by Sarah Wells Kohl
It’s so hard to believe that it was a year ago that YD, Nancy, Darla, and I set out on the #365Yoga journey. Through the year you all joined us in practice on and off the mat and I loved seeing our community grow together. I am so grateful for the #365Yoga experience – it brought to my life (and thus also my practice) a greater sense of awareness, of acceptance, and of action. Thanks for being a part of it with us!
While I do not know what 2012 will bring to me, I have a plan for what I will bring to it: I plan to make 2012 The Year of Living Intentionally. I go through life without being mindful so much of the time; Autopilot is my default setting. I wake up, let the dogs out, make the coffee, let the dogs in, drink the coffee, grunt hello to my family, let the dogs out, let the dogs in, etc. Sometimes half the morning has passed before I am even aware of what I am doing. This is no way to live. Although it has served me for countless years, I sense I’m somehow robbing myself of the richness that might come with being more, oh, I don’t know, an active participant in my own life!
What would my life look like if I made a concerted effort to live my life with a general goal, a purpose, an intention? What might some of those intentions be? I have thought about this long and hard and have come up with a few things. While I don’t know that I would call it another #365 challenge, it is my plan to live 2012 each day with one or more of the following intentions:
I intend to appreciate the strength and ability of my human body and to speak to it with love and devotion (no more negative body talk!)
I intend to nourish and strengthen my spiritual body and to listen to it’s inherent wisdom (divine light and all that.)
I intend to view the world and all of it’s inhabitants as extensions of myself and to see the value and worth in us all (including myself – one love, yo!)
I intend to spread love like a virus (shut it, peanut gallery. You know what I mean.)
I intend to laugh when it’s appropriate and to laugh more when it is not. (Come on, some inappropriate things are funny!)
I intend to use all my senses in each moment (which means I’ll look like Hawkeye Pierce and Robert Barone while eating, but I’m okay with that.)
I intend to let myself have hope, have dreams, and have patience (that last one, yeah, well, I can hope that I have patience. So there.)
I intend to say “Thank You,” to be grateful, and to see the good instead of the bad (wag more, bark less.)
I intend to start over again and again and again as many times as I have to and at any time that I need to (endless do-overs rock!)
What are YOUR intentions for 2012? What do you want to bring to your life this coming year? To your practice? To the world?
I cannot tell the future. I don’t have any idea what will come my way in 2012, but I can do my best to meet it head on. I’m ready! Who’s with me?
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Sarah Wells Kohl, CYT200, is a yoga teacher and manager of Yoga Sol in Columbia, MO. When she’s not on her mat, she’s messing around with her kids, her husband, and her overwhelmingly neurotic dogs, berating herself for not posting to her blog (http://sarahsana.wordpress.com) and wistfully remembering her life on Twitter (@sarahkohl). Check her out – today might be the day she makes her epic comeback ala Elvis Presley, 1968!
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Earlier…
love it! I wrote mine down yesterday too.. I plan on living intentionally too.. hopefully find some more out about myself too!
Thanks, Ashley! Scurrying on over to read whatchu got going on…. 🙂
This is great — love it! Happy New Year and you-go with your virus-lovin’ self! (you know what I mean) 😉
I’m spreading it all over, I’m saying! Happy New Year to you, too!
Love the “wag more, bark less” philosophy! Definitely making it onto the quote board in my office!
🙂 I have a houseful of dogs, so it comes pretty naturally, but I cannot take credit for the phrase. Someone much cooler than me said it first (I’m not cool enough to know who.)
Happy wagging!