Latest / Celeste The Therapist / EP 502 Understanding Negativity Bias: How It Affects Your Mind and Body

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EP 502 Understanding Negativity Bias: How It Affects Your Mind and Body · Celeste The Therapist

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Hey, hey, thank you all so much for joining another episode of
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Celeste's Therapist Podcast. My name is Celeste. I'm a therapist from Boston.
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And if you're new here, thank you so much for giving me a try. I've
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been podcasting since 2018. And I've started
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off podcasting where I was talking to other
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people. And then in 2024, I
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had this idea, I was gonna open a wellness center. And
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so I didn't have the capacity to interview people. So now I
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come on and I give you these nuggets and information to
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help you shift the way you think, because I've realized we get stuck in
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the way that we think about things. And a lot of times we may think it's
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our circumstances that's stopping us from creating change.
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But the more that I've worked with people, and I've been working with people for over 20 years,
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I recognize that the reason why we kind of get stuck is because
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of our own, like, fixated ways of thinking. We get really
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stuck in the struggle. And today we're talking about negativity bias.
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so important right now with everything that's going on
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and people not realizing just how much
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their actions and what they're listening to is
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stopping them from like feeling any different. And
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I want to be clear that the things that are happening that
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you're struggling with the hard feelings
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are gonna be there, but I'm seeing like
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people are getting so consumed by them. So I wanna kind of help you understand why
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that happens, how it happens, and what you can
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do about it to work on yourself. Before we do that, I just wanna
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share my website. So I have a wellness center, it's called
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Shifting the Way You Think, because like I said, I recognize that
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we tend to get stuck in the way that we think. and
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I have events that are taking place. So I
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want to share that. So if you are listening, I have my
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website up and the website is stwyt.com and
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that's stwyt.com. And I created
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this website because I wanted a place for the Black community to
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be able to come to, to see people that look like them, to
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be able to host events like wellness events, where
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you can have a space and bring people together because
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I think that therapy is great, but I also think or know
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that there's so many other modalities that are not being utilized. So
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if you go to stwyt.com, you'll
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see meet the team. So we have two clinicians. I'm
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not taking anyone right now. And then we have
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the services that we provide, so upcoming events,
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space we're into, and individual therapy. We
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also have an area where you could donate if you want to donate a class to
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someone. But under events, so I'm going to click on upcoming events.
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And as you can see, our next event that we're having, February
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4th, is called Rest and Recharge. This event is by
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Paula McCree. And it's a great way to work
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on getting in tune with your body, getting in tune with your breath. And
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then after that, we have Connections that's taking place,
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craft and chill. And so this is a place, Connections
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is a series that I'm creating once a month that can have
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people come together. It's not about talking about mental health. It's not about doing
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anything that's uncomfortable. It's literally about chilling. Today,
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this time we're gonna be crafting, so wine glass or coasters. Another
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time we're gonna have games. We're gonna have movie night. So it's not
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even about like having conversation. I think a lot of times when
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it comes to, uh, when it comes to our struggles
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and people talk about mental health and things like that, we don't talk about
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community and just being together and how that
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can be so empowering. I've had people that say, you
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know, I wasn't going to go to this thing, but then I decided to go. And
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actually I feel good. Like nothing happened. Nobody spoke words to
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them about, Oh, you should do this. It's just that they were able to
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get out. and do something different. So that's why I create
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the series Connections. So you see the
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Connections that's taking place February 8th. And then the
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Connection Reset. So this is a cool event. This
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event is hosted by a social worker Julia, and
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it's for couples. And so if you go to my website, her
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website is there, the link to purchase. February 15th,
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she's having an event for couples. So
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this is going to be something that's exciting. So through interactive activities, guided
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discussions, you'll learn more practical tools
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to enhance your relationship. And, you know, relationships are
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hard, especially when individuals are
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struggling. There's something powerful about having knowledge
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and information about how to come together, because we can tend to get in our own
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feelings, get in our own way. So that's going to be a cool
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event that's going to be taking place next
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month. and then we have let's see
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what we have next after that we have mindful
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yen again this is another monthly series so rest and reset mindful
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yen is a monthly uh series that we're doing And
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then I'm having goal alignment check-in. That's March 30th.
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That's online. At the beginning of the year, I did
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an event where we talked about how to look at the wellness wheel,
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how to look at our goals. I don't want that
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idea to be something that only takes place at
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the beginning of the year. So I'm doing this quarterly. It's a free event.
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You just come on. If you sign up, I'll send you the Zoom link.
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And if you can't make it, I'll send you the lesson or
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what we talked about. So this is great for you to
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kind of come in, rechecking with your goals. One of
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the things I know is that we don't always have
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that person that's on the same page with us, that's in alignment with us,
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right? And I didn't have somebody that was an entrepreneur or
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going towards the things I was going towards, but I did find
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it online. I did find it in groups. I find it on podcasts and
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books. I really just embraced learning
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about the thing I said I wanted to do. I really enhanced my
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craft. The way I'm able to talk and speak. When
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I used to speak, I used to feel nervous, but I just felt passion. I was like, I want
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to do this. I want to help other people. And the more I did it,
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the less the anxiety in my stomach felt. Um,
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so that goal alignment check-in that's going to happen, uh, in
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March and then the other, and we're always adding events. And
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then the other thing that we have is healing the inner child
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series. So this is in person it's happening again, April
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12th. Uh, this is going to happen quarterly and
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it's a three week series. It's not something you could come to maybe once
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or twice, It's something where you would have to
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make a three week commitment. So three Saturdays back to
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back. It's a lot of content, a lot of information. And
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my goal behind creating it is because I didn't want people to
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kind of rush through the process. So that's something that's taking
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place. So if you want to learn more about
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what's happening at the center, just go to stwyt.com. All
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right, y'all, let's talk about negativity bias. this
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is a issue or a thing that happens right
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and i'm going to tell you the definition so if you're watching it on youtube it
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says the tendency to pay more attention to negative information than
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to positive information here more weight is given to negative
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experiences versus the neutral experiences that
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we have, right? So that's something that people
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don't realize is happening, is that a
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lot of times when you're hearing negative things, you're finding yourself
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being more drawn to that information. And you might
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be like, dang, why does that exist, right? So
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humans have a negativity bias because it was an adaptive trait
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that helped our ancestors survive. The bias is
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the tendency to pay more attention to negative information than positive ones.
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So let's say, for instance, like we were in the woods. Years
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ago, we didn't have Google. We didn't have the internet, right? All we had
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was our instincts. And so if we ate something
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and it made us feel sick, we needed to remember that we got sick.
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Because if we didn't remember that we got sick, What
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could happen is that we'll eat it again, and then we
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find ourselves struggling, right? But because of that negativity
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bias and that ability to remember the hard
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stuff, it's supposed to prevent us from not doing it. Another example
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of negativity bias is like, let's say you got several
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compliments, right? Your boss was like, oh my gosh. you
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didn't do this one thing right. But
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then throughout the whole interview or the
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whole assessment with your boss, your boss was
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talking about all the amazing things you did right. So let's say 90% of
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the meeting was about positive things that happened and
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10% was about things that he wanted you to clean up on. And
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what happens with a lot of people, that 10% ends up
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being the thing that you're focused on, right? So that's
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something that takes place and people really don't understand what's going
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on. Studies show that negative news stories are
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significantly more likely to be clicked on and
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shared compared to the positive news. Right?
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So when you think about social media and the
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stories that go viral, periodically I'll
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see things that are good that can go viral, right?
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But a lot of times it's the hard stuff because it's evoking a
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lot of emotion in us. So that emotion that
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is being evoked in us, it tends to be something that
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can become addictive where your system begins to crave
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it because that's the only thing you're looking at. If you're on
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social media and you're struggling with yourself and
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where you are in life, and you're on it
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a lot and you're just seeing all the people that are where you
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want to be, You'll find yourself always looking
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at that and feeling like a certain way, and your mind
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will start to continue to focus on that because that's your focus. If
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you're a long-time listener, I always use this example. If you have
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a red Toyota and you drive that
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Toyota, when you're driving in the streets, you're
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going to find yourself always seeing a red Toyota. And
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it's not because everybody went out and got your red Toyota. It's
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because your mind looks at it every day. So it's all, it's, it's the
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thing that's going to stick out. And I would say, imagine if
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you thought about what you wanted to do,
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right? You started working on it, creating action. What happens
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is your mind starts to focus on how can I continue to allow
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Celeste to create this action? How can I continue to allow Celeste to
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do the thing that she wants to do? That's literally what's happened in
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my life. When I'm working on things, the things that I'm doing, the
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things that I say I want to do, because I'm focusing on
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it, my mind continues to show me the possibilities of
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what's available to me. So there
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are gonna be some effects. So I told you what negativity bias is, right?
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I wanna share with you the effects that negativity
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bias can have on us, right? Because there's
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mental effects and there's physical effects. And I
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feel like if you understand this, it might help
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you kind of reframe some of the ways you're doing things. So
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when it comes to the physical effects, right? impaired
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immune response. So chronic stress induced by negative thinking
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can weaken the immune system, right? This is not
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just about negativity bias. In general, chronic stress
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weakens our immune system. And a lot of times we
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don't realize the reason why we're always sick, the reason why we're always
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struggling is because we're in constant states of stress.
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So I want you to remember that cardiovascular concerns,
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high levels of negativity are linked to increased risk
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of cardiovascular issues like high blood
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pressure due to the stress response. Again,
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and high blood pressure causes stroke, heart attacks. People are
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dying younger and younger from heart attacks, from heart issues, because
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our body was never meant to stay in that state. I
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said this before in the podcast, humans are the only species that
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can go into this flight or fight mode with just how we
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think about things. We don't have to be in immediate stress right now in
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this moment. But because we don't have any
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other way of thinking, we find ourselves in constant states
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of stress, which continues to keep our body working
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in overtime. If my computer is
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always on, I never shut it down, I never work on
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it, it's always kind of in overdrive. A lot of times people's computer
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starts to break down because they didn't shut it down, right? They didn't do any updates.
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They haven't worked on it. So that's two
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of the physical things. Another physical response, digestive
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problems, right? Chronic stress manifests as digestive disturbances
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like stomach aches, IBS, which is irritable bowel syndrome, and
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changes in appetite. If you find yourself constantly
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struggling with stomach issues, doctors are giving you medicine
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and not really knowing what's going on. Check in with
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your mental health. Check in when the stomach stuff starts
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happening. Time and time again, when I'm working with
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people and they talk about these stomach issues and the
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stomach issues stop, they come again, they stop, right? What
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happens is, because I'm working with them, I'll know what's going
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on. And I'll say, oh, it sounds like your stomach stuff started around
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the time X, Y, and Z happened. And they'll be like, dang, you know what? You're
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right. The more we start working together, they start paying attention.
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Now they start to make the connection that when their stomach starts turning, something's
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going on. And so they begin to, that's their
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sign that something's not right. Our body gives us signs that
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we're not okay, but because we're not used to listening to
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our body in that way, we ignore the signs. It
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gets out of hand. It gets to the point where we
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need medical intervention. So digestive issues
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is when sleep disturbances. So many times people
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struggle with sleep. And when I'm talking with people, I'm
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checking in, how'd you sleep? How's your appetite? And
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have you been moving your body? When it comes to sleep, People
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will get so used to not sleeping well that
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they find themselves saying, oh, this is just how it is. No, this is not just how
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it is. There's something wrong. We were never meant to not have enough
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sleep. When you sleep, it's how your body resets, right?
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And if you're stressed all day, you call
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yourself trying to go to sleep, just because you're trying to go to sleep, that
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stress, those thoughts that are going on and on
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in your head, what's happening is is
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happening in your sleep, right? Your system is
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having a hard time settling down. So you might fall asleep
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just a little bit and then like get woken up because your
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system is so used to being in high levels of stress all day.
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Once you try to settle down and go to sleep, it's like, oh my gosh, what are we doing? We got to
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get up. Right? Like, why are you sleeping? We still
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got to solve these problems. We still got to do X, Y,
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and Z. Your system needs to plan. Your mind needs to understand, what
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are we doing? If we're not telling our mind what we're doing, if we're just escaping
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with drugs, substances, alcohol, food, TV, social
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media, we're finding ourselves just escaping. Our mind is
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just continuing to run, run, run, run, run, run, run. Right? So
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be mindful of that. Muscle and tension pain. How
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many of you are struggling with back pain, feeling achy,
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feeling like old, feeling like something's wrong? The
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reality is, is that when you are struggling and
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you're not doing anything about it, it needs a place to go. It
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sits in our body, it sits in our bones, right? The
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achiness that you're feeling, right? And then
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the last thing is headaches. How
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many of you have a hard time with having headaches and migraines?
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And if you start to pay attention to when those migraines set off, when
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the headache sets off, I'm sure you'll recognize this when something stressful
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is going on. And I don't want you
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to allow the headaches, the back aches, the stomach stuff
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to become a norm, because again, we were never meant to live that way.
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And I understand that maybe you have never been taught a
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different way of operating. Maybe it's kind of like, oh yeah, my mom,
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she struggled with migraines, right? My dad, he always had stomach
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issues. You just chalk it up to like, oh, it's in our DNA. Yes,
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and also the way we live tends
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to get passed down from generation to generation, right?
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You see your parents or your caregivers living under a state
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of stress all the time. You're not taught to
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live under stress, but based off of being in that environment, that's
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what happens. So those are some of the physical ailments
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that happen when you're constantly consuming and
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you're not paying attention to the negativity bias that are taking
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place when you're absorbing content and things like that.
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What are the mental health effects? Mental health effects
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Increased stress and anxiety, so the constant focus on
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negative information can trigger the body's response, leading to
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heightened anxiety levels and physical symptoms like heart
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rate. Anxiety is so
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dominant now in today's world. And
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there are so many things that are hard, right? I'm a therapist. As much as
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I work on not consuming so much negative news,
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I still hear it, right? I talk to people every day. I'm
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not in a bubble completely. And it
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gets really challenging. And the thing about anxiety
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is anxiety loves when you're dwelling on the past. Anxiety
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loves when you're worried about the future. You know why? If you could
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see me right now on YouTube, You're dwelling on the past, which
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is back here. You're worried about the future. And
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so in the moment, you're never in the moment. And
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having peace is being in the moment. But
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I want to be clear that for some people, being in the moment
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was something that was very challenging for you, right, growing
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up. And so you learned how not to be in the moment, how to always have
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your system on high alert, got to be ready, stay ready, and
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be in survival mode. And I was somebody that
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operated like that all the time. Sometimes my system tries to go in
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that mode and I bring it right back and I'm like, no, but right
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now we're safe. We're okay. I don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. I don't know
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if I'm going to be here tomorrow, but I know what's happening today. And
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so I want you to be mindful that like, What
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you're absorbing, right, we're talking about negativity, bias,
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can keep you in a constant
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state of stress. Depressive symptoms, so dwelling on
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negative thoughts and experiences can contribute to pessimistic outlook,
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making it harder to see the positive aspects of life, which
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can exasperate depressive symptoms. And
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a lot of things that are happening are so depressing. It's
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sad. It breaks my heart. And I
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feel those things, right? I don't try to reframe it. I don't try to pretend like
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it's not happening. It's happening. But
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I also work on trying to recalibrate my mind and look at what else is
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happening because I can't allow myself to
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be consumed by it. Some more things that
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mental health, the impact of
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negativity bias can help can impact your mental health, low
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self-esteem, right? So this can lead you to focus on
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the perceived flaws and shortcomings leading to a negative self-image and
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low self-esteem. Now, you know, I
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love social media. I'm able to put my content out
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there. I'm able to engage with people. look at funny things,
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learn how to cook, right? There's so many dope things about social media. There's
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a lot of heart. If you're not mindful and if you're not paying attention
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to the way you're looking at things, you
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will find yourself always feeling like you're never enough.
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Always feel like, how am I not where they
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are? Why am I only here? You'll forget that,
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oh, I went through this, I went through that, I got through this part. And
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you'll be like, oh, I'm only here. And so be mindful
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on how you're allowing what you're seeing in
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others to affect where you are. Everybody's story
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and how they started and where they started is going to look different. And
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social media shows us highlighted reels, literally. Some
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people will show the hard stuff, but majority of people are
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showing the good stuff. And if you find
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yourself comparing yourself to others in that way, remind yourself
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that you're stressing yourself out, and maybe
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you need to take a step back from social media. Another way
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that the impact of negative bias is rumination. So
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constantly ruminating and thinking on negative
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things, or let's just say you're thinking
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about where you are. You always wanted to go to college, and
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you didn't have a chance to go to college because of the way your life went.
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And, oh, I didn't go to college, right? It's like, OK, make
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a decision. Do I want to go to college? And if I do, what do I need to do
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to get there? Right. College was a big, this is just an example, but college was
22:06
a big thing years ago. And for some people it
22:10
was a setup for like debt, right? You get these big, big
22:13
student loans and jobs now, like they're
22:16
laying people off. And so now you're working just to pay
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student loans. When people
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talk about this college thing, I'm going to go, what do you want to do? They don't know what they want to
22:26
do. But then when we dig deeper, the college thing is just this fixated
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thing that they have equated to success, especially when you live
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in America, this colonizing way of thinking, this
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hierarchy way of thinking, they haven't gotten out
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of that. And so they're holding on to that. But then when
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I say, well, if you don't know what you want to do, you don't want to be in
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debt, then what is it that we need to
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do, right? Little by little, they start to say, you know what, it's
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not that I wanted to go to college, it's that my parents wanted me to go to college, or
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I've equated that to success. Social
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difficulties. So, so when it comes to the impact of negativity
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bias. It can make your social interactions hard
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to maintain healthy relationships. Because again,
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if you're always consuming negative news if you're always
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thinking in the negative. If you're my friend and I don't call you
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back and I'm not calling you back because maybe I'm depressed or maybe I'm
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overwhelmed and I didn't call you back, what's going to happen if
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you think in negativity, if you're thinking in a negative way all the time?
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Oh, Celeste just don't like me, right? You're going to start creating stories. I
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know this is true because I talk to people every day who
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are creating stories and they'll say something about
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a partner or a friend or a family member. And
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I'll know that that person may be going through something, or there's
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no evidence. I said, oh, really? They don't like you? Why
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do you say that? Well, you know, because they didn't call back.
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I said, oh, so you don't know what's going on with them. And last time
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you spoke to them, they said their mother was struggling with cancer. You
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know, like we forget that people have lives and
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a lot of people are struggling and we get so consumed
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by our emotions. We get so consumed by always thinking negative that
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now that relationship that we're in, we're looking
24:18
at it, the things that's happening in a negative way. Right?
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So this negativity bias or the way that you're over
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consuming negative news or the way you're thinking negative
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all the time, it's affecting you in all areas of your life. And
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then poor decision making, right? So if
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you're constantly consumed by negativity, when
24:40
overly focused on negative outcomes, you may make decisions
24:44
based on fear and avoid taking risk, hindering
24:47
opportunities for personal growth. Everything
24:52
that I've done, so if you're new to the podcast, I started
24:56
my private practice in 2015, never was
24:59
an entrepreneur before. I authored two books, I
25:02
opened a wellness center. And these
25:06
things that I've done, I didn't have nobody that was
25:10
doing it that was guiding me. And the amount
25:13
of fear that came in, because the voice comes in, it's like,
25:16
oh, you think you could do that? Who do you think you really are? The
25:21
voice comes up for me. I hear
25:24
it. I see it. And I'll be like, oh no, I
25:28
can do it. Like I talk back to the voice. I don't allow
25:31
it to have dominion in my life. Right?
25:35
And if I allowed myself to be consumed
25:39
by negativity or negative noise, what will happen
25:43
is that that voice comes in and it
25:46
just reconfirms what I'm already doing with myself on
25:50
a day-to-day basis. So when you think about your
25:53
decision-making with your life and the things that you're choosing to do, Be
25:58
mindful on the way you're not pushing
26:01
forward with the things you say you want to do and why it may be happening.
26:05
Maybe you need to work on consuming something different. You
26:10
don't realize who you're talking to, what
26:13
you're listening to, what you're watching, how much that's affecting the
26:17
way you see yourself, the way you see your capabilities. how
26:22
to break the cycle, right? We're going to end with how to break the cycle, because we're not just going
26:25
to talk about the, I'm going to educate you on
26:28
this podcast, right? And so if you're new here, I want you
26:31
to make sure you have a notebook and you're taking notes. And if you haven't been taking notes,
26:35
you can rewind this and take, take some notes, but I'm going
26:38
to educate you on what's going on. I'm going to
26:41
talk about how it happens, and I'm always going to end
26:45
with what you can do about it. You're never going to leave none
26:48
of my podcasts, none of the videos that I watch, and it's
26:52
like, oh my gosh, I'm screwed. You're going to be like, okay, that
26:55
makes sense. And then you're going to be like, oh, I think I can do that. That's
26:59
my goal in doing this. So how to break
27:03
the cycle. Awareness, right? Start
27:07
noticing when you're focusing on negative thoughts. As I said, the thoughts
27:11
come. People that follow me or see what I'm doing, you
27:15
may be like, dang, I wish I could do it like that, or dang, how does she
27:18
do it? How do I do it? Literally, I'm
27:22
aware of what's going on, and I don't allow it to be
27:25
the narrative of my story. My trauma, the things that's happened
27:29
to me, it doesn't rule me. It's not my lens on
27:32
my present nor my future. So really being
27:36
mindful on what you're thinking try not to allow yourself
27:39
to constantly escape what you're thinking The
27:43
next thing is reframing so reframe negative thoughts into more
27:47
balanced perspective That's important and
27:50
then in parentheses if you're watching me on YouTube I put when it
27:53
comes to the hard things that are happening This is not a
27:57
space for reframe. So what I mean by that is It's
28:00
like, let's say the new, the things that are happening in America, how
28:04
sort of this, like this bullying, like space, I feel like that's
28:07
happening. And, um, I'm not asking you
28:11
to reframe. Oh, that's not like it's happening, but it's not really
28:14
happening. I'm not actually reframe that some things that are happening. I
28:18
need you to acknowledge, like, be aware that it's happening, feel
28:22
what's going on, grieve those moments. Right.
28:26
So like, that's not what I mean when I say reframe, because it's
28:29
important. I think sometimes with like therapy and
28:34
the way like colonize, like I feel like therapy in
28:37
America, the way we went to school is very colonizing. I'm very
28:40
much about decolonizing what mental health looks like and
28:44
breaking cycles, right? And I think that the way
28:48
that, you know, if you're in therapy and you're feeling like, oh, this isn't working, a lot of
28:51
times I feel like they make it seem like something's wrong with you. Something's
28:55
wrong with your brain or you're defective. No, something happened to me and
28:58
I'm in a system that was never designed for me. Right?
29:02
You start to feel defective. You're not defective. And
29:06
I need you to understand that you're not defective. Something
29:09
happened the same way. If you cut your finger and
29:13
you find yourself bleeding, something happened for
29:17
the blood to come out. And you do, and
29:20
then you have, you'd be like, okay, I cut my finger, let me put a bandaid on it, right?
29:23
You start to care for that wound. When it comes to the
29:26
wounds that we experience, because some of us have had
29:30
to escape, we forget, we feel like
29:33
it was 20 years ago, and we don't realize how
29:36
that wound, and we don't realize it's a wound, we don't realize
29:40
we're being affected by it, and we don't care for it, right?
29:43
We don't treat it. Gratitude
29:47
practice, so try keeping a gratitude journal to shift
29:51
focus to positive aspects of life. Gratitude's huge,
29:55
right? Every night, me and my husband, we
29:58
check in with our kids, and we ask them four questions. We
30:01
say, how are you feeling? What went well today? What
30:05
did you do to prepare for tomorrow? And what are you grateful for?
30:10
And what are you grateful for is so important for me, right?
30:13
And I say, what are you grateful for today? So I have them focus
30:17
on some things that may have taken place today so that they are
30:21
not just moving through life without recognizing, right?
30:24
What do you need to do to prepare for tomorrow to think about, OK, so
30:29
they can work on being prepared? What went well today? So many times
30:32
with this negativity bias, we can have a great day at work.
30:35
Somebody cuts us off. That cutoff takes place for 10 seconds. You're
30:39
going home pissed off and talking about what
30:43
somebody did that took 10 seconds out of your day.
30:47
You're allowing it to consume you. Because again,
30:51
some people don't know any other way. Limit exposure.
30:55
So setting boundaries with the news and social media, right? That's
30:58
important. Sometimes you could be so addicted, you don't even realize you're
31:02
addicted. Look at your screen time. When you get on social media,
31:07
Even if you can't find your screen time, look at
31:10
your watch, look at what time you got on, and then look at what
31:14
time you got off. Start checking yourself, right? Because
31:17
we don't own social media. There's a narrative
31:21
that is constantly being pushed. divisiveness,
31:25
right? I see it so clear and we're not thinking critically.
31:29
There's a lot of headlines they put up for clickbait because
31:33
it evokes a lot of emotion. People care more about going
31:36
viral. They care more about clickbait. They care more about
31:41
making their content and their platform heavy. I mean
31:44
big. And so they're not really, they don't really care about
31:48
like how you're being affected by these things. They just want
31:51
the views. and you don't realize because of
31:54
that emotion that's coming up, that's evoking all of this energy,
31:59
you're just being consumed by it. My husband will watch certain
32:03
things on YouTube that talks about what's going on, and
32:07
especially at night, right? And automatically, he
32:10
can watch it and be fine, and some
32:14
shows kind of make comedy out of it, but it just
32:18
pisses me off. And I will put my headphones in
32:22
and listen to music or watch something on my laptop. I
32:26
recognize, for me personally, I don't want to go to
32:29
sleep to that. And for me, I
32:33
do something different. I'm mindful in how I'm
32:36
affected. I could watch a movie or show, and
32:40
there's a scary scene coming up. Not scary, but somebody's about
32:43
to get caught. I don't like scary movies. But it's like a drama. I
32:47
will forward that part. Because my
32:51
stomach start, like I can feel things in real time. That's just how much
32:54
in tune I am with my body. And so I'll forward it
32:58
or I close my eyes, right? I give myself what I need at
33:01
that moment. Give yourself what you need, but how do you give yourself what you
33:04
need if you're not aware of what's going on? And
33:07
then the last thing really important is mindfulness and meditation. It
33:11
can help ground you, right? And if you like, I don't know
33:14
about meditation. I want to say like when it comes to
33:18
mindfulness and meditation, there's no wrong, there's no one
33:21
way to do it. And when you take
33:25
time to think about what you're thinking, and you're like, oh, but
33:28
there's so many thoughts. That's good. I want you to know that there's so many thoughts. I
33:32
want you to know that it's important for you to start engaging
33:36
in those thoughts, because what's happening is those thoughts are
33:39
starting as a seed. and they're growing into full weeds.
33:44
You're letting weeds grow in your mind. And so even when you
33:47
have this goal or this thought that comes up, that's good, where
33:51
you're like, oh, I think I could do that. You could listen to this podcast and be like, oh,
33:54
I think I can make that happen. What's going to happen is because
33:58
you're not tending to your garden, you're allowing weeds to
34:01
happen. You'll never allow yourself to blossom and grow the
34:05
way you're supposed to grow. I really want
34:08
you to be mindful of this. I'm so passionate about this. Um,
34:11
because like my platform and everything I do is about shifting the
34:14
way you think my goal is to help empower you because
34:18
when you know who you are, guess what? Nobody can tell
34:21
you who you're not. And growing up, one
34:25
of the things about, um, in my household, my mom's
34:28
never spoke negative to us. She's not sure. Oh, that's
34:32
good. You want to do that? Like, she'll be like, just positive about it.
34:36
I didn't know that people grew up in spaces until I
34:40
started working with people. I didn't know that they grew up in spaces where
34:43
they were talked down to or they was told, like, you really think you could do that? I
34:46
didn't know that was a thing. And I realized
34:50
just how much the fact that my mom never came
34:54
at us negative or always encouraged us was
34:58
such a huge blessing to my way of thinking. And
35:04
even if you didn't have that growing up, I want
35:07
you to know if you're still breathing, there's room for change. You
35:10
can recalibrate the way you've been operating and the way you've been
35:13
taught. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Yeah, it's
35:16
going to take some time, but I promise you can do it. So
35:20
as we're winding down, I want you to be mindful and not allow this
35:23
to just be a feel-good session. Again, these
35:27
sessions that I do here, I really want you to
35:31
use them as a tool to help yourself grow. Take
35:35
notes. Take what you can. Leave what doesn't work for you. Understand
35:39
that change takes time. Understand that change is
35:43
hard. Change is ugly. It's grieving.
35:47
It feels lonely. And when
35:51
you know what you know, sometimes when, when you try to make
35:54
that change and it feels lonely and it feels hard, what tends
35:58
to happen is that you'll find yourself not
36:01
doing the change because nobody told you that this was going to happen. So
36:05
you might find yourself, um, you might find
36:08
yourself like going forward with what you
36:12
have been doing because what you're trying to do feels so scary.
36:17
So I hope this was helpful. If anything I would
36:20
say resonates for you, understand you have the power to create change, but
36:26
it's important for you to have faith and believe in yourself. Cause
36:29
when you have faith, when you start believing in yourself, no
36:32
one could ever take that away from you. So until next