The Easiest Way To Heal

Céline Harleaux – Host of the award-winning It's A Funny Thing Podcast. Author of 40 Days To Self-Love. Advanced ThetaHealing Practitioner.

Céline has inspired thousands of women to improve their relationship with themselves, using simple and effective tools. Céline’s audience absolutely loves her playfulness, authenticity, and honesty – she never hesitates to share her most awkward stories, as well as her best tips for powerful and long-lasting change.

Transcript

This program was produced by and first broadcast on Radio Hawke's Bay,

A community access media station.

Thank you to New Zealand on Air for making this type of programming possible.

Good morning,

Everyone,

And welcome to a new episode of It's a Funny Thing with Celine.

I am Celine and I am so happy to have you with me today.

We have an exciting topic lined up for today.

I'm quite excited about it and it's something that I have been learning myself for a long time now.

And I'm looking forward to sharing what I have learned with you,

As well as some tips and tricks that do not come just from my experience as well,

But from other people's experiences.

So our topic for today is the easiest way to heal.

And as I was preparing for today's episode,

I realized that there's actually two,

Two ways,

Two easiest ways to heal.

So we'll talk about these two easiest ways to heal now.

But before we start,

I wanted to ask you how you're going.

And it's a funny thing recording a radio show because I know that you are listening to me and I know that you're here with me.

And I know that many of you are tuning in week after week,

Month after month.

And I don't know,

I think we recorded about 80 episodes of the show.

It's been a long time now and it's been amazing to have the support of Radio Hawke's Bay to produce this show.

So thank you so much,

You guys.

And I quite like saying that I have a radio show,

To be honest.

Beyond the,

You know,

Sheer pleasure of being able to talk about the things that matter to us.

I just like saying that I have a radio show.

It makes me feel good about myself.

Anyway,

So I just wanted to ask you whether you're okay.

And,

You know,

New Zealanders are very good at saying,

Yes,

I'm okay when really they're crumbling down inside or they're not doing okay at all.

And it's really quite interesting that to realize,

To discover,

To uncover the fact that we develop coping mechanisms.

And I was talking to my manager yesterday.

I just changed jobs and I've had a really stressful month or two as I was going through the transition from my very comfortable job where I was appreciated to my new job,

Which is really a leap of faith for me.

And I was talking to my new manager in my new job yesterday and I was in tears talking to her about all the stress I've been putting on myself.

And it all came out,

You know,

All the tears and all that stress and all that overwhelm just came out.

And I thought,

Wow,

I hadn't realized just how much stress I'm putting on myself.

And I do have that regular practice of yoga and I go for horse rides and I am in the garden and I do take care of myself and I bake cakes and I cook for myself and I pat my cats and I spend some quality time with my husband.

I do all the self-care stuff,

Right?

And still that stress just builds up inside of me,

Right?

And it happens to everybody.

And,

You know,

If you don't know how to deal with stress,

So you have a very good habit of,

You know,

Just sort of pushing it down and locking it in a box and hoping that it will go away by itself,

You know,

You have even more stress than I do.

And if you're in a stressful situation or you have a stressful job or you're in a stressful marriage or whatever,

You've got a stressful child,

You know,

Or if you've got a stressful situation with your health or your body,

You know,

Like how do you deal with all of that stress?

And anyway,

So stress has a way of accumulating without us realizing because we need to keep going.

We need to keep,

You know,

Washing the dishes and taking care of the children and making money and doing the accounting and,

You know,

Washing the windows and,

You know,

Washing the towels separately and making sure that you're drinking enough water throughout the day and,

Oh,

You need to do a blood test and,

Oh,

You know,

There's just so much going on.

Actually,

I'm coming up with a third way of,

A third easiest way to heal.

So let's start with that one and there'll be a good introduction into the two other ways.

I hope I don't forget them.

It happens to me regularly.

Anyway,

So the first easiest way to heal is to have a regular practice that takes you away from the doing.

When,

You know,

I was raised as a Christian and we had very strong beliefs,

You know,

In Christianity and we had a very strong practice as a child,

A strong Christian practice,

You know,

When I was a child.

And one thing that I carried on with me when I grew older and was able to make my own choices is that I would,

You know,

Take half an hour in the morning,

I'd wake up early to read the Bible and to think about the words that I was reading.

I remember,

You know,

Being a volunteer on a ship called Logos Hope and we were stationed in the Philippines for three months.

And I remember,

You know,

We had insanely long days and I was in the cleaning crew,

Which was not easy,

You know,

Catering for,

I don't know,

I don't know how many people there was on the ship.

But anyway,

It wasn't a boat,

It was a ship,

It was an actual ship,

It was a ginormous ship.

Anyway,

And so we had very long days and we were in dry dock and we were all exhausted and the dry dock was extending and we all wanted to go back to the seas and,

You know,

Visit new countries and talk about the Word of God to people.

Anyway,

But we were in dry dock and we were stuck for a number of months.

And I remember,

Even though I was physically exhausted from the work that I was doing for free,

By the way,

And I had to pay to be on that volunteer program,

And I was constantly surrounded by people.

And so even though I was exhausted mentally,

Physically,

Emotionally,

And I was in a different country,

So everything was different and new and I had to adapt to that,

I would wake up earlier.

I would be,

You know,

One of the first person to wake,

First person to wake up on the ship and I'd go and find a nice little quiet spot and I'd have a bottle of water and I'd read the Bible early in the morning.

And then I'd go back to my room and then,

You know,

I'd,

You know,

Wake up my friends and we would go and have breakfast together before starting the day.

And,

You know,

Even as a teenager I had this practice of sitting down and being with myself and reflecting and trying to learn about who I was and how I could grow.

And,

You know,

An excuse that I hear often is that,

You know,

People just don't have the time to stop.

And I remember one of my teachers,

You know,

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said,

You know,

If you have the time,

You know,

Meditate for 20 minutes.

If you don't have the time,

Meditate for an hour.

And it makes a lot of sense,

Right?

If you're stressed and there's a lot going on for you,

You need more time to reflect and be without any doing.

You need to have the time to stop what you're doing and to think.

Watching movies doesn't count.

You need to find a practice that helps you to stop the doing.

You know,

We all insist on meditating every day or doing yoga every day,

But I have found that it's really about having perhaps a series of practices or activities that help you to think.

So it could be,

You know,

Weeding in the garden.

Some people really enjoy that.

I certainly do not.

It could be cooking and baking.

That can be a very meditative experience,

A very intuitive experience.

It could be sitting on your couch without,

You know,

Getting hooked onto your phone straight away.

You know,

It could be going for a walk after dinner.

It could be spending time with animals.

That will teach you a lot.

It could be meditating and doing yoga,

But if sitting down is not or sitting down without moving is not a good practice,

Then you need to find a practice that helps you to stop doing it.

Find something that you're comfortable with.

Go for a walking meditation.

Or listen to a talk,

But without doing anything else,

Without cleaning,

Without doing the dishes,

Without,

You know,

Without multitasking.

Find something that you can dedicate your whole attention to,

Just for five minutes,

Just for 20 minutes.

This is a practice that will save you.

And if you don't have a dedicated practice of being with yourself,

Then you really need to get started.

If you're serious about wanting to change your life,

How can you do this if you don't give yourself the time to think?

It's a non-negotiable part of my day.

And of course,

You know,

One of the things that people say is that,

You know,

They might try to do that and then they get,

You know,

Stuck straight away.

If you sit down,

You know,

For meditation for 20 minutes,

You know,

Within the first 30 seconds,

You'll have all sorts of thoughts that come up that you don't want to deal with because you haven't had a dedicated practice for a number of years now.

So there's also all sorts of stuff,

Sorry,

That you need to catch up to.

All sorts of thoughts that you have repressed that now are coming up to the surface that you can deal with them.

The practice isn't easy.

That's not the point,

But it's necessary.

I always think of it as,

Like,

Imagine that you've got a whole bottle,

Like a nice glass milk bottles full of energy,

And you get a new milk bottle of energy every day,

Right?

And if you have a really busy day,

You will use the whole bottle that is allocated for the day,

And then you use a little bit more,

And that's the energy that was supposed to be allocated for Tuesday.

That's how I think of it.

And so what do you have on Tuesday?

You have less energy to start with because you did too much the previous day,

And now your body has to try and catch up.

You can't be as dedicated and motivated and efficient as you were on Monday because you used too much energy on the Monday because you didn't have any time to think you were in the doing.

And so on a Tuesday,

If you want to restore the balance,

You have to chill.

You have to chill so that the bottle fills up a little bit,

Go for a nap,

Not go for a nap,

Have a nap,

So that the Wednesday you can start with a full bottle of energy.

That's how I think of it.

And when I'm tired,

I don't think,

Oh,

Why am I tired?

Oh,

I had too much chocolate,

Or I did too much,

All that.

I don't go into that conversation anymore.

I just think,

Oh,

I used too much,

Too much milk,

Too much energy,

And now my bottle is a little bit empty.

Okay,

What do I need to do to replenish the bottle?

Maybe it's going to bed at 8am.

Sorry,

Not 8am,

8pm.

So anyway,

So that was the first easiest way to heal.

The second easiest way to heal,

And that's what I really want to talk about with you today,

Is changing your surroundings and changing your circumstances.

You might think that it's a bit of an escapist strategy,

But it works.

It works until it stops working.

So it will work for you for a very long time.

So changing your surroundings,

Changing your circumstances.

I remember when my husband and I stopped house sitting,

And we did that for a very long time,

Full time.

And then the pandemic happened,

And everything changed for us,

As it did for everybody in the whole world.

And,

Well,

Not everybody,

But anyway.

And then we stayed with a friend for a couple of years,

And then it was time to move.

So we went and moved in on the top floor of an old lady's house.

So she was living on the ground floor,

And we were living on the first floor.

And what was my point?

And that was a great time of transition for me.

You know,

I moved to a different house with my husband,

We moved to a different house,

And I gave up on my business.

And I gave up on a lot of relationships that were really too difficult for me to deal with.

I just didn't have the capacity to deal with those friendships.

There was too much growth that I had to do,

And I couldn't do it whilst being stuck in weird dynamics with friends.

So I stopped the relationships,

And I had a lot of arguments at the time,

But it served me because I really needed just the time to change who I was,

And stopping relationships that were abusive,

Or manipulative,

Or difficult,

Or challenging,

Or too many arguments,

Too many tantrums,

Not giving each other the space to talk and experience and heal together.

I had to make that change.

So for me,

Moving houses is a big time of transition,

Not only in terms of where I live,

And how I'm organizing my furniture,

But also what I do for a living,

How I connect with people,

How I connect to myself,

How I connect to my husband,

Etc.

And when we finally moved on from that rental place,

Again,

It was a huge time of change.

Changing jobs,

Turning 30.

So changing your surroundings,

Changing your circumstances,

Changing your friendships is a great way for you to heal.

Very simple part.

We sometimes think that we want to make it work,

We want to make the marriage work,

We want to make the business work,

We want to make the friendship work,

Because we know that it has the potential to work.

We can see how easily it would be if both parties felt free to be who they are,

Man,

It would be so much fun.

And we haven't learned to walk away.

We haven't learned to set the boundary and say enough is enough.

I can see the dream,

I can see the potential of the relationship,

But right now I just need to walk away.

We're all afraid of,

You know,

Divorces and separation.

What would it do to the children?

What would it do for you financially?

You know,

We're told to push through and commit and be responsible and follow through and take responsibility for our actions.

But when that stops working,

When you've done everything that you could for the relationship,

The job,

Etc,

And you're drained and you're exhausted,

How can you get back up the ladder and make the relationship,

Job,

Etc,

Work?

Sometimes you just need to walk away.

There is a time for everything.

And not everything is,

You know,

Peaches and roses and unicorns.

I don't think that's an expression.

Life has its seasons,

Right?

You know that things come and go.

You've observed this.

So change your circumstances.

Walk away.

It's easier for you to do that than to say no.

Learning to say no is a huge journey for many of us.

Learning to set boundaries,

It's a huge journey.

You can't do that if you're in an abusive or difficult or challenging relationship where you don't feel heard.

And by the way,

If you're in an abusive relationship,

Stop trying to fix it.

Just walk away.

Do what you need to do,

But walk away.

And I have used this,

You know,

Several times since I was 16.

As soon as I graduated from high school,

I just moved away and I started to live my own life.

I started to think about the choices I wanted to make.

And sometimes they weren't very good choices,

But changing my surroundings helped me to,

You know,

Step away from very difficult family dynamics.

Because when I was 16,

There was no way that I could heal my relationship with my mom.

I did not have the maturity to do that.

I needed to walk away.

I needed to move to a different city and make new friends and make new experiences,

See new places.

And I needed to have that,

I don't know what the English word is,

I needed to step back so that I could see who I was from a different perspective and have a clearer understanding of my life and where I was going and where I had gone wrong.

So that's tip number two,

Change your surroundings,

You know,

Move to a different house.

Because when you change your surroundings,

When you change your circumstances,

You know,

Change will happen for you whether you like it or not.

With a new job,

New relationships,

You will form new habits,

New challenges will come.

It'll be really hard in the beginning,

But you will gain a lot,

A lot more than trying to fix what is broken.

And the good thing is that,

You know,

Once you take a step back,

Often you will heal and you will,

You know,

Understand some things about yourself.

And then sometimes you go back to a relationship that didn't work before and you have the maturity and the experience and the wisdom and the kindness and compassion to make it work now.

That's beautiful.

So that's step,

Sorry,

Tip number two.

And tip number three,

Oh my goodness,

I forgot it.

Let me have a sip of coffee and hopefully that will come back to me.

Okay,

So tip number three.

You know when you're trying to heal something and it just will not budge,

You're trying to shift a habit or heal that,

You know,

Bits of yourself that feels heavy and you're holding on to too much or you're holding on to something that happened to you and it just will not shift.

What do you do in that case?

Often we do workshops and retreats and we work with coaches and healers and teachers and mentors and whatever.

And we look outside of ourselves for a solution.

But we don't need to be experts,

Healers.

We don't need to be experts.

But we don't need to be experts,

Healers.

We don't need to look for somebody else's wisdom that might actually often distract us from the path that we're supposed to take.

No,

What we need to do is to love that part of us until it shifts.

And to love that part of us,

Even if it doesn't seem like it's shifting,

To love that part of us.

So right now I am working on my solar plexus and I've worked on that part of myself for a long time and I've had many breakthroughs with it but then so you know the thing seems to come back,

Whatever is bothering me,

Whatever is at the core of it.

And you know the other day I just thought like I've just had enough,

Like I've had enough of trying to shift that thing.

I know it's the cause of many of my issues but what I'm trying to do is but whatever I do,

Whatever angle I look at it,

Whatever I try to do to heal that thing inside of me that is causing me so much pain and distress,

It's just not shifting.

So what can I do?

I've tried everything that I know how to do.

I'm an accomplished healer and still I cannot shift this.

So what can I do?

I can love this part of me and then love it some more and then love it some more and then love it some more.

Because everything that you're struggling with,

Everything that is bothering you,

Everything that is triggering you,

Those parts of you are just needing love.

That's what it all comes down to.

It's all those parts of you that are just needing love and comfort and also the right to be.

If you're feeling abandoned,

Often healing will come when you're feeling of being abandoned is recognized and seen for what it is.

A fear of not being loved,

A fear of not being enough,

The hurt of being abandoned or not understood by your own parent,

By your own mother.

So just love that part of you and that's probably the the biggest thing.

That was the easiest way to hear when I was thinking about this episode and then two more easiest ways to heal have come up for us as well as a little bonus.

But that is the biggest tip.

Just love that part of you until it shifts.

But the shifting of that part of you is not the important part.

The important part of the process is loving that part of you and you will go through a process and eventually a world shift because love changes everything doesn't it?

Well we hope so anyway.

We embark on this journey with a bit of faith,

Wild hope.

So the easiest way to heal is to love yourself so much.

It's to love yourself and then love yourself some more.

It's always the answer.

And if you feel that the shift is not happening to love yourself some more.

And the shift will happen but it will happen as a surprise,

As a gift,

As a little bonus.

So that's it for today you guys and gals.

I hope that you enjoyed this episode.

I hope that you have learned a lot.

So I hope that you can take away or have taken away a couple of things that you can think about for the next few days.

You can integrate.

So I'm sending you so so so much love.