Living with Intent/Purpose
What does it mean to live with intent or purpose? Why is this important to consider?
These are questions I have been asking myself recently and they have led me to a book, Living with Intent: My Somewhat Messy, Journey to Purpose, Peace, and Joy by Mallika Chopra. (I am writing this post as I read the book, so I apologize if it seems choppy. I will try to make it as seamless as possible.)
This book is so moving. What I like most about it is that it isn’t pushing religion or spirituality at you. It is up to you if you want to incorporate that piece into your journey to living with intent.
I am always trying to figure out why I am here and what I am doing. I am passionate about the things I do and love what I am doing but feel as though I am just going through the motions each day and not really living life to the fullest. I want to feel like I am making a change and letting my voice be heard, which is partially why I started this website.
The first step to intent, as stated by Mallika Chopra, is “incubation”. We must incubate the thought of intent and consider it from all aspects of our lives. She discusses meditation and how it is a good strategy for working towards the first step of intent. It is a practice I am intrigued by and plan to do more research on.
The next step is “notice”. I found this step to be a crucial one that I plan to focus a lot of my time on. We, as intentional humans, need to stop and notice the small things. We need to step back from our increasingly fast paced lives and focus on the things that matter.
While on a fitness retreat in Malibu, Chopra remarked on a six mile hike they took to wrap up the week. She was at the back of the group and was angered about her inability to keep up with some of the others. Upon further thought, she came to the conclusion that she shouldn't attack herself like that and that she should take the time to appreciate her surroundings. She notice a boulder, purposefully called “Balance Rock”, seemingly teetering on the top of a cliff. The rock had not fallen however because it had found its perfect balance to keep it on the cliff. Chopra used this natural landmark to spark her journey to find her “perfect balance”. Once finishing the hike, she and the retreat leaders remarked on “Balance Rock” and its beauty. The other hikers? They had been too caught up in walking fast that they hadn't even seen it. Something I feel most of us do daily. We get too caught up in rushing through life instead of stopping to breathe, stopping to appreciate the world around us.
The next step in living with intent is "trust". Mallika references a quote and the meaning behind it at the beginning of this chapter and I think it is important to include, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." She goes on to explain that this saying means we should, "Be our own Buddha. Be who and what you are. Find your own truth. Don't look to others for answers. Trust yourself." I found this portion of the chapter to be crucial to my understanding of her meaning of trust because I could relate to what she was saying and recognized that I need to trust myself more.
Chapter 5: "Express". Mallika brought her two daughters to Vietnam to visit their family their. While visiting, she took her daughters to a museum that highlights war and trying times in Vietnam. At the museum her daughter had a distraught look on her face and Mallika was worried the museum was too much for her but she asked Mallika, "Can people have bad intents?" Mallika was pleased her daughter was thinking about the tragedies she was seeing before her and her question sparked a conversation about people with "bad intents". After conversing about it Mallika came to the realization that, "All intents share an important unifying thread: they can gain strength through the power of expression." This holds true for a lot of people with bad intents. She talks about Hitler in particular and how he was able to sway a lot of people into following his intents through expression.
Chapter 6: "Nurture". "It's so easy to let the days slip by in a stream of distracted busyness, but we all need to find ways to somehow stitch simple pleasure into our busy days." She realized this during a trip to India to visit her grandparents. They were very nurturing to her and took care of her every second she was there and it was then that she realized "we as humans need to find time to take care of ourselves in this busy world."
Chapter 7: "Take Action". Mallika references the day she found out her best friend had cancer. That would be a difficult day for anyone but how Mallika chose to look at it intruiged me. Once she got the news she texted a friend who was a personal trainer to finally get a start on her fitness intent she had set months ago. She saw that her friend was ill and wanted to be the healthiest she could be. But it took a woman, so focused on intents, months and upsetting news for her to take action on her intent to be healthier. She recognized this fact and realized that we should be taking action on our intents when we set them. It should not take disconcerting news to get us started.
In the last chapter, "Living with Intent", Mallika references an Indian holiday called "Holi" where children and adults take packets of colored chalk dust and water guns and have a huge fight with them. She had never gone to her friend's Holi party, even though she had been invited numerous times, because she felt that it would not give her children an authentic representation of what it is really like back in India. This year, due to her mission to live with intent, she decided to take her friend up on the invitation and let her children experience a Holi party. Mallika thinks back to that day and remembers her feelings and actions. "I grab a cup of powder and toss it on Lela, then run as fast as I can in the other direction." This shows that she was able to let go of her perfect vision of what Holi should be like and just enjoy the experience she can give to her children. She was able to immerse herself in the day's festivities and attack her daughter with colored powder, clearly a fun time.
I hope you enjoyed this post. I know it is a bit different from what I am normally discussing with those who know me but I think it is something that is important to discuss and I am happy I was able to share it with you. If you are interested in this topic at all please feel free to ask me any questions or visit Mallika's website by clicking here.
Thank you for reading my posts and I hope to see you next week for another blog post!
Sincerely,
Allie the Adventurer