Setting Intention in the New Year
“Don’t explain your philosophy, embody it” Epictetus
When I attended my first yoga class many years ago, one of the things I was initially quite confused about was a question the instructor asked at the beginning of the class: “What is your intention for your practice today?” Over the years, not only have I come to appreciate this question, but now I embody it as an integral part of my life.
For many, one opportunity the new year brings is the space to reflect on the past year and look forward to the new. While the concept of “New Year’s resolutions” has received much negative press, the process of setting and living into intentions, particularly for the kind of person you want to be, can be life changing.
Last year, one of our PeerRx colleagues who also happens to be a yoga instructor introduced me to the Sanskrit word sankalpa. A sankalpa is an intention formed by the heart and mind – it is a vow and commitment we make to support our highest truth and best self, and is something we live into in the present, not some time off in the future. This is what makes it more powerful than a “goal.” You might think of it as “a promise to your Soul.” It is a word or phrase you remind yourself of regularly, as a way of saying, “This is my intention for the practice of my life in this moment.”
This resonated with me, and I found it a very powerful reframe for this past year, particularly as we navigated the many challenges, frustrations, and “surprises” of the pandemic. Daily when I awoke, I asked and then answered the question, “who and how will I show up to this day.” To ALL of today - with my family, my friends, colleagues, patients, our work team, my neighbors. My personal sankalpa became my “word for the year”, a word I created which had deep meaning for me – “reslove.” Reslove means today I “resolve to live in love.” And it was through that “live in love” that I engaged in my day.
It turns out that “living in love” is a wonderful way to go about life, even (especially) in a pandemic. How about you? As you enter this day, what do you resolve in terms of who and how you will show up for life. Find an answer to that question and repeat it regularly and watch for magic to happen. And while I will continue to “reslove” this year, I also have a new word to anchor my sankalpa. I’ll share more about that next week.