How Best Do I Use Focused Intention?

Some research into the use of focused intention shows that it doesn’t matter what technique you use as long as your intention is clear and the technique feels right for you. If you believe in the technique, it has a better chance of working well for you. However, many other studies have revealed subtle characteristics beyond belief that appear to make directed intention more effective. Below we discuss some of these universal factors.

• Align your subconscious and conscious beliefs. If deep in your core you don’t really believe you can heal yourself, then you probably will not be able to, no matter how much time you spend using guided imagery or focusing on your body. We can easily fool ourselves, as the placebo effect shows. People who claim they don’t believe in energy healing can participate in a clinical trial, be given a placebo (a sugar pill, for example, or other substance with no known medicinal effect) and still experience relief or a cure. This suggests that at a subconscious level, they do in fact believe they can heal themselves. If they didn’t, the placebo effect wouldn’t-or couldn’t-happen. As Herman Koning, MD, says in the documentary The Living Matrix, “If you think you have an incurable disease, if you think it yourself, you are right. If you think your problem is curable, then you are also right. It all depends on your intention.” However, what Koning fails to remind us is that the subconscious belief must be alignment with the conscious one. Our bodies will not respond when our minds (subconscious and conscious) are working at cross purposes.

•  Quiet your conscious mind. Almost all attempts to influence physical reality start from a place of inner calm, where our thoughts, worries, expectations, and all the other aspects of “monkey mind” are released. A meditative state of mind appears to be ideal for directing our energy and intentions out into the world or for healing ourselves. When we experience inner calm by quieting the rush of our thoughts, we allow ourselves access to creative insight and intuitive knowing. Marilyn Mandala Schlitz, president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, talks about her own healing from a serious motorcycle accident. Doctors had told her they might have to amputate part of her leg. One day, she spontaneously “knew” that she should sit quietly and talk to her leg, asking her immune system to do what was best to heal her injury. The point we are making is that the intuitive voice comes from the subconscious, and we have to dampen the noise of our conscious mind in order to hear it.

• Be clear in your intention. The subconscious mind is linear in many ways. It follows your instructions to the letter and it is always operating in the “now.” Almost all metaphysicians and most noetic scientists counsel that before you expend energy intending anything, you become extremely clear about what that intention is. Their general counsel is to formulate a clear, simple and direct statement of intention. It is also best to word it in the present tense and in a positive, rather than a negative, way. So, instead of saying what you don’t want or focusing on the problem, say what you want to happen and focus on the solution. As an example, instead of saying, “Any cancer cells in my body are dying” you might say, “My immune system is strong and restores my body to vibrant health.”

• Access, feel and release emotions. Using focused intention in healing is not a clinical affair. It can get messy emotionally. As we said earlier, changing belief programs is crucial; however, emotions are often the way we externalize our beliefs. So while sometimes we don’t have to understand the emotions that may underlie our illness or problem in order to use directed intention to change it, we usually do have to access and feel these emotions. Medical researchers are discovering that emotions are almost always a factor in influencing the development of a health problem or disease, and so “healing” the emotions is crucial to healing the disease. It can be challenging to root out the deep and often hidden emotional roots of disease, but reports of “miraculous” healings almost always include the patient’s sudden emotional epiphany, in which he or she uncovers and fully feels the emotions attached to the disease. This emotional revelation and release often starts that person on the road to recovery.

• Increase inner coherence and resonance. In other sections of this website, we talked about coherence and resonance and how important they are, especially in healing. (See the Theory of Healing Intentions and Energies section of the Healing tab of this site.) Meditation and similar calming processes help us become more “ordered” inside. With greater coherence comes the possibility of increased resonance. Resonance is when two separate systems begin to vibrate together, and this shared vibrational state increases communication between the two systems, so that they act as one single system. Quantum biologists are exploring the body for coherence and resonance, and they are finding it at all levels, from DNA and cells right up to brain-wave states. In addition, when two people resonant together, it appears that any healing energy directed from one to the other is stronger and more effective. One way to increase your inner coherence and resonance is through heart-based meditative techniques, such as those taught by the HeartMath organization. No doubt there are many other factors involved in using beliefs and focused intention to make changes in your life or your health. However, these are some of the core ones, and they provide a solid starting place for your own experimentation with using directed intention.

McTaggart, like many researchers, also suggests that you create a space in which you regularly undertake focused intention sessions, as the space in which you work can become imprinted with this energy and enhance its effects. (For more about how space can be imprinted with energy, see the section Healing Intentions II-Human in the Healing tab of this site.) Enter a quiet, meditative state or use a heart-centered meditation to let go of worries, expectations and judgments, enter a place of gratitude and appreciation, and stay focused in the present. Then make an energetic connection with the object of your intention, perhaps through your heart to increase inner coherence and to set up a resonance with it. Be clear in your intention statement and engage all of your senses as you focus your energy on your intention. McTaggart and others suggest that you visualize your intention and the outcome you desire in as much detail as possible, vividly engaging your emotions and senses. Then detach from the outcome, and, as McTaggart writes, “surrender to the power of the universe. . . .”