

I don't like being in crowds, but that education piece about how the body and the mind adapt to keep you functioning in your 25 year law enforcement career, that really helps people realize, like, oh, I'm again, I'm not the biggest asshole in my department. Right. I'm not I I there's no way I'm the only guy or gal that's feeling this way. So that starts to pave the way a little bit for a little bit of, you know, opening up and being just a tad vulnerable. And the second thing is to really just hammer home the point that we have all built up a wall, like, in front of our hearts.

If you're coming home to little kids and you're dealing with horrendous stuff out there on your job involving little kids, you're gonna need a wall in front of your heart because if that shit gets in there, you are not gonna have such an easy time doing your job. The problem is that wall is up 247. Right? And it's it it keeps the bad stuff out, and it keeps the good stuff out. So when I we have a variety of different ways we talk about it.

Sometimes it's just exactly what I just said, but that one two punch, so to speak, of, like, hey. This is how the body and the mind have adapted to keep you functioning in your career. This is an emotional thing that everybody has to do to survive, and it's time to start opening that, you know, opening up a little bit, softening that wall. I think of it, like, in visuals in my head, I think of it as a wall that's made out of ice, and I wanna, like, just start to melt that wall just a little bit so that you can talk about some experiences that you've had. And, again, it's not gory details.

It's not it's just like, yeah, I was in a tough call. It involved children. Or I was in a tough call. It involved, you know, drugs in my, I I've lost people I love in my life to drugs. Yeah.

You know? So just explaining how that stuff works. I mean, that the the that whole you're not the biggest asshole thing, I hate to keep harping on harping on that, but that is, like, that's a real difference that we that we really mastered that at FLF. Yeah. Helping you realize that it's not you.

It's it's like, this is this is the way things work. So Yeah. That makes sense. Thank you for listening to episode 1 of my conversation with Mike Cancellieri from Frontline Foundation. Part 2 of the will be coming soon, and, again, there will be a fundraiser component, for this month for September.

So please consider contributing to Frontline Foundations to keep their mission moving forward. As always, thank you for listening. If you know someone who would benefit from the show, please share it with them. And as always, take care of yourself and take care of each other.