S05E08 - Stu McKenzie (Road2Resilience) pt2

In part 2 of 5 in the "Road 2 Resilience - Unleash your inner strength"

Host Andy and registered psychologist Stu McKenzie discuss the concept of the "relationship highway," highlighting the evolving nature of priorities and values throughout life. Stu McKenzie and Andy Fermo delve into the importance of developmental psychology beyond childhood, emphasising that growth and change persist throughout adulthood. 

They stress the significance of values clarification and strengths identification in fostering personal development and well-being. The conversation touches on the notion of "mental fitness" as a crucial aspect of overall health, drawing parallels to physical fitness. 

The hosts explore coping mechanisms for navigating life's challenges, distinguishing between gradual transitions (voluntary off-ramps) and sudden upheavals (catastrophe bridges). The metaphor of grief as a static circle within life's expansion resonates, emphasizing the importance of processing loss while continuing to grow. 

Overall, the episode advocates for proactive self-awareness and resilience-building to thrive amidst life's uncertainties.

Key Takeaways

1. Developmental psychology extends beyond childhood, impacting growth throughout adulthood.
2. Values clarification and strengths identification are integral to personal development and well-being. 
3. Practicing mental fitness is as crucial as physical health in fostering resilience and coping skills.
4. The metaphor of grief as a static circle amidst life's growth underscores the importance of processing loss while continuing to evolve.
5. Gradual transitions (voluntary off-ramps) and sudden upheavals (catastrophe bridges) represent different challenges in life navigation.
6. Cultivating proactive self-awareness and resilience-building is essential for thriving amidst life's uncertainties.
   
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Transcript

Claire Fermo: 0:05

Welcome to invisible injuries podcast, aimed at bettering the well being and mental health of 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.

Andy Fermo: 1:01

In the last part of the chat, we had a student explain his story, and and background and how he came to be writing this the map of resilience, and the unleash your inner strength ebook, we went through an overview of all the 12 components of this map. And if you haven't done so already, I invite you to click on the link to get a copy of the map. So you can refer to it. It's on our on the description, or a stream has also been very kind to be able to share a copy of his ebook, which is very comprehensive. And what we're going to be unpacking a fair bit not all because there's so much information and key points. The first part of the of the of the map, though, do is relationship highway. Oh, we're on the highway, you know, so can you can you speak to a little bit more of that.

Stu McKenzie: 1:58

I will. I just wanted to preface that with the with the really great book that was released in 2021, by a professor of psychology at Columbia University by the name of George banana. And he spent a career studying resilience studying grief and loss. And he wrote a book called The End of trauma. So his like, his idea is like trauma is just being bandied around everywhere. Now. Everything's traumatic, everybody's traumatised. And he was quite critical of that. And so he wrote a book called The End of trauma, how the new science of resilience is changing how we think about PTSD. So that's the title of the book, because that's a bold title, the end of trauma. Now, the new science of resilience is changing the way that we think about PTSD. Yes.

Andy Fermo: 2:53

And I think that that's a big one there that you just mentioned, is changing the way that we think about it. Yes. Right. Is it going to end? Or is it the continual but you have to keep working on it? There's the other facets.

Stu McKenzie: 3:03

Yeah, yeah. Because how we think about something, yeah, the stories we tell ourselves about something becomes the reality of that something. Yeah. So changing the mind. So it's important to examine the stories that we tell ourselves. Yeah,

Andy Fermo: 3:17

look at it from a different light, you know,

Stu McKenzie: 3:20

I always say, as a psychologist, my job is to work with you around the issue. And I, what I do is I look at it from this angle, let's go around the compass. So I look at it from the south point, then I take you to the West Point, and we look at it and I'll take you to the north point. And we look at it, I take you to the East Point, and we look at it maybe a couple of east west southwest points. And by the time you've looked at it from all of those angles, it's completely changed. So often. So that's just my role. That's what I do I hold space. Yes, that's, I think that's

Andy Fermo: 3:55

a three dimensional world. We can go north, we can check the different factor in that sphere, right. And so that's, but that's take, I think, just sort of, from what my understanding of what you've just said, then you it's not just linear and just one direction, because you know, you've got to look at it from a different angle to unpack it and go, Well, if I was looking at something from this angle, what am I observations from this particular viewpoint perspective? Is

Stu McKenzie: 4:22

everything Yes. And it's caught in that lovely little saying, when you change the way you see what you see changes. And I really love that when you change the way you see what you see changes. But back to George

Andy Fermo: 4:40

No, no, no, no, that was good to be able to preface that definitely. Yes, Jesse Georgia and

Stu McKenzie: 4:45

Georgia was that relationship

Andy Fermo: 4:48

and you know, this is this is like taxiing down that sort of bit to get to the highway. Yeah, that's the way Oh, yeah, we're on the on ramp. That's a good way gathering speed momentum. We talked about the motion part piece earlier. So

Stu McKenzie: 5:00

Well, George banana did some study around 911 When that happened, and they flew in psychologists from all over America expecting there to be this huge demand for post traumatic stress counselling and people sitting around twiddling psychologists sit around twiddling their thumbs. The demand never came the slot of people desperate for support, never game. And he was really interested in why that was the case. And he proposes that people are overwhelmingly resilient to adversity. And what we often interpret as PTSD are signs of natural processes of grief. So they're misinterpret. So this is a misunderstanding of grief and grief such a it's a tricky cat. Yes, because it's different for everybody, you know. And it can it is. It's a unknown quantity. But I'm learning how to do so. So he proposes, after four decades of research, that we need to develop a set of strategies for managing strong feelings. Because in the end, what he says trauma is is a dysregulated nervous system. So it's your fight or flight response. It's, it's I want to get out of here. Or I'm angry, and I get angry at people. So it's a fight flight, sympathetic nervous system response, I'm going to fight you or I want to get out of here anxiety. And what he suggests is if you can if you've got a deep set of strategies that you can use to regulate your nervous system, where's the trauma?

Andy Fermo: 6:38

Does that make sense? Yeah. And as Yeah, no, you got me in thought here to see the shofar.

Stu McKenzie: 6:43

And what he says is one strategy will work for you once in one context, but it might not work for you again, the next time in another context. So you've got to be a scientist about saying, right, that didn't work. I push that away, I'll go to my next strategy. Is that working, square breathing, no square breathe, it's not working for me now. Right? I need to distract myself, no distractions, not working, I need to go to something further I need, I need a deep and wide set of strategies to reregulate my nervous system in the moment. And if I can reregulate my nervous system in the moment, where's the trauma, there is no trauma. Because that's what trauma is a dysregulated hyper vigilant nervous system. So

Andy Fermo: 7:19

disappears. The

Stu McKenzie: 7:21

end of trauma.

Andy Fermo: 7:24

Very invariant, hey, that I put yourself out of works. But so definitely, and obviously, it's had an impact on can we just sort of mentioned that what was the name of that book?

Stu McKenzie: 7:38

George banana. And that's how I spelt it wrong. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's x actually spent. Spelt B O N A N N. O. George Bowen. Right. And the book was called The End of trauma. And then

Andy Fermo: 7:56

so how was it that, you know, sort of what, what really paid you with his book? And your synopsis of it, then with the end of trauma? And how does that sort of relate to what you're talking about here? In in in, you know, even if we were dispersed a component in here? Was that the relationship? Well, how does it tie in?

Stu McKenzie: 8:13

I think what what it ties in for me is that each stage each step, each place on that map that we went through in the last episode, there's a set of skills that are going to that we need to develop to navigate that, yes, successfully.

Andy Fermo: 8:31

Perfect. Yeah. And then so that sort of sets that preface there, as you were saying, is putting the things in place, so that we can manage it, even though you know, we talked to like the end state, there was the end of the trauma, but it's actually putting, putting things that might work for you in your particular situation. And it's not just, you know, it's situation dependent, but also, this might work for me today, but it might not work tomorrow, but I've got something else in the tool or this might

Stu McKenzie: 8:56

mean this moment, but not in that moment. So what are the skills what other skills can I draw on? And particularly that's a swamp of feelings, the kind of analogy but it but it is about developing the attitudes, the knowledge and the skills to navigate each stage and relationship highway? We finally got there. Yes.

Andy Fermo: 9:13

We've we've come in we've, we've gone through the merge onto the freeway, and we

Stu McKenzie: 9:20

know Western Australians is hopeless and hopeless

Andy Fermo: 9:23

and merging. But now we are at speed. We've crossed over the lanes and we're on. We're on the relationship Highway, which I'll just preface there is a meaningful life is built on the foundation of quality relationships. Yep, yep. Well, that's

Stu McKenzie: 9:36

where, what what matters in the end, I think if Gina Rinehart all the money in the world, what's her relationships like with her kids? They're all in court. They're all fighting each other. I just think it's a I just think it's a values campus problem. But I'm not genuine heart. So there's just you know, everybody's values are different, and we'd do well to understand whatever values, and really the work that we do on relationship highway, is we do values clarification work. So I can say to you my values, freedom, flexibility, authenticity and autonomy. Because I've done the work on clarifying my values, and our drive my decision making from those four values, freedom, I have to have the choice to move or move jobs, I need to be able to move I can't be constrained in flexibility, I need to be able to shift my attention and my focus and cope a little bit probably with a little bit of attention deficit. Freedom, flexibility, authenticity, and, you know, I, I work to be the same person I am, regardless of the setting and to drop masks and being an authentic person in the world. And autonomy is part of the reason why I do well is because I don't want to be owned by an organisation. Yes.

Andy Fermo: 10:54

And you know, it's great that you're working from those values. And even just sort of mentioning earlier on and call with your story there. And how you've come to talk about this. And this is, we talked earlier on about a different theme, right, which was flipping the script and, and seeing what your values are, even though you might not be able to be in this pigeonhole of, okay, I'm just gonna work just nine to five and do this and the flexibility, you want autonomy, you want to be able to have the choice to be able to change all these things. And what was the fifth, the third, the fourth one,

Stu McKenzie: 11:27

freedom, freedom, flexibility, authenticity, is the authentic,

Andy Fermo: 11:31

you know, and to be yourself and love, regardless of what setting. And that sort of drives exactly where we are with this. And, you know, I think that that's a lot of things there in terms of that relationship highway, because those are things that we seek

Stu McKenzie: 11:42

is where you do the work when you're not, but when you're not going through something. Yes, this is the preventative proactive piece. You do when you've got a bit of space in your life, where you're on a relationship where you're not getting knocked over. These are the skills that you can build. But people we don't stop to build those skills, because relationship always zoom isn't lost. Grace going, you know, where? How do we create the space, the time, and this is what I like about what I call light therapy. When I say light, I mean is in heavy, heavy and light. And that's some that's some therapeutic work you can do around skills, building and power, building the skills of resilience through through a light therapeutic approach rather than a heavy, deep, psychoanalytic.

Andy Fermo: 12:27

Right.

Stu McKenzie: 12:28

Do you know, heavy therapeutic approach?

Andy Fermo: 12:31

Because not everyone, not everyone is right into going into that, that deep really takes a lot out of you, doesn't it?

Stu McKenzie: 12:38

Well, that's back to the old Freud. And Jung, you mean psychoanalysis? You know, they've been in psychoanalysis. 10 years? So it's for the rich people really? Yeah. But, ya know, we're talking, we've developed a little company called single session psychology. And there's there's a whole range of contemporary knowledge coming out that you can achieve an enormous amount in a single session. Yes, even if you only have one.

Andy Fermo: 13:03

Right. And then that's it. And then so what's going to it's what's contained within that session there. Yeah, to be able to cover the questions you're asking. Yeah, the main, the method and the framework.

Stu McKenzie: 13:13

Yep. And there's a whole growing body of evidence, which is actually a disruptor. In the psychology world? Well, because

Andy Fermo: 13:20

then that's the whole thing about where's my money? Yeah. Well, you try it, you just tried to shut down your home, then by saying the end of trauma, right. So nothing is fixed change there, if you're not flexible with you what it's doing. And so when we're talking about things like that, that preventative and proactive peace, you know, I'm reading here in the eBook, you know, we've got the relationships with others relationships with living things, nonliving things, and ourselves, and then relations with it, or the spiritual spirituality, I paste, you mentioned that right at the start of our talk. So can you can you speak to that a little bit more?

Stu McKenzie: 13:57

So I suppose the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives is what we said, you know, and for me, I mean, that's a values question, too, because because some people might find other ways to have a quality life without quality relationships, but I don't know. But the piece, the piece that we're really interested in, you know, the piece we're interested in is, is the relationships with ourselves, our thoughts, our behaviours, our bodies, our expectations, that's the piece that is the real work to do. Yes, you know, unless you've got an unless there's anger management issues, and you're pushing other people away. It's always about a relationship with yourself anyway, everything comes out of a relationship, when you get the relationship with yourself. Right. Everything else gets, right.

Andy Fermo: 14:39

Yes. And, you know, and sort of moving from that generic and and I almost got caught out on that as well. Just because we're on a, you know, we're talking about veterans, first responders in their immediate support within that community, and ecosystem and world is, you know, I think that what you were just mentioning, Stu, was that relationships with yourselves once you are no longer You know, a serving member of whatever, organisation whether it's a military or or first responder, right and redefining yourself in that relationship. You know, that's really big, you know, thoughts, feelings, body expectations, dreams, or even overcoming some of those the egocentric type stuff, yes. Those barriers that you might sit on yourself. Yeah. Because that's what you define. Yep. You?

Stu McKenzie: 15:25

I, yes, I agree. And you're right. It's those transition moments that challenge people, isn't it where they've got to re reinvent themselves moved from a very structured way of being in the world, yes, to a very unstructured way. And so you lost a little bit of who am I now? Yes,

Andy Fermo: 15:42

etcetera. And so you mentioned before you you get locked in, in your book as well, you know, you got this fundamental truth of life, is that all relationships change, can you can you just expand on that a little bit more I can.

Stu McKenzie: 15:57

As we grow, what's important to us that 12, at six, eight is different to what's important to us at 18 is different to what's important to us at 24. Now, it's interesting, when I went to uni, developmental psychology finished at about 20. So that was, that's the study of developmental psychology. But what we've realised is development and change never stops. So it happens in your 20s, mid 20s, it happens in your 30s, it happens in your 40s, it happens in your 50s, it happens in your 60s, happens in your 70s, that happens, right to the point where you let go of the world, and move out of the world, all of those have their particular unique developmental aspects. And when I say that, I mean, psychology has studied some of that development. But But I think that, you know, this awareness that we could give as much attention to the stages in the 20s of development that we gave to those childhood stages of development, obviously, developmental psychology was its own field focused on kids, which is a huge field, but what was the field focusing on people in their 20s? Nothing? So I'm saying that that is really that's really expanded?

Andy Fermo: 17:10

And where are you seeing it now? You know, sort of you've talked about like back then that there was not really that much.

Stu McKenzie: 17:15

I think there is that growing awareness now that development never stops, Change never stops. And with the world moving faster, and faster and faster Change never stops. We are in a VUCA, I think is the acronym, which is volatile, unpredictable. Karen, what

Andy Fermo: 17:34

the hell? Yeah. Oh, that's okay. We can find out and then you can Google it, you know, the Google or chat GPT might be able

Stu McKenzie: 17:44

to, what I wanted to say is, is the work particularly that we're focusing on in the relationship highway stage is very values clarification so that you can come out with a clearer sense of what your values are, and strength, what are your strengths? So there's the VIIa, which is the Values in Action, which gives you your top 24 strengths? Yeah, we'll work on your top five character strengths. So what are they? Are they teamwork? They vitality? Are they prudence? Are they any number of character strengths that has a huge science behind it now? So because that

Andy Fermo: 18:17

gives people empowerment is what they've got, you know, you know, that sort of thing about being enough? You are enough? And if you identify those strengths that we're talking about now?

Stu McKenzie: 18:25

How do I drive those strengths into what I do in my life, and the evidence is that if I drive the strength in, drive those strengths into what I'm doing, I'm going to flourish, I'm going to be, I'm going to have high well being, and I'm going to find meaning in life, because I'm using my key strengths. But if you don't know what your key character strengths are, you can't do it. So there's something key here to me about values clarification, what are the values that drove me and I can articulate them? And what are the strengths? What are my top five signature strengths? They call them? So that's signature

Andy Fermo: 18:55

strings, right? Yes, strength? Yeah, like power moves, right? Boom. This is my, this is my string. And I think that there's when when people do that, and following, like, a lot of, you know, support forums and that in the work that that I we do is that when you actually when when you see someone have that that light bulb moment, and they don't you can actually see from almost from some of the posts that were that that change, you know, like sometimes we talk about, you know, that things like social media can be really toxic when people are wanting to vent. But then we don't actually acknowledge as much when people actually share their wins, which is, which is the growth piece when you go Oh, yeah. That person or the, you know, that shifted, somehow and something might have in their sphere has shifted for them now to be in a different mindset. You know, they might have some clarity about you know, who they are, they might have gone on a journey. It might take some time, but then when they start posting again, oh, well, you've had some growth here and like, you know, this is clarifying. You are yeah, I've come back now in a better way in a different mindset. Not so toxic? In what?

Stu McKenzie: 20:02

We do see that? Don't you do get a little glimpse into people's lives on what they post?

Andy Fermo: 20:06

Oh, yeah, big one there, you know, sort of, I think that's the old EW and re coming down and, and analysing those little bits and pieces, you know, it's like, what's different about the tone? And yeah, these things, what's the w, that was the trade that I was in, in the military as an electronic warfare. So you get you get you get a whole bunch of information that was coming in from many different sources. And then you'd sort of analyse it and go, here's the here's the gist. Yeah, here's the gist of what's happening. And an example would have been, like, when we were in Afghanistan, we'd used to listen in on, they called them icons, these these radios, you know, like a walkie talkie. And then you know, someone would be talking about the tone would be someone, and then another time, and that person's the same name. But they sound very different. The way they talk is different, their tone is different, something's happened, have they have they no longer with us. And then someone's taking the same name, but as someone else, or as what the, you know, these things are talking about red flag, yeah, red flag. So all these little things, and that was part of piecing together, you know, in this context, again, of what we're talking about, with relationships and, and having clarity around it. We, you know, we've identified strengths, and we've identified the values and then getting some clarity around where we are on the relationship highway. Now. So without unpacking too much of it. Is that Is that something that we've sort of covered? Yeah, well, terms of the

Stu McKenzie: 21:35

last piece around values and strength. The last piece is, is what we call psycho education.

Andy Fermo: 21:41

Okay, that's very important. I don't want to miss out on that, though. So

Stu McKenzie: 21:43

psycho education is, is maybe like our first, the first episode we did, which is where we learn what psychology has discovered about being human and in the world, and it's evidence based and, or different ways of different knowledge. It's the knowledge piece, it's so it's, I hear, it's understanding that, that there's a process that I'm going to go through, I'm not going to be stuck in this swamp for forever, because the thing about emotions is, when you're in them, it's like, they possess you. It's like, it's like, you're gonna be there for forever. It's like, you can't see you lose hope. Yeah, I'm stuck here for forever, you know, but but having a piece of psychoeducation, which says, well, we'll know because there's some other places on this map. And here's the here's actually the way through. Yeah, that that psychoeducation. Yes.

Andy Fermo: 22:34

And that's the big one, and you just spoke to it earlier on is that the education piece, but also training, to look at it from a different perspective and change training the mind to look at it from that bit.

Stu McKenzie: 22:46

So if you go, if you go to the last piece for relationship, which will be mental fitness, yes. And so that mental fitness is understanding through psycho education, that mental fitness is just as important as our physical health as the food we eat. And that just like brushing our teeth every day, we could also get into some habits of practising the 10 skills of mental fitness, for example.

Andy Fermo: 23:15

Yeah, I mean, you just coining that now. I look out for the new ebook coming out. Every good publish in the US. That's amazing. So you know, mental fitness, strength, the clarity. They're amazing. Yeah.

Stu McKenzie: 23:31

So there's the work in relationship I clarifying your values, identifying your top signature strengths, doing some psychoeducation around this resilience and grief and loss and the world and understanding mental fitness and bringing some of those habits into our ways of being in the world.

Andy Fermo: 23:46

Yes, yeah. And that all comes down to as well just to summarise in the two words that you did mention right at the start of this word, which is the preventative piece, and the proactive peace and proactive is the actual learning. And the preventative is actually going through this even though you might not be experiencing it right now. Exactly. You know, in the now like you spoke about people don't want to deal with it until they're dealing with it. Exactly.

Stu McKenzie: 24:07

That's why yes, that's why all of these are positively focused. And really, I suppose the benefit of that word, mental fitness coming into our lexicon coming into, is that mental health or Well, certainly mental illness has got a stigma. You don't tell anyone that you've got a mental illness. Mental illness has a stigma mental health as much as they tried to shift mental illness to the people use mental health as if it's a problem. They say they have a mental health problem, or mental health becomes a negative word. And I suppose the good thing about evolving to this idea of mental fitness, is that a lot of the stigma around healthy mind. practices to give our mind well, yes, there's not a stigma around mental fitness. No,

Andy Fermo: 24:58

oh, that's Yeah, and like, you know, sort of it cuz it's like, you know, sort of you being from a military point of view, you might you know, when you're in, you can be fit, you've got this regime of being really physically fit and strong. And you get out in like you let yourself go, you're trying to find yourself and then you go, Well, I'm not working out I'm not doing these cool things now and then you start to get you're not you're not fit anymore. Link

Stu McKenzie: 25:20

the link down there. Yeah, all of those aspects are linked to a link to each other,

Andy Fermo: 25:26

like a muscle. Yes, the invisible muscle, right, the invisible fitness that we're talking about. And that mental strength fitness, that can be worked? Yes, yeah, you know, we're, we're, we're doing workouts for this. And you wouldn't

Stu McKenzie: 25:38

send you don't send soldiers into active duty without enormous amount of skills, building, preparation, fitness, you know, mindset, you know, absolute training. And I suppose what I'm sort of suggesting here with the relationship highway work, is that life is going to come and throw us some real challenges. And none of us are going to escape that because that is life. Loss is going to knock at our door, as I said before, but what are the what's the preparation work we've done for when that comes? Yeah. And that's back? Well,

Andy Fermo: 26:12

yeah. of hope, the fire drill in the fire. And the military, and even in the first responder. Well, they they do that? Yeah, that's called rehearsing, going away. So just say, if there's deployments happening, and you can, you might have it set in a sort of, if it's a bit more of a, a more of a peacetime military role, both happens is that you're going away for training, and you're working up and you go somewhere, and I'd speak to sort of the training that we were doing during that sort of really, operationally focused period, is you go away, you'd go away to these training, you go away with the people that we're talking about to wrap this up, right. We are there with your company, you got to know, relationships. Yeah, you're seeing what the values are, what's happening here. How do we do this together? You're building that you've got clarity around what I'm talking about? Yeah, I'm talking from a context of being within the organisation still, yes. But then I think our audience will also connect with that, because you go, we're doing this. This is what we did when you're in Yes. Now, this is what we're talking about, that you can be doing. When you're out here. Yeah. And working on those other bits. Yeah. of mental fitness. Yes. Especially, you know, in on the relationship highway before. Before we see that big detour. And you know, when we're coming up to the bridge, you see what's happening. happens here in LA many cities. There we are. Geez, look, I look at my Google Maps. I've seen a big red sign. I'm driving along. I see. It's red. Everyone's banged up. You see all the brake lights coming on. And everyone's slowing down. What's going on here? We're gonna have a sticky beak right at the freeway on the freeway. Yes, yes.

Stu McKenzie: 27:48

Someone breaking down on the

Andy Fermo: 27:50

16th. I'm

Stu McKenzie: 27:53

gonna have to slow down at all. The

Andy Fermo: 27:55

RSSI. But so we're talking

Stu McKenzie: 27:59

COVID was a test free bridge for the world. Yes. Wasn't that we

Andy Fermo: 28:03

are We there was a cause. And so as we're going to that catastrophe dry, so hold on. Did we miss one section? Well, he's a voluntary offering their voluntary offering for the bridge. So that's, is that what we're kind of talking about here now. So we've seen that there's something happening, right? There's something's bubbling in the distance, or maybe? Yes, yes. So we got to volunteer because we're talking about, we have to get out now. Because

Stu McKenzie: 28:29

the difference between catastrophe bridge and the voluntary off ramp is you're exactly right where you said we can see something bubbling on the voluntary off ramp, so we can prepare ourselves. We're preparing ourselves, mentally, we're going through it over time, a lot, a person who dies of a long illness, and we expecting them to go so across all that time we've been doing, we've been making things, you know, we've been processing and so most of the time, they actually slip away the works done. Yeah, because we saw it bubbling. But the difference between voluntary off ramp and catastrophe bridge is that you did not see it coming. It comes in sideswipes. You.

Andy Fermo: 29:02

Whatcha Yeah. And so,

Stu McKenzie: 29:05

so that was perfect. You did a good job of,

Andy Fermo: 29:07

yeah, the left loop operation left right punch, it comes in, swaps in and knocks you out. That's almost like a king hit from the, you know, from the side that you didn't see. And so what what would you say is as the that some point? How does, how does, how do those two things sort of interlink from when when you can

Stu McKenzie: 29:30

get to I suppose the concept is relationships will change at some point. And that some point is either catastrophe bridge, or the voluntary off ramp. Yes, at some point. Yes, at some point and most of their relationships change on the voluntary offering. Most of the time. It's slow, it's gradual. It's evolution is not quite the word. It happens over time. It's gradual, we change we grow, we develop

Andy Fermo: 30:00

So just say if I'm putting it into context of of someone that's been, you know, as a military or first responder, and that voluntary off ramps there, say voluntary off ramp, you can see something's bubbling now and you make some changes in but you do you separate, right, you know, because he would have spoken to quite a lot of people in regards to their transition out of the military. So you've got guys, you've got members that take this voluntary off ramp, but they leave on their terms. But then you've got some, you know, and then there's a transition process there. And then, after you've done that work that you talked about old grandma, you've done the work they've passed away, you've still done all that work. Yeah. But in, in, in some in many cases, though, you know, like, we're talking about something where it's physical or, like, you know, a mental, were medically discharged, saying yes, or, or something's happened, or even. It's come and sideswiped you before you read to it took away your vision away the vision board, you expected your life journey to be That's right. expectation and everything. So now it's been taken away. And then that's not voluntary, is that that's kind of that's that catastrophe for you.

Stu McKenzie: 31:09

I think it's certainly more of that that catastrophe bridge theme where it wasn't. We weren't an agent, we had no say in it. We didn't see it coming. And it kind of it just, it's come. It's just happened. Yes. So. And if you say that, yes. Coming? Yes. And obviously, it was last saying you're not on the right. Or, you know, it was about rebuilding a set of beliefs really?

Andy Fermo: 31:43

Well. That's right. I mean, it was like a no, no, I mean, I only mentioned this, the spirituality piece there, and you'd like to get that get that. But that was definitely a sign from somewhere that said, Hey, mate, this is a slap to the face today, Hey, wake up now. or something's happening. Yeah, we're gonna give you a big sign, whatever that might be.

Stu McKenzie: 32:00

Not that I had that meaning for me at 23 or 30, or even 35 or 40. It's about making that it's about consciously creating the space and time to reflect and make that meaning. Because in the end, when, when we are bereft by Yes, by grief, we all stay stuck in it, or we, we make meaning of it. There's a lovely little diagram of grief, which I love because it honours grief so beautifully. Kubler Ross has stages of grief, where you remember them denial, anger, avoidance, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. And it's this idea that you went through this, these stages of denying then bargaining of God, if you can keep him alive, I'll go to church every Sunday, whatever bargaining depression and avoidance acceptance, I've marked it up. But it's this idea that you get to a point of accepting growth acceptance, so it's either it's finished, but there's a that's been really highly criticised as being a linear view of grief and loss. And everybody goes through different stages at different times. And they're not linear at all. And everybody's experience is different. But a different another model that I really love is this model that life grows around grief. There's this idea that grief is this big for me at the moment. So imagine a 20 cent coin on the table, that 20 that circle of that 20 cent coin is my whole life. And all of it is grief, it's all black, my whole life is affected by it. But what happens is the size of that might never change, that grief might be the same for forever, never get to the point of but my life continues to grow. So the circle around that gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And as my life grows, the grief is still the same, but my life is so much bigger.

Andy Fermo: 33:52

You know and so just having said that Stuart and painted a picture in my head, which is a very it's quite a quite a famous picture if you're if you're sort of like a bit of a history buff up on the wall, right? So and don't don't slay me for out there in the audience about it. So I'm gonna give a synopsis right? That was my old job there is giving a gist of what the story was without the full, you know, so there was a kid who got called up about to join the military. And so when when they did that, when he did that he had his bike. He was still young kid at the time. And he strapped he tied the bike to a little small tree at the time. But then, years, years later, they found this bike. Where was the tree had grown around and the bike was 10 metres up in the air and someone said, Well, how the hell did that? How did how the hell did that bike get up there? Yeah. And how did this tree mature, the tree had just grown around, and then took the whole thing with it. So what you're saying is like with this is this coin, the gross net might not change and may never change. But if you use Choose how you got around, right? Yeah, it's always gonna be there.

Stu McKenzie: 35:03

You know, what just occurred to me then too. And in my 20s, I remember coining a term that I called yelling at a sapling, which was like, why can't I do I want to do more, I want my life to be like this, whatever. And, and I coined this metaphor of, it's like standing out yelling at a sapling, that's just this big to say, why don't you be a big tree? Why aren't you going fast enough? And because a lot of this stuff is we just, it's a growth and development thing. Yeah, it's not a fixed thing. So so the other thing if you're really hard on yourself, pressing yourself, like I did in my early 20s, and 30s. Once I'd frame that as yelling at a sapling, then I had a frame of saying, Stop yelling at a sapling, it's a stupid thing to do you just happen is not gonna grow faster with the yelling at it, make sure it's got the right. nutrients, and it's watered and it grows to you give it the chance of growing to its full potential.

Andy Fermo: 35:59

Well, you know, I mean, the person yelling at the sapling might be a bit hangry. They got to feed it something. And maybe have a Snickers, red, amen. So you know, so these are all intertwine, though, which, which is a great sort of part here. So you

Stu McKenzie: 36:18

know, feelings is actually going to be a section, because that's a big,

Andy Fermo: 36:25

that's a big section. So we're just sort of over previewing it now. Yeah, I'm talking about like just wrapping up these these first sort of three bits, he was talking about the relationship highway, talking about the voluntary offering and catastrophe. And then the catastrophe free bridging the two really big underlying points there is that that voluntary off ramp, similar to what you said before, was doing that, you know, that pre work. In this case, in your example, there was, you know, our old Nana, Jude was, was terminally ill, but you put all those systems, you're sort of you saw it coming, you're doing the grief, you're doing preparation, you're preparing the funeral. So when she slips away, everything's in place.

Stu McKenzie: 37:05

Exactly. Psychologically, your head is in the right place. Your heart is in the right place. Yeah, you had the chance to say all of the things you wanted to say that you had the chance to get your relationship right. So that you would have no regrets whatsoever. Yeah. And then But then sometimes living years.

Andy Fermo: 37:24

You do it anyway, that's not the voice. These are the DJs coming out. He could have got to fix up the word there. You know, I think, yes. It's always you know, there's always a song that I find when you're having conversations and that song comes. That comes into mind, who big song for a long time, you know, we had that on? And it was

Stu McKenzie: 37:43

about him taking the opportunity to speak to his dad in the living years rather than Yes. Yeah. No regret

Andy Fermo: 37:50

of not being able to say what you wanted to say.

Stu McKenzie: 37:53

Yeah. Because? Because they snatched away. That's the catastrophe. Yeah, exactly. So that's beautiful. You've done a beautiful job there of really teasing out the difference between the voluntary off ramp, and yeah,

Andy Fermo: 38:05

and then when someone comes in, it's like that lady night out in Sydney. And you know, you're out there formerly in the cross, and you get bang, you got the late night punch. One Punch, wonder, and then you know, you've got the catastrophe fridge and say, Come, yeah, right. And then that causes all sorts of chaos. Chaos is a good word. Yeah. And it's gonna, it's right there. Yeah, it is, you know, a force the major, you know, that's gonna come in. So I think we've really covered off on that one, there will be, you know, the ebook that's Jews written has got a lot more detail, which is available to you to be able to unpack a lot of the things and there are a lot of words here, I'm just looking at thinking about emotions and behaviours, but that's our swamp of feeling. So come and join us on this, this next section where we really cover quite a fair bit of ground because this is a big, big pot. So we'll see you on the next module.

Claire Fermo: 39:00

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.org.au where you can access more content. Thank you for listening to invisible injuries.