[Podcast] Living With Intention (Spiritual Manifestation)

This special podcast will explore the art of living with intention, and how the practice of intentionality is the way of spiritual manifestation. Learn how to manifest your deep heart’s intentions. Join spiritual mentors, Michael Mackintosh and Arielle Hecht for this transformative podcast revealing the sacred practice of spiritual manifestation. May all your pure desires come true, for the highest good for all. As we surrender at great depths, and let it all go… all good comes.

Transcript

How can we manifest what we want through holding intention?

How to practice intentionality?

What is the difference between desire and intention?

How does intention change how we feel about life,

How we experience life?

What can we do in the meantime while our pure intentions manifest?

How can we surrender our intentions to a higher power?

How can intentionality be a profound spiritual practice that blesses our lives?

This is Arielle and I'm here with our host Michael McIntosh.

Today we'll be exploring intentionality.

We'll be exploring the two types of desires.

And what is intentionality?

It's a less known practice.

So you'll learn how it can help you to manifest in your life with less stress,

More ease and more joy.

How to practice it.

What you need to avoid and look out for.

And how to have a blessed life and enjoy the journey.

Many blessings.

So let's start with a few beautiful breaths.

And as you breathe,

Just becoming aware.

I am infinite light,

Infinite peace.

And let's just ask ourselves,

Am I willing to learn something new?

Am I willing to live with less stress and more allowing for good things to come?

Am I willing to have more trust?

So what is intentionality?

Intentionality is different from desire.

And we're going to talk about that in a moment.

We all have things that we want to manifest in our life.

Physical things,

Spiritual things,

Emotional experiences,

Transformations in various ways.

We all have needs.

We all have things that we want to achieve in our lives.

And Aro and I have personally manifested many beautiful experiences in our life.

We've lived in beautiful places.

We have so much freedom in many ways.

And I remember one example of intentionality is when I first moved to Hawaii.

I came with a backpack and no money.

And I needed a car.

And I didn't have any money to buy a car.

So I just held the intention in my mind that it would be nice to have a car.

I had no idea how to get one.

I didn't have money.

I didn't have any way to make money.

So I just held the intention.

And within a few months,

I was given a Mercedes and a 4x4 pickup truck.

Which is very handy in Hawaii to have a pickup truck 4x4.

From people that I'd only recently met.

They just gave me two different people,

Just gave me these things.

And someone gave me a lot of money as well,

Which I was quite surprised about.

So we've experienced this many times where just holding something in mind.

And then letting it go and not really thinking about it has come to pass.

When Aro and I came to Sedona on vacation,

We thought,

This is a magical place.

It'd be nice to live here.

And then we went away and we sort of held it in mind.

And then we had this feeling that we need to go back to Sedona.

So we arrived and we wrote down what we wanted to experience,

What kind of place we wanted to live in.

And within about three or four days,

We'd found the perfect place.

Which is extremely rare to find,

The place that we found.

So we've had this experience many times of just holding things in mind with intention.

Letting it go and seeing it come up.

We've also,

In all fairness,

Had the other experience of wanting things to happen.

Having an intention.

But nothing has happened.

Or it's been very stressful,

Very tedious.

Lots of hard work,

Very little results.

And that is also another way of going about things,

Right?

So we've experienced both.

I'm not saying that everything we hold in mind just appears out of nowhere.

I mean,

I wish it did.

It does happen fairly frequently.

But there is this difference,

Right?

So what is going on here and how can we experience intentionality more?

The reason we bring up these different things to share with you is stuff that we're going through ourselves or we have gone through and things we're interested in.

So how can we manifest what we want in our lives with intentionality without all the stress?

This is really important.

So many years ago,

After the law of attraction became popular,

I wrote a book called Why the Law of Attraction Doesn't Work for Most People.

Because most people try and manifest things and they don't manifest them.

So I came up with the four reasons why it doesn't work and what you can do about it to make it work.

The main thing,

The first thing,

Is to understand that there are actually two different types of desires that we can have.

The first kind are what we can call authentic desires.

Or you might call them pure intentions,

Intentionality.

And these sort of things,

They lead us to what we really want and they give us joy and meaning.

These are our heart's true desires.

And these sort of things,

They're aligned with the highest good for all.

They're not coming from the ego.

They're coming from a sincere place of surrender and willing to be connected to the highest,

The highest good with others in mind.

And then the other kind of desire,

What we can call artificial desires or cravings.

And they lead us further away from what we want,

Down a dark hole of neediness and cravings.

And there are a thousand and one pre-programmed desires.

More than that.

Let's say a million and one.

A million and one,

Right?

And then all you got to do is pick up your phone and you're going to get brainwashed by something that you need to have.

Happens to me all the time,

Happens to Arielle,

Right?

Oh,

That looks nice.

You get stuff in the mail.

I wonder if I could do with a new pair of slippers as well,

You know?

It's like,

You know,

And oh,

That person's doing that thing.

I should do that as well,

Right?

It just goes on and on.

So there's all these other desires which are not like coming from our heart.

They're just these fleeting ideas and we can call them cravings.

Some of them are really severe cravings.

Some of them are just more like time wasting ideas.

And so artificial desires are things that won't lead us to feel good afterwards.

Right?

So we think,

Oh,

Wouldn't it be wonderful if I get this,

This and this?

Most purchases are like this.

We think,

Oh,

Wouldn't it be nice?

And then it doesn't really.

.

.

It just clutters up our life and makes us feel a bit disturbed realistically.

And artificial desires.

.

.

Let's just look at the actual word desire.

The actual word.

.

.

Because a lot of time people just talk about desires all naturally being good.

But the word desire means wish,

Want,

Aspiration,

Fancy,

Inclination,

Impulse,

Yearning,

Longing,

Craving,

Hankering,

Hunger,

Eagerness.

It's jonesing after things,

Right?

Desire.

.

.

Most desires have a sort of itchy,

Craving,

Needy,

Discontented feeling about them,

Right?

And they make up the majority of our desires and they actually don't lead us to feel better.

They lead us to feed the addict within us that makes us more needy.

You know,

It's an endless hole.

In Buddhism they call it the hungry ghosts.

The hungry ghosts that you can feed them all day long when they're always hungry.

Because no matter what you give them,

It never is enough.

I think that the word desire is often simultaneous with want.

And we don't have the definition in front of us for want,

But I'm pretty sure it means lacking something.

And so there's a want for it.

So just in the vibration of the words themselves there is an implication of not having,

Not being complete.

And the ego is constantly going from incomplete to incomplete,

Thinking,

This is going to complete me,

That is going to.

And it's always,

Always an experience of incomplete desire and want,

Which I think we're all aware isn't pleasant.

Really.

No,

It's very unpleasant.

It's very disturbing.

So we've got these two types of desires,

If you want to call them that,

Or two types of intentions.

One is cravings,

Desires,

The other is sincere,

Pure intentions.

And every day as human beings we are always moving in a direction,

One way or the other.

And we're either being pulled towards our desires or we're living intentionally.

We are coming from a deeper place in ourselves and then consciously moving in that direction.

So desires just cause us more and more time wasting,

Lots of hard work,

Lots of jonesing after things,

Lots of saying,

Oh,

Wouldn't it be good if this,

Wouldn't it be nice if that,

I wish,

I wish,

I wish,

Right?

It's an awful way to live.

It causes a lot of pain.

The other option is real authentic desires,

Pure intentions.

We can call these our heart's true desires and authentic desires are pure,

Deeply meaningful,

That uplift you and your life and uplift others.

And manifesting these desires actually leads to long lasting well-being and abundance and peace.

So we feel satisfied,

We feel in a state of wonder and everything works out nicely.

So you enjoy the experience in the moment before you manifest them and you also enjoy the consequence of it.

So there's cravings and then there is intentionality.

And intentionality means being deliberate and purposeful and coming from a state of peace and lightness as you move towards creating things in your life.

So when we move from craving for things,

Then we feel stress.

When we move into intentionality,

We have a shift.

We're not coming from neediness,

We're coming from a place of calm.

We're coming from a place of peace.

We're actually open to be surrendered to the highest good for all.

This is one of the most important mantras I've ever come across.

I'm surrendered to the highest good.

Because when we have a desire,

When we say to ourselves,

I want this and I want this and I want this,

Right?

We're actually anxious.

Just tune into the energy.

It has to be like this.

I have to do it.

I have to have it.

I need to have it.

It needs to be done.

That's a really anxious state to live from.

When we say,

I am surrendered to whatever is the highest good,

And it might be completely different from what I have in mind,

It might be something else.

When we tune into that,

It's almost like dropping all the anxiety and saying,

You know,

There's some greater purpose to life,

Which is beyond my limited perception.

And I'm open to what it is.

And I'm going to align with it.

And if you're familiar with David Hawkins' scale of consciousness,

Desire is under the level 200,

Which means it's very weak.

Coming from ego,

It's below integrity.

It's a very weak energy field.

And because it's weak,

It's also not possible to actually manifest from that place because there isn't any spiritual power.

Whereas intentionality,

Pure intention comes from the spirit,

From the heart aligned with the divine.

So surrender to God.

And that can be,

You know,

Upwards of 500.

So if you look at the scale or you want to look it up,

You'll understand what I mean.

But basically,

At this level of intention,

There's far more spiritual power.

And it's actually from that place that things tend to manifest.

Yeah.

So when we manifest from that ease and grace sort of place that we're open to wonder,

That we're surrendered to the highest good,

We're open to the mystery.

And then strange things come to us.

So what do you want?

What do you want?

Do you want to spend your life chasing after cravings?

Or discover your heart's true desires and live from intentionality?

So it starts with the intention to live with intention.

That's really where it all begins.

To understand the difference between these two states and then choose that we're going to have more intention in our lives.

There are three keys to living with intention,

Which we're going to share with you in a little bit more detail.

So the first thing is we need to hold the intention in our mind and heart.

We'll talk more about this in a moment.

Then we need to surrender to God,

To the highest good,

To the divine.

Surrender to life,

To God and to life.

To a higher power.

We're basically saying I'm willing to let go and be open to whatever is the highest good.

We're not saying I have to,

I want it,

I need it,

It has to be done,

Why doesn't it happen?

We're just letting go,

Letting go,

Letting go.

And being open to power,

Divine power.

And then the third thing is how do we take care of our life now while we are manifesting things?

This is a very important thing which we have to pay attention to because let's say you have a need for something.

Right?

In our case,

I'll just give a practical example.

We have lots of stuff to do.

We have lots of people we're helping and doing projects and things.

So we need support in our work so that we can have Ethan and Grayson do what we need to do.

One of the things we're working on is attracting the right people who are able to help in the way that we need help.

So we do have a need for certain things being done.

But we are in the process of having that all nice and organized.

So in your life there's probably things that you want.

But what are you going to do as you're waiting for them to arrive?

So that's.

.

.

We're going to talk about that because when we are in a state of neediness that of course messes it up.

So we have to figure out a way of having patience and also being able to enjoy the process and not be in a state of waiting for things to come to us the whole time.

And like,

Oh my god,

Everything will be great later,

Later,

Later.

What are we going to do about now?

We all have various levels of life and sometimes it helps to be specific and clear and to surrender that.

Sometimes what's so interesting is I was reflecting on this topic in my own journey.

Sometimes things come to us that we never even intended,

But they're blessed.

We didn't even think of it.

And so I guess we go really deep into intentionality.

Go really deep into our surrender.

That's even where more magic happens because we're completely open.

We're not putting limits or ways it needs to look.

And sometimes there's a time and a place to do that.

We need to be specific about certain things in our lives.

But overall,

To hold that overall consciousness of openness,

Surrender to the highest good,

So many amazing things can happen.

It was reflecting all of the work I'm doing now.

I never really intended it.

I didn't desire it.

I don't even think it ever crossed my mind,

To be quite honest.

But I was dedicated in my heart to living from a space of love and knowing and being connected to the divine,

To God,

Being surrendered to that presence.

And that in itself,

Even if you're in a place listening to this and you're saying,

I'm not even sure what I desire or what I intend,

I think that's the place to start and to end really,

Is complete intention of being of service for the highest good for all,

In whatever way that that may manifest.

So the first thing is to know what your intention is.

And there are specific things,

Like when I was saying,

I intend to have a car.

I mean,

That's very practical.

You can measure that.

But in many ways,

If we're really honest about it,

One of the more meaningful intentions is to live from a place of peace and a place of love.

Because that encompasses,

That kind of surrounds and wraps around all things.

To have a blessed life,

To live from a place of ease and grace.

This is almost like higher intentions beyond the specific things.

Like I intend to have a big house with nice windows and beautiful views.

This is all specific details.

But how to experience life?

So you can ask yourself,

What is your intention?

Or what are your intentions?

So you might want to come up with this meta intention,

This higher intention of how you want to feel.

What is your intention for the context of your life?

The state of consciousness?

Higher experience?

And then also,

What is your intention for the content of your life?

Specific things that come to mind and ultimately being surrendered and knowing that it may manifest differently.

But trusting that it will be for the highest good.

You know,

Something I come back to again and again is I don't know best.

God knows best.

I don't.

I don't know what it's what it's meant to look like for the highest good.

But I trust that if I stay open to that,

Surrender to that,

It will be so good beyond what my ego could come up with.

So we're inviting you.

And this is kind of spontaneously coming through as we're recording.

To have two levels of intentions.

The higher intentions,

The meta intention,

Context,

And then for the content,

The specific things that you intend to manifest.

Yeah,

So take a moment to write it down.

And the state from which you live your life is really in many ways far more important than the details of what you have.

And having the nicest clothes and the nicest things and the nicest places is great.

I mean,

Why not have beautiful experiences physically?

But more important is to live from a beautiful place of peace and love and grace.

So how would you love to experience the flow of your life?

And when you're writing down physical intentions,

One of the things that we sometimes forget is that it's how we experience the things in our life that are actually more meaningful to us than the things themselves.

So if you're wanting to manifest,

Let's say,

A new home,

The feeling of being in the home is really the thing that matters most more than the actual details of the home.

Because you might get everything you want physically and feel really bad.

But if you feel good,

Then you feel good.

So these inner states are actually more important.

But of course,

Both are needed.

So write down what you want to physically experience.

But more importantly,

How do you want to feel about your life?

And you can come back to this as much as you like.

It's useful to have a few intentions and to keep refining this so that your living from intention means you have to have intentions.

So think about these things as you go forward through the days.

The next thing is to surrender it to higher power.

Surrender to God.

And the next thing is to surrender to.

Surrender our limited will to divine will.

I'm going to read a quote from David Hawkins here,

Who used to live in Sedona,

And we appreciate him.

The fastest way to reach a state is where you let go of everything as it arises.

So this brings us back to intentionality.

The intention of the devotion to God means to surrender willingness to God.

So at all times we are surrendering willing,

Willfulness.

The fastest way,

Of course,

You can either follow a lifetime of spiritual techniques,

Meditation and things like that,

Or you can surrender to God at great depth.

So to surrender to God at great depth can take a split second,

But to arrive at that split second can take lifetimes of agony and suffering.

So with spiritual preparation,

We've heard these spiritual truths and it reduces time dramatically.

The persistence in willfulness then is what precludes enlightenment and that alone.

One single thing,

The insistence on what I want,

What I desire,

How I see it.

So the personal I and its imperatives are always standing in the way.

The willingness to surrender one's willfulness to God means the love of God is so intense that one is willing to surrender one's personal will.

One comes face to face with it at the final moment.

One begins to transcend the ego and it loosens its hold,

Lessening the dominating things,

And surrender comes up as a style of being.

So as everything arises,

It is surrendered to God to be what it is in the moment without any desire to change it.

The surrender of one's willfulness pulls the props out from under the ego and weakens and collapses and one goes into an incredible state.

So this is a very powerful practice to reduce this clinging feeling that we can have.

What has to be done,

Why isn't it happening,

Where is it,

What are we waiting for?

And it is a practice that we can do again and again and again.

We have to actually make time for this to let go,

Let go,

Let go.

So we can have the intention that may these beautiful things occur,

And then we let go,

Let go.

It's almost like giving the desire,

Giving the intention into greater hands.

Giving all our burdens and saying take it away and I'm open to whatever is the highest good.

.

Such a profound quote.

I'll include it in the description as well with this podcast.

And another one I'll read that that is a blessing and a reminder to give your burdens,

Give your worries to the divine as you're on your path,

It isn't that there's never going to be any problems,

Challenges,

Whatever we want to call them.

And what can happen is when those kind of glitches,

Snags arise,

We can lose touch with our intentionality,

Get swept up in the problems,

Lose hope.

So it's so important to let those things go and come back to your intention.

So this quote,

May you be free from care and worry by making anything difficult easy with the awareness of the divine's hand and his company.

When your hand is in the hand of an elder,

Your stage becomes free from care and worry,

Your state of being.

In the same way,

While performing every action,

Always consider God to be with you,

And that your hand in a spiritual life is in his hand.

This means your life is in his hands.

And so he is responsible.

Put all your burdens onto the one and become light.

The way to remove a burden and make anything difficult easy is to have the one's God's hand and his company.

So the willfulness to surrender at every step,

To trust,

Keep coming back to that sacred intention in your heart of how you want to live.

Things you'd like to bring into your experience,

An openness for those to take form in the way that they're meant to.

And as burdens and challenges and roadblocks and headaches and all those things arrive,

Not to get swept up in them,

To let them go,

Surrender them into the higher hands.

And keep coming back to that sacred intention and keep taking the next step.

Yes,

A beautiful practice.

You're basically saying I'm surrendered to the highest good and not giving it too much importance.

Excess importance actually blocks things from occurring.

When we're desperate for something to happen,

It is unlikely to happen very smoothly.

So we need to let go,

Let go,

Let go and be open.

And oftentimes here's one of the most fascinating things I've found,

Is that when we are in a state of desire and craving,

We can't think properly.

We can't see clearly either.

So when we let go,

It's almost like the windows are cleaned and we can see things are there.

Because there could oftentimes be all sorts of wonderful situations that are right around you,

That you're not noticing because of a state of stress.

And then when we relax and let go,

Things are already here.

The solution is already here.

It's a very profound thing.

So the last thing is what are you going to do?

What are we going to do as we are in the midst of life?

We want to bring our intentions into reality.

We're surrendering it,

But we're also here now and we haven't manifested everything we want in our lives.

So what are we going to do about that?

In the meantime,

This is an important question.

So one thing is to stop living on the edge and putting everything off for later.

If we're sitting around saying,

I really want this and until that happens,

I'm in a state of continual crisis,

Then we're not doing ourselves any favors.

That's going to make you more desperate and more painful and less likely to happen.

So what we need to do is do our very best to stabilize our lives.

Simplify our lives now.

So what if you if you need something,

Want something,

Then what can you do today or this week to stabilize your situation or to get what you need now?

So you might,

For example,

Want to have the best food and the most excellent health and all these things.

And that might take time to manifest.

What can you do to feel better now?

Yeah,

This is it sounds simple,

But if we're putting it off for the future,

Then how long is it going to take before it comes real?

We have to do something today.

And so,

You know,

It's also like letting go of this all or nothing extreme mentality that if it's not completely manifest this way,

Then it's nothing.

You know,

It's either all or nothing.

But instead to have a much more open,

Whole attitude with life that,

You know,

Pretty much everything we need can,

Everything we need,

Everything arising in our lives,

Those things can be met,

Those things can move forward in some way now.

It might not be in the ultimate way,

Might not be in the highest expression of the way that we're intending,

But we trust that is still unfolding and right now,

Let's be present with what's in front of me.

The support I need is here,

You know,

Everything we need is,

Is typically here.

Remember hearing a quote on that once that everything's within like a few miles that we could possibly genuinely require in our lives,

Or there's some level of simplicity to it basically.

Truth is simple,

Falsity is ever complex.

So there's some way of it happening now.

Oftentimes we talk to our students and Michael does these sessions and he asks them what they want to experience and he finds again and again that 80% of what they want to experience can be experienced right now.

That it's usually a mental block that well doesn't look this absolutely perfect way,

But the majority of what you want to experience is available now.

You keep intending for the highest and fullest expression.

So what can you do today to get some of what you want,

Some of what you want to experience in your life now?

I'll give some examples of this.

Let's say you want to eat well.

And,

You know,

Upgrading your whole diet and your health and all these things is going to take time,

But what could you do to make some improvement in your health today?

Let's say you want to feel more relaxed.

What could you do instead of saying that you want to be experiencing infinite peace constantly from now on?

How could you feel a little bit more relaxed today?

If you want to do a project or write a book or make some music or something,

How can you make a little bit of music now?

If you want to be in nature,

How can you do that?

If you want to feel more loving towards others,

How can you be just a little bit more loving towards yourself and other people today?

And if you're trying to finish a project,

What can you do to move it forward a little bit?

If you need some help,

How can you get a little bit of help?

This all or nothing mentality is actually surprisingly common.

And what it does is it blocks us from actually making progress.

Because the reality is we're probably not going to be in a situation in our lives where everything we want is exactly perfect as we have in mind.

There's a great book called The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer,

And he wanted just to sit in the forest and do meditation all day long in his hut.

But it never happened because that wasn't what life was giving him,

But he realized he needed just to get on with it anyway as best he could.

And it's a great wealth reading that book.

It's fascinating.

But this is how life is.

There's lots of strange things going on and they're going to carry on happening.

So what can we do to just move in that direction to feel a little bit more grounded and at peace today?

So it's all part of the process.

It's all part of the journey.

If you block certain things now because you think they're not exactly what you're looking for,

You don't know the secrets of life.

You don't know what that's going to lead to or connect to.

So,

Trusting the journey,

Keep holding your intention because that intention is like a guiding light.

The more you are anchored in that and the more you have direction on your path,

Even when you can't see where it's going,

There's an inner spiritual knowing and trust and light.

So living with intentionality,

What a beautiful and profound practice,

Spiritual practice in and of itself.

And the more you practice this,

You'll feel the blessing of life surrounding you.

In all of the moments,

There will be a deeper knowing that life is unfolding in the way that it's meant to and a deeper trust.

And a beautiful side effect is that wonderful things will manifest in your life.

What you intend or something that's even better.

So rather than the path of wanting and desiring and forcing and all of that,

This path of intentionality,

Purity,

Love,

Surrender.

And I have no doubt that beautiful things will unfold for you.

So let's enjoy life now,

Let's take full advantage of what we have and the mysteries because we can only move forward from where we are now.

We can't arrive somewhere else first and then move forward where we are where we are right now.

It's quite important to remember that,

That we can get where we want to go from where we are today,

Not from some other place that doesn't exist.

It has to be now,

Doesn't it?

So let's fully enjoy this,

Having those higher intentions of coming from a different state of consciousness which can be applied to anything we're going through.

To try and enjoy the journey,

To try and accept life and then to hold those other intentions in our mind and heart and then let them go,

Surrender them,

Surrender it.

And keep moving forward with a good attitude,

With good vibrations,

Enjoying the mysteries of life today and seeing what happens because quite frankly for all of us,

Many things have happened in our lives that we didn't even imagine,

Didn't they?

So there could be things far beyond anything you can even think about right now that are much better that you'd be experiencing.

So enjoy,

Enjoy,

Enjoy.

Hopefully this has been useful and we look forward to connecting with you soon.

May you live with intention,

Embrace your journey and experience a sense of wholeness in your heart that all is unfolding in the highest way as that intention is a light to guide you.

Thank you so much for your divine presence,

For being here,

For listening.

You are a golden being in our world and we are grateful for you.

Wishing you every blessing and oceans of love.

Thank you.

Much love and enjoy the journey.