There are many mantras which are used to help us quiet our minds and relieve stress. My mantra in Transcendental Meditation which I learned in 1975 in London has carried me through some rough times. Along the way I have studied other beliefs that suggest other mantras and I have used them periodically but always seem to come back to TM.
For a long time I thought that meditation was not was it was cracked up to be as far as it helping me relieve my stress. There were years when I didn’t meditate at all and thought that I didn’t need it. I felt I was strong enough to push through whatever it was I was fighting for and in that analogy I seem to have lost my way. Because in thinking I had to fight for anything worked completely against everything that meditation is about. The stillness of meditation teaches you not to fight but to let go. To let go of the fear, the anger and the doubt.
There have been many times, especially now, when the voices in my head have been so busy and so loud that the mantra keeps getting lost in the chatter. My mind will go to the craziest places and bring up bizarre circumstances that will have nothing to do with where I am right now or where I want to go. I will come out of my meditation more weary than when I started. No matter how much I breathe or how still I become the chatter does not want to stop. And then I realize there are much deeper rooted emotions than what I am willing to face.
I have been trying something different recently which is a series of guided meditations. I put on my head phones and try to drown out everything around me but the voice guiding me into the quiet that does exist if I just let it be. One particular mantra is I believe, I trust, I let go. I have found recently in the whirlwind of my work it helps me to focus and come back to the task at hand. To know that I’ve got this after years of preparing. That when the pressure is on I repeat my new found mantra and it seems to help me focus and guides me to the knowledge and talent I have if I just get out of my own way.
In writing this it brings me to tears for no particular reason. I feel a bit overwhelmed. Not in a bad way. In a way that feel surprisingly freeing. Aw, maybe because finally I’m beginning to truly feel that if I believe, I trust, I let go I am free.