How life mantras can be your superpower

A mantra to guide you through the wildness of life is my top ‘how to survive most stressful situations’ mindfulness hack.

It can feel like a superpower, a powerful tool to have in your toolkit.

Picture the scene, chaos is happening around you and internally you are as cool as a cucumber. How is this possible? Well, you have activated your mantra.

The mantra can help clear your mind of anxious thoughts and allow your mind refocus.

I know it sounds too good to be true, and it needs a little practice, but this is how I have used my mantra in 2021.

Firstly, I believe you are in control of the outcome and future direction of your life. Steering yourself through the ‘journey’ i.e. any obstacles, hurdles, blocks and writing your own ending. I am an author after all, we like to control the start – middle – end of each chapter. Why not transpose that into my real life, especially my travel life where chaos is everywhere.

So what do all these experiences have in common?

1. Flat tyre on the second day of my six day solo road trip around Cyprus – in the middle of nowhere

2. The airline check in attendant telling me I couldn’t board my flight back to Scotland as the Covid passenger locator form was incorrectly completed.

3. My book launch party venue was double booked.

4. An upset tummy decided to rear its ugly head when running my last marathon in Manchester.

They are all unexpected blockers to the journey I was on, potential scenarios to derail what I needed to happen. If I stayed stuck this is what the outcome would have been.

1. Missing out on all the adventures that the island of Cyprus has to offer. No car = stuck me.

2. A missed flight and a headache.

3. Postponed book launch party and another headache.

4. No Personal Best and no marathon finish.

The one thing in common across each of these scenarios was my mantra. I activated my mantra.

My mantra is simple, “This is not how the story ends.”

How powerful is that as a statement?

Not only is it signalling you are aware you have reached a bump in your journey, but that you have acknowledged there is a way around it and that there will be a new outcome to what you are currently experiencing.

Every time I activate this mantra in my head, it signals hope to a better ending.

It also allows my mind to slow down and prevent a chaotic response, where you are in full reactive mood, scrambling for a better outcome.

Instead, the mantra combined with some mindful breathing has allowed me to navigate each of the bumps calmly and the story definitely ends differently. That is why it is powerful. I know from prior life experiences that I have always managed to work through the scenario to a better outcome. Not always the perfect scenario, but it moved me forward.

Let’s look at the end outcome of each scenario:

1. Flat tyre on the second day of my six day solo road trip around Cyprus – in the middle of nowhere

a. A lovely local man was found and he changed my flat tyre to the spare tyre. I managed to drive to my overnight cabin retreat and the next day I drove to the nearest city (not my intended route) and received a new car.

2. The airline check in attendant telling me I couldn’t board my flight back to Scotland as the Covid passenger locator form was incorrectly completed.

a. I managed to complete the form correctly, while the airline checkin attendant reminded me “you need to be quick, the flight is about to take off” and arrived back into my home country.

3. My book launch party venue was double booked.

a. The venue found my booking confirmation and the party went ahead. With a drag queen brunch next door. It was pretty wild.

4. An upset tummy decided to rear its ugly head when running my last marathon in Manchester.

a. After managing my upset tummy in a playing field, I continued to run the marathon and finish with a new Personal Best.

As you can see, the mantra has been good to me and will remain in my resilience toolkit.

What about you?

What mantra can you use to act as a trigger to slow down, calm your anxious thoughts and allow you to figure out life. We never stop, we keep flowing with life.