Latest / Celeste The Therapist / EP 477 The Power of Saying No: Strategies for Setting Boundaries

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EP 477 The Power of Saying No: Strategies for Setting Boundaries · Celeste The Therapist

0:03
All right. Hi. All right.
0:18
We're here. Hi. Hi, beautiful people. If this is,
0:22
let me just make sure I'm on the mic. I feel like I do this every single
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time. Audio. I'm not on the
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mic. Mic. Okay.
0:33
Hello. Hello. Okay. Good. All right. If this is your first time in
0:37
my life, thank you for being here. And if
0:40
you've never listened to my podcast before, my
0:43
name is Celeste. I'm a therapist from Boston and
0:47
I come on and I record my podcast episodes live. And
0:52
on my podcast, I'm talking to people in the
0:55
past that are doing things to empower others. But recently, I've
0:59
been coming on to talk about different subjects that
1:02
people go through, and then help people kind of think about how
1:05
to deal with them. And last week, we talked about anticipatory anxiety.
1:10
That's something that a lot of people, hey,
1:14
Saron, that's something that a lot of people are
1:18
not aware of. And it's a
1:21
symptom of anxiety. And it's essentially when
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you are anticipating something and you're creating a lot of
1:28
fear in your head around it. And so I feel like the
1:31
more we're educated around anxiety and the symptoms,
1:35
and how we're affected, we can change the way we
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are processing. So the way we are thinking about
1:41
things can create our own internal hell, which is something
1:45
that a lot of people aren't aware of. Hi,
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I'm from India. Hi, thank you for joining me from India. So we
1:53
are streaming on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. and
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Twitter. And today we're going to talk about, actually, let
2:00
me put in the comment what we're going to talk about, because I didn't put it up here. Today we're talking
2:03
about setting boundaries and saying no
2:07
strategies for setting boundaries
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and saying no. All right,
2:17
let me put that here. All right, we in the money now, we good, we good. All
2:21
right, so one of the things about boundaries, I
2:24
have a really good friend, Sean Marshall, he said, when you start
2:29
to create boundaries in your relationship, it exposes the toxicity in
2:32
the relationship, which is so true. And a
2:35
lot of times people are not even aware that boundaries is
2:38
a thing that they can exercise. A lot of times people are
2:42
waiting around for people to change how they are treating them. or
2:45
change the way they are presenting. A lot of times people
2:49
will think to themselves, well, I wouldn't do that. And they don't understand why
2:53
somebody else is doing it. And I'm always telling people when they're
2:56
coming to me questioning why somebody would
3:00
do X, Y, and Z, I remind them about the energy that they're
3:03
wasting. And they have to look at what they're allowing because
3:07
What you're allowing is the issue. Uh, and, and,
3:11
and also you're the only person that has control over you.
3:15
I don't have control over if somebody asks me for a ride after work and
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I really don't, I'm not going in their direction. I remember,
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um, you know, I was having a podcast episode with
3:25
someone and they said, that the person asked them for
3:28
a ride. And even though they were going in a different direction, they remember
3:31
the person saying, I knew you would say yes. So you have to remember,
3:35
like, you set the tone for your relationships and how people treat
3:38
you, right? Like, that's something that's so important to think
3:41
about. So when you are thinking about boundaries, it's
3:46
important to understand why
3:50
you are having a hard time with creating a boundaries and
3:54
why it's so hard to say no. This
3:58
is something that I want you to read. So it says, if
4:01
your boundaries were not respected as a child, it's
4:05
unlikely you'll be able to set boundaries for yourself and
4:08
for others as an adult. Lack of
4:12
focus. If your goals are not clear, clearly
4:16
identified, it may be easier to say yes
4:19
to everything. Everything as a way to keep busy and
4:23
give yourself the illusion of productivity. That's
4:27
something to keep in mind. So if as a child, you
4:31
didn't really have autonomy over your life and things
4:35
were not told to you where you were told
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like, it's okay if you don't want to do that or this, you
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may have a hard time having boundaries. If you were abused
4:46
as a child, if you went through a lot of things and your first introduction
4:50
to love was in a very abusive way, You
4:53
don't realize, like, you have autonomy over yourself and over your choices,
4:57
right? And so I think the more you understand your
5:01
history and how saying no or boundaries were
5:05
explored with you, you can understand why you
5:08
may have trouble doing that as an adult. The thing is, like, we become adults, we
5:11
turn 18, doesn't mean that we start acting
5:14
in a mature way because of the number of age that we are. there
5:19
are older people who act like children or when something doesn't go
5:23
their way, you'd be like, man, they seem like they're acting like a child. You
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don't realize how much, just because your
5:31
age changed, you don't realize how much your past affects
5:35
your present if you allow it to. And a lot of people aren't
5:38
educated around how mental health works because you can't see it.
5:42
And so you don't realize, like, because you're replaying your trauma and
5:45
you're feeling like a victim over and over again, You're not using the
5:48
power that you have. I have seen your video. It's
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very inspiring. I want to ask one question. If old memories come
5:55
up again and again, then how to deal with them? And so
5:59
that's interesting. I read your question as I was talking about that. So
6:03
when it comes to the old memories, right, because this is kind of related to what
6:06
we're talking about, because the old memories, unfortunately, is what we're
6:09
allowing to dictate our behavior. So the
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old memories is kind of like a tape is being played in your head, right?
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And so you're not giving your system new information.
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And so a lot of times, because of that old memory that's happening, you
6:24
can't help the memory, you can't help the thought. But you can
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work on changing the narrative. So let's just say you
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was abused as a child. And a lot of times you
6:34
feel like situations will happen and you can still feel like you're
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back in that same situation. You can do something like
6:41
putting your hand over your heart and just telling yourself, I'm OK. right?
6:45
You know, when we're at the movie theaters watching a movie and a
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scary scene come up, we may jump in that moment, but we know it's a
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movie and we know we're okay. Essentially, when it comes to the
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old memories in our mind, that scary scene is coming up,
6:58
but then we don't know we're okay. So we need to give our mind
7:02
the answer to the question to say we're okay. Literally,
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that's what needs to happen. And I don't care how much I
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don't care how much time has gone on in your life
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or how much healing you've done. There are moments where your
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system is feeling the same thing it felt early on
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in life, and your body is responding off of
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that, right? So when it comes to the old memories, you have
7:28
to become more aware and tell yourself that's what it is. It's an
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old memory. And a lot of times, we're not pressing
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forward in life, we're not achieving our goals, we're not doing the things
7:38
that we say we're going to do, because we're allowing the old
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memories to affect us in the present. So
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I hope that answers your question around like, how do I deal with the old memories, because
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they're going to come up. So you know, another thing that people do and
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you know, when it comes to the old stuff, is they try to distract
7:58
and pretend it didn't happen, right? When something traumatic happens in
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a kid's life, let's say they lose a grandparent, a parent, let's
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put them in this, let's put them in that, let's not talk about it, you
8:09
know? You don't talk, not especially in the Black community, not talking about
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something, you think that just erases what happens? It doesn't erase
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what happened, And so trying not to avoid
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the thing that feels hard because all you're doing is
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allowing it to sit in your system. And unfortunately now
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we just have so many ways to distract ourselves. And so all
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we're doing is we're distracting, we're mitigating the pain by like
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sex, drugs, food, hoarding, work, right?
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There's so many ways we're avoiding it, but are you really avoiding
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it? Because it's affecting you in some way. Maybe in the moment you're
8:44
not consciously thinking about it, but that doesn't mean the thoughts aren't
8:48
there. And you call yourself trying to go to sleep and you're not able to sleep
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because guess what's happening? Your mind is like, when are we gonna deal with this?
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And so now your mind doesn't really know it's 2024. It thinks it's 2013 when
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the incident happened. And so instead of you living in 2024, unfortunately,
9:04
you're living in 2013 when the incident happened because you don't realize that
9:08
that tape is being played over and over in your head. So,
9:12
uh, your childhood stuff is one of the reasons why you may
9:15
struggle with saying no. Also fear of disappointing others, right?
9:19
You feel bad. Uh, I asked the question, or if you're not following me on Instagram,
9:22
I kind of like go through my day when I have time. Uh, but
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I, uh, give little, um, I give questions and
9:29
people kind of answer. And I asked, One of
9:32
the questions I asked if people struggled with saying no,
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and 71% of people that answered said
9:40
yes, they struggle with saying no. And I do that intentionally because
9:43
I don't want people to think, people think it's just them. People think like, oh, like
9:46
I definitely was, I don't struggle now, but I definitely struggle
9:50
with saying no. I felt like I had to be everybody's solution. Hey,
9:53
James, I felt like I had to be everybody's solution. And
9:57
the issue with doing that is that you're telling people
10:01
that it's okay to ask you these things and to
10:04
do these things. And so I tell people, don't go according to
10:07
what it feels like. It feels bad when
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I have to say no. And that's OK. You're human. You're going to have emotions. Don't
10:15
judge yourself for feeling bad, even though you're the one affected, even
10:18
though you don't really have the time to do it. If you feel bad, don't
10:22
make the decision off the feeling, make the decision off of what you
10:25
need. If your values and boundaries are clear, you're
10:28
going to acknowledge what you're feeling, but you're not going to not do it
10:31
because you feel that way, right? You don't feel like going to work some
10:35
days, but you want to make sure that you're getting your money
10:38
so that you can survive and pay your bills so you go to work despite
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the feeling. I'm a life coach. I
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feel the same way, what you said. Okay, good. Hey, Crystal.
10:50
So fear of disappointing others, people-pleasing tendencies. A
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lot of times people have people-pleasing tendencies where
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you don't want to, you don't want to
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disappoint someone, right? Let's say as a child, like you always felt like
11:03
a disappointment or, you know, something could have happened and
11:07
you start to realize like, oh my gosh, like I don't want people to feel this way. I
11:10
don't, you feel like you're the cause of somebody's pain, right? So,
11:14
and another thing is fear of the unknown, right? If
11:18
you grew up your entire life saying yes, being everybody's person
11:22
that always did, like Celeste, we can always rely on Celeste. Oh, Celeste would
11:26
say yeah. Anytime I hear people talk about people in that way, all
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I think about is like, dang, I wonder what they're going through, right? When
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it's always the go-to person is you. you
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trying to say no feels scary because you've never said no, what's
11:40
going to happen? These little thoughts
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come in our mind and these little fears take place. If
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we're not responding to the question, what happens if I say
11:51
no? If we're not literally responding to that question, we
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will not exercise our power to say no because we're afraid of
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what's going to happen. So it's so important to
12:01
think about these things as you're navigating trying to create transition, because
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when you're not saying no to them, you're saying
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no to yourself. And if you're not valuing yourself, how
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do you expect anybody else to value you? And a lot of
12:17
times when there's no boundaries, when you're not saying no, that's
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taking place because you really aren't respecting yourself and
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your value system is not really clear to you. Um,
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Carmen says, saving, setting boundaries saved my life. Literally,
12:31
like, literally, like, um, the stresses that take
12:34
place and your body and your system medically, there's a
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lot of people with medical issues because they're, they're tired, their
12:41
bodies tired, their minds tired, their spirits tired. Um,
12:45
but also I want to acknowledge the fact that Saying
12:49
no can feel like a scary experience, right? And that's
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why I want to give you some tips on thinking about how you can work
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on saying no. How are you affected when
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you don't say no, right, when you're not creating boundaries? Because
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I do want you to understand the same way, you know, the
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same way I can say, like, if you put your hand over the stove, you're
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going to burn yourself. So because I know if I put my
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hand over the stove, I'm going to burn myself, I know not
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to put my hand over the stove. If I don't realize the
13:21
ramifications of me not having boundaries and saying, no, I'm going to keep saying
13:25
it. So I really, I feel like if you're educated around like what's happening
13:28
to you, why it's happening, it'll help give you the strength and the
13:32
courage to work on these things for yourself. So
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how am I affected? by not having boundaries and saying no.
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So without healthy boundaries, you might feel taken advantage of, overwhelmed,
13:45
or manipulated in your relationships. You might also feel
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like you're constantly doing what others want you to do instead
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of what you want to do. In the long term, this
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can lead to frustration, depression, and a loss
13:59
of who you are. And I
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don't think people understand how much saying
14:06
yes and not having boundaries creates so
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much like mental health struggles for you, right? The depression, the
14:13
frustration that happens, feeling overwhelmed. Also, I
14:16
want to address like feeling like you're being taken advantage of. And
14:21
so I tell people because people like when they come to me
14:24
with certain scenarios around like the way
14:27
people are, why would they do this or why would they do that? I remind
14:31
them that they are the author of their story. And
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they can't do anything unless you're being held captive and
14:40
bound. And everybody I've worked with, it wasn't like
14:43
a domestic situation. It wasn't like they were in handcuffs.
14:48
They literally had power to say no. but they didn't realize
14:51
they had power. So I try to help you understand, like, not
14:54
to put so much emphasis on them, but more so look
14:58
inwardly in, like, what you have control over. Because
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people can only manipulate you if you allow them to. But
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if you don't realize that you have power, it does feel like
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it's them, right? A lot of times it feels like it's the outside. But
15:12
no, it's the inside. And that's why if we could get our internal dialogue together,
15:16
we'll be able to see the power that we have. Um,
15:21
someone says how, um, you needed this today. Oh, good.
15:24
Crystal. How can you create boundaries, especially as an
15:27
adult? Um, so funny. I'm that's literally what I'm saying. So
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even as an adult, right, you feel, feel right. Feelings
15:35
change. It feels like you can't say no in scenarios because
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what's happening is your system is feeling that
15:43
thing that happened when you were a kid, right? Like the feelings come
15:47
up of like, Oh my gosh, I got to say yes. If I don't say yes, I'm going
15:50
to get in trouble. Literally, like it could be something that
15:53
you don't, like, it's not like, let's say you don't want to stay, let's just
15:57
say work, right? Let's just use work, for example. And your
16:01
boss asks you if you can stay late, but you know, like you have plans to
16:05
like, go for a walk or start your
16:08
workout routine, right? And it's not mandated for you to say no, but
16:12
you feel the pressure to say yes because the team needs you
16:16
and there's deadlines, but you already told yourself that
16:19
you was gonna go for that walk after work. And so saying,
16:23
no, I can't do it, it feels like you can't because it
16:27
feels scary. Like, you can literally, like, your heart could start pacing. Like,
16:30
you could feel really nervous because you've never done that before. And you're not used to saying
16:34
no to your boss. And you
16:37
do it anyway. So the idea of, like, when you say, how do I
16:40
create boundaries as an adult? I think we don't do the hard
16:44
part because of how it feels. It feels really hard. And so I
16:47
think if you can understand that as you're trying to create change and create boundaries
16:50
in your life, that is going to feel hard. It
16:53
can help you. So when the moment comes, you'll be OK. Right. I'm
16:58
about to start physical therapy for my arm next week,
17:02
and I'm already mentally prepared that it's going to there's going to be pain associated
17:05
with the process of like working on my arm. But
17:10
the amount of pain that my arm is in and the lack of
17:14
use I have, I'm prepared for that process because
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I realize it's needed and it's going to help me have full use
17:21
of my arm. Literally, one arm I can put all the way up,
17:24
this arm I can't. And literally, I'm in constant pain.
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And that's a physical thing. I think when it comes to the physical stuff
17:32
that happens, we're more likely to push
17:35
through the pain or the uncomfortability of what needs to happen,
17:39
right? Like, I'm literally, like, losing function in my arm. When
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it comes to the mental health piece, literally, it's the same thing. If we're using
17:46
that same analogy, it's the same thing. But because we're
17:50
so used to, like, feeling miserable, we're so used to feeling anxious and
17:53
depressed, unfortunately, it's our norm. It's not the norm for
17:56
me not to have access to my arm in the way I do. It's very foreign for
18:00
me. And so I'm pushing through that. And so a
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lot of times when it comes to creating boundaries and saying, no, we're
18:06
not pushing through it because it doesn't
18:11
feel right. It just feels scary. It feels overwhelmed. So
18:16
would that make me a people pleaser? Yeah. I mean, I would
18:19
say like, if you struggle with saying yes, um, I find myself
18:22
being a people pleaser, but you're probably a people pleaser because
18:26
of how, like you were taught and raised. And it's not like,
18:30
it's not about saying parents were bad. Sometimes you may even
18:33
see your caregiver say yes to everybody. Right. You could have
18:36
had a kind. It's not like you have to have been in an abusive situation to
18:40
be a people pleaser, but you could have watched your person that took care
18:43
of you in your life please others and say yes to others, never
18:48
take care of themselves, never say yes to them, put their plans off for
18:52
others. You're in an environment where that behavior is being taught
18:55
just by you being in that environment. right? So that's
18:58
something that's important to understand. So we said, why is so hard to say no?
19:02
How am I affected by saying no? Now let's talk about the benefits of
19:05
saying no, right? That's so important to understand the
19:09
benefits. Hey, what's up, Kush? The benefits of saying no.
19:13
So the benefits of saying no is that we get to
19:16
start to prioritize our needs. And if you're listening
19:19
to this on the audio, you can see the visual, like I'm a very visual person. So
19:23
that's why I always have visuals with these podcasts episodes. Boundaries
19:27
help you express what you think is acceptable or unacceptable. You
19:30
get to protect your time and energy, right? If you ever say, I
19:33
don't have time. Like, I can't tell you how many times people say they don't have time, but
19:36
I hear about all the crap they're doing for other people. Boundaries can
19:40
help you protect your time and energy, which can lead to increased satisfaction
19:44
in life. You know, your lack of satisfaction in life
19:48
when you're not prioritizing and creating time for the things
19:52
that you say you want to do, like, that's an issue. And a
19:55
lot of times if you look at what you're saying yes to, like
19:59
you're saying no to yourself. So being able to create boundaries can
20:02
definitely help you have more satisfaction in life. It can
20:05
improve your relationships. Boundaries can help prevent toxic
20:09
relationships by helping you avoid feeling taken advantage
20:13
of or overwhelmed. For example, if a friend keeps asking you for
20:16
money, you can set a boundary to protect yourself, right? If
20:20
your friends always ask you for money and you be like, people like, oh, they
20:23
never pay me back. They're always asking for money. And
20:27
I'll be like, you know, this isn't new behavior. We talked about this
20:31
two weeks ago about this person, right? And you
20:34
said yes again, and you didn't get your money back. And something as simple as
20:38
like calling out the behavior in real time helps people start
20:41
to self-analyze and think about like what they're allowing in their life. So
20:45
that's something that's important to understand. People can't do
20:48
anything that you don't allow them to do. It
20:52
can improve your mental health. Boundaries can help lower stress
20:55
and prevent burnout. For example, if you feel drained, you
20:59
can set yourself to refill your social battery. There's
21:02
some people, like, they're always saying yes, they're going out, they're doing
21:06
all these things, and they're tired, or they're not, their
21:09
home is a wreck, or they're not preparing their meals for
21:13
the week, right? There's so many things where it's like, dang, I don't
21:16
wanna feel like I'm missing out, or they really need me. but
21:19
you don't need you. You know what I mean? Like, so really
21:23
being mindful of how you are operating with
21:26
people and what you are allowing is going to
21:30
be so important. Hey, love brass. Um, and
21:33
then the benefits of saying no is that self care saying no can
21:36
be a form of self care that helps you reduce anxiety and focus
21:40
on what's important to you. It's hard to focus on what's important
21:43
to you if you're not making time to create that for yourself. I
21:47
can't tell you how many times people will say they don't have time to do this or that, but
21:51
some crisis comes up, they have all the time in the world to help somebody else.
21:54
Sometimes you may not even realize that you're so conditioned to living in chaos
21:58
and being in chaos, that slowing down and
22:01
making that intentional time for yourself, you're blocking it, it's not
22:04
anybody else. because you're jumping to the chaos, you're jumping to the
22:08
fire. There's a fire happening 10 miles away, and there's a fire department
22:11
over there, but you find yourself going 10 miles away to get
22:15
rid of that fire that nobody asked you to do, but you said yes,
22:19
right? When I start to break down how people got in, some people, oh, I just fell
22:22
into the situation. You didn't just fall into the situation. You said yes,
22:26
but you said yes because you didn't realize that you had the ability to say no. Like,
22:29
logically, I know I can say no, but the feeling of it doesn't feel right
22:33
saying no is where people unfortunately find themselves turning to.
22:38
No, it's so powerful. It's so powerful, and it's a complete sentence, and
22:41
it's so hard to say, right? Like, you don't even have to give an explanation
22:45
when you say no, right? And so that's something that
22:49
people don't understand. I've created several boundaries. People think I'm acting funny.
22:53
Yes, I don't even know why I didn't put that in my notes, because that's important
22:57
to address. I don't even know why I
23:00
did not put that in my notes. I'm so glad you said that. Because that's
23:04
another reason why people don't want to say no is
23:07
because people are going to look at you like, oh, look at her. She thinks she's better
23:10
than me. Believe me, I got the... It's
23:13
happened to me over time. And luckily, I've been
23:18
a person that I don't care about your opinion of me. That's why I
23:21
can always pop on live and I can always try something. I
23:26
literally have never cared. I didn't realize that was a thing until I went
23:29
into private practice and started working with people. I realized that people
23:33
struggle with the fear of how people think about them.
23:36
It's a real thing. And so as you're working
23:40
on saying, no, you have to understand what's going to come with that, because people
23:44
aren't benefiting from you anymore. They're going to look at you and say you're acting
23:47
funny. You can literally lose relationships. And so that's
23:51
grief. Even if the relationship wasn't the best, it still was
23:54
a relationship. So you can literally lose your relationship. And
23:58
a lot of times, people are scared to be alone. So
24:02
they'll rather deal with the asking of money. They'll rather deal with the disrespect
24:06
than to find themselves taking that space to be alone. And
24:10
so yes, people will think you're acting funny. And when you think about it, people
24:13
will say you changed. And you think about it, I had to be like, you know what? I did
24:17
change, but I changed for the better. And people that understand and
24:21
are on their own healing journey will understand. They're not going
24:24
to question you for saying no, because you don't owe them. Um, that
24:28
guilt they try to put on you as to control you and what they want. Yes.
24:32
They will literally try to guilt you into saying yes. And
24:35
sometimes they know how to do the work to get you to say yes, because
24:39
they know you, they know you better than you know yourself. You know
24:42
what I mean? They, they literally know you better. That's why I said, taking time to understand
24:45
yourself is so important because you got predators manipulators
24:49
out here that know what it is and know that and
24:53
know that you are going to say yes. And
24:57
I'm on my bougie 100%. Yeah. And people will think
25:00
you're being bougie and especially, especially in the family systems. So
25:04
when you think about family systems and a lot, a lot, unfortunately, a lot of
25:07
times it's very dysfunctional and you've got that person that calls
25:11
themselves working on themselves and healing. Right. Like, Oh, and
25:15
then, um, you're healing. Now you're
25:18
the one person in that unit that's healing. So when you think about
25:21
it, like you're in a dysfunctional system and you were part of that dysfunctional system
25:25
and you're choosing to step out of it. Now you're the one that
25:28
looks dysfunctional. Right. And you may start to feel like, dang, like, is
25:32
it me? You know, because everybody else is on the same page
25:36
of like, yeah, we supposed to help blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Yeah.
25:39
Mom needs this. Right. Like, why aren't you helping her even though she's cussing us
25:42
out? So being mindful that when you're getting
25:46
out of a system to change, you may be
25:49
looked at as dysfunctional, but that's because you're no longer choosing
25:53
to be in a dysfunctional system. So that's something that's so
25:56
important to explain, to think about. And
25:59
then When you're saying no, remember
26:03
that it's a form of self-care, and you get to reduce your
26:07
anxiety. It'll help you, and you can start focusing on
26:10
what's important to you. They
26:14
label you as the black sheep, I know. So really
26:17
quick, some tips for saying no include
26:21
being assertive and calm, right? If
26:24
you know you can't do it, And I'll
26:28
say, I can't do it. But if you struggle with a complete no,
26:32
you can say, you know what? Let me check my schedule. Because I want you to think about
26:36
you saying yes to that means you're not going to have time to
26:39
prepare yourself for tomorrow. Do you want the
26:42
ramifications of what's going to happen, right? Being assertive is
26:46
the best way to do it. But if you struggle, be OK with not just
26:49
impulsively saying yes. That's what I tell people. If you're
26:53
on bandwidth right now, it's like, no, it's really hard, then
26:57
say, let me look at my schedule, especially if
27:00
it's text. But if it's verbally and
27:04
people try to put you on the spot, they'll be like, yeah, da, da, da, da. And they know you'll be like, all
27:07
right, I got you. You know what? Let me look at my schedule so you can take a
27:10
deep breath and really think about, do I really want to do this? So
27:13
being assertive and calm. Avoid justifying, rationalizing, or
27:17
apologizing. The apology thing, my clients will
27:20
be like, oh, I'm sorry. What are you sorry for? You didn't do nothing. I'd be checking them
27:24
on the spot. And I check myself. I don't do
27:27
it anymore. But sometimes, if I can't do something, I'll find
27:30
myself writing, I'm sorry. And then I'll be like, wait. And I'll erase it. You
27:34
won't catch me saying it, I mean, writing it. Because as
27:38
soon as I started writing, and I was like, I didn't do nothing. Why am I saying sorry? So
27:42
making sure you're not apologizing for not being able to do
27:45
something, because you really don't owe somebody an apology. But
27:49
in your mind, you feel like you're doing something wrong when you say it. So you're like, I'm sorry, but
27:53
I can't. It's like, no, I can't do that. You don't have to be mean about
27:56
it, but you don't got to say sorry either. empathize with
27:59
the other person, right? You don't have to state your
28:03
limit and offer an alternative
28:09
and repeat, right? So sometimes you find yourself being
28:13
the solution. And instead of like, let's just say
28:17
it's money, like, And you
28:20
always say, yes, and this time you may have it in the bank, but you know, you're the
28:23
single parent and you need to make sure you have money for down the
28:26
road. You can be like, I don't have it, but have you
28:29
thought, is your job offering overtime? Right. Did you ask your mother, like
28:34
making sure you're not the person that is part of
28:37
the solution, especially if you don't have it like that. That's something
28:40
that's important to understand. I've been that different person for a long time
28:44
for one reason or another. It doesn't bother me anymore. Yeah. And
28:47
you said anymore. So I'm assuming at the beginning, it might've been hard, but
28:50
over time it's just like, okay, this is what it is. Because like
28:54
I said, last week on the podcast on people's death
28:57
bed thing, they, they number one regret is caring about what people think.
29:01
caring about what people think will have you miserable, anxious, for
29:05
no reason, right? Because you still have power to
29:08
change up what you allow. I can't come in between what
29:12
God is trying to teach you in the moment, but what I will do is support systems
29:15
without cash. Yeah, little Duval says that. Um,
29:20
so I hope this was helpful. I hope this makes sense.
29:24
Um, if anything I ever say resonates for you, like you have to understand that
29:28
you have power to, to create change. And even if
29:31
like, no, it's hard to say, even if
29:34
like, you know, you hear this episode and you're like, I want
29:38
to do that, but I, you, it's hard to go fully, fully in. I
29:41
want you to start paying attention and becoming aware of what you are allowing
29:45
in your life so that you're not finding yourself feeling like it's the
29:48
world against me. I also want you to think about, have I
29:52
identified what my values is, right? I say, I want to
29:55
be able to get up on time, go to work. I say, I want to like have
29:58
a morning routine so I can get my life together. And if I'm
30:01
saying that, what am I doing to accomplish it? And
30:06
why am I not saying no? Why am I not setting boundaries? Because
30:09
it feels bad. Okay. Feelings change. And I think the more
30:12
you understand that the better equipped you'll feel to
30:16
deal with these things. Um, yes, I needed this. Yay.
30:19
That's good. Hey specialty. Um, so I'm glad this was helpful. I'm
30:23
guys make sense. It's going to be on an audio podcast next week. The one that was
30:26
released today was about, um, anticipatory anxiety. We
30:29
talked about it last week. So each time, uh, when I do these
30:33
live recordings on, um, on video, The audio
30:36
gets released the week after, so you'll always find
30:39
it, but it is stay on the platform. Thank you all so much for tuning
30:43
in and rocking out with me. If you want to learn more about
30:46
me or my podcast, you can go to celestatherapist.com and
30:49
you can find me on all social media platforms at