Making Time for Intention

A friend who lives across the country and I talk every week or two.  This evening we talked about what gets in the way of living our intentions.  There are many things, but (should we be surprised?) anything that takes us out of the present moment keeps us from living our intentions.

To live with intention implies allowing ourselves to be led to our vision.  Way too often what gets in the way are the demands of the to-do list. If we spend our days racing from one item on the to-do list to the next, following where we are led gets squeezed out.  If we are really open to intention, we frequently stop to ask, "What would you have me do now?" or "Which way should I walk?" or even "Who in this building full of people I don't know should I connect with?"  Allowing ourselves to be led by the answers we receive.  My friend described "the dance between demands of the to-do list and allowing." 

Nearly as often what gets in the way are habits.  I am accustomed to going to the same Metro station, making the same changes, stopping at the store on the way home, and checking the mail before I get home.  Then I start another round of habits.  Empty the dirty dishes from my lunch from my bag, make coffee and lunch for tomorrow, make something for dinner, and sit to watch the Stephen Colbert and John Stewart episodes from the night before while I eat.  Then there is the set of clean-up-after-dinner habits. You get the idea: I move from one set of habits to the next until, eventually, I fall into bed.  Most of this is so totally autopilot that I forget to ask the, "What-would-you-have-me-do?" questions. 

I do better on the weekends, but that means that 5/7 of my life, I am missing the opportunity to follow. 

Of course, the perfect distraction from living with intention is to combine the two: be perpetually overbooked so that we habitually move from one appointment to the next without thinking.

Perhaps one of the reasons that I so enjoy writing this blog is because I just sit and listen.  Living with intention is about listening--listening to what you know in your heart.  Making time for intention is making time to listen and allowing time to follow what you know in your heart.