Intention is the Seed to Our Future.

This is the time when people begin to focus on New Year’s Resolutions.  A friend’s Facebook post offered me a friendly reminder about New Year’s resolutions. His observation was adjusting the concept of “resolution” to “lifestyle”. He suggested avoiding resolutions and to embrace the idea of a shift in lifestyle.  Many of us will make goals to lose weight, be more active, or change some attribute about ourselves, and if we focus on the idea of a goal/resolution we will perhaps miss the broader intent of making lifestyle changes for more long-term results.  

 My observation is that people who are engaged in pathways of spirituality are likely looking at how to improve and upgrade their standard of being.  At least for me, each ritual, ceremony, or moment of solitude is contemplative and exploratory as I explore my potential to intend the desired life outcomes I seek.  The eve of the New Year poses a unique opportunity for us to engage in a personal inventory and to look at what parts of our lives we would like to see improved upon.  My longtime teacher, Charles Lawrence, often uses the word “upgrades”, which allows me to improve upon aspects of myself as opposed to seeing this as a healing process.   Charles has also been a wonderful teacher around the concept of Intention.  His approach to life, and certainly ceremony, comes from a place of deep intention, not to just casually show up but to enter in a state of deep mindfulness and intention on why he is there/here. 

 The concept of intention is important in the shamanic paths I have walked or engaged.  Often as one enters ceremony an elder will speak and ask, what is your intention for the ceremony? What are you seeking?  This is a powerful question and I think it’s one that begs to be examined. What is my intention for the ceremony? Better yet, what is my intention for my life? One of my deep fears is the idea of living a life unexamined or unexplored. To search out meaning and to find meaning in existence drives me to work towards personal upgrades with humility, seeking grace from the natural world.

 My path of spirituality or how I have come to embrace my spirituality allows me to exist on many levels and to understand myself beyond a singular lens.  There are many people in our westernized world who find purpose and meaning in capitalism or in their vocation.  What they do becomes what they are.   Which in my mind is unfortunate as some begin to define their identity around what they do or how they are perceived by others. 

 Again, Charles Lawrence often uses the metaphor regarding intentions as an arrow being shot towards its intended mark. When released, that arrow does not sway or is easily deterred from its path. The arrow knows it’s destination, and it moves forward in a straight, undeterred, and powerful process towards the intended target.

I have some suggestions on how to make our intentions more meaningful and powerful as we enter ceremony.  Whenever you come to an event that we host, if it’s a sweat lodge, retreat or a healing session the question you should anticipate is, “what is your intention?”

 The following are questions that I may ask to help you better conceptualize what it is you seek.

1.     What is your intention?

2.    How would you know you have reached your intention?

a.    What would be different about you once you obtain this intention?

b.    How would it feel when you have obtained this intention?

c.     How would your thinking be different once you obtained this intention?

3.    Fast forward to five years from now, and you’ve obtained this intention?  Can you describe to me what you would be doing, saying, thinking or feeling knowing you have command of this intention?

4.    In forming a resolution or intention consider embracing a sentence or a concept that clearly defines the process of moving toward the intentions. 

5.    How will each day manifest you towards this intended concept? 

a.    Again, how would you be different?

b.    This is not a list of what you wouldn’t be doing anymore but a list of the proactive things you would be engaged towards the lifestyle change.

c.     Think in terms of POSITIVE, PROACTIVE and PRESENT tense wording.   (I am empowered each day as I engage in decisions that provoke my sense of peace).

6.    If you got what you were seeking what would you notice differently about yourself?

 These questions are a great template for your journal work as you contemplate with full focus your intentions as you move into 2023 and enter the realm of ceremony and ritual.

See you soon.  Please check out our events in our monthly newsletter.