Okay, just after I typed out ‘mantra’ I thought of the word ‘katra’, which is the living spirit of a Vulcan from Star Trek. Just a little side note there.

Mantras can be helpful things. I’m talking about those sayings that you repeat to yourself that help you focus on something. Repeating a mantra every day can be a helpful tool to put you in a more favourable headspace. It can return your thoughts to a goal you have. It can encourage you to keep going, to not give up. A mantra can help you smile.

Whether you know it or not, every day you subconsciously have a mantra in your head. Or something like a mantra. It might not be specific words or something of which you are conscious, but it’s there in some form, like a thought or mentality.

When you wake up, what’s your first thought? Where do you take your thoughts once you are fully awake? Are you focussing on negatives? Are you thinking about food? Whatever it is, that daily thought you have can become an unconscious mantra. And that mantra can evolve and change since it isn’t specifically defined and you’re not aware of it.

For a time, I consciously repeated a mantra every day to help encourage myself and put me in a certain headspace. Usually, it was something simple like, “the early bird catches the worm,” or, “learn from yesterday and make new mistakes today,” or, “smile!” Just a little phrase that I’d have written down somewhere in my room. Something I would actually say out loud to myself.

I need to get back to some of the tools I’ve developed over the years, and I think this is one that could possibly help me right now. Even though I’m happy and such, I’ve been quite awful to myself. I tell everyone to be kind to others and themselves, but I haven’t been very kind to myself recently. In some ways, I have been kind to myself, but generally, I haven’t. That should change.

Today I’ve been thinking of what my new mantra should be this week, to get me thinking more positively again. Everything I think of is way too perky for my current liking, so I turned to the internet for some inspiration.

I could be super sarcastic here and insert a bunch of— ah, let’s do the sarcastic thing, Matthew!!

Note to self: Stop listening to yourself!! Or wait… nevermind that. It makes no sense.

I found this particularly funny as a mantra:

i'm sorry i was distracted by my lack of giving a shit…

— Abel Tesfaye (@theweeknd) April 21, 2012

Hehe 😛

(Maybe I should warn you that I may occasionally include or say something on this blog that could be viewed as… potentially inappropriate? Like that ‘shit’ up there.)

Or this:

Laugh loudly, laugh often, and most important, laugh at yourself.

I could get behind that one.

Long story short…

I’ve decided to use ‘smile’ as my mantra. Just keeping it simple and easy for now. Starting small, working from there and all that. So tomorrow morning, I’m going to wake up, read my mantra aloud, and force a smile. Maybe it will stick on my face. 😀

Anyway… yup. That’s pretty much it for today.

Do you have a mantra? If so, what is it?

M3