Mantras that acknowledge both life’s triumphs and life’s messiness can be powerful tools to facilitate this inner transformation. Here are six that I have learned over the years and employ regularly: This was an important moment for me. This past fall, I lost five people I love within six weeks—all but one of the five were very young, and the deaths were tragic. Suffice it to say, everything in me wanted to resist them. This mantra helped me heal my grieving heart. When life hurts, soften into the pain. Just like a contraction, grief or heartbreak lasts about 90 seconds, and then you get a reprieve before the next wave hits. You feel it all the way, and it heals and awakens you—you get broken open and your capacity to love expands. There’s a certain humility in its words. The phrase suggests that we can’t possibly understand the mysteries of life, and that’s OK. I was always asking Rachel “how” and “why,” but Rachel said, “Perhaps how and why are the booby prize.” I was stunned silent. When you can simply “be curious,” you invoke a sort of childlike innocence—a humble willingness to not know. I call upon this mantra every time I feel my heart beat a little too fast because the Universe just rocked my world with yet another unapologetic show of magic. And then, as a curious child, I can simply be grateful for the magic that’s unfolding all around me and marvel in wonder at it all. Choose to simply cave early. Breathe through it and just say no. Learn the soul lesson without putting your heart through the ringer. You might cave early when you know it’s time to quit your job, cave early in a health crisis, or cave early when you’re dealing with conflict with your family. The key is not to cave to your fear but to your intuition. Fear might say, “Cave early because this is too risky.” This has a different vibration than intuition, which says, “You have free will, so go ahead if you must, but this is going to hurt, and there may be side effects.”
