Intention (or Lack Thereof) Blew My Mind this Weekend

This weekend I watched OWN’s Super Soul Sunday with Gary Zukav.  The whole thing, frankly, blew my mind.  

The part that’s been hanging with me the most is Mr. Zukav’s views on INTENTION.  (Check out the 2nd video on this page for a snippet of the interview.)

According to Gary, our intention is the WHY beneath the why.  The real motivation that CAUSES us to act . . . the causes that create EFFECTS (stuff that happens) in our lives.

The simplicity of this concept amazes me – our intentions create our lives.  I know I’ve heard that before (Wayne Dyer’s Power of Intention is a staple on my nightstand), but for some reason the way Gary put it so plainly and simply really sunk in.

The idea that our intentions create our actions, which create what happens in our lives (the effects of those actions) really got me thinking about how often my intention is unconscious.  No matter what, there is an intention – a motivation, a WHY – behind every action.  Often we’re not aware of it!  Often, I’m not aware of it! 

If I’m not aware of the underlying WHY of why I do many things, it’s simply because I am not consciously thinking about my intention.  But it’s operating anyway.  It always is. 

So what’s the impact (the effect) of that unconsciousness?  The intention is coming from somewhere – where? 

Luckily, Gary had some insight on this too.  According to him, our intentions come from FEAR or LOVE. 

When you are not aware of your intention, you are creating from FEAR. 
When you are aware of your intention, you have a CHOICE to create from fear or LOVE. 

Yikes!  So if I’m not paying attention, my intention is coming from a place of fear.  When I think about it, I notice my ego having it’s say in there:  Don’t do this because you don’t know how to do it. . . .  If you do that you’ll really stick your neck out there.  . . .  It’s best if you stay comfortable and don’t try that.  You’ll be hurt if you don’t say this.  And so on and so on.

Needless to say, an unconscious intention is NOT coming from the loving or wise or best part of myself. 

I am sharing my thoughts on this with you because I’m seeing with new eyes how important it is to have conscious – and resonant – intentions for as many of our actions as we  can.  Maybe right now that looks like more consciousness than we have right now.  One extra action a day with conscious intention.  Or two, or three.  Whatever it is.  I know I can do better than I’m doing right now. 

So I’m on a quest to notice my intentions in the coming days.  It’s not enough for me to bring conscious intention to big business decisions, or what I deem “important” in my life. 

Because all of my decisions create my life – including what I put into my mouth to nourish my body, how I choose to spend my time, who I give energy to, what I give energy to, everything.   Whoa.     

Right now, I am intending to notice and be aware of the intentions that operate by default.  Noticing for now, and practicing bringing that awareness to as many actions as I can in the coming days.  I have no answers right now.  Just noticing that I want to be more conscious of how intention operates in my life on a day-to-day basis. 

How do you set intentions for your life and choices?  If you think about the times when you DON’T think about your intention, what intention is operating by default?

Yours in wildness~~
Lisa

The Depth of What is Within Us

I often wonder about the unexplored and unknown potential within all of us humans. 

I’m sure you’ve heard the ages-old statistic that we use only 10% of our brains.  So we know that we’ve got a whole bunch of untapped brain power – hooray! 

And what about the rest?  The ability of our bodies to tune into things that are happening within us and around us – our intuition, our gut instincts, the range of what we experience with our senses if only we paid attention.  The ability of our hearts to open up – and the depth of love and goodness in our hearts that we could be putting to use. 

My sense is that we don’t have a clear idea of what’s possible in our own lives and the many forms those possibilities could take. 

What I do know is that a whole heckuva lot is possible, and that it’s worth the time to be with this question and consciously to stretch into our unknown depths. 

To put things in perspective, for a moment think back into the past.  Look back one year or 5 years to who you used to be, at the time.  Go ahead, think back 5 years – who were you then?  What were you doing? 

·      What surprises came up along the way that caused you to grow and expand?
·      What happened in the meantime that you didn’t know you were capable of back then? 
·      What new things about yourself or your abilities have you discovered? 

This question about the unknown potential within each one of us fascinates me because it seems endless.  Humans are ever-changing beings.  We are constantly taking in new things, experiences and information each day.  We are always adding to our experience, with each passing year, day and moment.  Think about that.  You are never the same as you were 1 minute ago, because something has happened in that time.  Maybe that bit of time seems inconsequential, but something has happened nonetheless.  You are not the same.  Our lives are made up of minutes that turn into hours that turn into days, months, years, and so on. 

Now, take a trip into the future and imagine that you are 80 years old.  Imagine your wrinkly hands and the color of your hair.  Imagine that you can look back on 80 years of your life and see ALL that you have done, learned and experienced – a whole lifetime of amazing things that happened.  Challenges that you went through, things you didn’t know if you could make it through…but you did.  Imagine highs and lows and the capacity that you stretched into to meet those highs and lows.

Look back on it all, just for a minute.  Take it in.  It was a lot.

Throughout our lives we will all change and evolve in unimaginable ways.  You have a part in deciding what you want to do with that life. 

Because you have so much potential within you.  We all do.   Deep, deep potential.  Beyond our wildest imaginations. 

What would be possible if you knew the depth of your potential and accessed it?

Yours in wildness,
Lisa

p.s.  Interested in doing some exploring?  Give me a call or send me an email and let's talk!  

At a Loss for Words, Yet Not

I’m really at a loss for words right now. 

Life is so beautiful.

My experiences are sometimes hard to put into words.  Are yours? 

Our FEELINGS and SENSATIONS go beyond words.  Words can be a poor “translation” of the experience itself.

And yet they are everywhere, those words.  Words are a huge way of communicating with your fellow humans – speech, writing, song, dramatic production, rap, poetry slam, choir. 

Words bring clarity.
Words are not always an accurate translation of life happenings.

Earlier this week I SPOKE about an experience and a vision I had.  A vision of a heart wave coming across the Earth.  I made a 2 minute video about it.  The words only capture a piece of the feeling.  An imperfect translation – yet in the video I saw new possibilities of going beyond words to communicate.  

Imagining the heart wave, I was experiencing feelings of hope, of warmth and of contentedness.  On the video, I notice my facial expression, smile, eyes.  They communicate so much about what that experience is.  Maybe you can related to my experience because of those extra layers of nonverbal communication.  Neato! 

I’m not voting for words or no words here.  Just noticing how words can limit us and how words open up new realms (ideas never explored before).

How do you put words to your experiences (or not)?

What do you experience when you READ something versus HEAR and SEE a person speak?

Yours in wildness,
Lisa

My Vision of a Heart Wave

This past weekend I was thinking and visioning about what I’m up to in the world.  By “visioning” I mean taking some time to slow down, turn inward, connect to my heart and open up to new insights, images and ideas that come from someplace other than my mind.  It’s a practice that I do to reconnect with what’s truly important to me and see where I’m headed. 

This past Saturday as I contemplated my heart, a beautiful image presented itself in my mind’s eye. 

It was an image of a heart wave – a wave of heart energy, so warm and loving – coming across the earth, flowing through connections between all things and lighting people up. 

Here, the heart represents goodness, connection and love.  We naturally know those feelings.  We know goodness when we see it and experience it.  We innately know when someone acts from a place of kindness and love.  And we know when someone doesn’t.  And in this heart wave image that came to my mind, people’s hearts were opened and moved because of the energy of the heart.  Living from your heart changes your life. 

Later that day, as the afternoon sun grew gold, I sat by the bank of a river and recorded a video about my vision.  It’s a short one – less than 2 minutes long. 

The warmth of the vision was alive within me as I sat and spoke about the image I saw.  I was really feeling the power of heart energy flowing across this planet of ours, touching hearts and lighting them up.

It’s a bit of an “eek!” moment to share this with you because the vision of a powerful heart wave is really coming from my heart.  And I want to share it with you.  No holds barred, my heart to yours. 

Yours in wildness~~
Lisa

p.s.  Posting this video also is an “eek!” moment since it’s the first video I’ve posted here on my blog, and the moment I decided to record the video came up spontaneously with no planning!  No re-takes.  This was the one and only one.  Eeek!  And I'm glad to be doing it!!

The Growth Process

Life is a process, one that is ever ongoing.

One day is never the same as another, one moment is never the same as another.  We always growing and changing, no matter what.

In that process of change and growth, we humans seem to always be wanting something.  In my world it’s happiness, fulfillment, contribution, meaning – for me and also people who come to me for coaching as well.  It’s a beautiful thing to want these things, in my opinion.  Humans wanting to tap into their potential and live it fully, to enjoy life, to be a part of something larger than themselves, to help others. 

And at the same time, it’s important to remember what we’re living right now.  To able to be with whatever we’re experiencing now.  It’s not always great, exciting, amazing, or a peak experience.  It’s whatever we’re living right now.  Right.  Now.  In this moment.  The only place we can be.

I took this picture today while laying on the grass – of a dandelion seed and a flower.  It reminds me of the time between when a seed is planted and when it comes to fruition.  During that time – a time of change and growth – we are wishing for the flower, we are wanting the bloom to happen SOON.  Sooner than it seems to be blooming.  At least I often do! 

So what do we do with that time?  What do YOU do with that time?  I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Yours in wildness~~
Lisa

What Are You Nourishing?

Lately I’ve been thinking about what it means to nourish ourselves.  The last couple weeks have been a reminder to me that I need to nourish myself in order to be the woman I want to be and do the things I want to do.

In my writing here on this blog I’ve spoken to the importance of nourishing our hearts – doing the things that put us in the space of feeling alive, feeling joyful, feeling fulfilled.   Committing to nourishing your heart, and making choices over and over again to do so is a complete game changer.  It’s amazing how your view of your life and where you’re headed can change when you get into that space. 

And, I’ve been noticing other realms of life that ask (and sometimes demand) to be nourished as well – our bodies, our minds, and our spirits. 

My physical body has been calling out for nourishment lately.  When I go days and forget to eat breakfast or (and?) lunch because I’m feeling busy busy busy and on the go, my physical body yearns for nourishment.  Or when I eat foods that do not nourish my body.  No big surprise there!  It’s something I understand intellectually but falls by the wayside in day-to-day life.  Lately I’m increasingly FEELING the difference when I’m nourishing my body and when I’m not.  It’s the difference between feeling like a human being who is full of life and one who is a meat-sack walking the streets living life!

Case in point:  This afternoon I went to a beautiful and amazing place organic food café & production location – Alchemy Juice Bar & Mamalicious Market.  I went there with the intention to nourish my body.  The life energy and amazing food I experienced there was a welcome oasis of the on-the-go eating I’ve been doing recently.  The live veggie wrap and green smoothie nourished my body AND my soul more than anything I’ve eaten in a while.  I felt truly nourished.  My energy level boosted immediately and I felt clear and alive.  Oooh, it feels sooo good. 

I’m also nourishing my spirit more consciously lately.  For me, I know that being outdoors, breathing fresh air, walking in the woods, seeing the sky and laying on the grass nourishes my spirit.  I spend a short while in the natural world – a few moments even – and I feel like my spirit can breathe again.  It animates and comes alive.  So I’ve been committing to spending at least 15 minutes outdoors every day to create a regular habit of nourishing myself and my spirit.  Why 15 minutes, you ask?  Because it is 1,000% doable.  There is no excuse for *not* taking that time!  And so I do.  And it often turns into more – 15 minutes becomes 20 and becomes 30 or beyond.  And my spirit thanks me for the breathing room each and every time.

(places I go to nourish my spirit)

What nourishes your mind?  I’ll start with a confession:  When my mind wants a break I take a quick soujourn over to celeb news sites like UsMagazine and People.com.  I’m pretty embarrassed to admit this guilty pleasure . . . and that’s why it’s just that, a guilty pleasure!  But does it really nourish my mind?  Um, no.  It’s a light little break, but not nourishing.  A different choice could certainly nourish me more.  Now, I’m not advocating reading the Tao Te Ching in every free moment so that you can enrich your mind.  I’m simply inviting you, me, all of us to notice what nourishes us and what doesn’t. 

Because where we direct our energy, our time, our mental space, our heart space nourishes (fuels) something in our lives.  What are you nourishing?  Sometimes we’re feeding the critical part of ourselves.  Sometimes we’re nourishing the future we are yearning to create.  Sometimes we’re fueling habits that no longer serve us.  Sometimes we’re nourishing a better relationship, a better career path, a better world.

So, just take a look.  Are you choosing to nourish something that affirms you and where you want to go in your life?  Or are you using your energy to fuel something that takes you somewhere else?

What choice can you make to nourish your heart, your spirit, your mind or your body today?   (Note:  That choice could be to take a nap!  I’m feeling that urge myself on right now!)

Yours in wildness~~
Lisa