WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:02.190
So now onto the best part of the morning,
2
00:00:03.090 --> 00:00:06.230
my introduction of Anne Deveson, and as you know,
3
00:00:06.270 --> 00:00:10.500
has had a distinguished career and continues to have a distinguished career,
4
00:00:10.501 --> 00:00:13.290
which shows a deep concern for social justice,
5
00:00:13.710 --> 00:00:18.360
highlighting social issues and influencing policy in many areas,
6
00:00:18.361 --> 00:00:22.500
including poverty, aging, child abuse, and disability.
7
00:00:22.740 --> 00:00:24.660
That's just naming a few areas.
8
00:00:25.170 --> 00:00:29.070
And as a writer or broadcaster, a filmmaker,
9
00:00:29.370 --> 00:00:33.720
and has been at the leading edge of social change throughout her career
10
00:00:34.260 --> 00:00:38.460
for three consecutive years and won the UN peace prize,
11
00:00:38.530 --> 00:00:43.110
special gold citation for films she made in war ravaged Africa
12
00:00:44.070 --> 00:00:48.810
later, she wrote a book called tell me, I'm here about his, her son,
13
00:00:49.320 --> 00:00:50.940
Jonathan struggles with schizophrenia,
14
00:00:51.360 --> 00:00:56.220
a book that was published worldwide and won the 1991 human rights
15
00:00:56.221 --> 00:00:57.690
award for nonfiction,
16
00:00:58.500 --> 00:01:02.550
and is also an officer of the order of Australia for her work with mental
17
00:01:02.551 --> 00:01:07.140
illness and his most recent book, waging peace,
18
00:01:07.170 --> 00:01:12.120
explore some of the reasons for war and its consequences Bria.
19
00:01:12.150 --> 00:01:16.320
And this is a quote, really does a writer combined passion and substance.
20
00:01:16.321 --> 00:01:21.090
So effectively waging peace is a powerful call tomorrow arms.
21
00:01:21.480 --> 00:01:24.750
And that was written by Rick Sullivan at the Adelaide advertiser.
22
00:01:25.350 --> 00:01:29.580
So while we're talking about books and sexually has a selection of books out the
23
00:01:29.581 --> 00:01:33.180
front, you would have seen them as you walked through the foyer and she will be
24
00:01:33.181 --> 00:01:36.840
available at the end of the session to sign any for people if they would like,
25
00:01:38.220 --> 00:01:40.110
but I've all events books.
26
00:01:40.950 --> 00:01:44.640
One of the most enduring and most popular of her books is called resilience
27
00:01:45.030 --> 00:01:49.020
today. And we'll be exploring the mysterious nature of resilience,
28
00:01:49.440 --> 00:01:54.330
how some people can be resilient in adversity while others become overwhelmed
29
00:01:54.810 --> 00:01:59.220
and how we can learn how to be resilient and teach our children to be
30
00:01:59.221 --> 00:02:02.430
resilient. So over to you and welcome.
31
00:02:06.620 --> 00:02:11.270
I was delighted when I thought about coming back here and I
32
00:02:11.271 --> 00:02:16.250
lived in Adelaide for six or seven years because
33
00:02:16.251 --> 00:02:17.630
it was here in Adelaide,
34
00:02:17.870 --> 00:02:21.440
really that I had my first lesson in resilience.
35
00:02:21.770 --> 00:02:26.660
It wasn't a subject I thought of very much until one winter's
36
00:02:26.661 --> 00:02:30.170
evening. I'd been working at the south Australian film commission.
37
00:02:30.500 --> 00:02:35.390
We were living in in south terrace and I came home
38
00:02:35.391 --> 00:02:39.830
feeling very tired and very frightened. My, my eldest son,
39
00:02:39.831 --> 00:02:44.750
Jonathan had schizophrenia very badly and he was going through a
40
00:02:44.751 --> 00:02:49.730
period when he thought that I was the devil and that he had to kill
41
00:02:49.731 --> 00:02:53.900
me, which was a very terrible time for all of us.
42
00:02:53.960 --> 00:02:58.820
But and then on this particular occasion, this is why I was frightened.
43
00:02:58.821 --> 00:03:03.730
I home and I was frightened and I opened the door and a major
44
00:03:03.731 --> 00:03:08.440
pipe water pipe had bust and the floor was a wash with freezing cold water.
45
00:03:08.650 --> 00:03:10.090
So it was the last straw.
46
00:03:10.990 --> 00:03:14.410
And I sat down and felt very sorry for myself.
47
00:03:15.080 --> 00:03:17.170
I got hold of a directory,
48
00:03:17.171 --> 00:03:21.040
rang a plumber called Dave and Dave turned up almost immediately,
49
00:03:21.041 --> 00:03:24.940
but he wasn't interested in the pipe. He looked at me and he said,
50
00:03:24.941 --> 00:03:28.930
what's up love? And I said, nothing in my very British voice,
51
00:03:28.960 --> 00:03:33.520
nothing's nothing's wrong. And he said he said, but you're crying.
52
00:03:33.940 --> 00:03:38.200
And so I told him the story about how I was frightened of staying there on my
53
00:03:38.201 --> 00:03:38.890
own.
54
00:03:38.890 --> 00:03:43.660
I'd already sent my other two children to boarding school simply because during
55
00:03:43.661 --> 00:03:48.550
that period, it wasn't safe. And he listened to me and he said, oh,
56
00:03:48.551 --> 00:03:50.110
I'll fix that, got a phone love.
57
00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:55.180
So I gave him the phone and he rang up and he said, bet, there's a lady here.
58
00:03:55.181 --> 00:03:58.210
Who's frightened. He said, mind if I stay the night?
59
00:04:02.020 --> 00:04:05.230
And he didn't. As a matter of fact, he stayed two nights.
60
00:04:05.530 --> 00:04:09.100
And it was the beginning of a long lasting friendship.
61
00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:15.160
Because I learned that Beth and Dave had two sons with schizophrenia and
62
00:04:15.161 --> 00:04:18.670
they knew all the tricks in the, in the area.
63
00:04:18.671 --> 00:04:22.780
They knew people who were beginning to start up a fellowship here.
64
00:04:23.110 --> 00:04:27.970
And they were my friends and my sanity throughout the whole of the time that I,
65
00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:29.320
that I lived here.
66
00:04:31.690 --> 00:04:35.350
I remember thinking afterwards that
67
00:04:36.940 --> 00:04:38.920
because of my English background,
68
00:04:38.921 --> 00:04:42.040
which had taught me that you were always all right, you know,
69
00:04:42.070 --> 00:04:45.070
even if your leg was dropping off, you were all right, you were fine.
70
00:04:45.340 --> 00:04:48.850
And that's why I'd answered my grant. And it's something I've done all my life,
71
00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:52.060
but it is, it is not a good thing anyway.
72
00:04:52.300 --> 00:04:57.100
And particularly if you're in a situation where things are going wrong
73
00:04:57.130 --> 00:04:59.530
and you are frightened or you do need help,
74
00:04:59.740 --> 00:05:02.620
it's very important to ask for help, you know,
75
00:05:02.680 --> 00:05:07.630
and that's not what I was brought up to do so that I'd say
76
00:05:07.631 --> 00:05:09.460
to everyone, I'm absolutely fine.
77
00:05:11.560 --> 00:05:16.240
And it taught me one of the most important lessons I think, in,
78
00:05:16.300 --> 00:05:18.820
in learning to develop resilience.
79
00:05:18.821 --> 00:05:21.670
And that is not being afraid to ask for help.
80
00:05:23.580 --> 00:05:24.540
That's so important.
81
00:05:24.541 --> 00:05:28.620
That's one of the things that we founded Anglicare all of the time is
82
00:05:29.250 --> 00:05:33.900
people are often in absolute dire straights, but are too afraid or too ashamed,
83
00:05:34.390 --> 00:05:37.260
or their pride gets in the way of asking for help.
84
00:05:37.290 --> 00:05:41.580
And it is important to do that because one of our roles is not to come in and
85
00:05:41.581 --> 00:05:42.091
save.
86
00:05:42.091 --> 00:05:46.080
What we will actually do is give people the skills and the knowledge and the
87
00:05:46.081 --> 00:05:48.420
confidence to actually make change.
88
00:05:49.260 --> 00:05:52.290
No I, and another story here,
89
00:05:52.320 --> 00:05:55.050
I remember when I was writing this or thinking about this,
90
00:05:55.380 --> 00:06:00.350
all these memories returned was about a year later when Jonathan sent far to the
91
00:06:00.351 --> 00:06:02.060
back of the house, which,
92
00:06:02.080 --> 00:06:05.390
which fortunately was quite easy to put out,
93
00:06:05.750 --> 00:06:07.310
but he'd also,
94
00:06:07.370 --> 00:06:11.840
he was very mad in that period and very frightened himself
95
00:06:12.380 --> 00:06:15.500
when it was hard to get anybody to come,
96
00:06:15.530 --> 00:06:19.040
it was hard to get the police to come because there weren't enough of them and
97
00:06:19.041 --> 00:06:23.120
they weren't trained often. Then you'd ring them up and in a panic,
98
00:06:23.121 --> 00:06:26.180
in a bad situation and then say, oh,
99
00:06:26.181 --> 00:06:30.020
we can't come to five or six o'clock in the morning and you'd run them at night.
100
00:06:31.400 --> 00:06:34.460
So that you know,
101
00:06:34.600 --> 00:06:38.030
it think it was much harder than, than it ever would be now.
102
00:06:38.031 --> 00:06:40.820
And we know much more about illnesses like that.
103
00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:43.100
And we know that help is essential,
104
00:06:43.520 --> 00:06:46.460
but here Jonathan had really done a job properly.
105
00:06:46.461 --> 00:06:50.030
He'd he'd trashed everything we ever possessed well, more or less,
106
00:06:50.360 --> 00:06:54.110
and he'd thrown it right up south, right up the whole street.
107
00:06:54.470 --> 00:06:58.730
He'd thrown radios, he'd thrown cameras, he'd thrown pictures,
108
00:06:58.731 --> 00:07:01.700
he'd thrown books. He'd just, he just,
109
00:07:01.850 --> 00:07:06.470
the seat was street was a washed with all my belongings and bet came
110
00:07:06.770 --> 00:07:07.970
the wife of the plumber.
111
00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:12.920
She came and it was a sunset and she stood there with her
112
00:07:12.921 --> 00:07:16.220
arms, a Kimber, and she looked like a Drysdale painting.
113
00:07:16.320 --> 00:07:19.190
She stood there and she said, well,
114
00:07:19.790 --> 00:07:23.330
love you shore told him one thing if a job's wet
115
00:07:25.030 --> 00:07:25.863
properly.
116
00:07:28.930 --> 00:07:33.760
And I tell these stories because they were linked to my sanity
117
00:07:34.931 --> 00:07:37.930
you know, you need to laugh, you need to be able to laugh.
118
00:07:39.550 --> 00:07:43.420
And that's when I began to wonder about the whole nature of resilience and what
119
00:07:43.421 --> 00:07:46.630
the word meant. And I discovered that the,
120
00:07:46.631 --> 00:07:51.580
the Spanish didn't even have a word for resilience and the French
121
00:07:51.610 --> 00:07:52.001
did,
122
00:07:52.001 --> 00:07:56.110
but they were reluctant to use it because they thought it was an Anglo American
123
00:07:56.380 --> 00:07:58.480
construct and nothing to do with them.
124
00:07:58.930 --> 00:08:03.820
And it was only during this period that people began to be aware
125
00:08:04.150 --> 00:08:08.680
of the possibilities of encouraging people
126
00:08:10.030 --> 00:08:13.630
making sure that people could learn how to be resilient,
127
00:08:13.660 --> 00:08:18.430
because quite apart from the exercise of asking for help
128
00:08:19.390 --> 00:08:24.130
humor's important and hope is the most important thing of all. And it's,
129
00:08:24.180 --> 00:08:27.070
it's not even if things look hopeless,
130
00:08:27.430 --> 00:08:30.580
there's always something that you can grasp hold of.
131
00:08:30.580 --> 00:08:34.960
So these were the exercises that I, that I suppose I,
132
00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:37.240
I gathered around me and my,
133
00:08:37.330 --> 00:08:41.710
my children who'd be furious if they knew I was talking about now,
134
00:08:41.950 --> 00:08:46.450
they're grown up. And my, my children also learned,
135
00:08:46.600 --> 00:08:51.190
had to learn how to be resilient and how to do
136
00:08:51.191 --> 00:08:54.760
things that help them make feel more secure. So my, my,
137
00:08:55.290 --> 00:08:57.210
who was then about 14,
138
00:08:57.211 --> 00:09:00.930
15 used to write poems and she put them under my door.
139
00:09:00.931 --> 00:09:05.550
It was easier for her to write poetry about what was happening and how she was
140
00:09:05.551 --> 00:09:08.970
feeling than actually to confront it by talking about it.
141
00:09:09.330 --> 00:09:13.380
So everybody had their own way of, of coming together,
142
00:09:13.710 --> 00:09:18.450
but it was very important that the whole family worked together and that we
143
00:09:18.451 --> 00:09:20.250
worked with communities.
144
00:09:20.310 --> 00:09:23.970
And that was where I think it was in south Australia,
145
00:09:23.971 --> 00:09:28.590
that the first schizophrenia fellowship was started and people were hanging
146
00:09:28.591 --> 00:09:32.760
almost from the rooftops. People turned up so desperate was their need
147
00:09:34.380 --> 00:09:35.970
resilience itself.
148
00:09:36.780 --> 00:09:39.990
I'm going to stop here because it's a good place for questions,
149
00:09:39.991 --> 00:09:43.200
I think because we're talking about us,
150
00:09:43.201 --> 00:09:48.150
we're talking about the fact that nearly everybody goes through periods in
151
00:09:48.151 --> 00:09:50.160
their life when they need resilience.
152
00:09:50.490 --> 00:09:54.060
And I'm just wondering how many of you have had
153
00:09:55.050 --> 00:10:00.030
stories or instances where resilience has become very important or
154
00:10:00.031 --> 00:10:02.460
anyone has a question they'd like to ask.
155
00:10:03.500 --> 00:10:06.860
If you want to raise your hand to indicate that we could actually take a
156
00:10:06.861 --> 00:10:07.970
microphone to you.
157
00:10:09.110 --> 00:10:11.120
Because it's from hearing all these stories.
158
00:10:11.121 --> 00:10:15.920
I think that our understanding it's like a wave of resilience that I was
159
00:10:15.921 --> 00:10:20.120
able to weave around me through hearing that I wasn't the only one who was
160
00:10:20.121 --> 00:10:24.410
having a difficult time. We all have difficult times in our lives,
161
00:10:25.700 --> 00:10:26.120
right?
162
00:10:26.120 --> 00:10:30.350
Yes. I've had a few instances where I've certainly had to call on my internal
163
00:10:30.890 --> 00:10:33.200
resources to cope with the situation. But my,
164
00:10:33.950 --> 00:10:38.000
my question is on the link between resilience and vulnerability.
165
00:10:38.600 --> 00:10:43.100
I wondered if you had some insights into, into the,
166
00:10:43.101 --> 00:10:47.430
I suppose I'm looking at it. The flip side of exercising resilience is, is,
167
00:10:47.870 --> 00:10:48.920
is being vulnerable.
168
00:10:49.400 --> 00:10:54.200
And there has been some studies by an American psychologist and social
169
00:10:54.201 --> 00:10:59.150
worker on vulnerability and the positive benefits of a
170
00:10:59.151 --> 00:11:01.610
vulnerability to happiness and wellbeing.
171
00:11:02.240 --> 00:11:04.220
I mean, I think, I think we,
172
00:11:04.550 --> 00:11:08.990
all of us have times when we're vulnerable, stop me.
173
00:11:08.991 --> 00:11:11.240
If I'm not going in the right direction for you.
174
00:11:11.770 --> 00:11:15.800
I think if we're not vulnerable, then we're not really being human,
175
00:11:16.070 --> 00:11:17.600
which we're shutting off.
176
00:11:18.680 --> 00:11:22.850
Our fears we're shutting off our vulnerability and it's
177
00:11:22.880 --> 00:11:27.650
vulnerability can, can open all sorts of doors for us. It's,
178
00:11:27.651 --> 00:11:30.620
it's like going back to saying I'm vulnerable.
179
00:11:31.730 --> 00:11:33.890
It's like asking for help again.
180
00:11:35.630 --> 00:11:40.580
It's like going into a situation where not
181
00:11:40.581 --> 00:11:43.190
only are you vulnerable,
182
00:11:43.220 --> 00:11:45.920
but the people around you are maybe vulnerable and,
183
00:11:46.230 --> 00:11:49.190
and the importance of talking it through. I think
184
00:11:50.930 --> 00:11:55.780
I mean, that's my take on vulnerability that, can you take it a bit further?
185
00:11:56.410 --> 00:11:58.840
What was the actual research that you talked about?
186
00:11:59.250 --> 00:12:03.720
I'm sorry. I can't recall the ladies. Yeah,
187
00:12:03.870 --> 00:12:08.460
but I know Brad. I suppose I'm looking at it in the context of like,
188
00:12:08.461 --> 00:12:09.930
even in modern workplaces,
189
00:12:10.500 --> 00:12:14.550
it's really not acceptable to show vulnerability,
190
00:12:14.850 --> 00:12:19.740
although there's lots of talk about building resilience and as
191
00:12:19.741 --> 00:12:21.330
one of the values that they talk about,
192
00:12:21.360 --> 00:12:25.680
but if you don't have obvious examples or role models of people showing their
193
00:12:25.681 --> 00:12:29.940
vulnerability and saying, look, I'm not coping with this. It's a bit of a false
194
00:12:31.560 --> 00:12:35.040
dichotomy. And it's, it's hard for, for younger people to sort of say, yes,
195
00:12:35.041 --> 00:12:36.750
it is okay to be vulnerable and,
196
00:12:37.350 --> 00:12:41.280
and to express your emotions or your fears,
197
00:12:42.030 --> 00:12:46.620
and still be viewed as somebody who's competent and able to get on with the job.
198
00:12:48.330 --> 00:12:50.820
I've I was reading about this fairly recently and,
199
00:12:50.850 --> 00:12:54.960
and there was an article in Sydney may have been done here as well,
200
00:12:54.961 --> 00:12:59.270
but it was about this very subject that young people, particularly in,
201
00:12:59.271 --> 00:13:01.200
in factory situations where,
202
00:13:01.470 --> 00:13:05.730
or any other work situation where you're not supposed to be vulnerable,
203
00:13:05.731 --> 00:13:08.580
because then you can't do your, your work properly.
204
00:13:09.120 --> 00:13:14.070
And I think good management has to allow for vulnerability.
205
00:13:15.150 --> 00:13:18.990
It was something I learned when I ran the film school,
206
00:13:18.991 --> 00:13:21.600
the national film school for about four years,
207
00:13:21.960 --> 00:13:25.410
and I knew nothing about management.
208
00:13:26.190 --> 00:13:30.750
And I didn't realize I knew nothing about management till I actually got to the
209
00:13:30.751 --> 00:13:31.584
film school.
210
00:13:32.220 --> 00:13:36.480
And there was a deputy who didn't particularly want me there because he thought
211
00:13:36.481 --> 00:13:37.590
he should have the job.
212
00:13:37.950 --> 00:13:42.510
And he started by asking me what my views were about
213
00:13:42.511 --> 00:13:47.220
delegations and I hadn't a clue what he meant I'd come in
214
00:13:47.221 --> 00:13:52.110
because then found it hard to find somebody who they wanted,
215
00:13:52.140 --> 00:13:56.430
who had the background in actual filming and made a lot of documentary films
216
00:13:56.431 --> 00:14:01.080
then, and that seemed more important than knowing about management. But boy,
217
00:14:01.110 --> 00:14:01.943
after a short,
218
00:14:03.150 --> 00:14:07.860
I wished I'd had more management experience and I had to be
219
00:14:07.861 --> 00:14:12.360
prepared to be vulnerable. In the end I had to bring it up with,
220
00:14:12.440 --> 00:14:17.160
with the council because I felt I needed
221
00:14:17.161 --> 00:14:18.930
feedback. And
222
00:14:21.810 --> 00:14:22.710
I had to,
223
00:14:23.370 --> 00:14:28.350
I think expose my vulnerability to
224
00:14:28.351 --> 00:14:30.630
someone I knew, I thought could probably help me.
225
00:14:30.631 --> 00:14:33.270
There was a wonderful woman called still a Cornelius who,
226
00:14:33.720 --> 00:14:38.670
who had a lot to do with peace initiatives and who died fairly
227
00:14:38.671 --> 00:14:41.730
recently, but she was like a godmother to me.
228
00:14:41.790 --> 00:14:45.570
And I was getting more and more plowed under,
229
00:14:45.630 --> 00:14:49.590
under the ground by not being prepared to be vulnerable.
230
00:14:49.591 --> 00:14:53.150
And by recognizing that I doing my job well, I went,
231
00:14:53.210 --> 00:14:58.160
I used to go down to the the men's the students lose after
232
00:14:58.161 --> 00:14:59.060
work at night.
233
00:14:59.090 --> 00:15:03.350
They went downstairs because that's where a whole lot of graffiti used to go up.
234
00:15:03.740 --> 00:15:08.450
And it was when I found graffiti of the previous director who was a lovely
235
00:15:08.451 --> 00:15:13.370
person of he had a dagger stuck in his back drawing
236
00:15:13.640 --> 00:15:17.180
of story with a dagger in his back and drops the blood on the floor.
237
00:15:17.450 --> 00:15:22.250
And next to him was a drawing of me with a noose around my neck
238
00:15:22.310 --> 00:15:26.630
and the hangman's, you know, and a big question mark,
239
00:15:27.050 --> 00:15:29.420
which wasn't very charming to find.
240
00:15:30.710 --> 00:15:34.370
And that's when I went in, in, in my, in trouble,
241
00:15:34.371 --> 00:15:38.930
I was not sleeping at night and I went to Stella to ask her and to
242
00:15:38.931 --> 00:15:40.310
say, I'm not coping.
243
00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:44.960
And I went with a pencil and a pen,
244
00:15:45.050 --> 00:15:49.100
and I went prepared to write down a whole lot of lessons,
245
00:15:49.130 --> 00:15:53.120
number one continue to go to the downstairs toilets.
246
00:15:55.190 --> 00:16:00.080
And she took one look at me and she took me by the hand and she laid me down on
247
00:16:00.081 --> 00:16:03.200
a long sofa and she covered me with a cashmere rug.
248
00:16:04.760 --> 00:16:08.720
And she said, number one, lesson, look after yourself.
249
00:16:09.620 --> 00:16:14.420
And that was another very important lesson that I had look after yourself.
250
00:16:14.780 --> 00:16:18.670
And she told me how her husband had been a,
251
00:16:18.671 --> 00:16:23.300
an international farrier. And when he died leaving her a lot of money,
252
00:16:23.301 --> 00:16:27.920
she didn't approve of scalping animals.
253
00:16:28.340 --> 00:16:31.220
And so she sold the whole business.
254
00:16:32.480 --> 00:16:36.200
And she began starting circles of peace
255
00:16:37.280 --> 00:16:39.230
all around us Australia. Actually,
256
00:16:39.231 --> 00:16:44.090
she became very singularly important and she was a person I always
257
00:16:44.091 --> 00:16:46.940
used to go back to discuss where w where I was going,
258
00:16:46.941 --> 00:16:48.230
where I was going with the book.
259
00:16:49.550 --> 00:16:54.110
I found when I wrote the story of my son schizophrenia, which was called,
260
00:16:54.500 --> 00:16:55.670
tell me I'm here.
261
00:16:56.451 --> 00:17:00.230
And I wrote it about six months after Jonathan died because I needed,
262
00:17:00.470 --> 00:17:04.250
I needed to write it. I needed to understand what had happened.
263
00:17:04.730 --> 00:17:09.690
And a psychiatrist friend rang me from Adelaide within,
264
00:17:09.691 --> 00:17:11.270
in Sydney and said,
265
00:17:11.330 --> 00:17:15.260
and if you're doing this book you're going to need backup.
266
00:17:15.320 --> 00:17:18.110
You're going to be times when you find it really tough to ride.
267
00:17:18.530 --> 00:17:23.060
And I'm suggesting that you've get four people whom you really trust,
268
00:17:23.090 --> 00:17:27.950
maybe get a psychiatrist or a doctor get three or four people who
269
00:17:27.951 --> 00:17:32.000
you can ring and who are prepared to let you ring even at night,
270
00:17:32.001 --> 00:17:36.200
if you're really distressed and I'll be the first one to volunteer.
271
00:17:36.620 --> 00:17:41.570
And that was a really important thing that I did because it allowed
272
00:17:41.571 --> 00:17:45.860
me when I was writing this book sometimes to ring up and say, look,
273
00:17:45.890 --> 00:17:47.630
I need help. And so is,
274
00:17:48.260 --> 00:17:53.250
so I guess I think that's a very important point
275
00:17:53.251 --> 00:17:57.720
you brought up because it obviously has management ramifications.
276
00:17:58.230 --> 00:18:02.730
And I'm wondering if anyone here has come across this as a manager
277
00:18:03.870 --> 00:18:07.770
about the need to allow staff at times
278
00:18:09.300 --> 00:18:13.920
to show vulnerability, or if anyone has any response to that.
279
00:18:14.550 --> 00:18:19.380
I think it's a critical point that is with us now in contemporary times.
280
00:18:20.450 --> 00:18:24.800
And thank you for being here today and raising the topic of resilience.
281
00:18:25.580 --> 00:18:30.200
I think it's a hugely underestimated part of our wellbeing and our psyche.
282
00:18:31.130 --> 00:18:35.900
I've come through quite distressing depression recently.
283
00:18:36.290 --> 00:18:40.610
And I made quite a conscious decision not to fudge it in my
284
00:18:40.611 --> 00:18:45.320
workplace to be quite open about it. Partly because fudging,
285
00:18:45.321 --> 00:18:46.910
it is just too much hard work,
286
00:18:47.270 --> 00:18:52.190
but also to realizing that vulnerability is actually a strength.
287
00:18:53.180 --> 00:18:57.830
It's often seen as a weakness, but it is truly a strength to, I guess,
288
00:18:57.831 --> 00:19:01.580
expose your soul regardless of the consequences.
289
00:19:01.640 --> 00:19:05.390
And I've found in the majority of cases,
290
00:19:05.391 --> 00:19:10.100
it's actually been met with an equal amount of vulnerability from my
291
00:19:10.101 --> 00:19:13.580
colleagues in particular. I work for local government,
292
00:19:13.581 --> 00:19:17.720
which is not renowned for a huge amount of emotional intelligence.
293
00:19:19.250 --> 00:19:24.080
However for the majority of people when I did
294
00:19:24.081 --> 00:19:26.240
reveal to them, the struggles I was having,
295
00:19:26.780 --> 00:19:31.430
the support was very much forthcoming and
296
00:19:31.431 --> 00:19:35.120
the sharing of stories also was very much forthcoming.
297
00:19:35.960 --> 00:19:40.550
I still think we have a long way to go in management circles in terms of how
298
00:19:40.551 --> 00:19:43.220
they quote, quote, unquote,
299
00:19:43.221 --> 00:19:46.130
deal with someone with mental illness.
300
00:19:47.510 --> 00:19:51.350
I think there needs to be a lot more awareness about it and it's not to be
301
00:19:51.351 --> 00:19:52.184
feared.
302
00:19:52.370 --> 00:19:57.260
And having gone through the quite distressing period and out on the other side,
303
00:19:57.261 --> 00:20:00.230
actually look at it now as a blessing, because like you,
304
00:20:00.231 --> 00:20:03.710
I refuse to ask for help in any circumstance.
305
00:20:03.711 --> 00:20:06.560
I was brought up to be strongly independent,
306
00:20:06.770 --> 00:20:10.610
and I thought asking for help was a weakness, but now I see it as a strength.
307
00:20:11.660 --> 00:20:12.600
Thank you for that.
308
00:20:14.570 --> 00:20:15.403
Very good.
309
00:20:16.280 --> 00:20:20.570
You think I had never had anything to do with my first I'm making this
310
00:20:21.980 --> 00:20:24.770
anyone like to enter that anyone? Yes.
311
00:20:26.450 --> 00:20:31.360
We'll go. Yeah. We've got a lady down we've got.
312
00:20:32.840 --> 00:20:33.673
Behind.
313
00:20:34.940 --> 00:20:36.320
Yeah. Oh, it's coming.
314
00:20:37.490 --> 00:20:42.380
It probably I'm just thinking it's probably comes up with athletes as well
315
00:20:42.440 --> 00:20:47.360
with super athletes that whole scandal
316
00:20:47.770 --> 00:20:52.690
mess that was made of the last Olympic games when kids were imbibing,
317
00:20:52.840 --> 00:20:56.530
as athletes were imbibing drugs and so on. And so on,
318
00:20:56.890 --> 00:21:00.670
there were clearly some who were very alarmed by what was happening,
319
00:21:00.820 --> 00:21:05.080
but didn't speak up. So it is a very important point. Sorry.
320
00:21:05.440 --> 00:21:09.390
But it didn't you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for that.
321
00:21:09.391 --> 00:21:13.110
I don't know who was speaking, but I appreciate it very much.
322
00:21:14.340 --> 00:21:18.750
Can we just ask who was speaking when, who was speaking? Thank you.
323
00:21:18.751 --> 00:21:23.520
I was roaming around thank you. Sorry.
324
00:21:24.870 --> 00:21:27.480
This whole idea of vulnerability and
325
00:21:29.140 --> 00:21:30.660
relates very much to my work.
326
00:21:30.661 --> 00:21:34.740
I work with families with adolescents who are
327
00:21:35.070 --> 00:21:39.690
experiencing mental health issues and school refusal.
328
00:21:41.010 --> 00:21:45.660
And so in that area I find often that there are
329
00:21:46.380 --> 00:21:46.830
had,
330
00:21:46.830 --> 00:21:51.630
there are many layers to reasons why these kids are refusing
331
00:21:51.631 --> 00:21:56.190
school. They're not always just defiant defiance disorders,
332
00:21:57.110 --> 00:22:00.960
that there's a lot of anxiety behind that and vulnerability behind that.
333
00:22:01.770 --> 00:22:06.690
And so I'm wanting to shift
334
00:22:06.691 --> 00:22:11.070
the question just a little bit to ask about my
335
00:22:11.850 --> 00:22:16.740
interest in this to find out whether you believe that resilience
336
00:22:16.830 --> 00:22:18.660
is something that is
337
00:22:20.790 --> 00:22:24.810
part of the personality inherent in a personality
338
00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:30.330
and the links between how resilience is
339
00:22:30.331 --> 00:22:32.670
learned and how
340
00:22:34.530 --> 00:22:37.380
this for an adolescent in particular,
341
00:22:37.381 --> 00:22:41.820
who is facing a mental health issue and refusing school,
342
00:22:42.360 --> 00:22:47.340
how reframing their thinking from,
343
00:22:47.820 --> 00:22:51.720
from how they see a vulnerability.
344
00:22:52.740 --> 00:22:54.570
I appreciate those comments very much, you know,
345
00:22:54.571 --> 00:22:57.120
seeing this as a strength in how they can work.
346
00:22:57.120 --> 00:22:57.850
With that.
347
00:22:57.850 --> 00:23:02.610
So it's reframing their vulnerability and by bringing their
348
00:23:02.611 --> 00:23:06.570
vulnerability out into the open by seeing that as a strength.
349
00:23:07.320 --> 00:23:08.880
Yes. And so, you know,
350
00:23:08.881 --> 00:23:12.330
the question is around learned
351
00:23:13.080 --> 00:23:16.830
resilience versus personality.
352
00:23:18.570 --> 00:23:20.910
Yeah. Yeah. I have a hunch. I mean,
353
00:23:20.911 --> 00:23:25.260
my belief is that everybody has the capacity to be resilient.
354
00:23:25.261 --> 00:23:27.990
I think it's a part of our life force.
355
00:23:27.991 --> 00:23:31.440
It's how we sustain often terrible things.
356
00:23:31.441 --> 00:23:36.120
Life can be rotten at times comes up and does something nasty to you.
357
00:23:36.660 --> 00:23:41.340
And I th I think people learn from
358
00:23:41.341 --> 00:23:44.580
example and I thought of
359
00:23:46.310 --> 00:23:49.310
with my mother who,
360
00:23:49.400 --> 00:23:53.540
who was an extraordinary resilient woman, where we were, we'd been living in,
361
00:23:53.780 --> 00:23:57.770
in Malaya, Malaysia where my father was a rubber planter.
362
00:23:58.640 --> 00:24:03.080
We were there when the Japanese invaded we escaped my
363
00:24:03.081 --> 00:24:04.910
mother and children escaped.
364
00:24:06.050 --> 00:24:09.050
But my father was missing for a long time, believed in.
365
00:24:09.590 --> 00:24:14.000
And and we were sent by the red cross to
366
00:24:14.080 --> 00:24:17.990
a derelict farm just outside Albany.
367
00:24:18.380 --> 00:24:20.690
And we were told to live off the land.
368
00:24:21.110 --> 00:24:25.250
And there was only a strawberry patch that had little round strawberries,
369
00:24:25.520 --> 00:24:26.750
like brown bullets.
370
00:24:27.140 --> 00:24:31.730
And our mothers knew nothing about farming and they didn't even know how to wash
371
00:24:31.731 --> 00:24:36.050
sheets when the first time they washed sheets, they start them. And this time,
372
00:24:37.610 --> 00:24:41.590
like, you know, did some comparable huh. And eggs.
373
00:24:41.591 --> 00:24:44.890
I remember the first time they cooked things they were,
374
00:24:44.950 --> 00:24:49.800
they were brown and bullet like, and this wasn't because they,
375
00:24:49.801 --> 00:24:50.920
they were stupid.
376
00:24:50.921 --> 00:24:55.440
It was because they've grown up in colonial times when you had seven seasons do
377
00:24:55.441 --> 00:24:59.410
all that sort of thing. And my mother was the first person who,
378
00:24:59.830 --> 00:25:04.030
who saw what was happening and she had an innate resilience, I think,
379
00:25:04.031 --> 00:25:06.190
as well as a learned resilience.
380
00:25:06.191 --> 00:25:11.020
And I certainly learned my resilience from her because I remember
381
00:25:11.500 --> 00:25:16.330
the first time I saw this we were all of us unhappy.
382
00:25:16.331 --> 00:25:16.871
We were,
383
00:25:16.871 --> 00:25:21.610
we were deeply worried about our fathers that were six
384
00:25:21.611 --> 00:25:24.700
children and three mothers. One mother was very ill.
385
00:25:25.540 --> 00:25:29.080
We were in this house, there was, there were no fly screens.
386
00:25:29.110 --> 00:25:34.030
There were flying strips, dangling in front of our noses at the breakfast table.
387
00:25:34.390 --> 00:25:37.870
And the milk was curdled. And as children,
388
00:25:38.110 --> 00:25:42.160
we were all about age 12 and onwards 10,
389
00:25:42.430 --> 00:25:46.960
12 on winds. And we were behaving very badly because we were unhappy.
390
00:25:46.961 --> 00:25:50.110
We were kicking the table, we were spilling the milk. We were whingeing.
391
00:25:50.111 --> 00:25:54.370
We were whining. And my mother started drumming on the tabletops,
392
00:25:54.400 --> 00:25:58.960
wearing a red shirt. I remember, and I thought, that's travel. She got up.
393
00:25:58.961 --> 00:26:03.550
And she said, come on. She said, holding the whole, like journal articles.
394
00:26:04.390 --> 00:26:08.500
And she said if you're in ship,
395
00:26:08.530 --> 00:26:10.630
there's no point in lying down in it as well.
396
00:26:15.400 --> 00:26:19.060
And we pushed her aside and ran out into the paddocks yelling.
397
00:26:22.090 --> 00:26:26.350
And she chased us. I remember recognize.
398
00:26:26.390 --> 00:26:29.920
I think then the fact that actually she would never give up on us,
399
00:26:29.950 --> 00:26:34.840
her her desire to live into, to,
400
00:26:35.110 --> 00:26:40.030
to break through trouble was enormously strong. And I certainly think,
401
00:26:40.240 --> 00:26:42.970
I think I learned from her whether I have an innate,
402
00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:48.300
I probably didn't actually know. I think of it because I was a coward at school.
403
00:26:49.110 --> 00:26:53.760
I was bullied because I looked different. I had this funny toffee English voice.
404
00:26:53.790 --> 00:26:55.770
This is when we went to an Australian school.
405
00:26:57.090 --> 00:26:59.160
And I, they,
406
00:26:59.170 --> 00:27:02.250
everybody thought that I'd be good at sport cause I had long legs,
407
00:27:02.251 --> 00:27:04.140
but I was absolutely ruffled at support.
408
00:27:04.590 --> 00:27:08.370
And so they'd pick me for a team and then I'd I'd fall over.
409
00:27:09.840 --> 00:27:14.430
So I, I, I think my resilience was a learned one. I mean, who knows,
410
00:27:14.431 --> 00:27:18.570
which is, which is which, but what do you think? I mean,
411
00:27:18.571 --> 00:27:19.860
not about me necessarily.
412
00:27:21.020 --> 00:27:22.100
Well, you can't talk about me.
413
00:27:23.210 --> 00:27:24.290
In my thinking on that,
414
00:27:25.490 --> 00:27:29.420
your comment about the human race being resilient.
415
00:27:30.170 --> 00:27:33.590
This to me is evident, you know,
416
00:27:33.650 --> 00:27:38.540
as we look through the horrors of natural disasters that have
417
00:27:38.541 --> 00:27:42.410
happened and how people somehow transcend that.
418
00:27:44.300 --> 00:27:48.980
But I also believe that it is learned and just simply by the way that
419
00:27:49.190 --> 00:27:50.060
we are raised,
420
00:27:50.090 --> 00:27:54.770
even if our home environments are the worst,
421
00:27:55.370 --> 00:27:56.690
that one can imagine,
422
00:27:58.010 --> 00:28:02.660
still people transcend that somehow in their own way.
423
00:28:02.661 --> 00:28:07.190
Sometimes their coping mechanisms, science the best,
424
00:28:07.220 --> 00:28:09.590
but they somehow seek.
425
00:28:09.710 --> 00:28:13.770
To somehow just.
426
00:28:13.860 --> 00:28:15.700
To stick it to hang in. Yeah.
427
00:28:16.850 --> 00:28:17.930
And so this, this,
428
00:28:18.080 --> 00:28:22.910
this discussion for me about the permission to be vulnerable
429
00:28:23.660 --> 00:28:27.470
is really important and the aspect of storytelling, you know,
430
00:28:27.471 --> 00:28:31.970
hearing stories and encouraging people to tell their
431
00:28:31.971 --> 00:28:36.680
stories, but that's that's, that's,
432
00:28:36.710 --> 00:28:40.400
what's triggering something positive for me in that I.
433
00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:43.250
Think also we see more stories on television.
434
00:28:43.251 --> 00:28:46.010
We see some pretty bad stories on television,
435
00:28:46.370 --> 00:28:51.050
but you do quite often see some good stories now coming through. Yeah.
436
00:28:52.030 --> 00:28:54.890
We've got a couple of other questions. The gentlemen in the fourth row.
437
00:28:55.040 --> 00:28:55.873
Thank you.
438
00:28:57.350 --> 00:29:00.200
Hi. I had a, quite a related on the,
439
00:29:00.560 --> 00:29:04.730
I was trying to conceptually look at resilience between denial
440
00:29:05.450 --> 00:29:10.190
and somehow occurring the ability to move on.
441
00:29:10.520 --> 00:29:14.150
Because yesterday I saw a fascinating thing. The ABC radio, as you know,
442
00:29:14.151 --> 00:29:17.960
that is blazing to the blue mountains.
443
00:29:18.230 --> 00:29:19.880
And there are a lot of people who were in distress,
444
00:29:19.910 --> 00:29:23.510
but then one lady when replying to a journalist,
445
00:29:23.540 --> 00:29:28.070
everything was burned and around her quite a nice bill
446
00:29:28.071 --> 00:29:28.904
house,
447
00:29:28.970 --> 00:29:33.800
she was quite calmly when the journalist asked her how she was
448
00:29:33.801 --> 00:29:36.980
coping. She said, look well, the, the,
449
00:29:37.490 --> 00:29:42.010
the best thing is that we are alive. All the, all these can repeated again.
450
00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:44.980
Now I was really wanting, this is really, is it denial?
451
00:29:44.981 --> 00:29:49.780
Or is it somehow she acquired that ability that is inevitable.
452
00:29:49.810 --> 00:29:52.870
What can you do with it and have to move on with it?
453
00:29:52.900 --> 00:29:55.810
And I was wondering in this kind of situation,
454
00:29:55.811 --> 00:29:59.050
whether spirituality or religion,
455
00:29:59.051 --> 00:30:01.540
whatever can play the role. Thank you.
456
00:30:02.140 --> 00:30:06.460
Anyone like to then responding in,
457
00:30:06.490 --> 00:30:11.050
particularly in nature in terms of spirituality and its and its association.
458
00:30:11.590 --> 00:30:12.423
Yeah.
459
00:30:13.720 --> 00:30:16.300
Oh, goodness. Christian. Yes.
460
00:30:16.500 --> 00:30:18.660
Some of the perspectives on resilience.
461
00:30:18.661 --> 00:30:22.920
Talk about this idea of perhaps being bending or flexible in the face of the
462
00:30:23.310 --> 00:30:25.740
flow and flux that life throws up for us.
463
00:30:26.970 --> 00:30:29.130
And I guess part of that for me, I think is,
464
00:30:29.400 --> 00:30:32.250
is noticing and examining where we're rigid and,
465
00:30:32.610 --> 00:30:36.480
and inflexible in ourselves. I was just wondering whether that's had,
466
00:30:36.720 --> 00:30:40.800
how much that's been part of your process or how consciously that's part of how
467
00:30:40.801 --> 00:30:42.510
you see resilience.
468
00:30:42.960 --> 00:30:45.750
Of, of, of being inflexible or.
469
00:30:45.870 --> 00:30:50.350
Of not, well that consciously looking for an examining where you were,
470
00:30:51.060 --> 00:30:55.650
where you may be rigid or parts of you that may be rigid or inflexible in the
471
00:30:55.651 --> 00:30:57.510
face of what's being thrown up for you.
472
00:30:59.640 --> 00:31:01.680
I think Ben with the wind
473
00:31:04.260 --> 00:31:07.680
I think you can be, and I'm probably, I'm just looking back.
474
00:31:08.700 --> 00:31:12.450
I think I found that being inflexible didn't help me ever
475
00:31:15.900 --> 00:31:19.980
for that may not be the answer you're seeking. I mean, I think it varies.
476
00:31:20.970 --> 00:31:23.940
Are you, do you see yourself as flexible or inflexible?
477
00:31:25.680 --> 00:31:29.670
You don't have to answer that. Sorry, we didn't quite figure that out.
478
00:31:31.100 --> 00:31:33.690
I, I guess all of us have areas where we're, you know,
479
00:31:33.691 --> 00:31:38.580
we have rigidity or flexibility or some sort of construct there for us.
480
00:31:39.990 --> 00:31:40.890
And I guess I'm just,
481
00:31:41.100 --> 00:31:44.940
I guess I'm curious about whether that was a conscious part of your,
482
00:31:45.120 --> 00:31:49.290
your sort of journey examining, so those parts of yourself and
483
00:31:51.420 --> 00:31:56.340
yeah, because you know, the, those areas where we're in flexible lab,
484
00:31:56.430 --> 00:31:59.010
the things that are going to catch us against the flow of life.
485
00:31:59.820 --> 00:32:03.750
Yeah. I, I truly don't think, I mean obviously there may,
486
00:32:03.810 --> 00:32:05.520
there may be times when I'm like that,
487
00:32:05.521 --> 00:32:09.720
but I think it's not a major part of my makeup.
488
00:32:09.721 --> 00:32:14.430
And that's interesting because it brings us back onto the differences in
489
00:32:14.580 --> 00:32:16.170
individual makeups. Isn't it,
490
00:32:16.500 --> 00:32:19.290
where some people are much more flexible than others.
491
00:32:19.291 --> 00:32:24.060
Some inflexibility can be very important
492
00:32:24.330 --> 00:32:25.710
to, to push you through.
493
00:32:27.690 --> 00:32:29.340
I think for me
494
00:32:31.470 --> 00:32:36.180
I was just looking here and remembering some research that
495
00:32:36.181 --> 00:32:39.150
started in America in the 1960s,
496
00:32:39.590 --> 00:32:43.820
seventies when they wanted to look at the
497
00:32:43.821 --> 00:32:48.710
experience of children, whose mothers had a mental illness.
498
00:32:49.010 --> 00:32:53.450
So these were children who were growing up in extremely difficult circumstances
499
00:32:53.451 --> 00:32:56.110
with mothers who were really quite,
500
00:32:56.380 --> 00:32:58.900
quite mad and there was very little help.
501
00:32:59.320 --> 00:33:03.940
And so they did a study of a number of children.
502
00:33:04.210 --> 00:33:05.740
One of them, interestingly enough,
503
00:33:05.741 --> 00:33:09.910
was Gloria Steinem the celebrated and very
504
00:33:09.911 --> 00:33:12.310
successful American author.
505
00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:17.500
But she grew up with a mother who was crazy and who
506
00:33:17.501 --> 00:33:20.260
used to alarm rats through the house all the time,
507
00:33:20.261 --> 00:33:23.470
because she thought they were useful. They might becoming useful.
508
00:33:24.520 --> 00:33:29.320
And and Gloria apparently learned to deal with
509
00:33:29.321 --> 00:33:32.410
this by imagining that she wasn't there.
510
00:33:33.550 --> 00:33:37.890
She would imagine that she was in a place or
511
00:33:37.900 --> 00:33:39.850
movie and one, yeah,
512
00:33:39.940 --> 00:33:44.330
they would all pass that somebody would write a different script for,
513
00:33:45.130 --> 00:33:49.990
and she would no longer have to live with her man mother and as indeed
514
00:33:50.020 --> 00:33:54.880
that happened. But well, other interesting things happened from this, that it,
515
00:33:54.940 --> 00:33:58.540
every child developed a different way of coping.
516
00:33:58.630 --> 00:34:03.610
So there was one little boy who used to do
517
00:34:03.611 --> 00:34:04.510
maths. He was,
518
00:34:05.410 --> 00:34:09.670
he was dead keen on maths and all he would do sitting outside was doing maths.
519
00:34:10.281 --> 00:34:15.250
So these children had different coping mechanisms and another was a
520
00:34:15.251 --> 00:34:18.070
child. They called the boy with the bread sandwich.
521
00:34:18.130 --> 00:34:21.070
And this was even earlier when the seventies,
522
00:34:21.100 --> 00:34:25.960
this was in the sixties when an American psychotherapists called
523
00:34:26.350 --> 00:34:31.120
Garmin Etsy set out to explore how
524
00:34:31.150 --> 00:34:35.140
children coped, why some children coped and others didn't.
525
00:34:35.560 --> 00:34:39.790
And so he went around primary schools the American version,
526
00:34:40.210 --> 00:34:41.980
and he asked the principals,
527
00:34:42.310 --> 00:34:45.220
have you got any kids in your class,
528
00:34:45.221 --> 00:34:49.550
any children in your class or your school who are coping and the
529
00:34:50.560 --> 00:34:54.760
principals of the school almost always used to almost faint because they usually
530
00:34:54.761 --> 00:34:58.480
have people asking if you've got any really difficult children here and here and
531
00:34:58.481 --> 00:35:01.090
here was this this man coming around and saying,
532
00:35:01.091 --> 00:35:02.920
I want children who really are coping.
533
00:35:03.190 --> 00:35:07.960
And the boy was the bread sandwich had been noticed by the teachers and that he
534
00:35:07.961 --> 00:35:11.470
always came to school with his lunch, beautifully wrapped in newspaper,
535
00:35:11.471 --> 00:35:13.630
but very well folded and,
536
00:35:13.690 --> 00:35:17.140
and tied together with string walls to get home.
537
00:35:18.460 --> 00:35:22.060
And when they, I didn't, I made friends with him.
538
00:35:22.061 --> 00:35:26.620
It turned out that all he had in his sandwich was two bits of stale
539
00:35:26.621 --> 00:35:27.454
bread.
540
00:35:27.490 --> 00:35:32.110
And his mother was an alcoholic and he didn't want to let her
541
00:35:32.111 --> 00:35:32.650
down.
542
00:35:32.650 --> 00:35:37.620
And for everyone else in the school to to see that she was an alcoholic or
543
00:35:37.860 --> 00:35:38.820
learn, she was an alcoholic.
544
00:35:39.090 --> 00:35:43.860
So used to it very carefully pack up a lunch for her with stale bread and
545
00:35:43.861 --> 00:35:45.990
newspaper so that he would,
546
00:35:46.020 --> 00:35:50.280
he would be able to hide what was going on from the rest of the school.
547
00:35:50.490 --> 00:35:52.680
And then they were able to work with him and help him.
548
00:35:54.180 --> 00:35:57.960
And the other thing that came out of all this research was that
549
00:35:58.980 --> 00:36:03.900
these young people did better with the, with not with the officials,
550
00:36:03.930 --> 00:36:07.140
not so much with the social workers and sorry, in memory.
551
00:36:09.630 --> 00:36:14.130
There w w but with maybe the the
552
00:36:14.131 --> 00:36:17.520
parents of the child, they were a child they were friendly with.
553
00:36:17.521 --> 00:36:21.570
So it was the informal help that often was the most useful.
554
00:36:22.650 --> 00:36:23.261
But it gave,
555
00:36:23.261 --> 00:36:28.200
it was a start into being able to raise the kind of issues that some of
556
00:36:28.201 --> 00:36:32.310
you raised already and for these kids to make progress.
557
00:36:32.311 --> 00:36:36.390
And some of them made remarkable progress when they looked also for the,
558
00:36:36.450 --> 00:36:40.620
for the the good things that were happening for these children. And later,
559
00:36:40.621 --> 00:36:44.940
remind me to tell you the story of Dave, because that's an amazing one.
560
00:36:45.890 --> 00:36:48.710
And we've got a couple of other questions, this one down here,
561
00:36:48.711 --> 00:36:52.040
then the gentlemen in the red shirt up there before we do that, though,
562
00:36:52.100 --> 00:36:56.960
I'm not sure that your question's been answered around the Bush fires
563
00:36:57.020 --> 00:37:01.580
and the person being in denial versus what,
564
00:37:01.581 --> 00:37:03.530
what was their, what skills do they actually have?
565
00:37:03.531 --> 00:37:06.230
What resilience skills do they actually have? That's allowed that woman.
566
00:37:08.390 --> 00:37:12.140
Yes. I think w we probably didn't go into the spirituality.
567
00:37:12.680 --> 00:37:16.100
Okay. Well, can I move? We got a microphone just for this lady here.
568
00:37:16.460 --> 00:37:20.900
It was, was talking about spirituality. That's right.
569
00:37:22.250 --> 00:37:23.540
Yeah. The microphone's coming.
570
00:37:24.860 --> 00:37:26.870
While we're waiting for it to come. I have a question.
571
00:37:27.200 --> 00:37:29.810
One of the comments that you made before was you were taught,
572
00:37:29.850 --> 00:37:33.170
you were told to look after yourself. What did you take from that?
573
00:37:33.171 --> 00:37:34.730
How do you look after yourself?
574
00:37:36.230 --> 00:37:40.100
Well, how do I look after myself very badly, quite often.
575
00:37:44.630 --> 00:37:48.260
I, I look after myself, I go and sit in the garden as if it's sunny.
576
00:37:48.950 --> 00:37:53.900
And I just sit there and I enjoy the peace of the garden and the beauty of
577
00:37:53.901 --> 00:37:58.100
the garden, which isn't a very beautiful garden, but it's quite small,
578
00:37:58.340 --> 00:38:03.200
but I get great respite out of, out of that. And,
579
00:38:03.580 --> 00:38:07.580
and also going down to the sea, I'm fortunate enough to live near the sea.
580
00:38:07.590 --> 00:38:12.590
So I'll go and either walk on the sand or or just go
581
00:38:12.591 --> 00:38:16.670
and sit in on the rocks and watch the sea beating or swim sometimes,
582
00:38:18.950 --> 00:38:22.340
and, and drinking too much coffee, which is not good.
583
00:38:24.650 --> 00:38:28.250
I do too. Another coffee. So.
584
00:38:28.250 --> 00:38:30.950
I don't know if this is going to answer your question about spirituality,
585
00:38:30.951 --> 00:38:35.860
but a whole range of thoughts comes up for me. One is,
586
00:38:35.861 --> 00:38:40.720
I guess it's an individual and how attached a person
587
00:38:40.721 --> 00:38:42.190
is to things.
588
00:38:42.191 --> 00:38:45.940
But I think also we can have periods of grief.
589
00:38:47.200 --> 00:38:52.030
We can grieve the loss of the house and we can have faith and we can move
590
00:38:52.031 --> 00:38:56.830
on. So it's all spiritual. The grief is spiritual too. It's not about,
591
00:38:57.190 --> 00:39:00.580
you know, denying a tour, not having a feeling about it.
592
00:39:01.270 --> 00:39:02.980
So that's some thoughts on that.
593
00:39:03.450 --> 00:39:07.090
And the other thing that comes up for me about housing in my own personal
594
00:39:07.091 --> 00:39:07.960
experiences,
595
00:39:08.320 --> 00:39:12.700
I worked with a client once who was needing support because
596
00:39:13.150 --> 00:39:17.500
her partner, this was sort of at the beginning of the JFC, her husband,
597
00:39:17.700 --> 00:39:22.420
they had to move house of the out of the family home because he'd lost his
598
00:39:22.421 --> 00:39:22.900
job.
599
00:39:22.900 --> 00:39:27.820
And they'd lost their money and it was a big deal and it was a huge change.
600
00:39:27.850 --> 00:39:32.620
And I was thinking, whoa, how full on is that? And, and, you know,
601
00:39:32.650 --> 00:39:36.430
feeling for her and feeling like, wow, I'd never be in that position.
602
00:39:36.610 --> 00:39:37.720
And since then,
603
00:39:38.230 --> 00:39:42.880
I've had a similar situation where my husband and I have kind of lost two houses
604
00:39:42.881 --> 00:39:45.160
because of financial situation.
605
00:39:45.430 --> 00:39:49.330
And we really been in financial crap for about four or five years.
606
00:39:49.990 --> 00:39:54.670
And so we've had to go through losing our house twice the first time.
607
00:39:54.671 --> 00:39:57.850
It was like losing the family home that we'd built together and my little
608
00:39:57.851 --> 00:40:02.650
daughter and my stepchildren. And, and so that was really hard.
609
00:40:02.651 --> 00:40:05.170
And it was very stressful. And I dealt,
610
00:40:05.230 --> 00:40:08.890
I was living in high stress and coping for quite a long time.
611
00:40:08.891 --> 00:40:12.820
My daughter was six months old at the time, and we put a house on the market.
612
00:40:12.820 --> 00:40:14.560
It wasn't selling for over a year.
613
00:40:14.561 --> 00:40:17.740
So we had open inspections every weekend for about a year.
614
00:40:18.370 --> 00:40:22.450
And I'd carry my little daughter out in my cot who was six months old,
615
00:40:22.510 --> 00:40:26.170
so that we could take the cot out of the house every week to the shed anyway,
616
00:40:26.200 --> 00:40:30.220
blah, blah, blah. The thing is, is as we've been through it a second time,
617
00:40:31.090 --> 00:40:32.530
I'm serene miss time,
618
00:40:33.190 --> 00:40:38.170
because with age and experience, I've discovered. And I mean,
619
00:40:38.171 --> 00:40:41.020
this may be obvious, but it's wonderful for me to realize this,
620
00:40:41.470 --> 00:40:43.960
that I can worry about it, or I can not worry about it.
621
00:40:44.200 --> 00:40:49.180
Things always will flower up from the ashes
622
00:40:49.210 --> 00:40:52.660
because they did last time. So I have a trust in life.
623
00:40:52.720 --> 00:40:57.280
I have more trust in life. Thank you to this,
624
00:40:57.790 --> 00:41:01.860
gentlemen. Can everyone hear at the back?
625
00:41:03.300 --> 00:41:04.133
No.
626
00:41:06.750 --> 00:41:07.560
I'm wondering,
627
00:41:07.560 --> 00:41:12.090
can you can you hear me I'm
628
00:41:12.091 --> 00:41:16.500
wondering if it would be helpful if people stood up when they spoke or whether
629
00:41:16.501 --> 00:41:20.760
that's not a good thing, you think it's all right as it is. Well,
630
00:41:20.761 --> 00:41:24.120
if you feel like standing up, do stand up. All right,
631
00:41:25.770 --> 00:41:28.860
Nick, wasn't another, is this gentlemen here? Second row.
632
00:41:30.030 --> 00:41:33.350
Yeah. Thank you. See you.
633
00:41:34.400 --> 00:41:39.140
I just want to do you raised the issue very early on
634
00:41:39.141 --> 00:41:41.660
that the way you were brought up, everything had to be all right,
635
00:41:41.810 --> 00:41:46.280
your perspective. And I was reflecting on a study.
636
00:41:46.281 --> 00:41:48.170
I read a long,
637
00:41:48.171 --> 00:41:51.470
long time ago during the troubles in Belfast where they,
638
00:41:51.740 --> 00:41:56.360
there was tremendous worry about the welfare of the children and how they were
639
00:41:56.361 --> 00:41:58.190
going to cope with this. Now,
640
00:41:58.191 --> 00:42:03.050
the interesting thing was they did a study of the Catholic kids,
641
00:42:03.170 --> 00:42:06.740
who they thought were the most vulnerable and quite a lot of them coped
642
00:42:06.741 --> 00:42:09.920
extremely well, which I thought was very interesting.
643
00:42:10.100 --> 00:42:14.990
And I've recently read a lot of Seamus Heaney and he thinks it's
644
00:42:14.991 --> 00:42:16.910
because of the culture they came from,
645
00:42:17.330 --> 00:42:20.030
where you retain the dreaming of your youth.
646
00:42:20.060 --> 00:42:22.820
Now it's easy for him to say that because that's what he does.
647
00:42:22.821 --> 00:42:26.510
But I wonder whether you've, as you've traveled around,
648
00:42:26.511 --> 00:42:29.300
thought that some cultures do this a lot better than others,
649
00:42:30.020 --> 00:42:31.400
and while they might,
650
00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:35.840
and I'll give you just one example I always find it much more comfortable
651
00:42:35.960 --> 00:42:38.180
traveling in Canada than I do in the United States,
652
00:42:38.181 --> 00:42:41.550
because it seems like it's people just talk easily.
653
00:42:41.590 --> 00:42:42.423
In Canada.
654
00:42:43.940 --> 00:42:46.250
And I'm wondering whether you've developed a feeling about that,
655
00:42:46.460 --> 00:42:49.880
the kinds of cultures that cultivate what you're talking about.
656
00:42:51.790 --> 00:42:56.560
I find that experience similar to yours. I find in Italy
657
00:42:58.330 --> 00:43:02.860
I have a younger brother who lives in Italy and we took our children for a year
658
00:43:03.520 --> 00:43:05.020
when they were aged
659
00:43:06.910 --> 00:43:11.170
about four and nine and 13.
660
00:43:12.670 --> 00:43:16.600
We, we S we got long service leave from the ABC.
661
00:43:18.130 --> 00:43:22.990
And two interesting personal things happen there, or three.
662
00:43:23.230 --> 00:43:26.860
The first one was that I got very worried about their schooling, the older ones,
663
00:43:26.861 --> 00:43:28.360
and I rang the school of the air.
664
00:43:28.690 --> 00:43:33.610
And I got a wonderful woman who sounded like who was an English
665
00:43:33.611 --> 00:43:36.280
actress, who was can't remember her name. Anyway.
666
00:43:36.281 --> 00:43:40.390
She sounded like an English actress. And she said, my dear, she said,
667
00:43:40.391 --> 00:43:44.360
why do you want to bother with those stupid Cuisenaire rods and,
668
00:43:44.361 --> 00:43:47.650
and books and things, when you can breathe the air of the,
669
00:43:47.651 --> 00:43:51.640
of the Coliseum and you can walk where Caesar walked, she said,
670
00:43:51.641 --> 00:43:53.440
throw them all away and enjoy yourself
671
00:43:56.080 --> 00:43:59.560
and pen with exactly what we did. And we went, we'd,
672
00:43:59.620 --> 00:44:03.430
we'd gone there at a time when my husband was getting very stressed as work
673
00:44:04.511 --> 00:44:07.660
and quite crabby to be with a new, he was being crabby.
674
00:44:08.830 --> 00:44:11.470
And so we did, we, all we did was enjoyable,
675
00:44:12.280 --> 00:44:15.640
breathe the air of the Coliseum and walk where sees a walk,
676
00:44:15.850 --> 00:44:19.180
but we were on a farm. And so the kids could go out and,
677
00:44:19.640 --> 00:44:23.440
and and just enjoy themselves there. And we had,
678
00:44:23.470 --> 00:44:26.740
they had they had a diary that they kept that they kept.
679
00:44:26.830 --> 00:44:30.130
And if anyone wanted to go on working,
680
00:44:30.190 --> 00:44:34.500
otherwise we to work maybe an hour, a day, an hour a day.
681
00:44:34.830 --> 00:44:38.130
So they would just, they were, they wrote their diaries,
682
00:44:38.520 --> 00:44:42.420
but it was probably the best thing I think we did certainly for our marriage
683
00:44:42.480 --> 00:44:47.040
because my husband had been very twitchy and didn't
684
00:44:47.041 --> 00:44:50.250
sleep and so on. And so on became so relaxed.
685
00:44:50.970 --> 00:44:53.280
It was like a different person.
686
00:44:54.300 --> 00:44:58.980
So I find Italy having some for me for some of that
687
00:45:01.170 --> 00:45:05.170
grace, I think, and acceptance. And I,
688
00:45:05.230 --> 00:45:07.500
whenever I can afford it, I go back there.
689
00:45:08.940 --> 00:45:11.520
I'm planning to go this year. I hope I do.
690
00:45:13.040 --> 00:45:14.420
If I can just add one little comment,
691
00:45:14.930 --> 00:45:18.530
I identify with that because I found Florence like that.
692
00:45:18.590 --> 00:45:23.360
I really just loved it and relaxed. And curiously enough,
693
00:45:23.361 --> 00:45:26.780
I found Rome a bit like that a little bit, but we all seem to find it a bit mad.
694
00:45:26.781 --> 00:45:29.240
I sort of, I suppose it is mad actually, but it's,
695
00:45:29.870 --> 00:45:33.260
they're very different kinds of cultures to what you were describing in England.
696
00:45:33.740 --> 00:45:34.573
Oh, he is
697
00:45:36.200 --> 00:45:39.890
completely different and that there is a joy then in,
698
00:45:40.370 --> 00:45:44.540
in all sorts of things, there's a joy in eating. Isn't the way you can go.
699
00:45:44.541 --> 00:45:48.170
And David lived in the old part of Rome trust every,
700
00:45:48.470 --> 00:45:49.640
and he,
701
00:45:49.730 --> 00:45:54.290
we used to go to a restaurant to eat where they may make us join in the cooking
702
00:45:54.500 --> 00:45:57.490
so he could see what was happening. There's another one,
703
00:45:57.710 --> 00:46:01.310
Rob G of being a good audience. Fantastic feedback.
704
00:46:03.830 --> 00:46:04.663
What have we got?
705
00:46:06.230 --> 00:46:07.011
And thank you.
706
00:46:07.011 --> 00:46:11.720
I I'm prompted to speak because the spiritual aspect was
707
00:46:11.721 --> 00:46:15.440
raised and I'm glad that it's come into the conversation simply because it's
708
00:46:15.441 --> 00:46:18.710
such an unfashionable idea these days.
709
00:46:18.711 --> 00:46:23.390
But first I wanted to acknowledge the innate resilience that
710
00:46:23.391 --> 00:46:25.400
varies among the population.
711
00:46:25.401 --> 00:46:28.910
I think we can readily see it with a physical constitution that some are
712
00:46:28.911 --> 00:46:33.230
stronger than others. And I dare say it's the same with a psyche as well,
713
00:46:33.770 --> 00:46:35.660
but in terms of building resilience,
714
00:46:35.661 --> 00:46:38.860
which is perhaps the most important practical,
715
00:46:38.900 --> 00:46:43.400
psychological question for us three things come to mind for me,
716
00:46:43.401 --> 00:46:45.290
one being self-esteem,
717
00:46:45.560 --> 00:46:48.800
and that's obviously something we can convey to people,
718
00:46:48.801 --> 00:46:53.600
a message of their worth a message that they are loved a message that they can
719
00:46:53.660 --> 00:46:55.760
love themselves and look after themselves.
720
00:46:56.690 --> 00:47:01.520
And secondly a sense of responsibility to not responsibility for
721
00:47:01.521 --> 00:47:02.480
one's whole destiny,
722
00:47:02.481 --> 00:47:06.740
because we're presented with all sorts of unpredictable adversity in our
723
00:47:06.741 --> 00:47:07.574
environment,
724
00:47:07.820 --> 00:47:11.930
but certainly responsibility for responding to adversity,
725
00:47:12.020 --> 00:47:15.080
the things that happened to us. And it seems to me,
726
00:47:15.950 --> 00:47:19.640
that's a message that we can give people that the way you respond to the stuff
727
00:47:19.641 --> 00:47:21.590
that happens is entirely yours.
728
00:47:21.650 --> 00:47:26.420
You're not just a victim floating in the current, and then thirdly,
729
00:47:26.810 --> 00:47:28.190
the ingredient of hope.
730
00:47:29.260 --> 00:47:34.180
And it seems to me that this is where a spiritual framework can be
731
00:47:34.181 --> 00:47:38.080
useful hope, of course not necessarily derived from that.
732
00:47:38.110 --> 00:47:42.850
It might be just a cold calculation that I do have a mathematical chance of
733
00:47:42.851 --> 00:47:45.610
getting out of this. And I hope that will be the case,
734
00:47:46.540 --> 00:47:49.630
or it might be a hope reliant on pop psychology.
735
00:47:49.631 --> 00:47:51.130
And we hear people say all the time
736
00:47:53.530 --> 00:47:57.460
things are it'll turn out right in the end or everything happens for a reason,
737
00:47:57.910 --> 00:48:02.680
even, even from individuals who don't have a philosophical or religious
738
00:48:03.430 --> 00:48:06.850
underpinning for that. And then there's a spiritual framework itself.
739
00:48:06.880 --> 00:48:08.980
And this is my point that the,
740
00:48:09.320 --> 00:48:12.880
the most wonderful thing about it is that it allows one to make sense of
741
00:48:12.881 --> 00:48:15.580
everything that happens. Not not in a simplistic way,
742
00:48:15.581 --> 00:48:18.490
but even where there's a sense of mystery.
743
00:48:18.760 --> 00:48:23.170
One at least has a framework for placing everything within that framework
744
00:48:23.590 --> 00:48:26.940
even adversity. Thank you.
745
00:48:28.530 --> 00:48:32.010
And we've got we've probably got time for just two more questions.
746
00:48:32.011 --> 00:48:35.220
We've actually got one, two, and actually three people waiting.
747
00:48:35.221 --> 00:48:38.910
So if we can keep the questions really quick, that would be great. Thank you.
748
00:48:39.150 --> 00:48:42.630
The first ladies over here, if you could just pop your hand up, please.
749
00:48:44.310 --> 00:48:44.520
Thank.
750
00:48:44.520 --> 00:48:47.340
You. My question is about
751
00:48:49.140 --> 00:48:53.250
our indigenous population and you were talking before about, you know,
752
00:48:53.251 --> 00:48:56.760
do you see cultural trends in resilience?
753
00:48:57.150 --> 00:49:01.650
And I'm very interested in the concept of building resilience amongst
754
00:49:01.740 --> 00:49:04.230
indigenous children. And
755
00:49:06.060 --> 00:49:10.920
I'm thinking of a situation that I'm very aware of where a family,
756
00:49:10.921 --> 00:49:15.030
a large indigenous family of about my generation,
757
00:49:15.420 --> 00:49:20.070
half of whom are incredibly successful in
758
00:49:20.071 --> 00:49:22.830
all aspects of their lives, you know, in their,
759
00:49:22.950 --> 00:49:27.240
in their personal life and in their professional life and the other half who are
760
00:49:27.660 --> 00:49:31.680
dead or and died very young ages, you know,
761
00:49:31.681 --> 00:49:36.210
due to fairly self destructive behavior, I guess,
762
00:49:36.420 --> 00:49:39.150
both all of them having had the same upbringing.
763
00:49:40.710 --> 00:49:42.360
I I'm just interested in, if you could,
764
00:49:42.410 --> 00:49:47.310
if you think there are things that we can be doing as educators of indigenous
765
00:49:47.311 --> 00:49:50.340
children or of, of all disadvantaged children.
766
00:49:50.700 --> 00:49:55.080
Cause I think a lot of the things we've been talking about are very middle-class
767
00:49:55.110 --> 00:49:58.260
issues of, you know, management and things like that.
768
00:49:58.440 --> 00:50:02.760
Whereas we have a whole group of people in our society that are so
769
00:50:02.761 --> 00:50:06.630
vulnerable and I'd just be interested in.
770
00:50:07.620 --> 00:50:12.300
There was a very good film that I remember seeing documentary
771
00:50:12.301 --> 00:50:16.380
film about a husband and wife and they were,
772
00:50:16.381 --> 00:50:19.500
he was a scout master and she was the principal of the school.
773
00:50:19.920 --> 00:50:24.870
And they had taken on the headship of a school that
774
00:50:24.930 --> 00:50:25.920
was many,
775
00:50:26.640 --> 00:50:31.310
many I feel with indigenous children and they seem like an unlikely
776
00:50:31.311 --> 00:50:35.870
couple to be thrown into an environment about which they knew very little,
777
00:50:36.170 --> 00:50:40.940
but what emerged from the film was their ability to look and see
778
00:50:41.150 --> 00:50:43.090
what, what these kids enjoyed,
779
00:50:43.130 --> 00:50:45.920
what they responded to and what made them feel good.
780
00:50:46.280 --> 00:50:50.540
And they recognize they were suburb. They were terrific on horses. So they,
781
00:50:50.840 --> 00:50:52.580
they, they asked around the neighborhood,
782
00:50:52.581 --> 00:50:55.940
if anyone could lend any ponies or horses for these kids to ride.
783
00:50:56.390 --> 00:51:01.100
And then they started teaching the maths on horseback.
784
00:51:01.130 --> 00:51:03.200
And I can't remember quite how it worked,
785
00:51:03.230 --> 00:51:07.490
but know they went round in a circle for a note and they did a across
786
00:51:08.480 --> 00:51:12.590
and then then they hit the, the, the wife,
787
00:51:12.890 --> 00:51:17.330
the headmaster's wife decided she'd make uniforms for them,
788
00:51:17.331 --> 00:51:20.930
but she'd asked them first if they wanted uniforms and they did.
789
00:51:20.930 --> 00:51:23.420
And they wanted to plan the uniforms themselves.
790
00:51:23.421 --> 00:51:24.950
They wanted to decide the colors.
791
00:51:25.280 --> 00:51:29.000
So it was giving back to these children a sense of worth,
792
00:51:29.030 --> 00:51:33.530
which was hugely important. And also it was giving them choice,
793
00:51:33.560 --> 00:51:38.180
which it seemed to me from a not insufficient experience with
794
00:51:38.181 --> 00:51:39.110
indigenous people.
795
00:51:39.111 --> 00:51:43.670
But I was on a Royal commission once where we went a lot up into the Northern
796
00:51:43.671 --> 00:51:48.080
territory and talked, but we never, we very rarely ask.
797
00:51:48.081 --> 00:51:49.970
We just impose, you know,
798
00:51:49.971 --> 00:51:53.960
we impose plans here and reports there,
799
00:51:53.961 --> 00:51:58.010
and there are reports that were written when the intervention
800
00:51:58.730 --> 00:51:59.990
strategy happened.
801
00:52:00.260 --> 00:52:04.700
There'd already been a significant report from Aboriginal women that was
802
00:52:04.701 --> 00:52:09.020
completely overlooked, I think. So I think,
803
00:52:09.980 --> 00:52:13.610
I think for me, my lesson there was,
804
00:52:13.670 --> 00:52:17.500
has always been to stop imposing, but, and,
805
00:52:17.501 --> 00:52:19.220
and to give joy to people
806
00:52:20.750 --> 00:52:23.270
people respond hugely to joy.
807
00:52:24.991 --> 00:52:26.650
The next lady, thank you.
808
00:52:27.550 --> 00:52:28.930
Hello. Hello.
809
00:52:29.020 --> 00:52:33.070
I just come from Australia for six months.
810
00:52:33.071 --> 00:52:35.560
So I I don't know, my.
811
00:52:35.590 --> 00:52:37.270
English is good enough to.
812
00:52:39.040 --> 00:52:39.520
But I,
813
00:52:39.520 --> 00:52:44.200
it's very interesting for me because my father has a stress
814
00:52:44.500 --> 00:52:47.830
schizophrenia for like 40 years.
815
00:52:48.250 --> 00:52:52.060
And you know when I was a teenager
816
00:52:55.030 --> 00:52:59.830
I had a quite big trauma of him,
817
00:52:59.860 --> 00:53:03.400
like mentally and physically abuse me.
818
00:53:03.910 --> 00:53:08.800
And so after that, I know he had schizophrenia
819
00:53:10.570 --> 00:53:13.060
but our family, you know,
820
00:53:13.061 --> 00:53:17.080
it's always put this like a secret and my father
821
00:53:18.520 --> 00:53:19.570
I didn't,
822
00:53:19.750 --> 00:53:24.640
I don't even know now if he know he has the six sickness or now,
823
00:53:25.050 --> 00:53:25.800
or no,
824
00:53:25.800 --> 00:53:30.450
but I know you have a son who has a
825
00:53:30.690 --> 00:53:35.460
schizophrenia and for my point of view in the,
826
00:53:36.330 --> 00:53:41.100
in a point because after this trauma I've suffered
827
00:53:41.101 --> 00:53:45.690
from relapsed depression for like every two,
828
00:53:45.691 --> 00:53:50.370
three years when that similar situation trig
829
00:53:50.400 --> 00:53:53.640
trigger and B. And so you know,
830
00:53:53.700 --> 00:53:58.410
I am now a mother and it's just for me,
831
00:53:58.411 --> 00:54:02.550
like my family like my mother,
832
00:54:02.551 --> 00:54:07.370
how she, you know, deal with my, sorry.
833
00:54:09.050 --> 00:54:12.290
You need to know how she dealt with it.
834
00:54:12.530 --> 00:54:15.470
Yeah. I just want to ask you
835
00:54:18.380 --> 00:54:23.240
yeah. How you, you deal with it because many people think
836
00:54:24.380 --> 00:54:28.130
if people has schizophrenia later on some of them,
837
00:54:28.131 --> 00:54:33.110
maybe they don't even know they have the disease, but I am,
838
00:54:33.350 --> 00:54:33.621
you know,
839
00:54:33.621 --> 00:54:38.390
I'm a person who always want to tell the twos,
840
00:54:38.420 --> 00:54:42.530
but I'm seems to me, I'm the only one who, you know,
841
00:54:42.890 --> 00:54:45.350
want really, you know,
842
00:54:45.351 --> 00:54:50.180
at a point that I really want to talk to my father and tell him, you know,
843
00:54:50.630 --> 00:54:53.510
and that him be responsible also,
844
00:54:54.050 --> 00:54:58.670
not because he has the sickness and he, you know,
845
00:54:59.120 --> 00:55:02.240
he just kind of,
846
00:55:02.750 --> 00:55:07.520
it doesn't even grow up and my mother just covered everything and just,
847
00:55:07.760 --> 00:55:10.730
you know, gave him Madison secretly or,
848
00:55:11.150 --> 00:55:12.920
but it's just.
849
00:55:14.020 --> 00:55:17.510
It's hard when you get, I'll be quick because we wanted to get,
850
00:55:17.511 --> 00:55:22.310
you've been very patient. I think it's hard when you've got a divided family.
851
00:55:23.510 --> 00:55:25.910
Particularly if your mother has the responsibility,
852
00:55:25.911 --> 00:55:27.950
but I think it's very important.
853
00:55:27.960 --> 00:55:31.640
You talk to her and you tell how, where,
854
00:55:32.000 --> 00:55:33.290
how you're feeling.
855
00:55:34.040 --> 00:55:37.220
If you have a doctor or a counselor,
856
00:55:37.221 --> 00:55:39.950
I would ask them about telling your father,
857
00:55:39.951 --> 00:55:44.810
because I think it's something that you need to know what
858
00:55:44.811 --> 00:55:47.450
you're doing, you know, very clearly,
859
00:55:47.451 --> 00:55:51.380
but I certainly would cling to your own or
860
00:55:52.280 --> 00:55:56.390
give space to your own awareness of what's happening. I think that's important.
861
00:55:56.391 --> 00:56:01.100
And to your siblings I wish I could continue this one because it's
862
00:56:01.310 --> 00:56:05.720
important, but we're apparently very only got about that much time.
863
00:56:07.140 --> 00:56:11.810
We just got to a very last question with the gentlemen, Dan. Yeah. Thank you.
864
00:56:12.230 --> 00:56:15.320
Microphone needed. She's coming. She's.
865
00:56:15.320 --> 00:56:20.060
Coming. Thank you for your patience. Yes,
866
00:56:20.210 --> 00:56:21.043
it's coming.
867
00:56:24.170 --> 00:56:25.003
You.
868
00:56:26.290 --> 00:56:29.080
Refer back to the previous question about
869
00:56:30.760 --> 00:56:34.900
cultural differences and the effects on resilience
870
00:56:35.831 --> 00:56:40.540
and in particular mentioned, was made of Northern Ireland.
871
00:56:41.710 --> 00:56:46.150
I want to emphasize I'm no the wrong green petty sector on the level of me.
872
00:56:47.890 --> 00:56:52.060
But I would find out that if you happen to believe in
873
00:56:52.061 --> 00:56:56.500
predestination and most proudest Sinclair will seem to have that
874
00:56:56.501 --> 00:57:01.150
orientation, then that might lead you to
875
00:57:03.720 --> 00:57:05.440
a state of warrior, the food,
876
00:57:05.530 --> 00:57:10.440
have a detrimental impact on your resilience and
877
00:57:10.540 --> 00:57:14.290
ability to cope. But if on the other hand,
878
00:57:14.291 --> 00:57:15.550
you believe that
879
00:57:17.320 --> 00:57:21.910
you can go to the confession and tell the of her drought or children doing.
880
00:57:21.911 --> 00:57:24.280
And as God's representative,
881
00:57:24.281 --> 00:57:28.780
he'll give you forgiveness so that when you walk off of that
882
00:57:28.990 --> 00:57:30.700
confessional, if you're dropped dead,
883
00:57:31.750 --> 00:57:35.440
then when you were alive at the family gets and pizza, we'll open the gate,
884
00:57:36.070 --> 00:57:38.110
invite you in and give you your rings.
885
00:57:38.950 --> 00:57:43.870
Of course it must have a positive effect on your resilience.
886
00:57:54.820 --> 00:57:55.653
[Inaudible].
887
00:57:57.090 --> 00:57:59.010
Yeah. And have you got any closing comments?
888
00:58:05.670 --> 00:58:08.070
I haven't a wonderful comment.
889
00:58:08.580 --> 00:58:10.560
I want to make a comment if that's okay.
890
00:58:10.561 --> 00:58:13.860
It relates all the way back to the gentleman that was sitting at the top,
891
00:58:13.890 --> 00:58:16.110
and it was the comment about management.
892
00:58:17.430 --> 00:58:19.470
And so I'd like to comment as a manager.
893
00:58:19.710 --> 00:58:22.800
I've been a manager for very long time now, but I won't tell you how many years.
894
00:58:22.980 --> 00:58:27.960
Cause I like to tell people I'm 29. So as a manager,
895
00:58:28.860 --> 00:58:33.090
for me, people who show any vulnerability for me,
896
00:58:33.091 --> 00:58:36.000
demonstrate that they have the ability to grow. And for me,
897
00:58:36.001 --> 00:58:40.590
that's incredibly important with my staff and my role is to support them in that
898
00:58:40.591 --> 00:58:44.220
and to coach them in that and the way that I do that and the way that I believe
899
00:58:44.221 --> 00:58:47.730
all managers should do that. We need to provide an environment for them.
900
00:58:47.910 --> 00:58:48.743
That's safe.
901
00:58:49.020 --> 00:58:52.290
And if you've got an environment where people can actually come forward and say
902
00:58:52.291 --> 00:58:53.310
something to you,
903
00:58:53.670 --> 00:58:57.780
and and it may not be that maybe the personal side
904
00:58:58.860 --> 00:59:00.360
but the, from the professional side,
905
00:59:00.361 --> 00:59:03.420
if there are vulnerabilities around Anne Anne gave the example of,
906
00:59:03.421 --> 00:59:06.300
she didn't have management skills in certain areas,
907
00:59:06.630 --> 00:59:09.220
they're the sort of things that I'd want to know about straight away. And I,
908
00:59:09.221 --> 00:59:12.060
and I always encourage staff to tell me those things,
909
00:59:12.450 --> 00:59:15.570
because I should be able to provide an environment for them. Number one,
910
00:59:15.810 --> 00:59:19.710
where I can help them to grow through coaching, through training,
911
00:59:19.711 --> 00:59:21.740
whatever they need, but importantly,
912
00:59:21.770 --> 00:59:25.730
to be able to take risks and know that I'll support them through that.
913
00:59:26.060 --> 00:59:28.490
That's my firm belief about what managers should do,
914
00:59:28.491 --> 00:59:30.830
and that's the difference between a manager and a leader.
915
00:59:31.130 --> 00:59:34.730
So I hope that helps to answer your question. Thank you.
916
00:59:36.160 --> 00:59:40.510
I have a story it's just on telling, sorry.
917
00:59:41.650 --> 00:59:45.070
It's it's about a son of a friend of mine.
918
00:59:45.370 --> 00:59:49.960
Who's a psychotherapist and this boy had very bad schizophrenia.
919
00:59:50.260 --> 00:59:53.470
He never talked to anyone. He used to walk with a beanie,
920
00:59:53.560 --> 00:59:57.580
pulled down over his face. And he lived in,
921
00:59:57.610 --> 00:59:58.810
he wouldn't stay at home.
922
00:59:58.811 --> 01:00:03.640
He lived in a boarding house and life was pretty grim for him.
923
01:00:03.670 --> 01:00:08.560
He, his conversation was very small one day or once a year,
924
01:00:08.561 --> 01:00:11.260
they used to have a review of patients.
925
01:00:11.350 --> 01:00:13.960
It should have been more my friend remarked,
926
01:00:14.260 --> 01:00:17.140
and they had a new young psychiatrist who said,
927
01:00:17.170 --> 01:00:20.560
who wanted to ask how these kids were getting on? And he said,
928
01:00:20.561 --> 01:00:24.940
how's Dave getting on. And the social worker said, well, you know,
929
01:00:24.941 --> 01:00:28.030
he won a blues. He just won a blues. And boy,
930
01:00:28.060 --> 01:00:31.030
he stinks and a real trouble with Dave.
931
01:00:31.030 --> 01:00:33.790
And and somebody else talked about how,
932
01:00:34.030 --> 01:00:37.210
how terrible other things that they did or didn't do.
933
01:00:37.540 --> 01:00:42.160
And this new young psychiatrist bang the desk and he said, stop it. He said,
934
01:00:42.161 --> 01:00:46.150
we all know what Dave can't do. Let's hear what he can do,
935
01:00:46.210 --> 01:00:49.870
what he likes to do. And, and my friend,
936
01:00:49.960 --> 01:00:54.430
the therapist said, well, we're all a musical family.
937
01:00:54.431 --> 01:00:58.500
And every now and then he he'll pick up an instrument and start to play,
938
01:00:58.520 --> 01:01:01.630
but he won't actually take it any further. He puts it down.
939
01:01:01.631 --> 01:01:05.050
If we come in and somebody else said social worker, well,
940
01:01:05.060 --> 01:01:10.000
he likes looking over the wall at the pottery school and
941
01:01:10.180 --> 01:01:13.480
give him some lessons, or he said, get him a music teacher,
942
01:01:13.690 --> 01:01:14.950
give him some lessons.
943
01:01:15.190 --> 01:01:19.690
And so suddenly the world opened up for Dave for this boy in quite an
944
01:01:19.691 --> 01:01:23.380
extraordinary way. I used to go over there about every six months.
945
01:01:23.380 --> 01:01:28.270
And the next time I went, this boy no longer had his beanie pulled down here.
946
01:01:28.570 --> 01:01:30.430
He'd he was making,
947
01:01:30.910 --> 01:01:34.720
cooking little statues at the pottery place and selling them.
948
01:01:34.960 --> 01:01:37.960
So with the money, he was able to buy his own things.
949
01:01:38.380 --> 01:01:41.320
And and he was playing his
950
01:01:43.660 --> 01:01:48.550
Valin in the university orchestra rather badly,
951
01:01:48.551 --> 01:01:49.870
but nobody minded.
952
01:01:50.170 --> 01:01:55.000
But the difference was that this kid had never had any hope
953
01:01:55.001 --> 01:01:57.640
in his life and never any joy.
954
01:01:57.700 --> 01:02:02.500
And I think joy is the thing we so often overlooked that people
955
01:02:02.501 --> 01:02:06.970
have to feel that there is hope that there is fun, that there is love.
956
01:02:07.480 --> 01:02:11.860
And suddenly this, this boy had had independence, you know,
957
01:02:11.861 --> 01:02:14.980
and he was earning money and he could play an instrument.
958
01:02:15.010 --> 01:02:18.870
And he still used his walk with the shuffle in his eyes don't cost,
959
01:02:18.871 --> 01:02:21.870
but you went and held out your hand. He agreed to,
960
01:02:21.960 --> 01:02:26.730
and it didn't cost really any money or very little money.
961
01:02:26.731 --> 01:02:28.800
And I think we often overlook that.
962
01:02:31.440 --> 01:02:33.360
There is a wonderful quote.
963
01:02:36.630 --> 01:02:38.310
No one's running out the door at the moment.
964
01:02:40.140 --> 01:02:41.700
It's about resilience.
965
01:02:41.940 --> 01:02:46.560
And it's from an American woman who did a lot of research on
966
01:02:46.590 --> 01:02:48.360
resilience. The scientist,
967
01:02:50.190 --> 01:02:54.840
it may not be that resilience is elusive, but that it's invisible.
968
01:02:56.250 --> 01:02:57.990
What if it's something you feel,
969
01:02:58.320 --> 01:03:02.850
but you can't describe what if resilience is something that happens,
970
01:03:03.240 --> 01:03:08.160
but you can't see what is resilience is something that creates music
971
01:03:08.490 --> 01:03:12.180
in a life born, deaf, whatever resilience is,
972
01:03:12.181 --> 01:03:16.650
something that warms you in your thoughts, but there's no language to share it,
973
01:03:16.890 --> 01:03:21.780
share it. And what if resilience is the poetry of life?
974
01:03:22.200 --> 01:03:25.170
And we are now just learning the alphabet.
975
01:03:27.060 --> 01:03:30.180
I think that's a wonderful piece of work.
976
01:03:33.530 --> 01:03:38.330
And I'd like to take this opportunity on behalf of Anglicare and all the lovely
977
01:03:38.331 --> 01:03:40.070
people that have turned up today to say,
978
01:03:40.100 --> 01:03:44.990
thank you so much for coming and providing us with all of your personal
979
01:03:44.991 --> 01:03:49.880
insights your learnings your experiences.
980
01:03:50.300 --> 01:03:53.570
It's been an absolute treat for, for me, especially,
981
01:03:53.571 --> 01:03:56.030
but I can see that everybody else has been enjoying it.
982
01:03:56.480 --> 01:03:58.190
I'm sorry that it only went for an hour.
983
01:03:58.370 --> 01:04:00.680
Cause I feel that it could have gone on for quite a bit longer.
984
01:04:01.070 --> 01:04:05.600
And from my perspective, as far as resilience goes,
985
01:04:05.601 --> 01:04:06.670
as you know, you know,
986
01:04:06.680 --> 01:04:10.190
where I work and that is one of the things that we tried to build on all the
987
01:04:10.191 --> 01:04:14.690
time and your last story, your last example was about all that we try to do,
988
01:04:14.691 --> 01:04:18.980
which is build on people's existing strengths to improve their resilience.
989
01:04:19.250 --> 01:04:21.950
So thank you very, very much. Okay.