Finding the Mantra for within...

I was talking candidly with a friend the other day when I mentioned to him that my recent hiatus recovering from surgery caused me to think quite deeply about life and about the things I want, the things I dont and the focus values I have.

My friend quipped; "you having a midlife crisis or something?" I laughed. I had not looked at anything in that way at all, but again realised that growth and understanding are at different levels for each of us. We inherently see things differently because of a number of influences. I smiled and let his words bounce around the internal recesses of my mind.

That led me to think about a few more things that I tell myself when things aren't going the way i imagine or are simply not going at all. I am naturally quite a positive person I would think, and yet found that when the chips are really down or I am "up against the wall" that internally I just get stressed and bothered and have in the past felt like there was no way out of the situation I found myself in.

I was reading an article by Katherine Russell Rich where she mentioned that;

The mind can't distinguish between the thought of a catastrophe and the fact of a catastrophe. It reacts to both with stress. You'll think, What if I can't pay the rent? and even if you're just imagining the scenario, your body produces stress hormones."

I have read an article from a coach that said one of the training methods that he employed for elite athletes was lying them down and wiring them up to an ECG with their eyes closed and then step by step, breath by breath, stroke by stroke, pace by pace would vocally step the athletes through the race or the game with startling results. He also noted that their heart rate rose identically to the level as though the athlete was in fact in the race, or game concluding and confirming Katherine's statement, that the mind does not know the difference between real or imagined stimulus. Amazing.

So, in line with Katherine's article, suggesting that in those times of stress and difficulty, that we should look for internal sayings or statements, mantras if you will to help us clarify and improve the situation or our perception of it at least I continued on.

I ended up finding meaning in two mantras, one my friend Delphine's: There is a solution, a miraculous revelation for someone who's moaned "Maaaan!" for years. Computer won't print? There's a solution if you open the brochure that came with the thing. My other mantra came from a linguist, Alton Becker, a former Fulbright scholar who speaks five Asian languages. "A Vedantist uncle," he wrote, "heard me grumping about something and said, Remember, everyone's doing their best all the time." If it had come from anyone but Becker, I'd have dismissed it as a little too simple, but he's an extraordinary thinker. I tried it and found my life shifting into a much sweeter realm. People in this new place were softer, better intentioned. And even when they weren't, I was—which ultimately produced the same effect.

I tried a bigger challenge. A friendship had inexplicably ended. I'd caught the friend, several times, making cutting remarks about me and e-mailed to ask what gives. He'd fired back an angry retort. That did it. I stewed. But I'd only ever been nice to that guy became my indignant mantra. Then I substituted the new one: "Guy did the best he could," I muttered—and was instantly freed from the tangle of emotion—though maybe not in the gentle, evolved way Becker's uncle intended. Hell, I immediately thought, if that's his best, who needs it? His best was more like the worst! And I was out of there. Delphine was right. There was a solution.

Call them mantras, mind tools. They're the soothing, energizing, sanity-restoring phrases that can get you through any situation.

A wonderful artist called Robyn Caughlan painted a picture of me, in fact has painted two pictures of me and on one of them she painted the words Have Faith. I asked her what the significance was and why she placed it on the painting for me. She said that she has perceived that I will achieve my dreams, but sensed, without me saying so, that I could lose hope sometimes and if I did, to look at the painting. I was very humbled. She also painted an aboriginal "roots" style painting for me which is influenced heavily but what Robyn saw for my life and even the texture of the serpent are her hand prints.I am again humbled at such warmth and generosity of heart and soul that it took to create these artworks for me so selflessly.





I think the biggest and most amazing thing for me is, that with so many people who believe in me, and my dreams, that I owe it to myself and my dreams to continue to Have faith...and i will and do.

In recent times when I have tried to share my positive thoughts and encouragement to people to think differently of the situation they might find themselves in, my thoughts and words are met with derision and veiled ridicule, "As you think, so shall you be," the philosopher William James once said and so I believe it is true. It is not an easy thing at all to accomplish I admit. I am still trying to do this more and more and I have been so grateful for the thoughts and the quiet moments that have led me to see with the level of experience I now see.

The mantras that Katherine suggested here are wonderful. I will also add one that therapist Francis Clifton made and is nearly as nuanced as a koan: Life is a mystery to be lived, not a puzzle to be solved. I love that one!


Katherine Russell Rich is the author of Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in Another Language, her book about the year she spent in India learning Hindi.