Need help? Check out these resources: www.firstresponderwellness.co/resources

or Dial 988 for immediate help.

Click here to take the Leadership Assessment: http://firstresponderwellness.co/assessment

Episode 122 - Unlearn Survival, and Relearn Peace - with Kevin Barnhill

This episode is a raw conversation about what happens when the job doesn’t just change your schedule—it changes you. Conrad Weaver sits down with Kevin Barnhill, a former pastor turned police sergeant turned clinician, to talk about the quiet identity drift so many first responders experience: the moment your badge stops being something you wear and starts becoming who you are.

Kevin shares how he “lost himself” for nearly a decade—becoming sharper, more cynical, more irritable—while still doing the work and trying to survive the pace, the calls, and the culture. And then, in a twist that feels almost too small to be true, he describes a wake-up moment that wasn’t a shooting or a barricade… but a minor citizen complaint that revealed how far he’d moved from the person he wanted to be.

They dig into the difference between bosses and leaders, why punitive environments create fear, and why mentorship—not micromanagement—is often the missing intervention. The heartbeat of the episode lands in one phrase Kevin drops near the end: “Unlearning survival and relearning peace.” If you’ve felt yourself hardening, disconnecting, or living on edge, this conversation offers language for what’s happening—and a path back.

ABOUT KEVIN Kevin Barnhill is a former pastor and retired police sergeant with 28 years in law enforcement, including leadership roles such as internal affairs. Today he serves as a clinician, helping first responders and other high-stress professionals move from survival mode into healing, clarity, and sustainable peace.

CONNECT WITH KEVIN https://www.cadencecounseling.org/

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FIRST RESPONDER WELLNESS PODCAST

Order the PTSD911 Film and Educational Toolkit here: https://ptsd911movie.com/toolkit/ Web site: https://ptsd911movie.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ptsd911movie/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ptsd911movie/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClQ8jxjxYqHgFQixBK4Bl0Q

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-responder-wellness-podcast/id1535675703

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2wW72dLZOKkO1QYUPzL2ih

Purchase the PTSD911 film for your public safety agency or organization: https://ptsd911movie.com/toolkit/

The First Responder Wellness Podcast is a production of First Responder Wellness Solutions, LLC

Copyright ©2026 First Responder Wellness Solutions, LLC - All rights Reserved.

Need help? Check out these resources: www.firstresponderwellness.co/resources

or Dial 988 for immediate help.

Click here to take the Leadership Assessment: http://firstresponderwellness.co/assessment

Episode 121: You're Only as Sick as Your Secrets - Matt Bloesch

Retirement is supposed to feel like relief. For Matt Bloesch, it does—but not because he simply “made it to the finish line.” After 26 years in the San Francisco Bay Area and retiring at captain, Matt describes what most first responders rarely say out loud: the job doesn’t just change what you’ve seen—it changes who you are at home, what you believe about the world, and how safe your family feels when you walk through the door.

In this conversation with Conrad Weaver, Matt traces the slow drift: bitterness, a shorter fuse, drinking that looked “controlled”… until a phone call reopened an old wound—his father, a San Francisco police officer, accidentally shot and killed by his partner when Matt was 13. That moment cracked the façade and pushed him into real help—where he learned the line that still guides his recovery: you’re only as sick as your secrets.

Matt unpacks what actually works: culturally competent clinicians, peer support that’s funded like it matters, and tools like EMDR that helped him get unstuck. The takeaway is simple and hard: secrecy compounds trauma; connection interrupts it—and it’s never “too small” to deserve help.

ABOUT MATT BLOESCH

Matt Bloesch is a change agent in the first responder wellness world. He worked as a cop for 26 years, happily retiring into a life of helping others and bringing hope. Matt went through his struggles with alcohol and post-traumatic stress while on the job, but was able to recover with the help of other cops who were brave enough to tell their stories. He continued working and had a wildly successful career, with a lot of that time spent on his department’s peer team. He is also the son of a police officer who died in the line of duty. Matt now uses those experiences to help police and fire departments build wellness teams, and he volunteers as a youth mentor for Concerns of Police Survivors, an organization dedicated to rebuilding the shattered lives of surviving family members and coworkers of police officers killed in the line of duty. He is married with two adult children and lives in Northern California.

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FIRST RESPONDER WELLNESS PODCAST

Order the PTSD911 Film and Educational Toolkit here: https://ptsd911movie.com/toolkit/ Web site: https://ptsd911movie.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ptsd911movie/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ptsd911movie/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClQ8jxjxYqHgFQixBK4Bl0Q

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-responder-wellness-podcast/id1535675703

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2wW72dLZOKkO1QYUPzL2ih

Purchase the PTSD911 film for your public safety agency or organization: https://ptsd911movie.com/toolkit/

The First Responder Wellness Podcast is a production of First Responder Wellness Solutions, LLC

Copyright ©2026 First Responder Wellness Solutions, LLC - All rights Reserved.

Need help? Check out these resources: www.firstresponderwellness.co/resources

or Dial 988 for immediate help.

Click here to take the Leadership Assessment: http://firstresponderwellness.co/assessment

120 - You Don't Have to be Falling Apart to Need Healing - Kemmi Sadler

In this episode of the First Responder Wellness Podcast, Conrad sits down with Kemmi Saddler, a former local law enforcement officer who went from dispatch to patrol—and then into a 20-year career with the Diplomatic Security Service, protecting people and places most of us will never see.

Her story turns on a hinge: her last day in local policing was September 10, 2001—then, hours later, 9/11 reshaped everything. From Kuwait to Iraq, she describes the slow, invisible accumulation of stress: the “duck and cover” alarms you stop reacting to, the hypervigilance that becomes normal, and the body keeping score in ways you don’t immediately recognize (TMJ, clenched teeth, numbing, alcohol as relief).

What makes this conversation land is the honesty about what happens after the career—when the identity fades and the grief, guilt, and unresolved moments finally speak up. Kemmi shares how a podcast mention of ayahuasca sparked a two-year healing journey, not as a miracle cure, but as a door that required courage, surrender, and real integration work.

The takeaway is simple and heavy: you don’t have to be “falling apart” to need healing. If silence feels impossible, that might be the point.

ABOUT KEMMI SADLER Kemmi Sadler is a retired U.S. Diplomat and Supervisory Special Agent with the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service. Over a 26-year career as a sworn law enforcement officer and federal agent, she served in high-threat assignments across Iraq, Afghanistan, Uganda, Mexico, and El Salvador, where she received multiple Superior Honor Awards for leadership and crisis response. She began her law enforcement career as a police officer in St. Augustine, Florida. In April, Kemmi will walk 780 kms along the Camino de Santiago with her dog, Nona, in a pilgrimage called Nona’s Way, continuing her commitment to service beyond the badge while raising awareness surrounding the need for mental health and trauma recovery in the first responder community. Kemmi is also the author of From the Badge to the Vine, a reflective memoir exploring moral injury, identity, and the long work of healing after a life shaped by service. Drawing from her lived experience, the book examines what it takes to carry insight into everyday life once the badge is turned in.

klsadler.com Nona’s Way Campaign nonasway.com / INSTAGRAM: @Nonas_Way_

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FIRST RESPONDER WELLNESS PODCAST

Order the PTSD911 Film and Educational Toolkit here: https://ptsd911movie.com/toolkit/ Web site: https://ptsd911movie.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ptsd911movie/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ptsd911movie/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClQ8jxjxYqHgFQixBK4Bl0Q

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-responder-wellness-podcast/id1535675703

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2wW72dLZOKkO1QYUPzL2ih

Purchase the PTSD911 film for your public safety agency or organization: https://ptsd911movie.com/toolkit/

The First Responder Wellness Podcast is a production of First Responder Wellness Solutions, LLC

Copyright ©2026 First Responder Wellness Solutions, LLC - All rights Reserved.