Sankalpa - Intention

I can measure the eras of my life by the book genres I've loved:

In my 20's, romance -- girl meets boy; they fall in love; happily ever after.

In my 30's, suspense -- the husband is actually a serial killer & has been gaslighting her for the last decade!!!!!!

In my 40's, psychology -- how to be so healthy a serial killer would never be interested in you.

My latest read is You Are The Mountain:

It was the only audiobook available at the library that I had not already read. 

My initial idea was to yoga nidra myself: I determined to listen to it as I fell asleep each night, & then re-listen to it in the morning to cement in all the knowledge I inevitably acquired whilst sleeping. I warned friends & family that I was about to become extremely wise and self-actualized overnight. They took it in stride.

However, I found that come morning, I was too distracted by the New York Times crossword puzzle & my Duolingo streak to want to start up an audiobook about unhealthy life patterns at 5 a.m.

Then I tried to listen to the audiobook as I ran errands or cycled the Katy Trail...but I discovered I wanted to take notes & add highlights, which was untenable via both bicycle & car.

It soon became clear that I would need to buy an actual copy of the book; that's how you can tell if I think a book is REALLY good. And this book is.

Picture where you are now in life. 

Now imagine meeting up with the You from 4 to 7 years ago -- not so long ago that you can't remember where you were or what you were struggling with. Present You is sitting in a favorite spot with Past You & is about to give Past You a toolkit for how to thrive as the You of 2024. Think about it. What would you give yourself as a road map to get to where you are now? (Only good things.)

I'd be sitting at a coffee house that no longer exists. I would give myself a passport to indicate that I should continue to travel when possible, even if it means living in a slightly dilapidated house. Also some quality cork yoga blocks, as a clue that the various branches of yoga could help turn down the volume in my head & facilitate friendships. I suppose I'd have to give myself my National Board binders, though preferably without all the curse words written in the margins so I don't scare myself off before I even start (again).

Think about it. What would you give yourself, to help yourself achieve maximum success now?

NOW, PICTURE 2030 YOU. Picture you as you want to be & hope to be a few years from now. Get crystal clear about that iteration of yourself. And now... what could that version give to Present You as a guide for achieving that life in the future?

I started thinking about all the things I want...

* I want to replace the rest of my fence
* I want to repair the tuckpointing & fascia of my house
* I want to build a second bathroom
* I want to finish waterproofing my basement
* I want to rip out & update my current bathroom
* I want to replace all the upstairs floors
* I want to spend a month in Italy
* I want to go back to Slovenia
* I want to visit Romania
* I want to be part of the 1.7% of National Board Certified teachers here
* I want to be part of a book club again
* I want to have best friends I hang out w/ 
* I want a consistent group of yoga students again
* I want to converse with migrant students/families in their native language
* I want to grow actual grass for my lawn, instead of weeds
* I want to visit Vermont in the autumn & eat apple pie
* I want to go back to hike the Redwoods
* I want to read/review books for more publishers
* I want a consistent, unsupported sirsasana
* I want to commit to a non-profit that actually uses its volunteers - this one is huge
* I want to play Kinderszenen well
* I want to visit all the good coffee shops in this city, find a new fave
* I want to do a yoga nidra training (please, Jason Crandell!)
* I want to age gracefully
* I want to become bolder in some areas & gentler in others

Mostly, I want to expect the best. By expecting the worst, I feel like I'm "preparing" for disappointment. But in reality, I've often perpetuated disappointment by steeling my mind for it to such an extent that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Dr. Kalpana taught me that a sankalpa is a promise you make to yourself. It's your internal resolution or intention. In yoga nidra, your sankalpa is supposed to be staying mentally alert even though your body is asleep. I've got a million things I want to do, see, achieve, and experience, but they can't all be sankalpa. A sankalpa has to be an intentional choosing of something over other things.

There's this line I love from a movie: "We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the earth. What does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything: the good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things...all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying, 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness.'"

That was perhaps true of marriages once upon a time before the divorce rate came to be what it is... The sentiment remains though. The greatest thing you can do for another human being, I think, is bear witness to their life. 

Maybe that's the greatest thing you can do for yourself, too. 

I used to think, in my 20's, about how there was nothing anchoring me to the earth. It was a real, terrifying feeling, this conviction that I could spin out into metaphorical space at any moment because there was nothing at the core of me to keep me weighted down. 10 years of therapy, 6 years of yoga, 11 years of psychology books, & 2 prescriptions later, I'm mostly cured. Now I have a Self.

I don't know what Future Me would give Present Me. I can't picture it. Dr. Kalpana invited all of us to Kenya to work with the orphans because she practices karma yoga. But I don't think that's me. I can't picture Future Me at all, actually. I would love to think it's a sign I'm living in the present, but it's probably due to a lack of imagination and/or hopefulness.

But I said, maybe the greatest thing we can do for ourselves is just bear witness. Maybe that's the real sankalpa, you know? To promise to be kind and gentle. Maybe we choose a thing, or a few things, over all the other things, and commit to them fully. But whether we will them into fruition or not, the silent observer bears witness & smiles.