Intention is a concept that gets talked about quite a bit. We set intentions at the start of a yoga class, at the top of a meeting, at the beginning of a new year. We say the word, we mean it in the moment, and then we move on. 

What we rarely do is stop long enough to reckon with the actual power intention holds. So today I want to go deeper and invite you to experiment with the true power of setting an intention.

Intention is not a fleeting thought. It is not hoping. It is taking your energy, focused and deliberate, and directing it toward a specific result.  

Setting an intention is the decision to direct your energy, imbued with an idea of where you want it to go and the impact it will make when it gets there.

And here is why that matters: we have control over so little in this life. What we think, what we imagine, how we speak, what we decide (which we talked about in last week’s blog) and how we focus our energy. 

That is our domain. That is what we are actually in charge of, which is really great news because when consciously directed, our words, decisions and imagination literally change the way circumstances show up for us. 

So if that is true, why not take advantage of it?

The (accidental) Experiment 

I was paying a bill recently. Nothing dramatic, just a regular monthly payment for a service I am genuinely happy with. And as I sat down to pay it, I noticed a subtle feeling of constriction in my body. 

Not anger, not resentment exactly, just a slight resistance to handing the money over. Believe it or not, actions we take from a state of  resentment or irritation carry that emotional quality to the recipient.

As I sat with that reaction, it occurred to me that I had been paying this person for a long time and had never once considered the energy I was sending along with it.

So I paused. I breathed. And I made a conscious choice about the quality I wanted to intentionally pour into the act of sending the money.

• I thanked the money. 
• I poured love into the transaction. 
• I held the intention that this payment would carry genuine gratitude to the person who had served my family so well, that it would lift them up, and that it would return to all of us in the process. 
• Then I let it go.

That same evening, I received word that this person had reached out to a mutual friend — completely unprompted — to ask how I was doing and to say they hoped I was well. They had never done that before.

I cannot prove causation. But I know what I felt when I heard it. Something had shifted, and the shift had started with me.

What Intention Actually Is

Intention is not dependent on outside happenstance or responses. That is precisely what separates it from hoping. 

When you hope, you are looking outward, waiting for something external to confirm that things are going to be okay.  

When you intend, you are directing your energy from the inside out, regardless of what anyone else does or does not do.

Most of us have been conditioned to bring a low-grade, begrudging energy to obligations, such as bills, transactions, responsibilities we did not ask for and don’t prefer dealing with. 

We have been taught to be quietly frustrated by them, to pay them with clenched energy and move on without thinking twice. It is not malicious. It is just the default.

But every time we do, we are directing our energy toward lack.

We are broadcasting the signal that giving costs us something, that there is not enough, that we would rather hold on than flow. And what we broadcast is what we draw back to ourselves.

Giving and receiving are not two separate things. They are one continuous flow. It’s called the Law of Circulation.

When we constrict around giving, we constrict the receiving as well, and most of the time we do not even realize we are doing it.

The Practice

The next time you notice that familiar constriction in a moment that would normally feel automatic, pause. 

You do not have to overhaul your beliefs or perform a positivity that you do not feel. You just get to notice, breathe, and ask one honest question:

How do I want to direct my energy here? What quality would I like to emanate?

Then do that. Pour love into it. Find the genuine gratitude, even if it is small. Intend that this energy serves the highest good of everyone it touches, including you. And let it go.

This is not a grand gesture. It is a small, deliberate internal shift. But those shifts compound. They change the internal vibration, (a.k.a. feeling), you transmit. 

Because the energy we transmit reverberates inside of us, producing all kinds of physical and mental benefits.

You have more authority over your experience than you may realize. Not because you can control outcomes, but because you can choose the energetic quality you bring to every single moment.

That is not a small thing. That is THE thing.