Beneath The Helmet Show - Firefighter Wellness & Mental Health (mind-body-spirit) · Arjuna George

Firefighter Burnout and Recovery: Brad Robinson on Healing, Nervous System Regulation, and Life After the Fire Service

·1 hr 4 min·4 clips

Brad Robinson says a diagnosis is useful, but “that’s not a hard line” or “the end of your story.”

Arjuna George welcomes Brad Robinson to season four and episode 104. Brad arrives with a wide background: former Team Canada baseball player, retired fire service lieutenant, owner of The Complete Athlete, and mental performance coach. The conversation starts simply, with Arjuna asking who Brad is, what pulled him into the fire service, and how he came to leave it behind. Brad answers directly. He talks through the fire service, the path that led him there, and the exit that followed later. The pace stays steady and unforced. Brad and Arjuna keep coming back to recovery, diagnosis, and what it means to keep living after a hard career has already left its mark. WorkSafe comes up. Brad says WorkSafe gave him a permanent disability for post-traumatic stress disorder, and that decision pushed him to rethink the rest of his life. He does not leave it there. He says diagnosis can help, but it is not a wall or the final word. That opens the door to nervous-system language. Brad and Arjuna talk about naming emotions to settle them, and Brad explains that if he had admitted he was angry instead of holding it in, his body might have had a different response. The conversation turns more personal. Arjuna brings back Brad's comment about feeling safer at work than going home, and Brad says that experience is common among the firefighters and first responders he works with now. He keeps it practical. He describes how those same themes show up in his current work, where he helps firefighters and other clients carrying similar strain in different forms. The tone stays grounded and human, moving between shop talk, recovery language, and the plain questions that follow trauma: what happened, what changed, and what helps now.

As heard by us

A plainspoken look at PTSD, a WorkSafe disability ruling, and the hard work of healing after the fire service.

Brad Robinson's story sits with the cost the fire service can leave behind once the alarms fade: PTSD, a WorkSafe permanent disability ruling, and the slower task of building a life outside the job.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a plainspoken conversation about leaving the fire service, start here.

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