Latest / Celeste The Therapist / Ep 505 Cultivating Awareness: The Key to Personal Change

Transcript

Ep 505 Cultivating Awareness: The Key to Personal Change · Celeste The Therapist

0:02
Hey, hey, my name is Celeste. I'm a therapist from Boston and
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I come on this podcast to help you shift the way you think. I've
0:09
been in the mental health field for over 20 years. I've worked with people
0:12
in so many different areas of their life. And so I have a
0:15
pretty good idea on how we get stuck and why we get stuck, which
0:19
is why I named my wellness center shifting the way you think. because
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I do truly believe if we can work on giving ourselves
0:27
new information and shift our thought process just a little bit, it
0:30
can help us with how things are going. So
0:33
before we get started, I wanna remind you that when
0:37
you're listening to this podcast, it may be helpful to have a
0:40
notebook, take notes, and don't just let
0:43
this be the last time you look at this content.
0:47
Take time to look at this content throughout the week. A lot of the things
0:51
that I'm talking about is coming from my personal experience and
0:54
just my experience of working with people. Even though we come
0:57
from different socioeconomic statuses, different race,
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color, sexual identity, whatever it is, I find that
1:04
a lot of the things that we struggle with, the theme is similar,
1:08
right? The way we can work on getting out of it is
1:11
very similar. And today's topic is about
1:15
being aware and how being aware of your behaviors is
1:18
the key to change. And regardless of who you are or what you're
1:21
struggling with, this topic can help you really think about
1:25
things differently. So if you've never
1:28
been here before, my name is Celeste, The Therapist. You can
1:31
find me on all social media platforms. If you're listening to me
1:34
on audio podcasts, this podcast does stream on
1:38
Zoom, not on Zoom, This podcast streams
1:41
on YouTube and I do some visuals to
1:45
help you, um, follow the content a little bit. So, um,
1:48
if you're not following me on YouTube, you can go to Celeste, the therapist and
1:52
find my YouTube links. I also have a wellness center
1:56
that's located in Stoughton, Massachusetts. So if you
1:59
want to work on different areas of your life, there's
2:03
workshops that we do There's somatic work that we we do and
2:06
if you're not familiar with somatic work somatic work is working
2:09
with the body a lot of times people aren't aware that a
2:13
lot of their stress and trauma and pain is stored in
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their body and as a therapist I've always talked
2:19
to people about working on getting some
2:23
somatic work, right and And because people struggle
2:26
with not finding people that look like them in these classes It's
2:30
been near and dear to my heart to work on creating a
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space so that people can have that and
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so if you want to learn more about my Wellness Center, you
2:40
can go to stwy t.com again, that's
2:43
stwy t.com and you can Find
2:47
the events that are happening if you're a wellness provider and want to host an
2:51
event You can go to that website as well to find it
2:54
Alright, so let's talk about the importance of being aware When
2:59
you think about things that you're struggling with let's just
3:02
take for instance if you're bleeding, right? If you're not aware that
3:06
you're bleeding, how can you work on? Putting a
3:09
band-aid on and and not allowing that blood to drip
3:13
right also when you think about physical
3:17
health if you're struggling with some pain and
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you go to the doctor and the doctor tells you that You know, I don't know what's
3:24
going on with you and you're in pain. Um, you might find yourself
3:27
struggling. So being aware of what's going on
3:31
allows you to make changes, right? If you can start to recognize
3:35
what you need, then you can begin to make changes. I
3:39
think a lot of things, a lot of times what's happening is sometimes
3:43
we're just so used to feeling how we're feeling going,
3:47
On with life the way we're going on with life and we don't think about
3:50
it any different. We have a lot of Automatic behaviors that
3:53
we do a lot of times is due to us in the
3:56
way that we've seen life happen, right? So there's a lot of patterns that
4:00
it's passed down from generation to generation a lot of times when
4:03
I think about different illnesses that are passed down like
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diabetes high blood pressure a lot of people will be like, oh well that runs in
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my family and And I'll say, you know, the lifestyle that you live runs
4:14
in your family, the way that you eat, the way that you sleep, the
4:17
way that you manage stress. And it's not like your caregiver
4:21
sat you down and said, hey, Celeste, I want you to live with stress. Hey,
4:25
Celeste, I want you to ignore the hard things that are happening. So
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a lot of times it has nothing to do with a direct statement being
4:32
said, it's because of how you are in that environment. So
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a lot of times we don't recognize that The behaviors that
4:40
we're having are automatic. So I'll just take
4:43
my physical wellness and the way
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that I hold pain in my body. And if
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you're a long time listener, I've shared this story before, but at
4:54
14, I remember being in the ER because I was hunched over
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and my back was in so much pain. And I got
5:01
so used out. It was a lot of stress going on and
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so I got used to the stress and not realizing how much
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my back was impacted by the stress that I
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was dealing with and it got to the point where I Went to
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the ER and they didn't ask me about anything that was going on. They gave me
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some pills That was it, right? So I remember that incident.
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I remember what I had on I remember it took a couple of days for my
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back to straighten up and it wasn't until I started my
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wellness journey and I start to understand how much the body holds
5:31
on to pain and I started working doing yoga like
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on my own on YouTube I couldn't afford to go to a Yoga studio.
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I'm all about starting where you are and using what you have and
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I remember when I was dealing with some stress I remember my back started
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hurting and at that point I made the connection. I was like, oh
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Celeste like when you're stressed when you're overwhelmed When
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you're struggling, your back starts to
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feel like something is heavy on it, right? And
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it's like, why is it that as an adult is when I'm
6:03
learning this? There's no reason why we shouldn't know this. The
6:06
same way I know if I'm bleeding, I can go to the medicine cabinet and
6:09
grab a Band-Aid. I need to understand that when
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my body is giving me signs, I need to understand that so I can know what
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to do. But the issue is that Nobody's asking us
6:20
how we're feeling. We're not asking ourselves. We're not checking in with our body. Our
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body will give us signs before our intellectual, like
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our mind is beginning to give us signs. And so the
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more that you understand that, the more you can work on
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making changes. And so now at 42 years
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old, I'm able to recognize like the pains in my back or
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even my stomach to start to turn when I'm feeling anxious about
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something. Then I'll start to have self-dialogue with myself and
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I'll be like, it's okay. Everything's going to be fine. I literally
6:51
will soothe myself by the way that I talk to myself. That
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inner dialogue that you have with yourself is so powerful and
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so important because you don't realize a lot of times you're your
7:01
worst enemy. And you weren't born to talk bad about
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yourself or to talk down to yourself. It was based off
7:08
of the experiences. It was based off of what was said to you, all
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of those things. So it's not your voice that's happening. It's the voice of
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everything that's happening, which is why giving yourself new information
7:18
is so powerful because it can drown out the noise of the negativity that
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goes on in your mind over and over again. And
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so when you think about these automatic behaviors that
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are happening and how you just kind of make adjustments to
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the pain, I really want you to become more aware and
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really start to work through it. And so as we're talking about
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this, right, and the importance of giving yourself grace
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as you're trying to work on these changes, because a
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lot of times we'll see the behavior and
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then we will start to beat ourselves up for it. A
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lot of times people don't want to take time to be mindful and understand what
7:58
they're thinking because they feel bad that they're thinking that
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way. And I tell people, you know what, you're going to think that
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way, that the way you're thinking it's going to happen, whether
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you choose to get involved with your thoughts or not. And
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so I really want to shift your mindset with reminding you,
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like, it makes more sense to get involved with your thoughts, even
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if they're hard to, like, comprehend and hard to
8:23
accept, because then you can work on change. Until
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you become aware and cultivate that awareness, it'll
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be really hard for you to work on creating change. So
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I wanna like end with, so if you're new here, I
8:39
don't just talk about the issue, right? I talked about understanding the
8:44
importance of being aware, how we have these automatic behaviors.
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Another example of automatic behavior is like people that
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may smoke, right, to relieve stress, not realizing every
8:55
time I'm stressed, I'm lighting up. Every time I'm stressed, I'm going to the bottle. Every
8:59
time I'm stressed, I'm grabbing food because you've been doing it for so
9:02
long, right? And then becoming aware will allow you
9:05
to work on changing that pattern. And so I want to talk about
9:09
cultivating awareness because you may say, you know what, Celeste, you're right.
9:12
I don't pay attention to none of this stuff. I'm not aware of
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what's going on and my behaviors and how I'm doing. All I
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know is I want to change, but I'm not even beginning to understand how
9:22
this is taking place. So let's spend some time talking
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about how you can work on cultivating awareness, because
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this is a big part of how change is gonna
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happen. So I really want you to really understand that. So
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on the screen, as you can see, if you're watching me on YouTube, the first thing
9:41
is thinking about mindfulness meditation. So setting aside a
9:45
few minutes a day, sitting quietly can help you
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get into a state of mindfulness. And it doesn't have
9:52
to be more than a minute. If you've never done this before, Just
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take one minute, right? Increase it next week. Try two
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minutes, then three minutes. I'm not asking you to sit down for 10 and
10:02
20 minutes like that. That's not really realistic. You want to ease
10:06
your system into becoming aware and having
10:09
these practices. When people get a heart transplant,
10:13
a lung transplant, And like literally their heart
10:16
or their lung is bad. And so their system is getting a
10:20
whole new heart that's way better than the one they have. Their
10:23
body can literally reject it because it's a complete shock
10:27
to their body. And so as the doctors are
10:30
putting that new heart and lung in, there are things that these people can't
10:34
do. There are medicines that they have to take to help work on
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acclimating their system to this new heart and this new lung.
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And that's what I want you to think about when you're working on change, because a lot
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of times people are like, I want to do this. I want to do that. I'm like, that's cool. I love that
10:48
for you, but let's slow down and pump your brakes a little bit, because it's
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going to take time to get there. And you don't want to overload your system.
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Right? So as you're thinking about this idea of cultivating awareness,
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I really want you to think about practicing mindfulness. And
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working on doing that like a little bit at a time and
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if you say it's less But when I sit down and I'm trying to be mindful my thoughts everywhere
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great. That's great I love that for you because that's the
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first step in understanding what's going on The second thing you could
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work on with cultivating awareness is journaling Great practice
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you could grab a notebook from the dollar store. I have a guided journal
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called 365 days of intentional living where I actually
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a new question every day. I asked you how you're feeling, right? There's
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a ton of journals that are out there. But again, if cost is an issue
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Grab something from the dollar store, a nice notebook, and
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start your journey there. You can even go online and look up questions to
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ask yourself every day. I can just give you the questions that I ask my
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kids when we check in. We say, how are you feeling? What are you grateful
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for? What did you do to prepare for tomorrow and what went well today?
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So it doesn't have to be nothing specific, but
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if you're not used to writing and journaling, it'd be nice
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to just have some regular questions to ask yourself to
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get yourself into a groove. And then you might find yourself going
12:09
off on your own. There's no wrong or right way to journal. It's what
12:12
works for you. But creating that practice will get
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you more in tune to the moment. And as I said, the
12:19
questions that I asked my kids, a lot of those things allow them to get into the moment.
12:23
and allow them to work on gratitude and
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paying attention to what they're feeling, right? So those are very intentional
12:30
questions that I'm asking my kids. The third
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thing is self-reflection, right? So at the end of each day, just take a
12:37
few moments to reflect on how everything went. What did I
12:40
do today that I'm proud of? What can I have handled differently, right?
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That self-reflection daily is important. If you're like, I
12:48
don't want to write, okay, that's fine. I'm not trying to force you
12:51
into one direction or another. I'm just trying to help you figure
12:54
out what direction and try something. And
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so even if it's in the shower, if you're taking a shower every day, you're taking
13:01
a bath, in the bath, let that be the time to reflect. If
13:04
it's in the morning, What do I have going on today? How am I
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feeling? Right? If it's at night, how did today
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look like for me? What do I need for tomorrow? Really being
13:14
mindful of it. The next thing, cultivating awareness, my
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favorite body scan. Our body's going to give us signs before we
13:21
do. There's a book that's really popular. The body keeps
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the score. The body holds on to pain. That's why
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I'm so into somatic work
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and the body work and these classes that I have at my
13:35
center because I really want people to get more in tune
13:38
to Understanding what their body is feeling a great
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way to do it. That's free, you know in this podcast We're going to talk about the
13:45
free ways. You can get your life together is YouTube You
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go on YouTube and you type in five minute body scan meditation
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I promise you a ton of them will come up and it'll have you sit
13:57
in and it'll be like They'll be like sit straight and they'll be like unlock
14:01
your jaw and the next you know, you play thing I even know my jaw was unlocked and
14:05
then they'll be like Relax your shoulders. And if you can see me, I'm
14:08
like, I put my shoulders down you well, I think I didn't know much I promise
14:11
you you don't realize just how wound up you are because
14:15
you're so used to being wound up and The
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next thing is mindful breathing. Another one of my favorites,
14:22
like breathing free. We have access to it. So underutilized.
14:26
So throughout the day, just taking moments to focus on your breath. There
14:30
is again on YouTube, that's free type in breathing circle, two
14:34
minute breathing circle, and the circle will go in
14:37
and out. Right. And it'd be like, breathe in, breathe
14:41
out. Oh my God, that felt so good. Like literally, like
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just taking those breaths can help you get into the moment
14:49
and release so much. A lot of times we have labored breathing.
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If I'm feeling stressed, I can feel myself not
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breathing, right? If I'm around somebody that's like stressed and
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I'm like, all right, let's just take a deep breath, right? Cause I'm just an energy
15:02
person. So really being mindful of your breath
15:06
and making intentional time to breathe. Another way
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to cultivate awareness Setting intentions setting
15:13
intentions and at the beginning of your day is so powerful So
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for example, you might say today when I notice some stress, how am I
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gonna respond? Right being mindful of
15:24
your intention so that you can work on creating
15:27
change The thing is is we don't got attentions. We're waking up
15:31
in the morning and We're hopping on our phone. We're going to social media and God
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knows what you're gonna see every day on social media You got a freaking brace yourself nowadays
15:40
You know, no matter how much you curate your feed some of that crap
15:43
is gonna get in there You're gonna have conversations with
15:46
people and so I need you to understand do I want to set
15:50
my intentions with starting my day with the crap that's going
15:53
on in the world and not being intentional and or do I
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wanna take time to be intentional and start my day with me?
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I don't even have, my phone is not in my room at night.
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My phone goes to another room. I let the
16:07
alarm wake me up, right? And I'm not jumping on
16:10
social media. I have so much going on.
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I wear a lot of hats, mom, wife, wellness owner, manager,
16:18
like I do so much and I can't afford to
16:21
not be intentional about my life and my day. And,
16:25
you know, I was talking to somebody about why
16:28
I'm so intentional because I've been in this field for over 20 years. I've
16:32
worked in the ER. I've worked in group homes. I've worked in
16:36
so many different places and I've watched people lose their
16:39
mind. I feel like we play Russian roulette with our mind because
16:42
we're not intentional. about our day-to-day and what we need and
16:46
what we have to do for ourselves. And so I really want you to
16:49
be mindful, just because you may not be able to see what's
16:52
happening in real time, your system is breaking down when
16:56
you're not intentional. And in
17:01
2025, as I said, if you listen to the previous podcast, this is a really hard
17:04
time especially for me because like I'm
17:08
grappling with the reality of what is happening and
17:12
also walking people through what's happening and it
17:15
feels really heavy and so my intentions and
17:18
the way even with my self-care practices since
17:22
my watch was like a few days ago was like oh you
17:26
you have a 12-day streak of moving your body like
17:29
I didn't even realize just how much I've been leaning into
17:33
my moving of my body practice, right? It's not
17:37
just the gym, right? Because I just want to be intentional. You don't need a gym membership to
17:41
move your body. You can dance in front of your TV to music, right? Sometimes
17:44
I walk up and down my stairs and I've
17:48
really honed in on it. When things are out of my control,
17:52
I'm really big on looking at what's within my control. What can
17:55
I control that it's going to allow me to grow? Right? Because sometimes
17:59
when people, things are out of their control, they may, they may find themselves
18:02
eating more. Right? And so I really want you to be mindful of
18:06
what can I do for myself. So setting intentions is
18:09
a great way to cultivate awareness. Seeking
18:14
feedback is another way. So if you have like trusted family or
18:17
friends, I'm not talking about, no, just regular Joe Schmo. I'm talking
18:21
about people in your life that you love, that you have a reciprocal relationship
18:25
with. You can ask them these questions and ask them like, you
18:28
know, what kind of blind spots do you notice I have? Or
18:31
is there anything that you see in me that you think I could work on? This is
18:35
really great, right? Obviously, if you have a therapist that's helpful or a coach,
18:38
but I'm talking to people that may not have that. Asking
18:42
somebody in your life that you trust is important.
18:46
Number eight, you can limit distractions. So
18:50
reducing multitasking and the distraction in
18:53
your life. So social media is a big one,
18:56
right? So limit the time you have on social media. Please
19:00
limit the time. I can't stress that enough. If it's 5.05, look
19:05
at your time and say, okay, it's 5.05. I'm gonna stay on for 15 minutes, 20 minutes. Like,
19:10
what are you gaining from being on there? A lot of times, social
19:14
media becomes so addictive because it allows you not to focus
19:17
on what you're really feeling and what's going on. And that's why when it's time
19:21
to go to sleep, you can't go to sleep because what's happening is your mind
19:25
is scrolling from all the crap that you've been seeing and that light
19:29
is keeping you up. And then now you call yourself going to sleep,
19:32
but your mind wants to keep going. And then forget your social
19:35
media. What about the other problems and things you're not dealing with? Because
19:39
they feel too hard. You think just because you go to sleep,
19:42
your mind's going to go to sleep? No, it's waiting for you to answer the question. It's
19:45
waiting for you to finish that task. It's waiting for you to live
19:49
the life that you're supposed to live. And a lot of times, I
19:53
feel like our mind and body knows what we're capable of. And when we're not living
19:56
to the standards of what our mind and our system knows
20:00
we're capable of, we're gonna be struggling with so much anxiety and
20:04
so much having a hard time sleeping and resting. When
20:07
I was opening my wellness center, when I was starting my podcast, when I was starting
20:11
my business, all of these things that I started, I wrestled
20:14
with myself because I felt it in my spirit that
20:17
I was supposed to be doing these things that I'm doing. And I get really,
20:22
I get filled with gratitude and emotion when I think about
20:25
the time that we're in and the space that I have to offer for
20:28
people. It's like, geez, what a time to have
20:32
this wellness center for people to be able to
20:35
come and feel safe and feel seen and release
20:38
stress. I feel so grateful that I was
20:42
able to follow my heart and my spirit and
20:45
allow myself to do this regardless of the hardness that
20:49
it felt. It was very hard emotionally creating
20:53
this because this is way out of my element
20:56
of what I'm used to, right? It's not something, you know,
20:59
put me in a system and be a hard worker, but you want me to create the
21:03
system and create the thing? Been a huge challenge,
21:07
you know, um, so if you follow me on social media, I talk about that
21:10
a lot on my Instagram stories. And
21:13
then the last two is engaging in new experiences. This can be helpful
21:17
for cultivating awareness. Um, so you could try something like
21:20
a dance class or hiking a new trail. So these new
21:23
experiences can help you become more aware of your reaction and behaviors and
21:27
unfamiliar situations. Like I've put myself in hiking, gardening,
21:32
cooking, right? Like I think the little things that I've
21:35
done and really cultivated it really gave me confidence as
21:39
well. And then the last thing I wanna say is like really
21:42
practicing self-compassion, being kind to yourself while
21:46
you're on this journey. You know, I tell people all the time, like
21:49
you're with yourself 24 seven. So if you're with yourself
21:54
24 seven and that voice that is in your mind is always negative,
21:58
How are you going to make changes if you're beating yourself up all the time? Forget the
22:01
world, forget being black in America, forget everything that's
22:05
going on. If your own voice is not positive, how
22:09
will you begin to create change? It's really hard to do.
22:12
So I really want to encourage you to work on cultivating a
22:16
self-compassionate voice. You know, one of the things I think,
22:19
you know, as a therapist, I feel like the
22:23
way that The colonizing way that you're
22:27
taught is to diagnose what's wrong with you, not
22:31
what happened to you. I don't remember that being part
22:34
of the curriculum, what happened to you. I'm not big into diagnosis.
22:38
I'm not big into... labels, because
22:41
what I am big into is hearing somebody's story and
22:45
helping them make those connections. When you make those connections,
22:48
you breathe different. You're like, oh, okay, that makes sense. But
22:52
because we're not making those connections, we're not being aware of
22:55
what's happening, how could we work on change? And
22:59
so I wanna challenge you, right? Like as we're ending this
23:03
session, I really wanna challenge you to work on becoming aware
23:07
of what is and what's going on in your life without
23:11
judgment, with grace, right? With self-compassion. The
23:17
voice in my head, you know, I don't remember ever having
23:20
a voice of negativity, but I was always in survival mode,
23:24
always thinking like the worst case scenario, because if I'm going to stay ready
23:28
to be ready, because if something happens, I'm ready. I remember that feeling.
23:32
And it wasn't a good feeling to be in that space. My system
23:36
was literally breaking down on me. And so
23:40
having that voice where I am saying, it's OK,
23:44
Celeste, where I'm telling myself, oh, don't worry.
23:47
It's going to be OK. Try to get into the moment. My voice is
23:50
so much more compassionate to myself. And
23:54
that's what keeps me going. I'll say, OK,
23:57
if this doesn't work, it's OK. We'll go back to the drawing board. Have
24:02
that compassion with yourself. We can be our own worst enemy.
24:06
So I wanna encourage you to take time out to figure out,
24:10
okay, what does my life look like with
24:13
awareness? What are one of these things that I'm gonna try to take on
24:17
to work on cultivating awareness? Because when I
24:20
become aware of what is going on, I can create
24:23
changes in my life. So don't
24:27
forget follow me on all social media websites. I always say
24:30
like if you can Work on believing in
24:34
yourself and having faith you can work on creating change because
24:37
if you have faith in yourself Nobody can take that from you. Also.
24:41
I have a shift community. It's free. It's online
24:44
and I wanted a space to get off of social media So
24:48
if you are not following me on the shift community You could check
24:52
the show notes or you can go to my website. There's
24:55
a link that you can do to sign up And it's a
24:59
separate it's an app. You can have it on the app go in We
25:02
have two spaces in there right now besides the discussion space,
25:05
but we have a gratitude space You can go in there and start your journey there
25:09
and write in what you're grateful for There's also
25:13
a healing your inner child space healing your inner child is a class that
25:16
I do in my Center every quarter, right?
25:19
I started it this quarter. The next one's gonna happen in April
25:23
I believe like so much of our Struggle is
25:26
because of our inner child and how we haven't worked on healing it
25:30
So I teach you what it is and how to work on that Like
25:34
cultivating it and allowing yourself to be more aware
25:37
of your inner child. So you're not letting your inner child create The
25:42
direction of your life or the lens of your life, but you can find
25:45
all of that on my website stwy t.com and