Anxiety Mantras ⋆ Earth and Water

Anxiety is hard to understand if you don’t deal with it. So often, those of us who suffer from it hear things like “Just calm down”, “Chill out” or my personal favorite, “What do you have to worry about?”

What people don’t understand is that overthinking is only a very small part of anxiety. It’s more of a physical reaction than a result of overthinking. Sometimes we can tell you exactly what’s causing our attack, a lot of the time we can’t.

We may of simply had too much caffeine or sugar that day. The wind may of just blown on our face strangely. It may be a reaction to over stimulation if there’s a lot going on around us. The causes and reasons anxiety attacks arise come in many shapes and forms. You can read about that here.

Its a reaction from our nervous systems, which is separate from our minds but can be influenced by them.

Mind Over Matter with Anxiety Mantras

Even when it’s our body controlling our anxiety responses, our mind can be trained to influence calming effects. Mantras are one way we train our mind to help our body.

Words hold power and vibrations and can be used to convince our minds and bodies of anything we like. Mind over matter, if you will. Having mantras in your anxiety attack toolbox can help you to keep control of these feelings so that you’re riding them out instead of losing control to them. It’s not so much making the anxiety go away as it is being able to manage the attack gracefully until it passes.

Explore anxiety mantras and see which ones resonate with you. There are many but you really only need 2 or 3. It’s best to keep things simple and attach emotions to these couple of words or phrases. They’ll become stronger the more you use them.

How to Use Anxiety Mantras

When you notice an anxiety attack coming up, pull out one of your mantras. Repeat it in your head as you breathe deeply into your belly, holding it and then releasing fully before repeating.

Breathing, in and of itself, creates a calming effect and can even create a natural high which will, in most people, help in calming anxiety.

Scan through your body. Release any tension you may be holding onto, bring your shoulders back and down, sit or stand up straight. These specific body movements signal to your nervous system that everything is fine and to relax. Keep breathing and repeating your anxiety mantra(s) either in your head or out loud.

Place an emotion with your mantra. Just as when we have a song stuck in our head, we can’t get rid of the song but we can actively change it to another. Think of the emotion love, contentedness or happiness. Bring pictures into your mind that represent this emotion and try to fill your entire body with it.

Anxiety Mantras

• I am in control.
• The universe is on my side.
• Life has my best interest at heart.
• I trust the process.
• I trust that everything will work out.
• Everything has always worked out.
• It’s just a feeling.
• This will pass.
• I am strong enough.
• I am good enough.
• I can do this.
• I am capable.
• I will figure it out.
• I have plenty of time.
• I don’t have to do it all.
• It’s ok if not everything gets done.
• I am allowed to rest.
• I am allowed to put my own needs first.
• I should take care of myself so that I may better take care of others/things.
• Not everything has to be done today.
• It’s ok to take some time to myself.
• I can ask for help.
• I can say no.
• What needs to be done will be done.
• I am safe.
• I have all that I need.
• That which I need will find me.
• I follow the path of least resistance.
• Attachment causes my suffering. I release it.
• I allow this to be.
• I release all resistance.
• All struggles are trying to teach me something

Pick out the mantras that resonate with you and write them down. Only 2 or 3. Too many will freeze you up when the time comes. We want to keep it simple. Put them as reminders on your phone or notes on the fridge or bathroom mirror. Experiment with it and see what works best for you.

Use this as often as you can. It’ll become stronger each time, with practice.

If you need some help organizing your life and mind to create more space and peace, contact me here and we’ll get on a free organizational session. Anxiety breeds in overwhelm. Let’s take some of that away.

Originally published at https://earthandwater.co on July 9, 2019.