Mantras: A Reflection on Week 1
One of the exercises that I do in my creative coaching sessions is to come up with a mantra that I repeat to myself as much as I can throughout the week. Everyday, I spend some time in the morning building intentions around that mantra and then reflect on it at the end of the day.
My mantra for my first week was: “I Know the Answer is Here.” This was based on the fact that the reason that I embarked on this creative coaching journey was because I knew I had the answers to the problems I was facing, I just needed someone to help me organize and give me tools to help me clear my head and find them.
There isn’t any formula around how I write about my intentions or reflections. At first, I found it somewhat difficult. I definitely had a few moments of, what the hell does an Intention around “I know the answer is here.” really even mean?! But sometimes, you just have to go with it. I just started writing and it came to me. Sometimes they come in the form of concrete actions other times, just a general approach to my day, or sometimes just pure rambling of almost utter nonsense. But it feels good nonetheless, to just get my thoughts out there.
A gem from this past week was my intention for the last day of the mantra “I Know the Answer is Here” and I felt a little surge of excitement coupled with a big helping of humble pie, when I wrote it – and, yes, I’m going to quote myself:
“I intend to be decisive and focused. I intend to not be overwhelmed by how things initially appear and to not feel as I’ve wasted my time or others but to see that everything is a learning process. I intend to view situations and experiences as a way of growing rather than as a reflection of my shortcoming. I intend to do what I haven’t the past few days and address issues that I’ve put off in fear. I intend to continue feeding my sense of lightness when approaching roadblocks and seeing contrary solutions to my own as ways of learning and listening. Sometimes realizing that I don’t have all the answers, is an answer in itself. I do have the answers in the sense that it is within my capacity to find the answer, but I don’t have to be the one that supplies them all them time.”
This particular intention was very centered around work, but I find that there is a lot of overlap in my approach to work and life. Which makes sense because I’m a creative in my day job, and I can’t separate that creative aspect from my personal life. But not only that, a lot of my creative coaching sessions are not only directing me in how I approach my work at my day job, but how that job itself fits into the life I’m building for the future. It’s all connected.
From here on out, I plan on sharing any Intentions and Reflections in this space. I’m sure you probably don’t care about my intentions to clean the bathroom sink, so I’ll try and spare you some of those mundane details!
{Photo I took of Q + E in our garden, taken this summer}
xo,
c.
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