Latest / Stuck No More Voices / Turning Trauma into Triumph: Celeste Mergens on Resilience, Healing, and the Power of Your Story

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Turning Trauma into Triumph: Celeste Mergens on Resilience, Healing, and the Power of Your Story · Stuck No More Voices

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: It is so good to have you here.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It is the Kingdom Mentor podcast.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I always so appreciate that you take the time to listen, so we're all about finding your voice If you feel voiceless, and being able to find the transformation when you speak, and speaking to the person you once were.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I am so excited to bring you Celeste Mergens.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you something about her, though.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: She's a specialist in bridging difficult cultural divides and overcoming trauma herself.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: She is the founder of Days for Girls, a global award-winning organization that has reached three million women and girls in 45 countries.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: She's also a best-selling author on Amazon.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: So please help me.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Welcome, celeste.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Hey, celeste, good to have you.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I'm so happy to be with you.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Celeste, I got to tell you we were at the same mastermind and I was struggling because of my voice.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I just knew no one could hear me.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: The people that needed to hear me did hear me, but it was just a struggle.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: So I went out of the main auditorium I think it was and all of a sudden, celeste came walking by and she carries grace, and she carries something that's beyond herself.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: She probably doesn't even realize it.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I can't remember how it was, but I like hey.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: And then I found out about a book and then I said let's do an interview.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Guess who forgot to do, guess who missed up and turning the button.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: But this is even better.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being here so happy to join you.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: You're right, this is even better Turned out perfect, yes, and the fact you took so much time really blesses me, celeste.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I talk about being voiceless from trauma and, based on what I've read, you're no stranger to trauma.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Can you like just give us a journey of what led up to this amazing book?
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, you're right and I love being a representative of you can overcome it.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: My family endured a lot of things.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: We were occasionally homeless and lived in between places and there was struggle with mental illness for a parent and it was not a safe place to grow up.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a safe place to expect food, to expect clothing, it was difficult to be safe from being harmed in multiple ways, so just not a safe place.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: So how did you journey from that place to?
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: As you got older, what were some keys that helped you truly forget what lies beyond and reaching forward to what lies ahead?
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Any specific things you can think of?
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, 100%.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: So for me there have been so many of them hidden in the trauma itself, so let me share with you.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: One time an incident happened that I used to think is one of the worst things that ever happened to me, and then, only recently, seven years ago, six, seven years ago I realized, wow, that actually was a gift.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: So here's what happened.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I was about five years old.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: We were at a state park we would stop along the way between places and roadside or state park, and I was walking along a sidewalk and a dock walked into view and it had a sparkly color.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: That went straight up to a woman's hand who had a half eaten apple and it had been a while since I'd eaten and certainly since I'd had fresh fruit and she threw it into the dumpster right by where we were standing.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: I was trying to figure out if I could get into the dumpster, get the apple and still get back out when I realized she was staring at me and looking me up and down.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: I said where are your shoes, girl?
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: And I used to think of her as Cruella Deville.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Do you know this?
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, I do.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: They're wicked.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I think, over and over again.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: I would think of her and rehearse again and again or replay what she had said and because in that moment when she was saying, where are your shoes, girl?
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I could see it.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: It's like a mirror turned around and I can see that when she looked at me, she saw a little girl, dirty and unkempt, was too small for her and barefoot, and I wanted to say I had this, just this feeling Are you the little girl with no shoes, Are you the homeless girl or are you something more?
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: As the result of this feeling of you are not this thing?
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: You are not in this place, you are not this, and I wanted to say that to her.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: She had already turned to walk away, but that moment kept echoing and it really taught me even from we get to decide who we are.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: The walk in the sidewalk and the look she gave us does not get to decide.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: The circumstance we're in does not define us.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: It's what we decide.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: And the best part is we can reinterpret moments and decide to take the strength from them.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Not the derision, not the judgment, that part, what we use it for, what we think it means, how we think it determines us.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: That's our choice.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like an identity that you get to create your identity not by what you're doing or it's just really by who you are on the inside.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: And I can tell that you've definitely found a way to get to the other side.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: So I like what it says in one of your questions the power of saying yes.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: So what yeses did you say along the way to have such a dramatic homeless, to starting to become the woman that really God's made you?
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: I wish I could say it was one moment.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: I do, because there are many moments of struggles and many another trial and you go, feel like you'd go.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: The next wave hits you and you have to get up and go again and I have to say that for sure God's blessings were all long, even that feeling and that woman and that moment.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Who gets to say and see of age five, a little bit of you are not you're still much more.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: We all are, and it's also been moments where I had a really horrible trauma where, after protecting my sisters for my whole life, I learned that the latest stepfather had attacked them and I and this whole ensuing chain of events that left me not so sure any longer that my life was worth living, that I was worthy for anything, even God's love, because no one loved me consistently through my mind and heart and feeling.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: But and the gift of getting to meet my biological father and getting to be for a time to three whole weeks, just hold up in a room with people and relative, stranger, journaling, praying, reading scriptures, crying, journaling this on and on for three weeks, filling out all the things that happen and trying to reinterpret and understand them.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Why, why did your own parents make life so much harder for you?
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Why did they show you hatred instead of love?
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Why is it me Is it just processing and coming to the end of it with ahas that included that the state I was in would probably make them happy If they could see me.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: The irritation of my always rising back to I believe that we are blessed, I believe that we have a purpose.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: I know that together we can make a difference was irritating for them.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Sure, to stop her pleas and these moments when I was at the lowest would have made them happy and going uh-oh.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: And then realizing that my own parents were jealous of Mark the, realizing that even in this moment we can the lowest moments.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: It is up to us, the next step we will take, and feeling just that realization.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: I am not going to be what someone else expected of me.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: I am going to brush my hair get up, walk out of the room and I have never looked at it.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: That's so good, it's almost, I think.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: People want to stay where they are and you are rising up and I always think of it like the majesty of God offends them.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: The majesty of God on you is almost offensive because they'd rather stay bound, or this is blame it on something else, but at a young age you took responsibility for yourself.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Wow, that is a story for someone.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: And I had that's another hardship that held a gift.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: I was the oldest of four girls at the time.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: There were two more that were born later or came into our family later.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: We adopted one and we our mother was born into the family and that gave me the will to try to be strong for them.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: I have that gift right.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: You do.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: And I recognize a lot of gifts, even in the worst, that's.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: One of the gifts is to find gratitude even the hardest.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: The more gratitude you get, the more reasons to be grateful.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly, and I think you hit on such a key Psychologically, neuroscience way that gratitude is like it produces, like this expectancy mode, and I think there's nothing that can change your life quicker than every day.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Being grateful Cause something.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I think science shows this there's an adjustment in your brain, there's a structural change as you learn to be grateful.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: And you are a testament, though, to be in the midst of yuck and still saying, wait a minute, I'm going to take control, I'm going to take responsibility, I'm going to be grateful.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I think that's a message for someone listening right now.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's your misery that creates your destiny and sometimes it's just a matter of saying yes to what God wants you, yes to the possibilities.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Cause Celeste, I really believe when you say yes, the yes of God swoops down and meets it, and we know the yes of God is yes to name in to all his promises.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: So let's do this shift, obviously, from this well of healing and still going through trauma.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: God gave you a compassion for overseas and what you saw, so maybe that's fast forward, but I really want to talk more about your book.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: But so when was the deciding factor when you did say, hey, wait a minute, there's more here.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: What do you want me to do with my life?
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Maybe this did you feel like that would came to a point of that.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: So many of them, and here again, it was often in a moment of what felt like a closed door that the open door, for a huge shift happened.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: I was running an incredible writers conference six beautiful children and foster children and exchange students and having this incredible life, married to my best friend and then loving doing a writers conference too and then it was like you need to stop.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: I am one too.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: I was like, no, I love this.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: What do you mean?
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: I need to stop.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: And then everything started crumbling into contention and I don't do contention so it was like I moved on and I felt so grieved.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I was praying why can you fix it?
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Why are you doing this?
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: And then I got to go to Kenya because I wasn't doing the conference anymore and, with a friend, got to help her amazing school, the Clay International School, in Project Education and, while there, helped do sustainable solutions, and my experiences of poverty made me realize we needed things we could count on, not a handout but a way to manage better.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: And so this was passionate for me and I thought, oh, then I get introduced to an orphanage.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: This is my mission.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited to do this.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't the orphanage.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: It was a moment when I learned that they were sitting on pieces of cardboard for days.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: During their periods they had nothing.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: And this question.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: A question came out by asking a prayer.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: When I learned answering an answer to prayer.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: When I learned girls and the children were without food for days during a catastrophe.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Having been someone that experienced hunger, having been someone that knows what it's like to be and not being able to sleep because it wakes you up, I knew that that had to change.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: What I didn't know was that there was something else they were facing, which was sitting in their rooms for days without access to the classroom, without access to being able to care for themselves during their periods.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: I literally went.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: I had no idea.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: I thought.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: I thought to answer we get there.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Amazing people contributed so that we could make sure food was there, other things in disposable pads, but what did they do?
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: The next month, phenomenal volunteers created the first days for girls, kids.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: We got there three weeks later with them.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: The girls danced with them, cheered with them, and then the first girls came to the door and said thank you so much, because we had to let them use us if we wanted to leave the room and go to class.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, bless them.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: I was praying.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: That didn't mean what I feared.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: It meant.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: And it turned out they were being exploited in exchange for a single disposable pad.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: And that was the moment.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Days for.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Girls was born.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, woo, that's a story and it continues.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Daysforgirlsorg.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Please go there and support this.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: But out of this, from the Writers' Conference to Kenya now your back, god is obviously putting something on you to write a book that is rising to.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: It just was released October 3rd.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Is that correct?
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, correct, wow.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: So tell us about.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I think this is interesting because I think a way your voice is expressed is in a book or a song.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: What was that like?
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Reliving some things but yet laying it out in a book where someone can really get that?
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, this is what's going on.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: I have to tell you.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: I wanted to tell the story of the girls.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: I wanted to tell the story of the volunteers and the people rallying all over the planet and the incredible impact, because it is proof that when we come together over what we would love to have happen instead of what we hate, that a miracle can happen, that amazing things and shifts can occur.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: And I needed and wanted that story to come out.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: So I would write and write.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: What I did not want to share was my part in the story.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: And over and over again it felt like I was not important in this amazing adventure.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: But what happened again and again was awareness that if I didn't tell my part of the story, it wouldn't be understood.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Where the words of this awareness that we all matter, that we could trust everyone to show up in their way, that we wouldn't talk about the shame, the blame or the poor means, but rather the strength, the opportunity and the gifts.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: And why is that?
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: And it's because of the gifts that I got from very difficult trials and the breadcrumbs of how I grew beyond them and launched from them and been so blessed.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: So telling that whole story the first, the three days before the book came out I honestly had that song Ground Control to Major Tom keep going through my head, not because of the lunch but because I felt like I was stepping into space with a tiny tether to the oxygen of the people I love and my friends and family.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Wow To the whole world and I felt so vulnerable and I wished I could pull it back.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: But I also, for the girls, was willing to go hear world and of course it was too late to pull it back and I'm so grateful because I've been getting messages from all over the world saying how much this book is changing their lives and I've been able to.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: It became number one Amazon New Relics by the second day, number one Amazon New Release Audio by the fifth and and it's a miracle.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: But look how you hear it.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: But do you do it?
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: How often?
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: At least we hear it.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: You got to tell your story.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: You got to be seen, but part of being seen is just being telling your stories where you are, what you're at, and I appreciate that because, as I heal, I lost my husband in June of 2022, but it was not a pretty.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a terrible death.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: How he died he had pancreatic cancer but he got burned before that.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: But it was 26 years of a lot of control, a lot of a mind thing that I didn't realize I was being controlled.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: So you have to.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: This is what I'm bringing this.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: I know that's a story to be told for women who are caught in those relationships, but I can't speak until I speak from my scars and you obviously have been healing.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: But then, when it gets to the point of, okay, I got to be real, I got to be authentic, I got to be, I got to tell my story.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I see you.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I know why that book so powerful, because sometimes it's the stories that draw us in to what we really wanted.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you a story Now.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Let me hit you with what's going on here, and I'm so thankful that you did that, because I know anytime you share your story, it has to come from the healed place.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: If it comes from the wound, then it's spilly and messy and no one really gets the impact.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: So I guess I'll just ask the question.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: My cat wants to join us.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Can you tell us, I think, like what are words, like a couple of clues, that helped you in the healing process?
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Ooh, is that too vague or too hard?
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: There's so many right, I would say the number one, the first one that clicked for me that I could say as a tip was recognizing that track of soundtrack, that we have those little recordings that loop through our head that are criticizing, demeaning to us, that are way meaner than anyone would ever be to us, those things that can loop in our head, starting to recognize and feel them when they happen.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: So before I would go now, it's less ignore that, move on.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: And then I started doing instead paying attention to it.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: So, if you're walking along and all of a sudden you feel upset and you weren't upset a few minutes ago, what is it that just happened?
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: And sometimes I heard something, smelt something, saw something and it triggered this little.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: You can't do that.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Who do you think you are?
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: You're stupid, all these things you would never allow someone to say and being able to go wait, where did that come from?
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, here's what I want to acknowledge.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: I am actually blessed.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Things are going right now.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: I'm right here right now and I'm strong and intelligent and I could trust that the next step will be clear.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: That's the truth for me, and the prayers of gratitude and things and awareness.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: I'm feeling really feeling blank here and I trust that I'll find a way, but I need you to know that I don't feel strong right now.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I'm accepting whatever I need so that I can be all that I need to be in this world.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: I am accepting that future and that was a game changer for me.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, what I hear is a woman who's that my cat is attracted to your voice or something.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: But I hear something really powerful.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: You have compassion on yourself.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: You're allowing yourself to feel, but at the same time, your gratitude is what helps rewire some of what you just said.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Someone needs to rewind what she just said right there because she just Celeste, just gave you a neuroscience way to rewire your brain, because when you have trauma, it is stored in your body.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: So there is a process to get the to reconceptualize it.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: It's like it's there, but you can reconceptualize it.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Rethink, wait a minute, I haven't had another look at this.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: What's really stuck in me?
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna relook it.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna come in with gratitude, because you know what I think gratitude does.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I think it's a springboard for what's called the expectancy mode.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: The expectancy mode, from gratefulness, expects things to happen even though there's no evidence.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: And you know what that does.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: It releases a transmitter called dopamine, which keeps you from depression.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: I get so excited when you start mentioning gratitude, so if anyone's listening, I go.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: You don't know my situations.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: No, I don't, but I've been in the midst of trauma.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Celeste has given you a story of.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Look at her.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: She's a best selling author on Amazon.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Did that just happen?
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: No, she took care of herself.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I love how you said, when you're like walking along and you think of something hit you, I always, if something hits me, I'm like, okay, I go back.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Did I read an email?
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Or did I smell something?
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Did I see a picture?
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, I saw it.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Now let me bring it into the present.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Not real good, but let me look at it, examine it, and then let me go ahead and put it in the present.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: For me I'll say, be real with it, but then, for me, give it back to God.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: He's the one who's healing you, so give it back to God.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so the excitement of writing your story and now having a book.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: I just so proud of you, I'm so excited for that, right.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, do you have one?
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: It was really cool.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: We were at this conference and I really loved how they honored her.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: She was one of 10 that were on the stage.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Please go get that book, yay the power of faith, and it's a story of resilience, dignity and a fight for women's equity.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: And do you share?
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: another technique that I've used for healing trauma.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, thank you.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, so here it is.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: I call it mind the gap.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: It's acknowledging that the moment between something happening to us in our response is really small, and more than 95% of the time I believe the science is 98, more than 98% of the time it is our automatic first responder, the amygdala, making quick interpretations from the subconscious so that we don't have to be always grinding on every thought.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: We can save our thoughts for important decisions, right?
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: However, we get to acknowledge that default is a negative.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: It's trying to keep you safe, thank goodness.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: So every decision it makes.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Is that safe, is that?
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: So it defaults to negative.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: So here's the result when you and I experience something, it's going to go that way, and sometimes it's small things, like the conference we were at.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: A woman who's a friend walked up and said I'm reading your book, I'm halfway through it, and I went oh, thank you.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: And then she didn't say anything else.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: She smiled and she walked off.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: And the thing that you think if you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh no, she didn't like it.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: But in that moment I could get drugged down the rabbit hole of.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, this is so sad she didn't like it.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: I'm so embarrassed.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: I wonder what she didn't like, what?
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: you instead, I held that moment open and brought three things Curiosity for more details, gratitude and the wisdom of now.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: So here's what I did.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: I held it open and I'm like I'm really grateful.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: She got the book.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: She probably had something she had to go to, she's in a busy place and she's got a lot of responsibilities and it's none of my business what people think.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: That's probably a great book the Four Agreements which is a great healer and changemaker too.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: So now I get to choose.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: I'm going to choose to be curious, grateful and let it go.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to let it go and close it up.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: So, instead of spending the next six hours going, oh man, I spent the next six hours enjoying the moments that came.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: And then she walked up.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: This is Amber.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: She walked up and she said oh Mary, this is the woman I was telling you about, whose book I've been reading.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: I'm loving it.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: It's such a good book.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Six hours Six hours I could have been like.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: I'm thoroughly running.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: How do we do?
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: this.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: So here's where it's really important if you're a survivor of trauma, besides allowing you to save the energy you could lose, because, truthfully, even if they did mean that, it's not helpful to our relationship or to anything about our momentum to get caught in the what if, what ifs, right.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: So if you've been through a trauma, this is especially important because that moment between something happening to you and your determination was hijacked away by the trauma of the moment, and you're going to see the moment from one place, a place of warning, of defense, of danger, of throbbing energy.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Right, if it's dead, you can open that moment back up and do the same.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Look for details, find a thing to be grateful for that's not always easy and bring the wisdom of now.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: So in the case of.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: I have a great example, but for the sake of time, I'll go to a case that was very traumatic for me.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Now, in that moment, I couldn't open it up and pretend that it wasn't horrible, because it was.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: But what I can do is look for more details.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: I can recognize the light coming in the window, the dirt, the things happening, who's there, the smells, because much, and allow yourself to feel for just a moment because those feelings of panic are still with us.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: But if you embrace it for just a moment because we're going to shift it, so for just want to take a deep breath right now, when you're feeling that.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and then go with.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: What can I be grateful for?
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Here's when I can bring to that moment.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: I am so grateful you survived.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: I'm so proud of you, little one, for being able to rise from that moment and keep going.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: I am so grateful for the wisdom you are gathering you don't even know you will need about empathy of others going through these things, and I am so grateful that you will bring many gifts, will help you change millions of lives.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: I just need you to know that I see you, you are not alone.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: God sees you.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: I see you and I'm so proud of you and I love you so much.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Hang on, because I am here and this is coming, and then you close it, and then you, just because you get to take back your whatever you needed in that moment, because it's just as true that you are here, your witness, you are witness, you have seen it from the strength of now, so beautiful.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: I think what you show me is, if you look at fear is trying to take care of you.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: It's another way of looking at fear.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: It just is trying to take care of you.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: And my friend who took me through 10 weeks of neuropsychial training she echoes in my ear it's not going to kill you, t, or what's the best thing that could happen.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: So it's not going to.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: So if I have to do something, a little nerve wracking, or it's not going to kill me, or what's the best thing that can happen.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Or sometimes I think of this okay, I'm experiencing all this, but what would I say to a friend who's experiencing it and then let that hit you because we're so easy to be all.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: But that's exactly what you did.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: You opened yourself up, you felt you had great gratitude, you had compassion on yourself.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: God needs to rewind that section over, because that was a recipe to be able to go from triumph and tragedy up into, from tragedy to triumph in your mind.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: So you're talking a lot of things.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: God gives us this mind for a reason and that we can renew it, we can reconstruct it by being grateful.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: That is exciting.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate that because good examples and definitely helps me as I continue to go through trauma.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: But I'm at a place.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you ever get to this place, which you may be now.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: It's like I wake up in the morning and I'm so excited.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: What do I get to, who do I get to be and what do I get to do?
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Because I had a lot of constraint, a lot of control, wasn't able to really walk in my dreams without control.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: So there's always a good side, there's always a way to.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Even though my husband was gone, I still had to deal with me.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I still had to deal with the trauma, and Sometimes trauma shows up in depression.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I it showed up in me with watery eyes and I had such lethargy.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I was substituting at the time and I was like I'm in third grade, I can't afford to fall asleep on these kids.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: But that's how trauma hit me until I was able to pull it out.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: And I think the number one thing which you're sharing is you kind of have compassion on yourself.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Don't be so hard on yourself.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Friends, who's listening?
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Listen to Celeste.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Well, so as you go from day to day, now for days for girls org, what's the guiding light?
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Is it mainly just to continue to get word out about these girls.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: You, it said you're, you've gone through how many passports, so you definitely have been back and forth, you definitely walk the talk, so to speak, but what's on the horizon for you far?
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's phenomenal.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I think that's a testimony.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: That's a testimony.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Hmm, You're living.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Proof now.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: You're not waiting to live, you are living now.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: I think there's something to be said for that, because so often we can sit back and think, oh, not me, I can't do that.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: And but you're going forward from the Tragedies of the trauma.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: And, girl, you are fine, you're going forward.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: I love that, thank you.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: It's such a miracle.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Every day is a new kind of miracle and right now I, about a year and a half ago, transition from being global CEO to focusing on founder and getting this book finished and out there and really my focus, and in addition to awareness about the incredible impact that I mean what they need every day is and is for people to recognize that you can be unstoppable.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Nothing that's nothing is too much to overcome, and we are all needed to be the change we need to see in the world, and it is our weaknesses that make us able to have empathy, able to see needs others may not even Recognize, and able to show up in ways that are authentic and humble enough to listen and the pieces that the world needs, like it is the very reasons we say we do not qualify, the reason we feel we are Unworthy, the reasons we feel like we do not deserve feeling like here are the very reasons we must step up.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, my shine must love and be grateful for your life, because what you appreciate, what you Focus on, comes into focus.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: So what if we all focused on the beauty, on Joy, on the things we'd love to see, instead of the things we fear and the things that limit and the things we hate?
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Those things are creating more of the things we wish would change if we can lean in with faith, with, with love and trust not only God but ourselves.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: We sometimes believe God, or we believe in God, but we do not believe God.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: That all things are possible, amen are when we trust, show up and recognize that it is our strings and our weaknesses yeah, you, uniquely the person that needs to show up.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: And often think that the answers are inside of you.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: You just got to be brave to start finding the answers.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: They're inside of you.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: That they're there Wow, this has been so great.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: So how can people help?
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Right now, obviously, buy your book on Amazon or local bookstore, okay, and I'm days for girls.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: You can contribute.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: You can Lou of gifts this Christmas and give a girl back.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: Days is just $13 for kit and they last for yeah and it Bidin the books.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Also benefits days for girls and, honestly, if you're overcoming trauma, this is a guy for how that can happen and the power of days.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Is that's the time?
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm definitely gonna buy maybe a few copies for my kids, and so if they go to days for girls org, is that where they can donate?
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: and volunteer.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: You can find how to volunteer, how to Follow me on social medias.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how can I get in touch with you?
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Instagram, facebook, what's best?
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Instagram, facebook, linkedin.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's Celeste Merchant, so follow our teller how much you love her DM, or I'm sure she'll be a friendly and Absolutely.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: So, Wow, this has been so enriching.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: When I walked out of that conference room frustrated because I didn't think anyone could hear me, they was divine.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: I ran into you.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: It's just like there is something about you you carry well, carry well, healing from trauma, and I think those are my favorite people.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: I think, and I think a lot of people are attracted to that, because it's just a gift of Taking responsibility of yourself and still loving and being grateful.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: So this is the team, the mentor podcast.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: I sure hope you share this podcast.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Write a review.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: It helps us spread the message more.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: And if you want to get in touch with Celeste, please do reach out to our days for girls Dot org and then go the power of days, go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble and get that book.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I think it'll change your life.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to after I get off to go to Amazon and get it myself.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: We'll have to talk afterwards after.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: I will.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: We could have a see.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: I schedule another interview for afterwards, so let's thank you so much and thank you.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: This is Teresa for the Kingdom Mentor podcast.