Setting Intentions
So it's another New Year, and as happens every January, everywhere we turn we're hearing about how to start the year off right, how to set resolutions and keep them, how to become new, improved versions of ourselves. We're bombarded with advertisements for weight loss programs and nicotine patches and vitamin supplements. It's time to eat right, exercise, stop smoking, start saving, and get organized, starting... two weeks ago.
I used to make resolutions. In fact, I used to make a LOT of them. For many years I would begin a new journal on exactly January 1st, and my first entry would be a list of ten or twelve things I was going to change about myself, ten or twelve things I was going to do better, do different, do forever. It wasn't that I thought I was a terrible person; it's just that I was on a perpetual path of self-improvement, always wanting to become the best possible me. So I can tell you from personal experience that there's no quicker way to feel like a failure than to vow to change everything you don't like about yourself this very minute and from now on. Inevitably, the following January 1st, my list of resolutions looked pretty darn similar to that of the previous year. And so, rather than feeling new and improved, I would start each New Year feeling stuck and hopeless.
"Where do you invest your time, your life, and your love, knowing that whatever you pay attention to thrives?" ~Karen Maezen Miller
This year, for the first time I can remember, I made no resolution. I set intentions instead.
What's the diff?
Well, the thing about resolutions is that, so often, we make them with the basic assumption that there's something wrong with us. Almost always, we set out on our path from a place of "not good enough." No matter how much we like ourselves, we decide we can be better, and then we fool ourselves into thinking we know how to make better happen. So assumption number one in resolution-making is that we're somehow less than perfect as we are (which is not encouraging), and assumption number two is that we know exactly what we need to do to get ourselves closer to perfect (which is not likely). Of course, assumption three is that all this thinking so little of ourselves and being fix-it-all-know-it-alls will somehow make us happier in the long run (which is just not feasible).
"Start where you are." ~Pema Chodron
When we set intentions, however, we set out from a place of awareness and acceptance. We get quiet and we pay attention to what is actually happening in the present moment. We let ourselves be who we are without judging. Maybe we just sit quietly, or maybe we practice asana (posture). And then we see what comes up. When thinking about your intentions, you can ask yourself, what's truly important to me? What resonates in my heart, what truly makes it sing? What makes me feel beautiful, loved, important, joyful? What shimmers when I shine the light of my attention on it? What in my life do I find sacred? In this way, we don't decide for ourselves what our intentions should be; we let our intentions reveal themselves to us. By paying attention and accepting-rather than assuming and deciding--we learn that we are actually quite glorious the way we are, we discover what makes us that way, and then we welcome more of that into our daily lives. We let what makes us glorious become our intention.
"Mindfulness of intention allows us to open to our deepest heart's aspiration that can then guide the unfolding of our lives." ~Tara Brach
Perhaps then your intention might be to listen to music throughout your day, or to practice yoga regularly. Your intention could be to struggle less, or to laugh more, to walk daily, or to spend more time with your kids. Whatever it is, if you let it come from a place of self-acceptance and open-mindedness, your intention won't be about fixing what's wrong with you, it will be about radiating more of what's right.
"Let the beauty you love be what you do. There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the Earth." --Rumi
And the best part? If you lose sight of your intention for awhile, it's not game-over. Intentions aren't rigid, uncompromising, pass-or-fail entities. You don't need to set one on a particular date and stick to it like glue for the rest of eternity. Intentions are meant to be revisited, re-explored, realigned with your values, re-embraced and reset, again and again and again. And somewhere along that path of sacred connection to self, a path that requires nothing more of you than your silence and attention and acceptance, you'll come to realize there's really nothing to improve. You're already the best possible you.
"Now is the only time to begin anything."
~Karen Maezen Miller
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