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WARN International provides consultancy and training in managing challenging situations to minimise

05/03/2026

If the world feels heavy, be a counterweight 🙏

04/03/2026

Possibly one of the biggest misconceptions about traumatic events is that we should be able to control our emotions in the moment.

Neuroscience shows the opposite. When something overwhelming happens, the brain takes over:
🧠 The amygdala, our threat detection centre, fires instantly, triggering an involuntary survival response.
🧠 The prefrontal cortex, the part we use to regulate emotions, temporarily shuts down.
🧠 Adrenaline and cortisol surge through the body, pushing us into fight, flight, freeze, or dissociation.

So whatever emotion you showed during the event – whether fear, numbness, confusion, or silence - wasn’t a choice.

Afterwards, the brain begins a different process:
🧠 The hippocampus struggles to organise the memory clearly, which is why things feel fragmented at first.
🧠 The stress system can stay active for days or weeks, affecting sleep, irritability, and concentration.
🧠 Biological markers like cortisol and inflammation can remain altered for months. Your body remembers the event long after your mind thinks it should be “over it.”

Expressing emotion afterwards is not only normal, but also healthy.

Research consistently shows that suppressing emotion keeps the survival system activated, while safe expression helps the brain re regulate and integrate the experience.

So, if you didn’t feel in control during the incident, that’s exactly how the human brain works.

If emotions surface days or weeks later, that’s recovery, not weakness.

If you’re still processing something months on, you’re not broken, you’re human.

I’ll share more neuroscience-backed tools for recovery in future posts.

Let me know what you’d like to see.

Let’s talk!

02/03/2026

Over the past few years, I’ve worked alongside 35+ councils as their teams navigate devastating weather events and community tragedies.

Each time, the pattern is the same: people look outward at the destruction when the real storm often happens inside.

With the increasing frequency and intensity of weather events and critical incidents, many of us are carrying more emotional weight than we realise.

What can you expect in yourself, biologically and psychologically, as you go through and recover from significant events?

While every person’s psychological response is unique – our background, history, support, culture, resilience and experiences – our biological response is consistent.

When we face major stress or trauma, the body moves through a reasonably predictable sequence of changes over days, weeks, and months.

When danger hits, our brain goes into survival mode. Research shows the amygdala (the brain’s alarm system) becomes hyperactive, firing before we’ve had time to think.

At the same time, the body releases adrenaline and cortisol to heighten focus, increase heart rate, and prepare us to act.

This is biology doing what it was designed to do.

As the immediate threat passes, the body tries to regain balance, but it doesn’t always succeed quickly.

During this period:
🧠 The hippocampus (memory centre) struggles to organise the event clearly. This is why people often feel foggy or confused.
🧠 The prefrontal cortex (logic, planning, decision-making) remains partially offline — meaning our emotions can run ahead of rational thought.
🧠 The autonomic nervous system can remain on high alert, creating restlessness, irritability, or we may have trouble sleeping.

These reactions are usual; they’re your biology trying to find steady ground.

If the pressure continues, the body’s stress systems can remain alert, meaning recovery can take longer for council and emergency management teams, given how busy they are.

Research confirms that:
📝 The HPA axis (our stress-response engine) can become dysregulated with prolonged stress.
📝 Cortisol can drop below normal levels after extended strain, a sign of burnout or exhaustion.
📝 Immune system markers can change with inflammation increasing, and protective immune responses decreasing.

Even when people feel emotionally fine, their body remembers the event long after the danger is gone.

This is why some people, months later, feel fatigue, heightened emotional reactions, difficulty concentrating or sudden dips in motivation or confidence.

As the world throws more at us, our greatest challenge isn’t just rebuilding roads and repairing buildings.

It’s supporting people through the biological journey their mind and body go through afterwards.

When people understand what’s happening inside them, the fear reduces, the shame disappears, and healing can begin.

Every major event leaves a mark, but it’s also an invitation to pause, to connect and to support each other.

Let’s talk!

26/02/2026

There’s something I learned during my years as the lead Crisis Negotiator for the New Zealand Police.

Something I didn’t fully understand until long after I hung up the phone on my last call.

I spent 13 years speaking with the most vulnerable people in our society.

People at breaking point. People who felt unseen, unheard, or overwhelmed by life. People who, in a different moment, could have been any one of us.

Vulnerability doesn’t discriminate. Not race, not gender, not income, not education, not age. None of it protects us.

If anything, the more ‘together’ someone looks on the outside, the more they may be fighting on the inside.

What surprised me most was discovering that I wasn’t immune either.

Me, the one called in to help others manage overwhelming emotions, found myself in a place where I needed expert help.

In that moment, I realised something I had told others for years but never fully heard myself - emotions don’t make us weak, not understanding them does.

As neuroscience continues to evolve, we now know that the way we manage our emotions is one of the biggest protective factors we have against becoming vulnerable ourselves.

Not toughness, not resilience in the old sense, not pushing through.

It is awareness, understanding, connection, and choosing how we respond to what we feel.

Emotions are not our enemy; they are our signals, warnings, messages and guides.

Often, they are the very thing that can save us if we learn how to listen.

If there’s one message I want to leave with you today, it’s this - nobody is bulletproof, but everybody is worth helping, including yourself.

Managing your emotions isn’t about controlling them; it’s about understanding them well enough that they don’t control you.

If this resonates with you, please let me know in the comments.

I’m working on a new piece about emotional management and human behaviour in high-pressure environments, and your thoughts might help shape it.

Let’s talk!

25/02/2026

A lifetime of working with undiagnosed ADHD leaves its mark.

Back then, it wasn’t recognised. It was labelled as anger, and misunderstood as attitude, disobedience, or trouble.

I wasn’t difficult, I was unsupported. I pushed through school without knowing why I couldn’t focus, why I reacted so quickly, or why everything felt harder than it should.

Nobody knew, I didn’t know. When I got into trouble, and my parents asked why, I simply said, “I don’t know.”

Then, at 35, I learned how to learn. Imagine that - halfway through life, finally understanding how my brain worked.

It changed everything, but the real shift came later.

Three years of intense depression while in the police, three years of hiding the struggle behind a uniform, three years of thinking I just had to ‘harden up.’

That was the start of my real journey. Not the badges, not the cases, not the rank.

Understanding people, understanding pain, understanding the brain. And eventually, understanding myself.

Although they hurt me, those years didn’t break me. They shaped me.

They moved me towards helping others before they reach the point I once did.

Today, I know this:
🧠 When you’ve lived inside the chaos, you recognise it in others.
🧠 When you’ve felt the weight of depression, you see the signs others hide.
🧠 When your own brain has been a battlefield, you learn how to guide people out of their own.

May I say I am proud of the work we do now, which isn’t about theory; it’s about lived experience.

I share this with you for one reason - whatever you’re carrying, you’re not alone.

Brains can be rewired, lives can be redirected, and sometimes the hardest years become the most meaningful.

You’ve got this.

Let’s talk.

23/02/2026

Have you ever wondered why we tend to sigh a lot at the moment, and why we often yawn?

Why do they arrive without warning, as if our body knows something that our mind doesn't?

A sigh usually shows up when we feel stressed and tired.

Inside our brains, nothing is ever random. A sigh or yawn is a rescue mission.

It’s an inhale the brainstem triggers on purpose, and a long, slow exhale that says “I’ve got you.”

A sigh resets the lungs; it reopens the alveoli that stress has collapsed, and restores oxygen the way clarity restores hope.

The vagus nerve lights up, our heart rate softens, and the amygdala loosens its grip.

Our prefrontal cortex, the part of us that thinks clearly, finally comes back online.

A yawn does something similar; it resets attention when our mind is overloaded or exhausted.

It’s the body’s way of saying, “Stay awake, stay alert, we’ve got something else to do.”

A sigh or yawn is an emotional release disguised as biology, a small moment of regulation.

They show up when life gets heavy, when the mind gets busy, and when the world demands so much of us.

Sometimes we just need to breathe.

So, the next time you sigh – don’t apologise, don’t hide it, don’t brush it away – embrace it.

It’s our brain trying to take care of us, one breath at a time.

Let’s talk!

20/02/2026

The Importance of Being Earnest - I don’t mean the movie, I mean real life.

Being earnest, being sincere, being real and being genuine.

Somewhere along the line, we learned to hide the truth about how we feel.

To stay strong, to keep going, to not rock the boat.

And in doing so, we trained our nervous system to stay on alert – always managing impressions, always performing, rarely relaxing into who we really are.

But neuroscience shows us that when we speak honestly and connect genuinely, our brains release oxytocin, the bonding chemical. Oxytocin lowers stress hormones like cortisol and signals to the nervous system, You’re safe.

In real-life experience, it is even clearer. When you’re earnest, people relax around you, conversations become human instead of transactional, and trust builds without effort.

Emotional honesty is not weakness; it’s not oversharing, nor is it vulnerability for its own sake.

Its alignment, its safety, its connection. It’s the moment our brain and body stop fighting each other.

Sincerity strengthens our brain. In a world full of noise, filters, and performance, maybe the bravest thing we could do is to say what is true, while being mindful not to hurt others.

Because when you speak earnestly, people feel safe with you. And that’s where every meaningful relationship begins.

Let’s talk

18/02/2026

I was working with Elected Members of a council recently, and the topic of decision-making arose.

Whether it’s voting on something that impacts a community or making a personal choice at home, the same question surfaced.

How do we stop overthinking and engage our rational brain when emotions, ours or someone else’s, are pulling hard in different directions?

The reality is that difficult decisions feel impossible, not because we’re incapable, but because strong emotions shut down our clarity.

When emotions rise, the brain’s alarm system fires up, and the part responsible for logic and good judgment takes a back seat. When we need calm and clear thinking the most, our brain gives us noise instead.

We can bring our thinking brain back online.

By slowing the body first with a long exhale, it sends a message of safety and resets the system – When in doubt, breathe out!

Ask different questions. Not ‘What’s the right decision?’ but ‘What’s the next best step?’ or, probably better, ‘What aligns with my values?’

Remove the imaginary audience, decisions become clearer when we stop worrying about what others might think.

If clarity still won’t come, choose rest! Our brain decides better when it’s settled, not when it’s strained.

Of course, some decisions are difficult. Not because they’re complex, but because they’re emotional.

Choosing to walk away from something that once mattered to you, letting go of a relationship that’s no longer working, deciding to forgive someone or yourself.

Saying yes to a path that scares you or no to a path that drains you, setting a boundary with someone you love, starting again when you weren’t ready for an ending.

These decisions hurt because they involve the heart, not the head. Yet they are often the ones that shape our wellbeing the most.

What I shared with the Elected Members is what I try to remind myself daily: difficult decisions don’t need more pressure; they need more calm.

When the body settles, the mind clears. When emotions soften, values emerge. When the noise quiets, the real answer finally has space to be heard.

Let’s talk!

16/02/2026

A couple of days ago, I found myself frustrated with technology.

Nothing dramatic, just one of those moments where things wouldn’t work the way they were supposed to.

I didn’t realise my words had become harsher than I intended.

It wasn’t the technology, it wasn’t the lack of internet connection, it wasn’t that I needed to access documents.

It was the pressure underneath it all, the importance of the task, the urgency, the fear of letting someone down.

That’s what was really speaking.

Neuroscience tells us that when stress rises, the brain tries to protect us by reacting fast, too fast.

The amygdala fires before the thinking brain even comes online.

Our tone sharpens, our patience shortens, our focus narrows to the threat, not to the reality.

And suddenly, we’re reacting to something on the surface when the real trigger is sitting quietly underneath.

For me, it wasn’t a glitch in a device – it was the weight of needing that device to work because what I was doing mattered.

I think this happens to all of us more often than we admit.

• We snap at our kids – not because of the spilt juice, but because we’re overwhelmed.
• We get short with a colleague – not because of the question, but because we’re already carrying too much.
• We get frustrated at a small problem – because the bigger problem is sitting in the background, unnoticed.

This is not an excuse; it is a reason.

So, what should we try to do? The true origins of Stoicism had this in mind:
• Pause – stop for a moment.
• Question your thoughts – what is causing me to feel this way?
• Act according to your values – it will be the wrong thing if not aligned with who you are.
• NOT let the emotion guide our action – and that is where I went wrong.

Awareness is powerful; it’s just hard to do in the immediate moment.

Apologise as soon as you can for behaving in a way that is not in line with your desired action, reflect on what happened, and commit to doing better next time.

Let’s talk!

12/02/2026

Guilt is one of many emotions that help us and make us human.

I like to think of guilt as a boundary which guides us to stay within our lane of values. If we stray outside of our lane of values, then guilt will steer us back on track.

Guilt is termed an adaptive emotion that involves responding to emotions in ways that are beneficial and constructive.

Shame and guilt often go hand in hand, and we can often confuse one for the other.

Shame is termed a maladaptive emotion. It makes us feel bad about ourselves and can be destructive.

Although shame and guilt seem similar, they are very different. Guilt is concerned with the negative evaluation of a specific behaviour violating our moral standards, resulting in a desire to confess, apologise and/or make amends.

Shame relates to the negative evaluation of ourselves, causing a desire to vanish, escape or strike back. In short, guilt is concerned with what you did (the act), whereas shame is concerned with self-esteem and making you feel unworthy (the repercussions).

Overcoming feelings of guilt can be damn hard, but there are several strategies that can help:

1️⃣ Acknowledge Your Guilt: Recognise and accept your feelings of guilt instead of ignoring them. Our brain holds onto what we push away, so sit with the feelings.
2️⃣ Understand the Source: Reflect on what caused your guilt. Ask yourself, "Did I really do something wrong, or am I just perceiving I did wrong based on my imposed benchmark?"
3️⃣ Make Amends: If possible, take steps to rectify the situation. Apologising or making amends can help alleviate feelings of provided it does not hurt others when doing so.
4️⃣ Learn from the Experience: Use your guilt as a learning opportunity, make a self-declaration to never do it again.
5️⃣ Practice Self-Compassion: Be kind to yourself. Everyone makes mistakes, but that does not define who we are.
6️⃣ Seek Support: Talk to someone you trust about your feelings. Sometimes, sharing your thoughts can provide relief and new perspectives.
7️⃣ Consider Professional Help: If your guilt is overwhelming or persistent, it might be helpful to talk to a mental health professional.

It is important to address guilt in a positive way to prevent it from negatively impacting your emotional well-being.

Let's talk!

11/02/2026

Have you ever witnessed a workplace accident?

I have.

Many years ago, as a builder, I watched a rigger fall from the roof of a commercial building I was overseeing.

On the way down, he struck a pallet of blocks.

It was surreal. And it’s an image I still see, even now.

That moment changes how you think about safety.

Not paperwork, not procedures, but people.

Over the years, I became deeply involved in workplace safety – as a Health and Safety Representative, in senior safety roles, and later investigating incidents & accidents.

Even then, one thing was clear: What we were doing 40 years ago wasn’t working.

We often discuss psychological safety.

It’s often described as feeling safe to speak up.

Psychological safety is about trust under pressure. It’s what happens when:
👉 Someone raises a concern
👉 A mistake is exposed
👉 A decision is challenged
👉 The stakes are high

And most importantly, how we respond in those moments.

Genuine psychological safety means you can speak honestly without fear of retribution.

Mistakes shouldn’t be met with humiliation; disagreement shouldn’t cost you a sense of belonging.

Many workplaces claim psychological safety, right up until someone says, 'This isn’t working, this is wrong.'

That’s when genuine psychological safety is tested. Not in policies, in behaviour.

Psychological safety matters, and in some circumstances, more than physical safety.

Let’s talk!

08/02/2026

I was recently asked by my wife whether I ever feel lonely when I travel.

I am so fortunate to be able to travel and have work, so I never take it for granted.

My reply - “I’m always alone, but I’m never lonely.”

What I meant was that when I’m travelling, my days are full. There’s always something to do, somewhere to be, someone to engage with.

My busy brain tends to keep me occupied.

But there are times when that changes.

Late at night, lying in a hotel room, trying to get to sleep.

Or on a Sunday evening, travelling while the rest of the world seems to be settling back at home.

That’s when I can feel both alone and lonely.

Not isolated, not disconnected from people, just aware of the absence of real connection in that moment.

I think that’s something many of us experience. Even those with full lives, strong relationships and busy minds like me.

It is possible to be surrounded by people, engaged in meaningful work and still carry a sense of loneliness.

Especially when you’re good at coping, especially when you’re used to being fine.

Finding connection in those moments isn’t easy.

Not because we don’t want it, but because we don’t want to bother others.

So instead, we stay busy, we stay capable, we stay fine.

If any of this feels familiar, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you.

Often, it just means you’ve learned how to manage, even when part of you would benefit from connection.

Sometimes the most important thing isn’t solving the feeling, it’s simply acknowledging it.

I am lucky to have others to feel disconnected from.

I am not lonely; I am just alone.

Let’s talk!

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Our Story

With 22 years policing experience at the highest level, Lance has expertise in responding to emergencies and communicating in challenging situations. Lance specialised in su***de intervention and on predicting violent behaviour in his 13 years as a crisis negotiator and instructor for the NZ Police.

While working at the 111 Emergency call centre, Lance's resiliency programme was adopted nationally and formed part of the mandatory training for all Police call centre staff. This led to the founding of WARN International, aimed to enable organisations to mitigate the effects of stress on their employees by enhancing communication skills, managing their safety & security, and by providing personal resilience coaching.