Intentions

I have a great meditation app called Insight Timer. In addition to guided meditations of various time lengths from a wide range of practitioners, it also has breathwork, yoga, motivational courses, music, and occasional challenges to focus on an area that challenges us from being our calmest, happiest, and most productive selves.

Most recently, I've joined a 10-day "morning routine challenge," where each day introduces a new tip for starting the morning in a more healthy and meaningful way than my current habit of lazing in bed skimming the news and doom-scrolling social media. It's enough to feel like I've started any day on "the wrong side of the bed," but somehow I can't bring myself to stop.

Even worse, I usually ignore the daily poems (from Rattle, SWIMM, Only Poems, the Slowdown, and the Academy of American Poets) that pop into my inbox, opting instead for political pundits. True, I may not be awake enough to take a deep dive into the more difficult to decipher poetry, but wouldn't it still be better to carry a few precious smidgeons of imagery and language into my day, rather than the reminders of all that's going wrong in the world?

Interestingly enough, today's morning routine challenge session was about setting intentions. Not a new topic for me, and likely familiar to many of us. But I still need to be reminded that an intention is not a to-do list (which I'm way better at); it's a mindset, focused on the qualities we want to embody as we go about our day. Insight Timer asks me every day what my intention is, but since (other than during this morning routine challenge) I generally only use it before bedtime, I always ignore the question. Still it's an important one. Today, I set the intention to be more balanced and focused, as I knew this mostly unscheduled day would offer many choices on how I might spend my time, all of which seem like high priority. And one of my challenges when projects pile up is not being able to focus on anything, because I'm too worried about the things I'm not doing.

Photo: D. Dina Friedman

I can't yet say whether I'm meeting my intention as we close in on midday, although I can say that so far I'm not feeling as worried about all I won't get done today. And perhaps I was a tad more mindful in focusing on the amazing sunlight and appreciating the cool breeze before the impending heat when I went for a walk earlier this morning at Amethyst Brook in Amherst, rather than thinking too much about all I needed to do when I got home. (One of my daily priorities is always exercise--especially walking in nature.)

Even though I still haven't made intention-setting a habit, I can see that this practice would be especially helpful to writers, musicians, artists, etc., because it can help focus our attention on process rather than on product. Instead of mentally beating ourselves up for not writing when we sit down to write, or writing something we think is "bad," we can set an intention, for example, to simply be open to whatever sensory observation or language pops into our heads. I know that when I returned to playing piano after a many-decade hiatus, what got me through several months of frustration and the heavy weight of generational shame for not originally "making it" as a musician was the very specific intention I set to play without judgment. In fact, I made a deal with myself that whenever I started judging, I needed to close the piano lid and walk away.

However, whenever I walked away from the piano, I felt sad and disappointed because I had enjoyed playing. So, eventually, I was able to quiet my inner judge and simply be open to the moment, complete with all its bliss and all its flaws.

I hope we can all get to a place where our intention-setting leaves us more open to embracing the whole of ourselves--the creative places and the stuck ones.