Holding Intention: 3 Ways to Manifest Your Resolutions + Deepen Your Practice
holding intention
3 Ways to Manifest Your Resolutions + Deepen Your Practice
Whether it’s a new year or somewhere throughout, holding intention is something many of us feel deeply challenged by – while we often feel prepared to talk about what we’d like to let go of, very rarely do we stop and ask ourselves: “what would I most like to hold on to?”
In so many new-age and spiritual spaces, we see countless reminders of how we must learn to let go, to release, to minimise, to forgive, to move on, to move forward, to ascend. For many, ‘holding on’ to something has become synonymous with limiting spiritual or personal growth – ‘clinging’ or seeking ‘attachment’, even more so. It may be difficult to imagine that these things are actually essential to the process of manifesting your dreams.
Whatever the goal or dream may be, it seems that most people feel disconnected from their intention within just a few days after setting it – we know this, which is why many of us prepare ourselves to be disappointed before we even begin. But when we understand that there are reasons – solid, deeper reasons – as to why certain questions and patterns persist in our lives, that it isn’t that we are just ‘lazy’, ‘unmotivated’, or just don’t really ‘want’ it, we begin to realign our perspective and bring ourselves closer to manifesting what is already true deeper within ourselves.
You are here, and that means you have the opportunity to now claim what is already yours: your dreams, your desires, your higher and deeper self. So, how do we get there (somewhere we already are) – how do we hold these intentions close + allow them to manifest?
1. be honest with yourself.
When committing to stay close to your intentions, one of the most important things is to know why you’re doing what you’re doing – and to be completely honest and unashamed about that.
If you’re learning a new language, what inspires you to pursue it – what role does that language fulfill in your life? If you’ve got a plan to get your health and wellness in order, what does ‘being healthy’ really mean to you? And if you’re doing it to impress that cute person you’re trying to get closer with, know that it’s okay (and necessary) to admit that, too. By choosing to be honest about where you’re coming from, you can be a more prepared, flexible ally to yourself and know what is really motivating you to grow each day.
Whether you’ve started a resolution or are still charting out a path, take time to sit and write out exactly what is and isn’t part of your intention. Choose specific language when defining your practice (what you will be doing each day); you will be the main person holding you accountable for following through, so it will be helpful to have very clear ideas of what it looks like when you are or aren’t aligning with your intention. You probably know when you’re doing what you intended to vs. when you’re trying to work around it. What does that look like? Write out the ways you have found yourself trying to justify and sneak in less supportive behaviors/habits in the past.
Know your own patterns. How can you expect yourself to respond when it’s 2 am and you’re feeling hungry? What about when you don’t feel like getting out of bed? When you’re feeling alone? In what ways might your habits change when someone around you says they don’t approve? When you feel frustrated or like you’ve failed?
When you find yourself in one of these places, how will you get back to your practice?
These questions may seem like a lot to consider, but sorting them now will help you know how to hold on in moments where you feel disconnected from your intention. Be honest about what you expect from yourself once things start to seem less dazzling, exciting, and eventful; it is the mundane, everyday experience where the magick actually happens, where you will be building and integrating this intention into your life.
2. invest + love on yourself!
Along with questions of honesty, another thing that keep us from feeling close to our intentions is that we don’t give ourselves permission to take them seriously and fall in love with them, to really acknowledge that we are doing important and beautiful work – let’s go ahead and shift that.
As you are reading this, take a moment to realise how incredible it is that you are taking time out of your day simply because you want to be a fuller, more honest you. Literally, pause for a moment and just notice that out of all the things you could be doing right now, you are choosing to craft yourself. Choosing to commit your time to your deeper and higher truths, to thriving in your personal and spiritual wellness.
Setting an intention is welcoming in parts of your higher and deeper self, and that is absolutely something to be celebrated – you are absolutely something to be celebrated!
Celebrating yourself can look so different each day.
Allow yourself to rediscover pleasure in the concept of being invested, and to reinvent how that manifests in every moment.
If you are committing to wellness through what you eat, investing and loving on yourself might mean allowing yourself to take time in the grocery store and to choose foods that you are excited to have nourish your body, to pick items that align with feelings of bliss and thriving.
If you are aligned with an intention of loving your partner(s) more fully, how can you fall in love with that work – how can you rediscover that you are already in love with that work?
If you are devoting your time to learning the art of tarot, you might (re)begin by buying a tarot deck whose imagery easily inspires you to seek out your practice, an oracle you can come to know and love as you know and love more of yourself.
Make a ritual of your intention, something that you return to each day and which you can practice. Bring candles. Bless your space. Bathe in essential oils. Meditate, or just breathe. Let it be magickal. Let it be devotional. Let it be transformative.
Give thanks to yourself, for all the beauty and growth you are blessing yourself with. Write words of love and adoration to yourself, then put them in your space so that you can read about how dope you are. Be giving of yourself; tell others about what you are doing and ask them to hold space to receive and share in and support what you have to give, all of which can be forms of investment in you and what you are crafting. Be gracious with yourself; take notes (literally) of everything you’re learning, all the amazing things you can do with your body, heart, mind, and spirit – whichever parts you are celebrating.
You can practice humility while affirming that there is beauty in finding and crafting your-self – you are doing intentional work that not everyone else is willing to do + work that you have not always done. This is a special moment of transition into a fuller you, and one which you will be able to return to whenever you need a reminder of the great work you are doing within yourself.
3. craft your language.
And now, to talk about language – how are you talking with yourself? The words and tone we choose frame our intention and can reveal deeper patterns that may have limited our ability to thrive in the past.
The past. Let’s start there. When crafting language for your intentions (i.e. literally whenever you talk about your intentions), practice reflecting on how past-tense kinds of language find their way into what you say and write.
“I set an intention..”
“I promised myself..”
“I decided I was going to..”
Notice the difference between these statements:
“I committed to being more present in my relationships.”
and
“I commit to being more present in my relationships.”
One of the first things I notice about that shift in language is how the second phrase immediately shifts into a form of an affirmation, something which summons up intention every time we say it. Some of us may feel we resonate with the first one (the more past-tense one) more, but I invite us to ask: how much is it that the past tense is something that is already done, already complete, and how that brings us comfort?
With how often we are focused on wanting things to “be complete” and other perfectionist tendencies, the more present-tense phrasing might seem too open-ended to bring us that same comforting finality and completeness we desire. But that comfort is often also a way of evading accountability, vulnerability, and the fear of messing up; it is often easier to say that we didn’t try and that’s why it didn’t work out and that there’s not much we can do to change it.
Another way to say this is that the past-tense framing doesn’t require anything further from us – it sounds like something that already happened (and in some moments, even something that happened to us), which is why it is easy to feel helpless, disempowered, and as if things are out of reach.
(We are so skilled at crafting clever language that we may not even realise how the framing both seems to protect us and limit our agency in a situation – go us!)
When we craft our thoughts this way, it’s easy to “slip” into feeling like we’ve already failed and can’t keep going with our intention. But how can you have already failed if you are working in the present tense, if your intention is still a work in progress?
Bring everything back to what you are doing with them in the present moment. Use language the reflects where and how you intend to be, where and how you are choosing to be, and bring that closer. Even the future tense is too distant; there is no need to say “I will be ..”. Release “should” and “have to”, as well. Whatever higher or deeper self you are choosing to be, decide that you are welcoming them in today, and hold them close.
Rather than
“By the end of the week, I will..”
“I should be working on..”
“I have to eat more healthy if..”
“In 6 months, I’ll..”
Allow yourself to exist fully in the truth of your intention.
“I have all the skills I need to thrive from where I am now.”
“I am more than enough in all that I do.”
“I commit to being with my fullest self.
“I am choosing what feels right in my body in this moment.”
“I give my permission to take up space and feel safe in that.”
“I am moving forward prepared and focused.”
“I realign my actions with my intention in each moment.”
Your intentions are now part of your current truth, not something separate from you – let them remain your current truth and guide you towards thriving, something which you already know how to do in yourself but might be rediscovering.
Your intentions are the work of finding what already belongs to you – hold them close.
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Amani Michael
intuit.hue founder + guide
