EP 138 April Chavez CEO Driven Livin' LLC with "Your Brain, the First Line of Defense”

"In this Security Circle episode, former police officer and wellness advocate April Chavez shares her journey from frontline policing to championing resilience, mental health, and self-improvement. Drawing on real-life experiences, April reveals how trauma impacts the mind and body, the power of self-awareness, and why changing yourself can transform the world around you. Her insights blend science, spirituality, and practical tools for living a wellness-driven life."

BIO

April Chavez is a captivating public speaker, former police officer, and a mother of three miracle daughters. Diagnosed with Lupus at the tender age of fifteen, she has been a symbol of resilience and an advocate for comprehensive wellness, encompassing spiritual, intellectual, and physical aspects.

Her investigative nature and desire to protect and nurture human life led her to a fulfilling career in law enforcement. This experience further opened her eyes to the power of lifestyle choices in influencing overall well-being. She observed how thoughts, feelings, and patterns of events and emotions associated with disease flare-ups profoundly impact health.

In January 2022, she transitioned into broadcasting and public speaking, creating The Wellness Driven Life Show. Here, she effectively guides people toward total wellness by interviewing the world's greatest innovators.

As a performance coach for Driven Livin' LLC, April uses neuroplasticity principles and relaxation techniques to help clients create high-performance habits. Her deep dive into the spiritual, intellectual, and physical aspects of our being further enriches her coaching methodology, making her a unique figure in the wellness industry.

In her personal life, her supportive husband, Manlee, brings laughter and growth into their relationship, enriching her life. They constantly explore new horizons together, always ready for a dance party. April Chavez's journey is a testament to turning adversity into opportunity—a beacon of inspiration for those seeking a wellness-driven life.

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

0:01

If you enjoy the security circle podcast, please like share and comment or even better. Leave us a fab review. We can be found on all podcast platforms. Be sure to subscribe. The security circle every Thursday. We love Thursdays. Hi, I'm Yolanda And welcome to the Security Circle Podcast, produced in association with ifpo, the International Foundation for Protection Officers. This podcast is all about connection, bringing you closer to the greatest minds, boldest thinkers, trailblazers, and change makers across the security industry. Whether you are here to grow your network, spark new ideas, or simply feel more connected to the world of protection and risk, you are in the right place wherever you are listening from. Thank you for being a part of the Security Circle journey..

Speaker: 1:23

well, today I have me. With me. I have me. Yes, I have with me. Also a very wonderful lady. A very wonderful lady called April Chavez. I hope I've said that name correctly. And we're gonna have a great conversation today, all about resilience, wellness, podcasting. Where shall we start? April, welcome to the Security Circle Podcast. How you doing?

April: 1:47

I'm fabulous. Yo-yo. Thank you so much for having me here with you today. So podcast is a

Speaker: 1:55

podcaster then?

Yoyo: 1:57

Yes.

Speaker: 1:58

What got you into doing a podcast? What drew you to it?

April: 2:03

Ooh. Well, that's a fabulous question because funny thing is I wasn't planning on it, but yet, interestingly enough, it's almost as if, let's just say some sort of aspect of myself or guides or my higher self was kind of guiding me and leading me in the direction I found myself purchasing lights and cameras. For what? I mean, I had no reason to do so at the time, and I just was so drawn and called to, my husband would look at me kind of like, Hmm, I don't know what she's doing, but okay. And it just so happened when I, um, was working on my business, I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to show up, but I knew that I wanted to be in the overall wellbeing, wellness arena. And I had a good friend who she had her own. Talk show. And prior to the pandemic, she had an in-person studio where she had interviewed people for years and years, and then she went on to of course, doing it virtually, and she inspired me and said, Hey, April. Why don't you let me teach you how I do this? And I I was so excited. I was like, absolutely. Yes. And what was fabulous about that is I was able to remain in the area that I really wanted to speak about and talk about and share with the world and interview people who were experts in those fields. And so a long story, but that's kind of where we got started with the show.

Speaker: 3:46

Well, the security industry, the global security industry, inherently attracts a lot of people from military frontline, you know, some pretty kind of hard careers. Hard on the mind, hard on the body. And that's why really, certainly ifpo, we are very focused, to drive good, positive messages about health and wellbeing. Yes. At the security circle as well as looking at, you know, the importance of just. Tracking your mental health and wellbeing. And so when I saw you on LinkedIn, I understand completely why initially you didn't think this would be a great fit. I saw it because I loved your little explanation on LinkedIn, it said, driving self-improvement through science and expert. Fact, wellbeing, spiritual, intellectual, physical, influencing change, as well as, you know, being the host of the Wellness Driven Live Show. And I just thought, I wanna hear about this because I owe it to the listeners. To help them, have that touch point with their mental health and wellbeing. And so let's go into genders, gender roles. Men are usually quite bad at checking in with their mental health and wellness, aren't they? But are they getting better at it now,

April: 5:02

April? Oh, my answer would be absolutely yes, a thousand percent because the information spread is. More advanced, it's more rapid. It's, people are excited about it. They're learning more. It's becoming an absolute, because we live in such a day and age that anxiety is at all ridden high, right? We live in a state of anxiety because of the lifestyle that we have across the globe now, yo-yo. You and I have very, very similar backgrounds, and so yes, law enforcement, being a former police officer, you know, wellness and wellbeing was. It. It just came to the forefront. So naturally when you start to understand that taking care of yourself and going within internally is really what helps change yourself and everything else around you. So you know, absolutely. I think that men are. Coming to the forefront with this understanding. I think that the world is having this more compassionate aspect. People are becoming more open to the idea of self-care and um. Yeah, because especially, let's see, I know I've mentioned the pandemic again, but, but it just makes a lot of sense because we had, the world was rocked right? As a, a total rollercoaster and things had to be changed and things must be changed in order for us to really live a wellness driven life.

Speaker: 6:40

When you were a serving police officer, what experience did you, have of the force, the police force you were working for, taking, you know, responsibility for its employees mental health and wellbeing? In my force for example, there was. None of it. You had to take yourself down to occupational health and then you'd have a couple of sessions to have a chat about stuff. But that's pretty much it. It wasn't as much as it was needed. What? What was your experience? I.

April: 7:10

Well, my experience was very similar. They did not advocate for that. I came from a, a large, vast area of coverage, but a very, very small agency, and so they didn't have the resources that some do. And so you really had to take all of those things into your own account. We had areas that you could go, fire stations that we would work with, that we could utilize their gyms, et cetera. Uh, but we didn't even have resources really, of people that we could talk to. So it was an experience of mine that led me to really needing to venture out and figure that out. On my own. And of course that's not the easy route, right? None of us want to do that. But again, that goes into taking that responsibility for yourself, being able to branch out. Get, um, information from people that you, you admire or you trust. We live in a cool day and age. Yo-yo, obviously that people can tune into this. This is a resource that you can utilize to learn more about how to do things differently or these persp. Perspectives of, oh, I didn't think of it that way. And I'm going to try this. Because we all want to do things differently and we know that there's a million things out there, right, in this, in the, the healthcare arena and that you can take many, many different things and people get confused by that. But when we start to take. Control of that and try a little bit here. Try a little bit there, see if we like it, see if we don't. But point being is like some of my biggest influences during those time was reading books. Uh, let's say Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman, for instance. He wrote on combat along with many other books, but his book was. It was almost like this vital piece for me because I learned breathing techniques and when you're in combat, right, you're, you're in the heat of fire. You have to know how to control yourself and respond. I. Because it's otherwise your life and other people's lives. So you, you need to know how to take control, how to be aware, and of course, the training consistencies that you don't rise to the level of your courage, you fall to the level of your training. And so that's just a, an example of really being able to, uh, take into your own hands. Some tools and techniques if your, your department has resources to where you are able to go to conferences and learn and con it's continuous learning. You know, that that's just really how we continue to improve is by always learning, always taking in new things and applying them to see what works best.

Speaker: 10:08

I wish that, uh, the police force that I was in. Advocated for having great debriefings after major incidents where you, you literally are encouraged. It's frowned upon if you don't speak, for example, you're encouraged to air how that incident made you feel, whether it's impacted you. And it's about the togetherness. It's, oh, I don't, I'm not the only one that feels this. I'm not the only one that feels this guilt.'cause we couldn't do the best, you know, job. We failed in the sense of we didn't do this, we didn't do that. It's the guilt, that's very problematic, certainly in policing. That would help a lot more, wouldn't it? Certainly in recognizing the team that is at play rather than the individual when it comes down to good mental health at work.

April: 11:00

Yeah, absolutely. And we, it is very important that we draw together and speak to people who are like-minded, who are sharing with those same experiences. You know, you tend to get this. The way that you view things, you start to, in order just to, to be okay with stuff and not let it completely consume you. You have this air of looking at things in a humorous standpoint as you should, but. It can go to very dark places, right? Where most people who are not in those fields, they don't get it. They don't understand, and they think something's very wrong with you, like you're pretty sick, but because you see a lot of sick things, right? And, and so that's one way of, of being able to do it. Yes. Utilizing the people that are around you. If you don't have that, again, it's going to things like this, like podcasts, books. I, I've always said, you know, you're. You're going to be like the people that you surround yourself with. Hmm. And it doesn't have to be somebody physical. So make sure that you are being influenced by people that are, you know, just really inspiring to you. And another thing, you know, going into debriefing, right when I came home. After being on duty, I always took a shower. Water is one of those elements that is very cleansing. It's energetically relieving, and you know, even if you have to go into the bathroom, you oftentimes. We don't have access to all these things, right? We hold in the tears when we're, when we're boots on the ground, but if you can get that moment to just go into a restroom, splashing water on your face, water is really, really good to kind of just recalibrate yourself. And so showers were huge. You know, you're being spit on, you're being e energetically, the amount of chaos and the amount of, uh, bombardment that you're getting, where people are calling your names, telling you they're gonna do this and that to your mother and your children, even though they have no idea who they are, you know, it takes a toll on us. And so that's, that's one powerful thing I would suggest. It's kind of like putting on the armor, right? We wear wear masks for every single thing that we do in life. We put on that badge, we put on that suit, we put on whatever, right? And you go into that state of being and when you come home, when you walk in the door. You peel that off and you put on the other one. Even those visual things that we can do are very, very powerful because we know how powerful the mind is and our perception and our belief system. So,

Speaker: 13:52

uh, yeah, it's, it's more than just cleaning off the filth of the day, your psychologically cleansing. Yourself, aren't you? When you take a shower, when you come home from work? I used to all the time because I used to have this kinda like my home is my sanctuary. Mm-hmm. It's very segregated from everything else. I didn't want any blending and you know, I didn't even like bringing my shoes inside the house because sometimes I would walk into some. Folks houses and I'd, I'd want to wipe my feet on the way out, and so why would I walk through my house with, with those police boots on You, you, you were telling me in the pre-chat about one of your worst days in the police force, but this was a day that you really did have to think about checking in with your mental health, wasn't it? Mm-hmm.

April: 14:42

I, I think there's so many, right? But I believe that you're referring to, uh, the first suicide case that I had when I went into policing. Uh, it was an interesting time period. Many people go in, they don't have children yet. They're a little younger. You know, they're, they don't, they don't have that, um. They haven't lived as much life yet to get to that point. Well, I had already had three children. I had three little girls, and so it, it was, I had this perspective as a parent that I always kind of carried with me and that extra protective. That I held with me so many listeners, you don't have social media accounts where you're sharing all your personal stuff because that's not safe. Right. In a lot of the fields that we do, and my first suicide case was a, a mother, she had just walked her children to the school bus, sent them off to school, and went back inside. And went to her bed and shot herself with a 45. Now because it was my first suicide case, I was so enthralled and curious about the whole situation. And I think too, that many of us that go into these fields, you have to have that sense of curiosity. And I had a lot of it, you know, initially I wanted to go into forensic entomology. Which is the lifecycle, uh, the study of the lifecycle of insects attacking a corpse so you can tell the time of death and all of those fascinating things, right? So there's a lot of science about that. That's why I utilize science backed things now and. So I was so curious, but when I started walking through the house and I was viewing the pictures on the wall and you saw pictures of travel and the kids and family, and then it just started to feel darker and darker as I was going down the hall and into the room. And I noticed her there on the bed and, and the first thing that I noticed was that it wasn't messy. I was, I was fascinated by that. So I got out my flashlight and I always wore a ball cap. I don't know about you guys, but they told me in the the academy, what goes up, comes down. So if you think about brain matter, if somebody shoots themself, then that could come down. So I always had my head protected, so I didn't get anything in my hair. And so I got my flashlight out because I wanted to see what was it like. And so I got closer and closer to her. And I know, I noticed all of her teeth looked intact and I thought that you wouldn't, I wouldn't see the teeth because of the force, the impact. And so I got closer and I put my flashlight kind of inside her mouth, and all of a sudden I felt this presence and I heard this back off and it was like, whoa. Okay. I backed off and, and it was just such a fascinating, awful, and crazy experience for me. But as a mother, I swore I would never be that selfish to take my own life. Be, I wouldn't leave my children back like that. And so that was one of my, my very early moments of psychological wellbeing because this woman felt so awful. Like there's no hope, none whatsoever that she would do that and leave her babies behind.

Speaker: 18:40

Yeah. Or at least, I mean, as you said this in the pre-chat, I was thinking, well, how is she gonna check they've gotten home safely or that they've got a custodian to look after them? Are they just gonna like, walk in the house, you know, and see her there? you know, I know that we can't judge the mindset, but there was a certain degree of decision making that went on prior to her shooting herself. And so we're all probably thinking, did you ever find out? Why she did that and the investigation.

April: 19:13

No, interestingly, the investigation ended up going to another agency. It was right at the cusp of jurisdiction, so I was able to attend the scene first on, but then we had to let it go. Yeah. That's shame. You know, sometimes that happens. It is. But, you know, it left such a, a really big impression and impact on me and, and I carry it with me even today. I think about her sometimes as a parent, you know, there's been many, many years since then and your roles as a parent and experiencing life and going through all the ups and downs in the trials and tribulations. Sometimes she kind of come back, she comes back to haunt me a little bit, you know, and I think about that and. What it was like for her and because this is my primary study and this is what I educate my audience and educate people on is overall wellbeing. It's understanding and looking at all of those different perspectives, walking in those shoes to really be able to understand in order to serve.

Speaker: 20:24

It's quite mind blowing this because what you are saying is tied in quite nicely with a couple of things that I heard today alone. One of them is,, the guest, is a guy called Neil Woods, and he worked undercover in organized crime groups mainly, drugs, drug purchasing, things like that. And he talked about the lack of., Welfare and, touch points into his wellbeing. And there were several occasions in very short periods of time where he was nearly killed, and he was assaulted quite badly by other gang members, and, and he, you know, he's suffering massively from P ts d. It's a great, great podcast. And then today, I saw just on Insta, a guy talking about addiction. And you'll see the link in a minute. He said, you know, two rats in a cage, you give them two bottles and you know, one's laced with heroin, the other one's just plain water. The rats will go to the heroin every time and they will overdose and kill themselves. But they did another experiment where they put the rats into a pen where other rats where they could play and there was lots of play things. It was like a fairground, lots of things to do, and entertainment. And of course, they didn't go to. Heroin. They just drank the normal water because they were getting the purpose and the enrichment from being with other rats, being a part of a community. And so he likened the cage to the addiction in the sense of the addiction is about the cage you are in. Or the cage you've put yourself in. So you see where I'm going with this now? Yes. Oh, yes. and then he draws this wonderful correlation to the fact that most people who are addicts and maybe homeless on the streets, for example, they're basically in their own cage and they're all, ultimately victims of very bad abuse, whether it's sexual abuse or physical abuse. And so we've got the whole drugs thing wrong. It's a really insightful, really got my brain going and so. Going to the self knowing piece of wellness and self-healing, self-knowing is about saying, okay, you know, have we, are we putting cages? Are we walking into cages? Are we recognizing there are cages that we need to stay away from? Are we recognizing the impact of those cages? And so having you on to talk about this is making up a really nice triangle, touch points.

April: 22:44

I love that. Yo-yo. Absolutely 110000%. So yeah, we create. That hell, let's just say, right? It's all that perspective, the belief system, the identities that we create for ourselves. When we become aware of that, it's easier to be able to put that pinpoint in it and be like it. Hmm. Don't think I wanna go that direction. And we. Can recognize the more that we continue doing that, we can recognize it and be able to put a stop on that. And so trauma is something that we experience and we perceive to be unsettling in such a massive way that. We're so shooken up, right? And we don't know how to kind of shake ourselves outta that funk. And what happens is our brains continue to replay it over. And over and over. And then our bodies begin to start responding to that trauma because we're replaying it and the body is responding in this sense of fear of, you know, not being able to really move that. We wanna kind of go into the. Fetal pose and, and we aren't able to function as properly. So the body is memorizing this now. Well now it has become a belief because we have memorized it and we're responding like that. It's automatic and we don't realize it until. We realize it, right? And we start being able to understand, oh, I'm responding that way because, oh, I'm hunching over because, oh, this is triggering me because, and so now we can start shifting that a little bit and putting a different perspective on it. But, but that's the most powerful thing, right? If you have that understanding. Uh, maybe you won't experience another trauma or allow it to get to that point because you know what your body will do if you continue to rehearse it.

Speaker: 25:03

Why is resilience one of those things that massively seems to anchor down a lot of very good principles and values and activities in an individual's life? You've got. Resilience, anchoring that down. Those people tend to thrive more, don't they, than those without resilience. Why does somebody have the ability to have better resilience than somebody else? That's a question I'm hoping you can answer.

April: 25:38

Oh, well, I think again, it goes back to really, um, how you perceive things. If you have this drive to want to move forward, if you are able to put that foot in front of the other after something, you know, significant has happened. None of us get out without, you know, major things happening in life, and it's just part of life. But the ones that really keep going. And I think too, one of the major things is when you start looking at those past experiences as lessons, and even when you can get to a point where you can look at it joyfully because you are who you are right now because you had that experience, and it becomes that wisdom that you're able to. Utilize. Um, and, and how smart is that? Right. Think about, I mean, being in safety security, we have to be very observant of our surroundings. We're very safety focused. We have to look ahead, we have to get the big picture, and we do that with the knowledge and the knowing that there could be a trip hazard right here. Or that there could be a bad area right there, so don't go down that way. Right. That's wisdom, that's knowledge, that's understanding and being able to divert the other way because of that, I mean, you know, then there's a clear roadway ahead, and so that's how I perceive that.

Speaker: 27:19

I'm one of those people that does warn people of the trips ahead. And I get, I get very frustrated when people don't tell me there's a trip ahead, but when I find out there's a trip ahead, I feel that I'm a really lousy human being. If I don't tell people where those trips are, you know, the thought that I could have told them something that could have made them make a better choice, the fact that I could withhold that, it feels innately wrong for me. To live with. I would not like the guilt of knowing I could have. Made that, it says a lot about me, I think as a person, but the problem is there's a lot of trips out there and sometimes, sometimes, you know, this trips can be really bad and, and it's like, you know, when I talk to parents or they've got grandchildren and they're on mobile phones and they're like, you know, I start going down this dark rabbit hole of, you know, don't give your kids access to an adult world on the internet. It's common sense. Um, and so yeah, common sense. Isn't that common, is it? No, clearly. But I, I feel like sometimes in security, we are all harbinger of doom in the sense of, well, you know, that could happen. That could happen. Are we jolly happy people or are we just prone to living in this kind of left of bang state, which is what we call it?

April: 28:47

Yes. Well, I, you know, that's why you do what you do. Yo-yo is being able to have conversations about expressing that, that you. You know these trip hazards, right? And you want to share that with an audience. You wanna share that with people, and you're gonna have the right audience. And that was part of the reason that I got so excited about being able to be a talk show host. Because when I was out on the field, you know, you give so many people of these resources. And you give them everything they need to get out of the situation that they're in. Most of them were dvs, domestic violence. That was what we responded to primarily, most often, and they are so wrapped up in their world and that inner play. They continue to go back. We know that as you know, the cycle of violence, et cetera. And so they're gonna continue going on in that loop and that's what they're comfortable and familiar with. So they're gonna go back to that. And it is so frustrating when you went into this position to help to serve, to protect. And they won't take it. Why? Why will they not accept this? You're giving them everything that they need. You're taking them out of the situation. And so it is so nice to be able to share what you know, share what you've learned, and have it be landing on listening ears who really want to take that in and apply it themselves. They're ready.

Speaker: 30:37

I remember when, um, I was learning to be a detective and I did a lot of DV work, domestic violence, and, and I think women certainly in this country tend to be very drawn into that field of policing. And we were, we, we, we, we understood. You can't tell a woman to leave, for example, if we say that the woman is the victim in this case. And I had one case where, um. I was what, what we call picking up everybody from the bin in the morning. So basically I was part of that prisoner investigation team where anyone who'd been arrested overnight had, um, they were in cells and then I was part of the, the team of investigators that would, you know, interview the suspects and then there would be a team that would go out and interview the victims. And on this occasion. We were really short staffed and he, and, and my male suspect had had a lot of alcohol, so he needed more time before we could legally interview him. So I went out and took statement from the, uh, victim who was in hospital. And what had happened was short story. He'd literally pushed her down the stairs, but he'd held onto her hair and so he, he'd sculpt her. She literally had. The great big bloody red circle on the top of her head where he pulled all her hair follicles out in one. It was like the size of a melon on the top of her hair. I'm trying to think of a fruit that's not a watermelon, but a, a smaller melon and, um. You know, she's, she was also, I think six months pregnant at the time. But we know, we know in the domestic violence world that you know, a woman is more likely to get beaten the first time when she's pregnant than at any other point in the relationship. It's just a trigger for some folk, and I'm sitting there next to her hospital bed taking her statement. She's completely lucid. She's incredibly intelligent woman. She told me exactly what happened. They were having an argument on the top of the stairs, you know, pushes her, grabs her hair, and he intended to harm her. No doubt about it. She accepts that. And the only thing I could say that was reasonably sensible but didn't, uh, overstep the lines was I, you know, I said something to the effect of, you know, that I can't suggest that you leave your husband. Hint, hint, hint, hint, hint. Uh, eyebrows, eyebrows, eye movement. You know, but this isn't just about you anymore, is it? You now have a baby to think of. And so I wanted to stimulate that seed that would help her to realize actually. As if she hadn't thought about that, of course she had, but just to help kind of settle in the, the decision making she needed to make. But let's face it, April, the backgrounds that we have, we know asking a woman to leave an abusive husband in this particular case is like me saying to you, April. Don't go home, don't get your personal belongings. Don't say goodbye to your dog. Uh, you know you won't be going back there. We're gonna put you in a strange place that's gonna be really dirty, Dan and smelly.'cause it's never gonna be your kind of thing. And we're gonna expect you to live there for your own safety and make the choice to do that by yourself so that you aren't in a position where your spouse kills you. What kind of decision is that for any woman to make who can't lean on external for family support in this type of environment?

April: 34:17

Right. Those seeds are so important though, and you never know what, you know, what seeds are gonna take and what seeds are not gonna take and. I am a firm believer, yoyo, that when we start doing the work ourselves, uh, it, it really changes everything around us because we're energetic beings. We know science shows the frequencies that we emit. So let's say you. Approach this woman, and you've done an incredible amount of work on yourself. You've gone within, your frequencies are just beaming, you're emitting really positive vibes. You're up there, man, and that impacts her. And so I really believe that when we change ourselves, it helps change the world. That's, you know, one evolution after the other, after the other. And so that's how I like to go about things is really having that understanding of, no, I may not be able to save the world, right? Or all of that. But I know that if I continue to do the work, that's the greatest impact that I can have. You know, I

Speaker: 35:48

wonder to this day, whether she did leave him, that's how impactful that particular job was for me. Mm-hmm. And I did go, I went to interview him after, and you know, he stank of stale alcohol like a lot, you know, you know when some, it's coming outta their. Pause because there's just so much alcohol trying to leave the body. And when he was in a fit state, he was not a fit person in terms of, you know, he didn't really kind of, there was no kind of real accountability and ownership, which I had a real problem with. I, I believe that I, I, it was one of those jobs where I had a, like a, almost an 18 hour shift because I think we tried to remand him for her safety. But that means, you know, just keeping him, keeping him in, keeping him detained into, um, into a temporary prison, so to speak, because it was quite a serious case. But, you know, he, you know. Is what other particular policing experience do you have like that, for example, that you still, um, other than the woman that we talked about earlier, the mother that you still think about today, but in a healthy way, you, you still think, oh, you know, I wonder if, you know, we ever did get to the bottom of that?

April: 37:02

Oh, wow. Well, one, the one that comes to mind and you know, we have a lot, but I was just actually telling my husband about this. Uh, yesterday we had this guy, he and I shouldn't laugh, but it, it's just, it's, it, it, it's so. Humorous in a sense of, wow, maybe God has this really intense sense of humor. And sometimes we come upon moments like that, right? These flashing moments of understanding of God must have an A, a, he's got a sense of humor. Well, this particular gentleman had, it was his seventh major attempt at committing suicide, and he had stabbed himself in the heart. And so when we arrived on the scene, he had this knife embedded in his heart and he's still walking around and nobody can understand this, right? And he lived, he survived. And, and it's just fascinating the things that you see and you know, the, the miraculous things that you see, the things that you're kind of like, why? Why, why does this person keep living? What is the reason? You know, they obviously don't like themselves. You know, they're obviously not taking care of themselves. They're, you know, alcoholics, drug addicts, whatever. And yet here they keep coming back, rising from the dead. And, you know, it's, it's a fascinating world that. We don't always get to understand, but we can, you know, they, they pop up in in mind of that it, it leads you into this amazement, and I think that's a really lovely way to live is those. Ing moments, the curiosity, the being wowed by things. And so when we get those experiences being in these career fields, I, I tend to find them being really lovely experiences, even if circumstantially, they're not supposed to be necessarily.

Speaker: 39:28

I always have flashbacks to this one home, and it was in a very rural area of the county, a village type setting, and. I believe I was investigating a sudden death and sudden deaths. I found intriguing because if you have in any way an investigatory mindset, as the officer in the case, it would be my responsibility for the coroner's office to, basically track and log all of the events 24 hours leading up to. The finding of the sudden death. And I remember being in this house, and this would've been in the, what do we call it? The two thousands, that decade, you know, the, that, that decade. And it was a bungalow. And I noticed as I walked up to the front door that the lawn was immaculately cut. Like somebody, like a thousand people had done it with scissors. Right? Immaculate cut. And when I went into the house, I had, I was flash backing into this kind of 1960s, 1950s, kitchen stroke, come, lounge, come, you know, everything was like, it was like going. Back in time and this married couple had lived like that since they probably bought the house after their honeymoon and they'd lived in the same kitchen and it was immaculate. It was all really beautifully looked after and the tiles were really like old fashioned, but it was like really sixties, really fifties, and I just wondered what their life was like. in a marriage, I was fascinated with. What type of marriage they'd had because of the stoic kind of living in the same time, you know, that their marriage had. Whilst outside the house, life was moving on. Does that make sense?

April: 41:16

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it does. And yeah, we get to experience all these cool things. I mean, how many people get to go into other people's homes? As often as you first responder, you get to see the way the inner workings and you know, when you start going into like. You know, the sciences of quantum physics or all of those things or what we have internally displays externally and we think about environment. It's like, wow, the, in the inner workings of these people, I. And maybe their love for one another is really showing that display externally from themselves. And you know, opposite of that, where most of the houses you walk in are in chaos, they're in shambles, that it's, it's filthy, it's awful. So, you know, internally they are suffering. Yeah.

Speaker: 42:16

It's, I mean, if anyone said to me, oh, you know, my daughter wants to join the police, I'd be like, oh, can we not get her another career? Because I don't know, I left 15 years ago, but I, I'm still thinking, would I recommend it? Even though all of the examples that we've talked about are phenomenally fascinating. You know, you either are. In for that job or you are not. And I think the ability, I think I had the ability to compartmentalize. I accepted that I was at Job right. And so therefore, it wasn't about making an emotional connection. It's a bit like, you know, you see in drama on tv, if a surgeon doesn't visualize the person, the personality, the person that made them laugh, you know, it's easier for them to operate because they are operating on a sterile area rather than. A person. Person. And I think I was able to do that and still be very compassionate. Still deliver compassion. Mm-hmm. It might not have been sincere compassion because I don't know the person, but I would've delivered a compassion appropriate for the job, but still come away and thought, okay, everybody's in the right place. Person that should be in prisons on his way there. The person that should be in hospital is there. You know, it's like that made me feel better. You know?

April: 43:37

You know, I, I gotta say, you know, those experiences really shape who we are. And again, I wouldn't take it back for anything because it is what has created me, the current me, the present me, and how I'm able to be able to relate with so many people from so many different backgrounds and have and intelligent conversations based on that very colorful time of my life. Where I experience things so rapidly, you know, going into those fields or being in those fields is like dog years. You're getting so much experiences so rapidly that, uh, and they say there's some studies out there that the average person experiences what, three to five major traumas in a lifetime. And, officer will experience 20 to 30 in a year. Wow. Wow. And yes. So think about that. Right. And so talk about compartmentalizing. Yeah. And also there's a lot of work that that person has to be doing to like be okay with showing up in the world. And we don't really realize it because we keep pushing ourselves in order to put this professional. I've got myself together front and I remember a lot of times where I held everything in until I got home and I would just baw and baw. You know, and because of, of what I experienced. And then you get a, you sleep if you can sleep, and then you get up and you put on the uniform and you do it all over again. And would I say that maybe I would've loved to be a world traveler instead and gotten some experiences that way instead? Right. Uh. Yeah, but maybe my, my impact in the world was supposed to have some understanding in that regard, you know, in order to, to be a light in service of another way, the way that I'm now.

Speaker: 45:54

So what was the trigger for you in, I don't want to use the word trigger in that sense. What was the. A pivotal moment that you remember, because you can't keep having days like that where you are having to offload tears in the shower, right? Mm-hmm. The shower knows, a shower knows what water is and what tears are. Um, and, and yes, we all know that the typical things like it's better to have somebody that's at home when you get home and you can confide and share and talk to, and that you've got a support structure. Uh, so that you're not alone, but what was the part of your life where you thought, okay, wellness and self knowing and self-improvement and mental health is gonna be for me going forward? What happened? Hmm.

April: 46:42

Well, it took. A long time. There wasn't necessarily a pivotal moment. It was more of a realization, looking back and seeing how my life worked. Now I have an autoimmune disease, I have systemic lupus, and I apologize for the dog barking. If you can hear that. It's cute. Don't worry. We have a Doberman, she's our mascot, and somebody must be at the door. So there was a, what I realized was that I became very ill, like maybe six months after some sort of major event or major trauma in my life, career change, moving divorce, something happened or came up with my children. So otherwise I've been able to maintain my, this dis disease fairly well. And in fact, part of the reason going into law enforcement was because the military wouldn't take me and law enforcement didn't have access to my health records so I could get in there and I didn't want the disease to define me. I wanted to prove to myself and the world that I was. Stronger than that, that I was capable. So there's some inner workings of myself and showing up in the world, but it was through those, this aha moment of realizing in past instances of when my flare-ups came up and noticing that the worst things that happened to me, I could have all these near death experiences, whether it was with the. The autoimmune disease or whether it was being on the street and, being in gravely difficult circumstances, you know, the inner workings of my body and my mind were the ones that were the most substantial. If anything was gonna kill me, it was gonna be. My body not being able to handle all of the emotional turmoil that I took in. And so that's when I really shifted and when I stepped into entrepreneurship and I created my own business, I. I knew that's really what I wanted to share. I go really deep into the spiritual aspect of self's now. Like what you read in the beginning, it's the spiritual, intellectual, physical, basically mind, body, spirit just said differently. And that spiritual piece comes forefront. Because if you say that we're not spiritual, energetic beings, it's like saying you don't have skin. We are, and. Science proves it now. So how cool is that? That's why I talk a lot about that. And yeah, I, I, it's those inner workings.

Speaker: 49:54

Some people are a bit scared, when the word spiritual is mentioned, but I. And I think that's because it conjuress up a sort of a rainbow, doesn't it, of different types of beliefs and foundational mm-hmm. Kind of the leanings. But I'm gonna be very honest with you, one of the most powerful kind of spiritual things that I've done the last five years is manifest. I think if you, if you, I remember I was, going through the job interview stage and I was lying on my bed. I was holding a particular crystal that gives me a lot of energy and clarity of thought and some people might now be thinking, oh, that's it. Yay. Yo, you have me until now. Now you've lost, keep listening. I was holding a specific crystal. It was rine actually.'cause I'm very attracted to Rine. Rine is all about success and bringing success and happiness into your life. And I have to say, I've never been so successful or so happy since I've been carrying serine around with me and I even have it around my neck. And I. Now q loads of fault going to eBay to buy rine necklaces. Yes, they're only about seven pounds, but it's rine anyway. I would be, I'd be literally imagining myself in that workplace of the company that I was, interviewing with and I saw the company logo and I actually saw that company logo on LinkedIn. Next to my name, I saw it so clearly. It was like I was seeing the future. I was just constantly focused on that image. It turned out that I did actually get that job and everything that I'd manifested had come absolutely true, and I think my only downfall is when I'm content and happy, I stop manifesting further. It's like I'm, you know, I haven't manifested for ages. Mm-hmm. I'm like a super content, you know, I don't really strive for anything more apart from, you know, good health and abundance of energy as I enter into later years of life, the will to, you know, I love getting me screwdriver out the weekends and screwing holes in walls and stuff. I'm all in for that. And I think the day I don't wanna do, that's gonna be a boring day. I term that as a spiritual connection. It's like me tuning into my spiritual connection with the broader earth, with the universe, and with just accepting the humbleness of my small existence here, but my very worthy existence in this little blue.in the middle of this dark expanse. And I'm thinking every time you look up to the sky, I still sometimes am, I'm in disbelief that we're actually really here. I think it's important to tune in to that and forget all of the other ugly noise sometimes.

April: 52:41

Oh, absolutely. And yeah, when I say spiritual, I don't mean religious. That's not what I'm saying at all. And, but it is that everything is made of energy. And because of that, what do you do with that? You know, we. We only see, I mean, there's 99.9 9, 9 9 9% of what we do not see or understand. Wow. Right. Yeah. What do you do with that? And so how do you manage that and navigate that and what does it mean to tune into that area? How do you get to that? 99.999%. You know, the subconscious of ourselves and the fields of first responding, security, law enforcement, military, all the things, you know, we are de, I don't wanna say we, we are shaped to view the world in such a way to show up and respond in such a way, and we don't like to allow. Things like that into our world. But when we can start opening ourselves up to learning more about other things, you know, I'm a certified hypnotherapist, but I remember the first time I experienced hypnotherapy, which is going in to work on that inner subconscious of ourselves. Tapping into that 99.999% of what we do not access, right. I had a horrible experience. It was during my law enforcement days, and the person did the absolute opposite of what you should do, and he said, oh, you're a cop. You know, you're, this isn't gonna work for you. You're too skeptical. Don't ever say that to somebody. And hypnotherapy is, it's deep, deep, deep relaxation. Entering into that subconscious mind to be able to make changes that you'd like, you know, to, to share with yourself. Hey, this is how I want you to start showing up, because the body is a robot controlled by the mind. So this is what I wanna implant in you. This is the seed I wanna embed and. You can start responding that way and finding evidence. Yeah. More and more evidence of that. And that's what that manifestation piece is, right? When you start going in and you start creating all the things that you want, you visualize and you see it, and you feel it, and you feel it, then you'll start seeing the evidence of in your environment.

Speaker: 55:34

I think. You know, you look at people that coach business professionals, they're always saying, you know, set goals. You know, if you don't know those goals, how can you attain them? How can you begin the journey to go and get them? And I think that that's manifestation on a very basic level. Mm-hmm. I'm really bad, bad at setting goals as well. I really am. Maybe I should set some goals before we finish up. What have you got planned what's coming up for you?

April: 56:02

Oh my goodness. What a great question. Our business is, we've got the roots and we have established all of these incredible things, and now the machine is well oiled and it's starting to roll. And so I'm excited about that because all of the foundation has created all of the things, the communities, the programs, the show's been going on for a few years, and that's what I'm excited about, is really being able to play with this thing that we've created and. And have that community piece. We touched on that a little bit, the importance of having each other, the rats in the cage, you know, they stay away from stuff that, you know, doesn't serve them well because they're too busy enjoying each other. And so, yeah, that's what I am super, super excited about with Driven Live-in. That's our overall, Business and it's an educational platform where we get to improve it's self-improvement and continuous learning.

Speaker: 57:21

A lot of our listeners are massively into, self-development, self-learning, and I know that, you would certainly be a vitamin shot for the security brain for sure. April, thank you so much for just joining, sharing your police stories, and sharing your wisdom and sharing this amazing calmness about you. You have this wonderful aura coming out of you that's so calm and relaxing, and all the best for your health. Thank you for joining us on the Security Circle podcast. Thank you, yoyo.