What are Your Intentions?

How to sharpen and enlarge your understanding and application of intentions.

- By Noelle Sterne

I used to think that the word intention was weak. Unlike affirmation, it didn’t seem to carry a strong and definitive declaration. To say “I intend to…” felt like a metaphysical world away from “I am…”

Surprisingly, though, I discovered that intention stems from the Latin action noun intendere and means, literally, “a stretching out” and more colloquially “to turn one’s attention to.”

I was even more surprised to read Wayne Dyer’s definition in his excellent book The Power of Intention. To pair intention with power sends a message all its own, as does his subtitle: Learning to Co-Create Your World Your Way. Who says intention is weak?

Dyer offers a new, much expanded definition of intention that dispels forever the notion that it is paltry and limited. He credits Carlos Castenada (The Active Side of Infinity) with opening his figurative eyes to the power of intention. Castenada writes, “Intent is a force that exists in the universe.” Dyer expounds: “Imagine that intention is not something you do, but rather a force that exists in the universe as an invisible field of energy!” (p. 4).

This is indeed a greater concept of intention than I’d ever thought of. Dyer devotes his book to exploring the many faces (his word) and power of intention, with chapters instructing us for just about every part of our lives. For example, “It Is My Intention to: Feel Successful and Attract Abundance into My Life,” “It Is My Intention to: Attract Ideal People and Divine Relationships.”