Finding Joy in Everyday Mindfulness

Feeling flat, restless, or stuck in your head? We dig into a simple truth with surprising power: your spaces are shaping your state, and you can reshape them to feel lighter, calmer, and more creative. Through personal stories, therapy informed insights, and practical tools, we unpack how anchors the learned links between places and emotions steer everything from late night worry to mid-day motivation, and how small, intentional tweaks can change your day fast.

We start with the quiet magic of tiny moments: stepping outside to reset a heavy mood, noticing the texture of a pillow to calm a racing mind, and finding joy in a pot of daffodils by the kitchen window. From there, we break down anchors in plain language: why the couch invites snacking, why the shower sparks ideas, and why a bedroom can trigger anxiety. You’ll learn how to repurpose anchors by pairing specific rooms with the feelings and behaviors you want rest, focus, romance, or play using light, scent, music, and touch as direct signals to your nervous system.

Sleep gets special attention. If 3 a.m. thoughts roar, a brief location swap and a soothing micror outine can quiet the surge. We share what helped, where screens can backfire, and the mindful way back to bed that re-links the bedroom with safety. Motivation gets a reframe too: move first, motivation follows. Enter the workout corner and let the room carry you; sit in the writing chair and let words arrive. Even in tiny apartments, micro changes rotating a chair, adding a plant, shifting a lamp can rewrite the story a space tells your body.

By the end, you’ll have a toolkit of fast, gentle resets you can use anywhere: change rooms to change mood, curate sensory cues, breathe with intention, and name your goal at the doorway. If this helped you find a lighter state or sparked a new ritual, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a quick review to help others discover the show.

Chapters

• 0:00 Finding Joy In Small Moments
• 2:07 Change Location To Change Mood
• 4:45 Anchors Explained With Everyday Examples
• 8:20 Childhood Spaces And Emotional Flashbacks
• 12:00 Showers, Ideas, And Creative Anchors
• 15:30 Bedtime Anxiety And Reset Rituals
• 20:10 Night Wakeups, Screens, And Self-Soothing
• 24:00 Movement Triggers Motivation

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

How can we find joy in the everyday, even when we're not like feeling up to it? Like when we're feeling maybe a bit down or frustrated. Yes. I think we have to find that joy in little tiny moments of mindfulness. And I know that can sound like it's easier said than done. But if you listen in, we're explain to you some of what we do that does help us change our states of mind. Yes, it changes our perspective on things and it makes us feel a lot more joyful and a lot happier, even when we may not be feeling that great.

unknown: 0:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 0:42

So that's what we're chatting about in this week's episode of Get Real with the English sisters. Mind, health, and anxiety relief, really. Relief, definitely. I know. I don't, I mean, I know, especially when I mean it's beautiful, sunny here today, but especially when the weather's miserable and it's still we're coming out of winter now. If you're in the cold, you know, if you're in the southern hemisphere or the northern hemisphere, obviously there's different weather zones, isn't there? Yeah. Um the podcast is listened to all over the world in so many countries. I think over 110 countries from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere. So the weather does change a lot. Yeah. I always find that very uh hypnotic. Uh if it's like, especially when it's like Christmas here and then it's somewhere like so somewhere like chili. Yeah, you find it difficult to sort of get around your head. I just think, wow, it's just such a different perspective on life. Just flipping the coin around, isn't it? You just change. I'm just going to a different plane and you're in a different part and you're in a completely different atmosphere. And what have you done to get there? You've travelled. You've travelled. So what can you do in your daily life? Well, you can travel with your mind. Yeah, you you can travel with your mind, but you can literally sometimes when you're feeling a bit down and a bit stuck, you can literally just change your environment by just simply stepping outside. That's a very good point. Well, that's what I mean by travelling. I'm very clever. It's like you don't have to get on a plane, but if you can, it's lovely. But otherwise, it's just changing your location to change your state of mind, is often an underrated, but very, very simple thing that we can all do. I know it's very underrated. Very, very many people know about it. Well, we're giving because they're like, I mean, we've learned through therapy that we have anchors to certain place. We should anchor them. Explain that a bit an anchor is like a thought that attach comes to mind or a feeling that attaches you to us to a certain thing. A bit like Pavlov's dogs that have when they have the anchor of having when the bell rings, they salivate. You were forgetting their way. They salivate when the bell rings because and they know it's dinner time. Yes, so that can happen to us as well. If we go into the kitchen, we can automatically open the fridge and get something. Yeah, we can salivate it out that we may not be wanting. But if the fridge isn't there and there's there's no kitchen there, because instead of going into the kitchen, we've decided to go for a walk. Exactly. Or or do so or do something different, take a shower, anything that's going to change your state of mind that's associated to a certain location. It's so weird, but you could be sitting on this particular chair or on your couch, and you'll find if you if you take notice of this, you'll probably all because we all do it, you'll probably notice how you know when you throw yourself on the couch, you might immediately begin to relax, and and sort of everything that happened during the day might slowly melt away. And and you and it's not just because you might have a warm drink or a glass of wine in your hand, it's also where you are that anchors you to a certain feeling. And it's like, I don't know, it's like when you you grow up and then you go back to your home or your your your children's bedroom. You'll immediately be flooded back with these anchors that tie you to that place at that time, and not only your your your whole state of mind will go back. It will go back. I remember when I went years ago when we still had our family home in England, and I remember entering the bedroom, and it was like, whoa. I suddenly was like 10, 11 again. I saw my bed, I remember stuffing all the toys in there and all my little fears when I looked out the window sometime because I used to be frightened of looking out the window at night because I would see trees moving, and and all of a sudden my little childish thoughts came back into my head. And I thought that's weird, but then at the time I didn't mean you don't really realize you couldn't know what it was. You didn't know they were called anchors. No, you can't, yeah. They're obviously that you know you're you're having childhood memories, but you don't realise how you can actually utilize this powerful anchor thing in everyday life to change your state on purpose. If you're not feeling so good, you can actually change it. Yeah, she changed her station. You can change it if it's raining in your head, you can actually go to Ecuador or whatever and change it by simply changing, changing rooms. I remember when you were writing our books, you would always tell me that whenever you entered the shower or the bathroom, you would suddenly be filled with ideas. With ideas. I remember when we were having our do you remember when our editor said when our editor said, look, you crunch down, you've got like three weeks to finish this. I remember I kept on saying, go to the bathroom, you let her go to. I mean, it was a big joke, but every time she went to the bathroom, even just to the automatic idea about something, is true. Isn't that funny? It is. Oh, because that's where that's where it is. That's where your mind is allowed to. I suppose my mind was allowed to just wander there and then it would wander creatively. Fortunately. Fortunately, it would wander creatively. A lot of these times these things happen when you when you're not aware of them, like every time you go to bed, if you're somebody that suffers from not being able to sleep really well, you know, sometimes just the act of actually entering the bed can make you feel uh anxious. So you've got to be a little bit aware of these things, and once you're aware of it, you can change it. You can make sure that every time you go to bed, you're you can associate to pleasant things. Well, you can put a really hot water bottle if it's hot, the opposite, a cold thing, and put a nice pack in there. You can put some relaxing music on before you fall asleep. Exactly, or some pleasant bed lining taste, something kinesthetic that you can actually touch and makes you feel safe. Sometimes these small things well, that's what mindfulness is about, isn't it? Yes, it's about being in the moment. So actually feeling the pillow against your skin, uh listening to your feeling how you you're breathing, noticing what's going on. You can you know relax your breathing. You can relax your nervous system, which sometimes it's always hard. I dreamt you dreamt about I've dreamt about our Croydon house last night. Really? Just when I'm sitting there. Instead of it having the the tiny garden it had. Do you remember the tiny garden with a shed? It had a table. It was a big house, it was a four-bedroom house, but nowadays it's like enormous for what people can afford now. You're right, yeah. Now then it was like a just a normal family home. It was one. It was nice, but I mean our parents were just we were we were just lucky that they got that. Yeah, because it was a refugee house. It was and um anyway, uh that's that's it was all like we inherited everything, didn't we? We inherited all the wallpaper, all the furniture. Oh, absolutely. So it had lots of very weird things on it, yeah. The wallpaper was wild peacocks or something, didn't we? Well, yeah, because it was like the the the lady that lived there before, she had a young daughter that was really trendy. She was eccentric, wasn't she? And she had decorated it all like really like. Do you remember 60s studying? Do you remember the study room? It had all those wiggly red and and yellow, like it was all white, and then they had like an edging all around, like almost the top of like a line painted across. More like a little snake, snake, like wiggly lines, and they were red in there. Template, didn't they? It was weird. That was a bit weird. Anyway, well, I don't know why. I'm caring just left. The dream was that instead of just a little back garden, it had a massive garden. It went onto a field like with a massive, beautiful scenery, and in the night you could see the horizon and mountains and things. And I thought, wow, I thought this is like it's really changed. I mean, it was a lovely, pleasant dream, but I was just thinking, that's how I don't know why I dreamt that. I don't know. It's probably because you've been back to England recently. Oh, maybe and you were probably anchoring it that once again when you enter even a different country, you often like some people say, Oh, I love Italy, I love it. Because why? Because when they came, they were on holiday, they had lovely food, they probably had great company, and so they've associated to something beautiful, beautiful experience. Often, if you go to other countries, you suddenly think, Oh no, it was cold or whatever, I don't know. It so that also it depends on the location, once again. So you went back to England and you were thinking of your childhood, and then you had a whole dream about it, which is a very nice dream, apparently. I can just imagine it now. It's always beautiful, but instead of having all the little back lanes and all the gardens, it's just beautiful open fields and like yeah, there was no ending. Beautiful, like a like uh, like a wood, like you know, the woods. No, no, like um open countryside, rolling hills kind of thing. But with colours, lots of lots of flowers. Flowers so lovely, like the daffodils are coming out. I don't know, yeah. It was really it was all like like a I suppose it was a bit like a monet painting or something. Oh, how worked all really beautiful, yeah. It was very nice, and I woke up. That's quite unusual. It was unusual, it was a weird dream. I didn't have it. I woke up at 3 a.m. all of a sudden alert on adrenaline. On adrenaline, because I had these worrying thoughts that I was thinking about, and all of a sudden, the thoughts that you might think at 3 p.m. Everything seems normal at 3 pm, but at 3am, or when everything is quiet around you, that thought can become quite invasive. So I actually I said no, because I've got this word, never get up to go to the toilet in the night because then once you start, your brain loves that routine. Every night you're getting up. Like every night, yeah. At a certain time, your brain will say, Hey, get up. You need to urinate or you need to go and get some food. Luckily, you know, it's true. No, it is true. It will, it is, it's no laughing matter. This is totally what I do the same. I never get up unless I'm really they only get up if I'm having toilet dreams. Oh my god. If I'm dreaming of looking for a toilet and I can't find a toilet, that's a nightmare. When I wake up, I think I really need to go. No, no, no, this wasn't a toilet dream, it was just me waking up, and then I thought I'm going to actually break my rule of not getting up because I didn't really consciously think about it, but I knew I had to change location in order to calm my mind. So I actually went downstairs, and then it was funny because I saw the cat on the sofa, and I thought she's going to ask me for her first breakfast already, even though it's 3M. But she just stared at me and then she stared outside the window as if to say, What are you doing? It's too early. Pitch black out there. You know, she just completely ignored me. So I managed to enter the kitchen quietly and just close the door. And in the end, I ended up making myself some warm milk, which was unusual, but that did help me because I changed state. Yes, and I got out of this which I recently in a frenzy is not good. Wasn't I in a frenzy? I sound like I was no, but I knew I know what we're like, that we can manage our things normally. Yes, exactly. And we can read we know how to redirect them and how to be mindful. But I kept on coming. Easily there, you needed that extra step of actually changing, you know, changing. I had to actually get out and I change it. I'm going to physically remove myself from this area now. In the end, and I just and I even broke the screen rule, which is you're not really supposed to look at your phone, but I took my phone because I was using it as a torch, and then I turned it on, but I thought, oh, who cares? You know, yeah, I just I just went scrolling. I mean, they didn't tell me this before. She just she edited this bit out and said she'd just gone to get the milk, and I said, Ah, the milk. No, yeah, because I just to be to be fully honest, I did go scrolling, but it was lovely things, so I saw this still. Yeah, it's not, it's really, really not a good idea. It wakes your your brain up. I know all about that because obviously we did, we were actually sleep, what was it called? Like lots of sleep. We've got lots of uh things on sleep hypnosis, yeah. So I mean I know all about that, but for me it worked in that particular time. I actually listened to this doctor, which I really like, and I found it very calming. Okay, and anyway, it worked, and it was like 10 minutes, and I thought, okay, now just turn everything off again, Wi-Fi off. And the moment I'll get back into bed, I'll find a comfortable position. And my cushion was particularly soft when I went back in. You went mindful on the way back. I went mindful on the way back, yeah. Then I crept back in and I felt that lovely that the cushion, then I put stuffed the dollar cushion down there and i inside the doom face. So it was all like really coochie. And my husband was snoring, but I managed to ignore that. Sometimes I like the snores. That's a calming sound because that's what I do. Yeah, because I tune into the snores. I tuned into the snores, yes. Thank goodness they weren't that bad at that moment, but I thought, look how relaxed he is. And I took some of those deep breaths, and then I found myself asleep, thank goodness, you know, and then the alarm went off, and I thought, oh well, I've broken tonight. I will be careful not to repeat that though, because you might get it, isn't it? No, I think I'm calm. I feel calmer today. Yesterday there was lots of new change coming along, and that's what happens. Challenging as well, doesn't it? Yes, it does, and there's lots of new challenging situations coming along, so I was feeling particularly anxious. But anyway, so you can but this is just you know, you you have a moment of mildfulness, and then you can you can change mindfulness and you can change your state, yeah. And also I do that because when I don't want to do my gym, and I know that my exercise makes me feel better, especially if I'm feeling a bit down. But if I'm like sitting on the so on the settee and I'm like maybe working online or what while I'm watching a bit of TV or something, you've got to get out of it, and and then and I don't want to go down. Oh, you don't know. But I just say uh you go down and then you see what happens once you're down there. Yes. So you go down because down there you've got the gym. I've got the gym, a little gym, yeah. So I go down and then I see what happens, and usually what always happens is that you work out. You see, yes, I do. It's right. Because it it it's because what once you get up and you make the mental mental effort of getting up and do it changing, like what you say, you change, you change, and then you go down because then every room is already there, every room has its anchors, has has its like memories of what you've done in there before. So you're going to be predisposed, your mind will automatically, it's like when you create this lovely space where you'll work and you've got your laptop and your computer and everything, and it's a calm space, so you can really think there. And then every time you enter that space, you'll you'll be more inclined. It's what writers do a lot of the time. They say, once I enter the study or the room I've dedicated to writing, I will write in there. They do, they do, and they just get cracking, and that's sort of part of what they consider discipline, but it's also part of the anchors that have been created on that chair and on that desk, which is quite it's odd, isn't it? Every room has its anchors, every space has its anchors. Yeah, but it's like if you if you want to have like a romantic evening with your partner and you don't set anything up, oh it's not gonna happen, is it? No. So you have to start sorry, you have to start sowing the seeds. You do, don't you? Yes. You sow the seeds during the day, and then you maybe prepare to make a nice meal or go decide to go out, you get dressed up, you make the effort, you do the nice little chip chat, the romantic chat. You change your location a lot of the time, don't you? You go out, you go out, and and sometimes when you're finally out, you can you think, why do we get along when we're like sitting at a restaurant or something? And then when you go home, you're you're you you all of a sudden you change. Well, you've got all the home stuff going on, haven't you? All the stresses. If you're stressed at home, if you're not you're fine. But look, the ideal is to create that home space that is a space that does make you feel relaxed. Well, that's the joyfulness, yeah. Yeah, so that you can create this kind of a nest. Well, it has to be your space more than the space, it uh it is the space as well, but it has to be feeling associated. And you have to do it yourself. Yes, you have to be consciously thinking as I enter the doorstep, yes. I will leave behind any thoughts that are not going to be helpful for me as I enter into this uh this, you know, I was gonna say sacred place because it just started sounding like this kind of go to Jen. It sounded like this kind of sermon as I enter, but it's true though, isn't it? Isn't it true? I absolutely 100% knew that Yuka was gonna do that. Yeah, because it just sounds like it, doesn't it? As I enter this sacred, because I said sacred. The bedroom should be sacred, no screens in there. No, no, yeah, but I don't think anyone believes that. I mean, uh, do you do you not have any screens in your bedroom? Okay, I have my laptop, I could do confess. I watch a lot of Netflix in there. And other things, no, other things. I mean, no, that sounds I just watch, you know, like all my little series and things that are really calming on there. Oh dear me. But it because that that just is just my calm. Well, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yes. I mean, if you're finding that that helpful and calming that's that works for you, that's perfect. Some loads of people like, you know, reading in bed or you know, whatever. But it's but it's important to find if you the thing is that if you're at peace within yourself, then you can take that peace everywhere you go and you transform, you can transform the space as you go through it, and you can undo those maybe unhelpful anchors that were associated to it. Now that's a bad memory. Yeah, if you've got bad memories, say if you if you're if you're working from home and you your office, your desk is in a certain place and you've got bad anchors attached to that because something went wrong, or you didn't like your boss or whatever, just by changing where the desk is, if you can, or changing the room, or just changing position, even just slightly changing your chair position or something can really help you because you don't actually realise how much these tiny like micro changes, because obviously some of you will have you know very tiny spaces. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking of like your daughter now that she's in London. Yeah, she's got tiny studio, yeah. So she but she could still manage to change the position of her chair around or something, change the way or where she could work on the on the settee instead of a desk or vice versa. You can change change things. You can change some things, yes. Or do you you can just buy a little pot of flowers? She told me she put a little pot of flowers on her desk, and it can't be. Yeah, yeah. I have just bought some lovely little um daffodils that were growing. Oh, the bulbs. The bulbs, and I've just put them outside the kitchen window. And I when I look at them, it makes me feel really happy about it. There you go. So yeah, spring.

unknown: 22:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:01

Yeah, that's lovely. That's just a small thing that can sort of like change. Well it takes it it can take you out of yourself and into the world. Into a more into a world that is more mindful for you and more more forgi forgiving, like not so harsh. Exactly. Because just like the weather changes a lot, you know, our minds can also evolve and change, and we can think about that a lot about all these spatial anchors and what they actually mean and how they can affect us without us realizing and how we can change, we can change our state of mind, especially if we feel stuck. Move, move, move, get out of it. You say, I'm stuck, I'm stuck. We have a lot of people coming to us, I'm stuck in here. You have to actually move to become physically to become unstuck. Well, the first step they do is if they contacted us, they've moved. They've moved, they've already done that's what we tell our clients. You've already done the first move. You're very good, very brave. Yes, yes. Um, but then a lot of the times you actually have to move and physically go for a walk. Right. Yes, get out, get out, get out, or just listen to your nice song that you like as well. That can turn up, jump around, jump around, that's really good. And so on. There's a lot more than that. I wanted to say that we've had congratulations from our podcast host, Busfrow, because we've reached 10,000 downloads, which is only because of you listening every week, and we're so grateful to all of you. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. And for also for watching the podcast on YouTube where you can see the video too. But thank you, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. Thank you to all the people listening to us all around the world, southern and northern hemispheres, and all the different rooms. And all the different rooms. Hopefully, we'll bring a positive anchor into that space where you listen to this podcast. We do hope so. Lots of love and smiles from the English sisters. Bye.