039. Your Breathing Is A Stress Response - Joey Scrivani [Part 2]

In Part 2 of our series with Joey Scrivani, we dive deeper into the realms of self-care, resilience, and personal growth within the firefighting community.

🔥 Join TJ as he embarks on a journey with Joey, exploring innovative approaches to self-care and resilience. From float therapy and breathing exercises to journaling and identity separation, this episode offers a treasure trove of tools and insights to empower firefighters on their path to well-being.

🌊 Joey unveils the transformative benefits of float therapy. Discover how float therapy can soothe the body, calm the mind, and enhance resilience in the face of adversity.

💨 Dive into the power of breathwork as TJ and Joey lead listeners through sample breathing exercises to regulate the nervous system and promote inner balance. Learn how simple breathwork techniques can be powerful tools for managing stress, anxiety, and trauma in the firefighting community.

📓 Explore the therapeutic practice of journaling as Joey shares insights into the profound benefits of putting pen to paper. From processing emotions and experiences to fostering self-awareness and growth, journaling offers a powerful outlet for firefighters seeking to navigate the complexities of their inner world.

🚒 In a thought-provoking discussion, TJ and Joey delve into the importance of divorcing ourselves from our firefighter identity and cultivating a sense of wholeness beyond the badge. Discover how embracing personal passions, interests, and relationships can enrich our lives and enhance our well-being.

🔖 Don't miss out on Joey's special discount code for listeners! head over to Conscious Movements and use code KTPLOVE for a discount on Joey's course.

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Transcript

TJ: Have you ever used a float tank or one of those like sensory deprivation chambers?

Joey: tank is amazing. I call it a meditation on steroids. So if you've never done it, you're in there, it's, you can't hear nothing. Lights are out. Um, you're floating. The, the water is the temperature of your skin. So you start to kind of lose the sense of your body. And for me, it was, it kind of puts you into that relaxation very quick.

Um, the first couple of times I did it though. Um, I would get what's called that amygdala hijack. And this is common for a lot of first responders. We, we can't settle. We don't know how to settle. We're so high strung with everything we do that stillness and settling almost becomes a danger signal to the body. Um, so a flow tank allows you to really settle your mind and settle your body and Um, I've had releases in there as well to where it's like you kind of once you let the defenses down, then all that stored stuff can start to come out and it becomes a process of okay, I can settle down and then these things come out as I release them.

Then my baseline, my home ability to come back to homeostasis gets better and better. And again, it's a skill, right? Yeah,

TJ: We're used to being in control, right? We're used to to having An input into whatever the output of the situation is going to be. That's why I noticed a lot of first responders are not big fans of flying, of commercial aviation, because they're not in control of the aircraft.

They're not in control of the piece, right? They, um, they want to drive everywhere. They, they are the worst passengers on the face of the earth guilty as charged. So I, I kind of want to try it just because it'll be that surrendering of. All the senses and being forced to just exist, which seems terrifying

Joey: like to

do, do,

TJ: like to do 

Joey: if you, if you don't know what being still and relaxed feels like in your body, you are unaware when you get off kilter, right? Like it took me so long to start to recognize the signals. and the feeling in my body when I was calm. I had, for so long in my life, you're just pedal to the metal, you're, you're type A's, we're get shit done, do, do, do.

Um, and we don't know how to, to bring it down to that relaxation. And you can't, you can't run the engine, you know, at high idle forever. You got to bring it down. You got to do the maintenance or it's going to burn out. And that's essentially what happens to us.

TJ: All right, we've talked about ice baths, saunas, float tanks, let's go into something that we can do a little with a lot less logistical support. Let's talk about journaling.

Joey: Journaling. Yeah. So this idea that the antidote to repression is expression. Journaling is a way to express those things and get them off out of your mind on the paper. Um, when that story is kind of running in your head, it's a lot. harder to pin down. If you take the time to write it out, it slows that story down and you can start to understand it a little better.

And essentially you're, you're getting it out of your, your system, right? And it's, it's not always the prettiest thing. It's not the nicest narrative or whatever, but just it's another way to express. Um, maybe you don't feel safe talking to somebody about it. But in the privacy of your own journal, you're getting it out.

Um, so I see journaling is just again, another way to express. It allows you to slow that story down in your mind. You kind of externalize it. So now you can look at it. Um, and it's just another, another way to, to get that story out.

TJ: Now, here's my question, because I have tried it and I suck. I come from that engineering background, that very methodical, almost algorithmic way of approaching things. How do you go about starting that journaling? As soon as somebody says journaling, in my mind, I go, dear diary, mood apathetic, which might be what I have to do.

Why? Um. I'm reading a book where it's, it's pure fiction, but where the, the girl, when she journals, she doesn't like write to her journal. She writes as if she is writing a letter to Ellen DeGeneres. So almost like creates that persona that Audience to whom she is speaking. How do you go about journaling?

Cause maybe I can pick up a couple of things where maybe I need to write to Ellen. Maybe I need to be like, dear Ellen, this is what happened today. At least to start that flow. Instead of just having that paralysis, when you have a blank page in front of you and a pen, you go, fuck, where do I start?

Joey: no, there's a, I mean, Again, this is where it's like it's on the person, try different things, see what works for you. Maybe you're the type of person who needs prompts. You can Google prompts for journaling and find a million different answers, or different questions. You can also just say, I'm gonna, every, every morning, every night, I'm gonna sit in front of this notepad for 20 minutes.

And just let whatever come out, come out. So, I've done both. Um, Both things are a challenge. Usually I sit down and it's like, you're just staring at the page, but if you stick with it, eventually the stuff starts flowing out. Um, so I would just say for anybody who's interested, just, just look for some prompts.

If that's the way you want to go. If you want to take TJ's advice and write to Ellen Degeneres, go ahead. Whatever works. If you want to just put a timer and. Be non judgmental of whatever comes out. Just let it come out. Even if it, you know, looks like shit, even if it doesn't make sense, the whole mechanism of writing it out is you expressing it.

And a big part of my problem with all the stress and trauma I dealt with, I didn't talk about it because I just thought, well, I was the one that signed up for this job. No one's going to understand, right? Like we all think that no one understands us, but other firemen, but we never give people the chance to understand us.

Um, so yeah, it's, for me, it's just another way to express. So whatever technique works best for you, try them out. See what, see what helps the most.

TJ: And this might be opening a can of worms because we can really, really dive deep into it, but breath work.

Joey: Breath work. Yes. Um, so. I teach the three gears of breathing and this is something I kind of adopted looking at different systems and it kind of simplified it for me. So, essentially we have, you have a stress breath, which is what I call the third gear. That's breathing in your mouth, out your mouth.

You're breathing in your chest. It's, it's high and tight. Um, the first gear of breathing is our relaxation breath. That's in the nose, out the nose. Tongue should be on the roof of the mouth and you should be breathing into your belly. That's how children breathe, right? Um, so understanding those breaths.

And then the second gear is in the nose, out the mouth. So once you understand those breathing, uh, the breath, the three gears of breathing, you can look at something, uh, like box breathing, which is pretty common in the fire service. But if you ask people what is box breathing doing? Most guys don't have a clue.

They say, oh, well you breathe in for four, hold for four. Okay, but what is that physiologically doing to the body? Um, with the framework of the breathing gears, you can look at box breathing, and it's a four second inhale, four second hold, four second exhale, four second hold. So essentially, you're breathing in for four seconds, and you're exhaling for twelve.

So, that is a down regulating breath. When we're extending the exhale over the inhale, that's down regulating. Same thing in the opposite direction. If you wake up feeling low on energy or depressed, instead of slamming a Red Bull or a coffee, you can breathe in that third gear, you know, intentionally to stimulate that stress response, dumps cortisol, you go get a big sip. gets that adrenaline going and revs the, revs the body up. So, having the framework and understanding that, okay, that the inhale revs me up, the exhale slows me down, then it becomes a practice, right? You're in the ice bath, what happens? So, I want to down

regulate, 

so I need to Right.

When we, when we exhale, we're off, CO2, which makes the blood alkaline, calms the system down.

Um, so there's a million different types of breathwork. Um, but with that framework of understanding, okay, do I need to rev up or do I need to come down? Um, it becomes another skill you can practice. Um, there's, like I said, holotropic breathwork. There's the Wim Hof Method. There's all these different things.

And just like the TRE, it's a experience you have. We can talk about breathwork here. And, you know, maybe understand it, but it doesn't do anything until you actually try it and you have an experience in your body and now you know it, you know? So, once you have those experiences, now you can train that skill, um, to either come up or come down.

TJ: Okay. So as an exercise for the listeners, what's something that we can do right now, real quick to start experiencing those benefits of, of the breath. Like should I sit here and do some box breathing? Like what challenge should we have for our listeners to be like, Hey, you finish this, go out there and I don't know, sit on the bench and do some box breathing or amp yourself up or downregulate.

Joey: the first thing that comes to mind for me is, Where is your breath right now? That's the first step. So are you breathing into your chest or your belly? Are you breathing in your nose or your mouth? Most people are chest breathers, mouth breathers. And if you remember that is a stress response.

So if you're listening to this, you're at the fire station, look around the table. Everybody's chest breathing. Most of the guys end up getting on CPAP. That is from chronic dysregulated breathing. So first step is becoming aware. Where is my breath? If I'm breathing in my chest, that means my physiology is dysregulated.

I'm in a stress response. When you're in that stress response, you're less able to be aware and present. So first step is where is my breath? Second step is what do I want to do with my breath? You know, maybe I notice that I'm, I'm down. I'm depressed, I have low energy. Okay, let me use an up regulating breath.

The way to use an up regulating breath is increase the exhale, or the inhale over the exhale. So maybe,

So making the inhale greater than the exhale is going to bring the body up. If I notice that I'm chest breathing and I'm stressed out. Maybe I'm anxious. Okay, let me use a down regulating breath. So maybe I inhale for three, I exhale for five or six. Doesn't matter the number. That's why box breathing people, they know what it is, but they, if you don't understand what you're doing, it's pointless.

But if you simply understand box breathing is extending your exhale over your inhale, that brings you down. So where am I breathing? What state am I in? Am I in a stress response? Do I want to come down? Okay, I need to do a down regulating breath. Um, a good practice, put a pulse ox on your finger, something to monitor your heart rate.

And for five minutes, do a down regulating breath and watch your heart rate drop and then tune into how your body feels. Um, and like I said, it's one thing to talk about it. But if you go spend five minutes of breathing, extending your exhale more than your inhale, and you watch your heart rate go from 70 to 40, and you feel relaxed in your body, now that's like, holy shit, oh, okay, this stuff works.

It's not some woo woo yoga nonsense. This is a physiological response. This is leveraging your biology. We're, you know, a lot of us are paramedics at EMT. We have some knowledge of the medical, you know, how the body works. Um so, experimenting with your breath and tuning into how it changes your physiology.

Um that's the skill. You know, so that that gives you that ability to whatever. You get triggered for some reason. Someone does something that bugs you and you notice you. and you're up here, if you're not aware of that, you have no shot at regulating. So once you're aware of that, which is learning the signals that the nervous system is sending, the language of the body, and then you have the practice and the tool of using your breath to either come down or come up, that's kind of, you know, the first step.

It's, once I started putting that together, I was like, how the hell has no one told me this? Because I used to have, I still do, not as often, but I used to wake up and I would be in that stress response. I would be, uh, uh, uh, immediately, upon waking up, heart rates 90, 100, and

TJ: Jesus.

Joey: be breathing like that and I would eventually end up having a panic attack.

And no one simply told me, well dude, look, you're breathing in a stress response. Until you change your breath, you're telling your body you want to rev up. So now when I wake up, first thing I do is check in with my breath. If I notice I'm in that stress response, I'll spend a couple minutes using a down regulating breath.

You know, so I'll sit there and simply inhale through my nose, exhale longer than my inhale. That's going to bring the heart rate down, it's going to bring your blood pressure down, it's going to slow the system down, and There's a saying that story follows state. So the story in your mind follows the state of your nervous system.

So if I'm in a stress response, my mind is going to be anxious. If I'm in a depressed state, my mind's going to be in the past and just kind of blah. Um, so it's the first tool you have. This is this idea of skills before pills. If I understood how to use my breath when I started my fireside firefighter, you know journey I would have had some skills that I could have been using over time

TJ: And it's, it's that, you know, the, that 1 percent rule, you, you try to get better, like 1 percent better every day. And if you have these skills, when you start as a rookie, it might give you a longer career. And even if it doesn't, it's going to give you a better career in terms of being present, not just at work, but most importantly, when you go home to your family and you can downregulate or you're at least aware, you have that self awareness of what is happening.

Instead of hitting the bottle bottle or hitting the pills, you can kind of, I don't want to say cope because that's got a negative connotation, but you can manage yourself in a much more holistic way to be able to do that. A better person to be a more well rounded and resilient firefighter to bring it back full 

Joey: yeah, I mean if you're if you're the person like I used to be of like you said you get off shift and Before you know you're having a drink If you're not recognizing, why the hell am I reaching for this bottle again, your body is in a state of dysregulation, of, it's not settled, so you're looking for something externally to settle yourself.

Um, and every time you do that, you're dissociating from yourself, you're getting further from understanding yourself, and you're using something that is a long term, not a, you know, solid strategy. Um, another way the breath is, can make you a better first responder. So we know the term or the saying that calmness is contagious.

I know I've been the lead medic on many calls where, you know, something, someone misses an IV or whatever, something happens, you drop the meds and that snowball starts going. One, or once I understood this stuff prior to getting off the service. I started to recognize that and as the lead medic, I say, everybody stop, let's take a breath.

Okay, let's, it's, it's that quick. A breath or two completely changes the, um, the atmosphere and it's, it's a shame that we haven't been, been taught that. We know calmness is contagious. That is a common saying in the fire service, but how, how do you show calmness, right? The breath is a mirror of the nervous system.

So if I'm breathing, I'm going to have big old pupils. I'm giving off stress. As opposed to if I'm the medic who's, Alright guys, we're good. Breathing nice and slow, calm. That's going to calm the whole thing down and allow us to be better, you know, responders.

TJ: right. And if you are that almost ice cold medic that is unfazed, I'm the rookie freaking out because we're dealing with some, I don't know, horrible cardiac arrest or a pin job or something. I'm going to be looking at me like, okay, he's, he's calm. He's I'm good. I'm good. And this is,

Joey: mirror neurons. If you've heard of that, we have neurons that are in our mind, our brains that are, we mirror what we're seeing. So, if you're seeing that calm medic and you're the, the rookie, involuntarily, your body is gonna mirror his nervous system. So, it literally, the more regulated you can keep yourself, that's gonna spread to everybody on your crew.

TJ: I, I've experienced it before at fires where I'm with. A more seasoned firefighter and you know, like starting off as a new kid, you're freaking out and he might be freaking out too But I've been lucky to have this the senior man who say Hey, man, it's cool. It's cool. We're fine. Here's what I need you to do and just having that presence of mind to Speak calmness into existence.

I guarantee you they're freaking out I've done that to a couple like rookies before that. I'm like, Hey man, it's fine. It's totally fine inside. I'm like, Oh my God, we are in a shit spot, but I can't tell this person that I don't like, I don't want to freak them out. And that's also my shameless plug for wearing headsets on the apparatus.

It is the battle. It is a hill that I will always die on because I have worked with crews that do not use them. And I am so grateful to be in a crew that uses them. When you're going down the road. And the officer goes, yep, sounds like a working fire. Oh yeah. Multiple, like S calm, cool, and collected as even killed.

Like it is the most normal thing. The whole crew says, all right, we are going to work. Awesome. This is what the plan is versus. What used to happen, especially in my volley house days and with other crews, you know, there's people like smacking the dog box, screaming like, it's a worker. It's off. She's rocking like excitement, excitement, excitement, excitement, excitement.

There was a guy year, God, this was, I was still very active at the volley house. So it was probably like 15 years ago that he just started like, like literally howling because it was a working fire. And one of the more senior guys from, who worked. Full time. I think it was DC Literally backhanded him back of the fire engines like you just heard the slap and that kind of reset everybody It's like hey, we're not we're not over here howling.

We're not here screaming. We are just Going to a fire everybody chill the fuck out So you do a good job, but also so the DC guy doesn't smack you type thing Um, but, um, let's get away from, from the, the minor assaults and, and battery. You have taught people these techniques. You have been showing responders and non responders alike how to, how to leverage these techniques to, to just be, to be better humans.

And the name of your company, if you're, you're calling, if you will, is conscious movements, which we've alluded to before. Or tell me more about it.

Joey: Um, so conscious movements came out of my, you know, struggle to try to, to heal from my PTSD. Um, like I said, I was, I kind of got sent to the medical system, was given the traditional approach of medications and talk therapy, which were helpful, but they were really not they weren't doing, they weren't addressing everything for me.

So conscious movements is the skill of self regulation. So once I started to understand the nervous system and how the nervous system signals, you know, like that, the dry mouth, the tunnel vision, the increased breath, um, then it became, how can I practice to bring myself down? So through movement. The class is organized to where the first half of the, the first portion of the class we're breathing in the first gear.

So we're intentionally keeping our nervous system in that parasympathetic response. And it's a felt sense. You can stress makes the body tense up and tight. That parasympathetic is a relaxing and a sinking, and you can feel that in your body. And the more in tune you get with it, the better able you are to recognize when you're revving up.

And then through practicing the skills, you can bring yourself down. So the first part is a, is like kind of like a Tai Chi, almost a slow. breathing, slow movement to tune into the body and recognize what's going on right now. Then we kind of speed up a little bit more. We're using the second gear. So in the nose, out the mouth.

Um, that's the type of breath that when you're in a fire, when you're doing work, your breathing needs to match the level of intensity of the work you're doing. So if I can maintain that second gear, without switching to the third gear that I'm able to stay more aware. So the last part of the class is I intentionally get people into that third gear through some games.

We get the breath really revved up. And then I lay people down and we do a meditation of walking ourselves back through the breathing gears. So I tell people, you know, just like a car, we don't shift from third to first. We're going to go from third to second. Then when you're, your body's down regulating and you're calming, okay, let's switch back to the first gear.

So when people leave my class, hopefully someone cuts them off in traffic, the spouse does whatever, the kids does whatever, they're able to recognize the signals that their nervous system is sending them and instead of being reactive, they're able to pause and be responsive. Um, so. conscious movements is the skill of self regulation and it's it's what's allowed me to work with my body to to come to a more relaxed state.

TJ: And this is all in person, or is there like a self paced component, like for somebody like me in Maryland, far away from the Sunshine State.

Joey: Um, so I did put out a conscious movements online program recently which is essentially the class. I have like a 20 30 minute presentation in there where I'm teaching about the nervous system, teaching about the breath. giving you all the framework of why when we do this practice and, and how it's working.

And then there's, I think like two hours or so of guided workout. Um, but it's not so much that I want you to get a great workout. It's that we're using the movement to either upregulate or downregulate the and the skill is learning to recognize those signals. And then having the skill of either bringing yourself down or coming up with the breath.

You know, the breath is with you all the time. So the more able you are to use it, that just becomes, you know, something in your back pocket that you can on the way to the call, you recognize your revenue, you can bring it down. Your kid bugs you, your spouse bugs you, whatever. Instead of firing off at them, you are, you recognize, Oh shit, my jaw's tight.

I'm clenching my hands, I, I'm wearing my shoulders as earrings, I'm breathing in through my mouth. Okay, let me not say the dumb thing. Let me regulate myself, and then I can respond in a, in a better way.

TJ: I love it. Where can we find more information on these courses?

Joey: you can go to my Instagram, which is conscious underscore movements, or my website is conscious dash movements dot com, and you can find

all that on there. My website has a bunch of videos that. Um, shares about the the body keeps the score, uh, talks about the trauma response, uh, polyvagal theory which is a a perspective on the nervous system that explains some of this behavior.

So, I highly recommend people go on there and and check it out.

TJ: Sweet. I'll definitely put the link down there. Moving forward, what are your hopes for For the fire service, for the, um, the mental health side of things, the mental health support. What are your hopes? Like, what do you think we should be improving and how do you see yourself fitting as a puzzle piece into that gigantic puzzle of firefighter first responder mental health?

Joey: Yeah. So, I like I said earlier, I I'm glad we're we're talking about mental health more. It's you know, it's it's in the zeitgeist when I started 12 years ago. It was not. Um, and you know, once I got out, they were already having mental health people come in. We're having the schisms teams. We're doing all these things um but I think until you give people the felt experience of of expressing a trauma um I don't think it lands.

We we like to talk about the ideas but we need skills to actually, you know, express these traumas. And for me, when I did TRE, that was what opened the door for me. Um, I had read the body keeps the score. I was starting to get hip to the idea that, okay, trauma lives in my body. Um, but until I had these cathartic releases and felt my body down, regulate for the first time and who knows how long it was just talk.

Um, so I see the stuff I'm teaching. I'm trying to get into fire departments to give this information, but then also put people through these techniques to where, you know, you're a brand new guy and now you've already experienced this. Now you go run a shitty call. Your first go to isn't the bottle or it isn't tough guy act.

It's, Oh shit. Okay. That guy, he taught me about breath work. He taught me about ice bath. He showed me how to do TRE, um, and I, so there's probably, you know, there's tons of different ways to, to downregulate the body, but I challenge people to figure out what are your top three, right? For me, it's breath, ice bath, TRE.

I know that works best for me. For my wife, when she's stressed, she likes to journal. Great, that works for you, journal, get in nature, listen to music, cool. Yeah. Cool. So I challenge people to look at how are you dealing with your stress? If it's a destructive method, you, you're going to need to switch that up, right?

Like it's eventually going to bite you in the ass. So, um, I see the fire service needing to actually, instead of just talking about it, put people through these techniques. Because they're so prevent, it's, it prevents this shit, right? You don't, if the first time I'm trying to deal with my trauma is after the messed up call and the schism team comes down and my chief's like, Hey, how you doing?

I'm just going to be okay, chief. But if I've already done some of these breathworks or ice bass or TRE, and I've, I've felt that release. Now I know, Oh shit, I just had this messed up call, a line of duty death, whatever it is. I need to deal with this stuff. I need to get it out of my system. So, I, the, as a service, we need to give people skills.

We need to, firemen are less about talking, in my opinion, and more about doing. So, before I got out of the service, I had already been doing the TRE for myself. It was very, very helpful. I talked to everybody on my crew about it. A lot of them looked like, you know, looked at me like I was crazy. You know, I'm saying body keeps the score and they're just okay, buddy, whatever.

I, I, I'm like, all right, dude, come do this technique with me. You, I put them through the thing and they, your body starts shaking in a way that it's releasing these stored traumas and they have 10 years ago that they didn't realize were still affecting them. And in that moment, okay, you're able to release it.

Once you have that experience, there's no going back. There's no more pretending, Oh, I put this in the little box in my head. I've compartmentalized it. Buddy, that's not working. Like, um, so, I think we need to give people these experiences in probie school. To where you start to shift the culture to where it's a normal thing.

Um, a big quote that really struck home for me was he or crying is a sign of life and I hadn't cried since I was a young man and that it struck so struck my heart so much cause we all know that, you know, you're going to a pediatric choking or whatever. If you hear that kid crying, hallelujah,

TJ: Ah, right. 

Joey: But when's the last time you cried as a fireman, right? Like, so if you're not crying, if you're not expressing, you're shutting your heart off, you're shutting your humanity off. And eventually that's, it's gonna, you know, ruin your relationships, makes you a shitty spouse, a shitty father, um, and it makes you less able to respond to people in their crisis, right?

We have to show up with our hearts, we can't just be away from the situation, right? We got to, we got to be there for these people. Yeah.

TJ: think something that we've covered overall today is the fact that who we are and what we do starts filling this vessel, and we do not have those techniques from the start on how to release that pressure on how to. Make sure we're in, you know, that those waters inside that vessel are not too convoluted and too tumultuous and The one challenge for listeners is to understand that there are techniques not all of them are going to be best suited to you But take that one step of saying hey Maybe you don't want to give yourself hypothermia, but maybe hop into the sauna at your local gym or sit down and write that letter to Alan or just go out there and breathe or fucking cry.

It is a okay to do that because it'll make you such a better person on the job and off the job.

Joey: We're humans first, right? We're not, you don't, you're not born a fireman. You're a person who's working as a fireman. So we got to keep our humanity. I was, I started to write a book about this and I call it healing the hero's heart because essentially for me, when I realized I was, I was in a bad spot. I had turned my heart off.

I had no more compassion. My cup was full and that's not a good place to be. You're not a good, uh, first responder. You're not a good spouse. You're not a good person at that point when you, when you turn your humanity off. And a

lot of, in these people's crisises, a lot of all they need is you to show up as a human and, and be there with them, right?

TJ: want to have you on again where we cover what we talked about earlier and is that divorcing ourselves from the identity of a firefighter and being able to For lack of better terms, to kill that version of yourself and understanding that, especially as you get close to retirement, whenever that might be, understanding that, hey, that was your persona, but that idea, that person has to go before your new person can, can, can Grow and and become

Joey: Yeah.

TJ: I am going to ambush you when one with one final question What is the one failure that you cherish the most

Joey: one failure I cherish the most as in, in the fire service or

TJ: In general when when the word failure when you go back to you know Tasting the ground after falling down really hard Which one do you go back like? Fuck yeah, i'm glad it happened

Joey: um, first thing that comes up is, is my PTSD, you know, going through that experience of becoming so numb and losing my heart is what has allowed me now to, to turn my heart back on and. Having been so numb for so long and then now not being numb, it's, I feel like I have a superpower of, of understanding when I'm numbing out again.

Um, so, uh, that would probably be it. And the failure was the fact that I didn't understand trauma, right? I didn't understand, I thought I was the superhero. I can fix everything. I'm the fireman. I got it. You know, you we like you say, you put this persona on wearing the shirts all the time, the mustache, the whole thing.

You know, everybody know me. I'm fireman Joe and everybody expects you to have your together and you know, you we look like we got it all figured out and at the end of the day, we're human. You know, so having gone through all this and dealing with my stress in negative ways and getting to this point where I was suicidal, alcoholic, nearly divorced, all the shit, you know, overweight, wasn't sleeping, an asshole, you know, had no compassion for people.

Now, coming around and learning how to deal with this stuff has become my greatest strength. Um, prior to all this stuff, if I, if someone told me, Hey man, the issues are in the tissues, the body keeps the score. I'd be like, all right, buddy. Like, sure. You know what I mean? Like I was very, I didn't think that stuff, but having gone through these experiences now and getting to do it with other people.

and seeing somebody, you know, I put someone through this technique, the TRE or breathwork and they are able to access a trauma that they didn't even recognize was still there and affecting them. It's amazing to see because as we heal those traumas, we, we come back online, we open our hearts and we're able to, to have a, you know, a more fulfilling life.

We're able to be present with people. I'm able to be a better husband, a better father. Um, and just a better human. So going through all that, you know, it's, it was tough, like, but looking back, it's been, you know, it's been a blessing in disguise for sure.