Mind Your Mantra

“A mantra is that which projects the mind in a fixed direction.”

-Yogi Bhajan

Life is how you see it.

Take for instance the picture below. How many logs do you see?

Did you count three? Four? Either way…you’re right. Yup. And you know what? Life operates in the same fashion. Life is how YOU see it. How you CHOOSE to see it. Because the picture above is an optical illusion, the image as a whole switches back and forth between three and four logs. It’s a perfect example about how perception creates our reality and our role in the whole process

What we think about or perceive, creates the realitywe experience. Our thoughts are THAT powerful. In fact, consider your thoughts as the birthing point of creation. From your thoughts, your words are born. This is how you describe and acknowledge what you are experiencing and thinking. And, by your words, your actions are born. We act according to what we believe to be true (lower case “t“). Thoughts. Words. Actions.

What words or phrases do you repeatedly use to

describe yourself? Your life? Your circumstances?

If you’re like me, you’ve told yourself the same story for quite a number of years. Maybe it’s the “I’m not good enough.” Perhaps it’s the “No one will ever love me.” We all have stories, some of which we may not even be aware. For me, I started to tell myself I wasn’t enough at age six. Age six! That means my core beliefs about myself are 25 years old! Maybe your self-limiting beliefs aren’t quite as old, but my point is, the more those self-limiting thoughts are repeated, the stronger they become until we accept them as truth. To un-learn a truth we need to fix the mind in a new direction. Repeatedly. And this is where mantras come into play.

Mantra is a Sanskrit word made up of the prefix “man”, from manas (mind, thinking), and the suffix “tra”, from trayate (protect). A mantra is a sacred word of our own devising or maybe one we’ve borrowed from our yoga or religious practice. It’s a word or phrase that is repeated. It’s an incantation. It’s vibrational sound. It’s creative energy that as Yogi Bhajan says, “projects the mind in a fixed direction.” What we think about is what we bring about…so why not think about what we WANT to bring about?

Thinking about what we want and repeating a mantra to ourselves is only half the equation. The other half is WILLINGNESS. Flipping the script or shifting our perception isn’t nearly as simple as swapping out a pair of Keds’ for a pair of Nike’s. It’s not a quid-pro-quo, this for that exchange of a negative, self-limiting belief for a positive and empowering one. It’s the willingness to let go and release the old stories that no longer serve us. It’s the willingness to be OPEN to telling a new story and to continually retell that story.

Willingness is described as the quality or state of being prepared to do something, a readiness. If we say, “This isn’t the reality I am wanting to experience,” we have to be willing to actively seek a different way of looking at it so we can direct our mind in a new, fixed direction. My mantra is I AM Free and for me this means being free from the negative, self-limiting beliefs that want me to believe I AM fat, I AM not good enough, or that I don’t deserve to be happy. It also means I AM Free to live a life I love in a body I love. It means when I look in the mirror and don’t like what I perceive, I remind myself that this is not the reality I wish to experience. I simply find ONE thing that I AM grateful for. It means when my life seems as if it is spiraling out of control, I remind myself that true freedom starts in my mind and that I can move through my struggles with ease, one step at a time. It’s a process. It’s a journey. It’s a path I’m still on. It’s a new story I’m consciously and continually repeating, one that gets easier with time.

Is there a reality you want to shift? Is there a truth you want to un-learn? Do you know what Truth you want? Most importantly, are you willing to do the heart-work?

The most important stories we tell are the ones we tell ourselves. Consciously choose to tell yourself a new story today. Click HERE to mind your mantra.