You’ve read about it on all the blogs you follow. You’ve seen it posted about on Instagram. Your gurus have all talked about it on podcasts. Intention setting. But where do you start? You can set a daily intention, a new moon intention for the next moon cycle, an intention before each yoga practice, an intention when you sit down to create something. There’s so many places intentions can fit into our lives - we’re going to help you narrow it down and start somewhere that’s both effective and simple: morning intention setting.
One of the very best ways to set up your day is around what two things? Hope and joy. Read it again. Hope and joy! When you begin your day with simple intentions for hope and intentions for joy, you’re inviting more of each into your life (and who can ever have enough hope or joy?), recognizing and living these values, raising your emotional energy to match them, and in turn, raising your physical energy. Those are a lot of benefits for a quick daily practice, are we right?
Okay, but how do I start?
Good question. The very first thing we want you to do is one of the most important (but also one of the easiest!). Designate a time and place for your intention setting ritual. This can be while you’re still lying in bed when you first wake up, it can be sitting in front of your altar, it can be on a morning walk, or any other time and space that feels good to you. Having a designated time and place will help keep you accountable for your daily morning intention setting and also contribute to creating a habit out of the practice - and that’s what we want! Morning intention setting around hope and joy can create such an energetic shift in your life and wellbeing, when you begin, you won’t want to stop! But just like with anything, it takes practice and repetition to create a habit out of it and integrate it into your day, every day. So put some thought into it and pick your place and time!
Center and Focus Yourself
Once you’ve picked your space, go to it each morning and get comfy. This is where the real magic begins! Drop into your body and focus on your breath to begin centering your focus and energy. Intention setting is a quick but specific practice, and the more in your spiritual energy you are when you set your morning intentions, the more they’re going to support you throughout your day. Focus on taking 10 deep breaths, play a song you love that helps you feel grounded, or recite a prayer that gets you centered into yourself.
Visualize Hope and Joy
It’s proven that visualization brings the associated emotions into our bodies and hearts, your body and heart don’t know the difference between visualizing and something happening in real life. If you visualize that you just landed your biggest client ever, the same reaction and emotions come over your body and into your heart that would occur if you actually did just land your biggest client ever. Pretty amazing, right? That makes visualization a super powerful tool.
Once you feel grounded, centered, and focused, begin the visualization process. Visualize yourself feeling hopeful, feeling joyful, feeling peaceful. This can look like your heart expanding with warmth and hope as you watch the sunrise and begin a new, fresh day, it can look like a slow walk along a beach listening to the waves and staring out over the ocean, it can look like a night having the kids with a relative or babysitter and getting to be by yourself or with your significant other.
However you see hope and joy integrate into your life, however you see yourself experiencing hope and joy, visualize and let the emotions swell up in your body and heart. You don’t have to spend more than a minute or two doing this to feel yourself react.
Setting Your Intention
Once you’re in the emotions of hope and joy, this is when you actually set your intention for the day. Some people like to write their intention down in a journal or save it somewhere on their phone. Others speak it out loud to themselves, and others keep it in their mind. Choose a method that works for you.
Your hope and joy intention for the day is something you plan on incorporating into your entire day, stopping to remember it when you land in traffic or in a long line at the grocery store. Using it to shift your energy when you have a weekend project dropped on you at work and the stress starts seeping in. Allowing it to be the place you immediately go to when you feel your energy drop or begin dropping.
Your intention can be any set of words that bring you hope and/or joy, and we frame intentions by starting them with I am. Here are a few examples to get the wheels turning and begin setting you up to start thinking about your own intentions.
Once you’ve set your intention, either on paper, out loud, or in your mind, you’ve brought your intention into your energy field and can turn to it at any point during the day. Allow it to walk gently through your mind when you’re facing a challenge or stressor, and also allow it to walk gently through your mind when you’re feeling great - as a reminder that you’re actively cultivating that joy and hope you’re experiencing.
Morning intention setting is so powerful, and when you add a theme of hope and joy to your intention, it levels up your life in a way that can change your everyday experience. Don’t forget to share your intention setting ideas and your amazing outcomes with us on Instagram @SmudgeWellness, we can’t wait to see you put your intentions into action!
