Journey of Intent: A Weekend Tale
This weekend, Glenn and I are staying in a beautiful Airbnb located in Lafayette, TN. We traveled to visit Glenn’s daughter, her husband, and their 3 children. This date was carefully chosen so that we would be able to watch our granddaughter, Kamdyn, who is 8 years old, play her last basketball game of the regular season. We intended to spend the rest of the visit building a basic tree swing out of wood and rope, flying kites, and just hanging around their home doing grandparent things.
Back at our home base, I have been working on tiling the entryway to our home. Mind you, this is my first attempt at tiling anything. The ongoing challenge of keeping our dogs off the project site is very frustrating to me, stopping the tiling to let them in and out of a side door 8 times a day. This was a very good time for me to get away from everything that I have gotten myself into at home lately.
This being our first trip, we just figured we could leave mid-morning on a Friday and arrive at the kids’ house in time for an early dinner. Rush hour in Louisville, Kentucky, was something we should have anticipated. As humans, sometimes we feel like something is so straightforward that we do not really have to plan for it or give it much thought at all.
As we traveled, the Waze app diverted us around 3 miles of standstill traffic. We stopped for a delicious lunch, another helpful Waze diversion saved us a hour or so, and we even gained an hour with a time zone change. When we arrived, it was almost dark and dinner time. My sleep hygiene is something that I take very seriously, and my bedtime was rapidly approaching. We got a tour of their home and property, had a nice dinner, and I was pretty much falling asleep.
In the dark, we wound our way down the long, narrow, gravel driveway to the beautiful Hayden Hideaway where we unpacked, made our beds, and I promptly went to sleep.
First thing Saturday morning, Glenn came into my room, “What evil thing did you do?” What in the world? Although Glenn brushes off my manifesting powers, through intention setting and maybe a little magic, I knew that my powers were exactly what he was referring to. He had just received a text from his daughter; both granddaughters had woken up a few hours earlier, they were throwing up and bedridden, there would be no basketball this morning. As we embarked on our road trip, what thoughts and feelings did Glenn and I actually have about watching 8-year-olds play basketball on a Saturday morning?
To give the sickness some space and for Glenn and to do something fun together, we set out to hike The Winding Stairs nature preserve. We had a great time hiking and reminiscing about the many hiking adventures we’ve had over our last 20 years together. We hit an antique store and then cautiously headed over to the kids’ house, a little nervous as the girls were still very ill. We stayed for a little while then headed out to pick up fixings for everyone’s dinner. The plan was for us to shop for dinner then head back over to make dinner. Thing is, once we settled back at the Airbnb, I truly felt that I did not want to head back over. I’m not a germaphobe, but active sickness is where I get squeamish. We decided that we would eat at the Airbnb home and head over in the morning, figuring the kids had a 24-hour flu and it would be all clear by then. Glenn took the chicken noodle soup over for the girls and explained that we would be back the next day.
48 hours into this trip things have not gone as “planned,” or have they? Our lack of proper intention setting may have landed us right here.
Intention Setting is the process of creating a clear and focused mental or emotional intention for a specific goal or outcome. It involves consciously directing your thoughts and energy toward a desired outcome or experience, with the aim of increasing the likelihood of achieving it. aerialbvi.com
As much as we both love the grandchildren, we confided in each other that the idea of sitting on bleachers for hours watching basketball was not something we were looking forward to. So, although we had both talked ourselves into being ok with sitting on the hard bleachers did not set an intention to embrace and enjoy the whole experience.
Our thoughts create our reality and here were found ourselves free to do whatever we wanted to on Saturday morning. Although the girls getting sick was never our intention, our failure to set a positive intention landed us with sick kids and no basketball. The power of intention plays out in our lives every moment of every day. Do we expect the airlines to lose our luggage like they do every time we fly, and they do. Do we anticipate that our spouse will come home from work in a bad mood again today, and they do. When we head into a situation imagining that the conversation will be lively, engaging, and reciprocal, it most often is. That is the way this magic works.
We cannot control what others do or think; we can keep an eye on our own thoughts and set the right intentions in every moment. Heading into your day, a new or familiar situation with the right frame of mind improves the odds of you having a great day. Had we been more intentional about the timing of our drive down here, had we thought good thoughts about watching basketball, we would have improved the odds of us arriving earlier and of sitting on bleachers watching basketball for hours on Saturday morning.
I challenge you to set the right intention for your day before you even open your eyes. Intending for everything that happens today to be for the best and keep it up. Be ready to see the positive outcomes in your life.
Last night we discussed the best time to leave today, 7 am was chosen based on Louisville traffic this morning and then Cincinnati traffic this afternoon. On Sunday everyone was feeling much better. We flew kites, enjoyed lunch and dinner together! We will stop for coffee and maybe lunch but will arrive home early enough to have a quiet meal and get me to bed on time. I’m already setting my intentions for the rest of the week. Oh, and back to the tiling.