Because yoga is a mind-body practice, a moving meditation, it involves an aspect of spiritual awakening and self-understanding that goes beyond the physical activity tied to huff-and-puff gym workouts. Setting an intention can bring your yoga practice to a deeper level. An intention can guide your practice in the classroom as you stretch through increasingly challenging asanas, or poses. Over time, an intention can also better direct your actions and decisions outside the classroom whenever this, your heart's aspiration, is called to mind.

Setting Intentions

Often an instructor will invite students to silently set an intention for their practice at the beginning of class. Even when this doesn't occur, or if you self-direct your practice, you can still take a moment to set your focus during class, as well as in your life. An intention can be a simple word you dedicate your practice to that represents a value you'd like to bring into your life. For example, love, trust, vulnerability, freedom from fear, openness, love, compassion, truth or tenderness. Powerful intentions directly address feelings you'd like to modify. Feeling weak? Set strength as your intention. Doubtful? Go with belief.

Recalling Intentions

To be fully effective, intentions are not a once-uttered wonder. During your practice, perhaps during your most challenging pose (Wheel or Handstand, anyone?) call forth that intention, whether it be strength or belief in your abilities, and allow it to power you through the posture. In the same fashion, when you are having difficult moments in life, once your intention is set you'll be able to call it forth when you need it, to guide your decisions and actions and base them on your values. Intentions give you a way to stay grounded and to connect with your true self, no matter what storms start brewing.

Intension vs. Goal

An important distinction exists between setting an intention and setting a goal, a topic thoroughly explored by Phillip Moffitt in "Yoga Journal." As he explains, in Buddhist teaching, intentions are not oriented to future outcomes. Instead, an intention is more of a continual aspiration, or a path, based on an understanding of what really matters most to you. In a way, establishing your intention is making a commitment to those values most important to you, writes Moffitt. Over time, your actions begin to align with your intentions, meaning those top-priority values.

Ask Why

Another way to look at intention in the context of a yoga practice is to ask yourself why you bothered to go to yoga class. What were you hoping to achieve through class or where were you hoping to arrive? If you answer these questions honestly, you will find your intention, according to Leila Easa in "Yoga Journal." When you begin to understand what you are seeking from your yoga practice, you can see how to direct energies and actions to get there. Your intentions will change over time as you evolve. But take the time to listen, and you will always find your intention.

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