How to set an INTENTION and why it matters
the motivation behind why, you do what you do.
“And every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling, “This is important! And this is important! And this is important! You need to worry about this! And this! And this!” And each day, it’s up to you to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say, “No. This is what’s important. ”
Eat your greens, drink your water, move your body, take your vitamins. This messaging is simple enough, the intention and the motivation behind it, often is not.
You can eat all the kale, drink all the green juice, take the supplements and do the yoga, but if you don’t deal with the stuff going on in your head and your heart, you are only half way there.
There is also a big difference between genuinely wanting to look after yourself and live well and using fear of illness and disease as a motivation. The energy and intention you bring to everything you do has an effect on your end result, your experience within it and your aptitude for playing the long game.
I had a fabulous conversation recently on the importance of supporting yourself for the right reasons and accepting yourself, NOT as a flawed human on an endeavor to fix all ails, but as a seeker on the path to exploring just how good you can feel in your body and support your experience of this life.
Wellness as a concept is often centered around a series of steps to follow, to ‘fix’ ourselves. The constant striving for a dress size or an ideal and using fear as a mechanism to encourage us to comply. Whilst I wholeheartedly focus on living a ‘healthy lifestyle’ for want of a better term, my goal is to explore what that looks like for each of us, navigating the noise, the should’s and the striving, in search of a better way.
the rise of lycra
& green juice
There is no denying that looking after your health and wellbeing enriches your life experience, however we seem to have fallen into a culture of health centering around Lycra and smoothies;
and whilst I am wholeheartedly a willing participant in the activewear culture, smoothies and all the healthy things,
and love a green juice like the best of them, this isn’t my sole motivation for living a healthy lifestyle and sharing the wellness tools that I love.
I’ll be honest, I initially came at a healthy diet and lifestyle from an excuse for deprivation rather than a genuine desire for a healthier life experience.
Now having come through that journey, I constantly question my true motivation in anything I do and remind myself of my intention:
‘to live this life with arms wide open and really touch the sides’,
as merely focusing on the size of my jeans or the cellulite on my thighs, is living half a life and certainly NOT a healthy one, trust me, I’ve tried it!
This doesn’t mean it’s always an easy road but having a meaningful intention does make it easier to check in and come back to when I struggle.
The world we live in, the culture and the messaging, is not always a supportive one or easy to navigate. How you feel in and about your body and your choices in life, can be a real challenge from day to day and whilst society at large has a huge impact on our internal messaging, it’s important to acknowledge that often we are our own biggest critics.
Our need for control and presenting ourselves in a certain light touches upon every decision we make across our day, how we look, how we feel, what we eat, what we wear and essentially how we show up in the world, there is so much to consider and so much outside influence to navigate.
It takes commitment and daily practice, to show up for yourself and be your own biggest advocate, in a world that can often feel like it doesn’t accept you as you are.
Luckily, there are so many tools to support you on your journey, focusing on your relationship with yourself, self-care, gratitude practices, meditation and mindfulness are a great place to start, in order to help you focus on the present moment rather than beating yourself up about the past or future tripping your life away.
All of these practices are ones I rely on, they have done wonders for my sense of self and helped me have integrity around my intention.
The foundations of High Health are not built on a promise or a quick fix, there is no diet, weight loss program or fad to follow, what we offer here is a lifestyle with a focus on small daily habits on repeat over a lifetime.
My intent is to inspire a whole human approach to health and wellbeing, a light-hearted and accepting offering with wellness in mind. A space where we aim for balance over perfection and celebrate health in all things, for you, me and the planet.
homework
I invite you to do this exercise and think about what your intention and motivation is for showing up for yourself here and find some tools that resonate with you to try.
A beautiful place to start might be a gratitude practice, more on that here.
What it is that truly makes you feel great, in both body and mind?
Reach for this everyday. This is the most important work!“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”