Mindfulness For Warriors by Kim Colegrove

Author:Kim Colegrove [Colegrove, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642501759
Publisher: Mango Media
Published: 2019-12-29T04:47:10+00:00

• Wendy •

Law Enforcement

Twenty-two years

Special Agent, INS (now DHS—Department of Homeland Security)

Police Officer, Detective

Substance Abuse Coordinator, Sheriff’s Department

Wendy and I met in 2017 at a CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) meeting where I was teaching mindfulness. We had an instant connection, primarily because she is so dang easy to like. After that meeting, we stayed in touch and have become friends, even though we live three hours apart. The more I learn about Wendy’s life path and career, the more impressed I am.

Difficult Experiences

In Wendy’s career, she has primarily worked Crimes Against Persons, including homicide, gangs, domestic violence, and sex crimes.

Wendy started this conversation by sharing that, in her early days as a police officer, working third shift, she encountered a lot of difficulty with male coworkers. (I’m so glad she brought this up because it’s prevalent among female law enforcement, and like everything else we’re addressing in this book, needs to be brought to light.) The men, she says, treated her very poorly, and that added a tremendous amount of unnecessary stress to an already stressful job.

Another crucially important aspect Wendy cited was balancing motherhood and her career. Both of her daughters were born prematurely, which adds mightily to the stressors of parenthood. She remembers one day in particular, getting a call at work that her infant daughter was sick and needed to be picked up immediately. Wendy’s husband, also law enforcement, was not available, and although Wendy was extremely busy at work, she had to leave.

Driving home that day with her infant daughter in tow, the intense stress of the situation got the best of Wendy, and she had a panic attack, something she had never experienced before. The panic attack was so intense, she says, that she could barely breathe and had to pull the car over.

Something else Wendy addressed, which nobody else in this book mentioned, is organizational stress. In my many interactions and private conversations with first responders over the years, I can attest to the fact that this is a primary stressor. People often share with me that bosses, supervisors, outdated policies, power struggles, and bureaucracy contribute hugely to their stress.

On top of all of this, remember, there is the day-to-day stress and trauma of police work.

Early in Wendy’s career, she worked with a domestic violence victim who was later killed by the perpetrator who had abused her. After trying to help this victim and getting to know her and her story, the woman’s death hit Wendy very hard.

At another point in Wendy’s career, she worked a serial rapist case that for her, as a woman, was extremely difficult.

Another tough case that really hit home involved a little girl whose mother had been killed by her boyfriend. The girl was the one who found her mother, shot in the head. This was a gut-wrenching interview because, at the time, Wendy’s own daughter was the same age as the little girl. As the girl described what she’d experienced, Wendy says she had to fight hard to hold back her own emotions.

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