Retired Toronto Fire Fighters’ Association

Mind, Body & Spirit from the Retired Toronto Fire Fighters’ Association!

“Mind, body & spirit” (or mind, body & soul) creates the total sum of who we are. These three words are mentioned everywhere, especially in the commercial marketplace, where we are victims of constant advertising. These three words are also a big part of our everyday lives. Now, to write a “Mental Wellness” article specific to each of our members would be impossible, due to our diversity. Our members range in age and stages of retirement, and to cover them all would be an impossible task.

What we can do, is re-emphasize our role as another “go-to” source of information for questions that come up, requiring information you need to solve an issue, the same as you would have in the station when you were still working. Your RTFFA executive works hard at being a “referral agent,” much like our EAP and Peer Support Team colleagues. They are our first contact when dealing with issues relating to the mind and our mental well-being. Another good resource is all of the excellent articles here in Fire Watch, and specifically, in the Behind the Mask series.

We are also in various stages of physical wellness, some more acute than others. In dealing with our bodies, we refer to our medical establishment for help and management, and along with the involvement of our retiree network, we seem to manage whatever issues that are before us.

With respect to our soul and/or our spirits, we refer to those who are in our immediate network, be it formal or informal. We have many, many organizations related to the soul/spirit and, again, we have many members within and outside to whom we can make referrals.

Notice the thread here? There are basically two threads here and they have been mentioned in most articles written for our membership, “We” are here to help, and “We” can refer you to the right resource. It’s all about the size of the network and there’s also a pretty noticeable similarity here as well, relating to our former occupation. Why does the public call the Fire Service for events that aren’t readily apparent to be fire related? Because they know we will help them deal with the situation and can bring some of our crew expertise to the problem. See the similarity? That’s exactly what your greater network can do for each other. In closing, let us offer up one tool that might help in the navigation of information overload. We are all aware of the enormous amounts of information related to the pandemic. Much of it we find on social media. There’s no way to navigate all of it, but there is a way of dealing with it with respect to your mind, body and soul. Remember back to your first lesson on Incident Command! Remember the three levels: strategic, tactical, and task. Suppose you applied this to the hierarchy of our health infrastructure. Starting from the top, Canada’s Chief Officer of Health would be considered to be at the strategic level. The Province’s Chief Officer of Health would be considered to be at the tactical level and the city’s Chief Officer of Health would be at the task level. Fire Chief Pegg would be at this level coordinating the Office of Emergency Management at Site Command. I can feel you rolling your eyes! Think about this! First, it would triage out all of the chatter from the social media and it would stream to you all the information that could be prescriptive. Plus, the important part, remember back to an incident when you weren’t thrilled about who occupied the Command Post, but knew that the job still had to be done, and you did it. Relate it to this scenario. You may not like them, but they are in charge. Use this tool for any challenge faced, when the information flow is overwhelming.

We hope that the light at the end of the vaccination tunnel will lead to us getting back on track with our yearly meetings. In the meantime, we continue to hold our weekly Coffee Zoom events for those who wish to chat. Those details have been mailed out. As of our last count we have just over 300 members and are still growing. In future issues of Fire Watch, we will continue to keep all of you updated on our progress.

Our membership drive is continuous; if you’re interested in becoming a member, feel free to contact us at active. retired@torontofirefighters.org. The dues ($25.00) are payable annually on the 1st of May.

Come join us, and remember to follow us on social media: On the Web - https://www.retiredtorontofirefighters.org/ On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/TFSRetirees On Twitter - @TFSRetirees

Be Well and Stay Safe.