What Does It Mean to Live With Intention?

Weytk. Welcome.

I am Cheryl Matthew, a Secwépemc author, educator, storyteller, researcher, and land steward.

My work moves between scholarship and ceremony, ancestral memory and contemporary life, policy and personal healing.

This is where intentional living begins.

Not in a perfect morning routine.

Not in an immaculate calendar.

Not in the pressure to become a better, faster, more productive version of yourself.

Intentional living begins with awareness.

It begins with noticing how we are moving through the world, what we are carrying, what we are choosing, and what our choices are creating in relationship with ourselves, one another, the land, and spirit.

Intention is a way of paying attention

Many of us move through our days responding to demands.

The alarm rings.

The phone fills with messages.

Work requires our energy.

Family, community, and responsibility call us forward.

By evening, we may realize that we have completed many tasks without feeling fully present for our own lives.

Intentional living offers another possibility.

It invites us to pause long enough to notice the direction of our lives.

What are we giving our attention to?

What values are shaping our choices?

What relationships are asking for care?

What have we accepted as normal that no longer supports our well-being?

Awareness does not require judgment.

It is not a demand to criticize every habit or correct every mistake.

Awareness is a form of relationship.

It is the willingness to see clearly.

From there, we can begin to choose with greater care.

Intention is not perfection

Perfectionism often disguises itself as discipline.

It tells us that if we organize everything correctly, follow every practice consistently, and avoid every mistake, we will finally feel safe, worthy, or complete.

Intentional living does not ask this of us.

We are human.

Our capacity changes.

Our responsibilities change.

Our bodies, families, communities, and seasons ask different things of us at different times.

There will be days when our intention is to complete a difficult task.

There will be days when our intention is to rest.

There will be days when our intention is to apologize, listen, ask for help, or begin again.

The value is not in performing intention perfectly.

The value is in returning to awareness.

Returning to relationship.

Returning to what matters.

An intentional life is not a flawless life.

It is a life in which we remain willing to notice, learn, adjust, and continue.

Intention is more than productivity

Productivity measures output.

Intention asks about meaning.

A productive day may involve answering emails, meeting deadlines, completing errands, and moving through a long list of responsibilities.

Those things may be necessary.

They are not the whole of a meaningful life.

We can accomplish a great deal while becoming disconnected from ourselves.

We can build a successful career while neglecting our health, relationships, and spirit.

We can fill every hour and still feel that something essential is missing.

Intentional living asks us to consider not only what we are doing, but how we are doing it and why.

Are we working from purpose or fear?

Are we saying yes from genuine commitment or from the need to be approved?

Are we pursuing a goal because it reflects our values or because we have inherited someone else’s definition of success?

These questions are not meant to create shame.

They help us distinguish movement from direction.

Being busy is not the same as being aligned.

Intention begins with choice

Every day contains choices, both visible and subtle.

We choose where our attention goes.

We choose how we speak to ourselves.

We choose whether we will listen before responding.

We choose what we consume, what we support, what we make space for, and what we are willing to release.

Not every circumstance is within our control.

This matters.

Intentional living does not blame people for hardship, trauma, oppression, illness, or conditions they did not create.

It does not suggest that a positive attitude can solve structural injustice or erase lived pain.

Instead, it asks us to become conscious of the places where choice is available.

Sometimes the choice is large.

Sometimes it is one breath before a difficult conversation.

Sometimes it is a boundary.

Sometimes it is a walk outside.

Sometimes it is telling the truth about what we need.

Reflective questions can help:

• What choice would bring me closer to the person I am becoming?
• What am I ready to approach with honesty?
• Where can I replace automatic reaction with a moment of awareness?
• What value do I want my next action to express?

An affirmative inquiry does not demand an immediate answer.

It opens a door.

Intention is relationship

We do not live in isolation.

Our choices move through families, communities, workplaces, watersheds, and generations.

To live with intention is to recognize that our well-being is connected to the well-being of others.

This begins with our relationship with ourselves.

Can we listen to our bodies without treating them as obstacles?

Can we acknowledge our emotions without allowing them to define our entire identity?

Can we hold our histories with compassion while remaining responsible for how we move forward?

Intention also shapes our relationships with others.

It may look like giving someone our full attention instead of preparing our response.

It may look like repairing harm.

It may look like learning when to speak and when to make room.

It may look like offering support without taking over another person’s journey.

Relationship includes accountability.

It includes reciprocity.

It includes the understanding that connection is not only something we receive.

It is something we tend.

Intention can make ordinary moments meaningful

Ceremony is sometimes imagined as something reserved for a special place, a formal gathering, or a significant life event.

Yet ceremony can also remind us how to meet ordinary moments with awareness and respect.

The way we greet the morning can carry intention.

The way we prepare food can carry intention.

The way we enter a conversation, step onto the land, care for a child, or close the day can carry intention.

This does not mean turning every action into a performance.

It means remembering that our lives are made from repeated moments.

As I write in Everyday Intentions:

“Life Is Ceremony. Ceremony is not an event we attend; it is a path we walk with awareness.”

Everyday Intentions, Page 158

Ceremony, in this sense, is not about creating an aesthetic.

It is about cultivating respect.

It is about gratitude, responsibility, presence, and reciprocity.

It is about remembering that how we live is part of what we teach.

Intention supports integration

Many people learn to divide themselves into separate parts.

There is the professional self.

The family self.

The spiritual self.

The public self.

The private self.

Sometimes this separation helps us navigate different responsibilities.

But healing often asks us to bring our lives into greater relationship.

Integration does not mean revealing everything to everyone.

It does not mean abandoning privacy or boundaries.

It means becoming more honest about what guides us.

When our values are present in our decisions, relationships, work, and rest, we experience a deeper sense of coherence.

The Medicine Wheel offers a visual reminder of this connectedness.

The directions and dimensions invite reflection on the spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional aspects of life, as well as the centre where balance, harmony, and connection gather.

The centre is not a demand to remain perfectly balanced at all times.

It can be a place to return to.

A place to ask:

• What part of my life is asking for attention?
• What has been separated that may need to be brought into relationship?
• What support would help me move toward greater harmony?
• What does balance mean in this season of my life?

Integration is not instant.

It is a continuing practice of listening and responding.

Intention carries responsibility

To live intentionally is to understand that our choices have consequences.

This responsibility can be personal.

We may need to care for our health, protect our energy, seek support, or create boundaries that make sustainable living possible.

It can also be relational.

We may need to acknowledge how our actions affect family, community, and the people who come after us.

It can be ecological.

We may consider how we use resources, how we treat the land, and whether our daily choices express care or extraction.

Responsibility is not punishment.

It is a form of belonging.

When we understand ourselves as part of a larger circle of life, responsibility becomes a way of honouring relationship.

We do not need to change everything at once.

We can begin by becoming more conscious of one decision.

Then another.

Then another.

Small choices become patterns.

Patterns become ways of living.

Intention reconnects us with land and spirit

The land is not simply a backdrop for our lives.

It is teacher, relative, history, and living relationship.

Connection to land may begin with learning where we are.

It may involve listening to local teachings, noticing seasonal changes, walking with gratitude, caring for a place, or becoming more aware of the systems that sustain us.

Connection to spirit may take different forms for different people.

It may be expressed through prayer, ceremony, ancestral connection, silence, dreams, service, or time spent listening beyond the demands of the immediate moment.

Intentional living does not require everyone to follow the same spiritual practice.

It asks us to consider what we hold as sacred and whether our actions honour it.

The question is not whether we can escape ordinary life.

The question is whether we can meet ordinary life with deeper awareness.

A path we walk together

Intentional living is not a solitary project of self-improvement.

It is a relational path.

We learn through family, community, Elders, teachers, land, experience, and the courage to remain open.

We will lose our way.

We will act from old patterns.

We will become distracted, overwhelmed, or uncertain.

This does not mean intention has failed.

It means we have another opportunity to return.

Awareness.

Choice.

Relationship.

Ceremony.

Integration.

Responsibility.

Connection.

These are not rigid steps.

They are invitations.

They help us ask better questions about the lives we are creating and the relationships we are responsible for tending.

Everyday Intentions: Indigenous Wisdom for Healing, Integration and Intentional Living is Available Now.

The book brings together Indigenous teachings, ceremonial wisdom, reflective practice, and The Heart Resonance Framework as an invitation to move from awareness toward understanding, release, transformation, and integration.

Learn more about Everyday Intentions.

You can buy the book worldwide through participating retailers, find it on Amazon, or join The Wolf Star Press newsletter for new books, reading guides, free downloads, and upcoming offerings.

Begin where you are.

Notice what is here.

Choose one meaningful step.

Walk it with awareness.