2020 Intention Setting w Georgia Lee

It’s becoming more difficult for me to respond when asked about my goals or intentions for the coming month, year, or even week; to be able to state with any certainty how I wish to see the coming passage of time unfold. The current climate we are living in— not just environmentally but energetically, emotionally, physically, psychically— has become unstable ground on which to tread. 

Perhaps it is a good thing, designed to shake us out of our complacency and propel us, almost violently, into a new way of living— one in which we might sit more comfortably in the surrender required to live a ‘free’ life, a life detached from the comfortable, yet unsustainable, machine Western society has been oiling up for centuries. As terrifying as it can be to live in this uncertainty, these times can also give way to an unfolding free-fall, where weightlessness is befriended, and creativity flows where fear once filled barren, dry cracks in our psyche. But I digress! 

When speaking to the now, I feel things have gotten to a sort of crescendo point, and there are few people I come into contact with who have not been shaken down by the last decade. Life is always going to challenge us and I fully believe in the fortifying gift of this tension. 

However, there was something about the last couple of years building up to the Saturn Pluto conjunction, which perfected on January 12th 2020 in Capricorn, that presented the lessons of Saturn in a particularly deep way. Bias as I am, given it was also the time of my own Saturn return, I sense validity here. Observing the lives of the people I surround myself with— my clients, family, and the cultural social political zeitgeist as a whole— confirmed I have not been existing in a vacuum of my own existential angst. Shit is getting real. And despite the fire and brimstone predictions and the very dangerous conditions our planet is facing, when I speak of this realness, I feel a flutter in my chest. Real is good. Real is what we need. 

Ifeel excited by the concept of what this ‘real’ could entail and the flashpoint genius that comes from a human squeezed. Comfort, ignorance, and disassociation have been the status quo, and continue to be for the vast majority, but there are themes currently sweeping the globe that are forcing us out of a collective slumber. I’m not mad about it. In healing there is a consensus across many modalities that I truly believe in: that things must come up in order to come out. To feel it is to begin to heal it. There is power in acknowledging and naming the truth. It is horrifying to look at, and sometimes deeply uncomfortable. We each have a capacity, and it is okay to look away, but the times we live in are calling us into our individual power, creativity, and agency, and we must be willing to pull the macro into the micro, and take the steps we need to within ourselves. 

Saturn and Pluto converging in Capricorn was the wake-up call for us to recognise the failures of the systems that govern and ideally provide us safety, food, direction… when we look at the start of the year, the less than ideal response to the Australian bushfires, Trump going into drunk-uncle mode in an even more dangerous fashion than usual, and many other blatant displays of untrustworthy behaviour from those we look to for leadership. It’s clear to me that, even if not yet dissolved, the blindfold of society is slipping. The light is coming in, cracks are showing, and we cannot keep pressing the snooze button. 

The other layer to this is the deeper acknowledgement that Daddy isn’t coming to save us. We need to muster a sense of strength, and see truth in the idea that those in power cannot be trusted with our wellbeing; we need to see that we are the ones most likely to step up and save ourselves. 

The inner child in all of us has been triggered, healed and re-parented through all these challenges, and the themes I am sensing around me is a developing of more adult versions of ourselves. Stronger, more resilient, disillusioned, surrendered, more willing to look and take meaningful action. Able to lean on each other and trust the connectedness and web of humanity to forge a new path, a new way of living life on earth. By no means am I saying we are there yet, there are many of us (myself included) having moments of panic, disconnect, tantrums; a desperate clinging to the illusion that there was something above me governing my life in a supportive way. An idea that I don’t need to engage, that things will be taken care of by ‘them’. We are finding out that this is not true, that people have the power. Hallelujah, and fuck. 

In addition to this, Uranus is in Taurus until the mid 2020’s— a beautiful opportunity to work with these themes by grounding deeply into our new foundations. From the ashes and rubble of what has burned in the last decade we can now rebuild, and the materials chosen will be more sturdy— less first-year apprentice and more master builder. Having change god Uranus in Taurus isn’t going to be a cruisy ride, but it is also a moment full of healing potential and positive catalysts. 

Within this is the deep and very real truth that the planet is rapidly changing. The presented opportunity draws attention to the way we respond to being shaken up, to being in the pot as it has already begun to boil, and the powerful shifts we choose or discard as individuals. Healing our own inner war, the war we have with our physical bodies, our dissatisfaction, our addiction to transcending the monotony of dense flesh; realising that this has so much more of an impact than we think to potentially shift things on a global scale.

Which leads me to the whole point of this rant, which is to discuss intention setting for 2020! Without this preface the next part I want to share would be lacking depth and context— two things I do not like to live without! 

The fact that so many planets started the year in Capricorn— we had the conjunction, an eclipse and a super kooky Aquarian new moon— I feel like January has been about three months long. Dragging the last ghouls of 2019 and beyond into their final death rattle and birthing ourselves into this year in a pretty inward and deeply introspective way, while also getting ultra practical about setting up the framework for our new decade, has been a time. Hopefully as painful as it may have been, like me you are also feeling the expansiveness laced within this transitionary pain. There always exists both sides of the paradox, sometimes one is just more hidden in the shadows. To set goals and intentions in a rigid nature seems to belong in a time we have outgrown. The flexibility of our nature, ego, spirit, and physicality are being nurtured through these times, and I believe this is a great thing. Consistency, responsibility, and discipline have taken on a new form for me (thank you, Saturn) and have become keys to greater freedom, and a more expansive and creative life. Actively deciding to marry these seemingly contradictory themes within my own psyche allows both to exist and offer their gifts to the other. This amalgamation has led me to living with intention and focus, without feeling as though I am on the swing between the haze of an ill-defined will and a kind of militant rigidity. 

I am open to others disagreeing with my goal-stalking vibe for this year, but my setting for the upcoming year and decade to follow is more about living WITH intention, rather than having intentions. I am not saying don’t have goals, I have heaps and I work hard to meet them. However, beneath the goal or intention is the current of our energy, pulsating each moment with our motivations, limitations, self-judgements, true cellular beliefs, and untapped potential. Though more difficult at times, plugging into this current is my intention. Without this tapping of the current, intentions such as quitting a habit or moving into a new life may feel more difficult, the terrain more dense. That ability to maintain the level of awareness and self-reflection necessary to ask the harder questions— particularly regarding the genuine motivations for our actions, and especially when the answer doesn’t make us look or feel so flash— is GOLD. 

There is a spaciousness within self-appreciation that often lends itself to greater compassion for the foibles and follies of human nature. I have found that if I can move through the world with forgiveness for the uncovering of unsavoury truths about my intentions, I am able to whittle down to the actions that are derived from a more clean place. A place where my life moves forward with more genuine curiosity for what my soul is trying to tell me. To free up more energy, to stop fighting myself, and be more uniquely useful in the way only I can be. To move the scared child, the brat, and the martyr out of the road— the more unhealthy aspects of my self, with their misaligned intentions— is to get ever more clear about what I should be putting my energy into, and what actions will cause a positive ripple effect not just in my own life, but in the world. 

This year offers us the chance at a fresh start. I am not an astrologer and do not claim to be, but I eat it for breakfast and most of the forecast for this year is looking pretty good, within the continuing upheaval. If we choose to claim agency over our pain, our joy and the human experience we are having, there is space for truly beautiful change. It is not easy, but as cliche as it sounds, every moment is an opportunity to move through our lives with ever more grace. 

If it feels good to you to write down your goals, to vision board, to asana yourself into this year with intentions out the wazoo I am not one to tell anyone their way is wrong. I will say, though, that the choices we make every single day have a lot of power. We shouldn’t take this potential to create change and peace lightly, even if, like me, you are expanding into a smaller life. Intentional choices, intentional thoughts, and intentional actions can heal or destroy ourselves, others, and the planet we live on. If we remember that and always strive to do the best we can, that is enough. You are most likely doing better than you think, and I hope that with each step you take this year —whether burnt out and disassociated, or energised and inspired— you are being clear with your heart. Be gentle with your humanness and practice honesty with yourself and others, with an added dose of compassion. My greatest intention this year is to take action where I feel I am being pulled, to listen to my actual motivations for any sabotage, and trust that if I am doing this then the outcome can only serve the highest good. In woo woo and light and love and all that. 

Have a beautiful 2020, and if it’s shit I hope you get the support you need, and always feel that you are loved. 

Georgia Lee is a somatic psychotherapist and bodyworker operating out of the Northern Rivers. She can be found at https://www.instagram.com/anam.cara.healing/