Healing Mantras Versus Affirmations – What’s the difference?
Healing mantras and affirmations…
They’re the buzzwords of self-help and personal development gurus –but do they really work? And if they do…
What’s the difference between the two and when and why should you choose one?
I’m clearing up the mis-information and dishing on my personal experience with both mantras and affirmations…
What you need to know about the difference between healing mantras versus affirmations, if you really want them to work.
There’s a big difference, especially energetically! But I’ve noticed that lots of folks use the word “mantra” without understanding its origin and purpose.
While that isn’t a life-threatening offense…
It causes confusion for people who want to build a classic mantra practice on their path to healing and wellbeing
Mantras work very differently than affirmations.
A true mantra in Hinduism, is a word or formula chanted or sung as an incantation or prayer.
However, after being borrowed into English from Sanskrit, its translation is a bit loose in our pop-culture and is often just referred to as a repeated word, formula, or phrase.
Which is a shame because many don’t realize the amazing power and connection to healing life force that is inherent in a true mantra practice.
I personally credit my formal mantra practice with healing a rare cancer diagnosis!
With classic mantra practices, it is the vibration of the word, or “seed” sounds, from Sanskrit, that creates a particular vibration in the body, and also in the surrounding field. This can help to provide faster healing for those suffering with anxiety! And even fear and depression.
The effectiveness of the mantra is based not on the understanding of the word, but on its ability to change frequencies in the body through sound waves.
In turn, it also creates a point of focus for the user, which is very effective at moving attention and energy away from the monkey mind, where anxiety is at it’s worst.
In classic mantra practice Sanskrit words are used. Depending on the words chosen they can effect change in the different energy centers of the body, and hence create healing in corresponding organs and glands.
This is a completely different practice from randomly repeating a positive phrase, like “I am successful”. That is an affirmation.
It is a phrase that one repeats to change, increase, or improve their state of mind, and/or circumstances.
I used affirmations for many, many years. I talk specifically about the affirmations I used to heal my body in my book Healed and Unlimited
When I first started using affirmations I adapted a set of affirmations from Edwene Gaines’ prosperity book. I wrote them out every day! And I repeated them to myself numerous times throughout the day.
They worked quite well. I found improvements came consistently. But, I also felt that there must be another way, a better way, to affect change in my life.
It seemed like a big time commitment and as soon as I stopped doing them, I felt my energy and results decrease. I couldn’t imagine doing this process every day for the rest of my life in order to create successful change.
Fast forward 25 years,
I realize the seemingly excessive time I devoted to my affirmation rituals was because I wasn’t really doing them right.
It took a shift to optimizing and utilizing the power within myself. I mostly abandoned using affirmations, once I learned the inherent power of a formal mantra practice.
Over the years I saw a lot people using affirmations and trying to create change in their lives through the “law of attraction”.
But it seemed to me that none of them were meeting with success. Or if they did, it seemed to be fleeting.
Despite my firm beliefs in an incredibly powerful divine intelligence at work in our lives, I came to question everything about affirmations, positive thinking, and law of attraction. I personally experienced results but they seemed to only reach “so far”. And I wondered what myself, and others, were missing – were we doing it wrong? Is that why I couldn’t seem to be successful at using affirmations to break through my toughest life challenges?
Well, indeed, when I was reintroduced to affirmations, I learned that I was not using them in the most beneficial way.
How to use affirmations to create lasting change
Once I realized the error of my ways, I changed the way I set up my affirmation practice and I began to see more positive results in less time.
I still find mantras to be my favorite catalyst for change in health or any area of life, but I’ve found a resurgence of peace, solitude, and success from my affirmation/visualization practice too.
I still don’t like the whole overused/misused idea of the “law of attraction”.
It just doesn’t work for me the way that it’s presented in our pop-culture. The truth is, if you don’t learn how to reprogram your subconscious mind and patterns, you’ll keep attracting what you don’t really want.
For most folks, law of attraction creates a Pollyanna view of the world.
While others may have instant success with it, I find it misleading. The subconscious mind is insidious…it takes consistent repatterning to make an effective change against old programs
I feel that the law of attraction implies that it all just happens instantly, and that there is no work involved. That has not been my experience. It’s also not been the experience of many of my extremely spiritual and highly successful mentors.
However, there is tipping point, in both mantras and affirmations, when things move with more ease and grace.
What I’ve learned about affirmations is that the words, by themselves, do very little to bring about the desired result. For example, if I’m struggling to pay my bills and I constantly and consistently repeat, “I am now a millionaire”, I will likely still continue to struggle financially.
My conscious and subconscious mind say, “Yeah, that’s not true. You’re having trouble paying your bills.”
But, if I make a conscious effort to sit for 15 minutes and visualize a different reality…
One where my business is growing, and I see how happy my clients are with the results they’re getting, and we both feel happy, and energized and grateful to work together…
AND…
I hold a feeling of joy, peace, wholeness, and success for myself and everyone I work with in my heart, and I affirm that I attract tons of clients that I’m able to help, while holding that feeling of love, light, and joy in my heart…..
Now that brings amazing changes because I am aligning my frequency with a real tangible feeling of success on all fronts, for everyone involved.
But, I still have to take actions. I still have to have a website for my business. I still need to market my services and reach out to people.
But combined actions and aligning my frequency, beliefs, and mindset with what’s in my heart – a desire to serve and help and live abundantly, that puts the power of my affirmations out to Universal intelligence to get to work on things.
This goes for healing anxiety, our bodies, our relationships, and all of our desires.
We just can’t hope for the best and sit around repeating words.
The action of feeling your visualization creates a change in the frequency of your being. It raises your energy levels so that they are a match for what you desire.
I think that’s one of the reasons my clients achieve 100% positive results from my 5 Steps To Freeedom Course. They are finally fed up with anxiety, fear, and stress and they’re committed to taking action. Committed to themselves and their growth and they are ready to believe 100 % in their ability to heal their bodies and create change for themselves.
It’s no longer a passive role! They don’t invest their energy and efforts in believing that something or someone else is going to “do it for them”.
The most amazing and interesting part of working with affirmations? When you do them with intention and commitment 15 minutes a day can produce profound results.
Things begin to happen with more ease and grace. Hence, most people find that they don’t have to work nearly as long or hard at other aspects of their lives.
They can both be a part of your spiritual development and healing practices but mantras evolved over 1000’s of years, into a sacred wisdom practice that is quite remarkable.
Either practice can provide you with tools for transformation and self-healing if you make a commitment to yourself
XO
P.S. Whenever you’re ready…
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I really appreciated your article. I’ve recently begun working more effectively with mantras in my personal practice. I find that sometimes I’ll hear a particular mantra that just speaks to my soul and I know that I need to practice it. It offers something that I need. Right now I’m working with a Sanskrit Mantra Om Sarvestram Svestir Bhavatu, also known as The Universal Prayer. I study Kundalini yoga and have also worked with Mantras from this tradition that are in either Ghurmuki or Punjabi. My favorite Kundalini mantra is Rahke Rahkenahar.
Your article was really helpful to me because while I recognized there is a difference between mantra and affirmations, I was having a difficult articulating it. Your article makes it very clear.