00:00:00
Speaker 1: As I mentioned earlier, our crisis support hotline Lifeline, has experienced its busiest day of the year in the wake of the Bondai shooting, with experts warning the psychological impact of traumatic events do not end when the ambulance and police sirens stop. Lifeline said the twenty four hour period between midnight on Sunday and Monday have been the busiest day of twenty twenty five, with more than four three hundred calls for support across its phone and digital crisis support services. The people of Australia are hurting, and they're hurting badly. And I thought it'd be a very good idea and perative in fact, to get somebody who's a psychology expert on the program to talk about ways and means in which each and every one of us can learn to cope and to deal, to learn to process with the horrific events that the whole world has now seen that happened at Bondai Beach on Sunday night. And Mitch Wallace is a psychology thought leader. Mitch, welcome to the program.
00:01:05
Speaker 2: Andrew, it's a pleasure to be here.
00:01:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mitch, you actually live in Bondai.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: I understand I'm calling from Bondai as we speak, and I was there at the time of the event.
00:01:17
Speaker 1: How how did you deal with it? What did you witness? What was your thoughts, emotions As somebody who comes from a place of being a trained psychologist.
00:01:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's quite an interesting position to find yourself in. And as I was having a beer with some friends on Sunday afternoon and I caught someone's face looking outside, something in my stomach just pinged and said, you know that kind of sickening feeling that your bidy sensors go, hmm, he's not right here. And I looked outside and just saw a heard of people running up Hall Street, which is the main street there, and people were yelling shots fired, shots fired. I then went back inside and said to my friends, I think has been a shooting, which of course was met with disbelief. And then over the next couple of minutes, you're kind of fighting a surreal dream like state with also needing to be you know, executive functioning online and make some decisions for your own safety.
00:02:17
Speaker 1: So what did you do, What was your reaction your actions to what was happening.
00:02:22
Speaker 2: Well, very quickly, within the first few minutes, we could ascertain from then multiple sources saying the words shot fired that this was in fact happening. And then we had a quick discussion around the table what should we do. Should we stay inside the pub that we're in, or should we go out the street and run, And we decided that it was safer for us to stay inside the bar and to get low and take cover, and so we did that.
00:02:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, very wise, very wise, being in that particular situation, it would have been horrific. And it's just incomprehensible and as you've been through something like that to truly understand what it would feel like, the range of emotions that you'd be going through, and the thoughts that you would be having as well, and so.
00:03:11
Speaker 2: Far removed from what we would expect from anything like Australia or Bondai Beach. You know, it's coming at a surprise. Is not even coming close to describing how foreign it is to experience that from you know, this beautiful country that we get to live in.
00:03:29
Speaker 1: It would have been real. I'm just picturing I've only been to Bondai a couple of times, but I'm just picturing a beautiful sunny day, thousands of people are down at Bondai Beach, enjoying the beautiful weather, having fun, laughing. When it comes to the Jewish community, they were there for a special festival, the Festival of Light. There was you know, goodwill all around. We're heading up to Christmas. It's a time of joy, and then this horrific thing happens. It would have been, like I say, absolutely surreal and would have jolted everybody there, no doubt about that.
00:04:04
Speaker 2: Well.
00:04:05
Speaker 1: I mentioned Lifeline has received more than four thousand and three hundred calls over a twenty four hour period. You as a psychologist, what's your experiences when it comes to dealing with the people who have been affected, either by being there at Bondai Beach on Sunday evening or just being in the vicinity or just in gital terms, around the around the whole suburb of Bondai and elsewhere around Sydney.
00:04:30
Speaker 2: I think the best way to describe it, Andrew is our sense of safety has been rocked. And I don't just mean physical safety. I mean psychological and emotional safety. And when that happens, when something is so threatening to you know, the security of your own well being and your family's well being, it kind of rattles different parts of your nervous system around, and it takes some time to be able to process that, makes sense of it and put it in a part of your your brain and your understanding that it can sit there peacefully. But you know, before that happens, it is a tense process of accepting me unacceptable that you know, we are not able to control life, and there is uncertainty, and the fallout after this, I think for most people is well, how do I what do I hold on to? Now? You know, we've come off the back of COVID. Multiple year ambiguity was rampant, where people already felt like they weren't in control of their destiny. We're plagued by you know, macroeconomic, macro political factors at the moment that's causing even more instability. And then when it hits your front door, it's like your brain finally realizes this. This affects me in all areas, and I don't know when I'm going to feel like I'm back in the driver's seat. And I think, you know, for the ego, ego from a scientific standpoint, it doesn't do well when it doesn't feel like, you know, it's in the driver's seat, and so a lot of us, I think, are looking for ways in which we can get that autonomy back and you know, bring some empowerment back into our own narratives.
00:06:10
Speaker 1: It's not just the lack of control, Mitch, though. It's the fact that horrific events happened on Sunday evening. People were shot, innocent men, women and children, old men, a young girl ten years old, Matilda killed. And it's not just having control, it's knowing that such atrocities have been committed on our shores as well.
00:06:37
Speaker 2: And I think what you're pointing to rightfully, so Andrew, is an existential dilemma that we're facing it as well now, which is, you know, how can humans be like this? And how can we let this happen? And has the system failed us? And you know, it kind of speaks to the control narrative in that if we don't have a good answer, then you know, we start to feel really uneasy and even more unsafe, which is why aren't we protected in a country like this where we are supposed to feel as safe as as humanly possible. And you know, I would feel remiss if I didn't or my heart out to the Jewish community during this interview and just say that my thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected.
00:07:17
Speaker 1: And I am in agreeance with you, and I think the majority of Australians are too, and I think the world in fact is there's no doubt about that. Mitch. Parents the young children, I mean the events of Sunday night, and I call them the events, the horrific events that ch happened on Sunday night. The Big Bash was on and the televisions were showing that. So there would have been children watching the Big Bash, loving their cricket. There's good Australians and then witnessing these horrific events. What do parents say to their children when their children get emotional, they start crying, they you know, draw into themselves. What did they do? What's the best advice you can give parents and grandparents for for their children, grandchildren, Because it's one thing an adult dealing with this, and I know adults included myself. I've been very moved by it myself, and I'm sixty one years old. But you think I've got life experience and I had. It's not the first time I've seen and heard and dealt with things whether it be in the media or through life. But for young children, this is the first taste of some of the horrors that are out there in this world.
00:08:32
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and it's a very tough position for parents to be in right now in a coaching moment, particularly for younger children, to try and explain the unexplainable. And I think the reframe that I'll give on what you said is, instead of what comparents tell their children, it's how comparents listen to their children first and foremost, which is, instead of trying to control their narrative and tell them what to think, assure them, brush over it, ignore the fear, it's actually inviting that in which is you know, something you know, really big and really bad just happened. What do you understand about that? How does that make you feel? What are your thoughts? What are your fears? Because it's not until we actually learn to understand our children, give them a voice to be able to communicate that that then we have something to work with because a they then feel like they can bring those things to you, which increases the bond they have with their parent and therefore their ability to become resilient. But also it's not until you're working with truth that you can actually reassure them, and so, you know, as painful as it is, parents need to be patient and invite the child's conversation in before telling them what to think and believe.
00:09:54
Speaker 1: That's an interesting point you make, because the children quite often a're looking for for answers from their parents.
00:10:01
Speaker 2: From I think we're led to believe that, Andrea think we're led to believe that parents lead through telling, when actually parents lead by guiding, and parents need to invite a child in to participate before they can guide them somewhere. And that's probably the biggest mistake I see is someone that does this for a living. I've written a book called Real Conversations. I've traveled to four continents and taught tens of thousands of people. The number one mistake the business leaders and parents and partners make is trying to jump straight to solutions when connection is formed through a shared sense of understanding before you move anywhere.
00:10:39
Speaker 1: We talked about the victims, the feelings of the victims. We don't want to say victims. I'm talking about the other people who not only were part of it, who were shot, who were injured, the people who are around who fled the scene at the time. But we're talking about that. The victims, the people who are now very traumatized by what they've seen. We've talked about that, and you've given some good advice, and I thank you for that, Mitche, But what about the people who are outraged, angry and want retribution. What advice do you give to them?
00:11:12
Speaker 2: As a psychologist, it's very natural off the back of grief to feel anger, and I think that anger in the for the most part, is unprocessed sadness. And so you know, the biggest piece of advice I can give is learn to feel into that sadness and find out what's underneath there. And it's probably a belief system that this is unfair. So we're in an unfairness conversation before and more then we're in a retribution conversation. And I think that you know after what comes after one can find a sense of calm and a sense of understanding around exactly why we're feeling the way that we are, we can take more logical and reasonable action, because what is Australian is to be reasonable, and I think that any extreme rotation right now is going to further divide us when what we need more than ever is connection.
00:12:16
Speaker 1: Mitch, as a psychologist, you're also a human being. What are you going to do to deal with the fact that you were very close to what happened on Sunday night.
00:12:28
Speaker 2: One of the best ways I've found to cope with the things that I've experienced in life, whether that's dealing with acute mental illness or going through a trauma like we witnessed on Sunday, is to go to my nearest and dearest, to feel understood, to feel loved, and even though we can't take the problem away, I know that I'm not alone in it, and that in and of itself is medicine. So I'm going to continue to walk that walk, and alongside that being service to other people. I feel like if I can be a good human being, pay it forward and live a life of meaning and purpose by doing my small little bit, then it ultimately helps me in the process.
00:13:11
Speaker 1: I think that's a good example to each and every one of us. Mitch, thank you very much for coming on the program and having a chat with us, and I hope our conversation has helped somebody to go and find the answers they're looking for and deal with what they are dealing with as an individual, but also as part of a larger group of people too. Mitch, thank you, Thank you, Andrew, good on you. Mitch Wallace, psychology thought leader who is in Bondi and as you heard, he was not too far from the scene of the the terrible terrorist attack that happened on Sunday evening.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned earlier, our crisis support hotline Lifeline, has experienced its busiest day of the year in the wake of the Bondai shooting, with experts warning the psychological impact of traumatic events do not end when the ambulance and police sirens stop. Lifeline said the twenty four hour period between midnight on Sunday and Monday have been the busiest day of twenty twenty five, with more than four three hundred calls for support across its phone and digital crisis support services. The people of Australia are hurting, and they're hurting badly. And I thought it'd be a very good idea and perative in fact, to get somebody who's a psychology expert on the program to talk about ways and means in which each and every one of us can learn to cope and to deal, to learn to process with the horrific events that the whole world has now seen that happened at Bondai Beach on Sunday night. And Mitch Wallace is a psychology thought leader. Mitch, welcome to the program.
00:01:05
Speaker 2: Andrew, it's a pleasure to be here.
00:01:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mitch, you actually live in Bondai.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: I understand I'm calling from Bondai as we speak, and I was there at the time of the event.
00:01:17
Speaker 1: How how did you deal with it? What did you witness? What was your thoughts, emotions As somebody who comes from a place of being a trained psychologist.
00:01:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's quite an interesting position to find yourself in. And as I was having a beer with some friends on Sunday afternoon and I caught someone's face looking outside, something in my stomach just pinged and said, you know that kind of sickening feeling that your bidy sensors go, hmm, he's not right here. And I looked outside and just saw a heard of people running up Hall Street, which is the main street there, and people were yelling shots fired, shots fired. I then went back inside and said to my friends, I think has been a shooting, which of course was met with disbelief. And then over the next couple of minutes, you're kind of fighting a surreal dream like state with also needing to be you know, executive functioning online and make some decisions for your own safety.
00:02:17
Speaker 1: So what did you do, What was your reaction your actions to what was happening.
00:02:22
Speaker 2: Well, very quickly, within the first few minutes, we could ascertain from then multiple sources saying the words shot fired that this was in fact happening. And then we had a quick discussion around the table what should we do. Should we stay inside the pub that we're in, or should we go out the street and run, And we decided that it was safer for us to stay inside the bar and to get low and take cover, and so we did that.
00:02:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, very wise, very wise, being in that particular situation, it would have been horrific. And it's just incomprehensible and as you've been through something like that to truly understand what it would feel like, the range of emotions that you'd be going through, and the thoughts that you would be having as well, and so.
00:03:11
Speaker 2: Far removed from what we would expect from anything like Australia or Bondai Beach. You know, it's coming at a surprise. Is not even coming close to describing how foreign it is to experience that from you know, this beautiful country that we get to live in.
00:03:29
Speaker 1: It would have been real. I'm just picturing I've only been to Bondai a couple of times, but I'm just picturing a beautiful sunny day, thousands of people are down at Bondai Beach, enjoying the beautiful weather, having fun, laughing. When it comes to the Jewish community, they were there for a special festival, the Festival of Light. There was you know, goodwill all around. We're heading up to Christmas. It's a time of joy, and then this horrific thing happens. It would have been, like I say, absolutely surreal and would have jolted everybody there, no doubt about that.
00:04:04
Speaker 2: Well.
00:04:05
Speaker 1: I mentioned Lifeline has received more than four thousand and three hundred calls over a twenty four hour period. You as a psychologist, what's your experiences when it comes to dealing with the people who have been affected, either by being there at Bondai Beach on Sunday evening or just being in the vicinity or just in gital terms, around the around the whole suburb of Bondai and elsewhere around Sydney.
00:04:30
Speaker 2: I think the best way to describe it, Andrew is our sense of safety has been rocked. And I don't just mean physical safety. I mean psychological and emotional safety. And when that happens, when something is so threatening to you know, the security of your own well being and your family's well being, it kind of rattles different parts of your nervous system around, and it takes some time to be able to process that, makes sense of it and put it in a part of your your brain and your understanding that it can sit there peacefully. But you know, before that happens, it is a tense process of accepting me unacceptable that you know, we are not able to control life, and there is uncertainty, and the fallout after this, I think for most people is well, how do I what do I hold on to? Now? You know, we've come off the back of COVID. Multiple year ambiguity was rampant, where people already felt like they weren't in control of their destiny. We're plagued by you know, macroeconomic, macro political factors at the moment that's causing even more instability. And then when it hits your front door, it's like your brain finally realizes this. This affects me in all areas, and I don't know when I'm going to feel like I'm back in the driver's seat. And I think, you know, for the ego, ego from a scientific standpoint, it doesn't do well when it doesn't feel like, you know, it's in the driver's seat, and so a lot of us, I think, are looking for ways in which we can get that autonomy back and you know, bring some empowerment back into our own narratives.
00:06:10
Speaker 1: It's not just the lack of control, Mitch, though. It's the fact that horrific events happened on Sunday evening. People were shot, innocent men, women and children, old men, a young girl ten years old, Matilda killed. And it's not just having control, it's knowing that such atrocities have been committed on our shores as well.
00:06:37
Speaker 2: And I think what you're pointing to rightfully, so Andrew, is an existential dilemma that we're facing it as well now, which is, you know, how can humans be like this? And how can we let this happen? And has the system failed us? And you know, it kind of speaks to the control narrative in that if we don't have a good answer, then you know, we start to feel really uneasy and even more unsafe, which is why aren't we protected in a country like this where we are supposed to feel as safe as as humanly possible. And you know, I would feel remiss if I didn't or my heart out to the Jewish community during this interview and just say that my thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected.
00:07:17
Speaker 1: And I am in agreeance with you, and I think the majority of Australians are too, and I think the world in fact is there's no doubt about that. Mitch. Parents the young children, I mean the events of Sunday night, and I call them the events, the horrific events that ch happened on Sunday night. The Big Bash was on and the televisions were showing that. So there would have been children watching the Big Bash, loving their cricket. There's good Australians and then witnessing these horrific events. What do parents say to their children when their children get emotional, they start crying, they you know, draw into themselves. What did they do? What's the best advice you can give parents and grandparents for for their children, grandchildren, Because it's one thing an adult dealing with this, and I know adults included myself. I've been very moved by it myself, and I'm sixty one years old. But you think I've got life experience and I had. It's not the first time I've seen and heard and dealt with things whether it be in the media or through life. But for young children, this is the first taste of some of the horrors that are out there in this world.
00:08:32
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and it's a very tough position for parents to be in right now in a coaching moment, particularly for younger children, to try and explain the unexplainable. And I think the reframe that I'll give on what you said is, instead of what comparents tell their children, it's how comparents listen to their children first and foremost, which is, instead of trying to control their narrative and tell them what to think, assure them, brush over it, ignore the fear, it's actually inviting that in which is you know, something you know, really big and really bad just happened. What do you understand about that? How does that make you feel? What are your thoughts? What are your fears? Because it's not until we actually learn to understand our children, give them a voice to be able to communicate that that then we have something to work with because a they then feel like they can bring those things to you, which increases the bond they have with their parent and therefore their ability to become resilient. But also it's not until you're working with truth that you can actually reassure them, and so, you know, as painful as it is, parents need to be patient and invite the child's conversation in before telling them what to think and believe.
00:09:54
Speaker 1: That's an interesting point you make, because the children quite often a're looking for for answers from their parents.
00:10:01
Speaker 2: From I think we're led to believe that, Andrea think we're led to believe that parents lead through telling, when actually parents lead by guiding, and parents need to invite a child in to participate before they can guide them somewhere. And that's probably the biggest mistake I see is someone that does this for a living. I've written a book called Real Conversations. I've traveled to four continents and taught tens of thousands of people. The number one mistake the business leaders and parents and partners make is trying to jump straight to solutions when connection is formed through a shared sense of understanding before you move anywhere.
00:10:39
Speaker 1: We talked about the victims, the feelings of the victims. We don't want to say victims. I'm talking about the other people who not only were part of it, who were shot, who were injured, the people who are around who fled the scene at the time. But we're talking about that. The victims, the people who are now very traumatized by what they've seen. We've talked about that, and you've given some good advice, and I thank you for that, Mitche, But what about the people who are outraged, angry and want retribution. What advice do you give to them?
00:11:12
Speaker 2: As a psychologist, it's very natural off the back of grief to feel anger, and I think that anger in the for the most part, is unprocessed sadness. And so you know, the biggest piece of advice I can give is learn to feel into that sadness and find out what's underneath there. And it's probably a belief system that this is unfair. So we're in an unfairness conversation before and more then we're in a retribution conversation. And I think that you know after what comes after one can find a sense of calm and a sense of understanding around exactly why we're feeling the way that we are, we can take more logical and reasonable action, because what is Australian is to be reasonable, and I think that any extreme rotation right now is going to further divide us when what we need more than ever is connection.
00:12:16
Speaker 1: Mitch, as a psychologist, you're also a human being. What are you going to do to deal with the fact that you were very close to what happened on Sunday night.
00:12:28
Speaker 2: One of the best ways I've found to cope with the things that I've experienced in life, whether that's dealing with acute mental illness or going through a trauma like we witnessed on Sunday, is to go to my nearest and dearest, to feel understood, to feel loved, and even though we can't take the problem away, I know that I'm not alone in it, and that in and of itself is medicine. So I'm going to continue to walk that walk, and alongside that being service to other people. I feel like if I can be a good human being, pay it forward and live a life of meaning and purpose by doing my small little bit, then it ultimately helps me in the process.
00:13:11
Speaker 1: I think that's a good example to each and every one of us. Mitch, thank you very much for coming on the program and having a chat with us, and I hope our conversation has helped somebody to go and find the answers they're looking for and deal with what they are dealing with as an individual, but also as part of a larger group of people too. Mitch, thank you, Thank you, Andrew, good on you. Mitch Wallace, psychology thought leader who is in Bondi and as you heard, he was not too far from the scene of the the terrible terrorist attack that happened on Sunday evening.
