Hey there it’s that time again – whatever time it is for you – but time to get your year off on to the right start, and set some intentions. I like to start this around Samhain, and let them marinate, or meditate over them, wait for my dreams to influence them; before dedicating myself to them at or around Yule. I think this nicely coincides with the reflection during the dark time of the year, and commitment to rebirth at the start of the new year during Yule.
You may have read that and thought, that sounds a lot like new years resolutions or goals. And to you I say not exactly. I think you could either set goals, or set intentions, or both. I read an excellent quote that likened goals to a destination, and intentions as the direction you take to get there. The main difference in my interpretation between intentions and goals is that goals are specific and have a definitive due date; whereas intentions are the guiding force for the year.
If you’ve ever heard of the acronym SMART this is one of the most conducive ways, in my opinion, to set goals. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and in my opinion most importantly, Timely. I encourage you go getters out there to set goals and intentions. But if you just need some guiding words to help you get through your day to day, let’s look at setting some intentions.
The first step of my intention setting process is really reflection. I find that taking the time at Samhain to reflect on the life we have lead up to this point, honoring it’s end, so you can prepare for its rebirth is totally appropriate. We can look at only the year, or we can dig deeper and look at our lives or even our generations in our families for inspiration on what we would like to keep going, what we would like to change, and if there is anything you would like to start. I find that sometimes it is help full to look towards people I admire, or consider my ancestors (FYI they don’t have to be blood related to you).
Once I have reflected and meditated on my life, I started my intention setting process by pulling out an old sheet (workbook) of goals that had various categories to trigger my memory so I didn’t forget anything. I wound up selecting 8 different categories that were important to me throughout the years: Family, Self, Relationship, Friends, Spirit, Money, Work, and Health. You may be wondering for example why I feel the need to separate Self and Health and my quick and honest answer is that I dont like dieting or exercising, which is essential to my health, but not essential to my self. Self is reserved for things that make me feel the most like myself, and keep my mental health at a manageable level. Feel free to choose more or less categories, but most importantly categories that are important to you, be flexible with what you call these categories and let the names come to you; the answers are there if you’re willing to listen.
Once I had my categories sorted I wrote 3 statements starting with the words “I am” one for a short term intention, a mid range intention, and finally a long term intention.
Like I mentioned before I let these settle in my planner and went back to them when something in my life prompted me to return to my intentions. For example I was working on a team member assessment for my mundane job when I thought of something that would be helpful to more accurately describing my short term intention for work.
At the time of the full moon following Samhain, my witchy friend and I looked over our intentions and reduced them ta few simple words. It was also at this point that she game me some great advice: to let everything simmer like a good stew, come back and meditate on the words if you need to but really give them time and make sure they are the direction you want to go in on your journey. From this point I selected one word from each category that spoke strongly of my overall intentions for those life categories, applying meditation and intuition where needed. If one of those words is the same for you in multiple categories I think that is ideal, and likely points to several of your intentions being in alignment. At this point I felt very strongly about 4 specific words that I wrote on a separate sheet of paper and folded them up and put them in an envelope to refer back to.
When I finally sat down to work on my dedication ritual which I’ll discuss in another post I was left with the following intentions for this year.
Intention, dedication, connection, transformation.
Did you set intentions this year? Was this post helpful to you. How did you set your intentions? I would love to hear from you.
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Thanks for making it this far with me. Blessed Be.
