Setting Intentions for the new year - using vision boarding, journaling, tarot, and meditation to set your intentions and goals for 2021
Every January, we see a lot of messaging around setting new goals, new resolutions, and the like. The message "New year, new me" seems to be everywhere! We are not of the mind that you must re-invent yourself every January in order to become the Goddess you were meant to be. But we do believe that healthy and intuitive processes of visualization and goal setting are key to figuring out what's important in our lives, what we want from our lives, and creating a path to get there.
B.A.G. Box is all about empowering all you goddesses out there to set and achieve goals for yourselves, and founders Denshai and Chelsea each have their own unique processes for doing this for themselves. Read on as we share those processes with you.
Denshai's journaling, meditation, and vision board intention setting process
Denshai begins her new year intention setting process with reflection, journaling and mediating on the desires and dreams she has for the new year. She meditates on what she wants to accomplish over the coming year, by calling in images of what she will celebrate, what she will have achieved, and the feelings she will have about what she's accomplished over the coming year. As images take shape in her mind, she journals about them, and forms a vision board to represent those goals.
She then creates a few mantras and affirmations from these ideas. These mantras are words she will repeat to herself over the course of the year to inspire herself and remind her of her goals. they are also a way of checking in on her progress and how she's living.
Denshai's mantras for 2021:
Life can and will be easy from here on out.
Through discipline comes freedom.
Denshai's affirmations for 2021:
I release all resistance to attracting money. I am worthy of a positive cashflow.
Money flows freely to me.
I am free to save or invest as much as I want because I have no debt.
I am free to give and receive love effortlessly.
I am free to create my own schedule because I work for myself and I make money in my sleep.
Denshai then works with coach Natasha McCrae to get clear on her specific goals for the year, and to break each one down into steps. She then uses her planner to set dates and reminders for each step. In this way, she's planning out exactly how she'll reach each goal throughout the year! She uses her affirmations and mantras to keep herself inspired every day! To learn more about Natasha McCrae, and how she can help you design your life, click here.
Denshai checks in with her coach on a scheduled basis to check progress, work through any challenges or blocks, and even to get help with resources and tools to help her along her way. Working with a coach is a really great way to get support when you need it - spoiler, we all need it ;)
Another tip: you can create more than one vision board for different aspects of your life! In the picture above, you can see Denshai's personal vision board for 2021, where she's organized her goals for herself. She made a second one all about the vision for B.A.G. Box too, and here it is:
Chelsea's journaling and meditation intention setting process using Tarot and numerology
Chelsea begins her new year intention setting process by combining numerology and the Tarot to see what themes the new year will bring. She finds the collective card of the year, and her personal card of the year from the Tarot using simple numerology. She then does some reflective journaling about the broad goals she has, and where she is currently in the process of achieving them.
Find the collective card of the year by adding up the digits 2+0+2+1=5. The Tarot card that corresponds to number 5 is the Hierophant. This card is about structures and traditions. This card will ask us to examine our current structures and traditions, on both the collective and personal levels. What structures and systems are working for us? Not working for us? What structures and traditions need to be re-examined or re-invented to work for everybody? If you'd like to learn more about the messages of the Hierophant, Chelsea recommends Sarah Faith Gottesdeiner's podcast Moonbeaming, which is free, and can be found here as well as spotify and apple podcasts. Check out the episode "Themes of 2021."
The next step in Chelsea's process is to find her personal card of the year. There are several ways to do this:
- using the numbers of your birth date + this year, and when you reach a number that falls between 1 and 21, the card that corresponds with that number is your card of the year.
- choose a card intentionally that represents the energy you want to call in for the year
- shuffle the deck and pull a card at random. That is your card of the year
Chelsea does this by using the numbers of her birthday to calculate her personal Tarot card of the year. Chelsea's birthday is December 24th, the last week of the calendar year, so she uses the numerology from her last birthday to inform the year ahead. 1+2+2+4+2+0+2+0=13 13 corresponds to the death card in Tarot. screeeeet. What does that mean?
The Death card in Tarot typically shows us that big changes are happening. Death, in nature, yields to new life, and so on. The death card represents transformations that might feel like the death of certain aspects of a life or a personality, that ultimately make way for the birth of new ideas and situations.
Chelsea then likes to draw a card for each month of the year, to forecast what energies each month will bring. She then journals about what each card means, and what questions may come up with the energy being brought to light.
The last step in Chelsea's process is tying up loose ends. She likes to call to mind any projects that are unfinished, or hanging around, and make a plan to finish them. Any projects that come to mind that no longer serve her long term goals, or have lost interest, she scraps entirely, and either discards or makes a plan to re-purpose the physical components. This is all part of making space for the new ideas and new goals that are coming in.
As the year goes on, Chelsea often re-visits the tarot spread from the beginning of the year, and the card of the month. She often pulls additional cards for clarity in general, or around specific things coming up in life. She also often goes back to the intentions she set for herself in the beginning of the year, and checks in with her progress. Sometimes it's also necessary to re-evaluate or revise ;)
If Tarot is new to you, and maybe you don't have your own deck, or aren't comfortable reading your own cards for the year, check out this 2021 year ahead Tarot forecast from Tarot reader Chris Corsini, where they have used a method similar to the one discussed here for a Tarot reading of the year ahead for the collective. If you'd like something more personal, Chelsea recommends Tarot reader Melinda Lee Holm. Melinda is a full time professional Tarot reader, and reads from a deck that she designed and developed herself. There are tons of other Tarot resources out there, and just like with everything else, Chelsea recommends that you spend a little time finding what works for you.
Incorporating the phases of the moon into setting intentions
Both Chelsea and Denshai like to work with the phases of the moon when setting intentions and going after goals. They find that the lunar cycle provides a great framework for cycling through work around a specific goal. The basics of this pratice are:
- new moon: setting an intention or calling in a specific energy
- waxing moon: doing the work
- full moon: releasing what no longer serves
- waning moon: rest and reflect
They both like to use apps to track moon phases. Chelsea's favorite is moon calendar. This app shows the full lunar cycle for each month, as well as the astrological sign for the moon each day. It also provides suggested self care ritual ideas.
We hope that these suggestions and resources are helpful to you, goddess, on your journey toward your goals. We share this with the intention of inspiring you, and as always, take the parts that resonate with you, and feel free to leave the rest. If you have questions about any of the information above, you can email us at b.a.g.boxcreators@gmail.com, or send us DM on instagram @b.a.g.box. Both inboxes are monitored, and we love connecting with our goddess community!
XOXO, Denshai and Chelsea