Picture this:
It's Fall. The leaves are gone. How
did that happen? One day the world was ablaze with
sunshine, red and gold and then it all
blew away taking the sunlight and the last kiss of summer with
it. At first gray days unnerve me. I want to light candles,
build a fire, brew coffee and snuggle up with a book.
My life, however, expects more
of me than that.
Still, there is a haunting quality to these days of transition –
the deep, pensive days between the extravagance of
summer & autumn,
and the crisp, scintillating cold of winter. Birds flock in
great dark clouds swooping and swirling with inspiring grace,
alighting in a nervous flutter then skittering off again across
the skies.
These dreary days hold a lesson, I think. The flower-scented
days of summer and the sun-drenched days of early autumn are
easy to fall in love with but the gray days remind us that it is
up to us to put forth a little effort, to live with the
intention of finding beauty and joy.
Living with intention takes effort, practice and commitment. But
then, of course, what worth having does not? Sometimes I think
we act like life’s gifts are some sort of happy accident. Like
falling in love. I’ve thought about that a lot – we say “falling
in love” like it is a happenstance having more to do with laws
of physics than personal involvement. We excuse ridiculous
behavior by saying “I couldn’t help it, I fell in love and
didn’t know what to do.” Or we complain “why can’t I just meet
someone and fall in love?” As though, once toppled by that
force, we are discharged of any further responsibilities and
immune to future problems.
Is it our culture of victimization that has created this way
of thinking? I wonder. Maybe it is that we have not been bred to
see ourselves as the authors of our days. We vacillate between
intense and superficial flurries of activity and deep sulks
bemoaning the unfairness of it all. Maybe it is because we
haven’t learned the secret gifts of gray and dreary days. We are
like the man who complains about his leaking roof on rainy days
and does not give a second thought to the holes on sunny days.
Sociologists refer to us as a culture of addicts – addicted
to substances, consumption, entertainment and activity –
anything to keep us occupied and distracted. Gray days can be
escaped in malls and quick trips to sunny resorts. But gray days
hold the secret keys to our deeper selves. It is only in the
mute stillness of a gray day that we can meet our selves and
learn if who we are is someone we can enjoy spending such a day
with. A frightening prospect at times.
Living with intention requires skill and discernment. We gain
knowledge of the selves we have long neglected. We take pleasure
in finding new fascinations, uncovering previously unexplored
passions. We find ourselves looking forward to time alone when
we can allow ourselves the luxury of following a thought to its
very end and savoring the intense satisfaction of knowing what
opens us to bliss.
Living life in full awareness of our days, committing
ourselves to intensifying our awareness of our own passions is a
process that leads us in to a loving relationship with our deep
selves. I think about this on these first gray days for they
remind me what a gift is waiting for me. Choosing intention is
choosing love – not falling haphazardly into a tenuous condition
which leaves us feeling confused and fearful of its loss. We
learn to love and appreciate the one person we will be
guaranteed of having a relationship with for the rest of our
lives. Ourselves!
Learning to savor the exquisite mystery of gray days gives us
the gift of self-knowledge, self-appreciation and a passion for
life that lets us blossom in love.
Making enhancements to your life without intention, is only
10% effective. However, add intention and you'll get a 120%
improvement!
If you listen to successful people talk about what makes them
successful, one of the
elements is being clear about what they want. And it's not just
a vague idea, like to be
happy, or to be wealthy. Their goals are SMART goals, they are:
Specific, Measurable,
Achievable, Realistic and Timely. So, what's the outcome you are
going for? How will you
know when you reach it?
Everything around you affects you. Whether it's a pile of
clutter, a relationship that is
dragging you down, or a broken doorbell - everything is part of
what you are creating,
whether you are conscious of it or not.
Learning about your spirituality will give you a heightened
awareness of how you
interrelate with everything in your environment. That's quite a
responsibility. So, the
question becomes - do you want to go through your life hoping
things work out, or do
you want to design a fulfilling and passionate life for
yourself? Do you want to be the
cause or the effect?
Living with intention will set your life on an altered course.
You're making a commitment
and it's powerful. I've seen clients begin, feeling stuck in an
aspect of their lives, and within
one week had several options magically open up to them. They
unleashed a series of
opportunities and opened up a pipeline to possibility. It's also
about focus. What you
focus on expands, and when you move from focusing on feeling
stuck, to a wider view
of focusing on outcomes, the Universe steps in to support you.
And why not go for some BHAG? that is -
Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals! Live your
life as
a daring adventure. You have the opportunity to create whatever
you choose for Your
life, so think big!
The clearer you are about what you're choosing to create, the
greater the chance of
having what you want, and the more effective. Clearing clutter,
or placing
enhancements with intention is extremely powerful. It's the
difference between making
a 10% improvement or making a 120% improvement.
Maximizing the Power of Your Enhancements
Use these tools to create an environment of success that will
support powerful
outcomes for yourself. Make your self a priority and design the
life of your dreams.
1. Get clear and very specific about your desired outcome, and
write this down.
2. Remove the clutter and clean the area.
3. Choose an enhancement - something that represents the change
you would like to
create, and place it in the appropriate area of your home or
room.
4. Visualize or imagine your outcome as if it’s already happened
- how does it feel?
5. Speak your desired outcome out loud, in the present tense.
Always add, 'this or
something better, for the Highest Good now occurs'. An example
is: “I now have 2 new
clients who are a perfect fit for me. This or something better,
for the Highest Good now
occurs”.
6. Start taking action towards your outcome. Sometimes your
Higher Power, sees a
much bigger picture than you do, so don’t place any limitations
on what you might
receive. Move towards the next step in designing your life.
There's an interesting thing that happens in our lives when we
decide on goals. We feel crisper and sharper. Our sense are
honed. We begin to measure the world by a different barometer.
Most of us are accustomed to mundane goals and how to measure
them: Lose weight; get on a scale. Save for a big ticket item;
forgo the smaller indulgences and watch your bank account rise.
Start a new business and grow a clientele. And we are also
familiar with the flip side of intention: forget this whole
idea; it's too much work and I want that chocolate velvet
cheesecake NOW! Or that new CD, great shirt, tickets to a
concert, or any number of smaller distractions and
satisfactions.
The fact is, living with intention is hard to do. Too often we
interpret it as unreasonable quantities of patience and denial.
And it seems especially hard if our goals are more intangible:
clarity, poise, goodness, enlightenment. Grace is hard to find,
and even harder to extend to ourselves.
We tend to think of intention as focused will. As having the
right stuff, the sternness and self-control to consistently mold
our actions to some larger, and usually delayed, goal. The truth
is that sometimes focused will is simply not enough. Not merely
because we are human and filled with desires, though that's
certainly part of it, but because we tend to operate using only
a small part of our energies.
We get so used to acting on the surface of our lives, so used to
coping with the myriad demands of work, family, friends, and the
time it takes to walk the dog, pay the bills, and take out the
trash, that we too often forget to knock on the doors of our
stronger powers and say: hey, wake up, I need some help.
The whole point of having some guide system, be it meditation,
therapy, spiritual practice, a tarot reading, or even your
internalized parent, is that you have support, so that you don't
have to rely on sheer will-power to keep you on track, to help
you remember. If you boost your emotional, spiritual, and
psychic helpers, you can take the load off self-discipline as an
organizing principle.
Truly living with intention involves engaging all of your
energies and strengths, not merely your mental ones. It means
activating your inner helpers, however you get them out of bed.
It means both affirming what you want and being satisfied with
being on the journey. It means honoring your intention, even if
you have not yet reached your goal.
Living with intention means pushing your comfort zone, but it
also means appreciating every nuance of your life, and
appreciating yourself for being conscious as you live it. It
means recognizing that the act of envisioning itself, that
moment of connecting with your intention, counts as much as the
more visible actions that you take. The first step to making
your world different is imagining it so, and envisioning
yourself in the new paradigm.
Living with intention means persistently and actively affirming
your goals. Not merely so that you don't forget or diminish
their value when you face a challenge, but so that you are
sending out into the universe your connection with both process
and outcome.
Make a change in how you relate to this process. Instead of
merely measuring the outer barometers (getting on the scale,
counting your money, tallying up those new customers), focus on
your inner ones.
Commit regular time with yourself evaluating the more subtle
contexts of your life. This does not mean fretting over why you
ate that éclair a week ago last Thursday, or how impossible it
seems to save money when the roof is leaking. Instead, it means
looking through the window of your spirit and giving yourself a
regular psychic report card, and, as hard as it is for some of
us to do, giving yourself a pat on the back when you honor your
intention, even if you haven't yet reached your final
destination.
Stop muttering to yourself, or chastising yourself for lapses.
Close your eyes, envision yourself at your goal, and take a few
deep breaths of success. Put your energy into reinforcing your
trust that you truly want to grow, to evolve, and to change.
Energetically, a part of you is already where you want to be.
Keep reminding yourself that each time your affirm your
intention, each time you commit to the process, you are actually
doing something positive. The process itself clears your soul of
fears. It shakes the cobwebs from those psychic muscles that
affirm your unique and powerful sprit.
Don't just wish you would live with intention. Take the first
step and trust where you will lead yourself.
Remember:
Our efforts can do more for ourselves
and for the world, than we may ever
imagine.
We don't have to become saints or wait
for the perfect situation to take
action.
Change happens little by little, step by step.
We can savor the journey of engagement, even though our ultimate
destination is unclear.
The impact of our efforts will often ripple outward in
positive ways we can't predict.
* Be sure your intentions are born of
integrity and commitment; a testament
to our often-unrealized ability to lead lives worthy of our
convictions :)
