Where attention goes, intention grows…
We often talk about intention during a yoga practice -whether we are setting a small 60-90 minute one for ourselves as class begins, or big-picture, life-size intentions that guide the way we move through the world around us. Intentions are meant to be a mindful little seed we plant for ourselves that we water with our attention. Or a touchstone we can return our attention to when it begins to wander.
My mat is such a focused place. Within that rectangle, oh boy, I can engage my mind and muscles with a kind of synchronous intelligence that feels like it must just live in the collective cells of my body. On that little rubber slab, I remember every movement cue I’ve ever absorbed, and somewhere in there my limbs remember too and do the thing: engage here, elongate there, tuck here, pull in, push out.
And then I mow the lawn.
Do you know what I mean?
What the heck happens when I go out into the world again, and I do the things I always do -load the dishwasher, scrub the shower, sit in a chair- and I don’t do these things in a truly embodied way? I am phoning it in, and decades of blissful movement ignorance often lead to re-living bad habits in the body, which can then lead to strain and pain.
Last week I was assisting as a videographer at a wedding and spent many hours on my feet carrying a gimbal and camera. The wedding venue was gorgeous. The ceremony took place on an actual island in a lagoon, and different areas of the venue were accessed by a series of picturesque bowed bridges. I lost track of how many times I trit-trotted back and forth over these bridges, ferrying tripods and weaving past wedding guests. I’d needed to dress up a bit and though they had a tiny, chunky heel, I chose a pair of slightly dressy black shoes to go with my outfit. “They’re Clarks!” I thought, “They’ve always been comfortable, dressy work shoes!”
You know what’s fun about walking across gravel in heels? Nothing, really. If you’ve worn heels, you know they change your center of gravity, and whether you’re aware of it or not, you have to carry yourself differently. You might engage muscles you normally do not, or engage them in a different way. Your joints are stressed in new ways. Add a balance challenge with the gravel and the bridges and some weight with camera equipment that seems to only grow heavier as the night progresses, and wake up the next morning feeling like you’ve been run over by a truck. Where did I go wrong?!
I could just blame my shoe choice (And for the record, I love heels. Like anything, moderation!) but also, my focus was on camera work and the environment around me. By the time my arms and chest and back started to ache, it had been hours since I had paid any attention to how I was using my main instrument -my body. At no point had I thought about how I was lifting anything, or gripping the gimbal, or panning back and forth. I had not engaged any other muscles besides the ones that were already on auto-pilot, hoping something innate would carry me through.
Intentions are meant to be a place where we can focus our attention. There’s a common saying in mindfulness circles that “energy flows where intention goes.” However, my general observation is that in our everyday lives, it usually plays out a little differently: where attention goes is where intention grows. What we pay attention to becomes our intention. We get so caught up in the process (how will these shoes look with my outfit?) that the intention writes itself without us. The analogy of watering a seed only works because we know what we planted, we’ve been thoughtful about what we want to grow. But so often in real life, we are standing around with our watering cans, pouring our attention onto things without thinking about what we are choosing to nourish, or neglect.
I don’t wake up every day and set an intention (and truth be told, I came to this practice late in my yoga journey and don’t set one every time I’m asked to on my mat!), but the more I mindfully stay with my attention the better I can be at directing it and noticing when I’m giving it away to something that isn’t serving my higher self. It’s a practice, after all.
Anyhow, my intention with this blog is for it to be a place where I can share some reflections with you and for it to be a little creative outlet for me as well. :) Hopefully you’ll find something that resonates and if it sparks something for you that you’d like to share, feel free to reach out!
With watering can in hand,
Hannah
