The Power of Intention, baby!

Last week I wrote about The Law of Attraction and how consciously using it can assist us in realisng the things we truly want but to really get the job done we also need The Power of Intention so read on my friends, read on.

I got a few interesting comments following last week’s blog on the Law of Attraction. For some people, the message that Abraham are propagating struck a chord i.e. the notion that we can attract to us everything we want but for others it raised an obvious question which, to paraphrase was, if all it takes to create what you want is wishful thinking, how come there’s still horrible things in the world?

It’s a fair point and one I was reluctant to address in the original post because it’s a big question, requiring a big answer. The post would have been twice as long plus, I probably needed time to consider my response. Hmmm… errr.

So, why do bad things still happen? Well, there are two important things to understand about the Law of Attraction. Firstly, that it isn’t wishful thinking! The Law of Attraction is a vibrational phenomenon which responds to both our conscious and subconscious thoughts. So even if we wish with all our hearts for a new sports car, if our subconscious thoughts are contrary this, such as, “this is not going to work”, “I don’t deserve this” or whatever our limiting beliefs are, there’s no way and no how that that car is coming our way.

Alex Nino Kawasaki Brown wrote this on Facebook in response to last week’s post.

“ Couldn't agree less! Life won't get better simply by wishing it to, or there'd be no orphans, young widows, AIDS or cancer”

This is a fair assumption. However you could also take his comments as evidence that the Law of Attraction is in force. Alex’s reality is, you cannot “wish away” children being orphaned, young women being widowed and fatal disease and so the Law of Attraction says “your wish is my command”.

Also, it is only the sometime limited human perspective that define ‘bad’. Who’s to say that being orphaned didn't provide a valuable lesson for someone giving them a strength they otherwise would never have accessed? Mandela, Rousseau, Bertrand Russell, Malcolm X, Bono and Marilyn Monroe are but a few exceptional individuals who were orphaned or abandoned at an early age.

Anyway, this was my response.

“…life doesn't get better just by wishing it to. Like I said, how things occur comes from our conscious as well as unconscious thoughts and while there is darkness in the human psyche, there'll be darkness in the world. It's a bitter pill to swallow as we'd prefer to think we're victims and shit just happens. However, consciously invoking happiness, healing the parts in ourselves that are in pain and letting go of unrewarding patterns and thinking that no longer serves us will, imho, take us much closer to having a better world”.

 And I think that ‘darkness’ is a huge part of the equation, something that we barely acknowledge and in some cases are simply not aware of. In some teachings it’s called our shadow side, Ekhart Tolle calls it our pain body and this part of us is as instructive in defining our world and what we magnetise to ourselves as are our more superficial thoughts.

That’s why I suggest in my response that any work that goes towards both healing the pain of the shadow side and being present, will contribute to not only your life showing up differently, but the lives of those around you.

Sometimes, when we heal ourselves, we make life better for the people around us as well as ourselves. Self-knowledge is a gift we can all give to the world because in knowing ourselves a little better, we diffuse the energy that keeps the pain body or shadow side so powerful and are thus less reactive in our interactions. Further, we become less attached to self-concerns and prioritizing our own needs and are more available for others.

The other piece of the puzzle as to why wishful thinking does not cut it in terms of attracting what you want is that for the Law of Attraction to work in our service, your whole being needs to be behind your desire by which I means, your head and your heart, your emotions and your thinking, your words as well as your actions. This could also be described as the Power of Intention.

As Jim Carrey put it, you can't make a wish then just go make a sandwich.

Getting to work is an example of the difference between Intention and mere fantasy or wishful thinking I’ve used before. When we wake up in the morning, knowing we have to get to work, we don’t hold our arrival there as some pipe dream. We don’t lie in bed thinking, “If only someone would invent some kind of public transportation system that, for a fee, I could use” or, “if only you could take a sofa, add wheels and a roof and use it to get around. Perhaps then I could get to work. Like that’ll ever happen”. No, the belief that we will get to work is a real one for us. Why? Because we intend it. We put our whole being behind it (well most of it) and we make it happen through our words, thoughts and actions.

Now, the difference between achieving this and something bigger (and by the way, scale is only an issue for humans. The Universe, which by all accounts is infinite, could as easily give us a million quid as it could ten) is our ability to believe it is possible.

Generally speaking, we do not question our ability to get to work. We just orientate ourselves to make it happen. So, if we apply the same intentional belief to grander pursuits such as the job or lifestyle of our dreams, we will most certainly magntise these desires towards us. But it’s not easy.

I’ve watched The Secret several times and though, in principle, Rhonda Byrne is on-point with her take on the Law of Attraction, the huge factor she’s missing is Man’s ability to believe that what he truly wants can come his way and this, sadly all boils down to this wretched subconscious we’ve got.

This is why working on and healing that within us which needs healing so that we can be a clearer channel for Source Energy and attract what we truly want, is vital.

I thought about Alex’s comment that there is still disaster in the world, for a few days after he posted it. I started to realise not only are we creating in our own lives in terms of what we draw into it, but we are all, like it or not, co-creators of the reality that surrounds us, and while no-one (hopefully) intends fatal illness for example, we have intended a certain degree of neglect around health. Certainly, this is the only way an illness such as HIV could spread once we were consciously aware of its existence. For certain individuals, the sexual encounter had more intention behind it than consideration for their safety and health. I say this with no judgment as we have all put ourselves in risky situation because our intentions are not aligned with our best interests.

My point is, our intentions are playing out around us and if we don’t like the fruits of our intending, we can only hold ourselves responsible.

For example, in the west, we have an ongoing problem with our banking industry and it’s easy to vilify the people who are directly involved i.e. those investment bankers who used their company’s money irresponsibly and caused the banking crises we’ve experienced. But I believe we’re all partially responsible. We have all collectively created an environment where this is possible. In some way we are condoning the larger system by living in this highly commercial, capitalist system. Again, there’s no judgment, just proposing a larger context in which to appreciate our surroundings.

Then a depressing thought struck me as I considered poverty and hardship in developing countries. I realized, globally, our intention to end this simply isn’t strong enough. There is already enough food and resources to elevate the living conditions of many millions of people living in abject poverty but to do so would probably mean a compromising of living standards here in the west. And though we give our money to Shelter and Christian Aid and Oxfam and Save The Children, that leap into true altruism is something few of us do. With our wealth we could end poverty tomorrow but we don’t. We set up a direct debit and then barely think about the suffering of those on the same planet as us until there’s a newsworthy disaster.

I felt guilty. Very guilty. More so because I got present to where my own intentions were. They are not strong enough to make the difference required.

But my guilt, isn’t going to help anyone get fresh water. My feeling bad won’t feed a kid or get them vaccines. All I can do, is do what I feel I can own and accept that this is the way things are… for now. We are living in the age of the ego, where we consider ourselves separate beings and it’s hard to give to others when it feels as though we’ll be denying ourselves. Though there are people who dedicate their lives to a cause, they’re rare.

Hmmm. When I set out to write a post about the Power of Intention, I was hoping it was going to be more positive than this. So what can we salvage here? Well, I guess taking account of where we are is the first step to making true change. If we all pretend we’re hapless victims to a world of chance and change, it’s a lot harder to make a difference. But as soon as we start to see that Ghandi was right, if we want to see things improve, we must “be the change” we want to see. This isn’t just spiritual rhetoric, it’s essential.

We all say we want the world to be a better place. Now we have to intend it. We urgently need to transcend this particular epoch of egoic concern we find ourselves in. We have been here too long. It’s as though instead of having a 10 year adolescence, Man has been a precocious teenager well into his 40s.

It’s time we stepped up. I hope we exhaust this particular consciousness soon. We should thank it. It got us this far but for the planet not just to survive, but thrive, for life to significantly improve for EVERYONE, we need to usher in something different.

We are in a form of insanity. As Einstein defined it, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

We need a new way of thinking to end the egoic insanity we’re in. How? By intending it is so. Putting our whole being behind it. Putting our resources (money, time and energy) where our mouths are, walking the walk, being the change, doing what needs to be done, fixing what needs to be fixed, letting go of what isn’t ours, judging less, loving more, being above doing, listening before speaking, growing, always, growing. When this becomes our collection intention, this planet will be unrecognizable.

If you enjoyed this post, take a look at Are You Attractive? - on The Law Of Attraction, Change Your Magnet - discussing what we draw into our lives and Path To Victory - Making your game plan 

Also, please share any posts you think will be useful to others. :)