From Intending to In-Tending

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What if we shifted from intending to in-tending—right now?

Let’s play:

It’s great to have intention, right?

Intending sounds noble, innocent.

But underneath, what if it carries a quiet assumption:

“I am not where I want to be, so I need to get somewhere else.

This moment isn’t enough."

Something needs to improve, be fixed, or be escaped.”

And just like that, as we intend to be “over there”, we have leaned away from here.

Intending:
The mind protecting the body when we don’t yet feel safe enough to stay here.

When the body doesn’t feel safe to feel, the mind creates intention.

Intending is the desire to be somewhere other than where we are right now.

Its implications are subtle but powerful:

• a constant orientation toward the future (or the past)

• a sense of urgency

• a low-grade tension in the system

• the feeling that life hasn’t quite started yet

The blind spot is this: We think we are not here yet.

But what’s actually happening is that we’re identified with thinking.

Thought projects us forward or backward in time.

A sense of need is created.

And tension follows.

At the same time, something else is happening beneath the surface.

Our body is tight.

Our breath is forced or shallow.

Within us lives a tension from the past that wants to move—

suppressed emotion, frozen energy, held in place to protect us from a perceived threat.

This inner tension is not a problem to be solved.

It is an unfinished movement asking for presence.

Yet we don’t notice it—

because our attention is pointed elsewhere.

Instead of feeling what is here now,

we are busy intending to be somewhere else.

So the cycle continues:

Inner tension seeks resolution.

Stress in the body wants to complete its natural cycle.

The mind tries to escape it—

by suppressing sensation, tightening the breath,

and moving attention away from the body.

More thinking is generated.

Energy has to move somehow,

so it reorganizes itself as a mental reality.

More tension follows.

We begin living reactively inside past-and-future stories,

carrying a sense of urgency,

needing to be somewhere else.

And without noticing,

we keep trying to solve

what actually wants to be felt.

This moment then becomes something to get through, to overcome, to win over,

instead of something to meet.

What if the truth is quieter—and simpler:

We don’t actually want to be somewhere else.

We are longing to come back

to our inner reality in this moment.

So intentions, goals, aims, needs,

shoulds, musts, and strategies

often function as proxies—

temporary replacements for the felt experience

of being ourselves.

They are not wrong.

They are attempts to find relief

without having to stay.

Yet even here—

especially here—

there is an invitation.

In-tending:
turning the tension and need of this moment into an invitation to come back to ourselves.

In-tending is not the opposite of intention.

It’s a different orientation altogether.

In-tending begins when we no longer need thought to protect us from feeling—

and discover that what we were avoiding is simply asking to be met.

Every moment is an expression of love or a call for love.

In-tending is hearing the call for love instead of seeing a problem.

In-tending means:

• remembering to be with what is already being experienced within

• turning attention inward with honesty and care

• tending to what is here now, instead of trying to get rid of it

In-tending is a soft turning inward.

A willingness to stay.

It asks:

What is alive here, right now?
And can I meet it without needing it to change?

This includes tension.

Especially tension.

Rather than trying to resolve what we feel,

what hurts,

what’s uncomfortable —

we soften around it.

We include it.

We allow it to be felt.

Whatever is here now—

anger, rage, sadness, disappointment, fear,

a fast heart, pain, restlessness—

we tend to it by allowing it to be

just as it is.

And when a need arises

to understand why,

to fix,

or to be free—

we allow that to be here too.

Nothing is excluded.

Instead of

“you make me angry,”

or “this shouldn’t be happening,”

or “I need this to stop,”

we notice what is actually here:

Anger is present.

Sadness is present.

Fear is present.

No blame.

No dilemma.

No one to fix or fight.

We include it all.

This is real courage—

not the courage to push through, strive harder, or hold it together,

but the courage to meet what is here

without closing the heart.

To stay open

when it would be easier to contract.

To feel

instead of defend.

The heart knows the way.

We simply choose love.

This is not passive.

It is intimate.

Not the courage to overcome life,

but the courage to meet this moment wholeheartedly.

Real strength comes from within.

You could say this is where healing begins—

through letting be, letting come, letting go.

More about that in another blogberg post.

What unfolds when we in-tend

When we in-tend, something shifts naturally.

Not because we force it,

but because we stop fighting what is.

Tension loosens.

The body comes back online.

We land in presence—embodied, fluid, alive.

From here:

• direction is not manufactured, it is discovered

• action arises instead of being planned

• life feels less like something to manage, and more like something to ride, to play, to dance, to surf

We stop trying to create the perfect map.

We stop obsessing about whether we’re following it correctly.

And we let life lead.

A brief invitation

What if you already know exactly how to meet this moment—

if you would just stop trying to get somewhere else?

So, perhaps, pause for a breath.

Without fixing anything,

without improving the experience,

without solving a problem—

what is here now, when there is no problem to solve?

Just notice.

Not to get anywhere.

Not to understand.

To meet this moment

as it is

and discover that it has always been enough.

The sweet spot

There’s a subtle balance playing out in every moment:

• Too comfortable, and we don’t notice much.

• Too triggered, and we disappear into reactivity.

• Just enough, and the heart wakes up.

In-tending lives in that sweet spot—

where we’re alive enough to feel,

and safe enough to stay.

This is where mind and body are drawn together by the heart.

A gentle remembering

The way out is in.

What we’re seeking now is already here now.

Inside ourselves, not “out there.”

The way there is here.

The doorway to what we’re yearning for is this very moment.

You are enough.

You are whole.

You are safe.

No external answers for internal questions.

No faster car, better highway, or perfected plan.

Not even teleportation.

Just this.

Met fully.

Tended gently.

That’s in-tending.

And from here, life knows what to do.

At this point, a very reasonable voice may arise:

“But I do have a problem.

So how do I solve it if I don’t do something about it?”

This question isn’t wrong.

It’s simply the mind hearing this from another perspective—

another version of intending quietly playing out.

We’re not trying to stop intending.

We’re choosing to in-tend instead.

Rather than predicting, controlling, or strategizing our way forward,

we can open to the totality of our innate intelligence—

the intelligence of body, heart, and awareness—

already here.

This does not mean:
“I’m not allowed to intend or set goals.”

It means:

“I trust life—and my capacity to meet this moment now.

And I trust that the most appropriate action arises from here.”

The shift is not primarily about what we do.

It’s about where we do it from.

• Action from thinking when it is in the lead is egoic: control, winning, fixing, defending.

• Action from presence is aligned: peace, clarity, wisdom, compassion.

From reacting to responding.

From stress to ease.

From intending to in-tending.

So—

when is now a good time to start?

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