The Quiet Power of Setting an Intention
After I returned from teaching my art retreat in France, I wrote about something I was still trying to understand: how an experience could be absolutely wonderful and completely exhausting at the same time.
Read it here: BOTH THINGS CAN BE TRUE
The response to that article surprised me. So many of you understood exactly what I was talking about because you’d lived your own version of it. You’d cared deeply for people and gotten depleted doing it. You’d pursued work you loved and discovered you couldn’t keep doing it at the same pace. You’d learned, sometimes the hard way, that loving something doesn’t mean it can’t ask too much of you. Reading those stories made me think more deeply about what I wanted to do differently next time.
And I’ve learned something about myself over the years. When I write down an intention and say it out loud, I’m much more likely to live it.
An Intention Is Different From a Goal
I’m very comfortable with goals. Give me something to accomplish and I’ll make a plan, create a list, put dates on the calendar, and start checking things off. But an intention feels different.
A goal is usually about something I want to do. An intention is more about how I want to be while I’m doing it.
That’s an important distinction for me because I don’t necessarily want fewer wonderful things in my life. At 66, I’m enormously grateful that my art continues to take me places I never imagined, including France this year and Morocco next. I don’t want to love any of that less, but I do want to experience it differently.
So before leaving for three weeks in Morocco to teach two more art retreats, I decided to write down three intentions for myself. No rules, or another checklist, just three reminders of how I want to take care of myself while doing something I deeply love.
Intention #1: Give Myself Time to Come Home
My first commitment actually begins after the trip is over. When I return from Morocco, I’m giving myself two full days to simply BE home.
This sounds ridiculously obvious now that I’ve written it down. After a long international trip, what would I tell someone I love to do? Unpack. Sleep. Sit on the porch. Read a pleasure book. Drink lots of water. Do absolutely nothing if that’s what feels good. What I probably would not tell her is to get home, immediately open her computer, catch up on everything she missed, and act as though her body didn’t just cross an ocean.
Yet somehow I’m much better at offering that kindness to someone else than I am at giving it to myself. So this time, I’m putting those two days on the calendar before I leave.
Intention #2: Protect My Energy Before It’s Gone
This one feels harder.
When I’m teaching, I give everything I have to the people in the room. I love the conversations at meals. I love spending time with my students. I love the excursions and shared experiences and all those unexpected moments that happen outside the actual teaching. Which is precisely why I tend to squeeze every possible drop out of the experience. This time, I’m going to experiment with not doing that.
Maybe I won’t be the last person sitting at the dinner table every night, even though I almost always am because I LOVE the conversation. Maybe I’ll eat lunch alone in my room one day. Maybe I’ll take a nap. I might even skip a fabulous excursion because what I need more in that moment is an hour of quiet.
Just writing those words makes something in me relax.
Because I’m beginning to understand that I don’t have to squeeze every drop out of an experience to fully experience it.
Intention #3: Remember to Breathe
This may be the simplest intention of all.
Obviously, my body already knows how to do this. But there’s breathing, and then there’s actually noticing that you’re breathing.
I want to pause often enough to notice where I am.
To look around the room at the beautiful souls I’m with.
To notice how my body feels before it has to shout for my attention.
To take one slow breath and actually be there for the life I’m so busy living.
I may even put a little BREATHE sign on my art demo table in Morocco. I’ve done this kind of thing in my studio during particularly busy seasons because apparently I occasionally need a written reminder to do something I’ve been successfully doing since birth. Whatever works.
Why Saying It Out Loud Matters
Will I do all three of these things perfectly? Probably not.
I might stay too long at at least one dinner for the conversation. There will be an excursion I’ll convince myself I absolutely cannot miss. And I’m quite certain there will be moments when I forget all about that little BREATHE sign sitting right in front of me.
Perfection isn’t really the point.
The point is that I’ve decided how I want to move through this next experience before I’m in the middle of it.
What Is Your Intention for the Season You’re In?
One of the things I loved most about the responses I received after writing Both Things Can Be True was how many people had already found their own ways of doing this.
One reader had learned to ask for help, turn off her phone, and simply stop when she was tired instead of pushing through.
Another had been asked a question that immediately exposed something she’d been giving her time and energy to begrudgingly.
Different words. Different lives. But underneath them, I hear the same idea. We’re deciding how we want to live before life makes the decision for us. And perhaps an intention doesn’t have to be grander than that. It simply needs to remind you of something you don’t want to forget. And now I’m curious about you.
What is your intention for the season you’re in right now? I’d love to hear yours in the comments.
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