The Power of Positive Intentions
Happy New Year!
I hope my first blog of 2021 finds you safe, happy and well.
We’re only two-thirds of the way through January, and so much already seems to have happened this year.
Almost every day there’s an event, a piece of news, or something going on in our life or the lives of the people we’re close to that tries to derail us. It impacts our mood, steals our energy, and weakens our immune system. Suppose we don’t follow a healthy lifestyle like Ayurveda to keep our body and mind in perfect balance. In that case, that steady accumulation of derailments – even if they’re small ones – can quickly leave us vulnerable to sickness and disease.
That’s why the Power of Intention is so important because it keeps us concentrated on our good habits and our goals, it stops us from faltering, and it can help make our dreams a reality. I don’t mean that in a positive visualisation ‘put a picture of your dream house on your fridge, look at it every day, and your dream house will eventually come to you’ kind of way, because it takes more than wishing on a picture to manifest what you want. You have to put the hard work in. That’s why, when the bestselling book ‘The Secret’ told the story of how comedian Jim Carrey made his first million dollars after writing a post-dated $1 million cheque to himself and putting it in his bedside drawer, some people thought that’s all they had to do and ended up being very disappointed. They forgot to consider that Jim Carrey didn’t just write the cheque to himself and go back to sleep, he worked hard at his career for months and possibly years until the date on his post-dated cheque arrived. In other words, he did all the hard work required to become a success but looking at his handwritten cheque every day kept him focused on why he was doing it.
What is the Power of Intention?
The clue was in the last paragraph.
The Power of Intention is ‘Focus’.
Most of us follow life wherever it leads. If something good happens, we feel good too. If something not so good happens, we don’t feel so good either. We hardly ever feel like we’re in proper control because we’re at the whim of whatever the universe throws at us.
Why are a lot of the people who set themselves New Year’s Resolutions on January 1st already finding it challenging to stick to them? Because they’re not using the Power of Intention to keep them focused on achieving their goals.
Prana
In Sanskrit, ‘prana’ means ‘life force’ or ‘vital energy’. It is sometimes translated as ‘breath’, which is why you might recognise it as the first five letters of the term ‘pranayama breathing’, which I’ve talked about in previous blogs.
Prana is a key element in Ayurveda, as well as many yoga traditions. It is the life energy that surges through all the channels of our body and works at every level of our being. It is the original creative power that connects us to the universe. That’s why following a regular pranayama breathing and meditation practice is so important and can be so beneficial because it makes us aware of how efficiently (or not) the energy inside us is flowing. If our energy is blocked for any reason, pranayama and meditation can help us calm, relax and release it so the energy will flow properly again. Sometimes, if you’re very deep into the practice, it can feel like an electric current running through your body and giving you the shudders.
The Power of Intention focuses our prana on what we want to achieve. That’s one of the many reasons why it is essential not to get caught up in negative emotions because it harms our prana/life energy. That’s why, when something upsets us or unexpectedly goes wrong, we can feel faint, weak or sick in our physical body. But when something happens that makes us happy and lifts our mood, we typically feel a lot better physically too. We might even notice that any aches and pains we felt before it happened have cleared up as well.
The Mind/Heart connection
Ayurveda teaches us that prana begins in our heart, and our heart carries the prana throughout our body. Our heart is also where our mind is rooted, and our mind lives inside every cell and tissue. One of the best ways to focus the Power of Intention is by concentrating on what our heart wants rather than what our intellect tells us to do. Our intellect can give us a thousand reasons not to do something we intended. If we concentrate on the intention inside our heart, it’s much harder to ignore.
Setting an Intention isn’t difficult, and it’s not time-consuming. All you have to do is:
Focus on your breath
Take a few slow, deep breaths to awaken the prana inside thechannels of your body. My recent blog about pranayama breathing will help.
Ground yourself
Bring your awareness into your body. Wherever you’re sitting, whether it is in a chair or on the floor, let your weight relax into it. Keep your spine straight. If you’re sitting on the floor, using the wall as support will help you maintain a good posture. Shift your attention to the soles of your feet. With each inhalation and exhalation, imagine roots extending slowly from the soles of your feet into the ground.
Visualise prana
As you inhale, visualise prana seeping up through the roots, into your body, and along your central channel to the crown of your head. Visualise the prana filling you up and then, as you exhale, moving back down from your crown, along your central channel, back into the roots and into the ground. Repeat for a few breaths.
Connect with your heart
Inhale, and visualise a ball of light expanding gently like a balloon inside your chest. Exhale, and let the ball of light focus around your heart like a sphere of glowing energy. Repeat for several breaths until you feel connected with your Self inside your heart.
Be clear on what your intention is
For the Power of Intention to work, you have to know precisely what you want and why you want it. So, if it’s a New Year’s Resolution you’re having difficulty with, be clear on what the resolution is and why it’s important to you. For example, if your New Year’s Resolution is to follow an Ayurvedic lifestyle, focus on why you want to do that and all the positive, healthful benefits it will give you.
Visualise your intention
Project yourself forwards into the future, to a time a few weeks or months away when you can ‘see’ and ‘feel’ the amazing results that Ayurveda is giving you. This isn’t daydreaming; it’s planting the intention firmly in your mind, so it anchors there on a subconscious, emotional level. Make the picture in your mind as strong and bright as possible.
Trust what the Power of Intention has planted
Identifying your intention and future-planning its results has aligned you with your prana. Now, take action by making Ayurveda a part of your life. Know in your heart that your intention is set and if you continue Ayurveda you’ll succeed, but don’t overthink it because that can block you. If there’s a day when your willpower isn’t the best and you’re tempted to forgo Ayurveda, return to your heart and remind yourself why your Ayurveda goal is important.
Enjoy the journey!
Until next time, to your enduring health and happiness in Ayurveda.
