00:00.05 iandawsonmackay yeah go 00:00.98 Ermina thank 00:01.08 iandawsonmackay ah 00:01.45 Ermina yeah 00:20.11 Ermina like 00:23.90 Ermina Okay, sorry. I've been in sessions all day long, so. 00:29.74 iandawsonmackay to deal with people and then jump on and speak to another problem. 00:33.96 Ermina No, it's sort of like, as in myself, like an engineer, you know, we're solution focused. 00:39.61 iandawsonmackay ah like I like that. i like that for Well, thank you so much for coming on. I know you're extremely busy and you're changing lives, but for people who maybe don't recognize your name, how would you give the synopsis of who who you are as a person and what you do and how you're helping so many people? 00:58.00 Ermina Right. Well, the way to really describe what I do is I'm right now a certified cognitive behavioral hypnotherapist. I have a degree in psychology, but I um i have always been interested in human behavior. 01:18.67 Ermina um as a child I was a war refugee and that really sort of sparked my interest in human behaviour in how people you know can deal with challenges and trauma and still come on top and some really crumble and I was always interested in in um understanding and what how people ah differ from each other in that sense and what can you do can people learn can they unlearn so yeah so that led me down the path to study psychology as I said which I found very interesting and 01:56.19 Ermina I really loved it, but I didn't find it solution focused. It was sort of analysis, like psychotherapy. I really enjoyed analyzing what the issue might be, but it was the most solution to help my um to help people get out of that sort of difficult situation, ah change their life. 02:04.09 iandawsonmackay Hmm. 02:18.30 Ermina Just sort of like, we understand why you're here. And that sort of stopped. Then I took a break from psychology. I worked in marketing for a while. And I faced some personal matters myself that made me go, well, I want to improve myself. And I went to study further. And that's when I did cognitive behavioral therapy and hypnotherapy, which completely helped me. um So, yeah, we're sitting here now ah speaking. And that's that's what I you know do and try to help individuals create real change in their life. 02:54.53 iandawsonmackay I love it because I've used cognitive behavior therapy myself and aboutba lp and I've seen such a benefit from it. But I also found during talk therapy sometimes you keep the problem alive. Like you're saying, it's not a solution. It's discuss it, but it's not always how to fix it. 03:13.86 iandawsonmackay And a lot of times men in particular need you know very concrete action steps. I mean, you you talk there about your time as a refugee. how Do you think that gave you that resilience to kind of resolve it? What would you say to somebody who's a loss of identity or a loss of focus, you know going through something similar? um how how would you What piece of advice would you wish you had then? And how do you do you think it's made you a better, 03:41.56 iandawsonmackay like cater for people because you can see and understand from a deeper level than the the standard healing modalities we offer. 03:51.28 Ermina um Right so just to go back to your to the statement about you know talking therapy is great but it's not solution focused which is true however trauma is released through talking so it helps the body and the mind release the trauma just like certain activities like certain sport can help you with that as well like yoga. 04:10.39 iandawsonmackay Okay. 04:13.43 Ermina um But that doesn't mean, you know, how to change your life, what what are the next steps, how to ah stop the, you know, a vicious cycle or behaviour that's really unhelpful. um So yeah, I think in all therapy, talking therapy is really important, but um if that's all you can offer, um it can be limited. 04:35.57 Ermina depending on the therapist, obviously or the or the individual, maybe they just want to be heard or somebody to be a witness to their story, ah to be seen. This is sometimes the first time somebody actually feels seen because they've never had somebody sit there and allocate an hour to them and listen to them and really listen to them and see them. 04:57.84 Ermina um So that's one part. um The other part about my background and how much that's influenced my work and how I work, I think the curiosity started there. And it's interesting because like when when we study psychology, a lot of the teachers say but ah individuals start studying psychology because they want to help themselves first. The curiosity comes from there. 05:25.95 Ermina So my my experiences made me really curious about different personality um traits and profiles. um And because I was such a young person, I was only 10 years old when I was exposed to war and then being a refugee. um I was still developing and not understanding the cost concept and I was just sort of understanding that is good and there's bad. Sort of like black and white thinking which is really approached and looked at in cognitive behavioral therapy, how we think makes a difference. um But I think my experiences maybe give me ah gave me the the initial initial ah curiosity, 06:11.79 Ermina but i um I don't know. I think that different modalities help with different objectives. And I believe my my view is that our thoughts really drive our life. Our narratives can really create a difference in how we feel and how we live our lives. And then um what I use a lot with my clients is ah mental imagery and visualization because it has the same effect visualizing something as doing it physically. So the same parts of the body, ah the brain get 06:48.69 Ermina lit up as if you were doing a physical thing. um I don't know if I'm answering your question to be honest. 06:55.61 iandawsonmackay No, mean I mean, I really like that because I found I needed to incorporate some sort of physicality into the treatment, you know, by just discussing it. 07:03.93 Ermina but 07:07.16 iandawsonmackay I was dealing with it to an extent I wasn't kind of moving on from or expelling the energy. But I think that was maybe just maybe my approach to it that Like you were saying, it was the first time I felt like I'd actually been listened to by somebody. 07:22.22 iandawsonmackay Like they were actually there to listen to me rather than feeling like the black sheep of the family and never really fitting in or knowing my place. 07:24.67 Ermina And. 07:30.76 iandawsonmackay And I think that sometimes is a lot for a lot of guys. It's like you're saying, it's just getting somebody to go, No, this is about you. We're not talking about the kids. We're not talking about the partner. We're actually going to listen to your, you know. Do you find there's a similarity in the things that guys come to you that if you remove the emotion, if you remove the personalization, that there's some similar traits they come to see you about? Is it like lack of purpose, not feeling like they're a good father, that sort of thing? Is there general areas you see people about? 08:04.70 Ermina it's It's a really good question because um mostly it's it's women who come to therapy. I happen to be lucky and I have a really good balance between female and male um individuals that I see. And with men, I also deal with a very specific group of men and these are very, they're high achievers, so highly strong. And a lot of them come to me for different things. ah Well, sorry, a lot of them come to me for like, 08:33.50 Ermina ah Two main reasons, one of them is like a burnout. They have just gone, they've just, you know, put everything into their work and they just burned out, to have nothing left. So they start questioning like, well, what's the point? What am I doing? um The other part is that interpersonal relationships break down. 09:00.32 Ermina because they are not ah used to communicating, talking. They're sort of just doing, they have goals that were set for them um by society or by their family. 09:14.25 Ermina And that's, it's sort of like, this is my goal and this is what I'm gonna achieve and that that's it. 09:15.50 iandawsonmackay Yep. 09:20.75 Ermina So there's no time to stop, think and reflect. and eventually things come to a stop it's either like a your body says I can't do this anymore so there's like a you know fatigue or illnesses or it's the world around you falls apart your relationships they just crumble and you can jump from one relationship to another and I'm talking not just talking about romantic relationships I'm talking about um you know, ah friendships, even family. um But eventually you come to a point where you're like, I can't continue like this. So men tend to be forced into therapy. They realize this can't continue. Whereas I feel like with females, um I had had a really amazing client come to me and she said to me, 10:11.65 Ermina I've decided to do therapy because everything's good in my life and I'm like right this is very refreshing so yeah because now I can do the deep work before when things are not good in your life that's when most people think of going and doing therapy because you're putting out fires right you know my job is really bad or my relationship is really bad or my confidence is really bad but when things are good that's when you can go and work on deeper levels sort of to elevate yourself to become you know it's like the best version of yourself or better version because when we're putting out fires we don't have time to really go hmm why did I do that or my you know this pattern of behavior that right now I think I want to change 10:58.53 iandawsonmackay Because it it makes a lot of sense because when you think about it, it's like the only time I actually asked for help or went to the doctor was when I was at the wits end or if I was broken or I was just thinking that you could be speaking about me there, you know, like 11:12.69 Ermina and 11:17.42 iandawsonmackay that I know French girls who've gone because they want to make sure their next relationship is better or they want to continue feeling as good as they are. Where a guy is literally, I broke my leg, I can walk it off. 11:28.35 iandawsonmackay Oh, and my legs hanging off. I'm sure it'll be fine. I don't need to go to the doctor. We'll do anything to avoid it. And we usually go at our worst point. Have you seen that kind of move now? 11:38.07 Ermina Hmm. 11:39.29 iandawsonmackay Are guys kind of slowly moving towards like talk therapy, coming to see somebody? 11:40.37 Ermina Hmm. 11:45.79 iandawsonmackay Because we all before you used to go, I'm feeling depressed, the doctor will give you tablets and that'll be it. Is there a push now towards like other healing modalities? 11:57.27 iandawsonmackay Is things like talk therapy, um exercise packs, groups, self-help groups and things like that. Are you seeing more of us ah the removal of the stigma from that man hold about therapy in this generation? 12:11.93 Ermina it's really 12:11.96 iandawsonmackay Because I really hope so. 12:14.93 Ermina I know it you would think you would think so as well right because we just went through huge life change we all went through the pandemic right we all had you know suffered um mentally through that through that period and then you know society and the government 12:22.38 iandawsonmackay Hmm. 12:34.17 Ermina made therapy sort of like a norm, right? Everybody needs to go and have support. It's a normal thing to do. It's become much more acceptable to have a therapist. 12:46.36 Ermina oh 13:01.50 iandawsonmackay hi um I mean ah just completely lost you. 13:02.84 Ermina I'm just sure what happened there. 13:06.76 iandawsonmackay Just like that. 13:07.38 Ermina Yeah, you went offline. 13:08.36 iandawsonmackay um 13:13.06 iandawsonmackay ah Two seconds. 13:13.24 Ermina i mean 13:14.82 iandawsonmackay I'll just make sure...