Intention-Setting Yoga: Finding Your Own Flow in 35 Minutes

Liza Colpa's 35-minute intention-setting class, posted to her YouTube channel in January 2021 as the opening installment of a manifestation yoga series, begins without a single pose. For the first few minutes students sit or lie down, close their eyes, and are asked to picture themselves at their happiest, then to feel that happiness before writing down a short intention. Only after that does the class move into a flow of cat-cow, downward dog, plank, forward fold, and warrior. The idea underneath the whole session is specific and worth taking seriously: set the intention from the feeling, not from a to-do list, then let the body move at whatever pace serves that feeling instead of copying the teacher on screen.

What does the class ask you to do before the first pose?

The opening is a visualization, and Colpa is precise about it. She asks students to pause the video, grab a paper and pen, and then settle in, seated or lying down if that feels better. After a few deep breaths she gives the prompt that drives everything that follows:

"Imagine yourself at your happiest, what are you doing, who are you surrounded by, what kind of people, what places, what place are you in, what do you have in your life, what has changed, what is different." (Liza Colpa, in the class, opening minutes, around 2:15)

The questions are concrete on purpose. Who is in the room, what the days look like, what has changed: this is not an abstract wish for "more" but a scene with people and places in it. Students are then asked to stay with the image and notice the feelings underneath it. Colpa names a few: whether you feel free, whether you feel light, whether you feel "in love or just simply blissful." Around 3:14 she asks students to hold that feeling as the source of the intention they will write.

For anyone who has tried goal-setting and dropped it, the sequencing is the interesting part. The vision comes first, the emotional texture comes second, and only then does the writing happen. The intention is supposed to carry the feeling, not just the outcome.

Why start with a feeling instead of a goal?

Colpa's examples of what an intention might contain are practical: "maybe surrounding yourself with positive people or moving to a different place eventually or getting into a place of abundance or financial security." Each one is a concrete life area, but the instruction is to write a "simple intention," not a checklist. Once the page is filled, students fold it and place it under their yoga mat, a small physical ritual that turns the page into an object that stays with the practice.

That folded paper stays in view for the rest of the class. In the first child's pose, Colpa asks students to bring the feeling from the intention back into view, "knowing you are worthy of all blessings," and to remember that they are being guided. The emotional thread running through the whole class is that the intention is not a demand placed on the universe in a stressful voice. It is closer to a settled orientation, something you return to between poses.

It is worth being honest about what the video does and does not establish. This is one teacher's framework for practice, built on her own belief in manifestation. The class does not present research or evidence that writing an intention changes outcomes, and it does not claim to. What it offers is a repeatable structure: picture, feel, write, fold, move.

What is Colpa's own story behind the practice?

Around the five-and-a-half-minute mark she describes how she came to the method. She says she used this kind of intention-setting "a lot" during a period when she "really needed a lot of change," specifically wanting to move out of an old environment into a new one and have a yoga space of her own. Then comes the line that gives the class its personal charge: "Little did I know I would be a teacher, but a lot of it manifested along the journey."

That is the only personal history she offers, and it is worth reading as her account rather than a verified biography. Its value for a viewer is structural. She is describing a practice tested against a specific life shift, a move and a change of work, rather than an abstract philosophy. The affirmation she pulls for the session, "I always trust the direction of the universe and know I am being guided," is the same stance she asks students to take into the poses: trust the process, keep the intention close, and let the next step arrive.

How does "at your own pace" actually work in the poses?

The phrase recurs throughout, and it is the class's central instruction. Colpa begins with cat-cow and then invites students to trace circles with the heart, rounding to the right or left, and to take the movement further into the hips or ankles if it feels good. Her reasoning, in her own words, is that when people start to create a vision for themselves they often "try to emulate a lot of other people," to be the same as everyone else on screen. Her invitation is the opposite: "to not be the same, to be your unique self."

"We're not working hard, we're not trying to achieve, we're just trying to set the intention that works for us." (Liza Colpa, in the class, around 9:52)

This is where the class departs from a lot of power-flow or performance yoga. There is no instruction to hold a pose longer, deepen a stretch, or reach a particular shape. Students pedal their legs in downward dog "at your own pace," repeat plank into downward dog for a couple of breaths, and sway side to side in a semi-wide forward fold. The instruction to pace yourself is repeated so often that it becomes the real lesson: the practice is a place to notice what your body wants at this moment, not to prove anything.

For newer students, that permission can be quietly important. For experienced practitioners, the reminder to stop comparing and to go "out of your own way" is a useful reset. Either way, the emphasis is on listening rather than output.

What does the flow look like from start to finish?

After the opening ritual, the sequence moves through the standard shapes of a beginner-accessible vinyasa-style session: table, cat-cow, downward dog, plank, forward fold, and then a standing sequence. Around the 25-minute mark Colpa moves students into a peaceful warrior and a sequence of warrior postures, cueing them to lengthen through the gaze and sweep the fingertips along the leg. At about 25:40 she offers a reassurance that sums up the session's tone: "you are exactly where you are meant to" be.

The class then returns to child's pose, the same shape it opened in, around 27:55, giving students a bookend. The final section, starting near 33:08, is a stillness she invites students to keep "for as long as" feels right, where they can hold the intention in mind without doing anything with it. That structure matters. The intention that was written at the start is not left behind in the middle of the session; it is revisited at the start, in the middle, and at the close.

What is worth taking off the mat from a class like this?

There are three ideas here that translate well beyond a yoga class. The first is that writing an intention by hand, after visualizing a specific scene, gives it a concreteness that a vague wish does not have. The second is the separation of feeling from outcome: asking "what does this feel like" before "what do I want to get" shifts the intention from pressure to orientation. The third is the repeated invitation to stop comparing your practice to someone else's, a note that applies well outside the studio.

There are also limits to be clear about. The method rests on Colpa's own belief in manifestation, and the video does not test or prove that belief. Those who find the framework useful may get a meaningful ritual out of it; those who do not can still take the movement and breath cues on their own terms. The class description includes a standard disclaimer asking people with conditions such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease, pregnancy, or recent surgery to consult a doctor before practicing, and to be certain of their ability before attempting heated yoga. That advice is worth following before any session.

Where to go from here

If the class resonates, Colpa points to her longer offering as the next step. Her online course, "Manifesting A Happier and Healthier Life," is hosted on Insight Timer, and she also shares meditations there. Her website is lizacolpa.com, and she is active on Instagram at @lizacolpa. The video itself is a good first stop: pick a quiet 35 minutes, keep a pen beside the mat, and let the first five minutes do what they are designed to do. Then move at the pace that feels like yours.