3 magical phrases that change your life instantly
Some self-development work takes a lot of time and practice. But today, I will share something that can have a huge effect instantly, with very little effort. When I was in the midst of dealing with some major challenges in life, I came up with three phrases that helped me through a lot.
They work like magic because they can be applied at almost any time, and they are all very easy to remember. The phrases help to return to self-love and presence, and they help you to re-align with yourself or to return to being ‘centered’ at any given moment.
The first phrase is “I know”
I use these words whenever I experience thoughts racing through my mind. This can be the mind worrying, overthinking, overanalyzing, trying to figure something out, or just going wild with random thoughts for no apparent reason.
"I know" is used to acknowledge your thoughts, worries, overthinking, etc. Saying these words out loud or in mind helps because by acknowledging the racing mind, you acknowledge yourself.
When you use the phrase, you avoid or stop beating yourself up for; thinking certain things, rejecting your thoughts, or for worrying in the first place. It contains the power to instantly center you and to bring you back to presence.
A racing mind can draw you out of presence in a millisecond. Sometimes, the mind is trying to catch up with you and your life because it is attempting to (re)gain control. By saying “I know”, you calm down the mind. You remind yourself of being in this moment and you remind the mind that; right now, there is no real danger to fight.
The mind thinks it can think you out of anxiety. The mind also thinks it needs to constantly calculate risks so that you don’t do anything stupid or even think something that is risky. The mind itself fears changing its mind. By saying “I know”, you acknowledge to your mind that you are aware of what is scary, of what may be risky.
As soon as the mind notices that you are aware, it can relax a bit. Sometimes the only reason the mind is racing is that it is afraid you are not aware of what to be afraid of, and therefore it needs to keep sending you alarm messages in the form of many thoughts because you are not paying attention.
If you are very analytical, you may also experience the mind racing to analyze anything and everything that is not directly related to you and your life. Your mind may go wild, for instance, to analyze a topic you have been learning about. It can overload you with connections, and multiple layers of analysis, connecting a million topics together, calculating cause and effect, and so on.
This can be very inspirational, but too much of it can also pull you out of your center. So at moments, this is happening a bit too much, simply saying “I know” can calm down this hyper-analytical state.
Often, when I use “I know”, I smile. I smile on one hand because it can be fun to notice what is happening. On the other hand, I smile out of love and appreciation for my mind, and with that, for myself.
Because a racing mind is not a bad thing, in a way, it is beautiful that my mind is trying so hard to protect myself, to figure something out for me to be safe, or to come up with the next great idea.
The second phrase, “It’s okay”
"It's okay" is used to further calm down the thoughts, to show yourself you are there for yourself, and to affirm to yourself that you are okay.
It helps to say, "it's okay," because this, too, brings you back to the moment. Most of the time, in the moment, you are not facing instant life-threatening situations. By saying “it’s okay”, you remind yourself of this, and the tension can relax.
It can also be a sign to yourself of radical acceptance. Even if you do indeed face a very threatening situation, you may not be able to change it. Therefore, in my experience, the best thing to do is to at least be there for yourself, to show yourself you are present with yourself.
To me, nothing is more hurtful than moving away from myself. So even when I feel something horrible may happen, when I turn to presence, at least I am there with myself in that moment, whatever that moment is bringing.
The third and final phrase is “I’m learning”.
This phrase I use to show myself compassion. By saying, “I’m learning,” I show myself that it’s okay to make mistakes, not to be perfect, or to deviate from my path at times.
I use this sentence;
· when I make a ‘mistake’,
· when I move away from myself,
· when I get too loud, proud, or dominant,
· when I forget about empathy or compassion,
· when I forget to be present,
· when I am trying to force something or have a hard time accepting what is,
· when something is strongly guided by the ego-mind. For instance, when there is something strongly subjective or judgmental about an inquiry I make to myself or to the collective mind, I say, “I’m learning”. Then I stop and wait for the right question to ask to come to me.
We are all learning all the time, and we learn most when we are able to embrace our path of learning. When we embrace each learning moment and even celebrate it, we live a life filled with compassion and gratitude.
