First Responders Day
Can you truly give back to your community without leaving a piece of yourself in the ashes?
As a psychologist, I spend my days sitting across from people as they sift through the different experiences of their lives. Trauma, grief, anxiety, the quiet, smouldering fires no one else can see. I listen, I hold space, I guide. And then, when the office lights go off and the converse come off (yes, therapists wear converse too), I swap the blazer for a uniform, tie my hair back, and prepare to face fires of a different kind.
You see, I’m also a volunteer firefighter.
Most people do a double take when they find out. “You do both?” they ask, as though psychology and firefighting exist in entirely separate universes. But to me, they’re two sides of the same coin. One is about sitting still in someone’s storm. The other? Running headfirst into it.
There’s something undeniably humbling about serving your community in these ways. Whether it’s helping a family evacuate a burning home or helping a teenager confront the flames of self-doubt, it all comes down to one thing: presence. Being there. Not to fix, not to heroically rescue, but to stand beside people when they’re scared, unsure, and at their most human.
Some days, I wonder if giving back is really just our way of giving forward, to the kid we used to be, to the community that shaped us, to the world we still hope can be better. And maybe, just maybe, when we offer ourselves to something bigger, whether it’s a fire crew or a therapy room, we end up finding parts of ourselves we didn’t know we’d lost.
It’s not always clean. Sometimes, giving back means sweat, smoke, and the emotional weight of stories that linger long after the session ends or the flames die down. But it also means connection. And in a world that so often pulls us apart, connection is everything.
So maybe the question isn’t whether you get burnt when you give.
Maybe the real question is: what kind of fire are you willing to carry for the people around you?
Because as it turns out, some fires aren’t meant to be extinguished.
They’re meant to ignite purpose.
