From Fitting In to Loving Yourself - Eliana

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Am Jackson Podcast. How I survive the series. In these mental health episodes, I'm creating a space for real conversations about the things we often keep to ourselves, our struggles, our healing, and the stories that shape who we are. Hello, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today on another mental health discussion. Um, before we begin, can you give yourself a little introduction?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Hi, Daniela. Thank you so much for uh this opportunity and for having me here on your podcast. I am Ellie. I am a heart attunement mentor, an emotional release guide and energy healer at heart. And um I basically work with MPs and beautiful souls who are very sensitive and are often called too much, too intense, too emotional. And so they struggle to process their intense emotions, and as a result, they have all sorts of physical symptoms ranging from headache, nausea, all the way through to autoimmune diseases, and at the same time, because of the intensity of these emotions, they struggle to have conversations and interactions where they can feel seen, valued, and respected for who they are. I am Italian, born and bred, but I live in the beautiful West London in England. I've been here for the last 30 years. England is my home. And I basically work online and face-to-face. I work in group settings, one-to-ones. Uh, I have an online membership as well. And I use a variety of techniques to actually help my clients, uh, such as energy healing, um, heart attunement, breath work, visualization, and journaling exercises to process the emotions and release their intensity.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Wow, that's amazing. Um, would you say that you helping other people was a result to your own struggles?

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yes. My journey started 15 years ago when I was diagnosed with a subclavian DBT. Prior to that, I was working in my 9 to 5, which was anything but 9 to 5, it was more like 10, 12 hours per day. I was working in the city of London in the financial district, and so my job was very demanding. And between working intensely and being a so-called high achiever, high performer, being so demanding on myself as I've always been, also being an athlete, because outside of my working hours, I was also very athletic, I was doing martial arts and a variety of sports. And then the rest of the time, whatever hours I had left, I was partying. I was the classic party animal and I was drinking a lot. And so 15 years ago, unfortunately, um that kind of party life and that surface level lifestyle, the one that many people will crave for because it looks so beautiful, the illusion of it ended, and I became very ill with a circle and DVT. And so uh everything came to the surface, all my feelings, all my emotions, because all my friends disappeared, my so-called friends from the city, from the party days, everyone disappeared from my life. So I found myself not just alone, but very lonely. I'd always been lonely, but I hadn't really come face to face with loneliness until then. And unfortunately, that's when I sank into severe depression because the hours were not passing very quickly. Also, I was in a lot of pain because my arm was paralyzed from the shoulder down, and so my mobility was impaired, I couldn't sleep, I was watching binge watching Netflix 24-7, and and then I started thinking, what am I doing here? What's the point for me to be here at all? And so I even contemplated taking my own life. So that's when I began my journey back into my body, my journey towards my emotions and not away from them like it had done for the past 35 years. And that's when finally I began processing a lot of the trauma that I had suppressed and began accepting myself for the very sensitive, the very emotional creature that I've always been. And when you think about it, I came from an Italian family, right? Because my family was very much about emotions, expressing emotions like most Italians are anyway in my country. And then when I moved to England, between the fact that I was doing everything in English, which for me was new, exciting but new, I was dealing with a foreign culture which was very removed from mine because everyone here is a lot more subdued, a little bit quieter. For me, that was a massive culture clash. So having always been an introvert as a child, because I never felt like I could express how I felt, and I was feeling all these emotions building up in me like a pressure cooker that I didn't know how to voice with those around me for fear that I would just explode and it wouldn't come across as very nice. So I started suppressing everything, and the pressure of fitting in in a foreign country became even more terrifying to me. So unfortunately, all that pressure that you build in yourself, it has to go somewhere. And unfortunately, manifested into these so-called D's E's that basically stopped me in my tracks and made me think and made me ask the question: who are you really? What is it that you want? What are you all about? You know, are you the person that has been performing for the last 30 years? Because everybody wanted to see a carefree, high achiever, high performer, both in sports and uh job careers, or are you actually someone else? And that's when I had to ask myself all these questions. There were hard questions, and it wasn't a walk in the park because there was a lot of pain, physical especially, and emotional, because I was crying all the time. But it was in that moment that I thought I'm done performing, I'm done pretending that everything is fine when in fact I'm not fine at all. And and then I started the process of actually talking myself out of it and forgiving myself. That self-talk of compassion and self-reflection that doesn't lead you to suppress what you feel and what you think, but it actually allows it to come to the surface without putting a label to it. Oh, I'm feeling sad, oh, I'm feeling angry, oh, I shouldn't be feeling that. No, none of it. Like I said, it was hard because all the time I was thinking, oh, I shouldn't be thinking this way. Oh, in order for me to get better, I have to think positive. And all these toxic, happy thoughts that you're being told, especially in my world, especially in the world of manifestation and spirituality, that you're being told that they're very fake because they don't reflect how you really feel, and most especially, they don't allow you to express the pain that you're really feeling. Nobody wants to hear about your pain. Even your friends or your family members, they want to hear it for a while, but then after a while they say, get on with it. You know, we all feel pain. And so, what do you do if you're a very hypersensitive creature like I was? If you're very emotional, what are you doing with all that baggage of emotions? They have to go somewhere. So, for them not to keep interfering with my health and with my physical body, I had to actually face them one by one.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yeah, I understand. Uh, personally, I too come from an Italian family, so I can't imagine what it must have felt like uh being in a different reserved culture, right? Um, I also agree that facing your emotions one by one is important. Uh, now how are you now, years later? Do you feel like you fit in?

SPEAKER_01 9:22

I think that concept of fitting in, to be honest, is not even in my vocabulary anymore. It's gone, disappeared. Because it it's not about whether I fit in or not. It's about how I connect with other people, how I see myself in relation to others, and how I can find alignment with some people in my life that naturally I cannot find with other people. And whilst I felt in the past that this was not an option, meaning I had to fit in with everybody and I had to be liked by everybody because that meant that nobody liked me. So I felt rejected like I had been since I was a child. Um now it's not even a question of feeling rejected or abandoned. It's more about, yeah, okay, I'm for someone and I'm not someone else's cup of tea. And that's perfectly okay. It's people change like I change. You know, the people that I used to meet and go out with years ago, they're no longer in my life because again, I've become a different person, and so have they. So when I see someone disappearing from my life, I I just accept it as part of my life. I'm grateful for what they gave me, and I hope that they feel that I gave them something to remember me by, and and that's it. So, but in terms of actually fitting in in the UK, yeah, I am more English than Italian. Not because I say it, but because they say it. It's everything about me, the way I speak, my demeanor, my behavior, it's more English. Not because I wanted to find a way to fit in that would mimic the way people behave here and how people live here. It just came natural to me because I've really embraced it. And so embracing it is a very different sensation and a very different feeling from wanting to fit in. Because when you're trying to fit in, you force yourself to think or feel or do things that don't necessarily feel natural to you. Embracing it, you do it with enthusiasm, with passion, with inspiration, and you naturally feel connected to something or somewhere, right? Because I feel deeply connected to this country and its people, in ways that you know I could have never felt when I was living in Italy. And I've lived most of my life here anyway. So despite having traveled to America, to um Switzerland, to other countries, but then I decided to make my home here. But in relation to people in general, whether they're English or not, whether they're from this country or not, again, I don't feel any more the pressure of having to fit in or having to agree with what they say, because otherwise they would have a, let's say, an abrupt reaction to anything that I voiced, or maybe they would explode, or maybe they would shut down. I just see it as, oh well, you know, that's just the way that they react based on their background, same as I do with me, because I'm not perfect. I'm still on a journey of self-discovery, you know, same as everyone else. But I'm very accepting in this sense. I've dropped that feeling of having to try and control everything and everyone, because I was feeling so much fear and I was so insecure about showing my real self that I felt that I had to control everything, every interaction, every meeting, every conversation. And unfortunately, that control just got me sicker and sicker. So, yeah, I guess you could describe it as being at peace with yourself. Of course, I have areas of development that I'm still working on, same as everyone else. But it doesn't diminish the joy that I have for having rediscovered parts of myself that I had buried beneath all the mac of performing, all the dirt of wanting to fit in, wanting to be accepted at all costs. And every time I discover a new side of myself, I'm I'm just loving it. I'm really grateful.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Yeah, well said. Um, people evolve, which can mean that some people enter our lives temporarily, right? Um, I'm glad you no longer feel the need to please everyone. Um, I'm just wondering how you were able to let go of that control.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Well, when I became very sick, it wasn't just the emotions that started flooding my head and my mind, but it was the physical pain that I was in. And when I actually got sick, I'd never done any meditation in my life, so I didn't even know what meditation was all about. But I decided to try that because nothing else was working to ease my pain. And I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating properly, because again, my my body was in a lot of pain, my digestive system was all over the place, I had migraines, uh, I was crying all day, and so I needed something desperately that could get me out of pain, and so I decided to basically go in meditation on my own, no videos to guide me, no teacher to be in the room with me and telling me how to close my eyes, what to do. I just decided for the fun of it to do it, and that's when I had this moment when I realized what had happened to me. And I in that meditation, I think I was in meditation for about 40 minutes altogether, but I had all these flashbacks of my life, different snippets from the different moments in my life where I'd realized that I had held a lot of stuff inside of myself, conversations, interactions where I had an opportunity to speak up and to say how I felt, and somehow I stopped myself. And at that point, I didn't know why, because it was only later when I started doing some soul searching into my childhood and how I felt that I never had a voice really. But at that time, when I had those snippets in that meditation, when I had that vision, I realized how much I was holding in and how exhausting it had to be. And so that's when I started thinking, maybe you know, it's time that I give myself a break. And and it came naturally to me, I think it's the soul that was telling me this is your natural progression out of this really dark ages of yours that you had for the last 25-30 years. This is your renaissance, girl. So take it. And I I remember saying to myself, this is too exhausting, I can't do it. And the more I was saying this to myself, this is exhausting, I can't do it, I can't do it, it's too exhausting, it's too tiring. Eventually there was a thought that occurred to me, and I said, Well, maybe I don't have to keep pushing, maybe I just have to let it go. And that's when I started seeing the light, the so-called light at the end of the tunnel, because I started embracing the power of breath work, the power of meditation, the pro the power of visualization. And then later I was introduced to my mentors who are my friends to this date, to this date, rather, and they introduced me to the power of heart-led emotional release, which again is all about acknowledging how you're feeling rather than trying to change your mindset or trying to switch and make yourself feel something different that doesn't feel natural, that feels forced. And and that doesn't really create a lasting change because you tend to go back to the old way that you're feeling. And so I blended all these different practices and I started feeling a lot of compassion for myself, and I started embracing my thoughts and my pain with kindness, and that's when I started seeing the changes because I was um able through these practices to regulate my nervous system finally get back to sleep and finally relax in my own body, stop seeing it as the enemy and and started seeing it as the as the body, not really as something to fight, but more like a compass for well-being. And and and that's really when I decided to embrace my intuition, my intuitive abilities that I had turned away for from for the past 30 years for the sake of being accepted. And I decided to sort of work more intuitively with my health, with my body, with the way I approach life. And and that worked. It was every day it was a different meditation, every day it was more breath work, every day it was more relaxation, more letting go of the tension, of the stress, of the pressure. And I didn't see the results right away because it took me some time, but eventually, in a matter of a few weeks, I started seeing massive improvements because the pain in my right shoulder disappeared, I was regaining the mobility in my right arm again, and finally I went back to work. But when I went back to work, I was a totally different person. It's it's almost as if I had an awakening, and and I remember when I was talking to people at work, I just wouldn't take no for an answer anymore. I would push back, not in a not in a stroppy way or in a way that felt belligerent, but in a way that felt right to say no, to assert myself, to be a little bit more determined, to show more of myself. And people noticed the difference right away. They were saying, wow, you know, it's almost like you had a a complete emotional makeover, you know, our personality makeover, we don't recognize you. But it was a welcome change because I started bonding with these people more. And people now were looking up to me for uh projects, for my opinions, for my views that they weren't before, because I was so passive, you know, afraid that anything I'd say would be judged as stupid or irrelevant. So it was really a process, a process of loving myself through these amazing practices that I that I use today and that I teach my clients to you know recover their connection with their body, to feel more connected to themselves. And to feel more emotionally balanced and centered.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Wow, it's fascinating how meditation alone can make such a difference. Um, I agree. I think sitting with your pain is an important first step to healing. Uh now, if you were to give advice to those who might be feeling alone or to those who feel like they need to be someone they're not, um, what advice would you give?

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Well, the important thing is to understand one thing, and and I and I say this to so many people, and and especially the clients I work with, the mental is not just the mental, it's the physical. I know a lot of people when they do meditation, they do breath work, visualization, or whatever other things they do because they want to be more in touch with their spiritual side, which is great, but in far too many situations, I see so many people looking at this with a more clinical eye and think of it as something more um ethereal, surreal, not physical. Well, that couldn't be further from the truth because the mental influences the physical. I've never heard anyone saying I'm depressed or suicidal, like I was back in in 2012, 2013, and yet say, Oh, my body feels great. You just can't. It's impossible. One negates the other. And the other way around, I've never heard anyone having a crippled body like I had again in 2012, 2013, saying, Oh, I'm such a peace with myself, I'm loving my life right now. Because you have no energy, you have no stamina, you have stamina, you have no motivation, you know. If anything, you just want to withdraw more and more, like I did, because you feel like a nobody, nothing. So, my advice to anyone going through a tough time, right, and and having to deal with it all is don't dilute yourself, don't turn away from yourself. There is a reason why you are the way you are, your unique perspective, your unique perception, the way you say things, the way you see things, the way you talk about things, the way you do things. There's a reason why you are the way you are. Because nobody is like you. We need you, you are needed in this world. The world is all about different perspectives and different perceptions, which we change all the time, right? I've changed my perception so many times in my life, and my life isn't over yet, so I have a few more perceptions to go. So don't dilute yourself or minimize yourself because you feel that someone else doesn't get you. If they don't get you, as long as you know that you're doing things or saying things from the goodness of your heart and that you mean no harm, then you're okay. It's their problem. You know, someone else's perception of you doesn't actually mean that you're not important. It means that they're simply not taking the time to see how wonderful you are, and the right people will stop and say, Wow, you're amazing. Because they will take the time, they will spend this time with you to see what you're all about. Relationships are not formed right away. We have a layer where, you know, we get to know each other, you know, whether you're looking for a partner or friends. Initially, the conversations may feel a little bit shallow, right? Because we're all kind of guarded, a bit shielded. We don't know what the person in front of us is all about. So naturally, the conversation is all gonna be about, oh, this is what I do as part of my job, you know, I go dancing at weekends, I go to yoga, I have three kids, you know, I live in this country. Of course, they're gonna be like this. But when you get to know someone a little bit more, then you see what they're all about, and then they see what you're all about. And the right people will stick with you. The people that know that you matter will see through all the layers that you have built for yourself, the shields that you build for yourself, they will see through your insecurities. You know why? Because the magnificence of you is way, way bigger than all of your insecurities put together. And that is the true mark of friendship, and the true mark of a successful relationship. And and that's that's why sort searching for yourself and and wanting to really uh show yourself for who you are is your uh biggest value on this planet. This is what you need to do, and and also it takes courage to do that. So you can be brave. Yes, you are brave, because a lot of people on this planet don't have the guts to show others what they're really about. It's easy to conform, it's easy to hide, it's easy to blend in, but it's not so easy to actually say, This is who I am, this is what I'm about. And you can be courageous if you want to. You can be brave, and so a lot of other people will probably move away from you because they'll think, Well, this person is too brave for me. I just don't have what he takes, I can't do what she's doing. But that's not you, you are brave. But a lot of other people will say, Wow, that person really inspired me. Because if she can do that, I can do that as well now. She's given me permission to do it as well, and that's exactly what I have done this week. Starting last Monday, I've started sharing seven truths about myself. Today I've shared truth five. I've got two more to go. Things that I've never shared on social media with anyone. I've just shared some of them with some of my closest friends recently and with my partner. But most of the things I've shared on social media so far, the last few posts on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, I haven't shared them with anyone. And the feedback I got from people was you are amazing. I commend you, I applaud you for doing this because a lot of people are gonna feel inspired by you sharing what you're all about, and everybody was so supportive. So go ahead and show yourself who you are because we need you just as you are. You are amazing just as you are.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Well, that's all really great advice. Um, I must say that our conversation helped me a lot. Um, I love how you said that being yourself is okay and that being yourself is also worth it. Um I really enjoyed our conversation. Uh listen, Eliana, I'll end it here. Thank you so much for joining me again. Keep doing the great work that you do and take care.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

You're very, very welcome. I am glad that it helped, and thank you so much for having me here. And uh yeah, have a great day.