Welcome back to the Get Life Right Audio Series, a 5-part course on how to get what you want and how to handle it when you don’t. Today’s lesson is all about how the world is an expression of the meaning that you give it – and how this is good news.

Everything you experience you experience through the meaning you assign to it.

So what you make a certain situation mean is what determines your experience.

For example, if I make the experience of paragliding mean horror and possible death my experience will be a negative one … Right?

And if I assign the meaning of excitement, adventure and fun, the experience would be something completely different.

The meaning that you assign is often connected to a story that you’re telling yourself about the situation.

If your partner tells you something that you tell yourself means them being hurtful, you’ll feel hurt.

But the thing is, they didn’t perhaps mean that!

What they said wasn’t perhaps at all something that was supposed to be hurtful.

This is the power of meaning and intention.

If you want to have more control of your situations you want to master the skill of shifting the meaning and setting intention.

Let’s focus first on meaning.

You receive a cryptic message from your landlord asking if you can talk …

Thinking that this means something bad, will trigger a stress response and perhaps even panic.

And here’s the way to break that cycle:

Ask yourself, “What else could it mean?”

This can be applied to any situation.

Now at times, you might need to ask the question, “What must this person be going through in order for this to be their behaviour right now?”

This is another way to change the meaning and change the experience of what is going on for you right now.

About intention, 

Whenever you do something, you want to be as clear as you can on the intention behind your action.

This way, you are making sure to come from a place of meaning well and being aligned with your values.

So if someone does make your actions mean something negative, at least you know that you didn’t mean it that way. 

And it minimises the risk of it being interpreted as something bad.

So how do you get clear on the intention?

Ask yourself, “why am I saying this, or doing this? What is the intention here? What am I trying to achieve here?”

Is the intention about getting even, about getting back at someone? Is it about making someone suffer? Do you feel like you deserve something?

If the intention has a negative spin, then perhaps it’s not coming from the best place and will not actually help you get what you truly want.

Here’s your assignment for this time:

Think back on 2-3 recent situations where something happened that made you feel angry, hurt or sad.

Now, explore “what else could it mean?” and write down your answers.

Practise this skill of changing the meaning, throughout the next 2 days asking yourself “what else could it mean?” and “what must be going on for that individual for this to be their behaviour?”

Next, 

Practice with getting clear on your intentions. When you say something, or you’re about to do something for someone else, check in with yourself around, “why am I doing this? What am I trying to achieve here?”

You can try and think of a current challenging situation, and explore what it is that you would like to do concerning it. Then ask what the intention is behind each action.

If you don’t see the intention coming from an aligned, honourable and positive place, then see that as an invitation to change the intention.

Well done on finishing today’s lesson. Your next lesson is the final lesson in this 5-part audio series. I’ll be seeing you there!