I first started writing, reciting and visualizing my intentions when the economy hit the skids. Our family company was deep in the thick of the mess and I felt my world start crumbling down. Everything seems to be evaporating before my eyes, and my mind was churning over the negative possibilities.
At that same time I was listening to an interview of Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and Success Principles. He (and most successful people) gets up every morning and visualizes his intentions. Intentions are intimately connected to the law of attraction: when we have sincere, passionate intentions, the universe goes to work. Something really resonated in me that day and my intention writing began.
When you think about it, we would never go on a long journey without planning ahead. So many of us, however, forget life is a journey that deserves the same level of thoughtfulness. Often, we feel the same feelings, are stumped by the same problems, and are reliving the same patterns over and over again. We see point B but don’t know how to get there. The great thing is, we don’t have to know how to get there yet. We just have to set our intentions.
Intentions are perfect when you know you want to change something, but you don’t know how or don’t have control. Intentions shift thoughts and beliefs, and when that happens, anything is possible.
The key to writing good intentions are:
- Keep them short and easy to repeat. Intentions need flow off your tongue easily where you can recite it over and over to yourself. If you keep stumbling over words, change it.
- Keep them positive. Rather than say, “I don’t yell at my kids” say “I treat my children with kindness” or “I laugh and have fun with my kids.” Our minds tend to pick up on the negative words (like “yell”) which defeats the purpose.
- Keep them simple. Some people have very specific intentions, like “I exercise 5 times a week.” Others have very broad intentions, like “I am healthy and full of energy.” Either way, keep it simple. I prefer to keep my intentions broader and less specific. I don’t want to limit how the Divine Universe may want to help fulfill my desires. There may be a bigger, better plan that I do not see. So, when my son was struggling in school, I chose to say “My son thrives in school” rather than “My son gets good grades.” The subtle difference is that I didn’t decide that thriving HAD to mean good grades. I left it open to many possibilities.
Once you have written a handful of intentions, you need to broadcast them. Pick a time every day (the morning before the kids get out of bed is best for me) and recite each affirmation over and over while visualizing what that feels and looks like. For example, during my panic stage when I mentally repeated my intention that “I have more than enough money,” I visualized what I would like to do with my money, like going on family trips together. Not only did I visualize what it looked like, I tapped into what it felt like. At first this is hard and feels contrived, but as you do it more and more, the feelings and images come very easily.
Each intention will only take a minute or two to visualize until you feel like moving onto the next one, so the entire process will take less than ten minutes a day. As your intentions are imprinted and feel finished, you can drop them and add new ones. My new intentions are:
- I am open to big changes
- I am a kind and compassionte mother
- Answers and ideas come easily to me
- I inspire people
I hope this inspired you to plan for the next step in your life! If you ask the top leaders, entrepreneurs and athletes in the world, most will tell you they are doing some form of intention writing and visualization. And that’s because it works, plain and simple.
I am a big believer in intentions and affirmations. Started doing them in my mid-20s, way back in my single days. Inspired by the book “Creative Visualization” by Shakti Gawain. I tend to use my birthday as my evaluate and reset marker…it’s sort of my personal new year. =)
Agree with your point about keeping them positive. There is a saying I learned from services at Unity Temple….”that which we resist, persists”. So, move toward what you want, versus pushing against what you don’t.
So, my life’s not perfect and I haven’t mastered my intention setting yet, but I am trying; I am working it!
That was one of the first books I read, “Creative Visualization.” It is a wonderful place to start and I really should have mentioned it. Thank you!
I always feel better after reading this blog. I seriously screwed something up today and cannot stop thinking about it. I really needed to hear what you had to say. Thank you Lina (and to the universe who guided me to read this tonight)!
I am always so grateful when I hear something that I am passionate about helps another person. Thank you and good luck!
It is amazing how you can manifest exactly what you need or want. I just recently kept my intentions, thoughts and prayers towards moving to our new house. And even though it took much longer than I thought, I never stopped asking for the right thing for our family to happen and eventually it did! We love it and feel at home so quickly. My lesson here was to stick with it, sometimes it doesn’t happen on our time, but indeed it will happen. I like your emphasis on keeping it broad, sometimes the actual plan is bigger than we can see it:) thank you DalaiLina!
I’m so glad it worked for you and that you are all settled! Now you can manifest something else great – like a new business???
Ooooh.. it sounds so easy doesn’t it. But you’ve written this so well, I will try again!
Thanks for the inspiration!
Stephanie sent me this link yesterday and it was such a great reminder! I’ve been working with setting intentions for almost ten years now and I still need constant practice. Staying in the positive is such a battle for me after a childhood spent focused on the negative, a la “Struggle builds character” and other nonsense. How do you stay motivated to keep up with an intention when you don’t see any movement? I find myself getting frustrated when I don’t see anything happening and then I start tweaking the intention – constantly changing. Am I losing focus and therefore missing the boat on my intention? Any thoughts about patience?
Funny, I posed a similar question to my coach/mentor/friend. Wasn’t I supposed to wait, patiently, for the universe to reveal the solution to my intention? And if there wasn’t some obvious answer/solution given to me, didn’t that it mean it wasn’t time yet? Possibly. But she said something that made a lightbulb go off in my head: no great leaders or successful people had the answers handed to them. They had to take great risks, work very hard, and often move forward when they didn’t know if they were on the right track. I was holding back, not taking that first risky step, not putting the hard work in, because I wanted the easy way out. I realize now it is time to go to work. Time to get my hands dirty. It may not ultimately be exactly perfect, but at least I’m moving forward WHILE setting my intentions. Am I a little fearful? Yes! I’ll tell you how it goes 🙂
Update: This morning we had a family meditation/visualization session. We focused on positive interactions with each other. I must say it is 2:25pm & it has been the most peaceful day we’ve had in months!
Thanks for the inspiration!
wow, that is really amazing. i have taught my two oldest some visualization techniques, but love the idea of a family session! great idea!
I havent done any work on setting intentions – will check out that book Jeanne mentions above. What I have been working on, however, is to focus on the positive and that has made a huge difference. For me that means having a negative thought/feeling, acknowledging that I have the thought/feeling and then making a choice to look for the positive. It doesnt mean that I dont have the negative thoughts/feelings but it has sure made me feel a lot happier because I am working hard to CHOOSE not to dwell on them. Who knows – perhaps the transition from the negative to the positive will become more natural for me as I continue to practice.
I think that makes a huge difference. “Fake it ’til you make it.” i often wonder if my kids can sense my true feelings when I’m gritting my teeth, making myself laugh at the 10th lame joke they have made up. Sometimes faking it is really hard.
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