E350 Zlata Hlukhouskaya

Hello, my name is Aziz, and I'm the son of a divorced mother. She's really my superhero. That's why it's important for me to support women to share their uniqueness, their personalities, perspectives, and emotions about life. Too many women in this world feel alone. They worry about the judgment of others and they struggle with their mental health. But when they listen to the Rare Girls podcast where empowered women share their voices and tell their stories, many women will feel inspired to live a life of freedom and to overcome all insecurities. they will feel. It is a safe space to find their confidence, to remember their unique beauty and to feel their self-worth, and they will connect with the sisterhood of rare girls who encourage their success and support their dreams. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Zlata Gluhovskaya. Zlata was born and raised in Belarus, a small Eastern European country, and moved to the UAE to study at NYU Abu Dhabi. She always had trouble describing her interests. She had way too many, but still has no idea which one is the main one. Eventually, she came up with a three-word formula of what matters to her the most. Ideas, words, and people. This is how she landed on a psychology major she wants to help people fix the mess in their heads, a.k.a. work as a therapist and live their authentic lives. Aside from college, Zalata sings, writes songs and performs at the open mics, but she is in general down to be part of her creative process or fun process. She is also quite active on her socials and has a microblog on Instagram. She is absolutely can't live without stand-up comedy and watching funny reels before going to bed. It's part of her personality at this point. Zlata, how are you today? Hello, Aziz. Thank you so much for this great and kind of fun introduction. I'm great. How are you? I feel blessed. I feel very excited about speaking to you and getting to know you more. So I'll begin with this nice first question, which is, Zlata, if you could describe the way that your friends will see your personality, what would they say about you? They definitely would say that I'm very empathetic. We have a running joke about this, that sometimes it's even too much of an empathy that I sometimes have and it can overflow my... I would put other people sometimes higher than my own preferences, my own wishes in the moment, which is something I'm trying to work on, but they would definitely say I'm empathetic. And probably something about my jokes, I constantly make them, they're not, I mean, I think they're the funniest. I don't know if they would agree with me, but I hope it would be something along the lines of like a very funny, creative person. I don't know, I hope so. I think it will be very, very true to say that. And I wanna focus on the empathy part though first. First, how do you experience life that makes you connect so deeply with people and their emotions? I am a super empath, if you might say. So whenever I walk around, I feel everybody's emotions, even the cats and the dogs and everything. I feel everything. I remember I used to be like, I have an argument with my mom when I was small because whenever I saw a homeless person, I'll give them my food that I take to the school because I thought, no, they're in pain, why? But also it makes you, at some point, it was difficult in the sense that when you someone and they have a bad mood, you think, did I cause that? Was it my fault when you're a kid? And therefore, it's not a good thing because at some point you think, well, I try to make them happy, but I cannot. Is it me or whatever it is? Maybe that's what caused you to be a psychologist. But tell me about you. How do you experience empathy? How is it for you so that people can imagine how it is to be you? For sure. I really relate to what you said about thinking that maybe I was the one who caused some negative emotion, especially when it comes to like your friends or someone close, which I mean, it took me a while, a few years to realize that it's not really the way it should be. And it's not really just empathy. Sometimes it's the lack of like understanding what's your personal responsibility. Where does it start? Where does it end? And when does it start to be the other person's responsibility? So I'm not responsible for other people's emotions, which doesn't mean I have to be like a bad person and hurt anyone, but we also can't, I think it's very important for especially very empathetic people, highly empathetic, to remember that like we don't open heads of people and just like put the emotion there, it's also up to them and they have to deal with it and the process of dealing with emotions is also, it's valuable for them. So recently I've been learning about if I'm like, if someone while looking at me or, I don't know, if I post something on my Instagram related to, I don't know, like traveling or my university. And if some person, for some reason, would, I don't know, feel jealous of this, this is not necessarily a bad thing. This is not necessarily like me being a bad person for showing off. And if they might feel this jealousy, it might mean that it's something important to them. It's something that resonates with them. And it's a guidance for for these people to know that, okay, I want this in my life. And maybe it kind of can turn into motivation. So it's not necessarily even a bad thing. You know, but yeah, I kind of drove away from your question. But I think for now, the main, the main challenge that I'm experiencing and the main lesson that I'm trying to learn is kind of keeping the empathy, stay in a good person, stay in a kind person. while keeping my own boundaries and also being a kind person to myself so not overdoing this caring about others because it stops being care and it becomes just, you know, being a whole mess. I understand. And I want to extract more from your experience because there are many women who struggle with being people pleasers. They even might create this expectation that nobody told them is there, but they're living up to the expectations they imagine people would have so that they don't offend those people or make them hate them and therefore they live a limited life that they don't want and nobody's happy. Those people are waiting to be triggered anyway by anyone and many women are living a life that does not make them sing because they think, oh, if I shine too bright, other people might get offended. How are you dealing with that? How are you able maybe to begin saying no, to having the bravery to do what you want, even though someone somewhere will have a bad look about it or whatever it is. How can you live fully to your potential? What was your journey in this aspect? First thing and probably the most important one that helps me is, well, I have a best friend who really encourages me to do this. She was the one who encouraged me to start therapy, saying that this is something you can work with there and this is something you can do. But also she was the one who really comforted me and who was like, if you take up space, if you say that you think you're amazing, you are proud of yourself, things like that, we, as your friends, we will not think that you're showing off, we love this for you. we want for you to shine as your friends. And we had tons of conversations like this, but I just think therapy is not affordable for everyone. It's not an option that anyone can afford, but I think it can be just any support system, any kind of experience with people that shows you that like, yeah, it's okay for me to not just be the caring one, the one who always listens, the one who like provides space and whatever about me. That it's okay and really nothing like the world will not crush and people will support you. They will remind you. Even when you forget, they will be like, hey, like you're, I don't know, you've been very silent. You've been listening to me. You've been giving me support. Do you want to share something like I want to hear you, I want to listen to you. It's important to me. And just having this reassurance was really, really helpful for me. I can't say that I like reached the final destination. I still struggle with many of these things. But it's been helping, having friends and having my therapist was definitely the most important thing. Thank you for that. In my case, people didn't make sense to me for a long time. I thought I cannot understand them in the sense that sometimes their emotions changes for many, many different reasons and unexpected ways. And then for a long time, I thought I wanted to find a place where I will find my people, that I should go live in Tokyo and Barcelona and Brazil. I did in order to find my people. But then over time I discovered there is no place where we belong, but we create our own mini universe of the right people that are supportive and not toxic. And therefore those people matter. And everyone else who might come and has some toxic comment or something, all they say, I don't belong in your universe. So they're to be ignored. And, you know, I don't think about it, I know you're creating a refrain where you think, oh, this is the beginning of a chain of reasoning that in the end, it will motivate them so that they improve their life because they resonate with this and in that way. I think about it as everyone is on their journey. If we try to speed up the process without them wanting it, nobody, they need to desire to do it. So instead of previously we used to live in like tribes of 50 to 150 people where we had to get along with anyone who was there, now there are 8 billion people, we can build our tribe. That's a great thing. What's your perspective on this? I definitely agree. That's amazing. And this is the part like we're traveling and social media and all of this and the world becoming more global in general. it, it helps, I think, because you don't have to stick with people from your, I don't know, school, your kindergarten, your university, like, you basically don't have to spend your whole life in one place, if you feel like these people are not for you. No, for me, it's honestly, everything changes when you're with the right people, when you're just, when you're with people who feel the same kind of, like, language, I would say, for like, for highly empathetic people, it's like people who speak the language of empathy, for creative people, it's like people who also speak the language of creativity. So these core values when they match and when it's a supportive environment and everyone tries to uplift each other and it's just fun. It's very, very important. And I think if people want to find it, they would try. And I don't think you have to move like across the 500 planets to find these people. I think it's possible, but it's important to remember that if you don't find it in your current surroundings, there is probably someone for you. As you said, eight billion people. It's many, many of us. Our problems are not unique, not in a devaluing sense, but in a way that everyone has something to relate to someone, and everyone has this tribe, and it's definitely a challenge to collect this tribe. It's hard, but it's so rewarding when you get it. I agree. And it seems to be like there is chemistry between the right people. That when you meet them, it's challenging to collect that tribe. But once you meet them, they want to stay within that tribe because it's so challenging to find those people. So it's absolutely a life project that is worth pursuing. You said something, you spoke about two values that are important to you, empathy, and we spoke about that, and creativity. Tell me a bit more about that. How do you experience creativity? Why is it important for you? How does it nourish your soul? When I absorb too much of something that other people created, I sometimes feel like I'm this jar with water and it's overfilled and I'm trying to pour more and there is just no space. So this balance of how much I consume and how much I give, how much I create and make, it's very, very important to me. And I just noticed that whenever I don't, whenever I don't write, whenever I don't make music, whenever I don't give back some of this creativity, I just don't feel like I'm fulfilling my like, I don't know, highest potential or something. I mean, it sounds very like pretentious, but I genuinely feel this way. And it's just very fun. It's just, I'm in the flow when I'm creating something. And it's just a great feeling of meaning. I think for me, it's mostly connected to meaning. I feel like I'm doing something. I'm born to do something I'm good at. And it's not necessarily it's like a masterpiece or it's not necessarily something that I'm going to even show to the world, but just having it. It's like the head, it gets emptier in a good way. So you You don't have to keep all of this inside your head, inside your soul, and it doesn't overflow you. So it gives you space, but also you can connect through this with people, especially if someone hears or sees the kind of art you're making. It feels meaningful to me. It's very fulfilling and gives me the sense of meaning that I don't get from almost anything else. maybe like I only get the same level of importance from close relationships, from like feeling very close to people who matter to me. This connection, like having deep talks, this and creating something has kind of the same level of importance in my life. Thank you for sharing that. And it reminds me of something because I believe honestly and completely that creativity is about abundance, the more that you empty it and give it, the more you have, but if you don't give, you have less. And it reminds me of Pablo Picasso. Your creative kind of perspective is similar to his. He used to have days where he will say, okay, today I will fill myself with the color green. And he will go to the forest and look at green, green all day until he feels completely full. And then he comes to create something based the color green or the color blue or whatever that day that he fills himself up and you said to you when you're creating you feel in flow that you're creating something and doing something that aligns with your highest potential and that you have meaning that you're doing what you're meant to do and it's very similar to the feeling of connecting and having deep conversations with people, which I imagine is based on empathy. Can you share a bit more? How is that connected connection? Because you said, OK, if you create something that is artistic, it might resonate with other people. I can guess that is where the connection comes from. But tell me empathy, deep conversations and creativity and maybe flow or resonance. How do they create connection within how you experience the world? Oh, that's an interesting question. Actually, I never thought about it. I think these are just, they're not necessarily connected to each other, but these are things that make the most sense to me. Like when I have them, I am mostly, most of the times, if I have these two, if I create enough and if I with my friends, if I spend enough time with them. I just, I just feel happier than without it. Just like nothing, nothing can not like no amount of money, no see in a new country. It's just, it's, it's nice to have these, but it's like, it's just my foundation. It's just something that's for whatever reason, I don't know why, some personality theories, maybe. But just for whatever reason, it's something that makes my life the most, just like feels feels the best. And I'm like, yeah, okay, great. I have an amazing life. I'm enjoying it. I guess it comes down to people not wanting to be lonely, and wanting to know that whatever thoughts or struggle they're going through, they have something like they can share it with someone. It's it's a shared struggle. It's a shared thought. It's a shared feeling. This is why maybe art and these talks with our friends are somehow similar, Because you can't really make art about, like you can't fake importance in your art. Like you won't make art about something you don't care about, it's going to show. So it's probably people who create art do it about the things that are very deep to their hearts, same things that they discuss in the kitchen with their closest friends. At least for me, that's the case. So it's, it's just, it's very hard to fake and to lie to yourself in your close relationships and in the art that you are making. And both of these things make me feel less lonely. They take this loneliness away and I just, I don't like feeling lonely. I mean, sometimes it's, it's, it's a feeling sometimes it comes up, but if I, if I could choose, I would, I'd rather not, I'd rather not have it. I'd rather feel connected and like, yeah, we're all together united sharing all of that. Thank you. So connection and union is something that helps you overcome and heal a sense of loneliness. And to ask you then about social media, you said it's important is a positive thing you're using in your life. A lot of people say those are parasocial relationships that are not meaningful, that they're actually, the more people are connected online, the more lonely they feel. Even beyond that, there are many teenage girls and women who compare themselves other women who are photoshopped or AI generated and think they're ugly and then they think oh I'm too ugly to do anything good in this world I should hide in my routine and all that. So one, what's your advice to those women who struggle with their mental health because of social media and two, how were you able to achieve the miracle of using social media as a connector and a provider of meaning rather than a disconnector and a loneliness, a human comparison machine? I definitely get this. And I think any tool, even the best one, if you overuse it, if you don't use it properly, like if you use the toothbrush to, I don't know, stab someone, punch someone, it's not going to be, you know, toothbrush to brush your teeth. It's going to be harmful if you use it not in the way it's supposed to be used, if you overuse it, you neglect your own specifics of your own psychology, for example, if you know that you are more vulnerable to comparison. And if you know that you're, let's say, the most vulnerable part about yourself, the one you're most insecure about is, for example, I don't know, your appearance, your hair. Let's say you're very insecure about your hair, and then you go on Instagram and you follow a bunch of models with gorgeous long hair. So, of course, you know about yourself. This is something you're most insecure about. Why would you surround yourself with more and more and more triggers that make you think that you're not good enough? Social media really has everything there, like any type of content you would want. Sometimes my friends send me some reels that they consider funny and I'm like, who even posted this? How is this possible? It's like you said about the tribe. It's eight billion people. You don't to interact with all of them. You don't have to be friends with all of them. Not all of them will be beneficial to you. Some will be harmful. It's the same thing with people just online. You have to filter what you see and what you access and what you allow to influence your brain and how you see yourself. And I think it's important to choose people who, for example, post more honest content. For example, I do not like following just some models who shop their bodies. It's a thing and it really affects people, especially women, and how we see ourselves. But it's also about ethics of how you use social media. And from my side, whenever I post something, I like to do like storytellings and share something from my life. And I especially like sharing some complicated feelings. For example, if I feel like I compare myself too much, or if I feel like I'm jealous of someone, I'm gonna share this. I'm not going to be like, know, just posting a picture from the beach and being like, hey, enjoying my best life. So I think this is the thing that makes me feel the meaning of it because because of how I use it. I also share my struggles. I also share my thoughts. Sometimes I share something I'm proud of. But I'm trying at least to keep it more like more like a diary than like I'm showing off just like a nice gallery of pictures. And people interact with this people reply to this and people tell me that like, oh my god, thank you so much for posting this. I thought it's just me. I thought it's just me who has the slots. I thought it's just me who like compares myself to people who got internships for the summer, like, oh my god, thank you so much. Now I feel like I'm not alone. I relate. And I'm like, yeah, okay, that's now I also feel not alone. Thank you so much for for applying. And this is how it creates connection. And this is how I personally like using it. But I definitely get the point about this affecting your mental health negatively. And sometimes I also go overboard and I watch too many influencers, too many people who started their businesses at 2016, whatever. Everyone has their show, everyone has their YouTube channel, their podcasts, their something, five cars, 10,000 departments, many, many friends parties every day. And I'm like, okay, no, I need to go pay attention to my life now. It's getting too much of it. I understand, and I sense the importance of connection, of union, and of bonding for you. At the same time, you're someone who loves to crack jokes a lot, too. You said your friends will even comment on that, which makes me think. If you think about the archetypes of Carl Jung, and also if you think about him speaking about the jester or the trickster, in that archetype, often he speaks about dark side that people who are joking a lot often they joke so that people focus on the joke and don't see their real self so that they avoid connection because they feel if they they have like an imposter syndrome or if people feel that their real self maybe they will not like it and that will hurt too much. So how come you are a joker but you love connection which the opposite of what jokers do or people who put at least put a persona being funny. But often they say, you know, the clowns with the biggest smiles are the saddest ones who cry the most. I don't know about you. How do you combine and reconcile both of them? It's very interesting. I've seen these quotes back in like 2010, something on social media that like the person with the biggest smile hides the biggest pain. I think it's probably the case for some people. I can say that I relate a lot to this. And I don't think that it's the opposite. It's like people who make jokes are not necessarily trying to use humor as a way to hide from connection. I think it's rather the way to connect with people as well. If you're able to laugh at yourself, sometimes at life, sometimes at the situations that you're not so happy about. It also makes people around you like feel feel nicer about this. And you can laugh together and laughing together creates connection, you're like having fun. And in general, just humor and laughter is is a powerful tool, I think of tackling like hardships, even in in yourself, like if you know, for example, that you're a people pleaser, you can go cry about it. And you can feel like, Oh, my God, how can how can you live with all of these people-pleasing tendencies? This makes my life so unbearable. But also when you're gathering with friends, you can all be like, yeah, actually, this is how I do it. And you can crack some joke and you can all figure out that all of you have some people-pleasing beginnings in your lives. And you're like, okay, this is something that we all share. Because if we all share it, this is why we laughed. We all found it funny. And we were together, yeah, I don't think they're opposites. I think it's like, for me, it's a part of one tool of connection that I'm using. Or I'm just very naturally funny. I don't know. I like that. That was funny. And then to connect it to you doing therapy and helping people fix their head trash, etc. One, why is that important for you? Two, sometimes some people who are in past such as yourself will receive, like when people on the therapy couch, they'll often be complaining, telling you all the problems, dumping their negative energy onto you. How do you recycle that? How do you take that energy? Like I don't know, do you meditate to turn negativity into love? Do you put a boundary and imagine something else? how would you deal with being like dumped on with all because in order to help them, they are in pain and therefore you're feeling their pain constantly. I don't know about you, but let's say I'm such an empath that if I see someone injured or I see an operation, I feel it. I'm like, no, I don't want to see it. I feel it in my body like that. So I don't know how it will be for you. Yeah. I also, I love that I use the word fix the mess and the trash in their heads, which sounds a bit like if you want to, you know, if you want to really look into it, it can sound a bit disrespectful. So I just want to make a disclaimer that I don't think it's actually a mess and trash. I think all the emotions and the negative ones are important. It's a part of life and it's totally fine. I'm just saying it for the fun and jokes of it. I just struggles. And so yeah, this is just a small disclaimer. I think I get what you mean. And I can't really tell you for sure, because I never worked as a therapist, I have to get qualified before I have to finish a bunch of other universities. And all of that no one will really let me to just fix this mess without me being qualified for it. So of course, there is a small chance that I go to my first job, I work for a week, and then I just get super depressed and I'm like, okay, I can't do this anymore. I picked the wrong career. Of course, there is a small chance of this, but I also think there is a part of this is why we get the training. This is how therapists learn to separate their own emotions from their clients' emotions to help them, but also not take too much on themselves. Also, most therapists, I think, have their personal therapy, which is also important in their personal life and in their career to just separate, as I've said, from the clients. I don't know, as far as I can say from what I've been doing with my friends, which is of course not therapy, but listening to them being the provider of this safe space. Every person has a limit. You can't do it for too much. You can't overload with this. You have to be in touch with your own needs. And if you feel that at some point, it's too much for you, you're not ready, for example, mentally to listen, and you would like to share, or you would like to be alone, have some space for yourself. It's, it's definitely okay to say that, to communicate this. It's not really an option when it's your job, and when the person is paying you. But I think for that, the training covers it and you're learning to kind of separate and be helpful for your client without thinking like, oh my God, this is my life now. I have to, I have to help him or her or them and solve this problems right now in one session because therapy is like any relationship, it's step-by-step, it's a process. Yeah. Thank you. And since we're speaking about therapy, I would like your advice, perspective, and even journey of taking care your mental health in order to be comfortable to go out of your comfort zone. For example, going to NYU Abu Dhabi is something that would not be the easiest choice to make, so it shows a lot more courage. There are many women who are living within their comfort zone and they see their potential outside of it, but they have too much anxiety, worry, they think too much, Even they think, oh, what if I fail and then my parents will be disappointed and people will hate me and all that. What is your advice to them? Because all of the gold is outside your comfort zone. All of the potential is there so that they can live fully and don't die with their song within their heart. Yeah, that's a beautiful, great question. And it's definitely, I agree with you. It's very important to explore outside what you're used to. it's not to say that comfort zone is bad. And if you're happy with your comfort zone, I think it's amazing because eventually the end goal is to make, I think, your comfort zone as broad as you can. So that most of the world, most of the things you can do feels like comfort zone. You don't even have to feel a certain anxiety like leaving it because it already feels like your comfort zone. But for your comfort zone to get bigger and get broader, you have to first step out and be like, okay, now this goes with me, now that's the border of my comfort zone. I think something you said about not disappointing people is really important because if you genuinely have the goal of not disappointing everyone or people who matter to you, it's then very hard to truly do something great that you want because you can't really make everyone happy, especially if you do something outstanding, especially you do something brave, basically anything that you would really want to do. There is always a chance that, I don't know, your parents will be like, no, why would you want to go to this university abroad? Why can't you just stay back in your home country? Why can't you work as a lawyer? Why would you want to be, I don't know, a producer, whatever, anything? So the most important thing to learn and it takes time to learn it is you can't you're not doing it for other people. And if the goal is to expand your own comfort zone and be the happiest you can be and fulfill your potential, you will always make someone uncomfortable by you fulfilling your biggest potential, there is always going to be someone who will not like that you're doing something outstanding amazing with your life. Sometimes it's because people just disagree what you do sometimes is because they secretly would want to also be this brave, but they can't afford it. And they have not yet reached the point of super awareness about this. And they would just project this on you. And it's important to separate this from your own opinions, what people might think, might feel from what you might do. But also, it's really okay to scared of doing new things and something I'm learning is not trying to like I'm not judging my decisions if I'm gonna take the decision or no based on if I'm afraid or no because most of the times I will be afraid and I'm just like okay I will I there will be fear anyways I'm just mentally preparing myself I will definitely be scared if I'm doing something for the first time of course it's natural and I will still do it I will do it with fear and eventually, after a few repetitions, maybe in the process, the fear will go away. But the fear will be there, just 100%. Because if you wait for the fear to go away, it will not. At least it didn't for me. It never disappeared until I actually did something and got used to it. Thank you. I love that it reminds me of acceptance and commitment therapy. The acronym is ACT. ACT, yeah. Yes, that instead of trying to fix yourself before you take action, commit to your values, take action in the world, and as your life improves, your comfort zone will expand and you'll fix a lot of the fears just because it's through desensitization and things like that. So absolutely great. Thank you so much, Zalata. It was my privilege and my honor to have you on this podcast to share your perspective, your voice, your slice of your life. I wish you all the success to help all the people to fall in love always and forever with psychotherapy and to keep going. Thank you so much for participating. Thank you so much, Aziz. And I'm really, really blessed to be a part of this podcast as well. Your questions were truly amazing. It was really, really interesting to participate in this discussion. And it's just, in general, an amazing project that you are doing. It's very important. And I'm great to be a part of. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're very kind. Thanks for watching guys!