Good morning from New York City. What’s on my mind this morning is the word intention, and here’s why. I was talking with my friend and collaborator, Will, the other day. Will is the person who helps me bring Dear Constance alive graphically. He gives it shape and energy visually. On the days when Dear Constance is not coming out, we alternate between quotes that I love, tidbits from the about page on my website, and the Dear Constance reviews that people leave on Apple.

By the way, if you want to do me the biggest favor ever, leave a review on Apple. As a side note, if you’ve never done that before, people get frustrated because the reviews don’t appear right away. There’s a vetting process before they’re made public. So people go to do the reviews and when they don’t see them published, then they get frustrated. Please know that, and thank you in advance for taking the time to give me a review. It’s super helpful for the algorithm.

Anyway, back to my story. Will sends me the visual which is a tidbit from my about page, and it’s the part where I’m talking about my values and there were too many. I said to him “yeah, maybe we should mix the word intentionality and if you like it, let’s leave it as intention.” So, here’s the thing, I use the word intention and especially the word intentionality a lot. The truth is, if you know me at all, I wax woo woo. So, I thought, nah, maybe intention won’t land well. Then, during the night as I was trying to get back to sleep, I turned on my favorite book ‘The Creative Act A Way of Being’, by Rick Rubin. Sure enough, he starts talking about intention. My ears perked. I’m like oh, let me hear what he has to say.

I thought I’d share it with you because Rick Rubin is speaking about creativity and artistry and he waxes woo woo also. But I like what he said, so here it is. It’s very brief. Intention is more than a conscious purpose. It’s the congruence of that purpose. It requires an alignment of all aspects of one’s self. Of conscious thought and one’s beliefs, of capabilities and commitment, of actions when working and not. It’s a state of living in harmonic agreement with oneself.

I like that. I’m going to read it again. Intention is more than a conscious purpose. It’s the congruence of that purpose. It requires an alignment of all aspects of oneself, of conscious thought and unconscious beliefs, of capabilities and commitment. Of actions when working and not. It’s a state of living in harmonic agreement with oneself.

So to close, I think I’d say that for me intentionality is very much about awareness and conscious choice. It’s also about locus of control. If you’ve never heard the term locus of control, it’s about how strongly we believe we have control over the situations and experiences that affect our lives.

It’s all very much related to mindset. In fact, in Rick Rubin’s quote he’s talking about the alignment of our thought and unconscious beliefs. If we believe that the locus of control is outside of ourselves, in other words if things are done to us or happen to us and we feel out of control, that can not only be a little bit victim mode, it can be some unconscious belief that’s driving our actions.

I guess I’d say that intentionality and intention is about conscious choices and making choices that align with who I am and how I want to be and how I want to walk in the world. That’s what intentionality means to me. It’s a state of living in harmonic agreement with oneself. I hope I’m not waxing too woo woo. It really does all come down to mindset.

I’ll leave you with that today until next time from my heart. to yours.