Mindfulness Mantras and Gratitude Journals

Quick strategies for dealing with modern-day stress and anxiety:

We all suffer from this from time to time--even us grand folks and retirees. Yes, even those of us who have a record of life experience, and know that these moments of anxiousness or difficult days will pass. Today I'm writing for us and our younger friends who are going through times of stress.

I'm seeing more and more articles in the news and online about how to deal with this 21st century world. In my blog from May of this year, I wrote this and shared a quote:

"I saw this on a Facebook page I follow called, The Daily Positive: 'The world we live in IS changing faster than our minds have evolved to handle. And we are all getting to learn how to be more conscious and careful than ever before as to how we learn to manage our emotions and train our minds to handle all this energy it's taking on.' Tara Wagner" (See link at the end of this blog.)

Schools and even entire communities are meditating and doing yoga together to address this need!

There was an article in the Houston Chronicle recently sharing quick techniques to increase one's positivity now. I'll link the article below. In the meantime, I'll share two key points--using a mantra to get through the difficult time/moment, and writing a happiness journal.

Having a mantra is easy and most of you have been doing this for years. You either repeat a Bible verse, song lyric or just a phrase you heard from your mother or grandmother. I have a friend who came up with her own, "Right now, it's like this." She said by adding the "right now," it reminds her that nothing is permanent--even a difficult situation will pass.

So here we go. Here are some mantras I've gathered from friends, family and online. Maybe you can adopt one of these or come up with your own.

From my friend, Kathy.

For those of us "of a certain age," this is a good one.

Thanks to Simon and Garfunkel for this one.

My mother's favorite.

Kids use mantras too!

I've had my five-year-old grandson with me this summer, and of course that means watching some of the great children's programing on PBS. More than one show gives kids tips on dealing with various difficulties and gave examples of mantras that they could repeat when they are having a difficult time. I talked with my grandson about this and we tried to come up with mantras. For some reason, most of ours involved nursery rhymes, but hey! Whatever works!

This is a blog for grandparents, so my fellow grandparents, we can help our grands out with this.

Repeat several times.

You can't repeat this one several times, and stay mad. It makes everyone smile.

Besides a mantra, this is a good grounding technique too!

This one conjures up an image of a stream or peaceful brook and relaxes you.

Yes, from "Frozen," but it's a good one.

Happiness journals:

My friend Kathy, told me about this one several years ago. I consider myself a fairly happy and positive person, but even this small strategy helped me out. We've heard it time and time again, that in reality, the key to happiness is gratitude, Consequently, these are also called gratitude journals. Another oh-so-simple technique that can make such a big difference in your life. 

​Journal writing has always been very intimidating to me--huge pages to fill out with your thoughts and a diary-listing of your day's events--ugh! But this journal I could handle. I simply went out to buy the tiniest little book I could find. And the rule is simply write three to five things that brought you happiness on any given day. In the Houston Chronicle article that I've linked below, the author, Marci Sharif, says to even write very simple things that are giving you pleasure AT THE MOMENT. She gave the example of, "the keyboard that I'm typing on at this moment." When I first started keeping this journal, I tried not to repeat myself. I tried to look for different things on any given day. And it's just a LIST. You are not writing an essay.

To repeat, this is very small. About the size of my iPhone. One could even keep it in your purse.

Live and learn and pass it on!

I do this blog simply to share ideas. I never have come up with these things on my own. They are usually ideas that friends and family have shared with me, or something I've read about that I think others might like as well. Check out these articles and websites:

​www.thedailypositive.com/3-step-process-for-overcoming-anxiety/

​The article from the Houston Chronicle~
​
​www.houstonchronicle.com/lifestyle/renew-houston/wellness/feeling-matters/article/Here-are-2-ways-to-increase-your-positivity-now-14276864.php

​Parting thought~

"Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom." James Allen