What you are thinking inside your head right now matters. I do not mean that as a way of fluffing your ego for you, or to make you stop what you are doing and meta-think about thinking. I mean this more in a “let’s be more conscious of our headspace” kind of way.
The concept of mantras has been around for thousands of years, with roots in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Christianity, as well as secular western traditions. We typically associate the word with Eastern religions, yoga, and meditation, but the idea stretches more broadly than a yogi’s mat.
In original Sanskrit, “mantra” combines “to think” with “tools or instruments,” meaning literally “an instrument of thought.” A mantra is a pattern of thinking, an instructional device which determines how you construct the whole piece, which is, in this case, your headspace.
Mantras are more than just a broken record sound, more than humming “om” with your eyes closed. Repetition does play a big part in mantras; that is how they work. You say something over and over until the meaning sinks in, until you begin to affirm the message. Repetition focuses in on one thing, and drives it into your memory system, more deeply ingrained each time. Mantras are repetitive scripts that tap into the spiritual, meaning, in the simplest terms, this: our scripts affect our spirits.
The thing is, though, most of us are not entirely conscious of the mantras floating through our heads on a given day. What sorts of things do you let yourself think about or focus on over and over and over? Are they positive for you? For others?
Most of the time, I catch myself thinking about the most unhelpful things. If you took a random snapshot survey of my thoughts once every half hour, odds are in most of the samples I would be thinking about what I am going to do with my college degree, whether or not I am adept enough at anything to find a full-time job after college, worrying about how I am going to monetarily support myself as a starving artist, or wondering how much nutritional value is actually in a PB&J and whether or not I could feasibly live off of them for the rest of my life.
I fill my head with a mantra of worry. Is this helpful? Positive? No, probably not. Can I help it? No, probably not. I am honestly terrified, and I think worry is a natural response.
But if I keep using worry as the blueprint for my headspace, the instruction manual for how I operate the rest of my life, I am not doing myself any favors. If my worry is my mantra — these strings of thoughts I repeat endlessly — then worry is suddenly the thing that encapsulates my meaning of life, whether or not I intend it to be that way. Suddenly, worry is the thing I am living for, the thing I am feeding with my existence — my spirit.
Now, worrying too much is not the only mantra out there. Anything can be your mantra. “I really want to watch Netflix right now” can be your mantra if you are not careful. The scripts with which we fill our heads are more important than we sometimes realize, and I challenge you to name the one that rules yours. Naming the thing that haunts you, after all, makes confronting it a little easier.
