January 15, 2025 • 23 mins
Episode Summary:
Celebrating Milestones and Shifting Perspectives
Welcome to the 500th episode of Celeste, the Therapist Podcast! In this milestone episode, Celeste reflects on her journey since starting the podcast in 2018 and expresses her heartfelt gratitude to both new and long-time listeners. She discusses the core mission of the podcast: helping people understand and navigate the areas of their lives where they feel stuck. Celeste emphasizes the importance of using practical tools to shift perspectives and create meaningful change.
Celeste also introduces her wellness center, "Shifting the Way You Think," offering classes and resources to further support personal growth and mental well-being. Don't miss the chance to learn more at stwyt.com.
Tune in to celebrate this significant milestone with Celeste and get inspired to start where you are, using what you have to make positive changes in your life. If you enjoy the episode, please share it with someone you love and reach out with any topics you'd like to hear discussed in future episodes.
Key Takeaways:
-
Reflecting on the journey from episode 1 to 500
-
The mission of the podcast: understanding why we get stuck and shifting perspectives
-
Introduction to the "Shifting the Way You Think" wellness center
-
Gratitude to listeners and encouragement to share the podcast
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
You are now tuned in to Celeste, the therapist podcast. Hello,
my name is Celeste. Thank you so much for giving me a try. If
you are new here, I wanna say thank you so much for checking me
out. What we do here is I talk about
areas of our lives that we get stuck in. I talk
about why we get stuck and I help you shift the way you think
(00:22):
about it by giving you practical tools. I'm all about
using what you have, starting where you can. And I
think a lot of times people tend to give up because they don't
understand why they're feeling this things that they're feeling
or why things are happening. And I find that the more
educated we are about a topic, the better it is
(00:43):
for us to create change in our life. If
you are a long-time listener, thank you so much for sticking it out with
me. I appreciate you. If you enjoy these
episodes that I do, do me a favor, share it with somebody
that you love. If you want a topic discussed, all you
gotta do is email me, info at celestatherapist.com. If
(01:04):
you want to follow me, you can follow me everywhere at Celesta Therapist.
Also, I have a whole wellness center that I created called
Shifting the Way You Think. And if you want to learn more about
the wellness center, get involved, attend one of the classes, all
you got to do is go to stwyt.com. Again,
that's www.stwyt.com. All
(01:30):
right, let's get into this amazing episode. Hey,
hey, y'all before we get started on today's
episode, this is episode 500. Can I
just, I wish I had some sound effects. Cause you know, I was
like, oh my gosh, like I hit the 500 mark. And
just so we're clear, I would not have been able to hit the 500 mark
(01:53):
if I didn't start with one. back in
2018, it feels like ages ago, ages ago. So
I'm so excited, a huge milestone and 500 episodes, I
have this wellness center, the life that I have created
for me professionally where I'm going after the things that
(02:13):
I feel like I was destined to do has been such
a journey emotionally, which is crazy
because we're talking about emotions and honoring our emotions today. But
it's been such a journey and that wasn't intentional. I didn't say
like, today I'm going to talk about emotions because it's
the 500th episode as I'm saying this right now. I'm realizing
(02:36):
that it could connect and I'll tie it in. Now
that I'm thinking about it, I'll tie it in as I'm talking
about honoring your emotions to making sure
you're thinking about your dreams and your goals. recognizing how
the emotions play. That was not a part of the program today,
but I'm going to intertwine it in somehow. You know how I do if you've been here
(02:58):
for a long time. So yeah, 500 episodes, beyond excited,
beyond grateful for everyone across the world that listens to
me. It's not just the United States, We have people
in different parts of every continent that
listens to me. So I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my
heart, because I could not continue to push this podcast
(03:21):
if it wasn't for you listening, if it wasn't for you sharing, purchasing my
books, going to my classes, whatever you've done, sharing a post
on social media. I'm excited. I'm
grateful. It's scary sometimes, but you know what I'm saying? But I'm grateful.
All right, let's get into today's episode. So we're talking about honoring
our emotions. So important. And you're
(03:43):
going to understand why it's important. I seen a post that was like, oh
my gosh, I wish these emotions weren't here. They suck. I
get it. I feel you. like hardcore, I feel you.
I wish that it didn't feel as hard, but
the more I leaned into the fact that, you know what, I'm going to have these emotions, I
don't feel like things are just happening to me in life. So
(04:04):
let's just start with understanding. And also I'm on YouTube for all
my audio listeners. I do visuals so that people who
are more visually inclined like me, can look
at it. I encourage you to use this podcast as
a teaching modality where you're able to take notes and
have that notebook, call it your healing notebook or my journey
(04:27):
to wellness, whatever you want to call it. add these podcast
episode notes in there so that you can go back to
it and give your mind a refresher. The mind only has access
to what we have allowed it to see. And if you have
trauma in your life, if you're only on social media, if you're watching the news all
day, if you're living in a toxic environment, your mind is only going
(04:49):
to know that. But when you expose yourself to new things like this
podcast, or a book, or a YouTube motivational
video, or a support group in person, or therapy, when
you start to give your mind a new narrative, your mind's going to show
you the possibilities of how you can get things done. So
that's why it's important. So definitely use this podcast as
(05:10):
a learning tool to help you grow, because that's my goal.
I'm going to talk about the issues, but we're going to talk about how we're going to get through it.
So what are emotions? Emotions are a complex combination
of physical and mental states that are triggered by events or situations. So
the definition of emotions are conscious mental reactions that involve psychological
and behavioral changes. They are associated with feelings, thoughts,
(05:33):
and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. Guess
what, if you're human, you're gonna experience emotions. Whether you
choose to check in with them, whether you choose to acknowledge them or
not, you are gonna experience emotions. And
the thing about emotions is that they're coming up based
off of some past stuff. I've been through a lot in my
(05:54):
life. I'm 42, I've been through a lot. And my healing process
has been a journey and I am so much more elevated. Sometimes
I feel so
emotional with gratitude about where I am psychologically
versus where I was before. I'm sharing that because And
(06:16):
2025, something that's happened in the past could still come up. The difference
in it now with me being able to acknowledge and honor my emotions is
that I'm able to differentiate between 2025 and
2005. I'm able to tell my mind, oh, nope, it's OK. This is the same thing that's happening.
And if you're not somebody that's paying attention to your emotions or honoring your
(06:37):
emotions, you're allowing something that happened in
1999 to affect you in 2025. And that's just not fair. Right.
And it feels so real. It consumes you. Like the feeling
is real. I'm not here to say the feeling's not real, but the evidence,
the logic behind it is not the same. If
I struggle with abandonment issues and my husband's leaving to
(06:59):
go to work, And I start feeling like,
oh my gosh, he's leaving me. He's not leaving me. That
logic is not right. He's not leaving me. He's
going to work. So now that I'm able to differentiate
the difference, when that feeling comes up where it feels like he's leaving
me, I can tell my system, no, he's just going to work. It's fine. So
(07:21):
that's what emotions are. Now let's talk about why we
avoid emotions, right? Because unfortunately, we're not
taught. I wasn't taught about emotions. I don't blame anybody for
the teaching that happened. Because if you grew up in America, you
grew up in a system where people aren't talking about emotions,
where our system is not sharing emotions and
(07:42):
how it works. So why do we avoid emotions? So
fear of vulnerability, right? That's one. Sharing
strong emotions can feel risky, especially if you grew up in a Black
household where emotions were not talked about, you would be
seen and not heard, where the emphasis was only on
church. And so if you felt like you were struggling, you thought you wasn't doing
(08:05):
the church thing correctly, right? And so vulnerability is
not something that a lot of us, especially in the Black community, has
been able to tap into, even though we are human, right? And
you trace this back to slavery days, right?
You couldn't show emotion. And believe it or not, a lot
of the ways that things were done in that traumatic background has
(08:27):
been passed on through our lineage, through our DNA. There's
evidence to suggest that. And so it gets passed on
and passed on. And it's up to us, as
you're listening to this, to work on breaking the cycle. Be vulnerable with
yourself. That's important. Social pressures. We
avoid emotion in certain cultures. Social groups discourage
(08:49):
it. Sometimes people say, oh, I'm going to be strong. I'm not going to cry. Like,
excuse me. We are going to cry. And guess what? That allows
us to be strong. Being strong does not mean that
you don't have any kind of emotion that sucks or
doesn't feel good. Being strong is
you being able to recognize when you need
(09:10):
support, when you are struggling. Past
experiences, so traumatic events can lead to emotional avoidance
as a protective mechanism to prevent re-experiencing pain.
This is something that's real. If you've gone through some things and
it feels hard, I had somebody on my podcast one time says we're
divorced from our bodies because during some stages of
(09:32):
our lives, being presently there has been hard. And
so you learn how to escape. As soon as the emotion feels like it's coming,
uh-oh, let me pick up my phone. Let me call this person. Let
me grab a bottle. Let me go parties, because I don't want to feel
this, because the feeling feels so painful. And so
that's another reason why people find themselves avoiding. Lack
(09:55):
of emotional regulation. So not knowing how
to manage these intense emotions can cause you
to avoid it, which can be scary because guess what?
They're going to show up in different ways. And then the
last one is fear of conflict. So some people avoid expressing
anger or frustration because they want to make
(10:17):
the relationship harmonize. I was somebody that definitely avoided talking
about things. I didn't want people to feel bad. Forget how
I was feeling. The audacity of me to not honor my emotions, I
say that to myself now. I say that when I'm working with people where they're
worried more about what other people are going to think or say or feel versus
how their behavior is affecting them. And
(10:39):
so those are some reasons why you might find yourself avoiding
emotions. I'm sharing this because I need you to have grace with yourself as
I'm talking about these things so you can understand it didn't just come
out of nowhere. There are reasons why we're not in a
space of being able to be vulnerable. What are the
consequences of avoiding your emotions, right? I need to share this with you
because I don't want you to continue going through life avoiding things
(11:03):
that are hard. These are some consequences that you
may find yourself struggling with. Mental health issues, right?
Avoiding emotions can contribute to higher levels of anxiety, depression,
and stress because guess what? Those feelings are just going to keep building
up over time. The amount of sadness and
deep darkness I felt in my system was
(11:26):
due to me avoiding emotions, right? I mean, they were there,
but I didn't know what they were. I couldn't name them. They just started showing up
in different ways. When I look back in hindsight at my life, I
can see how it showed up. Relationship problems, right?
If you are avoiding emotions and how you're feeling
and your relationships, whether intimate, family, friends, work,
(11:49):
social, you're going to find yourself struggling and having issues
in these relationships. Physical symptoms,
this is huge. Chronic emotional suppression can manifest
physically through symptoms like headache, fatigue, muscle
tension, and digestive issues. You
may call yourself avoiding emotions. You're just prohibiting
(12:12):
them from coming up, and they're going to show up in different ways, especially
physically. Those symptoms that I named, pay attention. If
you're somebody that struggles with migraines, if you struggle with GI issues,
back issues, pay attention when the onset takes place.
A lot of times when I'm working with people and they'll talk about these migraines or stomach
things, and I'm like, oh, sounds like when you were struggling
(12:34):
with X, Y, and Z is when it started. Then they start paying attention. The
next time the migraine comes, they're like, oh my gosh, this migraine
started because I was dealing with X, Y, and Z. So really be
mindful on your emotions and
the way you are feeling physically so you can
work on making a connection as to how these
(12:55):
things are leading one to the other. Resentment
and unresolved issues. So bottling up
emotions can lead to feelings of resentment towards others, unresolved conflicts
and unaddressed. Pay attention to the way that
you, cause you know, the thing about avoiding emotions, let's say I'm struggling with
my partner and how he has talked
(13:17):
to me. And I'm not telling him. He doesn't realize, like,
oh, he's saying it this way because that's the way it is in his culture. I'm
American. He's Haitian. So the way we grew up looks completely
different. So instead of me addressing it, I'm just like,
oh, I can't believe he's talking to me like that in my head. Now guess what my
mind's going to do? My mind's only going to show me ways that he's talking to me in
(13:37):
a certain way. And then I'm going to start struggling with him. And I'm not telling him
about it. So he's not changing his behavior. And I'm constantly being upset
by the way he's saying certain things. So being
mindful of what you're feeling because it's going to bring
up resentment and unresolved issues in your relationships. Difficulty
with intimacy, so emotional unavailability caused by avoiding
(14:00):
emotions can create barriers and meaningful connections
with others. So the more you suppress,
the less you are available for you. because
it's just, you're harboring all of these things, all of these emotions. And
the last thing is immune system dysfunction. Research suggests that
chronic emotional suppression can negatively
(14:22):
impact the immune system, making individuals more
likely to have kind of medical issues, right?
So is it worth, you can
answer this question, is it worth avoiding your emotions? When
you look at the consequences, I'm going to put this list up on the
screen again. When you look at the consequences of
(14:44):
avoiding emotions, the reality is that there's no
positive gain to avoiding it, right? All
things that are going to be hard for you down the road. Um,
now let's talk about techniques for recognizing emotions. Cause
you know, if you're somebody, if you listen to this and you're like, you know what, I don't want to
continue to avoid my emotions. Let me start
(15:07):
recognizing these emotions. Um, let me just
play this quick advertisement. And then the last thing we're going to talk about the techniques.
I hope you're enjoying the episode. Quick announcement. I
want to give you some ways you can support, right? I have two books. One
is called Relationship Goals. It's a guide to a healthy relationship. I
also have a guided journal. And if you find yourself stuck
(15:29):
in thoughts, want to get your thoughts on paper, I ask you different
questions. And I also ask you how you're feeling. I provide you
with the feelings chart. If you go to CelesteTherapist.com, you
could find 365 days of intentional living along
with relationship goals. Another way you can support me,
I have this wellness center that I'm so excited about
(15:51):
called Shifting the Way You Think Wellness Center. At my center,
I do not want finances to be a reason why people can't get
what they need. So if you wanna donate a class to someone, please
feel free to go to my website, stwyt.com, and
you can give a donation. The classes run between 15 and
(16:12):
$35. My goal is for everyone to be able
to access these services regardless of finances. So
if you can donate, please donate to your Girl Center. I
would be greatly appreciated. All right, y'all, let's get back
into this amazing episode. All
right, let's get into the techniques for recognizing your emotions.
(16:33):
Mindfulness practices, right? Encouraging you
to practice mindfulness and become more aware of your
emotional state. That's important. When
it comes to life, life is happening. When
it comes to the things we're exposed to, we don't have
a filtering method on social media or the news, or when people are
(16:54):
talking to us, they're just gonna talk, they're gonna say things. pay attention
to how you're feeling. Don't allow yourself to constantly find
yourself distracting. I used to party Thursday through Sunday faithfully
because those were the slower days. I was in school and working. And
so when I look back at my life, I recognize that part of
me doing all of this partying was because I was trying
(17:15):
to escape these hard emotions. Right now, I
embrace them not because I'm like, oh my God, this feels good, but no, I
don't want to deal with the consequences. This list
right here, I don't want to deal with the consequences of not allowing my
emotions to be expressed. So I no longer find myself avoiding
them. Journaling is another good technique that you can
(17:36):
use. I also have a guided journal called 365 Days
of Intentional Living, where I'm asking you a question and
ask you how you're feeling, right? There's a ton of journals, and
it's not even about purchasing, right? Because I'm always going to
be like, use what you have. So if you got a notebook and you got a pen, all
you got to do is take time to inventory your day,
(17:58):
right? If you don't want to write, if that's too much for you right
now, when you take a shower or a bath, reflect there. When
you are waking up in the morning, start to reflect, what do I have going on
today? When you're winding down at night, think about what am
I feeling, right? Start taking inventory of
what's going on so you can feel like you're more in control. The
(18:18):
worst thing that, you know, when I reflect on my
life and where I'm at now, I remember where it
just felt like life was happening to me that I didn't have any control and
I didn't have nobody to guide me through the process. It
was a hard way to live life, right? And I don't live
that way anymore, but I also have a passion to show
(18:39):
people a different way of living. Body awareness,
so the physical sensations that can come up, right?
Your body's going to give you signs you're not OK before you may
even realize it. I remember being in the ER at 14. I
remember I had on a corduroy jumper. I share the story a
lot on the podcast. I was hunched over, and nobody
(19:02):
asked me, like, oh, are you experiencing anything? How do you feel? They gave me muscle
relaxer. They couldn't figure out why. As I got older and
became more aware of like my body and how I was affected
I'm like, oh no when I'm struggling I feel like something just
hits my back all the pain goes radiating to my
back and my stomach right now Sometimes
(19:23):
I might be doing a lot and I'd be like, oh I need to slow down because my
back's starting to hurt So pay attention. It's not always just
the back. It could be um It could be sweating. It
could be migraines. It could be stomach issues, constipation, diarrhea,
all of these things. And because sometimes our parents grew
up, they're survivors. And they didn't
(19:46):
even have time to think about what their wellness looked like. So they definitely didn't
have the time to ask you how you're feeling, what are you feeling in your body. So
you learn to ignore those signs. Now that you're an adult, now
that you have awareness, it's up to you. to
make note of what you're feeling so you're no longer ignoring those signs. And
then just emotional check-ins. Check in with yourself. How
(20:08):
are you feeling? How did you sleep? When I don't have a good sleep,
I'll check in with myself. Sometimes it's because, guess what? I'm on Netflix freaking watching
these limited series that I love. I love the shows where you
don't really know what's going to happen next. I just love that. I hate when I
know what's going to happen next, or it feels so predictable. And
if I started late, And it's
(20:31):
hard for me to pause and wait for the next day. So
a lot of times I won't start it if it's late. So sometimes it's like, OK,
I didn't sleep well because I stayed up watching Netflix. Sometimes I
might be struggling with something that I need to do or haven't done. So
start taking emotional check-ins about yourself
and how you're feeling. When it comes to starting a
(20:52):
business, I said I would tie that in. When it comes to
starting a business, there's going to be a lot of fear that's going to come up, especially if
you weren't exposed to other business owners. I was never exposed to
other business owners. This is something that was placed in my
heart and my spirit, and I just kept following the
breadcrumbs. When I first started, I
just went on Instagram and started posting motivational
(21:16):
quotes because affirmations was something that was big to me and I wanted to
share it with the world. I had no money, no knowledge about no
private practice, nothing. From there, books was
created. From there, a podcast was created, right? The more I
acknowledge my emotion around it, because as I'm starting things,
there are a lot of emotions that come with it because it's so new to
(21:37):
me, I don't allow myself to not
do things because of the emotion. I check in with myself.
I remind myself on what my purpose is and why I'm doing it.
I tell myself that these emotions that I'm feeling are part of the process and
I keep it pushing. So I need you to work on
start acknowledging what's happening with you, how you're feeling and
(22:00):
giving yourself what you need. So I
really hope this was helpful. You know, being able to honor your
emotions is such a gift, right? Um, when
I'm working with people and they'll cry and I'm like, Oh my God, I'm so glad you're crying.
Not because I want you to be sad, especially for people that don't typically
embrace emotions or embrace how they feel. I'm like, this is going to allow
(22:21):
you to get to the place that you need to be. And so yes,
it may be hard to sit still and be in the moment with
your emotions, but little by little, give yourself time
to embrace a new lifestyle, because if you're human, you're going
to have emotions. So don't forget, if you love
this episode, share it with somebody that you love. Don't forget, follow me on all social
(22:42):
media platforms. Follow me on YouTube by searching Celeste Therapist. Don't
forget, we have a whole wellness center with events that are taking place on
a regular basis. So if you are in the South shore
area, we are located in Stoughton, Mass. Um, you can go
to my website to see the events that are coming up and that's S T W
Y T.com slash events. Um, and if you want to support me,
(23:03):
don't forget, I have books that you can purchase
or classes, or you can also donate to the center.
So until next time, beautiful people, I will talk
You are now tuned in to Celeste, the therapist podcast. Hello,
my name is Celeste. Thank you so much for giving me a try. If
you are new here, I wanna say thank you so much for checking me
out. What we do here is I talk about
areas of our lives that we get stuck in. I talk
about why we get stuck and I help you shift the way you think
(00:22):
about it by giving you practical tools. I'm all about
using what you have, starting where you can. And I
think a lot of times people tend to give up because they don't
understand why they're feeling this things that they're feeling
or why things are happening. And I find that the more
educated we are about a topic, the better it is
(00:43):
for us to create change in our life. If
you are a long-time listener, thank you so much for sticking it out with
me. I appreciate you. If you enjoy these
episodes that I do, do me a favor, share it with somebody
that you love. If you want a topic discussed, all you
gotta do is email me, info at celestatherapist.com. If
(01:04):
you want to follow me, you can follow me everywhere at Celesta Therapist.
Also, I have a whole wellness center that I created called
Shifting the Way You Think. And if you want to learn more about
the wellness center, get involved, attend one of the classes, all
you got to do is go to stwyt.com. Again,
that's www.stwyt.com. All
(01:30):
right, let's get into this amazing episode. Hey,
hey, y'all before we get started on today's
episode, this is episode 500. Can I
just, I wish I had some sound effects. Cause you know, I was
like, oh my gosh, like I hit the 500 mark. And
just so we're clear, I would not have been able to hit the 500 mark
(01:53):
if I didn't start with one. back in
2018, it feels like ages ago, ages ago. So
I'm so excited, a huge milestone and 500 episodes, I
have this wellness center, the life that I have created
for me professionally where I'm going after the things that
(02:13):
I feel like I was destined to do has been such
a journey emotionally, which is crazy
because we're talking about emotions and honoring our emotions today. But
it's been such a journey and that wasn't intentional. I didn't say
like, today I'm going to talk about emotions because it's
the 500th episode as I'm saying this right now. I'm realizing
(02:36):
that it could connect and I'll tie it in. Now
that I'm thinking about it, I'll tie it in as I'm talking
about honoring your emotions to making sure
you're thinking about your dreams and your goals. recognizing how
the emotions play. That was not a part of the program today,
but I'm going to intertwine it in somehow. You know how I do if you've been here
(02:58):
for a long time. So yeah, 500 episodes, beyond excited,
beyond grateful for everyone across the world that listens to
me. It's not just the United States, We have people
in different parts of every continent that
listens to me. So I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my
heart, because I could not continue to push this podcast
(03:21):
if it wasn't for you listening, if it wasn't for you sharing, purchasing my
books, going to my classes, whatever you've done, sharing a post
on social media. I'm excited. I'm
grateful. It's scary sometimes, but you know what I'm saying? But I'm grateful.
All right, let's get into today's episode. So we're talking about honoring
our emotions. So important. And you're
(03:43):
going to understand why it's important. I seen a post that was like, oh
my gosh, I wish these emotions weren't here. They suck. I
get it. I feel you. like hardcore, I feel you.
I wish that it didn't feel as hard, but
the more I leaned into the fact that, you know what, I'm going to have these emotions, I
don't feel like things are just happening to me in life. So
(04:04):
let's just start with understanding. And also I'm on YouTube for all
my audio listeners. I do visuals so that people who
are more visually inclined like me, can look
at it. I encourage you to use this podcast as
a teaching modality where you're able to take notes and
have that notebook, call it your healing notebook or my journey
(04:27):
to wellness, whatever you want to call it. add these podcast
episode notes in there so that you can go back to
it and give your mind a refresher. The mind only has access
to what we have allowed it to see. And if you have
trauma in your life, if you're only on social media, if you're watching the news all
day, if you're living in a toxic environment, your mind is only going
(04:49):
to know that. But when you expose yourself to new things like this
podcast, or a book, or a YouTube motivational
video, or a support group in person, or therapy, when
you start to give your mind a new narrative, your mind's going to show
you the possibilities of how you can get things done. So
that's why it's important. So definitely use this podcast as
(05:10):
a learning tool to help you grow, because that's my goal.
I'm going to talk about the issues, but we're going to talk about how we're going to get through it.
So what are emotions? Emotions are a complex combination
of physical and mental states that are triggered by events or situations. So
the definition of emotions are conscious mental reactions that involve psychological
and behavioral changes. They are associated with feelings, thoughts,
(05:33):
and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. Guess
what, if you're human, you're gonna experience emotions. Whether you
choose to check in with them, whether you choose to acknowledge them or
not, you are gonna experience emotions. And
the thing about emotions is that they're coming up based
off of some past stuff. I've been through a lot in my
(05:54):
life. I'm 42, I've been through a lot. And my healing process
has been a journey and I am so much more elevated. Sometimes
I feel so
emotional with gratitude about where I am psychologically
versus where I was before. I'm sharing that because And
(06:16):
2025, something that's happened in the past could still come up. The difference
in it now with me being able to acknowledge and honor my emotions is
that I'm able to differentiate between 2025 and
2005. I'm able to tell my mind, oh, nope, it's OK. This is the same thing that's happening.
And if you're not somebody that's paying attention to your emotions or honoring your
(06:37):
emotions, you're allowing something that happened in
1999 to affect you in 2025. And that's just not fair. Right.
And it feels so real. It consumes you. Like the feeling
is real. I'm not here to say the feeling's not real, but the evidence,
the logic behind it is not the same. If
I struggle with abandonment issues and my husband's leaving to
(06:59):
go to work, And I start feeling like,
oh my gosh, he's leaving me. He's not leaving me. That
logic is not right. He's not leaving me. He's
going to work. So now that I'm able to differentiate
the difference, when that feeling comes up where it feels like he's leaving
me, I can tell my system, no, he's just going to work. It's fine. So
(07:21):
that's what emotions are. Now let's talk about why we
avoid emotions, right? Because unfortunately, we're not
taught. I wasn't taught about emotions. I don't blame anybody for
the teaching that happened. Because if you grew up in America, you
grew up in a system where people aren't talking about emotions,
where our system is not sharing emotions and
(07:42):
how it works. So why do we avoid emotions? So
fear of vulnerability, right? That's one. Sharing
strong emotions can feel risky, especially if you grew up in a Black
household where emotions were not talked about, you would be
seen and not heard, where the emphasis was only on
church. And so if you felt like you were struggling, you thought you wasn't doing
(08:05):
the church thing correctly, right? And so vulnerability is
not something that a lot of us, especially in the Black community, has
been able to tap into, even though we are human, right? And
you trace this back to slavery days, right?
You couldn't show emotion. And believe it or not, a lot
of the ways that things were done in that traumatic background has
(08:27):
been passed on through our lineage, through our DNA. There's
evidence to suggest that. And so it gets passed on
and passed on. And it's up to us, as
you're listening to this, to work on breaking the cycle. Be vulnerable with
yourself. That's important. Social pressures. We
avoid emotion in certain cultures. Social groups discourage
(08:49):
it. Sometimes people say, oh, I'm going to be strong. I'm not going to cry. Like,
excuse me. We are going to cry. And guess what? That allows
us to be strong. Being strong does not mean that
you don't have any kind of emotion that sucks or
doesn't feel good. Being strong is
you being able to recognize when you need
(09:10):
support, when you are struggling. Past
experiences, so traumatic events can lead to emotional avoidance
as a protective mechanism to prevent re-experiencing pain.
This is something that's real. If you've gone through some things and
it feels hard, I had somebody on my podcast one time says we're
divorced from our bodies because during some stages of
(09:32):
our lives, being presently there has been hard. And
so you learn how to escape. As soon as the emotion feels like it's coming,
uh-oh, let me pick up my phone. Let me call this person. Let
me grab a bottle. Let me go parties, because I don't want to feel
this, because the feeling feels so painful. And so
that's another reason why people find themselves avoiding. Lack
(09:55):
of emotional regulation. So not knowing how
to manage these intense emotions can cause you
to avoid it, which can be scary because guess what?
They're going to show up in different ways. And then the
last one is fear of conflict. So some people avoid expressing
anger or frustration because they want to make
(10:17):
the relationship harmonize. I was somebody that definitely avoided talking
about things. I didn't want people to feel bad. Forget how
I was feeling. The audacity of me to not honor my emotions, I
say that to myself now. I say that when I'm working with people where they're
worried more about what other people are going to think or say or feel versus
how their behavior is affecting them. And
(10:39):
so those are some reasons why you might find yourself avoiding
emotions. I'm sharing this because I need you to have grace with yourself as
I'm talking about these things so you can understand it didn't just come
out of nowhere. There are reasons why we're not in a
space of being able to be vulnerable. What are the
consequences of avoiding your emotions, right? I need to share this with you
because I don't want you to continue going through life avoiding things
(11:03):
that are hard. These are some consequences that you
may find yourself struggling with. Mental health issues, right?
Avoiding emotions can contribute to higher levels of anxiety, depression,
and stress because guess what? Those feelings are just going to keep building
up over time. The amount of sadness and
deep darkness I felt in my system was
(11:26):
due to me avoiding emotions, right? I mean, they were there,
but I didn't know what they were. I couldn't name them. They just started showing up
in different ways. When I look back in hindsight at my life, I
can see how it showed up. Relationship problems, right?
If you are avoiding emotions and how you're feeling
and your relationships, whether intimate, family, friends, work,
(11:49):
social, you're going to find yourself struggling and having issues
in these relationships. Physical symptoms,
this is huge. Chronic emotional suppression can manifest
physically through symptoms like headache, fatigue, muscle
tension, and digestive issues. You
may call yourself avoiding emotions. You're just prohibiting
(12:12):
them from coming up, and they're going to show up in different ways, especially
physically. Those symptoms that I named, pay attention. If
you're somebody that struggles with migraines, if you struggle with GI issues,
back issues, pay attention when the onset takes place.
A lot of times when I'm working with people and they'll talk about these migraines or stomach
things, and I'm like, oh, sounds like when you were struggling
(12:34):
with X, Y, and Z is when it started. Then they start paying attention. The
next time the migraine comes, they're like, oh my gosh, this migraine
started because I was dealing with X, Y, and Z. So really be
mindful on your emotions and
the way you are feeling physically so you can
work on making a connection as to how these
(12:55):
things are leading one to the other. Resentment
and unresolved issues. So bottling up
emotions can lead to feelings of resentment towards others, unresolved conflicts
and unaddressed. Pay attention to the way that
you, cause you know, the thing about avoiding emotions, let's say I'm struggling with
my partner and how he has talked
(13:17):
to me. And I'm not telling him. He doesn't realize, like,
oh, he's saying it this way because that's the way it is in his culture. I'm
American. He's Haitian. So the way we grew up looks completely
different. So instead of me addressing it, I'm just like,
oh, I can't believe he's talking to me like that in my head. Now guess what my
mind's going to do? My mind's only going to show me ways that he's talking to me in
(13:37):
a certain way. And then I'm going to start struggling with him. And I'm not telling him
about it. So he's not changing his behavior. And I'm constantly being upset
by the way he's saying certain things. So being
mindful of what you're feeling because it's going to bring
up resentment and unresolved issues in your relationships. Difficulty
with intimacy, so emotional unavailability caused by avoiding
(14:00):
emotions can create barriers and meaningful connections
with others. So the more you suppress,
the less you are available for you. because
it's just, you're harboring all of these things, all of these emotions. And
the last thing is immune system dysfunction. Research suggests that
chronic emotional suppression can negatively
(14:22):
impact the immune system, making individuals more
likely to have kind of medical issues, right?
So is it worth, you can
answer this question, is it worth avoiding your emotions? When
you look at the consequences, I'm going to put this list up on the
screen again. When you look at the consequences of
(14:44):
avoiding emotions, the reality is that there's no
positive gain to avoiding it, right? All
things that are going to be hard for you down the road. Um,
now let's talk about techniques for recognizing emotions. Cause
you know, if you're somebody, if you listen to this and you're like, you know what, I don't want to
continue to avoid my emotions. Let me start
(15:07):
recognizing these emotions. Um, let me just
play this quick advertisement. And then the last thing we're going to talk about the techniques.
I hope you're enjoying the episode. Quick announcement. I
want to give you some ways you can support, right? I have two books. One
is called Relationship Goals. It's a guide to a healthy relationship. I
also have a guided journal. And if you find yourself stuck
(15:29):
in thoughts, want to get your thoughts on paper, I ask you different
questions. And I also ask you how you're feeling. I provide you
with the feelings chart. If you go to CelesteTherapist.com, you
could find 365 days of intentional living along
with relationship goals. Another way you can support me,
I have this wellness center that I'm so excited about
(15:51):
called Shifting the Way You Think Wellness Center. At my center,
I do not want finances to be a reason why people can't get
what they need. So if you wanna donate a class to someone, please
feel free to go to my website, stwyt.com, and
you can give a donation. The classes run between 15 and
(16:12):
$35. My goal is for everyone to be able
to access these services regardless of finances. So
if you can donate, please donate to your Girl Center. I
would be greatly appreciated. All right, y'all, let's get back
into this amazing episode. All
right, let's get into the techniques for recognizing your emotions.
(16:33):
Mindfulness practices, right? Encouraging you
to practice mindfulness and become more aware of your
emotional state. That's important. When
it comes to life, life is happening. When
it comes to the things we're exposed to, we don't have
a filtering method on social media or the news, or when people are
(16:54):
talking to us, they're just gonna talk, they're gonna say things. pay attention
to how you're feeling. Don't allow yourself to constantly find
yourself distracting. I used to party Thursday through Sunday faithfully
because those were the slower days. I was in school and working. And
so when I look back at my life, I recognize that part of
me doing all of this partying was because I was trying
(17:15):
to escape these hard emotions. Right now, I
embrace them not because I'm like, oh my God, this feels good, but no, I
don't want to deal with the consequences. This list
right here, I don't want to deal with the consequences of not allowing my
emotions to be expressed. So I no longer find myself avoiding
them. Journaling is another good technique that you can
(17:36):
use. I also have a guided journal called 365 Days
of Intentional Living, where I'm asking you a question and
ask you how you're feeling, right? There's a ton of journals, and
it's not even about purchasing, right? Because I'm always going to
be like, use what you have. So if you got a notebook and you got a pen, all
you got to do is take time to inventory your day,
(17:58):
right? If you don't want to write, if that's too much for you right
now, when you take a shower or a bath, reflect there. When
you are waking up in the morning, start to reflect, what do I have going on
today? When you're winding down at night, think about what am
I feeling, right? Start taking inventory of
what's going on so you can feel like you're more in control. The
(18:18):
worst thing that, you know, when I reflect on my
life and where I'm at now, I remember where it
just felt like life was happening to me that I didn't have any control and
I didn't have nobody to guide me through the process. It
was a hard way to live life, right? And I don't live
that way anymore, but I also have a passion to show
(18:39):
people a different way of living. Body awareness,
so the physical sensations that can come up, right?
Your body's going to give you signs you're not OK before you may
even realize it. I remember being in the ER at 14. I
remember I had on a corduroy jumper. I share the story a
lot on the podcast. I was hunched over, and nobody
(19:02):
asked me, like, oh, are you experiencing anything? How do you feel? They gave me muscle
relaxer. They couldn't figure out why. As I got older and
became more aware of like my body and how I was affected
I'm like, oh no when I'm struggling I feel like something just
hits my back all the pain goes radiating to my
back and my stomach right now Sometimes
(19:23):
I might be doing a lot and I'd be like, oh I need to slow down because my
back's starting to hurt So pay attention. It's not always just
the back. It could be um It could be sweating. It
could be migraines. It could be stomach issues, constipation, diarrhea,
all of these things. And because sometimes our parents grew
up, they're survivors. And they didn't
(19:46):
even have time to think about what their wellness looked like. So they definitely didn't
have the time to ask you how you're feeling, what are you feeling in your body. So
you learn to ignore those signs. Now that you're an adult, now
that you have awareness, it's up to you. to
make note of what you're feeling so you're no longer ignoring those signs. And
then just emotional check-ins. Check in with yourself. How
(20:08):
are you feeling? How did you sleep? When I don't have a good sleep,
I'll check in with myself. Sometimes it's because, guess what? I'm on Netflix freaking watching
these limited series that I love. I love the shows where you
don't really know what's going to happen next. I just love that. I hate when I
know what's going to happen next, or it feels so predictable. And
if I started late, And it's
(20:31):
hard for me to pause and wait for the next day. So
a lot of times I won't start it if it's late. So sometimes it's like, OK,
I didn't sleep well because I stayed up watching Netflix. Sometimes I
might be struggling with something that I need to do or haven't done. So
start taking emotional check-ins about yourself
and how you're feeling. When it comes to starting a
(20:52):
business, I said I would tie that in. When it comes to
starting a business, there's going to be a lot of fear that's going to come up, especially if
you weren't exposed to other business owners. I was never exposed to
other business owners. This is something that was placed in my
heart and my spirit, and I just kept following the
breadcrumbs. When I first started, I
just went on Instagram and started posting motivational
(21:16):
quotes because affirmations was something that was big to me and I wanted to
share it with the world. I had no money, no knowledge about no
private practice, nothing. From there, books was
created. From there, a podcast was created, right? The more I
acknowledge my emotion around it, because as I'm starting things,
there are a lot of emotions that come with it because it's so new to
(21:37):
me, I don't allow myself to not
do things because of the emotion. I check in with myself.
I remind myself on what my purpose is and why I'm doing it.
I tell myself that these emotions that I'm feeling are part of the process and
I keep it pushing. So I need you to work on
start acknowledging what's happening with you, how you're feeling and
(22:00):
giving yourself what you need. So I
really hope this was helpful. You know, being able to honor your
emotions is such a gift, right? Um, when
I'm working with people and they'll cry and I'm like, Oh my God, I'm so glad you're crying.
Not because I want you to be sad, especially for people that don't typically
embrace emotions or embrace how they feel. I'm like, this is going to allow
(22:21):
you to get to the place that you need to be. And so yes,
it may be hard to sit still and be in the moment with
your emotions, but little by little, give yourself time
to embrace a new lifestyle, because if you're human, you're going
to have emotions. So don't forget, if you love
this episode, share it with somebody that you love. Don't forget, follow me on all social
(22:42):
media platforms. Follow me on YouTube by searching Celeste Therapist. Don't
forget, we have a whole wellness center with events that are taking place on
a regular basis. So if you are in the South shore
area, we are located in Stoughton, Mass. Um, you can go
to my website to see the events that are coming up and that's S T W
Y T.com slash events. Um, and if you want to support me,
(23:03):
don't forget, I have books that you can purchase
or classes, or you can also donate to the center.
So until next time, beautiful people, I will talk
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