In today's episode, we chat with Duane France.  Duane is a retired Army Combat Veteran who has become a leader in veteran mental health both in Colorado and the country.  Today he shares with us how he went from multiple deployments in combat zones to the counseling chair and national conferences. 

In the episode Duane and Tim chat about a few resources:

Duane's Site: www.veteranmentalhealth.com

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Younger

https://www.amazon.com/Tribe-Homecoming-Belonging-Sebastian-Junger-ebook/dp/B01BCJDSNI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548776097&sr=8-1&keywords=tribe+homecoming+and+belonging

https://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_junger_our_lonely_society_makes_it_hard_to_come_home_from_war?language=en

Duane's Article on Seeking Serendipity: Paying Attention to Beneficial Chance

http://veteranmentalhealth.com/serendipity/

And Duane's Book:

http://veteranmentalhealth.com/books/

For many of us, holidays can be hard.  From the outside, it seems like everyone is celebrating.  In an effort to not be reminded of hard times and to not ruin other's celebrations, we pull back and isolate ourselves.  Tim's experiences on his birthdays made it hard for him to celebrate.  He shares the painful stories that caused him to pull back from the people wanting to celebrate him and how he overcomes his pain to join his loved ones in celebrating his life.

Ben Obrien is a father, friend, and person in the world.  He has also been a Fire Fighter and EMT for over two decades and has recently built a coaching business helping men develop the skills needed to meet and beat their personal goals.  In this episode, Ben shares his story and struggles of joining the fire service, finding his needs for connection ran deeper than his work, and how he incorporated the strength of his Bi-Polar diagnosis into his toolbox to build the connections he needs for a full life.  For more information about Ben, visit his website: https://www.bentonobrien.com/

Major life choices are difficult because they matter.  Most folks getting out of the military to find themselves having to make major choices about what to do, where to live, and who they want to connect with.  In this story, Tim shares how his transition out of the Air Force went and what those choices led to.

Mindfulness Master, Chris Griffin came on to share his story of growing up as an Irish Catholic, moving from music to business, to counseling and how he blends those experiences into his successful life.  In this episode, you will learn a lot about mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy, and how Chris used those skills to improve his life and the lives of his clients.

For more about Chris, go to:

www.griffincounselingct.com

To hear more from him and others on Mindfulness, check out his podcast Mindful Matters:

http://mindfulmatters.libsyn.com/

In our thirteenth episode, Tim picks up from our seventh episode to sharing his lessons gained supporting survivors of sexual assault and his training on Bystander Intervention.  With the MeToo movement encouraging survivors to share their stories with loved ones, many of us are struggling to hold the pain and learn how to help protect our loved ones.  We hope this story starts to give some guidance on how to help the survivors in your life.

We are so lucky to have John Marx with us for this episode.  John has a lifetime of service, 23 years as a police officer in Colorado who now works as an educator and advocate for the responder community.  I know him from our work in ResponderStrong, an organization here in Colorado trying to coordinate and develop resources for first responders in Colorado.  He shares his story on burn out, trauma, and how he's leveraged his experiences to empower the responder community to be stronger, healthy, and effective.

 For more about John and his organization Cops Alive,  go to http://www.copsalive.com/

 You can find his book Armor Your Self at: https://armoryourself.com/

 For a way to connect with John and his team for education or speaking, events go to:

 http://lawenforcementsurvivalinstitute.org/index.html

 To learn more about ResponderStrong, the organization John and I are working with, go to: https://responderstrong.org/

We spoke about many resources, leaders, and books in the episode.  The one that I would recommend above the others is Angela Duckworth's "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance" 

In this episode, Tim shares his story of settling into his new life in Denver at 19.  Coming from the stress of his family, learning to just be a student came slowly, but it helped him learn how to enjoy stability and how to leave space for happiness.

Jeff and I chat about how he knew he wanted to work with children, how fatherhood has impacted him, and how we often see fathers struggle in our work.  If you’re in the Denver area and are looking for a therapist for your child, Jeff is a great resource.  Here is his website: http://www.jeffsilvermanlpcc.com/

He also mentions Love and Logic.  This is a program and book that many family therapists use to help parents.  It is one of the most popular programs for a reason.  Here is a link to more information about it: https://www.loveandlogic.com/   There are books, seminars, and therapist programs.

In our 9th episode, I share the story of coming back to Denver after college.  This was a dark time in my life because, like many folks, college did not lead to the future I had planned on.  I came back to find my friends moving on, a job market choked with other over-educated and under-qualified folks like myself, and a lack of purpose that I couldn't shake.  My fear of failure and loneliness allowed me to fight my depression and start listening to friends to begin my next steps.  Sometimes, fear is a great motivator.

Rick Blodgett, a friend from my college days, is switching careers into the helping profession.  He will not be in practice for a few years as he's in the middle of his degree program, but he shared a great insight into life.  We had a lot of fun reminiscing about our college days, our insights looking back now, and share some tools to fight the sadness that creeps in on all of us.

Find out more about Rick here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickblodgett/

In episode 7, I tell the story of how a getting furious at an overwhelmed woman trying to take on a prolific problem got me involved in fighting for survivors of sexual violence and how that same anger almost betrayed the moral imperative that empowered my work.

I recorded this on my brother's birthday because what better way to let him know I care than to share embarrassing stories from our youth.  In this story, you'll hear about how we grew up, the ways we cared for each other, and about what it took for me to see my brother as a man.  I hope you enjoy.

Izzy Abbass, a man who has spent his entire adult life either in uniform or advocating for our servicemembers, comes on and shares how his first experience serving with a female soldier impacted him as a young infantryman.  

Picking up where he left off in Episode 3, Tim finishes his story about Air Force Basic Training.  He shares the surprising role he found cleaning toilets and how important it can be to find your role in a group.  After settling into my new world at Basic Training, I was surprised to find both peace and purpose while scrubbing toilets.  Additionally, finding a way to pay back my fellow Airmen for getting hurt and out of shape self through basic reminded me how much I like teaching. 

I tried and tried to put a solid story together about my experience at basic in under 20 minutes and couldn't do it, so here's our first two-part episode.  After graduating from the U, I had a hard time sorting out what I was going to do and who I was going to be.  After a few years, I decided to join the United States Air Force at 27 years old.  I knew it was going to be a challenge, so I did a bit of researched and talked to friends who had served before signing the dotted line.  Even will that knowledge I came pretty close to failing to learn how to be an Airman because I came very close to thinking my college education made me better than the Airmen around me.   Take a listen to the whole story above.

Back in 2002, I looked great on paper and people generally thought I was doing everything right for a first-time college student.  As most of us know, those struggling learn to hide their problems and I was no different.  I was unable to be alone for any significant amount of time and I had just lost my main supporters to a work move.  To fill the space, I tried jumping into the LGBTIAQ community as a Cis, heterosexual, guy.  While this led to some successful allyship, it did not meet my needs or address my problems.  Distraction and avoidance can work for a long time, but in my experience problems catch up eventually and I found how limited I am taking care of others when I am unable to care for myself.  Take a listen to the whole story above. 

Tim tells a story about his first attempt to get involved in social justice.  Like most first tries, it did not go entirely as planned.

Stories and Lessons is a podcast where Timothy Wienecke shares personal stories from his life and collects stories from other people in the helping fields.  These stories are chosen to be entertaining and normalizing.  For more information about Tim and his guests, please visit www.empoweredchangece.com