Cultivating Intention - Mindfulness, Attention And Intention

What we focus on and attend to, grows, while what we fail to attend to diminishes and decrease. Like a plant we forgot to water, our intentions will wither and die when we keep them out of sight in a place we cannot see. This meditation is a contemplative practice that focuses on the dynamic relationship between attention and intention. In this contemplative practice we reflect deeply on setting our intention - how do we want to live this one precious life?

Transcript

Hello everyone,

And thank you for joining me in today's practice.

This meditation is a contemplative practice,

And it focuses on the dynamic relationship between attention and intention.

With contemplative meditations,

We reflect deeply on a question,

Allowing the answers to arise from within and from the heart.

Attention and intention are the midwives of mindfulness.

The practice of mindfulness is intentional.

We practice mindfulness,

We set an intention to direct our attention in a very particular way.

In order for you to be mindful,

You must intend to do it.

Mindfulness is never an automatic event or practice.

Speaking of automatic,

So much of our day is spent mindlessly reacting,

Unaware of how and where we are directing our focus,

Our awareness,

Our attention.

Our skill at perception becomes conditioned.

It's as if we're gazing at the world through lenses that allow us to only see certain colors and shapes and textures.

That influences how we live our lives.

As we've all heard,

What we attend to,

What we focus on,

It only increases.

What we do not attend to diminishes and decreases.

Like a plant you forget to water,

Your intentions will wither and die if you keep them out of sight,

Out of view,

In a place you're unable to attend to it.

If cultivating a calm,

Peaceful,

And compassionate life is your intention,

What are you practicing on a daily basis that moves you closer to that goal?

Living an intentional life is living a mindful life.

Identifying,

Articulating,

And declaring your attention is not only a one-time event.

It's not something that we do once a year on a holiday or on a birthday.

It takes committed daily,

If not hourly,

Practice.

Are you living your ideal intentional life?

When I ask people to reflect on how they spend their time each day,

What do they focus on and where do they place their attention?

If you're only focusing on what is wrong,

What is unpleasant,

What is not perfect in your life,

You are conditioning those neurophysiological pathways.

You're watering that particular plant while ignoring or paying no heed to what else is around you.

To demonstrate that point,

I often ask people,

What God are you praying to in order for them to identify how their values and intentions might not be aligned with their daily practice?

Gandhi clearly understood this power of intention and how we must be clear about our practice at every moment of our lives.

And he advised keep your thoughts positive,

Because your thoughts become your words.

Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviors.

Keep your behaviors positive because your behaviors become your habits.

Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values.

Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.

In this practice here today,

We are not talking about creating a different external environment.

We're not talking about changing other people,

Other events,

Creating and getting a new job.

What we're talking about is living a life of intention.

How do you want to be regardless of life events?

Cultivating our intention is truly a transformational process.

It can have rippling effect throughout our entire life.

However,

In today's practice,

We are going deeper than the external.

No matter how much we wish or want,

We cannot necessarily control other people or life events,

Global events.

No matter what our wishes are,

There still may be another pandemic.

There can be fires that burn down cities and towns.

There can be racial unrest.

There can be disrespect and discord.

The transformational power of intention begins by cultivating and nurturing our internal environment.

How do you want to be no matter what happens?

How do you want to be regardless of election results,

Climate change,

Health events,

Financial circumstances?

When we set the internal milieu,

When we condition the internal environment to respond where we can live more mindfully,

With more awareness,

More intentionally,

This will lead to other events happening in our external environment.

So let's begin the practice.

To do so,

I invite you to find any comfortable position,

Whether it's lying down or whether it's sitting up.

Just a position where you can go deeper into your awareness without falling asleep.

I invite you to direct your attention now to your lower belly.

And before adjusting anything,

Changing or altering anything,

Bring your awareness as fully as you can to the belly.

And notice if there's any movement here with the breath.

Notice if there's any guarding,

Any gripping,

Any holding,

Any quivering.

In this practice,

We're welcoming all of our sensations,

Rather than see them as a threat or a danger,

Which is one way of orienting to them,

Which initiates a defensive response.

Let's set the intention to welcome all of our experience,

To befriend it,

To hold it and cradle it with respect and care.

So bringing your attention to the belly,

The muscles in the belly.

I invite you to imagine softening.

Imagine releasing any of the gripping,

Any of the holding.

You might find that you may slightly need to adjust your posture to allow yourself to soften a bit more.

Allow your attention to expand both downward and upward as you observe with compassion,

With respect,

The degree of tension in your groin,

In your buttocks,

In your thighs,

All the way down your legs.

So often we ignore what is happening in our body and don't realize how activated we are,

How we're bracing for our experience.

Allow that softening that begins in the belly,

In the sides of the waist,

In the low back to continue downward,

Just like pouring some gentle warm water down from the abdomen down the legs,

Softening the thighs,

The hamstrings,

The knees,

The calves,

The shins,

The ankles and the feet.

The softening continues upward as it goes to your rib cage,

To your lungs,

To your heart,

Up to your shoulders and just streams down your hands.

Anytime you notice any tightness,

Numbness,

Tingling,

Welcoming in as if you're cradling a newborn,

An infant or small kitten or puppy.

You're holding it in your hands,

Sending your attention to it.

And now I invite you to let your attention rest on the breath and specifically the movements of the breath.

Where do you feel this breath as clearly as possible?

Your intention now is directing your focus,

Your attention.

So the movements in the body that create this breath.

You may bring your attention back to the belly,

The softened belly,

And you can sense into the movement of the diaphragm descending into the belly,

Increasing the diameter and the volume of the rib cage and the lungs.

And then the air just naturally comes in.

By softening the belly,

You allow this breath in.

By softening the belly,

The diaphragm simply goes back up,

The rib cage compresses a bit and the air naturally flows out of the body.

And the only practice here is continuing to allow moment to moment the belly,

The groin,

The thighs,

The legs,

The chest to be soft.

I invite you now to allow your attention to move upwards to your heart.

Even by feeling the heartbeat,

And maybe you can place a hand on the heart if that feels comfortable,

And you can get a sense of the heart beating in your chest.

Note any impulse,

Any desire to judge it,

To critique our heart and the way our heart is working.

Again,

Cradling your heart in your hands,

Holding it with loving compassion.

Feel the heartbeat moment to moment.

Observe it with a loving presence.

You might take a moment here to thank your heart for all its work,

For its tireless beating every day.

The heart beats anywhere from 40 to 80 beats a minute.

It's doing that every minute of every hour of every day.

So cultivating some gratitude and appreciation for your heart.

And feeling into this heart,

We are going to begin to allow some questions to arise.

And as we pose these questions to our heart,

Sit back and simply observe what answers arise.

Notice when the thinking mind takes over.

And when it does,

Simply acknowledge that,

Thank it for its job,

We've conditioned it well,

And then go back to listening.

So softening the belly,

Thanking and cradling the heart.

Ask the question,

How do I want to live?

How do I want to breathe into this life?

Allow the answers to arise.

They can come in words,

In phrases,

In images,

In bodily sensations.

Welcome them all.

Note when the thinking mind wants to analyze your response.

Thank it.

And stay present and attentive to whatever answer arises.

How do I want to live my life?

How do I want to breathe into my life?

Notice any tension that's arising in the belly,

In the muscles,

In the torso.

Whenever you notice any of that tension,

Acknowledge it,

Welcome it,

And then allow yourself to soften.

You might ask,

What is unsafe or unsettling about this question or about this answer?

Because we brace and we grip when we do not feel safe.

How do I want to live?

How do I want to breathe into this life?

And from this question then arises another question.

What must I release?

What habits?

What narratives?

What practices must I release in order to live and breathe this way?

In your mind's eye,

In your heart,

From your inner being,

Allow any answers and responses to this question to percolate,

To come to the surface.

And note when the thinking mind wants to debate it,

Wants to argue,

Thank it for its practice,

And settle.

What must I release?

What practices?

What stories and narratives?

What behaviors must I release in order to live this way,

In order to live and breathe an intentional life?

Soften in the belly,

Soften in the torso,

Soften in the legs.

And the mind may wander.

You may find your mind debating.

Any answers that come up.

If you get lost in reverie and memories and thoughts about the future,

Come back,

Soften.

Feel into your heart,

Cradle your heart,

And ask,

How do I want to live this life?

How do I want to breathe into this life and this moment?

And what practices,

Behaviors,

Stories must I release to do so?

In these final moments of this practice,

I invite you to take a moment and consider the remainder of your day.

Armed with this understanding of how you would like to live and what you must release,

Take a moment to envision moving through your day more intentionally.

When events that you might predict happening do happen,

How would you prefer to respond?

What would you like to attend to,

And how would you like to move intentionally?

Notice when negative narratives come up.

Notice when old stories that talk about why you can't do this,

What might limit you,

Come up.

We're not trying to get rid of them.

When you notice them,

Identify them,

And choose to move your watering can elsewhere.

Feed the intention.

You want to cultivate and nourish and grow.

If nothing were to get in your way,

If there was no interference,

How would you live today?

As we transition out of this practice today,

Remember that any of the answers to these questions might spontaneously appear throughout your day.

Maybe at night when you're sleeping,

You might have a dream that reflects this intention.

So keep your attention open,

And allow yourself to be surprised by what arises.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

May all people everywhere be safe.

May all people everywhere be healthy.

May all people everywhere be at peace.

And may all people everywhere go gently,

Knowing their goodness.

Reviews

Beautiful

Very nice, thank you 💚

Beautiful and helpful meditation. Wonderful questions to ask and answer for myself while you guide us.
Thank you, Dr. Brad🌺

Very helpful in starting out this new year!

Very clear and useful — and different. Thank you.

This was truly excellent! Thankyou 🙂

So wonderful, one of the best meditations I’ve done in a long time