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I Confused Being Needed, With Being Loved · Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)

• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Murders to Music Podcast.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Aaron.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, and you guys, this is gonna be a good week.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: So this last week I was listening to some different things, you know, and as you guys know, I've been working on myself.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've been working on this thing called life and finding a new rhythm.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in doing so, I heard a lady speak, and I'm gonna capture some of that here in just a moment, but it resonated.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I added my own thoughts to it, and here's what I want to say.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not sure who needs to hear this.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure where you are in your journey, but this is something I know that I still struggle with accepting.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have this all figured out, and I'm hoping that between you and I and whoever's listening to this, we can work on this together.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: When leaving law enforcement, nobody ever talks about how much you grieve yourself after leaving the job or retiring.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just your career ending, it's a version of yourself ending.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: The one who knew where they belonged, the one who spoke a shared language with those they surrounded themselves with, and the one that mattered in a very specific way.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: When all of that is gone, the grief isn't just about missing work.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's about losing that version of yourself that you knew exactly who they were.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Losing that cause of identity can feel like walking around naked, exposed, alone, unsure, and lost in this huge world that you've never had to explore on your own before.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what can help.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And don't do, you know, don't do this all at once.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not going to be done perfectly.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: But where I'm at and where I encourage folks feeling this way to be is start building a life that supports your nervous system, not just your resume.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Your resume is who you were and what you did, but you've got a whole life in front of you.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And even myself, I have to really struggle to wrap my mind around this and believe these things that I know are true.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I struggled with that one, but find places where you're valued.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Value is such a simple but strong word.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine this.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Every day you show up at work and you are valued by the people you serve.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcomed into a room of strangers, and you can impact them in a way that not many other people could in their immediate moments of need.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, after the job, everything you knew that made you who you were and who you are is gone.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Walking into that same room doesn't bring you the same value that you once had, and it doesn't bring you the same impact on the world that you once had.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you're questioning your existence and your reality and what your self-worth really is.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, find places that value you now in the afterlife, where you don't have to perform or prove anything to anybody.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let purpose come from how you live, not just what you do.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so important to give yourself permission to live undefined, unbridled, and free from the constraints of the old life had placed upon you.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So often we get tied down with what used to be, and you've heard that message so many times in this podcast, but we need to let that go.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Those are constraints that are holding us back from whatever God has in our future.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: That feeling you have, that space where you're feeling it's not emptiness, that is a transition.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have to remind myself every day.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't lose myself.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in the process of meeting the next generation, the new me that I might become.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that is something that is hard to wrap my mind around, but it is so much the truth.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: On this show, we've talked about trauma, we've talked about losing identity, we've talked about what the job has done to me.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I've been asking myself a harder question recently in through therapy and just in my quiet time in my Bible studies.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: What if the job didn't create the identity crisis that I've felt this entire time?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a crazy thought, but what if it just exposed something that was built long before I ever wore a badge?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm being honest, I didn't become performance driven in the academy.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't start feeling the need to prove myself when I hit the street.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: All of that started way earlier in my life, you know, and a few weeks ago I put out a part one of my dad issues and my daddy issues, I think is what it's called.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this may very well be a part two to that.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I grew up, it was strength.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Strength was my dad going to work all day.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was him working 10, 12, 14 hours a day, and him sleeping on the couch until he rinsed and repeated and did it again.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: That was my model of strength.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: My dad was somebody who was in a very high-up position in the oil field in Alaska.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen the show Landman?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: My dad was one of those upper people in that show.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Except his wasn't a show, it was real life, and it's the life that I lived growing up.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because of his role and his age, emotions are not something that we were, you know, emotions weren't something that we really had in our home.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: To cry was to be seen as weak.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't allowed to talk about maybe any crushes that I had or girls that I liked because I got teased and picked on and belittled for that.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't something they were doing intentionally.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think the belittling and the teasing and the embarrassment was a byproduct of them not knowing how to handle that situation, and because they were so out of touch and unplugged from their emotional reality that they didn't know how else to respond.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that came from everybody.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So those are things we weren't allowed to talk about.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: My relationship with my dad, he didn't do much with me.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: We did one hunting trip a year.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: That was our time together, and we picked Christmas trees together.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: That was our time together.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: If we weren't on a hunting trip or we weren't picking Christmas trees, the only other time my dad spoke to me is when he was scolding me, yelling at me, because my grades weren't where they needed to be.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he came in as the disciplinarian to yell and scream, and by God's son, you're gonna do better.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is a stepping stone in life.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: He would slam his hand down on the table and he would leave the room, and I wouldn't hear from him again for another few weeks, maybe a few months.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And when that report card was coming in, the snail mail, like it used to, I used to always try to get there first so I could take it, steal it, burn it, get rid of it, and not have to have that experience.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want that to detract from my relationship that I had with my dad twice a year.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: When I think about the relationship that I had with him, I thought it was normal.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the fact that there was no emotions, no connection, and he was emotionally unplugged, which as a result, he led my family.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: They were emotionally unplugged.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is where I think the need to perform or the need to seek approval in my life really started.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I first realized that I was capable of performing and that I would receive accolades and success.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody early on in my life, a very influential man, told me that success builds confidence and confidence brings success.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until I became that explorer at 13 years old where I'm out and I am no longer being viewed by my father, but I'm being viewed by other neutral people in the world that think that I'm doing a good job and that if I perform and I get things done, then there's rewards, accolades, pats on the back, attaboys, promotions.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the first time in my life that I really felt like I was valued or I was worthy of something.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Prior to that, just a year prior to that, is when my mom and dad got divorced, and my dad told my mom that, hey, I'm going to do this with or without you.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't like it, you can take Aaron and leave.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: That sense of abandonment, that sense of not being valued, that sense of not being worthy was replaced as soon as I stepped into my first uniform and pinned that first badge onto my chest.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was during that time that I was also living with my mom.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And during the time of living with my mom, she had just bought her own house.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: She had saved her money.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: She was a waitress and she saved her tip money and she bought her first house for about$80,000.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: This was back in, I don't know, I was 13 years old.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 47 now, so do the quick math.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is that it was during that time that I had to step up and be the strong one in my house.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: I had to be the uh almost at times provider.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I went out and got jobs and was working and helping my mom, and I had to be the one to help make those large, those big decisions in our world and in our family, because my dad was so far removed doing whatever he was doing, there was a disconnect there.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it was really me and my mom that grew up together.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it if I was in control, if I was getting accolades at the same time at the police department, and if I was in control and helping my mom and getting accolades at home, as long as I was the strong one, I felt very, very safe in that role.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I was a person who was valued and needed, and I could help calm crisis.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I could help fix things as they went wrong.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: As men, we want to fix things anyway.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's just our nature.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard for us to listen to a story told by our wives, our significant others, or our friends where we're not automatically thinking about a solution that we could offer them to fix their problem.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we do.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And at 13 years old, I was put in a position where my ideas mattered, and as a result, they implemented change and action.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result of that, I got accolades and rewards.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is not about what I did.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about the actions that I took, but it is more about the way that I was being wired during those early developmental years.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Something along the way that I learned was that being needed meant being valued.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again, if I can.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Something I learned along the way was that being needed meant being valued.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that is why law enforcement, I think, was such a natural fit in my life.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when law enforcement came into my life, I don't believe it was a random fit.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: I believe it was intentional.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that I sought out places to be valuable, places where I could have a clear mission, a clear hierarchy.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I could be respected.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: There was never respect for me in my home with my dad.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: He would tell me if, son, if I needed to hear anything out of you, I'd jerk your chain and then you can talk.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, your role is to be seen and not heard.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Those of you growing up during the 70s, 80s, and 90s, maybe your parents were that same way.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that it wasn't okay at times, but to live your life that way did not show a clear mutual respect for the two-way relationship that me and my father had.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, it trickled throughout the rest of the family.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: As a police officer, I had a tangible impact in people's lives every single day.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was clear what my work was doing.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: There was immediate validation and immediate reward.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I told myself that day that I swore in as a police officer in Alaska, I told myself that I wanted to serve.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I did.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to serve.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: But if I'm being fully honest, I also wanted to matter in people's lives.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that when that radio went off, I was going to be needed.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was able to bring calm in someone's life during moments of chaos.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: That had value.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was being dependent on to protect and to serve and to save lives.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: That had value.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was the oxygen and the lifeblood for people when their worlds were falling apart.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: That had value.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that I was addicted to the adrenaline.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I wasn't.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not an adrenaline junkie.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mind kicking indoors and pointing guns at people, but no part of me wants to get onto a roller coaster and go for a quick ride.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: That is just not my style.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I do feel, in hindsight, that I was addicted to being necessary and needed.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: To be the most important person in the room when I walk into chaos is something that I was addicted to.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Which trickles down as to why I chose the child abuse and homicide route.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why I chose to be on the other side of that yellow tape.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that I ever felt valuable for just existing.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Not until post-law enforcement.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Not until I'm discovering and transitioning to the new me.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I ever in fact I didn't.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Take the word think out of it.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't feel valuable for just existing.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: If I wasn't working, if I wasn't putting a bad guy in jail, if I wasn't solving the world's problems, then I was not valuable.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: If I wasn't being useful, I wasn't valuable.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: If I wasn't carrying something heavy enough that other people couldn't carry, I wasn't valuable.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't feel like I was enough, ever.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't feel like I mattered unless I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: I confused being needed with being loved.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not blaming the job.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just simply exposing the equation and the wiring that got me to where I am today.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: In my world, performance equaled value, usefulness equaled worth, and strength equaled being lovable.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was the strength and lovable part that I feel I wasn't given as a child growing up.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And because I didn't have that, I had to rely on the other two.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I had to rely on the performance and the usefulness, and I had to chase that because as long as I was successful, success built brought confidence, and confidence brought success.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as I was being useful and productive and getting those attaboys and being performance driven, do not confuse performance driven with results driven.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: They are two totally different things.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Performance driven, I am looking for an accolade.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Results driven, I simply want to get the job done.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't until I came out of law enforcement where I felt strong and I felt that I was loved.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: My family loved me the entire time, the entire path, the entire journey that I was on.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: My family loved me, but I ignored them and left them in the shadows.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I allowed at times my family and my world to crumble while I went out and was valuable and performance-driven and saved somebody else's life.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: I allowed the people in my world to die a slow death in my own home.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: So when my badge left my chest, when I left the police department, it for me it wasn't just a career shift.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was a removal of the scoreboard of life.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was a removal of all of the good things that I had done.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what I took to the conversation with HR and payroll when they said I was nothing but a number on a profits and loss statement, and their job was to keep the profits column bigger than the loss column.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is during the workers' comp resolution stage of my life.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: I brought that scoreboard to the table and said, But do you know what I've done?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know who I am?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know where I've been?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because all those accolades that I had been getting really at the end of the day didn't matter when there was a dollar sign between me and the department.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: But when I left law enforcement and I had that career shift and I removed the scoreboard, there was no more radios.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: There was no more crisis.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: There was no more automatic respect when I walked into a room.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: There was no visible necessity for me to be out in that corporate world.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: When I step into a room in my corporate position, they really don't want me there.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a stark contrast from where I was.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want me into that room.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: They see me as the sales guy.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: They see me as a necessary evil to get their job done, but they don't want me.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: They don't make time.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: They, you know, a lot of people don't want to build that relationship.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that is a very hard pill to swallow because for so many years I was used to the exact opposite.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: When I stepped into a room, I needed to be there.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And even if they didn't want me there, at the end of the day, I was going to right their wrongs and correct their chaos.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Without the uniform, I had to face something terrifying.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's if I wasn't needed, who who am I?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm feeling that right now.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: If I step into a room and I'm not needed in that room, I leave and I go sit in my truck and I think, man, who am I?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: What am I doing here?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this happening the way that it is?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't people respect me when I show up?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why doesn't what I say have any value in their life?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a hard, hard place to be.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in that moment that I figure out that it's not the trauma that I'm grieving.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the job that I'm grieving.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's the person that I used to be.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the position and the role that I used to be in that I'm grieving.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the way of life.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's the scoreboard that I used to have in front of me.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: That is what I'm grieving.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm grieving the significance that I once had in people's lives.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Complete strangers, those same people that I might walk into their office today in my civilian clothes as a factory rep.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's those same people that go home at night and they have a real life and they drink and they get into a fight with their husband or wife, or their kid dies, or there's a car crash.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And those same people that don't want me there during my day job today, in my old world, when I stepped into their life as complete strangers, they clung to me.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that clinging to me was a sign of a significant sign of my value.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what I miss.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: The job, it didn't break me.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: It it maybe it exposed that I never learned how to exist without earning or performing.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: All it did was open up the bandwidth for me to understand and recognize that my need to perform, my need to have identity, my need to be successful, my need to be the crutch for somebody else started long before I ever pinned on a badge.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: It started when I was trying to obtain my dad's approval throughout those formative years of my life, when the only time that he would ever talk to me is when it was about my grades, or he would take me on a tag-along moose hunt with his work buddies.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that was it.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the times that he and I actually connected.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: So the rest of the time, as a child growing up, I'm constantly striving and trying to perform, or trying to get his approval, or trying to get his attention, or trying to get his love, or trying to share and experience life with him.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he was asleep on a couch or he was at work.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Law enforcement just gave me the path to achieve all of those things, all those accolades, mark up that scoreboard and give me that identity.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: In this new world, it's hard.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to rest without feeling guilty.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to see injustice in the world and not be able to step in, take control, and deal with it.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to let somebody else lead.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I was leaving law enforcement, I I was having a very difficult discussion one day with a peer who actually works for a different police department.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And as we're talking, I'm explaining to him, I'm like, look, I said, I am not ready to be done for these reasons.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this PTSD thing they're saying, I've got, I don't know if I believe it.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel weak.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like, you know, I just haven't finished my part.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't finished my role.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: All I ever know is being a cop.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: How am I going to do anything different?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Aaron, you said, you know what?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, You did your part.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: You did your job.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: You carried the baton.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's time for somebody else to take over and pick up where you left off.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And those were very moving words for me.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: They sound very simple, but it was almost permission for me to rest in the space that I was in and to receive some help.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is very hard to ask for help when you are the one always providing.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: When you are the one that provides help and people come to you, you are the provider.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: You are the one that has your shit together.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: You are the one that is gonna move forward, charge forward, and make calm out of chaos.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And now all of a sudden you're having to ask for help.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're having to be vulnerable.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're having to feel feelings.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Those things typically didn't happen in my world.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to accept being loved without performance.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to accept that people might actually like me for me.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: They might value me for me without performance.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, recently recently at my work, I have a couple of owners of my company, and one of those owners has really been pouring into me in 2026.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be honest, at times I wonder what I'm doing there because I don't feel like I'm a valuable part of the team, or I don't feel like I'm moving the needle, quote unquote, or I don't feel like I'm able to have that performance-based scoreboard that I'm so used to carrying.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And to not be able to mark up that scoreboard makes me feel less valuable than the peers to my left or my right.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: But this gentleman that's pouring into me, he sees something in me, and I he has been mentoring me, he has been giving me guidance and counsel, and uh ultimately I believe he wants me to be seen as an extension of him, and this is a very powerful man in my world.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that is such a blessing because I feel like I have nothing to offer.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's how maybe it's not true, but I feel like I have nothing to offer.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: I can every time I talk to him, I stumble over my words and I don't get anything right, and I'm like, man, I'm totally not an idiot.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: But he still continues to engage and look past my slowness, and I feel like I don't have a whole lot to offer.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not bringing anything to this table, yet he is willing to pour this love and time and attention in into me, and that is a hard place for me to be.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's a hard place for me to sit um with grace because I don't feel like I'm earning uh his attention.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you don't understand that.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but that's the way that I feel.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard for me to sit still without proving my worth or proving myself or adding to that scoreboard.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think performance says that you're valuable because of what you do, but faith says I'm valuable before I ever did anything.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that is something I have to keep reminding myself that this is a quiet strength.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that I really need to sit with and accept and understand.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: And this continual work that I'm doing on myself through therapy or friends or peers or counseling or whatever it may be, or studying or reading or the Bible, this constant work that I'm working on myself with, it's going to give me that inner strength that I need to be able to make this transition from where I once was to where I am today.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish that I was already there.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one part of me does.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: The part of Aaron that's I go 100 miles an hour wishes I was already there.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it's about this journey that I'm on.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's a journey from A to Z, and I'm somewhere in the middle.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know when I'm gonna get there.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: The ups and downs of the journey, the ups and downs of whatever journey you're on are going to be hard.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's peaks and valleys, there's good times, there's bad times, there's times your legs are burning because you're climbing the hill, and there's other times you're sliding down the backside, completely rested, relaxed, and having a good time.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the journey that we're on, the journey that I'm on, that is making this sometimes more difficult than others.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to become who I was before.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want the stress, I don't want the weight of the world, I don't want the weight of the badge, I don't want to ever testify again, I don't want people's lives in my hands unless it's an acute trauma, emergent situation.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to recreate who I was in law enforcement.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I am trying to become someone whose value doesn't disappear when my title does.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: I want to build that new transition, that new life of mine.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to become a person that is valued for who I am in my own skin, not for the fruits of my labor.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be present in my environment.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be present at my work, I want to be present in conversations without having to prove my worth.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And for so many years, I was trying to prove my worth.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know what's funny about proving my worth in law enforcement?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: And anybody out there in government or emergency services, you'll get this.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: I can prove my worth and be an A plus cop or A plus employee, and you've got the slug that's sitting next to you that doesn't do anything, and he is like an F minus employee.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: We both get paid the same, and we both have the same opportunity for promotion.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not looking for that anymore.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be present.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to have to worry about proving.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to be accepted and loved and valued for who I am, and I think I'm on the right path.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: I want my family to be able to see my weaknesses.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Back at Christmas time, I got into a there's a podcast on it, but I lost my mind over selecting our Christmas tree this year.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't about the tree.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was about the time in my life when me and my father actually got along, and that was one of our moments.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And this year, when things didn't go exactly the way that I wanted them to or pictured them going, I couldn't handle it and I lost my absolute mind.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I had to go back to my family because something my dad would never do is say, you know what, Aaron, I was wrong.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: I made a mistake.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I was feeling, here's what I was thinking, and let's talk about this.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do you forgive me?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to do that with my family because it was the right thing to do.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was part of that rebuilding that relationship, restoring the relationship that I tore down during my outburst and my temper tantrum.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to go back and restore that.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it took me some time because that is a vulnerable place to be.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're really pushing that pride down.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: I love my family, but I really had to go back and push that pride down and just be vulnerable and open with them and explain everything so they understood where I was coming from.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they loved me through that.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have to learn how to sit in a conversation or in a circumstance without trying to fix it.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: For so many years, take away the inherent stuff that comes with testosterone where we want to be the fixers.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: For years, I was fixing everybody else's problem.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: And today I have to learn how to sit without fixing, and more importantly, without knowing how to fix.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because in my current role, I don't know how to fix the problems.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: In my old role, I could do it in my sleep.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: In my new role, I don't know how to fix the problems.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: I can muddle my way through it, but I'm going to be stumbling along the way.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to learn how to sit there and be okay in that environment.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: One thing this podcast has helped me with is redefining strength.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Strength is honesty, vulnerability, transparency, love, human relations, connections.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Strength is not how much weight you can carry, how many people you've shot or killed, what you can do on the job, how many cases you've solved.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: None of that is strength.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Strength is what comes from inside.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Strength is the ability to be honest and vulnerable and transparent with the people around you that matter the most.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this podcast has helped me execute that tenfold.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people have been able to be blessed and learn, and I've still been able to help people along the way because of my ability or my willingness to share vulnerably.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: From my guest's willingness to be able to share vulnerably.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: From Ashley and her secret, who shared on my show, from John Beale, who spoke about his k both of his children dying basically in his arms.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: All of these things have been discussed, and that vulnerability is what has helped me realize that strength comes from inside and not outside.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's the honesty, specifically the conversation with John Beale.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you go back and listen to it, it talks about LAPD and tragedy, and maybe something in the title about parenting.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know the number.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: But in that episode, John loses one day his daughter is sick, and the next day he's carrying her out to the doctor to go to the doctor, and she dies in his arms, and he does CPR.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: A year or two goes by, and a year or two goes by, and his other child is sick, takes a child to the doctor, child dies right there in the doctor's office, hospital room.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Two children.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: But John talks about his internal strength and what kept him alive.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that was such an eye-opening moment for me that what true strength really was, and it redefined my focus as to what I needed to be.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that John came on and spoke about that with transparency and vulnerability, honesty, and emotion was such an amazing pivotal moment in my life.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you've lost the title, the uniform, the position, the version of yourself that people respected, all of the things that I've lost.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the real question isn't supposed to be who who am I now?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe that's not the real question.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I shouldn't be asking myself, who am I?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: What is this new version of me?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe I should look back and ask the question, who was I trying to be all along?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because all along I was searching for something along the way, and I was willing to sacrifice the ones closest to me for that satisfaction, for that end goal, for that prize.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if I look at it from that position, then I will be able to dissect and decipher the parts of me that were extraordinarily out of bounds.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: The parts of me, why was I willing to sacrifice?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if I do that, I think it will paint the picture for who I am now and who God intends me to be.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere along the way, I learned to measure my value by how much I could carry, by how much I could put in the backpack, by how much weight I could carry on my shoulders, by how many cases I can solve, and how many attaboys I could get on that scoreboard.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: I am finally learning that I was valuable before I ever picked anything up, ever took on a case, or ever pinned on a badge.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: I wore a badge for almost 22 years, 21 years, but before that, I wore armor.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that armor was the deflection of my life, the deflection of my dad's uh emotional unpluggedness.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result of wearing that armor, I was trying to defend and I was trying to reach out and grasp for things that I couldn't get from him or I couldn't get from my childhood.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: My parents divorced when I was very young, and that just upset the Apple cart.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And because I couldn't get those things, I had the armor on to protect myself every time I got rejected.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until I moved into law enforcement that I was able to shed some of that initial armor and then go for and reach and succeed and get out of boys, and that is what I began chasing.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: And like I started this episode with that is what I was addicted to.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: I am now learning how to take all of that armor off, how to put all of that need for performance behind me and move on.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: You guys, thank you guys so much for listening to this podcast.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you guys want to reach out to me, you know how to do that.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's Murdersthe Number Two Music at Gmail.com.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you're liking the episodes, please give me some five-star reviews, leave some comments, and some fan mail.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you guys want to reach out and email me, I'm happy to have a conversation with you.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you guys so much for listening.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for walking this journey with me.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, that is a Murders to Music Podcast.