[LISA LEWIS] The Am I Ok? Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith Fringes, the Holistic Counseling Podcast, and Beta Male Revolution, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. Welcome to the Am I Ok? Podcast, where you will discover that being highly sensitive is something to embrace and it’s actually a gift you bring to the world. We will learn together how to take ownership of your high sensitivity, so you can make positive changes in your life, in the lives of others, and it’s totally okay to feel this way. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. I’m so glad you’re here for the journey. Welcome to today’s episode of the Am I Ok? Podcast. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. So glad to have you here. I would like to remind my listeners, all of you that I offer a free eight-week email course titled Highly Sensitive People. My Email course provides weekly tools that help you feel more whole in a world that isn’t exactly made for us and I show you how your sensitivity can be seen as unique gift and how many others are just like you. To find out more about my email course, please go to my website, amiokpodcast.com. As a psychotherapist, I explore with my clients about how unhealthy boundaries have impacted their life in decisions. For example, have you ever said no to someone only to say yes an hour later or the next day because you thought about the no and you felt guilty, or the person you said no to asked you again maybe the next day or a week later to see if you changed your mind and then you give in and you say yes, and then you get mad at yourself for giving in? Then that recycle repeats itself over and over again. This is only one example of many of unhealthy boundaries, and today’s guest is going to talk to us about setting our own healthy boundaries and how to accept others. This sounds really powerful. Can’t wait to dive right in. My guest today is Andrea Lucac. When Andrea entered the working world after studying economics, she noticed very quickly how unhappy she and other people around her were in their day to day lives. This awareness led her to having the courage to follow her passion of inspiring people to live life to the fullest. Utilizing her knowledge and human behavior, especially what has been triggered from past traumas, Andrea is able to assist people in overcoming overwhelm, fear, shame, and judgment by communicating their needs and wants powerfully. Welcome to the show, Andrea. [ANDREA LUKAC] Thank you. Welcome, everybody. [LISA] I want to just make sure I got your name right, do you need to correct me? [ANDREA] My name is Andrea Lucac. [LISA] Okay, beautiful, beautiful name. Thank you for correcting me. Andreas I like to ask all of my guests that come on the show, do you consider yourself a highly sensitive person or not? If so, would you mind sharing a story about that? [ANDREA] Yes. I see myself as a highly sensitive person and it was a hard time to learn about the neurons because I was picking up feelings from others. A long time I couldn’t distinguish either it is mine or not mine, or where does it come from until I learned about the neurons and became an understanding of it. [LISA] As we were just talking before we started the recording about us, HSPs finding each other. I can’t tell you the guests that I have on the show, everyone about, I think 98% of the guests have all been HSPs and not knowing beforehand so I’m so glad that I’m getting a chance to interview you. [ANDREA] You’re welcome. [LISA] How did you get started? What was the turning point in your life that made you decide to share your story about this? [ANDREA] On the one side, my sensitivity and on the other side not being able to set boundaries by myself until the pain got so strong that I had to do something about it. [LISA] When you say pain, can you describe that pain? Is that like emotional pain, physical pain, something else? [ANDREA] I will say an emotional or maybe mental, it was very, I was carrying like a high weight on my shoulders. I wanted to please everyone and I got exhausted. [LISA] I can relate to that. I know what you mean. How did you go about setting healthy boundaries? [ANDREA] For me, it was not a problem to accept the boundaries of others, but I had to learn to communicate because I was like a lot of other people are that if I wanted to say no, I will say yes, and then I will judge myself afterwards for doing so and not being able to communicate clearly out. [LISA] I know just from my own experience and just working with clients too, is that when we say yes to something, when we’re really want to say no, it’s really taking a part of ourselves. It can be a huge wounding inside of this, and we can really feel it deep down into our heart because we know that we are, maybe it can feel like resenting ourselves or not listening to ourselves, even though we really want to, but not sure how to do that. [ANDREA] I learned for myself that setting strong boundaries from one to moment to another will be a very huge ask. So I chunked it down in little steps and practiced myself in here. To do so, we first have to be clear of our wants and needs and desires, and then we can stand behind our values and communicate them clearly to others so that they can understand it. The next step will be being accountable to oneself and holding to our values. Although I believe that the world will test our boundaries, we just stay committed to them and let life afloat its way. [LISA] I know what you’re talking about, when life will test our boundaries, like I’ve had like a recent situation come up about having the opportunity to go back to school just to take one course to get certified for a particular license. It’s like, oh man, I don’t know if I want to do that. That’s so much of my time and effort, even though it’s only seven weeks. Do I want to put my time, my money, my effort into something like that? Do I really need it? I feel like I’m being tested again. I feel like, do I have the courage to say no? However, I’m also finding myself saying yes, and so I’m like struggling between the two. [ANDREA] And then if the values to become clear of the values and what it means to us we can ask why we want to do that or why we don’t want to do that, and become more clear about it, and then just take a decision and learning to take a fast decision and then holding to them because where we put our focus, the energy flows. [LISA] Can you say more about that? I love that, where we put our focus, the energy flows. [ANDREA] Yes. So I like to see it like a ship. If a ship is going in one direction in, it will end up on a certain destiny. If we change the focus for just some percentage of degrees it will drive its way, it will come to a different destination. It is not possible that the destination will be the same if the course is changed, so it is with our thoughts as well. We see what we focus on most. [LISA] How do you bring more clarity into a situation? [ANDREA] By asking a lot of questions, so to make the unaware or unvisible visible, to pay attention to where my thoughts were at the moment. How was I feeling, what happened, what was really said? Because sometimes we tend to label something. If a sentence was not fully said, feeling words, so our brain fills this space with our past conditioning or past experience. By asking a lot of questions, making it clear, we can bring up clarity. It’s not an easy task, although it’s not a hard job asking some questions, but it may seem not so easy for one who haven’t practiced it but the key to it is practice, practice, practice and by doing so, a certain amount of time we’ll get better and better in here. [LISA] Can you give examples of some of the questions that we would ask ourselves to get more clarity? [ANDREA] First of all, what was said, where in the body could I have felt this feeling? Then to ask our ourself, do you believe this and why do you believe this? We ask as long as we come down to bottom line and where we can see an overall picture on the one side and on the other side, we can detect maybe limiting belief, which is holding us back. Then at this point we can ask ourselves, what do you prefer to believe instead? [LISA] Sometimes I feel it as, I don’t want to listen to my myself or I don’t want to listen to the truth for myself. I don’t want to hear the answer even though I know what the answer is. My mind is saying one thing and maybe my body is saying the other. Then, for me, or even working with clients, like, okay, not that you even have to do it, but what if you were to allow yourself to say it out loud or to feel it just so you’re not holding it inside your body? That usually helps just to be able to say it. Maybe that’s the first step, whether you even do it or not, but just to acknowledge it to yourself, I think is a huge step. Do you agree with that or do you see it a different way? [ANDREA] Yes. Acknowledging and accepting is the first step. Or I call it to observe it, to be one’s best observer because if we are not aware or something is holding us back, we cannot change anything and we will stay where we are. To change something, we have to become aware of it first and to be patient and honest to oneself because it does not help if we are not honest to ourself as our subconscious mind does not forget anything. It is playing a huge role in here. So we will play just a game with ourselves and losing of time and we will not come to a place of power, happiness if we will not be true to ourselves in the long run [LISA] Then we’ll be in disappointed in the long run? [ANDREA] Yes. [LISA] Is that what happened to you? Did it take a few attempts before you realized that something needed to change or was it like on the first try or? [ANDREA] No, it was not on the first try. It took me several years to realize it, but as we are not taught such things in school, we learn it when the time is right for us. [LISA] Why is it that self-care is important in life, Andrea? [ANDREA] I believe that when we have power, we can serve our environment and our families and be strong for ourselves and have energy. If we are just giving and giving and not taking care of ourselves, I believe in the long run, it will overwhelm us or take energy from us. So I learned that self-care times is necessary. It’s a necessity. So time where I can be with myself, where I can feel my body and my feelings, and where I can recharge the batteries so I can afterwards, work more productive and focused and be here for others. [LISA] Oh, I love that. What things can you recommend for self-care? What can you recommend for people to do for self-care? [ANDREA] I recommend to do whatever a person gives energy. It could be for one person being in nature. I believe being present in general will be helpful for everyone. Some will go for dancing or doing some activities because by doing so, the bio-chemistry in our body helps us to come into a better state while moving our body. But we can practice self-care with singing or whatever will bring us pleasure and fun and energy back. So we get something back so we are not just always giving, giving, but taking something from the world and having some fun as well while doing so. [LISA] I don’t know if you agree with this or not, and just as you identify as a highly sensitive person, do you feel that HSPs, I don’t know, I’m trying to think the best way to say this, that they don’t deserve to receive, like they can only give, like they need to give more than they can receive? [ANDREA] Yes, but I’m not sure if here isn’t a limiting belief behind that because we are all worthy of being happy and getting something back. [LISA] Can you share what a limiting belief is for any of our listeners that may not know what that is, that they’re just starting this whole process? [ANDREA] Yes. A strong indicator will be when a person is using the words I can’t, I’m not allowed, I may not do that or such similar. So it maybe that it was in our biography, it was maybe said to us when we were children, or maybe we observed it, that it was not directly said to us, but we heard it picked it up from our environment when we were children. We internalized it so much that we believe it is a part of our identity, but it isn’t because we can change it today. We are not, it must not demine our future because we weren’t born like some unfilled bottles when we were children, and we were conditioned by our environment, our teachers. We heard how we have to behave and should not behave in this world. It is influencing us still on a subconscious level. We are surely not aware of it but we can become aware of it and really see it for the better. [LISA] Oh, I love that, Andrea. That’s beautiful. How would someone empower themselves in a down phase of life? [ANDREA] The first big step is to realize it that we are in a down phase. Oftentimes, we come up with some reasoning and to say to admit, yes, okay, now I’m in a down phase. So to realize it will be the first step in my opinion and then acknowledging it and having a look on how we could quit it as soon as possible just to break that cycle as soon as possible. [LISA] What happens when you break the cycle? What happens in your body or your mind? [ANDREA] We can do it through our thinking by recalling some positive reference experiences we had in our lives. We can shake out some emotions and having a look on which emotion will release this emotion. So sometimes if we feel anger or, yes we can try to shake it off and have a look on which movement helps us to get this emotion released. [LISA] Okay, how would you stop the inner critic? What do you recommend for stopping the inner critic? [ANDREA] I would say the inner critic is like a little part within ourselves. It’s like an over worried mother and to see that it’s its job to be criticked and there is a self-care part within ourselves and we can let to negotiate the both parts and make the self-care part much bigger so that the arguments which the critic is giving cannot hold because the ones suggested from the self-care part are much bigger. [LISA] I find when exploring the inner critic that the voice that I hear, or even when working with clients I always like, what is that your voice or is that someone else? What we usually find is like, no, that’s someone else’s voice, and that sounds like the voice of one of my parents or my teacher or someone else that we just glob onto and that it becomes a part of us and it’s really recognized. For me, recognizing that voice and start questioning that voice going, is this really serving me right now any longer as an adult or is that something I need to have a different relationship with that part of myself and just to acknowledge the inner critic that as maybe it was a coping skill as a child that, like I said, is no longer serving you and you’re ready to let go of that inner critic and have a different relationship with it so you can have better boundaries going back to boundaries for yourself. [ANDREA] Yes, that’s so wonderful what you said, so helpful. [LISA] Why is it essential to know yourself? [ANDREA] Especially if we are very sensitive and we don’t know about our beliefs, about our values, about our desires, we will tend to please others more likely and maybe in the long run, we will lose ourselves. Therefore, I believe that it is very, very important to know about our values and our beliefs, and even about our desires and needs, so we can fulfill them for ourselves. We don’t need others to fill our cup because we can fill it for ourselves. We are not in a needy position, but in a powerful position. [LISA] It sounds like then you can start taking charge of your own life instead of allowing others to take charge of your life or run your life. [ANDREA] Yes, because we are adult people and we should take charge of ourselves first. [LISA] Yes, I know — [ANDREA] And not making others accountable for our feelings. [LISA] Yes. To me when I’m just listening to you Andrea, it’s like it takes a long time to grow up, I feel, and just to learn all this about yourself, learn about others, and just taking a responsibility and accountability. [ANDREA] Yes, it’s like a process we are going through and we are growing and it’s like in nature, every plant is supposed to grow and to flourish. So we are to grow because if we are stopping to grow and we take the energy out of ourselves, there’s no nutrition here to grow and to be alive. [LISA] Andrea, what would you like listeners to take away from our conversation today? [ANDREA] I believe that most important part in any situation is to observe ourselves, to put the focus on us, to see how we think in a certain situation, how we feel in a certain situation, because it gives us a lot of clarity and it prevents us of being in a dark place. [LISA] Oh, thank you so much for your inspiration and your motivation and your kind words. Thank you for coming on the show today, Andrea. [ANDREA] Yes, you’re welcome [LISA] Thanks for listening my audience. Please let me know what you thought of the episode. Send me an email to lisa@miokpodcast.com. Remember to subscribe, rate and review wherever you get your podcast. To find out more about Highly Sensitive Persons, please visit my website at amiokpodcast.com and subscribe to my free eight-week email course to help you navigate your own sensitivities and to show you that it’s okay not to take on everyone else’s problems. This is Lisa Lewis reminding each and every one of you that you are okay. Until next time, be well. Thank you for listening today at Am I Ok? Podcast. If you are loving the show, please rate, review and subscribe to it on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you’d like to learn how to manage situations as a highly sensitive person, discover your unique gift as a highly sensitive person, and learn how to be comfortable in your own skin, I offer a free eight-week email course called Highly Sensitive People. Just go to amiokpodcast.com to sign up. In addition, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email to let me know what is on your mind. You can reach me at lisa@amiokpodcast.com. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want to professional, you should find one.