About

Staying grounded throughout the day, allows us to live our lives with intention and purpose, navigating through the ambiguity of what a day may throw at us. Integrative health coach, Stas Arsonov and I uncover the techniques to infuse groundedness into our day.

Episode

In this episode we explore the concept of what it is to be grounded, how we can be active participants, versus having a day happen to us.

Moving with intention and purpose throughout our day is always important, and the muscles reps really come into action during times of ambiguity.

Join my conversation with Stas Arsonov, integrative nutritiona coach, founder of mind and body optimization Think Clever, as we do just that.

We define what it is to be grounded, simple techniques to access that state, beginning the day with a ritual to carry with you throughout your day.

Stas refers to the following resources: Meditation: Calm, Headspace and Insight Timer. Short intense bursts of exercise: Tabata

About Stas Arsonov

Founder of Think Clever and Citta Nutrition Cittanutrition.com, a stress management supplement, Stas Arsonov is an integrative health coach based out of Los Angeles, California. Stas works to help his coaching clients live with intention, establish morning routines and uncover their limiting habits.

With a background in healing body-work, nutrition, and fitness. He spent the past decade immersing himself deeply in mind and body optimization and learning from some of the great masters in the field of ultimate wellbeing.

Transcript

*This Transcript is Autogenerated

Hi. Hello. Some of you have been asking me about how I create my podcast. As you quite fancy making one of your own. You said I've been meaning to do this for a while, but is it complicated? Do I need to invest a whole bunch of software? Well, I've actually been using anchor by Spotify since the beginning, and I really love it because it has everything that I need in one place.

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Welcome and join me today on the hi hello Sura podcast, where I decode and deconstruct the stories, secrets, and skills of the creators of our time. If you are looking to challenge the status quo and get new perspectives, join me as I share with you practical advice that you can use to impact your life and help those around.

Today.

Hi there. And welcome to the hi. Hello Sura I'm your host, Sura Al-Naimi. Today we are joined by a very special guest Stas Arsonov. He is an integrated health coach, usually based out of LA, but currently in. And he walks with his coaching clients so that they can live with intention established morning routines and uncover that limiting habits.

As well as doing all of this staff is the founder of an amazing podcast, too old think clever, which brings the minds around the world to share all the hacks of spirituality. And he will share more about that with us. And he's also the founder of a stress management supplement, which is due to launch next week called SITA nutrition and SITA means bliss in Sanskrit.

So without further ado, I am so excited to say hello and introduce staff staff. Welcome to. Thank you, Sarah. It's really nice to connect with you and, uh, to share everything that's that's taking place right now, and to uplift people's spirits and, uh, hopefully create some amazing rituals morning rituals, afternoon rituals to keep people grounded.

Amazing. So staff let's get right into it. So this concept of being grounded, can you explain what that means to our listeners and why that is so important? Absolutely. And. It's going to be different for everyone, what grounding means for everyone, because it's, it's, uh, you know, it's the way I interpreted this, coming back to something, to something familiar to coming back to this, uh, base point where everything starts, you know, so for example, when.

Starting your day and you're opening your eyes, you know, like you have new opportunity to create something out of your day. That's the starting point, you know, you're, you're, you're grounded, you're opening your eyes and, and, and the game begins, right. Uh, And it's come back to the points throughout the day, because very often we get overwhelmed by so many tasks and so many things we need to solve and, and, and do in a lot of times we occupy ourselves in this seems so, so intense that, uh, that we forget to.

Stop and breathe and come back to the, to that starting point. And, uh, you know, that's, that's the whole point of living was intention. You know, you set the intention for the day and sometimes we forget it. So we have to. And then remember the intention and then keep moving with it. You know, so to me, that's, that's grounding is not, you know, mentally flying out there in the sky.

Try, you know, thinking about tons of things in the future. And the past is being present, being in the moment and living with intention. So just as you are sharing that with me, I noticed that I was holding my breath. So I remember to breathe. So thank you for that. I appreciate it. And so when we think about that, what is the opposite of being grounded?

What you notice that, um, I noticed that you said that people are thinking of many things going into the future. And going into the past, but can you sort of paint a picture of what it might look like for somebody if they aren't grounded? Yeah. And it's exactly what you just said is, is, is not living in the present moment, just thinking of all the stuff that you need to do of all the potential situations that are coming or away and how you're going to deal with them.

You know, it's, it's well known. That's a lot of this things that we make up, you know, they don't have. Or, or they happen way much later down the line, but you spend every day stressing and worrying about something, you know, damaging your health, damaging your immune system, you know, putting too much pressure on your adrenal glands, you know, just stressing about something that's may not come, or it may be.

You know, come way down the line, you know, and the same works about the past. You dwell in the past, you think about the ways you could have done things differently where you could have changed, but you know, only present is, is, is here, you know? So just, uh, not being present that's, that's the opposite of, of, of grout grounded, you know, just being, being out there, worrying about things that you have no control.

Right. And I, I noticed for myself that since I've developed a grounding practice or ritual practice, rather than the day happening to me, I feel like I'm flowing through my day. And I think that comes back to that point that you made around intention. Right? So that's sort of my guiding my guiding barometer or signal, if you will.

So, so with that in mind, can you share with our listeners, what kind of things can they do to get routed? You mentioned the set in which you will, what would that look like for somebody who's just starting. You know, for, for me, I always, I always try out this practices. Yeah. Because it's, it's one thing to, to give somebody a list of a hundred things and, you know, but I like to try them on and see which ones work for me and which ones don't.

And you know, so right now what I'm doing is I wake up every morning. Very tempting to look at the news and see what's happening, you know, but I, I consciously make an effort not to watch the news, not to check any text messages, you know, cause I wake up and the whole phone is filled with stuff and I know as soon as I'm going to open it, there's going to be stuff that will disrupt my.

My positive vibes that I wake up was in the morning and it will give me things to manage right away. So I make a conscious effort to, to go into my practice right away. So I just, I just stood up in my bed and I started doing a meditation, whether it's a guided meditation, whether it's just, uh, you know, just silence, but that's how I start.

Uh, then I have my journal right next to my bed and it's, um, I use the five minute journal because it has great structure. You know, when you start the day, the things that you're grateful for, then there's a section to set up an intention for the day. Uh, you know, w w the three things that you need to really focus on that you would like to achieve.

And that's, for me, that's one of the most grounding things. Things is to come back to the intentions throughout the day, uh, because sometimes I get overwhelmed and forget, you know, but if it's in a journal, I can go through it. Remember, and as long as I have. Some of them, or maybe all of them. I feel like the day has been a total success, you know?

And then there's an evening section to, to, to review what happens throughout the day. And what is it that you're grateful for, how you could have shown up in a, in a different way. So journaling is very powerful. You know, you can use the same structure in your own journal. Um, so at least starting like that, you know, meditation setting the intention for the day.

That is a very powerful way. And then throughout the day, we can, we can touch up on a couple of other practices as well to implement throughout the days. When you talk about intention, can you share a little bit about what that means for you? Because I've had this time a lot that I think it would be helpful to break it apart article bit.

Um, yeah, I've definitely explored this term a lot as well, and it kind of became. Yeah. You know, I, I think everyone has this like slogan of their life, at least at the, at the certain, like, it changes as life goes on. But right now, you know, my slogan for life is live with intention. And that's what I use for my podcast.

Think lever live with intention, you know, because that has had. Powerful impact on me. And it really changed my life. Because as you mentioned earlier, it's not that the day takes control of you. You take control of it, you manage it, you, you manage, what is that you want to achieve? You know how you want to show up with people like you can set an intentional, let's say.

To every person that you interact with to look them in eyes, to smile, to ask them sincere like, Hey, are you all right? Like, how's it going? You know, like that's an intention and you do it's throughout the day. You come back to it. And all of a sudden it has this powerful impact, you know, or maybe your intention is.

To express gratitude, you know, throughout the day. And that's, that's your intention. Do you come back to you remember to, to recognize, to, to be grateful for things, you know, and to, and we can go more in depth in terms of, uh, what a gratitude can actually do in your life. It's there's, there's been a tremendous amount of research and neurobiology in all fields about gratitude.

So just setting intention of, you know, Who do you want to be? How do you want to feel throughout the day? And it could be also material things. I mean, it could be 10 in intention to, to have this type of impact or maybe even to make this amount of money. So it's, it's just something to know. That you are moving towards a particular direction and not just taking on stuff, that's coming your way.

And you're managing it, thinking that you're living your life was intentioned, but you're not, you're just taking care of stuff. So that's, that's, to me, you know, is, is, is taking control of your life, you know, um, creating a direction for you. That's really helpful. I'll uh, also I'll put the five minute journal in the show notes so that people can reference that if they, if they're not familiar with this general.

Yeah. And, and it's, you know, they found some other great journals. Please write it in the common shared with us because. You know, I we're sharing things that we're familiar with, that we're trying out ourselves, you know, maybe there's some other great resources. So I think it's this days, you know, it's, it's very helpful to take a community approach where people are sharing what they have found to be useful as well.

I mean, that's how I find out, find out about things. I found out about the five minute journal journal from somebody else. And, uh, they passed it on to me and I'm passing on to others and different practices. It's, it's very important to remember that all of us, our students, we're all learning from each other.

We're all learning from others. And so just sharing, sharing this information. Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah. I a hundred percent agree. So we start the day with a meditation or a moment of silence. And then we get into the journaling, which is the intention setting and the gratitude that has a bookend at the end of the day, where you can reflect back and see, you know, how, how, how did I do.

So what else can somebody do during that day to stay grounded? What other things would you like to shack with all this? Um, I think right now it's, I mean, it's always important, but right now, especially that people are isolated, they're staying at home. They're not able to go to their yoga studios and colada studios, you know, it's, we're we're home.

So it's important to connect with your body. It's very easy to just think, okay, we're in quarantine and let's just, uh, let's just chill out. And this is time to lay on the couch and just do nothing. You know, there's definitely a certain period of time for that as well, but it's important to activate your body, you know, when, when you activate your body, the whole detoxifying process begins, you know?

So even if it's a, a short five minute Tabata workout, you can put it up on YouTube. You know, just five, five minutes, just really intense, activate your body, you know, going out if possible, whoever has an opportunity to go out, um, outside and recent, fresh air and going to walk and very important as well.

Uh, just remembering to connect with your body because a lot of times we're so in our mind, thinking about stuff and processing, and it's very exhausting. Yet your body hasn't really done anything. So you have to balance it out was mental activities and physical activities. So I'd say, you know, this is good one and maybe doing some sound solicitations, some yoga there's, it's a.

You know, it's a very challenging time right now, but at the same time, it's, it's great because so many people, so many different coaches and everybody's going to align and really being of service, contributing different lessons and, uh, and, and different meditation groups. You know, a lot of it's this stuff is for free cause people want to, to help during this challenging time.

So, uh, there's there are a lot of resources out there, you know, that. You can, you can build a very nice ritual for your day. Um, so that's, that's, that's one of them. And then another thing that I started doing it's important, especially right now for detoxifying and strengthening your immune system is I drink a spoon of olive oil as soon as like right after my morning meditation, but before ingesting any food and drink a spoon of olive oil, and then I take another spoon and I just.

Move it around my mouth for about five minutes. Uh, what it does. It actually takes out all the toxins that were chemo that cause your body detoxifies during the night and all this toxins need to come out. So olive oil. Captures them. And then, so you spit it out after you kind of gargle it in your mouth and then you drink some hot water, you know, to, to help out the oil that you drank also.

And that's a great way to detoxify by your body, those toxins out of there. So I've been doing that for the last couple of weeks and it's been, uh, it's been going great. That sounds amazing. I love that. I love that. Uh, you know, ginger is really hard to get right now. Ginger and turmeric are really,

so we all have olive oil. Uh, let's do this. There's definitely plenty of it in Portugal. You know, I been adjusting so much olive oil, then I have a bread and olive oil, you know, from somewhere so plenty. Well, and so we talked about mental hygiene. So I think meditation is a part of that. Is that anything else that we can be mindful of with our mental hygiene?

Yeah, definitely. And again, very important right now is to balance out the input of information that you receive, you know, positive and negative, you know, so it's. Very tempting right now to be watching the news all day long, to read different articles. You know, people tend to share all this brutal videos going around about the virus and it's, it's so easy to just submerge into that and, and, and have this pretty negative outlook on what's happening, you know, so maybe for.

News article that you read, you know, try to read something uplifting as well, you know, read a, um, a spiritual book or something that, that motivates you reader. Um, you know, there's, there's also their positive blogs about what's coming out, how to unleash your creativity. You know, maybe you can take on painting.

Or, or writing something that you've been craving to do all your life, and you've never had time to do it. Now's the time to do it. So that's the mental hygiene, you know, balancing out, um, negative and positive. Right, right. Show an anchor in the happiness advantage, talks about the Tetris effect, which is basically that our brain gets used to grouping things that alike like, and so, you know, if we're ingesting negative, then we're always on the lookout for negative and that the comes up perfection.

And then equally, if we're, you know, deliberately ingesting. Then we build a mental habit to look for positive and for hope. And so it's really a muscle that we're constantly flexing in one direction or another. So just to be conscious and aware of. Yeah. And setting up healthy boundaries, you know, because you may take on this approach, but your family and your friends may have different input on it, but you still want to talk to them.

You still want to catch up and be supportive. So for example, you know, when I talk with my mom, I say, Hey mom, what's up. You know, shift the focus a little bit from the virus, and let's talk about this and that, you know, you know, tell me about this book that you reading and all of a sudden I'm catching up with my mom, but we're talking about something a lot more uplifting and it's still a great conversation.

Like we don't always have to discuss, you know, what's happening every day on the news. Um, so that's that. You know, an example of setting up a healthy boundary. Like you don't have to get away from your friends, but you have to remind them like, Hey, right now I'm trying to cultivate positive state of mind.

So can we like switch to topic for now? Amazing. So if somebody wanted to begin a meditation practice, you talked about silence. When you talked about guided meditation, what would you recommend as an easy segue for somebody who's beginning? You know, probably guided meditation is a good way to start. Just, uh, just so you can.

Kind of fall all along. A lot of people have this perception of meditation is such a complex practice that you have to sit in a perfect yoga position and you have to not have one thought. And if you have one thought, then you failed and you know, it's a guided meditation. It helps you to explain the process that, Hey, you know what?

It's okay. Just sit on the couch, comfortable when thoughts come observe them. Don't try to get rid of that. And that's it. Just sit there, just sit there, observing your mind and, and creating, you know, focusing on that space between the thoughts, you know, and eventually it will get easier and you'll go deeper and deeper and you, you know, you'll feel how your body is just starting to ground and you're starting to, to be more.

Aware of everything that's going on, you know, so there's an insight timer, app, Headspace, calm. There's a lot of different apps to start with, you know, and then eventually go into silence. Silence is the most powerful that's where you get all the answers. Right. Absolutely. And we have space sometimes for silence right now, depending on which household you live in.

Quite a few, quite a few zoom calls with animals. Kids with feet in their mouth and

quite entertaining. No, probably in those situations. That's where you need that time for yourself. The most to cultivate the inner peace, because you know, this is an interesting time when we're not able to avoid. Escape or distract ourselves. We are put in front of this things that we need to deal with.

You know, a lot of times let's say you have an issue is your husband or your wife, you know, and then you, you avoid dealing with it sometimes for years, you know, you just go to work, you go hang out with friends, you use scape this, but not now, now we're all in the same house. You know, forced to deal with things that we haven't dealt in a long time.

So it's important to understand that, you know, and to, to take special care of yourself, to cultivate the inner peace so you can show up and handle the situation was, was care, you know, and also being present in a moment and understanding the consequences of the words that you're using. And, uh, You know, whether you're compassionate in this situation or not, or you're talking from the side of ego.

I mean, there's, it's a, it's a powerful time to handle things that we haven't handled in the very long time. So use it as a, as an opportunity as to get. So, when we think about this is we've talked about at the beginning of the day and then some activations during the day. Can we talk a little bit about, you know, the bookend, but at the end of the day, maybe some, some rituals right before we go into slumber.

Cause that's, that's a really impressionable, pivotal time. Yeah, the way you end the day, it really sets the tone for the way you start the following day. So it's really important. And, um, you know, that's why it's, it's, it's great to journal to, to focus on the great things that happens throughout the day.

You know, a lot of times me personally, back in a day, I would be just falling asleep, really frustrated, like, oh, it's this and this happened. And then tomorrow I'm going to have to do that. And you know, you just fall asleep, overwhelmed. That's not a good way to set an intention for your most precious recovery time.

So going over things that positive things that happened, you know, celebrating, even if it's just like, I really like how. I was laughing a lot today, or I'm really grateful for the moment I was watching the birds and I just felt really calm and it was meaningful. And to me, you know, it doesn't have to be like a huge achievement.

You know, I washed the dishes. I pretty sure I had that in my journal couple of days ago. I was stoked about that. Uh, so just finishing positively. Um, also if you have a bathtub, it's great to take an Epsom salt bath. That is so, so amazing for the body and for the entire nervous system, it takes away all the stress.

It comes down your adrenal system. It promotes the best night's sleep. And, you know, just, just put quite a good amount of best salt in there. You know, some candles, soothing music, uh, maybe read a page or two of something, uplifting something, you know, perhaps spiritual or motivational. You know, just that's that's part of mental hygiene hygiene as well, just a.

You know, less screen time, don't be browsing your phone until we fall asleep. Maybe try to stop an hour before, or if you really have to be on a screen for work, a blue light blocking glasses help a lot. And, and all of this things, they, they really do work, you know, You don't have to do all of them at once.

Maybe introduce one practice and then later something else. But so many people that, that I've spoken to. So many people that I've advised this, it, it really changes the way they, they rest, you know, and then they wake up a lot more motivated, a lot more energetic. You know, the I've been doing a tremendous amount of research, junior process of launching a stretch management supplement.

And, you know, there's this tendency to go for the magic pill for the shortcut. Like give me more energy, give me more stimulation to focus my mind so I can accomplish more. The real gold is in recovery process. You know, if you recover well, if you're able to have a good night's sleep, you're going to have the energy, everything that you need for the following day to do stuff, you know, like that's how people quit coffee.

They have plenty of energy that didn't even need coffee anymore. You just have to focus on your rest and self. Oh, that sounds, that sounds so amazing. And I noticed myself not getting a blissful sleep, so I I'm actually very motivated by your boss by there. I, I don't, um, I don't usually partake a bath. I'm more of a shower human, but the way you just set that up, I had a visual of the cool yeah.

That seems really good. So I want to just, there's one thing that you said that I think will be really important for all their smells. And you said don't try and do all of this at once. So I can imagine somebody listening and being super pumped and motivated, uh, Just like for me when I'm pumped, I want to bring it all into existence immediately yesterday.

So, uh, you know what I mean? You know that valley, so can you give some advice of, you know, maybe how to create this habit formation and just how to incorporate some aspects of this, where they become manageable so that, you know, ultimately somebody can stick with it and have it sustain. You know, uh, feeling disillusioned, you know, Becky is they've taken on too much too soon.

Yeah. And on that one, I will speak from personal experience because I have tried so many things in my life and, uh, and I have abandoned so many things and just looking for the perfect practice, you know, and, and only now I'm coming down to, to the realization that. You know, each practice, it takes you to the place where you need to be.

You know, eventually we all get to that same place of inner peace when we're tapping into the flow state and things are just flowing nicely and it's like, feels very magical. And it's not that only meditation can get you there or, you know, some other practices. Maybe relay that all in, in, in, in Bestop every night, you can probably get you there too, because you will be so calm and you will be showing up, you know, in a different way.

And you'll be mindful of things that you say of the way you you're. Um, you talk to people, so just don't try to do them all at one celebrate. Even if you do just one thing, celebrate, even if you meditate for one minute, you know, don't try to jump into a 40 minute meditation. Do one minute. Next week, you do five minutes, you know, maybe Bessel to start with, you know, one, one time a week, and then you'll do two times, three times.

Just small, start small and celebrate each time you do it. Instead of having regrets, I could have done more like really pumped about like, yes, I meditated for one minute today. Good job. You know, like it may seem silly or funny at the time, but just, just do it, just go for it because that's how you're going to rewire your entire system.

You're going to be pumped about every little improvement, you know, about yourself. Oh, I feel so motivated. I'm gonna go get at it right now. Staff. How can somebody get in touch with you? I know that you have a morning ritual, handouts or guide that's on your website. I think clever.co and I'll have that link in the notes.

But how else would you advise somebody to get in touch? Yeah, I would recommend listening to the podcast, a thing, clever podcast. We have so many great guests, you know, a lot of this things that, that I know they come from the guests that I speak to and I try to invite people that I've worked with in the past or people that I look up to.

One of them is used. Soura we have an amazing podcast about creativity. And the organizational habits it's, um, you know, just, I, I love podcast. I love listening to podcasts. I'm grateful to have my own and have amazing guests. So think lever podcast I'm on Instagram, trying to be a little bit more proactive, think clever.

And like you mentioned my website, think clever dot C. Amazing. Well, thank you so much fast. Thank you for being here today. Thank you, sir, for, for really organizing this and for helping people to build in a structure in their day to take control of their day and live with intention. It's, um, it's, it's a challenging time, but it's a transformational time.

So I really applaud your efforts to, to help people and inspire them to, to make the best out of this. Thank you so fast and thank you listeners. And as always, please do not hesitate to rate this podcast on the mediums that B that brought you to us today, and really looking forward to you joining us next time.

I'm your host, Sura Al-Naimi