When I first heard the term “Life Mantra”, honestly I thought it sounded kinda weird and crazy. I mean why did I need a life mantra to remind myself that I am a wonderful person or that my life is amazing?
It took me many years to realize that I needed the life mantra because I would mentally beat myself up. Everytime something went wrong in my life, a relationship or friendship would end, I fell behind on bills…. anything that was wrong, I would tell myself hateful things. I would tell myself how stupid I am, how ugly I am, that my life sucked or that I was just not loveable.
When I wasn’t in the throes of my anxiety or depression, I could see how my life wasn’t as horrible as my mind was making it. In the midst of those throws, it was like a tape recorder on repeat where all the bad things were just ongoing in my mind. How could I feel like a wonderful person when the one person that should love…. me …. couldn’t say one nice thing to myself??
That is when I started working on my self-care and reading everything I could on helping get myself out of this repeat mode of bad thoughts. I can’t even tell how many self-help books I have read over the past 10 years but the one recurring theme was to change your bad thoughts into good thoughts. In addition to changing your thoughts, you should implement positive affirmations into your daily self care routine.
I like to take the positive affirmations one step further and created a life mantra. My life mantra is something that I like to repeat to myself when I start those bad thoughts. When life gets stressful and my instinct is to beat myself up, I repeat “I am loving and loveable” to myself over and over and over until I snap out. Some days, life gets overwhelming and I will not only repeat my mantra to myself but I will write my mantra down so that I see what I want to feel.
I know that some people use “I am Enough” or “My Life is Wonderful” as their life mantra. Your Life Mantra should feel unique to you. Think about how you wan to feel about yourself or your life…
Do you want to feel more love? Do you want to feel like you are enough? Do you want to feel your life is going in a certain direction? Do you want to feel successful in your life?
Once you come up with your life mantra, it will take some time and practice but start by saying your life mantra to yourself when you wake up and before you go to bed. Doing this in the mirror is more effective, especially in the beginning, to get your mind used to repeating this to yourself. When you begin to think those bad thoughts, turn your thoughts to your life mantra to turn yourself around to the positive side.
Yes, this takes work, time and patience but it is so worth it because self-care is important to everyone at every age. Start slow and begin to build your life mantra into your everyday thinking. When you see yourself, spiraling down, say your mantra and bring yourself up again. I believe in you and now it is time to believe in yourself!