“Set an intention for your practice.” So often we hear this phrase with little to no explanation or instruction. What does it mean? Am I supposed to create a goal for myself, like a mini New Year’s Resolution that I need to accomplish by the end of class? Oh great! Something else to stress about today! Does “to not fall out of ardha chandrasana in class” count as an acceptable intention?
To me, setting an intention means creating a personal prayer. It is asking myself “How can I be of service in this moment?” It is deciding where I will direct my energy and attention.
The most important part of setting an intention is that it feels meaningful to you. Your intention can change with each day, each practice. It can be as ever changing as you are in your life! The point is to notice what is calling to your heart in this moment and opening to and answering that call. Your intention can be to devote your practice to God, Goddess, or any diety that you worship. You can choose to practice with the intention of sending love, compassion, and healing to someone. Or perhaps to direct this energy to yourself. It can even be a word or quality that you would like to cultivate, embody, and nourish within yourself. So, setting an intention to get the best glute workout of your life or to not wobble in a balancing pose falls a bit flat when you can decide to dedicate your practice to something bigger, beyond ego.
Hold your intention in your heart as you move and breathe so that it becomes a part of you. So that each movement and breath is of service to that calling. This takes our practice from a purely physical, going-through-the-motions workout routine and transforms it into a moving, breathing prayer. With this intention, we move in service to someone or something. The more we give and share, the more we have to give and share. It sounds counterintuitive, but the more we fill our hearts with the intention to give and serve, the fuller our hearts become. The more we practice intention-setting on the mat, the easier it becomes to carry that personal prayer off the mat and into our daily lives. Maybe one day, it will become second-nature to send kind, loving energy to the person who cuts us off in traffic!
So next time you’re in class, and you hear “set an intention for your practice,” try it! If you forget about it 5 minutes in, that’s ok (and normal)! Come back. It’s called a “practice” for a reason, and it is always waiting here for us to return when we forget.