Intention: where does intention come from, what fuels intention, how does intention move, where does it go and what does it look like when it come back to you?

What does intention look like?

Well even though we cannot see radio waves we know they exist because we can hear music on the radio as we change the reception. We cannot see cell phone waves but we get phone calls, we don’t see infra red but our bodies feel the heat. It is the same with intention.

Intention and Ocean Waves share a lot in common. Let’s take a look at Ocean Waves as a parallel for Intention to explore how intention functions.

Waves may look like surges of moving water yet waves are actually what fairly stationary water looks like when energy passes through them. The key here is, energy passing through placid water displaces and lifts the water molecules into a wave shape and yet the water molecules in a wave actually remain fairly stationary as they move up and down.

( Ok I will digress for a minute to galvanize this point with some helpful visual. See the energy that forms a wave as your fist sliding around under a blanket or like your fist pushing through your long sleeve shirt or blouse when you are getting dressed. The overall blanket remains stationary and so does the fabric of your sleeve and it also moves up and down. Your fist is the energy)

Now the movement of energy creating the waves may have been created by the strong winds of a storm, the earth’s plates shifting, a volcano on the ocean floor or a landslide and their strength determines the speed, volume and distance that the energy will travel. Energy moving through water increasingly displaces and lifts the water when it reaches a shallow area like the shoreline and that is how we most commonly appreciate waves.

The parallels between waves and intentions are numerous. Give your intentions energy, give your intention force, your intentions have power even though it is not initially visible. When you have an intention believe in it, feel it, see it, embrace it with as many sensations as possible and let it go to the universe, the ocean of life. Imagine right now that unlimited intentions are rippling out across time and space to interact with as much information, people, situations and infinite possibility to return to you as a real gift. Send it out and let it go.

A few years ago we were on an Alaskan cruise, totally amazing trip. The ship took us to the center of a large bay and we sat on deck in one place turning in full circles like a very slow fan blade.

We watched 6 separate glaciers flow from the mountains into the bay. The impressive front face of one glacier was as tall as a 10 story building with 10 story racing waterfalls gushing into the bay.

Given the arctic warming trends, calving; which you know is the event of a huge chunk of glacial ice cracking free and crashing into the water, has become a more frequent event.

We watched a 100 foot tall chunk of ice split and calf straight down into the bay. As it sank and disappeared into the bay it sent out waves of energy but the totally impressive performance was when the chunk of ice rebounded and flew up well past the surface of the water like a breaching whale pushing a huge tsunami wave toward our enormous ship. On impact the wave actually rocked our cruise ship to the delight of everyone on deck. This is exactly what you unconsciously do every time you send out an intention. From now on consciously intend, gather lots of focused energy, strength and momentum in your intention and let it go. Then … let it be, allow the universe to do the rest and welcome what comes back to you. And if it needs work, learn and do it again.

Do not send out follow up conflicting intentions. Let’s go back to the cruise ship for a minute. The space of time between which the glacial calf sent out waves was sufficiently spaced as to not interfere with the waves rebounding off the ship hull. Be patient. Not like what I tell Darlene. “Sure take your time, but hurry up.”

Gather your focus, funnel your intention? Feel the energy building between you and your intention? Now be one with your intention as deeply as possible.  Be your intention. Visualize your results? Allow your intention to ripple out and let it go.

Are you be a ripple, a wave or a tsunami?   Be boundless

Waves of Intention 

mmgood.p@gmail.com 

We are not designed to let go. Gravity on this planet is proof of that. Have you ever thought of what it would be like to be weightless? How you wouldn’t feel your body like you do now. How what we take for granted in our movements, in body functions and even intending to accomplish something would be far from simple. Everything we know would be in a space of total allowing, little control, and abundance of movement.

Living with gravity, our ability and propensity to hold on is engrained in our survival as we know it.

Than again the world we live in is a duality. As much as we are programmed to hang on, we are constantly invited to let go.

What happens when we don’t let go?

Eventually we live mentally, physically and emotionally in cluttered chaos. There is very little use for most of the things we hang onto. We do so out of fear of loss, fear of the unknown and who would we be without our attachments. Our attachments than become our own private world that we have put our spin onto in order to keep our story alive.

As a child there was a closet in our pantry with a sliding door. I continually hid food and things I wanted for later; anything that felt important for me to have to save, just incase. I felt secure in the knowing they were there. Whether I ever used them or needed them was irrelevant. They were there and that’s what was important.

My mother continually removed my treasures on a regular basis, especially the food. Since I was so young I developed the belief there was always more, because in my world, there was. I also developed the felt sense of when enough was enough based on what my closet hiding space could hold. As things began to pile up in the closet on the floor there wasn’t enough room to hold everything and that is when somethings had to go. This ritual assisted me in being accustomed to having and not having.

As my private stash appeared grew and disappeared so can yours. Take a closet, a corner, a table top that needs attention and with intention categorize the contents. What hasn’t been used, needed or even thought about in the last  year, put aside. Pull out the items of priority and make conscious use of them. Bag up whatever is in your overflow pile and allow that to stay bagged for 2 weeks. At the end of the 2 weeks if nothing was missed, toss it, or donate it, give it away, but don’t rethink it by looking back in the bag. GRAVITY WILL TAKE OVER AND YOU MAY BE STUCK WITH IT AGAIN

You’ll feel better, cleaner, clearer and MORE capable of breathing easier. Enjoy the FREEDOM of Choice!

Welcome back to Part 2 of my first blog. Did you make time, I know you had time, to review last year’s New Year resolutions? Did you decide which  of those still-in-the-works good ideas can still benefit you when completed? But while I have you, read on and tend to those resolutions after you have read Part 2. They are waiting for you. See them as your partners or as if they are part of you rather than something outside of you. 

New Year Resolutions, Choose Wisely   (continued)

Last week we had lunch at the corner Chinese restaurant by our Manhattan apartment. Darlene likes the food; me, the cookie fortunes. I pop the bags, give Darlene the cookies and keep the fortunes. My fortune cookie read,

People do not lack strength they lack will

Will power is like a muscle; when we overexert our willpower, it gives out and we give up.  My suggestion is to first handle the leftovers on your 2011 plate that are still beneficial to you. Speak to last year’s promises that you made to yourself and not become overwhelmed with new line items. Then make room for this New Year’s list of resolutions and see them as a whole year project based on priorities and timing. Get the feeling of 2011 success running though your veins before you add more stress to your 2012 life.

Will power is an interesting topic. It is the silent benefit gained from stretching yourself beyond your tallest peak, your farthest distance, your greatest goals. Willpower has the potential to be inherited yet how many totally motivated parents have couch potato computer game kids. Will power needs to be exercised, trained and fed like any other muscle in your body.

Your brain is largely responsible for willpower and willpower primarily resides in the area located right behind your forehead. This area, called the prefrontal cortex, has lots of other things to deal with besides your New Year’s resolutions. Scientists believe that our daily focus, short term memory capacity and retrieval plus creative problem solving takes place right behind your forehead. For many brains the idea of giving up coffee, snacks, partying and handling debt all at the same time is over the top stressful. Stress has a voice, it whispers Why do it today when you have tomorrow, I have so much to do already! Ooh, donuts!

Growing up I always assumed that will power, determination and self control were all part of character development; that procrastination, placating and the need for creature comforts were signs of weakness. Yet recent scientific studies show the brain is like any muscle or tissue mass; it needs energy to perform and food is that source of energy. Many times it calls out for a quick fix, a sugar hit, a donut and coffee buzz and it does not care about the crash and burn afterwards; that’s your problem.

The most popular New Year resolution is to loose weight, the flip side is when you cut down on food intake, even for just a few hours, you deny the brain fuel, calories and nutrition; this can effect your behavior. Consider there may be a middle way to achieving your goals. Moderation. Even moderation must be done in moderation.

Instead of cold turkey adjustments, fasting and denying, how about adding a middle ground win/win; a regimen of gentle walks, exercise with your kids, straighten up the garage, improve you life with a beneficial task. Find a middle ground that does not have you feeling like you are wrestling with yourself.

Granted cold turkey tactics are at times necessary. I know first hand. My doctor told me I had to cold turkey give up coffee, alcohol, wine, beer, chocolate, red meat, carbonated beverages, wheat, eating late and more all at the same time for 18 months solid. Boom, a real lifestyle change overnight. I had to do it it because I had previously chosen to ignore the alarms going off in my body and life. The cold turkey regimen saved my life, brought my health issue to a manageable level. Moderation is my mantra and my lesson learned is to pay attention to the stop signs and red lights in my body and life.

When severely cutting back or denying ourselves of an unhealthy habit in order to make positive change consider a smoother path. Add beneficial new habits, healthy foods, change the company you keep, get a hobby, find a good distraction, a goal, change your inner environment to allow the changes to be welcome and the unhealthy old traits to be less welcome. Make all these additions your friends new with benefits.

The universe does not like vacuums similar to the empty spaces and voids created by cold turkey tactics. Buddhist dharma tells us that one key to true happiness is emptiness yet that is different. There are many times when in giving up a harmful habit it is beneficial to replace it with a friendly habit that can take on many forms and embrace that fresh outlook as a positive habit. There is a whole big pulsating world out there on the edge of that void created by your New Year resolutions; it is poking and prodding you for your attention. Work with it and Choose Wisely.

We are emotional creatures. Just about every thought has a correlating emotional attachment. If every wish, want, desire has an emotional link then isn’t it best to work with your emotions, take them on as partners. To paraphrase the Scott philosopher, David Hume,

…. reason can be the slave of passion …. 

When we strengthen one area of our body / mind / spirit there is most always a reciprocal energetic engagement with another aspect of ourselves and both can benefit from the partnership. Imagine taking on a new perspective to an event. Like a quiet cardio walk in the woods or on a side street you barely take; you have the option to quiet your mind as you stretch your limbs, lengthen your stride, even allow for an Aha moment as you look through the leafless winter trees at terrain and houses you could not see in the lush of summer.

It is not so much what you say as how you say it.

It is not so much what you see as how you see it.

It is not so much what you feel as how you feel it.                                                                                 

Choose wisely

paul@soulunion.com

Welcome to my first SoulUnion Blog. Wow! We have so much to talk about and the launching of his first blog for the New Year is so fitting.These blogs are for you first and foremost so let me know how these thoughts touch you by clicking the e-mail address at the end, tell me what’s going on for you and what you would like to talk about. Thank you for being here.

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New Year Resolutions, Choose Wisely

Happy 2012.

Are you ready for some good news?  We still have one more Holiday Tradition to enjoy. Well maybe ENJOY is a bit of an exaggeration, so let’s say its more like one more Holiday Tradition to handle; your New Year resolutions.

A popular description of New Year resolutions is a commitment an individual makes on New Year day to achieve one or more healthy, wealthy, wise goals or projects.

But my mother used to say:

A New Year resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.

 There is an Irish toast that goes:

In the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship,

but never in wanting. 

 So wrap up your New Year resolutions as gifts of friendship to yourself, turn them into an opportunity rather than a chore.

New Year resolutions begin with best intentions, with that hazily clear idea like; What bothersome habit could we give up? Or what cumbersome task could we change? Or what just out of reach shiny new skill could we add to our life to fix everything and make it a perfect world? And then Whamo! We remember. All we have to do is reach into our back pocket, pull out last year’s crumbled NewYear resolutions list. Flatten it out, spruce it up, re-gift the list to yourself and chant the most popular New Year mantra “Om this year I’m gonna do it….Om this year I’m gonna do it …… Om this all has a familiar …… Om Holiday ring to it?

New Year resolutions are like the infamous Holiday Fruit Cakes that keeps resurrecting year after year. They look the same but who would know what they really taste like because we look and forget about them!

Consider this, while you are getting your New Year resolutions together, begin to strengthen your own resolution, your resolve, your vision, your will power to ensure you accomplish whatever you choose to take on.  Every New Year we have best intentions when it comes to the idea of change but when we actually have to change then it becomes harder because change requires will power and that is a whole other set of brain dynamics.

Well, I said willpower twice. That is your tip off about what we will talk about next time because taking action to give up old or add new means those New Year resolutions may take a back seat to the everyday stress in your life. If we treat the coming New Year like another milestone to merely hope for change then we are setting ourselves up to slip into the same annual trap unless we engage our mindfulness and will power.

So get out last year’s New Year resolutions. Decide which ones are still beneficial, viable, doable. You are a whole year wiser now so go for it.

 Clean off your plate before you get dessert.

 paul@soulunion.com

My life is blessed.

I have the tools, resources and support to get me through whatever is next on my journey. But it wasn’t always that way. My struggles became lessons, my loses became wins and feeling as if I was trapped in the mundane was washed away by my insatiable thirst to create.

Knowing there is an underlying Flow that supports us along the way has been my source of strength in difficult times. This Flow holds our lessons, our potential, our karma and our innate wisdom. I have personally experienced the consciousness that the Flow holds along with seeing the profound results clients have experienced through all 35 years of spiritual work. The Flow is more than energy around us and through us. It maintains a consistent movement forward that represents and contributes to our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. The Flow offers us assurance that life has structure and purpose. In surrendering to that flow, life will proceed, things will change and our stopping the fight for what sometimes is futile brings about more energy and peace. So remember, surrender is an option.

I want to make it clear that surrendering is not about rolling over, letting someone step on you or becoming a weakened individual. Rather it is by surrendering that you gain strength, observe events differently, gather insights and fortify the necessary steps to move forward. By accessing the Flow, those gems of wisdom and your truth have the opportunity to connect with your conscious mind and co-create a win/win outcome.

How do I access the Flow?

Millions do, everyday, and you begin by making a clear commitment to yourself to know you are the best person to change your life and  have the patience to remind yourself of this, over and over. For many it is their moment of silence, non thinking, calmness, resting in still awareness that is their best point of access. For others meditation is the key to accessing the Flow. For others it is free abandon into their art, writing, song, dance and the athletes who are totally absorbed in their moment.

My initiation into the Flow was while driving. My focused mind concentrated on driving while my creative, spiritual self moved into the realm of the Flow gathering information and insights by asking questions internally and allowing for answers. It is still one of my favorite forms of connecting and moving through my process. Keeping the mental monkey mind occupied while engaging with the creative mind and Flow is a way to meditate when emptiness is not in your moment.

Another way to connect to the Flow is being mindful of your body. We often take our bodies for granted, assuming they will always do their job, until they don’t.  Before going to sleep or upon wakening, focus on your feet, feel them, tighten the muscles in your feet and with a soft exhale relax those muscles. Continue this connection up your body; through your calves, knees, thighs, buttocks, stomach, hands, upper arms, chest, neck, face.  Connect with each body part and focus; tighten muscles in an area then exhale and relax. Our commitment to feeling our selves thru our bodies is the beginning of accessing the Flow because our bodies on a deep subconscious level are always connected to the Flow.

Remember you have support, you have knowledge and you have all that it takes to have peace and joy in your life. Remember the Flow, remember to surrender when needed and remember your commitment to yourself to reawaken your connection to your Source; the Flow

Over the last few years my partner’s affinity to bees,has flowed over to me and I have developed a dear fondness for the realm of bees. We are even choosing a site to install a bee-ginner hive on our property! I have become used to saving at least one bee a week from the fate of being trapped in the house, consumed by ashes in the cold fireplace or stumbling around on the window sill looking for food. But this story is a bit different.

Paul, my partner, was driving home, heard a loud bang on the passenger window and was hit in the head by something. Mildly stunned, Paul that is, looked around to see what it was and picked up a stunned bee lying on the console. The bee was most likely dead he thought as it was curled in a ball laying still. Paul decided to recycle the bee and as he cradled him in his hand to gently toss him out the window, was amazed to see the bee cling to his palm with one leg and not let go. Paul’s interpretation was Let me hang out with you for a while. Continuing to drive and basically forgetting about the poor little bugger in his palm as he listened to NPR radio, he was startled and literally jumped as if someone poured a spoonful of ice cold water into his palm where the bee was still curled up. The bee made a connection.

When returning home Paul offered the bee to me as a gift of “let’s see what you can do with this”. The bee didn’t appear dead to me and as I gently stroked his antennas he responded. I really felt a connection to this little fellow and the dazed unconscious feeling that he was experiencing. I dropped down into my heart space and offered him whatever was needed at that time. We spent the next 10 minutes together sitting in the garden with him in my palm. Then he quietly started to respond, moving his legs slowly one at a time then his head, then he stood on all legs. I blessed our time together and placed him in a rhododendron flower and went back to gardening. A few minutes later he flew off to another adventure.

My impression and connection to that bee stuck with me for days and during a meditation there were millions of bees busily walking along the grid that surrounds the earth miles up in our atmosphere appearing as if they were activating the grid until it shined like gold. As the mediation proceeded, this golden grid was placed into our oceans for safe keeping and in a way cleansing our depleted oceans.

Today I decided to tune into this bee energy again, as it has not really left me. I am grateful for the wisdom bees impart to all of us on this planet, their never-ceasing diligence to gathering, the sheer importance of their pollination; the abundance of what they create is both pleasurable and life sustaining.