S05E07 - Stu McKenzie (Road2resilience) pt1

In this 5 part series host Andy Fermo chats with registered psychologist Stuart McKenzie where the theme is "Road 2 Resilience - Unleashing your inner strength".

Having met through a veteran telehealth service during COVID Stuart brought to light his work on refining the Map of Resilience and how people suffering grief, loss and mental health issues will at (many points) visit the places on the map.

In this episode the duo explore the emotional rollercoaster of relationship changes. Stu introduces the "resilience map" illustrating this journey, emphasising that while anticipated changes can be navigated smoothly, unexpected ones can lead to emotional turmoil.

They stress the importance of acknowledging and expressing emotions, outlining steps for effective management: acknowledgment, expression, and acceptance. Avoiding emotions can lead to numbness or prolonged anger.

The recovery phase, symbolised by a "forest of hope," allows for rest and energy renewal. The hosts highlight the significance of emotional resilience and invite listeners to the next episode on maintaining emotional well-being in relationships.

Key Takeaways from their chat:

1. Acknowledge emotions to begin the healing process.
2. Expressing emotions is crucial for emotional movement and healing.
3. Accepting emotions helps in managing and overcoming them effectively.
4. Avoidance of emotions can lead to emotional numbness.
5. Navigating intense emotions involves acknowledging, expressing, and accepting them.
6. Emotional resilience is built through the continuous process of managing emotions.
7. The "forest of hope" phase is essential for energy recovery and regaining strength.
8. Sudden, unforeseen changes can lead to severe emotional distress and require careful navigation.
9. Anger can often be a projection of deeper, unacknowledged pain.
10. Emotional well-being in relationships requires ongoing effort and self-awareness.

Contact -  Stuart McKenzie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/singlesessionpsychology
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/road2resilience.com.au
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SingleSessionPsychology-sl8tx
Website: https://www.road2resilience.com.au/
Help Lines Open Arms (VVCS) | Lifeline | RedSix app

"RESPECT, NO POLITICS, WE'RE VOLUNTEERS"

Disclaimer: The accounts and stories are "Real lived experiences" of our guests some of the content may trigger Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) symptoms in some of our audience. Feedback regarding other organisations, courses and initiatives remains largely unsensored. Whether its good or bad they remain the OPINION of our guests and their experiences it is important in building an accurate statistic on what really happens. 
During the course of our conversations sometimes sensitive information may be accidentally mentioned, as such, Invisible Injuries respects the law and sensors any information that may breach Operational Security OPSEC

Transcript

Claire Fermo: 0:04

Welcome to invisible injuries podcast, aimed at bettering the well being and mental health, veterans, first responders in their immediate support experiencing post traumatic stress. By sharing the stories of the lived experiences of our peers, or support staff and the clinicians, it's our aim to make sure we can have a meaningful connection with our audience, and give them the ideas for their own self care plan. If you do like what you're hearing, subscribe to the channel and share it with your friends. Lastly, these stories may be a trigger for your post traumatic stress. If your PTSD is triggered, we have links to support in the description. Or if it's immediate, please call lifeline on 1311 14. Here's your host, Andy fermo. G'day,

Andy Fermo: 1:01

everyone, your with your host, Andy, and in line with our season five podcast themes is that this year, we are doing themes and running off the back of flip the script. I'm here today with Stuart McKenzie, registered psychologist and the author of unleash your inner strength. So understanding grief and loss, disarming trauma and building the skills of resilience. And he has this map, right, it's called the map of resilience. And so this series is we're going to be unpacking his map of resilience, and talking about that over several episodes, to be able to give you a sense of what happens when people go from you know, suffering grief, or having some mental health issues to how they do it, and how you can manage it. And then also, if, if it happens, and it may happen, and it is very likely to happen is falling back. But then how do you pick yourself up to be able to move on? Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast you.

Stu McKenzie: 2:06

Thank you. It's it's a thrill to be here. My first podcast. Yes, I'm a podcast virgin. Oh,

Andy Fermo: 2:13

oh, there's a cherry right there. And we've had to you know, we've had a bit of a chat before we hit record. And you know, he's nice and relaxed. Now we're here at the hen house studios, it's always nice to get something Riley pro with the recordings and only for you, mate. Right. So I'll give our audience a little bit of a background on how we met. And before we go into your story, which are so how us do and I met, it was recently we just moved to Perth after our PTSD national awareness campaign. And we decided that we were going to be relocating to our hometown here in Perth. At that time, it was kind of at the tail end of COVID. But what was really a great thing that came out of COVID, not many things, but one of the great things was the whole thing of concept of telehealth, and enabling because of that separation, us to be able to provide some care to to help seekers via using technology. So I met Stu when he was working in telehealth, and he was working in particular with a lot of veterans at the time, besides the wider community. And what really piqued me was when we when we chatted and connected was was his insights into you know, what was happening with the veteran in that veteran space. So here we are 18 months later, it's taken Stu that amount of time to, to really start refining what it is, with the map of resilience. I really liked the name that you've got for it now as well. I'm pretty sure in a string leashing the you know, I love those buzzwords, right. We will also be providing a copy of the map and then a more comprehensive a copy of the ebook on the podcast description. So thank you very much to for that. And that's how we met. So here 18 months later local good things it takes time to be able to work on it. And 18 months later, we're here at unleashing your inner strength. So

Stu McKenzie: 4:16

and we're flipping the script, because now you're the one asking the questions, not me. But that's

Andy Fermo: 4:22

exactly and so I'm guiding the conversation today and driving which is really just exciting to be able to have Stu here in the studio to share his insights and knowledge. Okay, Stu, so, you know, if you could share with the audience, a little bit about your background.

Stu McKenzie: 4:38

So I just wanted to make one point in relation to COVID which you said not many good things came out of COVID me connecting with you was good thing. But the other good thing that came out of COVID was this awareness of the importance of mental health and well being. So the particularly well being So I work for the Department of Education, actually four days a week and one day a week, I work privately in telehealth and the Department released at the end of 2023, a wellness strategy for their staff, for staff and for principals. And I went back and I thought, I wonder what the wellness strategy was before, before this one. And you know, there wasn't one, there wasn't one. No, they were about competency of staff and building the skills of staff. And, and so it was COVID that actually raised our consciousness of the importance of wellness, or one might say, mental fitness, in the same way that we think about our physical fitness, it's important that we also invest time into our mental fitness. Yes. So that's the first thing. Yes. And so over the last two years I've worked with at Veterans. And for some of those veterans, I've worked with them for that whole two years. So weekly calls, so some around 120 calls, which has been amazing work. But about me personally, yeah, that's

Andy Fermo: 6:09

your firstly, what's your story, like, you know, sort of because you did in your book and in our conversations that we've had before, and you'll see this audience when you want to have a look and sign up for the, for the for the ebook, Stu goes into his story, but you know, sort of, can you share a little bit more about what you've written in that sort of forward with your own person?

Stu McKenzie: 6:30

Do I want me to go back to 1969?

Andy Fermo: 6:34

We can, we can rewind it look, I step onto my casting couch. And I'm putting my feet up on the table. Now, if you see. They put man on the moon, I think a

Stu McKenzie: 6:47

couple of months after all. But look, I grew up in at the age of three, my dad decided to become a minister of religion. And so we packed up our our lives in Western Australia and moved over to Sydney to just out of Sydney, between Sydney and Newcastle, a place called Durham bond. So I grew up in I quite a cultish one might say.

Andy Fermo: 7:10

But yes, almost all my other brethren around that way. Yeah.

Stu McKenzie: 7:14

Well, and so that left me with kind of some fairly concrete, black and white views of the world. Oh, yes, if you know what I mean. And then at 17, my folks pulled out of that, and we moved back to Western Australia. And they interestingly, from our conversation, they dad, he left being a minister and he bought a DJ company. So I went to university at Murdoch University, and, and during that, that time, I really, I was really challenged with these kind of naive, simplistic religious, foundational beliefs that I had, but I'd been raised in and, and really, it was my fourth year of uni, studying my Bachelor of psychology. Yeah, my last year, where I think what happened was my beliefs sort of shattered. And beliefs are strong aspects of your personality people, strap bombs to themselves, and blow themselves up for their beliefs. So don't underestimate how beliefs hold your psyche together. Yes. And so I found myself I found myself spiralling out of control a little bit out of a loss of meaning and purpose, right. Yeah. And I eventually found myself in Heath cope. I had a psychotic episode. And I was in there for six weeks. And that was at the age of 23. And, and I suppose I tell you that story, because it sort of sets the scene for my for my passion and my interest in this work, because it kind of shattered my self belief.

Andy Fermo: 9:09

Can I Can I ask you on that one there. So from what you were saying before, and if I was hearing correctly, so you said that with with, you know, you asking more questions about these beliefs that had been raised, and then that's what you knew. That was your world in terms of, you know, key values and what was, you know, black and white, all of a sudden, questioning those and not seeing whether you actually fully believed in them yourself when you can make those choices? How was that? How was that affecting you on a daily? Well, I

Stu McKenzie: 9:42

just remember at one point asking a respected lecturer. Do you really believe in evolution, you know, that we weren't created that we've evolved from monkeys and you know, like, I just remember that. I remember that It's really, because I had this such strong belief in creation story, you know? And I think that, you know, that was a big part of it. So to answer your question, I kind of went off the rails a little bit. And as I said to you, I just sort of it shattered me in some respects it sort of disintegrated those axiomatic presuppositions, which is a very Jordan Peterson word. Those are those foundational pieces of my psyche. Yes, yeah. And so, in some respects, I lost touch with reality and spiralled out of Yeah. And that's a great, that's, that's a story for another. Another episode.

Andy Fermo: 10:48

I think that might be part of the journey that you needed to do at that time, though, isn't it? Well,

Stu McKenzie: 10:51

when you look back, I mean, I think part of the journey of of traumatic events and grief and loss is looking back on them, and finding meaning in them. Yeah, yeah. And I think for me, it was absolutely a meaningful foundation for me to build becoming a psychologist on, but also the challenge for me around dealing with depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. Because I couldn't trust myself anymore. I was so wrong, that I was locked away from society. And so when I came back into the the world after that, I would judge how well I was doing in the eyes of everyone around me, I lost that ability to be confident in my own self. And that's what I mean by lost self belief. Yes. Okay. So I've been on this journey of regaining that self belief, and also on a journey of, of knowing what a panic attack is, like, knowing how much it shatters you for the weeks that follow it, knowing what low leaving with low with, with anxiety that goes up and down, and just sort of a sense of the Black Dog visiting you. Yes, every now and then. And I can say I've, you know, I can say at 55. After that happened to me at 23. That it's been it's been a lifelong journey of it's more than recovery, of learning of growing up writing meaning, and now I just, you know, I wasn't able to tell that story to anybody for years. 20 years, 30 years, because I still, it just made my heart. Yeah. Yeah,

Andy Fermo: 12:37

we're in thanks for sharing, you know, such an intimate part of your story and your background. And it really sets the tone and I don't want to, I don't want to be uncovering, you know, opening Old Wounds do so just stop me if if this is out of line, but you didn't mention before, like, you know, you had you had gone off the rails, whatever that would have entailed. But when you there was something that was really in particular and important when you said I, you know, you were understanding what, you know, what anxiety was, was, you know, you know, what was and all those other things that were happening to you, when, when you were in that state? Yes. What was that point? Or where were you at in terms of like, you know, stuff that you were doing daily, where you went far out? I need to make a change, or I need to be to go to somewhere to heat coat for six weeks. You know, what? Well, I didn't have any choice there. That's what's called a section. A section you get sectioned? Yes, yeah. Which means the place pick all right, okay. So that wasn't a choice from the casino. Right. And so that wasn't by choice. So so some of the things when you're in there in that six weeks, that transformation, or transformative process

Stu McKenzie: 13:47

wasn't transformative for me at the time. What slowed me down was, I was in the locked ward, and I jumped the fence and, and three times I jumped the fence and ran trying to escape because I couldn't believe that done it to me. Chuck, yeah, that's right. And on the third time, so people in white coats would chase me down, you know, I'd be ahead of them. I'd be hiding in a toilet up on the toilet. So my feet were up, but they don't always bring me back. And then the last time I jumped the fence, I broke my ankle. And that's really what slowed me down out of that psychotic episode. Yeah. And then then I'd got very, very skinny very, yet lost a lot of weight. And then in that six week, I put a lot of weight back on and a year and really, I buried that deeply for years. And to get to the point now, and it's about time that I got to the point to be able to be able to talk about it. It's a part of my life. It's powerful. Yeah. And and I'd like to share, you know, just, I think I've learned, I've learned a lot. Yes.

Andy Fermo: 14:59

And that's That's where it was, you know, and I'm not going to press on that little bit more, because, you know, I can tell I can, I can, I can feel your sadness. Just talking about it, even though you've, you've had that courage to be able to speak about it. So openly, even this morning, yeah, many years later a lifetime later, basically, at age is really powerful. And, you know, audience out there it is a, it is a slow process that takes time, it's not going to happen like yesterday. And so that sort of goes with this is where he was, which, which gave you that motivation to do what you're doing now. And so

Stu McKenzie: 15:33

I think to actually, you know, I ran into this map of it was it was originally called the map of grief and loss, and it was in it was in the year 2000. Actually, I was in London, and the developer of that map is a clinical psychologist by the name of Rosalind Schneider. So I have to give Rosalind Schneider credit, she's a Western Australian clinical psychologist who developed the original map of loss. So she was the one that coined the various areas like the relationship highway, the swamp of feelings. And what I've done is I've just have built on her foundation of work. And I've realised that people don't want to speak about grief and loss unless they're going through a particular grief and loss moment, right. So it's at the time, yeah, that then otherwise, they don't want to go anywhere near it, because they don't want to be unzipped. They don't want to have all of that stuff. We're talking about that just before, right? So in terms of proactive preventative work, it needed for me it needed to be framed as resilience. Because people are happy to talk about resilience, yes, but what we don't, what we what we're learning is that resilience and grief and loss are two sides of the same coin. Because in essence, you don't need resilience, until you've been whacked. Until something has come along and bowled you over till you've had something that you have to be resilient for. Yes, that's when resilience really pays off. What we're learning now is you're not born with a character trait of resilience, although some people are, it obviously factors in bio psycho psycho social model. But we can build those skills of resilience. Like I think a really good example in schools are all anywhere. You know, we do fire drills in case there's a fire. Yes. So people, we must have people, this is where you go, this is what you do. But, but do we do fire drills of hope? Do we teach people about grief and loss? And then it's gonna come and knock them over? Do we teach them about the skills of managing that when it's such an inevitable life? event? It's going to happen to all of us, it's going to come and knock at our doors. It will. And do we do that in schools? Do we do that with our youth? Do we have conversations like this in? We die? No, we don't. Because somehow it's a taboo. People don't want to be opened up too wide.

Andy Fermo: 18:00

Yeah. Oh, yes. 100%, there's that as well as the zipper that you talked about? Let's not open that can of worms. But the other part, though, as well, I think is is is it makes the when when the the whack happens, and it knocks you on your ass, right? And you're down, you're down for the count. All, you know, if you're in the weeds, and what happens is, you have to have to do double the work because then you're trying to find out what's the processes of how to find this, educate myself on a way that's going to work and be meaningful for me that I connect with to be able to deal with this. Yes. Right. And that's the that's the big one, you kind of delta, you're

Stu McKenzie: 18:41

trying to pull yourself up to the surface of the swamp of feelings, and at the same time trying to learn the skills to swim right through something that you haven't swam through a sink

Andy Fermo: 18:50

or swim or Yeah, it was a case

Stu McKenzie: 18:53

over I suppose I want to make the point that the event is not traumatic, because two people can have the same event. Yeah. And some one person can be okay. And another person can be traumatised by that event. And that event can be simple. Yeah, it can be a simple one, it can be a complex event. Or it can be a cumulative event. So a simple event, if you like is a car accident, a complex event, if you like is what we would call developmental trauma. So that's been raised in a neglect, you know, that's the trauma that happens from the people that you should be able to love and trice right, that you somehow abused so role models, people that or whatever, I should be able to trust you but that trust has been violated. So that's what makes that complex. And then cumulative trauma is where we kind of have been in the swamp or have been swamped have been, but don't don't kind of realise when we got there, because it kind of has happened. It's happened from a series of different events that have happened in different places. All aspects of our lives. Yes.

Andy Fermo: 20:02

And that's, that's, that's interesting that you that you've, you've managed to be you've really sort of been insightful into in the way that you've explained the different, you know, an event. And then you've got the traumatic events where it might be, you know, sort of, even though the say the word of simple isn't actually similar, but like, I mean, in terms of categorised single event, like a single singular event. Yeah, in terms of that's when this part was. But then when you meant complex, there's other factors that are involved that develop that trauma. And then what was the third one, again, is cumulative cumulative over time. Yeah. And then so each one can almost be also how veterans would experience, you know, say, it could be anyone, and might start off with one, but then those effects and life happens where it might become a complex trauma. And then they might be at a certain bit where it then gets triggered, and then that cumulative effect, has take comes into account. And it's still still classed overall as a big umbrella of trauma, but you have them almost be might be different phases. Based on what you were just sort of saying then, yeah, on a timeline of life, that's, you know, we all go through different phases. And I think that that trauma might be the underlying factor, yield, loss,

Stu McKenzie: 21:20

I mean, loss, and when we get into relationship highway, we will understand that we have our relationships constantly change. And with change comes loss. It doesn't even have to be trauma, it's just life.

Andy Fermo: 21:33

Yeah, we'll pull up the handbrake and you're trying to unpack there, you go into chapter seven. Awesome. And so when you when you discovered this and sort of wanted to be able to build on it, Stu, you know, sort of what was it? There, you know, where you're doing any sort of studies at the time, that sort of piqued where you wanted to go with, with the map.

Stu McKenzie: 21:58

So the first time I bumped into it was, as I said, I was living in London, and I saw the book, it was called Journey to the centre of your life by Russell Snyder, a simple book that that contained that first map of grief and loss. And I use that I use that in my work, I use that for myself, it started to frame the way that I was thinking, yeah, and then then I started to work on it, and started to evolve the concept, and move it towards resilience. And I've been really, I've been working on this on and off for really seven, seven to 10 years, I suppose. So I feel like I've because I do tend to have bursts of focus and attention, hyper focus, yeah, I might say, and then leave something and then my focus has to shift to other projects. Come back, of course.

Andy Fermo: 22:46

And I think that that's a good way to be able to have that workflow, especially when it's something like this, you don't want to be you don't want to be in the pain, like sort of, when you've got you know, in the pain for so, so long you kind of go it starts to affect other parts. Like let's just take a little pick it up, put it down. Yeah, and then only and undo to two litres, so to speak. So just to wrap up the stew in terms of your story and where it is. And this will be in the in your ebook, where you where you chat about this. If I may kindly ask you, you do have a little bit of a story, which is kind of like more of like a poem that you've written. So can you sort of speak to how can I read it? Yeah, I would ask you very much. Yeah, absolutely. And that's why I was that was what I was about to ask if you read my mind. If you could me, I know

Stu McKenzie: 23:32

I do not have I know it's been a problem for over half my life, falling hard off that broken bridge and running into strife. I hit the water hard or did I hit the water fast, sinking down into those murky depths? How long would this thing last? If Sally knocked out my front teeth it did. ruining my winning smile. How can I learn to trust myself to run a healthy mile, something got trapped in me like an icy daggers sting. From time to time it haunted me with the memories that would bring up and down I've travelled life, through mountains and through Dales. It took a lot of energy to drop away the scales. Now I'm back. I've learned a lot hard won on the trail. I can see more clearly now. I'm not so scared to fail. Time is in the telling. And stories. I've got a few. If you care to take the time I'll tell some of them to you. I ain't scared no more. You can think what you like. It's going to take a whole lot more to give me such a fright. Thanks for listening to my tale. I hope that you can see something shared between us the way that life can be. We've all got reasons to be scared, overwhelmed by big emotions, swimming through that big old swamp as deep and wide as oceans. Remember that we've got the strength from swimming there before. Now we know the territory. Adventurers will want more.

Andy Fermo: 25:06

Wow, thanks for sharing that stew. So now let's go into a bit of an overview of the resilience map before we start unpacking it in the next episode. So the map of resilience, what does it entail night? And the overview of that? So,

Stu McKenzie: 25:22

last doesn't come with a map. But this is this is this is a go at a psychological map of life. Yeah. And again, credit to Rosalind Snyder. Yeah, for her creative work in this space. But it begins with relationship highway, so we walk down relationship highway we have relationships with, with other people, that's an obvious one. Yeah, wives, their children, our parents, our friends. And those relationships, you know, we can get divorced, we can have death, we can realise that a friend has been toxic in our lives. And we can in that friendship, because it's not been it's not energy vampires, you might say. But we have relationships with things, we have relationships with nonliving things like our gardens, or sorry, living living things like our veggie garden, life, the environment, people become activists, because of their relationships with living things, yes, the, you know, saving the environment chaining themselves to a tree, whatever, then we have relationships with nonliving things. And yeah, that's a material part of the world. But it's our houses and our cars and our sports car, and boats. If you're lucky enough to have such things, people have relationships with those. However, even more importantly, we have relationships with ourselves, our own thoughts, our feelings, our bodies, our expectations, our dreams. So So trauma can come from losing a dream or lost vision of the future. And we have a relationship with something bigger than ourselves spirituality. So relationship is a complex

Andy Fermo: 27:02

way. And that's that there's a few levels that you've just spoken about. So many different levels isn't there that we can be working on, you know, on one time, or multiple things, multiple things might happen during that relationship.

Stu McKenzie: 27:16

Inevitably, guys, relationships change. And with that change comes loss. Most of the time that loss doesn't lead to grief, we just we just walk through the swamp as if it's a puddle. Yeah. And because because if we have agency in the change, it doesn't affect us, because we're the ones sometimes we're the ones making the decision to change. And

Andy Fermo: 27:36

then so we move on from that bit before we it's tricky. To get there. As

Stu McKenzie: 27:42

I said, it's it's a simple map in some respects. But yes, it's highly complex in others. So of course, it will be true to the overview, and we won't, we won't go

Andy Fermo: 27:51

we'll unpack that in a bit. Because I know, right, because that's the thing when you and I can just, I can feel the passion just oozing out of stew at this moment. Because he wants to be able to share this right. And I think when you when you when you when you're educating people or, or sharing these things that you're so passionate about, the hard part is to go okay, well, where's the bit where I need to go? This? Yeah, my, for this section, am I overloading the word so just five minutes, I would just Okay, so let's go then you've got

Stu McKenzie: 28:23

you've either got this voluntary offering, which I just got to where were you, you're the agent in the change. So an example that would be you're the one that decides to end a relationship or a marriage. And, and so so their marriage ends, but because it was you that was the one that wanted that to happen if you like your displeasure that your partner however, might not have seen that coming. And they might, so they might end up on what we call catastrophe breach. So that was just an example. And catastrophe bridge is where the relationship ends abruptly. That's, that's, that's suicide, that's death. That's car accidents, that's natural disasters. So they're things that just come along and knock us over without us having any awareness whatsoever. And so we fall off that bridge and depending on the that loss and what it meant to us and how tragic it was and the circumstances of it. We hit the swamp of feelings. And we can either go right down, we can go down into the swamp of feelings. And we can get you know, we can sink down to mild depression or moderate depression or the depths of depression or right down to actually black black becomes white where we actually enter into a space of being suicidal if you like. Yeah, yep. And so it's it's essentially important that we get ourselves back to the top of that swamp and break back through that water and get our head we're still swamped. Yeah,

Andy Fermo: 29:49

but by just treading water, then you're not drowning. You're not feeling like you're drowning. Exactly. Coming up for breather there. Exactly.

Stu McKenzie: 29:56

So yeah. So how do we how do we learn the skills to swim That's a, there's a whole lot of work to dive into. How do we get ourselves back to the service? What are the skills we need? What do we need to learn in terms of? And I like the that idea that emotion has the word emotion in it? Yes. So it's got to move. You've got to, you've got to first of all, you've got to first of all, acknowledge that something's going on, then you've got to move it, you've got to express it. Yes, somehow. Through some any means even talk, just talking is one of those means writing, dancing, painting, walking in, however, you're expressing that emotion. So

Andy Fermo: 30:39

that's awesome. A

Stu McKenzie: 30:42

motion is not there for no reason. Yes. And acceptance is that last bit. So acknowledging, expressing and accepting and I think sometimes people, sometimes we get stuck, because we haven't even acknowledged it's not even in our consciousness.

Andy Fermo: 30:54

Wow, that's gonna be a very, very interesting, he could unpack that one for a while. And then so with with that next, you know, we've come up for air or what are we doing and then so the next module, good enough that people

Stu McKenzie: 31:09

Skedaddle out of that swamp at high speed? Yes, build our chaos, so they could end up in what we call the avoidance marshes. So that's where you're just kind of avoiding all feelings, but the risk of being there and being scared because it's a bloody scary thing. Those those out of control emotions. But if you stop feeling those the risk is you stop feeling all emotions. You stop feeling joy, you stop feeling happiness. Yeah. So you just move into a place of not feeling it's a void. Yeah, that's unless that's the risk. Or you could get stuck in waist deep in the anger and guilt mudflats, where you're blaming other people projecting it out onto things. And so you find you're angry at the world, and you're angry at everybody, and you can be stuck there for a while, you know, in the swamp. You're not thinking and overwhelmed. Anger is a familiar emotion. So people would much prefer to go to anger than to go to grief. Yeah, yeah.

Andy Fermo: 32:06

Yeah. Yeah, the anger there. You can project something, right? The pain is like I'm feeling and it's your fault. Yes. See, could you project the pain or the grief is the view that the person in it? Yeah, we like to be on that side of the coin.

Stu McKenzie: 32:23

So the interesting thing of both those places and swamp of feeling and the anger and guilt mudflat is you have to go back into the swamp and do the acceptance expressing it sorry, acknowledging, expressing acceptance piece, and feel those emotions before you can get out of it. Yeah, and that's, that's a tricky place to get out of

Andy Fermo: 32:40

it. Very tricky, mate. Very tricky.

Stu McKenzie: 32:42

So then, you know, the trick of leaving, leaving, pulling yourself up out of out of the swamp, and, and on the sort of banks of that swamp of feelings, if you like, is what we call the forest of hope. And the forest of hope is a place where you can kind of add another little, little word I like, because you can get some deep rest. Oh, do you say that quickly, it's depressed. So still, in that forest, you might, you're more you have acknowledged, you're in that place of sitting, accepting, and you re gathering your energy really for life, if you like. So that's that kind of idea that you need to take. Sometimes I just want to be with me, I'm not social, I don't feel that being social. I just need this space. It's a space where you can recover your energy. Yeah.

Andy Fermo: 33:33

And they've been there the double entendre on that on their own playing on the words, bit of work, like I can see the DJ there before we hit the call. And so just to segue a little bit, still use the DJ just like me, and, you know, one of the things there is in when you're performing is that that thing on wordplay, and using words to communicate with people, and I think that that just was just something homage to that old pot of stew, they're, you know, depressed, depressed, but I'm working on things like, yes, so we've gone we've gone

Stu McKenzie: 34:03

out of the famine, colic describing the forest of hope, melancholic, that's kind of something you can live with. It's not debilitating. Yes, depression can be you know, I mean, a depression is a continuum anyways. Yes. So, yeah, but we're really when when we go back and dive into some of these areas, I really would love to present a model of well being to you rather than a diagnostic model. So we're not looking to diagnose depression or anxiety or that we're actually sort of saying wellness is on a continuum. And that continuum of wellness is from is from flourishing at one end. So really, being as well as you can be in meeting your potential through to performing and doing your job through to coping just sort of coping through the languishing and through the suffering and then through to being very unwell. Oh, and the the thing I love about that is the the notion is that if you've got the support that you need, when you're going through something, you can those supports support your well being. But if the challenges of your life exceed the supports that you're given, then you can start to languish and suffer. Yeah. So those is well being about having the can measure it supports to match the challenges. Is that a new way of framing mental health all together? It

Andy Fermo: 35:35

just might be. And we'll, we'll hold on to that question there till we get to the point right to that next point. So with the forest of hope, and these are these other bits there is excited. But is is so was that were you explaining just before Stu was that, then leading on to the rocky path, the path? Yeah,

Stu McKenzie: 35:53

rocky path is when your energy comes back in. And we often people after something's happened to them, they'll reinvent themselves, they'll learn a new skill, they'll change jobs, they'll learn a new language, they'll go travelling, though. So you end up sometimes you really, you know, sometimes life knocks you out, because the universe is saying, you're on the wrong path. And the rocky paths are about experimenting and finding a path that better suits who you are now. Yes, because you're changing all the time, too. Yeah, that's right. It's a period of exploration, learning new skills, learning new interests, having new passions, new hobbies, new engaged, it's rien gauging with life. Yeah,

Andy Fermo: 36:33

yeah, the path the path might always be. You know, like you said, before there was there was there's no map, right? So you gotta you got to be a path. Yeah, you know, you might hit that rock,

Stu McKenzie: 36:44

and I'm gonna write that in this

Andy Fermo: 36:47

rocky path, or at least it's not trying to step on a piece of Lego in the middle of the night. That's not rocky on the road. So and then. So we've moving on from the rocky paths.

Stu McKenzie: 36:57

So eventually, you will merge at the sea, more mountains. And and this is where we're at about the desert theme. We'll, we'll have talked about one at the end. Yeah. So the same more mountains is where you get a vision of your future again, yes. Where you can get excited, you can set goals you can, you can start to develop a certainty of what it is that you want to create and do. And you can believe that and start to manifest manifesting comes in at that place. And it's interesting, when you're in an orphan side of people, when you're in that gully when you're in that gully between two seamer mountains, going through this whole map, don't try and look at your future. Don't think about your future, because you're not going to see it just as if you're hiking between two mountain peaks, look at your feet, and go left foot, what does that have to do? Move forward, right foot, left foot, right foot. So you're looking at your feet. And at a certain point, you've worked your way up again, into the sea, more mountains, you can lift your head and you can see your future again. So don't try and look at your future when you're going through that gal

Andy Fermo: 38:02

that because it's just too big work can't see it totally taking one step at a time,

Stu McKenzie: 38:06

one step at a time. Left, right focus on now being present. That's the mindfulness piece as well, that, you know has been very popularised. Yes, absolutely. And then the final destination which a few you which is the risk is that is that you, you don't navigate the swamp very well. You stay in the anger and guilt mudflats or the the or the avoidance marches and, and that leads into what we call so you don't kind of find your way out of the forest of hope you don't in engage the courage to dive back into that swamp of feelings and get through it. And so you come around the side of the swamp of feelings and and there's the desolate desert, and you can get stuck in the desolate desert. And that's the sort of people that you see in capital cities, sleeping rough, disconnected from relationships, disconnected from life, not engaged in anything meaningful. addictions, drug addictions severe that, that that part of that captures that. That desert desert that just absence of connection, absence of relationships, absence of meaning, absence of engagement in life. Yeah, that's

Andy Fermo: 39:20

the place, very sombre place and then and then so what was that last bit there? So the desert and alternative relationships what does what does that sort of mean then? So last little bit

Stu McKenzie: 39:32

so the last piece after the same more mountains is when we reengage so let me give an example to bring that to life. So alternative route relationship highway he's been through a divorce a messy divorce, went through all the feelings associated with it rebuild focused on myself, recovered my energy, recovered energy found, went on the rocky path and started to become okay within myself again, met somebody else. Yeah, the wise person who is conscious of this journey has, yeah, and part of what we do is we reexamine our values during that time, what is it that's important to me. And we need to articulate those values and be able to be able to clarify and articulate them. Because when we go into a new relationship highway, and the example of that, to carry that example, on, decide to go into another relationship, we'll either repeat, if we haven't learnt the lessons of the of that map, we might just repeat a pattern and pick somebody that's not right for us again. But if we've been conscious in our journey through that map, and we've examined our values, we've examined our strengths, we know who we are better now, because we've been conscious in that journey, then then we're going to make a much wiser decision about what's right for us when we go back into a new relationship. And that's

Andy Fermo: 40:51

that new highway, which is the alternative, it's the alternate from from having to repeat exactly as they're looking at. And what we were talking about really early in the conversation, was that sort of looking on hindsight, and having that sense of reflection and learning, learning, that continual process there, and going well, look, I acknowledge and, and, you know, do I own that? Yes, but I'm not going to make that that's what I'm

Stu McKenzie: 41:18

growing on, on growing from there. I'm better. You asked me very, very much earlier, you know, about making meaning of something and making something meaningful, because it was that event, if that event hadn't occurred, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be who I am doing what I'm doing. Yeah. And the other thing Robins, Rosalyn, Ross, 100, Nicola, Robin before, says about the map is sometimes can go through very rapidly in a matter of minutes, you know, oh, my god, bit of anxiety that comes from I'm in the swamp, and you can get yourself through real quick. Yes,

Andy Fermo: 41:54

I mean, so these are these processes, the map is an overview. But you know, the length of time can actually happen quickly, quite quickly. Or sometimes

Stu McKenzie: 42:03

it's sometimes it's a real journey, you know, and that's when you think about losing someone tragically, and particularly when that person was such a key part of your life. And, you know, then that explains that grief and loss. So, of course, so really we unpick all of the contemporary theories of grief and loss and how grief and loss is connected to building resilience. And yeah, so that's really the map.

Andy Fermo: 42:28

Absolutely. So thank you so much for that overview, Stu, and we'll come in. Join us now for the next session. The next part, which is the relationship highway.

Stu McKenzie: 42:40

Beautiful. All right, we'll see you then. Great. Thank you.

Claire Fermo: 42:46

Join us next time for the next episode of the invisible injuries podcast. Don't forget to subscribe. For more great content, follow us on our socials on Instagram. And you could also visit our website www dot invisible injuries dot.au where you can access more content. Thank you for listening to invisible injuries.