You go to a meeting or lunch with friends and someone makes a not so nice comment and your mind shuts down, you just cannot let it go. What does your inner voice say?
Imagine you have rearranged your entire day to accommodate a client/friend, who needed to see you urgently, and then at the 11th hour the person does not show up. What do you think?
You spend all your time and effort on a business idea/ project and you cannot attract any clients/ customers. Do you have a mantra for mind protection?
What is a mantra?
Mantra comes from the Sanskrit word meaning a “sacred message or text, charm, spell, counsel.” The word mantra is said to come from a root meaning, “that which protects the mind”. A mantra is used in meditation and can also be used for mind protection.
The word mantra can be broken down into two parts: “man” which means mind, and “tra,” which means transport or vehicle. So literally a mantra is a vehicle to transport the mind.
“Like a seed planted with the intention of blossoming into a beautiful perennial, a mantra can be thought of as a seed for energizing an intention.”
Tris Thorp, Master Educator, The Chopra Centre for Wellbeing.
I use mantras all the time. To me it is like setting my intention of how I want to approach my life. I have a number of mantras that I use for mind protection and to transport my mind. My favourite mantra is, “Whatever happens TO you, happens FOR you.”
I’m not sure if I made up that mantra or I read it somewhere. By repeating this mantra when things do not go to plan, it gives me the sense that the universe is on my side. It makes me feel like maybe there is something else I need to be doing. Whatever is happening is happening in my interest. There is a positive intention there. There is a lesson to be learnt. It is a necessary step in my journey. This helps me move forward.
So when someone makes a not so nice comment about me at lunch and I repeat this mantra to myself, I think, maybe I need to learn something from this. Is their comment true? Does it serve me? What is the learning there for me? Or when someone makes me rearrange my day and does not show up, when I repeat my mantra, I think, maybe the universe wants me to learn to be flexible no matter what. Maybe I’ve cleared out this time to be doing something else. It moves me to look at the possibilities. And when I try a project and I fail, my mantra helps me step out of the situation and look at what the learnings are for me. It helps me process it as a necessary step on my journey. It reminds me of the NLP saying; there is no failure, there is only feedback.
I’m wondering what you say to yourself at times when things are not working out for you. Do you have mantras and affirmations that help you move forward? Do share your mantras.