S01/E09: “I Am Intention” – What Directs My Energy, Forms My Life

Introduction

Welcome back to the Martfotai podcast.

In our last episode, we returned to the centre of it all: attention. We saw that attention is more than focus. It’s the very force that feeds identity, shapes perception, and decides which parts of us come alive.

We explored what happens when attention is scattered or stolen, when it’s drawn by noise or distraction. And we rediscovered the power of directed attention – attention that is chosen, placed, and sustained.

Yet attention alone cannot guide you.

Something must determine where attention lands. Something must give it purpose. That something is intention.

This episode is about that force – the one that directs your energy, governs your movements, and gives shape to the life you are forming.

When intention is absent, identity takes the lead. Your scattered selves compete for control. You chase moments, avoid discomfort, and act without coherence.

When intention is present, something higher begins to steer. Not preference. Not planning. A solid and continuous orientation. The inner compass that knows where to point, even when you do not yet know why.

Let’s walk with that now.

Section 2 – What Intention Is (And What It Isn’t)

Intention is not a wish. It is not the same as desire, planning, or even commitment. Those come from parts of you. Intention does not.

Real intention comes from something deeper. It is not stirred by hope or shaped by resistance. It is not reactive. It does not seek to control. It does not arise from fear or urgency. It does not push forward to get something, nor pull away to avoid something else.

It is direction. Without striving. Without struggle.

If attention is the beam that lights your way, intention is the hand that points the torch. It chooses. Not emotionally. Not intellectually. It chooses with certainty, but without tension.

You may not even know where it came from.

Have you ever changed your course, not because you thought through every angle, but because something in you shifted, deeply, and wholly? A path was taken, a conversation was entered, or a silence was kept, not from analysis but from an unmistakable clarity that needed no argument.

That was intention.

True intention is not always loud. It often appears as an inherent knowing.

It is not a voice or a command. It is a movement.

It arises from within and directs everything without needing to explain itself. And when it moves, you move with it. Naturally. Without doubt.

This is not the same as personal drive. Drive comes from personality, from past victories or imagined futures. Drive exhausts. Intention steadies. Drive says, “I want to get there.” Intention says, “This is where I stand, and where I face.”

You will know the difference by how it feels in the body. Intention does not tighten. It clarifies. It does not surge. It deepens. It does not burn quickly. It holds.

The moment you start to measure your intention by how much willpower you feel, you are already leaning away from it.

Intention has force, but no tension.

It is not about trying harder. It is about aligning more deeply.

And that means most of what people call “intention” is something else entirely. It is usually a thought wrapped in emotion, trying to pass as clarity. But real clarity has no disguise. It does not need one. When intention is present, there is no argument within.

You just begin.

Section 3 – What You Refuse to Do

Intention begins with subtraction.

Don’t add another aim.
Don’t stack more effort on top.
Simply remove what no longer serves.

To do anything real, you must not do many things that you did before.

This is where most people falter.
They try to move forward while dragging the past.
They chase clarity while feeding noise.
They want to be whole without releasing what fragments them.

But real intention cannot share the stage.

Each time you say yes to a passing impulse, you hand the wheel to another self.
Each time you follow the itch of habit, you drift from your direction.

The ability to stop oneself is a vital step toward developing a more conscious and intentional way of living.

So, intention does not start with doing.
It starts with refusing.

Refusing to be pulled by urgency.
Refusing to believe every voice in your head.
Refusing to follow the shape of yesterday.

This is the first act of will.

It may look like silence.
It may feel like inaction.
But it is the beginning of presence.

It is like pruning a tree.
You don’t hate the branch.
You don’t blame it for growing.
You simply recognise that its direction blocks the light.
And so, you cut.

In the Work, this is called inhibition.
Not suppression, but clarity.
A conscious refusal to let false aims take root.

This is what makes space for intention:
allowing the real to rise in the stillness that remains when noise subsides.

You don’t need to fix the moment; you just have to stop feeding what’s not real.

When you stop feeding reaction, something else is felt.
A stillness behind the movement.
A sense of direction that does not shout.
It orients.
It waits.
And when the moment comes, it moves with purpose.

You begin to realise:
Clarity was not hidden.
It was drowned out.

And when you stop adding noise,
intention speaks.

Section 4 – Intention as Identity

You are what you serve.

This is not philosophy. It is law.

Where your attention goes, your life is shaped.
And what directs that attention becomes your identity.

If you serve distraction, you become scattered.
If you serve approval, you become a reflection of others.
If you serve fear, you take its form.
If you serve clarity, clarity becomes your being.

Intention is what determines the shape you take.

It decides which parts of you stay alive.
And which parts dissolve from lack of nourishment.

That is why presence alone is not enough.
Presence can witness.
But it cannot choose.

Intention is what chooses.

It selects the path.
It discards the noise.
It gives presence direction.

This is how identity begins to shift.
You no longer live as reaction.
You begin to live as response.

You begin to live as response, moved by inner allegiance, untouched by any passing noise.

Before you act, you check.
Where is this coming from?

Is this a voice I trust?
Or a reflex I’ve never questioned?

Is this clarity speaking?
Or compulsion in disguise?

That question is the threshold.

Most people never cross it.
They act because the moment demands it.
They speak because the emotion rises.
They obey the strongest impulse and call it “me.”

But the Work begins when you pause.
Not to hesitate.
But to see.

When you ask, “What am I serving right now?”
you step out of identification
and into authorship.

You are no longer a passenger.
You become a witness who can choose.

And in that choice, a new identity is born.
Not the identity of memory.
Not the identity of history.
But the identity of direction.

Intention does not need validation.
It does not need to be loud.
It simply aligns what you already are.

So, the real question is no longer:
“Who am I?”

It is:
“What am I serving right now?”

Because whatever you serve in this moment,
that is who you become.

Section 5 – Shared Intention, Shared Alignment

Intention, when held alone, can waver. It lacks echo. Like a single voice in an empty room, it speaks, but to what?

When two people hold the same inner direction, something amplifies. The field in which intention moves expands and deepens.

You may have felt this: sitting with someone who is also choosing presence over performance. Who is also refusing the pull of distraction. Who is also listening for what matters beneath the noise.

In that shared stillness, your own aim clarifies. Their sincerity reflects your own back to you, creating a mirror of conscious choice.

This transcends group therapy or emotional bonding. It becomes the recognition of a common discipline. Two people, each working to stay conscious, each refusing to drift.

The effect is immediate and unmistakable. The room settles. The air thickens with presence. What was once a private struggle becomes a shared strength.

Intention, like attention, has a magnetic quality. When one person chooses clarity, it creates space for others to choose it too. When one refuses to react, it reminds others that reaction is optional.

This is how real groups form. Around the shared commitment to remain integrated, whole and present, rather than around beliefs or causes.

Each person becomes a reminder to the others: “This is what it looks like to choose.” “This is what it feels like to stay.” “This is how presence moves in the world.”

In that mutual witnessing, something deeper can emerge. Consciousness recognises itself through the simple fact of shared awareness.

Section 6 – The Whisper Behind All Practice

Intention does not always arrive with clarity.
Sometimes it arrives as a whisper.

Not a plan.
Not a conviction.
Just a subtle sense:
“This is not the way.”

You may be about to speak, and feel it pull back.
You may be rising in anger and feel something soften.
You may be reaching for distraction and feel your hand pause.

It is not louder than your thoughts.
It does not argue.
It simply appears, consistently, beneath all of it.

This is the foundation of all real practice.
Not effort.
Contact.

You do not need to invent the aim.
You need to listen for it.

The body already knows.
The breath already knows.
The heart already knows.

But you must be still enough to hear.

This is not about silence in the world.
It is about silence in you.

Can you stop feeding the story?
Can you let the reaction pass through?
Can you feel what remains underneath?

In that space, something speaks.
Without words.

It does not say what to do.
It says what not to become.

You begin to notice:
the moment you move from clarity into performance.
the moment you lose contact and fill it with noise.
the moment you reach for something because presence slipped.

This is not self-blame.
It is self-sensing.

And it restores the thread.

Because intention is not in the outcome.
It is in the return.

Every breath is a gate.
Every pause is a chance.
To re-align.
To re-enter.
To remember.

This whisper was always there.
Even in forgetting.

It is the raw truth behind every real act.
The thread that never breaks.

Let it surface.
Let it guide.
It doesn’t shout. It stays.

Section 7 – Listening, Anchoring, and Remembering

Intention is not always felt in the mind.
Often, it arrives through the body.
Before the thought appears, something tightens. Something loosens. Something shifts.
Truth doesn’t speak through logic. It speaks through sensation.

It’s a quickening of breath.
A palpable drop in the gut.
A sense of rightness that contradicts preference or fear.

The Work begins here.
Because before you can hold intention, you must sense it.
And sensing does not come from analysis.
It comes from inhabiting the body.

Begin noticing:
• When your shoulders rise before you answer
• When your chest constricts when unseen
• When your hands fidget as presence fades

These are not problems.
They are signals.
Messages from a deeper knowing.

When you ignore them, you drift.
When you listen, you return.

So, we practice receiving the signal, not overriding it.
Seeing through the reaction, not fighting it.

We call this the Intention Checkpoint.
It begins whenever something stirs:
A flash of irritation.
A surge of wanting.
A moment of discomfort.

You pause.
Feeling, not freezing.

And then you ask:
“Is this identity reacting, or intention directing?”

Do not seek an immediate answer.
Let the question echo.
Let it reach beyond the surface.

Is this movement coming from fear?
From the need to be right?
From the urge to escape?

Or is it moved by something steadier?
Something not chasing approval, not avoiding friction.

If it leads you toward noise, pause.
If it carries you toward coherence, proceed.

Let breath steady you.
Let sensation ground you.
Let sound call you back.

This is not about correcting yourself.
It is about recognising who is acting.

You are not stepping out of life.
You are stepping into its centre.

You observe – to see what is really there, not just what appears.

You wait – because direction needs space to reveal itself.

And when the moment is ready, you move in alignment with what matters.

This is the pulse of real intention.

Each time you face friction and stay grounded, each time an old pull returns and you don’t follow, each time you remain until clarity comes, the thread grows stronger.

Coherence forms through constancy. Through standing faithfully in what is true, rather than effort or control.

Over time, something extraordinary begins to take shape: You no longer force intention. You return to it. You no longer seek strength. You begin to rest in simplicity.

It doesn’t race. It doesn’t react. It remains.

Like the unmoving centre of a turning wheel, it holds still, yet carries the whole.

This is why intention is the spine of all inner Work. It coheres rather than commands. It gives you form rather than control.

And from that form, something real can live.

A moment of practice:

You hear something that stirs you. Perhaps someone you love is suffering. The urge to react surges, to fix, to rescue, to find the right words. Your whole system mobilises for action.

Here is your opportunity.

Instead of moving immediately, ask yourself: “What would it mean if I did NOT do this?” “What would it mean if I just listened, felt this inner discomfort, if I simply remained present?”

This feels counterintuitive. Everything in you wants to act, to help, to solve.

But stay. Feel the discomfort of inaction. Let the urge move through you without obeying it.

In that staying, you discover something: the difference between reacting from your need to help and responding from genuine service.

If what you thought was intention disappears the moment discomfort arises, then it was never intention. It was preference mistaken for purpose. True intention stays, especially when it costs you comfort.

The test of intention is whether it remains when everything pulls you away, when the urge to react is strongest.

The body remembers what the mind forgets. Let it lead you home.

Section 8: The Moment Between Impulse and Intention

There is a space.

You feel the reaction rising. The face tightens. A thought surges. The body leans forward, ready to act. Your whole system has already started down a familiar track.

But something in you hesitates.

This isn’t hesitation born of fear or collapse.

It’s the quiet emergence of a deeper current, one that moves away from noise and into stillness.

This is the moment intention is born.

It doesn’t feel heroic. It doesn’t even feel strong. Sometimes it feels like a pause that might be missed. But in that pause, a question arises:

“What is my aim here?”

And if that question lands before movement, a different future becomes possible.

Because without an aim, we are genuinely aimless. If we do not consciously direct our lives, it will be directed for us, mechanically, and programmed by the past,

Most lives are spent reacting to what appears. The ‘I’ that got offended speaks. The ‘I’ that seeks validation explains. The ‘I’ that is used to being heard interrupts. And so, the cycle continues, self-perpetuating, self-repeating.

But the one who intends does not move from impulse.

The one who intends listens.

You can begin to recognise this space by sensation. A breath held. A shift in posture. A widening of the back. The body registers friction. You feel the pull to move in a mechanical way, but you don’t.

You stay.

In that staying, something else gathers. Not immediately, and not always gracefully. But the longer you remain with that tension, the more substance begins to accumulate. Will forms. And then, when you finally speak, act, or walk away, you do so from alignment and impartiality.

Not from story. Not from reactivity. But from coherence.

This is not always easy to spot. The outer action might look the same. Silence in both cases. Speech in both cases. But one comes from compulsion. The other comes from choice.

Presence alone will not change your life.

But intention, held in presence, will.

This is what the ancient traditions called the true sword.

It is neither aggression nor restraint. It is the precise cut of conscious decision.

A movement that is not against anything, but fully for what is true.

You will feel the cost. You will see how much of your life has been moved by lesser parts. But you will also feel something else: the integrity of a moment that belongs entirely to you.

Not to your habits. Not to your past. But to you, as you are, right now.

Section 9: The Four Counterfeits of Intention

Real intention can be mistaken for many things. To stay on course, we must see what is false.

1. Wish is not intention. Wish says, “I hope I will.” Intention says, “I will.” Wishing requires no action, no friction, no presence. It dreams of change but does not change. Intention enters the field. It stands, acts, and commits.
2. Preference is not intention. Preference says, “I like this.” Intention says, “I choose this.” Preference moves toward comfort, away from friction. Intention often walks directly into difficulty, because that is where truth calls.
3. Emotion is not intention. Emotion rises fast, surges, then fades. It might feel like resolve, but it’s a wave, not a foundation. Intention holds its ground even when feeling disappears. It remains when enthusiasm dies. It acts when no one is watching.
4. Momentum is not intention. Momentum carries you. It’s inertia. You repeat the pattern, stay in the loop, and call it ‘flow.’ But flow without awareness is drift. Intention interrupts the pattern. It asks: is this the right direction?

These four: wish, preference, emotion, and momentum – will wear the costume of aim. But they will not hold when the storm comes. They scatter under pressure. They fall apart under resistance.

Only real intention remains.

You will know it by its silence. Its steadiness. Its refusal to need validation. You will feel it in the body, like something has aligned. You will see it in your actions: clean, clear, uncluttered by justification.

Every day, you are given this choice: drift, or direct.

Let intention be what gathers your being. Let it become the axis you return to. Let it make your life whole.

There is a reason wish was the first on the list. It is where it begins.

Attention connects us to something. Wish points toward it. But intention only forms when something begins to move.

Wish is not bad. It is simply incomplete. It is the seed. But a seed that never reaches into the soil will never become a tree.

Intention grows through a ladder of refinement:
Attention begins the movement.
Wish makes it magnetic.
Will makes it active.
Free will makes it your own.

These are not four names for the same thing.
They are steps of ascent. A passage from being pulled, to becoming directed.

Wish is the spark. It reaches, but it cannot act.
Will begins when motion enters friction.
When something in you says yes, and keeps saying yes, even when every condition says no.

But not all Will is free. Some Will is driven by fear, by need, by imitation. It is still reactive.

Free will begins only when the direction is yours.
When the aim is not given but chosen.
When you no longer serve the object, but the truth.

That is why attention must turn inward, to free itself from the pull of outer things, and reconnect with something chosen, not imposed.

The cigarette that smokes the man.
The hat that chooses the woman.

We are drawn by what captures us, but we are shaped by what we choose.

When attention serves wish, and wish feeds will, and will becomes free, then intention becomes stable.

And direction becomes real.

Conclusion

Intention is not a plan. It’s a presence with direction. Where your intention rests, your life takes shape. What you serve in each moment becomes what you are.

This is not philosophy. It’s physics.

If transformation is what you seek, begin with what you serve.

Withdraw energy from the impulse that shouts loudest. From the reaction that feels most justified. From the pattern that promises comfort but delivers drift. From the voice that mistakes urgency for importance.

And return to what matters. Now.

Intention isn’t effort. It’s alignment. The steady choice beneath the noise. The direction that remains when everything pulls you away.

The more you return to intention, the more intention returns to you.

Let each moment become a choice between drift and direction. Let your energy serve what is true, not what is familiar. That truth is not distant. It is the stillness that chooses.

If something in you aligned today, let it stay aligned. You can subscribe at martfotai.com for our weekly newsletter, guided practices, and eventual access to the premium extended series. A deeper guided version of today’s Intention Checkpoint practice will be released soon.

Next, we explore I Am the Observer – The One Who Watches Without Moving. If intention aligns you, observation holds you there. When you can witness without becoming what you witness, something unshakable begins to form.

Thank you for walking this path with me. Not toward somewhere else, but into the centre of what chooses.

I’m Gary Eggleton, and this is Martfotai. Until next time, stay with what serves truth. It never wavers.