July 24, 2025 • 25 mins
In this episode of Celeste the Therapist Podcast, Celeste shares insights from her recent trip to Ghana, reflecting on the nation's rich history and its leaders' efforts towards liberation. She discusses how the experience has reinvigorated her dedication to her work in mental health and social justice. Celeste also introduces the topic of grounding techniques, offering practical advice for managing stress and staying present. Additionally, she updates listeners on the latest offerings at her wellness center in Stoughton, Massachusetts, including the addition of regular sound healing classes. Tune in for an inspiring and informative discussion designed to empower and uplift.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
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 tried out any of my episodes, what
I do on this podcast is I talk about things that we go through. And
I kind of walk you in ways that you can deal with it. Originally,
I started in 2018, where I was talking to people that
(00:24):
were doing things to empower the lives of others and
over the years, the last couple years I've changed
it because I opened a wellness center in Stoughton, Massachusetts
and I didn't have the capacity to interview people but eventually
I want to get back to there. So right now you get these nice short
episodes today. We're talking about grounding techniques
(00:48):
So I've been away for a few weeks. I took some time off
and I went to the country of Ghana and
I had such an amazing time being around people
learning the history of Ghana and
the liberation just all the ways that
(01:09):
I think that trip came at a really great time due
to the nature of the work that I'm doing. It
just helped me feel more motivated just thinking about all
the leaders before me that has
done so much work to try to educate and liberate people
from the shackles of like white supremacy and
(01:33):
all of the things that are happening in this country, in America.
I've struggled with a lot and, you
know, it doesn't deter me from what I'm doing. It actually motivates
me to do more, but also just thinking about all the
people that have come before me and
have done amazing work. It just really was very inspiring. and
(01:57):
encouraging. So at the
Wellness Center, we have classes that take place every
month. We've just added sound healing as a regular rotation.
So if that's something that you're interested in, if you go to stwyt.com,
you could find the links for the classes that are coming
(02:18):
up and future classes, and you can sign up. So
grounding techniques, what I decided to talk
about this, During the trip, my
children were going on
a separate vacation and there were some logistical things
that needed to take place and I wasn't even in
(02:39):
the country. And the way my mind started
spiraling about worst case scenarios really
had my stomach tight And one night
I couldn't sleep. It was when I first got there. I couldn't
sleep and I was able to recognize what was going on.
My mind was creating scenarios. The thing with humans is
(03:00):
that we're the only species that can activate our amygdala
with the way that we think about things. So
for instance, animals, the prey comes and then they can go back to
baseline and they don't create scenarios in
their head about what could happen. Their system is at
rest, right? For me, for us, our
(03:24):
mind has access to the experiences that's been in the past. Um,
it can create crazy scenarios the same way it
created like crazy scenarios that caused me to be feel so
anxious. Our mind can also create amazing scenarios that can
show us like our goals and how like, and that's literally, I've
talked about this before, but when it comes to the trajectory and
(03:46):
the way that I operate is because I continue to visualize myself
in a different space, right? I continue the goals that I have.
I continue to picture it in my head. And so my
mind is always able to look for the opportunities for
me to get to that place. Um, so, you know,
I had this like, kind of like struggle, my stomach was
(04:06):
turning, I was anxious, I couldn't sleep. And I woke up early
and I tried to do a body scan meditation.
Um, and, um, that didn't work. Right. And
so I, um, found it, uh, meditation.
I typed it on YouTube, uh, meditation for anxiety and
(04:27):
this nice five minute anxiety meditation came up. And
part of it, we was affirming, I'm here, I'm okay, right? Like,
I know logically I'm okay, but emotionally, my mind
thinking about all these crazy scenarios, I'm across the world and
unable to get to them. That's one of the areas that with my,
(04:47):
the way I struggle with anxiety, when it comes to my children, where they're not in
my presence, my mind can literally go into like all of these
crazy scenarios. And so I was thinking like, I
have all of these tools that I use that
helps me when I find myself struggling. And
the effects that it has on me is rather quickly because
(05:09):
in general, I am not operating from
an anxious standpoint. So it's easier for me to
gravitate towards some of these practices and find
immediate relief. I do, I'm gonna share these practices,
but I also want you to know that sometimes when
you've been in this like space for a long time struggling that
(05:30):
you may not be able to get that immediate relief. So
I do as I'm talking about these things I want you to think about like
how can I add these as a regular practice into my
life kind of like medicine thinking about it like that because the
things that I do when I find myself struggling are
things that I already do on a regular basis. So it's
(05:51):
easier for my system to acclimate to what I'm
trying to show it. So one of
the things I'm thinking about is 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And
these are really good too if you find yourself struggling
in the moment and you need something really quick. So this
(06:11):
5, 4, 3, 2, 1 method is five things you can see. So you literally, let's say you're
finding yourself struggling and you're not able to ground. You
look for five things you can see. Four things
that you can touch, right? So you literally will go and, you
know, here's my water bottle, here's my table, here's my computer, right?
Because what's happening is doing that is allowing your system to ground. Two
(06:33):
things that you can smell, right? I have some lotion on, I have this
hand sanitizer here. If I squirt it, I'll smell that, right? It's bringing
me into the present. And then one thing that you can taste, right?
If you have a peppermint, those are great. Gum, even
if it's water or a drink, like, Those 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you're
using your senses to bring you back into the present. And
(06:56):
you may say, but what do you mean back into the present? I am in the present. Yeah,
like you're physically here, but consciously we don't be
here sometimes. And those are things that you
can do to help you kind of get back
into the moment, especially if you're finding yourself ungrounded, right?
If you find yourself like, for instance, if you're driving somewhere on
(07:18):
the bus system or train system and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm
already there. That's your mind kind of like, going
into another space. And I do want to preface it,
like some people, a lot of people have had to
survive by escaping mentally, right? As a
child. And so even as an adult, you can find yourself
(07:38):
doing that, finding yourself escaping. Sometimes that's
the only thing you've had access to. And as an
adult, when you have a lot of responsibilities and things, it just doesn't work,
right? Escaping may have been a norm. You may not even realize
that you've been doing it because it's what you do, but just be
mindful of that. So that's one of the ways. Another way that
(07:59):
you can access like getting grounded really quickly is
literally by deep breathing. If
you go on youtube.com, you can type in like
breathing circle. There's a circle where it will go in and
out like that, right? I say breathe in, breathe
out. Breathe in,
(08:25):
breathe out. Like something
as simple as creating this
intentional time to breathe deeply, right? Because you
may say, Celeste, I'm already breathing. But are you intentionally breathing?
A lot of times when we're struggling, our breathing is really
labored. And again,
(08:47):
like your system is not designed to work on overtime. A
lot of times our system is in overtime and we find ourselves
struggling to breathe. You may not realize it, but
like just how I did like that, like I can tell in
those moments, it doesn't have to be about me being anxious. It could be me
rushing or feeling overwhelmed. And then I'll realize it
(09:08):
and I'll be like, all right. take a deep breath, right? Sometimes
when people come on the screen with me when I'm working with people, because most of my sessions are
virtual, and they'll come on and be like, yeah, I got all this going on.
I was like, all right, hold on. Let's just take a breath, right? And it's
so amazing, because it's like, wow, I really needed that breath, right? I
really needed that pause. So many times we're just in the
(09:30):
hustle and bustle, and we're not creating moments to
pause. And it's not healthy for our
system. We need to pause. If a car just
ran all the time, eventually it shuts down. Your computer
system, my computer system, if it's on too much,
it gets too hot and it closes off, right? So
(09:52):
really being mindful of like taking moments to breathe
deeply. Another practice is like a body scan.
And as I told you, when I was super overwhelmed and anxious, I
did a body scan meditation where it kind of
took me from the top of my head to the bottom of my
feet. And, um, that didn't help. I needed more
(10:14):
words, you know? Um, and so with the
body scan, it's kind of like, pay attention to your
mouth. Are you clenching your teeth? Right. Um, relax your
fingers. Like a lot of times you don't realize like your wound up type.
Some of us, like if you're watching me on YouTube, like, your
shoulders are high and you're like, you're like
this, right? Tensed up. And you don't even realize you're
(10:37):
tensed up because you're always tensed up. And that being tensed
up, guess what? It not just affects you physically, internally, it
affects the way you're projecting on things and people and
the way you're looking at life. If you're always bound up, how do
you, Find any like freedom or peace in life
if your whole physical symptom is system is
(11:00):
wound up So that's number three. Another great
activity is mindfully walking. So literally Going
outside letting the Sun hit your face even
it like taking your shoes off and letting your feet hit the
ground and right? Like literally like looking at
what, where you're walking, you may have noticed, like, look at the
(11:22):
flowers there, right? Paying attention and mindfully walking.
So that means don't get on your phone. Like don't talk to
anybody, right? Just be alone with you and
your own space. You
know, the phones and the social media piece can
be helpful with distracting. But we can't
(11:44):
allow ourselves to be distracted all the time. Right. We
have to like society is not going to remind us like, hey, did
you do that grounding thing? Did you do X, Y, Z? Society
will not remind us of this is something that you really have to
be intentional about. And the things that I talk about
are free, like it's intentional for me. This is an
(12:05):
intentional thing that I do when I talk about ways to work through things.
I talk about ways where it doesn't cost money, because I
really want people to feel empowered after they listen to these episodes, so
that they can feel like, you know what, I can start the process today. It
doesn't have to be about next Monday or next year or the top
of the month. It can literally be like,
(12:28):
I can start this process today. So mindfully walking
is another great way to ground. And again, as I'm talking about these
things, look at it as medicine. How can I incorporate this
into my life on a regular basis? Grounding objects,
right? Sometimes people, I'm just looking at my desk to see what I have. People
may have something that they can use to help them stay grounded.
(12:51):
Um, so it could be textured right? This is I don't even know what
this is. I think this is a capture my ink Um,
it could be something that's textured where you can hold it.
Um, Sometimes people may have like a bracelet or something on
them that has like different kind of grooves and nooks to them Um,
and they touch it like if you're feeling nervous, you'll just kind of touch it.
(13:12):
Um people that I that I work with that like will pick their
skin or their hair, pull their hair. I'll talk about
these mechanisms that they can use a rubber band to grab
and just like touch and pop
to help you get back into the moment, right? The stress
that we feel for so many different reasons will cause us
(13:35):
to, we'll find ourselves escaping in
different ways. And sometimes it looks like pulling your
hair or picking your skin or
your fingers, right? Like there's so many things that you're doing
that you don't realize you're doing when you're doing it. And
you're like, oh my gosh, how did this bald spot get here? Or how did
(13:56):
my fingers started bleeding, right? So my
goal in you listening to this is to help you see like, okay,
yeah, maybe I'm not as grounded as I could be, but these are
some things that I can do to work on starting the process, right?
Because when we talk about this stuff to our
PCPs Doctors, a lot of times, the
(14:17):
first course of action is medicine, and medicine's great.
It has its power, and it's definitely a
great tool, but it shouldn't be
the first tool of action. I want people to try the
things that they can do, and if those aren't working, all right, let's talk about medicine. The
next thing is journaling. Great
(14:38):
tool, right? You see that 365, I have
a journal that I created, a really cool journal. Let
me just grab it really quick. So this journal is,
I created it back in 2018, well,
before the podcast, so I think 2017. And I basically
(14:59):
am asking you different questions and asking you how
you're feeling. So do you find yourself stressing over, yo,
what are the odds of this? Y'all see me just open this book up.
If you're watching me on YouTube, I just grabbed it. This is
crazy, because this is what we're talking about.
This is so crazy that I just opened it up to this. But anyways, do
(15:23):
you find yourself stressing over things that are not in your control? If
you do not have control over it, learn how to let it go. And then
day 130 says, imagine how intentional your life
can be if you start thinking, before you act.
And so some of these are questions and some of them are statements. Like
these two were statements and day 143 is
(15:46):
a question. Because we can pride ourselves on being strong, we fail
to realize how our broken pieces in life have hindered us.
We continue to grow physically, but mentally we are stuck. Do you find
yourself being stuck? So like these statements every
day are designed to help you really think about
some areas of your life that you may not have thought about. And
(16:08):
so the halfway, so it's 365 days,
right? Halfway through the year or halfway through this
book, it resets the question. And so
the question you get on day one, you'll get on like day
160 something, and it'd be that same question, but then you can
see how you've grown over the last six months, right? So
(16:29):
that was the design of it. I always think about people that can't afford
therapy, and even if you can't afford therapy, can't find a good therapist, and
find yourself feeling stuck. I think about these things as I do
this podcast and the things that I've created. So that's
an example of a journal. There are many journals out
there. Again, there's also a notebook and a
(16:50):
pen, just grabbing that and checking in
with yourself about how you're feeling, what went
well today, what do I need to do to prepare for tomorrow, and
what am I grateful for? Those four questions, if you
listened to this podcast before, those are questions that I ask my
kids every night because I want to help them get more into
(17:12):
the moment. Thinking about gratitude is really hard. to find
yourself in a dark place constantly when you are bringing gratitude into
your life. Having a nature connection
is really helpful for grounding, trying to get
into nature. I have
a hiking trail not far from my house that I can go to. Even
(17:34):
if you don't have a hiking trail, if there's a garden, right? If
you have plants in your house, outside, touching
a tree, um water if you if you're near
any water right i have a little like pond that's
not far from my house that even just driving by it's just
like i breathe different it's crazy the energy that
(17:54):
nature holds um affirmations is another grounding
technique um i told you at the top of the podcast how
i was struggling and thinking worst case scenarios the
body scan wasn't helpful but then The
next thing I listened to around anxiety was more affirming that
I was okay. And I love sharing the
(18:16):
ways that I struggle because I talk a lot about the
way we can work through things. and how
to make things work and what I do in life to work on myself. But
I also want you to know, regardless of how much work you do, life
is going to life at times, and you're going to have these experiences. And
(18:37):
these are things you can do to help work through those experiences.
The last grounding technique I want you to think about is just physical movement.
If you follow me on Instagram or my stories, You
know, I walk, I'll talk about like, I don't feel like walking, but
I'm walking. And a lot of the things
(18:57):
that I do are so part of my routine that
regardless of how I feel, I do it anyway. Payroll has
to be made every other week. I'm making sure
I'm doing that, right? As a business owner
now, there are just a lot of logistical things that are on my plate
that I don't necessarily always feel like doing, but I do it because I
(19:19):
know I need to get paid. So financially and
literally, I think we tend to do that. But when
it comes to our individual selves and our individual growth, I don't think
we do that enough. I don't think we actually work on
doing things based off of what we need. We end up doing
it how we feel. We know that we should
(19:41):
be getting up early for work so we're not
rushing in traffic. But what do we do? We snooze because it
feels good to stay in bed. And then now we're rushing into
work. And so we're literally starting our day on the wrong foot because
now our system is in this anxious state. If
I sacrifice the extra sleep, and
(20:02):
got up early, even though it didn't feel good, then I'll find myself slowly
rolling into work and not feeling the pressure of the anxiety
from the morning, right? So a lot of times we will sacrifice and
get that little bit of extra sleep or get that little bit of extra something,
but then it doesn't really help us throughout the day. not
(20:22):
taking that extra sleep doesn't feel good because I enjoy my
bed and I enjoy sleeping in, but also what doesn't feel
good is not getting the things that I need to get done done. So
I just want you to take away from today some
things that you can think about implementing into your life, some
practices that you can think about trying that
(20:44):
can help you get more aligned with where you say you want
to be, When people tell me like, oh, I'm trying to change
that or I'm trying to do this. I said, what does that realistically look like?
Saying you're trying and actually putting something
in place are two different things. I think mentally we want
it to be different, so we're trying, right? But literally,
(21:05):
are we doing anything different? So really
be mindful of the choices that you're choosing to make,
really being mindful of the medicine that you're taking. Even if
you're taking literal pills, that's totally fine. I still
want you to think about adding these other medicines to your
routine. And so you can see the power that
(21:27):
you have, right? A lot of times we can't see the power that
we have, but we haven't been taught how to access it.
and being in Ghana and just learning about the ways that
a lot of the practices were stripped from black people. They had
the things that they were doing and they
introduced church, right? And it was
(21:48):
so crazy how the female slave dungeon
was downstairs and there was a church upstairs and the horrible things
that they were doing to these people while they said, hey, you
can't do none of your practices. Here's our church practice. and
we're beating you as well, and we're doing all these horrible things to you. It
really made me think about things and take a pause. There's
(22:11):
a lot of ways that even if you're in therapy, that
pain is stuck in your body. I created this wellness center
and these somatic classes because I recognize there's such
a disconnect with the way that our society talks
about wellness with psychiatry and therapy only, but not
bringing the physical part. There's something powerful about coupling
(22:34):
up this process of healing with some somatic work
and really like Getting into some kind of system
and routine. So I gave you a lot to think about Um,
and so what I want you to take away from this is like, okay What can I
start implementing today? Right? Can I get up and go if you
have time now? Can I just go for a walk today? Not getting on
(22:56):
my phone just walking mindfully if you haven't been walking i'm asking you
for five minutes. Just give yourself five minutes Um, can I
do the five four three two one method right pay attention get
myself grounded? Can I do the two minute? Breathing meditation,
right? These little things that you may think
is not a big deal. They are huge They add up you're making deposits
(23:17):
into your life that starts to add up those little deposits
start to feel differently So I just want to
challenge you to do that So if anything I say resonates understand
you have the power to create change But first you got
to have faith to believe in yourself and when you have faith and when you start believing in
yourself I promise you no one could ever take that away
(23:38):
from you you so don't forget follow me everywhere on social media as
Celeste the therapist or you can follow my wellness page
at STWYT and that stands for shifting the
way you think you can visit our website at STWYT.com to
learn more about the Wellness Center and to sign up for a class
until next time beautiful people I will talk to you
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 tried out any of my episodes, what
I do on this podcast is I talk about things that we go through. And
I kind of walk you in ways that you can deal with it. Originally,
I started in 2018, where I was talking to people that
(00:24):
were doing things to empower the lives of others and
over the years, the last couple years I've changed
it because I opened a wellness center in Stoughton, Massachusetts
and I didn't have the capacity to interview people but eventually
I want to get back to there. So right now you get these nice short
episodes today. We're talking about grounding techniques
(00:48):
So I've been away for a few weeks. I took some time off
and I went to the country of Ghana and
I had such an amazing time being around people
learning the history of Ghana and
the liberation just all the ways that
(01:09):
I think that trip came at a really great time due
to the nature of the work that I'm doing. It
just helped me feel more motivated just thinking about all
the leaders before me that has
done so much work to try to educate and liberate people
from the shackles of like white supremacy and
(01:33):
all of the things that are happening in this country, in America.
I've struggled with a lot and, you
know, it doesn't deter me from what I'm doing. It actually motivates
me to do more, but also just thinking about all the
people that have come before me and
have done amazing work. It just really was very inspiring. and
(01:57):
encouraging. So at the
Wellness Center, we have classes that take place every
month. We've just added sound healing as a regular rotation.
So if that's something that you're interested in, if you go to stwyt.com,
you could find the links for the classes that are coming
(02:18):
up and future classes, and you can sign up. So
grounding techniques, what I decided to talk
about this, During the trip, my
children were going on
a separate vacation and there were some logistical things
that needed to take place and I wasn't even in
(02:39):
the country. And the way my mind started
spiraling about worst case scenarios really
had my stomach tight And one night
I couldn't sleep. It was when I first got there. I couldn't
sleep and I was able to recognize what was going on.
My mind was creating scenarios. The thing with humans is
(03:00):
that we're the only species that can activate our amygdala
with the way that we think about things. So
for instance, animals, the prey comes and then they can go back to
baseline and they don't create scenarios in
their head about what could happen. Their system is at
rest, right? For me, for us, our
(03:24):
mind has access to the experiences that's been in the past. Um,
it can create crazy scenarios the same way it
created like crazy scenarios that caused me to be feel so
anxious. Our mind can also create amazing scenarios that can
show us like our goals and how like, and that's literally, I've
talked about this before, but when it comes to the trajectory and
(03:46):
the way that I operate is because I continue to visualize myself
in a different space, right? I continue the goals that I have.
I continue to picture it in my head. And so my
mind is always able to look for the opportunities for
me to get to that place. Um, so, you know,
I had this like, kind of like struggle, my stomach was
(04:06):
turning, I was anxious, I couldn't sleep. And I woke up early
and I tried to do a body scan meditation.
Um, and, um, that didn't work. Right. And
so I, um, found it, uh, meditation.
I typed it on YouTube, uh, meditation for anxiety and
(04:27):
this nice five minute anxiety meditation came up. And
part of it, we was affirming, I'm here, I'm okay, right? Like,
I know logically I'm okay, but emotionally, my mind
thinking about all these crazy scenarios, I'm across the world and
unable to get to them. That's one of the areas that with my,
(04:47):
the way I struggle with anxiety, when it comes to my children, where they're not in
my presence, my mind can literally go into like all of these
crazy scenarios. And so I was thinking like, I
have all of these tools that I use that
helps me when I find myself struggling. And
the effects that it has on me is rather quickly because
(05:09):
in general, I am not operating from
an anxious standpoint. So it's easier for me to
gravitate towards some of these practices and find
immediate relief. I do, I'm gonna share these practices,
but I also want you to know that sometimes when
you've been in this like space for a long time struggling that
(05:30):
you may not be able to get that immediate relief. So
I do as I'm talking about these things I want you to think about like
how can I add these as a regular practice into my
life kind of like medicine thinking about it like that because the
things that I do when I find myself struggling are
things that I already do on a regular basis. So it's
(05:51):
easier for my system to acclimate to what I'm
trying to show it. So one of
the things I'm thinking about is 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And
these are really good too if you find yourself struggling
in the moment and you need something really quick. So this
(06:11):
5, 4, 3, 2, 1 method is five things you can see. So you literally, let's say you're
finding yourself struggling and you're not able to ground. You
look for five things you can see. Four things
that you can touch, right? So you literally will go and, you
know, here's my water bottle, here's my table, here's my computer, right?
Because what's happening is doing that is allowing your system to ground. Two
(06:33):
things that you can smell, right? I have some lotion on, I have this
hand sanitizer here. If I squirt it, I'll smell that, right? It's bringing
me into the present. And then one thing that you can taste, right?
If you have a peppermint, those are great. Gum, even
if it's water or a drink, like, Those 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you're
using your senses to bring you back into the present. And
(06:56):
you may say, but what do you mean back into the present? I am in the present. Yeah,
like you're physically here, but consciously we don't be
here sometimes. And those are things that you
can do to help you kind of get back
into the moment, especially if you're finding yourself ungrounded, right?
If you find yourself like, for instance, if you're driving somewhere on
(07:18):
the bus system or train system and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm
already there. That's your mind kind of like, going
into another space. And I do want to preface it,
like some people, a lot of people have had to
survive by escaping mentally, right? As a
child. And so even as an adult, you can find yourself
(07:38):
doing that, finding yourself escaping. Sometimes that's
the only thing you've had access to. And as an
adult, when you have a lot of responsibilities and things, it just doesn't work,
right? Escaping may have been a norm. You may not even realize
that you've been doing it because it's what you do, but just be
mindful of that. So that's one of the ways. Another way that
(07:59):
you can access like getting grounded really quickly is
literally by deep breathing. If
you go on youtube.com, you can type in like
breathing circle. There's a circle where it will go in and
out like that, right? I say breathe in, breathe
out. Breathe in,
(08:25):
breathe out. Like something
as simple as creating this
intentional time to breathe deeply, right? Because you
may say, Celeste, I'm already breathing. But are you intentionally breathing?
A lot of times when we're struggling, our breathing is really
labored. And again,
(08:47):
like your system is not designed to work on overtime. A
lot of times our system is in overtime and we find ourselves
struggling to breathe. You may not realize it, but
like just how I did like that, like I can tell in
those moments, it doesn't have to be about me being anxious. It could be me
rushing or feeling overwhelmed. And then I'll realize it
(09:08):
and I'll be like, all right. take a deep breath, right? Sometimes
when people come on the screen with me when I'm working with people, because most of my sessions are
virtual, and they'll come on and be like, yeah, I got all this going on.
I was like, all right, hold on. Let's just take a breath, right? And it's
so amazing, because it's like, wow, I really needed that breath, right? I
really needed that pause. So many times we're just in the
(09:30):
hustle and bustle, and we're not creating moments to
pause. And it's not healthy for our
system. We need to pause. If a car just
ran all the time, eventually it shuts down. Your computer
system, my computer system, if it's on too much,
it gets too hot and it closes off, right? So
(09:52):
really being mindful of like taking moments to breathe
deeply. Another practice is like a body scan.
And as I told you, when I was super overwhelmed and anxious, I
did a body scan meditation where it kind of
took me from the top of my head to the bottom of my
feet. And, um, that didn't help. I needed more
(10:14):
words, you know? Um, and so with the
body scan, it's kind of like, pay attention to your
mouth. Are you clenching your teeth? Right. Um, relax your
fingers. Like a lot of times you don't realize like your wound up type.
Some of us, like if you're watching me on YouTube, like, your
shoulders are high and you're like, you're like
this, right? Tensed up. And you don't even realize you're
(10:37):
tensed up because you're always tensed up. And that being tensed
up, guess what? It not just affects you physically, internally, it
affects the way you're projecting on things and people and
the way you're looking at life. If you're always bound up, how do
you, Find any like freedom or peace in life
if your whole physical symptom is system is
(11:00):
wound up So that's number three. Another great
activity is mindfully walking. So literally Going
outside letting the Sun hit your face even
it like taking your shoes off and letting your feet hit the
ground and right? Like literally like looking at
what, where you're walking, you may have noticed, like, look at the
(11:22):
flowers there, right? Paying attention and mindfully walking.
So that means don't get on your phone. Like don't talk to
anybody, right? Just be alone with you and
your own space. You
know, the phones and the social media piece can
be helpful with distracting. But we can't
(11:44):
allow ourselves to be distracted all the time. Right. We
have to like society is not going to remind us like, hey, did
you do that grounding thing? Did you do X, Y, Z? Society
will not remind us of this is something that you really have to
be intentional about. And the things that I talk about
are free, like it's intentional for me. This is an
(12:05):
intentional thing that I do when I talk about ways to work through things.
I talk about ways where it doesn't cost money, because I
really want people to feel empowered after they listen to these episodes, so
that they can feel like, you know what, I can start the process today. It
doesn't have to be about next Monday or next year or the top
of the month. It can literally be like,
(12:28):
I can start this process today. So mindfully walking
is another great way to ground. And again, as I'm talking about these
things, look at it as medicine. How can I incorporate this
into my life on a regular basis? Grounding objects,
right? Sometimes people, I'm just looking at my desk to see what I have. People
may have something that they can use to help them stay grounded.
(12:51):
Um, so it could be textured right? This is I don't even know what
this is. I think this is a capture my ink Um,
it could be something that's textured where you can hold it.
Um, Sometimes people may have like a bracelet or something on
them that has like different kind of grooves and nooks to them Um,
and they touch it like if you're feeling nervous, you'll just kind of touch it.
(13:12):
Um people that I that I work with that like will pick their
skin or their hair, pull their hair. I'll talk about
these mechanisms that they can use a rubber band to grab
and just like touch and pop
to help you get back into the moment, right? The stress
that we feel for so many different reasons will cause us
(13:35):
to, we'll find ourselves escaping in
different ways. And sometimes it looks like pulling your
hair or picking your skin or
your fingers, right? Like there's so many things that you're doing
that you don't realize you're doing when you're doing it. And
you're like, oh my gosh, how did this bald spot get here? Or how did
(13:56):
my fingers started bleeding, right? So my
goal in you listening to this is to help you see like, okay,
yeah, maybe I'm not as grounded as I could be, but these are
some things that I can do to work on starting the process, right?
Because when we talk about this stuff to our
PCPs Doctors, a lot of times, the
(14:17):
first course of action is medicine, and medicine's great.
It has its power, and it's definitely a
great tool, but it shouldn't be
the first tool of action. I want people to try the
things that they can do, and if those aren't working, all right, let's talk about medicine. The
next thing is journaling. Great
(14:38):
tool, right? You see that 365, I have
a journal that I created, a really cool journal. Let
me just grab it really quick. So this journal is,
I created it back in 2018, well,
before the podcast, so I think 2017. And I basically
(14:59):
am asking you different questions and asking you how
you're feeling. So do you find yourself stressing over, yo,
what are the odds of this? Y'all see me just open this book up.
If you're watching me on YouTube, I just grabbed it. This is
crazy, because this is what we're talking about.
This is so crazy that I just opened it up to this. But anyways, do
(15:23):
you find yourself stressing over things that are not in your control? If
you do not have control over it, learn how to let it go. And then
day 130 says, imagine how intentional your life
can be if you start thinking, before you act.
And so some of these are questions and some of them are statements. Like
these two were statements and day 143 is
(15:46):
a question. Because we can pride ourselves on being strong, we fail
to realize how our broken pieces in life have hindered us.
We continue to grow physically, but mentally we are stuck. Do you find
yourself being stuck? So like these statements every
day are designed to help you really think about
some areas of your life that you may not have thought about. And
(16:08):
so the halfway, so it's 365 days,
right? Halfway through the year or halfway through this
book, it resets the question. And so
the question you get on day one, you'll get on like day
160 something, and it'd be that same question, but then you can
see how you've grown over the last six months, right? So
(16:29):
that was the design of it. I always think about people that can't afford
therapy, and even if you can't afford therapy, can't find a good therapist, and
find yourself feeling stuck. I think about these things as I do
this podcast and the things that I've created. So that's
an example of a journal. There are many journals out
there. Again, there's also a notebook and a
(16:50):
pen, just grabbing that and checking in
with yourself about how you're feeling, what went
well today, what do I need to do to prepare for tomorrow, and
what am I grateful for? Those four questions, if you
listened to this podcast before, those are questions that I ask my
kids every night because I want to help them get more into
(17:12):
the moment. Thinking about gratitude is really hard. to find
yourself in a dark place constantly when you are bringing gratitude into
your life. Having a nature connection
is really helpful for grounding, trying to get
into nature. I have
a hiking trail not far from my house that I can go to. Even
(17:34):
if you don't have a hiking trail, if there's a garden, right? If
you have plants in your house, outside, touching
a tree, um water if you if you're near
any water right i have a little like pond that's
not far from my house that even just driving by it's just
like i breathe different it's crazy the energy that
(17:54):
nature holds um affirmations is another grounding
technique um i told you at the top of the podcast how
i was struggling and thinking worst case scenarios the
body scan wasn't helpful but then The
next thing I listened to around anxiety was more affirming that
I was okay. And I love sharing the
(18:16):
ways that I struggle because I talk a lot about the
way we can work through things. and how
to make things work and what I do in life to work on myself. But
I also want you to know, regardless of how much work you do, life
is going to life at times, and you're going to have these experiences. And
(18:37):
these are things you can do to help work through those experiences.
The last grounding technique I want you to think about is just physical movement.
If you follow me on Instagram or my stories, You
know, I walk, I'll talk about like, I don't feel like walking, but
I'm walking. And a lot of the things
(18:57):
that I do are so part of my routine that
regardless of how I feel, I do it anyway. Payroll has
to be made every other week. I'm making sure
I'm doing that, right? As a business owner
now, there are just a lot of logistical things that are on my plate
that I don't necessarily always feel like doing, but I do it because I
(19:19):
know I need to get paid. So financially and
literally, I think we tend to do that. But when
it comes to our individual selves and our individual growth, I don't think
we do that enough. I don't think we actually work on
doing things based off of what we need. We end up doing
it how we feel. We know that we should
(19:41):
be getting up early for work so we're not
rushing in traffic. But what do we do? We snooze because it
feels good to stay in bed. And then now we're rushing into
work. And so we're literally starting our day on the wrong foot because
now our system is in this anxious state. If
I sacrifice the extra sleep, and
(20:02):
got up early, even though it didn't feel good, then I'll find myself slowly
rolling into work and not feeling the pressure of the anxiety
from the morning, right? So a lot of times we will sacrifice and
get that little bit of extra sleep or get that little bit of extra something,
but then it doesn't really help us throughout the day. not
(20:22):
taking that extra sleep doesn't feel good because I enjoy my
bed and I enjoy sleeping in, but also what doesn't feel
good is not getting the things that I need to get done done. So
I just want you to take away from today some
things that you can think about implementing into your life, some
practices that you can think about trying that
(20:44):
can help you get more aligned with where you say you want
to be, When people tell me like, oh, I'm trying to change
that or I'm trying to do this. I said, what does that realistically look like?
Saying you're trying and actually putting something
in place are two different things. I think mentally we want
it to be different, so we're trying, right? But literally,
(21:05):
are we doing anything different? So really
be mindful of the choices that you're choosing to make,
really being mindful of the medicine that you're taking. Even if
you're taking literal pills, that's totally fine. I still
want you to think about adding these other medicines to your
routine. And so you can see the power that
(21:27):
you have, right? A lot of times we can't see the power that
we have, but we haven't been taught how to access it.
and being in Ghana and just learning about the ways that
a lot of the practices were stripped from black people. They had
the things that they were doing and they
introduced church, right? And it was
(21:48):
so crazy how the female slave dungeon
was downstairs and there was a church upstairs and the horrible things
that they were doing to these people while they said, hey, you
can't do none of your practices. Here's our church practice. and
we're beating you as well, and we're doing all these horrible things to you. It
really made me think about things and take a pause. There's
(22:11):
a lot of ways that even if you're in therapy, that
pain is stuck in your body. I created this wellness center
and these somatic classes because I recognize there's such
a disconnect with the way that our society talks
about wellness with psychiatry and therapy only, but not
bringing the physical part. There's something powerful about coupling
(22:34):
up this process of healing with some somatic work
and really like Getting into some kind of system
and routine. So I gave you a lot to think about Um,
and so what I want you to take away from this is like, okay What can I
start implementing today? Right? Can I get up and go if you
have time now? Can I just go for a walk today? Not getting on
(22:56):
my phone just walking mindfully if you haven't been walking i'm asking you
for five minutes. Just give yourself five minutes Um, can I
do the five four three two one method right pay attention get
myself grounded? Can I do the two minute? Breathing meditation,
right? These little things that you may think
is not a big deal. They are huge They add up you're making deposits
(23:17):
into your life that starts to add up those little deposits
start to feel differently So I just want to
challenge you to do that So if anything I say resonates understand
you have the power to create change But first you got
to have faith to believe in yourself and when you have faith and when you start believing in
yourself I promise you no one could ever take that away
(23:38):
from you you so don't forget follow me everywhere on social media as
Celeste the therapist or you can follow my wellness page
at STWYT and that stands for shifting the
way you think you can visit our website at STWYT.com to
learn more about the Wellness Center and to sign up for a class
until next time beautiful people I will talk to you
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