Episode Transcript
Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorce mother. She's really my superhero. That's why it's important for me to support women to share their experiences, their uniqueness and personalities 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. This is what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Anessa Sukeech. Anessa is 19 years old and she lives in Montenegro. One thing she can say is that she has been doing art since she was little. It actually makes her who she is. Since she was little, she painted, wrote, danced, acted, recited. Last year she wrote a book that is now on the market in her country. It is a psychological drama. Anessa graduated from high school for tourism where she was also involved in outdoor activities from coordinating and participating in the drama section with which they had plays and short films within her country. Anessa also hosted and coordinated the radio show. She was also part of the debate section, the business center, the public persecutors office, the rhythmic section. She also spent a lot of time in the Red Cross. All in all, Anessa is a flexible person and she is an activist. She deals with many things alone but always returned to art. Next year she will start in drama academy. She currently works in a youth center in her city where they work to provide educational and recreational workshops for young people. Anessa, how are you today? Hello, I'm good. How are you? I feel positive. I feel blessed, really excited to know much more about you. And I'll begin with this usual nice first question, which is, if your friends could describe your personality, what would they say about you? I don't know. Maybe they will say that I'm too much energetic person. I always do something. I always have so much energy where I don't know where to spend it. And then they will tell you that I'm maybe too much having empathy for people, which I don't know is good or bad because maybe I sometimes cross the line of that. And the third will be that I'm always smiling, whatever it is. I'm always smiling. And if they see me without a smile, they know that they don't need to cross the line. I love that very, very much. I have a question about each one of them. And I'll begin with your energy. You have a lot of energy. Where does that come from? Are you angry about life, excited that there is so much to know and to experience? Is it your food and you're constantly working out? And so you have a lot of energy. Is it something else? What is the source of your energy? I don't think about it. It's actually a good question even for me to ask myself. From the sense I was little, I always was with boys friends, with my brother and his friends. Everyone was a boy. I was the only girl in that group. And we're always doing something. Whenever I sit on a couch, we maybe broke things. But we do things together always. And even if they're not so much good or if we do something that we shouldn't, we will be together and say, no one did it or we all do that. I think that it begins from there that they teach me how to speak for myself and for everyone that I love. For people who cannot speak for themselves, then it's going to the middle school where the progress was when I saw the people who didn't know to fight for themselves and didn't know how to include in any group. I was that kind of person actually for the first time. I wanted to be in there, but I didn't know how. And it comes from there. So I fight for them, for myself. Then I'm the person who wants to know everything, who wants to see that and that and that and et cetera. So I like to try things. And somehow I found people, I found the professors, friends who were the persons like me, who can sit on one place, who wants to try things, who wants to live their life, not just to be there and do nothing. It's the mindset that I make. It's like when I die, I want to say, God, I made it. I live the life. Yeah, something like that. I love that energy. I agree with you 100 percent. Life is so rich to not experience fully. And there's so much to enjoy and to ask you then how does this relate to art? I have a friend who is an artist who says that art is a way to empty all the energy so that there is room for new energy to come. But there are other people who say art is good for their mental health because they feel so stressed. They need to forget everything. And for others, they're curious because each piece of art is so different. They're like never getting bored because it's always a different thing, never routine. For you in particular, since you were little, you loved everything related to art. What was the biggest pleasure or the biggest happy thing about it? It was first thing that I was always moving from the town to the town. And I was the person who was scared to enjoy the groups. So my mom picked me up one day, saw me dancing with one Disney character. And she went to the dance club and put me there because she didn't know where to put me. Because we don't have no one who can look for me or babysit me when she's at work. And she finds actually the dance school where the classes were when she's at work. And that was the good thing for her. So I started like that. I fell in love with the dancing, with the music and everything. Then I started to draw. Then I somehow always when we play something from the Disney or the Nickelodeon or any movies, you were like playing the prince and the princess. I was always the prince with the stronger arms or something like that. I was always the boy when we played something. I was like dominated. I didn't want to be the polite one who doesn't speak or something like that. It just going on and on and on. And I just fell in love with that. I found a place where I can read whatever I want to be, where I can be free. One on one will judge me. I can say, yeah, but it's like that. It's art. It's freedom. It is freedom for me. When I am not good, I don't feel well because I don't like to speak about my life or my emotions and I don't know how to speak about that. I will write a song. I will write a story. If I don't know how to say or to explain for myself what I'm feeling, I will dance that or I will act. I don't know. It's like that. I'm just feeling free when I'm doing that. It's not me. It's someone inside of me. It's for the versions of me in once. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I want to ask about that freedom and all that. But I want to return to something you said that you're very, very empathic, maybe too empathic. Well, when you're growing up and you feel other people's emotions so much, often there are parts of the world where there are many people who are angry and depressed and unhappy all the time. How did you deal with any experience where you feel like their energy goes into you because their emotions become your emotions? Did you try to protect yourself? Did you accept it? Did it make you angry? Did you think, oh, what did I do? Why are they angry? How did you deal with it? And then how did you stay open? Because some people will close if they're feeling too much emotions that are angry or negative too much from other people. Oh, so when I was a little, little, little child, my parents are always working. And I spent a lot of time with my dad's brother, which I'm so thankful to him. He was my mom's sister, dad, everything, everything to me. But he passed away when I was five years old, actually two days before my sixth birthday. And he was the inspiration for me. And the old things goes to him. He showed me the way that even the people who are not the good ones, who maybe were not so good, even for him, he always return and give him, give them a hand and say, if they're like that, I don't want to be like them. I want to show my kids and everyone around me that they can find the person that I am. If the person exists like me, if I exist, why wouldn't be there more two or three persons like that? I want that they see something that they need to search for in their life. So I want to show even to my sisters because I have four young sisters, I want to show them the things that he showed me. Sometimes it's hard because I really meet up 100 persons each day. It's really like that because of my energy and I'm always loving and sharing and everything. And I'm the only one that I actually can say that I'm really the active listening to someone. And they always open up. Everyone's open up to me so much fast, I will say. And sometimes it can be hard because they tell you the problems that they never told you. The depressed person, anxious person, they want to kill themselves because of something or etc. It can be rough because maybe they don't want to listen to you. That can be hard because you want to help but they don't listen. They don't want to move. So you need to move for them. You need to show them. But somehow I don't know where my energy comes from. I don't know. It's miraculous. I will say it's miraculous. It never goes away. It bothers me. I was always thinking what I can do, what will be or whatever. I always make scenarios in my head but I will show up to them. And I don't know. For now I didn't have a bad experience. I help a lot of people. They go out of them. They are real now positive. They are energetic persons. Somehow I was okay. It was rough. It was a long road. It was not for one day or one week. We have maybe practice for that for years or something like that. But it's okay. We do that. I'm really happy and I actually wrote something like that about them because I'm really happy for them that they moved on, that they are doing on their life. Even the boys, even the girls. I just like the way when we finish everything that they smile then they are living the life once again. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I'm curious very much about now your acting side. You said you feel freedom and you have many personnals inside you. But before we speak about that, what is freedom to you? What does it mean? How do you know when you are feeling free? When I mean freedom, it comes to the point that you need to accept who you truly are. Not only the good things inside of you, the bad things. I will get angry when someone is putting the trash inside of the trees. I'm personnal like that. Is that maybe wrong or right? We don't know. But I'm like that. And I want to be 100% of me. I don't want to cover up. I don't want to be like, I don't want to be the person that everyone tells you need to be like that. Like that. The rules one. No, I want to break the rules. I don't want to go on a party and sit like this because I'm the, I don't know, Muslim girls or Christian girls or I'm 19 years old. I'm not all in out. No, if I know the topic, if I know the right term, if I know anything about it, why wouldn't I shut up? I want to speak. So the freedom for me is that I can speak, I can move, I can act whatever I want in any time that I want in any place to be 100% of me. That I don't think about will someone get mad or will someone get disappointed or something like that. No, I want to be freedom to think about. Am I be disappointed because I didn't do that because someone will get mad and maybe in two days we won't even speak. He will go out of my life and I regret it because I didn't do that for myself. 100%. That's how life should be. No excuses and living fully so that like you said, you can never regret it anytime, any place and to ask you then even more nowadays, teenage girls are growing up in the age of social media and age where they compare themselves to how other women who may be photoshopped or real or now with artificial intelligence AI looking like that. Did you do that? Did you suffer from that situation where maybe in Instagram you compare yourself to other women or how do you deal with it? What's your advice to other teenage girls so that they fall in love with how they look and don't compare it with other women but see themselves as beautiful in the way they are? There are a lot of problems over here. When we talk about the women's, first of all, to look how they look. When they see them in the mirror, they're always like maybe I'm too fat, I'm skinny, I don't know, I can't wear the dress that she's dressing or something like that. I can't wear the things that they wear. I had a lot of problems for myself when even now that I'm the person who likes to wear baggy clothes. I'm not like that right now because I was on a trip and I ran out of my baggy clothes. But I'm always like that and someone will tell you that I look like a boy or you look too like a rat or you like to wear so much black. I don't know. But I don't think that they need to go on how they need to see the truth of that. I was on a casting. I was meeting a lot of people. And when you're meeting a lot of people, you will see that when they show them Instagram profiles and when you speak with them, it's a completely two different persons. They don't even met each other. You see like parallel universe or something like that. That doesn't have sense. So meeting up a lot of people and going to school education like out of class. I don't know if there are any of them but here in Montaingro we have that. And speaking a lot with the girls openly. I think that our generation can't speak too much openly. Maybe that was the good thing with me. That I was like speak. I learned how it was like that when I was young. But I learned how to speak up and tell everything what is on my mind. If I want to ask, I will ask. It wasn't like that. I had a professor who was pushing me out to do that. So I learned to ask everything. So I will say that our generation needs to speak up openly. I had no problem. I was not so much stressed about the looks. I never was stressed about that. But I was stressed about that maybe I will sound stupid to someone. That I was not so smart, so intelligent. That I didn't read so much books. I don't know. Something like that. That bothered me. And I was shut up because of that reason. But you will see that when you start to speak, to tell your stories, to always speak, to ask about something that you want. Ask about the questions about their life story. How they think about something. You will get some information that you will never think that you will get. Even from the young people and from the oldest people. Maybe you will see actually some older things. Maybe more younger than my sister who is 10 years old. And I found that some young people who are like 15, it's about like they are 45. So speak up openly about everything that you see, everything that you think or something like that. But when you speak, don't speak with the people who are so much big also. Like to popular ones, to the one who wants to be the boss and everything. But to another person who will tell you openly what they think. No, they will not. So speak openly. But choose with who you will speak about that topic. And you will see how you have a wrong picture in front of you. Thank you for sharing that. And I'm curious too, you said that, for example, your degeneration that you are with is often does not share how they feel exactly and their truth and they're not open like you. But to understand you even more, do you feel that in your personality, you are very Montenegrin from Montenegro and that you are Balkan? Or do you feel that you have your unique way that is very different? That if people met you, they wouldn't know you're a Balkan girl, they will think, oh, she's some from somewhere else. Tell me a bit more about that and how, what is to you like the personality of a girl your age from Montenegro? And how are you different? Oh, whenever I go, they don't know where I came from, because I don't even speak like a Montenegrin. I speak like I'm from Serbia. But when I start to speak, I don't, I don't have that actually mentality. Like I'm everywhere from the Balkan. And they're always like questionable where I came from. I'm from here. They always ask me, am I from Mexico or Spain because of my look or something like that? I was proud of that because I'm so obsessed with Spain. But there I was question about where I actually came from. The problem in my generation is because I will tell because of our parents, our grandmothers, our grandparents, the generations behind us who tell us the rules, that there are not the rules. There is no rules in life. You make your own rules. Okay, don't get, you have some rules like don't get crime or something like that. But to be who you truly are, there are not rules. Here we have a lot of problems actually with the LGBTQI population if I spell it right. And because in the first place, they so much rejected from our friend groups. And I always like push up, no, he will sit here. Listen to him. That was the problem with me. When I see the person who hates something, I will say like hate something, I will put on the table that person that he hates. And I will be like, okay, what the hate about this person, what she or he did to you? Nothing. Okay. Listen to him, how he feels, what he thinks about it. And then tell me, do you really truly hate him? Or was that the story that your grandma told you? So I don't wear, wear a pick that up. But I'm like that. And I'm doing like that. And maybe it's that because I really wanted that someone was doing the same thing to me, to be there for me. Maybe I never had actually the person who was there for me. I always needed to fight for something to really fight for it. And I didn't want that the road that I was walking and how I was living, someone else lives. No, I didn't want that. Because I was living in Montenegro. Sometimes I was living in German. And I know I was, I had a lot of troubles with the people and everything. But I know how to go with that. So I think that that was the really thing about me that I didn't want to be like someone else. Because I know how someone else was making me so much suffer in pain. And I didn't want that someone actually feels that too. That was the only thing that helped me. The thing and my thinking, okay, it's killing me in some way that can be really stressful and everything. But sometimes it was really useful for me because I know how to react in that situation. I made all of her horrible situation that can be in my head. Then I did something. And I don't know, it was good because I really had so much good views. The people really changed in front of me. And I was really happy when I saw that. And sometimes we had different kind of stories. It was trouble, it was drama and everything. But on the end of the road, it actually pays off the whole drama that I was and the whole stress that I had. It pays. But I think that that was the thing. If you see something, don't just look away. Look that directly in your eyes and tell what you want to say. If that hurts you, if that hurts someone, if you think about, will that hurt me if I was in that skin and you know that it will hurt you, speak. If that person is not speaking, maybe he's scared. Speak for him. I don't see the problem for that. I don't know. I'm like that. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And many people will be helped and have been helped by you being there for them, helping them with their mentality, as you said. And it makes me curious. And I will ask you in this way. There are many girls who, let's say they're teenagers, et cetera, who grew up like you said with the with the rules of their grandmother or maybe their parents telling them what they should study, what they should do. And maybe they want to do their hobbies to become a painter or a singer. But their parents are like, no, become a doctor or do something that gives you more money. Well, they feel stuck. They feel like they don't want to disappoint their parents, but they will be very sad and unhappy if they don't do what they love. And maybe they're thinking about doing what their parents want, but they will be very sad. What's your advice for them so that they don't waste their life and do what they love and find themselves strong to do it? So these times get emotional. I was the girl that you're speaking of right now from from the time when I started to join Earth, my parents and anyone in my family wasn't for that because our kids are the one who are crazy, the one who are not having so much money for living, the one who are doing so much terrible things to get on a scene to get to be the one who are popular or something like that. And it's actually I've heard all things that can be heard and all things that can actors see and hear. I heard and see. So my mom was the one who wants that I be the doctor because I have the all best grades in my school and or the tourism that I can speak a lot of languages. So I be something like that. I know. And I was like, OK, I'm going to high school and be what you want. The first year was really rough for me because I needed to learn something that I don't like. I learned to without a passion, without anything like I'm learning it because I want to be educated. I want to have job. I want to have money. I want to live. OK, I want that when I go out of this house, I want to have food. I want to have everything that I need. But that actually was the problem. One day was the day that my eyes was open for that. And one friend of my mother is actually the registered. And I didn't know that they know each other. That was the mistake. We went to the school and my professor, who secretly noticed, but I didn't know, that I'm doing art and that I'm acting in a class when she was like sneaking and everything. I was acting some people that we know. And she didn't tell me that that way. But she told me that he will come and I need to show up. I didn't know how to tell that to my mom because I know that she will not let me to do it because she was the one who pushed me out of that. When I have the opportunity, she will literally go to the trash and like, "Damn, you will not." And I was like, "OK." So I need to think about it. That was the first time that I lied to my mother. And thanks God I did that. And I said that I have some extra class for the math and I need to go there. When I went there, he spoke about some movies that he made. He let us see. We're speaking about it. We have a discuss. And he was so amazed about me. Like what I saw, how I saw the colors, what they mean, or why is that the pose or not seen or something like that. He was so amazed. He recognized me because I looked like my mother and he was like, "Hi, do you know that your daughter was today on my lesson?" He was like, "What?" And when I came home, she was like, "Hmm, why did you be?" And I was like, "I told you on a map." Yeah, yeah. That was a good movie of math. And I was like, "She knows." But how she knows, then she explained me and told me that he actually wants me to go on his auditions for his theater. And I was like, "What?" And she was like, "I know that you will fail that, that you don't have a talent. Go there. I know that you want to win." I had the main role. From that day, I actually find out that... And I wasn't happy so much in my life until that day. That happiness, what I had when I heard that I had a main role, I can describe it. And then I realized that I actually pushing everything, just that my mother or my father or everyone in my family be happy and be proud. And I'm not the one who is proud on myself. I'm just living mechanically. It's not the life. So from that day, I was always doing somehow, sneaking out. My professor hate me like that. When I had her class, she would let me to write or to act or something like that. We made some classes after school. And then starts my art thing. I made so much theaters. I made the little short movies. I made my first book. And that's the story that I want to tell the young girls. Don't be what your parents want. Okay. If you really can't, I know that some parents are really rough and you can't do like, you can't go on a college, go to the academic or something like that. But the art is really free. You can start your own business, go on auditions or make your songs posted on social media or something like that. Meet up people, speak with people, show them what you do. And someone will recognize that and help you with that. You don't need to go maybe for that school. I know that something is rough when you can't go there or something like that. I really know that. But some parents can be rough. Do your best to show them that you really care for that because I was the one who was going to the school and to the job just that I can pay my lessons for the next year that I can go to the academic school because they say that they won't pay me that. And I was not ashamed of that. It wasn't so hard for me when I actually know that I will finally do something that I want. So if you can't show them, you can show them. But if you when you show everything from yourself that you really love and they still don't listen, OK, do whatever they want, make that school what they want, do that. But don't slide up your thing. That should be your main thing. See how you can do something that you can be seen. I don't know. Post that on social media. Speak to some people. Go on a street. Show your things. Show your music. Show your I don't know. Do something. I was the one who actually do the same thing. And I don't regret it. It was awesome. I meet a lot of people. Whenever I show someone to I always show someone that they were amazed because I put my whole soul man, my whole impression in that. And I know when they put everything inside of their body in that particular thing, it will have some positive things. One hundred percent. Thank you so much for that. I really appreciate all your insights and mindset. And even more, I want us to finish on a strong note, which is what is any advice that you think other women in the world or girls who are teenagers like you everywhere should listen so that they feel happier and live a better life? What is your advice for them? So that, like you said, when you arrive to the end of your life, you're like, I arrived. I did everything I wanted. And so is there any advice that you can share? Yeah, there I like to read. I'm the one who like the rap, like the music a lot. So rap helped me to find some answers that no one could actually give to me when I was four. I first that I learned was the rap song. So thanks to rap, I will tell them one thing, which is like one of my best rappers ever, which says, don't be your parents playing A or playing B, which is like, if they are not so sexual, you need to be or if they are so sexual, actually, you need to be to know be your thing. This is like she says, they don't shine with mine light. I will shine like I want to be. Thanks to much yellow. So light up with your light. Don't see someone's shine, someone's light. Do your own thing. Speak about everything openly and shine your own way. And something that you're really passionate about that you will give your soul to that and live life with that with your soul. Live life with your soul. Know with your brain. You will probably regret it because you didn't live live life. So live life with your own emotions, your whole being, your whole soul. And you will like I know that you will because every woman lights just you need to show that light to everyone. Thank you so much. And it was my privilege and my honor to have you in this project to share your interesting thoughts and wise words. I wish you all the success in your artistic field. I wish you to do everything and to enjoy your high energy and positivity and big smiles all the time. Thank you again for participating. Thank you. My pleasure is mine.
