Intention Part 2: The Example of Ease
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Last month, we explored the Power of Intention. If you missed that newsletter or need a reminder, click here. Besides being useful during the holidays and in times of conflict and challenge, the Intention tool is also one of my favorites to employ at the beginning of a new year. Many people talk about resolutions and goals. If resolutions work for you, great! Continue making them and working with them. And keep reading to see how Intention might fit into your plan for the New Year as an additional tool. And if you are one of those people getting mixed results from resolutions or you've simply given up on them, then I'm excited for you to play with the power of Intention this year. Certainly one of the reasons that resolutions often miss the mark is that we think about the end goal, but we don't necessarily set up the structures or follow-up in order to sustain it. However, I think it's more than simply that. For me and many others who I hear talking about them, resolutions can feel heavy and restrictive. Perhaps this heaviness simply has to do with how much we make resolutions and then feel bad about not keeping them. Whatever the reason, if you know anything about me and the Mood Ladies (my number one coaching tool), then you know we don't have much tolerance for heaviness. If it's feeling heavy, then we know it's an excellent sign to try something else. And that's where Intention comes in. Let's start at one of my favorite places - a dictionary definition. M-W.com defines intention as "a determination to act in a certain way". Ooooooh, determination - good word. As we talked about last month, this helps us get to the essence of things. What is MOST important here? For me, this definition alone widens the lens a bit. If we were working with a standard resolution, it could sound like "I want to lose 20 pounds this year". There are a lot of reasons that a resolution like that makes me cringe, but I won't get into that right now. However, using that resolution, we could say - "Ok, so you want to lose weight....and what's your intention with that?" This is the REAL issue. It's getting beyond the numbers, leading us to the essence of the goal, which might be that you want to feel fit or that you want to feel healthier or something else. Do you see that with this intention - this determination to act in a certain way - much of the other stuff (the number of pounds, for example) is irrelevant? With THIS information, we can zero in on the real issue and then continue. Once you know your intention - using the example above, that you want to feel more fit - then you get to start defining and narrowing down. Start with defining what 'fit' means for you. When you have your definition, then you get to decide what actions, activities, behaviors, thoughts etc. will honor YOUR definition of fit (and which ones do not!). Then it's time to set up structures and systems to support you in this. There is a whole art to this which I won't get into, but please feel free to contact me if you want more guidance. I am also starting Mood Lady Group Coaching: Finding more direction, focus and balance in 2015 in February, which will address this. Using intention in this way helps us get to the essence of what we want and helps keep us on track. But besides the starting point, using intention in this way doesn't feel TOO much different than purposeful goal-setting. So, let's go a bit further....For me, setting intentions is like saying - What do you want to learn or explore this year? or What do you want to focus on this year? When I ask myself those questions, my intentions become clear, sometimes quickly and sometimes gradually. I'll give you an example from my own life. Last year, one of the things that I really wanted to explore was the concept of Ease. I know we get what we focus on, and I became curious as to how I could bring more ease into my life. I wanted to get clearer about Ease and play with it. I wanted to invite more of it in. So I set the intention of Allowing Ease to find me. Now when I set my intentions, I do it in a very loose manner. I am not much into rigidity so in the first couple months of the year, I start asking those questions above and slowly, the answers come to me. These become my intentions - I usually have 1 to 5 of them. I write the intentions down and check back on them every other month or so. My experience with Ease last year was a beautiful one. As I went through the year, I paid attention to when Ease was present and when it wasn't. Especially in challenging times, I would feel its elusiveness. Without too much thought, I would just simply remember my intention and my commitment to Ease. If there was something specific to do to let more Ease in, I would do my best to do it. But most often, simply acknowledging that intention would let in a bit more lightness. My favorite part of the Ease story for last year is the creation and development of a quarterly retreat, called SPARKLES, which my friend and colleague Denise Byron and I are co-facilitating. She and I had talked about a retreat before, but last year it came into being. And it did so in the most Easeful manner you can imagine - the venue, the beautiful participants, the co-facilitating with Denise, the content, the planning, the 3 days of creative inspirational learning, being and playing. All of these elements had a flow to them and the whole experience was the epitome of Ease. Now, that doesn't mean there weren't surprises, shifts and changes that needed to be made. But we were able to do this in an easeful way as well. It is such a gift to remember this experience and feel how Easeful things can be. Of course there were many factors that led to this Easeful experience. And I know that I was open to the Ease because of my intention. I was focused and ready and committed to the Ease and it found me. That's the beauty of Intention. We get to state it, write it down, share it - one or all of these - and let it be. I don't mean we don't take action or we sit around and wait. I mean that you have that intention somewhere in your mind at all times (consciously or unconsciously) and you open yourself up to all the possibilities that are connected to that intention. There's not the forceful, pushing energy that I sense from so many resolutions. Instead, it's this beautiful intention that you put out there in the world and then allow the pulling energy to kick in and do its magic. So, my invitation this month is for you to play with an Intention or two (or three or...). Ask yourself "What do I most want to focus on this year?" or "What do I most want to learn or explore or play with?" I invite you to choose something that feels light - or at least frame it in a way that feels that way. Remember how you want to feel throughout the year, what you want to focus on - what will be fun or fill you with wonder or delight? When you have your answer, write your intention down somewhere you can easily find it. Then it's up to you how much structure you want to put around it. If you'd like more, follow the steps in paragraph 4 above. If you'd like less structure, you get to simply hold to your commitment, take action when you need to and be open to the beautiful power of Intention. If you want to share your Intention or want support in creating it, feel free to contact me. Happy exploring and Happy Intentioning! |
