You Are Your Own Guide, You Are Your Own Guard
Disclaimer: This article and the accompanying material is for informational purposes only. My views and opinions are not intended to discount the beliefs or opinions of others. I am not a doctor, scientist, or financial advisor, just someone who is always asking questions. This is not financial advice or advice about anything for that matter. Consult with your heart and your own experiences (or a professional if you need it) to determine what you need to learn from my story.
“Guard Your Guard”, its More than a Crypto Thing
I’ve been part of a community called The Guardian Academy (TGA) for a little over a year. I won’t talk about exactly how I came across this Community right now, that’s a whole other story and involves a fortune cookie moment, finding a mastermind for Dad’s, and stumbling into crypto, web3 and blockchain for the purpose of creating a future doing what I want with complete freedom.
The Guardian Academy (TGA) is a community of like-minded, purpose driven individuals dedicated to asking better questions, helping give better answers and sharing resources. I’ve learned a lot about how to look at things from a business and entrepreneurial perspective and about how to approach investing and creating the financial freedom I envision.
TGA teaches principles that help people navigate the world and make better decisions about pretty much everything in life. Its helped teach me to slow down, identify and establish an investment strategy (besides just “winging it”), has helped me clarify my Vision, has brought to light a better path than I was traveling, and made me realize I needed to “play my own game”.
There is a Crypto asset called Guard (Guard is the Treasury asset (like Bitcoin) that is the foundation asset of the Wolf Den ecosystem and the Guardian Foundation) that is part of the story. And this is where I know I might lose some of you. Hang in there.
I initially started investing in Guard and have what is called a Base case established in a Guard-BUSD Liquidity Pool. Taking your Guard and pairing it with BUSD (a Stable coin backed by the dollar) and adding to a Liquidity Pool is supposed to “protect the investment” from the volatility that is a normal part of crypto (or securities investing and trading for that matter).
The idea of “guarding your guard” is somewhat related to this base case but is more about protecting ourselves from “blowing up” or making decisions that take us further away from what we truly want.
“Guarding your Guard”, I have come to learn, is more about knowing ourselves than anything else. It is about protecting ourselves from the emotional (and physical) toll of too much consumption, it’s about staying on the correct path, and being ready to act and create.
It’s hard to explain all the ways this is more than a crypto thing. I’ve stopped trying to explain what it’s all about, and invite you to dive in for yourself, or just watch.
Why Do I Feel Differently?
This is all related to an “open loop”, or, a question I have carried around with me since July 18, 2002. The question about why “I feel differently than others”? Why, after responding to the crash of Tanker 123, I was not impacted in the same way emotionally, as the others on my crew. I didn’t experience the same response or have as traumatic an experience as others did. I actually recall being in what I now know was a flow state. Everything seemed to slow down, it was almost like being in a movie scene. I recall the excitement and adrenaline, but more, experiencing something so chaotic and outside of one’s normal experience that it created such an amazing feeling of presence and clarity when you are going through it.
I didn’t think I had to be part of the post incident critical stress debriefing because I was the crew boss. I felt it was better to take care of all the paperwork to get the crew demobilized immediately. I was taking care of the crew, thinking I didn’t need to process the experience we just had. Many years later I would learn how wrong I was. How I’ve accumulated these experiences, never fully processing them. Talking about the experience with my peers (not necessarily with the professional counselors that were forced upon us in that moment) was an important part of healing and learning from the experience.
I had started to notice the accumulated effects of doing what I did. I would notice how I would feel after a long fire assignment. How I would get into these funks or depressed feelings after returning home from an assignment or other intense learning experiences. It was like a form of post traumatic stress but I could never compare a wildland fire assignment to that of a military deployment. But something was going on. I was experiencing tension and similar stress reactions (physical, emotional, and mental stress responses) as those experiencing a traumatic event. I started to carry around this question as well, about what was the cause of this post assignment funk? Was this a form of PTSD? What could I do to protect myself and avoid this in the future?
(After diving deeper into this question, I have learned that there are things about how I am programed that come through in my character and how I learn or communicate. I can go back to my very first journal writing and see that I have always felt different and sought to learn. Some self-assessments like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Learning Styles or the VIA Character Strengths can help give insight and self awareness. This all relates to the First Step of becoming a Master and a Guardian.)
Residue. The Hard Path
The concept of Residue, as presented by Dr. Preston Cline and the Mission Critical Teams Institute, explains something I have carried with me for years. Why, as a wildland firefighter, I can come home from a 2 week assignment, or even a week long training session, and feel a down effect. Almost like a post traumatic effect, but not enough to consider calling it a disorder or PTSD. But something was happening. Some sort of accumulated stress or effect of doing my job existed.
When I first heard about this concept of Residue, it all kind of clicked and came together for me. I started to make the connection between stress and trauma, about how certain stresses and experiences can physically manifest themselves in our body, about ancestral trauma and how this imprints on our DNA (in my opinion a type of survival mechanism designed to shield and protect offspring from whatever might threaten them), and how this even relates to Dopamine, learning, and how we store our memories and develop the skills to survive and thrive.
Residue is the result of learning. Residue is stress and intense experiences that have not been given time to decompress and process. Residue is pent up emotions and feelings. Thoughts and feelings of worry that build up because you don’t have a better place to put it.
Ideas and lessons learned, even information consumed for whatever reason, takes energy and leaves a residue. This can harden and stuff gets stuck. Or the hardening literally numbs us from feeling certain intense emotions. This hardening protects us in certain ways, and can be a benefit in certain environments and situations (like fire fighting or trying to survive) but may affect other aspects of your life, like relationships and living in a calm and peaceful environment.
Sometimes, if not properly balanced, pressure and trauma can build up to a point where we experience negative effects. (Common Responses to High Stress and/or Expressions of Trauma)
Flow as a “Shield”
What is Flow?
“Flow is an optimal state of consciousness where we feel and perform our best. More specifically, the term refers to those moments of total absorption, when an individual becomes so focused on what they’re doing that everything else just disappears, and all aspects of performance are significantly amplified.” (Definition from the Flow Research Collective)
I’ve been fascinated by the concept of Flow and have always sought out different states of consciousness. I wasn’t raised in a culture with traditions or rites of passage, the story I was told was from the Christian perspective, and my spiritual understanding was formed through mass media, personal experiences (of present and past lives), and imprinted into my DNA through generations of learning and adapting for survival.
My understanding and journey into understanding about Flow came through a couple of experiences I had in 2016. But it relates also to the questions I’ve carried around that I talked about above.
Remember that, with me, so many of my life lessons come through working in Wildland Fire. Specific fire assignments and incidents have exposed me to incredible experiences and taken me to magnificent places. Being pushed to the edges of my physical and mental capacity, tested with challenging problems to solve, working as part of elite teams, providing for a lot of opportunity to get into Flow and to learn incredibly deep life lessons.
One particular fire was the Poverty Island Fire. It’s hard to explain exactly how it happened. But over the course of the summer so many life lessons seem to come to me because I was working this unique and crazy fire. (Note: The Poverty Island Fire burned on an Island in Lake Michigan. It started in the beginning of July and burned into late summer and Fall. This was not a normal fire, very logistically challenging (being on an island in the Devil’s Gate area of Lake Michigan) and burning in dry, compacted duff with a matchstick arrangement of blown down fir and cedar trees). It was not as much the fire, but the stories surrounding Poverty Island and those being told by the media about our little fire.
One thing, which was significant to me and my story, was that I began recognizing how generational trauma worked, and how my grandfather’s experience in WWII imprinted something into the Bennett DNA. (I’ll share more about My Grandpa’s story in a different story. It’s a significant theme related to communication).
It was 2016 and we were right in the middle of a politically divisive time in the United States. I was having some intense political arguments with my dad and wasn’t very happy about our relationship being formed around opposing beliefs. The thing that I realized at the time was how I didn’t know anything about my dad or grandpa. I had no idea what made him believe the things he did. I also realized that my relationship with my own kids was beginning to mirror that of my father. Not knowing this story led to a lot of the conflict and misperceptions about each other’s beliefs.
The next incident during the Summer of 2016 was the Beartown Fire Crew accident in Minneapolis. This was a roll-over accident involving the Keweenaw Bay Indian Communities Fire crew while they were enroute to a fire assignment in Utah. Two crewmembers were killed along with numerous injured in this accident. I was the Incident Commander (as well as the Agency Representative) that responded to Minneapolis to form an Incident Management Team and worked jointly with the local Emergency Response agencies (Minnesota LAST team) to manage the incident and help support those involved along with the numerous family members coming from Michigan. (Story of the response and Firefighter procession home.)
The story of their involvement in the assistant and what we accomplished together was one of the key moments in my career and life. Through this tragic incident I have learned and grown stronger as a human.
During the middle of this incident, during an extremely stressful moment when so many different things were adding up, I remember very clearly slipping into a Flow state. Everything slowed down and I knew exactly what I needed to do. I immediately figured out an answer to a question I needed and was able to correct some misperceptions and stories that were on social media and in the news. I remember thinking to myself how it felt like I was in a simulation, just like the scenarios I had trained for in some of my fire leadership training. Because I had the training and practice, when I was pushed to the edge of my experience level, I was able to tap into the flow state.
Being in flow helps us learn, it helps with the creation of new ideas. In the moment when I needed to come up with a creative solution to a problem in front of me, the flow state brought me to a solution. Without it I may have frozen or become distracted by worry and anxiety. The outcome could have been completely different.
Choosing to Fight
“Flow starts when you say yes to the fight.”- Steven Kotler and Dr. Michael Mannino
From all I have learned about flow and trauma, for me, the most important aspect is that Flow is a guard against the negative effects of intense and traumatic experiences. Flow can have a healing effect. Steven Kotler writes about this in one of his earlier books, West of Jesus. Kotler heals himself from Lymn’s disease by getting into flow, simply by going surfing. This idea was fascinating to me. And an excuse to take up an old dream of mine to surf. I became a 45 year old kook because I wanted the healing effects of flow. And no better way than to surf.
I dove into Flow and ate up everything Steven Kotler was writing about. Of course, when Stealing Fire, by Kotler and Jamie Wheel came out I jumped all in. I was recognizing the Life Flow starting to happen. Where the things I was living and asking questions about start to magically and synchronistical appear in my life.
From the two incidents that occurred in 2016 I started to understand things about trauma and stress. How I had been chasing after a certain type of individual awareness and career development, but was neglecting to lead my family in the ways I knew I needed.
I began to learn about the power of our story, how through talking and sharing our stories we can heal and process our experiences and move through grief. Post traumatic growth rather than an experience becoming stuck, causing further stress, fear, and negative response to similar experiences.
I was burnt out from work. Wasn’t good about sharing all of the experiences I had accumulated from the 22 years of fire fighting. I wasn’t good about dealing with the residue. I had become hardened. It took seeing myself reflected in my boys.
Being taken to the edge of my experience level as a father, I finally realized I needed to reach out, ask for help, and have a place to put my story.
This whole journey took me to Andrew Hubberman (Anna Lembke’s Research and book Dopamine Nation) and his discussions around dopamine made me realize it was connected.
I continue to learn from the tragic accident that occurred August 27th, 2016. It took me down a path of learning about my own family history, about how important telling our story is. It made me aware of my own biases and ways of dealing with stress and anxiety, and has taught me how to recover and create balance in my life.
Choosing to fight means we are making the choice to act. We are prepared. We’ve practiced the required skills, we’ve learned from prior experiences, and gained knowledge through investments in education and training, as well as through hearing others stories.
Flow states are triggered when we push the edges of our experience. This can only happen if we’ve somehow taken ourselves close to this edge, either in real life or in our imagination.
Preparedness. Being Ready for the Fight
In Wildland Fire Management we have various programs. Preparedness, Fuels, and Suppression. These programs are differentiated more for funding purposes, but also have specific activities and functions that are a separate part of the whole management system.
Fuels Programs are more focused on vegetation management, fuels reduction, and habitat restoration through the use of fire and mimicking the effects of fire through mechanical treatments. Suppression is everything you see on the News (and much more).
Preparedness is the base program that funds regular wages and benefits, training and development, it includes prevention and education activities, are used for purchase and maintenance of equipment and other expenses associated with being prepared to respond to a fire.
Preparedness is everything that makes us ready to respond and manage wildfire incidents within whatever jurisdiction identified. It also builds into a bigger National Coordination System that allows Wildland Fire Management Agencies to provide the National framework for response and management of natural disasters (NIMS and Incident Command System).
So, with all this said, what can we do, as individuals, to be ready for when life throws you a challenge? How can we bring more moments of flow in our lives? How can we harness and balance the use of Flow, the consumption, and need to recover and rest?
Here are my suggestions and what I have found to work for me:
- Know yourself. Start with your Core Values. What are the things that drive you, the things that interest you and that catch your attention? Learn about the things that made you who you are.
- Asking questions and by being an “open loop” or multiloop learner, we open ourselves up to new ideas. Asking good questions and not coming to conclusions leaves more options and creates opportunities for time and randomness. It also builds in curiosity, which is a superpower. Helping people navigate fear, trauma, and other extreme experiences.
- Be a constant Student. Approach challenges and conflict with curiosity and seek to find the lesson learned from failing. The best students become teachers, understanding that to truly learn something it is best to teach others.
- Teaching and learning through storytelling has a powerful effect.
- Attending Training courses or activities that incorporate role playing and simulations are good ways to extend and bring us to the “edge of our experience” in a safe and controlled manner. (Outside of my job, I’ve found I’m able to tap into flow in every aspect of my life. Pushing through fear, exploring new things, traveling and having adventures, taking improv classes, or doing things that are outside of your comfort and normal routine.)
- Practice and act (put into action the things we are learning about or the information we are consuming).
- Pursue challenging goals (but don’t go crazy about telling people what you are doing).
- Be Prepared. Show up. Fight. Flow.
- Guard your Guard.
Resources and Further Learning:
The Wolf Den: A club with members-only benefits, a luxury mountain retreat, and exclusive events. IYKYK.
The Guardian Academy (Tons of free resources and various links to endless opportunities to learn, grow, and give back. My Guardian Capstone Project and many other useful creative stories can be found in the Learning Vault.)
Learning and Finding Your Way Through Stories- My Guardian Academy Capstone
First few seconds for flow: A comprehensive proposal of the neurobiology and neurodynamics of state onset- Kotler S, Mannino M, Kelso S, and Huskey R.
Student of Fire Medium Blog- A place for me to put my stories.
Wildland Firefighter Foundation- The best way to support the wildland firefighting community.
The Guardian Foundation- Guardian is made to help facilitate growth, support creators and bring the best possible version of Web3 into existence. It will serve as a decentralized protocol layer for community driven initiatives that drive value forward into the Web3 world.
