Hi Reader,
A few months ago I had a commute ahead of me that I was not particularly looking forward to. Over the hill, as we call it here, a route that can go beautifully or turn into stop and go traffic with very little warning. Before I left the house I had set my morning intention to appreciate the beauty around me. Then, as I got into the car, I added a segment intention specifically for the drive: I intend this commute to be stress free. I intend to arrive calm and open.
I would love to tell you the traffic disappeared. It did not. There was quite a lot of it.
What happened instead was this. A sunrise was spreading across the hills in a way that stopped my thoughts mid-stream. In the car directly in front of me, a tan golden doodle was prancing in the back seat with what I can only describe as pure joy. And when the podcast I had been listening to ended, the one that played automatically next contained a piece of information I had been searching for, something I needed for a piece I was writing.
My intention didn't make those things happen. But it primed my system to be open to them. And that changed the entire quality of the drive.
This is what I want to talk about this week.
We Organize Everything Except Our Energy
Most of us are skilled at organizing the practical dimensions of our days. A grocery list turns an errand into one efficient trip. A to-do list sequences our work into something manageable. We think carefully about how to spend our time and our money.
Very few of us give a thought to organizing our energy before the day begins.
In the Everyday Consciousness membership we're working with intention this month, and revisiting this practice has reminded me how quietly and consistently it shapes my experience. I use intention to set the energetic container for the day, for individual projects, for conversations I'm walking into, for events where I want to show up in a particular way. It's deceptively simple. And it's one of the most powerful tools I've woven into the fabric of my daily life.
What Segment Intending Actually Is
Most people who work with intention set one for the day and leave it there. Segment intending, a practice I've adapted from the work of Abraham-Hicks, takes it further by breaking the day into its natural intervals and consciously setting a fresh intention at the start of each one.
Your day is already divided into segments whether you name them or not. The first moments of waking. Getting ready. The commute. A work project. A staff meeting. Lunch with a friend. The transition back home in the evening. Each segment has its own purpose, its own energy, its own potential.
Segment intending simply asks: before I enter this next part of my day, what do I want the quality of it to be?
The way I practice it, the morning intention creates the larger container, the overall energetic tone I want to carry through the day. The segment intentions nest within that container, each one more specific, each one tuned to what that particular interval requires. The morning I drove over the hill, appreciating beauty was the container. Stress free and open was the segment. Both pointed in the same direction. The segment simply zoomed in.
For the evening, I might intend to sleep deeply and soundly, to let my body be restored, to release whatever the day left behind. For a difficult conversation, I might intend to listen more than I speak and to stay grounded in my own center. For a creative work session, ease and curiosity. For a commute through traffic, openness to what's already there.
Each intention takes perhaps thirty seconds to set. The return is entirely disproportionate to the investment.
Why This Works
Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer has spent decades studying what happens when we prime the mind to look for something specific. Her research on mindfulness and selective attention shows consistently that when we direct our attention deliberately, we perceive more of what we're pointed toward. The world doesn't change. Our attention does. And attention, it turns out, shapes experience in ways that are both measurable and significant.
This is the mechanism underneath segment intending. When I set an intention to appreciate beauty before a congested commute, I'm not asking the traffic to cooperate. I'm tuning my perceptual system to notice what's already present that I might otherwise drive past entirely. The sunrise was there whether I noticed it or not. The golden doodle was prancing whether I saw it or not. The intention made me available to them.
In energy medicine terms, intention sets a vibrational tone for the segment ahead. When we consciously choose that tone, we create coherence in the field, a clear signal rather than a scattered one. And coherence tends to attract experiences that are in harmony with it, not through magic, but through the very real mechanism of directed attention and an open nervous system.
How to Begin
Start small. Choose one recurring segment of your day, the commute, the first ten minutes at your desk, the transition from work to home, and begin setting a brief intention before it starts.
State it out loud if you can. Speak it simply and in the present tense, as if it's already the quality you're moving into. I intend this drive to be calm and easy. I intend this meeting to be productive and clear. I intend this evening to be restorative and fully mine.
Then notice what happens. Not whether the traffic disappears or the meeting runs perfectly, but whether your experience of moving through it shifts. Look for small evidence that something is different. A moment of unexpected ease. A detail you would normally have missed. An openness that wasn't there before.
Celebrate even the smallest on-target moment. That's how the practice builds.
Over time, as the segments begin conforming to your intentions more consistently, you can layer in the broader daily intention as the container and let the segments nest within it. The whole day becomes something you're moving through consciously rather than something happening to you.
It takes about thirty seconds per segment. The golden doodle alone was worth it.
Something to Sit With
Choose one segment of your day this week and try setting a deliberate intention before it begins. At the end of the day, notice: what shifted, even slightly, in the quality of your experience?