Cool. Wet. Grass …

My Mama Mantra

If you’ve poked around my website, or rather dug deep and read older posts from 2016, you might be confused or at least a little curious about the apparent disconnect between my current content on postpartum health and these previous posts, where I documented my experiences living in a rural coastal community in Northern Nicaragua with my husband and (at the time) two pre-school children. I intentionally kept this content because, although the website and its focus have evolved, it is all still part of my motherhood journey.

The original iteration of this blog was called “Cool. Wet. Grass”.  ‘Cool. Wet. Grass’ is a mantra used by firewalkers to help them walk over hot coals. The idea being that if they focus on imagining feeling damp grass beneath their feet, it will ease their physical discomfort.

I’m a type A, worry wort who gravitates towards anxiety in the majority of situations, and during my teenage years, my older, university going (i.e. wiser) brother, made me repeat this phrase as a way of evoking a sense of serenity when I was feeling stressed…. Whether it be due to a pending exam or a bad hair day!  Perhaps the phrase is particularly comforting for me because it reminds me of the green grass of my beautiful homeland of Wales.

Over the decades since this time, I’ve often been bombarded with my inner voice yelling “I can’t do this” …. But simply taking a deep breath and slowly repeating ‘cool wet grass’ has helped to quell the voice and control the jitters. But at no other time has this mantra been more needed and used than when I became a mother. These were and continue to be the days when exhaustion, frustration and overwhelm push me to my limits, and I find myself needing to bite my tongue, take a deep breath, and whisper ‘cool wet grass’.  In reality, this might be said with clenched fists and teeth, and each word might be punctuated with an F-bomb! Nonetheless, it is a tool that I can turn to, to force myself to pause, reframe the situation, and try to respond more positively or at least stop my emotions from spiralling out of control.

If you haven’t heard of or used a mantra before then try saying a few calming words to yourself. It really is a simple yet powerful tool to gain control of a situation when you’re starting to lose it! By all means try ‘cool wet grass’ but to be effective it needs to be a mantra that is helpful to you. It can even be in a different language or just a sound. Here are ten mantras to get you started. Download and print, or save them on your phone, believe me you’ll need them handy when those out of control moments arrive!

Do you have a mantra that helps you get through those challenging moments? Tell me what it is and why it resonates with you.