Season 2: Ep.05 - Get a Mantra

(00:29)

Welcome back to Graceful Rulebreakers. I'm your host, Kirsten Lee Hill, and I'm coming to you today with the very first bite-size tip of season two. Here it is - get a mantra. Technically speaking, a mantra is a word or a sound that you repeat often during meditation to help you concentrate. It's also more colloquially referred to as just like a simple statement that you repeat. For me, my mantras are often affirmations, things that I want to be true. I use mantras to calm my mind, to stay positive and to attract amazing things into my life because I truly believe our thoughts create our reality. You know I went and researched this because I was curious, what is the difference between a mantra and an affirmation? Because people, myself included, totally use these two terms interchangeably, and what I learned is - it's complicated.

(01:30)

Mantra is derived from two Sanskrit words, Manas 'Mind' and Tra 'Tool.' It literally means a tool for the mind, and I heard a bit more about, like, the ancient practice of mantras when I was doing a Ziva Meditation course, and they talked about mantras as a mind vehicle, you had a mantra to help you get into a deeper state of meditation. Positive affirmations, they became popular in the early nineteen hundreds, increased in popularity in like the 1960s, 1970s and they're more based in psychology, right? There are statements that you say to overcome fears or challenges in your life, to feel better about yourself. And when I think about mantras versus affirmations, I'm…and I'll be just doing some Graceful Rulebreaking here, to me, kind of the same thing, because when I use an affirmation as a mantra, it's because mantras are this, like, spiritual practice about energy and intention. And that's why I have affirmations. It's not just to say nice things. I definitely approach them from a more spiritual perspective.

(02:51)

My point is I've been thinking about mantras a lot lately, because as I've definitely mentioned before, this has been a really trying season for me, and I'm not going to hide it, things have been touch and go, very emotional, unsettling, stressful. What comes to mind is this image, it might be a meme, someone let me know if that's proper use of that term, and it's the picture of the dog sitting at a table, drinking coffee in a room that is on fire. And the dog is saying, 'This is fine.' Like, that's me. I think about myself in that image all the time. I am Ms. Everything's fine, everything's fine, everything's fine. It's definitely a mantra for me, but I can't say it's one of my more positive ones. It often has a tinge of sarcasm when I'm saying it. So, it's not my power mantra. It's my coping mantra. It makes me laugh a little, and brings some levity into tense situations.

(03:52)

But my bite-size tip for you is to seek out a mantra that makes you feel good. One that is empowering, uplifting, high-vibe, If you will. A mantra that you can tap into when you're having a difficult time and you need to keep going, or when you need to pump yourself up, or that you can use to top off an already excellent moment. I have been really loving the song ‘I am’ by Yung Baby Tate featuring Flo milli. I don't know if you've heard it, but it has a lot of mantras in it. It goes a little like this, I am healthy, I am wealthy, I am rich, I am that, **** I am going to go get that bag and I am not going to take your ****, I am protected, well-respected, I'm a queen, I'm a dream, I do what I want to do, and I'm who I want to be, because I am me. Like what? This song, I listen to it literally every day, because it's just like so many amazing mantras to feed your mind, body and soul every day. I just love it. I just, oh my gosh. I love it. This is like the second time this season I've talked song in a podcast, should I make it a thing? Let me know.

(05:16)

Um, but my point being, as you could go, listen to the song, jam packed with great mantras, all of them that make me feel really good. And maybe you want to pull one of those into your practice. Maybe you start listening to that song on repeat and you know, integrate it into your day when you need a pick me up, right? Things that raise your vibration are good to bring into your life. When I say, raise my vibration, raise your vibration. What I mean is it puts you in a feel good mood. Like for me, when my vibration is rising, I literally feel like my body feels light. I'm just happy. I feel free. It's like I'm floating a little bit. And so the goal is to find a statement that does that for you or that at the very least takes the pressure off a little bit, right? Like it cracks the door open to feel a little bit better in that moment.

(06:11)

I want to share my top go-to mantras, I have a few tried and true, I use them all the time. Maybe they'll resonate with you and you can take them or maybe they'll inspire a mantra of your own. The first one is this - everything is always working out for me. This is probably my most used phrase. I love this mantra because I don't always understand why things are happening, especially when things are bad or frustrating. But I do always trust that there are some higher purpose, some lessons that I'm going to learn and maybe I can't see that lesson right now, but I deeply trust that everything is always working out for me. There'll be like, this might suck, those might be really, really hard. It feels like it's unfair and whatnot, but everything's always working out for me. And again, I say this again and again, and especially these past few months when things have been hard and there's these setbacks and I'm just like, oh my gosh, what's going on? I just come back to it and I say, everything's always working out for me, and it allows me to keep moving forward in faith.

(07:23)

Another mantra that I use a lot is, 'I am safe' because I have panic attacks and get in these states where I have, like, really heightened anxiety and feel like I'm having a heart attack and a stroke all at the same time, and I'm going to suffocate and it's just horrible. And when I'm in that space, I don't really have the bandwidth to have a whole lot of thoughts, and so I am safe is just like the most basic mantra that I have the ability to, like, call to mind, to start calming myself down. The last one I want to share with you today is, 'There's always more where that came from.' I first learned that mantra, I want to say it was from Denise Duffield-Thomas, she does a lot of work around money mindset and your blocks around money. And I love this one - there's always more where that came from. When I spend money, just tapping into that unlimited abundance, and it's not permission to be reckless with money, but it is knowing that I am making choices to invest in the right things, and I trust that there will be more. It's like keeping the flow of abundance open to me, by not stressing out and focusing on lack, like, oh, I just spent that and feeling bad and then attracting like bad feelings and more lack, instead just releasing and there's always more where that came from.

(08:43)

So, needless to say, I have a lot of mantras integrated into my life. If you were to go into my email inbox or my Google drive folders or my folders on my computer, you can actually see that all of my folder titles are affirmations which I use as mantras, like logistic, boring logistics stuff for business, I am organized, right? Um, whenever I am developing new products or services, I have one that says, I am abundant. I use another one that says I am a money magnet, and I just have them everywhere. And I, it's because I want to affirm these statements. These are things I want to feel, things I want to, you know, be, do have, and I really want to internalize them. So, I put them everywhere because our thoughts create our reality. So, I want to be surrounded by all of these words that reflect really positive, amazing things I want to bring into my life.

(09:42)

Today, this week, I want you to try out a mantra, think about a phrase that makes you feel good, something that raises your vibration, so to speak. And this can be a reset for you when things are difficult or it can be a pick-me-up when things are, like, kinda challenging, or it could just be like, let's top off a great day with the mantra to take things to the even next level, right? Find your mantra, write it on a post-it note, put it as a reminder in your phone, have it somewhere prominent where you're going to see it again and again, throughout the day, if you did a tour of my home right now, you would see… gosh, like 20 post-its stuck on things with different mantras that I want to be thinking about. So, find what works for you. But the key is to pick the mantra, put it around you. If you're surrounded by the mantra, you'll start reaching for it, right? Because it's everywhere. So, it becomes more natural to integrate it into your thoughts and observe how it makes you feel, observe how the mantra works or doesn't work for you, right? Like pay attention to the feelings, see what feels good, and also be open to seeing your life shift in amazing ways, because you've now shifted your mindset in a more positive way.

(11:01)

When you've picked a mantra, I would love for you to share it with me. The easiest way to connect with me is on instagram @klh.consulting. So, hop on over there, tell me what mantra you're going to be trying on. Also, I want to share with you all some really exciting news. My company rebrand has officially gone live on the internet, www.kirstenleehill.com. New logo, technically a new company name. Um, I was formally Kirsten Lee Hill Education Consulting, I broadened it up just Kirsten Lee Hill Consulting. Now, there are new colors, new photos, new service offerings, just a whole new vibe. And I am so, so, so excited. I would love for you to check it out and oh gosh, here's to new beginnings. Everything is always working out for me and for you too.