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Resilience Development in Action
Discover practical resilience strategies that transform lives. Join Steve Bisson, licensed mental health counselor, as he guides first responders, leaders, and trauma survivors through actionable insights for mental wellness and professional growth.
Each week, dive deep into real conversations about grief processing, trauma recovery, and leadership development. Whether you're a first responder facing daily challenges, a leader navigating high-pressure situations, or someone on their healing journey, this podcast delivers the tools and strategies you need to build lasting resilience.
With over 20 years of mental health counseling experience, Steve brings authentic, professional expertise to every episode, making complex mental health concepts accessible and applicable to real-world situations.
Featured topics include:
• Practical resilience building strategies
• First responder mental wellness
• Trauma recovery and healing
• Leadership development
• Grief processing
• Professional growth
• Mental health insights
• Help you on your healing journey
Each week, join our community towards better mental health and turn your challenges into opportunities for growth with Resilience Development in Action.
Resilience Development in Action
E.216 Building Resilience as First Responder Couples: Lessons from Dustin and Ashley Wright
What happens when a police sergeant and a therapist build a life together? Dustin and Ashley Wright open up about their 13-year journey as a first responder couple in this vulnerable and insightful conversation that challenges conventional thinking about trauma, communication, and resilience.
The conversation takes an unexpected turn when Dustin shares how a seemingly routine cardiac arrest call triggered a trauma response that affected his intimate relationship with Ashley. This powerful revelation highlights how personal associations can make any incident potentially traumatic for first responders, regardless of its apparent severity. Even more surprising is Ashley's admission that despite her clinical training, she missed the signs of her husband's struggle – demonstrating how skilled first responders can become at compartmentalizing their experiences.
Together, they unpack practical communication strategies that have helped them navigate the unique challenges of first responder life. From establishing code words for difficult days to creating intentional decompression time, the Wrights offer actionable insights for couples facing similar struggles. They emphasize building communication habits during normal times that create pathways for vulnerable conversation when crises occur.
The discussion expands beyond their marriage to explore how community support and spiritual practice form essential pillars of their resilience strategy. Dustin describes his involvement with BRAVE (Building Relationships Among Veterans and Emergency Responders), while Ashley highlights her network of first responder spouses who provide understanding and encouragement. Their message is clear: no one builds resilience alone.
Whether you're a first responder, the partner of one, or simply interested in strengthening your relationship through difficult times, this conversation offers both practical wisdom and emotional reassurance. The Wrights' willingness to share their personal journey provides a powerful testament to the possibility of thriving, not just surviving, as a first responder family. Listen now to discover how vulnerability, community, and intentional communication can transform your approach to life's inevitable challenges.
To reach Ashley or Dustin, please go to http://www.valorcounselingcenter.com
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Welcome to Resilience Development in Action, where strength meets strategy and courage to help you move forward. Each week, your host, steve Bisson, a therapist with over two decades of experience in the first responder community, brings you powerful conversations about resilience, growth and healing through trauma and grief. Through authentic interviews, expert discussions and real-world experiences, we dive deep into the heart of human resilience. We explore crucial topics like trauma recovery, grief processing, stress management and emotional well-being. This is Resilience Development in Action with Steve Bisson.
Speaker 2:Well, hi everyone and welcome to Episode 216.
Speaker 2:If you haven't listened to Episode 215 yet, go back and listen. It's a conclusion of episode 212 with Lee Povey. It was really good. I hope you go back and listen. But episode 216, which will also be episode 217, I'm planning to do a pretty long interview is with Dustin and Ashley Wright.
Speaker 2:Dustin and Ashley Wright are the proud owners of the Valor Counseling Center, a private counseling practice focused on working with first responders in Holly Springs, north Carolina. Dustin is a police sergeant and has been in the field for over 16 years and has assisted in areas such as SWAT, community service supervisor, as well as patrolling. He also started Wright training and consulting to help families and business better prepare for threats. Ashley is a licensed counselor and supervisor and specializes in trauma response, wellness and building a team with clinicians. We're passionate about helping our heroes in the community. Both have been married for 13 years together and they've been together for 15 years. They have three children and two dogs. I don't know why they get outnumbered like that, but that's life and they love traveling together as a family and they are fans of the Ohio State Buckeyes and they are passionate about growing in their faith in Christ, alongside their church family, looking forward to talking to them.
Speaker 2:And here's the interview GetFreeai you heard me talk about it. I'm gonna keep on talking about it because I love it. I've had about a year and a half 18 months practice with it and I still enjoy it and it saves me time and it saves me energy. Freeai takes your note, makes a trans and what you're talking about a client just press record, and it does either energy. Freedai takes your note, makes a transcript of what you're talking with a client, just press record, and it does either transcript, it does a subjective and an objective, with a letter if needed for your client and for whoever might need it. So, for $99 a month, it saves me so much time that it's worthwhile. And if you do it for a whole year, guess what? You get 10% off. More importantly, this is what you got to remember because you are my audience that listens to resilience development in action. If you do listen to this and you want to use freeai, put in the code Steve50 in the promo code area Steve50, and you will get $50 off in addition to everything we just talked about. Get freed from writing your notes. Get freed from even writing your transcripts. Use that to your advantage. Freeai, a great service. Go to getfreeai and you will get one of the best services. That will save you time and money, and I highly encourage you to do so, and I highly encourage you to do so.
Speaker 2:Well, hi everyone and welcome to episode 216. You know, sometimes you ask for guests, and the reason why is that. I think that sometimes I get offered all these weird guests that want to talk about stuff that's not related to first responder stuff and while I respect what they do, I'm done getting you know talking about certain things, and one of the first people to respond to me is one of our guests and she talked about her husband being a first respondent. I'm like, hey, bring him on too, and he's done this before, so it's not like I'm doing anything special, unfortunately, I thought I was like being innovative or some shit. But anyway, ashley and Dustin Wright, welcome to Resilience Development in Action.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having us.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it. You know, I got to know you a little bit pre-interview. I looked up some of the stuff we exchanged, but my audience doesn't know who you are, so it might be helpful for you guys to do a quick intro of each other. So go ahead, I'll go with. We'll start with Ashley, since she's the one who responded to me first.
Speaker 3:Well, hi, thanks for having us.
Speaker 3:My name's Ashley, like Steve said, and yeah, we've been married a little over 12 years now, going on 13. And I am a clinician in North Carolina, around Raleigh, a little outside of Raleigh. I own a first responder therapy practice and we work with all first responders as well as their spouses, family members, people that are connected to first responders in any sort of way, and we opened our practice about three years ago because we saw a need and we wanted to offer a space for responders to not only come and feel safe and like it was a trusted place for them to share and open up and kind of fight the stigma of mental health, but also for their family members to feel supported and encouraged, because we know firsthand what that feels like to have good community and resources and the things we need. So we opened that practice. It's been going great and we have three children that are 10, eight and six and two dogs, and so life is busy, but we are very thankful and blessed and grateful to be here. So that's a little bit about me.
Speaker 4:You definitely had me go first, Steve.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, Follow that up. Well, I was going to start off with one of the most I've done a few like I've done 200 episodes plus, obviously, One of the episodes I got the most reaction was when I talked to Cindy Doyle, talked about couples, and I got so many personal messages from that, Like finally someone recognizing the stress on the families. So, yeah, you got to follow up with this, Dustin, you're behind the eight ball already, because that's really important and I always. You know I'm going to have a follow up question later about why did you decide to be outnumbered by your kids, but that probably is not relevant right now. Go ahead, Dustin, introduce yourself.
Speaker 4:Yes, I'm Dustin. I have been a police officer going on 16 years now, currently the rank of sergeant In the policing world. I've done a little bit of everything long time SWAT team member, instructor, field training officer, pretty much you name it. I've done it at some point. Yeah, ashley, summed up the family stuff on the side. I myself go to therapy and really want to break that stigma because it's helped me throughout my career and we'll talk about it. But you know, one of the situations that occurred to me was something that was not that traumatic Like you would look at it and be like, well, how did that affect you? And it did Like it wasn't a you know a gunshot wound, you know a suicide or anything like that, or traumatic infant death. It was a you know a different situation altogether. So seeing the indicators and then how we respond to that with the family is important.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, thank you for being a service to the community. Appreciate you. Number two what I've said to many times and they've heard on my podcast and people who know me say I say this a lot I don't get to decide what trauma is. I don't get to decide that there's a woman a long time ago came in because she saw a dead cat on the side of the road, and I've dealt with a guy who had three blue babies in the same week. Which one is worse? The answer is they're equal because it affected you, and I think that that's the stuff that guys have to start understanding. You know, you kind of piqued my curiosity here when you said it's one thing that happened and shouldn't have been that way and I hate the should word because to me you might as well say shit and swear, but what was? What was the thing that triggered you to go to therapy and decided like, wait a minute, I need to treat this shit Well so it.
Speaker 4:It was affecting my home life, my intimacy with my wife. So long story short, confessing a lot here. But the situation was I got called to a cardiac arrest call where they're investigating. He is pretty much on the line of deceased or not. They're working to bring him back and he's on the Lucas machine, which is the machine that pumps your chest up and down to simulate CPR. It's super violent.
Speaker 4:If you haven't seen it in person, well, I see that. I go outside and one of my officers is interviewing the wife and she says we just had sex, like we had just gotten done being intimate. And then I associated that in my own life with oh my gosh, I'm going to die because of this. And it took me a while to see the indicators. But like during when me and Ashley were being intimate, like my chest would start getting tight and stuff, because I was associating that. So I told my therapist at the time and said, hey, this is going on and we treated it with the MDR. That time was the best fit. And, um, yeah, I had to be open with my spouse about it, cause she didn't have a clue. Um, I mean, but internally it was really affecting me. It was hard on me during that time, so not your normal situation, but yeah, it was traumatic.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I think that that shows the love you have for your wife too, and you didn't want to do that to her, didn't want to do that to yourself and your kids, and so on and so forth. I think we misplayed the death part. If you're afraid of death, that's something you need to address and what I tell people is if you're afraid of that, you're not accepting life, because part of life is we're all going to die Just how it is. I know Sorry, for life is we're all gonna die just how it is. I know sorry for being dark myself, but it's just how I see life. Maybe it's because I turned 50 a couple weeks ago, whatever, uh, but but the point is is it's not about what it was, it's how it affects your life.
Speaker 2:You know, I think one of my first reasons to go to therapy is I had a young child myself and I went to a firefighter who was in, who had just went to his own kids, sids, and it kind of fucked me up and I had to go to therapy for that, among other things. I'm still in therapy daily, not daily, every three weeks, four weeks, depending on how I'm doing, but you know, I was trying to like no, I'm a tough guy. This is different. No, don't be tough guy. No, it's okay. You're allowed to be having moments, and I think that's important. I share that because I tell people the reason why you go to therapy doesn't really matter as long as you're getting some support, and I don't think people understand that. Do you feel like I'm going to turn to you a little bit here, ashley, because you know, as a person in the couple, did you even know that this was on his mind in any way?
Speaker 3:shape or form. That's the interesting thing. You know, part of me was a little bit surprised that I didn't see the indicators. You know one, dustin and I have always had a close relationship and we've communicated, I feel like, pretty well over the years we're best friends and so I didn't see the indicators. He hid it very well and, being a therapist, I didn't even see it.
Speaker 3:So, like Dustin said, for a long time I was not really aware and there were times when it would kind of slowly come up in conversation. But eventually he got to a place where he did share with me what they had worked on in therapy and and that was hard but it was also very healing for our relationship. For him to be so vulnerable with me about intimacy in general is vulnerable, but for him to bring this up and for us to talk about it and in a very gentle and non-shaming way brought us closer together and so I was really grateful for that, that it did eventually come up. Like you just said, steve, like going to therapy, the fact that you're going and just talking is huge and that taking that step is really important and it really does go a long way.
Speaker 2:And I think that one of the walls that I want to also talk about with particularly first responders. I've had more than once someone come in who was like fix me, I'm sorry he's the spouse and couldn't fucking read his mind.
Speaker 2:How am I going to read minds when someone sits there and goes, fix me? I'm sorry, the magic wand's upstairs, I'll have to go get it some other time, but right now let's talk, and I want part of the breaking the barriers is not only and talk about intimacy. You know, I think that one of the things that I find people struggle the most is to talk about intimacy. I mean, you're a therapist. I'm sure that you see people come to you and like have a little sex problem? He like, why are you laughing? Let's fucking talk about it.
Speaker 2:Um, and I think that there's one of those barriers and I'll turn to both of you on that question, because I feel that first responders are particularly that's their virility and who they are, and if they can't be, like performing their whatever, and I think that plays a factor in that image, bullshit image, whatever you want to call it and you can correct me if I'm wrong there, dustin, but I don't know whoever wants to answer it Both of you, how did you know, as a couple, having that conversation? How helpful was it? And do you feel that it's a cultural thing also, dustin?
Speaker 4:I think, especially in law enforcement, you have this alpha type, right Like I go to work, I control the scenes, I control what goes on, and then you come home and especially if you haven't gotten out of that role, you have that same expectation hey, honey, it's time to have sex, you know like so I'll turn it over to her. But I think there's a expectations and communication that need to be shared. You know what's the expectation and am I communicating my needs? But I'll let you finish up from your side.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, I think that's that's very true. And you know I think I go back to that vulnerability piece Intimacy is very important and I think a lot of times for a lot of couples, and especially in first responder couples, because the stress levels are so high, you know, that can feel like a little bit more of a demand or pressure on the relationship. And so you know you add in all the other things that happen in marriage that are hard. It can be difficult, but we have not by any means or in any way figured it out. I don't think any couple ever does. But we've both kind of decided at some point early on in our marriage that we're committed and we're going to continue to talk and try to figure it out and support each other so that we're both feeling heard. And I know easier said than done, we can say that all day long. In the moment when you're in conflict you tend to push each other away. But I think that's, you know, something that has been really helpful and valuable to us to not give up.
Speaker 2:And I think that what you just said is absolutely like. I like what you said about having that open lines of communication. It's hard to talk about a lot of stuff and then, when you take the job in consideration, like you're, you're a problem solver, you're a therapist in your professional life and you're a problem solver in your job, and so for you to be both problem solvers but not willing to bring up the problem is sometimes one of those things that you see in couples. That's a little bit of what I wanted to talk about too, because these day-to-day stressors happen in a relationship. You're outnumbered by three kids and two dogs. That's just how it is, but you need to talk about that, while maybe you had.
Speaker 2:You know, if you're a therapist, I've heard about a lot of trauma stuff that I go home and go oh, that was heavy, and you go to a scene and I've done those two as a mental health counselor. Never been a police officer, never wanted to steal away from what people do no, because some people like get weird about that shit, but as a mental health counselor, went to scenes and you know, you see a guy jump in front of a car, in front from uh, you know, believe me, I've seen those too. I go home and your daughter goes let's go play. I don't want to fucking play right now. So I think that it's. How do you deal with these day to day stressors? Particularly when there's a crisis, there's a stressor that's probably unique on that day. It's not every day, obviously, we hear this stuff, but how do you guys deal with that? That's for both of you. I'd like to hear both your answers.
Speaker 4:I know one of the things we try to do and I think this is important is having, like, planning and preparation beforehand. I can't come home and drop the most traumatic thing on my wife for the day if we haven't talked about the small stuff the other days. So, starting now planning coming home and hey, can I talk to you about this? Can I share with you what occurred today home? And hey, can I talk to you about this? Can I share with you what occurred today? And that way there's some understanding there that when you come home and go, hey, I witnessed this big thing today, you know, and you don't have to be super detailed like, but hey, I saw, like you just mentioned, like I saw a guy jump in front of a car and it was horrific. Right, you don't have to go, well, their bones were sticking out, but you can share with her.
Speaker 4:Hey, this occurred. This is, this is what's going on in me. From your standpoint might be a little bit different, but I think you and you, you feel connected to me, and then, over communication versus under communication, for any first responder that's gone to a scene, you'd rather know way more than way less. You'd rather know way more than way less. And I don't think there's anything wrong with over communicating in a relationship throughout the day or throughout, you know, the week, to help with those stressors. So you understand, hey, it's not out of the blue when you bring up. Hey, this occurred and I have something going on with it, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I would just add to that too. I think that sometimes, like Dustin said, you might have a small trauma, a big trauma, whatever happens in the day. We all the time have kids running around and so it's really hard sometimes to be able to really open up. And so even those simple messages of hey, today was rough, can we talk about it later? Or hey, I just need that decompression time, you know, those are indicators to me as a spouse, and it goes both ways, cause I talked to a lot of responders, like you were saying, steve. You know I hear a lot, so I get more of the secondary trauma, and so there are things that I have to do to let Dustin know sometimes, like, hey, I just need a minute because I took in a lot and, um, I need to somehow release this.
Speaker 3:I, a police psychologist out in California, dr Sherilyn Lee, she said one time you know you drink a lot, at some point you need to pee. And I love that because I thought, wow, responders absolutely drink a lot and they're kind of used to it. At some point they do need to pee. And it very much happens, I think, in marriage too, where we take in a lot just day to day and doesn't mean we need to pee on each other, but we do need to release it somehow in an appropriate way. Support each other, yeah.
Speaker 2:Or you'll pee on each other, but anyway, and if you're into that, that's fine. No judgment, but the point is, is we don't know they're into that, just for the audience.
Speaker 2:But you know one of the points that you made. There's a few things that you said. I mean, I my girlfriend knows on Tuesdays it's my long day and I typically have my first responder group at seven o'clock. Well, my girlfriend knows that there's days where I'm like, are you okay? Yeah, I don't want to talk, and she gets it, she doesn't go. Oh my God, like why don't you know? Cause there's days I just don't want to talk and there's days where I'm like, yeah, I want to open up about X, y, z, because it was a tough day, and she listens and it's important. And I want to note something that you said earlier, dustin, that I will slightly disagree with you. That's not over communication, that's simple communication, because you got to be able to like I had a tough call today and as a therapist, you know this line too, I'm sure.
Speaker 4:But the line that I use is do you want support or do you want a solution?
Speaker 2:And then even in a couple that's important, to say you want me to solve this or you want me to just listen. And sometimes you don't want to be going solving problems, sometimes you just want to talk about it. There's difficult stuff you just you know no one's going to solve, you just want to talk about. You know there's. There's difficult stuff. You just you know no one's going to solve, you just want to talk about it. And actually being open about that part of communication is so important because you know you get home I don't know what shift you work on. What shift are you on, dustin?
Speaker 4:Currently I have a pretty cake schedule. I'm in a specialty unit so I work Tuesday through Friday eight to six. So I come home, kids run out, um. But if I text her and go, hey, you know I need a few minutes, you know I need to come in and just hang out in the bedroom.
Speaker 2:She understands that because I've communicated that ahead of time and there's no you know questions. So yeah, I mean, if you have a, you know, but it's also you know. You get home at six, 30 and at seven o'clock you got to be at a soccer game or ballet or and I'm not trying to push any sport or anything, I'm just putting out different things you might be able to like listen. Can I just take 10 minutes to just wipe my brain?
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:And that's important, or or I don't need that time let's go, go, go, and that's fine too. But communication, communication, that's the day-to-day schedule. Children, keep you so busy.
Speaker 4:I mean, yeah, and even if it's not a sport thing, they just hey, I got a. I got a six-year-old little boy. Daddy, you go wrestle me. Daddy, we play catch. Daddy, you know, I mean, all he wants is boy time. And then my girls, they, they want to just love and hug on, daddy, you know. Um, so, like, even if it's not sports, you know, I want to be a good dad. I want, when they grow up, I want them to remember hey, my dad was there for me. So you know, it's all these things trying to balance and what's where's the priority? And sometimes the priority needs to be on me when I come home, you know, and just understanding that for a little bit, Am I a bad dad for that? No, you know, because the end goal is, hey, I take 15 minutes now to myself and then I can go and be with them.
Speaker 3:So yeah, and I would add to that too. I was thinking, you know something that we've learned and again, our children are still fairly young. But I think just in our community we've had a lot of conversations with other responder families, marriages, connections and that's been such a blessing to us to have that community to connect with people whose kids are older, who you know, maybe they're headed towards retirement and so they're just different season of life and so when you have littles, when they're in diapers and bottles and all the things, I mean it's really just controlled chaos. You're just trying to stay afloat most of the time and survive, and especially if you have two working parents, which most of the time that is the case these days that can get really stressful easily. And so something that's been really helpful for us is prioritizing our relationship. Faith is important to us, so we prioritize that piece first, and then each other and then our children, and we do do the sports things, but we've always just set a boundary you can each do one thing at a time, because there's three of you and we don't want to be gone every night, and when daddy's on night shift or whatnot, I don't want to be doing it by myself. That's stressful for me and we have a lot of family and help. But there are different seasons with your children. But knowing your know which is Boundaries 101 in counseling you know that is extremely important for you to be on the same page and be that team together.
Speaker 3:Dustin has the privilege of going on a missions trip in two-ish weeks to Ecuador for 10 days.
Speaker 3:Ecuador for 10 days and I don't want to steal his thunder but it's an amazing opportunity because he gets to work with police officers down there and train them and share the gospel and do just a lot of work with them a sniper course. And we have to plan and prepare for that because I'm going to be a single parent for 10 days. So I need my tribe, I need my other responder families tribe, I need my other responder families, our personal family. We have to be prepared so that he has a great time and then we're okay at home and it's about serving one another and again making that a priority in our relationship so that, like Dustin said earlier, when things get hard, when the crap hits the fan and it has definitely hit the fan at times in marriage, in the police department, in our friends who are in the fire department stations. You know when the crap hits the fan, we're not thrown off. It's like you know. This is terrible, this is a tragedy, but we have been grounded and united and prepared for these moments.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we have things in place to kind of be ready for that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's two things that brought you brought up that I absolutely adore. Number one the the faith and having some sort of spiritual life. I personally, as a Buddhist, very open about it and in podcast I'm I'm open to every help like, like spiritual life, religion, because as long as it doesn't harm people, it's good, and I think that people underestimate the importance of good faith, not only as a you know first responder or in the counseling world, but in general. Having that faith is important. I think that you mentioned that and I want to say that out loud, because going to going to church or going to you know I'm blanking right now but any type of spiritual place, there's a sense of community that you cannot replace and which brings me to the second part. You know, going to church in the past for police officers meant you're going to alter and have alcohol, but going to a community of supportive mental health first responders who understand all this stuff is so important, whether they're in the retirement, their first year, their 12th year and everywhere in between. Having that support system and seeing it as such, so that you know, as you know as a therapist and I know, as you know as a police officer how many people have solved their problems on their own Not very many, I don't know of anyone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so having that community, instead of like sitting there and not communicating to the police officer, the firefighter, the paramedic, the EMT, the dispatcher, you got to be able to have that conversation. It doesn't mean you break down and cry in the middle of this, like working, but you kind of go hey, you know, that was a rough call. And if someone says, oh, I found it easy, doesn't mean you need to be shamed like, oh, no, I just found the call tough myself. And being able to communicate that, and and most of the guys will respond in a very supportive way like, oh, you know shit, you know shit, let's, let's go, let's go, let's go in the other room, let's take a take. You know, take 15, go, you know, go, go somewhere. And I think that that's what I tell people is that the biggest way to for trauma to win is silence, you know, and the best way for trauma to die and just be acute stress disorder is talking about it openly.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's what you're talking about, and maybe I'm paraphrasing what you just said, but that's truly how I feel is I couldn't do it without the support I have in my life.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think. One thing I want to add there is around a group of like-minded people. So my small group, a faith-based small group, is called, called BRAVE, building Relationships Among Veterans and Emergency Responders, and they get it right, they get the humor, they get the differences. We have firefighters, law enforcement, military, and just last week we had a guy come in and said, hey, I'm struggling, and you know how many hands went up and said, yeah, I've been there, let's work on this To feel that inside, like, hey, it's not just me, cause that's what we tend to do. Right, we go inside and we go, oh, nobody else can help me with this. They don't know what I'm going through. When you start getting that, like you said, isolation, and then nothing gets, gets changed, whereas if you go and you share it with the group, you know of close, trustworthy people that understand it, you're going to get some solutions, you're going to get help. Even if somebody just sends you a text to say thinking about you today, let me know if you need anything.
Speaker 2:It's one of those things. Before you go on, I want to hear your point, but this is something I hate hearing. My first responders are chronically wrong. When they say this, they're like oh, you know what? I'm really screwed up today. I don't think I'm going to come into therapy. What that's more screwed up. What you just said Show up because you're screwed up. Don't wait till you're more screwed up. I didn't think about it that way. So, like, like minded people very important. Yeah sorry to interrupt Ashley.
Speaker 3:No, I was gonna say I love what you said about talking the vulnerability. I know that's kind of been coming up throughout this whole podcast Because I see it as a therapist. We see it from a faith based perspective that Satan loves shame and he loves isolation and he loves when we don't bring things up, when we don't talk about it. And we can look at COVID as a perfect example the amount of isolation and the chaos there and where people were really struggling and because they didn't have community, and so we've all had that collective trauma together and that's a good example of this. And so certainly in the responder world, that is a huge part to being able to continue to build resiliency, build into even your marriage.
Speaker 3:I think about Dustin has his group.
Speaker 3:I have a women's group and we're spouses and there's a couple of women in the group who are spouses and sworn officers and there's a couple of women in the group who are spouses and sworn officers. And you know it's so special because it's not a vent group but it's an opportunity, like Dustin's group, to encourage and hear and share and I feel like when I have that I can show up and in our marriage better and I feel like I've been able to process some things with some women that I trust that understand the responder world or the spousal world of a responder. And then you know, like the thing I mentioned earlier, dustin being in Ecuador coming up, I have these women in my life where, if something comes up, I can call any of them and I know that they get it and they understand and so, like Dustin said, like-minded individuals to encourage and care and support, and that goes such a long way, not just in marriage, even as a single person, I would say you know, everybody needs community, so that's, that's huge.
Speaker 2:You talk about resiliency. I think resiliency comes in groups. No one's resilient only on their own. You know resilience, development and action, I tell people. Development means you always have to work on it. Yes, I'm a pretty resilient person but unfortunately, because of my job, because of the work I've done, whether it's in jails or in the community with the first responder world sometimes, like seeing a dead cat on the road might screw me up.
Speaker 2:And that doesn't make me strong or better or worse, it just makes me human. And having that community like-minded community, as you said, and knowing that you'll never make it on your own, no one does is very important. And whether it is God, it is Jesus, it is Allah, it is Buddha, it is whoever, I don't really care personally. But having that sense of community, like-minded people who know that they're not going to do it on their own and if you ever find me someone who did it completely on their own, I'm very interested because I'd love to study them, but I don't believe that for one second.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yes, yeah, really important.
Speaker 2:So we talked about resiliency, which is you know, I love that word, obviously what's the key to building resiliency, not only as a couple, but as a human, and why? What? What need? Why do we need to build resiliency? Why can I just say you know what? I've held the community, I've been a therapist for 25 years. Why is it so important to continue to develop that resiliency?
Speaker 3:Well, I can start. I feel like, for me, resiliency that word really didn't come to my mind, honestly, until about, I would say, 2020, somewhere around early COVID time. There was a book that my counselor had told me about. It's called Resilient. It's by John Elridge and it was so fantastic and he talks about. He offers a pause app, which I highly recommend to anyone, but it's essentially like mindfulness and teaches you about what it truly means to build resiliency and more in a spiritual sense, if you will, and so that was instrumental for me to learn that and to practice that and just gain some better skills around.
Speaker 3:What does it mean for me to kind of live in this world of? The crap is going to hit the fan, life is going to happen. There's going to be hardship, pain is inevitable, like you know the things that we all know, and especially in responder world. As a spouse, I know that my husband has seen way more evil than the average person, and so acknowledging that part and then, at the same time, being able to find peace, you know what does that mean? What does that look like? To hold both things at the same time? And so we've all heard the quote, the saying you know, pain is inevitable, but the struggle is manageable. There's ways to manage this, and I think about that.
Speaker 3:I think about resiliency as an opportunity, and it's not something that comes overnight, but it's something that you build into and, for our marriage specifically, something that Dustin and I have been really intentional about. Again, we don't have it down, we fail all the time, but it humbles us and it spurs us and it teaches us to keep going, or whatnot. But something that we have found that has been helpful is learning to invest in our relationship and study each other, and part of that studying is one taking a step back and acknowledging myself as an individual. You know where do I struggle, where do I need to improve, what do I need to change? Because there's always something. And so acknowledging that and humbling myself and being vulnerable with Dustin about hey, please forgive me, because this part of my life I'm not really great at like one thing that comes to mind is I, for some reason, I'm never early to anything, and Dustin is very different in that way, and so and it drives him crazy, but I like to use every moment, every minute, and so it's something that I've had to be mindful of and work on and show up better. And that's just a small example, but I work on myself.
Speaker 3:And then in our marriage we have told ourselves hey, what does it mean to study each other? You know, we are constantly changing and growing and learning about each other. That should never stop. And so if I'm really investing in our marriage in that way, I'm I'm essentially saying, hey, I'm going to prioritize you. You're important to me After God, you're next in line and I want to serve you with my whole heart in the best way. I want to show up in our marriage, and so when I do that, the kids are better, my work is better, life just is easier. And who doesn't want that? So that's what I would say.
Speaker 2:Well, at this point we need to stop, not because it's not interesting, but because it is. We're going to see part two in the next episode, so come back for episode 217.
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