It’s the start of a new year.

How can this year be different…better than last year?

We start to think about resolutions.

Then we think…why bother?

It never sticks.

What if it could be more simple?

Every year I’ve made a habit of naming my years.

Last year was the Year of Expansion: I moved back to the city, I started a new job, I met a new community of friends, I reconnected with family in a new way, I co-produced a short film for the first time, I launched this website and started a new business, I found like-vibrating souls to collaborate with, I booked acting work after an almost two-year drought…and I found a new passion.

My year was infused with expansion and all I did was name it.

One word.

One intention.

It’s that simple.

Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the power of my subconscious.

The part of me that is operating 24/7, even when I sleep.

By setting an intention at the beginning of the year, I give my subconscious something to chew on for the entire year.

I give it a job to do.

All those gentle nudges to make this phone call, to send that email, to go to this event, to take this class and not that one, to speak to that certain someone…are all coming from my subconscious.

I’ve learned that a subconscious without a job can be self-destructive (more on that later).

So what does this have to do with a quiet practice?

In order to hear my subconscious’ urges, it requires me to listen.

To listen is to be silent so I can hear the whispers of my body.

The good news is that it doesn’t feel like hard work.

Somehow by reorienting myself with a focus, the moment-to-moment choices naturally align with my intention because it comes from a feeling in my body. It feels like flow.

Actions that don’t honour my intention just don’t feel right. It feels like swimming upriver.

It’s brilliant.

This year is the Year of Magic.

I’m so excited about what this year will bring.

But more importantly, I get to live through this lens.

The power of setting an intention is to create my life with Magic…every moment of the day.