Beyond Bunker Gear

Welcome to my new blog!

As a life long seeker, I'm on a journey of exploring who I am (what lights me up, brings me peace and fosters calm) beyond the work that I do after coming to the realization that my job is not who I am, it's just what I do.

Big difference.

We get so caught up in labels (self assigned or other) that we lose sight and touch with who we really are as human beings. We categorize ourselves into neat little boxes in order to know what we're expected to do and how we're supposed to act. Unfortunately, what we're doing is not making our lives any easier as we intended, but more difficult because those ideals and beliefs come from unhealthy coping mechanisms that we internalized long before we even knew how to think for ourselves.

This keeps us caught up in a loop of trying harder to be who we are (or who we think we are) while simultaneously disconnecting from the truth of who we are in our heart and our soul.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy my job. So much so that I totally threw myself into it with abandon until I realized one day that I was trying to fill a void that was unfillable in the way I was trying to fill it. (It's a repeating pattern that I'll hopefully dismantle for good one day.)

Being the only female on a team of ten fire instructors is kind of a cool job, however, it also comes with its share of insecurities and self doubt. I've worked through a lot of those insecurities but I still fall into the habit of forgetting who I am and trying to prove myself and/or trying to keep up with the guys. It's totally an internal flawed mindset of mine, but it presents itself as overwork to the point of burnout. The kicker is that no one is responsible for it but me. My boss isn't telling me that I need to work harder or do more and the guys I work with sure don't seem to expect anything extra from me, it's 100% me doing this to me.

I also have this weird tendency to get caught up in wondering how they see me and if they think they have to treat me any different from the rest of the guys, be it my colleagues or my boss. Again, this is mostly in my head however, if you're not a woman than you cannot understand what it means to be a woman in the world we live in, nor can you understand what it's like to be a woman in a man's world. And the fire service is definitely a man's world. I'm not saying that women don't belong there by any means because I've been in the fire service nearly 30 years now and I have always believed that we more than belong there. But the harsh reality is that women still only make up a small percentage of firefighters in Ontario where I live, and across the country for that matter. This isn't a blog about women in the fire service, but feeling like an outsider is a huge part of my life journey and it's sometimes difficult for me to determine whether my perceptions are accurate or not.

On a side note, my husband happened to be sitting across from me when I was writing this so I asked for his thoughts about the male/female dynamic in the fire service since he is a fire chief whose fire department is made up of equal numbers of men and women. He said very matter of factly that he sees them all as firefighters. I asked if he treats them any differently and he said no, and that he finds that if anything, the women listen better. They're more attentive and if they're not sure about something, they'll ask whereas the guys won't.

All that aside, my goal is not to explore the intricacies and challenges of male/female dynamics in the fire service, or even to find my place among the men I work with, but rather to explore who I really am and what I'm all about. To follow with abandon the things I'm called to do but resist vehemently because I'm afraid of them not fitting into the idea of who I've mistakenly defined myself to be.

I'll be following the callings of my soul, the clues the universe places before me and the breadcrumbs that appear along the path to my truest self. Who knows where the journey will take me but after yesterday, I'm deeply driven to find out. Yesterday I followed that inner knowing and it allowed me to experience one of the happiest, most peaceful and zen filled days I've had in years.

I know for a fact that when you follow that inner knowing (a desire, an idea, a pleasant thought or feeling about something you'd like to be or do) that sheer bliss is guaranteed. The problem is, we're so afraid of allowing ourselves to follow that desire. Women especially will ignore, deny, make excuses for and even shame ourselves for these heartfelt wants because we're conditioned to put others first.

The truth is that our deepest desires scare us.

We erroneously associate our deepest desires with negative outcomes when we entertain the idea of them for too long. We falsely believe that our desires are evidence or proof of our selfishness, our irresponsibility, our self centerdness and our blatant disregard for the needs of others. All of the things we've been taught as girls and women not to be. It's no wonder we fear our desires and dreams and fight against them when they surface but it's my personal goal is to undo that conditioning.

My dream is to truly, madly and deeply enjoy my life, to inhale experiences and exhale bliss, to love myself unconditionally and see what joyful adventures await and to know that I am so much more than a job or a label or a role.

I'm a multipassionate, multifaceted, multidimensional human being.

This is my journey to finding who I am beyond bunker gear.