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Breaking Stigmas: Simon's Journey to Men's Mental Health Advocacy · Surviving-ISH Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: In every dark tunnel, there's a glimmer of hope.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: In every painful moment, there's a strength to heal.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Surviving Podcast.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited about the conversation and guests that we're going to have today.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I am a part of a lot of social media with people looking for a guest and to be a guest, and I saw a gentleman who has a business called Mindful Men and we connected and Simon is here with us today.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Simon man, you were coming from Australia, which is in the future.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Where I'm at, it is almost bedtime on Monday and it's Tuesday morning for you, so good morning.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Yes, Good morning David.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me Excited to be here and have a chat about men's mental health.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: That's what I like to talk about and yeah, coming at you from the future.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Not much happens overnight, so you don't have to worry too much, but yeah, let's get into it and have a good chat today.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: One of the things that we were talking about off record is the stigma that comes with mental health, and then there's the other barrier of the stigma of men's mental health.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: So, before we dive into your story, what has been your journey with changing the stigmas and normalizing this for men?
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a long story.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I think I'm 40 last year, so I'm in my 41st year, and for most of my life that stigma has stopped me from talking about mental health.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: It's been something that has been ingrained in me from birth.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: So essentially we're talking about social constructs of masculinity.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: I grew up in the 80s, the 90s, 90s Mental health wasn't a thing that you talked about.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I grew up in an area where to be a boy and to be a man was to be tough, strong, stoic, all those types of things, and so, like many boys and men that I talk to today in my therapy clinic, they've been bottling it up, just like I did.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: We bottled it all up, tried to push through, tried not to show emotion and be strong, and so I think a lot of it comes from how we're conditioned as boys and men to be and feel and act and so forth.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: And now it's starting to play out in therapy sessions with the guys that I work with also my own therapy sessions with my own therapist as well of trying to move away from that and live more in authenticity and vulnerability and our true selves and being able to express ourselves without any judgment and so forth.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: But I think we still got a long way to go.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: We're only starting to peel back the first few layers of that onion.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: There's a long way to go, particularly in the men's mental health space, because it is so ingrained in our psyche and our culture across the world as well, no matter where you're from.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I talk to guys from all over the world and it's very similar.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: We've got to hide from it.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: We've got to hide from it.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: We've got to bottle it all up because if we do show any sorts of vulnerability or authenticity, we start getting labeled as weak or girly.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I would be labeled gay if I showed any sign of weakness or cry or anything like that.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Growing up in those times are quite naive and you don't want to be labeled anything.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: You just want to be labeled as someone who is a guy and stuff like that.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: So all these things play on guys minds and I think 2024 is a great period for starting to come out and share our stories.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Covid, I think, helped a lot.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: So when we were locked down for covid, particularly here in australia, a lot of workplaces or media outlets were actually doing more pieces on people's wellbeing and particularly men's health and being as well, so I think it gave us a bit of a green flag to go for it, and that's exactly what happened for me.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: I burned out in 2020 and started sharing my story.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: So this is where Mindful Men was born sharing my story on my podcast, the Mindful Men podcast, opening a therapy clinic for dedicated foremen to share their stories as well, but also me taking off my mask and saying here I am, here's the true version of Simon, and I want to share it.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: I'm sick of hiding from it, so I do thank COVID.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: That's probably the only thing about COVID I can thank, aside from working from home more, but it's pretty much giving us the green flag to talk about this very important issue.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 100%.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: So many times in my podcast I've mentioned, I always try to find the bright side of things.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I have to have a happy something and I don't like toxic positivity.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I don't like toxic positivity, I don't like that.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: But I do try to find those gems, those hidden gems.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: And one thing that has been amazing for me and so many people that I've had contact with that we can find through COVID is we were able to actually sit down and understand what is in those four walls that we were confined to and accept the fact that sometimes you just things aren't always that great Like.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: The one thing I can find about COVID is exactly what you were saying is the awareness that is brought to self-care and mental health.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely Down in Victoria.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: They had some of the longest lockdown in the Western world and they've got such a mental health crisis.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Now, even though the lockdowns have long gone and finished, they're still processing the trauma associated with that isolation.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: The rest of Australia was almost out pretty much everywhere else except for Victoria, and it was very painful.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: I had friends from Victoria ring me up and say what are you up to?
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, I'm down at the beach or I'm going for a walk or I'm getting back to normality.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: And they're like we're still locked down.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: I'm just driving around my neighborhood just to get out of my house.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: So it was a full on time.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: But I think what I loved about it was we gave ourselves permission to have these discussions over Zoom or over Microsoft Teams or over the phone with people that we wouldn't normally have these deep discussions with.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: So for me it was in the workplace and talking to my manager about my mental health and saying I'm not going well or I am going well.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: It's a bit of a rollercoaster ride One day you're up, the other day you're down.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: So I think it gave us that permission and I think what I'm loving seeing is more and more guys coming out and sharing their stories that's why I do my podcast as well is to hear these stories about trauma or surviving or parenting, mental health, physical health, disability, whatever it is.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Just hear these stories, because stories are so inspiring as well for our wellbeing, to prompt us maybe to make change, and I'm hoping that today's conversation we can maybe prompt someone out there to listen in and reflect, get mindful and maybe make some positive change in their life too.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: There's so many things that you said that just you could probably see my body shifting like I was getting excited, because I always say that people will message me and say I listen to your podcast and I watch your lives and you're always smiling, and you're smiling while you're telling the story of someone violating every part of you and I can't even remember the last time I smiled is what they would say to me, and so my response is I've learned to enjoy the ride, which is so.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: When you mentioned the roller coaster, I was like I learned to enjoy the when I learned how to regain that control, when I learned that I was put on a path that I probably would not have chosen.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: But I can choose my reactions and I can be proactive, and everything going forward changed everything.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I also talked off record, too, of how my target has, or what I've wanted to target, has been men's mental health, and there are obstacles that come with that, with being a gay man.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: People want to think automatically you're a gay man, what would we have in common?
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: What I'm straight Like, why, how could we connect?
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: And then they realize that trauma does not discriminate by any means, and so that's been really cool.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: And another thing that you said that really hit me hard, that I've actually just realized, is when you use the term giving yourself permission.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: When I gave myself permission to feel like crap that day, when I gave myself permission to celebrate the fact that I walked to a Mubox without a walker or assistance, or that I went to a store by myself, or whatever it is.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I gave myself permission to do those things because I know in the beginning of my recovery I would not pat myself on the back that I walked to a Mubox without assistance with a walker I don't need a walker any longer, but I did for a while, but I couldn't pat myself on the back for it because it was like I've been doing this since I was three years old and now I'm in my 40s and I've got to pat myself on the back for something that I've done since I was three.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: But once I started giving myself permission, it changed everything for me.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: So was there ever a time in your career with building your business that you you realized that what you were doing was working?
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Was there ever that moment you were like, oh shit, like this is, I'm reaching that target, I'm doing this great thing?
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's been a few moments.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: So I haven't always done this.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: I've only been doing the therapy stuff for two years.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Before that I had a 15-year public service career.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: So I was working in government roles doing white-collar type stuff, a lot of interesting stuff, but it never really lit me up.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: And I come back to finishing high school in the late nineties and saying to myself I don't know what I want to do when I'm older, but I want to work with people like me.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: But because I didn't have the words mental health in my vocabulary, I didn't know that there was mental health career pathways.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: And I stumbled across psychology, but I still didn't even know what a psychologist did.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: And so I started that kind of career or line of study, should I say, didn't finish it and I pivoted into anthropology and that kind of led me towards the public service career.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: And as time progressed and I started to think was this all that there is in life?
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to be a public servant forever, and and by 2015 or so I had the vocabulary for mental health and I said to myself I think I need to go back and study, I need to waken my brain up, waken my life up, and I want to go back and do something impactful.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: And that's when I started pursuing the social work line and think, okay, I can get into social work, I can become a mental health social worker and then finally realize this dream that I've had for so long to work in the mental health space.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: And so when the day came to finally quit that old job and step into mindful mental therapy business, that was one of those moments where I'm like I'm doing this, I am actually living the dream that I've had, stepping into a sector that I hadn't worked in before opening a small business.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: I've never been in business before, so that was really scary as well.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: But then the challenging thing was, even though everyone was saying this is so needed, your work is so useful, I didn't get any referrals and I think for three months I sat here on the computer trying to send emails and do my social media marketing and all that and nothing was coming through.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: So I was feeling really dejected.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: But what I learned through that is connected with some business coaches and who gave me ideas on how to network and build in these referrals.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: And then they started coming in and coming in.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Then all of a sudden, mid last year.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: I'm so full that I can't possibly take on any more clients and so, thinking back to just that process, I'm like, yes, that was an amazing process in itself.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: But then also getting these clients in and seeing some of the progress not everybody that comes in the door gets a lot of progress.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Sometimes they're just not ready for that transformation and so they come in and they drop out.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Or maybe they've come in and we just don't connect from a therapeutic relationship perspective and that's okay.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: That's part of the process.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: I've been there myself as a client of the mental health system.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: But seeing a lot of these other guys coming through and grow and get to a point where we move from fortnightly sessions because they need it, to monthly maintenance sessions because they can do things more on their own and they just want to check in with me every month or every two months or every three months, it's really valuable.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: And I can see now with the clients coming in that, yes, this work is so needed.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: It's not just people trying to fluff me up and make me feel good, it's actually that there is work out there to be done.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: So the next challenge is to bring more and more guys in and make it more socially acceptable for guys to go.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Yep, I need a bit of help with my mental health or disability, because I work in both spaces.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: I'm going to give Simon a call, because a lot of the phone calls that I do get are wives, are partners, are daughters, are mums.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: So a lot of females come to me saying how can I get this guy that I know into your clinic?
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: And I'm like we can't really force them into the clinic because that won't end well.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: But what you can do is plant seeds.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: You can drip feed this podcast episode, for example, and say hey, did you listen to David and Simon having a chat about men's mental health?
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: They might be two guys that you can connect with.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Or here's a book about mental health, or here's a movie about mental health, or here's some great music that can lift you up as well, and so certainly a journey of getting more men into it.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: But every day I've got three clients today that I'm looking forward to going and seeing their progress as well as soon as we finish this podcast.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: And it's just an amazing feeling to be in the space now after so much trial and error and pain going through study and navigating family life, covid, et cetera, et cetera, but now also as a small business owner trying to manage that as well and see guys coming in and out of the sessions.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: It's a really cool thing to be part of.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: On a more personal level, would you mind to tell us how you connect to mental health or, at the time, lack thereof and your journey through what you have battled with?
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Growing up in the 80s, 90s and noughties, mental health wasn't a thing and I grew up in a place called Adelaide in South Australia.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: So it's in the middle of Australia, down the bottom very working class location, very much of a welfare driven.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: So lots of unemployment, lots of drugs, lots of crime.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Bikeys controlled the area.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: So you drive past a bikey club and all that type of stuff not known for some great things in the northern suburbs of Adelaide.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: So from an early age I started to be very fearful of is someone going to bash me up or someone going to roll me for my gear, or is someone going to rob us in the middle of the night?
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: So very fearful upbringing which all came to a head around eight years old.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: I remember being in the schoolyard and I laugh at this now because humour is important for my mental health.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: But a student said to me Simon, if you stop using your voice for more than a minute, you're going to lose your voice forever.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: And most people would just laugh at that and just go.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: What?
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Get lost, that's just rubbish.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: But something in my mind thought that that was absolute truth, and so this is where OCD entered my life.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: And so for anyone who's not sure what OCD is, there's a lot of misconceptions around what it is obsessive, compulsive daughter.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: So it starts with an obsessive thought, which is often intrusive.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: So for me it was that fear of losing my voice, and it's followed by a compulsive behavior to alleviate the anxiety that is created from that obsessive thought.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: So for me, to make sure that my voice worked, every minute I would hum to myself, so I'll go every minute, but I'll do it so quietly that nobody ever said to me Simon, why are you making that noise?
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: It was all very internalized, constantly checking that my voice was still there.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: I did this for about a year and a half to two years, and this is from eight, and so I didn't have a way to talk about this.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: This is just a bit of a personality quirk that I thought that I had developed, and so just, I did it every day, and I did other little things as well, like I would write on my hand with my finger, like as if it was writing cursive letters.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure why I do that.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: I've been starting to do that recently, so that's what comes to mind.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: But then, as we got to about 13, mum and dad separated, and so I became this man of the house you could say.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Me and my little brother moved out with mum into the same suburbs and now becoming a man of the house in the suburbs where I already didn't feel safe.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: And now I'm spending two, three hours every night making sure that that house is locked up like Fort Knox, because I worried about someone breaking in, stealing our stuff, hurting us, kidnapping us, killing us, you name it.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: It was all in my head.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: These things never happened.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: It was all something that my obsessive compulsive disorder was feeding off, saying Simon, you're not safe, you're not safe, you're not safe.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: In order to be safe, you need to check doors, windows, curtains, gates, everything.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: And I did this at night, when nobody knew I was doing this.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: And it would even extend to things like is the iron on or the oven on or the stove on, because we might burn down a lot while we're sleeping.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: And so I was living a life of fear.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: And then it went into the schoolyard Is someone watching me?
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: So I'd constantly walk around with my head down.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I'd be checking my have I got my wallet and my keys.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: If I lose my wallet, for example, someone who I'm fearful of will know where I live and if they've got my keys, they'll have the means to get into my house.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: I'm constantly checking these things every 30 seconds, every minute of every single day.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: And even we get to school holidays.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: So school holiday period over summer here it's end of December to end of January, roughly it's about six weeks.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Even in school holidays I would have no reprieve because I'd be so fearful of going back to school and all these people that I thought were out to get me which they never were or they probably never were and they never did so fearful for my life and being well.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: And that's OCD for me.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: And a lot of people think OCD is keeping a neat house or washing your hands religiously or whatever.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: There's an element of OCD for that, but it's not my theme for OCD.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Mine was all around safety, security and trying to stay alive, trying to survive, and this was all happening throughout most of my life.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: I still do some of these things today as a 40-year-old.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: It's not as bad as when I was in my teens and early 20s as well, and around 14, 15, I discovered alcohol was.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Initially it was a thing to go party with and have fun with your mates, and and there was.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: It was around the same time that american pie came out the movies, and so I had this vision in my head of going to these big house parties and stuff like that and everyone yelled.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: I thought I was a bit of like a stifler kind of character if I could paint a character but and in my head this was all fun.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: But what I think I was really doing was escaping the trauma that was going on in my mind, because when I drank my brain slowed down, it stopped thinking, it stopped worrying about all these things and I just felt normal again, and so I really enjoyed that and I drank and drank to basically getting drunk and spewing up.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: That issue in itself stuck around until I turned 40 last year.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: I really struggled with seeing alcohol as a depressant.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: It was my way to cope with life.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: It became a stress reducer.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: But what also happened with the OCD aspect of drinking is I developed this other aspect of OCD where I'd go out and have a big night out, have a lot of fun.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: I was the life of the party after it had a few drinks.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: But then the next day this thing called anxiety would come around is this new term that I love at the moment.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: I've heard it recently, and my mind would replay the night over and over again with the aim of trying to make sure that I didn't do or say something that I would regret the next day.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: And so it would think about it so much that the night would actually become distorted and I would forget what was real and what was fake.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: And so this was happening for the last, say, 10 years, particularly my career, because I do this at maybe a Friday night, drinks after work, and I'd be really worried until the Monday, tuesday, seeing these people back at work saying thinking did I say something to you?
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Did I do something?
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Never did anything, never said anything.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: But my mind, the OCD mind, just grabbed onto this and said Simon, you're not safe and the only way to be safe is for you to constantly think about this stuff and and run through all these scenarios in your head.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: And it was just.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: It was like being in a mental prison.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: It and so 2020 happened, burnt out.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: I was managing my mental health.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Covid happened as well.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: We're in the lockdowns.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: We had two kids under three, so my wife and I had two kids under three, so trying to manage that as well.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: I was working full-time in a really full-on job, like a conveyor belt style work of you press approve on something, the next thing will be there.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: The next thing will be there.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: There's never any stop to it.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: And I was also studying my master's degree in social work, trying to get into that mental health profession, and I burnt out.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: And this is where I discovered mindfulness.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: I discovered that I was rarely present on the earth.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: My people around me that I love would maybe talk to me, but I'd be on another planet.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I'd lost joy.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I lost that ability to smile.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: I'd lost the fun in my life.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: I had no real sense of purpose or direction, even though I was doing all these things.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: I was studying and I was high achieving, but I felt like I was lost in the world.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: I felt lonely, I felt cynical about the world, and what I'm describing here is the classic symptoms of burnout.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: I was burnt out and I had to take four or five months off of work and then graduate and return to work, and I'm just fortunate that I was able to do that.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: But during that time, mindfulness really helped me to start going.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: We've got to change some stuff.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: You've got to do some work on you.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'd been in therapy for the 10 years prior but I wasn't really doing the homework for therapy.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: I've got to actually do some gratitude or I've got to do some meditation.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: I've got to do some mindfulness based work, got to fix up my meds.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: I've got to stop drinking and finally did that last year and it it's been a real blessing to have discovered mindfulness and then use that as the fundamental framework for the therapy work that I do Not just about being grateful and meditation and mindfulness, but it's also about helping guys to switch off of autopilot that we've often found ourselves living in and switching to conscious living.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Actually, how are we feeling?
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: How are we going?
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Are we lonely?
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Do we need to connect more?
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Do we need to share more?
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Do we need to change jobs, fix up our finances, fix up these certain relationships?
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Do we need to come out as gay or whatever?
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: What do we need to do to be true and authentic to ourselves?
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: And this is where I started doing that more purposely and I guess it gives me a lot of energy now to do my business.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: And I bring that into my business because it's the whole reason I have the business to help other guys do the same thing.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: And I can hear in your voice too, like I hear the passion, I hear the want to, and I think that's what is so important is you have to have the want to.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: What can we do to show that you're not losing your masculinity?
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Like you, sitting here talking, you're being open about your trauma and fears and you are no less of a man.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: It's a great question but not a simple answer.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: But I think this is the exact thing that we should be doing is having these conversations and having conversations around men's mental health and exploring all the different nuances that are involved in it, all the different walks of life.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: On the Mindful Men podcast as well, I ask people to hear their stories.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: I love for them to share the context.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: That's why I always say I grew up in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, because it puts it in a place and a time where people can go okay, what was it like?
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: And maybe if they're from that part of the world, they can understand.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Or maybe they can hear me saying some of the words and go you know what?
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: That was similar to my neck of the woods as well.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Or I grew up in the 80s, 90s or whatever, and I can understand feeling like that in the schoolyard as well.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: So when we put context together by sharing stories, I think that goes a long way to starting to shift the narrative as well.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: But for me, a long time.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: My wife was encouraging me for two years to go and get help when I was around 28 years old and I did what most guys do and I said it's not me, it's you.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: If you've got an issue with the way I'm behaving, you need to go to therapy.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: And I felt really scared about what would happen if I opened up and started sharing.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Would people look at me differently?
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Would I be seen as less manly or whatever?
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: And the actual result of that was nothing changed in the world.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: The only thing that changed was me starting to work on myself and starting to actually tune into the real version of me.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: And I've been in and out of therapies for about 11 years now and the first five of those years was probably a bit of hit and miss.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I felt great and other times I just didn't feel good, I wasn't doing the homework.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: But as I've got older and I start reflecting on life more and I think social work has helped me, because in social work we do a lot of critical self-reflection and start to go what?
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Where did I grow up?
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: What privilege do I have as a white, straight male in australia, for example?
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: How does that compare to other people like the, the people next door or the people down the street or the people across the world, people of color, people of different races, all this type of stuff.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: I can start to critically reflect on that and go what do I want want from life and what lights me up, what brings me down?
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: What do I want more of, what do I want less of?
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: And I think becoming a parent has put that into overdrive as well, because I have a seven year old son and I look at him and my wife often says you two are exactly the same person.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: And I think back to a long time ago when I was eight.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: This is when my journey in mental health started.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: So I want to actually show him through having stories, sharing what I do with mindful men with him, and showing him that dad can be vulnerable and authentic and it's not a bad thing.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: It's actually a good thing.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: I don't hide away if I cry.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: If he wants to see me cry, he can do that and he can ask about what's going on and in the most cases, I'll share with him why I'm upset.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Providing it's suitable for a seven-year-old and the same for my daughter as well.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: I've got a daughter who's four as well, so I want her to see that there's strong men who can also be vulnerable at the same time.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: A lot of it's us leading by example, by doing the podcast that we do, or our social media, our website, our work outside of this as well, but also in our social circles, connecting more authentically with ourselves so that other people can see, oh, that's what it means to be a man in 2024 and beyond as well.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: So that's where it starts, and it's going to take a while, but getting more guys in to share stories, encouraging them to share stories whether it's like this on a global platform, or whether it's just with a friend, family member, their doctor or a therapist, whoever works for them that's how we can start changing those narratives that have held so many of us back for generations.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: So what do you say to?
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: When you're on Zoom or however it is, you do your consultations.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: When it's the first time face to face with that alpha male that is there probably because their spouse is making them do it, or whatever reason, what is it you say to them that gets them to just sigh of relief and open up?
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: So there's a few strategies I use.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: First of all, I always ask is this the first time you've ever done anything like this?
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: And most of them say no, I haven't done anything like this before.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I'm like awesome, this is great.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: And then I walk them through what it might look like and I actually say we can call this therapy, we can call this coaching, I like to call it.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Two guys just having a chat and we just have a chat and we throw a bit of banter in there, like a bit of in aussie culture.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: We joke, we put each other down a little bit, so we have a bit of banter, we develop that rapport and that's fantastic.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: And then they start to share and we unpack and I ask them a lot of questions like around.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: They might, might say something like I experienced trauma.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, what does trauma look like for you?
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: And then they go what do you mean?
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Shouldn't you know what trauma is?
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: I say I've experienced trauma in certain ways, but it's different to how you've experienced it.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: So share me your definitions on life.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: It's not just about trauma.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: It could be about I feel happy.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, tell me what happy means.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Show me, explain it, describe it for me.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: So a lot of fact finding that way.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: But I've got a unique business in the sense that I'm actually breaking the mold of traditional therapy.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: So I've got a clinic that maybe once a fortnight that a couple guys come to, but the majority of my work is actually out and about.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: In communities.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: We take therapy to the beach or we go for a drive, we go grab a coffee some one one young fella loved to go get maccas so we'd go do maccas drive-through and he'd get his maccas and we'd have a chat, doing these everyday things side by side.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: So we take out the stigma of being in this therapy room and and eyeballing each other from across the room and there's no couches, there's no.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: There's sometimes crying, but there's no couches.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: But we do it side by side.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: So walking side by side, and it feels like two guys just having a chat because it's so relaxed.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: I don't look like a therapist either, so I've got this black t-shirt on with a white mindful men's sticker, but I also walk around in blue shorts and runners, because one moment I could be on the basketball court.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: The next minute I'm on the beach.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: The next minute I'm getting a coffee and when guys see me rock up like that with my hat on as well, because it's often outside.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: They're like oh, it's just another dude I'm going to have a chat.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: It's not like this stuffy therapist in a shirt and tie and slacks, and I've done that in my public service career and I hated it.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: So this is also part of me being more casual, and the casual it is, I think, the more it encourages guys to go.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: This is okay, we can get through this.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: And then after about 50 minutes they're like and the session's done.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: They're like oh, that was easy.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: I'm like that's as hard as it gets you coming in the first time and then after that we just book in whatever you want to book in and and off we go.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: We keep building on and building on those tools that we talked about in session one.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: So it is very much just breaking it down, making it more casual and nurturing through that first session and then you'll know from there whether or not they're in it for the long haul.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: If they've gone there and it hasn't worked out for them, that's fine, they drop out.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Or I might even be able to say you know what?
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: I know a whole bunch of other clinicians that you can go see who do it a little bit differently.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'm just not the right fit, because that's also important as well, but most guys tend to stick around for 10, 20 sessions and it's fantastic to be able to support them in their journey going from pain to purpose, and it's just a magical experience to be a part of.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Do you find that this is also your therapy?
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, for your personal self.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: I say that to the guys, particularly the ones I've been.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: I know that I do share a little bit about me because I'm a lived experience therapist as well.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: So that's another element for me.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: That's a little bit different to a lot of therapists, because they get taught in college or university that you can't share your story.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: It's not your story that they're there to hear.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: But I think for guys sometimes sharing a little bit that one guy asked me Simon, do you know what it's like to be depressed?
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, I've been on antidepressants for 10 years.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: I know what that feels like.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: It's not about me, but how can I help use that experience to support you through this?
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: And so a bit of sharing can help facilitate that as well.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: But it is yeah, it is a magical thing to be a part of, but a very tricky cohort to work with as well, getting guys in the first case, but then also giving them permission, or giving themselves permission, to really open up and go.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: You know what this is?
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: It Because they often every session something else adds to the session.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: But what I take from that as well?
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: At the end of most sessions I say I'll learn a lot about myself too in that session, or sometimes they will show me tips or strategies that they know of and I say I'm going to grab that and put that into my mental health toolkit as well, because that's a great one, and I'm going to share it with my next client.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: We do learn a lot from each other.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: It's not just a one-way, yeah absolutely.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: I tell people all the time I'm like, now that I've started this life coaching, new project and journey, that my credentials is the fact that I've lived and done it Like I've done this.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: And I found that what really resonates is I was one of those people that when I found out someone raped and turned themselves in for murder and it was three days into my recovery before I even knew that happened.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: That's how out of it I was.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: But when I heard that happened to me and my book in my mind that was the worst thing that could happen to anybody.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: And then now I'm that person.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: And so when someone comes to me and says I cut my finger earlier this week and I'm still struggling and they're just going on and on about it, I would have the I wish all I had was a cut finger.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Like I had that mentality.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: And then when my therapist, like I went to therapy one day and I was fussing about somebody that said that they understood me because their sister and father was in a car accident and their father broke his hand and so they understood me and I was pissed, I went to therapy hot.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: And that's when my therapist was like but David, if that is the worst thing that has happened to them and that is their trauma, then you can't negate that, you cannot compare, and that is when the light bulbs went off.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: This is not a pissing contest.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: This is where we are to just be safe and converse, and that has probably been one of the best lessons that I ever learned through that it's a really important message, because so many guys and girls everyone, all walks of life they compare their pain to somebody else's and it actually stops them from seeking help.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: A lot of people are like, oh yeah, I'm stressed or I'm burnt out or I'm depressed, but I know someone's Joe or Sally or whoever who's doing it worse than me, so I should just be grateful and I should just get over it.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: That's not the case, because your pain might be different to somebody else's pain, but it doesn't make it any less pain.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: It's still pain, and so that's something that, as a therapist, I'm very mindful of hearing the different stories that come into my clinic and into my work, and just hearing them for what they are.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: There's somebody's story that they need some support through, and sometimes that's really full on and graphic that they need some support through, and sometimes that's really full on and graphic, something that's as profound as something like your experience.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: But for other people it's just oh, I just lost my job and I'm feeling a bit down or whatever, and so we can't compare.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: But what we can do is hold space and encourage more and more people to come forward and say you know what, whatever the pain is.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: Whatever the challenge is, it doesn't necessarily have to be pain either, or trauma it could.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Whatever the challenge is, it doesn't necessarily have to be pain either, or trauma.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: It could just be a challenge that they're stuck with.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: Let's go through it together because often I can bounce off ideas and you can pick which ones work for you, or different perspective as well.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: The therapy relationship is also good because you don't have any bias in that kind of relationship, whereas if you're sharing with a friend or family member, they know a bit of your backstory already, so they and they might be influenced by who they're connected with in your social circle.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: So in a therapy's perspective, it's a it's more of an unbiased perspective and you can say and I can give that advice or guidance based on not knowing anything about someone's social circles or social situation and just hearing the story for what it is, words that are stuck in this person's head.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: And then let's go through that together, let's navigate through that storm or that tunnel, or however you want to frame it, and come out the other side a better version of ourselves.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Man, simon, I know you were just starting your day, but if you could take just, I'll give you a five minute break.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: If you cancel all of your appointments and just spend 24 hours with me right here.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: A because I know people would love to hear your accent versus my Southern accent.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: But on top of your accent, that is amazing.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Everything that comes out of your mouth is just brilliant.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: What I love, and what I would love to inherit into what I do to help people, is that you were saying how you'll wear your t-shirt and some shorts and your stickers, because you don't know if you're going to be in a coffee shop or on the basketball court.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: And I love that because I was thinking like I am.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I have always been very self-aware and I have always been very open, but if my therapist was just in a ball cap and a t-shirt and met me at my favorite ice cream shop to have a mint chocolate chip milkshake, which is my favorite, they probably would have heard the same thing from me, but a lot years quicker, which would be a lot years sooner into my recovery I really appreciate that.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: That's it's.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: It means a lot to be able to do that, because I'm very self-aware and self-conscious person as well, and as a therapist, I'm always questioning am I doing the right thing by doing it this way?
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: And I come back to just my heart and my core values and go yeah, this is working.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: People are ringing up and needing this type of service, and even for any listeners out there listening to this, I think it's.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: Maybe you might not be able to work with me because you're on the other side of the world, but what you can do is start reflecting and go.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: There's different ways to doing things.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Maybe there's a therapist in your local area that does walk and talk therapy.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: I was on a podcast earlier today, actually, with a therapist over in the US and she does walk and talk therapy too, which is fantastic, and more and more therapists, I think, are breaking the mold and taking things out and about, and I've consumed a lot of ice cream and coffee and bubble tea and sushi and all sorts of different things as part of the experiential process of being in therapy, because I think if also I'm enjoying that coffee or bubble tea or ice cream and the client is as well, as you said, it connects us faster.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: We're sharing the moment together and I also use those as tools as well.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: So mindfulness tools around grounding, what can we taste, smell, touch, feel, all those types of things here.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: So food is actually a fundamental part of our process because it allows us to ground ourselves in the moment, be present, not thinking about yesterday, not thinking about tomorrow, just thinking about right here, right now, the connection that we have with each other.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: It is a great process and I do.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for coming on, and I'm actually going to extend the invitation for you to come on the Mindful Men podcast to share your story with my audience, because I think you've got a magical story to share that so many people in Australia, but also around the world, can hear as well.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I always like to end on something fun, and I've seen the guitar behind you.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Do you play guitar, do you?
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: sing.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: I used to play guitar.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: The kids play it more now than I do and it's desperately out of tune.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: But yeah, the guitar, being creative, is something that's really important for me from a mindfulness perspective.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: So every now and then it gets a dust off in a play.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: Being desperately out of tune is the perfect way to describe my singing voice.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: But I do it anyways.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Man, simon, I have truly enjoyed this conversation.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: As we're saying goodbye, will you tell everyone where we can find you support you?
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Again, thank you, and I'm glad that you got some solace out of this conversation.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: I think it highlights the importance of guys connecting at the very least, and I think if we can encourage other guys out there to do the same, that would be a wonderful thing.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: But my website's the most easiest place for people to find me.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: It's wwwmindful-mencomau.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: That links to the Mindful Men podcast.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: If you're in Australia, it links to my therapy business as well, and all the socials all over TikTok, linkedin, facebook.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: I do spend a lot of time on LinkedIn.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: If anyone's professional wants to engage me there, love to build that network too.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: But yeah, head to the website, connect with me in whatever way works for you.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: Share the podcast, this episode, around as well, and make sure you tag me if you do.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: I love to see people sharing these exact conversations around the world.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: It's a really that lights me up to seeing people share the stuff that we put together.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: And again, david, thanks for having me on the show.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: I really enjoyed sitting down with you and chatting men's mental health.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: And that wraps up another powerful episode of Surviving Abuse.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I want to extend my deepest gratitude to our incredible guests for sharing their transformative journey with us today.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Join us next week as we dive into the healing process and share more incredible stories of triumph and resilience.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Bye.