The Mindfulness for Warriors Handbook: Stress Reduction, Trauma Recovery, and Resilience Building for First Responders

by Kim Colegrove

Overview

Coping with the Stress of First Responder Life

“…a work of major importance that offers practical approaches to self-care and serenity for our first responders...” —Louise Harmon, author of Happiness from A to Z

#1 New Release in Military Families

The Mindfulness for Warriors Handbook is a new and expanded edition of Mindfulness for Warriors, providing an additional valuable resource for first responders.

Ensuring their heads are in a healthy place is crucial. After 30 years in law enforcement, Kim Colegrove’s husband took his own life. This agonizing experience opened her eyes to the desperate need for an effective form of stress-relief and support for first responders like cops and EMTs facing trauma.

A traumatic way of life. First responders have the incredibly difficult job of running toward danger while the rest of us run away. No training prepares them for what they see and endure. Kim understands what it’s like to watch someone go through that and is dedicated to helping first responders.

A source of hope. In 2017, Kim founded The PauseFirst Project: Mindfulness for First Responders. She offers the PauseFirst block of training to organizations across the country; teaching techniques that help reduce stress, regulate emotion, and improve overall health and well-being. Her work to bring awareness is a tribute to both her husband and the countless other first responders struggling with the realities of their jobs.

Inside find:

• Evidence-based practices to help first responders and families deal with stress
• Interviews with first responders who share stories of overcoming, surviving, and thriving
• Colegrove’s own raw and intimate story of her husband’s troubles and how she continues each day fighting in his memory

If you’ve found encouragement from books like Bulletproof Spirit, Bullets in the Washing Machine, or I Love a Cop, you’ll find a further source of healing in The Mindfulness for Warriors Handbook.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684814398
Publisher:	Jim Dandy Publishing
Publication date:	09/26/2023
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Kim Colegrove is a veteran meditator and speaker with over 40 years of experience. She is the creator of PAUSE15 Meditation℠ and Learn to Pause℠ Mindfulness Training, and the founder of The PauseFirst Project: Mindfulness for First Responders. Colegrove’s expertise in meditation has benefited individuals and corporations across the country, including Garmin International, The National Court Reporters Association, Department of Veterans Affairs, United Way, and others. In 2014, Kim lost her husband David to suicide, less than three months after he retired from a 30-year law enforcement career. She created The PauseFirst Project to honor David’s memory, and to help other first responders cope with stress and trauma. She partnered with Major Darren Ivey of the Kansas City Missouri Police Department in 2017 and began offering a 4-hour block of mindfulness training to law enforcement professionals and other first responders. The course has been very well-received and Colegrove now speaks at conferences and offers her course to first responder organizations nationwide. Kim is a contributing writer for In Public Safety, an American Military University(AMU) sponsored website. In August, her In Public Safety article, "My Husband’s Suicide: Recognizing Predictors of Police Suicide," was published on PoliceOne online, which boasts over 600,000 subscribers and over 2 million monthly visitors. Previously, Colegrove was a regular contributing writer for Kansas City Health and Wellness magazine. Colegrove has combined many years of meditation experience with her background in corporate mindfulness and her own personal story of tragedy and loss to create an informative and inspirational book that is a must-read for first responders and their families. Learn more about Kim's work at www.kimcolegrove.com.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

From Widow to Warrior

“Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald

My husband dedicated thirty years of his life to a profession that trains warriors for battle but has no context for healing the invisible wounds of warfare. Did the job kill my husband? No. Was it a contributor? Absolutely.

Our first responders are very well trained, but their training does not prepare them for the mental and emotional impacts of the job.

A majority of first responders suffer from symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress, which is a condition that develops in some people who encounter trauma. Trauma is a deeply distressing or disturbing experience that alters a person’s ability to cope.

The average citizen has no idea what first responders see, hear, and endure throughout their careers. They are constantly exposed to and affected by the trauma of others; dysfunction, disaster, violence, abuse, neglect, victimization, and death. This type of trauma is known as Secondary Trauma.

Post-traumatic Stress and Secondary Trauma, left untreated, can be stealthy killers. They quietly ruin health, relationships, families and lives. They cause people to withdraw and isolate or rage and lash out. They create devastation and rob individuals of the most basic human rights: life, love and joy. However, they are treatable. But in order for treatment to become normalized, the shame and disgrace attached to seeking help must be eliminated.

There has long been a stigma attached to mental health issues in these often-stoic emergency responder professions. If a person is brave (or desperate) enough to speak up about mental and emotional difficulties, they face the possibility of being labeled as “weak,” “unstable,” or “incompetent.” Instead of receiving help, they might be demoted—or fired. This ridiculous stigma causes first responders to suffer in silence, forced to pretend they’re okay when they’re not.

This is what my husband did, for years and years.

In order to survive in the law enforcement culture, David felt he had to remain silent about anxiety, depression, and other symptoms he suffered over the years. He was terrified of being deemed unsuitable or incompetent for the job. He worried about being stripped of his badge and gun and being fired without the ability to support his family and collect the pension he had worked so hard to build.

The reality is, had David been able to seek assistance for the mental and emotional fallout of the job, over the duration of his thirty-year career, he might have been a more effective law enforcement officer and investigator—and he was pretty damn good as it was. He could have lived a peaceful personal life, and he might still be here.

Instead, he struggled and suffered off and on for the entire thirty years, and his suffering caused pain for the people he loved. Ultimately, with knowledge of this stigma so deeply buried in his psyche, David became engulfed in a tsunami of trauma symptoms, and decided death was the only way to escape.

It did not have to be this way, and it doesn’t have to end like this for one other first responder.

If any of this resonates with you, if you are a first responder who has suffered similarly, please know there is hope. There is help available. You can heal. You can learn skills and tools to build your resilience and survive, no matter how bad things are.

Table of Contents

Part 1: The Warrior

• Chapter 1: From Widow to Warrior
• Chapter 2: What Is a Warrior?
• Chapter 3: Death Notification
• Chapter 4: He Was Kind of a Big Deal
• Chapter 5: His Buried Trauma
• Chapter 6: The Ripple Effects of Suicide

Part 2: The Weight

• Chapter 7: Stress and Trauma: The Effects of Accumulated Stress and How Trauma Impacts the Brain and Body
• Chapter 8: The Toxicity of Stoicism: How Ignoring Emotions Will Ruin You
• Chapter 9: Suicide Ideation: The Common Predictors of First Responder Suicide

Part 3: The Wisdom

• Chapter 10: Surviving and Thriving: First Responders Share Their Stories of Darkness and How They Are Healing
• Chapter 11: Meditation and Mindfulness: What They Are and How They Can Help
• Chapter 12: Breath: The Body’s Natural Stress Reliever
• Chapter 13: Learn to Pause℠ Mindfulness Training: Present Moment Awareness, Self-Awareness, and Self-Coaching
• Chapter 14: Pause15 Meditation℠: A flexible meditation practice that caters to the individual. 3 Steps, 4 Techniques, 15-Minutes a Day

Editorial Reviews

This is a book that will save lives. Mindfulness for Warriors is a work of major importance that offers practical approaches to self-care and serenity for our first responders. Our military veterans, firefighters, police, dispatchers, paramedics, doctors, and nurses are at the front lines of our society and a vital part of every community. Kim Colegrove's marvelous book is an essential read for these brave people.” —Louise Harmon, author of Happiness from A to Z

“The pain of trauma that first responders suffer from is finally being recognized, and Mindfulness for Warriors shows the path to healing. Kim Colegrove shares her heart-wrenching story of the loss of her husband to suicide, why it happened, and effective keys to recovery through mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness for Warriors is a welcome guide not only for first-responders and their loved ones, but anyone who suffers from trauma.” —Rev. Connie L. Habash, LMFT, author of Awakening from Anxiety: A Spiritual Guide to Living a More Calm, Confident, and Courageous Life

“Mindfulness for Warriors is an outstanding book I will be giving it to a lot of people. My father was a Marine who came back from war and became a fireman. I loved how brave Dad was, but I also sensed, behind his tough exterior, he was hiding a lot of pain. He was a stoic who forged on doing his very important work but at a high personal cost. He and so many like him serve our communities and deal with extreme stress on a daily basis, often without any way to process the pain and PTSD they are suffering. Kim Colegrove's book is an invaluable tool to help the helpers. Her mindfulness practices and meditation techniques offer much respite, relief, and calm to anyone who picks up this book.” —Becca Anderson, author of Prayers for Hard Times and Real Life Mindfulness

“Kim Colegrove survived unspeakable grief, and rather than becoming bitter and broken herself, she honed a fierce and relentless compassion that seeks well-being for those who protect and serve. This book, and the PauseFirst Project, offer accessible tools for everyday use. In its pages, you will find solid strategies and proven practices for coping with stress and trauma in work and in life. Mindfulness for Warriors is a must-read for veterans, first responders, and all who walk the way of the warrior.” —Rev. Roxanne Pendleton, MDiv, CYT 200, advisor, trauma informed care, and author of Laughing Again: A Survivor's Guide to Healing Depression

In Mindfulness for Warriors, Kim Colegrove offers a sincere invitation to look at what is behind the trauma carried by so many. With evidence-based mindfulness practices to alleviate suffering highlighted from the individuals who have benefited from such practices, Mindfulness for Warriors shows what we absolutely know to be true: you can heal yourself. You can heal your life. Slow and steady like the breath, one movement at a time, Colegrove provides a genuine roadmap to reconnect with your body, heart, and mind—to begin the journey to developing resilience and cultivating mental and emotional peace. —Bridgitte Jackson-Buckley, author of The Gift of Crisis: How I Used Meditation to Go From Financial Failure to a Life of Purpose

“While many of us might not consider ourselves warriors. In truth, we are. Especially if, as the author writes, ‘your life or work involves helping, saving, and rescuing others….’ From time to time, we become rescuers for our kids, partners, friends, family, or co-workers. This groundbreaking book, therefore, is a must-read since it touches all of us. It not only documents the lives of others who needed help, but it also provides very grounding solutions for dealing with and overcoming life’s challenges.” —Allen Klein, author of Embracing Life After Loss

“Kim Colegrove has one audacious goal—to save the first responders who put their own lives on the line for others every day. Her powerful new book, Mindfulness for Warriors, embodies her passion. Through candid memoir, insightful interviews, and informed advice, Mindfulness for Warriors offers practical tools for first responders and the people who love them. Colegrove artfully blends her account of the heart-wrenching loss of her husband with her wisdom from decades of meditation practice and her hope to find a solution to the trauma dynamic that rips first responders from the world. Colegrove’s firsthand experience watching lives change for the better authorizes her to make this bold claim: mindfulness can save lives. She’s seen it and tells us how it’s done. Hers is a message you won’t want to miss.” —Nita Sweeney, meditation teacher, writing coach, and award-winning author of Depression Hates a Moving Target

“According to legend, the Buddha was asked, ‘What have you gained from meditation?’ Buddha replied, ‘Nothing.’ Then he added, ‘However, let me tell I what I have lost: anger, anxiety, depression, insecurity, fear of old age and death.’ Who wouldn't want to lose those negative emotions? And certainly, first responders are most deserving of peace and freedom through practicing meditation and mindfulness. Kim Colegrove’s book is a rich resource for those seeking serenity in the face of trauma, violence, and chaos.” —BJ Gallagher, coauthor of Your Life Is Your Prayer

“A book that will save lives and a book about those who save lives. Mindfulness for Warriors is an empowering read that examines first responders' duties and curates tools and techniques to apply to the lives of those whom have faced trauma on the front lines. The author's own intimate story helps to realize the importance of addressing traumatic experiences and implementing meditative and mindful practices to better cope in their everyday lives. Relevant at the moment and important for so many humans, even beyond those that are first responders, this book is a must-read that will help to reduce stress, build resilience, and empower you to live your happiest life.” —Belles and Rebelles

From the Publisher