PODCAST: On The Blue Line Podcast | MORNING ROLL CALL | How Cops can find Peace of Mind this Holiday Season | 091
On The Blue Line Podcast | MORNING ROLL CALL | How Cops can find Peace of Mind this Holiday Season | 091
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Show Notes from This Episode
The On The Blue Line Podcast and Community has the mission of Empowering Cops in their personal lives and educating the public on the realities of law enforcement. This law enforcement podcast is focused on providing concepts, ideas, and actionable steps that can make a difference in your life. The morning roll call is a weekly monologue show with Wayne Mulder. The Interview Room podcast is an interview style format hosted by Wayne Mulder.
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In this episode:
One take away for the week:
· A conversation about internal peace.
o I begin with talking about how Cops are known as “Peacemakers.”
o I remind us that it is the second week of the Advent season when we light the Peace: Bethlehem candle.
o I talk about Sixteen Ways we can find Peace of Mind from Ramsey Solutions.
https://www.ramseysolutions.com/personal-growth/peace-of-mind
o I discuss the origins of the Christmas Carol: It came upon a Midnight Clear.
https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-it-came-upon-a-midnight-clear
o I conclude with encouraging you to take a moment during this holiday season for introspection and to “find internal peace.”
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TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE. Please note this is a new service we are offering and there will be spelling, grammar and accuracy issues. This transcription is offered as a convenience to our listeners, but at this time it is not guaranteed to be accurate.
00:00:04:24 - 00:00:31:02
Wayne Mulder
Welcome, my friend, to the On the Blue Line podcast with Wayne Mulder. I am your host, Wayne Mulder, and I am happy to be back with you again this week. This is a law enforcement podcast where we discuss topics that will empower you on and off the job. Maybe you're tired, you're frustrated, feeling overworked, struggle going to balance work and home demands, or maybe you simply need some encouragement.
00:00:31:13 - 00:00:50:04
Wayne Mulder
Well, guess what? You've come to the right place. This is the 91st morning roll call and the 141st episode of the podcast, which I find very hard to believe. But thank you so much for coming along on the journey. Be sure to listen all the way to the end of this week's podcast, where you're going to learn the best ways to find peace of mind during the holiday season.
00:00:50:15 - 00:01:22:01
Wayne Mulder
The third verse of a popular Christmas Carol that you won't find in any modern hymnals and why I believe holidays and other key dates are so important. If this is your first time listening, welcome. We have two weekly podcast, the one you're listening to right now as Morning Roll Call comes out every Monday at zero five and this is the weekly monologue show, it's just you and I, we sit here, we discuss news, we discuss recent events, law enforcement trends and just really a whole host and variety of other topics that we can consider as we begin our week and my other show, The Interview Room.
00:01:22:01 - 00:01:40:09
Wayne Mulder
You definitely do not want to miss either. It's a weekly interview show comes out Thursdays at 5:00 in the morning. And that's Eastern Standard Time, by the way, where I sit down with guests from all walks of life, not only cops, but people that can offer us something beneficial for either our preferred or our personal or professional lives.
00:01:40:25 - 00:01:59:12
Wayne Mulder
Last week, Nate Riggs was with me in the interview room. Be sure to go back and listen that one if you haven't yet. Really fascinating what he is doing and the business that he's building. And then, of course, the stuff that he did in the Navy and stuff, too. I think you're going to really enjoy that conversation. And this week is Eric Rheam.
00:01:59:12 - 00:02:22:15
Wayne Mulder
So be sure to check both those out. They're released on almost all podcast platforms and of course, on video, on YouTube and on Rumble. So this is another prerecorded episode. So again, I'm not going to start with news this week. It'll probably come back after the holidays. Be honest with you, just as we are working through the holiday schedule here.
00:02:23:08 - 00:02:47:28
Wayne Mulder
But as you are watching this, hopefully the night before last night, I landed safely back in Florida and we are back in the warm state from the once where we were, which was much cooler in Colorado. But I'm sure when we are as we go through the week, we will be talking more and of course, be sure to be following us on social media, which is where you will see what we are up to.
00:02:48:15 - 00:03:08:01
Wayne Mulder
So this week, what do I want to talk about? Well, I hope I know since I'm the one doing the podcast, I wanted to talk about finding peace. You know, it's a word that we hear. Of course, we've all heard it, you know, like, you know, in the the contest and so forth. Oh, world peace. World peace. You know, whatever.
00:03:08:08 - 00:03:32:03
Wayne Mulder
That's not what I'm referring to here, though. Obviously, the word means the same. What I'm referring to here is it's a word that we often hear during the Christmas season. Right. You know, we hear peace on earth. Peace be on to you. And if you follow the liturgical calendar. So then we are on the second candle in the season of Advent, which would be which have been yesterday is the Peace Candle or the Bethlehem Candle.
00:03:32:16 - 00:03:48:01
Wayne Mulder
So I thought it was only fitting I actually was going to talk about something along the lines of peace first. And then when I realized that it also coincided with the Advent candle, I thought, Well, then maybe there's a reason I'm supposed to do this. So and at the end, I will tell you why I think that it's important.
00:03:48:09 - 00:04:09:26
Wayne Mulder
Even though I am not Catholic, I grew up in a Baptist church. I don't necessarily I didn't grow up following Advent. The advent and other liturgical is how I say I'm different church events. However, I do think there is some benefit to it, which I'll describe at the end. So the holidays for me have always been a time of introspection.
00:04:10:20 - 00:04:37:00
Wayne Mulder
And the same is true with other key things, the key dates as well. And I think sometimes the Christmas holiday kind of takes me right into the end of the year, which is where I really take stock of the end of the year, and then start to consider and set goals and plans for the next year. Now, in the broad sense, those those goals have already been set long time ago for kind of what I'm hoping to get done in 2023, but just in the in the near term.
00:04:37:00 - 00:04:58:02
Wayne Mulder
But then also taking that time to kind of reset and to just breathe. Right. You know, law enforcement is often referred to or often was referred to as peacemakers. Right. And that was their role. It was to maintain peace in the community that they served or in the area that they served and their presence, you know, that could have forces as well.
00:04:58:02 - 00:05:14:12
Wayne Mulder
But their presence was there to bring peace. They, you know, people were going to do what they were supposed to do because the cops are here, you know, whatever that situation was. And then, of course, there is a commute as community policing became a thing and so forth. There was a side of that as well with a relationship with them.
00:05:14:12 - 00:05:32:14
Wayne Mulder
We bring peace through the relationship because, you know, as we get to know the community we serve, they can kind of work with us. We work with them and peace comes to the community. But stepping away from that, you know, the question that I would ask is how can you maintain peace, right? If you yourself are not at peace?
00:05:33:08 - 00:05:54:19
Wayne Mulder
Which may seem like a silly question in some ways, but to me it was the question that I had to come back to. I have to ask myself that from time to time. I ask it in other arenas or similar arenas. In fact, shortly before recording this podcast, I had had a conversation with a group of people that were working in like one of the mental health fields.
00:05:55:12 - 00:06:22:15
Wayne Mulder
And I said, How often is it that we rhetorical question How often is it that we are sometimes the worst offenders of everything that we're preaching? Right. Take my situation. You know, I obviously I work full time in the career field that I often talk about. And then I also do this podcast and with two shows and so forth, it's very, very time consuming.
00:06:22:23 - 00:06:47:23
Wayne Mulder
And so I spend a great deal of my time working, which is kind of the opposite of what I often talk about, where I talk about taking time to decompress and to reset. And sometimes we can be the worst offenders. Well, the same can be true with finding time for peace to for silence for that silent night, if you would, and to just kind of reflect and to take an introspective look at where we're at.
00:06:48:06 - 00:07:13:14
Wayne Mulder
And so how can we be expected to bring peace to situations, to be that peacemaker if we ourselves haven't found internal peace, if we're restless? And there's actually another term that the writer of this article we're going to go over today uses. So we'll talk about that here in just a second. So there's an article by Dr. John Delany with Ramsey Solutions where he talks about 16 ways to find peace of mind.
00:07:13:24 - 00:07:30:29
Wayne Mulder
I'm going to read you all 16 of them, but I'm not going to go deep diving into all six of them because if I do, you and I will be here all day and then I will get social media posts from you saying, why did you do an hour long morning roll call on 16 ways to find peace of mind?
00:07:30:29 - 00:08:04:14
Wayne Mulder
So I won't do that. But John Dillon Dr. John Dillon is a mental health expert with two PhDs from Texas Tech University and and he's with Ramsey Solutions, doing writing, speaking, teaching and has and has been on the Ramsey show as well as the host of the Dr. John Delaney Show. So you've possibly heard him on there. One of the things and I'm going to start with the end and move forward, but he said most of the time this is quoting our general sense of unease or stress or guilt stems from unresolved anxiety.
00:08:04:20 - 00:08:22:17
Wayne Mulder
It's like a low grade fever. It's your brain and body way of letting you know that something is off. So here's the here's what I want to encourage you with. And I know this happens to me as well. And I think it's why I intentionally try to focus so much around the holiday season is because it's a particular time where I can say, okay, I need to reset.
00:08:22:26 - 00:08:52:00
Wayne Mulder
I have this unresolved anxiety. I've got this stuff that's going on and work life and home life and family life and all these different arenas. And if I keep allowing that to build, it's going to become like a pressure cooker and if there's no relief valve, what's going to happen? Yeah, it goes boom, right? Boom, boom, bad. So if I don't want to go boom, I have to find ways to let that little relief valve open up to let some of that steam out.
00:08:52:11 - 00:09:11:07
Wayne Mulder
And that's what I'm talking about here when I talk about ways that we can find peace. So he talks about facing uncomfortable truths head on. The second one, he mentions his journaling. Huh? Wonder where else you've heard that? Oh, on this podcast, I talk about it all the time. But you know what? Maybe journaling is not your thing.
00:09:11:15 - 00:09:36:29
Wayne Mulder
I have found that doing this is very therapeutic, so I don't journal as much as I did because quite frankly, I'm constantly writing for this podcast and for the blog. So do what works for you. Maybe journaling isn't the answer, but if you're not doing some form of putting your thoughts on paper and some form of like a decompression type mind dump from time to time, I would strongly encourage you to consider something like that.
00:09:37:15 - 00:09:58:00
Wayne Mulder
He talks about connecting with people you love and trust. Well, it's the holiday season. It is certainly the time to do that. He talks about being active, spending time outside, depending on what climate you are in or where you are at or how much you like the cold or don't. That may be difficult for you or easy for you, but it's something to consider.
00:09:58:08 - 00:10:20:10
Wayne Mulder
There is something to just going out there and breathing in some fresh air from time to time, getting sleep. We all know that one eating well. We all know that one practicing forgiveness. I always find this one apropos for the holiday season because I do find and I'm not going to get into I understand there are some situations that are truly tragic out there, some wrongs that may never be forgiven.
00:10:20:10 - 00:10:54:06
Wayne Mulder
And, you know, and again, I'm not stating that from a religious belief because I do believe we have to forgive. But I do understand that there are people that in our human nature alone, we may never forgive right there are some actions, but often times the bitterness and the anger is only affecting you or only affecting me. And depending on the situation, it doesn't mean you have to even necessarily go find them and say, Hey, I forgive you or whatever, and you certainly don't have to wait for them to apologize sometimes.
00:10:54:16 - 00:11:20:03
Wayne Mulder
Just simply that act of forgiving them internally as part of this introspection process that I'm talking about, that can be enough to kind of reset and to get you into a better place rather than constantly allowing that bitterness and anger to build. So something I would encourage you to consider. Again, the link to this entire article is in the show notes, so be sure to read this whole thing because there's a lot more to it than just what I'm going over here.
00:11:20:16 - 00:11:42:24
Wayne Mulder
Listen to music should be pretty easy right now. Listen to what you want. But obviously we are in the holiday season, so it's a great time to listen to some holiday music, do something creative again, practice gratitude every day. We talked about this right before Thanksgiving, but it isn't just a Thanksgiving thing. I've talked to multiple people who've been guest on the show.
00:11:42:24 - 00:12:06:13
Wayne Mulder
They've talked about their gratitude practice, something they do every morning. I in a journal for a while, I've moved on from that routine. I've got some different ones I'm doing now, which I can talk about in a future podcast, but I would write down there, what are the three things today that I'm most grateful for, usually at the end of the day, because then that way, as part of my reflection on the day, I could be like, Hey, these are the kind of things that I'm thankful for.
00:12:06:19 - 00:12:25:20
Wayne Mulder
Some people do it as part of their morning routine. You know, I'm thankful to be alive. I'm thankful for this breath that I'm taking, whatever it is for you. But these are all things that we can do to get gratitude, to be part of our life, which is going to help with our overall mood and finding peace to pay attention to and redirect your thoughts.
00:12:25:20 - 00:12:59:22
Wayne Mulder
I'm going to go deep into that right now. Try a meditation in meditation can be spiritual. It can be just a breathing exercise. There's all sorts of things we can do there. Clear up your schedule. Here we are. The second week of December, the year is flying by. We're only a few weeks before Christmas. And what we have a tendency to do is to fill our calendars up so much this time of year that we stress out because we can't possibly do all the things well that we've committed to do.
00:13:00:13 - 00:13:27:18
Wayne Mulder
Well, whose fault is that? That is a 100% preventable thing. Now we have to prioritize and we have to pick and choose our battles. I understand all that, but it's something that we need to consider if you're finding yourself anxious or depressed or struggling with. I've got all these things going on and I don't feel like I can or if you feel like you can and you're like, I got this and you've got this type-A because remember, cops, we got this type-A personality.
00:13:27:18 - 00:13:43:20
Wayne Mulder
I can do all this. But then those around you are saying you're being a jerk. You know, you've got what's going on with you. You know, you're angry and you're upset and you're just, you know, you fly off at the little things. Well, maybe it's time to stop and be like, Am I putting too much pressure on myself?
00:13:43:25 - 00:14:10:11
Wayne Mulder
Maybe I've got too many things that I'm committing myself to that I can't possibly do, all of them. Another one was Throw your screens out the window. Of course, he's talking about your computer screens, and I don't know that you literally need to throw them out of the window, but it's something to consider the week before Christmas. Our guest on the interview room is going to be Molly DeFrank, and she's actually going to talk about limiting screen times for kids and the studies and so forth that support it.
00:14:10:11 - 00:14:31:29
Wayne Mulder
It's an intriguing conversation, and I've been trying to get some more family related content for young parents and so forth that listen to the show because it's all about obviously empowering you and your personal life. So be sure to check out that interview room. But I do think it is interesting, her perspective on, you know, limiting screen time and obviously we all should do it no matter your age.
00:14:32:08 - 00:14:58:21
Wayne Mulder
And then he also wrote on Here Pray. So whatever your faith is, whatever your belief system is, that can be part of your meditation practice. You know, whether you're meditating on scripture or you're meditating in more the new age sense of the term or however it is, it just gives you a minute to kind of decompress and to take an internal look at where you are and what you've got going on.
00:14:59:04 - 00:15:23:08
Wayne Mulder
So hopefully that helps you. What I want to do is I want to end with talking about this time of year. I like to talk about different hymns. We sing these Christmas carols, maybe, maybe not, but a lot of us do. And we hear the song, Oh, we have no idea where it came from. So part of what I like to do is to talk a little bit about the history of it and then point something out that maybe you didn't know real quick.
00:15:23:08 - 00:15:49:10
Wayne Mulder
So if you'll bear with me, that's exactly what I'll do. So this week I want to talk about it came upon a midnight clear was written by Edmund Sears. So you're probably familiar with the actual main stanza, right? It came upon a midnight clear, that glorious song of old from angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold, peace on the earth, goodwill to men from heavens, our gracious king, the world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing.
00:15:50:05 - 00:16:16:22
Wayne Mulder
So here's a factoid that you might find interesting. It is the only commonly sung Christmas carol in our hymnals that does not mention the birth of Christ, which I thought was interesting. So Edmund Hamilton Sears, he was born in Massachusetts. He had a degree from Harvard Divinity School and was ordained a Unitarian minister in 1839, which is why they say he did not mention the birth of Christ.
00:16:16:22 - 00:16:41:09
Wayne Mulder
And he was more talking about the angels and so forth, because he is a Unitarian. What's the hymn, though? Was released on December 29th, 1849. So here we are. This is the mid-19th century in America. So what was going on? Well, obviously, in we were the the steps were happening, the things were beginning that was eventually going to lead to the Civil War.
00:16:41:09 - 00:17:16:02
Wayne Mulder
And what's interesting is there is a stanza that is not in most hymnals anymore that has this Christmas song or a Christmas carol. And it actually kind of gives you an idea of his what he saw happening and what his thoughts on it were. So this is the third stanza that should give you some idea of kind of what they were looking at the time, but with the quoting, but with the woes of sin and strife, the world has suffered long beneath the angel string have rolled 2000 years of wrong in man at war with man.
00:17:16:11 - 00:17:42:18
Wayne Mulder
Here's not the love song which they bring Oh, hush, the noisy men of strife. And here the angels sang. And I thought that this was a good one to go over here at the very end here, because the point he makes there is, hey, listen, things are falling apart. We got a problem. War is coming. As to whether he realized that at the time or not, he certainly saw that there was a conflict brewing.
00:17:42:18 - 00:18:03:10
Wayne Mulder
Right. And so what he says is, hey, it's time you men who are at strife, you're fighting each other. You know, you're at each other's throats. This thing is leading to war. How about we take a moment and we just listen to the angels sing? We just find that moment of peace. There's a question I ask in the interview room.
00:18:03:19 - 00:18:25:09
Wayne Mulder
If you've listened to my other podcast and I ask it of every guest who's been on the interview room and it's Where is your favorite place to stop, relax, breathe in, and just enjoy life? You know, ask that question for a reason, because I think that everybody has that place in my follow up question that I never asked, but is can the elephant in the room is how often do you get there?
00:18:25:15 - 00:18:47:12
Wayne Mulder
How often do you find yourself finding those moments to where you can reflect and think about what's going on? You know, I've been talking a lot in recent weeks of well, in recent months of the chaos and just the divisiveness that's going on in this world. You probably saw the news articles, maybe you didn't. But the I guess he's a coach.
00:18:47:12 - 00:19:09:05
Wayne Mulder
I quite frankly, I don't follow soccer. But the one Coach Jeremiah standing was he was a coach. He was wearing a shirt at the whatever they're at the FIFA thing. And the shirt just said states on it. Then you have the United States and a lot of people are making comment about it because they thought, well, that's kind of apropos to exactly where we are right now.
00:19:09:05 - 00:19:34:03
Wayne Mulder
There is no United Just States. Yeah, that's it. Well, that is the times we are in. So we all need to just find time that we can take it seriously and we can decompress. So I want to encourage you, you know, we're experiencing a season of peace does not come from what's happening around us. Experiencing peace comes from intentionally seeking it internally.
00:19:34:18 - 00:19:57:10
Wayne Mulder
I challenge you to take time during this holiday season to reflect and to seek internal peace. You know, one of the things I love and I tease this early on in this thing, but I love holidays, right? I love birthdays. I love other important dates and seasons. It what I like about them is their points on a calendar right there, something that I can schedule and say during this time, I'm going to reflect.
00:19:57:20 - 00:20:25:16
Wayne Mulder
I'm going to take stock of where I am as we go into this Christmas season or we're well into this Christmas season. I encourage you to, regardless of your faith, regardless of your beliefs, allow this to be a time of year that you can take stock, see where you're at, you know, to take moments to reflect. And then I encourage you, as we go into the end of the year, to start taking moments to plan for 2023, what am I going to do?
00:20:25:16 - 00:20:56:16
Wayne Mulder
What am I going to do differently? And then also take stock of what you accomplished in 2022 and what you're hoping for next year. So I hope that you will join me in doing this during this holiday season. That does it for this week's morning roll call. I'll see you next Thursday in the interview room. And in the meantime, I'm going to see you out there on the blue line.