Emotional Awareness for First Responders: A Conversation with Mike Sears, Fire Captain

How do we begin to trust ourselves when life demands we suppress our emotions? This question is at the heart of my conversation with Mike Sears, a Halifax Fire Captain, peer support advocate, and founder of Fight4Life. A firefighter for over two decades, Mike shares his journey of reconnecting with his body after emotional numbness, offering profound lessons in trust, healing, and transformation.

On Embodied, Mike talks about navigating the intense demands of firefighting, where vulnerability often takes a backseat to survival. After a breaking point left him physically and emotionally drained, he attended the BC Firefighter Resiliency Program, where he processed years of stored trauma and rediscovered what he calls a sense of “body calm.”

In our conversation, we explore:

  • How suppressed emotions manifest in the body as physical symptoms.
  • The courage it takes to step back and prioritize healing.
  • Why vulnerability can be a profound strength, even in high-stakes...
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Let Your Fire Awaken You to Who You Truly Are

In 2008 I was about to lead my very first weekend workshop, a long-held dream come true. The week before the event I was incredibly nervous to the point of being ready to cancel. To say I was frustrated with myself would be an understatement.
 
I called Laura Kealoha, my Kahuna on Kauai, and she gave me a simple yet brilliant piece of advice that has stayed with me ever since:
“Have you considered that this feeling you are having might actually be excitement, but it just feels different? Focus your anxiousness into a concrete action toward your goal, just as you would with your enthusiasm. Use that nervous feeling and put it into taking care of the details of the retreat, making handouts, writing the schedule, whatever is left to do. That energy you feel is your fire and it wants and needs to be actualized.”
 
To reclaim your soul is to reclaim a force that is more powerful than anything else. This force is your fire, your light, your sun. It has...
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