Customize your own affirmations and mantras

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Would you love to create your own custom mantras and affirmations that you can feed into your mind to feel happier, more relaxed, more joyful? In this session, we're going to design special affirmations just for you. I'm going to share with you exactly how to do it with three different methods, and you can decide which one works for you. And then you can start thinking these special mantras that you're creating every day and noticing how much better you feel. So welcome, welcome, welcome to the podcast. Hello, Shireen. [00:00:36] Speaker B: Hello, Michael. [00:00:37] Speaker A: You have lots of powerful thoughts, don't you? [00:00:40] Speaker B: Thank you for that blessing. Yes, I will take it. I. Yes, I will take that as a blessing and not try to contradict it. [00:00:52] Speaker A: No, exactly. So our mind affects everything in our life, and a lot of people, you know, they try and change their thoughts, but not quite sure what to do with it. You know, I remember when I started meditation, I. I just remember just sitting there on a chair, and I was like, what am I supposed to be doing? Like, what am I doing? Exactly. And no one had really told me what to do, so I was just sitting there noticing how crazy my thoughts were. And so over the last, you know, 20, 30 years, I've really looked into what's going on in the mind. What are the thoughts that have an effect on us, and what thoughts actually make a difference and what thoughts don't make a difference. And what I've realized is that each person has a unique constitution, a unique background, a unique reference points and worldview. And different words mean different things to different people in different situations. You can't just get given a mantra like Om Namah Shivaya or like Kareem Kareem or whatever it is, Right? These different mantras people get given, it should be something that is custom for you based on what you want to feel and also based on your experience of different words. Because certain words, certain phrases, certain ways saying things have an effect on us emotionally and spiritually, whereas something almost the same isn't going to work for us. Right? So we're going to talk about different ways of having mantras. So I first of all want you to get a pen and paper so you can start thinking about this. We're going to go through this fairly quickly, and you can practice it much more on your own. So the first thing to understand is that there's three, three ways of doing affirmations or mantras. The first one, most common one, is I am something. For example, I am peace. I am an eternal being. I am infinite joy. I've attained everything, right? I. And. And we. We need to have a thought that is an eternal thought. Do you want to talk about why that's important, Shireen? Why do we need eternal thoughts? [00:03:03] Speaker B: Because that's the key, really. The key to going beyond just the physical limited world. Because if you're focused on the physical limited world, let's say if you think I'm rich, right? I mean, you could be spiritually rich and physically rich, but whatever. If you just focus on just very limited things, then there is. You are basing your eternal happiness or imperishable happiness on very limited things. And so elevated thoughts are very important, which are eternal thoughts are very, very important to have an elevated feeling. Have an imperishable feeling. [00:03:47] Speaker A: That's right. So the first type of affirmation mantras, I'm calling them affirmation mantras because they're affirmations and mantras together in the sense that you're having. You're affirming something and you're doing it repeatedly. The first kind is something along the lines of, I am an eternal soul is, of course, one of the best ones. I have an eternal soul. That. That's enough, right? You could leave it here and just practice that, and you'd be good to go for quite some time. But we also want to add something like I am a peaceful soul, or I am a happy soul, or I'm a joyful being, because then there's a. There's a flavor to it. There's a feeling behind it as well. And so what I recommend people do is they think what is. What is a sort of feeling or a state of consciousness that you'd like to develop more and more and start with that. Because, for example, if you're already quite happy anyway, but you need more peace in your life, then you might as well think I'm. I'm peaceful because you're developing something that you want to develop. And keep in mind that when you start doing these practices, they generally start to change a little bit as you do them. So as you go through this process, don't get attached and think, I said I was going to think I'm a peaceful soul. Now I'm thinking I'm a happy soul. And that's not right. And it shouldn't be like this, and I failed and everything's terrible, right? You. You don't want to do that. You want to say, it's fine, don't worry about it. You can be a peaceful soul and then become a happy soul. It's Totally fine. Right. So I want you just to write down and then we'll do a little practice. A. A type of feeling that you'd like to have. So for example, would you like to be more relaxed, more happy, more peaceful, blissful, joyful, loving, compassionate, content. Just start with one. One thing. So for example, I am content. Either soul, I'm content or I am peaceful. And that's a good starting place. I am this being who is feeling this. Let. Let's just start with I am peaceful. I'm a peaceful soul. Because it's very basic. And let's take a moment now just to think that in our head 10 times and also imagine yourself as a shining star. [00:06:13] Speaker B: What you're saying, right, about thinking yourself as a shiny star is very important. It's not just that you are repeating a sound in your head, but you're coming into the awareness of that for the affirmation to work. Both are important. The affirmation is important and the awareness of the affirmation is important. [00:06:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it goes from thoughts to awareness to experience and then embodiment. Right. But we start with. We want to get as close to awareness as we can. Then we go into the experience of it. We're just going to do this just for. For a minute, just as 10 times or as many as we can do in a short. This little practice here. So just. You can keep your eyes open or you can close them. Imagine you're this shining, beautiful, eternal being. And think in your mind, I am a peaceful soul. I am a peaceful soul. And just keep that going in your mind slowly but with feeling. I am a peaceful soul. Just do a few more. And congratulations. So you. Now you want to give yourself a round of applause because you know, having any good thoughts is worthy of praise really. Because most time the mind just goes on and on and on on its own little r. Repetitive dance repeating the same various thoughts and images over and over again, driving us crazy. So th. This is a very, very simple practice that the more we do it, the better. What do you think is a good aim to have sh Someone who wants to go for this in terms of like their amount of practice for these sorts of things [00:09:03] Speaker B: in a day, you mean? [00:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:07] Speaker B: I heard we have about 60,000 thoughts a day. I didn't count, but that's what I heard. And I also heard that 90, 95% of the thoughts we have yesterday, we have today that we keep repeating the same thoughts. Right. If I'm having waste thoughts, you know I'm not good. Or you Know, why is the world this way or whatever, right. If I keep repeating those waste thoughts, then my life will be accordingly. Because I'm having waste thoughts. If I have elevated thoughts, then my life will be accordingly, eternal thoughts, then my life will be accordingly. And so to counteract, right, to counteract this, 94% of the thoughts you had yesterday, you're going to have today and you're having 8,60,000 thoughts. I would say you would need to have a minimum of a thousand thoughts to make a dent in your life. [00:10:13] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not that many, is it? A thousand thoughts, [00:10:16] Speaker B: you have to make a dent in your life, otherwise you won't make a dent in your life because 95% of the time you're thinking the same old nonsense from yesterday. [00:10:26] Speaker A: Exactly. And, and it's nicer to like, I'm a happy soul, I'm a joyful being. Just to have it floating around while you're walking around. Go for, you know, tidying up the house, driving the car. So we have lots of little moments when you wake up in the morning, when you go to sleep. These are all times to just fill the mind with something better. So you can start with something like that. I am peaceful soul. I am a happy being. I'm eternal. So this is an I am mantra. I am now, sometimes I am. Mantras actually cause conflict internally. Because let, for example, let's say you feel that you're actually pretty stressed out right now and you're worried about things. And then you start saying, I'm peaceful, I'm peaceful, I'm peaceful soul. That some part of you can easily say, hang on a minute, peaceful. Yeah. You're a fraud. Like, what do you mean? You're a peaceful soul. Look at, look at you. You're shaking. You can't think properly. Everything's a disaster. How can you. I'm a happy soul. You look at, you be depressed all the time. So, so it can easily be this resistance from the mind because you're saying, because you can see the difference, right? So to counterbalance that, there's two ways of doing it. One is to just do it more and until you overcome it, right. Which is the harder way, the easier way is to just get rid of the word I am and focus on the thing you want to experience. Because if you, if you want to experience, for example, infinite peace or constant joy or contentment, Right. If you just think about contentment, constantly content, constantly relaxed, constantly peaceful, it will have an effect on you because you're focused on it, right. You can Watch a movie. Not happening to you. Yeah. [00:12:31] Speaker B: There's another reason also. In the beginning of this episode, you asked me this question. Why is it that I need to have eternal thoughts? Because eternal thoughts are the truth about who you are. Let's say you're angry right now, and you are thinking, I'm a peaceful soul. And then you think, but I'm really upset. How can I think I'm a peaceful soul? I feel like a total imposter. But that's not true, because you as a soul are peace in your original nature. Anger is just something that's come over you. It's like you are a diamond, and the mud on the diamond is like anger. Anger is like the mud on the diamond. But you are this beautiful, beautiful diamond. And so you need to first understand that this is who you are and that anger is an external force that's just come into your life. And so every time you are affirming that I'm a peaceful soul, you're going back to your original nature. And that's the reason why it is so important to have eternal thoughts. Because eternal thoughts are the truth of who you are. Right. Even if you're angry temporarily right now, that's not who you are. You are a pure, peaceful soul to begin with. [00:14:00] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. We're affirming reality rather than these thousands of thoughts that are just. [00:14:07] Speaker B: And that is also the reason why it has to be eternal things. Because that's reality. Right? Because let's say I'm affirming something about my physical self that could change any moment, but because this is eternal, it doesn't change. [00:14:31] Speaker A: Yeah, you're looking at the before, during, and after death experience, you know, rather than just. Because even if you say, I am, I live in a beautiful place, which you might do now, but what happens if you go somewhere else? Then it's not true as soon as you leave the house, do you know? Unless you go somewhere else. So we. There's nothing wrong with affirming those things as well. Like I am wealthy or I'm creating abundance. And you know, those sorts of things are fine. But if you want to go deeper, it's better to think about something that has unlimited because it has more power behind it and it's more stable [00:15:06] Speaker B: and it's the reality of who you are. [00:15:10] Speaker A: Right. [00:15:10] Speaker B: That's the real you. [00:15:12] Speaker A: Ah, yeah. And so we, we have to reaffirm these things long enough to counterbalance all of the programming from our life, which goes back many, many lives in many cases. So that's the first one, I am eternal. I am an eternal being. Sometimes that's not working out, which is fine because of the resistance. So there's another way you can do it that gets you into the same sort of feeling without the resistance, and that is just to focus on the state itself that you want to experience rather than saying I am anything. And the interesting thing about this is that, for example, if you were to watch a movie, a scary movie, it's not happening to you personally because it's on screen, right. You're in your house, but you can feel disturbed, right? So we experience things all the time that aren't happening to us personally, Right. Just because we're noticing them [00:16:13] Speaker B: and it feels like it's really happening to you. [00:16:16] Speaker A: Yeah. It doesn't. Even [00:16:18] Speaker B: the. All of the physiological changes in you also act like it's happening to you. [00:16:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Like if you get. If you were to get. Go to the movie theater and get hooked up to all these different electro machines that the scientists have, and, you know, blood and the, the breath and the heart rate and all these things, you would see that it spikes and goes down. Spikes and goes down according to the movie. Right. So we experience this all the time in just looking at things. So if you focus on, for example, constant peace or eternal joy or infinite love, you'll feel more that way just by thinking about it, right? Just by holding that image, that energy. So one of my favorite is infinite peace and infinite bliss. I breathe it in, right? Infinite peace. So I imagine like God's light is coming in. Infinite peace, infinite bliss. And I just think that I'm not. I'm not thinking I am anything or God is anything. I'm just experiencing the state and I'm having a spiritual awareness behind it. But just doing that is a huge upgrade on thinking, what am I going to do today? Why is this thing happening? What about this? What about that? Right? Because my mind is on something expanded. Infinite love, infinite peace, right? This, the unlimited states of consciousness. So you can get rid of the I am and just think about these other things and it will actually shift your feelings significantly. And often it's easier and faster than the I am statements, at least at the beginning. So let's just practice that for a moment. We're going to think in just infinite peace, right? Eternal peace. How's about that? Eternal peace. Strangers, did you get your blessing? The word eternal peace good enough for you? [00:18:21] Speaker B: Yes, [00:18:22] Speaker A: as long as Shreen's happy with it. If infinite, it's probably not the right word, is it? But eternal Is okay, right, so we're going to go with that one. So let's just take a moment just to think, just for, for about 30 seconds. Just imagine eternal peace, the state of eternal peace. And they're just going to think about that and feel. Yay. So you can practice that or some version of it in your own way, in your own time. You can even use your breath, infinite peace. Then breathe out for a peace, then you're using or breathe out infinite love. So the reason I'm, I'm suggesting different things is because you might have different words like peace might not work for you, but deeply relaxed or bliss or joy. So we want to start with the things that touch our heart because then you get the, the kind of biggest bang for your buck, so to speak, because it's starting from a place of where you already have energy. And the last kind of mantras is my personal favorite. I mean they're all my favorite. But this is the most interesting one I think is I discovered this when I was in India one time doing what's called like a deep meditation, a bhatti, they call it being in a furnace. Right. And it was only like three hour session and he was outside in this special place and I remember sitting on the floor, right? There's loads of people together and I think it was like three hours, right? The first hour was great. And then after about an hour and a half or something, I started having this thought in my head. What, what is God's consciousness? What does it feel like? If I was inside God's mind, what would that feel like? Right? Because I'm trying to remember God. But I was, instead of saying I'm trying to remember God over there, what would it be like to be like God or what is God's consciousness actually like I was just thinking, I was just curious, right. And I remember having such a profound experience because it was a completely different approach, right. It's not. It's like getting straight to the end point and just by asking the question. Like for example, if you ask the question, what's the solution to this problem? Your mind will start thinking about solutions. If you asked, why am I such a victim? Why does things always go bad for me in my life? Then you'll get an answer to that, right? [00:21:53] Speaker B: Yes. Actually questions are very, very powerful. Very powerful. Because the right questions could change your life. [00:22:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Questions are. Anytime you ask a question, your subconscious mind, which is a solution machine, it's like a goal seeking machine goes on a mission. Where are my keys? Where did I last see my keys. It's gonna go. Where are they? Where are they? Let me ask. St. Anthony. St. Anthony will tell us where they are. But do you know what I mean? So there's. [00:22:26] Speaker B: There's [00:22:27] Speaker A: gonna be. [00:22:27] Speaker B: Always works. [00:22:29] Speaker A: St. Anthony always works. I even have a special handkerchief here from St. Anthony relic. Apparently that's going to help me out. But anyway this [00:22:38] Speaker B: what I call. I mean not to go off on it. [00:22:40] Speaker A: Well I don't need to. I've. We've got. Nothing has been lost to here. But St. Anthony comes to the rescue. But this is a whole nother session about St. Anthony's magical finding powers. You could even ask what does St. Anthony think about where this thing is? Right. And you'll find the answer. So whatever question we ask, we get the answer to that question. Why is it raining? Why is it always running? Why is it too hot? Why is it too cold? Why does so and so not like me? Whatever question we have, we're going to get an answer to it. So if you ask. How does it feel to be completely relaxed? If I really was a spiritual being, how would I feel differently? If I really believed I was an eternal soul and I was never going to die, how would I feel? Oh, I see different. [00:23:31] Speaker B: That's a very beautiful question actually. How does it feel to an eternal soul? [00:23:39] Speaker A: Yeah. How does it feel to be an eternal soul? How does it feel to be completely content? How does it feel to have no bad karma left over? Right. Cleared it all? What would it feel like when all the karma is completely cleared? So this, I think these are the best ones because it's forcing in a nice way and in gentle way you to allow yourself to enter into a. A new reality in a sort of magical way really. How does it feel to be completely free? How would I. And this [00:24:28] Speaker B: question. What would freedom look like? Right. What does freedom look like for me? Not just oh, I can do whatever I want, but real freedom. [00:24:44] Speaker A: Yeah. So this worth writing these down, these sorts of questions and just try them out. What would it feel like if I really was a soul? If I. If I really believed I was a soul? Completely 100. How would my life be different? How would I feel? How does it feel to be deeply, deeply relaxed? That's a nice thing, isn't it? How does it feel to be, [00:25:14] Speaker B: you know, Michael, [00:25:15] Speaker A: at peace with everything. [00:25:17] Speaker B: What I've been thinking when you're sharing this, is that how important not only affirmations are, but how important affirmations and awareness is to changing a particular samskara so the example you gave just now is about feeling deeply relaxed, right? And so let's say I'm stressed out, that stressed out is a habit, right? It's a deep rooted habit that's been going on. Certain situation will happen, you will think certain things, you will feel certain things. And then you come to this point of really getting me totally anxious, right? It's almost like, you know, you throw a ball this way at a certain velocity, a certain thing, and it'll always fall that way. So this is how it's being been going on, right? The mind has been going on, okay, this happens, this happens, this happens. And I'm really upset. And so to counter that, you have to change your samskara. You have to change that underlying pattern, that habit, right? And for that, you do need to have the affirmation and the awareness to change a samskara. It doesn't just happen or an experience. You have an affirmation and awareness you experience, and then you change the samskara. And so even if you ask yourself the question, how does it feel to be deeply relaxed, right? At some point you have to change your samskara to feel it. [00:26:52] Speaker A: All, right? That's right. Yeah. It starts with the feeling. It's one of those things where the mind affects the body, the body affects the mind, life affects the mind. They're all connected, aren't they? So we start at multiple levels at the same time in some ways. So there's, there's a lot of things that goes into changing a habit, obviously, isn't there? And if, if you start asking the question, what is it? What would it feel like if I was relaxed? What is. What are they occurring to the end goal, you know, and then, and then you could ask, what can I do more of in my life so I can be more relaxed? And what do I need to do less of so I can be more relaxed? And how can I keep a chart of it so I do do it more often? And how can I create a habit of being relaxed? So we're just finding ways in to make the shift and asking the question starts to open the answers up. And once we have the experience and once we have the answers, then we can take, take action on them long enough for actually to create habits. Creating a new habit takes, depending on who you talk to, somewhere between 21 days to five years or whatever it is, right? I mean, or 10 years. So it, depending on how enthusiastic people are about it. But it does take a while to change a habit. So we start with we start with an experience. You know, how would it feel if I was just a little bit more relaxed right now? You know, there's. I think there's someone called, some guy, I can't remember his name, who has a podcast or something called 10 Happier. And his producers apparently said, why don't we do 20? And he was like, no, no, I can only guarantee 10. You know, but that's basically being honest, Right. How would it feel to be 10 happier? That's not bad, right? It's better than nothing. So we gotta start where we are. 5% happier would be a good, good, good place to start, you know, 1, [00:28:54] Speaker B: even 1% and tomorrow, [00:28:57] Speaker A: 1 [00:28:58] Speaker B: more percent. [00:28:59] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:29:00] Speaker B: But somehow I [00:29:01] Speaker A: feel happiness [00:29:02] Speaker B: cannot be that incremental. You change some underlying things in your life and then you take a jump again. You change underlying things in your life, you take a jump, [00:29:14] Speaker A: right? Yeah, it's. It's not. A lot of these things are mysterious in many ways, aren't they? So. So it's worth writing down these things. How would it. Would I feel if I was more relaxed? Or what does it. What is God's mind like? That's a really nice one. What is God's heart like? You know, what. What did I feel like before I got all messed up? Right. Like, what was my original innocence like? How did. How does it feel to be completely free? Just open thought, [00:29:51] Speaker B: right? It's a really good thought. What if I. Nothing bad ever happened, no bad thought, no bad anything, and I'm just fresh and clean and innocent. [00:30:09] Speaker A: Yeah. How. What was the feeling before anything bad ever happened? And how would I, you know, how would I approach this situation if I didn't have any negativity or whatever. Whatever it is, Right. So if you just ask these questions again and again and again, it's like a mantra because you're repeating it. It's. It starts to open the door and it starts to become an experience. Especially if you ask, how does it feel to be deeply relaxed or deeply content? Because you're not asking, what is it? You're asking, how does it feel? And it has to be answered with a feeling, not with a thought. How does it feel in my body to be completely relaxed? It has to be answered, but as a physical experience or a spiritual experience. How does it feel to be body less? So these are three ways that you can use these affirmation mantras to change your life. And like Shreem was saying, minimum we want to go for is a thousand times a day, which is not very much, actually. [00:31:24] Speaker B: Are we going to do a experience with all three of them or you're done? [00:31:31] Speaker A: Yeah, we can. Do you wanna, you wanna do it? [00:31:33] Speaker B: No, I think you should do it. You're doing a great job. All [00:31:36] Speaker A: right. Okay. Okay. I just want to make sure you have a chance to share something that you'd like to. So we'll start. Let's just start with peace. Now, let's start with contentment, actually, because this is something we were talking about earlier. Contentment is a good thing, right? Everyone, everyone has some experience of being content in their life at some point, even if it's temporarily content. So let's, let's start with a round of I am a contented soul. Just, just imagine yourself being contented. Imagine a time when you were feeling contented. And in your mind see yourself as a shining, happy, content being, spiritual being. And just think, I am content. I am a contented soul. I am a contented soul. Just keep thinking that very slowly and calmly. And now let's just think constant contentment. Just imagine a state where there is constant contentment. Imagine you're constantly content. I just think that constantly content, You can even imagine someone else who's constantly content. And it has a similar effect. Constantly content, constantly relaxed, constantly full. And now let's just ask the question, how would it feel to be constantly content? How would I feel if I was constantly content? Or how would I feel to be content, deeply content? Ah, yes, yes, yes. So you can practice this with whatever you like. And keep in mind that the more you pick something that you enjoy personally, the better it is. And we want to refine these things till they hit the spot, because certain phrases, certain words, certain things have more or less power, depending on your unique processes and what you think about and how you think about it. So this is a, this is an opportunity for you to customize this until it, until it feels right, and then do it again and again and again until it goes deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. So hopefully that's helpful. Start with one thing and then aim for 108 things, and [00:36:28] Speaker B: then a thousand, [00:36:31] Speaker A: ten thousand, and then, then a hundred thousand and see how it goes. I, I, we recently did a session, a meditation session with this, and someone said this is the most powerful meditation she'd ever done in her life. After this, this thing, we did it for like an hour, but you get an idea of how powerful this can be if you actually practice it. All right, let's have a special blessing. [00:36:55] Speaker B: This is your God's blessing for you. Communication. You have the strength to express yourself freely without feeling fearing how others might judge you. There is a refreshing feeling of being in touch with who you are, allowing your inner truth to show itself and bring you peace. [00:37:22] Speaker A: Yay. To communicate to your own self with lots of love and blessings. Thank you for being here. Thank you Shereen. [00:37:30] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:37:31] Speaker A: Wishing everyone success and talk to you soon.