My husband and I recently took a vacation with his family to Virginia. We hiked every day, walked small town streets in the misty rain, and played board games with his family. There is something truly magical about getting away to a place where you can breathe clean air and allow nature to be the soundtrack for a long hike. It’s such a simple thing – put the phone in the backpack and immerse yourself in the world around you. How often do we really, truly immerse ourselves in the here and now?
At the beginning of the year, we attended a church service about setting goals for the new year. The message was focused on choosing a word or phrase that would be used to encapsulate desires and help set the tone for the year to come, rather than setting specific New Year’s Resolutions. After much deliberation, we decided to move forward in 2017 with “Intentional” as our Word of the Year. Living with “intention” means something different to everyone, and it has become a trendy buzzword in the blogging community. At the core of the sentiment is this: Live on purpose.
I believe that Living on Purpose is a great answer to the over-scheduled, over-stressed lifestyle that so many people live. We fall into routines, and accidentally end up watching seven hours of Netflix when we have a spare moment to ourselves. Living on Purpose is all about focusing your energy on the things that are important to YOU as an individual, because different things are important to different people. It is important to try to remove some of the “excess” that gets in the way of focusing on those things, and to really focus on only one thing at a time. There’s a great Ron Swanson quote from Parks & Rec: “Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.” If we can put our energies into one thing at a time, whether that be a project, a relationship, or a new hobby, we are forced to slow down and focus. We can set forth on a mission to really, truly become better at something, instead of trying to multitask and losing track of our bigger goals in the process.
My own sense of purpose has changed monumentally since losing my brother. I’ve been really focused on spending time with family and close friends, giving my dogs extra walks, and allowing life to guide me where I am needed most. I have full weeks where the television is never turned on, and I have days where I don’t check any social media accounts. I have to be selective about where I spend my energies each week, because if I do too much, I start to feel like I might crash. Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out where my creative energies should be focused too.
I have always enjoyed etymology, so I decided to research the background of the word “intention.” According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, intention has roots in the Latin words intentionem and intendere. Appropriately, the Latin “tendere” actually means “to stretch.”
Since returning to Texas, I’ve had some culture-shock going from such a peaceful, outdoorsy environment in Virginia back to my normal daily routines. I’ve been harder on myself than normal over the past week, and it seems like things that I’ve succeeded at in the past have seemed to go awry this week for no reason. I’ve just felt “off” mentally. So, this morning, I rolled out my yoga mat and did some light restorative yoga in my living room, trying to reach some of that internal energy that I felt when we were in the mountains.
There are days that I have to force myself to roll out my mat. I get mentally stuck, feeling like yoga itself will be such a monumental task, but I’ve found that just the physical movement of rolling out the mat can put me in a better state of mind for a quick flow session. It’s almost as if watching the mat physically roll out flat triggers an internal mindset change. Yoga helps me stay grounded when my mind starts reeling. When my anxiety becomes too much for me to handle on my own, I roll out my mat and unwind.
So, my biggest thought for today is this: If the root of the word “intention” itself is stretching, maybe the best way to figuratively “Live Intentionally” is to literally stretch physically.
