Happy New Year's Intentions

It's New Year's Eve. That means that at least one person has asked me if I am "making any resolutions." And the answer for the second year now is, no. I am, instead, "setting my intentions" about some things.

So what's the difference? Mere words? I don't think so, at least not for me. Resolutions are really fine in themselves. I just can't seem to keep them very well. I spent many years making them, setting up these lovely plans for what I was going to accomplish in the coming year, laying them out so neat and tidy, with elegant little outlines and manifestos for their execution...and they would last about a week or two and phffftttt....I'd have stopped doing them and I would feel that I had failed and once again be feeling bad about myself.

Maybe it is simple semantics, but when I think I about intentions, I think about something that is grounded in now. Intentions for me are about alignment, like a good yoga pose. About matching my manifesting in the world in the here and now, moment by moment, with the deepest desires of my most authentic self. It is a spiritual discipline for me to do my intentions, something that I have to keep checking back in with myself on, and also something that (and here's the cool part) I feel like I can't really fail at. So my intentions for 2008 as of today are:

• To choose "compassionately curious" over judgement whenever possible regarding the behavior of myself and others.
• To continue to take the risk of authenticity in all areas of my life.
• To do a better job taking care of my physical being...including letting other people nurture me even when that level of vulnerability gets a little scary.
• To be consistent in my spiritual disciplines....yoga, solitude, journaling, prayer... those things that sustain me if I sustain them.
• To be a better steward of all my blessings, including (or maybe especially) the material ones.

That's enough for now. It could change.

A blessed New Year to you all.