If prana is life force energy flowing around and through each of us and pranayama is the practice of extending, stretching and controlling that life force energy within us then we might think of intention (sankalpa) as tuning our awareness to look more closely at a particular facet of the flow of life. When we set an intention, whether it’s for today, for the month, for the year or for our lifetime, we are declaring that we plan to spend more time and energy exploring that facet of life, that aspect of existence or that portion of our relationship with ourselves and/or the world.
When you set an intention to be more present, less stressed or more peaceful, you are opening the door to exploring life from a perspective that you do not currently have and allowing your innate curiosity to guide the way. One intention leads to the next and the cumulative impact of the resulting shifts in perspective bring you increasingly closer to your truest nature and most sacred self.
Layers of Intention
Living with intention involves the subtle layering of our needs, our desires, our responsibilities, and our curiosities ~ no one layer is more or less important than any other and all things in balance help us create a conscious life that we feel less inclined to try to escape. For example, when we live for an extended period of time with an emphasis on responsibility and little room for curiosity, we can become overwhelmed and life can feel like drudgery. Likewise, when we emphasize our desires and neglect our needs, life can feel out of control and punishing (and filled with late fees. “final notices” and relationships to repair).
An intentional life is built on a foundation of conscious choices, routine maintenance and honest reflection. When we find ourselves on a course that feels out of alignment or imbalanced, we pause, re-orient ourselves and start again. And we commit to repeating this process as many times as is necessary and as lovingly as possible, allowing our intention-setting practices to serve as reminders of our chosen orientation and any under-represented “layers” of our lives. Currently living a life filled with responsibility? Set intentions around welcoming joy, being playful or leaving room for curiosity. Use your practice to guide you closer to balance and as a reminder of what you love.
The Power of Words
There is a concept in yoga philosophy ~ Matrika Shakti ~ that I find particularly poignant in today’s world. Directly translated it means “little mothers” and in practice it asks us to pay close attention to what we are bringing to life through our words. In a nutshell, words have power.
Everything in our world is energy. These energies vibrate at varying frequencies creating the appearance of varying densities. Within ourselves, the physical body is our densest energetic form and thoughts are one of the least dense; words fall in the middle. Our words are often a reflection of our thoughts and of the energy held in various ways within our bodies. Have you ever lashed out verbally when you were in physical pain or having a particularly stressful day? Have you found yourself expressing optimism after connecting with an upbeat friend or colleague? Or more tension after watching or reading the news? These are simple examples of the way that energy flows and how our words (and the words of others) impact that flow.
So why “little mothers”? Imagine that every word or phrase that you produce today is a seed that you are planting in the universal soil of life ~ each one holds within it pure creative potential. What are you giving life through your words? Do your words further the reach of Love in the world? Or do they ring with fear? When we begin to pay closer attention to the ways that we choose to express ourselves in the world, we begin to see the areas of our lives where we are living out of alignment with what we believe our values and intentions to be. Frankly stated, careful observation of our words shows us where we are not being fully honest with ourselves.
The good news? Intention-setting practices help us to break that cycle and support our efforts to be in a more loving and honest relationship with ourselves. Setting an intention ~ whether for the short or long term ~ is a way to tune our thought energy and point ourselves in the direction of our choosing. For example, if you set an intention around inviting more joy into your life, you are asking your mind to look for sources of joy. As you increase your awareness of the joy that is all around you, you naturally begin to expect the presence of joy and to express it through both your words and, ultimately, your actions. Over time, the quality of your being shifts toward the experience of joy and you readily express it. This is why mantras and prayers are such powerful practices ~ they harness the creative power of Matrika Shakti to help us focus our thought, word and action energy in the same direction and in support of our highest intentions for ourselves and our world.
Bringing Your Intentions to Life
So how do our internally-held intentions express into the outer world? And what do we do with the confusion that sometimes results when our inner practices and beliefs bump up against the structures and prevalent patterns of the outside world? It can be tempting to see another person’s reaction to us in a given situation as a reflection of what requires attention or needs to change within us. In truth, there is a subtle difference to be noted here ~ it’s not their response that is the indicator but our response that lights the way.
Imagine the outer world as a big mirror that you are holding up to yourself ~ in this way, a co-worker’s mean-spiritedness is not an indication that you need to change to better suit her but an opportunity for you to observe your response to her actions and to exercise your intentions. For instance, if you are holding the intention to be a greater expression of Love in the world and your response to this co-worker is to boomerang her mean-spiritedness back to her or to turn and spread it somewhere else, you can clearly see that your actions are not in alignment with your intention. So, this interaction (or outer circumstance or happening of any kind) becomes an opportunity to look with lovingly honest eyes at your thoughts, words and actions and to determine how you might commit to expressing your inner-held intentions into the outer world with greater consistency.
To truly make expressing your intentions a life practice (rather than an activity that is limited to your time on the mat or meditation cushion), you might begin by starting the day with a simple question like “How will I live into my intention today?” and ending the day with related questions like “How did I live into my intention today?” and “In what ways was I out of alignment with my intention today?”. Remember that this is an exploration ~ you are bound to take a few steps forward and the occasional step back into habitual thinking, speaking and acting. Using intention-setting practices in this way is harnessing the power of your attention to shift yourself into a whole new way of being in the world.
It takes time.
It takes commitment.
It takes a great deal of loving honesty and self-compassion.
And it may take a little support along the way.
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