The Role of Intention

Every healing journey begins somewhere, and often it begins after your other coping mechanisms collapse — that is the moment when you are forced into surrender. It may be the act of letting go that creates this a subtle shift in awareness. A moment when something inside us recognises that the way things are can no longer continue unchanged. This is where the power of intention starts to gather, long before we consciously name it.

Intention is frequently spoke

n about in healing spaces, sometimes in ways that feel vague or overly simplistic. Yet when we look more closely, intention is neither wishful thinking nor positive affirmation. It is a deeply embodied process that shapes perception, attention, and ultimately, experience.

From both a scientific and experiential perspective, intention plays a far more central role in healing than we often realise.

Intention as Direction, Not Force

One of the common misunderstandings about intention is the idea that it involves effort or control — that if we “intend hard enough,” healing will happen. In reality, intention is not about forcing change but about setting direction.

The nervous system is constantly scanning for cues of safety, threat, and salience or relevance. What we place our attention on matters because attention acts as a filter. Intention helps organise this filter. It tells the system what is important, what is allowed to come into awareness, and what can begin to shift.

In this sense, intention is less like pushing a door open and more like turning towards it. The turning itself changes what becomes possible.

The Predictive Brain and Healing

Modern neuroscience offers an interesting lens through which to view intention. The brain is increasingly understood not as a passive receiver of reality but as a predictive organ (see my previous blog about the work of Lisa Feldman Barrett). It is constantly generating models about what is likely to happen next based on past experience.

When someone has lived through trauma, chronic stress, or illness, these predictive models tend to become rigid. The body learns to expect danger, pain, or disappointment, even when the present moment may be relatively safe. Healing, then, is not simply about fixing something that is broken; it is about updating outdated predictions.

Intention plays a subtle but crucial role here. When someone sets an intention — even a gentle one — they are signalling openness to a different outcome (opening to uncertainty). This does not override the nervous system overnight, but it begins to loosen certainty. And it is an addiction to certainty, not discomfort, that often keeps neurological and behavioural patterns locked in place.

Why Intention Must Be Felt, Not Just Thought

Intention that exists only at the level of thought has limited impact. We can intellectually decide that we want to heal, let go, or change, while the body remains unconvinced. This is why many people feel frustrated when insight and understanding alone doesn’t lead to transformation.

The body responds to signals of safety, permission, and coherence. For intention to be effective, it needs to be embodied — sensed or felt, not just stated (this is purely cognitive otherwise).

This might show up as:

• a felt sense of curiosity rather than urgency (see the work of Martha Beck on this)

• a softening of internal resistance

• a willingness to stay present with sensation

These are subtle shifts, but they matter. Healing unfolds through the nervous system, don't forget.

Intention and Consent

Another overlooked aspect of intention is consent. Many symptoms, whether physical or emotional, persist because the system does not yet feel it is safe to change. This is not a failure or resistance in the usual sense; it is a form of protection. This is really important to understand. When we see resistance not as a failure but as an outdated notion of protection against further hurt, we can ask the body if it can find a new way to protect you that loosens those fixed responses and allows more flexibility.

Setting an intention can act as an internal signal of consent — not a demand for healing, but an agreement to allow something new to emerge. This distinction is important. Healing that occurs without consent often doesn’t last, or it shows up in unexpected ways.

A clear but gentle intention communicates to the body:“You don’t have to hold this alone anymore.” In fact one of the most powerful phrases I use in our sessions stresses this and can be useful when havening or tapping "I can heal this now, because I'm no longer alone with this".

The Difference Between Intention and Outcome

In healing work, outcomes are often unpredictable. Two people may engage in the same therapeutic process and experience very different results. Intention helps orient the process without attaching it to a specific endpoint. If you try to heal expecting a specific result, you will often be disappointed. In all my years of working with people I have learned this difficult lesson. Sometimes healing comes in unexpected ways. You don't get what you expect, you get what you need.

When intention becomes outcome-focused — “I want to be symptom-free,” or “I want to feel happy” — it can inadvertently recreate pressure. The nervous system tends to respond better to intentions that focus on process rather than result.

For example:

• “I am open to understanding what my body is communicating.”

• “I am willing to experience more safety in my system.”

• “I am learning to meet myself with curiosity rather than judgement.”

These kinds of intentions create space for the process rather than narrowing it.

Intention as Relationship

Healing is not something we do to ourselves; it is something we enter into relationship with. Intention shapes the quality of that relationship.

When intention is infused with kindness, patience, and respect for the body’s timing, healing tends to unfold more organically. When intention is driven by self-criticism or urgency, the system often responds with tightening rather than release (this is more stress in the system and has the opposite effect to what we want).

This mirrors what we know from relational neuroscience: safety and change arise in environments where there is attunement, not forcing.

A Living, Evolving Process

Intention is not a one-time decision. It evolves as awareness deepens. What felt like a clear intention at the beginning of a healing journey may shift as new layers emerge. This is not a sign of inconsistency; it is a sign of responsiveness.

Healing does not follow a linear path, it is an iterative process of fine-tuning. Intention acts more like a compass than a map — offering orientation without prescribing the route.

Closing Reflections

At its core, intention is an invitation. An invitation to the body, the nervous system, and the deeper self to participate in change at a pace that is sustainable (this is often where we fall down as we over-pressurise ourselves).

Healing does not require perfection, only honest intention. Even the smallest willingness to turn towards experience rather than away from it can begin to reorganise internal patterns.

In a world that often emphasises fixing and forcing, intention reminds us that healing is less about effort and more about alignment. And alignment, once established, has a subtle but profound capacity to reshape both experience and meaning.