May 14, 2025 • 24 mins
In this episode of Celeste the Therapist podcast, Celeste, a Boston-based therapist, delves into the challenges we face in our wellness journey and offers practical advice on how to tackle them. She emphasizes the importance of taking the first step towards change and how it can set the momentum for continued progress. Celeste also highlights the value of writing things down to solidify our intentions and keep us motivated. Drawing inspiration from a motivational speaker, she discusses how our mind serves as the command center of our life and the significance of being still to listen to our thoughts. Tune in for insightful tips on managing your mental chaos and taking actionable steps towards a healthier, more balanced life.
Key Points:
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Introduction to Celeste and her wellness center in Stoughton, Massachusetts.
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The importance of taking the first step towards change.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hey, hey, thank you all so much for joining another episode of Celeste
the Therapist podcast. My name is Celeste. I'm a therapist from Boston. If
you've never been into this podcast, I appreciate you being
here. What I do is I talk about issues that we go through,
and then I kind of help you think about ways in
which you can Challenge yourself and deal with it. I
(00:23):
am located in Massachusetts And I also have a Wellness Center located
in Stoughton mass where we hold classes And
we hold different somatic classes and workshops things
to help you with your wellness journey because
I believe that once we take one step into creating
change It's easier to keep going, right?
(00:45):
It's harder. The first step is the hard part. So, um, if
you do listen to this podcast, one of the things that I recommend is
like getting a notebook and a pen and writing things down,
um, writing it down and making it plain can really help. A lot of times we'll
hear a podcast, we'll go to a workshop. We'll go
to something motivating and it feels really good. And then once we
(01:06):
leave, we're back into the environment. And if you live
in America, everything is so chaotic. So it's easy to
feel discouraged and feel as if like
change can't happen. So one of the things that I believe
is like when we work on changing the mind, I was
listening to Myron, the guy's last name. He's a motivational speaker.
(01:27):
But he said the mind is the command center
of our life. And if you feel like your mind
is so chaotic and you struggle with making time to be still, being
still feels scary because you're forced to listen to your
thoughts. Understand that you're allowing your
trauma, your history, society to control your
(01:48):
life. And if you feel like things are
always happening to you, a lot of times that's going
on because of what's going on in the mind. So
before we get started, I just want to share I have two books I'm
gonna try to make sure to talk about it every single episode. I
have a guided journal. So I'm also on YouTube So if you're listening to me
(02:08):
on YouTube, I mean if you're listening to me on audio You can hop on YouTube
and see the visuals. I'm a very visual learner So it's important to
me to provide visual content for people as I'm talking about things
So I have a guided journal is called 365 days
of intentional living every day. I actually a different question and then
halfway through the book I'm asking you that same question that
(02:31):
I asked you on day one, just so you can see how
your things have changed over the
course of, what is it, half of 365, right?
To see how things have changed. This is a great journal
for people that may be in therapy or not in therapy, not sure how
to start reflecting. Journaling is a great way to reflect. I
(02:53):
also have a book called Relationship Goals and it's a guide to a
healthy relationship where I give
these different staples on what a healthy relationship looks
like, meaning basically like maintaining your individuality, understanding
what you want. There are a lot of staples that we are
not clear on and we're not understanding why
(03:15):
we are struggling in relationships. And a lot of times it's due to the
way that we have thought about relationships, right?
I came up with the title because I would see on social media, people
would put under people's pictures, hashtag relationship goals based
off of a little clip or a video. And the reality is,
is that a healthy relationship is more than just
(03:36):
a picture. So those are the two books you can find on my
website stwyt.com And
then we also these are the classes that we host. These are staple
classes at the center We host these every single month
so we have Restorative yoga class
that's always the last friday of the month And
(03:57):
then we have a class called mindful yin and another class called
rest and restore all of these classes were created in
order to help people work on slowing down
their nervous system. We don't realize how much we hold
pain in our body. So a lot of times, like intellectually, if
you feel like I'm making the connections, I understand what's going on,
(04:20):
but I'm still feeling stuck. A lot of times that could be because there's
a lot that's happening inside of your body and creating
a space to release it is important and
so we have somatic classes here at the center. If
you go to stwyt.com you
can learn more about Those
(04:42):
classes and attend and
then if you're not familiar with Me if
this is your first time here one
of the things that's important to me is for
you to not look at these podcast episodes as
like just a feel-good session and I really want you to
(05:03):
try to use it as a way for you to get what you
need. One of the things that I understand is that when
it comes to wellness, a lot of times we try to put a
price tag on it. And a lot of times it's true, like a
lot of the things that can really help us with
our process cost money. And
(05:24):
I never want people to think that because things
cost money, they're not able to heal. So that's
why I try to offer all of these kind of resources and
a way for people to rethink what wellness looks like
so that they're not like, oh, well, I don't have a therapist or I
don't have a psychiatrist, so I can't give myself what I
(05:45):
need. I don't I really want people to understand like
despite what they have despite what they don't
have It's really important for us to like use
what we have and start where we are and if we can do that
Life looks differently. So we are streaming on all
podcasting platforms, and I've been doing this since 2018 and I started this
(06:05):
because I was I I
was actually going live on a few platforms
and on Fridays I would answer questions. And
I realized just how much people don't understand
a lot of the basics of life. I call them like
the ABCs of life. Like imagine trying to read, but
(06:29):
you don't know your alphabets. And I think about life and I
think about we're trying to do life, but we don't understand the emotions. We don't understand
the basics. And so it gets really challenging. Today's
topic when emotions and logic clash the power of
intentional living you see my book my journals called 365 days
of intentional living because I believe the is so important for us to be
(06:51):
intentional About what we're choosing to do. I
always say if you start your day scrolling playing games
doing Anything that does not pertain to
you growing Starting your day sets the tone And
a lot of times we don't even start our day with us. We start our
day with the emails with everything else but us
(07:14):
And then we struggle and not understanding why we feel how we feel
and it's like well, what am I feeding my system? Um, so there's so
much um, there's so much growth and
being intentional, right? And not doing things
based off of how we feel but our intent. So
emotions versus logic, right? It's important for you to understand. So
(07:36):
emotions are subjective feelings, right? Like in
this moment, I can feel nervous and
let's say I'm about to speak, I have a speaking engagement and
maybe one time I had a speaking engagement, I didn't do well.
And so my mind will go back to the time I had the speaking engagement
and I didn't go well. And the nervousness could be due to the
(07:57):
fact that my mind is thinking like, oh, it's happening again. So
technically nothing's happening in front of me, but the
feeling of what's happening is real. And
luckily for me, I'm able to make connections when those moments happen, right?
So something that happened 20 years ago could affect you in
(08:18):
2025, and you may not even realize that's what's going on. And so let's
say I start to feel nervous, but I'm prepared, right? So I tell myself,
Celestia, prepare, you got this. But what if I don't allow
logic to take over and I say, I can't do this, right? And
speaking may be my passion, helping people may be my passion, but
I'll never be able to push forward with what I feel
(08:40):
like my passion and my goals in life are because I'm allowing the
emotion to take over and rule the way that I operate. So
emotions are subjective feelings often directed towards a
specific object that involve physiological and behavioral changes.
Whether you realize it or not, there are behavioral, physical
changes that take place when you are struggling
(09:03):
with some emotion. Sometimes people talk
about their throat is feels like it's closing in on them. Their stomach is
turning their back is hurting, right? There are a lot of things that are
happening in your body when you're dealing with some of these emotions So
logic on the other hand is a system of reasoning and principle used
to determine the truth or falsity of a conclusion while
(09:24):
emotions are personal experience logic relies on rational thought
analysis And so an example of another
example is like if you're dating somebody and
you know that the relationship logically doesn't work But
emotionally you feel so attached right and this could
be a whole topic about relationships. I love talking about relationships But
(09:45):
the attachment could be because they may remind you of
your absentee dad, right? Even though it's like
why would I want to be with somebody who doesn't show up for me? Like my dad didn't show
up for me. You don't realize that that's happening You
don't realize that you're attached because it's a
familiar feeling of this person not being available to
(10:06):
you, right? And so you find yourself feeling like
you're stuck in this relationship and you're like, I don't like,
I don't know why I'm in this. Like logically, I know they're not good
for me. And so that's a prime example of how logic and emotion don't
match. You can find yourself feeling so drawn to somebody logically
knowing it's not true. And that's why I say going
(10:28):
off of intention and reasoning versus how you
feel is important. A lot of us are operating life
based off of how we feel and we don't realize that's happening.
So that's the difference between emotion and logic. Emotions
are feelings, logic is you're using reasoning, right? So
(10:48):
emotions can cloud your judgment. Emotions are
significantly influencing decision-making, sometimes
leading to bias or irrational choices due to clouded judgment.
While emotions can be a valuable guide, strong feelings can
impair critical thinking and result in poor decisions. How many,
you know, if you're being honest with yourself, how many of you can say like you've
(11:10):
had some irrational decisions that you've made over the
years, over the course of years, right? Impulsive things
that you've done and not understanding why a Lot
of times this is happening because that remote that rush of emotion is coming
and you're not used to making applause You're not used to even recognizing it's happening
I tell people sometimes the emotion may hit you and
(11:32):
your body before you intellectually understand what's going on
which is why it's very important to pay attention
to what's going on in your body and The more you pay attention to
what's going on in your body, the more you understand the signs that your body
is giving that it's struggling and it's not okay. And
you may ask like, well, why does this happen, Celeste? A
(11:54):
lot of times growing up, our parents were in survival mode. They didn't have
the capacity. To teach us how to listen
to our body because they wasn't even listening to their body, right? So if
they're not listening to their body, how the heck they're gonna teach us how to listen to our body And
so it's so important to understand that just because you
were not taught how to listen to your body How
(12:14):
to understand the signs doesn't mean you can't understand the
signs. You're human. You're not a robot So you're gonna have these
experiences that is so important for you to understand So
really being mindful on the emotions and
how they've affected your judgment because you don't have
to keep living life that way. Now,
(12:36):
this picture for people that are listening, I have a picture where it
shows emotional mind versus logic mind. And
it says emotional mind reacts from feelings, energy levels and
psychological states and needs, while the logic mind
responds using logic, cause and effect, reasoning, analysis of
possible consequences. If we merge
(12:57):
these together, right, we'll get a wise mind, right? Seeks
to synthesize and balance logic and emotion perspectives and to serve
the highest good, being more mindful. So I'm
conscious of my emotions and my experiences and
what I'm feeling. I'm also conscious about my logic mind, right?
I'm able to understand reasoning. And I
(13:21):
have more moments of making sure I'm using my
wise mind being more mindful about my decisions than not Years
ago. I was very impulsive very much in the moment And
now like the the baseline in
which I operate is with the wise mind, right? Does that
mean I don't have emotions? Does that mean I don't feel that impulse that
(13:41):
wants to bleed in? No, I I have all of those feelings But
now they're not controlling me If you wanna
work on not being controlled and feeling
like you don't have any say-so in life and life is happening to you,
you've gotta really work on being able to
pause, being able to reflect. Now,
(14:02):
there's importance in attention, like the importance
of attention. So being intentional is so important because
when you're able to act with intention, It
involves purposeful, proactive choices based on understanding goals
while reacting based on emotions as a spontaneous, impulsive
response driven by immediate feelings. So intentionally acting
(14:27):
allows for clear thinking and consider action while
reacting can lead to impulse decisions and negative consequence. And
I'll just give you a quick example, right? How many of you have
said you wanted to start your day earlier in the morning? You
wanted to get up so that you're not rushing into work. How
many of you said I want to get up and do a walk or stretch raise your
(14:47):
hand, right? I'm sure I can't see you, but I know a lot of
people are raising their hands What happens in the morning in?
the morning time You don't feel like
getting up. So what do you do? You don't get up and
then you snooze your alarm and then you find yourself in
a space of Feeling like oh,
(15:10):
i'll do this tomorrow and then rushing into work right now. You're starting
your day Um with depletion not
with giving when you give to yourself you oh my gosh, you could be so
full and starting your day There may be a little traffic. Somebody
may cut you off, but you're not finding yourself struggling as
much Because you started your day with you and you feel replenished
(15:32):
So how does that work if I don't want to go based off of my feeling
if I want to do be intentional the night before Let's say I'm
gonna do a stretch right the night before I'm setting my
alarm as soon as my alarm goes off I'm jumping up
If you stay in bed, your mind will talk you out of it. Your mind
will tell you up. Well, maybe you could do it tomorrow, right? So
(15:54):
if you want to think about why intentionality is
important, because if we are not intentional about what we're choosing
to do, we will be controlled by our feelings and our feelings change.
How many times have you went to the gym or went to a workout class that you
didn't feel like going? And you're like, oh, my gosh, this was actually not
bad. Or how many times were you not going to go with a
(16:15):
friend out and you went out and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so
glad I did it. Right. It's the starting. That's the hard part.
But once you start and get there, you'll start to feel
the replenishment that you need. You'll never get there if
you don't start. Right. So if you want to think
about, like, being intentional, how do I allow myself to
(16:35):
not allow emotions to take over? Emotions are going to happen.
We can't get around emotions. But how do I not allow it
to take over through routine, through discipline and
intentionality? Now some
strategies for balance and emotion and logic, right? Because it's
not only important for me to tell you what we're struggling with, but how
(16:56):
do I challenge and work through it? Pausing and
reflecting. So taking a moment to breathe and access your feelings before
reacting, it's always good, right? So in
order for you to, how do I take a moment to pause before I react? I
need to notice when I'm struggling. How do I notice when I'm struggling getting
more in tune with my body? Cause my body's giving me signs. Right.
(17:18):
So taking time to pause and reflect is
important. Journaling, great way to
get more in tune with what's going on. How do
I journal? Literally, like I have a guided journal, but even
if you don't want to get my guided journal, There's a paper and
a notebook, right? You can ask yourself the same questions
(17:39):
every day to start the process, right? You can Google
like what are some good questions to to ask myself at
night? I'll tell you before we ask our children at night is How
are you feeling? What are you grateful for? What did you do to prepare for tomorrow and
what went well today? Those questions I did intentionally
so that they can tap into how they're feeling tapping into like
(18:01):
Understanding the gratitude in the day right because we
get so caught up in the trauma and the drama of life
That we forget what we have and when we forget what we have we
feel miserable I would say there
are people in third world countries that are walking
around smiling with nowhere near
(18:23):
the amount of material things that
we have here in America, right? And so we
have allowed life to consume us. And
especially being black in america if you're a black woman working
in corporate working in white spaces Right and
you know when i'm working with people and they're talking about this stuff and i'm like It's
(18:43):
not you it's the system you're in the system that doesn't see you but
I need you to see you Like that's so important regardless
of who sees me I need to see me and so because of
all of these things we find ourselves struggling so Keeping
a journal and reflecting will allow you to see things more
clear, so you're not allowing life to consume you. Seeking
(19:06):
feedback is another one. Um, so discussing feelings and decisions with
trusted friends or mentors like people that you trust, right? Everybody's
not bad and some people are blessed enough to have
somebody that like a coach or a friend where they
can bounce things off of and get clarity and get um
more understanding And then the last thing I
(19:27):
want to say is that identifying your core values so
To identify your core values, you can start with reflecting on
what truly matters to you in life. So you're gonna consider all
your past experiences, identifying the principles you hold dear, and
trying to narrow them down. So if you never thought about what your
(19:47):
core values are, Some examples I
got from an Instagrammer. Hey gold sister
integrity leadership growth honesty accountability family fun
stability faith creativity Adventure, these are
just some values right now Let's say
your core value is family. And
(20:10):
I'm looking for another one, communication, right? Like it's important to
me for me to take time with my family and to communicate
with my partner. And if I sit down with myself and
I'm always working, right? They have games,
they have all these things going on. I'm never attending. Am I
really truly living out my core values, right?
(20:31):
I haven't put them in my calendar because I tell myself I don't have time.
But then if I look at my phone and see how much I'm scrolling, right,
we used to look at your values and then check your phone and then tell me
you don't have time. If your phone is showing me that
you are not on social media all day or not on YouTube
watching things on Netflix, right? or games, these
(20:54):
games get addictive. Look at your phone and then if
everything is clear and you tell me you don't have time, I would love to hear from you. Let
me know you don't have time because a lot of times we have
time, but we allow society to
consume us and then we start vegging out on our phones, vegging
out on movies and shows. So if I'm gonna stick with
(21:15):
the example of me saying family is important to me Like
and I realize that I'm not Living out my core value
Then I need to go back to the drawing board and start to look at
what can I do to make this happen? A lot of
times we have these core values that we haven't identified consciously,
but they've been like growing up. If we look back, we'll be like, yeah,
(21:38):
that, that wasn't me. That's what I said. I want it. If we really take time
to reflect, we'll start to realize like, dang, you
know what? Like I'm not living up my values. I'm not communicating
with my spouse. I'm not living by faith. I'm living by fear.
So strategies for balancing your emotion and
logic, a huge part of it is being able to identify your core
(21:59):
values. And once you identify them, make sure that you're walking
in alignment with what that looks like. So
this is something, emotion, logic, right? Both
are important, but a lot of times we're allowing that emotion to
take over. So my challenge to
you, right, is to start to pay attention to what
(22:22):
your body's saying, start to pay attention to your emotions. You
can Google feelings chart, right? Grab a feelings chart, check in
with how you're feeling. Everything starts with awareness
if you're struggling in life and You're trying
to figure out the next step start to pay attention to
your day-to-day. What am I doing? What do I need? if
(22:45):
you Google wellness will it'll show
you a pie graph with like the different areas of your life social emotional
Environmental professional and
so to show you these areas you can start there and look at that
and start to dissect Okay, what do I want in this area?
What are my values in this area? What kind of work environment
(23:07):
do I want? And I want to be clear that just
because you become aware and understand what you want, it
may take time to get there. But until you create a plan to work
on getting there, you'll always find yourself feeling miserable. But
if you work on creating a plan, you won't feel so
miserable because you know like you're not going to be stuck in the same place. The
(23:27):
reason why we feel miserable and feel stuck is because we're not doing anything to
change it. Make today the day you start to do something to
change it So I hope this was helpful. I hope this makes
sense. I always tell people if anything I say resonates for you Understand
you have the power to make the change, but you have to really start to have faith
and believing in yourself You know when you start having
(23:48):
faith when you believe in yourself, I promise you nobody can take
that away from you The mind is so powerful which
is why my wellness center is called Shifting the Way You Think, because
my goal is to keep shifting, help people shift. Because
if we're stuck, if we're not shifting our thought process, we're not
growing. I wanna see you grow, right? If you wanna grow, continue
(24:10):
listening to this podcast, because I'm always gonna come out with different
nuggets that's gonna help you grow and help you see yourself the
way life should look like, not versus what life has
been like in the trauma that you've experienced. Like we're
gonna acknowledge it, but we don't want that to be the lens on where we're seeing
ourselves for the future Until next time beautiful people.
Hey, hey, thank you all so much for joining another episode of Celeste
the Therapist podcast. My name is Celeste. I'm a therapist from Boston. If
you've never been into this podcast, I appreciate you being
here. What I do is I talk about issues that we go through,
and then I kind of help you think about ways in
which you can Challenge yourself and deal with it. I
(00:23):
am located in Massachusetts And I also have a Wellness Center located
in Stoughton mass where we hold classes And
we hold different somatic classes and workshops things
to help you with your wellness journey because
I believe that once we take one step into creating
change It's easier to keep going, right?
(00:45):
It's harder. The first step is the hard part. So, um, if
you do listen to this podcast, one of the things that I recommend is
like getting a notebook and a pen and writing things down,
um, writing it down and making it plain can really help. A lot of times we'll
hear a podcast, we'll go to a workshop. We'll go
to something motivating and it feels really good. And then once we
(01:06):
leave, we're back into the environment. And if you live
in America, everything is so chaotic. So it's easy to
feel discouraged and feel as if like
change can't happen. So one of the things that I believe
is like when we work on changing the mind, I was
listening to Myron, the guy's last name. He's a motivational speaker.
(01:27):
But he said the mind is the command center
of our life. And if you feel like your mind
is so chaotic and you struggle with making time to be still, being
still feels scary because you're forced to listen to your
thoughts. Understand that you're allowing your
trauma, your history, society to control your
(01:48):
life. And if you feel like things are
always happening to you, a lot of times that's going
on because of what's going on in the mind. So
before we get started, I just want to share I have two books I'm
gonna try to make sure to talk about it every single episode. I
have a guided journal. So I'm also on YouTube So if you're listening to me
(02:08):
on YouTube, I mean if you're listening to me on audio You can hop on YouTube
and see the visuals. I'm a very visual learner So it's important to
me to provide visual content for people as I'm talking about things
So I have a guided journal is called 365 days
of intentional living every day. I actually a different question and then
halfway through the book I'm asking you that same question that
(02:31):
I asked you on day one, just so you can see how
your things have changed over the
course of, what is it, half of 365, right?
To see how things have changed. This is a great journal
for people that may be in therapy or not in therapy, not sure how
to start reflecting. Journaling is a great way to reflect. I
(02:53):
also have a book called Relationship Goals and it's a guide to a
healthy relationship where I give
these different staples on what a healthy relationship looks
like, meaning basically like maintaining your individuality, understanding
what you want. There are a lot of staples that we are
not clear on and we're not understanding why
(03:15):
we are struggling in relationships. And a lot of times it's due to the
way that we have thought about relationships, right?
I came up with the title because I would see on social media, people
would put under people's pictures, hashtag relationship goals based
off of a little clip or a video. And the reality is,
is that a healthy relationship is more than just
(03:36):
a picture. So those are the two books you can find on my
website stwyt.com And
then we also these are the classes that we host. These are staple
classes at the center We host these every single month
so we have Restorative yoga class
that's always the last friday of the month And
(03:57):
then we have a class called mindful yin and another class called
rest and restore all of these classes were created in
order to help people work on slowing down
their nervous system. We don't realize how much we hold
pain in our body. So a lot of times, like intellectually, if
you feel like I'm making the connections, I understand what's going on,
(04:20):
but I'm still feeling stuck. A lot of times that could be because there's
a lot that's happening inside of your body and creating
a space to release it is important and
so we have somatic classes here at the center. If
you go to stwyt.com you
can learn more about Those
(04:42):
classes and attend and
then if you're not familiar with Me if
this is your first time here one
of the things that's important to me is for
you to not look at these podcast episodes as
like just a feel-good session and I really want you to
(05:03):
try to use it as a way for you to get what you
need. One of the things that I understand is that when
it comes to wellness, a lot of times we try to put a
price tag on it. And a lot of times it's true, like a
lot of the things that can really help us with
our process cost money. And
(05:24):
I never want people to think that because things
cost money, they're not able to heal. So that's
why I try to offer all of these kind of resources and
a way for people to rethink what wellness looks like
so that they're not like, oh, well, I don't have a therapist or I
don't have a psychiatrist, so I can't give myself what I
(05:45):
need. I don't I really want people to understand like
despite what they have despite what they don't
have It's really important for us to like use
what we have and start where we are and if we can do that
Life looks differently. So we are streaming on all
podcasting platforms, and I've been doing this since 2018 and I started this
(06:05):
because I was I I
was actually going live on a few platforms
and on Fridays I would answer questions. And
I realized just how much people don't understand
a lot of the basics of life. I call them like
the ABCs of life. Like imagine trying to read, but
(06:29):
you don't know your alphabets. And I think about life and I
think about we're trying to do life, but we don't understand the emotions. We don't understand
the basics. And so it gets really challenging. Today's
topic when emotions and logic clash the power of
intentional living you see my book my journals called 365 days
of intentional living because I believe the is so important for us to be
(06:51):
intentional About what we're choosing to do. I
always say if you start your day scrolling playing games
doing Anything that does not pertain to
you growing Starting your day sets the tone And
a lot of times we don't even start our day with us. We start our
day with the emails with everything else but us
(07:14):
And then we struggle and not understanding why we feel how we feel
and it's like well, what am I feeding my system? Um, so there's so
much um, there's so much growth and
being intentional, right? And not doing things
based off of how we feel but our intent. So
emotions versus logic, right? It's important for you to understand. So
(07:36):
emotions are subjective feelings, right? Like in
this moment, I can feel nervous and
let's say I'm about to speak, I have a speaking engagement and
maybe one time I had a speaking engagement, I didn't do well.
And so my mind will go back to the time I had the speaking engagement
and I didn't go well. And the nervousness could be due to the
(07:57):
fact that my mind is thinking like, oh, it's happening again. So
technically nothing's happening in front of me, but the
feeling of what's happening is real. And
luckily for me, I'm able to make connections when those moments happen, right?
So something that happened 20 years ago could affect you in
(08:18):
2025, and you may not even realize that's what's going on. And so let's
say I start to feel nervous, but I'm prepared, right? So I tell myself,
Celestia, prepare, you got this. But what if I don't allow
logic to take over and I say, I can't do this, right? And
speaking may be my passion, helping people may be my passion, but
I'll never be able to push forward with what I feel
(08:40):
like my passion and my goals in life are because I'm allowing the
emotion to take over and rule the way that I operate. So
emotions are subjective feelings often directed towards a
specific object that involve physiological and behavioral changes.
Whether you realize it or not, there are behavioral, physical
changes that take place when you are struggling
(09:03):
with some emotion. Sometimes people talk
about their throat is feels like it's closing in on them. Their stomach is
turning their back is hurting, right? There are a lot of things that are
happening in your body when you're dealing with some of these emotions So
logic on the other hand is a system of reasoning and principle used
to determine the truth or falsity of a conclusion while
(09:24):
emotions are personal experience logic relies on rational thought
analysis And so an example of another
example is like if you're dating somebody and
you know that the relationship logically doesn't work But
emotionally you feel so attached right and this could
be a whole topic about relationships. I love talking about relationships But
(09:45):
the attachment could be because they may remind you of
your absentee dad, right? Even though it's like
why would I want to be with somebody who doesn't show up for me? Like my dad didn't show
up for me. You don't realize that that's happening You
don't realize that you're attached because it's a
familiar feeling of this person not being available to
(10:06):
you, right? And so you find yourself feeling like
you're stuck in this relationship and you're like, I don't like,
I don't know why I'm in this. Like logically, I know they're not good
for me. And so that's a prime example of how logic and emotion don't
match. You can find yourself feeling so drawn to somebody logically
knowing it's not true. And that's why I say going
(10:28):
off of intention and reasoning versus how you
feel is important. A lot of us are operating life
based off of how we feel and we don't realize that's happening.
So that's the difference between emotion and logic. Emotions
are feelings, logic is you're using reasoning, right? So
(10:48):
emotions can cloud your judgment. Emotions are
significantly influencing decision-making, sometimes
leading to bias or irrational choices due to clouded judgment.
While emotions can be a valuable guide, strong feelings can
impair critical thinking and result in poor decisions. How many,
you know, if you're being honest with yourself, how many of you can say like you've
(11:10):
had some irrational decisions that you've made over the
years, over the course of years, right? Impulsive things
that you've done and not understanding why a Lot
of times this is happening because that remote that rush of emotion is coming
and you're not used to making applause You're not used to even recognizing it's happening
I tell people sometimes the emotion may hit you and
(11:32):
your body before you intellectually understand what's going on
which is why it's very important to pay attention
to what's going on in your body and The more you pay attention to
what's going on in your body, the more you understand the signs that your body
is giving that it's struggling and it's not okay. And
you may ask like, well, why does this happen, Celeste? A
(11:54):
lot of times growing up, our parents were in survival mode. They didn't have
the capacity. To teach us how to listen
to our body because they wasn't even listening to their body, right? So if
they're not listening to their body, how the heck they're gonna teach us how to listen to our body And
so it's so important to understand that just because you
were not taught how to listen to your body How
(12:14):
to understand the signs doesn't mean you can't understand the
signs. You're human. You're not a robot So you're gonna have these
experiences that is so important for you to understand So
really being mindful on the emotions and
how they've affected your judgment because you don't have
to keep living life that way. Now,
(12:36):
this picture for people that are listening, I have a picture where it
shows emotional mind versus logic mind. And
it says emotional mind reacts from feelings, energy levels and
psychological states and needs, while the logic mind
responds using logic, cause and effect, reasoning, analysis of
possible consequences. If we merge
(12:57):
these together, right, we'll get a wise mind, right? Seeks
to synthesize and balance logic and emotion perspectives and to serve
the highest good, being more mindful. So I'm
conscious of my emotions and my experiences and
what I'm feeling. I'm also conscious about my logic mind, right?
I'm able to understand reasoning. And I
(13:21):
have more moments of making sure I'm using my
wise mind being more mindful about my decisions than not Years
ago. I was very impulsive very much in the moment And
now like the the baseline in
which I operate is with the wise mind, right? Does that
mean I don't have emotions? Does that mean I don't feel that impulse that
(13:41):
wants to bleed in? No, I I have all of those feelings But
now they're not controlling me If you wanna
work on not being controlled and feeling
like you don't have any say-so in life and life is happening to you,
you've gotta really work on being able to
pause, being able to reflect. Now,
(14:02):
there's importance in attention, like the importance
of attention. So being intentional is so important because
when you're able to act with intention, It
involves purposeful, proactive choices based on understanding goals
while reacting based on emotions as a spontaneous, impulsive
response driven by immediate feelings. So intentionally acting
(14:27):
allows for clear thinking and consider action while
reacting can lead to impulse decisions and negative consequence. And
I'll just give you a quick example, right? How many of you have
said you wanted to start your day earlier in the morning? You
wanted to get up so that you're not rushing into work. How
many of you said I want to get up and do a walk or stretch raise your
(14:47):
hand, right? I'm sure I can't see you, but I know a lot of
people are raising their hands What happens in the morning in?
the morning time You don't feel like
getting up. So what do you do? You don't get up and
then you snooze your alarm and then you find yourself in
a space of Feeling like oh,
(15:10):
i'll do this tomorrow and then rushing into work right now. You're starting
your day Um with depletion not
with giving when you give to yourself you oh my gosh, you could be so
full and starting your day There may be a little traffic. Somebody
may cut you off, but you're not finding yourself struggling as
much Because you started your day with you and you feel replenished
(15:32):
So how does that work if I don't want to go based off of my feeling
if I want to do be intentional the night before Let's say I'm
gonna do a stretch right the night before I'm setting my
alarm as soon as my alarm goes off I'm jumping up
If you stay in bed, your mind will talk you out of it. Your mind
will tell you up. Well, maybe you could do it tomorrow, right? So
(15:54):
if you want to think about why intentionality is
important, because if we are not intentional about what we're choosing
to do, we will be controlled by our feelings and our feelings change.
How many times have you went to the gym or went to a workout class that you
didn't feel like going? And you're like, oh, my gosh, this was actually not
bad. Or how many times were you not going to go with a
(16:15):
friend out and you went out and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so
glad I did it. Right. It's the starting. That's the hard part.
But once you start and get there, you'll start to feel
the replenishment that you need. You'll never get there if
you don't start. Right. So if you want to think
about, like, being intentional, how do I allow myself to
(16:35):
not allow emotions to take over? Emotions are going to happen.
We can't get around emotions. But how do I not allow it
to take over through routine, through discipline and
intentionality? Now some
strategies for balance and emotion and logic, right? Because it's
not only important for me to tell you what we're struggling with, but how
(16:56):
do I challenge and work through it? Pausing and
reflecting. So taking a moment to breathe and access your feelings before
reacting, it's always good, right? So in
order for you to, how do I take a moment to pause before I react? I
need to notice when I'm struggling. How do I notice when I'm struggling getting
more in tune with my body? Cause my body's giving me signs. Right.
(17:18):
So taking time to pause and reflect is
important. Journaling, great way to
get more in tune with what's going on. How do
I journal? Literally, like I have a guided journal, but even
if you don't want to get my guided journal, There's a paper and
a notebook, right? You can ask yourself the same questions
(17:39):
every day to start the process, right? You can Google
like what are some good questions to to ask myself at
night? I'll tell you before we ask our children at night is How
are you feeling? What are you grateful for? What did you do to prepare for tomorrow and
what went well today? Those questions I did intentionally
so that they can tap into how they're feeling tapping into like
(18:01):
Understanding the gratitude in the day right because we
get so caught up in the trauma and the drama of life
That we forget what we have and when we forget what we have we
feel miserable I would say there
are people in third world countries that are walking
around smiling with nowhere near
(18:23):
the amount of material things that
we have here in America, right? And so we
have allowed life to consume us. And
especially being black in america if you're a black woman working
in corporate working in white spaces Right and
you know when i'm working with people and they're talking about this stuff and i'm like It's
(18:43):
not you it's the system you're in the system that doesn't see you but
I need you to see you Like that's so important regardless
of who sees me I need to see me and so because of
all of these things we find ourselves struggling so Keeping
a journal and reflecting will allow you to see things more
clear, so you're not allowing life to consume you. Seeking
(19:06):
feedback is another one. Um, so discussing feelings and decisions with
trusted friends or mentors like people that you trust, right? Everybody's
not bad and some people are blessed enough to have
somebody that like a coach or a friend where they
can bounce things off of and get clarity and get um
more understanding And then the last thing I
(19:27):
want to say is that identifying your core values so
To identify your core values, you can start with reflecting on
what truly matters to you in life. So you're gonna consider all
your past experiences, identifying the principles you hold dear, and
trying to narrow them down. So if you never thought about what your
(19:47):
core values are, Some examples I
got from an Instagrammer. Hey gold sister
integrity leadership growth honesty accountability family fun
stability faith creativity Adventure, these are
just some values right now Let's say
your core value is family. And
(20:10):
I'm looking for another one, communication, right? Like it's important to
me for me to take time with my family and to communicate
with my partner. And if I sit down with myself and
I'm always working, right? They have games,
they have all these things going on. I'm never attending. Am I
really truly living out my core values, right?
(20:31):
I haven't put them in my calendar because I tell myself I don't have time.
But then if I look at my phone and see how much I'm scrolling, right,
we used to look at your values and then check your phone and then tell me
you don't have time. If your phone is showing me that
you are not on social media all day or not on YouTube
watching things on Netflix, right? or games, these
(20:54):
games get addictive. Look at your phone and then if
everything is clear and you tell me you don't have time, I would love to hear from you. Let
me know you don't have time because a lot of times we have
time, but we allow society to
consume us and then we start vegging out on our phones, vegging
out on movies and shows. So if I'm gonna stick with
(21:15):
the example of me saying family is important to me Like
and I realize that I'm not Living out my core value
Then I need to go back to the drawing board and start to look at
what can I do to make this happen? A lot of
times we have these core values that we haven't identified consciously,
but they've been like growing up. If we look back, we'll be like, yeah,
(21:38):
that, that wasn't me. That's what I said. I want it. If we really take time
to reflect, we'll start to realize like, dang, you
know what? Like I'm not living up my values. I'm not communicating
with my spouse. I'm not living by faith. I'm living by fear.
So strategies for balancing your emotion and
logic, a huge part of it is being able to identify your core
(21:59):
values. And once you identify them, make sure that you're walking
in alignment with what that looks like. So
this is something, emotion, logic, right? Both
are important, but a lot of times we're allowing that emotion to
take over. So my challenge to
you, right, is to start to pay attention to what
(22:22):
your body's saying, start to pay attention to your emotions. You
can Google feelings chart, right? Grab a feelings chart, check in
with how you're feeling. Everything starts with awareness
if you're struggling in life and You're trying
to figure out the next step start to pay attention to
your day-to-day. What am I doing? What do I need? if
(22:45):
you Google wellness will it'll show
you a pie graph with like the different areas of your life social emotional
Environmental professional and
so to show you these areas you can start there and look at that
and start to dissect Okay, what do I want in this area?
What are my values in this area? What kind of work environment
(23:07):
do I want? And I want to be clear that just
because you become aware and understand what you want, it
may take time to get there. But until you create a plan to work
on getting there, you'll always find yourself feeling miserable. But
if you work on creating a plan, you won't feel so
miserable because you know like you're not going to be stuck in the same place. The
(23:27):
reason why we feel miserable and feel stuck is because we're not doing anything to
change it. Make today the day you start to do something to
change it So I hope this was helpful. I hope this makes
sense. I always tell people if anything I say resonates for you Understand
you have the power to make the change, but you have to really start to have faith
and believing in yourself You know when you start having
(23:48):
faith when you believe in yourself, I promise you nobody can take
that away from you The mind is so powerful which
is why my wellness center is called Shifting the Way You Think, because
my goal is to keep shifting, help people shift. Because
if we're stuck, if we're not shifting our thought process, we're not
growing. I wanna see you grow, right? If you wanna grow, continue
(24:10):
listening to this podcast, because I'm always gonna come out with different
nuggets that's gonna help you grow and help you see yourself the
way life should look like, not versus what life has
been like in the trauma that you've experienced. Like we're
gonna acknowledge it, but we don't want that to be the lens on where we're seeing
ourselves for the future Until next time beautiful people.
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