PTSD Professional Perspective: Have you completed your RECON?

It is my great pleasure today to introduce you to Beau Chatham, your new Warrrior Life Coach. Beau’s ideas are fresh, strong, self-empowering and dedicated to helping you use the skills you already possess to make you more clear, proactive and strategized in your recovery.  Whether you’re a veteran coping with PTSD or just a civilian this combat vet will get you into shape to approach recovery with great structure and organization.

Preparing to do battle with PTSD?  Have you completed your RECON first?

As a former Army Ranger, one of my greatest educational experiences came to me when I was a young, green second lieutenant.  I was enrolled in the U.S. Army’s legendary Ranger School in the late fall of 1982.  During this grueling 58-day leadership course, I had the opportunity to learn the invaluable lesson of the effectiveness of a well planned and well executed reconnaissance prior to a combat mission.  For my civilian readers, here’s a bit of background on reconnaissance, or recon, as we commonly refer to it even today.  Warriors take a knee and I’ll get the rest caught up quickly.

Part of the process of conducting military operations involves the development of assumptions about your enemy.  In an effort to confirm or deny these assumptions (this allows assumptions to become facts) you send out a smaller force to observe and report the actual disposition of the enemy.  Sometimes, available time does not allow for this in real combat.  On today’s battlefield, when human forces are unable to conduct these important operations, technology provides our forces with a new means to “sneak up and spy” on the enemy.  This technology comes to us as satellite imagery or unmanned aerial vehicles.  The intent, as you can see is to solidify or modify your original plans, so that you take full advantage of your available forces and provide these forces with the best chance to protect themselves and to give them their greatest chance for mission accomplishment.  Above all else, during a recon you must not make contact with the enemy!  If contact is made, well you’re no longer conducting a recon; you’re in a firefight!  It was a great lesson because I could relate many training (and combat) successes to a well planned and executed recon during my time in service.  Warriors, on your feet!

As a life coach working with warriors today, I believe that these same principles hold true in the struggle with PTSD, only with a bit of a twist.

What’s in a NAME?

To frame this story it’s important to make this statement:  The military loves acronyms!  ASVAB, MRE, DOD, SECDEF, SOCOM…you get the picture.  Acronyms are great for warriors because they represent complicated entities, but become easy to understand by shortening the title to some sort of pronounceable word or phrase.  With this in mind, I’d like to put this out there for all of my warrior sisters and brothers that are beginning their mission of healing their PTSD.  Before conducting an engagement on PTSD, you need to spend some time conducting your own RECON.  In this case, RECON is an acronym I’ve developed to remind you of the preparation that needs to go into effect if you want the best chance of improving your healing treatment, no matter where you get the additional help.  By doing these 5 things, these activities that YOU can control, you will be much more prepared than having ignored these important steps. 

Next Friday in Part 2 we’ll take a look at the acronym RECON, so you can see what I am talking about.

Beau is the CEO and Tribal Leader of Warrior Life Coach, LLC – a veteran-owned and Atlanta, Georgia based Life Coaching practice. He is a former Airborne Ranger with over 15 years experience in the healthcare arena.  He is a combat veteran with a passion for coaching, mentoring, and helping those he works with gain more in their lives.

Warrior Life Coaching brings together the disciplines of military planning, neuroscience, and personal efficiency with the intent of providing all clients a unique and systematic approach to achieving more in their lives in the areas of love, health, wealth, and self-image.

The opinions in this post are solely those of the author. To contribute to ‘Professional Perspective’ contact Michele.

Tags: Beau Chatham, ptsd, RECON, Warrior