Welcome to Tuesdays with Chel.
Each week Chel Micheline of Gingerblue will offer her perspectives on our Bliss Habits. Please enjoy the wisdom and clarity she offers.
“The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even, if you will, eccentricity. That is, something that can’t be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn’t be happy with.”
– Joseph Brodsky
Welcome to Week Five of Exploring Intention!
If you’re new to this series, feel free to check out the first four posts in the “Exploring Intention” series.
But here’s a bit of backstory:
I’ve been reading a lot about intention these past few years but never quite got on board. Five weeks ago, all of that changed- I decided I wanted see what would happen if I started a regular daily ritual of setting an intention. With that, “Exploring Intention” was born.
This week I’ll be talking a little bit about setting intentions for whimsy.
My relationship with “intention” continues to evolve…
My personal definition/explanation for the process of setting an intention is this:
Setting an intention in life is exactly the same as when you use the GPS in your car- you punch in your destination and then allow your internal GPS (I call it the “inner sense of intention”) to respond with directions on how to get there. It’s really that simple.
But I discovered something new this week, something that seems obvious but didn’t always happen for me. When you use the GPS in your car, you allow it to calculate the data (where you are starting from, what route you need to go, obstacles, detours, traffic patterns, etc.) and then respond to your query, right? Well, your “inner sense of intention” requires the space and time to crunch the data and issue some information in response.
Meaning: you can set intentions until the cows come home, but if you don’t allow your “inner sense of intention” a chance to respond and give you guidance, it’s basically the same as shutting the entire system down and going it on your own.
My issue was that I started becoming so focused on process of CREATING my intentions that I stopped listening for a *response* after I articulated them! For example, I’d charge into the day thinking “I’m going be more creative, I’m going be more passionate, I’m going to be more whimsical!” and get so fixated on those intentions that I’d lose sight of *how* to go about making those things happen.
I’d have a head full of ideas, but none of them appealed to me when the time came to sit down and actually do them. I finally realized that I was drowning out the information my “inner sense of intention” was trying to give me with ideas based on what I felt I was supposed to be doing. When I stopped for a while and let my “inner sense of intention” nudge me gently along, good things happened, I had actual ENERGY and focus, and progress was made- hurrah!
I try to remember that most everything in life is a multi-step process. It’s like driving across the country- you can’t just charge west or east in your car and drive until you get there, eschewing buildings, and lakes, and rivers, and canyons, and even people. There are always turns to make and roads to navigate and detours to figure out.
So when the road gets bumpy, and there’s not a straight path from “A” to “B”, do the following: shut up, back off, and allow your “inner sense of intention” a chance to recalibrate and steer you in the right direction once again.
And this whole process of “allowing” is actually where whimsy comes into play.
Setting an Intention for Whimsy
As I have been saying throughout this series: The most important definition of “whimsy” is YOUR OWN definition of “whimsy”. What does whimsy mean to you? What is your idea of a more whimsical life?
To me, whimsy has become about much more than just making split-second decisions to step out of the box of my daily routines and habits. Instead,
I’ve become completely determined to allow enough flexibility in my daily life that if an interesting and joyful opportunity pops up, I can follow it wherever it will take me. Whimsy has become about *listening* to life- to opening and allowing space for new opportunities and ideas and passions to come up as they will.
I’ve gone from being an absolute control-freak (which I still am in many ways) to staunch opponent of planning. Don’t ask me what I’m doing next Sunday, because I have no idea, and I really don’t *want* to know until I wake up next Sunday and see how I feel, see how my family feels, and figure out what feels good for that day. It may be play, it may be work, it may be staying close to home, or it may be going out. I just like the freedom of knowing that we can figure it out next Sunday.
Don’t get me wrong- I still have my daily routines (which I will openly admit bring me great comfort) but I go about them in such a way that there are little opportunities to change up how I approach things based on how I feel in that moment.
Creating this space for flexibility has been a tremendous improvement on my life.
However, there are times when I get caught up in the whirl of perfectionism, and “should”s, and wondering if I’m living life in the “right” way. And I would hazard to guess we all struggle with that.
My big challenge with anti-planning has been with the social aspect of things- especially with things like playdates for my six year old daughter and hanging out with friends. But the truth is, I get so anxious about pre-planned situations that it completely sucks out the joy from them. So even when I *do* have to plan, I remind myself that NOTHING is set in stone, and I can wake up on the day of that event and cancel if I can’t summon up the energy or desire to take part. That rarely happens, but just having that flexibility is huge.
So I feel pretty good about my starting point with Whimsy, which is a good thing. However, I don’t know where my destination is. I think I’d like to continue working on this “whimsical” approach to my daily life, and see how it fits in with the rest of my intentions.
And even though that’s not a specific goal/destination that I’m punching into my “inner sense of intention”, it’s good enough.
Remember, there are very few ground rules to this whole process, but they are fairly rigid:
— Be completely honest about where your starting point is. Just as a GPS system in your car needs to know your current location so it can get you to where you want to go, your “inner sense of intention” needs the same accurate information so it can lead you in the right direction towards your goals.
And, a sort-of new rule:
— Be completely honest about where you want to go. Like I have been saying all along, having a detailed destination is NOT necessary. But having an authentic and honest destination is *absolutely* imperative to this whole process of setting intentions. You want to know why this is? Because your “inner sense of intention” will guide you to exactly where you want to be, whether you admit it to yourself or not. If you want good things, and are willing to work on positive changes in your life, you’ll head in that direction. But if you are not willing to make some adjustments, and deal with life’s “detours”, you’ll either stay exactly where you are or actually start moving BACKWARDS.
This was my lesson from last week- I had to get honest about why the heck I wasn’t making progress in certain areas of my life and I realized that I didn’t really *want* to end up at the destination I had set for myself a long time ago.
So, here’s the big question: What is ONE thing that you can do today to bring more whimsy into your life?
And don’t forget to consider JOY, ORDER, CREATIVITY, and PASSION when choosing that one whimsical thing! I’ve been trying to build on each Bliss Habit as I make new intentions. It gets challenging, but do what you can. Some days it falls into place, others days… not so much. Just keeping moving forward.
And if you have a bigger intention in place for your life (such as a big future goal) how can a daily intention for more whimsy fit in with that? Is there something related to whimsy that you can do today that will move your closer to your destination?
And tomorrow, your goal is to start again. Just make a simple intention to have a more whimsical day than the one you had before.
Thank you Chel. As always, your posts are a joy to read! I love that you are (as far as possible) getting rid of planning – I am one of those people who like to know exactly where and when things are happening – like you, it helps me feel like I’m in control. Also, with regard to intention, I feel that it’s good to separate it from ‘to do’ lists. I suck at ‘to do’ lists, because I never manage to complete them and then I feel like a failure! However, an intention, seems more flexible and more forgiving! And so, my intention is to be more forgiving with myself and to be kinder. Get rid of the ‘to do’ lists and instead, be aware of things that need to be done and of those that I’d like to do (taking the pressure off like this seems to result in my getting more done!). Hopefully, building this flexibility into my relationship with myself will have a knock on effect on my need to control in other areas of my life!
and hopefully this will have a knock on effect in my need for control –