What’s your mantra

Most of us that deal with mental health issues I’ve noticed have a mantra. We have quotes, phrases, etc we keep in our heads. We also find certain things that become a mantra in certain situations and sometimes each situation has a mantra.

So what’s your mantra? Even if you don’t deal with mental health do you have a mantra? Do you have something that motivates you, lifts you at times of struggle, or etc. I’ve talked to so many people that have at least one mantra they use, even if they don’t realize it is their mantra. I think it is at least important to have something like a mantra that grounds us.

Mantras to me are just as important as music when dealing with mental health issues especially. They are a phrase that you repeat frequently to help basically help cope. My father that didn’t really understand depression or any of the mental health issues. Even he had a mantra when he got older, something to remind him how to cope with being old as he had heart disease then copd. His mantra became “Just gotta be tough”, just something simple that he would repeat a lot. So much so that I think of it sometimes when I’m struggling, but that isn’t my mantra just I think of what would dad say and i think “Just gotta be tough”.

So I’ve asked what your mantra is but what about mine? Well I have a few but I have two that are probably strongest at least recently. Though both have been a mantra of mine for a long time but sometimes my mantras go on rotation. 🙂 So my current ones are “I choose the wrench” and then also “Fall seven, get up eight”. Both these help give me focus, help ground me and remind myself of some essential element in me that won’t give up.

So let’s start with the “I choose the wrench”. This phrase actually references Good Will Hunting, excellent movie that if you haven’t seen, I highly recommend. Though it comes from a scene that they are talking about abuse and Will says his step dad just set out a belt, stick or a wrench and say choose. Robin Williams character says he has to go for the belt. Will responds, no I choose the wrench. Why? because fuck him. For me, choose the wrench as a mantra is so many facets of meaning for me, but we’ll go with the most basic of it without going into my own f’d up past. So what it means to me is this, when I say I choose the wrench, I mean fuck this, fuck this depression, fuck this situation, fuck them. It means I’m fucking stronger than anything you throw at me and I’ll choose the hardest choice if that is what it takes but also because fuck whatever it is. Whatever it is doesn’t get to win, it doesn’t get superiority over me, it won’t get the satisfaction of seeing me be weak, because fuck them or fuck it. So I choose the wrench.

My other mantra is “Fall seven, get up eight”. I don’t know if you know the reference but it references a zen proverb. It means no matter how many times we fall, we get up or stand one that many times plus one. Meaning If I fall a hundred times I get up a hundred and one. That I never let myself stay on the ground, sometimes standing back up takes awhile but I still will stand up because I will always get up one more time. I refuse to fail. This mantra I use a lot when I’m heavy depression or when I keep feeling like I’m failing. It’s pretty simple kind of similar to the other one I guess, except this is I won’t let my failure rule me or keep me down.

So writing about the last one reminded me of one other mantra I use. “what is the lesson?” I’ve had this all of my life. Everytime I fail, struggle, or don’t hit the mark. I ask myself “what is the lesson?”. Everytime life hands me shit that I have to deal with, I ask myself “what is the lesson?”. This reminds me to be curious, to ask questions, to always look for the lesson in whatever is handed me. Everything has a lesson, it’s just up to me to figure out what the lesson is for me. I ask myself when I fail “what is the lesson?” even when I win I still ask myself “what is the lesson?” because there are lessons also in winning.

So again what is your mantra? what gets you through something? do you have different mantras for things? do you use mantras that your parents gave you? Do you have mantras that are what pop in your head as what someone you looked up to would use when you think of what would they say? Just something to think about. This was a shorter blog, just was spinning around my head because I was thinking how a lot this year especially I have the “I choose the wrench” in my head and then it expanded to that thought of how almost everyone I’ve met has some kind of mantra.