This meditation comes by way of Rachel Zinman, a stunning ISHTA teacher in Australia. 
My favorite teacher and Mentor Alan Finger always recommends the Sankalpa Meditation as a great way to start the New Year. He says that a Sankalpa- setting an intention for your self is different to a New Years resolution. A resolution is something we make with our conscious mind where as a Sankalpa is a seed that can’t help but grow in the ground of our unconscious. Just recently Swami Paramahansa Satyananda- one of the great yogis and teachers of our time took Mahasamadhi. His Sankalpa is a touching reminder of how important it is to face everything with an open heart. you can click here to read Satyanandas Sankalpa
Instructions for the Sankalpa meditation:
1. Start with a few rounds of alternate nostril breaths to withdraw the senses. If you don’t know this technique you can simply close your eyes and observe your breath for a few moments.
2.Visualize writing your intention in your own handwriting on the blue screen of your mind ( let the intention arise with out prejudgement)
3.Chant your intention as a mantra at your third eye, chant it in the throat, chant it at the heart, the solar plexus, the pubic bone and then root it right down into the pelvic floor. Imagine your intention has roots and feel them sinking into the earth.
4. next see your Sankalpa as a plant beginning to grow- you can let go of the word here and sense it more as an energy.
5. feel it as a tender shoot in the area just behind the pubic bone, feel it receiving the warmth of the sun in your solar plexus area and then see it as a beautiful flower blossoming in your heart
And then radiate that beauty up through your throat and into the crown.
6. You can practice this meditation for 40 days. In my own experience its a profound and healing way to start every year and my intentions always seem to come to fruition!
