← Mantra with Jemma Sbeg
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Foreign this is Open Mind. Welcome to a brand new week. Here is your Mantra I stay grounded even when everything else shifts. I'm your host Jemma Speg, and every Monday I give you a simple but powerful phrase to consider and and bring into your life. A philosophy to guide you in the week ahead and hopefully even beyond. In each episode you guys know I unpack what our Mantra really means, how it is shown up in my own life, and how you can hopefully bring it into yours with journal prompts and a weekly challenge just to help you take this mantra and put it into action at Open Mind. We really value your support, so please make sure to share your thoughts on social media and and remember to rate, review and follow Mantra to help others discover the show. For more exclusive content, monthly bonus episodes, early access and ad free listening, join our Open Mind plus community on Apple Podcasts. Each month I respond to your questions and comments in our bonus episodes, so you can also leave a comment query dilemma question at the bottom of this episode or DM me on Instagram @mantra open mind to be featured in one of these episodes. Stick around. We'll be right back after this short pause. This time of year, especially whilst I've been traveling and it's fall in the States, it's spring in Australia. I have needed some transitional pieces to upgrade my wardrobe and there is no better place for me to get them than Quince. Quince has all the elevated essentials for fall 100 Mongolian cashmere starting at $50, washable silk tops and and skirts and perfectly tailored denim that actually fits. Plus some amazing sweaters which have been perfect for layering this season. By partnering directly with ethical top tier factories, Quince cuts out the middleman so you get luxury quality pieces at half the price of similar brands. 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This offer is for new patients only. It is not valid for tricare or Medicare Advantage and may be covered by insurance, subject to your plan. To take advantage of this offer, book Your appointment by December 31, 2025 for complete terms and conditions. And to book your appointment, just visit smilegeneration.com mantra that's smilegeneration.com mantra okay, let's get right into it. It is time for this week's mantra I stay grounded even when everything Else Shifts let's just begin by discussing what do I mean? What do we mean when we say grounded? Because I feel like a lot of people throw out a bunch of ideas and concepts and definitions to do with this word. What is the truth in any of those things? When we talk about being grounded, we're often referring to basically to a state, a state of mind, a state of flow, a state of our emotions where we are steady, we are present, we are connected to ourselves and the world around us. It's not just about being calm or relaxed, although those can definitely be a part of it. It's just about having a sense of stability throughout it all. In fact, you know, you can be grounded and still be anxious or fearful every now and again, or scared or in flight mode. That is totally normal. But in those moments, if you are grounded, you still have this kind of internal anchor, a sense that no matter what is happening externally, you have a point within yourself that is steady. It's the opposite of feeling scattered. It's the opposite of feeling reactive or feeling pulled in hundreds of different directions. Instead, you just feel like you have both feet firmly on the ground of existence, firmly emotionally, firmly mentally as well. There is a definite connection between us and what is around us. Be that the earth, be that your relationships, be that reality, whatever it may be. Being grounded means being able to tap into that and being able to feel a sense of, I guess, again, steadiness in those moments. And in those things. The challenge is that grounded has become one of those words we hear in wellness spaces, self help advice, even casual conversations without much clarity on what it really means in practice. You know, people be like, oh, just ground yourself. Make sure you stay grounded. Or it's important to do grounding. And we don't have any idea what that actually means. Some people might describe it as feeling in control of their emotions. Others describe it as being aware of what's around them. Others describe it as living in alignment with their values. Others describe it as simply a physical practice. Whatever definition or interpretation you choose, they all will share a very common thread. There is a sense of rootedness that isn't easily shaken. Being grounded also often comes from practices that help us slow down, that help us reconnect with our senses and just remember what is real and important. This is another part of this interpretation or this definition. Some examples that people swear by are things like yoga or running art, prayer, meditation, just to name a few. Listening to this podcast may also be a grounding practice. When you're grounded, you live through these practices. They become a core part of how you choose to take care of yourself and how you choose to take care of your mind. Part of staying grounded, it's also being able to consciously decide what we should release and what's worth holding onto. It's more than a state of mind. It's more than a practice. It's a decision. Basically, we need to know in order to stay grounded that you cannot carry everything. You cannot carry every worry, every memory, every responsibility, everybody else's opinions. You just don't have the capacity for that when you're ungrounded, that is when we kind of feel like a sponge for all of these things. It feels like we are soaking up everybody else's problems, everybody else's message, mess every single little thing, frustration moment that's happening around you. And it's very easy to grip tightly to this natural defensiveness or reaction out of fear or habit, even if it's no longer serving you. For example, grudges or an old identity, or the need to control an outcome or an investment in what someone else thinks about you. These are things that sometimes we hold on out of habit. Letting go isn't about pretending that those things don't matter or forcing yourself to move on before you're ready. It's about acknowledging what is weighing you down and seriously, having a very hard, honest look in the mirror and saying, you know, is this actually aligning with what I want from my reality? Because if it's not, it is my choice whether to claim this energy or release it. On the other hand, groundedness also comes from recognizing what's worth holding onto. The beliefs, practices, relationships, values that genuinely nourish you. Are you taking enough time out of your day and in your life to appreciate them? Are you making sure that these continue to be foundational pillars of how you see yourself? Or is your identity just something that gets blown in the wind? Is your identity something that you don't actually work on? Choosing what to keep and integrating that further is just as important as choosing what to discard. Yes, you can meditate every single day, you can journal every single day, you can spend time in nature every single day and still not be a grounded person if within your mind, you are just letting anything enter the front door. So that kind of brings me to the next part of this episode and this mantra, which is, why is the state of being grounded so hard to access? Why is it such an elusive place? One of the main reasons that both physical, emotional and mental groundedness can feel so hard to access is, frankly, because our modern lives are designed to pull us away from it. We live in a constant state of stimulation and distraction. And when you start to notice that, you cannot unnotice it. Notifications, news, work demands, social pressures, billboards, noises. Everywhere you go, there's always something competing for your attention. This relentless input, which, by the way, humans were not designed to take it, keeps our nervous system in a low level state of alert. It is constantly hypervigilant towards stimulus in our environment, making it harder to slow down and really harder to connect with ourselves. Because we constantly feel that we're missing out, that there's something happening that's important to be aware of, that if we close our eyes for a second or if we ignore our phone for a minute, we're going to suddenly miss out on. In a way, I think groundedness requires the opposite of what the current world often asks for me and often asks from you, which is presence over productivity, stillness over speed, intention over constantly pursuing the potential of something. And that's why it can kind of feel like you're swimming against a current and you're constantly like, trying to work to be grounded, and something is just pulling you back and pulling you back and activating your nervous system and getting you stressed and making you feel overwhelmed. That's what's happening to so many of us right now. On a more personal level, there's also the reality that many of us are carrying around unprocessed emotions, unprocessed stress, a whole lot of it, maybe even trauma. And that can create an internal restlessness that makes stillness very uncomfortable. Being grounded, it asks us to tune into our bodies and into our minds in a way that can be uncomfortable, maybe even distressing. It can feel weird when we do that. And all we find is pain and just like layers and Layers of repetitive stress and trauma. It is very tempting to just stay disconnected, to just avoid all of that. And avoidance, as we know, is an incredibly common maladaptive coping mechanism. Even if on the surface or even if deeper down, we really do want to be grounded. There's this other part of us that is like, but to be grounded, we have to like go through this like terrible cave of fear and awfulness and disgustingness. And maybe we just stay outside, maybe we just don't undertake this journey finally. I think groundedness is very elusive for many of us because it's not a one time achievement. It's not something that you just find and then you have it. It is something that you have to return to again and again and again, which is kind of frustrating sometimes. Life is dynamic though, and, you know, even the most grounded person, you know, will lose their balance. You know, you might have months or years of feeling steady and feeling very confident that you know how you feel and who you are and what you're experiencing. And then something just pulls you off center, like the accumulation of stresses or one big major life event. You just get completely uprooted. This isn't a failure, it's just part of being human. The work isn't to stay grounded forever, but to notice when we've drifted and to make sure we have the tools to return. You can either see groundedness as something that's exhausting or as part of your mental hygiene routine. The same way you have a physical hygiene routine. And I'm hoping you brush your teeth and I'm hoping you shower and all those things. You also ground yourself. So how do we remember this? What do we do when everything around us suddenly shifts and it feels like we've lost our center in that really hard, dark, heavy moment? How can we prioritize grounding? How can we appreciate it for like, the psychological and philosophical miracle that it is? Firstly, in the moment when everything is falling apart and you are feeling just completely swept away, you firstly have to orient your nervous system. Now this is quite an individual process, but you just have to find what works for you because you cannot ground yourself truly. If you just feel like your attention is scattered, you are being pulled in a million different directions, and if you feel like you are still in a state of very heightened arousal or in survival mode where your brain is just never going to let you get to the aligned place that is going to allow you to ground yourself. First step, calm down the nervous system. You might try, for example, grounding through the senses. This is one that I'm sure many of us know where you name five things you see. Four you feel through your you hear. Two you smell. One you taste. Which can really help interrupt spirals by re engaging the prefrontal cortex, getting us to notice what's around us rather than being so deeply ingrained in what's inside of us. Deep paced breathing, for example, is just scientifically proven to be one of the easiest ways to unlock your parasympathetic nervous system. Inhaling for four counts, exhaling for six. That's the classic one that can increase vagal tone, which is the activity of your vagus nerve nerve, and lower your heart rate. What's another common one? Progressive muscle relaxation. So tensing and then releasing muscle groups from head to toe also reduces arousal. Another one I really like is just like gentle rhythmic movement. So for me, like I like to sway from side to side. I like to just let my arms go loose and just let my body move and feel and stretch and flow. People also like walking. Maybe like Pilates. Maybe for you it's like something that's a little bit more intensive, like just going and playing tennis and just like thrashing the ball or just going to boxing and just like destroying the bag. Anything that like takes what you're feeling physically and gives it an outlet is going to do the trick. The reason we need to do this is because again, we can't reach the next level of grounding unless we feel physically safe, even if the threat is only mental or emotional. Secondly, it's really important to start noticing and being curious about your surroundings and what's going on around you, rather than feeling suffocated by it. A lot of grounding. I've realized this is just noticing, noticing how a conversation is making you feel, noticing your environment, noticing the wind, noticing the flavors of your food, noticing what you hear, noticing how this person is moving in front of you. Just notice again, when you start to really pay attention, it takes you out of those deep pits in your brain that want to keep you in an imagined or scary thought and brings you into reality. Thirdly, expand out and try and find some broader perspective to the situation. Yes, you may have been pushed off kilter. Everything in your life has shifted. It's very hard to feel a sense of stability. You have to realize it's only a moment when we intentionally really step back and place our current experiences in a wider frame. We give our nervous system and in fact our conscious mind a chance to kind of downshift, remembering that what you're feeling will pass and is not the entirety of your life disrupts the brain's tendency towards emotional magnification, which basically occurs when short term stresses. Even if they're serious, they feel permanent, they feel all consuming when we know they're not. Psychologists like to call this temporal distancing. It's a form of basically cognitive reappraisal whereby when we imagine how we're going to feel about a situation in a week, a month, a year, we're able to reduce the emotional intensity of what we're feeling right now. And it really just helps us reassert conscious control over the amygdala, which we know is responsible for our fear response over our limbic system, over our heightened sense of reactivity. By seeing this current moment as part of a much larger timeline, you remind yourself that change is inevitable, discomfort is temporary. And you have also weathered some very tough moments before this one. You've survived every battle, every thought, every fear, every moment before this. And this reinforces that your feet can stay firmly planted throughout this as well. Another helpful tip, which I couldn't not include, is that you've got to spend as much time in nature as possible. If you want to feel grounded, this has to be a daily habit for you. Putting both feet in the grass, on the sand, in the dirt. Being in any kind of nature is incredibly powerful. Nature is an antidote for so much and it naturally shifts our attention away from the internal noise and back towards the sensory world which is where we were meant to belong. There is this Japanese practice called forest bathing. I think it's called shinrin yoku. There's also another practice called thalassotherapy, which has like Roman origins which basically show that when you spend time in forest, when you spend time in the ocean, in rivers, in lakes, by water, water, your cortisol levels will lower, your blood pressure will go down, your mood will be improved. All because you know when you're in greenery, nature doesn't care who you are. Nature doesn't care what you have to say or what you feel. It treats everyone the same. It is non judgmental. It also provides kind of a form of just like a way to re engage in our senses in a form of like soft fascination, like engaging our attention in something that is not too demanding, that is not too hyper colored and hyper, just like intense like the modern day world is. And so when we're back in those natural environments where our brains and our minds and our bodies were designed to be, we find that there are these ancient systems that take over and Ground us for us. And that almost without a doubt will help improve your ability to weather the storm and to foster perspective and just to regain that emotional stability. Obviously, it's not everything, but it is incredibly useful as an addition to any other practices you're already doing. Finally, and this is so entirely, absolutely crucial, even if it doesn't sound like any of the advice we've given before this, if you really want to prioritize being grounded, you have to be cutthroat with the people you surround yourself with. You cannot be around people who are unable to manage their own reactions and who make their stress and their fear your problem. You cannot be around people who want to stir drama, who benefit from you not having a grounded nervous system. Listen, it's hard to lose friends. It's even harder to push them away or to create distance. But if you're going into situations feeling like just being around someone paralyzes you or stresses you out, or you're going to make bad decisions or whatever it is, you're going to not feel like yourself. And if your priority is to be grounded and is to be able to weather really heavy storms, these people aren't going to help you in those moments. And in fact, they're probably doing you a disservice, and you're doing yourself a disservice by being friends with them if you continue to let them interrupt your attempts to regulate your nervous system and regulate your life even in times of peace. These are our initial strategies, but of course it does go deeper. You know, to say that groundness is just about stillness is really not understanding it. It's really about focusing on what holds us steady when everything else is in motion, whatever that is for you. And I'm going to talk about what that means for me and how this has shown up in my own life, but also what we may need to do when we perhaps become ungrounded after this short break. As a young adult, finding the right path to your future can feel overwhelming. It starts with year up United's tuition, free job training program and career pathways. If you're without a bachelor's degree but have a high school diploma or ged, you can get skills first training to succeed in the industries you're passionate about, all while earning a weekly educational stipend to offset basic expenses. From there, you'll have access to internships and hands on experiences with Fortune 500 companies. 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Welcome back. Now that we've looked at the meaning behind today's mantra, I stay grounded even when everything else is shifts. It's time to get personal with you guys and just share some of my own insights and reflections about this phrase. So as always, it always seems to be the way this mantra feels incredibly relevant to my life right now. I just returned from doing a lot of overseas travel, which is such a huge blessing and I really enjoy it and it's an amazing part of my career. But as a homebody, I always know I'm going to return feeling super shattered and scattered and ungrounded. I think a lot of stuff comes up for me when I don't have a stable home point to come home to and to decompress. And for me, that manifests in the way that I start taking small things way too seriously again. I start feeling easily angered and irritated. I start letting myself get caught up in an emotion. What I feel in the moment becomes the only thing that exists for me. And I start being less comfortable with healthy change because I'm out of the norm and things around me have shifted. My environment has shifted, my routines have shifted. Everything that I enjoy and like about the stability of my life is no longer there. This is a very minute level of being ungrounded. I think after a few days of really prioritizing myself and slowing down and being outside and adjusting to my old routine, I find myself coming back. Even then, it can be difficult. But what about big shifts? Things like moving cities, ending a relationship, losing a job, losing a loved one, getting scary medical news? These all make it so much harder to be grounded. We can talk about being grounded in small moments. We can talk about being grounded when you know your life is kind of okay and it's just Like, a nice, fun addition. What about when your life just, like, seriously isn't okay, and you've just got to try and scramble to find a way to deal with it? I experienced this recently with some health news, some scary health news. If you listen to the psychology of your 20s, you'll know. I had this whole moment where I went to the optometrist. And, yeah, from there, all these things snowballed, and I had all this, like, inflammation around, like, the optic nerve in my eye and that they were, like, having to rule out Ms. And rule out a brain tumor and rule out, like, all these, like, seriously scary things. And for the first, like, couple of days, I was like, oh, I'm so fine. I'm super fine. I'm, like, doing so well. Like, I'm gonna be all right. And then I stepped into the big, serious, scary doctor's office, and I was like, I am not okay. And everything just crumbled in that second, and I was like, all this grounding that I thought I was doing, all this stoicism, all these exercises, they are not up to speed with this current situation. They need to be upgraded. A few parts of my process had to change because I couldn't just be in fight or flight mode until this issue was resolved. I couldn't just be running around. You know, I had to find and come back to that core in order to deal with some big emotions and for the sake of, like, friends and family as well. One part of the situation and of my equation for groundedness that had to change was just total acceptance, Just acceptance that this is what was happening and that I didn't have all the answers, but I was going to be okay. And this is just a part of grounding that I think we haven't yet acknowledged. And it's a bit more complex and, you know, the initial suggestions that we had but plays a really deep role, even if we don't recognize it on a deep cognitive and philosophical level. Acceptance helps with grounding because it reconciles our mind's need for control with the inevitability of uncertainty in our lives. Much of our mental unrest in times of huge shifts stems from the tension between what is and what we think should be and what we want to be. We want to know what's going to happen. We want the answers. We can't get them. The situation is scary. It's uncomfortable. Everything is, like, just piling up one after the other. We have to just be okay in that moment. This tension, though, of course, fuels this cognitive dissonance. Like a constant inner friction where our reality and our expectations and our desires are clashing. In resisting what is happening to us, what is hard, what is going to be stressful. Our thoughts get kind of stuck in loops of justification or avoidance or trying to fight against the threat when there's nothing we can do. Acceptance does not demand that we like or that we approve of our reality, only that we acknowledge it without denial, that we just say, yes, this is what's happening. And this act alone kind of collapses the gap between perception and truth. And it reduces the mental noise that kind of pulls us away from the present. The mind, you know, no longer consumed by defending an alternate version of events, can just be like, okay, but this is where we are. And there's clarity and there's presence in this. From a psychological standpoint, I think acceptance also shifts our cognitive frame from problem solving, even when it's futile, just to awareness. When we accept that something is what it is and that life may be falling apart, we step out of our adversarial stance and we move into a realistic stance. We are no longer hunting for ways to fix the moment and fix the problem. All those cognitive resources are freed up just to notice what is happening again. Notice being a big part of grounding. Notice what is happening to our body, what is happening around us. And this aligns with mindfulness principles where, you know, when we're nodding, judgmental, and we're just simply observing, thoughts are better able to pass through us without us being pulled into this narrative or further pulled into their stress. Instead of being lost in rumination about what if and if only and what next and what then, we develop the capacity to just inhabit the moment as it unfolds and not relax into it, but just have a sense of stillness that is really, you know, the essence of grounding. At the end of the day, I think acceptance also challenges us to understand, even celebrate, the fact that change is sometimes going to be uncomfortable. That doesn't mean that there are not benefits to it and that it's not worth it. There will be times that we have to feel maybe a little bit off center in order to fully embrace the gift of change. Because change is a good thing. I was talking about this the other day. Would you really want a reality where nothing shifted? Obviously, big shifts and terrible shifts and ones that have to do with grief are ones we definitely wouldn't want. But that's all part of how the world works. We can't always choose the kind of change or the kind of things that come into Our life. We can't always choose how the universe or how the world acts. We just have to accept that it is what it is and that sometimes we'll get the short straw and it will be amazing. Sometimes the change that we all experience won't be bad. This mindset really transforms change from something to endure and something we just have to sit through and take into something that we can be curious about. And it allows us to acknowledge that even the most positive shifts, even like brilliant new opportunities, brilliant new relationships, personal growth, big financial benefits, they still can feel a little bit awkward and destabilizing at first just because they're new. And that feeling is not a reflection of the change is worth, but simply a byproduct of us trying to figure out where we sit in this new narrative. It's a powerful reminder again, that we are evolving and that if we want to continue to evolve, we cannot grasp so tightly onto our idea of how things should be, or our idea of what reality should be, or a past version where what we're going through hadn't happened yet. We have to just be where we are and just trust that we're going to find a way. Over time, I think this perspective can even lead us to just be like, oh, I'm uncomfortable. Maybe that's a great sign of something that's coming. If I can just be in this moment and notice, I can respond better to this. I can't control what's going to happen, but I can control my willingness to lean in where I can. So we've explored what it means to stay grounded when everything else is shifted, shifting big or small. Let's take an even more practical approach. We've gone like from level one to level two. Now let's go to level three where I give you some questions, some challenges, some further thoughts to put this into action in your own life. Stick around for more after this short break.
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Buying a car in Carvana was so easy, I was able to finance it through them. I just. Whoa, wait, you mean finance? Yeah, finance got pre qualified for a Carvana auto loan, entered my terms and shot from thousands of great car options, all within my budget. That's cool, but financing through Carvana was so easy. Financed, done. And I get to pick up my car from their Carvana vending machine tomorrow. Financed, right?
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That's what they said.
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And want even more guided moments of mindfulness during your day, I think you'll adore the Mindful in Minutes podcast. It's hosted by the wise Kelly Smith. She's a meditation teacher with over 10 years of experience, and her guided meditations are truly beautiful. They're short, practical, and they're made for real life. Some are even just five minutes long, so it's really easy to fit mindfulness into your day no matter how busy you are. Kelly's soothing voice and her grounded presence have helped Mindful in Minutes grow into one of the top meditation podcasts in the world, even being featured in places like Forbes Yoga Journal and Glamour Magazine. Whether you need a nervous system reset, a moment of self love, or just a peaceful pause, Kelly has a meditation for it. So go check it out. Mindful in Minutes. It's free. Wherever you listen to podcasts, I know you'll love it. Welcome back. Let's take a few minutes to just ground ourselves in this week's mantra for a second and to just bring it even further into our real life, starting with our deep thought of the day. When I think about this mantra, I stay grounded even when everything else shifts. There are so many quotes that I could choose, like there were literally dozens. This is the one I love the most. It's an African proverb that goes when the roots are deep, there is no reason to fear the wind. The roots in this quote obviously represent the core of who we are. Our values, our self awareness, our resilience and all the inner work that we have done to truly understand and trust ourselves and get to this point of stability. Just as a tree with deep roots can endure storms and floods and whatever else is happening outside of it, a person who has cultivated inner stability and self trust can navigate the seasons of uncertainty and loss and change and know that where it stands and where it needs to be, it will remain. It has its roots. They will protect it. It's not that the wind won't come again. Acceptance. We know it will. But that force alone will not uproot what we have built. We are anchored in something that is solid and enduring. It also reminds us that fear often stems from feeling unprepared or unstable in ourselves. When we take the time during good times to develop depth, through reflection, through self knowledge, through meaningful relationships, lived experiences, whatever it is, we create an internal safety net. That means that when things do come, we'll be confident that we can handle them. And even if your life is amazing right now, continue to water the roots. You need them to be strong. You need to still do the work to stay grounded when life has given you no reason to be ungrounded. And that way you can always, no matter what is thrown at you later on, deal with the challenge and rely on yourself. We know every mantra is going to land a little bit differently depending on what you're moving through, how you're feeling, how I'm feeling. So at some point in the episode, I always love to engage you guys, the listeners, in our journal practice and just ask that you think through these questions, journal through these questions, and answer them in any way that feels right for your circumstances. This mantra in particular is so broad, there are so many different things it could be referring to. We're going to start with this first one. What helps you feel steady when life becomes unpredictable? And are those things truly grounding you or are they just distracting you? Next, when was the last time you felt completely unmoored? And how did you find your way back to yourself? What practices helped you in those moments? And finally, do you tend to resist change or perhaps over respond to it? What would it be like to just stay grounded and just witness what is happening around you without trying to intervene? So now that you've made the space to reflect, now that I've given you some questions to reflect upon, let's give your mind a moment to rest. In just a second, you'll hear a custom music track. I encourage you to take this opportunity just to process this week's reflections in whatever way feels right. No pressure, no expectations. And. And if something doesn't even come up for you, that's totally okay. Just use it as a nice quiet moment. Quiet time for your adult mind. Settle in for the next 30 seconds and as the music plays, let today's mantra I stay grounded even when everything else shifts. Let it steer you. Beautiful. Now that you've had a moment to reset and to ground yourself, let's take all that energy, guys. Let's take everything that we have learned. Let's put it into practice with, of course, our weekly challenge. I'd love to hear how it's going on your end so you can reach out to me at Mantra Open Mind, where I respond to questions, DMs, queries about challenges, about episodes, whatever it is you have on your mind. But today's challenge, I want you to choose just one small grounding ritual to do at the same time every day. For example, I want you to light a candle when you're eating dinner. I want you to drink a cup of tea without your phone in the morning. I want you to stretch or go for a walk outside or do something, anything that is your grounding point each day that you know you will always have and you will always do. Even if life around you gets messy. It's so important to have those rituals. It's so important to have the things that connect us to something beyond what we're thinking about and what we're feeling and are just present in reality. Alrighty. As we wrap up this week's episode, I just want to share a few final thoughts about this week's Mantra. I stay grounded even when everything else shifts. I just want to remind you that life is going to throw you a lot of curveballs. It will for all of us. We can't stop that from happening. But you can. You can ensure that whether these curveballs have to do with your identity or your relationships or your career or your environment, you have a deep core part of you to return to. And that core part of you can't only be nourished during times of stress. It needs to be nourished constantly so that the roots are again strong, so that this foundation is one you can rely upon. Yes, groundedness is not a one and done thing, but it's so worthwhile to continue to invest in. You will see the benefits, if not now, if not tomorrow, maybe in five years. Actively work on it. Know that you can trust yourself to stay grounded and have your feet firmly planted in moments of discomfort. And you will be able to trust yourself through anything. Thank you for joining Mantra, an exclusive Open Mind original powered by Pave Studios at OpenMind. We value your support, so share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow Mantra to help others discover the show. For ad free listening and early access to Mantra with me, Jemma Speg. We invite you to subscribe to Open Mind plus on Apple Podcasts. I'll share another insightful and introspective Mantra with you next Monday. Until then, keep showing up for yourself and your journey. I'm Gemma Spaeg. See you next week. Mantra is hosted by me, Gemma Spegg. It is an open mind original. Powered by Pain Studios, this episode was brought to life by the incredible Mantra team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Stacy Warrenker, Sarah Camp and Paul Lieberskin. Thank you for listening. Listen. That's the sound of the fully electric Audi Q6E Tron. The sound of captivating electric performance, dynamic drive and the quiet confidence of ultra smooth handling. The elevated interior reminds you this is more than an EV. This is electric performance. Redefined. The fully electric Audi Q6E Tron.