Sheepdog Tip of the Day, Before Combat tip 179
In religious rituals, the sound of the organ music, the lighting of candles, and the invocations of the celebrant are subconscious triggers that tell your brain that something special is going on. Those triggers are imbued with sacred meanings that are supposed to cause your mind to focus and set aside unimportant thoughts. That initial dispatch should be the same thing. That should be the trigger that shuts off your thoughts about the fight you had with your spouse, about how your kid is doing in school, and even worrying about your parent who is dying in a hospital bed. You can come back to those thoughts later. They are important, but they are completely irrelevant right now. Why? We have a sacred duty to protect society. You must be 100% in the moment to fulfill that duty. The initial dispatch should trigger your mind to focus on the task at hand. Learning to do this can be challenging, of course. We all get consumed in our thoughts. Learning to flip a switch to shut out those other concerns will come only with practice.
Christopher Brennan, The Combat Position: Achieving Firefighter Readiness
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Additional Resources
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