Ever since I went off of social media last week I have felt calmer in my days. As I near the end of my 30 day journey of joy, I want to share with all of you some amazing things I learned this past week to incorporate into my daily routine that I hope will help you on a daily basis as well.

I have found amazing peace each day following these three steps:

Grounding:

As an empath and a generator by human design who is highly sensitive, I have now found that I need to firmly ground myself every single morning before I do anything else. According to my human design, I am highly centered in my body. That is where my own inner knowing lives. That is why it is so important that I center myself firmly in my body at the beginning of each day. This is something I just learned about in the past week.

My accountability partner and my dear friend told me about a meditation by Dr. Joe Dispenza called Water Rising. This is tied to his amazing book Break the Habit of Being Yourself. She told me that she started every morning with this meditation, becoming grounded in her body and it helped her throughout the day.

Before this, I had a meditation practice, but it was a silent one. I would sit in silence for around 15–20 minutes. Although this practice was a useful one, it didn't ground me in my body as much as this guided meditation does. It is a long meditation, however, I usually do about 20–30 minutes of it and find it so powerful.

Coming back into the body after sleeping through this meditation has an amazing effect on me. I feel confident in the choices I make because they are solid choices coming from my inner intuition. I feel less doubtful about each day and about the future. I feel firmly rooted in my core self. This is the key start to my day.

I highly encourage you to try a grounding meditation like this, especially during this time of constant change. If we can feel that we are firmly grounded in ourselves each morning, we know that we can handle with grace anything that comes our way.

Creating:

The second step to my day after doing my meditation and generally getting ready for the day with my morning routine, I step into creation mode. Before this week, I would have checked messages, emails and more before sitting down to create. That would put my brain into a reactive mode. It was not impossible, but more difficult to create from this reactive place. My brain would bounce around more thinking about the messages I had to respond to and more.

By stepping into creation mode first thing in the morning, I am saying to the universe and to myself that my creations are first. First I am giving to the world. First I am putting something positive and joyful into the world. First I am making something to help others.

Creation mode means that I focus only on creating. This can mean writing, brainstorming, making outlines, making plans, taking notes, writing down goals. I am creating something for the future. I am putting myself out there into the world. I am stepping up to the plate. I am showing up. I am putting my true work first.

I have started to only have one goal a month, one focus a month, which means each week I just work on one thing until it is completed. This frees me in so many ways. Before, I would do so many bits and pieces of things and never really feel I had accomplished as much. I would feel more scattered. As a minimalist, I am bringing the art of minimalism into my work. This means freedom to focus, freedom to create just one very important piece that will help propel my work forward so that I can spread more joy to others.

I have come to love my creation time. Right now I am focused on the creation of my course: Make Space for Joy which is coming out in July. Having that focus to finish the course this month brings lots of joy because I know that by focusing on it, I will be transforming lives. This motivates me to stay focused and to concentrate during my creation time.

I work best in the mornings. This is when I do my very best work. Because of this, my work hours can be short. I have started working only up until lunchtime, then I take a break and maybe do a fun project in the afternoons, or work in the garden. This frees my mind up to ponder other things that I can work on during tomorrow's creation time.

Responding:

Instead of reacting, I am now responding. By being off of social media and the news, there is nothing for me to react to. I find such freedom in responding instead of reacting. There is such a joy to it. I can take my time to think of how to respond to something.

My responding time comes after my creation time. I don't look at messages or emails until after my creation time is up. There is no need to rush, and I can thoughtfully respond with a clear heart then. Sometimes if it isn't urgent, I take a day or two to respond. With personal messages, I try to get back to the person within the day if possible. I love to answer personal messages when I am on my garden walks. It is like I get to talk to my friend while I walk.

When we are responding, we are coming from the heart and not the mind. When we are reacting we are coming from the mind, and that can be a jarring experience. It feels much calmer to respond. To take our time. To let our heart lead the conversation.

Before when I was on social media, I felt like I was always reacting. That is the social media environment. It is a place of reaction, of liking or commenting on what people have put out there. It feels like everything is moving very fast. It feels like a place where you need to react to everything and everyone all at the same time. To me, it was a minefield of trying to figure out what to react to. It made me feel anxious and it always made me feel like I wasn't doing enough to help people. That is because it is a place of reaction and no response.

Now that I can thoughtfully respond, I can choose when to answer emails and how I will answer them with love. I can choose to reach out personally to friends one by one and respond to how they are doing in a heartfelt way. I feel a deeper connection in responding. I feel that I am truly creating connections with the people in my life that I want to connect more to. This is much more meaningful to me.

This process of grounding, creating and responding has brought such joy to me. I now know this is the way forward for me. I hope that this process helps you as well.

What is your daily routine like? Has it changed this year? This week? I am excited to hear all about it in the comments section!

I am also curious about my amazing friends here on Medium. I encourage you to write a piece on your daily routines to inspire us to try something different. I know all of you have amazing ideas: KeepingItRealWithAnnick, Michele Thill, Aurora Eliam, CMP, Rasheed Hooda, Keno Ogbo, Amy Marley, Gurpreet Dhariwal, Terry Mansfield, Bill Abbate, Kathryn A. LeRoy, Ph.D. Thank you for sharing with us your tips for an amazing day!

Trista Signe Ainsworth is a professional organizer with Joyful Minimalism. She helps working women clear the clutter, overwhelm and shame from their homes and lives so that they can truly live in joy.

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