from the Submissive Guide Newsletter 4/20/13
Developing your own personal mantra is a path to peace and achievement. You can then use your mantra whenever you feel stressed or out of focus with your submission. I use my mantra on a daily basis to keep my mindset on my Dominant and the behavior he has trained in me.
What is a Personal Mantra?
Personal mantras are affirmations that we use to change aspects of our lives. Dating back thousands of years, mantras are traditionally syllables and poems in the Sanskrit language created through a complex numerical system based on date and time of birth, as well as the numeric value of your name. Today, mantras are more widely recognized as any statement that affirms the way we want to live our lives.
A mantra is a building and correctional tool for our brains. As we chant or say the mantra we are effecting change in our lives. The brain is a powerful tool for change. If we can voice our hopes and dreams for the future we can make that change happen without even realizing it. I've talked about this before in the Solo Coaching Series that there is a part of the brain called the amygdala that stores lifetime memories of your negative experiences and emotions.
It also is the part of the brain that works towards actualizing your dreams. I’m sure that you are familiar with the phrase from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” If you think you will have good things happen then your amygdala subconsciously works towards that end. If you think negatively, then it can lead you that way also.
For a personal mantra to work, it has to be positive. It has to reaffirm your choices in life and establish a realistic goal you can accomplish or a life dream fulfilled.
How to Create a Mantra
- Make a list of three things that you want to change in your life. Use the phrase, “I am.” For example, “I am lazy” or “I am stuck.”
- Next to each of the three things, write down the opposite phrase. “I am productive” and “I am moving forward” work for the examples from above.
- Now string them together in an affirmative revelation in any order that feels good to you. For the example, “I am a productive submissive consciously moving forward in my submission.”
- Type or handwrite your phrase on an index card or note card. Place it somewhere you will see it throughout your day. You can tape it to your bathroom mirror, computer keyboard or refrigerator door. Repeat it to yourself several times throughout the day, silently or aloud. Make it a habit--first thing in the morning, before you go to bed and anytime you find yourself focusing on the very things your mantra is intended to change.
- Use this mantra for as long as it feels helpful. At any time you can go through steps 1 through 4 and create a new mantra to change other aspects of your life.
If you repeat your mantra enough that it becomes a subconscious litany (your mind is wandering while you say it) then you are embedding it in your mind and you can effect change.
My personal mantra has served me well and continues to remind me of my choices and my happiness in them; “I choose to live my life in service and submission to Master.” For the longest time, I questioned just how submissive I was and that perhaps it was just a new thing and a fad that would fade and I’d be lost again. Declaring that I've made a choice to live this way has helped me feel joy when I’m stressed, lonely or struggling with a difficult day. I chant it when I make his coffee before I go to bed and I find myself just thinking it whenever - without much thought about it.
If any positive quotes or sayings resonate deeply with you, they can be personal mantras, too.
