S5E01 · Nina Keller

All right, beautiful people. Welcome back to the Virtus Performance Podcast. I have a very special guest for you all today. Nina, welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's an absolute pleasure and I'm very excited to get stuck into some good things with you. Yeah. But before we do that, introduce yourself to the squad, anyone that hasn't met you yet. Yeah. So my name's Nina. I am a psychologist and I'm the owner of Mind House Psychology. Which we love. I am working here at Virtus one day of the week at the moment and really looking to get to know the community a little bit more and be able to support people in a more holistic way, I guess.

Love that. Very good. Why did you decide to become a psychologist? What was the drawcard? I think what I often say to people is like, I don't know if I chose psychology or psychology chose me. I feel like that's a bit of like a cliche. I don't know. I think I quite naturally have some really good tendencies of being able to like know what people are feeling and what they're needing. And I mean, that's not an exact science, you know, but being able to hold space and empathy for people and being able to, to talk to them and, and yeah, I guess holding that space is probably the main thing that drew me to it.

And I think just being able to like understand why people do what they do and what makes them tick. And probably more recently have been really drawn towards like, how can we get people towards thriving love? Yeah, I guess it's, it's been a maybe a half decade of survival for a lot of people. So I really liked that. And essentially, that's what I think what drew me to you when we first caught up was just that capacity to be able to go, I want to create space for people to do more, be more, have more capacity, which obviously aligns with a lot of what we're already doing at Virtus from a physical and delving into the psychological space.

But having having you in that space, I think is massively helpful. And something I'm really excited to dive into today, getting to know about how you practice works and what you do and, and all of those kind of things. But on the, on the, the thought process around like creating space for people, can you talk me through maybe what your process is in a session? Because I guess, caveat or the thing I think about is, there's a fair resistance to maybe people jumping into these conversations initially. And I reckon I don't reckon as many people who have said, no, I regret doing that after they've, they've chatted to a psych, this guy included.

So, so talk me through, yeah, what your process is, how you go about actually creating that space? Yeah, I think it's, it's, especially in the first session, a really fine line of, of being able to guide somebody in the process, especially if they haven't done it before and it's really new to them, it can feel really daunting and anxiety provoking, but also giving them the space to take up with what they need from those sessions. So often at the start, it's, it's trying to, I sort of like, we'll start off doing some talking and, and ground people a little bit and give them some context of what the first session in particular is going to look like.

And that it's very much the purpose is me getting to know them and understanding what's going on for them in that moment. And I think like confidentiality is such an important piece. So really like reiterating that safety and being able to create that safe space. And then also I often say, you know, like if there's at any point, whether it's in that first session or in future sessions, that if anybody has feedback for me on things that I'm either like doing well or not doing so well, or if I find, you know, asking questions about

a particular topic and they want to talk about something else, that this space is really for them to be able to, to also have some autonomy over. Yeah. Yeah. Great. I think from a, someone that I like to think I'm somewhat self-aware sometimes. I remember my first, my first psych appointment, which would have been maybe 2018 or something, something along those lines. And I remember going in there having absolutely no idea what to expect. And I remember leaving being like, where the fuck did that, I would just go. It ended up just being a big brain dump, a big like vocalisation of all of the things.

So I would imagine once you get going, it would be much around you just listening and you start and you just hearing what people have to say and where they're at and what they're going through. Yeah, absolutely. And again, like if everybody is walking in to a session that I have with them, that they are the expert on themselves, that while I may have training and experience as a psychologist and I can support people to, you know, identify patterns and things that are going on that they might want to change, that they are walking in as the authority and the expert on themselves.

And I think that I, it's really important for me to respect that, right? That I might have even sort of initially my own minor observations or things that happen, but I also approach that with curiosity as they might not see that for themselves and that's okay. Yeah, that's really interesting. What is the, what is the take or what is the outcome you want from your first session? I think for people to have had a good first session and by good, I don't necessarily mean that they're having to feel better. Some people will, some people won't and that's okay.

But they've had a positive experience, right? They might even leave that first session and go, you know what, Nina's maybe not the person for me, but if they have had a good experience to then be able to find somebody else that works for them, that that's what I want people to take from the first session. Yeah. And I guess you'd want people to walk away being, yeah, like I know you don't necessarily need to know what I need to do to completely feel better or to, or to be, to be fixed. You're all fixed. You're all wonderful.

But also from a knowing what the next step is, because like I'm in here, we're big on like, you don't need to know every single step to achieve the things you want to achieve. And I guess the beautiful thing about psychology is it's kind of an infinite game in terms of we're trying to build awareness and capacity and understanding infinitely. Yeah. Which, which training, I think when you think about it the same way is what we want. We want to be like, alright, this is a means to an end. We're trying to get fitter, faster, stronger, leaner, happier, healthier, all of the things.

But at the end of the day, it's a means we want it to be a means within itself so that you actively go, I want to continue to grow and level up and things like that. So I guess I would go into being like, I just want to know what the next step is and whether it's more sessions with you, whether it's somewhere else, whether it's finding the right person. I would imagine the, that first, first session would be a big conduit to further growth for most people. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And I think, yeah, that

I think I really liked what you said in there in terms of that we're always moving towards something and that we're always working on something that you might have a, a goal that you're trying to reach, but that's kind of like not the end as well. Right. The where I kind of see it as like, I use a lot of like metaphors and analogies. Love a good, love a good analogy. So I feel like it's kind of like you're an artwork that's never finished, but you're kind of beautiful and perfect at every version of it.

You know that there's always things that you can tweak or work on and it's never fully done, but it's always something that you should feel proud and impressed of. That can be hard to do a lot of the time. But yeah, that's sort of the way that I see it. Yeah, I really, yeah, I liked that a lot, but I think, I think there's like the, the duality of our existence is like, I think you should be proud and appreciative of who you are and what you do and what got you to this point. But

at the same time there should be a level of like dissatisfaction about I'm still becoming like, and there's, you know, a couple of dots after that because I'm still becoming whatever that, whatever that may be, like we're always trying to transcend. This is why I look at life is like, things can be good or bad or indifferent, but we're always trying to transcend our current capacity of who we are and what we're doing and how well we understand it and all those kinds of things. And a lot of the time as you're progressing through that

growth, and in my head I've got like a little loopy capacity time graph going on, there's going to be times where you're like, I feel like I'm back at square one, or I feel like I'm worse than I was when I started. But, but that's the, that's almost the hero's journey. That's the, the friction and the things you come into or the roadblocks that you approach along the way. Yeah. What would the expectation from you be after say three, five sessions? Again, it really depends on where the person is. Don't you mean depends answers? I know.

Okay. Caveat for this whole conversation. It depends. All right. Everyone is a unique little snowflake and you're all wonderful, but give me some, give me some general, like, all right, what is the growth that we're trying to achieve? Yeah. Well, I guess like, I'm going to say it depends. I know it does depend, but it depends probably if we're talking like that sort of like, um, survival maintenance growth phase, like what three sessions or five sessions somebody can get, it will depend very much where they are or where they feel, where they perceive they are on that spectrum.

Perception versus reality is also a really interesting thing. Um, so you know, if somebody is coming in and they're feeling like that they're just in survival all the time and some of that like might be grounded in a lot of reality, right? That if they've got a lot of things going on in their life that they don't have a lot of time to put to themselves that maybe just feeling a little bit more in control or maybe having that like perception shift a little bit from I'm just trying to survive every day. So I can moving towards feeling a little bit more in control.

Is there a, a model or a process you use to work through those steps? Not really. So I use like, um, CBT cognitive behaviour therapy is sort of like the underpinning, um, model. Um, it was a quick download of what it is playing home. Yeah. Cognitive behaviour therapy. So, um, it is essentially a theory that our thoughts, our feelings and our behaviours are all quite interlinked that we might have a trigger event or something might happen our lives. It could be something big, it could be something, it could be something really medial. The example I

often use if you get cut off in traffic and then there's sort of like a play by play, you might have an automatic thought that might be a little bit of a frustrated thought and then you might feel frustration. You then act out of frustration that kind of maybe like ramps up the feelings a little bit, which leads to an outcome. And the outcome might be you feeling really frustrated or you're all of a sudden heightened and you go into the next thing of your day and you're feeling more heightened and it's how can, how can you use the thoughts, the feelings and the behaviours?

So the, the cognitive part of cognitive behaviour therapy is your thoughts and the behaviour parts, obviously your behaviours and your actions and how can you have sort of like a, a two pronged approach to use, um, yeah, cognitive strategies and behavioural strategies to shift any patterns of behaviour that are challenging or that you'd like to change. So it's essentially a shift from being the observer, sorry, a shift from being the observed to being the observer and being able to have that, have that, um, space in between stimulus and response to be able to go like, that guy's probably having a bad day.

Even if you're like, you fuck with her initially. Totally. We're allowed to swear on this. Yeah, perfect. CBT and then, and then what's your process from there? So, so I guess it's creating an awareness awareness. Awareness is the most important part. You can't do any change without awareness. Um, you know, if, if you don't know what you need to change, you don't know how to change it. So for some people, their self awareness is really great and they might come in being like, this is what I do. This is the process and this is how I'd like it to be.

For some people they go, Oh, I just know something's not right. And, and you have to spend a lot more time understanding the processes that are going on for them in a really nonjudgmental way. We're not here to put additional shame or judgment on ourselves for behaviours that we're maybe not proud of or that we want to change. But how do we see them? How do we understand also where they've come from and why they're there to be able to go, okay, how can we shift it in that way? So that's, that's it. A big part of sort of the first couple of sessions also is sleep.

Like I talk a lot to people about something that what their, what their sleep habits are looking like. Um, are they getting regular sleep? Is it restful? All of those kinds of things. What's your hierarchy from a lifestyle perspective in terms of what you touch on first is sleep. Sleep. Obviously number one. Yes. Sleep. I always ask about in the first session. Um, I think it's a, it's a foundational need in terms of functioning. Um, you know, there's plenty of studies out there that look at having even just like one night of less sleep is impacted not only like your physical capacity in terms of your reaction times, your ability to focus, your ability to concentrate all of it.

Right. But then emotional regulation comes on there as well that it takes a lot of energy to be able to emotionally regulate yourself. And if you can't do that because you've not had enough sleep, then it's really hard to try and change things for yourself. Yeah. And I guess that's the difference like the knowing and the doing, right? Like we know we're more reactive when we're tired of the day. Do we, we know we, we don't perform at our best, but you know, life happens and all of the things. So I guess through that process,

your job I guess would be a mix of listening and helping build that understanding while also giving some tools and some, um, things for people to do practically. Yeah. It's, it's, I try and it, again, it depends on the needs of each person. And I, in the first session, I'll also ask people like, what is the goal or what's something they would like to work towards? And oftentimes you hear a lot of sort of like strategies to overcome X or whatever it might be. So I do try at the end of the first session to leave people with one sort of tangible thing that they can work towards.

Even if it's something small, I think people can feel better leaving a session going, okay, this is the thing that I'm going to try and put some energy towards. Is that usually like outcome focused or process focused in terms of like the goal that they want or is it more of like, let's do this thing to then get to that? It depends. Yeah. I know. I'm going to get, I'm going to get underneath. We're going to get like a little scroll bar that says like, it depends on asterisks. No, I completely understand. Right. Cause the, like the, the answer that I like to give people is when they ask those questions, like, oh, it depends.

But I think speaking generally, you would say that there is the majority of humans would follow a similar path, right? Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of the practical things are probably like self regulation things. Yep. As probably the first thing, um, that we're focusing on. Yeah. Yeah. The self regulation. So like breathing, going for walks, slowing down. Um, or it might be like going and doing things that you enjoy doing. Love that. Yeah. Yeah. We have a, one of the little things we have in here is it's called the happiness list. Like write a list of things that make you happy.

30 to 50 things. Right. Because I think it's easy to think of five, 10 things, but when you actually have to go 30 to 50 years over this, but also I do really like it on the movie sometimes and things like that. Yeah. And then it's like, oh, how often you do those things, which it's, it's an oversimplified version of, of happiness and joy. But if you like funnily enough, if you do the things you like more often, life's probably going to be a little bit more enjoyable. Yeah. Sometimes it's even, you know, if you give people that prompt, they're probably not probably, they might already be doing these things.

So you're actually just turning their insight towards recognising that and not just recognising the challenges. Cause we're evolutionarily wired to remember the things that are hard, right. That are challenging, that we need to overcome, that we don't want to face again, but we're not as strongly evolutionarily wired to focus on the good things that the small good things that happen. Yes. Yes. Do you have a, do you have tools for that? Like, is it something as simple as like a gratitude, three things you, you appreciate every day, things like that, that you find helpful? Yes. I think it's really interesting.

I think obviously like gratitude and mindfulness have a lot, have had a lot more, can't think of the word, have just been a lot more common and present in language. And so sometimes I'll have people come and be like, I don't do meditation. I don't like it. And, and really like firm on that. And that's okay. That it's going to be really different for everyone. Just don't understand what meditation is. Well, yeah, it looks like a whole bunch of different things, right? So it's about how do we find the right thing? Sitting on a mountain saying, um, exactly.

Not thinking anything for four hours. Impossible. Impossible. So, um, yeah, it's just about tailoring to what works. And I think that's where the, like getting to really getting to know the person in the first session is so important. So I asked them questions about that and I get to know like what are the things that they enjoy doing that they're going to sort of move towards more naturally anyway. Yes. Yeah. I like that. What are the, what would you say are a handful of misconceptions and it might be something as simple as like what meditation

actually is or what psychology actually is that if you could stand on top of that mountain that I'm sitting there doing my meditation and you could scream it to everyone, everyone understand it, what would the things be that you're like, I want everyone to understand this better? That's a really good question. I'm not entirely sure what I, what sort of like came to mind instantly is that, um, it's okay to be scared to do things, especially like going to a psychologist. Like that is a scary thing to do. It can be for some people it

feels maybe really comfortable and they, they, that help seeking is really important and part of who they are anyway, but it's okay to not feel comfortable going and doing something and expressing that to somebody. Yes. Um, so I think that's, yeah, a misconception is that, you know, you have to come in and you have to feel ready. You have to be okay and you have to feel ready. There's an element of readiness that comes at some point, but it's also okay if you're coming in and you're, and you're a bit unsure. Yeah. I mean, that apprehension is super normal, right?

Like I think any like change, there's, there's friction to it. There's resistance to it regardless of what you're doing. And if the goal is transcendence or growth or like it, you've got to go through that difficult part. And I guess like our job here, your job, most, most, um, environments like this, the goal is to reduce that friction as much as you can, but have the level, the checkpoints and the accountabilities tools and those kinds of things that, you know, when it does get hard, there's a really clear, um, really clear focus on just going out.

What's next? Definitely. I thought of another one. Um, I would probably scream at the top of the hill to everybody who's listening. Like you have strengths of that, that you are your, you have an internal drive within you that wants you to be okay. Right. I think we can forget that. And I think like when we, um, yeah, when people are not feeling well or not feeling good about themselves is, you know, then a lot of like shame can take over a lot of like embarrassment. Um, a lot of that judgment can come in and

I think it really clouds that the, the being able to see people's strengths, being able to see your own strengths and being able to use them to move to where you want to be. Yeah. I liked, I liked that a lot cause I think fundamentally, and this is a very big generalization, is people don't believe in themselves enough. And I think because it almost doesn't matter whether you, it almost doesn't matter whether you, uh, have the capacity to, as long as we can get that thought process going of like, well, I need to believe in

myself because, you know, I hate the fact until you make it idea, but essentially like there's two schools of thought, you can not believe in yourself or you can. Yeah. One is very useful to growth and development and achieving all of the things you want. The other one, not so useful. So the goal for me is to be like, Oh, how do we create the capacity for people to understand that they're capable of doing the thing? Yeah. And then the, cause that's, that's step one. Step two is just doing the thing, right? If people go, Oh, I'm not a runner, you know, how you become a running, you start running, right?

Which yes, you need to have the, the progressive nature and the, and the pathways and the support systems and things like that. But I would imagine people would be similar in your, when they're sitting in front of you to be like, Oh, I don't do that. Oh, I'm not that person. Well, why not? Like everything is a story we tell ourselves when we can shift back to being the observer rather than the observe. We go, Oh, actually that isn't overly helpful tendency that I have. Like I've done it for years. Like I, I'm no good at finances.

So you just head, head in the ground and you go, Oh, I don't want to worry about that stuff, but not useful, not helpful. So what do I need to do to make progress in that area and insert any particular area here. So what would your, if you had someone in front of you that are like, I'm no good at this, I suck at that. What would your first point of call be in terms of the process you take them through to start to be like, Hey, you're actually kind of wonderful. I, it's sort of, we're going back to a bit of CBT here.

So our, our thoughts and our feelings, our behaviours within CBT are all guided by our belief system, right? Now belief system is something that we develop over time that when we're born, we start to develop it by things that we see and we hear from people around us and we have beliefs about ourselves. We have beliefs about other people. We have beliefs about the world. And so when that kind of language starts to come up, I start to explore beliefs and beliefs act almost like a filter system in our minds that whatever, whatever information comes

through that confirms our belief will be let in and information, especially if our beliefs really rigid, they're not all this rigid, but if we've got a really rigid belief, any information that doesn't confirm our belief, doesn't get it, doesn't get in, doesn't get a look right. So I'll often sort of like explore that a little bit. And then what I find is I think it can be really hard for people, especially if they've got a really rigid belief to shift from, I can't do this or I am this to the complete opposite. Like it just doesn't feel real and that's okay.

And I think the expectation is not, if you have a, like, if you have a belief of I'm not a runner, the expectation is not right away that you have to go, Oh no, I am a runner. It's how do you like soften or make it a bit flexible? Like how do you change some words that I'm not a runner yet? Right. Like I think one word at the end just softens it slightly. It takes it from an, like an impossible task to something that you just actually haven't got to yet. You know, and how do you soften that?

Or is, I don't feel like a runner. That just some words can change the sentiment of something, but it's not as unapproachable maybe as, yep, I'm a runner. Did you say the majority of growth, what am I trying to say? The majority of beliefs built out of like language and the, the words we use rather than necessarily like, cause, cause like all you did then was you literally just change one tiny part of that sentence. Right. But it changes the whole expectation. Like the, yeah, it's almost the way we understand our language and then the, the feedback mechanism of that, of how we say it.

That's the thing that makes the biggest change. I butchered that, I apologise, but you know, you know what I'm saying? You're picking up what I'm putting down. That was ironic, me butchering a bit about language. That's all right. But, but essentially the shift is cause you said scared before, right? And, and I have had that conversation with a lot of people in here that were like, I'm really scared about this exam coming up, or I'm really scared about these tryouts. And I was like, what's the difference between scared and excited. And ultimately physiologically it's the same out, it's the same outcome, right?

Heart rate goes up, you know, breathing rate spikes, all of these things we get, we get worked out, which is, which can be a good thing if we lean into the excitement aspect of it rather than the scare, cause it's exactly the same thing. We just have a negative or positive connotation. So I think the stories we tell ourselves are essentially the, either the, the path towards sadness and disappointment or the path towards enlightenment and progress and happiness and things like that. And our job as the observer is just to be able to catch that as quick as often or as quickly or as, as, as efficiently as possible.

Yeah. And I think with also like acknowledging and paying respect to the limiting belief that they might have or the, the thinking style of the process that they have, cause for some people that maybe got them to where they are, that, you know, it's maybe a survival mechanism that is maybe they don't really need anymore or it's just things that they've heard or it's all that they've seen. So I think it's, yeah, being able to be non-judgmental in exploring why people are the way that they are, you know, from the good, the challenging and everything

in between to being able to, to then if those things come up again, it doesn't sort of like enter back into a spiral or a cycle of sort of repeating those behaviours, but being able to recognise when that's starting to happen in a place of non-judgment and going, okay, what can I try and do differently maybe this time? I would imagine that you're this way naturally being non-judgmental and being empathetic and, and going into this, into this career, you probably, maybe there's some judgemental psychs out there, but I would imagine that you'd be like, you'd

be pretty cooked if you were, what is it about either you or the thought process you go through to be non-judgmental that you find allows you to hold that space for people? Yeah, I think again, it's, it's just like reminding myself that everybody is on their own journey and that I, I have no expectations, not the right word, but I have, I don't have expectations for what's walking into the room. You know, there are expectations in terms of like behaviour that's, that's respectful and all of those kinds of things. It's important. But that I am

not here to pass judgement on anything that's happened in any person's life, whether it's something that has happened to them or something that they've done themselves that that's not my role. Yeah. My role is to reflect, you know, and to try to do that in a really non-judgmental way and just picking up patterns and, you know, then supporting people with what they need if, depending on how that works. Because I guess you'd be there to challenge, challenge beliefs in a nutshell, but you're doing it in a way where you're almost, you're almost like creating the path for people to walk down.

You're not, you know, there'd be an element of guiding and, and, and nudging and, and, you know, obviously if someone has a goal of, you know, growth, then you're not just going to be sitting there and let them stay in the same place. Right. So I guess the process you go through and understanding that, yeah, everyone's on their own journey. And I remember, I remember the book Sapiens, have you read book Sapiens? I haven't, no. In a nutshell, it's like, it's an anthropological view of why we are the way we are. And I remember reading

it and sitting there thinking like, this justifies every single fuck up every human has made ever, just because of how much of environment and location and, and you know, who were born, where we were born, you know, all of the things, so much of it is outside of our control. Right. And I think there's a, there's an element of almost surrender to that. But, and you know, we don't have to have the determinism versus free will debate, but if there's like 99.999% determinism in terms of the way the world is and you know, the way

society works and where we were born and all of those kinds of things, but if there's like 0.1, 0, 0, 0, 1% chance that we have a say over it all, it's almost like none of the 99% matters. It's all the, it's all the 0.1 because then we get to choose what happens from here. It's like, okay, but now what? Yeah. So like, you know, which there's people, everyone's been through different things obviously. And it's all perception, perception based. But if you, I like to think if you get to the point where it can be like all of these things have happened, bad, good and different, now what?

Then it's almost like that everything is a possibility from here. Yeah. What's the, what's the element of your job that you find most empowering, not only for you, but also for the people that you serve? I think, I think when the, when that self-awareness pace starts to really click and make sense for people, I think that again, if we're talking about perception of control, perceived sense of control, that can be a really big shift for people and going, oh, okay, so I can have some choice here in this. I think the other thing is like

for people being able to unlock emotion that they've not, or that they've been really holding onto and being able to create a space for them to feel that and to be heard and to be seen and to express some of that in a way that can, I mean, it's not going to make it go away. It's, I can't change anything, right? I'm not a magician. But being able to, to be, be privileged to the experience of other people's emotions, I think is probably the thing that empowers and fulfills me the most in my job. Like I feel so privileged in being able to do the job that I do.

I get, I get to have a really unique insight into people's lives and a whole bunch of different people and the things that are going on for them, you know, again, sort of like the good, the challenging, the in between. And I just feel really honored and privileged to be able to, to be a part of that with them. And then you get to see them transcend their current being, to be able to, yeah, move towards the thing that they're moving or move away from other thing that they're running away from or move towards the thing that they're running towards.

I think that's, that's pretty wholesome and pretty exciting. Yeah. What's, talk me through your kind of education journey to get to this point, right? Because I like psychology isn't the thing you kind of fall into. And then six months later, you're like, all right, I'm a psych and I'm going to hang out with you guys. It's a long journey. So talk us through it. So I think I did like a, I did one, two psych in year 10 and I think that's when I was like, okay, cool. This is what I'm doing before I'd done anything practically associated with it.

And then I finished school and I went to the University of Melbourne. I did an arts degree with a psychology anthropology double degree, which I really liked. Then I went and did my fourth year at Bond University on the Gold Coast. So I was up there and then I did, um, the four plus two models. So there's a few different ways that you can become a psychologist. I think they're phasing out or have phased out the four plus two models got in there. Um, and so that essentially meant that I was working as a provisional psychologist for, I think it ended up being about like two and a half years.

Um, while also doing like, I was like having to log everything that I was doing and doing a lot of PD and I had an exam that I had to do within that and had supervision every week with my supervisor and had to do case studies. And so I had to do like a lot of work alongside that, um, supporting that, which I really enjoyed doing. Um, I am a very like hands on learner. Um, so I really enjoyed being able to be out in the world and learning all of the theory that you spend so long dialling in.

Yeah, absolutely. So did that. And then I became a, um, registered general psychologist in March, 2020. Awesome. Yeah. Which is when the world then shut down. Flashbacks. Thanks for the trauma. I know. Sorry. Trauma doesn't exist. It's all perception. Trauma does exist. I know it exists. It's a facetious. Um, yeah, that's really cool. Here's a, here's a rogue question that I just thought of while you're talking about that. Let's say three months into, you know, working with supervisor versus now, what would you go back and tell her? Ah, what would I go back and tell her?

I, not your supervisor, you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's all right. I understood. You know what I'm saying? I understood the question. Um, I would tell her that to slow down. I think, and I think, talk me through that. I think this is like, you know, probably quite a common universal advice for people in their twenties. Right. If you kind of just want to be there, you know, and I look back now and you know, I think like again, it can be really hard to, once you've achieved things to look back and consider how proud your past self might be of you, all the things that you have accomplished.

And so every now and then I think back and if like me, you know, a couple of weeks into starting that and seeing my supervisor could see where I am now that she'd be really proud and I think I just want to tell her to like slow down, like everything. Okay. And like, you know what you're doing, you know how to, you know, advocate for yourself and do all of those things. So continue doing that. Yeah. Which is such an interesting, um, like part of psychology in terms of growing up is like, you're like eight and you're like that 11 year old really looks like he knows what he's, what's going on.

And then you're 11, you're like, Oh, that 14 year old. Okay. And then 14 you're like, Oh, that adult must know exactly what's going on. And then you're like sitting here 33. I'm like, fuck, no one's got a clue what's going on. Just have fun and do your best. And then essentially if we do that, slow down, take a breath, you're probably going to do your best. And if you can do your best and have a level of feedback built into your existence where you're like, Oh, this was good. This wasn't, this is where I need to improve.

He was a problem. Here's how I fix it. Here's how I go about doing the next thing. You're probably going to be okay. Yeah. And if you don't have that, go see Nina and then you will have it and you'll be okay. I think even within that, like having time and whether it's, you know, while you're on holidays or whether you give yourself a little bit of a rest every now and then to go like, I actually don't need to like fully actualize my life all the time, but it's okay to have it for yourself.

It's okay to have some time to just like be a human and exist and not have to, you know, like figure out how you can get more sleep and drink more water and journal more and meditate every day and create like doing all of that. Right. That sometimes it's okay to just, you know, have the trust in yourself that you're doing it. That treadmill of, of growth and development is, is a difficult thing at times. Right. Because the, you know, by definition you tend to keep pressing the go faster button as you learn more and become more and be able to grow your capacity.

You're almost want to go fast, fast, fast, fast, faster. And yeah, I love the, the idea of, I love a lot of what say Buddhism promotes, right. Which, you know, essentially like you spend your whole life figuring it out and then you end up just sitting sitting on the mountain saying I'm connected with everything. It's like, okay, well maybe more isn't the answer. Yeah. And maybe progress isn't always the thing we should be chasing, but growth in different ways don't, doesn't always have to be more or faster. Yeah. You don't always have to be moving. Sometimes growth just happens.

Yes. Yeah. I think especially like, you know, these days when we've got just access to so much information, you know, and you reminded that you need, you're not doing the thing that you should be doing. Exactly. You've got, you know, analytics from your entire day and how your body's been functioning and you know, it's okay to just trust that it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. And do the best you can. That's it. Absolutely. Yeah. Perfect. What would be the, we got through there, we got through and all right, 2020, we got to 2020.

Yeah. I'm not very good at timelines. That's okay. All right. But got to 2020. Yeah. The world went, what was that like being in your profession? It was, it was, it was okay. It was challenging. I guess in some ways I went from, so when I, so when I first got my registration, I started working in private practice. Um, I was working that alongside another job that I had. And so there was sort of like stability there, which was good. Um, but went from, you know, seeing clients in person for three months to all of a sudden only doing it from home.

Um, and I think that was a challenge in itself, although now probably like sets me up quite well to be quite flexible in the way that I work, which is good. Um, but yeah, I guess like challenging, like for me as a person as well. I, I found the 20, I'm very aware that I personally am unique in this, um, opinion. I really thrived in the 2020 lockdown. The first one, the first one, I think I came off like working really hard to become a psychologist and I was doing a lot of time, you know,

and spending a lot of time doing log books and making sure that I was, you know, reading everything that I needed to read and making sure that I had, you know, my practice at the level that I wanted it to be, that actually having some time to just like go for a walk every day and do my work and hang out with my housemates and do all of that. I really enjoyed, um, being able to sort of like learn in terms of my practice. I really enjoyed. Um, so that was actually okay. Um, I think it was the, the later years that I found more challenging.

Yeah. Yeah. I was probably the opposite. Like, and I think maybe it was just because we didn't know what was happening initially, which, you know, trying to figure out how we're going to run this place and how we're going to do it. We'd had Lucy like three or four months before. So there was an element of that initial time was brilliant. Yeah. I would spend time with, with Lucy and KP, but then they're like, Oh shit, how do we keep the business running aspect? But then when we kind of, every subsequent lockdown, I felt like

everyone, yeah, it was kind of that, that inverse, um, inversely with some people would be like, this is getting worse and worse and mental health decline for a little bit. Whereas for me, it was almost like, Oh, you know, we've, we've, um, watched this movie before. We know what to expect generally. So there's an element of more control over that. Um, which for me was, was more helpful when, you know, like I, there's times where I'm like, just give me like a quick two month lockdown. Just, just give me, put me back, put, put the world back into that for two months.

We just full stop two months and to be able to just like exhale, go deep and like, yes, we can do our own versions of lockdown, but I would like everyone have to deal with it too. So I feel like I'm falling behind and all of the things. Um, but I think that, yeah, that capacity to be like, to look back now and go, well, here was the growth. Here was the difficult difficulty. So quote that in retrospect, the times of struggle strikers is most beautiful. Like, I think that I would like to think that

most people that have been through hardship would be able to look through aspects of the difficult times and be like, okay, well, I learned a lot or I grew a lot, even though it was difficult. Um, but yeah, what, what was it about the subsequent lockdowns that you found harder? Was it the, all right, now I just want to get on with my life or was, yeah, I think so. And I think I was like growing in confidence in what I wanted to do. Um, and I think I, I got to a point where I found working from home really hard.

Um, so I wanted to be back out in the world doing things. I'd also, I also started playing footy in 2020 so I didn't get a proper scene. So I was like, let's, let's get this happening. Let's go have some fun. Yes. Yeah. So on. Yep. So yeah, I think that was, that's probably what I found hard. And then, um, like I was just one of those people who I had like three birthdays in a row were in lockdown and I was just like, I just want to, I just want to spend time with my people.

It was such a crazy two years. Hey. Yeah. Um, what, so post post the last lockdown, which I think was like September, October, 2021. Yep. What's the, what's the last three years, four years look like? Oh yeah. 25 far out. 26 almost. Jesus. So, um, I've been doing, so I've been working in private practise since then. Um, a lot of it has been alongside other work that I've done. So I've worked in occupational rehabilitation. So that's people who are on, um, work cover claims for psychological injury, um, and working with them and their employer to figure out how they can get back to work eventually.

Um, then I did some private practise just sort of by itself for a little bit. And then I went into a role in a not for profit organisation and was supporting the wellbeing of the work that they were doing there. Um, and then, so I've been doing that. I did that until sort of recently and then last year through sort of like a bit of, I'd been thinking about it for a while, but also some circumstances happen and some cards are laid out that I went, okay, I've got to start my own thing. Decided to open my business.

Yeah. And my house psychology was born. Where did the name come from? Um, I don't know. I just, I was just like trying to find a name for myself. I'm German. So house is H A U S which is the German spelling of house. Um, and I think I just liked the, the concept of sort of like our mind being our home and how we look after ourselves and being able to look after ourselves. That's a really good analogy. Yeah. Yeah. Clean your shit up. Clean your room. Yeah. Easy said than done. So I think

it's, I want to dive into like the, so private practice, obviously every, everyone's different, but the private practice I would imagine would be very different to the not for profit work, which would be very different from the work cover stuff. Yeah. What was it like dealing with each of those populations? Yeah. Yeah. Like really different. So when I was working in the non for profit that was working in the youth space, which my, um, with my house psychology, I work with adults and couples. So it was really nice to kind of swap between the population. So I felt like I had a lot of energy for both.

Um, and I think the biggest difference between like being in private practice versus working at an organization is just private practice can be quite isolating. Like it's just me who's doing things and I have, you know, other psychologists around me who wear my pass in the lunchroom or in the hallway and have a little chat versus, you know, when I'm working in organization, you have meetings with other people and actually, yeah, cohesive team environment. Yeah. So kind of just like finding, finding the balance of all of that. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Who do you, what's your, let's go through the, like, who can you help?

So if I was to say Nina's, Nina's a psych, here are the kind of people she, she helps and not, not so much from a, obviously you can help anyone. We know that, but, but from a who that you work best with, who you like helping the most, what does that look like? Oh, it's a real range. I think. Um, I really like to have a diverse group of clients. Um, so like from people who come in and maybe like, Oh, you know, they don't maybe have sort of like, um, big or long things that

have been going on for them, but maybe just have, have like something that's popped up in their life or a particular behavior that's popped up or a particular type of thinking that's popped up and they go, just want a few sessions to just figure out how do I get on top of this particular thing? Um, you know, I also work with people who have like trauma and anxiety and depression and, um, I, yeah, I think I really like working with everybody and I understand that also people have a very big range of how, how open they are to change.

And I'm okay with working with that. That, you know, again, it's, it's where people are in that sort of like stages of change model, you know, and you can kind of work with anything and at some point it's challenging people and if they've come to a few sessions and you know, there's maybe not been too much change, like actually being curious about that and exploring it, not about judging it or, or making anybody feel bad for that, but just being really curious about it. Yeah, I like that. Cause it, cause it's essentially like, like we

talked about the infinite game before of like, you know, perfect world, perfect world, a pathway you could have, you could have someone that, that comes to you in that survival mode and, and your, your, as you build that relationship, they build their capacity. It's they shift from survival in certain areas to thriving and to the growth and, and then to the transcendence aspect where they're like, Oh, I want to work on this. I'm working on this, but they wouldn't have got there if you hadn't gone through that process. And I think where like this dynamically complex system that we have, that's driven by an operating system that we fuck, we have no idea how it works really.

That allows us to be like, you know, all right, well, I'm going to be in survival mode. Sometimes I'm going to be in, in, in thrival, we call it thrival mode now. So now say thriving with thrival mode sometimes. And we're going to be in both at the same time in different areas of our life. Yeah. And I think being able to, like I said before, build self-awareness, build that capacity to believe in yourself, understand what your belief systems are and how your, how your brain operates. It allows us to then go, okay, where am I at?

What do I need? What am I working towards? What do I need to do differently or better? And things like that. I would imagine you would have people that you've been working with, you know, for a long period of time now. Yep. How does that, how do those conversations differ for someone that you might be like, Oh, they're here for a, for a four or five week block, intentional block? Yeah. I think again, it's just like being really clear from, or being really curious from the outset about what they want and what, what the expectations

are, but it's also going to be really different that some people might not be able to afford to come fortnightly or monthly or whatever it might be. So being able to, again, to like meet people where they're at and what they need and if, you know, being able to adapt to that as well. And it's like, you know, if they can't come as often for whatever reason, it's okay, how can we give you some things to work on in the meantime? So they look different, but not all that different, I would say. Yeah. I mean, it's still essentially point A to point B.

Yeah. How do we get there as quickly as efficiently as possible? Yeah. And I think it's like the, you know, there's been lots of studies that have done that showed that there are lots of different modalities that people use, that psychologists use, that one of the most important factors in terms of positive outcomes is the capacity to build a good rapport, a good therapeutic rapport for some people who again, might be really open to it, might not feel, you know, might have done it before. That can be really quick for some people that takes a little bit longer and that is okay.

I understand that I, for the most part, I'm a stranger in these person's lives and they come in and it can be hard to trust and that's okay. Yeah. And, but I think that, that trust, as you build that trust, the willingness comes out and, and the, you know, it becomes this big snowball of momentum that continually grows and builds to, to, for you to be able to help more and help better. Yeah. Which like, like obviously we're, we're very similar. We just, in here, we just bring it from a, we use movement as our vehicle.

Whereas, whereas you're, you're diving into the deeper stuff quicker, usually. Yeah. I would imagine. Sometimes. On the, sometimes, yeah. On the, we've got to wrap it up because you've got to go hang out with someone. Yep. On the, the price aspect of it or the, the cost aspect of it. Obviously mental health care plans, super beneficial. Can you, I know you've already done a video on it, but if you've gotten to this part, you should know that already. But can you give me a quick, how people go about getting it, how people sort it out, what it actually involves and how it works?

Yep. So you, a mental health care plan is a plan that is created by you and your GP. Usually they require a longer session cause what'll happen is they'll maybe, they'll ask about sort of how you going, what's going on, what are your concerns? You might have to fill out a questionnaire as well that they put as part of their mental health care plan. Um, and then they will write a referral to a psychologist. You can go in there with a psychologist in mind. They might also have psychologists they refer to or they might just give you a plan.

Um, and, and then you can find one or, or figure that out yourself. And there's a bunch of different ways to help find a psychologist and I can, I can support, reach out if you need any support with that as well. Um, and then you get 10 sessions per calendar year. It is a little bit confusing because the plan can go over the year. So for example, if you got a plan today, what are we sort of like at mid November? This will drop next week, just before the end of November. So say you get, you initially get your referral for six sessions.

So say you had three sessions before the end of the year, you wouldn't need to get a new referral for next year. You could use the three as part of the plan for next year. However, because the three are from January, from January onwards, you get access to another 10 for the calendar year. So it's the end of the year, load up those GP sessions. I'm going to be booking a GP session soon. So do it. So that, and then, so yeah, after the six are completed, you then go back to your GP for a review.

Um, the psychologist will have some communication with the GP. I usually give a quick, but sort of like a brief overview of what we've been working on. Um, and then you go back to your GP and then they'll give you a referral for the remaining sessions of the year. Do you think it should be easier? Uh, it would definitely make it easier for people to access it. Um, yes. Yeah. Cause I remember a couple of years ago I went to the doc and it was a bunch of stuff. I need, I was like, I need six things.

And then I got a mental health care plan, but I was like, I can't like, not that can't be bothered, wrong word, but I was like, I don't have the capacity to like, go find someone. Um, so I never, I never ended up using it. And now I'm like, oh, can we probably go into the GP and getting it, getting it done. Um, but just do it, just have it, just stack, just go, all right, what are the eight things I want to talk to my GP about? And I do that. Um, but I guess

that's the element of like having a good relationship with your GP and your psych and your, and your strength coach and your physio and all of the things to make sure that we're ticking those, where we have a network of support. So I think that's the biggest thing. Um, we better get done. So last one, tell people how they can read about you. Listen to you. Obviously they're on the podcast, but how people can book in with you and get to know you and all of those kinds of things. Yes. My website is mindhousepsychology.com.au. And that has a little bit of information about me and links to book through there.

Um, I think there's also some information on the Virtus website, Virtus website, uh, for all the Virtus members in your Whatify app, there is a button to press to book in with Nina. Um, but if you have any questions or queries, I'll put all our info in this. Um, and we'll, you'll be smashed with all of the Nina content over the next couple of weeks and months anyway. Um, but she's wonderful, obviously, as you know, so get around her, go see her. Um, and if you have any questions or queries about the technical side of things, just yell out and we'll get it sorted.

Yeah. So feel free to reach out if you have any questions, whether it's about me or whether it's about psychology in general. I'm happy to answer any questions. Love it. Last question for you. What are you most proud of? What am I most proud of? I am most proud of, uh, giving myself space and time. Love. More of that. Yeah. Okay. I've got it. That was the second last question. Now the last question. What are you most excited for? I'm most excited for our summer. I'm a, I'm a solar charged, solar charged individual. So I am excited for the sun.

Go get some sunshine. Have a good day.