Introduction
Reframing the idea of New Year’s Resolutions which generally fade away soon, Christina Feldman spoke of New Year’s Intentions. She described an intention as a leaning toward something which implies willingness, as opposed to a resolution which implies a goal, a desired outcome. I found this much more appealing and useful than ‘I should…’ or ‘I’m gonna work on this.’
I have found the idea of selecting a yearly intention to be an important part of my overall mindfulness practice. In the past, my intentions have included my desire to be more compassionate, to slow down, to become a better listener, to be more grateful, to be kinder.
While intentions do have an element of a desired outcome, I find important differences between an intention and a goal. The first is that as an intention my focus in on the present moment, whereas a goal is more future oriented and goals tend to be measured: am I making progress? Another way of framing this is that intentions tend to be more focused on the process rather than on the outcome.
Choosing and framing an intention
One year Christina mentioned having a conversation in London with a man who was homeless He told her that the worst part of being homeless was feeling invisible. Her intention that year became not to let anyone be invisible to her. Friends cautioned her about doing this in cities where eye contact could make panhandlers more aggressive. She acknowledged this but kept with her intention. At the end of the year, she found the world to be a friendlier place!
One year my intention was to focus on listening. I found myself remembering to listen more, catching myself when I was not fully present while listening, when I was thinking of my response while listening. I found that I was more likely to ask the other person a question to have him/her speak more.
Here are some intentions people have used:
habits you would like to change: hurrying, anger, irritation, complaining, resentment, unskillful speech, etc.habits you would like to develop: compassion, kindness, letting go, patience, generosity, gratitude, etc.
There are, of course, many other possibilities.
You might take some time to listen inside to an intention you would like to bring mindfulness to this year. Play with various possibilities and see if one starts to form inside your mind-heart.
How this plays out in daily life
Given how busy most of our lives are, one challenge is to remember this intention during the day. On the year that I focused on compassion, I bought several statues of the Buddhist goddess of compassion, and placed one in my den, one in the living room, and one in my office at school.
I have posted notes (e.g., on the bathroom mirror), and II have set my iPhone to ring several times a day—to remind me.
You might keep a notepad on your person so you can keep track of your intention during the day. Or you might choose to reflect each night on what you noticed.
Realizing that anything can become mechanical and routine over time, you might vary how you play with the intention. You might pick the first week of the month to start again. You might commit to just one month at a time. You might decide after a month to pick a new intention
It will play out differently according to the intention and the person.
One process for bringing mindfulness to your intention
Since many people like specifics, here are some reflections on my intention this year which is to notice hurrying. Actually, this has been an intention before and while friends have noticed that I have slowed down some, I am aware of the desire to slow down more.
So during the day I frequently notice that I am hurrying.
With the framework of the three intelligences (last week’s blog), I find that I am taking longer to feel the hurrying in my body. Before it was more like, “OK, I notice that I’m hurrying” and I take a breath and then move on. Now I actually stop more often and take a few breaths worth of time to notice not only specific sensations, like tightness in my shoulders, but also the coursing of that ‘hurry’ energy through my whole body.
When bringing mindfulness to emotions that are present when hurrying, I sometimes notice impatience or irritation at myself or others. In those cases, I go back to the body and feel the impatience or irritation.
Sometimes, I also notice (heart intelligence) that with Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King as models, that I am still doing too much. So I am taking more time to be with that part of me that feels this way, that takes on so many projects, little and big, to make the world a better place.
Lastly I let the thinking mind chime in: “OK your turn; what are you noticing?” What has come up has included “you are still trying to do too much” and “you might want to cut down on caffeine.”
My mind has also noticed that I’m not just hurrying some of the time but almost all of the time: typing as fast as I can, rushing to clean up the living room before I leave, doing the dishes quickly, making a salad in 10 minutes by cutting the veggies at high speed, etc. etc. If I were focused more on the outcome, this would be frustrating and perhaps depressing. However, as an intention, it is exciting to finally see this habit more clearly and deeply.
There are many ways to bringing mindfulness to your intention, so I encourage you to experiment.
It would be interesting if some of you are willing to describe the intention you have chosen. Alternatively, if enough people are interested, mail me and we could form an email group. Each person would share their intention, and each month I would invite people to reflect on what they are noticing. One ground rule would be no advice giving unless a person explicitly asked for feedback.
“Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.” Jose Ortega y Gassett.