Release the Distractions, Receive the Intentions
Intention. By definition, it is an “aim” or a “plan.” But how often do you start your day with the best intentions, only to push those plans aside because someone or something has distracted you?
For us moms, it happens often and easily. A seemingly simple intention like taking a good shower – you know, the kind where you wash your hair and shave your legs – is thwarted by blood-curdling screams of littles who decide your moment of watery solace is the perfect opportunity to scale the pantry or bust into the child-locked kitchen drawer with the sharp knives. Suddenly, the sweet little dream of deep-conditioning your hair is but a fleeting thought.
Whether in the trenches of raising toddlers or just living life in general, distractions take us away from our little goals, and over time, lead us to lose focus on the bigger ones.
But what’s happening inside our bodies and brains when distraction is a constant in our lives? We may begin to live in a chronic fight-or-flight state. Stress hormones are activated and elevated. You feel incessantly under attack. You feel stuck, unable to move forward.
This may seem like a dramatic description, but it may also be more accurate than we realize. We train ourselves to accept distraction and the stress it causes as part of life, even, in some cases, essential to success. But is it really serving you, or is it holding you back from stepping into your full, soul-led purpose?
When I look back at my journey thus far into motherhood, I see my own patterns of allowing stress and distraction to get in the way of my intentions. In some ways, it became a comfortable habit. Instead of allowing myself to dream about the future, it was much easier to live in the reactionary state of reality … responding and reacting.
Comfort the baby’s cries. Wipe the tears. Change the diapers. Pick up the toys. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that there is a short-term satisfaction with such tasks. As if I’d began to train myself that the instant gratification was, or at least should be, enough. I’d find myself longing for more, but afraid to leave the comfort zone of distraction to really put energy into setting purposeful, powerful intentions.
But one day, something clicked. I visited a friend of mine with little kids the same age. Amid motherhood, she was building a business and working toward a vision of creating a beautiful life for her family on their small farm.
I noticed her attitude, her drive. I envied it. I admired it. I began to question … what is it I’ve spent the past few years working toward? The truth was, I was so engrained in living day-by-day, I hadn’t permitted myself to dream about the future. I had no clear vision of what I was even working toward.
When I left her quaint little Midwest farm that day, the long, winding road back home was the beginning of my journey to change. To change my mindset. To challenge thought patterns. To permit myself to dream and envision the future I really wanted
.But before I could actively begin setting intentions, I needed to address the distraction: the stress I had become attached to, almost addicted to. The same stress that was keeping me stuck and blocking me from moving forward. I began trading my stressed state of mind for prayer, meditation, journaling and releasing. And, over time, as I began to let it go, little by little, my vision started to get more clear. And with clarity, intentions followed.
I can still feel my brain try to pull me back to that distracted, stressed state, but now I can recognize it and call it out, knowing that I no longer need to be attached to it.
Here are three little thoughts that help me release distraction and receive intention:
You can’t be stressed and grateful at the same time. It’s true. Our brains chemically cannot be in a place of stress and gratitude simultaneously. So that means we have a choice, even when our limiting beliefs want to tell us otherwise. That’s why we are told to “practice” gratitude. It takes repetition, every single day, to train ourselves to connect with gratitude over stress. And eventually, we begin to believe what we tell ourselves.
Cheer yourself on. Negative self-talk is so much more powerful than positive self-talk. That’s why me must fight as if our lives depend on it to fill our minds with hope and encouragement. Affirmations are our armor. Whether it’s a Bible verse, an “I am” statement or a sassy quote, we must bolster our minds with belief in our own true potential.
Celebrate the efforts that lead to the outcome. A long-term goal requires several steps along the way. When we don’t arrive at our endpoint as quickly as we believe we should, it’s easy to lose heart. I’ve learned I must celebrate the small efforts in some way. Writing them down. Telling a friend. Literally doing a little happy dance (that totally felt awkward at first, but Ashley Maas’s dance moves provide incredible inspiration).
My hope in sharing these thoughts and my own experience in releasing distraction and receiving intention is that some other woman out there will be empowered to make one little change.
To permit herself to dream. To practice gratitude. To question her beliefs about herself for the very first time. And I hope she celebrates that effort with her own personal dance party.
xo, Peggy
Peggy is the owner of P’ri CBD in De Pere, Wisconsin. She farms and cultivates hemp with her family (5th generation farmers). Her mission is to promote health, hope and healing with their homegrown hemp. Find more information about their mission and products here at P’ri CBD!