George Gjersfold is a veteran firefighter and engineer, lifeguard and movie set safety officer who reflects on years of service in the chaos of urban Los Angeles. George reflects on an incredible array of lifeguard and fire service work and the accumulated scars, from the tragic loss of his mother to suicide while working a shift, to the horrific traumatic death of an infant. SHADE is a firefighter mneumonic for how George learned to approach an emergency which stands for: Stabilization, Hazard, Access/Assist, Disentanglement and Extrication, and became a mantra for surviving his work as a first responder. But, a threat assesment mindset also creates endless hypervigilance which can impact our life outside of the work. George shares how by staying connected, imbedding small spiritual rituals and focusing on gratitude, he learned how to extricate himself from that hypervigilance and years of imbedded trauma.
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Check out these resources from previous podcast guests for assistance with tracking your mental health, and reaching out for therapeutic assistance:
1. Jonathan Wilson and INVI MindHealth have developed an App using smart watch technology to track your daily mental health wellness:
2. From Raul Rivas and his Trauma Behind the Badge podcast episode he shared the inline resource therapy resource:
https://www.lighthousehw.org/
Available on the App Store or on Google Play.
Lighthouse Health & Wellness is an in-hand, on-demand, 100% confidential health and wellness platform available at no cost to our nation's public safety agencies.
Lighthouse was designed to provide your employees and their families anonymous access to your agency's existing health and wellness programs, along with a growing library of the latest educational health and wellness information and tools that have been tailored to the unique needs of those working in public safety.
Follow Doc Askins' podcast, purchase his book and join his Anti-Hero Journey in the exploration of mental resiliency:
https://www.antiherosjourney.com/podcast/episode/2806cc05/dr-matthew-wall-phd-mri-rock-star
Please support Spike's K9 Fund helping the training, care and preservation of working dogs:
