Read the full transcript of retired firefighter Mitch Brooks’ talk titled “Don’t Let Your Stressful Day Become Your Family’s Nightmare” at TEDxGrandJunction 2025 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Pillow Fights and Family Fun
MITCH BROOKS: Anybody in here ever have a pillow fight with a four and a five year old? I used to do this all the time. My Emily with her curly hair and a pillow about twice her size, the weight of it would be pulling her over backwards.
I just had to tap her. She’d fall over, and I could tickle her belly. Her giggle was infectious. Her older sister, Lucy, would come and try and rescue her and pummel me from behind. So I’d snatch Lucy up.
I’d launch her onto the couch, and I’d tickle her. This would go back and forth for an hour, it seemed. Then the day I lost the pillow fight was the day that Lucy climbed up on the arm of the couch. Just before she pounced, I started talking smack. I said, “You want a piece of me, little girl?”
And she said, “No, old man. I want the whole thing.” I busted out laughing, and then she showed me her elbow, double tapped it, and went airborne. The kid almost landed an atomic elbow. I’m laughing so hard.
I almost dropped her. We go to ground. Emily finally gets the massive pillow over her head, lands one. I was laughing too hard to defend myself. That’s how I lost a pillow fight to a four and a five year old.
The Change
Unfortunately, though, those times didn’t last. By the time my youngest daughter, Katie, was born and she reached the age of five, I’d been on over 10,000 911 calls, and I changed. I’m a retired firefighter, and I was a paramedic for a SWAT team. And what I was experiencing during the day was coming home with me at night. I just didn’t see it happening.
My wife stood, though. I didn’t think I was tougher than anybody else. I didn’t think I was made of Teflon. I just truly believed that what I was experiencing had no effect on me. And I used to believe that it was you could trace it back to, like, one call. I thought that’s where you could go, yeah, that’s when I changed. But for me, it was different. For me, it was a long slow burn, and I had been running on autopilot until the day my wife asked me, “Why are you so angry?”
The question didn’t come out of the blue. I was cruising through the kitchen, socks on. I stepped on a half melted ice cube. Why wet sock made me so immediately, irrationally angry? I have no idea. But there I was, standing by the refrigerator, yelling, cursing, ripping the sock off my foot, rushed upstairs to get another pair.
I was on my way out the door when Michelle asked me, “Why are you so angry?” And before I had time to shrug it off, she threw the knockout punch. She said, “Mitch, you’re scary when you’re angry.” And that stopped me cold. I got no business being scary in my own home.
Michelle and the girls didn’t deserve it and I knew it. I just didn’t know what to do about it. So the next ten years of my life was spent trying to figure out what to do about it. But in that time, I did come far enough along that I started working at a national wellness center for first responders. I work with people like me.
And we have some truly unpleasant statistics that follow our professions. We die by suicide more frequently than we do line of duty death. Our rate of divorce and our rate of substance abuse is higher than the average. So it was at this place, this wellness center in Maryland, where I started to teach people, first responders, how to take themselves off of autopilot, how to alter their routine, and how to incorporate three tools that they could turn into healthy habits.
The Journey Begins
My journey was by no means smooth, and it wasn’t without setbacks. It started on a conversation with my peers and a mentor, and they said they were well, they recommended meditation and therapy, and I don’t want to do either. But Michelle had properly motivated me to do something. Again, I don’t want to be scary in my own home.
So I went and saw a therapist. I told him I have an anger issue. We started a conversation, and he turned it to the job quick. And for the next hour, I felt like the guy just grilled me about the job. And I was trying to tell him I’m here because I don’t want to be scary in my own house. At the end of an hour, he said, “I believe what we’re dealing with is PTSD.” And I thought to myself, yeah, well, I believe you just rubber stamped me with a one size fits all diagnosis because you know what I do for a living.
So I left. And I didn’t go back. I didn’t want to be labeled, and I felt that’s what just happened. I felt like I just got labeled. And as for meditation, well, I had a preconceived notion.
I thought it was for long haired dope smoking hippies. And as you can tell, I don’t fit that profile. So I, really, I was, like, not but I knew I had to do something. A buddy of mine gave me a book. It had a CD attached. I read the book. I did the meditation. I didn’t feel any different. I popped in the CD.
People started chanting, and I started laughing, and I shut it off. I know. I did have a couple of wins, though.
So continually talking to my peers, couple of guys pointed out that somebody are the anger that I had been harboring was absolutely from a resentment I had developed at work.
Once I accepted that, found forgiveness, there was some peace. I also kept dabbling in meditation, mostly because my mentor was relentless. He just kept sending me emails with the abstracts of these scientific studies that were done on the positive effects that meditation has on your mind and your body. But I wasn’t consistent, and I didn’t come far enough, fast enough.
The Wake-Up Call
Because there was a blowout fight in the house. I wasn’t even a catalyst for it. Not that that really matters. But when the dust settled, my youngest daughter looked at me and said, “Dad, I never really thought we’d be close, and I’m okay with that.” And she said it so matter of fact.
It’s crushing. And I go to have lunch with a very close friend of mine, and I’m telling him this. And he’s looking at me almost like in disbelief. He’s like “Brother, what are you doing? Why are you so concerned about a label? You got to let that shit go. You obviously still have the problem. Why don’t you just deal with the damn problem?”
And I thought, Yeah. Right on. So I went back to therapy. I unpacked everything that I had been carrying. And it didn’t take long once I got out of my own way.
And it was great. The only thing was is I was thinking how am I going to continue to unpack on a daily basis? Because as far as I’m concerned, the goal of therapy is to get to a point where you don’t need a therapist. And in order to do that, I was going to have to take myself off autopilot. So we came up with the checkup from the neck up.
The Checkup from the Neck Up
So after work, I’d hop in the truck. I’d become still. Pause. And just ask a couple of questions. How do I feel? What have I experienced? And if I found myself angry, resentful, or stressed out, I’d call a peer. I would deal with it before I got home. The key to this was self awareness.
So you hear me talk about peers and mentor and friends frequently through this. Well, they’re the ones that actually led me to peer support groups for first responders. I joined one first and later I ran one. Peer support is essential. Good social connection is necessary. According to the Harvard study of adult development, loneliness kills. Solid social connection, without it, significantly shortens your lifespan.
So now I have a couple of pieces of the puzzle. I got the checkup from the neck up with a little meditation, and I had my peers. I needed one more piece. That’s when I discovered Fur Therapy.
Fur Therapy
Now the way that I discovered it was a little different. It wasn’t with a clinician or with a real service dog. I’d like you to meet Louie. Yeah. So Louie’s nickname was the shagopotamus.
I wanted a bullmastiff or a rottweiler, but when you have three daughters, you get a dust mop with feet. My point here is this. It doesn’t matter what kind of dog. All you need is a lovable dog, and they can help you out.
And I mean that by this way. If you pet a dog for as little as ten minutes, it can actually drop your blood pressure. It can also reduce your stress by lowering your cortisol, and it may reduce the stress of the dog too, so everybody benefits. Show your dog a little love.
The Three Tools
So why these three things? Meditation, peer support, and mindful time with pets. Because all three can be done before you get home. And you can easily turn these things into habits. And according to Charles Duhigg in his book, “The Power of Habit,” the golden rule of habit change is to alter your routine.
So if your routine is normally you leave work, you’re stressed out, maybe you’re carrying a weight of a traumatic event, you hop into your truck and you mindlessly take that home and unwillingly unleash it upon your family, the adjustment I suggest is this.
When you hop in your truck, pause. Do the checkup from the neck up. Slide into a meditation. That will alter your routine enough to take you off autopilot. And if you find yourself angry or upset or stressed, you call a peer.
Now meditation is by no means a magic pill, but there have been enough studies that show that it may reduce your stress, it may improve sleep, it may decrease chronic pain, and it can enhance your self awareness. I have never met a first responder that doesn’t need all four of those. But you likely know this. But knowledge without action is completely useless. The key is to turn this into your default behavior.
Be honest. Become still. Are you angry? You’re stressed? Maybe you’re numb. Hell, maybe it was a good shift. Everything just went your way. It doesn’t matter. The actions are exactly the same. Pause. Meditate. Make a call to a peer. If it was a great shift, brag about the win. If it sucked, unload the loss. When you get home, spend a moment with the dog.
Get grounded before you go in the house. Once you unload what you’ve experienced during the day, it no longer has control over you. You can literally cross the threshold of your front door, the best version of yourself. This has been the experience of the people that I’ve shared this with that use it, and it’s been my experience.
The Results
So much so that my youngest daughter, she trusts me with her pride and joy. This is Brisket, the one eyed cat. My wife of 31 years still admits she loves me, even in public. If it wasn’t for Emily, there would be no pictures in this presentation. And Lucy still wishes she landed the elbow.
My story isn’t uncommon. Nobody can help you until you decide you need help. No one’s coming to rescue you if they don’t know you’re hurting. So if peers and meditation and pets don’t help, if you find yourself in a very dark place, if you know what gun oil tastes like or you can’t stop drinking, it’s time to talk to a therapist or come to a wellness center. But you got to do whatever it takes. Because at the end of the day, your stressful day should not turn into your family’s night.
