Trauma Comes In Many Forms, As Does Healing: A Conversation with Kemmi Sadler

In this deeply candid conversation, former Diplomatic Security Service Special Agent Kemmi Sadler reflects on a 26-year career spanning local law enforcement, post-9/11 deployments, and high-risk diplomatic assignments overseas. From an officer-involved shooting just days into her law enforcement career to the devastating loss of a colleague in Iraq, Sadler shares how trauma, often unrecognized in the moment, accumulates over time. Yet, this is not just a story about service, it is a story about what happens after.

Kemmi discusses survivor’s guilt, moral injury, and the culture of compartmentalization within the first responder community. She explores the long-delayed realization that the job had changed her, and the difficult process of confronting what had been buried for decades.

Now the author of From the Badge to the Vine, Kemmi discusses her unconventional path toward healing, the role of vulnerability in leadership, and her goal to create a wellness retreat in the Ozarks for first responders carrying invisible wounds.

This episode is a powerful reminder that healing is not one-size-fits-all, and that acknowledging the need for it may be the most important step of all.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We have all experienced stress. Each of us has also experienced some form of trauma. It is a natural part of human existence. However, some professions entail more stress and trauma than others. What happens when an individual is burdened already from personal experience only to increase the weight by undertaking such a profession? How do individuals manage these emotional and mental pressures? Do these professions even afford appropriate means for individuals to seek help, let alone know when to do so? Welcome to Brungart Law's LanyApp, where we provide a little extra perspective through conversations with individuals from across the spectrum of society. I'm Maurice Brungart, your host. I enjoy engaging with experienced, knowledgeable, and passionate people for the opportunity to forge to enrich our understanding of the world through their eyes. The more we learn, the more likely we can become better versions of ourselves and guide others towards the same. Today's guest is Kimmy Sadler, who served with distinction as a diplomat and supervisory special agent with the U.S. Department of State's Diplomatic Security Service. Since retiring in 2024, Kimmy has been expanding Tall Pine Grove, a property in the Ozarks, she is developing into a wellness retreat dedicated to first responders and others carrying the invisible wounds of trauma. Her memoir, From the Badge to the Vine, A Journey Through Duty, Trauma, and Healing, traces her path through service, trauma, and the spiritual transformation that reshaped her understanding of healing. Welcome to the program, Kimmy.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Thank you, Maurice. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Well, it's a pleasure to have you, and I'm extremely grateful that you accepted the invitation to share your story with us. And speaking of stories and journeys, you're about to embark physically and mentally a very exhausting one. Why don't you uh tell us about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yeah, I am on April 25th. Um, actually on April 24th, I'm gonna go to St. John Piedapor, which will be two years to the day of my retirement. And then the following day on the 25th, I'm going to start the French route of the Camino de Santiago, 780 kilometers to Santiago de Compostel. And I'm doing that with my dog Nona. And I've named the pilgrimage Nona's Way, and we're doing it as a personal pilgrimage, but also as an awareness walk to raise awareness for the need for mental health uh suicide prevention in the first responder community.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Considering you're taking this on and you're doing it uh related to a particular cause, obviously what we do today has roots in the past. Why don't you take us back to the beginning? Uh, your early influences and early events uh that created some stress, trauma in your life uh that you started carrying with you.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Sure. Um so I started in I started in law enforcement actually as a local police officer in St. Augustine, Florida. Had a little bit of correction stuff prior to that, but that was kind of the my first sworn law enforcement position. Uh worked for St. Augustine for about five years. And right after 9-11, I went to Kuwait for a short period of time as a contractor for Department of Defense, doing kind of military police work. And then I started as a federal agent with diplomatic security in 2004. Um and so across those positions, I experienced some trauma, but not in a way that I recognized at the time, right? Not in a way that I really understood until after I had retired. Um for example, I was involved in an officer involved shooting as a police officer five days out of training. Um the suspect I learned later, attempted to fire his weapon, but the the um round that he had chambered was a dud. So the firing pen had been struck, but the bullet didn't um didn't fire. And I I didn't fire my weapon. I the other officer on the scene uh fired and took and took the suspect down. Uh he survived. Um but you know, I had nightmares after that. Um but I just and I had to talk to somebody that night, like I had to talk to a counselor that night for a few minutes, and and that was it, you know, went went back to work the next day, and uh I guess, you know, didn't really think about it a whole lot until 20 some years later. Um, and then there were things that happened, you know, other things that other things that happened as a police officer and as a federal agent that um built up uh you know over the over the course of those 26 years.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

For context, at the time you were involved in this uh shooting, what how old were you?

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Uh I was in my 20s, early, early 20s, I want to say 24, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Okay, so young, full of energy, physically fit, ready to take on the world, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

All right. What motivated you to enter into law enforcement?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Um my father. Um, when I was in high school, I was trying to decide, like most high school students trying to figure out what I was gonna do with my life. Uh, initially thought that I might go into nursing, and I did some volunteer work at the local hospital, and it just uh it was pretty clear to me it wasn't gonna be a good fit. My dad was a dentist, and I think he hoped that I might go into dentistry. And I worked for my dad while I was in high school. I was polishing teeth and taking x-rays as a as a you know, 17-year-old kid. Um it didn't seem to particularly like that either. Um, and I was talking to my dad one day, and he suggested to me, have you ever thought about going into law enforcement? And when he said it, it was just like something kind of fell into place. And so I went to college, uh, got a degree in criminal justice, uh graduated with that in 1994, and then you know, started kind of looking for jobs in the field.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

And what was before you went into law enforcement, what was your impression of how law enforcement officers should carry themselves? And then did that change or was it reinforced once you entered the world?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

I had a I had a good um I had a good impression of law enforcement officers. I thought it was an honorable profession. I thought it was something that people went into with a desire to help others, which which I very much did. You know, it was something that I inherited from my dad. I had seen him go in in the middle of the night and see patients who were in pain. And I had seen him take things on trade from patients that that couldn't pay. Um, and I I he instilled that in me, that desire to, you know, be of be of service to others. And I think that's what drew me to the profession. And I remember when I applied or when I when I interviewed as a police officer at St. Augustine, I remember the chief asked me why I wanted to be a police officer, and I said that I wanted to be a force for good, and if there were if there were bad apples out there in the community, then I wanted to help balance those scales. I wanted to be, you know, um a good a good officer.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

So in in alignment with the traditional motto, to serve and to protect, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

And once you entered the profession, um did any of this change how you viewed law enforcement and how law enforcement officers carried out their role and what you thought was expected of you?

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Um, I mean, for the most part, I think I was privileged to be able to work with and for people who were also in it for the right reasons, but I certainly saw examples of when that wasn't the case. I remember in the police academy there was somebody that um just you could tell he was just on a power trip, like he just wanted to be in a position of authority over others. Um and he got on with, if my memory is correct, he got on with the nearby county where I became a police officer. And he ended up almost getting in a shootout with deputies from another agency off duty because they pulled him over and he had been drinking and he got out and was, you know, yelling, I'm a deputy sheriff, and you know, waving his gun around. He's lucky he didn't he didn't get shot. Um it was always gonna end badly because he just had gotten into it for the for the wrong reasons. Um I think it was always pretty clear when somebody was not right for the job, but I don't know that the systems are really set up to identify and get those people out before they make it through the training and onto the job. I think as a field, we could probably do better about you know correcting some of that before harms are done on the public.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

You mentioned your father uh suggesting uh law enforcement as a career and working in his office. Uh, where where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

I grew up in the oldest town west of the Mississippi River, St. Genevieve, Missouri. It's a small farm town in the Midwest.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

And from what I discovered through your book, The Patron Saint of Paris.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Okay. Um were there other uh influential people uh from from St. Genevieve?

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Um I mean I had a ton of teachers, coaches, um I I had a good ex I had a good experience growing up. Um teachers that were a big impact on my life. Um I don't know what to find.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

So you're you're at St. Augustine uh with the police department, and then following this officer-involved shooting, did they have support mechanisms in place uh and how to process that type of event?

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Well, I had to talk to somebody that night, a counselor, I remember, um I think it was a fairly short conversation, and then I showed up at next at work the next day. I remember an older officer, you know, tough, a really tough officer, um saying to me, Oh, I didn't think you'd be back, you know, surprised, uh surprised to see you. Yeah. Um and I kind of wore that as a badge of honor, you know, like uh he was he was impressed that I'd uh showed back up at work the next day after that. But there was no at the time, um there was no check-ins after that.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Okay, but you obviously carried this experience with you as you discovered later in your life, correct?

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

And you also mentioned uh in your story about how it impacted the dispatcher at the time, unbeknownst to you, only to discover years later. If you wouldn't mind sharing that uh with the audience.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Sure. When that when that shooting went down, I got on the radio and said, you know, St. Augustine, we need rescue reference shots fired. And uh the dispatcher on the other end of the radio was a friend of mine, and she she didn't know who, I didn't say who um had been shot, and she thought maybe it was me. And uh because she had made a mistake, and she was particularly um concerned about that because she had made a mistake and when she entered the suspects into the system, she'd entered one of them as a female instead of a male, so that the hit didn't immediately populate that they were that there were three suspects in a vehicle and they were wanted on a murder charge from California, and they had fled in the victim's vehicle all the way to Florida and were just kind of you know living the I don't know, um living the dream there in Florida until they got in a hit and run and the plate was run. But when she ran the suspects, she'd made a mistake, and so she thought that that mistake had potentially cost me my life. But I didn't realize that all of that had weighed on her until 20-some years later, I was visiting her uh out west. She had moved and we were having lunch, and she told me in tears how she still used that story and that example of the mistake that she made to be vigilant to her trainees. She still works in the field and is now supervisor in communications. And uh the Inu carried that with her and was emotional about it, um, even all those years later.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Among your fellow officers, as you spent time uh with the police department, uh, what did you observe uh among that particular first responder community and how they individually and collectively dealt with the stress of the job?

SPEAKER_00 14:36

It was a close-knit group. I still have a lot of friends from that department um that I keep in touch with to this day, and many of them have ri risen up in the ranks um in that area of Florida. Um I mean, alcohol comes to mind, you know. I mean, I remember we would have choir practice after shift, and um so you know, and I think that's very common um in the field to unwind and blow off steam um using alcohol, and that was certainly true uh for me and for my colleagues back then.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

How long did you spend with the St. Augustine Police Department?

SPEAKER_00 15:19

I started there in 1997 as a dispatcher while I went through the police academy. Um, and then I was there until September 10th of 2001. Okay. Day before 9-11 was my last day with the police department.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

And then soon you were embarking on a career with the Foreign Service.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Yep. I had I had resigned from the department to take a job in uh the job in Kuwait as a contractor, and it was while I was in Kuwait doing that job that I learned about diplomatic security from somebody that went to the embassy security briefings and told me about it, you know. Um, and I looked into diplomatic security and it was it I'd never heard of it, but it was exactly what I was looking for. It was law enforcement and travel, and the position was opened at the time I learned about it. Um so I I scrambled to get everything that was required in by the deadline, and uh before long I had a I had a job offer and I started with DS in January of 2004.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

And what attracted you about diplomatic security?

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Um I a lot of it was the travel and the opportunities to to live and work overseas. Um and I was drawn to I was always drawn to investigations. I've a bit of an investigator at heart. I don't think I realized at the time that maybe investigations wasn't the the necessarily always the top um role for DS agents. So I enjoyed that being in that role when I when I had the opportunity throughout my career. Um but it seemed like a good like a good fit for me and it and it was. I really I really enjoyed my career with DS.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Share with us your first overseas assignment.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

My first overseas assignment was Iraq, uh 2006 to 2007.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

And what were your duties there?

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Um, I was in the counterintelligence investigations office. I supervised about four Foreign Service National Investigators, local um Iraqi employees who helped us with background investigations and conducted counterintelligence investigations.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

And tell us about some of those Iraqi employees that you worked with, uh that you bonded with uh they they were a great group.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

They were um very dedicated. Um, one in particular, a woman named Emil was on her second career. She and her husband both worked at the embassy. Her husband, um memory serves, was his translator for the ambassador. Um there's it's a tragic ending to Emil's story. She and her husband were running a routine errand one day. They went to the bank to collect some retirement funds for a friend of theirs that was living outside of the country at the time due to security concerns. And as they were coming out of the bank, they were approached by some young men who kidnapped her husband and held him for ransom. And she, over the course of the next couple weeks, negotiated a ransom. Um we helped her to the extent that we could. Um put her in touch with offices that worked on hostage negotiations and got her lodging on the embassy compound and um supported her uh how we you know the best that we could. Um ultimately she went to pay that ransom and she was taken hostage as well. And both of them were later found in a local morgue.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

And for context, at this time, uh even though Iraqis willingly uh and professionally uh supported our diplomatic mission there, um this was uh quite far dangerous work for them, uh, correct?

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Um do you think or did it come out at this time that uh their murders uh may have been tied to the fact they were employed uh by the US government?

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Yeah, it was pretty evident that that had been the case. Um when he was when he was kidnapped and taken, they called her not long after that from his phone and told her to come back to the scene, and she did. And when she did, they took her purse and gave her they gave her his phone, uh they s they swapped a phone, I think I don't remember exactly how they went down, but they took her purse when she came back, and inside her purse was her US Embassy badge, and when the bodies were found, her embassy badge was on her on her body, almost as a message, it it seemed. And that that's what ultimately led the authorities to contact the embassy.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

And were you the closest among uh the DS agents to Amel in in particular?

SPEAKER_00 21:10

There were there were a number of agents who knew her over the years and and and were close to her. I was her direct supervisor at the time. Um so at the time when this happened, yeah, probably. But there were others that knew her, you know, in in the years before I was there, also deeply impacted by what happened.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

So we can form a better picture of a m whose name uh you had disclosed uh means hope in Arabic. Um describe to us, paint us a picture what a Mel was like.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Um she was just a lovely woman, um almost a grandmotherly type type figure. I was a first time supervisor. D for DAS, I didn't supervisor in other positions, but um was a first-time supervisor, and you know, I felt it's something that I felt actually bad about later is that she was a little bit frustrating as an FSNI doing background investigations because she saw the best in everyone. And when you're doing background investigations, you really need to have a critical eye and be, you know, kind of uh looking at people through through a hard lens, and she she was so nice. Um that you know, she had a hard time coming down hard hard on people. Um they were both just very lovely people, and I had the privilege of meeting their son. Uh sometime later, I actually still keep in touch with him and had reached out to him when I wrote the book to make sure it was okay to use um to use her name in the book. Uh but she had a big she had a big impact on me. She had a a big heart and she was very dedicated to the mission there, and they could have left. You know, they had the the means and the and the opportunity to uh be somewhere safer, but they believed in their country and they believed in um what the US was trying to do and how did this you know we can imagine, uh but imagination only takes us so far.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

And how did this impact you uh once you receive news and after receiving the news that she had been found murdered along with her husband?

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Um it was devastating. Um I felt responsible in some ways. I I felt like I should have been able to stop her from going to pay it, um, or to protect her while she was in the process of going. And I carried quite a bit of guilt surrounding that. Um I left that assignment and went to Kampala was my next assignment after that. And I I knew that I was struggling with it or with something, but I I wasn't sure. You know, when I went to when I went to Uganda, I started taking methylquin, which is uh anti-malarial, and it's it's known for a number of side effects, including like nightmares and things like that. And um so I wasn't sure if what I was experiencing was like I didn't know you know where where it was coming from. I did talk to the um a regional psychiatrist that comes around to the to the embassies about it one time, and I I had a complete breakdown um during that session, and that was the first time I ever heard the term survivor's guilt. Um, he told me that what I was experiencing was was survivor's guilt. And then I was like, okay, then checked the box and you know, kind of went back to work, buried it, buried it down, and kept going.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

So you you only had one session to discuss this. Yeah. Uh I assume, in one sense, for lack of a better uh expression, anti-climatic, considering it was only one session. There was no true resolution or closure or evolution. Am I correct?

SPEAKER_00 25:56

I don't know. At that time I feel like that was. I don't know, it was almost like that was like I said, I checked the box. Like, okay, well, I talked to somebody, I had a breakdown, they told me what it was. Now it has a name. Now I can go back to work, you know. Um, it was still impacting me for sure, and in ways that I didn't even understand at the time, but but I don't know that I was thinking I needed to do anything about it.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Okay. Were you concerned at the time uh when you sought out um counseling with the regional medical officer uh that this would impact your security clearance?

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Yeah, I did that did definitely cross my mind. And I remember doing you know a little bit of research into the policies, and one of the one of the acceptable reasons to seek counseling other than marriage counseling is grief counseling. And so that was how I approached it when I made that appointment was um was grief counseling, and because it fell under that umbrella, uh you know, there was no impact on my security clearance. But maybe that was part of the reason that I didn't pursue it was because I was worried about it potentially seeking counseling and admitting that something was affecting me, you know, mentally potentially could have impacts on my security clearance.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

So, what are your thoughts about that? The organization that one works for and requires you to undertake uh you know moments of stress, uh, to be exposed to environments in which uh at some point trauma will be a part of it. Yet it doesn't perhaps set up an infrastructure to support the very people they need to operate in these environments, to have help and know when to seek help in order to you know manage those types of moments in their life. And I'll stop there, otherwise kind of lose the the essence of the question.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Yeah, it's it's kind of become my my passion now to bring awareness to exactly that. I don't know necessarily what the answers are, but you know, some things that come to mind are just and I do think this is changing. I will say I do think that this is changing it across the industry. And I saw a few things very close to retirement that give me hope that the organizational culture within law enforcement is changing a little bit, but definitely during my career, I just don't remember a lot of trainings and awareness about the toll that the job can take on you. The just the exposure to human suffering and vicarious trauma is something I'd never heard of until the year before I retired at a at a WIFL conference. Um moral injury was something I had never heard of, had any training on. Uh PTSI is something that is being talked about now a lot in in law enforcement circles, which is you know similar to PTSD, but why don't you why don't you elaborate on that?

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Moral injury in the PTSI for the benefit of the listeners.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Well, I don't know if I'm the best person to talk about it in in detail, but you know, the things that the things that we're exposed to, if that if you're dealing with something or you're in a position where you have to take action and do your job, but as a human being, you struggle with what that action is, that needs to be processed. Like you need to you need to deal with that in a healthy manner. Like, for example, one of the things I talk about in the book that came up for me when I started on this healing journey was an incident that happened when I was in El Salvador. Um we had a little girl, five years old, who had been sexually abused by her mother's boyfriend in the United States, and the mother had sent her to El Salvador to, it's not really clear why, to um protect the boyfriend or to protect the little girl. But the aunt brought her to the embassy because she was fearful that people were looking for the little girl potentially to keep her quiet. So we worked with children's services in the United States to send her back. Well, she had to be taken back on a plane and escorted by a consular officer. And when she came to the airport, we had basically we had to separate. It was like the movies where you see where a child is being torn away from someone um that they love because of you know child custody or whatever. That that basically was the scene at the airport. We had to tear her away from her aunt, who was the only person that she um, you know, knew and trusted, and try to put her on a plane to the US with a perfect stranger. And I had to pick her up and carry her through immigration as she screamed in Spanish, help me and kicked my ribs and and beating on me. Um, you know, it's a hard thing to have to do, and that traumatized that little girl. I don't know that there was a better um solution uh to the problem, but it still was a hard thing to do, right? It wasn't me, wasn't happening to me, but it was happening, you know. I was a part of that. That's moral injury, uh, or that's my understanding of moral injury. And depending on the assignments that you have and the work that you do, that could happen multiple, multiple times over the course of a career.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

That in this girl's eyes, you were the cause of her trauma.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Absolutely. And that was yeah, and in that moment, I was the bad guy for that little girl. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Did you talk to anyone about that or just kind of compartmentalized it like we do with most things?

SPEAKER_00 32:42

No, I I no, I didn't even think about it for years, and then when it when it came back up for me, it was almost like a surprise. I was like, you know, I mean it makes sense now, like you're talking to you, like it makes sense that something like that would would impact you. Um, but at the time I just buried it down.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Uh when did you first realize that the profession had perhaps going on a limb here? Um had perhaps changed you in ways that you hadn't quite processed.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Um you know, it I think that it can happen so slowly over time that it's almost unnoticeable. But by the time I retired, I was really kind of grumpy. Um, I mean, there were just I I just felt it, I think. I just felt that I was, you know, I used to be a very I I think I am now. I like to think I am now just uh, you know, a pretty, you know, happy go go lucky, uh easy to be around. But I don't think that was true um, you know, a few years ago, and I think members of my family would tell you that. So I would say around the time I retired, I realized that I wasn't who I wanted to be, or who I had been.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Well, stepping back and going back in time, again, uh, when you're making the the choice to become a law enforcement officer and an alternate universe, what other path do you think you would have chosen?

SPEAKER_00 34:44

I think I would have gone into counseling. Um because it's something I kind of I kind of in a way did throughout my career. Like I always kind of seemed to find myself in positions where I was offering counsel to victims or colleagues or in some cases even suspects. Um I often felt like people were comfortable, you know, talking to me or telling me things or would seek me out for advice. And I think that that's something I could have gone into.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

Now, what do you think you brought into the profession that either helped or did not help, or both manage moments like these, uh, particularly very tough ones, such as uh the the loss of Amel and her husband?

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Um I definitely think that the few years that I spent as a police officer in St. Augustine helped me, helped to give me the kind of calm under pressure that uh I like to think I had throughout throughout my career. I mean I really value that experience um as far as what I had before that. I um I don't know. I mean I was an athlete. I ran, you know, I ran track and um was active in a lot of different uh you know sports and activities and just so people's skills in in general, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

And do you think there were there were any other aspects of your life that uh may have without even knowing it, amplified uh some of these stressful moments that came with the job?

SPEAKER_00 36:53

Um I'm not sure. Can you ask me that again?

SPEAKER_01 37:00

So uh again, like I opened up with the intro, I mean, we all experience stress and you know, trauma uh different ways, um, you know, upbringing, uh particular things that that have occurred in our lives. Um and we can carry that just like we can bring our work home, right? No, sometimes we can take our personal experience and bring it to work, and it can help us in our job, or it can perhaps actually contribute to a more stressful uh situation for us, but we just haven't realized it yet. Uh just curious and drawing from things from your book, and obviously I don't want to take away from your book because there's plenty there and you really opened up. Uh, and there's much we need to leave there for uh people to find out for themselves. Uh, but I'm just curious if you uh find that there were things in your own personal life, whether it was before taking on the job uh in St. Augustine or with DS or during, uh, that also contributed uh to just the increased stress that made you a grumpier person, as you stated. Uh, and you just didn't know it at the time, but which you ended up discovering later, and we'll be getting to that in a moment.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Um yeah, I think there were some uh some struggles with personal identity, but again, things that I didn't recognize in the moment for what they what they were. And also in and maybe this is what you're alluding to in the book, like the one of the things that I that I talk about quite a bit is just how being it being a woman in a largely male-dominated field, I think made me tougher than than I needed to be. Or I I very much identified as one of the guys, and I'll and I loved I loved being one of the guys. I was the only female on my campus security department at college. I was the only female on volunteer fire department at my college. When I became a police officer, I was the only female on my squad as a DS agent. I was often the only female either in country or on details. Um and over time, I think the more feminine parts of my my personality got buried um in all those efforts to kind of be tough and be one of the guys. I don't know that I would that I would change it because I uh, you know, I I love all those guys and they're all still, you know, my my closest friends. Uh you know, so I don't I don't know that I would that I would change it. I think things happened for a reason. But I think parts of my personality definitely suffered, and that's maybe ironic that I buried the feminine parts of my personality because in my 40s is when I I had the epiphany that uh I'm actually gay. Maybe a little bit of um you know irony there in the way that that all played out in my life.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Well, it's not so much of looking back because, and you know, if oh, only things would have been different in like crying over the past, uh, you know, I'm oversimplifying it. But I think it's a matter of looking back and identifying things for the present and for people who find them in similar situations, uh, to understand, you know, not only what is happening with them, around them, but with others, so that instead of perhaps suppressing some things, as as you pointed out, uh, people have an opportunity to actually express and share, which may actually have positive impacts on others, right? Uh so again, it's not like, oh, you know, you know, I wish I'd been a different person. No, again, our experiences are what make us who we are today, for better or worse. Uh but again, you know, if there are things we can do for people to understand what they may be doing now in their own lives or towards others, uh, I think it does prove helpful. For example, you know, what would you want men in the first responder community to take into consideration about their female colleagues?

SPEAKER_00 42:16

Maybe just that it can be it can be tough to be um it can be tough to try and be, you know, one of the guys. Um I don't know, I just didn't give that more thought, you know, I don't know. Um because every every community is different, every every group of individuals is different, and so that I feel like that's maybe a hard generalization.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

That's fair. Yeah, you're you're completely right. Um what what would you want females, women in law enforcement to understand uh about the environment they're in and the people they're working with?

SPEAKER_00 43:06

I mean kind of this kind of the same thing, you know. You know, it's it I think it can be tough either way. And I at the end of the day, I think what's important is that when you're in when you're in a in a profession, especially like as first responders, where you're relying on each other literally for your lives, like there are more important things than these, you know, petty differences that sometimes people get caught up in the in the weeds and lose sight of the fact that we're all humans trying to do a job and trying to do the best that we can, and we're all coming at it from different places and different backgrounds and different experiences, and just having a little bit of grace and trying to see things from another person's perspective. Um Which also is first responders, I think, is something that we could do a better job of is just trying to understand what makes people do the things they do.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Yes. Do you think uh that sometimes we don't acknowledge uh as an organization that again the nature of the job and it requires you know performance of one's duties, you know, under less than ideal circumstances, um and then complicated further by particular uh stressors, but that in the first responder community it is simply a natural outcome because you have to do it to suppress one's feelings, uh, because you gotta get the job done, whatever it may entail, you know, tearing uh uh a very uh young girl away from uh a loved one at an airport, um, you know, uh processing the the events of an officer-involved shooting, uh dealing with a rape victim, whatnot. Uh, you know, one is experiencing things. And I I would highly doubt that even the most stoic of individuals are not feeling anything, they are simply, you know, compartmentalizing it, suppressing it, whatever you want to call it. But it's a natural outcome of the job. And this isn't a judgment call, good, bad, but it does have an impact, and what it does is create a community of folks that have to be attentive to the dangers of maybe becoming less empathetic. Would you agree with that or not?

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Yeah, I would agree with that a hundred percent. I think that's I think that's one of the biggest challenges of the job is that you learn whether it's whether it's explicitly taught or not, you I think you learn to compartmentalize because you can't have an emotional breakdown on the scene. You know, I mean that that incident at the at the airport in El Salvador, my colleague, my colleague, the consular officer, was a first tour officer, and and she was crying and you know, very emotional and um and trying to hold it together. I mean, doing her best to try and hold it together, um, because it was just a very tough thing to witness. But I, you know, I there's no world where I could have a breakdown right there and be sobby as I carry it, you know, kicking and screaming viral through an airport and try to convince them that she's not, you know, being trafficked or harmed or, you know, um and you do that time and again, whether you're a police officer or a federal agent or a firefighter, you're on the scene, you're getting the job done, and you're dealing with whatever it is that you're dealing with. And maybe what you're dealing with is triggering something for you from your own life. Maybe you're dealing with uh, you know, maybe you're on the scene of a domestic violence and you came from an environment of domestic violence, or you're you know, on the scene of a sexual assault and and you were a victim of a sexual assault, or whatever it is, we all bring our own past to every present moment. And if you push all of that down because you can't deal with it at the time, if you don't deal with it later, which is where I think the first responder community could do a better job of helping first responders understand this this piece right here, that you have to deal with it at some point, like you have to have healthy ways of processing those emotions. And there are a million different ways to do self-care. Yoga, meditation, journaling, exercise. I think I read somewhere that exercising within so many hours of a stressful event can help to mitigate health concerns and stress-related illnesses over time. Um I think we we just don't we don't check in on people and we don't make sure that they have some healthy mechanism throughout the course of their life or their career. And if you keep burying stuff year after year after year, it's it's gotta it's gonna have an outlet of some sort.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Hmm. Speaking of outlets and recognizing uh that there are things one needs to deal with in one's life, we'll use this as a stepping stone. And there you are hearing Joe Rogan's podcast, and he brings up ayahuasca. So yeah, take it from there.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

Yeah, um, this was probably about two years or so before I retired. I happened to be listening to an episode of the Joe Rogan experience, and he and Graham Hancock were talking about something I had never heard of before. And in fact, when I tried to research it, I had no idea how to spell it and couldn't like the search results were not productive at all until I finally figured out how to spell it. And they were talking about ayahuasca, which is an Amazonian brew, it's a drink, it's a mix of two plants, one of which contains uh DMT, which is a psychedelic compound. And the way that they were talking about it with such reverence almost really kind of challenged what I knew about drugs and set me down a rabbit hole of uh an investigation, I guess, if you will, into psychedelics. And I spent probably I don't know, I mean, I spent a couple of years just doing a deep dive into research documentaries. I read a ton of books, um and on all psychedelics, not just ayahuasca. Um and the thing that one of the things that drew me to it the most were the first hand accounts from veterans who had found healing from PTSD and things that they had experienced um in their time in in the service. And I kept coming back to ayahuasca, I just couldn't, I don't know what it was. I felt very drawn to it. Um and ultimately decided that it was something that I wanted to experience. Um and I was in the process of trying to research places in South America where I could go uh after I retired when I I learned of a church in Florida, an ayahuasca church in Florida, and so I joined that church and um I started on a journey that I never expected to be on.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Speaking of joining the church, uh elaborate a bit on that. We'll deviate slightly for a moment so listeners understand how this wasn't just some um, how can I put this? Um this wasn't just some capricious decision uh because of your own misgivings about religion.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

Yeah, I wanted no part of organized religion. Um in fact, I'd spent most of my life disavowing organized religion. I I grew up uh in a Mormon household, which I'm which I'm grateful for. I I feel like it gave me a good moral compass. Um but it also gave me just a bad taste for religion. And it, you know, it felt like something, as a young woman, it felt like something that wasn't a choice, and I've never been very good at being told what to do or what to think or what to believe. Um always been, I think, pretty independent thinker, much to the dismay probably of my parents. Um so when I graduated from high school, uh ironically, I ended up at a small Christian college, but mainly for the reason that it was uh it was affordable, then it was a work study college, so I was able to work my way through without needing student loans. So um, but I had spent my life not wanting any part of organized religion, but I always felt that there was a higher power. I mean, I had a I would have characterized myself as a lot of people as spiritual but not religious, but I didn't have any real spiritual practice. I was drawn to spiritual places anytime I had a chance throughout my career traveling. Um, if there were places of spiritual significance across any religion, you know, be it uh Jerusalem or Stonehenge, Petrob, um any any ancient, you know, site where there were ties to a religion, and the older the better I was drawn to those places, but I didn't have a I didn't have a spiritual practice.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

Now tell us about this church that you ended up joining.

SPEAKER_00 54:03

Yeah, so I joined uh a church called Central Espiritualista Luz do Vegetal. It's a Brazilian church, the headquarters is in Brazil, and they use ayahuasca as a sacrament to connect to the divine. And the first time that I went, I did I did have some misgivings, like uh okay, I don't know, this is a church, and it's a cult, it's a cult. Yeah, you know, I despite all my research, I still was like, I don't know. Um, but I just uh the ayahuasca was I I couldn't shake it. Um so I went, but the first time that I went, I had no reaction to it. Um I drank five cups, which is more than double of what usually happens in a ceremony. Most people drink one or maybe two. Um and I it didn't, I had no reaction to it. And I very dejected and not understanding why I hadn't had any kind of a connection. And I sought out the facilitator after the ceremony, and I said, I don't understand, you know, why this didn't work. And I remember he asked me, Do you smoke a lot of marijuana? And I said, uh, I've never smoked marijuana. Uh, because I guess marijuana can can block the yes, how it, you know, how it works in the in the brain, it can have an adverse effect and keep it from um from working. So anyway, I said, no, uh, I've never, in fact, never smoked marijuana. And then he asked me what I did for work, and I said, Well, I, you know, recently retired from law enforcement, and he just kind of got this look, like, yeah. Um, and proceeded to tell me, like, that's this is not uncommon. Like, we see this a lot um in first responders and veterans and people coming from intelligence circles. And he said, You sp you spend so much time over your career building all of these barricades in your mind. And in order for ayahuasca to work in your in your spirit, in your psyche, you have to surrender to it. You have to allow yourself to be vulnerable. And I had not, I had not done done that. You know, I'm in a group of 20 strangers coming out of a career where I didn't even sit with my back to the door in a restaurant thinking that I'm just gonna go and be completely vulnerable when my ego was not about to let that happen. So I really kind of had to go back to the, you know, think about what it was that I wanted out of this and whether or not I was really willing to kind of surrender myself to it. And I went back a couple months later and I did a three-day retreat. So I did three, excuse me, three ceremonies over the course of three days, and the walls started to come down.

SPEAKER_01 57:20

Speaking of vulnerability, briefly, do you think vulnerability undermines being an effective leader? No, can someone you know expose themselves, hold themselves out there? You know, in some cases you could say maybe it's too much information, TMI, right? But that perhaps they do this to show others I'm willing to put myself out there, which means you can too. It's all right, it's a safe space. Uh, because a lot of people argue that you know you open up, it's a sign of weakness, right?

SPEAKER_00 57:58

Yeah, and that's certainly uh I think a commonly held belief in the field that I I think humanity could do with a little more vulnerability.

SPEAKER_01 58:09

Um returning to the ceremony, obviously, uh, and and your book reveals so much. It it's a very organized process. You actually had to undergo a particular diet, uh, refrain from a variety of activities uh before partaking in this. So this isn't just getting together with a bunch of individuals and going on a uh you know mental cosmic trip. Uh address some misconceptions that uh you have found people have of the church and of this particular ceremony, and that ayahuasca is not a cure, it's a catalyst for healing.

SPEAKER_00 58:51

Yeah, no, it's a great question. Thank you for that. Um well, number one, I would I would say that recreational is not a word that belongs in the same sentence with ayahuasca, uh, unless it's ayahuasca is not recreational. Um it's it's probably it is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. It it's a very it's not for everyone. Um as you said, it's uh it's not a quick fix, it's not a it's not a one-and-done. It's a tool that allows your if you're if you're willing to let it it allows you to get your ego out of the way so that you can see yourself without all of the excuses that our egos make for us. It's like looking in a mirror, um with just with with no filters. And it's it's not an easy thing to do. You have to be willing and ready to see that and to not only accept it, but to take responsibility for it. You know, you mentioned the book is uh, I forget the word you use, but it's a bit raw. I mean, it's um, you know, I I talk about things in the book that I never told anyone, things that are embarrassing.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

Um I wouldn't I understand why you use that word, but please don't say embarrassing. So, no, not embarrassing at all. You are being completely candid in your book, honest. Uh, and again, for the listeners, there there is much there, and I would highly recommend it. And there are aspects of it I don't want to touch upon because I find it would dishonor the book. Uh, and people need to discover that if they are really interested in your story. Uh, but please don't use the word embarrassing.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:59

Um thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:01

Sure. Um, so we lost our train of thought. Removing the ego, no excuses.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

Yeah, um it's I it's it's hard to it's hard to describe. I mean uh hopefully I've done that job in the the book, but the thing I'd like people to take away from the conversation is it's a tool among many. The most important thing I think in the community, uh and not just first responders, I mean you could you could add to the list of people who experience some sort of trauma on the job a whole cadre of other professions, teachers, healthcare workers, social workers, lawyers, anyone that interacts with people in their moments of vulnerability experiences human suffering. Um and all of that requires some level of self-care. Um, what that looks like is different for everyone. I found my way to ayahuasca, and I don't think that that's a mistake. I think I I think there's a reason when I heard that podcast that I could not get that out of my head, and that that led me on a very deep dive into the into research that challenged what I thought I knew about these compounds and these plants, and ultimately led me to uh, you know, a decision in that investigation that I didn't believe everything that I had been taught, um, and that I was gonna see for myself. And I did. And that led me on an investigation into myself, um, which maybe is the most important investigation that I ever conducted, and also maybe the toughest uh to really turn that investigative eye inward. Uh it's not an easy thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

Um at this time, you are now in a uh in a relationship, a committed relationship, um, and it was someone who is deeply supportive of you, yet you went into this particular journey of addressing um the events in your life. There was a certain fear how this might affect your relationship, the discoveries you would make. Uh, I'm gonna read a couple of excerpts. Um and I and I think this is uh this can carry over to however anyone I think um deals with issues in their life, whether they choose ayahuasca or it's through professional counseling or you know, whatever it is, uh undertaking a new activity, because everybody chooses a different path, right? Um, so you had stated, what if I grow? And she doesn't. That can happen, but it's no reason not to grow. If two people become less compatible when only one grows, that is just the way it is. And then subsequently, you stated, sometimes life isn't about finding someone who shares your passions, it's about recognizing the person who shows up for you when it matters most. What could be more sacred than someone who protects you even from yourself? So share with us the the impact, the fears, and then uh how you grew with your partner as you undertook this process of uh ayahuasca and healing.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:06

Yeah, initially, initially, I think my wife thought I was a little bit crazy when I when I started my investigation into psychedelics. Um but she also saw that uh you know I was doing my due diligence, I was doing a lot of research, and by the time I'd made a decision that it was something that I was gonna pursue, it's I think she was comfortable with the fact that I had um uh yeah, had done the the research. Um, and so she was supportive, knowing that I had that it wasn't just a you know, uh I don't know, uh a not well thought out plan. And even though it's not something that she would consider doing, she has no interest in it whatsoever. Despite that, she's been very supportive of it and very supportive of the journey. And I I've changed a lot, I I think in the in the last two years. Like I'm um and in some ways that are probably frustrating. Like I'm I'm you know, I'm probably almost too easygoing in some in some ways now. I just I was not a lot that upsets me. Um so I don't know, maybe that gets uh can be a little frustrating, probably, but um no, she's been super supportive and has been there the entire uh the entire journey. Um I couldn't um I couldn't have asked for a more supportive partner.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:56

She she may have questioned initially what you were doing, but she was never judging you. Is that what I'm hearing?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:03

Yes, yeah, that's a that's a good way to phrase it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

Because again, as you say, you know, she was protecting you from yourself just in case this would not be a a good path to go down. Um and she at the same time was dealing uh with her own issue that y'all had discovered she had cancer, right? Correct.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:29

Yeah. So one of the one of the things that changed for me quite a bit when I started on this journey with ayahuasca, though it wasn't something that I would have characterized as a problem necessarily. I now in hindsight see it as a problem was my my use of alcohol. Um I used alcohol in a way that wasn't wasn't healthy and in excess. Um and it's through my journey with ayahuasca, I completely lost my desire for alcohol. I I can't even if I wanted to have a a drink so far, it it turns my stomach. I just have no no desire for it whatsoever. And you know, our social lives were largely, I shouldn't say largely built around alcohol, but you know, you go out with friends or you go to happy hours or you go to dinner with people, and drinking is just kind of part of the the social fabric. Um and as I as my desire for alcohol waned, I worried that that might impact our um our relationship. Um and then we found out that my wife had colon cancer and it had to have surgery to have a tumor removed, and part of the guidance that she got from the medical staff was to limit intake of alcohol because it's not it, it's apparently become a uh I don't know if epidemic is the right word, but colon cancer among young people, especially in their 40s, has skyrocketed, and they're not apparently really sure what the cause of that is, but it's uh alcohol is one of the things that is being looked at as potentially contributing factor, and so the recommendation is to reduce intake of alcohol, and so it just kind of happened that she also doesn't drink uh you know near nearly as much um as we did before, and you know, I had worried that we would grow apart as our interest and habits grew apart, and we ended up in the same place, even though we were on different paths.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:07

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:07

And she is a hundred percent cancer free. At the we just did another round of test, and she's uh there's no evidence that it's come back.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

So excellent. I'm I'm happy to hear that, as I'm sure both of y'all are as well. Uh let's go celebrate, let's go have a drink. Um, right. Tell us about your vision for that property in the Ozarks and uh what you would like to realize with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:38

Yeah, so I have some property um in the Ozark Mountains uh that I I bought right before I started with DS. Well, I bought a couple of pieces over the years, but I started having dreams of uh property there 20 something years ago. And um I've got a bit of an Airbnb business right now. I've got a little cabin and a glamp site, and I've just nearly finished construction, still a few things to do on a new building, and I'm building it with the hope of hosting retreats for first responders, wellness retreats on that property, and um building it with that in mind, probably a couple of years out from being able to realize that. Um, excuse me, just in terms of being able to be there enough to to host the retreats and and oversee them. But that's that's my goal. Um I don't know what that looks like yet, uh, you know, but um like I said, there's a million different ways to to find healing and just recognizing the need and having space to do it, to talk about it, to process it, to um learn skills of resiliency.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:03

Well, it sounds it sounds like you are coming back full circle to that alternate universe of becoming a counselor of some sort.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:12

It does, it does, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:14

Yeah. Um as we come to a close here, from your perspective, what responsibility do institutions have to address long-term trauma of its personnel?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:31

Yeah, that's the million-dollar question. Um I think it starts with awareness and recognition that people who serve these institutions for the better parts of their lives, in some cases, you know, 20 plus years, um, are leaving with a lot of invisible wounds. There's a reason that you can retire from these jobs after 20 years. You know, the the fact that you can retire after 20 years is an admission that there's a lot of stress and that the job takes a toll. But then there's no often no recognition of that. Um, so it's a bit ironic, you know, that you can leave early because it's super stressful.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:26

But well, to address perhaps any naysayers in the audience, well, there is recognition of it. There are programs and there are professionals. Uh, I think what we're getting to here is there's no recognition at a cultural level. Would that be fair?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:45

Yeah, I think I mean I think so. And it's the veterans have made a lot of uh uh um headway in awareness for mental health, largely because uh the suicide rates among veterans. I don't know that a lot of people know the suicide rates among first responders are close, um, definitely higher than the general public.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:14

What does meaningful healing look like in your eyes?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:25

Um what does meaningful healing look like in my eyes? I'm not sure I know how to answer that. I think it's different. I think it's different for everybody. Um I think being able to just find your way back to being happy and recognizing that the things that have happened perhaps over the course of a career have weighed on you, and that that's okay. You know, I mean the first thing is just to accept that all the things we see, all the human suffering affects you as a human being. It it affects you. How can it not? And that's okay. There's that's there's nothing wrong with that. Um, being a little bit vulnerable and admitting that there's a need for healing is the first step. And then how do you how do you heal? What does that look like for you? Because we owe that to our families and to the public, and it it shouldn't just be after we retire, it should be throughout the entire course of a career, so that we're being the best version of ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:50

Borrowing one last excerpt from your book, everyone must stand at their own crossroads and choose their own path. Any any last thoughts that you would uh like to leave with listeners?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:06

Um Well, kind of what I kind of what I just said, I think, just uh um just to recognize that it's okay to need to heal and to find and to find a way to do that that works for you. Um and for and for me, I would just say that what I'm finding so much satisfaction in now is trying to figure out how to give back to the community that I loved. So I'm retired from law enforcement, but I love that community and I see now the need for healing. Um, and if I can be even a small part of helping people find healing, or even just helping them recognize that there's a need to heal, then that's um I don't know, that's giving me a lot of joy.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:23

Kimmy, thank you for sharing your experiences and observations to our listeners. Thank you for sharing uh joining us on Brungart Laws Lang Yat, where we provide a little extra perspective because the devil is always in the details. Please invite others to listen, let us know what you think, and make sure you get a copy of From the Badge to the Vine A Journey Through Duty, trauma, and healing. Kimmy, again, gratitude.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:49

Thank you, Maurice. Thanks for having me on. I've enjoyed the conversation.