Latest / Celeste The Therapist / Ep 520: Healing Techniques and Strategies for Your Inner Child Episode 4 of 5

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Ep 520: Healing Techniques and Strategies for Your Inner Child Episode 4 of 5 · Celeste The Therapist

0:02
Hey, thank you all so much for joining another episode of Celeste's Therapist podcast.
0:06
My name is Celeste. I'm a therapist from Boston. If you've never been
0:09
into my podcast before, thank you for being here. So
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this is actually episode four out of five. So if
0:16
you have not seen the first three episodes, or
0:20
listen to them, if you're listening to me on audio, this podcast does also
0:23
stream on YouTube. If you have not listened to either
0:27
of those, I suggest you go back because this is a
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five part series on healing your inner child. And
0:34
the goal is to have you absorb information, take
0:39
notes, do homework assignments, and not like
0:42
kind of rush through this. This is not one of those kind of podcasts where you kind of
0:45
rush through it. So today we're talking about healing
0:49
techniques and strategies. We're just going to go, I'm
0:53
going to do a quick recap. So the first episode
0:56
we talked about exploring your inner child. Like what is it? Like what
1:00
does it mean? Right. It's not an actual like
1:04
person, but it's the inner, the younger version of you
1:08
that may have been through some things. And then episode two,
1:11
we talked about exploring childhood experiences and
1:15
how they shape your adulthood lives. It's interesting where
1:19
people will think because something happened 20 years
1:22
ago, that, um, it doesn't affect them now
1:25
as an adult. When in fact, what you experienced, your
1:29
body remembers the mind remembers and, um,
1:33
That's how things happen. So and then last episode
1:36
episode 3 we talked about nurturing your inner child and
1:40
this is like, how do I Allow my inner
1:44
child to be loved right? So today we're
1:47
talking about healing techniques and
1:51
I'm excited about it right and I just
1:54
want to be clear that as we're going through this process, it's
1:57
not like, okay, I mastered this, I mastered that, right? These
2:01
are things that you're going to always recycle. You're going to feel that inner child.
2:04
You're going to need to use these techniques at some point. Your
2:10
experiences are a part of who you are, so it's important to
2:13
have grace with yourself as you are trying to go through the
2:16
process. So some therapies, right?
2:20
I am a cognitive behavioral therapist and
2:24
one of the forms of healing is CBT and
2:28
with CBT it allows you to reframe negative thoughts.
2:32
I always tell people like my practice
2:36
is called shifting the way you think, right? very intentional, not
2:39
intentional where I was like, Oh, I want to name my practice that. But I always say, like,
2:43
my goal is to help shift the way you think, right? Because a lot of times we get
2:46
stuck in the pain. And if we can work on
2:50
acknowledging the pain, and then reframing it,
2:54
right. And it's not in a toxic way of like, pretending
2:58
that things didn't happen. things happen, but
3:01
then how is it that I can move forward, right? Because what's
3:05
happened has happened. I can never go back and change it like ever.
3:09
And I think a lot of times we don't realize that we're allowing
3:13
that incident, that trauma, that thing that
3:16
happened to control our present lives. So CBT
3:20
is a technique that if you were working with a therapist would
3:24
be helpful. There's also play therapy, engaging
3:29
with your inner child through creative expression. I
3:32
meet a lot of creators, people that are really into doing
3:36
different things, right? So if you've ever ran
3:40
outside with your kids or just played a game and you just felt
3:44
so excited, you felt this energy
3:47
that you can't explain, what do you think that was? That was that inner child
3:51
being able to come up and play. For some people, they didn't have that chance,
3:54
right? Some people's childhoods were robbed. You were robbed of your childhood. So
3:58
you never even had that chance to experience that. And
4:02
then another technique is art therapy. A lot of
4:06
people express themselves through art. Some people, you
4:09
know, I'll meet people where they'll talk about some things. I'm like, oh, well, you know, they
4:13
talk about when I was younger, I used to draw, I used to color, I used to create
4:16
things, right? And then over time, they stopped. Getting
4:20
back to that feels good, right? There are so many creative ways
4:24
that we can work on healing our inner child, right? You
4:28
know, in America, we only talk about therapy. We only talk about psychiatry,
4:32
but we're not talking about these other modalities. And art therapy,
4:37
play therapy are really great ways
4:40
to kind of get into that inner child stuff. Um,
4:46
so some, some more healing techniques, uh, you
4:50
know, if you're watching this on YouTube, you see the,
4:53
the young lady, she's sitting there drinking her tea, right? Mindfulness
4:58
is important. You don't have to sit crisscross applesauce and
5:02
close your eyes. You can literally just sit down, have
5:06
a glass of tea and be in the present moment.
5:09
So, it can help you be more aware of
5:13
your thoughts that's related to your inner child. It can also allow you to
5:16
be more self-compassion. Being kind to
5:20
yourself is something that doesn't happen often. A
5:24
lot of times we will talk
5:27
to ourselves crazy, right? We wouldn't talk to our children
5:31
the way we talk to ourselves. We'll do something and say like, why'd you
5:34
do that? That was so stupid. And a lot of times we
5:37
don't realize how hard we are on ourselves. And
5:41
I would say like, how can you work on healing yourself
5:45
if you're beating yourself up at the same time? Like you're literally
5:48
walking around with a bully, right? Do you want to walk
5:52
around with somebody that is bullying you or do you want to
5:55
walk around being a motivator? right? Which one
5:58
feels better? And a lot of times we don't even recognize
6:02
that's the way we are talking to ourselves because it just comes so
6:05
naturally. We just kind of do it because it's been part
6:09
of our repertoire all of these years. The
6:14
role of forgiveness. Now this one is, this
6:18
is a little challenging for people, and I'm gonna tell you why. I understand
6:22
why it's challenging when people, especially depending
6:26
on how you were taught about forgiveness, and
6:29
this isn't me knocking the church, but for some people who
6:33
grew up in church, it looks at forgiveness as kind of like, oh,
6:36
let it go. You're supposed to love your neighbor and
6:41
just forget about what's happened. And that's not
6:44
fair. I don't look at forgiveness in that way. In the context
6:48
of healing your inner child, forgiveness is an
6:51
intentional act of releasing resentment and
6:54
the negative emotions you have towards others and yourself about
6:58
past harms that stem from your childhood experience, right? Um,
7:02
this is an intentional act. It's not an act that happens
7:06
over time. It's an act that happens through different processes, um,
7:10
through, uh, I feel like when we put our mind to something,
7:14
our mind will help show us the way. And, um,
7:18
a lot of times our mind is only on the pain. And so
7:21
that resentment can literally eat us alive. It's
7:25
not about condoning or forgetting wrongdoing. Let's be clear. When
7:30
people think about forgiveness, this is why it's hard. It's like, but do
7:33
I just forget? Does that mean I'm condoning and saying it's OK?
7:37
No, you're not saying that. But it's about freeing
7:40
your inner child from emotional burdens like anger. Let's take
7:45
a pause. How many people are experiencing a lot of anger about what's happened? Shame.
7:50
and blame that carries into adulthood, right? When
7:53
you offer forgiveness, you're actually taking your control back for
7:57
your inner life, right? Because he's like, I'm taking control back for
8:00
my life. Like I'm this age, I'm doing this, I'm doing that.
8:04
My life is moving forward. Like literally, like you can't help
8:07
it. Time is going to pass by, but internally is your
8:10
life moving forward? Are you still that stuck 12 year
8:14
old boy or girl. Right. That's something to think
8:17
about. So you can go from feeling like
8:20
a victim versus feeling empowered.
8:25
There's a lot of people that have been victims growing up. And
8:28
because they haven't changed your psyche
8:32
around it, it's hard for you to look at situations in
8:35
a way where you feel empowered. Like you're always feeling
8:39
like a victim. And that's because that's the only
8:42
way your system knows because it hasn't been taught a new way. Right.
8:47
So this is kind of the role of forgiveness. And I want to talk about,
8:51
like, how it looks like forgiving yourself and how what that looks like
8:54
forgiving others, like, how can that help you? Because that's
8:58
something that's so important. So
9:02
when you think about forgiving yourself, it
9:06
allows you to release your shame and guilt. So many
9:10
times people will blame their younger selves for not being strong enough.
9:13
I put that in quotation marks, if you can't see me, or good enough to prevent
9:17
harm. And when you start to self-forgive, it
9:21
reminds you that you did the best that you could with what you have. I always tell people,
9:25
it's like, oh, I need to fix myself. I need to work on fixing myself
9:28
as if you're broken. Or is it that the things
9:32
you had to do, you needed to do them to survive some hard moments,
9:35
right? Like, I think, you know, obviously
9:39
your present self can look back and see, oh, I
9:43
could have done it this way. But that's what the information you
9:46
have now. It's not fair to do that to yourself, right? And
9:49
so if you work on forgiving yourself for what you didn't know, what you
9:52
had to do to get through some hard moments, healing
9:56
looks different. When you forgive yourself, it also
10:00
can cultivate self-compassion. So acknowledging your past
10:03
without harsh criticism. When I'm talking to people, I'm
10:06
reminding them to have grace with themselves as they're working on change. When
10:11
you start to acknowledge some things, you might start to feel guilt, feel
10:14
shame. You have to be mindful that you are creating
10:17
self compassion as you're doing that. And this allows you
10:21
to like nurture that inner child and so that you can start to love and accept
10:24
yourself for who you are, because you can't you can't change anything that's happened,
10:28
right? Radical acceptance is so hard, but
10:31
so necessary. And the last thing about forgiving yourself,
10:35
I want you to remember that it encourages self-acceptance. So
10:38
when you forgive your past mistakes and your perceived weaknesses,
10:42
right? Because I say perceived weakness
10:46
because a lot of times you didn't have the
10:49
capacity to do certain things, to get through certain moments, right?
10:53
It allows you to accept yourself as you are today and strengthening your
10:57
overall wellbeing and resilience. So think
11:00
about this idea of forgiving oneself. You may
11:04
not even realize that you have
11:08
not forgiven yourself, right? Maybe listening to me talk
11:11
about this and the shame and guilt and blame and stuff, you're
11:14
realizing like, oh my gosh, I'm being so hard on myself. And I
11:17
always tell people, when you think about your life and what you
11:21
had to do to get to where you are today, if it was
11:24
a child or think about somebody that you love, would you find yourself
11:28
beating them up the way you beat yourself up? And nine
11:31
times out of 10, the answer is no, like you wouldn't do that
11:35
to yourself and to that person, to that child. So
11:39
I need you to be mindful as you are trying to work through these
11:42
hard moments that you're not doing that to yourself. Now,
11:49
Forgiving others. So
11:53
forgiving others, it breaks the cycle of
11:56
resentment, right? If you're watching this on YouTube, it says forgiving
12:00
oneself, but this I should have wrote forgiving, forgiving
12:04
others. So it will break the cycle of resentment.
12:08
When you forgive those who hurt you, it releases toxic burden and
12:11
anger and bitterness that you're holding. You're holding
12:14
yourself emotionally captive. The resentment and
12:18
the anger and the bitterness, that's energy. And
12:23
I'm a very big energy person, energy transfers. There
12:28
are a lot of ailments that people have, the doctor can't
12:31
explain where it came from or how it happened. And a
12:34
lot of autoimmune diseases, especially for women, right? After
12:38
a certain age, they start noticing a high prevalence of it. And
12:41
so If you're mindful that like
12:46
what is happening inside, I feel like it would
12:49
propel people to want to work on themselves. But
12:52
the thing is that we can't see it, we don't recognize it. And that's
12:55
why I talk a lot about trying to get more in tune and present in the moment so
12:59
you can see how you're being affected in real time because you don't realize
13:02
it's happening. But when you're holding
13:06
on to what has happened, it literally can
13:10
eat you. on the inside alive. Address
13:14
unfulfilled expectation, right? So we're using parents,
13:17
for example, right? So forgiving parents, for instance, involves letting go of
13:21
the expectation that they will one day acknowledge their actions or
13:24
become the parents you needed them to be. This enables you
13:28
to take responsibility of your own happiness and well-being. Let's
13:31
talk about parents. I work with a lot of people that struggle with
13:35
what's happened and whether their parents were there or
13:38
not there, and they don't realize it, but even as adults, they're
13:41
hoping for change. There's nothing wrong with being optimistic for
13:44
change, but I think it's important that we accept the reality of
13:48
what is. Sometimes you may not get that, I'm sorry. Sometimes
13:51
you may not get, I understand you. And
13:56
so if you can work on releasing that,
14:00
it will allow you to not hold on
14:03
and not have this high expectation. Because when you have high expectation,
14:07
let's say we're using appearance for example, let's say you have a high
14:10
expectation that I know a lot of Caribbean homes,
14:15
they talk about you, they talk about what you're not doing. You're not
14:18
getting the praise that you deserve, right? And so if
14:22
I'm using that as an example, when you're going
14:26
to their house, you're not going expecting them to be like, oh,
14:30
great job on your promotion or whatever. um you're going
14:34
knowing that they may talk about your weight right or they may
14:37
talk about something right and then you're mindful
14:41
and you're limiting your time you're not going back and forth there's
14:44
a way to create boundaries with people especially like some people
14:49
choose to still have a relationship with that parent but some people may choose not
14:52
to so this is you know if you've like said I don't I can't do
14:56
this and I'm not dealing with them that's one thing but if you're choosing to
14:59
have a relationship with them right I'm using parents as
15:02
an example then it's important for you to accept who they are because it
15:06
doesn't make sense to continue dealing with them and also expecting them
15:09
to be different when they are who they are. It's up
15:12
to you to create that boundary, right, and to work on it. But working
15:16
on releasing that pain from what's happened in
15:19
the past can allow you to be more present and
15:23
available in the present. And
15:26
the last thing about forgiving others,
15:30
right? It promotes compassion and empathy. So
15:34
let's just stick with parents, right? So seeing your parents or others as
15:37
flawed human beings with their own struggles rather than perpetrators can
15:41
foster compassion. The perspective allows you to release the pain they cause
15:44
without condoning the behavior. we're not Codoni behavior.
15:49
Will Smith said, what happened to
15:53
you was not your fault, but your healing is
15:56
your responsibility. I remember when he said that, I'm like, that's so dope. Hopefully
16:01
that statement just freed somebody, hearing it. Sometimes
16:05
you could be battling with something and maybe you're in therapy or
16:08
maybe you've talked to somebody, but then you hear something and
16:12
it just clicks. What happened
16:15
to you may not have been your fault, right? Because a lot of times it's
16:18
like, but you did this and you did that, but your healing is going to be your
16:21
responsibility. Quick story. My
16:25
friend Sean Marshall told a story about how, like
16:30
getting hit by a limousine, right? And the
16:34
limousine driver waited, right? So when you think about this narrative, and
16:37
if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, I've shared this story before. And
16:41
when you think about being hit by the limousine, so it's
16:44
the limousine's fault, right? Sean could have stayed
16:49
on the ground And he stayed on
16:52
the ground, waited for the ambulance to come. But let's say the limousine driver didn't stop.
16:56
The limousine driver doesn't stop. Does Sean wait
17:00
for the limousine driver to come back? Or does he go in the ambulance to
17:03
get the support and help that he needs? Everybody's
17:07
going to say you need to go on the ambulance, whether the limousine driver stopped
17:10
an hour. That would be crazy to just sit there and hope
17:15
and pray that the limousine driver comes to save you, right?
17:19
Literally, that's what happens when it comes to the
17:22
pain that some people have experienced, they feel like, my
17:27
mom owes me this apology, my dad, my friend, whoever it
17:30
is owes it to me. It would be nice. And some people eventually
17:34
get that, right? It would be nice if people apologize for what they
17:37
did. But do I want my healing to be contingent upon
17:40
that apology? I think that that's something
17:44
to sit with, is thinking about, I don't want to feel
17:48
like I have to wait for Joe and Schmo to come and
17:51
say sorry before I'm okay, because I
17:54
only have one life. You literally only have one life, so
17:58
why operate in life waiting for somebody to
18:01
come and treat you better? Let me go back to the drawing board and see what
18:05
I've allowed, whether it's a relationship, whether it's a child, your
18:09
children. whether it's a friend, whether it's a workplace, whether
18:13
it's a family member, there's sometimes we still gotta deal with
18:16
people because of proximity, because they are coworkers, because of
18:20
whatever, we need to be mindful on what we're
18:23
allowing in the situation, right? So we're not repeating that cycle. Sometimes
18:27
pain can be addictive. You might be like, Celeste, like, I don't like pain.
18:31
You don't like it, but if you look at some of the ways that you
18:35
allow things, you can see that, oh, I can just
18:38
do this differently, right? So these
18:42
are some of the ways breaking the cycle of resentment, addressing unfulfilled
18:46
expectation, and it promotes compassion and empathy as
18:49
ways why forgiving others is helpful. Now,
18:54
how forgiveness can release emotional burdens and promote healing.
18:59
So one, there's an emotional release, right? And
19:02
you get freedom from the negative emotions. Those negative emotions can
19:05
be tiring. Restoration inner peace, right?
19:09
I am a living witness of somebody who has released so
19:13
much pain you would never know. The things I've gone through, you would never
19:16
know the people that have harmed me because I do not
19:19
allow them in my psyche. The inner peace I
19:23
experience is not because my life has been perfect. It's not because things
19:26
have gone the way I have wanted them to go. It's because I
19:30
am big on renewing my mind and my spirit and
19:33
releasing that stuff. The second thing is growth and personal empowerment.
19:39
I feel so empowered. Before, I was like, what's the point? I would
19:42
have this negative attitude, this victim mindset. But
19:47
when you work on releasing and forgiving, your
19:50
growth and personal empowerment goes to the roof, right? It
19:54
shifts from the past to the future. I no longer live
19:57
in the past. I used to live in the past, right? I don't live
20:01
in the past anymore. I visualize myself in the way, the things
20:04
that I want for the future. And now my mind shows me that. If
20:08
I'm living in the past, then my mind is only showing me ways that,
20:12
um, that my past can still be present in
20:15
a negative way. And it enables healthy relationships.
20:19
When you are somebody that has been a victim or struggled with
20:23
some trauma that you haven't let go of, I promise you, your relationships are
20:27
gonna suffer. You'll have a hard time having, and it's
20:30
not just intimate relationships, I'm talking about across the board, because
20:33
your mind is only gonna see things as if people are trying to hurt you, when
20:37
that's not always the case. And then working on
20:40
forgiveness can allow you to reclaim your narrative, right?
20:44
You define your future. Like what I'm
20:47
doing now, I never thought I would be doing all this stuff. I promise you, you
20:51
know, I admire people that be like, oh, I want to do X, Y,
20:54
and Z. I never said that, never thought it. I
20:57
was just trying to figure out how to make some money. I never said I wanted to help people heal.
21:01
Growing up, there's some people, I knew I always wanted to be a doctor. I knew I always wanted
21:05
to talk to people. I didn't know none of that. I
21:08
reclaimed my life and my future looks
21:11
differently because I shifted my mindset. Shifting the
21:15
way you think. That is a very intentional name for
21:18
my practice that I created. All
21:23
right, let's just take a deep breath. Breathing. I'm all
21:26
about taking a deep breath. Let's reset a little bit. That was a lot,
21:30
right? These healing techniques, they're not happening overnight, right?
21:35
I want you to think about some actionable steps you can take
21:39
and then we'll get into the homework assignment. So journaling
21:43
is a great actionable step. You can write a
21:46
letter to yourself. and expressing your
21:49
feelings and thoughts. You'll be surprised putting things on paper can be very therapeutic.
21:54
Try some mindfulness exercises such as deep breathing
21:57
or guided meditation. So like think about
22:00
like breathing in. Four seconds,
22:05
hold it for seven and then blow for
22:08
eight. That
22:12
felt really good. I was doing it
22:16
to show you guys, but it felt so good. There's something
22:19
powerful about breathing. And if it's not something you've learned
22:23
or been intentional about, guess what? YouTube is your friend. There are
22:27
so many people that have created these guided meditations. And
22:30
if you've never done a guided meditation, trying five minutes at
22:34
a time could be a nice, small, slow start, and
22:37
celebrate that win when you do that. And then there are
22:41
forgiveness rituals. So for example, an exercise writing
22:44
down all your grievances as if you're talking to the person, whether they're dead
22:48
or alive, and you can burn the paper, right?
22:51
Like I wrote all the things and I burned it, I ripped it.
22:56
You don't have to, there's a way to heal without having to
23:00
actually speak to that person, right? And
23:04
then obviously seeking professional help, therapy, It's
23:07
a great tool, right? I believe in it. Also, I understand it's
23:11
not for everybody. And I also understand everybody can't find a therapist,
23:15
which is why this podcast was created, because I wanted people
23:18
to not feel like because they don't have a therapist, they can't work on their healing. All
23:22
right, here's your homework assignment. If you've been rocking
23:25
with me the last, what, three episodes of this journey, kudos
23:30
to you. I'm so proud of you. I hope you're proud of yourself.
23:33
This is not easy work. We're getting down to the finish line.
23:38
Choose one of the healing techniques we talked about and that we discussed today
23:42
and practice it throughout the next two weeks, right? And then try
23:45
journaling your experiences and feelings, right? So try one
23:49
of those healing techniques, whether you're coloring, get a coloring book, right?
23:53
Whether you like, you know what, let me just go outside and play, right?
23:56
Let me get on a swing and swing. Um,
24:00
let me get some play-doh and play with some play-doh like try
24:04
one of these exercises Um, and then just be
24:07
try to get into the moment and ask yourself. What am I feeling with this? Um
24:15
And um, oops, hold on Okay.
24:18
So what's next? So moving forward
24:22
and integrating the inner child, that's our last episode. Like how do I move
24:25
forward? How do I integrate all this together? Right. We talked about the
24:29
inner child. We talked about, um, how it affects our
24:32
adulthood. We talked about how to, how do we nurture our inner child.
24:36
And then like today we talked about some healing techniques. Now
24:39
let's put that all together. How do we move forward? That is going
24:42
to be, our last episode in this series. And if you're loving this
24:46
series, let me know. Remember, you can follow me on all social media platforms.
24:50
I also want to give this lifeline. This is not easy
24:53
work. You know, this could bring up some stuff that may be hard. And
24:57
again, I always challenge you to take a break from it if it feels like
25:00
it's too much, right? Come back to it, right, when you're ready.
25:04
That's the great thing about podcasting YouTube. It's always available, especially
25:08
podcasts, right? YouTube, like, they can strike my channel at any point,
25:12
you know? but the audio podcasting
25:15
platform is my platform. So I wanna give you a quick,
25:19
so 988 is a lifeline. You can call
25:22
or text or chat, have conversation as
25:26
confidential. You do not have to be suicidal to use
25:29
this hotline. You can be
25:33
having a hard time and just wanna text, right, and not feel like you have
25:36
someone. There's also 741-741.
25:40
That is, you can text home and you
25:44
can use it on WhatsApp and regular text. And
25:49
then you can find me, stwyt.com. If you're
25:52
looking for therapists, if you're in the Massachusetts area, we have
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telehealth and we have in-person and located in Stoughton, Mass.
25:59
We also have classes that are run by wellness practitioners.
26:04
You can find that online. We just added meditation
26:08
on Wednesdays at 5 30. That's a donation base. Um,
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it's a 30 minute session Uh, so i'll have the
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links to all of that and then you can follow me everywhere searching celeste
26:18
the therapist or stwyt.com again, you
26:22
can find me Uh by searching celeste therapist
26:25
instagram facebook youtube linkedin Tick-tock and
26:29
then you can find the business page stwy t.com. I
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hope this was helpful I hope it makes sense If anything I ever say speaks
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to you understand you have the power to make the change But guess what you have
26:40
to have faith and believe in yourself when you start believing in
26:44
yourself Yeah, nobody can ever take that away from you until