Why Most First Responders Are Surviving, Not Living | Michael Morgan on Trauma, Psychedelics & Healing

What happens when a lifetime of service, strength, and resilience comes at the expense of your own well-being?

In this powerful episode, I sit down with Michael Morgan, retired law enforcement officer, author of The Resilient Warrior, and host of The Resilient Warrior Nation Podcast. After spending 30 years serving with the Atlanta Police Department and Suffolk County Police Department, Michael found himself carrying the invisible weight of trauma, emotional suppression, and an identity built around survival.

Like many first responders, Michael was taught that strength meant pushing through pain, compartmentalizing emotions, and never asking for help. But after retirement, unresolved trauma, depression, and emotional exhaustion forced him to confront what had been buried beneath decades of armor.

In this deeply honest conversation, Michael shares how plant medicines including ayahuasca, ibogaine, and 5-MeO-DMT became catalysts for profound healing, helping him reconnect with himself, process childhood wounds, release anger, and discover a new purpose: helping others heal.

We discuss:

• The hidden mental health challenges facing first responders and veterans
• Why emotional suppression is often mistaken for strength
• How childhood trauma can shape the nervous system and influence a lifetime of behaviors
• Michael's experiences with ayahuasca, ibogaine, and 5-MeO-DMT
• The role of vulnerability, forgiveness, and self-awareness in healing
• PTSD, hypervigilance, and life after retirement from law enforcement
• Integration practices that support long-term transformation
• What resilience truly means beyond the badge

This episode is a powerful reminder that healing is possible, vulnerability is strength, and it's never too late to reclaim your life.

Connect with Michael Morgan:
Instagram: @TheResilientWarrior5778
Podcast: The Resilient Warrior Nation
Book: The Resilient Warrior (available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble)

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About this Podcast 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. Today's conversation is an incredibly important one. My guest today is Michael Morgan, a retired law enforcement professional with 30 years of service, having worked with both the Atlanta Police Department and the Suffolk County Police Department. For decades, Michael operated in high stress environments that required constant composure, toughness, and resilience, often while carrying the invisible weight of trauma behind and underneath the surface. After confronting his own struggles with identity, emotional pain, and life beyond the badge, Michael began a profound journey of healing that transformed the way he views strength, resilience, and what truly means to heal. Today he is the author of The Resilient Warrior and host of the Resilient Warrior Nation podcast, where he shares conversations that help first responders, veterans, and others turn adversity into purpose. Michael, thank you so much for taking the time and being here with me today.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor and a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

So I'd love to start at the beginning before the uniform, before law enforcement. Who was Michael Morgan?

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Great question. Let me see. And I will go back and forth because there were so many things that I've realized now within the past few years about myself looking back that I had no idea they were just my normal growing up. So I grew up in North Belmore, New York, which is a suburb on Long Island, about 45 minutes outside of eastern Manhattan by way of Long Island Railroad, which is on strike right now. So anyone going through that, uh, you have my uh deepest condolences. I can't even imagine it. Um my father was a firefighter for the FDN White. My mom was a school secretary for the local elementary school district, and I have a younger sister. Growing up, I was very much into sports. School was not my thing. I got decent grades, but uh just was not where I wanted to be. And looking back now, I realized that all my attention from my father came from me doing well in sports. I always excelled. I love playing sports. He was a hypercritical guy, I guess verbally abusive. It's weird saying it. I mean, that's how things were kind of handled back then. You know, men were men, didn't show emotions. Uh, fathers didn't really speak to their sons. They spoke at them, told them what they wanted done, and that's the way it was. So I know that when I was young, I started putting the armor on at a young age because I was a pretty sensitive kid and, you know, to not feel the pain that uh that I did from my father and the way he spoke to me, the way he treated me. Um, I started keeping that armor on at a young age, just as a self-preservation. You know, as you know, young kids cannot differentiate with a parent that is incapable of showing love in certain respects or what you think you should be getting. So we put it on ourselves, thinking in that we're not good enough for whatever other, you know, self-talk that we uh we do to ourselves. So I now know that these things were normal for a for a child, but it started me into this career of not feeling. And uh I started heaping more armor on us and went through his 30-year police career, but that's that's childhood essentially.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Yeah. Did you, with your father being in the line of work he was, did you always feel called towards service or protection as a result?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Never, to be honest with you. My father was very anti-civil service in terms of his children becoming uh civil servants. In fact, I remember him saying many times, neither of my kids are ever going to take a civil service test. So I was focused on college, white-collar profession. I actually graduated from Hofstream University with an accounting degree in 1991. I started my first job at Avon Corporate in October of 91. And I remember going to work that first day. I was so flat, I felt no excitement. And it was weird. I was thinking to myself, I should be excited. It's the first day of the rest of my life. I'm embarking on this new career, just felt nothing. And then I was introduced to associates, bosses, was given a task about 11 a.m. Shortly thereafter, I literally wake up, my head was in my hand, I'm like, whoa, this is not good. So I go over to one of the associates I just met earlier that day, seemed like a cool guy. I said, What's up, brother? You like this stuff? He's like, F no, I hate it. And literally before lunch, my first day of work, I looked at him, I said, There's no way I'm doing this for the rest of my life. Sitting in a cubicle, making no difference to anyone. No one is going to know whether I lived or died other than my close family and friends. That's when I started going introspective about what I thought that I should be doing with my life. And then law enforcement kind of came to the forefront shortly thereafter. Uh I wanted to apply with the FBI, but they were on federal hiring freeze. So I decided that I wanted to get some police experience, get some experience in law enforcement. I would apply to different police departments. And then when the FBI started hiring again, I would apply with them. Mom and dad were not happy with that news.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Good for you for listening to your gut, though.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Had to.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

You know, I mean, how miserable would that have been? Um so what drew you after leaving that first day of work, what drew you into policing versus other fields of service?

SPEAKER_00 5:40

That's a great question. Uh I just felt like I wanted to help people, make the world a better place. Um I didn't have any ideation of like stopping crime or anything like that, but I just wanted to do my little part to make the world a better place. Uh I had, I don't know, I just felt like it was a calling. Like I was meant to do that job. I I can't really put it any other way other than I felt like it was something that I was meant to do as a career.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Yeah. That's awesome that you listened to that. Um so when you first entered into law enforcement back then, what did strength mean to you? That's a great question, too.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Strength was all about physical stature, fighting ability, my guess in certain respects, shooting ability with the job. It was essentially about not I always thought I was a great cop because I didn't let anything affect me. It was just kind of push it down, compartmentalize, go on to the next. And uh, yeah, I realize now in certain respects that's great for the job, but once you're outside, you're out of it. It really does not translate well to any other part of life because we just don't feel. And uh I remember certain things, uh, one of my good buddies committed suicide in 05, and I remember being so sad, but I could not cry. And I remember looking in the mirror and just telling myself I was broken. And I know a lot of us in these first responder and military veteran circles feel that, but you're not broken. You're just, as you know, you have a dysregulated nervous system. You don't ru allow yourself to feel because you cannot self-preservation, you cannot absorb all that pain that you see around you. I mean, I was steeped in chaos, death, and destruction for 30 years. You just cannot absorb all that. So as a mechanism, you kind of deflect it and don't feel any of it. But as you know, you're not just blocking out the bad, you're blocking out the good as well.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Right. And I think from from the outside, people don't necessarily understand that emotional environment that you guys operate in every day. So knowing that, what was the culture like when you entered the profession? Were was it in line with how you handled your job?

SPEAKER_00 7:42

I guess the culture was literally no one discusses feelings.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Um, especially back then, you're talking uh over 30 years ago. You literally push it down, go on to the next, don't acknowledge. I remember I was talking to a Navy SEAL on time on my podcast, and back in the day we used to call it shell shock. Guys were shell-shocked. There wasn't the the term PTSD, I don't even think it was coined back then. If it was, it was fairly new. But uh, you know, typically I would see Vietnam vets and maybe guys with a bunch of years of service, and you could tell they were just off. And I used to always think, and many of us did, that is because they were mentally weak. As I went through my career and got more experience and was just exposed to more things, I realized it was a weakness and uh still continue to not speak about what I was going through. You know, I don't want to make it sound as though I became this enlightened individual during my career and start speaking and unloading and processing pain and and things that I saw. It lasted through the entirety of my career. And, you know, you would hear about guys and girls going, we call it psych services. They would go over there, and unfortunately, most people will become aware of them getting treatment because sometimes they would pull like on a badge, and consequently, no one will go there because the stigma was formed that number one, people will find out about it. I mean, listen, we operate in a vacuum, and when you're gone for a while, everyone's gonna ask, hey, where's Borgs? And word's gonna get out shortly thereafter. Oh, he went to psych services, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So now guys and girls aren't trusting you either if you come back. And you know, it just puts like a scarlet letter on you, so to speak. So no one, for the most part, would access those treatments knowing that that was what was going to be headed your way.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Yeah, there's a stigma.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

So really uh someone really couldn't admit that they were struggling to some extent. Because if you did, then you were weak.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Vicious circle cycle.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Do you think many officers are in this world today surviving still rather than truly living?

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

100%. I would say the vast majority. You know, I think things are changing now with the younger folks coming in. They were raised differently, they've been exposed to different stimuli in terms of this being normal, speaking about mental health and not being weakness. But uh, you know, it's gonna take a generation for this to kind of filter through the entire upper echelon. Because I know there's a lot of uh chiefs and you know, high-level staff that look upon this as weakness to this day.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Right. Yeah, and you know, like you said, when someone spends decades in survival mode, eventually that has a cost. Uh, and so for you personally, what did that cost look like?

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Well, let's see, that's a great question again. Mine, as I was discussing with you earlier, so I developed an opioid uh addiction, probably been around 20, 2009, something like that. So for about three years, I was addicted to this pain medicine called trimanol. I have been prescribed it for years and taken as prescribed with no problem. But uh my marriage, my first marriage had kind of turned sour. There was bad family dynamics between my family and she, my family and I, and I just realized that this medicine made me or made me think that I was feeling happy. You know, it gives you this euphoric feeling. So you think everything's all right, but it's just dull on the pain. So after finally hitting rock bottom and and going to rehab for that, and an important distinction needs to be made. I got help. I healed from that, but I never dealt with my underlying trauma and grief. So that was still there, you know, doing what it did. And only when I retired, I was medically retired in 2022. I had injured my back in September of 20, undergone two back surgeries uh about a year apart. So I was medically retired about 25 months later. So I got hurt in uh October 20, retired in oh September of 20, got hurt uh retired in October of 22. So during that time, I had a lot of time to start thinking. I wasn't allowed to work, volunteer, I theoretically couldn't go to the gym. I built one in my house, but now I'm idle and idle hands are the devil's work. So now I have all this time to think. All this anger that had a channel to go through with this career is gone. And now the anger is kind of turning inward at me. Told my wife once or twice, I'm just not feeling like myself, which in no way, shape, or form did that convey what I was going through every day. I mean, it was just depression, anger, rage. I would wake up some days in a good mood. One thought would get me into this negative cycle and it would just last the rest of the day. And honestly, I had no awareness as to what was the cause. I just, in certain respects, realized I was no longer part of this tribe, no longer this tribe is men. But short of that, I didn't realize anything else that was going on. And then I sat down to watch an episode of the Sean Ryan podcast in the spring of 23. During the course of that, he interviewed a guy named Eddie Penny, a former Navy SEAL, a Team Six member, and Eddie was recounting his story of the extortion 17 incident, which uh Chinook was shot down in Afghanistan uh by insurgents, killed all 38, uh including a bunch of uh Team Six guys, Navy SEALs, and one of which was his best friend, Jason Workman. And as Eddie is telling a story, he starts crying. He was upset, like rightly so. I simultaneously start thinking about a call I buried five years before about a two-year-old found floating in a pool, and we resuscitated her. But it was literally the one called my 30-year career, I started to cry, but called myself bad words and immediately stopped. Meanwhile, it would have been the best thing I could have done. And as I'm thinking about this call and listening to Eddie talk, I just started crying like a baby. And literally, I'm like, what is going on? You know, I thought I was having almost like a nervous breakdown. But shortly thereafter, I kind of put two and two together, realized I'd suffered some sort of PTSD in my career, knew I needed help. I wasn't gonna uh live with this for the rest of my life. I've seen too many guys do it, and uh started thinking about healing modalities. I didn't think traditional therapy was gonna do it for me in this case. I thought that'd be like a 10-year plan, to be honest with you. I just thought I needed more radical healing. And I had seen special force operators mostly on podcasts talking about them being broken men coming back from war and the healing journeys using psychedelics. So I became very interested and started doing my research and I just realized that this was the way I wanted to go.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Yeah, there's no coincidences, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:43

No, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Yeah. So at that point after the surgeries, you were off of Tremidol, correct?

SPEAKER_00 13:49

I guess.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Okay, so you'd done some.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

I mean, I'd be given I had been prescribed medicine during the surgery, no problem, no addiction. Used it as prescribed, was fine, stopped using them afterwards. So you know, I was good.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Some level of healing, but not that nervous system reset that you needed.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Yeah. And I know you've spoken openly about, you know, plant-based medicines and the psychedelics being a part of your healing journey. Was it primarily the the podcast that led you down that route, or had you known someone else that had experienced that healing?

SPEAKER_00 14:21

No, at that time I had known no one that had undergone psychedelic uh therapies. So it was literally just on podcasts, listening to uh mostly men, I would say. I don't even know if I've heard any females at that point. So I'll listen to Tidney's men talk about their journeys and then excuse me, started researching it. Um, one of the things I would do was go on to YouTube and just put up, you know, ayahuasca healing and just listen to people tell their story, to civilians as well. And it just became this powerful thing that was calling me. I didn't realize any of these treatments could be accessed in the U.S. So I was planning on a trip to South America. My wife wanted to uh journey as well. So we were planning on going somewhere in South America, and then we moved to South Florida at the end of uh 2023, during the course of which my wife was just doing some research and found an ayahuasca facility in Orlando. Uh it's now defunct, but it was called SoulQuest Ayahuasca Church. And when we moved down here, I'm like, that's it, baby. I'm like, want to go? And uh we ended up going on March 1st of 2024, except for a three ceremony weekend, and it was one of the most powerful cathartic things I've ever undergone in my life.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Beautiful. So coming from the background that you did, did you have any fears or, you know, skepticism about what you were going to experience?

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Absolutely. You know, at first I was yeah, there was trepidation, there was fear. Even going there, we were given a tour of the facility, and I'm walking around and I'm going, man, these are not my people. You know, it's definitely a little bit of a hippie vibe to it. And let me tell you by Sunday as we're leaving, I'm like, man, these are my people.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

These are my people.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

It was unbelievable. And it's so funny. Like I talked to, we were talking about Scott Ressler, uh former Green Beret, and many special force guys that I'm friends with, MMA fighters. First respondent was like, these are hard men. And now we're after going psychedelic uh healing, it's the funniest thing. The things we talk about, the music we listen to. Like we send each other ayahuasca and psilocybin music lists all the time. Doc, I can't tell you the last time I've listened to hard rock in the gym. And if you would have told me that two years ago, I would have laughed in your face. Like, hardcore metal, gotta be pumped up. Now I'm listening to the most mellow stuff in the world during workouts. It's the funniest thing. Yeah, changed my entire life.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Have no desire for that previous, the previous choices, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Nope. It's all about peace and love now.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Yeah. So what did you discover about yourself during ayahuasca?

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Well, I remember when the journey started, as most people do, I felt a female presence. It was almost so as though I was looking at a big screen TV and I could see mother in the top left-hand corner, and she was kind of guiding me. I remember I had my arms out wide and I told her I needed help. I was crying. I'm like, I need to get rid of this anger, this rage, this pain. And every time I asked her something, it was like granted one after the other. And I was becoming vulnerable, like right before my eyes. The things I was saying. Um, you know, I was kind of talking out loud, and you know, I'd asked her for help. You know, just even though I was in a psychedelic setting, like asking for help is not something I was ever comfortable doing. And I was just asking her to let me put the my career at rest. And, you know, I'm like, I'm no, she's like you're no longer a thing. She's like the young bucks can carry the baton now. You did the best you could. She's like, you're at peace. And it was instantaneously, I was at peace with it. Uh she was bringing my father to me in my journey. He never showed. But uh, it was funny. I I threw up my hands when I realized it wasn't gonna show, and I called him an effing coward, and I'm like, I knew he wouldn't show, he couldn't talk about feelings. But it was like the emotional charge between all the memories between him and I was just gone. Like they were just memories now, and it wasn't all this anger and rage attached to them. I don't know. I guess the biggest thing I discovered about myself is that vulnerability is actually strength. You know, I remember as I was coming out of it the first night, I had two co-workers and friends from my Suffolk County police department committed suicide three weeks before, a week apart. Sergeant actually shot himself in a precinct locker room. And uh, I had no intention of ever getting into the space of healing and helping others. And the universe told me I'd healed you from a PTSD, and as we both know it's outlinear. But essentially she was saying, like, you just heal greatly. Your life's purpose, and now go forth and help other first responders if that's hilarious. And I literally said, Okay, out loud, I have no idea how I was gonna do it, but I just realized like the purpose I had been searching for was just given to me on a solar platter. It was incredible.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

And so truly, I mean, with the healing and with the new direction, um, you were kind of just born a new identity.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Essentially. Really? It was like I was yeah, it was essentially like I was a new man. Like over the course of a weekend, I would say over the course of that first four-hour ceremony, that Friday night, like changed my life forever.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Uh, did forgiveness become part of the healing process for you?

SPEAKER_00 18:59

It did. Um, definitely took a little while, to be honest with you. I didn't realize how much anger I still had in me, to be honest with you. So I'm about nine weeks out of Ivy gain. And going into Ivy Gain, my main reason for going in there was uh for healing my cognitive, I guess, uh deficits that I've had now. I can't even think of a word. So I thought that I was mostly healed. And coming out of IBGane, I realized how much anger I still had inside me. And the that got for 5MEO because I was so profoundly sad after IBGAIN ended, was probably the most sad and depressed I've ever been in my life for a little over a day. And then with the magic of 5MEO, I was able to release so much anger and pain and rage. It's incredible. Like I just had no idea how much was still there. And it's like I was given the key to unlock my soul. Like I saw every behavior, every action I've ever taken, and why I did it. It was amazing to be able to see that.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Yeah. And it's so beautiful how the different healing modalities provide different levels of healing. You know, Hayawasica was kind of, it seems like it's more emotional, grounding, Mother Earth, that motherly love. Yeah, much more gentle. Yeah, and I began that masculine nervous system reset, you know, that life slideshow. And then uh yeah, five MeO is just that beautiful kiss at the end.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

It was unbelievable. Yeah, coach described I begin as the sandblasting, which it was. Yeah, and then he said five MEO is the polish. Yeah. So I remember after so Thursday night into Friday, uh, was our I begin journey. And then Friday I was talking to him and I was I was a mess. And uh he's like, just trust the process. And I'm like, I'm trying, I'm trying. And then Saturday we did integration prior to 5MEO. And I said, I don't think there's any medicine on God screen earth that is getting me out of this depression. And I I was thinking to myself, like, how am I supposed to go home feeling like this? I am going to be worthless. And uh, you know, I was just like praying to God to have something take away this pain. And 5MEO was the polish that he was talking about. It was incredible.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Yeah. What uh for you, why do you think you were called towards uh ayahuasca first versus go straight to Ibegain? Great question.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Maybe because it was a little more accessible when I uh finally started doing research. I mean, uh, you know, Ibegain's not the cheapest medicine to journey with, and there's a whole procedure, takes months to get in. Typically, you know, ayahuasca was uh we planned it probably in February, and they we were there in March, and uh it was just a lot more readily accessible. You know, I to me that's probably the biggest reason why. And then uh I I begin I really wasn't I wasn't feeling a call, and then I had met a girl named Angela Scudden who started uh the 343 Fund, it's called, and they sponsored First Responders to uh go to Ambiel for I mean treatments. Uh her husband Casey was an FDNY firefighter. He got killed when the family was on vacation by a fallen tree in front of the family. So she decided that she wanted to set up this foundation to help first responders because she knew what a toll these careers take. So I interviewed her for my podcast, and then she introduced me to Trevor Millar, who's one of the founders of Ambio. And really, it was during the course of those two interviews that I started becoming a little more inquisitive about Ibogaine. And uh, you know, it's kind of what set me off on my Ibegain c Ibogaine quest. And again, I thought it was mostly for that cognitive healing. I thought I'd healed greatly from my emotional pain. But uh, you know, the medicine gives you what you need, not what you want. Not that I was going there in an arrogant mindset that I had everything figured out and and I was good to go and healed and you know, crapping rainbows and singing kumbaya all day long. But I I just thought that I had mostly healed and the medicine definitely showed me I still had a lot more to go.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I see a lot of veterans and first responders, and besides like the chiropractic, we do a lot of acupuncture. And a lot of times when there's that history of PTSD or hypervigilance. There's a lot of blockages to the heart. And when the heart's involved, there's also a connection with anger with the liver, too. So to me, that makes complete sense, what you just said.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Right. It's funny because we had a Reiki healer come in the Friday night after I began. And uh, you know, they call me up. Wow. So sit down at a massage table, you're on your back, she puts a light cloth over your face, and then you could just feel her lightly touching your arms, your chest, your heart, your face, your head. And you can hear her just kind of flicking, just flicking whatever energy's taking off. You can hear her nails. And I'm good at first. I'm like, let's do it. And then my left leg started twitching. Okay. Left step, left leg twitched again. And now the left leg is twitching with regularity. I'm like, what's going on? I stopped profusely sweating. I started getting so uncomfortable. This light little napkin that she had on my face felt like it was a uh kidnapped hood. I started getting like claustrophobic, which I've never gotten in my life. I'm like, I have to get off this table. I'm like, God, please. Every time she touched my face, I was hoping she was gonna grab that cloth to tell me it was finished. And now I'm almost like in a panic. And I never, I don't have anxiety. I'm talking to myself. I'm like, calm down. This is a process. Whatever she's doing is working. I'm like, you cannot stop this in the middle right now. She's taking the negative energies and whatever else from you. Calm myself down, went through the entire process. She finally removed it. She told me to get off the table. She grabs my hands and she looks at me and she's like, You had so much pain as a child and you just normalized it. And I just said yes. And I don't know how I didn't burst into tears because I've been crying all day. But uh, I knew like right then and there that there that was not hocus pocus. Like she did something, it lifted some of the uh that depression kind of came back a little bit thereafter, but it blew me away. Like there was I came to the conclusion there was so much going more going on in this universe than we will ever realize.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Yeah. Yeah, there's so much truth with the energy medicine, and we just don't know how that the body stores it, you know? Exactly. Yeah, Reiki's truly now one of my favorite modalities for healing. It really is.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

So you've been you've experienced it yourself.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Yeah, yeah. I I I mean, down there in Ambio, yeah, she's magical. She's she's wonderful. Um but back home, yeah, I I get Reiki probably every other month. And uh yeah, there it's legit.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

There's no doubt. You know, I see people I'll tell every now and then I'll I'll tell someone who I think is into it. And if they look at me a little with a little side eye, I'm like, telling you, I had the same reaction when I was walking up those stairs. I'm like, this is a waste of time, but let's do it anyway. Walking down those stairs was a different mindset.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Yeah. So I mean, really, all this healing for you wasn't necessarily about a new identity. It was kind of remembering truly who you were beneath all that armor.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Essentially, yeah, I think that's right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Stripping away all of that armor that I put on. And I don't know, I guess becoming the in some respects sensitive kid that I was again.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Uh as a man, you know, it it it was covered over for so many years that I just didn't feel anything. And uh unfortunately I wasn't able to to put I forgave my father, but he had passed uh 2020, so we weren't able to talk about anything, which would have been fantastic. I would have loved, once I had the capability of being vulnerable and being able to speak, I would have loved to have spoken to him. But, you know, at the time in my life, I had my emotional E IQ was so low, and everything I responded to everything with anger, which is the way I was taught. Right. And uh obviously messages are usually not received well when they're given an anger. So our communication skills, my my father and myself are horrible towards each other and towards anyone else.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

So, you know, once I was I was given that gift and I truly appreciate it and uh live with that life of gratitude every day. And I was telling, we were on an integration call the other day with uh 343 phone, and I said, you know, I don't know if you guys or girls ever think about this, but just think about the gift we've been given of awareness. How many billions of people are born, live their lives, and die with zero awareness. Like we are in such a heightened state of awareness now, not to say we're any better than anyone else, but we just see so much more and are able to live like this authentic existence, where some thoughts are difficult, you know. Uh feeling now is not the easiest thing in the world. I remember driving back over the border. There were two young girls who were begging for money. Uh it was probably like a 10-year-old who had like a four-year-old she was carrying, and they're begging, and then another girl's going wiping down side mirrors, and I felt this profound sadness for these girls. And I looked at everyone else who were all first responders, and uh I said, so this is what feeling feels like, huh? Like I was so sad for these girls.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

Yeah, so much empathy.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Truly, you know, and it's not easy sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

Yeah. So your your book is called The Resilient Warrior. What does being a warrior mean to you today versus 20 years ago?

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Totally different meanings. And when I say warrior, when I talk to anyone, you don't have to be a vet or a first responder to be a warrior. It's essentially someone that finds some type of pain or failure or obstacle in their life. They've fallen, but they get back up again and they take that next step and they don't let it stop them. I love Sylvester Stone's speech to his son in Rocky Baba, where he talks about nothing hitting harder than life. I don't care how rich you are, how good looking, how strong, how funny, everyone gets hit by life, as you know. And those punches are gonna knock you to your knees. But do you get up? You know, I've been kind of going through it myself the past few weeks, and uh, yeah, just my time to go through it. So I don't even want to say struggling, just just going through it. And I keep telling myself, one of the things I keep telling myself is I want to be proud when I get out on the other side. So I'm not canceling anything, even if I don't feel like doing something, whether it's a Zoom, whether it's meeting up with someone for lunch or dinner, uh, workouts, you know, therapy. You have a therapist I talk to. Like I'm showing up to everything because it's most important to show up when you don't want to show up. And when I come out on the other side, I don't want to be that hypocrite. You know, I want to be proud of the way I handle it. I want to be proud of when I tell guys and girls things that they could do that I did I walk the walk when I could have could have just as easily, you know, threw everything by the wayside and uh given up for a few weeks and whatever until I felt better or whatever the case may be. But it's more important to go through these things and feel them, which I'm doing now. Again, it's it's I've never done it before. I'm literally learning how to live life again over the past two years in my mid-50s, so which I'm willing to do. You know, life's beautiful. And sometimes you're gonna have these periods of contraction or the sadness, nothing wrong with it. Because if you didn't go through that, how would you truly appreciate the beautiful parts of life and you know the great things when they happen to you, which for most of us are the predominant part of our life?

SPEAKER_02 29:52

Exactly. Yeah, I mean it's all part of the human experience, right? What our souls meant on earth to do.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

And at least now you have the integration to cope and you know, all those micro changes that you make by showing up make a difference on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, it's all these little things. Like people think it's this massive 180 that gets you, especially when you come out of medicine, you're just glow, you know, change your life and open you up. And yes, it does, but it's the little things that you're talking about, all these micro things, they're gonna have you one degree course changes. So eventually, you know, a year from now, you're gonna be in a vastly different place than you are now. You know, that 180, the medicine, it's great, but the medicine is not what heals you. As you know, everything's inside of you, and it is go it's incumbent upon you to make these little people, places, and things, those changes that are required of us, and stick with them, whether it's meditation, eating right, exercise, get your hormones checked out, you know, whether it's therapy, I mean, there were so many things you could be doing on a daily basis, and uh it's the little things that count. It's usually not this one big cost correction.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Exactly. What are your having gone through the journey that you've gone through, what are your favorite integration modalities that you do that you never thought you would be doing?

SPEAKER_00 31:07

All of them. Well, I I've always like trained, I've always eaten well, taking care of the hormones, but meditation, the way I used to meditate, I'm not even gonna lie. Like do I trained with a guy who taught me how to fight for a few years, and my meditations would take place usually at the gym on cardio for 30 minutes a day. This is for 30 years. I figured it out. This was over four, probably 4,000 hours. I threw 75% of it away. So say for over a thousand hours, all I would think about was gunfights, knife fights, fighting multiple people. Things went wrong in every situation. So how to kill these guys now. Like that was the violence that I lived in. Now meditation is clearing my mind or thinking about beautiful things or journaling on uh, you know, what I'm actually feeling. And it could be some of you know, some some pain. A lot of times it is. But again, it's you know, I tell myself, like this is just part of the process, part of the process. Feel it. The only way you're gonna heal from it is by feeling it. You can't uh dull with substances, not that I use anything anymore, but um, you can't distract yourself, which is another thing as first responders that we do. Massive overtime, you know. I mean, that's one of the biggest things. Just distract, distract, distract, to never think about it. And that is a massive tool in our tool chest that we use to not think about. So when you actually sit down and you're in the shit, excuse my French, so to speak, listen, it's tough sometimes, but it's a necessary part of the healing process. You can't talk it.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

No, it makes you stronger too by sitting on the shelf.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Yeah.

unknown 32:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

And then once you get through it again, that's another thing. Like you could tell yourself, I just got through this. Like everything in my life that's thrown life's thrown my way. I've gotten through it. And uh, not even to say life's thrown my way. I don't want to say that. You know, life, people ask all the time, ask themselves, like, why is this happening to me? No, it's not happening to you. It's usually happening for you. You need to see what the lesson is to be learned, you know, because nine times out of ten, there's a lesson. I told you about that two-year-old fellow floating in a pool. I realized that incident changed my entire life. Like, if it wasn't for data and that incident, who knows where I'd be right now? Couldn't potentially may not be here. I don't want to be arrogant enough to say it couldn't happen. I didn't have suicidal ideology, but who knows? I was meant to be at that house. I reestablished contact with her family, and I told her father that your daughter is going to be saving lives through me. Like, I'll be supposed to be in your house that day. I realize that.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

And, you know, it's just it's so powerful when you realize that you are where you're supposed to be at all times. The universe puts you where you're supposed to be.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

Yeah, no coincidences.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

No, none whatsoever.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

So tell the listeners a little bit about your book.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Yeah, so it's essentially my life story. Um, I talk about my youth. I talk about growing up with that pain that it was my normal. I didn't even realize it at the time. I didn't realize these uh defense mechanisms that I was putting into place. I talk about the career, various stories to put into context, some of what changed me. For instance, I remember it's probably 1996. I'm about three years into my career in Atlanta, and I received a recall of a non-responsive 11-year-old. So I'd get there and I can hear visceral cries and screams before I even enter the put the apartment. When I go inside, it's a young 11-year-old laying face up on the floor, his mother, aunt, and grandmother all there in hysterics. I kneel down, he's cold to the touch, no pulse, realize he's irretrievably dead. There's no way I'm gonna sit here doing nothing while these women are going through this. So I just stop performing CPR on him. I can hear liquid coming up his windpipe. And I didn't have too much medical training at the time, but I was like, that should not be here. So just as the paramedics roll in, I can hear liquid almost expelling out of his mouth. I put him on the side, green liquid pours out of his mouth. I look at the paramedics and I'm out UTF. So thank God they transported him to go to the hospital, and doctors informed us shortly there after they just started bacterial menagitis, and they said it was not too contagious for children towards adults. They just gave me a massive dose of antibiotics and then told me to self-quarantine. But I remember I'd gone to a park in Atlanta later that day, and I'm just sitting there by myself, and I'm sitting on a hill, and I realized you better be careful because this job is going to take a lot of you if you let it. And, you know, it was the first time I realized I'd seen a lot of death to that point. And it's the first time I realized like you better do something to take care of yourself, your mental health. Not that I really did, but I realized like this is going to take some of your soul.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

And it did. You know, there's no ways around it.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

And it's not just us. I was talking to my uh physical therapist this morning, her sister-in-law, I think. Yeah, sister-in-law is a pediatric oncology nurse. And I talk about people who do things like that all the time. Like, I don't understand it. They're like angels on God's green earth. I don't know how they do it. God bless them. But to see all that for these children, those are warriors as well coming and doing that every day. You know, I don't want to say that us first responders and vets have a patent on pain. You know, that those are warriors, those doctors and nurses who see that every day and they come back every day to help those children. That is incredible to me. I can't imagine going through that.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Yeah. Thank God they are put in that field for a reason, right? Not everyone can do that.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

That's heavy work.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

It really is. Yeah. Children, children, you know, the common denominator amongst first responders. They they all get to us, you know. And they it's just not a normal thing seeing a child hurt. And uh unfortunately, when we see that, it's it's it causes profound pain.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

Right. So in your book, you go through your time in service, your healing journey, and then your podcast and all the other on the other side, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:41

Yes. I I actually completed it before my ibogaine journey, which I was like, man, I wish I wouldn't include the ivory, because it's such an important part of my life. And I think it would have been so informative to guys and girls who are interested in that treatment. But uh, I don't know, it could be uh potentially a second edition, or who knows what's gonna come down the pike. But uh I've had so many people reach out about the ibogaine because I think that's the one that most people have heard about between, you know, uh President Trump signing that bill to legalize the studying of it to a lot of special forces guys. I think that's the predominant medicine that most of them have journeyed with. So I think that's where people's familiarity really coming in in waves of war, as you know, right has been uh has been a hit. And it's funny because I went to training with DJ Shibley's company about a month after my IBA journey, and he and I got into a deep discussion about our individual healing journeys. And uh DJ had said that he contributed all of his pain and trauma to childhood. And I was taken aback. I'm like, bro, you were a team six guy, you've killed men, you've seen your buddies killed, you've seen massive carnage. You think your childhood is responsible? And he's like, Ah, maybe five to ten is my career, five to ten percent. I said, Really? And I was still a little skeptical. And then I went through my I begin journey and I realized the same exact thing. Like my childhood trauma was probably responsible for 90%, maybe 95% of my pain, and maybe five to ten percent was my career.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Totally different than what I thought.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

You know, I think it lays when you're little, it lays the foundation for your nervous system. And then from there on out, that's how your nervous system adapts to life, stress, your field work, all of that. Um, and it's not necessarily in some cases your parents' fault because they're just doing the best they can. Right. And maybe that's how they were parenting. But yeah, it is amazing how a lot of it comes back to that.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

It truly is, especially like reading a room. You know, I never realized I I could meet someone on my job and with 30 seconds essentially just figure out what they're about. Again, I self-preservation, but I now looking back, I can read a room, like go home, see if there was tension in the air, read my father, see if it was time to get the hell out of there.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Uh, you know, my mom as well. And you don't even realize that you're building these mechanisms, this hypervigilance as a child, and you know, it's a foundation on which everything else is laid. So if you're exhibiting these behaviors, they're just gonna be enhanced as life goes on.

SPEAKER_02 39:04

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and your nervous system gets wound tighter and tighter and tighter.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

Oh, absolutely. So if there's a first responder listening right now who feels similar to you, emotionally exhausted, but doesn't know what to do to ask for help, what would you want them to hear?

SPEAKER_00 39:23

I would say, first of all, there's nothing wrong with you. You it is your body's natural reaction to the all the abnormal stimuli that you've seen for years, decades, however long you serve. You could be helped. You could find happiness again, I promise you. You know, number one, we all think we're alone when we're going through it. We all think everyone else has got the answers. And I found out that we're not alone. There are plenty more that are going through it. No one has got all the answers. I don't care how much of a perfect scenario, perfect front they present. It's like social media. You know, you see these uh memes where there's a messy room and then someone goes in the corner and takes a picture of this beautiful room. They're showing you the best of their best, and you're they're never gonna show you what they're actually going through. Like it's one of the things I come clean in my uh my Instagram when I'm doing reels. If I'm going through it, I tell guys and girls, like I'm going through right now, you know, I'm feeling it. Nothing wrong with it. And I get more feedback when I'm going through things than when I'm making, you know, a positive post because everyone identifies with it. So I would tell anyone right now, be honest with yourself, are you the best man, husband, dad that you could be right now? Or are there things you're doing that you know that you should not be doing or that you could be better at? And if the answer is yes, then raise your hand and get that out because it's out there. You know, whether you talk to a trusted friend, coworker, clinician, and don't feel weak being vulnerable because it's a sign of absolute strength. Weakness is a man who pushes it down. Weakness is a man who uses tramonol, 55 treminal a day, or who drinks every day, or goes home and beats their kids or their wife. That is weakness. Raising your hand and asking for help is a sign of absolute strength, not weakness. Take strength to ask for help.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

Yeah. What can departments do to better support mental health?

SPEAKER_00 41:10

That's a great question. Number one, at the at the lowest levels, I think they need to school their supervisors and their officers, frankly, a little bit better. And I read a study where, or the results of a study where it said that 60% of people felt like their problems were solved just by talking to someone. Didn't have to be a clinician, could just be, again, a trusted friend, coworker, just by kind of getting it out of their system, processing it, talking about it one time, they felt like they were healed. So tell these men and women to talk about it with their coworkers. Tell these first-line bosses after traumatic calls to go speak to their people. And it doesn't have to be this, you know, deep introspective, you know, Mike, are you okay? Is everything all right in your world? You know, how's are you fragile? Like, just come up to me like, Muggs, that was a heavy call. How you feeling, brother? That's it. And then once you do that, especially if there's other cops around, firemen around, if one person opens up, I guarantee that damn is gonna break. Everyone else is gonna raise their hand and be like, I felt weird talking about it, but man, that thing screwed me up too. And by everyone just talking about it, again, it's probably going to be something that you could just shake off. And again, if you need further help, um, there's peer support specialists. I mean, I think that's a huge program that needs to be grown, peer support specialist group to where you're calling, and it's another officer or another fireman who's going to come to your aid. And many times the hip are protected, so they don't have to tell anyone. Um, if this man or woman needs rehab, you know, they work with the union to get them in, to get them the treatment they need. So you need to realize that the stigma is what's going to stop men and women from getting help. If you remove that, give them privacy, give them people that they think that they could talk to, then that's definitely going to open up the uh doors, maybe floodgates, if you will, and have them get the help they need. I know there's, you know, certain departments that are ahead of their times that uh give officers like a mental health day a month. I don't know how realistic that is for most departments because it's short-handed throughout the US. But I mean, stuff like that is incredible. Potential for abuse ex exists, but you know, if I was the chief, I'd rather have these programs exist for the one officer that needs it, even if it can be abused a little bit by others who may not.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

Yeah, you could still potentially save a life.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 43:28

Yeah, yeah. So I want to close with just a few short reflection questions. What does peace feel like now to you?

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Peace feels like not having that anger inside me.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

It's just uh I'm so much lighter, I'm so much easier to talk to. You know, with my wife, I used to say a crossword here and there, and they'd be like, Man, what are you doing? Now I just react so much differently. Um if she says something, I just I listen to it. I'll question myself, you know, should you have done A, B, and C? You know, peace is uh just allow giving myself grace, talking to myself nicer. I don't know, it's just uh kind of living with love in my heart, so to speak. I don't want to, you know, sound uh too soy boyish here, but uh you know, it's just my buddy Wiz Buckley said as the best the first psychedelic revolution was dismissed because it was uh hippies involved. The second one is all first responders and vets, so it's not gonna be dismissed. So just being like that warrior in a garden, you know, like I was talking to Scott one day, and I said, bro, I used to have everything was up here, and now it's all down here. Like no one's coming to kill me anymore. I don't have to have that. And I I just feel like a release. There's no more of a tightness. I don't know, I just feel it peace. And again, just so much more love and empathy in my heart for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

I love that. Yeah, and there's no going back.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

No, there's no way.

SPEAKER_02 44:53

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Yeah, it's a one-way street.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

Yeah, what um what legacy, now that you're on this newer purpose, what legacy do you hope to leave?

SPEAKER_00 45:02

I don't know. If when people speak about it, I mean, if they say he's a great guy, he just wanted to help people.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

That's that's fine. You know, there were no I had no other underlying current of wanting to be here for any other reason other than that I see the peace that I was able to achieve and the forgiveness that's in my heart, and I just want others and happiness. I just want others to be able to achieve this level of I don't know, introspectiveness, happiness, vulnerability that I found.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

That's it, it's a miracle it's a miracle to be honest with you. I don't think I thought when I was going through it that that was what the rest of my life held in store for me. I was not happy about it.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

Yeah. It is a beautiful gift to be on the other side of it.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

Oh, it is.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

And then once you are, you just want to bring everyone in with you and raise them up and because life doesn't have to be the way that somebody might be living it.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

No. 100%. You know, and that's my biggest thing. Like I tell guys and girls, this is where I was, I am just like you, this is where I am. I'm just like you. Yeah. And like all my guests on my podcast, they've all gone through it. And uh, you know, especially for men, it's a little bit easier, as we know, for women to identify with feelings, but for men to actually become vulnerable, usually takes someone else doing so to show them it's not uh weakness, which is what happened with me with Eddie Benny, absolute warrior, is crying and it subconsciously gave me permission to do so.

SPEAKER_02 46:23

Right. Well, thank you so much. This was such a beautiful conversation. And, you know, I think your story reminds people that strength is obviously not about suppressing pain, it's about having the courage to face it and heal. And I just thank you for your honesty, your vulnerability, and of course the work that you're doing to help others too.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

My pleasure being here. I absolutely thank you for having me on. It was an honor.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Where can people uh find your book and your podcast and connect with you?

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Yeah, so the book is sold on Amazon at Barnes and Noble, the Resilient Warrior. The podcast is the Resilient Warrior Nation. That's on YouTube and all audio-only platforms. I can be reached on my Instagram at the ResilientWarrior5778. If anyone wants to shoot me a message, I answer any and everyone. So feel free if you're going through right now where you want to help, you want to talk about psychedelics, absolutely hit me up. I just had a first responder in another country that got in touch with me who's been going through it. And uh, I was able to hook him up with some in a program called uh Being True to You, and it is a psychedelic integration coaching course. I was able to hook him up with one of my buddies in the course who's already in the integration space, and now he's gonna be bringing him into an integration ceremony with Scylla Sidon. So it's miraculous. Like a man from another country gets in touch with me, and I'm able to hook him up, help him so potentially just change this man's life by hearing a little bit of my story. I it I've never had such more more of a powerful feeling than being able to affect someone by just telling my story. It's incredible to me.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

Yeah. Such a beautiful space to be in.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

It really is.

SPEAKER_02 47:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

Unfortunately, so many people need it.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Exactly. Yes. Again, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Absolutely. Thank you so much.