Your Life’s Intentions
What do you desire for your life?
I often bring an exercise into my coaching sessions with clients to help them reconnect with what they truly desire for themselves. And to my surprise, most of the women I work with have a difficult time with this. They avoid the exercise.
When we get curious and honest about the avoidance, I hear the same thing over and over. They are afraid.
They are afraid to admit what they want because--if they say it and it doesn’t happen, it would be worse than if they never said it at all. Or they feel so distant from it because they are bogged down with child care and/or work that it would just depress them.
However, if we don’t bring our deepest desires and intentions into the forefront of our awareness and try our best to align our time, energy, and focus with those things, we take whatever is in front of us and unconsciously accept it, even if it doesn’t make us happier, healthier, or more powerful.
When I got honest with myself about what I want in life (not what I thought I was supposed to want) and allowed myself to pursue it, I felt a massive shift in my nervous system. It was as if my body said, “Finally, thank you for finally listening”.
The things you desire, desire you back. Even slightly aligning more with your desires gives you more energy, reduces stress, and ultimately makes you a healthier, happier you. It makes achieving your goals more attainable.
Now is a great time of year to reconnect with your life’s intentions.
Do you dare to ask yourself, “What do I want for myself in this lifetime?”
The Exercise---Getting to Know Your Life's Intentions
(adapted from Dr. Maria Nameth’s “The Energy of Money)
1. First, you are going to empty your mind. Pretend that you have found a magic lamp. As you rub it, a genie appears and offers to give you anything you want. All the money, time, and talent that you need is yours for the asking.
On paper, list all of the things that you have always wanted to do or have in life. Write down whatever comes to mind. You have all the freedom in the world. Don’t worry, you will not be held to this list. It can be pure fantasy, not necessarily grounded in your current circumstances. This is just to get everything that has captured your interest over the years out of your mind and onto paper. Write it down, even if what you want to have seems outrageous. In fact, the more audacious you are, the better. Just make sure it is something you really want.
This list may look like this:
A beautiful new house
Writing a best-selling novel
Directing a motion picture
Swimming with dolphins
Raising a million dollars for the community food locker
Taking your kids to Disney World
Running a marathon
Traveling around the world
Taking painting lessons
Eating at all the best restaurants in SF, NYC, and Paris
Becoming an Astronaut
2. Look at each item. Ask yourself: Why do I want this? What desire will it satisfy? When you discover the underlying reason for your choice, write it down on a separate piece of paper. Put these answers in the form of “to be..." For example, you might take your kids to Disney World because it would satisfy your desire to be a good parent. Write “to be a good parent". Similarly, writing a best-selling novel would make it possible for you to be a well-respected author, so write “to be a well-respected author". Or traveling around the world might satisfy your desire “to be an adventurer".
3. For the next phase of this exercise, imagine a group of your friends, family members, and co-workers at a party honoring you on your eighty-fifth birthday. Everyone is there, still alive and in good health. So are you. A group of these people has prepared an acknowledgment of you, describing all you have done in your life. They are about to read what they have written. You will be taking notes on what they say, so have your pen and notebook ready.
4. Imagine who is there at this party to honor you: husband, children, teachers, admirers, colleagues, friends, parents, co-workers, bosses, ministers, students, neighbors, aunts, uncles, cousins.
Picture each person getting up and speaking about you. What do you hope in your heart of hearts that they would say about you? Boil what they say down to two or three sentences.
5. Distill to an essence what the people at your gathering say about you, preceded by the words “to be”. For example, Mary wrote: "To be a great mom and to be an adventurer." You may have to use your creativity to turn the words of your imaginary gathering into "to be" statements. Stick with it. Add these phrases to the list you began earlier.
6. At the conclusion of this process, you will have a list of "to be" statements.
Look at them. This is the fun part. Which ones do you really want to be true of you? Circle them. Never mind if you don't feel you fulfilled any of them lately, or ever, for that matter. Do you want “to be an artist", “to be a healer", “to be loved"? Give yourself the gift of choosing what sings to your heart. Transfer everything you have circled to the list of intentions you created in the first part of this exercise (p.s. this is not the time for any editing or self-judgment!).
Now you have a preliminary catalog of your Life's Intentions. Dr. Nemeth suggests that you live with it for at least one week. During this time, review the list and note how you feel as you read it. After a week, you may add or subtract any item you wish. After all, this is your list!
7. Once you've discovered what you'd like to be true of you on your list, I suggest taking it one step further. Turn your "to be" list into a “to feel” list. As you go through your list, ask yourself, "What do I want to feel?" and see what comes up for you. Do you want to travel around the world to be an adventurer and to feel freedom? Do you want a beautiful new house to be secure and to feel at peace? Write your "to feel" list next to your "to be" list.
I hope you spend a little time doing this exercise and connecting with what your heart longs for. Notice that some of the things you want to feel and be are already available to you right in this moment. Do you want all these things to feel more freedom? What does your body feel like when you feel free? Can you access that feeling right in this moment just by thinking about it? Do a little something today that makes you feel free!
You might think this exercise is strange coming from a fertility and hormone coach, but hormones are just messengers telling the body what to do based on the world around you, and inside you. When you are more aligned with what lights you up and gives you a sense of meaning, purpose, connection, or safety, your hormones will get the message too.
If you are interested in 1:1 coaching with me, email me at rachel@rachelroot.com or apply to my coaching program here.
