It will be harder than you think.

Many years ago, my yoga teacher was leading us through a Kundalini twist movement.

She said "You'll do it harder than you want to for longer than you want to." 
 

This going harder-and-longer than you want to, she said, is what stirs up the Kundalini energy and frees it to flow up through your chakras. If you stopped when it was still feeling easy, you wouldn't get that magical high that comes from Kundalini practices. 

Recently, I was taking a walk in the woods, and this lesson came back to me. 

You see, we're deep in the heart of intention-setting season. Whether you set Winter Solstice Intentions or New Year's Resolutions, there is a collective sense that this is the season to dream up a vision of your life, write it down, and pursue it. 

I'm all for intention-setting. I completely love it, and I'm currently leading a group of amazing folks through my plant-magic-and-heart-centered method of doing so in the ReNew Year Retreat. 

The amazing thing about Intention-setting it is that when you set an intention, you truly commit to it, and you structure your whole life around it, it actually will happen.

How magical is that? 

But here's the thing:

It will be harder than you want it to be.

Like, so much harder. It will stretch you out in all sorts of directions that you didn't realize you could be stretched in. It will be strenuous, and filled with plenty of actual work.

It will take longer than you want it to take.

Looking back, all the intentions i've set have come to fruition or are currently unfolding. The ones that have come pass -- most of them happened months or a year later than I'd planned. 

One very specific intention, that I would move into a specific home in August, did happen in August -- but it was the August of the following year. The Universe has a sense of humor. 

And the result will not be as sweet as you anticipated. 

I've learned, as I've made my dreams come true, that the result often doesn't feel as sweet as we want it to be. 

When we're in one state of being, and we're dreaming up the state of being that we want to manifest, we imagine vaulting into the new state and feeling the sharp relief that will come from the contrast. 

But the truth is, this sense of relief is false. More likely is that the change will not be a vaulting, but rather a gradual series of small shifts that will bring us to the new state. 

When we consider our Intentions, and we go down the road of "I'll be so much happier when.." we fall into the trap of destination happiness.

So I'll just tell you: you likely won't be any happier once you manifest your intentions. The new state of being will bring its own set of challenges and stresses. It will be new, untrodden challenges for your curious heart and mind to explore. 

The upside of this is that it helps me to focus on the joys of the present era. 

To recap: You will manifest your dreams. But it will be harder than you want it to be, it will take longer than you want it to take, and the result likely won't be as sweet as you anticipate. 

After all, if it were easy, how would you grow? 

* * * 
 

I hope you've enjoyed my very uplifting pep talk. 

I'll leave you with some advice from my years of Intention-setting.

My 5 best tips for manifesting your intentions
 

1. Decide what you want.  

It's wild how many folks never stop to ask themselves how they want their life to look -- they simple take it one week or month at a time and see what the world has in store for them. If you don't decide, then who knows what you'll end up with? 


2. Write it down. 

Codify that sh*t. Write it down, put it somewhere where you'll see it every day, and read it all the time. Read it out loud. (The best part about this is that you'll find your intentions years later and you get to see how they all came to fruition).


3. FEEL it all the time. 

Viscerally imagine yourself living in the texture of your new reality. Like all the time. When you're driving, when you're washing dishes, when you're making the bed or getting dressed, imagine yourself living in the reality of your manifested intentions. The more texture, the better.

(Special tip: imagine your hands doing things. Grasping an item, signing a check, grasping luggage. Seeing your hands in the picture puts you in the picture.) 


4. Throw everything at it.

Plant magic. Spells. Personal ritual. Crystal grids. Meditation. Singing. Anything you've got. These techniques are all ways of concentrating your energy and drawing your personal power (aka magic) from the spiritual plane into the material plane -- which is exactly what you want to do. In manifesting intentions, you're drawing a new reality from the ether into the material world. 

(If you need ideas or guidance on making plant magic and personal ritual, that's what my online courses are all about. Keep an eye out for Ritual & Bath, which will debut by the end of the month ;) 


5. Persist. 

So much of manifesting lies in sticking it out. Persist, persist, and persist some more.

There will be times when you feel like giving up, and that can be a very hard call to make. After all, sometimes it's time to let a dream go. 

Do you remember Mirai Nagasu, the first American women to land a triple axel in the Olympics in 2018? She had been rejected from the Olympic team in 2014, and almost stopped skating. I was struck by this and watched her video over and over again. I was feeling rather discouraged at the time, and I wondered -- how did she know it wasn't time to give up? How did she know to keep skating? There are so many people who do give up at some point -- how do their lives twist and turn? 

I don't know how Mirai knew to stick it out, but she was rewarded for her persistence. As for me, my business in January of 2020 is much more blossomed, expansive, and generally wonderful than it was in December of 2018 and I'm thoroughly happy that I've persisted. 

At the ReNew Year Retreat, we were each chosen by a Plant Ally. Tansy chose me, so now this little vial is traveling with me everywhere, obvs.