Will you make this your mantra this Christmas season?

Firstly, let’s get clear about what ‘mantra’ means. Its original meaning goes back to the Vedic tradition in India. It means ‘a sacred utterance’.

In the West, we use the word ‘mantra’ both reverently and derrogatively.

For instance, in corporate culture, the word ‘mantra’ is used to refer to something that is said repetitively and often without true conviction. People who are disenchanted with an organization may cynically refer to so-called ‘corporate motivational BS’ as a mantra!

I can tell you’re familiar with this… :)

Still, the original meaning and intent of a mantra is to serve as doorway to higher consciousness. And it is in our state of higher consciousness that we are most in tune with our natural, inner happiness.

Neuroscience informs us that mantras repeated silently activate the limbic association area in the brain which is responsible for thought, learning, perception and emotion.

Just to give you an example of how powerful and instantly effective this can be, I’m going to share one of my dead-easy relaxation techniques using the word ‘softly’.

If you simply sit quietly, take a few gentle and deep breaths, and hold the word ‘softly’ in your mind, you’ll notice a great sense of ease and flow happening right through you.

If you’ve had aches and pains, even chronic ones, practicing this can give you instantaneous relief. There is no need to (in fact, you mustn’t) manipulate your body in any way.

A variation of this can be used when you are doing therapeutic exercise. In this case, as you move, you hold the sense of ‘softly’ or ‘softness’ in your mind.

You’ll find that much of the resistance to movement dissipates and movement is a lot less painful and much more fluid.

Okay, so that was just to show you how the use of a simple word can have a very powerful effect on your mind-body continuum.

Let’s get back to inner happiness and making happiness your choice. How can we use the idea of a mantra to achieve happiness?

Let’s first ask ourselves a few questions:

Do I actively think about happiness?
Am I generally so busy doing what I think will help me achieve happiness that I’ve actually forgotten why I’m doing it?
Do I believe that happiness is something that I must strive for?
Do I believe that happiness is my natural state, that state that lies underneath my conditioning into fear, anger, distrust, guilt etc?

You see, your answers to these questions will determine how willing you are to turn this statement ‘Happiness is my choice’ into a mantra that you will feel the effects of and that will guide all your thinking, speaking, feeling and acting.

As I said in a previous post, many people will readily declare that ‘happiness is a choice’ but they say it without conviction.

Perhaps when you are ready to say ‘Happiness is my choice”, perhaps then, you can make it your ‘mantra’.

Christmas is a time when emotions run wild and stress levels can soar – so much to do, so many people to think about, so much money and time to (have to) spend…

If you choose to make happiness your choice, how will all this be different? Reflect on that for a while.

Now, if you choose to make ‘Happiness is my choice’ your mantra, I suggest you do so ‘softly’. There’s no need to chant it loudly and aggressively as we tend to do when we are trying to convince ourselves and others about something! You know that’s only more BS.

So, how about starting today, now, Dec 1? Softly, with deep conviction…let all that limbic association light up with your ‘mantra’ –