Sober Toolbox 12: Intent
Photo Credit: @ling_gigi
Hello Sobertown
When you perform anything in your life you can do it with intent, or, you can just kind of get it done.
What is the difference?
Passion, attention, drive, attitude, effort and an outcome focus.
You see there is a great deal of difference between completing the very same activity in a manner that just gets the task done, gets to the finish line OR attacks the task with focus and full intent.
The difference is EVERYTHING.
Examples:
You visit your doctor, you need their help, you explain your case but they seem distant, looking into their eyes you can see a distinct absence behind their eyes. They hear your words just enough to take in the gist of the case and after cutting you off they give you an unhelpful and bland explanation and tell you just to ride it out, no more said, see you later.
You see a different doctor. They look you in the eye. They hear you out. They repeat important aspects of your problem back to you. When you are finished they then proceed to explain in detail what is happening, looking you in the eye, why it is happening and that regardless of their great desire to help, that this is a problem your body will recover from with good self care and that you should come back if anything worsens or remains past a certain point. With a smile, with a handshake. This is the very same scenario with one added ingredient, INTENT.
The way you feel leaving both of these appointment scenarios is distinctly different, the outcome may well be the same but the feeling, the satisfaction and the transfer of energy is completely different depending on the scenario and the intent behind the care.
You do a workout and get the reps done with low energy, you get the work done but it was not great. This experience is lacking in intent, in this instance you would be called a lazy lifter.
You do a workout, you crank the music, you warm up, you get psyched up, you stare down the exercises and perform them with high intensity, you exhaust yourself. This was a workout full of intent.
The difference could be plateau and confusion as to why no progress is being made vs a highly successful training program, the difference is simply effort and intent.
Your partner tells you they love you, you play the standard obligatory response recording saying “love you”. This lacked body and lacked intent, you didn’t even consider whether you meant it or not.
Your partner tells you they love you. You look them in the eye, you smile, you hear their kind words whether they were said with intent or not, you give them 100% focus and you respond in an unmistakable tone of truth that you love them back. This, is intent, this is meaning.
You wake up hungover, you feel awful, you desire never to feel this way again, especially due to your own deliberate decisions and actions. You say those words we all said “never drinking again”, you and everybody else know they are hollow, your own mind knows they are not true words even as you say them you feel their weakness deep down. This is an example of a thought or statement completely lacking in intent or meaning.
So intent, this is the difference between the same experience performed with true meaning and effort or simply being performed out of obligation, reflex or base instinct with no real meat’n’potatoes gusto behind it.
Every tool you use in your sober journey, every entry you write down, every pledge you make, every form of accountability you create, every craving you fight. Do it with intent, draw deep within and feel it and direct your energy toward it, as much energy as you can muster and as much focus as you can direct. This applies especially to tasks whose outcomes are very important to achieving your wildly important goals, when you know an action or task is a part of very important aspect of life such as pledging not to drink on a particular day, you must perform this action with the focus it deserves or it will mean little to nothing, it needs the backing of real intent.
Some days, reaching for full intent in your habits and activities will be difficult, that is completely ok. These days will happen and perhaps if you are very early in your journey toward sobriety, completing tasks with passion or intent may be out of reach for the time being. Again though, this is ok, this can be built over time, all you need is awareness that you were unable to reach a level of investment in a task you wish to, this awareness can be grown over time and over repeat efforts until eventually you find yourself able to hone in on a task, to give it energy and effort, to complete it with full intent. Completing a task with no intent is better than not completing it at all, with the goal of reaching higher and higher levels of investment in this task over time in the same way eating an apple is better than not eating an apple, regardless of whether you lived in a healthy or unhealthy way that day, you are still better off having eaten the apple than not, what I mean is, the benefit is not lost just because you practiced with little intent, but the goal must be to move in this direction over time and repeated efforts.
Intent is the difference between pushing a button to pledge not to drink on a day and stopping to think about what it is you are doing, repeating to yourself the fact that you are pledging and making that promise to you self then pressing the button. A focused pledge is everything, just pushing a button with nothing behind it is almost meaningless.
Intent is writing in your journal about the day and rereading, focussing on the writing. Intent is feeling the words as you write them.
Intent is writing what went well for the day and visualising and feeling the daily occurrences the positivity attached to them.
Intent is writing down what you are thankful for and feeling truly grateful for each item as ink trnasfers to the paper.
Intent is meaning what you write as you support somebody during a hard time in sobriety, it is applying true thoughtfulness to even a short text entry rather than a rapidly fired under thought response. (guilty).
Intent is the application of feeling, passion and depth to your task. Intent is everything.
As we progress through the day our mind is functioning on auto-pilot for many of the tasks we undertake. We must allow this or we would not cope, we can not actively invest in every thought, decision or action there simply is not enough time in the day or energy available to act with 100% intent in every aspect of our lives, this is a certainty however you will know when you approach a task which deserves investment, attention and intent. You will know what it is and you will know how much you truly put into it, you and only you.
THE TOOL IS THIS
When it comes to using your sober tools. Use full intent and meaning in the way you employ them.
That is all Sobertown, do everything you can in this journey with intent and everything meaningful in your life deserves intent too.
Remember ALCOHOL CRUSHES INTENT in our daily pursuits. Alcohol takes the drive, the focus and the force behind what we do, it takes the wind out of our sails and the fire out of our bellies and I say this to you with all the intent I can muster.