Welcome to 2016!!!
May this be the best year for you yet!
We have had some really beautiful and amazing coaches join our team which we are very excited about! With an array of skills and abilities, we know we can find the perfect coach to help you fulfil your life’s dreams and goals!
We really want to help you ensure your life turns out exactly the way you always wanted it to, (and secretly always thought is would) :)
So, we decided to share some very powerful words with you by a truly amazing and inspiring soul! Matthew joins us as a guest at Alive And Happy!
Matthew Sockolov is a facilitator of meditation groups in Los Angeles. His passion for meditation was sparked as a child, learning mindfulness meditation from his parents. Along with his fiancee, Elizabeth, Matthew owns and operates One Mind Dharma, an online resource for meditation, mindfulness, compassion, and more - www.OneMindDharma.com
CLARIFYING INTENTIONS
Every time January rolls around, people all over make resolutions, set goals, and vow to change something for the better. The practice of setting goals and intentions can be incredibly useful to us, but we often allow our intentions to fall to the wayside. Our intentions and goals are constantly changing as well. Bringing awareness to our intentions can help us develop some clarity around what they are, and how we can take action toward growing.
Seeing our Intentions Clearly
In order to truly develop a wholesome relationship with our intentions, we first must be clear about what they are. A “meditation” practice can be of great use in clarifying our goals. We don’t need to sit in a formal meditation to do so. Perhaps your form of meditation is writing or taking a quiet walk. Find some time to be silent, and bring some awareness to what it is you would like for yourself. A bunch of goals may pop up on the surface. Connect with something within yourself that is deeper than just wanting to lose weight, wanting to make more money, or wanting to meditate every day. What is the intention below these things? Do you want to lose weight because you care about yourself and the body? Do you want to make more money because you wish to support a family or loved ones? Do you want to meditate every day because you would like to cultivate more compassion and wisdom? When we dedicate some time to looking at our intentions in silence, we can begin to get in touch with who we are on a deeper level. As a goal comes to mind, notice how it makes you feel. As we continue to deliberately investigate our goals, we are training the mind to see our deeper intentions more clearly.
Sometimes, we completely lose sight of our deeper intentions. One of my deepest intentions is to love and care for other beings. This is especially true for my fiancee. When we disagree, my intention in that moment is to be right. However, if I tune in a little bit more deeply, I recognize and remember that my deeper intention is to love this person in front of me. This happens to us in many ways throughout our days, not just in relation to other people. We intend to cultivate health for ourselves, but find ourselves consuming unhealthy food. We intend to be more disciplined, but find ourselves putting things off. We all let go of our intentions in certain moments in order to fulfill some craving or desire. It happens to the best of us! When this happens, it doesn’t mean you need to beat yourself up or give up. Rather, look at what is happening. What happened that you lost sight of the deeper intention? What was your intention in the moment? Just by watching what happened and looking at it without judgement, we can learn a lot about our tendencies and habits. Through doing this repeatedly, we can also train the mind to stay in touch with our goals.
Acting with Purpose
Having a goal and bringing awareness to it is a great step, but we really must act in line with the goal if we are to grow. One of my continual intentions is to speak with more wisdom and kindness. I can think about it all the time, but I really must actually practice wise speech. Thinking about speaking with kindness then saying something hurtful every day does not actually help me in any way. There are a few things I have found to be helpful in developing intentional action. We may try simply slowing down. We are talking, acting, and thinking all day. Most of us are on autopilot for most of this time. We go from one thing to the next, focusing on what needs to be done next. If we slow down, we allow ourselves the opportunity to see what we are actually doing. Before you speak, check in with your goals. Before you act, eat, or make a decision, try tuning into those intentions you set. Why are you doing what you are doing? Is it helpful or harmful (to yourself and others)? We don’t have to live a perfectly pure life without making any mistakes, but we can bring our full awareness to experience.
Something else you may try is putting your intention into writing and placing it somewhere you will see it. I leave the Buddha’s words on loving-kindness on my computer at work, so that I may read the words every day. The reminder to be “able and upright, straightforward and gentle in speech, humble and not conceited, contented and easily satisfied” serves me very well. I look at it every day, remembering my intentions to cultivate a heart of kindness and ease. You may put your intention at work, on the mirror in the bathroom, in the kitchen, in your car, or wherever you see fit. Sometimes a simple sticky note is more than enough to remind us what our intention is. The mind gets cluttered throughout our days. I find that seeing some inspiration helps the mind find some ease and reconnect with what is important.
Meditation on Intentions
Below is a guided meditation on tuning into intentions. The meditation is about 15 minutes long, and may help you to clarify what your intentions are. I offer this as just another tool for you to use, so if it doesn’t resonate with you, that’s perfectly okay. I find that this practice is a wonderful way to investigate goals and look at the ways in which we lose sight of them.
MEDITATION LINK: www.OneMindDharma.com/Intentions
No comments:
Post a Comment