Balancing Business and Compassion Through Resources with Monica Pitek-Fugedi from Whole Mind Wellness PLLC. Ep.68

Episode Overview

• Episode Topic:
  In this episode of Mastering Counseling, host Becky Coplen welcomes Monica Pitek, a National Certified Counselor and founder of Whole Mind Wellness. Monica shares her journey from a school counselor to running her private practice, emphasizing the importance of mental health and holistic wellness. Monica’s expertise in various therapeutic approaches, particularly in treating anxiety and trauma, forms the core of the discussion, providing valuable insights for both aspiring counselors and those interested in mental health.
  
• Lessons You’ll Learn:
  Listeners will gain a deep understanding of the real-world challenges and rewards of transitioning from a school-based counseling role to a private practice. Monica Pitek discusses the significance of building strong therapeutic relationships and the necessity of adopting diverse therapeutic approaches tailored to individual clients’ needs. The episode also highlights the practical aspects of running a private practice, from marketing to client management, and the impact of online therapy in expanding reach.
  
• About Our Guest:
  Monica Pitek is a National Certified Counselor, speaker, and author, who founded Whole Mind Wellness to focus solely on mental health after 17 years as a school counselor. With a background in trauma and anxiety, Monica uses an integrative, eclectic approach in her therapy, incorporating techniques such as EMDR and emotion-focused therapy. Her practice now caters to adults, providing one-on-one counseling aimed at holistic wellness.
  
• Topics Covered:
  The episode covers a range of topics, including Monica Pitek’s professional background, the evolution of her career, and the establishment of her private practice, Whole Mind Wellness. Key discussions revolve around the limitations and pressures within the education system that led her to focus on mental health exclusively. Monica explains her use of various therapeutic approaches, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy and somatic-based therapy, tailored to treat trauma and anxiety effectively. Additionally, the episode touches on the advantages of online therapy, her experiences as a speaker and author, and practical advice for new counselors.

Episode Transcript

Becky Coplen: Thanks so much for returning to mastering counseling. We are so thrilled to be back to explore all the ins and outs of counseling, the business side of things, and today we are super excited to have a National Certified counselor and speaker and writer whose name is Monica Pitek-Fugedi. Thank you for being on here with us today, Monica.

Monica Pitek: Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m really excited.

Becky Coplen: Yeah, we are excited because this is one of our first guests who lives very close to me. Not really close, but not too far away. So that was exciting to have someone else from Michigan on here. And we have. Winter has returned, hasn’t it?

Monica Pitek: It has. And it’s like just in time for the first day of spring yesterday.

Becky Coplen: Yeah, So hopefully it’ll flip back to how it was in February. It’s been a weird year for sure.  So she is the owner of Whole Mind Wellness, and uses a various amount of strategies and practices in her counseling of clients. And so,  why don’t you tell us how you went into private practice of whole mind wellness?

Monica Pitek: Sure. So I spent 17 years as a school counselor and then a wellness counselor at the same high school in Michigan. And when I first started there, there was a lot more time for mental health outreach and counseling activities so I could reach the students on a social emotional level and not just an academic level. But as the years went on, education got more and more clouded with policy, and educators were told to do more with less. And school counselors were seen as guidance counselors, which anybody in the school counseling world that’s like a four letter word to call a school counselor or guidance counselors, because it really separated us from other mental health professionals in the building, like the social workers and the school psychologists. So I used to lead some professional developments for the school and provide education around how mental health affects classroom behavior. And I became a member of the board for the Michigan School Counseling Association, where I saw so many in my profession trying so hard to change the way that school counselors are viewed. I would take all the new research and information back to the district, and it would always fall on deaf ears.

Monica Pitek: Anything that we wanted to do as counselors had to be done in addition to all the increasingly mounting academic responsibilities. So this probably was my first moment of realizing that while a lot of people tell us that mental health is the highest priority in education, that’s really only true if the students first can produce high test scores, at least in the district that I was working in. So I did love my coworkers, but I was getting more and more burnt out by the high demands of the administration and the parents. So what started as a love for my profession became daunting and unsatisfying. So ultimately, I decided that my passion is solely focusing on mental health. And I realized that I was never going to be able to do that in the capacity that I was working. So that during Covid actually is when I opened up my private practice, home and wellness. And that actually worked out pretty okay because mental health was a really big thing.   during Covid for all of us and I could start it virtually. So that was helpful too. And I realized this is, this is what I need to be doing.

Becky Coplen: All right I love how even sometimes when things aren’t the best or how we want them, it pushes us into something else. So that’s really cool,  that you went out on your own and I imagine can kind of plan your own schedule a little more in that type of thing. So, yeah.

Monica Pitek: I love it. And instead of working with a million people that you do in a school, you work with the teachers, the parents, the administrators, the district, and then the students in a private setting practice. I only work with adults and so I just one on one, which is really nice.

Becky Coplen: Yeah. Very cool. So you,  you were working, I assume more with high schoolers. You were in high school. Okay. And now you’ve kind of shifted more into adults.  did you completely niche that group right away, or did you see some teenagers or how have you broadened or diminished the type of people you work with?

Monica Pitek: So,  working in a high school that was a very high demand place. It became very hard to do a job effectively when you had people other than the client, which would be the student telling you this, that or the other thing. And so that made me feel very ineffective when I would say something and it would go straight that when I opened my private practice, I would not see anybody whose parents had a right to the information, because I that was just a lot for me. So that’s what made me decide I’m only going to see adults so that I don’t have to navigate that maze anymore.

Becky Coplen: Gotcha. Okay.  Good. It froze up just a little bit there for a second, but it came back on, so. Good. Why don’t we talk about some of your therapeutic approaches that you use? I know that you offer eMDR and cognitive behavioral therapy. How about,  you tell us why you think these are the best approaches or how they have helped your clients.

Monica Pitek: Yeah. So I don’t know if I subscribe to the theory that there’s any one best approach to anything.  Most counselors who have gone to school have been trained most extensively in cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT, and CBT has the most research backed behind it. And because of that, it gets the message out that it is the most effective therapy for everything. I actually don’t use CBT that often. I use it for sure, and I use an integrative approach, but I come from a more eclectic style, and I think that most therapists probably do because you have to work with what’s best for your client. But I definitely do a lot of emotion focused therapy that’s weaved into all the techniques that I use. There’s a lot of somatic based therapy that I use. My specialties are in trauma and anxiety, and we know that all of those feelings and anxieties and traumas, they’re held in the body. And so if you are feeling tense and your body is telling you to run and going down, fight, flight, freeze, Fawn Road, then you’re not getting the logic to your brain because it quite literally shuts off the logic to your brain. So cognitive behavioral therapy cannot be useful for the most part, until you learn to calm your body so that you can relax.  the pathways so that you can get the logic to your brain.

Becky Coplen: Okay. Yeah. Thank you for that explanation. And I like what you say.  we we have some people who are very specific in their strategies, but I do think a lot of therapists and counselors have to take a diverse approach because, you know, you don’t know what your client’s gone through. And a lot of people have had,  they’ve worked with one therapist or counselor, and it really didn’t help them. And then they found a better connection and plan with somebody else, which I’m sure you see as well.

Monica Pitek: Well, yeah, I mean, the therapeutic relationship is the most important thing. The research tells us that without the relationship there is no progress. So it doesn’t matter if you’re the most brilliant therapist and know all of the things. If the client’s not connecting with you, it just doesn’t matter. So that’s really that’s what I focus on the most. Is that a personal relationship?

Becky Coplen: Yeah. For sure.  Can you tell us,  you said you went into your private practice during the pandemic, and you definitely offer online therapy. Is that what you’re still doing, or do you see some clients in person? How does that look for your practice?

Monica Pitek: I see probably about 5050 now in person and online and online I will say has for I think the profession of counseling kind of been a great asset because what it does is it opens you up beyond your scope of commute. So before people had to live within a certain distance to be able to get to you. And now I live in southeast Michigan, people in Escanaba, which is like eight hours north of here, can see me, which is wonderful. So that’s really been helpful for me. But I do notice a lot more people wanting to come in person, which is great.

Becky Coplen:  Yeah I definitely I think whatever it’s not a one size fits all at all. But when you mention a place like Escanaba, which I have been many times because we actually go to the Upper Peninsula fairly often,  you know, with just so much rural area, there’s not as many therapists and counselors available. So it is amazing that people who live further out and not in a city can probably find more help than they used to in the past. So that is really good that that’s happening.  you are also an author of ebooks and a speaker, so why don’t we? Let’s talk about your ebooks, and I’m sure they connect with your counseling opportunity or not counseling speaking opportunities. So what would we find in your ebooks?

Monica Pitek: So the ebooks are workbooks that can be either ebooks downloaded, or they can be mailed to you as a paperback. But what they are is they are helping you to manage and live with anxiety. And one of the books is called How to Live with anxiety. Very straightforward, and it takes you through,  what anxiety is, what anxiety isn’t, the triggers that you might face, strategies that you can use, and it also helps you to dissect your particular shade of anxiety, because everybody has anxiety to some degree and everybody’s presents differently too. So not one strategy is going to be fits all. So this workbook really helps you dive into the personal aspect of what’s happening with you. The second workbook is called,  the Art of Showing Up, and that is designed on teaching you and guiding you to live a values driven life. So often, especially with anxiety, we get trapped in the emotion and the fear of all of the perceived threats that we have. Well, values. When you learn to live based on what your values say, what it helps you do is to diffuse from the emotion so you can make a decision. Because when you’re making a values based decision, you’re always making the right decision. And then it becomes learning how to sit with the discomfort, which the book helps you to go through as well. And then I have another one called What Happened Yesterday.

Monica Pitek: And basically this is helping you to look at how you engaged with your life the day before. So I it’s interesting because gratitude journals are great. I’m not a big fan of them because when you are struggling with depression and anxiety and you are told that you should be grateful for things, but you just don’t feel it, then you start to feel worse. So I developed this book to help you kind of accumulate the positives. What did you notice about yesterday? How are you engaged in life? What were some triggers that popped up for you? What did you do well, yesterday, meaning I got up and I went to work. I took a shower. It can be as little as that And doing it the day after helps, because when we sleep, our brain resets and we have a different idea about how to. We can review our day from the day before with a little bit more of a 2020 vision than we can when we’re really in it. So. So those are my workbooks. Yeah. And then I wrote a book called Shade of Pink, which is about my journey with breast cancer, which just talks about. Insecurities and all the imposter syndrome and the I’m not smart and all those things. So it’s more of a self-help book, but it’s written through the foundation of all of the treatments and stuff that I went through.

Becky Coplen: Wow. Well, thank you for sharing those  personal stories of the struggle.  in going through that and,  I really like what you said about waking up in the morning and you can see so much more clearly. A personally, it’s sometimes if it’s a really bad night or you’re so upset and sometimes I will say to myself or to others, you know, in the morning it will feel different. Like right now it feels so much more immense.  so that’s a really great perspective. And reflecting on the day before and realizing sleep is always extremely key. So,  thank you for sharing those. And  do you find are people buying those,  just for themselves, working on their own things in their life? Is it often paired with when they are,  seeing you as a counselor or a little of both?

Monica Pitek: It’s a little bit of both. The workbooks that I go over sometimes I will compliment the counseling with that. Most of the things that I work with my clients will be covered in the workbook. I get a lot of people buying them for themselves or for other people as gifts too. Okay, because it’s written like it’s not academic. I don’t consider myself an academic. So I’m always like, talk to me like a five year old. So that’s not demeaning in any way, but it’s very easy to understand that an everyday person can do very easily and really walk away feeling like, oh I get it now. 

Becky Coplen: Yeah. All right. That’s good.  I’m sure we can find those on your website. Whole Mind Wellness  plc. Com and are they also on Amazon?

Monica Pitek: They. Well Shade of Pink is on Amazon. And the. If you wanted to order a hard copy of one of the workbooks, you can go to Lulu. Lulu. Com and just type in Monica Fujita and they will show up. And then you can order a hard copy of it. Otherwise it would just be a download.

Becky Coplen: So,  in light of your writings and your book Shades of Pink, I think it was called.

Monica Pitek: Shade of Pink without the F. Okay.

Becky Coplen:  are those the platform for when you go to speak places, or is it other topics? And,  where are you often speaking?

Monica Pitek: So I speak in all different places. Like I’ve said, I’ve spoken in districts,  have done professional developments. I’ve been keynote at different conferences. And I typically depend on the audience, obviously. But I speak a lot about overcoming anxieties. And I’ve also done some workshops about anxiety and how to manage it. I did a TEDx style,  talk about myself. It was about my journey through breast cancer. All of those things can be found.  there’s the whole Ted talks there, but there’s snippets of some of the workshops I’ve done. Unfortunately, I didn’t recall. I didn’t record some of the other keynotes I’ve done or the professional developments, but those are on my YouTube channel, which are just anxiety anecdotes.   so those can be found there. Yeah. And I think that anxiety anecdotes. Com is another website that I have because I’m also branching out and I’m going to be doing online courses and membership sites so that you can get some personal access to me.  And so anxiety anecdotes.com is a place to go to for all of these resources.

Becky Coplen: Yeah I like the title of that too.  well, let’s talk a little bit about the business side of your practice.  Are you? I feel like when I saw the website, it was. It’s mainly you. Do you have support from admin, accounting, marketing? Or are you handling that?

Monica Pitek: It’s all me. It’s a one man show. Yeah. Which isn’t. You know, it’s just me. So it’s not that. It’s not all that complicated as you might think. So. Yeah, but I do. When I started, I did some Google marketing and then it just kind of became word of mouth. And that’s how I build my practice.

Becky Coplen: Okay, awesome.  That’s great. We definitely have both people running all the things, and some people with hundreds of people working around them. So,   I noticed on your website,  that there’s a big push in, like, creativity and maybe response to clients. Can you talk about that a little bit? So, Monica,  where are some of the places you’ve gotten to speak in different states, or how far has your experience been?

Monica Pitek: Yeah, so I have I am a member of the Professional Speakers Bureau International, and I’ve spoken in different states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Chicago, places around me,  and speaking just about mental health topics overcoming obstacles, adversity, resilience, anxiety, all of those fun topics so those you can find me there at terrific speakers or terrific speaker. Just syllable no no s terrific speaker.com is where you can find my profile there.

Becky Coplen: Okay. Very cool. Yeah I did see on there where people can just ask,  in request to have you. So,  well,  and any cool countries that you really like going to or were those online?

Monica Pitek: Online. And so I but I would love to go to like I would love to go over to Europe and just be there and do some speaking engagements. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Becky Coplen: Well who knows. Lots of time in the future for sure. Okay.  your website gives,  you can feel like your compassion and your creativity and response to your clients.  Why don’t we talk about that a little bit? We’ve talked about how the relationship of the counselor and client is the most important. So maybe give us some ideas of some special relationships that you felt have been very successful through the lens of compassion and creativity.

Monica Pitek: Well, I think that first of all, again, that relationship is so important and I am extremely non-judgmental. I really come from the lens that we are all capable of all things, and once we can all understand that, it takes away the judgment we have of other people. So what I always try to do with my clients is seek to understand the why. And I always tell them there’s always a why we just because you don’t know why what it is right now doesn’t mean it’s not there. And part of our relationship together is starting to unpack that because a lot of people come to therapy feeling shame, feeling guilt, feeling like they’re going to be judged. And there has never been a time through unpacking the different scenarios in the life all the way down through childhood, that it hasn’t made sense as to why, how they engage with relationships, how they engage with themselves, why they feel anxious about things that, quote they don’t think they should feel anxious about. And this really helps to make the client feel very validated. I really think it’s so important. Also, confidentiality is obviously well, hopefully it’s obvious is right up there. It’s very, very important that the client knows without any uncertainty that nothing is going to leave my office unless of course, there’s a threat of hurting yourself, someone else or somebody hurting you. So other than that, everything that they say to me is confidential, and I’m always there just to seek to understand. And I want my therapy space.

Becky Coplen: Thank you for that, Monica. You can tell how much you care about your clients. And,  you know, I think the reason why you’ve had so much success is your huge concern for them.  Let’s talk about those who are listening that are in the middle of a master’s program in counseling. Or maybe they’re considering it after a bachelor’s degree.  What would be your advice to people who are new and starting out in this field?

Monica Pitek: Well, the first thing I think is important to remember is that we all have imposter syndrome. All of us do. So there are going to be times when you’re going to be sitting with a client and think, wow, they really need a therapist. And then you’ll remember, oh, that’s me. I’m the therapist. I’m supposed to know what I’m doing. And that’s completely normal. So the most important thing to remember in counseling is the relationship. So when you’re first starting out, it’s really intimidating for a counselor to see a client for the very first time. There’s a lot of anxiety, maybe even more for the counselor than there is for the client and in that first setting. And so when that happens, just focus on the relationship. Don’t worry about what you’ve learned. Don’t worry about all of the technical things. Just be present for the client. At the end of the day, people just want to feel heard and they want to feel validated. And then of course, follow your values. I know that when I was,  it took me a while to break free from the 9 to 5, I had a lot of naysayers telling me I couldn’t do it because we’re programed in the United States anyways to go to work, collect a paycheck and get the insurance, and do all the things that are very secure. And I decided to break that mold and if I would have listened to all the naysayers, I would still be doing something that I didn’t really enjoy. So when you know what you value, then again, to repeat, you’re always going to make the right decision.

Becky Coplen: Such sound advice, for sure. And I really like I don’t think anyone’s ever talked about on here the anxiety of the therapist or counselor in the in the beginning and meeting this person and wondering. I like how you said that while they need a therapist. Oh, wait, it’s me. I’m the one.  So no, that’s really honest and I think helpful,  especially for people starting out.  and, you know, sometimes it’s amazing what people.  I think early on when you hear the stories, I work in an elementary school and you’re like, wow, this is really happening to people. And now I’m not as surprised, right? But early on, you can be so surprised at the hurts that people have gone through if you yourself haven’t gone through those.  but yeah, the word validation I think is super key. So,  Yeah.  Well, thank you for so many insights today. Monica.  is there anything else that you wanted to share with our listeners today?

Monica Pitek: Sure. You can,  either find me on anxiety anecdotes, calm or whole Mind Wellness PLLC. Com I also have a YouTube channel under Anxiety Anecdotes and you can find me on TikTok at Anxiety Anecdotes. You kind of see the pattern. Yeah. So if you’re typing in anxiety anecdotes somewhere, you’ll probably find me. And again, terrific speaker.com.

Becky Coplen: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I’m glad you’re everywhere. I’m glad you took the leap,  from one form of this field into another and that you feel very fulfilled by it. So we appreciate all that you gave us today and for your time.

Monica Pitek: Thank you so much. It’s been truly my pleasure. I’ve really enjoyed speaking to you.

Becky Coplen: Thank you, Monica, and to our listeners, we’re so glad that you tuned in today. We hope that you will check out if you missed earlier episodes.  We look forward to future episodes. Please leave us questions and comments. Leave us reviews about things you want to know or things that really stood out to you. Have a wonderful day. Thanks so much.

Monica Pitek: Thank you.