Video Summary:

The best intentions are lofty and ambitious. You’re asking for something that you've never allowed yourself to have or even to consider. It may be the relationship, true purpose, or spiritual community you've always dreamed of. You’ve stretched yourself to even say you want this thing.

These best intentions often have some karmic issues attached to them. When you consider allowing that much beauty into your life, you naturally bump into fears, self-worth issues, and limiting belief systems.

So we may need to build strength and accumulate awareness to cross over the threshold of our karmic issues so we can allow the thing we would like to unfold in our lives.

We build strength with spiritual practices such as meditation, inquiry, or whatever works for you. Anything that builds true strength. The spiritual strength that allows you to trust yourself at a deep level and cross over to allow this thing in your life and not push it away when it presents itself to you.

This spiritual dimension of strength is different from what our minds usually operate on. Our minds figure if it’s a relationship, what's the problem? I'm single, I'm ready. I'm just going to throw myself into this.

And while there are times for this, there may be things going on under the surface for which we don't quite have the necessary strength yet. So we hit walls and it can be frustrating as hell to see the thing, get a sense of it, experience a piece of it and only to have it fall apart.

At times I’ve thought, “Where'd it go? Why didn't it work out? I've completed my checklist. I did the marketing and research. I took care of this and yet there’s setback after setback. Damn it Spirit. I asked for an intention. I thought we were going to unfold this thing together. And still, nothing's happening.”

Well, nothing's happening as our mind sees it, but lots is happening under the surface in the spiritual dimension.

So these realities of our rational mind and the spiritual dimension can be very far apart. One example involves me using the I Ching as a way of divination. I ask it an inquiry question, and it provides an answer by directing me to one of the sixty-four hexagrams and their change lines.

I may ask a pragmatic question such as what about asking this person out? Or should I start a new sharing circle or teach a class? And the I Ching gives me this response back, such as “A man would like to proceed, but he’s lacking the requisite strength to cross the great water.”

To this, I often say, “I Ching, you speak in riddles. Just tell me, am I supposed to ask the woman out or not? Am I supposed to start the marketing campaign? Am I supposed to teach this class or not?

In actuality, the I Ching is answering my question, but it's reflecting what's going on at the spiritual level under the surface. I’ve heard similar counsel from enlightened teachers, psychics, and spirit guides.

The guidance we get is from the perspective of the spiritual dimension. It often involves this theme of building requisite strength. “It's not quite time yet. Deal with this first and build strength, and then it will be time.” Our minds may not understand, but in the background, we're building the requisite strength.

You also see this when you have resistance to something and hit a wall over and over again. Then one morning you wake up and say, “Oh, I just need to do this, this, and this, it’s done.” We may wonder, “Why didn't I do that two weeks ago when I was struggling? I had all this resistance and kept procrastinating.”

Well, it wasn't time yet. You didn't have the requisite strength to do it two weeks ago. You needed to build strength. Then when you accumulated enough strength and awareness, it was a piece of cake.

So if you have a lofty intention just realize that you may be building the strength and awareness that you're going to need to cross the threshold of your resistance and hold the thing when it comes.

It requires a lot of patience and trust in Spirit. It's trusting that since you offered this intention, Sprit accepted it, and you're unfolding it together, it's going to come.

Just keep building strength and momentum. Don't let it dissipate.