Latest / Celeste The Therapist / EP 513 Turning Pain into Purpose: Reframing Your Life

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EP 513 Turning Pain into Purpose: Reframing Your Life · Celeste The Therapist

0:02
Hey, thank you all so much for joining another episode of Celeste, the
0:05
therapist podcast. My name is Celeste. I'm a therapist from Boston. If
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you've never been into my podcast before, thank you for giving me a try. What
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I do on this podcast is I talk about things that we go
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through, and I help you think about ways that you can work on Challenging
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these thoughts and these things that we go through if
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you are a longtime listener Thank you for being here If you're new here, there
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are tons of episodes that you can find where I've talked to guests
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over the years I've been podcasting since 2018 July
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2nd to be exact. I'm coming up on another anniversary, which is
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so exciting and And now I've changed
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the platform to the short episodes. I
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always encourage you to grab a notebook, grab a pen, kind of
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look at these episodes as learning tools that you can take. Take
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what you can, leave what you don't, what you can't
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utilize, but try to look at this as one of the resources that
1:01
you can use to work on your healing journey.
1:05
So my platform is for people that want to work on shifting
1:08
the way they think. I offer a very holistic way
1:12
of doing things. And I'm also really big on starting
1:16
where you are and using what you have. I think that's something that's
1:19
so important to me. And my platform changed last
1:22
year because I opened a wellness center located in
1:26
Stoughton, Massachusetts. So if you are in the area, check us out,
1:30
stwit.com, where you can find it. Today
1:34
on the episode, and if you are listening to me on audio, you can always find
1:37
these episodes on the YouTube platform. The reason
1:41
why it's important to me to put it on YouTube is because I
1:44
offer visuals. One thing about me is I'm a very visual
1:48
learner, so it's easier for me to follow along when I'm able
1:51
to look at it. So definitely check me out on YouTube. You can search Celeste Therapist
1:55
to find it. Today we're talking about understanding how
2:00
to turn like pain into purpose. I've been journaling
2:04
lately in the mornings and I have been listening
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to motivational videos. And so I
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look at that as my medicine. I'm working on a project again and
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anytime I'm starting something new, what happens is like, I feel like
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a little anxious, a little overwhelmed. So then I
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start utilizing some of the things that have helped me
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get grounded, you know grant being grounded It's important
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when you're going through transition when you're going through a lot of changes Trying
2:35
to allow yourself to get into the moment could be so powerful because
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what's happening is your mind is trying to go to into the future when
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it's like, nope, I need to get back into the now. So one
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of the things that we're going to talk about today is reframing your
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life from pain to purpose. I know a
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lot of times people have dealt with a
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lot of things over the years, right? And unfortunately,
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what tends to happen is that your lens on life will look
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like what you've been through. And what do I mean by that is that if
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things haven't gone well, if you've watched your caregiver, the person that
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raised you, deal with things a certain way. Because
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you don't have a different outlook Sometimes you can
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allow your mind to only cycle out all of the
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hard things that have happened And so the idea of
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a future that looks positive that looks freeing that
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looks peaceful Doesn't tend to exist
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right when you allow your pain to dictate things so we're
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gonna talk about understanding your the impact of your past and The
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cost of living in your past like how it affects you the power
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of reframing. I'm all about reframing my Practice is
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called shifting the way you think because if you're shifting the way you think you're actually reframing
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things And then how we can set goals. So, uh, if
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you're new here, i'm very concise. I'm very to the point And
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I use analogies, they really help you understand things better.
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So I really hope that you really enjoy today's
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episode. Okay, so let's get just jump right into this episode. So
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the power of reframing your life from pain into purpose. So
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understanding the impact of your past. So if you're not aware,
4:16
your past experiences significantly shape your thoughts
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and your behavior by influencing perceptions, expectations,
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and learning from both success and failure. They can
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also lead to the development of cognitive bias, beliefs, and attitudes,
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as well as influence our emotional reactions and decision-making styles.
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And I'm going to leave this up for people that are watching this on YouTube. What
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this is essentially saying is that the things in your
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your past can influence the way you see
4:45
things, right? So not just with failure, because I just
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talked about failure as I opened it up, right, where we
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may have seen things not go well for people in our lives. Things
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may not have gone well. And so the the idea of
4:59
like life just is going to suck is an idea
5:03
that people have, but also success. Right.
5:08
Always tell people that struggle with consistency I'll say like
5:11
start making up your bed in the morning, right and then we'll move from there making
5:15
up your bed takes two seconds first thing in the morning and
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People will come to me and be like, oh my gosh, so that's like I made up my bed, right?
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I do that because now they're gaining confidence in their ability
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to do things a lot of times we think we need this grand thing to
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help we're waiting for this grand thing to happen before change happens and
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Sometimes it literally starts with making up your bed. Sometimes
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it starts with making allowing yourself five minutes
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to take deep breaths, right? Like intentional deep
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breaths to start the process of grounding, right? The
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little things that you do matter, right? And so
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those experiences that you've had, they can shape the
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way that you think about life. And then the development of
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cognitive biases. Well, if it didn't go
6:00
right before, it's never gonna be right. And then
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your emotional reactions and decision-making style, right? A
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lot of times we are led by our emotions and
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we don't really understand how that happens, right? A
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lot of times, some of the things that we're feeling, whether it's
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fear, whether it's anxiety, whether it's depression,
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like a lot of the things that we're feeling Unfortunately, we
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find ourselves making decisions based off of our feeling. So
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one of the things, you know, I tell people when they say like, I don't like
6:34
the fact that I feel sad and you know, there's no reason for
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it, right? People will say that. And I'll say, you don't have to have a
6:41
reason in front of you to feel, to identify like that
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you're feeling sad. And it's important to note that your
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feelings are valid. The sadness that you feel,
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whether or not you can identify where it's coming from, it's
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really important to honor that emotion. Now, making
6:59
a decision off of that emotion, that's where the issue come into play,
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right? It's really important. We're gonna honor our emotions,
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right if my children get upset because they got in trouble I'm
7:10
not mad at them for being upset, you know, you hear parents
7:14
or you've maybe have said it or it's been said to you Where
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it's like, what are you upset for like, you know what you did? Like
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yeah, I know what I did but it's it's not okay for me to be upset like
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it's okay to feel upset but a lot of us haven't been allowed
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to feel our feelings. And so as
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adults, when we find ourselves feeling a certain way, we
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struggle with the fact that we feel that way instead of honoring what
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we are feeling. So understanding
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the impact of your past is crucial when
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it comes to looking at how you are looking at
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life in the present and for the future. When
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you're struggling with dwelling on the past, you can face difficulties like
7:58
guilt, regret, and even trauma related issues. These can
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lead to emotional distress, mental health challenges, and difficulties
8:05
in present day relationship and activities. Again, dwelling
8:09
on the past, brings up all of these emotions. And
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a lot of times we're ruminating on things that we cannot change.
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Anytime I'm working with people and we're talking about
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the past and I'll say, well, what part of that do you have control over presently?
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Nothing, right? Easier said than done an example
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and I've used this I've said this before on the podcast, but
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if you're watching a movie and there's a scary scene that
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comes up You'll find yourself you may jump and
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you know, oh my gosh, that was so scary your system starts to
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get feel that fear But then when the movie's over
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guess what's happening? You're going back to baseline, right? You're
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not ruminating over that scene because you know, it was a
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movie and We've experienced things in
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real life where it's happened, right? And then
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our system goes into whatever it goes to during that traumatic event,
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during that moment. Unfortunately, we have not
9:08
gone back to baseline. Unfortunately, because we're not
9:11
processing what's happening, our system is constantly like,
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oh my gosh, it's happening again. When the feeling comes into
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play, whether it's isolation, whether it's abandonment, when
9:22
that feeling comes into play, you'll find your system struggling
9:27
with the rumination of the thoughts because you haven't processed
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it. When I have my first session with people, one
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of the important things that is important for me to do is
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that we go over their history. The reason why it's important for
9:40
me to go over their history is because I want to help them make the
9:43
connections to what is happening in the present. And
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we are, if we make time to pause and
9:51
reflect, we can start to see how some
9:54
things can be related, right? If you got to
9:57
make time to pause and reflect, then I do understand making time,
10:02
pausing and reflecting for some people can feel very
10:05
scary. Being in the moment for so many people
10:09
has been scary, because you may be saying, well, why is it scary for
10:13
me to be in the moment? The reason why being in the moment can
10:16
feel scary in today is because there's been moments in
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your past that being in the moment was really hard. And
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our mind does an amazing job at being able to escape, being
10:26
able to go somewhere else. And that works as children.
10:30
That works for the traumatic event. But in the present day, it
10:33
doesn't work for us all the time. It creates a
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lot of situations where we are not present,
10:40
where we're not experiencing joy, right? And
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so my goal for you is to help you understand that, right? So
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when we can have a grapple on our past, right, we gotta
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face it. If we don't face our past, our past will continue to
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be the lens in which we look at life under. It's gonna be
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very hard to change life's Present and
11:02
future if we are trying to
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run from the past and there's so many different ways that we will
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find ourselves Running from the past so really
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be mindful when you're doing that Now, what
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is the cost of living in the past? Because it comes with a cost. Being
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stuck in the past can significantly impact emotional
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and mental health well-being, leading to various negative
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consequences. So this can be rumination, nostalgic
11:31
depression, so thinking about all those hard things that's
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happened in the past, or even unresolved trauma. It
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can hinder personal growth, distort your perspective, and contribute to
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mental health conditions, Like anxiety and depression a
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lot of times I say like and so I'm in America for people that
11:49
are listening in other places I feel like we are
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one of the most anxious and depressed nations We
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have so many things at our fingertips that are available to
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us like resources but the anxiety and
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the depression is so debilitating and And you know
12:06
my thoughts on that right? Why why is it so prevalent?
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Because we're trying to fill our time with so many things. We're distracted by
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so many things. In this country you
12:19
know once you if you come from another country where they don't do a lot of advertisement you
12:22
come here you start to feel bombarded with advertisement. I
12:26
remember speaking to somebody I can't remember what country they went to But
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they said they remember when they came back they were so overwhelmed by all
12:32
the billboards by all the advertisements They didn't realize like
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how heavy it was here because they had been somewhere
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else for a while And then it hit them at too much
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how much advertisement is done Think about your algorithm on
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your feed if you look at something for more than five or six seconds That
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thing is coming back in your feed Lot of times you're
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the the cravings that you have not just for food but
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for other things You're trying to figure out why a lot of
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it's because of what you're watching right what you're listening to a
13:04
lot of the ways that we're operating in life, where
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we're not identifying what we're feeling, we're not paying
13:12
attention to how we're affected by things. Instead,
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we're just on the go. Instead, we're just trying to make status, make
13:20
money, survive, party, not wanna
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miss anything. And we're just going, going, going like
13:27
robots when there are ways that we're affected by
13:31
things that we're not paying attention to. So
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being mindful of if you are finding yourself constantly stuck
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in the past it comes with the price It comes
13:43
with the price. Yes trying to get more present can
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be hard But being present paying
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attention to what is happening can help you
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start to see the direction in life that you try you're
13:57
trying to go and Now let's talk about the
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power of reframing. Because reframing is something
14:04
that is so important to do. Because like for instance, let
14:07
me just try to think of an example real quick. So let's say that the
14:12
glass half full, right? So if there's a glass that's half
14:16
full, it's half empty and it's half full, right? Which
14:20
perspective sounds better me saying that the glass is half
14:23
full Feels better because I feel like I'm closer to
14:27
it being full if I'm trying to fill it up Let's just say it's money. But
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if I say my glass is half empty It sounds
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a little bit more negative like dang is is empty like using
14:37
the language that you use but both are true Right?
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So reframing or cognitive reframing is a technique that involves
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changing the way you perceive and interpret situations, experiences,
14:49
and even your own thoughts. It's about shifting your mindset
14:53
to view a situation from a different perspective, often leading
14:56
to a more helpful or positive outlook. Essentially, it's
15:00
about understanding that the meaning we assign to our experiences is
15:04
not inherent, but rather a product of our own interpretation. Somebody
15:08
you can get in the car accident with somebody else that other
15:11
person may walk away and they'd like Oh, that was that was close. Like
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I'm glad I'm good and walk away You could
15:18
find yourself struggling with what just happened and
15:22
Feeling a different kind of impact for one reason or the other
15:25
maybe you've been in an accident before Maybe it brought up some
15:29
other things or maybe that's just how you have responded to
15:32
it, right? So really understanding the ways
15:35
in which you are interpreting situations and
15:39
thinking about how you can reframe it. I'm going to give you
15:43
a very concrete example of what this looks like. And
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I want to be clear reframing. When I say reframing, it
15:51
doesn't mean I'm saying pretend like things didn't happen. Right. I
15:56
spent so many years. thinking
15:59
that life was so hard. Yes, life is hard.
16:03
But thinking that there was no way for me to have peace because of all
16:07
the things that have happened over the years. And I have found
16:10
myself being able to really not allow that
16:14
pain of the past to take over my
16:17
present by reminding myself like, It's
16:21
okay. Like I can't change the past like the
16:24
words that I started to say to myself matter and when
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I'm working with people and The words that they
16:31
say when they're so negative. I'm like saying
16:34
hey, did you hear what you just said? I'm constantly reminding people that
16:38
there are power and words in the way that you're framing things So
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I really want you to be mindful of that. But on this next slide, let's
16:44
look at ways that you can reframe it I'm giving you a
16:48
concrete example So
16:51
imagine you lost your job. Initially, you
16:54
might interpret this as a failure, leading to feelings
16:58
of anxiety and insecurity. However, reframing
17:02
this experience could involve seeing it as an opportunity to
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explore new career paths, pursue further education, or
17:09
start a business you've always dreamed of. You might also
17:13
consider the job loss as a chance for a fresh beginning. This
17:17
literally happened to me and if you've been listening to this podcast for
17:21
a long time, you already know in 2000 in in 2014 or 13 in 2013, I
17:24
got demoted from my job I
17:35
was supervising case managers. I had worked at
17:38
this facility for a while and I got
17:42
demoted. And I remember when I got
17:45
demoted and had a pay cut and they changed my hours, I
17:48
was really upset because I was doing a great job. But, you know,
17:52
over the years I've learned that my advocacy and who I am
17:55
It didn't work in certain spaces and it worked
17:59
out for me. So I got demoted, right? I
18:02
could have been like, oh my gosh, this sucks, which I said, this sucks. I
18:06
could have stayed in that. I could have stayed bitter. I could
18:09
have spent years talking about, I can't believe they demoted
18:13
me. Like, who do they think they are? I could have
18:16
stayed there, but no, I reframed it.
18:20
And I said to myself, oh, I'm disposable, right?
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Like they have every right, I'm an employee at
18:26
will, they can let me go, they can demote me, they can do whatever they want to
18:30
me, but what do I have power
18:33
over? Right and at the time I had my master's
18:37
and I didn't even go for my licensure. I wasn't thinking about being an entrepreneur Never
18:42
once did that cross my mind never once cuz I was just gonna
18:45
grow with the company Retire, you know get a little gold
18:49
watch or something So that
18:52
demotion, instead of me wallowing in like this isn't fair,
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I said it wasn't fair, so it's not about not naming it, it wasn't
19:00
fair, but what can I do with this opportunity? What did I do?
19:04
I decided I was gonna go for my license. I
19:07
went for my license, went to another job, made $20,000 more
19:10
than what I was making at the time just by going for my license, something
19:14
I never thought about doing because I felt so satisfied in
19:18
the role that I was in. Right. So I want
19:21
you to use this example. Think about the things that maybe
19:24
you have gone through and asking yourself, what is the beauty in
19:28
the struggle? What can I pull out of that situation? How
19:31
can I change my outlook on the way that I'm framing things?
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I spent so many years living in pain where it felt debilitating and
19:40
usually that pain would show up at night, right? Why did it show up
19:43
at night? Because there was no distractions. I wasn't going
19:46
to school, studying, partying, like those are my outlooks that
19:50
I had utilized to escape, right? Like I said, we can escape in
19:53
different ways. People are familiar with drugs and alcohol, but
19:57
there's also food. There's also work. There's also degrees
20:01
getting multiple degrees Leaving the house
20:04
going to multiple events. There's so many ways that
20:07
we can find ourselves escaping and
20:12
once I decided that I wasn't gonna like run anymore from
20:15
this I and actually start to face it head on, very challenging, very
20:19
hard, it allowed me to see the autonomy that
20:22
I had over my life. It allowed me to see the choices that
20:26
I was able to make. So my reframe
20:30
came so naturally. The more that I started to look at my
20:33
power, the more I started to work on reframing
20:38
and taking control of my life and starting to see my purpose. I
20:41
was somewhat living out my purpose in the career path that I was choosing,
20:45
But I was just going through the motions. I wasn't really involved consciously.
20:50
I was just doing the part, feeling unsatisfied. I'm
20:53
sure some people that are listening now understands what that feels
20:57
like. And so if you wanna take control of your life,
21:00
not allow your pain to take over your life, you
21:04
gotta face what is, right? Face what is happening
21:07
or what has happened and work on reminding yourself that,
21:12
I can never change the past sometimes there are things that you have done
21:15
forget the fact that things have been done to you Sometimes there are things that you have done
21:19
forgiving yourself is is huge, right? It's something that
21:22
I talk about often not an easy task to do but an
21:26
important task to do Because we only have one life We
21:30
only have one life and in order for us to work on
21:34
enjoying life, creating peace in life, we gotta
21:38
be in the moment. If we're dwelling on the past or
21:41
worried about the future, we're not in the moment. And
21:45
when you're not in the moment, there's no way you can have peace. Last
21:49
thing we're going to talk about really quick is setting purposeful goals
21:53
And so if you can see this pie graph, um, and if you can't if
21:56
you're not on youtube Um, I would encourage you to google wellness
22:00
will and you will see these different dimensions on
22:03
the will There's social wellness emotional wellness spiritual
22:07
wellness and spiritual. It's not religion. So before you think like oh i'm not
22:10
religious neither am I I'm very spiritual, intellectual
22:16
wellness, physical wellness, environmental wellness, financial wellness, and
22:19
occupational wellness. So these are different areas of our
22:22
lives, right? Because how can I say that
22:25
I want to be in the present and work on my future if I don't know what my goals
22:29
are, right? How can I change my pain into purpose if
22:33
I'm not even clear on what my goals are? This is
22:36
a great way to work on identifying what
22:40
your goals look like. If you go to celestiatherapist.com, I actually
22:43
have a short webinar where I go through
22:47
these dimensions and help you
22:50
think about what these areas look like. And when I go through
22:54
this with people, I'll tell them to think Between the numbers
22:57
of one and ten one being very bad not doing well in that area and
23:01
ten being i'm doing amazing Go through this will and start to
23:04
number it. What am I doing? Well, like you'll be surprised some areas you
23:07
might find yourself thinking like, okay I got I got it together in
23:11
this area some areas it might be kind of low but what that
23:14
allows you to do is have a framework And a baseline
23:18
on where you are instead of just saying instead of
23:21
just making like, oh, I don't like my job Oh, I don't feel
23:24
like i'm really in tune with myself, right? Oh, i'm not really
23:28
like moving my body or eating. Well, like just saying it but
23:31
what are you gonna do about it? right and this
23:35
will will allow you to actually Look
23:39
at where you are Now currently in life in
23:43
these areas and help you work on Coming
23:46
up with the goal for each area Right. So if you type in
23:50
wellness will you'll find a wellness will with the different categories
23:54
and if you are If you want to see a visual on it now,
23:57
you just go to YouTube. I have the visual up and
24:00
I got this Specific will from headspace. So
24:04
if you go to if you type in wellness will headspace You'll find this specific
24:08
world that I have up with the different categories. Um,
24:13
so, you know, I hope that was helpful. I hope that makes
24:16
sense when it comes to thinking about like the things
24:20
you've gone through and thinking about, um, how
24:23
do I not allow it to take over my life? Right. We
24:27
got to understand what happened to you may not have been your fault,
24:31
but your healing is always going to be your responsibility. Right.
24:34
I'll say that again. What happened to you may
24:38
not have been your fault. but your healing is
24:41
your responsibility. A lot of times we want somebody
24:45
to pay for what's happened. My friend Sean Marshall
24:49
had this amazing example where he said he
24:52
talked about being hit by a limo and
24:56
he said if I You know if the limo driver the
25:00
limo driver happened to stop for him but he said if
25:03
the limo driver didn't stop for me right and
25:06
the ambulance driver came right somebody caught the ambulance and
25:09
came and The ambulance was like, all right, come on Let's
25:13
get in the ambulance and then we say now I can't get
25:16
an ambulance because the limo driver is the one who did it He needs to take me to
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the ambulance Nobody would ever do that. We
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would never say, I'm gonna sit here and wait for
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the ambulance driver to come back because of what
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he did, right? It's his fault, he needs to bring me to
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the hospital. In
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some cases, in his case,
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the limo driver stopped. There could be a case the limo driver didn't stop,
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right? when you think about the things you struggle
25:47
with the things you've been holding on to and the
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things that nobody has ever acknowledged or said sorry about I
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Want you to think about that analogy with the limo driver. I want
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you to ask yourself Am I still waiting for
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the limo driver to pick me up or do I need to just go in the ambulance and
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start? Working on what I need to heal Because
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those people are going on with their lives. Who knows what they got going on?
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A lot of times, people will say, but they seem happier. They're doing
26:15
this. That's not your business. And
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if we can reframe it, it's easy to frame
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it in a sense of, but it's not fair, because it isn't fair. That's always going
26:27
to be true. It's not fair. It sucks. But
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what is also true is that if you want to get to where you need
26:33
to go, your healing is your responsibility. I
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hope that was helpful, I hope that makes sense. If you are in the Stoughton area,
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I just wanna share, I do have regular classes that
26:44
are taking place. We have a mindful yin
26:47
class. The last Friday of every month, we
26:51
have a restorative yoga. We have a rest and recharge.
26:55
I don't have the clip up here for this, but we also are
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gonna have a gentle flow starting next month in June.
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June 14th a gentle trauma-informed yoga session If
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you know me or if you've been following me, I'm very
27:11
big into holistic healing. I love talk therapy
27:15
I think it's great. But a lot of times we have so much stored in
27:18
our body and we're not even aware of it So definitely like
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check out the classes if you're in the area really
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good space to help you decompress to help you relax to
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work on your healing process and And again, if you want to
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follow me you can follow I also have two books
27:36
One is a guided journal called 365 days of intentional living
27:40
and I also have a book called relationship goals It's a guide to a healthy relationship
27:44
if you go to stwit.com you can find those
27:48
two books and Then if you want to follow me, I'm on every social
27:51
media site by searching Celeste the therapist and my
27:55
website for my prep for my Wellness Center is st
27:58
wit.com that's st wit.com If
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anything I ever say resonates for you understand you have the power to
28:06
create change But you have to have faith to believe in yourself and
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I always tell people when you have faith when you stop believing in yourself Man,
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nobody can take that away from you Validate yourself validate
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your feelings, but don't make decisions off of those feelings. That's important until