Neurological, Contemplative, and Practical Perspective
Expressing Your Intentions
Once your intentions are clear, the next question is: How to express them?
There are many ways, including
- As thoughts in your mind
- As an image
- In writing
- As a collage with words and images
- Through physical expression, posture, movement, dance
- As a sense of being
When you think intentions, you know them to yourself. Putting them in explicit words usually helps create real clarity in your mind. Some intentions co-exist as equally vital, but many times it’s important to establish what your top priorities are.
It’s kind of like filling a bucket: you want to get the big rocks in first, then the pebbles, and last the sand. Your most important aims are the big rocks, and if you take care of them, everything else usually works out just fine.
The nonverbal expression of intentions is through imagery. For all the emphasis in education and in our culture on language – which is certainly an important tool – it’s good to keep in mind that most of the brain and its mental processes (especially unconscious ones) have nothing to do with language at all. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words, and pictures in your mind of your intentions – including both the path toward them and their fulfillment – are very, very valuable.
