Behind The Line

Show Notes: It is always one of the fun joys of this podcasting thing that I get to invite on some of the people I love most in the world to talk with all of you. Meredith Luipasco is a pediatric nurse working in southern Alberta. She is also married to a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, and is the daughter of a paramedic and a nurse. She GETS the first responder thing. She has also been one o...

Today we are really pulling back the curtain on first response and front line work and naming the elephant in the room. You guys, I hate to be the one to tell you, but what you do is NOT normal. Ok, maybe that wasn’t totally revelatory…  Back in the fall I put out a request on social media and to those who follow me by subscribing to my email list, and I asked for you to tell me what you wanted to...

Show Notes: On today’s episode we are wrapping up our Trigger Happy series by talking about trigger prevention. Let me be really clear that when I say trigger prevention, I do NOT mean AVOIDANCE. Preventing triggers is an active state, it means being engaged and working to reduce the likelihood that something potentially or actually triggering will yield a strong stress reaction. It is a pre-empti...

Show Notes: Today we are getting really practical as we get further into our Trigger Happy series and talk about tools and strategies for trigger management. If you’ve missed the last two episodes, make sure you go back and check them out. Today’s topic really builds on what we’ve been learning about the last two weeks, and references pieces from the last two episodes that may not make the same am...

Show Notes: As we open today’s topic on the avoidance dance, I want to acknowledge that avoidance is a totally normal reaction to things that are uncomfortable or actively painful. We avoid all kinds of things that we’ve had previous experience with or exposure to that has taught us that we don’t want to do it again. Avoidance is a stress reaction that comes from having learned something. We talke...

Show Notes: Today we are getting trigger happy and we’re kicking off a new series for the month of February all about triggering.  What exactly is triggering? At the most foundational level, triggering is an emotional, psychological, and/or physiological reaction to stimuli that is outside of our control. Triggering usually feels unexpected, automatic, and like it takes over. It can feel unconscio...

Show Notes: Today I am joined by one of my favourite people to have on the show, Jenn Pound. Jenn is a retired RCMP staff sergeant and has been a guest on the show a number of times. Today we’re also joined by a friend of Jenn’s, Greg Scollon. Now, if you don’t already know, we’ve been working through a series on detangling identity and we’ve been talking about the need to protect our sense of sel...

Show Notes: Today we are continuing our series on detangling identity and we’re focusing this episode on crafting control. The challenge with the kind of work you do, is that while it draws people who enjoy feeling in control – it is an unending stream of out-of-control mess. Whether it’s the calls or the work-related risks or the organizational dynamics, there is SO much that happens that is not...

Show Notes: We are into our latest series on detangling identity and we’re going to talk today about building balance.  Here is the thing about balance: life balance is not a fixed point. Life, and people within life, are never fixed points. We are always changing and adapting. Life is always moving and flexing. Ebbing and flowing. Think of it a bit more like balancing on a stand up paddle board o...

Show Notes: Today’s episode we are kicking off a new series on de-tangling identity from the work we do. In this episode we talk about the commonness of enmeshed identity with work, cultural norms that support this kind of enmeshment, as well as the risks involved. In coming weeks we will tackle skills to work at de-tangling our identities from the work we do.  In this episode I cite a couple of a...

Show Notes: These last couple of weeks we’ve talked about physical grounding to help anchor our bodies to the present. We have also talked about mental grounding to help our brains turn on the prefrontal cortex and offer counterbalancing support to the stress centre in an effort to approach times of stress with our whole brains working to solve problems rather than just our survival mode working o...

Show Notes: We are back talking about grounding skills and ways to strengthen and resource our brain so that our brain can do it’s best, allowing us to be OUR best. Last week we talked about some basics around what grounding is and how it works. We also focused on practical and applicable strategies for physical grounding, which uses our bodies to help turn on parts of our brain that help to count...

Show Notes: In today’s episode we are continuing to work on back to basics for brain health and we are finishing this series by address grounding. What exactly is grounding? Grounding is a term we use to describe various activities that help people to feel anchored to present time, space and capacity. So often in the busy-ness of our lives, we get caught up in thinking about the past, or focused o...

Show Notes: Today we continue our series on Back to Basics for Brain Health and we are diving into the digital era’s great controversy – screens and brain health.  Let’s start with talking about the common challenges that come up around digital health for First Responders and Front Line Workers. Some of the most common ones I hear in my office include feeling tired and finding social media scrolli...

Show Notes: Thanks so much to Olivia Mead from Yoga for First Responders – check out YFFR and learn more here . I am grateful for our conversation and the chance to dig into the brain science behind yoga and insights into training our brains to offer their best back to us. I so value Olivia’s background and deep-rootedness in the research as well as her commitment to supporting our community heroe...

Show Notes: Thanks so much to Dr. Glenn Landry , sleep specialist and creator of the Survive Shift Work program. Glenn has generously offered our listeners a 40% discount on this program using exclusive coupon code: BEHINDTHELINE . To learn more about Glenn’s work, his program, and private sleep coaching services – you can learn more at elitesleep.ca .  During this episode we talk about the common...

Show Notes: Today I am joined by naturopathic doctor, Catherine Multari to discuss common challenges faced by First Responders and Front Line Workers when it comes to nutrition, and strategies to benefit our brains to support sustainable health through nutrition and supplementation. And yes, we go WAY beyond “salad good, junk food bad” and work to make our conversation applicable to real people wi...

Show Notes: Thanks so much to Aaron Zamzow (aka “Zam”) for taking the time to join me today. What a gift! Zam is the owner of Fire Rescue Fitness, with a background in personal training and then experience in the fire service. He has blended these pieces to create intentional fitness program to develop functional fitness tailored to the needs of the job.  Today we connected to chat about the impac...

Show Notes: We’ve wrapped up our therapy 101 series and we’re moving into a new series called “Back to Basics”. In my role as a therapist, I find that a lot of my time with clients, especially when they first start coming to therapy, is spent supporting them in addressing some pretty basic concerns – things like sleep, nutrition, movement, and other pieces that contribute to their brain health and...

Show Notes: Thanks so much to T.C. Randall , ER Nurse of 14 years and author of The View From The Wrong Side of The Day (Buy his book, it’s great!), as well as Jennifer Pound , recently retired RCMP Staff Sgt. and face of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) in Vancouver, and creator of the blog Fuel For First Responders .  We broke this conversation about their experiences navigating...

Show Notes: Thanks so much to T.C. Randall , ER Nurse of 14 years and author of The View From The Wrong Side of The Day (Buy his book, it’s great!), as well as Jennifer Pound , recently retired RCMP Staff Sgt. and face of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) in Vancouver, and creator of the blog Fuel For First Responders .  We broke this conversation about their experiences navigating...

Show Notes: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!! I prefer giving over receiving, so for my birthday week I declare a blitz giveaway of my full resilience training program, Beating the Breaking Point , designed specifically for First Responders and Front Line Workers!! Go to the page and click to register before 11:59PM on Monday October 18th . Use code BIRTHDAY to get this 7-part online training program for ONL...

Show Notes: Today we are kicking off our series on therapy for First Responders & Front Line Workers and the topics we’re hitting in this episode include: what therapy is all about, where to find a counsellor, and what to look for in a counsellor. What a therapist is: This will vary depending on where you live. Here in British Columbia, and in many provinces throughout Canada, counselling and...

Show Notes: Today we are finishing our series on suicide risk prevention, and in some ways we’re wrapping up in the place I intended for us to start. Today we’re talking about what it is like to be the person in the deep dark hole. We’re going to talk about the slippery slope that tends to send us into the hole, how to recognize the hole we’re in, ways to work at intervening to try to find a ladde...

Show Notes: We are continuing our series on suicide prevention and today we are talking about how we cope when we haven’t been able to prevent a suicide – what we do when our workplace is impacted by the loss of a co-worker who has died by suicide. As we’ve identified in this series so far, those working in first response and front line work are at a higher risk of suicide than the average populat...