One of the greatest mindfulness-based practices that you can use in your recovery as you rediscover who you are without your addiction is meditation. Meditation allows you to clear your mind and take a step back from the negative thoughts that can distract you from recovery. A tool that can help in the beginning phases of learning how to meditate is finding a mantra to help you to focus your thoughts and keep you grounded.
What is a Mantra?
A mantra is a phrase or a word that is repeated to help with concentration and grounding. The mantra you choose can be anything you want and can be spoken out loud or in your head. Mantras assist in reducing the external thoughts as you are developing your meditation practice. Mantras can be applied outside of meditation and through practice, can help to guide your thoughts in your daily life.
Distractions are Common and Can be Reduced
A mantra’s greatest asset is helping to redirect and refocus your thoughts during meditation. All of the thoughts you hear in your head, whether negative or positive, can pull you away from your meditation practice and make it difficult to stay focused. These negative and distracting thoughts can be difficult to quell, but having a word or phrase you can use to refocus will help you stay grounded.
Strange at first, particularly if speaking it out loud, many find this kind of grounding technique to be useful in facilitating focus and purpose in their meditation. When distractions occur, just repeat your mantra until the thoughts dissipate and all of your concentration can be aligned to your breath and meditation practice.
Mantras Can Help Clear Your Mind
One of the hardest parts of meditation for beginners is clearing your mind. Thoughts are our natural way of communicating with ourselves and it doesn’t come naturally to most to turn them off. At times it can feel like your thoughts control you more than you control them.
Having a mantra can help to quiet the usual noise of the mind and keep your thoughts focused on your goals and aspirations. Not usually an easy task at first, but practice eases this difficulty and can ultimately assist in regaining control of the chatter in your head, and learn how to silence it when you need it.
Not Just for Meditation
Meditation is what mantras were originally used for, but they can be applied in your day to day living and used at any time when you start hearing the loud noise of your thoughts in your head. You can write your mantras on note cards and place them on your bathroom mirror to remind you of the words to help you incorporate them into your daily routine. When you are experiencing a challenging moment and negative or unproductive thoughts are coming up, you can repeat your mantra to yourself to calm and ground yourself so that you can stay focused on your recovery and the path towards rediscovering yourself.
Meditation, mantras, and mental focus are great ways to reach any health goal, including those involving ending drug and alcohol use. Recovery is a path most successfully traveled with professional help especially when the goal is getting deeper into your recovery. In the natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains just outside of Denver, the Detox Center of Colorado is here to start your recovery journey with you. Evidence-based therapies designed to help our clients connect to themselves, their peers, their families, and their higher power can bring a person to a higher level of healing than they may have thought possible. Each treatment plan is individualized, as health is not one size fits all and everyone’s needs are different. This means that you or your loved one will be able to get what is needed. To get started on a future full of potential and possibility give the Detox Center of Colorado a call at (303) 952-5035.
