[LISA LEWIS] The 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 today is a first of a series of episodes where I will be providing life consultations. This is a little different than a guest interview or a solo episode that you might be used to. All these episodes I have a listener ask one big question they are needing help with around high sensitivity, whether it’s for themselves or someone they know or anything else related to highly sensitive persons. Today I’m so excited to bring on my podcast, one of my listeners, his name is Sako Spruill. Sako is a first year doctorate, a physical therapy student at Azuza Pacific University in Los Angeles. He’s a fitness coach and jiu-jitsu purple belt. Sako inspires to treat and rehabilitate patients so they can achieve pain-free movements and optimal physical and mental health. He is also a chocolate and coffee connoisseur. Also I’m going to put in there that Sako I’ve known him for the last two or three years, and he is my personal trainer and he’s helped me rehabilitate my left shoulder injury and now he’s helping me rehabilitate my right shoulder injury. So hopefully that’s the only rehabilitation I need for the rest of my life. So welcome. I’m so happy to have you here, Sako. Welcome to the podcast. [SAKO SPRUILL] Well, thank you, Lisa. I’m thrilled to be here. You know, I’m a fan of yours just as a human being and I’m a fan of your podcast, so I’m glad to be here. I’m excited to see what we’re discussing today and learn more about sensitivity. Yes, you did, you gave me a great intro and I am a coffee and chocolate connoisseur and I love the coffee you brought me from Costa Rica. That was fantastic. Thank you, by the way. [LISA] Yes, you’re welcome. And maybe I can do an episode of just on food, chocolate and coffee, like what that has to do with high sensitivity. [SAKO] Yes, sounds good. [LISA] So I like to ask all my listeners or my guest interviewers if they consider themselves highly sensitive and if so, if you could just share a little bit about your story and maybe how you know that or came to find out about it. [SAKO] Yes. I was attracted to your podcast because of that. So I do consider myself sensitive. Actually, I guess that would be a little odd. I’m kind of, I guess you can call me a masculine type of person. I guess you know I do a lot of combat sports and fitness training and I’ve got a big beard, kind of the stereotypical masculine male, but yes, I think I’m sensitive. I think that’s the case just because I pay attention to what people think about me and sometimes what they say affects me a lot through different aspects of life. I’m sensitive by ways of just regular common five senses, sight, smell, touch. I was listening to one of your podcasts and you were talking a little bit about that and I think I’m right with that. I pick up a lot of different smells and I’m really sensitive to loud noises, so yes, things like that. So yes, I would definitely consider myself sensitive if you will. [LISA] Okay. All right. Well, thank you for sharing that and being personal with us. So I want to ask you, what is your big question that you would like answered today? [SAKO] Well, I was thinking about this a lot. I deal with a lot of clients in fitness and I’ll be dealing with a lot of patients in my future career and in PT. And I was thinking about a few typical or important topics I can consider when I deal with highly sensitive people. Coming from my personal sensitivity I know what some of that would look like, but maybe I’m missing a few things here and there that you could shed light on. How would I approach like a very highly sensitive patient or a client that doesn’t necessarily, you know like my personality, because that could be a little loud and animated sometimes maybe do I have to calm that down or when I’m dealing with a sensitive person or things of that nature, what do you think about that? [LISA] So those are great questions and let’s see if we can this kind of like go through them one by one. The first thing I was really came into my mind is about clients that maybe show up and they’re sensitive and maybe you’re trying to read them, are they liking me? And they’re not liking me? Do they like my personality, my jokes? And for one thing, really with anyone and you don’t want to like, have to change your personality for anyone, you just want to really be comfortable with yourself. And that allows other people to really get to know you and they can decide for themselves whether they like you or not like you, and to continue working with you or not. Sometimes we have clients, even with clients that I work with, maybe the first session is it’s not a good fit and that’s okay. And the idea is that you want that person to be able to heal whatever way that is mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and be with the best person that can help support them in those areas. So if there’s a, I’m thinking about, as a fitness coach, in a sense of people can be highly sensitive to pain and may struggle working with pain or are pushing or trying to push themselves or needing to push themselves a little to the edge to gain whether it’s flexibility or strength, whatever it is that they’re working on. So that’s one thing to be aware of and maybe asking people their pain level, what’s their pain level tolerance? How does that sound so far to you? [SAKO] I really liked that actually. When you were talking about that, I could really think about specific situations where that was the case. And I like what you said, just be yourself. This is as easy as that sounds. You can be yourself and if it doesn’t fit that’s okay and to just be maybe a little bit observant of those little things of the things, like if they are highly sensitive to a painful experience, or if they’re perceiving the pain a little bit higher than a normal person would say, but yes, I really can relate to all that. [LISA] And also highly sensitive people can be really sensitive to touch and not necessarily that you have to touch your client whether it’s PT most likely is. As a fitness coach or a personal trainer, you don’t necessarily have to put hands on and asking clients is it okay if I touch you or is this pressure okay? And just kind of giving them a heads up beforehand so they feel that they are in control of the situation too. [SAKO] I like that too. I like giving them that opportunity to understand what’s coming ahead of them so they’re not surprised by a touch or by certain movement that you require. That’s great too. And what I’m getting out of what you’re saying too, is just be very fluid in your approach and not so stern in your ways, but maybe have some room to back off if need be or maybe even press a little more. [LISA] Yes. And I also like to be mindful, just to be really respectful of people’s, of their bodies, whether they like to be touched or not be touched, is this pain tolerance, is this pain okay? Or can we push a little bit more? And also educating them, giving them some information so they can also take it in for that information. And also I think it comes back to just being in control of the situation themselves and their progress, whether it’s in PT or fitness training or personal training. [SAKO] Yes, that’s great. [LISA] And, sorry, I want to go back to the other questions that you had and can you tell me again what you were asking. [SAKO] I have another question and it was having to do with me personally, actually coming from a sensitivity or being a highly sensitive person. In what ways can I use that to my own advantage, for example certain situations where I might feel I don’t fit in or something or I take offense to the way an individual or a group is conducting themselves, or things like that, where I just don’t feel comfortable in a situation. What are some advantages I can do being a sensitive person? Sometimes I feel like I just need to get out of the situation, but I know there’s other things I can, other tools I can use. [LISA] So one way to do that when you’re in a situation or a group is to just, before you actually enter, is put in your mindset that the group, these people, maybe I don’t even, if I don’t know that they’re going to accept me for who I am. So you’re already starting off with a positive mindset because when we’re sensitive, we can also pick up other energies or other people’s energies and feel like I’m not liked, I’m not wanted here and I want to exit, I want to leave as soon as possible. So if we can just change that mindset and just shift it a little bit to the more positive mindset of I am accepted, I am welcome here, I’m wanted here and I want to stay here. And how does that sound to you? [SAKO] I like that a lot and I think you actually touched on that on one of your podcasts. I did a small practice of that and it was effective actually. I want to build that and see if I can work that little bit like a muscle and just kind of get it a little bit normative for me because I liked it. I liked how I felt and how, and I use that very, very similar tactic, just saying to myself, well, this is who I am. This is what you’re going to get and just be comfortable with that. [LISA] Yes. And then also another thing to think about, or another technique is to, when we’re entering situations that are maybe uncomfortable for us, we’re uncertain, there’s the unknown, is that we want to be really grounded and that can look different for everybody. So really being grounded, if you have a meditation practice, if you do a grounding practice, if that’s going outside, laying on the grass, just being in nature, just closing your eyes and just noticing the sensations in your body and seeing if you can connect your feet to the floor. I like to use all the way to the earth. Also being physically active in your body can also help ground you. Sensitive people sometimes, from pressure, so using like proprioceptor exercises that we can really feel our body. So if we feel our body then we can be in our body and that can feel really pleasant. [SAKO] Yes. I agree. A lot of those modalities we use in physical therapy too, they, I was thinking of those when you were talking things like heat and even cryo and of course massage and all those things come into mind when you were talking about that those sensations and grounding. I do that too. I appreciate that. [LISA] Great. And can you tell me what a cryo is, for our listeners who may not know? [SAKO] Yes. When we talk about cryo, we’re basically cooling down. So you can use ice cool packs, cold water, you know, there’s some of those boutiques around the neighborhood where you get into a cryo chamber and they take you down this ridiculously cold temperature. I’ve done that once. It was pretty exhilarating. I’m a fan of heat, so I like the sun a little bit, but the cryo is great too. You know, we usually use that for more of an acute type of injury, like a initial injury or a very, very sharp pain, but, I prefer, I think heat would be a better option. [LISA] Okay. Yes, so heat our coolness. And I want to go back to just what you’re talking about that wanting to be sensitive to like fitting in. As sensitive people we go about, probably majority of our day we always have our feelers out there. So we’re listening, we’re looking with our eyes, just noticing what is really happening in our external environment, because what’s happening now, because the external environment can really affect how we’re feeling internally. So we really just want to be more mindful and really get to know like our own body and minds, how they’re working together so we can really help ourselves despite what’s going on externally. So I like to just going back to that grounding meditation. I like to use also a tree meditation where you are grounding your tree roots, like a tree into the earth. If you think about your favorite tree in the whole world and how it’s grounded, it has a big trunk, has a big span of leaves and branches, and then when a tree is in a wind storm or snow storm or a rain storm, all of that, whether it just goes through the tree, it doesn’t get knocked over. And that’s how we want to be as a person and being grounded. So whether it’s happening externally in our environment, that internally that we’re okay. And this coming back to that, I am okay. [SAKO] What a great analogy. I love that, that tree is a great analogy. [LISA] Yes. Well, I hope this has been helpful for you, and I want to ask you, what do you want to take away from our talk today, Sako? [SAKO] Well, the same thing I’ve been taken away from what you’ve been saying and from what I’ve been hearing. You say it’s just tuning in a little bit, being as sensitive as I am, maybe even tuning in just a little bit more to others and picking up on little cues, maybe to adjust my practice or my treatment, definitely looking within and being almost acceptive to myself and just confident and happy with myself in different situations. And really that grounding really sticks with me, just being as solid as a tree. I picture this giant beautiful tree. By the way, I’m a fan of parks too. We talked about chocolate and coffee. I love parks. We could add that out of the national parks and city parks. And I love trees, so I pictured this giant, big Oak and just how it just sits there all day and takes on the stormy weather or there’s the hot weather. I like that a lot. So be the tree, everyone. Be the tree. [LISA] I love that. Be the tree. All right, Sako. Well, thank you for coming on today. [SAKO] Thank you. It was a pleasure. [LISA] Yes. It was a pleasure to speak with you. And I want to thank everyone for listening today. And how did you like the live consultation interview set up? It’s a little bit different. Send me an email at lisa@amiok.podcast.com. I’d love to hear from you. And remember to subscribe, rate and review my podcast if you haven’t done so yet. And this is Lisa Lewis signing off until next time. 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.