How & Why I use Mantras

Mantras are sentences you make specific to your needs that you recite.

They can be things that you don't yet believe to be true but you want to believe to be true.

I use mantras to override my dysfunctional thinking.

I grew up in a dysfunctional home. 

The reality is when you grow up in a dysfunctional environment your brain wires dysfunctionally because you learn from the adults around you and if they're dysfunctional your little brain doesn't know any different. It learns for the ones you love, it trust them completely to show them how to live and love.

And so my job as an adult is to rewire the different parts of my brain so that instead of falling into dysfunctional patterns of thinking, behaving and over exaggerated feelings, I am consciously and actively teaching it healthy ways of being an functioning.

I use mantras as a tool to help rewire my brain.

They're not the only tool I use. Mantras seems a wishy washy term and I like to think of myself as quite a practical person, So I want to talk about how I use them in a practical way and the reason why I use them the way I do.

Currently, I have a personal situation that warrants big and difficult feelings but my brain keeps getting lost in catastrophizing.

Catastrophizing is when you believe the worst will happen and your brain makes things much bigger than they are. 

My brain starts to think that the problem is going to spread into different areas of my life and that my life is going to fall apart and I might as well just die because it's all going to be too much and too painful. That's the way my brain catastrophizes. 

This crap thing happened and it's going to cost me a lot of money to solve the problem, money I don't currently have. So it warrants a big response but I don't like where my mind goes and the pained state that leaves my body and soul in.  I'm trying to support myself in this situation so that every moment of my days isn't caught up in pain and fear around.

When something comes up like this my thoughts are bigger and less helpful than I want them to be and than the situation warrants. Although this is a crap situation it is not the end of my world it is not the end of my life. 

My first step is to write down my feelings and thoughts. It helps me gain clarity and awareness and I find the written word really helps me notice thought patterns more. 

I then look for the positives and I don't mean the positives necessarily in the situation but in this instant, I wanted to look at how actually this is a better time in my life for this to have happened.

If it had happened last year I wouldn't have gone through buying this Italian home I'm now living in. It was a 20k home it was the last of my savings. The issue that's arisen is going to cost 10K to 15K and if that had come up last year I would have had to use the money that I had saved to go towards this issue. Instead, I'm now living in a gorgeous little Italian village.

I am extremely happy and I truly believe that this is a supportive environment to do the next leg of my healing journey. I get to still have my Italian home because it's happened this year.

Other positives are that I've had five months living in this beautiful Italian town and I have already, in that time, done a tremendous amount of healing and mindset rewiring work. I am feeling the benefits so the impact emotionally although it's large is not detrimental. 

I am currently in a supportive, healthy and safe environment where I can give energy and time to using this situation, and the emotions I feel as a healing and growth opportunity. This comes back to mantras. When rewiring It's not a one-time thing. You don't just think differently towards or write positive words and then the rewiring is done. 

Unfortunately, repetition is needed, so throughout the day there will be times when I feel the suck of dread and I go into my toolkit and use my mantra to remind myself that I've done all the understanding of the situation where I'm at is a mantra. So for me, I use mantras after I've done the deep exploration, reframing, and mindset rewiring. 

My mantra is this one sentence that reminds me of all of that work that I've done and brings me quickly back into a calm safer space. It's really beautiful that you can write one sentence for yourself at any given time, or one phrase, and support yourself in reiterating the hard work that you've already done. 

As I said the rewiring doesn't just happen after doing this once because I've had a lifetime of incorrect wiring being reconfirmed. 

How I pick a mantra 

Normally I go by feeling. I'll try a few different ones and see how they sit in my body and quickly they bring me comfort.

With this current situation, the mantra I'm choosing is ……………….

This works for me because I fall into catastrophizing, doom and

dread. This mantra reminds me that yes something really crap has happened but actually everything's

okay and the "actually everything's okay" part reminds me of the list I wrote of why everything's okay and when that doom starts to suck me in this one sentence reminds me of what is true.

It brings me to the more realistic positive aspects of the situation rather than getting lost in the "what ifs", and "why me".

The other part of it is that it's very hard for your brain to go on

a journey into the darkness when you are repeating one sentence to yourself 

Repeating a sentence that brings value to my mindset but the act of repeating keeps me from getting lost in my thoughts. Double win.

This is why and how I have found mantras to be powerful in my healing and supporting myself in stressful overwhelming situations.

Do you use Mantras?

Do you write out your thoughts and feelings so you can patterns?

If you would like my guidance and support to do these explorations, healing and growth via the power of the written word you can start your Journey on the 1st of June with me. 

Your Journey Book is 8 weeks of 1-1 support and guidance helping you see your subconscious patterns. Exploring your wiring; how it formed and why it formed the way it did. This allowing you to have power in changing it. I will also help you see your blind spots so that you can heal and grow in ways you never knew were possible.