The Puurlee Podcast with Nika Lawrie

A No B.S Approach To Mastering Your Emotions With Luciana Garcia

• Luciana Garcia • Season 2020 • Episode 4

Share episode

Join us on a profound journey of self-discovery with Luciana Garcia, an emotional mastery coach, holistic practitioner, and ordained modern-day Buddhist priest with an inspiring story that will resonate with listeners seeking transformation. In this heart-to-heart episode, Luciana delves into her own struggles with weight, self-image, and severe postpartum depression, and how these challenges paved the path to her calling as a healer and mentor. She shares the pivotal moments of her life, from her shy childhood to confronting and accepting her sexuality, leading to her work in emotional integration—a practice she likens to the 'Mindfulness of Emotions.'

Luciana's tale is not just about personal triumph; it's a testament to the power of embracing and managing our emotions as fundamental parts of our being, regardless of gender stereotypes or societal expectations. Her approach rejects the notion of emotional control, advocating instead for understanding and processing emotions to foster healthier reactions.

Connect With The Guest:

CONNECT WITH PUURLEE: https://m.mtrbio.com/puurlee

SUBMIT A QUESTION OR REQUEST A TOPIC:
I would love to hear from you! Please record your question or topic request to be featured in a future episode: https://www.speakpipe.com/Puurlee

DISCLAIMER:
*This podcast and its contents are for informational purposes only and are not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or a qualified health provider for any questions concerning a medical condition or health objectives. Additionally, the advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every individual and are not guaranteed for business, personal, or wellness success. Use discretion and seek professional counsel when necessary.

AFFILIATE DISCLAIMER:
*Some of the resources and advertisements shared throughout the podcast episodes may contain affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something, I may earn a commission.

Nika Lawrie:

Welcome everybody to the show. I'm super excited for today and my fantastic guest. I think you guys are absolutely going to love her and her amazing story. She is an emotional mastery coach and holistic practitioner. Luciana Garcia is also a modern day ordained Buddhist priest, which I'm super excited to hear about, and she has a background in transformational psychology. She is dedicated to her life to teaching women how to heal themselves and master their emotions, because she believes emotional mastery is the key to creating and manifesting the life we desire. Luciana, thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to the show.

Luciana Garcia:

Thank you so much for having me. I am very, very excited to be here.

Nika Lawrie:

Awesome. So I kind of gave a short bio, but I really want to hear your story directly from you. Can you kind of give me, walk me through your, your story of overcoming and what really compelled you to become an emotional mastery coach?

Luciana Garcia:

Yes, I always like to start my story pretty much from the beginning. I always share with people how I grew up being a very, very shy child. I was always hiding. I was very overweight. I remember the first time somebody asked me that I should start a diet I was maybe seven or eight years old and I remember I didn't know what a diet was, but the energy that the person was saying those words with just felt like something's wrong, like you need to dance something about yourself. So I really didn't know how to take it. But I realized that I was an overweight kid and I'm now.

Luciana Garcia:

I realized that more than ever because I had so many emotions that I didn't know how to process. I was very sensitive. So I grew up to be pretty much like almost close to 300 pounds and I'm kind of just painting the story of my life during that time, which kind of started my journey to where I am today. I was to anybody that would meet me. I was fighting in, you know, behind my body, very shy, always letting other people take the front line, take, start the conversations, always letting other people choose things for me, just to give you an idea. And then I got married, I had my daughter and I experienced very severe postpartum depression Sorry, I lost the word there, but and that is when my life became all of this.

Luciana Garcia:

Emotions that I was suppressing for so long kind of came out strong, and the fact that I realized, okay, I cannot run away from this anymore. Something is wrong. Because I was happy at that time, I was supposed it was supposed to be like the perfect moment in my life, right, and I was feeling was very severe depression. The one thing that always called me when it came to working on myself was anything that was holistic. So I started to look more into meditation. I always had a desire to get to know myself and a desire to expand in my spirituality, but I never knew how to do it. So I started to learn a little bit more about meditation and at the beginning and this is something that I always share with people it wasn't a magical solution, because sometimes we read about something and we're like, oh my God, this has to be it. It helped me, but it didn't completely resolve everything that I was going me, but it didn't completely resolve everything that I was going. And, anyways, to kind of fast forward a little bit through all of that time, I really wasn't present that much in my life or in my marriage and I realized that I didn't want to be there anymore. And I remembered having to make that decision of okay, I am happy that I am a mother the father of my child is an amazing person, but I don't want to be here anymore. And that is when we started the process of our divorce, and at that time I wasn't aware that the real reason of why is because I was also discovering my sexuality and accepting my sexuality. So one day I just want you to imagine everything that I was going through I was still overweight, I was still getting out of my postpartum depression.

Luciana Garcia:

I'm trying to understand my emotions, and one day I had a friend that invited me to a class about meditation, but she said this also has to do with emotions. And I and this was over 10 or 11 years ago and I attended that class I had no expectations, um, and it was about a technique called emotional integration, which is what I teach now. Um, to tell you a little bit about it, I now describe emotional integration like the mindfulness of emotions, if mindfulness is the practice of being in the here and now, accepting things as they are. Emotional integration is being in the here and now, embracing and accepting your emotions for what they are. I remember I attended the class. They gave us this little workbook. I thought everything made sense. I was like, oh my God, this is amazing.

Luciana Garcia:

But I did the one thing that many of us do when we learn great information I went home, I put the workbook to the side and I continue to cope with life in the way that I need. And I realized very shortly that no amount of overeating, no amount of grabbing another glass of wine, no amount of distraction or even friends, when you're struggling and you're not dealing with what's really going on, nothing really makes it better. It helps sometimes, but it won't make it better in the long run. And I remember there was one night where I said I need to do it any like another way. And I remember grabbing that paper like that workbook, and I said I need to try this, like nothing else has worked. I don't know what else to do.

Luciana Garcia:

And I started practicing what I learned and I told many people that I find that is the moment that my life took like that, that different route. You know there we all have many possibilities for our life. That was the day that I took that turn into that direction of where I really where I'm meant to be. That is how I see it. So I started practicing emotional integration and since then two things happen.

Luciana Garcia:

I started attending a lot of meditation seminars with the people that created the technique of emotional integration, which is the Maha Shriya Buddhist tradition. So it is a Buddhist tradition and I dedicated the last 10 years of my life of studying many, many different practices to really use that combination of spirituality and emotional work to build better lives. And on the other side, I decided to go back to school to get a degree in holistic health. So also that pushed me to kind of go into the direction of also learning more of the traditional and holistic part of emotions and psychology and everything. So that is kind of how it all started. From there. I mean, so many other things have happened, but it took that dark time and that realizing that it was up to me to make a decision of how I was going to deal with it for things to change.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. So talk to me a little bit about being a Buddhist priest. How did you I mean, how do you even go about doing something like that these days?

Luciana Garcia:

Yes. So I want to share a little bit about the Mahashriya Buddhist tradition, because it's the tradition underneath where I was ordained a Buddhist priest. So a little bit about the Mahashriya. And the reason why I call myself a modern day Buddhist priest is because in the Mahashriya we, even though the foundation of everything that we learn is Buddhism, we are open to learning from different traditions. And that is the thing that kind of like touched my heart when I learned this, because we use everything that we learned as a tool. We want to see everything as a tool, understanding that every human being is unique and everyone needs something different. So we learn a lot of meditations from Buddhism being the foundation of the tradition, but then we also learn about Hinduism and we learn about Kabbalah and we learn about Christianity.

Luciana Garcia:

I was raised Catholic, so for me, I wanted to learn about Buddhism, but I wasn't ready to let go of my faith and my connection with Jesus and Christ and my prayers, right. That is why, when I started to learn all of this, I realized and this is maybe a little bit out there for some people but it's okay for your faith to have different layers. It makes sense to you and if it makes you feel more connected to whoever you call the creator or whatever that may be for you. So inside of the tradition I mean it's all around the world there's thousands and thousands and thousands of people that practice it. It's not necessarily a religion. I like to explain that to people you do not belong to it. One of the things I like to teach people is I'm the number one thing that I push on anyone that I meet, my students, my clients. It's about freedom. It's about empowering people to understand that you are the only one that can choose what's best for you. But underneath the tradition, there are some of us that started learning the techniques and wanted to share them, and many of the priests in the tradition, when they see that and they notice the growth that you acquired throughout the years, at some point see it as an opportunity to ask you if you would like to be ordained as a priest.

Luciana Garcia:

When that happens, you do take some kind of vows and it's something of. It is a little bit of a matter of wanting to really dedicate your life to serve others. So that is why I decided to kind of take that path, because I realized it's not only now something that helped me. There's no way that I learned all this information and it helped me so much that now, like I couldn't see myself not sharing it. Yeah, um, and somebody seeing my progress and seeing that I had the ability to do that and seeing my dedication and my faith, um, you know, wanting to do the ordination was something just beautiful. So that's kind of how it happened.

Luciana Garcia:

And the ordination is a little bit of like you, you know a ceremony and you do the bows and everything. So it's interesting and it may be different for some people, but at the end of the day, I do like to say I explain to people that I am an ordained Buddhist priest and that a lot of the teachings that I do come from Buddhism. And then, after I say it, I also at some point kind of say I say, but let's not pay attention to that, because a name or an ordination doesn't make any better anybody better than anybody else. Right, it's simply kind of to understand kind of the background, and then that's it. You know, let's learn together and let's, you know, kind of more, get into applying what it is that works for our life.

Nika Lawrie:

Ah, that's so cool. I just love it. I think it's amazing. So for somebody who's not necessarily totally familiar with emotional mastery I know you touched on it a little bit, but how does that work? Can you deep dive in what that looks like and how we might implement that in our own lives?

Luciana Garcia:

Yes, I love this question because I really believe that we've entered a time in humanity where it's time to normalize feeling emotions. Oh my gosh, yes, yes, there's so much going on. Emotions are part of how we are built, but the thing is is that nobody teaches us how to work through our emotions. When you think about it, we are all figuring it out on our own. We're trying to mimic and copy what we saw in our parents, simply because they are our authority figure, even if they don't even know how to do it either. So that is the number one thing that I want to mention Now. First things first, we have to acknowledge everybody has emotions, and that is something that I tell people. Everybody doesn't matter your age and it doesn't matter your gender, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, because sometimes we have culturally said, women are so dramatic and boys should not cry, and we kind of, in a society, made it seem like emotions are for some people and not for others, or they are wrong or they mean it means that there's something wrong with you. All of that. First we want to kind of get it out of the way. Emotions, for me, are like the way I describe it is this you have blood. If you're a human being, you have blood running through your veins. You have lungs, you have I don't know, you have a stomach or whatever other organ, and you have emotions, like it's part of the combo of being a human being. Right Now, the thing with emotions is that the way that I like to explain it in the most simplistic way is that, instead of seeing them like something that we have 100% control over because that is the first thing I hear people say, luciana, can you teach us how to control our emotions? And I always say we cannot control our emotions. We can learn to manage them, we can learn to understand them, we can learn to process them differently, so our reactions are more healthy, but we cannot control them.

Luciana Garcia:

Emotions come naturally, and I want to give you an example, and I'm going to invite you to imagine this with me and anybody listening. I want you to remember the last time that you got angry and for many of us it might've been this morning, but you got angry and then something happened. It could have been anything, and that anger came up. I want you to be honest with yourself and answer the question Did you choose to get angry. Was it a choice? Like did you literally say you know what I'm going to get angry right? Yeah, fantastic, like that's what I'm going to do with my day today and I'm going to give myself a headache and stomach ache because of the anger?

Luciana Garcia:

No, the answer for all of us is we don't consciously choose to get everything right. Before we knew it, somebody said that word, or we found ourselves in traffic, or we read that comment on Facebook and anger came up. So, in order to master our emotions, the two things is let's understand everybody has emotions. They're not good or bad. It's an experience every human being has to. We don't consciously choose our emotions. They come up.

Luciana Garcia:

Now I do want to say something we don't consciously choose emotions, but we are responsible of what we do and how we act with our emotions. So, even if I don't choose my anger to come up, if I say something rude to somebody, I am responsible of the consequences of what my comment may cause, reason being why I want to try to understand what is it that made this emotion come up? So that is where the practice of emotional integration comes. So, like I mentioned before, the mindfulness of emotions learning to be aware of what's going on emotionally within me, for the main reason of I want to be aware of why it is there or what is it, and then I want to be better at reacting in a way or responding in a way that is more aligned to the life that I want to have, because if I always react in anger, most likely I'm going to have a lot of problems in my relationships or at work or whatever it may be. So so, yes, an emotional integration.

Luciana Garcia:

I want to say some. I want to say that it is something that anybody can practice. Even if you have never practiced meditation or if you think that you're not good at meditation because a lot of people tell me that I can't do it. Anybody can practice it, because it's a matter of learning to just pay attention to how you feel. And even for us here together, or anybody listening right now if you're wondering how, even at this moment, you're listening to this podcast we're here during this interview we are experiencing emotions, right. We're feeling something right now. It's not necessarily bad, it's not necessarily even be good, but it's just taking a breath and paying attention what's going on inside of me. Sometimes it's more like a physical sensation where you may not be able to put out a name of an emotion like. You may not be able to call it fear or rejection or shame, but you may say Okay, I'm listening to this podcast and I'm feeling a little bit of tightness in my stomach. What do we do? We take a breath.

Luciana Garcia:

So with emotional integration, it always starts, like with any meditation, with the breath and from that simple practice of starting right now, with however we feel at this moment.

Luciana Garcia:

There's more to it. There's a part of it where we learn about the ego, something that we call the 21 masks of the ego, which is 21 different ways in how we can learn to understand ourselves. But even before we get there, we start right now and then we practice it at different moments in our day. That is how that practice of emotional mastery begins. Eventually, the mastery comes because you do it so often that you begin to recognize oh, every time that I feel nervous, it's the same sensation and I don't suppress it, I don't try to blame somebody for it, I don't try to just eat something to distract myself or get another glass of wine to not feel. I allow myself to first be here with that sensation or that emotion. Eventually, the mastery will come. And I do want to note every time I say this, I tell people there's nothing wrong with food, there's nothing wrong with having a glass of wine, but not when we use it to suppress emotions. Right, use it to celebrate or something else.

Nika Lawrie:

So you touched on it a little bit. But what do we get out of mastering our emotions Like? What are the benefits that come from it? Why is that important?

Luciana Garcia:

Yes, I find that well, there are many, many, many benefits. One of them, like I mentioned before, is you now, when you are able to master your emotions or understand your emotions, you are the one that chooses your reaction. Before that, the reality is that the emotion is choosing. So a lot of the times we're having issues in our lives and with our significant other at work, it could be anything, and it's because of our reactions. Maybe we are reacting with a lot of anger, we are becoming very rude or we respond to people in a certain tone and that is causing issues with our children or whatever the situation, and then we feel bad because we know that those actions are not aligned even with who we are or what we want. We feel conflicted inside because we're like I don't even know why I said that, but I did, and I was angry. So one benefit is you become now the one in charge of how you react, because if I am able to let's say, for relationships, if I am able to process a moment of jealousy, it's going to be easier for me because I have the ability to stop and feel and recognize that maybe when I feel jealousy, what I'm actually feeling is just a deep sense of rejection. Maybe I'm feeling my partner is giving I don't know more attention to his friends or her friends, or whatever the situation. It's sometimes not even about the jealousy or what the person is doing is oh, I'm feeling a lot of rejection, right. Right, that space of being able to feel and process my emotion allows me the space actually to think how do I want to respond to this, so my response can be more aligned to, like I said, the relationship I want to have. That would be one of the biggest benefits.

Luciana Garcia:

That is also very important to mention is that the more we suppress emotions, like we don't process them and we just kind of put them under the rug and under the rug and try to pretend they're not there it begins to affect our body, for example, anxiety. There's many reasons I do like to say there are many reasons of why somebody may experience anxiety. Sometimes it could be something that is more with your physiology or with your genetics, something more physical sometimes. I mean, there's many reasons, but when we focus on those of us that may experience anxiety because of suppressed emotions, the more I suppress an emotion because of suppressed emotions, the more I suppress an emotion. It's like the more, the tighter my chest may feel or the tighter my stomach may feel, and eventually it gets really bad.

Luciana Garcia:

So the moment and so many people tell me this I started practicing emotional integration and my anxiety went away, or either it went from like an eight or a nine to a two. And why? Because I wasn't even working on my anxiety, like what I'm working on was something else. They allowed the emotion to move, the body didn't have as much pressure and some of the symptoms of anxiety sometimes digestion, other things started to go away or get better. Of course, with those things, it's always a holistic approach. We have to focus on what we eat, how we take care of our bodies and everything like that, but the emotional part can help a lot.

Luciana Garcia:

So there are benefits to our health, sometimes surprising for some people, but it's true, yeah, so so yes, and one last one that I do want to add is that when you get to know yourself better by connecting with your emotions, it also really, if you want to and if you allow it, it connects you deeper with your faith, whatever your faith may be. Remember, even though a lot of this practice comes from meditation or some foundation in Buddhism, it has nothing to do with that, only like anybody. So, whatever your faith is, whatever you connect to, whatever you pray to, however, you know your daily practice. What that is? It becomes deeper because you are more honest with yourself. So that conversation is more clear. That's beautiful.

Nika Lawrie:

Yes, so you mentioned a couple things earlier that kind of triggered me. Is this how we feel our emotions consciously? Explain that concept to me. How does that work?

Luciana Garcia:

Yes, good question. Because the reality is, and that is why I tell people emotional integration is us feeling our emotions consciously. Why? Because, if you think about it, we do feel emotions all of the time. The thing is that the emotion comes up and, like I've been mentioning, I don't want to see it the way that we deal with it. We do feel it at that moment. If fear comes up, anybody will tell me if they're feeling fear yeah, I'm afraid right now or you know if they're willing to say it or see it. So they are aware that the fear is there, right.

Luciana Garcia:

But the difference comes in the fact that after we realize that we are feeling something, usually, like I mentioned, we suppress it. So we don't let ourselves fully feel it, because it's already a little bit uncomfortable the way that it is. So we go no, let's suppress it. And usually what that causes is that we go into something that I call kind of like the blaming game, and we all do it. I'm going to be the one that raises my hand first, because when I feel something, let's say let's use the example of the anger, right let's say, my boss walks in and says that one comment or gives me that other load of work or whatever the situation, and suddenly I feel angry. At that moment it's only going to make sense to the mind to say he made me angry. I was having such a great day. He made me angry. My significant other made me feel sad. You know, we all in arguments we always go. You made me feel so alone. It's so normal. We all do it. But the moment we blame somebody else, automatically what I am saying is it's your fault that I feel this way. So I release the power over the situation, because now I'm saying you are in the control to fix it. You should fix it because you made it wrong, meaning I am making myself powerless. And the reality is that nobody ever is going to make us feel better, because everybody's trying to focus on their own selves, to just survive or cope or get through. So what I'm trying to get to here the difference is that you were already feeling emotions. Maybe you were suppressing it, maybe you were blaming it on somebody to try to get through it, to find a reason for it. You know, that's our best sometimes. Just where did it come from? Oh, my boss, because he made me angry. And that's our best to get through it.

Luciana Garcia:

Feeling it consciously means I literally a lot of the times. It requires us to stop. I stop every day, maybe, let's say, for five or 10 minutes. I began to take some deep, slow, conscious breaths, conscious meanings. I'm aware of it. I am aware of my breath because we all breathe all the time, but we are not always aware of it. So I am aware of my breath. And then we take it a step further. I am aware of how I'm feeling and this is something that it starts there. So now let's say I feel it could be anything.

Luciana Garcia:

Instead of saying you made me feel so alone or so rejected, I would be like, okay, I am feeling rejected. Yes, it was triggered by that comment that my significant other said, but the rejection is here. So what you do, it's almost like you jump that step of staying stuck in the story. When did they say it? What did it mean? And it's I'm feeling it. Yeah, it's already here. And it's so empowering because you give the feeling it. Yeah, it's already here. And it's so empowering because you give the emotion attention.

Luciana Garcia:

Yeah, and so many people think that emotions are like like monsters. You know people say like face your fear and they imagine fear like this huge monster and in reality, emotions are like innocent little friends that are not mature. So when they come, they don't think of how they match reality. They don't think of that. But they come because they want to show you that you are processing something or you were affected in some way, or that you could learn something. Or, when they come, they just want your attention. So if I'm feeling afraid and then I stop for a moment and begin to breathe and become aware of my fear or what's there, what do you think happens? The body begins to relax. The emotion doesn't need to be as loud because it has your attention. And then from there and that is the foundation of how we begin. Like I said, there is the part of understanding, sometimes because there's more of understanding the connection between certain emotions and certain actions. But we don't have to overwhelm ourselves with all of that to get started it's just right.

Luciana Garcia:

Feeling consciously is stopping and really letting yourself, give all of your attention to what's going on inside of you, and it's beautiful. It's beautiful because we live in a world right now where many of us are feeling alone in general, even before everything that's going on in the world, with you know being in quarantine and the pandemic and everything. But regardless of all of that, it's a world where sometimes we can be standing in a room full of people, and even people we love, and even being happy that we are with those people, but feeling alone Because many of us are searching more than anything for our own presence. So a practice like this and that is why I say it takes you closer to your faith, because you realize you began to be there for yourself. So it's really beautiful and it may be as simple as stopping for five minutes or 10 minutes every day and just even breathing and asking yourself how do I feel right now, and then taking it from there.

Nika Lawrie:

I love that because one of the posts I saw you post recently was talking about the feeling of anxiety and having, like, a lack of faith or having excess questioning, and those being symptoms to not feeling grounded, and I think that really relates to a lot of us right now, especially going through the pandemic is, I mean, anxiety is off the chart for many of us, right and and we question everything. I mean we have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow, kind of thing. How do we, how do we manage that? How do we overcome that or or organize that into something that's a little bit more manageable?

Luciana Garcia:

Yes, with fear, we always want to, most of the time. I mean, it could be different sometimes, but the majority of the time what's underneath anxiety is fear. I sometimes say anxiety is a symptom of the emotion of fear, and the body, when we feel severe anxiety, it comes to a place where our body, our emotions and our mind, which I like to call like the three different parts of us, are feeling afraid, because sometimes we just feel a little bit of fear mentally about a deadline or something, but it really doesn't affect us that much. When we are feeling severe anxiety, it's like, okay, every part of us is feeling afraid physically, emotionally and mentally. Right, if you think about it, fear is founded in a lot of uncertainty. So we feel afraid normally when we are uncertain of what may happen, because, at the end of the day, as human beings, we are still. As weird as it sounds, we're still animals, you know. So our survival it's the most important thing for us, right? Uncertainty doesn't support our security for our survival. So all of these emotions come up, the body doesn't feel safe, and then what we tend to do to try to manage is go into our mind, and that is where that post was coming from. So if this happens to you, I first want to say do not judge yourself, you're not doing anything wrong. All of us at some point or another, especially during this time, have been living in our mind to try to process and to try to plan and to try to be prudent with the situation. The key here is to not get lost there, because it doesn't matter how many questions you ask, a lot of the questions do not have a solid answer. They lead you into another question. They lead you into another question and instead of feeling that you found like a solution and you can feel safe and secure, you tend to feel more uncertain.

Luciana Garcia:

So what I tell my students and my clients, what I recommend it will be if you are already experiencing anxiety. You probably have heard this before a million times, but it works and that is why we all keep repeating it. It's coming back to your breath. Your breath has the ability to calm your physical body. Your thoughts do not have that ability. The breath has that. So it's okay. I am feeling anxious, it's taking a moment.

Luciana Garcia:

We go back to the same thing with emotional integration. Let's stop a little bit so we can begin to breathe more consciously and, depending on where you are, if you are feeling a lot of anxiety, even a more positive dialogue of I am safe, you can take conscious breaths, looking around you and remembering that at this moment I am safe. I am here, let's say, in my office, I am, my body is healthy and kind of bringing yourself down to feel more grounded when it comes to the emotional part of this process. It requires for us to and I want to add something else for the body grounding also requires sometimes to disconnect from electronics. Yeah, yes, yes before. The thing we would all recommend, which is also very good, is like go out in nature, put your feet on the grass. All of that works. But right now, most, some, so many of us are so far away from that, from that, because maybe we we cannot do that or we live in an apartment complex. Then the thing we can do to ground is turn off electronics, so not only stay away from them, turn them off, so even the whole connection, the whole being connected to Wi-Fi, the whole thing is off and it gives you a moment to stop and that could be an ideal time to do your breathing exercise and do that.

Luciana Garcia:

Now, what I wanted to say about the emotions emotionally, is cultivating a lot of the feeling of trust. Trusting not, not trying to just trust in like something blindly that you do not know. Trusting what's in front of you, trusting the fact that, let's say, um, cause sometimes we worry about what if something bad happens in the future with my finances? What if something bad happens in the future with my finances? What if I would get sick? What ifs? A lot of what ifs. Yeah, we have to bring ourselves back to right now. What are the facts of this moment, like I said, so, if the trust comes from, what is my reality right now? I am healthy, good, right now. I still have my finances coming every month or every week, good, from that place.

Luciana Garcia:

It's easier to then feel trust, to then enter what I call a state of prudence. Prudence is what could I do right now to maintain this reality? Okay, save some money, make sure that I don't know, take my vitamins or whatever you may want to do to, or you have available to make your experience easier, for whatever reason, if you would be sick, and then a sense of trust comes because you're here and you took responsibility of what you can do. Yeah, worrying for the future creates so much anxiety because we're not in the future, so it's a problem where you're not there, so you feel helpless, like you cannot do anything. So those are some basic things and I am a big fan of like positive dialogue, together with emotional work. So I would always put around my house like little notes that remind me to go back to. I feel safe, everything's okay right now, something like that. So then I'm taking care of my body, taking care of my emotions and taking care of my mind.

Nika Lawrie:

I love that, yeah, yeah, I think you know the biggest thing especially right now with the pandemic, but just in general, outside of that is, I think there's a huge sense of insecurity in people in general, and I think a big part of that is because we as a culture, kind of the Western culture so not just the US, but kind of Europe and stuff too we've really started to move away from tribes or groups or even small families that really keep us kind of safe and grounded in that sense, and so I think having tools to work through that anxiety and feel grounded even when we may not be in our tribe is really, really useful.

Luciana Garcia:

Yeah, yes, and connection too. Now that you bring that up, it's important to reach in moments like this is to reach out to those relationships that fulfill you. Sometimes we just, with so much distance, we began to like even good friendships that we really enjoyed people that were healthy for us. We kind of, like you know, build some space because we wonder, like they're doing their thing, I'm doing my thing, but it's okay to reach out and to see what's happening with others so we can also step outside of our own bubble. I mean, it may be all online, but at least it can still be something where you can have that connection with another human being and feel that you're not alone, because that's also important.

Nika Lawrie:

Absolutely so. Changing the subject a little bit but on your website you list kind of three key steps or key things and it's feel it decide and live it. Can you explain those steps, kind of break that down? What does that mean?

Luciana Garcia:

Yes, Well, it kind of comes from the idea that, like I mentioned before, of how is it that you can begin to create a practice in the long term? We already talked about the importance and the first step, which is to begin to feel it, to begin to be there for your emotions. For me, the part of this side is that we have to remember that before we start learning a new way of coping with our emotions programming and based on where you are in your life you know, when I started to learn this, you know I was I don't know in my mid 20s, so I had 25 years of programming. That was my way of coping right. When you start a new practice, I always tell people it may be about this, it may be about health, it may be about habits with your diet, it could be about anything. You have to decide to now make it a part of your life and you have to decide that now, no matter how everything in you wants to go back to the old pattern, you will come back and apply it again. And you will come back and apply it again Because a lot of people begin to feel excited, like me when I started up, like, okay, this sounds great, let's do it.

Luciana Garcia:

But then, when at some point the emotions began to come up, we still feel that it may be uncomfortable and just go back to the old pattern. So what we want to do is decide that you want to do this for yourself and always find that sense of believing that you can, which is also very, very important For me the part of living it. It's now taking it to every area of your life and to even not be afraid to speak about it. Because if, for example, I've worked with a lot of clients that have told me that you know, within their family, based on the fact that they were reacting to their emotions through coping with them in a whatever the way may be they the family has described them as dramatic, or their friends they're like oh, she's the most dramatic. So no, there's like a label where the the partner labels someone as she's so jealous, he's so jealous.

Luciana Garcia:

Now that person that has that label is doing work on themselves and but it's kind of like they want to decide that now they want to deal with like life differently, they want to deal with their emotions differently. They don't want to project in drama or act in jealousy because it requires for you to speak about it, for you to be able to say when people if that was the case, when people would mention something like that to say, no, I'm working through my emotions differently, or this is what I'm doing, taking it in all areas of your life, by talking about it, but also by applying it, not only in those difficult things that are the hardest, even in the subtle things, the small little things, like when a post on Facebook irritates us or we start comparing ourselves to others and it seems like we would never talk to any anybody about it. We would just scroll and keep going. Yeah, it's okay for you to take the practice there, to take a breath there. What happened? So you begin to live it, because from living it is where the mastery comes from.

Luciana Garcia:

But it is required to start feeling your emotions, decide that this is the way you want to live your life now and then begin to apply it. And if you think about it, like I said, this could go across the board with anything Like if you're changing your eating habits, first you have to maybe educate yourself how do I do it? And then you have to decide. Your cravings may take you one way and you have to decide to continue to apply what you know is best for you, and so yeah. So that is kind of how I got inspired to to write yeah, yeah, I know I love that Totally.

Nika Lawrie:

So you mentioned the ego a little bit earlier, but I saw an interesting article on your on your site a while ago as well, talking about how the ego can be a tool to make you happier.

Luciana Garcia:

How does that work? Like, kind of explain the ego, but how do I use the ego to feel happier? Yes, I love talking about the ego because I used to have so many misconceptions about the ego, if I am honest, before I really started going deep into learning about all of this. For me, everything I have heard about the ego is that it was something negative, something that I needed to like overcome. Right, I mean that I needed like that, like a dark part of me that was causing all my problems, or something like that. Now, in emotional integration I shared with you. I teach something called the 21 masks of the ego. But the way that I explain the ego is very different, because I don't see the ego as something negative. I don't see the ego as anything bad. The ego is the part of us and let me first explain this.

Luciana Garcia:

I believe that all human beings are natural emotional states. If you think of a baby, it's a state of purity, a state of love, a state of joy. Even a small child. You take away their toy, they express an emotion of sadness and they look to the other side and they start laughing and they go back very easily to that pure state of emotion. If we start growing up, it's like the first time we experienced rejection in pre-K or something. And then we start having a feeling afraid or feeling a little anxious at school or whatever, and then we have our first heartbreak and we feel deep abandonment. As we grow up as human beings, we feel more far away from that home.

Luciana Garcia:

What I call our emotional home is a pure state of love and joy. So for me, the ego is the reaction of us feeling far away from that good emotions, if we want to call it that. So ego is like the part of us that is throwing a tantrum because it feels far away from that love and that joy. So what happens is that when we have an emotion, a reaction and I like to call a lot of our human reactions, even everything I mentioned anger, jealousy, feeling rejected, feeling abandoned, feeling afraid, feeling ashamed a reaction of the ego, when we start using our emotions to grow and every time I practice emotional integration, the goal is to sit down, like I've been talking about, feeling the emotion, and when you feel the emotion enough, it begins to lose some of its intensity and you feel a little bit more closer to that either just a sense of peace or maybe, if possible, a sense of love, and those emotions that I say are core emotions. It's called emotional integration, integrating the pain back to our home, of feeling that love. So, if you think about it the ego, it's a roadmap back home, because every time I have an emotional reaction or an ego reaction and I choose to witness it and process it consciously and feel it, it takes me back home. So to me, the ego is nothing equal, it's not bad, we can. And then the thing is we could try to destroy it. You can try to overcome it. I think we all have. The thing is that it continues to come back up because we are built with it. To me, I really feel, is like I said, the roadmap to get back home to who you are, if you are willing to use those emotions as an opportunity for growth. So it's a very different perspective, but it's also more compassionate.

Luciana Garcia:

A lot of people tell me that they felt very conflicted with themselves because they thought that they had this dark part of them that they would never be able to surpass. And then they would also see people that were doing meditation, or certain people thinking, oh wow, look at them, they surpassed their ego, and the reality is that that's not true. Temptation, or or certain people thinking oh, look, wow, look at them, they, they, they surpass their ego, and the reality is that that's not true. You know everybody, we will continue to to have emotions until our last breath. The thing is, how are we going to react to them will be different, and some may may call that mastering your ego. Ego, but it's not that it goes away right.

Nika Lawrie:

I mean that's just fascinating to me because I mean, I have a degree in psychology and everything I've ever been taught is you know, the ego is like this, like it's like the little devil sitting on your shoulder, basically you know. So, yeah, so I love that much more compassionate and freeing approach to identifying your ego. Yes, very cool. So, for someone who is struggling with managing their emotions, or really early in the stage of processing their emotions, how does someone start on this path and what are some tools or resources that you've come across that have helped you on your journey?

Luciana Garcia:

Yes. So one thing, first thing I would like to say and I think I already said it once is remember there is nothing wrong with you because you are feeling emotions, even if right now they may be very overwhelming. It may be because of suppressing them, it may be for various reasons, but there is nothing wrong with you. The only way through really finding peace when it comes to our emotions is to be willing to see them for what they are and to begin working on them. And I want to note here which is important, since we are talking about emotions, which is very related to mental health, is that a lot of what I teach is a holistic approach, and also I like to call them self-help tools. We can even call them like that. This is something you would do on your own, but it doesn't mean that it goes against or is worse or is better than also looking for support with a traditional therapist. You know you have to really see where you are. You really have to see what kind of support you need. Sometimes we're in a place where we need to see a therapist, a psychologist, even a psychiatrist, and you can apply emotional integration at home. It's very interesting because, based on some people don't need that. Some people are really just using it as a form of personal development. So it helps either way. I call it an alternative and complimentary form of therapy, even. But I first want to say that, because sometimes people hear this and they go but what about what I'm doing? Or is it better, or should I stop what I'm doing and start doing something else? Remember, if something has worked for you, continue to do that. It's important to first feel that you can be supported.

Luciana Garcia:

Emotions, even if it's through something like this, it's healthy to have somebody to talk about them with. Sometimes it may be a friend, sometimes it may be a loved one, and sometimes it may have to be a therapist, and it's okay. Now, outside of that, I would say I have, for example, I do have a masterclass on my website where I guide you through the process of how to sit down. I actually guide you through a little bit of the lesson of how to sit down. Begin to feel your emotions. You can find that on my website, theemotionalmasterycoachcom.

Luciana Garcia:

And if anything, theemotionalmasterycoachcom, and if anything, what I would say the number one thing to do is start every single day by stopping for a moment, breathing and asking yourself. How do I feel? Just begin there, because I would love to see what happens and I would love to hear about it. You can send me a message and just tell me how it goes, because I would love to see what happens when you stop and start listening to yourself. Those would be the main things that I would say to do Now. If you are feeling very, very severe emotions where when you're sitting down to just be there with yourself, it's too overwhelming, then I would recommend to reach out for support. I mean, you can always reach out for me and I can give you different resources or, like I said, reach out to also professional help. It's really an independent scenario based on who you are.

Nika Lawrie:

Awesome. So you, you. I have one more question for you, but before that I was going to ask you know, how can the listeners connect with you If you, you, if they want to learn more? You mentioned your website. Mention it again, and and how else can they find you online?

Luciana Garcia:

yes, well the website is the emotional the emotional mastery coachcom. Now you can find me on social media under the same name facebook, the emotional mastery coach, instagram, the emotional mastery coach. I love connecting with people, so if you are going through something, if you have questions, if you need more clarity, send me a message Like I will really take time to talk to you, you know, to guide you in the direction of what may be helpful for you, to give you resources, anything like that.

Nika Lawrie:

Awesome, that's amazing. I love that Totally. So, luciana, my last question for you today, well before I ask that, first, I just want to just recognize you for the incredible work that you are doing, the amazing journey that you've been on, and just the knowledge that you have to share with people. I think it is just wonderful and I thank you for the time and information. Thank you, thank you.

Luciana Garcia:

I am very grateful to be here, the time and information.

Nika Lawrie:

Thank you, thank you. I am very grateful to be here. Awesome, okay, so my last question for you. So what advice do you have for someone who either wants to make change in their life, in their community or around the world?

Luciana Garcia:

The advice that I have, and something that I always share, is to really start working on yourself. For me, if we really want to create an impact in the world, it really has to start with us, and it requires courage, because it's so easy to see the faults of others, to see the faults in the world and the things that should change, but it's hard to see where maybe we need to work on ourselves or even how we can become better. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with us, how we can improve and become better, and I am a big believer that if we work on our emotions and it's the reason of why I have so much big passion for this If you work through your emotions, where you are in a better place, so you affect positively the people around you, which may be your significant other, your children, your family, whoever you work with. You begin to create an impact. You begin to create a, to become an example, and I think right now we live in a world where there is so much information that people know that almost anybody could know a lot of things, so it's not that much of how much more we can tell people, but when you are an example, you become an inspiration for other people in your family that acknowledges their emotions, and you may.

Luciana Garcia:

The next time there's an argument, instead of blaming somebody, you may say wow, I'm feeling so affected by this, I'm feeling this way, or you may apologize. Something may happen that is so different that everybody goes like whoa, what just happened there? And it creates an impact. Little things like that. So for me.

Nika Lawrie:

I really believe it starts there. Yeah, totally agree with you awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time and just sharing all your knowledge and just being here. So thank you, thank you so much.

Luciana Garcia:

I am very, very grateful, um, and just thank you. Thank you awesome.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Nika Lawrie

Host