Still Human: More Capacity. More Human. More Life.

Celestia Spong
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Weekly

Still Human is a podcast about becoming more fully yourself. It’s for anyone doing the inner work. The deep kind. The embodied kind. Hosted by Celestia Spong, Still Human explores the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, spirituality, and everyday life, while sharing what she’s learned, and continues to discover, on her own journey of healing, growth, and expanding her capacity to hold more of life, and coming into greater wholeness. Drawing from her education and clinical experience as a Psychotherapist, along with training in mindfulness, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Interpersonal Neurobiology, Jungian Psychology, somatic approaches, systems coaching, and many other professional trainings, Celestia brings both professional knowledge and lived experience to the conversation. But honestly, credentials only tell part of the story. Most of what’s shaped her healing, growth, and work has come from living it. From childhood loss, trauma, abuse, chronic illness, grief, relationships, motherhood, and the messy reality of being human. This isn’t a podcast about having it all figured out. It’s about modelling the work from the inside, still on the path. At its heart, Still Human is about wholeness, embracing the wisdom, wounds, gifts, contradictions, joy, grief, and humanity that make us who we are. Because this journey isn’t only about healing. It’s also about rediscovering joy, play, wonder, laughter, and the fullness of being human.

Episodes

  1. 4d ago

    The Void

    Have you ever had a time in your life when there’s a lot more space? A gap. More stillness, more silence than there was before. Maybe a relationship ended. Maybe a business came to an end. Maybe your children grew up and moved out. Something shifted, and now there’s all this stillness. But underneath the stillness there’s a discomfort. An emptiness that isn’t easy to be with. So we start trying to fill it. That’s the season I’m in right now. My kids have left home. I stepped away from something I spent a long time building and poured my heart, soul and life force into, and there’s been a real change of direction in what I’m working on and where I’m putting my energy. I’m calling it the void. This episode I talk about what shows up in that space. And for the first time I do live parts work on camera, with my friend Stacey off camera helping shape it. I talk about the parts that arrived while I was recording. The sad part, my mama heart, realising that season is actually over. The guilt part that remembers the years I was chronically ill and couldn’t be there the way I wanted to be. The part that sits in my shoulder blades and tells me stillness is lazy, and wants to know what’s next. And my narrator, the hardest working part I have, commenting on everything 24 hours a day, and a huge source of the exhaustion. I talk about the work of my dear friend Ruth Cohn on the trauma of neglect, and why she looks at the nothingness rather than only the obvious event. Because we tend to focus on the big thing that happened, when for me, the deeper wound was so much of what was missing afterwards. The nurturing that didn’t come. The pain that went unwitnessed. I talk about how I’ve filled that my whole life by taking care of other people, and the uncomfortable thing I’ve had to face, which is that in doing it I am turning away from myself, and I am abandoning myself. I bring in Richard Schwartz’s book You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For, and what happens when we make someone else the source of being okay. And then I come back to something Carl Jung wrote: “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” I talk about Bill Plotkin’s Soulcraft, descent, and my own tendency to leap straight up into all love and light rather than go down and be with what’s actually there. And I sit with the question I’m actually in. Maybe it isn’t a hole that needs filling. Maybe it’s just something I haven’t learned yet how to meet. And as always, I’m weaving together psychology, neuroscience and spirituality, and how all of this plays out in everyday life. Fair warning, I came into this one without the answers and I still don’t have them.

  2. Sep 9

    Episode 8: Legacy of laughter

    In our family, laughter wasn’t a break from the hard stuff. It was how we got through it. This one’s different. My first video episode, and my first guest: my sister, Mia. RADA-trained actor, comedian, and the funniest person I know. We talk about growing up in England, where being funny was the most respected currency going. About sanuk, the Thai idea of bringing fun and lightness into everyday life. About Richard Schwartz’s concept of legacy burdens in IFS: what gets handed down that was never ours to carry. And the question we landed on one night: what if what got passed down to us was the laughter? There’s science in it too. Stephen Porges’s polyvagal theory, and how laughing with people we love can support safety and connection. Robin Dunbar’s research linking social laughter with endorphins and bonding. The Divine Child in Jungian psychology, and the idea that becoming more whole includes reconnecting with the playfulness we were born with rather than saving it for the end. Which is the point, really. Play isn’t the reward once the healing is done. It is the work. We also get honest about the other side. Laughter as a protector. The joke that keeps everyone at arm’s length. So the thing to sit with is discernment: is this laughter connecting me, or helping me disappear? And as always, I’m weaving together psychology, neuroscience and spirituality, and how it all plays out in everyday life. Though fair warning, this one is far less polished and a lot more us.

    Episode 8: Legacy of laughter

  3. May 28

    What my body is trying to tell me. Ep 7

    I sat down to record a different episode. My body said no. It was originally titled "Stepping into your power". I’d researched it. I'd written it. I was ready to go. And the moment I sat down to record, my body refused. It didn’t feel genuine to talk about stepping into my power while I'm, quite honestly, on the verge of burnout. So this episode is what came out instead. A real-time pivot into what my body has actually been trying to tell me for quite some time now. I talk about the "parts-party" that arrived as I went to hit record — or the many parts of me that all activated at once, and each with its own agenda. Like the firefighter part who won’t stop. Or the two polarized protectors with the same wound but opposite strategies. Or the part that constantly overthinks everything, and although it may look like awareness, it’s approach actually keeps me stuck in fight, flight, or freeze. I also talk about the harm of perfectionism culture and what it has ingrained in me. And I share the question I’ve been sitting with for the past few days: what price am I willing to pay for my peace? And as always, I’m weaving together psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality, and how all of this plays out in everyday life.

    What my body is trying to tell me. Ep 7

  4. May 7

    Discernment. Ep 6

    I spent years not trusting my intuition. Ignoring the tightness in my stomach. Explaining away the red flags. Convincing myself I was overreacting. I became very good at rewriting reality to maintain connection and keep the peace. So in this episode I talk about discernment. The inherent knowing we carry within our bodies. Our gut instinct. And how, over and over again, we dismiss our body's intelligence and allow the stories our mind create to run the show. I describe the nervous system and how it relates to discernment. I talk about the difference between intuition and hypervigilance and the impact trauma has on our ability to accurately perceive threats. How a slight pause in the middle of a recent emotional challenge changed how I now understand healing. And I get honest about a pattern I carried for years. Falling in love with the idea of a person's potential rather than paying attention to who they were choosing to be right in front of me. And as always, I'm weaving together psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality, and how all of this plays out in everyday life (with a little humor here and there).

    Discernment. Ep 6

  5. Apr 20

    Shame. Ep 5

    For most of my life, shame didn’t feel like a feeling. It felt like truth. “I am bad.” Not “I made a mistake.” “I am the problem.” In this episode, I share how that belief got installed, how it lived in my body, and the way it shaped my health, my relationships, and how I saw myself. I talk about what shame does, why it keeps us hidden, and what started to change when I began turning toward it instead of running from it. And as always, I’m weaving together the psychology, the neuroscience, the spiritual understanding… and how this all plays out in real, everyday life. Not fixing. Not performing. Just staying.

    Shame. Ep 5

  6. Apr 6

    The story I’m telling myself. Ep 4

    What if the thing you’re most certain about is a story your nervous system wrote to keep you safe? In this episode I explore Brené Brown’s powerful concept of “the story I’m telling myself” through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS) parts work, nervous system regulation, and consciousness. I share personal experiences of how my protective parts create full narratives and how learning to notice the story changed everything. This episode touches on Dan Siegel’s work on how the brain fills gaps when we’re activated, and why awareness of the story is the first step toward building real emotional capacity.

    The story I’m telling myself. Ep 4

  7. Mar 26

    Capacity is not calm. Ep 3

    I know the theory. I’ve done the therapy. I’ve even trained to be a psychotherapist. And there are still moments where I get so emotionally hijacked around certain people that I can barely hold it together. So what’s going on? This episode is about the gap most people don’t talk about. The one between knowing exactly what’s happening inside you… and still not being able to change it in the moment. Why “protect your peace” sounds great on candle, but tends to collapse in real relationships. And the difference between being Self-like and being Self-led. One performs wisdom. The other lives it. I share honest, unpolished moments where my parts took over. Where I built stories that made things worse. And what shifted when I let go of needing to be right. I also talk about the most meaningful transformation I’ve experienced. Not in a ceremony, a temple, or with a shaman. It happened quietly, in my living room, with no one watching. We explore awareness versus capacity, emotions as data, unsafe versus unfamiliar, and the simple sequence I keep returning to: Notice. Body. Self. Choice. This isn’t about getting it right. It’s about practising something different, in real time, with all parts of you welcome.

    Capacity is not calm. Ep 3

  8. Mar 9

    All parts welcome. Ep 2

    After the pilot, many of you shared that the “parts” language was new, so in this episode I slow things down and explain what parts work actually is. I introduce the basics of Internal Family Systems and the idea that our minds naturally organise into different parts, each with its own emotions, beliefs and protective role. Using the Inside Out analogy and examples from my own life, I explore how these parts form and how learning to notice them can change the way we relate to ourselves and the people we love. I also share more of my personal story and the work of building the capacity to stay present with difficult experiences without collapsing into shame or defensiveness. This episode is about understanding the inner system we all carry, and how curiosity toward our parts can create more compassion, clarity and self-leadership. All parts welcome.

    All parts welcome. Ep 2

  9. Mar 2

    Let’s begin. Ep 1

    In this pilot episode, I talk about why I’m starting this in the first place. Not as a launch. Not as a polished offering. But as practice. I share how I’ve spent 15 years immersed in healing and growth work, studying it, living it, sometimes even becoming addicted to it. How personal development can quietly turn into performance. How we learn to sound self-aware without actually building the capacity to be with ourselves. This episode is importance of building capacity. Emotional capacity. Nervous system capacity. Relational capacity. The difference between talking about growth and embodying it. I speak honestly about my own journey through trauma, therapy, spiritual exploration, and the uncomfortable realization that insight is not the same as integration. Still Human is my attempt to stop performing growth and start practicing being real. To build the internal space to feel more, hold more, and live more fully alive. This is the beginning.

    Let’s begin. Ep 1
  • 9 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Still Human is a podcast about becoming more fully yourself. It’s for anyone doing the inner work. The deep kind. The embodied kind. Hosted by Celestia Spong, Still Human explores the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, spirituality, and everyday life, while sharing what she’s learned, and continues to discover, on her own journey of healing, growth, and expanding her capacity to hold more of life, and coming into greater wholeness. Drawing from her education and clinical experience as a Psychotherapist, along with training in mindfulness, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Interpersonal Neurobiology, Jungian Psychology, somatic approaches, systems coaching, and many other professional trainings, Celestia brings both professional knowledge and lived experience to the conversation. But honestly, credentials only tell part of the story. Most of what’s shaped her healing, growth, and work has come from living it. From childhood loss, trauma, abuse, chronic illness, grief, relationships, motherhood, and the messy reality of being human. This isn’t a podcast about having it all figured out. It’s about modelling the work from the inside, still on the path. At its heart, Still Human is about wholeness, embracing the wisdom, wounds, gifts, contradictions, joy, grief, and humanity that make us who we are. Because this journey isn’t only about healing. It’s also about rediscovering joy, play, wonder, laughter, and the fullness of being human.

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