Thoughts about Intention

I've been thinking a great deal about intention lately.  I go through phases where I am very intentional about my actions and what I want to accomplish.  Things seem to run smoothly and I feel like I am really participating in my life.  Then there are other times when so much is going on that I have to turn on my auto-pilot in order to get everything done. I'm reduced to reacting to the events that are being hurled at me and I'm so busy reacting that I'm not thinking of using intention to pull myself out of the whirlwind.  The requirement for practicing  intention usually hits me in the head...and it's typically a humbling experience.

I went to visit my old personal blog this morning and found that some of my musings focused on this very subject...I thought I would share a piece of a post that's been tucked away in blog-limbo since 2007:

I've been thinking alot lately about how the events of my past have shaped my present character. I am realizing that, a great portion of the time, most of us are reacting to current situations through the memory of previous experiences... from which way to turn at the stop light to how deeply we will allow ourselves to engage with another. We are creating boundaries all the time with an endless stream of identifications with our past. This is how we move through the day without overloading our brains with too much information... but it's easy to give in to this unconscious decision making process to the point where we are not really making any decisions at all... we are just REACTING.

In order to cultivate intention, I've adapted an exercise from Sunni Brown's "Game-Storming" book called The 5 Why's.  I use this frequently to help clients (and myself) uncover their core motivation for doing something.  Here's how it works: 

When you find yourself reacting (rather than responding) to a situation, briefly write down what's going on. Then ask WHY?  Answer the question.  Then ask WHY again.  Repeat this process until you have answered WHY 5 times.  The final answer should be illuminating.  If you want to really get down to the core of the matter, consider answering the questions with your non-dominant hand.  Why?  Click here to find out.