S05E09- Stu McKenzie (Road2Resilience) pt3

In part 3 of their chat on "Road 2 Resilience - Unleash your inner strength" host Andy and Stu delve into the intricacies of dealing with distress, exploring the four Ds: distract, dilute, develop, and discover. 

They discuss the importance of distraction as a coping mechanism to shift focus away from distressing thoughts and emotions. Moving on to dilution, they highlight techniques such as mindfulness and grounding to bring individuals back to the present moment. 

The conversation then transitions to the stages of development and discovery, emphasizing the significance of seeking professional help and engaging in therapeutic practices to process emotions constructively. Throughout the discussion, Andy and Stu underscore the importance of awareness, expression, and seeking help in navigating through feelings of grief and distress.

Key takeaways from their chat

• Distraction, dilution, development, and discovery are vital strategies for managing distress.
• Mindfulness and grounding techniques can help individuals stay present and regulate their emotions.
• Seeking professional help and engaging in therapeutic practices are crucial for processing emotions constructively.
• Awareness, expression, and seeking help are essential components of coping with grief and distress.

Contact -  Stuart McKenzie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/singlesessionpsychology
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/road2resilience.com.au
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SingleSessionPsychology-sl8tx
Website: https://www.road2resilience.com.au/
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Transcript

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Claire Fermo: 0:04

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

Andy Fermo: 1:01

Welcome back, everyone. So we're up to our next part of what we've been speaking about in studio McKenzies. Unleash your inner strength ebook. So we move we last couple of chats we were talking about, you know, choose story and an overview of the resilience map your map of resilience. And in the last episode, we spoke about three things the relationship highway, the voluntary off ramp, and then the catastrophe rage, right, which all kind of leads now to our next, which is a big, big section of the book was the is the is the swamp of feelings. So Stu, take it away.

Stu McKenzie: 1:46

Okay, so the swamp of feelings is really a puddle. When you come off the voluntary off ramp, as we described in the last you just you know, and that's happening to us all the time. That's the journey of life. That doesn't throw us off course too much, you know, and some people who were lucky, always say to people who are in their mid 40s. If you haven't been whacked by something catastrophic by the time you're 45, hang on with white knuckles.

Andy Fermo: 2:15

Don't buy that car because you're about to have a midlife crisis,

Stu McKenzie: 2:20

or whatever. Because I think it would be very rare that you would get through a hole through much, much later than 30 or 40. Without something giving you a serious whack, you know? Yeah, yes, I just, well, lucky, some people might just be lucky. Or they might live very safe. Yes, very safe, very routine. Logs. I call it my OCDC. Music I'm

Andy Fermo: 2:59

going to jump over, that's what the lightning bolts for when you get over that bridge. You know, there's the catastrophe right there.

Stu McKenzie: 3:05

So we've had the catastrophe comes along, and you're falling through space, haven't even hit this one. This is this idea of how to first responders or how to is what we call emotional or psychological first aid. As far as how do you work with someone in that those first moments when of of a critical incident, others have a catastrophic moment. And the fact that matter is that psychological first aid is around meeting their immediate needs, for warmth, for food, for water, for space, for companionship, for just being held, you know, like, because you're not processing anything. It's this idea of just time, either happening at an incredibly fast pace or time extending to this just this time, just slows right down as you fall, if you like so there's some really important understandings there for how first responders work with people in those moments where they are engaging with people in those scenes and, and psychological first aid, and psychosocial support, as we call them now to how do we best work with people? And it is not about necessarily about talking about what happened or or did you mean investigate investigating, and it's just about meeting those basic needs. Yeah. And then we hit we hit the water. Yep, I hit that water hard. I did I hit that water fast, sinking down into those murky depths. How long would this thing last, you know, and that's the, that's that little bit out of the palm. So, I suppose at that point, depending on the loss and the nature of the loss, depends on how big the that swamp is whether it's deep and wide as oceans or so, you know, tragic death, etc, or bank, you know, bankruptcy I don't and it could be in any number of of ways in our lives divorce, etc. So So accident injury, death, other financial catastrophes whatever. So So again, we hit that homerun and often when we have something that is shared, so I find this in my work in the education department. So for example, when cyclone Saroja went through the Northwest, and we went up there and work with people, because the whole community were going through it, people cope pretty well, because people are talking about it all the time everybody's going through. Yeah, you experienced that all we did every and this is what it was May in May, and people are talking about it and processing it. The real difficult ones are often the shame, ones that relate to shame and can't be spoken about like rape or abuse, or oh my god, those kinds of ones where the person is alone in their day, you know, they're not believed or they become those complex traumas.

Andy Fermo: 6:19

And this is what we're talking about earlier, where now the simple trauma, the complex, and then the, the cumulative cumulative. come into effect. Yeah, right. Um, because you know, in that instance, where you're talking about like, a large communal incident, right, big catastrophe bridge. Yeah. In terms of the supports, when you're talking about the it brings people together.

Stu McKenzie: 6:42

Yeah. That was an outcome of COVID. Is that is that wellness and our mental health is squarely on the agenda. And yes, you know, gosh, we all got good at being on Zoom to didn't

Andy Fermo: 6:53

absolutely. Except for that lady that stepped on the sheet. She didn't she was up Sheep Creek, but but neither

Stu McKenzie: 7:01

one of us presenter who keep comes in the wife. Do you remember?

Andy Fermo: 7:08

We're talking about a body of water there ship Creek, you fell off the written? Anyway, we digress a little bit. And so you know, we're talking we were talking just a moment you know, those those powerful feelings. And those feelings, say, where community might bring you together, we talked about that. And then we talked about even even then not skimming over it. But those things like raping and looking Divi and some of these other where people feel isolated and powerless and not in control. And you know that that freefall is

Stu McKenzie: 7:43

even a day death, even with a with a say, a death of a loved one that was unexpected and catastrophic. The family goes through it together. So you can go hit the water come down, hit the bottom really quick. But because because you've got it's a shared thing, you come back to the service quickly, and you've got people to swim with. So there's so it's not the all the rituals and the processes, and we have few rituals in our western world. But the rituals around a funeral are rituals of you know, some other cultures have sackcloth and ashes and while they bring in people who wail and that they're all rituals that help us Yes, move motion. Yes, emotion of those intense emotions. And some cultures have bent and brilliant rituals. When my wife's mum died. She had cerebral bulbar palsy, so M M, and M and the motor neuron we set with her body because they are Irish. And I did use them mom's Irish. And sorry, the other way around. Mom's Mary dad's Irish, and we kept her body in the house for for the whole of that day, that night, the whole of the next day. And that night, and we sat around her and we told stories about her and we had some drinks and we spoke to her and we kissed her and we we really processed that that loss of her with her there Yeah. In sometimes in our Western culture, somebody dies, the van pulls up, watch it goes on. It's like we're death denying where it

Andy Fermo: 9:22

resides in the years just to to actually acknowledge it with the with the put that's what Yeah, and then that ritual is

Stu McKenzie: 9:29

we get those really embedded because they even the funeral the cooking the busyness of cooking for everybody, the talking of the women in the kitchen. I'm not allowed to say that anymore.

Andy Fermo: 9:39

Don't worry.

Stu McKenzie: 9:41

Man in the kitchen, preparing all the meals for everybody and staying busy and talking with each other and supporting and all of that is keeps us busy and engaged and there is all the rituals of the funeral and the they are all motion. They're all to give the emotion that we're experiencing. Ocean. Yes.

Andy Fermo: 10:00

And so and I wanted to be able to sort of ask you more like, because of what you're talking about here. And this is what you're sort of bringing up in the book is to swim through the swamp, we need to experience the feelings, right? So it's yeah, those things have to be in motion. And you know, lots of people may feel chaotic. The chaos and the intensity chaos

Stu McKenzie: 10:21

is the word you use with. Yes. And people. We don't like chaos. It's unpredictable. It's an it's like that dragon is like a beast. It's like an unpredictable wild. Dragon.

Andy Fermo: 10:34

That's right. Yeah. And like a cyclone. You don't know how the inhaled how intense it's going to be during your time. Right? When you're experiencing it, it can be pretty, pretty hectic. Yeah. And turbulent. Yeah. So

Stu McKenzie: 10:46

it's probably those ones where you come in fast and bounce up up quick, because you've got a familial fam family support, or a group or friends or other people that you're going with, they're probably not the bad ones, probably the complex grief. And the so we said simple, complex and cumulative. So the cumulative, one where we've just had an accumulation of stressors that slowly swamped us, they're the ones that are insidious in nature. And when I say that, I mean, we slow we don't kind of even know but we're slowly going down and we're coping and George Bonanno, who I mentioned before, in his book, The End of trauma, he coined the term coping angling. And I love that term. Because it's the idea that that it doesn't matter what you do to cope, if it's helping you cope. Great. Yeah, so having a few drinks or, you know, drinking yourself through it. Yeah. numbing yourself for a while. He says, it's okay, because you're coping, but he said, Trump don't cope ugly for too long.

Andy Fermo: 11:58

That's the thing. And then, you know, I think also you mentioned drinking there. And that's, that's a big part of the culture in both services, organisations and communities, right. And then you got also those other coping mechanisms of substance abuse, where you might even like the the Med, so just wrap that all into to that one, those coping mechanisms or coping ugly, so to speak. And I'll just sort of speak to like an, the experience of, and a lot of our audience would connect with it is like, Okay, well, I experienced some, like, let's call it, in this case here that the simple trauma was the trauma and the event of the the singular or multiple singular events that have come in. And then you're, you're on operations, whatever that might look like in the context of the audience's experience. And then you, you know, when you get home, that's when the things start to become a little more complex. Right? So now you're dealing with other factors that are coming in, it's starting to become over, over the time, and then you know, you bang, you will, you know, I'm coping ugly. But I'm coping at the moment, you know, you get back in decompress.

Stu McKenzie: 13:09

I've got, I've got a, I've got a, I've got clients that would start, stop, start at 2pm and finish it 4pm In the morning, in the morning, every day, all day. But, you know, one particular client, one, you know, I don't want to even allude to that, but after two years of work, travelling the world now take his family around the world, doing amazing things and just it for that period of time. That's what he needed, what he needed. And who am I to judge and who is anybody else to just nobody else? Because he coped with your coping. Your coping? Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. So no judgement, your coping? Yeah. But in the long run, which is you're getting you don't want to end up in the desert desert? No, you don't want that to unpick your relationships and isolate you from that that severe ISIL so

Andy Fermo: 14:03

what you know when you're talking about when you mentioned this, you know, coping ugly but it's no good in the long run. So what sort of go Do you know, you're, you're coping, you're coping I'd leave for a little bit. Now we're talking about cable what most what starts to happen if we start to take it into the lungs. So

Stu McKenzie: 14:19

if we go to the concept of, of well being being the can measure it, can measure it the just the right amount can measure it. Yeah, level of support for the challenges that you're facing. And even if you're facing significant challenges, as long as the supports are adequate to match those challenges, you should be okay, on scale on the scale, we're ramping up the scale you need more. So the deeper you go, do they be you get down into that swamp. The more supports you're going to need to help you get get back out again.

Andy Fermo: 14:54

The Swamp can get relaxed and it's lucky right in Yeah.

Stu McKenzie: 14:56

So being so but but then the There's sorry, yes, that's the thing. How do we ensure that the supports are there for people who, and because that idea of a slowly realising that were, you know, feeling sliding into a depression because of because of a number of cumulative events? Often the support aren't there because we don't eat. We're not even aware that that's happening to us. And I suppose that that's the tricky one. So it's about it's about help seeking help seeking is

Andy Fermo: 15:30

everything. Yep. Yeah. And that's, that's a big one you got to help seeking. And that sort of goes to what I was sort of like it that I read in, in, in your, your book, right, is that when when losses aren't recognised, or they're perceived as less important, which is non death, so to speak, excuse to continue living, we may slowly sink into a depression. Yes, that's where these things might be happening over time. And

Stu McKenzie: 15:55

it's a very isolating experience, because other people don't, you know, at the loss of the vision of what I want it to be in life and what I thought I was going to do, and I'm nowhere near that I

Andy Fermo: 16:04

was a career I was a career person. Yeah, yes, job. And now that

Stu McKenzie: 16:10

was ranked for major. And now I'm not even in there. I had all of that. Yeah, let's say, one in three men die within three years of retirement. Wow. Statistic at some point in time. And because because a lot of people's whole sense of meaning is tied to their title, who they are what they do, and they haven't, you know, developed a broad range of engagement and meaningfulness. Yeah. And

Andy Fermo: 16:41

look, you know, sort of, a couple of things come to mind when you said to say those statistics, whether it's death, like is they actually physically die? Or is it that portion of it actually dies? No, that's a different perspective. We're talking about multiple perspectives is like, you know, I was this yeah, now I'm just a shell. Yeah, what I was, yeah, you know, part of me died. Second, I bloody handed this grief and loss of work. That's the work.

Stu McKenzie: 17:08

That's the work. So acknowledge that that's grief. And I don't think when that happens slowly, I don't think we're so good at bringing, understanding that's grief, right? It's actually grief that you're experiencing. And so people go, they get diagnosed with this or that they get put on this medication, that medication. And what it is, is unresolved grief. And really a key point here that I'd like to make is on examine grief, can get trapped in our system. Yes. And it's that unexamined grief that turns into trauma. Now, I don't know if I've actually read this anywhere, but it's a very strong belief that I have, that trauma is frozen or stuck grief.

Andy Fermo: 17:56

Well, they do say, if you're interesting food for thought, and then I'm going to a bit more of that sort of, sort of well being from the yoga teacher in me, right? Is that you go well, or even they say that grief, or stress gets stuck in, in the middle in your body and being your body actually the body that sort of stuff. Yeah. And without, you know, wanting to move on, hopefully, I'm not coming across as too woowoo. But we that's, that's, we're releasing stress, right? So if you're talking about this stuck, that's emotion and grief. You know, it's kind of being stuck put there in cryovac that was born, packaged up in a little cryovac sealed for freshness were waiting to be opened and no one wants to open that that freshly sealed bag and, or

Stu McKenzie: 18:43

even long, sealed bag. Yeah. And that's why we've had this enormous growth in what's called somatic psychotherapy. So Soma means body. So so what we realised in our dealing with post traumatic stress and dealing with people with trauma backgrounds, etc, as their as therapists was that bringing them into the goddamn office and sitting there and asking them to tell us that their trauma loss grief stories, just re traumatise them. But so, So somatic psychotherapy, first of all, take them all out, they actually say you can actually work with grief without, without anybody ever tell it sorry, work with trauma or grief or loss without anybody ever telling you the story. And what that is, is about somatic meaning working through the body. So it's teaching people the skills, like the skills I mentioned in the other episode of being able to regulate your nervous system. Yes. Yeah. And there's a huge amount of understanding and work out of out of what's called polyvagal. Theory. Yes. vagus nerve.

Andy Fermo: 19:49

Yes. Well, we'll get to the polyvagal. That's very that's a very big, big deep dive. Both of them are Yeah, but from what you're saying though, and and this comes to a lot have just recently as well with some of the some of the veterans and first responders that that I've spoken to, you know, over time is there's things that they, you know, instead of their preference is not to actually go and see the actual specialist and there's nothing there that that didn't work for them. But what they've gone and done now is some of these other programmes like say things like equine therapy, yes, you're going there and you're making or you go equine therapy, or you go in, I'm going to go and make knives. So I'm going to make a make a surfboard with psychosocial stuff there. And a lot of the themes that are coming out of this, is that you check in here, yes, we all kind of know why we're, we're all here for, but I don't actually, if you if you're not asked, it's not, it's not expected of you to be able to share your story, you go into that grief and loss, because you're there already. Yeah. So a lot of the time the conversations is my mate. And he was just on a podcast recently, Kurt, he goes, Look, we're not going to be going to do these things about, you know, singing Kumbaya, because not everyone, not not not every person, especially when you're talking about veterans that have been in a, you know, in an alpha male environment, this this here at the pointy end of the stick, they might not want to talk about going deep, like you spoke about earlier. They talked about can be damaged, it can be damaging, it just rips open the wounds. However, we might acknowledge part of that, but not reopen the wound, right? Because it's still sealed. But we might be together here and we might be doing something in psychosocial, well, at least we're ematic we're doing something together,

Stu McKenzie: 21:34

gauged where connectors connect connection, belonging, this is where the somatic

Andy Fermo: 21:38

psychotherapy comes in. You don't actually need to talk about yet the trauma or the grief or the loss. Yeah. But when I

Stu McKenzie: 21:45

apologise for all therapists, who have inadvertently traumatised clients by trying to talk therapy, you know, by giving them the skills to regulate their autonomic nervous system. Yes, look, I

Andy Fermo: 21:58

mean, and that's the thing. I think that's, you know, in your field of work, and profession, like that's, that's just all part of the growth there and finding ways and methods to be able to, to deal with what you deal with, with with more effective methods. Yeah, isn't it? You spoke about the different methods and when, when is one, you know that that would come in? And then no offence to any of the professionals is saying, but like, just talking on that analogy? Let's go straight to talking about the things you okay. That's like almost the coping ugly. That's that's kind of ugly. Oh, yeah. No,

Stu McKenzie: 22:34

let's give people in George Bono's words, banana, banana. How can we build pupils toolkit, so they've got a deep and a wide set of strategies that they can draw on to regulate themselves. And this idea of help seeking, which is a vital importance help seeking is everything when you're under the water? Yeah, they did a study a couple of years back, a couple of years back, I remember going to a work breakout session at a conference,

Andy Fermo: 23:05

it was in 1980.

Stu McKenzie: 23:09

Probably the early 90s. And the guy, the presenter, presented the study of the effectiveness of different modalities of support. So So basically, is a psychologist better than a psychiatrist better than a medical doctor better than a registered psychologist or as a counsellor, okay, or he's just talking to a psychic person over the phone, okay, or he's talking to a friend and, and, and, you know, they studied the effectiveness of those help help those avenues of help for people. And they couldn't find any significant difference between any of those helping modalities, the only statistical significance they found was of non help seeking behaviour. So

Andy Fermo: 23:54

and so it doesn't matter

Stu McKenzie: 23:56

what you do, or where you get help from, as long as you help seeking, because non help seeking that is detrimental. Now,

Andy Fermo: 24:05

can you just sort of shed a little bit of light on this non seeking behaviour? Like what what are we talking about? So, I suppose these things have been

Stu McKenzie: 24:12

on non help seeking behaviour will come from a couple of places. One, one is, it's not in my awareness. It's not even, it's not even at that level of awareness and acknowledgement about, yeah, well, I don't know at first, it is, I don't even know this is happening to me. It's not at my level of awareness. I know something's wrong, but I can't name it. And I suppose people who are lonely and isolated and don't have naturally occurring networks of support around them. That's another factor. So I don't know if you can help me think of any other factors around that helps thinking or what's occurring to you. That's kind of what occurs to me. Yes. Oh,

Andy Fermo: 24:58

no, I think you've nailed those two bits. Otherwise we'll go if we workshopping those words, it'll go quiet down. So enough seen on the picture here. And, and I'm seeing there's the illustrated version. And then there's what we're writing down in the notes, as, as we sort of come in organically speak about the, you know, the swamp of feelings. But you know, what's what's occurring to me. And a common theme, even though you're talking about that, and the feelings here is, it's kind of like that deep note, the swamp can get deep. And there's many levels in and it's kind of a bit of a vortex that sort of comes in around because you know, and the deeper you go, you've got to have some more tools to better enable you help come to more help,

Stu McKenzie: 25:38

or help seeking more support, more support, because it's, it's someone to throw you off the boat. It's, where's that going to come from? And I suppose if on relationship highways, we've got, we've got some good relationships around us. And we've, we've, we've proactively and preventatively developed our support networks. I think that, you know, in a conscious way, then then we're going to be in a much better place. Yes. So if we understand that we're grieving. And that's the point I want to make about awareness. Yes, most often, we're going through something and we don't understand that we're grieving. If we understand that we're grieving, we can find our way through this one with the help and support of friends and family. And occasionally, some light therapy or some. Yeah, light therapy, as in not heavy therapy, just like therapy, because psycho education is a vital importance. Even understanding this journey, and this map gives us hope. Yes,

Andy Fermo: 26:40

that's right. And so when we say like therapy, I mean, and I'm saying, I don't mean

Stu McKenzie: 26:44

just sitting there my wife has to she puts over her head in bed, the changes all these lights. Yeah,

Andy Fermo: 26:50

that's taking away the blue light. So we're taking away buddy phones from now. Yeah, but that's a different type of therapy again, isn't it? But you know, when we're talking about like, not not so heavy when we when we, when you when you mentioned light therapy? What does that look like? So for our audience here to go, Okay, well, what's that sort of difference?

Stu McKenzie: 27:10

So I would say that for a fair while there in time, there's a bit of a stigma about going to a psychologist, what's wrong with you? Yeah. Yeah, there must be something wrong with you, I suppose. The in the advent of positive psychology with Martin Seligman, if you know that name, the father of positive psychology, and that was in that was around the year that was around 2000, was that psychology had been initially, you know, the DSM five, it's a term of a book about Father, we dealt with all the diagnoses and things. And so psychology was very much focused on what's wrong with us, whereas spend this huge growth in positive psychology, which is around studying character strengths, what's right with studying hope, studying resilience, studying grit, studying positive aspects of human. And so psychology, really, since the turn of the millennium, really, it was the turning point, has become a lot more positive focused, as well as neg as well as diagnostic kind

Andy Fermo: 28:19

of reminds me now because, you know, you are working in that sphere of education system that kind of goes to the old school mentality of the, you know, your negative reinforcement back in the day, right, you know, you beat them into punishment, a punishment into, into doing this as now it's more about rewards or, you know, positive behaviours, let's, you know, foster that,

Stu McKenzie: 28:40

well, it's even broader than when we work with you can get me on to functional behaviour assessment now, because what we say is behaviour is meaningful, and it serves a purpose for the person, regardless of of us managing it through a consequence, be that positive or negative? How can we understand what that behaviour is telling us about what that person needs? What are they trying to communicate through their behaviour? What are they seeking to gain? Or what are they seeking to avoid from that behaviour? Because if we can help them gain or avoid whatever they're seeking to gain or avoid from that behaviour, we can help them do it without having to use the problem by

Andy Fermo: 29:18

Yeah, well, that's right. Well, that one didn't it didn't segue because I think it's an important bit that goes to the question that I'll ask you about, which is the the, I mentioned before the diagrams that I've been seeing, right, is that we've got this concept in the picture. Um, you know, you've got your less important loss, where you might have a different level, right? Obviously, surface sadness, and then a more important loss where I'm looking at this now, in the in the diagram, we're rock bottom at the opposite side of the scale and suicidal and then the arrow coming back up and like the supports that you've mentioned, and can we sort of speak to that because I mean, look, is it the less Important loss and more important loss. You know, it's still loss. But what is that big difference? You

Stu McKenzie: 30:08

misinterpret? Well? No, it comes back to simple complex cumulative. Yeah. The the notion that we spoke about was that if if people are if we are aware that there has been a significant loss, and we are grieving, we often go down fast, but come up fast, because other people are aware of that around us. Net supports naturally emerge. Yes, for us. When we're not aware of what is happening to us, and other people aren't aware of what's happening to us, we're much more isolated in a and that's where we are more likely to develop, died clinical levels of depression, anxiety. Yeah. And then you can even you know, further down from complex trauma is, is personality disorders, psychosis. It's called, used to build bipolar sucker, you know, manic depression, or it right down to schizophrenia. For me, you know, we've had a medical model that says, it was in your jeans, and it was inevitable, you know, that you're gonna have that, but I disagree. I think all of those even those most, even though those those real difficult, heavy diagnosis, I think they're all trauma based. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there really there will be a genetic loading. But what we know now about how genes manifest and manifest from stresses, just can't find the word for it at the moment. But that, that genes can remain unexpressed if, if we're aware of not of the stresses that are on Yes, on us and make sure that we, we've got a loading for it. But we know about that loading. So for me, although there is a genetic component, I would still say a lot of a lot of that develops, because people have been under that water too long. Yep.

Andy Fermo: 32:02

And I mean, looking, that's the thing, though, isn't one of those, you're mentioning about the emotion and the intensity of that emotion can be can be sort of put towards the that whether it's less or more, but you know, all the supports that are there that the feelings still there? Yeah. Because how intense and what supports we have to be exactly with them to get back up

Stu McKenzie: 32:25

and being under being exposed to intense emotion for too long? Turns into disorder? Yes. Diagnose disorder. That's right. Yeah.

Andy Fermo: 32:37

And then you did mention that before as well, which was the deep rest, you know, and well,

Stu McKenzie: 32:41

I'm all the, you know, it's a co spending some time in the avoidance marshes. Isn't that silly, really, because as, as long as, as long as supports, you know, the void smashes aren't the best, you might be there for a little while. Because it's just a way of coping ugly. But the avoidance Marsh's is not helping us. It's not giving us psychoeducation it's not giving us support. It's not giving us connection, it's not giving us hope. It's not giving us it's just avoiding. Yeah. And that's what I said where you're getting to that place where you you no longer feeling, you know, feeling anything is cut or burn or, you know, I want to feel something I don't even care if it's self harming kind of yelling, because I want to feel something. Yeah. But but if we say that, I suppose there's, you know, that's the avoidance measures. And then we've got the anger and guilt mudflats, which are both places where people are still kind of not processing, their grief, their loss, their intense feelings of chaos, in a way that's processing. Yes. It's kind of getting stuck in it. And I think, I think in the times that we all in our lives have gone through that process of the mat, wanting to all those stages. All of us have gone into all those stages. Yes, sometimes a part of us gets stuck in stage.

Andy Fermo: 34:04

Yes, yes. But we will get before we jump to that a little bit. We're gonna jump. But we've got a little bit just to round off this, this pace of the, you know, we're starting to get into the avoidance marshes and dabbling. You know, he's he's teasing is like, the DJ is coming is teasing the next track. But I'm gonna pull him back for the next one. I've got a request here. Song For You DJ stew, is that we know we're talking about the four ds of distress, right? So we're dealing with daily, sorry, for days of dealing with distress. Now, can we I'll say the headings here, because I think it's advertising, that sort of rounding off the that that's one for feelings and starting to move into the avoidance Marsh's is, you know, distract, dilute, develop and discover. Can we speak to those? Each one of those? Yeah,

Stu McKenzie: 34:56

sorry. In 2020 Darryl Mansell, and his wife actually developed this 4d model of dealing with distress. And they did it on a triangle kind of model if you like, yeah. So so basically what they've said is you it and this comes back to but the Nanos deep and wide basket of strategies that we can draw on. So if you like, you could put that distract, dilute develop and discover inside that basket if you like. So the very first stage of dealing with distress is just is distracting ourselves, you know, away from that distress rather than going in a downward spiral if you like. So that's things like, you know, she would, she spoke about having her favourite magazines on hand when she could just get a favourite magazine or listening to a podcast or listening to music or doing some exercise, taking yourself for a run, or is that classic self care? Yes. But it is just about saying, I'm going to do something which takes me away from this moment of distress so that it doesn't amplify and magnify in my head, and I go down this downward spiral of the thinking pattern. And you know, mindfulness is is also is about teaching us a skill of observing. Yes. A feeling without it possessing us. Yeah, because we get possessed. I know, I'd say, I acknowledge you're here. Yeah, I can see not Yeah, I can see that I am not. Yes. Angry. So I'm, you know, and so. So. Yeah, an example of that is actually in in the self compassion work, where we talk about over identification versus mindfulness. And my sister's always a good example of that, where she rings me and she goes, I'm such a bad mother, I yelled at my kids. And I was yelling and screaming and swearing at them. And I'm such a bad mother. So that's kind of an over I am the emotion I am, I am over identified, whereas mindfulness, let's let's you say, I'm a good mother. But I had a I've had a period of time there where I got a little bit snappy and angry. And are the kids and so I'm not possessed.

Andy Fermo: 37:14

He was possessed. She was COVID. Ugly. Yeah.

Stu McKenzie: 37:18

So it says the audio distraction is anything you can do to just shift your attention. Because yes, attention is the most powerful, it's the most powerful thing. Attention is like a muscle. And what what the practice of mindfulness does is it helps you build the muscle of where you put your attention. They speak about the attention economy, everything is vying for your attention these days, everything everywhere. Once you become more mindful and understand that your attention is like a muscle, you choose where to put your attention.

Andy Fermo: 37:50

Yeah. So all the all the all these all, you know, all the laws are out there, all the all the distractions, or the noise, whatever word you want to put it does there. But you're tuning yourself into being able to go yes, I'm going to focus on that. Exactly. So in

Stu McKenzie: 38:04

the distract moment, you're saying, I'm not in the space to deal with these feelings. At the moment, I'm going to distract myself, I'm going to shift my attention to something else to distract myself. And I'll come back to the slider. And this is as you go up. Now, I'll come back to this later. So dilute is about learn skills, such as box breathing, or grounding yourself or what okay, what are three things I can see at the moment? What are two? What are three things I can hear? What are three things I can smell anything to come back into the present moment? Have you ever been that notion sensible? Or be sensible? Or, you know, that's actually saying? What's it mean? It's saying get out of your head? And your thought that and come back into your senses? Come back to your senses. Yeah. When people say come back to your site? Yeah, that's what they're saying. Yeah. Because your senses ground you in the present moment, because

Andy Fermo: 38:57

your body is actually telling those though, all those senses that you've got it, they're built in? Yes. To help you get there. So they're proud of your nervous system, isn't it? You know, part of I don't know, I'm not a scientist. I don't know. Like if those senses are their senses, sensory. There's got to be willing use something, right? That's going internal, like disconnecting

Stu McKenzie: 39:19

from you when your internal, or your lovely example the other day where we went out for dinner. And it was a busy night in northbridge. I think the Fringe Festivals on and my 23 year old son and his pregnant wife, were trying to find a park try and drive around driving and are getting angry at each other and yelling at each other and getting all dysregulated I could hear it on the phone and they're saying we're not going to be able to come for dinner, because we're not going to we're just we're California Park. And I said drove past come past James Street, come up in front of the restaurant, caught up in front of the restaurant said give me the keys. Get out go into the thing I got in the car, and I drove down the road left and drove straight into the car space. Also What's that? What was going on when I examined it? And it was like, what happens when you're dysregulated? Is your your scope of vision comes right down to, you know, you're not in your senses, you're not seeing you're not hearing, you know, whereas when you're you when you're regulated and you're wide open, you see a cartel, like seeing indicating you seeing all of these opportunities that you don't see when you're dysregulated. Because Because revival means focus right in on the unrest by this focusing on the threat.

Andy Fermo: 40:30

Yes. So I'll just like I mean, there's times when that there is, for this example, laser laser focus. But then there's what we're talking about is like, looking at the big picture, wider

Stu McKenzie: 40:43

or engaging with all incoming data? Yeah. So it is, we are going on this one for a while to

Andy Fermo: 40:50

where we are going on this one, we have nearly our SD cards almost run out. So let's let's just develop discover these last two in the last sort of 11 minutes that we've got Hello, audience. So let's go to develop.

Stu McKenzie: 41:08

So develop is about beginning to plan to engage with what's going on in our lives in a constructive way. So it's like, I think I might book a session with a therapist, psychologist, I've got this really good friend who's great listener, who can hold space for me to explore and to develop my understanding of what's going on for me. So that's about develop, and it's very rare. It's a rare thing, to have somebody hold space for you where it's 100%, about you. And your brain. Because most of our interactions are 5050 I'll tell a little bit of a story. You tell a little story back, and that's good. Yeah, that's but but rarely do we do we find that space where, where it's 100% about us and and so that's what what light therapy gives us. And then discovery is really about learning, shifting and sustaining engagement and expressing our experiences. So it's back to that that notion, yes, motion, moving stuff through us opening that ziplock bag. Yes, you know, planned why doing the therapeutic work, more therapy, deep therapy,

Andy Fermo: 42:20

it's going it's going deeper, as opposed to the light therapy, but I think to be able to go and unlock that bag, what you're talking about earlier on. And you've mentioned that a lot of time with them with John George bananas work sorry about the pronunciation if I got it wrong was is that developing, you know, developing that trust, being able to develop the words giving them tools, then to be able to go in and go when you mentioned that and this is a big one that you mentioned as well is that term of holding space, holding space to make feel someone feel heard. And it's really, really difficult to not project if you're, you're the listener, or the specialist is not project your own, your own values, standard stuff. And I relate with that because this is what's happened. Now it's like okay, now this is your space now. And regardless of renewal, in the non judgement way, I'm in projecting this stuff and I got one arm feeling hurt. Yeah, now I'm ready to then open up gently

Stu McKenzie: 43:20

feel held I feel psychologically safe to go there.

Andy Fermo: 43:23

I'm not going to be held. Yeah, yeah. And psychologically so that's right. You know, you're not you're not singing Tom Petty's freefalling arm for you. Yeah, yes, you know, you're not they you know there's something there that's that's catching you're holding.

Stu McKenzie: 43:36

So if you like George bananas, basketball strategies that are distracting, dilute and then more more traditional accessing more traditional support skill, learning some skills, learning some strategies, and having psychoeducation learning the framework for understanding what's happening is more the development discover. Yes,

Andy Fermo: 43:55

and I think that you know it to get to that to get to the to the pointy tip of the iceberg at the top that's coming in and that's opening up you need to work you need all those levels is walking up levels. And if we look at it, it actually is the vortex that you're talking about in the swamp upside down. Yeah, let's flip that script. Yeah, flip the screw back to the thing back to the theme. Alrighty, guys, well look that we've covered a lot in the last you know, in this last section was the swamp of feelings, the swamp. Let's talk about the comms a DJ and our stuff that AMD right. But it is it is good to be able to tie things in. And I think that's why some of these modes and we talk about as a little segue there is that some coping mechanisms and sound therapy or music is one of the big things because people are singing about these things, these topics there and then letting go of these, you know, you could you could be you could be depressed, but you could have some deep rest by singing, listening sins and juniors. Oh, there we go. There's a fight on tender Radio Operator right here, boom, boom, boom. Welcome to Stuart nd FM here. We're talking now about feelings. So call the number three. If you call in the next 10 minutes, you'll get a free ride in a black 1969. we digress now but so look to recap a stew on on on the map on sorry. On the on The Swapper feelings, what would it be some finishing, finishing points here.

Stu McKenzie: 45:31

awareness of what's going on for you. Because most of the time, it's only problem problem problematic when you're going through it by yourself alone. So awareness that you're going through it, seek ways of expressing those feelings and give honour them. That word honour. Giving space and time to honour those feelings is essentially important. And help seeking is really the everything helped help signals everything it doesn't. Yeah, many different therapies, there are hundreds of different therapies, literally hundreds and hundreds of different therapies. But they're all what's the key element? Someone's help seeking

Andy Fermo: 46:15

someone's help seeking. And that's what it is you're not you're not having you know, you're not in that non non seeking behaviour that you mentioned, you're on. So it's almost cable, find what works for you. If you're in that seeking mode. Whatever ways, there's no better or worse it stick out what fits for

Stu McKenzie: 46:31

you, each person who is trying to sell it will tell you Yes. EMDR is better than Emotional Freedom Technique is better than blah, blah,

Andy Fermo: 46:39

blah. But it might work for someone, it might work for someone else, but it might work for you today. But as you have growth when you're you know, going around that grief coin that you were speaking about trying to fit everything into this, this last summary is that might not work for you. So it's all about that growth there. And the feelings and acknowledgement does come in, and awareness. Yeah, before you can move to the next step. Because, you know,

Stu McKenzie: 47:04

and I think a lot of what we've spoken about today probably happens in the forest of hope as well, if you like, I mean, that's, you know, as you come out of the swamp of feelings, grief comes in waves. So some days, you're alright, then you slip back, then some days you're there, but I think the understanding that grief comes in waves and those waves get longer and longer and longer. But this is really about crisis intervention. Yes, and the forest of hope is probably where you do a bit more of that way but certainly dilute you know those strategies to distract days idea that you reregulate yourself when you you have a surge of sympathetic fight flight response. Yeah, to be able to regulate yourself. Yeah, that's the essential. That's

Andy Fermo: 47:51

an amazing and look, I did that they teased in that next few well, one, so we're going to be going through the anger and guilt mudflats next time leaving the swamp in the forest of hope. Moving on from the the amazing, important work that we're doing, that Stuart has been doing in creating, creating this ebook and, and the topics, you know, some of them that we want to talk about some of them that we don't. And so thank you again for joining us and we'll we'll be hooking in on the next episode. Excellent.

Claire Fermo: 48:25

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