Seen any red cars lately?

gaining clarity intention intuition yes academy Feb 20, 2022

A question came up in one of my masterclasses last week. One woman asked, "If setting an intention is so important... why does it so feel hard?"

I'll answer that question first I want to be sure you know what I'm talking about when I say "intention".

Intention works a lot like the GPS in your car. If you try to set two places in your GPS, like your mom's house and the mall, your GPS gets confused. It won't work. You won't go to either place. You'll just stay in the driveway.

But if you set your GPS to ONE place at a time, you'll get there. You can go to both places... but you need to go to one at a time. Make sense?

If you don't set intentions for how you want to feel and spend each day, it's like letting your GPS decide where you are going. Or deciding to stay parked. Then you get mad and think, "why am I not moving?!" Sound familiar?

Only instead of your car, this is your life and your time.

The universe and the people in our life IMMEDIATELY respond when you set an intention.

Two words I'm going to use to describe what's happening here are active and passive. If you are ACTIVE... you are taking steps to do things. If you are PASSIVE you are reacting to what's coming at you. One isn't good or bad, they are both neutral until you assign them meaning. It can be useful to be passive or active depending on the situation, right?

Not setting an intention is living very passively.

When you don't set intentions you are living passively. That can be a very peaceful way to live. If living that way isn't bringing you peace, you might consider a more active approach - and that active approach starts with intention.

So back to the question that came up in one of my masterclasses last week. One woman asked, "If setting an intention is so important... why does it so feel hard to set an intention?"

That's such a good question and one that a lot of people have.

It feels hard because you are making it bigger than it is. You think that if you set a wrong intention, you're going to have to pay for it for the rest of your life. You worry you'll set the WRONG intention. Yes?

But that's just not going to happen. For SO many reasons, you aren't going to set the wrong intention.

An intention is not a goal. It's what you want to do, how you want to feel, who you want to be.

Have you heard of the reticular activating system?

The reticular activating system is a group of neurons in your brain that filter unnecessary information so you focus on only what matters. The reticular activating system is what's at work when you go shop for a red car and suddenly all you see is red cars. It's not that there ARE more red cars on the road, it's that you are PAYING ATTENTION to the red cars.

Set a daily intention is telling yourself what you want to NOTICE. Your intention becomes what you pay attention to around how you want to feel and who you want to be. If one day that intention doesn't feel right, just change it.

Let's practice on something that feels safe, ok? Let's try to find blue butterflies. Yep. I know it's February and not butterfly season. I also know... you'll see them if you INTEND to see them.

Here are some examples of intentions that I love:

I intend to feel loved and supported and to offer love and support to others
I intend to offer loving kindness to everyone who crosses my path today and to be willing to receive loving kindness in return
I intend to feel good and appreciate the people in my life
I intend to notice joyful moments today

How do you feel after reading some of those intentions?

Can you see incorporating some of those into your life?

We'll be talking in-depth about this and a whole lot more in Yes Academy.

The doors close soon on 2/22/22. (I shouldn't tell you this but I am allowing someone to join us on the 25th... so if that's something you'd like to do just reach out and I can send you a special sign-up link).