More compassionate and useful than goal setting or a New Year's Resolution: how to set a Sankalpa.
When life is unpredictable, my Sankalpa is my inner compass, reminding me of what I truly value.
A Sankalpa is a deep intention, articulated with carefully chosen words, that we set in our hearts and form with our mind. We can use it as a kind of compass, helping us to honour our truth and constantly guiding our thoughts and actions.
“San” means a connection with the highest truth. “Kalpa” means a vow, or a principle to be followed above all others.
While a Sankalpa can help us with our goals in life, it is so much more compassionate and effective than a goal or a resolution.
We design a Sankalpa to connect us, over and over again, to our deepest, wise self and to our most fulfilling purpose. It guides our choices day by day, moment by moment, helping us to channel our energy and focus and providing a compass that constantly guides us toward fulfilment.
So much more than a resolution, a Sankalpa, in order to be effective, comes from the assumption that you are already enough.
Any perception of lack, or “not good enough” or that there’s something to be fixed, and the Sankalpa will not have the power of positive feeling behind it that makes it so powerful.
There is a world of difference between the desire of our ego (or our fear of “not enough”), and the desire of our higher self, or our soul. True Sankalpas are born out of love, not out of fear or lack.
We may have set goals or resolutions in the past and discovered that they don’t last or that we develop negative feelings about them if we feel we’ve failed to stick to them.
Often, these resolutions or goals may have been based on something we perceive is wrong with us. We decide we want to lose weight, or “get fitter”; the assumption being that we’re not good enough as we are, or that there’s something wrong with us. Instead, a Sankalpa might focus on a sense of complete and wonderful well-being and radiant health. Which of these do you reckon is going to generate more enthusiasm and passion?
Even if we’re wanting to do something really challenging, like giving up smoking for example, we can go much deeper with a Sankalpa. Instead of the goal “I will give up smoking”, we could reflect on what not being addicted to something might mean for us emotionally, and the outcome of that in our lives. Then, we might end up developing a Sankalpa that focuses on complete freedom, or a deep sense of health & well-being. Or going even deeper still, we might discover that an addiction is a distraction, a way of avoiding being still, or a way of avoiding loneliness. Then our Sankalpa might be about being at ease with stillness, or with ourselves, or about feeling (or embodying) connection and love.
When a Sankalpa is just right for you, it comes with a tremendous positive energy, a strong feeling of desire that provides fuel for the engine of intention.
We can allow the Sankalpa we set to guide us in every choice we make, day by day, moment by moment, helping us to channel our energy & focus, no matter what’s going on around us.
What if our behaviours don’t match our Sankalpa?
With a Sankalpa, the conflict between our intention and our behaviour is not a failure, but where the practice really begins. The power of the practice is right there in that dissonance.
When we find ourselves engaging in behaviours that seem to oppose our Sankalpa and our true natures, we have a very useful opportunity for practice. At those times, we can take a moment to pause, breathe, reconnect with ourselves, and recall our Sankalpa and the positive feelings it is charged with. This can be a very practical and effective way to both break habits and super-charge our Sankalpa even further.
If we’ve set a Sankalpa that feels true and feels positive for us, then if we stray from it - if we look around us and suddenly find that we are far from the feeling we desired - then we don’t have to beat ourselves up. The Sankalpa is a reflection of our true selves; in a way it’s who we already are. We haven’t failed, we’ve simply forgotten. So we use the Sankalpa to remind ourselves of our true essence again. We remember who we really are, and continue.
The Sankalpa also primes us to notice all the small ways in which we may already be following our path. We start to notice the feeling or quality of our Sankalpa when we come across it. We end up leaning in and becoming tuned in to these small events or feelings, and where our attention goes, so does our energy and our thoughts. Our Sankalpa starts to feel like “Yes! More of this please!” instead of something we have to will into existence by our own efforts.
Creating and using your Sankalpa
We don’t really “make up” a Sankalpa. It’s more something that reveals itself when we get very, very quiet and still, with a willingness to listen inwardly and be receptive to our intuition and to our soul’s wisdom.
It’s a good idea to keep your Sankalpa simple: just one sentence of carefully chosen, feeling-charged words, in the present tense.
I’ve found that once it reveals itself, a Sankalpa likes us to sit with it for a while, reflecting and giving it some space. It may go through an evolution and refinement at this stage (without any change to the feeling or original intent). This is a time to choose the words of most power and brevity, that most intensely express the quality and feeling of your Sankalpa.
Then, all that is required of us is a willingness to follow the Sankalpa, even if it leads us around some unexpected bends or turns in our path.
Set a Sankalpa that is more to do with "being” than “needing”.
In keeping with the principle that a Sankalpa cannot come from a sense of lack, think of your deepest desire less as something you want to receive, and more of something that you would like to feel you embody. For example, instead of wanting more love in your life, how can you set a Sankalpa that is about actually being love? Or instead of setting a Sankalpa about wanting more security and safety, how can we set a Sankalpa that gives us the intention of not needing security but of being able to access peace within ourselves at any time?
Give it time to develop
Some of the Sankalpas I've worked with came immediately and easily, while others took months to feel right. Both have been equally powerful. Don't worry if your Sankalpa doesn't feel right immediately. Live with it for a while, keep gently reflecting, and give it time to develop. Start with something that feels right for you and be willing for it to teach you what it needs to become.
Create your Sankalpa in the way that feels easiest for you
Start with some journalling, or some moments of quiet reflection each day for a week, or start intuitively with a heart-felt desire and without too much thinking at all and see where it leads you. If you're a more visual or kinesthetic thinker, you might like to try drawing or creating a Mandala and see where it takes you. If you're more into words, you could write a list of words that call to you and reflect your desires for well-being on any level, and then highlight the ones that stand out the most, until you have just a few that you can then grow into a Sankalpa.
Plant it like a seed, instead of using it like a rule
In my practice and teaching over the years I've noticed that we will often take any opportunity to beat ourselves up or boss ourselves around. The practice of Yoga and particularly the Yamas & Niyamas of the Yoga Sutras invite us to let go of those habits; to compassionately allow ourselves to be as we are, rather than try to control or be over-effortful.
In this spirit, we mentally repeat the Sankalpa just a few times in the practice of Yoga Nidra deep relaxation, planting the Sankalpa like a seed that we trust to grow on its own. The deep relaxation of the practice provides the best environment for the seed, and then we trust it to grow by itself, without striving or controlling.
No matter what the future has in store, we can set our inner compass and we can always practise being kind to ourselves and each other.
With love,
Alison
