Episode 5 - The Everyday Art of Resilience

Ever been blindsided by a week that throws every possiblecurveball at you? In this episode of Life’s Bumps and Bruises, Joel Sheldon and Luke Lee Tet unpack the moments when resilience is tested — from unexpected parenting chaos to the emotional mess that follows.

Joel shares a real-life “sticky gecko” moment (yes, straightout of Bluey) that spirals into a bigger reflection on frustration, energy limits, and the art of picking your battles. Luke brings the grounded, practical toolkit, offering simple strategies to reframe setbacks without sugar-coating the struggle.

🎙 This episode is for you if you’re into:

• The real side of resilience (beyond motivational quotes)
• Finding humour in the chaos
• Practical mental resets when you've hit capacity
• Why "just let it go" isn't always that simple

💬 Got thoughts or want to share your own story? We’d love to hear from you. Reach out anytime:

📬lifesbumpsbruises@gmail.com
📲Instagram: @lifesbumpsandbruises
📘Facebook: Life’sBumps and Bruises

🎧 New episodes drop every Tuesday — let’s normalise the conversation, one real chat at a time.

Credits:

The Inspiration by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Life's full of bumps, bruises, and emotional potholes. I'm Joel Sheldon, just a bloke who's battled anxiety and depression. Joined by Luke Lettet, counsellor, coach, and the calm to my chaos. Each week we talk real life, anxiety, overwhelm, family stuff, and those mornings when getting out of bed feels like a win. Plus, if you love a life long way. This is Life's Bumps and Bruises. We're glad you're here. How are you, mate?

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Yeah, good man. Good. Good.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

How's your week been?

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Uh busy.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

You always say busy.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

But it has been like everyone's busy. Yeah, no, fair enough. But I think uh for me it's juggling lots of different balls all at once. It's probably been a challenge, but uh it's part of the process, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Do you roll your eyes when people say, oh, it's been busy because everyone's life's busy? Is that the stuff before the what do you call it, the fluff before the gold or whatever it is?

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Yeah, I don't know. I think uh I personally I I reckon that it's kind of a throwaway line, right? You know, uh saying that actually, uh there's this man named Brian that I met at my uh when I was doing my uh placement when I was doing my counselling degree, and he he would you know he would say, Oh, how you doing? And everyone would say, Oh good, Brian, how you doing? And he would always stop you and say, What does good mean? Every single time. And I think that busy is one of those good moments, if you make make sense to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

I agree. So the uh podcast have been out for a while now. We're still getting feedback. We're now featured in five different countries. I thought that was pretty fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

How cool is that?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

They uh do you remember what they are? I've got them written down.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

I'll have a crack. Go Malaysia, yeah, Japan, yeah, US, yeah, Australia, yeah. And is there one more? Yeah. Oh, I can't remember.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

United Kingdom.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

United Kingdom, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

I've got a shout out, and I will personally do this. If you are from the USA, Japan, or Malaysia, flick us a DM or a comment on Spotify, and I will personally give you a shout-out on the show. I think that's fascinating that it's ended up out there. I'm pretty confident I know where the American ones come from, because that would have come from the whole PS5 interaction. I think that's probably that market.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

Most likely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

And I've seen the percentages as well. I'm guessing the Japan and Malaysia is one person because of how low they are, but I still think that's fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

That is cool. It is cool either way.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Now, the uh, as last week we spoke, I think it was last week we spoke about perfectionism. Trust me, I am aware of the audio issues as much as anyone else because when I've been listening to these in the car, I am constantly finding myself turning myself down for being too loud and turning you up for being too quiet.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I I uh obviously don't speak loud enough into the mic. Uh I actually have this my my right ear is slightly blocked, right? So it's like um it's like I can't hear myself or I I overhear myself, and so when I speak, uh I generally um speak a little softer. Uh so hopefully today it's a lot better.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Do you follow horse racing?

SPEAKER_03 3:37

Not really, no.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Not really. So we had some feedback which you're aware of, where somebody said, gee, is Luke gonna pipe up and give us something or whatever? And I realised I'm gonna relate this back to horse racing terms. There was a horse called Chautauqua, and Shiitaka was this grey horse that used to jump out of the barriers and sit three lengths dead last and then down the strait just swoop them home. You are Shiitakwa. You are traditionally in this podcast, you are a slow starter, and then at the end, once you get wound up, you are great. And I am a horse called Pride of Jenny, where I come out for like a million miles an hour and talk way too fast like this, and at the end of it I lose steam. So we are a good dynamic because I carry the show early and you carry it late.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

Yeah, well, thank you for putting that out.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

I just called you a race horse. Hey, if you are listening in on the Spotify app right now, I want you to do me a quick favour, stop what you're doing, tap the follow button, and if you've got a minute, please leave us a review. It really helps get the message out there. I'm gonna wait for them to do that.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

You're gonna wait.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Yep. I'm hoping they do it right now because I know when people say that they just zone out. So I'm just gonna give them a minute, maybe less than a minute. Okay, have you done it? Thank you very much. Do you reckon that worked? Tick. So you know, um, we spoke about the thing's not always the thing, and then I think you spoke about how people will talk, and you go, that's not the problem, and then they eventually get to the the I don't know, the main issue or whatever it is, the main mo or the motivator. I figure these episodes start like that. They start with a fair bit of fluff, and then before we get into the goal, but I find the fluff quite entertaining and funny. It's normally a bit normally about shit that's happened to me during the week. But why do we start fluffy? Is it just because it's comfortable? Is it just easy? It's the whole, hey, what do you do with yourself? Is it one of those type of things?

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Well, that don't conversations go that way anyway.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

That's true.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Yeah, we kind of start fluffy and then we go into the things that we really wanted out of each other's company, maybe. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe, maybe you know what it could be. Tell me. Honestly, it could be because maybe I ramble a bit too much. Which I've been accused of a fair bit. Let me give you the whole tip. I've been accused of that. My wife does does that to me all the time. You're rambling again. Thank you, appreciate it. And then when she's listening to the podcast, all right, because she listens to the recordings, she can't help herself. Um, make sure she points out when I raise her name up and stuff like that. Uh she'll just start pissing herself laughing. She'll be like, You guys are funny. You guys are so funny, like we think we are. Yeah. I actually thought I was the only one who thought I was, but uh, yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Well, if you are rambling and I am trying to resist this thrill to test my skill, how do I say, Luke, wrap it up, you're talking nonsense, and you've gone away from the question.

SPEAKER_03 6:16

Well, you could say uh if we were to circle back now, all right.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Fuck, this is a corporate HR speak. Well get her out of that.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

Get her at it. Well, um, you know, my wife is HR representative, so um, you know, she too teaches me a lot.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

I um I've got a couple of quick stories. I I feel this You always do, mate. This almost should be a segment in its own shit that's gone wrong. Yeah, Joel's story. Joel's story. Yeah, to start the episodes. I've got a couple, and I don't know if I'll tell all of them or if it'll just run too long. But I'll start with a bit of a damn one um because I do think it's a bit interesting. You know how there's on Facebook you have memories that pop up, yeah. And they're uh they're normally from this time last year. Had a Facebook memory pop up, you would have heard me talk about my daughter's fifth birthday. So it was my daughter's fourth birthday, and I was looking at these pictures and videos and stuff, and they didn't have sound. Um, we're just sort of glossing over it. I'm like, Oh, I look really different. Like I looked, it looked painful. And then my wife said that was three or four weeks after you suffered your full clinical diagnosed burnout. And I'm like, I remember that. Like, and I remember and I it was I just want to get you touched. It was painful to look at even the photos. I could see it in myself, and then it's like I transported myself back to that moment, and I got PS PTSD in the moment of looking at it, of looking at these photos. I think you've touched on how you know when you think something you can make it real within your body, and what whatever else get you to expand on that. But yeah, just uh popped up as a memory. Obviously, it was my daughter's birthday, the year that that had gone, and then um that was right when all of this shit started to get really scary really quick.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Yeah, I guess it really depends on how you want to look at it, right? I mean, if you could look back on a on a memory, right, and you could say, Oh, that was a really shit time, and you'd be right for you, but then you can flip it and say, But look at the difference now, right? Jeez, that was a tough time. I made it through. Right? So it really depends on how you want to see it.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

I guess I'm coming from the the feeling. As soon as I saw those, it took me back to that moment, and it was like I could feel those feelings back in my body in that moment, and then I, if I'm honest, I got uncomfortable and I wanted to push it away. It was like I I can't look at that anymore. I don't that's not a version of myself I want to particularly remember.

SPEAKER_03 8:29

I don't think that would be no different to anybody else, really, mate. I think most people would feel that way.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

So, okay, this is the first story now that we've got that one out of the way. I want to tell you a sticky gecko story. Sticky gecko, really? Have you so Bluey's big in our house? We've got a five-year-old. Bluey's big everywhere. There's an episode called Sticky Gecko, which is this soft, sticky, I don't know, elastic y sort of toy that gets flung around. Is that the one where you throw it and it sticks to something and pull it out? Exactly. Yeah, one of those things. Again, I'll uh I'll post this into our social media account, I'm sure I will. Um, I've got a snip of the actual Bluey episode. But my daughter came home with a party bag from one of the many parties she's been to lately, The Joys of Parenting, uh, and the Joys of Having a Popular Kid, I guess. But she came home with one of those in a party bag, and she pulls it out, and it was this red thing, red translucent sticky thing. And so I just opened it up for her and I gave it to her, and she comes upstairs and she goes, Dad. I said, Yeah. She goes, It's stuck on the roof. And I went, Oh, okay. Alright, that's fair enough. I'm like, yeah, it's just like the Blue B episode. So I go down into her room and it's on the ceiling, but I can reach the ceiling, they're only 2.4 high. So put my hand up and I pull it off, and there's a fucking red mark on the ceiling. And I'm like, Oh, that's annoying. So I go and get the spray and wipe, and I'm wiping this thing, and it's not coming off. This thing's on it. No, it's flat white. Exactly. So then Harley, my daughter, goes, Well, how do we fix that? I said, I'm gonna have to fucking paint it. And of course, I've run out of burgers flat white because of the whole Jul Venus' IKEA episode. Yeah, wow. So story gets a little bit better, so I said, Right, in my not so angry voice, no more of that. Outside you go. And I was joking when I said it. So she goes outside and she's playing with it. I said, Oh, make sure you do it on the lawn. She goes, Oh, I don't wanted to get any dog poo on it. I said, Okay, fair enough. So she's playing with it on the paved area. And then she comes back out and she goes, Dad. I said, Yeah. She goes, It's stuck on the ceiling, on the roof. And I go, Oh no. So I go outside and uh it's stuck on our I don't know, light, the one of those lights that comes on when you walk past it. What are they called? Sensor lights. Sensor light. Stuck on one of those, and we're having to get a broom to try to get it off. And I thought, that's the last time that she's allowed a sticky gecko inside or outside the house.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

My daughter did that like a month ago. Really? And now I've got a blue patch on my ceiling.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

So there's another one that I'll upload to our socials.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

So now that looks like I'll tell you now, right now, my wife's like, You're gonna paint it? I'm like, nut. She goes, Why is that? I said, because I want that kid to look at that every day.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

I'm not sure my five-year-old cares about it, to be honest, but I do, especially because I've just been painting things. So that leads me into story number two. Now, I would like to drip feed these out over multiple episodes, but if we're talking lice, bumps, and bruises, all of this shit has happened to me in the last week. So I want to give it to you. Um, so I need to buy dog food for our dog Sasha, and I'm out at my mum and dad's working up there doing the maintenance during the week, which I've touched on, and dad had to drop into a place that sells horse stuff, so hay and you know, worming tablets and whatever else, veterinarian type stuff, and they've got a pet section there, and this is just on pallet racking, so it's this dusty open warehouse, and there's these cans of dog food, wet dog food that I needed. So I pull them out and they've got all dust on top of them, and I say, Oh, are these all all okay? And they go, Yeah, they'll be fine. We're trying to find an expiry date on these tins, and there's no expiry date, there's some printed writing. I'm like, no, whatever, she eats her own shit, so she'll be fine. So I take them home and I go to open one, and it's one of the you know, the the flip lid, what do you call them? The just the lids. The pool lid. Yeah, the pull lid, take it. So it's got a pull lid on it, and I open it, and this thing goes boom like a potato gun, right? And I go, what was that? And I'm like, I knew there was something wrong with this can. Don't think much of it. Give her the dog food, she's fine, like no diarrhea or anything else like that, no issues. About two days later, Tamika goes to me, my wife, what's that stuff up there on the wall? And I go, What do you mean? And I'm looking at it, I'm like, I don't know. And I go, Oh my god, that's fucking dog food. Oh when it explodes. So when it exploded, the dog food had gone onto the wall underneath the cabinet on the side of the cabinetry, and I hadn't even seen it. It had gone straight up. It might covered about three square metres worth.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

No way.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

And again, the reason I touched this story, burgers flat white, I'm out. I just painted this section when I was in paint mode. So I've got sticky gecko on one ceiling and dog food on the other. So what do we do about that?

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Uh yeah, good luck with that.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

And then the last thing I want to touch on is um we spoke last week about perfectionism and self-doubt. And you know this better than me, one, because I did this in front of you. I typically spend about two hours doing these rundown sheets, and we were here last week, and we finished an episode, and you said, Oh, I've got to spare a bit of time. Do you want to record another one? And now obviously we're trying to do this because my wife's labour is somewhat imminent, and we didn't want to mislead our guests and saying we're going to be coming out weekly when we you know go missing for a week. So I thought, yeah, it'd be nice to have one in the bank. So I said, But Luke, I haven't done the rundown sheet. And then you said, My mum's coming over in 15 minutes, and I said, Oh great, I've got 15 minutes. And I knocked out a rundown sheet in 15 minutes. Now I reckon to the listener, they would have no idea that I did a rundown sheet in 15 minutes versus two hours. Well, they do now, right? Well, they do now. Well, hey, it's all about transparency. Okay, but tell me about that. Why from a when we just circle back to last week's episode and perfectionism and all that, why was I able to produce some work in 15 minutes that was completely suitable and completely okay in the spoken form when I would normally spend two hours and what can I learn from that?

SPEAKER_03 14:08

I don't know, man. I think uh oh geez. Uh I think if we're looking at you, I'll give you a deadline, you're gonna be alright with it. You're gonna be pretty good with deadlines. Uh I gave you 15 minutes, and then you decided this was probably the key to it, you decided that you could do it. That was the key. And then when you decided you could do it, you did it. In the past, I would say you never made that choice, that decision. You've gone, oh you know, well, maybe I can, maybe I can't, I'm not sure, I don't know. And then in the moment you're like, I can do that. Let's have a crack. What are we gonna do it on? Let's do it on this thing. Yeah, yeah. And then you're like, okay. Then your powers of wisdom uses Chat GBT and a whole bunch of other different things, which I don't think you used a whole lot of. No.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

But um it was more just about what questions to ask and how prompt to move on, which is great for the um the way that we present here as conversational, but it's more about how do we move the conversation along and what does you know this lead into that, yeah. Yeah. Rather than plagiarizing stuff, because I'm not sitting here reading off the screen all the time.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

No, we don't hardly ever. Not at all. Right. So it's like uh I I like I said, I think it's just decision. Just decision. You made choice, off you went. But you know, who blocks you from making the choice in the first place? There's one person, it's you. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

I think you're right about the belief. When when I knew I had 15 minutes and they that was my time constraints, I'd say, well, how do I get this done in 15 minutes? What tools do I need to call on? Who do I need like okay? Yes, I've got things like Chat GPT and different sorts of AI things that I can help me expand on this in the quickest way and most efficient way possible in the shortest time amount possible.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Yeah, but I think the question there that you asked yourself was the important one. Uh, how can I get this done? Yeah. Right. Over can I get this done? That's the difference. Because you could deliberate over can I, can't I forever. Yeah. But how can I get it done? Well, me straight into it.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

And there was there was less refining as well. There's a I might get this, I'll get the quote right, but I might get the context wrong. There's a guy called Jim Collins who's pretty famous who said, Don't let good be the enemy of great, or don't let great be the enemy of good. I set that around the wrong way. But the way that I understand it, which might be completely wrong, is you know, you can get pretty damn good work in a short amount of time. Yes, to perfecting it, that might take you hours upon hours upon hours on top of that. But in terms of if we throw this together, this will be good enough. Then I think that's all I need to do in that instance. Good enough was good enough, right?

SPEAKER_03 16:34

Yeah, well, you can go after perfection if you like, but who are you doing it for? Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

And who's judging you? That's right. Who's keeping score?

SPEAKER_03 16:42

I mean, to be honest with you, uh, you're probably our number one listener right now.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

I did notice in the category of 35-year-olds to 40-year-old males. Lucky you don't lucky it only takes it from one. I just I just leave it on repeat at home just to push up the uh analytics. Yeah. Let's leave it on leave it on repeat. Should now that we've gotten the fluff out of the way, should we jump into segment one? Let's do it, bud. Let's do it. Righto. You've started well. Look at you go. Get around it. Yeah. Get around it. Had a kick in the ass this guy. Yeah, that's it. So segment one, unpack that, everyone's favourite episode. This is where I pose a story, scenario, or moment for Luke to break down. Uh, Luke, this week, I want to talk about resilience. So, do I have it or not? So, Luke, I've been thinking about resilience the last week, and I don't know if I am the most resilient person in the world or if I'm not actually resilient at all. Um, on one hand, I'm still here and I'm still showing up and pushing through and still keeping my family together. And on the other hand, I think, yeah, but what happened to be able to get yourself to a point where this all sort of unwound physically, mentally, and emotionally? Um, so is that resilience or is that just survival? So about a year ago, I sat down and wrote out a huge list of everything that was weighing me down, and I've just toke taken you back to about when it happened from the Facebook memory story where there was work stress and constant overthinking and pushing through pain, the pressure to hit targets at the time as a mortgage broker, and all the physical and mental toll that came with that. And then back then I was training at the gym five days a week. I'd quit vaping at the time, I was off antidepressants and somehow, you know, still keeping up with a full-time workload. On paper, it might have looked like resilience, but the truth is I was hanging on by a thread and then it all came sort of crumbling down in terms of everything that went along with my body and different things like fibromyalgia and um you know bursitis and just complete stiffness and soreness in fight or flight remote mode all the time until I had to listen to my body. So, fast forward to now, I'm no longer working full-time, I'm not in the gym because I've got a young family, which is probably an excuse. I've started vaping again, which is embarrassing to say out loud. I'm on two different types of antidepressants, and some of the old pressures have dropped away, but the mental load is still kind of there at times, and I find it hard to switch off. I still care too much about things I can't control or what people might think about me, and at times I can be stuck in the same loop. So I want to unpack today. Does resilience mean surviving at all, even if you're barely holding on? Like, do you need trauma to be able to I guess work on resilience? Like, can you only have resilience from having trauma, or is true resilience not about letting it get to that breaking point in the first place? I've got a bunch of questions for you after that, but I guess can you expand on how do you know if you're resilient or if you're barely surviving, or you know, are there signs that someone's resilience is strong, or maybe that it's worn down? Is there a difference between getting through and versus thriving? Like, can you I think resilience is a fascinating topic.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

So you got more questions after the ones you just asked.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

I just want you to expand on. If I was gonna give it to you in one sentence, I want to know how do you know if you're resilient or not, or how do you know that if your resilience needs to be something that you need to work on in terms of it may not be up to scratch.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

Alright, so uh how do I answer this in the best way possible? I would say my personal viewpoint on resilience is that you were born resilient, right? And then and then it's really about um how I utilize that resilience personally. I think if we were to look at resilience like oh I I do this thing and I bounce back and it's all good, then okay, cool, maybe you're good, maybe you're not so great, I don't know. But personally, I think I look at resilience like we're a ball. Some balls need more air than others to bounce. Uh some uh a little flatter than others, right? Can you re-pump up your ball? Yeah, absolutely. But uh, you know, it was really interesting. One day I was at a like a conference thing uh and there's this big knob psychologist that was up talking, and generally I don't have uh a problem with psychologists, but this dude I have a problem with, right? Um, and he starts talking about uh keeping our children away from things that um that tests their resilience. Didn't say it exactly like that, but it was like that. That was the the message, right? And I'm like, come on, man. How do you build a skill unless you are experiencing it? Right? So do you have to experience trauma? No, but as a child, you're learning how to be resilient your whole time because you fall over, you scuff your knees. Do you get up and keep running, or do you sit down and cry? Which one? Or after you cry, do you go out and run again? Right? And and I think that happens all the way through. There's some really good stuff on resilience everywhere, and it's all um some of it can be pretty clinical, some it some of it can be very um that's too easy. Right? That can't work because that's too easy for some people to put their head around. But I think um I think it all works, it depends on how you look at it. Right. I think resilience is more about how do I bounce back? Right. And that leads into what they teach at schools, right? So schools in Australia, they work on growth and fixed mindsets. If we're looking at growth mindset, we would say, okay, um, I fell over, how am I gonna get back up again? If a fixed mindset, I fell over, I mustn't be good enough, and it leads us down this rabbit hole, right? Which mindset are you going to utilize? Are you going to sit there and say, okay, well, it's all falling apart, I'm done? Or am I going to sit back and go, okay, well, it's fallen apart, now what? Uh I I can't let go of that question, but I can't. Like, so all that happened, now what? Right? I think that's a really great question to lead into any challenge that we experience because it allows us to see things in a how-to rather than well, that all happened and it's all shit and it's all falling apart. Right? Um, yeah, even abuse victims, when you have abuse victims and you work with them, uh, and I have worked with a few, they're as soon as we can get them to a point where they can go, okay, so will that happen now? What? It takes a little bit of time for sure, but once we get them to that point, they they definitely change the way they go about their thing. So do you have resilience? Yes. You were born with it. Do you exercise it? No. If we went to the gym, uh, me and you, and I pumped the weights, you're not gonna get stronger. You're the one that has to build the muscle. So are you going to choose to lift the weights or are you gonna choose to watch me do it? That's the choice. Just like you were talking about perfectionism before, as soon as you made the decision to go, well, I'm gonna put this together, we're doing this thing, then we're all good. We had a podcast, you had to run down sheet for a podcast. So I don't know, I don't want to get over clinical with uh with resilience because I think it's too much of that already, but it is as simple as that. So all that happened now, what? Do you have resilience? Yes. Are you gonna utilize that muscle? Up to you. That's your choice.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

So then is there a risk in pushing too hard and mistaking that for resilience? And how do you avoid burning out? I guess what's the difference between pushing hard and so hard that you just you're grinding through it and you consider that resilience, but you're not also listening to your body. Is that not a fine line?

SPEAKER_03 24:38

If you're pushing, are you doing the right thing?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

How do you know?

SPEAKER_03 24:42

You know, everybody knows.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

But I I personally I only know from experience because the last time I did that, I suffered full clinically diagnosed burnout, so now I'm more mindful of it second time around. But until you've been.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Let me break it down for you, Jolly, Jolly, Jolly, please stop. Let me break it down for you. Okay, it's real simple, mate. You knew you chose not to listen. You knew that this wasn't right, that you needed something, but you chose to continue to push. You knew it's whether you were willing to accept that or not, or if you feel like you have to keep going to hit rock bottom, 100%. Everybody knows. I don't know anybody, and I've never come across somebody who didn't know. They all knew that this wasn't right, but they kept going. Why? That's that that's not I wouldn't say that's stupidity or anything like that. I'm not saying that that's crap. What I am saying is that if you were listening to what the communication from your body to you, you would know that you needed something different, that you needed a break, but you didn't. That's the truth of it. We all know. I know when it's coming. 100% I know. Right. I uh as part of my study was asked of me how you go about self-care or something like that, or something like that, and I put in there that I know when I start to get bored or when I start to get fidgety with my body, that I need to go and do something active. Right? And if I don't before I knew that about myself, uh, I would just allow myself to get bored, and I can tell you now, I would have a hundred stories just like Joel about how I pulled out some tools and broke something. Yeah, and now all of a sudden I look like Joel. Really? Is that who I want to be? No. So thanks, Lat. No, because I'm I'm half decent with tools, and I don't break dishwashes, but anyway, um uh I mean that with respect.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Yeah, no, respect taken. That's fine.

SPEAKER_03 26:52

So um I fixed it. Okay, mate. So anyway, going back to what we're talking about. Well, this is me circling back, right? So you knew everybody knows, but are you listening? Are you listening to the communication that your body's giving you? The body stores stress, the body continually sends messages to you. Are you listening? Okay, that's that's a choice.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

One of the other pieces of feedback I got from a friend, you don't know this, was to push back on you if I didn't completely understand something or if I wanted to challenge you. So I want to challenge you in a real practical sense.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

Go for it.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

You cool with that? Absolutely. I can only come from my own personal experience. So, yes, not this story is about me, but the way that I will tell this is about let's talk about it from a work point of view. You feel yourself stressed, you feel yourself overworking. You are two months into a trial period of a new job that is a high-income job where you are providing for your family and doing all those things. You feel the pressure building up, but you're going, it's all a part of a new job. Was I meant to at that point say, hang on guys, I need a holiday for three months, knowing that one or two days isn't going to do it? Or was I meant to say, hey, this isn't in a line with who I am as a person or my values because my body's not responding, therefore I quit. What was I meant to do in a situation where you're trying to prove yourself at a workplace, either be it in its infancy, and you don't feel like you have the luxury to be able to then turn to them and say, Hey, I need time off? What do you do?

SPEAKER_03 28:27

So that that presupposes that you had no tools. Okay. Right? Completely that you had no tools, but you did. What tools did you have?

SPEAKER_00 28:42

I don't know. Are you talking counseling psychologists, psychologist? Like what you what are you talking about? So really you couldn't just go for a walk.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

You could. You could, that's one thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

I was doing that at lunchtime, so it wasn't enough.

SPEAKER_03 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

Then if you needed something else, go get it. But you didn't.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

What was the something else I was meant to get?

SPEAKER_03 29:02

Go and get support from someone.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

From from who? Like I could if I want driver, go to my wife. I can't just bitch to my wife. I want my dad. Like what is it?

SPEAKER_03 29:11

So essentially you you you were in corporate style job, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:16

So that means you had access to EAP.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

Why didn't you use it? I did. And then how what was the information they gave you?

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Oh, I can't remember now. That's too long ago.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Yep. So then okay, so then you got that, then it didn't work. All right.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

Then when you spoke to EAP, they should have said that you would have gone to go get a mental health plan or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

To get the more tools that you needed.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:38

Did that happen?

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Uh again, I have to check my memory. I I think that I was in constant uh mental health plan sort of strategies. I think I was definitely seeing a psychologist at the time. It might have only been every three or four weeks.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

Yeah, here's what I want to say is this, right? Uh, and and it's happened a lot for a lot of uh clients, right? Is what's the thing that interests you the most? They give me an idea, right? For you, it might be cricket, it might be something like that, right? Um, it might be the work that they do. It interests me, right? So if it interests you, that's cool, but that's not the thing that most interests you. And they go, What do you mean? Well, doesn't anxiety, as an example, doesn't anxiety interest you? No. Well, actually, it does because you do it so often. How about you go learn about it?

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:31

Right? Do some homework.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 30:33

So that's a tool. And then when you do some homework, there's so much on so many different diagnoses out there that you could choose one of them and go learn about it. And then when you learn about it, you're more informed about it. You're more informed about the signs that were uh that were um being shared with you through your body that you could do and you can take an action.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Yeah, so all that stuff you're talking about was eventually what unfolded. Yes, but I had to quit my job because that took weeks and months of learning. And we spoke about it, I think it was in the teaser episode. Because I think you spoke about it, everything's personalized. I would put that a different way and say the start is fucking messy and unclear.

SPEAKER_03 31:18

It's yeah, but where did it start? Do you know that?

SPEAKER_00 31:24

No, well, in my 20s? I mean I'm 39 now. Like, you yeah, where does it start? Through lived in life experiences that creep up in you and build.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

Yeah, right. So if we if we know if we can if we're paying attention to the communications coming through to us, I get that not everybody exercises that muscle. I get it, right? If they did, I would be out of a job, legit, because you'd be able to solve your own problems. But if you were more in tune with what's going on inside your body, then you would know that starting point for that happened years before. Right?

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Yeah, I would have just called that life.

SPEAKER_03 32:04

You can, and you did, right? Right?

SPEAKER_00 32:08

And you say, How'd that work out for you? How did that work out for you? And I'll tell you to get fucked.

SPEAKER_03 32:11

Yeah, and that's okay, you can. Um, but I'm just saying that uh um, and I get what I'm saying, is very challenging to hear when you've experienced that stuff. Yeah. 100% I can appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Do you also think it's easier for you to say that if you're not the one going through the lived experience?

SPEAKER_03 32:31

When I went through the lived experience, someone told me that.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Okay. So you've been through something similar because you're human.

SPEAKER_03 32:36

I don't talk about shit I don't that I read in a book, man. I talk about shit I did.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

That is the truth.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

The other thing I want to come back to, because I didn't want to gloss over it, but did you see I uh I wrote down a question in my laptop because you told me last week. You good one. See what Joel has in front of me, he's got a laptop. He could have written out a question. So again, follow you the ends of the earth, Luke. I'm doing it. So shut up. So like I'd go see a psychologist and you'd go in and you'd go in with a heavy heart, and you'd go in there, and often I would cry and get the release and do all of that. But I didn't feel like I learnt anything, I just felt like that's what I needed at the time. The the biggest trouble that I had issues with, and I'd love to know if other people deal with this as well, is let's say you have a psychologist, psychiatrist appointment. Typically it's psychologists because they're the ones talking you through this stuff from a um what's the process they call when they talk you through stuff? Uh counselling, no behavioral cognitive therapy or something. Oh, CBT. CBT, yeah. Not to be confused with CBD. Yeah. Um, but yeah, what I found is in between sessions with Lloud Southern every three weeks, you'd go in there, you'd have your hour, you'd walk out, you'd be okay, you'd get you through that day. Cool, I need that release. There's a lot of time when you're not in front of a psychologist between your next session where a lot of life happens and a lot of water goes under the bridge and things happen. I spoke about this the other week. It's you don't always have the person you need available at the time that you need them throughout every given day while everyone gets on with their life.

SPEAKER_03 34:02

The person who's unavailable as you you're the person you need, you truth bomb. That's the person who is unavailable as you. How about this? You you do you actually have a question in that or not?

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Uh probably just a hundred. Okay, so sweet.

SPEAKER_03 34:15

Okay, sweet. So what about this? Um, how about how about we quickly go over how you could structure the sessions you have with a counselor or a psychologist? Would that be helpful?

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Yeah, yeah, I think it would.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

Don't go in there to just vomit your shit.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Isn't that their job?

SPEAKER_03 34:36

Yep. But the problem is, depending on the type of counselor you go to, they're going to listen and not challenge. Especially psychologists, they're trained not to challenge enough. Okay. Um where counselors are a bit more emotional, um, they they deal a lot more with emotions. But I would say that when you go in there, you talk about I want to find a motivator. Generally, if somebody's talking to you about cognition instead of emotion when it comes to a motivator, time to find someone else. Bro, I'm sorry if there's psychologists and stuff out there listening to me. I'm sorry. Lift your fucking game. Yeah, man. I'm sorry, bro. Lift your fucking game. Do some work around the motivation and the emotion that is driving the behavior that you aren't happy with. A lot of the time, that doesn't happen in sessions. They walk in. Tony Robbins does this too. Tony Robbins told this story that I I heard long time ago about um how he would say clients would come in and they would start crying, right? So then he would literally clap and they would stop crying. And he said, What are you crying for? We haven't even started yet. I don't know, because they're primed to cry. Don't go in there to cry. You organically may, right? And that's okay. But don't go in there too locked and loaded to cry and just vomit up your stuff. Go in there to find out what the motivator is, because from there the work really happens until you get there, and if you just continually go in there and the psychologist or the counselor or whoever mental health professional you're seeing allows you to do that because they will, right? Most cases, not me, but they will. Um, when they do that, how many sessions is it gonna take till you get to that motivator? To you get to a point where you have that conversation. You get 10 sessions free in the mental health plans, right? Your 10 sessions are over. Over. And you're talking to me about how you know it's three to four weeks before you, you know, between sessions, right? How many months is that gonna take before you get to a motivator?

SPEAKER_00 37:00

I wonder if how much of it has to do there's a bit of a conspiracy theory where they can just whack you like a cash pin yada and take you along for the ride.

SPEAKER_03 37:07

No, no, because they fill the 10 sessions anyway with the rebuild.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:11

The rebuild phase. It doesn't matter, it would still happen. But get to the motivator, they're just being they're being very person-centered, which is what everybody's been taught in this industry to be very person-centered. It's great, it absolutely is. It builds rapport, builds trust. Fantastic. But there's more to it than that. Get to the motivator. We did motivation the other day in one of the other podcasts we did, the other episodes, where we questioned you. Okay, so if that mat if if you live this, how would that make you feel? Yeah, it would make me feel here. And if you did that, how would you live for the rest of your life? How would that make you feel? Yeah, it would leave me here. Cool. I remember that. Now we're talking about validation if I remember correctly, or something like that. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, come on.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 37:52

We did that in in I reckon we did that in under 30 seconds last time.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Here comes Chautauqua. Look at you winding up coming around the outside down the Flemington street. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 38:02

It pisses me off. Like a wild toy. Yeah, man, bad. Right? It's good. It pisses me off because it's not as difficult as it sounds. And yes, we might need somebody to hold our hand through it, but it isn't that difficult. You just haven't been taught how to do it. And then we go to these professionals, just like so many people did, right? And uh, and I have had conversations as a client with some of these professionals. Let me tell you this shit. Some of them shouldn't be there, right? Probably shouldn't have said that, probably should take that out. You know what? Fuck it, it's staying. The the key is here to understand why you're in this role in the first place, right? I want to help people. Cool, how you gonna do that if you just sit down, listen to them cry all the time, right? You come to me and you go, Yo, I've been in this problem for however long, whatever it was, a year, two years, whatever it was, right? And then you you sit in a session, second session or third session. Can you get this done? I'm like, I know I can get it done, but can you? Yeah, and you're like, I'm gonna hold you to that. I go hold yourself to that. Do you remember that conversation? Yep. Hold yourself to that. What do you mean? I'll show you how to do it. You're the one that has to walk it, right? I'm 100% putting my fucking money where my mouth is, but you need to put your money where your mouth is too. This isn't a transaction, it's not. It's me leading you down the path you want to go down, not the one I want you to go down, the one you want to go down, and you have to walk it. If you're not gonna walk it, forget it, and no one's gonna help you. Do you know what I mean? And I get that that can be a challenging thing to accept if you're experiencing any anxiety or depressive symptoms or something like that. But I'm gonna tell you, it's the truth.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

You um this just came to me as well. Remember you telling me when I'd sit down and talk to you, you would have these ideas about what you wanted to work on or what we were gonna do, but you would often talk about how I presented first, what I showed up with. Um, like how important is it for you or anyone to be, I guess I try to work out what the question is, but adaptable? Yeah, adaptable to be flexible and say, well, okay, I wanted to do this, but this is what it this is what they're presenting with today. So yeah, I've got to sit through the bullshit for another hour. Like, like how do you how do you do that, I guess, and why is that important?

SPEAKER_03 40:24

It's interesting that you say that because we still end up doing it. The um the really if I had to break it down, I would say that you you present in a certain way, we regulate that first, okay? We do what you each person individually has something that they like to do when they first come into the office. Something. Some kids like to walk around, check out what's different, if anything. Some people like to just come in and just about non-related stuff. Some people like to just sit there and wait for you, and that's okay too. It's all good. But generally, if you can remember, in those times, there were 15, maybe 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

Yeah, tops.

SPEAKER_03 41:16

And then we went into the actual work that you needed to do anyway, based on the way you presented, not based on what I wanted to do. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

So the thing's not always the thing. Is that it again? Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it.

SPEAKER_03 41:27

Okay, and then we'll the motivation for the day is different today. The motivation for last session was different. That's okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

I've got we'll just finish on the topic of resilience. I'd like you, I do have a question for you. Do you think you can tell when someone's resilient? And what it what are you looking for? What are the hallmarks of someone who is resilient?

SPEAKER_03 41:44

I don't necessarily look at it resilience, I look at it more uh adaptability, which we could probably say resilience too, but I would say it's more about the the way that they view and explain the situation and the and the level of uh reaction and responsibility that sorry, reaction and response that they're taking. So are they being are they responding or are they being reactive? Because if they're being risk uh reactive, we know that they're most likely not looking at it in the best possible way for them. If they're responding, then we know that there is a skill level that needs to be built. That's different, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Just on that then, can you can you give me one example of how you could build resilience as a skill? And maybe you want to leave this for your toolkit if you want to answer it then, or have you got something else in mind?

SPEAKER_03 42:35

Um, really depends on what you're gonna bring up for the rest of the show. But I would say that how do I build up resilience? Just ask yourself this question. So that happened, now what? Right? And if you have to list it, because some people like lists, like to write it down, some people and and I suggest you do write it. I like writing initially because you read it back to yourself, right? And then when you read it back to yourself, you go, okay, here's the gap. Feel that bit. Okay, that is no good. We can replace it with this thing, or the whole list changes, doesn't matter. But uh, I think asking yourself that question, so that happened now what, right? Uh uh that changes the game personally. Resilience, I I like more adaptability, the ability to bounce like a basketball. How much air do I have in my ball, right? Okay, I need to pump some air in my ball. How am I gonna do that in that situation? Okay, so this is happening. Now what do I do? Okay, now who do I need to be? Anything other than anything deeper than that will tie you up. I reckon we'll tie you up because it'll be all mindfulness stuff, regulation based stuff, great, all works, beautiful. But then, you're still gonna come back to that same question. So that happened now, right? Regulate, great, do that first, always regulate.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

So regulate step one. Number two. Do whatever you need to do to get yourself back to just a baseline where things are okay in the moment.

SPEAKER_03 44:04

Like, what is step one is listen. Listen. Listen to what your body's telling you. Yep. You'll feel it in your muscles. There'll be tension in your different parts of your body. When you feel that tension, then it's time to regulate. Okay. Regulate too. Number three, ask yourself, how can um so that happened now what? Okay. So that happened now what? Then you work it out. Okay. Because each situation is different, everybody's experiences are different. Can't give you a fourth because the rest of it is up to you.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Yeah, whatever your body or whatever you answer in that moment from asking yourself the question.

SPEAKER_03 44:36

Based on your experiences. Yeah. Right? And then understand that I would prefer everybody to look at it more like after I asked that question, now I'm moving into a space where it's uh pure curiosity. I'm curious around where this will go rather than be locked in to an actual expectation that something's going to be different.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Shall we move on?

SPEAKER_03 45:00

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

All right, next segment, rewind. Uh Luke, this is where we go back to either last week or we find something from our DMs or whatever, and we unpack it a little bit more. I shouldn't say unpack because we've just done 45 minutes on and unpack that. We actually had our first question from the listener. Excellent. Came in from Fraser Heron Pattenson. So shout out to Fraser via Instagram DMs. His question was past-present relationships, how they've affected you. Did you have to cut people out of your life because they were toxic to you? So Fraser raises a pretty powerful question how our past and present relationships can impact us. Luke, can you share your thoughts on this, especially when it comes to recognizing toxic relationships? Do you personally decide, or how do you personally decide when it's time to set boundaries or even cut people out of your life? And what's that process like emotionally and mentally? Is it always clear-cut or is it sometimes more complicated than that?

SPEAKER_03 45:49

That's a very interesting question that you just asked. If you reread it, you're here, you say something along the lines of um when do you know when to put boundaries in place? You should always have boundaries in place. Regardless, always. Not everybody gets everything from us. There's no way because there's there's a level of us that says I've got to protect a part of me. That's fine. Perfectly fine, that's normal. Um, but there should always be boundaries. Always. Toxic people, how do we know when we should remove them from our lives? You know. This is the way I look at a lot of things, right? You made the decision, and the reason why you didn't follow the decision is because you haven't learned how you can live with it.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Or live without them.

SPEAKER_03 46:41

Or them. Yeah, right. Who are they and how are they enriching my life right now? I have a lot of toxic people that I know too, and I'm sure that for some people I've been toxic too. It's inevitable for most people, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:57

It's funny when you say that I think about probably the people that have cut me out for exactly that same thing for different reasons. You always think you're more, you're more in the right, or you justify, but I'm sure that's probably been the reason. Yeah, it goes both ways, absolutely. Can't sit here and talk about always the other side of it when you you know you've been the problem at times as well.

SPEAKER_03 47:13

For sure. Um response versus responsibility, right? So if I um uh I limit the time I have with them, that's what I do. And then slowly over time, things start to move in different directions because we move in different directions. We start to uh hang out with different people, we start to um uh we start to discover more who we are, we adjust to who we are along the way because we're always developing and growing. Um be different if there were a toxic relationship in terms of partner, that would be very different. Um with a friendship, sometimes you've got to bite that bullet. Right? Just bite and move. Right? They either come or they don't. If they're really toxic and they try and drag you down, should you have been friends with them in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 48:05

I think you spoke last week that friendship circles, if you think about it, they last about seven years. When you said that, I started thinking through my life and we touched on that. But I think there just comes a point where either you naturally outgrow them or they naturally outgrow you.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

And if they I've got something that will take us over time. Right?

SPEAKER_00 48:21

We've got no problem going over time.

SPEAKER_03 48:23

Okay, I will try and illustrate this as best as I can through Word, although generally it works really well if you draw it because you can see it. Okay. All right, you okay with that? Yeah. All right, cool. Or should we have saved this for another episode? Who knows? But anyway. Oh, we'll cut this out. We say that a lot. Anyway, um, okay, so we do our relationships very similar to the way we go about anxiety. There is one half of us that does uh aggression, the other part of us does avoidance. Okay, so when uh in when we have two people that come together, where do they always meet?

SPEAKER_01 49:01

In the middle.

SPEAKER_03 49:02

In the middle, right? 50%, right? Ping me tick. You get an A today. All right, so if they meet in the middle, all right, that would mean that each of us bring 50% of the relationship. Would that be fair? That makes sense, yeah. Of course. Alright, so now if I'm aggressive, right, in nature, I will generally bring 70. I'll step over the 50% um boundary line. If I'm more avoidant, I will generally bring about 30, potentially 40, maybe, right? Depending on our own experiences. But let's just say I have two avoidant people that meet, okay? Um, they're both bringing 30%, and so then there's a big chunk of space that sits between them, where both of them are just trying to waiting for somebody else to make a move and nothing really happens. Um, and then a lot of times inside that space there is a lot of loneliness when we have two avoidant people coming together. Loneliness because we feel like we're not we're not really connecting, right? If we look at two um aggressive people that both of them are stepping over, both bringing 70%, they're both stepping over that 50% line, um, we would see conflict, right? Because nobody's uh appreciating each other's space, nobody's really um understanding each other. If we have the other way around, so if we have both of them together, so have aggressive and avoidant come together, okay, a lot of the time we have misunderstandings because nobody's listening, nobody can. One's feeling like I'm reserved and hide in a corner, the other one's just pressing over the top saying, Come with me, come with me, right? And it doesn't happen because the avoidant person is not at that level, all right. So we would see aggressive people as more of a toxic environment, but it's not always the case. They're just louder. Why are they louder? They're louder as a protection mechanism, most likely, or they felt like they were never heard when they were younger, who knows, right? There's a whole bunch of different reasons why that would happen. If we see an avoidant person, why are they avoidant? Right? They're they're probably avoidant because of very similar reasons, like they're being pushed down, forgotten about, misunderstood, um, kind of leave me alone type situation, right? But if you if we look at it, both of them have a place, aggressive and avoidant. They both have a place. How do you navigate that? Is up to you. Am I I would say we would both be on the aggressive side, me and you.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

Right.

SPEAKER_03 51:42

Right? Because you like to be seen, right? Probably fair. And I like to be in control.

SPEAKER_00 51:49

That's probably fair.

SPEAKER_03 51:50

Uh uh, no, thanks. So I wasn't looking for your approval. But if I say my wife, right? My wife, Joanne. Make me point at the whiteboard. If I take what Joanne into account, right, my wife, we would look at her and say she's more avoidant, right?

SPEAKER_01 52:06

Right.

SPEAKER_03 52:07

She likes to sit in the shadows more. That sounds creepy, doesn't it? But she likes to sit more in the shadows more and peer through the windows. Maybe speak, yeah, as long as you don't fog them up. But speaking to one-on-one rather than one many. Yeah. Because it's safer for her. So that's more that avoidant.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Do you think so? We put it, you just put us in which category? The aggressive. Aggressive, right, in this context. And you spoke about Joanne being the more avoidant. Yeah. I think Tamika's probably it. So does the aggressive and the avoidant, do they attract each other because they lift each other up in different qualities and you learn how is that, or is that just pot luck? Because as soon as you said one is aggressive and one is avoidant, and you thought about Joanne, my mind immediately went to my wife because she's my significant other. Why is that? Is that is that a thing?

SPEAKER_03 52:54

I think it's the way you navigate it. So remember, if if aggressive and avoidance comes together, the negative side of that is misunderstanding. Misunderstood. We both misunderstand each other. Okay. When both parties can understand each other, their strengths, their weaknesses, and all that stuff, and all the stuff in between, when they can respect that and understand it, you don't have that problem. Will you still have moments of misunderstanding between each other? 100% you're human, it's going to happen. But if you don't recognize that that's going to happen, then um then it becomes an issue. If I've got two aggressive people coming together in terms of a relationship, all right, a partnership, then the it would be very up and down like the ocean. Massive fights, amazing sex. Make up sex off the charts because you're continually making up. But what happens if the two aggressive people can't repair a relationship? Good luck. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

This might be a story for another podcast for an unpack that, but my wife and I often talk about our defined roles, and it's not a I just don't think everything in a relationship is 50-50. I am naturally better at some things, she's naturally better at other.

SPEAKER_03 54:13

Yeah, but when you pull them together, they're probably 50-50, mate. What's that? But when you pull them together, if you list them. List what? Your defined roles that you were talking about, they're probably 50-50.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

Well, hang on. The amount of roles are probably 50-50. But what I'm saying is, let's say I am the finance guru in my house because I have a background in finance. Guru. Yeah, well. Come on, mate. Let's say I am the finance fuckhead in our house.

SPEAKER_03 54:39

Yeah, don't make me cringe, bro. Guru.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

Guru.

unknown 54:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

See, you didn't resist the thrill to test your skill. You've no idea. And now I've lost my train of thought. You can't teach this stuff. You're not going to put it into practice.

SPEAKER_03 54:50

I'm sorry when you say the word. Are you sorry? Or do you just say that? No, okay. I am not sorry. At all.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

Don't fucking lie to me.

SPEAKER_03 54:57

Oh no, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 54:58

Or our listeners. You're right.

SPEAKER_03 55:00

So you were talking about defined roles and you're talking about 50-50.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

Right. So I'm saying it's not 50-50. We each have clearly defined roles. And I call my wife, and she is known in our family as the big dog, right? So she is the day-to-day financial oper sorry, the day-to-day operations in the house. She makes sure that there's food in the house, that the you know bills are paid on time, that things run smoothly. And I'm probably the longer-term planning and the different sorts of things, whatever else it might be. We don't need to get into that. But um, I think that'd be an interesting topic in terms of I don't know, just dynamics of relationships. And you know, is is everything meant to be 50? Oh no, we do everything 50-50 straight down the middle, or do you each have your defined list of strengths and then you work out who is best at what and you are the CEO of those topics and the other person doesn't get in your way, and vice versa.

SPEAKER_03 55:50

Isn't that the way that everything can see saw in a really great way? I think so. I think it works really well, right? 100%.

SPEAKER_00 55:55

Which is why I want to bring it up. Like we don't um yeah, I just think it it works really well. Like my wife handles all of the daycare.

SPEAKER_03 56:02

Imagine if you added that to feminine and masculine energy. Yeah. I know. What a conversation that would be.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

Yeah. But like my wife handles all of the daycare admin stuff. She handles all of the birthday and Christmas presents or the birthday presents for the younger kids of Harley's friends and family and stuff like that. But if it's working out who to set up beneficiaries of superannuation accounts, I'm probably handling that, right? So, but it's funny we just go down and go, well, is this a is this a clearly defined role or do we need to negotiate who's in charge of this one? Yeah, I am the mower of lawns, as you know, hold a gun to my head, as probably most men are when it comes to that kind of thing. And you know, she's great at making sure that the washing is always hung up and and clean to make sure that we've got clothes. And it's not that is not a sexist thing, that is just a clearly defined role within our household, and I think that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 56:50

Within your relationship, there's nothing wrong with that.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

Yeah, nothing wrong with that.

SPEAKER_03 56:52

Should we move on? Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 56:54

That was good, Luke.

SPEAKER_03 56:55

I hope so. I hope everybody enjoyed that.

SPEAKER_00 56:58

Next one up is Luke's toolkit, something you can actually use. This is Luke. Sorry, this is where you, Luke, give listeners practical strategies that they can try in real life. So not just talking about problems, but helping people build coping tools. Now, I do want to touch on last week. I think we expanded on the topic of that's interesting. I've got one for you in the week. I tried to use my wife's heavily pregnant. She said something, and I came up with, hmm, that's interesting. And she snapped back, is it? What do I do now? Quinn help playing out. Hmm, that's interesting, is it? I went, fuck, Luke didn't tell me what to do now. Um, hold on one second, Luke. I said that's interesting. Now you can expand on that if you want, but we might just give her a pass. And she did mention that she's a fiery Croatian that's 38 weeks pregnant. I'm like, well, that is you reckon the fucking dog food went off like a bomb. No, oh boy.

SPEAKER_03 57:59

Um Joel, sometimes what happens in your head doesn't shouldn't come out of your mouth. But um is that true? Yeah. Um why don't you just tell her what you were thinking? That's interesting. Is it? Yeah, I think it is because of whatever.

SPEAKER_01 58:20

What's wrong with that?

SPEAKER_00 58:21

I don't know. She's the big dog. I got deer in the headlights. I was yeah, I was afraid of being eaten.

SPEAKER_03 58:29

She's pregnant. How far are she moving? You'll be alright.

SPEAKER_00 58:32

That's a good point. You'll be alright, mate. But all three things. She rolled over in bed this morning. No, she was trying to get out of bed. And I said, she goes, geez, look how slow I move. I told her she looked like a submarine trying to do a ball. Nobody. Nobody. No. We'll cut this out. No, no, no, we're not.

SPEAKER_03 58:52

I'm dumping you in it. Nobody used that.

SPEAKER_00 58:55

No, I did. She's the big dog, but everything's fair in game in love and war. Oh god. Um she she takes it well. She's she's not we've known each other for a long time. How do you still have teeth? I thought she'd be punched them out. Yeah, it's a good point. Good point. Anyway, back to um Luke's toolkit. What have you got for us? Is it something on resilience? Is it something else? Didn't we give you a whole heap of tools already in this uh you've done what now? We've done that's interesting, we've done the rocking side to side over the past couple of weeks. Have you got any anything else for us, or do we just kill this segment?

SPEAKER_03 59:28

No, I would say if we're in a downward spiral, build up your capacity to make assessment. That's one thing that um has come up a lot for a lot of clients recently is about how do I assess? That they don't, they just become reactive, right? We want to respond. Sometimes a response is not doing anything, and it's just taking an assessment. Where am I at? What's happening for me, what am I feeling, you know, what's my motivation for taking an action right now? All those types of things. How am I assessing my environment? And I think that's important to understand you need to sometimes stop moving and take an assessment of the situation. Uh the other day I had um uh as you know, I had a a situation where I was like, okay, do I need to move out of my office? Right, and move my practice. Okay, I was assessing what's gonna happen, right? Uh and it works out that I was I actually thought, I've been thinking about this for a little while, but I thought I'm gonna have this discussion with a couple different people that I trust for them to give me their not opinions but their assessment of the situation. So then they give me their assessment and it was mixed bag. Then I'm like, okay, cool. Uh I'm gonna have a chat with Millet, and I'll see what he says. Okay, he is amazing, he's an amazing sort of man, really like him, got a lot of respect for him, and he's just gone, you're not leaving. I don't care, I'll adjust the rent. Right. And I'll I'll do whatever you need to do to keep you here, right? Which was fantastic, right? And it just ticks the box on me. But if I if I don't make that assessment and gather the information for myself, okay, before I go to him, I'm out because the decision's made. Go on, I'm at go, I'm out of here. But have a conversation with him, things change, right? Because I did my assessment. So and I know that I've had a a few clients in recent weeks that aren't assessing. They haven't assessed, they're just reactive trying to put spot fires out. Don't put spot fires out because they're the embers of the larger fire that's happening behind you. So turn around, make an assessment on what is actually happening here, what's the motivator for the issue in the first place, then tackle the motivator. Because if you don't tackle the motivator, the behavior, the issue continues to happen. Does that make sense? Yeah, you want more on that individually? Hit me up. Right? Come in to the office, we'll do it online, I don't care, and let's have a chat about how we can get to the motivator for you. Because that's not easy, because if it was, everybody would do it, even though we've kind of shown you how we can do it because we did it last episode on how we can get to a motivator, but then why, right? Hit me up, hit me up and we can have a chat.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:31

Just on that, we are now five episodes in. We haven't haven't actually told people if they did want to get access to you to be able to talk to the big dog behind the mic isn't the big dog.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:41

I thought your wife was the big dog. Yeah, and she is the big dog in your house.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

But how could if people wanted to get a hold of you, talk to you, get an initial assessment, a free phone call? And before you tell that, I just wanted to say when I first reached out to you, the first phone call I ever had with you was awesome. And it was completely free. And I'm just telling you from my personal experience, once I got past your uh your internet issues where I used your online form and sent you in this work properly, yeah. Yeah, do you remember? I sent you, I sent you in this. I I liked your online form because it was I meant I didn't have to talk and you you talk about writing things down. I got to explain in a few hundred words what was going on, and then I never heard back from you. And now you've since fixed that up. Is that fair?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:23

Yes, that's fair.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:24

Right, great. So that's all fixed up. Um, and I spoke to you and I reached out, and the way you answered the phone was, I'm gonna tell you, fucking beautiful. Like you just went, talk to me, Jolly. What's going on? And I just felt so calm, and I'm like, all right, well, here we go. And you just let me talk, and you did resist the thrill to test your skill. You just let me talk, let me talk. No matter how long I wanted to talk for, you're in no hurry to cut me off or say, Hey, listen, I need like nothing, you let me go. And then you went, Cool, here's what we need to do. But but but here booking a time, come in and see me. And I just I just thought you just knocked down any barriers about especially men's talking about mental health and two blokes talking together, where maybe guys typically feel more comfortable to talk to a woman or something like that. But it was just so easy and so comforting, and I was like, Okay, this guy's the one for me. But how can they find you?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:11

Thank you for saying all that, Jolly. I appreciate it, mate. That means a lot. Um, how can they find me? They can either email our lifespum spruises email. What's that again? Lifebumps bruises at gmail. Lifesbumps bruises at gmail.com. That's right. Um or they can go to my website, lucelet.com.au um and all the information is going to be there. You'll be able to access um either hit us up in in the DMs as well through our social media, any way that you feel most comfortable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:41

And if you just Google Luke Litec Counseling, it's I think it's the first website that pops up and should be the only one because I don't think there is another Luke Lite. Oh god, I hope not.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:51

It's a very distinct last one.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:54

Yeah. Um should we move on? That's one more segment to go. This is the last segment. What three things made you happy this week? A small wins check-in. Hopefully, by now people know what it is, and you've seen it on our social media account once a week. I'm gonna post the three things that made us happy for the week where we can reflect on the little things and the moments that might otherwise get lost in the chaos of of life. Luke, I'm going to go first. My three things that made me happy this week. I played golf this week. I play golf, I try to play golf once a week. I played fucking horribly, right? I'm happy to admit this because I think I've mentioned previously I play off about a handicap of five, but I don't always play to that. I shot 92 at Keringle the other day, which is horrible. I had 42 parts, which is about normally have somewhere between 26 and 30. So it but I told you the weather was out and oh sorry, the weather was out. The weather was sunny and it was such a beautiful day. It was and because it was just one particular problem with my game, not a whole holistic range of things, I just laughed it off as well. I'm probably tired from yesterday with my daughter's party, and I I was okay with it, which it must have been a coping tool, but I remember mentioning that to you, and you said that's progress. So that's my one. Yep. Number two, I did a slow-cooked beef brisket for 10 hours in like a caramelised onion and rich bourbon.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:16

I feel like Homer Simpson right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:20

I feel like any meme or gift we come up with could be related back to a Simpsons episode, which is probably the case when they've run it for what is it, 30 seasons. Um, but yeah, if you want the recipe for that one, I'll upload that as well. Uh so that was number two. And number three was um just a little one, mate, but realizing our podcast is listened to in five countries, albeit even if that's only one person, one different person in five countries. I think that is um I think that's cool as hell. And God knows who the person from Japan or Malaysia is. But again, I'll just come back to you. If you are the person in Malaysia or Japan, get in contact with us via on Spotify, comments, or whatever. Um, and I will personally give you a shout out. Before I forget, Luke, I just want to say I'm gonna do a call to arms, right? Call to arms. I'm going to put my hand up to do this. If you put a comment on our Spotify account under the comments section, I will personally respond to every single one of them until it gets out of control, which I think will be for a while. So I'll come back to every single one, which I've already done. Um, yeah, there's my call to arms. If you come out and make a comment on about something you like, something you don't like, just hey, great show, or you know, get rid of Joel and replace him with someone better. I will respond to everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:27

Nice one.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:28

So they're my three. What are yours?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:30

Let's hope you're busy after that. But um I would say my no particular order. I would say uh I'm very grateful for the friends I have, the closest ones. Um I love them very much and they help me through a lot of stuff. And we if I go to them with something that is happening for me, they generally give me some not necessarily advice, but they know me well enough now to go. I he just needs to talk it out and they allow me to um talk it out, but also to to um they question me.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:04

Well not everybody wants to be therapised, do they, Luke? Good on you, mate. Make me point at the whiteboard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:10

Number two? Number two. I would say um the building I work in right now, my where my office is. The people that are here are very, very um good. Um they they uh they make you feel very welcome. Um they treat you a bit like a family, which I respect. Uh number three, what am I grateful? Third one, which I would say that I am grateful. I need to be grateful for my wife actually. Yeah, but I don't care. Because something happened during a week where uh it tested the boundaries and instead of things just blowing up out of proportion, we're able to talk it through. Which so um I respect that. I respect that too. Thank you, Joanne. Thank you very much. I know you're listening.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:07

That's a good one, mate. That is it. We are almost at an hour and something, eight minutes, which is about a normal rundown time now. Uh again, I'm gonna encourage our listeners if you want to send in your three wins via DM or comment on the bottom of the Instagram slash Facebook post that'll go out weekly. I haven't decided what day, but you'll see it and you'll know it when you see it. Also, another one that I've put up this week, mate, is uh that's gold, which is I'm gonna clip up all of your best captions and clips. Uh some of them are funny as hell, like not everyone wants to be therapised, but some of them are gold nuggets, like resist the thrill to test your skill. So I thought we'd keep a bit of a transcript on some of the nuggets that you come out with. So uh that'll be a segment that I will post weekly or you know, ad hocly as they come up uh on our socials. But that's basically it. That's it for another episode. Anything else you want to add, mate?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:54

Nah no, thank you everybody for who who has been listening and who's sending feedback and uh really, really appreciate it from everybody. Um and very grateful that we can do this, share our uh content and our ideas with you and hope that you get something out of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:11

Yeah, if you've got a question, a small win, or a topic you want us to cover, you can get in contact with us at lifespumpsbruises at gmail.com. I say this every week, but there's no and in that one, just life's bumps bruises uh or via Instagram and Facebook under the same name at Life's Bumps and Bruises. Um yeah, and if you're keen to share this episode with a mate who might need it, uh we'll be back next week, bruises and all. See you next Tuesday, Luke.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:32

Yeah, see, I knew you'd do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:36

Bye, mate. See ya.