EP 503 Protecting Your Peace: Practical Tools for Navigating Chaos

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
You are now tuned in to Celeste, the therapist podcast. Hello,
my name is Celeste. Thank you so much for giving me a try. If
you are new here, I want to say thank you so much for checking me
out. What we do here is I talk about
areas of our lives that we get stuck in. I
talk about why we get stuck and I help you shift the way

(00:22):
you think about it by giving you practical tools. I'm
all about using what you have, starting where you can. And
I think a lot of times people tend to give up because they
don't understand why they're feeling the things that they're
feeling or why things are happening. And I find that
the more educated we are about a topic, the

(00:43):
better it is for us to create change in our
life. If you are a long time listener, thank you so much for
sticking it out with me. I appreciate you. If you
enjoy these episodes that I do, Do me a
favor, share it with somebody that you love. If you want a topic
discussed, all you gotta do is email me, info at celestatherapist.com.

(01:05):
If you wanna follow me, you can follow me everywhere at Celeste Therapist.
Also, I have a whole wellness center that I created called
Shifting the Way You Think. And if you want to learn more about
the wellness center, get involved, attend 1 of the classes. All
you got to do is go to dot com again.
That's dot com.

(01:30):
All right, let's get into this amazing episode.
Hey, hey, hey, beautiful people. If you are listening to
me on audio, I am on YouTube. So if you wanna follow
me and subscribe, go head over to YouTube. I'm excited to
do this episode today. There's a lot happening in the
world. And if you are new here, I want

(01:52):
you to use this podcast as a teaching tool. So
grab a notebook, a pen, and take
notes, right? Take what you can, leave what you can't. My
goal in this podcast is to help shift the way you think. I
feel like we get really stuck in our emotions and it makes
it really challenging to get through life. And today,

(02:14):
you know, the topic I wanna talk about is protecting your peace. So
with all the things that are happening, I want you
to be able to understand how to like name your emotions, Your
emotions are very valid. And I want to help you think about
ways you can work on yourself because our system
was not meant to live in this high chaotic state,

(02:36):
right? It breaks down. And I know we can't
change, I can't change the pain that people are experiencing. I'm
talking to people every day. I can't change the
chaos in the world, but my goal is to help offer
you another way of kind of doing
it, because I know for a lot of people, we weren't really

(02:57):
taught how to do it, right? A lot of times we're drinking it away, eating
it away. sleeping it away, and then we're
struggling, right? So I want to try to help you rethink what
that looks like. So, you know, get your notebook, get your
pen. First, I want you to think about naming emotions, right?
The first part of how you're going to navigate everything

(03:18):
that's going on is being mindful on what you're
feeling. And I'm just going to put this emotion wheel up. And if
you are not, uh, watching it, um, you
can actually Google feelings, will or emotion chart. This
specific one I got from beam is the organization and
it shows different emotions, right? There's the main one on this

(03:39):
one is kind of like shook, joyful, beast mode, peaceful, sad, heated.
Uh, you may find a different variation. But I want you
to start with getting an emotion chart and just
kind of looking at it, even now in this moment, just kind of checking in with what
you're feeling. When it comes to naming emotions, and
if you are not watching it,

(04:01):
I want you to take a deep breath in and out, just
like that. Now
I want you to take a moment to reflect, right? Think about
what you're feeling right now in this moment. And
if you can name your feeling, right? It
could be anything from being happy to feeling frustrated. And

(04:26):
then if you are in a safe space, you're not driving, I wanna
encourage you to close your eyes just for a moment. I
want you to visualize your emotions, right? You
could think of them as colors or shapes. Like
what do they look like to you right now? Doing

(04:50):
this can help you identify and articulate what you're
feeling. Now, once you have
a sense of what you're feeling, I want
you to try to write it down. Being
able to write it down can really help you gain
more insight into what's going on. So

(05:12):
if you're feeling anxious, let's just use the news, for example, right?
Instead of saying, I'm anxious, try
to dig deeper. I want you to
ask yourself, what specifically is causing
that anxiety? Is it

(05:34):
fear of the unknown? Maybe being
concerned about a family or a friend or even yourself?
Having a sense of helplessness about a situation, right? Now,
when you pinpoint the root cause, you can start to
understand your feelings better. So I'm going

(05:57):
to stay with that example. So let's say you realize that your anxiety
is stemming from worried about your parents' health. Now
that you've named the emotion and the cause, you
can kind of challenge that and

(06:18):
maybe even call them and check in on them. Let's say that your parent is
not doing well, right? And you
don't know what's going on with them. And
you're like taking them to the doctors, right? I'm
just using this as an example. You can
say, I'm doing the best I can right now with the information I have. A

(06:40):
lot of times when it comes to worry, fear, anxiety, those
kinds of things, our mind needs answers. And sometimes we
don't have answers, right? We don't have, we don't understand what's
going on. We don't know. And that can be challenging for
our mind. And in those instances, you
say out loud, you say to yourself, I don't know what's going on,

(07:02):
but I'm doing the best that I can right now. That's important. I
want to talk about the power of perspective. So we
talked about the importance of naming our emotion. And
if you're not familiar with the feelings wheel or have an emotion chart,
I encourage you to screenshot it,
put it on your phone. in the morning, before

(07:24):
you go to bed, when you're like feeling something, checking
with how you're feeling, give it a name. Giving
it a name, talking about it out loud, I promise you
it gives it less power. But I want to
talk about like the power of perspective, right? So
oftentimes we can get stuck in a single way of viewing the circumstances,

(07:46):
which make it feel even heavier. Like the example I gave
with your parent, like, I don't know what's going
on with them. And we go into worst case scenario
with a lot of things that happens. And a lot of times it's because, you
know, if you want to know, why does that happen? Why am I always in survival mode? Why
am I always going into worst case scenario? a

(08:08):
lot of times your system or the ways the
things that you've experienced has may have been hard
and your mind is just taking old information when
that feeling comes in right it's taking old information it's bringing it
up to the front and it's trying to get you ready And
so that's what happens, right? We are humans when

(08:30):
it comes to our system and that bias
that we have around the thing that's negative, it
was done to protect us, right? And a lot of times that happens.
And if you look at my last episode, I did episode
502, I believe it is. I talked about understanding negativity

(08:52):
bias and how it affects our mind and body and why it happens. If
you haven't listened to that episode and you're struggling with being
in survival mode and thinking negative all
the time, check out that episode, episode 502. And
so being mindful on the fact that sometimes you
can get stuck in one way of thinking. Let's

(09:14):
just take my wellness center that I created, for example, I've
never done it before. There was a lot of fear. I could
get stuck in like, is this really going to work? Right?
Because that's a real possibility. So a lot of times people
just get stuck in, is this really going to work and never try. So
be really mindful of that when it comes to that, be really

(09:36):
mindful of that. So cognitive reframing, so
it looks at a situation from a different angle. So
for example, instead of thinking, I can't handle this, try reframing
it to, I'm doing the best that I can and that's enough. It's
okay to feel what you're feeling, right? But shifting
your perspective can really lighten the load. The feelings

(09:59):
are very valid. But making a decision off
of a feeling is the issue that comes into play. Me
not deciding to open my wellness center because of
the feeling of fear and if this is going to work, a
lot of people have come through here since I opened it in November 2024. Those
people wouldn't have been able to be in this space if I allowed fear to stop me.

(10:24):
Right? So cognitive reframing, all it does, it doesn't tell
you like, oh, don't feel that. It's not gaslighting you about how you're
feeling. All it's doing is helping you think
of things with a new lens and a new perspective. And
in order for that to happen, not only is it about being
able to consciously say and reframe, but also

(10:46):
feeding your system with new information. If
you're always with people that are negative, if all
your time is spent on social media and looking at
all of these glitz and glams and things, or hard
things that are happening in the world, you're going to
find yourself always thinking in that way because that's what you're

(11:08):
exposing your mind to. Right? Anytime you're
struggling, ask yourself, okay, what's going on? What have I been doing?
You know, who have I been around? What have I been exposing my mind to? Have
I been moving my body? Right? being
mindful on what you're feeling and really checking
in with yourself and asking yourself what's really going on is so important.

(11:31):
We have so much power in our mind, but we haven't been taught how to
utilize the power that we have. And the whole purpose of
this podcast is to help you shift the way you think, right?
So you can really start to engage in the thoughts that are
coming in and not allowing your survival instincts
to only take over. Right? I named my wellness center

(11:53):
Shifting the Way You Think because I really want people to learn
new ways of operating in life. So we
talked about the importance of naming our emotion. We talked about
the importance of looking at things in a different perspective.
And now I want to kind of help you think about practical tools, right? That's
one thing about this podcast is that I want to educate you about what's

(12:16):
going on, but I also want you to gain practical
tools so you can understand how you can deal
with the situation that's happening right in front of you. I
hope you're enjoying the episode. Quick announcement. I
want to give you some ways you can support, right? I have two books. One
is called Relationship Goals. It's a guide to a healthy relationship. I

(12:37):
also have a guided journal. And if you find yourself stuck
in thoughts, want to get your thoughts on paper, I ask you different
questions. And I also ask you how you're feeling. I provide
you with the feelings chart. If you go to CelesteTherapist.com, you
could find 365 days of intentional living along
with relationship goals. Another way you can support me,

(12:59):
I have this wellness center that I'm so excited about
called Shifting the Way You Think Wellness Center. At my center, I
do not want finances to be a reason why people can't get what
they need. So if you wanna donate a class to someone, please
feel free to go to my website, stwyt.com, and
you can give a donation. The classes run between 15 and

(13:24):
$35. My goal is for everyone to be able
to access these services regardless of finances. So
if you can donate, please donate to your Girl Center. I
would be greatly appreciated. All right, y'all, let's get back
into this amazing episode. All
right, let's get into practical tools. So one

(13:44):
of the practical tools that you can work on utilizing when
it comes to what you're feeling is journaling, writing
down your thoughts is very therapeutic and it can help
you gain clarity. I promise you when you keep everything
inside your mind, uh, let's say I just use the
wellness center. Like, Oh, am I going to really be able to do this wellness center? And

(14:06):
then my mind thinks about ways things may not have worked out only
But if I'm writing it down and I'm challenging that thought,
I won't find myself ruminating and feeling so
stuck about that specific thing. Mindfulness and
meditation is really important. When you're able to
be mindful and work on meditate, it doesn't mean you have... Set

(15:43):
boundaries, so it's crucial, especially now to set boundaries with
social media, with the news, right? There are so many
keyboard warriors that are going
on right now, and people are engaging with keyboard warriors, getting
yourself all hot and bothered for what? Like, think
about it, like, how, why does this matter? Why do I need to go back

(16:05):
and forth with them? Why am I allowing myself to engage in
all of this stuff? And I don't even know this person not paying my bills. All
they're doing is creating more stress, create boundaries about
what you choose to give your time to create boundaries with
what conversations you choose to have. I
say this to my clients who if they're working at a place and let's

(16:27):
say there's some kind of stress or some
kind of thing that's happening at work. So at
work, all this chaos is happening. Then you get off the phone, you
call your coworker, girl, can you believe what happened? You're taking
that chaos and you're bringing it home and then you're engaging with
it and you're activated and you're wasting time for what? The

(16:49):
more you start to recognize like where you play a role
in what you're feeling, I promise you life looks differently. I'm
not saying that the world isn't chaotic. I'm not saying that things that are happening
at work isn't crazy, but don't let work rule how
you feel and take over all of your day, all of
your weekend. Because you've been doing it for so

(17:10):
long, it probably seems impossible, but I promise you it's possible if
you just take baby steps. Creative outlets
are really, really huge and
working on seeking support. I also want you to think
about shifting focus on what you can control, right?
So focusing on what you control rather than what you can't, while

(17:32):
we may not be able to change the world overnight, we can work
on our reactions and how we choose to
respond to chaos, right? We got to
really be mindful in what we're choosing. A lot
of times we're so used to choosing chaos, we don't even realize that we're part of
the reason why we're feeling so chaotic. So

(17:52):
some small action you can consider. So consider volunteering in
your community, donating. to a cause you believe
in, checking in on family and friends. Those small things can
create a ripple effect, especially when you're feeling powerful, especially
when you feel like you want to do something, but you don't have much to give. Even
if it's like, let me check on this person. Let me volunteer. Let

(18:15):
me do something. That can really help you a lot. Mindfulness
and self-care. So mindfulness, practicing, being in
the moment can reduce the feelings of helplessness. When it
comes to anxiety, I tell you, if you've listened to this before, anxiety
loves to live in the past and loves to worry about
the future. So if you see my hands, when we're doing this,

(18:37):
we're not... We're in a way
to create peace. You cannot create peace by worrying about the future. You
cannot create peace by dwelling on the past. So really being
mindful of creating some mindfulness practices that
includes joy, relaxation, spending time in nature, exercising,

(18:58):
things that don't cost money. You know, we live in a country that's
very, well, consumerism. So
like, that's why when I started episodes, I get a notebook, get a pen. Right.
When it comes to, uh, especially now, I just want to be, I
just want to say this too, when it comes to consumerism, start
saving your money, stop spending money on things you don't need. Right.

(19:20):
I sell things. I sell my books, my courses, but I don't push
stuff on people. Right. And even with my wellness center,
if people don't have it, I say, Hey, reach out to us. We got you
because I feel like healing shouldn't cost money the way it costs. So
I really want you to be mindful of. Like what
you're spending your money on because financial struggles

(19:42):
can create a lot of mental health issues and a lot of like problems
in your mind. And I want you to be mindful of
what you're spending money on and asking yourself, do I really need this?
That's something over the last few years I've been working on and what's helped me
kind of work on it too. It's listening to people about it,
listening to financial gurus, right? So when it comes to

(20:03):
self care, I talk about moving your body, uh, what you're
eating and your sleep, but I also want to add in the financial finances into
it too, with everything going up and being so high, be
mindful on where you're spending your money. I promise you it matters. Music
and arts, like, you'd be surprised, like, especially music for

(20:26):
me is so healing. I love arts. Like,
I love nature. Like, all of these things help, right?
And the last thing I want to say is community and connections. So, building connections
is important. Join community groups, online forums, or social media
groups where you can share feelings. And I want to
be clear when I say social media groups and online forums, productive ones,

(20:48):
not the ones that be all over the place. If you're finding your spirits not
settled in a forum, get out of it, please. You have power
over that. But you'll be surprised. Being
able to express and be around like-minded people that are very solution-oriented will
really help you curve that feeling. Don't do
this in isolation. We were never meant to be in isolation. And,

(21:11):
you know, when we come together as a community, we can work on creating change.
I promise you, like, we're stronger together than we
are apart. So I
really hope that was helpful. My goal is
not to keep you on long, to really give you
these small nuggets to help you really think about what you can

(21:32):
do. A lot of times, we're not used to that. We didn't see our parents think about what
they can do. We didn't see our caregivers. We didn't see
our aunt. We didn't see people do things
that bring them joy. We just seen people operate in survival mode.
We seen people operate struggling. And
so like this self-care thing that I talk about, like I know when

(21:53):
we hear it sometimes on social media, on TV, there's a
price tag involved. When it came to self-care
in the past, I just seen this post on Instagram and it just won
my spirit. It said, when it comes to healing and self-care,
it was never created. I
mean, it was never started with like, oh, what you

(22:14):
need to buy, or there was not this access that wasn't available
to certain people. It was about food, moving your
body, what do you eat and who are you around? I
want you to try to get to basics. I don't want you to keep telling
yourself, well, I don't have this and I don't have that, so I can't do this. I
want you to say, you can say, I don't have this, I don't have that, but not that I can't

(22:35):
do this. Start where you are. Really small
example, I really wanted to talk about mental health. I wanted
to create something. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I
started with posting on social media over 10 years
ago. Over 10 years ago, I started posting
on social media, and here I am now with a wellness

(22:55):
center creating programming for people to
work on being well, right? If
I didn't start with that social media post, I would have never understood
the possibilities that was available to me. When
it comes to struggling in this chaotic world right now and all you
know is struggle, start with something small. Maybe it's

(23:16):
even like, let me just be mindful on how much time I'm spending on
social media and I'm really checking in with myself with how
I'm feeling. Starting small will allow you
to see the bigger picture and the bigger things that you're able to do.
I'm really passionate about this because I find that
we suffer because we don't know in any other

(23:37):
way. And I've worked with people for over 20 years.
And what I've learned is that educating people about
mental health, this thing that we can't see and really normalizing it
for people has been such a life changer for so
many people. It brings me so much joy that I'm able to
do this work and bring this work to my community. And I

(23:58):
did it with so much fear, but the outcomes
and the ways that people have been able to be healed The way
that people have been able to be educated just brings me so much joy. So
if anything I ever say resonates for you, understand you have the power to
create change. But first, start having faith and believing in
yourself. When you start having faith and when you start believing in

(24:20):
yourself, I promise you nobody can take that away from you. So
until next time, beautiful people, I will talk to