Five Mantras for Embracing Struggle

Struggle. From the moment we take our first breaths, we experience it. The crazy part? It never ends. That seems daunting and obvious but stay with me here! There are ways to relax into whatever struggle you are experiencing. I repeat, there are ways to relax into whatever you are going through right now. A big part of that is a mental shift.

Mantras can play a huge role in the 180 degree mentality turn we are referring to. We will get to those in a second. But first. I need to remind you of a story.

Remember watching the butterfly cocoon in science class growing up? The butterfly inside fighting that straight-jacket-like cocoon needed the struggle you were seeing. The story below talks about a little boy who just couldn’t handle it! See what happens {skip ahead if you’ve read this one before):

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“There was a little boy who loved caterpillars. One day he found one, took him home and made a home for him. He watched this caterpillar everyday making sure he had plenty of food & water.

One day the caterpillar started creating a cocoon…here he would go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly. This was so exciting, the little boy couldn’t wait to see the butterfly!

One day it happened, a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come out. The little boy was so excited! But then he noticed the butterfly was struggling so hard to get out and it looked like the butterfly wasn’t going to be able to break free!

The little boy was so worried for the butterfly that he decided he had to help. He quickly got a pair of scissors and snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged!

But the butterfly had a swollen body and small shriveled wings. The little boy sat and watched the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, get bigger and expand to support the swollen body.

But it never happened!

The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.

It never was able to fly…”

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Did you catch the ending? The butterfly who didn’t experience the struggle spent the rest of its life crawling around with shriveled wings.

Scientifically speaking, butterflies have a liquid in the core of their body. As they struggle to get out of the cocoon that liquid is pushed into the veins in the wings where it hardens and becomes strong. If the butterfly doesn’t push and pull and fight to get out of the cocoon, his wings won’t be strong enough to fly, and the butterfly dies.

Read that again!

If the butterfly doesn’t push and pull and fight to get out of the cocoon, his wings won’t be strong enough fly, and the butterfly dies.

Now let’s look at you.

No matter what you’re struggling with right now, it truly is your opportunity to grow. It is your gift. Just like the butterfly, you need it to gain the strength to fly. Remind yourself that you are not suffocating. Your struggle with x, y, z, does not mean you won’t ever get into Stanford or whatever other natural thought might be coming to your head. In fact, it might actually be the very opposite.

So what can you do to embrace the struggle?

A good place to start is mantras.

There are studies that show mantras can change the chemistry in your brain and help give your mind focus. Herbert Benson, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, experimented with subjects repeating Sanskrit mantras as well as nonreligious words, such as “one.” He’s found that regardless of what the practitioner repeats, the word or phrase has nearly the same effects: relaxation and the ability to better cope with life’s unexpected stressors. (Yoga Journal)

These five mantras below are a great start to train your brain to embrace struggle. Take five minutes to close your eyes and repeat these to yourself. The next time you are walking through fire during a hard workout, test, or moment, try it.