You’ll find that reading my business partner’s article “Need, Want, and Choose” will help this post make more sense.  The links open in a new window, so you won’t lose your place on this page.

On New Year’s morning at dawn, I was on the beach watching the moon set and the sun rise.

I’m a morning person.  For me, it makes complete sense to be up in the wee hours of the new year, walking the beach, playing tag with the incoming tide, and seeing the birds wake up and the dolphins roll in the surf.  Some of my most profound experiences of deep Silence have been on New Year’s mornings amid the crash of the waves and cry of the seagulls.

This year, I received a gift.

Halfway down the beach, with the sun’s light just beginning to shade the eastern sky from black to indigo blue, a core intention arrived.  It didn’t announce itself in any way.  If I hadn’t been attuned to Stillness and not to my thoughts, I might have missed it.

I choose to be who and what I truly am.

One of the interesting things about intentions is that what rings through one person’s being like a bell may leave everyone else unmoved.

And that’s exactly as it should be.

So if this intention means nothing at all to you – if you’re raising an eyebrow and wondering what all the fuss is about – that doesn’t mean anything except that, well, it isn’t your intention. 

Ever since I received it on New Year’s morning, it’s been a constant background presence.  Sometimes it’s louder – sort of like when you get a song stuck in your head (though not nearly as annoying).  Sometimes it’s quieter, a subsonic hum in the bones of my being.

I choose to be who and what I truly am.

Living this intention – though when an intention rings this powerfully, it may be more accurate to say that it’s living me – has already been interesting.  There are no excuses left for me to hide any part of who and what I am, from myself or from anyone else.  No more masks, no more altering myself to try to be what I think others want from me.

Just me.  Who and what I truly am.

With all of that said, there are two things I want to point out from the standpoint of the original article and the conversation I’d like to invite here.

First, intentions arrive in different ways for different people.  And the most powerful intentions arrive without being figured out or thought through.

Second, I’ve said it before, and it bears repeating:  intentions aren’t goals. 

For many people, goals and objectives quickly become rules and ways to feel bad about yourself.   I freely acknowledge that this is especially true for me – and you’ll notice that there’s nothing that even hints at a goal in I choose to be who and what I truly am.  It allows me all the space I could possibly want to feel what I feel and be where I am in any given moment.  What it doesn’t let me do is deny that or turn away from myself…

When I work with clients to help them set intentions, we often find ourselves exploring goals to begin with.  It’s not until we dive deeper into questions of how someone wants to feel and be that the true intention shows up.

What comes up for you?  What’s been your experience with goals, intentions, and choices?

I’d love to hear!