When the World Won't Calm Down: Leading from Your Center, Erin Dunn on Hardcore and At Ease

So I would work really long days, go back and catch a couple hours of sleep, and then set my alarm for about 3:00 AM and log into online classes back in the United States. And then sometimes I had to close my computer and run to a bunker if we had indirect fire coming through. This show is powered by Others Over Self. Hit that subscribe button to keep training your brain.

From others over self, it's Hardcore and At Ease, a show about people who are keeping their edge without going over the edge. I'm host Shelly Rood, and today is going to change how you show up when life catches you off guard. We're digging into why having chaos all around the outside doesn't have to mean chaos on your inside. And we're going to go through the practices that help us build those boundaries. Today's guest is Erin Dunn, Air Force veteran, federal civilian retiree, and veteran advocate.

This is Hardcore and At Ease.

Here's a question I want you to sit with before we get into today's conversation. When things get loud, when your inbox is maxed out, your team is struggling, pressure is just stacking up and you don't see an end in sight, where do you go? I don't mean physically, I mean mentally. Where's the center that you operate from when the world around you is refusing to cooperate? Most of the ambitious leaders I work with are extraordinary at performing under pressure, and that's not their problem. The problem is that somewhere along the way, we start confusing performing under pressure with living under pressure. And those are two very different things. Performing under pressure is a skill. Living under pressure is a slow erosion. And here's what makes this tricky for high achievers specifically. The very thing that makes us capable, our ability to push through, to keep moving and hold it all together, it can also become the thing that keeps us from ever actually coming back to our center. Because you're so good at white-knuckling it, right? You never stop to ask whether the grip is costing you more than you realize. Now, if you caught episode 34, you heard Erin Dunn deliver her full conference talk on sensory overload and reclaiming control. This is a different conversation, one-on-one. It's her full story, where it all began. Erin is a 10-year Air Force veteran who spent her first 6 years in public affairs and her last 4 as a special agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. After leaving active duty, she went on to serve as a geopolitical planner, or in her own words, more or less a foreign policy advisor with the Joint Staff in Virginia. She earned her law degree while deployed as a government civilian to Iraq, as a single mom in a war zone, taking classes online between 3 AM and indirect fire. She retired from federal service working for the Army, and now she's focused full-time and what she's always been building toward, veteran advocacy. And what Erin has learned through post-traumatic stress, through grief, through years of navigating a system that largely let her down, is something that every ambitious leader in high-pressure environment needs to hear. The chaos outside of you is not the variable you control. The center inside of you is. That's what the Hardcore and Eddies framework calls our tactical center. It's the first element of TARGET for a reason. If you don't know where your center is, your solid foundation, you can't aim from it. And if you can't aim from it, then your ambition and the capability in the world, it all just becomes noise. Erin didn't learn her center from a book or a course. She found it in the middle of a war zone with a kid at home and a law degree in progress. And she built it back one morning, one quiet moment, one act of intentional grounding at a time. This conversation is going to give you something that you can actually use, not as a veteran, not as someone who's been deployed necessarily, but as a leader who's trying to stay functional in a world that has no shortage of things demanding your attention right now. Let's get into it.

College wasn't an option for me when I graduated from high school. I live in the tri-county area in southeastern Michigan where going to work for one of the big three automakers was kind of the thing to do, at least in my family. And I couldn't see myself doing it. So I just decided that maybe the military was a good option. And it was a good option.

And which branch did you end up joining?

I joined the Air Force and I stayed on active duty for 10 years.

Was there a rhyme or reason for the Air Force as opposed to the other branches? Like, you know, I want to be a Marine.

Yeah. My Air Force recruiter was really cute and I fell head over heels in love with him. I originally was going to join the Navy. And then an Air Force recruiter came to my school and I went and listened to him and I went home with stars in my eyes.

All right. And did those stars carry you through for the next 10 years?

Yeah, pretty much. Well, no, not really. But then it became my own personal grit, gumption on getting me through. I love that.

So what did you do in the Air Force?

Well, the first 6 years I was in public affairs, so I was into journalism and community relations and base tours and special events. And then for my last 4 years out of the 10, I was a special agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

A special agent with the Air Force Office Of special investigations. What does that mean?

Yes.

Other than you're super special.

It's kind of like for anybody who watches the NCIS shows, I was the Air Force equivalent to the NCIS agent.

Very cool.

Now that seems like a, you would have to be trained or you would have to have some type of specialty background to get into that.

The different branches of the service all have different requirements. For instance, with NCIS, so the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, they're all civilians. Air Force is officer, civilians, and enlisted. Army is, I believe, all warrant officers. So I applied for— it's a special duty in the Air Force, and I applied for it and I got it. But ironically, my public affairs skills translated directly into special investigations because most of what we did was interview people, take notes, write up. My public affairs skills were valuable, crucial to being successful at being a special agent.

I know that you did go into the military and you went in at a young age, right out of high school, right? But you weren't military for your entire life, especially even now you're affiliated with the military, but it's not like you're some 25-year retiree. So tell us about what that journey looked like, will you?

No, most of my career has been with the military since I got out of the military, all but about 7 or 8 years of it. And so right now I work for the Army. I never really stopped serving. It's not that I had a huge desire to stay with the government or work for the military. With the military, there are a lot of veterans, and there is a certain comfort level in working with a lot of veterans. And so I just sort of naturally gravitated toward it because they expect the same type of self-discipline, not quite the same demands, but the same type of bearing and as what one would find on active duty. And I have that, I earned that while I was in the service. And so It just became a natural fit.

So do you think that people would look for that as a positive of why they want to work with you, or do you think that you are attracted to places and people that celebrate that?

Yeah, it is a little bit of both. There is a mindset for— women veterans know this— there's a mindset to serving in the military. When that mindset gets formed at such a young and impressionable age, it's comforting to stay within it, particularly when I had very little exposure to the military growing up. My stepfather was retired military, but he was retired by the time He became my stepfather. So it's a mindset that you learn. It's like no other.

It's like no other. You're very true. I want to know more about your call to be a lawyer and how law school entered your life.

So I say that I'm a lawyer, but I'm not a licensed attorney. So I don't have a law practice. When I was in high school, two of the things that always appealed to me was, one, maybe becoming a lawyer, and two, or becoming a journalist. And luckily, I was able to eventually do both things. But because college wasn't really an option for me, and I joined the Air Force instead, I couldn't— there was no path for me to just go to law school. And that happened much later in life. It was really by accident. I discovered this online program, got some information about it, and ultimately enrolled in law school. By that time, I had gotten my bachelor's degree while I was on active duty. Then I got my master's degree, and I just really wanted to know more about this program. Then I realized this was a way for me to get that law degree that I had always wanted. There was nothing standing in my way to do it. It was an online program though. I was a single mom at the time, so I could do it.

Sounds like there's a few things standing in your way.

Meaning I could do this program and still be a mom and go online when I needed to. So it was really tailored for working adults, and there were a lot of single parents and doctors actually that were in the class. By that time, so that was 2007 when I started. By that time, I was well established in a career, so I didn't really have a desire to just completely change careers. Getting the law degree at that point was more or less a bucket list item.

So here you are with your military service. You've gotten your bachelor's degree, you've gotten your master's degree. Why did you feel this need to continue your higher education?

Well, it wasn't a need to continue the higher education as it was a need to learn the field of law. I just really wanted to, and there was no reason not to pursue it. I just felt like I would be really fulfilled having a law degree and learning the law. And it paid off. I mean, I was very happy learning the law.

And tell me how you were able to incorporate that into your job or your career, or— because you said that you weren't looking for a shift, so how do you incorporate the law into what you're already doing?

In my day-to-day work, there are a lot of things. At the time that I finished the degree, I was a geopolitical planner, or more or less a foreign policy advisor with the Joint Staff in Virginia. Being able to understand international policy and military law and a whole host of issues— cyber law, cyber warfare— are things that I was able to contribute to because I had the law degree. I was able to discern what international and national policies were to help the Joint Staff and their 4-star staffs understand the geopolitical ramifications of contingency operations.

Can you, for those of us out here that don't speak Army or military or Air Force, give us an example of what that means?

One of the things that I did is I traveled. I was on a team that traveled all over the world to teach 4-star generals and their staffs the implications, the diplomatic implications or worldwide implications of a war or a natural disaster or something within the area that they were responsible for. And it was always a whole-of-government approach. So we worked with a lot of different government agencies, including the State Department, to help the military understand how their actions affected other government agencies and other countries, as well as non-governmental organizations. And I was able to help define the policies and impacts And you had your son at this point. I shared custody at the time.

Hold on, son. I gotta go talk to this chic over here. I'll be back next week. What in the world was a day in the life like for you at that time?

Usually when I was doing things like that, I was either writing about policy if I was home, or I was traveling and then my son was with his father. But we actually did have some moments of, excuse me, son, I have an overseas call I have to take.

It's so interesting. I have a 15-year-old son now and I have two younger ones. But when you hear about just the careers of what other people do and what the other moms do particularly, I kind of feel like you and I are on the outside of what a normal mom's day-to-day role can look like and has looked like. And I think it makes for very interesting coffee hours with the other parents.

It absolutely can. Yeah. I have a picture of my son when he was about 9 years old in full battle dress gear. He put on my body armor and a helmet, and I got this great picture of him. And that pretty much says it all about the life of a single mom in and around the military.

Yeah, it absolutely does. Now tell me about journalist. You wanted to be a journalist, and I went to college at Western Michigan University for journalism. And I know what drove me to do that. I mean, I was raised watching Murphy Brown, and April O'Neil from the Ninja Turtles was a reporter. And so I had a lot of these strong advocates for journalism that were women. What attracted you, Erin, to want to get into that field?

I was good at writing, and it was actually my stepfather who suggested that maybe I would consider a career as a journalist. But once again, college wasn't really an option for me, and the military provided that skill, the education and training necessary to help me make that happen.

And how have you seen your love for journalism play into all of this diplomatic recommendations that you're doing?

Writing skills, the ability to interpret and translate what the bigger picture is. So journalism for the military is called public affairs. And what that means is I was a writer for base newspaper for a few different types of assignments that I had.. And I learned how to write various types of news articles, feature articles and full length and breaking news.

But everything— 'Cause military bases, they operate like their own little towns. You know, a lot of people don't know you do have your own little base newspaper.

Yes.

And you know, now everything can be digital, of course. Yes. But you didn't know who the commander was necessarily, or who the commander's family was. So it was up to public affairs. To send a journalist out to cover the story, just like you would do if your town got a new mayor and they did a feature article on the family. So that's the type of stuff that you're talking about.

Right. And then later on in life when I was still working for the military and I was doing policy and I was doing strategic communications, but writing was always a skill that it was a high-level skill that required A lot of thinking.

Now, that high-level skill that requires a lot of thinking is best done in a nice, quiet, cushy office where nobody will bother you. Is that what you operated in, that type of environment, when you were overseas?

No. My first assignment when I was in Florida was in MacDill, MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, and we had Well, it was a huge base and we had F-16s. I think the whole 6 years I was in public affairs on active duty, I never had a weekend off. I was out and about all day, every day, picking up stories, taking photographs, interviewing people, and then at night going back and doing the layout design for the newspaper, which I still have done online as well. It taught me how to interact with a whole lot of different kinds of people. My second assignment in public affairs was over in Germany. I was doing it for another culture and interacting with people that, I mean, I was in a place I never dreamed that I could ever be in. And so I was doing something that I really loved in a beautiful country. With wonderful people. Same with my third assignment. I was in Greece. I was on a Greek island and it was really great. But there's a lot of sacrifice to that. You go where the news is, and if the news happens at 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning, then you're up and out and doing it.

So. And so this was during military time or this was after military time?

During, yeah, during military time.

So then what, tell us about that transition from, okay, I'm gonna get out of the Air Force. What's next? How do you make that jump?

The only real advantage that I had is, is that when I got outta the service, because I had been a special agent, I wore civilian clothes for the last 4 years. So I hadn't worn uniforms in 4 years. So I didn't have any problem transitioning that way, but I was stationed in Colorado at the time, and at the time I had decided to get out and I really loved Colorado and I wanted to stay there a while longer, but I had spent 4 years there in a law enforcement capacity. So everybody that I knew for the most part were related in some way to law enforcement. The challenge that I faced there was that I knew, even though I was good at being a special agent, I knew that I didn't want to do that my entire career. And I really wanted to go back to public affairs or public relations, but I didn't have any contacts in Colorado because I had never been in public affairs in Colorado. Can you say that? So I took a real—

why did you feel like you didn't want to stay as a special agent long-term? I'm almost getting this sense of like a movement from a dark, heavy type of daily workload into something that is potentially lighter.

Am I getting that right? Absolutely, you are. I have a pretty, or at least I used to have a pretty bubbly personality, and I had some senior people mentor me when I was in public affairs who warned me about going into OSI as a special agent because they didn't think that it would fit my personality very well. And they were right. Being in that law enforcement world is very special. It's very privileged, but it is very heavy. And there is a certain mentality that it takes to continue a career in that. And I didn't really have this burning desire to be an FBI agent or other kind of law enforcement. So after 4 years of doing it, that was one of the reasons why I got out was just because I didn't want to be a special agent. For the long term.

But you did have federal agencies trying to recruit you as you were coming out of the service.

I worked routinely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, ATF, Drug Enforcement Agency. I worked with a lot of them, and it was difficult for them to find qualified females who had a bachelor's degree. My bachelor's degree was in criminal justice, and So I did have people trying to recruit me because they needed females and I rejected all of them. I could have done that for a sense of safety and security when I was getting out and transitioning out of the service. But I really wanted to go back to public affairs because I knew that law enforcement wasn't for me.

Now, how old was your son at this point?

Oh, he wasn't born yet.

Oh, he wasn't born yet.

No, he wasn't born yet. I had him much later after I got outta the service.

Yeah. Because that way, that way, I mean, the service is like one small part of your life. You have so many incredible octopus tentacles that come out after that. So you're done with the service, you know, you're errand done, ready to take on the world. No kids, right? I mean, you're ready to go. So you went from the military and you're looking for a public relations job. Where did you land?

I landed at a nonprofit in Littleton, Colorado, and it was a very low-paying job, but it helped me to transition. I think I was only in that job for about 6 months, but it helped me to transition out and to get my footing as a civilian and learn how to maneuver through the world when I don't have that military safety net behind me.

And then what came next?

I spent another couple of years in Colorado, and then eventually I moved to southeastern Virginia, sort of the Virginia Beach area, and landed a really good job with the Virginia Department of Transportation. And I stayed with them for about 5 years before I migrated back to working for the military.

So then when you migrated back to working for the military, this was as a civilian, right? It, it's not that you rejoined, it was that you actually were working as a civilian and then you had some deployments as a civilian. Tell us about that.

I did in 2011. Well, actually in 2010, I had an opportunity come across my desk to deploy in a public affairs capacity as a government civilian to support the troops over in Iraq. And I had lost my father who lived with me, and he and I were very close. He passed away in late 2009. So when this opportunity came across my desk, I was still really floundering. I was still a mom and I was still in law school, but I just needed something else, something different. So I did. I left my son with his father for almost a year and I deployed to Iraq and experienced a lot of the same things that our troops did over there. It was a very dangerous scenario, but I had an amazing job and I worked with some wonderful people, including a lot of single moms who voluntarily deployed with their units or individually and left their kids behind too. And it was tough.

And, and I asked you the question of what is the most hardcore thing that Erin Dunn has ever done? And your answer to me was that it was the 2011 deployment. Where you had to leave your child.

Yes, that was a, a big sacrifice. And I think that anything hardcore that we do involves some sort of risk and some sort of sacrifice, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's a permanent sacrifice. So it was a very difficult year. It was very dangerous. And I was still in law school online, so I would work really long days. Go back and catch a couple hours of sleep and then set my alarm for about 3:00 AM and log into online classes back in the United States. And then sometimes I had to close my computer and run to a bunker if we had indirect fire coming through.

And how do you feel? I can just imagine if, 'cause I took online courses as well. Mm-hmm. And I can just imagine somebody just like, hold on, I'll be right back. And you're just ducking out.

Like, that's exactly, you know, I would say, I'm sorry, I'll be right back. We have indirect fire. I have to go. And I'd go stand in a bunker until it was all clear. And then I'd go back and the class would still be going on. And that's if my Wi-Fi worked. And I would just get back on and say, OK, you know, all is well. So sometimes it was really, really scary. Sometimes we had actual explosions close to us and sometimes we didn't. It was a very intense pace. And it made me fully appreciate all the wonderful things friends and family that I had back home.

Was your teacher just like, A, A+ every time that happened? Erin gets a pass.

Yes. Yes. I was able to keep in touch with my son while I was gone. And it was, maybe that was one of the most hardcore things about what I did because I took a big risk with my own personal life going over there. Feeling fairly confident that everything was gonna be okay.

But— But you didn't have a sense of peace during this time? Never.

No, I didn't have a sense of peace. Of course, when I went over there, it was more or less to help me find my footing in a life without my father beside me, cheering me on. The peace developed over time. The inner peace. There was no peace to be had over in Iraq while I was there.

What I'm hearing you say is that it is possible. It takes time and focus and hard work, but it is possible to have literal chaos and explosions going on around you and be able to feel calm on the inside and be able to dedicate your mind and your thoughts to what is going to be next and How can I make the most of the situation? Is that something that you brought home to your child?

Hopefully what I brought home to my child was without the chaos, but yes. And I think that ability to stay focused among chaos is something that I got from the military and that I really value. It has helped me through some really hard times. Over the years, especially like when my father was dying, or if there was a family emergency or things were absolutely crazy at work and then my car breaks down. That ability just to keep my focus and concentration going on what was in front of me versus what was around me, a valuable skill that I think the military can really help people develop.

I think it is too, Aaron. And so, you know, our podcast is called Hardcore and At Ease, and at ease is a military command. And as you know, when you are given the command to be at ease, it doesn't mean that you go lay down. I mean, when you are in the position of at ease, it means that you can relax your shoulders and, you know, kind of shake things out a little bit, but you don't lose your focus. You literally do not move your feet. You're still stuck in place So that you can kind of shake things off. And it is that ability to have one foot firmly planted in your values and yet still allow your personality and your lifestyle to flourish without losing focus of that hardcore task at hand. And your hardcore task was raising your son. Yes. And your hardcore task was how can I be the best legal advisor possible to these diplomats so that they can make these significant and life-altering decisions in their work. So tell me a little bit about what it took for, for this shift in how to be at ease. And is, is there like a moment in time, or is there just a time in your life where you really figured out what your values were?

I don't think there was one particular time. My values, my personal pursuits, and how I feel about myself has all happened through interacting with the world over the course of a lifetime. But it was probably about 10 years ago when I was finishing up law school and I had all these friends who were taking the bar exam. I was studying for the veteran service officer exam. So that's what I did right when I finished law school. While everyone else was studying for the FAR, I was studying for this other exam because I had been through a little bit with the Veterans Administration and applied for benefits and It was always so frustrating to me. And so I knew that I wanted to be able to help veterans understand their benefits with my law degree.

Is that what you're doing now?

Yes, to a certain extent. I cannot be a qualified certified veteran service officer because I'm a federal employee and it's a conflict of interest because veteran service officers could potentially argue on behalf of a veteran. To the federal government. So a federal employee cannot potentially argue to the federal government.

So you're playing both sides.

Yes. So, but I started off a full 10 years ago helping veterans who just retired or got out of the service and just didn't quite understand. Some of them were really suffering and they hadn't either been awarded the amount of benefits that they actually earned, or they hadn't been awarded any benefits at all and didn't even know where to begin. So I started off just talking to, helping them understand this is what the VA needs. This is what they're looking for. This is how you prove it.

And you can have these conversations with this particular demographic because You are one of them. Obviously you have served in the military and so you have that side of it, but you also were over there as a civilian and you know what it's like to be working on a focused task at 2 in the morning and run out because rocket fire is coming in. Mm-hmm. You know, and so shared with me that you do have post-traumatic stress.

Yes.

Um, and I'm interested to know as such a highly accomplished woman and as an educated and intellectual mind, that you've done a lot of studying on the brain and the triggers associated with post-traumatic stress. Would you like to get into that just a little bit?

It's interesting because you talk about values. One of the things that I've learned to value is my own personal mental wellbeing. And that doesn't come easy for some people like me. I spend my days coping, evaluating, minimizing, recovering from, or apologizing for my reactions to PTSD triggers. That is it. Those are my daily chores outside of taking a shower, outside of earning a living. I know that I have to do that every day. And unfortunately, That is nothing that the VA has ever shared with me. I've learned so many things about post-traumatic stress disorder through navigating my own journey that I think I'm a better advocate for veterans because of this. And I've had to fight with the VA for everything that I have. It's not just a journey, it's like an uphill journey.

At times with veteran care, what we look at is pushing a boulder up a hill, and the little wins are just little wins. You've still got a long way to go. And right, and what I love so much about your story is that it's not a victim story. You chose to enlist, you chose to go overseas, you sought to be deployed. Even as a civilian, you volunteered to go back into the line of fire. And so I've never gotten this sort of like unfair victim mentality from you. What I've always been able to appreciate about you is the reality of, yes, I'm walking into the war zone, and yes, my brain has changed because of it. And you are such a great example of somebody who is a highly accomplished, highly intellectual person who is not denying these issues. You know, you can be a beautiful, successful contributor to society as a veteran, as somebody living with post-traumatic stress, you have to pay attention to it. You, you have to treat it like you would any other medical issue. So would you mind kind of peeling back those layers a little bit and sharing with me what does that look like? You know, when you say that you're planning, avoiding, coping, minimizing the PTSD reactions, what do you mean?

Well, you know, a couple times now I've spoken to veterans groups about PTSD coping skills. And one of the things that is always prevalent is the threat of being overwhelmed when interacting with the world. Most times, I guess I could say there's a direct correlation between sensory overload and PTSD triggers. So when I talk about coping, minimizing, evaluating, I take active steps to determine if I'm going out of my house into society for whatever purpose, whether it's going to the dentist or going to a grocery store or going to my office, I evaluate what are the different scenarios that I might encounter that could potentially trigger me. And if necessary, take some steps to minimize them, go at a different time. Play music while I'm interacting in whatever engagement is going on.

Those are useful recommendations even for those of us that perhaps just struggle with the sensory overload in general. The grocery store is a really good example where I have a hard time, especially if I have to bring my children. That is a very, very difficult and challenging task. And I'm with you. I've learned that if I, can put in an earbud and just play a little bit of my preferential background music to calm my nerves while I'm doing that task, it does feel like a weight is lifted. Do you have any other recommendations of these type of coping methods that we could use on a regular basis?

The, in addition to music, I don't leave home without earplugs, and I'm not talking about earbuds, but something to actually block out the sound. I have prescription glasses and I always make sure that they can automatically go into sunglasses when I go outside. And it just, it helps to minimize some of the senses if I'm in sensory overload. I have no problem being in a grocery store and sitting on the floor or being anywhere and sitting on the floor. And I call that intentional grounding. It just helps me to reconnect with the things around me and block out a little bit of the chaos that's going on. Especially when you go to a grocery store and it's like rush hour and you're going right after work or the day before a holiday, it can be overwhelming for anybody, much less someone with sensory issues. And a lot of times people with PTSD do have correlating sensory issues. They can get overloaded pretty easily.

So what I'm hearing you say is it's almost like you're taking initiative and steps to gain some type of control back over your senses. You can't control the sounds in the grocery store, but if you put the earplugs in, yes, you can control that. You can't control the foot traffic around you, but if you sit down you can control that little space.

The word control is a key word for people who suffer from post-traumatic stress because their brain, the physiological makeup of their brain changes in response to trauma. And for people with post-traumatic stress, the long-term, their brain never went back to normal after they experienced a traumatic event. So quite literally, there is a lot of things that are out of their control. And because of the brain changes, they no longer have the ability to, to step back in their mind and evaluate what's going on because they're in a constant fight or flight mode. So taking some steps to control our own environment can really help us calm down, but when it goes back to advocacy for veterans. Unfortunately, I've spent decades in the VA system, and none of that was ever addressed by the VA. It's stuff that I had to discover entirely on my own.

I've heard a lot more discussion recently about post-traumatic growth as opposed to post-traumatic recovery? Because as you're saying, recovery in many ways physiologically is not an option. And can you describe for me what it would look like to be somebody who experiences post-traumatic growth?

One can come— how do I wanna say this? New skills with, with post-traumatic stress. There are things that are in a person that are very different, but that also offers people an opportunity to learn to maneuver the world in a way that they normally wouldn't have. And so they can grow from that. They can learn new skills. They can go back into their inner self almost easier because they know that they have changed.

Instead of denying the change and fighting the change.

I think that's one of the most difficult things about post-traumatic stress is You, you don't really always know what that change is. You're fighting something, but it's not always obvious. And so to grow with it, you just have to be able to define what it is that's happening and allow yourself to feel it.

Do you have a daily habit that helps you really own this ability to stay grounded, to stay at ease with all of this chaos around you?

I take some time every morning. For me, the mornings are when I'm mentally clearer. So I allow myself to reflect on the day coming up or the day that happened yesterday. But also, and that might be an hour and a half. I mean, sometimes I will wake up, set an alarm much earlier than what I need to get ready for work. Just so I can have that quiet time to myself to think and feel and reflect. Most days of the week after work, even if I'm just working at home at my kitchen table, I will just sit down for about 30 minutes in silence and allow myself to focus and feel. When I talk about feel, if I'm feeling overwhelmed and I wanna cry, then I allow myself to cry. And I give myself permission to feel bad.

Erin, you don't strike me as a woman that has cried a whole bunch in her lifetime.

Did you say you don't strike, or I don't strike you? Is that what you said?

No. I mean, I feel from what I know about you, I feel like we're similar in the fact that yeah, we can cry, but it takes a lot for us to get there. Like a skill that you've developed over time and now you're finally at a place in life where you can allow yourself to do that?

I think my skill was forcing myself not to, and it caused a lot of damage. So now one of my values to myself is that I'm not gonna do myself any more damage by hiding negative emotions because negative emotions don't get better with time.

There's so much wisdom in that statement. Talk to me for a minute about advocacy. We are highlighting you in our Women Veterans Strong program because you are a woman who really embodies the value of advocacy and the ability to speak out on behalf of something. Is advocacy something that you learned from other people growing up, or is it something that you saw in the people around you?

I didn't see it growing up. It was something that I began as a teenager to escape a very chaotic household. So at the time, I would've equated advocacy with volunteerism. I've always volunteered for things and developed my own value of advocacy. It's just been within the last 10 years that I've really stayed focused on helping veterans and helping veterans understand what they are entitled to and how they can go about getting it.

And so what I'm hearing from you is advocacy is a choice that we can make in order to escape a current situation or scenario that we're in.

I simply learned advocacy as a coping mechanism when I was younger. But over time, you learn your own values and you learn what you're passionate about. And that's where the advocacy comes from, is being passionate about an issue that not many people know how to tackle. But as Desperately needed.

Uh, desperately needed. And you are perfectly positioned with your life experience to have the skill sets to fit into that work. Yes. So what is next for Erin Dunn? I feel like there is some huge celebration that we're leading up to. Tell us what's on the horizon for you.

I am slowly but surely putting together a book of humorous anecdotes for women veterans or from women veterans. I thought it would be a really fun way to celebrate women veterans by doing a collection of stories from their time in the service. The name of it is going to be "Tactically Acquired Pizza" because I have a great story about tactically acquired pizza, and it's not my story.

That might be our new Friday night dinner name at our house.

There you go. Right.

What's for dinner, Mom? Tactically acquired pizza.

Yep. And pretty soon, I think sometime in the next couple, 2 to 3 years, I will no longer be a federal employee. And then I can be a certified veteran service officer, and then I can really dig in and advocate actively in court if necessary for veterans and their benefits.

We are too, Erin. I hope you'll take us with you on that journey.

Thank you.

So I want to congratulate you for showing us what it looks like to be an intellectual woman with one foot planted and one plan moving ahead and always looking at that next step. Erin Dunn, congratulations on all of the life accomplishments that you've achieved.

Thank you, Shelly. It's a pleasure to be here.

And there you have it. I want to leave you with 3 things from this conversation because there's a lot in what Erin shared, and I don't want any of it to get blurred. The first is what she said about control. She described post-traumatic stress as a condition where the brain gets locked into fight or flight, all or never, and it doesn't fully reset. And she said the way that she manages it is by taking deliberate steps to control her own environment. She's not making everything safe. She's reclaiming small pieces of agency that allows her nervous system to regulate. Earplugs, sunglasses, sitting on the floor of a grocery store when she needs herself to ground. These aren't weaknesses. These are tactical decisions made by someone who understands her terrain. Now, you may or may not have a PTSD diagnosis, but I'd honestly want to ask you, how many of us are walking into high-stimulus environments every single day with zero preparation, no intention set, No mental transition between our roles. We get out of the car and we go right into the house, just full speed from one context into the next. And then we feel totally scattered by 5 o'clock. What Erin's describing is what the Hardcore and At Ease framework calls tactical center work. This is phase 1 work. It's not dramatic. It's the quiet discipline of knowing what your center feels like. And taking intentional steps to return to it, especially before that pressure hits, not after. Now there's a second thing in her talk I want to hold on to, and it's what she said about negative emotions. She said that her value to herself now is that she's not going to do herself any more damage by hiding them, because negative emotions do not get better with time. This isn't a therapy soundbite. This is a leadership principle. How many decisions have you made from a place of unprocessed pressure? How many team interactions have been colored by something that you didn't take the time to actually feel? I snapped at my 6-year-old the other day and he didn't deserve it. It's okay to snap as long as you understand why. The leaders who concern me the most are the ones who don't feel very much. The leaders who have gotten so good at suppression that we've lost the ability to locate where we're actually operating from. That's a dangerous place to be in. And our third takeaway from Erin's conversation today, the one that I think really is the big gift from Erin's story, it's this distinction between post-traumatic recovery and post-traumatic growth. She said that growth asks you to define what's happening and allow yourself to feel it, not to fight the change, but to understand it, to orient toward it and build new capability from it. That is the others-over-self mindset applied inward. It's not self-pity, it's honest reconnaissance. It's knowing your terrain before we try to navigate it. Erin Dunn has been at ease in some of the most unreasonable circumstances I've ever heard anyone describe. Not because her life was easy, because she did the work to know where her center was, and she kept coming back to it. That is the model. One more thing before I let you go. Erin is available for public speaking. She's one of our team members. And if you have an organization, a conference, just a community that needs to hear this message, I want you to reach out, contact us at info@missionambition.org, and we will connect her with you directly. If today's conversation hit something for you, here's your one thing to do. Identify one environment in your week that reliably pulls you off center. What's making you uncomfortable on the regular? And then decide before you walk back into that the next time, what's one thing that you can control about that experience? That's the practice. And that's all for this week. I'm host Shelly Rood. Thank you for giving me your time and your attention. I'm with you every Tuesday for solid leadership advice in this chaotic world that we live in. I'll see you next Tuesday.

Stay. You're listening to Hardcore and at Ease. Keep the conversation going at join.othersoverself.com.