Intentions Are Overrated
“Have we ever thought that being lost is our destination?”
A quick Google search for "living an intentional life" generates nearly 76,000,000 results. Coaches, yoga teachers, self-help gurus, all obsessed with living intentionally.
I'm kind of over it.
Or at least the obsession with it.
It seems to me that intentions are another way of sneaking in the need to be doing all the time. Intentions become another way we seek to control our experience and exert force on ourselves. We are stuck in permanent 'create' mode, constantly trying to shape and bend the world around us to fit our will. Everything has to look a certain way; everything has to be meaningful, valuable, worthwhile.
I'd like to make a case for times where we drop our intentions. Space for us to deliberate stop trying and to experience being without the need to control.
This idea really landed for me a couple of weeks ago. It was the first day of my bleed. I was tired and all I really wanted was to go back to bed. Except I was facilitating Connection Cafe and had a call with my business coach and, and, and. So, as I sat down to meditate, I found a guided meditation on Shinzen Young's Brightmind app called Do Nothing. Perfect, I thought.
The No-Technique meditation technique is quite different from many meditation techniques which ask us to control our awareness. Perhaps we focus on the breath or sound or sensation. The instruction is the same - every time you notice your attention wander, bring it back to your point of focus. The No-Technique is to simply let whatever happens happen. As soon as you're aware of an intention to control your attention, drop that intention. Drop the need to control your attention and experience whatever occurs next.
This idea stuck with me and I've started to notice how rarely I have time in my life to let go of control and drop the intentions. I so rarely create empty space for the sheer joy of seeing what might emerge in the void. I can be such a slave to my to-do list and my calendar, scheduling every moment so I can get the most out of it. Stuck in the yang, the doing, the striving, the 'making sh*t happen'.
Enter Nothing Days, Play Dates or Drifting Time - whatever name resonates for you. Empty space in my life to hang out with myself, to yield into the yin, to follow my intuition and creativity. Time without intention or tasks or screens. Time to write or draw or dance or lie on the sofa and do nothing.
I had my first foray into a Play Date last week and I am not ashamed to say it did not go to plan. Long story, short (and you can watch the 4-minute long story), all those intentions I thought I was dropping were holding on for dear life. I went into that Play Date so loaded with expectation, I'm surprised I could stand up. I was so upset with myself - I was going to BE CREATIVE today. And all I seemed to want to do was curl up and nap. "But that's not productive or creative" a voice yelled at me.
Yep, I tried to yang my yin. I decided to 'do' being. Epic fail *ahem* I mean opportunity to learn!
My observations so far:
Timing is important. For me, only having a morning before I had to go do stuff put too much pressure on me to "be' RIGHT NOW PLEASE! I'm going to see what happens with a full day. I imagine some people might find it easier to start with a shorter period of time, like an hour; I think I need time to ease into it.
I really have to practice letting go of any expectations I have for that time. I had been positioning it as time to play with my work but I think even that is putting too much pressure on it. I think I need to practise playing for the sake of it before I can channel that creativity into something.
Taking the time to welcome my experience and all my assumptions, to notice what happens immediately helped me be with what was happening and not spin out. This comes from the 5 Practices of Authentic Relating and helps me stay in relationship with myself. You can find short video guides to the 5 Practices over on my Instagram.
This is very much still a work in progress for me and it's a conversation I would like to open up with you. I imagine so many other overachievers, over-thinkers and recovering perfectionists struggle with this too - is that true for you? Is this something you're playing or practising with? What works for you? What doesn't? What help do you need?
I'm noticing the desire to hold some kind of workshop or space to explore this more with you. It feels edgy to be inviting people into a space without intentions so I can't really tell you more about what that might look like. It could be some kind of 'co-being space' or more of a workshop looking at ways we can practise letting go - who knows! If something in this is resonating with you and you'd like to be part of a group exploration, please let me know your thoughts and let's see where our intuition takes us.
P.S. I can't leave without saying that of course intentions can be incredibly useful and a life of being full-time intention-free doesn't work for us either. The point here is balance. And we live in a world with way too much yang and not enough space to let go of control and be.