June 4, 2024 • 43 mins
In part 3 of their chat on "Road 2 Resilience - Unleash your inner strength" host Andy and Stu delve into the intricacies of dealing with distress, exploring the four Ds: distract, dilute, develop, and discover.
They discuss the importance of distraction as a coping mechanism to shift focus away from distressing thoughts and emotions. Moving on to dilution, they highlight techniques such as mindfulness and grounding to bring individuals back to the present moment.
The conversation then transitions to the stages of development and discovery, emphasizing the significance of seeking professional help and engaging in therapeutic practices to process emotions constructively. Throughout the discussion, Andy and Stu underscore the importance of awareness, expression, and seeking help in navigating through feelings of grief and distress.
Key takeaways from their chat
- Distraction, dilution, development, and discovery are vital strategies for managing distress.
- Mindfulness and grounding techniques can help individuals stay present and regulate their emotions.
- Seeking professional help and engaging in therapeutic practices are crucial for processing emotions constructively.
- Awareness, expression, and seeking help are essential components of coping with grief and distress.
Contact - Stuart McKenzie
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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.
Andy Fermo (01:01):
Welcome back, everyone. So we're up to our
next part of what we've beenspeaking about in studio
McKenzies. Unleash your innerstrength ebook. So we move we
last couple of chats we weretalking about, you know, choose
story and an overview of theresilience map your map of
(01:22):
resilience. And in the lastepisode, we spoke about three
things the relationship highway,the voluntary off ramp, and then
the catastrophe rage, right,which all kind of leads now to
our next, which is a big, bigsection of the book was the is
the is the swamp of feelings. SoStu, take it away.
Stu McKenzie (01:46):
Okay, so the swamp of feelings is really a puddle.
When you come off the voluntaryoff ramp, as we described in the
last you just you know, andthat's happening to us all the
time. That's the journey oflife. That doesn't throw us off
course too much, you know, andsome people who were lucky,
always say to people who are intheir mid 40s. If you haven't
(02:08):
been whacked by somethingcatastrophic by the time you're
45, hang on with white knuckles.
Andy Fermo (02:15):
Don't buy that car because you're about to have a
midlife crisis,
Stu McKenzie (02:20):
or whatever.
Because I think it would be veryrare that you would get through
a hole through much, much laterthan 30 or 40. Without something
giving you a serious whack, youknow? Yeah, yes, I just, well,
lucky, some people might just belucky. Or they might live very
safe. Yes, very safe, veryroutine. Logs. I call it my
(02:43):
OCDC. Music I'm
Andy Fermo (02:59):
going to jump over, that's what the lightning bolts
for when you get over thatbridge. You know, there's the
catastrophe right there.
Stu McKenzie (03:05):
So we've had the catastrophe comes along, and
you're falling through space,haven't even hit this one. This
is this idea of how to firstresponders or how to is what we
call emotional or psychologicalfirst aid. As far as how do you
work with someone in that thosefirst moments when of of a
(03:26):
critical incident, others have acatastrophic moment. And the
fact that matter is thatpsychological first aid is
around meeting their immediateneeds, for warmth, for food, for
water, for space, forcompanionship, for just being
held, you know, like, becauseyou're not processing anything.
(03:48):
It's this idea of just time,either happening at an
incredibly fast pace or timeextending to this just this
time, just slows right down asyou fall, if you like so there's
some really importantunderstandings there for how
first responders work withpeople in those moments where
(04:12):
they are engaging with people inthose scenes and, and
psychological first aid, andpsychosocial support, as we call
them now to how do we best workwith people? And it is not about
necessarily about talking aboutwhat happened or or did you mean
investigate investigating, andit's just about meeting those
(04:33):
basic needs. Yeah. And then wehit we hit the water. Yep, I hit
that water hard. I did I hitthat water fast, sinking down
into those murky depths. Howlong would this thing last, you
know, and that's the, that'sthat little bit out of the palm.
So, I suppose at that point,depending on the loss and the
(04:56):
nature of the loss, depends onhow big the that swamp is
whether it's deep and wide asoceans or so, you know, tragic
death, etc, or bank, you know,bankruptcy I don't and it could
be in any number of of ways inour lives divorce, etc. So So
(05:21):
accident injury, death, otherfinancial catastrophes whatever.
So So again, we hit that homerunand often when we have something
that is shared, so I find thisin my work in the education
department. So for example, whencyclone Saroja went through the
(05:42):
Northwest, and we went up thereand work with people, because
the whole community were goingthrough it, people cope pretty
well, because people are talkingabout it all the time
everybody's going through. Yeah,you experienced that all we did
every and this is what it wasMay in May, and people are
talking about it and processingit. The real difficult ones are
often the shame, ones thatrelate to shame and can't be
(06:03):
spoken about like rape or abuse,or oh my god, those kinds of
ones where the person is alonein their day, you know, they're
not believed or they becomethose complex traumas.
Andy Fermo (06:19):
And this is what we're talking about earlier,
where now the simple trauma, thecomplex, and then the, the
cumulative cumulative. come intoeffect. Yeah, right. Um, because
you know, in that instance,where you're talking about like,
a large communal incident,right, big catastrophe bridge.
Yeah. In terms of the supports,when you're talking about the it
(06:41):
brings people together.
Stu McKenzie (06:42):
Yeah. That was an outcome of COVID. Is that is
that wellness and our mentalhealth is squarely on the
agenda. And yes, you know, gosh,we all got good at being on Zoom
to didn't
Andy Fermo (06:53):
absolutely. Except for that lady that stepped on
the sheet. She didn't she was upSheep Creek, but but neither
Stu McKenzie (07:01):
one of us presenter who keep comes in the
wife. Do you remember?
Andy Fermo (07:08):
We're talking about a body of water there ship
Creek, you fell off the written?
Anyway, we digress a little bit.
And so you know, we're talkingwe were talking just a moment
you know, those those powerfulfeelings. And those feelings,
say, where community might bringyou together, we talked about
that. And then we talked abouteven even then not skimming over
it. But those things like rapingand looking Divi and some of
(07:34):
these other where people feelisolated and powerless and not
in control. And you know thatthat freefall is
Stu McKenzie (07:43):
even a day death, even with a with a say, a death
of a loved one that wasunexpected and catastrophic. The
family goes through it together.
So you can go hit the water comedown, hit the bottom really
quick. But because becauseyou've got it's a shared thing,
you come back to the servicequickly, and you've got people
to swim with. So there's so it'snot the all the rituals and the
processes, and we have fewrituals in our western world.
(08:07):
But the rituals around a funeralare rituals of you know, some
other cultures have sackclothand ashes and while they bring
in people who wail and thatthey're all rituals that help us
Yes, move motion. Yes, emotionof those intense emotions. And
some cultures have bent andbrilliant rituals. When my
(08:29):
wife's mum died. She hadcerebral bulbar palsy, so M M,
and M and the motor neuron weset with her body because they
are Irish. And I did use themmom's Irish. And sorry, the
other way around. Mom's Marydad's Irish, and we kept her
(08:52):
body in the house for for thewhole of that day, that night,
the whole of the next day. Andthat night, and we sat around
her and we told stories abouther and we had some drinks and
we spoke to her and we kissedher and we we really processed
that that loss of her with herthere Yeah. In sometimes in our
Western culture, somebody dies,the van pulls up, watch it goes
(09:17):
on. It's like we're deathdenying where it
Andy Fermo (09:22):
resides in the years just to to actually acknowledge
it with the with the put that'swhat Yeah, and then that ritual
is
Stu McKenzie (09:29):
we get those really embedded because they
even the funeral the cooking thebusyness of cooking for
everybody, the talking of thewomen in the kitchen. I'm not
allowed to say that anymore.
Andy Fermo (09:39):
Don't worry.
Stu McKenzie (09:41):
Man in the kitchen, preparing all the meals
for everybody and staying busyand talking with each other and
supporting and all of that iskeeps us busy and engaged and
there is all the rituals of thefuneral and the they are all
motion. They're all to give theemotion that we're experiencing.
Ocean. Yes.
Andy Fermo (10:00):
And so and I wanted to be able to sort of ask you
more like, because of whatyou're talking about here. And
this is what you're sort ofbringing up in the book is to
swim through the swamp, we needto experience the feelings,
right? So it's yeah, thosethings have to be in motion. And
you know, lots of people mayfeel chaotic. The chaos and the
intensity chaos
Stu McKenzie (10:21):
is the word you use with. Yes. And people. We
don't like chaos. It'sunpredictable. It's an it's like
that dragon is like a beast.
It's like an unpredictable wild.
Dragon.
Andy Fermo (10:34):
That's right. Yeah.
And like a cyclone. You don'tknow how the inhaled how intense
it's going to be during yourtime. Right? When you're
experiencing it, it can bepretty, pretty hectic. Yeah. And
turbulent. Yeah. So
Stu McKenzie (10:46):
it's probably those ones where you come in
fast and bounce up up quick,because you've got a familial
fam family support, or a groupor friends or other people that
you're going with, they'reprobably not the bad ones,
probably the complex grief. Andthe so we said simple, complex
(11:07):
and cumulative. So thecumulative, one where we've just
had an accumulation of stressorsthat slowly swamped us, they're
the ones that are insidious innature. And when I say that, I
mean, we slow we don't kind ofeven know but we're slowly going
down and we're coping and GeorgeBonanno, who I mentioned before,
(11:29):
in his book, The End of trauma,he coined the term coping
angling. And I love that term.
Because it's the idea that thatit doesn't matter what you do to
cope, if it's helping you cope.
Great. Yeah, so having a fewdrinks or, you know, drinking
yourself through it. Yeah.
numbing yourself for a while. Hesays, it's okay, because you're
(11:51):
coping, but he said, Trump don'tcope ugly for too long.
Andy Fermo (11:58):
That's the thing.
And then, you know, I think alsoyou mentioned drinking there.
And that's, that's a big part ofthe culture in both services,
organisations and communities,right. And then you got also
those other coping mechanisms ofsubstance abuse, where you might
even like the the Med, so justwrap that all into to that one,
those coping mechanisms orcoping ugly, so to speak. And
I'll just sort of speak to likean, the experience of, and a lot
(12:21):
of our audience would connectwith it is like, Okay, well, I
experienced some, like, let'scall it, in this case here that
the simple trauma was the traumaand the event of the the
singular or multiple singularevents that have come in. And
then you're, you're onoperations, whatever that might
look like in the context of theaudience's experience. And then
(12:44):
you, you know, when you gethome, that's when the things
start to become a little morecomplex. Right? So now you're
dealing with other factors thatare coming in, it's starting to
become over, over the time, andthen you know, you bang, you
will, you know, I'm coping ugly.
(13:04):
But I'm coping at the moment,you know, you get back in
decompress.
Stu McKenzie (13:09):
I've got, I've got a, I've got a, I've got clients
that would start, stop, start at2pm and finish it 4pm In the
morning, in the morning, everyday, all day. But, you know, one
particular client, one, youknow, I don't want to even
allude to that, but after twoyears of work, travelling the
(13:34):
world now take his family aroundthe world, doing amazing things
and just it for that period oftime. That's what he needed,
what he needed. And who am I tojudge and who is anybody else to
just nobody else? Because hecoped with your coping. Your
coping? Yeah, exactly. Right.
Yeah. So no judgement, yourcoping? Yeah. But in the long
run, which is you're getting youdon't want to end up in the
desert desert? No, you don'twant that to unpick your
(13:57):
relationships and isolate youfrom that that severe ISIL so
Andy Fermo (14:03):
what you know when you're talking about when you
mentioned this, you know, copingugly but it's no good in the
long run. So what sort of go Doyou know, you're, you're coping,
you're coping I'd leave for alittle bit. Now we're talking
about cable what most whatstarts to happen if we start to
take it into the lungs. So
Stu McKenzie (14:19):
if we go to the concept of, of well being being
the can measure it, can measureit the just the right amount can
measure it. Yeah, level ofsupport for the challenges that
you're facing. And even ifyou're facing significant
challenges, as long as thesupports are adequate to match
(14:40):
those challenges, you should beokay, on scale on the scale,
we're ramping up the scale youneed more. So the deeper you go,
do they be you get down intothat swamp. The more supports
you're going to need to help youget get back out again.
Andy Fermo (14:54):
The Swamp can get relaxed and it's lucky right in
Yeah.
Stu McKenzie (14:56):
So being so but but then the There's sorry, yes,
that's the thing. How do weensure that the supports are
there for people who, andbecause that idea of a slowly
realising that were, you know,feeling sliding into a
depression because of because ofa number of cumulative events?
(15:18):
Often the support aren't therebecause we don't eat. We're not
even aware that that's happeningto us. And I suppose that that's
the tricky one. So it's aboutit's about help seeking help
seeking is
Andy Fermo (15:30):
everything. Yep.
Yeah. And that's, that's a bigone you got to help seeking. And
that sort of goes to what I wassort of like it that I read in,
in, in your, your book, right,is that when when losses aren't
recognised, or they're perceivedas less important, which is non
death, so to speak, excuse tocontinue living, we may slowly
sink into a depression. Yes,that's where these things might
(15:52):
be happening over time. And
Stu McKenzie (15:55):
it's a very isolating experience, because
other people don't, you know, atthe loss of the vision of what I
want it to be in life and what Ithought I was going to do, and
I'm nowhere near that I
Andy Fermo (16:04):
was a career I was a career person. Yeah, yes, job.
And now that
Stu McKenzie (16:10):
was ranked for major. And now I'm not even in
there. I had all of that. Yeah,let's say, one in three men die
within three years ofretirement. Wow. Statistic at
some point in time. And becausebecause a lot of people's whole
sense of meaning is tied totheir title, who they are what
(16:34):
they do, and they haven't, youknow, developed a broad range of
engagement and meaningfulness.
Yeah. And
Andy Fermo (16:41):
look, you know, sort of, a couple of things come to
mind when you said to say thosestatistics, whether it's death,
like is they actually physicallydie? Or is it that portion of it
actually dies? No, that's adifferent perspective. We're
talking about multipleperspectives is like, you know,
I was this yeah, now I'm just ashell. Yeah, what I was, yeah,
(17:02):
you know, part of me died.
Second, I bloody handed thisgrief and loss of work. That's
the work.
Stu McKenzie (17:08):
That's the work.
So acknowledge that that'sgrief. And I don't think when
that happens slowly, I don'tthink we're so good at bringing,
understanding that's grief,right? It's actually grief that
you're experiencing. And sopeople go, they get diagnosed
with this or that they get puton this medication, that
medication. And what it is, isunresolved grief. And really a
key point here that I'd like tomake is on examine grief, can
(17:31):
get trapped in our system. Yes.
And it's that unexamined griefthat turns into trauma. Now, I
don't know if I've actually readthis anywhere, but it's a very
strong belief that I have, thattrauma is frozen or stuck grief.
Andy Fermo (17:56):
Well, they do say, if you're interesting food for
thought, and then I'm going to abit more of that sort of, sort
of well being from the yogateacher in me, right? Is that
you go well, or even they saythat grief, or stress gets stuck
in, in the middle in your bodyand being your body actually the
(18:16):
body that sort of stuff. Yeah.
And without, you know, wantingto move on, hopefully, I'm not
coming across as too woowoo. Butwe that's, that's, we're
releasing stress, right? So ifyou're talking about this stuck,
that's emotion and grief. Youknow, it's kind of being stuck
put there in cryovac that wasborn, packaged up in a little
cryovac sealed for freshnesswere waiting to be opened and no
(18:38):
one wants to open that thatfreshly sealed bag and, or
Stu McKenzie (18:43):
even long, sealed bag. Yeah. And that's why we've
had this enormous growth inwhat's called somatic
psychotherapy. So Soma meansbody. So so what we realised in
our dealing with post traumaticstress and dealing with people
with trauma backgrounds, etc, astheir as therapists was that
bringing them into the goddamnoffice and sitting there and
(19:04):
asking them to tell us thattheir trauma loss grief stories,
just re traumatise them. But so,So somatic psychotherapy, first
of all, take them all out, theyactually say you can actually
work with grief without, withoutanybody ever tell it sorry, work
with trauma or grief or losswithout anybody ever telling you
(19:25):
the story. And what that is, isabout somatic meaning working
through the body. So it'steaching people the skills, like
the skills I mentioned in theother episode of being able to
regulate your nervous system.
Yes. Yeah. And there's a hugeamount of understanding and work
out of out of what's calledpolyvagal. Theory. Yes. vagus
nerve.
Andy Fermo (19:49):
Yes. Well, we'll get to the polyvagal. That's very
that's a very big, big deepdive. Both of them are Yeah, but
from what you're saying though,and and this comes to a lot have
just recently as well with someof the some of the veterans and
first responders that that I'vespoken to, you know, over time
(20:09):
is there's things that they, youknow, instead of their
preference is not to actually goand see the actual specialist
and there's nothing there thatthat didn't work for them. But
what they've gone and done nowis some of these other
programmes like say things likeequine therapy, yes, you're
going there and you're making oryou go equine therapy, or you go
in, I'm going to go and makeknives. So I'm going to make a
(20:31):
make a surfboard withpsychosocial stuff there. And a
lot of the themes that arecoming out of this, is that you
check in here, yes, we all kindof know why we're, we're all
here for, but I don't actually,if you if you're not asked, it's
not, it's not expected of you tobe able to share your story, you
go into that grief and loss,because you're there already.
Yeah. So a lot of the time theconversations is my mate. And he
(20:55):
was just on a podcast recently,Kurt, he goes, Look, we're not
going to be going to do thesethings about, you know, singing
Kumbaya, because not everyone,not not not every person,
especially when you're talkingabout veterans that have been in
a, you know, in an alpha maleenvironment, this this here at
the pointy end of the stick,they might not want to talk
about going deep, like you spokeabout earlier. They talked about
(21:17):
can be damaged, it can bedamaging, it just rips open the
wounds. However, we mightacknowledge part of that, but
not reopen the wound, right?
Because it's still sealed. Butwe might be together here and we
might be doing something inpsychosocial, well, at least
we're ematic we're doingsomething together,
Stu McKenzie (21:34):
gauged where connectors connect connection,
belonging, this is where thesomatic
Andy Fermo (21:38):
psychotherapy comes in. You don't actually need to
talk about yet the trauma or thegrief or the loss. Yeah. But
when I
Stu McKenzie (21:45):
apologise for all therapists, who have
inadvertently traumatisedclients by trying to talk
therapy, you know, by givingthem the skills to regulate
their autonomic nervous system.
Yes, look, I
Andy Fermo (21:58):
mean, and that's the thing. I think that's, you know,
in your field of work, andprofession, like that's, that's
just all part of the growththere and finding ways and
methods to be able to, to dealwith what you deal with, with
with more effective methods.
Yeah, isn't it? You spoke aboutthe different methods and when,
when is one, you know that thatwould come in? And then no
(22:21):
offence to any of theprofessionals is saying, but
like, just talking on thatanalogy? Let's go straight to
talking about the things youokay. That's like almost the
coping ugly. That's that's kindof ugly. Oh, yeah. No,
Stu McKenzie (22:34):
let's give people in George Bono's words, banana,
banana. How can we build pupilstoolkit, so they've got a deep
and a wide set of strategiesthat they can draw on to
regulate themselves. And thisidea of help seeking, which is a
vital importance help seeking iseverything when you're under the
(22:55):
water? Yeah, they did a study acouple of years back, a couple
of years back, I remember goingto a work breakout session at a
conference,
Andy Fermo (23:05):
it was in 1980.
Stu McKenzie (23:09):
Probably the early 90s. And the guy, the presenter,
presented the study of theeffectiveness of different
modalities of support. So Sobasically, is a psychologist
better than a psychiatristbetter than a medical doctor
better than a registeredpsychologist or as a counsellor,
okay, or he's just talking to apsychic person over the phone,
(23:31):
okay, or he's talking to afriend and, and, and, you know,
they studied the effectivenessof those help help those avenues
of help for people. And theycouldn't find any significant
difference between any of thosehelping modalities, the only
statistical significance theyfound was of non help seeking
(23:53):
behaviour. So
Andy Fermo (23:54):
and so it doesn't matter
Stu McKenzie (23:56):
what you do, or where you get help from, as long
as you help seeking, because nonhelp seeking that is
detrimental. Now,
Andy Fermo (24:05):
can you just sort of shed a little bit of light on
this non seeking behaviour? Likewhat what are we talking about?
So, I suppose these things havebeen
Stu McKenzie (24:12):
on non help seeking behaviour will come from
a couple of places. One, one is,it's not in my awareness. It's
not even, it's not even at thatlevel of awareness and
acknowledgement about, yeah,well, I don't know at first, it
is, I don't even know this ishappening to me. It's not at my
level of awareness. I knowsomething's wrong, but I can't
(24:33):
name it. And I suppose peoplewho are lonely and isolated and
don't have naturally occurringnetworks of support around them.
That's another factor. So Idon't know if you can help me
think of any other factorsaround that helps thinking or
(24:54):
what's occurring to you. That'skind of what occurs to me. Yes.
Oh,
Andy Fermo (24:58):
no, I think you've nailed those two bits. Otherwise
we'll go if we workshoppingthose words, it'll go quiet
down. So enough seen on thepicture here. And, and I'm
seeing there's the illustratedversion. And then there's what
we're writing down in the notes,as, as we sort of come in
organically speak about the, youknow, the swamp of feelings. But
you know, what's what'soccurring to me. And a common
(25:20):
theme, even though you'retalking about that, and the
feelings here is, it's kind oflike that deep note, the swamp
can get deep. And there's manylevels in and it's kind of a bit
of a vortex that sort of comesin around because you know, and
the deeper you go, you've got tohave some more tools to better
enable you help come to morehelp,
Stu McKenzie (25:38):
or help seeking more support, more support,
because it's, it's someone tothrow you off the boat. It's,
where's that going to come from?
And I suppose if on relationshiphighways, we've got, we've got
some good relationships aroundus. And we've, we've, we've
proactively and preventativelydeveloped our support networks.
(26:00):
I think that, you know, in aconscious way, then then we're
going to be in a much betterplace. Yes. So if we understand
that we're grieving. And that'sthe point I want to make about
awareness. Yes, most often,we're going through something
and we don't understand thatwe're grieving. If we understand
that we're grieving, we can findour way through this one with
the help and support of friendsand family. And occasionally,
(26:22):
some light therapy or some.
Yeah, light therapy, as in notheavy therapy, just like
therapy, because psychoeducation is a vital importance.
Even understanding this journey,and this map gives us hope. Yes,
Andy Fermo (26:40):
that's right. And so when we say like therapy, I
mean, and I'm saying, I don'tmean
Stu McKenzie (26:44):
just sitting there my wife has to she puts over her
head in bed, the changes allthese lights. Yeah,
Andy Fermo (26:50):
that's taking away the blue light. So we're taking
away buddy phones from now.
Yeah, but that's a differenttype of therapy again, isn't it?
But you know, when we're talkingabout like, not not so heavy
when we when we, when you whenyou mentioned light therapy?
What does that look like? So forour audience here to go, Okay,
well, what's that sort ofdifference?
Stu McKenzie (27:10):
So I would say that for a fair while there in
time, there's a bit of a stigmaabout going to a psychologist,
what's wrong with you? Yeah.
Yeah, there must be somethingwrong with you, I suppose. The
in the advent of positivepsychology with Martin Seligman,
if you know that name, thefather of positive psychology,
(27:31):
and that was in that was aroundthe year that was around 2000,
was that psychology had beeninitially, you know, the DSM
five, it's a term of a bookabout Father, we dealt with all
the diagnoses and things. And sopsychology was very much focused
on what's wrong with us, whereasspend this huge growth in
(27:51):
positive psychology, which isaround studying character
strengths, what's right withstudying hope, studying
resilience, studying grit,studying positive aspects of
human. And so psychology,really, since the turn of the
millennium, really, it was theturning point, has become a lot
(28:11):
more positive focused, as wellas neg as well as diagnostic
kind
Andy Fermo (28:19):
of reminds me now because, you know, you are
working in that sphere ofeducation system that kind of
goes to the old school mentalityof the, you know, your negative
reinforcement back in the day,right, you know, you beat them
into punishment, a punishmentinto, into doing this as now
it's more about rewards or, youknow, positive behaviours,
let's, you know, foster that,
Stu McKenzie (28:40):
well, it's even broader than when we work with
you can get me on to functionalbehaviour assessment now,
because what we say is behaviouris meaningful, and it serves a
purpose for the person,regardless of of us managing it
through a consequence, be thatpositive or negative? How can we
understand what that behaviouris telling us about what that
(29:02):
person needs? What are theytrying to communicate through
their behaviour? What are theyseeking to gain? Or what are
they seeking to avoid from thatbehaviour? Because if we can
help them gain or avoid whateverthey're seeking to gain or avoid
from that behaviour, we can helpthem do it without having to use
the problem by
Andy Fermo (29:18):
Yeah, well, that's right. Well, that one didn't it
didn't segue because I thinkit's an important bit that goes
to the question that I'll askyou about, which is the the, I
mentioned before the diagramsthat I've been seeing, right, is
that we've got this concept inthe picture. Um, you know,
you've got your less importantloss, where you might have a
different level, right?
Obviously, surface sadness, andthen a more important loss where
(29:40):
I'm looking at this now, in thein the diagram, we're rock
bottom at the opposite side ofthe scale and suicidal and then
the arrow coming back up andlike the supports that you've
mentioned, and can we sort ofspeak to that because I mean,
look, is it the less Importantloss and more important loss.
(30:00):
You know, it's still loss. Butwhat is that big difference? You
Stu McKenzie (30:08):
misinterpret?
Well? No, it comes back tosimple complex cumulative. Yeah.
The the notion that we spokeabout was that if if people are
if we are aware that there hasbeen a significant loss, and we
are grieving, we often go downfast, but come up fast, because
other people are aware of thataround us. Net supports
naturally emerge. Yes, for us.
(30:30):
When we're not aware of what ishappening to us, and other
people aren't aware of what'shappening to us, we're much more
isolated in a and that's wherewe are more likely to develop,
died clinical levels ofdepression, anxiety. Yeah. And
then you can even you know,further down from complex trauma
(30:53):
is, is personality disorders,psychosis. It's called, used to
build bipolar sucker, you know,manic depression, or it right
down to schizophrenia. For me,you know, we've had a medical
model that says, it was in yourjeans, and it was inevitable,
(31:14):
you know, that you're gonna havethat, but I disagree. I think
all of those even those most,even though those those real
difficult, heavy diagnosis, Ithink they're all trauma based.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there reallythere will be a genetic loading.
But what we know now about howgenes manifest and manifest from
(31:37):
stresses, just can't find theword for it at the moment. But
that, that genes can remainunexpressed if, if we're aware
of not of the stresses that areon Yes, on us and make sure that
we, we've got a loading for it.
But we know about that loading.
So for me, although there is agenetic component, I would still
(31:58):
say a lot of a lot of thatdevelops, because people have
been under that water too long.
Yep.
Andy Fermo (32:02):
And I mean, looking, that's the thing, though, isn't
one of those, you're mentioningabout the emotion and the
intensity of that emotion can becan be sort of put towards the
that whether it's less or more,but you know, all the supports
that are there that the feelingsstill there? Yeah. Because how
intense and what supports wehave to be exactly with them to
(32:24):
get back up
Stu McKenzie (32:25):
and being under being exposed to intense emotion
for too long? Turns intodisorder? Yes. Diagnose
disorder. That's right. Yeah.
Andy Fermo (32:37):
And then you did mention that before as well,
which was the deep rest, youknow, and well,
Stu McKenzie (32:41):
I'm all the, you know, it's a co spending some
time in the avoidance marshes.
Isn't that silly, really,because as, as long as, as long
as supports, you know, the voidsmashes aren't the best, you
might be there for a littlewhile. Because it's just a way
of coping ugly. But theavoidance Marsh's is not helping
(33:02):
us. It's not giving uspsychoeducation it's not giving
us support. It's not giving usconnection, it's not giving us
hope. It's not giving us it'sjust avoiding. Yeah. And that's
what I said where you're gettingto that place where you you no
longer feeling, you know,feeling anything is cut or burn
or, you know, I want to feelsomething I don't even care if
it's self harming kind ofyelling, because I want to feel
(33:24):
something. Yeah. But but if wesay that, I suppose there's, you
know, that's the avoidancemeasures. And then we've got the
anger and guilt mudflats, whichare both places where people are
still kind of not processing,their grief, their loss, their
intense feelings of chaos, in away that's processing. Yes. It's
(33:45):
kind of getting stuck in it. AndI think, I think in the times
that we all in our lives havegone through that process of the
mat, wanting to all thosestages. All of us have gone into
all those stages. Yes, sometimesa part of us gets stuck in
stage.
Andy Fermo (34:04):
Yes, yes. But we will get before we jump to that
a little bit. We're gonna jump.
But we've got a little bit justto round off this, this pace of
the, you know, we're starting toget into the avoidance marshes
and dabbling. You know, he'she's teasing is like, the DJ is
coming is teasing the nexttrack. But I'm gonna pull him
back for the next one. I've gota request here. Song For You DJ
stew, is that we know we'retalking about the four ds of
(34:26):
distress, right? So we'redealing with daily, sorry, for
days of dealing with distress.
Now, can we I'll say theheadings here, because I think
it's advertising, that sort ofrounding off the that that's one
for feelings and starting tomove into the avoidance Marsh's
(34:47):
is, you know, distract, dilute,develop and discover. Can we
speak to those? Each one ofthose? Yeah,
Stu McKenzie (34:56):
sorry. In 2020 Darryl Mansell, and his wife
actually developed this 4d modelof dealing with distress. And
they did it on a triangle kindof model if you like, yeah. So
so basically what they've saidis you it and this comes back to
(35:17):
but the Nanos deep and widebasket of strategies that we can
draw on. So if you like, youcould put that distract, dilute
develop and discover inside thatbasket if you like. So the very
first stage of dealing withdistress is just is distracting
ourselves, you know, away fromthat distress rather than going
(35:38):
in a downward spiral if youlike. So that's things like, you
know, she would, she spoke abouthaving her favourite magazines
on hand when she could just geta favourite magazine or
listening to a podcast orlistening to music or doing some
exercise, taking yourself for arun, or is that classic self
care? Yes. But it is just aboutsaying, I'm going to do
(36:00):
something which takes me awayfrom this moment of distress so
that it doesn't amplify andmagnify in my head, and I go
down this downward spiral of thethinking pattern. And you know,
mindfulness is is also is aboutteaching us a skill of
observing. Yes. A feelingwithout it possessing us. Yeah,
(36:21):
because we get possessed. Iknow, I'd say, I acknowledge
you're here. Yeah, I can see notYeah, I can see that I am not.
Yes. Angry. So I'm, you know,and so. So. Yeah, an example of
that is actually in in the selfcompassion work, where we talk
about over identification versusmindfulness. And my sister's
(36:48):
always a good example of that,where she rings me and she goes,
I'm such a bad mother, I yelledat my kids. And I was yelling
and screaming and swearing atthem. And I'm such a bad mother.
So that's kind of an over I amthe emotion I am, I am over
identified, whereas mindfulness,let's let's you say, I'm a good
mother. But I had a I've had aperiod of time there where I got
(37:09):
a little bit snappy and angry.
And are the kids and so I'm notpossessed.
Andy Fermo (37:14):
He was possessed.
She was COVID. Ugly. Yeah.
Stu McKenzie (37:18):
So it says the audio distraction is anything
you can do to just shift yourattention. Because yes,
attention is the most powerful,it's the most powerful thing.
Attention is like a muscle. Andwhat what the practice of
mindfulness does is it helps youbuild the muscle of where you
put your attention. They speakabout the attention economy,
(37:39):
everything is vying for yourattention these days, everything
everywhere. Once you become moremindful and understand that your
attention is like a muscle, youchoose where to put your
attention.
Andy Fermo (37:50):
Yeah. So all the all the all these all, you know, all
the laws are out there, all theall the distractions, or the
noise, whatever word you want toput it does there. But you're
tuning yourself into being ableto go yes, I'm going to focus on
that. Exactly. So in
Stu McKenzie (38:04):
the distract moment, you're saying, I'm not
in the space to deal with thesefeelings. At the moment, I'm
going to distract myself, I'mgoing to shift my attention to
something else to distractmyself. And I'll come back to
the slider. And this is as yougo up. Now, I'll come back to
this later. So dilute is aboutlearn skills, such as box
breathing, or grounding yourselfor what okay, what are three
(38:26):
things I can see at the moment?
What are two? What are threethings I can hear? What are
three things I can smellanything to come back into the
present moment? Have you everbeen that notion sensible? Or be
sensible? Or, you know, that'sactually saying? What's it mean?
It's saying get out of yourhead? And your thought that and
come back into your senses? Comeback to your senses. Yeah. When
(38:48):
people say come back to yoursite? Yeah, that's what they're
saying. Yeah. Because yoursenses ground you in the present
moment, because
Andy Fermo (38:57):
your body is actually telling those though,
all those senses that you've gotit, they're built in? Yes. To
help you get there. So they'reproud of your nervous system,
isn't it? You know, part of Idon't know, I'm not a scientist.
I don't know. Like if thosesenses are their senses,
sensory. There's got to bewilling use something, right?
That's going internal, likedisconnecting
Stu McKenzie (39:19):
from you when your internal, or your lovely example
the other day where we went outfor dinner. And it was a busy
night in northbridge. I thinkthe Fringe Festivals on and my
23 year old son and his pregnantwife, were trying to find a park
try and drive around driving andare getting angry at each other
and yelling at each other andgetting all dysregulated I could
hear it on the phone and they'resaying we're not going to be
(39:41):
able to come for dinner, becausewe're not going to we're just
we're California Park. And Isaid drove past come past James
Street, come up in front of therestaurant, caught up in front
of the restaurant said give methe keys. Get out go into the
thing I got in the car, and Idrove down the road left and
drove straight into the carspace. Also What's that? What
was going on when I examined it?
And it was like, what happenswhen you're dysregulated? Is
(40:04):
your your scope of vision comesright down to, you know, you're
not in your senses, you're notseeing you're not hearing, you
know, whereas when you're youwhen you're regulated and you're
wide open, you see a cartel,like seeing indicating you
seeing all of theseopportunities that you don't see
when you're dysregulated.
Because Because revival meansfocus right in on the unrest by
(40:28):
this focusing on the threat.
Andy Fermo (40:30):
Yes. So I'll just like I mean, there's times when
that there is, for this example,laser laser focus. But then
there's what we're talking aboutis like, looking at the big
picture, wider
Stu McKenzie (40:43):
or engaging with all incoming data? Yeah. So it
is, we are going on this one fora while to
Andy Fermo (40:50):
where we are going on this one, we have nearly our
SD cards almost run out. Solet's let's just develop
discover these last two in thelast sort of 11 minutes that
we've got Hello, audience. Solet's go to develop.
Stu McKenzie (41:08):
So develop is about beginning to plan to
engage with what's going on inour lives in a constructive way.
So it's like, I think I mightbook a session with a therapist,
psychologist, I've got thisreally good friend who's great
listener, who can hold space forme to explore and to develop my
understanding of what's going onfor me. So that's about develop,
(41:33):
and it's very rare. It's a rarething, to have somebody hold
space for you where it's 100%,about you. And your brain.
Because most of our interactionsare 5050 I'll tell a little bit
of a story. You tell a littlestory back, and that's good.
Yeah, that's but but rarely dowe do we find that space where,
(41:55):
where it's 100% about us and andso that's what what light
therapy gives us. And thendiscovery is really about
learning, shifting andsustaining engagement and
expressing our experiences. Soit's back to that that notion,
yes, motion, moving stuffthrough us opening that ziplock
bag. Yes, you know, planned whydoing the therapeutic work, more
(42:19):
therapy, deep therapy,
Andy Fermo (42:20):
it's going it's going deeper, as opposed to the
light therapy, but I think to beable to go and unlock that bag,
what you're talking aboutearlier on. And you've mentioned
that a lot of time with themwith John George bananas work
sorry about the pronunciation ifI got it wrong was is that
developing, you know, developingthat trust, being able to
develop the words giving themtools, then to be able to go in
(42:42):
and go when you mentioned thatand this is a big one that you
mentioned as well is that termof holding space, holding space
to make feel someone feel heard.
And it's really, reallydifficult to not project if
you're, you're the listener, orthe specialist is not project
your own, your own values,standard stuff. And I relate
with that because this is what'shappened. Now it's like okay,
(43:04):
now this is your space now. Andregardless of renewal, in the
non judgement way, I'm inprojecting this stuff and I got
one arm feeling hurt. Yeah, nowI'm ready to then open up gently
Stu McKenzie (43:20):
feel held I feel psychologically safe to go
there.
Andy Fermo (43:23):
I'm not going to be held. Yeah, yeah. And
psychologically so that's right.
You know, you're not you're notsinging Tom Petty's freefalling
arm for you. Yeah, yes, youknow, you're not they you know
there's something there that'sthat's catching you're holding.
Stu McKenzie (43:36):
So if you like George bananas, basketball
strategies that are distracting,dilute and then more more
traditional accessing moretraditional support skill,
learning some skills, learningsome strategies, and having
psychoeducation learning theframework for understanding
what's happening is more thedevelopment discover. Yes,
Andy Fermo (43:55):
and I think that you know it to get to that to get to
the to the pointy tip of theiceberg at the top that's coming
in and that's opening up youneed to work you need all those
levels is walking up levels. Andif we look at it, it actually is
the vortex that you're talkingabout in the swamp upside down.
Yeah, let's flip that script.
Yeah, flip the screw back to thething back to the theme.
(44:16):
Alrighty, guys, well look thatwe've covered a lot in the last
you know, in this last sectionwas the swamp of feelings, the
swamp. Let's talk about thecomms a DJ and our stuff that
AMD right. But it is it is goodto be able to tie things in. And
I think that's why some of thesemodes and we talk about as a
little segue there is that somecoping mechanisms and sound
(44:40):
therapy or music is one of thebig things because people are
singing about these things,these topics there and then
letting go of these, you know,you could you could be you could
be depressed, but you could havesome deep rest by singing,
listening sins and juniors. Oh,there we go. There's a fight on
tender Radio Operator righthere, boom, boom, boom. Welcome
(45:01):
to Stuart nd FM here. We'retalking now about feelings. So
call the number three. If youcall in the next 10 minutes,
you'll get a free ride in ablack 1969. we digress now but
so look to recap a stew on on onthe map on sorry. On the on The
Swapper feelings, what would itbe some finishing, finishing
(45:26):
points here.
Stu McKenzie (45:31):
awareness of what's going on for you. Because
most of the time, it's onlyproblem problem problematic when
you're going through it byyourself alone. So awareness
that you're going through it,seek ways of expressing those
feelings and give honour them.
That word honour. Giving spaceand time to honour those
(45:52):
feelings is essentiallyimportant. And help seeking is
really the everything helpedhelp signals everything it
doesn't. Yeah, many differenttherapies, there are hundreds of
different therapies, literallyhundreds and hundreds of
different therapies. But they'reall what's the key element?
Someone's help seeking
Andy Fermo (46:15):
someone's help seeking. And that's what it is
you're not you're not having youknow, you're not in that non non
seeking behaviour that youmentioned, you're on. So it's
almost cable, find what worksfor you. If you're in that
seeking mode. Whatever ways,there's no better or worse it
stick out what fits for
Stu McKenzie (46:31):
you, each person who is trying to sell it will
tell you Yes. EMDR is betterthan Emotional Freedom Technique
is better than blah, blah,
Andy Fermo (46:39):
blah. But it might work for someone, it might work
for someone else, but it mightwork for you today. But as you
have growth when you're youknow, going around that grief
coin that you were speakingabout trying to fit everything
into this, this last summary isthat might not work for you. So
it's all about that growththere. And the feelings and
acknowledgement does come in,and awareness. Yeah, before you
(47:01):
can move to the next step.
Because, you know,
Stu McKenzie (47:04):
and I think a lot of what we've spoken about today
probably happens in the forestof hope as well, if you like, I
mean, that's, you know, as youcome out of the swamp of
feelings, grief comes in waves.
So some days, you're alright,then you slip back, then some
days you're there, but I thinkthe understanding that grief
comes in waves and those wavesget longer and longer and
(47:25):
longer. But this is really aboutcrisis intervention. Yes, and
the forest of hope is probablywhere you do a bit more of that
way but certainly dilute youknow those strategies to
distract days idea that youreregulate yourself when you you
have a surge of sympatheticfight flight response. Yeah, to
(47:46):
be able to regulate yourself.
Yeah, that's the essential.
That's
Andy Fermo (47:51):
an amazing and look, I did that they teased in that
next few well, one, so we'regoing to be going through the
anger and guilt mudflats nexttime leaving the swamp in the
forest of hope. Moving on fromthe the amazing, important work
that we're doing, that Stuarthas been doing in creating,
creating this ebook and, and thetopics, you know, some of them
(48:13):
that we want to talk about someof them that we don't. And so
thank you again for joining usand we'll we'll be hooking in on
the next episode. Excellent.
Claire Fermo (48:25):
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 can 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
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(00:27):
connection with our audience,and give them the ideas for
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Lastly, these stories may be atrigger for your post traumatic
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(00:48):
support in the description. Orif it's immediate, please call
lifeline on 1311 14. Here's yourhost, Andy fermo.
Andy Fermo (01:01):
Welcome back, everyone. So we're up to our
next part of what we've beenspeaking about in studio
McKenzies. Unleash your innerstrength ebook. So we move we
last couple of chats we weretalking about, you know, choose
story and an overview of theresilience map your map of
(01:22):
resilience. And in the lastepisode, we spoke about three
things the relationship highway,the voluntary off ramp, and then
the catastrophe rage, right,which all kind of leads now to
our next, which is a big, bigsection of the book was the is
the is the swamp of feelings. SoStu, take it away.
Stu McKenzie (01:46):
Okay, so the swamp of feelings is really a puddle.
When you come off the voluntaryoff ramp, as we described in the
last you just you know, andthat's happening to us all the
time. That's the journey oflife. That doesn't throw us off
course too much, you know, andsome people who were lucky,
always say to people who are intheir mid 40s. If you haven't
(02:08):
been whacked by somethingcatastrophic by the time you're
45, hang on with white knuckles.
Andy Fermo (02:15):
Don't buy that car because you're about to have a
midlife crisis,
Stu McKenzie (02:20):
or whatever.
Because I think it would be veryrare that you would get through
a hole through much, much laterthan 30 or 40. Without something
giving you a serious whack, youknow? Yeah, yes, I just, well,
lucky, some people might just belucky. Or they might live very
safe. Yes, very safe, veryroutine. Logs. I call it my
(02:43):
OCDC. Music I'm
Andy Fermo (02:59):
going to jump over, that's what the lightning bolts
for when you get over thatbridge. You know, there's the
catastrophe right there.
Stu McKenzie (03:05):
So we've had the catastrophe comes along, and
you're falling through space,haven't even hit this one. This
is this idea of how to firstresponders or how to is what we
call emotional or psychologicalfirst aid. As far as how do you
work with someone in that thosefirst moments when of of a
(03:26):
critical incident, others have acatastrophic moment. And the
fact that matter is thatpsychological first aid is
around meeting their immediateneeds, for warmth, for food, for
water, for space, forcompanionship, for just being
held, you know, like, becauseyou're not processing anything.
(03:48):
It's this idea of just time,either happening at an
incredibly fast pace or timeextending to this just this
time, just slows right down asyou fall, if you like so there's
some really importantunderstandings there for how
first responders work withpeople in those moments where
(04:12):
they are engaging with people inthose scenes and, and
psychological first aid, andpsychosocial support, as we call
them now to how do we best workwith people? And it is not about
necessarily about talking aboutwhat happened or or did you mean
investigate investigating, andit's just about meeting those
(04:33):
basic needs. Yeah. And then wehit we hit the water. Yep, I hit
that water hard. I did I hitthat water fast, sinking down
into those murky depths. Howlong would this thing last, you
know, and that's the, that'sthat little bit out of the palm.
So, I suppose at that point,depending on the loss and the
(04:56):
nature of the loss, depends onhow big the that swamp is
whether it's deep and wide asoceans or so, you know, tragic
death, etc, or bank, you know,bankruptcy I don't and it could
be in any number of of ways inour lives divorce, etc. So So
(05:21):
accident injury, death, otherfinancial catastrophes whatever.
So So again, we hit that homerunand often when we have something
that is shared, so I find thisin my work in the education
department. So for example, whencyclone Saroja went through the
(05:42):
Northwest, and we went up thereand work with people, because
the whole community were goingthrough it, people cope pretty
well, because people are talkingabout it all the time
everybody's going through. Yeah,you experienced that all we did
every and this is what it wasMay in May, and people are
talking about it and processingit. The real difficult ones are
often the shame, ones thatrelate to shame and can't be
(06:03):
spoken about like rape or abuse,or oh my god, those kinds of
ones where the person is alonein their day, you know, they're
not believed or they becomethose complex traumas.
Andy Fermo (06:19):
And this is what we're talking about earlier,
where now the simple trauma, thecomplex, and then the, the
cumulative cumulative. come intoeffect. Yeah, right. Um, because
you know, in that instance,where you're talking about like,
a large communal incident,right, big catastrophe bridge.
Yeah. In terms of the supports,when you're talking about the it
(06:41):
brings people together.
Stu McKenzie (06:42):
Yeah. That was an outcome of COVID. Is that is
that wellness and our mentalhealth is squarely on the
agenda. And yes, you know, gosh,we all got good at being on Zoom
to didn't
Andy Fermo (06:53):
absolutely. Except for that lady that stepped on
the sheet. She didn't she was upSheep Creek, but but neither
Stu McKenzie (07:01):
one of us presenter who keep comes in the
wife. Do you remember?
Andy Fermo (07:08):
We're talking about a body of water there ship
Creek, you fell off the written?
Anyway, we digress a little bit.
And so you know, we're talkingwe were talking just a moment
you know, those those powerfulfeelings. And those feelings,
say, where community might bringyou together, we talked about
that. And then we talked abouteven even then not skimming over
it. But those things like rapingand looking Divi and some of
(07:34):
these other where people feelisolated and powerless and not
in control. And you know thatthat freefall is
Stu McKenzie (07:43):
even a day death, even with a with a say, a death
of a loved one that wasunexpected and catastrophic. The
family goes through it together.
So you can go hit the water comedown, hit the bottom really
quick. But because becauseyou've got it's a shared thing,
you come back to the servicequickly, and you've got people
to swim with. So there's so it'snot the all the rituals and the
processes, and we have fewrituals in our western world.
(08:07):
But the rituals around a funeralare rituals of you know, some
other cultures have sackclothand ashes and while they bring
in people who wail and thatthey're all rituals that help us
Yes, move motion. Yes, emotionof those intense emotions. And
some cultures have bent andbrilliant rituals. When my
(08:29):
wife's mum died. She hadcerebral bulbar palsy, so M M,
and M and the motor neuron weset with her body because they
are Irish. And I did use themmom's Irish. And sorry, the
other way around. Mom's Marydad's Irish, and we kept her
(08:52):
body in the house for for thewhole of that day, that night,
the whole of the next day. Andthat night, and we sat around
her and we told stories abouther and we had some drinks and
we spoke to her and we kissedher and we we really processed
that that loss of her with herthere Yeah. In sometimes in our
Western culture, somebody dies,the van pulls up, watch it goes
(09:17):
on. It's like we're deathdenying where it
Andy Fermo (09:22):
resides in the years just to to actually acknowledge
it with the with the put that'swhat Yeah, and then that ritual
is
Stu McKenzie (09:29):
we get those really embedded because they
even the funeral the cooking thebusyness of cooking for
everybody, the talking of thewomen in the kitchen. I'm not
allowed to say that anymore.
Andy Fermo (09:39):
Don't worry.
Stu McKenzie (09:41):
Man in the kitchen, preparing all the meals
for everybody and staying busyand talking with each other and
supporting and all of that iskeeps us busy and engaged and
there is all the rituals of thefuneral and the they are all
motion. They're all to give theemotion that we're experiencing.
Ocean. Yes.
Andy Fermo (10:00):
And so and I wanted to be able to sort of ask you
more like, because of whatyou're talking about here. And
this is what you're sort ofbringing up in the book is to
swim through the swamp, we needto experience the feelings,
right? So it's yeah, thosethings have to be in motion. And
you know, lots of people mayfeel chaotic. The chaos and the
intensity chaos
Stu McKenzie (10:21):
is the word you use with. Yes. And people. We
don't like chaos. It'sunpredictable. It's an it's like
that dragon is like a beast.
It's like an unpredictable wild.
Dragon.
Andy Fermo (10:34):
That's right. Yeah.
And like a cyclone. You don'tknow how the inhaled how intense
it's going to be during yourtime. Right? When you're
experiencing it, it can bepretty, pretty hectic. Yeah. And
turbulent. Yeah. So
Stu McKenzie (10:46):
it's probably those ones where you come in
fast and bounce up up quick,because you've got a familial
fam family support, or a groupor friends or other people that
you're going with, they'reprobably not the bad ones,
probably the complex grief. Andthe so we said simple, complex
(11:07):
and cumulative. So thecumulative, one where we've just
had an accumulation of stressorsthat slowly swamped us, they're
the ones that are insidious innature. And when I say that, I
mean, we slow we don't kind ofeven know but we're slowly going
down and we're coping and GeorgeBonanno, who I mentioned before,
(11:29):
in his book, The End of trauma,he coined the term coping
angling. And I love that term.
Because it's the idea that thatit doesn't matter what you do to
cope, if it's helping you cope.
Great. Yeah, so having a fewdrinks or, you know, drinking
yourself through it. Yeah.
numbing yourself for a while. Hesays, it's okay, because you're
(11:51):
coping, but he said, Trump don'tcope ugly for too long.
Andy Fermo (11:58):
That's the thing.
And then, you know, I think alsoyou mentioned drinking there.
And that's, that's a big part ofthe culture in both services,
organisations and communities,right. And then you got also
those other coping mechanisms ofsubstance abuse, where you might
even like the the Med, so justwrap that all into to that one,
those coping mechanisms orcoping ugly, so to speak. And
I'll just sort of speak to likean, the experience of, and a lot
(12:21):
of our audience would connectwith it is like, Okay, well, I
experienced some, like, let'scall it, in this case here that
the simple trauma was the traumaand the event of the the
singular or multiple singularevents that have come in. And
then you're, you're onoperations, whatever that might
look like in the context of theaudience's experience. And then
(12:44):
you, you know, when you gethome, that's when the things
start to become a little morecomplex. Right? So now you're
dealing with other factors thatare coming in, it's starting to
become over, over the time, andthen you know, you bang, you
will, you know, I'm coping ugly.
(13:04):
But I'm coping at the moment,you know, you get back in
decompress.
Stu McKenzie (13:09):
I've got, I've got a, I've got a, I've got clients
that would start, stop, start at2pm and finish it 4pm In the
morning, in the morning, everyday, all day. But, you know, one
particular client, one, youknow, I don't want to even
allude to that, but after twoyears of work, travelling the
(13:34):
world now take his family aroundthe world, doing amazing things
and just it for that period oftime. That's what he needed,
what he needed. And who am I tojudge and who is anybody else to
just nobody else? Because hecoped with your coping. Your
coping? Yeah, exactly. Right.
Yeah. So no judgement, yourcoping? Yeah. But in the long
run, which is you're getting youdon't want to end up in the
desert desert? No, you don'twant that to unpick your
(13:57):
relationships and isolate youfrom that that severe ISIL so
Andy Fermo (14:03):
what you know when you're talking about when you
mentioned this, you know, copingugly but it's no good in the
long run. So what sort of go Doyou know, you're, you're coping,
you're coping I'd leave for alittle bit. Now we're talking
about cable what most whatstarts to happen if we start to
take it into the lungs. So
Stu McKenzie (14:19):
if we go to the concept of, of well being being
the can measure it, can measureit the just the right amount can
measure it. Yeah, level ofsupport for the challenges that
you're facing. And even ifyou're facing significant
challenges, as long as thesupports are adequate to match
(14:40):
those challenges, you should beokay, on scale on the scale,
we're ramping up the scale youneed more. So the deeper you go,
do they be you get down intothat swamp. The more supports
you're going to need to help youget get back out again.
Andy Fermo (14:54):
The Swamp can get relaxed and it's lucky right in
Yeah.
Stu McKenzie (14:56):
So being so but but then the There's sorry, yes,
that's the thing. How do weensure that the supports are
there for people who, andbecause that idea of a slowly
realising that were, you know,feeling sliding into a
depression because of because ofa number of cumulative events?
(15:18):
Often the support aren't therebecause we don't eat. We're not
even aware that that's happeningto us. And I suppose that that's
the tricky one. So it's aboutit's about help seeking help
seeking is
Andy Fermo (15:30):
everything. Yep.
Yeah. And that's, that's a bigone you got to help seeking. And
that sort of goes to what I wassort of like it that I read in,
in, in your, your book, right,is that when when losses aren't
recognised, or they're perceivedas less important, which is non
death, so to speak, excuse tocontinue living, we may slowly
sink into a depression. Yes,that's where these things might
(15:52):
be happening over time. And
Stu McKenzie (15:55):
it's a very isolating experience, because
other people don't, you know, atthe loss of the vision of what I
want it to be in life and what Ithought I was going to do, and
I'm nowhere near that I
Andy Fermo (16:04):
was a career I was a career person. Yeah, yes, job.
And now that
Stu McKenzie (16:10):
was ranked for major. And now I'm not even in
there. I had all of that. Yeah,let's say, one in three men die
within three years ofretirement. Wow. Statistic at
some point in time. And becausebecause a lot of people's whole
sense of meaning is tied totheir title, who they are what
(16:34):
they do, and they haven't, youknow, developed a broad range of
engagement and meaningfulness.
Yeah. And
Andy Fermo (16:41):
look, you know, sort of, a couple of things come to
mind when you said to say thosestatistics, whether it's death,
like is they actually physicallydie? Or is it that portion of it
actually dies? No, that's adifferent perspective. We're
talking about multipleperspectives is like, you know,
I was this yeah, now I'm just ashell. Yeah, what I was, yeah,
(17:02):
you know, part of me died.
Second, I bloody handed thisgrief and loss of work. That's
the work.
Stu McKenzie (17:08):
That's the work.
So acknowledge that that'sgrief. And I don't think when
that happens slowly, I don'tthink we're so good at bringing,
understanding that's grief,right? It's actually grief that
you're experiencing. And sopeople go, they get diagnosed
with this or that they get puton this medication, that
medication. And what it is, isunresolved grief. And really a
key point here that I'd like tomake is on examine grief, can
(17:31):
get trapped in our system. Yes.
And it's that unexamined griefthat turns into trauma. Now, I
don't know if I've actually readthis anywhere, but it's a very
strong belief that I have, thattrauma is frozen or stuck grief.
Andy Fermo (17:56):
Well, they do say, if you're interesting food for
thought, and then I'm going to abit more of that sort of, sort
of well being from the yogateacher in me, right? Is that
you go well, or even they saythat grief, or stress gets stuck
in, in the middle in your bodyand being your body actually the
(18:16):
body that sort of stuff. Yeah.
And without, you know, wantingto move on, hopefully, I'm not
coming across as too woowoo. Butwe that's, that's, we're
releasing stress, right? So ifyou're talking about this stuck,
that's emotion and grief. Youknow, it's kind of being stuck
put there in cryovac that wasborn, packaged up in a little
cryovac sealed for freshnesswere waiting to be opened and no
(18:38):
one wants to open that thatfreshly sealed bag and, or
Stu McKenzie (18:43):
even long, sealed bag. Yeah. And that's why we've
had this enormous growth inwhat's called somatic
psychotherapy. So Soma meansbody. So so what we realised in
our dealing with post traumaticstress and dealing with people
with trauma backgrounds, etc, astheir as therapists was that
bringing them into the goddamnoffice and sitting there and
(19:04):
asking them to tell us thattheir trauma loss grief stories,
just re traumatise them. But so,So somatic psychotherapy, first
of all, take them all out, theyactually say you can actually
work with grief without, withoutanybody ever tell it sorry, work
with trauma or grief or losswithout anybody ever telling you
(19:25):
the story. And what that is, isabout somatic meaning working
through the body. So it'steaching people the skills, like
the skills I mentioned in theother episode of being able to
regulate your nervous system.
Yes. Yeah. And there's a hugeamount of understanding and work
out of out of what's calledpolyvagal. Theory. Yes. vagus
nerve.
Andy Fermo (19:49):
Yes. Well, we'll get to the polyvagal. That's very
that's a very big, big deepdive. Both of them are Yeah, but
from what you're saying though,and and this comes to a lot have
just recently as well with someof the some of the veterans and
first responders that that I'vespoken to, you know, over time
(20:09):
is there's things that they, youknow, instead of their
preference is not to actually goand see the actual specialist
and there's nothing there thatthat didn't work for them. But
what they've gone and done nowis some of these other
programmes like say things likeequine therapy, yes, you're
going there and you're making oryou go equine therapy, or you go
in, I'm going to go and makeknives. So I'm going to make a
(20:31):
make a surfboard withpsychosocial stuff there. And a
lot of the themes that arecoming out of this, is that you
check in here, yes, we all kindof know why we're, we're all
here for, but I don't actually,if you if you're not asked, it's
not, it's not expected of you tobe able to share your story, you
go into that grief and loss,because you're there already.
Yeah. So a lot of the time theconversations is my mate. And he
(20:55):
was just on a podcast recently,Kurt, he goes, Look, we're not
going to be going to do thesethings about, you know, singing
Kumbaya, because not everyone,not not not every person,
especially when you're talkingabout veterans that have been in
a, you know, in an alpha maleenvironment, this this here at
the pointy end of the stick,they might not want to talk
about going deep, like you spokeabout earlier. They talked about
(21:17):
can be damaged, it can bedamaging, it just rips open the
wounds. However, we mightacknowledge part of that, but
not reopen the wound, right?
Because it's still sealed. Butwe might be together here and we
might be doing something inpsychosocial, well, at least
we're ematic we're doingsomething together,
Stu McKenzie (21:34):
gauged where connectors connect connection,
belonging, this is where thesomatic
Andy Fermo (21:38):
psychotherapy comes in. You don't actually need to
talk about yet the trauma or thegrief or the loss. Yeah. But
when I
Stu McKenzie (21:45):
apologise for all therapists, who have
inadvertently traumatisedclients by trying to talk
therapy, you know, by givingthem the skills to regulate
their autonomic nervous system.
Yes, look, I
Andy Fermo (21:58):
mean, and that's the thing. I think that's, you know,
in your field of work, andprofession, like that's, that's
just all part of the growththere and finding ways and
methods to be able to, to dealwith what you deal with, with
with more effective methods.
Yeah, isn't it? You spoke aboutthe different methods and when,
when is one, you know that thatwould come in? And then no
(22:21):
offence to any of theprofessionals is saying, but
like, just talking on thatanalogy? Let's go straight to
talking about the things youokay. That's like almost the
coping ugly. That's that's kindof ugly. Oh, yeah. No,
Stu McKenzie (22:34):
let's give people in George Bono's words, banana,
banana. How can we build pupilstoolkit, so they've got a deep
and a wide set of strategiesthat they can draw on to
regulate themselves. And thisidea of help seeking, which is a
vital importance help seeking iseverything when you're under the
(22:55):
water? Yeah, they did a study acouple of years back, a couple
of years back, I remember goingto a work breakout session at a
conference,
Andy Fermo (23:05):
it was in 1980.
Stu McKenzie (23:09):
Probably the early 90s. And the guy, the presenter,
presented the study of theeffectiveness of different
modalities of support. So Sobasically, is a psychologist
better than a psychiatristbetter than a medical doctor
better than a registeredpsychologist or as a counsellor,
okay, or he's just talking to apsychic person over the phone,
(23:31):
okay, or he's talking to afriend and, and, and, you know,
they studied the effectivenessof those help help those avenues
of help for people. And theycouldn't find any significant
difference between any of thosehelping modalities, the only
statistical significance theyfound was of non help seeking
(23:53):
behaviour. So
Andy Fermo (23:54):
and so it doesn't matter
Stu McKenzie (23:56):
what you do, or where you get help from, as long
as you help seeking, because nonhelp seeking that is
detrimental. Now,
Andy Fermo (24:05):
can you just sort of shed a little bit of light on
this non seeking behaviour? Likewhat what are we talking about?
So, I suppose these things havebeen
Stu McKenzie (24:12):
on non help seeking behaviour will come from
a couple of places. One, one is,it's not in my awareness. It's
not even, it's not even at thatlevel of awareness and
acknowledgement about, yeah,well, I don't know at first, it
is, I don't even know this ishappening to me. It's not at my
level of awareness. I knowsomething's wrong, but I can't
(24:33):
name it. And I suppose peoplewho are lonely and isolated and
don't have naturally occurringnetworks of support around them.
That's another factor. So Idon't know if you can help me
think of any other factorsaround that helps thinking or
(24:54):
what's occurring to you. That'skind of what occurs to me. Yes.
Oh,
Andy Fermo (24:58):
no, I think you've nailed those two bits. Otherwise
we'll go if we workshoppingthose words, it'll go quiet
down. So enough seen on thepicture here. And, and I'm
seeing there's the illustratedversion. And then there's what
we're writing down in the notes,as, as we sort of come in
organically speak about the, youknow, the swamp of feelings. But
you know, what's what'soccurring to me. And a common
(25:20):
theme, even though you'retalking about that, and the
feelings here is, it's kind oflike that deep note, the swamp
can get deep. And there's manylevels in and it's kind of a bit
of a vortex that sort of comesin around because you know, and
the deeper you go, you've got tohave some more tools to better
enable you help come to morehelp,
Stu McKenzie (25:38):
or help seeking more support, more support,
because it's, it's someone tothrow you off the boat. It's,
where's that going to come from?
And I suppose if on relationshiphighways, we've got, we've got
some good relationships aroundus. And we've, we've, we've
proactively and preventativelydeveloped our support networks.
(26:00):
I think that, you know, in aconscious way, then then we're
going to be in a much betterplace. Yes. So if we understand
that we're grieving. And that'sthe point I want to make about
awareness. Yes, most often,we're going through something
and we don't understand thatwe're grieving. If we understand
that we're grieving, we can findour way through this one with
the help and support of friendsand family. And occasionally,
(26:22):
some light therapy or some.
Yeah, light therapy, as in notheavy therapy, just like
therapy, because psychoeducation is a vital importance.
Even understanding this journey,and this map gives us hope. Yes,
Andy Fermo (26:40):
that's right. And so when we say like therapy, I
mean, and I'm saying, I don'tmean
Stu McKenzie (26:44):
just sitting there my wife has to she puts over her
head in bed, the changes allthese lights. Yeah,
Andy Fermo (26:50):
that's taking away the blue light. So we're taking
away buddy phones from now.
Yeah, but that's a differenttype of therapy again, isn't it?
But you know, when we're talkingabout like, not not so heavy
when we when we, when you whenyou mentioned light therapy?
What does that look like? So forour audience here to go, Okay,
well, what's that sort ofdifference?
Stu McKenzie (27:10):
So I would say that for a fair while there in
time, there's a bit of a stigmaabout going to a psychologist,
what's wrong with you? Yeah.
Yeah, there must be somethingwrong with you, I suppose. The
in the advent of positivepsychology with Martin Seligman,
if you know that name, thefather of positive psychology,
(27:31):
and that was in that was aroundthe year that was around 2000,
was that psychology had beeninitially, you know, the DSM
five, it's a term of a bookabout Father, we dealt with all
the diagnoses and things. And sopsychology was very much focused
on what's wrong with us, whereasspend this huge growth in
(27:51):
positive psychology, which isaround studying character
strengths, what's right withstudying hope, studying
resilience, studying grit,studying positive aspects of
human. And so psychology,really, since the turn of the
millennium, really, it was theturning point, has become a lot
(28:11):
more positive focused, as wellas neg as well as diagnostic
kind
Andy Fermo (28:19):
of reminds me now because, you know, you are
working in that sphere ofeducation system that kind of
goes to the old school mentalityof the, you know, your negative
reinforcement back in the day,right, you know, you beat them
into punishment, a punishmentinto, into doing this as now
it's more about rewards or, youknow, positive behaviours,
let's, you know, foster that,
Stu McKenzie (28:40):
well, it's even broader than when we work with
you can get me on to functionalbehaviour assessment now,
because what we say is behaviouris meaningful, and it serves a
purpose for the person,regardless of of us managing it
through a consequence, be thatpositive or negative? How can we
understand what that behaviouris telling us about what that
(29:02):
person needs? What are theytrying to communicate through
their behaviour? What are theyseeking to gain? Or what are
they seeking to avoid from thatbehaviour? Because if we can
help them gain or avoid whateverthey're seeking to gain or avoid
from that behaviour, we can helpthem do it without having to use
the problem by
Andy Fermo (29:18):
Yeah, well, that's right. Well, that one didn't it
didn't segue because I thinkit's an important bit that goes
to the question that I'll askyou about, which is the the, I
mentioned before the diagramsthat I've been seeing, right, is
that we've got this concept inthe picture. Um, you know,
you've got your less importantloss, where you might have a
different level, right?
Obviously, surface sadness, andthen a more important loss where
(29:40):
I'm looking at this now, in thein the diagram, we're rock
bottom at the opposite side ofthe scale and suicidal and then
the arrow coming back up andlike the supports that you've
mentioned, and can we sort ofspeak to that because I mean,
look, is it the less Importantloss and more important loss.
(30:00):
You know, it's still loss. Butwhat is that big difference? You
Stu McKenzie (30:08):
misinterpret?
Well? No, it comes back tosimple complex cumulative. Yeah.
The the notion that we spokeabout was that if if people are
if we are aware that there hasbeen a significant loss, and we
are grieving, we often go downfast, but come up fast, because
other people are aware of thataround us. Net supports
naturally emerge. Yes, for us.
(30:30):
When we're not aware of what ishappening to us, and other
people aren't aware of what'shappening to us, we're much more
isolated in a and that's wherewe are more likely to develop,
died clinical levels ofdepression, anxiety. Yeah. And
then you can even you know,further down from complex trauma
(30:53):
is, is personality disorders,psychosis. It's called, used to
build bipolar sucker, you know,manic depression, or it right
down to schizophrenia. For me,you know, we've had a medical
model that says, it was in yourjeans, and it was inevitable,
(31:14):
you know, that you're gonna havethat, but I disagree. I think
all of those even those most,even though those those real
difficult, heavy diagnosis, Ithink they're all trauma based.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there reallythere will be a genetic loading.
But what we know now about howgenes manifest and manifest from
(31:37):
stresses, just can't find theword for it at the moment. But
that, that genes can remainunexpressed if, if we're aware
of not of the stresses that areon Yes, on us and make sure that
we, we've got a loading for it.
But we know about that loading.
So for me, although there is agenetic component, I would still
(31:58):
say a lot of a lot of thatdevelops, because people have
been under that water too long.
Yep.
Andy Fermo (32:02):
And I mean, looking, that's the thing, though, isn't
one of those, you're mentioningabout the emotion and the
intensity of that emotion can becan be sort of put towards the
that whether it's less or more,but you know, all the supports
that are there that the feelingsstill there? Yeah. Because how
intense and what supports wehave to be exactly with them to
(32:24):
get back up
Stu McKenzie (32:25):
and being under being exposed to intense emotion
for too long? Turns intodisorder? Yes. Diagnose
disorder. That's right. Yeah.
Andy Fermo (32:37):
And then you did mention that before as well,
which was the deep rest, youknow, and well,
Stu McKenzie (32:41):
I'm all the, you know, it's a co spending some
time in the avoidance marshes.
Isn't that silly, really,because as, as long as, as long
as supports, you know, the voidsmashes aren't the best, you
might be there for a littlewhile. Because it's just a way
of coping ugly. But theavoidance Marsh's is not helping
(33:02):
us. It's not giving uspsychoeducation it's not giving
us support. It's not giving usconnection, it's not giving us
hope. It's not giving us it'sjust avoiding. Yeah. And that's
what I said where you're gettingto that place where you you no
longer feeling, you know,feeling anything is cut or burn
or, you know, I want to feelsomething I don't even care if
it's self harming kind ofyelling, because I want to feel
(33:24):
something. Yeah. But but if wesay that, I suppose there's, you
know, that's the avoidancemeasures. And then we've got the
anger and guilt mudflats, whichare both places where people are
still kind of not processing,their grief, their loss, their
intense feelings of chaos, in away that's processing. Yes. It's
(33:45):
kind of getting stuck in it. AndI think, I think in the times
that we all in our lives havegone through that process of the
mat, wanting to all thosestages. All of us have gone into
all those stages. Yes, sometimesa part of us gets stuck in
stage.
Andy Fermo (34:04):
Yes, yes. But we will get before we jump to that
a little bit. We're gonna jump.
But we've got a little bit justto round off this, this pace of
the, you know, we're starting toget into the avoidance marshes
and dabbling. You know, he'she's teasing is like, the DJ is
coming is teasing the nexttrack. But I'm gonna pull him
back for the next one. I've gota request here. Song For You DJ
stew, is that we know we'retalking about the four ds of
(34:26):
distress, right? So we'redealing with daily, sorry, for
days of dealing with distress.
Now, can we I'll say theheadings here, because I think
it's advertising, that sort ofrounding off the that that's one
for feelings and starting tomove into the avoidance Marsh's
(34:47):
is, you know, distract, dilute,develop and discover. Can we
speak to those? Each one ofthose? Yeah,
Stu McKenzie (34:56):
sorry. In 2020 Darryl Mansell, and his wife
actually developed this 4d modelof dealing with distress. And
they did it on a triangle kindof model if you like, yeah. So
so basically what they've saidis you it and this comes back to
(35:17):
but the Nanos deep and widebasket of strategies that we can
draw on. So if you like, youcould put that distract, dilute
develop and discover inside thatbasket if you like. So the very
first stage of dealing withdistress is just is distracting
ourselves, you know, away fromthat distress rather than going
(35:38):
in a downward spiral if youlike. So that's things like, you
know, she would, she spoke abouthaving her favourite magazines
on hand when she could just geta favourite magazine or
listening to a podcast orlistening to music or doing some
exercise, taking yourself for arun, or is that classic self
care? Yes. But it is just aboutsaying, I'm going to do
(36:00):
something which takes me awayfrom this moment of distress so
that it doesn't amplify andmagnify in my head, and I go
down this downward spiral of thethinking pattern. And you know,
mindfulness is is also is aboutteaching us a skill of
observing. Yes. A feelingwithout it possessing us. Yeah,
(36:21):
because we get possessed. Iknow, I'd say, I acknowledge
you're here. Yeah, I can see notYeah, I can see that I am not.
Yes. Angry. So I'm, you know,and so. So. Yeah, an example of
that is actually in in the selfcompassion work, where we talk
about over identification versusmindfulness. And my sister's
(36:48):
always a good example of that,where she rings me and she goes,
I'm such a bad mother, I yelledat my kids. And I was yelling
and screaming and swearing atthem. And I'm such a bad mother.
So that's kind of an over I amthe emotion I am, I am over
identified, whereas mindfulness,let's let's you say, I'm a good
mother. But I had a I've had aperiod of time there where I got
(37:09):
a little bit snappy and angry.
And are the kids and so I'm notpossessed.
Andy Fermo (37:14):
He was possessed.
She was COVID. Ugly. Yeah.
Stu McKenzie (37:18):
So it says the audio distraction is anything
you can do to just shift yourattention. Because yes,
attention is the most powerful,it's the most powerful thing.
Attention is like a muscle. Andwhat what the practice of
mindfulness does is it helps youbuild the muscle of where you
put your attention. They speakabout the attention economy,
(37:39):
everything is vying for yourattention these days, everything
everywhere. Once you become moremindful and understand that your
attention is like a muscle, youchoose where to put your
attention.
Andy Fermo (37:50):
Yeah. So all the all the all these all, you know, all
the laws are out there, all theall the distractions, or the
noise, whatever word you want toput it does there. But you're
tuning yourself into being ableto go yes, I'm going to focus on
that. Exactly. So in
Stu McKenzie (38:04):
the distract moment, you're saying, I'm not
in the space to deal with thesefeelings. At the moment, I'm
going to distract myself, I'mgoing to shift my attention to
something else to distractmyself. And I'll come back to
the slider. And this is as yougo up. Now, I'll come back to
this later. So dilute is aboutlearn skills, such as box
breathing, or grounding yourselfor what okay, what are three
(38:26):
things I can see at the moment?
What are two? What are threethings I can hear? What are
three things I can smellanything to come back into the
present moment? Have you everbeen that notion sensible? Or be
sensible? Or, you know, that'sactually saying? What's it mean?
It's saying get out of yourhead? And your thought that and
come back into your senses? Comeback to your senses. Yeah. When
(38:48):
people say come back to yoursite? Yeah, that's what they're
saying. Yeah. Because yoursenses ground you in the present
moment, because
Andy Fermo (38:57):
your body is actually telling those though,
all those senses that you've gotit, they're built in? Yes. To
help you get there. So they'reproud of your nervous system,
isn't it? You know, part of Idon't know, I'm not a scientist.
I don't know. Like if thosesenses are their senses,
sensory. There's got to bewilling use something, right?
That's going internal, likedisconnecting
Stu McKenzie (39:19):
from you when your internal, or your lovely example
the other day where we went outfor dinner. And it was a busy
night in northbridge. I thinkthe Fringe Festivals on and my
23 year old son and his pregnantwife, were trying to find a park
try and drive around driving andare getting angry at each other
and yelling at each other andgetting all dysregulated I could
hear it on the phone and they'resaying we're not going to be
(39:41):
able to come for dinner, becausewe're not going to we're just
we're California Park. And Isaid drove past come past James
Street, come up in front of therestaurant, caught up in front
of the restaurant said give methe keys. Get out go into the
thing I got in the car, and Idrove down the road left and
drove straight into the carspace. Also What's that? What
was going on when I examined it?
And it was like, what happenswhen you're dysregulated? Is
(40:04):
your your scope of vision comesright down to, you know, you're
not in your senses, you're notseeing you're not hearing, you
know, whereas when you're youwhen you're regulated and you're
wide open, you see a cartel,like seeing indicating you
seeing all of theseopportunities that you don't see
when you're dysregulated.
Because Because revival meansfocus right in on the unrest by
(40:28):
this focusing on the threat.
Andy Fermo (40:30):
Yes. So I'll just like I mean, there's times when
that there is, for this example,laser laser focus. But then
there's what we're talking aboutis like, looking at the big
picture, wider
Stu McKenzie (40:43):
or engaging with all incoming data? Yeah. So it
is, we are going on this one fora while to
Andy Fermo (40:50):
where we are going on this one, we have nearly our
SD cards almost run out. Solet's let's just develop
discover these last two in thelast sort of 11 minutes that
we've got Hello, audience. Solet's go to develop.
Stu McKenzie (41:08):
So develop is about beginning to plan to
engage with what's going on inour lives in a constructive way.
So it's like, I think I mightbook a session with a therapist,
psychologist, I've got thisreally good friend who's great
listener, who can hold space forme to explore and to develop my
understanding of what's going onfor me. So that's about develop,
(41:33):
and it's very rare. It's a rarething, to have somebody hold
space for you where it's 100%,about you. And your brain.
Because most of our interactionsare 5050 I'll tell a little bit
of a story. You tell a littlestory back, and that's good.
Yeah, that's but but rarely dowe do we find that space where,
(41:55):
where it's 100% about us and andso that's what what light
therapy gives us. And thendiscovery is really about
learning, shifting andsustaining engagement and
expressing our experiences. Soit's back to that that notion,
yes, motion, moving stuffthrough us opening that ziplock
bag. Yes, you know, planned whydoing the therapeutic work, more
(42:19):
therapy, deep therapy,
Andy Fermo (42:20):
it's going it's going deeper, as opposed to the
light therapy, but I think to beable to go and unlock that bag,
what you're talking aboutearlier on. And you've mentioned
that a lot of time with themwith John George bananas work
sorry about the pronunciation ifI got it wrong was is that
developing, you know, developingthat trust, being able to
develop the words giving themtools, then to be able to go in
(42:42):
and go when you mentioned thatand this is a big one that you
mentioned as well is that termof holding space, holding space
to make feel someone feel heard.
And it's really, reallydifficult to not project if
you're, you're the listener, orthe specialist is not project
your own, your own values,standard stuff. And I relate
with that because this is what'shappened. Now it's like okay,
(43:04):
now this is your space now. Andregardless of renewal, in the
non judgement way, I'm inprojecting this stuff and I got
one arm feeling hurt. Yeah, nowI'm ready to then open up gently
Stu McKenzie (43:20):
feel held I feel psychologically safe to go
there.
Andy Fermo (43:23):
I'm not going to be held. Yeah, yeah. And
psychologically so that's right.
You know, you're not you're notsinging Tom Petty's freefalling
arm for you. Yeah, yes, youknow, you're not they you know
there's something there that'sthat's catching you're holding.
Stu McKenzie (43:36):
So if you like George bananas, basketball
strategies that are distracting,dilute and then more more
traditional accessing moretraditional support skill,
learning some skills, learningsome strategies, and having
psychoeducation learning theframework for understanding
what's happening is more thedevelopment discover. Yes,
Andy Fermo (43:55):
and I think that you know it to get to that to get to
the to the pointy tip of theiceberg at the top that's coming
in and that's opening up youneed to work you need all those
levels is walking up levels. Andif we look at it, it actually is
the vortex that you're talkingabout in the swamp upside down.
Yeah, let's flip that script.
Yeah, flip the screw back to thething back to the theme.
(44:16):
Alrighty, guys, well look thatwe've covered a lot in the last
you know, in this last sectionwas the swamp of feelings, the
swamp. Let's talk about thecomms a DJ and our stuff that
AMD right. But it is it is goodto be able to tie things in. And
I think that's why some of thesemodes and we talk about as a
little segue there is that somecoping mechanisms and sound
(44:40):
therapy or music is one of thebig things because people are
singing about these things,these topics there and then
letting go of these, you know,you could you could be you could
be depressed, but you could havesome deep rest by singing,
listening sins and juniors. Oh,there we go. There's a fight on
tender Radio Operator righthere, boom, boom, boom. Welcome
(45:01):
to Stuart nd FM here. We'retalking now about feelings. So
call the number three. If youcall in the next 10 minutes,
you'll get a free ride in ablack 1969. we digress now but
so look to recap a stew on on onthe map on sorry. On the on The
Swapper feelings, what would itbe some finishing, finishing
(45:26):
points here.
Stu McKenzie (45:31):
awareness of what's going on for you. Because
most of the time, it's onlyproblem problem problematic when
you're going through it byyourself alone. So awareness
that you're going through it,seek ways of expressing those
feelings and give honour them.
That word honour. Giving spaceand time to honour those
(45:52):
feelings is essentiallyimportant. And help seeking is
really the everything helpedhelp signals everything it
doesn't. Yeah, many differenttherapies, there are hundreds of
different therapies, literallyhundreds and hundreds of
different therapies. But they'reall what's the key element?
Someone's help seeking
Andy Fermo (46:15):
someone's help seeking. And that's what it is
you're not you're not having youknow, you're not in that non non
seeking behaviour that youmentioned, you're on. So it's
almost cable, find what worksfor you. If you're in that
seeking mode. Whatever ways,there's no better or worse it
stick out what fits for
Stu McKenzie (46:31):
you, each person who is trying to sell it will
tell you Yes. EMDR is betterthan Emotional Freedom Technique
is better than blah, blah,
Andy Fermo (46:39):
blah. But it might work for someone, it might work
for someone else, but it mightwork for you today. But as you
have growth when you're youknow, going around that grief
coin that you were speakingabout trying to fit everything
into this, this last summary isthat might not work for you. So
it's all about that growththere. And the feelings and
acknowledgement does come in,and awareness. Yeah, before you
(47:01):
can move to the next step.
Because, you know,
Stu McKenzie (47:04):
and I think a lot of what we've spoken about today
probably happens in the forestof hope as well, if you like, I
mean, that's, you know, as youcome out of the swamp of
feelings, grief comes in waves.
So some days, you're alright,then you slip back, then some
days you're there, but I thinkthe understanding that grief
comes in waves and those wavesget longer and longer and
(47:25):
longer. But this is really aboutcrisis intervention. Yes, and
the forest of hope is probablywhere you do a bit more of that
way but certainly dilute youknow those strategies to
distract days idea that youreregulate yourself when you you
have a surge of sympatheticfight flight response. Yeah, to
(47:46):
be able to regulate yourself.
Yeah, that's the essential.
That's
Andy Fermo (47:51):
an amazing and look, I did that they teased in that
next few well, one, so we'regoing to be going through the
anger and guilt mudflats nexttime leaving the swamp in the
forest of hope. Moving on fromthe the amazing, important work
that we're doing, that Stuarthas been doing in creating,
creating this ebook and, and thetopics, you know, some of them
(48:13):
that we want to talk about someof them that we don't. And so
thank you again for joining usand we'll we'll be hooking in on
the next episode. Excellent.
Claire Fermo (48:25):
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 can 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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