Warning: Naughty language ahead! 

Life is a mixed bag. Unexpected and unfortunate circumstances periodically occur. We can’t stop it, we can’t avoid it, and we can’t hide from it.

But we can embrace it.

No matter how “conscious” we might be, how strong we are, how self-empowered we’ve become or how enlightened we think we are, we’re still a human being with human emotions and feelings.

Sadness or sorrow are simply inevitable at times, even if they are just tiny little speed bumps on our road of reverence.

If we accept this, we can learn to respond to it in an efficient and effective way.

So hold onto your seat—the following twelve mantras are invaluable for when we don’t feel that great, because they remind us of who we really are and what we really have.

1. F*ck happiness. Right now, I want contentment.

As described above, we can’t avoid feeling sad at times. Ironically, we might be happy about several things and sad about others at the same time.

Both are temporary. Both are fleeting.

But we can be permanently content. Yes, that’s right, we can be content with everything in our life, even with our sadness. If we always find a way to be okay with what we’re experiencing, then we’re always ensuring that we’re at peace.

2. I own the way that I think and feel.

After all is said and done, after our circumstances and the people in them have impacted us in a certain way, we are the ones who own our thoughts and feelings. Therefore, we need to take responsibility for them.

If we don’t like the way we’re treating ourselves, including the way that we think and feel, then we can change it. That’s how much power we have.

3. There’s someone else having a rougher time than me.

One of the philosophies that got me out of my teenage depression was feeling grateful that I wasn’t living a life immersed in war, poverty, starvation, genocide, disease or an array of other violent circumstances.

I used to think to myself, “Someone else has it way harder than I do.” This understanding meant I had a context to embrace my own suffering, so over time I learned to just melt it away with positive and realistic thinking. My compassion for those people, as well as for myself, partly facilitated this.

4. Feel my feelings and then let them go.

Yes, we own our feelings. There’s no point suppressing them—or running from them, either—because that will only increase the disharmonious vibrations that we bring to our own lives.

We need to properly feel and understand them so that we can process them in the context of our philosophies and set them free.

Why do we feel sad? What is their context in the bigger picture? How do we really want to feel? And now we’re done.

5. Life is a roller-coaster of highs and lows.

The emotional roller-coaster of life is integral to our humanness. Accept it. Embrace it. If we hit a low, we can ensure that it isn’t as low and won’t last for as long if we simply see it for what it is.

Once again, reminding ourselves of the ride can remind us to be content with it. We can’t escape it, but we can manage it in a healthy and functional way.

6. What can I learn from this experience.

It doesn’t matter if an experience was something we wanted or something we didn’t, it was always what we needed. Why? Because we can learn from it.

If we have a philosophical outlook that enables this, we’re good to go. It could be a spiritual belief, such as, “I’m meant to be going through this to learn,” or a practical belief, such as, “There are lessons to learn from this.”

Either way, if we look for the lessons in our experience, we’ll find them, because they’re always there.

7. Time will help me understand my experience better.

Retrospect is an empowering tool. We might not understand why we are having a particular experience when we’re having it, but if we are open to embracing it as a journey of empowerment, then we can contextualize and process it later on.

Think about how many times we’ve had an undesirable experience, but then ended up with something great from it. For example, we might have had a tragic breakup which resulted with meeting the love of our life. Therefore, what we perceive as negative right now might just be the catalyst for putting us in the right place at the right time for what we truly want and need.

In addition, sometimes we won’t understand why we went through something, and that’s okay too, because we’re not always conscious or sharp enough to “get it.” If this occurs, just put it in the mystery box and get on with the magic of life.

8. Life is beautiful and magical.

Think about the context that we find ourselves in. It’s ridiculously beautiful—all the nature of our planet and the universe itself. Life is also a magical experience with all its innate mystery and adventure.

If we remind ourselves of how beautiful and magical our life really is, we’ll be hard-pressed in not feeling good again soon. It’s a simple formula to give us the kick-in-the-ass that we need.

9. My energy has a plan for me.

No matter if we’re scientifically-inclined, spiritually-inclined, or both, we know that we are an electro-magnetic being in an electro-magnetic universe radiating our pulse and attracting vibrations back.

On a very primordial level, we have an energetic blueprint. Some people call this the soul. Regardless, it has its own destiny, or what it needs to naturally experience, so that it can continue to refine and expand itself. Once our ego accepts this, it can accept any experience that our blueprint demands of us.

On a more superficial level, what has our subconscious attracted? No matter how much we “consciously” want something, if our subconscious is attracting something different, it’s going to win because it’s way more powerful. That’s why meditation is so effective at healing and developing ourselves, because we can make parts of our subconscious mind “conscious,” and therefore redesign and rewire it.

So, if we’ve attracted something undesirable, then we need to accept it as an energetic or subconscious reflection. We always have a plan for ourselves, which is to face ourselves.

With this wisdom our ego can heal and grow.

10. What doesn’t kill me is an “opportunity” to make me stronger.

What doesn’t kill us does not make us stronger. Think about the trauma that all of us go through to differing degrees and the ongoing negative impact it has on some people’s lives.

Therefore, our challenging experiences are an opportunity to make us stronger. Not everybody responds to similar experiences in the same way, which means that we have the choice, the power, to respond as we wish.

With that in mind, we can turn our suffering into strength if we choose to.

11. My existence is much greater than this negative feeling.

We’re an expression of energy in an interconnected cauldron of it. We’re learning and playing and growing and experiencing. We’re born with love within us, which means that the greatest gift is presence.

There’s so much to do and so much to see. What excitement and adventure will we have today? There’s also an infinite amount of ways that we can expand our mind and heart.

Therefore, our existence is much greater than a negative feeling than we fleetingly have, so feel it and then let that shit go.

12. Have a f*cking crack at life, (insert your name here).

How long do we want to feel this way? Is there another way that we’d prefer to feel? Is feeling like this for too long a waste of our time? Is there something else we could be doing for ourselves?

Do we want to take better care of ourselves or not? Are we lazy with who we are or do we want to heal and grow ourselves? What is it that we really want? What about what we really need?

What can we do this very moment to have a f*cking crack at life?

Author: Phil Watt

Editor: Emily Bartran

Photo: Sarah Buckley/Flickr

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