An articulated “wish” is an “intention”. Acting in/with “intent” is acting while being consciously aware of where it is we want to go, what it is we want to achieve, what it is we want to experience and/or what is that we want to feel.

We can use intent to cleanse, purify, charge, intend and bless all energies. We do this by articulating the “may that’s” that float in and around us.

Again and always, it is easy to name what we don’t want and what we don’t have. And the more we focus on what we don’t want and what we don’t have, the more of that we actually attract. To quote Abraham-Hicks “As you push against the unwanted, you add power to it.” Yes. Seen this way, acting in/with “intent” — practising this, focusing in on this, learning about this — is a way to consciously give life to the wanted.

We are very used to reacting to things, people and situations. We are not very practiced in responding. And given that the world is large and busy and full of stuff and people and situations, and given that we aren’t used to asking for, intending what we want, we often start out intending negatively. For instance, how familiar are these thought… “I wish that x would go away.”, “I wish that I didn’t have to do this.”, “I wish that I could simply be away on some desert island.”?

All of these wishes contain “don’t wants”. Even the last one, the one where you can actually and really feel yourself away on some desert island, contains the notion of “escape from” in it. And even the notion of “I wish that” has an implicit meaning that “it isn’t now true” built into it.

So… a more constructive way of framing these examples would be “May that z be here.”, “May that I do…”, “May that I bask…” And, again, this is harder to articulate.

This is harder because we are actually very good at “pushing against”. “Pushing against” is actually a very effective (and widely taught) way of learning. The difficulty is that it teaches us what not to do. (Where do we learn what to do? I’ll bet that if you think of your favourite teachers they are exactly the ones who inspired you, exactly “you”, “to do” :o)

Another reason for the “harder to do” part is that most of us like to accomplish stuff. An easy way to do this is to “fix” things. And because we feel good about “fixing” things, we continue to look for stuff to “fix”. And because we continue to look, we continue to find. And because we continue to find, we continue to feel the need “to fix”. What would we do if everything were “fixed”? Take a moment an imagine that. Now take a moment to think about how inherent in this last question and thought is (once again) the notion that things are “broken” to start with.

Right.

So… not surprisingly given that we make up our world, much of our world is set up to push against and to fix. And we continue to draw satisfaction from it. We continue to find “purpose” this way. And we continue to look for “more” by every so often wishing and sometimes calling on a higher power. We continue, this way, to keep ourselves separate from our spiritually, our intent, our own power.

Switching this around… let’s for the moment assume that there is nothing to “fix”, that all we have to do place an order for all that we want. And let’s just assume that the universe says “Okay… your wish is my command.” What would we do? What would we wish for? And let’s now assume that everyone’s health, abundance and safety is taken care of at all levels. What now would we wish for? Good experiences? Pleasure? Okay… like what?

Notably it is in and to this latter “realm” that “intent”, intending, placing intentions take us. And… for most of us this is quite a stretch from our daily lives. But it isn’t really.

As happened this week, school started. My children were so not looking forward to it that my daughter in particular actually spent two miserable days prior to her return. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g she touched and e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g she saw reminded her of how much she didn’t want to go back to school. No matter that I kept saying “School will start ‘anyway’. So… why not choose to find stuff to be happy about in that?” She had decided that this would be absolutely miserable and her wish was indeed the universe’s command. She was miserable. She could have chosen otherwise. But she didn’t.

“Misery likes company.” “Like attracts like.” sayings many of us have grown up with but that few of us hooked into. Perhaps now is as good of a time as any to start.

Back to “intentions”… I have always loved, sometimes been irritated by, definitely fascinated by guys and their “stuff”. Men love “things”. And many men have this charming/irritating/”gotta love ‘em” habit of gifting their friends or lovers with “their favourite” objects”. The lucky socks. The “first” whatever. The hook that caught whichever prize. The bus ticket that… The book that… The concert ticket… The whichever that symbolizes whatever. This is actually pretty magical. It is the handing over of an intention. It is the handing over of the care of an intention. It is the sharing of a profound “May that I never forget that I can do/can experience this.” But most of us don’t live it this way.

Continuing to generalize… women love things for how they make them feel “now”. Pretty. Confident. Loved. Fulfilled. Protected. Safe. “Successful” in whichever realm, at whichever level is at the moment important. This too is pretty magical. It is the absolute display of intention. The weird thing is that often it has nothing to do with “us” (given that I am of the female sort :o) in the sense that we see and keep most of these things as exterior to us. We put the magic of the feeling on the “thing” (or often on the people it reminds us of) rather than using them as cue into “Okay this is what I intend for myself today.”

Lucky socks, a great shirt, placebos “work”. And all that I have written here is basically to get us to be aware of just how true this is and to offer the possibility of extending this beyond “the next game” or away from “the magic of the shirt”. It is in us. Our intentions are in us. It is up to us to place them, live them, experience them, remind ourselves of them, share them or not.

Rather than pushing against, intending attracts to us. Rather than wishing and keeping things away from us, intending puts us in the middle of them. Rather than unwittingly reacting, intending affords us the chance to consciously respond. And… for accomplishments, “feeling good” from our core outwards… well… I can’t think of a better accomplishment than that.

Going back to “like attracts like”… if we aren’t filled up with our own intentions (reactions aren’t “filling”), we are very easily pulled into the gravity of others. And there is a lot of very “attractive” gunk out there. Imagine, instead, being so filled and so strong that all of the “like” can’t help but be pulled towards you. This is the power of intent making the absolutely best use of the law of attraction I can think of.

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