Intention is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot these days. What is my intention? What is my purpose when it comes to my art making and my process. I often stop to think about the why of what I am creating. With social media guiding the intentions of so many these days, I was thinking about how easy it is to lose our true intentions. Sometimes, I feel my creativity being stunted by all of the visual information that I am consuming just from one fell swoop on the gram. I see and compare my progress to those who share my craft and consider the many reasons why I’m not keeping up with this pace or production for that matter.
Recently, I’ve begun taking pauses from social media in order to detox and regain my creativity and human insight. This social media detoxing has greatly improved my inner connectedness and overall sense of balance. I’ve started to feel more attuned to my natural instincts. I started to realize that this social media fixation can form an unhealthy and dehumanizing attachment. Letting go of this attachment means letting go of attachments that never really served a purpose. I started to recall times when I wouldn’t feel the need to post something or just share something I was doing. I found solace in the mindfulness of those moments without any unnecessary need to let others into this sacred space.
Not all of my creative imbalances or feelings of disconnected intentions stem from social media. I am by no means condemming the use of social media platforms, as I actually appreciate the community of creators that I have had the privilege of connecting with. It is also a great asset to my small business in so many ways. I think it just helps to dilineate between intention and attention at times.
The other day as I was earthing and meandering on my barefoot hike, I began to think about the idea of time. I decided to take a different trail and also decided not to look at the time and be consumed by things that I felt I needed to do that day. I let myself be present within the sacred space with which I was walking. The philosophy that time is not linear came to mind. I made the correlation of this non linear time to our own unique journey. I wrote down the phrase “Time is not linear, and neither is our journey” into the notes app on my phone. This is something I tend to do when I suddently have an idea or thought, so as not to forget it.
How does this relate to the disconnectedness and loss of sacred space? Well, we may set intentions on our journey, but may not always be aware of the things that our guiding us away from our path. If we go “off trail” sometimes we can either be distracted or become more centered and focused on that which we have been neglecting. We are allowed to get lost. We are allowed to lose ourselves. We are allowed to go “off trail”, as long as we are able to find our way back and sustain our intentions by discovering or returning to our authentic purpose.
