After The Tones Drop
Embark on a journey that goes beyond sirens and flashing lights After The Tones Drop Podcast provides a safe haven to explore, demystify, and destigmatize mental health and wellness for first responders. Join Cinnamon and her guests as they pull back the curtain, sharing powerful stories and expert insights that resonate with the heartbeat of those who run towards danger when others step back. It's more than just a podcast; it's a lifeline for the ones who dedicate their lives to saving others. In each episode, stories get unraveled and struggles behind the badges are shared, showcasing the human side of heroism. Discover the strength in vulnerability and the power in sharing. It's more than a conversation; it's a revolution—a revolution in mental health care for our first responders. So, tune in for candid conversations, practical strategies, and a sprinkle of humor—because healing begins with understanding, and understanding starts here. Let's break down the barriers, one episode at a time. Because after the tones drop, the real conversation begins, and we're here to make sure it's heard loud and clear.
Episodes
In this Season 3 wrap-up episode of After the Tones Drop, Cinnamon steps away from guest interviews and clinical deep dives for a different kind of conversation: a check-in, a pause, and a summer sign-off.
After a full season of powerful conversations, travel, trainings, conferences, client work, and writing,
Cinnamon is taking a summer sabbatical from the podcast.
This break is not because something terrible ha...
In this solo episode of After the Tones Drop, Cinnamon takes a detour through Sons of Anarchy, Better Call Saul, childhood bullying, and first responder trauma to explain something that finally gave language to one of her own reactions: justice sensitivity.
Justice sensitivity is not about being dramatic, difficult, or unable to “let things go.” It is the way some nervous systems react intensely to unfairness, betray...
In Episode 158 of After the Tones Drop, Cinnamon sits down with Katherine Boyle, founder of Beyond the Uniform with The LT’s Daughter, for a conversation about first responder families, law enforcement kids, parenting, values, and what it means to be present at home while serving in a demanding career.
Katherine grew up as the daughter of a Philadelphia police lieutenant, and unlike many stories we hear in the first ...
In this episode of After the Tones Drop, Cinnamon sits down with Ron Clark of Protecting the Guardian for a conversation that feels like a history lesson, a warning, and a call to action all at once.
Ron has spent decades in and around law enforcement, nursing, peer support, employee assistance, suicide prevention, and first responder wellness. He has seen the evolution of this work from the days when officers were e...
Retired Las Vegas Police Captain Josh Bitsko spent 24 years in law enforcement and was one of the responding officers who breached the suspected shooter’s door during the 2017 Mandalay Bay mass shooting. In this episode of After the Tones Drop, Josh sits down with Cinnamon to talk about what happens when a critical incident does not end when the scene is cleared.
Josh shares what it was like to respond to one of the ...
In this solocast, Cinnamon responds to a listener who asked a question a lot of people are quietly carrying: if I’m doing all the right things, why did depression come back?
Cinnamon takes that question seriously and goes straight at the lie sitting underneath so many depressive episodes: that if depression returns, it must mean you failed. She breaks down why depression is often cyclical, biological, and deeply conv...
What do you do when resentment makes perfect sense, but it is also slowly poisoning your life?
In this episode, I sit down with Rick Cheatham for a raw conversation about forgiveness, bitterness, grief, and what it takes to heal when life has taken a blowtorch to everything you thought you knew. Rick shares how loss, trauma, addiction, and anger shaped his story, and why he eventually realized that holding onto resen...
What if the worst day of your life became the thing that clarified your purpose?
In this episode of After the Tones Drop, Cinnamon sits down with Michael Chase for a conversation about trauma, service, and the kind of perspective that only comes from living through the unthinkable. Michael shares how surviving the Boston Marathon bombing changed the course of his life, deepened his understanding of what it means to p...
In this episode, I sit down with retired law enforcement officer and Protecting The Guardian founder Mark DiBona for a conversation about what really pushes first responders to the edge.
We talk about accumulated trauma, bullying, alcohol, isolation, and the dangerous myth that suicide is always about one bad call. Mark shares his story with the kind of honesty that makes you stop and listen. Not because it’s polishe...
In this episode, I sit down with Dena Ali for a conversation that goes way beyond “one bad call.”
We talk about firefighter suicide, peer support, belonging, bullying, leadership, and the culture inside first responder organizations that either helps people heal or quietly pushes them further into shame and isolation. Dena shares how her own difficult season led her into this work, why peer support became such a crit...
Firefighters know how to maintain equipment. The question Ryan Provencher raises in this episode is simple and uncomfortable. Why don’t we apply that same mindset to the people wearing the gear?
In this conversation, Ryan and I talk about firefighter wellness as an operational issue, not a side project. We get into health, fitness, sleep, recovery, mental health, and why departments that want strong crews need to sta...
What happens when the trauma you carry didn’t start with you?
In this episode of After the Tones Drop, Cinnamon sits down with Dave Freeman for a conversation that moves through childhood violence, emotional survival strategies, suicide ideation, and the moment that changed everything.
Dave grew up in a home where fear was constant. A violent alcoholic father. A mother whose behavior could shift from loving to explosi...
Sleep is not a luxury, and for first responders, poor sleep is not just inconvenient. It can impact mood, decision-making, trauma recovery, physical health, and even long-term brain function.
In this conversation, Cinnamon sits down with Dr. Leah Kaylor, licensed clinical and prescribing psychologist and the FBI’s sleep expert, to unpack what happens when responders run on empty and why sleep has to be part of the r...
What does it take to find peace after chaos?
In Episode 147 of After the Tones Drop, Cinnamon sits down with Kelly Cheatham for a deeply honest conversation about marriage, addiction, grief, and the long road to personal healing.
Kelly shares what it was like to grow up in a household where silence and explosive conflict were the only communication styles she knew. Those patterns followed her into adulthood and into h...
This episode is not a highlight reel. It’s a reckoning.
I sit down with retired firefighter and transformational speaker Rick Cheatham and his wife Kelly for a raw, two-hour conversation about addiction, loss, paralysis, forgiveness, and what it actually means to commit when walking away would be easier.
Rick shares the long road from sexual addiction and self-destruction to purpose and service. Kelly shares what it c...
In this episode, Cinnamon sits down with former Louisville Metro Police Sergeant John Mattingly to talk about what really happened the night of March 13, 2020, and what it cost him to survive it.
John was shot in the femoral artery while serving a warrant that was part of a larger drug trafficking investigation. He nearly bled out on the hallway floor. But the physical wound wasn’t the hardest part.
What followed was ...
In this episode of After the Tones Drop, Cinnamon sits down with AK Dozanti, former deputy sheriff, victim advocate, wellness coach, and author of The Responder Reset: 99 Real-Time Tactics for Frontline Regulation.
This conversation is for the people who do not have the luxury of slowing down when stress hits. The ones who need something that works in the moment, not after a weekend retreat or a six week program. AK ...
Episode 143: Healing Language That Hurts
Some of the most damaging things we say about healing are said with the best intentions.
In this short solocast, Cinnamon takes a hard look at the phrases we casually throw around when someone is hurting. Let it go. Move on. Put it behind you. You should be over this by now.
She explains why this kind of language doesn’t heal. It shames. It implies erasure. And it quietly tells ...
Episode 142: Frontline Strong Together – When Support Actually Shows Up
In this episode, I sit down with Mike Mattern and Scott Taylor from Frontline Strong Together, a Michigan-based mental health program built by first responders for first responders.
Here’s why this matters.
It’s free.
It’s state-funded.
And it works.
Mike and Scott are retired first responders who didn’t find this work through theory...
In this episode, I’m joined by Justin Atherton for a conversation every first responder and leader needs to hear.
Justin spent twenty years in law enforcement as a SWAT breacher, detective, and training lieutenant. But it was a nine-week internal affairs investigation and the identity crisis that followed that nearly broke him. That season forced him to confront a truth many of us avoid: I am not the job. The job is ...
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