My Mantra and how it keeps me from flipping out

I needed to find a mantra. I have massive anxiety and I worry about everything. Literally everything. I don’t just worry about some individual thing or instance; I worry about the outcome of the worry. Playing the whole scenario out from the anxiety induced worry through the worst possible outcome. To how impossibly broken and out of control I would feel. This, my friends, is what my anxiety looks like. It is exhausting. I do this all day long, every day, with very little non-anxiety freak out moments in between.

Worrying about Worrying

It makes me tired just thinking about how exhausted I am from worrying about worrying. Holy shit it’s aggravating. I want to turn it off. I want to just get up and smash my hand on the big, red stop button. That button would open some door that I could walk through and be on the other side of that anxiety and worry. Would it be what life would look like without the constant worry? A room of calm and reason? I have no clue, but what I do know for sure is that I must get out of my head.

I read an article on Medium by Nick Wignall, 5 Mantras to Calm Your Anxious Mind. One of those mantras leaped out at me and smacked me upside my head. It said, “I am not my thoughts”, that’s it. I am not my thoughts. Nick says, “that worry becomes overwhelming when you over-identify with your thoughts”. That’s me! That’s what I do! I am not my thoughts.

Me and that Damn Bridge

I read this article while en route to Baton Rouge, LA. If you’ve ever been to Louisiana then you know that in order to cross the Mississippi River, it is a very high, very scary, very long bridge. For those of you unfamiliar with all my idiosyncrasies I am terrified of bridges. I cannot do it. It’s been 20 years since I drove over a bridge. However, I can be driven over a bridge, while staring intensely at Facebook with my head between my legs, but drive it? Nope. My husband was of course driving, and I was of course, as you can imagine flipping the fuck out in my head about having to cross this bridge…and I wasn’t even driving. Sounds like a good time for a mantra to me.

Mantra, I am Not My Thoughts

So, I said to my phone, well Nick let’s give this sucker a try. The bridge was looming, I could see it and my hands started getting tingly, I got all sweaty and my eye started twitching, it’s an ugly sight. In my head very forcefully I repeated, “I am not my thoughts. I am not my thoughts. I am not my thoughts.” Now my head was still between my legs but I the tingling went away, the sweating stopped, I took some big deep breaths and just kept repeating the mantra, “I am not my thoughts”. Finally, we were over the bridge, I wanted to fist pump the air but my husband would have asked, “What the hell is wrong with you?” so I just smiled to myself, turned up Drake on the radio and rode on.

I never thought five words could make an impact and honestly felt like mantras were not for me. But it freaking worked and has continued to help me stop my hamster wheel of freak out or at least slow it down some. A mantra can help recenter you when you are anxious or nervous or be the thing you repeat to yourself when you’re walking out the door because you know you’re going to kick ass today.

Finding your mantra is a very personal journey and you can’t always grab one out of an article or book. It must mean something to you, be powerful for you and make a difference in your journey. I was lucky enough to have source energy lead me to that article, to Nick whom I’ve never met and will probably think I’m a wacko and to his words, “I am not my thoughts”. Find your mantra and repeat it with me.