Mental Wellness Mastery: Mental Health Expert Dr Monica Vermani On Everyday Life Hacks For Optimal Mental Wellness
An Interview With Eden Gold
It’s up to you to learn, grow, and live your best life: Go beyond yourself to learn and grow. Identify people who are doing and living the life you aspire to live, acquire their skills, learn from their modelled behaviors and strive to achieve your goals. Seek help, learn from all people and experiences in life and remember to pursue resources you may need to become the highest and best version of yourself.
In our modern, fast-paced society, mental wellness is a crucial aspect of leading a fulfilling life. However, for many people, achieving and maintaining good mental health can be a challenging task, with obstacles such as stress, anxiety, depression, and more. That’s why it’s essential to have practical and accessible strategies for mental wellness that can help build resilience, emotional intelligence, and overall well-being. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Monica Vermani, Clinical Psychologist.
One of Canada’s highest-rated clinical psychologists, Dr. Vermani believes that good mental health doesn’t just happen and that it deserves the same time, attention, understanding, and effort as our physical well-being.
Dr. Vermani specializes in the treatment of trauma, stress, mood, and anxiety disorders, and is also a highly sought-after speaker, author, and mental health advocate.
In 25 years of private practice, Dr. Vermani has treated thousands of patients through Supportive Psychotherapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), Breath-Body-Mind (BBM) practices, and Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)/Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR). She is the author of A Deeper Wellness and The PCMAD (Primary Care Mood and Anxiety Diagnoser): The Development of a Diagnostic Tool to Detect Social Anxiety Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and Depression. She is the founder of Start Living Corporate Wellness, which offers game-changing corporate wellness initiatives that address the underlying mental health issues that impact individuals and groups, with a dynamic suite of customizable training and support to help keep employees engaged, productive, happy, and whole.
Check out her website, www.drmonicavermani.com where you can register for her upcoming masterclass on self betterment by Conquering Negative Thinking!
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion about Mental Wellness Life Hacks, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
I was the first-born child of immigrant parents, who came to Canada as newlyweds. When I was quite young, my father suffered a serious, life-altering workplace injury along with PTSD. As a result of his injury, I became a caregiver to my father and helped my mother manage the tasks of running a household.
Becoming a caregiver at a young age developed an affinity, capacity, and ease in helping others. I came to enjoy working in environments where I was helping people in need.
It also inspired a desire to better understand human behavior and mental health. As a teen, I did a lot of volunteering. After high school, I enrolled at the University of Toronto and studied psychology, sociology, criminology, and women’s studies. Further studies lead to internships and job placements. In these workplace settings, mentors and colleagues encouraged me to continue my studies in the field of mental health and fostered in me a drive to complete my master’s and doctorate and become a clinical psychologist.
As my work experience, mentorships, and education began to align with my personality, my confidence grew. I challenged myself to work with extreme populations, as I believed that acquiring the skill sets to work with people with extremely challenging issues would be of great benefit to me as a clinician. This strategy worked in my favor, and over time, I attained highly reputable positions in correctional facilities, great hospitals and
healthcare institutions. With these work experiences, I became highly respected in the field of psychology. Eventually, I established a private practice and wrote a book that shares the same healing principles of therapy. In 2023, to reach a global audience, I gave a TEDX talk about dealing with negative thoughts and self-limiting beliefs. I continue my efforts to raise awareness about mental health and mental fitness through engaging with media outlets around the world and appearing as a keynote speaker in the field of mental health, and, through my corporate wellness company, working with organizations of all shapes as sizes to help keep employees engaged, healthy, and whole.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
Early in my career, I learned a valuable lesson in the first couple of places I worked. In some of the places I have worked, clinicians do not always have the privilege of longevity of working with someone for long, so you are not always able to witness a patient or a client that you work with progress ahead, implementing strategies taught and see them enter into a better phase in their life from the work you do together.
A full year after leaving a position as a crisis worker, I was honored to receive an acknowledgement and appreciation letter from a client. I had seen this particular client multiple times, helping her leave an abusive relationship, and empowering her to leave and choose a better life for her and her children. She was afraid and apprehensive and struggled with her desire to change and couldn’t conquer her fears of the unknown. While working with her, I often questioned whether there was anything else I could do that would help her feel empowered enough to walk away from her abuser and be safe.
Six months after I had left that position, I received a phone call from my former supervisor, who told me that this former client had left a letter for me. In the letter, she described to me a day when she had gone through a horrible argument and fight with her husband. That night, as she cried herself to sleep, she imagined sitting in a session with me, and visualized exactly what I would say to her… including the steps I would give her to regain her power and walk away when she felt ready. She had written this letter four months after she had left her abuser and was in a safe home with her children. She was happy and feeling empowered to move forward and create a safe and happy life for herself and her children. She was proud of herself and acknowledged her growth from our time together.
This taught me a valuable lesson early in my career … that it is my job as a therapist to show up with the intention to help, guide, educate, heal and simply provide the best I can with what I know. How and when a client responds and whether they make changes right away, or at a later date is not something that I can control. My job is to provide them with a safe space, and offer compassion, knowledge, and provide them with the best services I can for what they need to feel supported to shift and change. When and if they act is not for me to judge. It is for me to just trust that whenever we work together with a pure intention to shift, help treat and heal, my client is receiving information, learning, and retaining information even if they are not acting immediately. When the timing is right for them, they will begin to shift and create the changes they need to, at their pace and comfort level they feel is right, and everything we have worked on in sessions will materialize. I learned to let go of expectations and judgments, and I simply since then show up with pure, full intention to help and heal through psychoeducation and skill building.
You are a successful individual. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I am hard-working: I was inspired by my mother’s work ethic. She taught me that it is my responsibility to learn, grow, and realize my potential. She taught me that hard work always pays off and it has for me!
I am determined: My determination earned me the respect and support of phenomenal mentors at great institutions. My determination garnered the attention of these wonderful people, who saw potential in me… and there is great power in being seen and understood, especially by remarkable people. Their belief in my potential inspired me to set goals for myself I never would have imagined.
I believe in compassion in action: My compassionate nature, in concert with my education, experience, and personal history as a caregiver from a young age, enables me to connect with and tailor my sessions to the unique needs of my clients.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview about mental wellness mastery. What is one often-overlooked daily habit that can significantly improve one’s mental wellness?
There is no substitute for self-awareness! Taking time throughout every day to pause, reflect, and check in with our feelings builds an awareness of our triggers and our symptoms. With this self-awareness, we begin to understand the source and the purpose of symptoms, how our physical, cognitive, and behavioral symptoms connect, play out, and reflect what needs to shift and change in our lives.
How do you recommend individuals recalibrate their mental wellness after experiencing a significant setback or failure?
It is important that we go beyond ourselves and seek knowledge, strategies, resources, and support. We do the best we can with what we have, but there are times when we need help and support to learn and grow. We may be on a journey in life, but we do not walk alone! It is important to make sound and compassionate choices and take action to live our most authentic and best life.
It is important to have compassion for ourselves and realize that setbacks happen, that we can move forward and learn from our experiences, and that setbacks and other experiences we judge as negative propel us to change. It is important that we take charge of the energy in our space, and that we learn from people who can help us shift and change.
In your experience, what is a common misconception about mental health that hinders people from seeking help or improving their wellness?
Often, people perceive those who seek help as weak. Despite decades of mental health professionals and advocates working to change this misconception, stigma around mental health persists. I can tell you from years of experience, that people who seek help for their mental health and well-being are brave, wise, and resourceful, and the benefits of timely mental health interventions last a lifetime.
Can you share a transformative moment or client story that highlights the power of a specific mental wellness strategy?
I realized working with so many patients that my job is to hold somebody with compassion and knowledge and encourage them to live in their highest and best version of themselves by equipping them with tools and skills and the knowledge/psychoeducation to be better and strive to want better for themselves.
My patients have taught me that it is my job to show up authentically, and genuinely believe in them and help them with pure intentions and without judgment. When a patient is ready to shift and make meaningful changes in their life, they will. My biggest learning is people shift in their time, not in my time or in the time that I teach them the skills. I have learned this lesson time and time again with patients who are in abusive toxic relationships with people or workplaces. When a client is ready to change, they will.
Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Everyday Life Hacks For Optimal Mental Wellness?”
To give from ones overflow and not from your well: This self-care mantra helps manage stress by understanding and taking care of basic needs. Your ‘well’ contains your resources of time, energy, and attention and your material and intangible assets …everything you have put in place and require to care for your personal and professional needs and responsibilities. These resources are finite, and your well can run dry if you do not tend to and care for it. Your ‘overflow’ is simply the time, energy, and attention you have left to give after you have taken care of your life tasks and responsibilities. When your well of time, energy, and attention is overflowing, it’s great to lend a helping hand. Take care of yourself before extending yourself to take care of others.
Stress, by the way, is when your activity level surpasses your energy levels. Activity encompasses physical as well as psychological or mental. You want to bridge the gap between your activity levels and your energy levels … that is done by maximizing your four sources of energy: the nutritious food you eat, regular quality sleep, healthy exercise and proper breath, and maintaining a calm state of mind by dealing and addressing problems that we avoid, deny or ignore.
It’s up to you to learn, grow, and live your best life: Go beyond yourself to learn and grow. Identify people who are doing and living the life you aspire to live, acquire their skills, learn from their modelled behaviors and strive to achieve your goals. Seek help, learn from all people and experiences in life and remember to pursue resources you may need to become the highest and best version of yourself.
Challenge negative thoughts, narratives and self-limiting beliefs: Think about it! Your thoughts are powerful things. Everything ever created, started with a thought! So realize, that good or bad, all thoughts shape your lives. Take the time to challenge the negative thoughts and self-limiting beliefs that hold you back from living the life you want and deserve. Challenge, rewrite and replace thoughts and beliefs that are no longer accurate and do not support you, with more accurate, adaptive, and life-affirming thoughts.
Factor yourself into the equation of your life: Challenging yourself to let go of people pleasing and putting the needs of others ahead of your own. Stop sacrificing your time, energy, love, self-esteem, and worthiness for others. Prioritize self-care and self-love, and do something every and every day that brings you joy. Remember that you are a VIP.. a very important person in your life!
Work on yourself: We are at once perfect and a work in progress. Our inner world creates our outer world, and Working on your inner self and striving to be the highest and best version of yourself creates a ripple effect in the world around you. When you are in pain, you spill over onto others with your symptoms and maladaptive behaviours. And when you work on yourself and you are in a place of health, there is also a healthy ripple effect towards how you treat, influence and care/motivate others around you.
What role does technology play in mental wellness today, and how can individuals leverage it positively without exacerbating mental health issues?
Technology has allowed people to obtain treatment from the comfort of their own home, and eliminate stressful and time-consuming commutes. Technology provides access to self-help sessions and master classes wherever and whenever it is convenient for them. Technology also allows us access to information from specialties and specialists around the world.
Technology has enabled therapists to bring together and work with family members in various locations on screen. Furthermore, apps and videos deliver mental health support, provide healthy reminders to stay on track and enhance ones knowledge and information wherever and whenever we are ready to work on ourselves.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
If I could start a movement I would try to shift people’s attention from working on being only physically fit, to include mental fitness. Mental fitness is about being present, pause and reflecting, working on cleaning up our negative thoughts and self-limiting beliefs, and prioritizing quality self-care, compassion and self-love, by factoring yourself into the equation of your life!
How can our readers further follow you online?
You can reach me on my website www.drmonicavermani.com, as well as on social media links below:
TedXTalk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpEyP2KfZT4
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drmonicavermani
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoctorMonicaVermani
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mvermani/
Website: https://www.drmonicavermani.com/
Book site: https://www.book.adeeperwellness.com/
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About The Interviewer: Eden Gold, is a youth speaker, keynote speaker, founder of the online program Life After High School, and host of the Real Life Adulting Podcast. Being America’s rising force for positive change, Eden is a catalyst for change in shaping the future of education. With a lifelong mission of impacting the lives of 1 billion young adults, Eden serves as a practical guide, aiding young adults in honing their self-confidence, challenging societal conventions, and crafting a strategic roadmap towards the fulfilling lives they envision.
Do you need a dynamic speaker, or want to learn more about Eden’s programs? Click here: https://bit.ly/EdenGold.
