Ashley Brown 0:00 [Intro]
Its the worst when your day isn't going as planned. Putting out unexpected tiny fires or changing plans at the last minute is annoying. Deep breath girl. In this episode of the routine and things podcasts, I'm sharing three things you can do when your day is feeling off beat. Stay tuned. Here's three grounding activities when you're feeling scattered and stressed.
Ashley Brown 0:37
Hey, girl, before we get into today's episode, I wanted to share that we have four new freebies for you at routineandthings.com right now. So these are four free downloads that I put together that will help you with your routines, and also planning. So just to give you a sneak peek, one of the free downloads is my top five planning tips for mindful productivity. These are tips that I use every single week to make sure that I'm creating a realistic plan that I'm being thoughtful about how I'm planning so that I don't over plan and that I actually stick to my plan. So these are some really great tips, as well as another freebie that I put together for you is a routine assessment.
Ashley Brown 1:19
So this is actually a download where you can assess the five routine categories cooking, cleaning, children self care and planning to see which routine category do you need most in your life right now, so that you can start to build a routine based within that category. So this is a really great routine assessment. And this has helped so many women when it comes to them trying to decide which routine to start. So I know it will be helpful for you. So these are just two freebies, I have an additional two on the website. So I want you to go ahead and check them out. You can go to routineandthings.com. And I'll also place a link to all of the freebies in the show notes. I want to share that with you. But let's go ahead and get into today's episode.
Ashley Brown 2:03
Okay, so for today's episode, I'm going to be sharing with you three grounding activities when you're feeling scattered, and stressed. Do you even connect with those words scattered and stressed? I know I can connect with those words. I have felt scattered and stressed throughout my life on many occasions, especially filling scatter like Wait, what am I doing today? What's going on today? these kids are throwing me off my husband done thrown me off like something is going wrong here. And it's just a life life-ing. Life will just life us and just be like what in the world. God helped me today. So so I know what it feels like to feel scattered and stressed. And I do some things that really help me. And I also have learned things from other women. And so I'm going to be sharing with you three amazing grounding activities that I personally use in my life that I know other women use in their life that I think would be really helpful to share with you.
Ashley Brown 3:07
So I'm sharing this today because it's certain seasons of life where I feel like this comes about more frequently. But just in life in general, we're going to feel this from time to time, right because this is life and we can't escape it many times, especially when you have a family, when you have multiple responsibilities. When you're responsible for not only just yourself, but for another human being this can be or it can just bring up emotions that do tend to be like stress or anxiety. That doesn't mean we have to live there doesn't mean we have to stay in that emotional space. But it may come up from time to time, or just even when your day isn't going as planned. You may feel scattered, you may feel like fragmented discombobulated like hold up I need to get back on track here. So I'm going to share with you three really beautiful and practical ways that you can ground yourself when you are feeling this way.
Ashley Brown 4:07
So let's get into things you know I like to keep it short and sweet give you the juice so you can get back into your life. And if you feel like you have days that feel like this or if you come across another day that feels like this. Then you have these tools in your back pocket. So the first grounding activity that you can do that you have access to right now is pausing Yep. Pause take a break. I don't know if when I pause you can hear the lawnmower in the background. I hope not but if so is life right life is going to life. But Pause, Pause, decompress. This really helps you so much oh my gosh if we can just stop. Sometimes I have just tell myself stop because my mind will keep going and going. I will overthink overthink, or I'll just be like, wait, what I need to do next? And it's like, girl you don't know because you're stressed and you're scattered and you don't even know what you're doing next, you're about to do something you probably don't even need to do because you're not stopping.
Ashley Brown 5:16
Right? Pause, take a deep breath, right? Pausing can be so beneficial for you. It helps you to reassess, it kind of just helps you look at what really is going on when you pause. It's like when you're in the middle of feeling stressed about something and then you just stop and you stop thinking about the thing and you just stop for a second. And you just see your kids over there in the corner. And you're like, Oh, they're so sweet. Look how they're just playing by themselves and not bothering me. I'm over here stressed about something. They're so sweet, right, and you just pause and you look around, it can give you a different viewpoint, it can just change your life when you just pause because pausing helps you to slow that mind down. So when you slow your mind down, you can reassess, you can see what's going on here. What's wrong here, what's right here, all of that, it helps you to decompress a little bit, clear their head up some.
Ashley Brown 6:15
And so pausing is a really great grounding activity, pause even if you want to pause and let's say you want to go outside, if it's like nice weather where you are, if you want to go outside, if you have a yard, you step into that yard on that grass with your bare feet, you sit up there and pause. You take you about three deep breaths. Don't tell me that doesn't help you because it will I'm telling you right now, it works like a freakin charm.You're like, it's like you're just grounded to Earth. And just that pausing is so refreshing. So pausing is the first grounding activity that you have on hand whenever you need it. The second grounding activity is brain dumping. You probably have heard me talk about this before, because I am a huge fan, a huge proponent of brain dumping, clearing your mind clearing your head.
Ashley Brown 7:07
Brain dumping is oh, if you are feeling like you have a whole bunch of thoughts running through your head, and that might be making you feel scattered and stressed. Brain dumping is your go to take you out a sheet of paper, brain dump onto that daggone sheet of paper, everything that's on your mind, everything you need to get done everything that's annoying you everything that keeps coming up in your head, I'm telling you, it will instantly release the stress in your mind, I promise you that brain dump is super helpful. That's why it's a part of many of our routine planners. Brain dumping is a feature on there because of the fact that before you try to be intentional with organizing what you need to do, if you have a lot that's in your brain, you're not going to be as intentional unless you clear it out. So brain dumping is always a part of my planning. And I always mentioned this is a part of our planning is always say brain dump before you plan like brain dump, have that be a part of your planning, because it's so beneficial for you. But this is a grounding activity for sure.
Ashley Brown 8:19
Even outside of planning. If you're just having a wonky day, you know, things just didn't start off right in the beginning of your day. Or you get to the middle of your day. And you're like oh my gosh, I got to do this and this and this and you start filling yourself get stressed. Take out a sheet of paper and a pen, paper and pencil, go ahead and just jot down what's on your mind. Get it off. You don't have to do anything with the paper. You can. You can you know, tear it up and recycle the paper afterwards. You don't have to do anything with it. But at least clear your head. This grounds you to the present moment. Because how can you be present when you're in your head, we can't be present when we are constantly being in our heads thinking, thinking thinking, right? And that's what we want to be is be present in our lives. So brain dumping is a really beautiful grounding activity. The third grounding activity that is really important. I just mentioned this. Can you guess?
Ashley Brown 9:11
Planning, oh my gosh, planning, planning out your next steps. Okay, planning out your next steps planning, looking at what you're going to do next can really help you to ground yourself in the moment. Because what many times happens is we can be having these days where we feel so discombobulated and the reason why is because in some way, shape or form, we don't know what's next, or we do but it's a little bit foggy or it's fuzzy, because something has probably more than likely thrown us off track. And so in order for us to get back on track, what can be really helpful for that is planning what are your next steps, it can even be going back and referring to your plan to see what did I say my next steps were going to be? Alright. So that can really be grounding. Your plan is a reference, when you plan that is a reference for you, that's not something that you just do. And you leave it on the daggone desk or table somewhere folded up in your binder like that's, that's not helping you, you refer back to your plan, or you create a new plan.
Ashley Brown 10:26
Because this will give you next steps. If you're feeling like you're scattered, this will say okay, here's your guide, do this next. Okay, well, I'm just gonna do what it says on the plan, or I'm going to plan out what I'm doing next. So that I can get back on track. That's all that you have to do. And it doesn't have to be an extensive plan. If you don't have a planner, it can just be taking out a sheet of paper and saying, I'm gonna do this first and then do this. Second. Of course, you don't want to do that every time you are planning, you want to be more intentional with your planning. But if you're having a scattered day, or you're feeling super stressed in your day, because you feel like you don't have any traction, or you're getting off, beat a whole bunch, then planning can kind of pull you back in and can reel you back in, get you back focused on the things that you intended to do in your day.
Ashley Brown 11:14
Right? Planning is so beneficial, it declutters your mind, helps you determine your next steps, and also helps you take your mind off of the stress. Let's be real, it helps you be like, Okay, I thought about what I needed to think about, I've planned out what I needed to plan. I'm not worrying about this anymore is on this plant. I'm gonna follow this plan. That's it. Right. So one thing that I learned, I don't know where I heard this from, and you may have heard this, but I think it was a show I was watching the lady said in order to get your like, if you're feeling stressed in order to like get your mind off of like, constantly thinking about the same thing, the same thing, the same thing, do something that takes you outside of your comfort zone. So she was like, write with your left hand, right? Take out a pen and paper and write with your left hand.
Ashley Brown 12:03
And she was like that'll pull you outside of like what you're thinking about enough so that you can refocus. So that's a tip for you that may be helpful. I remember one day I tried it and it was like legit helpful for me. And I was like, oh, yeah, because you're thinking so much about trying to write with your left hand that you're not thinking about the thing. So that's a bonus tip. So those are the three grounding activities that you can do when you're feeling scattered. When you're feeling stressed in your day. Put these in your back pocket in your toolbox so that when those days come, you're like, Okay, let me pause. Let me brain dump. Let me plan out my next steps and that's that. So helpful. You don't have to do all three, you can choose which one works for you at any given time, based upon what you need. But those are three things that can be super helpful.
Ashley Brown 12:53
So hopefully you enjoyed this episode. If you did take a screenshot right now tag me at routine and things on Instagram. I hope you're following me there. If not come follow along we have a lot of fun. And I hope that you took away something today, you know, like is is the worst to feel scattered to feel stressed. But we also know that that's sometimes a part of life. So how can we ground ourselves for when those days come around. So hopefully you now have some things that can help you before you leave if you could rate and review the show. Oh, I would so greatly appreciate this from you. And also share this episode with someone you know who may need what we talked about today and maybe someone in your life that would find this super helpful. So share this episode with them. Until next time, continue to enjoy wherever you are, whatever you're doing, Stay happy, and I'll talk to you next week.
Ashley Brown 13:45 [Outro]
Thanks for listening. If you enjoy today's episode, take a screenshot and share it on social I would love to know you're listening and for tools to help you start maintain and enjoy your routines. Be sure to head to routineandthings.com. Here's to staying happy.