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MindSpa - The Podcast
MindSpa is your go-to podcast for insightful conversations on mental health. Hosted by Michelle, Tina, the owners of MindSpa, each episode features roundtable discussions on key mental health topics, along with guest interviews. From stress management to relationships and personal growth, MindTalk brings professional insights in an engaging and accessible way. Tune in weekly for valuable discussions that support your well-being and help you navigate life’s challenges.
MindSpa - The Podcast
Ep 1 Breaking the Stigma: Why We Started MindSpa Podcast
Michelle Massunken and Tina Wilston introduce MindSpa, a podcast dedicated to deeper conversations about mental health, sharing insights, and having honest discussions about the power of talking to someone.
• Michelle and Tina share their non-linear journeys into the mental health field
• Tina originally started in law before discovering her passion for psychology
• Tina followed her brother into social work before specializing in clinical social work
• Both hosts aim to demystify therapy and counter mental health misinformation
• The podcast will feature expert guests to highlight community resources
• Mental health trends on social media often oversimplify complex psychological concepts
• Neurofeedback therapy will be a special focus of future episodes
• Personal anecdotes reveal hosts' personalities (tea vs. coffee, dream vacations, guilty pleasures)
• Reality TV shows often demonstrate attachment styles and relationship dynamics
• Michelle and Tina have seven children between them
Join us next week for another episode of MindSpa where we continue the conversation about mental health.
Welcome to our very first episode of MindTalk, the podcast where we get deeper in the conversations related to mental health, share insights and have real, honest conversations about the power of talking to someone. I'm Michelle Masunkin and I'm joined by my co-founder, tina Wilson. Today we're kickstarting things by introducing ourselves, sharing our journey and giving you a sneak peek of what's ahead on this podcast. Let's dive in. All right, I'm so excited to have this conversation. I think it's helpful to just kind of get to know each of us more and more and why we started this podcast, but even why we entered into this field and there's so many reasons why we get into therapy or psychology or psychotherapy, and I'm curious to know why you got into it. So let's start with that. So my question to you is what made you decide to enter into this field? Why did you decide to go this route, career-wise?
Speaker 2:Thank you for the question. Yeah, that's a good question. So what's really funny is when I started out in undergrad, I was a law major. Oh, I did not know that. Yeah, I started out as a first-year law major, and it's funny because I used to love watching shows with my dad and Law Order was like my favorite show. We would watch it at 11 o'clock and I'd always regret it the next morning because my school started really early. But it was just this really fond memory, and so I think I equated TV law with law law.
Speaker 1:This is reality.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when I did first year law, you have to. You can only take first year law, so I had to take first year. I had to just take a bunch of first year courses.
Speaker 2:So I did sociology, psychology, all that stuff, and took law. And then, with my five courses, law put me to sleep every single time. And I'm not, that'll do it. Yeah, I read a textbook, I'm done. I would immediately fall asleep, wow. And so, whereas when I was reading the psychology stuff, I was just they just couldn't give me enough information. I found it so fascinating, it lit me up, and I even think it's funny, because I hated sociology, which you'd think would be similar enough to psychology, that I would find it at least mildly entertaining. But no, I hated pretty much everything but psychology, so it made it really really easy. So then, ongoing, I did that. And then I had a really good friend, really smart friend, really good grades, better grades than me, who had applied to an Ottawa university for clinical psychology and she didn't get in. And so when she didn't get in, I was like there is absolutely no way on God's green earth that I'm going to be getting into that program and at the time that's the only program I knew of to keep going in psychology. And so I sort of kind of just got my undergrad.
Speaker 2:I worked for two years as a research assistant at the university, but then at that point my contract was coming to an end, a relationship that I'd been into was coming to an end at the exact same time, and so I just went back to the restaurant industry for a little bit. I was like I need to figure my life out. I'm going to go back into the restaurant industry where I met my husband, and so from there I ended up in one of those government jobs where I kind of fell backwards. You're in Ottawa, you get government jobs, that sort of par for the course, and I was a scientific publication editor for five years of my life. That was absolutely terrible, mainly because I was not an English major nor a science major. That was absolutely terrible, mainly because I was not an English major nor a science major. So when you're trying to edit scientific material with a psych degree, it was not. I was not good at it. I can tell you that I was not. I was definitely not good at it.
Speaker 2:So from there I found out about the master's, the MEd program at Ottawa. U. A friend of mine said I know somebody who became a therapist by going to that school. Now at this point I had two kids and you know responsibilities and all that kind of stuff. And so, with the absolute unequivocal support of my husband, he was just like just do it, just apply, it doesn't matter. He let me apply to schools outside of the city because he's like, if this is what you want to do for a living, and my best friend at the time was a psychologist and so I was like I could see what the profession was. I knew that I would love doing it, I love people, I love talking to people. So I was like I absolutely I need to do this and I ended up getting in, miracle of miracles, in Ottawa U.
Speaker 1:I love that it wasn't a linear journey but you found your way. Despite the the stops along way, you still kind of found your way to ultimately being in this field yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that. That's so exciting and I knew from the second I got into the program and I was doing my practicum. I'm like this is what I was meant to do, I love that it just feels so easy, feels so natural. I'm so curious about people. I love learning about psychology, different modalities, different information about. I just my husband's always like you know, you could just listen to fiction when you go for a walk, in your pot, in your in your pot.
Speaker 1:I'm like, no, I, I really like this book on IFS, right yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I love it. How about you Tell me about your journey into mental health?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I don't know that my journey was one that I set out to do Like I didn't have the idea of like knowing what I didn't want to do which led me to what I wanted to do. I kind of feel well. First of all, my brother. He started off his undergrad in social work and so, like a little sister, I'm just like I'm going to just do what big brother's doing, and so I ended up doing my undergrad in social work and then, later on, obviously, did my master's in social work. But I didn't know and because social work too is such a broad field, I didn't really know what in that field I wanted to do. I just knew that I wanted to be a social worker, like Big Brother was, and so it wasn't until, I would say, my master's and I had.
Speaker 1:I was taking one of the I think it was like a group therapy class that I was taking in my master's and my professor. She was obviously a master's level social worker, but then she was also working in the hospital setting and it was. It was that that kind of like pushed me into finding out more about this Right, and so she came in and during one of our classes and was talking about a group that she had ran that day at the hospital, and her being a black woman as well, too, inspired me. So I'm like what is this Like? I don't know, mental health was not something that was in my vocabulary. It's something that I was familiar with. In my mind, my end goal was more so around like maybe CAS, oh you know something in the community, that kind of work. But just hearing that that prof talk about her experience in the clinical social work world piqued my interest, and so I ended up doing my master's placement in the hospital because of that, and so I did it in the youth program at the hospital mental health program in the hospital.
Speaker 1:Because of that. And so I did it in the youth program at the hospital mental health program in the hospital. And then from there I just learned more about the mental health world and did my thesis on perception of mental health among blacks and just things like that. Right, I think it's just like it piqued my interest, and so, if anything, I knew that I wanted to be a social worker, but I just didn't know what kind of social work I wanted to be. And then it wasn't until then that I was like I want to be in the clinical stream. I want to do more around mental health and just understanding mental health and understanding why we do what we do, understanding the emotions behind it, understanding the attachment styles and how that plays out in our relationships and in our friendships and that kind of thing. So I don't know that it was like planned or that way, but it somehow came to that and I'm glad it did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And so what it sounds like, too, is that that path isn't always the same for all social workers. There's a lot of, so not all social workers end up doing psychotherapy or working one-on-one with people, especially in private practice. They often end up more in agency work. So did you find that you were kind of the rare duck in that group, that that when you were in school? Most people were looking more for those hospital roles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I found that just even starting off career wise, like there weren't a lot of like clinical social workers, right, and so even at the beginning of my career, when I would say I'm a therapist, like oh, you have a psychology and I'm a therapist, you know. And so I think there was that piece where most of my colleagues or graduates went into the CAS route or even into policy development, but definitely it was rare to see them going into the therapy piece because, again, it's not one that you commonly see or hear of.
Speaker 1:Now I feel like it's grown quite a bit where most hospitals have like every department has a social worker in it you know give or take, and so, but even within that setting, they're not all doing therapy, they're doing like discharge planning or other things.
Speaker 2:Like case management, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, it's definitely a niche in that way in the social work world.
Speaker 2:I didn't know we had that in common. So, funny enough, my brother also took psychology at the same time so we went to school at the same time.
Speaker 1:Shout out to the big bros.
Speaker 2:Now, when it comes to the podcast, what made you want to do this?
Speaker 1:I think this. First of all, I'm a podcast lover. I listen to podcasts every day, all day, and so I think this is a great way for us to be able to talk about the things that happen in our offices. Right, a lot of? There's a lot of misinformation when it comes to therapy. There's a lot of information about, like certain things. We'll talk about those in this podcast, but even just like certain words that we hear a lot of right, everyone's a narcissist nowadays. Everyone has PTSD, from whatever.
Speaker 1:And so I want to be able to have a voice when it comes to demystifying some of these things, when it comes to talking about some of the stigmas or the misinformation and things of that nature, and I think a podcast is a great way to reach that audience. I know that one thing that sets us apart is neurofeedback, and I don't know that there's a lot of information about neurofeedback, and so I want us to also be able to bring a lot of clear information, accurate information, about neurofeedback, what it's all about, what the purpose of it is and how it can help and be effective in different ways, and so I'm hoping that through the podcast, we can get some information out there to folks, whether they're doing laundry or driving in their cars or meet them where they're at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that idea of people sort of like being able to listen on their drive in and feel like they're going to learn something from what we're talking about, but also see themselves in what we're talking about. I want to really meet people where they're at in the community. I think there's a lot of people struggling in the mental health area in so many different ways and then we talk a lot.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we separate it out where we say youth mental health is in a crisis, but we don't always necessarily tie in together. Okay, but if the youth mental health is in crisis, that means their parents are in crisis, because, regardless of whether they're in their own crisis or they're in crisis because their child is in crisis, that then makes exponentially more crisis kind of happening in our community. And I know that we're both really, really passionate about the Ottawa community and really helping people learn of the different things that are available to them.
Speaker 2:So that's where we really want to bring in those guests right and let people know I'm so excited there's so many fun people that we want to talk to and and bring information to the community so that they know where they can go to get services that are actually knowledgeable about mental health in their process like I'm hoping we get a dentist on at some point who can?
Speaker 2:talk about like fear of the dentist and how they deal with it and manage it and that type of stuff. Yeah, um, but also normalizing. Normalizing and you know, getting that, you're right, the disinformation it's just. I have this love-hate relationship with the way social media handles mental health because I do like that. It is destigmatizing it. It definitely is doing that to a degree, but also it's simplifying very complex things.
Speaker 1:Very true.
Speaker 2:And that's probably my biggest criticism, is it just it really simplifies. So we want to try to like right, we want to dive in and actually go that in and of itself. That thing that you saw on TikTok, that is true, but it is maybe 2% of the whole story.
Speaker 1:There's layers to it. How do we sort of like peel back the layers right so that we can get to really understanding things deeper than what we might see in that 30 second clip on YouTube or on TikTok? Yeah, but really getting to it and understanding it and I think with that understanding now we can actually get into the what, right? So now that I know what it is, what am I going to do with it? How am I going to work through that or whatever the case might be?
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:So the next part that we're going to do right now. We're going to ask each other some fun questions, okay, and so my first question for you is in the morning.
Speaker 2:are you a coffee or tea? Gal Tea, that's an easy answer. Okay, never coffee, I don't do coffee. Oh, you just never do coffee at all.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that about you.
Speaker 2:I know how important your coffee is to you. I feel like you drink enough coffee for the most part. I have a love-hate relationship with coffee.
Speaker 1:I can't lie, I'm not a coffee person, no, but I do want to get an espresso machine just for the sake of Okay. I feel like it's, you know, but I feel like even with that, I'll have different types of caffeine beverages, not necessarily coffee per se, but generally speaking I'm definitely exactly I can do a latte.
Speaker 2:I'm a chai tea latte girl. I could do a latte.
Speaker 1:But still tea, but tea. But it's a chai tea latte. I throw espresso in mine sometimes. Oh, is that the dirty chai.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's it. I haven't had that. I've heard it's good, though, yeah, it wakes you up, does it? Yeah, it definitely wakes you up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I love chai tea. So if I, if you know, if it's my top drink, it's definitely going to be the chai tea. But I love a good latte and but I do have a love, I really do have a love-hate relationship with it. What's absolutely insane is, with 100% accuracy, my husband can establish at 10 pm whether I've had a coffee that day.
Speaker 1:Wow, and I could have had it at 7 am.
Speaker 2:I could have had it super early because I will not drink it past. Probably 9 am Right, he can guess with 100% certainty. Wow, because otherwise I'm falling asleep on the couch. And if I'm still talking to him at 1030,.
Speaker 1:He's like you've had a coffee today. It's still working in your bloodstream.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm so sensitive to it. But I love the feeling. But then also I can get in this like now I have trouble falling asleep and then if I take anything like melatonin to help me fall asleep, then I need somebody to wake me up.
Speaker 1:And then I get in this like terrible cycle.
Speaker 2:One time I was deep down the terrible cycle and said okay, that's it, I'm off caffeine, I'm not drinking at all anymore, and I had a nine-day headache that you couldn't touch it Like. I took extra strength Tylenol, I took Advil, I did the Advil Tylenol combo nothing, wow. And it'd be like so excruciating at bedtime Cause it was like I can't, I can't sleep, kind of level headache. And that's when I was like I'm never going to get that dependent on it again and so I don't do it every single day, okay.
Speaker 1:So you have like a schedule, like a coffee schedule.
Speaker 2:Kind of no, there you go, self-imposed. Yeah, I just kind of go. Did I have it yesterday? Well then, maybe today, I won't Okay.
Speaker 1:I feel like I drank more coffee when I was in school. Okay, I mean yeah, because it's school, yeah. But I don't know, I've just never gotten to the habit of like drinking coffee.
Speaker 2:It's a good, don't do it.
Speaker 1:I'll stick to my tea and water. I'm good.
Speaker 2:Yes, now I'm trying to think my next question for you yeah, you have a question.
Speaker 1:What I guess when you think about vacation spots. Okay, what is your dream?
Speaker 2:vacation spot, my dream vacation. So I've given this one some thought and I do have kind of a funny story that goes along with my favorite vacation spot or my ideal. This is what I want to do. So back in my 20s I planned this elaborate vacation with a friend to go across Europe. So it was one of those by a VRL or not VRL, by a train pass and you get to hit five countries. And so we were planning that trip and my friend says where do you want to make sure that you go? And I said Vienna. I don't care anywhere else that we go, as long as we hit up Vienna, she's like no problem.
Speaker 1:So she says I got you, I can do this.
Speaker 2:So we did France. We did Paris, france, then we went to Switzerland. We did Paris, france, then we went to Switzerland, geneva, then we went to Vienna, austria, and then we went to Germany. Then we went to Belgium. No, we went to when is the red light district? Amsterdam. Went to Amsterdam, then we went to what was the other one? Belgium. Then we went to actually Spain and then I went home from there. So we are in Switzerland and we are on our way to the hot spot that we planned the entire vacation around.
Speaker 2:We are sitting in a McDonald's, we're talking about the next leg and I say all I know is I want to go on a gondola ride when we get to Vienna. And she says gondola ride, like do you mean up a mountain? And I'm like, no, you know in the water, like the boat where they're like you know rowing the boat. She looks at me and she goes did you mean Venice? I almost said Vienna again, did you mean Venice?
Speaker 2:And I was like, yep, yep, I completely meant Venice. And she goes we're not going to Italy. And and uh, she's like Vienna is in Austria. And I was like, where's Austria? You're about to find out. She says did you not look at a map before you left to travel Europe? And I said, no, I don't think I had a chance to look. I've been busy with school you know, so I didn't have a chance to look and we literally nearly died laughing just because of how many times?
Speaker 1:I had said Vienna Right, like you were convincing that you wanted to go to Vienna. So she's like I'll make it happen for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you sit back, yeah, and we'll go to Vienna.
Speaker 1:We are going to.
Speaker 2:So I still have not been to Italy. Okay, I've not been to Venice. So that's my and now this friend who's done a lot of traveling. She did international business. She's like every time I go she has now been. Every time I'm in Venice I think of you. You should have been there. And that moment in Switzerland where I realized I was not going there, I love that, yeah. So how about you? I do need to go.
Speaker 1:Where would I want to go? I want to go to Greece. Ooh, yes, I want to go to Greece. Greece just gives this vibe you know those photos. Yes, the blue water, like with the dress and then the one with the like is that in, I think, santorini? Yes, everything is just a vibe, yeah, and I, that's my, yeah, that's my dream vacation. So I would love, love, love to go to Greece, okay, and then I know they have, like, different islands.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so just being able to like balance the islands with like a fun, adventurous island, with like a relaxing island or like a sunset cruise.
Speaker 2:Like I had this all planned in my head and restful islands and all that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, I forget.
Speaker 2:I think it's like I don't want to pronounce it wrong, but one of them is like the party place, like that's where you'd go if you want to just have a good time?
Speaker 1:Okay, they have, like, good party places. They have good restaurants.
Speaker 2:So you're a partier, I'm not a partier. So that's going to be part of my decision.
Speaker 1:Where do I relaxed experience? So, definitely finding ones that have.
Speaker 2:So is that with kids vacation? No, this is adult only. This is 18 plus.
Speaker 1:This is like this is not a family vacation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because something people probably don't know about us is between the two of us. We have seven children We've got yeah, there's a few. We have a gaggle, we do.
Speaker 1:We're covered. We have a whole crew.
Speaker 2:Yes, vacation, if you're going somewhere restful, you definitely.
Speaker 1:Would you go with your kids?
Speaker 2:to Venice no no.
Speaker 1:It'd be an adult, only thing. Yes, yeah, yeah, I think there's like I want to take them to Europe.
Speaker 2:But I don't think Italy, like, I just think there's other places. Yeah, I don't know why They'd understand that I think so. Yeah, we'll see you. I don't know why you think so. I mean, we'll find out. Because there's like the museum is. I mean, that was pretty spectacular. That's a cool experience. I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but that was an experience Because you ended up going there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we did yeah, yeah, part of it was doing Paris. But also I've never used so many planes, trains and automobiles in my entire life. I've heard transport in between the different. Oh, it's really easy, it's really easy, there's so much. But it also it still means like one time I had to take literally every form of transportation to get from one place to another. We were going to air, from the hotel to the airport, because we missed the shuttle by like three minutes, and so we had to take a taxi, a subway, a bus, um, and then we were going to the airport. So like we took a plane, you know, and there was a train involved as well at some point. Yeah, jeez, you've done it all. It was good times. I hear that. Okay. Next question I know you don't have any pets, but are you a cat or dog person?
Speaker 1:I feel like dogs are a lot of work. Yeah, I mean, you gotta like I've seen someone walk their cat, though, so have I? Yeah On a leash or in a-. No, on a leash.
Speaker 2:Okay, I saw one in a stroller.
Speaker 1:I've seen that I was like is that that just doesn't seem like a thing people do, yeah, but I've seen people walk their cats, but I think cats are much yeah To work with, okay. So, michelle, what is your guilty pleasure? Um, I would say binging on Love is Blind, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you wait until it's all done like even the reunion show. Yeah, I have to. Okay, like I can't, I get the anticipation.
Speaker 1:What about?
Speaker 2:spoilers Do you ever get, or you just avoid the spoilers? No, I do. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:TikTok doesn't spoil it for you. Sometimes I seek them, but they don't. They're not like too much information, Like they're just enough to like keep me plugged in and reminding me that, yeah, it's worth the binge. Yeah, but I would say definitely, binging on Love is Blind. What about you?
Speaker 2:Okay, Okay, so my guilty pleasure is definitely all things reality TV period. I love Big Brother things, reality TV period. I love Big Brother, I love what's it called Survivor and All the Love is Blind. Just watched Temptation Island. That one's sassy, it's juicy, but it's funny, because I watch them in a very specific way, which is and the thing that I love about it is actually how it illustrates human nature.
Speaker 2:You, you see what we see in our, in our work.
Speaker 2:If you know what, if you know what to look for, you see certain things, and so one of my, one of my biggest like I don't know life lesson takeaways was actually from Survivor, where, um, cause they vote at the end right On who they think should win and I know actually Survivor and because they vote at the end right on who they think should win, and I note actually Survivor and Big Brother, this happens the same thing on both of them, because both those shows always vote for who's going to win at the very end, after playing the game and competing against each other the whole time, and so people who would actually get into arguments and clearly didn't like each other when they were playing the game together, um, they were more likely to get the vote from the person than someone who was like buddy buddy with someone.
Speaker 2:They were supporting each other the whole time, they were trying to get to the end together. They got stabbed in the back at any point. They wouldn't vote for them, and it was. What I find so fascinating is people are keep being surprised by it. They they're like but we were so tight. And they're like yeah, but you stabbed me in the back.
Speaker 1:Right. So that betrayal overrides any and everything Would override, whereas this person showed their true colors from their beginning, and so I expected them to behave this way Exactly, but I didn't expect this from you.
Speaker 2:And I don't think they always know. That's exactly why they're voting for the other person. I think they convince themselves it has something to do with their gameplay or because when you see their reasoning, they're never like cause, you stabbed me. They never say that. They're always like well, you played this better. The person I voted for played this better game. In this specific way, it's like no no, they just yeah, they stabbed you in the front rather than stabbing you in the back.
Speaker 2:And I was like that is a good life lesson because of how many it's so universal. You see, it happen over and over again. If you look at all the seasons, all the episodes, it happens over and over again. But people don't tend to ever pick up on it and realize, yes, those relationships are really, really important. But you have to ask yourself, like how am I going to get out of this gracefully, in a way that they don't feel like I stabbed them in the back?
Speaker 2:And there's also this piece that I find interesting after the shows, because I was actually just watching or listening to a podcast that was talking to some of the people after the show and they're really surprised with how the public views them after. And I'm just thinking just where the insight is like you know what you did Like. Why did you think where the insight is Like you know what you did, right?
Speaker 1:Like why did you think Was that socially acceptable? Right Like did that align with the values Right.
Speaker 2:Like why?
Speaker 1:wouldn't they be surprised by your behaviors?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I find that really. I just I find people interesting. I know I feel like that's our world, Like when we're watching.
Speaker 1:I wonder about this, Like I wonder brothers, when you're watching these shows, are you looking at it from that lens? Right, when I watch Love and Spline, I'm looking at it from an attachment lens. You can tell those who are anxiously attached. Yes, oh, my gosh by the things that they're saying and the questions that they're asking those who are secure in their attachment. You can tell the different attachment styles and how that shows up and I'm just like, wow, there's work that needs to be done.
Speaker 2:There is yeah, especially on those dating shows. Yeah, I think that they're. They do end up attracting a very specific type of attachment style definitely and so, but interestingly, across genders as well for sure, is what I find really fascinating. Yeah, interesting, guilty pleasure cool love it, love it, love it well, thanks for tuning in to our first episode. Tune in next week when we talk about whatever we're talking about. Until then, take care of each other.
