Lauren Connally - Deschutes County Commissioner Candidate Position #3

This podcast is all about local voices, local choices, and the power of community. A quick note from one of our supporters. Haley Overton of Bend Home Collective is proud to support this podcast series spotlighting local elections and candidate conversations. While she is not backing any specific candidate, she strongly believes in the importance of the democratic process and staying informed. No matter where you stand, your voice matters, so get out there, listen, learn, and vote. Looking to connect with Haley, Haley underscores Bend Homes on Instagram and her contact information is included in the show notes. Thank you for joining another episode of Pacific Northwest Told I Am Your Host Todd Prior. Today we have one of our Dishutes County Commissioner candidates, Lauren Connolly. We'll be talking about the candidates background, why she is running for County Commissioner and key issues that she hopes to take on if elected, please welcome Lauren. Thank you for having me. Oh, absolutely. Thank you so much for coming in. We are trying to meet up with all the candidates. This is just such a wide election that we've never seen here before, having four open seats when we've only had three before. And it is just such an exciting time to be a part of this democratic process and really see the different viewpoints, the importance that we place on different subjects and having these deeper conversations. And the reason that we're having these conversations is that we want to make sure the voter has the opportunity to actually talk to if they're not available and listen to the Commissioner candidates as opposed to just hearing two minute blips. And thank you for being a part of this and thank you for being a part of the democratic process. Yes, actually. So before we get into why you're running for a County Commissioner, can you give us a little background and tell us how you made it here today? Yes, I started my career actually in the Marine Corps. I was a logistics officer. It had a ROTC scholarship in college at Texas A&M. Between junior and senior year, you go to officer candidate school. We finished that at that point. You're obligated to go into the service and three weeks later September 11th happened. So my entire time in the Marine Corps and really my peers that stayed in the military has been in wartime operations of one sort or another. So I ended up deploying to Iraq twice, although I didn't stay in the Marine Corps for a full career. It was such a foundational part of how I think and how I operate because it teaches you how to adapt quickly, especially in logistics. You're not an expert in anything. You have a lot of experts underneath you. And you have to know how to bring those stakeholders together. So I went from that to being a project manager and that was an amazing experience. I was able to work with IT systems and geographic information systems. And we were managing all of the Marine Corps bases from the Mississippi River to Korea and working with local communities on what we call buffer area management. So everything from environmental data layers to utility infrastructure, how it interact with the base from the local community, even firing ranges and how that affected local communities that were just outside of our boundary. When I was pregnant with my son, didn't want to be stuck forever in San Diego County. I wasn't from there anyway. I'd only lived there just for my time in the military and actually as my childhood while my parents were in the military. And most of my family is back in Texas. I was working around geographic information systems, had lots of information and mapping data to see how awesome this place was. We also had offices up here so we were interacting with clients and fellow employees in Lake Oswego. Ended up moving up here when I was three, when I had a three month old and started out as just a stay at home mom with my child. And that gives you an opportunity to be involved in your community more. We lived out by the forest. So out there by China Hat where it's closed down now. And just getting to know my local community and my neighborhood working on fire wise projects, interacting with the forest service. And now I found myself going from being on the government side to being one of those neighbors in the boundary zone. So when an interesting perspective shift, which made it so I could work with my neighbors and work with the forest service and really find that collaboration point because a lot of our neighbors were really frustrated about just what was going on in the forest. And this was before larger problems came about out there. This was just understanding the balance between who's shooting and who's writing horses and who's writing bicycles and OHVs and the old arguments that we wish were the worst problems that we had with public lands right now. And getting all the people in the room that cared from their own angles and getting them all to agree on something. And I really enjoyed getting to do that. Moved on from that with as my children went into school, just really pouring myself into helping them in their school and at that time my ex-husband and I also started a business. So running a business allowed me the flexibility to be a mother. Child care is not readily available in this area. You have young kids. You are seeing that yourself, I'm sure. And so you have to make a lot of choices to be able, you want to serve your family first, you want to be a good mother, you want to be there for your kids and to wish their lives. So I worked to just how I operated around coming back into the workforce with also needing a care for my children. Once they were in middle school, that gave me a little bit more freedom. I ended up working out at the Veterans Ranch starting off as their development director, co-executive director. Being the executive director functions and from working in that side of our county, I started to see a lot of the gaps in the social system. Also was working adjacent with just as involved because of just as involved veterans with issues defenders and the public defense office and the vet center and the court system. So we were seeing where all of these systems came together and where we were catching people and trying to keep them from falling through those gaps in the system to include that being on that edge of houselessness or being houseless or substance abuse or family struggles through all of this. And you're seeing the worst case scenarios in our system where our system has had major failure points and being able to care in that capacity and support case management over the last three to four years has been a really awesome experience for me. It's probably what drove me the most to this county commissioner race because I was having a lot of interactions with the county commissioners as we work on these systems. Having a lot of interactions with its behavioral health and public health with the hospital system, you see where the social system needs more support. You see where housing needs more support. If you like red across roads, there's problems with housing affordability, land use constraints, health fire risk, infrastructure pressures, it's affecting families, workers, businesses across the region. And I've seen this housing market too from lots of different sides. So I've seen this from this public service side, some of the worst, but also is just an individual trying to live and survive here. I've been a homeowner and a landlord and a renter and I've even lived in a travel trailer for a year because that was easier and so much more affordable as I was getting back on my feet after a divorce than trying to deal with the expensive rental market here. So I think it's just for me, I'm seeing we need practical balance decisions and strong servant leadership. So that's driving me to run. First off, I say this and I say thank you for your service and it always isn't enough. So I want to say thank you for your service and I hope we're doing enough for you after your service has been completed. So thank you sincerely for it. It was my pleasure. That was such an amazing foundational experience for me to join the military and to do that. And I would do it again and I sail the time people don't need to just go join the military to feel like they've served. We can serve our local community. We can serve our state. We can serve at a federal level like our four service workers, they are serving at a federal level. Our firefighters, our police officers, they're serving our local community. Every social worker I've ever met, they work harder than anyone I know. So there's lots of ways to serve and I think everyone has to just get outside their comfort zone to grow as a person. It's really important. Thank you. Great. Service for your community at any level is so important and I completely agree. And I'll say right now, I don't think I've ever met a marina I didn't like. So I'm just letting you know, I just I don't I'm just trying to figure it out. Yeah, no, I can't think of one. We're all pretty scrapping adaptable. What is a sub-voritallable than the others? That's I love them all though. Yeah, they're adaptable and yes, I thank you. Yes, and there was a lot of things that we just that you went over. You talked a little bit about your desire to be a county commissioner and some issues. But why are you running for a county commissioner at this time? I feel like every time I'm serving quietly in the background, whatever capacity that was in, we keep hitting these roadblocks. And they so many of those roadblocks do come back. back to land use. And density seems to be a dirty word, word sprawl is a dirty word. And I live three quarters of my life in other places. So I see what it's like to leave there and go back and see the change because of sprawl. So what a great thing that we work to to contain that and to make smart decisions. But we've contained it so much we have state level statutes and laws that you know like SB 100 and all the statues and all the goals that go along with them that put a lot of parameters on how we can use every single track of land in this state. Then we have county policy on top of that and each city within its growth boundary has policy on top of that. And for every layer that all those policy makers add on we really have to ask if those are the best decisions for the health of the long term system and the infrastructure over the long term. Quick example when we look at what's going on right now with houselessness. There there's components of that go into a supply and supply being kind of artificially choked off over the last 10 years and it's starting to catch up but there's also components of that there's this 20 to 30% that is seeing dual diagnosis with substance abuse and mental health issues and it's much harder to get those individuals housed and anything other than a low barrier to entry housing. So that's great if we can do housing and but if we keep focusing on housing first but then we don't have something outside the stabilization center for that that longer term substance abuse detoxification for one so it's like there's the initial 24 hour stabilization that often happens that the stabilization center at the hospital. There was just a whole news program that KTVZ did about the jail having 90% of its inmates right now are in there as a result of something going on with substance use and mental health. And so we have that's becoming a mental health holding facility. We have a 24 hour stabilization option with the stabilization center. We have initial crisis response teams. We have the PES unit and the ER that are housing a lot of these concerns. But then we don't have the facilities for follow on care and detox. We are really constrained and if you dig down in, there's land use laws that are restricting our ability to do that. And there's also just policy laws with Medicare Medicaid that are also restricting our facility size. And all of that has an economic impact. It it changes whether or not someone like a private mental health facility with wrap around care is going to invest and because they're not going to invest if they don't have economic benefit if they don't have return on their investment. So if we're not getting that privatized health care component that can come in and wrap their arms around the issue, then we only have the subsidized health component, which has to constantly perpetually depend on the government to exist. And then we're looking at Medicaid and limited bed units. So it's it's great when we see like facilities being built in red men. There's leaves 16 bed facility for adults and another one they're building for youth. But we have to have limits because of policies that were put in place at the federal government level in the 1970s that were still restricted by. So you start seeing things like that and you just want it fixed. And you realize that there's a point where you no longer can operate like you've hit your ceiling for operating quietly in the background. And it's time to get a little louder. Long answer. That was a great answer. Are you kidding me? It's really interesting in regards and we'll talk a little bit about some key issues we already brought up some of those. But you're talking about substance abuse people having multiple issues associated with either houses or something to that effect. I completely agree with this premise that if we are not giving them a path to stability, then all this these other things are just not going to help. I'm sure you've heard of this, but there was a study at the end of the Vietnam War, but there was a massive concern about the substance abuse of soldiers that was in the endemic in Vietnam. And when they came back, they were in a completely different environment. And the amount of substance abuse just dropped. And it was specifically because they were in a different place, different set in different setting. So as you're saying, if they have to keep going back to the same place, no matter how much work you're going to be doing, it's not going to take effect. So I completely agree. What are some key issues you've already talked and you've seen a lot already? What are some key issues you hope to work on if elected? As far as platform goes, putting it into three buckets was really difficult, but stronger communities, public health and safety and stewardship. And really all of those things overlap because if we start digging into what those look, they are all intertwined. If we think about stronger communities, when we look at what's going on with our family systems and that effect that's just happening from there's high divorce rates, every community within Central Oregon does community a little bit different. You go down to the Lapine crab feed and it feels like that down home local event. You go to event and bend and it might be something that used to feel like a down home event, but now it's real big tourist events. So you don't see your friends there anymore because we all run away to the mountains to Elk Lake or something during summer fest. So each of the communities is doing community different, even within the veteran space, they say that one of the best things to help us do side prevention, I've done a lot in that space is creating community and reducing isolation. But what one group of veterans want to do is different than one another group of veterans want to do like the band of brothers throughout every city within Central Oregon have for those Vietnam, Korean World War two veterans, they get together and they have breakfast and they have coffee and that's creating community and underneath that you see them all taking care of each other. And and that helps with their mental health that helps with their physical health, they're literally taking each other to the doctor, that's community relying on each other because I think we've become too reliant on the the government's going to fix it for us and they're going to help us out. So we have to get back to like that we're taking care of each other as stronger communities when we look at what's going on in some of the homeless camps with substance abuse and drug abuse, are their families involved? What do we need to do to wrap our arms around the youth and give them community and give them mentorship and give them a pathway to success in school, success in life as they go into college or the trade, they need a pathway to break that the trauma of the generations before them and to move forward. So that's stronger community piece. It looks like a lot of different things when we look at public health and safety again intertwined. One of I'm going to use lapine again, they have a community resource officer down there. This this deputy grew up in that area, went off and in the Air Force came back, became a dishearsed county deputy, now gets to work back down in his community, just like we have the resource officers at our schools, he's through that area in lapine and when he goes out on calls, he's creating a trusting relationship and those that have that they're trust in the system and their trust in humanity is broken. They need someone that they're that multiple touch points, they're seeing them over and over again and learning that they can trust that person. So they can even get guided back to whatever social system support and help that they need. So that's where public health and safety and again, when it came to the story about the jail, they interviewed dishearsed county health and they were talking about the great need for more more public health mental health beds and stabilization beds for substance abuse. How do we make all these things come together? We have a lot of things that we have to fix. Restororship, 79% of the shoots county is public lands. Everyone wants to take care of our public lands, but if they're federal lands, then how do we interact with that? It organizations like public landstords and sons of smokey tread lightly. They do a great job of interacting with the for service and giving community members an opportunity to go out and be stewards of our forests. But we also need to how can we be stewards of our children in our schools? How can we help like we would set up enrichment programs when I was on PTO for my kids elementary school for in alignment with after school programs and kids zinc and giving all the kids at the school. If there were parents that had a little more time and we could give back and be stewards to our community in that way, that was something that helped all the kids, whether their parents were both working or available to help, they we're all getting that same interview. actions with things like leg over robotics or arts after school. There's one thing that I just popped my head about what you're talking about. I think to not acknowledge that mental health and the share of support and the prison and all the other parts of the community are all interconnected. And I love what you're saying. It's not, I want to change this budget area here or we need to do this. It's like connectivity. How do we make sure that we work together? And those are some big tenants that are just an overview. So I really appreciate what you've communicated thus far. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Obviously, I really appreciate you jumping in, throwing your hat into this ring, which I'm sure you've probably had. This has been a tough and a heavy weight to bear. It was a big decision to make and I was one that I came into the race in December and spent time talking to friends, mentors, family. How can I do this without you? You don't want to do it at the expense of your kids, for sure. So even them being old enough that we could have that conversation, having that conversation with with my office because public defense office, you're a political, you're very constitutionally driven. You're, you have a job that runs far outside of clinical leanings either way. And so I want to respect that I work out of that office. I want to respect my children and their privacy. I want to be able to make a difference without getting lost in a bunch of noise. So these are all very conscious decisions. You got, there's a maturity. I guess you have to have about it to put your name in there at all. Absolutely. And I don't think people think about this as much as they should. They see senators and congressmen and governors and obviously presidents and those folks, you know, there's a budget involved. And there's a lot more associate with that. But if you think about somebody that's running for a county commissioner that is not retired or for these local seats and they have a full time job, they're doing their full time job, they're taking care of their family. They also are putting their neck out and letting their employer know that if I get elected, I'm giving you my two weeks notice or my two months notice. And at the same time, you're also showing kind of your cards, so to say, of who you are politically in a time where it's a little bit more affected in regards to that. So it's challenging and it does say once this is over, once this election is over, if you are or are not elected, where are you with your professional role? And it's a lot of things like that to think about. So I think people go, oh, it's great. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do a debate. No, there's a lot more involved. And you should be very proud of yourself when I'm short. Your sons are completely proud of you for what you're doing right now. What else can you do to make us proud of you besides being a marine doing all the self public defend? What else can you do? It's like show it off right now at this point. I just want them to have servant hearts. And if they can glean any of that off of me and be that way in their community, then I succeeded. I think you've already succeeded. You're doing great. You've heard of the Revole and Retrie program, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay. Go. I was just assuming that you did that. And that leadership been class with him. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Her and I work on a project together over the last three years called together with veterans. And and we're just there. There's only so many women veteran in one community. So then we all end up knowing each other, getting introduced to each other. So it's been really great to work alongside her. And we were able to work last year on the Oregon Department of Veteran Affairs, Women Veterans Conference. So that was a statewide conference that we held ODVA bring that here. And Kim was a big part of that Dakota and a couple of the other ladies locally here. And we had it at the River House. And it was over 300 women veterans at the event and it was amazing. So I got to be the interviewer of a panel of women that are all doing great things in our community and Reveley and Retrie were on that panel. And I got to ask them a bunch of questions. And we really, what was I think the most inspiring thing that happened in that room from that panel is there were a lot of ladies from Eastern Oregon that did not have that community out there. And they said, how do we get this? Where we're at because we're just talking and we live down the street from each other. And I was like, look, looks like you guys are the next Kim and Dakota's for Eastern Oregon. Exactly. Because that's where it starts. You got to get two people together. And when I worked in nonprofit, I found I had a lot of people that had sparks and ideas and passions. They come up and they say, Oh, I want to, I have this idea. And I want to start a nonprofit. And I said, OK, go on Oregon, Secretary of State and look and see what nonprofits are doing something already in that thread because there's so many. And if you started on profit, you were running a business and trying to do your passion project. I'd go see if any of these other nonprofits that already exist are aligned with that and volunteer with them and get to know how it works because maybe we don't need one more nonprofit that is competing for funding. Maybe we need to all work together. And I think we've really tried to work on that in the veteran community here is we have so many different nonprofits that do amazing things and getting them all to see where one lane ends and the other one begins. Even like when I was at the veterans ranch, we never did anything. With housing while I was out there, but we worked with Kovah and veteran village all the time because there are people that are constantly at that intersection of either being houseless for a moment or almost houseless and then you're trying to place them and get them to the right people and the right resources all the time. And then we may have only been working with the veteran community, but it's that's just a microcosm of what the larger system is doing to or to not support people. I was going to ask this question, but you almost answered it already is what can we do for a veteran community locally? And it sounds like you just communicated that really well. I mean, we we are doing a lot in our local community with with peer to peer warrior impact is another great one where a lot of us have gone through various intensives that combine like somatic healing with understanding of complex post-traumatic stress and ripen open those layers and seeing yourself with authenticity. And some we wear masks in society. We think we need to be this perfect image of what a mother is or what a servant leader is or what I've worked with, priests that are are struggling with their own stuff and they don't want to they need to be able to grieve something that maybe happen and they've locked that away for years because they have to take care of everyone around them and they can't stop and take care of themselves or their own grief and then one day it just comes out and and that happens to people a lot too. There there definitely has to be a point where you understand what balance looks like and it's there is no balance by the way of running for county commissioner working full time and being a mother. So this is it's that temporary state of no balance, but even then you know that you need to take care of yourself. You have to know what you give capacity to and what you don't give capacity to. It's I think the best thing your original question for the veteran community what we can we do is it's more than a thank you for your service. It's just integrating you into the community. It's like the best thing that could have happened for me as a veteran had nothing to do with anyone knowing about my service. It was about befriending me as a fellow mother and knowing who I am as a person authentically. That was way better than anyone understanding anything I ever done while I was in the Marine Corps. And one of the things that I don't come and we actually did a podcast together to talk about some of these issues. One thing that I grew up going to a VFW a lot, let's just put it that way. We spent a lot of time with the VFW and you always see the World War II guys even sitting there to talk not talking all of coffee together of what I did not see a lot. I did not see a lot of women in these buildings. And I think we as a community need to talk more about the effort and work that women service members had and they went through the weight that they have to bear and that I would say a much more of a lack of community that males and that doesn't take away anyone's experience. It's just saying that I don't believe we truly put enough effort into it and the programs that we're talking about genuinely help them and I hope to see that expand more. I'd actually like to see it expand a lot less. I'd like to see a lot less people having to deal with these issues but as we have a global war and terror just finishing. The only thing that matters to me is when our service members come back, I want to see the VA take care of them as best as possible. I want to see you come back and become as complete individuals as possible and if it's nonprofits or it's government, I just want to see that happen. These types of programs are so much more important than probably we recognize. Yeah, they're not affinity clubs. They're not affinity clubs. No. And if we are going away from I think as I'm a member of the VFW but that model just depending on the community, the American Legion down in Lepine, huge community presence. But the American Legion and Redmen can struggle. The VFWs have a certain membership and attendance but really what is like when people they call it "mustering into a community, muster out and muster in." And you're used to when you're in the military, you check in, you check out and you have your checklist and then you check in. check in somewhere. When you get out of the military, you check out, and then that's it. And you just kind of disappear in the system. So places like Central Oregon Community College, they have a huge veteran program there, and they connect their students to each other in an awesome way. So they have been more at the center of mustering people in right out of service than even our local VSO or something like Band of Brothers or the VFW or the VET Center. They're the first point of contact with these newly new civilians, and they're the one, "Hey, go see the guys down the county and start your process for disability." You go see the VET Center, and this is what they can do for you. Go sign up for health benefits at the VA. Go get involved in this program over here, and we need touchpoints like that. And then those older veterans, their touchpoint has been things like Band of Brothers, and it started with eight guys, and they've expanded it to men and women of service of every era. And we need more mentorship across, like mentorship peers and mentees. I think there's a lot of that brokenness. Everyone gets into their own little era of service, but we need to all see each other. But we need to see each other across the community like that too. And how often do we see, like it's great that we have the Council on Aging will do lunches for seniors every Thursday. That's amazing. It gets them connected with each other. But what are we doing? So they, those individuals can pass their wisdom down to the generations after them. I think we've gone away from being a community that has that, where we're passing our knowledge down from generation to generation. And I don't want to see that lost because I think that's part of what, when we say building stronger community, it needs to be across generations, not just in little bubbles based on what our interest is, or, and we get very busy. Like a young parent will get very busy with their kids' sports and working full time. And then they don't have time for anything else. This is part of survival. Like economically, we are all working our tails off and not having much time else for ourselves or for community or for much less that multi-generational sort of aspect of community. One of the things that infuriates me is the lack of advocacy that I see for folks coming back from the military. What do you do next? And it is something that is infuriating me to know and so thank you for doing that. There's one program that I really enjoy and I'm sure you could touch on this, but it is a program called Oregon Adaptive Sports Heavy Hurt program. Oh yes. They have a great heroous program every year where they invite Oregon Adaptive Sports if anyone doesn't know. It's a program that provides outdoor experiences for people with permanent physical or cognitive disabilities. And what they've worked with different groups to invite soldiers that have come back with whatever type of disability they help them out to get them the ride. Whether it's a sit ski or whatever it is. And the thing that I've seen and gotten out of these experiences and what I love the most is not the event, not the experience. It's the sense of community. And that's what I always think is important because we talk about whatever it is. Whether it's an experience that has changed you forever mentally, emotionally, physically, whatever it is. That's not who you are. You're a person that likes to ski, you're a person that likes good pizza, whatever it is. Identifying with the things that you love and that bring you passion. And in some of these cases, these folks haven't been able to do those things or really experience that level of joy in a long time and bringing that to them and their family. And really identifying at that moment is the only thing I care about. I love what you're saying about Oregon Adaptive Sports. There's a newer foundation called Tributary Foundation and like they helped fund alongside Oregon Adaptive Sports every Wednesday, all winter, families and veterans getting to go up and do skiing and snowboarding. And so it was like, it was a whole thing with breakfast, yoga, a little meditation time and then going up on the mountain. And they're going to continue to do similar things with mountain biking. There's a group of us going to the range this weekend and going to and shooting. So they're just trying to like whatever the sport is or the hobby of the activity that's going to get people together. And then the organization doesn't have to keep maintaining everyone's engagement and their friendships. But when you see a friendship that's formed, that's a battle buddy. That's someone that's going to, you got to form that trusting relationship because if you're holding a lot and you're just hiking up that hill and you're just putting more rocks in your pack all the time because you're an extremely resilient person and you can hold all your stuff and you can hold everyone else's stuff. There's a point where you're going to be really high up on that hill and that pack's going to be really heavy. You got to unload some rocks. You don't fall off the cliff because and sometimes people fall off that cliff and we need a community with a big old trampoline the bottom that's just catching them and bounced them off it until they they have to hold grab a rope. We say in that suicide prevention world, they have to come 51% of the way. You cannot make anyone change their own life. They got to want to change their own life. But we've seen some crash to get there. But if we can do more upstream care by having community gatherings and community events and making people feel comfortable in in those things that create awe, enjoy and happiness again, then that helps with all of the other symptoms that come along with substance abuse and post-traumatic stress. Yeah. Having a narrative that you're the one that holds all the weight is definitely not a good thing to have and continue to hold. And I hope I truly hope all the stuff that you're going through and all the work that you're doing right now. I hope you're unloading it as you're going up this hill as well. Yes. And actually what you were talking about books, one of them that I put on my list is the Veterans Field Manuals for Psychedelics, Healing PTSD and Trauma by Jesse Gould. And it's on Amazon and there's a little part that I'm in that book because we actually did a cohort here of Veterans and we were the first ones on US soil to do a deep dive with psychedelics and and do trauma healing. And I think there's a lot going on in the news on the national level right now about that and really pushing forward with that research, which I think is a great thing. I'm all for I've continued to be an advocate since I did that for harm reduction and for making sure that we're doing it with like that people are understanding what they're getting into if they do did do a deep dive like that into who they are. But there's just great reconnections and neuro pathways to your feelings to your emotions. For me, it was a huge it was unloading years of rocks because you're just in survival mode and you become an extremely resilient person at a young age that can carry a lot of weight. That doesn't mean you should be carrying that weight. You do absolutely have to have ways to unload it. And I think what's been interesting during this County Commissioner process is how like once a week there is something that makes me grieve deeply. And I know I'm being vulnerable right here very intentionally. I'm okay with it. And it'll be a subject that comes up. It's I could care less what people are saying about me or talking about me. But it's when it's an issue that's really important to me. And I'm in a conversation with someone. And I have to step back and recognize that this isn't just a talking point. This is something I've lived through and I've experienced. And you're just going and pushing every day. And now you're actively talking about your own life lived experience as something that pushes your political influence in a certain direction. And you come home at night after those big conversations with a bunch of people. And yeah, once a week I find myself I need space to grieve what I am even talking to individuals about. I just want to go on a psychedelic thing really quick. We're going to wrap this up pretty soon because we could go three hours. I think a lot of folks have different opinions about psychedelics. I've actually gone through and done it myself and I'll tell you right now I am a different person because of those experiences. My wife would say the same thing. I let go of a lot of trauma and some other things in my life. And I would say that this is something that will be occurring at some level in the very near future. Seeing all these people coming back from the global war and terror and seeing the amount of individuals, either addiction problems, suicide and anything that we can do to help them. We need to take a step back and say this was the old way of thinking. This is the new way of thinking. And we have proven subjects that it's going to make sense. So set and setting is the most important thing. Very controlled environment. Exactly. We are not talking about just opening up a bunch of mushroom stores across the shoots, counting like that. Nothing like that at all. No. And I, when you said licensed therapists, licensed facilitators. And it is annoying how long the training takes for licensed therapists to just make it through this. I've had long conversations with folks about the cis takes years. This is not one of those things where it's just we're going to set up a shop and then have a teepee and have a good time. It's definitely no. And it's devastatingly important. So thank you. There's work you have to do leading up to that. And there's work you have to do afterwards. And being able to work alongside a therapist and work alongside your medical team for your own individual needs. Because you're going to open up some things that, again, there are people that that do these things as just part of a recreational pursuit of the but that's not what we're talking about here. This is a very intentional dive into yourself and making yourself better. And I think what's interesting too is there are ways, like I said, now I know how to read my body and grieve. I don't need psychedelics to do that. I don't need substance to do that. - Yeah, you don't do those on a regular basis, new. - No, this is something that I now know, hey, I'm holding too much and I need to go grieve that. I need good, somatic release. And you can do that without substance if you are not scared of your own emotions because you have done the work to work really well. - And that's exactly it. Yeah, and this could be, this allows you to get outside of yourself for the simple fact to be able to truly see what you need. And it's a self-care, almost like a reset. - And it's not for everyone. - Not at all. - That's why you gotta work through a medical team. And there are other ways that you can heal. So somatic healing is a huge thing. - Yeah. - All right, so we talked a little bit about books. You already brought up one. Let's talk about it again. And where are some books people should read and why? - I really like this book called The Three Laws of Performance by Steve Safran. And there's a lot more anecdotal stories to the beginning at the end. It goes more into an outline. But there's something that I take from that book every day. And it's, are we a player on the field or a fan in the stands? Because how often do we talk about things and we are not the influencers? And maybe that's part of becoming County Commissioner or going in the race for it. Because can I complain if I'm not throwing myself into the next level of trying to solve the issue? Because I've hit the point where I'm like, I can do what I can. I've been the player in the field, the coach in the field. And now I'm just a fan in the stands complaining about what the County Commission is or isn't doing, or I can be a player on the field. And I can make that choice. And what is it cost to make that choice? And so we have to do that in everything in life. We have, and this is that, you'll hear me talk about systems thinking, how does it affect the long-term system? Is it something I can influence? What if I want to get in there and I want to influence, what is the cost for time, for money, for who you have to influence to even be heard? And I just try to really give capacity to those things that I can reach out and touch that I know I can influence and dumps the things that aren't serving me and that I can't affect immediately. - There's a great Teddy Roosevelt quote about the man in the arena. - It's the man in the arena. - It has exactly it. And as soon as you said, this is the book and this is the reason why that's immediately what I thought. Are you the critic? Are you the man in the arena? And it changes drastically as soon as that happens because why didn't they do this or why didn't do that? Now I can see why. I can see why it was all the other things. And it makes sense. One book I want to propose to you that I found very useful. I spent some time working with folks with foreclosure for about five or six years. So it was heavy. And it's a book called Trauma Stewardship. And if you're working with the fence for Roops and as you're going in as a commissioner candidate, you're going to be getting a lot in your shoulders. And you've been doing a great job of letting it off. But that book Trauma Stewardship I found years ago and it was really helpful for me to just separate in a very healthy way. I can't help if I'm bearing your weight. - Yeah. - And it was a really great book for me in a reason. I thought you might like that. - Yeah, I might even grab it for the office. Sometimes I come across in my office as the mom of a bear. Because yeah, the public defense attorneys, they are taking on a lot more than just being the attorney for those individuals. - Exactly. It's their whole life and a culmination of this one situation. Yeah, yeah. More important questions for you. What albums or playlists are you bringing to a remote cabin? - I really appreciate you allowing me to cheat on this one and bring a playlist. But it would be Texas Country. It would have like Robert Earl Keane, Cory Moro, Roger Craig or Pat Green. It would have Red Clay Strays and Zach Bryan and Lene Wilson. And I just really loved my Red Dirt Country Influence Music, which is very different from Nashville Music. And it didn't matter where I have moved my whole life. I would have those CDs back to those CDs. I would have those in my car and I'd listen to my baby out in the East Coast and do and training and stuff. And that's what I'd pop in my truck. And I'd listen to just to bring myself calm. If I'm cleaning my house, like that's what I'm putting on and blasting throughout the house and dancing in the kitchen. Oh, it's just, it's my heart. - I inadvertently married a Texan. - Hmm? - Why have you heard of the band the old '97s? - My boyfriend's gonna kill me for not knowing this. But I'm looking it up. - Okay, one other band that I want to throw in your direction. I've seen the Red Clay Strays a few times. Fantastic band, really enjoy them. The last time they were in town, they had this, an opener was Michael Marcagi. He's gonna be here again this year. Look him up, you're gonna love him. - Did you see that Charlie Crockett's coming? - I did not, no. - Okay, hopefully us mentioning it won't sell out the short part of my tickets, but also. - Yeah, Texas Music. All right, Lauren, thank you for joining us today and thank you for throwing your hat in a ring, being the man in the arena, as opposed to the critic. And it matters greatly. So thank you for all that you have done and I'll let you do. Lauren Connelly is a candidate for the Shoots County Commissioner, position number three. This has been PNW Told. Now make it a great day.