the art of intentions

intentions.
intentions.
intentions.

they just won't leave my mind.
and i'm so darn grateful for that right now.

so i lived a month of intentions without realizing i was doing that.
and my whole life got flavored extra great because of it.
and i figured i'd grab the coat tails of that, and ride along with it
this month. and i'm floored at the difference in my life.

but now....i see there's a whole 'art' of intentions.
of course there is.
isn't there an art to everything???

i've been doin' the daily intentions this week as a new years thing.
well, if intentions worked so well, let's incorporate daily intentions.
and yeah, that's fine.
but it's just like every other time i tried to 'use' intentions.
ho-hum. it's okay.

it's not like this zizzly zazzly stuff from last month. it's different.
WHAT'S the difference??? i keep wondering.
and the zizzly zazzly stuff is still there. but i know it's not from
the daily intentions.

so i don't know.
i really don't.

but what comes to mind is the intentions from last month,
and the ones that are still with me right now.
they are really general, but mean a lot to me.

the easy example is the first one i started with way back in november.
'i want to have a festive season.'
i REALLY REALLY did.
there had been too many past heartaches.
i wanted to just be FESTIVE.
thing to look at, i think is - i REALLY wanted it.

i wanted it enough that when i got landed flat on my back with some
hard stuff, i still kept my eyes on it.

bam! that's it, i think!

sometimes when things hit me hard, i want to wallow in it, or i want to be
angry, or i want to be sad, or i want to be anything but happy. i WANT
to react.

i mean, seriously, why else would we react?
we want it somehow.
and sometimes, when i'm real aware, i'll see that, know i'm choosing
whatever i'm choosing that's making me unhappy, but won't have the
strength to pull me out of that.

i don't have my eyes fixed anywhere but on the problem.

this time around, my eyes were fixed on the things i started listing -
festive, magic, laughter.

i didn't just think they'd be nice.
MY EYES WERE FIXED ON THEM.
and so was my heart.
so was my heart.

so.....there was some stuff mixed in the holiday season that sucked.
which is really great as i can look back at that and see how it all
went. when it happened, it sucked. trying to fix it sucked. so there was
sucky times in the holiday season.

but i wanted festive. so the sucky only stuck around for as long as
was necessary to figure it out, work thru it and go on. there wasn't
dwelling. there wasn't making it ruin the holidays. there wasn't making
it all what life was about.

it sucked.
i moved on.
to festive and laughter.

oh.my.gosh.

it's where my eyes and heart are focused.
and hello, terri, isn't that what intentions ARE?!!
focusing your eyes and your heart??!!!

daily intentions are nice. fine. good. yeah. uh huh.
and they're nice reminders for me. and i've been using
them as reminders.

but unless i focus my eyes and my heart on them,
they're just reminders.

i've seen my life enhanced with this stuff.
i've seen it.
i'm experiencing it.
i want to learn the art of it.
because truly, what an important art it is!!!

here's the kicker to it, that i think really needs looking at -
if you focus your eyes and your heart there, it has to be REAL.
you have to really want it.
and sooooo many times we trick ourselves about what we really
want.

we say we want happiness, while we hang on to the anger.
we say we want love while we hang on to the fear.
all that stuff.
and we aren't always honest with ourselves.
at least i'm not always.

so to be good at this, you have to really look at what you want.
and be honest about it.

nothing like learning an art that grows your soul.......
i am so in!