About Viktoria
Hi, my name is Viktoria and I am psychotherapist, coach, perpetual wisdom seeker and founder of Global Therapy with Viktoria. It is my passion to share with you the road map for how to navigate challenging moments in life, so you feel supported, empowered and confident to create the life you want. Through my blog, Tea with Viktoria channel, and one-on-one sessions, I share with you life hacks and wisdom insights that I have acquired through 10+ years of training and experience as a therapist.
My Story
How many of us would say this, “I wish I knew years ago about life what I know now! My life would be so much easier!” I am one of these people. Looking back, I wish I knew how to navigate my feelings better, value myself more, make clear-headed decisions, trust my intuition, and control my anxieties years ago. These thoughts were the driving force for me behind creating Therapy with Viktoria. I believe that no one needs to start from scratch and fumble in the dark to hack and navigate life. For this reason, I want to share with you insights and wisdom that I learned so you can get rid of the stumbling blocks in your life.
Life is messy, unpredictable and full of:
– Feuds with the loved ones
– Mean bosses & coworkers
– Failed aspirations
– Disappointed children
– Break ups & heartaches
– Messy hair & dirty diapers
At the low moments in life, we all can feel: stuck, defeated, anxious, or down right miserable.
But what if there is a way to make these moments easier and smoother?
Reduce these feelings and eliminate some of them all together?
So you can get back to happy and successful parts of life faster?
Sounds too good to be true?
That is exactly what I do – guide you through the rough terrain of life so you can become a resilient and confident life explorer yourself!
My favourite wisdom nuggets
- Relationships - how to keep the good ones, transform challenging ones and say sayonara to bad ones.
- Anger – master that feeling before it chews you up.
- Self-Esteem & Confidence – say good bye to that inner bully cause you were born to shine!
- Stress and Burn out – let’s balance those life scales together.
- Anxiety – Is the dog walking you or are you walking the dog? It is time to stop letting anxiety run your life. Get back in charge!
- Trauma – if the ground shook underneath you and you don’t feel yourself, hitch the ride to healing-ville.
My journey to becoming a therapist.
Growing up, I heard quite a lot that I am too sensitive and that I take things too close to heart. Hearing that made me feel like there is something wrong with me and as you might know that is not a great feeling. Luckily, pretty soon I discovered that my sensitivity made me an empathetic and patient listener! I loved being there for my friends and family. If only I could make a career out of this was my thought.
OR: I came to be a therapist because I struggled myself. It was a challenge for me to understand my intense and unpleasant feelings and why some relationships were so painful.
As a teen and young adult, I didn’t know what psychotherapist do. I assumed that therapy was for people in complete despair or in a life or death situation. My problems didn’t fit that bill, so I soldiered on on my own.
During my university years, my anxiety level increased dramatically. I felt like I was bombarded with a myriad of problems that I need to solve, but I didn’t know how. Thoughts like “What to do with my life? Why do I feel so anxious dating this guy? Am I good enough?” were constant companions.
One night I felt particularly anxious and couldn’t sleep watching informercials mindlessly on TV. My ears perked up when I heard a person on a screen described symptoms of I was having. It turns out that this was an ad for a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy course for anxiety and depression. Watching this was an ‘aha’ moment for me. Until that point, I didn’t even know what I was experiencing was called anxiety. But now I knew, I wasn’t the only one who felt this way and there is something I can do to fix this.
This was a massive turning point in my life that eventually evolved into my journey of becoming a therapist myself. If I could transform my anxiety, and anger that often came with it, into self-knowledge, empowerment and motivation to live my life to the fullest, I knew I could help others to liberate themselves too.
Citizen of the World
I’d like to think of myself as a citizen of the world. I am grateful to have had incredible experiences of moving and living in different countries.
As a teenager, 16, I had to adopt to a whole new culture and language as my family traded world’s biggest country, Russia, for the second world’s biggest country, Canada. After 18 years of living in a beautiful and multicultural Vancouver, I was ready for my next adventure.
My partner and I decided to do a ‘crazy thing’ - quit our full time jobs to embrace an expat lifestyle. This is the step that sparked the birth of Global Therapy site.
We spent 1 year in Manila, Philippines, followed by another year in Tallinn, Estonia. During this time, I had an honor to be friends, to work with, and to have clients from so many different countries and cultures.
I am now back to beautiful Vancouver, Canada, to enjoy the amazing mountains and fairy-tale forests, contemplating my next adventure.
More about me
From 2007 – 2008, I was an Instructor and Therapist at Glen Eden School in Vancouver BC. During this time I also volunteered as a Crisis Interventionist at the Vancouver Crisis Line.
In 2008, I was accepted into the Master’s program in Counselling Psychology at the University of Western Ontario. I moved to London, Ontario to begin my full studies in September.
From 2009 – 2010, as part of my Master’s program, I completed my internship at Fanshaw college where I provided crisis and suicide prevention counselling. During this time, I also volunteered as a Family Host at a local cultural center.
From 2010 – 2011, I have successfully graduated from my Master’s program and moved back to Vancouver to begin a full-time job as a Career Strategies at a local career & employment center. In this position, I have gained a lot of experience assisting people in finding their direction in life and identifying their strengths.
In September 2011, I started a position of a Counsellor at the University of Fraser Valley. It was my dream come true to work with a diverse student population, to share their struggles and to offer them crisis, career, personal and academic guidance at the time of need. I enjoyed 5 full years of very fulfilling work at the University.
In 2012, to complement my work at the University, I began my private practice adventure by opening up Heartfulness Counselling and Psychotherapy together with my dear friend Katya. I specialized my practice in three areas that I am most passionate about: Relationships, Anger Management, and Self-esteem.
In May 2016, after a lot of soul-searching, I decided to pursue a new adventure and take a presented opportunity to move to Manila, Philippines! With this step, after five years of employment, I sadly had to say good bey to the lovely University of Fraser Valley team and to close my Vancouver-based practice.
In September 2016, after becoming an expat and facing the challenges of leaving abroad for the second time in my life, I decided to launch counselling therapy services that focused on supporting expats and people going through life changes. And this is how Global Therapy with Viktoria was born!