In this episode I talk about how the last week has been one of the darkest periods of time in recent memory. I was fired from my job as a paramedic for sharing publicly my views on first responder mental and physical health. Let's talk about how we can destroy darkness by shining our light brightly.
Mindfulness Medic
Into Darkness & Shining My Light
what's going on guys welcome back to the mindfulness medic podcast that a lot going on in my life over the last month went down to the aerial recovery groups disaster response training that was an incredible experience I can't wait to do a podcast in and of itself just that whole event that I got to attend and man given the incredible opportunity to actually teach and instruct the medical first responder and trauma treatment portion of the class which ended up being a five-hour block of instruction and man I tell you what that was so much fun because it put me back to my my roots and all of this I started in EMS education teaching EMT classes advanced EMT classes back in the day back when I first started in this career field so it was really cool to dip my toes back into that and really just kind of feel the passion that I had forgotten I had as far as you know teaching and instructing other people all of the things related to medical and trauma but I gotta I gotta talk about something else today and yeah not gonna lie the last week since this past Wednesday has been one of the darkest points in my life in recent history that I can remember anyone that's been following me on social media is well aware that I got fired yeah never thought that those words would really come out of my mouth ever when it came to being a paramedic I got fired I got fired from the hospital based EMS system that I worked for you know what I'm just gonna say who it was it was New London Hospital in New Hampshire part of the Dartmouth Hitchcock Health Organization and I was fired under the pretense of violating social media policy which we'll get into in a little bit but the real reason I was fired was because I offended a fellow co-worker or co-workers I know for certain there was one or two individuals involved in this there could have been more so again anyone who's been following me on social media knows that I advocate heavily for the physical and mental well-being of first responders I've done it since day one that was the impetus and the reason why I created the mindfulness medic in the first place was to talk about destigmatize normalize the conversation and transform the way we look at first responder mental health because that's what I struggled with for a really long time during my life in my career was suffering a lot of darkness a lot of hopelessness a lot of loneliness through various experiences in my career through bad calls through trauma coupled with traumatic experiences and adverse events throughout my life and my childhood suffering from PTSD and living in my victim's story if you guys have been listening you know my story by now one of nearly losing everything because of my inability to show up for myself and show up for my family show up for the people who depended on me and for the past year and nearly a half now I have been showing up on social media every day to spread messages of hope inspiration light and positivity the track record that I have established doing that is inarguable the proof is there all anyone has to do is go back to each and every single pieces of content that I've created and read the copy watch the video and tell me that I haven't been coming from a place of trying to rise people up I mean I'm surrounded right now by the designs that have been created to embody the principles and values of not only myself but mindfulness medic which is me which is part of my soul this design right here it's hard to point backwards on a camera this one right here you can't see that if you're listening to it but I just pointed to the triumph over darkness logo it's the logo of the the arm reaching above the sea drowning in the water for the light above and that shirt symbolized how important it is in our life to continually fight against that dark force in the world the the evil forces in the world that want to continually drag us down to the bottom to prevent us from living our purpose from shining our light from doing those things in life that we truly are meant to do and can continually fight against those forces and reach for the light above to triumph over darkness and that is the type of message that I have embodied with everything I do since day one so to get back to what happened I also advocate very heavily for physical health and that's where the triumph over darkness t-shirt comes from is my fitness pillar and again anyone familiar with mindfulness medic knows that my fitness pillar describes everything physical and mental because fitness is both the manifestation of the physical vessel that you live in but also the mental benefits that fitness gives you it's improving your mental health it's building mind body spirit resilience in order to allow you to better live a life of fulfillment and vitality so part of that is sharing my journey of struggling with being morbidly obese for a large percentage of my life I was at my heaviest 260 265 pounds somewhere in there morbidly obese and the thing is during that period of time that's when I was at rock bottom that's when I was the most depressed that was when I was the most hopeless that is when I struggled with those dark thoughts the most I also struggled with obesity throughout the majority of my childhood and young adulthood in through my teenage years I was made fun of and bullied a lot for being obese so I know a thing or two about what it's like to live like that and I also know a thing or two about what it is like to completely transform yourself because that's what I've been doing over the last couple years because I've realized through taking person account accountability for my situation and recognizing that known was coming to save me but me and that I needed to start showing up for myself and that included eating clean dieting exercising and losing that weight that when I started working out and exercising on a regular basis and doing those things that were building that mind body spirit resilience getting into cold water doing hard things getting outside getting the sunshine grounding myself with the earth that fitness pillar started to take form in my life and that's why I talk about it so much and part of that recently has been talking about how as first responders it's incumbent upon us to be completely 100% prepared to show up for someone else's worst day it's part of the promise we make to other people because when we show up for their worst day or the worst day of their family members their loved ones they're expecting us to be physically and mentally capable to do the job and recently I'd been talking a lot about first responder physical fitness standards in particular because it's a it's a it's an epidemic in our career of morbidly obese and severely overweight first responders and the fact that if you're not taking care of yourself physically you're not allowing yourself to enjoy the mental health benefits that come from improved physical fitness so I had made some reels and posted them on Instagram of myself getting my 10,000 steps in every day walking around the helipad and most of these reels the majority of them were spent talking about how to improve your mindset how to have gratitude in life how just getting outside and moving your body is the number one thing you can do to improve your mindset in your mental state and in one of those reels I said essentially the best medicine one can have is to get outside get some sunshine get your steps in and don't be fat and allegedly that was the real that got me fired so I got called into the office the other day on Wednesday my boss was there along with the HR guy from the hospital and I was told on the spot without any warning no verbal warning no written warning no performance improvement plan nothing that I was effective immediately I was terminated and done with my employment with New London Hospital EMS and yeah I was completely blindsided absolutely blindsided initially the HR guy tried to cite violation of social media policy which I could understand sure I had made some social media posts while on duty on the clock walking around the helipad but what I didn't understand when I pressed him for more information because he was acting so robotic and giving me such a robotic reply I just I needed to know more information so I pressed him like I do and he told me some information that he she shouldn't have told me because the HR people are supposed to stick to their script they're supposed to not divulge the information right and the information he divulged was that well the social media policy violation became an issue when we received a complaint from one of the members of your own department they found one of the reels that you had posted offensive and I said what do you mean offensive I explained how everything I've been doing for over a year now has been nothing but to advocate for the improvement of first responder and health care worker mental and physical well-being I didn't understand anyone on to explain how in one of the videos that I had posted I had used the word fat and that offended this particular co-workers feelings so they filed a complaint feeling like I was specifically talking about them and singling them out so that was that there was no arguing it there was no fighting it I was fired because I offended a fellow co-workers feelings because I used the word fat in one of my reels out of close to six hundred posts now over a year I used the word fat not directed towards anyone it was a very generalized usage of the word fat but also because I've called myself fat all the time because I used to be fat that's just how it is I post the pictures all the time to highlight who I used to be and who I'm becoming and I advocate against being the person that I used to be so essentially I got fired for advocating against being the thing that I used to be hopeless lost depressed in morbidly obese because that co-worker decided to take it personally they decided to be offended and then go above our boss and go straight to hospital admin so terminated on the spot without warning and talking to my boss because he walked me out to the car because I was trying to press him for more information and he kept saying well let me help you carry a bag out and I took that as my hint okay here's a bag let's carry it out to my car so I'm asking him and he tells me exactly who it was he told me exactly who it was who filed the complaint so not only did I get the real reason why I was terminated the social media policy was just used as as the boat to get me to shore because like we have a family friend who worked in HR in that same hospital and they told my wife the other day that members of the own their their own HR department posted on social media all the time and the worst that ever happened was a written warning if anything ever got out of hand so policies are are used only when they need to be leveraged to protect the company from something and unfortunately in today's society of complete and utter sensitivity over everything and the fact that if you are a particular type of person you're you're targeted by certain groups of people in this in this society that's just the way it is and I found myself on the receiving end of that the other day and after getting the name of the particular individual it was funny because it's somebody I had worked with for a long time it was somebody I worked with before I left for the fire department when I worked at the same hospital EMS department for eight years before and it was somebody who I had from my eyes helped quite a bit during the beginnings of their career and then I helped them and gave them advice all throughout medics school and then I was working with them again as I came back after the fire department and they were just a dark lonely miserable person to be with and I was a completely different person I had conversations with this individual in the weeks preceding this complaint being filed against me which lo and behold is very ironic how it happened that way but I had to tell this individual a couple times I'm here to have a good time I'm here to have fun I'm here to be positive and I cannot be around the negativity and the darkness that you're giving off I don't want to be part of the drama the gossip train and all of the other things that you were involved them and they exploded at me and they they went off on me and essentially told me that I was man splaining and had no right to tell them to be a certain way the whole thing was very illogical and very much just an emotional outburst directed at me which I know is just the manifestation of inner pain being projected outwards but I just find it funny that it's the same individual who filed the complaint against me that got me terminated was the same individual who sensed the beginning I had done nothing but try to help that none tried nothing but try to lift up to inspire and then recently had to tell them hey please dial back the darkness I need to protect my peace I need to operate at a particular higher energy in life so I was terminated from my employment because of that in that individual I don't even know if they realize it like putting my family's well-being safety and security and jeopardy because you decided to get offended over a word that wasn't even directed towards you because of your own insecurities and your own inner pain and trauma you decided that rather than come to me and have a discussion like two adults that you were going to go to admin knowing full well in today's society that if you use certain words and certain trigger mechanisms HR departments are going to drop people like flies because they don't want to deal with anything to do with diversity equality or inclusion you knew full well what you were doing and you had me terminated because of it to me that is one of the most vile toxic dark things you can do and it makes me sad that you consider yourself an EMS provider there to help other people to serve other people during their worst days and yet you display one of the most empathetically devoid things that I've experienced in my life so here I am recording the podcast about it here I am wondering what I'm gonna do what I know I'm gonna do is I'm not gonna dwell on this I'm not gonna let the darkness of this situation consume me because that is what I do I shine my light because that's the only way to destroy darkness in this world is to shine your light and I truly believe that most darkness goes far deeper than just a human level thing I believe the darkness the manifestation of the devil that's how he controls our lives it's how he destroys the fabric of our existence attacking our thoughts with our fears our self limiting beliefs self doubts he attacks us through other people through their words through their judgments through their declarations of who we are no matter how untrue or unjust those things may be the darkness attacks us through our own families through creating tension and arguments and stress the darkness is always constantly trying to attack us guys and that's why triumph over darkness has a whole new meeting to me now trying for darkness used to hold more of a personal meeting the inner darkness that's created within us but I've realized recently that the darkness isn't created within us it is placed there from far more sinister forces in the universe that darkness is placed there within us from outside darkness but all is not lost because how do you destroy darkness you need to shine your light brightly in the darker it gets them more brightly you need to shine and that's what I'm gonna continue to do so in the face of all of this adversity I'm going to triumph over that darkness I'm going to triple down on mindfulness medic and I'm just gonna continually add value wherever I can when things get hard look for ways to serve and that's what I do best because that's my purpose in life is to serve is to alleviate pain and suffering I have never once set out to purposefully make anyone feel bad about themselves I've never purposely gone out of my way to be disparaging or hurtful kind compassionate empathetic I've always been my go-to but don't be confused that does not mean weakness so what does this mean going forward for me as a paramedic I don't know that I do not know right now I'm just taking a little bit of time off to try to get my feet underneath me and figure out what is gonna happen because obviously financially yeah my family now has been put into a situation that is not very comfortable and being an entrepreneur still new only a year and some months and a half into it this isn't a pity party but anybody that's gone into entrepreneurship and business ownership knows that it doesn't happen overnight so there's that so we'll see I'm just gonna continually fight the good fight spread my message of hope and positivity and shine my light as brightly as I can the other thing I want to highlight just because I have been spreading and sharing this message on social media obviously because that's what I do a couple of the reals that I made regarding this topic went pretty viral compared to all of my other stuff you know for me the virility of that one reel it's gotten like 58,000 views at this point has man watching the social media algorithm at work because when you understand how it truly works and you can see it at play in real time it is fascinating how purposefully crafted it is to create dissension in a society because when the reel was first released I could see the pendulum swing that it was showing it to certain groups of people who would obviously agree with everything I was saying and they would be compassionate and empathetic towards my situation and I got an absolute massive tsunami wave of support like I'm talking bigger than anything else I've gotten on social media so far and then it was funny after that 24-hour period went by and then 48-hour period started to come in I started seeing the negativity creep in the darkness and by when I say negativity and darkness guys I'm talking about people making such crazy claims about me it was like it was so wild people calling me a right-wing extremist and I deserve it because I'm a trumper and oh I was body shaming and fat shaming I'm like you people have literally no idea who I am I'm the most apolitical person I know I don't believe in party politics I think half of it's a bunch of stage show BS this isn't about Trump or somebody who's in office this was about me trying to spread messages of positivity like be better hold yourself accountable don't be fat and I stand true to that statement till this day and I can say that because I used to be fat and miserable and depressed and spewing my toxic poison everywhere else so I'm allowed to use myself as the subject matter expert subject zero in my whole explanation but people calling me a right-wing extremist and that I was fat shaming and I deserved every every bit of getting fired it's like that's the most absurd thing ever and watching these comments come in has been absolutely fascinating to me just because developing a business and a brand and getting like a pretty pretty beginner to novice understanding of social media marketing and how social media works and understanding how the algorithm works now it's not random guys the algorithm is pretty benevolent right it doesn't care about one side over the other as much as it cares about just creating and generating engagement and churn and just getting that massive snowball turning of people just trying to bite each other's heads off because what does that create it creates eyeballs and views and what our views views our income and generating profit it's all there is to it so it's been interesting watching man the trolls have been galloping in like crazy and it reminds me of a couple things one guy told me you know you're becoming more and more successful the more hate you start receiving from the outside and another guy said you know you're approaching your target when you start taking the most flack when those flack guns start to fire at you from the ground and they start hitting your your aircraft you know you're approaching your target so yeah that's my life right now podcast a little bit disjointed a little bit a little bit all over the place so I apologize about that but that's kind of how my mind is right now I am just still a little bit trying to put the pieces back together and yeah the individuals that did this to me I know exactly who they are because I worked with them for I mean damn I was there for eight years before I left for the fire department and then back there for a few months and I know the exact individuals involved in this whole thing and I know that they're miserable inside they're full of a lot of pain and yeah they're morbidly obese and they have a lot of mental health issues so you might have won this little skirmish but I can guarantee you one thing I'm gonna rise above and I'm gonna keep shining my light and I'm gonna keep inspiring millions of people to improve their lives to take accountability and to build mind-body spirit resilience in their own life because everyone yes even you even the ones who tried to take everything away from me you deserve vitality and fulfillment and happiness and joy too because everybody does so that's what I am going to continue to do so in the time being if any of this resonates with you as always go to mindfulness medic.net go buy yourself a t-shirt or two all my designs incorporate my journey they are the physical representation of my healing and growth journey I also have a lot of time on my hands now so I'm looking to take on some coaching clients so if you're an individual out there in first responder or person of health care or even just anyone in a high-stress profession and you hear that inner voice calling you to do more in life and you don't know where to start because that's the most common comment I get in my DMs all the time is Jason everything you do is so inspirational I want to transform my life but I just don't know where to start if that's you I can help you because that's what I've been doing with my life for the last three to four years has been absolutely transforming everything about myself and I've developed systems and tools and methods and I've been putting them in place that are absolutely foolproof and they work I'm standing testament to my story of transformation all you have to do is look look and see and then let it speak for yourself are those the results you want in life do you want more clarity and focus are you overweight you want to lose some fat you want to get your mindset right you want to start serving yourself your family your community and all of those people that depend on you better do you want to start living your purpose if any of those questions are in your mind I can help you reach out to me at mindfulness medic.net or at any of my social medias the Jason Warren or mindfulness medic on Instagram Facebook or you can email me the mindfulness medic at gmail.com and let's get you situated let's get you in my coaching program let's get your life on the right path to transformation because you deserve it because you're good enough no matter what they say no matter what the anonymous zero followers zero following Instagram trolls say the ones who have one picture and it's usually the cat or a dog or some weird animal I never understood that the Russian and Chinese AI bots I tell you just decide no they're gone crazy on on Instagram just purely there to create cognitive dissonance and division but anyways I digress I hope you guys all have a fantastic week don't forget keep shining your light because the dark mirror and until next time stay mindful