Here's something I read today that make me think about intention. Not just on the yoga mat - but in life, with family, as parents, and even how we approach the small things that take us off-course throughout the day.

Yoga allows us to take time to look to ourselves, and look inward. This reading reminds us that while a big-idea intention is so important ("patience","grace", "openess"), it is also important for us to think about how that translates into each interaction we have, in every situation.


We Are the Decisive Element

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or dehumanized.
If we treat someone as the limited person they think they are, we support their sense of limitation.
If we treat people as who they could be, we help them become all that they are capable of becoming.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe