5 FAQs About Mental Wellness

Trauma disproportionately impacts military service members, veterans, and first responders. And it is harming both their physical and mental health.  

In this episode of 5 FAQs, we’re joined by our own, Emily Day, Wellness Counsellor at EHN Guardians Gateway in Peterborough, Ontario. 

Together, we explore how holistic wellness and breathwork can support military, veterans, and first responders in their recovery journeys. 

 
THE 5 FAQs WE WILL ANSWER:    

1. What is mental wellness? 
2. How is mental wellness different than mental health or mental illness?  
3. How are mental wellness, breathwork, and holistic care implemented in treatment for military, veterans and first responder communities? 
4. What are three ways people can improve their mental wellness?   
5. What does the future of wellness hold for military, veterans, and responder communities? 

Learn more about EHN Canada and starting your own mental health treatment journey at ehncanada.com.

To learn about how EHN Guardians supports Military, Veterans and First Responder communities, click here: ehnguardians.ca.

Transcript

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (00:09)
Hello there, my name is Jonathan Friedman and you are listening to the 5 FAQs Podcast by EHN Canada. This is a show where we scour the internet for the most frequently asked questions or faqs about mental health and addiction and ask an expert for their answers to them. Today it is my honour, my distinct pleasure to introduce my special guest, Emily Day. Emily is a dedicated wellness counselor at EHN Guardian's Gateway Recovery Centre, where she specializes in trauma-informed, bottoms-up approaches to healing.

With over a decade of experience, Emily integrates a holistic framework in her practice, combining movement, mindfulness, and therapeutic techniques to help individuals reconnect with their bodies and process emotions trapped by traumatic experiences. Through her compassionate approach, Emily strives to empower individuals to reconnect with their bodies, release stored emotions, and rediscover a sense of wholeness and balance. Emily, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

Emily (01:02)
Thank you so much for having me today, Jonathan. I am doing fantastic.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (01:06)
Glad to hear it. I am so stoked to have you on the show. Around the office, I'm like, yeah, I'm doing an episode with Emily today. Everyone's like, Emily from Gateway? Yes, it's Emily from Gateway. Here we are, we made it.

Emily (01:18)
Fantastic.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (01:19)
Before we get into our five big questions today, I'd love to hear more, and I'm sure our listeners would love to hear more as well, about of all the fields in the world, why mental health care? How did you get here?

Emily (01:30)
Ooh, that's a fantastic question. It is a little bit of a convoluted story, but I'll try to condense it. And really in short, what I think has led me into mental health and trauma work is lived experiences. I come from a first responder family myself, and I've witnessed what PTSD can do to family, to self, and...

and I've lived that and attached to that some of my own traumatic experiences, which kind of led me down a more holistic, untraditional pathway in terms of healing. And it just became this place where I was able to then recognize that there's purpose for me in this and things that I've been through and healed through. I realized that I have a very unique skillset that I can help other people adapt and overcome similar challenges.

And one thing kind of led to another and snowballed into another thing. And before I knew it, I ended up working here at Gateway. And this is definitely where I'm meant to be. And yeah, in short, lived experiences that led me down a path of healing and putting my own puzzle pieces together so that I think my purpose is to help other people figure out how they too can do what I've done.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (02:58)
That's really inspiring. Thank you for sharing that, Emily. I remember when I was doing my honors thesis when I was in school to become a child and youth counselor, I had the experience of being able to interview a bunch of different child and youth counselors to understand why they were getting into that field of any field you could choose. Being a smart, compassionate person. Why child and youth counseling and why counseling at all? And I found even as I explored it across disciplines,

that a lot of people in this field actually have a lot of their own lived experience, a lot of their own stories, and that's what inspires them to want to help other people.

Let's get down to the nitty gritty. Emily, are you ready to dive into the internet's biggest questions about mental wellness and holistic care? Let's do it. So first, I'm curious, what is the concept of mental wellness? Is it different than mental health? Is it different than mental illness? What is this mental wellness?

Emily (03:42)
Let's do it.

Hi, really great question. And really if I could summarize, mental wellness for me essentially speaks to our ability to regulate ourselves from an emotional standpoint, a physical standpoint, a mental standpoint, and a spiritual standpoint as well. It's essentially about not being even keeled the whole time and constantly regulated, but...

to have this ability to face challenges and adapt and overcome them. It's really about understanding what we need to do to take care of ourselves so that we can come back to homeostasis, to an equilibrium, to really balance. And it refers to kind of proactive measures of figuring out how we can take care of our needs so that we are.

well in all of those components and categories so that even when challenges do arise we have this ability to face, to integrate and to overcome those experiences if and when they do surface for us. And to piggyback because I feel like it was kind of a two-part question, how it kind of differs a little bit from mental health and mental illness which I find are terms that are kind of...

almost interchangeable in the mental health field. Mental health, think, really does refer to, again, to the health of our minds, kind of like how we have a physical health. Whereas mental illness is more, I think, diagnosable when we have something like anxiety or PTSD. One is reactive and one tends to be a little more proactive. So mental wellness is a practice of

of supporting our mental health by again doing the things that ground us, that take care of our minds, our bodies, and that kind of connection to ourselves. Yeah, if that kind of makes sense.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (06:00)
I love that.

It makes sense. You mentioned something before, homeostasis equilibrium. And I wonder, like, how do we notice what homeostasis or equilibrium or feeling, balance, evenness, how am I even supposed to know what that feels like?

Emily (06:20)
Uh-huh, that's a good question. And I'll speak from my own lens for myself and maybe this will resonate with listeners. I know when I am more in a place of balance, when for example my window of tolerance is much, much wider than much shorter, when I have this ability to kind of ebb and flow with frustrations that arise. I have a beautiful nine-year-old.

And sometimes being a single parent, know, there's some challenges that can come with that and and when I am balanced and when I am grounded I have this ability to show up in in those challenges that are unforeseeable and unpredictable in a lot of ways and Navigate them with a little more grace a little more compassion a little more patience and those are measurables for me in terms of balance versus when I am unbalanced or you know,

I'm ungrounded. I'm definitely short tempered. I'm more impatient. Things feel a little more chaotic for me. I like to reference, you know, the Tasmanian devil. There's just so much spinning and all of these things going on. And there's also for myself, bit of avoidance that'll surface where I notice that I'm not dealing with the things I need to deal with. And

being balanced, I think, is this ability to compassionately recognize challenges, face them, move through them, and know that it's all figureoutable, so to speak.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (07:59)
So balance isn't necessarily that you're always like right there in the middle, you're in that place where you always have capacity. It's also really about understanding that emotions are supposed to be a roller coaster and that our ability to access that capacity can change over time and noticing when you might want to bring in some tools, some resources that you might learn from someone like Emily or through therapy.

into your data data to of expand that tolerance.

Emily (08:33)
Exactly. It's recognizing, hey, this is coming up for me and what do I need right now? Maybe it's more sleep, right? Maybe it's more water. Maybe it's to move your body. But again, you've kind of nailed it on the head. To be regulated, to be balanced doesn't mean that you're constantly, you know, smooth sailing all the time. That's really impossible. But balance, it highlights the ability to kind of ebb and flow.

and move with life as challenges come up for us. And, you know, again, to seek the supports when we're feeling ungrounded. And again, that might be therapy, that might be taking rest, that might be moving your body, that might be yoga, it might be meditation, but it is, it's this ability to kind of move with life rather than life moves and takes us away, if that makes sense.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (09:29)
So what are some, and I know for everybody it's going to be a really different experience, but what are some feelings that we can start to notice in ourselves when we're maybe experiencing a little bit of dysregulation?

Emily (09:44)
Yeah, I think some bare ones that would kind of signify that something's kind of up. Irrubility, for sure. Just kind of noticing the lack of patience for certain things. Maybe more negativity, like it tends to kind of snowball wherever you're placing your attention that can amplify for a lot of us. if we are noticing that, you know, we're struggling to let things go a little more or...

feeling more irritable, less patient. Those really highlight for me that, okay, something's going on and what is it? What's weighing on the heart? What's weighing on the mind? What is it that is behind some of those emotions? Oftentimes we know that one emotion doesn't necessarily mean that is the only one presenting. They're not mutually exclusive. know, underneath anger might be some sadness or some grief, right?

But even just noticing those types of emotions and feeling surfacing is an indicator that, hey, something's going on. And I think the most important thing is to give ourselves permission to experience them instead of trying to avoid or push them down or run from them in some capacity.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (11:07)
Totally. it's, there's these things that we can notice in ourselves that are like that first emotion might actually be the one we're feeling. There might be things that are going underneath, but it's sort of that first pass. It's saying, what's actually going on? is it, I'm not getting enough sleep. Am I not accessing, accessing enough of, my other supports? Like I know for myself, if I'm not accessing therapy or, or

exercise or music for me, I can actually be pretty chaotic at work and difficult to work with probably a little bit. But when I'm able to access first, I can notice that and access it more or change on my routine. But when I'm actually doing those things, those things that make me feel whole and fulfilled, I'm actually able to come in more even keeled, more able to have capacity to active listen and sort of slow down because otherwise my brain goes too fast.

It's first noticing those little things that are sort of like tells in poker.

Emily (12:07)
Thank you.

Mm-hmm, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (12:15)
So we read a very condensed version of your bio and your resume today, but everything you do is really cool. But I really wanted to get into breath work. I've seen it a lot on Facebook that this is a thing that people are doing. What is it?

Emily (12:30)
breath work and just the title of breath work's really just an overreaching term that can signify different types of breathing. And there are a lot of them, a lot of them. And very specifically what I do with clients at Gateway is we do an active form of breath work. We do do both, but one you're I think asking about is it's called CCB breath work.

And it's an active form of breathing that stands for continuous conscious breath. And it is a somatic technique that allows us to essentially bypass the prefrontal cortex and get out of the head, get out of the ego, get out of that analytical mind and actually into the body. And when we can access the body, we can access every stored experience deep down on a cellular level.

as one of my favorite pioneers of somatic work, Dr. Rather Bessel van der Kloog, the body keeps the score. And that is something very profound that has now come to light over the last, I feel like, decade. So breath work is a tool that we can access stored tensions, stored emotions, stored experiences, and even stored traumas from the body.

and it requires no talking. But this very specific technique that we use, it's called circular breathing underneath that umbrella of CCB breathwork. And it allows us to, rather allows clients to experience all of these stored moments from their lifetime. And when we can go into those experiences, they can be felt. And as cliche as this sounds, to feel it is to heal from it.

and we can talk about our experiences really until our faces are blue. But this is a process of feeling and by being able to feel those experiences, we can actually move through them and return to that balance and actually move on from them.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (14:42)
one of our listeners, somebody at home has never had the chance to experience breath work, is there a quick exercise that they're able, that we could even try here, that they could try at home to see it, to feel it, to understand why it's important or why it's something they should explore more?

Emily (14:58)
Yeah.

Yeah, my first recommendation is that you would want to have a breathwork facilitator take you through something like this particular technique because there's a lot that could come out of it. There's a lot of physiological side effects as well that can happen in these sessions. So it's always safest, best met to work with a practitioner that is skilled in this type of work.

Definitely don't do this driving. isn't so if we have any listeners that are putting this on through their speakers in their car Don't do it. Don't do this breathing while you're driving But something you could try for a couple moments very specifically the circular breathing I'll go through two quick little pieces here. So circular breathing it's all done through your mouth So the first breath fills up the belly. It's like 80 % belly the second breath

tops it up in the chest, so 80 % belly, 20 % chest. And the moment that you're exhaling the breath out, you're actually pulling it back in. So like a circle, there's no beginning and no end. A lot of autonomy in this experience, people can control speed, depth, intensity of it. But typically, we're breathing in this pattern for about a half an hour straight, okay?

So I'll kind of do a little bit of a demo and this is what some listeners can do if anybody does want to explore it. You would lie on the ground. this is the thing can make you a little dizzy and you can't fall off the floor. So safest is on the ground. You get nice and comfortable, put some pillows and stuff underneath the knees and we open up the jaw.

and then we breathe into the belly and we breathe into the chest and then we kind of exhale. So it kind of sounds and looks like this. I'm going to close my eyes as well for this. So just a little bit of a demo is.

So don't know if you can kind of see, I sped it up a little and I slowed it down, okay? And even just kind of going through that, my heart rate started to go up. I feel a little bit lightheaded, a little tingly over the body. So again, this is not something to do while driving or operating heavy machinery. So just make sure we're all on the ground when we do this. But this specific breath.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (17:26)
that person.

Emily (17:44)
is done with intention and there's a purpose behind it. We're actually breathing into the body. We're breathing into parts of ourselves that we've closed off or perhaps unconsciously tried to store somewhere neat and tidy. And we have the ability to access those experiences. So that would be something you could do to just kind of bring some energy into the body as well because we are.

over oxygenating the body with this type of breath work. So there's an influx of O2 and a drop of CO2, which does have an incredible effect on the parasympathetic nervous system after we're done. So this can be actually something really helpful for relaxing the body. So you could even do it for a couple of minutes and then take rest. Couple of minutes, take rest. And that could be really helpful in just actually calming the nervous system and regulating a little bit better versus a full session.

One other piece I'd like to share in terms of breath work is I teach a technique called fire breathing. It's very simple. It's like a big glorified sigh. And essentially that's a breath in through the nose, the belly fills up and an open mouth.

and kind of imagine letting the breath just like fall out of the body so it's nice and easy through the nose

And it's a drawn out exhale where nothing is forced, everything slows down. And even doing two of those, my heart rate was at 97 and I dropped down, I'm at 73. Just from two of those easy exhales, just kind of giving the body permission to soften and slow down. These two techniques I'm talking about are not regular breathing patterns.

Okay, we don't breathe like this on a regular basis, we would pass out. They're meant to be disruptive, right? In terms of redirection and being able to refocus ourselves, especially the fire breath. That's really helpful when we're kind sitting up here and needing just a moment to.

slow down.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (20:02)
I, that's fantastic, Emily. I know I put you on the spot, but I love you. I know for like, I really struggle with anxiety and social anxiety specifically. And as a marketing manager here, I have to present all the time. And so I literally forget to breathe. My heart rate's going, I'm just like talking, talking. And at some point I'm just like, I'm just like, my God, I'm presenting to all these people. And I'm like literally not breathing properly. And I did like that.

Emily (20:16)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (20:30)
I'm definitely gonna give that fire breath a try, lower my heart rate and just sort of ease into it. my next question is, and this is probably not from the internet, but I'm really, really curious is, you famously work with people in our military veteran first responder community. You're doing this holistic, compassionate,

focused wellness, good stuff. Are people, and this might be a silly question, but is that community really open to exploring that? This is like in my head, when I think of somebody from the military, I'm thinking of somebody, I'm gonna use this word in quotes, tough. Obviously tough can mean a lot of different things, but I have that vibe in my head. I wouldn't think they'd be so open to exploring this feels-y side.

Emily (21:10)
Okay.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (21:22)
How does that work? How do you implement these types of programs? I'm sure they're really, really helpful, but what's that process like for you?

Emily (21:29)
Yeah, I love this question and yeah, thank you for asking. Historically and traditionally these demographics are resistant, as a nice way to put it, to a more of a holistic approach to healing. And I mean really the conditions in which they work in and fosters this like tough it out type of mentality.

where vulnerability can often be seen as a weakness. And so being introduced to somebody like myself, and so I run all of the holistic programming for our center. And oftentimes I do get a few people that are just kind of like, well, I don't know, I don't know about this. Like, this is cool, but I don't really know. And I think because of my background and as I mentioned,

coming from a policing family, as my dad is an officer with PTSD. I don't approach holistic work, holistic healing, hokey pokey, if that makes sense, and it's not airy fairy. It's not a, know, reach for the sunshine and open up your heart to love. It's just, that wouldn't fly with these incredible humans that I get to work with. I'm very authentic and real.

And I show people that you can be both spiritual and you can also, you know, cuss like a sailor. That is okay. They're not, you know, needing to be mutually exclusive. You can be yourself. And honestly, in the last three years, all it takes is one class. All it takes is one session with me and people are like, all right, I'm hooked. And I think it's because I teach it, of course, from a trauma-informed perspective, but...

I make it accessible. make this modern. I make it so that it can work for people. It can be something that people really fall in love with because when they can kind of connect to themselves, it's just there's no going back. And the amount of success that I've had here to the point where military folks that I've worked with have then gone to Bali and became yoga instructors themselves and people pursuing holistic.

and wellness in this kind of avenue post retirement, it's just incredible. So yes, there's a lot of resistance and I think the perception around yoga and meditation and breathing, most people are like, what the hell is this? Like there's no way. And then they get into a room with me and I kind of break down the walls, so to speak. I'm like, all right, this is what we're gonna do today.

and I lead it from a very authentic and messy, messy way. And when I say messy, I mean real. Something I tell people is let it be messy. I'm like, you're not here to impress anybody. Nobody cares what you look like. And we're gonna get comfortable with the discomfort that comes through in this experience. And people just, they keep coming back and it's incredible to see somebody's perspective change when they meet the right instructor and somebody that they can kind of.

identify with.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (24:52)
And we were talking about this idea, I think, before with wearing certain emotions like a mask. Like I'm going to wear anger, but it's really covering up sadness as an example. imagine a lot of people in this community sort of wear that toughness in that same way. Because when you're tough, you don't really have to take time to be in touch with those emotions.

Emily (24:58)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (25:16)
Ultimately

that will make you more tough if we do all of these things, but it's kind of like wearing the toughness as a mask.

Emily (25:22)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think I'm pretty skilled at helping people get into their emotions. It's kind of one of my specialties is getting in touch with how you feel, which isn't soft. It's actually incredibly tough to kind of do that. And I like to use a lot of Brene Brown's models around vulnerability, And putting down that armor, taking the armoring off and getting people to feel.

and move through that. And it's kind of ironic too, that when people are, again, the air quotes around tough, trying to tough it out, so to speak, really on some level, whether that's conscious or unconscious, I feel like they're actually being controlled by those experiences and those emotions that they're deliberately working so hard not to go into.

And once we go into them and we can move through them, it's like being set free. It's as though we can open up the cage door and the bird can fly out of it. You're no longer caged by that experience. And it takes just a lot of time and it takes safety as well and building trust. There's a lot of trust that goes into building the relationships with my clients so that they feel safe enough to then go into these experiences.

And that's a big thing for me is I really value my ability to create safe and trusting spaces where that mask can come off. And when that mask does come off, that they are validated and they are met with that support and that sense of community. And I really think that's healing. It's holistic. It's gotta be the whole thing, not just...

not just cerebral in the mind and not just the body, but it's gotta be the whole experience where they can take that mask off and still recognize that they're worthy and enough and valued for just being their authentic, weird, messy selves.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (27:25)
love that. It's fantastic. Thanks, Emily. We've spoken a lot about holistic wellness, a lot of big ideas. What are three practical small things that people can take into their day-to-day to sort of take those first steps and improve their mental wellness?

Emily (27:28)
Mm-hmm.

Great question. I have three non-negotiables for myself, and this is what I would share and encourage for clients and anybody, not just the demographic I work with, but movement. One of the best things that you can do is connect to your body. Connect to your body, move your body, and that doesn't have to be a crazy five kilometer run. Maybe it's just a nice hike outside or even shaking it out if you don't have time to...

to run or walk, like even taking a couple moments to just shake your body and move your body. Working out is fantastic if you do have time to carve out, know, resistance training or maybe you like boxing or maybe it's yoga, right? There's so many ways that we can move our body. Maybe that's dancing, putting on your favorite song and just moving your hips, dancing, shaking your body. That would be the number one thing I would say is movement. Move your body.

Give yourself permission to move your body unencumbered It doesn't have to be you know militant and you don't have to have this deadline and meet this meet this quota and and put that expectation but just move Free freely move give yourself permission to move. That would be my first one I'm the next one I would really encourage is breathing and I know it sounds silly because it's such an involuntary Practice that people don't pay attention to and it happens for them

I am, but clinically your breath is actually your number one tool in counteracting the stress response. It is what we would call the relaxation response. Most people and majority of population, not just first responders and military personnel are clavicular breathers. Most people breathe just into the top part of their chest and that short, shallow style of breathing is essentially mild hyperventilation, which contributes to

feeling apprehensive, feeling vigilant, feeling irritable, being slightly brain fogged and a little woozy. Slow your breathing down. I teach people to close their mouths, Mouth is for eating, nose is for breathing. Close your mouth and slow the breathing down. It's not so much about deep, big breaths, but slow and easy breathing in and out through your nose.

And bonus points if you can make that exhale last longer than the breath in. The goal here is slow and steady. Noticing when you are breathing too fast or not breathing at all. And I love that you mentioned that you caught yourself and can catch yourself when doing public speaking of like, my God, I'm not breathing. Slow it down, right? Slow it down. And from like a biometric standpoint.

It is the number one tool for vagal toning and stimulating the vagus nerve, which influences that parasympathetic response. It improves the immune system. It lowers your heart rate. It helps with sleep. just aids in digestion. Your breathing is the greatest tool that nobody talks about. So that's number two. Move your body, slow your breathing down. And I would say the third one is kind of a tie. Prioritize sleep. Prioritize sleep.

and water. And it seems so simple to share these tips with people, but that's really what it is, is these are fundamental like housekeeping tools that we can focus on that'll just help a little bit, right? More water, prioritize sleep on some level, figuring out a healthy sleep routine. I take lavender at bedtime and I try to drink a liter.

plus water, almost two liters of water a day. I move my body and I pay attention to my breathing when I am over breathing. Simple, keep it simple.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (31:49)
And it's interesting that, like you said, those are three and a half, four simple things. You snuck one extra in there. Simple things. And they are simple, but if everyone takes a second right now and says, how often am I drinking an appropriate amount of water every day? Am I getting an appropriate amount of sleep? Am I getting eight hours of sleep consistently? Am I moving every day? Am I breathing slowly?

Emily (31:52)
Yeah.

Yes.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (32:17)
I myself am going to put my hands up right now and say I'm terrible at all of these things, even though I do like to work out. I like to breathe. I like to drink water. I like all of these things, but I think part of it and like, I think you've mentioned it a lot today around the breathing is it's about being mindful about these things. It's noticing not just that you're doing them when you're doing them, but notice what it feels like when you're not doing them.

Emily (32:25)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (32:47)
I've sat in my chair today for most of the day. I feel kind of groggy and lethargic. It's probably not like I could be in a slightly better mood probably if I took a walk at lunch or did something like that. So I think it's about having that intention and having that mindfulness around even just basic simple things. Cause otherwise we're not gonna do them effectively. Yeah.

Emily (33:11)
Mm-hmm.

That's part of those pieces too, just to kind of piggyback on what you're saying. When you're paying attention to your breath and when you're moving your body, typically you're pretty in the moment. And that type of presence is very grounding and it can be something that helps us get out of our heads and again, into an anchored state of presence. And that's the magic, right? Is being in the here and the now. And breathing does that. The moment you shift your awareness onto your breathing, you are being mindful.

on purpose you are paying attention and that's the money, right? That's what we're looking for is essentially being able to pay attention on purpose.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (33:51)
That's the money. So last question for you Emily, which is, what does the future of wellness look like for our military veterans and first responders? I'm gonna try that question one more time. What does the future of wellness look like for our military veterans and first responders communities look like?

Emily (34:14)
Really great question. And I, in my ideal world, in Emily's euphoric world, the future of treatment would be holistic. It would be holistic. It would encompass mind, body, and spirit. It would hit all of the avenues. And I think historically and traditionally in treatment of trauma, not just with first responders, but

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (34:17)
in your ideal world.

Emily (34:44)
You had one of two options. It was either pharmaceutical or cognitive. And of course these have served great purpose. But I really believe that true healing must be holistic. And that is kind of my mission here, is to create more of a holistic approach to healing this demographic. Because I've seen it, I've witnessed it, that when people are able to really be...

be conscious and connect to their body and connect to their breath and connect to their movements. That's where really true healing happens. And instead of disconnection, we have connection. And I think if we can kind of continue on this pathway and I keep doing the work that I'm doing, it becomes more of a best practice approach, more opportunity.

for holistic interventions, more exploration of what that might look like because again, trauma is not a one size fits all experience, so neither should healing. It shouldn't just be one of two options. We should have as many options as possible to figure out what works for this person and then incorporate that.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (36:02)
Emily, it's been an absolute honour and pleasure to have you on the show. Recovery is possible. EHN Guardians and EHN Canada are the place for both virtual and inpatient treatment programs for mental health and addiction. To learn more about the work we do, to learn more about the fabulous work Emily does, please go to ehngardians.ca and or ehncanada.com. To listen to even more episodes of Five FAQs, you can check it out on your favourite streaming platform.

Thank you so much, Emily, and we'll see you next time.