Create the motivation for your home practice (especially when you don't feel like it!)
Setting an intention for your practice can create a powerful motivation for you to show up for your home practice
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I recently asked my private Facebook community to share their main reason why they show up for their home practice each day. Their responses to the question were really interesting and I could completely relate to them such as wanting to feel calm, grounded, centred, empowered, and loved every day. By being clear on why we show up for our practice and understanding the quality that we're wanting to cultivate in our life, it gives us a really powerful motivation to show up for our practice – it gives us an intention for our practice. Setting an intention for our practice also gives us a starting point for us to connect more meaningfully with our inner life and to give it the attention that it is asking for
One of my most favourite yoga teachers, Donna Farhi, writes in her book ‘Bringing Yoga to Life’ about the importance of establishing an intention for our practice:
“Without intention, all these postures breathing practices, meditations, and the like can become little more than ineffectual gestures. When animated by intention, however, the simplest movement, the briefest meditation and the contents of one breath cycle, are made potent.”
It only needs to take a moment or two to set an intention at the beginning of your home practice, giving you a precious opportunity to listen to your inner world and respond with a quality that is most needed in that moment. Your intention gives you a source of inspiration and facilitates a shift from a sense of self that is tense and fearful to one that is relaxed, creative and receptive – we can see the bigger picture again!
So next time you show up for your home practice, I encourage you to take a moment to set your intention. To do this, simply arrive into your dedicated space or allocated moment, allow your body to become quiet and still, and feel your breath moving into and out of the body. Once you are feeling settled and comfortable ask yourself any of the following questions:
What do I need today?
How do I want to feel today?
What single quality will support me most as I move through this day?
How do I want to live this day, regardless of the outcome?
Give yourself some time and space to allow your answer to your question arrive. Once you have settled on your intention, say your intention to yourself three times in the present tense in a very heart felt way, using the phrase ‘I am [insert the quality]’ or ‘I feel [insert the quality]’ .
If no intention arises for you, that is completely ok! You could use the simple intention ‘I am here’ or ‘ I am present’.
Once you have committed to your intention, surrender it to the field of all possibility and then continue into the rest of your home practice.
Intention setting is a powerful practice and one that is an integral part of my home practice. I encourage you to take the time to set your intention every time you arrive for your practice to give you the motivation to show up for yourself again and again, and to allow you to experience the depth and meaning intention setting brings to your practice.
Take care my friend and with love,
Sharon
xxx.