How Mantras Help Heal Childhood Trauma and Reparent Your Inner Voice

When I first heard about using mantras to heal trauma, my initial thought was… this sounds like new-agey BS. Repeating a phrase over and over? That can’t possibly undo decades of damage, right?

But then, I started using mantras. And as I applied it to my understanding of how trauma gets formed, I realized that…trauma is actually born from repetitive messages that our parents send to us. Like, if my mom only ever gives me positive attention for getting straight A’s, the message I receive is: “I only deserve love when I can prove my worth through my achievements.”

So if repeated negative messages can lead to trauma, then repeated positive mantras would be part of our reparenting process to change our self-perception.

Traumatic Messages From Our Parents

As children, we are actually born with an innate sense of self-worth and boundaries. Just think about it…when you try to feed a two year old who doesn’t feel like eating, she will turn her head away or will try to get away from you.

However, our natural sense of self-worth and boundaries can be undermined by our parents’ parenting approach, and the messages they send us. There are a variety of messages that we receive as children that impacts the way we understand ourselves. Here are some common ones:

Critical/Judgmental Parents

If our parents constantly criticized us as children, what we learn is that we have to be perfect in order to receive love. We start believing that we are never good enough, and link our self-worth to what we can achieve.

Parents Who Use Their Child for Emotional Care

In this dynamic, the child learns that they have to abandon their own emotional needs in order to take care of their parent. They may end up believing that their needs are too much or a burden.

Verbally Abusive Parents

If our parents regularly shame us and humiliates us, we will internalize the shame. We start believing that our authentic selves are inherently shameful, and we start to distance ourselves from our true authenticity.

Sometimes, our parents will outright say these things to us (e.g. “You’re useless”). But a lot of times, these messages are not communicated so directly. It might take the form of specific tone, actions, and/or treatment that leads to the development of these ways of thinking about ourselves. In all these differently messages, what we learn is that our authentic selves will not be loved unconditionally.

Imagine a lifetime of these messages being sent to you. It’s no wonder some of us really struggle with self-esteem, and why some of us have an internal voice mimicking the exact things that our parents used to say to us.

If Repeated Messages Shaped You, Repeated Messages Can Change You

The very reason these beliefs feel so “true” is because they were repeated to us our entire life. Not always with words, but also in the way we were treated. After decades of being beat down with these messages, it defines how we perceive ourselves. This then leads to unhealthy ways of relating to other people and the world at large.

But if repetition created these harmful self-perceptions, then repetition can also replace them. And that is exactly what a mantra is.

Mantras are simply new intentional messages we give ourselves. It’s not magic. In fact, it takes a long time for mantras to slowly shift the way we think about ourselves. We are, after all, trying to undo decades of damage that has been done to us.

Mantras Help Us Reparent Ourselves

At the root of the trauma messages from our parents is the belief that we are not loved unconditionally. For a lot of our parents, they never received unconditional love and acceptance, so they don’t know how to love unconditionally.

And since we were not parented with unconditional love and acceptance from our own parents, we need to be able to offer it to ourselves. This is the reparenting process, where we need to learn to counteract the judgmental and rejecting voices of our parents with a loving and accepting voice…our own voice. But it’s not easy, because we never experienced unconditional self-love, so we don’t really know how to do it either.

Mantras become a starting point in building an internal voice that is more compassionate and loving. And trust me when I say this…when you first start mantra-ing, you’re not even going to believe the mantra. Just because you start saying “My worth is not defined by my achievements,” it doesn’t mean you will magically believe it.

But through repetition, the mantra will start to have an impact. And it also requires you to take committed action to change the way to relate to the world. If you truly want to believe that your worth is not defined by your achievements, then you need to prioritize actions that prioritize taking care of yourself. If you continue to prioritize perfectionism, then no amount of mantra-ing will change the way you think about yourself.

Mantra is only the starting point. It sets the intention of how you want to perceive yourself. Your daily decisions must also align with the mantra if you want to see real internal change. For me, I write my mantra every morning. It helps me set my intention for the day, and it serves as a daily reminder of what is important to me.

This is my current mantra to set my daily intention:

• Today, I choose authenticity over performance, and connection over hierarchy.

• I do not need to justify my right to exist through performance, or being impressive or exceptional.

• I will not reject, abandon, or humiliate myself.

• I'm allowed to just be an ordinary dude in a spectacular world. So have fun! Be yourself! And be present with the people that you like.

Hey there, my name is Harry, and I’m an Asian therapist here to support your search for health and authenticity. If you are open to weekly self-care FUN-ctivities, subscribe to my “Happy Chemicals Club.” Or maybe you'd find my Asian Survival Guide helpful.

Harry Au

Therapy for Asians

MSW, RSW | he/him

HarryAuTherapy.com

I help Asians go from feeling trapped to becoming self-liberated.