[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/slash 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. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I would like to remind my listeners, whether you’re a new listener or someone that’s been listening all along 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 a unique gift and how many others are just like you. One of my listeners named Shree emailed me to let me know how much my email course has motivated her to reach out, to get caught up with friends, start a water workout, to get fit and to meet new people, which is not easy for her. To find out more about my email course please go to my website, amiokpodcast.com. Today, I’m bringing you another live Am I Ok? consultation, which is part of a series of episodes. This is not your typical podcast interview. In this episode, I answer one big question a listener needs help with around high sensitivity, whether it’s for themselves, someone they know or anything else related to highly sensitive persons. I’m so excited to bring this to you. [LISA] Today’s guest is Stacy Coogan. Stacy is a licensed clinical social and the founder of Watervliet Counseling. She has been working in education as a school social worker and administrator. Her passion to help those in the helping profession has resulted in her new private practice. Welcome Stacy. [STACY COOGAN] Thank you so much, Lisa. Thanks for having me. [LISA] You’re very welcome. I have a question, can you tell us, I’ve never heard the word Watervliet. What does that mean? [STACY] It’s actually Watervliet. I don’t know if you had this problem, but when I started to think about my private practice, I had a very hard time trying to think of a name for it. So I actually had to give myself a one week deadline of I’m going to come up with a name within one week because I was either coming up with things that felt a little cheesy or awkward or it sounded like a dentist office, you know Coogan and associates. So my husband and I, we started kind of, he is so creative. So I was like, is there any way you could help me kind of think this through? So we started to look up names and talk about it and try and think through and I started to just kind a dream and phase out and think about my happy place. I thought my private practice is really what I want to create is this happy place. So why don’t I call my private practice Watervliet, which is a small sleepy town in Michigan that I just love and adore and love to visit and I just wish that I could go to a therapist where I could visit Watervliet once a week. So I created it. [LISA] Oh, wow. That’s a great story. I love that. And do you, I don’t even know where you live. Do you live in Michigan? [STACY] I don’t. We are in Naperville, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago. So we vacationed to Watervliet. My in-laws had a house there and that’s actually where I’m at with my husband. [LISA] Oh, wow. What a great story? Now, I just want to keep asking questions. So I’m just going to bring it back to really focus on high sensitivity. So I like to ask all my guests if they consider themselves highly sensitive. So do you consider yourself highly sensitive? And if you do, can you just share a little story about that? [STACY] Yes, I do. I absolutely do, at this age. I was going to about to tell you that I’m 44, but then I decided better off that. So at this age of the game, yes, I’ve definitely identified myself as highly sensitive, I would say that I probably realized about 10 years ago that it was less about being self-conscious or uncomfortable or weird or just really sensitive and it was actually more of a highly sensitive personality that I have. My highest sensitivity is actually around locations, which I actually did not put two and two together until this very moment that ironically, the name of my practice is Watervliet, one of my favorite places. I still live in the town that I grew up in and that has a lot to do with the way that I feel about it, but more so how I feel when we go to new towns and kind of the insecure feelings that I feel. [LISA] Oh, wow. I haven’t come across anyone who’s highly sensitive mention about location. [STACY] Really? Okay. [LISA] I’ve come across, and I know even for myself it’s important if there’s like water nearby or if there’s Mountains, so maybe that falls into that category too, of location. [STACY] Yes, a hundred percent. Watervliet is a lake town, so it has Lake Poopó. So I just love being on the lake and had my first experience this summer in the mountains. We went down to Tennessee, so yes, absolutely. [LISA] Oh, wow. I love all the names that you’re popping out here of all these different places. Now I want to go visit them. So what is your one big question that you have for us today? [STACY] My big question is as a highly sensitive person, I have been working in education for almost 20 years. It has been very stressful for me and I kept moving farther away from my passion, which is social work and being a clinical therapist to try to get away from that discomfort. So I was a school social worker for 14 years where I gave direct service at the elementary age child. Then I was a administrator. I supervised a large team of over 45 social workers and now finally I am a professional learning coordinator. The last couple of years when I was an administrator were so incredibly difficult, that I needed to get out of the profession. But what has been very difficult is I have really been, I felt like life has been somewhat pointless. I really love being a social worker and I think I’ve just made the decision that the structure of the setting of an educational setting was just wrong, not the social work in therapy part. So I am looking to set up my own private practice, which I am very excited about. I, in the last year have been working for another private practice, but it has all been via telehealth. So it’s all been virtual. So my big, very long question, sorry, Lisa, is as I start setting up my in-person clinical therapy and my own business, what are some things that I can do as a highly sensitive person to set myself up for success? So I’m not running for the door, kind of as I am in education. [LISA] Well, great question. And thank you. I just wanted to thank you for just being really just open and sharing that. I just want to go back to, I think what you just mentioned in the beginning is location. Do you already have a location for your in-person practice? [STACY] I do. [LISA] Okay. And I guess, well, you have the name for it. So in that, and when you, I guess, enter that space, how does it feel to you? [STACY] So there were two things that I knew I wanted to invest in my private practice. Number one was the location and number two was my website. Funny that both are really locations., I mean, those are places. So the location that I’m in, it was actually my very best case scenario and it’s probably my overarching dream. I’m actually run space two days a week, starting in January and then I’m hoping to go full time in the near future in a center. And it’s more of a community. It’s called the Estuary Center in Naperville, Illinois, and it is beautiful, but what’s more beautiful than the actual two acres that it’s on and the beautiful building and all that it offers, but just the holistic feeling and the community of therapists and masseuses and acupuncturists that come together for the greater good of the community. So it would’ve been really easy to rent space and, and throw my money. A certain way in Naperville, we have quite a few different places that we can practice, but this is really where I wanted to be. So I actually had to interview even though I was the one renting this space and they’re not paying me. I would be paying to rent of their space, but they have such a belief in this community and it being one where we are in community with each other where maybe we recommend a client that that’s having a massage that needs to, wants to come to Watervliet Counseling and is in the helping profession, which is my niche, and wants to come really receive some therapy once a week. So it really is the, I’m almost astounded that it all came together. It really was my highest hope. [LISA] Wow. And as you’re talking about it, how does it feel inside you just to talk about the location and everything that’s surrounding it? [STACY] Just such a smile on my face. I get the goosebumps every morning. My commute to where I work right now is at least 50 minutes if not an hour. And every day I leave my house and I’m on the road for maybe six or seven minutes. And I pass by the Estuary Center and every day for the last two years, I’ve been like, “I’m going to be there one day.” So it’s just amazing that this is kind of coming to fruition. [LISA] Yes. Congratulations with that. It’s very exciting. And just like, just the way you describe the location and like the center and how that feels to you and then even looking at a website, like when you look at a website, you can get a certain feeling inside you, if this like, oh yes, you know, when you first look at it, does it light you up inside? Is there some kind of connection that makes you want to look further into the website? [STACY] That’s a good question. I actually had somebody develop my website. I’m not very techy. I tried to start it. Plus I’m working multiple jobs right now. So I started it on my own with big high hopes, and then within a very short while, decided I needed to throw the money at the problem and have someone else do it. I think that it’s about 90% there. As a highly sensitive person I sometimes have a hard time giving feedback, or even though I’m spending this exorbitant amount of my I’m afraid to criticize the work that’s been done. It is beautiful, but I think it’s 90% there, so I think that it’s not fully finished. It hasn’t been published yet. It was supposed to be published Tuesday and I told him that I needed to think about it because I think for what you’re saying, I’m not a hundred percent, I don’t feel like it’s a hundred percent yet.. [LISA] Yes. And that’s okay, too. I think you just, you really said it. It’s like it’s your money and you’re giving money to a person or company to create something that you’re going to be happy with in the long run. It’s all about your happiness. And being highly sensitive, we are sensitive to things that we are creating. And that’s like, one of the things that is actually our gift too.. So we know, and like, when something’s just not right, it might be a little bit off, we can sense it, we can pick it up and we have like, no, we got to keep tweaking it a little bit until it’s just the way we want it. [STACY] Just so. [LISA] So it sounds like you have a lot of creativity and vision, which is also a really an advantage for an empath or a highly sensitive person that is starting a practice and is also a therapist. You can have really good ideas. You are able to see things, you know we can step back and see things with a wider lens to see the whole picture. Also you can also in that, we like to take time and in taking time, we may slow down the process. But we also know that if we speed up too much, it will not be what we, the outcome will not be what we want it to be. Does that resonate with you? [STACY] Yes, it’s been very interesting starting this process because it’s a little bit of start and wait, start and wait, start and wait. So I’m feeling a little anxious about wanting to get going, but at the same time, I know that it needs to run its course, and it needs to start at the time that it’s supposed to start. [LISA] Yes. And also as a highly sensitive person and an empath, is that another advantage, especially as a, like a business owner too, is that you’re very conscientious. What I mean by that is that you like to think things through, and you’re very passionate about what you do and who it’s affecting and then also the final outcome, as you are just describing just about your website. [STACY] And I feel that’s so much in this job. I thought that it’s still an education. I would still be supporting and helping people. It’s a district administration position. I thought this would still fill me up, but it’s just not social work. It’s not therapy. It’s not helping people on a day to day basis. So that passion is so incredibly important to me. [LISA] Yes. And also with highly sensitivity, that passion is we need passion to go through our life. And in the beginning, when you mentioned that, like life didn’t kind of seem pointless. And that’s a really good indicator that we need to stop and just take a step back and kind of just look at our whole life as we, if our whole life was a piece of a pie and there’s different segments of the pie that make up our whole being. If we’re not feeling passion in many categories whatever that is for us, then life does feel pointless. [STACY] Yes. [LISA] And it seems like you recognize that and you’ve made a shift in your life and now you’re creating something that feels more passionate to you. [STACY] Yes. And I sometimes wonder why did it take me so long to shift, but I think that I have continued to follow the yes. And as you were talking about before about this piece of perfectionism and how we so want to do things perfect and we’re afraid, I’m afraid of making mistakes. I think that I have always been very nervous and afraid of if I do this, what if I fail? And I think I’ve had to shift my thinking in the last few months and say, I’m just going to continue to follow each yes. And if it’s a no, it’s okay. I got on a few interviews and other educational settings and they were always a no and then things just kept opening up with this private practice as a yes. So I’ve just tried to continue to kind of follow that yes and go into that direction and trust it. I also think that my mom might be a little highly sensitive, but she’s also a little possibly on the spectrum. Hi mom, if you’re listening. But what’s interesting about her is she was a very successful partner at an accounting firm, but she was, she’s not risky at all. So for her to see me going through this is very difficult for her because she’s like, “I don’t understand why you would give up your pension and why you would give up all these benefits and you just don’t know what’s going to happen with private practice.” And the first go-to for me has always been it’s because she doesn’t think that I can do it. You know, that sensitive part of me is what did I do? We had a discussion about it and she’s like I’m not a risk taker. Now my in-laws, my husband’s family are big risk takers and they have been very successful in life because of it. So on both ends, they’ve had high highs and low lows, but it’s really done the best. So when I let them know that I was going to leaving education and go into private practice in the next year in my timeline, they were ecstatic and thought, there’s no way you’re not going to, it’s going to work. This is going to be great. So I don’t know if, if my mom has a little bit of that sensitivity or adverse risk taker in her, but it’s interesting how it floats from generation to generation. I can definitely see it and sorry, I’m on a tangent here, but I can definitely see it in my dad too, who is unfortunately is such a highly, highly, highly sensitive person and feeling person that he has had to self-medicate for most of his life, probably starting at, I don’t know, 15 or 16 and has had just horrible addiction issues through his whole life. So I think he does a lot of like masking down these very difficult feelings for him. [LISA] So you’ve seen high sensitivity and in many different ways how we can like unfold in someone’s, in life. [STACY] Hmm. [LISA] I just want to come back just taking risks and being around people, other people that also take risks. That can get us really excited and motivate us to take risks too. And that is another advantage to being a highly sensitive person that when they’re really passionate about something and that you said coming to that yes when we start following the yes, that allows us to be really comfortable within ourselves to take those risks. [STACY] Yes, that makes sense now that you’re saying it, because I feel like I feed off of that, whether it’s positive or on the flip side, if it’s negative. [LISA] Yes. And it’s like the people that we’re surrounded with this, like in our lives that can either fill us up and help us live the life that we’ve came to live or we can also notice that it can damper us and not feel so alive within ourselves. [STACY] So goes back to that whole, the five closest people to you that they really impact us. [LISA] Yes, it is. And every, I mean, I truly believe everyone’s on their own journey and for some people it’s easier than others. [STACY] Yes, It does not feel easy to me. That’s for sure. [LISA] Yes. I’m hoping that changes for you as you continue to step into your own private practice. [STACY] Thank you. Yes, I appreciate that. [LISA] So what would you like to take away from our talk today, Stacy? [STACY] Gosh, first you really helped me make the connection between how sensitive I am to location and how I named my practice after that. So that is really meaningful to me, and just continuing to kind of live and be in that energy and be hopeful about how things are turning out around that location and maybe try to do a little bit more around the website about that and having kind of a similar feeling or pushing until I get to that similar feeling. [LISA] Hmm. Yes. Oh, I like that. I want to see your website when it’s completed. Send you send me a link. [STACY] I will, for sure. [LISA] Thank you. And thank you for coming on the show today. I really appreciate having you here and just really just being really open and sharing so many personal stories about yourself. [STACY] Oh, you’re so welcome. It was a delight to speak with you and thank you so much for your insights and your feedback and your ideas. It will certainly be helpful for me and I’m sure the people that are listening [LISA] And thank you my listeners for tuning in today. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review wherever you get your podcast. To find out more about highly sensitive persons, please visit my website at www.amiokpodcast.com and subscribe to my free eight week email course to help you navigate your own sensitivities and 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. Take care. [LISA] Thank you for listening today at Am I Okay? 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.