All Clear - A Firefighter Health & Wellness Podcast
All Clear is a podcast that looks at the perils of modern firefighters, especially the physical and mental strains we face. Our goal is to help firefighters ignite The Fire Within and to build the best version of themselves as firefighters. Our conversations are real, sometimes raw but always honest. All Clear is presented by the NC Firefighter Cancer Alliance & First Responders Peer-Support Network.
All Clear - A Firefighter Health & Wellness Podcast
Navigating Tides Of Change In Your Career With Sean Robinson
How do you navigate the pressures of a high-stakes volunteer firefighter role while balancing personal wellness and family life? Join us on this episode of "All Clear Firefighter Wellness" as we welcome Sean Robinson, a veteran with over 21 years in the fire service. Sean shares his deeply personal journey, growing up in a multi-generational firefighting family and managing a career as an electrician in environments defined by traditional masculinity. He opens up about his struggles with alcohol and overeating, and the transformative path that led him to better self-awareness and a healthier lifestyle.
From the camaraderie of the firehouse to the social expectations of drinking, Sean discusses the routines and pressures that can lead to unhealthy habits. He candidly speaks about committing to periods of sobriety and healthier diets, which have brought noticeable improvements in his mood, patience, and engagement with his family. We also highlight the challenges of making such significant life changes within a tight-knit community and the critical role of peer support in overcoming these hurdles.
In a captivating conversation, Sean recounts how quitting drinking and adopting journaling as a therapeutic tool helped him manage emotional stress and set personal goals. These changes not only positively impacted his family dynamics but also fostered trust and communication within the firefighting community. Listen to Sean's valuable insights on emotional awareness and building support systems in both personal and professional spheres, and learn how his mission to share his experiences through writing aims to inspire others on their wellness journeys.
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this is all clear firefighter wellness, where we help you light your fire welcome to all clear, I'm travis.
Speaker 2:Got a great guest with us again today. Got Sean Robinson. Sean is a long-time volunteer firefighter from north of here, so we're going to let Sean tell us a little bit about himself and what he's got going on, and he's got a story that I think we can all benefit from. So we're going to introduce Sean and let him take it away going to introduce Sean and let him take it away.
Speaker 3:Thanks, travis, I appreciate it and appreciate being here and excited to dive in. Just a quick background I've been a volunteer firefighter for just over 21 years. I started a week before my 19th birthday when I came from. My father was a captain at the time and my aunt, my uncle, now my brother's on, so a big family unit is for around the fire service. I think my brother's just over 13 or 14 years himself and I've taken tons of training, got my firefighter level one and two and hazmat ops and spent a long time as a trainer and really just developed well in that sector.
Speaker 3:I've also worked for the last about the same time in construction as an electrician and I think the two dominantly masculine sectors that I spent most of my life in and some background of my own really helped to develop the person that I found a couple three years ago, four years ago almost, and I started to really think about the habits and routines that I had and I saw a strong relationship with alcohol that I wasn't very proud of I had and I saw a strong relationship with alcohol that I wasn't very proud of and through a process of analyzing it, I just started to see some tendencies that I had with overeating and my weight had gotten to a point where I wasn't proud and I consider it a bit of a rock bottom moment for me because I needed to make a change and to start to reach out and be a bit more vulnerable with my story, my background, and educate myself. I started to learn and then started to share a lot of what I've seen and achieved in the last period of time.
Speaker 2:So, sean, you've said a whole bunch right there and I really want to dive in on a couple of different levels with that. So I think one of the key things that you mentioned is that you're a multi-generational firefighter. You've got family that's in the trade. You've even got an aunt who's in the trade. So, as the fire service regardless if it's in Canada, like where you guys are, or even down here in the US where we are there's a lot of commonalities.
Speaker 2:And when you volunteer, it adds a different type of stress than if you do it full-time, because you're worried about taking care of your family, taking care of your job as an electrician, but at the same time, at a moment's notice, you could have to totally swap hats and become a firefighter and put your life on the line for others.
Speaker 2:So there is definitely a lot of stress going back and forth and I think that will resonate a lot with our listeners, because we do have quite a few guys that listen, that are volunteers. But the other thing that you hit on that I thought was very interesting is you commented on working in the electrical trades, working in the fire service, how it's a very masculine, a very masculine environment, and it's interesting nowadays there seems to be war on what is toxic masculinity, things like that, and everybody's got their own opinions about it and not here to debate that. But do you really think that the levels of masculinity I'm using air quotes as I say that do you think that is something that can be both damaging to the fire service and possibly have a positive effect, depending how you look at it?
Speaker 3:I can see I agree with you not to get into the big debate of it, because I do think now more than ever it's a lot more progressive than it's ever been, especially in my own experience. I think we have four or five women volunteer firefighters on our station now and I think the masculinity part is, in my experience, situation or station specific, group is specific. You could have one hockey team as a separate example that has a bit more hazing, a bit more of that toxic masculine environment than say, another, but it's the same sort of similar. So I think it can be. I think that it's on the group and I think that really it comes down to the individual and not participating in that. We're setting those boundaries to make sure that either you're not participating in whatever might be going on or you're at least establishing that you don't want any part of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that is very true, and that's. I work for a paid department and we've got about 300 plus members right now and we have quite a few female members and I tell you they're just as tough as any of the guys out there. In fact, I've seen them vent roofs and do things 10 times quicker and more efficiently. And that is something that has been an issue I think for a long time has been the hazing and things like that. One of my old-timers that works with me.
Speaker 2:He makes the comment a lot. He's if we didn't pick on you, that means we don't love you, and I always say you could love me a lot less and we'd be fine. So there is a place for it. But then it can become very toxic if you're not careful. But now from your personal experience I know you mentioned that alcohol was something that you started to crutch on when you were younger and you mentioned food and things like that Do you think possibly some of that might've grown out of just the fact that maybe if you do have a problem in a masculine environment, if you say, hey, I've got a problem, do you think that could actually be a counterproductive sometimes or it could be intimidating to bring up?
Speaker 3:I definitely think so, and there's so many ways that construction is the same. But to keep it with the theme of firefighting, those were the closest people I was with for the longest and all of the, the habits and routines that we would have after calls or weekends or off shift, whatever it may be. It was these people have been or have been around these people for some of the weirdest and most stressful moments and you have a very different bond that way. And to not have a drink after a thing and not be a part of a lot of that reflection period or downtime or whatever, it was okay, but it never crossed my mind. Or if I was going to try and start to do something differently, it made me feel like maybe I wasn't going to be included as much as I was before or I wasn't going to be trusted as much as before. So I think a lot of the routine that I maintained for a long time, with different things, drinking, whatever it was like this is just I have to do this or it'll fit in.
Speaker 2:So, with your realizing that you had a problem or you had something going on that had to be dealt with, what were the strongest indicators that you really needed to make a change? What were the red flags that were going up that told Sean hey, buddy, you need to slow down, you need to get some help.
Speaker 3:I'll say that I never felt like I was addicted. There was definitely tendencies, but to come from that space, I don't want to give somebody the wrong idea that I'm speaking about some hard, heavy addiction. All the respect to people that go through that. But I found that the part that I was dealing with and the routine that I was doing, I didn't learn until I started to cut that out, what it was doing to me, Starting to commit to doing dry January and then getting into dry February and finding myself 30, 60, 100 days not doing this anymore, not drinking, not overeating, exercising a bit more.
Speaker 3:I was finding to answer your question, I was less irritable, I was more patient. I have three young kids. I was finding to answer your question, I was less irritable, I was more patient. I have three young kids. I was more present with them. I was more interested in participating in the games and playing and I wasn't doing that before. I was miserable and I was negative. I didn't have the energy, I was impatient, all of the things, and it was almost like just getting rid of that routine with drinking and eating and everything that came with it started to make me into a much better person, someone that I would rather be around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and sometimes we don't realize we're in the middle of a war until we start coming out of it and you realize how bad it really was. And I appreciate your honesty about realizing that you needed to make some changes. But when you realized it was time to make changes and you started you mentioned like the dry January and moving forward with that did your brothers and sisters in the firehouse? Did they know about your struggles or what you were going through or the changes that you were making? They did right away.
Speaker 3:It was a struggle. It was probably more of a struggle with that group than anybody else and it's because, like my brother was on the department at that time, I started to do this break from alcohol. That was during January, but I didn't know how long I was going to do that, for I didn't know what I was doing. It was just like I want to be in better health, I want to lose this weight. I want to show up better for this service and for my family. You know, show up better for this service and for my family. And when I started to avoid drinking and it got beyond that two week period in the middle of January when everybody falls off of their resolutions I continued with it and my brother had offered me a beer at his house and it was just like well, to me, you don't want a beer you haven't got your coin.
Speaker 3:Yet it was just like those comments. And a friend of mine was getting married and COVID, which was about the midpoint of when I started this journey, so he couldn't have his wedding when he was going to have it and it pushed into this window where I started to commit to not drinking and all of the things that brought that. But he says you better show up, you better drink at my wedding. Because I was in his wedding and it was such a pressure every time we'd go to a function with we'd get fitted for a suit or bachelor parties or whatever and I'd committed to not drinking. You better show up at my, you better drink at my wedding Was just this thing that hung over me the whole time. And this was also an individual that I worked with, so I'd see that like in both avenues that the volunteer department and then at work and it was such a pressure to hang over that I have to show up a certain way for this person.
Speaker 3:My old self was one of the biggest supporters of people and doing the cheers and the toasts and celebrating and shots and whatever it may be, and all of a sudden I've committed to not being that. So part of me felt like I was letting him down because I wasn't going to show up that way, and it was a lot of pressure from him and from that group to continue doing this thing that I did before when I didn't want to and I didn't really know. Like I said, I didn't know how long I was going to do this for, so I couldn't confidently say this is just who I am. Now I maybe led them on a bit to say oh yeah, I'm just taking a break and really not knowing when that break was done or if I was going to go back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when you have expectations, particularly if they're family, when you have expectations that you're going to do something that you know could be not great for you, that really can add a level of anxiety that we don't anticipate. But when you started getting past that two-week period, everybody else is going back to what they were doing. Maybe they stopped going to the gym or they've picked up drinking a little bit again, and things like that.
Speaker 2:What strategies and I know each person's journey is different and what worked for Sean might not work for Travis, might not work for whoever, but did you do what were some of the strategies you used to be able to start addressing these things in your life? And it sounds like you had multiple things you were working with right there. What, what did you do to stay on top of it and start processing what was going on?
Speaker 3:The biggest thing for me was to start journaling and for many calls we'd come back to the station after a call and we would write things down, put our statements on paper at least our depiction of what happened. It wasn't like that. Our depiction of what happened, it wasn't like that. But I used this notebook. I was just confused and I took my notebook separate from the hall and I just started to brain dump. I started to beat myself up, I started to say all these things and really just put this on paper because I just needed to outlet and I didn't think about it at the time. But it was so therapeutic for me to be able to do that, thinking about coming back from a call and getting to put all those slots down. It was the same effect where I just didn't get out there putting it down and then putting it away and coming back to it if I wanted to or I didn't. It was just what it was. When I started to journal, I just felt very masculine about it. I couldn't share that with anybody. I couldn't tell someone oh, I started journaling and this is what it is. It's therapeutic, it's all those things Because I just felt like I was going to get made fun of or they were going to find out that I kept this journal and it's his diary or it's whatever. I didn't talk about it. It was just when I felt like I needed to outlet and I didn't want to chance. Whatever I felt like I needed to say was going to affect someone else any kind of way. Just write it down. I would start to use this more as a tool.
Speaker 3:As I got towards the end of 2020, started setting these goals to just try January, try February.
Speaker 3:I would write these things down and just keep up with where I was at, what I was feeling, what I was doing. I would write these things down and just keep up with where I was at, what I was feeling, what I was doing, and I'd get a coffee cup and I'd use that for whenever I went to a function, just as a tool so I could dump whatever I wanted to and not have to feel like I was not participating or not included. And I'd keep this journal all the way through and really just want to keep track. I didn't want to forget anything and it was in the end of that year I'm still not drinking, but in the end of the year that became my book. It was all from the journals that I kept throughout that I would take and basically put in a format that I could share. So, to answer your question, my biggest thing was just to start journaling and really start putting those thoughts down with and trying to make a more of a habit of.
Speaker 2:I had. I had some stuff going on with my firefighter physical last year, about a year ago exactly and I was really stressed about some of the things that they were finding and I had a lot of things going through my head and I found that journaling was a way to start putting things in order. I blew it off as, yeah, no, I don't write it, I don't keep a diary, I don't need to do that. Blew it off as yeah, no, I don't write it, I don't keep a diary, I don't need to do that. But in time, when I started doing it, it provided me a way to be able to look back.
Speaker 2:To me, that's been the most valuable thing is being able okay, what have I written about three days in a row? Maybe that's something I need to give a little bit more active thought to, and I think a lot of times when people hear journaling, they immediately think about Dear Diary, and that's not what it is In fact. Frequently, when I would sit down and write, I would tell my wife, or I'd even share with my son hey, this morning I was journaling and I wrote about being grateful about whatever having them in my lives as part of my family, or whatever, having them in my lives as part of my family, or whatever and it's not always about, oh, I feel bad because of this. Journaling should never be something to beat yourself up with. It should be something to help you move forward.
Speaker 2:And now with me, I don't journal every day I need to get back to that but really when my head's full is when I tend to sit down and really write it out, and I found that showing gratitude as part of my journaling has been one of the most powerful things I could do. And it's amazing what we can be grateful for without having to think too hard. And sometimes we get so hung up in the feedback loop of I've got this problem, I've got that going on, that we forget about our family, our coworkers that do care about us and try to work with us and make us better, and we forget our whole mission, which is to help other people and, more importantly, make ourselves better. So, yes, journaling definitely is a huge tool that anybody can benefit from, but what impact have you making these changes had on your family? Let's talk about the folks at home your wife, your kids. How have they benefited from the changes you've been making?
Speaker 3:I don't even think they'll ever realize the impact of these changes. My dad comes from a different generation. We grew up my brother, I have two younger brothers and we grew up in a household with an old generation, an old mindset. Whatever drinking issues he had there was yelling, it was, we were. It wasn't that bad, so I don't want to get into that.
Speaker 3:But basically the environment I grew up in there was things that were normal in the 80s, early 90s, whatever, and I was becoming a version of myself that I didn't like.
Speaker 3:I was becoming a version that I grew up with that felt that the scary dad, the angry dad, the yelling dad, was the only way to get the kids to listen or get things done or to establish dominance or whatever it was.
Speaker 3:So I found that I was becoming a version of something that I despised growing up and whether it was because of my habits with drinking or not, it was just a part of what started to become that person at my call it, rock bottom moment. It was the weight, it was the attitude, it was the negativity, it was the anger, it was all of those things. Negativity, it was the anger, it was all of those things. And as I started to work through it and start to learn. As I would open up to asking for that help and listening to self-help podcasts and talking about it and being open, I would start to get the tools that I didn't have before, that I wasn't going to find if I didn't start looking for it or asking about it. Tools like that show me patience and what you can control and can't control, and breath work and as much as we do, box breathing training and breath work and the fire service.
Speaker 3:It's great for your own mental health and it's great for your own calming and just daily life. And I would take these things and I start to show up better, like I said earlier, where I'd rather like the kids and be more present with them, get down on the floor and just be interested. We started to do some different things and I'd bring different books home and we'd sit around the table. Just a story, quick. My one young lad he's a little bit more anxious and he would find the negativity in everything at school and he wouldn't talk at the dinner table. He would find the negativity in everything at school and he wouldn't talk at the dinner table.
Speaker 3:We started to use the thing I learned in John Gordon's Energy Bus about the greatest golf shot, and that greatest golf shot is that one shot, no matter how your round is, that will keep you coming back. And then the way that translates is basically that one thing in the day. It's that one thing in the day that was your favorite thing, or that best thing that will keep you back tomorrow. And at dinner we started to pick apart this favorite thing. Each one of us my wife, my three kids and I would find just that one thing.
Speaker 3:And in the beginning it was such a struggle. Nobody wanted to do anything about it, nobody knew what to pick and I just said, it doesn't matter your favorite color, something that smiled. The wind picked up up and there's days it was tough for me, it was tough for my wife, just to get it going. But now, like it doesn't matter if we have 30, 40 people over for a barbecue, like my. One anxious boy especially will make sure every single person talks about the thing that they love about the day or that they're grateful for that is their favorite. This is just one kind of big example of the kind of person I am now that I wasn't before, and to create that life for them. Like I said, they'll never know the impact that this change in these things I've started to make is on their life, but I'd say it's massive.
Speaker 2:You and I think are about the same age. I'm a child of the 80s. Things were very different then, in fact. Now when you talk to kids that are millennials or Gen Z, you say in my day we used to, and they scratch their head, they don't understand. We didn't have bike helmets and we rode in cars with no seatbelts and we're still alive probably better for the wear, but we're still alive. But a lot of the ways that we were parented. I love my parents to death. They're older, but a lot of the ways that we were parented, I love my parents to death. They're older. My dad was a trucker forever a truck driver and the way he approached things sometimes was very different than how people would now and there is a lot more feeling involved.
Speaker 2:There is a lot more need to take into consideration how we talk to our kids and our spouses and how we deal with other people, and it's progressive and when we spend that time trying to improve ourselves, it can improve our families so much.
Speaker 2:A lot of times we can give off some and I'm not trying to sound real woo-woo about this, but we can put off some very negative energy If we're in a bad space in our own head and we come home, maybe we're a little grumpier than usual, maybe we raise our voice more than we typically do, and that can really lead to some negative impacts on our kids and our spouses, because nobody knows us as well as our family does. They know who we truly are and it's good that you were able to make changes and the positive changes that it's had on your family and those around you that you're close to. If you look at firefighters now, they are very different than they were five years ago, than they were 10 years ago, especially 20 years ago. If you could give some advice to new firefighters, or even to yourself, imagine you were a new firefighter and you had all this knowledge that you have now, what advice would you give to the new guys and gals?
Speaker 3:There has been so many things from 2003, when I started, to now, that I could answer this question in several episodes. The biggest thing that comes to my mind is no matter what the training is, no matter what the call is, no matter what the shift is, you will learn the absolute most spending time with these people you're working with and just hearing the stories and having that moment.
Speaker 3:I found that and this was the biggest thing that I was told when I started was that you'll learn the most after training and we do the exercise and maybe you relate what you're doing for training to the conversations afterwards. But to stick around and just talk to people and hear about their experiences, hear about what's going on in their lives, learn about them, not only do you build that trust with each other, but you start to really see who these people are and what their backgrounds are and what kind of firefighter they are and how they got there. There's so much of that isn't in the textbook, it's not in the manuals, it's not taught when we do our training. It's in that conversation, it's in that moment. And I think that new firefighter not that everybody's this way, but a lot of times it's the shift's over, I'm going home or we're not here for that. We're here to get this thing done and leave. In my experience there's less of our new people in our volunteer department interested in spending any time afterwards. They're out the door back home, shift's over.
Speaker 2:They're at the door back home shifts over. Yeah, there is some good things to being able to shut off the firefighter side of your brain when you go home, because sometimes taking it home with you can be very problematic, but at the same time, you do need to be able to have a rapport with those people around you, and one of the big things that the guys that I work specifically with and we're in fire prevention these days, but the thing that we deal with a lot is the fact that just drinking a cup of coffee together in the morning what happened yesterday? What are you doing today? What do you have to deal with? How can I help you accomplish what you need to today?
Speaker 2:Just that small act goes a long way, and it doesn't have to be going to the bar and having a beer or whatever afterward. It can be a cup of coffee before you start your shift. It's just spending that time communicating, and communication is something that I think we all, as humans, need to work on, and cell phones have sucked every bit of that out of us. That in social media, we'd rather text about it than actually talk about it, yeah, but in this line of work.
Speaker 3:It's you're in some heat, literally with these same people, and you need to build that rapport. You need to build that trust because if something happens like that's the person closest to you, you want to make sure that you trust each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I work as an investigator now and we had a pretty, pretty gnarly call last year and I had a friend of mine that I've known for a very long time. All he did was he called me and said hey man, I know you had a rough one. He said if you ever need to talk, let me know. That was it, I didn't need any more. And then when it was time, I went and said hey, brian got something on my mind and guess what?
Speaker 2:It was a short conversation and it was fixed and it's amazing what can happen. And it's amazing what can happen not only when we make the effort to go out and talk to somebody that's grumpy and unhappy and yeah, I don't want to tell them I got a problem but if I go to someone who I have a decent relationship with, that's a whole different ballgame. It's a whole lot easier to do things like that. So it is important that not only we be vulnerable and able to open up, but at the same time, we need to be able to be approachable so other people will want to come and talk to us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, and a lot of that, I find, is the newer people they need to build that relationship with. Everybody else it's you know who like you said you're able to talk to or who's going to give maybe not the best advice, but at least the best ears.
Speaker 2:Yep, absolutely. And one thing that my grandmother taught me was you can learn something from everybody. Some of it's good, some of it's bad. Take it for what it's worth, and that's. It's the same thing with everybody around us, whether we work in the construction trades or fire service or whatever the case is. There's good that we can take from everything.
Speaker 2:I think that's really awesome, that you have made such progress on your own, and I enjoy talking with people and seeing the myriad of different ways that they've overcome problems, how they've dealt with issues and the successes that they've had. And I'm sure it's not been. It's not been an easy ride the whole time. I'm sure you've faced your challenges as much as everybody else and setbacks, but it's the fact that you stayed consistent, moving forward and things like the journaling and being conscious and gracious for what's going on and trying to teach others what you've learned. That's what our podcast is all about. It's about lighting the fire within, making yourself a better firefighter, whether it be skills with your hands or heck, how to be a better leader, how to even talk about this stuff. So I do have a question, you being from Canada, so on y'all's fire helmets, do you really have beavers on your fire helmets? I know we have eagles. That's very common here in the US. That's a question I had to ask, no there's definitely some of those.
Speaker 3:for anyone that has that style helmet, it's a, it's an option. I think it can be more of a novelty, especially if we're doing a training. I used to do a lot of training in Vermont with the the North country fire training school and we'd go down and it'd be a bit of a running joke.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no doubt, and it's funny. Yes, we're from different places, but yet the challenges aren't that different and what we have to do is not that different. But I really appreciate you taking some time today, sean, and talking with us, and there is something that I like to do that kind of makes me feel better. I've got a question for you Share what. Do you know? What the hat said to?
Speaker 3:the hat rack. What did the hat say?
Speaker 2:you stay here, I'm going on ahead. That was pretty bad, wasn't it? Yeah, that's good. Oh, really it's good.
Speaker 3:All right, I'll tell you I have three young kids under 11. I'm gonna go use that right now.
Speaker 2:I encourage you to. If you listen to any of our past episodes, there's a whole plethora of really bad dad jokes. But all joking aside, I appreciate you taking time with us, Sean, and we tell our listeners you can go to allclearpodcastcom. You can learn more about Sean and some of our other guests. Sean, if they want to get a hold of you directly or learn about the writing that you've been doing and all of your other efforts, where can they learn about you?
Speaker 3:The best place is my website, seanrobinsonca. I'm on all the social platforms, most of them, and it's pretty much all that Sean Robinson mindset and really you can get at me right through my website and it's probably the easiest.
Speaker 2:And I'm just trying to give back wherever I can, to who I used to be and anybody that can relate. Well, you're doing a fine job, sir, and we appreciate you taking time to be with us here on All Clear and, as we always say, light your fire within you have been listening to all clear firefighter wellness.
Speaker 1:All clear is presented by the north carolina firefighter cancer alliance. You can find out more about us at all clear podcastcom. Leave us a message. We'd love to hear from you. If you like what you hear, tell someone. All opinions expressed on the podcast do not always reflect the opinions of the podcast. As always, light your fire within.
