by Katie Simons, PharmD, CCHT
A few weeks ago, I looked at a word I have used and written about many times before, and for some unknown reason, I saw it completely differently. Intention…In-tention…In tension.
And just like that my mind blew up a little. Well damn - how have I never seen that before? This new understanding of this simple word reorganized how I thought about something I already thought I understood.
We talk about intentions and being intentional around ceremony, plant medicine use, meditation, our daily energy use, daily practices, rituals, our words, our actions…this list goes on. I speak often about living intentionally - setting a course towards a desired experience and aligning our energy with that course daily by living in gratitude, all the while surrendering the outcome. I still stand by that, and also, a new level of awareness opened up to me when I saw this word in this new way.
So of course I looked up the etymology of the word, because that’s what nerds do. 🤓 The word intention has its roots in the Latin word intendere, meaning “to stretch towards.” Makes sense, right? We use intentions to describe the experience we desire. We bring our intention to an activity to imbue it with purpose and meaning in hopes of taking a step in a certain direction. Intentions describe the gap between now and what is to come.
And in the stretching, the gap between now and what is to come, therein lies tension.
We often talk about tension as if it’s a bad thing, mostly because the experience of tension is often a challenging one. Similar to intention, the word tension also comes from the Latin root tendere, “to stretch.” It’s not easy or comfortable. It’s like being stretched. It’s tense. Hence why many people with a goal in mind get described as intense. Of course they're in-tense - they are in-tension and stretching towards an outcome.
This is where my mind really had to reconcile these concepts:
You can't live intentionally without holding tension. The experience of holding tension, of being in-tension, is the energy that moves the needle through the gap.
Sit with that for a moment and feel it.
Intentions are like pregnancies. We don’t create them and put them out to the Universe to respond to. No. We have to carry them to term and birth them into being ourselves. The Universe simply supports us in doing so. The process itself transforms us from the inside out. Because often, we are not just calling in something external with our intentions - We are becoming the person who can receive and experience the thing we are calling in. And that process is innately tense.
I am reminded again of butterflies (moths, too). Both creatures have cells called imaginal cells. When the caterpillar approaches the time to transform, it gorges itself with food until it is too big to move, then it hangs off a branch, its skin turning into a chrysalis. Inside the caterpillar’s body, these imaginal cells start as imaginal discs. As these discs proliferate, the caterpillar’s immune system actually fights them because the genetic makeup of the discs is foreign to the caterpillar. Wild huh? The caterpillar carries a genetically unique creature inside itself and must die to allow the other, the butterfly, to rise.
Eventually the caterpillar’s immune system fails and succumbs to the imaginal discs that then become imaginal cells. These cells continue to feed off the soup of the caterpillar's dissolved body and grow into a butterfly. Metamorphosis is as natural as it gets for these creatures, but it’s not necessarily easy. The caterpillar’s system resists the transformation. Old systems resist transformation into the new system, acting like a stress test for the new system. The new system must be strong enough to overcome the old system.
This is true for us too. When we live intentionally, we are constantly upgrading old systems for new ones. Systems of thought, emotions, beliefs, identity that then translate into how we live, who we connect with, and how we use our energy. This personal pattern is mirrored all the way up to the global scale. Just look at what’s happening in the world around us: the tension of the old system resisting the birth of a much-needed new one. As above, so below.
In all of it, the experience is tension. All transformation inherently involves tension. Being In-tension. So perhaps it's time to stop resisting it. Perhaps we can all learn to be in-tension with patience and grace. Accepting that we can bear it and knowing why we do.
And believe me, patience and grace are an easier pick in the long run. The time it takes to get from where you are to where you are going takes as long as it takes. Time cannot be rushed. So our choice is to be in-tension while practicing gratitude and acceptance through patience, or to rail against it with the energy of rushing, striving, and grasping. That’s impatience, and it’s a struggle. I promise, it doesn’t make the process any faster, just less enjoyable.
There are a few things that have helped me handle the tension of transformation. Play and Passion. Play is the use of time and energy for the sheer enjoyment of it. Passion is the alignment of one’s daily energy use with the thing that excites you just a little bit more than everything else. Play reminds us that this existence is beautiful and can be fun when we allow it to be. The value of taking a break from adulting and simply enjoying something is truly invaluable as it is often what can keep us going. And passion, although it sounds like a big energy, is often just noticing what attracts our light. Sometimes it’s loud and obvious, but other times its quiet and subtle. Sometimes our passion is play or rest. Following our passion and aligning our energy with what lights us up, even just a little, can sometimes feel easy and sometimes feel challenging, but it’s always meaningful.
And the last thing I’ll leave you with that I find imperative to holding the tension of life is the value of remembering you are part of a larger whole. You are an expression of nature, of what some would call the Divine. Just like your skin cells and your liver cells, you are inherently connected and never alone. And because of that, there is a force we don’t really understand supporting us. To believe in that is called faith, and it’s a choice. Just like choosing patience and grace, choosing faith is visionary (in the words of Marianne Williamson), and it makes the holding a heaven of a lot easier.
I will leave this here with something that brings me comfort in this constantly transforming, in-tense, in-tentional experience: We are all walking this path together. Let’s do our best to support each other and hold each other up through it.
