Welcome to the Practically Grounded newsletter! I am honored to have the opportunity to send my musings to your inbox each Friday morning, in service of helping you level up this year.

Let’s kick off our level-up journey with the concept of “busy.” If you ask ANYBODY how they are doing these days, you’re likely to get the same response:

“I’m really busy.”

Earlier this week I posted my first Choice Wisdom podcast episode of 2025 where I advocated letting go of something in your life before you make a new year’s resolution.

But what if there were simple things we could do that would bring us the kind of inner peace needed to discover the things we need to let go? After all, thinking about such things requires time, too.

I’ve got you on this. Here are three very simple things you can do right now to increase your inner peace:

1. Wake up grateful. To make this easy, do it first thing in the morning and before you get out of bed. Think about all the things in your life you are grateful for – just rattle them off in your head (or aloud, if the mood strikes you). Your life, your family, your house, your car, your job, the food in your refrigerator, the money in your bank account, and so on.

   • Why it works: It’s hard to have a bad day when you acknowledge all the good in your life before your feet even hit the floor.

2. Take three deep breaths. At least three times each day, pause for a couple of minutes and take belly breaths. Draw air in through your nose and try and get that air all the way down to the bottom of your belly. Exhale slowly. Repeat it two more times.

   • Why it works: This type of breathing calms your nervous system and starts to turn off the monkey mind. Doing it regularly resets your panic point and keeps you from entering overwhelm as easily.

3. Pay attention while washing your hands. In his book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle advocates practicing presence and one great suggestion he has is to pay very close attention to the act of washing your hands. Really focus on it and give it your full and complete attention.

   • Why it works: When you pay such close attention to this simple act, you turn off your thoughts of past and future, which is what it means to be present. Since you'll do it several times a day, this simple act will train you to be present in other parts of your life.

That’s it, my friends. Three simple daily hacks you can start today. Do these three things every day this week and by the time you get my next newsletter, I guarantee you will feel greater overall peace.

Gayle