This week our previous series on mental health intersects with our current theme on spirituality. Shontae Cone, a mental health counselor, energy worker, and psychic, joins me to talk about bodywork, mental health, and healing. Some of Shontae’s specializations include women empowerment, biracial and multi-racial peoples, and highly sensitive people, or empaths.
The spirituality theme we’ve been exploring has been so much fun for me because this is not my typical area of expertise. I hope you have been enjoying this series as well and equally enjoy this episode!
We cover:
- The importance of learning to feel our feelings (5:49)
- How to know the healing work you are doing is effective (13:31)
- Bodywork: what it is and why it matters (26:09)
- Shontae answers the question “What do you think about thought work?” (32:10)
Resources:
Shontae’s website
Shontae on Facebook
Shontae on TikTok
Shontae on Instagram
Art by Danielle Noel
Book recommendations:
You know how I love a good personal development book, right? I’ve compiled a list of book recommendations, as mentioned in past episodes. Check out these amazing book recommendations here. Happy reading!
Shontae Cone is a mental health counselor, psychic, and energy worker located in Boise, Idaho. Shontae has been in the mental health and disability field for 15 years. She started her journey as an entry-level tech working with adults and children with mental health disorders and disabilities. During this time, she developed expertise to support those with autism, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorders. In 2017, Shontae graduated from Cappella University with her MS in clinical psychology, with specializations in clinical counseling and sex therapy. In 2020, in the height of the pandemic, Shontae opened her own practice, Hip And Happy LLC, located in Boise, Idaho. Her business has quickly grown to encompass much more than mental health work. Shontae has taken her lengthy experience in the field to create services that work for the client. Combined with her gifts for energy work, psychic awareness, and intuition Shontae is changing what mental health support can be. Creating services that are fun, magical, and out of the box has afforded her the ability to overcome a lot of typical hurdles in mental health counseling. Some of Shontae’‘s specializations include women empowerment, biracial and multi-racial peoples, energy work, and highly sensitive people, or empaths. Shontae offers coaching services, mental health services, and magic, psychic, and tarot services. She also offers retreats, workshops, and other wellness solutions. You can find more support through her podcast, Queen Holocene Radio, and by following her influencer handle, Queen Holocene on YouTube, Tik Tok, and Instagram. Shontae may not be what you think of when you picture a counselor, but again, that might just be the point.
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Shontae 00:00
The body is meant to people. So our relationships is supposed to be from this place of the body. And so I started just listening to people. I started realizing that when I got out of my own head and when I was completely balanced, I could hear what they actually were saying without the lens of my triggers and trauma. I heard their pure truth. I just sat I didn't even have to do anything and I was authentic and I felt love that they got better.
Andrea 00:28
You're listening to Make Some Noise Podcast, episode number 465 with guest Shontae Cone.
Welcome to Make Some Noise Podcast, your guide for strategies, tools and insight to empower yourself. I'm your host Andrea Owen, global speaker, entrepreneur, life coach since 2007, an author of three books that have been translated into 18 languages and are available in 22 countries. Each week, I'll bring you a guest or a lesson that will help you maximize unshakable confidence, master resilience and make some noise in your life. Are you ready? Let's go.
Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the podcast. I'm so glad that you're here. If you guys knew how many times I start and stop these intros, sometimes, not every week, but sometimes you would be aghast. I think it's partly because I am so, I just feel like you guys are here in the room with me. And I just I had to stop and start again, because I was stretching when I started the intro and I was like, welcome back to the podcast. No, no, we're not going to do that. But what I wanted to find out, is have any of you been traveling via airplanes this summer? It's painful. It's painful out there. And it's just, it's a mess. Don’t even get into it. So I've traveled, and I didn't travel for a long time over the pandemic, I didn't really go anywhere, that kind of all came to a halt. But for some reason, over the last couple of months, I've been on an airplane four different times. It's just rowdy. It's rowdy here with my schedule. And two of them were total nightmares. The other two were like, barely like, that might be, you know, had to run through the airport to catch a connection, which I ended up doing and then the other one was totally fine. I just, my condolences. My condolences to you if you have lost luggage, if you have have had to cancel a flight where you needed to be somewhere important and be with people you cared about. Mine was for work so it wasn't anything that was like detrimental. But I was I'm thinking about these people who are going to family reunions, who are going to visit loved ones who are sick, who are going to, you know, maybe it's like their first grandchild being born or just these really important life events that are being just turned upside down. So I am feeling for you.
I hope that this is over soon. I have heard that it won't be. But if you can drive do that. Amy Smith and I drove to a conference last week. Was it last week? I don't know. And it was like six or seven hours. And that was not fun. I will admit I don't like…and I was the driver. So I don't like driving that much. I don't like being a passenger, my driving anxiety you guys, it’s coming back. It's coming back. And it's not my favorite. Raise your hand if you have that. That's fun. Being a passenger, and having like runaway thoughts about I won't even say bad things on the freeway. And like pushing the brake on your passenger side and holding onto the oh shit handle. It's kind of the worst, it's the worst.
But you know what's not the worst is this theme on spirituality which we are kind of rounding the corner here. And I am excited to introduce you to today's guest. This theme has been so fun for me because this is not my area of expertise. Like at all. So it's all new to me. It's so fascinating. And I have I have actually I think I have a handful more guests after Shontae today, but let me let me introduce you to her. Shontae Cone is a mental health counselor, a psychic and energy worker. Whoa. Located in Boise, Idaho, Shontae has been in the mental health and disability field for 15 years. In 2017 Shontae graduated from Capella University with her Master's of Science in Clinical Psychology with specializations in clinical counseling and sex therapy. Shontae is changing what mental health support can be creating services that are fun, magical and out of the box has afforded her the ability to overcome a lot of typical hurdles in mental health counseling. Some of Shante specializations include women's empowerment, biracial and multiracial people's energy work and highly sensitive people or empaths. Shontae offers coaching services, mental health services, and magic, psychic, psychic and Tarot services. What? Yes. I had to have her on. I'm so excited for you to hear this conversation. So without further ado, here is Shontae.
Shontae thanks so much for being here.
Shontae 05:48
Thank you for having me.
Andrea 05:49
I was so excited to… As I was saying earlier, before we started recording, I found you on TikTok, which is, which should be a lot of like, I'm sure there's people who don't really understand TikTok. They're like a little bit of a raised eyebrow like why is Andrea getting this you will from a dancing app? It's like, mental health is huge over there. It's really, really a big dea and there's some fantastic content over there. And so, you know, my for you page knows what I like, and you came up when I started following you and loved what you were saying over there. So thank you for coming on.
One of the… I think it might have been the video that, that that made me follow you, you were talking about feeling your feelings and specifically you were saying, and I talk about this all the time, but I don't think that my listeners can hear it enough so let's talk about it some more. About how many times we kind of like gather information, like we're like collectors. You know, like, okay, I have this diagnosis and this is my attachment style. And this is my trauma here, my abandonment wounds. And we sometimes think that we're helping ourselves by kind of, you know, tallying up all of these things but we're not actually feeling our feelings. Right. So can you talk to us about that a little bit more and give some advice on like, if you were gonna give a client some homework, how would they go about starting?
Shontae 07:10
So one thing I want to talk about is there's nothing wrong with the journey because that's what it is, even if it's mental health, mind, body, soul, it's all a journey. And so we live in a mind world, a logical world. Intelligence is everything, what you see is what you get, you know, is what we promote. And so finding out information about yourself really does go towards the largest larger part of understanding yourself. However, a lot of people reach a place where they're like, Oh, I'm just I feel like I'm never satiated, I'm just eating, you know, like the Pirates of the Caribbean they just eat and it never satiated. And so literally, that means you're ready to transition into the body. So Mind Body Soul. And so that's where we get stuck and that's where we don't understand a lot, because the body is the balance to the mind, the body quiets the mind, that's why we like meditation and mindfulness, you know, quieting the mind to get into the experience, and the now. And so, feeling your feelings. When I made that video, people were like, angry, they're like, I don't know what you mean, how do I do this give me tasks on how to feel my body. And the thing is, it is going into this realm of experience. I will give like some little tips about it. But basically what I do is bridge that gap from the known to the unknown and the unknown as a lot about things we just don't get. And so the tips I start giving to people and when I work with people is just first of all know your body. Like that is the biggest things we do not know our bodies at all.
Andrea 08:40
That's what I was gonna ask you like, I was thinking like, is it unique to each person or are there kind of like universal things
Shontae 08:47
Well, there's, there's like universal things that I talk about, because it applies to everyone in different levels in the journey. So observation, I tell people observation and self-care, especially observation through the body, like when in doubt, you could be having a horrible week, the worst time of your life observation and self-care. Most of us do not have our self-care game up and it needs to be really, really like level 10 self-care, because when you're doing life, when you're doing the wellness journey, things get tough. And so you need to be able to take care of yourself, to love yourself, and to know yourself.
And the other part of that is observation. If you don't know what you're doing, if you don't know what you're feeling, what you're experiencing sensations and those kinds of things, then you can't do anything about it. So that's what I give my clients first things first, usually no matter where they are observation and self-care. And it takes a while. So don't expect it overnight. It can take years.
Andrea 09:40
Thank you for saying that last part. And I was thinking when you were saying that I was thinking about okay, what did what did my journey look like? I very much was that person like what does that mean? A) what does that mean and B) even if I know what it means I don't want to do it because it's scary and unknown and riskynd it's hard enough just to like gather this in information that I leave in my brain.
I remember, in the beginning, when I was like, I really dedicated myself to this journey of personal development and like healing myself and my life kept falling apart and I was like, maybe it's me? It turns out part of it was, yes, I, you know, there were some terrible people who had done some crappy things but that was up to them to fix, not me. But I remember, for the first time understanding that none of my feelings were wrong, because I'm a quick to anger person and I always felt wrong for it. And you know, good girls don't get angry, men don't like angry women, like that whole narrative was always playing and so finally, when I gave myself the permission to just experience whatever was happening, I think that was enormously helpful.
And also, I was just writing an email to my community about this. I was naming exactly what was happening in the moment. And again, not making myself wrong for it. So a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to my therapist, and the topic of sex came up and I immediately felt like my stomach kind of like flipped over, my throat and my neck got tight and I immediately had the feeling of like, wanting to shut down and like change the subject or make a joke, or tell him is fine. I don’t need to talk about it. But in that moment, I, I just was like, oh, this is interesting, what's happening in my body. And I can't remember if I said it out loud to him or not, I probably did. Just like what was happening, because it's good information to know that. So just wanted to give some examples to my community of like, what that might look like. Is that fairly common? Like, I'm not a weirdo?
Shontae 11:43
Oh, no. So it's so interesting. People always come to me, they're like, oh, this is the weirdest thing you've ever heard is that like… and I’m like uh, girl, no.
Andrea 11:50
Human.
Shontae 11:53
The human experience is insane, you know, and so the crazy thing I tell people is like, literally the whole thing, everything you're doing right now, okay, a lot of people are like, oh, I want to grow, I want to evolve, I wanted this, I wanted that. Basically, what you're doing is getting out of these constructs within your mind, like our mind, decides this reality. We're fed it from, you know, zero to seven, that's when we basically create the hardware, the neurons in our brain and that's what we got. And that's what we have to work with as an adult. And so we are connected to this reality, we were fed, we didn't choose it. And there are these constructs that no one can fit into and so it's a lot of suffering. And so we think we're getting better, we're evolving, we're doing more, but what we actually are doing is realizing that we are fine, just how we are. The problems come with thinking we are not, the problems come with trying to fit into these concepts, and ignoring ourselves ignoring what we need, and so every step of the way, is just accepting more and more, I can't change this. This is me. And then that self-care brings in that love, and you start to build almost this romantic relationship with yourself. And so you get to the point where you have to come to terms with, I can't go on with this behavior, this, this, this or this, because I love myself so much, I can't do it. I'm tired of suffering. And that's literally what the journey is and as you let things go, which is so terrifying, that you're no addressing things, you are liberated and you feel peace, and you feel free. And then you know, shit can hit the fan all day and you're like, you're good with you. And it's a whole different vibe.
Andrea 13:24
Knowing you can handle it.
Shontae 13:27
Knowing sometimes you can, it's okay, you know.
Andrea 13:31
Which kind of brings me to my next question. And you mentioned that a little bit towards the end there when you said you feel free, you feel peace? How do people know it's quote, unquote, working? Because I you know, as humans, we like to see results like what and not feel like we're sort of just treading water. What do you what are some things that you see in your clients or that you tell them to look for.
Shontae 13:57
So number one, I would say this is where it comes in really handy to have a really, really good guide, mentor, healer, Shaman, counselor, because you literally have to train yourself. Because the brain wants to survive. That is its entire MO and it will see things that could pose a danger. So all your triggers, that's what you're seeing constantly, you literally are not seeing an entire spectrum of existence. So you're going up against reality that is an illusion. So think about that you are in something that is not real. It is based on things from zero to seven you didn't choose and experiences and trauma. So to fight that consistency is consistently as a lot of work. So it is very helpful to have someone with you because what I do is constantly ask yourself, measuring, because the brain likes measuring okay, from here to last week from here to last month from here to last year what strides have I made, being open, not judgmental, what is different, even if it's the smallest thing and that literally rewires your brain. Like you start to be able to see different things and that is paired with like gratitude work and starting to see positives. Instead of that survival negative, this is going to kill me mode. It is what else is there? What else can I see that maybe I'm not seeing now in it. It literally rewires the brain. It helps you see past the illusion, but it does take time again.
And that's what I spent a lot of time with, with clients, like, you know, this is they get frustrated, this is happening. I'm doing this, I'm doing this. Okay, what did you do last month? What are the differences? No, like, well, you know, I had this, this or this. And I'm like, do and I say, do you understand this is… God loves us for our careers for getting our degrees for headed families. This is the hardest thing you'll ever do and you just told me that you now are able to spot your triggers? Do you recognize you now we're seeing through illusion, you've rewired your brain, like physiologically, chemical differences in your brain, you have done all these things energetically, in a month's time. So I sell them. Go celebrate though, and I always say go eat ice cream. I don't know why I don't really like ice cream. But I'm like, go celebrate, go take care of yourself. And they think I'm crazy but you got to celebrate your wins.
Andrea 16:12
I love that I never, I never really pinpointed that. And it's, thank you for saying that. Because my best friend often reminds me of those types of things. You know, when I'm like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm here again, or I can't believe I'm having to go through this, again, I'm getting triggered by this again, and she'll remind me like, remember where you were, you know, a year ago or five years ago how you would have handled this. And it is so incredibly… I think I read somewhere too, might have been in like Popular Science or Psycho…you know. But that, that it is like that there's research that shows us that especially for children, to explain to them the brain chemistry, because it helps us totally understand and feel more gratitude and look at the positives, etc. when we understand how our brain can change in a positive direction.
Shontae 17:07
And so furthermore, I tell everyone, you cannot go back. It is impossible to go back. I don't really believe so much in regression, I believe that you come back to places with new tools. So we're in this concept of time, which means we are always gathering data. Like you cannot be the person you were yesterday, it's impossible. Whether you have an experience, let's say you just stay in your room all day, you're thinking you're collecting data, you're thinking about things, you have tools that you did not have before. So I see it as a spiral. So you might come to the same, you know, like as you go up in the spiral, you might come back again, almost seeming like the same spot, but you're not in the same spot. So it's important to remember that we don't regress, that we're given opportunities to basically understand the situation more and grow more and eventually heal and you know, accept it and surrender it.
So this is why it's so I think imperative to get someone to help you because there are staples and tools that are basically like this huge, fatty, like toolbox that are like, this is how you climb this mountain you need you know, this rope, you need this buckle and that's how you get through it because when you hit those lows, what I say is, this is just an opportunity, it means you actually are leveling up and that helps me so much. You are not regressing. You’ve been given an opportunity to move beyond this. And so that hits different. When I started thinking that way I was like, I'll be damned if this situations gonna keep me in the same place. Even if I learn one iota more, and then you start to realize, oh my gosh, after this horrible, horrible situation, I feel badass as hell. And so it's kind of like okay, my ice cream parties come and they just kind of endure this huge depression bout you know?
Andrea 18:56
That reminds me of that acronym, AFGO. Have you heard that one? Another Fucking Growth Opportunity?
Shontae 19:08
Yeah. Yeah,. It can get dangerous because you know, we want that growth, right? We want to get better. So you just have to be careful, because you get tired real quick when they don't stop happening. You know? When you've been doing the wellness journey for six years and you're like, okay, you know, I'm tired of leveling up at this point.
Andrea 19:27
I have been in that place so many times. I say to my best friend like I'm tired of playing personal development. Like I'm tired. Like it starts to feel like it's its own full-time job and I'm over it like I just want to play Candy Crush and like talk about countertops, like well, sometimes.
Shontae 19:52
So that's the subtle shift of when you know that you're taking on spirituality as a means to change yourself versus I'm living life and I'm just living.
Andrea 20:02
So tell me more about that. That's interesting.
Shontae 20:04
Yes. So it's a very subtle shift. It's the shift from I'm bettering myself, which is kind of hierarchical thinking I'm getting somewhere, I'm going somewhere. That's forward thinking. That's the future, the future never comes. And it's in, it's based on when we get to the nitty gritty, I'm not good enough now. It's based on like, what could be, which is fine but when we live that way, every day, that's exhausting because we literally never get to the future, we never get there. It is never what we want it to be. So the subtle shift is you start kind of getting out of almost like this wellness journey, and you're just living and you're incorporating these tools into your life. So it's hard to explain, but it's a shift from I'm on a journey, I'm doing this to I'm living, I have tools, and I'm experiencing, and I'm not just surviving, I'm thriving. So it goes to kind of this mindset of what's happening now in this experience? How am I feeling? Am I likeness? Am I not? What tools do I have to employ, go about my day, experience this life. Not so much worried if I'm getting better, but very much focused on? Am I experiencing happiness, am I experiencing peace. So it's very much in the moment more so.
And it's, it's from going from these expectations and almost put it on this other label because the brain wants to do this, we are in a world of constructs and so we feel comfortable, I am a spiritual junkie, I am a wellness, you know, lover, but what it comes down to is at the very basis you are you. You might participate in wellness tools, because you want to have a better life or feel happier, but it's almost like it's not identifying any more with these constructs no matter what they are. This is the stuff that gets hard to explain with words, because this is emerging into experience because the brain is like okay, well, what does that even mean? Give me some tests to do this.
Andrea 22:10
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Your journey as a mental health professional, you've worked in a school system and like kind of all these different places. What have you learned that brought you, or was there kind of a moment or that brought you to having the practice that you do now?
Shontae 26:09
Everything. My life has been a complete shit show aside from my career. My career has been just beautiful. Yeah, beautiful it lined up. I'm not saying it was easy. But it was the one thing in my life that just laid out step by step. And so what I will say it was a really good representation of my spiritual journey because I went into the field, I had my first psychology class in high school, I was like, whoa, you mean there's, I can understand why I'm this and crazy and this and this, and this. And so I was passionate about it and I was like a voracious, like, wanted to know everything. And I learned so much. And I'm a data collector, so I just collected data, collected data. And then I started being in the field at 21 and I collected experiences and what started to happen, as I kept collecting this data that didn't necessarily fit well with the experiences I was having. It was wonderful, and it was great, but it kind of diverged to where the theories and the things that I learned in school are wonderful, but they just couldn't meet the expectations of what my clients were bringing to me or what the people I was working with or bringing with me. And I just started to feel that within myself and what I realized is, there is more than just knowledge, there's more than the mind, and I tell my clients that we are trying to relationship and human with the mind. When the mind is meant to keep us surviving to do different tasks to be able to get us from A to Z, I tell them the mind is not meant to human, the body is meant to people. So our relationships is supposed to be from this place of the body. And so I started just listening to people, I started realizing that when I got out of my own head, and when I was completely balanced, I could hear what they actually were saying without the lens of my triggers and trauma, I heard their pure truth. And the crazy thing is people are not saying what you think they're saying you are hearing what you expect them to say or what you're afraid they're saying. So we are all around, basically not even hearing each other, all in these little illusions, and so disconnected. And I found that when I just sat, I didn't have to do anything, and I was authentic, and I felt love that they got better. And it evolved from that. Sometimes people just need you to hear them because what, what I found was when I just human with them through my body, and I've been getting better and better at it, they began to human too, and they awoke to something that we forgotten and that's just in being authentically you as much as possible. And then the rest is just kind of icing on the cake, or maybe some struggles, but it's not us and it doesn't define us.
Andrea 28:53
Wow, I don't think I've ever heard it laid out like that is beautiful.
Shontae 28:58
Well, it's a deeper thing. We're not collectively there. Even in the field, we're still really focused on the science and so that's where I always call myself the black sheep of the field and I half expect someday to get kicked out because there is a lot that isn't quantifiable, you know? It's human connection and so, the further I got, the more I was like, I cannot give up these things. Like I started to recognize energy. I hold space for people I manipulate their energy, their chakras, I changed their very essence at the time into different experiences and I cannot do that because people leave completely different than when they came and they feel peaceful and they get a taste of what life could be. And that is transcendent.
And so I do find myself moving towards something that isn't necessarily what I was taught, but it's built on what I was taught and it's just it's a different thing. And so I know a lot of therapists and practitioners are being compelled and you can find things like in phenomenology and somatics, and, you know, even you there were a lot of, you know, psychologists and people in the field played into this and they started delving into this, but we are holding really fastidiously to this logic scientific, A equals this equals this exists. And so it's a process.
Andrea 30:23
I am going to write down the word phenomenology because I have never, that's when I have not heard of…
Shontae 30:29
That change literally changed my life, it's just the phenomenon of human experience. So it was literally, I will say, I feel like I can understand some concepts, the most difficult stuff I have ever read, it's talking about reality and it's talking about at the base of everything is pure experience and then we add layers to that, like, I'm a mom, I, you know, I am a cis white women or, you know, I am bisexual, I don't like this type, you know, whatever. We add these things, I'm a musician, and they build up layers that get us away from pure existence. And so the whole journey is basically recognizing these layers, getting to yourself and pure existence, and then the fun part is when you turn that around, and you can start to manipulate and play with this world, because if you want to be Republican or Democrat, great, you know? But choose it. And then play within that world. Be who you want to be from a place of happiness.
A lot of so much of what is put on us is not happy. You know, politics is not happy. Oftentimes religion makes us unhappy. All these things that we try to find happiness from and, and figure out who we are, aren't fitting the bill, they aren't doing it for us. And so the real deal, it goes back to that difference in pursuing wellness versus just being well, is getting to you being authentically you and then you know, you can choose this or you can choose that, but it is not you.
Andrea 32:19
I'm gonna need a minute.
Shontae 32:21
Now, it's taken me a while to even get here, I'll tell you that it's taken me you know, 36 years.
Andrea 32:28
Oh, my God, you still have still so much more career in front of you, and life. It sounds complicated, and beautiful and so mysterious at the same time, like all of those things. Thank you for sharing that I, of course, have so many questions. But I'm gonna I'm gonna keep it simple. And I'm curious about what are your feelings on thought work and like CBT and, like that type of stuff that kind of keeps us in our head because I I've heard mixed things. You know, CBT helped me so much when I was diagnosed with I had panic disorder, I was in my mid 20s and it helped me tremendously. But now as I had a therapist, and this particular therapist had a PhD, and in so many different things, and I brought up a topic, and this therapist started doing thought work with me, and I was like, are we doing thought work right now? I felt almost insulted. Like my trauma was being insulted. I'm like, I'm gonna know this. But I'm like, well, maybe this person knows better. So I'm curious what your thoughts are now that you've shared all of that experience that you have.
Shontae 33:13
My body, my body. Well, first things first, a little segue. We don't get taught this stuff. This was just deep, profound work on my part, because I couldn't go on suffering. We get a disservice in the field. So I really try to vouch for my psychologists and psychiatrists, mental health practitioners, counselors, because this is what we're taught. And we're like, CBT, CBT. And you know, that's what insurances want. The whole system, I'm not going to get into it. It's a system, and we are shackled to it. Right? I've just chosen to break away, which is scary. But what I will say is, it goes back to the same concept is everything is we are in a journey, and we will always evolve and not identifying with anything. That is the difficult thing because we want to identify with things. I am first and foremost a mother, that defines me, but until it doesn't. You know? Until you're not satiated and not doing for yourself, and you're not you know, but you identify so hard with being a mother and what that entails that you forget that there's anything else. So that's a really watered-down version. But what I'm saying is we are constantly evolving and constantly shifting, and the more we try to attach to things, the more we suffer.
So CBT is an amazing, amazing tool for parts of the journey in my opinion. I use it it's part of my toolbox, but it is part of an ever growing, ever changing. bag of tricks I have sometimes CBT is great. I tell my clients to have life mantras that are like I don't even have a good name for them, I probably should coin something but it is something that's irrefutable to the brain. So we have our stories, we have our narratives, we have our core beliefs, what are they? So that takes mind work. That takes thought work. What are the thoughts you're having? What are the stories you have? You got to know that to get to your core beliefs. And then when you have your core beliefs, what can irrefutably challenge that. So I tell people, my story is, I am bad, you know? And so my irrefutable truth is, I am love. And what goes to the next stage that CBT can't do is I envision an experience where I am giving and receiving love, which is being with my clients, I always think about when I'm feeling that bad, like, I'm bad, I'm a bad person. I think about being in session watching my clients bloom and grow and feeling love and happiness and transcendence. I'm like, that cannot be true that I'm bad because this is true. So that's what I'm talking about is like, CBT got me there, but then I had to employ somatic work, you know, visualization, mindfulness.
So it's a shift in concept to everything as part of the whole versus this, this, this identify with this, this has much more meaning than that. That's what gets us in trouble and that's really feel distress is because when that this does not hold up to the world, which it won't, then we feel the dissonance, cognitive dissonance. What I believe is not working with what the world is saying, and that's really where we come down to the problem with logic, and intelligence and science. And Lord helped me with everyone that's gonna get mad about this, but science is simply what we know now, right now, but it is constantly evolving. What we knew 20 years ago was nothing compared to now. And so it is almost like, again, I figured, you know, the Pirates of the Caribbean and you know, it's kind of a guidebook, it's, you know, it's like when you go by for life. It's guidelines, and yet we hold it irrefutably, this is true. Okay, until it's not. And when it's not, you suffer, you have a breakdown, you cannot understand reality, and it's terrible.
Andrea 37:14
Okay, so things like CBT or thought work are like a flathead screwdriver in a toolbox with dozens and dozens of other tools. And the reason I chose flathead screwdriver, because it's like, it's a staple. I feel like it's a staple. The one thing that it helped me do for people who have never done it, and are you know, maybe you've never gone to therapy, and they're thinking about starting with that. What it helped me realize is that my narrative was you said yours was I am bad, mine was I am unsafe. It was like, in every area of my life, it was I am unsafe in my romantic relationships. I'm unsafe in my friendships, I'm unsafe driving, like I would have panic attacks while driving. It was it was bad. And so what it helped me do is realize what was happening in the moment, just so I could slow down and it doesn't… I will say this, it doesn't work every single time. It's not, it helped a lot, but not every single time, it would help just pump the brakes a little bit on what felt like a freight train of thoughts that we're moving so fast, I couldn't even cognitively understand what was happening. And then it was just a, like a full body experience of panic. So it helped me slow down enough to be able to understand, okay, I'm feeling unsafe, and then move on from there.
Shontae 38:31
And I think we're comfortable with it, because CBT is something we understand.
Andrea 38:35
And it's a step-by-step process.
Shontae 38:37
Well, yeah, so that's what I say, about bridge. I give that to my clients, but I'm taking them to where CBT does not live, you know, ever right? So I would say to anybody bodywork never helps unless you just miraculously came into this reality totally immersed in your body, not conditioned, which I'm sure there are people that were not conditioned by a logical world.
Andrea 39:00
But I was just meant to say have you met those people? Like do they exist? Cuz they’re probably not going into your office.
Shontae 39:05
I don't meet them. No. Well, that would take I don't even know how though. You would have to come and just like this pure little beam of light that had their tricks. You know, your track you're going on and nothing could touch it. I don't even know how I'm sure you…
Andrea 39:22
Since we're kind of on this esoteric topic. Do you ever think about you know, if this earth manages to stick around for I don't know, let's say hundreds or thousands of years from now, do you ever think there's something that they're going to look back on and the mental health scope and go well, that was weird that they were doing that. Like can you believe that they were doing that? Do you ever think that you know?
Shontae 39:46
Um, oh, wow. No, I don't think that I don't know because we're evolving so much and right now we are evolving like crazy. I'm sure you're meeting people, everyone's talking about stuff they have never considered, and part of that evolution is realizing that parts of a whole. So I would like to have faith that people just think, oh, well, that was the evolutionary necessity we needed at the moment.
Andrea 40:06
Yeah. I mean, if you think about stuff that they did even 100 years ago, I mean, just my grandmother was treated for depression with shock therapy. I don't know how well it worked but…and I know they still do that sometimes and who knows. Who knows. Okay. I was gonna ask you like, one of my questions on my list, and I just glanced at is what do you think sets you apart from other counselors? I feel like you answered that, but is there anything else that you wanted to add or tag on to that question?
Shontae 40:38
I guess I'll get on my soapbox. Yes. Women empowerment. You know, like, let's all get on our own damn boxes. But what I will say is, I am really damn good at what I do. It's like…
Andrea 40:53
Thank you for saying that out loud and exemplifying that.
Shontae 40:56
Yeah. Oh, yes, of course. All I know, is that human this world doing this? I have been doing this my entire life as a child that why is that person doing that? What's going on? What is this such, you can imagine the anxiety I have. Like, I have never met anyone with anxiety like I've birthed you know. I've worked obviously on it and I'm to a place of quiet some Zen quite a bit. This is my wheelhouse. This is what I made to do. This is what I love to do and what I will say is I connect with people in ways that I think most people never ever experience, because I've done the work to do so. And it does make for an interesting life because I don't find very many people that are like me, but it makes for very rich and wonderful experiences and I have not met anyone that hasn't done the work that hasn't change. That I am a catalyst of change and change happens around me whether I want it to or not. So I think in that sense, it's a little bit different. You know, you'll get what you're buying, it might not feel good. And I tell people, This is not for the faint of heart. But do you want to live this life? And I'll take you to where you want to go?
Andrea 42:07
Okay, I have one more question for you and then and then we'll wrap it up, I definitely want you to tell people where they can find more about you and maybe even work with you. Is the is there like a common theme that that people come to you for like common problem or challenge that they're facing or is it all over the board? What do you see a lot?
Shontae 42:28
So hands down pretty much everyone that comes to me is what I call an empath, or what we call in the field a highly sensitive person. But at this point, I'm wondering if everyone's just a highly sensitive person.
Andrea 42:38
I was I've been wondering the same thing. I was introduced to that topic back in the 90s. My dad got sober and started doing therapy and his therapist recommended the book to him, I still have my copy that he gave me from them. But now I wonder and I'm like, I feel like this is just a human experience and some people are just more in tune to it than others.
Shontae 42:55
Well, the work that I do, everyone's getting to that. So like the psychic work, the energy work that out there stuff that seems so mystical, I personally believe everyone can harness that. But I tend to get people that are high anxiety, I tend to be get people that just aren't functioning in their lives, they usually are pretty chaotic, they have trouble… Maybe they're overdoing it with logic, I get a lot of really high, powerful, high functioning, badass women. You know, a lot of times they have their own businesses, they're in school, they're doing that kind of thing, but they're just like, I'm going to lose my shit, or I am looking for something else. I want something. Everyone wants something, but they can't identify it. It's just this, this hunger. So that's not really a really good way to sum it up, but I get people that are searching and they don't know what they're searching for and then I say something or they hear something and it clicks. Usually people are like that. I don't know what it is. But that.
Andrea 43:59
That makes perfect sense to me. Because that's a lot of this audience that you're talking to typically have kicked ass in their career and struggle either with their relationship with themselves or their relationship with their people and it's something that's going on inside. We're not going on inside that is sort of causing this disconnect in this incongruency so yes, you're speaking our language Shontae. Well, we need to wrap it up. Where can people find you?
Shontae 44:27
So they can like my website. I have a website www.ShontaeCone.com and that basically is where I have… I tried to keep everything up that's going on. I'm having an overhaul right now, but as far as connecting with me like I'm on TikTok and Instagram, I put some videos up there but some deeper work, I do have services I have limited spots for like in depth work. I literally just kind of closed the door and made it smaller because the work I do is just so much. So I have limited spaces for that. But I often have like Empath coaching or different workshops. And one of the things I'm super excited about is I'm doing a retreat in August and it's like, it is like everything that I've been like gathering data for for the last seven years. It's finally all coming into play. And it's going to be like this goddess retreat and it's going to be in Miami, probably the third week of August. And it's going to be working with your Sun goddess and your Lilith goddess, which is just basically saying, that goddess of you that you accept and then that dark, deep Goddess that you're ashamed of or that your shadows follow. So it's shadow work. It's empowerment. It’s gonna be a lot of pampering. It's going to be sexy. It's going to be a lot of cry. A lot of bonding on the beach. It's basically me in a nutshell, like super sexy, hot mess. All that.
Andrea 45:53
That sounds amazing. I love that so much. I've never been to Miami but I've heard amazing things about it. Are you in the Midwest are you located?
Shontae 46:02
So I'm I am in Idaho. So I can see people for counseling in Idaho, but I'm actually moving to Florida, so I'm hoping to have dual licensure.
Andrea 46:11
Next. Okay, I have one Actually, I lied. I have one more question. So your camera, people can't see this because we're not recording but your camera moved and there was like a really interesting portrait, like behind you. What is that? It look like… What is that?
Shontae 46:27
So her name is Danielle Noel. She's like my spirit animal. Oh, well, that's the person who made it. This is just a picture of like, your inner goddess so like Aphrodite or whatever you want to call it so Mother, whatever. But the artist is Danielle Noel. And I have several. I have another picture. And it's just, she's the most beautiful surreal work ever.
Andrea 46:54
It's beautiful. We will pop…can people is was that like an original for you? Or can people look at that on Etsy?
Shontae 47:02
Oh, no, it's yes. She has her own website.
Andrea 47:05
We’ll put the link in the show notes for that. I want to see it. I know. Hopefully, you know, so yeah, I love supporting artists. And thank you. I kept like seeing it. I'm like, why is that it? If it was really interesting. Thank you so much for being before we close? Is there anything that you want to circle back on and touch on or do you feel complete?
Shontae 47:27
Um, I guess the last thing I want to say is I am looking for whoever this resonates with. I'm calling my tribe and I'm calling my people right now in a big way. Things are really building and moving and we're all feeling it. And I'm ready to just do some wonderful big things and I want those people who are called to do that too to find me.
Andrea 47:49
Awesome. And so it is the energy is out there. Thank you so much for being here. Shontae. And to everyone listening. Thank you so much for your time, I appreciate and value you and it's so much. And remember everybody. It's our life's journey to make ourselves better humans and our life's responsibility to make the world a better place. Bye for now.
Hey, everyone, thanks again for listening to the show. And just a quick reminder that if your company needs a speaker or a trainer, I might be the right person for you. I speak and do keynotes on competence and resilience for mixed audiences as well as do trainings on the Daring Way which is the methodology based on the research of Dr. Brené Brown. So if you think it might be a good fit, hit me up at support@AndreaOwen.com or head over to my speaking page AndreaOwen.com/speaking.