What’s your heart’s greatest longing?
Dear friends,
First and foremost, I wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Year.
The beginning of the year is a proverbial and literal turning of the page to bring a clean slate and a blank canvas to plan and envision your 2025 precisely as you want.
‘Tis the season of resolutions... and grim statistics:
I have written the grim stats of New Year's resolutions in other January blogs:
Most of them are a repeat of years past
Inspired by an article I had once read and a practice I had done for a couple of years, last year, I wrote about choosing a word to have an intention for the year rather than making a list of resolutions.
This year, I wanted to offer you a more yogic approach, that of a sankalpa.
I have incorporated yoga nidra into my weekly mash-up meditation practices for the past year.
Near the beginning of all yoga nidra (non-sleep deep rest) sessions, participants are asked to decide their sankalpa. This short positive statement resonates deeply with their inner truth. The literal translation is a vow, resolve, or intention. My favorite description was told to me by my yoga therapy master, Joseph LePage, who called it “your heart’s greatest longing.”
Examples of sankalpa could be, “I am happy and healthy.” “I am calm and peaceful.” “I live in deep connection to nature.”
The beauty of a sankalpa is that it operates from a sense of wholeness, assuming you are already complete and perfect, with nothing to fix or improve upon. Compare that to typical resolutions, which often stem from a sense of lack or inadequacy, needing to fix something or improve oneself.
Other key differences to note when deciding which will serve you best for 2025:
Internal vs. External: Sankalpa focuses on inner transformation, while resolutions emphasize external outcomes.
Affirmative vs. Prescriptive: Sankalpa is affirming and concise, while resolutions are typically more detailed and action-oriented.
Timeless vs. Time-Bound: Sankalpas transcend time and can guide you year after year, while resolutions are often tied to the New Year and may have deadlines.
Rooted in Wholeness vs. Deficit: Emerging from the belief that you are already whole, a sankalpa nurtures that, while resolutions often focus on “fixing” perceived flaws.
The intention of a sankalpa serves to reveal or cultivate aspects of your innate self.
It works subconsciously, setting the stage for genuine change in our behavior. As Einstein once said: “We cannot solve a problem on the level of consciousness that created it.”
This intention can guide your life for days, years, or even your lifetime. By changing your subconscious thoughts and patterns, every conscious decision becomes an external choice to bring you closer to your dream.
Meditate on your sankalpa in the coming days. When we get still and quiet, we can tune into the voice within and truly come to know our heart’s greatest longing.
We invite you to join our Sangha (community) with a free 14-day trial. Plant the seed of sankalpa, and nurture it within the support of a like-minded community. You'll have access to daily live-streams, hundreds of recordings of alignment-based yoga classes, functional breathing classes, and Ayurveda offerings.
