Episode 34 – Are you biting off more than you can chew?

MIND BEYOND THE MISSION EPISODE 34 — ARE YOU BITING OFF MORE THAN YOU CAN
CHEW?

Brian McKenna

You found our podcast. We are Mind Beyond the Mission. This is a podcast about Veterans and their Families, and specifically mental health. What goes on in our lives, what goes on in our heads. We’re not talking to you as doctors or professionals. We’re talking to you about living with it and what it’s like. Brian McKenna, 19 years in the Canadian Forces. I’m joined by my partner, Laryssa Lamrock.

Laryssa Lamrock

Veteran Family member, I’m a proud military brat. My husband served in the military, proud military mom. We’re really excited about this podcast to delve into issues that are important to the Veteran and Family community.

Brian

Join us as we talk about mental health from the perspective of Veterans and their Families.

We’re back for another episode of Mind Beyond the Mission, joined here in Ottawa again by Laryssa. We are biting off more than we can chew, literally. That’s what we’re talking about. The whole concept of you take one thing on your plate, and then next thing you know, you’ve got five, and then 20. I find this very common in our world for people that are advocating for each other, whether it’s the Family or the Veteran side. This happens in cops as well. You reach out your hand once because someone probably reached it out for you, which is why you were able to. Next thing you know, you’re almost a caregiver of your own, and you’ve got too much on your plate. Biting off more than we can chew. What do you think when you first hear about that? I think guilty.

Laryssa

When you first proposed the topic to me, I was like, “Screw off, Brian,” because I felt like you were pointing the finger directly at me. Hey, you’re biting off more than you can chew right now. I see it as multi-level. You talked about people who are in the advocacy space, but I also see it, as you mentioned, with uniform members, police officers, they might bite off more than they can chew in their role because they want to take something off the shoulders of others. I’ve been doing a lot with work right now, biting off more than I can chew. I also see it in myself as a Family member, as a caregiver. When you mentioned it at first to me, I see a whole bunch of different levels to it, actually.

Brian

I look at it like I would rather have the blown-out ankle. I would rather have some of the injuries that I’ve had because those come with a playbook. Yes, everybody and every body is going to be different. I think in the world of mental health, it just sounds so hit and miss when people are helping you. When a doctor is telling you, “It could be a combo of this, or we’re going to try that, or maybe we need to up this, lower that,” it sounds so confusing.

For me, it was really defeating. I’m used to having injuries and seeing a timeline. That feeling of being crushed and defeated and not knowing what the path to healthier looked like, that was something that caused me a lot more problems. When I’m seeing that happen in someone else that I care about, I know what that pit feels like on the other end. Maybe I don’t know exactly how he’s experiencing it, but I get it. I don’t want him to go into that hole. It’s not a good place down there. I know the pain. I know the frustration. I know the self-doubt.

When new troops come into your life, it’s almost like that four-year-old’s relationship with their dad. They see him as this superhuman. Later on, they’re going to find out your flaws. They really do admire you. They follow you. If you lace your boots a certain way, you watch. In a week, they’ll be copying it. You store your stuff in a certain spot. They’re like, “Hey, Sarge, why do you do that?” They emulate you. On this, I don’t want them to emulate the path I went on. It’s such a challenge. Quite frankly, I just want to save them from it.

Laryssa

We were chatting about this earlier. I asked you, why do we bite off more than we can chew? For me, essentially, it’s because we care about the other person. We want to make their journey easier. We want to convey what we’ve learned along our lines. You want to take a load off somebody else. Yes, you just keep bearing one more piece and one more piece in an effort to try and support or alleviate someone else’s struggle.

Brian

I think as well, you look at the person that’s going through something. I’m thinking more of you and your role here is the person that you know who’s going to walk down the same mental health path to a degree as you, they’re going to suffer, and someone like you probably knows what the collateral damage of that is. I think we watch these people come back with a problem or some event has happened in their life.

Their Family has fallen apart. We’re not only aware of what’s going to happen to them, but we’re aware of those five and seven-year-old beady eyes at the table watching and seeing these things unfold without understanding exactly what they are. That whole environment around that soldier is going to suffer. Everyone can tell you that, but we know it.

Laryssa

For you, was there an individual experience when you knew that you were injured and you didn’t want it to impact your Family? You’re talking about your kids at the kitchen table or whatever. Did you try and shoulder more than maybe you might have been capable of at the time? How does biting off more than you can chew look like in that scenario?

Brian

What I would describe it as is imagine you’re struggling to swim, and you’ve come up for air. Just in that brief second where you’ve got a gulp of air, you pretend like you’re ready to go swim over and rescue other people. You haven’t even sorted out your own issue yet. That is where I think this plays out in the community a lot. When people find that first little piece of healthcare for themselves, often in this community, it’s like, “Oh. I’m better now. Now I’m going to go show the path to all these other folks.”

Where I made a mistake with that was for me, there were a lot of things that helped, but most of the things that helped me do not even to this day meet the standard of, say, evidence-based care. The biggest thing that helped me was getting a dog. That dog crowbarred my butt off that couch because she had to go outside. She had to be trained and she needed to engage and get exercise. All the things that dog, that poor sweet Sasha, what a lovely girl she was.

She is the person I credit with my health more than any doctor, any program. We had to practice the going into the stores because that’s what her job was. When that started getting me better, the mistake I made when I encountered other guys that I thought were relatively in the same boat is, you need a dog. Don’t go on that program. This is what you need. I’ve got the prescription because I just got a breath of air here. Get a dog, and not just a dog. Sign up with this organization.

Now that I look back, I realize that any of these things, just like brushing your teeth in the field gets you 2% happier, changing your socks gets you 3% happier, any one of them is not the solution. The collection of these things, you can weave them together, we call that health. If I turn to you and go, “You’re a super soldier if you fix your socks,” no, it’s part of it. That would be the biggest error I can see looking backwards was, yes, I started prescribing my things that helped to everyone else as in, “This is what works, guys, get a dog.”

Laryssa

Yes. I think when you find that piece and you’re giving the recommendation or advice to other people too, it makes you feel better. It’s almost like you might be struggling, but you’re turning the focus off of you onto other people. It makes you feel good if you can give the 2% recommendation of someone to brush their teeth or change their socks. I think that’s something that we grasp onto as well. If it makes me feel a little bit better helping one person, then it’s going to make me a little bit even more better helping someone else. I think that contributes to that biting off more than you can chew piece.

Brian

What’s your sense of this is when you encounter Family members like my spouse, boyfriend, whatever, has finally put up his hand, finally going in for care, and you see them still in that moment where they’re doing everything is about getting him better, getting him healthier, getting the service member or Veteran on this path, you know, though, that that’s a patient too. They might not know it yet. What do you do there, or do we just have to wait till they get in over their head a little bit too and come up for air?

Laryssa

It’s so complex because, as I was thinking about this topic today, when you see someone you love struggling, you pick up a piece for them to make it easier for them. Then you pick up another piece, and then you pick up another piece, and you pick up another piece. Before you know it, you’re shouldering those responsibilities or burdens or whatever it is, biting off more than you can chew, because you’re the healthier one in the relationship, and I want to support my loved one getting help.

I’ll take this all on. You’re there before you know it where you’re swamped. I think for lots of Family members as well, they prioritize their loved ones so they don’t realize that they’re the patient or they’re experiencing compassion fatigue or that they’re burnt out or any of those other things. For lots of Family members, it becomes part of their identity. For myself included, I’ve gone through some self-exploration because I was adamant that I didn’t want to be a caregiver. I’m not a caregiver. I’m a supporter, and yet here I am.

Brian

You still don’t like that word?

Laryssa

Still, but maybe that’s what I am. Like I said, I have to maybe come to terms with that. My professions I’ve chosen in my life have been caregiving professions, and so I’m working on that. I think a lot of Families do identify themselves as caregivers. Once their loved one is getting help and doing better, the Families are losing a piece of their identity because I’m not needed in that capacity anymore. It’s pretty complex, like you know what you’re asking.

Brian

Yes. I think the whole thing of what’s the right word, and we don’t need to word police this. At the end of the day, we know what you’re talking about. We’re talking about the things that get shouldered, the burden that gets carried by that other person in the house. It may not require medical training to do, but it certainly requires a hell of a set of shoulders to carry and do all that stuff. One thing that I noticed, both positively and negatively for me, was one thing that I was good at was helping soldiers when they were not just going through a claims process, but when they’re actually forming a relationship with doctors, I was good at helping them reframe that relationship.

Like I’ve told you guys before, we lie to doctors and we don’t even know we’re doing it because our military relationship with doctors, when we meet them and we’re hanging out in the mess, we’re having a good time and they’re first-name basis, and we respect them as people. The second that guy’s got a clipboard and a file folder comes out and there’s a red, a yellow, or a green, meaning Brian does, might, or can’t go on the thing that he wants to do, this relationship is completely different.

My job is to tell him the things I need for him to tick the box so I can go on the tour, go on the course, basically, be medically left alone. When I’ve hurt myself and come back, I want to get off those things we call categories. In other words, limitations that say you can’t do your job for a period of time. That’s not a good place to be. Now, it’s where you need to be to heal. Again, I see my role there as what do I have to say to this guy to get off? What I tell Veterans now is there’s no DAG sheet.

There’s no departure assistance group sheet to figure out if you get to go on to the next part of your life, you get to go on to the next part of your life. You’ll do better off if you tell this guy that’s asking you these questions about your worst day this week. It’s not all that good for you to explain to him, “Yes, okay, I was able to grocery shop on Monday.” You need to explain to him that you haven’t grocery shopped for three months, and you made it work on Monday. What is it like your worst day this week, worst day this month? That was what I got good at helping soldiers with.

The problem and why we’re talking about it today, then they recommend someone that needs some help and then they do. Next thing you know, I’ve made a name for myself and I’ve got an amount of people contacting me that would make a case manager cringe. I’m not paid to do this. How suddenly did I sign myself up to helping all these people? That’s what I’m talking about. You get this moment, you help yourself, you help one guy, you take his call, you answer on Facebook Messenger when he says, “Hey, can you talk to Phil?” You do that for a couple years, you’re going to have a laundry list of people coming to you for help.

Laryssa

What makes it hard to say no?

Brian

This is a unique environment. The Veteran world is talking about who we were and what we used to do, but it’s also talking about who we still are. I still have the ethics of a soldier and I can’t pretend that I don’t know what happens to guys that are suffering. We have unbelievably bad rates of suicide, unbelievably bad rates of homelessness, all kinds of trouble with Families basically just falling apart one after another. That doesn’t seem to the soldier in me like a time where I should go for lunch because in our world, in the soldiering world, we rest.

We have a good time when you can. You got to rest your people, your vehicles, but you don’t rest them when you’re in contact. You don’t go checking the fuel when you should be checking your arcs. It’s so hard to come back, know the seriousness of what happens when these guys go untreated, just how devastating the results can be, and like, “You know, Brian, yes, you need to take a week off while these guys are in extreme duress.” I struggle with it. I still don’t know how to do it.

Laryssa

I think because when we’ve been there or been similar to that situation, it seems critical and it’s a priority. We put our needs to the side. I’m going to help this person because there’s dire consequences to it. I’m going to put my needs aside. I’m going to put my needs aside, which can come back to maybe mission before self. I mentioned that before. The greater mission, the more important thing.

I can set aside my own needs, and maybe I’m going to get an hour less sleep or I’m going to spend an hour less with my kids or whatever it is because it’s critical that I’m going to help this other person at such that point. I wanted to bring up a term that a friend of ours and someone that we work with introduced to me. They called it destructive resilience. The concept of that is it describes people who have been through so much in their lives, whether it’s a soldier, a police officer, or Family members for that matter, and yet they just still keep showing up.

It’s the “I can handle it” kind of person. Like, “Let me go in. I can handle it. I’ll shoulder it.” It’s not because it’s easy, but it’s because It’s because it’s all they’ve ever known and maybe they want to protect someone else. I know police officers that put themselves or take difficult calls because they don’t want to send the rookie in. “I’ve been through this already. I’m already burdened or I’ve seen a lot of stuff. Send me in instead of sending the rookie in.”

Brian

What I find with this stuff is that you go to a chiropractor, you’re going to get spine looked at. You start asking him about emotional issues and that’s not going to work. You’re getting your ankle looked after, not the place to talk about a breathing problem. There really isn’t anyone out there who specializes in all of you. The person that’s supposed to do that in our society, your general practitioner, even he’s not asking about your soul.

How’s your purpose? Show me on this picture of the skeleton where your pride is and how it’s doing in this eight-minute session I have where you can talk to me about one thing. There is no one out there in that context that deals with the entirety of you other than the people that really know you. I find that as a peer, I can be the guy that says, what are you seeing in the mirror? Well, you used to see master corporal. What are you seeing now?

You used to see airframe tech. What are you looking at? You’re not getting there in an eight-minute session with a doctor, but there’s such a need to fill that my list grows to 80 people that are calling me. This is the thing that I look at. Quite often, and you guys don’t always want to hear this, but sometimes your spouse knows you really, really, really well, but at a level of depth for that relationship. There are things you don’t tell your spouse, particularly things about your spouse.

There’s going to be times where I’m sitting there helping a guy just describe on page 5 of his claim, as I said, what’s your worst week look like when it comes to putting soup on the shelf or driving your kid to school? Now I’m hearing marriage counselor stuff, or he doesn’t feel any pride or any purpose to his life anymore. I don’t know what to do with that, but on the other hand, how do I say, “Okay, see you, I got to take five days off for Brian.”

Laryssa

I guess for me, the thing that I’m trying to challenge myself with is if I’m not taking that time to take care of myself, then I’m going to burn myself completely out and I’m not going to be available for anybody. I’m not going to be doing any good for myself or my spouse or my workplace or any of that. It’s a lesson. Literally, in the moment, I’m trying to learn that. I think it can manifest in different ways, too. If we’re biting off more than we can chew, maybe we’re more irritable, maybe getting sick, things like that. How are you doing with that? Are you starting to be able to take a step back, or you feel like you’re still in the place where you’re biting off more than you can chew?

Brian

I suck at it. I think what’s happening is I’m better at knowing when I’m about to have gone too far. I’ve also done a better job of carving out some boundaries. I hate that word ‘boundary’ because it doesn’t really accurately define what I do. There are no go zones. I’m not engaging at this. We’re not going to have a discussion because you’ve gone over this line.

Laryssa

That’s a boundary. Sure.

Brian

You’re out of here. If you’ve gone over that line. For example, if someone wants to meet for a beer, I’ll meet for a beer. Perfectly happy. I’m your guy. I don’t take any drunk phone calls, ever. That conversation has no purpose. It has no value. If we’re actually going to answer some of these questions, we need to get into, they’re going to go where that social lubricant was going to take you away from.

I don’t do that at all. Don’t phone me after hours because I need those hours. One that I’ve stuck to, and this one brought me a lot of grace, is I’ll help you read the letters that come from the government because sometimes they can be a little confusing, but I will not make your phone calls for you. I’m not waiting for 40 minutes for the elevator music to end to talk to someone to schedule something for you. There are things that if you want Brian’s help, you’re going to obey this code of conduct. That’s where I’ve succeeded.

Where I still fail is when people, just like this Remembrance Day, someone comes up like, “Hey, can we talk tomorrow? I’ve got a guy, need some help.” I don’t yet have the ability to just say, “No,” I’ll at least inquire, and I did. I’m still struggling with it. I have such a hard time. My friends are dying. Their marriages are falling apart. They’re about to have conversations with their kids that if they have it the way they’re planning to, I know it’s going to go catastrophically wrong. Is that a time to have a coffee and go to sleep? Every time I feel like, okay, maybe five minutes with this guy, and next thing you know, you’ve added to your caseload.

Laryssa

I want to back up a little bit, even for something that might not be that critical. Maybe it is just about helping someone read through a letter they received or refer them to a resource that they’re asking about, or make a phone call for them. There’s something to be said for that. It feels good when you’re able to help somebody else out, but at the same time, I think you’re taking away their empowerment and education.

A lot of people, when they’re not well, whether mentally or physically, they are asking for help because it takes a lot of energy to make a phone call. It takes a lot of energy to investigate or research a resource or whatever the case may be. It’s just easier for them to ask someone else. If we’re doing it for them, we’re essentially taking that away from them. For me, in biting off more than I can chew, again, I’m practicing it right now, people.

I do not have this figured out. You can hold me accountable to it. I find that sometimes when I take no or take the step back, it actually forces the other person to be accountable for their own wellness or be accountable for their own stepping up for something because I’m leaving a space for them to fill where if I just do it for them, they’ll never advance, I guess.

Brian

One of the things that’s hard with transition is running your own stuff, and no one teaches that. There’s no course on how to run it. You’ll encounter soldiers all the time, guys that used to command 120 men but have never applied for a health card because why would you? The army did that for you. When we’re talking in other discussions about moral injury, for example, I’ll often tell people that there’s many versions of Brian.

There’s Warrant Officer this, there’s retired Warrant Officer that, certainly, neighbor, brother, friend, all these things. Today, though, if you’re asking for my advice, this is pure Brian who will show up, Warrant McKenna is not guiding you and doing this for you. That’s what it was. We were in a system where the platoon warrant would tell you, “You guys are going to dental this week because we’re about to go and you’re in. You guys are doing gas hut. You guys are going on this range.” The capabilities you required of these people were so intense that you regimented their life so that they could focus,-

Laryssa

One of the things.

Brian

-leave all the gray matter in their brain for the things that are going to get tough. By the way, we do that is we regiment their life for them. I’m not doing that anymore. I will help you take charge of your life, but if what you’re actually looking for is me to do it for you, that’s a no. Maybe I am better at it than I thought I was, but I’m at least doing that. I see people will reach out and I’ll tell them, “Here’s my no-go zones, and I’m going to help you do these things.” That’s the kind of services that I’m offering. Let’s take it, but a couple disappear because they were looking for the platoon warrant. He retired.

Laryssa

Yes. I think as we’re chatting, I’m hoping that people who are listening can find our conversation applicable to them, whether they are peer supporters, whether they are advocates in the Veteran space, whether it is them in their current workspace, whether it’s Family members biting off more than they can chew. I just really feel that this conversation, I’m hoping people can relate to something in it, no matter what their role might be currently.

Brian

It’s funny because as we were driving here and we were going over some of the points, one of the things that you said on the road, and I think it’s because you’re driving because your brain’s on something else, so it just comes out. Often, that’s when the gold nuggets fall out. You said it wasn’t so much about grasping this big thing, but your biting off more than you can chew starts off in nibbles, starts off with like, “Today I’ll make all the lunches, and probably tomorrow too.” You described it to me, or at least what I was hearing is like, for you, it’s this collection of everything that’s on your plate after you’ve nibbled all these things that you’re going to take on. Is that what you meant?

Laryssa

Yes. The visual I have come to my mind as you’re saying that is me at a buffet and a smorgasbord. I’m thinking, I’m just going to take a little bit of the mac and cheese —

Brian

Suddenly, the buffet is empty and you’re full.

Laryssa

Yes, my plate has way too much on it. Really, maybe that’s the analogy. Your intention is just to take a little bit of everything, and before you know it, your plate is full and you’re biting off more than you can chew. Yes, that’s it. As I was saying at the beginning of our conversation today, whoever you care about — I think that’s why we bite off more than we can chew. Whoever it is you care about, I’ll just take this little thing.

I’ll just take this little thing. It’ll be easy for me to phone and make that appointment. It’ll be easy for me to make the lunch. It’ll be easy for me to do whatever. Before you know it, you’re managing dozens of small things, which can actually really be overwhelming. It might be easier just to focus on one or two larger tasks, but that’s exactly it, Brian. That’s exactly my experience. I’ll just take this little piece, this little piece, and it’s too much before you know it.

Brian

I think it’s hard on the other side too because when somebody asks me, okay, what is it you can no longer do? Right there, I can tell you don’t understand mental health. I’ve made that conclusion already because the vast majority of things that I can maybe ramp myself up to doing that. I can maybe do this destructive resilience that we were talking about, which I’m going to suggest a whole lot of that’s fake.

You’re pretending that you’re as resilient as you’d like to look, but it’s almost denial. I’ll put off going to healthcare because I’m helping these nine guys here. They need me and they’re looking to me for advice, so I must be doing better. Then you realize you haven’t gone to your doctor in X amount of time. I find it’s a little bit of that. How does that sound?

Laryssa

I think for some people there could be a component to it. I think there’s a lot of things wrapped up in it. I think it could be ego maybe and pride that people are looking to you for help. I think there’s that piece, like I said, that it feels good when you’re helping someone else. You might be struggling, but when you get that little self-satisfaction and seeing someone else, it fills your cup a little bit. I think it is about not wanting other people to become harmed or damaged or tired.

Like I said, the example I gave of the cop saying, “Send me in,” or the firefighter saying, “Send me in, don’t send the rookie, because what they’re going to see is going to injure them.” I don’t want that to happen. Maybe it’s like a Superman mentality maybe to some degree too. I think there’s a lot of different — that destructive resilience, like I said, it’s a newer term to me, and I’m mulling it over, but I think there’s a lot of different maybe reasons why people end up there.

Brian

Like I said to you, it’s very hard. If you look at a company sergeant major, basically the soul and the spirit of 120 people, not the commander, that’s the major’s job, but there’s that person in the background giving the nod to things that are happening or shaking his head slightly when things are about to go sideways, that person has incredible power and incredible influence and doesn’t speak all that much, a grandfather role, if you will.

I love that role. I’m really good at it. When I came home and couldn’t organize a trip to the butcher because the smell in there just doesn’t work for me and I’ve got a six-year-old who I actually send in to go and buy different things from that side of the store, it doesn’t feel all that great for someone who used to be the grandfather of 120 guys to now really a six-year-old fetches stuff from me, the four-year-old has been taught how to wake up dad because dad freaks out in the morning.

The amount of stuff I used to run compared to how desperate and needy I feel, not a good feeling, but when I get my head above water and I start helping that guy, I’ve got my platoon again.I like being around soldiers and I like when they look to me for help. Next thing you know, I’ve recreated this environment I used to have, but instead of it being orders and lessons and stuff like that, it’s now, “Here’s what this program does and here’s how you fill out this form and so on and so forth.” I think if I’m being honest, I was trying to recreate my platoon again and trying to recreate that thing that made me feel purposeful. That’s the time to really assess, am I helping or am I reforming this to give me that sensation again?

Laryssa

I think that’s a good thing to put out there for people’s consideration. I want to ask you something else, too, I’m curious about. We’ve been talking about this a lot in the way of helping others, biting off more than you can chew, and the conversation’s been around helping others. Do you think that for a Veteran who is trying to move through recover — I see a lot of Veterans participating in five different wellness activities. Do you think there’s a component there that they might be biting off more than they can chew? Do you know what I’m getting at there?

Brian

I think I do. What I can connect to is, normally when you go through a program, so say you go through a program where you’re in for five days at a time in a group session, and then you’re off for three weeks. That off for three weeks part is part of the program. That doctor has designed like if they wanted you back in three days, it would have a three-day break. It’s five days on, 21 off, five on again. That entire front-to-back of that, of that month and a half I’ve described, is the program.

Quite often they don’t tell you that, so that one’s their fault. We need to describe this to people. Soldiers are command-driven. They will do what they’re told. If you wanted them to take a break, then you have to put that in the instructions. What often they do is in that three weeks, they sign up for a service dog program. Now they’re helping Buddy with his claim. You’re not doing the work. You’re not doing the work because part of the work is the rest. Forced rest is part of orders. It’s just the one that always gets skipped.

This part of your life is going to be weird because the execution might be the thing that gets skipped, and forced rest needs to happen at all times. Yes, this is where I’ll say it’s been problematic. It actually took a doctor in a program that I was in to tell me that. We’ve worked with him, Dr. Black. He’s a great guy. That’s not like Dr. Pink, by the way, from a movie where I’m using a code word. It’s actually his last name is Black. He does a lot of work with Vets. He told me one day that exact point. He’s like, “The downtime is on purpose. If you’re filling out forms and running coffee checks and all these things, all great things, but that break is part of the medicine.” Yes, I fumbled that one.

Laryssa

One thing that I hope that people come out from the podcast is to either feel validated or come away with an idea of something, feel heard and seen. I think what I want to put out there to folks that are listening is just to challenge them. Whether you’re, like I said, a Family member, a Veteran, a peer supporter, or whoever, challenge yourself, do some introspection and maybe a bit of an evaluation to see, are you biting off more than you can chew?

If you are you really being effective in as many places as you think you are? If you step back, could you be more effective in a lesser amount? I’m speaking to myself again. I’m just also wanting to say to folks who might be listening that I do not have this figured out, and I am notorious for spreading myself thin. This has been a helpful conversation for me, actually, and just some awareness.

Brian

Yes, I think I like to relate stuff back to what people know. One of the main concepts of how you fight is you always maintain a reserve. The second you commit the reserve, you reconstitute the reserve. The military, at any given time, has specific groupings of people and equipment that are ready to go somewhere. The second you send them, this mad scurrying of activity goes on back home to reconstitute that group of people, that reserve.

For us as reserve, there’s nobody I can call, quite frankly, that can give me time off and rest. I can call my friends, and I routinely do. My peer support network, I’m blessed with having a lot of help. None of those guys can solve me being tired. My cognitive reserve, my ability to be of assistance to anyone down the road, requires that I don’t wind up in the hospital tomorrow needlessly. I’m asking people to look at it that way. If you want to be super soldier and solve everybody’s problems today, that’s not how the world of administration works.

I want you in balance, I want you to maintain your reserve. The second you commit it to something you think is an emergency case, your next priority of work is to reestablish that reserve. In other words, you need to eat, you need to go to bed, you need to take a break because this peer support network of mine, it’s so helpful and so vital to me that I need those guys five months from now. I don’t want to be burned out that I can’t help them. I certainly don’t want them burned out; they can’t help me. Yes, we must maintain a strategic reserve within ourselves, and that is rest. That’s what I think.

Laryssa

I think that’s brilliant advice to end our conversation on. Just for us to, like I said, do that self-assessment and know that sometimes we have to say no and not bite off more than we can chew.

Brian

Yes. We need to be around here for each other. It’s not about ending advocacy, it’s about making sure that you have the ability to stay in the game and we can help each other out. This has been another episode of Mind Beyond the Mission.

Laryssa

Thanks for joining us for another episode of Mind Beyond the Mission. We just want to put a shout out to Pop Up Podcasting and to Atlas’s internal producer, Courtney Wright, for helping us out.

Brian

They’re all right, I guess.

Laryssa

They’re all right.

Brian

Did they put you up to this?

Laryssa

They did not, no.

Brian

No.

Laryssa

On my own volition, but maybe that might be worth a Starbucks somewhere down the line.

Brian

All right. I’ll go along with it. Basically, we plan these, we figure out what the topic is, and then we do this, we do them. The only reason you guys can hear them in a clear, edited way is because we’ve got these fine folks here at Pop Up and Courtney on our end making sure that all comes together. We do love you guys. Thanks for all the help.

Laryssa

Shout out. See you.

Brian

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mind Beyond the Mission.

Laryssa

If this conversation resonated with you or helped you in any way, I encourage you to subscribe to Mind Beyond the Mission wherever you listen to your podcasts, so you’ll be the first to know when our next episode comes out.

Brian

If you know someone who might relate to what we’ve shared or could find it helpful, please feel free to send it their way. We’re all on the same team.

Laryssa

Plus, we’d love to hear what other topics you’d be interested in us exploring in future episodes. Brian and I have a lot of ideas and subjects we plan to dive into, but you, the listener, have probably experienced or thought of topics that haven’t crossed our minds yet.

Brian

Please reach out if this is the case. We’re on social media at @atlasveteransca on most platforms, so please feel free to tweet at us, send us a message, or leave a review on this episode, and let us know what else you’d like to hear us talk about.

Laryssa

Brian, it’s always a pleasure having these important conversations with you. Looking forward to next time.

Brian

You bet, Laryssa. Take it easy.