Intent is Everything

I'm Lisa 👋 Welcome to this week's edition of Stream of Consciousness!

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As I'm learning more about myself one of the major themes that keeps coming up again and again is how many times I have forced myself to do things I didn't want to do.

It's like my logical brain could see the positives in doing X or Y and the somatic part of me wasn't even in the building to chyme in.

Sometimes it was just blatantly not a good fit for my personality and sometimes I had very clear signs from my body that I just ignored.

Objectively I don't think this resulted in bad decisions per se, but subjectively it did result in bad decisions for me, given my unique context and constraints.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about intent and how this shapes how we operate in the world.

The WHY behind what we do is more important than the HOW.

I could force myself to exercise but why is that something I want to do?

Is it because I'm scared of the repercussions if I don't?

Or do I want to exercise because I love myself and I want to take care of myself?

If it's the latter, I might actually choose a different type of exercise to meet my needs.

It's a lot easier to talk about making decisions out of love vs. fear than it is to put them in practice.

I think this is because it's not normally what we see people do.

IMHO it also contributes to the depth or shallowness of our relationships, both with ourselves and with others.

I don't want to be a friend who goes to events out of fear and obligation. I want to be a friend who really shows up when I have the capacity to do so because I care and want to connect and share authentic energy.

I don't want to show up for myself superficially and make decisions that go against my core values in situations that would make others more comfortable. I want to be able to genuinely show up with compassion for myself so I have more capacity and more energy to be myself and present in my life and come from a place of abundance vs. scarcity.

I used to make a lot of decisions from my ego which I think is deeply connected to making decisions out of fear.

The results of this were a life that made me deeply unhappy and unhealthy.

My friend April often says, “Lisa, you gotta make your ego your Amigo!”

The way I think about this is…

If you know what your values are…

And you know how you want to feel…

And you know what you want your life to look like or areas you want to explore if you're not sure…

And if you take a breather before deciding to do anything to check in with whether a decision makes you feel expanded or contracted…

You can work with yourself instead of against yourself.

You can get clear on your intent.

And I think this amplifies outside of the self to others. If you can work with yourself better it will help you work better with others. And help you find the others you want to work with who are aligned.

Now, when I do things…it could be small things like making myself tea or stretching or lying down or learning something new or watching a show or having a conversation with someone…I am trying to ask myself more and more...”What is my intent here?”.

The number of times I catch my actions going against my intent is shocking - like when my intent is to relax and enjoy a story and then I find myself on my phone while a movie is on. I think a lot of modern technology makes this the easy decision and we need to step up hardcore to make the harder decision to align our actions with our intent more frequently.

I'm done forcing myself to do things that feel fear-avoidant rather than towards love. And the main person I need to work with in order to consistently do this is myself.

What is your intent in reading this right now?

What is your intent with whatever you're on to next in your day?

What is your intent with your family, relationships, job, education, where you live, how your mornings look, your nighttime routine, your exercise and food habits, meditating, and all the other things you put energy behind?

The WHY questions are the ones that we often skip over to get to the HOW.

But they are crucial in setting our rudders.

I'm adding this to my list of things I wish I learned in school that I'm only now learning in my 30s.

Better late than never!

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Here’s to navigating life off of autopilot.

Lisa ✌️