June 11, 2024 • 42 mins
In part 4/5 of the Road2Resilience theme the episode navigates through the complex terrain of grief, loss, and resilience, expertly guided by hosts Andy Fermo and Stu McKenzie. They draw parallels between resilience and grief, highlighting how they are two sides of the same coin. The discussion delves into the various emotional landscapes individuals traverse when dealing with loss, from the avoidance marshes to the anger and guilt mudflats. Through insightful analogies, such as comparing grief to a journey through a map, the hosts offer a nuanced perspective on coping mechanisms and the importance of awareness in the healing process.
They emphasise the significance of acknowledging one's emotional state and seeking help when needed, illustrating how awareness serves as the compass on the journey towards healing. The conversation touches upon post-traumatic growth as a beacon of hope, showcasing how individuals can emerge from loss with deeper interpersonal relationships, newfound purpose, and increased personal strength.
Despite the heavy subject matter, Andy and Stu infuse the dialogue with moments of levity, underscoring the importance of finding lightness amidst darkness. They conclude with a message of resilience, encouraging listeners to embrace the journey, honour their grief, and strive towards wholeness.
Contact - Stuart McKenzie
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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 (01:02):
Today, everyone, you're with your host, Andy
fermo. And welcome back toanother episode of the invisible
injuries podcast. And joining metoday, continuing on from our
map of resilience. Our themethis time is a registered
psychologist, Stuart Mackenzie.
So thank you for joining me onthe show again, me My pleasure.
(01:22):
And so a little bit of a warningwith this one. A bit of a
trigger warning, we are going tobe talking about suicide, and
how it's affected people who arethose who are left behind after
a suicide in this first portionof the podcast. So a bit of a
trigger warning. There's a bitheavier content, but I think it
(01:44):
gives the map of resiliencecontext about what we're talking
about. doesn't assume yes, itdoes. Absolutely. So um, just to
recap what we talked about, doyou want to just take us through
a summary of what we covered offin the last few episodes? Yeah,
Stu McKenzie (02:01):
I would, I will.
So basically, we've introducedthis unleash your inner
strength, which is this idea ofbuilding resilience. Yes. And so
life doesn't come with a map.
But Rosalind Schneider, as Isaid, who wrote who wrote the
book, Journey to the centre ofyour life, she was the author of
(02:22):
the original map of grief andloss. And in some respects, it
is a psychological landscape.
And it does give us a sense ofjourneying. And the life is a
journey when we go through griefand loss. But the thing about a
map is, it's only good. If youknow where you are. In relation.
Yes, you have to be able toidentify where you are on a map
(02:49):
in order to get moving. Again,that's true for any hiking
expedition or drivingexpedition. Absolutely. If you
can't identify where you are,then the maps useless or
Andy Fermo (02:59):
where you're wanting to go. Yeah, and how to get
there. Yes. The map could giveyou all sorts of information.
And, you know, if we respecttracking from that, for quick
moments do like in the military,you know, well, a Maps defined
as you know, well, let me see ifI can remember, this is a
geographical representation of aportion of the Earth's surface
(03:22):
to scale that depicts naturaland manmade features you right,
so and so that's a part of it. Ithink it's not quite verbatim,
but you get the thing is, andone of the other things that we
spoke about last year, was theterm getting geographically
embarrassed. Yeah, I can't. Soif you're lost, not lost,
geographically embarrassed, ismight might be the term you
(03:43):
know, are a bit more of a PCwork these days about finding
it. So what you're talking aboutis knowing where you are,
knowing where we can be going,and then also the map to get
there, you know, and then thismap of grief and loss, what did
we speak to? In the lastepisode? Well, we
Stu McKenzie (04:01):
began with relationship highway, and we
said that life is built on thefoundation of quality
relationships. Yes, thoserelationships can be with other
people, with our family, withour friends, with our things,
with their cars, with theirhouses, with their gardens with
our pets, but most importantly,in this map, it's our
(04:23):
relationship with ourselves, ourvalues, our beliefs, our
understanding of ourselves. Youknow, Socrates said 2000 years
ago, know thyself, and thewisdom of that is never is not
ever going to be lost in thehuman endeavour in being human.
And knowing ourselves is an isan outstanding investment. And
(04:48):
it's an investment in ourability to navigate our way
through loss and through thingsthat come along and knock us
over in life. grief and lossmoments. Well, that's
Andy Fermo (05:02):
right. And just and just speaking with that, you
know, the Know thyself. Youknow, it's one of those ones
when we're talking about griefand loss. And this is in the
last few episodes, no one everreally wants to talk about grief
and loss until it's happening.
And then they get hit with adouble whammy. It's like a left
right punches. Yes, it is. Andbecause one they're having to
deal with the trauma. And thentwo is they're having to educate
(05:24):
themselves. Yeah.
Stu McKenzie (05:26):
And there's no escaping the process of grief.
And that grief redefines who weare, there's no escaping that
there's no, there's no therapy,there's no, that's going to fix
you, there's, it's not going tofix you. But at least having a
sense of where you are in thehope that you will continue to
(05:48):
grow, your life will continue togrow around this grief. And that
there is a landscape and and mapthat gives you the direction and
an understanding of what mightbe coming next, who knows when
that might come. And the storythat I'm going to share with you
this morning really exemplifiesthat. And that power of of
grief. So we talked aboutrelationship highway, the
(06:11):
importance of your relationshipwith us with ourselves, then we
talked about the voluntary offramp, and how when we have some
agency in change and loss, thepart of the swamp is not so
deep, we sort of trudge throughit and continue on our way
through the map. And that's thestory of life. Life is
constantly changing. We'reconstantly changing our
relationship with people withthings with ourselves, we're
(06:33):
growing all the time. And thenparticularly, we spoke about
catastrophe bridge, and they'rethe unexpected. They're the kind
of losses that come along, in anunexpected way. And we spoke
about the simple or the singleevent, we spoke about the
complex events of grief. And wespoke about the cumulative
(06:55):
events of grief and how thecumulative ones where you don't
even know you're in the swamp offeelings, but you're slowly
sinking. That's the mostdifficult if you like or
insidious, I think was the wordwe use? Yes. But then then we
talk. So that's really where wegot to in our first three
episodes. And in a bit of a way,starting in this fourth episode,
(07:15):
I want to just take us back intothat swamp for a moment just to
honour the grief and loss part,of course, work. Yes. And it's a
little bit heavy. So the storyI'd like to tell you is about a
friend that I went to schoolwith a school classmate. And he
had a tragic incident where hisson committed suicide at the age
(07:39):
of 17 or 18. And he, we spokeabout emotion and the importance
of motion in motion. Yes. And heused Facebook as a way to just
put into words what was goingon? And so in that respect, it's
(08:03):
kind of in the
Andy Fermo (08:04):
public's eye, like a public journal. Yeah. Of his
journey. Yeah. Right. So he'strying to be using it using that
social media platform for a for,you know, purpose, therapeutic
purposes. Yeah, but also puttingit out there so that you
actually, you know, when youwhen you vocalise something, or
you write something down, andit's in a public domain, it
(08:24):
makes you accountable for whatyou're saying, yeah, in a
respect,
Stu McKenzie (08:28):
and it's incredibly vulnerable and
incredibly raw. And in thatrespects, in that respect, it
draws support to you. Yeah,whereas when you get into those
anger, which we won't go too farinto, but when you get into
anger, and it pushes peopleaway, you know what I mean? It
doesn't draw people to you. Andthat's, that's the trap of that
(08:49):
particular right? Part of thejourney. So he
Andy Fermo (08:52):
Yes, he used he used the platform. And, yeah, so
what's the what was it aboutdoing all
Stu McKenzie (09:00):
what he did was he tracked he I tracked over time,
just his journey over 18 months,really, there was lots of posts,
but I've just picked out some toshare with you because I think
he's, he's just done such apowerful piece of work in terms
of putting his the emotion ofgrief and what it feels like
(09:22):
into words. Okay,
Andy Fermo (09:23):
and so just before we continue on with this, can I
ask you, you know, you said thatyou trapped, you attract a mate.
An incident has happened to me.
And this is as some of ouraudience an incident may have
happened to the to a mate or aformer colleague, where you
know, the families there's beena suicide and then you as a
friend of this mate with this,this tragic things happen to
(09:45):
what was it that picture tofollow to follow the journey?
Stu McKenzie (09:50):
I think it was because I was doing the work on
this map, and I did it I emailedat some point. Yes, after, you
know, because you're notprocessing anything for a while.
Oh, no. But at some point, Iemailed him this and I just
said, you know, I've beenbecause he was more of a
classmate, random mate, if youlike. But I did get in contact
with him. And I said, Look, thisis some work that I've been
(10:11):
doing. And I just like to shareit with you. And I can't even
say that I got, you know,whether he processed it or
whether it because there's atimeliness about the sort of
support we give people.
Andy Fermo (10:25):
But I think also what you're saying, though, is
it brings people together. Sosometimes when you actually have
this out in the ether, and thenyou reached out to him. So
reaching out from someone thereis going well, that's almost
like a subliminal thing and ofsupport. You said that this
these things can bring peopletogether. And they can come
together in many different ways.
Yeah,
Stu McKenzie (10:43):
so it's right, he would have had his he would have
had his family and close familywrap around him. And then on the
other side of the country,because he was courageous
enough, yes. To be open in hisgrave. Yeah. And I think there's
a lot that we can learn from hiscourage. Even the words that he
says, which we'll go through,you know, so he draws so he's
(11:07):
even drawn support him from allaround the international Nash,
whatever, yes, friends, peoplethat are connected, he only has
96 Facebook friends, so it's notlike yes, he's a prolific,
Andy Fermo (11:19):
no, but that's why I think the numbers are really
insignificant in regards to whatwhat the impact is, in that
particular person's sphere,isn't it really, and what's
meaningful for them rather haveone quality rating or something
that have people willing toreach out, which meant you
reached out right, so? Okay,well, if
Stu McKenzie (11:38):
this would be just a little bit of a journey that
we're gonna go on now. It isaround suicide, and really the,
the resultant or theconsequential effects of that
the ripple effects of that onthe people that he said. So he
said, The sun may be shining andthe birds may be chirping, but
(12:02):
pain and despair is all I feel.
It takes every ounce of drive Ican muster to just get started
with the day's work. The wavesof grief hasn't haven't lost
strength or frequency. They hitso hard. I feel I'm being torn
in half, and all but crumpled tothe ground. At times, I almost
pass out. I can't breathe. I getlightheaded. My chest feels
(12:25):
tight. There seems no end tothis misery. Life is no more
than an existence right now. Itry to be there for family, but
all they get is a broken man. Sothat's the first post and then
he says some six seven weekslater. I have dealt with grief
before. But losing dad wasextremely difficult for me.
(12:48):
Working on his profit property.
I talked and worked with himalmost every day. Watching him
deteriorate over the years washeartbreaking. But that's just
life. That's old age. It's hard.
But somehow you still functionand you get through. Losing a
healthy, intelligent caring son,who had a great future planned
out to suicide is exponentiallyharder. The shock the horror,
(13:09):
the anguish is unbearable. Ilive in a constant state of gut
wrenching pain and regretregrets. What if you find Lee's
life has lost its appeal?
Nothing wants to enjoy itinterests me in the slightest
food, not interested. Going fora walk? Not interested. Music
(13:32):
triggers grief TV, turn it off.
It's beyond annoying. Talking topeople. I have nothing on my
mind but pain. I really don'twant to talk about that and
small talk or what other peopleare doing with their lives. Not
now. Thanks. Then he says Howthe fuck are you supposed to
sleep when all you can thinkabout is your son. sleeping
medication does fuck all to helpyou sleep, but fucks you up so
(13:55):
you can't think or walk straightthrough the day fucking owl. 11
weeks and words can't describehow unbearable the pain is. How
can I survive without you? Orhow can we survive without you?
I went for a walk this morningalong the creek where we often
went photographing wildlifeRaptors were your favourite
(14:15):
birds. And I saw those crestedhawks taking food from their
nest. It's so hard without you.
16 weeks later. How do I feel?
Horror, despair, devastation,hopelessness, gut wrenching
agony, regret, incomparableloss, immense sadness, loss of
interest in everything. Zeromotivation, total physical and
(14:39):
mental exhaustion. Not a singlegood night's sleep even with
prescription sleeping tablets.
Life is pointless. Life ispainful. Life is a total
failure. Nothing fixes this.
Then he said he's telling agrieving grieving person that
their lost loved one will alwaysto speak with you and your
(15:00):
heart, any less ignorant thantelling a starving person to
remember the last time they hada full stomach. Then he says
four months of waking up to thesame nightmares. Four months of
pushing through the agony ofreality, the overwhelming
cocktail of pain and emotionaloverload, the haunting wise, and
if only four months of hell, Ionly wish I could say it's
(15:22):
getting easier in some way. Butin reality, I feel like I'm more
exhausted and less able to pushmyself more depressed. It's been
four and a half months now ofnonstop pain, sadness and
despair. However, there aremicroseconds flashes of hope,
and flashes of happiness, teasesof the normal thoughts. They are
(15:44):
only fractions of seconds, butthey're there. And then he, I
love this, this is five months.
Life is like floating in a boat.
On a seemingly endless ocean ofsewerage, there isn't a single
thing of interest anywhere insight, nothing to guide you out.
You keep paddling to try and getaway from the shit. But that
(16:08):
only makes the stench worse.
Then, six months ago today, hesays we've had record breaking
drought, bushfires, waterrestrictions, floods, and a
pandemic with unprecedentedrestrictions, jobs lost,
(16:30):
businesses closed and so on.
Ordinarily, this would cause meanxiety about my business and my
livelihood. But no, they arejust insignificant background
noise, grief, and all the whatifs and if only these are the
way to pay up, painfullydominate me 24/7 Then 11 months,
waking up to the nightmare ofyour loss. And then 18 months,
(16:53):
since we lost you the pain isunbearable, miss you more than
ever. And I suppose that kind ofcaptures that this idea that you
know, time when you can't put atime limit on grief. And that's
(17:14):
a pretty powerful representationof of his journey. And you can
see why we don't why it's adifficult conversation to have.
You know why? You know whypeople just don't want to go
there. Like we spoke about beingunzipped and et cetera. But over
time, I've followed him and hisphotography is taken over and he
(17:39):
photographs birds and flowers.
And he calls it shatter therapy.
Andy Fermo (17:46):
Yeah. Well, that's right. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.
Stu McKenzie (17:48):
And slowly, he's, you know, posting about other
things. And and you can see thathe's, he's, you know, that loss
will never diminish for him. Butyou can see that his life is
expanding around that.
Andy Fermo (18:04):
Yes, yes, yeah, as we speak. And I think the growth
that you're saying about that,there's a couple of things, but
I'll just speak to what youmentioned before, his shadow
therapy with the photography, sothe mindfulness photography,
Shadow therapy as as, as has hecalls it in his post. What
resonates with me with that, isthat even I think it was at the
(18:27):
four month mark, I'm starting togo for walks where we used to, I
can listen to the birds andfollow this. So now, he's
growing around that grief, buttrying to make that a powerful
thing for being able toacknowledge it and be sit with
it, but also be there and dosomething that actually I never
knew. But at that time, we lovedoing this. So I'm gonna hold on
(18:49):
to that, because that that thatholds on to your memory, a way
Stu McKenzie (18:54):
that he can connect with the sun even though
he wasn't he's not here. Yes,yeah, there's a quite a recent
theory of of grief and losscalled continuing bonds, all
right. And you know, because theearlier theories were about, do
the grief work, it was calledthe grief work hypothesis as the
idea if you do the work, you getover the grief and you get to a
(19:16):
point of acceptance. Whereasthis idea of continuing bond
says you might never get overthis in terms of it being such a
powerful thing in your life. Butyour relationship with the that
deceased person or it shifts andyou have you can have continuing
(19:36):
bonds with them in ways like youjust spoke about Yes, I go for
walks where we used to walk Icommune with you through nature
and through through otheractivities. I feel like I can
connect with you even though youknow I hear a lot that theory.
Absolutely.
Andy Fermo (19:52):
I like that theory as well. And you know, you see a
lot through in terms of some ofthe positivity stuff in on those
social media's and you know,this might not only just happen
in we're talking about somethingreally deep at the moment, which
is suicide. But then there'salso the the, the families that
are left behind who've beenwidowed or widowed by, by, by
(20:15):
our members of the military orfirst responders that that are
killed in the course of theinaction. Right, in the Call of
Duty. Now, something that I sawrecently, and this is, you know,
it's the, it's the father ofcombat VC, right. Yeah. And so
he, he is still quite, quiteactive, very, very active in,
(20:40):
you know, in continuing his soncams legacy, right. And also,
but also, there's the boys therethat continue to still engage
with him, as if he was stillthere, doing things that can
love doing. And then a recentexample of this is that he and I
saw them going, you know, theywere going home that, you know,
(21:01):
avid hunters, and he'd go outthere and, and go there and hang
out with the boys and do thething. But it's still being able
to carry on that legacy. And Ithink that the continuing bonds,
really still, you know, thatpain is never going to go away,
I think it was, like 15 yearsago now almost, like, quite a
significant time that's goingon. But
Stu McKenzie (21:20):
it is, it was the moment where somebody shifted
the trajectory, it shifted thetrajectory of their life into
something that they werepowerfully connected to, and
that can have a powerful impacton the world. Yes. And in a way
we spoke about meaning making isalso, you know, how, how do I
make meaning of this? And it'sso impossible to make meaning of
(21:42):
something like, you know, thismade this classmate of mine went
through, like, how do you makemeaning out of that, but when
you start a charity, or you likeyou have with invisible
injuries, and when it drives youto, to support people who are
(22:02):
going through similar things, orthen then in some ways, it's
kind of powerful in terms ofyour gift back to the world. And
it makes in some strange way itgives meaning to what happened.
Yes. And that's not going tohappen overnight. And I suppose
that we can, you can't put atimeline on the, on the grief,
(22:24):
you know, on that process? Well,
Andy Fermo (22:26):
you said they were gonna go away. Yeah, you could
actually but make create meaningaround it is something that
takes time, like, you know, inthe in our case study that
you've mentioned there with yourmate. Now, this is 18 months in
Yeah. And you can see that thereis still a significant amount of
growth that's happened theredoesn't mean the pains. Yeah,
not any less, like four monthsis still missing you even more
(22:49):
now. But I found some copingmechanisms around, I think, and
that's where we're at now is tosome of the coping mechanisms
are something that he can have acontinuing bond with, with the
shutter therapy. Yeah.
Stu McKenzie (23:01):
And that that really captures the rocky paths,
which we'll speak about a littlea little bit later. But you can
see why. Not, not necessarily inthis case, but but you can see
why people get out of thatswamp, there's there's such a
powerful vulnerability in thewords that he describes what's
(23:21):
going on for him. And he satwith that, he wanted that, and
he felt it and he expressed it,but you can see why some people,
they go into the anger. So thenext little part here, the anger
and the guilt, if you like muchless, where they might never,
you know, where they beatthemselves up. Or an another
(23:42):
example that comes to mind. Andit's a very similar situation
that we've that I've beentracking a lady in one of our
southern suburbs who lost a son,in his year 12 year, again, very
similar. And she has becomefuriously angry at the
Department of Education. Andhe's just projecting out that
(24:04):
anger and that and she startedan organisation called
accountability and educationand, and it's kind of this, it's
this blaming, and it's alloutward focused. And that's her
way of coping with this loss.
And it's meaningful, becausethere is probably some work that
education can do to support itsmost vulnerable students, etc.
But for me, she's not reallydoing that internal at some
(24:29):
point, there's an internal workto do, where she has to why I'm
not diminishing what she's doingand the mission and the meaning
that she's making from thisbecause she's doing it, but
she's doing it out of thatanger, yes, place of the anger
in that place. And at somepoint, I suppose for real
healing to occur for her, evenif there is healing or for her
(24:52):
life to continue to grow aroundthat. She sort of will have to
swim back into that swamp andI'm in process.
Andy Fermo (25:01):
Minoan wants to go back in when it's been you
finally, if there's somethingthere that you can, like, on the
map that we're talking about,you know, from the anger from
that, from that perspective ofanger, it can't you mentioned
right at the start of our, ourchat today. Is it pushes people
away after after time? Yeah.
Yeah. So bringing them together.
(25:22):
So that internal work is like,you know, pushing that away.
Avoiding you will get to, youknow, which is another part of
that second part of the map.
Yeah, avoiding having to, toface it is painful, though,
maybe,
Stu McKenzie (25:37):
and it's heavy.
I'm sitting here kind of feelingreally heavy at the moment. And
that's okay. And you can youknow, once again, you can see
why this is such a difficulttopic, it's so difficult. How do
you show up for somebody who'sgoing through something like
that? How do you support them?
What do you say? What words doyou say? Like, oh, my gosh, I
(25:58):
think sometimes people avoid,you know, what, what am I going
to say? How am I going tosupport them?
Andy Fermo (26:07):
They can kind of ask you on that. I mean, because you
you mentioned that you saidwell, what is it, you know, is
something you know, people aremeaning met Well, meaning the
small talk, they might ask youhow they're going, it's
inconsequential. Can you speakto that a little because, you
know, you mentioned, what do yousay to someone that's, that's
feeling like that. I mean, it's,it's quite, it is difficult to
(26:27):
really, you know, sort of, Isuppose it's like, I'm not going
to try and make you feel better,I can probably sit with you, I
can sit with you and your painhere and empathise with that and
go, this is a shit situation.
We're here, if you need us,
Stu McKenzie (26:40):
I think you answered the question yourself,
I think I think it's juststaying connected. There's
another theory of grief andloss, which I like, which is
called the dual processing modelof grief and loss. The dual
processing model says that ifyou take time in your daily
schedule, to honour that grief,to sit with it, to be in that
(27:04):
space, to cry, or to sit withpitchers to really let that grow
flow through you, then in somerespects for a little while, it
empties you. And it gives youthe capacity to function in what
is required of you in day to daywork. And then that will build
up again. And so. So you go backand you switch modes, the dual
(27:26):
press, or you go back to theother mode of processing, and
you process and you move thatemotion and you write poetry, or
you paint pictures, or you playmusic or you you do whatever it
is that moves these feelingsthrough you in a way. So we
spoke about acknowledging,expressing, accepting, and then
(27:48):
you can come out of that spaceand function reasonably well, in
the life that you have to livewhen you don't honour this, your
capacity to function over heregets really impeded. And it
seeps into it. It seeps intoevery day of your life. And you
know, it's in some ways itdisables you. Yes. So another
(28:11):
very powerful model of grief andloss is the dual processing
model of grief and loss. And Ithink that's really a really
good takeaway. For me, I thinkthat's one of the most useful
models of all of the models thathave occurred over time.
Andy Fermo (28:25):
Well, that's pretty cool that you know, sort of
think of that now and then insort of, you know, from a non
clinical perspective, the waythat I connect with that through
my analogy would be okay, sowe're, let's go to the map at
the moment, right, so we don'tknow where to go. We need to go
past um, look, I'm not I'mactually not gonna say it, but I
want to say it right. Okay.
Well, Rockingham, that's onewhere you drive through that 100
(28:46):
miles an hour. Right. And butyou think it's just faster you
revisited the point but at 100miles an hour they still went
positive? Yeah, right. And theywere gonna go to the different
destination then sorry, I didn'tmean that for the Rockingham
listeners out there. In Perth. Iwas just you can't have a bit
more lightheaded. People
Stu McKenzie (29:07):
have an incident where something happens to them
on and they don't go anywherenear that road again, they don't
some people have somethinghappened to them in a car car
accident, never drive again,never get back in your car
again, shrinking their worldshrinks a little bit, I suppose.
And because you're avoiding,that's the avoidance mark
Andy Fermo (29:23):
is that what we're talking about just before then
is going well look, you know,when in this that model is you
know, you can you can go thegrowth and do these things here.
But then at some point you needyou go and revisit these you
acknowledge you spend some timeto be reflective on that. And
then and then that allows youthen to have that capacity to
(29:45):
continue on. Yes. In that pain.
Stu McKenzie (29:48):
Yeah. So in some respects, you know, I'm I'm not
going to say I'm any I'm anexpert in anger. Anger doesn't
really feature in my life a lot.
I'm the peace mica and but youcan certainly see when you put
into words like, like, my friendhas the power of those immensely
(30:08):
overwhelming unbearable, lypowerful disabling spice space
that you can be in why you? Whydoesn't it makes perfect sense
to bloody be in the avoidancemarches, or, you know, and it's
okay, it's it serves a functionto be there. And maybe that's
(30:29):
the dual processing model aswell that we dip back into the
swamp. And then we get out againinto the avoidance matches as we
did back in again. And yeah, Isuppose the risks avoidance is,
is how we avoid and weather. Andwe talked, we spoke about coping
ugly, yeah, the importance ofthat as a, as a, as a stage of
(30:52):
coping,
Andy Fermo (30:57):
not sustained. It's not as, but it's happening,
yeah,
Stu McKenzie (31:00):
place to visit.
And I don't want tounderestimate that, that serves
a function, and it's a reallyimportant function that that
serves. So again, I'm notjudging, I'm not judging the
avoidance passes, and I'm notjudging the the anger, and the
guilt, I'm just saying, be awarethat they are places on the map,
(31:21):
be aware when you are there. Andknow that know, the pathway of
how of what is needed to comeout of those spaces and back
onto that map towards thatforest of hope, towards to, and
back up to the rocky parents andback up to the same warm house
again, so. So it's the map,really, that says to us, it's
(31:44):
okay to visit any of thoseplaces on the map. It's just
when we get stuck, or a part ofus gets stuck in those places,
and we continue those copingugly strategy for ever Well, and
that's the thing
Andy Fermo (31:58):
that the coping ugly is you know, like, it's a
strategy. If we're, you know, abit of a bit of a recap for our
audience there if you missedthat part was the coping ugly is
a mechanism where you can cope.
And you get by, by doing thingsand in the example that we use
that remember might go to, like,you know, sort of some substance
or alcohol abuse when going intobeing able to do these things.
(32:19):
Yes, some coping at the moment.
But is that a prolonged way? In,you know, in the moving through
to the future, or even, youknow, medications that sort of
numb, numb you from feeling likeyou mentioned earlier on, from
having to visit those painful,but really sort of dark places
(32:42):
on that map? Yes. That werespeaking, you know, no one wants
to go. Who took me on that onContiki? Tour? Right. That the
bus bloody break down that bitthere. We're now having to sort
of cope ugly for a long time.
Yes. You know,
Stu McKenzie (32:56):
slightly, that series last where the plane
crash?
Andy Fermo (33:00):
No, sorry, mate. You didn't sign up for roadside
assistance? They're up ship,Craig. Right. So
Stu McKenzie (33:07):
yeah, so I suppose what we're talking about, what
we're talking about here iswe're talking about post
traumatic growth. Now, that's aquote, that's a term that was
only coined in 1996. I think, byto deskey. And Calhoun it was,
so that's pretty recent, really1996. And before that, you know,
(33:27):
there, there, there wasn't a lotof hope. around trauma and
around, there wasn't a theorythat captured. If you navigate
your way through this, you willyour life, you will develop a
(33:50):
much deeper, more meaningful,more. What would you say about
character, you know, like, youbecome a much deeper greater
person. And post traumaticgrowth captures that idea that
that potential, it's a potentialpathway, post traumatic stress
and post traumatic growth kindof run along as, as two
(34:12):
consecutive two lines, parallelparallel lines, yes. And we sort
of can choose, you know, once wesort of know that there's a
potential for post traumaticgrowth, then that's a seed that
we can plant and we can waterand we can nurture. And I think
that's a really good analogy ofgrief is this idea of it happens
like the growing of a, of aplant or a tree. It happens more
(34:36):
slowly. You know, it's aboutnurturing ourselves through that
space.
Andy Fermo (34:40):
Yes. And, you know, like, like you mentioned before,
is that that that doesn'tdiminish the loss or the pain
that you still might feel, butyou might have some other
mechanisms around that, thatthere's still there. Yes, going
back and acknowledging thatthere is pain there. Still,
that's there, but I've grownaround this year. Yes. I'm not
letting that just define what Iam. Now. You Exactly,
Stu McKenzie (35:01):
exactly. That was that lovely life grows around
grief analogy we spoke about. Sotoday skin, Calhoun define post
traumatic growth as a positivepsychological change that
happens in at least one of thefollowing, which is deeper
interpersonal relationships,which is one or new
possibilities. So we discover anew purpose. You know, like when
(35:26):
we said people, people set up amission, charity or a foundation
to support other people's newpossibilities, even new learning
new skills, changing our lifetrajectory, away from a life
that wasn't necessarilyfulfilling our needs, or an
(35:47):
increase in personal strength,more of a connection with
something that's greater than usor spirituality, or a greater
appreciation of life. So they'renot Yeah, it's a pretty, it's an
interesting theory, posttraumatic growth, because it's
like a positive psychologicalchange that happens in at least
one of these. Yes, these areas.
So I suppose that's about how wegrow and change rather than be
(36:10):
stunted by? Yes.
Andy Fermo (36:16):
I mean, you don't need to have all of them to be
able to go because there'scertain elements that mate, it's
over a whole lifetime, exactly.
You might, you might, you mightshift from one to another to
another, that might actuallywork. I'm going to work on this,
but you might not inadvertentlygo, Hey, um, I've got this map
here. And I'm working on thattoday, you know, just kind of
happens organically over thattime. But to define what we're
talking about here is it's like,okay, well, I'm doing this now.
(36:39):
Maybe I might not feel like I'mgoing to volunteer and find my
purpose here. But I've got abetter relationship with myself
now. Yes. And the people aroundme I'm not, you know, an example
would be, you know, Iacknowledge that these are
happening now. I'm openingmyself to other people, instead
of being angry and lashing outnow and pushing people away.
Yes, I can invite them in.
(36:59):
Because I'm allowing myself tobe a little bit more vulnerable
Stu McKenzie (37:02):
now. Yes, yeah.
And the work that Brene Brownhas done. I don't know if you've
seen her on yet. But she'swritten, you know, 567 books
now. But hers, she's known forwhat's called the power of
vulnerability. And there is apower in in that, in that
vulnerability. So yeah. So Isuppose the journey gives us the
(37:26):
map gives us a sense ofpossibility, and potential
tracking forward. And I want tosay not all, you know, we've
just spoke about one of the mostdevastating kind of loss moments
that can happen to a person.
(37:49):
When I say that life constantly,you know, we spoke about what's
called cumulus, you know, thatwas absolute, it wasn't complex,
but it was simple. It was asingle event, but it was an
absolutely devastating singleevent. But when it comes to the
cumulative losses, we can, it'sstill the same story that
applies in the samepsychological landscape. So we
(38:11):
can grind down over time andfind ourselves just coping ugly
because of life, and because ofthe key accumulated stresses and
just feeling ourselvesdisconnected, etc. And it's,
it's a similar journey wherethere will come that moment,
will, this gives us theopportunity to recognise, I
(38:32):
could be in that swamp offeelings and how you, there's
still that moment of awareness,that moment of being aware of
what's going on for us, becauseawareness must come before any
change happens. If we remainunaware of things, we will never
(38:54):
change, because we're unaware,it just sits, we're unaware. But
But when this moment ofawareness occurs, it's kinda
like 90% of change. Becausethat's the big piece. Yeah. And
when awareness occurs, then wehave the possibility of, yes, of
processing of understanding ofdeveloping a plan or a strategy
(39:20):
or working our way throughsomething,
Andy Fermo (39:23):
it's kind of like reach that sort of point in the
mat. Where you kind of go youknow, you pull over and like,
you know, you're travelling youpull over and let's see where
the, this town's information mapis. And you look at it. This is
this is so dusty here and it wasprobably made in the 70s I know
there's some information here.
Maybe like Let me wipe this downlike the dust off a little bit.
(39:44):
And that's kind of like beingaware because what it does is
then makes the map clearer theor it presents doors it prevents
presents, avenues or,
Stu McKenzie (39:55):
and I love your analogy, or driving into a town
where there is is no map and youdon't. And you drive in and you
have no idea where things arewhere that because there is
there was no map on a billboardout the front. So even being
aware that there is a kind ofpsychological landscape that we
go through and there is a kindof a little bit of a map. And
you're right, the awarenessmoment is kidding, the caked
(40:18):
module the dirt offered andfinding out where where am I?
Yes, first thing you do in ashopping centre. The other day,
I was in a shopping centrelooking for the NAB, national
striping? Well, I'm standingthere, and I'm looking at the
map of the shopping centre andthe maps there, that's all fine.
But it was no, there was no UIhere. Arrow, you know, the
(40:42):
little red you are here, right?
There was none of that. So I waslooking to see if I could see a
shop that was related to thisshop. And because I didn't know
where I was in relation to themap, sure the map was there. And
then I then I'll walk all theway down to one end of the
shopping centre, I finally gotthere. And there's people
working in a butcher's outsideof Woolworths. And I said, Do
you have any idea where thenetbank is? And he's like, I
(41:03):
don't know. And then he turnedto his Culligan lady and, and
she had all yet rod on the otherend of the shopping centre. And
it was because it wasn't clearwhere I was that that map wasn't
as useful because I'd ended upfiguring it out in my head.
Wrong. Not Not that theconsequence. You know, it's just
a simple analogy, really, of,
Andy Fermo (41:26):
so you had to go through the avoidance marshes as
well. And the anger andfrustrations on the way just
Stu McKenzie (41:31):
crept in on that.
And in walking, I thought tomyself, isn't it good that I'm
getting a little bit ofexercise?
Andy Fermo (41:41):
At the buzzer. Well, I'm still looking for the map in
Tasmania, but hold on, theconversation has gone from day
to like, you know, the trashstill.
Stu McKenzie (41:52):
That's really what I appreciate about you, Andy is,
here we are navigating our waythrough some of the most intense
conversation, you know, thingsof life. And in you know, we've
all heard that, but I like theway that you, you lift us into a
you know, you lift this podcastback into a lighter space.
Andy Fermo (42:15):
Yes. Oh, and that's a thank you so much, man. That
means a lot. And so, you know,we've, we've, we've gone there,
we're, we're we're looking atthe map, something sort of lit
up a little bit more in terms ofthe acknowledgment piece that
you spoke about, which openawareness, awareness, awareness,
awareness, this awareness is oneYeah. And then acknowledging it
(42:37):
and actually doing somethingabout it. You know, that that's
your, your sort of five ways tothe avoidance marshes or the
younger anger mudflats, or backinto the swamp? You know? That's
that's the spot. Isn't it?
Really? That awareness?
Stu McKenzie (42:53):
Yes, absolutely.
Awareness? Is everything helpseeking is everything. And then
we are in a place where we canbegin to process and continue to
grow rather than being? Well,well, we can get ourselves on a
trajectory, that millimetremillimetre by millimetre, is on
(43:13):
an upward direction rather thana trajectory, where millimetre
by millimetre, we're on adownward trajectory. Yes, Leads
Step by step. Yes, step
Andy Fermo (43:25):
by step. And it's all those little steps, isn't
it? It's most? Yeah. All right,cool. Excellent. Well, look,
let's, let's that we've coveredquite a lot in this episode. So
in the next episodes do what arewe going to be covering off on
then
Stu McKenzie (43:43):
also, we, we, we revisited the swamp. And I think
because that is the that is whatthis topic is about. It's about
resilience, and grief and lossbeing two sides of the same
coin. And we spoke about howresiliency is something that
we're happy to talk about griefand loss less so for all the
(44:04):
reasons that we've covered. Andthen we've, we've briefly
explored some places where wecan get stuck. We haven't judged
those places. We've said thatit's okay to visit those places.
But the awareness of us you arehere on the map, that I'm stuck
here. Once we know where we are,then just like that shopping
(44:25):
centre, we can then orientourselves and say, Where do I
want to be? In Wait, how do Ihow do I navigate my way there
on the mountain map to ground soboth the avoidance the avoidance
marshes and the anger and guiltmudflats are places that we can
get stuck? It's okay to visitthem. We've got to go back
through that swamp. We've got toprocess we've got to honour that
(44:47):
grief and loss we've got to sitwith we've got to express
through all those differenthowever that is that suits our
way, whether it's ininterpretive dance or whether
it's, you know, indigenouspeople have a Lovely modes of
dance storytelling, rituals,face painting and dancing
(45:10):
around, you know, ritualisticways. And I think that's
something where we suffer as awestern culture is that we don't
have a lot of those old or thoseold rituals that help us process
process difficulties in ourlives. Yeah, so although that
was a heavy example, once again,we are travelling through that
(45:35):
map, sometimes at high speed,and you just pointed that out,
you know, sometimes we gothrough it, we get a bit
anxious, we realise we'reanxious, we'll I'll use my
breath, I'll use some use sometechniques or skills that I've
learned. And that was thediscovered dis discover,
distract, dilute, discover anddevelop those parts that we went
(45:58):
through, I'll distract myself orI'll use the strategy that I've
got. And then I'll say, Here,I'll good I manage that in its
first few moments. Now I'm backup again. And I'm okay. You
know, in a way, that's a realquick journey through but it's
only by going through that, thatwe grow, if we don't go through
those places, and feel thosefeelings associated with those
(46:21):
places. And we're just skippingacross the top of the map. So we
go through a divorce, we jumpedstraight into a new
relationship, that really therethere's been no growth, and
that's okay. It's okay for thatto occur for that to happen.
That at some point, if we'regoing to continue to grow as a
(46:42):
person and grow towardswholeness, because what because
what we ended up doing is weended up splitting a part of
ourselves off and we spoke aboutthat one splitting a part of our
psyche off, and then that partthat split off it takes energy
to keep that part split off. Andand so we lose lifeforce, we
(47:02):
lose energy in life, and it's bybringing those orphaned, split
off pieces of our psyche backtogether. And to become as whole
a person as we can be. That'skind of like the journey of
life. So,
Andy Fermo (47:17):
Dumpty, probably a
Stu McKenzie (47:20):
good place to finish this.
Andy Fermo (47:21):
Oh, yeah, no worries. Okay, well, we'll be
back on our next episode, we'llbe covering these last few
locations in the map ofresilience. And we'll join you
again. So thanks for joining uson this episode. Again. Thank
you.
Claire Fermo (47:40):
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 invisibleinjuries.org.au where you can
access more content. Thank youfor listening to invisible
(48:01):
injuries.
Welcome to invisible injuries podcast,
aimed at bettering the wellbeing and mental health
veterans, first responders intheir immediate support
experiencing post traumaticstress. By sharing the stories
of the lived experiences of ourpeers, or support staff and the
clinicians, it's our aim to makesure we can have a meaningful
(00:27):
connection with our audience,and give them the ideas for
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 (01:02):
Today, everyone, you're with your host, Andy
fermo. And welcome back toanother episode of the invisible
injuries podcast. And joining metoday, continuing on from our
map of resilience. Our themethis time is a registered
psychologist, Stuart Mackenzie.
So thank you for joining me onthe show again, me My pleasure.
(01:22):
And so a little bit of a warningwith this one. A bit of a
trigger warning, we are going tobe talking about suicide, and
how it's affected people who arethose who are left behind after
a suicide in this first portionof the podcast. So a bit of a
trigger warning. There's a bitheavier content, but I think it
(01:44):
gives the map of resiliencecontext about what we're talking
about. doesn't assume yes, itdoes. Absolutely. So um, just to
recap what we talked about, doyou want to just take us through
a summary of what we covered offin the last few episodes? Yeah,
Stu McKenzie (02:01):
I would, I will.
So basically, we've introducedthis unleash your inner
strength, which is this idea ofbuilding resilience. Yes. And so
life doesn't come with a map.
But Rosalind Schneider, as Isaid, who wrote who wrote the
book, Journey to the centre ofyour life, she was the author of
(02:22):
the original map of grief andloss. And in some respects, it
is a psychological landscape.
And it does give us a sense ofjourneying. And the life is a
journey when we go through griefand loss. But the thing about a
map is, it's only good. If youknow where you are. In relation.
Yes, you have to be able toidentify where you are on a map
(02:49):
in order to get moving. Again,that's true for any hiking
expedition or drivingexpedition. Absolutely. If you
can't identify where you are,then the maps useless or
Andy Fermo (02:59):
where you're wanting to go. Yeah, and how to get
there. Yes. The map could giveyou all sorts of information.
And, you know, if we respecttracking from that, for quick
moments do like in the military,you know, well, a Maps defined
as you know, well, let me see ifI can remember, this is a
geographical representation of aportion of the Earth's surface
(03:22):
to scale that depicts naturaland manmade features you right,
so and so that's a part of it. Ithink it's not quite verbatim,
but you get the thing is, andone of the other things that we
spoke about last year, was theterm getting geographically
embarrassed. Yeah, I can't. Soif you're lost, not lost,
geographically embarrassed, ismight might be the term you
(03:43):
know, are a bit more of a PCwork these days about finding
it. So what you're talking aboutis knowing where you are,
knowing where we can be going,and then also the map to get
there, you know, and then thismap of grief and loss, what did
we speak to? In the lastepisode? Well, we
Stu McKenzie (04:01):
began with relationship highway, and we
said that life is built on thefoundation of quality
relationships. Yes, thoserelationships can be with other
people, with our family, withour friends, with our things,
with their cars, with theirhouses, with their gardens with
our pets, but most importantly,in this map, it's our
(04:23):
relationship with ourselves, ourvalues, our beliefs, our
understanding of ourselves. Youknow, Socrates said 2000 years
ago, know thyself, and thewisdom of that is never is not
ever going to be lost in thehuman endeavour in being human.
And knowing ourselves is an isan outstanding investment. And
(04:48):
it's an investment in ourability to navigate our way
through loss and through thingsthat come along and knock us
over in life. grief and lossmoments. Well, that's
Andy Fermo (05:02):
right. And just and just speaking with that, you
know, the Know thyself. Youknow, it's one of those ones
when we're talking about griefand loss. And this is in the
last few episodes, no one everreally wants to talk about grief
and loss until it's happening.
And then they get hit with adouble whammy. It's like a left
right punches. Yes, it is. Andbecause one they're having to
deal with the trauma. And thentwo is they're having to educate
(05:24):
themselves. Yeah.
Stu McKenzie (05:26):
And there's no escaping the process of grief.
And that grief redefines who weare, there's no escaping that
there's no, there's no therapy,there's no, that's going to fix
you, there's, it's not going tofix you. But at least having a
sense of where you are in thehope that you will continue to
(05:48):
grow, your life will continue togrow around this grief. And that
there is a landscape and and mapthat gives you the direction and
an understanding of what mightbe coming next, who knows when
that might come. And the storythat I'm going to share with you
this morning really exemplifiesthat. And that power of of
grief. So we talked aboutrelationship highway, the
(06:11):
importance of your relationshipwith us with ourselves, then we
talked about the voluntary offramp, and how when we have some
agency in change and loss, thepart of the swamp is not so
deep, we sort of trudge throughit and continue on our way
through the map. And that's thestory of life. Life is
constantly changing. We'reconstantly changing our
relationship with people withthings with ourselves, we're
(06:33):
growing all the time. And thenparticularly, we spoke about
catastrophe bridge, and they'rethe unexpected. They're the kind
of losses that come along, in anunexpected way. And we spoke
about the simple or the singleevent, we spoke about the
complex events of grief. And wespoke about the cumulative
(06:55):
events of grief and how thecumulative ones where you don't
even know you're in the swamp offeelings, but you're slowly
sinking. That's the mostdifficult if you like or
insidious, I think was the wordwe use? Yes. But then then we
talk. So that's really where wegot to in our first three
episodes. And in a bit of a way,starting in this fourth episode,
(07:15):
I want to just take us back intothat swamp for a moment just to
honour the grief and loss part,of course, work. Yes. And it's a
little bit heavy. So the storyI'd like to tell you is about a
friend that I went to schoolwith a school classmate. And he
had a tragic incident where hisson committed suicide at the age
(07:39):
of 17 or 18. And he, we spokeabout emotion and the importance
of motion in motion. Yes. And heused Facebook as a way to just
put into words what was goingon? And so in that respect, it's
(08:03):
kind of in the
Andy Fermo (08:04):
public's eye, like a public journal. Yeah. Of his
journey. Yeah. Right. So he'strying to be using it using that
social media platform for a for,you know, purpose, therapeutic
purposes. Yeah, but also puttingit out there so that you
actually, you know, when youwhen you vocalise something, or
you write something down, andit's in a public domain, it
(08:24):
makes you accountable for whatyou're saying, yeah, in a
respect,
Stu McKenzie (08:28):
and it's incredibly vulnerable and
incredibly raw. And in thatrespects, in that respect, it
draws support to you. Yeah,whereas when you get into those
anger, which we won't go too farinto, but when you get into
anger, and it pushes peopleaway, you know what I mean? It
doesn't draw people to you. Andthat's, that's the trap of that
(08:49):
particular right? Part of thejourney. So he
Andy Fermo (08:52):
Yes, he used he used the platform. And, yeah, so
what's the what was it aboutdoing all
Stu McKenzie (09:00):
what he did was he tracked he I tracked over time,
just his journey over 18 months,really, there was lots of posts,
but I've just picked out some toshare with you because I think
he's, he's just done such apowerful piece of work in terms
of putting his the emotion ofgrief and what it feels like
(09:22):
into words. Okay,
Andy Fermo (09:23):
and so just before we continue on with this, can I
ask you, you know, you said thatyou trapped, you attract a mate.
An incident has happened to me.
And this is as some of ouraudience an incident may have
happened to the to a mate or aformer colleague, where you
know, the families there's beena suicide and then you as a
friend of this mate with this,this tragic things happen to
(09:45):
what was it that picture tofollow to follow the journey?
Stu McKenzie (09:50):
I think it was because I was doing the work on
this map, and I did it I emailedat some point. Yes, after, you
know, because you're notprocessing anything for a while.
Oh, no. But at some point, Iemailed him this and I just
said, you know, I've beenbecause he was more of a
classmate, random mate, if youlike. But I did get in contact
with him. And I said, Look, thisis some work that I've been
(10:11):
doing. And I just like to shareit with you. And I can't even
say that I got, you know,whether he processed it or
whether it because there's atimeliness about the sort of
support we give people.
Andy Fermo (10:25):
But I think also what you're saying, though, is
it brings people together. Sosometimes when you actually have
this out in the ether, and thenyou reached out to him. So
reaching out from someone thereis going well, that's almost
like a subliminal thing and ofsupport. You said that this
these things can bring peopletogether. And they can come
together in many different ways.
Yeah,
Stu McKenzie (10:43):
so it's right, he would have had his he would have
had his family and close familywrap around him. And then on the
other side of the country,because he was courageous
enough, yes. To be open in hisgrave. Yeah. And I think there's
a lot that we can learn from hiscourage. Even the words that he
says, which we'll go through,you know, so he draws so he's
(11:07):
even drawn support him from allaround the international Nash,
whatever, yes, friends, peoplethat are connected, he only has
96 Facebook friends, so it's notlike yes, he's a prolific,
Andy Fermo (11:19):
no, but that's why I think the numbers are really
insignificant in regards to whatwhat the impact is, in that
particular person's sphere,isn't it really, and what's
meaningful for them rather haveone quality rating or something
that have people willing toreach out, which meant you
reached out right, so? Okay,well, if
Stu McKenzie (11:38):
this would be just a little bit of a journey that
we're gonna go on now. It isaround suicide, and really the,
the resultant or theconsequential effects of that
the ripple effects of that onthe people that he said. So he
said, The sun may be shining andthe birds may be chirping, but
(12:02):
pain and despair is all I feel.
It takes every ounce of drive Ican muster to just get started
with the day's work. The wavesof grief hasn't haven't lost
strength or frequency. They hitso hard. I feel I'm being torn
in half, and all but crumpled tothe ground. At times, I almost
pass out. I can't breathe. I getlightheaded. My chest feels
(12:25):
tight. There seems no end tothis misery. Life is no more
than an existence right now. Itry to be there for family, but
all they get is a broken man. Sothat's the first post and then
he says some six seven weekslater. I have dealt with grief
before. But losing dad wasextremely difficult for me.
(12:48):
Working on his profit property.
I talked and worked with himalmost every day. Watching him
deteriorate over the years washeartbreaking. But that's just
life. That's old age. It's hard.
But somehow you still functionand you get through. Losing a
healthy, intelligent caring son,who had a great future planned
out to suicide is exponentiallyharder. The shock the horror,
(13:09):
the anguish is unbearable. Ilive in a constant state of gut
wrenching pain and regretregrets. What if you find Lee's
life has lost its appeal?
Nothing wants to enjoy itinterests me in the slightest
food, not interested. Going fora walk? Not interested. Music
(13:32):
triggers grief TV, turn it off.
It's beyond annoying. Talking topeople. I have nothing on my
mind but pain. I really don'twant to talk about that and
small talk or what other peopleare doing with their lives. Not
now. Thanks. Then he says Howthe fuck are you supposed to
sleep when all you can thinkabout is your son. sleeping
medication does fuck all to helpyou sleep, but fucks you up so
(13:55):
you can't think or walk straightthrough the day fucking owl. 11
weeks and words can't describehow unbearable the pain is. How
can I survive without you? Orhow can we survive without you?
I went for a walk this morningalong the creek where we often
went photographing wildlifeRaptors were your favourite
(14:15):
birds. And I saw those crestedhawks taking food from their
nest. It's so hard without you.
16 weeks later. How do I feel?
Horror, despair, devastation,hopelessness, gut wrenching
agony, regret, incomparableloss, immense sadness, loss of
interest in everything. Zeromotivation, total physical and
(14:39):
mental exhaustion. Not a singlegood night's sleep even with
prescription sleeping tablets.
Life is pointless. Life ispainful. Life is a total
failure. Nothing fixes this.
Then he said he's telling agrieving grieving person that
their lost loved one will alwaysto speak with you and your
(15:00):
heart, any less ignorant thantelling a starving person to
remember the last time they hada full stomach. Then he says
four months of waking up to thesame nightmares. Four months of
pushing through the agony ofreality, the overwhelming
cocktail of pain and emotionaloverload, the haunting wise, and
if only four months of hell, Ionly wish I could say it's
(15:22):
getting easier in some way. Butin reality, I feel like I'm more
exhausted and less able to pushmyself more depressed. It's been
four and a half months now ofnonstop pain, sadness and
despair. However, there aremicroseconds flashes of hope,
and flashes of happiness, teasesof the normal thoughts. They are
(15:44):
only fractions of seconds, butthey're there. And then he, I
love this, this is five months.
Life is like floating in a boat.
On a seemingly endless ocean ofsewerage, there isn't a single
thing of interest anywhere insight, nothing to guide you out.
You keep paddling to try and getaway from the shit. But that
(16:08):
only makes the stench worse.
Then, six months ago today, hesays we've had record breaking
drought, bushfires, waterrestrictions, floods, and a
pandemic with unprecedentedrestrictions, jobs lost,
(16:30):
businesses closed and so on.
Ordinarily, this would cause meanxiety about my business and my
livelihood. But no, they arejust insignificant background
noise, grief, and all the whatifs and if only these are the
way to pay up, painfullydominate me 24/7 Then 11 months,
waking up to the nightmare ofyour loss. And then 18 months,
(16:53):
since we lost you the pain isunbearable, miss you more than
ever. And I suppose that kind ofcaptures that this idea that you
know, time when you can't put atime limit on grief. And that's
(17:14):
a pretty powerful representationof of his journey. And you can
see why we don't why it's adifficult conversation to have.
You know why? You know whypeople just don't want to go
there. Like we spoke about beingunzipped and et cetera. But over
time, I've followed him and hisphotography is taken over and he
(17:39):
photographs birds and flowers.
And he calls it shatter therapy.
Andy Fermo (17:46):
Yeah. Well, that's right. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.
Stu McKenzie (17:48):
And slowly, he's, you know, posting about other
things. And and you can see thathe's, he's, you know, that loss
will never diminish for him. Butyou can see that his life is
expanding around that.
Andy Fermo (18:04):
Yes, yes, yeah, as we speak. And I think the growth
that you're saying about that,there's a couple of things, but
I'll just speak to what youmentioned before, his shadow
therapy with the photography, sothe mindfulness photography,
Shadow therapy as as, as has hecalls it in his post. What
resonates with me with that, isthat even I think it was at the
(18:27):
four month mark, I'm starting togo for walks where we used to, I
can listen to the birds andfollow this. So now, he's
growing around that grief, buttrying to make that a powerful
thing for being able toacknowledge it and be sit with
it, but also be there and dosomething that actually I never
knew. But at that time, we lovedoing this. So I'm gonna hold on
(18:49):
to that, because that that thatholds on to your memory, a way
Stu McKenzie (18:54):
that he can connect with the sun even though
he wasn't he's not here. Yes,yeah, there's a quite a recent
theory of of grief and losscalled continuing bonds, all
right. And you know, because theearlier theories were about, do
the grief work, it was calledthe grief work hypothesis as the
idea if you do the work, you getover the grief and you get to a
(19:16):
point of acceptance. Whereasthis idea of continuing bond
says you might never get overthis in terms of it being such a
powerful thing in your life. Butyour relationship with the that
deceased person or it shifts andyou have you can have continuing
(19:36):
bonds with them in ways like youjust spoke about Yes, I go for
walks where we used to walk Icommune with you through nature
and through through otheractivities. I feel like I can
connect with you even though youknow I hear a lot that theory.
Absolutely.
Andy Fermo (19:52):
I like that theory as well. And you know, you see a
lot through in terms of some ofthe positivity stuff in on those
social media's and you know,this might not only just happen
in we're talking about somethingreally deep at the moment, which
is suicide. But then there'salso the the, the families that
are left behind who've beenwidowed or widowed by, by, by
(20:15):
our members of the military orfirst responders that that are
killed in the course of theinaction. Right, in the Call of
Duty. Now, something that I sawrecently, and this is, you know,
it's the, it's the father ofcombat VC, right. Yeah. And so
he, he is still quite, quiteactive, very, very active in,
(20:40):
you know, in continuing his soncams legacy, right. And also,
but also, there's the boys therethat continue to still engage
with him, as if he was stillthere, doing things that can
love doing. And then a recentexample of this is that he and I
saw them going, you know, theywere going home that, you know,
(21:01):
avid hunters, and he'd go outthere and, and go there and hang
out with the boys and do thething. But it's still being able
to carry on that legacy. And Ithink that the continuing bonds,
really still, you know, thatpain is never going to go away,
I think it was, like 15 yearsago now almost, like, quite a
significant time that's goingon. But
Stu McKenzie (21:20):
it is, it was the moment where somebody shifted
the trajectory, it shifted thetrajectory of their life into
something that they werepowerfully connected to, and
that can have a powerful impacton the world. Yes. And in a way
we spoke about meaning making isalso, you know, how, how do I
make meaning of this? And it'sso impossible to make meaning of
(21:42):
something like, you know, thismade this classmate of mine went
through, like, how do you makemeaning out of that, but when
you start a charity, or you likeyou have with invisible
injuries, and when it drives youto, to support people who are
(22:02):
going through similar things, orthen then in some ways, it's
kind of powerful in terms ofyour gift back to the world. And
it makes in some strange way itgives meaning to what happened.
Yes. And that's not going tohappen overnight. And I suppose
that we can, you can't put atimeline on the, on the grief,
(22:24):
you know, on that process? Well,
Andy Fermo (22:26):
you said they were gonna go away. Yeah, you could
actually but make create meaningaround it is something that
takes time, like, you know, inthe in our case study that
you've mentioned there with yourmate. Now, this is 18 months in
Yeah. And you can see that thereis still a significant amount of
growth that's happened theredoesn't mean the pains. Yeah,
not any less, like four monthsis still missing you even more
(22:49):
now. But I found some copingmechanisms around, I think, and
that's where we're at now is tosome of the coping mechanisms
are something that he can have acontinuing bond with, with the
shutter therapy. Yeah.
Stu McKenzie (23:01):
And that that really captures the rocky paths,
which we'll speak about a littlea little bit later. But you can
see why. Not, not necessarily inthis case, but but you can see
why people get out of thatswamp, there's there's such a
powerful vulnerability in thewords that he describes what's
(23:21):
going on for him. And he satwith that, he wanted that, and
he felt it and he expressed it,but you can see why some people,
they go into the anger. So thenext little part here, the anger
and the guilt, if you like muchless, where they might never,
you know, where they beatthemselves up. Or an another
(23:42):
example that comes to mind. Andit's a very similar situation
that we've that I've beentracking a lady in one of our
southern suburbs who lost a son,in his year 12 year, again, very
similar. And she has becomefuriously angry at the
Department of Education. Andhe's just projecting out that
(24:04):
anger and that and she startedan organisation called
accountability and educationand, and it's kind of this, it's
this blaming, and it's alloutward focused. And that's her
way of coping with this loss.
And it's meaningful, becausethere is probably some work that
education can do to support itsmost vulnerable students, etc.
But for me, she's not reallydoing that internal at some
(24:29):
point, there's an internal workto do, where she has to why I'm
not diminishing what she's doingand the mission and the meaning
that she's making from thisbecause she's doing it, but
she's doing it out of thatanger, yes, place of the anger
in that place. And at somepoint, I suppose for real
healing to occur for her, evenif there is healing or for her
(24:52):
life to continue to grow aroundthat. She sort of will have to
swim back into that swamp andI'm in process.
Andy Fermo (25:01):
Minoan wants to go back in when it's been you
finally, if there's somethingthere that you can, like, on the
map that we're talking about,you know, from the anger from
that, from that perspective ofanger, it can't you mentioned
right at the start of our, ourchat today. Is it pushes people
away after after time? Yeah.
Yeah. So bringing them together.
(25:22):
So that internal work is like,you know, pushing that away.
Avoiding you will get to, youknow, which is another part of
that second part of the map.
Yeah, avoiding having to, toface it is painful, though,
maybe,
Stu McKenzie (25:37):
and it's heavy.
I'm sitting here kind of feelingreally heavy at the moment. And
that's okay. And you can youknow, once again, you can see
why this is such a difficulttopic, it's so difficult. How do
you show up for somebody who'sgoing through something like
that? How do you support them?
What do you say? What words doyou say? Like, oh, my gosh, I
(25:58):
think sometimes people avoid,you know, what, what am I going
to say? How am I going tosupport them?
Andy Fermo (26:07):
They can kind of ask you on that. I mean, because you
you mentioned that you saidwell, what is it, you know, is
something you know, people aremeaning met Well, meaning the
small talk, they might ask youhow they're going, it's
inconsequential. Can you speakto that a little because, you
know, you mentioned, what do yousay to someone that's, that's
feeling like that. I mean, it's,it's quite, it is difficult to
(26:27):
really, you know, sort of, Isuppose it's like, I'm not going
to try and make you feel better,I can probably sit with you, I
can sit with you and your painhere and empathise with that and
go, this is a shit situation.
We're here, if you need us,
Stu McKenzie (26:40):
I think you answered the question yourself,
I think I think it's juststaying connected. There's
another theory of grief andloss, which I like, which is
called the dual processing modelof grief and loss. The dual
processing model says that ifyou take time in your daily
schedule, to honour that grief,to sit with it, to be in that
(27:04):
space, to cry, or to sit withpitchers to really let that grow
flow through you, then in somerespects for a little while, it
empties you. And it gives youthe capacity to function in what
is required of you in day to daywork. And then that will build
up again. And so. So you go backand you switch modes, the dual
(27:26):
press, or you go back to theother mode of processing, and
you process and you move thatemotion and you write poetry, or
you paint pictures, or you playmusic or you you do whatever it
is that moves these feelingsthrough you in a way. So we
spoke about acknowledging,expressing, accepting, and then
(27:48):
you can come out of that spaceand function reasonably well, in
the life that you have to livewhen you don't honour this, your
capacity to function over heregets really impeded. And it
seeps into it. It seeps intoevery day of your life. And you
know, it's in some ways itdisables you. Yes. So another
(28:11):
very powerful model of grief andloss is the dual processing
model of grief and loss. And Ithink that's really a really
good takeaway. For me, I thinkthat's one of the most useful
models of all of the models thathave occurred over time.
Andy Fermo (28:25):
Well, that's pretty cool that you know, sort of
think of that now and then insort of, you know, from a non
clinical perspective, the waythat I connect with that through
my analogy would be okay, sowe're, let's go to the map at
the moment, right, so we don'tknow where to go. We need to go
past um, look, I'm not I'mactually not gonna say it, but I
want to say it right. Okay.
Well, Rockingham, that's onewhere you drive through that 100
(28:46):
miles an hour. Right. And butyou think it's just faster you
revisited the point but at 100miles an hour they still went
positive? Yeah, right. And theywere gonna go to the different
destination then sorry, I didn'tmean that for the Rockingham
listeners out there. In Perth. Iwas just you can't have a bit
more lightheaded. People
Stu McKenzie (29:07):
have an incident where something happens to them
on and they don't go anywherenear that road again, they don't
some people have somethinghappened to them in a car car
accident, never drive again,never get back in your car
again, shrinking their worldshrinks a little bit, I suppose.
And because you're avoiding,that's the avoidance mark
Andy Fermo (29:23):
is that what we're talking about just before then
is going well look, you know,when in this that model is you
know, you can you can go thegrowth and do these things here.
But then at some point you needyou go and revisit these you
acknowledge you spend some timeto be reflective on that. And
then and then that allows youthen to have that capacity to
(29:45):
continue on. Yes. In that pain.
Stu McKenzie (29:48):
Yeah. So in some respects, you know, I'm I'm not
going to say I'm any I'm anexpert in anger. Anger doesn't
really feature in my life a lot.
I'm the peace mica and but youcan certainly see when you put
into words like, like, my friendhas the power of those immensely
(30:08):
overwhelming unbearable, lypowerful disabling spice space
that you can be in why you? Whydoesn't it makes perfect sense
to bloody be in the avoidancemarches, or, you know, and it's
okay, it's it serves a functionto be there. And maybe that's
(30:29):
the dual processing model aswell that we dip back into the
swamp. And then we get out againinto the avoidance matches as we
did back in again. And yeah, Isuppose the risks avoidance is,
is how we avoid and weather. Andwe talked, we spoke about coping
ugly, yeah, the importance ofthat as a, as a, as a stage of
(30:52):
coping,
Andy Fermo (30:57):
not sustained. It's not as, but it's happening,
yeah,
Stu McKenzie (31:00):
place to visit.
And I don't want tounderestimate that, that serves
a function, and it's a reallyimportant function that that
serves. So again, I'm notjudging, I'm not judging the
avoidance passes, and I'm notjudging the the anger, and the
guilt, I'm just saying, be awarethat they are places on the map,
(31:21):
be aware when you are there. Andknow that know, the pathway of
how of what is needed to comeout of those spaces and back
onto that map towards thatforest of hope, towards to, and
back up to the rocky parents andback up to the same warm house
again, so. So it's the map,really, that says to us, it's
(31:44):
okay to visit any of thoseplaces on the map. It's just
when we get stuck, or a part ofus gets stuck in those places,
and we continue those copingugly strategy for ever Well, and
that's the thing
Andy Fermo (31:58):
that the coping ugly is you know, like, it's a
strategy. If we're, you know, abit of a bit of a recap for our
audience there if you missedthat part was the coping ugly is
a mechanism where you can cope.
And you get by, by doing thingsand in the example that we use
that remember might go to, like,you know, sort of some substance
or alcohol abuse when going intobeing able to do these things.
(32:19):
Yes, some coping at the moment.
But is that a prolonged way? In,you know, in the moving through
to the future, or even, youknow, medications that sort of
numb, numb you from feeling likeyou mentioned earlier on, from
having to visit those painful,but really sort of dark places
(32:42):
on that map? Yes. That werespeaking, you know, no one wants
to go. Who took me on that onContiki? Tour? Right. That the
bus bloody break down that bitthere. We're now having to sort
of cope ugly for a long time.
Yes. You know,
Stu McKenzie (32:56):
slightly, that series last where the plane
crash?
Andy Fermo (33:00):
No, sorry, mate. You didn't sign up for roadside
assistance? They're up ship,Craig. Right. So
Stu McKenzie (33:07):
yeah, so I suppose what we're talking about, what
we're talking about here iswe're talking about post
traumatic growth. Now, that's aquote, that's a term that was
only coined in 1996. I think, byto deskey. And Calhoun it was,
so that's pretty recent, really1996. And before that, you know,
(33:27):
there, there, there wasn't a lotof hope. around trauma and
around, there wasn't a theorythat captured. If you navigate
your way through this, you willyour life, you will develop a
(33:50):
much deeper, more meaningful,more. What would you say about
character, you know, like, youbecome a much deeper greater
person. And post traumaticgrowth captures that idea that
that potential, it's a potentialpathway, post traumatic stress
and post traumatic growth kindof run along as, as two
(34:12):
consecutive two lines, parallelparallel lines, yes. And we sort
of can choose, you know, once wesort of know that there's a
potential for post traumaticgrowth, then that's a seed that
we can plant and we can waterand we can nurture. And I think
that's a really good analogy ofgrief is this idea of it happens
like the growing of a, of aplant or a tree. It happens more
(34:36):
slowly. You know, it's aboutnurturing ourselves through that
space.
Andy Fermo (34:40):
Yes. And, you know, like, like you mentioned before,
is that that that doesn'tdiminish the loss or the pain
that you still might feel, butyou might have some other
mechanisms around that, thatthere's still there. Yes, going
back and acknowledging thatthere is pain there. Still,
that's there, but I've grownaround this year. Yes. I'm not
letting that just define what Iam. Now. You Exactly,
Stu McKenzie (35:01):
exactly. That was that lovely life grows around
grief analogy we spoke about. Sotoday skin, Calhoun define post
traumatic growth as a positivepsychological change that
happens in at least one of thefollowing, which is deeper
interpersonal relationships,which is one or new
possibilities. So we discover anew purpose. You know, like when
(35:26):
we said people, people set up amission, charity or a foundation
to support other people's newpossibilities, even new learning
new skills, changing our lifetrajectory, away from a life
that wasn't necessarilyfulfilling our needs, or an
(35:47):
increase in personal strength,more of a connection with
something that's greater than usor spirituality, or a greater
appreciation of life. So they'renot Yeah, it's a pretty, it's an
interesting theory, posttraumatic growth, because it's
like a positive psychologicalchange that happens in at least
one of these. Yes, these areas.
So I suppose that's about how wegrow and change rather than be
(36:10):
stunted by? Yes.
Andy Fermo (36:16):
I mean, you don't need to have all of them to be
able to go because there'scertain elements that mate, it's
over a whole lifetime, exactly.
You might, you might, you mightshift from one to another to
another, that might actuallywork. I'm going to work on this,
but you might not inadvertentlygo, Hey, um, I've got this map
here. And I'm working on thattoday, you know, just kind of
happens organically over thattime. But to define what we're
talking about here is it's like,okay, well, I'm doing this now.
(36:39):
Maybe I might not feel like I'mgoing to volunteer and find my
purpose here. But I've got abetter relationship with myself
now. Yes. And the people aroundme I'm not, you know, an example
would be, you know, Iacknowledge that these are
happening now. I'm openingmyself to other people, instead
of being angry and lashing outnow and pushing people away.
Yes, I can invite them in.
(36:59):
Because I'm allowing myself tobe a little bit more vulnerable
Stu McKenzie (37:02):
now. Yes, yeah.
And the work that Brene Brownhas done. I don't know if you've
seen her on yet. But she'swritten, you know, 567 books
now. But hers, she's known forwhat's called the power of
vulnerability. And there is apower in in that, in that
vulnerability. So yeah. So Isuppose the journey gives us the
(37:26):
map gives us a sense ofpossibility, and potential
tracking forward. And I want tosay not all, you know, we've
just spoke about one of the mostdevastating kind of loss moments
that can happen to a person.
(37:49):
When I say that life constantly,you know, we spoke about what's
called cumulus, you know, thatwas absolute, it wasn't complex,
but it was simple. It was asingle event, but it was an
absolutely devastating singleevent. But when it comes to the
cumulative losses, we can, it'sstill the same story that
applies in the samepsychological landscape. So we
(38:11):
can grind down over time andfind ourselves just coping ugly
because of life, and because ofthe key accumulated stresses and
just feeling ourselvesdisconnected, etc. And it's,
it's a similar journey wherethere will come that moment,
will, this gives us theopportunity to recognise, I
(38:32):
could be in that swamp offeelings and how you, there's
still that moment of awareness,that moment of being aware of
what's going on for us, becauseawareness must come before any
change happens. If we remainunaware of things, we will never
(38:54):
change, because we're unaware,it just sits, we're unaware. But
But when this moment ofawareness occurs, it's kinda
like 90% of change. Becausethat's the big piece. Yeah. And
when awareness occurs, then wehave the possibility of, yes, of
processing of understanding ofdeveloping a plan or a strategy
(39:20):
or working our way throughsomething,
Andy Fermo (39:23):
it's kind of like reach that sort of point in the
mat. Where you kind of go youknow, you pull over and like,
you know, you're travelling youpull over and let's see where
the, this town's information mapis. And you look at it. This is
this is so dusty here and it wasprobably made in the 70s I know
there's some information here.
Maybe like Let me wipe this downlike the dust off a little bit.
(39:44):
And that's kind of like beingaware because what it does is
then makes the map clearer theor it presents doors it prevents
presents, avenues or,
Stu McKenzie (39:55):
and I love your analogy, or driving into a town
where there is is no map and youdon't. And you drive in and you
have no idea where things arewhere that because there is
there was no map on a billboardout the front. So even being
aware that there is a kind ofpsychological landscape that we
go through and there is a kindof a little bit of a map. And
you're right, the awarenessmoment is kidding, the caked
(40:18):
module the dirt offered andfinding out where where am I?
Yes, first thing you do in ashopping centre. The other day,
I was in a shopping centrelooking for the NAB, national
striping? Well, I'm standingthere, and I'm looking at the
map of the shopping centre andthe maps there, that's all fine.
But it was no, there was no UIhere. Arrow, you know, the
(40:42):
little red you are here, right?
There was none of that. So I waslooking to see if I could see a
shop that was related to thisshop. And because I didn't know
where I was in relation to themap, sure the map was there. And
then I then I'll walk all theway down to one end of the
shopping centre, I finally gotthere. And there's people
working in a butcher's outsideof Woolworths. And I said, Do
you have any idea where thenetbank is? And he's like, I
(41:03):
don't know. And then he turnedto his Culligan lady and, and
she had all yet rod on the otherend of the shopping centre. And
it was because it wasn't clearwhere I was that that map wasn't
as useful because I'd ended upfiguring it out in my head.
Wrong. Not Not that theconsequence. You know, it's just
a simple analogy, really, of,
Andy Fermo (41:26):
so you had to go through the avoidance marshes as
well. And the anger andfrustrations on the way just
Stu McKenzie (41:31):
crept in on that.
And in walking, I thought tomyself, isn't it good that I'm
getting a little bit ofexercise?
Andy Fermo (41:41):
At the buzzer. Well, I'm still looking for the map in
Tasmania, but hold on, theconversation has gone from day
to like, you know, the trashstill.
Stu McKenzie (41:52):
That's really what I appreciate about you, Andy is,
here we are navigating our waythrough some of the most intense
conversation, you know, thingsof life. And in you know, we've
all heard that, but I like theway that you, you lift us into a
you know, you lift this podcastback into a lighter space.
Andy Fermo (42:15):
Yes. Oh, and that's a thank you so much, man. That
means a lot. And so, you know,we've, we've, we've gone there,
we're, we're we're looking atthe map, something sort of lit
up a little bit more in terms ofthe acknowledgment piece that
you spoke about, which openawareness, awareness, awareness,
awareness, this awareness is oneYeah. And then acknowledging it
(42:37):
and actually doing somethingabout it. You know, that that's
your, your sort of five ways tothe avoidance marshes or the
younger anger mudflats, or backinto the swamp? You know? That's
that's the spot. Isn't it?
Really? That awareness?
Stu McKenzie (42:53):
Yes, absolutely.
Awareness? Is everything helpseeking is everything. And then
we are in a place where we canbegin to process and continue to
grow rather than being? Well,well, we can get ourselves on a
trajectory, that millimetremillimetre by millimetre, is on
(43:13):
an upward direction rather thana trajectory, where millimetre
by millimetre, we're on adownward trajectory. Yes, Leads
Step by step. Yes, step
Andy Fermo (43:25):
by step. And it's all those little steps, isn't
it? It's most? Yeah. All right,cool. Excellent. Well, look,
let's, let's that we've coveredquite a lot in this episode. So
in the next episodes do what arewe going to be covering off on
then
Stu McKenzie (43:43):
also, we, we, we revisited the swamp. And I think
because that is the that is whatthis topic is about. It's about
resilience, and grief and lossbeing two sides of the same
coin. And we spoke about howresiliency is something that
we're happy to talk about griefand loss less so for all the
(44:04):
reasons that we've covered. Andthen we've, we've briefly
explored some places where wecan get stuck. We haven't judged
those places. We've said thatit's okay to visit those places.
But the awareness of us you arehere on the map, that I'm stuck
here. Once we know where we are,then just like that shopping
(44:25):
centre, we can then orientourselves and say, Where do I
want to be? In Wait, how do Ihow do I navigate my way there
on the mountain map to ground soboth the avoidance the avoidance
marshes and the anger and guiltmudflats are places that we can
get stuck? It's okay to visitthem. We've got to go back
through that swamp. We've got toprocess we've got to honour that
(44:47):
grief and loss we've got to sitwith we've got to express
through all those differenthowever that is that suits our
way, whether it's ininterpretive dance or whether
it's, you know, indigenouspeople have a Lovely modes of
dance storytelling, rituals,face painting and dancing
(45:10):
around, you know, ritualisticways. And I think that's
something where we suffer as awestern culture is that we don't
have a lot of those old or thoseold rituals that help us process
process difficulties in ourlives. Yeah, so although that
was a heavy example, once again,we are travelling through that
(45:35):
map, sometimes at high speed,and you just pointed that out,
you know, sometimes we gothrough it, we get a bit
anxious, we realise we'reanxious, we'll I'll use my
breath, I'll use some use sometechniques or skills that I've
learned. And that was thediscovered dis discover,
distract, dilute, discover anddevelop those parts that we went
(45:58):
through, I'll distract myself orI'll use the strategy that I've
got. And then I'll say, Here,I'll good I manage that in its
first few moments. Now I'm backup again. And I'm okay. You
know, in a way, that's a realquick journey through but it's
only by going through that, thatwe grow, if we don't go through
those places, and feel thosefeelings associated with those
(46:21):
places. And we're just skippingacross the top of the map. So we
go through a divorce, we jumpedstraight into a new
relationship, that really therethere's been no growth, and
that's okay. It's okay for thatto occur for that to happen.
That at some point, if we'regoing to continue to grow as a
(46:42):
person and grow towardswholeness, because what because
what we ended up doing is weended up splitting a part of
ourselves off and we spoke aboutthat one splitting a part of our
psyche off, and then that partthat split off it takes energy
to keep that part split off. Andand so we lose lifeforce, we
(47:02):
lose energy in life, and it's bybringing those orphaned, split
off pieces of our psyche backtogether. And to become as whole
a person as we can be. That'skind of like the journey of
life. So,
Andy Fermo (47:17):
Dumpty, probably a
Stu McKenzie (47:20):
good place to finish this.
Andy Fermo (47:21):
Oh, yeah, no worries. Okay, well, we'll be
back on our next episode, we'llbe covering these last few
locations in the map ofresilience. And we'll join you
again. So thanks for joining uson this episode. Again. Thank
you.
Claire Fermo (47:40):
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 invisibleinjuries.org.au where you can
access more content. Thank youfor listening to invisible
(48:01):
injuries.
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