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lisinfleur · 4 years

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T&T - Chapter 14: Hallowed Be Thy Name

Author’s Notes | Crutch... step... step... crutch - Thank you @youbloodymadgenius for this amazing particle of this chapter! (I could never think of Ivar's arrival without this perfect description of its sound!). By the way, I would like to warn again this is a HEAVY chapter. One of the heaviest I've ever written. Thanks to @honestsycrets as well by the historic/biblical references and for helping me with the whole development of this chapter since I was stuck on how to write it! Words | 3211 ⁑ Warnings: Christian quotes. HEAVY violence, mentions of blood, woman's humiliation, archaic punishment, vengeance, religious mocking. Caution is recommended: potentially triggering content! Keep in mind that the characters' concepts and opinions are NOT inherent to the author!

Crows were sent to communicate their queens the victory was reached and to tell Atli to bring Iliana with him towards Kattegat - Ivar would be consecrated one of the kings in his homelands and he wanted his own people to receive their new queen and know their prince once Kattegat would be the second capital of his domains and center of the lands he would divide with Hvitserk's crown, now about to become heavier. The whole domain the Rus had taken from their hands was now under them both and would be properly centered in order to allow the proper government: the biggest part of Norway would be under Hvitserk's crown, Ivar would remain at Brynjar's lands, and Kattegat would be center, part of both kingdoms, a safe base, and commerce center for both of the crowns and, later on, for the English settlement Hvitserk intended to contact in order to connect their people and all the lands that were conquered by Scandinavian hands.

The celebration of victory took the whole night, but Ivar didn't take real part on it - the last time, he got drunk, but this time, the king remained sober, looking at the sky through the windows of the hall, waiting anxiously for the time to complete his vengeance.

"Sun won't come faster with her chariot just because you want to honor her with your sobriety, brother," Hvitserk mocked.

But Ivar didn't take another sip, holding the horn anyway, but keeping his eyes at the sky outside.

"She won't. But I'm not sober as a sacrifice for her, brother. I want to be here. Completely here. Completely conscious when it happens."

Hvitserk sat beside Ivar's throne - something he remembered doing just a few times when they were together for the last time.

"She turned your mind upside down," he remembered, sipping from his horn.

His mind at the times when his little brother would laugh and feast as the pain was eating his heart and anger poisoning his mind. Hvitserk could still remember sweet Thora. Poor mad Margrethe... Those were wounds he would never have healed in his heart, he knew that. Wounds caused by an ego his brother cultivated.

An ego fed up by that woman; that blonde cockatoo shrunk on the corner of the celebration, crying low as if she had any right for the mercy her lips were pleading the whole night.

"She did. But I gave her doors to enter. Ways to mess up everything inside my brain, my heart. I don't blame her for the monster I became, Hvitserk. But I blame her for the treason... I blame her for setting me a trap. She's a viper. And like a viper, she shall be eliminated." Ivar said.

Icy blues over Katya's figure now.

"What do you intend to do about her?" Hvitserk asked, curious.

"Do you remember Heahmund, Hvitserk?" Ivar answered.

And Hvitserk scoffed, getting up almost instantly, annoyed by the mere remembrance of that bishop he wanted so bad to be the one to kill.

"We spoke a lot about his god," Ivar continued, knowing on Hvitserk's body language that he remembered the bishop very well. "The Christian god and his stories. I've learned a lot about how they say their false god is merciful, kind, able to perform tricks they call miracles..."

"Where are you trying to go with this conversation, Ivar?" Hvitserk asked, now really annoyed with that mention.

He'd heard Ubbe was baptized despite seeing his faith in the old gods was still the same; his own father was touched by those false words. Was his little brother falling for them as well?

"Chill, little brother," Ivar answered, patting Hvitserk's shoulder. "I don't believe a single word of the stories Heahmund told me."

His words tranquilized Hvitserk's heart and his eyes followed Ivar's finger when he pointed Katya on the corner of the hall.

"But she does," Ivar said, catching Hvitserk's attention and increasing his curiosity. "You see... I'm a curious man, like our father once was. But I like to see more than listen to stories, my brother. And I've heard the Christians had spread their stories around our people, forcefully converting and baptizing some of our villagers, pushing some of our countrymen into their false customs. I think..." Ivar made a small pause, looking at Hvitserk and getting his brother's eyes into his own. "I think it’s a good time to show our fellowmen what lies did the Rus bring into our people; to purge this false god out of our lands as I did with his followers."

Hvitserk's expression changed, touched by the malice of the mischievous tone of Ivar's voice.

"What are you planning, Ivar?"

"I wanna make a bet with their false god, brother," Ivar said, sipping from his cup and smiling at Hvitserk before straightening his back at the throne, sounding even more imposing than before. "Let's see if he can fulfill his promises of salvation."

Hvitserk smirked. But his curiosity wouldn't have to wait too long: Sun was about to be born and as soon as the sky started to stain the darkness of the night with the red and orange tones of the dawn, Ivar got up, calling everyone's attention.

"Open the Hall!" he ordered, speaking as the doors were slowly opened for the people outside - the people of Kattegat who were celebrating their former princes' return outside. "And bring me the queen!"

Ivar's potent voice called Katya's attention as every pair of eyes in that great hall was turned towards her.

Her chest filled itself with fear and her eyes were pouring panic in profusion when Ivar's men took her from the pole she was tied to, dragging her carelessly towards the center of the hall.

She tried to get up as Ivar walked towards her with his slow pace.

Crutch... step... step... crutch... The sound of terror slowly flowing through her veins until her worst nightmare was standing in front of her.

The devil itself was smiling at her on Hvitserk's face. Legions of demons surrounding her. Katya swallowed dry. Oleg was dead, her men were dead or gone. She was alone in the wolves' lair.

A lamb for the sacrifice.

She raised her eyes to find Ivar's icy blues injected with something she couldn't really identify. It was a mixture of anger, betrayal, and cruelty she didn't have too long to analyze before he started speaking.

"The woman I loved..." Ivar mumbled, almost as if there wasn't anyone in the hall but the two of them. "The one I raised from slavery into my bed, to stand as a queen by my side."

"Ivar..." She tried to start something.

But Ivar ignored her attempt, running over her voice as if she was nothing but a fly buzzing around his ear.

"Dead and buried by your despicable smile."

Ivar's voice finally gained the tone she was expecting: anger. That anger she knew was buried inside that man's heart and would pour now, strong as a river she expected to see drowning her quick and painlessly.

But Ivar's daggers never reached her neck as Katya expected. Instead, his fingers touched her face tenderly, almost as he was used to doing when she was his queen, and hopes of forgiveness crossed Katya's mind. Maybe he would forgive her crimes. Maybe he could at least let her live.

His fingers slid through her skin and she closed her eyes, swallowing dry once again, allowing Ivar to feel her throat moving against his fingers before he could reach the golden cross in her chest, touching and lifting it for Katya's biggest despair.

For a moment, she wished she had forgiven to put that cross on the last morning.

"The Christian god," Ivar mumbled.

And Katya felt as he pulled the cross against her neck, hurting her nape when the necklace broke against her sensitive skin.

Ivar lifted the cross, showing the object to the hall, speaking to the people around - many of them already wearing one like that.

An order she could remember Oleg had settled not far from that day.

"I've heard many stories of this god... The one whose son was crucified to save the whole humanity from its sins. The merciful savior of mankind," Ivar repeated the words he remembered hearing from Heahmund's mouth about his god. "I've heard stories from his book... One of his priests told me himself that this son of god could perform these... Miracles..." he continued, with a mocking tone full of doubt and contempt, stronger in some strategical words. "Things like healing the blind... The cripple!" Ivar pointed his own legs and Hvitserk scoffed from his position, sitting on the arm of Kattegat's throne with rolling eyes and an expression full of that Christian bullshit Ivar just had started speaking and was already hitting his balls.

"Well," Ivar continued, with Katya and the people's attentive eyes over his speech. "I remember hearing the people of this Christian god used to throw stones on adulterous women. Isn't it right, queen Katya?"

Katya's body became cold like the snow from her homelands in the deepest winter. Her stomach dropped down her belly and she was sure she would throw up if there were something inside her to be forced outside. She swallowed dry once again, feeling tears filling her eye lines, and yet, she nodded, trembling when Ivar smiled at her positive answer, continuing his tenebrous speech.

"I knew I've heard right," he boasted, smiling at the people around and keeping the pace of his story. "I've heard as well, from the priest I'd mentioned, that this... Christ... Even saved one of these whores from being stoned by her people. What were his words, queen Katya? He, who is without sin, cast the first stone, right?"

Katya felt the warm drop slide through her cheek as she nodded again, confirming what Ivar said. Then the second one came, and the third. Soon her cheeks were cut by lines of salty tears of a silent despair that was eating her inside at Ivar's every word.

"Perfect! It's good to see my memory is still in a perfect state. Thank you, queen Katya," Ivar mocked, smiling once again with a small debauched reverence of his head before turning himself to his people once again. "I've heard there are people among my fellowmen who believe in this... New god..." his voice made a small pause full of contempt before he started speaking once again. "You see... The fair people of Kattegat know my family from its core. You all know my father was a curious man and I'm not far from him: the apple tree wouldn't give us a peach, right?" he giggled.

And with him, the whole bunch of men and women around, interested in the new king's speech. Even Hvitserk straightened himself, interested and curious about what bet was his brother talking about earlier at the party.

"Like my father, I like to bet with fate and see by myself the things I hear that exist. You see, my fellowmen, I do not believe in this Christian god or his stories. But who am I to question the gods, right? I've seen Odin by myself, with my bare eyes, and yet, their priest said my gods didn't exist. So, I'm here to give this merciful savior a chance to show himself in front of my eyes... Since I cannot ask him personally to heal my legs as a gift, for a joke I'll ask him to repeat a simpler action his followers insist on spreading like a good proof of his mercy. Here, my friends, is a whore."

Ivar's hand stretched itself towards Katya who looked at the people inside the hall, men and women, some laughing at the way Ivar was introducing her to them. Her crying face stared by many curious and interested pair of eyes as if she was some kind of attraction for their entertainment.

"She may be dressed as a queen, but do not fool yourselves, my brothers," Ivar said, standing behind Katya, causing her shivers to become colder when his hands touched her shoulders. "It's still a whore, whether dressed in noble cloth..."

His fingers gripped the tissue of her dress and Ivar pulled it down, tearing the upper coverage of her clothes, ripping the sleeves apart along with the embroidery, turning the dress into rags that barely could keep Katya's breasts covered.

"Or rags," he continued, with his hands running her skirt, ruining the cloth, ripping and tearing until she was covered with nothing but the remains of what was once a beautiful golden dress.

"Still a whore, whether covered in gold," Ivar continued.

His fingers now pulling her jewels, hurting her ears when tearing off the earrings from them, causing her little squeals of fear when his rough hands pulled the rings from her fingers, throwing the whole bunch of golden pieces towards the crowd.

"Or wearing nothing but her skin," he completed.

And then his eyes acquired a devilish tone when his hand held Katya's braid, pulling her back in a squeak, lifting the long hair to expose it and pull it away from her neck as his other hand pulled a dagger from his belt.

"A whore, my friends," he continued, cruel. "Whether dressing her most beautiful face or naked even from her beauty."

His heavy words preceded the terrifying sensation of his dagger sliding so close to Katya's head as Ivar cut every strand of her hair, unevenly, carelessly, throwing the braid of golden strands on the ground, causing the lines of tears at the queen's cheeks to become thicker as the sobs started to engulfing Katya's breath.

Hvitserk's eyes watched that scene silent as he was chewing carelessly on an apple he stole from beside the throne. It was yet little... Too little, he knew. In Ivar's place? He wouldn't be doing differently with a woman who did what that naked cockatoo did to his brother.

With a small walk forward, Ivar continued, looking at his people with a pompous tone as if he was indeed challenging god himself, despite not believing anyone was really listening to that theater other than his own gods - Loki proud of his mischievous performance, by the way.

"Every man, child, and woman that can come into the hall pick up a stone and open the way to our gates," he ordered.

And it was done: the people started picking up stones on the ground and moving inside and away from the doors, opening a clear path from the throne stage to the principal gates. A distance Katya knew she could run in a few moments if she was quick enough.

Ivar's icy blues turned towards her one more time, but he kept speaking to the people around as Hvitserk got up, picking up a stone himself to go down and stand near the crowd wanting to participate on that game.

"I don't know how much do you believe in your god, dear queen Katya, but I'm up to see if your faith is worthy of my attention: My people, who as long as I know is without sin, shall cast the stones against you, the whore. If you can reach the gates of my Hall, I shall set you free. I'll give you a horse and your weight in silver. And I'll accept your god is real and trustworthy, enough for me to allow his faith to come into this town."

Hvitserk giggled again, in contempt. But Ivar continued - a big smile in his face crowning the theatrical performance he was conducting with his arms open and voice out loud so everyone in the hall could hear his little speech and bet.

"If you fall before reaching the gates, then I'll prove your faith worth nothing but the dimes I'll spend to buy every single cross in this town from my people's hands to melt, clean and fuse into a beautiful ornament to my crutch, so it will serve to always remember everyone in this town who's the man who defied and won the Christian god and proved his existence nothing but a lie."

Katya's eyes stared at the open gates in front of her, but she couldn't miss the faces standing forward, moving and positioning itself at the margins of that small path she would have to cross towards freedom. Men Oleg had enslaved. Women her men had raped with her acceptance. Some had the stones firmly pressed in their clenched fists waiting for the right moment to put on it all the weight of their vengeance for the honor or lives that were stolen from them.

"Whenever you feel ready, dear queen," Ivar mocked her hesitation, smiling at her. "Let's see if your merciful Christ is up to save another whore today."

Some steps back and Ivar could see the smile on Hvitserk's face. He was the first in the queue of the crowd, waiting with hungry eyes for Katya's first steps.

Shyly, she walked to the limit of where the path would start. Her trembling hands gripping the skirt made into shreds. Her eyes contemplated the light of a sunny day outside the door almost as if the sky had opened itself to watch her torment. It was such a little path, not more than thirty steps.

She knew she would never reach those gates.

But what choice did she have? What could she do but beg for God's mercy and try?

Without a warning, she started running towards the doors, causing Hvitserk to miss the moment - along with many others who threw their stones too soon or too late to reach her. But the older prince wasn't stupid and his aim was certain: Hvitserk's stone hit Katya's head and along with the many others that hit her legs, knees, and back, caused her to fall in the middle of the hall, crying under a rain of stones that came from all sides as she crawled towards the gates.

The stones ended before the path. A quarter of it stained in a trail of blood left by her broken body, bruised and parted in many places. The open wounds pouring her life Katya could feel escaping as fast as her hopes to do more than brush her fingers near the last steps before the gates.

In her last moments, the sound of terror came again almost like derision, getting closer as if the fear of its approaching wasn't completely gone now.

Crutch... step... step... crutch... step... step... crutch. Katya's blurred vision still allowed her to see when Ivar hanged the necklace with her cross from his fingers, looking down on her as if she was nothing but cattle at his feet.

"A stone for a whore. A dime for a lie. Bring me your crosses, Kattegat. Odin's sons are ruling these lands once more."

He let her necklace fall by her side and stepped on it when walking outside. Crutch... step... step... crutch - the feared sound was going away now.

Along with all the other sounds.

Along with all the light.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Katya's mind died out without an answer.

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#history vikings #imagine vikings #ivar #ivar the boneless #ivar imagine #ivar x OC #ivar ragnarsson #ivar lothbrok #ivar's heathen army #sister wives #T&T

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bmared · 4 years

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Forgiveness.

To some, it's the literal definition.

To me, it meant letting someone have their way with whatever they want.

After a long, difficult battle, the shark themed villain, dubbed "Placoi" by the media, seemed to disappear into thin air.

"Damn it, she always seems to get away, doesnt she?" My young ward, Overcharge, asked.

I only nodded in agreement, but the smile on my face showed nothing but absolute joy. I could barely contain my excitement, and it took all my effort not to squeal with joy, like my mild mannered alter ego would. After months of battling, and racking up millions of dollars in damages, we were so close to stopping her.

Back in our lair, on a remote island, I'm taking off my super suit, when my phone gets a call.

"Miss Mabry," it's my assistant. "You have an appointment in twenty. Get here on time or I'm removing your coffee priviledges."

"Okay, Piper, I-" I was cut off.

"You have a caller ma'am. Someone named 'Alyssa Dukes'? D'you want me to patch her through?" Piper asked.

I rubbed my temples. Fifth time today I've had a random caller. It better not be a marketer.

The call goes through and I hear on the opposite end,"Hello? Is this Miss Mabry?" The voice is very familiar.

"Yes this is, how can I help you?" I answer with confusion.

The caller, Alyssa, replies,"We need to talk about your work ethic. You, almost catching me, again? Hahaha."

A chill goes down my spine. "How, in the hell, did you find out?"

"Tracker." She replies. "You use a tracker on all your shit to keep track of it. Last week, a prototype coffee machine went missing from one of your stores. Unfortunately, the chip wore out after an hour. Fortunately, I was able to mimic the signal with my own piece of crap hardware, and what do i find? Miss Alyx Mabry is "Shark Match"? I mean, c'mon. Give me a little credit."

"What happens now?" I ask.

"Now, nothing. But a week from now, you'll know. And, dont worry. I wont share your secret as long as your secretary deletes this audio as soon as you've finished tracking my signal. Come alone. I'll be there by myself."

The call ends, and I have a location.

"Ma'am?" Piper asks.

"I guess I'm losing coffee priviledge, huh?"

"Same cover?" She prompts.

"No, tell them I just didn't want to come."

--------------------------------------------------

I get to the site the call led me to, and I find it's an abandoned warehouse on the edge of town. One of mine.

I get inside, and theres a table set up for what looks like dinner. A woman sits at the table with her back to me. I pull out my capture gun and launch a volley at her. It wraps around, and I hear the click telling me its locked in place.

"Oh, tsk tsk tsk. I told you unarmed." I hear from her. "But I guess, seeing as how this isnt technically a 'firearm', it doesnt count."

I approach her, slowly.

"Dont be afraid, sweetheart. If I wanted to hurt you, I would've went after that brat of yours, 'Overcharge'. By the way, what kind of douche calls 'imself 'overcharge'?"

I round the table and sit in the open chair.

"So, why did you call?" I ask, eyeing the spaghetti.

"I didn't poison it, if that's what your wondering." She answers. "And, I called you here because I have a proposition for ya'."

"Not interested" I answer quickly.

"Oh, c'mon. You dont even know what it is."

"Dont need to." I take a bite. I dont care if its poisoned, it tastes delicious. Weird after taste, though.

"Actually, you might wanna. The sleeping pill is gonna take effect soon, what with your heightened metabolism and all."

"Damnit" I bang my head on the table.

"I'm kidding" she says.

She flexes, and the ropes break, and I flinch.

I look up at her, and shes standing next to the table, in a black suit that hugs her curves.

"All I'm asking for is your forgiveness, and I'll stop all my crimes." She says, seriously.

"You arent serious, are you? The public would never allow that! You'd be lucky with life in prison." I yell.

"But what the public doesn't know, wont hurt them." She prompts.

"Huh?"

"Hear me out," she asks," we continue this whole 'pissing contest' in public, I terrorize the citizens, bring what seems like calamity, and you 'stop me'." She says, using air quotes. "During our fights, I'll cause little to no structural damages, I'll keep my zero body count-yes, I've kept track- and I'll put up practically no fight. How does that sound?"

"Like you actually did drug me."I reply with a straight face.

"Whether or not you believe me, or even accept this, it's still gonna happen." She sits back down and takes a bite of bread.

"What even prompted this?" I ask.

"I fell in love, and realized who I love will never accept me the way I am right now." She says.

"Wha?"

"Look, the answers not important. Just know I'll be cutting back on crime time."

"Why couldnt you have just said that?"

"Would you have believed me?"

I take a second.

"Yeah, you're probably right."

--------------------------------------------------

Months later, and she was true to her word. I'd only fought her 12 times, about a third of her original time, and not so much as a scratch was put on the buildings.

During those months, I actually spent time with her, learning her past, trying to understand her. After hearing her story, it was no wonder she did what she did. With parents who acted like that, I woulda snapped. Slowly, ever so slowly, I realized we had a blossoming friendship. I saw a lot -probably too much- of myself in her. We got into a rhythm of after fighting, to sit down and talk.

After the twelfth fight, I finally had the courage to ask, "So, who was this mysterious man you fell in love with?"

She looked at me with a pained look.

"Nevermind that," she waved away the question. "Tell me, is there anyone in your life whose caught your eye?"

"Nuh-uh. You cant turn this on me. I asked you first." I stared her down.

"Fine." She said, breaking eye contact and staring at her lap, where she cradled a cup of tea. "First, before I tell you, you ahve to answer this question."

"It better not be a relationship question."

"Its not." She says. She looks around, closes her eyes, and stares at me, saying, "Do you think anybody can be redeemed? Do you think anyone can get forgiveness for any deed done, barring murder?" She bites her lip in worry.

I shake my head and giggle a little. "You've already asked this, and I said yes."

"I know, I just need to get enough courage to confess to you." She says.

"Wha-?"

She interrupts."I fell in love with you, but because I'm a villain, and you're a hero, I thought I could never tell you that. But, after all this time, I've grown as a person. I've still got some way to go, though."

"I-im flattered that you think that way, but-"

"You're straight, arent you, of course you are, why wouldnt you be. You're literally the perfect woman, and her I am, being a negative influence on everyone. I should've never invited you over, I'm sorry." She runs away, before I could stop her.

I get up and call after her, yelling "Alyssa!" But she either cant hear me, or doesn't want to. I dont panic, though. I cant. My phone starts to ring, and Its my assistant.

"Damnit Piper" I answer. "Now's probably the worst time. What do you want?"

"Its almost time for your speech. And, my names Jannet." She says blankly. Speech? I think to myself.

"Sorry, Jannet. I'm still trying to get used to Piper not being here." Is what I actually say.

"You're the one who promoted her."

I hang up and look towards the door Alyssa ran out. I take a step towards it, when my phone rings with a reminder. I glance at it, it says 'Mayoral inaugural speech'.

I put my phone down, and race towards the other door. I open it, and inside is my suit.

"Well, Shark Match," I say to myself," Time to Come out of the closet so your crush doesn't destroy New Yallk City. Man, sounds like a bad autobiography. Or a fanfiction title.

-------------------------------------------

The Mayor is exactly like you'd imagine him. Slimy and not particularly firm in any ideology that doesn't secure his vote. As a citizen asked to prepare a speech to secure to African American vote, I lost all faith in this man. But today I lost the additional bit of faith I didn't even realize I had. I don't like to keep up with politics, as someone in my line of work shouldn't, so it was a surprise to me when, in the middle of my speech, someone from the paper yelled "Why are you against gay marriage? Is it because of your parents."

"Who said that?" I yell. "I was trying to find some way to put it, but it didnt feel natural until now. It'd be pretty bad for my community if I went against it, now wouldn't it? I didnt even realize this man" I point to the mayor, "thought like that. What, do I need to wear the lesbian flag as a Cape now? Actually, that be awesome."

I shoot one more glare at the mayor, who's sweating by now. "Give him one term. If he doesnt clean up his act by then, I'll run for mayor myself. I'll even reveal myself at that point. Hows that sound?" The crowd cheers.

The dinner afterward was a littel awkward on his end, but only one thought kept going through my head. 'Did Alyssa see?'

----------------------------------------------

It was midnight when I heard my window squeak. I heard footsteps come close to my bed, a piece of paper get placed on my nightstand, and footsteps retreat.

I wait a minute, then get out of bed and turn on a light. The paper says "This friday, Same warehouse, 9pm. Wear something sexy, I need to apologize.

-Signed

Alyssa dukes"

I smile and set the note back down, pleasant thoughts accompanying me to dreamland..

#writing prompt #my own oc #hopefully this isnt that much of garbage #short story #im a terrible writer

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thespearandthecrown · 5 years

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A Whiskey for Her

AN- Hey fam! So this July/August was insane. Now that September is on its way, I will have a bit of free time to work more on some writing. I am about another 5 or 4 more chapters left for The Sheriff and The Soldier, which, I'm super happy to see nearly completed. Dakota and the gang have been at the back of my mind for the past two months demanding that I finish their story. I've also released the first two chapters of my original story about my gay werewolf dweebs on fiction press. If you wanna check that out, as well as my ko-fi page, take a look at my ‘WHERE YOU CAN FIND ME’ tab on this Tumblr. Without any further adieu, have something that has been a warm-up piece I've been working on for the past three years now. I've rewritten this thing like 800 times. Thanks for your support, I hope this fic finds all of you well <3

Vi hated the 'underground' Piltovian technopunk scene. The venues are usually filled with too drunk mid-forty housewives, whose cheating husbands let them loose for a 'girls night out'. It wasn't like the legendary raves of Zaun, where laws or claims of power meant nothing. Where people could get lost in the flashing lights and pounding beats.

That was where the real fun laid.

The number of people she would bring home after a night of dancing most likely broke some kind of record.

But here?

Void's above the only thing she could pick up is some blubbering wife who wants to get back at her husband.

Too much vengeance and drama for one night.

This, however, wasn't the reason why Vi was in such a despicable joint. The 'boys' from the cop shop wanted to get together and tear up the town. They invited Vi, promising good drinks and plenty of women. Rather than declining, she thought that after the last few busts she deserved a night out.

Sadly, this blew ass.

Her coworkers were long gone, either too drunk to stand or too busy dealing with housewives.

Giving up, she took a great sigh and left the establishment feeling fairly bummed out and in the need of some kind of greasy substance.

She didn't walk far before she came up to her favourite pub, the Brass Gauntlet. Humming to herself, she agreed, instantly craving a Bilgewatian sea bass butty, a specialty that this pub was quite famous for.

The reason why she enjoyed this place came in three parts.

One, the food and drink were good, cheap and usually what she needed. Two, it was a wooden establishment with polished down seats and a lovely smiling old bartender that easily held the feeling of welcome warmth. Three, it was quiet and close to work. Sure the room could be filled with patrons, but it could never get any louder then whispered conversations. Usually, after a long day of hearing the sheriff bitch and complain about Vi's work methods, she would come here to destress and breathe.

Tonight, the basement pub had a small handful of patrons. A group clustered together at the far end chatted quietly amongst themselves, sipping their drinks as they nodded along with whoever was telling a story.

At the other end was a sole individual, huddled in their own booth.

Vi practically fainted as she recognized the individual. Not a day in her life did she ever think Sheriff Caitlyn Deramore would ever step foot in a pub of her own free volition.

With curiosity and a few pints fueling her forward, she made her way to the sheriff's table.

The sheriff had her back to the entrance. Her long raven black hair was tied up into a messy bun, revealing her pale swan-like neck. Her purple petticoat had been removed leaving her in her white blouse that seemed a bit to loose around the neck.

"What is a girl like you, doin' in a place like this?" Vi grinned as she stood at the head of the table to face the sheriff head-on.

Caitlyn quirked an eyebrow at the pinkette. Her brilliant ice blue eyes were accentuated by heavy shadows and wire-rimmed reading glasses. As to what Vi expected, her white blouse had two buttons undone, revealing a bit more of her neck and her collarbone. Vi returned the expression with her own raised eyebrow as she witnessed the rolled-up sleeves revealing the tense forearms of the Sheriff. Her right hand twirled the tumbler of whiskey; the single ice cube gently tapping the glass in the movement.

"Doing your paperwork," Caitlyn replied coldly.

Vi's eyes lowered to the small stack of yellowed sheets. In Caitlyn's left hand was a decorative ink pen.

"Ah, shit, sorry Sheriff. What did I do wrong? I honestly thought I got it right this time. I even got Albert to help me out on this one." Vi admitted sheepishly.

The Sheriff gave a great sigh before she took a swig of her whiskey. "It's alright deputy."

"Why here though? Why not at your office?" Vi asked perplexed.

"Because the bullpen is insanely full with that shimmer bust and the captives will not cease their incessant caterwauling of proclaimed innocence." She muttered lowly, taking another long swig of the amber liquid. "It is very quiet here and the whiskey selection is not terrible."

"Mind if I sit wit' ya? Maybe show me where I went wrong?" Vi asked, both hoping the sheriff will say no and yes.

Caitlyn mulled the thought over, watching the liquid in her glass swirl. With a sigh, she nodded toward the bar. "Get me another round then, deputy."

Vi chuckled. "Not a problem. What's your poison, boss?"

"The dragon's breath whiskey from Freljord. One rock, please." Caitlyn replied as she continued the work set before her.

"Coming right up." Vi turned on her heels With mixed emotions curdling her gut.

She wasn't afraid of Caitlyn, nor hated her. She was just so…uptight. Too serious and work-focused. Usually, the day shift crew would go together to the leather boot, a Piltovian warden stomping ground, with expensive prices to accommodate the large salaries of the trained officers. The shift would all go together, have a pint and unwind before going home.

Every time, Caitlyn would decline.

Out of the six months that Vi had been working with her, she didn't see her cut loose once.

And within a weeks time, she should be working more frequently with Caitlyn once she graduated the progressive and special program they implemented to make sure she was ready for the job.

Frankly, Vi was both dreading and too excited to work with this intense woman.

Maybe this could be the kick starter to get to know each other better.

For Vi to properly understand the sheriff and her insane work ethic.

With a quick nod of thanks and an exchange of coins between her and the bartender, Vi walked back with a pint and a whiskey tumbler.

"You have tomorrow off, right?" Vi asked as she passed the glass to Caitlyn's slim dexterous hands.

"Thank you," Caitlyn nodded. "Yes, I have every Sunday off."

Vi seated herself on the bench opposite of Caitlyn. The pinkette observed the tight-lipped exchange as she flipped to the back of a page and scratched on another. Her jawline became tight with annoyance.

"You seem a bit ticked that you have it off." Vi deduced, taking a mouthful of beer.

Caitlyn snorted. "I am indeed 'ticked'. Albert handles the scheduling and insists that I have that day off, rather than allowing me to work on cases."

"Albert is a good guy. Not to pry or anything but do you ever feel like you could amount to him since you're his replacement?"

The sheriff sighed heavily. "Albert was a great Sheriff. The community loved him, the politicians couldn't get enough of him. However, as much as I hate to say it, I do the job better. He has been a great mentor and has really taught me some valuable lessons with the social aspects of being sheriff. He has trained and trusted me to do better than him, and I'm glad I can fulfill his wishes. I just wish the man would properly retire."

"Well obviously his paperwork reviewing could do better." Vi joked gently.

"In all honesty, you didn't do anything wrong. Your handwriting is just despicable and I need to give the mayor this report so he can show our hard work to the council."

"How rude, Sheriff. It's not like I learned how to properly write like six months ago." Vi grinned teasingly. Then a thought crossed her mind, making her eyebrows furrow in concentration. "Why does the council need to see my report?"

"They are putting a lot of resources to use for you. They want proof that you are actually capable of being my partner, let alone a legal protector of the city." Caitlyn explained.

"So you're helping me look good?"

"In those terms, yes. As much as you seem like you are capable of turning in criminals, they want to see you be an officer, a deputy. Not some loose canon vigilante with no respect for the rules. Sure you may be completing that program, but they want to see your training applied to the real world."

Vi snorted loudly, causing the table on the other side of the bar to take a quick peek behind them. "But that's what I am, Sheriff. I'm not here to slap the wrist of some city hooligans. I'm here to stop the real bad guys. The ones who'd take kids, sell the harmful chemical shit, try to bring terror to good innocent people."

Caitlyn observed as Vi balled her fist.

"I'm glad you have faith in me. I'm glad that you are willing to go the extra mile to help me out. But let them see me for what I want to be." She took a long sip of her brew, then placed it down onto the heavy oak table. She tightened her jaw as she focused on her scarred hands holding the pint glass.

In this, Caitlyn observed the brawler before her. She was in her cracked leather jacket, brooding in the raised lapels. She had freshly shaved the side of her head, showing the dark pink roots. The scent of citrus and mint hit her nose as Vi straightened herself to sit upright. Her violet eyes bore into Caitlyn. They blazed with a determination that the sheriff had started to become quite accustomed to.

She had witnessed this determination a multitude of times in the past six months of Vi working with the precinct. It was normally accompanied by loud snarled curses and frustrated yells. It was smashing through a wall with a broken collarbone, whilst dodging bullets and protecting the hostage in her grasp. It was spitting in the face of political terrorists who threatened to blow the city to smithereens. It was her staying up all night to help prove the innocence of a street orphan who was facing charges of murder. It was her facing these almost impossible tasks with a crooked grin and a crack of her knuckles.

Caitlyn respected this determination, but she only wished the pinkette would give her on-the-fly plans a bit more thought.

"Why do you do this?" The brawler asked. Her voice was stern and serious. "Why put all of this effort when, no matter what, they're going to throw me out."

The sheriff takes a moment to mull over her statement. The tumbler clinks as she lets the ice and whiskey mingle more and more with each twist of her wrist. "Frankly, I am not quite sure, myself." She admits. "Maybe it’s because I know they can sense the potential in you. I understand your skepticism though; the old guard of the city council can be quite misogynistic. It took them a while to have full faith in me."

Their eyes meet for a moment. Caitlyn can see the gears slowly turn in Vi's head and it made the raven-haired woman curious.

Vi regards the sheriff in a new way. It isn't the usual brush off 'we'll deal with the situation as we go' kind of look that the brawler usually gives her.

Caitlyn can't help the small smile that tugs at her lips. "Be careful, Vi. If I didn't know any better it looks like I just earned some respect from you."

That troublesome smirk that drives the sheriff nearly up the wall, spreads through the pinkette's lips easily. "You should slow down on those Dragon Breaths, Sheriff. I think they're causing you to hallucinate."

They share a small chuckle between themselves.

"I think I like this side of you, Sheriff." Vi drawls as she finishes her drink. She signals to the bartender for another round, and the old smiling man nods.

Caitlyn raises an eyebrow, trying her best to not smile. "Don't get too used to it."

#piltover's finest #vi #caitlyn #cait #vixcaitlyn #vi and caitlyn #league of legends #Nightly Writes #fanfic #fanfiction #whoop #warm up writing

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vvakarians · 6 years

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I need to be honest finally, I can’t just keep glossing over shit. I’m hoping that this helps me find the courage to tell my therapist so I can move on or at least get help in managing things. If you wanna talk to me about it go ahead, but I’m really just making this post because I need to get my feelings out. I’ve had too many spirals recently. It’s also an extremely long post. Warning for: #sexual abuse #emotional manipulation #emotional abuse #mentions of suicide #mentions of an eating disorder

I was emotionally manipulated into believing I needed to be the only emotional support for someone, three times. And if I was not around, things would get worse. It first happened with my mother, if you don’t know the definition of emotional incest: “Covert incest, also known as emotional incest, is a type of abuse in which a parent looks to their child for the emotional support that would be normally provided by another adult” as per wikipedia’s definition. I was in this type of a relationship with my mother for *years*, it doesn’t happen anymore because I have distanced myself from her enough and she has gotten to I hope a healthier point where she doesn’t look to me for this. But as a child I was not allowed to show any emotion unless it was in support of my mother, aka sympathy, empathy, what have you. I was not taught how to control my own emotions, I was shown that things are intense all the time and at the same time I was not allowed to show it. Unless I was sick I could not be upset in any capacity. My father was and is still gone all the time, as a child my mother looked to me for emotional support until it became a horrific problem. My mother could act out, but when I was sad or angry I was told that was bad and I was a bad person for feeling that. Despite my mother being healthier in this aspect, this has fucked me right up to this day.

The second was a girl I met my 7th/8th grade year. She saw someone who was easily to manipulate, easy to capture the attention of and ran with that. I was put in a position where I could only pay attention to her or she would get extremely upset, she pressured me into doing things I was very uncomfortable with and made me believe that all my friends were out to get me. Not only that but she sexually harrassed me (or sexually abused idk really how to word that one) by making me participate in things over RP and once in the middle of the goddamn lunch room made me sit in her lap and she called me her “little jew sl*ve”. When I began self harming she never once was concerned, she was only concerned for herself and how I could fit in to her equation. I still have panic attacks when I see her in pictures, or when I passed her in the hall at one of the highschools I went to, as well as the community college I went to.

The third was someone who I very much believe has no love for anyone, not even themselves. And I am terrified of them, genuinely. Most of you know I have PTSD/C-PTSD, most of this comes from them and my family. They exist on this website, they were able to kick me out of a fandom, and they are a reason I fucking go into a spiral when I think of going to a town 45 minutes away. I met them in 7th grade, they were my best friend until my second half of senior year. Now, I did and said some shit to them I have learned from, and I genuinely apologized for it. They can be mad about what I said in that situation but I have learned and grown from that. This person has severe mental illness, possible psychosis, possible schizophrenia, and for sure anxiety/depression/PTSD from the second person I mentioned. Now, I say that because they knew I have severe anxiety, they knew I had been abused, so they knew they could get in and make me only listen to them, have an obligation to them only because I didn’t want my best friend to be without me. They also knew I wouldn’t fight back even if I panicked during what they did. This person also sexually abused me, despite me being visibly uncomfortable they made me talk about things, their tone was *always* predatory. They eventually revealed to me they had been raped by the second person, and that they would rather not do this anymore. To which I was relieved. While all that shit was going on, they were refusing to get help for supposed auditory and visual hallucinations, they *refused* to get help for severe suicidal intentions with themself. When I was over at their house they used the excuse for their mental illness to tell me horrible things they had seen, while in the dark, with all the windows open and the door unlocked to the patio. In the middle of nowhere on the plains. I was trapped, my parents were 45 minutes to an hour and a half away, and when I told them to stop they would not. I was there to entertain their imagination and illness. I was terrorized for years and had to make sure I listened to ASMR on loop so I didn’t go anxiety crazy. When I was in my second semester of high school they had a break down and told me they had harmed or wanted to harm themselves, that they wanted to die. And I had had it, I was suffering from a terrible eating disorder, I was being openly abused in my house by parents and grandparents. I was being bullied severely at school and was in the middle of trying to get a 504 because my grades were suffering. I was dealing with the fact that I had also been a victim of p*dophilia from a 17 year old when I was 13-14. It was not a matter of listening to them and being there for them. I could do that. But they wanted me to be their therapist and support their habit of staying in this horrible loop of illness. I told them they needed to seek help, they told me not to tell anyone in turn. About *hurting themselves and wanting to die*. So, frustrated and upset I figured it’d be better to have a mad friend than a dead friend. And I reported them. Ofc they got pissed at me, they went out of their way to misinform the people I reported it to that checked on them. Then they made me promise not to say anything a second time. But I did. I reported them a second and final time. That’s when they got diagnosed with possible psychosis and put through therapy and meds. And they were so angry with me. I came to school the next day without any make up on, barely showered, and in my pajamas. I was severely depressed because my best friend was angry with me. I felt like I had done something wrong and my world was shattered. But I told them I was just worried and things seemed to be bumpy but relatively okay.

Cut to a month later and I find out they had poisoned an entire GSA against me and had began to turn a good friend of mine as well. They had told them I reported them and their life was in shambles. I was publicly called out at an event and told I was an asshole and that it was my friends choice to tell people about their problems. This same event, I am now apparently banned from because I was “abusive”. At their college, our only uni, I am banned from any resource or LGBT event that I could use. Because I had the audacity to say “stop, i can’t do this anymore. We have to get better”. I have been violently misgendered, threatened, and told that I was abusive because I didn’t listen and didn’t want to be their therapist anymore. They claim to have PTSD from me. Someone who did nothing but try to get them help. They claim that I instead used them as a therapist. A person that I dropped everything for since I was 12-13 to the age of 17-18. They claim I did everything to them that they did to me. All because I cared. I don’t even want to go to the uni they go to, but the fact that I am supposedly banned for things I didn’t do? For things that were done to me? That is so invalidating. To know that they have this entire fucking narrative in their head that they tell people online? And in the same fandoms I’m in too? I’m terrified.

Idk, it’s just a lot of things that I’m dealing with that I’m still not quite okay about.

Just today I felt that familiar, “I’m a bad person because I’m having a break down and I can’t help someone as much as I want to” all because of all this shit. And that’s not the truth. I can be not okay, I can take a moment to breathe, things will be okay. It’s just a lot to deal with at once.

#quiet #y'all don't have to read this lmao #i just need there to be something here because it happened and i just need to tell someone even if it's an internet void lmao

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gethealthy18-blog · 4 years

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349: How to Be Your Best in High Stress Situations With Former Army Ranger and CIA Agent Jeff Banman

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/349-how-to-be-your-best-in-high-stress-situations-with-former-army-ranger-and-cia-agent-jeff-banman/

349: How to Be Your Best in High Stress Situations With Former Army Ranger and CIA Agent Jeff Banman

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

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Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama Podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and wellnesse.com, my new line of completely natural and safe personal care products that work, as well as conventional alternatives. And in this episode, we’re going to talk all about how to be your best in high-stress situations, which probably a lot of us are experiencing now and over the past few months. I am here with Jeff Banman, who is a former firefighter, US Army Ranger, and CIA Counter-terrorism Operator. And he has dedicated his life to discovering what separates people who are successful from those who aren’t. He’s conducted operations and missions all over the world, including in combat zones and high threat environments. And before you sit and think, “Well, what does that have to do with me?” I have always maintained that parents have a lot in common with special forces and we’re gonna go into that today. In fact, I would put moms up against special forces, at least mentally, quite often, but we’re gonna talk about that and how you can use lessons learned from people who operate in these really high-stress, extreme situations to be better in your own day-to-day life. And Jeff is a parent as well, so we also talk about how to foster this mindset of resilience and strength in your kids from an early age, focusing on what he calls the three Cs of this: comfort, confidence, and creativity. Super fascinating episode and I know that you will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed recording. Jeff, welcome. Thanks for being here.

Jeff: Hey, thanks for having me, Katie. I really appreciate it.

Katie: I am so excited to chat with you because I have listened to a couple of podcast interviews that you’ve done with other podcasts and gained some really useful tips on things we can learn to be our best in high-stress situations. And I feel like modern life certainly has no shortage of high-stress situations these days, especially right now. And so I think this is gonna be a very practical and helpful interview. And for anybody who just heard your bio and is thinking like, “Okay, this guy is amazing. He was a ranger and in the CIA, but what does that have to do with me?” I just wanna preface to all of my parents listening by saying that I actually think I would put moms up against Special Forces in a lot of scenarios. And I’ve joked about this for a long time, but I think there actually are some similarities, not just the joking ones about sleep deprivation which, to my understanding, they actually stopped using as a form of torture but moms still endure.

But just the leadership role of running a family, managing a team, all of the daily challenges that we face and the inability to step back from that as a mom or as someone in combat. You don’t get the option to just walk away and take a vacation. And so I think that there’s a lot of similarities there. And I think that the parents listening can learn a lot from your research and your mindset because of that.

Jeff: Yeah, I appreciate it. I mean, it is. There is a stream that runs through all of us. And for me, I’ve always kind of come to this place where it’s like, it doesn’t really matter what the situation is or whether you’re overseas and doing crazy stuff or running into a burning building or trying to, you know, manage three screaming kids. It’s a matter of fact. I’ve, you know, I will tell on myself. It’s like easier to be in the world than it is to be home some times. So I’m in complete agreement with you that you could take a lot of parents and you could definitely take a lot of moms and you can put them up against some of the ”best of the best” out there and they’d probably come out better on the other end because of the complexities they deal with on a regular basis.

Katie: And I think there was something interesting I learned from you and I’d love to kind of delve into is the idea that hopefully many people listening have never been shot at or been in a really like combat type situation. But from what I’ve heard from you and read from you, the brain doesn’t necessarily know the difference between that type of stress and other types of stress that we encounter daily. Is that right?

Jeff: Yeah. I mean, I think, what we’ve learned over time is the perception of stress is so individualized that you can’t come with, “Oh, they have it harder than I do,” right? You can’t come with this mentality that somehow, you know, but I’m just gonna use the example. Somehow life as a mom trying to run a household and manage kids and do everything they need to do and sometimes probably trying to keep their husband in line or vice versa, or whatever it may be, whoever really kind of runs a household. You know, that that is somehow less stressful or less important or less, whatever than, running into a burning building or chasing bad guys down or operating around the world. It’s not a point of comparison in my book, right? How you perceive and how you process is always so, so individualized.

And so we’ve gotta approach it that way. We’ve gotta give ourselves a little bit of grace to that, you know, and stay away from this, “Well, you know, I only do this.” No, that’s a huge lift every day. That’s a huge accomplishment, a huge task. There’s a lot to that. And, you know, I think sometimes as humans we don’t give ourselves enough credit for what we do and how we do it and the things we have to deal with along the way.

Katie: Yeah, I agree. And there’s a lot of memes and jokes going around in the mom community about like, you know, I kept the tiny humans alive all day. But that speaks to the fact that we have these people who are completely responsible for us, that we do have to keep alive just like in a combat situation and the team is responsible for keeping each other alive and safe. And so our brain, especially as moms, those are very much high stakes, very real world stakes. And so of course, there can be stress that goes with that. I’m curious what you found in your research of what separates those who tend to do well with stress from those who struggle more in such stressful situations.

Jeff: Yeah, it kind of goes into this what I call the operational mindset because of what I do in the community I now serve and what I get to…how I get to contribute now. You know, and I had the opportunity to really dive in and do some deep dive research, look at human behavior in high-stress environments. I tend to say I was doing biofeedback and mindset stuff before they were cool. So you were talking quite some time ago. And, you know, as I began to look at kind of the traits and postures of people, there were three things that I kind of came to and it was very interesting and it came from data and interviews and looking at kind of who, you know, the top 1% of performers in my world.

And you heard it in their language, in their stories and really it came down to three kind of key points. The ability to be highly comfortable in extremely uncomfortable situations, right? And that’s not a model of complacency. That’s like a place of, okay, I’m good and yes, this isn’t maybe a great situation or this is uncomfortable for me, or this is a new experience, or this is just stretching me, but it’s kind of a reminder that me, I’m okay. I’m good here. I can manage this. Which bleeds to the second point around competence, right? So comfort and incompetence. And that’s not arrogance. That’s not like I got this, I can handle that. It’s stepping back to what I call…refer to as like your own power, right? Settling in. Okay. Again, that’s a reminder, I’m good. I can deal with this. I don’t necessarily like it. I don’t necessarily wanna be dealing with this right now, but I’m okay and I have the self-confidence. I’m gonna rely on my own skillset and my own emotional control and my own points of stability to create the competence I need to kind of work through or manage through whatever it may be this kind of high-stress moment in time.

And then the last one is creativity, right? And this is like, I don’t know, but I surely will figure it out. You know, and mothers, I feel like mothers do this far greater than fathers. I’ve watched this, I watched this in myself. They have an instinctive ability to redirect or move or be creative in a moment or find a creative solution. And, you know, that’s one of the key things that I’ve spent years training operators to understand how to bring a unique level of creativity to the environment because nothing is ever gonna go the way we planned it. Nothing is ever gonna happen the way we want it to happen. And if we’re not stepping up our game in that level of flexibility and being adaptive in those situations, you know, then it starts to avalanche, right? It starts the downward slide of I don’t know what to do. No, I don’t know what to do. And then I start beating myself up and then I’m frustrated or I’m anxious for whatever else and I’m not gonna get anywhere at that point in time. So really, the three kind of mastery traits I’ve seen are that comfort, confidence and creativity. That’s what we try to achieve in a lot of ways.

Katie: I love that. That’s so easy to remember and to focus on. Do you have any practical tips for both learning that as adults and then also for fostering that in our kids as a mindset? Because I homeschool my six kids and I’ve basically written my own curriculum because I realized that the school system, I didn’t feel like it was preparing them for whatever the future of technology makes their adult life look like, which would be highly adaptive. And so we focus on core values of creativity and critical thinking and connecting the dots and thinking outside the box so they get rewarded for those things. And so I’ve kind of learned how to do that in a school environment. But I love what you’re saying and I’m curious, how can we as parents learn to do that in the moment when things get stressful and also help impart that to our kids?

Jeff: Yeah, I think, you know, this is Katie, this is always the fun stuff. It feels like there’s a lot of complexity behind some very simple things, right? And so at the end of the day, you know, whether…it doesn’t matter when I’m working with my kids or my, you know, I’ve got a two, I’ve got the gamut of 16, 14 and two and a half. So I went back and did it again, which has been spectacular. We operate very much kind of in the conscious parenting zone in raising the children, pay attention to a lot of things. But at the end of the day, here’s what I feel like we don’t give ourselves or give our kids or give our families a lot of time. And that’s just space.

And so how do we create space, right? The freedom to learn, the space to actually like be present and digest what’s happening. And that to me, the best tool for that is breathing, right? And there’s a million and a half, you know, options for breath work and all kinds of things and different times to use for different things. I always teach people, it’s like, find what works for you. You know, maybe it’s just that four in, four out rhythmic breathing process and maybe it’s 30 seconds, maybe it’s a minute, maybe it’s five minutes, right? But it’s just the breath actually does a couple things for us. It gives us the opportunity to ground ourselves, to anchor in the present moment. You know, you’ll see me, I’ll stick into a breathing cycle and I’ll look around and hear a bird chirp or what’s actually happening now, right? And get hyper present to what’s actually taking place. I’m able to connect with my kids that way, what’s going on for them.

Because when I do that, it settles me, settles them. And then there’s actually this calm space in the environment. My go-to word, and, you know, I say it on my podcast all the time, but I feel like my world, our job and parents’ job is, it’s our commitment to bring calm to chaos. And if we’re not the calm, we’re the chaos. And so that’s like the…that’s the metal check I do, right? And am I creating the chaos or am I the guy bringing the calm to the chaos right now? And so when I use that mental check, I can step back. I can just kind of trigger into an easy float breath cycle and then my energy settles and when my energy settles, everyone else’s energy settles. And then we like, “Okay, what do we need to do now? What’s the next step?” And that has been true, you know, in a burning building, that has been true in combat. That has been true running operations around the world and looking for bad people and all kinds of things. So I feel like that’s like the universal anchor that we can apply.

Katie: Yeah, I love that. That’s such a simple but really, really practical thing we can try. And I feel like another thing that I’ve read or listened to from you is kind of the idea, and you touched on it a little bit, but that people are typically better at handling like direct stressors or things that we identify as stressful or like a lot of people say like, I’m great in crisis mode. And my husband and I even said that like, we’re great in crisis mode, but what’s tough is those little like kind of paper cut annoyances that build up. And I know for moms that’s usually at the end of the day like that 4:00 to 5:00 p.m that’s when the stress hits and you have that just kind of like overwhelming kind of sense of stress and overwhelm. And it’s because of all those little miniature things that have built up all day. So any tips for dealing with that when it’s just kind of nothing huge, nothing massive, nothing cataclysmic, but that like buildup of small annoyances?

Jeff: 100%. So this was probably one of the catalyst points when we were doing research. So we were able to really look at minute shifts in heart rate variability, which is the measurement tool for stress on the system, on the body, right, internally. And we found a very interesting phenomenon. So what we did was we divided up stress into three key categories. So direct stressors, those are things that come at us that we’re kind of prepared for, we train for or we expect to maybe happen throughout the day or throughout the environment. Then we have indirect stressors. Those are things that could happen, but tend to blind side us, right? I often compare it to like you’re driving down the road, you know. Yes, there’s always a possibility being an accident, but you just, somebody just ran a red light while you were in the middle of the intersection totally sideswiped you. You didn’t see it coming. And that’s a level.

And then there’s this third category, which I call indirect or I call satellite or peripheral stresses. These are like annoyance things in the environment. These are I can’t find my keys. These are, you know, the kid stuff the cell phone under the cushion and you can’t find it, right? And what I have found through a variety of things were we watch performance drop minimally a direct and indirect stone, but we watched performance drops significantly when we really ramped up the satellite or peripheral stressors in the environment. And this was very curious to me because we started to see where the inability to recover from small moments in time created what we call the stacking effect.

So literally, it was a nuanced stress, didn’t recover kind of annoyance factor, continued to operate or continue to work. Another one raised the bar, another one raised the bar, another one raised the bar and there was a failure to recover along the way. Or like I talk about being recoverable, like it just exists in you 24/7 where you can actually feel anxiety creep in. You can feel frustration creep in. You can feel the sensation in the body start to build, which is the trigger point to go,”Okay, I need a point of recovery.” And that may be a half a second, you know, behind a piece of cover while you’re getting shot at. And that may be setting the kids in front of the TV for a second and going in the other room and do it, you know, a quick just sit on the bed and okay I’m breathing now and settle down. It could be any number of things, right?

So you have to create what works for you. But really the essence is how well can you recover from the small things and not to let those things compound because it will then result in something significant. You find you almost create the direct stressors yourself down the road if you allow that to just build over time. Does that make sense to you?

Katie: Yeah, that does. That makes total sense. And I can see that in my own life. Just the difference between days when you’d like, you just feel that point and then everything seems just inconquerable at that point. Like you have to cook dinner and it’s the end of the world. And also, it’s a good reminder too, because I think our kids feel that as well. You know, when you have a young child who hits that just complete meltdown point, that’s probably exactly where they are as well. And so remembering, you know, they’re not being a problem, they’re having a problem. And how can we help them go through the same thing and reset, like that’s a great reminder.

Jeff: Yeah. And that’s it, and that triggers back to if you…it can be very easily, like you end up in the chaos without even realizing it sometimes. And that’s the checkpoint. It’s like, wait a minute, I’m actually, I’m being the chaos right now. Maybe and as a parent I’m bringing it cause it is my response. I just read a great book where he talked about energetic consent and so how to be responsible for our own energy in the space and the impact that can have on everyone around us. You know, and I know from my world that was huge. You know, if I’m walking into a high-risk meeting or I’m coming into a space in time, or we’re running a fire or things aren’t going well, how I respond, not just in words but in energy, makes a significant difference in the people around me and it does with my kids, right? How my energy bleeds into the environment is significant.

And so I have to really, you know, I can, you know, lock into command and control Jeff, right? Because that’s just how I’ve lived my life for 35 years. But I have to be really responsible for that and understand and match my energy to the needs of the situation, you know, as it is unfolding rather than fall into the trap of frustration or anxiousness or, you know, whatever it is. And so that’s a… and that’s a daily practice. I mean, I fail at it at least once or twice a day, if not five times. Some days I’m great, some days I’m awful. You know, this is nothing that you’re going to like zen out and be the master of. This is a daily practice of life really.

Katie: Absolutely. And it goes back to something that has been a lifelong journey for me and that I always remind my kids of as well is that we always have the ability to choose our own reaction and our own response. And at least in my own life, I’ve noticed I am infinitely happier to the degree to which I focus on the things that I have the power to change, which is almost often always just my own emotions, my own response, how I’m reacting to any stimulus versus trying to focus on all of the things out of my control that there’s literally no way to impact like current world stuff that’s going on. Or you know, even the behavior of my children. I think a lot of parents, it’s easy to get in that stressful loop of like, why can’t I make them do this? Why won’t they do this? And truly any parent knows.

Jeff: I never do that, Katie. Never do that.

Katie: But you have no control over it, do you? Any parent who thinks they have no control. Try to go to control two-year-old, you know. But going back to that idea that, and I tell my kids all the time, like as a parent that I need to be an example of that, but that also we are all happier to the degree that we focus on that which is in our control. And from a parent as a leader versus kind of like a dictator perspective to touch on conscious parenting, I tell my kids you’ve heard the phrase,”With great power comes great responsibility,” but in our house it’s reversed. It’s “With great responsibility comes great power”. When you take ownership for yourself or the things in your control, that’s when you earn freedom, you earn power because you’re showing that you’re responsible and capable of that.

And I think it’s a lesson for parents as well. And it’s a hard one that certainly it’s not easy to just every day wake up and go, okay, I’m only gonna focus on the things that I can control and I’m gonna stay calm today, obviously. But that’s one tip. It definitely really helps me when I’m able to keep that focus.

Jeff: Well, you know, and the other thing that we find is we are rarely ever present to the conditions, right? We’re rarely here now with what is happening. And, you know, it’s so interesting being able to go back and do this again and watch little man grow up, right, and have this little amazing rad human being running around. You know, he’s not forecasting things. He’s not thinking about, “Oh, am I gonna have playtime this afternoon or what’s the lunch gonna be?” Or, you know what I mean? He has no forward look. It’s all right now. And as parents or as leaders, you know, we get locked into future casting. We just get stuck there and it’s always trying to get somewhere or always trying to go to the next thing. Or, you know, what do I need to prepare for? I need to make sure lunch is set up. I need…it’s always coordination and preparation for something to happen. And rarely do we give ourselves the opportunity to enjoy the moment or be present with what’s going on or be connected to what’s actually happening. And, you know, we get stuck way out.

And so I feel like, you know, and that’s true. Listen, I would have not been successful. There’s times I probably wouldn’t be alive if I had not had the or something or someone bringing me back to what is actually happening right now. And for my world, there is so much freedom in that space when you can actually just calm down and be like where you are with who you are in that moment. There’s like, “Oh, wow.” And just all kinds of new stuff arises. That’s where you get to be comfortable. That’s where you get to be confident. That’s where you get to be creative because you’re actually in it with the people around you and especially your kids.

And I do think that’s a disservice that we create in our children is this future stuff. If we’re always jamming forward, if we’re always like planning and prepping and gotta be this and gotta be that, that’s what they know. That’s what they grow up with. And then so they grow up worrying about like what’s next or later this afternoon or scheduling or this or that. I’m not saying, you know, don’t be coordinated. You can’t, you know, you can’t not be coordinated. You can’t not plan. But being responsible for our own connection to the present moment I think is a game changer for a lot of us.

Katie: I absolutely agree and it surprises me sometimes and fingers pointing at myself as well, but as adult even how hard it is for a lot of people just to be too comfortable, to be quiet. And, you know, there’s all these great books and quotes from all of these philosophers and Stoics about how that’s one of our great works of life is to learn to be just still and how there’s a great book called, ”Stillness is the Key.” And just, I feel like that’s a lost skill in today’s world because there’s constant stimulation. There’s always the next thing going on. And perhaps recent events have actually been a great teacher of this is when all of that’s taken away, we have to just focus on what is and just learn to be and to be present and how hard that’s been for some of us, me included.

Jeff: Yeah. We don’t like to be with ourselves. We don’t like to be quiet. Because then it starts this uncomfortable feeling of, Oh, you know, I should be doing something or, you know, what do I need to be doing right now? Or, you know, we’re just, we were working up society and a culture and a life now that has become about what we’re doing next, not what we’re doing now. Listen, I have the opportunity to train some amazing people and develop some amazing people who are doing things well. You can even pay me, you know, a billion dollars to go do a year. Like no, thank you. And the only way they’re ever successful is when they understand how to be there in that moment.

You know, if you’re thinking about, you know, how am I gonna work this guy? What intelligence am I going to get from him? How’s this going? You know, there’s a time and a place to do all that. But then when you step into the world, when you release into the day, you know, when you start getting breakfast together for the kids and the day has started, that’s your time to be hyper present. You know, we used to have a running joke in the military, which was, you know, the plan never survives first contact with the enemy. You know, you can get up in the morning, here’s the day, this is what we’re gonna do. And then I wake the kids up and plans plain shot, right? But you have some framework top right under, you gotta be flexible with it. And it’s, you know, it’s just all, this is why I love it, right?

This is why I love kind of normalizing this idea of life in the extremes and normal life, right? Because there’s so many similar patterns to it. There’s not, like I kind of said at the beginning, there’s not a judgment back and forth. It’s not like, “Oh, well I have it easier than they do” or “I’m just, you know, a stay-at-home mom.” Nope, sorry, take that out of your language completely, you know. All of those things come into play because, and life can be stressful in any context, in any moment, in any situation. And, you know, the tools and the techniques and the way we look at it, it’s all the same at the end of the day. It’s all the same.

Katie: I agree. And I think to another parenting point that probably has a strong tie in here. So I love that creativity is one of those core things. And as a parent that’s always been a top of mind thing for me is how can I foster that in my kids? Because what I realized both from my own life and now working with all of my kids is you can’t really train creativity nor can you structure creativity obviously. And if anything, boredom seems to be the best teacher of creativity. But so many kids today don’t get the opportunity to be bored. They don’t get the downtime because there is that constant stimulation and the constant desire to learn more and be better in extracurriculars and so much is on their plate so young. So I’m curious both what you’ve seen and if there’s any research on this and then how you navigate it as a parent of helping to foster creativity with kids if you let them be bored on purpose or how that works.

Jeff: Yeah. I think, you know, it goes to the, it’s all going to draw some similarities here, right? So if I have a leader in my environment that’s always telling us what to do, how to do it, how to get things done, you know, I go back to my days in the fire service, I would tell people, listen, you know, if you’re driving the truck for instance, you have a pretty critical role and one of those roles just to get a ladder to the second floor. Because if I’m taking the crew inside, I need to be able to exit the building, right? If it’s on fire, we have a problem. I gotta get out.

And, you know, in the driver outside being alone, kind of out in the outside space there are controlling the exterior environment. And, you know, ladders are not light and they’re not easy to manage. They can be cumbersome and then given the situation and the slope and everything else, and I would just tell my guys, say, “Listen,” tell my people, “it doesn’t matter what it looks like, I just need it done.” You know. Yes, there’s technique and yes, there’s proper way to do that and there’s the correct way to do things. But if I don’t give the freedom and flexibility to my people to operate, right, the ability for them to see what’s going on, make their own choices, navigate their own roads, knowing the result we need to produce, then I’m really failing them as a leader.

And the same thing goes to my kids. If I’m telling them when I need them to do it, how they need to do it. It’s like the girls, you know, the girls were there back to online school. Things are kicking back up this week. There’s a little bit more requirements now in place, even though they’re not physically in school. And we talked about it, how do I support you? What does that look like? And they both said to me, “I don’t need to be micromanaged. I don’t need you to tell me when, you know, what to do. But I do need support in like you being the dad saying, ‘Okay, we’re all gonna, it’s work time now. You guys go work on school and I’m gonna go work, you know, on the business.’” “Okay, cool.”

So creating the parameters and kind of the left and right limits to accomplishing something rather than structuring out what they need to do. And then, you know, did you do this and did you do that? You know, one of the things that we do with little man is we really try to just, again, create space. It’s like, “Do you wanna go play in your room?” “Yeah.” “Okay, cool.” And that’s it, right? I don’t need to go any further. Do you wanna play with this toy or this toy? No, I think we tend to over options are kids, right? What was the book ”Apathy of Options?” Have you ever read that? Katie: I haven’t.

Jeff: Yeah. We tend to over options our kids and then they don’t know what to do and then they don’t have…they don’t know how to make their own choice. They’re making a choice based on what we’re providing them. And it’s the same in adults. It’s the same in this place. It’s like how do I foster creativity? I give the space for creativity to unfold and that is individualized, that’s not directed, that’s not staged. And I actually take options away from them rather than put more options in front of them. And it’s feels kind of counterintuitive. But when you do that, they really start to like, okay, wait a minute. You know, okay, I need to figure something out here. And they begin to satisfy themselves, not satisfy me as the parent or me as the leader. And that’s a unique space that I’ve seen unfold pretty well, if that translates or make sense to you.

Katie: Yeah, no, that’s…I love that answer. And another like parenting note that I have a feeling has a pretty good tie in here is I’m so curious your approach in what you’ve seen in research on letting kids take risks. Because this is another thing that I think has changed really drastically even since I was a kid and certainly since my parents were kids, is kids being able to do activities that are considered risky or play unsupervised or ride their bikes more than, you know, without the seeing distance of their house. And I’ve written about this a little bit.

Like, my opinion is that it can be a disservice to our kids if we overprotect them and they don’t get those opportunities for learning to work through things on their own for minor injuries, for taking risks and failing because a lot of kids get to adulthood, haven’t had to face actual failure or any really severe natural consequences of natural failure. So I’m probably on the one extreme was the mom who’s sending my kids out to climb trees and encouraging them to climb things and jump off things and whatever. But I’m curious, A, what the research says, and B, how you navigate that?

Jeff: Yeah, so I think the one of the research papers I read, I don’t know, maybe a couple of years ago, came out where they did a whole study on like rough housing and the development of emotional intelligence in children, right? And so, which was, and it didn’t, you know, sex wasn’t, not, doesn’t matter, boys or girls. But really more, you know, timely and proper kind of rough housing play with children actually begins to build their resiliency process, begins to build their decision making skills. They actually begin to establish the boundaries of what’s okay and not okay for them. You know what I mean? And so there’s this listening dynamic and I see this, you know, this is part of like growing up over 12 years, right, between my last one and then, little man, you know. I can see what the girls where I was definitely over protective.

I was always, you know, trying to catch them. If they fell I’m like rushing over, are you okay? Are you okay? You know, and all these things and then it creates this timidness in them, you know. I see where they’re a little bit more anxious and I’ve gotta be responsible for that if I’ve created anxiety in them by me overreacting to them or not giving them the space to kind of sort it out. Whereas today, I only come to the, you know, “come to the rescue” when Decklan’s hurt, you know what I mean? Or the possibility of that. And even then giving him a little bit of space to sort himself out. If he like, I don’t know, falls or something, it’s kinda like I instinctually, I don’t fight my instinct and kind of pause back and wait to see, let him process through what just happened. Do the self-assessment, am I hurt, am I bleeding? You know, there are any leaks going on right now about what’s going on for me right now. And then what do I feel about this?

One of the major things we’ve committed to with him is we never tell them it’s okay. Like we’ve extracted, we just completely removed that from our vocabulary because we don’t know. Well, maybe he’s not okay. I don’t know. He can’t articulate that yet. And I think as parents we often…we wanna come to the rescue, we wanna protect our kids, we wanna create safety for them, but we’re actually not, we’re creating spaces of questionable, I don’t know, am I okay? Is it okay to not to be okay right now? All these fundamental things that go into, you know, what I believe creates confidence in a human being, which is the ability to self-regulate, self-manage, self-assess, and then speak, you know, in some ways speak our truth, if you will. And that may be crying or maybe upset or, and that may just be like, Oh.

I mean, I’m amazed at this kid given the space from a fall that I would be like, Oh, this is gonna be a major one. He gets up, brushes it off, like, you know, trucks onto something else. But I gave him the space to sort it out and the freedom to experience whatever he was experiencing there. And if he’s upset or hurt, then I come over. I give him a hug. I’m like, “I got you bud. You know you’re safe. I got you.” I don’t ever say you’re okay because he’s not. And then if he’s done something and he’s upset at something that I don’t…that doesn’t really have a framework for it or like an anchor point for me, it’s like, okay. And it causes me to now be curious about his experience or what’s going on for him. And that’s an opportunity as a parent to help him maybe begin to navigate things for himself, not through my view or my lens, if that…yes, if that answers your question.

Katie: That absolutely does. Yeah. I think that’s a helpful strategy to have on hand and a good reframing of not trying to tell them that it’s okay or to frame the experience for them, but to help them learn the tools to work through it themselves. I think that’s a really, really important point.

I’ve also heard you mentioned in past podcast a couple of things I’d love for you to define and walk us through those being the 10-foot rule and the 30-degree rule.

Jeff: Okay. Okay. Yeah. So this goes back to presence, right? This kind of all goes back to absolutely being present, not getting too far out in front of each other. So, you know, I talk about like the 10-foot rule, which is, that’s kinda my span of control. If I get past 10-feet in any environment, you know, I have no control over that. And, you know, if I’m going into a burning building or I’m dealing with a crisis or I’m dealing with things as they are, that’s about the span I’ve got around me to really kind of deal with what I need to deal with. When I creep past that, now I’m in…I can, but I need to be aware that I’m creeping past it. I need to be aware that I’m really now getting into a more predictive state, right? I’m future casting. I’m dealing with things that have not happened or may not happen yet.

And so if I do that too much, if I live outside of 10-feet, then I’m never really present to what’s actually happening and I’m not dealing with the conditions as they exist. I’m dealing with them in some idea of how I want them to be or how I think they should be or how they might happen or how it might unfold. So I’m really dealing with false data at that point in time. When I can stay within kind of my 10-foot rule, then I’m actually present to what’s actually taking place. And then this goes to kind of the 10-degree or 30-degree rule, which I say, you know, you move into the environment and I’m adjusting 10 degrees left or right based on the conditions as they exist.

So for instance, I use this example in my teaching because it was relevant. If I go to a house fire, I show up, I’ve got a two-story single family home, heavy fire from the second floor. I kind of do my walk around. I look outside, I see what’s going on. I collect as much information as I can, but I know the minute I stepped through the front door, the conditions have changed. And now new information coming at me. I now know how hot it is or you know where the fire may be located or how far it may be progressing. I began to really get in touch with what’s going on in the sensations of the environment, what the environment is telling me.

And you know, maybe my job is to locate with seal fire or do a search for victims that that doesn’t change. My mission doesn’t change, but how I go about accomplishing that task will depend upon the conditions and the allowance that I have in the conditions of the environment. Does that, you know, so I’m able to kind of more flow through what’s taking place rather than like, Nope, I gotta do this and I’m gonna push through and I’m gonna drive through and I’m going to own this thing. It’s, if I’m not present, then I can get myself in trouble significantly. In my world, you know, trouble means serious injury, possible death, you know, and then I’m not… and effectiveness is dropping significantly. So if I get outside kind of the 10-foot span around me or the three-foot span around me, depending upon what’s going on or I’m not present and I’m not kind of like, okay, I can go left, I can go right. Minor adjustments. I’m not coming off my mission, I’m not coming off my cast or my purpose or my intention, but I am available to what’s taking place and now I’m working with the environment rather than forcing an outcome.

That’s, I mean I had, so that’s a daily practice with the kids, right? I mean, working with them and not trying to force an outcome. That’s like the…that’s the translation for me. And that’s the, again, kind of the checks. And you can see the reaction of them. I think you see this in your own kids, right? When you step into that place, the more rigid you become, the more resistance you have back at you. At least that’s what I tend to experience and I’m sure, with six, you do as well.

Katie: Absolutely. Yeah. Another thing I think you’ve touched on, but I’ve got on my list to ask you about is the top five fractures in performance that are relevant across the board. So walk us through that.

Jeff: All right. So first one is always and definitely has been a perception of my own abilities and this is a huge breakdown point. This is a place where we often drop the ball almost right off the bat. You know, and if you look from like my world, if you have an operator, you have somebody going out operating in the mission and they’re questioning themselves, right? They’re unsure of themselves, then that’s going to begin to break down their ability to perform, their ability to see things, read the conditions, be open to what’s taking place along the way. And really then, you know, we start to see kind of this fracture and performance.

I mean, I think we all…I’ve never met a person, I don’t care out of what community they’ve come from, whether they’re, you know, a dev group, guys, seal team, six guy, Delta operator or, you know, the best of the best out there. There will always come a point in time where they question their own ability, right? They have a lingering voice in the back of their head. They’re just not 100% sure of themselves in that moment. And that is huge. Just a huge breakdown, right?

Number two, we see fall into complacency or what I kind of call the common state. This is where we take our foot off the gas. We really stopped paying attention to things. We start making a lot of assumptions about the situation or the environment or the people around us. We really kind of just, well, we basically check out of what’s going on.

The third one is always interesting because the third one deals with fear. And so I classify fear that fear can’t exist in the present moment. Fear doesn’t exist. You know, in a firefight, fear doesn’t exist. In a working fire, fear doesn’t exist. I may have excitement, I may have a state of arousal, but it is not fear. Fear only shows up as a future point in time of something that may happen or may not happen.

And then when I allow that fear to collide in the present, I can end up in a point of panic. You know, I don’t make solid decisions. You know, I often related to this and this is I think relevant to all of us. You know, and you too, it’s like, have you ever been woken up in the middle of the night by kind of the noise, right? You wake up, something, somebody banged on the front door just…or it’s a bad dream. You don’t really know what got you up, but you are more alert, more aware, like more ready, you know what I mean. If you’re a mom, you’re like, you know, mama bears coming out of your dad or you’re like me. Like you’re grabbing a gun and clearing the house, right? You’re in it. And there’s something that drew you into that moment that is a, what they would classify as emotional, you know, fear-based response, which I hate this word, but that is a high state of arousal. Your body’s moving into action, giving you what you need in that moment in time.

Now here comes the question. After you validated that there wasn’t anything, everybody’s safe. Everybody’s good. You go crawl back in bed. How quickly can you go back to sleep? And most times we’re kind of stuck. Now, we hear every little creak and crack and noise and we’re hypersensitive the environment. And what we’re doing in that state is we’re generating this kind of fear response. We’re generating this physical response of preparedness in ourselves. And if something then were to happen and this is, you know, relevant to my world, but then if something were to happen, I’ve kind of already put myself in a weird condition and I’m inhibiting my body from doing what it needs to do and then panic collides and then I’m incapable. I can’t function in that space. And so I’m not working with my body.

Number four is not being open to the idea, right? This is a lack of openness. Openness is a huge component of really carrying a powerful mindset or whatever you wanna call it. Open to the idea that things could happen. You know, I say if you’re, if you get in the car and drive down the road and you have no expectation and no idea that you could ever get in a car accident, that’s just like not in your frame of reference. And that’ll never happen. And I’m not worried about it. You know, and then if it does happen, what then physiologically causes, you know, it is a new event. It is an unfamiliar event, and you were unprepared for it. And so you’re caughtoff guard or your reaction time slows or your decision making slows or your perception of that slows. So just simply, you know, the lack of openness in this space and open to the idea that things could happen or might happen without generating fear is really the fourth one.

And then the fifth one is, and this is true across the board, it is how I allow the influencers or stressors of my day to impact me. And it goes back to what we talked about earlier, the lack of being recoverable, the lack of, you know, literally being disciplined enough that when I can’t find my car keys and I find them, I actually allow myself to settle for a minute and be like, okay, I got my car keys and then transition to the next moment. Not, I can’t find my car keys. Where is my car keys? Okay, I got them now let’s keep going, right? It’s that control mechanism. And when I give up that control mechanism of how things were impacting me, I fall into the stacking effect. And then, you know, things compound and I find myself kind of in a crap show at some point in time. I find myself in the chaos rather than, you know, being calm in the chaos.

So those are the five, those are the five that consistently without fail. If I look at a failure performance or a fracture in performance or things not going the way we want them to go almost every time, one of those five or multiple of those five are clearly defined and existing in this space.

Katie: Yeah. That’s so helpful. Yes. To just have a framework to be able to work through like that. And I can’t believe our time has already flown by so quickly. This has been such a fun interview. A couple questions I love to ask at the end, the first being if there’s a book or a number of books that have had a dramatic impact on your life and if so, what are they and why?

Jeff: Yeah, so, you know, you had sent that to me so I had to go back and look because books for me are like timely really, right? They tend to show up when you need them. But I would say probably some of the more recent ones that I think have really helped me make transition between my old life and the life I now live. One was ”Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself” by Joe Dispenza. I really appreciated the way he approached looking at ourselves, this idea of calmness, this idea of physiological response because he took both a very scientific and, you know, almost esoterical approach to how we deal with ourselves. And a lot of evidence-based research in there. I guess his first book about the brain was ”Super Brainiac”. I’ve not read that yet. I would probably enjoy it. But you know, from the way he lays it out, most people were kind of like, “Okay, Joe, too much information.” But that was a pretty significant, pretty significant book for me in a lot of ways.

And then early on, early on in my career, I had the opportunity you know, big failure leadership I talked about on my podcast and I use it in all my teaching tools. But I read Daniel Goldman’s ”Primal Leadership” where he breaks down six distinct styles from affiliate of all the way down to the other end of the spectrum of like pace setting and commanding. And at that time I could see where I lived in this pace setting, commanding style of leadership, which we can get into very easily as parents. You know, kind of like, “Hey, we gotta go, here’s the deal. This is what we gotta do.” And I’m setting the pace and I’m commanding environment.

And, you know, it was funny because I had, I mean I virtually had like a mutiny on the crew. They basically came down to Jeff’s a jerk, him or me, we’re out. We’re not gonna deal with this anymore. And the way he articulated when he laid it down in the book, he talked about the great benefits of the commanding style leadership and the pace setting style leadership and driving to the car like, “I’m gonna turn around, I’m gonna sit everybody down, they’re gonna listen to this because I’m right.” And then he talks about all the negativity of it and how it should be used in a very finite point in time and how it should be limited. And I just started to almost tear up at like, “Crap, he’s right, I’m not going back,” you know. And it was a good call out book for me and what I needed to be responsible for and how I needed to kind of shift my architecture.

So those are good. And then like you said, you know, Ryan Holiday stuff, ”Ego is the Enemy.” And even Mark Manson stuff is really great. So I’m avid reader. I love to read people’s research and then I actually look at the research that they found that, you know, built a book around as well. I’m a little bit of a geek that way. But I would say, you know, those are pretty applicable across the board and know those are pretty significant for how we operate in our normal lives as well.

Katie: I love those. I’ll make sure those are in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm for any of you guys listening who went to find those. And for people who want to keep learning more or who are curious about your work, where can they find you online?

Jeff: Yeah, so the podcast is ”Mindset Radio.” It’s mindsetradio.com, and that’s actually provided by, through the Operational Mindset Foundation. So that’s my life now. I really committed to creating a pathway to mentally, physically and emotionally prepare the men and women who choose to place themselves in harm’s way every day. I think we’ve…having come from that community. The conversations you have on your podcast are new to this community, right? I mean they’re still stuck in the old school stuff. And my purpose was really bring a new conversation to the table to talk about consciousness, to talk about the struggles that we have. The things we’re exposed to, how to deal with that, how to really have a full life both on and off the job. And so now the foundation, is it mindset.org and the podcast is a mindsetradio.com are available on all the platforms.

Katie: Perfect. I love that. And lastly, any parting advice you wanna leave with the listeners today based on anything we’ve said or any other advice that you’d wanna give?

Jeff: Yeah, I mean I think the way I treat, you know, I run my show very much like you do Katie, you know, very conversational and I have a belief that people that listen to a podcast, need to have something they can do like the minute it’s over. And so I try to leave my listeners with like the challenge out of that piece. And I would say, you know, today, presence, right? And really work the breath today. Like be hyper present to your breath and what’s going on right now. Be curious, be curious about yourself, curious about your kids, curious about the situation and stay there like just hover there. Just you know, and if you feel yourself getting too far forward, too far to dinner, too far to the next day, too far to the next week, be curious as to why that is, why you need to feel that way, what that provides for you and just no judgment, right? No right or wrong. You’re not doing anything wrong, you’re not bad, none of that. Just curious. Just be curious, be present and see what shows up. That would be what I would say.

Katie: I love it. I think that’s a perfect place to wrap up and I’m really grateful for your time. This has been such a fun conversation and hopefully helpful to everyone listening. Thanks for being here.

Jeff: Thanks Katie.

Katie: And thanks as always to all of you for sharing your most valuable asset, your time with both of us today. We’re so grateful that you did, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the ”Wellness Mama” podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/jeff-banman/

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