May 21, 2024 • 43 mins
In this 5 part series host Andy Fermo chats with registered psychologist Stuart McKenzie where the theme is "Road 2 Resilience - Unleashing your inner strength".
Having met through a veteran telehealth service during COVID Stuart brought to light his work on refining the Map of Resilience and how people suffering grief, loss and mental health issues will at (many points) visit the places on the map.
In this episode the duo explore the emotional rollercoaster of relationship changes. Stu introduces the "resilience map" illustrating this journey, emphasising that while anticipated changes can be navigated smoothly, unexpected ones can lead to emotional turmoil.
They stress the importance of acknowledging and expressing emotions, outlining steps for effective management: acknowledgment, expression, and acceptance. Avoiding emotions can lead to numbness or prolonged anger.
The recovery phase, symbolised by a "forest of hope," allows for rest and energy renewal. The hosts highlight the significance of emotional resilience and invite listeners to the next episode on maintaining emotional well-being in relationships.
Key Takeaways from their chat:
1. Acknowledge emotions to begin the healing process.
2. Expressing emotions is crucial for emotional movement and healing.
3. Accepting emotions helps in managing and overcoming them effectively.
4. Avoidance of emotions can lead to emotional numbness.
5. Navigating intense emotions involves acknowledging, expressing, and accepting them.
6. Emotional resilience is built through the continuous process of managing emotions.
7. The "forest of hope" phase is essential for energy recovery and regaining strength.
8. Sudden, unforeseen changes can lead to severe emotional distress and require careful navigation.
9. Anger can often be a projection of deeper, unacknowledged pain.
10. Emotional well-being in relationships requires ongoing effort and self-awareness.
Contact - Stuart McKenzie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/singlesessionpsychology
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/road2resilience.com.au
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SingleSessionPsychology-sl8tx
Website: https://www.road2resilience.com.au/
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"RESPECT, NO POLITICS, WE'RE VOLUNTEERS"
Disclaimer: The accounts and stories are "Real lived experiences" of our guests some of the content may trigger Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) symptoms in some of our audience. Feedback regarding other organisations, courses and initiatives remains largely unsensored. Whether its good or bad they remain the OPINION of our guests and their experiences it is important in building an accurate statistic on what really happens.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Claire Fermo (00:04):
Welcome to invisible injuries podcast,
aimed at bettering the wellbeing and mental health,
veterans, first responders intheir immediate support
experiencing post traumaticstress. By sharing the stories
of the lived experiences of ourpeers, or support staff and the
clinicians, it's our aim to makesure we can have a meaningful
(00:27):
connection with our audience,and give them the ideas for
their own self care plan. If youdo like what you're hearing,
subscribe to the channel andshare it with your friends.
Lastly, these stories may be atrigger for your post traumatic
stress. If your PTSD istriggered, we have links to
(00:48):
support in the description. Orif it's immediate, please call
lifeline on 1311 14. Here's yourhost, Andy fermo. G'day,
Andy Fermo (01:01):
everyone, your with your host, Andy, and in line
with our season five podcastthemes is that this year, we are
doing themes and running off theback of flip the script. I'm
here today with Stuart McKenzie,registered psychologist and the
author of unleash your innerstrength. So understanding grief
(01:24):
and loss, disarming trauma andbuilding the skills of
resilience. And he has this map,right, it's called the map of
resilience. And so this seriesis we're going to be unpacking
his map of resilience, andtalking about that over several
episodes, to be able to give youa sense of what happens when
(01:45):
people go from you know,suffering grief, or having some
mental health issues to how theydo it, and how you can manage
it. And then also, if, if ithappens, and it may happen, and
it is very likely to happen isfalling back. But then how do
you pick yourself up to be ableto move on? Thank you so much
for joining us on the podcastyou.
Stu McKenzie (02:06):
Thank you. It's it's a thrill to be here. My
first podcast. Yes, I'm apodcast virgin. Oh,
Andy Fermo (02:13):
oh, there's a cherry right there. And we've had to
you know, we've had a bit of achat before we hit record. And
you know, he's nice and relaxed.
Now we're here at the hen housestudios, it's always nice to get
something Riley pro with therecordings and only for you,
mate. Right. So I'll give ouraudience a little bit of a
background on how we met. Andbefore we go into your story,
(02:34):
which are so how us do and Imet, it was recently we just
moved to Perth after our PTSDnational awareness campaign. And
we decided that we were going tobe relocating to our hometown
here in Perth. At that time, itwas kind of at the tail end of
COVID. But what was really agreat thing that came out of
(02:55):
COVID, not many things, but oneof the great things was the
whole thing of concept oftelehealth, and enabling because
of that separation, us to beable to provide some care to to
help seekers via usingtechnology. So I met Stu when he
was working in telehealth, andhe was working in particular
(03:18):
with a lot of veterans at thetime, besides the wider
community. And what reallypiqued me was when we when we
chatted and connected was washis insights into you know, what
was happening with the veteranin that veteran space. So here
we are 18 months later, it'staken Stu that amount of time
(03:39):
to, to really start refiningwhat it is, with the map of
resilience. I really liked thename that you've got for it now
as well. I'm pretty sure in astring leashing the you know, I
love those buzzwords, right. Wewill also be providing a copy of
the map and then a morecomprehensive a copy of the
ebook on the podcastdescription. So thank you very
(04:02):
much to for that. And that's howwe met. So here 18 months later
local good things it takes timeto be able to work on it. And 18
months later, we're here atunleashing your inner strength.
So
Stu McKenzie (04:16):
and we're flipping the script, because now you're
the one asking the questions,not me. But that's
Andy Fermo (04:22):
exactly and so I'm guiding the conversation today
and driving which is really justexciting to be able to have Stu
here in the studio to share hisinsights and knowledge. Okay,
Stu, so, you know, if you couldshare with the audience, a
little bit about yourbackground.
Stu McKenzie (04:38):
So I just wanted to make one point in relation to
COVID which you said not manygood things came out of COVID me
connecting with you was goodthing. But the other good thing
that came out of COVID was thisawareness of the importance of
mental health and well being. Sothe particularly well being So I
(05:00):
work for the Department ofEducation, actually four days a
week and one day a week, I workprivately in telehealth and the
Department released at the endof 2023, a wellness strategy for
their staff, for staff and forprincipals. And I went back and
I thought, I wonder what thewellness strategy was before,
before this one. And you know,there wasn't one, there wasn't
(05:24):
one. No, they were aboutcompetency of staff and building
the skills of staff. And, and soit was COVID that actually
raised our consciousness of theimportance of wellness, or one
might say, mental fitness, inthe same way that we think about
our physical fitness, it'simportant that we also invest
(05:45):
time into our mental fitness.
Yes. So that's the first thing.
Yes. And so over the last twoyears I've worked with at
Veterans. And for some of thoseveterans, I've worked with them
for that whole two years. Soweekly calls, so some around 120
calls, which has been amazingwork. But about me personally,
(06:09):
yeah, that's
Andy Fermo (06:09):
your firstly, what's your story, like, you know, sort
of because you did in your bookand in our conversations that
we've had before, and you'll seethis audience when you want to
have a look and sign up for the,for the for the ebook, Stu goes
into his story, but you know,sort of, can you share a little
bit more about what you'vewritten in that sort of forward
with your own person?
Stu McKenzie (06:30):
Do I want me to go back to 1969?
Andy Fermo (06:34):
We can, we can rewind it look, I step onto my
casting couch. And I'm puttingmy feet up on the table. Now, if
you see. They put man on themoon, I think a
Stu McKenzie (06:47):
couple of months after all. But look, I grew up
in at the age of three, my daddecided to become a minister of
religion. And so we packed upour our lives in Western
Australia and moved over toSydney to just out of Sydney,
between Sydney and Newcastle, aplace called Durham bond. So I
grew up in I quite a cultish onemight say.
Andy Fermo (07:10):
But yes, almost all my other brethren around that
way. Yeah.
Stu McKenzie (07:14):
Well, and so that left me with kind of some fairly
concrete, black and white viewsof the world. Oh, yes, if you
know what I mean. And then at17, my folks pulled out of that,
and we moved back to WesternAustralia. And they
interestingly, from ourconversation, they dad, he left
(07:35):
being a minister and he bought aDJ company. So I went to
university at MurdochUniversity, and, and during
that, that time, I really, I wasreally challenged with these
kind of naive, simplisticreligious, foundational beliefs
(07:56):
that I had, but I'd been raisedin and, and really, it was my
fourth year of uni, studying myBachelor of psychology. Yeah, my
last year, where I think whathappened was my beliefs sort of
shattered. And beliefs arestrong aspects of your
(08:20):
personality people, strap bombsto themselves, and blow
themselves up for their beliefs.
So don't underestimate howbeliefs hold your psyche
together. Yes. And so I foundmyself I found myself spiralling
out of control a little bit outof a loss of meaning and
purpose, right. Yeah. And Ieventually found myself in Heath
(08:44):
cope. I had a psychotic episode.
And I was in there for sixweeks. And that was at the age
of 23. And, and I suppose I tellyou that story, because it sort
of sets the scene for my for mypassion and my interest in this
(09:04):
work, because it kind ofshattered my self belief.
Andy Fermo (09:09):
Can I Can I ask you on that one there. So from what
you were saying before, and if Iwas hearing correctly, so you
said that with with, you know,you asking more questions about
these beliefs that had beenraised, and then that's what you
knew. That was your world interms of, you know, key values
and what was, you know, blackand white, all of a sudden,
(09:31):
questioning those and not seeingwhether you actually fully
believed in them yourself whenyou can make those choices? How
was that? How was that affectingyou on a daily? Well, I
Stu McKenzie (09:42):
just remember at one point asking a respected
lecturer. Do you really believein evolution, you know, that we
weren't created that we'veevolved from monkeys and you
know, like, I just rememberthat. I remember that It's
really, because I had this suchstrong belief in creation story,
(10:04):
you know? And I think that, youknow, that was a big part of it.
So to answer your question, Ikind of went off the rails a
little bit.
And as I said to you, I justsort of it shattered me in some
(10:25):
respects it sort ofdisintegrated those axiomatic
presuppositions, which is a veryJordan Peterson word. Those are
those foundational pieces of mypsyche. Yes, yeah. And so, in
some respects, I lost touch withreality and spiralled out of
Yeah. And that's a great,that's, that's a story for
(10:46):
another. Another episode.
Andy Fermo (10:48):
I think that might be part of the journey that you
needed to do at that time,though, isn't it? Well,
Stu McKenzie (10:51):
when you look back, I mean, I think part of
the journey of of traumaticevents and grief and loss is
looking back on them, andfinding meaning in them. Yeah,
yeah. And I think for me, it wasabsolutely a meaningful
foundation for me to buildbecoming a psychologist on, but
also the challenge for me arounddealing with depression,
(11:19):
anxiety, and panic attacks.
Because I couldn't trust myselfanymore. I was so wrong, that I
was locked away from society.
And so when I came back into thethe world after that, I would
judge how well I was doing inthe eyes of everyone around me,
I lost that ability to beconfident in my own self. And
(11:44):
that's what I mean by lost selfbelief. Yes. Okay. So I've been
on this journey of regainingthat self belief, and also on a
journey of, of knowing what apanic attack is, like, knowing
how much it shatters you for theweeks that follow it, knowing
what low leaving with low with,with anxiety that goes up and
down, and just sort of a senseof the Black Dog visiting you.
(12:09):
Yes, every now and then. And Ican say I've, you know, I can
say at 55. After that happenedto me at 23. That it's been it's
been a lifelong journey of it'smore than recovery, of learning
of growing up writing meaning,and now I just, you know, I
wasn't able to tell that storyto anybody for years. 20 years,
(12:33):
30 years, because I still, itjust made my heart. Yeah. Yeah,
Andy Fermo (12:37):
we're in thanks for sharing, you know, such an
intimate part of your story andyour background. And it really
sets the tone and I don't wantto, I don't want to be
uncovering, you know, openingOld Wounds do so just stop me if
if this is out of line, but youdidn't mention before, like, you
know, you had you had gone offthe rails, whatever that would
have entailed. But when youthere was something that was
(12:59):
really in particular andimportant when you said I, you
know, you were understandingwhat, you know, what anxiety
was, was, you know, you know,what was and all those other
things that were happening toyou, when, when you were in that
state? Yes. What was that point?
Or where were you at in terms oflike, you know, stuff that you
were doing daily, where you wentfar out? I need to make a
change, or I need to be to go tosomewhere to heat coat for six
(13:21):
weeks. You know, what? Well, Ididn't have any choice there.
That's what's called a section.
A section you get sectioned?
Yes, yeah. Which means the placepick all right, okay. So that
wasn't a choice from the casino.
Right. And so that wasn't bychoice. So so some of the things
(13:41):
when you're in there in that sixweeks, that transformation, or
transformative process
Stu McKenzie (13:47):
wasn't transformative for me at the
time. What slowed me down was, Iwas in the locked ward, and I
jumped the fence and, and threetimes I jumped the fence and ran
trying to escape because Icouldn't believe that done it to
me. Chuck, yeah, that's right.
And on the third time, so peoplein white coats would chase me
(14:07):
down, you know, I'd be ahead ofthem. I'd be hiding in a toilet
up on the toilet. So my feetwere up, but they don't always
bring me back. And then the lasttime I jumped the fence, I broke
my ankle. And that's really whatslowed me down out of that
psychotic episode. Yeah. Andthen then I'd got very, very
skinny very, yet lost a lot ofweight. And then in that six
(14:30):
week, I put a lot of weight backon and a year and really, I
buried that deeply for years.
And to get to the point now, andit's about time that I got to
the point to be able to be ableto talk about it. It's a part of
(14:51):
my life. It's powerful. Yeah.
And and I'd like to share, youknow, just, I think I've
learned, I've learned a lot.
Yes.
Andy Fermo (14:59):
And that's That's where it was, you know, and I'm
not going to press on thatlittle bit more, because, you
know, I can tell I can, I can, Ican feel your sadness. Just
talking about it, even thoughyou've, you've had that courage
to be able to speak about it. Soopenly, even this morning, yeah,
many years later a lifetimelater, basically, at age is
really powerful. And, you know,audience out there it is a, it
(15:20):
is a slow process that takestime, it's not going to happen
like yesterday. And so that sortof goes with this is where he
was, which, which gave you thatmotivation to do what you're
doing now. And so
Stu McKenzie (15:33):
I think to actually, you know, I ran into
this map of it was it wasoriginally called the map of
grief and loss, and it was in itwas in the year 2000. Actually,
I was in London, and thedeveloper of that map is a
clinical psychologist by thename of Rosalind Schneider. So I
have to give Rosalind Schneidercredit, she's a Western
(15:54):
Australian clinical psychologistwho developed the original map
of loss. So she was the one thatcoined the various areas like
the relationship highway, theswamp of feelings. And what I've
done is I've just have built onher foundation of work. And I've
realised that people don't wantto speak about grief and loss
(16:16):
unless they're going through aparticular grief and loss
moment, right. So it's at thetime, yeah, that then otherwise,
they don't want to go anywherenear it, because they don't want
to be unzipped. They don't wantto have all of that stuff. We're
talking about that just before,right? So in terms of proactive
preventative work, it needed forme it needed to be framed as
(16:37):
resilience. Because people arehappy to talk about resilience,
yes, but what we don't, what wewhat we're learning is that
resilience and grief and lossare two sides of the same coin.
Because in essence, you don'tneed resilience, until you've
been whacked. Until somethinghas come along and bowled you
over till you've had somethingthat you have to be resilient
(16:59):
for. Yes, that's when resiliencereally pays off. What we're
learning now is you're not bornwith a character trait of
resilience, although some peopleare, it obviously factors in bio
psycho psycho social model. Butwe can build those skills of
resilience. Like I think areally good example in schools
(17:19):
are all anywhere. You know, wedo fire drills in case there's a
fire. Yes. So people, we musthave people, this is where you
go, this is what you do. But,but do we do fire drills of
hope? Do we teach people aboutgrief and loss? And then it's
gonna come and knock them over?
Do we teach them about theskills of managing that when
it's such an inevitable life?
(17:40):
event? It's going to happen toall of us, it's going to come
and knock at our doors. It will.
And do we do that in schools? Dowe do that with our youth? Do we
have conversations like this in?
We die? No, we don't. Becausesomehow it's a taboo. People
don't want to be opened up toowide.
Andy Fermo (18:00):
Yeah. Oh, yes. 100%, there's that as well as the
zipper that you talked about?
Let's not open that can ofworms. But the other part,
though, as well, I think is isis it makes the when when the
the whack happens, and it knocksyou on your ass, right? And
you're down, you're down for thecount. All, you know, if you're
in the weeds, and what happensis, you have to have to do
(18:23):
double the work because thenyou're trying to find out what's
the processes of how to findthis, educate myself on a way
that's going to work and bemeaningful for me that I connect
with to be able to deal withthis. Yes. Right. And that's the
that's the big one, you kind ofdelta, you're
Stu McKenzie (18:41):
trying to pull yourself up to the surface of
the swamp of feelings, and atthe same time trying to learn
the skills to swim right throughsomething that you haven't swam
through a sink
Andy Fermo (18:50):
or swim or Yeah, it was a case
Stu McKenzie (18:53):
over I suppose I want to make the point that the
event is not traumatic, becausetwo people can have the same
event. Yeah. And some one personcan be okay. And another person
can be traumatised by thatevent. And that event can be
simple. Yeah, it can be a simpleone, it can be a complex event.
Or it can be a cumulative event.
So a simple event, if you likeis a car accident, a complex
(19:17):
event, if you like is what wewould call developmental trauma.
So that's been raised in aneglect, you know, that's the
trauma that happens from thepeople that you should be able
to love and trice right, thatyou somehow abused so role
models, people that or whatever,I should be able to trust you
(19:37):
but that trust has beenviolated. So that's what makes
that complex. And thencumulative trauma is where we
kind of have been in the swampor have been swamped have been,
but don't don't kind of realisewhen we got there, because it
kind of has happened. It'shappened from a series of
different events that havehappened in different places.
(19:58):
All aspects of our lives. Yes.
Andy Fermo (20:02):
And that's, that's, that's interesting that you that
you've, you've managed to beyou've really sort of been
insightful into in the way thatyou've explained the different,
you know, an event. And thenyou've got the traumatic events
where it might be, you know,sort of, even though the say the
word of simple isn't actuallysimilar, but like, I mean, in
terms of categorised singleevent, like a single singular
(20:23):
event. Yeah, in terms of that'swhen this part was. But then
when you meant complex, there'sother factors that are involved
that develop that trauma. Andthen what was the third one,
again, is cumulative cumulativeover time. Yeah. And then so
each one can almost be also howveterans would experience, you
know, say, it could be anyone,and might start off with one,
(20:48):
but then those effects and lifehappens where it might become a
complex trauma. And then theymight be at a certain bit where
it then gets triggered, and thenthat cumulative effect, has take
comes into account. And it'sstill still classed overall as a
big umbrella of trauma, but youhave them almost be might be
different phases. Based on whatyou were just sort of saying
(21:10):
then, yeah, on a timeline oflife, that's, you know, we all
go through different phases. AndI think that that trauma might
be the underlying factor, yield,loss,
Stu McKenzie (21:20):
I mean, loss, and when we get into relationship
highway, we will understand thatwe have our relationships
constantly change. And withchange comes loss. It doesn't
even have to be trauma, it'sjust life.
Andy Fermo (21:33):
Yeah, we'll pull up the handbrake and you're trying
to unpack there, you go intochapter seven. Awesome. And so
when you when you discoveredthis and sort of wanted to be
able to build on it, Stu, youknow, sort of what was it?
There, you know, where you'redoing any sort of studies at the
(21:53):
time, that sort of piqued whereyou wanted to go with, with the
map.
Stu McKenzie (21:58):
So the first time I bumped into it was, as I said,
I was living in London, and Isaw the book, it was called
Journey to the centre of yourlife by Russell Snyder, a simple
book that that contained thatfirst map of grief and loss. And
I use that I use that in mywork, I use that for myself, it
started to frame the way that Iwas thinking, yeah, and then
then I started to work on it,and started to evolve the
(22:22):
concept, and move it towardsresilience. And I've been
really, I've been working onthis on and off for really
seven, seven to 10 years, Isuppose. So I feel like I've
because I do tend to have burstsof focus and attention, hyper
focus, yeah, I might say, andthen leave something and then my
(22:43):
focus has to shift to otherprojects. Come back, of course.
Andy Fermo (22:46):
And I think that that's a good way to be able to
have that workflow, especiallywhen it's something like this,
you don't want to be you don'twant to be in the pain, like
sort of, when you've got youknow, in the pain for so, so
long you kind of go it starts toaffect other parts. Like let's
just take a little pick it up,put it down. Yeah, and then only
and undo to two litres, so tospeak. So just to wrap up the
stew in terms of your story andwhere it is. And this will be in
(23:08):
the in your ebook, where youwhere you chat about this. If I
may kindly ask you, you do havea little bit of a story, which
is kind of like more of like apoem that you've written. So can
you sort of speak to how can Iread it? Yeah, I would ask you
very much. Yeah, absolutely. Andthat's why I was that was what I
was about to ask if you read mymind. If you could me, I know
Stu McKenzie (23:32):
I do not have I know it's been a problem for
over half my life, falling hardoff that broken bridge and
running into strife. I hit thewater hard or did I hit the
water fast, sinking down intothose murky depths? How long
would this thing last? If Sallyknocked out my front teeth it
did. ruining my winning smile.
How can I learn to trust myselfto run a healthy mile, something
(23:56):
got trapped in me like an icydaggers sting. From time to time
it haunted me with the memoriesthat would bring up and down
I've travelled life, throughmountains and through Dales. It
took a lot of energy to dropaway the scales. Now I'm back.
I've learned a lot hard won onthe trail. I can see more
(24:19):
clearly now. I'm not so scaredto fail. Time is in the telling.
And stories. I've got a few. Ifyou care to take the time I'll
tell some of them to you. Iain't scared no more. You can
think what you like. It's goingto take a whole lot more to give
me such a fright. Thanks forlistening to my tale. I hope
(24:41):
that you can see somethingshared between us the way that
life can be. We've all gotreasons to be scared,
overwhelmed by big emotions,swimming through that big old
swamp as deep and wide asoceans. Remember that we've got
the strength from swimming therebefore. Now we know the
territory. Adventurers will wantmore.
Andy Fermo (25:06):
Wow, thanks for sharing that stew. So now let's
go into a bit of an overview ofthe resilience map before we
start unpacking it in the nextepisode. So the map of
resilience, what does it entailnight? And the overview of that?
So,
Stu McKenzie (25:22):
last doesn't come with a map. But this is this is
this is a go at a psychologicalmap of life. Yeah. And again,
credit to Rosalind Snyder. Yeah,for her creative work in this
space. But it begins withrelationship highway, so we walk
down relationship highway wehave relationships with, with
(25:44):
other people, that's an obviousone. Yeah, wives, their
children, our parents, ourfriends. And those
relationships, you know, we canget divorced, we can have death,
we can realise that a friend hasbeen toxic in our lives. And we
can in that friendship, becauseit's not been it's not energy
vampires, you might say. But wehave relationships with things,
(26:07):
we have relationships withnonliving things like our
gardens, or sorry, living livingthings like our veggie garden,
life, the environment, peoplebecome activists, because of
their relationships with livingthings, yes, the, you know,
saving the environment chainingthemselves to a tree, whatever,
then we have relationships withnonliving things. And yeah,
(26:28):
that's a material part of theworld. But it's our houses and
our cars and our sports car, andboats. If you're lucky enough to
have such things, people haverelationships with those.
However, even more importantly,we have relationships with
ourselves, our own thoughts, ourfeelings, our bodies, our
expectations, our dreams. So Sotrauma can come from losing a
(26:52):
dream or lost vision of thefuture. And we have a
relationship with somethingbigger than ourselves
spirituality. So relationship isa complex
Andy Fermo (27:02):
way. And that's that there's a few levels that you've
just spoken about. So manydifferent levels isn't there
that we can be working on, youknow, on one time, or multiple
things, multiple things mighthappen during that relationship.
Stu McKenzie (27:16):
Inevitably, guys, relationships change. And with
that change comes loss. Most ofthe time that loss doesn't lead
to grief, we just we just walkthrough the swamp as if it's a
puddle. Yeah. And becausebecause if we have agency in the
change, it doesn't affect us,because we're the ones sometimes
we're the ones making thedecision to change. And
Andy Fermo (27:36):
then so we move on from that bit before we it's
tricky. To get there. As
Stu McKenzie (27:42):
I said, it's it's a simple map in some respects.
But yes, it's highly complex inothers. So of course, it will be
true to the overview, and wewon't, we won't go
Andy Fermo (27:51):
we'll unpack that in a bit. Because I know, right,
because that's the thing whenyou and I can just, I can feel
the passion just oozing out ofstew at this moment. Because he
wants to be able to share thisright. And I think when you when
you when you when you'reeducating people or, or sharing
these things that you're sopassionate about, the hard part
is to go okay, well, where's thebit where I need to go? This?
(28:11):
Yeah, my, for this section, am Ioverloading the word so just
five minutes, I would just Okay,so let's go then you've got
Stu McKenzie (28:23):
you've either got this voluntary offering, which I
just got to where were you,you're the agent in the change.
So an example that would beyou're the one that decides to
end a relationship or amarriage. And, and so so their
marriage ends, but because itwas you that was the one that
wanted that to happen if youlike your displeasure that your
(28:45):
partner however, might not haveseen that coming. And they
might, so they might end up onwhat we call catastrophe breach.
So that was just an example. Andcatastrophe bridge is where the
relationship ends abruptly.
That's, that's, that's suicide,that's death. That's car
accidents, that's naturaldisasters. So they're things
that just come along and knockus over without us having any
(29:06):
awareness whatsoever. And so wefall off that bridge and
depending on the that loss andwhat it meant to us and how
tragic it was and thecircumstances of it. We hit the
swamp of feelings. And we caneither go right down, we can go
down into the swamp of feelings.
And we can get you know, we cansink down to mild depression or
(29:30):
moderate depression or thedepths of depression or right
down to actually black blackbecomes white where we actually
enter into a space of beingsuicidal if you like. Yeah, yep.
And so it's it's essentiallyimportant that we get ourselves
back to the top of that swampand break back through that
water and get our head we'restill swamped. Yeah,
Andy Fermo (29:49):
but by just treading water, then you're not drowning.
You're not feeling like you'redrowning. Exactly. Coming up for
breather there. Exactly.
Stu McKenzie (29:56):
So yeah. So how do we how do we learn the skills to
swim That's a, there's a wholelot of work to dive into. How do
we get ourselves back to theservice? What are the skills we
need? What do we need to learnin terms of? And I like the that
idea that emotion has the wordemotion in it? Yes. So it's got
to move. You've got to, you'vegot to first of all, you've got
(30:19):
to first of all, acknowledgethat something's going on, then
you've got to move it, you'vegot to express it. Yes, somehow.
Through some any means eventalk, just talking is one of
those means writing, dancing,painting, walking in, however,
you're expressing that emotion.
So
Andy Fermo (30:39):
that's awesome. A
Stu McKenzie (30:42):
motion is not there for no reason. Yes. And
acceptance is that last bit. Soacknowledging, expressing and
accepting and I think sometimespeople, sometimes we get stuck,
because we haven't evenacknowledged it's not even in
our consciousness.
Andy Fermo (30:54):
Wow, that's gonna be a very, very interesting, he
could unpack that one for awhile. And then so with with
that next, you know, we've comeup for air or what are we doing
and then so the next module,good enough that people
Stu McKenzie (31:09):
Skedaddle out of that swamp at high speed? Yes,
build our chaos, so they couldend up in what we call the
avoidance marshes. So that'swhere you're just kind of
avoiding all feelings, but therisk of being there and being
scared because it's a bloodyscary thing. Those those out of
control emotions. But if youstop feeling those the risk is
(31:30):
you stop feeling all emotions.
You stop feeling joy, you stopfeeling happiness. Yeah. So you
just move into a place of notfeeling it's a void. Yeah,
that's unless that's the risk.
Or you could get stuck in waistdeep in the anger and guilt
mudflats, where you're blamingother people projecting it out
onto things. And so you findyou're angry at the world, and
(31:54):
you're angry at everybody, andyou can be stuck there for a
while, you know, in the swamp.
You're not thinking andoverwhelmed. Anger is a familiar
emotion. So people would muchprefer to go to anger than to go
to grief. Yeah, yeah.
Andy Fermo (32:06):
Yeah. Yeah, the anger there. You can project
something, right? The pain islike I'm feeling and it's your
fault. Yes. See, could youproject the pain or the grief is
the view that the person in it?
Yeah, we like to be on that sideof the coin.
Stu McKenzie (32:23):
So the interesting thing of both those places and
swamp of feeling and the angerand guilt mudflat is you have to
go back into the swamp and dothe acceptance expressing it
sorry, acknowledging, expressingacceptance piece, and feel those
emotions before you can get outof it. Yeah, and that's, that's
a tricky place to get out of
Andy Fermo (32:40):
it. Very tricky, mate. Very tricky.
Stu McKenzie (32:42):
So then, you know, the trick of leaving, leaving,
pulling yourself up out of outof the swamp, and, and on the
sort of banks of that swamp offeelings, if you like, is what
we call the forest of hope. Andthe forest of hope is a place
where you can kind of addanother little, little word I
like, because you can get somedeep rest. Oh, do you say that
(33:04):
quickly, it's depressed. Sostill, in that forest, you
might, you're more you haveacknowledged, you're in that
place of sitting, accepting, andyou re gathering your energy
really for life, if you like. Sothat's that kind of idea that
you need to take. Sometimes Ijust want to be with me, I'm not
(33:26):
social, I don't feel that beingsocial. I just need this space.
It's a space where you canrecover your energy. Yeah.
Andy Fermo (33:33):
And they've been there the double entendre on
that on their own playing on thewords, bit of work, like I can
see the DJ there before we hitthe call. And so just to segue a
little bit, still use the DJjust like me, and, you know, one
of the things there is in whenyou're performing is that that
thing on wordplay, and usingwords to communicate with
people, and I think that thatjust was just something homage
(33:54):
to that old pot of stew,they're, you know, depressed,
depressed, but I'm working onthings like, yes, so we've gone
we've gone
Stu McKenzie (34:03):
out of the famine, colic describing the forest of
hope, melancholic, that's kindof something you can live with.
It's not debilitating. Yes,depression can be you know, I
mean, a depression is acontinuum anyways. Yes. So,
yeah, but we're really when whenwe go back and dive into some of
these areas, I really would loveto present a model of well being
(34:26):
to you rather than a diagnosticmodel. So we're not looking to
diagnose depression or anxietyor that we're actually sort of
saying wellness is on acontinuum. And that continuum of
wellness is from is fromflourishing at one end. So
really, being as well as you canbe in meeting your potential
(34:50):
through to performing and doingyour job through to coping just
sort of coping through thelanguishing and through the
suffering and then through tobeing very unwell. Oh, and the
the thing I love about that isthe the notion is that if you've
got the support that you need,when you're going through
(35:10):
something, you can thosesupports support your well
being. But if the challenges ofyour life exceed the supports
that you're given, then you canstart to languish and suffer.
Yeah. So those is well beingabout having the can measure it
supports to match thechallenges. Is that a new way of
(35:33):
framing mental health alltogether? It
Andy Fermo (35:35):
just might be. And we'll, we'll hold on to that
question there till we get tothe point right to that next
point. So with the forest ofhope, and these are these other
bits there is excited. But is isso was that were you explaining
just before Stu was that, thenleading on to the rocky path,
the path? Yeah,
Stu McKenzie (35:53):
rocky path is when your energy comes back in. And
we often people aftersomething's happened to them,
they'll reinvent themselves,they'll learn a new skill,
they'll change jobs, they'lllearn a new language, they'll go
travelling, though. So you endup sometimes you really, you
know, sometimes life knocks youout, because the universe is
saying, you're on the wrongpath. And the rocky paths are
(36:16):
about experimenting and findinga path that better suits who you
are now. Yes, because you'rechanging all the time, too.
Yeah, that's right. It's aperiod of exploration, learning
new skills, learning newinterests, having new passions,
new hobbies, new engaged, it'srien gauging with life. Yeah,
Andy Fermo (36:33):
yeah, the path the path might always be. You know,
like you said, before there wasthere was there's no map, right?
So you gotta you got to be apath. Yeah, you know, you might
hit that rock,
Stu McKenzie (36:44):
and I'm gonna write that in this
Andy Fermo (36:47):
rocky path, or at least it's not trying to step on
a piece of Lego in the middle ofthe night. That's not rocky on
the road. So and then. So we'vemoving on from the rocky paths.
Stu McKenzie (36:57):
So eventually, you will merge at the sea, more
mountains. And and this is wherewe're at about the desert theme.
We'll, we'll have talked aboutone at the end. Yeah. So the
same more mountains is where youget a vision of your future
again, yes. Where you can getexcited, you can set goals you
can, you can start to develop acertainty of what it is that you
(37:19):
want to create and do. And youcan believe that and start to
manifest manifesting comes in atthat place. And it's
interesting, when you're in anorphan side of people, when
you're in that gully when you'rein that gully between two seamer
mountains, going through thiswhole map, don't try and look at
your future. Don't think aboutyour future, because you're not
going to see it just as ifyou're hiking between two
(37:40):
mountain peaks, look at yourfeet, and go left foot, what
does that have to do? Moveforward, right foot, left foot,
right foot. So you're looking atyour feet. And at a certain
point, you've worked your way upagain, into the sea, more
mountains, you can lift yourhead and you can see your future
again. So don't try and look atyour future when you're going
through that gal
Andy Fermo (38:02):
that because it's just too big work can't see it
totally taking one step at atime,
Stu McKenzie (38:06):
one step at a time. Left, right focus on now
being present. That's themindfulness piece as well, that,
you know has been verypopularised. Yes, absolutely.
And then the final destinationwhich a few you which is the
risk is that is that you, youdon't navigate the swamp very
well. You stay in the anger andguilt mudflats or the the or the
(38:28):
avoidance marches and, and thatleads into what we call so you
don't kind of find your way outof the forest of hope you don't
in engage the courage to diveback into that swamp of feelings
and get through it. And so youcome around the side of the
swamp of feelings and andthere's the desolate desert, and
you can get stuck in thedesolate desert. And that's the
sort of people that you see incapital cities, sleeping rough,
(38:53):
disconnected from relationships,disconnected from life, not
engaged in anything meaningful.
addictions, drug addictionssevere that, that that part of
that captures that. That desertdesert that just absence of
connection, absence ofrelationships, absence of
meaning, absence of engagementin life. Yeah, that's
Andy Fermo (39:20):
the place, very sombre place and then and then
so what was that last bit there?
So the desert and alternativerelationships what does what
does that sort of mean then? Solast little bit
Stu McKenzie (39:32):
so the last piece after the same more mountains is
when we reengage so let me givean example to bring that to
life. So alternative routerelationship highway he's been
through a divorce a messydivorce, went through all the
feelings associated with itrebuild focused on myself,
recovered my energy, recoveredenergy found, went on the rocky
(39:54):
path and started to become okaywithin myself again, met
somebody else. Yeah, the wiseperson who is conscious of this
journey has, yeah, and part ofwhat we do is we reexamine our
values during that time, what isit that's important to me. And
we need to articulate thosevalues and be able to be able to
clarify and articulate them.
Because when we go into a newrelationship highway, and the
(40:17):
example of that, to carry thatexample, on, decide to go into
another relationship, we'lleither repeat, if we haven't
learnt the lessons of the ofthat map, we might just repeat a
pattern and pick somebody that'snot right for us again. But if
we've been conscious in ourjourney through that map, and
we've examined our values, we'veexamined our strengths, we know
(40:37):
who we are better now, becausewe've been conscious in that
journey, then then we're goingto make a much wiser decision
about what's right for us whenwe go back into a new
relationship. And that's
Andy Fermo (40:51):
that new highway, which is the alternative, it's
the alternate from from havingto repeat exactly as they're
looking at. And what we weretalking about really early in
the conversation, was that sortof looking on hindsight, and
having that sense of reflectionand learning, learning, that
continual process there, andgoing well, look, I acknowledge
and, and, you know, do I ownthat? Yes, but I'm not going to
(41:16):
make that that's what I'm
Stu McKenzie (41:18):
growing on, on growing from there. I'm better.
You asked me very, very muchearlier, you know, about making
meaning of something and makingsomething meaningful, because it
was that event, if that eventhadn't occurred, I wouldn't be
here. I wouldn't be who I amdoing what I'm doing. Yeah. And
(41:40):
the other thing Robins, Rosalyn,Ross, 100, Nicola, Robin before,
says about the map is sometimescan go through very rapidly in a
matter of minutes, you know, oh,my god, bit of anxiety that
comes from I'm in the swamp, andyou can get yourself through
real quick. Yes,
Andy Fermo (41:54):
I mean, so these are these processes, the map is an
overview. But you know, thelength of time can actually
happen quickly, quite quickly.
Or sometimes
Stu McKenzie (42:03):
it's sometimes it's a real journey, you know,
and that's when you think aboutlosing someone tragically, and
particularly when that personwas such a key part of your
life. And, you know, then thatexplains that grief and loss.
So, of course, so really weunpick all of the contemporary
theories of grief and loss andhow grief and loss is connected
to building resilience. Andyeah, so that's really the map.
Andy Fermo (42:28):
Absolutely. So thank you so much for that overview,
Stu, and we'll come in. Join usnow for the next session. The
next part, which is therelationship highway.
Stu McKenzie (42:40):
Beautiful. All right, we'll see you then.
Great. Thank you.
Claire Fermo (42:46):
Join us next time for the next episode of the
invisible injuries podcast.
Don't forget to subscribe. Formore great content, follow us on
our socials on Instagram. Andyou could also visit our website
www dot invisible injuriesdot.au where you can access more
content. Thank you for listeningto invisible injuries.
Welcome to invisible injuries podcast,
aimed at bettering the wellbeing and mental health,
veterans, first responders intheir immediate support
experiencing post traumaticstress. By sharing the stories
of the lived experiences of ourpeers, or support staff and the
clinicians, it's our aim to makesure we can have a meaningful
(00:27):
connection with our audience,and give them the ideas for
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subscribe to the channel andshare it with your friends.
Lastly, these stories may be atrigger for your post traumatic
stress. If your PTSD istriggered, we have links to
(00:48):
support in the description. Orif it's immediate, please call
lifeline on 1311 14. Here's yourhost, Andy fermo. G'day,
Andy Fermo (01:01):
everyone, your with your host, Andy, and in line
with our season five podcastthemes is that this year, we are
doing themes and running off theback of flip the script. I'm
here today with Stuart McKenzie,registered psychologist and the
author of unleash your innerstrength. So understanding grief
(01:24):
and loss, disarming trauma andbuilding the skills of
resilience. And he has this map,right, it's called the map of
resilience. And so this seriesis we're going to be unpacking
his map of resilience, andtalking about that over several
episodes, to be able to give youa sense of what happens when
(01:45):
people go from you know,suffering grief, or having some
mental health issues to how theydo it, and how you can manage
it. And then also, if, if ithappens, and it may happen, and
it is very likely to happen isfalling back. But then how do
you pick yourself up to be ableto move on? Thank you so much
for joining us on the podcastyou.
Stu McKenzie (02:06):
Thank you. It's it's a thrill to be here. My
first podcast. Yes, I'm apodcast virgin. Oh,
Andy Fermo (02:13):
oh, there's a cherry right there. And we've had to
you know, we've had a bit of achat before we hit record. And
you know, he's nice and relaxed.
Now we're here at the hen housestudios, it's always nice to get
something Riley pro with therecordings and only for you,
mate. Right. So I'll give ouraudience a little bit of a
background on how we met. Andbefore we go into your story,
(02:34):
which are so how us do and Imet, it was recently we just
moved to Perth after our PTSDnational awareness campaign. And
we decided that we were going tobe relocating to our hometown
here in Perth. At that time, itwas kind of at the tail end of
COVID. But what was really agreat thing that came out of
(02:55):
COVID, not many things, but oneof the great things was the
whole thing of concept oftelehealth, and enabling because
of that separation, us to beable to provide some care to to
help seekers via usingtechnology. So I met Stu when he
was working in telehealth, andhe was working in particular
(03:18):
with a lot of veterans at thetime, besides the wider
community. And what reallypiqued me was when we when we
chatted and connected was washis insights into you know, what
was happening with the veteranin that veteran space. So here
we are 18 months later, it'staken Stu that amount of time
(03:39):
to, to really start refiningwhat it is, with the map of
resilience. I really liked thename that you've got for it now
as well. I'm pretty sure in astring leashing the you know, I
love those buzzwords, right. Wewill also be providing a copy of
the map and then a morecomprehensive a copy of the
ebook on the podcastdescription. So thank you very
(04:02):
much to for that. And that's howwe met. So here 18 months later
local good things it takes timeto be able to work on it. And 18
months later, we're here atunleashing your inner strength.
So
Stu McKenzie (04:16):
and we're flipping the script, because now you're
the one asking the questions,not me. But that's
Andy Fermo (04:22):
exactly and so I'm guiding the conversation today
and driving which is really justexciting to be able to have Stu
here in the studio to share hisinsights and knowledge. Okay,
Stu, so, you know, if you couldshare with the audience, a
little bit about yourbackground.
Stu McKenzie (04:38):
So I just wanted to make one point in relation to
COVID which you said not manygood things came out of COVID me
connecting with you was goodthing. But the other good thing
that came out of COVID was thisawareness of the importance of
mental health and well being. Sothe particularly well being So I
(05:00):
work for the Department ofEducation, actually four days a
week and one day a week, I workprivately in telehealth and the
Department released at the endof 2023, a wellness strategy for
their staff, for staff and forprincipals. And I went back and
I thought, I wonder what thewellness strategy was before,
before this one. And you know,there wasn't one, there wasn't
(05:24):
one. No, they were aboutcompetency of staff and building
the skills of staff. And, and soit was COVID that actually
raised our consciousness of theimportance of wellness, or one
might say, mental fitness, inthe same way that we think about
our physical fitness, it'simportant that we also invest
(05:45):
time into our mental fitness.
Yes. So that's the first thing.
Yes. And so over the last twoyears I've worked with at
Veterans. And for some of thoseveterans, I've worked with them
for that whole two years. Soweekly calls, so some around 120
calls, which has been amazingwork. But about me personally,
(06:09):
yeah, that's
Andy Fermo (06:09):
your firstly, what's your story, like, you know, sort
of because you did in your bookand in our conversations that
we've had before, and you'll seethis audience when you want to
have a look and sign up for the,for the for the ebook, Stu goes
into his story, but you know,sort of, can you share a little
bit more about what you'vewritten in that sort of forward
with your own person?
Stu McKenzie (06:30):
Do I want me to go back to 1969?
Andy Fermo (06:34):
We can, we can rewind it look, I step onto my
casting couch. And I'm puttingmy feet up on the table. Now, if
you see. They put man on themoon, I think a
Stu McKenzie (06:47):
couple of months after all. But look, I grew up
in at the age of three, my daddecided to become a minister of
religion. And so we packed upour our lives in Western
Australia and moved over toSydney to just out of Sydney,
between Sydney and Newcastle, aplace called Durham bond. So I
grew up in I quite a cultish onemight say.
Andy Fermo (07:10):
But yes, almost all my other brethren around that
way. Yeah.
Stu McKenzie (07:14):
Well, and so that left me with kind of some fairly
concrete, black and white viewsof the world. Oh, yes, if you
know what I mean. And then at17, my folks pulled out of that,
and we moved back to WesternAustralia. And they
interestingly, from ourconversation, they dad, he left
(07:35):
being a minister and he bought aDJ company. So I went to
university at MurdochUniversity, and, and during
that, that time, I really, I wasreally challenged with these
kind of naive, simplisticreligious, foundational beliefs
(07:56):
that I had, but I'd been raisedin and, and really, it was my
fourth year of uni, studying myBachelor of psychology. Yeah, my
last year, where I think whathappened was my beliefs sort of
shattered. And beliefs arestrong aspects of your
(08:20):
personality people, strap bombsto themselves, and blow
themselves up for their beliefs.
So don't underestimate howbeliefs hold your psyche
together. Yes. And so I foundmyself I found myself spiralling
out of control a little bit outof a loss of meaning and
purpose, right. Yeah. And Ieventually found myself in Heath
(08:44):
cope. I had a psychotic episode.
And I was in there for sixweeks. And that was at the age
of 23. And, and I suppose I tellyou that story, because it sort
of sets the scene for my for mypassion and my interest in this
(09:04):
work, because it kind ofshattered my self belief.
Andy Fermo (09:09):
Can I Can I ask you on that one there. So from what
you were saying before, and if Iwas hearing correctly, so you
said that with with, you know,you asking more questions about
these beliefs that had beenraised, and then that's what you
knew. That was your world interms of, you know, key values
and what was, you know, blackand white, all of a sudden,
(09:31):
questioning those and not seeingwhether you actually fully
believed in them yourself whenyou can make those choices? How
was that? How was that affectingyou on a daily? Well, I
Stu McKenzie (09:42):
just remember at one point asking a respected
lecturer. Do you really believein evolution, you know, that we
weren't created that we'veevolved from monkeys and you
know, like, I just rememberthat. I remember that It's
really, because I had this suchstrong belief in creation story,
(10:04):
you know? And I think that, youknow, that was a big part of it.
So to answer your question, Ikind of went off the rails a
little bit.
And as I said to you, I justsort of it shattered me in some
(10:25):
respects it sort ofdisintegrated those axiomatic
presuppositions, which is a veryJordan Peterson word. Those are
those foundational pieces of mypsyche. Yes, yeah. And so, in
some respects, I lost touch withreality and spiralled out of
Yeah. And that's a great,that's, that's a story for
(10:46):
another. Another episode.
Andy Fermo (10:48):
I think that might be part of the journey that you
needed to do at that time,though, isn't it? Well,
Stu McKenzie (10:51):
when you look back, I mean, I think part of
the journey of of traumaticevents and grief and loss is
looking back on them, andfinding meaning in them. Yeah,
yeah. And I think for me, it wasabsolutely a meaningful
foundation for me to buildbecoming a psychologist on, but
also the challenge for me arounddealing with depression,
(11:19):
anxiety, and panic attacks.
Because I couldn't trust myselfanymore. I was so wrong, that I
was locked away from society.
And so when I came back into thethe world after that, I would
judge how well I was doing inthe eyes of everyone around me,
I lost that ability to beconfident in my own self. And
(11:44):
that's what I mean by lost selfbelief. Yes. Okay. So I've been
on this journey of regainingthat self belief, and also on a
journey of, of knowing what apanic attack is, like, knowing
how much it shatters you for theweeks that follow it, knowing
what low leaving with low with,with anxiety that goes up and
down, and just sort of a senseof the Black Dog visiting you.
(12:09):
Yes, every now and then. And Ican say I've, you know, I can
say at 55. After that happenedto me at 23. That it's been it's
been a lifelong journey of it'smore than recovery, of learning
of growing up writing meaning,and now I just, you know, I
wasn't able to tell that storyto anybody for years. 20 years,
(12:33):
30 years, because I still, itjust made my heart. Yeah. Yeah,
Andy Fermo (12:37):
we're in thanks for sharing, you know, such an
intimate part of your story andyour background. And it really
sets the tone and I don't wantto, I don't want to be
uncovering, you know, openingOld Wounds do so just stop me if
if this is out of line, but youdidn't mention before, like, you
know, you had you had gone offthe rails, whatever that would
have entailed. But when youthere was something that was
(12:59):
really in particular andimportant when you said I, you
know, you were understandingwhat, you know, what anxiety
was, was, you know, you know,what was and all those other
things that were happening toyou, when, when you were in that
state? Yes. What was that point?
Or where were you at in terms oflike, you know, stuff that you
were doing daily, where you wentfar out? I need to make a
change, or I need to be to go tosomewhere to heat coat for six
(13:21):
weeks. You know, what? Well, Ididn't have any choice there.
That's what's called a section.
A section you get sectioned?
Yes, yeah. Which means the placepick all right, okay. So that
wasn't a choice from the casino.
Right. And so that wasn't bychoice. So so some of the things
(13:41):
when you're in there in that sixweeks, that transformation, or
transformative process
Stu McKenzie (13:47):
wasn't transformative for me at the
time. What slowed me down was, Iwas in the locked ward, and I
jumped the fence and, and threetimes I jumped the fence and ran
trying to escape because Icouldn't believe that done it to
me. Chuck, yeah, that's right.
And on the third time, so peoplein white coats would chase me
(14:07):
down, you know, I'd be ahead ofthem. I'd be hiding in a toilet
up on the toilet. So my feetwere up, but they don't always
bring me back. And then the lasttime I jumped the fence, I broke
my ankle. And that's really whatslowed me down out of that
psychotic episode. Yeah. Andthen then I'd got very, very
skinny very, yet lost a lot ofweight. And then in that six
(14:30):
week, I put a lot of weight backon and a year and really, I
buried that deeply for years.
And to get to the point now, andit's about time that I got to
the point to be able to be ableto talk about it. It's a part of
(14:51):
my life. It's powerful. Yeah.
And and I'd like to share, youknow, just, I think I've
learned, I've learned a lot.
Yes.
Andy Fermo (14:59):
And that's That's where it was, you know, and I'm
not going to press on thatlittle bit more, because, you
know, I can tell I can, I can, Ican feel your sadness. Just
talking about it, even thoughyou've, you've had that courage
to be able to speak about it. Soopenly, even this morning, yeah,
many years later a lifetimelater, basically, at age is
really powerful. And, you know,audience out there it is a, it
(15:20):
is a slow process that takestime, it's not going to happen
like yesterday. And so that sortof goes with this is where he
was, which, which gave you thatmotivation to do what you're
doing now. And so
Stu McKenzie (15:33):
I think to actually, you know, I ran into
this map of it was it wasoriginally called the map of
grief and loss, and it was in itwas in the year 2000. Actually,
I was in London, and thedeveloper of that map is a
clinical psychologist by thename of Rosalind Schneider. So I
have to give Rosalind Schneidercredit, she's a Western
(15:54):
Australian clinical psychologistwho developed the original map
of loss. So she was the one thatcoined the various areas like
the relationship highway, theswamp of feelings. And what I've
done is I've just have built onher foundation of work. And I've
realised that people don't wantto speak about grief and loss
(16:16):
unless they're going through aparticular grief and loss
moment, right. So it's at thetime, yeah, that then otherwise,
they don't want to go anywherenear it, because they don't want
to be unzipped. They don't wantto have all of that stuff. We're
talking about that just before,right? So in terms of proactive
preventative work, it needed forme it needed to be framed as
(16:37):
resilience. Because people arehappy to talk about resilience,
yes, but what we don't, what wewhat we're learning is that
resilience and grief and lossare two sides of the same coin.
Because in essence, you don'tneed resilience, until you've
been whacked. Until somethinghas come along and bowled you
over till you've had somethingthat you have to be resilient
(16:59):
for. Yes, that's when resiliencereally pays off. What we're
learning now is you're not bornwith a character trait of
resilience, although some peopleare, it obviously factors in bio
psycho psycho social model. Butwe can build those skills of
resilience. Like I think areally good example in schools
(17:19):
are all anywhere. You know, wedo fire drills in case there's a
fire. Yes. So people, we musthave people, this is where you
go, this is what you do. But,but do we do fire drills of
hope? Do we teach people aboutgrief and loss? And then it's
gonna come and knock them over?
Do we teach them about theskills of managing that when
it's such an inevitable life?
(17:40):
event? It's going to happen toall of us, it's going to come
and knock at our doors. It will.
And do we do that in schools? Dowe do that with our youth? Do we
have conversations like this in?
We die? No, we don't. Becausesomehow it's a taboo. People
don't want to be opened up toowide.
Andy Fermo (18:00):
Yeah. Oh, yes. 100%, there's that as well as the
zipper that you talked about?
Let's not open that can ofworms. But the other part,
though, as well, I think is isis it makes the when when the
the whack happens, and it knocksyou on your ass, right? And
you're down, you're down for thecount. All, you know, if you're
in the weeds, and what happensis, you have to have to do
(18:23):
double the work because thenyou're trying to find out what's
the processes of how to findthis, educate myself on a way
that's going to work and bemeaningful for me that I connect
with to be able to deal withthis. Yes. Right. And that's the
that's the big one, you kind ofdelta, you're
Stu McKenzie (18:41):
trying to pull yourself up to the surface of
the swamp of feelings, and atthe same time trying to learn
the skills to swim right throughsomething that you haven't swam
through a sink
Andy Fermo (18:50):
or swim or Yeah, it was a case
Stu McKenzie (18:53):
over I suppose I want to make the point that the
event is not traumatic, becausetwo people can have the same
event. Yeah. And some one personcan be okay. And another person
can be traumatised by thatevent. And that event can be
simple. Yeah, it can be a simpleone, it can be a complex event.
Or it can be a cumulative event.
So a simple event, if you likeis a car accident, a complex
(19:17):
event, if you like is what wewould call developmental trauma.
So that's been raised in aneglect, you know, that's the
trauma that happens from thepeople that you should be able
to love and trice right, thatyou somehow abused so role
models, people that or whatever,I should be able to trust you
(19:37):
but that trust has beenviolated. So that's what makes
that complex. And thencumulative trauma is where we
kind of have been in the swampor have been swamped have been,
but don't don't kind of realisewhen we got there, because it
kind of has happened. It'shappened from a series of
different events that havehappened in different places.
(19:58):
All aspects of our lives. Yes.
Andy Fermo (20:02):
And that's, that's, that's interesting that you that
you've, you've managed to beyou've really sort of been
insightful into in the way thatyou've explained the different,
you know, an event. And thenyou've got the traumatic events
where it might be, you know,sort of, even though the say the
word of simple isn't actuallysimilar, but like, I mean, in
terms of categorised singleevent, like a single singular
(20:23):
event. Yeah, in terms of that'swhen this part was. But then
when you meant complex, there'sother factors that are involved
that develop that trauma. Andthen what was the third one,
again, is cumulative cumulativeover time. Yeah. And then so
each one can almost be also howveterans would experience, you
know, say, it could be anyone,and might start off with one,
(20:48):
but then those effects and lifehappens where it might become a
complex trauma. And then theymight be at a certain bit where
it then gets triggered, and thenthat cumulative effect, has take
comes into account. And it'sstill still classed overall as a
big umbrella of trauma, but youhave them almost be might be
different phases. Based on whatyou were just sort of saying
(21:10):
then, yeah, on a timeline oflife, that's, you know, we all
go through different phases. AndI think that that trauma might
be the underlying factor, yield,loss,
Stu McKenzie (21:20):
I mean, loss, and when we get into relationship
highway, we will understand thatwe have our relationships
constantly change. And withchange comes loss. It doesn't
even have to be trauma, it'sjust life.
Andy Fermo (21:33):
Yeah, we'll pull up the handbrake and you're trying
to unpack there, you go intochapter seven. Awesome. And so
when you when you discoveredthis and sort of wanted to be
able to build on it, Stu, youknow, sort of what was it?
There, you know, where you'redoing any sort of studies at the
(21:53):
time, that sort of piqued whereyou wanted to go with, with the
map.
Stu McKenzie (21:58):
So the first time I bumped into it was, as I said,
I was living in London, and Isaw the book, it was called
Journey to the centre of yourlife by Russell Snyder, a simple
book that that contained thatfirst map of grief and loss. And
I use that I use that in mywork, I use that for myself, it
started to frame the way that Iwas thinking, yeah, and then
then I started to work on it,and started to evolve the
(22:22):
concept, and move it towardsresilience. And I've been
really, I've been working onthis on and off for really
seven, seven to 10 years, Isuppose. So I feel like I've
because I do tend to have burstsof focus and attention, hyper
focus, yeah, I might say, andthen leave something and then my
(22:43):
focus has to shift to otherprojects. Come back, of course.
Andy Fermo (22:46):
And I think that that's a good way to be able to
have that workflow, especiallywhen it's something like this,
you don't want to be you don'twant to be in the pain, like
sort of, when you've got youknow, in the pain for so, so
long you kind of go it starts toaffect other parts. Like let's
just take a little pick it up,put it down. Yeah, and then only
and undo to two litres, so tospeak. So just to wrap up the
stew in terms of your story andwhere it is. And this will be in
(23:08):
the in your ebook, where youwhere you chat about this. If I
may kindly ask you, you do havea little bit of a story, which
is kind of like more of like apoem that you've written. So can
you sort of speak to how can Iread it? Yeah, I would ask you
very much. Yeah, absolutely. Andthat's why I was that was what I
was about to ask if you read mymind. If you could me, I know
Stu McKenzie (23:32):
I do not have I know it's been a problem for
over half my life, falling hardoff that broken bridge and
running into strife. I hit thewater hard or did I hit the
water fast, sinking down intothose murky depths? How long
would this thing last? If Sallyknocked out my front teeth it
did. ruining my winning smile.
How can I learn to trust myselfto run a healthy mile, something
(23:56):
got trapped in me like an icydaggers sting. From time to time
it haunted me with the memoriesthat would bring up and down
I've travelled life, throughmountains and through Dales. It
took a lot of energy to dropaway the scales. Now I'm back.
I've learned a lot hard won onthe trail. I can see more
(24:19):
clearly now. I'm not so scaredto fail. Time is in the telling.
And stories. I've got a few. Ifyou care to take the time I'll
tell some of them to you. Iain't scared no more. You can
think what you like. It's goingto take a whole lot more to give
me such a fright. Thanks forlistening to my tale. I hope
(24:41):
that you can see somethingshared between us the way that
life can be. We've all gotreasons to be scared,
overwhelmed by big emotions,swimming through that big old
swamp as deep and wide asoceans. Remember that we've got
the strength from swimming therebefore. Now we know the
territory. Adventurers will wantmore.
Andy Fermo (25:06):
Wow, thanks for sharing that stew. So now let's
go into a bit of an overview ofthe resilience map before we
start unpacking it in the nextepisode. So the map of
resilience, what does it entailnight? And the overview of that?
So,
Stu McKenzie (25:22):
last doesn't come with a map. But this is this is
this is a go at a psychologicalmap of life. Yeah. And again,
credit to Rosalind Snyder. Yeah,for her creative work in this
space. But it begins withrelationship highway, so we walk
down relationship highway wehave relationships with, with
(25:44):
other people, that's an obviousone. Yeah, wives, their
children, our parents, ourfriends. And those
relationships, you know, we canget divorced, we can have death,
we can realise that a friend hasbeen toxic in our lives. And we
can in that friendship, becauseit's not been it's not energy
vampires, you might say. But wehave relationships with things,
(26:07):
we have relationships withnonliving things like our
gardens, or sorry, living livingthings like our veggie garden,
life, the environment, peoplebecome activists, because of
their relationships with livingthings, yes, the, you know,
saving the environment chainingthemselves to a tree, whatever,
then we have relationships withnonliving things. And yeah,
(26:28):
that's a material part of theworld. But it's our houses and
our cars and our sports car, andboats. If you're lucky enough to
have such things, people haverelationships with those.
However, even more importantly,we have relationships with
ourselves, our own thoughts, ourfeelings, our bodies, our
expectations, our dreams. So Sotrauma can come from losing a
(26:52):
dream or lost vision of thefuture. And we have a
relationship with somethingbigger than ourselves
spirituality. So relationship isa complex
Andy Fermo (27:02):
way. And that's that there's a few levels that you've
just spoken about. So manydifferent levels isn't there
that we can be working on, youknow, on one time, or multiple
things, multiple things mighthappen during that relationship.
Stu McKenzie (27:16):
Inevitably, guys, relationships change. And with
that change comes loss. Most ofthe time that loss doesn't lead
to grief, we just we just walkthrough the swamp as if it's a
puddle. Yeah. And becausebecause if we have agency in the
change, it doesn't affect us,because we're the ones sometimes
we're the ones making thedecision to change. And
Andy Fermo (27:36):
then so we move on from that bit before we it's
tricky. To get there. As
Stu McKenzie (27:42):
I said, it's it's a simple map in some respects.
But yes, it's highly complex inothers. So of course, it will be
true to the overview, and wewon't, we won't go
Andy Fermo (27:51):
we'll unpack that in a bit. Because I know, right,
because that's the thing whenyou and I can just, I can feel
the passion just oozing out ofstew at this moment. Because he
wants to be able to share thisright. And I think when you when
you when you when you'reeducating people or, or sharing
these things that you're sopassionate about, the hard part
is to go okay, well, where's thebit where I need to go? This?
(28:11):
Yeah, my, for this section, am Ioverloading the word so just
five minutes, I would just Okay,so let's go then you've got
Stu McKenzie (28:23):
you've either got this voluntary offering, which I
just got to where were you,you're the agent in the change.
So an example that would beyou're the one that decides to
end a relationship or amarriage. And, and so so their
marriage ends, but because itwas you that was the one that
wanted that to happen if youlike your displeasure that your
(28:45):
partner however, might not haveseen that coming. And they
might, so they might end up onwhat we call catastrophe breach.
So that was just an example. Andcatastrophe bridge is where the
relationship ends abruptly.
That's, that's, that's suicide,that's death. That's car
accidents, that's naturaldisasters. So they're things
that just come along and knockus over without us having any
(29:06):
awareness whatsoever. And so wefall off that bridge and
depending on the that loss andwhat it meant to us and how
tragic it was and thecircumstances of it. We hit the
swamp of feelings. And we caneither go right down, we can go
down into the swamp of feelings.
And we can get you know, we cansink down to mild depression or
(29:30):
moderate depression or thedepths of depression or right
down to actually black blackbecomes white where we actually
enter into a space of beingsuicidal if you like. Yeah, yep.
And so it's it's essentiallyimportant that we get ourselves
back to the top of that swampand break back through that
water and get our head we'restill swamped. Yeah,
Andy Fermo (29:49):
but by just treading water, then you're not drowning.
You're not feeling like you'redrowning. Exactly. Coming up for
breather there. Exactly.
Stu McKenzie (29:56):
So yeah. So how do we how do we learn the skills to
swim That's a, there's a wholelot of work to dive into. How do
we get ourselves back to theservice? What are the skills we
need? What do we need to learnin terms of? And I like the that
idea that emotion has the wordemotion in it? Yes. So it's got
to move. You've got to, you'vegot to first of all, you've got
(30:19):
to first of all, acknowledgethat something's going on, then
you've got to move it, you'vegot to express it. Yes, somehow.
Through some any means eventalk, just talking is one of
those means writing, dancing,painting, walking in, however,
you're expressing that emotion.
So
Andy Fermo (30:39):
that's awesome. A
Stu McKenzie (30:42):
motion is not there for no reason. Yes. And
acceptance is that last bit. Soacknowledging, expressing and
accepting and I think sometimespeople, sometimes we get stuck,
because we haven't evenacknowledged it's not even in
our consciousness.
Andy Fermo (30:54):
Wow, that's gonna be a very, very interesting, he
could unpack that one for awhile. And then so with with
that next, you know, we've comeup for air or what are we doing
and then so the next module,good enough that people
Stu McKenzie (31:09):
Skedaddle out of that swamp at high speed? Yes,
build our chaos, so they couldend up in what we call the
avoidance marshes. So that'swhere you're just kind of
avoiding all feelings, but therisk of being there and being
scared because it's a bloodyscary thing. Those those out of
control emotions. But if youstop feeling those the risk is
(31:30):
you stop feeling all emotions.
You stop feeling joy, you stopfeeling happiness. Yeah. So you
just move into a place of notfeeling it's a void. Yeah,
that's unless that's the risk.
Or you could get stuck in waistdeep in the anger and guilt
mudflats, where you're blamingother people projecting it out
onto things. And so you findyou're angry at the world, and
(31:54):
you're angry at everybody, andyou can be stuck there for a
while, you know, in the swamp.
You're not thinking andoverwhelmed. Anger is a familiar
emotion. So people would muchprefer to go to anger than to go
to grief. Yeah, yeah.
Andy Fermo (32:06):
Yeah. Yeah, the anger there. You can project
something, right? The pain islike I'm feeling and it's your
fault. Yes. See, could youproject the pain or the grief is
the view that the person in it?
Yeah, we like to be on that sideof the coin.
Stu McKenzie (32:23):
So the interesting thing of both those places and
swamp of feeling and the angerand guilt mudflat is you have to
go back into the swamp and dothe acceptance expressing it
sorry, acknowledging, expressingacceptance piece, and feel those
emotions before you can get outof it. Yeah, and that's, that's
a tricky place to get out of
Andy Fermo (32:40):
it. Very tricky, mate. Very tricky.
Stu McKenzie (32:42):
So then, you know, the trick of leaving, leaving,
pulling yourself up out of outof the swamp, and, and on the
sort of banks of that swamp offeelings, if you like, is what
we call the forest of hope. Andthe forest of hope is a place
where you can kind of addanother little, little word I
like, because you can get somedeep rest. Oh, do you say that
(33:04):
quickly, it's depressed. Sostill, in that forest, you
might, you're more you haveacknowledged, you're in that
place of sitting, accepting, andyou re gathering your energy
really for life, if you like. Sothat's that kind of idea that
you need to take. Sometimes Ijust want to be with me, I'm not
(33:26):
social, I don't feel that beingsocial. I just need this space.
It's a space where you canrecover your energy. Yeah.
Andy Fermo (33:33):
And they've been there the double entendre on
that on their own playing on thewords, bit of work, like I can
see the DJ there before we hitthe call. And so just to segue a
little bit, still use the DJjust like me, and, you know, one
of the things there is in whenyou're performing is that that
thing on wordplay, and usingwords to communicate with
people, and I think that thatjust was just something homage
(33:54):
to that old pot of stew,they're, you know, depressed,
depressed, but I'm working onthings like, yes, so we've gone
we've gone
Stu McKenzie (34:03):
out of the famine, colic describing the forest of
hope, melancholic, that's kindof something you can live with.
It's not debilitating. Yes,depression can be you know, I
mean, a depression is acontinuum anyways. Yes. So,
yeah, but we're really when whenwe go back and dive into some of
these areas, I really would loveto present a model of well being
(34:26):
to you rather than a diagnosticmodel. So we're not looking to
diagnose depression or anxietyor that we're actually sort of
saying wellness is on acontinuum. And that continuum of
wellness is from is fromflourishing at one end. So
really, being as well as you canbe in meeting your potential
(34:50):
through to performing and doingyour job through to coping just
sort of coping through thelanguishing and through the
suffering and then through tobeing very unwell. Oh, and the
the thing I love about that isthe the notion is that if you've
got the support that you need,when you're going through
(35:10):
something, you can thosesupports support your well
being. But if the challenges ofyour life exceed the supports
that you're given, then you canstart to languish and suffer.
Yeah. So those is well beingabout having the can measure it
supports to match thechallenges. Is that a new way of
(35:33):
framing mental health alltogether? It
Andy Fermo (35:35):
just might be. And we'll, we'll hold on to that
question there till we get tothe point right to that next
point. So with the forest ofhope, and these are these other
bits there is excited. But is isso was that were you explaining
just before Stu was that, thenleading on to the rocky path,
the path? Yeah,
Stu McKenzie (35:53):
rocky path is when your energy comes back in. And
we often people aftersomething's happened to them,
they'll reinvent themselves,they'll learn a new skill,
they'll change jobs, they'lllearn a new language, they'll go
travelling, though. So you endup sometimes you really, you
know, sometimes life knocks youout, because the universe is
saying, you're on the wrongpath. And the rocky paths are
(36:16):
about experimenting and findinga path that better suits who you
are now. Yes, because you'rechanging all the time, too.
Yeah, that's right. It's aperiod of exploration, learning
new skills, learning newinterests, having new passions,
new hobbies, new engaged, it'srien gauging with life. Yeah,
Andy Fermo (36:33):
yeah, the path the path might always be. You know,
like you said, before there wasthere was there's no map, right?
So you gotta you got to be apath. Yeah, you know, you might
hit that rock,
Stu McKenzie (36:44):
and I'm gonna write that in this
Andy Fermo (36:47):
rocky path, or at least it's not trying to step on
a piece of Lego in the middle ofthe night. That's not rocky on
the road. So and then. So we'vemoving on from the rocky paths.
Stu McKenzie (36:57):
So eventually, you will merge at the sea, more
mountains. And and this is wherewe're at about the desert theme.
We'll, we'll have talked aboutone at the end. Yeah. So the
same more mountains is where youget a vision of your future
again, yes. Where you can getexcited, you can set goals you
can, you can start to develop acertainty of what it is that you
(37:19):
want to create and do. And youcan believe that and start to
manifest manifesting comes in atthat place. And it's
interesting, when you're in anorphan side of people, when
you're in that gully when you'rein that gully between two seamer
mountains, going through thiswhole map, don't try and look at
your future. Don't think aboutyour future, because you're not
going to see it just as ifyou're hiking between two
(37:40):
mountain peaks, look at yourfeet, and go left foot, what
does that have to do? Moveforward, right foot, left foot,
right foot. So you're looking atyour feet. And at a certain
point, you've worked your way upagain, into the sea, more
mountains, you can lift yourhead and you can see your future
again. So don't try and look atyour future when you're going
through that gal
Andy Fermo (38:02):
that because it's just too big work can't see it
totally taking one step at atime,
Stu McKenzie (38:06):
one step at a time. Left, right focus on now
being present. That's themindfulness piece as well, that,
you know has been verypopularised. Yes, absolutely.
And then the final destinationwhich a few you which is the
risk is that is that you, youdon't navigate the swamp very
well. You stay in the anger andguilt mudflats or the the or the
(38:28):
avoidance marches and, and thatleads into what we call so you
don't kind of find your way outof the forest of hope you don't
in engage the courage to diveback into that swamp of feelings
and get through it. And so youcome around the side of the
swamp of feelings and andthere's the desolate desert, and
you can get stuck in thedesolate desert. And that's the
sort of people that you see incapital cities, sleeping rough,
(38:53):
disconnected from relationships,disconnected from life, not
engaged in anything meaningful.
addictions, drug addictionssevere that, that that part of
that captures that. That desertdesert that just absence of
connection, absence ofrelationships, absence of
meaning, absence of engagementin life. Yeah, that's
Andy Fermo (39:20):
the place, very sombre place and then and then
so what was that last bit there?
So the desert and alternativerelationships what does what
does that sort of mean then? Solast little bit
Stu McKenzie (39:32):
so the last piece after the same more mountains is
when we reengage so let me givean example to bring that to
life. So alternative routerelationship highway he's been
through a divorce a messydivorce, went through all the
feelings associated with itrebuild focused on myself,
recovered my energy, recoveredenergy found, went on the rocky
(39:54):
path and started to become okaywithin myself again, met
somebody else. Yeah, the wiseperson who is conscious of this
journey has, yeah, and part ofwhat we do is we reexamine our
values during that time, what isit that's important to me. And
we need to articulate thosevalues and be able to be able to
clarify and articulate them.
Because when we go into a newrelationship highway, and the
(40:17):
example of that, to carry thatexample, on, decide to go into
another relationship, we'lleither repeat, if we haven't
learnt the lessons of the ofthat map, we might just repeat a
pattern and pick somebody that'snot right for us again. But if
we've been conscious in ourjourney through that map, and
we've examined our values, we'veexamined our strengths, we know
(40:37):
who we are better now, becausewe've been conscious in that
journey, then then we're goingto make a much wiser decision
about what's right for us whenwe go back into a new
relationship. And that's
Andy Fermo (40:51):
that new highway, which is the alternative, it's
the alternate from from havingto repeat exactly as they're
looking at. And what we weretalking about really early in
the conversation, was that sortof looking on hindsight, and
having that sense of reflectionand learning, learning, that
continual process there, andgoing well, look, I acknowledge
and, and, you know, do I ownthat? Yes, but I'm not going to
(41:16):
make that that's what I'm
Stu McKenzie (41:18):
growing on, on growing from there. I'm better.
You asked me very, very muchearlier, you know, about making
meaning of something and makingsomething meaningful, because it
was that event, if that eventhadn't occurred, I wouldn't be
here. I wouldn't be who I amdoing what I'm doing. Yeah. And
(41:40):
the other thing Robins, Rosalyn,Ross, 100, Nicola, Robin before,
says about the map is sometimescan go through very rapidly in a
matter of minutes, you know, oh,my god, bit of anxiety that
comes from I'm in the swamp, andyou can get yourself through
real quick. Yes,
Andy Fermo (41:54):
I mean, so these are these processes, the map is an
overview. But you know, thelength of time can actually
happen quickly, quite quickly.
Or sometimes
Stu McKenzie (42:03):
it's sometimes it's a real journey, you know,
and that's when you think aboutlosing someone tragically, and
particularly when that personwas such a key part of your
life. And, you know, then thatexplains that grief and loss.
So, of course, so really weunpick all of the contemporary
theories of grief and loss andhow grief and loss is connected
to building resilience. Andyeah, so that's really the map.
Andy Fermo (42:28):
Absolutely. So thank you so much for that overview,
Stu, and we'll come in. Join usnow for the next session. The
next part, which is therelationship highway.
Stu McKenzie (42:40):
Beautiful. All right, we'll see you then.
Great. Thank you.
Claire Fermo (42:46):
Join us next time for the next episode of the
invisible injuries podcast.
Don't forget to subscribe. Formore great content, follow us on
our socials on Instagram. Andyou could also visit our website
www dot invisible injuriesdot.au where you can access more
content. Thank you for listeningto invisible injuries.
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