I conclude this 2 week series with an exercise that I found very meaningful during my EO retreat to Marble Falls a few weeks ago and that I thought I would pass along to you.  Carl Reynolds, our retreat planner (great job Carl!), put this exercise together so it does not come from Wayne Dyer’s book.  Intentionality is, believe it or not, a real word.  However, the philosophical construct behind it is quite difficult for the armchair philosopher in me to decode.  I welcome comments.  In this case, we are going to treat the word intentionality and intention the same.  My goal is simply to have you perform this exercise either in private or in this blog if you are so inclined.  I will publish my own answers below.  I hope you can skip my answers and come up with your own, then read my answers.  Here we go:

PART I

Intentionality:  ”When your dreams and your values are in alignment and your actions progress you towards your vision with constant purpose.”

Dreams:  In this exercise we are going to dream.  Take money out of the equation.  what would you do with your time?  Travel?  Volunteer?  Teach, consult, raise your kids yourself, etc.  Write down a list of those activities that you would do if you had the time…Dream big or as small as you want to…. (10 minutes)

-Teach plastic surgery

-Public speaking

-Write a lay press book

-Workout every day to get more fit

-Volunteer to mentor bright young minds

-Engage in more concerted spa retreats and continue with my personal growth

PART II

Values:  Now we are going to list our values.  Take a moment and write down at least 5 values that are core to you.  (5 minutes)

1.  Passion

2.  Integrity

3.  Work ethic/Rest- Balance

4.  Compassion/Love

5.  Happiness/Positivity

PART III

Filter:  List two of the dreams that make it through your value filter.  (2 minutes)

1.  Continue with my personal growth and achieve better balance in my life.

2.  Volunteer/mentor young minds

PART IV

At this point we now have two dreams that have made it through your filter.  Our next step is to be intentional in putting together an action plan that brings these important dreams to fruition.  But first, describe one or two times when you knew you were in alignment with your values and your purpose.  What pulled you away from that alignment?  What keeps you from getting back to that alignment?  Be specific.  (15 min.)

I felt that my staff has been in alignment with me in the past.  I felt that I was not as attuned to their needs this past year, which I have now changed.  I am part of multiple accountability groups that have weekly and monthly goals.  I fear not being the best leader that I can be.  I fear that I will not grow personally to my satisfaction.

PART V

Intentionality:  Create an action plan for one of the dreams that made it through the filter.  List at least 5 activities that will need to be scheduled so that you are intentionally working towards accomplishing that goal.  (15 min.)

1.  Schedule body rehabilitation time including monthly rolf sessions and weekly massage therapies.

2.  Dedicate one weekend day a month completely free of any thought toward work and make it entirely fun.

3.  Make sure that I have built in weekly yoga and spin classes, every single week unless I am out of town.

4.  Continue to work every week on creative ideas toward making effective blogs and hold myself accountable for what I write.

5.  To move away from constantly being near a computer every night but to be less anchored to my keyboard.  To respond to questions and thoughts no more than twice in a given night after leaving work.

I hope you enjoyed this exercise and can hold yourself accountable for your actions.  If you can’t, find someone who can.  Maybe we all can be cyber buddies to keep each other in alignment with our own intentions.

I had a case where a woman was a victim of domestic abuse, and I was planning to do her procedure to help her.  However, her story just did not make scientific sense.  I will spare you the details because I would like to keep things with full anonymity here.  I discussed this over with my staff and finally decided that I was going to do the case anyway for two reasons.  First, my first and foremost goal for LFP is to help people.  I don’t think I could live with myself if I made a false judgment and actually wound up not helping someone that I could have.  Second, I believe that when someone comes into my presence for the day that I will change their life.  I know that might sound arrogant to you but it is not coming from that.  I am dismissing my ego.  I am letting that go here.  I know that many people that I encounter in my practice need me and I need to be there for them.

As much as I can help someone do something, I can also help them to see that they don’t need something.  I had a lady who had a perceived physical defect of her lower face (we’ll keep it at that) and had spent a tremendous amount of money already trying to fix the problem.  When I saw her, I couldn’t even begin to fathom the problem that she had because I couldn’t see it.  I asked her, “Have you ever considered the option of NOT doing anything?”  She started to cry for several minutes, and I embraced her.  I felt all of her negative energy and perception start to leave her body.  Helping others in whatever shape or form can be a noble cause and be the ultimate cause for any life. It is a singular purpose for me.

That being said, do we have to live a life of self-abnegation then?  No, in fact, we must start with ourselves.  Dyer talks about first loving yourself and healing yourself before you can do that for those around you.  It is similar to the idea that I presented a few weeks ago from John Maxwell about “leading yourself” first before you can lead others.  You must first help yourself then help others.  Dyer talks about “self respect” which comes from a simple truism, “I love myself”.  This does not mean that we are focused on ego (on the contrary) but a perception of ourselves that is filled with an ideal image of ourselves.  I have tried to stop saying to people, “I’m not perfect” because it goes against our own creation and the perfect image that we should have in our own Creator’s eyes.  Instead I am perfect in the light of my own creation and thereby perfect in how I see myself.

When I work on my patients, they understand that I am not trying to make them a perfect human species but to offer them the objective of looking good outside that can reflect their own inner beauty. I think a patient from Arkansas said it best in a testimonial to me:

As the years have rolled by, the man in the mirror had seemed to age more rapidly and less gracefully than I had hoped. I still felt young, active and maybe a bit adventuresome, but the droopy eyes, wrinkles and hollow face did not reflect that. I earnestly wanted to look more like the mental image I had of myself.

One of my greatest concerns before my surgery was that I might be giving a wrong impression of being tired, inattentive or even bored while speaking with friends, family members or patients. (The sagging skin on my eyelids made me look like all of the above most days!) That really bothered me because I never wanted anyone to think I had a haughty attitude or what they had to say was unimportant to me.

With these issues I landed in your office, not at all sure that there was a solution for me that did not involve changing my identity or doing something really radical. I need not have worried. You seem to have understood my concerns better than I did. Your solution addressed all these needs better than I was able to express them.

I am honored to help my dear patients and those patients who are not yet mine to create a beautiful self image that reflects their own inner beauty.  My purpose in life is to help others through as many ways that I can:  plastic surgery, psychotherapy, empathy, listening, and simply put, extending my love to them.

Our entire world can be reflective of high or low energy states.  Certain types of food and alcohol in general can lead to low energy states.  The choice of music that we listen to can predispose us toward a high energy state or an angry, resentful low one.  The people we associate with can either raise your energy or lower it.  Holding a thought of forgiveness in your mind can help raise your energy.  Doing a charitable deed without telling someone can raise your energy.  Being kind to another individual can raise your energy.  Exerting hatred can easily lower it.

Dyer says that you will know how your energy state is when you see its impact on those around you.  Do you elevate or lower their energies?  Here are hopefully some of the effects that a high-energy person can deliver to those around him/her:

1.  Your presence instills calmness.

2.  Your presence leaves others feeling energized.

3.  Your presence allows others to feel better about themselves.

4.  Your presence allows others to feel unified and connected to one another, to nature, and to all humankind.

5.  Your presence instills a sense of purpose.

6.  Your presence allows others to trust in authentic personal connections with you and with others.

7.  Your presence inspires others to greatness.

8.  Your presence aligns others with beauty, i.e., you help others see beauty everywhere.

9.  Your presence instills health rather than sickness by radiating a healing energy.

In the effort to understand energy levels that have stretched across the bounds of our collective humanity, Dyer talks about research conducted for over 20 years by David Hawkins, M.D. in his book, Power vs. Force.  Hawkins argues that 87% of humanity calibrates toward a low energy state.  The higher up the ladder of energy, the fewer individuals exist in that sphere.  He argues that a select few spiritual leaders can lead to vibrations that energize multitudes of people and that can influence all of humankind.  The following comments are one of the most profound that I have encountered.  I am going to repeat what Dyer quotes of Hawkins’ research:

• One individual who lives and vibrates to the energy of optimism and a willingness to be nonjudgmental of others will counterbalance the negativity of 90,000 individuals who calibrate at the lower weakening levels.

•One individual who lives and vibrates to the energy of pure love and reverence for all of life will counterbalance the negativity of 750,000 individuals who calibrate at the lower weakening levels.

• One individual who lives and vibrates to the energy of illumination, bliss, and infinite peace will counterbalance the negativity of 10 million people who calibrate at the lower weakening levels (approximately 22 such sages are alive today).

•One individual who lives and vibrates to the energy of grace, pure spirit beyond the body, in a world of nonduality or complete oneness, will counterbalance the negativity of 70 million people who calibrate at the lower weakening levels (approximately 10 such sages are alive today).

I encourage and exhort all of you to climb with me toward higher and higher energy states so that we can influence scores of people around us to do the same!  Raise your energy today and make it as positive and radiating to every person you encounter that you can!  Remember that higher energy does not mean a nervous, caffeinated, active state.  It is in fact quite the opposite:  it is a calm presence that quietly radiates peace, love, kindness, strength, and hope to all.  The more that you work on yourself and get to that higher energy state, the more that your high energy state will shine like a beacon to all around you.  I believe my high energy state is felt by all who read this blog, and I can then facilitate my readers to affect the spirit of multitudes beyond them.

No Match:  I hate my spouse who always acts rudely to me.

Match:  I will see only love in my spouse and radiate that love to him or her.

No Match:  I am poor and need money badly.

Match:  I will attract abundance and be without want.

If our inner dialogue is filled with doubt, anger, despair, fear, we are holding onto a deep level of negativity that we need to let go so that we can be attuned to the universal condition of positive intention.  We must achieve a peaceful inner voice and one that attracts abundance, love, creativity, i.e., in short the 7 faces of intention talked about over the past 2 weeks.  

One way that Dyer talks about reaching a desirable inner voice is to meditate.  We can start with the affirmation, “I want to feel good” and say it as we slowly breathe in and out and with our eyes fully closed.  I have calmed nervous patients with a similar technique.  I had a gentleman who came from Michigan for a scar revision and a lip reduction last week who was flustered and nervous given the fact that he had bad permanent lip injections and repeated scar revisions that failed.  I don’t blame him.  I put my hands onto his forehead and slowly spoke the words, “You are okay.  I am right here.  I want you to slow your breathing down and start to focus on the present moment.”  I performed an exercise and asked where he wanted to be.  He said the Maldives so we went there for a few minutes.  When I came back into the room after the anesthetic had been fully in place, I asked him how he was doing.  By the tone of his voice, I could tell he was already calm.  He said, “I’m doing fine, doctor.”

Calm your inner voice.  Feel your peace now.  Exit your anxiety.  Focus on abundance, love, creativity, and gratitude.  Focus on where your spirit will take you.  Focus on directing that inner dialogue toward a future that is bright and calm and, of course, a present time that is equally so.  If you have 5 minutes right now, close your eyes and start to breathe slowly and deeply and focus on the Power of Now.  Focus on gratitude and abundance.  Focus on peace.

Even when we look at our past, we should look at it with gratitude.  If you had a negative experience or you went through a divorce, there was a time and reason for everything.  You learned from those things and be grateful that you are not there anymore.  Too often we look at our past with resentment and resistance, but it is part of the fabric of your life.  There was a time and reason for that person or those persons to have been in your life.  Look at your past with an open heart and then you can focus on your present and future with gratitude much more easily.

Start with a simple exercise:  what are you grateful for?  For me, I am grateful to have a career that I am in love with.  I am grateful for having wonderful staff that I care about and who care about me.  I am grateful that my staff is talented in each of their own unique ways.  I am grateful for the abundance and growth of my practice.  I am grateful for my loyal readership of my blogs.  I am grateful for being able to lead and touch many people even way far outside of Dallas.  I am grateful that I have such wonderful, sincere, and motivated patients.  I am grateful for the food that I partake, the health that I have, the clothes that adorn me.  I am grateful for the love of my family, specifically my mother and sister.  I am grateful to have precious in-laws like Matt who gives his love to my sister unconditionally.  I am grateful for a building that was created from scratch and which embodies what was once only an immaterial dream.  I am grateful that you are connected with me right now at this very moment that you are reading my words.  I am grateful for the bounty that God has bestowed upon me, for the love that I feel every day, for the wealth of joy that floods my heart, for the personal growth that I experience every day, and for so much more that would fill volumes of written word.

What are you grateful for today?  Stop for a moment, meditate, and enumerate all that you are grateful for out loud and to yourself.  Follow forward this very day with the spirit and intent of gratitude and be thankful for your abundance.

Instead, being open and receptive will make all the difference.  God and the universe will provide for you if you just allow that chance to occur.  When I am with my patients, I am totally open even when I deal with seemingly difficult patients.  People become aligned with my positive energy and spirit of receptivity.  I like to frame it in perhaps an easier way, BE OPEN.  

When we are closed, we create walls all around us.  We do not connect with others, and in the process we can’t connect with ourselves.  By focusing on our own problems and limitations, we remain closed.  Therefore, the opposite of receptivity is resistance.  If you are feeling resistance, let it go and be open to receive.  By helping others with their problems (see the series on the Art of Happiness for a better understanding), we become open and receptive vessels.  Today, go out and be as open as possible.  Be receptive to all of those around you.  Work on the intention of being open.  When you become open to those around you, you will see that the needs that you thought you needed will become manifest without even trying.

When we read the newspaper (which I still do every day to keep abreast of world events), we get immersed in negativity and are controlled with the ideas of scarcity.  Today, you can’t escape the news that we don’t have enough and we are limited by those thoughts.  I truly have been blessed by all of you in that I am still booked out for 3 months and have overflowing abundance.  I feel as if all of you out there are connected with me and are connected in a fundamental way to my practice and my staff because we are all in an extended family.  I thank you for your loyalty to LFP and to me.  You are all part of my family, and I want to encourage all of you to see the abundance in the universe rather than the scarcity.

I hope that this blog serves as an antidote to the negative press out there, a small oasis and a tiny beacon to all those who have ears to hear it.  I believe that the manifesto of LFP is to seek and attain all that life was meant for you and designed for you.  Of course, for all of you that are in a perceived state of absence whether it be health or finances, look at what you have and attract abundance by focusing on it instead of what you don’t have.

Rhonda Byrne’s book, The Secret, is obviously famous for collectively putting many authors’ ideas under one cover and discussing the law of attraction and how we attract abundance or scarcity by our thoughts and intention.  I would like all of you out there to take a day (always start with an easy unit of time) and begin to see abundance in front of you, intend it deeply and attain that abundance.  Today, go out there and look for all signs of abundance.  Help another person out there who is focused on scarcity see his or her own abundance and be thankful for it!

For me, I am fascinated with beauty in every facet.  As you can see, my blogs focus more on attaining inner beauty whereas the rest of my website discusses how to attain outer beauty.  To those who look at beauty as a vain, self-centered thing will not be in alignment with me since I have dedicated my life to creating outer beauty as much as inner beauty for others.  I truly believe that when I create a beautiful result and especially when I fix an ugly one, I am able to help you co-create your future so that you have congruity between your inner and outer worlds.

Here are a few small examples of what I am talking about.  I had a lady for whom I did fat grafting and a facelift 2 years ago and had not seen her for over a year.  Her wrinkles had progressed despite a great result for her face.  I asked her what had happened and she explained (without going into details here) that she had put herself in a bad relationship.  I talked to her that perhaps my blogs would help her and gave her some of my thoughts on the subject.  She said, “Wow, you really inspire me and I forgot about that.”  I said, “There is no coincidence that you decided to come back into my life again, and Botox was only a small part of the reason.”  I hope I made a difference in her life besides just wrinkles.  However, I believe that her coming back to me more consistently will help me heal her skin while I heal her heart.  I am filled with positive energy and I think I can make a difference in someone’s life both by affecting their spirit and their appearance.  To me, they go hand in hand.

I had another lady that was going through a divorce and really wanted her nose fixed because it was a legacy that she carried of her past and her previous bad rhinoplasty.  I knew that a few drops of silicone would restore her appearance.  When I was done, she started to cry and said, “That is what I wanted for over 10 years.”  I have now freed her from her past and given her the opportunity to move forward with her future.  Now when she looks in the mirror she will see a beautiful nose and her heart will have been healed by her short time with me.  I am very proud of helping people fulfill their objectives toward beauty, both inner and outer, so that they can become a glowing example of true beauty.

He argues that kindness must be a part of a universe of creation, as the Creator who made the world would not be making a malevolent one since it goes against the very nature of creation.  Kindness is the energy that bonds all of us and keeps us as a unified whole, as I talked about in a previous blog on the art of happiness when I discussed compassion.  You will find that I may repeat some areas through my blogs as far as topics go but there is a reason for that.  First, I am exploring this topic from a different author’s perspective that in my opinion further deepens our understanding of a topic.  A single blog is insufficient to make us understand AND REMEMBER what we need to know and to implement.  At a fundamental core, I love teaching, always have and always will.  I think teaching means giving to others information in a consistent and clear fashion so that the words and thoughts learned become integrated into life.

Okay, back to the subject.  I was talking with a nurse who was frustrated about her experience in the ER and who voiced that someone threw money at her for a payment. I asked her what did she do in that circumstance.  She said that she responded benevolently in giving the money back.  I pushed deeper and asked, “Did you not harbor any hatred still deep in your heart, at least 10%?”  She was quiet.  I already knew the answer before asking because I could sense the tone in her voice carried anger and frustration.

I in turn responded that perhaps we could look at that person as an individual in pain and was calling out for help, stripped of all social rank, education, gender, age, etc., we just have a human in pain in front of us.  I asked could we look at that human who treated us badly with open eyes seeing beyond all of those seemingly insurmountable trappings and get to the core of their humanity and just see them as someone who needed kindness?  If we can do that we can radiate that kindness to those who really need it and we can then fill ourselves with that love and positivity that makes it easier for us to survive the day and to make it a more pleasurable experience.

I like this expression that Dyer says, “When we hurt others, we must hurt ourselves.  When we help others, we will invariably also help ourselves.”  (paraphrasing that a bit.)  That is such a profound expression.  I remember every time that I wanted to be malicious toward another, I felt sick inside and it literally hurt me to do it.  It tore me apart.  Whenever I have given generously to help someone else, I feel an exhilaration that strengthens me.

If we go into the world with a sense of hatred, anxiety, and fear in the morning, we will create that world as a manifest destiny.  If we stop for a moment in the morning and see others with love, compassion, and kindness, we will be able to make a small but profound difference in all who come near us.  When you go out today try to let go of all hatred toward humanity, negativity, and for a moment look at the person in front of you as a human being in pain and get to the core of their pain by offering them kindness.  You will see that you can create your own world in a profoundly meaningful way and make your life and the life of those around you a meaningful and positive experience.  Make a difference today.  

Perform an act of kindness and don’t share that you did that with anyone.  Keep it to yourself.  See how you feel.  Look at every human you encounter with love, compassion, and kindness.  Open your heart today.

I like to think of an athlete whose pent-up energy can be pushed in one direction or another depending on which way his feet are planted and ready to be launched.  If one’s feet are planted in one direction, it takes more energy to switch and move in an opposite direction.  Similarly, if our intention is aimed toward a certain direction, we might more easily carry ourselves toward the path of least resistance and move toward that direction.  For example, “I will certainly get sick this weekend because there is a flu going around.”  Is that not a self-fulfilling prophecy?  How about, “I am physically fit and will withstand all illnesses.”  The power of intention allows us to create our world the way that we want to and not be dictated by external circumstances.

As Dyer opens his book, he uses the conventional definition of intention (just to get that out of the way):  ”My research reveals a fairly common definition of intention as a strong purpose or aim, accompanied by a determination to produce a desired result.”  He further imagines someone with great will and determination to overcome insurmountable obstacles.  In short, an overachiever.  In fact, this is not what he is talking about in his book.  He is focused more on what Patanjali suggested more than 20 centuries ago:  ”Dormant forces, faculties, and talents come alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”  The idea is more focused on this concept that it is an energy state (more about that next week) than anything else.  That energy state resides in you and resides all around you.  I love his idea of energy states and it will be important to understand this idea in bringing to life one’s own power of intention.

Dyer aims to move ourselves out of being isolated life forces but into a connection through a larger life force, or “universal spirit” or “universal mind” of intention.  Thanks Paul P last week for your insightful comments to my blogs.  As promised, here is our “coincidence”, which does not mean happenstance, but a “fitting together perfectly”, i.e., we are harmonizing on the same wavelength or energy state.  As the idea of intention unravels in front of you this week, repeat almost as a mantra the words “intention” and “intent” today to get you moving toward the spirit of intention. When you enter a state of anxiety or fear, repeat those words and start to connect with a universal life force and enter a peaceful state.