When intentions fall through…

As we hit the halfway point of January , I find myself riding the waves of life (and emotions), from being sick to getting back into the full swing of things with work, school and home life.  The day-to-day can really take hold and pull my focus away from my intentions for the year ahead.

I've mentioned before I'm not much of a "new years resolution" person but I do like the idea of setting intentions, no matter when they are set.  The thing about setting an intention is that we are inviting into our lives change and perhaps transformations. The thing to remember in making changes or shifts is that we have to leave space for things to not go as intended.  We will get sick, oversleep, over commit, get stuck at work and more.  It's when our intentions "fall apart" is where the real work and consequently the shifts take place. To get to the shift we are tending, we want to practice staying present with what is (not always easy ) and keep moving, even if it's a crawl - it's O.K!

In Pema Chodron's book, "When Things Fall Apart," she talks about staying with whatever is rising, shakiness, a rumbling stomach, or a chaos of sorts. She says,

"Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and our minds beyond limit. It's a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs."

So if your 2024 start has been filled with some curveballs, some sickness and yeah, even some challenges, stay with it, keep moving and I will meet you on the mat!