Create a Practice with Intention
Do your daily routines come from a place of purpose and desire or as a result of stale boredom?
What sort of things do you practice daily? Maybe you…
make coffee
get dressed
lock a door
drive
exercise
cook a meal
do the dishes
read
bathe
It’s likely you don’t consider the things you do daily to be practices, such as the things on this list.
It’s probably easy to see exercise as a practice…but do you consider getting dressed or making your morning drink to be a practice?
When you exercise, there’s often an intention behind it, or at least there was before you began the habit of exercise.
“I’m going to walk, or run, or lift weights, or put myself into some yoga postures because…
“I intend to feel better, get stronger, fight aging, pursue my overall health and wellness goals.”
But, as powerful as your intention to feel better and stronger through the practice of exercise is…the other routine tasks you complete each day can be just as powerful.
When you make coffee, get dressed in the morning, or undressed in the evening before a shower…you probably don’t even think about doing these things, much less put an intention into these routine “practices” apart from…
“I’ll make this coffee so I can wake up…I'll get dressed so I can get going…I’ll get undressed so I can shower and go to bed.”
They are merely habits that get done without intention, day after day.
They are autopilot tasks.
But could they be more…could they be opportunities to infuse your dreams, desires, and passions with intentions throughout your day, through your routines and rituals already in place?
What if you put more thought into the routine, autopilot-type things you do? What if you considered these tasks to be practices or little rituals with which you could bless yourself and the spaces around you, infuse within you the energy you intend to bring into your days and nights?
What if the actions you perform daily were done with intention…compassion, an open heart, a lightness of mind and body…instead of a stale, closed, heavy sense of energy behind them?
How would the world around you feel?
How would you respond differently to others? To yourself?
How would life improve if you placed an intention into each practice…or even just one intention into one practiced task each day?
How different would you feel throughout the day if you approached all the routine “practices” with a gentle kindness, a loving nature, a joyful spirit?
Creating Easy, Little, Intention-Filled Practices
In every routine task you do, there is an opportunity to create a practice.
By pairing an intention with a routine task, you create a practice that has the ability to shift your…
current state of being
emotions
mindset
relationships
work
parenting
next activity
life
An example…
The next time you prepare your morning beverage…
pause
slowly inhale and exhale
soften your eyes
smile to yourself
acknowledge and gently hold your cup
and say…
This drink will infuse my morning
with warmth and grace.
Peaceful energy will
flow through me with each sip I take,
and will remain with me all day long.
Final thoughts…
If it’s too difficult to begin now, if it feels like it’s too much or too tedious to create a little practice around your morning coffee or your nighttime shower…try this practice that’s even simpler, and perhaps more powerful…
pause
Yes, you read that right…just pause.
My yoga teacher taught us over and over…the pause is as important as the pose.
In the pause as a practice you find…
your breath
a breeze
clouds
a rainbow
twinkling in your child’s eyes
a burried emotion
tension in the body
a mistake about to happen
a joy about to be missed
So if you take one piece away from this, let it be this…
the pause is the practice
and in the pause
you are found
you are whole
Are you ready to try the morning coffee practice or the pause practice with me this week?
Let’s do this together and see how much we can change the little worlds we orbit around everyday!
With presence of mind and pauses in place…we have the ability to make big changes in our life and manifest our deepest desires!
Sending you lots of love and the inspiration to create sweet, intention filled practices to fill your days…
💖✨ Michelle
