If you’ve ever felt like your motherhood is spinning out of control with way too many things on your to do list, you might need to clear your mind with a brain dump…
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This episode discusses:
What a brain dump is and how powerful it can be in reducing stress.
What type of mom will benefit from a doing a brain dump.
How to do a brain dump.
Why brain dumping can help you prioritize the things that are most important.
How to make brain dumping a part of your life.
Don’t have time to listen? Here’s the episode all typed out:
Simply Freeing? Motherhood doesn’t feel simply freeing when you’re on autopilot in a home filled with chaos, stress and a ton of pressure. In order to survive the chaos we NEED the right strategies and mindset to embrace the simple and enjoy the few short years we have with our kids. I believe that we are called to see that we CAN rise up, get out of our head, shut out the expectations of the world and what mom life is supposed to be like and change what’s not working so that motherhood is fulfilling. Join me as we discuss all things motherhood, homeschooling, minimalism, faith and health. My mission is to help you embrace simplicity and find freedom in your motherhood. I’m Jackie from Whole9Family and this is the “Simply Freeing” Podcast.
Hi everyone! Today I wanted to talk about brain dumping. Since learning it, about a year ago, it has changed a lot for me! It’s so simple! It’s actually silly that I never thought to do this before because I had been teaching my students to do this when they would do their writing assignments in class for years. It just didn’t make sense that I never thought about applying this knowledge to my own life. A lot of times this is what ends up happening to us as moms. We’re just so overwhelmed that what we know can’t be applied to our own life. That’s because we’re overwhelmed! It’s like a catch 22!
If you experience any of the following things, brain dumping can definitely help you get clear on your priorities and reduce your stress.
You commonly feel disorganized and overwhelmed with life.
You have a lot of “to do lists” in your head.
You have pieces of paper everywhere.
Random notes on your phone.
You’ve tried a bunch of organizational apps on your phone and you forget that the apps are even there. (That has happened to me so many times.)
You’ve bought planners that were never or barely used, just to get organized.
Brain dumping is a very simple strategy that can help you get rid of that overwhelmed feeling that rises up when you’re feeling done and not sure what to do next. You might feel like you want to cry. The kids are loud and you can’t concentrate.
You may have heard of a prayer journal where you write your prayers on paper. This is similar but the difference is that it’s more of a download of all of the thoughts in your mind even if the thoughts aren’t connected. You’re literally writing down everything that you can think of. With my students, we used to call this brainstorming. We’d brainstorm different topics to write about by making a list of them. Once we chose our topic, we would add all the details about that topic that we could think of that would help get their creative juice flowing so that they could begin writing.
Brain dumping is a part of my morning routine. I do this mostly in the mornings but if there’s ever a time in my life where I have that overwhelmed feeling that starts rising up and I realize I have a lot on my plate, I do a brain dump and it really helps.
Here’s how it works. If you can get yourself some time to sit in the quiet, even it it’s a short amount, do that! Write down everything that is on your mind that you feel stressed about. What needs to be done in the home? What needs to be done in your personal life? What has to be done with your kids? What is really, really tugging at your heart regarding your children? Do you feel like a child is missing out on connection with you? Do you feel like there are behavior problems that need to be addressed? What is going on with homeschooling, if you homeschool? Do you feel like you’re not happy with a certain curriculum and you want to change it up? What’s going on with your spouse? Is there something that you are fighting a lot about? Any questions that you have on your mind...Get it all down on paper.
Writing down all of your thoughts is actually the first step to engaging your brain to help you take action on something. It plays a big part in helping you remember things. In the past, I was a forgetful person in the past. I got into arguments with Jon over the same issues repeatedly. It drove him crazy! I didn’t remember what we argued about because my brain was filled with too much stuff. I had a lot of clutter in my brain. I couldn’t remember anything so anytime we’d argue, it felt like Groundhog Day where the same issues kept coming up. Brain dumping helped me to see exactly what I should try to fix. Without a brain dump, all the things would stay in my head and stress me out.
I am not the type of person to journal my thoughts or my prayers. Now that I’m an adult, I enjoy it more but I never really enjoyed writing in the past. It’s something that I’ve grown to love because of how much it’s changed the way I live.
Once you write everything down, you’ll look at everything on your list. You’re going to begin categorizing each thing. Things that have to do with a specific child, things that have to do with your marriage or things that have to do with your home. You’re going to take a look and see what is the most common. You should be able to clearly see what your priorities are and where you should begin to focus. Quite often, we focus on the wrong things. We obsess over something that bothers us but we’re not actually getting rid of the root cause of the problem. A brain dump can help you figure out where your priorities really should be. A lot of us get our priorities out of whack and we don’t even know what’s important. Everything feels important, because we are just so overwhelmed.
Once you figure out what your priorities are, choose 2 or 3 things and focus on those for the week. If you want to change something, you have to start small. Simplicity is so important! You can’t tackle everything at one time. This is a great first step for you to clear your mind and get yourself moving in the right direction.
If this is new for you, I really hope it helps you to feel more in control of the spinning in your mind and those stressed out feelings that take over. My hope for you is that it would give you a chance to make the necessary changes in your motherhood so that you’ll feel lighter and less overwhelmed.
Thank you so much for listening today. If you’ve been listening to this podcast and you haven’t already written a review, I would really appreciate it if you could do that. I would be so thankful! If you tag me on Instagram @whole9family, I’ll share them! Let me know on Instagram what you found helpful in any of the episodes that you’ve listen to so far. I look forward to connecting with you there! I’ll see you next week!