My Blog

But when a person is involved, I think it strengthens our "never again" resolve. We want to ensure no one hurts us like that again, is given access or the opportunity to. Often, it's a promise we make to ourselves. But this is a hard tightrope to navigate, because opening yourself up to love, friendship, being vulnerable enough to share your inner world invariably opens yourself up to the risk of it happening again. When we open ourselves up, we essentially hand people the ca

I know that my positive perspective on life and desire to "hold space" could be seen as a soft or irrelevant approach for a hardened First Responder population. The things I share aren't going to be for everyone, that's ok. But the insight often missed is that I view my purpose as holding space for your darkness....the dark, twisted, traumatic shit that we, as First Responders face every single day...and many don't know how to talk about. I saw it during the course of my own

However, what most people fail to realise is that what we choose to focus on, is what our mind will be trained to seek out. That's the important part. Negativity is a choice. Therefore, so is positivity.

However, when the amount of stress we find ourselves under outweighs our capacity, the demand is seemingly too much, it's easy for any health or wellness practice to fall by the wayside. Which is why I believe that one of the best things we can do is Go Back To The Basics; they are the easiest to implement and focus on, but are also the first ones to disappear when we're feeling stressed and overwhelmed.

The foundational forensic scientific rule of thumb, Locard's Principle of Exchange, has the core premise that "every contact leaves its trace". I believe the same concept exists in our roles as First Responders. Many incidents and scenes we attend, can leave their "trace" or imprint on us in a similar way.

There's an old metaphor that a battle rages within us all, between two wolves. Good vs evil, optimism vs pessimism, light vs darkness, the opposite ends of the spectrum of humanity. But the question remains....if there's a battle between the two, which wolf wins...?

Forgiveness is the greatest gift you can give to yourself. We all deserve to walk into a new year unburdened by the weight of things we no longer need to be carrying.