Episode 508 Overcoming Overwhelm: The Power of Planning and Mindfulness

In this episode of Celeste, a therapist podcast, Celeste, a dedicated therapist from Boston, explores the concept of feeling stuck and the transformative power of planning. She discusses the emotional barriers that keep us from moving forward and offers practical strategies to create effective plans to overcome these obstacles. Celeste emphasizes the importance of shifting our mindset and shares insights from her own journey of overcoming stagnation. Additionally, she highlights resources available at her wellness center, Shifting the Way You Think, including individual therapy and wellness classes. Don't miss the announcement for the u

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Hey, hey, thank you all so much for joining another episode of Celeste,
a therapist podcast. My name is Celeste. I'm a therapist from Boston. If
you're new here, I want to say thank you so much for giving me a try. What I
do on this podcast is I talk about things we go through and
help you think about ways that you can deal with it. so
if you have a notebook and a pen I

(00:24):
Encourage you to take notes is something I try to say at the beginning of each
episode Try to look at this podcast as a
modality to help you with getting unstuck one of
my Things that I quote a lot is shifting the way
you think it's the name of my Wellness Center Because I've recognized we
get stuck in so many different ways and my goal is to
help you understand Learn how to get unstuck it's a passion that

(00:47):
I have because I felt stuck for so many years in life and
once I Understood the modality to help myself get unstuck. I
made it my passion and mission to help you speaking of
being stuck today, we're talking about planning and
how easy it is for us to get stuck and
the importance of creating a plan I Want

(01:09):
to talk about why? We get stuck like the feelings associated
with it, and what we can do about it, right?
So that's important. If you're new here, I have a
wellness center called Shifting the Way You Think. If you go to stwyt.com, you'll
find all of the things that we do. We do individual therapy.
We have wellness classes. We're located in Stoughton, Massachusetts. So

(01:33):
you can find the different classes that we have. May 3rd
Saturday doors open at 12 Programming starts
at 1230. We are having a mental health wellness day
because me is mental health awareness month And if you know me, you know
mental health is something that is passionate did near and
dear to my heart So I wanted to create an event for the community. So

(01:55):
if you are in the Stilton area, please come by I would love to
meet you we're going to have four different classes
and I have a four-room suite. It's not the biggest suite,
but it's going to make it do what it do, right? So one of the rooms,
which is Irving's room, I named it after this amazing woman
who opened her arms up to me when I came on the scene. She passed away

(02:16):
in 2020. So we have Irving's community room where
we're going to have four different classes. The first class is sound healing. We're
going to have a restorative yoga. We're going to have Mindful
Yin class and we're going to have a rest and
restore class, four different classes. Another room,
we're going to have two people giving out chair massages and

(02:37):
then we're going to have one person giving out quick facials. If you've never had
a facial, you've never had a chair massage, come through because that's all about
wellness. Another room, we're going to have a
creativity room where you're going to be able to make coasters and
then in another room we're going to have a game room where
you can play connect for play Jenga the Mindset behind

(02:58):
this is to introduce you to what wellness is and to
help you see some of the things that we have at the center Once
a month we have social gatherings where you just come and show we
had a movie night We had a crafting night, right and then
this and may we're gonna have this wellness Day
where you can kind of see everything. So all you got to do is go to stwit.com

(03:20):
and you will find that a So planning, right?
Why did this idea come to me? So I had the
privilege of So if you know me, I'm like the
biggest J Cole fan, right? I'm gonna meet
him one day. I'm gonna speak into existence in real life.
This is my seventh concert I went to to see him. I

(03:40):
went to North Carolina. I seen him at Dreamville Dreamville When
I travel, I try to get
things done before I go. I opened
my wellness center officially November 2024. So I
went from having a private practice where I'm literally just seeing clients and
doing my podcast, felt like light work to

(04:03):
opening a wellness center where I'm hosting events, where
I'm hiring people to be on my team, where I'm hiring
contractors. Way out of my like
knowledge or psyche, right? So this is all new to
me. So there's so many moments where I feel overwhelmed. I feel anxious. But
during the concert, I told myself, OK, I'm going to try to not

(04:26):
do any work. And that's hard
for me. One of the things that helps me
when I'm overwhelmed is when I write things down. And
I was in a process of switching systems of how
I'm doing my organization. I'm using a new platform that
I'm trying out, but I hadn't had it put up yet, right? So

(04:47):
my stomach's turning right and I understand there are physical manifestations
that take place when you get overwhelmed whether you realize it or
not they're physical manifestations and I
was able to finally use the
system put things in place and Immediately I
see I felt like things were melting off of me like, okay, I could

(05:08):
breathe right and Now, let me be clear. There are a lot of
things that still need to be done. If you were to see the things
that I need to check off, there are a lot, right? There's a
lot of things I need to check off and even
though I have things that I still need to check off, The
thing that my mind is able to do is now it says it has a plan.

(05:29):
I have it written somewhere The thing is is when you keep things
so in so much in your head It can be overwhelming.
Uh, so if you're watching me on uh, if
you are watching me on youtube, uh, we're going to Look
at a visual for me personally Visuals
are so important because it allows me to see

(05:53):
things. I'm a very visual learner. And when
I get to see what the teacher's talking about,
it allows me to process differently. If you don't know how you process, try
to start understanding what that looks like for you because a lot
of times people don't realize some of the ways that they're trying to

(06:14):
they're trying to learn, it's not taking place
well because of the modality and the way
that they're trying to learn. So one of the things I
learned, I learned this in college when
I tried to take an online class and I realized
like the online class wasn't for me because I couldn't ask questions,

(06:36):
you know, I couldn't raise my hand. It was just different and
I realized like, oh, you're a visual learner, you need to actually
be there to kind of understand. So
as I'm trying to, I'm gonna try to pull these
slides up that I created. I'm
going to, let's see, try to pull these

(06:58):
slides up. So
I just had them up and now I don't see them. I'm gonna
try to go down and Let's
try this again. All right,

(07:21):
share. Okay, here we go. Let's
start from understanding the feeling so
when it you know how I said I have physical manifestations that take
place Um, so feeling overwhelmed and stuck can manifest and
as a sense of being unable to move forward Um, so and

(07:44):
i'm sure some people like oh my gosh celestia's like I struggle with
trying to move forward Um, some emotional things that may come
up is anxiety worry sadness irritability loss
of motivation Um, one of the things I say to people because
people say how do you keep going right? And for me, it's
easy for me to keep going because I'm

(08:06):
so in tune with the way my body's responding. I can feel the
anxiety. I feel like, you know, I'm a spiritual person and
I feel like God places ideas on my heart. And
I know, you know, everybody, I feel, I believe this
is my opinion. I believe we all have a purpose. and that purpose
is gonna look different. And one of my favorite motivational

(08:27):
speakers, Les Brown, he said that a lot of people, there's
a lot of dreams in the graveyard because we never live
our purpose, right? And so because I
can feel the angst of not doing the
things that I know I'm like destined to do, I'll
find myself, uh, struggling with sleep, like feeling,

(08:50):
um, kind of like, um, feeling like really stuck feeling
like I'm supposed to do something and I'm not doing it. Uh,
so, you know, that's what propels me to start. Now, even when
I'm starting the anxiety is still there because it's something new, but
Starts to dismantle because I'm actually moving forward with
the things I'm supposed to do and this is just something I believe in

(09:13):
That may not this may not be something that works for you
or the mindset But I know when I talk to a lot of people they do
describe this feeling When they're not doing the things they're supposed to
do they do describe this feeling of feeling kind
of anxious and overwhelmed and So the cognitive symptoms
that might come up right if you're feeling stuck difficulty Concentrate

(09:35):
and forgetfulness race racing thoughts and mental fog if
you have all these things going on in your head, right? Where there are things you're
supposed to be doing Let's just say you have these
bills you have to pay. Let's just say you have phone calls.
You need to make let's say you have projects that are due right and
The thing is that it's all in your head So now you're feeling overwhelmed

(09:57):
by all of the things that are going on and some physical Manifestations
that could come up for you if you're finding yourself like not
Getting things done not doing the things you're supposed to do our headaches
stomach aches muscle tension my back You
know if you've been listening to this podcast my back I'll
get sleep disturbances. I'll wake up in the middle of the night my stomach

(10:18):
turns right and These are some ways in which
you might find yourself feeling when you are stuck. And
it's not just about your goals or your vision. It could be just simple
tasks. It could be cleaning around the house. It could be needing
to call somebody back. It could be needing to pay a bill. I'm
gonna say this really quick because I say it a lot for people that's been listening to

(10:39):
me a lot it for a long time There was a time where I had so many bills
Debt collectors was calling me. I was getting I was
getting mail right and every time that
the call would come I would get overwhelmed every time the Bill
would come I would get overwhelmed one day. I was like, you know what? Let me just
call these people so I started calling people, you

(11:02):
know, I made deals and And my credit score was
still low. The debt was still there, but there was this amount
of overwhelming amount of peace that I started to experience because
now I had a plan. Right. So the thing is,
it's like it's not like my life changed overnight where I'm like, oh,
I'm debt free. I didn't win a lottery. but I had a

(11:24):
plan, right? And that's the thing that we're not doing. We're not
creating a plan and we're finding ourselves feeling overwhelmed. When
I just talked about how, uh, I was switching systems. And
so where I typically would write down the things that I needed to do, wasn't
happening. It was all in my head. Cause I'm trying to transfer it over. I found
myself feeling so overwhelmed. And I, anytime I

(11:46):
feel that when I know where it's coming from, I'm like, I wonder if
people know like what's going on with them when they find themselves in
the state of being Right a lot of times. We don't know what's going on.
So guess we start doing we start doing stroke scrolling, right?
We said oh, I'm gonna go party We distract ourselves by any means
possible as if that feeling is just gonna go away in

(12:06):
that moment as we're distracting ourselves We're not recognizing that
feeling hasn't gone away. It's still there and And a lot of times they
start manifesting in crazy ways, anxiety attacks,
panic attacks, like nothing in front of you is wrong, but guess what?
Your body feels like something's wrong because you're ignoring all
of the ways in which your body and your system is trying to tell you, hey,

(12:27):
let's get this done. So this is some example of some of the feelings. Let's
move on to the next slide. Now, why people get
stuck, right? Because we talked about some of the feelings that may come up,
but let's talk about why you may get stuck. This one right
here, perfectionism and fear of failure. This is, thank goodness, one
of the things I don't have struggle with. I will put something out

(12:47):
and throw it, see where it goes, and then it's okay, and then I
go back and go back to the drawing board. You know, when
I went into private practice, I realized the perfectionist piece a
lot of people struggle with. The fear of failure is something I
don't really think too deeply about, because my mindset has
been shifted to like, you know what, if it doesn't work, I'm going to go try again. What's the

(13:07):
worst thing that can happen? Like, you really got to have that mindset, right?
So the fear of not doing something perfectly or the potential for failure can
lead you to procrastinating and avoiding taking the action altogether.
right and so Part of what can
help with that is what is asking yourself? Okay, what if it
feels because it's a part this thing that I've done that I haven't moved forward with

(13:29):
because it didn't work out So the fear of failure is
real like it could fail but then what does that mean when
it feels right? Nobody dies because something failed
So be mindful that the perfectionism thing Nothing's
perfect. Nobody's perfect, right and I know creatives
and people that are very artsy struggle with this perfectionism

(13:52):
piece so it's something to be mindful as Be mindful of
another reason why we get stuck burnout, right? So
if you're in stress is something is such a
silent killer literally will kill you and
it will kill your dreams and it will kill your system. It
will have your system and overload all the time. So

(14:12):
prolonged periods of stress and lack of self-care can lead to
burnout a state of emotional physical and mental exhaustion, right?
So some some of the reasons why you get stuck if you're finding yourself stressed
and overwhelmed You don't have the capacity to find yourself
doing the things that you need to do. Oh, I put perfectionism
on here again. And then focus on short term

(14:34):
rewards. Right. So human decision makers often
prioritize short term rewards over long term goals, making it difficult to
commit to future plans. Right. If if
my alarm goes off, let's say I know if I get up on time for work, I
move my body because for me, moving my body helps me
with not feeling so anxious. If I prioritize doing

(14:56):
that, what will happen for me is
that my day starts to look different now. The
short-term reward is sleeping in. I love to sleep
in, right? It feels so good in the moment. So
if I take that short-term reward and find myself sleeping in,
what will happen is that my day will start late, I

(15:16):
don't get a chance to move my body, and I'll find myself feeling overwhelmed.
That's a quick example on how a lot of times we'll take the
short-term reward over the long-term reward Me
growing up deciding to go to school Deciding to
like work full-time part-time. I
had to put in a lot of labor to Right a lot

(15:38):
of hours. I worked for a lot of companies and
now I'm at a place where I work for myself a hundred percent right
like So if you think about yes
in the short term, it may feel good to sleep in but in the long term
Is that gonna help me right? I seen a post that says I
want what those people that wake up at 6 a.m Have I want what that is.

(15:59):
It's called discipline, right? It's called like, you know what I'm
gonna like Prioritize my long-term rewards.
I'm gonna have my long-term rewards in front of me because if you're not intentional
about it Your system will choose short-term all day to this
day and I get up early and I do the things I need to do because I
have no other choice if I want to be successful and in

(16:22):
my business in my mental health and my peace if I want
that I'm gonna have to get up early and get things done, right and
if you start working on prioritizing the things
that you need to get done and You'll
find yourself able to. You'll
find yourself able to get your

(16:46):
goals completed in a way that you've never seen before. All right,
let's go to the next slide. Excuse
me. Now, what is the solution? First,
it's important to identify triggers. So

(17:16):
recognizing the situations, thoughts, or feelings that contribute to
you feeling overwhelmed, right? When you can start to understand
why you're feeling overwhelmed, is it because, you
know what, I'm rushing into work and I need to allow myself
more time in the morning? Is it because I have too
much on my plate? A lot of people do a lot of invisible labor,

(17:38):
especially women. I
find women will do a lot of tasks and don't even realize
all the things that they have and they put on their plate. Break
down the tasks, right? Start dividing your larger tasks into smaller
ones and more manageable, right? A lot of times you might see this big
thing, I gotta do this big thing. Okay, I know it's this big thing,

(18:00):
but what can I do today? Let's just use your house, for example. Let's
say your house is a mess, right? And every time you think
about doing it, you feel discouraged because there's so much to do. You
can find yourself saying, you know what, let me just start with my closet. Or
better yet, let me make up my bed every day.

(18:20):
Let me start getting into a routine of making up my bed every day. Now,
let me put these clothes away, right? Break down the tasks. Don't
allow the magnitude of what you have to do stop you from starting
with the little stuff. Start prioritizing, focus on
the most important tasks and delegate or eliminate less crucial ones.
Be okay with asking for help if it's available, right?

(18:41):
Like allow yourself to give yourself what you need. It
may feel uncomfortable asking for help. But
if you have people in your life that can help with some of the
tasks, and I'm talking about anything from
your house, anything from your goals, right? Join
a support group, right? You can't do this alone.

(19:01):
If you are feeling stuck and there are so many ways that you
find yourself doubting yourself, allow yourself to get
into other spaces with like-minded people, even
if it's online, even if it's somebody's blog, even if it's a
book. When I was starting out, I would read books
that looked like what I wanted to do. I would start following people that were

(19:22):
doing the things that I wanted to do. Start practicing mindfulness,
right? That's something that's important. When you start to like,
pause, reflect, ask yourself what you need. We're just
going, going, going. We're not asking ourselves what we need and that's a
problem. When you don't allow yourself to give yourself what
you need, you're gonna find yourself just surviving and moving

(19:44):
through life, right? And the plan is to have
peace the plan is to work on living the life that you
can visualize The thing is you got to have jay cole said
you got to have this delusion about your life Like you got to start believing
things beyond what your mind what you can physically see,
right? I had a vision. I wanted to help people heal And

(20:05):
I didn't know what that looked like before the podcast before my practice. I
just had this passion and I see myself Speaking to
people I see myself helping people in different capacities in
different ways and I get to see that every single day Right, not
just individually in my practice, but on the largest scale with
this podcast with this wellness center I had this delusion

(20:27):
about the fact that like I can do this And
the more I visualize it, the more my mind start to show me answers.
Not just visualize it, but putting a plan together, right?
Being very intentional about it. I
hope this was helpful. As you can see, I'm very passionate about like
this and shifting your thought process and helping you see who you

(20:48):
are, right? A lot of times we're allowing our circumstances to tell us
who we are and we're not allowing the fact
that, you know what, just because this happened and just because I went through this,
just because I chose that type of life in
the past, I wanna choose different. I would say as long as you're still
breathing, there's room for change, right? So I need you to

(21:09):
remember that I need you to believe that um, so we're gonna
start by Starting small right making
a plan being consistent and being very patient with yourself patience
is key, right? So if anything I ever say resonates for you, I
understand that you have the power to create change But guess
what? You got to have faith to believe in yourself when you start having faith when

(21:30):
you believe in yourself no one could take that from you like
You know, I get validation and accolades now, but
when I started, I wasn't getting it like that outside of my circle, right?
Um, but I had faith inside of me and
no one could take that away from me. Um, that's so powerful. And
so even if you don't believe it, start speaking it

(21:52):
into existence, start saying, you know what? I can do this. I
can get my house organized. I'm going to start with my room right
now. Like, oh, I can't never do anything. You start talking like that. Your mind's going to
be like, all right, so let's, I guess we can't do nothing. But if I'm like, you know
what I'm gonna start doing my room. I'm gonna stop making it my bed
every day I'm gonna stop putting my clothes away right because
if your spaces is cluttered your mind's gonna be cluttered Start

(22:16):
with the small things when you start with the small things you start to allow
your system to gain confidence That you can do the bigger things
So make sure you follow me, follow me on all social media platforms. You can follow
me at Celeste, the therapist. Also, you can follow my wellness
center at stwyt.com. And all that stands for
a shift in the way you think again, stwyt.com. I

(22:38):
would love to hear from you. If this episode resonates for you, uh, find
me on social media. Let me know, email me, let me know, um,
how it's resonated for you and what you are doing to start to