An Intentional Life Read online

  An

  Intentional

  Life

  Five Foundations

  of Authenticity & Purpose

  LISA KENTGEN, Ph.D.

  ©2018 by Lisa Kentgen

  www.drlisakentgen.com

  Published in the United States by

  Stryder Press

  80 Eighth Avenue, Suite 709

  New York, NY, 10011

  ISBN (paperback) 978-1-7322001-0-4

  ISBN (ebook) 978-1-7322001-1-1

  Cover and interior design by Jason Anscomb.

  Ebook conversion by Jennifer Soucy.

  This publication is designed to provide helpful and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that it does not offer specific mental health advice. If professional assistance or psychotherapy is needed, the services of a licensed mental health professional should be sought.

  Author’s Note: Names and identifying characteristics in this work have been changed.

  All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission from the author or publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

  An

  Intentional

  Life

  Five Foundations

  of Authenticity & Purpose

  Lisa Kentgen, Ph.D.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction: The Value of Intention as a Foundation for Living

  Part 1: Awareness Chapter 1: What Matters Most and Core Values

  Chapter 2: How to Access What You Need for Well-Being

  Chapter 3: Distinguish Desire from What Makes You Happy

  Chapter 4: The Benefits of Pausing and Stillness

  Chapter 5: The Fundamentals of Awareness: 63 Openness and Constriction

  Part 2: Reflecting Chapter 6: You Aren’t Your Thoughts

  Chapter 7: Self-Talk In the Spirit of Inquiry

  Chapter 8: The Empty Search for the Whys of Discomfort

  Part 3: Choosing Chapter 9: How to Make Better Decisions

  Chapter 10: Allow for Possibility That is Not Here Now

  Part 4: Acting Chapter 11: Wise Effort is the Best Kind of Action

  Chapter 12: Focus On the Effort, Not the Outcome

  Chapter 13: What to Do When You Are Stuck

  Part 5: Allowing Chapter 14: The Wisdom of Making Space for What is Here

  Chapter 15: At the End of the Search is Abundance

  Final Thoughts

  List of Intentional Practices

  Selected Bibliography

  About the Author

  Praise for

  “Lisa Kentgen has written a profoundly practical book. Those who follow the guidance she offers in An Intentional Life are highly likely to experience untold benefits.”

  —Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Happiness

  “An Intentional Life exemplifies Lisa Kentgen’s gift for seamlessly linking theoretical concepts with pragmatic application of change-making practices. She has a way of encouraging fruitful self-examination that is critical for personal transformation. This is a special book, offering pragmatic insight, wisdom, and guidance for the reader’s personal journey toward authenticity.”

  —Lena Verdeli, Ph.D. Director, Global Mental Health Lab, Teachers College, Columbia University

  “Lisa Kentgen conveys ideas that are powerful in a knowing, yet soothing and calm voice—free of jargon. Importantly, she provides the reader with ways to make the ideas experience-near, which is essential for real change. Her work comfortably and substantively straddles the mindfulness and Western psychology traditions; written in a conversational tone while thorough and precise in its understanding. This gem of a book will be an invaluable resource for clients to complement the work of psychotherapy. It will be a wonderful accompaniment to readers who have their own mindfulness or meditation practices. It also stands on its own for readers who have never been in therapy or who are unfamiliar with mindfulness practices. I am a fan of this book!”

  —Diana Fosha, Ph.D., Director and Founder, The AEDP Institute

  Filled with powerful stories and insights, An Intentional Life offers an invaluable framework for creating a life of authenticity and purpose. Dr. Kentgen is an expert guide, blending wisdom, warmth, and practical know-how to inspire us to skillfully turn inward and shape a life that intimately aligns with our values. With the world becoming ever more complex –

  and confusing – we need this book more than ever.”

  —Rachel Klein, Ph.D., Fascitelli Family Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, NYU Medical Center

  “In this engaging and smart book, Lisa Kentgen takes an approach to a fundamental question—how can we live authentically? —that is both commonsensical and wise. Dr. Kentgen offers clear-eyed, big-hearted guidance for directing and expanding our ability to observe ourselves and our world closely and fruitfully. The rewards of this undertaking—novelty and adventure, balance, and clarity—are within our reach, and Kentgen knows how to help us get there. This is a truly useful book.”

  —Martha Cooley, author of The Archivist and Guesswork: A Reckoning with Loss

  “Lisa Kentgen’s writing and philosophy are as clear-eyed, compassionate, and proactive as the woman herself. This book is a culmination of Dr. Kentgen’s distinguished career as a clinician, teacher, and practitioner of mindfulness, providing a roadmap to self-empowerment and authenticity through intentional practices. As a teacher and facilitator, she embodies the qualities put forth in her work. Dr. Kentgen is a force to be reckoned with and this is a book that can change your life.”

  —Mark Matousek, author of When You’re Falling, Dive and Writing to Awaken

  Acknowledgments

  Heartfelt thanks to Mark Matousek who offered skilled guidance, valued friendship, and support at the right moments every step of the way. Many thanks to other creative people who worked on the moving pieces that brought the manuscript into book form, including: Deborah Malmud for her developmental suggestions; Mariah Eppes for editorial assistance; Jason Anscomb for a beautiful cover and interior book design; Rebecca Miller and Evan Novis for creative input on related projects. Thanks to Tyler Wagner for helping navigate the social media world. Gratitude to Sarah Deming for input into an earlier draft of the book. Thanks to Bethany Birkett for guidance in my relationship to writing. Thanks to Rachel Klein for teaching me the value of asking helpful questions. Thanks to Diana Fosha for offering me, as a young clinician, powerful tools that help clients access deeper ways of knowing. Gratitude to dear friends who celebrate risk-taking in the name of authenticity. I thank my family for their support and love, my parents, Donna and David Kentgen, and my sisters, Teresa Schader and Michelle Schaefer.

  To all of the spiritual teachers, peace and justice activists, and old souls who have been my models and guides for living authentically. There are few direct references in An Intentional Life. Yet the written word of wise, contemplative women and men, both living and long dead, has been an essential part of my own path to intention. The influence of numerous dharma teachers is in these pages. I include books written by teachers in the selected bibliography. Retreats with guides like Pema Chodron, Christina Feldman, Stephen Batchelor, Sharon Salzberg, Rodney Smith, Narayan Liebenson, Joseph Goldstein, Tara Brach, and others have helped me access the knowledge that was waiting to come to the fore. Being in the presence of spiritual teachers like the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh have inspired me to prioritize an intentional path that extends beyond my personal tribe to include all beings.

  Most o
f all, the co-authors of this book are my clients and students in psychotherapy and other settings. Their courageous, explorative deep dives helped create a language around intention that has deepened my faith in the path I’ve outlined in An Intentional Life. I thank them for enriching my thinking and my life.

  Introduction

  The Value of Intention as a Foundation for Living

  Brian had everything he had ever wanted—a wife and daughter he loved and a rewarding career. Yet, now in his mid-forties, he felt restless and experienced himself as just going through the motions, unable to appreciate the life he had dreamed of achieving. He feared that, despite all he had, he would wake up in twenty years to find that life had passed him by.

  Brian was reluctant to look closely at his experience of restlessness and low-level dissatisfaction because he feared that if he looked too closely, he would discover that he didn’t want the life he had spent years building. What if, when he discovered the purpose he felt his life was lacking, it wouldn’t fit with what he had created with his wife? Could there be room in their relationship for what he sought, or did the lifestyle they shared interfere with a life of greater purpose? He kept this last possibility at a distance because it was intolerable to him.

  Many of us who are seeking greater purpose have a similar fear: What if being happy means losing what I have worked so hard to build? If I make the changes necessary to feel more alive and authentic, will I still have the lifestyle I now have? Will my loved ones and I suffer if I make my own happiness a priority? Do I have the courage to prioritize a life of purpose?

  Because of fear, we can stay stuck in habitual patterns, trying to discover greater purpose without addressing the deep-seated longing: a healthy longing for a deeper connection to our lives. Unfortunately, this strategy doesn’t work because we are not directly addressing how to participate in life in a qualitatively different way.

  Brian couldn’t resoundingly say “yes” to his life until he looked directly at his experience of restlessness and disengagement with the intent to understand them. Right now, he defined the needed changes in an either/or way. In other words, from a place of fear he understood his alternatives as either staying with this life which contained so much that he valued—and feeling limited within it—or risk losing it in order to feel greater engagement. The latter was not a real option for Brian, so, he currently perceived no viable way out of the dissatisfaction.

  Brian’s willingness to look closely at his experience of disconnect now gave him the courage to explore the possibility of real change. He realized that he had created a lifestyle without clearly exploring the implications of his choices. Once the results of his choices played out, he then felt beholden to maintain his lifestyle. His lifestyle was so filled with what he thought of as adult responsibilities that now he had no room for himself. There was no room in his schedule or his mind to muse, to dream, and to reflect upon the big, important questions.

  Brian was now asking himself deep, and sometimes difficult, questions rather than trying to manage and contain his restlessness. As a result, he accessed internal states he had not experienced in years. These states included novelty, possibility, and the spirit of adventure, as well as angst and even greater restlessness at times. Importantly, Brian felt greater vibrancy—similar to how he felt as a young man, when his ambitions were not yet achieved and he didn’t know what life held in store for him. It’s not that Brian was viewing life through the eyes of his younger self. But he was challenging the filters through which he had perceived his life up until now.

  Brian took risks and made changes in the way he worked, not knowing how these changes would be received. He chose to create a healthier work/life balance in a corporate environment that did not have a precedent for that type of lifestyle, even drawing criticism from a senior colleague in the process. A year into the shift, Brian did not lose standing in the company, though he could not have known this in advance. And occasionally he was less central in making key decisions.

  He continued to evaluate and be open to change for the sake of greater ownership of his life. He let go of things he had thought were important, to make room for things that were actually more meaningful. For example, Brian realized that he had become trapped by maintaining what he now saw as excessive material comforts, things he had before seen as the fruits of hard work and as a manifestation of being a good provider. He practiced ways to live more simply, and came to see this as important modeling for his daughter. He practiced ways to share what was happening internally with his wife. As another example, Brian had previously filled up his weekends with family outings and activities—which left him feeling stressed and irritable by Sunday evenings. Weekends now had unplanned blocks of time and his family occasionally did things without him, which sometimes made him feel like he was missing out. These conscious choices allowed him moments of creative solitude, something he now realized was of central importance. Brian realized that being more emotionally present was of greater value to his family than simply being physically present.

  Brian was able to make radical changes by first committing to paying greater attention to what was happening within himself, and in doing so, had access to a much broader range of experience. He realized that even more important than the concrete changes he made (as necessary as they were), was his expanded self-awareness of all that went into his preferences, choices, and actions. Brian was now taking greater ownership of his life. In so doing, he discovered how to behold the life he had, fundamentally transforming his experience of it.

  Brian adopted practices that transformed his relationship to himself and, as a result, to his life. These tools are the focus of this book. You will be offered these same tools in the form of Intentional Practices. Whether or not Brian’s circumstances resonate for you personally, you will benefit from cultivating similar practices which will enable you to shape your life in increasingly purposeful ways.

  What is an Intentional Life?

  We live in a world where people are seeking deeper meaning. Paradoxically, our culture’s values and habits don’t often lend themselves to deep self-engagement. The little ways that we connect are gradually eroding. As we digitally communicate to others around the world, we are simultaneously becoming disconnected from the small moments that matter most, the moments that make us feel like we belong. In the companies where some of us work, narrow definitions of productivity and profits generally fail to explore the importance of quality of life and environmental well-being. Our hyper-productive, short-term, bottom-line, and technology-based culture perpetuates an unnecessary sense of urgency that diminishes the vibrancy of life.

  There is another, more rewarding, way of living: with intention. It is only by living with intention that you can experience yourself as authentic and your life as purposeful. When you are authentic, you know yourself deeply and trust your ability to shape your life in ways that align with your heartfelt interests. You have clarity about the conditions as they currently exist, both within and outside yourself, and understand how to best develop and utilize your resources. Living authentically enables you to shape a life of purpose, an ultimately meaningful life in which you experience yourself participating in something greater than yourself.

  Intentional Practices are exercises and rituals that foster greater self-understanding, enabling you to deepen and broaden your knowledge of yourself and the world. They are wide-ranging. Examples include: pausing more often, learning to read your body’s cues, asking yourself the most relevant questions, and making choices that align with your core values. These practices may be as short as a few seconds or as long as a sustained effort over months. The self-understanding gained from implementing intentional practices will help fulfill one of life’s primary tasks, which is to fully inhabit a life that is your own, consciously chosen and not imposed on you from the outside. Bringing intention to all areas of your life, by adopting practices that will be laid out in this book, makes possible t
he kind of self-examination and agency that leads to personal transformation.

  Every one of us has characteristic habits of mind which include ways of perceiving, thinking, evaluating, and acting that run counter to living intentionally. This book provides a framework of how to approach, understand, befriend, and work with your mind. Intimately knowing your mind’s habitual ways of responding is the first step in training your mind to help shape the life in which you can be your most authentic and engaged.

  An intentional life , first and foremost, is a commitment to training and concentrating attention in ways that enrich your life and the lives of others. What you tend to notice, how you perceive, what you think and believe—none of these are fixed. Your attention is fluid and open to influence. When you understand this, you can consciously influence your attention.

  This book examines how we get in our own way, thwarting our best efforts to be authentic. Noticing how you get in your own way is uncomfortable, sometimes painful. You may feel discouraged to discover that your unhelpful habits of mind are tenacious. Don’t worry, you are not alone! Compassionately facing how you get in your own way, as it is happening, is key to understanding that you have the power to do things differently. A young woman I work with said it well, “I’m learning that it doesn’t help to beat myself up about how I keep getting in my own way. But I also don’t want to keep cutting myself a break by not taking it seriously, because that hurts me too.”

  An increased awareness of when you are doing things in new and beneficial ways is as—or more—important as understanding how you get in your own way. It is important to be aware of all that is right about you. This cannot be overemphasized. We are often more aware of what we do wrong than what we do right. Our brains can more quickly and easily recognize the same old, same old than the new and different. We can be impatient with small gains. Noticing your small steps in the right direction, and then building on them, is fundamental to real and lasting change. And the change that you make is, in fact, a return to your own wise internal guidance system, bringing you closer to your true nature that gets clouded over.