The Valkyrie Initiative

09/24/2026

The myth that "letting it all out" is good for you is false. Unloading on those around you with angry outbursts isn't cathartic, no matter who has told you so. New research reveals that the brain and body suffer, as do those upon whom you unload.

When you explode in anger, your amygdala hijacks your frontal cortex, which is meant to be the brakes for impulsive thoughts and behavior. The frontal cortex handles executive functions like decision-making and self-control. That's the part of your brain you want to strengthen, not weaken.

Every time you act impulsively in anger and let it all out, your amygdala takes over. It is not part of the brain's executive control system. It just processes emotion, especially threat detection, fear, and emotional memories.

When your amygdala is triggered, your entire body feels it. It calls out the troops for fight or flight. Your heart rate increases, pumping blood to your muscles; your breathing speeds up; your pupils enlarge to let in more light; adrenaline and cortisol surge through your body; and you can even begin to sweat. It deactivates your frontal cortex for the moment, so remember that you have taken your foot off the brakes that check impulsivity.

If you are truly in a dangerous situation, your body is ready to act - to fight or take flight. This is good. If you are merely in a disagreement or argument with a loved one, friend, employer, employee, etc., this can result in actions or words you regret later.

An even more serious result of letting it all out is that you strengthen the connections to the amygdala through synaptic plasticity. You cause repeated firing of the neurons in the amygdala, making these pathways easier to trigger in the future. In other words, the more you vent your anger, the easier it becomes to vent your anger in the future.

WHEN IN AN AMYGDALA HIGHJACK, PEOPLE DO AND SAY THINGS THEY WOULD NEVER DO IN A DIFFERENT STATE.

When we are spent with this anger, our bodies pay the price. They go through a huge physiological crash and reset. Hormone levels drop while hormones of cortisol and adrenaline remain elevated for hours or even days! As a cop, I felt this drop after a dangerous encounter. Blood returning to your gastrointestinal tract can cause nausea; you can feel exhausted from the massive energy expenditure and begin shaking. And, finally, comes cognitive and emotional fatigue, especially if the anger was over the top, followed by guilt and regret. This isn't good for your cardiovascular system either, if you experience it regularly.

We are creatures who run on energy, frequency. Others can feel our emotions, and they impact others in ways we are only recently discovering. If a study on hateful thoughts toward plants, from beyond a wall, caused the plants to die, but loving thoughts toward plants behind a wall caused those plants to thrive, what do our hateful, angry emotions do to those around us - and to the world?

But every time you stop, take deep breaths, and allow yourself a moment to halt the amygdala hijack - and there are many ways to do this - then you strengthen your frontal cortex and its ability to put the brakes on impulsive thoughts that lead to impulsive words and actions in the future.

Do you want to learn some methods of strengthening your frontal cortex when triggered?

03/07/2026

Tonight I pray for our warriors in harms way for, not only the U.S., but the world. This song by Dee Rock is one of the many moving songs on The Valkyrie Initiative's Battle Cry: Songs of America's Heroes...written and performed by combat vets who have held the line for our freedom. And, Dee, of course, whose father was in the military.

Purchase and download this album to help The Valkyrie Initiative help veterans and first responders. Be prepared for emotion!

And to those on the front line-thank you from my heart!







I've been thinking of my friends who are in pain tonight, and remembering my own pain and how I came to grips with it over time...and am still working on some.

Being injured and unable to work the job that you love can bring deep pain, as can the knowledge that you will never be exactly what you once were because of that injury. Injuries don't have to be physical to cause the pain of loss of identity, that feeling of being "less than" we were, or of having less opportunities than before. Many are not physical, but are wounds to our heart and soul that cannot be seen visibly. Invisible wounds accompany physical ones or exist on their own and can cause the most problems, can cause us to see ourselves differently.

No. We are never the same as before, but we can be better. It's not what happens to us that determines who we are but what we make of what happens to us that makes us strong. How we respond to it...how we pull ourselves up from the ashes strengthens us as a life free of pain never could. Like the tree that grows up between the rocks, we will not be blown away by coming storms. Recognizing this, and being thankful for all things is the first step to peace.

I wrote this after my injury with ATF when I was undergoing multiple surgeries. I remind myself that the cracks in my vessel allow the Lord's light to shine to the world when the darkness comes, as it does to us all. I need you, my friends, to recognize this, because I need the light from your cracks to shine into my life as well. Don't cover it with anger, bitterness, and regret and/or shame.

The Cracked Vessel

My vessel holds no water
My vase is cracked and frail
Its useful days have ended
Exists to no avail

A vase is formed for usefulness
Or else for beauty great
With cracks like giant webs of tears
What purpose can mine make?

What purpose can it hope to fill
What hope to purpose bring?
When days play out in empty hours
Long, lonely echoes ring

With youthful health and beauty gone
Admiration fades
Who cares for useless and forlorn
When lovely can be gained?

So, to the Maker of my vase
I go, to know, to query
What will He do with this sad case
To trash should it be carried?

No, no the Maker quick replied
You lightly judge your vase
Because you see no usefulness
Does not mean all is waste

These eyes see differently my child
My purpose for it grows
I cracked this vase for special use
One I alone can know

True, it will hold no water
No oil within it fills
And beauty it does not possess
It owns no outward frills

For holding Light it will be grand
Thick cracks will let Light spill
Upon the world in golden rays
When of My Spirit filled

Then I will move it where I will
Wherever Light is needed
Wherever darkness has a hold
My Light will supersede it

So mourn not for your broken vase
Nor tears shed for past pain
For that which others count as loss
To Me is more than gain

If it were intact still, and filled
With ordinary things
It could not know the warmth and love
My Light’s designed to bring

I am the Maker of it all
I make, I break, I bind
Your vessel’s safe within My Hand
Your soul’s safe in My Mind

Copyright © Sheila L. Stephens

02/15/2026

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02/13/2026

I did an interview today with the wonderful men at Proud American Studios. Go sign up for content honoring American values and celebrateling those who have protected (and still protect) those values, using feature films, documentaries, TV shows, podcasts articles and more!

https://proudamericanstudios.com/home-946953?via=leigh&fbclid=IwdGRjcAP7d-BjbGNrA_t3q2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHrqtD4kgND3CZtXz2XZvMMJWYIM8uToyauWtM3xCFIwKqJd1jLz_NKmCQMsx_aem_BrVhcLi4NhoBTLMfW6wKOA

My interview today brought the following story to mind. This is a bit long but you may find it worth reading. I wrote this a few years ago:

Today is the anniversary of the passing of a man with whom I worked at ATF. This reminds me of an initiative we worked where God spared my life. He's, no doubt, done this many times, but it seemed He wanted me to be aware of it this time!

The Compound

Woke up with someone on my mind. I've been traveling down memory lane since hearing the news of this man's death. He was decent, kind, and dedicated to his job and the people with whom he worked, a legend within ATF, though he never put himself out as such.

He talked about writing a book with me, and I was told, tonight, that he spoke of our writing it to others. Oh, the stories he could tell. Yet, he took most of them with him. Though we spoke of it often, he never wrote that book. In his memory, I've included some of his stories in my to-be- published book, along with many of mine.

What I remember tonight is a joint initiative to which he and I were assigned. It included ATF, FBI, Customs, and State Police. It concerned a compound of people and a surprise (we thought) raid.

The leaders of this group had committed multiple felonies to include murder and were keeping members hostage inside their compound, confiscating welfare, social security, and other payments. We discovered them because a couple escaped to report the crimes of those at the top and get help for the halfstarved people at the bottom.

The group originated as a Bible study led by a charismatic, and as it turned out, unhinged, leader. Much like the Jim Jones' group, the leaders became wary of anyone outside their sphere and used crime to exist and to intimidate their members. They saw anyone who was not "them" as "the seed of satan", a 9 year old boy told me.

I can still see the lines of men, women, children, and animals walking down off that mountain, dimly visible in the sheets of rain. I remember feeling thankful that our negotiators had convinced them to give themselves up. Cutting off all exit points as well as utilities and access to food had been motivatonal toward that decision. There would be no gunfight that day, thank God, though the group was fully armed and prepared for it.

A fairly new special agent, I'd volunteered for everything...the surveillance team where we sat on the compound and watched for months prior to this day, the entry team, the arrest team, and the interview team. I was eager to be involved in it all.

Being one of the few females, I was granted this access. My partner was with me on most of these assignments. He was revered by everyone, his past undercover work known to most.

Standing in the rain, soaked despite rain gear, I was amazed at the weapons hidden not only on themselves, but in babie's blankets and children's clothing - even on animal's collars.

We found other weapons inside the compound, in tree branches, in the ground - and sadly - we found barrels of cyanide. As in the Jim Jones case, this leader kept cyanide to "take the members to Heaven in case they were confronted by law enforcement."

The rest of this story is for another time. Yet, the most interesting fact isn't that the entire camp gave themselves up, though if one of their absent leaders had been present, there would, no doubt, have been a firefight. The most interesting thing is that the string of claymore mines, with which the only road in and out of this place was boobytrapped, had been struck by lightning the night before our convoy of special agents and police headed down it!

Unbelievable, maybe, but true. It's not the first time nor the last that the Lord spared my life.

This man who was with me during the rest of the events...searching, arresting, accommodating these people in a hotel, then interviewing/interrogating them was amazing. He set the bar high for all of us and taught me a lot as a new agent.

It was a complicated case that led to prison time for some and leniency for those who cooperated in finding evidence on others who'd been involved but not present at the raid. It was gratifying to realize we'd given the ones who weren't involved in criminal activity a chance at a new life.

I have no pictures to memorialize this strange progression of disillusioned and demoralized people as they tried to process the reality of what they'd gotten themselves and their children into. We were not allowed to take pictures. There's only a mention in a few news articles and tons of confiscated contraband weapons and items buried in evidence boxes in some storage warehouse to mark the fact that we stopped this man and his generals. Nothing except the memories in my heart and mind, and in the hearts and minds of other law enforcement personnel who participated.

Why do people follow such a man? Why do they allow him and others like him to change the very fabric of their thinking and alter their beliefs and actions? That's the subject of age old questions and research.

The short answer, in my mind, is that it doesn't happen overnight. Trading protection for freedom, trading freedom of thought for indoctrination, and freedom of behavior for enslavement begins small and progresses in steps. In this case, it began with a Bible study group who believed and trusted every word out of the mouth of a charming psychopath. They were led into an 'us against them' scenario.

They relinquished their reasoning and their freedom in exchange for lies promising them that they would be protected and cared for by the main leader...as they were "righter" and "better" than "them". Sound familiar? This is the core of what was discovered by those of us on the interview team.

God bless my old friend and colleague and bless and comfort his family and friends as we celebrate his life this weekend. I learned much from him. Thanks for letting me vent tonight, my friends. I'd lost touch with him over the last couple of years and regret that. We should keep our friends close and love each other while we can.

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