My friends often seek advice from me. They approach me vulnerable, unsure and sometimes unaware of what they should be feeling hoping that I will guide them in the right direction, thought or action. It’s nice knowing that they want to confide in me, trusting that I will keep their secrets and give them my most honest opinion. I listen to their stories, fears, hopes and problems allowing them to become a part of my life, free of judgment and barriers. Often times, I can’t take the advice I give, and I make that very prevalent when I speak to them. I share my stories, my past and experiences of what happened to me when I didn’t take my own advice anticipating that they will listen to me and use my stories as a lesson to be learned.

Because I am an emotional person, a dreamer, someone who needs a slap in the face often to face reality, I find that meditating on mantras that bring positivity in my life to be the most healing and the most therapeutic medicine to calm any bit of sadness, anxiety, anger, frustration, oblivion, etc. that I am feeling. When I give advice to my friends, I often feed them the mantras I listen to every day, enabling the words that provide comfort to me to be a part of their lives.

If you are ever feeling down, ever stressed, ever unaware, ever overwhelmed, ever anxious etc., here are a few mantras I let settle underneath the surface of my skin, in my busy brain and in my heavy heart for comfort.

Time Will Heal All

Whether you are upset about a breakup, the loss of a friend or family member, or even sad about something as simple as you not receiving the best grade on an exam or paper, time will heal whatever you are feeling. You may feel like the world is out to get you, or you’re never going to get past what you are experiencing, but time is the best medicine. That time can range from 10 minutes, to a few years…but eventually the time will enable you to grow and learn from whatever you were experiencing.

Everything Will Fall Into Place

This is a saying I often tell myself—I could feel a tornado of emotions, and still feel hopeful when I preach this mantra to others and myself. Yes, sometimes it feels too hard to push past the bad that has been occurring in my life, but I constantly remind others and myself that life goes on and whatever I am going through will subside and mellow out—in two or three or 10 months from that moment I was feeling pain, stress, unhappiness, anger could be used as a lesson, a reason, a puzzle piece fitted for the life I should be living—one of happiness.

Everything Happens For A Reason

I know we have all heard this cliché one, but it constantly lingers in my head and has helped me conquer the battles I have felt when I was down or confused about a situation in my life. It’s hard to find comfort in this saying when we experience the most tremendous atrocities life throws at us, but finding positivity and light in this mantra comes from the idea that we can never predict the future and what our lives have to hold in years to come, and that whatever I was experiencing could eventually have a positive output in the future. We are feeling what we are feeling for a reason. Who knows what the reason may be, but eventually something will click and you'll realize why you experienced what you had experienced, and felt what you had felt.

You Only Live Once (YOLO)

Yes, I am telling you to YOLO, because why not? Why stifle yourself from creativity, taking risks, doing this, having that, etc.? Whenever I am unsure about something, I allow myself to have a yolo moment where I allow myself to do something totally ridiculous, even if it has an outcome I may not be too happy about. I think of this mantra when I am close to backing out of something because I am in fear of what may happen, and when I question whether I should order something completely crazy-fattening-greasy-cheesy-yummy on a menu (because I know I will be stuck in a food coma). You should never look back on a moment and say, “Damn, I wish I did that then,” or “I wish I said this,” etc. Live your life as much as you possibly can, because you only have one life to live.

You're Your Biggest Critic

This one is very different from the rest of the ones above, in which it is something that brings comfort when we are feeling down about ourselves and not typically about a situation. We often see ourselves as someone different from how the world sees us. We can look in the mirror and see someone we aren't proud of because of the way we may physically appear-- but to someone on the outside looking in sees someone flawless, fit, beautiful, etc. We may dig deep into our heads and think "I could have done better," or "I'm not good enough," but to someone else they could see a person who has done a tremendous job, o someone that works hard and is extremely knowledgeable, intelligent, powerful etc. By reminding ourselves that we are beautiful, smart, capable, etc. we can achieve so much more than being our critical selves. Think positively of yourself, because being negative will get you nowhere.

It Wasn't Meant To Be

Unfortunately this saying is a hard one to settle with. Coming from someone who fixates on my expectations and fantasies of how something should play out, I have grown accustomed to accepting the fact that if it didn’t work out as planned, or as I hoped, it wasn’t meant to be. We can’t force ourselves to make something right, question why we didn’t win the heart of the guy/girl we crushed on, be sad about losing this, being told "no;" if you didn’t get it, receive it, win it, conquer it, it wasn’t meant to be and that is OK. Life doesn’t always work out as planned, so it’s fine to let things go and accept that it just wasn’t meant to be, one in awhile (because if it was meant to be, it would be).

Take these mantras for what they are; they have helped me grow, move on, accept and let go, which is often hard for a lot of people to do. Let them settle. Marinate in what they can mean for you and hopefully you will find peace in whatever you are feeling.