88: Arjuna George - Burnt Around The Edges

Have you noticed that sometimes the very thing that lights us up can become the very thing that can burn us out? 

After a long career as a first responder in his hometown community of Salt Spring Island, Arjuna George was on a silent yet destructive path to burnout.   In this inspiring podcast episode, a retired firefighter and author, he shares his journey toward healing from chronic stress, moral injury, and trauma. Drawing on the extensive inventory of self-care strategies in his book “Burt Around the Edges”, Arjuna is a trauma informed resilience coach who is on fire for helping others lead healthier and happier lives.

Arjuna (A.J.) shares what it took to heal from years of ignoring the slow burn and the risks to his health while doing what he loved. This episode is not just for first responders but anyone facing signs of stress and burnout.  Arjuna suggests not waiting for divorce or addictions to sabotage one’s future.

This podcast is a must-listen if you want to develop resilience, find balance, and live a more fulfilling life. Take a cue from Arjuna George's journey towards healing as he shares the steps needed to bounce back stronger than before. Join Cindy Thompson and Arjuna George for this insightful conversation on personal well-being and designing the life you were meant to live.

Website: www.silverarrowco.com/

Masterclass: aresilienceproject.com/masterclass

Transcript

Cindy Thompson - A Resilience Project Podcast

Building Resilience Among Humans One Conversation At A Time

EP88:  Arjuna George – Burnt Around The Edges

Cindy Thompson: Hello, friends. I am Cindy Thompson, and this is ‘A Resilience Project.’ This is a space where stories are shared and possibilities are discovered. I invite you to partner with me in cultivating resilience among humans, one conversation at a time.

Cindy Thompson: Hi everyone, before we dive into this episode, I want you to know I am offering Masterclasses levels 1 & 2 called RISING. Each class is 1.5 hrs and runs once a week for 4 weeks.  We will be taking a deep dive into one of the 4 evidence-based resilience practices that you are going to want to have in your skill set.  I will include the link in the show notes where you will find more information and upcoming dates!  I hope to see you there!  Now, let’s jump into this week’s burning conversation.

 Have you noticed that sometimes the very thing that lights us up can become the part that can burn us out? As we pursue our dreams and a career we love, we run the risk of becoming disillusioned, discouraged, and exhausted.  How is that possible when we love what we do?  Great question!  

 Anything that takes extensive training, investment of time, sleepless nights, and a heart for the safety of others might lead one to ignore their emotional and physical wellbeing. I suspect those in the trenches and putting their lives at risk for the benefit of others are prone to be somewhat selfless, run toward danger rather than away from it and are highly motivated for the greater good. They still need to be safety conscious and attentive to protocols or best practices, just 100 % committed to why they are there in the first place. At what cost could this have for those that fit this description?  

 My guest this week is on a mission as a retired firefighter and fire chief to prevent more than fires but extinguish the effects of stress and provide an offramp if you are at risk of burnout. Loyal to a career he loved and part of an extended family of first responders, Arjuna Georges has learned first-hand that early signs of burnout can be missed.  

 What does it take to recognize those markers in our body that suggest something is wrong? Like the indicator light on a dashboard, the red light might be the only sign we get before something goes horribly wrong.  

 Arjuna, or AJ as I fondly refer to him, suggests he is a recovering stress-a-holic with over 24 years as a firefighter and first responder on Salt Spring Island, BC. AJ spent over 19 years as a firefighter and the last 5 years of his career as a fire chief serving a community he loves. In this conversation, we uncover some system issues beyond PTSD and burnout. This is something much more insidious yet something that will erode any organization…Moral injury. We are taking this issue above ground because it isn't something often discussed, yet it is essential.  

 I am so honoured that AJ is here to guide us through some of his personal learnings, the indicators he initially ignored, and what it took to make a radical change in his career and life.    

 Here is my conversation with AJ….

Cindy Thompson: AJ, thank you so much for being here on "A Resilience Project" with me.

Arjuna George: It's a total honor to represent and to be on your podcast, so appreciate it.

Cindy Thompson: I'm really excited about this because I've been diving into your book and we've just come to know one another in this past five months, and I love meeting new people. 

I love to hear people's stories and you have a story of resilience, a message to share with people that I think is really critical for people to hear. I know you've been a firefighter your whole career on Salt Spring Island retired in 20 and 21.

Walk us through what you discovered over the latter part of your career and what happened in those later stages that caused you to make some changes.

Arjuna George: Yeah, I think I had a pretty amazing career and I feel very lucky that I was able to have a career in my own hometown. Which is pretty unique in itself. I joined as a volunteer firefighter in 1997. Moved up through the ranks, but later on in life, the thrill of the fire service was dull. I knew I put so much heart and soul into the fire service, so much spirit that I really did not want to let that experience go to waste. I had lots of kind of introspective moments of kind of thinking a s it a time for me to just mix things up because honestly I was not thriving as I once was, and definitely not what I wanted to be. I decided to retire from the fire service after being basically burnt out from organizational stress.

Through coaching is what allowed me to see the light at the end of the tunnel and to find out what's truly important to me as a person moving forward. Through that I found out that serving the fire community was still very important to me but in a different capacity.

So I chose to serve the fire community first responder community in a more coaching capacity than operational.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm. Wow. That's a Cole's Notes, but there's so much in the middle. I can appreciate the beauty of being able to work and serve in your own community. 

At the same time, that passion, that excitement that people have at the beginning of their career, it's not unusual that you do start to get a little bit jaded, a little bit tired, a little bit burnt out, even just with that nature of the work. I don't know what the lifespan might be for firefighters, maybe before they start to get even more tired. 

Arjuna George: I would say that any job that you're in for more than 10, 15, 20, 25 years, you're gonna start to feel some sort of maybe jade, maybe resentment, maybe boredom. The fire service through most of history, you join young and you don't change careers ever. I was breaking the mould in one aspect of leaving the fire service before my retirement, which I know a lot of young fire chiefs appreciated that and reached out to me and saying, you know, you're setting an example that it is okay to leave the fire service, that it is okay to transition and do a different job later on in life.

Cindy Thompson: Yeah. New beginnings are exciting. You now were ready for a new role and you stepped into Fire Chief, I believe it was like the last five years. 

Arjuna George: Yeah. Last five years.

Cindy Thompson: I could appreciate maybe ready for a new challenge, but I can hear that it was somewhat lacking in what you'd hoped it would be.

Can you walk us through that organizational stress and burnout in that role?

Arjuna George: I was chief officer for almost a decade, so assistant chief, deputy chief, and then fire chief. The roles are very similar in a lot of aspects. Essentially I was doing a chief role for at least 10 years.

Cindy Thompson: I see.

Arjuna George: Going through that, the last five years as the fire chief, what I found was the political pressure, the political conversations, the drama, it just didn't fit who I was.

I loved the fire service, the operations, the fighting fire, serving community. I love the administration training, but when it came down to dealing with the politics side of things, which is totally normal. That's expected as a fire chief. I thought I was ready, but maybe I wasn't ready for that aspect of things.

 That would be my area where I started to feel a little bit less engaged. It really felt every single day I went to work, I was putting out fires, not real fires, political fires, drama fires, silly stuff that really took a lot of time from my day where I was actually wanting to be productive and do good for the community where it felt like most of my days were arguments or putting out fires.

It just didn't bring joy to me anymore. I totally understand that is the role of the fire chief is to be a political figurehead. Some people are meant for that. Some people are meant for different positions. 

My strength was a leadership component of it, but the political side just wasn't my cup of tea.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm. When you decided to step away, what were the signs that it was time?

Arjuna George: Hmm I think I ignored a lot of the signs for a long time, unfortunately. I would say probably a good three, four years. I was probably in fight or flight most of the time, occasionally some freeze components of the stress response. I had constant headaches, fatigue, low motivation to really do good in my job anymore.

 It was mundane, just go to work, do the same thing, just didn't feel the same anymore. I definitely wasn't taking care of myself. I was feeling a lot of body aches and pains. I told myself I didn't have time to exercise because I had too much other things to do. Looking back on that it's crazy that I said that to myself cuz there is time for exercise and time for self-care. I really put everyone else in front of me which is part of servant leadership, but I really felt like I put everyone in front of me way before I took care of myself. I just felt a lot of fatigue, a lot of anxiety, depression didn't hit, but anxiety. I was always worried about what was next, what was the future. That put me in freeze state sometimes where I'd be so worried about the future that I'd be just like frozen and wouldn't be able to operate the way I want.

 I wanna thrive in anything I do. Hmm, something's not fitting the bill here of who I wanna show up as.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm. Picturing you as a young firefighter and all the reasons why you got into it, you are on call and want to respond to help others. I can imagine the energy, the drive, the meaning and purpose that comes with what is a good day's work.

 I read in your book that really your best day is showing up on the worst day for somebody else. I'm guessing there's a lot you don't have control over that your hands are tied on.

Arjuna George: A hundred percent. I came across something called moral injury, which is definitely a new term that came out of the military combat terminology. Moral injury essentially is seeing decisions getting made that were going against your morals, your ethics, really your core principles of who you are. The biggest part is you don't have a decision around that. You have no final say in that. As a fire chief, you would think that you'd have lots of final say, but really you're still the middle leader. You're middle manager. You can fight for whatever you feel right. But still that is not necessarily the outcome. And for me, I really felt moral injury most of my career as the fire chief because a lot of the decisions that I wanted to see happen for my firefighters or for the community just went against who I stand for.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm. Do you think that became a deal breaker for you, AJ, in your stress, in what led to that final decision to leave?

Arjuna George: It played a very massive role, if not the biggest for sure. It was the 23rd of June, 2020. I woke up in the morning, hadn't talked to my wife, hadn't talked to my kids, hadn't considered talking even to myself about this and within minutes of waking up, I walked out into the front yard. Nice, beautiful sunny day, called my CAO and said, effective today I need to take a stress leave.

 I have no idea how that came outta my mouth. A few days before that, I definitely experienced some moral injury factors that I'm sure just tipped that over just a little bit where I really felt like it was time for me to take a break and during that break my heart, my soul, really said that this is the end.

 And I even said at one point the words, I'm free.

Cindy Thompson: Wow. That's powerful. I hope that people listening are going to pay attention to those early indicators of burnout before you hit the wall. You hit that wall and then your body was letting you know you needed to pay attention. But there was lots of indications before that. I love that we get to talk about burnout here in this way.

Love the name of your book, "Burnt Around the Edges." This is so appropriate for your career. There was a quote in your book where you were talking about burnout. Just like firefighters' helmets, we have learned that a dirty helmet is a badge of stupidity and a clean helmet is a badge of honor. So what is it that we're priding ourselves on and pushing through and trying to maybe gain a sense of purpose, like trying to get a sense of value, and yet, what is that bringing us at the end of the day?

Arjuna George: I really think there is a time for grit, a time for drive and pushing hard. But just like anything else, you can't sustain that forever. I wanted to make sure that I was working more than anyone else. I wanted to be almost seen and that wasn't something for me. It was just, I felt it was my responsibility to work more.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm.

Arjuna George: To be available more, to go to more workshops, to go to all the courses, go to the training nights. It felt like it was my responsibility to be there for everything. Looking back, that was my own self sabotaging myself because I really didn't have to be there for everything. I didn't have to be there available all the time. I think that's the grind mentality of just work, work. There's no time for sleep. If you get three, four hours a night, that's good sleep. That's crazy talk.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm.

Arjuna George: There's gurus out there that are preaching that working yourself to the bone and work more than you sleep. Don't bother taking vacation. Vacation's for wimps. I'm all about self-care now. I had to go through that myself.

 I'm an example of what not to do in one aspect, but now with my new understanding, I'm an example of what to do. I really spent two, almost three years, of really immersive self-care introspection, looking at who I am, what I want to do, what's important to me.

I put a lot of work into that. And I really tried every modality, any technique, any supplement under the sun to recover from my burnout. I was really doing that all for myself. But as I went through the process longer and longer, I was like I gotta share this. That's where the book originated.

Cindy Thompson: There's so many gems in there for us. Thank you! When somebody is going through that level of stress, it also impacts families. How did that show up in your family that you might want others to hear and to listen for ?

Arjuna George: Mm-hmm. I would say for the fire service, a very high divorce rate, very similar with other first responder agencies. Very high alcoholism, drugs, to cope through these fight or flight stress responses that people are seeing. I was extremely, extremely blessed to have an amazing, supportive family.

 I really was lucky in that regard. I think probably if I was in a different situation I would've been divorced and would've been not a good relationship with my kids. I have a great relationship with my kids. Got an amazing wife who's been supportive since day one. 

We were young, married when I joined the fire service and early on made a little deal that when I came home cuz she could obviously see that there was a lot of pressure on my plate and a lot of hours I was putting in even when I was a firefighter. We called it a little defrag time where I would walk in the door and it was a transition period. 

 Initially it was I walked in the door and I either went to the bathroom or I went to my bedroom and just took off my uniform. As soon as I took off the uniform, I felt like, okay, now I am turning into dad, husband versus a firefighter. I just sat there for five, 10 minutes cuz things were just racing through my mind. Unfortunately that wasn't perfect cuz when I was with my family, I really don't feel like I was present a hundred percent of the time. I was always thinking about what I gotta do tomorrow, what course I gotta do, that call that we were just at. Had we done anything different with that call, could we have saved that person? All these things just keep popping into your mind. Especially the higher and higher you go up in the ranks. 

When you're the fire chief, you're pretty much stress about that 24/ 7, or I did anyways. Yeah. The open door communication with your partner is critical.

Just having a transition routine I think is majorly important from any occupation. You're coming from a real estate office coming home, and you're not a realtor anymore. You're coming home, you're gonna be a parent or a husband or a wife. Just having that moment, that routine, ritual, whatever you wanna call it, to transition into that home state. It makes a huge difference. And I know some firefighters they'll go out into their garden for five minutes, doesn't have to be growing season. Just go out there, pull a couple of weeds and come in and they're a hundred percent present when they do that. 

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That mindfulness, being in the moment. It must be hard to turn it off when you feel you are just that responsible guy that is going to show up fully 110% in whatever you're doing. I can just hear your backpack. I can hear that sense of responsibility you felt.

Speaking of backpacks, would you mind talking about that backpack and how trauma can be cumulative. I think listeners may be in other lines of work that they can relate to what you're saying. So I wonder if you would speak to the accumulation of things in that backpack.

Arjuna George: Yeah. I honestly think everyone has a backpack. Not just for first responders, but everyone. In the fire service we have this kind of analogy where we paint the picture, especially for new recruits coming on board, we tell 'em about the backpack. Everyone's got a backpack and probably if you're an adult, there's already a few rocks in your backpack. A rock essentially is some sort of past trauma. It could be for myself, I had, my best friend was killed when I was 12, so having that on my backpack was already there before I joined the fire service. My son had an emergency c-section, very stressful time. Another rock in the backpack. So everyone's got rocks in their backpack. Some might be small, some might be big. Every time you experience another trauma or stressful incident you're essentially throwing another pebble, another rock, another boulder, in your backpack. Sooner or later you either have to stop, take off your backpack and empty some of those through therapy or self-care to relieve that. If you don't, your backpack's gonna get very full and you will fall over and usually fall backwards. When you fall backwards, that's the time you're either going to the hospital or doing something that's a bit more than self-care. It needs next degree of for yourself.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm.

Arjuna George: I truly think that everyone has their own backpack. Unfortunately there's so much trauma in our world that people are coming to the fire service with maybe even a full backpack or other occupations, already full. That next call they do is just over the top, right?

Cindy Thompson: Yep.

Sometimes we don't know when that's gonna be triggered. There may be traumas there that have not been resolved. There can be a situation, a scenario where we react because of that backpack that's very full. You never really know when you're gonna be hit by that.

 If somebody's in a car accident, who had a number of physical injuries, head injury, back injuries, and that's impacted their ability to go to work and they get sent for all kinds of physio treatments. When you have these kinds of traumas that are in your backpack, I can hear it took a long time to heal. 

Arjuna George: I didn't start healing until about two years ago. Honestly I had to hit that wall before I realized it, and that's not ideal by any means. When I hit that wall, it was pretty obvious that I had to start right that second to do something. For the first couple months, all I had to do was physically just sit on my deck, cup of coffee, glass of water, and just turn off my mind. Be mindful, meditate, look out into the ocean. I don't wanna say I was a vegetable, but I was close to being a vegetable. Just being...

Cindy Thompson: Numb?

Arjuna George: Numb. Yes, great word. Great word. That slowly dissipated. I honestly couldn't see people. I really didn't wanna communicate with anyone except for my family. I just needed that space to decompress from all those feelings and years. There was anger in there. That was a big emotion that I had to deal with. Then after that I did every modality I could possibly think of.

 First off, I reached out to obviously psychotherapists and counselors. They assisted with the moral injury component and some other stuff that I actually hadn't even considered as my traumas. There's five people who got killed in this boat accident.

There were coffins with children and I remember it, but once I went through therapy I was like, wow, that really did hit me hard and I never processed it. Once again, back to my friend who got killed when I was 12. Never processed that either. There was a lot of stuff that wasn't fire related that I still need to process. Then after that I hired three different coaches that really helped me see the bright future that I had. That this wasn't the end of things. It wasn't counseling, it was coaching that really helped me move forward in life and find what my true meaning was. 

Highly recommend body work. I did a lot of body work with energy work, which is something I've never done before and that was very interesting. Acupuncture - game changer. I still do that monthly. Therapeutic massage. Massage and acupuncture, I really feel it's more than just a nice feeling. It's not like a spa massage.

 When you're massaging the body, you're actually massaging the nervous system, your vagus nerve. It allows your body just to relax and turn off for a good hour, which some people just can't do 'cuz we're always going, going, going. It allows you just one hour, just relax. But also to get your nervous system rebalanced a little bit. I did a whole bunch of hormone testing and I found out my testosterone was very low. A lot of minerals and nutrients were very low in my system. Pre-diabetics, so not diabetic, but I found out that I was insulin resistant which is basically caused by high cortisol levels through your system. 

I always drank a lot of water, but I really, really increased my water intake I really found out that was good for the body as well as the mind. My water intake went through the roof. I started to exercise. I got a puppy a couple years ago and he takes me for a walk, for sure.

Cindy Thompson: It's nice to see you smiling as you think of your dog. The value that has brought. Yeah.

Arjuna George: I honestly couldn't imagine going through this without him for sure. He's been a huge anchor in my life for sure. He goes with me everywhere.

Cindy Thompson: I love that. You hear often that is actually very healing to have that pet that's unconditionally there for you, but also your buddy on the walks, and gets you out there. AJ, there's so many practices that you needed to rely on just to unravel that level of stress and to calm your nervous system.

 I wanted to draw that out because I want people to hear what they're doing to their bodies by ignoring and just pushing it to the limit or over the limit on a regular basis. The damage long term that they're doing by ignoring these things and not taking care of and resolving these traumas. It's been a couple of years of healing.

Arjuna George: I still got years of healing for sure, but I feel like I'm thriving now versus drowning.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm.

Arjuna George: Honestly, self-care is gonna be a practice that I do for the rest of my life, for sure. This is not a, okay, I'm all better now and back to my old habits of drinking coffee all day and no water, or not exercising or not doing any of these breaks or mindfulness. That's all gonna be part of my life moving forward and hopefully I can encourage other people to do that as well.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm.

Arjuna George: I call it body IQ and I really think that for myself, I felt like I knew the body pretty well. I knew through the fire service the stress response of fight or flight, but I really did not know how my body operates under stress.

 When I say body IQ, it's just understanding who you are as a person, how you respond to stress, what your own signs and symptoms are, cuz everyone's slightly different and how you react to those signs and symptoms and maybe some triggers that maybe, oh, I never noticed that. So maybe through journaling or just mindfulness, you can start to have a better picture of how your body reacts to stress. Then when you do have that knowledge, now you have the power to do something about it. I had no idea about my kidneys and my adrenal glands and how they act and I had no clue about the vagus nerve and my nervous system really. I knew the parasympathetic and the sympathetic, but other than that, you have this one body and it's here for the rest of your life and you might as well optimize it as much as you can. 

Cindy Thompson: Well said. Often we operate on the, "No news is good news." If we are not hearing from our body or it isn't stopping us from doing things, we don't pay attention. There's little ways that our body is talking to us and how we're responding to our world and our lives that we should be paying attention to.

 I hope that people will buy your book because there's so many practices, mindfulness exercises, that really walk people through your learning, and that's what I love about this podcast is we get to highlight what you've been learning in your life, in your career, in your experience, and since leaving the fire service, really identify the importance of this work, of really listening to that one body we get. Yeah.

What would you say to that younger firefighter when you were first starting? What wisdom would you have for him?

Arjuna George: There's two things that keep popping into my mind and one goes back to the body IQ of just learning who I am as a person and not being so unaware of my own self. I think that was critical. The other one would be just a bit more vulnerable as a young person, cuz I always felt like I had a wall up, especially as I became a career fire chief, I had to basically put on a mask of what is expected to be as a fire chief. 

Once again, back to my own self-perceptions and my own self-talk, I told myself I couldn't go to work sad, I couldn't go to work unhappy. I had to be stoic 24/ 7. And that's not healthy. That's not real. But that's what I told myself . Now that I have that new knowledge about really what it is to be a good human, I think vulnerability is pretty key. I don't think a lot of people do it and including myself, , but when you do it, holy cow, it's freeing. It's very freeing to be vulnerable, which you would think would be the opposite. But when you're just yourself, there is no masks. It takes a lot of energy to wear a mask every day of someone who you're not a hundred percent.

Cindy Thompson: Hmm. So good. Yes. Yes. What would you say to leaders who are leading a team and maybe not willing to be vulnerable themselves or this piece around the moral injury? What would you like to see change out there?

Arjuna George: Think if you're gonna be a good leader in promoting healthy, psychologically safe environments, you gotta look at yourself first. Self-care and leading by example. I promoted mental health self-care every day. I thought I was doing a good job. I really did not see any red flags because I was ignoring them. 

Looking back on it, I did a good job promoting it, but I didn't do a good job of walking in those shoes. I think for leaders if they can't be vulnerable and , it's just a struggle for them to open up is to just work on themselves first, to find out who they are as a person.

This can be through coaching, through personality tests, through lots of ways, even just mindfulness and meditation, they can figure out who they are. Then after that, I think psychologically safe environments really need open dialogue. I'm a big fan of just, it doesn't have to be the fire chief making decisions or the CAO making decisions.

 I really think the people doing the job should be part of that. Very collaborative, open dialogue through the organization really helps. Breaking down silos. I really feel silos inside of an organization is not healthy and really creates us versus them mentality, as well as it kind of brews rumors and drama. When there's those silos within, everyone's oh, what are they doing over there? What are they doing over there? 

Cindy Thompson: Yes, a hundred percent.

Let's talk about the seven resilience practices in your book that you have found to be helpful. 

Would you like to just briefly refer to each of those and tell us what those would involve?

Arjuna George: yeah. So the seven resilience practices, it's a system that was built by this author, Linda Hoopes. Prosilience. It's seven muscles in your body and they're not real muscles. It's just a picture to help learning. I'll go through all these positivity confidence, priorities, creativity, connection, structure, and experimenting. 

When I personally did the workshop, which comes along with a survey that you do, for me, priorities and connection were very low. Meaning that I was not using those two muscles. So connection: I really didn't feel, personally, until I dug a little deeper that I was low on connection. I felt like I talked to people all the time and that was the thing. But what I found out was I didn't ask for help.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm.

Arjuna George: When I was struggling, I did not ask for any assistance. When I was learning this, I was building a shed in the backyard and. Even after knowing this, I was still stubborn enough to not ask for help. I'm not a builder. If I just asked my neighbor who's in construction. Okay. Yeah, I can see that now that you paint that picture of, it's not just talking to people or having connections, it's reaching out for support as well . Another one that was causing stress within me was priorities. For me, I have lots of balls in the air, and right now I have lots of balls in the air still, but very much more manageable than I used to.

 I would be going from one shiny thing to another shiny thing and never focusing on that one priority and working on that. Once I learned about that, my number one priority, honestly was my health. Then it turned into my book, and then it turned into coaching and my business. I really started to focus in on those priorities versus having myself spread everywhere, which causes a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress.

You can just focus on one thing and knock it outta the park versus doing mediocre work on the other projects.

Cindy Thompson: Yeah. Each one of them has a lot of value. Are there a couple more that you would want the listeners to understand a little bit more in depth? I think there's value in just expanding on it a little further.

Arjuna George: The positivity is, I wouldn't say straightforward, but it's are you walking into the room lighting it up versus turning the lights off and making a dim and grumpy for everyone. When you're flexing these muscles, some of 'em you can actually over flex and use 'em too often. Your crutch is maybe structure. Maybe I'm too structured. When I'm dealing with people in my organization who are not structured, that causes tension, drama, conflict. Sometimes you can actually overuse 'em as well as underuse them.

Cindy Thompson: Yeah, good point.

Arjuna George: Then confidence is the can-do attitude. Some people are more confident in certain situations. When you learn that, if you can use this within your organization, you can actually learn people's strengths. and use them in their strengths. If somebody's super confident under stress, let's use AJ who's under a lot of stress, but he can make really confident decisions. Let's use him in that scenario 'cuz that's where he thrives.

Once again, confidence, priorities, discuss that creativity. Definitely a huge one. I talk about in my book, I really didn't even know what the word joy was. Obviously I knew what the word meant, but I'd never lived it because I was always work mindset, onto the next thing.

What's next? What's next, what's next? I never got to enjoy the moment. Looking back on it, I really had so much experiences in life in a short time, but I was always looking for the end goal versus enjoying what's happening right now. For creativity, I'm a big photographer. Haven't touched that in 10 years, so my creativity was almost zero especially as the fire chief. When I was in my other ranks, especially the training officer, I was able to flex that muscle a lot cuz I could make props, I could make training scenarios, all these fun things that really essentially allowed me to be creative in my job. Once you get to that position, what I found anyways, as the fire chief was my creativity just was nonexistent. That adds to your resilience if you can be creative. It doesn't have to be artwork per se. Just creative in different thoughts. I never, probably in the last 24 years, seldom had a time to just think instead of do, do, do. 

Cindy Thompson: Good point. You're inspiring me to get back to my painting, which I haven't touched for a long time. Thank you for that reminder. Yeah.

Arjuna George: I used to fly fish all the time. I used to do photography and one day I'll get back into that, but I'm also doing different hobbies now. 

Finishing off the last two: structure. Once again, sometimes people can be too structured or not structured enough and they wanna shoot from the hip. But structured allows for some people to thrive in it. There'd be checklists or be things that structure their day in a very organized way. 

Then experimenting would actually be going out and trying different things. Some people can thrive experimenting, just throwing it out there and see what happens. And some people have to go through a very methodic analysis before they pull that trigger of doing that new thing.

 Yeah, I go into a lot more in depth in my book, but then also in " Prosilience" by Dr. Linda Hoopes goes into even deeper. I offer a workshop that delves into that, but I truly think that the more resilient you are the better you're gonna be off with stress, what turbulent things happen in your life, chaotic times. Resilience really is the key to healthy life.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm. Well said. I've been really contemplating this lately that for some people within organizations, they might be feeling like resilience has been forced on them. Told that they have to build this resilience, and yet I like to look at it like a choice that we make every day. Not because we're hitting the wall, but because we want to thrive and adapt well. Some people haven't really recognized the need for it before hearing this podcast. There's probably people all the way along that spectrum. I really want to encourage people to see this as a choice.

And each of those practices can be built upon and added in like a muscle like you suggested. If we are mindful of it and aware of it, it's something that we can be watching for perhaps to keep that balance. 

Arjuna George: Yeah, I just encourage people with resilience not to be a yo-yo, and just keep bouncing back. I like to think of resilience as being bouncing back, but better each time, stronger each time, wiser each time, healthier each time. If you just keep bouncing back like a weight loss, I lose 10 pounds, gain 10 pounds of weight, I really think you need to get just a little bit better each time, a little bit wiser from what you experienced, what you went through. That's how you're gonna build your resilience.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm. Like a good workout. You wanna maintain that muscle and build on it, not quit the gym for a month or six months and then go back and rebuild it. Yeah. Nice. What is one word that would describe who you are today, AJ?

Arjuna George: How about two?

Cindy Thompson: Sure you can do two.

Arjuna George: At ease. 

Cindy Thompson: Hmm.

Arjuna George: That was a question I wanted in my life through going through my energy work, my counseling. That word kept coming up. I just want to be at ease. That's all I want. I don't need anything else in life. Just be at ease. When I say ease, it's not being lazy or just doing nothing vacation mode all the time.

It's just feeling that I am showing up as I am every day as Arjuna as my true self, my authentic self, and not having to sugar coat it or pretend to be somebody else. I'm sure my nervous system still has lots of work to do on it, but I feel like I can relax and just be a normal human, which is , an odd feeling for me cuz I, I feel like I've been the Energizer Bunny for 20 some odd years.

Cindy Thompson: You're really investing in you now. You've invested in a lot of people over your career and helping others, and now you're really diving into AJ and what he needs. 

Arjuna George: Yep. Honestly, I truly felt that if I didn't do this, I was gonna die.

Cindy Thompson: Hmm. Yeah. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so honored to have a copy of your book, but highly recommend it for anybody. I'm not a firefighter, but there's a lot of juicy bits in here that I appreciated learning about you, AJ, and about the topic of burnout even further. Thank you.

Thank you for taking some time to be here in this conversation in benefit of helping others.

Arjuna George: Yeah. That's my mission moving forward is just to spread the message of what I learned in the last two years and doing what I can to make the world less anxious, less stressed out. Yeah, any way I can help.

Cindy Thompson: Hmm. I am very grateful, so thank you, AJ.

Arjuna George: Thank you. Appreciate it.

Cindy Thompson: My honor. 

Cindy Thompson: If you have enjoyed this podcast, would you take two minutes to rate and comment on your preferred podcast platform? When you do this, you are helping us spread the love. Partnering with us to share this with additional people, we are cultivating further resilience worldwide. It doesn't take longer than a couple of minutes and makes a significant impact if each of you were to do this for the benefit of others. 

As I reflect on this conversation with AJ, I am hopeful that as we have these conversations, we may create greater awareness for early intervention and prevention of burnout. To see the signs earlier, listen to our bodies and not wait for the indicator light to come on.   

 Like AJ, many of us might put ourselves last, particularly first responders. I also appreciate that we are highlighting a very insidious and prevalent pattern within organizations. I am grateful that he can talk about the political fires he needed to manage as fire chief and the possible moral injury.   For those of you hearing about moral injury for the first time, moral injury in the workplace can occur when we witness or are asked to go against our personal values and beliefs. It is common for people to feel helpless to speak up or lack the safety and trust at work to address this. The injury occurs through psychological, behavioural and sometimes spiritual repercussions. 

 AJ shared so many tools within our conversation. I am hoping to highlight some of them here for you:

 -         One of AJ's strategies for his resilience included taking what he called "defrag" time. This is a transition time to decompress, shift out of work mode and let go of some of the stressors held in your mind and body from the day.

-         Know your body IQ – who you are and how you respond to stress. What are the signs and symptoms that you want to pay attention to? Expanding on this, I will suggest this includes how you feel when you take good care of yourself and neglect the elements necessary to your well-being.

 -       Journaling is a resilience practice that is most recommended by my guests. I love AJ's recommendation that you keep track of additional information about yourself, like an experiment you are gathering data on.

 -        Counselling and/or coaching

-         Exercise

-         For many, having a pet that brings comfort and unconditional love. AJ also spoke of the walks and his connection with his furry friend.

-         Leave time to be creative – pursuing things very different from what you do in your role.

Inspired by this thought-provoking conversation, I would love to ask a couple of questions and leave you with one quote.  

Question: 

What is in your backpack? How many rocks do you already have in there, and how big or small are they?  

What are the indicators you notice when your backpack is too heavy?  

This is a quote by Michael Jordan:  “If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it ."

Cindy Thompson: Thank you for listening to this episode of ‘A Resilience Project.’ We would not be doing this podcast without you. If you or someone you know has an inspirational story or is helping to build resilience in their community, please e-mail me at cindy@aresilienceproject.com. In fact, e-mail me either way. I would love to hear from you. My hope is to feature an episode periodically on your letters of resilience. I'm very interested in hearing your story of how you have tackled hard things and what worked for you. With your permission, I hope to share some of these stories along the way with our listeners. Also, check out my website, aresilienceproject.com to learn more about our amazing guests.  

Your presence here is important because together we are cultivating a village of resilient individuals. You are creating a space for their stories to be shared and a sacred space for learning to occur. I also have a favor - I would love for you to go to your preferred podcast platform, rate and review the podcast so that we will know how we're doing. I also would like to express my gratitude to the amazing team of volunteers that have jumped on board to support this project. You will find each of those beautiful people on my website on the team page.  

As you go about this week, I invite you to think about one way that you can continue to grow your resilient muscle. What is one thing you can start with today? See you next week.

HELPFUL RESILIENCE INFORMATION

Definition of Resilience

Capacity to cope with and recover quickly from setbacks, difficulties, and toughness; to adapt well to change; and keep going in the face of adversity.

Types of Resilience - how the body deals with change and recovers from physical demands, illnesses, and injuries. 

Physical Resilience how the body deals with change and recovers from physical demands, illnesses and injuries.  

Mental Resilience ability to adapt to change and uncertainty.  

Emotional Resilience ability to regulate emotions during times of stress. 

Social Resilience community resilience – ability of groups to recover from difficult situations.

Areas of Life or Situations That Require A High Level of Resilience:

·      Resilience in Adoption

·       Resilience in Adults

·       Resilience in Anxiety - Depression

·       Resilience in Body Image – Eating Disorders

·       Resilience in Change

·       Resilience in Children

·       Resilience in Chronic Illness

·       Resilience in Death & Dying

·       Resilience in Divorce

·       Resilience in Immigration

·       Resilience in Non-Profits

·       Resilience in Marriage

·       Resilience in Parenting

·       Resilience in Post Secondary Education

·       Resilience in Pregnancy

·       Resilience in Racism

·       Resilience in Relationships

·       Resilience in Suicide

·       Resilience in Teens

·       Resilience in Trauma 

·       Resilience in War

·       Resilience in the Workplace

 Traits, Qualities and Characteristics That People with Resilience Possess:

·         They are authentic

·         They adapt to change and see it not as a challenge, but an opportunity

·         They make commitments and keeps them

·         They feel in control – strong internal locus of control

·         They have close and secure attachment to others

·         They set personal or collective goals

·         They become stronger with the effect of stress

·         They learn from past successes and mistakes

·         They view themselves as survivors – Survivor mentality

·         They have a good self-image

·         They are confidence in ability to make good decisions

·         They have a sense of humor

·         They have an action-oriented approach to life

·         They have patience around people

·         They have optimism in face of uncertainty

·         The have Faith or some belief in a higher power

Ways to build Resilience in People

·       Create more purpose and meaning in all that you do

·       Develop a good support system – supportive network circle that they can engage for help

·       Maintaining positive relationships

·       Work towards developing good communication skills.

·       Develop the capacity to make realistic plans and to carry them out

·       Maintain a well-balanced routine lifestyle of diet and exercise

·       Practice emotional regulation to manage your feelings, impulses and emotions 

·       Practice good problem-solving skills to rationally develop solutions

·       Find ways to help others

·       Set time aside for journaling

·       Develop new skills to respond differently to situations. ... 

·       Turn setbacks into opportunities for growth. ... 

·       Maintain a healthy perspective. ... 

·       Maintain Proper sleeping habits

·       Practice meditation

Organizations that promote and support Resilience

Resilience Quotes

Resilience Books

Resilience Courses