The New Year is a time when we dream about changes we want for ourselves. New Years resolutions are framed in terms of what we want to do in the coming year… or perhaps what we don’t want to do! Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep) has a different strategy. In creating a sankalpa, we divine what our truest nature is… a true nature that represents our purpose… and then articulate it into full expression in our lives.
What is a Sankalpa?
Sankalpa is sometimes translated to “vow”, but it’s not a vow of what we will or won’t do. It is more a statement of who we actually believe we are. While vows are often a promise stated in future tense (what will come to pass), a sankalpa is boldly stated in the present tense (now) as if fruition is a foregone conclusion. We are simply manifesting into reality something that is already true. It sometimes requires an audacious level of faith to counter years of buying into negative stories we have for ourselves…. and it requires some technique to be most effective.
The Anatomy of a Sankalpa
It is stated in First Person (“I” statement), Present Tense (already true), without Negative phrasing (speak to what is wanted, not to what is NOT wanted). So first person means starting with the word “I”, which means we’re manifesting something true about ourselves. We do not have control over other people! Let’s start with an example:
“I am happy.”
The above example starts with the first person pronoun, “I”. Also note it uses the verb “am” (present tense), as oppose to “will be” (future tense). “I am happy” is spoken as if we already know something is true for ourselves.
The other key thing is our example uses positive phrasing. If I tell you not to think of an elephant, what was the first animal that popped into your head? I imagine it was an elephant. Our brains are a lot better at following directions and not very good at avoiding what we are explicitly told not to do. So drop any phrasing that talks about what not to do, such as: “I am not a smoker” or “I am not vengeful” and replace with phrasing about who you want to be, such as “I am healthy” or “I am forgiving”.
Hot Tips for Manifestation
- Keep your sankalpa short and uncomplicated. You need to commit it to memory, and our subconscious can better parse a short, uncomplicated sankalpa.
- Consider that the end goal is a FEELING and the sankalpa speaks to the reality of you getting to feel that way. Quite often we try to imagine strategies of how we might best achieve that feeling and manifest the strategy to get to the goal instead of the goal itself. This often does not work, because even if the strategic actions come to pass, there’s no guarantee that those strategies will lead to the feeling we were after. Better to focus on manifesting the feeling itself and leave it to the Universe (to a certain extent) how it will happen. With that in mind, be clear, viscerally, what that feeling will feel like in your body. Make it so real you can feel it and so real you can summon the memory of sensing it in your body at will.
- Use Yoga Nidra as a vehicle for your sankalpa. Yoga Nidra has an incredible way of fast tracking your sankalpa past your argumentative conscious mind and feeding it to your subconscious instead. Khushbu Vyas has a nice recorded guided yoga nidra meditation you could try with your sankalpa.
- Stick with your sankalpa until you’ve manifested what you want. Don’t skip around with more than one at a time. It’s a lot easier to reach ground water digging a single well. Don’t dig a million shallow wells that come up dry.
Manifest your Heart’s Desire
Cut to the chase! To summarize, use a well-designed personal sankalpa that is:
- In the first person, present tense
- Phrased positively
- Short and uncomplicated, easy to memorize
- Has a very clear feeling associated with it
- Speaks to the end goal/feeling instead of strategizing how to get to there.
Happy manifesting!
Love,
Tako