self awareness Posts

A Quality of Life Checklist for Measuring More Than Crisis Most of the questions we ask about first responder mental health are designed to find out how bad things have become. Are you depressed? Are you drinking too much? Are you having nightmare…

“You knew what you signed up for.” Maybe. You knew the job could be dangerous. You knew you might see people die. You knew there would be long shifts, missed holidays, difficult calls, public scrutiny, and decisions that had to be made before your…

I thought I was taking two months off from a podcast. What I didn’t realize was that I was going to spend a good chunk of those two months teaching my nervous system that every empty space did not have to be filled with only one of two choices: wor…

Season 3 Wrap Up and Time to Write & Rest I am taking a summer sabbatical from After the Tones Drop. There. I said it. And because I know how people’s brains work, especially in this community, let me say the next part clearly: nothing terrible h…

First responder silence is often misunderstood. They think if someone is not talking, it means they are in denial. Or prideful. Or too stubborn to admit they are struggling. Sometimes that is true. But a lot of the time, silence is not about ego. I…

How Commitment and Forgiveness Rebuild Lives After the Fire Most people wait for clarity before they move. Rick Cheatham didn’t have that luxury. What he had was a criminal record, a sexual addiction, a marriage hanging by a thread, a son murdered…