Learn to Separate Work from Home Life (Brain Dump instructions and worksheet thanks to www.ourmindfullife.com) This could mean no checking email or work phone on weekends unless required to, Try a brain dump of work stress, to prepare for restful weekend, All that pent up energy, from work, from our daily stress, not to mention the pandemic. You could use a release.
You may be feeling like you are doing so much yet not really accomplishing much- this is a sign you might need a brain dump. This is a useful exercise when there is a transition, a change of sorts, you are having difficulty focusing or have experienced some sort of loss. For most of us now we have had many of these things collectively, and they are taking their toll individually. You might feel like zoom meetings are sucking your soul, or that you have never stared at a screen so much as in these last few months. You may be returning to your office, and wondering if you are going to enjoy getting back to semi-normalcy or if you will long to be back home again.
These are all critical moments where you may have a lot of new tasks to tackle and decisions to make. Brain dump will help to calm your nerves down and to get you in a problem-solving mode.
TWO WAYS TO BRAIN DUMP: FREE-FORM OR FOCUSED.
Free-form: With your journal and pen nearby, start seated upright in a comfortable position. • Lengthen the spine, relax the shoulders and close the eyes. • Start by taking a few deep, clearing breaths, inhaling through the nose, exhaling out of the mouth, setting the stage for your meditation. • Once you feel settled, keeping your eyes closed, put your pen to the paper and begin to write! • Allow yourself to be completely open to whatever comes up for you, and write it down on the paper without judgment! • Different thoughts, images, and ideas may start to come up for you, write them ALL down as they surface. You can write sentences, words and/or draw pictures (anything that accurately portrays what is going on in your mind
Focused: Take a few moments with paper and pen (try it instead of a computer if you can) and write down 1 or 2 of each: Things you think you should do but haven’t . Things you fear but somehow have to take on. Who and what circumstances are giving rise to anger in you. People (in person or virtually) who you know are not serving you to connect with right now.
You can also use this worksheet to fill in the areas on it as a tool to begin your brain dump.
Now what? The choice is yours. Walk away. Exercise. Sit with the papers. Circle things you can truly accomplish. Decide which things you can do with someone else's help and reach out. Share the tough things with a close friend. Try a mindfulness exercise to breathe through the angry or frustrated spots. Find some relief in the space you have created in the mind and go do something joyful!