What people say
I can honestly say that, for the first time in 50 years, I’m learning how to just be. How to relish the present moment, which, magically and mysteriously, unlocks the door to the treasure house that is the rest of my life.
- Jennifer Green, Salem, Oregon
From the moment Jon and I connected, I had this deep experience of loving presence and complete trust. Something bypassed my mind and my ability to figure things out, and communicated directly to my heart and soul that I was safe and in the right place. There was a creation of power in our relationship that he honored and witnessed as being mine. It was my power. I had the experience of being wonderfully, beautifully powerful, in the most loving, energized way.
- Laura Lind-Blum, The Idea Midwife, Waterbury Center, Vermont
Jon can help you recognize where you are, and become more clear. My work with him has not been about plotting out my future, it has been about helping me come into deeper relationship with myself so that next steps unfold easily and effortlessly.
He creates a safe, spacious container for you to go as deep or wide or high as you’re capable of in any given moment. It’s a matter of him being able to see the facets and help me make them real in me.
- Sandra Leader, Carmel, CA
My feelings changed from, “Quick, fix me, I can’t stand how I feel, make it better, hurry,” to, it’s not about hurry, and it’s not about fixing, it’s about staying where you are and getting more and more and deeper and deeper sensations that this is okay. You’re fine, this is okay.
It helps me reframe experience. I don’t see anything that’s happening quite the same as I’ve ever seen it before, because my viewpoint has been enlarged. There’s more, there’s peace, there’s joy, there’s love, there’s health, there’s everything.
- Layne Young, artist, Salem, Oregon
Free Article
If Not Now...
In just a couple of days it will be “next year.”
The passing of the old year into the new has become a ritual of celebration, anticipation, looking forward to better times and better things. Rituals are important, but I’d like to challenge this ritual a little bit, and I invite you to join me.
The New Year has come to be a somewhat frantic setting of resolutions, expectations, and desires for things we don’t have. It’s also become a funeral — or perhaps a wake! — for all the disappointed hopes and goals of the past year.
This mourning for missed expectations, and setting of goals and new expectations, happens throughout the year, of course; it’s just much more prevalent at New Year’s. Whenever it occurs, searching, seeking, setting goals, forming expectations and desires — they all set your thoughts and hopes on some future point. Unfortunately, that inevitably creates a sense of unhappiness and discontent with your life now.
My own experience, and that of my clients, is that setting a core intention is a way to remind yourself of your leading edge (where are you most wanting to stretch and grow?) while still remaining open to whatever opportunities, options, and experiences arise from moment to moment. This keeps you out of the trap of time, which always makes false promises about how you’ll feel when you reach some hoped-for future point. And it invites you to discover how it feels to step into now right NOW, instead of waiting until the stars align, the weather is perfect, and you have whatever it is you feel you want.
What follows are some ways of looking at what a core intention is — as well as what it isn’t.
An invitation to open to a deeper way of being
What expression of yourself feels constricted, intimidated, or perhaps even frightened? For instance, many of my clients struggle with aspects of vulnerability — allowing their true, deepest selves to step out into the world. Many of them are tremendously generous, and yet have a terrible time receiving from others. For some, expressing deep feeling — love, friendship, or even anger — can feel overwhelming or threatening.
Whatever it is that you feel called to respond more deeply to in your life is an opportunity to open to a core intention.
The resonance of truth
A true, resonant core intention may feel a little scary (after all, it’s an expansion into new, unexplored aspects of your natural wholeness), but it will also feel exciting and filled with potential surprises. It will lead you into new experiences, and inspire your curiosity, gratitude, and sense of experimentation and play.
And it won’t make you feel driven to do anything other than what you are already inspired to do in each moment, or compelled to have anything other than what is already present.
A core intention is not a goal
Goals can be very sneaky in their attempts to intrude on your life. Often, a goal will dress up and try to pass itself off as a core intention.
A client sent me her list from last year, wryly commenting that the true intentions had come to pass, whereas the goals that snuck in hadn’t happened.
For instance, her intention to “have fun with networking” led to her finding real enjoyment in what she’d always found overwhelming and intimidating. On the other hand, she never took her planned summer vacation.
Likewise, and perhaps more painfully, she wasn’t able to meet her financial goals for her business — and yet her intentions for abundance and remaining open to whatever happened have unfolded into a delightful wealth of experiences, connections, and a deep foundation of strength for her business and for herself.
Your New Year’s experience
In the past few articles, I’ve described some different approaches to reaching an understanding of what’s most meaningful to you. With those in mind, I invite you to explore what it might mean to first set a deep core intention for yourself, and then to allow that core intention to move with you throughout the year, taking each moment to be fully alive, fully present, and fully experiencing your own wholeness.
How can you celebrate a New Year’s ritual that supports this deepest core intention? What will you do this year that encourages you to stop, and in the now come face-to-face with what’s eternal in you?
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? and if I am only for myself, then what am I? and if not now, when?” Rabbi Hillel (circa 110 BCE - 10 CE), Jewish religious leader, sage, and scholar.
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