By Dr. Noelle Sterne
I used to think that the word intention was weak.
It didn’t seem to declare strongly and definitively, like affirmation. To say “I intend to…” felt like a step removed from “I am…..”
Surprisingly, though, I discovered that intention stems from the Latin action noun intendere and means, literally, “a stretching out” and more colloquially “to turn one’s attention to.”
I was more surprised to read Wayne Dyer’s definition in his excellent book The Power of Intention. To pair intention with power sends a message all its own, as does his subtitle: Learning to Co-Create Your World Your Way. Who says intention is weak?
Dyer offers a new, much expanded definition of intention that puts to bed forever the notion that it is paltry and limited. He credits Carlos Castenada (The Active Side of Infinity) with opening his figurative eyes to the power of intention. Castenada writes, “Intent is a force that exists in the universe.” Dyer expounds: “Imagine that intention is not something you do, but rather a force that exists in the universe as an invisible field of energy!” (p. 4).
This is indeed a greater concept of intention. Dyer devotes his book to exploring the many faces (his word) and power of intention, with chapters instructing us for just about every part of our lives. For example, “It Is My Intention to: Feel Successful and Attract Abundance into My Life,” “It Is My Intention to: Attract Ideal People and Divine Relationships.”
With such a larger, more encompassing portrayal of intention, how can you sharpen and enlarge your own understanding and application?
Identify Your Intentions
The first step, if you haven’t already taken it, is to identify your intention. What is it you most want to turn your attention to, your most motivating, passion-making desire? What do you want to do that you’ve been avoiding, not giving enough time to, or excusing? With the universe’s Energetic Force at your elbow, what do you want to stretch toward?
Go back to childhood or adolescence (the good part). What most fascinated you? What did you seek out and ask for on your birthday, at Christmas, in books, DVDs, games, puzzles? What school subject couldn’t you wait to get into? What did you explore on your own? Let yourself dream back and replay those scenes. You probably know the answers already.
Wherever you are now in your life, whatever you are judging yourself as having done or not done, chosen or not chosen, throw it all out. Those judgments are only getting in your way and blocking your intention and the Force that manifests it. Instead, start NOW.
If your reminiscences aren’t yielding much, here’s another method. Deepak Chopra says in The Seven Laws of Success that Stillness is the first requirement for discovering our intentions. So, if you need help, become quiet and affirm:
My most delicious intention is revealed to me now.
I yield and listen for my greatest and most passionate intention.
If more than one passion is revealed, fine too. List them all.
You are entitled to your intentions and desires. You deserve your intentions. You can strengthen your intentions by thinking of them as reflections of the universal Force.
Are you not as committed as you’d like to be? A little scared? If that’s where you are at the start, fine. Accept it. You’re in charge.
Apply Your Intentions
You may not have realized it but Intention is a law. Chopra devotes an entire chapter to “The Law of Intention and Desire.” The law is based on “the fact that energy and information exist everywhere in nature” (p. 67). Chopra explains that our nervous systems become aware of the fields of energy and information through our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and beliefs. And, most startling, our bodies are not separate from “the body of the universe…[T]he universe…is [our] extended body” (p. 69). So, with our mind and thoughts we can “consciously change the informational content” of our world (p. 70) and manifest it physically.
You don’t have to master all of this (or understand it) to apply your intentions. Just know that we are made perfect and whole and we reflect the universe of nonmatter that we experience as we apply our desires.
If this is still too much, know that where we place our thoughts and attention (turn our attention to) creates our intentions and desires. Our intentions carry our intent to realize a goal, objective, aim. Remind yourself too, as Chopra and many other spiritual teachers tell us, that:
If you have the desire and intention for something, you inherently possess the means for its fulfillment.
Affirmations for Intention
Apply your intentions through mental images and affirmations that really reflect your desires. Sometimes I imagine a line drawing of the desired goal and tell myself that as I focus on it the Source simply colors it in to manifest. (Source = God or any other term you like where you can easily feel the Infinite.) A friend says she creates and “directs” a movie of her desire and intention and plays it several times a day.
Affirmations are very powerful. You can use them for your intentions about anything in your life—your body, mind, emotions, relationships, possessions, actions, events, outcomes. To help you, here are several examples.
First, four affirmations on my writing intention:
I intend to allow Source to fully come through me in all my writing.
I intend to reach readers’ hearts and minds and souls through the writing that comes through me.
I intend to devote my fullest passion, attention, interest, and energy to the writing that comes through me.
I intend to remain open to Source for all ideas and directions.
And here are four affirmations a generous colleague shared on her primary relationship:
I intend to see him whole constantly.
I intend to let him be fully himself, as I intend to be fully me.
I intend to give up my judging and celebrate our differences.
I intend to know that we are each a unique reflection and manifestation of Source.
If these affirmations feel right to you, use them. Or draw on them as models. As you wish, substitute your own words, subjects, and details.
Your intentions are your strength. Feel their fervor and fire. Know and trust their rightness and practice focusing on them. They are grounded in the universal Force and cannot fail. You have decided. You have intended. Your perfect intentions are now expressed and appear in your life.
Noelle Sterne is an author, editor, writing coach, and spiritual counselor. She has published over 300 pieces in print and online venues, including Author Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Children’s Book Insider, Funds for Writers, Transformation Magazine, Unity Magazine, Women on Writing, The Writer, and Writer’s Digest. Noelle’s invited blogs on Author Magazine’s “Authors’ Blog” on writing, creativity, and spirituality can be found at http://authormagazineonline.wordpress.com/. A spiritually-oriented chapter appears in the new book Transform Your Life (Transformation Services, 2014). A story appears in the forthcoming Chicken Soup for the Soul: Touched by an Angel (October 2014). With a Ph.D. from Columbia University, for over 28 years Noelle has assisted doctoral candidates in completing their dissertations (finally). Based on her practice, she is completing a handbook for doctoral candidates struggling with their dissertations on their largely overlooked but equally important nonacademic difficulties: Challenge in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping with the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2015). In Noelle’s book Trust Your Life: Forgive Yourself and Go After Your Dreams (Unity Books, 2011), draws examples from her academic consulting and other aspects of life to help readers release regrets, relabel their past, and reach their lifelong yearnings. Noelle’s website: www.trustyourlifenow.com.
