November 26, 2024 • 24 mins
Episode Description:
In this episode, we dive into the concept of a mental health toolkit and why it's crucial for everyone to have one. Our host discusses the importance of having a variety of resources and practices that can be utilized not only during tough times but also as part of a regular self-care routine. Drawing an analogy to taking daily insulin for diabetes, the episode emphasizes the need for consistent mental health practices to move from mere survival to a state of true living, filled with peace and joy. You'll learn what a mental health toolkit is, why it's essential, and how to create one that works for you.
Key Points:
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Understanding what a mental health toolkit is.
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The importance of regular mental health practices.
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Moving from survival mode to a state of peaceful living.
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Tools and resources to include in your mental health toolkit.
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The analogy of a mental health toolkit to a first aid kit.
Takeaways:
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Develop a personal mental health toolkit.
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Utilize the toolkit regularly, not just in times of crisis.
-
Incorporate practices that foster peace and joy into daily life.
Tune in to learn how to build and maintain your own mental health toolkit!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, y'all. So today we are talking about building
a mental health toolkit. If you don't know what
that is, you're going to learn today. This is something that's so important for
everyone to understand. One thing about me is I
feel like I have a plethora of things that I can go to when I'm struggling.
And I don't just go to those things when I'm struggling. I also work
(00:22):
on those things on a regular basis. I look at it as like my medicine for
living life. So I always give this example. I'll say like, if
you were struggling with diabetes and you had
to take insulin, like you're going to take it every day because if you don't take it,
you know, your blood sugars is going to be off and it's hard to survive
without your insulin. I think about most of us are
(00:45):
living in survival mode, and we're trying to move into more
of a living space where we're allowing peace, where we're
allowing joy into our lives. But it's hard to do that if
you don't have the tools to deal with life, especially because
life happens, right? You could be minding your business and
so much is going on, and then what do I do? And so many
(01:05):
of us have either frozen or we've learned
how to self-medicate in ways that doesn't
help us and it keeps us stuck. And so my goal is to help you kind
of learn these things that you can do. And so when
you think of a mental health toolkit, I want you to think of
it as something that is
(01:26):
there kind of like a first aid. I just thought about that. A first aid
kit, right? Where it has the Band-Aids, the gauze, all these different things,
right? that's there, I want you to have that.
But also looking at it as like, this is something I'm going to go to
on a regular basis. So we're going to go through the different
things that I want you to think about having in your toolkit. And I want you
(01:48):
to think about ways that you can work on implementing
this like now, today, right? Because my goal is to help shift the way you
think. Use what you can, start where you can. That
is so important. So self-care practices are
so important, like things like exercise, what
you're eating, right? So these are certain things that
(02:10):
needs to be in your toolkit, like what am I doing with my physical
body? How am I sleeping, right? What am I
eating? And am I moving my body? So
when you think about those kind of physical aspects of your
day-to-day, make sure that's in your toolkit on
things that you can do. When I work with people and I talk about moving their body, And
(02:31):
one thing that they realize is like, they don't always feel
like doing it, but when they do it, they feel good. And so
one of the things I tell them is that, put it in your schedule. And
those moments, because I have those moments too, where you don't feel
like doing it, I want you to think about what's going to happen when you get it done.
I think about snoozing the alarm. And
(02:54):
I've been guilty of snoozing the alarm, but
I also, more likely than not, I get up
and not snooze because I recognize if I snooze this alarm, if
I don't start first thing in the morning because I have such a packed day, what's
going to happen is I'm going to run out of time. I'm going to be working late. I'm going to
be anxious or overwhelmed. And I don't like the way
(03:14):
anxiety feels. I recognize it. I see how it shows up in my body.
So for me, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure
that I'm giving myself what we need. So
when you think about that toolkit, ask yourself what
kind of self-care practices are in there and
any hobbies. What am I doing for myself to maintain?
(03:38):
The next thing I want you to think about is mindfulness and relaxation techniques.
This is another important thing that should be in your toolkit. One
thing that we all have access to is breathing. And
one of the things that I recognize I've gotten so in tune with
is my breath. And I can recognize if I'm feeling like I'm running out
of breath or You see how I just did that? If I'm feeling anxious,
(04:02):
I realize I'm not breathing regular. And
when people come on the screen, when I start working with
people for the day, and they'll come in with that energy, and
I'll say, hold on, let's just take a break. Because I'm so mindful and I'm in tune
to it, I can recognize when it's not happening for people. And
I'll just say, you know what? Let's just take a deep breath. And I take
a deep breath. And they're like, OK. That's
(04:25):
something that we have access to that we're not utilizing. So
really thinking about, am I utilizing
my breath, especially when you're struggling? What can I do
to help myself in those moments? One of the things you
can do if you're watching this, I have my hand up. Put your hand over your heart. I'm
(04:46):
just taking a deep breath, something. Even just now, I just did it intentionally,
and it felt so good. It just allows my body to
calm down. Sometimes we're so used to being in high alert
that we're just going, going, going. And this is
something I would recommend you try to work on doing. On
YouTube, there are these, you can type in a breathing
(05:08):
circle, and you could type in two-minute breathing circle. Literally,
the circle will breathe in, and then it goes
and expands, breathe out, right? And you could just follow that,
right? And I don't want, you know, because some people may be like, oh, it's
breathing. No, it's not. It's like we're breathing because we need to breathe
to be here. But are we breathing intentionally? Is
(05:29):
our breathing labored? So many times we
are so used to living on high alert that we don't even recognize what's
happening. We don't recognize that our shoulders are up all the time. Another
thing you can do on YouTube, they have these five-minute body scans
where it literally will go through your entire body and says, all right,
take a seat. And it'll say, pay attention to
(05:51):
where your jaw is. Is your jaw clenched tight?
And you'll be surprised that your jaws clench tight. Even now, as
you're listening to this, pay attention. Are your hands folded
up? Is your shoulders high up? These are like small
things, and I don't want to, when I say small, these are little steps we
(06:11):
can take, but they're significant, right? I want you to, when I say
small steps, every step matters that we're taking to
get to where we need to be, right? And so if you can
work on creating some mindfulness practices,
even like a shower meditation, Taking time
in the shower to take a deep breath, smell the soap, feel the
(06:32):
water on you, right? Pay attention to what
you have going on for the day. What are you smelling? What are
you seeing? Use your five senses and get engaged. I
love the idea of a shower meditation because that's something
that you're doing on a regular basis. So I'm not asking you to create more
time because I know for some people, they don't have a
(06:52):
lot of flexibility in their schedule. And I don't want you to look
at these things that I'm asking you to do as one more thing you
have to add to your plate. I want to think about ways you can implement
it to things that you're already doing. So in your toolkit, one,
we said self-care practices. And then we said our
mindfulness. What are we doing for relaxation? Are
(07:14):
we making time to just sit down and breathe? Are we
making time, as we're sitting down, just maybe have a cup of
tea? hot chocolate, listen to something
that is very relaxing. I can't tell you what it
is. And remember, everybody's toolkit is going to look different.
There are certain people I like listening to that might bother you. You
(07:35):
might not like the way their voice sounds. So as you're
thinking about this toolkit, think about what's going to work for
me, because we're all different. And the things that work for one person
may not work for another. The next thing I want you to think about in
the toolkit are your coping strategies. What do you use when
you're coping? And so this is
(07:56):
like journaling. Do I listen to music? Do
I get to talk to a friend? Because sometimes
some of the coping mechanisms we're using are not healthy.
into engaging in relationships that, like, maybe in the moment it's
comforting, but we recognize, like, the after effect won't
be the best for us. Especially in the wintertime, you really got
(08:17):
to be mindful on how easy it is to get caught up in some crappy
relationships that may be causing you more harm than good.
Am I, like addiction, like marijuana and
alcohol are legal. Well, marijuana in certain states are
more legal than other states, but it's not
about the marijuana or alcohol, but the way you're utilizing it,
(08:39):
right? When I'm having a bad day, am I always going to the liquor
store and getting a bottle? Am I always lighting
up? When I light up, it relaxes me,
but I find myself feeling stuck. For some people,
it gives them what they need and then they're good. Pay
attention to the coping mechanisms that you've been using now. I
(09:02):
want you to think about when you're stressed, what do
I do when I'm stressed right now? If it's
working for you and it's not causing you any harm, I love
that for you. If it's maybe working
for you in the moment and it's causing harm after, I really want you to
think about interrupting that cycle. And for some people going
(09:23):
cold turkey is very hard, but I want you to think about instead
of, let's just say like my go-to is wine. I have wine.
Cause some people don't look at wine as a big deal because it's like, it's wine. It's
not like they'll say like, it's not like a hard liquor.
But as you're thinking about, let's say I'm getting wine every day
after work. And I used to do that at one point when I
(09:45):
worked in a high pressure place where I'm hearing all these stories. And
this is before I understood how energy impacts
me. I didn't understand the heaviness that
was happening and I was feeling was from all of the things I was listening
to. And so I would have wine, but because I
worked in addictions and I'm a
(10:08):
type of person, I pay attention to the way things work. I
grew up in the hood and I seen like, yeah, some people had
nice clothes and nice cars, but I also seen they were getting locked up
or they were dying. They was getting killed. There
was so many things that I paid attention to. And
I said, It looks pretty and good, but
(10:29):
I don't want it to end that way. And
so the wine was fine in the moment, nothing
came of it, but I wanted to interrupt that cycle. And
I said, you know what? Let me go for a walk. I
interrupted that cycle. So what I want you to think about doing Interrupting
that cycle with doing something that you enjoy that's
(10:50):
in your toolkit, like, do I want to color? Do I want to go for a
walk, get some of this energy out? Do I want to go for a run? Do I
want to listen to something? Do I want to take a hot shower? Right? Like,
think about some of these things that you can do to
help, to help you in
those moments where you find yourself struggling. Add this
(11:10):
to your toolkit. The next thing in your toolkit I
want you to think about is what are my supports, right? And
this can be tricky for some people because some people may not have the
supports like other people have. And
what I mean by that, someone that you can talk to, like who's your go-to
person? Pay attention. You may say, like, yo, I
(11:32):
got go-to people. But are those go-to people helpful? Because
sometimes people are only able to give you what they understand
or what makes sense for them. And so let's just
say that you're struggling with trying to work on
being an entrepreneur. Right? And you're going to
somebody that works a nine to five and has no desire to
(11:53):
be an entrepreneur. Like it's not even in the cards for them, which is fine. Like
it's not the road everyone wants to go down. You're talking to
them about it and they're like, man, I don't know. That don't make no sense. Like
if it feels more discouraging, maybe they're not the
best people to talk to about it. Right? And that's okay. It
doesn't make them bad people, but they're not people that you can go to for
(12:14):
this. Maybe if there's something else that you can go to
them for, that's great. But pay attention to who you're talking to
and how you're being affected by it. Sometimes we're so used to having certain
people in our lives and going to them for everything that we don't realize it's
a hindrance to us. And again, it's not about them being
bad people, but they don't have the skills or
(12:34):
the mindset that you need to take you to the next level
that you're trying to get to in life with whatever that is. So
whether it's friends, family, it could be a therapist, it could be somebody from your
your church or wherever your spiritual practices is,
right? Sometimes it could be a coworker, right? There's
people in our lives that are good people that
(12:55):
we may have a reciprocal relationship with that we don't
realize, like, oh yeah, that's right, I can't talk to them. I've spoken to
people over the years and they'll talk about these different people in their lives, aunts,
like, and I'll be like, oh, well, why didn't you talk to so-and-so? They were like, dang, I
didn't even think about that. You know, and so I
want you to have this somewhere. Like, you know what, I do have some supports because
(13:16):
when you're struggling, I promise you, your mind will play tricks on
you and you will forget to dig into that toolkit. But if you have
it somewhere visibly available to you, you can go to
it. Right. The next thing in your toolkit, I want you to
think about resources and tools. So whether it's
Celeste's Therapist podcast is a resource, because
what I do is I help you shift the way you think. And I
(13:39):
have over 400 episodes. Some people say, when
they're struggling, they'll just pop on an episode. They'll listen to, I
have a ton of interviews that I've done over the years, a ton of solo
episodes. So podcasts are a great resource. Books
are a great resource. I've learned so
much about mental wellness, about the body, about
(14:00):
being still from books, not from school, but
just from my own reading for pleasure. They
have so many self-help books. That's why I say it's not the lack of
information available that's keeping us stuck. It's like, how do we apply it
to our life in real time? Because sometimes it can feel like
a lot. It could feel like, is this really possible to happen? So
(14:21):
really being mindful. So books, we're talking about podcasts, maybe
some videos that you can watch, some information that
can help you really think about things in a different way.
But Those are things that I listen to on a regular basis.
I'm always listening to somebody that's motivational, listening
to podcasts. I'm always reading, right? I'm allowing
(14:44):
my mind to expand because if I don't do that and
if I just allow social media, the news, like the
negativity that happens in this world today, if I allow
that to be the only information that my mind is absorbing,
Life gets really challenging and hard because that's the only thing
my mind has to look forward to. But if I'm constantly feeding
(15:07):
myself new information, my mind has
a different way of thinking and looking at things. And I don't think
we realize the conversations we have, the things that we're listening to, like
how they affect us really deeply. So
we got the resources, so let's just start from the top, right? So
we are talking about what we can do to put in our toolkit. We
(15:28):
got our self-care practices, that's one. We got mindfulness,
like what are we doing to stay mindful and
present and how are we using that to Help us with relaxation. We
got our coping strategies, like what are we using to cope when
we're struggling? And then in our other part of our
toolkit, we have our support systems. Who are our go-to people
(15:50):
that we can talk to when we're having a hard time? And then we
got some resources and tools like books. We talk
about podcasts, maybe YouTube episodes, things like
that. And so goal setting, right? I want
you to think about as you're setting these goals to work on
these things, please be realistic. If you're not getting
(16:10):
out of your house and you say, you know what? I'm going to start going
for a walk seven days a week. Be realistic with yourself. That's a
lot. Because if you say seven days a week and you get
out one or two days, you're going to feel discouraged. You're going to be like, oh, can I really do
this? I'm starting off with one or two days. Like, it's okay.
And I think, you know, I know people really want to change,
(16:31):
but sometimes we set our expectations so high that we don't give our
brain the confidence that we can do it. When people struggle with
consistency, I'll tell them, let's just start with making
up our bed. And somebody who makes up their bed every day may be like,
oh, that's not a big deal. It's a huge deal. Because if you're not already making
up your bed every day and you start making up your bed, guess what? Your mind
(16:52):
is like, oh, shoot. I can't be consistent. I've been doing this work for
a long time. I see it happen all the time, where people are finding
themselves feeling hopeful and confident from
the little things that they are trying to do to help build themselves
up. So I really want you to think, as you're on this journey of
trying to work on taking care of yourself and
(17:12):
building this toolkit, don't look at things that you're
doing as slow. It's not a big deal. Big up yourself. uh,
celebrate yourself, celebrate those goals of
how you're making things work, because it's so important. And
if you don't celebrate yourself, the one voice that really
matters because you're with yourself 24 seven Celeste, the therapist podcast
(17:36):
is not in your ear 24 seven, but you are, if you can
make that voice count, I promise you, it would be
so, so good for your mental health. Right? So
pay attention to that. As we're closing, right,
we just talked about the different things that you should have in your toolkit.
(17:57):
I want you to think about where am I going to place this,
right, whether it's digital, right, like something you create,
there's some creative people out here, where you put it together and
you're looking at it every day, whether it's physical, right, you're writing
it out. You're putting it on your mirror. It's a screensaver on
your phone. It cannot be something that's going to collect dust. You
(18:18):
need to have touch points. When I say touch points, where
you have access to it on a regular basis. In
my office, if you are watching,
I have motivational quotes on my wall. It's from my guided
journal, 365 Days of Intentional Living. I'm
(18:39):
big on quotes, I'm big on affirming and for people to
see things a certain way because guess what? Their mind is absorbing it.
And so you can listen to this podcast and be like, oh my gosh, that's so good.
I want to do that, right? You can listen to it and say that, but
then like, unfortunately the world is not cheering you on
to be healthy and they want you to buy something. They want you
(18:59):
to feel insecure. They're not, they don't want you to do the
things that where you're empowered. Cause if you're so empowered, you
don't have to spend money. And so you have to
be intentional about the process of building out your toolkit and
making sure that you're giving yourself what you need, right?
That's so important. So I really want you to think about that. As
(19:20):
we close, I really want you to be patient and
flexible with yourself. Have grace with yourself as you're trying this
out. Don't let this be the last time you're thinking about your mental
health toolkit. I want you to really embrace this
idea. And if you want to
share, I would love to hear from you and hear what
(19:41):
you are doing to build your mental health toolkit. I'm actually
having a vision brunch party at the end of the year. So if
you are in the Massachusetts area and want to come
where the beginning part, I'll talk about the different areas of our lives and
how you can think about working on creating goals in those areas
in a very intentional way. Um, if you want to come, if
(20:02):
you go to stw yt.com slash events,
you'll find the event there. I'm so excited about it. I want to
make it a, now that I have my own space, I want to make it a quarterly
thing. every three months where we're checking in because I
got this space around the end of the year. So it just so happens that it's
the end of the year. So I don't think that we should just be looking at our
(20:24):
goals around December going into January. I
do think we need to be touching it on a regular basis. So if
that's something you're interested in, definitely, I would love to have you here. I
want you to know that you have power to create change, but
you have to have faith to believe in yourself, right? So if you have faith and
(20:44):
you start believing in yourself, I always tell people, no one can take that away
from you. So if you want to learn more about me, you
can go to celestintherapist.com. If you want to learn more about
my wellness center, you can go to stwyt.com, and
that stands for shifting the way you think, .com. We're located
in Stoughton, Mass. Um, and if you want to have a
(21:04):
wellness prevent, we have space for that. So I'm really excited
for the opportunities and the things that are going to be coming up. It's
very nerve wracking. Like I feel nervous about it, but I also
feel so excited. And if you don't know that nervous and excitement feeling,
it can feel the same. So I'm definitely like reframing it in my mind to
help me settle down. So thank you so much for listening
All right, y'all. So today we are talking about building
a mental health toolkit. If you don't know what
that is, you're going to learn today. This is something that's so important for
everyone to understand. One thing about me is I
feel like I have a plethora of things that I can go to when I'm struggling.
And I don't just go to those things when I'm struggling. I also work
(00:22):
on those things on a regular basis. I look at it as like my medicine for
living life. So I always give this example. I'll say like, if
you were struggling with diabetes and you had
to take insulin, like you're going to take it every day because if you don't take it,
you know, your blood sugars is going to be off and it's hard to survive
without your insulin. I think about most of us are
(00:45):
living in survival mode, and we're trying to move into more
of a living space where we're allowing peace, where we're
allowing joy into our lives. But it's hard to do that if
you don't have the tools to deal with life, especially because
life happens, right? You could be minding your business and
so much is going on, and then what do I do? And so many
(01:05):
of us have either frozen or we've learned
how to self-medicate in ways that doesn't
help us and it keeps us stuck. And so my goal is to help you kind
of learn these things that you can do. And so when
you think of a mental health toolkit, I want you to think of
it as something that is
(01:26):
there kind of like a first aid. I just thought about that. A first aid
kit, right? Where it has the Band-Aids, the gauze, all these different things,
right? that's there, I want you to have that.
But also looking at it as like, this is something I'm going to go to
on a regular basis. So we're going to go through the different
things that I want you to think about having in your toolkit. And I want you
(01:48):
to think about ways that you can work on implementing
this like now, today, right? Because my goal is to help shift the way you
think. Use what you can, start where you can. That
is so important. So self-care practices are
so important, like things like exercise, what
you're eating, right? So these are certain things that
(02:10):
needs to be in your toolkit, like what am I doing with my physical
body? How am I sleeping, right? What am I
eating? And am I moving my body? So
when you think about those kind of physical aspects of your
day-to-day, make sure that's in your toolkit on
things that you can do. When I work with people and I talk about moving their body, And
(02:31):
one thing that they realize is like, they don't always feel
like doing it, but when they do it, they feel good. And so
one of the things I tell them is that, put it in your schedule. And
those moments, because I have those moments too, where you don't feel
like doing it, I want you to think about what's going to happen when you get it done.
I think about snoozing the alarm. And
(02:54):
I've been guilty of snoozing the alarm, but
I also, more likely than not, I get up
and not snooze because I recognize if I snooze this alarm, if
I don't start first thing in the morning because I have such a packed day, what's
going to happen is I'm going to run out of time. I'm going to be working late. I'm going to
be anxious or overwhelmed. And I don't like the way
(03:14):
anxiety feels. I recognize it. I see how it shows up in my body.
So for me, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure
that I'm giving myself what we need. So
when you think about that toolkit, ask yourself what
kind of self-care practices are in there and
any hobbies. What am I doing for myself to maintain?
(03:38):
The next thing I want you to think about is mindfulness and relaxation techniques.
This is another important thing that should be in your toolkit. One
thing that we all have access to is breathing. And
one of the things that I recognize I've gotten so in tune with
is my breath. And I can recognize if I'm feeling like I'm running out
of breath or You see how I just did that? If I'm feeling anxious,
(04:02):
I realize I'm not breathing regular. And
when people come on the screen, when I start working with
people for the day, and they'll come in with that energy, and
I'll say, hold on, let's just take a break. Because I'm so mindful and I'm in tune
to it, I can recognize when it's not happening for people. And
I'll just say, you know what? Let's just take a deep breath. And I take
a deep breath. And they're like, OK. That's
(04:25):
something that we have access to that we're not utilizing. So
really thinking about, am I utilizing
my breath, especially when you're struggling? What can I do
to help myself in those moments? One of the things you
can do if you're watching this, I have my hand up. Put your hand over your heart. I'm
(04:46):
just taking a deep breath, something. Even just now, I just did it intentionally,
and it felt so good. It just allows my body to
calm down. Sometimes we're so used to being in high alert
that we're just going, going, going. And this is
something I would recommend you try to work on doing. On
YouTube, there are these, you can type in a breathing
(05:08):
circle, and you could type in two-minute breathing circle. Literally,
the circle will breathe in, and then it goes
and expands, breathe out, right? And you could just follow that,
right? And I don't want, you know, because some people may be like, oh, it's
breathing. No, it's not. It's like we're breathing because we need to breathe
to be here. But are we breathing intentionally? Is
(05:29):
our breathing labored? So many times we
are so used to living on high alert that we don't even recognize what's
happening. We don't recognize that our shoulders are up all the time. Another
thing you can do on YouTube, they have these five-minute body scans
where it literally will go through your entire body and says, all right,
take a seat. And it'll say, pay attention to
(05:51):
where your jaw is. Is your jaw clenched tight?
And you'll be surprised that your jaws clench tight. Even now, as
you're listening to this, pay attention. Are your hands folded
up? Is your shoulders high up? These are like small
things, and I don't want to, when I say small, these are little steps we
(06:11):
can take, but they're significant, right? I want you to, when I say
small steps, every step matters that we're taking to
get to where we need to be, right? And so if you can
work on creating some mindfulness practices,
even like a shower meditation, Taking time
in the shower to take a deep breath, smell the soap, feel the
(06:32):
water on you, right? Pay attention to what
you have going on for the day. What are you smelling? What are
you seeing? Use your five senses and get engaged. I
love the idea of a shower meditation because that's something
that you're doing on a regular basis. So I'm not asking you to create more
time because I know for some people, they don't have a
(06:52):
lot of flexibility in their schedule. And I don't want you to look
at these things that I'm asking you to do as one more thing you
have to add to your plate. I want to think about ways you can implement
it to things that you're already doing. So in your toolkit, one,
we said self-care practices. And then we said our
mindfulness. What are we doing for relaxation? Are
(07:14):
we making time to just sit down and breathe? Are we
making time, as we're sitting down, just maybe have a cup of
tea? hot chocolate, listen to something
that is very relaxing. I can't tell you what it
is. And remember, everybody's toolkit is going to look different.
There are certain people I like listening to that might bother you. You
(07:35):
might not like the way their voice sounds. So as you're
thinking about this toolkit, think about what's going to work for
me, because we're all different. And the things that work for one person
may not work for another. The next thing I want you to think about in
the toolkit are your coping strategies. What do you use when
you're coping? And so this is
(07:56):
like journaling. Do I listen to music? Do
I get to talk to a friend? Because sometimes
some of the coping mechanisms we're using are not healthy.
into engaging in relationships that, like, maybe in the moment it's
comforting, but we recognize, like, the after effect won't
be the best for us. Especially in the wintertime, you really got
(08:17):
to be mindful on how easy it is to get caught up in some crappy
relationships that may be causing you more harm than good.
Am I, like addiction, like marijuana and
alcohol are legal. Well, marijuana in certain states are
more legal than other states, but it's not
about the marijuana or alcohol, but the way you're utilizing it,
(08:39):
right? When I'm having a bad day, am I always going to the liquor
store and getting a bottle? Am I always lighting
up? When I light up, it relaxes me,
but I find myself feeling stuck. For some people,
it gives them what they need and then they're good. Pay
attention to the coping mechanisms that you've been using now. I
(09:02):
want you to think about when you're stressed, what do
I do when I'm stressed right now? If it's
working for you and it's not causing you any harm, I love
that for you. If it's maybe working
for you in the moment and it's causing harm after, I really want you to
think about interrupting that cycle. And for some people going
(09:23):
cold turkey is very hard, but I want you to think about instead
of, let's just say like my go-to is wine. I have wine.
Cause some people don't look at wine as a big deal because it's like, it's wine. It's
not like they'll say like, it's not like a hard liquor.
But as you're thinking about, let's say I'm getting wine every day
after work. And I used to do that at one point when I
(09:45):
worked in a high pressure place where I'm hearing all these stories. And
this is before I understood how energy impacts
me. I didn't understand the heaviness that
was happening and I was feeling was from all of the things I was listening
to. And so I would have wine, but because I
worked in addictions and I'm a
(10:08):
type of person, I pay attention to the way things work. I
grew up in the hood and I seen like, yeah, some people had
nice clothes and nice cars, but I also seen they were getting locked up
or they were dying. They was getting killed. There
was so many things that I paid attention to. And
I said, It looks pretty and good, but
(10:29):
I don't want it to end that way. And
so the wine was fine in the moment, nothing
came of it, but I wanted to interrupt that cycle. And
I said, you know what? Let me go for a walk. I
interrupted that cycle. So what I want you to think about doing Interrupting
that cycle with doing something that you enjoy that's
(10:50):
in your toolkit, like, do I want to color? Do I want to go for a
walk, get some of this energy out? Do I want to go for a run? Do I
want to listen to something? Do I want to take a hot shower? Right? Like,
think about some of these things that you can do to
help, to help you in
those moments where you find yourself struggling. Add this
(11:10):
to your toolkit. The next thing in your toolkit I
want you to think about is what are my supports, right? And
this can be tricky for some people because some people may not have the
supports like other people have. And
what I mean by that, someone that you can talk to, like who's your go-to
person? Pay attention. You may say, like, yo, I
(11:32):
got go-to people. But are those go-to people helpful? Because
sometimes people are only able to give you what they understand
or what makes sense for them. And so let's just
say that you're struggling with trying to work on
being an entrepreneur. Right? And you're going to
somebody that works a nine to five and has no desire to
(11:53):
be an entrepreneur. Like it's not even in the cards for them, which is fine. Like
it's not the road everyone wants to go down. You're talking to
them about it and they're like, man, I don't know. That don't make no sense. Like
if it feels more discouraging, maybe they're not the
best people to talk to about it. Right? And that's okay. It
doesn't make them bad people, but they're not people that you can go to for
(12:14):
this. Maybe if there's something else that you can go to
them for, that's great. But pay attention to who you're talking to
and how you're being affected by it. Sometimes we're so used to having certain
people in our lives and going to them for everything that we don't realize it's
a hindrance to us. And again, it's not about them being
bad people, but they don't have the skills or
(12:34):
the mindset that you need to take you to the next level
that you're trying to get to in life with whatever that is. So
whether it's friends, family, it could be a therapist, it could be somebody from your
your church or wherever your spiritual practices is,
right? Sometimes it could be a coworker, right? There's
people in our lives that are good people that
(12:55):
we may have a reciprocal relationship with that we don't
realize, like, oh yeah, that's right, I can't talk to them. I've spoken to
people over the years and they'll talk about these different people in their lives, aunts,
like, and I'll be like, oh, well, why didn't you talk to so-and-so? They were like, dang, I
didn't even think about that. You know, and so I
want you to have this somewhere. Like, you know what, I do have some supports because
(13:16):
when you're struggling, I promise you, your mind will play tricks on
you and you will forget to dig into that toolkit. But if you have
it somewhere visibly available to you, you can go to
it. Right. The next thing in your toolkit, I want you to
think about resources and tools. So whether it's
Celeste's Therapist podcast is a resource, because
what I do is I help you shift the way you think. And I
(13:39):
have over 400 episodes. Some people say, when
they're struggling, they'll just pop on an episode. They'll listen to, I
have a ton of interviews that I've done over the years, a ton of solo
episodes. So podcasts are a great resource. Books
are a great resource. I've learned so
much about mental wellness, about the body, about
(14:00):
being still from books, not from school, but
just from my own reading for pleasure. They
have so many self-help books. That's why I say it's not the lack of
information available that's keeping us stuck. It's like, how do we apply it
to our life in real time? Because sometimes it can feel like
a lot. It could feel like, is this really possible to happen? So
(14:21):
really being mindful. So books, we're talking about podcasts, maybe
some videos that you can watch, some information that
can help you really think about things in a different way.
But Those are things that I listen to on a regular basis.
I'm always listening to somebody that's motivational, listening
to podcasts. I'm always reading, right? I'm allowing
(14:44):
my mind to expand because if I don't do that and
if I just allow social media, the news, like the
negativity that happens in this world today, if I allow
that to be the only information that my mind is absorbing,
Life gets really challenging and hard because that's the only thing
my mind has to look forward to. But if I'm constantly feeding
(15:07):
myself new information, my mind has
a different way of thinking and looking at things. And I don't think
we realize the conversations we have, the things that we're listening to, like
how they affect us really deeply. So
we got the resources, so let's just start from the top, right? So
we are talking about what we can do to put in our toolkit. We
(15:28):
got our self-care practices, that's one. We got mindfulness,
like what are we doing to stay mindful and
present and how are we using that to Help us with relaxation. We
got our coping strategies, like what are we using to cope when
we're struggling? And then in our other part of our
toolkit, we have our support systems. Who are our go-to people
(15:50):
that we can talk to when we're having a hard time? And then we
got some resources and tools like books. We talk
about podcasts, maybe YouTube episodes, things like
that. And so goal setting, right? I want
you to think about as you're setting these goals to work on
these things, please be realistic. If you're not getting
(16:10):
out of your house and you say, you know what? I'm going to start going
for a walk seven days a week. Be realistic with yourself. That's a
lot. Because if you say seven days a week and you get
out one or two days, you're going to feel discouraged. You're going to be like, oh, can I really do
this? I'm starting off with one or two days. Like, it's okay.
And I think, you know, I know people really want to change,
(16:31):
but sometimes we set our expectations so high that we don't give our
brain the confidence that we can do it. When people struggle with
consistency, I'll tell them, let's just start with making
up our bed. And somebody who makes up their bed every day may be like,
oh, that's not a big deal. It's a huge deal. Because if you're not already making
up your bed every day and you start making up your bed, guess what? Your mind
(16:52):
is like, oh, shoot. I can't be consistent. I've been doing this work for
a long time. I see it happen all the time, where people are finding
themselves feeling hopeful and confident from
the little things that they are trying to do to help build themselves
up. So I really want you to think, as you're on this journey of
trying to work on taking care of yourself and
(17:12):
building this toolkit, don't look at things that you're
doing as slow. It's not a big deal. Big up yourself. uh,
celebrate yourself, celebrate those goals of
how you're making things work, because it's so important. And
if you don't celebrate yourself, the one voice that really
matters because you're with yourself 24 seven Celeste, the therapist podcast
(17:36):
is not in your ear 24 seven, but you are, if you can
make that voice count, I promise you, it would be
so, so good for your mental health. Right? So
pay attention to that. As we're closing, right,
we just talked about the different things that you should have in your toolkit.
(17:57):
I want you to think about where am I going to place this,
right, whether it's digital, right, like something you create,
there's some creative people out here, where you put it together and
you're looking at it every day, whether it's physical, right, you're writing
it out. You're putting it on your mirror. It's a screensaver on
your phone. It cannot be something that's going to collect dust. You
(18:18):
need to have touch points. When I say touch points, where
you have access to it on a regular basis. In
my office, if you are watching,
I have motivational quotes on my wall. It's from my guided
journal, 365 Days of Intentional Living. I'm
(18:39):
big on quotes, I'm big on affirming and for people to
see things a certain way because guess what? Their mind is absorbing it.
And so you can listen to this podcast and be like, oh my gosh, that's so good.
I want to do that, right? You can listen to it and say that, but
then like, unfortunately the world is not cheering you on
to be healthy and they want you to buy something. They want you
(18:59):
to feel insecure. They're not, they don't want you to do the
things that where you're empowered. Cause if you're so empowered, you
don't have to spend money. And so you have to
be intentional about the process of building out your toolkit and
making sure that you're giving yourself what you need, right?
That's so important. So I really want you to think about that. As
(19:20):
we close, I really want you to be patient and
flexible with yourself. Have grace with yourself as you're trying this
out. Don't let this be the last time you're thinking about your mental
health toolkit. I want you to really embrace this
idea. And if you want to
share, I would love to hear from you and hear what
(19:41):
you are doing to build your mental health toolkit. I'm actually
having a vision brunch party at the end of the year. So if
you are in the Massachusetts area and want to come
where the beginning part, I'll talk about the different areas of our lives and
how you can think about working on creating goals in those areas
in a very intentional way. Um, if you want to come, if
(20:02):
you go to stw yt.com slash events,
you'll find the event there. I'm so excited about it. I want to
make it a, now that I have my own space, I want to make it a quarterly
thing. every three months where we're checking in because I
got this space around the end of the year. So it just so happens that it's
the end of the year. So I don't think that we should just be looking at our
(20:24):
goals around December going into January. I
do think we need to be touching it on a regular basis. So if
that's something you're interested in, definitely, I would love to have you here. I
want you to know that you have power to create change, but
you have to have faith to believe in yourself, right? So if you have faith and
(20:44):
you start believing in yourself, I always tell people, no one can take that away
from you. So if you want to learn more about me, you
can go to celestintherapist.com. If you want to learn more about
my wellness center, you can go to stwyt.com, and
that stands for shifting the way you think, .com. We're located
in Stoughton, Mass. Um, and if you want to have a
(21:04):
wellness prevent, we have space for that. So I'm really excited
for the opportunities and the things that are going to be coming up. It's
very nerve wracking. Like I feel nervous about it, but I also
feel so excited. And if you don't know that nervous and excitement feeling,
it can feel the same. So I'm definitely like reframing it in my mind to
help me settle down. So thank you so much for listening
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