Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.
— JAMES BUCKHAM
La Mesa, 2013. Within fifteen minutes of ending his shift, Terry, an emergency medical technician, was inside a liquor store, just as he was every day at the same time. Terry was a nine-year veteran of the fire department who worked as a paramedic. He had also served two tours in Afghanistan in the U.S. Army Reserves. When Terry was first sent to Afghanistan, he had hoped that being away would help him finally forget the images of a three-year-old child laying face up at the bottom of a bathtub immersed in scalding water that was still steaming and far too hot to even touch. Terry burned his own hands taking the dead child out, who had been held in scalding water by his father as a punishment until he died and his suffering ended. The image of the innocent child with his bright red body and loose skin seemed to constantly be in Terry’s mind. But far from helping, serving in Afghanistan — with its sights of children blown up by suicide bombers just for attending school — haunted him as well. Terry was constantly on alert in order to remain alive or to help keep others alive.
Terry had no practical emotional-survival training. The acute stress a paramedic experiences — while always having to be perfect to prevent others from losing their lives — kept him on edge constantly while at work. This hypervigilance, coupled with unforgettable images, made him feel as if he could never rest, never be at peace. He thought the only way to keep the images away and relax was to drink himself to sleep or unconsciousness. Initially, after about a year on the job, Terry had begun to drink more than before as a way of trying to relax and to get some sleep. Then alcohol slowly became a physical and psychological need, leading him down a hopelessly dark path.
Terry’s wife of eight years couldn’t take it any longer and had left him six months earlier. She had told him that she didn’t marry a drunk, that she was tired of having her life constantly affected by Terry’s terrifying images, his nightmares that seemed to never end, and his drunkenness. She could no longer watch him come home only to vegetate and grow ever more distant, unapproachable, and disengaged. She told Terry more than once that he had turned into someone she no longer recognized — or liked.
Now all alone at home with his bottle in his hands to comfort him, Terry couldn’t wait to begin to forget as he tried to unwind; it was now the only thing in his life that he looked forward to.
The high-intensity psychological and emotional level of alertness and aggressiveness that first responders need in order to stay safe on the job is called hypervigilance. First responders are trained to be constantly aware, always on guard — to consistently seek out and evaluate potential threats. The hypervigilant state is necessary on the job, but cannot be easily turned on and off like a switch. Because hypervigilance is ingrained in the work, it is one of the most difficult aspects of the job for first responders to overcome in their personal lives.
As Kevin Gilmartin describes in his popular book, Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement, this intensely elevated level of alertness causes an automatic neurophysiological reaction in the mind and body after a first responder leaves work. In order for their mind and body to return from this hypervigilant state to the normal functioning range, the body produces an equally intense opposite reaction to bring the person down.
In other words, while at work, first responders are extraordinarily alert, perceptive, active, constantly making decisions, and engaged in their task, and this state can feel pleasant or even euphoric to them. When they go home, where hypervigilance is no longer needed, their minds and bodies naturally feel exhausted. Emergency first responders tend to not want to make decisions or become interested in others in their downtime, and this can lead to their becoming isolated, apathetic, and detached. Unfortunately, the downside of the hypervigilance cycle also decreases the metabolic rate, often causing first responders to gain weight.
Gilmartin has found that normally it takes about twenty-four hours for the mind and body to recover and return to their normal functioning range. By then, however, the first responders are already back at work in full hypervigilance mode once again. By the weekend, they are so exhausted by this roller coaster that it can take most of their days off to recover. If not properly managed, the cycle can have a devastating effect on a first responder’s quality of life, emotional wellness, and personal relationships over the course of their careers.
It is imperative that first responders develop certain practices and conscious mechanisms to make their off-duty thoughts and reactions more socially conforming. It is less a matter of turning off the first-responder mind-set than turning on and tuning in to a civilian mind-set, where they enjoy the company of the people closest to them and see others as benign rather than as threats.
Law-enforcement agencies in particular train their officers to be cynical about everything, to distrust human nature and people’s motives. That worldview is essential if officers are to keep safe and to stay alive on the job. However, what’s essential for physical survival at work can become devastating to first responders’ home lives and emotional well-being. If a spouse or children become as strangers, it is because the first responder has estranged them by allowing the negative aspects of the profession to emotionally separate them from those they need most. When first responders treat the good people in their lives in the same way they treat the ones they encounter on the street while on duty, they alienate themselves from those who could provide a lifeline of support and critical care for them.
Both human nature and the motives of the people who are close to first responders are essentially good. First responders must learn how not to see everyone as a criminal, how not to be distrustful of family, friends, and children, to realize that about 98 percent of the people in the world are basically law-abiding citizens not out to harm others. Unfortunately, many first responders tend to make poor choices in order to maintain the good feelings of the hypervigilant state. They do this by not going home, by working an unusual amount of overtime, drinking away from home with colleagues, and engaging in promiscuity and other high-risk behaviors. They unfortunately tend to become less invested in their family relationships and less interested in doing the things they used to enjoy. And a consistent state of apathy, isolation, fatigue, and detachment can lead to depression or substance abuse.
Female emergency first responders must meet even greater challenges to survive emotionally. Wives and mothers are rarely given the opportunity to come home and just unwind or do something else solely for themselves and their own well-being. Because female first responders are far more susceptible to suffering emotional trauma during their careers, it is even more critical that they aggressively take control of their wellness practices and tell their families what they need in order to allow the hypervigilance cycle to balance itself. They cannot ignore what their spirits and emotions crave in order to achieve well-being, but they can ask their loved ones to assist them in maintaining consistent emotional-survival practices and to give them time alone and nurturing care.
It is imperative for all emergency first responders to recognize and come to terms with the hypervigilance cycle. They cannot escape it or pretend it doesn’t affect them; but they can proactively manage it and prevent it from causing them irreparable harm.
The ten emotional-wellness methods that follow will assist you in managing the hypervigilance cycle and in maintaining your energy, your activities, and your general interest in life.
Create your own techniques for managing personal time. When you don’t make plans well in advance, then you allow work and emotional stress to control your time. Aggressively and proactively plan ahead for off-duty family and personal time, long before your days off and before the end of your shift. If plans are not written down and scheduled, they are far less likely to happen. So write them down. Schedule well in advance those things that nurture your spirit and show loved ones that they are the most important part of your day.
Keep your personal life separate from the job. Your personal life does not just take care of itself. If left unattended, it will deteriorate. Take responsibility for maintaining, nurturing, and enjoying your personal life. Your personal life is, in fact, your “real” life and should only be complemented by your job as a first responder. Rather than passively allowing work stress and the demands of the job to control your true life, learn to live for your time away from work, when you can breathe life into your spirit and renew your emotional wellness.
Show your love by your specific behavior and by spending quality time with loved ones. Show them how much you value them — don’t just tell them. Family members need to know how important they are to you, and you can demonstrate this in different ways each day — by how often and the way you talk with them, what you do with them, and how often you include them in your life.
Do not allow the job to drain the life out of you or make you bitter, angry, frustrated, and apathetic. The job should be life affirming. First responders work in a profession that few are entrusted to perform; they protect and give life to others so that everyone can live in security and peace. First responders affect people’s lives every day, and they have the potential to create a positive interaction with every contact.
Focus only on what you can control. You can control only your own integrity, how hard you work, your own attitude, your reactions to things, your compassion, and your professionalism. Most stress in life is caused by resisting, suppressing, or fighting the things that really can’t be controlled. Learn to accept what you have no control over, and practice letting go. Accept what is, while striving to positively and constructively improve things — or at least your reaction to things that can’t be changed.
Develop the habit of asking a constructive question when you come up against an issue that makes you feel like a victim. Rather than excessively complaining and becoming bitter and cynical, ask yourself questions like “What can I do to positively change the situation and improve things?” or “How can I keep this from adversely affecting me?” Then, take control and work to improve the situation.
Live in the present moment. People who thrive tend to live in the present moment, neither dwelling on the past nor living in the future. Don’t waste your time and energy on guilt or regret or on anxiety about the future. Learn to forgive yourself, make up for past wrongs as best you can, and move forward. Try not to resist current circumstances, but find ways you can positively influence them without trying to control events or other people.
First responders are a force for good in society, the ones who fight evil and those who prey upon the innocent. They keep society in order and allow our way of life to continue. There is nobility and honor inherent in all the emergency-first-responder professions. Our nation and community need you to be emotionally and spiritually well in order to provide the essential services of protection.
In the course of his or her career, every officer saves hundreds, if not thousands, of people from being victimized. Never forget the lives you have saved, helped, protected, and positively influenced. Remind yourself before every shift that you have the opportunity to make a positive difference in every life that you touch. Focus on what the community, agency, fellow officers, and others need from you, and on how you can fulfill those needs — not on what you need or want from them.
If you need to consistently work overtime to pay the mortgage and utilities, then your financial obligations have total control over you. Your goal should be to resist further irrational spending and whittle away at debt. Practice living within your means, and your stress will significantly diminish.
The Harvard study of five thousand police officers, mentioned earlier, assessed officers’ on-duty performances for two years. The 40 percent of the officers surveyed who reported undiagnosed sleep disorders experienced sleep apnea, insomnia, and sleep deprivation. The prevalence of sleep disorders showed a corresponding and significant adverse effect on officers’ overall health, including increased susceptibility to diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, depression, burnout, and emotional disorders.
The study showed that officers with sleep disorders were 25 percent more likely to express uncontrolled anger to a suspect or other citizen, and were 35 percent more likely to have a citizen complaint filed against them. Sleep-deprived officers were 51 percent more likely to fall asleep while driving on duty than officers who were not sleep deprived. Of all officers in the study, 25 percent reported falling asleep at the wheel once or twice a month. “Drowsy driving” may help explain why car accidents have overtaken criminal assaults as the second leading cause of death among police officers (suicide being the leading cause).
One in three officers have sleep apnea, a disorder that causes a person to wake up repeatedly because breathing has temporarily stopped. That’s at least eight times higher than the rate among the general population, and it is a serious condition. The surprisingly high incidence of sleep apnea has grave implications for officers and their agencies. The disorder taxes the heart because the sudden jolt when waking up is accompanied by a surge of adrenalin, which is believed to lead to cardiovascular disease. Officers with sleep apnea have 90 percent greater likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease, even when adjustments are made for their age, sex, body mass index, and smoking and other risk factors. Officers with sleep apnea also had much higher risk than other officers of developing diabetes (61 percent), depression (150 percent), and emotional burnout (270 percent), and experienced a greater risk of falling asleep while driving home from work (126 percent).
The most effective way to prevent sleep disorders is for officers to exercise consistently, eat properly, avoid working excessive hours, and especially, avoid abusing alcohol or energy drinks and other caffeinated beverages. Being well rested will also serve to keep you interested in staying active.
It’s crucial for you to be thinking about and planning for your retirement from the moment you are hired and throughout your career. A major emotional trap for first responders is that they tend to strongly identify with their job; and when the job is gone, often their identity and reason for living are gone. Your job can disappear at any moment because of injury or a number of other unforeseen circumstances. Having a financial plan, as well as activities and interests beyond your first-responder career, helps to keep you grounded and focused on the continuation of life outside your career.
Take advantage of deferred compensation plans or other savings and retirement plans. Plan for the possibility of not being able to work, as well as for remaining active in life after retirement. Suicides and other emotional suffering among first responders significantly intensify shortly after retirement or after becoming disabled, often because there was no preparation or planning. Without long-term preparation, people can easily find themselves feeling lost, disconnected from life, and emotionally desolate as they struggle to find a purpose in life beyond work.
Review your retirement plans each year at the anniversary of your hiring. Work toward realistic retirement objectives while you’re still employed. Always have a goal in sight.
Few things that first responders do cause more potentially serious problems for their careers, families, and emotional survival than abusing alcohol or any other substance. The choices made as a result of drinking, the adverse effects on your quality of life, work, and health — all these make it more difficult to effectively maintain the wellness of your spirit. Substance intoxication only exacerbates hypervigilance, hindering the body’s own natural means of readjusting. Over the long term, symptoms of PTSD and feelings of depression, despair, or hopelessness will ultimately only intensify with drinking. Drinking in moderation may be all right, but most first responders have no idea what drinking in moderation really is. The bottom line: if you feel you need to do it and you can’t limit it or stop when you try, then it’s harming you.
Many first responders use promiscuous sexual behavior as an escape or as a means to maintain the euphoric feeling of the hypervigilance cycle. As in the case of excessive drinking and substance abuse, promiscuous behavior is a sign of deeper emotional issues that aren’t being dealt with in a constructive manner. These behaviors demonstrate poor coping abilities that need to be recognized and addressed.
Incidents of promiscuous behavior tend to increase with PTSD and other emotional issues, as well as with problems in dealing with the hypervigilance cycle. This can be devastating to a person’s family and career, and especially to a first responder’s own emotional survival and well-being. Ultimately, there is a significant emotional cost: regret, guilt, loss of integrity, and loss of self-respect.
Along with the emotional trauma and acute stress of a first responder’s job, there always seem to be incessant demands and distractions that weigh heavily on your spirit. If you don’t take time to consistently practice relaxation and stress-reduction techniques, you’ll find it difficult to overcome the hypervigilance cycle. Zoning out in front of the television or computer screen may mask underlying pressures, but it actually does very little to alleviate stress. To promote the nervous system’s relaxation response, you’ll need to engage in a mentally active process that leaves the body relaxed, calm, centered, and focused.
Consistently practicing relaxation techniques reduces stress symptoms by slowing your heart rate, lowering your blood pressure, slowing your breathing rate, increasing blood flow to major muscles, reducing muscle tension and chronic pain, improving your concentration, reducing anger and frustration, and boosting your confidence in handling problems.
Healthy, effective methods of relaxation involve a short, specific time period in which you focus on relaxing and reducing stress. Effective methods include the following:
Meditation. When you catch yourself feeling pressured and thinking about your job, your relationships, or your endless to-do list, practice letting the thoughts escape while stilling yourself and sitting quietly, free of all distractions, with your eyes closed, while taking slow, deep breaths for about five to ten minutes. One form of meditation entails sitting in silence and focusing your thoughts on peaceful memories and positive thoughts and feelings. Meditating for five to ten minutes when you awaken is a great way to start the day more relaxed, focused, and centered on what you would like to achieve that day. The idea is to take your mind off your stress and focus it instead on an image that evokes a sense of calmness. The more realistic your visualization is in terms of colors, sights, sounds, and even physical sensations, the more relaxation you’ll experience. Some people of faith find it useful to use meditation each day for a few minutes to connect with their source of unlimited hope, inspiration, and purpose. Spiritual mediation and prayer connect a person to a higher calling, an inner purpose in life that sustains, heals, offers peace, and boosts a person’s resilience.
Music. When things get rough, take a detour by aligning your heartbeat with the slow tempo of a relaxing song. Listening to music, especially slow, quiet classical music, can have a tremendously relaxing effect on your mind and body. This type of music can have a beneficial effect on your physiological functions, slowing the pulse and heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and decreasing the levels of stress hormones.
Visualization. While sitting quietly for five to ten minutes with your eyes closed, hold the mental image of a positive outcome to a problem, or the image of a peaceful place you have visited or would like to visit, or in your mind’s eye watch the stress leaving your body. Creatively visualize anything that helps you to relax and calm your breathing.
Progressive muscle relaxation. While sitting comfortably and silently with your eyes closed, focus on slowly tensing and then relaxing each muscle group, starting with your toes and slowly working your way to your neck and face. This helps you become aware of physical sensations while focusing on the difference between muscle tension and relaxation. Tense your muscles for at least five seconds, and then relax for thirty seconds, and repeat. Do this while breathing deeply and slowly.
Tactical breathing / deep breathing. This technique can be practiced anywhere at any time. It has been shown to immediately reduce stress symptoms and can help alleviate certain symptoms of trauma. Practice inhaling slowly and very deeply through your nose with a breath as large as you can intake. Hold your breath for a count of four, then slowly release all the air through your mouth. Repeat this four times.
Compassion in service refers to looking beyond the minimum effort necessary to handle a particular incident. Often, listening to someone longer, taking extra time to provide assistance or advice, and offering words of comfort or hope can significantly affect someone, potentially for years. Helping someone feel better, providing guidance, and caring for someone’s well-being beyond what’s expected demonstrates our capacity to serve with compassion, which gives life to our work and spirit and helps to reduce the stress of hypervigilance.
This approach was perfectly illustrated by a chance encounter by one of my own officers. Officer Mike Hughes responded to a radio call requesting medical aid for an elderly couple at their home. The wife, Susan, was suffering from congestive heart failure and was having difficulty breathing. Her seventy-three-year-old husband, Ted, was distraught at the distress of his wife. Usually, with these types of calls the officers merely stand by and offer assistance to the medics while they work on the patient and transport them to the hospital. Officers go to hundreds of these types of calls, stay for a few minutes, and move on to handle other things. But this call would be different, and the result renewed and healed the spirits of many who served.
While standing inside the house, Mike was overcome by the nauseating stench of the place; it nearly took his breath away. Obviously, this couple was extremely poor. The house had decayed flooring and practically no furniture at all, was filled with dust, dirt, and filth, and was severely in need of repairs. Rather than being disgusted by the place and getting out as soon as possible, Mike was moved by the couple’s plight.
As he took an interest in them and began to ask the distraught husband questions, Mike learned that the couple had not had anything to eat, other than a sandwich, in the past four days. There was no food anywhere in the house. He learned, too, that they had not been able to afford trash pickup for the past three years. The rear patio and backyard were filled with trash and hopelessly overgrown with weeds. When things got too bad, Ted would fill a trash bag and walk around the neighborhood late at night to look for a partly empty trash can that one of his neighbors had set out that he could fit some of the trash into. Susan and Ted’s washing machine and dryer had not worked in more than two years. The gas and electricity was about to be turned off, and the house heater was inoperable. Officer Mike Hughes understood the meaning of compassionate service and how important it is not only to the person helped but also to his own spirit and wellness. After Susan was taken to the hospital, Mike had Ted get into his patrol car. He drove him to the nearest grocery store and used his own money to get all the food and necessities the couple needed. He then got his sergeant involved, who used his own money to establish future food deliveries to the couple from a local church’s food bank. After dropping off the groceries at the house, Mike then drove Ted to the Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center and was able to obtain several more food items for the couple. Mike even had his wife make homemade lasagna and casseroles for the couple, which Mike delivered.
Two days later, after hearing about what Mike had done, I went over to Susan and Ted’s home to check on them. Susan had come home from the hospital. I, too, was taken aback by the condition of their home and how they were living, so I drove Ted to a store and got him more supplies. Then I contacted Maxine, one of the police department’s civilian employees, and had her meet me at the house. Maxine immediately became involved and arranged to have someone work on the couple’s washing machine and dryer. They were fixed within days. Maxine got a social worker involved with the couple to see what other services might be available. Maxine arranged for donations and had trash service reestablished for an entire year, and she also worked to have the electric bill reduced and paid up to date.
Maxine, in coordination with the police department’s chaplain (and volunteers from her church), then arranged for a cleanup-and-repair date, with nearly a dozen police department employees helping out. In one day, several teams worked to clean and repair the entire house, and to clear the patio, the backyard, and the rest of the property of trash and weeds. Since then, police employees have periodically gone over to check on the couple to see how they are doing and if they need anything. When they do, employees donate money, items, or time to help out.
Recently when I spoke to Ted and he was thanking us for what everyone had done, he had tears in his eyes. As he fought back the tears, he said, “I didn’t think anyone would ever give a damn about us. Thank you.”
What so many of my fellow employees experienced in serving and helping the couple will no doubt stay with them throughout their careers. Having this kind of a positive impact on someone, in the midst of all the negative and depressing things we deal with every day, dramatically nurtured and ennobled our spirits. It gave meaning to our work and satisfied our spirits in a way that sustains us and helps relieve some of the stress of hypervigilance.
Emergency first responders affect people’s lives every day, one call after another. While serving with their hearts, first responders can find ways to help, inspire, and provide hope and comfort to others through their words, actions, and examples. The most effective officers are those driven by their hearts; this is the essence of service and the sign of a vibrant spirit. First responders should have incidents of compassion like this to remember during their retirement, rather than struggling to forget all the other aspects of their careers.
As I look back to my stepdaughter’s eighth birthday party in 1996 and that critical realization of how emotionally dead, exhausted, and disengaged I had become, I recognize that it was truly a crossroads in my career and my life. I came perilously close to losing all connection with the person I had been when I was hired by the police department. Hypervigilance, stress, and other pressures of the job had overwhelmed me, and I was losing my ability to enjoy life.
My journey of self-discovery and learning how to emotionally survive would not be easy. It has been a career-long effort to learn from others, become more aware of what my spirit needs in order to thrive, and practice various methods and techniques centered on emotional survival.
Things would get worse before they improved. I would answer the door (on those few times I ever answered the door) with my service gun in the small of my back — just in case. I avoided crowds and looked forward to simply going home and resting. After receiving death threats while working the James Desmond murder case, I began watching for someone outside as the garage door slowly opened every morning. I made sure my wife and stepdaughters knew to leave me alone when I was home. I withdrew from several activities I had once loved. I often got less than four hours sleep a night while I obsessed about the case I happened to be working on. And eventually, after ten years of marriage, I found myself divorced while raising one of my stepdaughters alone. A second marriage also ended in divorce.
Fortunately, I discovered that one of the most effective facilitators of mental, physical, and spiritual wellness was physical activity. Consistent physical exercise clearly counteracts the adverse effects of the hypervigilance cycle more than anything else. I began running much more consistently, bought a bicycle to begin long-distance riding, rediscovered my love of the ocean and swimming, became an avid snorkeler, and began hiking more frequently. I developed a love for the national parks and, over the years, have explored dozens of them from Alaska to Florida.
I discovered the significant healing potential found in the peace and serenity of nature. Nature has an inherent ability to humble us, to take us away from ourselves and center us in its beauty and peace. Experiencing nature enabled me to purify my spirit, to become inspired, renewed, and connected with life. Each one of these activities breathed new life into my spirit and renewed my sense of wellness. They enhanced my ability to cope with and process emotional pain while managing the hypervigilance cycle. I learned that this had to be an ongoing process to prevent my emotional fuel tank from getting drained.
One of the most important things I did was immerse myself in activities with my stepchildren (I remarried and gained two stepsons). There is nothing that will lift and heal your spirit more than spending time with your kids, loving and enjoying them, while showing them every day how important they are to your life. Your problems seem to fade away as you look into a child’s smiling face. I also began volunteering as a basketball coach, which had been a lifelong dream.
I searched for new outdoor activities I could become involved with. I took sailing lessons and began sailing whenever I had the opportunity. I had lived in San Diego my entire life but had never kayaked or surfed. I have since kayaked all over the San Diego area and now, at age fifty, I am learning how to surf. I also took up skiing and make it a point to go on ski trips every winter.
I will always remember the time when I was working a patrol car at three o’clock in the morning, trying once again to keep from falling asleep or driving into the curb. For some reason, I got out of the car to look at a war memorial at the local VFW. This memorial is one block away from the police station, and I had driven past it numerous times a day for twelve years, yet I had never once gotten out to read it. I found that the memorial listed the names of every La Mesa resident who had been killed in the Vietnam War. At the bottom of the memorial was an inscription: “Have you lived your life worthy of someone else’s sacrifice?” This greatly influenced me as I realized how much we owe those who have come before us. And it inspired me to keep focused on the solemn duty of my work as a first responder and on how I can affect the lives of others.
Over the years I developed another of my greatest interests: writing. I discovered the power of words — their ability to inspire, influence, and change a life. I usually have several interesting books on hand that I’m actively reading, always looking for opportunities to learn, experience, and pass on what I’ve learned to those I supervise and work with.
I also discovered that the more I expressed compassion, and the more opportunities I found to volunteer and support and help others, the less I felt disconnected or like a victim. I’ve sponsored several children overseas and have volunteered in nursing homes, at church, at animal shelters, and with other organizations. Being in the company of animals, being in nature, and volunteering with kids all have the uncanny ability to remove us from ourselves and the world around us. The one thing first responders need is to be removed from their world from time to time.
Living love, selflessly giving, and serving others truly do heal the spirit and are extremely powerful in overcoming depression, isolation, emotional pain, and self-destructive tendencies. Most first responders were inspired to be first responders because of a desire to help others, to make a positive difference in people’s lives. As the acute stress and emotional trauma of the job increases over the years, our motivation to serve is often the first to suffer. Focusing on serving others and being devoted to the greater good will keep you balanced, positive, and emotionally well.
I helped coordinate a summer youth leadership camp where officers facilitate a weeklong camp for high school kids to teach them about leadership, ethics, and community service. I’ve also coordinated my agency’s efforts to adopt a middle school where over three hundred students live under the poverty line. For more than twenty years I have coordinated the police department’s efforts to adopt needy families during Christmastime to provide much-needed food and toys. For twenty-three years I have coordinated a food drive for the needy at Thanksgiving. All these efforts have helped me to forget about the darkness of the profession while striving to be a light to others.
Over the years, I have practiced nearly every suggestion described in this book, some more than others. But all have been effective in helping me remain driven to serve with my heart and maintain wellness. We should never forget that behind our badge is our heart. It is vital for individuals to discover their own best practices when cultivating emotional survival and wellness. Whatever practices work for you, engage in them consistently throughout your career and life. The most critical of your emotional-survival and wellness practices is your focus on the wellness of all of the components that make you human: your mind, your body, and, particularly, your spirit.
I have always looked forward to coming to work every day. After twenty-five years, I am still passionate about the work we do to protect life, and I remain positive and hopeful for the future. No one is destined to become a victim of a career in public service. When we learn to protect our spirits, a life of service ennobles and enlivens us.
What do you do for others, and what more can you do? Do you treat others the way they want to be treated, focusing on their needs and not on yours?
While recovering from hypervigilance, you will find that the natural tendency is to become self-absorbed. You’ll tend to think more about yourself as you zone out in an endless effort to feel relaxed and rested. Develop the habit of paying more attention to the needs of those around you, and not only will this help you remain active and feel useful, but it will also help you keep out of the disengaged trance of the hypervigilance recovery period.
How do you deal with anger, frustration, ingratitude, and personal affronts? How can you deal with these emotions more positively and constructively? In what ways can you learn to let go?
When you are conditioned to react instinctively to personal affronts, anger, and frustration, the ensuing emotional response is usually negative and not helpful. Training yourself to remain centered in a place of peace within will help you not to overreact or become overly angry and frustrated with the stress of events and people. In answering these questions, you can discover a more constructive outlet for handling these feelings.
At the end of each day, are you able to look back and honestly say you did your best for your spouse, your kids, your work, and others who depend on you? If not, why not, and what can you do the following day to improve?
We improve through self-examination. Without asking yourself where and how you could have done better, you are likely not to notice. An inherent gratification and peace arise when you feel that you either have done your best or are working toward being your best.