The Power of a Collective Intention

I want you to join me in creating a love revolution this November, and I’ll show you how.

Yearly goals aren’t my thing. They’re too abstract for me and I can easily find a way out. Does that sound like you, too?

To find another way, I started to look month-to-month. In September, I kicked off Live Brightly Monthly, a collective intention for like-minded and ambitious women who recognize that to take care of business, we need to take care of ourselves. The idea was to take a new intention month-by-month and see what the power of a collective intention can create in our lives.

So, how did this come about? This summer I wanted a way to focus on a single intention of self-care for the month. A way to drive home my mantra of #livebrightly that pushed me to challenge myself or try something new. See, I already “do” a lot of self-care living: plant-based smoothies, juicing, healthy eating, yoga, you know, healthy things. I wanted to figure out how could I break out of this pattern and create new levels of self-care and ‘be’ instead of ‘do’ self-care.

Then in June I took a yoga challenge at my local Core Power Yoga. I was challenged to do 40 classes in 90 days. I didn’t “win,” but I did 20 classes, and that was a win for me. The act of putting a gold star next to my name along with the 70 other participates was such a joy-filled experience and I really felt accomplished. That’s when I began to feel the benefit of a group intention and the collective strength in numbers.

In July, I followed the lunar calendar for my business intentions, which is a moon-based cycle started by Ezzie Spencer aka The Lunar Abundance Creatress. In essence you follow the phases of the moon and experience how each phase relates to Lunar Abundance principles including setting your intention to take action, receive, and experience gratitude through to giving back from a place of abundance.

Again, following her Instagram account, and connecting with other people’s monthly intentions through hashtags and social media, I felt more intune and accountable with following my intention. 

In August I tried Whole30, which lasted a Whole15, but I tried! And that counts, it really does. Whole30 is a very intense jump-start-your-system program all centered on eating clean, pure, and real food for 30 days. No grains, no sugar, no dairy. An entire system and food relationship reset.

Since my Whole30 experience, I have continued to enjoy RxBars (which is Chicago based!) and Tessemae All Natural Salad Dressings. I was floored by the amount of sugar in salad dressings, or anything for that matter. It was a positive experience and I fell off the bandwagon when we went to the old Playboy Hotel in Wisconsin for the last summer hoorah with my family. I mean, come on how could I not?

Beyond the results, the most remarkable facet of Whole30 is the community. The entire program is free, yet it’s extended into books and cookbooks, all because of the way the community has transformed into a movement. Go search #Whole30 on Instagram and you’ll find a massive network of people that have extended far beyond the official Whole30 brand, which already produces incredible social media campaigns, who are deeply committed to this intention of finding food freedom. There are holistically-grown accountability groups, bloggers, chefs, and recipe creators that have focused their entire approach surrounding Whole30. Now that’s an example of the power of collective intention.

After setting and living my intentions for a few months on my own, I realized I’m more accountable to myself when I have a partner, and that might be true for you, too.

So, I decided to set up an accountability group, a collective with a monthly intention to help me stick to my goals. Enter the #LiveBrightlyMonthly Facebook group.

With these examples of self-care, it’s easy to see how collective intentions can have tremendous personal impact. Whether it’s minimizing anxiety, finally finding peace with your body, losing the guilt in your relationship with food, or simply experiencing joy in everyday moments.

It works for business, too. Set an intention collectively and we can use community accountability to drive holistic growth through equal parts giving and receiving of support.

And one of the most beautiful things about collective intentions is that we can be a collective from anywhere. That’s why I chose Facebook as the platform for #LiveBrightlyMonthly. We can easily check-in, share, and cultivate community.

September was the month of meditation, and my personal goal was to meditate every day for 5 minutes. Others in the group mediated with the help of apps and simply building up their time minute by minute week by week. A client recommended the Oprah & Deepak Chopra’s 21-day Meditation Series, which I did. Best. Ever.

I tried Headspace, SimplyBeing and other free online apps, but the Oprah & Deepak Success Series track was the best combo for me because it built on it’s intention as the 21-days progressed, which made me I feel that I was being lead down a path toward a goal.

I selected that series because I was prepping for my Branding On Purpose With Purpose event and knew I needed to take care of my mind as much as my body and business in order to be fully sourced for the event. I’m a 100% believer that as business owners, our biggest asset is ourselves. We need to take care of our mind, body and spirit to be holistically present for our business, clients and team.

Then, October was the month to explore the witchy, woo-woo world of essential oils. My goal was to see what aromatherapy benefits I could brew up, so I dabbled in Young Living, Aveda’s chakra line and doTerra. I have since fallen in love with doTerra’s pure essential oils, the quality of their lines and company message. In fact, I am now a doTerra Wellness Advocate!

I’m really excited about the benefits it provides me and my household against common germs the kids pick up at school and lice (don’t even get me started about lice). I have a diffuser in my office and blend together Wild Orange and Peppermint for a mid-day boost. Peppermint is like a afternoon life source, a drop in a glass of water or two drops rubbed on my temples and it’s a natural energy booster, which has helped me avoid that second cup of joe come 1:30 p.m. 

For November’s #LiveBrightlyMonthly topic, we’re going to set the intention of saying thank you to someone for who they are being every day.

Strangers, people on the street, your barista, the sales manager, anyone who looks like they need a jolt out of their ‘ordinary’ and recognized for being the extraordinary person they are.

Mark Zuckerberg did this in 2014 when he vowed to write a thank you note every day. Why? He said:

“It’s important for me, because I’m a really critical person. I always kind of see how I want things to be better, and I’m generally not happy with how things are, or the level of service that we’re providing for people, or the quality of the teams that we built. But if you look at this objectively, we’re doing so well on so many of these things. I think it’s important to have gratitude for that.”

Now, admit it, can you find a bit of yourself in that “Why” Zuckerberg gives? Yes!

The type of thank you I’m going to spread is looking deeper than what service or ‘work’ they provided, and instead share the unexpected, share an insight into who they are being, share some love. This is the ontological approach that my life and leadership coach training takes. For example, the lady who bags my groceries at my local grocery store, instead of saying “thank you” and walking out the door (and I know you do this too! How many times have you said thank you to someone in service and you not even remember what they look like two minutes later? *Raising my hand.) I’m going say to something like, “Thank you for separating out my fruit, that is very thoughtful of you, I can tell you are really taking care of me today, and that means a lot. I hope you have an awesome day!”

Thanking someone for who they’re being is looking at their soul, spirit, personal essence, and thanking them for the kindness,  joy, love, compassion, and light they are bringing into the world. Funny thing, most people in service jobs aren’t hired for their personal essence, they are hired to ‘do things.’ But simply by recognizing that they are people, and have a soul, and sharing a small moment of thanks, I guarantee you it will shake things up. It will jolt them out of their ordinary, into their extraordinary, and cause a ripple effect that can literally start a gratitude revolution.

Maybe you need a little more love, joy and light this month, join me to go out and spread it daily, want to join in?

Sign up for my list here or ping me on Facebook to join the Live Brightly Monthly group.

No attachment, no failures, it’s all process and community here. And feel free to invite friends, everyone is welcome!

And thank YOU for being a source of light, love and revolution in the world, we need more love revolutionists like you!

[thrive_leads id=’45649′]