Lt. Richard Goerling and the Mindful Badge Initiative
Founded by retired police Lieutenant Richard Goerling in 2013, the Mindful Badge Initiative’s mission is to lead alongside our community and public safety leaders to support transformation of health, humanity and performance. Mindful Badge works to bring mindfulness-based resilience training to U.S., police fostering greater civility and equity among department members and enhancing the capacity for leadership of self and others. This is the beginning of an evolution of our police culture.
Website: www.mindfulbadge.com
TEDx Talk
Website: www.mindfulbadge.com
BIO
Richard served in civilian law enforcement for twenty four years and has extensive experience in patrol operations and criminal investigations. He retired from policing in 2019 at the rank of lieutenant at a police agency in Oregon. Richard has developed a training specialization in first responder mindset, health, resiliency and human performance. Over the last decade, he spearheaded the introduction of mindfulness skills training into policing as part of a larger cultural transformation toward a compassionate, skillful and resilient warrior ethos. Richard also served as a member of the United States Coast Guard for 27 years, both active and reserve, and retired in 2015 at the rank of Commander while assigned to Coast Guard Sector Charleston, SC. Richard is a co-investigator and trainer in ongoing National Institutes of Health funded research on the impact of mindfulness training for police officers. He holds an affiliate assistant professor appointment at Pacific University in the Graduate School of Psychology. Richard also holds an adjunct faculty position at Portland State University in the Hatfield School of Government. Richard has earned an undergraduate degree in economics and a graduate degree in business administration. He has completed a year-long mindfulness training program at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles and is a certified mindfulness facilitator (CMF). He is an avid swimmer and meditator, and a content introvert that enjoys time with his family to recharge.
PROFILE
Police Lieutenant Richard Goerling founded the Mindful Badge Initiative to bring mindfulness-based resilience training to U.S. police. He first entered municipal policing in 1997 and quickly recognized that the culture of policing and the stress and trauma officers experience on the job set officers up for a high risk of performance failure and poor health. Historically, police are hired and trained as capable men and women, yet are placed into a profession rife with violence, trauma, perceived injustice and chronic and acute stress, then expected to manage the impact largely on their own. Some internal programs provide peer support after a critical incident, but very limited training that might provide the skills for developing resilience proactively. This conventional, reactive approach is not at all sufficient in addressing the severe stress and its impact on law enforcement officers: police officers are at higher risk of PTSD, chronic sleep deprivation, obesity, type 2 diabetes, alcohol abuse, sudden cardiac death, clinical depression, and are more likely to die of suicide than in the line of duty (Christopher, et al. 2015) (Hartley, Burchfiel and Violanti 2008). These stressors are more likely to contribute to anger, which is negatively correlated with ethical decision-making and positively correlated with interpreting actions as hostile and the intent to punish harshly (Bergman, Christopher and Bowen 2016). Without a formal program in or leadership emphasis on the importance of resiliency, stress manifests in the shadows of cynicism, addiction, illness, burn-out, and aggressive reactivity, degrading police decisions and interactions with each other and their broader community.
Goerling underwent a training in MBSR and, profoundly inspired, spent two to three years studying mindfulness and its impact through his own experiential practice, conversations with elite performers in a variety of areas using mindfulness, and a review of available scientific research. He became convinced that mindfulness training would not only improve resiliency, but that it would also help police officers open up to their greater humanity, cultivate compassion, and build social-emotional intelligence to navigate the high-risk challenges of their job.
Goerling first piloted his own programs, called Mindfulness-Based Resilience Training (MBRT) in 2013 in Oregon, which involves an eight-week program adapted from MBSR. The ultimate mission is whole system reform towards a resilient police institution and culture of awareness and compassion. Goerling sees a need for change not only in the wellbeing and mindset of individual officers, but also among police leadership in order to ensure a systems-wide cultural shift. He works with both officers in the field and police department leaders through programs customized to address their unique stressors. His programs are taught by a police veteran or first responder alongside a community member not only to avoid insular trainings with those only “in the club”, but also as a check on biased community perceptions of police. The diversity of trainers is a spark for greater relationship building that extends beyond the training.
One of the core teachings of his training is the difference between judgment and discernment (Goerling 2017). Goerling explains that it is easy to pass judgment, say, when you answer a call from a sex worker who has been beaten by her pimp for using her money for drugs. Cops are naturally going to be driven by a range of thoughts about whether she is to blame or not based on her addiction and choice of profession. These biases and judgment come from the need to make sense of their world of violence, abuse, neglect ,and crime. Add a dose of cynicism, toughness mentality, stress, and burn-out, and they may be unable to make the best possible decision. Instead, mindfulness practice can open up a police officer to their own humanity and that of another individual. They are then more likely to be able to recognize their own internal biases through the capacity for self-observation (as opposed to trying to follow a department policy to not be biased), set aside moral judgment, and show up with compassion. This allows for discernment to determine the wisest response.
Goerling’s work is beginning to reach a tipping point. As of 2017, he has been invited to train 300 officers in the Dallas, Texas police department and has other programs underway in police departments in Bend, OR, Cambridge, MA, and Menlo Park, CA. Further, as a faculty member at Pacific University, he is collaborating with Richie Davidson’s lab at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on training police officers at the Madison police department. Early outcomes have shown positive impact, including increases in the mindfulness facets of non-reactivity, non-judgment, and acting with awareness, as well as improvements in mental health, physical health, emotional intelligence, resilience, anger, fatigue, and stress (Christopher, et al. 2015). Further, increases in acting with awareness and non-judgment were shown to correlate with a reduction in anger (Bergman, Christopher and Bowen 2016). In a stressful job, Goerling’s mindfulness based training empowers officers to take better care of themselves from day to day, as well choose the wiser path when actions can have very real or even lethal consequences.
We know that meditation and awareness training supports empathetic thinking and stress reduction. We know that self-awareness and mindfulness practice support self-regulation of emotion, conflict resolution with others, and increased ability to connect and understand with compassion. We know that breath can help regulate the stress-response system. And we know that stress and trauma exposure is the leading cause of burnout. As such, we must employ mindfulness and self-care as an essential component of our work, just as an athlete would undergo physical rehabilitation for an injury. Without self-care and balance, we are at risk of distorting our efforts, minimizing our potential contributions, or worse, creating harm. Change must begin from within.