5 Mantras You Should Repeat Every Morning
Mantras to help you live purposefully and mindfully.
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.” — Marcus Aurelius
It is safe to safe that all of us want to live purposeful and meaningful lives. But how often are we weighed down by our own insecurities and fears? How often do we think negatively about ourselves before pursuing anything out of our comfort zones? How many times do we have to convince ourselves that we are capable and deserving of love?
This is where mantras come in. Mantra is the ancient practice of repeating a word or phrase multiple times. This can also come in the form of unconscious mantras such as catching ourselves thinking, “I hate my body”, “Life sucks” or “I’m not good enough”. These are negative mantras which only served to add on to the thousand other Automatic Negative Thoughts in our minds.
In Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Health, Happiness and Wisdom, author Rick Hanson explains that we can change our mind to change our brain to change our actions.
You spend the most time with yourself.
Since our thoughts create the reality that we live in, chanting, speaking or repeating these mantras can slowly make a difference to our lives and how we want to live it! As author Thomas Ashley-Farrand writes in Healing Mantras: Using Sound Affirmations for Personal Power, Creativity and Healing, mantras can be used by people of any religion or spiritual practice, or during any activity such as mindless tasks like walking, cleaning and cooking.
Repeat these mantras in the morning in order to start the day positively with the right frame of mind to tackle the day!
1. I am Grateful
One reason why it’s difficult to stay in the present is that we often think that happiness formulates from favourable circumstances are in the future. This is where counting your blessings can help you to stay mindful in the present.
Based on positive psychology research by psychologist Dr Rober A. Emmons and Dr Michael E. McCullough, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity and build strong relationships.
When you are repeating this mantra, start to think about the things in your present life that you are grateful about. It can be something as simple and mundane as the beautiful weather, blue skies, or having a roof over your head. No matter how difficult or challenging your circumstances may be, there is always something to be grateful about. You just have to put your focus on the little things and detach yourself away from comparisons. Ground yourself in the present moment.
2. I am Worthy
When you look in the mirror in the morning every day, who do you see?
Do you see someone who is beautiful inside and out?
Do you see someone who couldn’t stand up for herself when someone was being unjust toward her?
Do you see someone who deserves loving and prosperous relationships with friends, family and lover?
When we no longer spend too much time putting ourselves down, we can start to figure out what truly matters to us — and these things start to become easier to achieve.
Self-worth is crucial as it affects our personal and working life.
We accept the love we think we deserve.
When we hold ourselves to a higher standard than our self-imposed critic, we start to realize what we deserve in our relationships with others. Tell yourself that you are worthy of love and worthy of all things just! According to Dr Dan Siegel, one way that you can actively put this mantra into practice is to develop self-compassion. There are three steps to practising self-compassion:
- Acknowledge and notice your suffering
- Be kind and caring in response to suffering
- Remember that imperfection is part of the human experience and something we all share
By putting these thoughts into action, we start to develop a healthier and more loving relationship with ourselves.
3. I am in Control
According to the Stoics, we have to see the dichotomy of the internals and externals. Stoics believed that we can separate the way we view things as: things we have control over, and things we don’t.
In the Stoic dichotomy of control (DOC), it would look like this:
- Things I have control over: How I react and respond to a certain event.
- Things I have no control over: I have no control over how the examiner is going to grade my essays.
A lot of the things that we worry about are regarding things that are going to happen in the future — the uncertainty of it all.
As one of the pioneers of Stoicism, Seneca wrote in his Letters:
“He suffers more than necessary, who suffers before it is necessary.”
This quote is very poignant as it shows that you are putting yourself through extra distress by worrying about future events that you have no control over. To repeat this mantra is to remind yourself that no matter what is going on in your life, you have control over how you respond to them. You have control over your actions. You have the ability to determine what it is that you want to worry about and that things cannot be changed should not cloud your judgment on life.
4. I am Enough
It is important to remind ourselves of this every now and then. It’s human nature to always think that we could do better, or that there’s someone ahead of us — it is ultimately this competition that drives us to keep pushing and improving ourselves. But sometimes too much of this breeds insecurity and self-doubt.
“What if I’ll never be as good as her?”
“Why can’t I be skinnier?”
“Why didn’t I get a pay raise as well?”
“She’ll never like me, I’m not successful enough.”
These thoughts drain us into thinking that we are not deserving of what we already have. In a world that is driven by heavy daily comparisons everywhere, be it on social media or work, we are constantly put in environments where we are exposed to other people and their achievements.
Tell yourself that the life you’re leading is not the same as theirs, that you have different goals and dreams, that what you’re doing in life to achieve your own pursuits are enough. You are enough.
5. Amor fati
Amor fati is a Latin phrase translated as “love of fate” or “love of one’s fate”. Developed by Friedrich Nietzsche and inspired by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, described by Nietzsche as:
“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.”
It is the notion of accepting your fate, understanding that everything happens for a purpose and that it is up to you to make this something positive and active. It is the concept of accepting life, with suffering and loss, together with happiness and joy, as necessary to living. Nobody, literally nobody, leads a so-called “perfect life”. Having down days are part and parcel of life. We need to experience feelings of sadness in order to appreciate pleasure and glee.
Amor fati entails that we have faith and put our trust in Life, and know that everything will work out in the end.
Start repeating these mantras every morning or formulate your own mantras in line with how you want to form your perception of life and stick to them.
Remember that your thoughts are what translates into reaction. Find that alignment between your internal musings and actions to live a more mindful and purposeful life.