Tending the Hearth Fire: Self-care for Your Spirit

  • October 24, 2026
  • 1:00pm-2:50pm
  • FESTI -- 2025 Courtneypark Dr East, Mississauga, ON L5T 1J3

Facilitated by DiAnna Ritola

Back to Conference

All the HOT classes, the drills, the books you read, and the training you receive help you to stay safe, aware, and functional on the fire ground or in the fire house. But what happens when you go home and you carry the weight of what you have seen and heard with you? You cannot just leave work at work in this field. Being fully human on the job means acknowledging and addressing the stress, pain, triumph, and tragedies when you're off work. This workshop will give practical tools for body, mind, and soul, to integrate your work-self and your not-work-self to continue the journey of your Best Self.

DiAnna Ritola

DiAnna Ritola is an Interfaith Minister, counselor, educator, and healer who has been fire-service-adjacent for nearly a decade as the partner of a fire officer with the FDNY. She works primarily in women’s trauma and healing using a range of modalities centered in somatic therapies, honest communication, and the power of relationship to repair the cracks and wounds that life brings. She believes, like the Japanese art of kintsugi, we are stronger when we let our broken and repaired parts shine through.