Our world is full of constant distractions, diversions, and doing. Living an intentional life affords us a sense of clarity and helps to define our purpose. Intention is a popular buzzword. What does it really mean to live with intention, set our sights on what we want to create, and navigate the road to manifestation? Answering these questions, we will dive into human consciousness, exploring the interweaving of thoughts, intentions, and reality. We hold and direct intention. Intention directs energy. Energy ultimately directs matter.
Imagine intention as a tuning fork, resonating a frequency that harmonizes the surrounding energies. Just as a tuning fork produces similar frequencies, setting intentions enhances our ability to produce harmonious connections as senders and receivers of intention. Science recognizes that thoughts are energy affecting the world around us. Research indicates that collective thoughts possess palpable energy, intensifying as more minds converge on a singular idea, solidifying the importance of intentional living. Where your thoughts go, your energy follows.
Understanding this phenomenon and the science behind it helps harness this power in our lives. The journey begins with contemplation. We first identify our core values. Exploring who we are and what we stand for, and then aligning with that to create a deep well of stillness to draw upon. In this stillness, we become aware of the physical, the mental, the emotional, and at the deepest state of awareness, we become acquainted with the spiritual essence within. In stillness, aligned in all the wisdom bodies and connected to Source, we set our intention.
Intention isn’t just wishful thinking; it’s a deliberate act of envisioning ourselves within the desired conditions and feeling the reality of those conditions actualized, trusting in the universe’s capacity to collaborate and shape our reality. Letting go. This trust, the letting go of the control of the outcome, coupled with the awareness of the felt sense of your intention actualized, breathes life into our aspirations, infusing them with the vitality of creation itself.
Translating intention into tangible outcomes requires practice. Practicing presence of mind, an awareness that sees the wonder, joy, and sweetness in the mundane daily activities that wear us down. The law of co-creation underscores this process, emphasizing our role in aligning ourselves with the power and the felt sense of our intention. We pay attention to the states where we operate and exist. In a good feeling state, we allow acceptance of fluidity and birthing the reality we envision. In not-so-good feeling states, we hoard our energy inward and find constriction and retraction, not cohesive grounds for birthing new ways of being.
Creativity emerges as a potent force, a conduit for channeling our intentions into the physical realm. Whether through art, writing, or ceremony, creativity empowers us to give form to our intentions, bridging the gap between the ethereal and the concrete. Japa meditation, the repeating of sacred sounds, is one pathway to manifestation, tapping the creative energy of the universe to materialize our intentions. Recitation of the sacred sound of Source, speaking the name(s) of the force of creation that you align with while embodied in the energy of your intention, focusing and magnifying your intention, becoming a vortex that draws like energies to you.
Dr. Wayne Dyer’s book, The Power of Intention, emphasizes the power of kindness and love. Acts of benevolence not only elevate the spirits of recipients but also provide a sense of joy for the givers. A sacred act of reciprocity. An NIH study on the impact of giving and receiving kindness, reported acts of kindness benefited givers even more than the receivers. They show identical trends towards increased happiness, boosts in life and job satisfaction, as well as a decrease in depression. The science of kindness has additional benefits of increased immunity, lowered depression, and increased natural serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphin production. Improving our abilities to regulate our happiness and contentment hormones naturally also diminishes tendencies to constantly seek external sources for validation.
In a universe governed by reciprocity, small acts of kindness reverberate, aligning us with the universal flow of giving and receiving, keeping us in harmony with the key elements in the art of intention and manifestation.
Love, too, emerges as the overall guiding principle, a testament to the inherent unity of existence. Our existence is the embodiment of divine love. We work to echo the boundless energy that birthed us into being. By fostering beauty and expansiveness in our lives, we align ourselves with the ever-expanding nature of intention, embracing sustainable abundance in all its forms, becoming embodied mindful loving compassion.
Love and kindness are essential when we discuss manifesting intentions. When we align with present awareness, we allow our consciousness to open, soften, and become more receptive to our desires. When we further align by developing a felt sense of what we are intending, we then create that intention. A magnetic force pulls the energy of what we are manifesting to us. When aligned in mindful loving compassion, we are in the creative divine force of universal consciousness. We become super-attractors. When we can remain in this state of consciousness through mundane daily tasks and walk in love and kindness in a world that bombards us with the opposite, we are open to wonder and joy – the creative forces align, and manifestation happens.
As we journey into the world of living intentionally, we might set initial intentions toward accomplishing things. In the beginning, we are still focused on external acquisition. By mastering the art of intention, we move from the external to the internal. We align with the feeling of already integrating our desires and wants. The focus becomes our felt sense.
Living an intentional life is more than a mere philosophy; it’s a sacred pact with the universe. We participate actively in this cosmic dance of reciprocity – right giving and right receiving.
By Erin Kuehl. Since 2012, Erin has been the driving force behind Evolve Yoga and Wellness Center, a holistic healing hub in the heart of Historic 4th Street that integrates Yoga and mindfulness into transformative classes designed to nurture physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
