Direct your life – 2025 Positively Alive
Make time to visualize the direction of your life.
Several motivating factors led me to writing this blog —of course one being we just closed out 2024 and welcomed 2025. Also I am teaching a workshop this month on the power of visualization, some of the latest research on it, and how to best utilize it. The workshop is more focused on using your mind to heal joint diseases — in the past I’ve done a lot of research on using the power of your mind to improve your health, overcome viral predators, heal injuries or improve healing before and after a surgery, how to improve your performance be it a sport or something athletic, to improve a skill, or an art such as playing a piano or painting. Imagery and visualizations benefit body and mind.
While there is a certain amount of accepting and moving along with how life sometimes shows up for us, there is also a certain amount of being purposeful and choosing the life you want.
Imagine the 2025 you want to live
What do you need to do to make that happen? January starts off in the zodiac sign of Capricorn. Capricorn energy is about taking a grounded, discipled approach to our ambitions.
Capricorn is represented by the sea-goat. A mythical creature that can swim the deepest depths and traverse the highest mountains. It represents hard work without any expectations of immediate gratification. This is the yoga yama of non-attachment (aparigraha).
Let your concern be with the action alone, and never with the fruits of action. Krishna (Bhagavad Gita)
Its a lesson in presence. Let your concern be with the right now.
Let this effort of what you want in the year be applied over time. With “manifestation” there is no timeline. And you can’t be attached to the outcome —it may not “manifest” exactly as you imagined and if you remain attached to an exact outcome you could be creating more suffering for yourself.
Attachment can create anxiety and stress which engages your sympathetic nervous system. It is a fear reaction of types —you’re worried about not getting what you want and so your internal dialogue will work against you.
Manifestation takes different paths and turns, and in some ways, it is smarter than you are about knowing the best way for something to happen. Your subconscious guides you to a better choice. In fact your subconscious is the key to “manifesting”.
What tools do we have to maximally increase the likelihood of our intention manifesting? Power of mind.
#1 Tool you need is reclaiming the power of your mind to focus. Which is what meditation is intended to do. Three minutes each day is adequate to start improving control of where you place your attention.
#2 Once you reclaim your attention, direct it to your Intension.
#3 Next direct your intention inward to impact your subconscious. Use your attention to embed your intention into your subconscious.
#4 Repeat it often!
Once you embed the “goal” into your subconscious —and into your consciousness your brain is looking internally and externally to what needs to happen to make your goal a reality. The subconscious is so strong —and it works below your level of awareness so you don’t even know you are striving toward what you want!
Once you embed your intention, it activates your “salience network”, which then empowers your attention network, which then allows your executive control network (which is the to-do part of your brain) to make that intention manifest. In doing this you also at the same time downplay your default mode network —which for many interferes with the process of moving forward in life.
Practice where you put your attention all day long.
Then what action do you need to take to move toward your goal? The most important step is baby steps. Think about little tiny baby steps in the direction you want to go. And enjoy the work of it. The reality of any change you want to create in your life is the journey —its not about the destination.
What truly matters enough for you to put attention, intension, effort, and determination into — while realizing your non-attachment to the outcomes or how they exactly manifest?
Take a moment; reflect on what truly matters to you.
Pick one area of your life to start with; a friend you want to connect more with, a relationship in your life, your health, your work, your family —there are many aspects to envision for the year. Pick one little aspect and imagine how wonderful it can look. Paint the picture in your mind of what you want, then your subconscious will start to fill in the picture like a paint by number piece.
Take five slow nasal breaths imagining.
Then create a plan, take time to make actionable steps —-s-l-o-w-l-y heading in the direction you want your future to go.
Remember to go inward often imagining what you want your 2025 to look like. Don’t be afraid to imagine something beyond your current views and thoughts.
I have a 2025 Collective Resolution – Be aware of the negativity bias
The mind is like velcro for negative thoughts or experiences and like slippery ice for positive ones. Unaware a person tends to have 3 negative thoughts to 1 positive thought.
And in relationships its even a larger gap —for each negative experience a couple faces they need 5 positive experiences to have a happy relationship.
Negativity can be so deeply rooted, it can hold you back from experiencing more positivity or just living the life you want to live. We can prove our brains wrong by focusing on the good in our lives —and the people who around us.
Just being aware of this negativity bias and taking steps to notice the good changes your DNA — making it perform better, it also rewires your brain over time making it easier to focus on the positive and the trajectory of what we want in our lives.
During your practice take time each day looking at the positive and the hopeful in your life —it is the portal to seeing the beauty in your life and living it. If we don’t take the time to retrain our brains to focus on whats good then we run the risk of projecting the negative from our past onto our future. Instead we manifest what we don’t want instead of what we do!
What creates meaning and purpose for your 2025 ? Capricorn hard working energy creates self-confidence. Start planning and training your mind to focus on what you want.
Then do the work with non-attachment to the outcome. Figuring out what you want in life has many layers to it and it can take years to fully establish what is meaningful to your life.
My mindset quote for 2025:
2025 positively alive
What yoga will fulfill my practices now? This has been my soul searching practices over the past week. Exploring and experimenting with practices that feel good —yet keep me strong, flexible, agile, and mind-fit — or aware.
So for 2025 I am now practicing “Yoga My Way”! And maybe this will reflect in my teachings …
Parts of this talk referenced from:
Dr. James R. Doty, MD, a Stanford Neurosurgery professor and founder of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE). He is also the New York Times bestselling author of Into the Magic Shop. From the Dhru Purohit Show: How to Manifest Your Dreams and Work Past Self Doubt in 2025, Dec 16, 2024 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dhru-purohit-show/id1381257272?i=1000680545923&r=2085