Finding your place and community in college w/ Dr. Jeannie Celestial
Dr. Alyssa Herrera-Set: Good morning! Hello Nadia, hello Dr Jeannia Celestial. Listeners I am really excited to bring to you our guest Dr. Jeannie Celestial. Dr Jeanie is a distinguished Filipina-American psychologist and consultant. She supports high achieving women of color nurture healthier relationships with themselves, their families, communities, and the Earth. Her work focuses on liberation psychology and healing trauma holistically: Body Mind and Spirit. Dr Celestial is one of the bestselling authors of the Filipino instant pot cookbook and co-editor co-author of Clinical Interventions for Internalized Oppression. Welcome, Dr Jeannie. Thank you for coming.
Welcome to papaya talk the podcast where we dive into the world of women's health from one generation to the next join us as a motherdaughter Duo as we seek to empower power young women through the sometimes awkward often avoided conversation about our bodies I'm Dr Alisa Herrera set physical therapist in the San Francisco Bay area and I'm n herera Public Health student at Northeastern University in Boston together we're going to share stories insights and expert advice about health self-care and everything in between
Dr. Jeannie Celestial: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Good morning
Alyssa Herrera-Set: So we have a few questions prepared for you and we're going to mostly focus on Nadia's questions for you because I think they're the most important. We previously had a talk about a month ago about finding community and this is when Nadia was just starting her first or her first semester of our second year of college we were talking about finding clubs and creating community for yourself in in college and so she has a few questions for you.
Nadia Herrera-Set Yeah thank you so much for coming today. My first question we have some audience members that are trying to decide what kind of career they want to pursue so can you tell us a little bit about how you decided to become a psychologist?
Dr. Jeannie Celestial: Yeah thank you so much. I'm really excited to be on this podcast and also because I think it's such an important topic and I had difficulties of forging community in college so this is very dear to my heart. How did I be decide to become a psychologist? Well, growing up in a vibrant extended family in the Pacific Islands, I became fascinated with people and relationships. Since adolescence, especially among my second generation friends, they would gravitate toward me to share their problems and help them navigate life struggles. I don't know, I just had a penchant for thinking about and talking to folks about life and relationships. But it wasn't until my senior year at Berkeley that I received my calling to become a Healer of hearts and Minds. I did want to be an agent of social change and I felt like working one-on-one with people and in small groups was the way I was going to do that.
Alyssa Herrera-Set: I really like — I love how you describe it as being a Healer of heart and mind. As a physical therapist, I love that the idea of addressing the mind with the body and maybe with exercise or manual therapy. Thank you for explaining your thought process.
Nadia Herrera-Set: My next question, like you I'm Filipina-American and sometimes I feel unsure about whether or not I fit in with the Filipino Club on campus because my parents aren't immigrants. I don't really speak the language and I also didn't grow up in a high school that had a strong Filipino American Community. My question is: what's some advice that you can give on how to feel more comfortable in situations where you're surrounded by people that you should feel close to but don't?
Dr. Celestial: Yeah really good question. First of all, I would like you and others like you to know and believe that you are Filipino enough. Whatever generation you are ,you hold within you the strength of over 4,000 ancestors from just the last 400 years. You are these ancestors child and you are hardwired for Community. You deserve and can build a community of love and support. I mean just for my own story, I was the only Filipino kid from Vallejo California Hogan high school, yay shout out to my Hogan High School Spartans, who went to Berkeley that year in the 90s. (And I will not say which year * laughs *) But anyway, I felt like a fish out of water, you know? Over 30,000 students, and I felt quite lonely actually. Just through a lot of patience with myself, a lot of crying, a lot of tears and even one moment where I told my high school boyfriend to come pick me up and drive me home back to valjeo and my parents were like: what's wrong with you? and I'm like “I'm dropping out I hate it.” I just rested for a week and then I went back to the dorms.We had answering machines at the time, my answering machine had a few messages of people who were trying to reach out to me while I was gone and then I was like “okay, people do like me and care about me and I I can stick with this” so you know, just breathe and push through the feelings of shyness or awkwardness. Trust yourself in the process and really try to build community one person at a time, one friend at a time. I'm thinking a lot about my computer assigned dorm mate who's usmaan. We did not know each other before Berkeley but are still friends after I don't know almost 30 years.
Alyssa Herrera-Set: Wow, I didn't realize that you were feeling so much like you didn't like want to be at Berkeley
Nadia Herrera-Set: I think a lot of people um would be able to resonate with that with not feeling like you can fit in. In the very beginning of you know coming to college and it's hard to like build that Community. But if you start one by one person at a time, you'll see that there are people that that do care about you and um you can make a community for yourself .
Dr. Jeannie Celestial: Yeah, I must say that it became an invitation from my life to seek therapy for the first time. My college of letters and Sciences academic counselor, Renato Almanor, happened to be Filipino American. I remember in his office he had his framed letter of being on academic probation at UC Davis when he was in college and he said “look, I was on academic probation once and I'm here now today as your counselor.” And so that really helped me realize that we all make mistakes, we all struggle. But we can rise above those struggles.
Alyssa: Yeah, definitely. Actually on that note, so most colleges have Facebook groups for the parents. I'm on a Facebook group for parents of Northeastern students and sometimes the parents ask the other parents what they should do because their child isn't making friends. I'm wondering if you feel like what is your opinion on parents intervening when their adult child isn't making friends in college? When should they step in? And then also like what if they don't see that their adult child is even motivated to make friends? So on both ends: they want to make friends but they're not. Should they intervene or should the parents step in?
Dr. Celestial: Yeah, I would invite a parent to you know really just pause for a moment. We are launching our children out into the world and empowering them to be their own adult. So especially for a parent who has a young adult, to kind of temper their concerns. Especially Asian-American parents who tend to be very achievement oriented or other high achieving parents to just breathe and first reflect. Ask yourself: over the last 18 plus years, what skills have I helped my Offspring (and I'm using Offspring not child to just shift the notion that it's not a minor child but it's an adult child right) and so what skills have I helped this person develop towards relationships? Likely, if you're child is already in college, you already instilled in them a lot of social skills. So what is my Offspring’s strength in building relationships, and would it help to remind them of this strength? You know, start a conversation with your adult child: Remind them of a story where they started a friendship and it stuck and this friendship ended up really scaffolding their upbringing and really bringing a lot of joy and connection in their life. Remind them of those strengths and then then you might shift to asking them: How might I support you? In what ways would you like or need my support? This is then inviting them to define for for you how they want to be supported instead of the parent defining how they want to support the child. I see a lot of head nods from Nadia any thoughts?
Nadia: Well I just think that's really good advice. I feel like when you go to college, you want to feel really independent and so if I mean, fortunately I haven't been in this situation of where like my mom had to intervene and you know ask if I needed help with like making friends and stuff, but I think that making it like a two-way conversation of “how can I support you” instead of “oh you should do this and you should do that,” that I think that would really be helpful.
Dr. Celestial: Yeah, I did want to address Dr alysaa's question about when the child or the The Offspring seems to have no motivation to make friends. Again another excellent question. I would say breathe and take a step back. Pray and discern and ask oneself “okay what is triggering for me about this?” The parent asking themselves “what are my fears?” I do believe coming um being a college graduate and also from a really amazing University, I believe that college is not even so much about learning as about building our community and really the friends that I made at Berkeley have lasted me these last few decades. They are there for me through thick and through thin and through deaths and births and everything in between. I met my husband through my college housemate, I met her through the Filipino clubs, I met her through a faith also through faith-based practice. So these friendships last a lifetime. I believe that relationship building in college is one of the most important aspects of college. Therefore, you know if you do find that your adult child seems to be in a shutdown state, meaning maybe they are kind of in their room all the time with the windows shut and under the covers, I would start to be a little concerned. And so you might want to think about what's going on and you might ask yourself how can I empower them to create spaces where they feel safe. This is what we call a shutdown State and polyvagal Theory. Maybe there was a distress or trauma or some kind of depression going on, or anxiety. You want to help support them to come gently back to their body, and maybe create an activation plan even if it's taking a walk one time a week with their dog or friend and joining organizations or activities where they that are highly structured so they can build connection. That's really important. I do hear that I think I might hear that equally my my kid doesn't want to make friends and I hear that equally as often as my kid is having a hard time making friends. I'm glad that you pointed out how important it is to try to help get them the tools that they need to uh encourage them to create Community.
Nadia: during my first semester I was studying abroad in Greece and I was very fortunate enough to find a group of friends that really supported me through that time. It was definitely a difficult transition going from home to way across the world, but now that I'm on campus I'm looking more into the Campus based groups like the clubs. My question isL does being a part of a group of friends just for friendship have a different significance on someone's mental health than being a part of a club that has a group goal that is not that is other than just friendship?
Dr. Celestial: Great question. I think they are very much related meaning you can make friends in an organization and or you can bring friends to an organization. As you were asking the question I thought about studies that show that mood is improved when doing altruistic acts and also being a part of a community of positive people. And so I kind of feel that being a part of an organization especially in a large college campus might provide some better structure for those types of activities: both finding something that is altruistic or makes the world a better place and also surrounds yourself with positive people who uplift you. I think friends typically come organically but then we find like minded individuals in club clubs and organizations that we might not ordinarily just meet in a grocery store or in a class or on the street. So when I think about my friends that I met in that in college and who I'm still friends with are the ones who I met in organizations or I brought along with me to organizations and we're still very passionate about those things whether it's social justice or Filipino culture or holistic health or medicine things like that. And then you know, no matter where you are you're always going to find people with personalities that you vibe with and personalities that you don't. And I think it's important to learn about what are your musthaves in terms of friends and difficult to tolerate: the list of the things that are difficult to tolerate. And creating healthy boundaries for yourself. Boundaries both with people you want to hang out with and boundaries with those that maybe are not healthy for me or toxic or hurtful to me. And then you want to create healthy boundaries to protect yourself from those type of people.
Nadia: Yeah, I think that's very good advice. Boundaries is definitely something that I've had to work on and also have seen be really helpful in the people I surround myself with so thank you. And especially as Filipinos or asian-americans, you know, our boundaries uh in our cultures tend to be more fluid and so it's as like Multicultural people we can kind of define for ourselves what are healthy boundaries.
Dr. Celestial: Yeah thank you, You're welcome. I can't wait to hear um the types of friends and communities you build and I'm so confident that it's going to take you so far in life so… I can't wait to show my daughter all of your accomplishments thank you.
Alyssa: Nadia do you want to ask her your question about graduating?
Nadia: My question is: what's some advice you can give to students just graduating college or who are about to graduate um that don't really feel like they have a place in the world or society yet?
Dr. Celestial: well I would like to say congratulations. What an exciting time to be you! You have so many gifts to offer yourself, others, and the world. It's just just an exciting time to figure out your purpose or to listen in for your purpose and to define that for yourself. If you're struggling to really hear from your life what is your purpose? It might be a good time to hire a therapist or a coach or talk to a mentor or a spiritual guide and really take stock of your values. What is really important to you? Use those as a map towards short medium and long-term goals and just really celebrate who you are and how you want to be your authentic self. I do believe that everyone has unique talents and gifts and that they were created with a purpose. And so while there might be some, whether it's marginalization or trauma or whatever it is, that is kind of impeding or creating barriers from identifying what is your unique purpose, I believe we all have tools. My passion is helping folks lean into and discover their gifts, their unique gifts, to bring into the world.
Nadia: I really like that idea having like, you know, taking into account that everyone has their own gifts. And also maybe reaching out to a mentor or someone that you that can help coach you through the situation is definitely something I will take into account when I get to that point in my college education but thank you so much.
Alyssa: All right so Jeannia, thank you so much for being here. I wanted to let the listeners know where they could get a hold of you if they want some more information about your services that you provide. Thank you so much for being here with us today, this morning it was a pleasure.
Dr. Celestial: I'm so sorry we had a short time today but I'd love to come back. there's so many topics that we can vibe on and discuss and share with your audiences. So many blessings on this papaya podcast.
Nadia: thank you so much.
FIND DR. JEANNIE CELESTIAL:
https://www.drcelestial.com/
https://www.instagram.com/jeanniecelestial/
https://www.drcelestial.com/clinical-interventions-for-internalized-oppression
https://www.drcelestial.com/the-filipino-instant-pot-cookbook
