Ep #64: Your 2023 Intention Setting

I'm Mikki Gardner and this is the Co-parenting with Confidence podcast, episode number 64, Your 2023 Intention Setting. [music] Welcome to Co-parenting with Confidence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who want to move past the conflict and frustration of divorce and show up as the mom they truly want to be. My name is Miki Gardner. I'm a certified life and conscious parenting coach with my own personal dose of co-parenting experience. Throughout my co-parenting journey, I have learned to become confident in who I am as a woman and a mother, and I'm here to help you do the same. If you're ready to learn what it takes to become a great co-parent and an amazing example to your children, well, get ready and let's dive into today's episode. So have you ever gone on a road trip without a map, without filling your car up for gas, without any supplies in the car, just jumped in and started driving? I'm guessing the answer is no, right? But this is what often most of us do when we look to the new year. We might create resolutions. We might decide I'm not going to do these things anymore, or I'm really going to focus on doing this. But ultimately, when we just sort of dive right in, what we're doing is we're setting ourselves on a course, on a journey without a destination, without the supplies, without all the necessary things that we need. And so that's what today's episode is about. You and I are going to go through a process that I use in my own life to set your intention, to set your destination of sorts for the next year. But before we do that, I just want to thank you for being with me here today and throughout this entire year of 2022. It's been my pleasure and honor to be with you, to be bringing you topics and conversations, certainly things I'm thinking about in my own life. Not that I have the answers to all of them, but I love just sort of talking through it with you. And I really love engaging with you outside of the podcast to hear what's going on for you and how it's impacting you and what questions you have. So I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for that. And thank you for being here. So this episode is a little bit different from some of the other ones in that this is really a working episode. And what do I mean by that? Well, this is for you. And so this might be something that you want to hit pause on. It might take you a little bit longer to get through. And it's honestly going to be a little bit longer of an episode than normal. So that's okay. You can take it in chunks. You can do it all at once. But I want you to feel free to make this your own. Hit pause when you need to. Take the space. Give yourself and allow yourself the space and the grace to move through this. Because what we're going to do is a personal process that I use in my own life every year. I've adapted it from the Yoga Girl podcast that I really love the way that she did it. And so I've sort of adapted this, changed it over time to make it my own. And I want to offer it to you. And I want you to do the same thing. Take what works, take what resonates, and then leave all the rest. So what we're really wanting to do is to set your intention. Again, the sort of destination that you want to go. It's going to help you create and build the life that you truly want. What we're not doing is setting resolutions. Those are always focused on willpower, wishing, white knuckling it. Those just don't work. What we're talking about is intention. This is about what you desire, what you want to create, what you want to do on purpose. When we set our intention, we're really building a foundation that you can start to help guide you so that you know that you are working step by step towards what you want, even when it's hard to see. So here's what you're going to need to do. You're going to need to have a quiet, uninterrupted space. So if now is not the time, that's okay. Just decide when that time is, hit pause and come back. I know a lot of you have kids at home, even little ones. Maybe you have time where your kids are with the other parent. Maybe you don't. Whenever it is, decide when you can give yourself 30 or 45 minutes to really walk through this process and be intentional, to be purposeful. So when you're ready to do it, I would grab your favorite beverage, whether it's a cup of tea or a cup of coffee or a glass of water or whatever that is. Grab that along with a journal and a pen because you're going to be doing a lot of writing. And make sure that you're in some comfy clothes in a comfy place because we're also going to be really getting into our bodies and helping let our intuition guide us. And so you want to be comfortable when you're doing that. So we're going to dive right in here, but before we get to the intention setting for 2023, we want to put a little bit of closure around 2022. So what I'm going to ask you to do is take a minute here and I want you to close your eyes with me. We're going to take three intentional big deep breaths in. So first you're going to take a deep breath in through your nose and let it expand your belly. And then you're going to let all of that air out. We're going to take another big breath in, letting your entire torso expand with air and then blow all of it out. Now we're going to take one very, very deep cleansing breath in, your biggest breath all day, and then release all of that air. So with your eyes closed, I want you to just reflect back on 2022. We're wanting to put some closure here. So I want you to answer this question. 2022 for me was? So I want you just to take a bit of space and time here. Hit pause if you don't want to hear my voice. I am going to walk you through this a little bit. I'll talk about what comes up for me. So if you don't want to hear me talking, just go ahead and pause and just keep writing. So for me, 2022 was scary. It was traumatic. It was disruptive. It was also healing. It was also spacious and it was humbling. I had a little bit of a mixed bag there, and maybe that is the same for you. The next prompt that I want you to ask yourself in the journal about is what is something that you are mourning this year? I want you to take a moment and really validate what that is. For me, I'm mourning a little bit of my youth and flexibility, or at least the youth I thought I had. I'm mourning the certainty that I believed I had and the illusion of safety that I thought was there. And now I want you to take a moment and I want to know what you are celebrating from 2022. What was just awesome? What did you just love? And what do you want to celebrate in this moment as you recap the year of 2022? For me, it was really healing. It was the commitment that I made to healing myself after my accident and being able to do that on my own and successfully. And for me, that was a celebration. And this is really the practice because life isn't just one way. It's often there's ups and there's downs. There's good and there's bad. And so the thing is that we can hold both of the things at one time. We can hold what we're mourning and the things that we're celebrating. This year, I had to learn how to hold the trauma and hold the healing. I had to learn how to hold the uncertainty and the illusion of safety along with creating safety for myself. So take as much time as you need to really think about what you're mourning for this year and what you're celebrating. As we set our intention, we're going to focus on four areas of life. Those four areas are heart, mind, body, and soul. This is what we're really creating intention for. And so we're going to go through each one. I'll tell you about them so you may want to take some notes as you recap them. But a heart is all about relationships. This is all about love, family, your children, your community. It's also your home, that physical space that you live in. So much of our heart is really about where we are and the people that we're with and the relationships that we have. So the heart area is going to be a big one that we focus on. The second area is mind. And this is everything that you create. These are things like career, money, things you're learning about and studying. All of that goes into the mind, those things that you are creating in the world. The third area is body, right? This one might seem obvious, but it's really sort of everything from your physical body to your physical balance to your well-being. So it's everything about health and well-being. The fourth area that we're going to focus our intention on is soul. And this is really all things healing. This is about all things spiritual, your spirituality, your meditation, creativity, maybe this is where therapy lies. It's any of those self-care things that fall under soul. So as we walk through this process, we're going to look at each of these four areas and we're going to start by closing out 2022 in each of these areas. I want you to go through each area and we're going to write down a high and a low that you found for 2022 for each one. Again, feel free to just hit pause and keep writing or if you're a little stumped, I'll talk you through it and you can write on your own. For me in the heart category, when I reflected back on 2022, one of the highs was I had a real intentional connection with my son, really spending time with him and also with other family. For me, a low in my heart was not feeling connected and settled within my physical home. My physical space, I think like many of us is so important because it's where we feel safe and grounded. When we had moved into a new house just at the end of last year and then with the accident and other things that happened, it was just an unsettling feeling all year long within the home for me. And so that was my low. When I look at mind, one of my highs was the amazing new clients that I brought on and that I am having the honor of walking and mentoring them in their journey of co-parenting. And the low for me was also in the workspace in that there were a lot of unfinished projects. I had to take some time off to physically heal where I just couldn't work the way that I had planned, the way that I had intended. And so that for me was a low. When I look at the body category, when I'm looking at 2022, one of the highs was really the resilience of my body from the physical pain and trauma that I had, the healing that the body was able to do was amazing to me. The low was the trauma happening. That's just the way it went this year. I also was walking the journey with my mother who had some highs and lows physically too. We joked many times this year, we've got to stop meeting in the hospital. If we want to spend time together, let's find another way. And that was a low, but it was also a beautiful high that the healing and the resilience that I was able to witness through all of that. In the fourth category of soul, for me, a high was definitely my meditation. I've completed over two years of consecutive daily meditation now, and it has impacted my life in so many ways. I am continuing to see the impacts every single day. The commitment to my health was another high for me in this category. I really stayed committed to my meditation, to self-care, to taking care of myself, my body and soul. A low for me this year in the soul category was really feeling disconnected, feeling alienated and alone at times. Part of that from the physical trauma that I went through and some other things, but that for me was a low. So I hope that me sharing this with you helps you identify some of the highs and lows for you in each of these categories. So I'm curious, what was it for you? What was your high in each category? What was your low? And what are the lessons that you really learned and are taking away from those? As you ask yourself and look back over all of these, the heart, the mind, the body and the soul, ask yourself which area felt the biggest? What stood out to you the most? What did you learn from 2022? What seemed like the biggest area of focus or that needed focus? And maybe where is the biggest success that you had? And most importantly, I want you to decide on at least one thing you are taking with you into 2023. This is a really important part of the process because when you've looked back over all of these areas, the highs and the lows, I want you to make a decision about something that you are taking with you. Something that you have learned, that you've learned to value, that you are 100% taking with you into the new year. For me, it is a continued meditation practice. This practice of sitting 20 minutes each morning in meditation over the last two years has changed so many areas of my life. And so I want to continue that commitment and see where that takes me. For you, it might be starting something like a meditation practice or a self-care practice that you want to put in place that will take care of you, that you will start to reap the benefits from. Maybe it's something in the mind category that you really want to continue working on. Or maybe it's something in the body category that's really important. Or maybe there's a relationship or something within the community that you want more of. Just take a minute and honor that. So in these last moments, I want you to process 2022. You can take more time if you need it to really dive into those highs and lows and expand on that. But for now, we're going to turn this page. I want you to take a moment and put your hand on your heart and the other hand in your lap or on your leg open to the sky. Grounding yourself in your body and also opening to abundance. I want you to close your eyes and I want you to give 2022 a big thank you. And maybe 2022 wasn't the best year. So maybe it's a little bit of middle finger at 2022. That's okay. Whatever it is for you, maybe it brought a lot of joy. Maybe it brought a lot of freedom. And maybe it brought a lot of pain too. We really just want to take a moment and say thank you or whatever the expression is for you and receive what is coming to you in this moment. It's really holding all the things and allowing yourself to feel and be led to put a close on 2022. And now I want you to actually say this to yourself. What's done is done. What's felt is felt. And 2022, I release you. I want you to take a big breath in. And then as you let that breath out, I want you to allow 2022 to exit. So now I want you to shake it out. I'm shaking my whole body here, my arms, my legs. Maybe you want to get up and dance around, but I want you to literally move that energy, all of that energy out. And in your journal, I want you to turn the page. Maybe you want to rip out all the 2022s that you just wrote. Maybe it's something that you don't want to carry with you. Maybe it's been a really hard year and you're ready to let go of it. If you want to take those pages and burn them later, great, go for it. If you want to keep them and reflect back on it, wonderful. Allow yourself that too. Allow yourself to trust where you're being guided. But we are going to turn to a fresh page in your journal because we are going to start to set our intention for 2023. So again, I want you to settle back wherever you're sitting, just get comfortable and close your eyes. And I want you to anchor into that blank page that's in front of you. This is an exciting moment where 2023 is anything you want to create. It's a blank page for you. You get to fill it with anything you want and everything you want. You are choosing what you're taking with you from 2022 and you get to decide what is important to you, what you value and what matters to you and how you want to feel in the new year. So I want you to just close your eyes here and ask yourself, what do I want? And not just what do I want, but what do I truly, truly want in my heart and my soul? What is my heart soul yearning for? What life do I truly want to create? And now I want you to open your eyes and just start writing. Allow yourself to write all of it. And listen, your brain is going to come up with all of the excuses, all of the limitations. Oh, you can't have that. Oh, look at your life. That's not possible. Just tell your brain, not right now, right? I'm just allowing all of it to come out. I want you to think about what is my perfect life? What is that ideal life? And what I mean is what is an aligned life look like for you? It's not perfect, meaning Instagram worthy, perfection looking, but what feels aligned? What feels true? What life would you absolutely love to be living? And I want you to just allow yourself to write about what you want, about what a day in that life would look like. Maybe it's a life of balance and ease and calm. And if that is true, what would that day look for you? What would you be doing in that day? I just want you to give yourself the space to really dream, to really allow it to come through here. For me, an aligned life is really an intentional one. It's always filled with ease and simplicity. It's real and it's natural. It's not contrived. It's not for others' benefits, right? It's what feels good in my soul that allows me to be fully present with the things that matter to me, which are my family, my kids, time with myself, working with my clients each and every day. These are the things that matter. These are the things that fill me up. And I want you to write down what fills you up. What would you feel so fulfilled with? You get to decide what this aligned life looks like for you. And there might be glimpses of it already in things that you're doing. And that's fantastic. It might be completely different than the life you're living now. And that's okay. So without expectation, without judgment, just let yourself write it all out. And now we are going to define sort of big longings. What are longings? What are the things that you dream, that you yearn for in each of the categories that we've talked about? This is really starting to decide what you want to create in the new year. Now be careful and listen for those sneaky shoulds. You should be doing, you should want, you should desire. That's not what we're going for. We're really wanting to listen to the things that we're longing for, the things you're dreaming of. So we have to let all those shoulds go. We're not even putting a should on a list. We're allowing you to just get rid of all the shoulds. And as you move through this, you're going to know when it's resonating with you because you're going to feel it in your body. It might feel like your whole body is smiling. It might feel like your heart is almost humming. But allow yourself to really get into your body and to feel it. When we feel expansive and light and sort of singing from our heart, that is our longing. And that is what you're going for here. So in the first category of heart, again, we're talking about friends, family, kiddos, your physical home space. What are three things that you are longing for in this area? For me, when I think about what really I want and I closed my eyes and went through this process, I want presence. I want connection. And I want groundedness. I'm feeling a deep need for those things to really simplify, to clean out the excess and stay in the simplicity and stay in the presence. So what is coming up for you when you think about heart? You might get a little stuck and that's okay. It might take some time. But what you're really looking for is those answers from your intuition. And so sometimes we know that the ego is going to answer first. What does that sound like? Those are all the shoulds. So you've got to just sit quietly. Maybe it'll take a moment, but let your intuition speak to you. It will, I promise you. And so this might be one of those moments you hit pause and just give yourself some space. You might only have one thing in each of these areas and that's okay. You might have seven. Just go ahead and trust yourself. You get to decide, you get to determine what you're longing for and dreaming of for 2023. So now once you've done the heart, we're going to go and do the same thing with the mind. What are one to three things that you are longing for when it comes to the category of mind? These are things like career, things we want to manifest like money or learning, all of that. For me, what came up is really wanting more impact and wanting more opportunities to connect. And so those are all going to be the things that I'm yearning for in the category of mind. Now we're going to do the same thing with the category of your body. What are one to three things you are really longing and yearning for? For me, after 2022, I know that I'm really yearning for health, for a cleanness of my body and of living, a simplicity of how I treat and care for myself. It's almost slowing down to plug in. So for me, this is going to look like when I think about my body, moving my body every day, what I put in it, all of those things. And now we're going to step into the last category, the category of soul. Again, soul is all things spiritual, healing, meditation, creativity, therapy, self-care, all of this. And so what is it that you are yearning and dreaming of in 2023 for your soul? For me, it was more connection. It's always connection, connection to me, connection to those I love and connection to source. But also what came up for me, which surprised me a little bit in this area was sufficiency, right? This is one of those underrated things, but really learning to step into and live abundantly in the sufficiency of what I have, what I already have in my life and learning how to trust in that. So once you have your one to three yearnings or dreams that you have in each of those four categories, we're going to move to the next question. The next question is really about boundaries. So I want you to answer this. What is a boundary you need to set for 2023? What is a line that you need to draw? What is something you need to say no to? Intention setting isn't just about what we're saying yes to or what we're calling in, but it's a hundred percent what we're saying no to as well and what we are letting go of. For me, the boundary is excess. All of the extra stuff that isn't needed, that takes away my resources, my attention, my time, my money. The boundary for me is going to learn to say no to that excess, no to inauthenticity, no to the unnecessary. As I was writing through this, I also thought, you know, I think the boundary is if it's not a hundred percent full body yes, then it's a no. And that feels scary, but I think that's the boundary. So what's your boundary? Once you have that boundary in place, I also want you to decide on one self-care practice that you are either taking with you or absolutely committing to bringing into 2023. It's what has helped you, what you have learned and you know helps you from this last year that you are going to take into 2023 as a non-negotiable. The thing that you're committed to doing no matter what. Like I said earlier, my non-negotiable two years in a row, and it's not changing this year is meditation. The impact on my life has been so vast and incredible. And so I am committed to taking that with me. And I want you to decide on what your non-negotiable is too. So now that we've written down all of those things, I just want you to take a moment and read over them. I want you to stop and close your eyes and breathe into it. And with your eyes closed, I want you to answer this. What is my intention for 2023? So an intention is a clear intention. It's one sentence usually. It's helpful if it's easy to remember. So I want you to sit for a moment and just drop into your heart and say to yourself, my intention for 2023 is, and then open up your eyes and start writing. It might take you a little bit. Sometimes it doesn't come out in one perfect little sentence, and that's okay. But you go back and look over that list of everything you've written down and ask yourself this question over and over until you can decide on what your intention is. So for me, my intention this year is to invest my resources in what is aligned, necessary, and healing. So I want you to flip over your journal at this point horizontally, and I want you to write in big, bold letters your intention for 2023. And I want you to put a clear period at the end of it. This is your intention. This is the filter and the direction that we are going to use to guide all of your steps for 2023. So now that you have your intention, we're going to take it one step further and we're going to turn it into an affirmation. Affirmations aren't just warm, fuzzy thoughts that we say in the mirror, like Stuart Smiley, for those of you that are old enough to remember the SNL skits, which are amazing. But affirmations are really about those sentences that help you guide your actions. So it's what helps you stay aligned to your intention and taking aligned action to create it. So this is so important because this is where we are retraining our brain to focus on our affirmations, to focus on where we want to go and help us restructure the intention so that we are really in the present moment. We are going to turn them into I am statements. We do this because we need to be stepping into the yeses, where you want to go, stepping into that present moment with I am, not I will. But I already am. Language is important. Words matter and they matter here. So depending on whatever your intention is, I want you to reframe it, restructure it into I am statements. For me, as I was writing these down, it's I am saying yes to me. I am trusting me to meet my own needs. I am whole and sufficient and loved. I am experiencing more with less. So do you see how I have that intention? My intention is to invest my resources in what is aligned, necessary, and healing. And then I have these I am statements that will help me stay on track. So go ahead and write down all of those affirmations for you. Maybe you want to doodle around them, draw some pictures, add some color, make it pretty, whatever you want to do, but you're going to have a page where you have your clear intention. And on the next page, you're going to have your affirmations and you can sort of write through them and you can always go back and finish them up later, but starting to decide what is going to guide me into helping me stay on course. I always love the analogy of bumper rails in bowling. When we sort of give ourselves the space and the grace to know that we're headed in the right direction and that we have our own backs so we're not going to fall off course. That's what intentions and affirmations do. They kind of give us the bumper rails that we need to feel like we know a little bit the direction that we're headed. So the last part of this is really finding a word, a word of the year. I love this because this is the word that I'm going to come back to over and over and over. This is the word that is going to guide all my choices, my actions, and help me make decisions through the year. And that's why I want you to have one too, because again, it helps us stay on track. And so we don't always remember all of our intentions or all of our affirmations right off the bat, but having our one word does help. So what is the feeling that you want to embody when you are sitting in this place at the end of 2023 next year? What feeling do you want to have felt the majority of the time? When your 2022 self is putting a closing end to 2023, what is it that you want to have accomplished and feel? What do you want to have embodied all of 2023? So you can stop and ask yourself, for 2023, I want? And you start to write about that. You write what comes up. Maybe look back over the journal, over all the things that you've been writing down that you've wanted. And you're going to find a word that sort of encompasses all of it. And then we're going to tattoo that on our brains. It's going to be what guides you at every crossroad because they will come. We all know they will, but you're going to decide in advance how you're going to guide yourself through it. You're going to be able to ask yourself this question over and over. What choice brings me closer to insert the word of the year for you? If your word is calm, if that's what you are really craving in 2023, maybe 2022 has been chaotic and you are craving calm for the new year. Then the question for you throughout the year is going to be what brings me closer to calm? And you go that direction and you come back to this over and over every day. It's important to find a word that really resonates with you. Where you feel it in your heart because that's going to help you stay on track. For me, when I look back over my intention and all the affirmations, what I decided is the word for me is visibility. And that might seem strange, but when I was looking for words, I found a definition of visibility. And the definition was to see the truth inside yourself. And I knew that was my word. That was really where I'm headed this year is to constantly be seeing the truth inside myself, even when I don't like it, even when it's ugly, even when I have to be honest with myself and I don't want to. But that's going to help me show up to invest my resources available in what is aligned and necessary in healing for me. So now that you have your word of the year, you have your intentions and you have your affirmations. This is something that you can use to journal about each morning. You can meditate with, you start your day with, you bring yourself back to over and over what brings me closer to insert your word. And listen, if all of this didn't come in this one little setting together, that's okay. You may need to revisit this and do a little bit at a time until you can build it. You have all the space and time to do that. Just allow yourself the space. So that's our intention setting for 2023. I really hope that this exercise has helped you set yourself up to give yourself those bumper rails, right, that you need to be able to stay on course, that guidance system to help you navigate whatever comes this year. This is what is going to help you be intentional and purposeful and aware as you move through 2023, as a parent, as a co-parent, as a woman, all of the things. And the life that you are living right in this moment might not look anything like the life you want to be living and that is okay. Let yourself feel that and be okay. But the way to do it is to decide that whatever you're feeling today, you have the power and the capacity to change and you do. We do that by taking a line to action. The only way that we can take a line to action is when we are aware of what is happening and we are learning how to accept what we can and cannot change. It really always starts with having a vision for what you want based on what matters most to you so that you can simplify your actions accordingly. It's learning how to make decisions and being willing to disappoint other people and loving yourself no matter what happens. This requires emotional management. What does that mean? It means learning to be uncomfortable instead of reacting. And it all is about learning how to be 100% responsible for your 50% of every relationship you're in. And you do this by creating boundaries that keep you moving forward in the direction you want. This is why this intention setting is so important, I believe, to begin our year, but we can redo it at any moment. If you get off course in February, come back to this. If you get off course in June, come back. You can always reset. You are the only one who can change your life. There's no knight in shining armor coming. You are that knight in shining armor. And so it takes being intentional and stepping in each and every day to what you truly desire. To looking honestly with open eyes and deciding how can I make a difference? How can I think about this differently? I want you to let 2023 be the year that you decide to give yourself full permission for whatever it is that you desire, what you know today and what you don't know. You are 100% worthy and capable of living a life that you absolutely love. And it's your job to believe in that, to act on it and to start to live it. If you want accountability with your intentions, I am here for you. I understand this is not the easiest process. And if you need help walking through that, I'll put a link in the show notes to a clarity call. Just click on it and you and I can walk through that. I will help you walk through this process and decide what are the next steps for you this year? What is the next step to help get you living the life that you truly want, being the co-parent that you truly want and to feel differently than you do now. And if you know somebody who could really benefit from this process. Listen, I know there's a lot of co-parents out there maybe having their first year alone during the holidays and this is a great time to do this. To really focus on what you can control, what you can change and to really love on yourself. And I hope that that's what you found today is an opportunity to be with yourself and love yourself and to decide what you want. So if you know somebody who could really benefit from this, please share this episode with them, divorced or not. I would really appreciate it. So just take a screenshot and text it to them or send it to them on IG, Instagram. And if you do, please tag me there. I would love to connect. So as we say goodbye to 2022, I just want you to know how grateful I am for you, for being here with me, for listening. And remember that you are loved and you are worthy and you are whole exactly as you are in this moment. I am sending you so much love and so many blessings for 2023. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week. And in the meantime, take really, really good care of you, friend. [music] Thanks for listening to Co-parenting with Confidence. If you want more information or resources from this podcast, visit co-parentingwithconfidence.com. I'll see you next week.